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 THE 
 
 ,EADING FACTS OF FRENCH 
 HISTORY. 
 
 BY 
 
 D. H. MONTGOMERY. 
 
 " There is hardly any great idea, hardly any great principle of civilization, 
 i'hich has not had to pass through France in order to be disseminated." 
 
 GUIZOT. 
 
 BOSTON, U.S.A.: 
 
 GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS. 
 
 1889.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1889, by 
 
 GINN & COMPANY, 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 
 
 TYPOGRAPHY BY J. S. GUSHING & Co., BOSTON, U.S.A. 
 PRESSWORK BY GINN & Co., BOSTON, U.S.A.
 
 PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 '""PHIS work is based mainly on the French histories of Guizot, 
 Rambaud, Martin, and Duruy, supplemented with notes made by 
 the author during a somewhat prolonged stay in France. 
 
 In addition to the above-mentioned authorities, Kitchin's valuable 
 English history of France and Sir James Stephen's Lectures have been 
 consulted on all points of particular interest. Other works to which 
 reference has been made will be found in the List of Books given on 
 page 307. 
 
 Several of the fourteen maps were furnished by the courtesy of 
 P. V. N. Myers, President of Belmont College, Ohio, whose excellent 
 " Outlines of Mediaeval and Modern History " is well known to 
 teachers. 
 
 Finally, the author desires to acknowledge his especial indebtedness 
 to C. H. Smith, Professor of History in Bowdoin College. That 
 gentleman has spared neither time nor labor to aid the writer, and his 
 thorough scholarship has constantly contributed suggestions which 
 have been of the greatest value in the preparation of this book.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. Gaul before the Roman Conquest I 
 
 II. The Roman Conquest and Occupation of Gaul (58 B.C.-A.D. 481), 8 
 
 III. Conquest of Gaul by the Franks; the Merovingian Kings; 
 
 Beginning of the Carolingian Line. (481-768) 19 
 
 IV. The Empire of Charlemagne and the Carolingian Line (768- 
 
 987) 31 
 
 V. The Feudal System; the Coming of the Northmen. (814-987) . 44 
 VI. Hugh Capet; Beginning of the True French Monarchy; the 
 
 End of the World; William the Conqueror. (987-1066) . . 52 
 VII. The Crusades; Rise of the Free Cities; War with England; 
 Conquest of Normandy; the Albigenses; Battle of Bouvines; 
 
 Saint Louis; the Last Crusade. (1066-1270) 63 
 
 VIII. Philip the Fair; Battle of Courtrai; the Papal Quarrel; the 
 First States-General; Suppression of the Templars; the Hun- 
 dred Years' War; Joan of Arc. (1270-1461) 80 
 
 IX. Louis XL; Consolidation of France; the Revival of Learning; 
 Francis I.; Wars for the Balance of Power; France and the 
 New World; Beginning of the Reformation. (1461-1559) . 105 
 X. Period of the Civil and Religious Wars; Massacre of St. 
 
 Bartholomew; Henry IV.; the Edict of Nantes. (1559-1610), 130 
 XL Louis XIII.; Richelieu; Louis XIV.; Absolutism of the Crown; 
 Struggle for Dominion in Europe; Revocation of the Edict 
 of Nantes; Louis XV.; Attempt to get Possession of America; 
 
 Literature of the Period. (1610-1774) 154 
 
 XII. Louis XVI.; Attempted Reforms; the Revolution; the Repub- 
 lic. (1774-1795) 2 3
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 SECTION PAGE 
 
 XIII. The Directory; Napoleon. (1795-1815) 235 
 
 XIV. France since Napoleon (1815 to the present time) 265 
 
 Table of Principal Dates 293 
 
 Genealogical Tables 299 
 
 List of Books on French History 307 
 
 Index 309 
 
 MAPS. 
 
 MAP 
 
 I. France in Departments [in colors] . Frontispiece. 
 II. Gaul [in colors] 2 
 
 III. Europe in reign of Theodoric (showing the Prankish Kingdom, 
 
 A.D. 500) [in colors] 20 
 
 IV. Frankish Kingdom of the Merovingians 26 
 
 V. Europe in the time of Charles the Great (or Period of Charle- 
 magne) [in colors] 38 
 
 VI. The Western Empire (at the Treaty of Verdun) [in colors] . . 42 
 VII. Possessions of Henry II. of England (in France and England) . 70 
 VIII. Central Europe in 1360 (illustrating the Treaty of Bretigny) 
 
 [in colors] 96 
 
 IX. The Spanish Kingdoms (showing the Possessions of Charles V. 
 
 of Spain with reference to France) [in colors] 106 
 
 X. Sketch Map (showing growth of France) no 
 
 XI. France in Provinces (at the beginning of the Revolution) . . 216 
 XII. Sketch Map of Europe (showing the Principal Battles of Napo- 
 leon) 238 
 
 XIII. Central Europe 1810 (showing the Napoleonic Empire at the 
 
 period of its greatest extent) [in colors] 256 
 
 XIV. Central Europe in 1815 (showing France after the fall of Napo- 
 
 leon) [in colors] 260
 
 THE 
 
 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 i. 
 
 " The Gauls . . . their virtues and their vices are preserved in the hearts 
 of the French people." MICHELET. 
 
 GAUL BEFORE THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 
 
 1. The Country and its People. What we know to-day as 
 France once formed the greater part of a much larger territory 
 which the Romans called Gaul. 1 
 
 The boundaries of Gaul were the Atlantic on the west, the 
 Alps and the Rhine on the east and north, the Pyrenees and the 
 Mediterranean on the south. Looking at the map, 2 we see that 
 the country was an irregular square, and that it possessed the best 
 situation in Europe. It was wholly within the temperate zone. 
 It was favored with an abundance of fertile soil, and a climate 
 admirably suited to agriculture, and equally advantageous to health. 
 
 1 The Romans called the country Gaul, a name which they derived from its 
 inhabitants, the Gauls, a word of unknown meaning, though supposed by some 
 authorities to signify " barbarians." 
 
 The Gauls were mainly a Celtic race, and are believed to have had their origin 
 in Asia. At an early period they overran Central and Western Europe, and the 
 British Islands. Gaul included the countries now known as France and Belgium, 
 together with parts of Holland, Switzerland, and Western Germany or the region 
 between the Pyrenees and the Rhine. The total area was about 245,000 square 
 miles. Modern France embraces a little more than 204,000 square miles, or about 
 four-fifths the area of the State of Texas. 
 
 2 See Map No. II., page 2. To see the square form to the best advantage, hold 
 the map so as to look across it in a slanting direction from southeast to northwest.
 
 2 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 It was well protected against invasion by barriers of seas and 
 mountains. Finally, the Atlantic on two sides, and the Mediterra- 
 nean on the other, gave it the means of commercial intercourse 
 with the most important countries of the globe ; in a word, Gaul 
 was evidently fitted by nature to become the home of a great and 
 prosperous people. 
 
 2. Monuments and Remains of the First Inhabitants. The 
 
 people that first inhabited the country were savages. They had 
 neither written laws nor history. We find, however, a partial 
 record of their life in the remains of their cave habitations, their 
 burial mounds, their rough-stone monuments, and their lake- 
 dwellings. At Carnac, a little village of Britanny, 1 in the extreme 
 west of France, the traveller crossing the moors sees at a distance 
 what seems to be an army of giants advancing toward him. As 
 he draws nearer, the army proves to be a multitude of upright 
 bowlders of rough granite, covered with long white hairy lichens 
 the growth of ages. These stones, the largest of which are 
 upwards of twenty feet high, are arranged in regular order like 
 troops following their leader. They extend in long lines from the 
 southeast to the northwest, and they give all who see them the 
 impression which would be made by a military force halting on 
 its march. Some have supposed that they are part of the remains 
 of a vast heathen temple like that of Stonehenge, England. 
 Others think they were set up to mark some decisive field of 
 battle or important gathering of warriors. But these theories are 
 at best pure conjecture. One thing only is certain ; that these 
 mysterious monuments were raised by human hands, and repre- 
 sent human purpose. The peasants call them "memory stones," 
 because to them they recall the buried race that labored to erect 
 them, ages, perhaps, before the Pharaohs laid the foundations of 
 the Pyramids. 
 
 In the same district there are extensive burial mounds. In 
 these, tools and weapons of stone and of metal have been found. 
 
 1 Also spelled Brittany.
 
 GAUL BEFORE THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 3 
 
 They were in all probability deposited with the bodies of their 
 owners to aid them in their silent journey to that world whose 
 existence the barbarian never doubts, and for which in his own 
 simple way he invariably prepares. 
 
 Again, in those parts of the country where caves occur, an 
 examination of the earth in them reveals quantities of ashes, split 
 bones, and fragments of various rude utensils. These show that 
 these caves were once dwelling-places, and that they were occu- 
 pied by successive generations of men. 
 
 Finally, in the beds of many lakes for instance, that of Geneva 
 the ruins of ancient villages are discovered. These villages 
 were log huts, built on rough platforms, extending over the water. 
 They were probably constructed there as a means of security 
 against the attacks of savage beasts, or of still more savage men. 
 They offered the further advantage of a constant supply of fresh 
 water and fresh fish, so that their garrisons were in no danger of 
 dying from either thirst or starvation in case they were besieged 
 by an enemy. 
 
 From these and similar remains we can form a tolerably clear 
 idea of the condition of the early races of Gaul, even at a period 
 so remote that Northern Europe was a vast field of glacial ice, and 
 Southern Europe simply a wilderness of unbroken forest. 
 
 3. The Cave or Rough-Stone Men and their Successors ; the 
 
 Celts. The first inhabitants were probably the Cave-men. They 
 built no houses and formed no communities, but lived apart like 
 wild beasts, in the gloom and damp of their subterranean homes. 
 In some cases they may have constructed rude shelters of piled 
 stones, or dug holes in the sides of hills for the same purpose. 
 They had no tools but their fingers ; they had no weapons but 
 clubs or sharp-edged stones. They lived on roots and berries, 
 and on such fish or game as they could manage to catch or kill. 
 In time, however, they learned to make hatchets and spear-heads 
 of flint, and they invented the bow and arrow. With these tools 
 and weapons they could fell trees and hunt the mammoth and
 
 4 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 the reindeer, of which they have left drawings scratched on the 
 tusks and bones. 
 
 Following the cave or rough-stone men, there came a people 
 who were able not only to shape, but to polish, their flint imple- 
 ments and weapons. They built huts in the forest or on the 
 borders of the lakes. They learned, too, how to make rude pot- 
 tery and to weave coarse cloth. Furthermore, they kept cattle, 
 horses, sheep, and hogs ; they raised some grain ; they tamed the 
 wolf or wild dog, and trained him to defend their dwellings and to 
 help them hunt game. 1 
 
 Still later came the Celts, bringing with them tools and weapons 
 of bronze. 2 They kept all the useful animals, and lived largely by 
 the cultivation of the soil. It was apparently a later and more war- 
 like branch of the Celts to whom the Romans gave the name of 
 Gauls. They were a stalwart race, with long light hair, dyed flam- 
 ing red, and fierce blue eyes. They overran the country between 
 the Pyrenees and the Rhine, which henceforth got the Latin name 
 of Gaul. The Gauls were for a long period the terror of all 
 nations. They scorned the use of armor, and stripped them- 
 selves for battle as the Greeks did for athletic sport. When the 
 call to arms was heard, they rushed to the field with a shout of 
 joy ; the man who came last was tortured to death as a whole- 
 some warning to the rest. After a battle the victors cut off the 
 heads of their enemies and carried them home. Out of these they 
 made a selection. The skulls of common men they nailed over 
 their doors as ornaments, or made them into drinking-cups ; but 
 those of noted warriors were carefully embalmed and kept in cedar 
 chests, as precious relics to be brought out on great occasions. 
 This strange people was full of resources. They were imagina- 
 
 1 The dog seems to have sprung from some animal of the wolf species. The 
 Esquimaux dog can, in fact, hardly be distinguished from the gray wolf. Cuvier 
 says that the domestic dog is " the completest, the most singular, and the most 
 useful conquest made by man." 
 
 2 Bronze : this is a mixture of copper and tin. It can be made nearly as hard 
 as steel, and takes a sharp and quite a durable edge. Chisels made of it can be 
 used in dressing stone.
 
 GAUL BEFORE THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 5 
 
 tive, inventive, and impulsive ; they had, too, that peculiar power 
 which refuses to remain overcome, but after every defeat speedily 
 recovers itself and is ready for a fresh effort. Yet notwithstanding 
 this elasticity of temperament, the Celtic peoples were never able 
 to permanently withstand the advance of those German races which 
 followed them and drove them before them. Later, we shall see 
 that Gaul was to be no exception to this rule. 
 
 4. The Gauls take Rome; the Romans enter Gaul. In the 
 
 sixth century B.C., the Celts or Gauls, who had perhaps already 
 invaded Britain, crossed the Alps and took possession of Northern 
 Italy. 1 For two hundred years they threatened to march south 
 and make themselves masters of Rome, but they were repulsed 
 again and again. Each time, however, they renewed their attacks, 
 raiding the provinces and carrying off captives. At length, 390 
 B.C., they stormed, and took the Latin capital. The inhabitants, 
 with the exception of a few illustrious men, sought refuge in the 
 citadel ; but these last, scorning to fly, seated themselves in the 
 great public square of the Forum, and there awaited their fate. 
 The spectacle of these venerable fathers of the city, sitting there 
 silent and motionless as statues, struck even the barbarians with 
 awe : to them they seemed not men, but gods. At length a warrior 
 more daring than the rest stepped forward and ventured to stroke 
 the long white beard of one of the senators. He resented the 
 familiarity with a blow. That rash act broke the spell. The 
 enraged Gauls fell upon their valiant but helpless foes, and soon 
 left their bleeding corpses lying in the dust of the Forum, amid 
 the smoking ruins of the city. 
 
 The Romans, however, bought off their victors, and eventu- 
 ally succeeded in beating back and conquering the Italian Gauls. 
 
 A solemn curse was then pronounced on any one who should 
 cross the Alps, which were declared to be the natural barriers of 
 
 1 Later, the Romans called that part of Italy where the Gallic invaders had 
 settled Cis Alpine or Hither Gaul, to distinguish it from Gaul proper (i.e., France, 
 etc.), which they designated by the name of Trans Alpine or Further Gaul.
 
 6 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 Rome. The Romans themselves were the first to cross, in an expe- 
 dition to aid their allies, the Greeks, who had planted a flourishing 
 city in Gaul, which they called Massalia, and the Romans Mas- 
 silia, but which is now known as Marseille. 1 This city, which was 
 the great rival of Carthage, begged the help of Rome against the 
 barbarians. The Romans sent an army, and not only drove off 
 the enemy, but established a settlement of their own on the shores 
 of the Mediterranean. This was the first time a Latin legion 
 had permanently set foot in Gaul. They called their new colony 
 the Province, a name which has since become changed to Pro- 
 vence. 2 
 
 5. The Germans overrun Gaul. As the Gauls became more 
 civilized, they lost much of their old warlike spirit. Then a fiercer 
 people swept down from the north. The German tribes on the 
 shores of the Baltic and the North seas were bent on conquest. 
 They, with other barbarians, burst into Gaul at different points, 
 burning, pillaging, massacring. Early in the second century B.C. 
 they resolved to drive out the Celts of Gaul, and then to attack 
 Rome. Marius, 3 the Roman general, fully alive to the danger 
 which threatened the city, determined to meet the Germans in 
 Gaul. He encountered them near Aix (102 B.C.), 4 in the vicinity 
 of Massalia. The conflict raged for two days ; it terminated in 
 the crushing defeat of the invaders. It is said that more than a 
 hundred thousand dead were left on the battle-field, which got the 
 name of the " Putrid Plains " from its heaps of unburied and 
 decaying corpses. Years afterward, those who tilled the soil in 
 that vicinity used to plough up broken weapons and rusty shields, 
 and the peasants propped up the grape-vines of their vineyards 
 with human bones. Had the conflict resulted in the victory 
 of the northern barbarians, the progress that Gaul had made 
 might have been destroyed, and the whole future of the country 
 changed. 
 
 1 Marseille (Mar-sale') : often, but without good reason, spelled Marseilles. 
 
 2 Provence (Pro-vonse'). 3 Ma'rius. * Aix (Ase or Akes).
 
 GAUL BEFORE THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 7 
 
 6. Summary. Looking back, we see that the Celts or Gauls 
 laid the foundation of modern France. Their vivacity, love of 
 glory, and contempt of danger, their elastic and impulsive tem- 
 perament, and their intellectual quickness are still characteristic of 
 the brilliant and powerful people that have in great measure 
 sprung from them. Different elements, it is true, were destined 
 to come in later, and to have a most important influence ; but still 
 the races that first peopled Gaul did, perhaps, more than any other 
 toward shaping the future of the nation. Originally these Celtic 
 tribes had, as we have seen, no history ; but none the less, barba- 
 rians though they were, they prepared the way for all the history 
 that was to follow.
 
 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 II. 
 
 "There are facts which are naturally detested, . . . despotism, for instance; 
 . . . yet if they have contributed in some way to civilization, then up to a cer- 
 tain point we pardon them." Guizox. 
 
 THE ROMAN CONQUEST AND OCCUPATION OF 
 GAUL (58 B.C.-A.D. 481). 
 
 7. Caesar's Battle with Ariovistus; his Account of Gaul. 
 
 Fifty-eight years before the birth of Christ, Julius Caesar set out to 
 conquer the German tribes which were then invading Gaul, and to 
 take possession of the country for Rome. Before beginning the war, 
 however, he sent a message to the German chief, Ariovistus, 1 pro- 
 posing negotiations. Ariovistus sent back word, " If I wanted any- 
 thing of Csesar, I should go to him ; if Caesar wants anything of me, 
 let him come where I am." Caesar answered by ordering Ariovis- 
 tus to desist troubling the Gauls, threatening to punish him if he 
 did not. Ariovistus replied, " If Caesar wishes to try it, let him 
 come, and he will find what can be done by men trained to arms, 
 inured to hardships, and who have not slept beneath a roof for 
 fourteen years." 
 
 The result of this defiance was a battle in which the bold barba- 
 rian was hopelessly beaten, and shortly after died. This com- 
 menced a series of campaigns against not only the Germans, but 
 the Gauls, who had now risen in insurrection. The war lasted nine 
 years. Caesar's object was twofold : first, to extend the dominion 
 of Rome ; next, to obtain fame, wealth, and political power for 
 himself. From the notes which he made we get our first clearly 
 drawn picture of the country and its people. 2 The written his- 
 
 1 Ariovis'tus. 2 See Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War.
 
 THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF GAUL. 9 
 
 tory of Gaul begins at this point. Caesar divides the country into 
 three districts : that of the Belgians in the north, of the Aquitani- 
 ans in the southwest, and of the Celts or Gauls in the centre. Of 
 the people he says there were likewise three classes, warriors, 
 priests, and slaves. The first was the nobles, who disdained 
 work and lived by fighting. The next class was the priests, or 
 Druids, 1 as they were called. These were not only religious teach- 
 ers, but judges, physicians, and educators. They represented 
 whatever learning and mental culture then existed, and from them 
 the people derived their first rude notions of geography and astron- 
 omy. As with the Celts of Britain, so here, the Druids conducted 
 their worship in the gloomy recesses of the primeval forests, or in 
 temples of rough stone open to the sky. They taught that there is 
 one supreme God represented by the sun, giver of light and life, 
 and by the clear flame of burning wood rising heavenward from the 
 altar. To that God they sometimes offered human sacrifices, in 
 the belief that no gift can be so precious and so acceptable as the 
 blood and the life of man. To them the mistletoe, a parasitic 
 evergreen plant growing on certain trees, seemed especially sacred. 
 When by chance they found its slender green branches clinging to 
 the leafless oaks in winter, they gathered it with mystical cere- 
 monies, regarding it as an emblem of human immortality, and also 
 as a medicine which might impart new life to the sick and the 
 dying. The Romans had lost much of their early faith in a future 
 existence ; great, therefore, was their astonishment to find that 
 these barbarians had such implicit belief in it that they did not 
 hesitate to lend money to be repaid in another world ! Well might 
 the warriors of such a race fight desperately, since they were con- 
 vinced that, if slain, they would rise again to enjoy a heaven where 
 fighting never ceased. 
 
 The last class was the slaves. Their existence shows how the 
 Gauls had advanced. At first they had killed their prisoners of 
 war. Later they saw that this was poor economy, and that, instead 
 
 1 Druid : a name sometimes derived from the Greek Spvs, an oak, but really of 
 unknown origin.
 
 IO LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 of chopping off their captives' heads, it was much wiser to make 
 them till the soil, cut the wood, tend the cattle, and cook the food 
 for their masters. Slavery was thus a first step in humanity and 
 civilization : it saved those who would otherwise have been de- 
 stroyed. 
 
 When Caesar entered the country, the Gauls had long since 
 ceased to be mere savages. They lived in settlements of circular, 
 dome-shaped huts made of wood and clay, 1 which were protected 
 against attack by a ditch, with an embankment or wall set with 
 sharp stakes. 
 
 They had made considerable progress in the arts, had learned 
 how to mine and work metals, used iron weapons and armor, and 
 excelled in weaving cloths of brilliant and variegated colors. 
 
 8. Caesar's Campaigns and Final Victory. Still, in such a 
 contest the Romans had every advantage except that of brute 
 strength. First, they had an immense force of thoroughly disci- 
 plined and admirably equipped veteran troops, led by the greatest 
 general in the world. Next, they had a permanent base of supplies 
 in the Greek seaport of Massalia, 2 of which Cicero did not hesitate 
 to say that " had it not been for her help, Rome would never have 
 triumphed over the barbarians." 
 
 Yet these northern races were, after all, a formidable foe even 
 for Caesar. Their gigantic stature and fierce appearance inspired 
 such dread that the Roman soldiers, at first, it is said, shed tears 
 at the sight of them and used to make their wills before going 
 into battle. The country, too, was almost wholly a wilderness ; 
 and Caesar had to fight his way with axe and spade, cutting roads 
 and building bridges, before he could fight with the sword and 
 spear. At last, after incredible hardships, he conquered ; but it 
 was a conquest of devastation and, in some districts, of extermina- 
 
 i One of these huts is represented on the column of Antonine at Rome. It is 
 made of poles bound together with twigs, and was probably plastered with clay. It 
 had a door, but no window, with perhaps an opening at the top to let out the 
 smoke. 2 Massalia: see Paragraph 4.
 
 THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF GAUL. I I 
 
 tion as well. He had subdued three hundred tribes, taken eight 
 hundred towns, slain a million of fighting men, and captured and 
 sold another million into slavery. At Avaricum, 1 out of a popula- 
 tion of forty thousand only eight hundred escaped. At Uxellodu- 
 num 2 Caesar cut off the right hands of the entire male population, 
 in order to prevent their ever making any further resistance. At 
 Dariorigum 3 he put all the chiefs of the tribe to death, and sold 
 the rest by auction. In some cases such multitudes were slaugh- 
 tered that the swamps and streams were filled with the dead 
 bodies, and the Roman troops marched over them as on 
 bridges. 
 
 Alesia, a fortified town in Eastern Gaul, 4 was the last place to 
 hold out. It was built on a rocky height, and was defended by 
 Vercingetorix, 5 one of the bravest of the Gauls, who was com- 
 mander-in-chief of their forces. Caesar surrounded this stronghold 
 with a line of entrenchments upwards of fifteen miles in circumfer- 
 ence. He was thus able to cut off all supplies and to starve the 
 garrison into submission. When at length Vercingetorix was com- 
 pelled to give himself up as a captive, the whole of Gaul was prac- 
 tically at the mercy of the conqueror. Caesar had left Rome a 
 poor man, deeply in debt. He returned flushed with victory and 
 laden with treasure. The city was wild with joy over the hero who 
 had subjugated the barbarians that had menaced its safety. But, 
 great as Caesar was, he lacked the magnanimity to spare a helpless 
 and prostrate foe. Vercingetorix, on his way to imprisonment and 
 death, was led in chains in the celebration held in honor of his 
 conqueror, while the crowded streets resounded with shouts of 
 exultation : 
 
 1 Avar'icum : now Bourges (Boorzh). 
 
 2 Uxellodu'num : the site of this place has not been positively determined, but 
 see map of Gaul, page z. 
 
 3 Darior'igum or Vcneti : now Vannes (Vann). 
 
 4 Ale'sia, now Alise (Ah-leeze'), see Map No. II., page 2, was situated on 
 a high hill near the C6te-d'Or (Kote dor) Mountains, in the east of Gaul, and near 
 the head-waters of one of the chief tributaries of the Seine (Sane). 
 
 6 Vercinget'orix.
 
 12 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 "Hurrah ! for the great triumph 
 That stretches many a mile. 
 Hurrah ! for the wan captives 
 That pass in endless file." * 
 
 When peace was declared, Caesar changed his policy. He now 
 endeavored to conciliate the people that had submitted to his 
 arms. He even formed a legion of Gauls, all picked men, 
 called the " Legion of the Lark," from the image of that bird 
 worn on their helmets. This dauntless corps became his body- 
 guard. They crossed the Alps with him, singing like the lark 
 whose name they bore, and during the Civil War they helped Caesar 
 to get control of Rome and thus make himself master of the world. 
 
 9. Spread of Roman Civilization in Gaul. Next followed the 
 spread of Roman civilization in the subjugated territory. Among 
 the places which Caesar had taken was a wretched village built of 
 reeds and rushes on a swampy island in the Seine. It was called 
 in the Gallic language Lutetia, 2 or Mud-town, and was inhabited by 
 a tribe known as the Parisii. 3 There the Romans erected a 
 temple to Jupiter, which subsequently gave way to the Cathedral 
 of Notre Dame. 
 
 Some centuries later, they built a spacious palace on the left 
 bank of the river. It was the favorite residence of the Emperor 
 Julian, and part of it still remains. The temple became the 
 centre of a growing population. The palace became another. 
 Eventually the two centres united, and from these there gradually 
 grew up the splendid capital of Paris. 4 
 
 So all over Gaul stately cities rose, modelled on that of Rome. 
 They were adorned with public squares, marble temples, theatres, 
 aqueducts, baths, triumphal arches, statues of the emperors and 
 the gods, and arenas rivalling the Coliseum in size and splendor. 5 
 
 1 Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, "The Prophecy of Capys." 
 
 2 Lutetia (Lu-te'she-ah). 3 Pa-ris'i-i. 
 
 4 Paris : the temple of Jupiter on whose site Notre Dame (Our Lady, or the 
 Virgin Mary) now stands, occupied one end of the island of Lutetia. Julian's 
 palace, known to-day as the Palais des Thermes (Palace of the Hot Baths), is 
 nearly opposite, on the left bank of the Seine. 5 At Ximes, Aries, Treves, etc.
 
 THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF GAUL. 13 
 
 Of these cities, Lyon, 1 in Eastern Gaul, at the junction of the Rhone 
 and the Saone, 2 was for a long time the most important. 
 From it four great Roman military highways, solidly built of 
 stone, radiated to the chief points, to Marseille on the south, 
 to the Rhine on the north, to Brest on the Atlantic, to Boulogne 3 
 on the Channel, thence connecting at Dover with all the principal 
 cities of Britain, which was likewise a Roman province. These 
 roads were cut through dense forests, carried over mountains and 
 across rivers, through swamps, quicksands, and bogs. In many 
 cases their beds still remain in use as the foundation of modern 
 roads and railways, thus testifying to the skill of those Roman 
 engineers who built not for their day only, but for ours as well. 
 
 But these outward and material signs of civilization were after 
 all but the smallest part of the momentous change that came over 
 the country. Schools, colleges, and libraries sprang up, literature 
 and art were cultivated, Roman law took the place of barbaric 
 custom, and the Latin language in a modified form gradually but 
 surely usurped that of the Gauls, supplanting it in the course of 
 centuries so completely that at the present time not one word out 
 of a hundred in a French dictionary can be traced to a Gallic 
 source. 
 
 For a long period the country seemed to gain by the change. 
 Roman law was everywhere enforced ; peace prevailed ; justice was 
 impartially administered ; industry flourished ; the taxes were light ; 
 the towns practically possessed self-government ; agriculture im- 
 proved ; the cultivation of corn, the olive, and the vine were intro- 
 duced ; manufactures of flax, silk, glass, tapestry, iron, bronze, jew- 
 elry, armor, tools, and weapons increased rapidly ; and the com- 
 merce of Marseille connected Gaul with all the countries of the 
 Mediterranean. 
 
 10. Decline of Roman Civilization; Corruption and Oppres- 
 sion. But this age of prosperity was not to last. Rome, eaten 
 
 1 Lyon : often, but without good reason, spelled Lyons. 
 
 2 Saone (Sone). Boulogne (Boo-lon').
 
 14 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 up by her vices and rent with dissension and civil wars, began to 
 totter to her fall. Then it became apparent that this splendid 
 civilization resembled those strange, brilliantly colored plants 
 which spring up in a night on the decaying trunks of fallen trees 
 a certain sign of corruption and death. Before the Roman 
 conquest, Gaul had liberty without order or unity ; now, in the 
 days of Roman decline, she had order and unity without liberty. 
 The small farms were one by one bought up by wealthy men, who 
 converted them into extensive cattle and sheep pastures tended 
 by a few slaves. Thus the independent peasant population was 
 gradually driven off the land, and agriculture declined. Mean- 
 while, taxes grew constantly heavier ; for in proportion as Rome 
 became more corrupt, and at the same time weaker, the demand 
 for money to waste in extravagance and in the maintenance of 
 armies for defence became more and more imperative. These 
 demands reached such an exorbitant height, that eventually every 
 third bushel of grain which the farmer raised was seized by the 
 government, and the greedy army of tax-gatherers, not yet satisfied, 
 plundered for themselves as well as for the emperor. In the 
 cities matters were no better. A few of the inhabitants were enor- 
 mously rich, but all the rest were fast becoming miserably poor. 
 Those who had money spent it in luxury and dissipation. They 
 were surrounded by a multitude of dependents and flatterers, who 
 lived at their expense and ministered to their caprices and their 
 vices. After a night of drunkenness and debauchery, the million- 
 naire of that age rose at noon to take his perfumed bath and drag 
 out a languid day, hearing poems recited in his praise, listening to 
 the latest gossip of the town, amusing himself with the songs 
 and graceful movements of his dancing-girls, or going to the arena 
 to watch the gladiators fight for their lives with wild beasts or 
 with each other. 
 
 But in time Rome disgusted even the rich with their riches, for 
 she made all who had property responsible for the taxes, so that 
 they had to pay not only for themselves, but for that ever-increas- 
 ing number who could not. In their despair the moneyed class
 
 THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF GAUL. 15 
 
 used to run away to escape their burdens. They enlisted in the 
 army, and in some cases even sold themselves as slaves to get 
 rid of a responsibility which was worse than actual bondage. If 
 a man was a workman, he was no better off. All that he earned, 
 above a bare subsistence, was taken from him, and he was com- 
 pelled by law to labor at his trade as long as life lasted. His 
 amount of work was regulated by an overseer. If he failed to do 
 it in the appointed time, he was severely punished. If he spoiled 
 his work, he might answer for it with his life even. Finally, if he 
 fled, he was pursued, brought back, and branded with a red-hot 
 iron on the hand, that he might be known in future. The law, in 
 fact, regulated everything. A man could not set a price on his 
 own goods ; the government did it for him. 1 These oppressions 
 destroyed all public spirit and desire for life. 2 When the Empire 
 broke up, and the northern barbarians swept down like vultures on 
 a dying beast of burden, the Gauls, far from resisting them, wel- 
 comed them as their deliverers and saviours. 
 
 11. Influence of Christianity. Meanwhile another influence 
 was at work which was destined to prepare the way for a new 
 national life ; not that of Rome, but one organized out of the 
 material which Rome had left, joined to other elements brought 
 in by the German tribes of the north. 
 
 Sometime during the second century Christianity appears to 
 have reached Gaul. 3 At first the Roman emperors treated it with 
 contemptuous indifference. Then, as it continued to spread, they 
 became alarmed lest it should overthrow that worship of them- 
 
 1 This was done by Diocletian's Law of Maximum. See Gibbon. 
 
 2 " Every one had his chain. The farmer was bound to the soil ; the public official 
 to his office; the tax-paying citizen (curial) to his town; the merchant to his shop; the 
 workman to his trade-corporation." LEVASSEUR. 
 
 8 There is a tradition that the Apostle Paul preached in Provence; but though 
 this may be true, nothing certain can be learned in regard to it. Most authorities 
 suppose that Pothinus and Irenasus introduced Christianity about the middle of 
 the second century. St. Denis suffered martyrdom at Paris about 270. He was fol- 
 lowed by St. Martin, St. Germain, St. Hilaire, and other eminent teachers and mis- 
 sionaries.
 
 1 6 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 
 
 selves which they had set up. When a Roman soldier who had 
 become converted to the teachings of Christ refused to kneel 
 before a bronze image of the emperor as he knelt in prayer to 
 God, his refusal seemed little short of treason. Soon the govern- 
 ment began its efforts to crush out the new faith which dared to 
 declare that there was a power higher and holier than that of the 
 Caesars. The evangelists and missionaries, such men as St. 
 Denis, 1 who later became to France what St. George did to Eng- 
 land, were imprisoned, tortured, and put to death. Often 
 this was done to make sport for the people. Crowded circuses 
 shouted their applause at seeing the tigers tear a delicate woman 
 to pieces, or on hearing the dying groans of an aged man stretched 
 in mockery bleeding on the cross. But no persecution could stop 
 the spread of the Gospel among the poor and the oppressed. To 
 them it was in very truth " the good news " of God. 
 
 In the fourth century a great change took place. The Emperor 
 Constantine himself became a convert at least in name to 
 Christianity, and established it as the state religion. From this 
 time, the bishops of Gaul set themselves to work to destroy hea- 
 thenism and heresy. They pulled down the idols, and erected 
 crosses and crucifixes in their stead. They changed the temples 
 into churches ; and if sometimes they spared the great Druidical 
 oaks, which the country people held sacred, yet when the peas- 
 ants assembled under them, they were sure to see the gracious 
 image of the Virgin looking down upon them from amid the 
 branches. 
 
 As time went on, monasteries and convents were founded, where 
 the monks and nuns lived by the cultivation of the soil and the 
 work of their hands. Hitherto, such labor had been looked upon 
 as a disgrace fit only for slaves. Christianity lifted it out of 
 its degradation and made even the lowest drudgery seem hon- 
 orable. 
 
 Meanwhile the Church was growing rich and powerful. During 
 
 i St. Denis (San Den-ee').
 
 THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF GAUL. I'J 
 
 the decline of the Empire, when neither flogging nor torture could 
 wring another penny of taxes from the poor man for the support of 
 the government, he could yet find something to give toward the 
 support of his religion. Eventually, the bishops and clergy of the 
 cities came to have far greater influence than the magistrates. It 
 was right that they should, for they were then the men best fitted 
 to wield power. The Greek philosopher, Archimedes, said of the 
 lever that there was nothing that could withstand its force. He 
 declared that he could even move the world with it if he only had 
 another world on which to rest it. The Christian Church had 
 found that other world ; and by the lever of hope and fear it 
 moved this one at its pleasure. To its honor it must be said it 
 generally moved it for good. 
 
 12. Results of the Roman Conquest of Gaul. Taken all in 
 all, therefore, Rome, notwithstanding the despotism of its later 
 days, accomplished much that was excellent. She planted cities, 
 fostered arts, established a uniform system of law, and introduced 
 her language and her literature. Finally, after long and futile per- 
 secution, she gave her powerful support to the Christian Church. 
 These were enduring benefits which no oppression could wholly 
 destroy. 
 
 Caesar's conquest of Gaul was marked by the most deliberate 
 and revolting cruelty. But let us suppose that he had failed ; 
 and that Vercingetorix had succeeded not only in driving out 
 the Romans, but in pursuing them and taking Rome its-elf, as the 
 barbarians did five centuries later ; in that case the progress of 
 civilization and Christianity would certainly have been seriously 
 retarded, if not, indeed, hopelessly and finally destroyed. In Gaul 
 the victorious armies of Caesar accomplished what they failed to 
 do in Britain they Romanized the country. In England to-day 
 we find nothing left of the Latin conquest, but the buildings, 
 roads, walls, and fortifications which the Roman soldiers con- 
 structed ; in France we likewise see all these ; but in addition, we 
 find that nowhere else in Europe did Roman speech, Roman
 
 1 8 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 institutions, Roman legislation, Roman worship, 1 and modes of 
 life impress themselves so deeply and so permanently. 
 
 13. Summary. If Caesar had not subjugated Gaul, it seems 
 quite certain that the northern barbarians would have done so, 
 and furthermore they might have threatened the existence of the 
 " Eternal City " itself. Roman arms triumphed. They brought 
 civilization with them ; after a time they also brought oppression, 
 corruption, and religious persecution. In the end, however, Rome 
 adopted and protected Christianity, until it grew strong enough to 
 take care of itself. On the whole, Rome conferred benefits which 
 far outweigh the evil she wrought, and France has abundant reason 
 to be grateful to the name of Caesar and to the Latin conquest. 
 
 1 Roman worship : meaning by this the Christian religion which Rome had 
 adopted.
 
 CONQUEST OF GAUL BY THE FRANKS. 
 
 III. 
 
 " It was the rude barbarians of Germany who introduced the sentiment of 
 personal independence, the love of individual liberty, into European civiliza- 
 tion." GUIZOT. 
 
 CONQUEST OF GAUL BY THE FRANKS. THE MEROVINGIAN 
 KINGS 1 (481-752). BEGINNING OF THE CAROLINGIAN LINE 
 
 (752-768). 
 
 14. Invasion of Gaul by the Germans. For more than a 
 century before Rome was forced to give up her hold on the 
 province of Gaul, the Germans had been making raids across the 
 Rhine, and pillaging small districts in the vicinity of the river. 
 When the emperors were no longer able to repel these attacks, 
 they changed their policy, and encouraged the settlement in Gaul 
 of those tribes with whom they had formed alliances, or from 
 whom they hired volunteers to recruit their armies. 
 
 In this way the Burgundians were allowed, if not indeed invited, 
 to take possession of a district in the Rhone valley, which after- 
 ward got its name of Burgundy from them : so also the Visigoths 
 settled in the southwest, where they made the city of Toulouse their 
 capital. 2 These tribes were not only partially civilized through 
 their contact with Roman power, but they even called themselves 
 Christians ; though as they followed the teachings of one Arius, 3 
 
 1 For a list of the Merovingian kings, but few of whom were sole kings of the 
 Franks, see Genealogical Table, page 299. 
 
 2 The Visigoths (Western Goths) and the Burgundians were both Germanic 
 peoples. For their settlements, see Map No. III., page 20. 
 
 3 Ari'us : he was a deacon of Alexandria, Egypt. He held that Christ was not 
 equal to God the Father, and therefore denied the doctrine of the Trinity.
 
 2O LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 who denied the divinity of Christ, the orthodox Catholics that is, 
 the great body of the Church considered them heretics. These 
 newcomers did not directly drive out the inhabitants of the 
 regions where they settled, for they came, they said, not as enemies, 
 but as "guests." But as they invariably took the best of every 
 cultivated estate for themselves, leaving the original owners barely 
 enough to subsist on, the latter found it hard to discover any 
 practical difference between such "guests" and downright robbers. 
 Still, notwithstanding this policy of conciliation, the Roman gov- 
 ernment did not succeed in checking the raids of the North 
 Germans. On the banks of the lower Rhine there was a people 
 who proudly called themselves Franks, or Free Men, to mark their 
 independence. It is doubtful if Caesar himself could have con- 
 quered them. They were virtually of the same stock as those 
 Angles and Saxons that had already begun the conquest of Britain, 
 and that have since colonized a large part of the globe. These 
 fierce tribes could not be kept back from the fair southern lands 
 which they coveted for themselves and for their cattle. Their 
 invasions grew more and more formidable, and all the signs indi- 
 cated that the time was not far off when they would not be 
 content to plunder the country and then go back to their native 
 forests, but that they would seize it as a permanent possession. 
 
 15. The Huns; Battle of Chalons. But before this occurred 
 the Gauls were to engage in a death struggle with a different race. 
 In the fifth century the Huns, a ferocious and hideously repulsive 
 people, had bagun to ravage Europe. Their home appears to have 
 been in the plains of Tartary. Their god, it was said, was a naked 
 sword. Their chief, Attila, had earned the double title of " The 
 Dread of the World " and " The Scourge of God." Before the 
 terror of his coming even the Franks trembled. Attila carried all 
 before him, and compelled the Romans, who had exacted tribute 
 from so many tribes and nations, to pay tribute to him. Finally, 
 this formidable chieftain, followed by upwards of a million war- 
 riors, crossed the Rhine and burst into Gaul. It was a critical
 
 EUROPE 
 
 IK THE REIGN OF 
 
 THEODORIC 
 
 C A. D. 5OO. 
 
 I I Roman Empire 
 
 J Teutonic Settlements 
 H] Celts
 
 25 30 35 40 46 60 55 60
 
 CONQUEST OF GAUL BY THE FRANKS. 21 
 
 moment for Europe. If the invaders were not driven back, it 
 seemed probable that all progress, intellectual or moral, would be 
 seriously checked, if not, indeed, absolutely obliterated, by a horde 
 of savages that even at the present day continue to remain barba- 
 rians and heathens. 1 
 
 Roused to temporary unity by the imminence of the peril, Gauls, 
 Romans, Visigoths, Burgundians, and Franks joined their forces, 
 and at the decisive battle of Chalons (45 1), 2 Attila and his hosts, 
 who had- threatened to set up an empire of desolation, were utterly 
 defeated ; but so desperate was the fight that the ghosts of the 
 slain were believed to have kept up the battle in the air. 3 The 
 result was that the future was secured to those races of Western 
 Europe which have since never ceased their forward and upward 
 march in civilization. 
 
 16. Conquest of Northern Gaul by Clovis the Frank. The 
 
 danger over, the Franks, who had settled on the left bank of the 
 Rhine, again began to push further and further into Northern Gaul. 
 In 48 1 Clovis, 4 a Frank of fifteen, was left, by his father's death, 
 chief of a small body of fighting men. Rome had now fallen, 
 though a remnant of Roman power still nominally existed in 
 the district of Soissons, 5 in the upper part of the valley of the 
 Seine. Clovis led his warriors against the city in 486, over- 
 threw the Roman governor and seized his palace for his 
 residence. 
 
 By this victory he practically made himself master of all Gaul 
 north of the Loire, except the peninsula of Britanny, whose chiefs 
 later formed an alliance with him. Clovis afterwards established 
 
 1 These people are still the dread of the Chinese Empire, and have been ever 
 since the third century B.C., when that nation built the great Chinese wall to prevent 
 their incursions. 
 
 2 Chalons (Shal-on') : on the Marne, about 90 miles northeast of Paris. See 
 Map No. IV., page 26. The exact location of the battle is not settled. 
 
 8 See Kaulbach's fine picture of this battle. 
 
 4 Clovis : a softened form of the German name Hlodowig or Chlodwig. 
 
 h Soissons (almost Swi'son) : about sixty miles northeast of Paris.
 
 22 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 himself at Paris, which thus became the capital of the land of the 
 western Franks, or Francia. 1 
 
 17. Conversion and Baptism of Clovis. Clovis found a pow- 
 erful ally in the Catholic Church. Beset as the Church then was 
 by barbarians on the one hand, and by Arians on the other, she was 
 anxious to find some great chief who would be her ally and cham- 
 pion. Clovis was a pagan, but in the eyes of the bishops of Gaul 
 that was far better than being an Arian, like the Burgundians and 
 the Visigoths, since experience had proved that it was easier to 
 convert a hundred German heathen than a single Christian here- 
 tic. Priest and monk then both fervently prayed that the con- 
 queror of Northern Gaul might be won over to support the faith of 
 Christ : but a gentler and more persuasive influence than theirs 
 finally brought the Frankish warrior into the fold. He had mar- 
 ried Clotilda, an orthodox Catholic princess, who earnestly be- 
 sought him to be baptized, both for her sake and for his own. 
 
 He was already half gained over when an accident occurred 
 which completed the work. Clovis had engaged in battle near 
 Strasburg with a band of Germans who were bent on conquering 
 and settling the territory which he had gained; for barbarian 
 robbed barbarian in those days just as Frank robbed Gaul. The 
 struggle was long and doubtful. At last Clovis, fearing that he 
 would be defeated, cried out for help to the God of the Christians, 
 solemnly, vowing that if He would grant him the victory, he would 
 believe and be baptized. The battle turned in his favor, and he 
 drove the enemy back, settling the fact that no more Germans 
 were to be permitted to settle in Gaul. Clotilda now urged the 
 king to fulfil his vow. He assented, and on the following Christ- 
 mas the Bishop of Reims 2 received him at the entrance of the 
 cathedral of that city. As the barbarian chief walked slowly up 
 
 1 Francia (the country of the Franks) : sometimes called Western Francia to dis- 
 tinguish it from the Eastern or German Francia (or Franconia) , which lay east of 
 the Rhine. 
 
 2 Reims (Ranz) : a city 100 miles north-northeast of Paris.
 
 THE MEROVINGIAN KINGS. 23 
 
 the church, he looked round in awe on the white-robed priests, the 
 painted hangings, and the lighted candles of the altar. " Is not 
 this the kingdom of heaven which you promised me? " he asked. 
 " No," replied the bishop, " but it leads to it. Bow thy head, O 
 Sicambrian, 1 and hereafter adore the cross thou hast burned, and 
 burn the idols thou hast adored." Clovis knelt before the font, 
 received the rite of baptism, and the same day three thousand of 
 his warriors followed his example. It was a significant event, since 
 all German converts up to this time had adopted Arianism. Clovis 
 and his comrades were the first German Catholics. 
 
 18. Clovis conquers the Burgrmdians and the Visigoths; 
 Sole Chief over the Franks. The new convert was full of zeal. 
 He looked toward the southeast, and he saw that the Burgundians 
 occupied the fertile Rhone valley ; he looked toward the south- 
 west, and he saw the kingdom of the Visigoths. Then he said, " It 
 is a shame to let such heretics 2 own so much of the best land." 
 The good bishops held the same opinion, and urged Clovis to enter 
 upon new fields of conquest. Religion and ambition, duty and 
 pleasure, were now all on his side. He summoned his eager 
 Franks and compelled the Burgundians to pay him tribute. Event- 
 ually the Burgundian power was wholly broken, and these Arians 
 became good Catholics. Then he attacked the Visigoths, and 
 after a series of battles left them nothing north of the Pyrenees 
 that they could call their own except a narrow strip of coast on 
 the Mediterranean. 3 
 
 The Pope of Rome 4 now conferred on Clovis the title of " Most 
 Christian King " and " Eldest Son of the Church." Possibly this 
 action was a little hasty, for the victorious leader showed that he 
 was determined to keep and perpetuate his power no matter what 
 
 1 Sicambrian : a name by which the Gauls designated the Franks. 
 
 2 See Paragraph 14. 
 
 3 Septimania, a region extending from the Rhone to the Pyrenees. See Map 
 No. IV., page 26. 
 
 4 The title of Pope was then held by bishops generally ; it was not limited exclu- 
 sively to the Bishop of Rome until much later.
 
 24 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 it might cost. To accomplish this, Clovis proceeded to perpetrate 
 a series of crafty murders by which he got rid of all rivals and 
 made sure of transmitting his sovereignty to his sons. He thus 
 established the Merovingian monarchy, a name derived from Mero- 
 vseus, 1 an ancestor of Clovis who had fought at the memorable 
 battle of Chalons. 2 
 
 Clovis, however, should not be regarded as king over a well- 
 defined realm, but rather as sole chief of the Franks, who had 
 spread themselves over most of Gaul except Burgundy and Brit- 
 anny. His name marks an epoch, since he was the first of the 
 barbarians to obtain such extended sway, and he first gave his 
 protection to the Christian Church. In fighting as he did for the 
 unity of religious authority, and for the establishment of a fixed 
 and hereditary government, he did his age great service. 
 
 19. Division of the Kingdom of Clovis ; Struggle for Power ; 
 Brunhilda vs. Fredegonda. The death of Clovis and the divis- 
 ion of his power among his four sons, who held Metz, Orleans, 3 
 Paris, and Soissons, as their respective capitals, brought constant 
 strife and bloodshed, each trying to get the sole mastery. The 
 sign of freedom and of independent power among the Franks 
 was their long flowing hair. Especially was this the badge of royalty. 
 Originally only defeated warriors, slaves, and monks cut off their 
 hair : the former, to show that they were captives or dependents ; 
 the latter, to signify that they were servants of the Church, and 
 had withdrawn from the world. One of the sons of Clovis having 
 been ki'led in battle, his kingdom fell to his three children, who 
 were to be* brought up by their grandmother, Clotilda. But two 
 uncles coveted their possessions. They managed to get the lads 
 into their power, and then sent a pair of shears and a dagger to 
 Clotilda, asking which she preferred : to have the young princes 
 clipped and sent to a monastery, or stabbed and buried. The 
 
 1 Merovse'us : the softened form of the German Merowig. 
 
 2 See Paragraph 15. 3 Orleans (Or-lay-on').
 
 THE MEROVINGIAN KINGS. 25 
 
 proud-spirited woman sent back word that she would rather see 
 them dead than shorn. Upon receiving this answer, one of the 
 uncles, Clotaire, killed two of the boys ; the third escaped. Clo- 
 taire thus got possession of the whole four kingdoms. But his 
 four sons divided them after his death, and the strife began again. 
 Eventually the eastern kingdom, which had Metz for its capital, 
 came to be called Austrasia, while those having Paris and Soissons 
 as capitals united to form a western kingdom called Neustria, 1 
 which became the nucleus of modern France. 
 
 Austrasia and Neustria, urged on by their respective queens, 2 
 entered upon a long and desperate war with each other. The con- 
 flict was marked by the utmost cruelty, and the names of Brun- 
 hilda of Austrasia, and Fredegonda of Neustria, both women, or 
 rather tigresses, of surpassing beauty, still remain synonyms for 
 ferocious depravity, though the first certainly was not without 
 redeeming qualities. 
 
 As St. Gregory of Tours 3 was walking with the Bishop of Albi 
 near the Neustrian palace, he asked, " Do you see anything above 
 that roof?" "Yes," answered his companion ; "I see the royal 
 standard. " " Nothing else ? " " No," said the bishop ; " do you ? " 
 " Truly," replied Gregory, " I see the sword of divine justice sus- 
 pended over that wicked house." The vision was true. Aus- 
 trasia subdued Neustria, and all of the queen's plans came to 
 naught ; but on the other hand the Austrasian queen met with a 
 horrible and shameful death at the hands of her rival's son. Be- 
 neath this personal war there was the war of races ; for while 
 Neustria was largely Roman or Roman Celt, Austrasia, owing to 
 its situation on the eastern frontier, was mainly German or Frank 
 in its population. By its triumph Austrasia secured the predom- 
 inance to the Franks, and their influence became supreme for 
 more than two centuries. 
 
 1 Austrasia : eastern. Neustria : not eastern, i.e., western. 
 
 2 As the Franks did not permit women to reign, Brunhilda and Fredegonda, 
 queen-consorts, were not rulers in name, though they were such in fact. 
 
 3 Tours (Toor).
 
 26 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 20. Dagobert; the Sluggard Kings; the Church. In 628 
 
 Dagobert showed himself a worthy successor of his ancestor 
 Clovis. In him the Merovingian kings reached their greatest 
 power. He reigned not only over Austrasia and Neustria, and 
 over nearly all the people of Gaul from the Pyrenees to the Rhine, 
 but beyond the Rhine on the East to the forests of Central Ger- 
 many. At his death, ten years later, the decline set in. His 
 successors rapidly degenerated until they became a puny, short- 
 lived, sad-faced race. Their power slipped from their nerveless 
 grasp, and a class of officials known as Mayors of the Palace, who 
 had originally been stewards or managers of the royal household, 1 
 got possession of the government. These long-haired, effeminate 
 drones, or "Sluggard Kings," as they were called, 2 did not inhabit 
 the old Roman cities of Gaul, but moved slowly about in covered 
 carts drawn by oxen, from one of their immense farms to another. 
 They stayed at each, feasting and carousing until the provisions 
 were exhausted, when they languidly mounted their ox-carts and 
 went on to the next. In name they were sovereigns, in reality 
 they were puppets whom none respected : the real rulers were the 
 mayors and the priests who co-operated with them. After the 
 battle of Testry, in 687, between Pepin, Mayor of Austrasia (grand- 
 son of the first of that name), and the Neustrians, a new order of 
 things begins, and the vigorous Prankish rulers, represented by the 
 victorious Pepin and his successors, prepare the way for the estab- 
 lishment of the great empire of Charlemagne, by securing the 
 entire control to the Germanic element. 3 
 
 We have spoken of the power of the priesthood. It was fortunate 
 for society that the Church had such influence in that barbarous 
 age. For then the priest and the monk together established the 
 outward order and the inward life of the world. They, indeed, 
 often had far greater authority than chief or king. The cathedral 
 and the monastery were centres of power for good. There the 
 
 1 The Mayors of the Palace originated in Austrasia. 
 
 2 Les Rois Faineants : literally, the Do-Nothing Kings. 
 
 3 See p. 25, last paragraph.
 
 The heavy shading of the eastern boundary of Britanny indicates the virtual independence of that 
 
 province at this period. 
 
 To face page 26. 

 
 BEGINNING OF THE CAROLINGIAN LINE. 2/ 
 
 ignorant were taught, the helpless protected, the poor sheltered, 
 the starving fed. The monasteries also served as the hotels of 
 the day, and hospitality to travellers was a chief duty. 1 The 
 Church, too, knew no distinction of rank or class. A slave might 
 become a priest, a priest a bishop, a bishop pope. Especially was 
 this influence of the Church of value when there was no uniform 
 law or supreme civil authority, and when invasions and civil wars 
 were forever filling the world with violence, bloodshed, and deso- 
 lation. 
 
 21. Charles Martel ; Battle of Tours. Never was this power 
 more needed than during the latter part of the Merovingian dynasty. 
 In the eighth century the Saracens, or followers of Mohammed, 
 had set out with the determination of conquering all nations. 
 They had already subdued Egypt, Northern Africa, and Spain. 
 They now planned the subjugation of France, Germany, Italy, and 
 Constantinople, that they might unite them into one vast empire. 
 Many trembled lest every Bible should be destroyed, every church 
 levelled, every cross trampled under foot, and that all men should 
 be forced to bow in adoration before the Koran and the crescent. 2 
 
 But the truth was that the Mohammedans gave those whom 
 they conquered the choice of conversion, death, or tribute. 
 
 In 732 the Saracens crossed the Pyrenees and raided the coun- 
 try in all directions, pillaging and burning many rich towns, and 
 carrying off thousands of captives. No power seemed able to 
 stop their career, and multitudes gave themselves up to despair, 
 believing the end had come, and that Mohammedanism would 
 triumph. In this crisis a new Mayor of the Palace, Charles, 3 an 
 
 1 See Emerton's " Introduction to the Middle Ages " on this whole period. 
 
 2 The crescent : according to a legend a Mohammedan ruler saw in a vision a 
 new moon which kept increasing until its horns met and formed a perfect circle. 
 He interpreted this to mean that the religion taught by Mohammed in the Koran 
 would eventually encircle the globe. Henceforth the crescent became the emblem 
 and standard of the Saracens, with the motto, " Until it shall fill the earth." On 
 the Saracen conquests and policy, see Myers' excellent " Mediaeval and Modern 
 History." 8 Or, in German, Karl.
 
 28 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 illegitimate son of Pepin of Austrasia, came to the rescue. He 
 represented the stalwart courage and steadfast endurance that had 
 characterized the Franks in their best days. But he lacked war- 
 riors ; and as his predecessors, together with the " Sluggard Kings," 
 had given away a great part of the royal domain, Charles did not 
 hesitate to seize the Church lands which were usually the finest 
 in the country and distribute them as rewards to those who 
 would fight for him. At Tours 1 (732) the two armies met. The 
 Saracens charged on the Franks with drawn scimitars, as though 
 with one tremendous blow they would sweep them off the earth ; 
 but the latter, says the old chronicle, stood firm as a wall of iron, 
 against which the scimitars were dashed to pieces. All one autumn 
 day the attack was renewed again and again. But the desperate 
 assaults were vain ; they could neither break down the wall nor 
 cut it through. Meanwhile Charles beat down the enemy with 
 his ponderous battle hammer with such fearful slaughter that to 
 those who fought by his side he seemed endowed with the might 
 of that old German war-god, who smote his foes with a similar 
 weapon forged from a thunderbolt. Charles gained the battle, and 
 so fairly won that title of honor which ever after gave him the name 
 of Charles Martel, or Charles the Sledge-Hammer. 2 He had done 
 Christendom a service never to be forgotten. As the power of the 
 Huns had been broken at Chalons nearly three centuries before, 3 so 
 the brave Frank had now crushed the Saracens, and saved Europe 
 from that yoke of bondage, which holds the Christian popula- 
 tions of Turkey enslaved to-day. Thus it was the glory of France 
 that the two great Asiatic invasions of the west were both overcome 
 on her soil. But the French clergy never could forgive Charles 
 for his seizure of their property, no matter how pressing the need. 
 The priests got their revenge for the robbery, by declaring after his 
 death that when his tomb came to be opened it was discovered to 
 
 1 Tours (Toor) : on the Loire. Some authorities represent the battle as taking 
 place at Poitiers (Pwi'te-a), southwest of Tours, on a branch of the Loire. 
 
 2 The martel, or rather marteau, was a heavy, two-handed war-hammer, with a 
 sharp point or edge. See Paragraph 15.
 
 BEGINNING OF THE CAROLINGIAN LINE. 29 
 
 be blackened by fire, and that instead of finding the hero's body, 
 they were startled by a hideous monster or demon which flew out. 
 History, however, pronounces its judgment in favor of Charles, 
 and declares that the clergy could well afford to give part of their 
 possessions to save not only the rest, but their own existence as 
 well. 
 
 22. Pepin and Rome ; End of the Merovingians ; Tem- 
 poral Power of the Pope. Twenty years after that decisive bat- 
 tle, Pepin the Short, 1 a son of Charles Martel, who had succeeded 
 him as Mayor of the Palace, determined to make himself supreme 
 in title as well as in fact. To accomplish this successfully and 
 peacefully he needed the aid of the Church ; and as Rome was 
 menaced by the Lombards 2 of North Italy, the Church was not 
 sorry to get the stout arms and sharp spears of the Franks for her 
 defence. Pepin sent messengers to the Pope, asking him who had 
 the best right to be called king he who had the name only or 
 he who had the power ? The Pope replied that the power and the 
 name ought by right to go together. The next spring, 752, Arch- 
 bishop Boniface, the English saint and missionary, anointed Pepin 
 with the holy oil and placed the coveted crown on his head. Then 
 Childeric, the last of the " Sluggard Kings," was shorn of his flow- 
 ing locks, as a sign that his feeble reign and that of his imbecile 
 family was over. 3 He was shortly after put into a monastery, 
 where he had opportunity for meditation during the rest of his life. 
 
 Pepin's coronation and Childeric's deposition and seclusion 
 were the first instances in history in which the Pope had directly 
 exercised that authority, afterward claimed, of making and unmak- 
 ing kings. In this case certainly the influence of the Church was 
 an unmistakable advantage. It was an alliance of right with 
 
 1 Pepin or Pippin. 
 
 2 The Lombards were, like the Franks, of German origin. They had invaded 
 and settled the North of Italy, and were especially feared and hated by the Italians, 
 since, not contented with conquest, they delighted in destruction. They were 
 Arians, and the Popes constantly styled them " the foul and horrid Lombards." 
 
 3 See Paragraph 20.
 
 3<D LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 might. With it the Merovingian line ends, and the Carolingian 
 a name derived from Pepin's famous son begins. 1 
 
 Not long after Pepin's accession, the Pope, becoming alarmed 
 at the inroads of the Lombards, crossed the Alps to implore the 
 new king's aid. The Lombards had once been heretics like the 
 Visigoths and Burgundians ; and although they now professed to be 
 good orthodox Catholics, their actions showed that they were 
 brigands and barbarians. They had seized a number of cities, 
 including Ravenna, and were threatening Rome. Pepin, summon- 
 ing his warriors, began a campaign against them. He speedily 
 drove the Lombards back, recaptured the walled cities they had 
 taken, and collecting the keys of their gates, deposited them on 
 the altar of St. Peter's. By this gift he made the Pope master not 
 only of Rome, but of a goodly district beside, and thus established 
 that temporal or territorial sovereignty of the Papacy which was 
 to serve as a material foundation for its spiritual power for more 
 than a thousand years. 2 
 
 23. Summary. The battle of Chalons, and, later, the con- 
 quest of nearly all Gaul by the Franks under Clovis, were both 
 important steps toward unity. The conversion of Clovis was of 
 equal importance. It gave the Church, then the bulwark of civ- 
 ilization, the champion she needed. The degeneration of the 
 Merovingian kings into a succession of royal " Do-Nothings " was 
 followed by the rise of the Mayors of the Palace, who, under 
 Charles Martel and Pepin, laid the foundation of a new and more 
 vigorous dynasty. MartePs victory over the Saracens and Pepin's 
 gift to the Pope assured the Church a vast degree of power which 
 made itself felt for good throughout Europe. 
 
 1 Some historians derive the title Carolingian from Charles Martel, Pepin's 
 father ; but it is usually derived from his son and successor, Charles the Great. 
 
 2 The temporal power of the Pope, in the sense of his sovereignty over the papal 
 states, was abolished in 1870, when Victor Emmanuel succeeded in annexing this 
 territory to his own, thus consolidating the whole of Italy into one kingdom.
 
 EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE. 3! 
 
 IV. 
 
 " If we sum up Charlemagne's designs and achievements, we find a sound 
 idea and a vain dream, a great success and a great failure." GmzoT. 
 
 THE EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE AND THE 
 CAROLINGIAN LINE 1 (768-987). 
 
 24. Charlemagne's Accession and Designs. At Pepin's 
 death, in 768, his dominions were equally divided between his 
 sons, Charles and Carloman. 2 The latter soon died, and his 
 brother, destined to be known in history as Charlemagne, or 
 Charles the Great, became sole ruler over the Franks and over all 
 the peoples who acknowledged their power. Charlemagne, de- 
 spite the French name by which he is best known to us, was thor- 
 oughly German in blood, temperament, and character. 3 He was 
 bold, pushing, sagacious, eager for dominion. He had a desire 
 for unity, system, and order, equal to that of Caesar himself. In 
 him we find harmonized the opposite qualities of the northern 
 barbarian and of the civilized Roman. He had the vigor and the 
 impetuosity of the one, with the organizing, legislative, and cen- 
 tralizing ability of the other. 
 
 Pepin, and those who preceded him, had been contented to be 
 the commanders-in-chief of a people, but Charlemagne was am- 
 bitious to rule over a great realm ; he thus sought to become not 
 
 1 For a list of the Carolingian Kings, see Genealogical Table, page 299. 
 
 2 Charles : his German name was Karl, later Karl the Great. Charlemagne 
 (Sharlmaine) is the French form from the Latin Carolus Magnus. 
 
 8 Charles the Great was born, according to some accounts, at Aix-la-Chapelle ; 
 according to others, at Salzburg or Ingelheim, Germany.
 
 32 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 merely the head of a race or of a union of tribes which might be 
 stationary or wandering, according to circumstances, but to be a 
 true territorial sovereign, master of a certain well-defined territory 
 and of all it contained. Here, then, was a step forward ; the idea 
 of the barbaric chief was departing ; that of the king or ruler, with 
 fixed geographical authority, fixed revenue, fixed military power 
 and prerogative, was beginning. 
 
 25. His Wars with the Aquitanians, Lombards, and Saxons. 
 Charlemagne had inherited the government of a people scat- 
 tered over a country much larger than that of modern France. But 
 in the southwest the Aquitanians revolted, and his first efforts were 
 spent in reducing them to obedience. This accomplished, he was 
 obliged to turn his attention to the Lombards, who had again 
 invaded the territory which his father had granted to the Pope. 
 With the Church, Charlemagne was in thorough sympathy. He 
 felt that if they joined forces, all Europe might be conquered in 
 the interest of intellectual and moral progress. When, therefore, 
 the Pope implored his help, he marched to his aid, crushed the 
 Lombards, annexed their country to his own, thus gaining a large 
 part of Italy, and then confirmed the Papacy in the possession 
 which Pepin had secured to it. 
 
 Charlemagne next turned his attention to the north. Beyond 
 the Rhine the Saxons still held the lands which Caesar had vainly 
 tried to conquer. Although a kindred people, yet between them 
 and the Franks deep hatred existed. The Saxons considered the 
 Franks as men who had deserted the honor and faith of their 
 fathers. They taunted them with having abandoned the free, wild 
 life of the forest for the effeminate customs of walled cities, and 
 with having forsaken the savage war-gods Woden and Thor, 1 for 
 the meek god of the Christians, who had been ignominiously cruci- 
 fied between two thieves. 
 
 The Franks, on the other hand, despised the Saxons as pagans, 
 
 1 Woden and Thor (Tor), these names of heathen gods, are preserved in our 
 English names Wednesday (Woden's day) and Thursday (Thor's day).
 
 EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE. 33 
 
 pirates, and savages. For more than thirty years war was going 
 on between them. Terrible as Charlemagne was with his bodies 
 of disciplined veteran troops, he found in the sturdy Saxons foemen 
 worthy of his steel. The slaughter on both sides was immense, 
 but at last the great Frankish leader compelled the northern tribes 
 to sue for peace. He had succeeded in penetrating to that place 
 in the forest where the fortress of Ehresburg was situated. The 
 Saxons regarded this spot as sacred, for here they had erected a 
 column commemorating the defeat of the Roman legions by their 
 great ancestral warrior Hermann. Before this column stood an 
 altar of stone on which captives were sacrificed to the god of 
 battles, while all around it were heaped up the spoils of war. 
 Charlemagne stormed the fort, chopped the column to pieces, 
 broke the altar, and burned the sacred oak-trees. Then this fierce 
 people, seeing their holiest place in the hands of their enemy, sub- 
 mitted to what seemed the decree of Fate, and agreed to pay 
 tribute. 
 
 26. War with the Moors ; Roncesvalles. Next, the victo- 
 rious ruler prepared to advance on Spain. The Moors in the 
 northern part of that country had revolted against the authority 
 of the Mohammedan caliph of Cordova. They begged Charle- 
 magne's assistance, promising to become his subjects. Charle- 
 magne crossed the Pyrenees and took possession of a number of 
 cities ; but the Moors, becoming alarmed lest they had got for 
 themselves a harder taskmaster than the caliph, now desired to 
 drop the war and resume their former allegiance. Charlemagne 
 then found himself without allies in a rough and hostile country, 
 where food was scarce, and with a mountain chain between him 
 and his supplies. Under these circumstances he deemed it pru- 
 dent to retire. He began his retreat by the old Roman road 
 which leads from Spain to France, 1 through the narrow and 
 gloomy pass of Roncesvalles ; 2 he passed through the gorge in 
 
 1 Astor'ga to Bordeaux (Bor-doh'). 
 
 2 Roncesvalles (Ron-se-val'les), in the Western Pyrenees. See Map No. IV., 
 page 26.
 
 34 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 safety ; but not so his rear-guard under the command of Roland. 
 There the wild tribes of the mountains, joined by the treacherous 
 Moors, attacked them with such fury and in such overwhelming 
 numbers that, encumbered as they were by baggage, they could 
 make but slight resistance : not a man, it is said, escaped to tell 
 the tale. 
 
 But the poets of that and following generations found in this 
 tragedy a fit theme for their genius. The death-struggle, which 
 no one saw save those engaged in it, they beheld with the eye of 
 the imagination, and the " Song of Roland " became one of the 
 great romances of the Middle Ages. It was recited in the peas- 
 ant's hut and the baron's castle. The warriors of the West of 
 Europe knew it by heart : and when the Normans, two centuries 
 later, fought that battle of Hastings by which they won the crown 
 of England, they advanced to the conflict singing of 
 
 " the blast of that wild horn, 
 On Fontarabian l echoes borne, 
 The dying hero's call, 
 That told imperial Charlemagne 
 How Paynim 2 sons of swarthy Spain 
 Had wrought his champion's fall." 3 
 
 But the reverse did not check the arms of the great king, and 
 he claimed the Spanish territory as far as the Ebro as part of his 
 dominions. 
 
 27. Conquest and Conversion of the Saxons. His campaigns, 
 however, were not yet over. The Saxons, who had been after 
 all but half conquered, broke out in revolt. They burned the 
 churches which the missionaries had erected, killed the preachers 
 of the Gospel, and compelled the Christians to flee the country. 
 Charlemagne raised an enormous force, and soon appeared on the 
 
 1 Fontarabian : from Fontara'bia, a fortified town of Spain, on the boundary 
 between France and that country. 
 
 2 Paynim : Pagan. s Sir Walter Scott's Poems.
 
 EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE. 35 
 
 scene of the rebellion. Such was the terror of his name that 
 many of the rebels had already fled, and he found the country 
 quiet. The king, however, was determined to make an example 
 of those who had dared defy his authority. He called a meeting 
 of the leading men, and demanded the delivery of the insurgents. 
 Four thousand five hundred prisoners were shortly after brought 
 bound into the camp at Verden. 1 Charlemagne gave orders that 
 the whole number should be executed. The work of death began ; 
 it lasted through the entire day, and when the sun set, their head- 
 less bodies lay on the banks of the Weser, whose stream ran red 
 with blood. This massacre, far from intimidating the survivors, 
 stirred them to frenzy. Another revolt broke out. Charlemagne, 
 raising a new army, ravaged the country with fire and sword. 
 The barbarians saw that they must choose once for all between 
 submission and extermination. Witikind, the chief of the Saxons, 
 came forward and gave himself up as a captive. So completely was 
 he overcome that he consented to enter a monastery for the rest 
 of his life. Charlemagne next began a series of conversions, not 
 by persuasion, but by force. He gave the Saxons their choice 
 between baptism and death. Under this edict the Church in- 
 creased rapidly in numbers. But even these measures were not 
 wholly effectual, and eventually the king adopted a different 
 policy. He carried off the inhabitants, men, women, and children, 
 by thousands, and settled them in colonies in Central and Southern 
 Europe, leaving in their stead strong military garrisons to hold the 
 country. 
 
 Next, he offered every half-naked barbarian who would come 
 forward and receive baptism a fine, new, white garment. The 
 bribe worked wonders. Instead of flying from immersion as they 
 formerly had, the Saxons begged for it. Once, it is said, the 
 stock of new garments did not hold out, and some of coarser 
 quality were hastily prepared. A gigantic chief, who received one 
 of these, looked at it with scorn. "I have been baptized here 
 
 1 Verden : on the Weser, a little southeast of Bremen.
 
 36 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 twenty times before," said he, "and never once got such linen as 
 that and if I didn't need the clothes, I would have nothing more 
 to do with such a mean-spirited religion." 
 
 28. Extent of Charlemagne's Dominions ; the Northmen. - 
 
 Thus, by the point of the sword in most cases, by exile and gifts 
 in others, Charlemagne extended the boundaries of his kingdom 
 until it comprised the greater part of Western Europe, from the 
 Atlantic to the main stream of the Danube, and from the Mediter- 
 ranean to the Baltic embracing the countries now included in 
 modern France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, part of 
 Hungary, part of Northern Spain, and more than two-thirds of 
 Italy. For the first time since the fall of the Roman Empire this 
 immense territory acknowledged one ruler. Charlemagne's dream 
 of geographical unity, at least so far as the Germanic races were 
 concerned, was in great measure accomplished. His example, 
 too, inspired the British prince Egbert, who was heir to the throne 
 of the West Saxons, but was then a refugee at Charlemagne's 
 court, so that after he came into possession of the crown, he com- 
 pelled all rival kings to submit to him, thus establishing the realm 
 of England. 
 
 In the spring of the year 800 Charlemagne set out for Rome. 
 On his journey, which occupied the entire summer and autumn, 
 he stopped for a time at a seaport on the Mediterranean. One 
 day, as he stood by the window, his attendants noticed that his 
 eyes were filled with tears. None of his great men dared to ques- 
 tion him, but he addressed one of them : " Do you see those ves- 
 sels in the distance?" asked the king. "I do, sire," was the 
 reply. " Well, those are the Northmen ; they have come to 
 insult these shores. For myself, I do not fear them ; but woe to 
 those who come after me." Charlemagne had reason for his fore- 
 boding. He had succeeded in putting a stop to the land invasions 
 of the barbarians, his realm was practically at peace ; but he was 
 powerless to check those Scandinavian pirates who, with their 
 swift-sailing barks, were ravaging England and threatening every
 
 EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE. 37 
 
 coast in Europe. A century later we shall see all that Charle- 
 magne dreaded come to pass. 
 
 29. Charlemagne crowned Emperor at Rome; his Plans. 
 
 Toward the end of November the king reached Rome. On Christ- 
 mas Day, followed by a numerous retinue, he entered the church 
 of St. Peter l to partake of the solemn communion which celebrated 
 the birth of the Saviour. He advanced toward the high altar and 
 knelt in prayer ; as he rose, the Pope stepped forward and placed 
 on his head a jewelled crown surmounted by a cross. Immediately 
 a shout filled the building : " Long life and victory to Charles 
 Augustus, 2 crowned by God, great and peace-giving emperor ! " 
 Thus did Charlemagne receive the sanction of the Church to his 
 scheme of resuscitating the imperial government of Christian Rome. 
 Thus, after more than three centuries had elapsed, the title of 
 Emperor of the West was revived. With the Pope's aid the newly 
 crowned potentate was resolved to establish the Holy Roman 
 Empire on an enduring foundation. Henceforth throughout Eu- 
 rope he would have but one state, one people, one universal or 
 Catholic faith. 
 
 To accomplish this gigantic undertaking Charlemagne employed 
 the following means : I. War ; II. National Assemblies ; III. 
 Courts and Royal Commissioners ; IV. The Clergy ; V. Educa- 
 tion ; VI. Commerce. What he had achieved through war we 
 have already seen in great measure. By it he had not only gained 
 his territory and his title, but he had organized the semi-barbarous 
 tribes and taught them to obey one will. His wars, in fact, were 
 so constant that he may be said never really to have been at peace. 
 
 30. "Fields of May"; Laws; Imperial Commissioners; Edu- 
 cation ; Public Improvements ; Influence Abroad. The chief 
 
 1 Not the present church which was not wholly completed until the seventeenth 
 century. 
 
 2 Augustus : a title originally given to Octavianus Cassar as supreme ruler. 
 Later, it became the surname of all the Roman emperors. Its use here implied 
 that Charlemagne had become the legitimate successor of the Caesars, and head of 
 the revived Roman (Christian) Empire.
 
 38 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 National Assembly, or the Field of May, 1 was held in the spring, 
 and was usually composed of the great officials and leading men 
 of the Empire, including, of course, the bishops and abbots, 
 though in case of war all freemen would probably attend. With 
 them Charlemagne took counsel respecting the enactment of stat- 
 utes, the general welfare of the country, and on questions relating 
 to war and peace. The real legislative power, however, rested 
 with the Emperor, and he was practically absolute. 
 
 One of his principal objects was to obtain uniformity of law 
 throughout the realm. Previous to his reign each people had had 
 its own laws, which were sometimes written, and at other times 
 were simply certain customs handed down from the earliest period. 
 On this account there was no proper unity. The Burgundians 
 might have one law, the Visigoths another, the Northern Franks a 
 third. At the south an attempt was made by the clergy to enforce a 
 modified form of the old written Roman law, while in the district of 
 which Paris was the centre, and beyond it, men were tried and 
 judged according to the primitive German customs. These old 
 Frankish customs recognized only two capital offences ; one was 
 desertion from the army, the other was cowardice in battle. The 
 deserter was hanged ; the coward was suffocated in a mud hole. 
 Murder and all other crimes were punished by fine. If a man 
 killed a noble or a bishop, it cost him heavily, perhaps ruined him ; 
 but if he killed a common man, he got off easily. 2 In case a crim- 
 inal refused to appear for trial, or failed to pay the sum prescribed, 
 
 1 The Field of May : so called because the assembly met in May, generally in a 
 field or public square. The Field of May did not originate with Charlemagne, but 
 grew out of an ancient German assembly of the Franks held in March, and hence 
 called the Field of March. Once every freeman had a right to take part in these 
 meetings ; but under Charlemagne this was practically restricted to the chief men 
 (nobles and higher clergy), except in emergencies. From 770 to 813 Charlemagne 
 held thirty-five of these national assemblies. 
 
 2 The murderer of a swineherd incurred a fine of 30 sols (a sol being about $1.85, 
 or, reckoned at the present value of money, about ten times as much, or $18.50). 
 
 The murderer of an able-bodied slave incurred a fine of 150 sols. 
 
 The murderer of a nobleman or priest incurred a fine of 600 sols. 
 
 These rates varied at different periods and in different parts of the country.
 
 EUROPE 
 
 IN THE TIME OF 
 
 CHARLES THE GREAT 
 
 814. /
 
 30 38 40 45 50 It 80 
 
 ~] TTerf 
 
 ~~\ Eastern CalipJtate
 
 
 EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE. 39 
 
 he was declared an outlaw and hunted down like a wild beast. If 
 he had not means to pay, and his friends would not pay for him, 
 the injured person or his relatives took his body, and he became 
 a slave. 
 
 As in those days there were few ways of discovering the facts 
 in difficult cases, it was the custom to presume the prisoner guilty 
 until he proved the contrary. He might do this, first, by swearing 
 that he was innocent, and getting a number of reputable men to 
 swear that they believed him. Secondly, if he could not bring 
 such witnesses, he was obliged to undergo the ordeal, or "judgment 
 of God." He appealed to Heaven to vindicate him, and then, in 
 the presence of priests and other witnesses, carried a piece of 
 red-hot iron a certain distance, or plunged his bare arm up to 
 the elbow in boiling water. 1 If, after several days had elapsed, he 
 appeared to have escaped serious harm, he was acquitted ; if not, 
 he had to suffer the penalty of his crime. 
 
 Finally, in certain cases, the accused had the right to challenge 
 his accusers to fight in mortal combat. If he came off victor, it 
 was believed that God had interposed in his behalf. Such customs 
 show how hard it was in that age to collect evidence in regard to 
 crime. Underneath these rude attempts at justice was the idea 
 that there is a Power, above ourselves, that is on the side of right- 
 eousness. 
 
 Charlemagne's constant effort was to improve on these primitive 
 methods. His edicts or laws 2 embrace every subject, political, 
 civil, military, and ecclesiastical. Not infrequently they begin 
 with a quotation from the Ten Commandments or from the laws 
 of Moses. 
 
 These edicts extend to every relation of man to man or of man 
 to property. They also relate to the government of the Empire 
 and the supervision of the imperial estates. Some lay down rules 
 
 1 There were also various other ordeals, but all rested on the same general prin- 
 ciple. 
 
 2 Sixty-five of Charlemagne's edicts, or " capitularies," containing over a thousand 
 articles, have come down to us.
 
 4O LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 for the guidance of generals of the army, others for the conduct 
 and behavior of bishops ; others give minute instructions respect- 
 ing the Emperor's farms, and even order what shall be done with 
 a surplus of hens' eggs. 
 
 To insure the energetic, faithful, and uniform administration of 
 these laws, Charlemagne appointed special officers, called counts, 
 who had the government of districts or cities. Next, he appointed 
 special commissioners to travel through the Empire and oversee 
 these counts. 
 
 The commissioners went out in pairs, a count and a bishop, 
 and were called the " Emperor's Eyes," since it was their duty to 
 spy out abuses and take measures for rectifying them. In accom- 
 plishing these and other reforms, Charlemagne made it a rule to 
 secure the co-operation of the clergy. At the same time he took 
 care to purge the Church of inefficient or unworthy men, fully 
 realizing that there was often more likelihood that the Church 
 would become barbarized than that the barbarians would become 
 Christianized. 
 
 With respect to education, he set the standard by establishing 
 the School of the Palace, under the leadership of Alcuin, a learned 
 Anglo-Saxon monk. Alcuin collected and restored many valuable 
 Latin manuscripts, and thus helped to lay the foundation for sound 
 classical scholarship. He also wrote Scripture commentaries and 
 a variety of other works, and encouraged discussion. These dis- 
 cussions were full of ingenious subtleties, rather than of profound 
 investigation ; but such as they were, they helped to keep thought 
 alive 1 in an age which lived almost wholly through the senses. 
 Although the Emperor never made great progress, yet, by his ex- 
 ample and efforts, he rekindled the pure and living flame of learn- 
 ing at a time when it seemed about to go out forever. Finally, 
 he encouraged and protected commerce, opened new roads, and 
 
 1 The following may serve as examples : " What is it which renders bitter things 
 sweet? Hunger." " What is that of which men never grow weary? Gain." " What 
 is hope? The refreshment of labor." " What is faith? The assurance of unknown 
 things."
 
 EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE. 41 
 
 placed guards along the rivers, coasts and highways to prevent 
 robbery. He also established great annual fairs, where merchants 
 and people gathered from all parts of Europe to buy and sell. 
 This intercourse did much to overcome the prejudices and hostil- 
 ities of different sections and races, and thus helped to give unity 
 to the Empire. 
 
 The fame of Charlemagne's achievements extended not only 
 throughout Europe, but even to the court of the caliph of Bagdad. 
 We have already seen its influence on England. 1 Centuries later 
 that influence still lived ; and when the great Emperor had long 
 been dust, Henry II. found in his legislative acts a model for those 
 reforms of justice which have made his name so conspicuous in 
 English history. 2 
 
 31. Failure of Charlemagne's Plans ; his Death; Results. 
 
 But however temporarily successful his work might be, Charle- 
 magne had, nevertheless, undertaken an impossible task. There 
 was in fact no real and permanent unity in the Empire. First, 
 the people were not of the same race : part were Italians, part 
 French, 3 part Germans. Next, there was no common language, 
 but each race had its own. Lastly, each had, or wished to have, its 
 own customs and laws. During Charlemagne's life his genius and 
 power held these antagonistic societies and peoples together. De- 
 ceived by the peace he had compelled, he believed that all that he 
 had accomplished would last. When he died, in 814, he ordered 
 that his corpse should be propped up in a royal chair of state and 
 placed in the vault of the cathedral of his capital at Aix-la-Chapelle. 4 
 In his lap lay an open Bible, in his hand a sceptre. Thus he 
 sought to make his lifeless body a material image of his enduring 
 power. But it was all in vain ; the forces of disintegration, held 
 in check for a time, speedily broke the realm to pieces. Still, all 
 was not lost. The effects of Charlemagne's policy of government 
 
 1 See Paragraph 28. 
 
 2 See Stubbs's Constitutional History of England, I. 494. 
 
 3 French, i.e., Romanized Celts of Gaul. 
 
 4 Aix-la-Chapelle (Akes la-Shah-pel') : German, Aachen.
 
 42 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 continued to make themselves felt. I. The establishment of his 
 capital so far north as Aix-la-Chapelle not only put a stop to the 
 land invasions of the Germans into Gaul, but made that city an 
 important centre of civilization. II. His schools also survived in 
 considerable measure, and continued to be a source of intellectual 
 activity. III. Finally, though the colossal empire broke into three 
 fragments, each of these became a nation. The Treaty of Ver- 
 dun, 1 made between the three grandsons of Charlemagne in 843, 
 was a turning-point in history. It stands the first important treaty 
 between European states ; it is connected with the oldest written 
 monument of the French language ; 2 it marks the beginning of the 
 three great sovereignties of Italy, Germany, and France, into which 
 the Empire was divided. 
 
