\ JOAA- OF AUC. YOUNG FOLKS' HISTORY FRANCE BY CHARLOTTE M. YO:S'GE, Author of "The Heir of Redcltffe," "Book of Golden Deeds," "Young Folks' History of Rome," &c. BOSTON : ESTES & LAURIAT, 301 WASHINGTON STREET. COPYRIGHT BY D. LOTHROP & CO. 1879. Army HsL^y Oioli Aug. i3A929 PREFACE. THESE Stories on the History of France are meant for children peril aps a year older than those on the History of England. They try to pnt such facts as need most to be remembered in a comprehensible form, and to attach some real characteristic to each reign; though, in later political history, it is difficult to translate the leading ideas into any- thing that can enter ail intellect of seven or eight j^ears old. The gentleman who, some time ago, recommended teaching history backwards from onr own time, could never have prac- tically tried how much harder it is to make la Charte or the Reform. Bill interesting to the childish mind, than how King Kobert fed the beggars or William Rufus was killed by an arrow. Early history is generally personal, and thus can be far more easily recollected than that which concerns the mul- titude, who are indeed everything to the philanthropist, but are nothing to the child. Even the popular fairy tale has its princes and princesses, and the wonder tale of history can only be carried on in the infant imagination by the like dramatis personod- CHARLOTTE M. YOIS^GE. CONTENTS. « « » ^ > 1. — 2.— 3.— 4. — 5.— 6. — 7.— 8.— 9.— 10. — 11.— The Old Kelts. B.C. 150 . The Koinau Conquest. B.C. 67. a.d. 79 The Conversion of Gaul. 100 --400 The Frank Kingdom. 450 — 533 The Long-haired Kings. 533—681 . Carl of the Hammer. 681 Carl the Great. 768 . The Carlings. 814—887 . The Counts of Paris. 887—987 Hugh Capet. 987—997 . Robert the Pious. 997—1031 Henry I. 1031—1060 Philip I. 1060—1108 Louis VI. Le Gros. 1108—1137 . Louis YII. The Young. 1137—1180 Philip n., Augustus. 1180—1223 . The Albigenses. 1190 Louis YIII., The Lion. 1223— 122G ■St. Louis IX. 1226 .... Philip III., The Hardy. 1271—1284 Philip lY., The Fair. 1284—1314 . Louis X., Hutin. 1314—1316 Philip Y., Le L0112:. 1.316—1322 Charles lY., Le Bel. 1322 Philip YL 1350 19. —John. 1350—1364 .... 12. 13. 14. 15.— 16.— 17.— 18.— 108 VI. CONTENTS. CHAP. 20.- 21.- 22.- 23.- 24.- 25. - 26.- 27.- 28.- 29.- 30.- 31.- 32.- 33. - 34- 35.- 3G.- 37.- 38.- 39.- 40.- 41.- 42.- 4.3.- 44.- 45.- 46.- 47.- 48.- • Charles V. 1364—1380 -Charles VI. 1380—1396 . ■ Burgundians and Armagnacs. 1415 — 1422 -Charles YIL 1422—1461 . ■Louis XL 1461—1483 -Charles VIIL 1483-1498. - Louis XIL 1498—1515 . - Francis 1. Youth. 1515 — 1526 . - Francis I. Middle Age. 1526—1547 -Henry 11. 1547—1559 - Francis II. 1559 — 1560 Charles IX. 1560—1572 , - Charles IX. 1572—1574 . -Henry III. 1574 -Henry I Y. 1589—1610 - Louis XIIL 1610—1643 . -Louis XIY. Youth. 1643—1661 - Louis XIY. Middle Age. 1661—1688 - Louis XIY. Old Age. 1688—1715 -Louis XY. 1715 — 1774 - Louis XYI. 1774—1793 . - The Great French Revolution. 1792—1796 - Xapoleon I. 1796—1814 . -Louis XYIIL 1814—1824. -Charles X. 1824—1830 -Louis Philippe. 1830—1848 -The Republic. 1848—1852 - The Second Empire. 1852—1870 The Siege of Paris. 1870—1871 -The Communists. 1871. PAGE. 209 218 227 237 246 257 268 276 289 300 \ 210 322 230 340 352 , 364 , 374 . 383 392 , 402 411 , 420 . 429 , 437 , 443 . 452 . 458 . 465 . 474 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, -♦♦♦- Feontispiece. Keltic Tribe The Gauls in Rome Mounted Gauls . Roman Army in Gaul . Yercingetorix surrenders to Csesar Conversion of Gaul Druid Sacrifice Huns at Chalons Death of Hlodimir's Children The Meerwings Arabs had Decam^ped . Charlemagne at the Head of his Army Baptism of Saxons by Charlemagne Death of Roland School of the Palace . Barks of Northmen " He Shed Tears at the Sight " Northmen before Paris Count Eudes entering Paris Knights and Peasants . Coronation of Hugh Capet The Accolades . Crusaders' March Robert and The Poor . (vU.) 11 15 19 22 27 32 39 45 51 54 65 70 71 75 79 84 87 91 95 101 109 115 118 121 Vlll. List of Illustrations. " God willeth it " The Leaders of the First Crusade Louis tlie Fat on an Expedition Crusaders' Return Capture of Acre The Battle of Muret . Death of Louis .... Colonna Striking the Pope Edward IIL doing Homage " Bade tliem look out at the Sea " ''This Way, Father" . Murder of the Marshals . . The Attack on Marcel . Laying the Keys on Du Gueslin's Bier " Thou art Betrayed " The Night before the Battle of Agincourt Murder of the Duke of Burgundy . Joan of Arc .... Joan of Arc examined in Prison Louis XL .... Interview of Louis XL and Charles the Bold Charles YIII. Crossing the x4.1ps Meeting of Charles and Anne of Brittany Charles YIII Chevalier Bayard going to the Wars Bayard knighting Francis I. . Francis I. at Marignano Death of Bayard Capture of Francis I. . Breaking of the Statue of the Virgin Mary Duke of Orleans and Charles V. Guise at Metz .... List of Illustrations. IX. Death of Henry II. Francis 11. and Mary Stuart Death of Francis II. Massacre of St. Bartholomew Henry III. and Favorites Murder of G-uise Henry IV. at Ivry Henry lY. and Ministers Henry becomes a Catholic Coucini and Mary de Medicis. Louis YIII. and Albert de Luy Richelieu and Father Joseph King and Cardinal Death of Cardinal Mazarin Louis XIV. in Cabinet Theatrical Representation Death of Turenne Louis XIV. presenting King Death of Louis XIV. . Maria Leczinska Battle of Fontenoy French Chateaii Louis XVI. Marat Tuileries Battle of Waterloo Guizot Versailles nes PAGE. 307 311 315 325 331 335 341 345 347 353 357 361 364 369 371 374 377 383 389 393 397 402 403 413 423 431 447 469 YOUNG FOLKS' HISTORY OF FRANOR CHAPTER I. THE OLD KELTS. B.C. 150. I BEGAN the " History of England " with Julius Caesar's landing in Britain, and did not try to tell you who the people were whom he found there, for I thought it would puzzle you ; but you are a little older now, and can understand rather more. 11 12 Young Folks'' History of France. You must learn that in the old times, before people wrote down histories, Europe was over- spread by a great people, whom it is convenient to call altogether the Kelts — fierce, bold, warrior people, who kept together in large families or clans, all nearly related, and each clan with a chief. The clans joined together and formed tribes, and the cleverest chief of the clans would lead the rest. They spoke a language nearly alike — the language which has named a great many rivers and hills. I will tell 3^ou a few. Ben or Pen means a hill. So we see that the Ap-pen-nine mountains were named by the Kelts. Again, Avon is a river. You know we have several Avons. Ren Avon meant the running river, and Rhine and Rhone are both the same word, differently pronounced. Sen Avon was the slow river — the Seine and Saone ; and Garr Avon was the swift river — the Garonne. There were two great varieties of Kelts — the Gael and the Kymry (you should call this word Ke wmri) . The Gael were the tallest, largest, wildest, and fiercest, but they were not so clever as the black- eyed little K3aury. The Kymry seem to have been the people who had the Druid priests, who lived in groves of oak, and cut down mistletoe with golden knives ; and most likely they set up The Old Kelts. 