 The map 3 shows France shorn of much of its former territory. 
 It no longer extends to the Rhine on the north, or to the Rhone 
 on the southeast, for all that long strip of country, reaching from 
 the Mediterranean to the North Sea, the Treaty of Verdun annexed 
 to Italy. That allotment has proved a source of constant war be- 
 tween Germany and France. Each has by turns tried to get pos- 
 session of that border land ; and though more than ten centuries 
 have elapsed since the division was made, the contest between the 
 two countries is not yet settled. 4 
 
 1 Verdun : a town of France, on the Meuse, northeast of Paris. See Map No. 
 IV., page 26. 
 
 2 After Charlemagne's death civil war broke out between his three grandsons, 
 Charles, Louis, and Lothaire. The first two eventually formed an alliance and took 
 a solemn oath in the spring of 842, which prepared the way for the Treaty of Verdun, 
 which gave France to Charles (or Karl), Germany to Louis (or Ludwig), and 
 Italy, with the strip of territory lying between Germany and France, to Lothaire (or 
 Lothar). Louis's oath, addressed to the Romanized Franks or Frenchmen, shows 
 the Latin language in the act of transformation into French. French, in fact, had 
 already made such progress that Charlemagne had been obliged to learn it, and 
 the clergy of his reign had taken to preaching in it. See Brachet's Historical 
 French Grammar, pages 12-15, where the oath is given entire. 
 
 8 See Map No. VI., page 42. 
 
 4 Out of the strips granted to Lothaire, which embraced Lorraine and Alsace, 
 France has recovered a considerable portion, and the rest has gone to form Holland 
 and parts of Germany, of Belgium, and of Switzerland.
 
 EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE. 43 
 
 After Charlemagne we meet no really great name in France for 
 a number of centuries. His descendants, like the " Sluggard 
 Kings " who preceded him, have no character. Their history is told 
 in their names, or rather nicknames, the " Meek," the " Bald," 
 the "Fat," the "Stammerer," the "Simple," and the "Fool." 
 Had France depended on them, she would never have risen. 
 Other hands and other brains were to build up the kingdom that 
 now had a name and a language of its own. 
 
 32. Summary. Charlemagne aimed at unity, in an age when 
 unity was practically impossible. But he succeeded in some of 
 his great measures he checked the most formidable of northern 
 invasions and he strengthened and reformed the Church. Europe 
 to-day rests in considerable degree on the three great divisions 
 of his empire, Germany, France, Italy. The greatness of his 
 character and his wonderful executive ability are unquestioned. 
 Napoleon at the height of his power used to style himself a 
 " second Charlemagne."
 
 44 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 V. 
 
 " Feudalism saved France from the consequences of the breaking up of 
 Charlemagne's empire; it brought order out of disorder; it bound man, by 
 certain clearly defined duties, to his fellow-man." RAMBAUD. 
 
 THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. THE COMING OF THE 
 NORTHMEN (814-987). 
 
 33. Beginning of a New Period; Charlemagne's Idea of 
 Freedom vs. the Germanic Idea. We have thus far traced the 
 history of France through four periods, Barbarism, Roman Im- 
 perialism, Barbarism or Semi-barbarism again, followed by the 
 Imperialism of Charlemagne. We are now about to enter a fifth 
 period wholly unlike all that preceded it, but one that was inevi- 
 table, that was in fact salutary, because it was the natural and 
 necessary product of the age. 
 
 Charlemagne's empire broke to pieces at last because his ideas of 
 political liberty were not in harmony with the times. Though he 
 was a German, he did not have the German idea of liberty, but the 
 old Roman conception. Caesar considered a man free if he was a 
 citizen of Rome or of some city under Roman protection ; Charle- 
 magne, applying this principle on a broader scale, considered him 
 free if he was a legal subject of his empire. 
 
 But the Germans had an entirely different notion of freedom. 
 With them it did not depend in any way on where a man lived or 
 to what community he belonged, but simply and solely on what he 
 was in himself. If he was able to defend himself and his posses- 
 sions by the strength of his own right arm, then they recognized 
 him as both free and noble ; if he could not, he speedily became a 
 slave.
 
 THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. 45 
 
 Again, Charlemagne, like Caesar, made everything centre in him- 
 self as supreme ruler ; but the natural tendency among the Franks 
 was not to have one ruler, but many, each tribe choosing its own. 
 
 34. Origin and Development of the Feudal System. Thus 
 when the Franks first invaded Gaul, every marauding band was 
 distinct from every other : often, indeed, it was hostile to every 
 other. When a band gained a victory, whatever plunder was taken 
 was divided by lot, the chief, of course, getting the largest share. 
 Later, when instead of raiding the country they settled in it, they 
 divided the land in the same way. As the chief had rewarded 
 his favorite followers with gifts from his share of the plunder, so 
 now he gave them land. At first no condition seems to have been 
 attached to such gifts, which were for life only ; but later, mili- 
 tary service was required by way of rent. Eventually these grants 
 with their obligations came to be regarded as hereditary, so that 
 they regularly descended from father to son. 1 
 
 The example set by the chiefs was followed by the leading men. 
 As they accumulated more land than they could profitably use, 
 they in turn made grants of it on similar conditions. In this way 
 they made sure of military followers, just as the chief had made 
 sure of their services. This service, too, was highly honorable and 
 marked the difference between the freeman and the man who was 
 not free. But these two classes did not constitute the entire popu- 
 lation. Besides the greater and lesser landholders bound together 
 by pledges of assistance in time of war, or by other conditions, 
 there were the small holders who had received a few acres as their 
 rightful and unconditional share after some battle, but who for 
 some reason had not increased their estates. They, of course, 
 were independent, and owed no service for their possessions ; but 
 they soon found out that such independence was as precarious as 
 it was dangerous. That was an age when to a great extent might 
 made right. War and pillage were going on continually, and every 
 
 1 It was in 877, under Charlemagne's successors, that this principle of hereditary 
 feudal descent became definitively established.
 
 46 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 man's home had literally to be his castle. If a stronger neighbor 
 happened to covet the particular piece of land which the small 
 independent farmer owned, there was nothing to prevent him from 
 seizing it. The owner then had his choice of turning outlaw or 
 serf. If he chose the first, he went into the woods and became a 
 robber like Robin Hood, in " Ivanhoe " ; if the last, he sank into 
 a condition but one remove from that of a slave. The only safety 
 for a man so situated was to surrender his possessions to some 
 powerful chief or lord, and receive them again on the mutual con- 
 dition that he, on the one hand, should perform some service for 
 them, and that the lord, on the other, should protect him in the 
 enjoyment of his property. 1 
 
 There was still another class ; namely, the serfs. These were in 
 most cases the natives of the country. When they had been con- 
 quered their possessions had passed to the victors, and the original 
 owners were forced to remain and cultivate the soil for their 
 masters. This class had certain legal rights. They could not be 
 bought and sold like slaves, who constituted the lowest class of 
 all, but they were bound to the soil and went with it. When, 
 therefore, a man acquired an estate, he got its serfs with it as much 
 as he got the trees that grew on it. Here, then, was a mighty social 
 pyramid. At the top stood the chief or king. Next came the great 
 lords, who were practically almost as much kings as their chief, though 
 of course the prestige of his name counted for something. Then 
 came the small landholders ; then the serfs. The absolute slaves 
 need not be counted, since they had practically no legal rights. 
 This system was called feudalism from the word feudum, mean- 
 ing landed property. 2 Its maxim was, " No land without a lord ; 
 no lord without land." It was, as we have seen, a contract 
 
 1 This practice was called commendation, because the person asking protection 
 commended himself to the other's care. The ordinary feudal grant was termed a 
 benefice; that is, a benefit or advantage. A man commended himself to a superior 
 by kneeling before him, placing his hands in his, and swearing to become "his 
 man"; in other words, to serve him faithfully. The lord, on the other hand, 
 re-invested him with his land and solemnly promised to protect him. 
 
 2 The Latin word feudum appears to have been derived from an old German
 
 THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. 47 
 
 of mutual obligation. It meant that if you will do something for 
 me, I will do something for you if you will fight my battles, I 
 will fight yours. Every man from the serf up owed service to 
 some one above him j every man from the king down owed pro- 
 tection to some one beneath him. Finally, this system extended 
 to all men and all institutions : even the Church held its posses- 
 sions on feudal conditions and had to fight or pray for every acre 
 of ground it owned. This system, which eventually became estab-' 
 lished throughout Europe, had already made some progress, when 
 Charlemagne came to the throne : he labored not to regulate 
 it, but to supplant it, by endeavoring to establish one central 
 supreme power ; but though he succeeded for a time, yet he really 
 accomplished nothing. After his death the local order and sta- 
 bility which he had built up gave feudalism new life and more 
 complete organization, so that Charlemagne, instead of destroying 
 it, may be said to be its real founder. 1 
 
 35. Good Results of Feudalism; Order; Mutual Depen- 
 dence; Elevation of Woman. Feudalism was attended with 
 terrible abuses and revolting tyranny. Yet with all its evils, it was 
 far better than warring, restless, destructive barbarism on the one 
 hand, or than Roman despotism on the other. Without it Europe 
 would surely have been torn to pieces by ferocious hordes of 
 robbers. 
 
 Feudalism established a certain degree of order. It gave to 
 every man his due place and rank. If he was able, he rose to the 
 top ; if he was incapable, he sank to the bottom. It enabled 
 society to hold a fixed territory and to improve it. It cultivated 
 habits of fidelity on the part of the vassal or dependent toward his 
 lord ; it bound the lord by ties of honor to his vassal. 
 
 Finally, feudalism gave to woman a better position than she had 
 ever had before. Generally she had been either a plaything or a 
 drudge ; but to the baron in his castle she became a true domestic 
 
 word meaning cattle. Later it was applied to the land on which the cattle grazed, 
 and so gradually came to mean property in general. 
 1 See on this point Gibbon and Guizot.
 
 48 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 companion. His very isolation necessarily brought this about. 
 His castle was his only place of security. From it he sallied out 
 on expeditions of war. To it he returned after victory. Every 
 one else was his inferior; but his wife and children were his 
 equals. Their interests and his were one. No matter, therefore, 
 how low, how brutal he might be, he could not escape the gentle 
 and refining influence of home, nor could he fail to see that it was 
 the wife and mother who made that home. 
 
 36. Feudal France. We have seen that the Treaty of Verdun 
 made France a separate kingdom. 1 But it was not a kingdom in 
 the modern sense of the word, but simply a group of feudal states 
 governed by dukes and counts, one of whom held the royal title. 
 Thus at the close of the ninth century France consisted of twenty- 
 nine such divisions, answering, we may say, to our counties, while 
 a century later there were no less than fifty-five. The rulers of 
 these provinces were literally monarchs of all they surveyed. Each 
 one lived in a castle, which was but another name for a fortress. 
 He had hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of armed retainers who 
 were bound to fight under his banner under all circumstances ; 
 even, in fact, if he resisted the commands of the king. On his 
 vast estates he had multitudes of serfs laboring to support him 
 and his fighting men. On his domains no man could gainsay him. 
 He declared war or peace. He administered justice, sending the 
 culprit to the gallows or the dungeon as he thought best. He 
 levied taxes and coined money. He, in short, was absolute : and 
 although theoretically bound to serve the king, yet as a matter of 
 fact he rarely did unless the king made it for his interest to do so, 
 or could raise a force that could compel him to obey. 
 
 37. Invasion of the Northmen. Late in the ninth -century 
 an event occurred which was destined to have an important influ- 
 ence on all Northern France. It will be remembered that Charle- 
 magne had predicted 2 that the day would come when the Danes 
 and Norwegians would ravage the country. Shortly after his death, 
 
 l See Paragraph 31. 2 See Paragraph 28.
 
 THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. 49 
 
 the long, light vessels of these sea-robbers made their appearance 
 at the mouths of the Loire and the Seine. They were filled with 
 the same dauntless rovers who had invaded Russia, Italy, Spain, 
 and England ; they had pushed out into the broad Atlantic, that 
 " Sea of Darkness," as it was then called, and had discovered and 
 settled Iceland, planted colonies on the bleak shores of Greenland, 
 and, five centuries before Columbus, had penetrated the forests of 
 the New World. So great was the terror which these freebooters 
 inspired, that in the lower river valleys the laborers did not dare to 
 cultivate their corn, or gather the grapes in their vineyards : every- 
 where near the coast there were burning villages and slaughtered 
 peasants. Later, the Northmen grew still bolder, and advancing 
 up the Seine threatened Paris itself. 
 
 They were no longer content to plunder, but purposed seizing 
 the land and holding it as their own. This, however, was no easy 
 undertaking, for the barons, sallying out from their strongholds with 
 their armed followers, repeatedly drove them back, sometimes with 
 heavy loss. 
 
 38. Hollo attacks Paris. In 885 Rollo, a gigantic Norse 
 chief, whom it was said no horse could carry, resolved to conquer 
 the country. 1 He sailed up the Seine to Paris with seven hundred 
 vessels and thirty thousand warriors, and besieged it for a year 
 and a half. But thanks to the city's strong walls and stout hearts, 
 it did not surrender. Then Rollo fell back on Rouen, 2 a city on 
 the lower Seine, which he had previously captured. Making that 
 his chief centre of operation, he proceeded to get possession of 
 the country round about. 
 
 Meantime, on the death of Charles the Fat, the empire, tempo- 
 rarily restored, had again broken up, this time permanently, into 
 the three kingdoms of Italy, France, and Germany (887). Count 
 
 1 In the reign of Charles the Fat, under whom the three kingdoms of France, 
 Italy, and Germany, into which Charlemagne's empire had broken up, were once 
 more united for a short time. 
 
 2 Rouen (Rwan or Roo'en).
 
 5O LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 Eudes, the valiant defender of Paris, was chosen king by an inde- 
 pendent party of lords. His real power, however, was confined to 
 Paris and Northern France. A few years later Eudes was suc- 
 ceeded by Charles the Simple, who had been previously chosen 
 king by the party who clung to the degenerate Carolingian line. 
 Charles, finding that he was no match for the Northmen, prudently 
 resolved to make a virtue of necessity, and by giving Rollo the 
 territory he had occupied, he hoped to gain his allegiance. Alfred 
 the Great, of England, had already set the example of making such 
 a treaty, and had virtually given half his kingdom to the Danes or 
 Northmen, on condition that they should leave him in undisturbed 
 possession of the remainder. 
 
 The negotiation with Rollo was carried on through the medium 
 of the Church. The Archbishop of Rouen was empowered to offer 
 him the king's daughter in marriage, and a territory of over ten 
 thousand square miles in extent, having Rouen for its capital. The 
 only condition imposed by Charles, was that, in accordance with 
 feudal custom, Rollo should duly acknowledge him as sovereign. 
 To this the Northman made no objection, knowing that he pos- 
 sessed the power of keeping or breaking his oath of allegiance 
 as might be most convenient. 
 
 He received the province from Charles in a great assembly 
 (911-912). The grant was made in solemn feudal form on the 
 monarch's part, and that ceremony over, Rollo was informed that 
 nothing now remained to complete the transfer but the act of 
 homage, by which he was to kneel and kiss the king's foot. 
 " Never," answered the barbarian, fiercely. " I will bow the knee 
 to no one, much less will I kiss any man's foot." Finally, after 
 much persuasion from the bishop, he agreed to perform his part 
 by proxy, and accordingly ordered one of his warriors to do what 
 was required. The man obeyed ; but instead of kneeling, seized the 
 king's foot, and lifted it so vigorously and so high, that his majesty 
 was thrown sprawling backward on the ground, amid shouts of 
 laughter from many of the spectators, who fully appreciated this 
 part of the ceremony. The discomfited king recovered himself
 
 THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. 51 
 
 as best he could, without daring to expostulate. Though he had 
 sacrificed his dignity he had gained peace, for it was now for 
 the interest of the robber chief to make the most of his newly 
 conferred domain, and defend it against such marauding bands of 
 his own countrymen as might attempt to land on the coast or sail 
 up the river. 
 
 The new settlers soon showed that though they came as barba- 
 rians, they had no intention of remaining such. They accepted 
 the Christian faith, rebuilt the burned churches and monasteries, 
 adopted the French tongue and the feudal system. 
 
 In time their province became the most civilized and the most 
 prosperous portion of France. The name of Northmen, once a 
 terror, was softened to Norman, and the district they held called 
 Normandy. The pirate Rollo became the founder of a long line 
 of chiefs or rulers who took the title of dukes of Normandy ; and 
 one of whom, as we shall see, six generations later, not content 
 with his French possessions, crossed the Channel and added Eng- 
 land to them by conquest. 
 
 39. Summary. Feudalism reconstructed society on the only 
 basis then possible. It was a bridge from barbarism to monarchy. 
 The invasion of the Northmen, though seemingly a calamity, was 
 really a benefit. They brought fresh, vigorous life. Their courage 
 and their energy gave the country a new and needed impulse in 
 progress and in civilization.
 
 52 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 VI. 
 
 " When the last day of the tenth century and the first of the eleventh were 
 past, it was like a general regeneration . . . and the work was begun of ren- 
 dering the Christian world worthy of the future." GUIZOT. 
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF HUGH CAPET TO THE CONQUEST 
 OF ENGLAND, 987-1066. THE BEGINNING OF THE TRUE 
 FRENCH MONARCHY. THE END OF THE WORLD. WIL- 
 LIAM THE CONQUEROR. 
 
 Hugh Capet, 987-996. Henry I., 1031-1060. 
 
 Robert the Pious, 996-1031. Philip I., 1060-1108. 
 
 40. Hugh Capet begins the Line of French Kings. Peace 
 had been made with the Northmen, but now another serious ques- 
 tion came up. Should the feeble descendants of Charlemagne be 
 allowed to continue to rule by virtue of their descent, or should 
 the feudal lords of France choose one of their own number as 
 sovereign ? 
 
 This contest for supremacy was well represented by the feeling 
 that then prevailed between the rival cities of Laon 1 and Paris. 
 Laon, in the northeast of France, was the capital of the Carolin- 
 gian kings, and was much more German than French. Charles 
 the Simple and his successors made this city their principal resi- 
 dence. They refused to speak any language but German, and 
 would not identify themselves with the French further than neces- 
 sity compelled. In case of any difficulty with the feudal lords they 
 
 1 Laon (Lah'on).
 
 BEGINNING OF THE FRENCH MONARCHY. 53 
 
 would cross the boundary, which was not far off, and seek the 
 protection of the German emperor. 
 
 After nearly a century of strife between the barons, or lords, and 
 the Carolingian family the former triumphed, and in 987 they 
 chose Hugh Capet, 1 Count of Paris, king. Though Hugh was of 
 Saxon descent, he was thoroughly French in his ideas and sympa- 
 thies. In him, therefore, it may be truly said that "France has at 
 last a French king." Furthermore, his election by the great nobles 
 of the north made him more nearly a national sovereign than any 
 of his predecessors, who had in most cases inherited the crown. 
 His accession is an important epoch : on the one hand it marks 
 the end of the Frankish rulers, both Merovingian and Carolin- 
 gian, whose power was founded on conquest ; on the other, the 
 beginning of the proper history of France. From Hugh Capet 
 descended every sovereign the Napoleons only excepted that 
 has since ruled the country. 
 
 41. The New King has Little Real Power. But we must not 
 be misled by a title. To be king in that age meant nothing more 
 than to be the nominal head of a few great lords who considered 
 themselves practically the equals of royalty. A glance at the map 2 
 will show that the royal domain was then a small territory having 
 Paris as its capital. The whole of it was less than a twentieth of the 
 France of to-day. It is true that the important dukedom of Bur- 
 gundy on the east and of Normandy on the west, with some lesser 
 feudal districts, acknowledged their allegiance to Hugh. 3 But that 
 acknowledgment seldom meant much. The king had no national 
 army and no national revenue. He, like the other feudal lords, 
 was dependent on his retainers. Outside the dukedom of France 
 where he reigned he could not raise a soldier or a dollar save as 
 
 1 Capet (Kap-ay') : properly a nickname, meaning either the "Cowled" (from 
 the abbot's cowl which Hugh wore as lay abbot of the three chief abbeys of France), 
 or the " Big-headed," the " Stubborn." Surnames had not then come into use, and 
 nearly every one was designated by what we should now call a nickname. 
 
 2 See Map No. IX, page 106. 
 
 8 Hugh's brother was Duke of Burgundy, and his brother-in-law was Duke of 
 Normandy.
 
 54 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 the neighboring barons chose to help him. In fact, of the two, 
 the Duke of Normandy might be held to be the more powerful, 
 for by his control of the lower Seine he might, in case of quarrel 
 with the king, cut off a large part of the supplies of Paris. 
 
 South of the Loire, on the other hand, the barons hardly deigned 
 to recognize the existence of the new king, much less to obey him, 
 so that his actual power was small. 1 Yet, out of that slender be- 
 ginning, the modern kingdom of France was eventually to arise. 
 
 An incident which occurred a few years after the king's corona- 
 tion illustrates the turbulent spirit of the times. The monarch 
 had occasion to require the assistance of the Count of Pe'rigord, 2 
 one of his vassals. The count, however, flatly refused to render it. 
 In his rage Hugh cried out to the refractory noble, " Who made 
 you count? " to which the latter, not at all abashed, retorted, "Who 
 made you king?" In truth, Hugh's short reign was a constant 
 struggle for supremacy. A Carolingian claimant to the crown had 
 entrenched himself in Laon, and formed alliances with the cities 
 of Soissons and Reims. In most cases the only way in which Hugh 
 could secure the efficient aid of his barons was by granting them 
 some gift of land which he could ill spare. In 996 he died and 
 left the crown, without opposition, to his son, Robert the Pious. 
 Thus the French feudal monarchy was established on that heredi- 
 tary basis on which it was to rest until the great Revolution of the 
 eighteenth century swept away its foundations forever. 
 
 42. The End of the World. But an event was now believed 
 to be at hand, compared with which every other sank into utter 
 insignificance. The year 1000 would soon be reached. Accord- 
 ing to commonly accepted religious ideas of the age, 3 that date 
 was to see the consummation of all things and the end of the 
 world. So great was the misery of the majority of the people, 
 
 1 By reference to the map it will be seen that the whole country then consisted 
 of nine chief dukedoms and counties, of which three (Aquitaine or Guyenne, Tou- 
 louse, and Gascony) , in all about half of the whole territory, were south of the Loire. 
 
 2 Perigord (Pay-ree-gor'). 3 Based on Revelation xx. 7.
 
 END OF THE WORLD. 55 
 
 through extortion and oppression, through war, pestilence, and 
 famine, that one might have thought that the destruction of the 
 globe would almost have been welcomed as a relief. On the con- 
 trary, every one was filled with terror. The rich and the powerful 
 made large gifts to the Church, 1 or went on pilgrimages to distant 
 shrines, or entered monasteries in atonement for their sins. The 
 poor refused to till the soil and waited in an agony of expectation 
 for the terrible day. 
 
 "Day of wrath, that day of burning, 
 All shall melt, to ashes turning. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 When the Judge shall come in splendor, 
 Strict to mark and just to render ! " 2 
 
 Hope in the future had ceased, and everywhere the doleful cry 
 was heard, " The end of the world is at hand ! " When the year 
 999 drew to a close, multitudes gathered in the churches and 
 churchyards, in order to spend their last hours on earth in holy 
 places. Amid prayer and supplication, fasting and scourging, the 
 awful day dawned when men listened for the sound of that trumpet 
 which was to summon both the quick and the dead, to answer for 
 the deeds done in the body. But as the day wore on, and Nature 
 pursued her customary course, hope began slowly to revive. Then, 
 as day succeeded day, and the globe still remained, new life was 
 born in men's hearts. 
 
 43. The New Life ; Architecture. Yet the world had indeed 
 come to an end, not the material world, but the old barbaric 
 order of things. That had finished its course, and a higher age was 
 beginning. There would still be violence, bloodshed, suffering, and 
 death ; but there would also be what there had not been before, 
 faith, hope, and progress. From that period a different spirit 
 seemed gradually to animate society, lifting, lightening, changing 
 
 1 Many of the deeds making these gifts begin with the words, " In view of the 
 approaching end of the world." 
 
 2 From the " Dies Irae." This hymn, though written two centuries later, may 
 nevertheless be taken as a true expression of the feeling at this time.
 
 56 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 it as the housewife's leaven changes the mass of inert dough into 
 wholesome bread. 
 
 Especially was this spirit seen in architecture. Before this, men 
 had not dared build for permanence except where security made 
 permanence a necessity. Now began to arise those magnificent 
 cathedrals and noble abbeys which cover France with their imper- 
 ishable forms of grandeur and beauty. First came the rounded 
 Norman arch with the square massive tower ; then, step by step, 
 the pointed Gothic arch, with tapering spire, the embodiment of 
 aspiration and devotion in sculptured stone. 
 
 44. Institution of Chivalry. This new spirit manifested itself 
 also in the change which now began in the conduct of military 
 affairs. Up to this period wars had been utterly brutal and 
 savage. It was not an uncommon thing for a victorious baron 
 when he stormed a castle, to cut off the hands or tear out the eyes 
 of such of the unfortunate prisoners who fell into his hands as had 
 particularly exasperated him by their resistance or whose future 
 resentment he had especial reason to dread. But now the senti- 
 ment of honor and of religion gave birth to that institution of 
 chivalry which reached its highest development about a century 
 later. Chivalry may be defined as the consecration of arms to a 
 noble, though partial, ideal of life. The knight made himself the 
 champion of the Church and of all women of gentle birth. His 
 motto was, " nobility of rank demands nobility of character." He 
 bound himself to redress wrong, to hold fast to the truth, to meet 
 danger fearlessly, to show mercy to the vanquished, to treat all of 
 his own class with magnanimity and courtesy. 
 
 Thus knighthood or chivalry, whatever its imperfections, became, 
 as Guizot says, "the most splendid fact of the Middle Ages." So 
 that we may say that the highest type of the Christian gentleman 
 to-day is simply chivalry in its full and perfect development, no 
 longer restricted to class or rank. 
 
 To reach this honor of knighthood a long course of training was 
 required. The youth who aspired to it must be of good family.
 
 INSTITUTION OF CHIVALRY. 57 
 
 When a boy, he entered the service of some baron or warrior of 
 renown, following him on his expeditions and bearing his shield or 
 spear. He diligently practised all-athletic and manly exercises, 
 learning to ride, to use the weapons of his calling, and to inure 
 himself to exposure and fatigue. In the society of the ladies of 
 the castle he learned to be polite, deferential, courteous, and help- 
 ful. When he reached manhood he prepared himself for receiv- 
 ing knighthood. Clad in robes whose colors symbolized purity 
 and devotion, he spent an allotted time in fasting and prayer ; 
 next, after confession and absolution, and having partaken of the 
 sacrament, his sword was blessed, and he was instructed by the 
 priest in the duties of a true knight. Then having put on his 
 armor and taken the vow of chivalry, 1 he knelt in the presence of 
 his friends before some prince or warrior of renown, who, striking 
 him lightly on the shoulder with the flat of his sword, said, " In 
 the name of God, St. Michael, and St. George, 2 I make thee 
 knight ; be valiant, bold, and loyal." 3 
 
 This, like every other ideal, was but partially attained ; but it 
 was at least an effort to rise above the ruffianism, cruelty, and vio- 
 lence of the age ; and whatever were the failures and defects of 
 chivalry, however much it ultimately degenerated, it is safe to say 
 the world was the better for its existence. 
 
 45. The Terrible Famines of the Eleventh Century. But 
 
 though this upward movement had begun, terrible calamities were 
 still in store. We must remember that agriculture was then but 
 very imperfectly understood, that roads hardly existed, that all 
 means of transportation were both difficult and dangerous. To- 
 
 1 This included purity, valor, compassion, the defence of the Church, and loyalty 
 to the king. 
 
 2 St. Michael : prince of the celestial armies and vanquisher of evil. St. George : 
 a Christian hero of the fourth century. 
 
 3 A knight who failed to keep his vows was degraded; his arms were taken from 
 him, and he was publicly expelled from the order as one henceforth " dead to 
 honor." After its decline chivalry fell into many extravagances, and became both 
 silly and corrupt ; but for centuries it did good work.
 
 58 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 day a great famine is almost impossible in any civilized quarter of 
 the world, since if the crops fail in one section, food can be 
 readily and rapidly brought by steam from another. But eight 
 centuries ago, if blight and drought destroyed the grain over any 
 large extent of territory, no relief could be had, and famine was 
 inevitable. This happened in France between 1027 and 1033. So 
 terrible was the dearth that multitudes perished. Men ate grass, 
 roots, chalk, clay, anything, in fact, to satisfy the cravings of 
 hunger. Later, when the distress increased, they fell upon each 
 other. To add to the horror of the time, the heaps of unburied 
 dead bred pestilence, and wild beasts, coming out of the forests, 
 attacked the defenceless inhabitants of the towns. War ceased, 
 and men solemnly bound themselves to peace. 
 
 46. The Truce of God. After the famine was over, the pri- 
 vate warfare of baron with baron, which was at once the chief 
 occupation and the curse of the period, again broke out. But 
 now the Church interfered, and, though it could not put an entire 
 stop to the practice, yet it checked it in some measure by the 
 establishment of the Truce of God, which forbade fighting from 
 Wednesday evening to Monday morning of every week, and also 
 during such solemn seasons as Lent and Advent. 
 
 So earnest were the clergy in this good work, that though by 
 what was called the Right of Sanctuary they protected the op- 
 pressed, the weak, and even the criminal who fled from violence 
 or punishment, and took refuge within the consecrated walls of the 
 church, yet they refused this privilege to those who intentionally 
 broke the Truce of God. The ordinance, it is true, was not, in fact 
 could not be, uniformly enforced, but it was a step in the right 
 direction ; it secured a measure of quiet and safety to the afflicted 
 country, especially to the poor, and thus it fostered agriculture and 
 the arts of peace at a time when they were most sorely needed. 
 
 47. William, Duke of Normandy, conquers England. But 
 though the Truce of God served to check in some degree those 
 private feuds and quarrels of baron with baron, which were of the
 
 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 59 
 
 nature of civil war, yet it in nowise prevented ambitious men from 
 seeking glory and profit by foreign conquest. 
 
 In 1066 William, Duke of Normandy, a descendant of Rollo the 
 Northman, finding his province too small to satisfy him, resolved 
 to cross the Channel and attack England. Though he had no 
 legal claim whatever to the crown of that country, yet he easily 
 found a pretext for one. The English king, Edward the Confessor, 
 was second cousin to William, and before he came to the crown 
 had spent many years at the duke's palace in Normandy. By 
 education as well as by birth on his mother's side, he was Norman, 
 and all his tastes and sympathies were Norman also. He sur- 
 rounded himself with Norman favorites in both Church and State, 
 and during a visit of William at his court, it was said that he 
 promised the duke that he should succeed him. On his death, 
 however, his brother-in-law Harold, the son of Earl Godwin, 
 a thorough Englishman in all respects, was chosen king by the 
 national council. Some years before that event Harold was 
 wrecked on the French coast, and fell into William's power. The 
 wily duke is said to have taken advantage of the situation by 
 getting Harold by stratagem to swear on a chest of holy relics, 
 either that he would marry William's daughter, and make her 
 queen of England in case he obtained the crown, or else that he 
 would relinquish the throne to the duke. When, at Edward the 
 Confessor's death, Harold was chosen king, he refused to carry 
 out his agreement, whatever it may have been, and William 
 resolved to invade his kingdom and take it from him. 
 
 The Pope, who was desirous of enforcing his authority more com- 
 pletely in England, and also of obtaining a larger revenue from that 
 country, favored the expedition, and sent William a consecrated 
 banner to be borne in it. 
 
 After many delays, the duke, with a large force of archers and 
 cavalry, crossed the Channel on Sept. 27, 1066, and landed under 
 the walls of the old deserted Roman city of Anderida, now called 
 Pevensey, not far from Hastings. 1 As he stepped ashore, his foot 
 
 1 See Map No. VII., page 70.
 
 6O LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 slipped, and he fell on his face. "A bad sign ! a bad sign ! " said 
 the terrified warriors, as they hastened to help him up. But 
 William, who cared little for omens, whether good or bad, grasped 
 both hands full of English earth, crying out, "Thus do I seize the 
 land." 
 
 On the 1 4th of October a great battle was fought at Senlac, 1 a 
 place between Pevensey and Hastings. Harold was defeated and 
 left dead on the field, and the English army was cut to pieces. 
 William then marched on London, which, unable to make any 
 adequate resistance, opened its gates to him, and on the following 
 Christmas Day he was crowned king of England in Westminster 
 Abbey. 
 
 48. Results of the Conquest in England. The effect of 
 this conquest was advantageous rather than disastrous to Eng- 
 land. William proved himself an able though stern ruler. He 
 dispossessed thousands of Englishmen of their estates, and gave 
 them to his Norman followers. He likewise put foreigners in 
 all the high offices of the Church; yet he thereby introduced 
 a higher civilization and better government. Feudalism had 
 already become established in considerable degree in England, 
 and it threatened to produce there the same results that it had in 
 France ; that is, to divide the country among a number of powerful 
 and rapacious nobles, always at war with each other. William had 
 not only seen these evils in his own land, but had in fact helped to 
 increase them not a little by his own refractory conduct toward the 
 French king. He was determined that in England the central 
 and royal power should not be at the mercy of the barons : he ac- 
 cordingly took a census of the country, 2 and then, calling a great 
 meeting of the chief landholders and their vassals (1086), he com- 
 
 1 After the contest the place was named " Battle." Here William built Battle 
 Abbey to commemorate the victory. 
 
 2 Domesday Book : see Paragraph 169, " Leading Facts of English History," 
 in this series.
 
 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 6 1 
 
 pelled them all, from the highest to the lowest, to swear allegiance 
 to him, and to him only, as supreme ruler. 1 
 
 Further than this, William made but few changes. He left the 
 great body of English laws, customs, and institutions as he found 
 them. The English language, though modified to some extent by 
 the introduction of French words, still remained the tongue of the 
 chief part of the population, and eventually it became the language 
 of legislation, literature, and society. In France the great barons 
 stood apart from each other ; but in England, surrounded as they 
 were by a hostile people, they were obliged to act and consult 
 together. In the end, this habit helped powerfully toward estab- 
 lishing a national council or parliament an institution that 
 France lacked, chiefly from the want of unity among its great 
 men. For a number of generations the Norman kings and nobles 
 continued to cling to their possessions on the continent, and to 
 regard Normandy as their real home : but constant quarrels and 
 wars with the French sovereign, growing out of their feudal rela- 
 tions to him, followed by the loss of their French territory, finally 
 alienated them. Little by little, victors and vanquished united. 
 Originally branches of the same northern race, there was nothing 
 fundamental to separate them, and their situation practically made 
 their interests one. Normans and English ultimately joined forces 
 to subjugate France on the one hand, and to secure the welfare 
 and constitutional progress of England on the other. Thus in the 
 end, English influences triumphed over the French in Britain, and 
 the conquerors were themselves conquered. 
 
 49. Results of the English Conquest in France. The 
 effect on France was for a long time disastrous. The unwillingness 
 of William and his successors, now sovereigns in their own right, 
 to continue to do homage to the king of France, who was jealous 
 of their power, kept Normandy in a state of almost chronic insur- 
 
 1 It will be remembered that the weak point in French feudalism was that the 
 followers of the great barons swore allegiance to them in all cases ; so that if the 
 barons revolted against the crown, their followers fought with them and for them.
 
 62 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 rection. But in the course of time this very struggle developed 
 the power of the French ruler, and thus enabled him to maintain a 
 greater degree of order and peace throughout his dominions. 
 Finally, the removal of the Norman power from Normandy to 
 England lightened the pressure on the people and led to the 
 attempts of Le Mans and other towns to free themselves from 
 feudal exactions. At first their efforts were unavailing, but at last, 
 as we shall see later on, they succeeded in gaining the liberty they 
 sought. 
 
 50. Summary. The most important characteristics of this 
 period are the beginning of the true French monarchy under Hugh 
 Capet, followed by the panic concerning the end of the world and 
 the subsequent commencement of a new period of life. This was 
 illustrated in architecture, in the Truce of God, and in the institu- 
 tion of chivalry. William the Norman's conquest of England now 
 brings France into close relation with that country, and has a 
 powerful influence on the future career of both kingdoms.
 
 THE CRUSADES. 63 
 
 VII. 
 
 " The Crusades had their origin in France . . . they were the first European 
 event." GUIZOT. 
 
 THE CRUSADES. RISE OF THE FREE CITIES. WAR WITH 
 KXGLAND, CONQUEST OF NORMANDY. THE ALBIGENSES. 
 BATTLE OF BOUVINES. SAINT LOUIS AND THE LAST 
 CRUSADE, 1095-1270. 
 
 Philip I., 1060-1108. Philip II. (Augustus), 1180-1223. 
 
 Louis VI., 1108-1137. Louis VIII., 1223-1226. 
 
 Louis VII., 1 137-1 180. Louis IX. (Saint Louis), 1226-1270. 
 
 51. Events leading to the Crusades; Pilgrimages to Jeru- 
 salem. The conquest which William, Duke of Normandy, had 
 effected in the West in 1066, was followed a little less than thirty 
 years later by an undertaking of equal magnitude in the East. 
 This also originated in France. At first it was an attempt to 
 recover the holy places of Palestine from the Mohammedans; 
 afterwards to establish French principalities in Syria. The enter- 
 prise grew out of the pilgrimages made to the sepulchre of Christ 
 in Jerusalem. In a rude age such pious journeys served an im- 
 portant purpose. At a time when few could read, they familiarized 
 multitudes with the places closely connected with sacred history, 
 and thus helped to keep alive that spirit of religion and reverence 
 which barbarism and violence threatened to utterly destroy. 
 
 About the close of the tenth century, when it was expected that 
 the world would soon come to an end, these pilgrimages to the 
 East naturally greatly increased. Many rough men, like the father
 
 64 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 of William the Conqueror, sought to appease their consciences 
 and expiate lives of crime and bloodshed by making the journey 
 to Jerusalem, as Henry IV. of England purposed doing, centuries 
 later, that they might see 
 
 " those holy fields 
 
 Over whose acres walked those blessed feet 
 Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed 
 For our advantage to the bitter cross." 1 
 
 Probably those who then went believed that it was their last 
 earthly undertaking. They took with them their ascension robes, 
 in the firm faith that at the Judgment Day they would be caught 
 up from their prayers at the grave of the dead Christ, to meet the 
 triumphant Saviour as he descended in glory from the heavens. 
 
 Such a pilgrimage was then a serious undertaking. Aside from its 
 expense and hardship, it often involved no small peril ; for banditti 
 lay in wait to rob those who went by land, and pirates, those who 
 went by sea. Furthermore if the pilgrims reached their destina- 
 tion in safety, they were not sure that their troubles were over. 
 The Arab rulers who held possession of Jerusalem varied in their 
 policy. Sometimes they welcomed the pilgrims for the sake of 
 gain ; at other times they harassed them by vexatious restrictions 
 and exorbitant exactions. In such cases every step in the Holy 
 City had to be paid for, and every pilgrim, no matter what his 
 rank, had to wear a conspicuous leather girdle as a badge of sub- 
 jection and humiliation. 
 
 52. Peter the Hermit preaches the Crusades. In 1076 
 the Turks, then a much more barbarous people than the Arabs, got 
 control of Palestine. Their cruel treatment of the Christians brought 
 matters to a crisis. Peter the Hermit, an old French soldier who 
 had turned monk and afterwards hermit, determined to rouse 
 Christendom to put down these abuses. Barefoot, and clad in 
 sackcloth, he set out to go through Europe. Everywhere he 
 appealed to those who revered the memory of Christ to come to 
 
 1 Shakespeare's King Henry IV,, Pt. I. Act I. Sc. i.
 
 THE CRUSADES. 65 
 
 the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre. Pope Urban II., at a council 
 at Clermont, in Central France, warmly seconded Peter's efforts. 
 Both made impassioned addresses to the multitude who had 
 gathered there, urging them to take up arms for the deliverance of 
 Jerusalem. Such an appeal was like applying a flame to a pow- 
 der magazine. The excited crowd of Frenchmen responded with 
 a shout, " God wills it ! God wills it ! " 
 
 From that day thousands swore to become soldiers of Christ, 
 and fastened on their breasts the red cloth cross which gave them 
 the name of Crusaders. 1 
 
 This was in 1095. The following spring (1096) the first cru- 
 sade set out from France, led by Peter the Hermit and Walter the 
 Penniless. A multitude followed from other countries. These 
 rabbles were made up of men, women, and children, most of 
 whom were on foot. Few had either arms, provisions, or money. 
 Contrary to the earnest remonstrance of the Pope, they started 
 on a march of over two thousand miles, ignorant of the distance, 
 of the route, and of the dangers which" confronted them. They 
 went through Germany, slaughtering whatever Jews they found, 
 and pillaging villages of provisions, clothing, and weapons. Each 
 new town that they saw in the distance they believed to be their 
 destination, and eagerly asked, " Is not that Jerusalem ? " In 
 Hungary they committed such excesses that the exasperated 
 inhabitants finally rose against them as they would against a pack 
 of ravenous wolves. 
 
 After incredible hardships, those who had not perished on the 
 way succeeded in reaching Asia, where all but a remnant were 
 slain in their first battle with the Turks ; and left their bones 
 bleaching on the plains of Nicea, near Constantinople, to mark 
 the road for the guidance of future expeditions. 
 
 53. Godfrey of Bouillon's Crusade. Later in the same year 
 the first properly organized and equipped crusading army started 
 
 1 Crusader and Crusade : from the Old French crois (derived from the Latin 
 crux, crucii) , a cross.
 
 66 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 from France. Not only were all of the leaders French, but by 
 far the greater part of the rank and file were also. Godfrey of 
 Bouillon 1 was the most prominent, though Count Raymond of 
 Toulouse, and the brother of the king of France, with the eldest 
 son of William the Conqueror, joined in the crusade, and also 
 several Norman nobles from Italy. The movement in the outset 
 was a popular one ; no crowned head took part in it, but eventu- 
 ally all Europe seemed to mass itself to ove'rwhelm the Saracens. 2 
 In 1097 the army reached Constantinople. The ruler of that 
 city demanded of the chiefs that they should acknowledge him as 
 their feudal superior, to which Raymond of Toulouse replied that 
 they had not made this long journey in search of a master. The 
 truth is, that some of the great barons appear to have had ambi- 
 tious hopes of conquest, and looked to the crusades for the estab- 
 lishment of earthly rather than of heavenly kingdoms. Godfrey, 
 however, was not one of these ; he made the concessions required 
 by the Emperor, and received his help toward crossing over with 
 his troops into Asia. 
 
 54. Siege of Antioch; Jerusalem taken. The siege and cap- 
 ture of Antioch was the first great victory of the crusaders ; but it 
 was purchased at terrible cost. Famine set in, and a number of 
 men, including even Peter the Hermit, 3 deserted. These, as the 
 chronicle plaintively adds, "had never learned to endure such 
 plaguy hunger." The runaways were promptly brought back; 
 and to their credit, be it said, never again abandoned the cause. 
 
 On June 10, 1099, the crusaders caught their first glimpse of 
 Jerusalem. At the sight of the Holy City they fell on their knees ; 
 and the sobs of the weeping multitude, it is said, sounded at a 
 distance like the rustling leaves of a mighty forest or the coming 
 in of the ocean tide. 
 
 After long and tedious preparation, during which the army suf- 
 
 1 Godfrey of Bouillon (Bwee'on). Bouillon is now a town of Belgium. 
 
 2 Saracens: Arabs or Mohammedans. 
 
 2 Peter the Hermit : he had survived the first expedition and had joined the 
 second.
 
 THE CRUSADES. 67 
 
 fered horribly from heat and thirst under a midsummer sun in a 
 country where water is scarce, the siege was at length regularly 
 begun. It was prosecuted with such ardor that it was soon over. 
 On Friday, July 14, so say the accounts, at the very hour when 
 the crucified Christ gave up the ghost on the cross, with the ex- 
 clamation, " Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit," Jerusalem 
 was taken. 
 
 A frightful massacre ensued ; seventy thousand Mohammedans 
 were put to the sword. The crusaders spared neither sex nor 
 age ; and the Jews living in the city were burned alive in their 
 synagogues. 
 
 55. Godfrey of Bouillon Ruler of Jerusalem- the Knights 
 Hospitallers ; St. Bernard's Crusade. Godfrey of Bouillon was 
 elected king of Jerusalem, but refused the title, saying, "I will 
 never wear a crown of gold where the Saviour of the world was 
 crowned with thorns " ; but under the name of " Defender of the 
 Holy Sepulchre " he became ruler over the city. A religious order, 
 organized originally to care for poor and sick pilgrims, had long 
 existed, and had built a hospital at Jerusalem. This order was 
 now reorganized as a military body, under the name of the Knights 
 Hospitallers. In addition to their previous work of mercy and 
 charity, they now bound themselves by a vow to protect all pil- 
 grims against the Saracens on their way to and from Jerusalem. 
 Later, a rival order, the Knights Templars, was organized for a 
 similar purpose. The French continued to hold the city until 
 1187, when it was retaken by the Saracens under Saladin, sultan 
 of Egypt, a warrior as renowned for his noble virtues as he was 
 for his zeal for the Mohammedan faith. 
 
 But France was not yet satisfied ; for, though she possessed Jeru- 
 salem, other places that had been taken had again fallen into the 
 hands of the enemy, while some, like Damascus, were yet to be 
 conquered. St. Bernard, abbot of a French monastery, and the 
 foremost churchman of his country and his age, preached a new 
 crusade. Tearing up his gown as he spoke, to make crosses,
 
 68 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 he called for volunteers. Thousands pressed forward to give their 
 lives for the holy cause. The new army set out full of ardor, re- 
 solved to drive the Turk from the Holy Land ; but the expedi- 
 tion ended in disaster and defeat. 
 
 56. Rise of the Free Cities. While these events were taking 
 place in the East, a social revolution was going on in France, none 
 the less important because few then realized its full significance. 
 This was the rise of free cities. We have seen that the maxim 
 of the feudal system was " No land without a lord." To this the 
 towns were no exception. Every one was subject to the king or to 
 some baron or bishop. The latter class of rulers greatly predomi- 
 nated, for the royal domains were then comparatively small. Each 
 of these towns had to pay taxes and furnish troops to its feudal 
 owner, who in most cases was its direct master. His government 
 of the place was often despotic to the last degree. He insisted 
 that the people should grind their wheat in his mill and perhaps 
 bake their bread in his ovens, paying, of course, a round sum for 
 the use of both. If they manufactured anything, it was under a 
 license or tax ; if they bought or sold anything, the lord of the 
 town had to have his commission; when he quarrelled with a 
 neighboring lord, and these quarrels were always going on, 
 the townsmen had to fight his battles, or else find and pay people 
 who would. 
 
 These exactions were a fruitful cause of discontent and insur- 
 rection. As all the more important of these towns were protected 
 by high walls and strongly fortified, if the inhabitants could once 
 succeed in driving out the lord's officers and shutting the gates, 
 they could then hope to get some concessions. The feudal owner 
 might refuse them, and quite likely would lay siege to the place, 
 but still there was always the chance that before he was able to 
 force the inhabitants to open their gates they might make an 
 advantageous compromise. 
 
 57. Revolt of the City of Laon; the King friendly to the 
 Cities. As far back as 1066-1076 such places as Le Mans and
 
 RISE OF THE FREE CITIES. 69 
 
 Cambrai had made such attempts, but it was not until later that 
 anything of much moment was accomplished. 
 
 As an example of the way in which many towns finally suc- 
 ceeded, let us take the case of Laon. In 1 109 Laon, 1 once the cap- 
 ital of the Prankish kings, was under the control of a feudal bishop 
 who, like many bishops of that day, was more warrior than church- 
 man. His government was so oppressive that the citizens finally 
 held a meeting in the great public square, and resolved to establish 
 a commune 2 ; that is, to make Laon what was then called a free city. 
 They succeeded in purchasing the privilege they most desired, 
 that of electing their own magistrates. They next got this privilege 
 embodied in a formal grant, or charter, and paid the king a large 
 sum of money to confirm it, in order that if any dispute should 
 arise, appeal might be made to him. All things now went smoothly 
 for two or three years. Then the bishop, having spent what he 
 had received, repented his agreement and bribed the king to with- 
 draw the charter. When the citizens learned what was going on, a 
 great cry of " Commune ! Commune ! " arose in the streets. 
 
 Forthwith a mob assembled, attacked the bishop's palace, dragged 
 the trembling bishop from a large cask in which he had secreted 
 himself, and killed him with a blow from an axe. They next 
 massacred all those nobles who had not fled from the city, and set 
 fire to the cathedral, the hated monument of the bishop's power. 
 
 The revolt, however, was put down by neighboring nobles, who 
 feared, with good reason, that their turn might come next. Then 
 the king cancelled the charter, and those of the Laonese who 
 escaped the sword or the gallows, found themselves worse off than 
 before. But not to be balked, they renewed the attempt, until at 
 length, after repeated failure, they secured a permanent charter 
 from Philip Augustus. 
 
 1 See Paragraph 40. 
 
 2 Commune (from the Latin communis, common, meaning what all the citizens 
 may share or take part in) : the name was first given to a city or town that had 
 obtained the right, by purchase or revolution, of managing its affairs in some de- 
 gree ; next, it was applied to a parish ; lastly (modern) , to the government of a place 
 by the people, in opposition to the nobility or other constituted authority.
 
 JO LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 During the eleventh, twelfth, and first part of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury this process of enfranchisement was going on in different parts 
 of France with varying degrees of success. It became, indeed, for 
 the interest of the king to favor the cities and grant the confirma- 
 tion of the charters, since it placed them in great degree under his 
 control. For if a city looked to the king for the protection of its 
 newly acquired rights, it would naturally be willing to lend him 
 money or furnish him troops in case of emergency. The result 
 was that the king could thus make himself more and more inde- 
 pendent of the nobles, or in case of their revolt he might get the 
 cities to aid him in bringing them to submission an undertaking 
 they generally entered upon with alacrity. For these reasons the 
 crown was the chief agent in freeing the feudal cities, and for a 
 long time the king was really their best and most efficient friend. 1 
 
 58. War between Philip of France and Henry II. of England. 
 
 While these changes were taking place, an event occurred in 
 England which directly affected the welfare of France. Henry II., 
 who came to the English throne in 1154, was a descendant of the 
 French Duke of Anjou. He inherited several provinces in France 
 from his parents, and then by his marriage to Queen Eleanor, the 
 divorced wife of Louis VII., he obtained so much more French 
 territory that he controlled nearly all the western and southern 
 parts of the country, and actually possessed greater dominions in 
 France than the French king did himself. 2 
 
 This preponderance of power on the part of the English mon- 
 arch naturally excited Philip's jealousy, and he did everything 
 he could to encourage Henry's French vassals to revolt against 
 their foreign master. Philip not only coveted Henry's provinces 
 for himself, but he was determined to have them to strengthen his 
 
 1 The three principal privileges sought by the towns were : i. The right to pay a 
 fixed tax directly to the king, instead of being compelled to pay whatever their feudal 
 lords might be pleased to extort through their agents, z. To elect their own mag- 
 istrates. 3. To enact and administer their own local laws. 
 
 2 See Map No. VII., page 70. On Henry II. and his French possessions, see 
 Paragraph 209, " Leading Facts of English History."
 
 i i r r 
 
 POSSESSIONS 
 
 -OF- 
 
 IIKMIY II., OP ENGLAND, 
 
 - IN 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 To face page 70.
 
 WAR WITH ENGLAND. 7 1 
 
 throne, which he hoped to make the most powerful in Europe. 
 War broke out between the two sovereigns, but Philip accomplished 
 nothing decisive and resolved to wait for a more favorable oppor- 
 tunity for carrying out his designs. 
 
 59. Philip's War with John; he takes Normandy. He did 
 
 not have to wait many years to get it. When John, Henry's 
 fourth son, ascended the English throne, Philip felt that his oppor- 
 tunity had come. John's young nephew, Arthur, was Duke of 
 Britanny. Encouraged by Philip and by some of John's vassals, 
 he now claimed Normandy, Maine, and Anjou. War again broke 
 out between England and France. John was at first successful. 
 He captured Arthur and shut him up in his castle at Rouen, where 
 he doubtless murdered him, as the lad mysteriously disappeared 
 and was never heard of again. But instead of pursuing the war 
 vigorously, John remained in the castle, wasting his time in feast- 
 ing, drunkenness, and debauchery, and paying no heed to his 
 vassals, who urged him to come to their assistance in the contest 
 with the king of France. 
 
 Philip determined to attack his enemy in his stronghold of 
 Rouen ; but the road to that city was guarded by the Chateau 
 Gaillard, 1 a strong fortress on the Seine, not many leagues above 
 the town. It was considered by the English sovereign impreg- 
 nable, and he laughed at all efforts for its conquest. Philip at- 
 tacked this famous castle, stormed it, and then marched on Rouen. 
 When the cowardly English king heard that he was coming, he 
 fled across the Channel, leaving Normandy to its fate. 
 
 Philip, as king of France, was in feudal law John's overlord, 
 since the latter as Duke of Normandy held his French possessions 
 of him. Under this law Philip now summoned John to Paris, to 
 answer for the murder of Prince Arthur. John refused to go 
 unless the king of France would grant him a safe return. The 
 latter replied that his return would depend on the verdict of the 
 court. As John wisely decided not to trust his neck to their ver- 
 
 1 Chateau Gaillard (Shah-toh' Gay-ar').
 
 72 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 diet, the court met and proceeded with the trial without him. He 
 was found guilty of both murder and treason, and his provinces in 
 France were declared forfeited to the French crown. 
 
 Thus at one stroke Philip seized and annexed Normandy with 
 the other English provinces north of the Loire. 1 This act gave 
 him the absolute possession and control of a vastly increased terri- 
 tory, and so made his authority much greater. 
 
 60. Events in the South ; Abelard ; the Albigenses. While 
 the crafty Philip was busy consolidating and strengthening his 
 kingdom in the north, events occurred in the south of France 
 which in the end powerfully helped forward his design of uniting 
 the whole country into a compact monarchy. 
 
 For upwards of a century the inhabitants of Albi, a city and 
 district of Toulouse, 2 had been especially obnoxious to the Pope. 
 They were rich, self-indulgent, and lax in morals ; but worse than 
 all, in the eyes of the Church, they were heretical ; for they had 
 imbibed certain peculiar Eastern ideas, which made them unwill- 
 ing to accept the theology or the authority of Rome. 
 
 Now whatever may be the case to-day, there can be little doubt 
 that the great need of society then was greater order and unity. 
 Just as the king was bent on enforcing his authority, so the Pope 
 was determined to enforce his ; and as independence in thought 
 is apt to lead to independence in action, both king and pope were 
 opposed to any deviation from the standard they had respectively 
 set up. 
 
 Already Abelard, 3 a noted teacher of philosophy, had attracted 
 thousands of young men to Paris to hear his discussions, and his 
 defence of the principle that " we should not believe what we do 
 not understand." 
 
 His teachings had been condemned by the Church as dangerous ; 
 he had been compelled to burn his writings in the public square, 
 
 1 This forfeiture did not affect Aquitaine (a district south of the Loire) , since that 
 was John's mother's inheritance (Queen Eleanor). 
 
 2 Albi or Alby : see Map No. XL, page 216. 
 
 3 Abelard (Ab-ay-lar') : English, Abelard.
 
 THE ALBIGENSES. 73 
 
 and he himself, separated from his devoted wife Heloise, 1 died, 
 after a life of sorrow, in the enforced restraint of a monastery. 
 
 If the free thinking of one man could not be tolerated in that 
 age, still less would that of a whole people like those of Albi be 
 permitted to go -unrebuked and unpunished. After several in- 
 effectual remonstrances, in the course of which the Pope's legate 
 or representative was murdered by the Albigenses, the Church 
 resolved to order a crusade against them. They were accordingly 
 declared to be infidels, and as fit subjects for attack as the Mo- 
 hammedans of the East. As there were excellent prospects of 
 pillage and confiscation, it was not difficult to find men ready to 
 undertake an expedition against the rich and insolent heretics of 
 Albi. 
 
 61. Simon de Montfort leads the Crusade against the Albi- 
 genses ; Political Results. Simon de Montfort, a Norman noble, 
 became the leader of this terrible crusade, which began in 1207, 
 and continued for upwards of thirty-five years. 
 
 Albi was under the government of Count Raymond of Toulouse. 
 He was friendly to the people, but was compelled to enter the 
 war against them. As the contest went on, it increased in ferocity, 
 until at last the whole Albigensian country was given up to massa- 
 cre and destruction. Even old men, aged women, and innocent 
 children were remorselessly slaughtered, lest in some way the seed 
 of unbelief might by chance be preserved and take root again. Not 
 even those who promised to confess their guilt and go back to the 
 communion of the Church could obtain mercy. Two heretics had 
 been taken captive at Castres 2 : one remained obstinate ; the other 
 begged for life, and offered to publicly recant. "Burn them 
 both," said the inflexible , Simon ; "if this fellow who asserts his 
 repentance means what he says, the fire will expiate his past sin ; 
 if he lies, and is still a heretic, he will suffer the penalty of his 
 deception." 
 
 Eventually this smiling, thickly populated, and prosperous 
 
 i H61oise (Ay-lo-eeze'). 2 Castres (Kast'r).
 
 74 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 province was reduced to a desert. Where there had been rich 
 towns, nothing was left but mounds of ashes ; where there had 
 been lofty castles, there were only ruins. The fields and the vine- 
 yards were desolate ; the mill-wheel turned idly in the stream ; the 
 very wells were choked up with human bodies and heaps of stone. 
 The war had begun as a crusade against heresy, but it ended in 
 conquest. Simon got a goodly share of the country as the reward 
 of his zeal. Philip had refused to take part in the crusade ; yet 
 on the death of Count Raymond and his heirs, not many years 
 later, in the reign of his grandson, the whole country reverted to 
 the crown. Thus all of southern France west of Provence, except 
 Aquitaine, which still belonged to England, was absorbed into the 
 growing monarchy. A little more than two centuries before, Hugh 
 Capet, the first of the French line of kings, had to content himself 
 with a realm which embraced simply a moderate-sized district 
 about Paris ; now, the whole north, the greater part of the west, 
 east, and south acknowledged its allegiance to what was to be 
 eventually the greatest sovereignty in Europe. 
 
 62. Philip's Good Government; Battle of Bouvines and its 
 Results. Philip's refusal to take part in the destruction of the 
 Albigenses was the result of policy. He saw that his best course 
 was to devote himself to the north and make that sure first. 
 While Simon was pillaging and massacring at the south, the king 
 was not idle. He had already placed the University of Paris on a 
 secure basis (1200), and had organized a supreme court of justice ; 
 in order to check the private wars of the barons, which kept the 
 whole land in a turmoil, he decreed that the attacking party must 
 wait forty days before commencing hostilities against the offender 
 or his relatives. 1 These measures, with revisions in the feudal laws, 
 and with the improvements he made in Paris, were of great advan- 
 tage to every one. 
 
 1 Before this it had been the custom of a noble who considered himself injured 
 or insulted by another not only to make war against him without notice, but to 
 stealthily and unexpectedly attack and murder the offender's relations, who per- 
 haps knew nothing of the quarrel. This decree of " quarantine," or forty days' 
 delay, had a most salutary effect.
 
 BATTLE OF BOUVINES. 75 
 
 Later in his reign, Philip was drawn into a new war with England. 
 In the hope of recovering Normandy and the other provinces which 
 he had so ignominiously lost, John now resolved to attack France. 
 He formed an alliance with his kinsman, the German emperor, 
 who was hostile to Philip, and also one with Ferrand, Count of 
 Flanders, 1 Philip's vassal. When Ferrand was summoned by the 
 French king to aid him in his preparations for war against 
 England, he flatly refused to take part. Philip, enraged at his 
 conduct, cried out, " Either France shall become Flanders, or 
 Flanders France." He gathered an immense force, made up not 
 only of fully armed barons, bishops, and knights clad in steel and 
 well mounted, but also of a large body of foot-soldiers sent by 
 sixteen free cities and towns. With this army he set out to con- 
 quer or perish. At Bouvines 2 (1214), on the river Mark, near Lille, 3 
 in the North of France, he met the enemy. A desperate battle was 
 fought at the bridge over the river, and Philip gained the day. 
 It was one of the most memorable contests of the Middle Ages, 
 for on that hard-fought field three great branches of the Teutonic 
 race Germans, Flemings, and English went down before the 
 furious onset of a race of " hostile blood and speech." 4 It was the 
 first great French victory on the continent of Europe, and it had 
 far-reaching results. First, John's claim to Normandy was hope- 
 lessly lost, and he never again renewed it ; thus the unity of the 
 French kingdom in the north was now permanently established, 
 and the royal power so strengthened that the king was immensely 
 superior to his greatest vassals. Next, the defeat and imprison- 
 ment of Ferrand for he was carried captive to Paris was 
 a great blow to feudal insolence and insubordination. It settled 
 the fact that the barons could no longer hope to- rebel with impu- 
 nity against a sovereign whose army was strengthened by the 
 citizens of the free towns. Lastly, it was a triumph which seemed 
 to rouse a new feeling, that of loyalty and patriotism. At Bou- 
 vines lords, clergy, and common people had fought side by side, 
 
 1 Flanders : a province north of France, now part of Belgium. 
 
 2 Bouvines (Boo-veen'). 3 Lille (Leel). 4 Freeman's " Norman Conquest."
 
 76 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 not in a petty local quarrel, not in civil war, but against a foreign 
 foe. Henceforth there was a bond of pride uniting these classes. 
 The humble citizen was no longer spoken of with contempt. He 
 now had a kind of military rank. He, as well as the noble, was 
 a supporter of the king, and the king was endeavoring to become 
 the head of a nation, though it was yet too early for the great 
 body of the people to comprehend that idea of nationality which 
 was to be developed later at the terrible cost of a hundred years of 
 war with England. 
 
 63. Renewal of the Crusades under St. Louis; his Reforms ; 
 the Parliament of Paris; End of the Crusades. While these 
 changes were going on in France, the crusades still remained 
 undecided. Though they had begun in France, yet gradually all 
 Europe had been drawn into them. With France, which had been 
 not only first but chief in these wars for the recovery of the Holy 
 Sepulchre, the crusades were destined to end. Philip Augustus, 
 in the early part of his reign, had joined Richard the Lion- Hearted 
 of England in one of these expeditions to the East, but had ac- 
 complished nothing. During the short reign of his son and suc- 
 cessor, Louis VIII., no new attempt was made in that quarter. 
 But in the next reign an effort was once more made to conquer 
 Palestine ; and of all the great leaders who had taken part in these 
 wars, whether barons, bishops, kings, or emperors, certainly no 
 purer or truer champion can be found than Louis IX. With a 
 single exception, 1 he is the only sovereign known in the long line 
 of French kings that ever received the title of saint ; and, stranger 
 than all, he really deserved it, since of such a man any age, faith, 
 or people might well be proud. 
 
 He was by nature a reformer and a lover of justice. Seated 
 under the great oak of Vincennes 2 he judged his people right- 
 eously. He did more ; he forbade private war and trial by bat- 
 
 1 Charlemagne was canonized in 1165, but the title of saint refuses to hold in his 
 case. 
 
 2 Vincennes (Van-sen'). It is a suburb of Paris.
 
 END OF THE CRUSADES. 77 
 
 tie. 1 But his greatest work was the establishment of a high court 
 of justice for the effectual trial and settlement of all disputes be- 
 tween baron and baron. Certainly, when a French nobleman did 
 not hesitate to hang three other nobles for killing rabbits in his 
 woods, it was time that some tribunal should be organized power- 
 ful enough to call the high-born murderer to account. Such was 
 the purpose of the judicial tribunal called the Parliament of 
 Paris, 2 which Saint Louis founded in 1258, and which did such 
 good service that it earned the gratitude of all except those who 
 were condemned to suffer the penalties it imposed. 
 
 More than twenty years after his accession St. Louis entered 
 upon his first crusade. He failed in it, was taken prisoner with 
 his entire army, and only obtained their release by paying a heavy 
 ransom. 
 
 The last crusade, the ninth, he began in 1270. It proved fatal 
 to him and to two of his children : all died of fever. At his own 
 request, he breathed his last lying on a sack covered with ashes, as 
 a sign of his humility and contrition a proof that the tenderest 
 and most blameless consciences often reproach themselves most. 
 Voltaire, who seldom had a good word for any one, said of St. 
 Louis, " It is not given to man to carry virtue to a higher point." 
 He left as his monument his character, his deeds of justice and 
 mercy, and lastly, that little church of the Sainte Chapelle in 
 Paris, which still stands in flawless beauty and perfect symmetry 
 to worthily commemorate the soul of him who built it. 
 
 1 See Paragraph 30. 
 
 2 Particular care should be taken not to be misled by this word " Parliament." 
 The French institution here mentioned was not, like the English Parliament, a 
 legislative, and it never became a representative, body. Originally it consisted of the 
 great vassals of the king, who met to deliberate with him on important matters ; 
 but from the time of St. Louis it became chiefly a high court of justice, which gradu- 
 ally came to be made up of lawyers and ecclesiastics, with a few nobles. Besides 
 acting as a judicial tribunal, it registered wills and royal edicts. Theoretically, this 
 registration of the king's decrees was necessary to give them the full force of law ; 
 but, as a matter of fact, the king, in cases where the Parliament objected, generally 
 compelled registration in spite of their protest. Eventually, twelve provincial par- 
 liaments or courts were established ; but the Parliament of Paris continued to rank 
 first.
 
 78 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 His son, Philip III., a weak-minded, rash, and ignorant man, 
 made a poor ruler. He returned to France from his father's 
 death-bed, bringing five coffins with him, those of his father, 
 his father's brother, with his wife, and lastly, those of his own wife 
 and child. 
 
 That funeral procession of victims of the ill-fated expedition was 
 emblematic of the close of the crusades. At last the forlorn struggle 
 which Christendom had waged for centuries had ceased. It had 
 cost several millions of lives, and had ended by leaving the Mo- 
 hammedans in triumphant possession of Jerusalem and the Holy 
 Land. 
 
 64. Results of the Crusades. Yet the crusades were, perhaps, 
 worth all the blood they cost. 
 
 1. They were "the first European event." They united all 
 Christendom in a war for an idea. Before, men had battled with 
 each other out of ambition, avarice, or revenge ; but the crusades 
 sprang mainly from a religious motive. They elevated those who 
 engaged in them, for a time, at least, above the old discords 
 which had bred constant civil war, and so made every people 
 self-destroying. 
 
 2. They checked the westward Mohammedan movement and 
 saved Europe from invasion for nearly two centuries. 
 
 3. They hastened the freedom of the cities and the emancipation 
 of the serfs, since it often happened that the great barons were 
 obliged to grant the privileges of municipal or personal liberty in 
 order to raise money to equip themselves and their troops. 
 
 4. They increased the power of the king, since, while his great 
 vassals were absent, he met with less opposition at home. 
 
 5 . They created friendly relations between the nobles and their 
 humble dependents, and so tended to unite society more closely. 
 
 6. They taught the people of Europe the geography of their 
 own continent, together with that of a part of Asia ; they stimu- 
 lated commerce, built new cities, and imparted wonderful impetus 
 to many already built on the Mediterranean and in its vicinity.
 
 END OF THE CRUSADES. 79 
 
 They brought new arts, new products, and new methods of agricul- 
 ture from the East, and they encouraged men to write histories 
 and poems relating to the wars, which had no small influence on 
 literature. 
 
 7. Finally, they kindled new intellectual life in France and 
 throughout the West. The Christians found to their astonish- 
 ment that the Saracens were neither idolaters nor barbarians ; that, 
 in fact, they were men who worshipped the same God with them- 
 selves, and were, on the whole, far more civilized. From the 
 Saracens or Arabs, directly or indirectly, the University of Paris 
 got its first real knowledge of the classics, the higher mathe- 
 matics, and the principles of natural science, which in time it 
 imparted to England and the north. Thus did the crusades 
 teach the Christians the truth of the old Latin saying that " it is 
 allowable to learn even from an enemy." 
 
 8. The evils of the crusades were experienced chiefly by the 
 generations who took part in them. But there was one result that 
 made its baneful influence felt long afterwards. The idea that 
 religious wars were particularly pleasing to God was fostered by 
 these campaigns against the Mohammedans. This dreadful de- 
 lusion was one of the incentives to the destruction of the Albi- 
 genses l ; and it was also the cause of bloodshed and persecution 
 centuries after the crusades had ended. 
 
 65. Summary. The period of the Crusades includes the 
 conquest of Normandy, which greatly extended the royal domain 
 and power. This event is followed by the rise of the free cities, 
 the destruction of the Albigenses, and the battle of Bouvines, all 
 of which tended to strengthen the king and to give greater unity 
 to his realm. The period ends with the establishment of the 
 Parliament of Paris and the close of the Crusades. 
 
 1 See Paragraphs 60 and 61.
 
 8O LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 In France, before the Hundred Years' War, " each one was a citizen of his 
 particular city and nothing more; but brought face to face with the English, 
 the sentiment of nationality was aroused, and henceforth each felt himself a 
 Frenchman, or citizen of France." DURUY. 
 
 PHILIP THE FAIR. BATTLE OF COURTRAI. THE PAPAL 
 QUARREL. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE STATES-GENERAL. 
 SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPLARS. THE HUNDRED YEARS' 
 WAR. JOAN OF ARC. 1270-1461. 
 
 Philip III., 1270-1285. Philip VI., 1328-1350. 
 
 Philip the Fair, 1285-1314. John the Good, 1350-1364. 
 
 Louis X., 1314-1316. Charles V., 1364-1380. 
 
 Philip V., 1316-1322. Charles VI., 1380-1422. 
 
 Charles IV., 1322-1328. Charles VII., 1422-1461. 
 
 66. Philip III. ; Increase of Royal Power ; Questions of the 
 Day. The fifteen years' reign of Philip III., the son and succes- 
 sor of St. Louis, need not detain us long, since it was a period 
 of comparative quiet. The king's uncle Alphonso, whose body 
 Philip brought home from the East, 1 left no children, and the great 
 county of Toulouse, in the south of France, which he had held, 
 now fell to the crown. The effect of this addition to the royal 
 domain was, of course, to decidedly increase the king's power, and 
 furthermore to give him an extensive sea-board on the Mediter- 
 ranean, then the most important sea in the world. Out of this 
 new territory Philip granted the county of Venaissin, including 
 part of the city of Avignon, 2 on the Rhone, to the Pope, and from 
 
 1 See Paragraph 63. 2 Avignon (A-veen-yon').
 
 PHILIP THE THIRD. 8 1 
 
 that time until the French Revolution a period of over five 
 hundred years this province continued subject to Rome. 
 
 One of the most significant acts of Philip's uneventful reign was 
 his conferring a title of nobility on his silversmith, Raoul. 1 Up to 
 this time the theory was that a nobleman "is born, not made," 
 and rank depended on ownership of land and ability to defend it. 
 Here then was a startling innovation which angered the feudal 
 barons not a little. They saw with reason that the king's act was 
 a heavy blow at their exclusive power. It meant that he claimed 
 the right of making a common man their equal. This had a two- 
 fold effect : on the one hand it opened a way for the unprivileged 
 classes to rise, and so made them of more influence ; on the other, 
 it made the king's will more respected, because he could now give 
 what his predecessors could not title and social standing. In 
 principle, therefore, this lifting of an artisan to noble rank was one 
 step a short one, it is true, but still a step toward the ultimate 
 overthrow of the power of the feudal aristocracy. 
 
 The remainder of Philip's reign was taken up with questions 
 relating to the internal state of the kingdom. Men no longer 
 interested themselves in religious matters as they had during the 
 crusades, or at that earlier period when they thought the world 
 was near its end. They had settled down to the conclusion that 
 it was useless fighting for Christ's tomb any longer ; and as for 
 the world, it seemed likely to last their day at least and quite pos- 
 sibly some time beyond. Hence the absorbing points of debate 
 were of a political and social character. Should the serfs be made 
 free ? Should commerce be encouraged by the removal of restric- 
 tions and the vigorous punishment of thieves and brigands? 
 Should the royal power be supported and extended ? Such were 
 the questions asked in the walled cities and in the castles. The 
 welfare of the country depended in great measure on how they 
 should be answered ; for most men were then slaves, and the 
 great barons were still so lawless and rapacious that one of them, 
 
 i Raoul (Rah-ool').
 
 82 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 whose estate was on the coast, pointed with pride to a huge cliff, 
 declaring " that stone is worth more than the diamonds of the 
 king's crown." He might well say so ; for that rock with its false 
 lights had lured to destruction many a vessel whose rich cargo the 
 baron and his merry men soon had safely stowed away within the 
 castle walls. 
 
 67. Philip the Fair l versus England. But this period of com- 
 parative freedom from foreign wars was not destined to continue. 
 In 1285 Philip the Fair came to the throne. Though in name 
 and in person he was fair, in character he was just the opposite. 
 It was evident from the outset that the new king was determined 
 that France should be ruled by the French, and that England 
 should no longer be allowed to have a powerful influence in her 
 affairs. It was probably with the purpose of bringing this question 
 to an issue that Philip summoned Edward I. of England to appear 
 at Paris and do homage for the domain which he held in France. 2 
 Edward, who had just brought Wales into subjection, and may 
 have then been meditating attempting the like with Scotland, 
 wished to keep on good terms with France. He accordingly went 
 to Paris and publicly kneeling at Philip's feet repeated the cus- 
 tomary form of feudal oath, saying, " I become your liege 3 man 
 for the lands I hold of you, this side the sea, according to the 
 terms of peace which were made between our ancestors." In spite, 
 however, of Edward's desire to avoid a rupture with France, Philip 
 soon found a pretext for beginning hostilities. The quarrel of 
 some French and English sailors gave him an opportunity for de- 
 claring war. Edward, who was anxious to concentrate all his power 
 on the conquest of Scotland, offered to make concessions. Philip 
 agreed to the terms, but by trickery soon managed to turn them 
 
 1 Philip le Bel : i.e., Philip the Handsome or the Fair. Dante calls him the pest 
 of France. 
 
 2 Aquitaine, south of the Loire. See Paragraph 59 (Note f). 
 
 3 Liege : loyal or faithful. Every vassal, whatever his rank, was required to do 
 homage to his feudal lord.
 
 PHILIP THE FAIR. 83 
 
 to his own advantage and thus got control of Edward's castles in 
 Aquitaine. 1 He then induced the Parliament of Paris 2 in other 
 words, the supreme court of the realm to decide that the Eng- 
 lish king had legally forfeited them. Edward remonstrated, but 
 in vain. Then he made a secret alliance with the Count of Flan- 
 ders, Philip's vassal. Philip found it out, and forced the Count 
 to break off all relations with Edward. But the wool trade was so 
 profitable to both England and Flanders, that a new political and 
 commercial treaty was soon negotiated between them, and the 
 Count formally renounced his allegiance to France. War of 
 course ensued. Flanders submitted. The wealth of Bruges 3 and 
 other Flemish cities was so enormous that, when the queen of 
 France saw the ladies in their silks and jewels, she exclaimed in 
 envious astonishment, " Why, they are all queen? here ! " The 
 greed of the French governors for that wealth caused a frightful 
 revolt. 
 
 68. Battle of Courtrai. Philip forthwith declared a new war, 
 and a great battle was fought at Courtrai. 4 On one side was the 
 flower of the French chivalry clad in full armor and mounted on 
 powerful horses ; on the other, the cloth-weavers of Flanders, 
 on foot, in their leather jackets. The townsmen prepared them- 
 selves for action by holding a religious service, confessing their 
 sins, and then taking up their position back of a narrow but deep 
 canal. 
 
 When the word was given, Philip's troops raised the shout " God 
 and St. Denis," 5 and driving their spurs deep into their horses' 
 flanks, they charged at full speed across the plain. Their head- 
 long haste and the dense cloud of dust which they raised pre- 
 vented their seeing the fatal ditch. Into it they madly plunged, 
 and in a moment the muddy waters of the canal were filled with a 
 struggling, helpless, drowning mass of men and horses. 
 
 1 Aquitaine: see Map No. VIII., page 96. 2 See Paragraph 63. 
 
 3 Bruges (Broozh). 4 Courtrai (Koor-tray') : a town of Belgium. 
 
 6 This was the usual battle-cry of the French, St. Denis (San Den-ee') being the 
 patron saint of France.
 
 84 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 As fast as the French tried to climb the steep and slippery banks, 
 the Flemings knocked them on the head like cattle, or pushed 
 them back to sink under the weight of their heavy armor. When 
 the massacre was over, the exultant victors collected over four 
 thousand gilt spurs and hung them as trophies in Courtrai cathe- 
 dral. 
 
 Thus perished a great number of the proudest nobles and rich- 
 est landholders of France. On the one hand, it was a terrible blow 
 to the arrogant chivalry of that day ; on the other, it wonderfully 
 strengthened the sturdy Flemish l cloth-manufacturers in their long 
 struggle for independence. 
 
 69. Increase of Philip's Power. Singularly enough, though 
 the first effect of that crushing defeat was disastrous to the preten- 
 sions of Philip, yet in the end it helped his designs. The destruc- 
 tion of so many of the French nobility removed the chief check on 
 the arbitrary exercise of royal power. Thus the king gained at 
 Courtrai more than he lost. Furthermore, the estates of all those 
 who left no heirs fell to the crown ; and as by feudal law the sov- 
 ereign became also the guardian of those heirs that were under age, 
 a most lucrative office in those days, the result was that Philip 
 became far richer than before. Through his influence the lawyers 
 got control of the Parliament of Paris. They hated the aristocracy 
 and the Church ; but were always ready to serve the hand that held 
 the sceptre their motto was, " As wills the king, so wills the law." 
 
 In England, too, he gained some power. His daughter Isabelle 
 married Edward II. Through this corrupt and shameless woman, 
 who well earned the name of "the she-wolf of France," Philip 
 obtained a formidable and baneful influence over the English court 
 and, indirectly, over the course of English affairs. 
 
 70. Quarrel with the Pope. Meanwhile the unscrupulous 
 monarch became involved in a controversy with the Pope which 
 had momentous consequences. The ordinary feudal revenue had 
 
 1 Flemish : pertaining to the people of Flanders.
 
 PHILIP THE FAIR. 85 
 
 now utterly given out, and as the king needed large sums of money 
 to push his ambitious schemes, he levied a general tax, assessing 
 the clergy as well as the laity. The clergy, however, vigorously 
 resented this tax, desiring, if possible, to pay their dues to the 
 state in prayers, not cash. A long and bitter dispute arose in 
 which the Pope took their side against the king. In the end, 
 however, the Pope so far yielded as to agree to the impost, pro- 
 viding that it should be necessary for the defence of the realm. 
 But the quarrel soon broke out again, over some property which 
 the king and the Pope both claimed. 
 
 Money Philip must and would have, and in his own way. He 
 had already resorted to all kinds of devices to get it. He had 
 sold titles of nobility to men of low birth. 1 He had robbed the 
 Jews of the realm, who were the bankers of that age. He had 
 issued base money, and so made coin that was half pewter do 
 duty for honest silver. Finally he had freed every serf and slave 
 on his domain who could afford to pay handsomely for the privi- 
 lege ; 2 and having thus begun, he was not likely to stop in his 
 system of rapacity and extortion. 
 
 In 1301 the Pope sent the king a bull 3 of censure. Philip 
 ordered the hangman to burn it. Then a new bull appeared, 
 short, sharp, and peremptory. Its genuineness is doubtful. Pos- 
 sibly the king and his lawyers fabricated it for political purposes. 
 It began : " Boniface, the Pope, to Philip the Fair, greeting : 
 Know, O Supreme Prince, that thou art subject to us in all 
 things." 
 
 The king circulated this, and with it this burlesque bull in 
 reply : " Philip to Boniface, little or no greeting : Be it known to 
 thy Supreme Idiocy that we are subject to no man in political 
 matters. Those who think otherwise we count to be fools and 
 madmen." 
 
 1 See Paragraph 66. 
 
 2 In the next reign, 1315, the king freed all of the crown serfs. 
 
 8 Bull : a papal decree or order. It gets its name from the bulla, or leaden seal, 
 attached to it.
 
 86 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 71. The First States-General, or National Assembly. 1 Not 
 
 satisfied with hurling this contemptuous defiance at the Pope, the 
 king now resolved to appeal to the country against him. To this 
 end he summoned a national assembly to meet in the cathedral of 
 Notre Dame in 1302. This body differed from all previous gath- 
 erings, from the fact that Philip not only called the clergy and the 
 nobility, but also, for the first time in the history of the country, 
 the royal summons included representatives from the free cities. 
 The States- General had, however, no legislative, but only advisory 
 and petitioning power. In the assembly of these representatives 
 we have the beginning of what may be called the French House of 
 Commons. It showed that a strong middle class had now arisen 
 who were so prosperous and influential that even the king found it 
 expedient to ask their advice and co-operation. 2 
 
 Philip's object in invoking this class was not the interests of the 
 people, but the advancement of his own selfish purposes. He and 
 his successors simply used the commons, first, as a convenient tool 
 or weapon to hold the nobility and clergy in restraint, and next, as 
 a means for getting larger sums of money voted than the upper 
 classes by themselves would have been willing to grant. 3 
 
 72. Contrast between the English Parliament and the French 
 States-General. Still the French kings from Philip onward 
 dreaded the growing power of the people so much that they 
 seldom called a full national assembly if they could possibly 
 avoid it. If we compare the English Parliament first fully 
 
 1 States-General : the body was so called because it was composed of the three 
 chief estates or classes of the realm ; viz., the clergy, the nobility, and the citizens 
 chosen as representatives by the free towns. 
 
 2 It may be well to notice the fact that in the reign of St. Louis a new class of 
 citizens had arisen, called the " Citizens of the King." They were men who had 
 obtained the right of appeal to the crown in cases of trial before the feudal courts. 
 Philip greatly extended this class by ordering that any one might renounce his 
 feudal lord and take the king for his lord and protector. 
 
 3 It was understood that the king could not tax the lands of the nobility and 
 clergy without their consent; and now that many cities were free, he was obliged to 
 ask their consent in like manner.
 