13 the wonderful circles of huge stones which seem to have been meant to worship in ; at least, wherever those stones are the Kymry have been. But we know little about them, as all their knowledge was in verse, which the Druids and bards taug^ht one another by word of mouth, and which was never written down. All we do know is from their neighbors the Greeks and Romans, who thought them very savage, and were very much afraid of them, when every now and then a tribe set out on a robbing expedition into the lands to the south. When the Kelts did thus come, it was generally because they were driven from their own homes. There were a still fiercer, stronger set of people behind them, coming from the east to the west; and when the Kelts found that they could not hold their own against these people, they put their wives and children into wagons, made of wood or wicker work, collected their oxen, sheep, and goats, called their great shaggy hounds, and set forth to find new homes. The men had long streaming hair and beards, and wore loose trousers of woollen, woven and dyed in checks by the women — tartan plaids, in fact. The chiefs always had gold collars round their necks, and they used round wicker shields, long spears, and heavy swords, and they 14 Young Folks' History of France. were yery terrible enemies. When tlie country was free to the west, they went on thither, and generally settled down in a wood near a river, closing in their town with a wall of trunks of trees and banks of earth, and setting up their hovels within of stone or wood. But if other clans whom they could not beat were to the west of them, they would turn to the south into Greece or Italy, and do great damage there. One set of them, in very old times, even managed to make a home in the middle of Asia Minor, and it was to their descendants that St. Paul wrote his Epistle to the Galatians. Another great troop, under a very mighty Bran, or chief, who, in Latin, is called Brennus, even broke into the great city of Rome itself. All the women and children of Rome had been sent away, and only a few brave men remained in the strong place called the Capitol, on the top of the steepest hill. There they stayed for seven months, while the Bran and his Gauls kept the city, drank up the wine in the long narrow jars, and drove in the pale-colored, long:-horned oxen from the meadow land round. The Bran never did get into the Capitol, but the Romans were obliged to pay him a great sum of money before he would go away. However, this THE GAULS IK HOME. The Old Kelts. 17 belongs to the history of Rome, and I only mean further to sa}^, that the tribe who came \A'ith him staj^ed seventeen years in the middle parts of Italy before they were entirely beaten. When the Kelts were beaten and saw there was no hope, they generally came within the enclosure they had made with their wagons, and slew their wives and chil- dren, set fire to everything, and then killed them- selves, that they might not be slaves. All the north part of Ital}" beyond the River Po was filled with Kelts, and there were many more of them beyond the Alps. So it came about that from the word Gael the Romans called the north of Italy Gallia Cis-Alpina — Gauls on this side the Alps; and the country westward Gallia Trans-Alpina, or Gaul be3^ond the Alps, and all the people there were known as Gauls, whether they were Gael or Kymry. Now, far up in Gaul, in tlie high ground that divides the rivers Loire, kSaone, and Rhine, there were rocks full of metal, tin, copper, and some- times a little silver. The clever sailors and mer- chants called Phoenicians found these out, and taught the Gauls to work the mines, and send the metals in boats down the Rhone to the Mediterra- nean sea. There is a beautiful bay where Gaul 18 Youny Folks'^ History of France. touches the Mediterranean, and not only the Phoe- nicians found it out, l^ut the Greeks. They came to live there, and built the cities of Marseilles, Nice, Antibes, and several more. Lovely cities the Greeks always built, with marble temples to their gods, pillars standing on steps, and gardens with statues in them, and theatres for seeing plays acted in the open air. Inside these towns and close round them everything was beautiful; but the Gauls who lived near learnt some Greek ways, and were getting tamed. They coined money, wrote in Greek letters, and bought and sold with the Greeks ; but their wilder brethren beyond did not a2:)prove of this, and whenever they could catch a Greek on his journey would kill him, rob him, or make him prisoner. Sometimes, indeed, they threatened to rob the cities, and the Greeks begged the Romans to protect them. So the Romans sent an officer and an army, who built two new towns, Aix and Narbonne, and made war on the Gauls, who tried to hinder him. Then a messenger was sent to the Roman camp. He was an immensely tall man, with a collar and bracelets of gold, and beside him came a bard singing the praises of his clan, the Arverni. There were man}^ other attend- ants ; but his chief guards were a pack of immense MOUNTKD (^.AIM.S. The Old Kelts, 21 hounds, wliicli came pacing after liim in ranks like soldiers. He bade the Romans, in the name of his chief Bituitus, to leave the country, and cease to harm the Gauls. The Roman General turned his back and would not listen ; so the messenger went back in anger, and the Arverni prepared for battle. When Bituitus saw the Roman army he thought it so small that he said, '' This handfid of men will hardly furnish food for my dogs." He was not beaten in the battle, but jnst after it he was made prisoner, and sent to Italy, where he was kept a captive all the rest of his life, while his son was brought up in Roman learning and habits, and then sent home to rule his clan, and teach them to be friends with Rome. This was about one hun- dred and fifty years before the coming of our Blessed Lord. CHAPTER ir. THE KOMAN CONQUEST. B.C. (i7 — A.D. 79. THE Romans called the country tliey had taken for themselves in Gaul the Province, and Provence has alw^ays continued to be its name. They filled it with colonies. A colony was a city built by Romans, generally old soldiers, who received a grant of land if they would defend it. 22 The Roman Conquest. 23 The first thing they did was to set up an altar. Then they dug trenches the shape of their intended city, marked out streets, and made little flat bricks, everywhere after one pattern, with which the\' built a temple, houses (each standing round a paved court), a theatre, and public baths, with causeways as straight as an arrow joining tlie cities together. Each town had two magistrates elected every year, and a governor lived at the chief town with a legion of the army to keep the country round in order. When the Romans once began in this way, they always ended by gaining the whole country in time. They took nearly a hundred j^ears to gain Gaul. First there came a terrible inroad of some wilder Kymry, whom the Romans called Cimbri, from the west, with some Teutons, of that fiercer German race I told you of. They broke into Gaul, and defeated a great Roman army; and there was ten years' fighting v/ith them before the stout old Roman, Caius Marius, beat them in a great battle near Aix. All the men were killed in battle, and the women killed their children and themselves rather than fall into Roman hands. That was B.C. 103; and Julius Csesar, the same who first came to Britain, was nephew to JMarius. 24 Young Folks' History of France. He did not conquer Britain, but he did really conquer Gaul. It would only confuse and puzzle you now to tell you how it was done ; but by this time many of the Gaulish tribes had come to be friendly with the Romans and ask their help. Some wanted help because they were quarrelling with other tribes, and others because the Germans behind them had squeezed a great tribe of Kymry out of the Alps, and they wanted to come down and make a settlement in Gaul. Julius Caesar made short work of beating these new-comers, and he beat the Germans who were also trying to get into Gaul. Then he expected all the Gauls to submit to him — not only those who lived round the Province, and had always been friendly to Rome, but all the free ones in the north. He was one of the most w^onderful soldiers who ever lived. He gained first, all the east side. He subdued the Belgse, who lived between the Alps and the sea, all the Armoricans along the north, and then the still wilder people on the coast towards the Atlantic ocean. But while he was away in the north, the Gaulish chiefs in the south agreed that they would make one great attempt to set their country free from the enemy. They resolved all to rise at once, and The Roman Conquest, 25 put themselves under the command of the brave young mountain chief of the Arverni, from whom' Auvergne was named. The Romans called his name Vercingetorix ; and as it reall}^ was even longer and harder to speak than this word, we will call him so. He was not a wild shaggy savage like Bituitus, but a graceful, spirited chief, who had been trained to Roman manners, and knew their ways of fighting. All in one night the Gauls rose. Men stood on the hill-tops, and shouted from clan to clan to rise up in arms. It was the depth of winter, and Caesar was away resting in Italy ; but back he came on the first tidings, and led his men over six feet of snow, taking every Gallic town by the way. Vercingetorix saw that the wisest thing for the Gauls to do would be to burn and lay waste the land themselves, so that the Romans might find nothing to eat. "It was sad," he said, " to see burning houses, but worse to have Avife and chil- dren led into captivity." One city, that now called Bourges, was left ; the inhabitants beseeched him on their knees to spare it ; and it seemed to be safe, for there was a river on one side and a bog on all the rest, with only one narrow road across. But in twenty-five days Caisar made his way in. 26 Young Folks' History of France. and slew all he found there ; and then he followed Vercmgetorix to his own hills of Auvergne, and fought a battle, the only defeat the great Roman captain ever met with : indeed, he was obliged to retreat from the face of the brave Arverni. They followed him again, and fought another battle, in which he was in great danger, and was forced even to leave his sword in the hands of the Gauls, who hung it up in a temple in thanksgiving to their gods. But the Gauls were not so steady as they were brave ; they fled, and all Vercingetorix could do was to lead them to a great camp under the hill of Alesia. He sent horsemen to rouse the rest of Gaul, and shut himself up in a great enclosure with his men. Csesar and the Romans came and made another enclosure outside, eleven miles round, so that no help, no food could come to them, and they had only provisions for thirty days. Their friends outside did try to break through to them, but in vain ; they were beaten off; and then brave Vercingetorix offered to give himself up to the Romans, provided the lives of the rest of the Gauls were spared. Csesar gave his word that this should be done. Accordingly, at the appointed hour the gates of the Gallic camp opened. Out came Ver- cingetorix in his richest armor, mounted on his The Roman Conquest. 29 finest steed. He galloped about, wheeled round once, then drawing np suddenly before Caesar's seat, sprang to the ground, and laid his sword at the victor's feet. C'sesar was not touched. He l^ept a cold, stern face ; ordered the gallant chief into captivity, and kept him for six years, while finishing other conquests, and then took him to Rome, to walk in chains behind the car in which the victorious general entered in triumph, with all the standards taken from the Gauls displayed ; and then, with the other captives, this noble war- rior was put to death in the dark vaults under the hill of the Capitol. With Vercingetorix ended the freedom of Gaul. The Romans took possession of all the country, and made the cities like their own. The old clans were broken up. The fighting men were enlisted in the Roman army, and sent to fight as far away as possible from home, and the chiefs thought it an honor to be enrolled as Roman citizens ; they wore the Roman tunic and toga, spoke and wrote Latin, and, except among the Kymry of the far north- west, the old Gaulish tongue was forgotten. Very grand temples and amphitheatres still remain in the Province of Roman building, especially at Nismes, Aries, and Autun ; and a huge acqueduct, 30 Young Folks'^' History of France. % called the Pont clu Gard, still stands across a valley near Nismes, with 600 feet of three tier of arcades, altogether 160 feet high. Roads made as only Romans made them crossed hither and thither throughout the country, and, except in the wilder and more distant parts, to live in Gaul was very like living in Home. After Julius Caesar, the Romans had Emperors at the head of their state, and some of these were verv fond of Gaul. But when the first twelve who had some connection with Julius were all dead, a Gaul named Julius Sabinus rose up and called himself Emperor. The real Emperor, chosen at Rome, named Vespasian, soon came and over- threw his cause, and hunted him to his country house. Flames burst out of it, and it was declared that Sabinus had burnt himself there. But no ; he was safely hidden in a cave in the woods. No one knew of it but his wife Eponina and one trusty slave, and there they lived together for nine years, and had two little sons. Eponina twice left him to go to Rome to consult her friends Avhether they could obtain a pardon for her husband; but Ves- pasian was a stern man, and they saw no hope, so she went back disappointed ; and the second time she was watclied and followed, and Sabinus was The Roman ConquesL 31 found. He was taken and chained, and carried to Rome, and she and her two boys came with him. She knelt before the Emperor, and besought his pardon, saying that here were two more to plead for their father. Tears came into Vespasian's eyes, but he would not forgive, and the husband and wife were both sentenced to die. The last thing Eponina said before his judgment-seat was, that it was better to die together than to be alive as such an Emperor. Her two boys were taken care of, and one of them lived long after in Greece, as far away from his home as possible. CHAPTER III. THE CONVERSION OF GAUL. A.I). 