 PHILIP THE FAIR. 8/ 
 
 organized in 1295 with the French States- General, we find this 
 striking difference : In England, from that time forward, no im- 
 portant action was taken without consulting all classes or their 
 representatives ; while in France, from 1 302 to 1 789, a period of 
 nearly five hundred years, the States-General was summoned but 
 thirteen times, or, on the average, only about once in forty years. 
 Another fact which should be distinctly kept in view is that even 
 when the French States-General did meet, its House of Commons 
 possessed but little direct power. In England the lower house 
 was constantly gaining in political strength and influence, so that 
 at last it became in some important respects superior to the House 
 of Lords. In France, on the contrary, the nobility with the clergy 
 could outvote the representatives of the people two to one. 1 Still, 
 though the French States-General was so far inferior to the Eng- 
 lish Parliament, its existence or, rather, its occasional existence 
 imposed some restraint on the tyranny of the crown, and during 
 the worst periods served to keep hope alive in the hearts of the 
 oppressed. 
 
 73. The Assembly's Remonstrance ; the Pope's Reply. This 
 famous assembly of 1302 gave its support to the king. The 
 clergy, of course, did this reluctantly, since it arrayed them in 
 opposition to the/ Pope ; but as they found that both the lords 
 and the commons took the side of the crown, they did not dare 
 to do differently. Remonstrances were accordingly drawn up, 
 declaring that neither the nobility nor the people wanted the Pope 
 or any one else to meddle in matters that concerned no one but 
 them and the king. Thus, says Martin, the French nation virtu- 
 ally proclaimed its independence of Rome. Boniface replied by 
 asserting his authority more explicitly even than before. All kings, 
 he said, were subject to him, whereas he was accountable to God 
 
 1 In the States-General the three estates voted by classes, and not, as in the Eng- 
 lish Parliament, by individuals. Hence, in every case where the nobility and clergy 
 were united, as they usually were, they would cast two votes to the commons' one, 
 and therefore could easily vote down any measure originating with the people.
 
 88 LEADING FACTS OF FRFNCH HISTORY. 
 
 only. He ended with a new bull containing a solemn curse, cutting 
 off Philip from all communion with the Church in this world and 
 from all hope of salvation in the world to come. Philip, who 
 feared neither God nor man, retorted with an indictment charging 
 the Pope with infamous crimes and demanding his trial. The 
 Pope rejoined by threatening to issue a final bull deposing the 
 rebellious king and giving his crown to the German emperor. 
 
 74. Brutal Assault on the Pope; the "Babylonish Captivity." 
 This menace of deposition brought matters to a crisis. Certain 
 friends of the king started secretly for Italy. When they reached 
 the papal palace, they forced their way into the presence of the 
 aged pontiff. They overwhelmed him with the foulest abuse, and 
 finally one of them struck him a heavy blow in the face with his 
 steel-plated gauntlet. 1 The shock of this brutal assault proved fatal 
 to the old man, and he shortly after died. His successor made 
 concessions to the French king, but insisted on excommunicating 
 the murderers of the late pope, and soon mysteriously died. 
 
 Philip now managed to get the election of pope into his own 
 hands. The cardinals 2 chose for pope one to whom the king had 
 privately offered the office, on certain conditions. One of the chief 
 of these was that the king was to have a tenth of the revenue of 
 the Church of France for five years ; another was that whenever 
 the king should present a final request, not then made known, the 
 Pope was at once to grant it. The candidate, it is said, promised 
 everything, and by Philip's influence he was chosen to the pon- 
 tifical office in 1305. 
 
 But though pope in name, he soon found that in reality he was 
 little more than prisoner. Philip was too cunning to trust his tool 
 out of his power. He would not allow him to reside at Rome, 
 but permitted him to take up his residence at Avignon, 3 in which 
 
 1 The gauntlet was a long glove of stout leather, plated with steel on the back to 
 protect the hand in battle. 
 
 2 Cardinals: the highest dignitaries in the Roman Catholic Church below the 
 pope. They elect the pope from one of their own number. 
 
 3 Avignon : see Paragraph 66.
 
 PHILIP THE FAIR. 89 
 
 place he and his successors continued for upwards of seventy years 
 in that state of humiliation derisively termed the " Babylonish Cap- 
 tivity." l Their condition of subjection to the will of such French 
 sovereigns as Philip was in striking contrast to the condition of the 
 Church in earlier times. Then, indeed, stern but righteous popes 
 like Gregory VII. and Innocent III. had wielded supreme power. 
 They were men who loved justice and hated iniquity. They sum- 
 moned kings and emperors to the bar of judgment ; and though 
 they sometimes exercised their authority arrogantly and perhaps 
 unjustly, yet on the other hand they protected the oppressed and 
 did not fear to punish crime in high places. 
 
 75. The Destruction of the Templars (1307). The secret 
 request which the new pope bound himself to grant is generally 
 supposed to have been the destruction of the Knights Templars. 2 
 It will be remembered that this order was established to protect 
 pilgrims going to the Holy Land. Now that these pilgrimages had 
 practically ceased, and that the Mohammedans were left in undis- 
 turbed possession of Jerusalem, there was no longer any definite 
 work for the Templars to perform. During the crusades they had 
 saved thousands of lives on the battle-field and in the hospital ; 
 but those services were now forgotten, and the order, which had 
 grown rich and powerful, was accused of idleness, luxury, and evil 
 life. The very fact that such rumors were circulated and generally 
 believed shows that the days of religious enthusiasm were over. 
 The keen-sighted and avaricious king soon saw how these scanda- 
 lous reports might be turned to advantage. The Templars owned 
 thousands of valuable estates in France, England, and other coun- 
 tries of Europe. Philip had long coveted their wealth, and now 
 resolved to get possession of the property they held in his domin- 
 ions. It is true that the Templars had saved his life by opening 
 
 1 " Babylonish Captivity " : so called in allusion to the captivity of the Jews for 
 seventy years at Babylon. In 1378 the Italians elected a pope at Rome, and tTie 
 French chose another at Avignon. This constituted the " Great Schism." It ended 
 in 1417, when the Pope of Rome again became the supreme and sole head of the 
 Church. 2 Knights Templars : see Paragraph 55.
 
 QO LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 the doors of their stronghold in Paris to him when, during a riot, 
 the mob were in hot pursuit ; but that did not hinder him from 
 his purpose. The Grand Master of the order, and many promi- 
 nent members, were arrested by the king's command, and were 
 charged with a long catalogue of terrible crimes. They vehemently 
 denied them ; but finally, in the agony of protracted torture, con- 
 fessed their guilt. History looks upon that confession, as upon all 
 evidence extorted by the rack, not as the calm utterance of truth, 
 but as the pitiful cry of human weakness. It was, however, all 
 that Philip required. The Grand Master and his fellow- sufferers 
 now retracted their confession ; instead of saving them, that fact 
 was used against them, and they were sent to the stake as relapsed 
 heretics ; the order, which had existed for nearly two centuries, 
 was abolished ; their estates were sold, and the royal coffers were 
 speedily filled to overflowing with the " price of blood." 1 
 
 A legend tells us that thereafter every year an armed figure 
 issued from the Grand Master's tomb, on the anniversary of his 
 death, crying, "Who will liberate the Holy Sepulchre?" 2 To 
 which a voice from the vault would reply, " No one ; for behold, 
 the Templars are destroyed." 
 
 The real value of such a legend is the idea of retribution which 
 it expresses. The wealth which Philip had acquired by murder 
 and confiscation gave his house only temporary strength, for events 
 were destined to strip his descendants of whatever they inherited 
 from him. 
 
 76. Relations of France and England ; the Hundred Years' 
 War. In 1328 Charles IV., the last of the direct line of the 
 Capetian kings, 3 died, leaving no son to succeed him. The crown 
 accordingly passed to Charles's cousin, Philip of Valois 4 (Philip 
 
 1 The order was abolished at the same time in England and elsewhere, but with- 
 out the cruelties and destruction of life which disgraced Philip's act. 
 *2 The Holy Sepulchre : the sepulchre of Christ at Jerusalem. 
 8 It should be noticed that, though the Capetian line now took another name, 
 that of Valois, from Philip VI. of Valois, yet it did not actually end until long 
 after the French Revolution; viz., in 1848. * Valois (Val-'.vah').
 
 THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR. 9! 
 
 VI.), who thus became founder of the dynasty of that name. 1 For 
 a long time previous to this change France had, as we have seen, 
 been on ill terms with England. In fact, we may say that this 
 feeling began as far back as the Norman Conquest. 2 Not only 
 had the French kings endeavored to get the English possessions 
 in France, and to break up the English wool trade with Flanders, 
 by seizing the vessels engaged in it, but they had formed hostile 
 alliances with Scotland, and laid waste parts of the English coast. 
 When Charles IV. died, Edward III. of England claimed the 
 throne of France on the ground that, since his mother, Queen 
 Isabelle, was sister to Charles, he therefore stood next in the regu- 
 lar order of succession. 3 To this the French answered that, accord- 
 ing to the Salic Law, 4 which they now declared to be the established 
 law of the realm, Edward III. could not legally demand the crown 
 of France, since his mother, having no right in herself to royal 
 power, could not, of course, transmit any claim to it to her son. 
 Edward, however, found that the English people were ready to 
 sustain him ; and as Philip had attacked his possessions in Aqui- 
 taine, 5 and was preparing to put down an insurrection in Flanders 
 
 1 Table showing the descendants of Philip the Fair, the beginning of the Dynasty 
 or House of Valois, and the claim of Edward III. of England to the throne of 
 France. 
 
 Philip IV., the Fair (1285-1314), brother to Charles, Count of Valois. 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 Philip VI. 
 (1328-1350). 
 
 Louis X. 
 (1314-1316), 
 
 Philip V. Charles IV. 
 (1316-1322), (1322-1328), 
 
 1 
 Isabelle 
 m. Edward II. 
 of England. 
 
 Edward III. of 
 England [who 
 
 crown through his John the Good 
 mother (1337)]. ' (1350-1364). 
 2 See Paragraph 49. 3 See table above. 
 
 4 Salic Law : this law originally related to the descent of estates among the 
 Salian Franks. By it women were denied the right to inherit land. The lawyers 
 now found it convenient to make it include the succession to the crown, thus con- 
 fining the throne to males. 
 
 5 See Map No. VIII., page 96.
 
 Q2 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 which Edward supported, war was declared in 1337.' Such was 
 the beginning of a contest which, from its duration, got the name 
 of the Hundred Years' War. 
 
 77. Beginning of the War; Crecy (1346). For several 
 years nothing decisive was accomplished on either side, but in 
 1340 the English gained a battle at Sluys, 2 which was followed six 
 years later (1346) by the brilliant victory of Cre"cy, 3 in the north- 
 west of France. Here, it is said, cannon were first used in battle. 
 Gunpowder had, it is true, long been known to such chemical ex- 
 perimenters as the English monk, Roger Bacon of Oxford, but only 
 as a means of idle amusement. Now, its terrible power was to be 
 turned by man against the life of his fellow-man. The rude artillery 
 made use of by the English consisted, however, of only three or four 
 ridiculously small cannon, which were employed chiefly to frighten 
 Philip's cavalry. According to Villani, an Italian historian of that 
 day, the English artillery made the earth tremble, and the report 
 was so terrible to the ears of those who heard powder speak for 
 the first time, that the enemy thought that " God thundered." He 
 adds that the horses were thrown into great confusion, and that 
 many of their riders were killed. 4 
 
 The battle was gained, not by the cannon, but by the stalwart 
 English archers. The French king had hired a force of fifteen 
 thousand Genoese cross-bowmen to aid him in the war, and these 
 were ordered to advance. But they were exhausted by a long 
 march of eighteen miles. Besides this, a thunder-storm had 
 drenched them to the skin, and so wet the strings of their heavy 
 steel cross-bows that they were slack and practically useless. 5 The 
 
 1 Still another reason for the war was Edward's refusal to surrender the Count 
 of Artois, who had attempted Philip's life and then fled to England. 
 
 2 Sluys (Slois) : on coast of Flanders. 
 
 3 Crecy (Cray'see) : see Map No. XL, page 216. 
 
 4 Froissart, the French historian, makes no mention of the use of cannon ; but 
 Martin (" Histoire de France ") and several other excellent authorities accept Villani's 
 account. For the opposite view, see Kitchin's France. 
 
 5 The bowstrings were made of sinews, and therefore, when wet, would stretch 
 so as to be almost useless. The cross-bows were cumbrous affairs, and had to be
 
 THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR. 93 
 
 English archers, who had been resting all day, and whose bow- 
 strings had been kept dry, had also the advantage of position. 
 The setting sun was behind them, while its blinding rays shone 
 directly in the eyes of the enemy as they reluctantly moved for- 
 ward against them. 
 
 To support the dispirited Genoese, Philip had a splendid body 
 of horsemen in full armor, who " formed a great hedge behind 
 them." Edward, on the contrary, though he did not undervalue 
 his cavalry, depended mainly on his foot-soldiers, who were yeo- 
 men armed with long, light bows of tough yew-tree wood. Though 
 outnumbered by more than three to one, the English were confi- 
 dent of the result. The Genoese set up a great shout to frighten 
 them. Their reply was a volley of well-aimed shafts. Then the 
 battle began in good earnest, and the white arrows of Edward's 
 men flew so thick and fast that it seemed to those who saw them 
 like a furious snowstorm. 
 
 That fatal snowstorm decided the day; for neither man nor 
 horse could withstand those steel-barbed bolts. Edward's young 
 son, the " Black Prince," l did such deeds of valor that his name 
 became from that time a terror to the enemy ; and when the 
 sun went down, though Philip and his knights had fought like 
 brave men, yet France had to mourn the most terrible defeat she 
 had ever experienced. Could she have learned the lesson of that 
 bloody field, and clearly seen that she lost it because she lacked 
 the yeoman class, the men who owned the little farms they tilled, 
 and who, bow in hand, felt no fear and begged no favor, she 
 might perhaps have been spared some greater humiliations still in 
 store for her. 
 
 78. Siege of Calais; the Brave Six. Edward, however, 
 instead of advancing on Paris, next laid siege to Calais, 2 the 
 chief port on the Channel, which, if taken, would always be an 
 
 bent by winding a crank, whereby so much time was lost that the English, with 
 their light, long bows, bent by hand, could fire five shots to one of the enemy's. 
 
 1 So called by the French, it is said, on account of the color of his armor. 
 
 2 Calais (Kal'ay) : see Map No. XL, page 216.
 
 94 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 open door to France. He took the place after nearly a year's 
 siege, having fairly starved the people into surrender. Exasper- 
 ated at the length of the siege, Edward demanded that six of the 
 chief citizens should bring him the keys of the city, and then 
 submit to his will. Saint Pierre, 1 the richest man in Calais, offered 
 to be the first of the six. Five others then volunteered. With hal- 
 ters round their necks, to show that their lives were at the king's 
 mercy, they entered the English camp and gave up the keys. 
 Edward ordered them to instant death ; but Queen Philippa, who 
 had just come to him, fell on her knees and begged so piteously 
 with tears and prayers that they might be spared, that the king 
 relented, and the brave six were set free. 
 
 The English now took possession of the town, garrisoned it, and 
 held it as a constant menace to the power of France for over two 
 hundred years. The breaking out of a frightful pestilence known 
 as the " Black Death " put a stop to the war, and so terrible was 
 the mortality that all Europe was busy for the next two years in 
 burying its dead. 
 
 79. Battle of Poitiers ; " Jacques Bonhomme " ; Etienne 
 Marcel. Seven years later (1356) the Black Prince was engaged 
 in pillaging the provinces adjoining Guyenne. He was attacked 
 by the force of John the Good, Philip's successor, at Poitiers, 2 in 
 the West of France, south of the Loire, and gained a victory which 
 ranks even before that of Cre"cy. Here again the English bow- 
 men decided the contest. The Black Prince seeing that King 
 John had over forty thousand cavalry the flower and pride of 
 France to his little army of eight thousand, determined to 
 entrench himself with care. He accordingly stationed his men on 
 a hill surrounded with hedges. The only approach was up a steep 
 lane so narrow that " four horsemen could barely ride abreast." 
 One half of his archers he stationed at the head of this lane, and 
 the other half back of the hedges on each side of it. 
 
 1 Saint Pierre (San Pee-ar'). See the full account in Froissart's Chronicles. 
 
 2 Poitiers (almost Pwi'te-a). See Map No. XI., page 216.
 
 THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR. 95 
 
 Forward came the French with the oriflamme, or sacred banner, 
 fluttering in front of the king surrounded by his knights. Up 
 that hill they charged. But few, if any, reached the top, for the 
 fatal snowstorm of white arrows from the strong arms of English 
 archers soon choked the narrow passage "with men and horses 
 struggling in the agonies of death." Then the English, abandon- 
 ing their protected position, met the enemy on the plain. There 
 the battle raged hand to hand until in the end King John, find- 
 ing his body-guard cut to pieces and his glittering squadrons dis- 
 persed or dead, was forced to surrender. He had vowed before 
 the battle that he would wipe out the shame of Crcy ; but as 
 one French historian says, " he had doubled it." Yes, if failure 
 doubled it ; but no, if heroism could redeem it, for " those that 
 were there," says Froissart, " behaved themselves so loyally, that 
 their descendants to this day are honored for their sake." 
 
 So complete was the victory gained by the Black Prince, that 
 the English found they had twice as many prisoners as they had 
 soldiers. King John and many of the nobility were carried to 
 England, to be held captive there for heavy ransoms. 
 
 The defeat at Poitiers filled the French peasants with disgust 
 and discontent. They lost faith in the bravery and the ability of 
 the nobles. An odious tax on salt had been decreed to make 
 them bear the expenses of the war. In addition, they were 
 now expected to pay enormous ransoms to liberate the captive 
 nobles. Jacques Bonhomme, 1 as the French peasant was contemp- 
 tuously called, was patient and long-suffering, but he could bear 
 no more. He had in fact borne too much. A rude caricature of 
 that day tells his whole history in seven typical figures. The first 
 is the king, who says, " I levy taxes." Next comes the nobleman, 
 with " I have a free estate." Then the priest, who says, " I take 
 tithes." Then the merchant, with the motto, " I live by my prof- 
 its." Then the hired soldier, declaring with an oath, " I pay for 
 
 1 Jacques Bonhomme (Zhak Bon-om') : Jacques (James) is the commonest 
 Christian name among the French peasants. " Jacques Bonhomme " " Jimmy 
 Goodfellow " was used to insultingly designate the whole laboring class.
 
 96 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 nothing." Then the beggar, saying, "I have nothing." Last of 
 all, at the bottom of the scale, comes the peasant, saying, " God 
 help me ; for I have to support king, nobleman, priest, merchant, 
 soldier, and beggar." 
 
 So meditating, poor Jacques, with his comrades, now rose in a 
 terrible but futile insurrection, called the "Jacquerie," 1 and the 
 provinces of the north and west of France were filled with destruc- 
 tion and carnage. 
 
 Etienne 2 Marcel, head of the city government of Paris, took the 
 side of the people. He endeavored to reorganize the States- 
 General, so that the tax-payers of France should have their full 
 rightful influence in that body. Nearly a hundred years before, 
 Simon de Montfort had effected the beginning of such a reform in 
 the constitution of the English Parliament ; but Marcel failed in 
 his great undertaking, and died by the hand of an assassin. 
 
 80. Effect of Gunpowder on War ; Treaty of Bretigny. - 
 We do not learn that artillery or firearms of any kind were used 
 at Poitiers ; but we may be sure that the cannon which had made 
 themselves heard at Crecy would not long remain silent. Gunpow- 
 der had a mission in the world, and it was sure to fulfil it. So 
 long as the bow, the sword, and the spear were the chief weapons 
 of war, the feudal aristocracy had an immense advantage. En- 
 trenched in their massive stone castles, they could securely defy 
 attack ; mounted on trained horses and covered with heavy armor, 
 they could ride down multitudes of peasants without fear of suc- 
 cessful resistance : but now a change had begun. Gunpowder 
 was to prove itself the great leveller and equalizer. It fought on 
 the side of the people. When the day came that it could be 
 effectively handled on the battle-field, then the haughty steel-clad 
 warrior knew that his occupation was gone. No castle could hope 
 to withstand artillery. No breast-plate was proof against the bul- 
 let. Gunpowder made the commonest foot-soldier the peer in 
 battle of the proudest lord. It was long in coming into use ; but 
 
 1 Jacquerie (Zhak-ree'). '- Etienne (Ay-tee-en').
 
 THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR. 97 
 
 when at last, a hundred years or more after Crcy, its power was 
 fully recognized, the coats of mail and emblazoned shields had to be 
 laid aside as useless encumbrances. Hung up as trophies in church 
 and castle, these rust-eaten relics of brave men still remain to testify 
 to that chivalry which, with all its faults, once did the world good 
 service. In 1360 Edward III. accepted propositions for a treaty 
 of peace. At a conference at Bre"tigny l the necessary articles were 
 drawn up. Edward consented to give up his preposterous claim 
 to the French crown 2 on condition that he should be confirmed 
 in his possession of Aquitaine, 3 Calais, and Ponthieu, 4 a province 
 south of it. The important concession was also made that in 
 future Edward was to hold these in his own right as an indepen- 
 dent king, and not, as before, as the vassal of the king of France. 
 It was furthermore stipulated by Edward that the French people 
 should pay three millions of crowns (nearly $50,000,000, according 
 to the present value of money) as a ransom for the return of King 
 John, then a prisoner in London. The whole of this enormous 
 sum was to be raised by a tax on the peasantry : for, as the nobles 
 said, " the workingman has a broad back ; let him bear all the 
 burdens." 
 
 81. Renewal of the War; Miserable State of France. 
 
 The peace, however, was not of very long duration, and meantime 
 the country was overrun with bands of desperate brigands who 
 plundered and murdered at will, so that the wretched peasants fre- 
 quently abandoned their houses and sought shelter and safety in 
 caves and bogs. 
 
 King John died in London, and was followed by Charles V., 
 who conducted the war with such ability that he nearly succeeded 
 in driving the English forces out of Aquitaine. In 1380 he died, 
 and unfortunately for the country, his successor, Charles VI., was 
 a boy of twelve. The government now fell into the hands of 
 
 1 Bretigny (Bray-teen-yee') : near Chartres. 
 
 2 Though the English kings, down to George III., still retained the empty title 
 of king of France. 3 Aquitaine (or Guyenne) : see Map No. VIII., page 96. 
 
 4 Ponthieu (Pon-tee-uh').
 
 98 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 Charles's three uncles, one of whom, Philip, Duke of Burgundy, 
 soon became the most powerful noble in France. He and his 
 successors, who were princes of royal blood, were practically inde- 
 pendent kings in their own dominions, and at times they were 
 actually the equals, if not, indeed, the superiors, of the French 
 sovereigns. Feudalism, once the salvation of France, 1 had now 
 become its scourge. The rapacity and mismanagement of the 
 uncles created insurrection and bloodshed. Charles went mad 
 through a sudden fright. Henceforth the realm was torn by 
 furious factions of the Burgundians and the Armagnacs, 2 both 
 greedy for power. The former represented the party of the king's 
 uncles ; the latter, the friends of the queen, whose reputed lover, 
 the Duke of Orleans, 3 had just been murdered by one of the 
 Burgundians. The two parties now involved the country in a 
 general civil war. 
 
 82. Henry V. invades France ; Battle of Agincourt (1415) ; 
 Treaty of Troyes (1420) . As the struggle grew more and more 
 desperate, each side was ready to make almost any sacrifice to crush 
 the other. Both begged the assistance of Henry V. of England. 
 The Burgundians, a northern party, were willing to pledge him the 
 crown if he would destroy their enemies, the Armagnacs. On the 
 other hand, the Armagnacs, a southern party, offered him large por- 
 tions of French territory if he would wipe the Burgundians out of 
 existence. 
 
 Henry believed that he could make his own terms. He de- 
 manded the hand of the Princess Catharine, in marriage and the 
 territory which England had held north of the Loire. He also 
 asserted a claim to the French crown. Such a demand was 
 therefore about equivalent to a request for the entire kingdom of 
 France. The dauphin, 4 with his supporters, the Armagnacs, were 
 
 1 See Paragraphs 35 and 39. 
 
 2 Armagnacs (Ar-man-yaks') : a name derived from the Count of Armagnac, 
 father-in-law of the Duke of Orleans. 
 
 3 Orleans (Or-lay-on') . 4 Dauphin : the title of the heir to the throne.
 
 THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR. 99 
 
 not prepared to give up everything, and the result was that Henry 
 declared war and invaded the country. Meantime a hasty peace 
 had been patched up between the king's party and the Burgundi- 
 ans, and the latter stood neutral. Having besieged and taken 
 Harfleur, 1 Henry found his army so reduced by sickness that he 
 resolved to march to Calais, and there go into winter quarters. 
 
 At Agincourt, 2 near the coast, between Calais and Cre"cy, Henry 
 met the French, who immensely outnumbered him. But the Eng- 
 lish army was protected by a wood, and so fought to the best 
 advantage. Henry furthermore ordered each man to drive a short 
 stake, sharpened at both ends, firmly into the ground in front of 
 him. This substitute for the bayonet, which had not then been 
 invented, proved an admirable defence against the mounted troops 
 of the enemy. As usual, nearly the whole French force was cav- 
 alry, and, as the field of battle was a piece of ploughed ground 
 soaked with rain, the horses were up to their knees in mud. The 
 fight began with a blinding shower of English arrows. Then 
 throwing aside their bows, the archers rushed on the enemy with 
 sword and battle-axe. The din of their weapons striking against 
 the armor of the knights sounded, it is said, like blacksmiths ham- 
 mering anvils. The slaughter of the French was terrible. Henry 
 won a signal victory, and embarked for England with a long train 
 of titled captives. 
 
 Two years later he returned and overran Normandy, besieg- 
 ing Rouen, the capital, which fell into his hands. Up to this time 
 the old quarrel between the Burgundians and Armagnacs had con- 
 tinued to rage, the queen being on the side of the first, and her 
 son, the young dauphin, in the hands of the other party. 
 
 The loss of Rouen had such an effect that John the Fearless, 
 Duke of Burgundy, now asked for an interview with the dauphin, 
 with the view of uniting their forces against the English. A meet- 
 ing was arranged ; but just as John bent in homage before the 
 
 1 Harfleur (Ar-flur') : a port on the Channel, near the mouth of the Seine. 
 
 2 Agincourt (Ah-zhan-koor').
 
 IOO LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 dauphin, he was treacherously struck on the head by one of the 
 dauphin's party and then stabbed. The murder was not only a 
 crime, but a blunder. Its effect was to rouse the whole Burgundian 
 party, including Paris, in other words, the whole North of France, 
 in favor of Henry, and against the dauphin and his supporters. 
 Thus, as was then said, " the wounds of John the Fearless were 
 the holes that let in the English." 
 
 Shortly after, the important treaty of Troyes (1420) was signed 
 between Henry V. on the one side and the young Duke of Bur- 
 gundy, son of John the Fearless, with Queen Isabelle, on the 
 other. 
 
 By the terms of that treaty, Queen Isabelle virtually disinherited 
 her son Charles, the dauphin, whom she hated, and gave her 
 daughter Catharine to Henry for a wife. Furthermore, it was 
 agreed that on the death of the insane king the crown was to pass 
 to Henry of England and his successors. Thus, with one stroke of 
 the pen, France was surrendered to a foreign power, and the Eng- 
 lish king gained the French monarch's daughter and his kingdom 
 to boot. 
 
 83. Siege of Orleans. Not long after this shameful treaty was 
 signed, Henry V. died, and his son Henry VI. was crowned king 
 of England ; and then, as the insane Charles VI. was now dead, 
 he was taken to Paris and, while yet a child, crowned king of 
 France. 
 
 Charles VII., though seemingly a person of but little spirit, 
 plucked up courage to refuse to sanction the act by which his 
 mother had given away his throne. The war of parties was now 
 renewed with greater fierceness than ever, and the English, with 
 their Burgundian allies, resolved to bring Charles to terms. As he 
 had few or no friends in the north, he retreated south of the Loire, 
 and took refuge in the city of Bourges, where he held his court. 
 Henceforth his enemies sneeringly styled him "the King of 
 Bourges." l 
 
 1 Bourges (Boorzh) : near the centre of France.
 
 THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR. IOI 
 
 The English forces pushed on with great energy to Orleans, which 
 commanded the entire valley of the Loire, and was therefore in a 
 military and political point of view a place of great importance. 
 If they succeeded in taking it, Charles would in all probability be 
 driven to retreat to the extreme south of France, where there was 
 little likelihood that he could long hold out. 
 
 The English armies encircled the city with forts and batteries ; 
 the cannon, hurling huge stone balls, began hammering away at the 
 walls. The place held out bravely, and did good execution with 
 its own guns in return, but it became evident that unless relief was 
 obtained the city must finally fall, and so once more the golden 
 lilies 1 of France would be trodden under the feet of her enemies. 
 
 84. Joan of Arc ; 2 the English driven out ; Beginning of 
 the Modern Kingdom of France. At that hour, when all 
 seemed darkest, a simple peasant girl Joan of Arc came forward, 
 declaring that God had called her to save her despairing country. 
 She was met at first with ridicule ; but, nothing daunted, she insisted 
 on her mission. The king gave her an audience ; and finally, as 
 all other hope was gone, and the people were in her favor, Joan 
 received a horse, a suit of armor, and the privilege of leading 
 several thousand soldiers. Inspired by her example, the French 
 regained their courage. A body of troops under their new cap- 
 tain entered the city of Orleans. In the battles which followed, 
 the English were forced to abandon the siege, and the royal colors 
 soon waved triumphantly over the encircling forts so lately occu- 
 pied by the insolent foe. 
 
 The coronation of Charles VII. had not yet taken place ; and 
 Joan of Arc, now known as the "Maid of Orleans," insisted that 
 he should go north to Reims, then the Westminster Abbey of 
 France, and there be crowned. In spite of all opposition 
 offered by the English forces she succeeded in her purpose, and 
 then declared that her divine work was accomplished. But she 
 
 1 Lilies : the lilies of the arms of France, emblazoned on the royal standard or 
 flag. 2 Joan of Arc : Jeanne Dare, or Jeanne d'Arc.
 
 IO2 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 was in error. In order to complete her mission and thoroughly 
 rouse the patriotism of her countrymen, it was necessary that she 
 should suffer the fate so often reserved for heroic souls. The war 
 was not yet over ; but Charles, who, unaided by this brave girl, 
 could never have won the crown for himself, now basely abandoned 
 her, as he, later, abandoned his faithful friend, Jacques Coeur, 1 the 
 merchant prince of Bourges, who lent him large sums of money to 
 carry on the war. Joan eventually fell into the hands of the 
 English. They, with their Burgundian allies, charged her with 
 witchcraft. Her trial took place at Rouen. All defence was 
 useless ; and in the public square of the city, on a spot now 
 marked by her statue, the " Maid of Orleans " suffered death by 
 fire (1430). She was purposely placed on a high mass of plaster 
 so that the executioner should not be able to reach her, and 
 mercifully put an end to her sufferings by strangling her, as was 
 usual in such cases. As the flames rolled up around the martyr, 
 she lifted her eyes to heaven, crying out, so that all might hear, 
 that her celestial voices had not deceived her, and that she had 
 saved her ungrateful country. Even the hardened English soldiers 
 were touched, and one of the leaders exclaimed, " We are lost ; 
 we have burned a saint." 
 
 It was indeed true that the English were lost; for from the 
 ashes of the martyred girl there seemed to rise a new spirit. 
 France, as if moved by a common impulse, now massed her whole 
 force against the foreign foe, and in the course of the next twenty 
 years drove them out of the land and across the sea. Aquitaine 
 was conquered and annexed, and from this union of Southern 
 with Northern Gaul the modern kingdom of France began. Such 
 was one great result of the Hundred Years' War. Of all that the 
 kings of England had held or gained, nothing was left them save 
 the district and walled city of Calais, on the British Channel, and 
 
 1 Jacques Coeur (Zhak Kur) : he lent Charles 24,000,000 of francs, and the 
 king, as a reward for this generous loyalty, allowed his friend to be robbed and 
 imprisoned.
 
 THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR. 1 03 
 
 even that slender foothold on French territory they were destined 
 to lose a few generations later. 1 
 
 85. Results of the Hundred Years' War; Creation of a 
 Standing Army. Though terribly weakened and impoverished 
 by this century of strife, France issued from it, in some respects, 
 stronger than before. The common peril and common suffering 
 had tended to unite the people. Men who before the war thought 
 only of the particular city to which they belonged, now felt that 
 as Frenchmen they all had an interest in their native land. Thus 
 the word France came to have a new and sacred meaning to them. 
 
 Moreover, the king, who seemed to have acquired a manhood 
 that made up in some degree for his lack of it in the past, now 
 established a power which compelled all parties to respect his will. 
 This new power was a standing army, organized in great measure* 
 out of bands of mercenaries, brigands, and tramps, who during the 
 civil wars and the struggle with England had pillaged the country. 
 To support this army Charles levied a permanent tax on the land 
 of the middle classes. As the king now had a regular force of his 
 own, he was no longer obliged to depend so entirely on the feudal 
 lords. The result was that the latter became less and less warlike, 
 for want of practice, and hence less and less able to resist the 
 constantly increasing power of the crown. 
 
 86. Summary. This period, embracing nearly two hundred 
 years, was, as we have seen, productive of great events and 
 great changes. The battle of Courtrai, the Papal quarrel, and 
 the establishment of the States-General, the suppression of the 
 Knights Templars and the confiscation of their estates, all tended 
 directly or indirectly to strengthen the king against the nobles 
 or the Church. The civil war and the Hundred Years' War 
 reduced the royal authority, for a time, to its lowest ebb ; but the 
 reaction begun by Joan of Arc made France realize her nationality 
 as never before. Finally, the triumphant close of the war and 
 
 1 Calais was captured by the French, 1558.
 
 IO4 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 the organization of a standing army restored the power of the 
 crown and greatly enhanced it. The general results may be 
 summed up as follows : France is more united ; the nobles are 
 less independent of restraint ; the real strength of the country 
 is becoming more centralized in the person of the king. 1 
 
 1 While these changes were taking place in France, we should note that Switzer- 
 land had appeared on the map of Europe. The western part of it was formed from 
 part of that Burgundian territory which had once belonged to Gaul, and after the 
 treaty of Verdun to Italy. The eastern portion was contributed by Germany. An 
 attempt on the part of Austria to incorporate the Swiss with that country led to 
 successful insurrection in 1307-8. William Tell, whose name is connected with the 
 establishment of Swiss independence, exists in legend and tradition, but not in 
 history. But though a fabulous character, his name represents a movement which, 
 beginning in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, finally made the Swiss con- 
 federation a distinct and independent power in the seventeenth century. The 
 Netherlands (Holland and Belgium) remained dependencies, in great measure, of 
 either France or Germany, but were soon to pass to Spain.
 
 REIGN OF LOUIS XI. 105 
 
 IX. 
 
 " This was a period of decay and of new birth a time for reforming itself 
 and setting itself in order." GUIZOT. 
 
 " With the Italian wars, the discovery of America, and the Reformation, the 
 modern history of Europe begins." LAVALLE. 
 
 LOUIS XL CONSOLIDATION OF FRANCE. THE REVIVAL OF 
 LEARNING. FRANCIS I. WARS FOR THE BALANCE OF 
 POWER. FRANCE AND THE NEW WORLD. BEGINNING 
 OF THE REFORMATION 1461-1559. 
 
 Louis XI. (1461-1483). Louis XII. (1498-1515). 
 
 Charles VIII. (1483-1498). Francis I. (1515-1547). 
 
 Henry II. (1547-1559). 
 
 87. Power of the Duke of Burgundy ; League of the Public 
 Good. The reign of Louis XI. began with a struggle on the part 
 of the nobles to regain the power they had lost, or were beginning 
 to lose, during the latter part of the rule of Charles VII. Philip, 
 Duke of Burgundy, pretended to be Louis's friend, but in reality 
 he was his most dangerous rival. Philip's domains not only em- 
 braced a large territory of the best land in France, but through 
 inheritance or purchase he had come into possession of the greater 
 part of the Netherlands, including the rich and prosperous cities 
 of Ghent, Bruges, 1 Brussels and Antwerp. In point of splendor, 
 wealth, and power, no prince in Europe could compare with him. 
 Philip, with a magnificent retinue of knights and noblemen, as 
 a guard of honor, deigned with lofty condescension to escort 
 Louis to his coronation at Reims. Ift the midst of this imposing 
 pageant the French king made but a sorry figure compared with 
 
 i Ghent (Gent; ^hard) ; Bruges (Briizh).
 
 IO6 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 the duke, who seemed the more royal of the two ; but Philip soon 
 found that the young man whom he so arrogantly patronized was 
 abundantly able to take care of himself. 
 
 Louis, however, made two serious mistakes in the outset. He 
 dismissed the ablest statesmen of the preceding reign, and he 
 endeavored besides to strengthen his position too rapidly. In 
 doing this he alienated the nobles by reviving old and obsolete 
 claims of the crown to certain feudal dues ; he offended the clergy 
 by restricting their privileges and requiring a strict account of 
 their possessions ; finally, he disgusted the citizens of the towns by 
 a sudden increase of taxes for the support of his standing army. 
 
 The result of this discontent was the formation of a league 
 against the king, called the League of the Public Good. In an 
 attempt to crush this league Louis was completely defeated. 
 That defeat was the most fortunate thing that could have hap- 
 pened to him. It taught him where his real strength lay. Hence- 
 forth he fought his enemies not by force of arms, but by craft. 
 He fairly earned the name he aftenvard received, of " the univer- 
 sal spider " ; for certainly no spider ever wove more subtle webs 
 or caught more victims. He fomented jealousies and quarrels 
 which dissolved the League. Then he dealt with the chief men 
 individually. He bought the loyalty of one, he coaxed that of 
 another, he locked up a third in an iron cage, like a wild beast, 
 and kept him there till his rebellious heart was broken. 
 
 88. Louis XI.; Charles the Bold. Meanwhile Charles the 
 Bold had succeeded to the dukedom we might almost say the 
 kingdom of Burgundy. Strong, rich, and feared as the duke 
 was, he yet had a weak point in his armor. His territory was 
 not geographically united. Between Burgundy on the southeast 
 and the Netherlands on the northwest, there was a wedge of the 
 royal domains of France. 1 Charles wanted to make that triangular 
 piece of property of Louis's his own ; then, instead of being a wedge 
 
 1 Map No. IX., page 106, shows the situation of Burgundy, France and the 
 Netherlands, at this time as well as later.
 
 CHARLES THE BOLD. 
 
 to split his power apart, it would serve like the keystone of an arch 
 to bind it together. When that was accomplished, he would take 
 another step, and erect his possessions into a new realm, occupying 
 geographically a middle place between France and Germany, but 
 in wealth and power greater than either. 
 
 With patience the Duke of Burgundy might have accomplished 
 this. But patience was not one of his virtues. He was by nature 
 what his name, or rather nickname, styled him Charles the 
 Bold or the Rash. To accomplish his ends, he invited his brother- 
 in-law, Edward IV. of England, to aid him in his attack on 
 France. Edward readily agreed, for there was prospect of both 
 glory and pillage in such an expedition. There was besides the 
 possibility of the entire conquest of France ; in which case he and 
 Charles agreed to divide the country between them. Edward 
 landed with a large force at Calais, that convenient threshold on 
 French territory still retained by the English ; l but was dis- 
 appointed in not meeting the Duke of Burgundy with his army. 
 The duke came, indeed, but only to say that the plan of campaign 
 must be changed. Edward met with some further disappoint- 
 ments, and then the wily Louis managed the rest. He had 
 already bought over a number of the leading English nobles ; he 
 now proceeded to buy over King Edward himself. A conference of 
 the two sovereigns was decided on ; but as neither would trust the 
 other, the meeting was arranged to take place at Pecquigny, 2 on 
 the middle of a bridge over the Somme, 3 with a wooden grating 
 for a barrier. Through this grating the monarchs affectionately 
 kissed each other, and Louis's smooth tongue, bags of gold, and 
 promise of his son as husband for the sister of the Prince of Wales, 
 sent Edward back to England well pleased with his expedition. 
 But it all came to nothing. The duke now found it expedient 
 to postpone his assumption of the crown of Burgundy. 
 
 1 See Paragraph 84. 
 
 2 Pecquigny (Pek-keen-ye') : near Amiens. 
 
 3 Somme (Som) : a river in the North of France. It empties into the English 
 Channel.
 
 IO8 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 89. Louis's Method contrasted with that of Charles. In this 
 instance we have an illustration of the beginning of that new system 
 of government which may be said to have originated with Louis. 
 Charles the Bold represented the old feudal method. He tried to 
 gain his ends openly, by force of arms. Louis, on the contrary, 
 sought to attain his by cunning and stratagem. Charles would 
 beat down his enemy by sheer power of muscle ; Louis would out- 
 wit and entrap him. There is nothing attractive, nothing noble, in 
 the course pursued by the French king ; there is, in fact, some- 
 thing revolting about it. It is the method of the serpent as con- 
 trasted with that of the lion. Yet in one way it was an advance : 
 it saved life, and procured what the country then most needed 
 for its welfare, peace. Hence we may say that, in so far as 
 Louis avoided war and used diplomacy instead, his course marked 
 the beginning of a higher conception of government than that 
 which characterized the Middle Ages, 1 and which was based mainly 
 on brute force. 
 
 90. Consolidation of France. But Louis was not satisfied 
 with introducing a new system of government, and of extending 
 the royal power ; he wished to consolidate all the provinces of 
 France into one great realm. The Capetian kings had labored 
 to bind the country together by feudal ties. If they could 
 compel each dukedom or county to acknowledge and maintain 
 the crown, they were content ; since, as we have seen, the great 
 struggle during the whole Capetian period was to reduce the tur- 
 bulent and insubordinate nobles to some recognition of a central 
 ruling power. But the kings of the house of Valois, 2 so ably rep- 
 resented by Louis XL and his successors, were resolved to accom- 
 
 1 The Middle Ages, or that period which followed the fall of Rome in 476, may 
 be considered to end at this time ; that is, about the middle of the fifteenth century 
 or from the fall of Constantinople in 1453. As the revival of learning, the discovery 
 of America, and the beginning of a strong monarchical form of government in 
 place of the old feudal system, all date from this time or a little later, they mark the 
 commencement of a new period, that of modern history. 
 
 2 House of Valois (Val-wah') : beginning with Philip of Valois. See table, Par- 
 agraph 76.
 
 CONSOLIDATION OF FRANCE. TCX) 
 
 plish far more than this. Their object was to break down the 
 feudal system entirely and permanently. It was not enough for 
 them to rule over a kingdom made up of an aggregation of prov- 
 inces, each of which owed allegiance first to some powerful duke 
 or count, and next such support to the sovereign as it found it 
 convenient to give, or he might be able to compel. On the con- 
 trary, Louis, for one, was determined to render the whole of France 
 obedient to himself as absolute monarch. Many things favored 
 such an undertaking. The power of the feudal nobles had, 
 with some exceptions, been diminishing, while the king, on 
 the other hand, through his standing army, supported by a 
 fixed revenue, was becoming more and more master of the situa- 
 tion. Charles the Bold continued to thwart any such consolidation 
 so far as he could prevent it ; but Louis was patient. The duke 
 had got into difficulty about the Archbishop of Cologne, which 
 suited Louis exactly. " Let the duke go," said he, " and knock 
 his head against Germany." While he waited, Louis spun his web 
 of wiles, and did not spin in vain. The duke was planning to unite 
 Alsace, 1 Lorraine, Switzerland, and Provence to his own states. 
 Alsace became enraged at the cruelty of the governors imposed 
 upon it by the duke, and rose in insurrection. Louis secretly 
 stirred up the Bernese Swiss to aid them. Then Lorraine followed 
 the example of Alsace. The duke besieged Nancy, its capital ; 
 the Swiss came to its relief, and a battle was fought in which 
 Charles was killed. The great duke left no son to succeed him, 
 and so, by feudal law, his province of Burgundy fell to Louis', who 
 next received Provence by bequest. He now planned to get pos- 
 session of the late duke's domains in the Netherlands, which 
 Charles's daughter, Mary of Burgundy, had inherited ; but she 
 married Maximilian of Austria, and so added the Netherlands to 
 the House of Austria, from which they soon passed to Spain. Still, 
 
 1 Alsace (Al-sahce') and Lorraine : provinces of Germany lying east of northern 
 France. Charles the Bold held the first by mortgage, and the second by force. 
 Eventually both provinces were annexed to France, but were restored (in great 
 part) to Germany in 1870, after the Franco-Prussian War.
 
 I IO LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 Louis had so far succeeded that he had now practically got the 
 greater part of France under his direct control. After his death, 
 his son and successor, Charles VIIL, completed the work by mar- 
 rying Anne of Britanny, so bringing that important province into 
 the circle of the crown domains. With its addition France became, 
 geographically and politically, a united kingdom. A glance at the 
 map opposite will show better than any description how royal 
 power had grown since the days of Hugh Capet's humble begin- 
 nings in the tenth century. Still we must remember that, though 
 nominally one, the country was nevertheless made up of provinces 
 having widely different laws and customs. 
 
 Though Louis XI. did not accomplish the entire consolidation, 
 yet he brought about by far the greater part of it. During the last 
 of his reign we have the spectacle of the royal power of will of a 
 feeble, paralyzed old man, whose body was already half dead, but 
 whose scheming brain was fully alive to every opportunity and 
 equal to every emergency. He fought his battles in his head, and 
 so rendered battles on the field in great measure unnecessary. By 
 the bloodless victories he won, he made the French monarchy, 
 temporarily at least, the foremost power on the continent of 
 Europe. 
 
 91. The "New Learning." But while Louis was building up 
 the kingdom of France, other events were occurring which were 
 destined to have an immense influence on the future of every civi- 
 lized ^country. In 1453 the Turks took Constantinople, the capi- 
 tal of the Greek or Eastern Empire. 1 The result was that many 
 learned Greeks fled to Italy, France, and other countries, carrying 
 with them precious manuscripts in which were preserved the 
 masterpieces of the great classical authors of antiquity. The 
 desire to become acquainted with these works was already 
 
 1 The Roman emperor, Constantine, had established his capital, in the fourth 
 century, on the Bosphorus, and named it, from himself, Constantinople. After the 
 fall of Rome, or the Western Empire, the Eastern or Greek Empire, with Constan- 
 tinople as its metropolis, continued to exist until besieged and taken by the Turks 
 in 1453-
 
 Sketch. ]VTap 
 
 SHOWING THK 
 
 GROWTH OP FEANCE 
 
 FKOM THK 
 
 Close of the 10th Century to 
 the Close of the 15th. 
 
 The shaded portion shows the part of France 
 directly ruled by Huprh Capet. The dates 
 mark the time when the great provinces or 
 . g. Aqnitaine, etc. became pos- 
 
 To face page 110.
 
 INVENTION OF PRINTING. Ill 
 
 awakened, and the students of the University of Paris, like those 
 of Oxford and Cambridge, eagerly welcomed men who brought to 
 them the writings of Homer, Plato, and Aristotle in the original. 
 The study of Greek, or the " New Learning," as it was called, was 
 to that age what the study of the natural sciences is to ours. So 
 great was the enthusiasm that men of wealth were willing to pay 
 any price for a manuscript of one of the philosophers or poets 
 whose words had instructed and delighted the world. Others were 
 ready to devote years of patient toil to translating and copying 
 these manuscripts, both for their own use and for that limited 
 number who could afford to purchase them. 
 
 92. Invention of Printing. At the very period when this 
 interest in the classics was at its height, means were discovered by 
 which these books, which had been slowly and laboriously tran- 
 scribed with the pen, might be rapidly multiplied at far less cost. 
 After many fruitless experiments, a German, John Gutenberg 1 of 
 Mentz, succeeded in making movable wooden type, which were 
 later cast in metal. He was far from realizing the true significance 
 of his invention, but none the less he had found in these little 
 blocks, each representing a letter of the alphabet, the most effec- 
 tive of all agents for advancing civilization, and also, it must be 
 confessed, sometimes the surest means of demoralizing it. 
 
 In 1469 three of Gutenberg's pupils came to Paris, and, with 
 the king's permission and encouragement, set up presses in the 
 college of the Sorbonne. 2 But the populace regarded their mar- 
 vellous work with suspicion, believing it to be the result of magic. 
 They looked askance on the uniformly printed sheets, so unlike 
 manuscript in their perfect regularity. They whispered that it 
 must be the black art, and that the devil certainly had a -hand in 
 it. Stirred by this conviction, they would speedily have burned 
 the unfortunate printers as sorcerers, had not Louis XL interfered. 
 Later, the clergy, fearing, perhaps with good reason, that the mul- 
 tiplication and circulation of books would spread heresy, for in- 
 
 1 Gutenberg (Gu'ten-berg). 2 Sorbonne (Sor-bun').
 
 112 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 dependence of thought and free inquiry were even then beginning 
 to make their power felt, 1 obtained a royal order restricting the 
 whole number of printers in the realm to twelve. These were chosen 
 by the king. Any one else venturing to set up a press was to be 
 hanged. Thus did Church and crown combine in the vain attempt 
 to fetter the limbs of that young giant destined one day, for good or 
 ill) to prove himself superior to both. 2 
 
 93. End of the Reign of Louis XI. To Louis XL is due 
 the credit of having done much to encourage trade and commerce, 
 by endeavoring to secure a uniform system of weights and meas- 
 ures, in which, however, he was but partially successful. He also 
 established that most useful and important institution, the post- 
 office, though it was then employed for government*purposes 
 only. 
 
 Philip de Comines, 3 the king's trusted counsellor, and the able 
 historian of the period, says of him, " If a prince knows good 
 from evil, it is by the special favor of God, and particularly if, as 
 in the king my master's case, the good carries the day." That is 
 the cautious and complimentary language in which the courtier 
 apologizes for the crooked policy of the crown. Louis himself, 
 crafty and successful, has bequeathed the secret of his policy in 
 his favorite maxim, " He who does not know how to dissimulate, 
 does not know how to govern." Many a modern politician, both 
 in France and out of it, who has not been able to imitate Louis in 
 anything else, has at least made this royal maxim entirely his own. 
 
 94. Charles VIII. ; Revolt of the Nobles ; The Tiers Etat ; 
 Foreign War. Louis left a son, Charles VIIL, who carried a 
 brave heart in a puny body. The nobles, anxious to regain the 
 
 1 One indication of this resistance to authority was the French Pragmatic Sanc- 
 tion (solemn ordinance or decree) which in 1268, and again with greater empha- 
 sis in 1438, set a limit to the spiritual power of the Pope over the French clergy. 
 The principle was destined to be re-asserted still more explicitly by Bossuet in his 
 * Four Propositions," in the reign of Louis XIV. 
 
 2 See Walter Scott's Quentin Durward, Chapter XIII. 
 
 3 Comines (Ko-meen').
 
 THE TIERS ETAT. 1 13 
 
 power they had lost under his father, rose against the king in a 
 war which they managed so badly, and which terminated so dis- 
 astrously for them, that it received the name of the " Foolish War." 
 Meantime a new class began to get possession of political influence. 
 In the first States-General or national assembly * of 1302 the in- 
 habitants of the towns, but not the country people or peasantry, 
 had obtained representation. These now obtained the privilege of 
 choosing deputies (1484). Henceforth the peasantry and the 
 citizens will unite in what will be known as the Tiers Etat, 2 or 
 Third Estate or Class a name which three hundred years later 
 will occupy the most conspicuous place in the history of the 
 Revolution. 
 
 Charles,, not satisfied with ruling at home, endeavored to con- 
 quer an additional realm in Italy. He began a war which was not 
 to be concluded until nearly half a century after his death. He 
 got himself crowned king of Naples, to which title he next added 
 the empty ones of King of Jerusalem and Emperor of the East. 
 Shortly after, he returned to France, where his death brought his 
 cousin Louis XII. to the throne. The expedition of Charles VIII. 
 to Italy, though it amounted to nothing in itself, yet it is impor- 
 tant to note it, since it marks the beginning of those French wars 
 for foreign conquest which were, in the end, to have far-reaching 
 results. 
 
 95. Reign of Louis XII. ; Loss of Italy. The chief quality 
 of Louis XII. was his good nature. He reduced the taxes, and 
 so endeared himself to the nation that they somewhat rashly 
 decreed him the title of " Father of the People " ; for his subse- 
 quent Italian wars proved that he was a " father " who spent his 
 people's money and life with fearful prodigality. Louis conquered 
 Lombardy, but in the end a Holy League was formed by the 
 Pope, the emperor of Germany, the king of Spain, and Henry 
 
 1 See Paragraph 71. 
 
 2 Tiers Etat (Tee-airz' Ay-tah') : the nobility with the king and clergy consti- 
 tuted the First and the Second Estates ; the Third was the common people.
 
 114 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 VIII. of England, all of whom dreaded to have France gain more 
 power. Together, their force drove the French out of Italy. 
 The campaign, however, was not wholly lost, for Louis and his 
 companions were so inspired by the palaces and works of art of 
 Milan, Florence, and Rome, that they began many magnificent 
 buildings, in the new or Renaissance order of architecture, some 
 of which, such as the Hotel de Cluny l in Paris, still survive to 
 mark the age. 
 
 96. Francis I. ; Further Development of the French Nation. 
 In 1515 Francis I. came to the throne. Guizot 2 says of him 
 that he "had received from God all the gifts that can adorn a 
 man. He was handsome, tall, and strong, and his mind was equal 
 to his body." He ruled over a country extending from the Med- 
 iterranean and the Pyrenees to the English Channel and the 
 southern borders of the Netherlands. It was a country, too, no 
 longer made up, as in the past, of feudal provinces which had 
 little sympathy with each other, which spoke widely different dia- 
 lects, and which were often bitterly hostile. On the contrary, this 
 great realm, now geographically united, was tending more and 
 more to become one in every other respect. The royal power 
 practically extended over the whole of it. Hitherto the laws had 
 been recorded in Latin, because there had been no grammatically 
 formed national language ; now they were recorded in French, which 
 was also, as we shall presently see, about to become the language 
 of literature. Formerly the great body of the inhabitants had no 
 political rights, and nothing in common. Now they were repre- 
 sented in the national assembly. 3 However imperfect that repre- 
 sentation might be, it was nevertheless a decided step forward. 
 It showed that the kingdom was no longer made up of two or three 
 privileged classes who monopolized everything. It meant that at 
 
 1 H&tel de Cluny: the name hotel is often given in France to the palace or 
 mansion of a person of rank or wealth. The Hotel de Cluny is now a famous 
 museum. It was originally built in the fourteenth century, but was entirely rebuilt 
 in the reign of Louis XII. 
 
 2 Guizot (Gwee-zo'). 3 See Paragraph 94.
 
 CAMPAIGN IN ITALY. I I 5 
 
 length the PEOPLE had come into existence, and from this period 
 France was to continue developing that unity of interest and of 
 purpose so essential to true national life. Thus two great steps 
 had been taken: first, the discordant baronies had coalesced 
 into a kingdom ; secondly, this kingdom was now becoming a 
 commonwealth. 
 
 97. Campaign in Italy. Francis was ambitious to use this 
 national power to get back the possessions which Louis XII. had 
 gained and then lost in Italy. He was successful in his campaign, 
 and Milan with Lombardy acknowledged him as conqueror. One 
 important result of this conquest was the establishment of a " per- 
 petual peace " with the Swiss, who had hitherto sold their military 
 services to the Italians. A second result not less important was a 
 concordat l or treaty with the Pope, which made the clergy of 
 France dependent on the king, who now claimed and obtained 
 the right of disposing of the great offices in the Church. On 
 the other hand, the Pope's spiritual power over the clergy was 
 increased, and it was agreed that in future his authority in all 
 matters of doctrine should be held superior to that of the Church 
 councils. 
 
 Francis, like his predecessor, Louis, brought back from Italy 
 new conceptions of art and of architecture. He purchased paint- 
 ings by Raphael, and statuary by Michael Angelo, to adorn the 
 magnificent palaces of the Louvre 2 and of Fontainebleau, 3 which 
 he now began to build or to enlarge. These splendid edifices, 
 with many others, were of that classical or Italian architectural 
 order called the Renaissance, 4 already mentioned, and which 
 now took the place of the Gothic. It was another evidence that 
 
 1 Concordat (kon-kor-dat'). 2 Louvre (Louvr). 
 
 8 Fontainebleau (Fon-taine-bloh'). 
 
 4 Renaissance : the New-birth or New-period. The classical or Italian style of 
 architecture, which now superseded the Gothic, was a revival, in modified form, ol 
 the architecture of ancient Greece and Rome. St. Peter's at Rome, St. Paul's, 
 London, and the Pantheon of Paris, are fine examples of Renaissance style. So, 
 too, is the H&tel Cluny, mentioned in the preceding paragraph.
 
 Il6 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 the Middle Ages were passed, and that a new spirit of life was 
 everywhere seeking expression in the growth of literature and art 
 as well as of nationality. 
 
 98. Formation of a Royal Court. Another great change 
 introduced by Francis I. was the formation of the court. When 
 the feudal system was at its height, each baron lived apart from 
 every other, and from the king, shut up in the gloomy isolation 
 of his castle, which was rather a fortress than a home. There 
 he ruled supreme. He made war, coined money, declared and 
 executed the law. Now, all this was changed. The nobles had 
 lost their power, and the king had gained it. He was therefore 
 the centre of influence. So Francis gathered round himself, in 
 his palaces at Fontainebleau, Chambord, or Paris, a retinue of 
 barons and bishops, whose chief object henceforth was to secure 
 the royal favor. The barons' wives and daughters accompanied 
 them ; for the king declared that " a court without ladies is like a 
 spring without flowers." Refinement, luxury, and dissipation now 
 became the fashion. The time was passed in balls, tournaments, 
 hunting-parties, and gaming. Men of letters, minstrels, and artists, 
 contributed their part, and life put on a different color from the 
 monotonous and sombre hue it had worn in sterner and more 
 perilous days. Most important of all, the nobles gradually lost 
 much of their former independence of character. They bowed 
 more and more to the king's will, and thus the effect of the forma- 
 tion of the court was to steadily increase that royal power which 
 was all the while tending to become absolute. 
 
 The old danger had been want of unity ; the new was the ex- 
 cessive concentration of authority in the hands of a single person. 
 If monarchy had not grown to be supreme, France would have 
 remained a weak bundle of mutually discordant and belligerent 
 states. If, on the other hand, it was not restrained, monarchy 
 must eventually end in despotism. In England, Parliament, and 
 especially the House of Commons, applied that check, but in 
 France that salutary power had little practical influence. The;
 
 FRANCIS I. AND CHARLES V. I I/ 
 
 king, instead of convening the States-General, now summoned 
 a select body of men called the Notables, who were chosen by 
 himself, and henceforth we shall see the government of the two 
 countries diverge more and more, one toward larger political 
 liberty, the other toward its gradual extinction. 
 
 99. Francis I. and Charles V. France was now the first 
 power in Europe ; but the country was soon to be obliged to 
 enter the field against a rival who would be content with no sec- 
 ond place. Shortly after the accession of Francis I., Charles V. 1 
 ascended the throne of Spain. He was ruler not only over that 
 realm, but over the Netherlands, Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia. 
 Among his possessions he included also those immense regions 
 of unexplored wealth in the New World which Columbus had 
 gained for his ancestors, Ferdinand and Isabella. Later, the 
 death of his grandfather, the Emperor Maximilian, added Austria 
 to his dominions. Then, when Maximilian's death left the throne 
 of the German Empire vacant, the princes of Germany met to 
 choose a new imperial sovereign. Three candidates presented 
 themselves, Henry VIII. of England, Charles V. of Spain, and 
 the young king of France. The choice fell on Charles, who thus 
 became ruler of nearly all civilized Europe outside of France and 
 the British Isles. 
 
 Since the time of Charlemagne and the Caesars no sovereign 
 had been able to gain control of such an immense territory as 
 that which the Emperor Charles V. now possessed. Francis I. 
 felt that so formidable a neighbor was a constant menace to him- 
 self and his people. Placed as his kingdom was between the armies 
 of Germany and Spain, both of whom obeyed one directing and 
 absolute will, France was like the wheat between the upper and 
 the nether mill-stones, which a single energetic movement might 
 suffice to crush. One look at the map will show the position and 
 the danger. 2 
 
 1 Mary of Burgundy (see Paragraph 90) had married Maximilian, archduke of 
 Austria. Their son Philip married the heiress of the Spanish provinces of Castile 
 and Aragon. Charles V. was Philip's son. 2 See Map No. IX., page 106.
 
 Il8 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 100. War for the "Balance of Power." The policy of Fran- 
 cis was to offset this danger by attacking his rival's Italian posses- 
 sions. A war, which began in 1525, was the beginning of the 
 great struggle for the maintenance of the "balance of power"; 
 or, in other words, for preventing any one sovereign from getting 
 a controlling influence in Europe. It was a contest which was not 
 to be finished ; for in one form or another this strife, springing 
 from political jealousy, has ever since engaged the utmost efforts 
 of the chief European rulers. Were it not for this mutual dread 
 lest one nation should become greater than the rest, there would be 
 no reason for keeping up the enormous standing armies of the 
 present day. The burden of taxation and debt which these 
 armies and their wars have imposed has kept on constantly in- 
 creasing. It has now grown to such intolerable proportions that 
 it would seem that the time must come when the people of Europe 
 would have to choose between one of two alternatives " disarm 
 or starve." l 
 
 Francis I. gained neither glory nor dominions by his Italian 
 wars. On the contrary, he lost Bayard, that knight " without fear 
 and without reproach," who, as the king said, was in himself alone 
 worth a regiment. He also lost the Duke of Bourbon by deser- 
 tion. The latter found Bayard dying on the battle-field, with his 
 face turned toward the enemy. The Duke expressed his sorrow 
 at seeing him in that condition. " Do not pity me," replied 
 Bayard, " since I die as a man should ; but rather pity yourself, 
 you who are fighting against both your king and your country." 
 Later, Francis himself was taken prisoner, carried to Madrid, and 
 had to give up not only his possessions in Italy, but even the duke- 
 dom of Burgundy. When he gained his liberty, however, he 
 resumed the wars. Leagues were formed, in which Henry VIII. 
 of England and the Pope joined Francis. Again Francis was 
 defeated. Then another and still stronger league was formed, in 
 
 1 See Professor Atkinson's " Strength of Nations." France has by far the largest 
 national debt of any country of Europe. It amounts, in round numbers, to 
 $7,200,000,000.
 
 FRANCIS I. AND THE NEW WORLD. I 19 
 
 which Henry VIII. changed about and took sides with Charles V., 
 while not only the Protestant princes of Germany, but even the 
 Sultan of Turkey, gave their support to Francis. It was the first 
 instance in which a Christian sovereign had allied himself in arms 
 with a Mohammedan. Francis excused himself for this singular 
 compact by saying, " When the wolves attack the flock, one has a 
 right to call the dogs to help him." 
 
 But it was all to no purpose, and, as Comines says, " The French 
 left no memorials of themselves in Italy but their graves." At 
 last, in 1544, after many years of fighting, peace was made. By 
 a previous treaty Francis had got back Burgundy ; but Charles 
 refused to give him so much as a foot of Italian soil, and so the 
 German emperor kept that preponderance of power which vexed 
 the soul of the French king during the brief remainder of his life. 
 
 101. Francis I. and the New World. Though thus ardently 
 engaged in war, Francis I. found time and means to take part in the 
 great maritime expeditions which characterized the age. Columbus 
 had crossed " The Sea of Darkness," and found its opposite side. 
 Spain and Portugal claimed possession of the New World by right 
 of discovery ; but Francis was fully determined to have his share in 
 the rich prize. " Show me," said he to the kings of those countries, 
 " the clause in the will of Father Adam which divides America 
 between you, and excludes the French." As the claimants found 
 it inconvenient to produce the document, Francis continued, in 
 spite of all remonstrance, to send out explorers in the wake of 
 those hardy French fishermen, who brought back cargoes of New- 
 foundland codfish, and who named Cape Breton from their own 
 native province of Britanny. 
 
 According to some accounts Francis sent out Verrazano, 1 a 
 Florentine, in 1524. He, it is said, explored the coast from what 
 is now the harbor of New York to the Carolinas, and called the 
 country " New France." 
 
 1 Verrazano (Ver-ratz-zah'-no) : historians are not agreed in regard to the 
 genuineness of Verrazano's reports.
 
 I2O LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 Ten years later Cartier l ascended that noble river to which he 
 gave the name of St. Lawrence, and reaching a little Indian vil- 
 lage on its banks, he called the lofty hill which rose above it 
 Montreal 2 and the country Canada. 3 
 
 Such was the beginning of those French discoveries in America 
 which in the course of the next century led to temporary set- 
 tlements in the Carolinas and Florida by Ribaut 4 and to perma- 
 nent colonies in Nova Scotia and Canada by De Monts 5 and 
 Champlain. 
 
 102. Results of the Discovery and Exploration of America. 
 
 The results of these expeditions cannot be overestimated. No 
 one then realized their true significance, but, as the historian Vol- 
 taire said at a later period, "The discovery of America is the 
 greatest event that has ever taken place in this world of ours, one 
 half of which knew nothing of the other half." 
 
 Before this time, commerce had been confined almost wholly to 
 the Mediterranean. There, little vessels not larger than pleasure 
 yachts crept cautiously from port to port, with their small cargoes. 
 
 Now all was changed. Large and strong ships, fit to battle with 
 Atlantic gales, were built, and ocean navigation began. New ports 
 were opened, new cities rose, and the trade of Europe took its first 
 real step toward encircling the globe. 
 
 The enormous increase in the precious metals brought by Spain 
 from Mexico and Peru had far-reaching political effects. During 
 a great part of the Middle Ages there had been a chronic dearth 
 of gold and silver coin. The kings of France and of other coun- 
 tries had been driven to extremities to get means to pay their 
 armies. They had robbed the Jews, issued bad money, and hired 
 alchemists to try to transmute lead into gold. Henceforth there 
 would be no excuse for these devices, since there was now coin 
 enough to meet all legitimate needs. 
 
 l Cartier (Kar'-tee-ay). 2 Montreal: Royal Mountain. 
 
 3 Canada : the meaning of the word is uncertain. 
 
 * Ribaut (Ree-bo'). 5 De Monts (Deh Mong).
 
 THE REFORMATION. 121 
 
 Such were some of the material effects of the discoveries that 
 had been made. But these were not all. The extension of geo- 
 graphical knowledge enlarged the boundaries of thought. The 
 voyage to America was like a journey to another planet. New 
 races, new animals, new plants, new products, and new fields of 
 enterprise came into view. The accounts brought back set all 
 Europe in a ferment ; soon thousands were eagerly inquiring and 
 debating about the realities and possibilities of that strange world 
 which lay beyond the seas. The Church, too, took part in the dis- 
 cussion, and theologians asked each other whether the Indians were 
 descendants of Adam, and whether Christ died for their salvation. 
 
 103. The Reformation : Luther ; Calvin. These inquiries 
 naturally connected themselves with that great movement known 
 as the Reformation, which had already made marked progress. 
 The translation, printing, and circulation of the Bible led to the 
 renewed study of religious questions. Among those who were thus 
 moved to make a re-examination of the grounds of their religious 
 faith was Martin Luther, a German monk. He became involved 
 in a violent controversy respecting questions of ecclesiastical disci- 
 pline and doctrine which finally led to his denial of the supreme 
 power of the Pope. 
 
 Later, he published a work entitled the " Babylonian Captivity 
 of the Church of God," in which he boldly maintained that the 
 Church had fallen into bondage to the Pope, as the Jews once had 
 to the king of Babylon, and that his mission was to deliver her 
 from this slavery. Up to this time, and even somewhat later, 
 Luther's object was not separation from the Church, but reform 
 within it. Finding this, as he believed, impracticable, he eventu- 
 ally took an independent stand, and attacked the Catholic author- 
 ity and belief with all his might, and with a coarseness character- 
 istic of the age. The Elector of Saxony, the most powerful of the 
 German princes, had long been irritated by the heavy drain of 
 money from his province to meet the demands of Rome. He, 
 with other influential men, took Luther's side either openly or
 
 122 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 secretly, and as a result the German emperor was obliged to grant 
 the Lutheran party freedom of worship in certain provinces until a 
 general Church council should be called to settle matters. A few 
 years later the emperor, Charles V., forbade the further exercise of 
 the privilege. In 1529 the Lutheran party protested against the 
 prohibition, denouncing it as an attempt to tyrannize over con- 
 science. This protest gained for them the name of Protestants, 
 henceforth destined to fill so large a place in the world's history. 
 
 The emperor, alarmed at the attitude of the Lutherans, or Prot- 
 estants, was determined to root out a belief that seemed to him 
 a dangerous heresy, which, if not speedily checked, threatened to 
 split not only the Church, but the empire, into hostile factions. 
 Germany was at best but a loose bundle of states, and Charles saw 
 that if these were to be separated by different political and religious 
 parties, his rule would be practically over. His efforts at stamping 
 out the new faith and new thought were, however, unsuccessful. 
 In spite of all he could do, Protestantism continued to grow and 
 spread throughout the greater part of Northwest Europe. 
 
 In Italy, Spain, and throughout the south Catholicism fully 
 maintained its authority, and heretics expiated their boldness with 
 their lives. 
 
 In Central Europe, especially in France, the population was 
 divided, and ultimately both sides were engaged in a long and 
 desperate struggle, not only to support their respective churches, 
 but for the possession of political power besides. The fact that 
 France, unlike Germany, was now under the government of one 
 supreme authority, made this battle of Catholics and Protestants 
 all the more terrible. Each side was determined to get possession 
 of the crown, and there could be no prospect of a compromise, as 
 there might have been at an earlier period when the country was 
 virtually in the hands of the great barons. 
 
 In France the chief leader of the party of the Reformation was 
 John Calvin. He was a profound thinker and acute logician. He 
 soon became the very Protestant of the Protestants, going far be- 
 yond Luther in his departure from the usages and teachings of the
 
 THE REFORMATION. 123 
 
 Catholics. Politically, his tendencies were decidedly toward 
 republicanism. 
 
 He speedily found that neither his life nor his liberty was safe 
 in France, and he accordingly fled to Bale, a city in one of the 
 Protestant cantons of Switzerland. Here, shutting himself up with 
 the Bible as his sole companion, he proceeded to draw up the first 
 clear and consistent statement of the chief doctrines of the Refor- 
 mation. These he embodied in a famous work, entitled the " Insti- 
 tutes of the Christian Religion," which he dedicated, in an eloquent 
 introduction, to Francis I. 
 
 Meanwhile Francis pursued a double policy. He encouraged 
 the German Protestants in order to divide that empire and so 
 harass and weaken his enemy, Charles V. At home he showed no 
 such friendliness to the reformers, but, on the contrary, vied with 
 Charles in his efforts to crush them. Roughly speaking, the power 
 of the French Calvinists was mainly south of the Loire, while Paris 
 and the north were strongly Catholic. 
 
 The course taken by Francis was not inconsistent with the ideas 
 of the age, for religious toleration was then practically unknown, 
 and the king's motives were mainly, if not wholly, political. Even 
 after the progress of the Reformation had familiarized Europe 
 with the spectacle of two churches and two creeds, it was still the 
 belief of the most enlightened statesmen that no subject had any 
 right to profess a different religion from that of his sovereign. In 
 every country, whether Protestant or Catholic, Church and State 
 were considered to be indissolubly united, so that to call a man a 
 heretic was only another way of calling him a rebel or a traitor. If in 
 the south Catholics persecuted Lutherans, in the north, though in a 
 different degree, Lutherans persecuted Catholics, and ended by per- 
 secuting their fellow- Protestants if they followed a different leader. 
 
 France, as we have already seen, was at this period just emerg- 
 ing from feudal anarchy into monarchical and national unity, and 
 the king hated the Protestants as men who dared to think for 
 themselves. What he wanted was absolute uniformity of faith and 
 obedience to authority.
 
 124 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 In England, upwards of a hundred years later, the Stuart kings 
 had precisely the same feeling. They persecuted Puritanism be- 
 cause they feared that, if allowed to go on unchecked, it would 
 lead to the overthrow of the established church and the established 
 government. 
 
 For these reasons Francis I. refused the French Protestants 
 liberty of worship. Meanwhile Calvin had established himself in 
 the free Swiss city of Geneva ; thence he disseminated his writings 
 and doctrines in all directions. Calvin had no more idea of tol- 
 erating the religious liberty that we enjoy to-day than Francis I. 
 had. The king tortured and burned those who rejected Catholi- 
 cism. In the same spirit, believing they were doing God's will, 
 the stern Protestant authorities who ruled Geneva sent Michael 
 Servetus to the stake for denying the doctrine of the Trinity, an 
 example which was followed in England many years later. 
 
 104. Massacre of the Vaudois. The persecution under 
 Francis I. varied in intensity, and was occasionally suspended for 
 political reasons ; but in the last part of his reign the king renewed 
 his punishment of the Calvinists and other Protestants with terri- 
 ble severity. 
 
 This persecution reached its height in the massacre of the Vau- 
 dois, 1 an inoffensive people of the southeast of France. They 
 were Protestants, but not strict followers of Calvin. In the eyes 
 of the Catholic Church they were heretics. The fact that they 
 were neither political agitators nor noisy reformers, but loyal sub- 
 jects, living pure and simple lives, did not avail to save them. 
 
 The king, who was prematurely old and morose, feared lest he 
 had offended Heaven by being too lenient toward unbelievers. 
 He now determined to offer up the Vaudois as a sacrifice for his 
 lack of zeal. 
 
 He forthwith sent a body of troops into the heretical district. 
 They fell upon the unsuspecting inhabitants of thirty or more 
 peaceful little villages, and in a short time reduced the country to 
 
 1 Vaudois (Voh-dwah').
 
 LITERATURE; RABELAIS, MONTAIGNE. 125 
 
 a wilderness of ruin. For fifteen leagues round not a cottage was 
 left standing. Over three thousand men, women, and children 
 were ruthlessly murdered, and many hundreds sent to the galleys 1 
 for life. Those who succeeded in escaping death by sword or 
 flame, fled to the mountains, only to perish there by starvation 
 and exposure. Thus ended the heresy of the Vaudois. The 
 massacre eased the king's conscience for a time, though when he 
 died not long after, he seems to have had doubts of the wisdom 
 of his course. Still he could console himself with the thought that 
 if he had not converted the obnoxious province, he had at least 
 turned it into a graveyard. 
 
 105. Influence of Literature ; Rabelais and Montaigne. 
 
 But another and subtler influence was at work, which Francis 
 does not seem to have suspected, but which was nevertheless 
 secretly undermining the authority of the Church, and thus indi- 
 rectly aiding the Reformers. While Calvin was denouncing Cathol- 
 icism from his pulpit at Geneva, the French press sent forth a 
 book which held up the priesthood and the monks to the grossest 
 ridicule. Francis Rabelais 2 was a man of remarkable though 
 erratic genius, who began life as a mendicant friar, then turned 
 doctor, and ended by becoming a parish priest. He was the 
 author of that strange medley of wit, nonsense, and vulgarity, 
 entitled the " Life of Gargantua and Pantagruel, 3 of which he 
 boasted that " more copies were sold in two months than of the 
 Bible in ten years." In those days it was the custom of sovereigns 
 and nobles to keep professional buffoons or " fools," who amused 
 their masters by their sharp sayings, and who, under cover of a 
 
 1 Galleys : vessels propelled by sails and oars, and manned by convicts or 
 galley-slaves, each of whom was chained to his seat. This seat was never left. 
 There the galley-slaves ate, worked, and slept. These unfortunate men were treated 
 with revolting cruelty, and the punishment was more dreaded than that of death. 
 
 2 Rabelais (Rah-bel-ay'). 
 
 3 Gargantua and Pantagruel were the names of two famous giants of the Middle 
 Ages. Some writers suppose Gargantua to be a satire on Francis I. ; but if so, 
 fortunately for Rabelais, the king never discovered his own likeness in that character.
 
 126 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 jest or a story, sometimes uttered wholesome truths that no one 
 else dared speak. Rabelais may be called the literary " fool " of 
 the period. He attacked corruption and inefficiency in high 
 places, but in such a manner that he escaped the usual penalty of 
 the gallows or the stake. Men read and laughed at the wild, 
 coarse, extravagant burlesque which to-day seems as disgusting as 
 it is tedious ; but none the less the satire had its influence in help- 
 ing to break up the old system of things, and prepare the way for 
 the new. 
 
 The second great work of the age, though later in time, was 
 the Essays of Montaigne. 1 Montaigne, who wrote under the suc- 
 cessors of Francis (1580), took for his motto the question " What 
 do I know ? " His essays, dealing with almost every subject and 
 side of human life, may be called so many short sermons on that 
 significant but sceptical text. Montaigne aims to convince his 
 reader that man knows but little, and that even that little has a 
 tinge of uncertainty. 
 
 The effect of his book was to weaken faith in tradition. Mon- 
 taigne really cast doubt on everything ; but he did it in such a 
 gentle and genial way that he was a universal favorite. No one 
 wanted to burn the book, still less the author. 
 
 It is a striking illustration of his popularity and his courage, 
 that during the civil and religious wars, which we are soon to de- 
 scribe, he alone of all the country gentlemen in his province refused 
 to fortify his house. 3 " I have no other guard or sentinel than the 
 stars," said he. Throwing open his doors, he welcomed both par- 
 ties ; and, except during the fiercest period of the strife, he was 
 respected and treated as a friend by both. 
 
 106. Henry II.; Taking of Metz and Calais. In 1547 
 Henry II. came to the throne. He married Catharine de Medici, 4 
 an Italian, and a relative of the Pope. Her craft and cruelty 
 
 l Montaigne (Mon-taine'). 2 " Que sais-je? " 
 
 3 Montaigne lived in a chateau not very far from Bordeaux. 
 
 4 Medici (Med'e-chee).
 
 HENRY II. TAKES METZ. 127 
 
 were destined to do irreparable harm to France. Voltaire de- 
 clared that her robes of silk and gold were spotted he might 
 have said, with truth, drenched with blood. 
 
 While Henry lived, however, Catharine's real character did not 
 fully show itself, for he was not under her influence, but under 
 that of Diana of Poitiers, who was as weak and worthless as 
 Catharine was resolute. 
 
 Henry continued his father's policy, and formed an alliance 
 with the German Protestants in the war against the Emperor. 
 With their aid he took the free German city of Metz, and also the 
 neighboring cities of Verdun and Toul. He thus extended the 
 boundaries of the French kingdom on the northeast. Charles 
 made a desperate effort to take Metz from Henry, but after a 
 twelve weeks' siege, he withdrew, having lost half his army in the 
 attempt. In his rage at the miscarriage of his plans, the gouty 
 old emperor exclaimed, " I see now that Fortune is like the rest 
 of her sex : she favors young men, and disdains those who are 
 getting into years." From this period (1552) Metz remained one 
 of the most important frontier strongholds of France, until the 
 Franco-Prussian War compelled its cession to Germany in 1870. 
 The struggle for its possession is a good illustration of the strife of 
 France and Germany for that strip of country which once consti- 
 tuted a middle kingdom neither French nor German, 1 but having 
 just enough of each element to give both a pretext for war then 
 and now. 
 
 A few years later Charles V., disgusted with the world, abdi- 
 cated in favor of his son Philip II., and retired to spend his 
 remaining life in a Spanish monastery, where he meditated on the 
 fickleness of Fortune to his heart's content. 
 
 Philip married Mary, queen of England ; but he was dis- 
 appointed in his purpose of crushing out Protestantism in that 
 country, although Mary spared neither rack nor fagots to aid her 
 husband in his policy of conversion or extermination. 
 
 l See Paragraph 31.
 
 128 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 Henry continued the war against Spain, but gained no more 
 foreign territory. He, however, made a conquest at home, which 
 filled France with exultation. The Duke of Guise, 1 one of his 
 ablest generals, succeeded in wresting Calais from the English. 
 They, it will be remembered, had held it since Edward III. took 
 it in I347- 2 When the duke's forces entered its gates in triumph, 
 England lost its last foot of French soil. Queen Mary, who had 
 been determined to hold the city at all odds, never recovered 
 from the humiliation of this surrender. In her last moments she 
 said, " After my death you will find Calais written on my heart." 
 
 In order to be at liberty to devote all his strength to the 
 destruction of Protestantism in Europe, Philip II. made peace 
 with France. Henry had married his eldest son Francis to Mary 
 Queen of Scots. Philip of Spain was now a widower, and Henry, 
 in order to cement the treaty of peace with him, agreed to give 
 him his daughter Elizabeth in marriage, and his sister Marguerite 
 to the Duke of Savoy, one of the Spanish king's ablest allies. At 
 a grand tournament held in honor of the double nuptials, Henry 
 was accidentally killed. His policy toward the French Calvinists 
 during the latter part of his reign was ominous of future trouble. 
 Henry cared less for their religious views than for their politics. 
 He saw that the tendency of Calvin's work was democratic. 
 Hence he persecuted that great leader's adherents, for, said he, 
 " if we let them increase, we run the risk of falling into a kind of 
 republic like the Swiss." 
 
 107. Summary. During this period, covering almost a cen- 
 tury, we have traced the chief points in the struggle between 
 Louis XL and Charles the Bold of Burgundy. We have seen 
 the king gradually succeed in establishing power throughout 
 the realm, thus consolidating France. His reign is also marked 
 by the revival of learning and the introduction of printing. 
 Under Louis's successor, Charles VIII., we have the beginning 
 of the Italian war and the rise of the Tiers Etat. With Francis I. 
 
 1 Guise (Geeze) : g hard. 2 See Paragraph 78.
 
 SUMMARY. 129 
 
 comes the further development of national unity, the formation of 
 the royal court, the wars with Charles V. for the balance of power, 
 the French exploration and colonization of America, the begin- 
 ning of the Reformation and the rise of French literature. 
 Finally, we have the extension of royal power and territory by the 
 taking of the free German city of Metz, with Verdun and Toul, 
 followed by the capture of Calais from the English, thus marking 
 the final expulsion of the last remnant of that power from French 
 soil.
 
 I3O LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 " We judge not; we only relate." DARGAUD. 
 
 PERIOD OF THE CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS WARS 
 (1559-1610). 
 
 * Francis II. (1559-1560). * Henry III. (1574-1589). 
 
 * Charles IX. (1560-1574). f Henry IV. (1589-1610). 
 
 108. Accession of Francis IE.; Power of the Guises. The 
 death of Henry II. was a serious misfortune to France, since it left 
 the realm without a competent head. Francis II., who succeeded 
 to the crown, was but a boy of fifteen, and in feeble health. The 
 situation was critical. The country was divided between two mutu- 
 ally hostile religious parties both eager for power. The greater 
 part belonged to the old church, but a strong minority, including 
 many influential men, were Calvinists. 
 
 The young king gladly left the management of state affairs to his 
 wife's two ambitious uncles, the Duke of Guise, who had just dis- 
 tinguished himself by taking Calais, and his brother, the Cardinal 
 of Lorraine, both of whom were ardent and extreme Catholics. 
 The queen, 1 young, gay, and frivolous, asked nothing more of her 
 uncles than that they should furnish her plenty of money for 
 her pleasures. Thus the Guises became virtually masters of the 
 kingdom. 
 