100-400. GAUL could not be free in her own way, but the truth that maketh free was come to her. The Druids, though their worship was cruel, had better notions of the true God than the Romans with their multitude of idols, and when they heard more of the truth, many of them gladly embraced 32 The Conversion of Gaul. ■ 33 it. The Province was so near Rome that very soon after the Apostles had reached the great city, they sent on to GaiiL The people in Provence believe tliat Lazarus and his two sisters came thither, but this is not likely. However, the fitst Bishop of Aries was Trophimus, and we may quite believe him to have been the Ephesian who was with St. Paul in liis third journey, and was at Jernsalem with him when he was made prisoner. Trophimus brought a service-book with him very like the one that St. John the Evano^elist had drawn up for the Churches of Asia. It was to Vienne, one of these Roman cities, that Pontins Pilate had been banished for his cruelt3^ In this town and in the larger one at Lyons there were many Christians, and their bishop was Pothinus, who had been instructed by St. John. It was many years before the Gallic Chris- tians suffered au}^ danger for their faith, not till the year 177, when Pothinus was full ninety years old. Then, under the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, a governor was sent to the Province who was resolved to put an end to Christianity. The difficulty was that there were no crimes of wliich to accuse tlie Christians. So he caused several slaves to be 34 Young Folks' History of France. seized and put to torture, while they were asked questions. There were two young girls among them, Blandina and Biblis. Blandina was a weak, delicate maiden, but whatever pain they gave her, she still said, "I am a Christian, and no evil is done among us." Biblis, however, in her fright ^and agony, said " Yes " to all her tormentors asked, and accused the Christians of killing babies, eating human flesh, and all sorts of horrible things. Afterwards she was shocked at herself, declared there was not a word of truth in what she had said, and bore fresh and worse torture bravely. The Christians were seized. The old bishop was dragged through the streets, and so pelted and ill- treated that after a few days he died in prison. The others were for fifteen days brought out before all the people in the amphitheatre, while every torture that could be thought of was tried upon them. All were brave, but Blandina was the bravest of all. She did not seem to feel when she was put to sit on a red hot iron chair, but encour- aged her young brother through all. At last she was put into a net and tossed by a bull, and then, being found to be still alive, her throat was pierced, everyone declaring that never had woman endured so much. The persecution did not last much The Conversion of Craul. 35 longer after this, and the bones of the martyrs were collected and buried, and a church built over them, the same, though of course much altered, which is now the Cathedral of Lyons. Instead of the martyred Pothinus, the new bishop was Irenseus, a holy man who left so many writings that he is counted as. one of the Fathers of the Church. A] most all the townsmen of Lyons became Christians under his wise persuasion and good example, but the rough people in the country were much less easily reached. Lideed, the word pagan, which now means a heathen, was only the old Latin word for a peasant or villager. In the year 202, the Emperor Severus, who had himself been born at Lyons, put out an edict against the Chris- tians. The fierce Gauls in the adjoiniug country hearing of it, broke furiously into the city, and slaughtered every Christian they laid hands upon, St. Irengeus among them. There is an old mosaic ]3avement in a church at Lyons where the inscrip- tion declares that nineteen thousand died in this massacre, but it can hardly be believed that the numbers were so large. The northerly parts of Gaul were not yet con- verted, and a bishop named Dionysius was sent to teach a tribe called the Parisii, whose chief city 36 Young Folks'" History of France, was Lutetia, on the banks of the Seine. He was taken in the year 272, and was beheaded just out- side the walls on a hill which is still known as Mont Martre, the martyr's mount, and his name, cut short into St. Denys, became one of the most famous in all France. The three Keltic provinces, Gaul, Spain, and Britain, used to be put together under one governor, and the brave, kindly Constantius ruled over them, and hindered persecution as much as he could. His son Constantine was also much loved, and it was while marching to Italy with an army, in which were many Gauls, to obtain the empire, that Constantine saw the vision of a bright cross in the sky, surrounded by the words, "In this sign thou shalt conquer." He did conquer, and did confess himself a Christian two years later, and under him the Church of Gaul flourished. Gallic bishops were at the great council of Nicea, in Asia Minor, when the Nicene creed was drawn up, and many beautiful hymns for Christian Avorship were written in Gaul. After Constantine's death, his son Constantius fostered tlie false doctrine that the Nicene creed contradicted. He lived at Constantinople, and dressed and lived like an Eastern prince, and the The Conversion of Graul. 37 Gauls were growing discontented ; more especially as tlie Franks — a terrible tribe of tlieir Teuton enemies to the east — were trj'ing to break into their lands. A young cousin of Constantius, named Julian, was sent to fight with them. He fixed his chief abode in a little island in the middle of the River Seine, at Lutetia, among his dear Parisii, as he called the tribe around, and thence he came out to drive back the Franks whenever they tried to attack the Gauls. He was a very brave, able man, but he had seen so much selfishness among the Christians in Rome and Constantinople, that he fancied their faults arose from their faith; and tried to be an old heathen again as soon as Con- stantius was dead, and he became emperor. He only reigned three years, and then, in the year 863, was killed in a war with the Persians. Very sad times followed his death. He was the last of his family, and several emperors rose and fell at Rome. The governor of Gaul, Maximus, called himself emperor, and, raising an army in Britain, defeated the young man who had reigned at Rome in the jeen 881, and ruled the Keltic j)rovinces for seven years. He was a brave soldier, and not wholly a bad man, for he much loved and valued the great Bishop Martin, of Tours. Martin had 38 Young Folks^ History of France. been brought up as a soldier, but he was so kind that once when he saw a shivering beggar he cut his cloak into two with his sword, and gave the poor man half. He was then not baptized, but at eighteen he became altogether a Christian, and was the pupil of the great Bishop Hilary of PoitierSo It was in these days that men were first beginniog to band together to live in toil, poverty, and devo- tion in monasteries or abbeys, and Martin was the first person in Gaul to form one, near Poitiers; but he was called from it to be Bishop of Tours, and near that city he began another abbey, which still bears his name, Marmoutiers, or Martin's Monastery. He and the monks used to go out from thence to teach the Pagans, who still remained in the far west, and whom Roman punishment had never cured of the old Druid ways. These people could not learn the Latin that all the rest of the country spoke, but lived on their granite moors as their forefathers had lived four hundred years before. However, Martin did what no one else had ever done : he taught them to become staunch Christians, though they still remained a people apart, speaking their own tongue and following their own customs. This was the good St. Martin's work while his DKUin SAOKIFICK. Tlie Conversion of Graul. 41 friend, the false Emperor Maximiis, was beiiio- overthrown by the true Emperor Theodosius ; and much more struggling and fighting was goiiio- on among the Romans and Gauls, while in the mean- time the dreadful Eranks were every now and then bursting into the country from across the Rhine to plunder and burn and kill and make slaves. St. Martin had finished the conversion of Gaul, just before he died in his monastery at Marmou- tiers, in the year 400. He died in time to escape the terrible times that were coming upon all the Gauls, or rather Romans. F(jr all the southern and eastern Gauls called themselves Romans, spoke nothing but Latin, and had entirely forgotten all thoughts, ways, and manners but those they had learnt from the Greeks and Romans. CHAPTER IV. THE FRANK KINGDOM. A.D. 450-533. THAT race of people which had been driving the Kelts westward for six or seven hundred years was making a way into Gaul at last ; indeed, they had been only held back by Roman skill. These were the race which, as a general name, is called Teutonic, but which divided into manv different nations. All were large-limbed, blue- eyed, and light-haired. They all spoke a language like rough German, and all had the same religion, believing in the great warlike gods, Odin, Thor, and Frey ; worshipping them at stone altars, and expecting to live with them in the hall of heroes after death. That is, all so called who were, brave and who were chosen by the valkyr, or slaughter- choosing goddesses, to die nobly in battle. Cow- ards were sent to dwell with Hela, the pale, gloomy goddess of death. 42 The Frank Kingdom. 43 Of course the different tribes were not exactlv alike, but tliey all had these features in common. They had lived for at least five hundred }-ears in the centre of Europe, now and then attacking their neighbors, when, being harassed by another fierce race who came behind them, they made more great efforts. The chief tribes whose names must be remembered were the Goths, who conquered Rome and settled in Spain ; the Longbeards, or Lombards, who spread over the north of Italy ; the Burgundians (burg or town livers), who held all the country round the Alps ; the Swabians and Germans, who stayed in the middle of Europe ; the Saxons, who dwelt about the south of the Baltic, and finally conquered South Britain ; the Northmen, who found a home in Scandinavia ; and the Franks, who had been long settled on the rivers Sale, Meuse, and Rhine. Their name meant Freemen, and the}^ were noted for usino; an axe called after them. There were two tribes — tlie Salian, from the River Sale, and the Ripuarian. They were great horsemen, and dreadful pillagers, and tlie Salians had a family of kings, which, like the kings of all the other tribes, was supposed to descend from Odin. Tlie king was always of this family, called Meerwings, after 44 Young Folks^ History of France. Meerwig, the son of Wehrmund, one of tlie first chiefs. After tlie death of the great Theodosius, who had conquered the false Emperor Maximus, there was no power to keep these Franks back, and tliey were continually dashing into Ganl, and carrying off slaves and plunder. Eyen worse was the great rush that, in the year 450, was made all across Europe by the Huns, a terrible nation of another race, whose chief was called Etzel, or Attila, and who named himself the Scourge of God. In 451, he invaded Gaul with his army, horrible looking men, whose faces had been gashed by their savage parents in their infancy, that they might look more dreadful. It was worse to fall into their hands than into those of the Franks, and everywhere there was terror. At Lutetia there was a great desire to flee away, but they were persuaded to remain by the holy woman, Genoveva. She was a young shepherdess of Nanterre, near Paris, who had devoted herself to the service of God, and whose holy life made the people listen to her as a kind of prophet. And she was right. The Huns did not come further that Orleans, where the good Bishop Lupus made the people shut their gates, and defend their town, until an army, composed of HUNS AT ('HALO'S. The Frank Kingdom. 47 Franks, Goths, Biirgundians, Gauls, all under the Roman General Aetius, attacked the Huns at Chal6ns-sur-Marne, beat them, and drove tliem back in 451. Chalons was the last victory won under the old Roman eagles. There was too much trouble in Italy for Rome to help any one. In came the Franks whenever they pleased, and Hil- perik, the son of Meerwig, came to Lutetia, or Paris, as it was now called from the tribe round it, and there he rioted in Julian's old palace. He had a great respect for Genoveva, heathen though he was ; and when he came home from ]3lundering, with crowds of prisoners driven before him, Geno- veva would go and stand before him, and entreat for their pardon, and he never could withstand her, but set them all free. She died at eio-htv-nine years old, and St. Genevieve, as she was afterwards called, was honored at Paris as much as St. Denys. Hilperik's son Avas named Hlodwig, which means loud or renowned a\ ar, but as the name is harsh, histories generally name him Clovis. He wanted to marr}^ a Burgundian maiden named Clothilda and as she was a Christian, he promised tliat she should be allowed to pray to her God in the churches which still stood throughout Gaul. When her first child was born, she persuaded Clovis to 48 Young Folks'" Sistory of France, let her have it baptized. It died very soon, and Clovis fancied it was becau&e her God could not save it. However, she caused the next child to be baptized, and when it fell sick she prayed for it, and it recovered. He began to listen more to what she said of her God, and when, soon after, the Germans came with a great army across the Rhine, and he drew out his Franks to fight with them at Tolbiac, near Cologne, he was in great danger in the battle, and