 109. The Bourbons and the Montmorencies. Their monopoly 
 of power excited distrust and hatred. All their movements were 
 jealously watched by the Bourbon family, whose leaders were An- 
 
 * House of Valois. t House of Bourbon. 
 
 1 On marriage of Francis II., see Paragraph 106.
 
 THE BOURBONS AND THE MONTMORENCIES. 13! 
 
 toine, king of Navarre, 1 and his brother Prince Conde\ 2 They had 
 espoused the Calvinist or Huguenot cause, as it now began to be 
 called, 3 but rather, it would seem, from motives of policy than from 
 any deep religious convictions. The Bourbons were the descend- 
 ants of St. Louis, 4 and the next heirs to the French crown in case 
 the young king and his brothers died without leaving a successor. 
 But the shadow of the treason of the Duke of Bourbon in the 
 reign of Francis I. 5 rested on the family, and neither An toine nor 
 Cond6 dared to openly demand a part in the government. 
 
 The Bourbons were by no means alone in their hatred of the 
 Guises. The Montmorencies, with many other old families among 
 the moderate Catholics, shared this feeling. They saw with secret 
 indignation that a little band of foreigners a Scotch queen, 6 an 
 Italian queen-mother/ and the Guises of Lorraine 8 now ruled 
 France, while they, the representatives of the old native nobility, 
 were utterly excluded. For this reason they were ready to side 
 
 l King of Navarre : a title derived from his marriage with Jeanne d'Albret 
 (Dai-bray'), queen, in her own right, of the petty kingdom of Navarre on the 
 borders of the Pyrenees. 2 Conde (Kon-day'). 
 
 3 Huguenots: probably a French corruption of the German Swiss word Eidge- 
 nossen, literally, oath-comrades, meaning Confederates or Covenanters. It was 
 used in France as a nickname or term of reproach. 
 
 * Genealogical Table showing the origin of the Bourbon family and their claim to 
 the crown : 
 Louis IX. (St. Louis) 
 1226-1270. 
 
 Philip III. Robert, Count of Clermont, 
 
 1270-1285, sixth son of St. Louis. He married 
 
 from whom descended Beatrice de Bourbon, 1272. By her he 
 
 the three brothers, had a son Louis, Duke of Bourbon. Antoine 
 
 Francis II. (1559-1560), de Bourbon (king of Navarre) and his brother 
 
 Charles IX. (1560-1574), Prince Conde were descendants. In case Fran- 
 
 Henry III. (1574-1589). cis II. and his brothers died without leaving male 
 
 issue, Antoine and Conde were the next legal heirs 
 to the crown of France. Antoine's son Henry be- 
 came king (Henry IV.) in 1589, thus establishing 
 the house of Bourbon. 
 
 5 See Paragraph 100. 6 Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. 
 
 " Catharine de Medici. 
 
 8 Lorraine, Germany, part of which e.g. Verdun, Toul, and Metz had only 
 recently been conquered by the late Henry II.
 
 132 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 for the time with the Bourbons, even though the latter were 
 Protestants, or pretended to be, in order that by their com- 
 bined effort they might drag the obnoxious Guises from power. 
 
 110. Coligny and the Huguenot Party. Meanwhile, the real 
 leader of the Huguenots was Admiral Coligny, 1 who believed in the 
 Reformation with all his " heart, soul, and strength." \ He was one 
 of the truest and bravest men of the age, and he was convinced 
 that if extreme partisans like the Guises were to hold supreme 
 sway, then nothing but the most decided measures could save the 
 Protestants from a war of persecution that might easily become 
 one of extermination. He had the entire support not only of the 
 sincere Calvinists, who were ready to give their lives for their 
 religion, but he was also favored by an influential body of the 
 lesser nobility and gentry who were on the lookout for spoils. In 
 Germany not a few princes had found it to their political advan- 
 tage to turn Protestants. In England, Henry VIII., when he sepa- 
 rated from the Catholic Church, had seized hundreds of rich estates 
 belonging to the monasteries, and had divided them among his 
 favorites. So in France there were needy and avaricious families 
 eager to see the old church broken up, that they might get their 
 share of its possessions. Every great movement is sure to draw to 
 itself a certain proportion of such followers ; and so long as Prot- 
 estantism held out the hope or possibility of being a highly profita- 
 ble faith, these unworthy adherents were ready to fight its battles. 
 
 It was evident that the two great religious parties would not 
 continue to remain quiet. Persecution on the one side, resistance 
 on the other, mingled with the political animosity of both, were 
 preparing the way for an explosion. Those who wished well to 
 their country saw with terror that civil war was at hand. Even so 
 moderate a man as Montaigne, who sided with neither party, did 
 not hesitate to say later that France would never enjoy any real 
 peace until either the Duke of Guise or the chief of the Huguenot 
 party was got rid of. 
 
 1 Coligny (Ko-leen'yee).
 
 THE CONSPIRACY OF AMBOISE. 133 
 
 111. The Conspiracy of Amboise ; Return of Mary to Scotland. 
 
 But before coming to open conflict those who were opposed to 
 the Guises and the court, embracing a large number of Huguenots, 
 resolved to make an effort to get Francis into their own hands. If 
 successful, they could dictate such changes as they thought best. 
 Their plot was to surprise the court then at the castle of Amboise, 1 
 seize the king and queen, and kill or otherwise dispose of those 
 who had the control of the government. Calvin, who had received 
 some intimation of the proposed action, emphatically condemned it, 
 saying that if a single drop of blood was shed, rivers would follow. 
 
 The conspiracy was discovered by the Guises, and so many pris- 
 oners were captured that it took a month to behead, hang, and 
 drown them. Though the Bourbon Prince Cond was really the 
 prime mover in the plot, yet he had managed matters so shrewdly 
 that it was impossible to convict him, and he successfully defied 
 justice. 
 
 Shortly after, the king died (1560), having reigned less than a 
 year and a half. His widow, Queen Mary, with many bitter tears 
 and presentiments of coming evil, bade a final farewell to France, 
 and embarked for Scotland. She left a country that was dear to 
 her to go to one she did not love, although it was her native land. 
 Young, beautiful, and passionately fond of pleasure, she went to 
 ascend a throne for whose stern duties she was unequal a throne 
 whose steps led to a prison, and a prison whose doors opened, after 
 eighteen years, only to give her free passage to the scaffold. 2 
 
 112. Regency of Catharine de Medici; Conciliation of Par- 
 ties; L'Hopital's Advice. As the late king left no children, his 
 brother Charles now became heir to the crown. But as this prince 
 was not yet eleven, and therefore would not be legally of age for 
 three years, 3 his mother, the crafty Catharine de Medici, became 
 his and his brothers' guardian and the real ruler of France. 
 
 1 Amboise (Amb-wahz') : on the Loire, near Tours. 
 
 2 See Noel Paton's striking picture of Mary, in John Skelton's Essays. 
 
 8 In France, at this period, the heir to the throne became of age at fourteen. See 
 Larousse's " Dictionnaire Universe!," Majorite.
 
 134 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 She began by conciliating all parties. Had she adhered firmly 
 to that wise policy, she might perhaps have saved the country. But 
 her object was to gratify her own inordinate ambition. Human 
 life never had any value in her eyes, and if she sought peace, it was 
 to gain time that her own power might become effectually estab- 
 lished. 
 
 Catharine chose for her chief counsellor Michel de 1'Hopital, 1 
 a man of heroic character, as able as he was upright. He clearly 
 saw the coming crisis, but hoped to avert it. Though a zealous 
 Catholic, he could not endure that the Protestants should be denied 
 liberty of worship. Blameless in soul himself, fearing God, and 
 loving his fellow-men, he pleaded earnestly for religious toleration. 
 "What need is there," he demanded of the Guises, "of flames and 
 torture? If we are armed with a good life, we require nothing 
 more to put down heresy. Let us banish these words, ' Lutheran,' 
 * Huguenot,' and ' Papist,' names only of parties and of seditions, 
 and let us all cling to that of ' Christian.' " 
 
 113. Edict of Toleration; Action of the Jesuits. For a 
 time this noble counsel prevailed, and the government no longer 
 cut out the tongues of the Protestants, " that they might not pro- 
 test." Catharine allowed L'Hopital to issue an edict permitting 
 the Huguenots to hold their meetings unmolested in the country 
 districts, though forbidding them to assemble in the walled towns, 
 where party feeling ran high, and bloodshed would probably ensue 
 if such liberty were granted. Furthermore, all laws against heresy 
 were now suspended ; on the other hand, the Huguenots were 
 prohibited from interfering in any way with the Catholic worship, 
 as they not infrequently did in those parts of France where they 
 were strongest. But, unfortunately, the times were not favorable 
 to these liberal measures. To check the spread of the Reforma- 
 tion, the society of Jesuits, or soldiers of Christ, had been organ- 
 ized. Their zeal to maintain the Catholic Church in its integrity 
 was quite equal to that of Luther or Calvin in behalf of Protes- 
 
 1 Michel de I'Hdpital (Meeshel deh Loh-pee-tal') .
 
 MASSACRE AT VASSY. 135 
 
 tantism. They believed it their duty to refuse all compromise 
 with dissenters and heretics. Whatever influence they could bring 
 to bear on the government was therefore hostile to toleration. The 
 Jesuits did not stand alone. The great body of monks felt that 
 the success of Protestantism would probably result in the same 
 wholesale confiscation of monastic property that had taken place 
 in England. They therefore naturally opposed any policy which 
 seemed to favor the reformers. With them sided many able but 
 narrow-minded theologians of the College of the Sorbonne. ' These 
 last now secretly begged the assistance of Philip II. of Spain. 
 That gloomy despot, who so hated Protestantism that he cast his 
 own son into prison as a heretic, and kept him there till he died, 
 did not need to be invited twice to lend his aid. He remonstrated 
 with Catharine against her policy of toleration toward the Hugue- 
 nots, and finally threatened to send an army into France to put 
 down the "rebels," as he called them, if she persisted in granting 
 them religious liberty. To add to the precarious condition of the 
 Protestants, Antoine de Bourbon now deserted them, in the hope 
 that he would thus secure the political favor of Philip. 1 
 
 With respect to the country at large, it may be said that the 
 Catholic clergy generally were opposed to toleration ; that the 
 Tiers Etat, or body of the people, favored it ; and that the nobility 
 were divided. 
 
 114. Massacre at Vassy ; Beginning of the Civil War (1562) . 
 It was at this juncture, while Catharine was debating whether 
 to sustain L'Hopital or not, that the civil war, so long impending, 
 finally broke out. 
 
 On a Sunday morning in the spring of 1562, the Duke of Guise, 
 while on his way to the province of Champagne, in Eastern France, 
 stopped at the village church of Vassy 2 to attend divine service. 
 It happened that not far off stood a barn where several hundred 
 
 1 The Catholics persuaded Antoine that if he joined them, Philip II. of Spain 
 would give him Sardinia as an offset for the loss of that portion of the kingdom of 
 Navarre which Spain had seized. 
 
 2 Vassy : near the source of the Seine, a little southeast of Paris.
 
 136 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 Huguenots were holding a religious meeting, and their singing 
 could be distinctly heard in the church. 
 
 Some of the duke's people considered this an insult to their 
 master's doctrine, and entering the barn, sword in hand, they com- 
 manded the Protestants to be quiet. The latter paid no heed to 
 the command, and the enraged soldiers now rushed upon them. 
 The Protestants, who were unarmed, defended themselves with 
 stones and other missiles. Hearing the tumult, the duke ran in to 
 put a stop to it, and was accidentally struck in the face with a stone. 
 Then his infuriated followers, in spite of the duke's efforts to check 
 them, began an indiscriminate slaughter of men, women, and chil- 
 dren, killing sixty and wounding over two hundred more. 
 
 The flames of political and religious hatred, so long repressed, 
 now burst forth ; and with brief intervals of truce, France, for the 
 next thirty years, was drenched in the blood of its own people. It 
 was a division of families as well as of parties, and father fought 
 against son, and son against father. If the extreme Catholics were 
 eager for battle, many of the Huguenots were not a whit behind. 
 " I speak," said the Calvinist Beza, " for a faith better skilled in 
 suffering than in revenging wrong ; but remember, sire," said he 
 to Antoine de Bourbon after the latter's desertion of the Protestant 
 cause, " that our religion is an anvil which has worn out many 
 hammers." 
 
 115. Condition of the Two Parties. The Huguenots had the 
 advantage of two such able leaders as Coligny and Conde\ They 
 declared the latter Protector of the Realm and Defender of the 
 King. In a short time they had possessed themselves of over 
 two hundred cities and towns, including such important places as 
 Rouen, Lyon, Tours, and Orleans. 1 
 
 On their side, the Catholics held Paris, and had the king and 
 the power of organized government to back them, with Philip II. 
 of Spain as an ally, who sent three thousand veteran troops to 
 fight in their behalf. 
 
 1 In all of these places the Huguenots had sympathizers, and in some the 
 majority of the inhabitants were of that faith.
 
 PROGRESS OF THE CIVIL WAR. 137 
 
 As an offset to this help from Spain Queen Elizabeth of Eng- 
 land promised Conde" an equal force to defend Rouen. She, how- 
 ever, prudently stipulated for ample security for the expense of 
 the expedition, preferring not to fight even for the support of the 
 Protestant cause unless the Protestants would pay the bills. 
 
 116. Progress of the War in the South. In the south of 
 France the war was carried on by roving bands of desperadoes 
 rather than by regularly organized armies. Both sides committed 
 frightful atrocities. Many of the Huguenot rank and file, not 
 content with slaying their enemies, destroyed convents, devastated 
 cathedrals, and broke open tombs. At Orleans Conde" saw one of 
 his men hacking and mutilating a statue in the " Church of the 
 Holy Cross." Seizing a gun he aimed it at him, threatening to 
 fire if he did not instantly stop. " General," cried the man, "just 
 wait a bit till I've finished knocking this idol to pieces, and then 
 kill me if you like." 
 
 On the other hand, a Catholic officer who got the nickname of 
 the " Royalist Butcher," was accustomed to put his prisoners to 
 death by hanging and all sorts of tortures. It was said that it 
 was easy to tell what route he had taken, from the number of 
 corpses he invariably left suspended from the trees along the way. 
 These dead bodies, he jocularly said, were the fruits of his war 
 farming. Neutrals, or those who sought to be such, rarely escaped. 
 Their houses were pillaged by both armies ; they themselves were 
 treated with insult and cruelty, and might be considered highly 
 fortunate if they got off with their lives. 
 
 117. The War in the North. In the north the war was con- 
 ducted with well-equipped armies and by regular battles and 
 sieges. Rouen, one of the chief strongholds of the Huguenots, 
 was taken and given up to all the horrors of pillage for an entire 
 week. Then followed a grand execution of prisoners. During 
 the siege the treacherous Antoine de Bourbon was killed while 
 fighting on the Catholic side. In the next battle fortune favored 
 the Huguenots for a time, and Catharine de Medici was told by a
 
 138 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 messenger that her forces were beaten. "Well, if that is the 
 case," said she, " we shall have to turn Protestants and pray to 
 God in French." 1 But in the end victory was on the side of the 
 Guise or court party, Conde' having been taken captive. The 
 next year, while besieging Orleans, the Duke of Guise was assas- 
 sinated by a Huguenot spy, sent to commit the murder, as his 
 family erroneously believed, by Admiral Coligny. 
 
 118. A Temporary Peace. Catharine now offered terms of 
 peace. She saw that the war was exhausting her resources, and 
 that the longer it went on, the more difficult it would be to re- 
 establish order and prosperity. Already some extreme Huguenots 
 were beginning to say that kings had had their day, and that it was 
 time that the people came into power. The peasants, too, were 
 getting insubordinate. In some districts they refused to pay rent, 
 or to labor for their feudal masters, unless those who demanded it 
 could show Bible authority in their favor. As both parties were 
 willing to make terms, peace was accordingly declared, and some 
 concessions were made to the Huguenots. 
 
 But the sheathed swords could not remain quiet in their scab- 
 bards. Though open battle had ceased, yet each side taunted 
 and reproached the other, and assassinations were frequent. 
 
 119. Catharine's Artful Policy. Catharine, who never hesi- 
 tated to use any means to gain her ends, now changed her policy 
 and employed all kinds of seductive pleasure to win over those she 
 wanted. In her brilliant and profligate court she never lacked 
 means to tempt men from duty, and if she could secure peace in 
 this way, it would answer her purpose better than righting in the 
 field. So eager was she for power that she even set her own chil- 
 dren quarrelling among themselves, and tempted them into every 
 kind of debauchery, that she might get supreme control. But now 
 that the power of the Guises was in great measure broken by the 
 duke's death, she dreaded lest the Huguenot nobles should acquire 
 
 1 Alluding to the fact that while the Catholics continued to use a Latin service- 
 book, the Huguenots, who had rejected it, prayed in French.
 
 CATHARINES PLOT. 139 
 
 a dangerous strength. While they were weak, the artful queen- 
 mother had favored them in order to hold the opposite party in 
 check. Now, she turned and began to favor the Catholics. The 
 articles in the recent treaty of peace which granted the Protestants 
 a certain degree of religious liberty were disregarded, and crimes 
 committed against the reformers were allowed to pass unpunished. 
 Catharine, indeed, still talked smoothly of her desire for the 
 permanent reconciliation of Catholics and Calvinists, but while 
 she talked she quietly made ready for war. 
 
 120. Catharine's Plot ; Renewal of the War ; Peace of St. 
 Germain. The Huguenots, however, were alert and determined 
 not to be surprised. Instead of waiting to be attacked they struck 
 the first blow. After six months of indecisive fighting another 
 false peace was concluded. 
 
 Then Catharine and her party devised a plot for seizing and 
 beheading the Protestant leaders, Coligny and Conde\ With these 
 proposed victims Jeanne d'Albret, the widow of Antoine de Bour- 
 bon, was included, since she, who was a zealous Protestant, in- 
 dulged the hope that her son, Henry of Navarre, 1 might some 
 time reign over France as a Huguenot king. Coligny and Conde" 
 found out the plot and fled to the fortified city of La Rochelle, 2 
 which was strongly garrisoned by their party. Here, too, came 
 the dauntless Jeanne, bringing her young son Henry. Like Queen 
 Elizabeth of England she could declare with truth that, though she 
 had a woman's body, she had a warrior's soul. To carry on the 
 struggle she mortgaged her estates, pledged her jewels, and stood 
 ready to give, if need be, her own life and that of her children. 
 
 In the battles which followed both armies lost heavily ; Cond 
 was shot on the Huguenot side, and, at a later date, Montmorency 
 on that of the Catholics. Condi's death was a severe blow to the 
 Protestants, and they were on the point of giving up the combat 
 
 1 Navarre : then a small independent kingdom in the Southwest of France. It 
 had once included a portion of Spanish territory. 
 
 2 La Rochelle (Ro-shel') : " the little rock," on the western coast of France. See 
 Map No. XL, page 216.
 
 I/J.O LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 in the open field ; but the heroic Jeanne came forward, leading 
 her son, Prince Henry, and the young Prince Conde'. " Here," 
 said she to the troops, " are two new chiefs whom God gives you, 
 and two orphans whom I entrust to your care." Both lived, as we 
 shall see, to win names in history. The Huguenots had now been 
 beaten at all points ; yet, as the reed bends to the storm and recov- 
 ers when it is passed, so they recovered after every defeat. The 
 wily Catharine de Medici saw that, notwithstanding her successes, 
 she was making no real progress. She therefore offered her adver- 
 saries an advantageous peace, in order to gain strength for a new 
 and more decisive stroke. By the treaty of St. Germain 1 (1570), 
 the Protestants received a considerable degree of religious liberty : 
 all employments were to be open to them ; and finally, four forti- 
 fied cities, of which La Rochelle was one, were given them as 
 places of refuge and defence. 
 
 121. Coligny's Project for a Huguenot Colony in America 
 and in Holland. Coligny, the only surviving leader of the 
 Protestants, earnestly counselled his followers to keep this peace. 
 He had seen enough of the horrors and the losses of civil war. 
 Like the brave man, true patriot, and sincere Christian that he was, 
 he hoped that the unhappy country might now have time to heal 
 its wounds, and that both parties, by mutual toleration, would 
 overcome evil with good. 
 
 In case, however, that this happy result could not be attained, 
 he had projected a Protestant colony in America. More than fifty 
 years before the Pilgrims landed in New England to plant a free 
 religious commonwealth, this remarkable man had begun a Hugue- 
 not settlement in Florida. The Spaniards attacked it, hanged the 
 colonists, and fastened above the heads of the corpses a placard 
 on which was written, "Not because they were Frenchmen, but 
 because they were heretics." A French Catholic, De Gourgues, 2 
 moved with righteous indignation, fitted out a ship and avenged 
 this act by hanging their murderers, over whose bodies he put a 
 
 1 St. Germain (San Zher-man'). 2 De Gourgues (Deh Goorg).
 
 COLIGNY S PROJECTS. 14! 
 
 similar placard, bearing the inscription, " Not because they were 
 Spaniards, but because they were assassins." But Coligny's efforts 
 failed, and he had to leave to the English race the realization of 
 his dream of a great American Protestant state. 
 
 Although disappointed in the New World, yet Coligny was not 
 without hope of success in a different direction. The Dutch had 
 revolted against the tyranny of Spain, and were endeavoring to 
 establish the independent Protestant republic of the Netherlands. 
 Not even the ferocity of Philip II.'s ablest general, the Duke of 
 Alva, had cowed the spirit of the resolute Hollanders. Rather 
 than yield to Spain they were ready to break down the dykes and 
 let the water of the North Sea sweep over their country. It was 
 to this land, where he felt sure of a welcome, that Coligny now 
 meditated leading his Huguenot followers. In doing this he had 
 a double object. He would find shelter for such of the Protes- 
 tants of France as were willing to go to Holland, and he would 
 furthermore give aid to men of his own faith in their struggle 
 against Philip II. of Spain, the mildest of whose punishments for 
 heresy was burying alive or burning. 
 
 Meanwhile Charles had become king of France, under the title 
 of Charles IX. He was not a favorite with Catharine, who gave 
 the preference to Charles's brother, the Duke of Anjou. The king 
 was naturally jealous of this preference, and he was also impatient 
 of being kept any longer in leading-strings by his mother. 
 
 On one point, however, both were agreed. They dreaded the 
 ambitious schemes of Philip, and feared that when he had crushed 
 out the rebellion in the Netherlands he would endeavor to get con- 
 trol of France and make it part of a gigantic kingdom comprising 
 nearly all Western Europe. 
 
 Both mother and son would probably have consented to any 
 scheme of Coligny's which would hold Spain in check, providing 
 it did not involve them in open war with a monarch who was more 
 than a match for France. 
 
 Coligny urged the king to take some decided stand, and even 
 went so far as to intimate that the time was not far off when he
 
 142 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 would have to choose between war with Philip in behalf of the 
 Protestants of Holland, or civil war at home. 
 
 122. The Hi-omened Marriage of Henry and Marguerite. 
 
 But Charles had a plan which he hoped would keep him clear of 
 both dilemmas. He thought that he could secure the support of 
 the Huguenot party by marrying his sister Marguerite, who was a 
 Catholic like himself, to Henry of Navarre, who stood next to 
 Coligny in the Protestant ranks. He hoped, too, to marry his 
 brother, the Duke of Anjou, to Queen Elizabeth of England, and 
 so get him out of the way. 
 
 The Princess Marguerite was averse to the husband whom her 
 brother had chosen for her ; but that made no difference, and the 
 wedding was arranged to come off in front of Notre Dame, on 
 Aug. 18, 1572. Henry of Navarre's mother, Jeanne d'Albret, had 
 gone up to Paris to confer with Catharine about the marriage, and 
 had suddenly and mysteriously died. Report said that Catharine 
 had poisoned her. Henry, still clad in mourning for his mother, 
 who was by far " the noblest woman of her time," was making 
 preparations for the ill-omened nuptials. 
 
 All of the leading Huguenots had been invited to come to Paris 
 for the event, and most of them had accepted. There were some, 
 however, who had misgivings, and feared the festivities were only 
 the bait of some terrible trap. One prominent man of the party 
 did not hesitate to say, " If that wedding comes off, its favors will 
 be crimson." * 
 
 Coligny was warned by some of his friends that it would be 
 especially dangerous for him to attend ; but he replied, " I would 
 rather be dragged through the streets of Paris on a hook than lose 
 the chance of making peace at home and war abroad." 
 
 The wedding took place at the time appointed and on ground 
 that might be considered neutral ; for though under the shadow 
 of the great Catholic cathedral, it was not within it. The 
 Princess Marguerite obstinately refused to take Henry for her hus- 
 
 1 Favors : a knot of white ribbon worn at a marriage.
 
 PLOT AGAINST THE HUGUENOTS. 143 
 
 band, but Charles seized her head and forced her to nod an affir- 
 mative reply to the archbishop's questions, and so in this rude 
 fashion she was made a bride. 
 
 The marriage was no sooner over than trouble began. The 
 pulpits of Paris denounced the unholy union of a Catholic with a 
 heretic. The young Duke of Guise, who believed that his father 
 had been murdered at the battle of Orleans by one of Coligny's 
 emissaries, 1 was eager to take the admiral's life. 
 
 On the other hand, Charles seemed to yield more and more to 
 Coligny's influence, and Catharine saw to her dismay that she was 
 losing control over her irresolute and weak-minded son. 
 
 In her rage at this discovery, she willingly abetted a scheme for 
 the assassination of Coligny and the other Protestant leaders. If 
 the attempt succeeded she could throw the blame on the Guises. 
 This would excite the Huguenots to rise against them, and in the 
 bloodshed that would ensue she might get rid of the master spirits 
 of both parties. She could then manage the weak king in her own 
 way, with no one to hinder. A professional assassin for there 
 were plenty of such in those days was hired to despatch Coligny. 
 He missed his aim, and the admiral, though wounded, was not. 
 killed. As soon as the king heard of the deed, he hastened to the 
 great Protestant general to express his horror and his sympathy. 
 " You," said he to Coligny, " are hurt in body, but I am hurt in 
 spirit ; " and he vowed not to let the crime pass unpunished. 
 
 123. Plot to exterminate the Huguenots. Catharine was 
 now thoroughly alarmed. Her plot had failed. The king had 
 sworn to take vengeance on its perpetrators. The Protestants 
 would rise, the civil war would again break out, and her influence 
 would be utterly lost. The Huguenots of Paris, fearing with good 
 reason that their own lives were in danger, had already begun to 
 arm in self-defence. 
 
 Torn by conflicting passions, she now resolved on the terrible 
 deed that has ever since associated the church festival of St. Bar- 
 
 i See Paragraph 117.
 
 144 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 tholomew with the darkest and the most stupendous crime recorded 
 in the annals of French history. The stealthy, tigress nature of 
 this desperate woman was fully roused. She knew that she could 
 count on the help of the Guises and their followers. Her plan 
 was to strike quick and hard; at one blow she would destroy 
 Coligny and the chief men of the Huguenot party. 
 
 Seven years before, the Duke of Alva had met her at Bayonne * 
 and tried to persuade her to this step, but she had then, says 
 Motley, resolutely refused. Now, she needed no persuasion. 
 
 But in order to carry out the conspiracy successfully she must 
 have her son's consent. 
 
 At first the king repulsed the proposition with unfeigned horror. 
 But Catharine was firm. "War," said she, "is inevitable. Your 
 crown is at stake. If you do not strike first, then each side will 
 choose its own leader and you will be left out. Remember the 
 Italian proverb, 'There are times when kindness is cruelty, and 
 cruelty kindness.' " Finally, as Charles still refused his consent to 
 the massacre, Catharine turned away, saying, " Well, I will take 
 my other son (the Duke of Anjou) and leave you, for I will not 
 remain to witness the ruin of my house." Then the king, touched 
 in a jealous chord, yielded. "I consent," said he, "but on this 
 one condition, that you do not leave a Huguenot alive in France 
 to reproach me." 
 
 124. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew. About two in the 
 morning of Sunday, August 24, 1572, the day of the solemn fes- 
 tival of St. Bartholomew, the bell of the church of St. Germain, 2 
 opposite the east end of the palace of the Louvre, began to toll. 
 Immediately every church-bell in Paris responded. It was the sig- 
 nal for the massacre. The houses of the Huguenots had been 
 marked. The attacking party and their friends wore white badges ; 
 all who were not so designated were to be slain as enemies of the 
 
 1 Bayonne (Bay-on') : in the southwestern corner of France. 
 
 2 St. Germain 1'Auxerrois.
 
 THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 145 
 
 government and of religion. 1 Coligny was the first to fall. The 
 Duke of Guise's men rushed into the admiral's mansion. Coligny 
 had been awakened by the tumult. "Are you the admiral?" 
 demanded one of the assassins, as he pointed his sword at his 
 heart. "I am," answered Coligny calmly, "and you, young man, 
 should respect my white hairs. But do your work ; you will only 
 shorten my life by a little." The murderer plunged his weapon 
 into the admiral's bosom, and threw the still living body out of 
 the window to be insulted by the mob. The Duke of Guise 
 looked exultingly at the corpse as it lay on the pavement, and 
 then stamped his heel into the face. Later the body was hung on 
 a gibbet, and the head was cut off and given to the queen-mother. 
 
 Then the murder of the Huguenots in Paris became general. 
 It was, to use an expression of the time, "a deluge of crime." 
 The massacre extended to most of the provinces ; but in some the 
 authorities interfered to save the Huguenots, and in others they 
 were able to protect themselves in a measure. The young Prince 
 Cond6 and the king's new brother-in-law, Henry of Navarre, were 
 threatened with immediate destruction. " Choose," said the king, 
 "either the mass 2 or death." Both were brave men, but neither 
 possessed the martyr spirit, and so they promised compliance. 
 
 The work of slaughter went on for three days without interrup- 
 tion. The Seine was filled with bodies. Many who were not 
 Huguenots were slain, and debtors settled up long accounts with 
 importunate creditors by dagger and bullet. The whole number 
 slain cannot be determined. Probably from two to four thousand 
 perished in Paris, and four or five times that number in the prov- 
 inces. 
 
 When Philip of Spain heard the good news he could not sup- 
 press his joy. It meant not only the death of multitudes of here- 
 tics, but the weakening of the power of France. He who was 
 hardly ever known to smile, now laughed aloud. On the other 
 hand, the Catholic emperor of Germany, Maximilian II., expressed 
 
 1 See Millais's noted picture of the " Huguenot Lover." 
 
 2 Mass : the Roman Catholic communion service.
 
 146 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 the utmost horror at the act, which, as a later Catholic writer 
 has said, "never had, and, if God permit, never shall have, its 
 parallel." l 
 
 The Pope ordered a thanksgiving, and caused a medal to be 
 struck to commemorate the massacre ; but later, says Guizot, 
 " when the truth came out he was seen to shed tears. When 
 asked why he wept at the destruction of the heretics he replied, 
 ' I weep at the means the king used, which were exceedingly 
 unlawful and forbidden of God.' " In England the dreadful 
 news created the utmost consternation. The cry was for ven- 
 geance, and the Bishop of London urged the queen to send leading 
 Catholics to the Tower and to strike off the head of Mary Queen of 
 Scots (then a prisoner) without delay. 
 
 125. Renewal of the Civil' War; Death of the King. The 
 
 massacre failed to accomplish what Catharine hoped. The Prot- 
 estant party, though it had met with frightful loss, was not exter- 
 minated. Those who were left flew to arms. They made good 
 Beza's words, that their faith was an anvil equal to breaking many 
 hammers to pieces. Civil war now burst forth with greater fury 
 than ever. The Huguenots entrenched themselves in La Rochelle, 
 and other walled cities, where they defended their cause so valiantly 
 that Charles was glad to offer terms of peace. At the very time 
 when he was receiving the congratulations of the king of Spain on 
 the triumphant slaughter of St. Bartholomew, he found himself 
 forced to grant the heretics liberty of conscience by the treaty of 
 La Rochelle. 
 
 A year later Charles died at the age of twenty-four. His last 
 hours, it is said, were spent in an agony of fear, begging God to 
 forgive him for the innocent blood he had shed. He had horri- 
 ble visions, and thought that he heard the groans and cries for 
 mercy of the victims who had fallen through his consent. His 
 old Huguenot nurse tried in vain to comfort him. " No," said he, 
 as he turned his face to the wall, " it is of no use, I have followed 
 
 1 Perefixe, Archbishop of Paris, seventeenth century.
 
 THE HOLY LEAGUE. 147 
 
 evil counsel. I am lost, I am lost." If the son was thus to 
 despair of the mercy of Heaven, what shall we say of the mother 
 who had persuaded him to guilt? 
 
 126. Accession of Henry III. ; His Policy toward the Hugue- 
 nots. Charles was succeeded by his brother, Henry III., a man 
 equally weak and more utterly worthless. He had no sooner 
 taken the crown, than he ordered the Protestants to give up their 
 religion or leave the country. This command renewed the civil 
 war. The Catholics still had the Guises as their head. The 
 Huguenots had now no leader left but Henry of Navarre, and the 
 Prince of Conde", both of whom renounced their compulsory 
 Catholicism. But the king vacillated. He had a strong court 
 party against him, who were eager for power, and he could not 
 fight them and the Huguenots too. Presently he made up his 
 mind to retract his edict and offer peace. Large concessions 
 were now granted to the Huguenots. Persecution ceased. Of- 
 fices of state were given to influential Protestants. Henry of 
 Navarre was made governor of Guyenne. 1 The young prince of 
 Conde" received Picardy ; 2 even the widows and orphans of St. 
 Bartholomew were remembered, and were exempted from paying 
 taxes. 
 
 127. The Holy League. These concessions, together with 
 Henry's bad government and ruinous extravagance, created a 
 powerful opposition, partly political and partly religious. Even- 
 tually the Duke of Guise and his party took advantage of the 
 wide- spread feeling, and organized the Holy League (1576). 
 It had four chief objects: i. To re-establish and maintain the 
 Catholic religion. 2. To suppress Protestantism. 3. To prevent 
 Henry of Navarre from obtaining the succession to the crown. 3 
 
 1 Guyenne : a province in the southwest, on the Bay of Biscay. 
 
 2 Picardy : a province in the northwest, on the Channel. 
 
 8 Henry III.'s brother, the Duke of Anjou (late Duke of Alen9on), would have 
 legally succeeded to the throne in case the king left no son. The king had no 
 children and the duke died before him (1584), so that Henry of Navarre stood next 
 heir to the crown.
 
 148 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 4. To restore the political rights enjoyed under Clovis, the first 
 Christian king, with such better liberties as could be found. 1 But 
 there was a fifth and secret object, which the Duke of Guise had 
 more at heart, perhaps, than any of these, and that was, under 
 cover of piety and patriotism, to secure the royal power for 
 himself. Thus, like a cunning politician of modern times, he 
 made his boasted devotion to Church and country a bid for public 
 favor ; and to further strengthen his cause, manufactured a gene- 
 alogy designed to prove that he was the legitimate descendant 
 and successor of Charlemagne. 
 
 128. Renewal of the War; Assassination of the Duke of 
 Guise. The formation of the League was the signal for the 
 renewal of the strife. There were three Henrys in the field, 
 Henry III., Henry, Duke of Guise, and Henry of Navarre. Each 
 was fighting ostensibly for religion, yet fighting none the less for 
 his own private interests. The foundations of all order now seemed 
 utterly broken up, and the whole country was given over to anarchy 
 and bloodshed. Both sides quoted Scripture as a warrant for the 
 atrocities they had committed, were committing, or were prepar- 
 ing to commit. So the war went on from bad to worse, neither 
 party getting any decided advantage. 
 
 Many of the fortified towns were strongly Huguenot, but Paris 
 was wholly devoted to the Duke of Guise, and looked upon the 
 king with the contempt which his character naturally inspired. 
 Henry forbade the duke's entering the city, but he came. The 
 populace sided with him, and the king found himself practically a 
 prisoner in his own capital. After a time he succeeded in leaving 
 Paris. At a council at the palace of Blois, 2 Henry got his revenge. 
 Rendered desperate, the king incited a band of followers to assassi- 
 nate the duke. "At last," said he, as he kicked the corpse, "I 
 have killed the reptile ; and to kill the reptile is to destroy his 
 
 1 This plank in the platform was probably intended to give the chief power to 
 the States-General ; in other words, to the nobles of the League. 
 
 2 Blois (Blwah) : a city on the Loire, southwest of Orleans.
 
 THE BATTLE OF IVRY. 149 
 
 venom. Now I am king of France, for ' the king of Paris ' is dead." 
 Thus perished the man who sixteen years before had insulted the 
 dead body of Coligny. 
 
 But Henry was mistaken, for though he had slain the originator 
 of the League, he had not slain the League itself. Henry had 
 abused his power to such an extent that he had alienated most of 
 his subjects, whether Catholic or Huguenot. So when he boasted 
 to his mother, the wily Catharine de Medici, that by this murder 
 he had now made himself the real king of France, she quietly 
 said, " Ah, my son, it's one thing to cut your cloth, and another 
 to make it up." His rival was indeed effectually got rid of, but 
 now the question was, how unite the country. 
 
 129. Alliance of the King with Henry of Navarre; Murder 
 of the King. The king resolved to negotiate terms with both 
 parties. The League scorned his proposals ; but Henry of Na- 
 varre, whose help he next sought, threw himself at his sovereign's 
 feet, and the king raising him up called him brother. 
 
 The Huguenot army and the royal troops now united. The 
 king and Henry of Navarre advanced against Paris that is, 
 against the heart of the League to attack it. A Dominican 
 monk, coming from the city, begged to speak with the king on a 
 matter of great importance. He secured admission to his pres- 
 ence, and then, suddenly drawing a dagger, stabbed him fatally. 
 The dying monarch said to Henry of Navarre, " You will never 
 become king unless you become a Catholic." Then turning to 
 his chief men, he made them swear to support Henry as his suc- 
 cessor (1589). With his death the House of Valois became 
 extinct, and the House of Bourbon obtained the crown. 1 
 
 130. Henry IV. ; The Battle of Ivry ; Philip of Spain. - 
 But Henry IV. was not to secure the crown without a struggle. 
 The League proclaimed one of his uncles, the Cardinal de Bour- 
 bon, king ; but the moderate Catholics united with the Huguenots 
 
 1 See Genealogical Table, Paragraph 109.
 
 I5O LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 in the support of Henry. In 1589 he won the battle of Arques, 1 
 and in 1590 the decisive victory of Ivry, 2 which opened the way 
 to the siege of Paris. Before the battle a council of war was 
 held. One officer wished to make some provision for a safe 
 retreat in case of defeat. "There will be no retreat, but the 
 battle-field," 3 said the king. " In the fight, follow always the 
 white plume in my helmet." That plume led to triumph. 
 
 " And in they burst, and on they rushed, while like a guiding star, 
 Amidst the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of Navarre. 
 ******* 
 Hurrah ! Hurrah ! a single field hath turned the chance of war, 
 Hurrah ! Hurrah ! for Ivry, and Henry of Navarre." * 
 
 After that sanguinary contest, though Paris still refused to 
 acknowledge him, yet the greater part of the country practically 
 accepted Henry as sovereign. Meanwhile Cardinal de Bourbon 
 had died, and Philip II. of Spain sent an army into France to co- 
 operate with the League, and, in violation of all past custom and 
 law, to place his daughter on that throne that had never yet been 
 occupied by a woman. For a long time Henry had all he could 
 do to hold his enemies in check. He had the Pope, the Emperor 
 of Germany, the King of Spain, the Duke of Savoy, and the League, 
 all against him. At one time he was in rags, and with hardly a 
 horse to ride ; but the day of his final success was at hand. 
 
 131. Henry becomes a Catholic. The Duke of Sully, Henry's 
 wisest counsellor and a steadfast and sincere Protestant, now 
 urged the king to espouse the Catholic faith as the only certain 
 means of securing a lasting peace to the distracted country. 
 Henry was not unwilling. He held long debates with the Catholic 
 theologians, and at last declared that he was fully convinced that 
 they were right. In 1593 he entered the Church of St. Denis near 
 
 1 Arques (Ark) : near Dieppe, Normandy. 
 
 2 Ivry (Ee-vree') : in Normandy, about 45 miles west of Paris. 
 
 3 Battle-field, i.e., death. 4 Macaulay's " Ivry."
 
 THE EDICT OF NANTES. 15! 
 
 Paris. " Who are you? " demanded the archbishop of Bourges. 1 
 "I am the king." "What is your request ?" " To be received 
 into the bosom of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church." 
 Then, kneeling at the feet of the archbishop, he said, " I swear in 
 the presence of Almighty God to live and die in the Catholic 
 religion; and to protect and defend it with my life." Eight 
 months later Paris, hungry for bread, and hungry for peace, held 
 out no longer, but threw open its gates with joy. The League now 
 hastened to make terms with the king, and as the Huguenots did 
 not abandon him, he received the loyal support of both parties. 
 
 132. Edict of Nantes. Henry, though destitute of the moral 
 grandeur of character displayed by Coligny, was, however, a man 
 of great ability, and well fitted to rule in such an emergency. He 
 henceforth devoted all his energies to the good of France. In 
 1598 he issued the Edict of Nantes, 2 which secured the Hugue- 
 nots the rights they had so long demanded. This edict begins a 
 new era in history. It was the first formal recognition of tolera- 
 tion in religion made by any leading power of Europe, and it 
 anticipated a similar act in England by nearly a century. 
 
 Ten years before, England's repulse of the attempted Spanish 
 invasion had proved that Catholics and Protestants would unite 
 to fight for their country and their queen. Henry believed the 
 time had come when both would likewise join forces for the honor 
 of France. He saw then, what all admit to-day, that freedom of 
 conscience is one of the surest guarantees of national strength. 
 
 The Edict of Nantes placed the Huguenots on the same civil 
 footing as the Catholics. Liberty of worship was secured to them 
 throughout France, though with some slight limitations. Their 
 marriages, which the law had refused to sanction, were now de- 
 clared valid. They were permitted to hold certain fortified cities 
 as a pledge and means of safety. The schools, which had been 
 closed against them, were now open for the education of their 
 
 1 Bourges (Boorzh). 
 
 2 Nantes (Nont or Nantz) : a city on the Loire. The edict was issued there.
 
 152 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 children. Finally, the Huguenots were rendered eligible to public 
 office, and were to be represented in the parliaments or courts. 
 
 In a word, all that the magnanimous L'Hopital 1 had tried to 
 obtain for them, was now definitively granted. This act of tardy 
 justice put an end to the civil wars which had lasted for nearly 
 forty years. 
 
 133. Henry's Labors for France. Never did a country stand 
 in greater need of peace. It had lost by massacres and civil strife 
 over a million of its people. Thousands of houses were in ruins, 
 the peasants were wretchedly poor, and brigands roamed every- 
 where. 
 
 With the help of Sully, his chief minister, the king reorganized 
 the finances, aided the restoration of agriculture and trade, opened 
 roads, built bridges, dug canals, established manufactures and 
 promoted commerce. 
 
 He thus proved himself a true friend to every farmer and trades- 
 man throughout the land. Prosperity began to smile once more 
 on the exhausted realm. Wherever Henry went he was hailed 
 with blessings as the " Father of his Country," and it looked as 
 though his good-natured wish would be realized, and that he 
 would live to see every peasant have a fowl to put in his pot for 
 his Sunday dinner. 
 
 But beloved as Henry was, he was not safe from the hand of 
 the assassin. In 1610, after a reign of over twenty years spent in 
 building up France, he was murdered in the streets of Paris by 
 the fanatic Ravaillac. 2 He had well earned the title of Henry the 
 Great. No king's memory has ever been more affectionately 
 cherished by the French people. When in the Revolution of 1789 
 the royal tombs at St. Denis were broken open, and the contents 
 thrown out, Henry's remains were respected even by the mob, 
 and left inviolate. 
 
 134. Summary. The whole period, covering a little more 
 than half a century, is entirely taken up with the civil and religious 
 
 1 See Paragraph 113. 2 Ravaillac (RS-val-yak').
 
 SUMMARY. 153 
 
 wars of the Catholics and the Huguenots. These disastrous con- 
 flicts were often prompted, as much by the personal ambition of the 
 leaders as by any higher motive, though beneath the surface there 
 was a real contest going on between the principles of religious 
 authority on one side, and of religious liberty on the other. The 
 massacre of St. Bartholomew, the formation of the League, the 
 conversion of Henry IV. to Catholicism, and the promulgation of 
 the Edict of Nantes, are the chief points. The period ends in the 
 reconciliation of all parties, the establishment of liberty of worship, 
 and the revival of the prosperity of France checked by the assas- 
 sination of the king.
 
 154 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 XL 
 
 " I am the State." Louis XIV. 
 
 ABSOLUTISM OF THE CROWN. STRUGGLE FOR DOMINION 
 IN EUROPE. REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES. 
 ATTEMPT TO GET POSSESSION OF AMERICA. (1610-1774). 
 
 Louis XIII (1610-1643). Louis XIV. (1643-1715). 
 
 Louis XV. (1715-1774). 
 
 135. Louis XHT.; Regency of Marie de Medici; The Con- 
 cinis. The dagger that slew Henry IV. inflicted a terrible blow 
 on the welfare of France. The nation lost its chief guide and 
 support, before it had acquired strength and unity to take care of 
 itself. Henry's son, Louis XIII., was not yet nine, and according 
 to French custom his mother, Marie de Medici, 1 a foreigner by birth, 
 became ruler during his minority. The queen-mother soon found 
 that her ideas of government and Sully's did not agree, and she 
 dismissed her deceased husband's friend and counsellor after his 
 twenty years' service to the state, in order that she might be free 
 to carry out some petty schemes of marriage for her children. 
 
 Then Marie fell under the influence of an artful Italian, named 
 Concini, 2 who with his wife soon got absolute control. Their am- 
 bition and greed knew no bounds. They used the public money 
 to buy estates, offices, and honors for themselves and their rela- 
 tives. They took bribes from those who wanted government 
 favors, and they got a large revenue by selling pardons to rich 
 criminals. The money which Henry IV. had accumulated was 
 
 1 Marie de Medici, Henry IV.'s second wife. She was related to the Pope. 
 Her only recommendation was that she brought Henry an abundance of money. 
 
 2 Concini (Kon-chee'-nee).
 
 STATES-GENERAL OF 1614. 155 
 
 wasted by them, and by Marie, in gifts, pensions, and salaries. 
 Still Concini and his friends were not satisfied. Now that they 
 had plundered the royal treasury they wanted political power. 
 It seemed as though their object was to tear France to pieces and 
 divide it among themselves. One demanded the government of 
 a fortified city, where he could virtually reign supreme, others had 
 already taken possession of such places as pleased them, and re- 
 fused to give them up. " Kings have had their turn," said the 
 nobles, " now we will have ours." 
 
 136. The States-General of 1614. The prince of Conde, a 
 Catholic by education, though the descendant of a Huguenot 
 family, accused the queen-mother of shameful waste and mis- 
 management, and, having taken up arms, demanded that a States- 
 General * should be called to remedy these abuses. Marie quieted 
 Cond and his party by the gift of large sums, and then very 
 unwillingly summoned a States-General. 
 
 That body met in Paris in the autumn of 1614. It was com- 
 posed of the nobles, clergy, and representatives of the people, 
 but as the latter were powerless, unless one or both of the former 
 classes would vote with them, they had, as usual, to satisfy them- 
 selves with vain protests and vigorous speeches. 
 
 Each class had its grievances. Each loudly demanded reform, 
 but as each was jealous of the other, and sought relief purely for 
 itself, nothing decisive was done. 
 
 The nobles denounced the presumption of the lower house in 
 pretending to anything like equality with themselves. They fur- 
 thermore expressed great indignation, because rich magistrates and 
 lawyers in the towns had been allowed to buy hereditary represen- 
 tations in the States-General. The clergy were not less indignant 
 at the proposition that they should pay taxes. " That," said they, 
 " would be giving to the state what belongs to God." 
 
 The deputies of the people, on whom all the burdens fell, were 
 clamorous that the load should be lightened. Instead of paying all 
 
 1 States-General or national assembly ; see Paragraph 71.
 
 156 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 the bills of government, they thought it but fair that the upper 
 classes should contribute part. It had become the custom for the 
 crown to grant the rebellious nobles large pensions l in order to 
 keep them- quiet. Under the management of Marie and the Con- 
 cinis, these pensions had doubled within four years. The deputies 
 demanded : i. The reduction of these pensions. 2. The equaliza- 
 tion of taxation in some degree. 3. The removal of ruinous 
 restrictions on trade. 4. The better and cheaper administration 
 of justice. 5. The summoning of a States -General at least once 
 every ten years. 
 
 If we compare these demands made by the people of France, 
 with the rights and privileges already fully secured by the same 
 class in England, we shall see how little the former really asked. 2 
 But they were denied even that little. 
 
 A petition was sent to the king humbly asking his consideration 
 of these points. The deputies might as well have petitioned his 
 majesty's bronze statue in the Garden of the Louvre. No answer 
 was vouchsafed. The next time they went to their assembly 
 room, they found the doors locked, and were told by the official 
 on duty that the queen-mother wanted the hall for a dance ! 
 
 The next national assembly that met was in 1789, just a hun- 
 dred and seventy- five years later, when reform was to be sought 
 not by petition, as in 1614, but by revolution. 
 
 The nobles, who had compelled the convocation of the States- 
 General, remained quiet for a time, then, when they had spent 
 the money they had received and wanted more, they again took 
 up arms. The government was not prepared to fight, and so 
 bought another temporary peace at a cost of many millions ; all of 
 which, of course, came out of the pockets of the people. 
 
 137. Richelieu ; De Luynes ; Richelieu Prime Minister. But 
 the man was at hand who was to bring order out of chaos. One of 
 
 1 These pensions now amounted to about 5,500,000 francs, or more than one- 
 seventh of the entire revenue. 
 
 2 See Paragraph 72, and consult " The Leading Facts of English History."
 
 RICHELIEU. 157 
 
 the clerical members of the States- General of 1614 was Richelieu, 1 
 Bishop of Lucon. Marie de Medici had appointed him her almoner, 2 
 and then he rose to be secretary of state. A few years later we 
 shall find him prime minister and the real master of France. 
 
 Through his influence Conde 1 was imprisoned and the rebellious 
 nobles were stripped of their ill-gotten power. But the time had 
 not come for him to take a permanent place in the government. 
 Louis, who always needed some one to lean on, had found a 
 new favorite, an army officer named Albert de Luynes. 3 He not 
 only supplanted the Concinis, but effectually disposed of them, 
 getting the husband shot, and the wife beheaded. He persuaded 
 Louis to compel both the queen-mother and Richelieu to leave the 
 court, and then ruled supreme. When De Luynes died, a few 
 years later, France was worse off than ever : the royal power was 
 defied, the Protestants, disgusted with the government, were in 
 revolt, and disorder everywhere prevailed. 
 
 Fortunately for the country, Marie and Louis now became recon- 
 ciled, and Richelieu, who had been made a cardinal, came back to 
 power. From that time (1624) until his death, eighteen years 
 afterward, he was virtually king. 
 
 138. Richelieu's Policy; his Impartial Severity. His gov- 
 ernment may be considered from two points of view: (i) His 
 policy respecting France ; (2) his policy toward foreign powers. 
 His first object was to make everything subservient to the interests 
 of the crown. He was no tyrant, yet in one sense he labored, and 
 labored successfully, to establish an impartial and enlightened des- 
 potism. He did this, not because he loved despotism, but because 
 he hated anarchy. 
 
 In pursuance of this purpose, he executed the law without re- 
 spect to persons. The nobleman who committed a capital crime 
 could no longer buy exemption from the penalty. Lord and peasant 
 were executed side by side. As the cardinal declared on his death- 
 
 1 Richelieu (Reesh-le-uh'). 2 Almoner: an official dispenser of alms. 
 
 3 De Luynes (Deh Lii-een').
 
 158 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 bed, he had endeavored to be just to all. " I have had no ene- 
 mies," said he, " but those who were enemies of France." 
 
 If he erred, it was on the side of pitiless severity toward the 
 great. There were times, indeed, when he almost made the scaffold 
 a means of government. For swindling contractors who robbed 
 the State he had no mercy. They had their choice either to dis- 
 gorge their stolen wealth or repent their misdeeds in another 
 world ; for here, Richelieu would not tolerate them. Quarrelsome 
 nobles he soon taught to be careful how and when they drew their 
 swords. Those that dared rebel, even though it was the king's 
 own brother, or the Duke of Montmorency, speedily felt the grasp 
 of his iron hand. 
 
 139. Richelieu destroys Castles ; establishes Provincial Courts 
 and Governors. The owners of the great feudal castles had often 
 used them as fortresses, where they entrenched themselves and 
 defied the king. Richelieu ordered the most formidable of these 
 strongholds to be dismantled, and in some cases levelled to the 
 ground. At the same time he abolished certain high offices in 
 the army and navy, which had given those who held them almost 
 unlimited power. 
 
 On the other hand, he revived the provincial courts of justice, and 
 enabled the laboring man to bring suit against his titled oppressors. 
 In a single session these tribunals punished more than two hundred 
 nobles by fine or imprisonment. 
 
 Next, Richelieu reformed the system of government in the 
 provinces. The administration in such cases had been monopo- 
 lized by the aristocracy. The Montmorency family had ruled in 
 Languedoc 1 for so many generations that the common people, it 
 is said, believed that there was no higher authority, and that the 
 king was an imaginary being. Richelieu convinced them to the 
 contrary. He indeed left the provincial governors their official 
 title, but he took away their power, and gave it to agents of the 
 crown. 2 
 
 1 Languedoc (Lan-gwee-dok r ) : a province in the south of France. 
 
 2 These agents were called Intendants ; they really governed the provinces.
 
 RICHELIEU AND THE HUGUENOTS. 159 
 
 With the exception of the organization of the standing army by 
 Charles VII., 1 feudalism had received no blow so damaging as this. 
 
 140. Increase of the Power of the Crown; Revolts; Richelieu 
 vs. the People. From this time the royal authority rapidly 
 advanced. Formerly the laws had been prefaced with the words, 
 '" Enacted by the King, with the consent of the people." The last 
 clause meant nothing it was simply a polite flourish ; but even 
 that empty rhetorical phrase was now dropped, and the edicts 
 began abruptly with the declaration, " Such is our pleasure." The 
 change was slight, but it was none the less significant. 
 
 Richelieu's decided measures excited opposition and rebellion ; 
 but he put down every revolt. The very last year of his life, when 
 sick unto death, he discovered the boldest of all these conspiracies, 
 and he sent Cinq-Mars, 2 its leader, to the scaffold. 
 
 Though he believed in justice, the cardinal had little real sym- 
 pathy with what we call the masses. He did nothing toward 
 encouraging their political representation. He believed heavy 
 taxes were good to keep down the body of the nation, and thought 
 that if the burden was lightened too much, the working classes 
 would soon become unmanageable. His policy was fatally narrow. 
 It resembled that of George III. of England, whose favorite motto, 
 " Everything for, but nothing by, the people," helped to bring on 
 the American Revolution. 
 
 141. Richelieu and the Huguenots; LaRochelle; Richelieu's 
 Labors for France. Toward the Protestants as a political organ- 
 ization Richelieu was implacable. At the outset of his ministry 
 he declared, "I will employ all the authority the king shall be 
 pleased to give me to ruin the Huguenot party." He was not 
 without some good reasons for this resolution. Oppression had 
 in many cases rendered the Huguenots hard, narrow, bitter. 
 The invariable effect of religious intolerance is to make its victims 
 bigots, who, when they get the opportunity, become persecutors 
 
 1 See Paragraph 85. 2 Cinq-Mars (Sank-Marss).
 
 l6o LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 in their turn. In the past the Huguenots had too often been 
 treated as enemies of France. That policy had separated them 
 in great measure from the rest of the nation. Politically con- 
 sidered, this party now endangered the unity of the realm. The 
 Duke de Rohan 1 and other haughty and half-rebellious nobles 
 belonged to them. In some cases, notably in the province of 
 Barn, 2 the Huguenots had refused to tolerate the Catholic wor- 
 ship, and had seized the property of the Church. In 1620 Louis 
 reinstated the Catholics in their former rights in this province. 
 This caused a revolt in which the Huguenots were beaten, and all 
 their fortified cities except two Montauban 3 and La Rochelle 
 taken from them. The Huguenots, instead of submitting, prepared 
 for a new struggle. They could still make desperate resistance, 
 for they had organized the seven hundred societies of their faith 
 into a kind of religious and political confederacy. 
 
 The war began at La Rochelle. The Protestant leaders, believ- 
 ing that the king was intending to take the control of that city 
 out of their hands, made a sudden attack on some royal ships, 
 and seizing them towed them into the harbor of the city. Louis 
 at once began the blockade of the place, which now virtually 
 renounced the king's authority, and proclaimed itself a Protestant 
 republic. 
 
 Richelieu wished to attack La Rochelle by sea as well as by 
 land, but had no fleet : such was his address, however, that he 
 actually succeeded in borrowing ships for that purpose from the 
 two great Protestant powers of England and Holland. 4 He next 
 made a treaty of peace with Spain, in order to have his hands free. 
 Then he organized his forces and began blockading the city on 
 
 1 Rohan (Ro-on'). 
 
 2 Beam (Bayrn) : a province in the southwest of France. 
 
 3 Montauban (Mon-toh-bon') : a town of southern France, about no miles 
 southeast of Bordeaux. 
 
 4 The Huguenots, in their extremity, had sought aid from the Spaniards, who 
 were not only the enemies of France, but of their religion. The Spaniards prom- 
 ised their assistance. This fact irritated the Protestant powers of England and 
 Holland, and made them willing to lend Richelieu the ships.
 
 RICHELIEU TAKES LA ROCHELLE. l6l 
 
 the land side, and building a stupendous sea-wall to cut off all 
 help from foreign fleets. Quietly, patiently, steadily, the work 
 went on under the cardinal's personal superintendence, until, as he 
 said, all was ready " to give the last blow to the last head of the 
 rebellion." 
 
 Meanwhile, Charles I., who had now become king of England, 
 felt obliged to. make a show, at least, of helping the besieged 
 Huguenots, and sent out three successive fleets which accom- 
 plished nothing. The city held out against the cardinal's forces 
 for fifteen months. At the end of that time no less than fifteen 
 thousand people, or half of the population, had died of starvation. 
 The garrison, reduced to a hundred and fifty soldiers, could resist 
 no longer. On the 2Qth of October, 1628, they opened the gates. 
 Richelieu entered the last stronghold of the Huguenots. The city 
 which had been their pride and boast forfeited its rights and priv- 
 ileges, and its fortifications were demolished. 
 
 With the fall of La Rochelle the religious wars which began in 
 1562 nearly seventy years before came to an end, never to be 
 renewed, and Protestantism, considered as a political organization, 
 ceased to exist. Richelieu showed that he was no bigot, for he 
 granted the Huguenots liberty of worship and civil equality, thus 
 confirming the Edict of Nantes. 1 
 
 Henceforth the lives and property of Protestants were to be pro- 
 tected so long as they remained in France. Richelieu, however, 
 would not permit them to emigrate to Canada, partly because he 
 dreaded their uniting with the English Protestants of America, and 
 partly because he feared that they might make heretics of the 
 Indians. 
 
 The prime minister's enlightened policy was so far misunder- 
 stood in that age that the extreme Church party sneeringly styled 
 him " the Huguenots' Cardinal." 
 
 But this wise conciliation had such effect on the Protestants that 
 many of their leading men conformed to the worship of the estab- 
 
 i See Paragraph 132.
 
 1 62 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 lished Church of France, and thus gave their support to moderate 
 Catholicism. 
 
 Like Henry IV., Richelieu did much to encourage industry and 
 commerce. He also established the first regular political news- 
 paper in France. 1 He founded the French Academy, and he 
 labored assiduously for the higher education of the clergy. Thus 
 in every department, save the most important of all, that of the 
 extension of the political rights of the people, France felt and 
 acknowledged his re-creative and uplifting power. 
 
 142. Richelieu's Foreign Policy; the Thirty Years' War; 
 Death of Richelieu. Richelieu's foreign policy may be summed 
 up in three lines : First, to humble still further the declining power 
 of Spain, so long the rival and enemy of France ; next, to enlarge 
 the dominion of the French crown on the north and east. 
 
 " As far as Gaul reached," said the great cardinal, " so far shall 
 France extend." On the north, the Netherlands, 2 once, in large 
 measure, part of Gaul, 3 were now divided into the Dutch Republic 
 (Holland) and the Spanish Netherlands (Belgium). 4 It was this 
 last-named country which Richelieu hoped to add to the posses- 
 sions of his master, Louis XIII. These designs, though only par- 
 tially successful, added greatly to the prime minister's brilliant 
 fame, and prepared the way for the rise of France, in the next 
 reign, to its highest power, or at least to the highest which it 
 reached before Napoleon. 
 
 Since 1618 the House of Austria had been engaged in that tre- 
 mendous struggle with the Protestant party in Germany, which 
 from its duration received the name of the Thirty Years' War. 
 Just as the Reformation had divided France into Catholic and 
 Huguenot factions, so, since the time of Luther, Germany had 
 
 1 " La Gazette de France," 1631. A French literary paper, " Le Mercure Fran- 
 cais," had appeared under Henry IV. in 1605. The earliest regular newspaper in 
 England came out in 1622. 
 
 2 See Paragraph 90. 8 See Paragraph i and note. 
 
 4 The Spanish Netherlands did not, however, extend as far north as Belgium 
 now does.
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 163 
 
 been in a state of political and religious disunion. The Emperor 
 Charles V. and his successors had used every means force, 
 cruelty, and persuasion to subdue or reconcile the conflicting 
 parties, but all in vain. In 1618 the Protestants of Bohemia rose 
 in revolt against the intolerant measures of their king, Ferdinand 
 II. A year later he became emperor, and resolved at any cost to 
 crush Protestantism, and compel all Germany to bow to one ruler 
 and subscribe to one creed. 
 
 Richelieu, though he had no sympathy with the Protestants, was 
 yet quite willing to aid that party in Germany. In this, he was 
 actuated by a double motive : first, by so doing he could strike a 
 blow against Spain, since Austria and Spain were allied by blood 
 and by their political relations ; secondly, if Germany could be 
 dismembered, France might seize some of her territory for herself. 
 For a time he limited his help to the Protestants to liberal grants 
 of money. But at last he found that he must take a more active 
 part. 
 
 Wallenstein, 1 the leader of the imperial army, was everywhere 
 victorious. Unless checked in his career, the whole of Germany 
 would have to submit to the will of the emperor, who might next 
 proceed to attack France for her interference in the war. 
 
 The cardinal had already begun a contest with Spain in Italy. 
 He now entered into a treaty with Gustavus Adolphus, king of 
 Sweden, a zealous Protestant, who was ready to give his life for 
 the cause of his German brethren. Gustavus gathered a large 
 army and attacked Wallenstein's force. The Swedes went into 
 battle singing Luther's grand hymn, " A mighty fortress is our 
 God." 
 
 In two years the " Lion of the North," as Gustavus was now 
 called, had gained so much ground that Protestantism seemed 
 likely to triumph. In his last victorious battle the great Swedish 
 general was killed ; but Austria had suffered so many defeats that 
 France no longer feared any danger from that quarter. Three 
 
 1 Wallenstein (Vallen'stein).
 
 164 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 years later the emperor made peace with most of the Protestant 
 provinces of Germany ; but Richelieu continued a war which 
 promised to add greatly to the power of the crown of France. 
 Even in his last illness, this wonderful man continued to plan the 
 movements of his armies abroad, and to superintend affairs of 
 state at home. 
 
 At his death, in 1642, he left Louis XIII. master of the field. 
 As Montesquieu 1 said, the cardinal " had made his sovereign play 
 the second part in France, but the first in Europe." 
 
 Such was Richelieu's success ; a success gained, as he declared, 
 by always going straight to his mark. Well might Peter the Great 
 of Russia exclaim, as he enthusiastically embraced his statue in 
 Paris, " I would have given half my dominions to have learned 
 from thee how to govern the other half." Yet the French people 
 were to pay a heavy price for the glory of having produced such 
 a man. 
 
 Perhaps without fully intending it, the cardinal had prepared 
 the way for the ultimate triumph of one despotic will, and there- 
 fore for the destruction of all political and religious liberty in 
 France. Six months after his death the king died, leaving a 
 child of five, Louis XIV., as his successor. 
 
 143. Minority of Louis XIV. ; Mazarin ; Treaty of West- 
 phalia. The reign of Louis XIV. extends nominally over a 
 period of seventy-two years, or from 1643 to I 7 I 5- For con- 
 venience we may divide it into three parts : 
 
 I. That of the ministry of Cardinal Mazarin, 2 1643-1661. 
 II. That of the administration of Colbert, 1661-1683. 
 
 III. That of the decline of the king's power, 1683-1715. 
 
 The queen-mother, Anne of Austria, who became regent at the 
 death of Louis XIII., chose for her chief counsellor Cardinal 
 Mazarin, an Italian by birth, who had been an intimate friend of 
 Richelieu's. He boasted that, though his speech had a foreign 
 accent, his heart was wholly French. But the people distrusted 
 
 1 Montesquieu (Mon-tes-ke-uh'). 2 Mazarin (Mah-zah-ran').
 
 THE FRONDE. 165 
 
 his smooth ways, and contrasting him with Richelieu, said, " after 
 the lion comes the fox." 
 
 Mazarin pursued, in a measure, the policy of his distinguished 
 predecessor. The Thirty Years' War was still in progress, and he 
 continued the contest against the emperor of Germany, or, in other 
 words, against the House of Austria. 
 
 Under the splendid generalship of Turenne 1 and of " the great 
 Cond" 2 victory favored the French, and in 1648 the emperor 
 begged for peace. The treaty of Westphalia 3 ended the long 
 contest. The House of Austria, thoroughly beaten and humiliated, 
 was forced to give France possession of all towns and rights which 
 she held in Alsace 4 ; so that Louis XIV.'s kingdom now extended 
 on the east, to the Rhine ; and in one case, to the town of Breisach, 5 
 on the further bank of that river. 
 
 Austria furthermore acknowledged the independence of the 
 republics of Holland and of Switzerland, made concessions to 
 Sweden, and formally recognized the religious liberty of the 
 Protestant states of Germany, besides granting them an increase 
 of political power. 
 
 144. The Fronde; St. Vincent de Paul; the King's Mar- 
 riage; End of the Spanish War. But the very year that the 
 treaty of Westphalia was signed, an outbreak occurred in Paris 
 which threatened to overthrow Mazarin's power and to revolu- 
 tionize the government. 
 
 1 Turenne (Tii-ren'). 
 
 2 Conde : son of Prince Conde; his title then was Duke of Enghien (On-gee-an') ; 
 after his father's death he became Prince Conde. 
 
 3 Westphalia : a province of Prussia, bordering on Holland. The treaty receives 
 its name from the fact that the congresses that negotiated it met in different cities 
 of the province. Among the towns of Alsace, granted or confirmed to France by 
 this treaty (Strasburg was not included), were the three bishoprics of Metz, Toul, 
 and Verdun, conquered by Henry II. See Paragraph 106. 
 
 4 Alsace : now a province of Germany, on the eastern border of France, but for 
 a long period included in French territory. See Map XL, page 216. 
 
 5 Breisach (Bri'zak) : a town of Baden, Germany, on the right bank of the 
 Rhine.
 
 1 66 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 The reform party, nicknamed the Fronde, 1 was the result of the 
 reaction against the despotic policy inaugurated by Richelieu 
 and continued by his successor. The loyal ministers had so far 
 destroyed whatever checks had existed on the king's power or his 
 abuse of it, that neither the aristocracy, the Parliament of Paris, 
 nor the people had any real part in the government. The dis- 
 tress of the country was great. The expense of so many years of 
 foreign war had increased the taxes enormously, and thousands 
 of poor people died in jail, through inability to pay them. It was 
 said that in some provinces, " the peasant no longer possessed 
 anything but his soul, the officers of the government having seized 
 and sold everything else at auction." 
 
 The king's credit had fallen so low that he could not borrow 
 money under twenty-five per cent interest. On all sides matters 
 looked critical, and many believed that the realm would become 
 bankrupt. 
 
 It was under these circumstances that the first Fronde, or reform 
 party, was organized. It originated with the action of the Parlia- 
 ment of Paris. 2 That court (1648) refused to register a royal 
 decree imposing new financial burdens on the exhausted country. 
 By an Act of Union 3 the Parliament combined with the three other 
 chief courts of the city under Matthew Mol6 4 as president, and 
 took the name of the Chamber of St. Louis. The Chamber de- 
 manded : i . That the taxes then in force should be reduced, and 
 that no further taxes should be levied except with the consent of 
 
 1 Fronde : literally a sling such as boys then used in their street fights. The 
 watchmen or police of that day tried to stop this fighting; but as soon as their 
 backs were turned, the stones would begin to fly again. A member of the Parlia- 
 ment of Paris, who was strongly opposed to Mazarin's policy, said that the cardi- 
 nal could no more suppress the parliamentary opposition to his measures than the 
 watchmen could stop the frcmdeurs, or slingers. From that time the Fronde became 
 the popular name for the reform movement, and also for the insurrections to which 
 it gave rise. Those who stood on the cardinal's side were called Mazarinists ; those 
 who attacked him and his party, Frondeurs. 2 See Paragraph 63. 
 
 8 Mazarin ridiculed the Act of Union, or " Onion," as he pronounced it in his 
 broken French. The populace of Paris ridiculed him in turn in a street-song, one 
 line of which ran, " This ' Onion' will make you shed tears." 4 Mole (Mo-lay').
 
 THE FRONDE. 1 67 
 
 the Parliament of Paris; 2. That the arbitrary imprisonment of 
 persons not convicted of crime should cease ; 1 3. That the office 
 of royal provincial governors (intendants) 2 should be abolished. 
 
 For a time the Unionists bade fair to emulate that famous Long 
 Parliament in England which had overthrown so many abuses. 
 But the news of the execution of Charles I., Louis XIV.'s uncle-in- 
 law, by that body, or the remnant of it, and of English treaties 
 with Spain, frightened the French reformers. They feared that 
 they had gone too far : visions of popular revolution on the one 
 hand, and, on the other, of a war with Spain and England com- 
 bined, put a stop to their further action. The Unionists therefore 
 accomplished nothing. 
 
 The nobility had also organized a Fronde, but solely for the 
 redress of their private grievances. It speedily degenerated into 
 a vain and frivolous movement, ending in silly parade and empty 
 declamation. 
 
 Last of all, the rabble of Paris and of other large cities got up 
 their Fronde, partly because of the arrest of some of their favorites, 
 and partly in feeble imitation of the English revolutionists. Mean- 
 time, while the mob amused themselves with building barricades 
 in the streets of the capital, playing at civil war, and threatening 
 what great things they would do, the country people, who took 
 no part in any of the movements, were suffering horribly at the 
 hands of bands of nobles, and foreign mercenaries who ravaged 
 the land. 
 
 While these disturbances were at their height, the queen-mother, 
 with Condi's help, blockaded Paris. A compromise was now 
 effected between the government and the city ; but the peace did 
 not last long ; the people again rose, Mazarin was forced to go into 
 temporary exile in Germany, and the Paris populace, filled with 
 joy, sang in the streets, 
 
 1 This was an attempt to secure the writ of Habeas Corpus, passed in England 
 at a later date. 
 
 2 The provincial parliaments regarded these governors (intendants, see Para- 
 graph 139) with great jealousy.
 
 1 68 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 " A Fronde-ly wind 
 Got up to-day; 
 'Gainst Mazarin 
 It howls, they say." 
 
 But it did not howl long, for the queen-mother and Cond 
 quarrelled ; and he left the city, to raise a force in the south 
 against Paris. Anne now declared Louis XIV. old enough to rule, 
 and he thus became king in his fourteenth year. Meanwhile Maz- 
 arin came back, and Turenne, who for a short time had sided with 
 the Fronde, received command of the royal army. He and Conde 
 had a battle, which by chance resulted in the latter's getting 
 possession of Paris ; but, not being able to have his own way in 
 everything, he left the city in disgust and traitorously joined the 
 Spaniards. 
 
 Shortly after, the young king with his mother entered Paris in 
 triumph. A royal edict sentenced the absent Cond to death for 
 treason. A second forbade the Parliament of Paris to discuss 
 affairs of state, which edict they now humbly accepted and regis- 
 tered against themselves. 
 
 Thus ignominiously ended the child's play of the Fronde. It 
 had begun by demanding the restraint of the excessive authority 
 of the crown, the recognition of the constitutional rights of the 
 people, and, lastly, the establishment of parliamentary government 
 after the English model. It failed in everything, and the king 
 caused a statue of himself to be erected, in which he was repre- 
 sented as triumphantly trampling on the helpless people of France. 
 Outside of the royal will there was no government. The king could 
 now arrogantly say, " I am the state." 1 
 
 One of the bright features of these stormy times was the work of 
 the Catholic missionary and philanthropist, Vincent de Paul. He 
 had already distinguished himself by his self-sacrificing labors 
 in nearly every field of benevolent effort. Even the wretched 
 
 1 This famous saying, attributed to Louis XIV., has been called in question by 
 some recent writers. Whether true in letter or not, it certainly is in spirit, since the 
 king's entire reign was in accordance with it.
 
 COLBERT SUCCEEDS MAZARIN. 169 
 
 galley-slaves found a friend in him when they could find none else- 
 where ; and he also organized the institution of the Sisters of Char- 
 ity to minister to the sufferings of the destitute sick. During the 
 civil war of the Fronde he devoted himself to the relief of the 
 multitude of orphan and homeless children perishing in the streets. 
 The poor called him " the agent of Providence," and after his 
 death the Pope conferred on him that title of saint which thousands 
 would have gladly voted him during his life. 
 
 Peace now reigned at home, but the war with Spain continued 
 until 1659, when the marriage of the king to the Spanish princess 
 Maria Theresa 1 put an end to hostilities. Mazarin had long 
 planned this union, in the hope that it would eventually result in 
 annexing the dominions of Spain to France. We shall see later 
 that the marriage was prolific in long- continued wars, which at last 
 brought irrecoverable disaster upon Louis XIV. 
 
 145. Colbert succeeds Mazarin; the King becomes his 
 Own Minister. As Richelieu left his friend Mazarin to succeed 
 him, so Mazarin in turn left one of his friends, a provincial gov- 
 ernor named Colbert, 2 to take his place. The cardinal had not 
 found his office unprofitable, having accumulated a colossal fortune 
 through it, as report said, by plundering the state. Just before his 
 death in 1661 he said to the king, "Sire, I owe everything to you, 
 but I believe that I pay at least part of the debt in leaving you 
 Colbert." 
 
 Colbert, however, notwithstanding his remarkable ability, was 
 not destined to exercise that unquestioned power which Mazarin 
 had possessed. On the news of the cardinal's death, the secretary 
 of state obtained an audience with the king, then twenty-three. 
 " To whom, Sire," he asked, " shall we now apply for instructions ? " 
 " To me," replied Louis. The secretary was astonished, as well he 
 might be, at the idea of the king's taking the management of the 
 government directly into his own hands. But he found, with oth- 
 ers, that the will of this young man was destined to be " one of 
 
 i Theresa (Te-ree'sah) . 2 Colbert (Kol-bair').
 
 I7O LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 the strongest human elements in the seventeenth century." Louis 
 pursued the new policy not only with respect to the affairs of 
 France, but also with the colonies, and the governor of Canada 
 received orders to make his official reports directly to the crown. 
 For the next thirty years his Majesty labored as diligently at his 
 task of ruling the state as any peasant did in digging the soil. 
 Every morning Louis began his self-appointed duty, and spent 
 eight full hours in the consideration of public affairs. When urged 
 not to apply himself so closely, he replied, " To rule by work is the 
 true secret of power." 
 
 146. Colbert's Reforms in Finance, Industry, Education, and 
 Law. Louis was able to accomplish so much mainly because he 
 had able and faithful assistants, with Colbert at their head. Col- 
 bert had the control riot only of the finances, but also of the depart- 
 ments of public works, agriculture, commerce, the royal household, 
 and the navy. Next to the king, he embodied and represented 
 France. 
 
 He began his administration by reorganizing the treasury. Where 
 there was confusion, recklessness, waste, and dishonesty he intro- 
 duced order, economy, integrity. Out of eighty million francs 
 of revenue the king had only received about thirty millions ; 
 the rest stuck to the fingers of those who handled it. Colbert 
 stopped this system of public plunder. Each year he presented 
 the king with the budget an estimate of the expenses and 
 resources of the government. Thus for the first time the French 
 sovereign knew how his accounts stood. Furthermore, Colbert, 
 instead of increasing the taxes, managed to equalize and reduce 
 them to a degree never before attempted. The result was that 
 the credit of the crown rapidly improved, and the government 
 could borrow money at reasonable rates. This enabled Louis to 
 begin and carry on those gigantic wars which he was soon to 
 undertake. 
 
 In his other departments Colbert displayed equal industry and 
 obtained equal results. He protected and built up home industries.
 
 LOUVOIS AND VAUBAN. Ijl 
 
 He encouraged better methods of agriculture and introduced new 
 and superior breeds of cattle. He stimulated emigration and trade 
 with the French colonies in America and the Indies. He created 
 the first royal navy in France worthy of the name. He planned 
 and constructed a vast system of roads, bridges, docks, canals, and 
 other public works ; one of which, the " Canal of the Two Seas," 
 uniting the waters of the Atlantic with those of the Mediterranean, 
 may be justly regarded as one of the greatest works of that age. 1 
 
 In addition to these undertakings, Colbert showed marked inter- 
 est in literature, art, and science. He opened the Mazarin Library 
 in Paris to the public. He established schools of painting, sculp- 
 ture, music, and architecture in the capital and the provinces. He 
 obtained honors and pensions from the king for the most distin- 
 guished men of science and letters, not only of France, but of for- 
 eign countries. " Although the king is not your sovereign," wrote 
 Colbert to Vossius, a learned Protestant divine of Holland, " he 
 chooses to be your benefactor." 
 
 Finally, he turned his attention to the revision of the statutes. 
 Through his influence the confused mass of conflicting laws of the 
 realm were systematized and reduced to six improved codes, and 
 some of the most barbarous of the criminal laws were either repealed 
 or modified for the better. 
 
 147. Louvois and Vauban. While Colbert was thus engaged, 
 Louvois, 2 minister of war, was putting the army on a more efficient 
 basis. He ordered that each corps should have a distinctive 
 uniform, and substituted the musket armed with that formidable 
 weapon, the bayonet, for the clumsy pike which had so long 
 been in use. The aristocratic cavalry had formerly been the chief 
 dependence of the army ; but now all was changed, and the foot- 
 soldiers, sons of laborers, not of lords, came to the front, bayonet in 
 hand. 
 
 At the same time Vauban, 3 the ablest civil and military engineer 
 
 1 It connects the port of Cette on the Mediterranean with Toulouse on the 
 Garonne, and thence with Bordeaux on the Atlantic. 
 
 2 Louvois (Loo-v\vah'). 3 Vauban (Voh-bon').
 
 172 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 of the age, built a chain of forts l on the northeastern boundary of 
 the kingdom, which henceforth became known as the " Iron 
 Frontier." As France had no adequate port in the north, he 
 converted the shallow haven of Dunkerque 2 into a deep and capa- 
 cious harbor for the king's men-of-war, and defended it with a line 
 of batteries that, like the " Iron Frontier," defied attack. 
 
 In the field, Vauban taught the captains how to fight with the 
 spade as well as with the sword. Through his instruction they 
 learned to approach the enemy's works under cover of parallel 
 lines of ditches and entrenchments. In this way he saved France 
 thousands of lives that would otherwise have been sacrificed in the 
 fury of a direct assault. His method was slow, but irresistible. As 
 the boa-constrictor tightens his folds round his helpless victim, so 
 Vauban gradually contracted his fatal line of earthworks. Constant 
 practice in besieging fortifications had made him so expert, that 
 when he had once dug his trenches in front of the enemy's camp, he 
 could generally predict to a day when they would have to surrender. 
 It was said of him that during war he spent his time taking cities 
 for France, and during peace in fortifying them so that they could 
 never be retaken. 3 
 
 148. Absolute Power of the King. By the help of such men 
 and of his great generals, Turenne, Cond, 4 Luxembourg, 5 and 
 Vendome, 6 Louis XIV. made himself supreme both at home and 
 abroad. In England, James I. and his unfortunate son Charles 
 had tried to force the nation to accept the theory that kings reign 
 by divine right, and are in no way directly responsible to their 
 
 1 This chain efforts was gradually extended until it embraced the cities of Lille, 
 Metz, Strasburg, and other important cities, not only on the east, but also on the 
 north. 2 Dunkerque (Dun-kerk') : on the North Sea, above Calais. 
 
 8 Vauban perfected the bayonet, so that it could be kept permanently in place 
 during the battle. Before he made his simple but effective improvement, this weapon 
 had been fastened in the muzzle of the musket, and had of course to be removed 
 whenever the gun was fired. Vauban also invented a peculiar system of using 
 artillery, "ricochet firing", which he employed in dismounting the enemy's 
 cannon. 4 Conde had been pardoned, and had returned to his allegiance. 
 
 5 Luxembourg (Liik-son-boor'). 6 Vendome (Von-dome').
 
 LOUIS BUILDS THE PALACE OF VERSAILLES. 173 
 
 subjects. Charles pushed that monstrous doctrine too far; the 
 long-suffering people rose in revolution, and the king's head rolled 
 in the dust at their feet. But Louis XIV. had no fear of such 
 consequences. In France, there was no parliament or assembly to 
 gainsay his will. Now that the Fronde was crushed, all opposition 
 was destroyed. The king's standing army could speedily silence 
 every murmur. Those who dared question his authority soon 
 found an answer to their rashness, in a dungeon, where they were 
 quite likely to spend the rest of their days. Bossuet, 1 the eloquent 
 court preacher, said, " Kings are gods ; they bear on their forehead 
 a divine character. ... To speak evil of the king is almost equal to 
 blasphemy." Louis believed this as firmly as Bossuet. He con- 
 sidered himself absolute master of Church and State ; the whole 
 of France was his property. In his eyes a subject had nothing, 
 except what he graciously chose to permit him to retain. 
 
 149. Louis builds the Palace of Versailles ; his Court. We 
 have seen that Francis I. originated the court ; 2 Louis XIV. per- 
 fected it. The king did not like Paris as a residence ; there were 
 too many statues of preceding kings there to suit him ; and besides, 
 the Paris people were turbulent. He did not like St. Germain, 
 which was a short distance out of the city, any better, because 
 from there he saw the towers of St. Denis, the royal burial-place, 
 and those towers reminded him that he was mortal. For these 
 reasons he determined to build a new palace at Versailles, about 
 twelve miles southwest of Paris. Louis XIII. had erected a 
 chateau there, which the king took as a nucleus for a colossal 
 structure large enough to accommodate the entire nobility of the 
 realm. The place was naturally barren and unattractive. Louis 
 transformed it into a magnificent park by transplanting whole groves 
 of forest trees to cover the naked sand ; and by constructing im- 
 mense water-works, which supplied it with lakes, streams, cascades, 
 and fountains. Such were the surroundings of the new abode of 
 royalty, which cost millions of money, twenty years of continuous 
 
 1 Bossuet (Bos-sway'). 2 See Paragraph 98.
 
 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 labor, and the sacrifice of the lives of regiments of soldiers employed 
 in digging a canal to bring water to the palace. 
 