he cried aloud, " Christ, whom Clothilda calls the true God, I have called on my own gods, and they help me not ! Send help, and I will own Tliy name." The Germans fled, and Clovis had the victory. He kept his word, and was baptized at Rheims by St. Remigius, with his two sisters, three thousand men, and many women and children; and as he was the first great Teutonic prince who was a Catholic Christian, the King of France, ever since his time, has been called the Most Christian King and eldest son of the Church. Clovis was the first Frank chief who really made a home of Gaul, or who wore a purple robe and a crown like a Roman emperor. He made his chief home at Paris, where he built a church in the little island on the Seine, in honor of the Blessed Virgin, measuring the The Frank Kiny. 49 length by how far he could throw an axe ; but, though he honored the Gaulish clergy, he was still a fierce and violent savage, who did many cruel things. He generally repented of them afterwards, and gave gifts to churches to show his sorrow, and holy men were about him when, in 511, he died at Paris. His sons had all been baptized, but they were worse men than he had been. The Frank kingdom was only the north part of the country above the Loire. In the south, where the Romans had had possession so much longer, and built so many more walled towns, the Franks never really lived. They used to rush down and plunder the country round about ; but then the townsmen shut themselves in, closed their gates, and strengthened their walls, and the Franks had no machines to batter the walls, no patience for a blockade, and went home again with only the spoil of the country round ; while in the Province people called themselves Roman citizens still, and each place governed itself by the old Roman law. Plenty of Gauls were in the northern part too, speaking Latin still. They had to bear much rough treatment from the Franks, but all the time their knowledge and skill made them respected. 50 Young Folks' History of France, The clergy, too, were almost all Gauls ; and now that the Franks were Christians, in name at least, they were afraid of them, and seldom damaged a church or broke into a monastery. Indeed, if there was any good in a Frank, he was apt to go into a monastery out of the horrid barbarous ways of his comrades, and perhaps this left those outside to be still worse, as they had hardly any better men among them. The four sons of Clovis diyided the kingdom. That is, they were all kings, and each had towns of his own, but all a good deal mixed up together ; and in the four chief towns — Paris, Orleans, Soissons, and Metz — they all had equal shares. Not that they really governed, only each had a strong box filled with gold and jewels, and they always were leaders when the Franks went out to plunder in the southern lands of Pro- vincia and Aquitaine. There was another part the Franks never conquered, namely, that far north- western corner called Armorica, which Julius Caesar had conquered, and St. Martin had converted last of all. The granite moors did not tempt the Frank-s, and the Kymri there were bold and free. More- over, so many of their kindred Kymri from Britain came over thither for fear of the Saxons, that the country came to be called from them Bretagne, or DEATH OK HLODIMIK'S CHILDREN. The Frank Kingdom. 53 Brittanj^, and the Kymric tongue is spoken there to this day. When Hlodmir, one of the sons of Clovis, died, his three little sods were sent to Paris to be under the care of their grandmother, Clothilda. She was so fond of them that their uncles, Hloter and Hildebert, were afraid she would require that their father's inheritance should be given to them. So they asked her to send the boys to them on a visit, and as soon as they arrived, a messenger was sent to the Queen with a sword and a pair of scissors, desiring her to choose. This meant that she would choose whether the poor boys should be killed, or have their heads shaven and become monks. Clo- thilda answered that she had rather see them dead than monks. So Hloter killed the eldest, who was only ten, with his sword ; the second clung to Hildebert, and begged hard for life, but Hloter forced his brother to give him up, and killed him too ; the third, whose name was Hlodoald, was helped by some of the bystanders to hide himself, and when he grew older, he cut off his long hair, went into a monastery, and was so good a man that he is now called St. Cloud. This horrible murder happened about the year 533. ' ^^^^j^. CHAPTER V THE LONG-HAIRED KINGS. A.D. 533-681. THE Meerwings, or long-haired kings, were altogether the most wicked dynasty (or race of kings) who ever called themselves Christian. They do not seem to have put off any of their heathen customs, except the actual worship of Frey and Odin. They murdered, plundered, and 64 The Long-Haired Kings, 55 married numerous wives, just as if they had been heathens still. Most likely they thought that as Christ was the God of Gaul, he must be honored there; but they had no notion of obeying Him, and if a Gallic bishop rebuked them, they only plundered his church. By the Frank law, a mur- der might be redeemed by a payment, and it was full twice as costly to kill a Frank as to kill a Roman, that is to say, a Gaul; for, except in the cities in the Province and Aquitaine, this term of Roman, once so proud, was only a little better than that of slave. Out of all the Meerwing names, one or two have to be remembered above the rest for their crimes. Hlother, the murderous son of Clovis, left four sons, among whom the kingdom was, as usual, divided. Two of these sons, Hilperik and Sieg- bert, wished for queenl}^ wives, though Hilperik, at least, had a houseful of wives before, and among them a slave girl named Fredegond. The two brothers married the two daughters of the King of the Goths in Spain, Galswinth and Brynhild. Siegbert seems to have really loved Brynhild, but Hilperik cared for the beautiful and clever Frede- gond more than anyone else, and very soon poor Galswinth was found in her bed strangled. Frede- 56 Young Folks' Sistory of France, gond reigned as queen, and Biynliild hated her bitterly, and constantly stirred up her husband to avenge her sister's death. Siegbert raised an army and defeated Hilperik, but Fredegond contrived to have him stabbed. She also contrived to have all her husband's other children killed by different means, and at last, fearing he would find out crimes greater than even he could bear with, she contrived that he too should bo stabbed when returning from hunting, in the 3^ear 584. She had lost several infants, and now had only one child left, Hloter II., a few months old, but in his name she ruled what the Franks called the Ne-oster-ik, the not eastern, or western kingdom, namely, France, from the Saone westward ; while Brynhild and her son Hil- debert ruled in the Austerik, or eastern kingdom, from the Saone to the Sale and Rhine. There was a most bitter hatred between the two sisters-in-law. It seems as if Fredegond was of a wicked nature, and would have been a bad woman anywhere. One's mind shrinks from the horrible stories of murder, treachery, and every sort of vice that are told of her; but no outward punishment came upon her in this world, and she died in 597 at Paris, leaving her son, Hlother II., on the throne. Brynhild often did bad things, but she erred The Long-Haired Kings. 57 more from the bad times in which she lived than from her own disposition. She tried, so far as she knew how, to do good; she made friends with the clergy, she helped the few learned men, she tried to stop cruelty, she tried to repair the old Roman roads and bridges, and many places are called after her — Queen Brynhild's tower, or stone, or the like — and she was very kind to the poor, and gave them large alms. But she grew worse as she grew older; she had furious quarrels with the Frank chiefs, and when the Bishops found fault with her she attacked them, and even caused the saintly Bishop of Vienne to be assassinated. In her time there came from Ire- land a number of very holy men, Keltic Christians, who had set forth from the monasteries to convert 5nch Gauls and Franks as remained heathen, and to try to bring the rest to a better sense of what a Christian life was. St. Columbanus came into the Austerick when Brynhild's two grandsons, Theude- bert and Theuderick, were reigning there. Tlieu- derick listened willingly to the holy man, and was proceeding to put away his many wives and mend his ways; but the old Queen's j)ride was offended, and she could not forgive him for not allowing her to come into his monastery, because no woman was permitted there. She stirred up Theuderick to 58 Young Folks' History of France, drive him away, whereupon he went to the Alps and converted, the people there, who were still worshippers of Odin. Soon after there was a fierce quarrel between her two grandsons. Theuderick was taken prisoner by his brother, and forced to cut his hair and become a monk, but this did not save his life. He was put to death shortly after, and his brother soon after died ; so that Brynhild, after having ruled in the name of her son and grandsons, now governed for her great-grandson, Siegbert, thirty-nine years after her husband's death. But she was old and weak, and her foe, Fredegond's son, Hlother, attacked her, defeated her forces, and made her and her great-grandchil- dren prisoners. The boys were slain, and the poor old Gothic Queen, after being placed on a camel and led through the camp to be mocked by all the savage Franks, was tied to the tail of a wild horse, to be dragged to death by it ! This was in 614. Hlother thus became King of all the Franks, and so was his son Dagobert I., who was not much better as a man, but was not such a savage, and took interest in the beautiful goldsmith's work done by the good Bishop Eligius ; and, somehow, his name has been more remembered at Paris than he seems properly to deserve. In fact, the Franks The Long-Haired Kings. 69 were getting gradually civilized by the Romanized Gauls — the conquerors by the conquered; and the daughters, when taken from their homes, some- times showed themselves excellent women. It was Bertha, the daughter of King Haribert, the mur- derer of his nephews, who persuaded her husband, Ethelbert of Kent, to receive St. Augustine ; and Ingund, the daughter of Brynhild and Siegbert, was married to a Gothic Prince in Spain, whom she brought to die a martyr for the true faith. Twelve more Meerwings reigned after Dagobert. If they had become less savage they were less S23irited, and they hardly attended at all to the affairs of their kingdoms, but only amused them- selves in their I'ude palaces at Soissons or Paris, thus obtaining the name of Rois Faineants^ or sluggard kings. The affairs of the kingdom fell into the hands of the Major Domi^ as he was called, or Mayor of the Palace. The Franks, as they tried to have courts and keep up state, followed Roman patterns so far as they knew them, and gave Roman names from the Emperor's Court to the men in attendance on them. So the steward, or Major Domi, master of the household, rose to be the chief person in the kingdom next to the king himself. The next great- 60 Youny Folks' History of France. est people were called Oomites, companions of the King, Counts; and the chief of these was the Master of the Horse, Comes Stahuli^ the Count of the Stable, or, as he came to be called in the end, the Constable. The leader of the a/rmy was called Dux, a Latin word meaning to lead ; and this word is our word Duke. But the Mayor of the Palace under these foolish do-nothing Meerwings soon came to be a much greater man than the King himself, and the Mayor of the Palace of the Oster- rik or Austrasia fought with the Palace Mayor of the Ne-oster-rik or Neustria, as if they were two sovereigns. The Austrian Franks stretched far away eastward, and were much more bold and spirited than the Neustrians, who had mixed a great deal with the Gauls. And, finally, Ebroin, the last ISTeustrian Mayor, was murdered in 681, the Neustrian army was defeated, and the Austra- sians became the most powerful. Their mayors were all one family, the first of whom was named PejDin of Landen. He was one of Queen Bryn- hild's great enemies, but he was a friend of Dago- bert L, and he and his family were brave defenders of the Franks from the other German nations, who, like them, loved war better than anything else. CHAPTER VI. CABL OF THE HAMMER. A.D. G81. THE grandson of Pepin of Landen is commonly called Pepin L'Heristal. He was Mayor of the Palace through the reigns of four do-nothing Meerwings, and was a brave leader of the Franks, fighting hard with their heathen neighbors on the other side of the Rhine, the Saxons and Thurin- gians, along the banks of the Meuse and Elbe ; and not only fighting ^^•ith them, but helping the missionaries Avho came from England and from Ireland to endeavor to convert them. He died in 714, and after him came his brave son Car] of the Hammer, after whom all the family are knoAvn in history as Carlings. Pie was Duke of Austrasia and Mayor of the Palace, over (one cannot say under) Hlother IV. and Theuderick lY., and fought the battles of the Franks against 61 62 Young Folhs^ History/ of France, the Saxons and Frisians, besides making himself ' known and respected in the Province and Aqui- taine, where the soft Eoman speech softened his name into Carolus and translated his nickname into Martellus, so that he has come down to our day as Charles Martel. Whether it was meant that he was a hammer himself, or that he carried a hammer, is not clear, but it is quite certain that he was the greatest man in Europe at that time, and he who did her the greatest benefit. It was a hundred years since Mahommed had risen up in Arabia, teaching the Avild Arabs a strict law, and declaring that God is but one, and that he was His prophet, b}^ which he meant that he was a greater and a truer prophet than the Lord Jesus Christ. He had carried away many of the Eastern nations after him and had conquered others. He taught that it was right to fight for the spread of