 The palace itself was on a commensurate scale of grandeur. 
 The seemingly endless succession of apartments, galleries, cham- 
 bers, and corridors were filled with statuary, paintings, mirrors, and 
 tapestry. Everywhere one saw the emblem of the king, a rising 
 sun illuminating and giving life to the world. In the palace, four 
 thousand servants waited on Louis and his court ; in the stables, 
 there was a stud of five thousand horses ; in the barracks, a body- 
 guard of ten thousand troops. This royal residence was believed 
 to be the envy of all the monarchs of Europe, and La Fontaine 
 wrote his fable of the frog that tried to swell himself up to the size 
 of an ox, and burst in the effort, to ridicule the attempts of other 
 kings to rival Versailles. 
 
 150. Life at Versailles. Here Louis gathered all the men of 
 rank and note of France. Here they lived. The sovereign was 
 the centre ; the courtiers were planets revolving about him and 
 shining by the reflected light of his splendor. When the king rose 
 in the morning, it was almost a religious ceremony. The nobles, 
 according to their order of rank, were admitted to witness the 
 spectacle. It was the duty and the privilege of a few to do more. 
 They took part in it. One favored lord handed the king his slip- 
 pers ; another poured out the water for him to wash ; a third put 
 on his robe ; a fourth arranged his cravat. All that the king 
 touched was regarded with reverence. If a courtier passed 
 through the royal apartments when Louis was absent, he bowed 
 before the chair or the couch which his majesty had occupied, as 
 he would before a shrine in a church. A journal was kept of what 
 the monarch said and did from hour to hour. His physician, who 
 was constantly in attendance, took frequent notes of his health. 
 Among other things that he gravely wrote down was the remark- 
 able fact that the king sometimes caught cold like ordinary mor- 
 tals ! It was currently believed that the touch of the royal hand 
 could cure certain diseases, and on occasions hundreds of poor
 
 LOUIS XIV.'S ENCOURAGEMENT OF EMINENT MEN. 1/5 
 
 scrofulous sufferers were brought to the court to be healed. If 
 constant adulation could have killed the king, he would have died 
 young ; for poets, preachers, orators, and historians vied with the 
 nobles and with each other in praising his magnanimity, his glory, 
 and his power. In Paris, bronze and marble statues and portraits 
 of him abounded, and after every great victory some new monu- 
 ment or triumphal arch would be erected to do him honor. 
 
 151. Louis XTV.'s Ability; his Partial Encouragement of 
 Eminent Men. Yet it must be said to the credit of Louis XIV. 
 that all this flattery did not destroy in him certain really great 
 qualities. He never became an idler or a trifler. He knew how 
 to select able men and how to retain them in his service, and none 
 but an able man can do that. If he exacted the most scrupulous 
 courtesy from all who approached him, he exhibited the same 
 courtesy himself, and never passed one of his servants without 
 some token of recognition. By nature he possessed remarkable 
 dignity of manner, so that though he was in reality both short and 
 small, he seemed to every one who saw him tall and majestic. 1 He 
 had that habitual gravity which is said to be the best possible 
 mask for deficiencies. If he was not great, he at least succeeded 
 in making every one believe that he was. France gloried in such 
 a ruler, because in him she saw herself reflected and exalted. He 
 was the embodiment of her pride and of her desire for homage. 
 
 Louis liked to feel that he led the civilization of Europe, and 
 that he was the patron of all that was noble in art, literature, or 
 science. He took the title of " Protector of Letters." With his 
 reign, directly or indirectly, are associated many of the most emi- 
 nent men of genius that the country has produced, such poets 
 and dramatists as Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Boileau, and La 
 Fontaine ; such pulpit orators as Bourdaloue, Bossuet, and Mas- 
 sillon ; such prose-writers as La Bruyere, Fe"nelon, Rochefoucauld, 
 and Madame de Se'vigne' ; such thinkers as Descartes, Malebranche, 
 
 1 See Macaulay's Essay on Dumont's Mirabeau, and compare Thackeray's car- 
 icature of Louis XIV. in " The Paris Sketch Book " (Meditations at Versailles).
 
 1/6 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 and Pascal ; such artists as Poussin and Claude Lorraine. 1 These 
 men were to France what their contemporaries Milton, Dryden, 
 Newton, Hobbes, and Locke were to England. But they had 
 this advantage : that at a time when the English writers were 
 hardly known outside the narrow limits of their island, they, on 
 the contrary, were read, not in translation, but in their own lan- 
 guage, throughout Europe ; and, furthermore, that language was 
 used by the diplomats and sovereigns of every civilized court. 2 
 In fact, from this time throughout the eighteenth century French 
 educators, men of science, architects, and artists may be fairly said 
 to have done more for the advance of civilization than those of any 
 other nation. So that, at the very time when France was declin- 
 ing politically, she was at the height of her power intellectually. 
 
 But there is another side to this royal patronage of eminent men. 
 Louis did not long let the light of his countenance shine on those 
 who opposed his prejudices or forgot to flatter his greatness. 
 Corneille's old age was passed in abject poverty. Pascal narrowly 
 escaped trial for heresy. Fe'nelon was dismissed from his bishop- 
 ric, in disgrace, because he had the manhood to teach that " the 
 many are not made for the use of the one." Finally, the Society 
 of Port Royal, an association of scholars near Paris, was ruthlessly 
 broken up, and even the bones of their dead thrown out of their 
 
 1 Corneille (Kor-nail'); Racine (Rah-seen') ; Moliere (Moh-lee-air') ; Boileau 
 (Bwah-loh') ; La Fontaine (Lah Fon-taine') ; Bourdaloue (Boor-dah-loo') ; Bossuet 
 (Bos-s\vay') ; La Bruyere (Lah Broo-yair') ; Fenelon (Fay-ne-lon') ; Rochefou- 
 cauld (Rosh-foo-koh') ; Sevigne (Say-veen-yay') ; Descartes (Day-cart') ; Male- 
 branche (Mahl-bronsh'); Poussin (Poo-san'). 
 
 2 French, it is said, was more familiar to Frederick the Great than his own 
 German tongue. He constantly wrote and corresponded in it. So Catharine II. of 
 Russia, Gustavus III. of Sweden, and even George II. of England, used it in con- 
 versation and in correspondence. The learned societies of Prussia, Russia, and 
 Italy drew up many of their papers and reports in French ; and Leibnitz, the distin- 
 guished German philosopher, wrote his greatest work his " Theodicy " in that 
 language. At a later date, Franklin and Jefferson both acknowledged the powerful 
 influence of French thought ; and the names of Descartes, Pascal, Laplace, Jussieu, 
 Rousseau, D'Alembert, Condorcet, Montesquieu, and Voltaire were justly ranked 
 among the most renowned of the century.
 
 FRENCH PROVINCES IN AMERICA. 1/7 
 
 graves to the dogs, simply because their Catholicism was different 
 from that favored by the Jesuits and the court. 
 
 152. Louis XIV.'s Plans of Conquest; his Provinces in Amer- 
 ica. Louis XIV., however, was not satisfied to be great at home 
 only, but was resolved to be so abroad as well. In fact, his 
 " over-vaulting ambition " proved to be the ultimate ruin of the 
 French monarchy. Charles V.'s empire had, as we have seen, 
 extended over more than two-thirds of the civilized continent of 
 Europe embracing Spain, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, 
 and a large part of Italy. Now that the power of Spain had 
 dwindled, Louis resolved to take the late emperor's place. He 
 aspired to rule not a part, but the whole of Europe. More than 
 that even : he proposed establishing an empire in America such 
 as the world had never seen. Already, devoted Jesuit mission- 
 aries were exploring Canada and the West, and laboring with 
 Christian zeal and Christian self-sacrifice to convert the Indians. 
 The time too was coming when Marquette * and Joliet 2 would 
 venture on the waters of Lake Michigan and of the Mississippi, 
 and when La Salle, 3 floating down that river in his birch-bark 
 canoe to the Gulf of Mexico, would name the whole vast region 
 Louisiana in honor of Louis XIV. 
 
 153. First War with Spain in the Netherlands. On the 
 
 continent of Europe Louis resolved to begin a series of " political 
 wars." That is, unlike the kings of the early ages, he fought not 
 out of mere love of fighting, or out of jealousy or fear, but 
 chiefly for the glory and legitimate extension of France. His 
 purpose was to reach and hold some natural boundary like the 
 Rhine, or to incorporate some population speaking the French 
 tongue, or lastly to secure some necessary point of defence. 
 
 In 1665 an opportunity presented itself, and the king com- 
 menced hostilities. In that year Philip IV. died, leaving his 
 dominions to Charles II., his son by a second wife. Louis, it 
 
 1 Marquette (Mar-ket'). 2 Jol'e-et (English pronunciation). 8 La Salle (Lah Sal).
 
 178 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 will be remembered, 1 had married Maria Theresa, Philip's daughter 
 by his first marriage. He now claimed the Spanish Netherlands 2 
 as her inheritance by virtue of an old law of those countries, which 
 gave the daughter of a first wife the preference in inheritance 
 over the son by a second wife. 3 
 
 Charles refused to acknowledge the claim of Louis. War en- 
 sued. Then the Protestant powers of England, Holland, and 
 Sweden, fearing the extension of the French power and the Cath- 
 olic faith through the success of France, compelled Louis to 
 make peace at Aix-la-Chapelle (1668) . But Louis managed, never- 
 theless, to retain possession of a number of frontier towns in 
 Flanders, and Vauban fortified them so strongly that there was 
 not much probability that they could be re-taken. Thus, notwith- 
 standing his apparent failure, the French sovereign had now 
 obtained a firm foothold in the coveted territory. 
 
 154. Second War with Spain; War with Holland. Two 
 
 years later, by the infamous secret treaty of Dover, 4 Louis brought 
 over Charles II. of England, who henceforth bound himself to do 
 his will as far as he dared. He likewise succeeded in inducing 
 Sweden to withdraw from the alliance. Now that England and 
 Sweden were disposed of, the way was clear. The king resolved 
 to overrun Holland, conquer the people, and punish them for 
 presuming to thwart his plans against Spain. That done, he could 
 easily subjugate the Spanish Netherlands, which lay between Hol- 
 land and France. If successful in this attempt, he would thus 
 extend the northern limits of his kingdom far beyond the Rhine. 
 In 1672 Louis, commanding in person, an army of a hundred 
 thousand men, began a campaign with such generals as Turenne, 
 Cond, Luxembourg, and the indispensable Vauban to aid him. 
 In less than six weeks his force had got possession of most of the 
 country, and were in sight of Amsterdam, its chief city. Jean de 
 Witt, then governor of Holland, who with his brother Cornelius 
 
 1 See Paragraph 144. 3 The Law or Right of Devolution. 
 
 2 See Paragraph 90. * See " The Leading Facts of English History."
 
 FRENCH ACQUISITIONS. 1/9 
 
 constituted the real heads of the republican party, believing 
 further resistance futile, begged for peace. Louis sent back the 
 messengers with an insulting refusal ; and the enraged populace 
 imagining that the De Witts were traitors, attacked them, and tore 
 them to pieces. 
 
 155. Louis XIV. vs. William of Orange ; French Acquisitions. 
 
 William of Orange, who later became King William III. of Eng- 
 land, now had command of the Dutch force. Germany and 
 Spain co-operated with him, and with their help he for six years 
 kept up the struggle for the independence of the Dutch Republic 
 and for Protestant freedom, against the determined efforts of Louis 
 to destroy them. 
 
 In his extremity, William, like his great ancestor William the 
 Silent, made an ally of the ocean. The dykes of Holland were 
 cut, and the waters swept over the country around Amsterdam, 
 compelling the French to fall back to higher ground. 
 
 But Louis would not give up his attempt. The fight went on 
 by both land and sea. Battle after battle was waged, in one of 
 which the king lost Turenne, his greatest general. At length, 
 worn out by the conflict, both sides desired peace, and the treaty 
 of Nimeguen 1 was signed in 1678. 
 
 Louis had conquered neither Holland nor the coveted Spanish 
 Netherlands ; but in the course of the war he had secured many 
 places of importance in the latter territory, 2 and had also forced 
 Spain to give him, on the east, the important county of Burgundy, 
 or Franche Comt, 3 as it was called. 
 
 In honor of their successes, the authorities of Paris erected the 
 magnificent triumphal arches of St. Denis and St. Martin ; 4 and 
 
 1 Nimeguen (Ne-may'gen) : 
 
 2 In all, Louis gained thirty-four cities on the east and north, of which Aire, St. 
 Omer, Valenciennes, Cambrai, Luxembourg, and Strasburg were the principal. 
 
 3 Franche Comte (Fronsh Kon-tay'). See Map No. XL, page 216. It was for- 
 merly called the county of Burgundy, and lay east of the duchy of that name, with 
 which it should not be confounded; the duchy having been incorporated with 
 France in the reign of Louis XL See Paragraph go. 
 
 4 St. Martin (San Mar-tan').
 
 ISO LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 in 1680 they. voted that the king should receive the title of "The 
 Great." 
 
 156. Misery of France; Death of Colbert. But at the very 
 time when the exultant citizens of the French capital were de- 
 creeing their king the title of the " Grand Monarch," the period 
 of decline had set in. Though in the grandeur of his court, the 
 eminence of his circle of noted men, and his general influence, 
 Louis stood at the head of European civilization, though it was 
 through France that the continent then received its lessons in 
 culture and in thought, yet France itself was losing. The govern- 
 ment resembled a gilded statue of decaying wood outwardly 
 splendid, but crumbling to dust within. 
 
 The long-continued wars had killed off thousands of men in 
 their prime, had drained the country of resources, and had so 
 increased the taxes that the peasantry were in a state of the most 
 pitiable destitution. 
 
 Even Colbert, with all his ingenuity, confessed that he no longer 
 knew where to turn for money. La Bruyere 1 described the farm 
 laborers as " ferocious animals." " Black, livid, sunburnt, they are 
 seen," he says, " forever grubbing in the earth : they seem to have 
 an articulate voice ; and when they stand erect they exhibit human 
 features ; but they live like beasts." 
 
 When Louis was asked to give something to relieve the want of 
 these poor creatures, he replied, " Kings give by spending." The 
 answer was not really as heartless as it sounds, but it showed that 
 he had no true realization of the misery of the people. But official 
 accounts soon informed him. He was told that thirty thousand 
 peasants in one province were " obliged to eat weeds and the vilest 
 refuse " ; and that " many women and children have been found 
 dead on the roads and in the fields, with their mouths full of 
 grass." Archbishop Fe"nelon wrote to the king : " Your people are 
 perishing by famine. The whole of France is simply a great hos- 
 pital, and a hospital without food." 
 
 1 La Bruyere : see Paragraph 151.
 
 PRECARIOUS STATE OF THE NOBILITY. l8l 
 
 Even Vauban, though his trade was war, and he was hardened to 
 scenes of suffering, was so impressed with the misery of the lower 
 classes that he petitioned the king in their behalf. Louis was 
 indignant at the general's presumption. He called him " that 
 philanthropic lunatic," and ordered the petition to be nailed to 
 the pillory. 1 
 
 Colbert did not fare much better. His death in 1683 was prob- 
 ably hastened by the embarrassment of his situation and the bitter 
 reproaches of Louis, who was grievously disappointed because his 
 faithful servant could not raise more money. " If I had served 
 God as I have this man," cried the dying minister, " I should have 
 been saved ten times over ; now I don't know what is to become 
 of me." 
 
 157. Precarious State of the Nobility; Wearisomeness of 
 Court Life. The nobility lived in seeming magnificence at Ver- 
 sailles, but to many of them the palace was little more than a 
 splendid prison. They did not dare to remain away from the 
 court, since their doing so would rouse suspicion of their loyalty. 
 Their estates suffered by their absence. Their overseers took 
 advantage of them, and the returns they made were constantly 
 diminishing. On the other hand, the expenses of the nobles at 
 court were always on the increase. Those whose income was small 
 had to spend everything, and then they ran in debt to keep up 
 appearances. The more precarious their position, the more 
 dependent they were. Two resources only were open to them : 
 one was the king's favor, the other, the gambling- table. Just in 
 proportion as they grew more helpless, Louis grew more exacting 
 and despotic. 
 
 The proudest lord at his court knew that he was completely in 
 the king's power: a word or a look might raise or might ruin 
 him. At the royal receptions, which were held daily, and lasted 
 for hours, no one ventured to sit in the sovereign's presence even 
 
 1 The pillory : a platform on which offenders were exposed to public insult and 
 abuse.
 
 1 82 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 for a moment. There stood the crowd of courtiers, silent, weary, 
 expectant, always on the watch for opportunities, offices, and pen- 
 sions. Some, indeed, were so anxious that they hardly dared sleep, 
 lest they should miss getting some coveted position. " At what 
 hour shall I call your lordship?" asked the servant of the Duke of 
 Noailles. " At ten o'clock, if no one dies meanwhile," replied the 
 duke ; " but should any one happen to die, call me early, so that I 
 can beg his place." 
 
 When we reflect that this court etiquette was never relaxed, that 
 this scramble for office was always going on, we cannot wonder 
 that it ended in utter weariness and disgust. There were times, 
 indeed, when even Louis XIV. was glad to escape the bondage of 
 pomp and ceremony, and snatch a few hours of relaxation in the 
 society of one or two chosen favorites. Madame de Maintenon, 2 
 whom the king had privately married in 1684, shortly after the 
 death of the queen, wrote to her brother that she was worn out with 
 life in the palace. " Save those who fill the highest stations," said 
 she, " I know of none more unfortunate than those that envy them." 
 
 158. Revocation of the Edict of Nantes ; Persecution of the 
 Huguenots ; the Camisards ; Propositions of Bossuet. As if the 
 
 prosperity and welfare of France had not been sufficiently under- 
 mined, Louis now decided to strike the country a blow from which 
 it is doubtful if it has ever fully recovered. 
 
 We have seen that Henry IV., by the Edict of Nantes, 3 granted 
 the Huguenots civil rights and liberty of worship ; a policy which 
 Richelieu and Mazarin, though they were zealous Catholics, con- 
 tinued. Louis, however, had no sympathy with that policy. There 
 was a democratic element in Calvinism which he feared, and, in 
 common with many leading men of his day, he believed that it was 
 unsafe to tolerate a different religion from that maintained by the 
 State. He had tried to buy over the Huguenots ; but not having 
 made all the progress he desired, he resolved to employ force. In 
 
 1 Noailles (No-ale'). 2 Madame de Maintenon (Deh Maint-non'). 
 
 3 Edict of Nantes : see Paragraph 132.
 
 REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES. 183 
 
 this determination he was warmly seconded by Madame de Mainte- 
 non. She had been brought up a Calvinist, but had early abjured 
 that faith and joined the Catholics. She was eager to compel her 
 former fellow- Protestants to follow her example. Her influence 
 over the king was immense ; and she, with his Jesuit confessor, 
 Pere la Chaise, 1 urged him to make amends for his past life of 
 profligacy by uprooting the Huguenot heresy. 
 
 Thus urged, the king signed the revocation of the Edict of 
 Nantes in the autumn of 1685. He ordered the Huguenot 
 churches to be destroyed and the Huguenot ministers to leave 
 the realm within fifteen days, at the same time forbidding the 
 members of their congregations to follow them. Those ministers 
 who refused to go suffered death ; while, on the other hand, those 
 Huguenots who attempted to escape from France with their exiled 
 pastors were pursued, and if caught, cast into loathsome dungeons 
 or sent to the more terrible punishment of the galleys. 2 In order 
 to compel the Protestants to abandon their faith, Louvois 3 had 
 recommended the king to quarter the dragoons the most brutal 
 class of French soldiers in their houses, giving the men full per- 
 mission to harass and insult the families with whom they stopped. 
 These "missionaries in cavalry boots," as they were then jocosely 
 styled, had been employed for some time before the revocation of 
 the Edict, and had perpetrated such cruelties that many thousands 
 embraced the Catholic faith merely to get rid of their persecutors. 
 The king, who probably did not know the atrocities of these " drag- 
 onnades," as they were called, was induced to continue them, in 
 the belief that soon not a Calvinist would be left " unconverted." 
 After the Edict of Nantes was repealed, the dragoons set to work 
 with renewed ardor, torturing their victims to a degree just short of 
 actual murder. They hanged peasants, head downward, in their 
 chimneys ; they inflicted horrible outrages on the women ; they tore 
 babes from their mothers' arms, bound them to posts, and com- 
 
 1 Pere La Chaise (Pair Lah Shaise) : his name is perpetuated in the great 
 cemetery of Pere La Chaise, Paris, which was formerly a Jesuit estate under his 
 control. 2 Galleys : see Paragraph 104. 3 Louvois : see Paragraph 147.
 
 184 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 < 
 
 pelled the mothers to choose between renouncing their religion or 
 seeing their infants slowly starved to death. The result of this 
 system of persecution was to force multitudes of Huguenots to 
 leave their native land forever. Those who lived in the vicinity of 
 seaports secreted themselves on board vessels bound for some 
 foreign country; and although many were smoked out of their 
 hiding-places or suffocated in them by the fumes of burning 
 sulphur, still great numbers escaped. Others managed to slip 
 across the frontier into the neighboring states. So despite all the 
 vigilance of the government, several hundred thousand some 
 estimates say half a million succeeded in fleeing to England, 
 Germany, Holland, and America. Twenty thousand settled in 
 Berlin, and great numbers in London. They carried with them 
 the knowledge of trades and manufactures, such as silk-weaving 
 and watch-making, which France had nearly or wholly monopo- 
 lized. The Huguenots now established these and other branches 
 of industry in England and elsewhere, greatly to the detriment of 
 the dominions of Louis. The king had, in fact, driven out a host 
 of his most thrifty, intelligent, and loyal subjects. Among them 
 were many who were eminent in art, science, letters, and arms ; 
 for the Huguenots were, to a great extent, not only the bone and 
 sinew, but the brain and conscience, of the land ; so that the 
 queen of Sweden well might say of Louis XIV.'s suicidal act, " He 
 has cut off his left arm with his right." 
 
 The sufferings of these exiles excited pity in every country 
 where they sought refuge and protection. Hearty welcome and 
 assistance greeted them in all Protestant countries. They and their 
 descendants became the inflexible enemies of political and religious 
 tyranny. The Huguenots did much toward establishing the cause 
 of liberty in England and on the continent. " They manned the 
 ships which destroyed Louis XIV.'s navy." Last of all, at a later 
 period, they distinguished themselves in both legislating and fight- 
 ing for American Independence. 1 
 
 1 Most of Louis XIV.'s military leaders in the middle of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury were Huguenots. Turenne, the king's ablest general, had been a Protestant,
 
 THE FOUR PROPOSITIONS OF BOSSUET. 185 
 
 But not all the Huguenots were willing to suffer without resist- 
 ance. In the mountains of the Cevennes 1 and at other points in the 
 south, the Camisards, 2 who were to France what the Covenanters 
 were to Scotland, rose in revolt. Later, this insurrection became 
 serious, and it was not finally put down till more than a hundred 
 thousand had perished in the civil war. 
 
 But if Louis treated the Protestants with such intolerance, he 
 none the less refused to submit to the decree of the Pope. The 
 king claimed the right to appoint priests to parishes in those 
 dioceses which were without a bishop, and also to manage the 
 affairs of the diocese until the new bishop should have taken the 
 oath of allegiance. The Pope denied this power. Louis called 
 a council of the chief clergy of France. Bossuet preached the 
 opening sermon, and declared that as the ocean has its limits, so 
 too the Papacy must have. Then at the request of his council 
 he drew up four articles (1682) which virtually established the 
 independence of the Catholic Church of France, so far as the 
 supremacy of the Pope is concerned. 3 
 
 but was converted to Catholicism by the arguments of the eloquent and learned 
 Bossuet. In American history, we find such well-known Huguenot names as 
 Peter Faneuil, Paul Revere, General Marion, and three of the presidents of the 
 Continental Congress, Elias Boudinot, Henry I^aurens, and John Jay. 
 
 1 Cevennes (Se-ven') : on the border of Languedoc, in the South of France. 
 
 2 Camisards : so called from the camisade, or white shirt or jacket which the 
 insurrectionists wore in order to recognize each other at night. 
 
 8 The Four Propositions of Bossuet declared 
 
 1. That the Pope has no jurisdiction in temporal things. 
 
 2. That in spiritual matters the General Councils of the Church are to be con- 
 sidered the supreme authority. 
 
 3. That the established rules and usages of the Church of France are not to 
 be changed by the Pope. 
 
 4. That the decrees of the Pope in matters of doctrine require to be confirmed 
 by the Church. 
 
 Later, a compromise was effected between the Pope and Louis XIV. ; but the 
 Propositions are generally considered to still represent the attitude 'of the French 
 Catholic Church in great measure, though the tendency is to soften and qualify 
 rather than emphasize the principles they express. See also Paragraph 92, 
 note 2.
 
 1 86 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 159. War with England ; Peace of Ryswick. Three years 
 after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1688), Louis found 
 to his cost that he had driven the Calvinists from France only to 
 rouse against himself their great leader, William of Orange, who 
 had now, by the English Revolution and the flight of James II., 
 become king of England. 1 Louis became involved in a war with 
 England, in which he endeavored to force that nation to restore 
 the cowardly James to the throne he had disgraced and aban- 
 doned. William found ready assistance from the enemies of 
 France, and a grand alliance was formed by England, Holland, 
 Austria, and Spain against that country. At the decisive battle of 
 the Boyne, fought in Ireland in 1690, the combined forces of James 
 II. and of Louis XIV. were hopelessly beaten. The French king 
 furthermore had learned to his chagrin that a regiment of Hugue- 
 not refugees, commanded by Marshal Schomberg, one of the 
 French king's former generals and himself a Huguenot, contributed 
 toward his defeat. Thus soon had retribution begun. Louis next 
 planned an attack on England by sea ; but his fleet, after a terrible 
 battle off Cape La Hogue, 2 was forced to retreat, and the French 
 admiral had to burn his ships to prevent their capture by the Eng- 
 lish. 
 
 Meantime the French force invaded the Palatinate, a Protes- 
 tant province of Germany, on the Rhine. They ravaged the 
 country with fire and sword. The homeless and starving inhabi- 
 tants were driven out to beg their bread, leaving behind them the 
 smoking ruins of what had once been populous and thriving 
 cities. Louis gained several important victories in the Nether- 
 lands ; but the war as a whole was not in his favor, and his losses 
 were so heavy that in 1697 he was glad to sign the peace of Rys- 
 
 1 The intolerance and despotism of James II. of England brought on the 
 Revolution of 1688. James fled to Louis XIV. for protection, and henceforth 
 resided in France. William of Orange, who married James's daughter Mary, now 
 became king of England by act of Parliament. 
 
 2 Cape La Hogue : on the east coast of the Department of La Manche, in 
 Northern France, on the English Channel. Care must be taken not to confound 
 it with Cape La Hague, at the extremity of the peninsula of La Manche.
 
 WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION. 187 
 
 v/ick. 1 By this treaty he was obliged to renounce his efforts to 
 restore James II. to the English throne, to acknowledge his hated 
 rival, William of Orange, as the legitimate king of England, and 
 to give up the cities he had taken in the Netherlands, with his 
 other conquests beyond the Rhine. 
 
 160. War of the Spanish Succession; Peace of Utrecht. 
 
 But peace was not to be of long duration. In 1701 Louis began 
 a new war, called the War of the Spanish Succession, which lasted 
 for nearly fourteen years. 
 
 We have seen that Mazarin planned the king's marriage with 
 Maria Theresa, daughter of the king of Spain, 2 in the belief that 
 in time his master would become ruler of that country by the 
 union of the two crowns. This now seemed likely to be accom- 
 plished, for the king of Spain had died childless, and had left the 
 throne to a grandson of Louis, which was practically nearly the 
 same as if he had left it to Louis himself. In his exultation at the 
 prospect, the French monarch exclaimed, " The Pyrenees are no 
 more " ; for in imagination he now saw all barriers levelled, and 
 Spain henceforth a dependency of France. 
 
 But his joy was premature. England, Holland, Prussia, and the 
 empire of Germany felt that they had a word to say in this matter. 
 They resolved that France should gain no new territory and no 
 increase of power. 3 At Blenheim, in Bavaria, the English Duke of 
 Marlborough, with Prince Eugene, 4 gained a decisive victory over 
 Louis with his ally, the Elector of Bavaria. As Alison says, the 
 blow struck there "resounded through every part of Europe." 
 Great as some of the French king's generals were, they had now 
 found one greater than themselves ; for Voltaire declares that 
 Marlborough " never besieged a city that he did not take, or fought 
 a battle that he did not win." 
 
 Blenheim was followed by French reverses in the Netherlands and 
 
 1 Ryswick : a village of Holland. 2 See Paragraph 144. 
 
 3 See Paragraph 100. 
 
 4 Prince Eugene of Savoy. He led the forces of the German emperor.
 
 1 88 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 elsewhere. Marlborough broke through Vauban's boasted " Iron 
 Frontier," and entered France itself. 1 Then came the terrible 
 winter of 1 708-9, such a winter as had never been known in the 
 history of the country. Even the olive-trees in the south were 
 killed by the severity of the cold. The king's servants begged in 
 the streets of Paris, and Madame de Maintenon and the dainty 
 nobles of the court were glad to get even black bread to eat. 
 Louis was in such need of money that he sold a service of gold 
 plate to raise a few hundred thousand francs. Then death entered 
 the palace, and the proud king lost his only son. He was now a 
 childless old man, and the world had turned against him ; but he 
 did not lose his composure or sacrifice his dignity. He was greater 
 in adversity than he had ever been before. In 1713 he concluded 
 the peace of Utrecht. 2 
 
 A singular turn in affairs had made the allied powers willing to 
 leave Louis XIV.'s grandson on the throne of Spain, 3 though all 
 thoughts of uniting that country to France had to be renounced. 
 The chief terms of the treaty were as follows : i . Austria received 
 the Spanish Netherlands (Belgium) as a barrier between Holland 
 and France. 2. The fortresses of the frontier were to be garrisoned 
 by the Dutch as a perpetual check on France. 3. Louis bound 
 himself to recognize the Protestant succession to the throne of 
 England, 4 and to send James II. 's son, the "Young Pretender," 
 out of France. 5 4. Louis gave up Newfoundland, Hudson Bay 
 Territory, and Acadia 6 (Nova Scotia) to England. 5. Finally, 
 Louis had to agree to demolish the magnificent fortifications of 
 
 l Gaining the great victories of Ramillies and Oudenarde, and the indecisive 
 battle of Malplaquet. 2 Utrecht (U-trekt) : in Holland. 
 
 3 The allies had wished to make the archduke of Austria king of Spain, but he 
 had now become emperor of Germany, and the allies did not desire to increase his 
 power by giving him the Spanish crown, but preferred leaving Louis's grandson in 
 possession of it. 
 
 4 That is, the exclusion of a Catholic from the English throne, a provision 
 made by Parliament after the flight of James II. 
 
 5 So called because he claimed the crown of England. 
 
 6 On the cruel expulsion of the French settlers of Acadia by the English, at 
 a later period, see Longfellow's poem of Evangeline.
 
 DEATH OF LOUIS XIV. 189 
 
 Dunkerque which Vauban had constructed at such enormous 
 cost. 1 
 
 161. Death of the King. Two years later (1715) Louis 
 XIV. died. The last part of his long reign of over threescore and 
 ten years had been as gloomy as the first was glorious. Everything 
 he had depended upon had failed. His armies were no more. His 
 navy was reduced to a few battered hulks. He had lost a great 
 part of his North American colonies. His treasury was empty, his 
 people desperate. The son and grandson he had counted on to 
 perpetuate his grandeur were in their graves. His successor was 
 only a feeble child, not likely to live to wear the crown. 
 
 But Louis met death like a king. There was no repining. He 
 met it alone ; that is, with no person that he cared for near, him. 
 His Jesuit confessor, Le Tellier, 2 had left Versailles at the last, 
 when he saw that Louis's sun was setting never to rise again. 
 Madame de Maintenon too had gone : priest and wife were both 
 heartless. 
 
 When the news reached Paris that Louis was no more, the city 
 could not contain itself for joy. All along the road leading to the 
 royal tomb at St. Denis, the people set up tents and booths. 
 There they drank and sang over their deliverance from a king 
 whom they had ceased to take pride in, and over the fall of the 
 hated Le Tellier, who was soon to go into exile. There they 
 waited to see the corpse of the " Grand Monarch " pass by, and 
 to curse it as it passed. 
 
 No one has summed up the reign better than Guizot. He says : 
 " The government of Louis XIV. was a great fact, a powerful and 
 brilliant fact, but it was built upon sand." 
 
 162. Louis XV. (1715) ; Alliance against Spain; Education 
 of the Prince. The new king, Louis XV., was five years old. 
 
 1 See Paragraph 147. 
 
 2 Le Tellier (Leh Tel-le-ay')- He was the successor of Pere La Chaise (see 
 Paragraph 158). Some writers represent him as remaining with the king until the 
 end, but Martin (" Histoire de France," XIV. 614) says explicitly that he did not.
 
 1 90 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 He inherited from his great-grandfather, Louis XIV., a realm 
 whose peasantry could scarcely get food sufficient to keep them- 
 selves alive, and burdened with a debt of nearly two thousand five 
 hundred millions of francs. 1 
 
 During the king's minority, the Duke of Orleans, a good- 
 natured profligate, acted as regent. From personal reasons, the 
 duke formed an alliance with England and Holland. Subse- 
 quently a quadruple alliance was formed between England, Hol- 
 land, Austria, and France, against the schemes of Spain, to get 
 control of the French crown. 
 
 The young prince was educated in the same ideas of arbitrary 
 power that Louis XIV. had cherished. It is said that his teacher, 
 an eminent abbe, 2 was one day reading to him a chapter of French 
 history in which the death of a king was incidentally mentioned. 
 The prince interrupted him with an expression of astonishment. 
 "What," said he, "do you mean to say that kings die?" 
 "Well, Your Highness, yes, sometimes" was the hesitating 
 and politic reply. The anecdote, whether literally true or not, is 
 at least truthful, and illustrates the exalted conception of royalty 
 characteristic of the time. 
 
 But if the heir to the throne had no practical idea of the facts 
 of his situation, there were those who had. The Duke of Orleans 
 knew that the first and most pressing need to be met was a supply 
 of money. As a half- starving people did not seem likely to yield 
 much, even to the most grinding and heartless body of tax- 
 collectors, the prospect was not encouraging. 
 
 163. Law's Financial Scheme. At this juncture (1715) a 
 Scotchman, named John Law, came forward with a brilliant expe- 
 dient for relieving the necessities of the government. His plan 
 was to open a bank connected with the State, in which paper 
 
 1 $500,000,000, or, reckoned according to the present value of money, over 
 $1,000,000,000. 
 
 2 Abbe ( Ab-bay') : originally an abbot or head of a monastery ; but later, a title 
 given to a professor or private tutor who had studied theology.
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI COMPANY. IQI 
 
 should do the duty of gold and silver. He started the enterprise 
 with an imaginary capital of six million francs. By issuing small 
 notes which were promptly redeemed in specie, and by other 
 shrewd management, Law soon created confidence in the under- 
 taking, and those who had money to invest eagerly bought stock. 
 The government now gave its sanction to this " going concern " 
 by granting it a charter as a royal bank, and issuing orders that 
 its notes should be accepted in payment of taxes, custom-house 
 duties, and the like. 
 
 To this government-bank Law joined an organization called the 
 Mississippi Company, which promised to make its shareholders 
 " rich beyond the dreams of avarice." The valley of the Missis- 
 sippi was currently reported to be full of mines of gold and silver, 
 and every greedy or needy Frenchman was invited by this com- 
 pany to come forward and get his share of the superabounding 
 wealth. 
 
 As if all this was not enough, Law next proceeded to absorb 
 an African and a West Indian trading scheme, in order that the 
 Mississippi Company might enjoy a complete monopoly of colo- 
 nial speculation. This new project was hailed with such enthu- 
 siasm by a confiding public, that Law now seriously proposed 
 undertaking the payment of the national debt, just as the directors 
 of the South Sea Company were proposing to do in England about 
 the same time. 
 
 Such was the desire to invest, that the stock rapidly rose in 
 value until it finally reached forty times its par value, and a share 
 selling originally for five hundred francs ($100), brought no less 
 than twenty thousand ($4000) ! 
 
 Even at this price it was impossible to satisfy the demand. 
 Law's house in Paris was besieged day and night by people of all 
 ranks. Noblemen, bishops, ladies of the court, petty tradesmen, 
 and even servants who had saved up enough to purchase a single 
 share, blocked the passage leading to the door of this wonderful 
 Scotch magician, who was believed to have discovered an easy 
 and universal road to fortune.
 
 IQ2 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 At last the excitement reached such a pitch that Law himself 
 became alarmed at the prospect. He tried in vain to check the 
 mad speculation by reducing the excessive issue of paper money. 
 But it was too late. The gilded bubble he had blown by means 
 of his national bank, kept on expanding until it suddenly burst. 
 Law, who seems to have been honest, and to have thoroughly 
 believed in his enterprise, suffered with the rest, and just managed 
 to escape from France with his life. Multitudes found themselves 
 hopelessly ruined. The government extricated itself, in a measure, 
 by repudiating a large proportion of its obligations, as it had done 
 once before and would do again. This convenient way of paying 
 off national creditors led a wit of that day to define the French 
 monarchy as " an institution that has the privilege of going into 
 bankruptcy when it pleases." But even this bright saying did not 
 restore the country to good humor, though it may have helped it, 
 in some degree, to bear its losses. 
 
 164. Accession of Louis XV. ; War of the Polish Succession. 
 
 When, in 1723, at the ripe age of thirteen, Louis XV. began 
 to rule, he gave little promise of good. He was by nature and 
 by education a true Bourbon, one of that family who were to 
 France what the narrow-minded and tyrannical Stuarts were to 
 England, and of whom Napoleon said that " they never forgot 
 and never learned anything." 
 
 One of his first acts was to renew that Huguenot persecution 
 which had already crippled France so seriously. 1 Following this, 
 a number of years later, the young king engaged in a war with 
 the emperor of Germany, in order to force that monarch to rein- 
 state his father-in-law 2 on the throne of Poland. The emperor, 
 however, compromised the matter by giving the duchy of Lorraine 
 to the expelled king, with the provision that at his death it should 
 
 1 See Paragraph 158. 
 
 2 Louis XV. had married the daughter of a Polish nobleman, who later became 
 king of that country, but was driven from the throne by the Emperor Charles VI. 
 of Austria.
 
 WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION. IQ3 
 
 fall to his daughter, the queen of France, and so become part of 
 Louis's dominion. 1 
 
 165. War of the Austrian Succession ; Treaty of Aix-la- 
 Chapelle ; Commercial Prosperity. But, in 1 740, when the 
 Emperor Charles VI. died, a new and much more formidable 
 war broke out. This concerned the succession to the throne of 
 Austria. Some years before his death the emperor had left that 
 kingdom by will to his daughter, Maria Theresa. To this arrange- 
 ment all Europe agreed at the time ; but as soon as Charles 
 breathed his last, no less than six claimants came forward, each 
 demanding the whole or some part of the kingdom. 
 
 Maria Theresa had plenty of law documents, duly signed, sealed, 
 and witnessed, to prove her right to the crown ; but as one of the 
 claimants, Frederick the Great, king of Prussia, said, it would 
 have been better for her if the queen's father had " left her fewer 
 papers and more fighting-men." 
 
 Nearly all civilized Europe now took sides in this dispute, 
 which nothing short of cannon could effectually settle. George II. 
 of England headed an army in favor of the young queen. France* 
 took the opposite course, and sent one against her. The struggle 
 which now began (1741) took the name of the War of the 
 Austrian Succession. It lasted seven years. At Dettingen 2 
 (1743), George II. , who was the last English king who fought in 
 person, drove the French in headlong flight before his impetuous 
 charge. Then Louis XV., in imitation of the English monarch, 
 took the field himself. He fell sick, however, and did nothing ; 
 but notwithstanding this drawback, if it could be considered one, 
 his force gained a great victory over the English at Fontenoy 
 (i745). 3 The next year the French took Brussels, and soon 
 made themselves masters of the Austrian Netherlands, as the 
 
 1 The duchy of Bar, joining Lorraine on the west, was included with it in the 
 emperor's grant. France had made conquests of part of Lorraine under Louis 
 XIV., but first obtained full and undisputed possession of it by this treaty. 
 
 2 Dettingen : a village in Bavaria. 3 Fontenoy : a village of Belgium.
 
 194 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 country between France and Holland was now called. 1 The next 
 year the most important fortresses of Holland fell into the hands 
 of Louis. In other quarters, however, the French met with re- 
 verses, and, in 1 748, peace was signed at Aix-la-Chapelle. Maria 
 Theresa was recognized as ruler of Austria ; 2 and as each party 
 to the war gave back the territory it had conquered, France came 
 out of the contest with nothing but loss loss of life, money, and 
 commerce. 
 
 Eight peaceful and comparatively prosperous years ensued. 
 During this period the French colonies in the East and West 
 Indies, and in America, made much progress, which served as an 
 offset in considerable degree for the disasters and losses of the 
 late war. The cities of Bordeaux, Marseille, and Nantes profited 
 greatly by this revival of colonial trade, and the whole country 
 was beginning to feel the good effects of it when a new war broke 
 out which left France far worse off than before. 
 
 166. The Seven Years' War; France loses America and 
 India. The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had been made hurriedly, 
 ^nd simply covered up with fair words the hatred smouldering 
 between Austria and Prussia, and between France and England. 
 Maria Theresa had been forced to give up part of her dominions 
 to Frederick the Great in the late war, and she hoped that, by 
 making an alliance with France and the other powers, she might 
 get back her own with interest. That interest was nothing less 
 than the partition of the kingdom of Prussia among its enemies. 
 On the other side of the Atlantic, France was already embroiled 
 with England in what was called in America the French and 
 Indian War (1755). But though unprepared to take part in a 
 fresh European contest, the influence of the king's favorite, Madame 
 de Pompadour, 3 who had got Louis completely under her control, 
 decided him to join her friend Maria Theresa in her attempt to 
 
 1 See Paragraph 160 (Peace of Utrecht). 
 
 2 Except Silesia, which Frederick of Prussia had seized, and continued to hold. 
 
 3 Pompadour (Pom-pah-doohr').
 
 THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. IQ5 
 
 dismember Prussia. Frederick the Great formed an alliance with 
 England, and the war formally began. 
 
 The real interest of this period centres, however, so far as 
 France is concerned, in her struggle with England in America 
 and in the East ; since on it hung the destiny of India on the one 
 hand, and of the American colonies on the other. 
 
 France and England were now in fact the two chief rivals for 
 the possession of the New World, as well as for that of the great 
 Asiatic peninsula of India. In America, England occupied the 
 Atlantic seacoast from Maine to the borders of Florida. 
 
 Under the leadership of the descendants of the Pilgrims, the 
 Puritans, and the Cavaliers, she was now engaged in building up a 
 new England and a greater Britain. But France, on her part, had 
 not been idle. Although in previous wars she had lost Newfound- 
 land, Acadia or Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and Louisburg, 1 she 
 still claimed an enormous territory. The two greatest rivers of 
 the country the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence were both 
 hers by right of exploration, with the regions which they watered. 
 By virtue of this claim, she held Canada in the north, and the vast 
 territory then called Louisiana 2 in the south and west. 
 
 To defend these possessions, France had already begun a chain 
 of over sixty forts extending from Quebec to the Great Lakes, 
 thence to the Mississippi and to New Orleans. 3 Furthermore, the 
 French had now begun a second and interior line of forts, designed 
 to prevent English colonists from settling the valley of the Ohio. 
 If they succeeded in their project, the English would be shut in 
 between the Alleghanies and the Atlantic. France would then 
 hold all the best part of the continent. In time, she hoped that 
 it would be peopled by her sons, who would speak her language 
 
 1 Cape Breton with Louisburg had, however, been restored to her by the treaty 
 of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748). 
 
 2 See Paragraph 152. Louisiana then practically embraced the whole country 
 watered by the Mississippi and its tributaries; in other words, about a third of 
 what is now the United States. 
 
 3 This line of forts may be traced now by Quebec, Montreal, Ogdensburgh, 
 Detroit, Toledo, Fort Wayne, Vincennes, Natchez, and New Orleans.
 
 IQ6 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 and acknowledge her authority. Her forces would then probably 
 be able to expel the English from the narrow strip that had been 
 temporarily left to them, and the French flag would float unchal- 
 lenged over the magnificent empire of New France. 
 
 The contest in America, therefore, was not for the present only, 
 but for the future. It was a war of races, and the prize was the 
 grandest and richest continent on the globe. After more than 
 four years of fighting, the death struggle came in 1759, before the 
 gates of Quebec. 
 
 Montcalm, one of the noblest and bravest generals of France, 
 fought to hold the city ; Wolfe, the English commander, a man of 
 equal merit, fought to wrest it from him. Both were killed in the 
 terrible battle which ensued ; and both died as only heroes can. 
 Quebec fell. Four years later (1763) the treaty of Paris was 
 made. By that treaty, France had to give up everything. Of all 
 her boasted possessions in America, she now retained absolutely 
 nothing that she could call her own, except two barren little 
 islands off Newfoundland, which were given her to dry fish on. 1 
 That memorable treaty settled the fact that America was not to be 
 a dependency of France, but that it was to become the home of 
 the greater part of the English-speaking race, destined to establish 
 themselves, in the course of the next twenty years, as a free and 
 independent nation. 
 
 While this important question was being determined, a similar 
 contest was going on in India. After a number of battles, the 
 British force, under Clive, gained the decisive victory of Plassy 
 (1757), by which the French were subsequently driven from the 
 country, and England thus secured her empire in the East. 
 
 In Europe, the Seven Years' War was not favorable to Louis and 
 his allies. Frederick the Great, with some slight help from Eng- 
 land, came out of the contest triumphant. Prussia was not dis- 
 membered ; but, to the humiliation of Louis, and the vexation of 
 
 1 France gave Great Britain all of the country east of the Mississippi, and to her 
 ally, Spain, all west of that river, including New Orleans. The islands received by 
 France were Miquelon and St. Pierre, off the south coast of Newfoundland.
 
 SUPPRESSION OF THE JESUITS. 197 
 
 Madame de Pompadour and Maria Theresa, it rose to be one 
 of the most important kingdoms of Europe. 
 
 167. Suppression of the Jesuits. Meanwhile an event of no 
 
 small significance occurred in France. For many years there had 
 been a strong feeling against the Jesuits. The Huguenots detested 
 them for the part they had taken in the revocation of the Edict of 
 Nantes l and the frightful persecution of the Protestants that fol- 
 lowed. The great body of French Catholics distrusted their polit- 
 ical policy and believed them hostile to the best interests of the 
 country. In the previous reign Cardinal Richelieu had condemned 
 several pamphlets published by Jesuit Fathers, on the ground that 
 they were subversive of the royal authority, and finally caused 
 one of their books to be publicly burned, because it taught that the 
 Pope has the right to depose bad or incompetent kings. 
 
 But the most terrible blow to the power of the Jesuits was given 
 by Pascal 2 in his " Provincial Letters." He attacked their moral 
 teachings. The wit, the reasoning, the ridicule with which that 
 great writer assailed the order was more destructive to them than 
 all Louis XIV.'s " dragonnades " had been to the Huguenots. 
 Under Louis XV. the hostility to the Jesuits reached its height. 
 Men forgot the self-sacrificing labors of the Fathers of an earlier 
 period, the missionaries, 3 teachers, explorers, and philanthropists 
 the order had sent forth, and thought of them only as men who 
 tampered with conscience and were secretly hostile to liberty. 
 
 In 1761 the Parliament of Paris formally declared the Jesuits an 
 organization dangerous to the state and one tending to "the sub- 
 version of all authority." The result was the suppression of the 
 order in France and its virtual expulsion. Spain followed the exam- 
 ple of the French Parliament, and finally, in 1773, Pope Clement 
 XIV., urged by nearly all the sovereigns of Europe, solemnly abol- 
 ished the society, declaring " that for the welfare of Christendom 
 
 1 See Paragraph 158. 2 See Paragraph 151. 
 
 8 See Parkman's " Jesuits in North America," for an account of the labors of the 
 Jesuit missionaries in this country.
 
 198 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 it was best that the order should be dissolved." 1 Had this action 
 been taken a century earlier, it might perhaps have saved France 
 the loss of a large part of her Protestant population, and spared 
 her the retribution that loss entailed. 
 
 168. Abolition of Parliaments ; Arbitrary Imprisonment. 
 
 In 1771 the king took a step which destroyed what little political 
 liberty the nation still possessed. Richelieu and Louis XIV., 
 though they humbled the nobility and practically ruled France 
 according to their own will and pleasure, still left the Parliaments 2 
 some small degree of power. Louis XV., angry because they 
 would not submit entirely to him, now suppressed them, and sent 
 into exile or to prison seven hundred of their members. Thus, 
 at one blow, the last vestige of self-government was overthrown. 
 Henceforth the people of Paris and the Provinces could not 
 even record a formal protest against tyranny. The king rejoiced 
 in having at last silenced all opposition. But he had done so as a 
 madman might silence the roar of escaping steam from a boiler by 
 tying down the safety-valve. There was quiet, indeed, but it was 
 of that ominous sort which precedes an explosion. 
 
 But Louis XV. was reckless of danger. He knew the govern- 
 ment was tottering ; but as he said, with a cynical smile, " It will 
 last my day." Nothing was now really safe. The king had no 
 respect for the property or the liberty of his subjects. Thousands 
 of citizens were cast into prison and left there for years, not only 
 without so much as the form of a trial, but even without being 
 charged with any offence. Any person obnoxious to Louis or to 
 any one in authority might be arrested on a private royal warrant 3 
 and hurried off to a dungeon of the Bastille. No one knew whither 
 he had disappeared. The grave could not have kept its secret 
 
 1 By a brief of the Pope issued in 1814, the legal existence of the Society of the 
 Jesuits was restored. They subsequently became prominent in France as educators 
 and religious teachers, especially under Louis Napoleon. Since the establishment 
 of the Republic they have been again expelled (1880). 2 See Paragraph 63. 
 
 3 Technically called a Lettre de Cachet (Let-tr' deh Kash-ay'), a warrant in the 
 form of a letter sealed with the royal seal.
 
 THE COMPACT OF FAMINE. . 199 
 
 better. Wife and children might mourn him as dead, for it was 
 doubtful if they ever again beheld him. In time, the issue of these 
 warrants became a regular trade, the whole number granted dur- 
 ing the reign reaching one hundred and fifty thousand. They 
 could always be purchased by the highest bidder, since the king 
 signed them in blank and distributed them liberally to his favorites. 
 
 If a man had an enemy, or even a troublesome creditor, that he 
 wished to get rid of, nothing was easier, providing he could pay for 
 it. A few hundred francs, or even less, would get an order for his 
 secret incarceration ; and if the payments were repeated often 
 enough, the unfortunate prisoner might perhaps never again see the 
 light of day except through the bars of his cell. 
 
 Sometimes, however, these facilities for putting people out of the 
 way were found by those who employed them to have the disad- 
 vantage of working both ways. It is said that an influential noble- 
 man walking down the street in Paris met the young and pretty 
 wife of a tradesman of his acquaintance : her eyes were sparkling 
 with joy. " Ah, Jeanette," said he, " I see that you are in good 
 spirits this morning." " Well, your lordship, I have reason to be," 
 she answered ; " for I have just bought a royal warrant which will 
 put that brute of a husband of mine where he deserves to be." 
 
 Two years later the same nobleman chanced to meet Jeanette 
 again. But how changed ! She was now bent, emaciated, hag- 
 gard, and could but just drag herself along. "Why, my poor girl," 
 said he, " what has happened to you ; I thought you had locked 
 up your husband and were happy?" "Alas, my lord," said the 
 unfortunate woman, " he was too quick for me. I had paid a 
 round sum for my warrant and was going for it the next day ; but 
 he chanced to hear of it, and by offering more, got one for me 
 instead, and I have been in the Bastille ever since." 
 
 169. The Compact of Famine. With all his defects, Louis 
 XIV. had possessed the merit of at least trying to exalt the great- 
 ness of France ; but Louis XV. cared for nothing but low pleas- 
 ures. He had exhausted every means of extorting money from
 
 2OO LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 his people to waste in his shameless debaucheries. The question 
 was, how to get more. For a time, it seemed impossible to devise 
 any fresh scheme of taxation ; but at last one was hit upon. A 
 courtier suggested to the king that a private company, a kind of 
 gigantic " ring," should be formed for buying up the grain of the 
 country. An artificial scarcity of food would result, and the com- 
 pany could then sell wheat at famine prices; thus making an 
 enormous profit. 
 
 The king eagerly adopted the suggestion. He, with a few 
 nobles, got a monopoly of the grain of the kingdom ; and soon 
 the distress was so great that the people had to choose between 
 starvation or paying the king's price for bread. 
 
 Thus the royal coffers were filled, and Louis " the Well Be- 
 loved " 1 and his favorites found means for new rounds of extrava- 
 gant dissipation. 
 
 170. Death of the King ; Literature of the Period ; Montes- 
 quieu, Voltaire, Rousseau. In 1774 Louis died, the victim of 
 his own vices. When at the height of his power he had realized 
 that France could hardly endure another such reign, and used to 
 say to Madame de Pompadour, "After us the deluge." "Yes," 
 she would reply ; " after us." That deluge was still nearly twenty 
 years distant ; but it was coming slowly, surely, as the tide. When 
 its waves rolled in, they would utterly sweep away the France of 
 that day. 
 
 Three great writers Montesquieu, 2 Voltaire, and Rousseau 3 
 were even then preparing the way for the final catastrophe. Mon- 
 tesquieu was at that time engaged in the composition of his chief 
 work, " The Spirit of Laws," which was published about the mid- 
 dle of the reign of Louis XV. In it he attempted to set forth the 
 true principles of constitutional government, and to show how, 
 as in England, liberty might be reconciled with law. Twenty- 
 
 1 The title of " Well Beloved " had been rashly given to the king when he was 
 dangerously ill, during the campaign of the Netherlands. 
 
 2 Montesquieu (Mon-tes-ke-uh'). 3 Rousseau (Roo-soh').
 
 LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD. 2OI 
 
 two editions of the book were published in a year and a half. 
 Voltaire expressed the general admiration of it, when he said, 
 " The human race had lost its title-deeds ; Montesquieu found 
 and restored them." 
 
 Voltaire, the second of these writers in point of time, but the 
 most powerful of all in ability, was famous throughout Europe. 
 In numerous noted works he had attacked religious intolerance 
 and political corruption and oppression. In the early part of his 
 career, his books had been condemned to be burned, and the 
 author was locked up in the Bastille. Voltaire soon regained 
 his liberty, however, and left France. He lived to wield that ter- 
 rible weapon of mockery, which, as Macaulay declares, 1 " made 
 bigots and tyrants, who had never been moved by the wailing and 
 cursing of millions, turn pale at his name." 
 
 The third writer, Rousseau, distinguished himself by his earnest 
 advocacy of the principles of social and political equality. For 
 good or evil, these men had definitively broken with the past. 
 They, with Diderot, 2 and other reputed or avowed atheists, 
 labored to undermine all authority save that of reason. With 
 them the Revolution had already begun in ideas ; when they had 
 completed their work, then would come the outward Revolution, 
 written not in ink, but in blood. 
 
 171. Summary. The leading events of the period are : i. The 
 building up of the absolute power of the crown by Richelieu, 
 followed by the despotism of Louis XIV. and XV. 2. The wars 
 of France for the acquisition of territory and supremacy of power 
 in Europe. 3. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes, with the 
 
 1 See Macaulay's Essay on Frederick the Great, and compare, also, his Essay 
 on Ranke's " History of the Popes." 
 
 2 Diderot (Dee-de-roh'). He was editor-in-chief of the Encyclopaedia, in thirty- 
 seven folio volumes, the first of which appeared in 1751, and the last in 1780. It 
 undertook to sum up all knowledge, and to " strike the balance-sheet of the human 
 intellect." The general tone of the work was sceptical and aggressive. It aided 
 powerfully in helping forward the Revolution, by advocating independence of thought 
 and of action.
 
 2O2 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 persecution and flight of the Huguenots, to the serious injury of 
 France. 4. The Mississippi Scheme, and its disastrous failure. 
 5. The struggle for the possession of India and America, and 
 the ultimate gain of both by England. 6. The expulsion of the 
 Jesuits. 7. The preparation for the Revolution through the bad 
 government, corruption, and extravagance of the crown, and the 
 radical utterances of the distinguished speakers and literary men 
 of the age.
 
 ACCESSION OF LOUIS XVI. 203 
 
 XII. 
 
 " The French Revolution was the establishment of a new order of society, 
 founded on justice, not privilege. Such changes never take place without 
 causing terrible suffering. It is the law of humanity that all new life shall be 
 born in pain." DURUY. 
 
 ATTEMPTED REFORMS. LOUIS XVI. (1774-1793). THE REVO- 
 LUTION (1789-1795). THE REPUBLIC (1792-1795). 
 
 172. The Accession of Louis XVI. ; Critical Character of the 
 Times. Louis XV. was succeeded by his grandson, Louis XVL, 
 a young man of twenty, of blameless life, who, a few years before, 
 had married the beautiful but frivolous Marie Antoinette, daughter 
 of Maria Theresa of Austria. 1 
 
 Both meant well by the country, but neither had the qualities 
 which the times required. The king was conscientious, but with 
 no marked ability ; and the queen was too much under the control 
 of the Austrian influence, which France then both feared and 
 hated. Both had a presentiment of impending trouble. When 
 the courtiers, forsaking the corpse of Louis XV., rushed in a body 
 across the palace to salute the new sovereigns, they fell on their 
 knees together, and with streaming tears exclaimed, " O God, 
 guide us, protect us ; we are too young to reign ! " 
 
 It soon became evident that they had reason for their fears. 
 Outwardly everything at Versailles was splendid as ever ; but, as 
 Carlyle intimates, it was the splendor of the rainbow above 
 Niagara, beneath which is destruction. A great change had 
 passed over society and the court within a century. Once, the 
 
 1 See Paragraph 165.
 
 2O4 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 king had been autocratic. That day had in a measure gone by. 
 It was said that in the presence of Louis XIV. no one dared 
 speak ; that under Louis XV. the courtiers spoke in whispers ; 
 but that under Louis XVI. they spoke out loud. There was a 
 general feeling that a crisis of some kind was at hand. The spirit 
 of free inquiry aroused by the leading writers and thinkers of the 
 period was one of the most striking and ominous signs of the times. 
 Nothing was safe against their restless sceptical questioning ; gov- 
 ernment, religion, social institutions, were all, as it were, put on 
 trial. Every one believed that the old order of things could not 
 last, and that reform was inevitable. 
 
 173. Turgot's Plans of Reform ; the Tax System ; Forced 
 Labor ; Necker. The great difficulty was to determine where 
 and how to begin. Each one shrank from laying the axe to the 
 root of a tree that all agreed must come down. Louis XVI. 
 showed his sincere desire to right the wrongs of his age, by restor- 
 ing the Parliaments his predecessor had abolished. 1 
 
 Soon after, he gave Turgot 2 the control of the most important 
 of all departments, that of finance. The young king could not 
 have made a wiser appointment, for Turgot was an able and an 
 honest man ; what is more, he was a true friend of the people. 
 With the co-operation of the crown, he set resolutely to work to 
 relieve the national distress, and to try to put the revenue on a 
 sound foundation. His motto was : " No bankruptcy ; no increase 
 of taxes ; no loans." Let us see some of the difficulties he had 
 to deal with. In the first place, the government did not collect 
 its taxes by its own officers, but sold the privilege to capitalists. 
 These capitalists employed unscrupulous and brutal agents. They 
 were instructed to collect not only the legal tax, but as much more 
 as they could extort, the excess being the profit reaped by the 
 capitalists. If in any case a peasant was found who actually could 
 
 1 See Paragraph 168. 
 
 2 Turgot (Toor-goh') : he was eminent as a statesman and financier. Benjamin 
 Franklin, with whom he corresponded, had a high opinion of his ability and integ- 
 rity. Voltaire called him the best minister France had ever had.
 
 INTERNAL REVENUE. 2O5 
 
 not pay, his neighbors had to pay for him. This system had two 
 bad results. First, the king got into the habit of raising large 
 sums of money by selling several years' taxes in advance. Louis 
 XV. had long practised this method. The consequence was, that 
 when his grandson, Louis XVI., came to the throne, he found that 
 he could not levy a tax even for the necessary and legitimate 
 expense of the coming year, for the cash had already been raised 
 and spent. The new king was thus practically left without a 
 revenue. 
 
 Next, as we have already seen, every means had been devised 
 by Louis XV. to increase the amount raised from the people, to 
 the exhaustion of the whole country. To-day the United States 
 obtains a large part of its revenue by imposing heavy duties on 
 most imported goods. In the eighteenth century France pursued 
 the same policy. But, not content with erecting custom houses 
 all along the foreign frontier and at the chief seaports, the gov- 
 ernment established them also on the boundaries of' every province 
 and county. These custom-regulations were enforced so strictly 
 and minutely that a workman crossing the Rhone from one prov- 
 ince to another had to pay duty on the meagre dinner of bread 
 and cheese which he carried in his pocket. So, too, a merchant 
 passing down that river with goods was compelled to pay no less 
 than thirty tolls within a distance of about three hundred miles. 
 If a farmer living in one county had grain to sell, and there was a 
 great demand for it in the adjoining county, he could not hitch up 
 his team and take a load there directly. When he reached the 
 boundary he was stopped, and must either pay an exorbitant duty 
 or go back. In this way the people were forced to give not only 
 the fair market price of a bushel of wheat, but as much more as 
 the king saw fit to demand. Thus out of their necessity he main- 
 tained his luxury. 
 
 Again, from early times the government had levied a peculiarly 
 vexatious and oppressive duty on salt. 1 Now, as salt is a necessary 
 
 1 Technically called the Gabelle (Gah-bel) ; see Paragraph 79.
 
 2O6 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 of life, and was particularly so when but little fresh meat or fish 
 was eaten, this tax brought in a very large revenue. Not satisfied, 
 however, with this, the government got a monopoly of the salt and 
 fixed its own price on it. Every peasant was compelled to pur- 
 chase a certain quantity whether he wanted it or not. Agents were 
 sent around to every man's cottage. They inspected his salt-bin. 
 If it looked to them too low, he had orders to buy more salt. 
 He might plead that he had just salted his year's stock of provis- 
 ions, and therefore did not require more ; that explanation would 
 not save him, for buy more he must. On the other hand, he 
 had, perhaps, economized in salt and had a good supply on hand. 
 Then the agents not infrequently accused the poor man of having 
 bought it of smugglers, with whom the country was overrun, 
 and he had to choose between being prosecuted or buying as 
 much salt as the agents thought fit, and at whatever price they 
 pleased to set. 
 
 Next, if the government or any influential noble needed any 
 work done, the peasants could be compelled to leave their farms 
 and do it, without pay and without thanks even. 1 A man might 
 be in the midst of haying or harvesting, when every moment was 
 precious to him ; but if the government called, he must leave 
 everything and go. He and his team might be taken a score of 
 miles from home, to labor for the king for days or weeks, the 
 laborer, meanwhile, finding food and shelter as best he could. 
 
 Finally, even the mechanic of that day had but little real liberty. 
 He could not, it is true, be forced to labor like the peasant ; but 
 he was obliged to belong to a guild or corporation, which deter- 
 mined what he might or might not do, where he should reside, and 
 what price he was to ask for his work. These corporations gov- 
 erned every trade, and they were under the supervision of royal 
 inspectors who practically governed them. As these inspectors 
 bought their offices of the king, it was for his interest to keep up 
 these restrictions ; for free work would make inspectors unneces- 
 sary, and so diminish the revenue of the crown. 
 
 1 Called the Corvee (Kor-vay'), meaning forced labor.
 
 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 2OJ 
 
 Such were some of the abuses which Turgot undertook to re- 
 move, or at least to mitigate. His plan was to endeavor to equal- 
 ize the burden in some degree, so that the nobles and clergy, who 
 were exempt, might bear their part. But the latter raised a clam- 
 orous opposition which frightened the king. The poor and humble 
 parish priests sided with the people, but they unfortunately had no 
 influence with the government. Louis had not strength to with- 
 stand the pressure. The infamous " Famine Compact " or " grain 
 ring," l which still existed, joined in the outcry, and Turgot with 
 his proposed reforms was dismissed. 
 
 But as money must be raised even if the old abuses were left 
 untouched, the king next invited an eminent Swiss Protestant 
 banker named Necker to come to his assistance. He contrived, 
 by an ingenious system of small but wide-reaching economies, to 
 diminish the government expenses, and through the influence of 
 his name he secured loans which kept the king tolerably supplied 
 with money. Still, matters were constantly growing worse, and the 
 king, instead of devoting all his time to the country, spent most of 
 it in hunting and in learning to tinker locks. For weeks he would 
 be busy in a workman's dress, in a little shop he had fitted up for 
 the purpose, riling keys and oiling bolts ; while the queen, dressed 
 as a country girl, was playing at butter and cheese making in a 
 dairy which had been constructed for her at Versailles. 
 
 174. The American Revolution. In the midst of Necker's 
 experiments and of this royal trifling an event occurred which had 
 most important results in France. That event was the Declaration 
 of American Independence and the Revolutionary War. When 
 the English took Quebec in 1 759,* Count de Vergennes 3 predicted 
 the eventual revolt of the colonies, as a result of the defeat of the 
 French forces in America. " England," said he, " will soon repent 
 of having removed the only check that could keep her colonies in 
 awe. They stand no longer in need of her protection. She will 
 call on them to contribute towards supporting the burden they 
 
 1 See Paragraph 169. 2 See Paragraph 166. 3 Vergennes (Ver-zhen').
 
 2O8 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 have helped to bring on her, and they will answer by striking off 
 all dependence" 
 
 This prophecy was now fulfilled ; and France, burning for revenge 
 against her old enemy, strongly sympathized with the United States. 
 Benjamin Franklin was sent by Congress to beg aid from Louis 
 XVI. He was welcomed in Paris with the wildest enthusiasm. 
 Franklin hats, Franklin canes, Franklin stoves, became the fashion, 
 and the picture of the New England philosopher and diplomatist 
 was seen in the windows of all the print shops. In her zeal for 
 the cause of America, France seemed for a time to forget her own 
 misery, and, bankrupt though she was, she raised nine millions of 
 francs as a gift to assist the armies of the new-born republic, 
 besides furnishing about fifteen millions more as a loan. 1 In addi- 
 tion to this, the Marquis de La Fayette, a young man of twenty, 
 loaded a vessel with arms and munitions of war at his own expense, 
 and sailed for America to offer his services to General Washington. 
 Meanwhile, Louis XVI. hesitated at openly supporting the Ameri- 
 can Revolution, knowing that such action would at once involve 
 him in a war with England. But such was Franklin's persuasive 
 power that in 1778 the king signed a treaty of alliance with the 
 commissioners of Congress, and thus France, first among the Euro- 
 pean powers, recognized the United States as an independent 
 nation. 
 
 From that time a French fleet and French troops contributed 
 toward carrying on the war, and in 1781 they rendered most 
 important aid in gaining the decisive victory of Yorktown, which 
 virtually ended the struggle. Two years later the treaty of Ver- 
 sailles declared peace between all the countries engaged. France 
 had the satisfaction of having helped to humble the power that had 
 taken Canada from her, and that had prevented her from building 
 up an American empire ; but the war with Great Britain cost her 
 fourteen hundred millions of francs, and her condition was daily 
 growing more and more critical. 
 
 1 This help was not granted all at once, but extended over the whole period of 
 the war.
 
 THE STATES-GENERAL OF 1789. 2OQ 
 
 The French officers and soldiers who had fought under the 
 American flag came back at least half republicans, if not actual 
 revolutionists. Long before, they had read Rousseau's impassioned 
 plea for political and social equality. 1 That, however, was but 
 theory. Now it was much more, for the United States had tri- 
 umphed, and Rousseau's thought was embodied in that Declaration 
 of Independence which affirmed that " all men are created equal." 
 Thus America gave Rousseau's philosophy that practical power 
 which was soon to make itself felt in the history of France. 
 
 175. The Notables; Recall of Necker; the States-General 
 summoned. Meantime Necker had been dismissed, because, 
 like Turgot, he had angered the nobility by exposing the fact that 
 instead of being a help to the country, they were simply a drag 
 upon it. Louis, not knowing what to do, finally called a meeting 
 of the Notables. 2 They convened, talked, but did nothing. 
 Then the king reluctantly recalled Necker. He insisted that the 
 States-General should be summoned. Louis remonstrated. The 
 truth was that under the baneful influence of Marie Antoinette, he 
 was becoming more arbitrary, and less willing to undertake any re- 
 form which should lessen his own power. He had already angered 
 and alienated the Parliament of Paris, by ordering them to register 
 an edict, without even voting on it, by which he decreed two obnox- 
 ious measures. These were, first, the raising of an enormous loan ; 
 and secondly, the restoration of the Protestants to their civil rights. 
 
 Louis feared that a States- General would be more intractable 
 even than the Parliament; and that they would protest in an 
 unmistakable way against his making his personal will the main- 
 spring of government. 
 
 But the exigency gave him no choice, and with very bad grace 
 
 1 Rousseau " was the father of modern democracy, and without him our Decla- 
 ration of Independence would have wanted some of those sentences in which the 
 immemorial longings of the poor and the dreams of solitary enthusiasts were at last 
 affirmed as axioms in the manifesto of a nation so that all the world might hear." 
 PROFESSOR JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, North American Review, July, 1867, 
 " Rousseau." 2 Notables : see Paragraph 98.
 
 2IO LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 Louis summoned the States-General. It met in the palace at 
 Versailles, in the spring of 1789. It was the first meeting since 
 I6I4. 1 Heretofore the three orders nobility, clergy, and Tiers 
 Etat, 2 or people had usually sat apart. This had often enabled 
 the kings of earlier periods to play off one order against the other, 
 and especially to defeat the Tiers Etat. This last-named body 
 now outnumbered the other two combined. 3 
 
 176. The States-General becomes the National Assembly ; La 
 Fayette, Mirabeau, Robespierre, Guillotin. The representatives 
 of the people insisted that since the deliberations of the States- 
 General concerned the welfare of the entire nation, they should 
 therefore be held in common. For five weeks they received no 
 answer to their invitation urging the first two orders to join them. 
 At length the parish priests among the clergy decided to do so. 
 Then the Tiers Etat took a bold step. They threw off the old 
 name of States- General, and organized themselves as the National 
 Assembly a name which implied that in future no class division 
 would be recognized in that body. The nobles, with the upper 
 clergy, protested against this action, and the king closed the hall 
 against the new organization. They met, however, in the Tennis 
 Court of the palace, where they bound themselves by oath not to 
 dissolve until they had framed a written constitution for the gov- 
 ernment of the country. In accordance with that determination 
 they not long after gave themselves the name of the National 
 Constituent Assembly. 4 
 
 A hundred and fifty years before, Louis XIV. had boastfully 
 declared, "/ am the state." 5 Now, after this long silence, the 
 people made reply, affirming, " We are the state." Seeing the 
 resolute stand of the Assembly, Necker advised the king to request 
 
 l See Paragraph 136. 2 See Paragraph 94. 
 
 3 Viz. : 584 Tiers Etat to 291 clergy and 270 nobles. About half the Tiers Etat 
 were lawyers, while 208 of the clergy were parish priests strongly sympathizing with 
 the people. The upper clergy were conservative, and voted with the nobles. 
 
 4 Henceforth the body is generally called the " Constituent Assembly." 
 
 5 See Paragraph 144.
 
 TAKING OF THE BASTILLE. 211 
 
 the nobility and upper clergy to join the Tiers Etat. The hall was 
 again opened, and for the first time in the history of France, lords, 
 bishops and commoners met on a footing of legislative equality. 
 The old distinctions were done away, and in future the voting was 
 to be by individuals, not orders, 1 and the vote of one member was 
 to be worth as much as that of another. 
 
 Three members of that Assembly were soon to take a conspicu- 
 ous part in affairs. They were the Marquis de La Fayette, Count 
 Mirabeau, 2 and a lawyer named Robespierre. 3 
 
 There was also a fourth member destined to attain unenviable 
 fame. This was a certain Dr. Guillotin 4 who had perfected a 
 machine for decapitating criminals. His object was to reduce all 
 capital punishment to a democratic level, 4 and also to render it 
 as speedy and painless as possible. He urged the Assembly 
 to adopt his machine. They were sceptical of its merits. He 
 assured them that it would " take off a head in a twinkling," and 
 that the victim would feel nothing save " a sensation of refreshing 
 coolness." 
 
 At this declaration the hall resounded with loud laughter ; but 
 good Dr. Guillotin's machine was subsequently adopted, and in 
 the end, not a few members who voted for it, tested its merits with 
 their own necks. 
 
 177. Organization of the National Guard ; Taking of the Bas- 
 tille. The king became alarmed at the democratic utterances of 
 the Assembly, and collected a body of troops at Versailles, many 
 being Swiss or German. The citizens of Paris believing that Louis 
 
 1 See Paragraph 72 and note. 
 
 2 Mirabeau (Mee-rah-boh') : the nobles of Provence having rejected Mirabeau 
 as a representative, he was elected by the people and represented the Tiers Etat. 
 La Fayette represented the nobility, but was urgent for reform. 
 
 3 Robespierre (Robes-pe-ar') was a representative of the people, and was a 
 radical democrat. 
 
 4 Guillotin (Gil-lo-tan') : before the adoption of his machine (the guillotine), 
 aristocratic criminals only had been beheaded ; common malefactors were hung. 
 The doctor wished to treat all alike. He was elected representative by the Tiers 
 Etat.
 
 212 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 intended to overawe the Assembly, procured arms and organized 
 a body of militia, under the command of La Fayette. He gave 
 them the name of the National Guard : their duty was to defend 
 the representatives of the people. 
 
 While these preparations were in progress, a rumor spread that 
 the commander of the Bastille, that old military fortress and prison 
 in the heart of Paris, had received orders to turn his guns on the 
 city. At this report the excitement became ungovernable. From 
 thousands of throats the cry went up, " To the Bastille ! " " Down 
 with the Bastille ! " Moved by one impulse, a frenzied mob rushed 
 toward that stronghold, which was to Paris what the Tower was to 
 London. The attack was led by veteran army officers. The com- 
 mander of the fortress had only a feeble garrison and could not 
 hold out. After five hours of fighting, he capitulated. The mob 
 entered, expecting to find the dungeons crowded with political 
 prisoners, as they formerly had been. They found only seven. 
 The defenders of the building were taken prisoners and brutally 
 murdered. Then the crowd, with the victims' heads stuck on 
 pikes, paraded the streets in triumph. This was the fourteenth of 
 July ; that very night the destruction of the building was begun, 
 and did not cease so long as one stone stood upon another. 
 
 The news was speedily carried to the king at Versailles. Roused 
 from his sleep, Louis said to the messenger, "Why, this is a 
 revolt." "No, sire," was the reply; "it is a Revolution" 
 
 178. Causes of the Revolution. It was in truth the beginning 
 of such a revolution as Europe had never seen, and would pray 
 never to witness again. Henceforth the Fourteenth of July, 1789, 
 was to be in French history what the Fourth of July, 1776, is in 
 the history of the United States. 
 
 The Revolution was the explosion resulting from centuries of 
 repression, misgovernment, and tyranny. Its four chief causes 
 were, 
 
 I. The long-continued and exhausting wars of Louis XIV. and 
 Louis XV., followed by Louis XVI. 's contest with England in
 
 FRANCE VERSUS ENGLAND. 213 
 
 behalf of America, which had piled up a debt of six thousand five 
 hundred millions of francs ($i, 300,000,000) . l 
 
 II. The fact that the " blood tax " springing from this colossal 
 war-debt, and from the wasteful habits of the king and court, fell 
 on the common people ; while, on the contrary, the nobility and 
 higher clergy, who owned the land, were almost wholly exempt, 
 so that instead of sharing the poor man's burdens they actually 
 increased them. 
 
 III. Again, for nearly two hundred years France had not been 
 permitted to hold a States- General ; so that for more than six 
 generations the nation had not only had no voice whatever in the 
 direction of the government, but could not during that time so 
 much as protest even against the abuses of the crown on the one 
 hand or of the local tyranny of the nobles on the other. 2 
 
 IV. A final cause was the decay of religious belief and the 
 simultaneous growth of a vigorous sceptical literature, proclaim- 
 ing principles of independence, liberty and equality 3 principles 
 which were now powerfully enforced by the example of the con- 
 stitutional freedom enjoyed by England, and still more by the 
 republican institutions of America. 
 
 178 a. Comparison of the Condition of France and England. 
 
 If we compare England and France with respect to these griev- 
 ances, we shall be struck with the contrast. In England, there 
 had been two revolutions, that of 1642 and that of 1688. Both 
 were contests between the Stuart kings and Parliament. Both were 
 chiefly political. The first revolution took the form of a civil war, 
 which lasted for several years, and ended in the temporary over- 
 throw of the monarchy. The second struggle was over in a few 
 
 1 France finally disposed of this tremendous burden of debt by the simple but 
 effectual expedient of repudiation. 
 
 2 In the army, only nobles could be officers. Jn the Church, none but nobles, as 
 a rule, could secure a position above that of parish priest. The trades were in the 
 hands of corporations, and under the control of the crown. No one could enter 
 them without permission and payment. Many of the peasantry were still serfs and 
 virtually slaves. 8 See Paragraph 170.
 
 214 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 months, without costing a drop of blood. It resulted in the 
 establishment of a constitutional monarchy based on the will of 
 the people. 
 
 In France, on the other hand, the Revolution was mainly social. 
 It was a desperate battle between the mass of the inhabitants and 
 the privileged classes, with the king at their head ; and, although 
 there were political questions involved in the struggle, they were 
 prominent only in the beginning. It has been said of the French 
 outbreak, as compared with the English, that it was more than a 
 revolution, it was a dissolution. There is truth in the expression ; 
 for when the movement, begun in 1789, ended, everything, 
 government, church, and society, was dissolved. 
 
 Here are four chief points of difference in the two nations : 
 
 I. In England, at the close of the eighteenth century (i.e. 1789), 
 the power of the king was strictly limited by custom and the con- 
 stitution. 1 In France, on the contrary, there had never been any 
 very clearly defined and effectual check on the power of the 
 crown ; and for a very long time there had been none at all. 
 
 II. In England, the nobility, including the higher clergy, em- 
 braced only the members of the House of Lords. The whole 
 number probably did not exceed five hundred. Legally, they had 
 no important privileges above the common people ; and, like them, 
 they paid taxes and supported the State. In France the nobility, 
 with the clergy, numbered probably not far from two hundred 
 thousand. 2 They enjoyed important privileges denied to the 
 people ; they were supported in idleness by the unpaid labor of 
 the peasantry, and they practically paid no taxes. 
 
 1 The English Constitution consists (so far as written) of the Great Charter, the 
 Petition of Right, the Act of Habeas Corpus, and finally the Bill of Rights, with 
 its supplement, the Act of Settlement. 
 
 2 The French nobility (noblesse) included all the nobles with their descendants. 
 In England, nobility, strictly speaking, is confined to the father. All of his children, 
 in the eyes of the law, are commoners ; and it is only at the father's death that 
 his eldest son receives a legal title of rank, though by courtesy he usually has 
 one before. The French nobles (not including the clergy) were to the English as 
 150,000 to 500.
 
 EFFECT OF THE TAKING OF THE BASTILLE. 215 
 
 III. Again, England possessed a Parliament or National Assem- 
 bly, in which, from the close of the thirteenth century, the people 
 were fully represented in the House of Commons. 
 
 For centuries the Commons had exercised the chief power of 
 the government. No law could be enacted without their voice. 
 No tax could be levied without their consent. Every man had 
 the right to trial by jury. 
 
 In France, as we have seen, the States-General gave little power 
 to the people ; even that little had for nearly two hundred years 
 been unused, and trial by jury had long ceased to exist. 
 
 IV. Finally, in England, feudal oppression and privilege no 
 longer existed. The entire laboring class was free. In France, 
 on the contrary, feudal privilege and oppression still existed ; and 
 thousands of peasants were bound as serfs to the soil, and were 
 practically slaves. 1 
 
 179. Division of the Revolutionary Period; Effect of the 
 Taking of the Bastille ; Declaration of Rights ; the Constitution. 
 
 - The revolutionary period may be divided into two parts, cover- 
 ing in all nearly six years. I. From the taking of the Bastille to 
 the beginning of the Reign of Terror (1789-1793). II. From 
 the beginning of the Reign of Terror to the establishment of the 
 Directory (^QS-^PS)- 
 
 The taking of the Bastille not only convinced the people of their 
 power, but it excited similar insurrections throughout the country. 
 The peasantry arose and attacked the castles and monasteries. 
 
 1 The total number of serfs in France at the close of the eighteenth century is 
 estimated by Rambaud at 150,000. A large part of these seem to have been in the 
 provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. Most peasants who were nominally free still 
 continued to pay some kind of feudal dues. Usually they were obliged to grind 
 their grain in the lord's mill, and make their wine at his press, giving him toll in 
 both cases. On the other hand, the lord of the manor administered justice, and 
 had the exclusive right of hunting, fishing, and keeping rabbits and doves, which 
 ate the peasant's corn, and often destroyed a great part of his scanty crops. About 
 a third of the land was owned by small farmers ; some of it was freehold property ; 
 but in many instances the occupant was expected to pay some kind of annual rent, 
 if nothing more than a pair of chickens, to the former lord.
 
 2l6 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 Their object was to burn these buildings, and to destroy by fire the 
 charters and deeds by which they themselves were held in bond- 
 age. In some cases they did not stop with destruction, but mur- 
 dered the masters of the castles and the abbots of the monasteries. 
 
 This uprising so alarmed the nobility that at a meeting of the 
 Constituent Assembly (August 4th) they offered to give up their 
 feudal claims and privileges. This proposition was greeted with 
 the wildest enthusiasm. The Assembly voted a solemn service of 
 thanksgiving in the churches ; and as the king had sanctioned the 
 measure, they ordered that his statue should be erected on the site 
 of the Bastille. On it was to be carved the high-sounding inscrip- 
 tion, "To the Restorer of the Liberty of France." 
 
 But the seemingly magnanimous offer meant little ; for the nobil- 
 ity required compensation for the claims they offered to relinquish; 
 and as the proposed statue was never erected, the whole affair 
 seemed to end in words, not deeds. None the less the night of 
 August 4th will remain famous, for the movement which began 
 then did not stop till it had done its complete work. 
 
 A fortnight afterward La Fayette rose in the Assembly, and 
 moved the adoption of a Declaration of the Rights of Man, which 
 he had modelled on the American Declaration of Independence. 
 The manifesto, after discussion and modification, was accepted ; 
 and the Assembly next began the work of drafting a constitu- 
 tion in accordance with it, a task that they did not wholly finish 
 until two years later. 
 
 This Constitution established : 
 
 1 . A limited monarchy, similar to that of England, the sovereign 
 to be called "the King of the French," or people's king, instead 
 of retaining his old feudal title of " King of France," which im- 
 plied that he owned the realm. 
 
 2. The power of legislation and taxation was taken from the 
 crown, and vested in representatives chosen by the nation, though 
 the king was allowed a qualified right of veto. 
 
 3. The privileges of the nobility, with their hereditary titles, 
 were swept away ; and all citizens were declared equal before the 
 law.
 
 L FRANCE IN PROVINCES 
 
 SCALE OF MILES 
 
 'o face page 216.
 
 THE ATTACK ON VERSAILLES. 
 
 4. The thirty-six feudal provinces of France, with their oppres- 
 sive local law and vexatious restrictions, were abolished. The 
 country was declared free, and formed into eighty-three depart- 
 ments, as nearly of a size as practicable. These departments were 
 declared to possess equal political rights, and each was to be rep- 
 resented in the National Assembly. 1 
 
 5. The right of the eldest son to the exclusive inheritance of 
 landed property was done away with, and every estate was hence- 
 forth to be divided equally among all the children. 
 
 6. Liberty of worship and full civil rights were granted to 
 Protestants and Jews in common with Catholics. 
 
 7. The press was declared free, and all restrictions on interior 
 trade and commerce were abolished. 
 
 8. Great reforms were made in the criminal code. Arbitrary 
 imprisonment by royal warrant and torture were both abolished. 
 Heresy and witchcraft were struck from the list of penal offences, 
 capital punishment was very much limited, and trial by jury was 
 provided for in criminal cases. 
 
 180. The Attack on Versailles ; the " Joyous Entry " ; Flight 
 of the Nobles. While the Assembly was engaged in constitution- 
 making, matters were fast growing critical in Paris. Bad harvests 
 had caused great distress throughout the country. There was 
 scarcity of bread in the capital, and, to render the condition worse, 
 thousands of desperate tramps had come into the city, eager for 
 riot and pillage. 
 
 While the multitude were suffering, news reached Paris that the 
 king had given a banquet to the officers of a regiment of soldiers 
 at Versailles, and that they had trampled the colors of the National 
 Guard the people's colors under their feet. 2 
 
 1 Compare map of the Provinces, page 216, with that of the Departments (frontis- 
 piece). Notice that the Departments, now eighty-six in number, are named from 
 their position (e.g. " Nord," North), or geographical features (e.g. Pyrenees). 
 
 2 The people's flag was the tri-color, red, white, and blue. At the banquet the 
 colors were represented by a cockade.
 
 2l8 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 These tidings set the city in a blaze. A great rabble, led by 
 several thousand ragged and dirty women, set out on foot for 
 Versailles. It rained hard the latter part of the day ; and when 
 the mob reached the palace, they were wet to the skin, hungry 
 and tired. La Fayette followed with the National Guard to keep 
 order. Nothing of consequence was done that day; but early 
 the next morning the mob burst into the building, killing the Swiss 
 guards, and sweeping all before them. For the first time in their 
 history the apartments of the magnificent edifice erected by Louis 
 XIV. were filled, not with bowing and smiling courtiers, but with a 
 yelling mob of starving people. They clamored for the blood of 
 " the Austrian," as they called the queen ; for she, as they said, 
 was the " Madame Deficit " who kept them poor. 
 
 La Fayette succeeded in saving her life; but she, with the 
 dauphin, the king, and the rest of the royal family, were forced to 
 go back with the rabble to Paris. Fifty cart-loads of grain, taken 
 from the royal stores, preceded them ; and the multitude shouted, 
 as they went, " We shall not die of hunger now ; for we have got 
 the baker, and the baker's wife, and the baker's little boy." That 
 sad, compulsory journey of royalty to the capital was popularly 
 called the "Joyous Entry" (Oct. 6, 1789). The Tuileries 1 
 henceforth became the residence of the king and queen. From 
 that day the palace at Versailles has never been occupied by a 
 French sovereign. 2 
 
 The shadow of the Revolution that rested on it then still 
 remains. Its grand galleries and state apartments are as magnifi- 
 cent as ever, but none the less the place seems haunted with the 
 spirit of retribution. 
 
 From the time of that "Joyous Entry" the nobility began to 
 leave France in ever-increasing numbers. They gathered on the 
 German frontier, boasting of what they would do to restore the 
 king ; but they never did much except exasperate the people of 
 
 1 Tuileries (Tweel-reez') : a royal palace in Paris. It was burned by the mob in 
 1871. 2 See Paragraph 231.
 
 CONFISCATION OF LAND. 
 
 Paris, who believed that they would return with a foreign army 
 and re-establish the old order of things. 
 
 The Constituent Assembly now left Versailles, and established 
 themselves in Paris. This brought them directly under the influ- 
 ence of the fickle, excited populace and of the Jacobin l and other 
 radical clubs of the city. 
 
 181. Confiscation of Land ; Issue of Paper Money. There 
 was now a pressing need of money, for France had to equip armies 
 to defend the new government against foreign interference. To 
 meet this, and yet avoid taxation, the Assembly confiscated the 
 crown lands, 1 the estates of those nobles who had fled, and finally 
 the possessions of the clergy. The Church remonstrated loudly 
 against the seizure of its property, but without avail. The whole 
 of its vast wealth, comprising, it is said, upwards of a third of all 
 the land of France, worth over two thousand millions of francs 
 ($400,000,000), was taken to be " the dowry of the Constitution." 
 This law was followed by an act suppressing monasteries and 
 nunneries, and one which put the election of bishops and the 
 appointment of priests in the hands of the people. But since 
 these lands could not be converted into cash at once, the 
 Assembly proceeded to issue paper money. So long as this issue 
 actually rested on the land as security, all went well, but the temp- 
 tation to increase it was irresistible. It was so easy to keep the 
 government presses going, and print batches of crisp notes that 
 pretended to be as good as gold. So the multiplication of assig- 
 nats, 2 as the bills were called, went on until forty-four thousand 
 millions of francs had been issued ! Then the depreciation of this 
 " rag currency " set in so rapidly that one franc in silver would buy 
 over seven thousand in paper. All the necessaries of life became 
 enormously dear, and finally the assignats ceased to have any 
 
 1 The Assembly voted the king a revenue of 25,000,000 francs as indemnity for 
 the seizure of the crown lands. 
 
 2 Assignats (as-seen-yah') : so called because the public lands were held to b 
 assigned or pledged in payment of these notes.
 
 22O LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 value or use whatever, unless a day-laborer happened to want one 
 to light his pipe with. 
 
 182. Ratification of the Constitution. On the i4th of July, 
 1 790, the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille, the Constitution, 
 under which these assignats were issued, was formally ratified by 
 king and people. An altar, called the Altar of the Country, was 
 erected in the Field of Mars, in Paris, and France sent a hundred 
 thousand representatives to swear allegiance to the new govern- 
 ment. In presence of an immense enthusiastic multitude Louis 
 XVI. took an oath to maintain the liberties of the people under 
 the Constitution. 1 The queen held up the dauphin in her arms, as 
 if to associate him with his father's pledge of good government. 
 It had been raining steadily ; but at this moment the sun broke 
 through the clouds and sent its rays full on the king, his wife, and 
 child, as they stood with hands uplifted by the altar. A great 
 shout of joy went up from the vast assemblage at the happy omen. 
 But it was the last time that the sun ever shone with favor on the 
 royal family, or that the people ever shouted with joy at sight of 
 them. 
 
 183. The Clergy Oath; Death of Mirabeau ; Flight of the 
 Royal Family. The Assembly, not satisfied with seizing the 
 Church lands and giving the State the control of the clergy, next 
 proceeded to compel them to take an oath of allegiance to the 
 Constitution. As such an oath was a virtual acknowledgment 
 that the Assembly had done what was lawful and right, the Pope 
 declared that all of the French clergy who took it should be cut 
 off from communion with the Catholic Church. The king vetoed 
 the Assembly's measure, but in the end was obliged to sanction it, 
 and ultimately about half of the clergy took the obnoxious oath. 
 
 The next spring (1791) Mirabeau died. His death was a heavy 
 loss to the moderate party, since it threw power into the hands of 
 the more violent radicals. 
 
 1 Louis renewed this oath on September 14, 1791.
 
 THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY. 221 
 
 Louis was now convinced that it was useless for him to remain 
 longer in Paris. He and his family prepared for flight. The 
 king's object was to appeal to the sovereigns of Europe for military 
 aid, though he afterward declared that he did not intend leaving 
 the kingdom. The royal family succeeded in getting to Varennes, 1 
 near the northeastern frontier, but were stopped there, and brought 
 back to Paris. It was their second enforced entry ; no one now 
 pretended to call it "joyous." As they passed through the streets 
 on their way to the Tuileries, which had now become their prison 
 in everything but name, there was profound silence. Govern- 
 ment placards conspicuously posted notified the public as follows : 
 " Whoever applauds the king shall be flogged ; whoever insults 
 him shall be hanged." 
 
 184. The Legislative Assembly; the King mobbed in the 
 Tuileries. The Constituent Assembly having now completed its 
 work of framing and then revising the Constitution, dissolved itself. 
 By a self-denying ordinance it declared its members ineligible to 
 re-election or to positions under the government. The next day 
 (Oct. i, 1 791) a new representative body met, called the Legislative 
 Assembly. It was composed of three classes : the Constitutional- 
 ists or Conservative Party, who favored limited monarchy ; the 
 Girondists, 2 who wished to establish a republic ; and finally, the 
 Jacobins, or violent radicals, led by Robespierre, Danton, and 
 Marat. 3 
 
 Two questions of the first importance came up for discussion 
 at the outset. First, should those members of the clergy who 
 persisted in refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the Consti- 
 tution be deprived of their salaries and prohibited from holding 
 religious service ? Secondly, should the emigrant nobles who took 
 up arms against the government be condemned as traitors to the 
 country? On both these questions the Assembly voted in the 
 affirmative, but the king vetoed the measures. 
 
 1 Varennes (Va-ren') : near Verdun. 
 
 - Girondists (Zhee-ron'dists) : so called because their most prominent men 
 came from the department of the Gironde, in the southwest of France. 
 3 Marat (Mar-ah').
 
 222 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 Meantime Austria, Prussia, and Spain were threatening to send 
 armies into France to re-establish Louis in all his former rights, 
 and to restore to the Church its confiscated property. The 
 Assembly denounced the Constitutionalist ministry as favoring the 
 hostile coalition against France. The ministry resigned, and a 
 Girondist ministry came into power with Roland l at their head. 
 The result of this change was a declaration of war against Austria, 
 which had been foremost in the coalition, the Emperor Francis II. 
 being a nephew of Marie Antoinette. Louis himself, with sinking 
 heart and faltering voice, had to declare hostilities. 
 
 The first movement of the French against the enemy was a 
 shameful failure. Then the Assembly voted three decrees, banish- 
 ing the refractory priests from France, disbanding the Swiss body- 
 guard of the king, and finally ordering the establishment of a camp 
 of twenty thousand provincial troops for the protection of Paris. 
 The king agreed to the disbanding of his household troops, but 
 vetoed the other two measures. The ministry under Roland 
 remonstrated, and Louis dismissed them from office. Then the 
 Paris mob rose, and with swords and pikes in their hands, burst 
 into the Palace of the Tuileries, and forcing their way into the 
 king's presence, demanded that he should sign the decrees, and 
 recall the Girondist ministers. Louis was no coward ; he was per- 
 fectly calm, and refused to promise, saying, " This is neither the 
 time nor the place ; I will do all the Constitution prescribes." 
 One of the mob, putting a red woollen liberty-cap on the end of a 
 pike, thrust it out toward the king ; he took it and placed it on his 
 head, amid shouts of " Long live the King ! " 
 
 185. Attack on the Tuileries; Massacre of the Swiss Guard; 
 Imprisonment of the Royal Family ; the September Massacres. 
 
 A number of weeks later a manifesto from the Duke of Bruns- 
 wick, commander-in-chief of the allied forces, was received in 
 Paris, in which he threatened to hang every man as a traitor who 
 
 1 Roland (Ro-lon') : he was the husband of the famous Madame Roland, who 
 died a victim of the Reign of Terror.
 
 ATTACK ON THE TUILERIES. 223 
 
 supported the Assembly. Danton, Marat, and Robespierre de- 
 manded that the king should be at once deposed. The Assembly 
 delayed action. The citizens rose in insurrection, and made 
 ready to attack the Tuileries. Louis fled with his family to the 
 Assembly for protection. The mob attacked the palace, which 
 was 'at first bravely defended by the Swiss guards. Then orders 
 came from the king that the guards were to cease firing and come 
 to the Assembly. Part of them received the order, and started ; 
 the others failed to get the word sent to them. All, to the num- 
 ber of about eight hundred, with some twelve hundred nobles and 
 gentlemen of the palace, were massacred by the rabble. Thor- 
 waldsen l has commemorated the fall of the devoted Swiss soldiers 
 in his colossal sculpture cut in the face of the rock at Lucerne : a 
 dying lion transfixed by a broken lance protects the royal lilies of 
 France with his paw. That, and the Expiatory Chapel in Paris, 
 built by Louis XVIII., to the memory of Louis XVI. and his 
 queen, are the two noblest monuments of the Revolution. 
 
 After these murders, the insurgents, their hands smeared with 
 blood, marched to the terrified Assembly, and demanded that they 
 should declare that the king had forfeited his throne ; and next, 
 that a National Convention should be called to take their place. 
 The Assembly (Aug. 10, 1792) passed a decree temporarily sus- 
 pending the king from office, and summoning the convention 
 demanded. La Fayette was deprived of the command of the 
 National Guards, and was obliged to leave France to save his life. 
 Meanwhile the king and royal family were sent as prisoners to the 
 Temple. 2 
 
 Louis was never to leave that gloomy building until he bade 
 farewell to it to mount the steps of the guillotine. The queen 
 was later sent to another prison, and thence, like her husband, to 
 the scaffold. Marie Antoinette in her power and prosperity had 
 been haughty and frivolous. In her time of trial and sorrow she 
 showed herself patient, brave, and full of sweet dignity. 
 
 1 Thorwaldsen (Tor'wawld-sen). 
 
 - Temple : the ancient stronghold of the Knights Templars in Paris. See 
 Paragraph 75.
 
 224 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. ' 
 
 A few weeks after the imprisonment of the royal family all Paris 
 was thrown into consternation by the news that the allied armies 
 had entered France, and captured Longwy and Verdun. 1 A kind 
 of panic of ferocity was the result. Danton declared, " We must 
 strike terror to the Royalists." The Paris authorities forthwith 
 ordered that the political prisoners in the city, men and women, 
 several thousand in number, should be put to death. On the 2d 
 of September, 1792, bands of ruffians were sent to the prisons, 
 and the butchery began. When it ended, four days later, the 
 radical revolutionists had nothing more to fear from the political 
 prisoners. Among those who perished at this time was the Princess 
 Lamballe, a favorite of the queen. Her bleeding head, borne on 
 a pike, was held up in front of the window of Marie Antoinette's 
 apartments in the Temple. The queen fainted, and so was mer- 
 cifully spared the ghastly sight. 
 
 186. Meeting of the National Convention ; France declared 
 a Republic; Execution of the King. On the 2ist of September, 
 1792, the National Convention, chosen by universal suffrage, met, 
 and proceeded at once to abolish royalty, and declare France a 
 republic, " one and indivisible." 2 Titles of honor and respect 
 were forbidden ; henceforth all men and women were to be 
 addressed as " citizen," or " citizeness." 
 
 The Convention was made up of two parties : the Girondists, 
 who were now considered conservative, and the extreme 
 radicals, who got the nickname of the Mountain from their occu- 
 pying the highest benches, on the left of the hall. 
 
 These two parties were at swords' points. The Girondists 
 wished to bring the instigators of the September massacre to trial. 
 The Mountain, on the other hand, were determined to drive out 
 the Girondists, and monopolize all power. 
 
 1 Longwy and Verdun : towns in the northeast of France ; the first is on the 
 Belgian frontier. 
 
 2 The day following (Sept. 22, 1792) was considered to be the first day of the 
 Year One of the Republic.
 
 COALITION AGAINST FRANCE. 225 
 
 Danton, the leader of the Mountain, and the master-spirit of 
 the Convention, now dared the armies of the allies to advance. 
 " Let us throw them," said he, " the head of a king in defiance." 
 That proposition sealed Louis's fate. He was brought before the 
 Convention on a charge of having conspired against the Constitu- 
 tion and the public good. Of that charge " Louis Capet," as he 
 was styled in the indictment, was found guilty, and condemned to 
 immediate death by a majority of one ; though, at a second vote, 
 two days later, that majority was increased to sixty. The Girondists 
 would have saved his life if they could, but the party of the 
 Mountain was too strong for them. Among those who dared to 
 plead for the king was Thomas. Paine, 1 who had taken part in the 
 American Revolution. He said, " The man whom you have 
 condemned to death is regarded by the people of the United 
 States as their best friend, as the founder of their liberty." 
 
 On the 2ist of January, 1793, in the thirty-ninth year of his 
 age, the king was beheaded. He left a son of eight, who died a 
 few years later, of neglect. Louis XVI. gave his life in expiation 
 of the sins of others, rather than of his own. Had Louis XIV. 
 and XV. done their duty by France half as well as their unfortu- 
 nate successor tried to do his, there would have been no revolu- 
 tion. 
 
 187. The Grand Coalition against France ; the Revolutionary 
 Tribunal ; Defection of Dumouriez ; Committee of Public Safety. 
 
 -The execution of the king, instead of intimidating the Euro- 
 pean powers, had the opposite effect. England now joined 
 Holland, Spain, Austria, and Prussia, to overthrow the Convention 
 and restore the monarchy. The Revolution was regarded as a 
 menace to every throne in Europe. Nor was this feeling ground- 
 less ; for the French generals had received orders, when their 
 armies advanced, to proclaim the abolition of feudal rights and 
 privileges, and to inaugurate the sovereignty of the people. In 
 
 1 Paine visited France after the American Revolution, and was elected a mem- 
 ber of the National Convention. He sided with the Girondists.
 
 226 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY 
 
 other words, they were to extend the French Revolution as far 
 and as fast as they were able. 
 
 But in the spring of 1 793 the allied armies checked the French 
 advance, and ended by driving them out of Belgium. The Moun- 
 tain threw the blame of this and of all other disasters on the policy 
 of the Girondists. They made use of it to secure the creation of 
 a Revolutionary Tribunal, having power to judge without appeal all 
 who conspired against the State. Shortly after, Dumouriez, 1 the 
 ablest of the French generals, turned against the Convention, 
 began negotiations with the Austrians for the re-establishment of 
 the monarchy, and finally, leaving his army, who refused to sup- 
 port him, fled to the enemy's quarters. 
 
 The wildest alarm now prevailed in Paris. The Convention 
 established a Committee of Public Safety, consisting of nine mem- 
 bers, all of whom were violent radicals, opposed to the Girondists. 
 The committee adopted a new democratic constitution. In this 
 body Danton was chief. The sessions of this new body were 
 secret, and it practically had control of the government. The 
 Convention had two hundred thousand men under arms. It was 
 now voted that the number should be at once increased to half a 
 million. 
 
 188. Distress in Paris; Civil War in the Provinces; Arrest 
 of the Girondists. Meanwhile the price of bread was constantly 
 rising, the distress of the people was great ; and, on the other hand, 
 the value of paper money was rapidly falling. The Mountain 
 believed prices could be regulated by law ; that farmers could be 
 compelled to bring grain to Paris and forced to take the assignats, or 
 Revolutionary bank notes, at par. The Girondists had no faith in 
 these measures, and steadily opposed them. While these things 
 were taking place at Paris, a counter-revolution was going on in 
 some of the Provinces. In Britanny, Maine, and Anjou a majority 
 of the inhabitants continued loyal to the monarchy. In those 
 districts the people had suffered less from the effects of bad gov- 
 
 1 Dumouriez (Du-moo-ree-ay').
 
 THE REIGN OF TERROR. 22/ 
 
 ernment, and the relations between the peasantry and the nobles 
 and clergy were generally friendly. 
 
 Filled with horror at the execution of the king, and clinging 
 strongly to the Catholic Church, these simple, kindly-hearted rus- 
 tics rose in defence of the altar and the throne. 
 
 In La Vendee, 1 a province of the west, Louis XVI. 's young son, 
 who was in prison with his mother, was proclaimed king. Civil 
 war ensued, and the Chouans, 2 as the insurrectionists of Britanny 
 were nick-named, with the Vendeans, kept up an obstinate guerilla 
 warfare against the forces of the Convention. 
 
 The ill-success of the French armies abroad and the civil war at 
 home threw still more power into the hands of the formidable 
 Committee of Safety. Through their influence a law was passed 
 by which the members of the Convention gave up the exemption 
 from arrest on political charges, which they had hitherto possessed. 
 This made it possible for the two hostile parties, the Mountain and 
 the Girondists, to plot each other's destruction. The Girondists 
 made the first move, and accused Marat of being unfaithful to the 
 true interests of the republic. But the hideous Marat, who sat in 
 the Convention with his wooden shoes and red liberty-cap, always 
 demanding victims for his favorite guillotine, was not to be over- 
 thrown. He had the Paris mob to back him. The gentle, low- 
 voiced, cat-like Robespierre was also a favorite with the rabble, 
 and he held his place against the Girondists. 
 
 Then came the Mountain's turn. They denounced the opposite 
 party. Thousands of insurgents broke into the chamber, and with 
 Marat and Robespierre demanded the arrest of the Girondists. The 
 decree was carried, and thirty-one Girondist deputies were made 
 prisoners. 
 
 189. The Reign of Terror; Insurrection in the Provinces; 
 Assassination of Marat. From this date, June 2, 1 793, when the 
 
 1 La Vendee (Lah Von-day'). 
 
 2 Chouans (Sho-on') : a name derived either from Jean Chouan, the chief of the 
 band, or from chat-huant, a screech owl, because the Chouans, like the owls, were 
 seldom seen except at night, and they imitated the cry of those birds.
 
 228 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 Mountain came into absolute power, the Reign of Terror began. 1 
 Ten of the Girondists escaped and excited an insurrection in the 
 provinces in their behalf. The city of Lyon rose in their favor, 
 and Toulon declared itself on the side of the Royalists. The Con- 
 vention sent an army to reduce the people of the first-named city 
 to submission. The army took with them a guillotine on wheels, 
 for the purpose of beheading all prisoners of war. But, quick as 
 was the guillotine in its fatal work, it was too slow for the impa- 
 tient soldiers. They massed their prisoners in the public squares 
 and mowed them down with grapeshot. The general in command 
 swore that he would not cease the work of destruction until he had 
 levelled the rebellious city to the ground ; then when the last rebel 
 was slain and the last stone overthrown, he declared that he would 
 erect a monument bearing the inscription : 
 
 " Lyon resisted liberty Lyon is no more." 
 
 At Nantes, on the Loire, more than thirty thousand persons 
 were put to death. Here, too, the guillotine was set aside as inad- 
 equate to the task. Large barges were filled with men, women, 
 and children bound together. These barges were rowed out into 
 the middle of the river and there sunk. In La Vendee thousands 
 were likewise massacred. 
 
 The cynical Marat rubbed his hands in delight over the whole- 
 sale destruction of the enemies of his party. Terror had indeed 
 become the order of the day, and this butcher of men, who had 
 vowed that every opposing head should fall, showed his admiring 
 friends his reception room papered with death-warrants. But his 
 own turn was now to come. Charlotte Corday, a heroic young 
 girl from Normandy, who was in sympathy with the Girondists, 
 believed it her duty to rid the world of this monster. She suc- 
 ceeded in getting access to him, and while he was jotting down 
 the names of fresh victims she stabbed him to the heart, and expi- 
 ated the act on the guillotine. 
 
 1 The duration of the period of the Reign of Terror is differently given by different 
 authorities.
 
 THE LAW OF "SUSPECTS. 22Q 
 
 190. The Law of " Suspects " ; Execution of tke Queen ; 
 the Girondists and Madame Roland. But Charlotte Corday's 
 dagger, though it slew Marat, did not, as she hoped, put an end to 
 the Reign of Terror. On the contrary, its fury increased. Hubert, 1 
 the leader of the Commune of Paris, 2 now urged Danton and his 
 comrades to spare none who did not side with them. " To be 
 safe," said he, " we must kill all." Thus urged, the Convention 
 passed a law to imprison all persons " suspected " of ill-will toward 
 the Republic. Under the operation of the law the jails throughout 
 France were soon crowded with prisoners awaiting trial and death. 
 Henceforth the guillotine was permanently set up in the centre 
 of Paris and was never idle. The terrible machine had in fact 
 become the chief means of government. Universal suspicion bred 
 universal terror. Men came to distrust their bosom friends ; nay, 
 the very members of their own families. No one felt safe from 
 day to day. No one knew who might be watching or following 
 him, or when he might be arrested as a " suspect." This very 
 horror increased the number of victims ; for " citizen " now vied 
 with " citizen " in endeavoring to secure victims ; since the more 
 heads a man could send to the scaffold, the safer his own might be. 
 Generally the trial of prisoners was the merest mockery. Their 
 doom was sealed from the beginning. " It is only the dead," said 
 the Tribunal, " who never come back." 
 
 Acting on this principle the Mountain now determined to take 
 the life of the queen. She was brought before the Tribunal. Six- 
 teen years before, Burke had seen her at Versailles, " glittering like 
 the morning star, full of life and splendor and joy." 3 Imprison- 
 ment and sorrow had made her prematurely old. She refused to 
 plead in her own behalf ; she only said : " I was a queen, and you 
 took away my crown ; a wife, and you killed my husband ; a 
 mother, and you robbed me of my children : my blood alone 
 
 1 Hebert (Ay-beT'). 
 
 2 Commune of Paris : the Revolutionary Committee governing Paris. 
 
 3 Burke's " Reflections on the French Revolution."
 
 230 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 remains ; take it, but do not make me suffer long." l She was 
 sentenced to the guillotine and executed the same day (Oct. 16, 
 
 T 793)- 
 
 The twenty-one Girondists soon followed. One stabbed himself 
 to escape the guillotine ; but he did not escape it, for his corpse 
 was beheaded with the rest. 
 
 Up to the scaffold, up to the fatal knife, the Girondists went one 
 by one, singing the Marseillaise 2 
 
 " Come children of our country, 
 The day of glory has arrived." 
 
 As the axe did its work, the song grew fainter and fainter ; but it 
 did not cease till the last head fell. 
 
 In less than a fortnight Madame Roland, at whose house the 
 Girondists used to meet, ascended the same scaffold. Martin says 
 that " she was the strongest and truest character of the Revolu- 
 tion." Near the guillotine a colossal plaster image of Liberty had 
 been erected. The brave woman looked at it, and said, as she 
 bent to the axe, " O Liberty ! what crimes are committed in thy 
 name ! " 
 
 From this time the death-cart went constantly loaded with 
 fresh batches of victims to feed the falling knife. The saintly 
 princess Elizabeth, sister of the king, and many other illustrious 
 names were among them. It had become a carnival of murder, 
 and scores of market-women went to the place of execution as 
 they would to the theatre. There, at the foot of the scaffold, they 
 sat peacefully knitting, and counting the heads as they fell. 
 
 Well might Chateaubriand 3 say that not all the water of the 
 fountains which now sparkle in the sunshine of that famous square 4 
 
 1 See Delaroche's fine picture of " Marie Antoinette leaving the Tribunal " after 
 her sentence to death. 
 
 2 Marseillaise (Mar-sail-yaiz') : this song, the " battle hymn " of the French 
 Revolution, was written in 1792 by Rouget de Lisle, an artillery officer. It got its 
 name from the fact that it was first sung in Paris by a battalion of soldiers from 
 Marseille. 3 Chateaubriand (Shah-toh-bre-on') . 4 The Place de la Concorde.
 
 FESTIVAL OF THE GODDESS OF REASON. 23 1 
 
 could wash out the stains of the blood that had been recklessly 
 shed there. 
 
 191. Festival of the Goddess of Reason; Fall of the Atheists 
 and the Dantonists ; Festival of the Supreme Being ; Execution 
 of Robespierre. But the day of reckoning was at hand. Now 
 that the Mountain had rid themselves of the Girondists, they, and 
 their coadjutors of the Commune of Paris, turned on each other. 
 
 Hubert and his party were professed atheists, while Robespierre 
 was not. Through Hubert's influence, an actress dressed to repre- 
 sent the Goddess of Reason received the homage of the atheists 
 in the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Sunday was abolished. The 
 churches were closed against religious worship. The cross was 
 torn down, and a model of the "Holy Guillotine" set up in its 
 place. Signs of mourning for the dead were prohibited. Over 
 the entrance to the burial-grounds was written, " Death is an eter- 
 nal sleep," "In future," said Hubert, "we want no other religion 
 but that of Nature ; no other temple than that of Reason ; no other 
 worship than that of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." Every- 
 thing, in fact, was to be changed. The months were re-named after 
 the weather and the seasons the Frosty, the Rainy, the Hot, 
 and so on ; the calendar was abolished, and men were no more 
 to reckon time from the birth of Christ, but from the Year One of 
 the French Republic. The royal tombs at St. Denis had already 
 been broken open by an act of the Convention, and the remains 
 of the kings thrown out. 
 
 But Robespierre had no sympathy with Hubert's movement, 
 and attacked him and his party as intolerant fanatics, worse than 
 the priests they had expelled. Rousseau had declared that men 
 who did not believe in a special Providence, and in a life beyond 
 the grave, could not be good citizens. This was Robespierre's 
 idea. " If no God existed," said he, quoting Voltaire, "we should 
 have to invent one." 
 
 Then Hubert and his party attempted to excite an insurrection 
 against Robespierre and the Convention. The latter had them
 
 232 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 arrested, tried, and guillotined. Next, came the turn of Danton 
 and his comrades. They had grown weary of the Reign of Terror, 
 if they were not indeed horrified at its excesses. Danton had 
 created the Revolutionary Tribunal which sent such multitudes 
 to death. Now, that Tribunal pronounced his sentence and that 
 of his friends. They laid their necks under that axe which had 
 first descended on that of a king. 
 
 Robespierre thus became the real head of France. He pushed 
 the war in La Vende"e, until it became simply slaughter and exter- 
 mination. He redoubled the severity of the laws. He sent out 
 spies everywhere to keep himself informed of the state of feeling. 
 From a humble member of the States-General of 1789, he had 
 risen in a little more than five years to be an absolute ruler, more 
 despotic than any of the Bourbon kings had dared to be. 
 
 He felt that to complete his system a religious basis was needed. 
 He accordingly resolved to hold a festival in honor of the Supreme 
 Being. Dressed in a sky-blue coat, holding a bunch of flowers, 
 fruit, and grain in his hand, Robespierre appeared in the Field of 
 Mars, and in the presence of a vast multitude the services began. 
 
 A choir of over two thousand sang a hymn to the Supreme 
 Being. Bands of young girls scattered flowers. Then Robes- 
 pierre advanced and set fire to two allegorical figures representing 
 Atheism and Selfishness. As they burnt, a figure of Wisdom ap- 
 peared ; but it was Wisdom blackened and scorched with smoke 
 and flame. 
 
 Of the two, it is difficult to say which was the more revolting, 
 the theatrical mummeries of the Worship of Reason, or the theatri- 
 cal mummeries of the Festival of the Supreme Being. 
 
 No sooner was the performance over than the guillotine, which 
 had been temporarily veiled, began its work again. In Paris 
 alone, from this date, about two hundred victims a week were 
 executed, and the whole number that perished in the Revolution 
 by massacre, civil war, or the scaffold, has been estimated as 
 high as a million. The destruction of life at last became unen- 
 durable. The Convention rose against Robespierre. He was
 
 THE WHITE TERROR. 233 
 
 arrested and beheaded, July 28, 1794. With his downfall the 
 Reign of Terror virtually ended. It had lasted a little more than 
 a year but what a year ! For once, however, the guillotine 
 proved itself the friend of humanity, since in ridding France of 
 Robespierre, it freed the country from the power of a man who 
 had made the name of republic more hateful than that of the 
 worst of monarchies. 
 
 192. The Reaction; the White Terror; Victories of the Re- 
 public ; the Directory. The government, if government it can 
 be called, was now in the hands of the Convention, which was in 
 a state of disorganization. Strong reaction set in. In the south 
 of France the opponents of the Republic rose and inaugurated 
 what was called the White Terror, a name given it to distinguish 
 it from the Red Terror of the past. 
 
 Bands of men, calling themselves Companies of Jesus and Com- 
 panies of the Sun, massacred the prisoners in the jails, and com- 
 mitted horrible atrocities for weeks before they were checked. 
 
 Early in 1 795 the armies of the Republic gained a great victory 
 over the English and Dutch, resulting in the conquest of Holland, 
 which adopted a democratic form of government, modelled on 
 that of France. Later in the year Belgium was declared a part 
 of the French Republic. Meanwhile the insurrection in La Ven- 
 de had been suppressed, and peace established in that depart- 
 ment. 
 
 In the summer of the same year (1795.) the Convention 
 appointed a committee to draw up a new constitution the 
 third since 1789.* By it the government was placed in the hands 
 of five directors, and so received the name of the Directory. 
 
 A new power is now about to appear on the scene. The Revo- 
 lution may be said to have finished its course. With a single 
 slight exception there will be no more insurrections. All subse- 
 quent change, for many years, will be accomplished not by revolts 
 
 1 Since ihen France has successively framed and adopted no less than six new 
 constitutions, or nine in all during the last hundred years.
 
 234 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 of the people or Reigns of Terror, but by the organized power of 
 the government and the army. 
 
 193. Summary. The period covering twenty-one years (i 774- 
 1795) opens with some feeble attempts at reform on the part of 
 Louis XVI. This halting and half-hearted policy is followed by 
 the meeting of the States-General, which reorganizes itself as the 
 National Assembly. The fall of the Bastille inaugurates the Revo- 
 lution, which sweeps away the monarchy, the privileged classes, 
 and the Church. Political and social dissolution gives rise to 
 jealousy and anarchy, ending in a Reign of Terror and the dicta- 
 torship of Robespierre. The period closes with reaction and with 
 the attempt to organize a new and more stable government. The 
 chief permanent results of the Revolution are the establishment of 
 civil and religious liberty, and the equality of all citizens before 
 the law.
 
 ROYALIST INSURRECTION. 235 
 
 XIII. 
 
 " A colossus, but with feet of clay." DURUY. 
 
 THE DIRECTORY (1795-1799). NAPOLEON (1799-1815). 
 
 194. Royalist Insurrection ; Napoleon Bonaparte. But 
 
 though the Convention had organized the government of the 
 Directory in name, it had yet to fight for its life. The reaction 
 against the excesses of the Revolution, and a measure by which 
 the Convention endeavored to continue its own power, encouraged 
 the Royalists to hope that they might restore the monarchy. The 
 poor little dauphin, son of Louis XVI., had died from ill-treat- 
 ment ; l but the late king's brother was living in Russia, where he 
 had taken refuge, and the Royalists wished to place him on the 
 throne as Louis XVIII. 
 
 The National Guard was persuaded to join the monarchical 
 party. In October, 1795, the combined forces, forty thousand 
 strong, marched on the Tuileries to expel the Convention and 
 prevent the establishment of the Directory. 
 
 The Convention called on General Barras 2 to defend them. 
 Barras requested a Corsican artillery officer of twenty-six, who 
 had distinguished himself at Toulon, to act as his lieutenant. 
 The young man speedily converted the palace into an entrenched 
 camp. He had seven thousand troops, or less than one-fifth of 
 
 1 The dauphin was recognized as king of France, under the title of .Louis 
 XVII., by England and Russia, after the execution of his father. He died in his 
 eleventh year, June 8, 1795. His sister, Maria Theresa, who was six years older, 
 was released from prison, and eventually went to her uncle, Louis XVIII. She 
 later became the Duchess of AngoulSme, and returned to France when her uncle 
 became king, in 1814. 2 Barras (Bar-rah').
 
 236 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 the assailing party ; but he planted his batteries so skilfully and 
 used his grapeshot so effectively, that the advancing host fled in 
 confusion, leaving the Convention with their defender, Napoleon 
 Bonaparte, 1 masters of the situation. 
 
 For the next twenty years Napoleon will be the commanding 
 figure not only in France, but in Europe. He will establish the 
 reign of law which the Revolution had temporarily set aside ; it 
 will be law backed by bayonets ; but bayonets held by the French 
 themselves. 
 
 195. The Italian Campaign of 1796-97; Battle of Lodi.- 
 
 The war against France on the part of Austria, Germany, and 
 England was still going on. The Directory now determined to 
 attack the enemy at three different points. Generals Moreau 2 and 
 Jourdan 3 were to fight the battles of the Rhine, while Napoleon 
 
 1 Napoleon Bonaparte. He was of Italian descent, and born at Ajaccio 
 (Ah-yat'chb), Corsica, Aug. 15, 1769. It is said that the first garment in which 
 he was wrapped, was a piece of old tapestry on which the battles of the Iliad 
 were represented. His father, Charles Bonaparte, was a brave and distinguished 
 officer, who fought in vain against France when that power annexed the island 
 the year before Napoleon's birth. 
 
 In 1779 Napoleon, who was destined for the army, was sent to the military 
 school at Brienne (Bre-en'), France, from which, in 1784, he went to Paris to finish 
 his studies. At the breaking out of the Revolution, the Bonaparte family espoused 
 the cause of the people. In 1792 Napoleon was made captain of artillery under 
 the Republic. The next year he drove the English and Spanish forces from 
 Toulon (which had revolted against the Republic), and restored that city to the 
 rule of the Convention. He did not become prominent again, until the memorable' 
 day (Oct. 4, 1795) when the Royalists rose against the government. Then " the 
 little Corsican officer, who," as Barras declared, " will not stand upon ceremony," 
 made a deep, decisive mark in French history. From that time, for nearly twenty 
 years, his power was constantly advancing. 
 
 Napoleon had four brothers, Jerome, Lucien, Louis, and Joseph, three of 
 whom he made kings; and three sisters, Pauline, who became the Princess 
 Borghese ; Elise, who became the Duchess of Tuscany ; and Caroline, who rose by 
 marriage to become the Queen of Naples. 
 
 Napoleon's mother, Letizia Romolino Bonaparte, was a woman of remarkable 
 beauty, and possessed of great strength of character. She died in 1836, having 
 outlived her famous son fifteen years. Napoleon said of her, " It is to my 
 mother and her good principles that I owe my fortune and all the good that I have 
 ever done." 2 Moreau (Moh-roh'). 3 Jourdan (Zhoor-don').
 
 THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN. 237 
 
 was to move against the allied forces of the Austrians and Pied- 
 montese, or Sardinians, in Northern Italy. The ultimate objective 
 point sought by all three armies was Vienna, the capital of Austria. 
 
 The Directory was so poor that it could give the young Corsican 
 general only the meagre sum of four thousand louis, or less than 
 twenty thousand dollars, to meet the expenses of the expedition. 
 His force consisted of thirty-eight thousand destitute and dis- 
 heartened soldiers, who had been beating about the maritime Alps 
 in the vicinity of Nice 1 for two years, accomplishing nothing. 
 With these troops he was to attack sixty thousand of the allies. 
 
 " Soldiers," said Napoleon to his army, " you are poorly fed, 
 and almost naked. The government owes you much, but can do 
 nothing. I am about to lead you into the most fertile plain in the 
 world. There great cities and prosperous provinces await you. 
 There you will find honor, glory, riches. Soldiers of the army of 
 Italy, will you lack courage for the enterprise? " 
 
 From that hour the men were animated by a new spirit. They 
 felt that at last they had a leader. With this army, Napoleon, 
 following the Mediterranean shore, passed by the old Roman 2 
 road into Italy, on his way to the plains of Piedmont and Lom- 
 bardy. In a series of victorious battles he beat first the Austrians 
 and then the Piedmontese. In a fortnight's time he was able to 
 make peace with the latter on his own terms. The Austrians fell 
 back as far as the bridge of Lodi, on the Adda. 3 There they made 
 a stand in order to protect Milan, 4 the capital of Lombardy. 
 Napoleon attacked and defeated them, and entered Milan in tri- 
 umph. This rapidity of movement was a characteristic of Napo- 
 leon. He struck quickly, unexpectedly, and hard. It was one 
 reason why he rarely found an enemy that could stand against 
 him. 
 
 1 Nice (Neece). 
 
 2 It is now the famous Corniche road, leading from Nice to Genoa. The modern 
 road was begun by Napoleon. 
 
 8 For these and the subsequent Napoleonic campaigns, see Map No. XII., 
 page 238. 4 Milan (Mil'-an).
 
 238 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 196. Battles of Arcola and Rivoli ; Treaty of Campo Fonnio ; 
 Robbery of Works of Art. Napoleon next laid siege to the 
 fortress of Mantua. Meanwhile the enemy had gathered a third 
 army of sixty thousand men to attack the French in their head- 
 quarters at Verona. Napoleon determined to outflank them and 
 fall upon their rear. He left Verona by the western gate, marched 
 down the river Adige l for fourteen miles, crossed it, and met a 
 strong division of the Austrians at Arcola, a village which com- 
 manded the road to Verona from the southeast. The town was 
 in the centre of extensive marshes, and could only be reached by 
 causeways and a wooden bridge. On these narrow approaches 
 the battle raged for three days. In the fight Napoleon was pushed 
 over one of these causeways, and was nearly smothered in the 
 morass, which was filled with dead and dying men. The battle 
 ended in the retreat of the Austrians ; and Napoleon in triumph 
 entered Verona by the eastern gate, directly opposite that by 
 which he had sallied from the city three days before. 
 
 The final struggle came two months afterward on the plains of 
 Rivoli. Again Napoleon conquered ; and as a result of the victory, 
 Mantua surrendered. Napoleon, now master of Italy, began his 
 march on Vienna. But the emperor, although he had beaten the 
 veterans, Moreau and Jourdan, in Germany, did not care to risk 
 another battle with this young man of twenty-seven. Negotiations 
 were therefore opened between Austria and France. While they 
 were in progress, an insurrection against the French broke out in 
 the Venetian territory. Napoleon sent a body of troops to occupy 
 Venice, and that ancient commonwealth now surrendered, after 
 having enjoyed a political independence of nearly fourteen cen- 
 turies. 
 
 In 1797 the peace of Campo Formio ended the war. In two 
 months Napoleon had fought and won eighteen battles, destroyed 
 three Austrian armies that had been three times re-enforced, taken 
 a hundred and fifty thousand prisoners, levied forty-five millions 
 
 1 Adige (Ad'e-je).
 
 Longitude 
 
 Longitude 
 
 SKETCH MAP OF EUROPE 
 
 SHOWING 
 
 PRINCIPAL BATTLES OF NAPOLEON. 
 
 SCALE OF MILES 
 100 200 300 400 500 
 
 Longitude West 
 
 Longitude East
 
 20 from 30 Greenwich 40
 
 ROBBERY OF WORKS OF ART. 239 
 
 of francs tribute on the Pope and other Italian rulers hostile to 
 the Directory, and established the Cisalpine republic 1 of Northern 
 Italy. 
 
 But the great prize gained by France was the entire Austrian 
 Netherlands, or Belgium, which was now ceded to her as the 
 result of the war. 
 
 Napoleon had begun the campaign almost without money. By 
 his victories he had not only fed and clothed his army, but had 
 sent ten millions of francs to the aid of the Directory, and another 
 million to the help of the French army in Germany. Thus he 
 upheld the home government with one hand, while he vanquished 
 its enemies abroad with the other. He was the beginner of a 
 new system of war. Instead of drawing on France for means 
 to carry on his campaigns, he made his battles pay their own 
 expenses. 
 
 Had he stopped there, it would have been well; but he did 
 not stop. He began a new and disgraceful system of pillage. 
 He stripped the Vatican at Rome and the churches, libraries, and 
 picture galleries of the conquered country, of their choicest treas- 
 ures, carrying paintings, statuary, books, and manuscripts to Paris 
 to enrich the palace of the Louvre with stolen splendor. 2 Thus 
 Italy was for the first time robbed of her great works of art by 
 one who was himself an Italian. 
 
 1 This republic included Lombardy, Parma, Modena, and part of the papal 
 dominions. It was under the control of France. The policy of Republican France 
 was to surround itself with republics. Thus in 1795 the French armies converted 
 Holland and Belgium into the Batavian Republic ; in 1798 the cantons of the Swiss 
 Confederation were changed into the Helvetic Republic (Geneva being incorporated 
 with France). The same year Rome was transformed into the Tiberine Republic 
 (a name derived from the Tiber). Shortly after, Naples was proclaimed as the 
 Parthenopean Republic (from Parthenope, an ancient name of that city, as Batavia 
 and Helvetia were of the Netherlands and Switzerland). These commonwealths, 
 with the exception of Switzerland, were short-lived ; for when Napoleon became 
 supreme ruler of France, he speedily changed them into monarchies, in order that 
 his imperial throne might not lack encircling dependent kingdoms to prop it. 
 
 2 Among the works of art carried to Paris by Napoleon were Raphael's " Trans- 
 figuration," Domenichino's " Communion of St. Jerome," and the Bronze Horses 
 of St. Mark's. After his fall most of the stolen property was returned.
 
 24O LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 197. Napoleon in Paris ; Josephine Beauharnais ; the Egyptian 
 Expedition. Shortly before setting out on his Italian campaign, 
 Napoleon married Madame Josephine Beauharnais, 1 widow of 
 Count Beauharnais, who was guillotined during the Revolution. 
 He now spent several months in Paris, living very quietly with his 
 bride, and rarely going into society or exhibiting himself in public. 
 
 But to one of Napoleon's nature war was a necessity, and he 
 soon began planning an expedition to Egypt. In this he is be- 
 lieved to have had a double object : first, to get the control of the 
 Mediterranean, and next to establish an eastern empire, by which 
 he might hope either to secure possession of India, or at least to 
 overthrow England's supremacy in that country. The Directory, 
 already jealous of Napoleon's popularity, were not sorry to send 
 him on so distant and doubtful an undertaking. 
 
 He set out in the spring of 1798, with a squadron carrying 
 thirty-six thousand veteran soldiers, most of whom had fought 
 under him in Italy. In order to make the expedition a success, 
 it was necessary to get possession of the strongly fortified island 
 of Malta, then nominally in the hands of the Knights of St. John, 2 
 but practically an outpost of England. It was taken without a 
 blow, through the treachery of its guards. This opened the way 
 clear for the attack on Egypt. Landing at Alexandria in July, 
 Napoleon carried the place by storm. Three weeks later he 
 encamped in the sands of the desert, near Cairo, under the 
 shadow of the gigantic monuments of the Pharaohs. The men, 
 exhausted by the march and by the terrible heat, were glad of a 
 brief rest before beginning a battle with the Mamelukes, 3 those 
 brave and highly disciplined troops who then held control of 
 
 1 Beauharnais (Boh-ar-nay'). She was the daughter of a West-Indian planter. 
 She had two children by her first husband, Eugene and Hortense. Eugene became 
 viceroy of Italy. Hortense married Napoleon's brother Louis, king of Holland, 
 and became the mother of Napoleon III., late emperor of France. 
 
 2 Knights of St. John : another name for the Knights Hospitallers. See Para- 
 graph 55. 
 
 3 The Mamelukes were originally slaves, of Circassian origin, who formed the 
 Sultan's body-guard. After a time they became virtual masters of Egypt.
 
 CAMPAIGN IN THE EAST. 24! 
 
 Egypt. All felt the strange spell of their surroundings in that an- 
 cient land. " Soldiers," said Napoleon, as he pointed upward, 
 " from the summits of these pyramids forty centuries look down 
 upon you." That was enough to remind them that here, as in Italy, 
 their duty was victory. Napoleon formed his men into squares, 
 so arranged that they protected each other by their fire. Again 
 and again the Mameluke cavalry dashed against these squares, 
 and tried to break their lines. They might as well have dashed 
 against the bases of the pyramids. At the end of the day Cairo, 
 with all Lower Egypt, was in Napoleon's possession. But while 
 the army was celebrating its triumph in that ancient city, news of 
 disaster came. Nelson, with his fast-sailing English frigates, had 
 pursued Napoleon's fleet, had attacked it in Aboukir Bay, off 
 Alexandria, and had utterly destroyed every vessel but two, which 
 escaped, only to be chased and captured. 1 This was, indeed, a 
 tremendous blow ; for it not only cut off Napoleon from France, 
 but it encouraged England with her allies in the belief that he was 
 less invincible than he seemed. 
 
 Not to be intimidated, Napoleon said to his generals, "This 
 reverse will compel us to do even greater things than we had 
 planned." Leaving a force sufficient to hold Egypt, Napoleon 
 advanced into Syria, where, by establishing his power, he could 
 threaten Constantinople on the one hand, and India on the other. 
 
 But the fortresses of Jaffa and of Acre stood in his way. He 
 took the first by assault, capturing a large number of prisoners, 
 whom he deliberately massacred, on the ground that he dared not 
 release, and could not feed them. Acre was obstinately defended 
 by the Turks, with their English allies under Sir Sidney Smith. 
 Napoleon had no heavy artillery; his attack failed, and he was 
 obliged to fall back on Egypt. Years aftenvard, Napoleon used 
 to say of Sir Sidney, " That man made me miss my destiny." 
 
 198. Napoleon returns to France, and sets up a New Govern- 
 ment; is chosen First Consul. In October, 1799, Napoleon 
 
 1 For an incident of the battle, see Mrs. Hemans's " Casabianca."
 
 242 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 suddenly and secretly left Egypt, and returned, without his army, 
 to France. He found that, during his absence, the Directory had 
 begun a new war; that they had forced Switzerland to adopt a 
 government modelled on that of the French Republic ; had plun- 
 dered the Vatican at Rome of more of its treasures ; and had 
 ' ended by carrying off the Pope to France, where he shortly after 
 died. As for the Directory itself, it had neither influence, money, 
 nor credit. The nation no longer believed in it, or supported it. 
 
 Napoleon put himself at the head of affairs. Knowing that he 
 had the confidence of the people, he deliberately overthrew the 
 government (Nov. 9, 1799). A new constitution the fourth 
 since 1789 was adopted, and under it Napoleon was chosen 
 First Consul for ten years (Dec. 15, 1799). 
 
 Though only First Consul, out of a body of three, Napoleon 
 really ruled France. The country still retained the name of repub- 
 lic, but it was a republic where one man was supreme. 
 
 199. Napoleon's Administration ; Creation of a New Nobility ; 
 The Code Napoleon. The First Consul took decided measures 
 to put an end to the anarchy into which public affairs had drifted. 
 He first stopped political discussion. " In future," said he, " we 
 will have no parties, no Jacobins, no Royalists ; but only French- 
 men." He suppressed most of the newspapers, and warned the 
 rest to be cautious. He established the Bank of France, removed 
 restrictions from trade, and repealed the barbarous laws against 
 the return of French noblemen. Then, with Josephine's aid, he 
 organized a brilliant court which drew to it many of the best men 
 and best minds of France. They helped to enhance the power 
 of him who said, "I win the battles, but Josephine wins the 
 hearts." 
 
 Important as these changes were, they were only the introduction 
 to later ones, extending over a long series of years. Napoleon's 
 two favorite maxims were : " The tools belong to him who can 
 use them," and " Every career ought to be open to talent." In 
 accordance with these ideas, he created a new nobility, based on
 
 THE CODE NAPOLEON. 243 
 
 merit, instead of birth or wealth. He instituted the order of the 
 Cross of the Legion of Honor, as a reward for distinguished ser- 
 vices ; reorganized educational systems on a broader and sounder 
 basis ; established the modern University of France ; and en- 
 couraged industry and mechanical invention. 
 
 Napoleon also began the construction of a great system of 
 roads, canals, arsenals, harbors, and other public works. He 
 adorned Paris with the magnificent Arc de Triomphe, 1 the grandest 
 structure of the kind in the world ; began the beautiful Church of 
 the Madeleine ; * completed that of the Pantheon, and the palace 
 of the Louvre. 
 
 In 1 80 1 he concluded a concordat or solemn treaty with the 
 Pope, by which Catholicism was reinstated, in a somewhat modified 
 form, as the established religion of France. The ceremony took 
 place the next spring, with great pomp, in the ancient cathedral 
 of Notre Dame. 
 
 Last and most remarkable work of all, Napoleon caused the 
 compilation of the code called by his name, the Code Napoleon. 
 The work was begun by the Revolutionary government, but left 
 incomplete. By it the great mass of the ancient edicts of France 
 were revised, condensed, simplified, and rendered uniform through- 
 out the country. " Every really good law," said the First Consul, 
 " must have good sense for its foundation." Guided by that 
 principle, obsolete and barbarous statutes and customs were 
 dropped, confused and conflicting usages were harmonized, that 
 thereby the transaction of public and private business might be 
 facilitated, and the ends of justice more effectually served. 
 
 Napoleon thought so highly of this work that he said, " I shall 
 go down to posterity with the Code in my hand." He was right ; 
 for, after the lapse of nearly a century, it constitutes the frame- 
 work of law in France, Holland, Belgium, Western Germany, 
 
 1 Called, also, the Arc d'Etoile, to distinguish it from the smaller Arc de 
 Triomphe (Triumphal Arch) erected by Napoleon between the Louvre and the 
 Tuileries. 
 
 ' 2 Napoleon intended the Madeleine not for a church, but for a memorial 
 temple to the Grand Army. The building was completed after his fall.
 
 244 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 Switzerland, and Italy, besides serving as the foundation of the 
 code of the State of Louisiana. 
 
 Unfortunately, these beneficent acts of the ruler of France were 
 offset by others as despotic and as irritating as those of the Bourbon 
 kings whom he had supplanted. Napoleon was one more illustra- 
 tion of the fact that " most great men cast great shadows." He 
 often showed an utter disregard of justice ; and in the latter part 
 of his career he certainly never hesitated at sacrificing truth : so 
 that " false as a bulletin " became a familiar saying to charac- 
 terize his official reports sent from the field of battle. Nothing, 
 in fact, was sacred that stood in the way of his inflexible and 
 unscrupulous will. His administration centralized all power in 
 the hands of a few officials in Paris, where it has since remained. 
 Hence, whatever the country at large may have gained in order 
 and prosperity, it never was allowed to learn that most valuable of 
 all lessons, the lesson of local self-government. 
 
 200. The New Campaign in Italy; the Passage of the Alps. 
 
 Immediately after his inauguration, the First Consul wrote to 
 George III. of England and to the emperor of Germany, urging 
 that peace should now be recognized as " the first necessity and 
 the first glory " for all the powers of Europe. 
 
 But while thus writing, Napoleon knew that neither sovereign 
 would make the concessions he was about to demand, and permit 
 him to continue to hold Egypt and Malta on the one hand, and 
 control Italy on the other. The new year (1800) opened with 
 preparations for war. Hostilities began in Italy, where the Aus- 
 trian forces now outnumbered the French nearly four to one. In 
 the outset, before Napoleon resumed the command, the French 
 were badly beaten. But the First Consul was prepared for that. 
 With a great map of Italy spread out before him he planned the 
 whole campaign before he left Paris. He designated the different 
 armies by different colors. " Here," said he to his astonished 
 secretary, " the Austrian general will pass by Turin ; here, he will 
 fall back toward Alessandria. 1 At this point I shall cross the Po. 
 
 1 Alessandria is about ten miles northwest of Marengo.
 
 SECOND ITALIAN CAMPAIGN. 245 
 
 I shall meet the enemy on the plains of Scrivia, and there," said he, 
 sticking a pin in the map near Marengo, " there I shall fight and 
 beat him." 
 
 To make the movement a complete surprise to the enemy, 
 Napoleon conceived the idea of crossing the Alps. The general 
 who was sent to examine routes, proposed that of the Grand 
 St. Bernard, 1 but added that the undertaking would be " very 
 difficult. " " Difficult, of course," replied Napoleon ; " the only 
 question is, is it possible?" "Yes," was the response ; " providing 
 we make extraordinary efforts." " Enough," said Napoleon ; " let 
 us start at once." The march began at midnight (May 14, 1800). 
 It was soon found that the cannon could not be dragged on wheels 
 up the heights and through the snow. The guns were accordingly 
 taken from their carriages, and each was placed in a log hollowed 
 out to receive it ; then a hundred men were harnessed to the gun 
 and began to draw it forward. When the obstacles grew serious 
 and the team slackened its pace, the bands played lively music to 
 encourage them. When the snow grew so deep and the road so 
 steep that advance seemed impossible, the drummers beat the 
 charge. Then the men, with loud cheers, dashed forward as if 
 storming the enemy's works, and up went the guns. 
 
 Thus they advanced until they reached a narrow defile which 
 the Austrians had impregnably fortified. There the army sepa- 
 rated ; part went round the fort in single file, following a goat 
 track over the rocks ; the others dragged the artillery by in the 
 night, under a furious fire from the enemy. Thus within six days 
 Napoleon with thirty-five thousand men passed over a rocky, snow- 
 covered barrier more than eight thousand feet high, and came down 
 like an avalanche on the plains of Italy. 
 
 201. Battles of Marengo and of Hohenlinden. To the enemy 
 it was a complete surprise. For some time the Austrian general 
 refused to believe what seemed to him impossible. He denied 
 
 1 Pass of St. Bernard, northwest of Turin. The other principal passes are that 
 of Mont Cenis (west of Turin), and that of St. Gothard (northeast of Turin).
 
 246 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 that even Napoleon's military genius and marvellous energy could 
 in so short a time have transported a fully equipped army with 
 heavy artillery over such obstacles. But sceptic as he was, Marengo 
 convinced him that Napoleon was there. On the plains which the 
 First Consul had marked on the map, in the palace of the Tuileries, 
 the great battle was fought (June 14, 1800). The contest was an 
 obstinate one. By three o'clock in the afternoon the French had 
 been twice driven back. Then came the final struggle. " My 
 friends," said Napoleon to his soldiers, " we have had enough of 
 this. You know that it is my custom to sleep on the field of 
 battle." Then the fight began in earnest. When it ended, Napo- 
 leon and his men could sleep undisturbed on the triumphant field ; 
 for the Austrian general had surrendered, and the northwest of 
 Italy was once more in the hands of the French. 
 
 In Germany Moreau had an army of one hundred thousand at 
 Munich. 1 Near by was the little village of Hohenlinden, 2 situated 
 in a pine forest on the river Isar. Here, in December (1800), a 
 desperate battle was fought in the midst of a snowstorm so blind- 
 ing that the contending forces could only see each other by the 
 flash of their guns. Moreau gained a decisive victory, and the 
 emperor of Germany was compelled to beg peace in order to save 
 his capital of Vienna. The treaty of LuneVille, 3 in 1801, confirmed 
 to France all that the treaty of Campo Formio had granted. 4 Napo- 
 leon was to hold the left bank of the Rhine, with the entire Austrian 
 Netherlands. In Italy, the republics of the northwest were recog- 
 nized as dependencies of France, while Austria was confined to a 
 part of the country east of the Adige. 
 
 202. Successes of the English; Treaty of Amiens. But if 
 
 Napoleon was everywhere victorious on land, the English under 
 
 1 Munich (Mu-nik'). 
 
 2 " Few, few shall part, where many meet! 
 The snow shall be their winding-sheet, 
 And every turf beneath their feet 
 Shall be a soldier's sepulchre." CAMPBELL'S Hohenlinden. 
 
 3 Luneville (Lu-nay-veel). 4 See Paragraph 196.
 
 TREATY OF AMIENS. 247 
 
 Nelson still ruled the sea. They had already captured Malta, and 
 they now undertook to put a stop to all trade with France on the 
 part of the neutral nations of Europe. The kingdoms of Russia, 
 Prussia, Denmark, and Sweden had formed an armed league 
 against this action of England. But Nelson's fleet forced Den- 
 mark to withdraw from the league, and the death of the czar, then 
 Napoleon's friend, broke it up. 
 
 The English shortly after drove the French out of Egypt. Per- 
 haps the most important result of Napoleon's three years' occupa- 
 tion of that country was the antiquarian and scientific researches 
 made under his management in that ancient land. Among these 
 the discovery of the Rosetta Stone ranks first in importance, since 
 by means of it the fast-sealed treasures of Egyptian history were 
 made known. 1 
 
 In revenge for the loss of Malta and Egypt, with the breaking 
 up of the neutral league, which, of course, favored France, Napo- 
 leon began making preparations to invade England. In reality, 
 however, both nations desired at least a temporary peace, if but to 
 get ready for a final struggle. A treaty was therefore signed at 
 Amiens 2 in the spring of 1802. By this treaty France secured 
 the whole territory between the Pyrenees and the Rhine ; in other 
 words, the old boundaries possessed by primitive Gaul. 
 
 203. Napoleon chosen First Consul for Life; Sale of Louisi- 
 ana; Toussaint Louverture. The summer following, France 
 voted to make Napoleon First Consul for life, with the privilege 
 of choosing his successor ; and the constitution was reconstructed 
 in accordance with this change. Napoleon now virtually assumed 
 the absolute control of the Italian and Swiss republics, and also 
 undertook to regulate the affairs of Germany. It was evident that 
 
 1 Rosetta Stone : this is a slab of granite on which is cut an inscription in honor 
 of one of the Ptolemaic kings of Egypt. This inscription is in Greek, and is fol- 
 lowed by two copies, in the ancient Egyptian (hieroglyphic and demotic) characters. 
 The study of these characters, through the Greek, first gave the clew to the decipher- 
 ing of the inscriptions on the tombs and monuments of Egypt. The stone is now 
 preserved in the British Museum. 2 Amiens (Ah-mee-an').
 
 248 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORV. 
 
 the First Consul meant to magnify his new office, and make it 
 cover, not only the government of France, Belgium, North Italy, and 
 Switzerland, but as much more of Europe as would submit to his 
 dictation. Meanwhile, that he might better prepare for his great 
 combat with England, Napoleon sold the territory of Louisiana 1 
 to the United States for sixty millions of francs ; z thus gaining 
 a considerable sum, and at the same time strengthening the 
 United States, then England's rival and bitter enemy. " It is for 
 the interest of France," said he, in reference to this sale, " that 
 America should be great and strong." 
 
 Napoleon next sent an expedition to restore the revolted French 
 colony of San Domingo to its allegiance. The slaves, stirred by 
 the news of the Revolution, had risen and declared themselves 
 independent. Toussaint Louverture, a negro of remarkable ability, 
 had become ruler of the island, and proudly called himself " the 
 Bonaparte of the blacks." He submitted his constitution of gov- 
 ernment to Napoleon for his approval, and was willing to be guided 
 by him. But the First Consul would tolerate no second " Bona- 
 parte," not even if he was a negro three thousand miles from 
 Paris. He ordered Toussaint to be brought a captive to France. 
 Then, instead of showing himself a magnanimous conqueror, he 
 treated his humble foe with such rigorous cruelty that he soon 
 died. 3 Whatever other blots on Napoleon's character time may 
 mercifully efface, this deliberate murder of a helpless prisoner will 
 forever remain inexcusable and infamous. 
 
 204. Rupture of the Peace of Amiens; Plots against the 
 First Consul; Napoleon becomes Emperor. In the spring of 
 1803 the peace of Amiens was broken. England seized a large 
 number of French vessels, and Napoleon arrested and imprisoned 
 several thousand Englishmen who were travelling or residing within 
 
 1 See Paragraph 152. 
 
 2 The original price asked was eighty millions ; but Napoleon allowed twenty 
 millions to the United States for damages claimed by them, on account of the 
 French wars. 
 
 3 Some authorities state that he was starved to death in his dungeon.
 
 NAPOLEON BECOMES EMPEROR. 249 
 
 his dominions. The real cause of the war, however, was England's 
 refusal to give up Malta. The contest which thus began lasted 
 ten years. Before this, England and the kings of Europe had been 
 the aggressors, their object being to restore the Bourbons to the 
 throne of France ; but in the struggle which now commenced 
 Napoleon struck the first blow. 
 
 Plots, or pretended plots, were now discovered for the assassina- 
 tion of the First Consul, and the conspirators were summarily dealt 
 with. In one of them it was said that the Duke d'Enghien, 1 a 
 member of the French royal family, was involved. He was exe- 
 cuted on insufficient proof, and most authorities regard his death 
 as another case of judicial murder. 
 
 These conspiracies roused all France to the enthusiastic support 
 of Napoleon, and in order to show their loyalty, the people, by a 
 practically unanimous vote, now elected him Emperor (May 18, 
 1804). The December following, the Pope made a special journey 
 to Paris to give the sanction of the Church to the popular will. 
 He anointed the new sovereign " Emperor of the French " with 
 imposing religious ceremonies in the ancient cathedral of Notre 
 Dame. Napoleon then crowned himself and the weeping Jose- 
 phine, with his own hands, with a golden laurel wreath. It was a 
 significant act. It marked the beginning of a new order of royalty 
 in France. Louis XIV. and his successors declared that they ruled 
 by divine and hereditary right ; Napoleon acknowledged that he 
 derived his power from the choice of the nation. The next spring 
 he crossed the Alps, and, placing the ancient iron crown of Lom- 
 bardy on his head, received the title of King of Italy. 
 
 205. Preparation for the Invasion of England ; Trafalgar. - 
 
 England, Russia, and Austria joined forces against the new em- 
 peror and king. Napoleon retorted by resuming preparations for 
 the invasion of England. He organized a camp at Boulogne, 2 
 within sight of the English chalk cliffs of Dover. There he con- 
 structed powerful batteries to protect the gathering of his forces 
 
 1 D'Enghien (Don-ge-an'). g hard. 2 Boulogne (Boo-lon').
 
 25O LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 for embarkation. All France resounded with preparation for the 
 expedition against " perfidious Albion." The shipyards on every 
 river were busy day and night building gun-boats, barges, and 
 transports. 
 
 Napoleon's plan was to have Admiral Villeneuve, 1 with a com- 
 bined French and Spanish fleet, guard the Channel, while he 
 crossed with an army of one hundred and fifty thousand veteran 
 soldiers. 
 
 So confident did Napoleon feel of entire success that he antici- 
 pated the conquest of the British capital by ordering a gold medal 
 to be prepared, representing France as master of England, and 
 bearing the inscription, "Struck at London in 1804." But Nelson 
 was on the watch ; and although baffled for a time by Villeneuve's 
 cunning, he finally got an opportunity to attack him. 
 
 The battle was fought off Cape Trafalgar (Oct. 21, i8o5). 2 At 
 the cost of his own life, Nelson destroyed the French and Spanish 
 fleets so completely that Admiral Villeneuve committed suicide 
 rather than report the defeat to Napoleon. This victory gave the 
 English the absolute mastery of the ocean, and all fears of a 
 French invasion were now at an end. 
 
 206. Napoleon takes Vienna ; Battle of Austerlitz. A short 
 time before this disaster occurred, Napoleon had given up, or 
 at least indefinitely postponed, his projected attack on England. 
 Finding that Villeneuve, who was then cooped up in the harbor 
 of Cadiz, could not cooperate with him at the time appointed, 
 he suddenly broke camp at Boulogne, and turned all his forces 
 against Austria. That power had planned with Russia to surprise 
 Napoleon ; but the surprise was on the other side, for to their 
 amazement, he suddenly appeared before the city of Ulm. 3 There 
 he forced Mack, the Austrian general, to surrender ; and then set 
 off on his victorious march for Vienna. 
 
 1 Villeneuve (Veel-neuv). 
 
 2 Trafalgar (Tra-fal'gar) [English pronunciation] : on the southern coast of 
 Spain. 3 Ulm : Germany.
 
 BATTLE OF AUSTERLITZ. 251 
 
 Henceforth the French emperor adopted a different policy 
 toward his British enemies. We hear no more boastful talk about 
 leaping " that ditch," as he contemptuously called the English 
 Channel. Instead of that, Napoleon will mature a scheme for 
 starving England into submission, by endeavoring to shut out her 
 commerce from all the ports of Europe and America. 
 
 Meanwhile he advanced on the Austrian capital and entered it 
 in triumph. Less than three weeks afterwards, Napoleon en- 
 countered the combined forces of the czar and the German 
 emperor at Austerlitz (Dec. 2, I8O5). 1 Here his military genius 
 showed its pre-eminence in a series of marvellous combinations 
 and rapid strategic movements, which enabled him to gain one of 
 the most brilliant and also one of the most heartless successes of 
 his life. The enemy held a position of great advantage, and 
 largely outnumbered the French. But Napoleon by a feigned 
 attack drew them into a cunningly prepared trap, and they fell 
 entirely into his power. 
 
 As the Russians in retreat were crossing the frozen ponds at 
 the foot of the heights of Austerlitz, the French artillery, with 
 their grapeshot, cut down company after company as a stalwart 
 mower cuts down tall standing grass. 
 
 Napoleon, who was standing on an eminence, saw that the battle 
 was his, but he also saw how he could make the victory more 
 complete. He ordered the gunners to depress their cannon so 
 that the balls would strike the ice in front and behind the compact 
 mass of the retreating enemy. The plan succeeded perfectly. 
 Under a furious cannonade the ice gave way, and multitudes of 
 Russians were in an instant engulfed in the deep waters. This 
 massacre won the day. 
 
 "Soldiers," said the great destroyer to his men, "I am proud 
 of you. When you re-enter your homes you need but say, ' I was 
 at Austerlitz,' and you will be welcomed as a hero." The next 
 day Napoleon wrote to Josephine : 
 
 1 Austerlitz : in Austria.
 
 252 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 "3d Dec. 1805. 
 
 " / have beaten the Russian and Austrian armies commanded 
 by the two emperors. I am a little tired. . . . I go to sleep for 
 two or three hours. The Russian army is not only beaten, but 
 destroyed. I embrace you. NAPOLEON." 
 
 Napoleon granted peace on his own terms. Austria relinquished 
 all claims to Italy, and all influence over Switzerland. From the 
 cannon he had taken, the French emperor erected the magnificent 
 bronze memorial column which stood in Paris in the Place Ven- 
 dome, 1 until pulled down by the mob in 1871. 
 
 207. Reconstruction of Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands ; 
 Napoleon King of Kings. Next, the Emperor proceeded to re- 
 construct Germany. Francis II. was forced to give up the im- 
 perial crown, and was known henceforth as Emperor of Austria only. 
 The old German empire, which had stood for a thousand years, 
 and which was composed of several hundred discordant states, 
 was henceforth dissolved, and a league formed of sixteen of the 
 most powerful princes. These new states agreed to accept Napo- 
 leon as protector and virtual master. In one sense, it was a step 
 toward that unification of Germany which that country has since 
 accomplished. Napoleon's motive in forming the confederation 
 was to destroy the power of Austria and Prussia, in order that he 
 might aspire to become a second Charlemagne. 
 
 But this was only the beginning of the new system which Napo- 
 leon had conceived. He was resolved to rule over an empire 
 surrounded and guarded by a belt of dependent thrones. To this 
 end he now seized the kingdom of Naples, and placed the crown 
 on the head of his brother Joseph. Next, he converted the re- 
 public of the Netherlands into a monarchy, and gave it to his 
 brother Louis, with the title of King of Holland. Last of all he 
 carved out nineteen dukedoms in Italy, and bestowed them on 
 those who he knew would do his will. It was a grand system of 
 
 1 VendSme (Von-dome').
 
 DEFEAT OF PRUSSIA. 253 
 
 centralization with the newly made Emperor of France as supreme 
 arbiter and king-maker. But Napoleon, though not yet satisfied, 
 had for the present to turn his attention to other matters than the 
 aggrandizement of himself, his family, and his friends. 
 
 208. Defeat of Prussia ; the Berlin Decree ; Peace of Tilsit. 
 
 - The northern powers now became thoroughly alarmed at the 
 schemes of this man who threatened to get the control of all 
 Europe. A fourth coalition was formed against France, consisting 
 of England, Russia, Sweden, Saxony, and Prussia, a country that 
 had long stood neutral. The war recommenced (1806). In the 
 two tremendous battles of Jena 1 and Auerstadt, 2 fought on the 
 same day, Napoleon completely humbled the Prussian monarchy 
 so that its independence was nearly destroyed. Thus in the space 
 of a few hours his veteran troops accomplished what all the might 
 of Austria, France, and Russia had been unable to effect in the 
 Seven Years' War of the preceding century. 3 Napoleon then en- 
 tered the capital of Prussia, and there issued that Berlin Decree 
 which forbade all trade or intercourse with England (Nov. 21, 
 1806). The following year he issued a still more stringent decree 
 at Milan, for the purpose of extending and enforcing the former 
 measure. 
 
 The remnant of the Prussian forces united with the Russian 
 army and made a stand at Eylau, 4 where a fierce but indecisive 
 battle was fought. A few months later the French gained the 
 victory of Friedland, 5 and then the peace of Tilsit was made 
 (July, 1807). By that treaty Prussia had to give up a large part 
 of her territory. Out of a portion of it, lying west of the Elbe, 6 
 Napoleon created the kingdom of Westphalia. This he gave to 
 his brother Jerome, thus adding one more sovereign to the frontier 
 guard of honor of the French Empire, and one more sovereign 
 dependent on the " King of Kings." 
 
 1 Jena (Yay'nah). 4 Eylau (I'lou) : in Prussia. 
 
 2 Auerstadt (Ow-er-stett'). 5 Friedland (Freet'lant) : in Prussia. 
 
 3 See Paragraph 166. Elbe (Elb).
 
 254 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 209. Seizure of the Thrones of Portugal and Spain ; the Penin- 
 sular War. But there were still fields of conquest in the south- 
 west, and in order to complete the circle of dependent kingdoms 
 Napoleon must round out his acquisitions by getting possession. of 
 Spain and Portugal. This last-mentioned power was the friend 
 and ally of England, and was now the only important nation in 
 Western Europe which he had not compelled to shut its ports 
 against English trade, though his " Continental System," as he 
 called it, had nowhere been more than a partial success. He 
 tempted Spain to act as his ally. An army was sent to Lisbon, 
 and such was the fear of the French that that city succumbed 
 without resistance, and the king was driven into exile. Napoleon 
 next turned his attention to Spain. She was his friend, but in war 
 Napoleon knew no friends. He cunningly managed to get the 
 Spanish king into his power, compelled him to abdicate, and then 
 placed his brother Joseph, King of Naples, on the throne, giving 
 Joseph's former kingdom to his favorite, General Murat. 1 But the 
 Spaniards resented this appropriation of their country. They rose 
 in rebellion and forced Joseph to abandon the capital of Madrid, 
 and finally to give up all Spain except a portion bordering on the 
 Pyrenees. It was the first real reverse that Napoleon had met. 
 
 Meanwhile the English sent over an army under Sir Arthur 
 Wellesley (better known later as the Duke of Wellington), to 
 complete the work of driving out the French, and to restore 
 Portugal and Spain to their respective kings. Thus began in 1808 
 what was called the Peninsular War, which lasted for several 
 years. In a series of campaigns victory alternated to the side of 
 the English and the French. At length Napoleon had to draw off 
 the larger part of his forces and give all his attention to Russia, 
 and then Wellesley gained the day. Years afterward, when a cap- 
 tive at St. Helena, Napoleon said of his attack on Spain, " That 
 disastrous war was my ruin. It divided my strength, opened a way 
 for the English, and injured my reputation throughout Europe." 
 
 1 Murat (Mu-rah').
 
 QUARREL WITH THE POPE. 255 
 
 210. Quarrel with the Pope. Meantime the emperor of the 
 French had struck himself another suicidal blow. He quarrelled 
 with the Pope, who wished to remain neutral ; but Napoleon 
 insisted that, since His Holiness was a temporal sovereign, 1 he was 
 bound to aid him in shutting out English commerce from Europe. 
 
 Finally the Emperor sent an army to Rome and annexed it to 
 France. The Pope retorted by excommunicating him. Napoleon, 
 not to be outdone, carried off the Pope to France as a prisoner, 
 and kept him there as long as his power lasted. Such an act of 
 violence, to quote the words attributed to a noted man of that 
 day, " was worse than a crime ; it was a blunder." It united the 
 Catholic clergy of France and of all Europe against him, so that 
 in future he had powerful enemies at home as well as abroad. 
 
 The year following, Louis Napoleon, disgusted with his brother's 
 policy toward Holland, resigned the crown of that kingdom. The 
 Emperor then united it with France, saying that the country was 
 nothing but " the sediment of French rivers." 
 
 211 . Battle of Wagram ; Napoleon at the Height of his Power ; 
 Divorce and Marriage. Napoleon's want of success in the war 
 in Spain made him anxious to gain new victories elsewhere. He 
 accordingly provoked a quarrel with Austria. Russia was tem- 
 porarily his political ally; but England did all in her power to 
 thwart his movements. Austria, though not quite ready for the 
 contest, burned to revenge the humiliation of Austerlitz and to 
 recover the territory she had lost in Italy. She was also jealous 
 of the friendly relations of France with the czar. 
 
 In the war which ensued the Austrians gained some advantages, 
 but they were not permanent. The battle of Aspern, 2 though 
 rather in their favor, was by no means decisive. The crisis came 
 at Wagram 3 (July 6, 1809), when the Austrian army was utterly 
 overthrown. By the peace of Vienna which followed, France 
 gained still further cessions of territory. 
 
 Napoleon was now, seemingly, at the height of his power. " He 
 
 1 See Paragraph 22. 2 Aspern : in Austria. 8 Wagram : in Austria.
 
 256 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 had the air," one of his friends said, " of one walking in a halo 
 of glory." In fact, if we except his reverses in Spain, there 
 appeared to be no bounds to his success. He had extended 
 France to the shores of the Baltic on the north, and beyond 
 Rome on the south. 1 He had surrounded his imperial throne 
 with subject kingdoms under his brothers. To Louis he had given 
 the crown of Holland ; to Jerome, that of Westphalia ; to Joseph, 
 that of Spain. He was ready to place his remaining brother, 
 Lucien, on a throne whenever Lucien could make up his mind to 
 do his will. Two of his sisters were princesses, and the third was 
 queen of Naples. 
 
 On the battle-field he had beaten the mightiest armies of Europe, 
 and dictated his own terms of peace. He had driven the Bourbons 
 from Portugal and Spain, and expected sooner or later to secure 
 their dominions. 
 
 He had crippled if not paralyzed English commerce in a large 
 part of the world by his Berlin Decree. 2 He had filled Paris 
 with the splendid spoils of conquest. He had cast down the Pope 
 from power, and seized his possessions. He indeed appeared 
 irresistible. As a distinguished French statesman 3 said, " France 
 gave herself to him, absorbed herself in him, and seemed, at one 
 time, no longer to think except through him." 
 
 To make his glory complete, he must secure its transmission in 
 the line of his own descent. Napoleon was childless ; if he con- 
 tinued so, then when he died, the great empire would crumble. 
 He was resolved to ally himself by marriage with royal blood, that 
 he might found a family which should take its place at the head of 
 the ruling dynasties of Europe. 
 
 In accordance with this purpose, the Emperor sought and ob- 
 tained a divorce from Josephine. 
 
 He issued the proclamation announcing it from the palace of 
 Fontainebleau, 4 little thinking that in a few years he would be 
 
 1 See Map No. XIII., page 256. 2 See Paragraph 208. 
 
 3 Thiers. 4 Fontainebleau (Fon-taine-bloh') : near Paris.
 
 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 257 
 
 compelled to sign his abdication in the same palace. Then, in 
 1 8 10, he made the vanquished emperor of Austria give him the 
 hand of the Princess Marie Louise. By her he had a son in 1811, 
 who received the title of " King of Rome." But the marriage 
 was a fatal step. As an eminent French writer says, " When Na- 
 poleon divorced himself from the devoted Josephine, he seems to 
 have divorced himself from his good genius." From that time 
 his misfortunes began ; defeat was the rule, victory the exception. 
 Humiliation followed humiliation, until the final and irrecoverable 
 fall. 
 
 212. The Russian Campaign. In order to strike a blow .at 
 England, Napoleon now resolved to attack Russia, with whose ruler 
 he was no longer on good terms, since he had refused to close his 
 ports against English trade. The Emperor was determined to 
 bring the czar to terms, and, while he humbled him, to cripple 
 still further the commerce of his old enemy, England, boasting the 
 security of her island home. 
 
 The preparations for the invasion of the North were on a scale 
 commensurate with the importance of the object sought. Na- 
 poleon raised an army of six hundred thousand men. In the 
 summer of 1812 he crossed the Niemen, 1 and began his march on 
 Moscow. The policy of the Russians was to avoid an encounter. 
 They kept falling back. As fast as they retreated, they burned 
 their villages and fields of grain. Napoleon's army advanced 
 through a desolated country. It was a march from one pile of 
 smouldering ruins to another. There was something ominous in 
 such a campaign. At last, after ten weeks had elapsed, when 
 Napoleon had penetrated the country for nearly five hundred 
 miles, the enemy came to a stand. At Borodino a desperate 
 battle was fought, in which the French came off victors. The way 
 was now clear for an advance on Moscow. A week after his 
 
 1 Niemen (Nee'men), also called the Memel. Napoleon crossed the river in 
 Russian Poland, about ninety miles southeast of 'Tilsit. The upper dotted line on 
 the map (No. XII., page 238) shows the march to Moscow; the lower dotted line, 
 the retreat from that city.
 
 258 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 engagement at Borodino, Napoleon entered the ancient capital of 
 Russia (Sept. 14, 1812). 
 
 No one opposed him. The place was silent and nearly deserted. 
 Only the refuse 1 of the population remained. The French gave 
 themselves up to pillage and to festivity. Suddenly they discov- 
 ered, to their consternation, that the city was on fire. The troops 
 tried in vain to stop the flames. But the work of destruction had 
 been carefully planned. The Russians had applied the torch at 
 different points, and the fire speedily became a conflagration. 
 Even Napoleon was appalled. " Who would have believed," cried 
 he, "that any people would burn their own capital?" In five 
 days the city was in ashes, and the French were without shelter, 
 with but scant rations of food, and with the terrible Russian winter 
 drawing near. Still, something might have been done ; but for 
 once Napoleon seemed to have lost his power of decision. He 
 wasted precious time that he might have used either for an advance 
 or a retreat. 
 
 213. The Retreat from Moscow. Finally the word was given 
 to begin the retreat. No one can adequately realize what it must 
 have cost Napoleon's proud nature to utter such an order. Then 
 came the disastrous march through a country which was utterly 
 desolate. It was a funeral march ; for, even before the first flake 
 of snow fell, Napoleon had lost nearly a quarter of a million of 
 men, and over seventy thousand horses. The retreat continued 
 for eight weeks, the last part of it through drifting snow and amid 
 intense frost. It was such a battle as Napoleon had never waged. 
 It was one long, hopeless fight with hunger and cold. The ragged, 
 shivering, starving troops threw away their useless arms. They 
 staggered on, day after day, through the snow, until their strength 
 gave out and they fell to the ground. The falling flakes soon 
 covered them ; and hundreds of little white hillocks appeared, 
 each one of which showed where one or more dead soldiers lay. 
 
 On the outskirts of the sad procession the Russian cavalry 
 hovered to harass and kill. At last the miserable remnant of the
 
 NAPOLEON SENT TO ELBA. 259 
 
 imperial army reached and recrossed the Niemen, but few of 
 them ever gained their homes. France was decimated. There 
 was hardly a peasant's fireside where some grief-stricken mother 
 was not mourning for her son, left unburied, a frozen corpse, on 
 the plains of Russia. In all the sorrowful annals of the history 
 of war, this retreat stands out the most terrible and the most 
 disastrous. 
 
 It was at this time that Stranger's famous song appeared, in 
 which the French poet satirized the insatiable and ruinous ambi- 
 tion of Napoleon by his ironical picture of the " Good Little King 
 of Yvetot," 1 whose only crown was a cotton night-cap, who never 
 fought a battle, or cared a fig for glory. 2 
 
 214. The Defeat of Leipsic; Napoleon sent to Elba. Then 
 all Europe rose in a fifth coalition to crush the fallen giant. 
 England, Russia, Prussia, Sweden, Austria, massed a million of 
 men against France. But even then Napoleon would not yield. 
 He raised a second army. It was little better than " an army of 
 boys," for the country had few men left to give. The decisive 
 struggle came at Leipsic 3 in the autumn of 1813, and Napoleon 
 was beaten. The allied forces invaded France from both north 
 and south. Paris could not defend itself. The enemies' hosts 
 passed through her gates. They placed Louis XVIII., brother of 
 Louis XVI., 4 on the throne. Napoleon was forced to abdicate, 
 and, it is said, took poison, but without effect. He was now sent 
 an exile to rule over the island of Elba, in the Mediterranean. 
 That speck on the map of Europe was all the kingdom or domin- 
 ion he had left. 
 
 215. The Escape from Elba; The Hundred Days (March 20 
 to June 22, 1815) ; Waterloo. In less than a twelvemonth 
 (March i, 1815) he escaped to France. He marched in triumph 
 to Paris, and entered the capital on the 2Oth of March. Louis 
 
 1 Yvetot (Eve-toh'). 
 
 2 Beranger (Bay-ran-zhay') : see the poem in Thackeray's translation. 
 
 3 Leipsic : in Germany. 4 See Paragraph 194.
 
 26O LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 XVIII. had fled in dismay the day before. But Napoleon was no 
 longer what he had been. He had lost faith in himself. While 
 making preparations for the great and final combat with Europe 
 he said, " I have a presentiment of evil." 
 
 A congress of sovereigns was then sitting at Vienna re-arranging 
 the map of Europe. They had given the Belgians a king, and 
 allotted certain provinces on the Rhine to Prussia. The English, 
 under the Duke of Wellington, were in Belgium to establish their 
 new king on his throne ; and Bliicher, 1 the most famous of the 
 Prussian generals, was in the Rhenish provinces not far off with 
 another army. The plan was for the Russians to join forces with 
 the Prussians and English, and march on Paris. Napoleon decided 
 not to wait for them, but to invade Belgium and destroy Bliicher's 
 and Wellington's armies, one after the other, before they had an 
 opportunity to unite. 
 
 The Emperor crossed the Belgian frontier on June 14 (1815). 
 On the 1 6th an engagement took place with the enemy. The 
 great, final battle was fought on Sunday, June 18, at Waterloo, 2 a 
 hamlet about twelve miles southeast of Brussels. The allied 
 forces were nearly two to one of the French. 3 The rain had fallen 
 heavily all day Saturday, and the mud was so deep that the horses 
 could scarcely drag the cannon through it. While the church- 
 bells were ringing for morning service, the preparations for the 
 conflict were completed. The fight began about an hour later, 
 (11.30). 
 
 Wellington's policy was to hold his position until joined by the 
 entire Prussian force, which he hourly expected. But there was 
 delay. As the day wore on, and the " Iron Duke " saw line after 
 line of his men fall under the murderous French fire, he was heard 
 
 1 Bliicher (Bloo'ker). 
 
 2 Waterloo : see, by way of illustration, Victor Hugo's description of the battle 
 in his " Les Miserables," and Byron's lines beginning "There was a sound of 
 revelry by night," in " Childe Harold," Canto III. 
 
 8 Napoleon had 122,401 men, many of whom were veterans. Wellington had 
 105,950, " the worst army," he said, " ever brought together." Bliicher had a dis- 
 ciplined force of 116,897. Total allied army, 222,847.
 
 DIQQIQOQ 
 *
 
 WATERLOO. 26l 
 
 to say, "O that night or Bllicher would come !" On the other 
 hand, Napoleon was looking with equal anxiety for the coming of 
 a strong French division under General Grouchy. Toward even- 
 ing, Bliicher's forces arrived, but nothing was seen of Grouchy's 
 battalions. 
 
 The battle now grew desperate. As a last resort, Napoleon 
 ordered part of his Imperial Guard a body of picked veterans, 
 familiarly known as the " Old Guard" to charge the enemy. 
 They advanced, but only to fall back at last in confusion, cut to 
 pieces by a storm of grapeshot from batteries at the front, side, 
 and rear. Seeing the Guard retreat, the French lost all hope, and, 
 with a cry of despair, thousands turned and fled. But a remnant 
 of the Old Guard, taking up a position on an eminence, deter- 
 mined to hold their ground. The enemy were thirty to one against 
 them, and repeatedly summoned them to surrender. They refused, 
 saying, "The Guard dies, but never surrenders." Whether they 
 made this reply in words has been disputed, but no one has ever 
 disputed that they did better they acted it. 
 
 The enemy captured none but the wounded and the dying. As 
 the immortal three hundred fell at Thermopylae, so fell the remnant 
 of the Old Guard. 
 
 When all was over, Wellington said to Bliicher as they stood on 
 a height surveying the bloody field, " A great victory is the saddest 
 thing on earth, except a great defeat." 
 
 216. The Second Abdication ; St. Helena. Napoleon suc- 
 ceeded in escaping and reaching Paris. His presentiment of evil 
 was fulfilled. The end had come. Years afterward he said, " I 
 ought to have died at Waterloo." His brother tried to encourage 
 him to make one more effort, saying, " Dare." But " the spring 
 of that terrible will was broken," and he only answered, " I have 
 dared too much." 
 
 On June 22d he drew up his second act of abdication in which 
 he declared, " My public life is finished. I proclaim my son 
 Emperor of the French, under the title of Napoleon II." Thus
 
 262 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 ended the final period of the reign of Napoleon ; it had lasted not 
 quite a hundred days. 
 
 He intended to take refuge in the United States, but failed to 
 escape. Then, knowing that he had few friends in France, he 
 gave himself up to the English authorities. They, with the con- 
 sent of the other European powers, sent him a prisoner for life to 
 the desolate rock of St. Helena. There, in silence and solitude, 
 the man who had so long held the destinies of nations in his hands 
 spent six years of mental torture, " eating his own heart." There 
 he reviewed his past and wrote those memoirs of himself in which 
 he deliberately falsified history. He died May 5th, 1821, at the age 
 of fifty-two. In a codicil to his will he left ten thousand francs to 
 an officer who had attempted to assassinate the Duke of Wellington ; 
 saying that " the man had as much right to kill that oligarchist as 
 the latter had to send me to perish on the rock of St. Helena." 
 
 217. Estimate of Napoleon's Character and Work. The 
 secret of Napoleon's fall was his utter selfishness. He began nobly 
 by loving France ; he ended by caring only for himself. Theoreti- 
 cally he believed in God. He even rebuked the professed atheists 
 of his day by pointing to the starry heavens with the question, 
 " Gentlemen, who made all that?" But practically his god was 
 his own will ; to that he sacrificed everything. It is said that even 
 his own mother never believed in his apparent success, but was 
 constantly laying aside money to meet the final catastrophe. Much 
 as the great general professed to care for his adopted country, he 
 proved in many respects to be her worst enemy. 
 
 In twenty years his victorious armies had entered nearly every 
 capital on the continent of Europe, save St. Petersburg and Con- 
 stantinople. Milan, Rome, Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, Venice, Lisbon, 
 Brussels, Amsterdam, Moscow, not one had been able to resist 
 him. But to gain these short-lived triumphs Napoleon had drained 
 France of her young men. He left the country, at last, poorer, 
 weaker, and geographically smaller than he found it. 1 
 
 1 When Napoleon was chosen First Consul, France included, by the treaty of 
 Campo Formio (see Paragraph 196) Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine
 
 NAPOLEON'S CHARACTER AND WORK. 263 
 
 If we except his public works and his code, everything that he 
 undertook failed. Last of all, the son for whose sake he had 
 sacrificed Josephine, and who he hoped would succeed him, died, 
 and thus all possibilities of a Napoleonic dynasty ended. 
 
 But it would be a serious error to suppose that the career of this 
 mighty destroyer of men and builder of kingdoms had no lasting 
 results. On the contrary, he was a powerful agent for good. 
 Though he founded a military despotism, yet no man ever broke 
 more despotisms to pieces, or did more to lay the foundation of 
 constitutional monarchy. The principles of political liberty and 
 equality born of the French Revolution were disseminated by his 
 armies, and whatever progress has since been made in the recog- 
 nition of the rights of man, Europe owes it largely to the conquests 
 of Napoleon. 
 
 He humiliated Germany; but he helped her to throw off a 
 multitude of antiquated and oppressive restrictions. He first 
 stirred Italy to newness of life. He roused " the idea of national- 
 ity," and since his death the conviction that people of the same 
 blood ought to be under the same political rule " has been the 
 guiding influence in European politics." He also, as we have 
 seen, gave his sanction and contributed his thought to the estab- 
 lishment of that excellent digest of law the code Napoleon 
 which regulates the administration of justice for upwards of ninety 
 millions of men in the foremost ranks of civilization. 1 
 
 When Napoleon fell, a great reaction set in. The sovereigns of 
 Europe labored to destroy what he had done and to restore 
 monarchical privilege and prerogative at the expense of the 
 people. They succeeded in a measure ; they brought back the 
 form, but could not prevent that form from being permeated by 
 a different thought and spirit. Thus, in spite of them, their old 
 bottles were filled with new wine, which in the end proved damag- 
 ing to the bottles. Through the revolutions which have followed, 
 
 After his abdication the European powers reduced France to the old limits that 
 she had during the Revolution, as represented by Map No. XL, page 216. 
 1 See Paragraph 199.
 
 264 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 the leading European nations have been reconstructed in no small 
 degree according to the lines laid down by the great French 
 general. The books and pamphlets on this wonderful man fill 
 some hundreds of volumes. The judgments passed on him are 
 almost as numerous as the writers. However difficult it may be to 
 come to a conclusion in regard to his motives, the actual results 
 of his life are tolerably clear. Considering these, perhaps we shall 
 be justified in affirming that on the whole the world has good 
 reason to be thankful for, if not to, Napoleon. 
 
 218. Summary. The entire period covering nearly twenty 
 years is filled with this one great name. Through Napoleon's 
 energy and genius France emerged from the anarchy of the 
 Revolution, and became, outwardly at least, a strong, united, law- 
 abiding nation. Through his ambition she conquered, but then 
 lost, a large part of Europe. Finally, through the instrumentality 
 of Napoleon, the principles of constitutional and political progress 
 were to a large extent disseminated and eventually established.
 
 LOUIS XVIII. 265 
 
 XIV. 
 
 " France has not lost, and will not lose, courage. She is laboring; she is 
 hoping; and while endeavoring to find her proper path, she looks forward to 
 the day when revolutions will be at an end, and when liberty with order will 
 forever crown the long and painful efforts of her most faithful servants of 
 every name and period." GUIZOT DE WITT. 
 
 FRANCE SINCE NAPOLEON I. (1815- ). 
 
 Louis XVIII. (1815-1824). The Second Republic (1848-1852). 
 
 Charles X. (1824-1830). Louis Napoleon (1852-1870). 
 
 Louis Philippe (1830-1848). The Third Republic (1870- ). 
 
 219. Louis XVIII. 's Charter; Execution of Labedoyere and 
 Ney ; Humiliation of France. After the final fall of the 
 Emperor in June, 1815, Louis XVIII., a younger brother of Louis 
 XVI., resumed the crown which the unexpected return of Napo- 
 leon from Elba had forced him to lay aside. 1 The king dated his 
 accession from the death of his nephew, Louis XVII., in I795, 2 
 calling 1815 the twentieth year of his reign. By this convenient 
 fiction Napoleon was treated as a usurper not worthy of being 
 reckoned among the sovereigns of France, and the republic and 
 the empire were alike ignored. 
 
 The new ruler fully realized that "revolutions never go back- 
 ward," and that France as he found it was not the France that 
 existed before the days of the National Convention and the Reign 
 of Terror. He therefore bound himself to carry out the principles 
 of the liberal charter which he had granted on first ascending the 
 throne. 
 
 1 See Paragraph 215. 2 See Paragraph 194.
 
 266 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 That charter embodied the principles of the English constitution. 
 It established a limited monarchy and guaranteed the nation these 
 four fundamental rights : 
 I. Equality before the law. 
 
 II. Personal freedom. 
 
 III. Freedom of conscience or religious liberty. 
 
 IV. Freedom of the press. 
 
 Not long after the beginning of the reign General Labedoyere l 
 and Marshal Ney were tried and sentenced to death for the aid 
 they had given Napoleon after his escape from Elba. The Duke 
 of Wellington tried hard to save the life of the illustrious marshal, 
 who had fought at Waterloo, and on twenty bloody fields besides ; 
 but his efforts failed. Ney was shot as a traitor to that Bourbon 
 dynasty which after the Emperor's exile he had solemnly promised 
 to support. It was a sorrowful case, but according to the laws of 
 war Ney was justly condemned. A braver man never fell. To-day 
 his remains rest in an unmarked grave in the cemetery of Pere la 
 Chaise. 
 
 Meanwhile the conquerors of Napoleon forced France to sign a 
 treaty which humiliated her to the last degree. By it the nation 
 was obliged to pay 700,000,000 francs ($140,000,000) to the allies 
 for the expense they had incurred in the war, besides an enormous 
 bill of damages. Next, the country had to surrender a number 
 of important border fortresses on the northeast. Finally, France 
 bound herself to maintain, solely at her own expense, a frontier 
 garrison of one hundred and fifty thousand foreign soldiers for 
 three years. 
 
 Thus she was forced to pay for the rod with which she had been 
 beaten, and then to tie her own hands so that she should be help- 
 less to resist in the future. 
 
 220. The Second White Terror; Murder of the Duke of 
 Berry ; War with Spain ; Reactionary Policy ; Death of the 
 King. Louis XVIII. was himself a moderate and well-meaning 
 
 1 Lab6doy6re (Lah-bay-doy-air' ).
 
 THE SECOND WHITE TERROR. 267 
 
 man, but he could not withstand the constant pressure of the ultra- 
 conservative party. When they came into power, they permitted 
 that disgraceful persecution of the Bonapartists or adherents of 
 Napoleon which received the name of the White Terror. 1 No 
 less than seven thousand Bonapartists were cast into prison, and in 
 Marseille and other parts of the south many were murdered, their 
 houses pillaged, and their wives and children treated with horrible 
 cruelty and insult. 
 
 In 1820 the Duke of Berry, nephew to Louis XVIII. , was 
 murdered by a political assassin. The only motive was the man's 
 hatred of the Bourbon race, and his belief that the duke was most 
 likely, through his children, to carry forward the succession of 
 those princes. This event naturally inflamed the hostility and 
 bitterness of parties to a much greater degree, and so kept the 
 country in a state of feverish agitation. 
 
 Toward the close of his reign the king was forced into a war 
 with Spain. The czar of Russia had organized a league, with the 
 emperor of Austria and the king of Prussia, called the Holy 
 Alliance, which, notwithstanding its plausibly pious name and its 
 professed object of maintaining Christianity, was mainly intended 
 for the suppression of democratic ideas. The Spaniards rose in 
 revolt against the intolerably oppressive acts of their sovereign, 
 Ferdinand VII., and compelled him to accept a constitution limit- 
 ing his despotic power. Under the pressure of the Holy Alliance, 
 Louis was obliged to send troops to Spain to reinstate Ferdinand 
 in his former position, and thus to maintain by force of arms the 
 old abuses which his subjects had hoped to remedy. This war was 
 part of that policy which the Bourbon kings and their sympathizers 
 undertook to carry out all over Europe after the destruction of 
 Napoleon, and which was to give rise to new revolutions. 
 
 From this time Louis XVIII. became more and more the tool 
 of the party that was opposed to political progress. The liberty 
 of France was constantly infringed upon, education fell into the 
 
 1 It was really the Second White Terror. See Paragraph 192.
 
 268 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 hands of a narrow sectarian class, and even the holiday amuse- 
 ments of the people were suppressed. On these days the laboring 
 man was now compelled to attend church, while on all the others he 
 was kept busy working to pay taxes. His life therefore had but two 
 sides : one was enforced drudgery ; the other, enforced devotion. 
 Can it be wondered at, that henceforth the peasants and the hod- 
 carriers grew discontented? While engaged in these restrictive 
 measures, Louis XVIII. , an old, gouty, overgrown epicure, whose 
 very title was turned into a pun on his love of eating, 1 finished his 
 career and was gathered to his fathers (1824). He was the last 
 French king who died in France or was buried in French soil. 
 
 221. Charles X.'s Arbitrary Government; Greece; Algeria; 
 Coup d'Etat; Revolution. If Louis XVIII. 's face had been 
 turned partly toward the past, that of his successor, 2 Charles X., 
 was wholly set that way. He was anointed and crowned at Reims 
 with all the pomp and ceremony of the ancient Bourbon monarchs. 
 
 He professed to believe in the divine right of kings, 3 and even 
 went so far as to restore the long-obsolete custom of touching for 
 the cure of scrofula. 4 His policy was to govern France as though 
 she was wholly destitute of reason or power to govern herself. He 
 endeavored to re-establish the monastic institutions which the 
 Revolution had abolished, and to reinstate the Jesuits that Louis 
 XV. had expelled and the Pope suppressed. 5 He did all in his 
 power to indemnify the nobles who had fled from France, when 
 they should have staid and fought for her, by trying to have the 
 state pay them for the value of their confiscated estates. 6 
 
 Finally, in an evil hour for himself, he maddened Paris by dis- 
 banding the National Guard, which was largely made up of prudent 
 and conservative citizens opposed alike to revolution and to 
 
 1 Louis Dixhuit (Louis the Eighteenth), punningly called by the people, Louis 
 des huitres ( Oyster Louis) . 
 
 2 Charles X. : he was the youngest brother of Louis XVIII. Prior to his coming 
 to the throne he had the title of Count of Artois. 
 
 3 See Paragraph 148. 4 See Paragraph 150. 
 6 See Paragraph 167. 6 See Paragraph 180.
 
 CHARLES X.'S COUP D'ETAT. 269 
 
 tyranny. He also attacked the liberty of the press by attempting 
 to secure the enactment of a law restricting the publication and 
 sale of all books and newspapers except such as should be approved 
 by a committee in sympathy with himself. Fortunately the bill 
 failed to pass the upper house of the Legislature : had it succeeded, 
 nearly all literary production, whether good or bad, would have 
 come to a standstill. It was a measure characteristic of the Middle 
 Ages rather than of the nineteenth century, and it shows the 
 policy of the man who supported it. 
 
 During the remainder of his brief reign the king " shifted about 
 from contradiction to contradiction and from inconsistency to 
 inconsistency." Fortunately he was obliged to make some con- 
 cessions to the liberal party, and to remove the Jesuits from the 
 control of the schools and colleges. Abroad, however, France 
 gained a glory she could not boast at home. In alliance with 
 England and other powers she assisted Greece to throw off the 
 barbarous rule of the Turks ; and by a war with the Dey of Algiers 
 (1830), that city was captured, and a large and flourishing French 
 colony was established in Northern Africa. To-day Algeria is 
 considered the most valuable dependency possessed by the na- 
 tion. 1 
 
 The king's policy at home irritated the liberal party in the high- 
 est degree. At the elections of 1830 they gained a complete 
 victory. Charles, far from heeding the warning, now determined on 
 a coup d'etat? On the morning of July 26 he issued five ordi- 
 nances. The first abolished freedom of the press. The second 
 dissolved the new liberal legislature. The third took away the 
 ballot from all but property-holders. The fourth summoned a 
 new legislature elected under this restrictive law. The fifth nomi- 
 
 1 The area of the organized part of Algeria is a little less than 123,000 square 
 miles, or considerably more than half that of France. The population is about 
 4,000,000. The Algerian Sahara, to be added to the above, is estimated to have 
 an area of 135,000 square miles, with a population of about 50,000. The colony 
 carries on a very large and lucrative commerce, most of which is with France. 
 
 2 Coup d'etat (Koo-day-tah') : a violent, unexpected, and unconstitutional act 
 by a king or governing power.
 
 27O LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 nated a Council of State, composed of those who sympathized 
 wholly with the king. 
 
 The result of these arbitrary measures was a revolution, which 
 in three days (July 27, 28, and 29) l made Charles realize that he 
 was no longer wanted by the majority of the people, and that not 
 even the army would fight for him. He accordingly abdicated, - 
 went to England, and thence to Austria, where he died in 1836. 
 
 222. Louis Philippe and La Fayette; the King's Liberal 
 Policy ; Political Parties. In the Revolution of 1830 the vener- 
 able La Fayette, then past threescore years and ten, was made 
 chief of the revived National Guard. For a short time he held 
 absolute power, and might perhaps have secured the abolition of 
 monarchy had he so chosen. But he acquiesced in the desire of 
 Guizot, Thiers, 3 and other leading men who favored Louis Philippe, 
 Duke of Orleans, as successor to Charles X. The Duke was 
 accordingly invited to act as lieutenant-general of the kingdom as 
 a preparatory step to his receiving the crown. 
 
 General La Fayette called on him to pay his respects. " You 
 know," said he to the Duke, " that I am a Republican, and consider 
 the constitution of the United States as the most perfect that ever 
 existed." "So do I," replied the Duke; "but do you think that 
 in the present condition of France it would be advisable for us 
 to adopt it?" "No," answered La Fayette ; "what the French 
 people need now is a popular throne surrounded by institutions 
 that are wholly republican." " That," rejoined the Duke, " is just 
 my opinion." 
 
 Not long after this conversation Louis was offered the crown. 
 He accepted it, and took the title of " Louis Philippe, King of 
 
 1 The Column of July, in the Place de la Bastille, commemorates those who fell 
 in the Revolution of 1830. 
 
 2 Charles abdicated in favor of his grandson, Henry, Duke of Bordeaux (later, 
 known as Henry, Count of Chambord). He died in 1883. He was the last repre- 
 sentative of the older Bourbons and of the Ultra-Royalist or Legitimist party. The 
 Count of Paris, grandson of Louis Philippe, is considered to be his political suc- 
 cessor. 3 Thiers (Tee-air').
 
 POLITICAL PARTIES. 27! 
 
 the French," as Napoleon had called himself " Emperor of the 
 French." 1 He was a liberal Bourbon, a member of the Bourbon- 
 Orleans family, and the very opposite of Charles X. He was popu- 
 larly known as " the citizen king." The new sovereign affected 
 little state or ceremony, discarded royal robes, and announced his 
 intention of standing by the revised charter, 2 and of favoring true 
 political liberty. 
 
 Four parties divided France, i . The Legitimists, who wished to 
 restore the hereditary Bourbon line 3 and carry out the old narrow 
 Bourbon policy as nearly as possible as it existed before the great 
 Revolution. 2. The Constitutionalists, who supported the reigning 
 king, and believed in a monarchy limited by a written charter or 
 constitution similar to that of England. 3. The Bonapartists, who 
 wished to place a member of that family on the throne. 4. The 
 Republicans, who declared that kings had had their day, and what 
 France wanted was "government of the people, by the people, and 
 for the people," after the example set by America. Of the four 
 parties the last was the most determined, and in many ways the 
 most formidable. 
 
 223. Riots; Labor Troubles; Effects of the Revolution of 
 1830; Belgium; the Cholera. Shortly after Louis Philippe's 
 accession the Legitimists held a commemorative service over the 
 remains of the murdered Duke of Berry. 4 The Republicans and 
 the Paris rabble attacked the church where the services were con- 
 ducted, threw the priests' vestments, the crucifix, and communion 
 plate into the Seine, and sacked the archbishop's residence. This, 
 and several subsequent riots were quelled with fire-engines, a 
 kind of cold-water artillery, quite as effectual as grapeshot, and 
 which had the advantage of breaking no bones, shedding no blood, 
 and making no martyrs. 
 
 1 See Paragraph 204. 
 
 2 The charter given by Louis XVIII., revised so as to make it still more liberal. 
 See Paragraph 219. 
 
 3 See Genealogical Table, page 304. 4 See Paragraph 220.
 
 2/2 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 The next year (1831) there were strikes and labor insurrections 
 at Lyon and elsewhere, followed by an attempt of the Legitimists 
 to overturn the government and put their candidate, the son of 
 the widowed Duchess of Berry, on the throne. 
 
 Meanwhile the Revolution of 1830, which had driven Charles X. 
 from France, was making its influence felt in Europe. In England 
 that great movement set in toward reforming and extending the 
 right of suffrage, which resulted in the passage of the memorable 
 Reform Bill of 1832. In Brussels a revolt broke out against the 
 Dutch king of the Netherlands, who had been put in power by that 
 Congress of Vienna that hated political progress and popular rights. 
 The revolt was successful, and in July, 1831, Belgium obtained its 
 independence and chose its own sovereign, who took the title of 
 King of the Belgians. The change was an advantage to both 
 Holland and Belgium. The people of the two countries differed 
 in blood, in language, and in religion ; one being Dutch, the other 
 French ; one Protestant, the other Catholic : now that each was 
 left free to govern itself in its own way, prosperity ensued for both. 
 
 The year after was marked by the outbreak in March of a fright- 
 ful, malignant epidemic of a new kind, soon to become familiar 
 under the name of Asiatic cholera. In six months it carried off 
 nearly twenty thousand victims in Paris alone ; and the fatal disease 
 did not cease until it had gone round the globe and returned to its 
 original home in the East. 
 
 Three days after the scourge appeared, a masked ball was given 
 in Paris. Among the dancers several personated the cholera. 
 Suddenly at midnight one dancer after another fell shrieking to 
 the floor. The ball was broken up. Fifty victims were carried 
 to the hospital, many of whom a few hours later were buried in 
 their masquerade dress. 
 
 224. Attempts to assassinate the King 1 ; Louis Napoleon's 
 conspiracy. In 1835 several attempts were made to murder the 
 king, and from that time he continued to have his life threatened 
 by desperate men. One evil effect of these violent efforts to
 
 LOUIS NAPOLEON S CONSPIRACIES. 2/3 
 
 change the government, not by law, but by the bullet and the 
 dagger, was the enactment of a number of severe laws respecting 
 the press. These were intended to put a stop to the publication 
 of articles inciting insurrection and assassination, but at times they 
 were used by those in power to check the legitimate utterance of 
 the daily journals, and so increased the ill-feeling. 
 
 Prince Louis Napoleon, nephew of Napoleon I., crossed the 
 frontier from Switzerland in 1836, and entering Strasburg tried to 
 rouse that city to rebellion in his favor. The undertaking had no 
 results, except that the prince was promptly arrested and sent out 
 of the country to New York. A few years later he had the 
 audacity to make a second attempt. This time he came from 
 England and landed at Boulogne. He had with him a tame 
 eagle which was probably intended to remind the French, in a 
 theatrical kind of way, of the imperial eagles which figured on the 
 arms of the first Napoleon. But the conspiracy proved as tame 
 and harmless as the pet bird of its originator. Nobody was seri- 
 ously hurt, still less killed, and the would-be emperor was sent to 
 the castle of Ham l to meditate on his misadventure. His sen- 
 tence was for life ; but after six years' confinement he managed to 
 escape to England, to make a third and successful attempt, in a 
 different way, at a later period. 
 
 225. Science ; the Photograph ; Literature. But the political 
 history of any period, however important, is at best but half the 
 history of a people's life. If society owes much to its statesmen, 
 it owes no less, perhaps, to its inventors, its scientists, and its great 
 writers. The French, it is true, have never been prominent in the 
 field of practical science and the inventive arts. The triumphs of 
 steam, electricity and labor-saving machines belong to the Anglo- 
 Saxon race. The French list of noted inventions in the last two 
 centuries is a short one : it includes Montgolfier's 2 balloon, which 
 has never yet proved of any practical worth ; the celebrated 
 
 1 Ham (Hon) : a fortress and prison in the Department of the Somme, in the 
 northwest of France. 2 Montgolfier (Mon-gol-fee-ay') : 1799.
 
 274 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 Jacquard 1 loom for weaving all kinds of figured stuffs ; an im- 
 proved form of water-wheel for driving machinery ; 2 the Mini 3 
 rifle ; and last, but greatest of all, the wonderful and world-wide- 
 known invention or discovery of Daguerre. 4 
 
 It had been known for centuries that if a room be made wholly 
 dark with the exception of a small aperture left to admit a ray of 
 sunlight, that the result will be a dim sun-picture of outside objects 
 represented on the wall. The same thing would of course result 
 if a box were used instead of a room, and it was found that by- 
 placing a convex lens in the aperture the brilliancy of the picture 
 on the side or bottom of the box was greatly increased. Such a 
 box, called a camera, was a well-known toy, though occasionally it 
 had been utilized by draughtsmen, who copied the outlines of the 
 picture in pencil. 
 
 The question was, could these pictures be in any way made 
 permanent? That was the problem the French scene-painter, 
 Daguerre, set himself to solve. As early as 1825 a lady went to 
 the distinguished chemist, Dumas, 5 to ask his opinion on the 
 matter. She had a deep interest in his answer, for the French 
 artist, like Palissy, the discoverer of porcelain, 6 was spending all 
 his time and money in experiments which brought in nothing but 
 vexatious disappointment. The lady said to Dumas : " I am the 
 wife of Daguerre, the painter. He is possessed with the belief 
 that he can find a method of fixing the sun-pictures of the camera 
 
 1 Jacquard (Zhah-kar') : 1801. 
 
 2 A turbine wheel, invented by Fourneyron in 1836. 
 
 8 Minie : commonly pronounced Min'ne. Col. Minie invented his rifle about 
 1850. 
 
 4 Daguerre (Dah-gair') : 1789-1851. He began life in Paris as a scene-painter. 
 There, in connection with a friend, he invented the diorama. Later he commenced 
 a series of experiments in photography with the help of Niepce (Nee-eps'), a French 
 chemist, who made important discoveries in the art ; Daguerre, however, was the 
 first to turn them to practical account. The first pictures were taken on plates of 
 highly polished metal, and received the name of Daguerreotypes, which was soon 
 superseded by that of photographs. 5 Dumas (Du-mah'). 
 
 6 Palissy, the potter, a celebrated French potter of the sixteenth century. He 
 succeeded, after years of experiments, in discovering the secret of making porcelain.
 
 DAGUERRE. 275 
 
 on metal or paper. Do you, sir, as a man of science, believe it 
 can be done, or is my husband insane?" Dumas replied : "In 
 the present state of our knowledge we are unable to do what your 
 husband is attempting ; but I cannot say that it will always be so, 
 still less can I say that I think him mad because he seeks to 
 accomplish it." 
 
 Fourteen years passed away, fourteen years of renewed effort 
 and of renewed disappointment. Then, in 1839, Arago, the dis- 
 tinguished French astronomer, announced in the Paris Academy of 
 Sciences that Daguerre had triumphed in his hand he held 
 up to his delighted audience the first perfect photograph. Since 
 then photography, like printing, has encircled the globe. Like 
 printing, too, it disseminates knowledge, reproducing not what 
 men think, but what they see. The scientific and practical uses 
 of this art are constantly extending, and Arago did no more 
 than justice to Daguerre's invention when he declared that it 
 would finally take its place with the greatest of those of the 
 present century. 
 
 In literature and art France, during this and the preceding 
 periods since the coming in of the century, was prolific in works 
 of a high order of merit. We have the poets, Che'nier, 1 and 
 Be"ranger; 2 the novelists, Madame De Stael, 3 Balzac, George 
 Sand, and last and greatest, Victor Hugo. In philosophy and 
 science we find Cousin, 4 Comte, 5 La Place, 6 Arago, and Cuvier 7 ; 
 with the essayists and historians, Chateaubriand, 8 Lamartine, 
 Sismondi, Guizot, 9 Michelet, 10 Martin, 11 De Tocqueville, 12 and 
 Sainte-Beuve; 13 lastly, the artists, Vernet, 14 Houdon, and Dela- 
 roche. 15 
 
 1 Chenier (Shay-nee-ay'). 9 Guizot (Gwee-zoh'). 
 
 2 Beranger (Bay-ron-zhay'). 10 Michelet (Meesh-lay'). 
 
 3 De Stael (Deh Stahl). n Martin (Mar-tan'). 
 
 4 Cousin (Koo-zan'). 12 De Tocqueville (Deh Toke-veel'). 
 6 Comte (Kont). 13 Sainte-Beuve (Sant-Buv'). 
 
 6 La Place (Lah Plahss'). 14 Vernet (Ver-nay'). 
 
 7 Cuvier (Ku-vee-ay'). 15 Delaroche (Deh-lah-rosh'). 
 
 8 Chateaubriand (Shah-to-bre-on').
 
 2/6 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 226. The Spanish Marriages ; Political Banquets ; Revolution 
 of 1848. In 1846 the queen of Spain married her cousin, and 
 on the same day the king's youngest son married the queen's 
 sister, This last alliance united the Spanish and French Bourbons. 
 The English were strongly opposed to the union, since they feared 
 that it might lead eventually to an extension of Louis Philippe's 
 power to Spain. The liberal party in France were likewise 
 alarmed, and the excitement was increased by the belief that the 
 king had some deep design in bringing about the marriage of his 
 son, which the English declared was done in violation of a sol- 
 emn agreement that Louis Philippe was to defer the nuptials until 
 the queen of Spain should become mother to an heir to the 
 crown. 
 
 The crisis of disaffection was reached in 1848. The great mass 
 of the people were still without the ballot and had no direct voice 
 in making the laws they were commanded to obey. Great reforms 
 had taken place in this respect in England, and the French work- 
 ingman now asked for the same rights that his fellow-toilers 
 enjoyed on the other side of the Channel. 
 
 Banquets were held at which fiery speeches were made, demand- 
 ing new concessions of political power to the people. The govern- 
 ment determined to suppress these expressions of feeling. The 
 attempt was made, and resulted in the Revolution of February, 
 1848. The king, believing it useless to resist the mob, abdicated 
 and fled to England that favorite refuge for monarchs retired 
 from business. Hordes of drunken ruffians then sacked the palace 
 of the Tuileries and threatened to reduce Paris to chaos. The 
 French Revolution excited the Chartists or Radical party in Eng- 
 land to demand new political reforms, 1 which, though refused at the 
 time, were conceded in great measure at a later date. Similar 
 movements began in nearly every capital of Europe ; so true is it 
 that what is done in France is almost sure to be repeated or 
 attempted elsewhere. 
 
 1 See " The Leading Facts of English History."
 
 REPUBLICANS VERSUS COMMUNISTS. . 2// 
 
 227. The Provisional Government; Bepublicans vs. Commu- 
 nists ; National Workshops. A provisional government was now 
 established, of which Lamartine was the real head. The inscrip- 
 tion "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" words which mean much 
 or little, according to their interpretation and application was 
 then ostentatiously painted in large letters on all public buildings, 
 and also, as a means of conciliating the mob, on many private 
 ones. 
 
 There were two leading parties in Paris : the moderate Repub- 
 licans under Lamartine ; and the Communists, who demanded an 
 equal division of property, who wanted the state to provide work, 
 and whose symbol was the Red Flag meaning " Bread or Blood." 
 
 Barricades still existed in the streets, and the Socialists or 
 Communists threatened to overthrow the Republicans as the 
 Republicans had overthrown the monarchy. Lamartine resolved 
 to try to pacify the mob by appealing to reason. " What do you 
 want?" he asked. "Your head," shouted one of the crowd. "I 
 only wish you all had it on your shoulders," retorted the states- 
 man ; " then you would show more sense." Shouts and laughter 
 greeted this sally, and the rabble grew good-natured. 
 
 But the Communists were determined that the state should 
 do that impossible thing find or make employment for all who 
 demanded it. Through their influence National Workshops were 
 established. These shops soon had about forty thousand persons 
 on the government pay-roll, at wages which began with five francs 
 ($1.00) a day, but before long diminished to six francs ($1.20) a 
 week. The shops turned out a disastrous failure. They not only 
 ran the state in debt some 15,000,000 of francs ($3,000,000) in a 
 few months, but, what was worse, they seriously disturbed regular 
 business, and weakened that individual power of self-help which is 
 worth infinitely more to every man than any amount of government 
 assistance. 
 
 The result was that the great body of citizens became disgusted 
 with the very name of National Workshops, and called for their 
 abolition. An order was accordingly issued requiring a certain
 
 2/8 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 proportion of the workmen to enlist in the army or else provide 
 for themselves. This order gave rise to a new and desperate 
 insurrection on the part of the Communists. Paris became a 
 battle-field ; thousands of lives were lost, and at one time it 
 seemed as though the city would be transformed into a veritable 
 Red Republic. 
 
 228. The Second Republic ; Louis Napoleon ; Italy; the Coup 
 d'Etat ; Napoleon HI. Finally the Republican forces triumphed 
 over anarchy, and in December, 1848, Louis Napoleon was elected 
 by universal suffrage president for four years of the second French 
 Republic. He declared, " My name is a symbol of order, nation- 
 ality, and glory " ; the country people believed in him as they had 
 believed in the first Napoleon ; to this fact he mainly owed his 
 success in getting the position he coveted. But the Legislative 
 Assembly had learned to distrust the principle of universal suffrage, 
 and now endeavored to limit it. The ground for this action was, 
 first, the belief that most of the peasantry were too ignorant to be 
 trusted with the ballot ; and secondly, that if they continued to 
 hold it, designing men would secure their votes to keep themselves 
 permanently in power. Though Napoleon used his influence to 
 prevent it, the Assembly ultimately carried a bill restricting suffrage. 
 
 Meanwhile Italy, feeling the effects of the recent French revo- 
 lution, had risen and endeavored to throw off the Austrian yoke. 
 An insurrection in Rome caused the flight of the Pope, and under 
 the influence of Garibaldi and Mazzini l a republic was proclaimed. 
 Louis Napoleon, it is said, had pledged himself years before to 
 favor Italian liberty ; now, however, he sent troops to crush the 
 Roman republic and reinstate the Pope. This action secured him 
 the ardent support of the Church. 
 
 At home a struggle of a different kind was going on. According 
 to the terms of the newly adopted constitution the president of 
 the French Republic could not become a candidate for re-election 
 until four years after his term of office had expired,, Louis Napo- 
 
 1 Mazzini (Mat-zee'ne).
 
 LOUIS NAPOLEON S COUP D ETAT. 
 
 Icon's term would end in 1852. If the law was carried out, he 
 could not run again until 1856^ That was too long for him to 
 wait, and he resolved to try what a coup d'etat^ would do in his 
 favor. He made his preparations carefully and quietly, by putting 
 his friends in the most important offices, by creating new generals 
 favorable to his designs, and by gaming the good will of the army. 
 When all was ready, the coup d'etat took place. At midnight of 
 December i, 1851, the chief opposition members of the Legislative 
 Assembly were arrested and hurried from their beds to prison cells. 
 Paris was filled with troops who held the city completely in their 
 power. The next morning the citizens woke up to find themselves 
 helpless to resist, and to read the following proclamation which 
 was posted throughout the metropolis : 
 
 i. The Legislative Assembly is dissolved. 2. Universal suffrage 
 is restored. 3. Under the provision of universal suffrage a new 
 general election is called for December i4th. 4. Paris and 
 suburbs are declared in a state of siege and subject to military 
 law. 5. The Council of State is dissolved. 
 
 Some attempts at revolt were made, in which several hundred 
 lives were lost, but nothing was gained. Louis Napoleon sent 
 many of the imprisoned legislators into exile, 2 or transported 
 them, with others who resisted his power, to the pestilential 
 marshes of the penal colony of Cayenne. 3 
 
 Then he promulgated a new constitution which among other 
 changes made the presidential term of office ten years instead of 
 four, and which greatly increased the president's power. This 
 condition was accepted by the country by a very large vote in 
 its favor. Napoleon was now sure of his position. There was but 
 one step more for him to take to secure all that he desired. In 
 less than a year he had taken it and reached the summit of his 
 
 1 See Paragraph 221. 
 
 2 Among those thus banished was the distinguished author, Victor Hugo. He 
 retired to the island of Guernsey. The next year he published his satirical histori- 
 cal work, entitled " Napoleon le Petit " ( " Napoleon the Little "). 
 
 3 Cayenne : in South America.
 
 28O LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 ambition. On November 21, 1852, by an almost unanimous 
 vote, France made him emperor.' On December ist he took the 
 title of Napoleon III. The next year he married the Countess 
 Eugenie, 1 a Spanish lady of great beauty. 
 
 229. Public Improvements; the Crimean War; the War in 
 Italy ; Mexico. It is reported that the first Napoleon, when told 
 that the people of Paris were discontented, said, " Well, gild the 
 dome of Les Invalides," one of the principal public buildings, 
 " this will give them something to look at." Acting, perhaps, on 
 the same principle, the new emperor began his improvements in 
 the city. Where there had been mazes of narrow, crooked, and 
 filthy streets, he laid out magnificent boulevards, straight as an 
 arrow a clear field for grapeshot if needful and paved with 
 asphalt, which no mob could dig up for barricades. At the same 
 time he built a system of sewers superior to that of any capital in 
 Europe or America. Thus both above ground and under ground 
 the metropolis was benefited. But the debt thereby created was 
 enormous ; taxes increased proportionately, and rents rose with 
 them. For a time, however, all went prosperously. Thousands of 
 workmen were employed at good wages, speculators and contrac- 
 tors made fortunes, and every one agreed that under the emperor's 
 hand the most beautiful city in the world had now become more 
 beautiful than ever. 
 
 In 1854 Napoleon formed an alliance with England against 
 Russia, and engaged in that Crimean War which was undertaken to 
 repel the advances of Russia in Turkey. The allies attacked the 
 fortress and city of Sebastopol, on the Black Sea, and after nearly a 
 year's siege succeeded in taking them. Peace was then made, 
 and Turkey was accordingly secured, for the time, against Russian 
 interference for either good or ill. 
 
 Five years later the Emperor began a war against Austria, osten- 
 sibly in behalf of Italy. He declared that that country should be 
 rescued from her cruel oppression. The Italians under Victor 
 
 1 Eugenie de Montijo, Countess of Teba.
 
 THE WAR IN ITALY. 28 1 
 
 Emmanuel were endeavoring to establish their independence as 
 a nation. The great body of the French people strongly sympa- 
 thized with their efforts, and the war undertaken to assist them 
 was highly popular. "Italy," said Napoleon, "shall be free from 
 the Alps to the Adriatic." Louis Napoleon, however, was not fight- 
 ing merely for sentiment. He had made an agreement with Victor 
 Emmanuel, by virtue of which the latter was to give him Savoy 
 and Nice to annex to France as a recompense for his help. The 
 French and Sardinians were successful in the campaign, and gained 
 the victories of Montebello, Magenta, and Solferino. Had they 
 pushed on, the whole of Italy might soon perhaps have been united 
 under its chosen king. Suddenly, without apparent reason, to the 
 astonishment of all Europe, Napoleon met Francis Joseph, emperor 
 of Austria, at Villa Franca, 1 and concluded a peace whereby the 
 Italians felt themselves sacrificed to Austria and the Pope, though 
 Lombardy was added to the dominions of Victor Emmanuel. 
 Napoleon came out of the war with some military glory and with 
 the two additions (Savoy and Nice) which he had coveted for 
 France. The mystery of the treaty of Villa Franca has since been 
 explained ; and it is now known that the threatened interference 
 of Prussia and other German states in behalf of Austria forced the 
 French emperor to make peace. 
 
 During the Civil War in the United States the French emperor 
 was secretly hostile to the Union party, and took advantage of our 
 position to endeavor to establish a Mexican empire under the 
 rule of Maximilian of Austria. Undoubtedly any stable govern- 
 ment would have been an advantage to that distracted country, 
 but it was probably ambition, not love of Mexico, which animated 
 the whole scheme. The project, however, failed. The United 
 States refused to recognize Maximilian, and demanded that Na- 
 poleon should withdraw his troops. He accordingly ordered their 
 departure. Then Maximilian's wife, the Empress Carlotta, sought 
 an interview with the French sovereign, and in tears and on her 
 
 1 Villa Franca: near Verona, Italy. See J. R. Lowell's poem, " Villa Franca."
 
 282 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 knees begged him to keep his promise, and support her husband 
 with his troops two years longer, according to the terms of a secret 
 treaty. The Emperor refused, he probably could not have done 
 differently and the unfortunate woman soon after went mad. A 
 year later (1867) Maximilian was shot, and thus ended Napoleon's 
 much-boasted " Latin Empire in the West." 
 
 230. The Suez Canal ; the Franco-Prussian War. But if the 
 Emperor failed in one quarter of the globe, one of his subjects 
 brilliantly succeeded in another. Lesseps, 1 a French diplomatist 
 and civil engineer, accomplished one of the greatest engineering 
 triumphs ever undertaken. After ten years' labor and the expen- 
 diture by a stock company of 300,000,000 of francs ($60,000,000) 
 he completed (1869) the Suez ship-canal, by which the waters of 
 the Mediterranean and the Red Seas are united. The work had 
 been pronounced impossible by many good judges, and even the 
 most eminent English engineers were sceptical of its accomplish- 
 ment; but in this case French capital and energy converted them. 
 The canal has not only been a financial success, but has had a 
 most important influence on European trade. Ships which for- 
 merly had to go round the Cape of Good Hope to reach India 
 and China now save many thousands of miles by this short cut to 
 the East, and tea, coffee, spices, and other products of Oriental 
 countries have been rendered not only more accessible, but vastly 
 cheaper than before. 
 
 There had long been an ill-feeling smouldering between France 
 and Germany, growing originally out of the old Napoleonic wars, 
 but recently from an effort of Louis Napoleon to acquire by pur- 
 chase the Duchy of Luxembourg 2 which Germany declared should 
 never become part of France. This dispute came near bringing 
 on a war between the two countries in 1866 ; but the conflict was 
 postponed until 1870. That year the throne of Spain having be- 
 
 1 Lesseps (La-sep'). 
 
 2 The king of Holland, who was also Grand Duke of Luxembourg (a duchy 
 northeast of France), thought it for his interest to sell the duchy to Napoleon.
 
 FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. 283 
 
 come vacant, it was offered to Prince Leopold, an officer in the 
 Prussian army, and a relative of the Prussian king. He asked and 
 received the king's permission to accept it ; but finding that France 
 was strongly opposed, withdrew his name in order not to excite 
 hostilities. Not satisfied with this, Napoleon demanded that 
 the king of Prussia should bind himself by an autograph letter 
 never to support Prince Leopold as a candidate for the Spanish 
 crown. Count Bismarck, the Prussian prime minister, declined to 
 lay this demand before that monarch. Not long after, the French 
 ambassador chanced to meet the king in a public walk at Ems, 
 and imperiously requested him to give the desired pledge. King 
 William indignantly refused to consider the matter at such a time 
 or in such a place, and, later, notified the French ambassador that 
 he would not be admitted to an audience at the royal palace. 
 Napoleon considered, or affected to consider, this action of Prussia 
 as an insult, and declared war (July 19, 1870). France was utterly 
 unprepared to begin the contest ; but such was the ignorance of 
 the people respecting the real condition of the army, and such 
 the infatuation of the war party, that all Paris echoed with mad 
 cries of " On to Berlin ! " 
 
 The Emperor, at the head of a poorly equipped body of troops, 
 marched northward and took up his headquarters at Metz, whence 
 he purposed crossing the Rhine into Germany. 
 
 But instead of waiting to be thus invaded, Germany pushed her 
 troops fonvard, and they, with faces set toward Paris, invaded 
 France. The consternation and indignation at the capital were 
 so great when it was learned that the Prussians were actually on 
 French soil, that it was said that had the Emperor returned then, 
 he would have been torn to pieces before he reached the Tuileries. 
 
 After several engagements, the French marshal, MacMahon, fell 
 back toward Chalons with his army of one hundred and sixty thou- 
 sand men, while his coadjutor, Marshal Bazaine, after a desperate 
 struggle, was driven within the fortifications of Metz. The German 
 forces at once laid siege to that place, and Bazaine found himself 
 with the main part of the French army shut up where he was
 
 284 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 powerless to help either France or himself. Marshal MacMahon 
 was now ordered by Napoleon to march to the relief of Bazaine ; 
 but he was so strongly pressed by the Germans that he could 
 accomplish nothing. Eventually he reached the neighborhood 
 of Sedan. 1 There, on September ist, a great battle was fought, 
 which resulted in the decisive defeat of the French. The evening 
 following, the Emperor sent this letter to the king of Prussia, 
 
 " Not being able to die at the head of my troops, I can only resign 
 my sword into the hands of Your Majesty" 
 
 Thus ended the rule of Napoleon III. ; he, with MacMahon 
 and eighty thousand prisoners of war, fell into the hands of the 
 enemy. 2 Three days later (Sept. 4, 1870), Gambetta rose in 
 the Legislature, and declared the Emperor deposed and France 
 a republic. Bazaine held out in Metz until October 27, when 
 he, with six thousand officers and upwards of one hundred and 
 seventy thousand men, laid down their arms. Bazaine was after- 
 ward tried and sentenced to degradation and death for not having 
 done his duty by France. The sentence, however, was commuted 
 to twenty years' imprisonment, from which he effected his escape 
 in 1874. 
 
 231. The Third Republic; the First Siege of Paris; the 
 Treaty. A provisional government for defence was organized, 
 with Thiers and Gambetta as its chief men. An attempt was then 
 made to put Paris into condition to hold out against the German 
 army, which was soon to lay siege to it. 
 
 During the siege, which lasted nearly four and a half months 
 (Sept. 19, 1870, to Jan. 30, 1871), food became so scarce that 
 the inhabitants were forced to eat horses, dogs, cats, rats, and 
 finally, even the wild beasts of the Zoological Garden. The dis- 
 tress during the cold weather was terrible. People retreated to 
 their cellars to keep warm, and also to escape the Prussian shells. 
 
 1 Sedan : in the northeast of France, Department of Ardennes. 
 
 2 After Napoleon's release he went to England, where he died in 1873. His 
 son, Prince Napoleon, was killed in the Zulu war in 1879. The Empress Eugenie 
 still resides in England.
 
 TREATY OF PEACE. 285 
 
 Thousands of beautiful trees in the parks and boulevards were cut 
 down for fuel, and the proud city was thus stripped of one of her 
 chief ornaments. 
 
 Meanwhile the king of Prussia had established his headquarters 
 at Versailles, in that magnificent palace which Louis XVI. was 
 forced to leave at the outbreak of the Revolution of 1789. In 
 the great " Hall of Mirrors " of that royal edifice, on January 18, 
 1871, the Prussian monarch was proclaimed Emperor of Germany, 
 and France was obliged to submit to the humiliation of knowing 
 that her victorious enemy had made the grandest of her historic 
 palaces commemorate his assumption of supreme power. 
 
 All attempts on the part of the French army of Paris to raise 
 the siege proved fruitless. Finally, as it was evident that the city 
 could not continue to hold out, a preliminary treaty of peace was 
 made on February 26 (1871). By the terms of that treaty, the 
 provisional government acting for France agreed to give up all 
 of German-speaking Lorraine, about half of the province, 
 together with the important fortress of Metz, and the whole of 
 Alsace. Furthermore, France bound herself to pay war damages 
 to the amount of 5,000,000,000 of francs ($1,000,000,000), and 
 in addition a part of the German army was to hold possession of 
 French soil until the debt was discharged. 
 
 On the ist of March a body of the Emperor's troops entered 
 Paris under that triumphal arch which the first Napoleon erected 
 to commemorate the glory of his victorious battles. 
 
 The next year, on an appointed day (Sept. 30, 1872), the inhab- 
 itants of Alsace were compelled to choose between becoming Ger- 
 man citizens or leaving the province. Nearly fifty thousand decided 
 to pass over into France. It was a melancholy procession ; those 
 crowds of men, women, and children, forced to abandon their 
 homes, their fields, the graves of their fathers, or else "lose the 
 name of Frenchmen, and renounce their country and their flag." 
 To most of them it meant loss of nearly all that they possessed, 
 and the suffering which resulted was so great that subscriptions 
 were taken up in their behalf all over Europe, and in Mexico and
 
 286 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 the United States, New York alone sending forty thousand francs. 
 In the great square of the Place de la Concorde in Paris stand 
 eight statues representing the chief provincial cities of France. 
 On national holidays the statues, with one exception, are gayly 
 decorated with the tri-color; the exception is Strasburg, which 
 stands for the lost province of Alsace that marble figure is always 
 draped in mourning. 
 
 232. The Commune; the Second Siege of Paris. After the 
 evacuation of Versailles by the Germans the provisional government 
 under Thiers established itself there. Now was to begin the second 
 siege of Paris ; Frenchmen fighting against Frenchmen for the 
 possession of the city. The Paris Commune, a revolutionary 
 organization, united with the National Guard. They believed that 
 Thiers and his associates had betrayed their country in making 
 peace with Germany. They closed the gates of Paris, and from 
 that time for more than two months (March 18 to May 21, 1871), 
 an armed force of two hundred thousand men had complete con- 
 trol of the metropolis, which they wished to make practically 
 independent of the provisional government and of the rest of 
 France. Probably a majority of these men were Socialists of the 
 extreme type, believing in the abolition of private property in 
 land and the possession of private capital. Many of them were 
 simply Anarchists and Destructionists, of the same class which 
 we have lately seen in this country. The Commune closed the 
 churches, dispersed the nuns and sisters of charity from their 
 houses, and pulled down the Vendome Column commemorating 
 the wars of Napoleon I. 
 
 From time to time they made sallies on Versailles. In one of 
 these a number of their leaders were captured by the forces under 
 Thiers. In reprisal, the Commune seized the venerable Archbishop 
 Darboy, a man whose life had been spent in deeds of charity 
 among the poor, also the President of the Court of Cassation 
 " the highest judicial dignitary in France " and sixty-four priests, 
 besides a number of other citizens. These they held as hostages : 
 later, they deliberately massacred them.
 
 DEFEAT OF THE COMMUNE. 287 
 
 On the 2ist of May (1871) the government forces under Mar- 
 shal MacMahon succeeded in entering Paris. When the Commune 
 found that they must succumb, they resolved to destroy the city. 
 Barrels of gunpowder were placed in the Cathedral of Notre Dame 
 and other churches. Bands of men and women carrying cans of 
 petroleum to feed the flames, set fire to the palace of the Tuileries, 
 the Hotel de Ville, the Palais Royal, the Courts of Justice, and 
 many other public buildings. MacMahon's troops by great efforts 
 extinguished the conflagration ; but the two edifices first men- 
 tioned, with many others of less note, were reduced to piles of 
 blackened ruins. 
 
 The insurgents were gradually driven back by the troops. They 
 made their last stand in the cemetery of Pere la Chaise and 
 vicinity. There hundreds of men, women, and children were 
 mowed down with bullets and grapeshot, and their mutilated 
 bodies fell dead and dying among the shattered tombs. Thus for 
 the time ended the Commune. It had destroyed property to the 
 amount of 500,000,000 of francs ($100,000,000). The number of 
 killed was estimated at twenty thousand. But though beaten with 
 such terrible loss, it is still the boast of one of its leaders l that the 
 dispersed ashes of the dead Communists will "sow the fields of 
 revolution whose final triumph is certain." 
 
 233. Completion of the Organization of the Third Republic ; 
 National Prosperity and Progress. When order was finally 
 restored, the organization of the Third Republic was completed 
 by the election of Thiers to the presidency 2 (Aug. 31, 1871). The 
 
 1 P. Vesinier, secretary of the Commune de Paris. 
 
 2 The present constitution of France was framed by the National Assembly in 
 1875, and revised in 1884, and again in 1885. It vests the legislative power in two 
 houses, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The President of the Republic 
 holds his office for seven years. The Deputies or Representatives are elected by 
 universal suffrage for a term of four years. Seventy-five of the Senators were origi- 
 nally chosen for life, but now all new Senators are chosen for nine years. The 
 Assembly meets annually in January. The President's salary is 1,200,000 francs 
 ($240,000). Senators receive 9000 francs ($1800) ; and Deputies, 5000 francs 
 (Siooo). Bills may originate with either house, but all financial measures must
 
 288 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 term of office, originally four, was later changed to seven years. 
 Of the three first presidents Thiers, MacMahon, and Grevy 1 
 the last was the only one to complete his term of office, and he 
 resigned in his second term. It remains to be seen whether 
 Carnot, 2 the present chief magistrate of the Republic, elected in 
 1887, will be able to hold his place. 
 
 Napoleon III. said, when he ascended the imperial throne, that 
 "the Empire means Peace"; yet he embroiled France in disas- 
 trous wars which ended in his own ruin. The Republic has shown 
 by its deeds that it means peace, and under it France has pros- 
 pered. " Happy is that country," says the old maxim, " that has 
 no history" whose course is so uneventful and quiet that there 
 is nothing to record. For the past eighteen years France has had 
 no history none at any rate that demands being recorded here. 
 There have been, of course, political agitation, political struggles, 
 political scandals what country, indeed, is free from them? 
 The Jesuits and the Bourbon princes have been expelled 3 acts 
 which, perhaps, had better not have been committed ; but there 
 
 pass the Chamber of Deputies first. The President may declare war, but only with 
 the previous assent of the two houses. 
 
 The area of France is 204,092 square miles. The population according to the 
 last census (1881), is 38,218,903, or 187 to the square mile. Of the population, 
 29,201,703 are Catholics ; 692,800 Protestants ; 53,436 Jews, and 7,684,906 of no 
 declared religion. All religions are placed on a legal equality ; and all having 
 100,000 or more adherents are entitled to government aid, which reaches a total 
 annual expenditure of 45,743,563 francs ($9,148,710). 
 
 France has an excellent system of public schools, ranging from compulsory 
 primary to high and collegiate, besides many technical, industrial, and other special 
 schools. All of these are supported either wholly, as in the case of the primary, or 
 partially, by the government at an annual cost of 133,048,190 francs ($26,609,638). 
 
 The total public debt is 36,000,000,000 francs ($7,200,000,000) . 
 
 The standing army consists of 525,711 men supported at a cost of 694,934,530 
 francs ($138,986,906). The navy has 393 vessels, of which 17 are first-class iron- 
 clads. The strictly national debt is $6,400,000,000. 
 
 Commerce : total imports, 4,270,772,000 francs ($854,154,400) ; total exports, 
 3,319,774,000 francs ($663,954,800). 
 
 1 Grevy (Gra-ve'). 2 Carnot (Kar-noh'). 
 
 3 The Jesuits were expelled by President Grevy in i8?Q ; the Bourbon princes 
 and the Bonapartes in 1886.
 
 GENERAL SUMMARY. 289 
 
 have been no revolutions, no costly wars, no oppression of the 
 people, no serious restriction of liberty of thought and expression. 
 Progress has been the rule, not the exception, and France ranks 
 to-day the second great republic of the world. 
 
 That shrewd, practical philosopher, Benjamin Franklin, declared 
 that he believed that the moral condition of men depends in no 
 small degree on their pecuniary condition. " It is hard," said he, 
 " for an empty bag to stand upright." France, certainly, has no 
 need to learn this lesson, for her industry and thrift are remarka- 
 ble. No people in Europe labor more diligently, none save a 
 larger proportion of their earnings. Whatever sturdy independ- 
 ence the accumulation of property can give, they possess. The 
 evidences of the material prosperity of the country are unmistaka- 
 ble. Notwithstanding the loss of over nine thousand square miles 
 of territory, and over two millions of inhabitants by the forced sur- 
 render of Alsace and Lorraine, France, in her crippled condition, 
 paid off a war debt of a thousand millions of dollars in less than 
 two years ! What other nation can show such a record as that? 
 Since that debt was paid the country has gained enormously in 
 general wealth and well-being. It has doubled the length of its 
 railways and telegraph lines, increased its agricultural products, 
 extended its manufactures, and multiplied its books, newspapers, 
 and schools. 
 
 Better than all, however, is the progress that the people have 
 made in self-government, in that individual enterprise which begins 
 and carries through great works, and in those industrial associa- 
 tions and partnerships which aim permanently to reconcile the 
 true interests of labor and capital. 
 
 234. General Summary ; Conclusion. On the title-page of 
 this book the following quotation from one of the foremost histo- 
 rians of this century may be found : " There is hardly any great 
 idea, hardly any great principle of civilization, which has not had to 
 pass through France in order to be disseminated." 
 
 Perhaps in closing this brief history we cannot do better than
 
 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 ask how far the facts presented in this volume justify such a state- 
 ment. Let us begin with the earliest times. 
 
 I. We know that Roman civilization had a most important influ- 
 ence on Europe. If we inquire how that influence was preserved, 
 we must look to France as one of the chief agents in the work. 
 It was in Gaul that the Latin language took root. There, Roman 
 law and Roman culture were perpetuated, so that it is not too 
 much to say that whatever the world has gained from these sources 
 it owes much of it to France. 
 
 II. After the fall of Rome, Feudalism organized society on a 
 new basis, the holding of land by terms of military service and 
 the fidelity of man to man. However imperfect that system, it 
 was evidently an advantage at the time : it secured a degree of 
 order and prosperity that would otherwise have been impossible. 
 It found its earliest and its most complete development in France, 
 and from France it was transplanted in a modified form to England. 
 
 III. Consider the Crusades. They brought Europe into direct 
 and vital contact with the civilization of the East. They extended 
 geographical knowledge. They brought in new products, new 
 ideas, and finally, were the means, directly or indirectly, of effect- 
 ing great and salutary political and social changes. Well, the 
 Crusades, as we know, began in France. Throughout their course 
 until the last crusade, which ended with St. Louis, France took a 
 very prominent, if not, indeed, the chief part. Whatever advan- 
 tage resulted from them, France must have the credit in large 
 measure. 
 
 IV. Let us turn to Education. In this respect France undoubt- 
 edly led the nations of the Middle Ages. " The University of Paris 
 was the first great intellectual centre of Europe." Scholars flocked 
 to it by thousands from England and the countries of the continent. 
 Through its influence knowledge was kept alive and disseminated, 
 so that, in one sense, the French university was the mother of all 
 that were subsequently founded throughout the world. 
 
 V. With respect to Religious Toleration we find that France was 
 likewise the pioneer. The Edict of Nantes was, as we have seen.
 
 GENERAL SUMMARY. 2QI 
 
 the first formal recognition, by any leading nation of Europe, of 
 the principle of liberty of conscience. Unfortunately the Edict 
 was revoked in the course of the next century ; but it had set the 
 example, and such examples are never wholly lost. 
 
 VI. We come next to Political Liberty and Constitutional 
 Monarchy. Here the pre-eminence belongs to England. Her 
 charters of rights, her people's parliaments, had no parallel in 
 France until the Revolution. But, on the other hand, the prin- 
 ciple that "all men are created equal," that they should have 
 equal rights and privileges, before the law, that principle which 
 is the corner-stone of the Constitution of the United States, had 
 its origin and earliest expression in France. To France Europe 
 is indebted very largely for the progress of this salutary truth and 
 for its embodiment in legal forms and safeguards. 
 
 VII. In Industrial Civilization and in the Physical Sciences, 
 it is the Anglo-Saxon race that again stands pre-eminent. France 
 did not discover the law of gravitation, did not build the first rail- 
 way, launch the first steamship, or send the first telegraphic mes- 
 sage j but she first tunnelled the Alps, showed the world the first 
 photograph, built the first inter-oceanic ship canal, and may yet 
 complete the second. 
 
 VIII. Finally, let us take up Literature. Here, in two impor- 
 tant respects, clearness of expression and range of influence, 
 France is acknowledged to stand at the head of the countries of 
 Europe. 
 
 Sir James Stephen J says, " The palm of habitually expressing the 
 most profound thoughts in the most simple and intelligible forms 
 of speech, must be awarded not to England, but to France." 
 Lord Macaulay, 2 in speaking of England and France, says, "The 
 literature of France has been to ours what Aaron was to Moses 
 the expositor of great truths, which would else have perished for 
 want of a voice to utter them with distinctness. . . . Isolated in 
 
 1 Stephen's " Lectures on the History of France" (Lecture XVIII., " Power of 
 the Pen in France"). 
 
 2 Macaulay "s Essays (Walpole's Letters to Sir Horace Mann).
 
 292 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 our situation, isolated by our manners, we found truth, but we did 
 not impart it. France has been the interpreter between England 
 and mankind." 
 
 Such is a brief summary of the influence of the people whose 
 history we have been examining. It shows us that France has 
 originated much and disseminated more. The Anglo-Saxons are 
 colonizers of nations the French, of ideas. For this reason, the 
 movements which are now taking place in the great trans-Atlantic 
 republic will be watched with interest, since experience proves that 
 what France is thinking and attempting to-day, Europe may, quite 
 likely, be thinking and attempting to-morrow.
 
 PRINCIPAL DATES IN FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 293 
 
 SUMMARY OF THE PRINCIPAL DATES IN FRENCH 
 
 HISTORY. 
 
 [The * marks the most important dates. 
 The ? marks the dates that cannot be given with exactness.] 
 
 I. THE EARLIEST PERIOD. 
 
 Greek colony of Massalia (Marseille) founded 
 
 in Gaul, 597? B.C. 
 Roman colony of Province (Provence) 
 
 founded in Gaul, 125 B.C. 
 Battle of Aix, 102 B.C. 
 
 II. THE ROMAN PERIOD. 
 
 *Cassar conquers and occupies Gaul, 58-51 
 B.C. 
 
 Christianity introduced into Gaul, 160? A.D. 
 
 Persecution of Christians begins, 170? 
 *Constantine tolerates Christianity, 313. 
 
 German invasion of Gaul begins, 350? 
 
 Julian proclaimed Emperor at Paris, 360. 
 *Battlc of Chalons, 451. 
 
 III. THE MEROVINGIAN PERIOD. 
 
 *Clovis begins the Merovingian line of kings, 
 
 481. 
 *Conversion and baptism of Clovis, 496. 
 
 Conquers and consolidates the greater part 
 of Gaul, 500-511. 
 
 His kingdom divided among his sons, 511. 
 
 Rise of Austrasia and Neustria, 558? 
 
 Wars of Brunhilda and Fredegonda, 570-613? 
 
 Mayors of the Palace become prominent, 600? 
 
 Dagobert, 628-638. 
 
 Mayoralty of Pepin begins, 680. 
 *Battle of Testry, 687. 
 
 Mayoralty of Charles Martel begins, 715. 
 *Battle of Tours, 732. 
 
 IV. THE CAROLINGIAN PERIOD. 
 
 Pepin begins the Carolingian line of kings, 
 752- 
 
 *The " Donation of Pepin " establishes the 
 
 temporal power of the Pope, 755. 
 Charlemagne, 768. 
 Campaign in Lombardy, 773. 
 Donation to the Church, 774. 
 Battle of Roncesvalles, 778. 
 Conquers the Saxons, 772-803. 
 Establishes the schools of the palace, 788. 
 *Is crowned Emperor of the West, 800. 
 Struggle of the descendants of Charlemagne 
 
 for the Empire, 841. 
 *Oath bf Strasburg (marks the beginning of 
 
 the French language) , 842. 
 *Treaty of Verdun (marks the beginning of 
 the kingdoms of France, Germany, and 
 Italy), 843. 
 Invasion of the Northmen and Siege of Paris, 
 
 885. 
 
 *Settlement of Northmen in Western France 
 (Normandy), 9x1. 
 
 V. HOUSE OF CAPET. 
 
 *Hugh Capet, first king of France proper, 
 987. 
 
 The feudal system completely organized, 987 ? 
 
 Robert, 996. 
 
 Expectation of the end of the world, 999. 
 
 Henry I., 1031. 
 
 The Truce of God, 1033. 
 
 Philip I., 1060. 
 
 *William, Duke of Normandy, conquers Eng- 
 land, 1066. 
 *The first crusade, 1095. 
 
 Louis VI., 1108. 
 *Beginning of the rise of free towns, 1112. 
 
 War with England, 1119. 
 
 Condemnation of the teachings of Abelard, 
 1X99.
 
 294 
 
 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 Louis VII., 1137. 
 
 Philip Augustus, 1180. 
 *University of Paris established on a ftrm 
 
 foundation, 1200. 
 
 *Philip conquers Normandy, 1202-5. 
 *Crusade against the Albigenses begins, 1208. 
 *Battle of Bouvines, 1214. 
 
 Louis VIII., 1223. 
 
 Louis IX. (Saint Louis), 1226. 
 *He establishes the Parliament of Paris, 1258. 
 
 Leads the last crusade against the Moham- 
 medans, 1270. 
 
 Philip III., 1270. 
 
 *He grants the first patent of nobility to a 
 commoner, 1274? 
 
 Philip the Fair, 1285. 
 
 He seizes Aquitaine, 1295. 
 
 Battle of Courtrai, 1302. 
 
 Quarrel with the Pope, 1302. 
 *First States-General summoned, 1302. 
 
 Removal of the Papacy to Avignon (" Baby- 
 lonish Captivity "), 1309. 
 
 Persecution and suppression of the Templars, 
 1312. 
 
 Louis X., 1314. 
 
 Philip V., 1316. 
 
 Charles the Fair, 1322. 
 
 VI. HOUSE OF VALOIS. 
 
 Philip VI., 1328. 
 
 *Beginning of the Hundred Years' War with 
 England, 1337. 
 
 Battle of Sluys, 1340. 
 *Battle of Cre"cy, 1346. 
 *Gunpowder begins to be used in war, 1346. 
 
 Edward III. takes Calais, 1347. 
 *Acquisition of Dauphine, 1349. 
 
 John the Good, 1350. 
 *Battle of Poitiers, 1356. 
 
 Etienne Marcel and the States-General, 1357. 
 
 The Jacquerie, 1358. 
 *Treaty of Bretigny, 1360. 
 
 Charles V., 1364. 
 
 Charles VI., 1380. 
 
 Wars between the Armagnacs and the Bur- 
 
 gundians, 1410. 
 *Battl of Agincourt, 1415. 
 *Treaty of Troyes, 1420. 
 
 Charles VII., 1422. 
 *Joan of Arc raises the siege of Orleans, 1429. 
 
 Charles VII. is crowned at Reims, 1429. 
 
 Joan of Arc burned, 1431. 
 *Institution of a standing army and of fixed 
 
 taxation to support it, 1445. 
 *Conquest of Aquitaine, 1453. 
 
 End of the Hundred Years' War, 1453. 
 
 "The New Learning," 1453. 
 
 Louis XI., 1461. 
 *Establishes communication by post, 1464. 
 
 Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, 1467. 
 *Louis XI. introduces printing into France, 
 1469. 
 
 * Acquires Burgundy, 1477. 
 
 * Acquires Provence, 1481. 
 *Rise of Tiers Etat, 1484. 
 
 Charles VIII., 1483. 
 
 First Bible printed in French, 1488. 
 *Acquires Britanny, 1491. 
 *Begins Italian wars, 1494. 
 *The Renaissance begins in France, 1494? 
 
 Louis XII., 1498. 
 
 Francis I., 1515. 
 
 Continues the Italian wars, 1515. 
 *Sends exploring expeditions to America, 
 1524. 
 
 Persecutes the Protestants, 1535. 
 *Calvin writes his " Institutes," 1536. 
 *Rabelais writes, 1536? 
 
 Peace of Crespy, close of the Italian wars, 
 
 1544- 
 
 Vandois massacre, 1545. 
 
 Henry II., 1547. 
 
 Takes Metz, Toul, and Verdun, 1552. 
 
 War with England and Spain, 1557. 
 *The French take Calais, 1558. 
 
 Francis II., 1559. 
 
 Charles IX., 1560. 
 
 Conspiracy of Amboise, 1560. 
 
 Massacre at Vassy, 1562. 
 
 Huguenot wars begin, 1562. 
 *Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 1572. 
 
 Henry III., 1574. 
 *The Catholic League, 1576. 
 *Montaigne writes his " Essays," 1580. 
 
 VII. HOUSE OF BOURBON. 
 
 Henry IV., 1589. 
 *Battle of Ivry, 1590. 
 
 Conversion of the king to Catholicism, 1593. 
 *Edict of Nantes (establishes religious tolera- 
 tion), 1598. 
 *Beginning of the French colonization of 
 
 Canada, 1603. 
 Louis XIII., 1610. 
 
 *States-General meets; the Tiers Etat prom- 
 inent, 1614. 
 
 *Richelieu takes La Rochelle (end of Protes- 
 tantism as a political power), 1628. 
 *First French newspaper (" Gazette de 
 France "), 1631.
 
 PRINCIPAL DATES IN FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 295 
 
 France joins in the Thirty Years' War, 1635. 
 
 Louis XIV., (Ministry of Mazarin), 1643. 
 
 Battle of Rocroy, 1643. 
 
 Part of Alsace joined to France, 1648. 
 *The Fronde, 1648. 
 
 *PascaI writes his " Provincial Letters," at- 
 tacking the Jesuits, 1658. 
 
 The king becomes his own prime minister 
 (reforms of Colbert begin), 1661. 
 
 Colbert begins the great French canals and 
 other improvements, 1668 ? 
 
 First Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1668. 
 
 Secret Treaty of Dover with Charles II. of 
 England, 1670. 
 
 War with the United Provinces (Holland), 
 1672. 
 
 Louis conquers Franche Comte', 1674. 
 
 Peace of Nimeguen, 1679. 
 
 Louis seizes Strasburg, 1681. 
 *Eminent orators, authors, and artists : Bossuet, 
 Bourdaloue, Massillon, Fenelon, Corneille, 
 Racine, Moliere, La Fontaine, Boileau, 
 La Bruyere, Rochefoucauld, Madame de 
 S^vign^, Descartes, Pascal, Poussin, 
 Claude Lorraine, 1635-1699. 
 *Propositions of Bossuet establishing inde- 
 pendence of the French Church in great 
 measure, 1682. 
 
 *Louis revokes the Edict of Nantes (see 1598), 
 1685. 
 
 Increased severity of the Dragonnades, 1685. 
 
 Devastation of the Palatinate, 1689. 
 
 Battle of La Hogue, 1692. 
 *Peace of Ryswick, 1697. 
 
 War of the Spanish Succession begins, 1701. 
 
 Revolt of the Camisardes, 1685-1703. 
 *Battle of Blenheim, 1704. 
 
 Battle of Oudenarde, 1708. 
 
 Battle of Malplaquet, 1709. 
 *Peace of Utrecht, 1713. 
 
 Louis XV., 1715. 
 *Law's Mississippi scheme, 1719- 
 
 War of Polish Succession, 1733. 
 
 France secures Lorraine, 1738. 
 
 War of the Austrian Succession begins, 1740. 
 
 Battle of Dettingen, 1743. 
 
 Battle of Fontenoy, 1745. 
 
 *Montesquieu writes his " Spirit of Laws," 
 1748. 
 
 Second Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748. 
 
 The French take Madras, India, 1748. 
 *Rousseau writes his " Social Contract," Vol- 
 taire his " Manners and Spirit of Nations," 
 BufTon his "Natural History" and his 
 " Epochs of Nature," Diderot and D'Alem- 
 bert edit the " Encyclopedia," 1752-1780. 
 
 *The Seven Years' War begins, 1756. 
 
 Battle of Plassy, India, 1757. 
 *The French lose India, 1757-1759. 
 *Loss of Canada by the French (battle of 
 
 Quebec), 1759. 
 
 'Suppression of the Jesuits in France, 1761. 
 *Treaty of Paris; France gives up all her 
 
 American possessions, 1763. 
 Conquest of Corsica, 1769. 
 " Compact of Famine," 1771. 
 Louis XVI., 1774. 
 
 Ministry of Turgot, attempted reforms, 1774. 
 Ministry of Necker, 1776. 
 'Alliance with the United States, 1778. 
 Treaty of Versailles, 1783. 
 Beaumarchais writes " The Marriage of Fig- 
 aro," satirizing the aristocracy, 1784. 
 Sieyes's Pamphlet, " What is the Tiers Etat ? " 
 
 1789. 
 
 'Meeting of the States-General at Ver- 
 sailles, May 5, 1789. 
 The Tiers Etat adopts the name of " National 
 
 Assembly," 1789. 
 The name " National Constituent Assembly " 
 
 is taken, 1789. 
 
 The Tennis-Court Oath, 1789. 
 *Fall of the Bastille, (Beginning of the 
 
 Revolution), July 14, 1789. 
 La Fayette chosen commander of the National 
 
 Guard, 1789. 
 Insurrection of the peasantry against the 
 
 nobles, 1789. 
 'Abolition of feudal privileges, August 4, 
 
 1789. 
 
 'Declaration of the Rights of Man, 1789. 
 The king gives a banquet to officers at Ver- 
 sailles, 1789. 
 'The mob attack Versailles and bring the 
 
 royal family to Paris, 1789. 
 First emigration of nobles, 1789. 
 'France divided into departments (feudal prov- 
 inces abolished), 1789. 
 Titles of honor abolished, 1789. 
 'Church property appropriated by the State, 
 
 1790. 
 
 'Issue of assignats, 1790. 
 Civil constitution of the clergy (clergy made 
 
 subject to the State), 1790. 
 *Feast of the Federation, the king ratines the 
 
 Constitution, July 14, 1790. 
 'Great emigration of nobles, 1790. 
 'Oath of allegiance to the Constitution imposed 
 
 on the clergy, 1790. 
 The Paris Commune organized in forty-eight 
 
 sections, 1790. 
 'Death of Mirabeau, 1791.
 
 296 
 
 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 Flight of the royal family, 1791. 
 *Declaration of Pilnitz (Austria and Prussia 
 propose armed interference in behalf of 
 Louis XVI.), 1791. 
 
 Meeting of the Legislative Assembly, 
 October i, 1791. 
 
 Insurrection in La Vendee and other depart- 
 ments, 1791. 
 
 Girondist ministry appointed, 1792. 
 
 France declares war against Austria, 1792. 
 
 The king mobbed in the Tuileries, 1792. 
 *Manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick, 1792. 
 *Attack on the Tuileries; massacre of the 
 Swiss Guard, August 10, 1792. 
 
 Imprisonment of the royal family, 1792. 
 
 Suspension of the royal power, 1792. 
 
 Further insurrections in La Vendee, 1792. 
 
 Invasion of France by foreign powers, 1792. 
 
 The September massacres, 1792. 
 
 VIII. THE FIRST REPUBLIC. 
 
 Meeting of the National Convention, 1792. 
 *France declared a Republic, September 21, 
 1792. 
 
 First day of the year I. of the Republic, Sep- 
 tember 22, 1792. 
 
 *French generals ordered to revolutionize for- 
 eign countries, 1792. 
 
 *Execution of the king, January 21, 1793. 
 *Civil war in Britanny and La Vendee, 1793. 
 
 France declares war against Great Britain, 
 Spain, and Holland, 1793. 
 
 Revolutionary tribunal established, 1793. 
 
 Committee of Public Safety organized, 1793. 
 *Fall of the Girondists, 1793. 
 *Reign of Terror begins June 2, 1793. 
 
 Insurrections in the provinces, 1793. 
 
 Charlotte Corday assassinates Marat, 1793. 
 
 The maximum law, 1793. 
 
 The law against " suspects," 1793. 
 
 Execution of the queen, 1793. 
 
 Execution of the Girondists, 1793. 
 
 Execution of Madame Roland, 1793. 
 *Destruction of Lyon, 1793. 
 *Worship of the Goddess of Reason, 1793. 
 
 Revolutionary calendar decreed, 1793. 
 
 Noyades (or massacres by drowning), at 
 Nantes, 1793. 
 
 Execution of the Hebertists or Atheistic 
 party, 1794. 
 
 Execution of Dan ton and his friends, 1794. 
 
 Festival of the Supreme Being, 1794. 
 *Execution of Robespierre and end of the 
 Reign of Terror, 1794. 
 
 The White Terror, 1795. 
 
 Batavian Republic proclaimed, 1795. 
 
 IX. THE DIRECTORY. 
 
 Napoleon Bonaparte suppresses insurrection 
 of the Paris sections, 1795. 
 
 New Constitution (Constitution of the year 
 III.), 1795- 
 
 Government by five Directors, 1795. 
 
 Napoleon marries Madame Josephine Beau- 
 
 harnais, 1796. 
 
 *Italian campaign (Lodi, Arcola, Rivoli), 
 1796. 
 
 Formation of the Cisalpine Republic of Italy, 
 
 1797. 
 *Treaty of Campo Formio, 1797. 
 
 War in Egypt and Syria, 1798-99. 
 
 Switzerland organized as the Helvetic Repub- 
 lic, 1798. 
 
 Fall of the Directory, 1799. 
 
 X. THE CONSULATE. 
 
 *Napoleon made First Consul, 1799. 
 
 Passage of the Great St. Bernard, 1800. 
 *Battle of Marengo, 1800. 
 *Battle of Hohenlinden, 1800. 
 *Peace of Lune'ville, 1801. 
 
 French evacuate Egypt, 1801. 
 *Concordat with the Pope ; Catholicism re-es- 
 tablished in a modified form in France, 1801 . 
 
 Expedition to St. Domingo; seizure of Tous- 
 saint Louverture, 1802. 
 
 Peace of Amiens, 1802. 
 
 Napoleon made First Consul for life, 1802. 
 
 War declared against England, 1803. 
 
 Napoleon sells Louisiana, 1803. 
 
 Duke of Enghien shot, 1804. 
 
 XI. THE FIRST EMPIRE. 
 
 *Napoleon assumes the title of " Emperor 
 of the French," 1804. 
 
 Establishes camp at Boulogne for invasion of 
 England, 1804. 
 
 Crowned emperor by the Pope at Paris, 1804. 
 *Code Napoleon published, 1804. 
 
 Crowned king of Italy at Milan, 1805. 
 
 Capitulation of Ulm, 1805. 
 *Battle of Trafalgar, 1805. 
 *Battle of Austerlitz, 1805. 
 
 Revolutionary calendar ended December 31, 
 1805. 
 
 Louis Bonaparte made king of Holland, 1806. 
 Confederation of the Rhine, 1806. 
 
 Battles of Jena and Auerstadt, 1806. 
 *Berlin Decree, 1806. 
 
 Battle of Eylau, 1807. 
 
 Battle of Friedland, 1807.
 
 PRINCIPAL DATES IN FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 297 
 
 *Peace of Tilsit, 1807. 
 
 Jerome Bonaparte made king of Westphalia, 
 1807. 
 
 Milan Decree, 1807. 
 
 Napoleon occupies Rome, 1808. 
 
 Makes Joseph Bonaparte king of Spain, 1808. 
 *Peninsular War begins, 1808. 
 
 Battle of Aspern, 1809. 
 
 Pope excommunicates Napoleon, 1809. 
 *Napoleon seizes the Pope, 1809. 
 *Battle of Wagram, 1809. 
 *Divorce from Josephine, 1809. 
 *Napoleon marries Maria Louisa, 1810. 
 *Incorporates Holland with France, 1810. 
 
 Birth of a son (" King of Rome ") to Napo- 
 leon, 1811. 
 
 Russian campaign, 1812. 
 
 Battle of Borodino, 1812. 
 *Burning of Moscow, 1812. 
 *Retreat of Napoleon, 1812. 
 *Battle of Leipsic, 1813. 
 *Napoleon abdicates, 1814. 
 
 XII. RESTORATION OF THE BOUR- 
 BONS. 
 
 Louis XVIII., April 6, 1814. 
 Louis grants a liberal charter, 1814. 
 Napoleon exiled to Elba, 1814. 
 Napoleon escapes from Elba, 1815. 
 
 XIII. "THE HUNDRED DAYS." 
 
 Napoleon reaches Paris, March 20, 1813. 
 *Battle of Waterloo, June 18, 1815. 
 Second abdication of Napoleon, 1815. 
 
 XIV. SECOND RESTORATION OF THE 
 BOURBONS. 
 
 Louis XVIII. restored to power, July 8, 
 1815. 
 
 Napoleon sent to St. Helena (dies 1821), 
 1815. 
 
 Marshal Ney shot, 1815. 
 
 *Chateaubriand, Thiers, Lamartine, Beranger, 
 George Sand, Balzac, Madame de Stael, 
 Michaud, Guizot, Sismondi, Martin, La- 
 place, St. Pierre, Sainte-Beuve, Comte, 
 1815. 
 
 Murder of the Duke of Berry, 1820. 
 
 French interference in Spain, 1823. 
 
 Charles X., 1824. 
 
 The king disbands the National Guard, 1827. 
 
 War in behalf of Greece (Battle of Navarino), 
 1827. 
 
 *Algiers taken by the French, 1830. 
 *Coup d'Etat (ordinances abolishing the free- 
 dom of the press and restricting political 
 liberty), 1830. 
 *Revolution of July, and flight of the king, 
 
 1830. 
 Louis Philippe proclaimed " King of the 
 
 French," 1830. 
 Labor troubles, 1831. 
 Political insurrections, 1831. 
 *The cholera ravages France, 1832. 
 *First line of railway opened in France, 1834. 
 Fieschi attempts to assassinate the king, 1835. 
 Louis Napoleon attempts an insurrection at 
 
 Strasburg, 1836. 
 
 *Daguerre invents the photograph, 1839. 
 Remains of Napoleon I. brought from St. 
 
 Helena to Paris, 1840. 
 
 Second attempted insurrection by Louis Na- 
 poleon, 1840. 
 
 *First French line of ocean steamships, 1840. 
 *First French telegraph line, 1845. 
 The Spanish marriages, 1846. 
 Reform banquets prohibited, 1848. 
 *Revolution; abdication of Louis Philippe, 
 
 XV. THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 
 
 A provisional government appointed, 1848. 
 *National workshops established, 1848. 
 Labor revolt in Paris; Paris in a state of 
 
 siege, 1848. 
 
 *Louis Napoleon elected president, 1848. 
 Louis Napoleon suppresses the Roman repub- 
 lic and restores the Pope, 1849. 
 Telegraphic cable laid between France and 
 
 England, 1851. 
 *Coup d'Etat (Louis Napoleon overthrows the 
 
 Constitution), 1851. 
 
 Louis Napoleon made president for ten 
 years, 1851. 
 
 XVI. THE SECOND EMPIRE. 
 
 *Louis Napoleon proclaimed " Emperor of 
 the French " with the title of " Napoleon 
 III.," 1852. 
 
 Marries the Countess Eugenie, 1853. 
 *Crimean War, 1854-6. 
 Industrial exhibition ("World's Fair") at 
 
 Paris, 1855. 
 
 * Great improvements made in Paris, 1856. 
 Orsini attempts to assassinate the Emperor, 
 
 1858. 
 *War in Italy, 1859.
 
 298 
 
 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 *Nice and Savoy annexed to France, 1860. 
 War with Mexico, 1862. 
 "The Crowning of the Edifice" (liberal 
 
 concessions made by the Emperor), 1869. 
 *Lesseps opens the Suez Canal, 1869. 
 A plebiscite, or vote of the people, sustains the 
 
 policy of the Emperor, 1870. 
 *Franco-Prussian War, 1870. 
 * Defeat and surrender of Napoleon at Sedan, 
 1870. 
 
 XVII. THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 
 
 *France declared a Republic, 1870. 
 
 Provisional government organized, 1870. 
 *Siege of Paris, 1870. 
 M. Thiers elected president, 1871 (resigned 
 
 1873). 
 
 The king of Prussia proclaimed emperor of 
 Germany at Versailles, 1871. 
 
 Capitulation of Paris, 1871. 
 *Treaty of Peace (France loses Alsace, part of 
 Lorraine and agrees to pay war indemnity 
 of $1,000,000,000), 1871. 
 *Insurrection of the Commune, 1871. 
 Expulsion of the French from Alsace, 1872. 
 Marshal MacMahon elected president (re- 
 signed 1879) , 1873. 
 M. Grevy elected president, 1879. 
 Prince Napoleon (son of Napoleon III.) 
 
 killed in the Zulu War, 1879. 
 *Expulsion of the Jesuits, 1880. 
 M. Grevy re-elected president (resigned 
 
 1887), 1885. 
 
 *Expulsion of the Bourbon princes, 1886. 
 *M. Carnot elected president (December 3), 
 
 1887. 
 
 Preparation for the celebration of the One 
 Hundredth Anniversary of the Taking of 
 the Bastille (July 14, 1789), 1889.
 
 GENEALOGICAL TABLE. 
 
 299 
 
 GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE SOVEREIGNS OF FRANCE. 
 
 I. THE MEROYINGIAN DYNASTY. 
 
 Clovis,* 
 
 son of Childe'ric I., and grandson of Meroveus, 
 
 (Sole king of th< 
 
 1-511. 
 ie Fran 
 
 ks from 510-) 
 
 
 r~ 
 
 Thierry I., 
 K. of Metz. 
 
 Chlodorair, 
 K. of Orleans. 
 
 Childebert I., 
 K. of Paris. 
 
 Clotaire I., 
 
 K. of Soissons, then sole kin 
 558-561. 
 
 1 
 Caribert, 
 K. of Paris. 
 
 1 
 Gontran, Sigebert I., Chilpe'ric I., 
 K. of Burgundy. K. of Austrasia, K. of Soissons, 
 ra. Brunhilda, m. Fredegonda, 
 td-575- d. 584. 
 1 
 Childebert II., Clotaire II., 
 K. of Austrasia and Burgundy. 613-628. 
 
 Theoc 
 K. of A 
 d. < 
 
 Dagot 
 
 628- 
 
 lebert, Thierry II., 
 istrnsia, K. of Burgundy, 
 >i2. d. 613. 
 
 ert I., Caribert, 
 638. K. of Aquitaine. 
 ! 
 
 Sigebert II., 
 K. of Austrasia. 
 
 Dagobert II., 
 K. of Austrasia. 
 
 1 
 Clovis II., 
 
 K. of Neustria and 
 Burgundy, then 
 sole king, 
 638-656. 
 
 1 
 
 
 Clotaire IIT., Chiltleric II., 
 
 K. of Neustria and Burgundy, K. of Austrasia, then sole king, 
 
 1 
 Thierry III. 
 
 d. 670. 
 
 I. 
 
 Clovis, 
 673-674. 
 
 d. 673. 
 
 I 
 Chilpe'ric II. 
 
 Clovis III., 
 691-695. 
 
 Childe'ric III., 
 deposed by Pepin the Short in 752. 
 
 See Table II., 
 Carolingian Dynasty. 
 
 Childebert III., 
 695-711. 
 
 I 
 
 Dagobert III., 
 711-715. 
 
 I 
 
 Thierry IV., 
 
 K. of Neustria and Burgundy, 
 720-737. 
 
 * The names of the sole rulers are given in bold-face type. 
 
 T d. died.
 
 3OO LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 II. THE CAROLINIAN* DYNASTY. 
 
 Pepin of Heristal, 
 
 Duke of the Franks 
 
 (king in all but name). 
 
 He was a descendant of Pepin of 
 
 Landen, Mayor of the Palace in 
 
 Austrasia. d. 714. 
 
 I 
 
 Charles Martel, 
 (Mayor of the Palace) 
 in Austrasia. 715-741. 
 
 I 
 Pepin the Short. 
 
 He deposed Child^ric III. in 752. 
 
 See Table I., Merovingian 
 
 Dynasty. 752-768. 
 
 I 
 Charlemagne, 
 
 768-814. 
 Crowned Emperor in 800. 
 
 I 
 l.o ii U the Gentle, 
 
 Emperor from 814-840. 
 
 Lothaire, Pepin. Louis, Charles the Bald, 
 
 K. of Italy, and K. of Germany. K. of Neustria and Burgundy, 840-877; 
 
 Emperor, 840-855. i . Emperor, and K. of Italy, 875-877. 
 
 Charles the Fat, 
 
 K. of Italy, and Emperor, I. on is II., 
 
 881-888; K. of France, 877-879. 
 
 I I 
 
 Louis III., Carloman, Charles the Simple, 
 
 (v. of Northern France, K. of Aquitaine and Burgundy, 892-929. 
 
 879-882. 879-884. | 
 
 l.onN IV., 
 936-954- 
 
 L,othair, Charles, 
 
 954-986. Duke of Lorraine. 
 
 I 
 
 Louis V.,f 
 986-987. 
 
 * Name derived from Carolns Magnus (Charlemagne), the chief representative of the Dynasty. 
 
 t Louis V. left no children. The crown should therefore have passed to his uncle Charles, Duke 
 of Lorraine, but the feudal barons chose Hugh Capet, one of their number, king in 987. See the 
 next Table, III., Capetian Dynasty.
 
 GENEALOGICAL TABLE. 
 
 301 
 
 III. -THE CAPETIAN DYNASTY. 
 
 i. Hugh Capet, 
 
 a descendant of Robert the Strong. 
 
 He was Duke of France and Count 
 
 of Paris. The barons chose him 
 
 King of France in 987. 
 
 See Table II., Note. 
 
 987-996. 
 
 I 
 2. Robert, 
 
 v 996-1031. 
 
 I 
 
 3. Henry I., 
 
 1031-1060. 
 
 I 
 
 4. Philip I., 
 
 1060-1108. 
 
 I 
 
 5. Louis VI., 
 
 1108-1137. 
 
 I 
 
 6. Louis VII., 
 1137-1180. 
 
 I 
 7. Philip Augustus, 
 
 1180-1223. 
 
 I 
 8. Louis VIII., 
 
 1223-1226. 
 
 9. Louis IX. (St. Louis), 
 1226-1270. 
 
 Charles, 
 
 Count of Anjou and Provence, 
 founder of the royal house of Naples. 
 
 10. Philip III., 
 
 1270-1285. 
 
 Robert, 
 
 Count of Clermont, 
 
 founder of the house of Bourbon. 
 
 See Table V. 
 
 ii. Philip the Fair, 
 
 1285-1314. 
 
 I 
 
 Charles, 
 
 Count of Valois, 
 
 founder of the house of Valois. 
 
 See Table IV. 
 
 12. Louis X., 13. Philip V., 
 
 1314-1316. 1316-1322. 
 
 Jeanne, 
 
 i. Philip, King of Navarre, 
 d. 1349. 
 
 14. Charles IV., Tsabelle, 
 
 1322-1328. m. Edward II. of 
 
 England. 
 
 I 
 
 Edward III. of 
 England. 
 
 Charles, King of Navarre.
 
 302 
 
 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 IV. HOUSE OF YALOIS. 
 
 15. Philip VI., 
 
 son of Charles, Count of Valois, 
 
 a younger son of Philip III. of the Capetian Dynasty. 
 
 See Table III., No. 10. 
 
 1328-1350. 
 
 16. John the Good, 
 
 1350-1364. 
 
 1 
 
 18 
 9- 
 
 r. Charles V., 
 
 1364-1380. 
 
 1 
 Louis, 
 Duke of Anjou, 
 founder of the second 
 royal house of Naples. 
 
 1 
 John, 
 Duke of Berry. 
 
 1 
 Philip, 
 Duke of Burgundy, 
 d. 1404. 
 
 1 
 John the Fearless. 
 
 1 
 Philip the Good. 
 
 1 
 Charles the Bold. 
 
 1 
 
 Charles VI., 
 
 1380-1422. 
 
 Charles VII., 
 
 1 
 Louis, 
 Duke of Orleans, 
 founder of the house of 
 Valois-Orldans. 
 See Table V. 
 
 1422-1461. 
 
 I 
 
 20. Louis XI., 
 
 1461-1483. 
 
 I 
 21. Charles VIII 
 
 1483-1498. 
 
 Mary, 
 
 Duchess of Burgundy, 
 
 m. Maximilian, Archduke 
 
 of Austria. 
 
 I 
 
 Philip, 
 
 Archduke of Austria, and 
 
 Sovereign of the Netherlands, 
 
 d. 1506. 
 
 I 
 
 Juana, 
 
 heiress of Castile 
 and Aragon. 
 
 Charles V., 
 
 King of Spain, Sovereign of the 
 
 Netherlands, and Emperor of Germany, 
 
 1519.
 
 GENEALOGICAL TABLE. 303 
 
 ' V. HOUSE OF TALOIS-ORLEANS. 
 
 Louis, 
 
 Duke of Orleans, 
 
 younger brother of Charles VI. 
 
 See Table IV., No. 18. 
 
 l~~ I 
 
 Charles, John, 
 
 Duke of Orleans, Count of Angouleme, 
 
 d. 1465. | 
 
 I Charles, 
 
 22. l.iiuN XII., Count of Angouleme, 
 
 1498-1515. d. 1495. 
 
 I 
 23. Francis I., 
 
 24. Henry II., 
 
 1547-1559. 
 m. Catherine de Medici. 
 
 1 
 
 \ 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 25. Francis II., 
 
 1559-1560, 
 m. Mary Stuart, 
 Queen of Scots. 
 
 26. Charles IX., 
 
 1560-1574. 
 
 27. Henry III., 
 
 1574-1589. 
 
 Elizabeth, 
 m. Philip II. 
 of Spain. 
 
 Marguerite, 
 m. Henry, 
 King of Navarre, 
 who became 
 
 
 
 
 
 Henry IV. 
 
 
 
 
 
 of France. 
 
 
 
 
 
 See Table VI., 
 
 
 
 
 
 No. 28.
 
 304 
 
 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 VI. HOUSE OF BOURBON. 
 
 Robert, Count of Clermont, younger son of St. Louis. See Table III., No. 9. m. Beatrice, 
 heiress of Bourbon. By her he had a son, Louis, Duke of Bourbon. From 
 
 him descended Antoine, Duke of Vendome, who m. Jeanne 
 d'Albret, Queen of Navarre. Their descend- 
 
 ants were as follows : 
 
 I 
 28. Henry IV., 
 
 1589-1610, 
 
 King of Navarre and France. 
 He m., first, Marguerite of Valois ; secondly, Mary de Medici. 
 
 29. Louis XIII., 
 
 1610-1643. 
 m. Anne of Austria. 
 
 Henrietta Maria, 
 m. Charles I. of England, 
 
 30. Iiouis XIV., 
 
 1643-1715, 
 
 m. Maria Theresa, daughter 
 of Philip IV. of Spain. 
 
 I 
 
 Louis, the Dauphin, 
 d. 1711. 
 
 I 
 
 Louis, Duke of Burgundy, 
 d. 1712. 
 
 Philip, Duke of Orleans, 
 founder of the house of 
 
 Bourbon-Orleans. 
 See Table VIII., No. 36. 
 
 31. Louis XV., 
 
 1715-1774, 
 m. Mary Lesczynska of Poland. 
 
 Louis, the Dauphin, 
 d. 1765. 
 
 32. Louis XVI., 
 
 1774-1793,* 
 
 m. Mane Antoinette 
 
 of Austria. 
 
 Louis, 
 
 Count of Provence, afterward 
 34. Louis XVIII., 
 
 1814-1824. 
 
 1 
 
 Charles, 
 
 Count of Artois, afterward 
 35. Charles X., 
 
 1824-1830. 
 
 Maria Theresa, 
 m. Louis, Duke of Angouleme. 
 
 Louis XVII., 
 
 never reigned, 
 
 d. 1795. 
 
 Louis, 
 
 Duke of Angouleme, 
 
 m. Maria Theresa, 
 
 daughter of Louis XVI. 
 
 Charles, 
 
 Duke of Berry, 
 
 assassinated 
 
 1820. 
 
 Henry, Duke of Bordeaux, 
 
 Count of Chambord, 
 
 late claimant to the title of " Henry V." 
 
 d. 1883; left no children. 
 
 Louisa, 
 Duchess of Parma. 
 
 * The First Republic, 1792-1799; the Consulate, 1799-1804; the First Empire (Napoleon I.), 
 1804-1814; Napoleon exiled to Elba; Louis XVIII. proclaimed king; return of Napoleon from Elba; 
 flight of Louis XVIII. ; the " Hundred Days " (March 20 to June 23) ; restoration of Louis XVIlLj 
 JulyS, 1815. See Table VII., No. 33.
 
 GENEALOGICAL TABLE. 305 
 
 VII. GENEALOGY OF THE PRINCIPAL WALE MEMBERS 
 OF THE BONAPARTE FAMILY. 
 
 Carlo Bonaparte, m. Letizia Ramolino, 
 d. 1785. d. 1836. 
 
 I I 
 
 I I 
 
 I I 
 
 Joseph Bonaparte, 33. Napoleon I., Lucien Bonaparte. Louis Bonaparte, Jerome Bonaparte, 
 
 became King of " Emperor of the King of Holland. King of 
 
 Naples and of French," m. Hortense Westphalia. 
 
 Spain. 1804-1814. Beauharnais, d. 1860; had son, 
 
 d. at St. Helena, 1821. daughter of the Prince Napoleon, 
 
 m., first, Josephine Beauharnais; Empress Josephine, b. 1822. He has 
 
 secondly, Maria Louisa. two sons, viz., 
 
 I . . ' , Victor, b. 1862, 
 Louis Napoleon ^ L^ b . (?) 
 
 Napoleon II., 37. Napoleon III., 
 
 King of Rome Emperor of the French, 
 
 (son by Maria Louisa), 1852-1870. 
 
 b. 1811, d. 1832. See Table VIII., No. 36. 
 
 I 
 
 Louis Joseph, 
 
 Prince Imperial, 
 
 killed in the Zulu War 
 
 in 1879. 
 
 VIII. HOUSE OF BOURBON-ORLEANS. 
 
 36. Louis Philippe, 
 
 " King of the Frencn," 
 
 1830-1848. 
 
 A descendant of Philip, Duke of Orleans, 
 younger son of Louis XIII. 
 
 See Table VI., No. 29. 
 
 He was succeeded by Napoleon III. 
 
 See Table VII., No. 37. 
 
 I 
 
 Duke of Orleans, d. 1842. 
 
 Count of Paris, b. 1838. Duke of Chartres, b. 1840; 
 
 has son, Prince Robert, b. 1869. has two sons, b. 1866 and 1867.
 
 3o6 
 
 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 IX. GENERAL VIEW OF THE RULERS OF FRANCE FROM 
 HUGH CAPET TO THE PRESENT TIME. 
 
 987. 
 
 996. 
 1031. 
 1060. 
 1108. 
 
 Hugh Capet. 
 Robert. 
 Henry I. 
 Philip I. 
 Louis VI. 
 
 1328. Philip VI. 
 
 1350. John the Good. 
 
 1364. Charles V. 
 
 1380. Charles VI. 
 
 1422. Charles VII. 
 
 1589. Henry IV. 
 
 1610. Louis XIII. 
 
 1792. The Convention. 
 
 CAPETIAN DYNASTY. 
 
 1137. Louis VII. 
 1 1 80. Philip Augustus. 
 1223. Louis VIII. 
 1226. Louis IX. (St. 
 Louis). 
 
 HOUSE OF VALOIS. 
 
 1461. Louis XI. 
 1483. Charles VIII. 
 1498. Louis XII. 
 1515. Francis I. 
 
 HOUSE OF BOURBON. 
 
 1643. Louis XIV. 
 1715. Louis XV. 
 
 THE FIRST REPUBLIC. 
 
 1795. The Directory. | 
 
 THE FIRST EMPIRE. 
 
 1804. Napoleon I. 
 
 1270. Philip III. 
 
 1285. Philip IV. 
 
 1314. Louis X. 
 
 1316. Philip V. 
 
 1322. Charles IV. 
 
 1547. Henry II. 
 
 1559. Francis II. 
 
 1560. Charles IX. 
 1574. Henry III. 
 
 1774. Louis XVI. 
 
 1799. The Consulate. 
 
 RESTORATION OF THE BOURBONS. 
 
 1814. Louis XVIII. 
 
 "THE HUNDRED DATS." 
 
 1815. Napoleon I. 
 
 THE SECOND RESTORATION OF THE BOURBONS. 
 
 1815. Louis XVIII. | 1824. Charles X. 1830. Louis Philippe. 
 
 THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 
 
 1848. Louis Napoleon, President. 
 
 THE SECOND EMPIRE. 
 
 1852. Napoleon III. 
 
 THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 
 
 1870. Provisional Government. 1879. M. Grevy, President. 
 
 * 1871. M. Thiers, President. J 1885. M. Grevy, President. 
 
 t 1873. Marshal MacMahon, President. 1887. M. Carnot, President. 
 
 * Resigned 1873, 
 
 Resigned 1879. 
 
 I Resigned 1887.
 
 BOOKS ON FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 307 
 
 [Books so marked * are early or contemporaneous history.] 
 
 I. GENERAL HISTORIES. 
 
 1. Kitchin's History of France, 3 vols 
 
 [From the earliest period to the begin 
 ning of the Revolution.] One of the 
 best English histories of France. 
 
 2. Guizot's History of France, 8 vols. [From 
 
 the earliest period to 1789, with a con 
 tinuation to 1848, by Madame Guizot 
 De Witt. Translated by Robert Black. 
 
 3. Martin, Histoire de France, 17 vols. [De- 
 
 puis les temps les plus recules jusqu'en 
 1789.] Considered the best history o 
 France. The volumes on the reigns ol 
 Louis XIV. and Louis XV. have been 
 translated. 
 
 4. Duruy, Histoire de France, 2 vols. [De- 
 
 puis les temps les plus recules jusqu'en 
 1871.] A very excellent work. 
 
 5. Guizot's History of Civilization in France, 
 
 3 vols. 
 
 6. Rambaud, Histoire de la Civilisation 
 
 Franchise, 3 vols. 
 
 II. HISTORIES OP PARTICULAR 
 PERIODS. 
 
 i. Parke Godwin's History of France 
 Ancient Gaul. [From the earliest 
 times to the Peace of Verdun, 843.] 
 *2. Eginhard's Life of Charlemagne. 
 3. Michelet's History of France, vols. I. 
 
 and II. 
 
 *4. Joinville's Memoir of Saint Louis. 
 *5- Froissart's Chronicles (period of the 
 
 "Hundred Years' War"). 
 *6. Comine's Memoirs (Louis XL, Charles 
 VIII. , and Charles the Bold of Bur- 
 gundy) . 
 
 7- Willert's Life of Louis XI. 
 8. Ranke's Civil Wars and Monarchy in 
 France in the i6th and i7th centuries, 
 2 vols. 
 
 Baird's History of the Rise of the Hugue- 
 nots of France, 2 vols. 
 Sully's Memoirs of Henry IV., 4 vols. 
 Robson's Life of Richelieu. 
 Saint Simon's Memoirs of Louis XIV., 
 
 abridged, 3 vols. 
 Thiers's Mississippi Bubble. Translated 
 
 by Frank S. Fiske. 
 Young's Travels in France in 1787-1789, 
 
 2 vols. 
 Rambaud, Histoire de la Revolution 
 
 Franchise. 
 Gardiner's French Revolution (Epoch 
 
 Series) . 
 
 Carlyle's French Revolution. 
 Lanfrey's Napoleon, 4 vols. [To the 
 preparation for the Russian cam- 
 paign.] 
 
 Madame de R^musat's Memoirs of Na- 
 poleon, 2 vols. 
 
 Emerson's Essay on Napoleon. 
 Ropes's Napoleon. 
 Seeley's Napoleon. 
 
 Browning's Modern France. [From 
 Louis XVIII. to the presidency of 
 MacMahon, 1879.] 
 
 Other works of value relating to the his- 
 tory of France, are Stephen's Lectures, 
 Lamartine's Rise of the Tiers Etat, 
 Burke's Reflections on the French 
 Revolution with Mackintosh's Reply, 
 Van Laun's History of French Litera- 
 ture, Parkman's Pioneers of France in 
 the New World, Martin, Histoire de 
 France Populaire, 5 vols. [Depuis les 
 temps les plus recule's jusqu'a nos 
 jours.] This is an abridgment and 
 continuation of Martin's large work. 
 Lebon and Pelton's France As It Is, 
 Rougemont, La France.
 
 3 o8 
 
 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Abelard, condemned by the Church, 72. 
 Acadia, loss of, 188. 
 Agincourt. See Battle. 
 Aix. See Battle. 
 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, Charlemagne's capital, 41, 42. 
 Aix-la-Chapelle. See Treaty. 
 Albigenses, crusade against, 72, 73. 
 Albret, Jeanne D', and the Protestant cause, 
 139. 
 
 dies mysteriously at Paris, 142. 
 Alcuin, a teacher under Charlemagne, 40. 
 Alesia, Caesar's conquest of, u. 
 Alexandria. See Battle. 
 Algeria, colony of, established, 269. 
 
 statistics of, note, 269. 
 Alliance, the Holy, 267. 
 Alps, Napoleon crosses the, 245. 
 Alsace, origin of, note, 42. 
 
 acquired by France, 165. 
 
 loss of, 285. 
 
 French driven from, 285. 
 Amboise, conspiracy of, 133. 
 America, French discoveries in, 119, 120. 
 
 results of discovery and explorations in, 
 1 20. 
 
 French possessions in, 177, 195, 196. 
 
 French forts in, 195. 
 
 partial loss of, by France, 188. 
 
 French war in. See War. 
 
 total loss of, by France, 194-196. 
 
 Huguenots in. See Huguenots. 
 See United States. 
 American Revolution prophesied, 207. 
 
 France aids the, 208. 
 
 effect of, on France, 209, 216. 
 
 (Declaration of Independence), note, 209. 
 Amiens. See Treaty. 
 
 Aquitaine and the Aquitanians, 9, 32, note, 
 72, 83. 
 
 annexed to the crown, 102. 
 Archers, English, efficiency of, 92, 94. 
 Architecture, Norman, 55. 
 
 Gothic, 55. 
 
 Renaissance, 114, 115. 
 
 Architecture, French (Louis XIV.), 173. 
 (Napoleon), 243. 
 
 Arcola. See Battle. 
 
 Arians, 19, 20, 22, 23. 
 
 Ariovistus, defeated by Csesar, 8. 
 
 Armagnacs, wars of, with the Burgundians, 
 98. 
 
 Army, creation of a standing, 103. 
 See Louis XIV. ; Napoleon; War. 
 
 Art, works of, carried off by Napoleon, 239. 
 
 Assembly. See States-General; National 
 Assembly; Constituent Assembly; 
 Legislative Assembly; National Con- 
 vention; Revolution. 
 
 Assignats, issue of, 219. 
 depreciation of, 219. 
 forced circulation at par, 226. 
 
 Attila, defeated at Chalons, 21. 
 
 Austerlitz. See Battle. 
 
 Austrian Succession. See War. 
 
 Avignon becomes the residence of the Popes, 
 
 " Babylonish Captivity," the, 89. 
 Balance of Power, wars for. See War. 
 Banquets, political, suppressed, 276. 
 Banquet to officers at Versailles, 217. 
 Bartholomew, St. See Massacre. 
 Bastille, imprisonment in, 198, 199. 
 
 destruction of the, 212. 
 
 effect of destruction of, 215. 
 Battle of Acre, 241. 
 
 Agincourt, 99. 
 
 Aix, 6. 
 
 Alesia, u. 
 
 Alexandria, 241. 
 
 Algiers, 269. 
 
 Antioch, 66. 
 
 Arcola, 238. 
 
 Arques, 150. 
 
 Aspern, 255. 
 
 Auerstadt, 253. 
 
 Austerlitz, 251. 
 
 Blenheim, 187.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 309 
 
 Battle of Borodino, 257. 
 
 Bouvines, 75. 
 
 Boyne, 186. 
 
 Cairo, 241. 
 
 Calais, 93, 128. 
 
 Chalons, 21. 
 
 Courtrai, 83. 
 
 Cre'cy, 92. 
 
 Dettingen, 193. 
 
 Ehresburg, 33. 
 
 Eylau, 253. 
 
 Fontenoy, 193. 
 
 Friedland, 253. 
 
 Hastings (or Senlac), 60. 
 
 Hohenlinden, 246. 
 
 Ivry, 150. 
 
 Jaffa, 241. 
 
 Jena, 253. 
 
 Jerusalem, 66. 
 
 La Hogue, 186. 
 
 Leipsic, 259. 
 
 Lodi, 237. 
 
 Magenta, 281. 
 
 Marengo, 246. 
 
 Montebello, 281. 
 
 Plassy, 196. 
 
 Poitiers, 94. 
 
 Pyramids, 241. 
 
 Quebec, 196. 
 
 Rivoli, 238. 
 
 Roncesvalles, 33. 
 
 Sedan, 284. 
 
 Senlac, 60. 
 
 Soissons, 21. 
 
 Solferino, 281. 
 
 Strasburg, 22. 
 
 Testry, 26. 
 
 Tours, 28. 
 
 Trafalgar, 250. 
 
 Wagram, 255. 
 
 Waterloo, 260. 
 Bayard, death of, 118. 
 Bazaine surrenders Metz, 284. 
 Beauharnais, Josephine, Napoleon marries, 
 
 240. 
 
 See Josephine; Napoleon. 
 Belgium, originally part of Gaul, note, i. 
 
 the French driven out of, 226. 
 
 conquered by France, 233. 
 
 ceded to France, 239. 
 
 becomes independent, 272. 
 See Netherlands; Napoleon. 
 Berlin Decree, 253, 256. 
 Berry, murder of the Duke of, 267. 
 Black Prince, at Cre'cy, 92. 
 
 at Poitiers, 94. 
 
 Blenheim. See Battle. 
 
 Bliicher, at Waterloo, 260, 261. 
 
 Bonaparte family, note, 236, 252, 253. 
 
 Bonapartists persecuted, 267. 
 
 Bossuet, preaches the divine right of kings, 
 
 *73- 
 four propositions respecting Catholicism, 
 
 185. 
 
 Bourbon, desertion of the Duke of, 118. 
 origin of the family, 131. 
 opposed to the Guises, 131. 
 Antoine de, deserts the Protestants, 135. 
 expulsion of the princes, 288. 
 Bowmen, English, at Cre'cy and Poitiers. 
 
 See Archers. 
 Bretigny. See Treaty. 
 Britanny falls to the crown, no. 
 
 revolt of, 226. 
 Brunhilda, 25. 
 Bull, the Pope's, against Philip the Fair, 8s, 
 
 88. 
 Burgundians and Armagnacs, civil wars of, 
 
 98. 
 
 Burgundy, origin of people of, 19. 
 Clovis conquers, 23. 
 power of Duke of, 105. 
 added to France, 109. 
 See Franche Comte', 
 
 Caesar's account of Gaul, 8, 9. 
 
 conquest and occupation of Gaul, 8-n. 
 Calais, siege and capture of, by Edward III., 
 
 93- 
 
 French take, 128. 
 Calendar, the, changed, 231. 
 Calvin, his life and works, 122, 123. 
 Camisards, insurrection of the, 185. 
 Campo Formio. See Treaty. 
 Cannon, first used at Cre'cy, 92. 
 Capet, Hugh, first true French king, 53. 
 
 possessed little real power, 53. 
 
 descent of French kings from, 53. 
 Carnac, great stones of, 2. 
 Carnot, president, 288. 
 Carolingian line, beginning of, 30. 
 Catharine de Medici. See Medici. 
 Catholicism in France, note, 185. 
 
 re-established, 243. 
 See Bossuet; Christianity; Church; Clergy; 
 
 Religious belief; Pope ; Priest. 
 Catholics, the first German, 23. 
 Clts, the, described, 4. 
 
 they laid the foundation of France, 7. 
 See Gauls. 
 
 Chalons. See Battle. 
 Charlemagne, accession of, 31.
 
 3io 
 
 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 Charlemagne, meaning of name, note, 31. 
 character of, 31. 
 his plans of empire, 31. 
 conquers the Lombards, 32. 
 confirms Clovis's gift to the Pope, 32. 
 war with Spain, 33. 
 wars with Saxons, 32-34. 
 extent of his dominions, 36. 
 and the Northmen, 36. 
 is crowned emperor, 37. 
 his method of government, 38-40. 
 his Church reforms, 40. 
 his influence on English history, 36, 41. 
 eventual failure of his plans, 41. 
 death and burial, 41. 
 results of his reign, 42, 43. 
 division of his empire, 42. 
 successors of, 43. 
 his idea of political liberty, 44. 
 he prepares the way for feudalism, 47. 
 Charles V. (Emperor), extent of his domin- 
 ions, 117. 
 
 VI., his unfortunate reign, 97, 98. 
 VII., crowned at Reims, 101. 
 
 base desertion of Joan of Arc and 
 
 Jacques Cceur, 102. 
 creates a standing army, 103. 
 VIII., campaigns in Italy, 113. 
 IX. 's plans for uniting the Catholics 
 
 and the Huguenots, 142. 
 consents to massacre of St. Bar- 
 tholomew, 144. 
 his dath, 146. 
 
 X., reactionary policy of, 268. 
 coup d'e'tat of, 269. 
 his abdication and flight, 270. 
 Charles the Bold, dominions and power of, 106. 
 his ambitious plans, 107. 
 contrasted with Louis XL, ic8. 
 wars of, 109. 
 
 death, and division of his dominions, 109. 
 Charles the Simple, grants Normandy to Rollo, 
 
 50. 
 
 receives homage of Rollo, 50. 
 Charter of Louis XVIII. , 265, 266. 
 Childeric, the last of the Merovingian kings, 
 
 29. 
 Chivalry, institution of, 56. 
 
 good accomplished by, 57. 
 Cholera, first appearance of the, 272. 
 Chouans, the, 227. 
 
 Christianity introduced into Gaul, 15-17. 
 Church, power of the early, for good, 26. 
 political power of the, 17. 
 lands, extent of, 219. 
 lands, confiscated, 219. 
 
 Churches, the, closed by Revolutionists, 231. 
 
 re-opened by Napoleon, 243. 
 Cities, rise of free, 68-70. 
 Civilization, what France has done for, 289- 
 
 292. 
 
 Civil war. See War. 
 Classical learning, revival of, no, in. 
 Clergy, number of, 214. 
 
 the upper, side with nobility, note, 210. 
 
 priests side with people, note, 210. 
 
 compelled to take oath of allegiance, 220. 
 
 refractory, are deprived of their salaries, 
 221. 
 
 are banished, 222. 
 See Church; Priests; Revolution. 
 Clovis, conquers Gaul, 21-23. 
 
 his conversion, 22. 
 
 results of his reign, 24. 
 
 division of his kingdom, 24. 
 Coalition against France, 222. 
 
 second, 225. 
 See Napoleon. 
 Code Napoleon, 243. 
 Colbert, secretary of state, 169. 
 
 his reforms, 170. 
 
 death of, 181. 
 Coligny, leader of the Huguenots, 132. 
 
 plans a Huguenot colony in America, 140. 
 
 plans one in Holland, 140. 
 
 urges Charles IX. to make war on Spain, 
 141, 142. 
 
 attempted murder of, 143. 
 
 is assassinated in massacre of St. Bar- 
 tholomew, 145. 
 
 Committee of Public Safety, 226, 227. 
 Commons, the French House of, 86. 
 Commune (free city), 69. 
 
 Paris, the, 286, 287. 
 Communists of 1848, 277, 278. 
 
 defeat of the Paris, 287. 
 Compact of Famine, Louis XV.'s, 199, 207. 
 Concinis, the power of the, 154. 
 
 fall of the, 157. 
 Concordat (treaty with Pope) of Francis I., 
 
 "5- 
 
 of Napoleon, 243. 
 Conde a Huguenot leader, 136, 145, 147. 
 
 the Prince of, demands a States-General, 
 
 155- 
 
 the Great, 165. 
 
 takes part in the Fronde, 167, 168. 
 
 deserts to the Spaniards, 168. 
 
 returns to his allegiance, 172. 
 Congress of Vienna, the, 260. 
 Consul, the First, 242. 
 
 for life, 247.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Constantine, effect of the conversion of the 
 
 emperor, 16. 
 Constitution, the first, of France, 216. 
 
 ratification of, 220. 
 
 the second, 226. 
 
 the third, 233. 
 
 whole number of, note, 233. 
 
 the present, note, 287. 
 Constituent Assembly, 210. 
 Convention, the National, meets, 224. 
 
 See National Convention. 
 Corday, Charlotte, assassinates Marat, 228. 
 Coup dVtat of Charles X., 269. 
 
 of Louis Napoleon, 279. 
 Court, foundation of a royal, 116. 
 
 of Louis XIV. See Louis XIV. 
 
 of Napoleon. See Napoleon. 
 Crimean War. See War. 
 Criminal law, reform in, 217. 
 Crown, power of. See Kings. 
 Crusades, origin of, 63, 64. 
 
 first of the, 65. 
 
 last of the, 77, 78. 
 
 results of the, 78, 79, 290. 
 
 Dagobert, reign of, 26. 
 Daguerre discovers photography, 274. 
 Danton, a leader in the Revolution, 221, 224, 
 225. 
 
 execution of, 232. 
 Dauphin, meaning of, note, 98. 
 
 (Louis XVII.), 218, 220, 225, 227, 235. 
 Debt of France, 1789, 213, note, 118. 
 
 present, note, 288. 
 See War Debt. 
 
 Declaration of Rights of Man, 216. 
 Departments, creation of, 217. 
 Diderot, writings of, note, 201. 
 Diplomacy, beginning of modern system of, 
 
 108. 
 Directory, government of the, 233. 
 
 overthrown by Napoleon, 242. 
 Divine Right of Kings, 172. 
 Dragonnades, the, 183. 
 Druids, the, described, 9. 
 Dumouriez, treason of, 226. 
 Duties. See Taxes. 
 
 Edict of religious toleration, by L'Hopital, 134. 
 
 Nantes (Henry IV.), 151- 
 
 revocation of (Louis XIV.), 182. 
 Education, Charlemagne's interest in, 40. 
 
 University of Paris leads in, 200. 
 
 in France, at present, note, 288. 
 Edward III. of England claims French crown, 
 90. 
 
 Edward III., his wars with France, 91, 97. 
 
 IV., meeting of, with Louis XL, 107. 
 Egypt, Napoleon's campaign in, 240, 241. 
 
 French driven out of, 247. 
 
 results of French conquest of, 247. 
 Emigrant nobility. See Nobility. 
 Encyclopedia, the, note, 201. 
 End of the world, dread of the, 54. 
 Enghien, Duke of, executed, 249. 
 England, Charlemagne's influence on, 36. 
 
 conquered by William of Normandy, 58-60. 
 
 effects of conquest of, 60-62. 
 
 possessions of, in France, 70. 
 
 loses Normandy, 71, 72.' 
 
 wars of, with France. See War. 
 See Edward III. 
 
 compared with France, 213, 290, 291. 
 
 Napoleon's policy toward, 251. 
 
 projected invasion of, 249, 250. 
 Etienne Marcel. See Marcel. 
 Eudes, Count, defends Paris, 50. 
 Eugenie, Napoleon III. marries the Countess, 
 280. 
 
 Faineant Kings. See Kings. 
 
 Famines, terrible, of the nth century, 57. 
 
 of Louis XIV., 180, 188. 
 See Compact of Famine. 
 Fenelon and Louis XIV., 176, 180. 
 Festival of the Goddess of Reason, 231. 
 
 the Supreme Being, 232. 
 Feudal System, origin and development of, 
 
 45-48. 
 
 evils of the, 58, 60, 68, 81, 98. 
 good results of, 47, 290. 
 France under the, 48. 
 See Charlemagne; Provinces; Revolution, 
 
 War. 
 
 Finances. See Colbert; Debt; Taxes; 
 Money; Assignats; Law's Financial 
 Scheme. 
 
 Flanders, Philip II. 's war with, 75. 
 conquest of, 83. 
 wool trade of, 83, 91. 
 See War; Netherlands; Belgium. 
 France, origin of the kingdom of, 22, 42. 
 and Germany, 42, 49. 
 language of, 13, 42, 114. 
 literature of. See Literature, 
 effect of Norman conquest on, 61. 
 growth of king's power in, 70-74, 75, note, 
 77, 80, 84, 108, 116, 157, 164, 168, 172, 
 190, 198. 
 
 territorial changes in, 72, 74, 80, 102, 109, 
 no, 165, 178, 179, 233, 239, 247, 255, 260, 
 262, 281, 285.
 
 312 
 
 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 France, development of idea of nationality 
 
 in, 76, 102, 103, 114, 210. 
 See Gaul ; War ; Feudal System, 
 consolidation of, 108. 
 beginning of modern kingdom of, 102. 
 Catholicism in, 87, note, 112, 185, note, 
 
 288. 
 See Bc;suet's Propositions; Religion; 
 
 Toleration. 
 
 Huguenots in. See Huguenots. 
 Reformation in, 122. 
 Protestantism in, 122, 124, 135. 
 Wars of. See War. 
 
 possessions of, in America. See America. 
 India. See India, 
 declared a limited monarchy, 216. 
 divided into departments, 217. 
 declared a republic, 224, 278, 287. 
 Constitution of. See Constitution. 
 Civilization of. See Civilization, 
 compared with England. See England. 
 Revolutions in. See Revolution, 
 gains Franche Comte, 179. 
 Normandy, 71, 72. 
 Burgundy, 109. 
 Aquitaine, 102. 
 Provence, 109. 
 Savoy and Nice, 281. 
 kings of. See list, 306. 
 chief dates in history of, 293 
 statistics of, note, 287. 
 books on history of, 307. 
 progress and prosperity of, 288, 289. 
 Debt of. See Debt. 
 
 reforms in government, See Revolution, 
 relation of, to America. See America. 
 Napoleon's influence on, 262-264. 
 Franche Comte added to France, 179. 
 Francis I., accession, 114. 
 
 campaigns in Italy, 115, 118, 119. 
 creates a royal court, 116. 
 versus' emperor Charles V., 117. 
 and the New World, 119. 
 and the Pope, us- 
 II., accession of, 130. 
 
 marries Mary Queen of Scots, 
 
 128. 
 
 Franco-Prussian War. See War. 
 Franklin in France, 208. 
 Franks, their original home, 20. 
 
 invade and conquer Gaul, 20, 21. 
 their laws, 38, 39. 
 Fredegonda of Neustria, 25. 
 Free cities, rise of, 68-70. 
 Fronde, the party of the, 166. 
 wars of the. See War. 
 
 Gabelle. See Tax on Salt. 
 Gaul, description of, 1-6. 
 
 countries of, note, i. 
 
 conquest of. See Romans ; Germans. 
 Gauls, the, described, 4, 9, 10. 
 
 laid the foundation of France, 7. 
 See Celts; Franks; Germans; Romans. 
 Germans, the, invade and conquer Gaul, 19. 
 
 besiege Paris, 284. 
 
 enter Paris, 285. 
 Germany versus France, 42, 49, 127. 
 
 beginning of the kingdom of, 42. 
 
 war with. See War. 
 
 the emperor of, proclaimed at Versailles, 
 
 285. 
 Girondists, orgin of the name, note, 221. 
 
 a republican party, 221. 
 
 ministry of, 222. 
 
 in the National Convention, 224. 
 
 versus the Mountain, 224, 226, 227. 
 
 endeavor to save the king's life, 225. 
 
 condemn the September massacre, 224. 
 
 arrest of, 227. 
 
 some escape and excite insurrection in 
 the provinces, 228. 
 
 execution of, 230. 
 
 Goddess of Reason, festival of, 231. 
 God, Truce of, 58. 
 Greece, France aids, 269. 
 Grevy elected president, 288. 
 Guard, National, formed, 212. 
 
 disbanded, 268. 
 
 Guard, the Old, at Waterloo, 261. 
 Guillotine, the, adopted, 211. 
 
 executions by the, 229-231. 
 Guise, assassination of the Duke of, 138, 148. 
 Guises, power of the, 130. 
 Gunpowder, first used at Crecy, 92. 
 
 effect of, on war, 96. 
 Gustavus Adolphus, and the Thirty Years' 
 
 War, 163. 
 
 Hair, long, a badge of royalty, 24, 29. 
 Hebert, an atheistic revolutionary leader, 231. 
 institutes worship of Reason, 231. 
 is executed, 232. 
 Heloise, wife of Abelard, 73. 
 Henry of Navarre marries Princess Mar- 
 guerite, 142. 
 
 one of the Huguenot leaders, 142. 
 becomes king, 150. 
 See, also, Navarre and Henry IV. 
 Henry II., accession of, 126. 
 
 takes Metz, Toul, and Verdun, 127. 
 Calais, 128. 
 II. of England, possessions, 70.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 313 
 
 Henry II. of England, war with France, 70. 
 III. assassinates Duke of Guise, 148. 
 alliance with Henry of Navarre, 
 
 149. 
 IV., accession, 149. 
 
 victory of Ivry, 149. 
 becomes a Catholic, 150. 
 issues Edict of Nantes, 151. 
 his labors for France, 152. 
 assassinated, 152. 
 how esteemed, 152. 
 Hohenlinden. See Battle. 
 Holland, French conquest of, 233. 
 See Netherlands; Coligny; Louis XIV.; 
 
 Napoleon. 
 
 Homage, form of feudal, 82. 
 Hopital. See L'Hopital. 
 Huguenots, origin of name, note, 131. 
 rise of, 131, 132. 
 plot to exterminate the, 143. 
 massacre of. See Massacre of St. Bar- 
 tholomew. 
 wars of, 135, 161. 
 at La Rochelle, 160, 161. 
 not permitted to emigrate to America, 
 
 161. 
 
 flight of, from France, 184. 
 effects on the country, 184. 
 in America. See America, 
 at battle of the Boyne, 186. 
 See Coligny; Richelieu; Civil Wars; Louis 
 XIV.; Calvin; Francis I.; Edict 
 of Nantes; Dragonnades; Henry of 
 Navarre; Henry IV. ; Massacre of St. 
 Bartholomew; Reformation; War. 
 Hundred Days, the, 259. 
 Hundred Years' War. See War (results of, 
 
 102). 
 Huns invade Gaul, 20. 
 
 are defeated at Chalons. See Battle. 
 
 Imprisonment, arbitrary, 198. 
 
 India, loss of, 196. 
 
 Industrial civilization of France, 291. 
 
 Industry. See Labor. 
 
 Inventions, French versus English, 273. 
 
 See Daguerre. 
 Italy, beginning of kingdom of, 42, 49. 
 
 Charles VIII.'s wars in, 113. 
 
 Louis XII. 's loss of, 113. 
 
 Francis I.'s wars in, 115, 118, 119. 
 
 Napoleon's campaigns in, 237-239, 244. 
 
 Louis Napoleon's war in, 280. 
 See Wars; Pepin; Charlemagne; Napo- 
 leon; Pope. 
 Ivry. See Battle. 
 
 Jacobins, 219, 221. 
 Jacquerie, or Peasants' War, 96. 
 " Jacques Bonhomme," 95. 
 Jerusalem taken by the Crusaders, 67. 
 Jesuits, origin of the, 134. 
 
 influence of, on Louis XIV., 183. 
 
 suppression of, 197, 198. 
 
 reinstated by Charles X., 268. 
 
 removal from the schools, 269. 
 
 expelled from France, 288. 
 Joan of Arc, at Orleans, 101. 
 
 burned, 102. 
 John, the Good King, taken prisoner, 95. 
 
 amount of his ransom, 97. 
 
 the Fearless (Duke of Burgundy), mur- 
 dered, 99, 100. 
 
 of England loses Normandy, 71, 72. 
 Josephine, marriage of, to Napoleon, 240. 
 
 Napoleon's letter to, 252. 
 
 divorce of, 256. 
 See Beauharnais; Napoleon. 
 Jourdan, General, mentioned, 236. 
 " Joyous Entry," the, 218. 
 July, Fourteenth of, 212. 
 Jury, trial by, obsolete in France, 215. 
 
 trial by, established by Revolution, 217. 
 
 Kings, the Faine'ant, or Sluggard, 26. 
 royal domain of first, 53. 
 had little real power, 53. 
 growth of power, 70-73, 75, note, 77, 80, 
 84, 108, 116, 157, 164, 168, 172, 190, 
 198, 214, 215. 
 territorial growth of domains of, 72, 74, 
 
 80, 84, 102, 108. 
 divine right of, 172. 
 absolute power of, 168, 198, 214, 215. 
 government by, suspended, 223. 
 abolished, 224. 
 See List of, 306. 
 
 genealogy of, 299. 
 
 See Capet; Louis XL; Francis I.; Riche- 
 lieu; Louis XIV.; Louis XV.; Louis 
 XVI.; Revolution; Constitution; 
 Charles VII.; Standing Army; 
 Taxes; Laws; England versus 
 France. 
 
 Knighthood. See Chivalry. 
 Knights Hospitallers, origin of, 67. 
 Templars, origin of, 67. 
 Templars, suppression of, 89. 
 
 Labor, restrictions on, 206. 
 guilds or corporations, 206. 
 forced, 206. 
 troubles and riots, 277, 278.
 
 3H 
 
 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 Laboring classes not free, note, 215. 
 
 misery of, 95, 180. 
 
 pay nearly all the taxes. See Taxes. 
 
 to-day in France, 288, 289. 
 La Fayette. See National Guard, 212. See 
 Declaration of Rights of Man. 
 
 saved the queen's life, 218. 
 
 and American Revolution, 208. 
 
 obliged to leave France, 223. 
 
 and Louis Philippe, 270. 
 Lamartine and Revolution of 1848, 277. 
 Lamballe, murder of the Princess, 224. 
 Lands, confiscation of crown and Church, 
 
 219. 
 Laon, once a rival of Paris, 52. 
 
 becomes a free city, 69. 
 La Rochelle, a Huguenot stronghold, 140, 146. 
 
 siege and capture of, 160, 161. 
 La Vendee, civil war in, 227. 
 
 suppressed, 233. 
 Law's financial scheme, 190. 
 Laws of the Franks, 38. 
 
 how made by king of France, note, 77, 
 
 214, 215, 216. 
 
 Lawyers, power of the, in Parliament, 84. 
 See Parliament; States-General; Constitu- 
 tion; Legislation. 
 League, the Holy, 113, 147. 
 
 of the Public Good, 106. 
 Leagues of the i6th century, 118. 
 Learning, classical. See Classical Learning. 
 
 the New, no. 
 Legislation, king controls, note, 77, 214, 215. 
 
 power taken from the king, 216. 
 See Laws. 
 Legislative Assembly, parties in the, 221. 
 
 action respecting the clergy, 221. 
 
 the nobility, 221. 
 
 banishes the refractory clergy, 222. 
 
 establishes a camp at Paris, 222. 
 
 disbands the Swiss Guard, 222. 
 
 summons the National Convention, 223. 
 Lesseps builds the Suez Canal, 282. 
 Lettres des Cachets, note, 198. 
 L'Hopital's edict of toleration, 134. 
 " Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," 231, 277. 
 Literature of the i6th century (Rabelais, 
 Montaigne), 125. 
 
 of reign of Louis XIV., 175. 
 
 of reign of Louis XV., 200. 
 
 prepares the way for the Revolution, 201. 
 
 influence of, on American Revolution, 
 note, 209. 
 
 influence of, on French Revolution, 213. 
 
 influence of, in Europe, 291. 
 
 Modern French, 275. 
 
 Literature. See Calvin; Diderot; Encyclo- 
 pedia; Montaigne; Montesquie.u ; 
 Pascal; Rabelais; Rousseau; Vol- 
 taire. 
 
 Lombards, conquest of the, 30, 32. 
 Lorraine, origin of, note, 42. 
 acquisition of, 192. 
 loss of, 285. 
 
 Louis IX. (Saint Louis), character of, 76, 77. 
 government of, 77. 
 established Parliament of Paris, 77. 
 crusades of, 77. 
 death of, 77. 
 
 XI. and the Duke of Burgundy, 105. 
 his crafty policy, 106, 108. 
 substitutes diplomacy for war, 108. 
 aims to consolidate France, 108. 
 real greatness of, 108, no. 
 encourages printing, in. 
 establishes postal service, 112. 
 XII., the " Father of his People," 113. 
 
 his war in Italy, 113. 
 XIII., character of, 157. 
 
 how indebted to Richelieu, 164. 
 XIV., accession of, 168. 
 
 crushes the Fronde, 168. 
 absolute power of, 168, 172. 
 a diligent worker, 170. 
 governed without a prime minister, 
 
 169. 
 
 splendor of his court, 174. 
 partial encouragement of great men, 
 
 175- 
 
 plans of conquest, 177. 
 builds Palace of Versailles, 173. 
 life in the palace, 174, 181. 
 literature of his reign, 175. 
 great generals of his reign, 171, 172. 
 possessions in America, 177. 
 war with Spain, 177, 178. 
 war with Holland, 178. 
 marries Maria Theresa, 169. 
 marries Madame de Maintenon, 
 
 182. 
 
 pride of France in, 175, 179. 
 misery of the people under, 180. 
 revokes the Edict of Nantes, 182. 
 persecutes the Huguenots, 182. 
 withstands the Pope, 185. 
 war with England, 186. 
 war in the Palatinate, 186. 
 war of the Spanish Succession, 187. 
 his greatness in adversity, 188. 
 his death and burial, 189. 
 estimate of his reign, 189. 
 XV., how educated, 190.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 315 
 
 Louis XV., Law's financial scheme, 190. 
 persecutes Huguenots, 192. 
 war of the Polish Succession, 192. 
 war of the Austrian Succession, 
 
 193- 
 
 Seven Years' War, 194. 
 loses possessions in America, 194. 
 loses possessions in India, 194. 
 suppresses the Jesuits, 197. 
 abolishes Parliaments, 198. 
 unjust imprisonments by, 198. 
 his Compact of Famine, 199. 
 death of, 200. 
 
 XVI., marries Marie Antoinette, 203. 
 accession of, 203. 
 critical state of France, 203. 
 plans of reform, 204. 
 he restores Parliaments, 204. 
 how he spent his time, 207. 
 recognizes independence of 
 
 United States, 208. 
 summons States-General of 1789, 
 
 209. 
 
 forced to go to Paris, 218. 
 ratifies the constitution, 220. 
 flight and capture of, 221. 
 mobbed in the Tuileries, 222. 
 sent to prison, 223. 
 tried and executed, 225. 
 XVII. See Dauphin. 
 XVIII., charter given by, 265, 266. 
 
 arbitrary measures of, during part 
 
 of his reign, 267, 268. 
 Louis Philippe, accession of, 270. 
 attempts to assassinate, 272. 
 conspiracies of Louis Napoleon against, 
 
 273. 
 
 abdication and flight of, 276. 
 Louis Napoleon. See Napoleon. 
 Louisiana, acquisition of, by France, 177. 
 
 sale of, to the United States, 248. 
 Louverture, Toussaint, Napoleon's cruel treat- 
 ment of, 248. 
 
 Lutetia, early name of Paris, 12. 
 Luther, Martin, 121. 
 Lyon, massacre at, 228. 
 destruction of, 228. 
 
 MacMahon, defeat of, at Sedan, 284. 
 
 besieges and enters Paris, 287. 
 
 defeats the Commune, 287. 
 
 is elected President, 288. 
 Maintenon, Madame de, is married to Louis 
 XIV., 182. 
 
 her influence over the king, 183. 
 
 deserts the dying monarch, 189. 
 
 Malta taken by the French, 240. 
 loss of, by the French, 247. 
 Marat described, 227. 
 
 assassination of, 228. 
 
 Marcel, Etienne, attempted reforms by, 96. 
 Marengo. See Battle. 
 
 Marguerite, Princess, marries Henry of Na- 
 varre, 142. 
 
 Maria Theresa inherits Austria, 193. 
 Marie Antoinette is married to Louis XVI., 
 203. 
 
 described, 203, 207, 223. 
 
 her influence disastrous, 209. 
 
 is hated by the people, 218. 
 
 life saved by La Fayette, 218. 
 
 taken to Paris, 218. 
 
 takes part in the ratification of the consti- 
 tution, 220. 
 
 flight of, 221. 
 
 imprisonment of, 223, 224. 
 
 trial and execution of, 229, 230. 
 Marlborough, greatness of, as a general, 187. 
 Marseillaise, origin of, note, 230. 
 
 sung by the Girondists on their way to 
 
 death, 230. 
 
 Martel, Charles, wins battle of Tours, 27. 
 Mary Queen of Scots in France, 128. 
 
 departure for Scotland, 133. 
 Massalia (Marseille) founded, 10. 
 Massacre at Jerusalem, 67. 
 
 of the Vaudois, 124. 
 
 of the Albigenses, 73. 
 
 at Vassy, 135. 
 
 of St. Bartholomew, 143, 144. 
 
 of Swiss Guards, 223. 
 
 at Lyon, 228. 
 
 at Nantes, 228. 
 
 in La Vende'e, 228. 
 
 the September, 224. 
 
 of the White Terror, 833. 
 
 of prisoners of war by Napoleon, 241. 
 Mayors of the Palace, 26, 
 Mazarin, ministry of, 164. 
 Medici, Catharine de, character of, 126, 127. 
 
 regency of, 133. 
 
 plots murder of Coligny, 139. 
 
 massacre of St. Bartholomew, 143. 
 
 Mary de, regency of, 154. 
 Merovingian kings, 24-26. 
 Metz, France acquires, 127. 
 
 siege and loss of, 283. 
 Mirabeau in the National Assembly, 211. 
 
 death of, 220. 
 Mississippi scheme, the, of John Law, 190. 
 Mohammedanism, spread of, 27. 
 
 checked at Tours, 28.
 
 3i6 
 
 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 Mote, Matthew, President of Parliament, 166. 
 Monasteries, the, of Gaul, 26, 27. 
 Monasteries, suppression of, 219. 
 Money, issue of paper, 219. 
 See Assignats. 
 
 Philip IV. 's scheme to get, 85. 
 Montaigne, his life and writings, 126. 
 Months, the, renamed, 231. 
 Montesquieu, writings of, 200. 
 Montmorency family, the, 131, 158. 
 Moreau and Jourdan, generals mentioned, 
 
 236. 
 
 Moreau gains victory of Hohenlinden, 246. 
 Moscow, burning of, 258. 
 
 retreat of Napoleon from, 258. 
 Mountain, party of the, 224, 226, 227. 
 
 Nantes. See Edict; Massacre. 
 Napoleon, his descent, note, 236. 
 
 first appearance of, at Toulon, 235. 
 
 quells insurrection in Paris, 236. 
 
 marries Madame Josephine Beauharnais, 
 240. 
 
 first Italian campaign of, battles of Lodi, 
 Arcola, and Rivoli, 237, 238. 
 
 makes treaty of Campo Formio, 238. 
 
 begins a new system of war, 239. 
 
 robs Italy of works of art, 239. 
 
 campaign in Egypt and the East, 240. 
 
 is made First Consul, 242. 
 
 establishes a brilliant court, 242. 
 
 creates a new nobility, 242. 
 
 creates Legion of Honor, 243. 
 
 his public works, 243. 
 
 concordat with the Pope, 243. 
 
 re-establishes Catholicism in France, 243. 
 
 compiles the Code Napoleon, 243. 
 
 has little regard for truth, 244. 
 
 centralizes all power in Paris, 244. 
 
 his second campaign in Italy, 244. 
 
 plans battle of Marengo, 344. 
 
 crosses St. Bernard, 245. 
 
 victory of Marengo, 246. 
 
 chosen First Consul for life, 247. 
 
 treaty of Amiens, 247. 
 
 sells Louisiana to the United States, 248. 
 
 cruelty to Toussaint Louverture, 248. 
 
 rupture of treaty of Amiens, 248. 
 
 plots against his life, 249. 
 
 is crowned emperor, 249. 
 
 plans invasion of England, 249. 
 
 his navy is defeated at Trafalgar, 250. 
 
 takes Ulm, 250. 
 
 takes Vienna, 250. 
 
 victory of Austerlitz, 251. 
 
 letter to Josephine, 252. 
 
 Napoleon reconstructs Germany, Italy, and 
 the Netherlands, 252. 
 
 conquers Prussia, 253. 
 
 treaty of Tilsit, 253. 
 
 issues Berlin Decree, 253. 
 
 invades Spain and Portugal, 254. 
 
 the Peninsular War, 254. 
 
 meets with his first reverses, 254. 
 
 quarrels with the Pope, 255. 
 
 victory of Wagram, 255. 
 
 is at the height of his power, 253, 256. 
 
 surrounds himself with dependent kings, 
 252, 256. 
 
 seizes Holland, 255. 
 
 procures divorce from Josephine, 256. 
 
 marries Maria Louisa, 257. 
 
 begins his Russian campaign, 257. 
 
 battle of Borodino, 257. 
 
 burning of Moscow, 258. 
 
 retreat from Moscow, 258. 
 
 defeated at Leipsic, 259. 
 
 sent to Elba, 259. 
 
 escape from Elba, 259. 
 
 the Hundred Days, 259. 
 
 defeated at Waterloo, 260, 261. 
 
 banished to St. Helena, 262. 
 
 death of, 262. 
 
 will of, 262. 
 
 his character and work, 262-264. 
 Napoleon, Louis, conspires against the govern- 
 ment, 273. 
 
 is elected President, 278. 
 
 policy toward Italy, 278. 
 
 coup d'etat, 279. 
 
 becomes emperor, 280. 
 
 marries the Countess Eugenie, 280. 
 
 improves Paris, 280. 
 
 Crimean War, 280. 
 
 war in Italy, 280. 
 
 Mexican War, 281. 
 
 begins Franco-Prussian War, 282. 
 
 surrenders at Sedan, 284. 
 
 is deposed, 284. 
 National Assembly, origin of the name, 210. 
 
 reforms by, 211, 216, 217. 
 
 draft constitution, 216, 217. 
 
 confiscate crown and Church lands, 219. 
 
 remove to Paris, 219. 
 
 suppress monasteries, 219. 
 
 issue assignats, 219. 
 
 impose oath on clergy, 220. 
 
 dissolves itself, 221. 
 
 self-denying ordinance, 221. 
 See, also, Legislative Assembly. 
 National Constituent Assembly, origin of 
 name, 210.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 317 
 
 National Convention summoned, 223. 
 
 abolish royalty, 224. 
 
 declare France a republic, 224. 
 
 abolish titles of honor and respect, 224. 
 
 political parties in, 224. 
 
 try and execute Louis XVI., 225. 
 
 enact law against " Suspects," 229. 
 
 try and execute the queen, 230. 
 
 try and execute the Girondists, 230. 
 
 try and execute Madame Roland, 230. 
 
 appoint committee to draft new constitu- 
 tion, 233. 
 
 insurrection against, 235. 
 National Guard organized, 212. 
 National workshops, 277. 
 Nationality, growth of idea of, 76, 102, 103, 
 
 114, 210. 
 Navarre, Henry of, 139, 142, 145, 147, 148, 
 
 149. 
 See, also, Henry of Navarre and Henry 
 
 IV. 
 
 Necker, ministry of, 207-209. 
 Nelson's victory at Alexandria, 241. 
 
 victory at Trafalgar, 250. 
 Netherlands fall to Spain, 109. 
 
 how divided, 162. 
 
 Louis XIV. 's wars and the, 177. 
 See note, 104, 105. 
 Neustria, meaning of word, note, 25. 
 
 province of, 25. 
 
 Ney, execution of Marshal, 266. 
 Nimeguen. See Treaty. 
 Nobility, title of, conferred on a commoner, 
 81. 
 
 under Louis XIV., 181. 
 
 practically exempt from taxation, 207. 
 
 power of, note, 213. 
 
 French and English compared, 214. 
 
 number of, in France, note, 214. 
 
 oppression by, note, 215. 
 
 abolished, 216. 
 
 flight of the, 218. 
 
 estates confiscated, 219. 
 
 condemned as traitors, 221. 
 
 creation of a new, 242. 
 Normandy, origin of name, 51. 
 
 power of the Duke of, 54. 
 
 William, Duke of, 58. 
 
 loss of, by the English, 71, 72. 
 Normans, origin of the name, 51. 
 Northmen and Charlemagne, 36. 
 
 invade and settle in France, 48, 49. 
 
 homage of, to Charles the Simple, 50. 
 
 progress of, in civilization, 51. 
 Notables, the, 117, 209. 
 
 Oath, clergy, the, 220. 
 
 Old Guard at Waterloo, 261. 
 
 Orleans, Joan of Arc at, 100. 
 
 Maid of. See Joan of Arc. 
 
 siege of, 100. 
 
 Paine, Thomas, tries to save life of Louis 
 
 XVI., 225. 
 
 Palatinate, war in, 186. 
 Palissy the potter mentioned, 274. 
 Paper money. See Money; Assignats. 
 Paris, origin of, 12. 
 
 becomes capital of the Franks, 22. 
 attacked by Rollo, 49. 
 and Laon, rival cities, 52. 
 distress in, 217, 226. 
 Commune, 229. 
 
 during the Revolution. See Revolution, 
 buildings of Napoleon I. in, 243. 
 Louis Napoleon's improvements in, 280. 
 Germans besiege, 284. 
 Germans enter, 285. 
 second siege of, 286. 
 MacMahon enters, 287. 
 destruction of property in, by the Com- 
 mune, 287. 
 
 Parliament of Paris established, 77. 
 power of, note, 77. 
 meaning of the word, note, 77. 
 falls under the control of the king, 84. 
 revolt of, against Louis XIV., 166. 
 Parliaments abolished by Louis XV., 198. 
 restored by Louis XVI., 204. 
 arbitrary treatment of, by Louis XVI., 209. 
 Pascal, writings of, 176, 197. 
 Paul, St. Vincent de, philanthropic labors of, 
 
 168. 
 Peace. See Quarantine; Treaty; Truce of 
 
 God. 
 
 Peasants, misery of, 95, 180. 
 See "Jacques Bonhomme." 
 insurrections of. See Jacquerie, 
 insurrections in Revolution, 215, 216. 
 People, rise of the power of, 115. 
 
 See Tiers Etat; Free Cities. 
 Pepin deposes Childeric and becomes king, 29. 
 his donation to the Pope, 30. 
 lays foundation of temporal power of the 
 
 Pope, 30. 
 Peter the Hermit preaches the first crusade, 
 
 64. 
 Philip II. (Augustus), favors the free cities, 
 
 69. 
 
 war with England, 70. 
 and University, of Paris, 74. 
 war with Flanders, 75.
 
 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 Philip II., his decree of forty days' peace, 74. 
 
 good government of, 74. 
 III., returns from the crusade, 78. 
 quiet reign of, 80. 
 
 grants Venaissin and part of Avig- 
 non to the Pope, 80. 
 III., confers title of nobility on a com- 
 moner, 81. 
 
 political questions of his time, 81. 
 IV. (the Fair), accession and character, 
 
 82. 
 war with England and Flanders, 82, 
 
 83- 
 
 quarrel with the Pope, 84, 87. 
 schemes to get money, 85. 
 summons the first States-General, 
 
 86. 
 
 gets the Pope into his power, 88, 89. 
 destroys the Knights Templars, 89. 
 Photography. See Daguerre. 
 Pilgrimages to the Holy Land, 63, 64. 
 Plassy. See Battle. 
 Poitiers. See Battle. 
 Polish Succession. See War. 
 Political parties. See National Assembly; 
 Legislative Assembly; National Con- 
 vention, 
 state of France and England compared 
 
 (see England), 291. 
 Pompadour, Madame, 194, 200. 
 Pope, donation of Pepin to the, 30. 
 
 beginning of temporal power of, 30, 32. 
 quarrel with Philip the Fair, 84, 87. 
 the, removes to Avignon, 88, 89. 
 power of, exercised for good, 89. 
 versus Louis XIV., 185. 
 Napoleon takes the, captive, 255. 
 concordats of, 115. 243. 
 Port Royal, Society of, 176. 
 Post, service by, established, 112. 
 Pragmatic Sanction, note, 112. 
 Presidents of France, 287, 288. 
 Press (see Printing) declared free, 217. 
 
 restricted by Charles X., 269. 
 Priests on side of the people, 207. 
 Primogeniture abolished, 217. 
 Printing introduced into France, in. 
 restrictions on, 112. 
 made free, 217. 
 restricted by Charles X., 269. 
 Protestants, rise of, 122. 
 
 persecution of, 124, 128, 143. 
 See Huguenots ; Calvin; Luther; Reforma- 
 tion. 
 
 Provence added to France, 109. 
 Provinces fall to crown, 72, 74, 80, 109, no. 
 
 Provinces, feudal, abolished, 217. 
 
 civil war in, 226. 
 
 insurrection of peasantry in, 215. 
 Prussia, growth of, 196. 
 Public Safety, Committee of, 226, 227. 
 
 Quarantine (forty days' peace), 74. 
 Quebec, loss of, 196. 
 
 Rabelais, writings of, 125. 
 
 Raymond of Toulouse in first crusade, 66. 
 
 in war against Albigenses, 73. 
 
 possessions fall to the crown, 74, 80. 
 Reason, worship of Goddess of, 231. 
 Reformation, beginning of the, 121, 122. 
 See Calvin; Luther; Huguenots; Protes- 
 tants. 
 
 Reforms, political, of the Revolution, 216. 
 Reign of Terror, 227. 
 Religious belief, decay of, 213. 
 
 worship abolished, 231. 
 
 worship restored, 243. 
 
 persecution in the i6th century, 123, 124. 
 See Dragonnades; Revocation of Edict of 
 Nantes; Massacre of St. Bartholo- 
 mew; Protestants; Huguenots. 
 Religious toleration in i6th century, 122, 124. 
 
 granted by L'Hopital, 134. 
 
 granted by Edict of Nantes, 151. 
 
 granted by Richelieu, 161. 
 
 granted by Revolution, 217. 
 
 secured by present constitution, note, 288. 
 Renaissance period in France, 114, 115. 
 Republic, the Cisalpine, and other republics 
 
 established, 239. 
 Republic, France declared a, 224. 
 
 the second, 278. 
 
 third, 284, 287. 
 
 Presidents of the, 287, 288. 
 Republicans versus Communists of 1848, 277. 
 Revolution, beginning of the, 212. 
 
 causes of the, 212. 
 
 influence of literature on, 201. 
 
 French and English compared, 213, 214. 
 
 mainly social, 214. 
 
 divided into periods, 215. 
 
 Reign of Terror, 227, 233. 
 
 how regarded in Europe, 225. 
 
 tribunal of the, 226. 
 
 efforts to spread in Europe, 225. 
 
 reforms accompanied by, 216, 217, 234. 
 
 end of the, 233. 
 
 See National Assembly; Robespierre. 
 Revolution of July, 1830, 270. 
 
 results in Europe, 272. 
 Revolution of 1848, 276.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 319 
 
 Revolution of 1848, results in Europe, 276. 
 
 Revolution of 1870, 284-287. 
 
 Revolution, American, aided by France, 208. 
 
 influence of, on France, 209. 
 
 and Rousseau, note, 209. 
 Richelieu, first appearance of, 156. 
 
 becomes prime minister, 157. 
 
 his impartial severity, 157, 158. 
 
 humbles the nobles, 158. 
 
 establishes provincial courts, 158. 
 
 establishes provincial governors, 158. 
 
 strengthens the power of the crown, 159. 
 
 does not directly favor the people, 159. 
 
 is determined to crush the political power 
 of the Huguenots, 159. 
 
 takes La Rochelle, 161. 
 
 tolerates the Huguenot religion, 161. 
 
 his labors for France, 162. 
 
 his foreign policy, 162. 
 
 and the Thirty Years' War, 162. 
 
 how he left Louis XIII.'s government, 
 
 164. 
 
 Right of Sanctuary, 58. 
 Rights of Man, Declaration of, 216. 
 Riots, republican, 271. 
 Robespierre, first appearance of, 211. 
 
 in Legislative Assembly, 221. 
 
 a favorite with rabble of Paris, 227. 
 
 opposed to Girondists, 227. 
 
 opposed to Hebertists, 231. 
 
 overthrows Hebertists and Dantonists, 
 231, 232. 
 
 reigns supreme, 232. 
 
 his festival of the Supreme Being, 232. 
 
 fall of, 233. 
 
 Rochelle. See La Rochelle. 
 Roland, execution of Madame, 230. 
 Rollo attacks Paris, 49. 
 
 takes Rouen, 49. 
 
 becomes vassal of Charles the Simple, 50. 
 Roman civilization in Gaul, 13, 290. 
 
 oppression of Gaul, 13-15. 
 
 conquest of Gaul, results of, 17, 18. 
 Romans enter Gaul, 6. 
 
 defeat Germans at Aix, 6. 
 
 conquer and occupy Gaul, 8-18. 
 See Caesar; Gaul. 
 Rome. See Charlemagne; Pepin; Napoleon; 
 
 Pope. 
 
 Roncesvalles. See Battle. 
 Rosetta Stone, note, 247. 
 Rousseau's writings, 201, note, 209, 231. 
 Royalist insurrection, 235. 
 
 See Terror, White. 
 Russia. See Napoleon. 
 Ryswick. See Treaty. 
 
 Saint Bartholomew. See Massacre. 
 
 Saint Louis. See Louis IX. 
 
 Salic Law, 91. 
 
 Salt tax, 205. 
 
 Sanctuary, right of, 58. 
 
 Saracens defeated at Tours, 28. 
 
 Saxons conquered by Charlemagne, 32, 35. 
 
 Science, progress in, 273, 291. 
 
 Sedan. See Battle. 
 
 Serfs, feudal, 46. 
 
 emancipation of, 85, 216, 217. 
 
 at Revolution, note, 215. 
 Simon de Montfort, crusade against Albi- 
 
 genses, 73. 
 Slavery in Gaul, 9, 10, 14. 
 
 See Serfs. 
 
 Sluggard Kings, the, 26, 29. 
 Spain, Charlemagne's invasion of, 33. 
 
 Napoleon's invasion of, 254. 
 Spanish marriages, the, 276. 
 
 Succession. See War. 
 Standing army organized, 103. 
 States-General, first, 86. 
 
 why so called, note, 86. 
 
 compared with English Parliament, 86. 
 
 very infrequently summoned, 87. 
 
 votes, how cast, 87. 
 
 people had but little power in, 87. 
 
 of 1484, peasantry represented in, 113. 
 
 of 1614, demands of, 155, 156. 
 
 kings' dislike of, 209. 
 
 of 1789 summoned, aio. 
 
 all class distinctions abolished in, 210. 
 
 takes the name of National Assembly, 
 
 210. 
 
 See Tiers Etat. 
 Suez Canal constructed, 282. 
 Summary of Earliest Period, 7. 
 
 Roman Period, 18. 
 
 Merovingian Period, 30. 
 
 Carolingian Period, 43. 
 
 Feudal Period, 51. 
 
 Capetian Period, 62. 
 
 Crusades Period, 79. 
 
 Hundred Years' War Period, 103. 
 
 Louis XI. Period, 128. 
 
 Civil and religious wars Period, 159. 
 
 Louis XIII. to XV. Period, 201. 
 
 Revolutionary Period, 234. 
 
 Napoleonic Period, 264. 
 
 general and final, 289. 
 Supreme Being, festival of, 232. 
 Surnames, note, 53. 
 " Suspects," law concerning, 229. 
 Swiss Guard disbanded, 222. 
 
 massacre of, 223.
 
 320 
 
 LEADING FACTS OF FRENCH HISTORY. 
 
 Swiss, Thorwaldsen's memorial of, 223. 
 Switzerland, early history of, note, 104. 
 
 becomes the Helvetic Republic, note, 
 
 239. 
 
 Tax, resistance to general, 85, 86. 
 
 on salt, 95, 205. 
 
 to support standing army, 103. 
 
 how collected, 204. 
 Taxes (Domestic Duties), 205. 
 
 vexatious kinds of, 205. 
 
 practical exemption of nobility and clergy 
 from, 207, 213. 
 
 the burden of, falls on the common people, 
 
 159, 213. 
 
 Templars, Knights, destruction of the, 89. 
 Tennis Court Oath, the, 210. 
 Terror, Danton's declaration concerning, 224. 
 
 Reign of, 228, 229. 
 
 Reign of, end of, 233. 
 
 the White (first), 233. 
 
 the White (second), 267. 
 Testry. See Battle. 
 Thiers elected President, 287. 
 Thirty Years' War. See War. 
 Tiers Etat, rise of, 113-115. 
 
 in States-General of 1614, 155. 
 
 in States-General of 1789, 210. 
 
 organize as the National Assembly, 210. 
 Toleration, religious, 123, 124. 
 
 L'Hopital's grant of, 134. 
 
 granted by Edict of Nantes, 151, 290. 
 
 granted by Richelieu, 161. 
 
 revoked by Louis XIV., 183. 
 
 granted by Revolution, 217. 
 
 granted by present constitution, note, 
 
 288. 
 
 Tombs, royal, of St. Denis violated, 231. 
 Toulouse, Raymond of. See Raymond. 
 
 county falls to the crown, 74, 80. 
 Tours. See Battle. 
 Toussaint, Louverture, cruelty of Napoleon 
 
 to, 248. 
 Trade, restrictions on, 205. 
 
 restrictions on, abolished, 217. 
 Trafalgar. See Battle. 
 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (first), 178. 
 
 (secoijd), 194. 
 
 Amiens, 247. 
 
 Bretigny, 96. 
 
 Campo Formio, 238, 239. 
 
 Congress of Vienna, 266. 
 
 La Rochelle, 146. 
 
 LuneVille, 246. 
 
 Nimeguen, 179. 
 
 Paris (1763), 196. 
 
 Treaty of Ryswick, 186. 
 
 St. Germain, 139, 140. 
 
 Tilsit, 253. 
 
 Troyes, 100. 
 
 United States, 208. 
 
 Utrecht, 188. 
 
 Verdun, 42. 
 
 Versailles, 208, 285. 
 
 Vienna, 255. 
 
 Villafranca, 281. 
 
 Westphalia, 165. 
 Tricolor, the, note, 217. 
 
 insulted, 217. 
 Truce of God, 58. 
 Tuileries, palace of the, 218, 221. 
 
 king mobbed in the, 222. 
 
 attacked, 223. 
 
 burned by Commune, 287. 
 Turenne, the eminent general, 178, note, 
 
 184. 
 Turgot's efforts at reform, 204. 
 
 United States, recognition of the, 208. 
 
 treaty with. See Treaty. 
 See America; Revolution, American. 
 University of Paris, firmly established, 74. 
 
 influence of, 290. 
 Uxellodunum, conquest of, n. 
 
 Valois, house of, 90. 
 
 Vassy. See Massacre. 
 
 Vauban, ability of, as military engineer and 
 
 general, 171, 172. 
 Vaudois. See Massacre. 
 Vendee. See La Vende'e. 
 Vercingetorix, defeat of, n. 
 Verdun. See Treaty. 
 Versailles, palace of, built, 173. 
 
 magnificence of, 174. 
 
 life at, 174, 181. 
 
 banquet at, 217. 
 
 attack on, 217, 218. 
 
 abandoned, 218. 
 
 occupied as headquarters of German 
 army, 285. 
 
 king of Prussia proclaimed emperor at, 
 285. 
 
 treaty of. See Versailles. 
 
 Thiers establishes his government at, 
 
 286. 
 
 Veto, the royal, 216, 220, 221, 222. 
 Vienna, treaty of. See Treaty. 
 
 congress of, 260. 
 See Napoleon. 
 Visigoths settle in Gaul, 19. 
 
 are conquered by Clovis, 23.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 321 
 
 Votes of States-General, 87. 
 Voltaire, writings of, 201. 
 
 Wagram. See Battle. 
 
 War, Caesar's, in Gaul. See Caesar; Romans; 
 Clovis; Charlemagne; Crusades; 
 England; Italy; Jacquerie; Riche- 
 lieu. 
 
 private, checked, 58, 74. 
 against the Albigenses, 73. 
 early, with England, 70, 90-97. 
 the Hundred Years', 92, 103. 
 effect of gunpowder on, 92, 96. 
 for Balance of Power, 118. 
 civil and religious, of i6th century, 130. 
 of Catholics and Huguenots, 130, 135. 
 of Armagnacs and Burgundians, 98. 
 of Louis XI. See Louis XI. 
 of Francis I. See Francis I. 
 Thirty Years', 162. 
 of the Fronde, 165. 
 (Louis XIV.) with Spain and Holland, 
 
 177-179. 
 
 with England, 186. 
 in the Palatinate, 186. 
 of Spanish Succession, 187. 
 (Louis XV.) of Polish Succession, 192. 
 Austrian Succession, 193. 
 Seven Years', 194. 
 in America, 194-196. 
 in India, 196. 
 of Revolution. See Revolution. 
 
 War, Napoleon's campaigns in Italy, Egypt, 
 Germany, Austria, Russia. See Na- 
 poleon. 
 
 Peninsular, 254. 
 
 (Louis XVIIL) with Spain, 267. 
 (Charles X.) with Turks on behalf of 
 
 Greece, 269. 
 Algiers, 269. 
 
 (Louis Napoleon), in Italy, 280. 
 Crimean, 280. 
 with Mexico, 281. 
 Franco-Prussian, 282. 
 debt paid by France, 289. 
 Waterloo. See Battle. 
 Wellesley, Sir Arthur, in Spain, 254. 
 Wellington, the Duke of, at Waterloo, 260, 
 
 261. 
 William, Duke of Normandy, Conquest of 
 
 England, 59, 60. 
 Prince of Orange, wars with Louis XIV., 
 
 i79- 
 
 Witikind, chief of Saxons, surrenders, 35. 
 Woman, effect of Feudalism on, 47. 
 World, expected end of, 54. 
 Workshops, national, opened, 277. 
 
 Year One of the French Republic, note, 224, 
 
 231. 
 
 icoo, expected end of world in, 54. 
 Yeomen, English, contrasted with French 
 
 peasants, 93. 
 at battle of Crdcy, 92.
 
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