the religion he taught, and his Arabs did fight so mightily that they overcame the Holy Land and held the city of Jerusalem. Besides this, they had conquered Egypt and spread all along the north of Africa, on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea ; and thence they had crossed over into Spain, and subdued the Christian Goths, Carl of the Hammer, 63 all but the few who had got together in the Pyre- nean mountams aod their continuation in the Asturias, along the coast of the Bay of Biscay. And now these Arabs — also called Saracens and Moors — Avere trying to pass the Pyrenees and make attacks upon Gaul, and it seemed as if all Europe was going to be given up to them and to become Mahommedan. Abdul Rhaman, the great Arab Governor of Spain, crossed the Pyrennees at the pass of Roncevalles, burst into Aquitaine, gained a great battle near Bordeaux, and pillaged the city, which was so rich a place that every soldier was loaded with topazes and emeralds, and gold was quite common ! Then they marched on towards Tours, where the Abbey of Marmoutiers was said to be the richest in all Gaul. But by this time Carl of the Hammer had got together his army ; not only Franks, but Burgundians, Gauls of the Province, Germans from beyond the Rhine — all who will- ingly owned the sovereignty of Austrasia, provided they could be saved from the Arabs. The battle of Tours, between Charles Martel and Abdul Rhaman, was fought in the autumn oi 732, and was one of the great battles that decide the fate of the world. For it was this which fixed 64 Young Folks'' History of France, whether Europe should be Christian or Mahomme- daii. It was a hotly-fought combat, but the tall powerful Franks and Germans stood like rocks against every charge of the Arab horsemen, till darkness came on. The Franks slept where they stood, and drew up the next morning to begin the battle again, but no enemy appeared. Some Franks were sent to reconnoitre, entered the enemj^'s camp, and penetrated into their tents. But no living man was to be found. The Arabs had decamped silently in the night, and had left nearly all their booty behind them, and the battle of Tours had saved Europe. However, the Hammer had still to strike many blows before they were driven back into Spain, and this tended to bring the south of Gaul much more under his power. Carl was looked upon as the great defender of Christendom, and, as at this time the king of the Lombards in ]N"orthern Italy seemed disposed to make himself master of Rome, the Pope sent two nuncios, as Pope's mes- sengers are called, to carry him presents, among them the keys of the tomb of St. Peter, and to beg for his protection. Still, great as he was in reality, he never called himself more than Mayor of the Palace and Duke of Austrasia, and when he died in 741, his sons, Pepin and Carloman, divided the ARABS HAD DECAMPED. Carl of the Hammer, 67 government, still as Mayors, for tlie Meerwing Hilderick III. In 746, however, Carloman, weary of the world, caused his head to be shaven b}-^ Pojje Zacharias, and retired into the great monas- tery of Monte Cassino, where, about a hundred years before, St. Benedict had begun a rule that became the pattern of most of the convents of the west. Pepin, commonly called le href^ or the Short, ruled alone, and in 751 he sent to ask Pope Zacha- rias whether it would not be wiser that the family who had all the power should bear the name of kings. The Pope replied that so it should be. Hilderick was put into a convent, and the great English Missionary-bishop, St. Boniface, whom Pepin and his father had aided in his work among the Germans, anointed Pepin as King of the Franks at Soissons, and two years later, the next Pope,, Stephen II., came into Gaul again to ask aid against the Lombards, and at the Abbey of St. Deny's anointed Pepin again, together with his two young sons, Carl and Carloman. And so the Meerwings passed awa}^ and the Carlings began. Pepin was a great friend and supporter of St. Boniface, who had been made Archbishop of May- intz. Re did much by his advice to bring the Church of Gaul into good order, and he was much 68 Young Folks' History of France. grieved when the holy man was martyred while preaching to the savage men of Friesland. Pepin was constantly fighting with the heathen Saxons and Germans to the east of him, and he so far subdued them that they promised to send three hundred horses as a present to the General Assem- bly of Franks. To the north he had the old Gauls in Brittany, who had to be Avell watched lest they should plunder their neighbors ; and to the south were the Arabs, continually trying to maraud in the Province and Aquitaine ; while the Dukes of Aquitaine, though they were quite unable to keep back the Moors without the help of the Franks, could not endure their allies, and hated to acknowl- edge the upstart Pepin as their master. These Dukes, though Teuton themselves, had lived so long in the Roman civilization of the southern cities, that they despised the Franks as rude barba- rians ; and the Franks, on their side, thought them very slippery, untrustworthy people. Pepin was a great improvement in good sense, understanding, and civilization on the do-nothing Meerwings, but even he looked on writing as only the accomplishment of clergy, and did not cause his sons to learn to write. Yet Pope Stephen was for a whole winter his guest, and when the Franks Carl of the Hammer. 69 entered Italy and defeated Astolfo, King of the Lombards, Pepin was rewarded by being made " Senator of Rome." Afterwards the Lombards attacked the Pope again. Pepin again came to his help, and after gaining several victories, forced King Astolfo to give up part of his lands near Rome. Of these Pepin made a gift to the Pope, and this was the beginning of the Pope's becoming a temporal sovereign, that is, holding lands like a king or prince, instead of only holding a spiritual power over men's consciences as chief Bishop of the Western Church. Pepin, died at the Abbey of St. Denys in the year 768. Do not call him King of France, but King of the Franks, which does not mean the same thing. CHAPTER VII. CARL THE GREAT. 7G8. CARL and Carloman, the two sons of Pepin, at first divided the Frank domains ; but Carlo- man soon died, and Carl reigned alone. He is one of the mightiest of the princes who ever bore the name of Great. Carl der Grosse, the Franks called him ; Carolos Magnus in Latin, and this has become 70 BAPTISM OF SAXOXS KV CHARLEMAGNE. Carl the Great, 78 in French, Charlemagne ; and as this is the name by which everybody knows him, it will be the most convenient way to call him so here, though no one ever knew him thus in his own time. He was a most warlike king. When the Saxons failed to send him three hundred horses, he entered their country, ravaged it, and overthrew an image or pillar near the source of the Lippe, which they used as an idol, and called Irminsul. Thereupon the Saxons burnt the church at Fritzlar, which St. Boniface had built, and the war went on for years. Charlemagne was resolved to force the Saxons to be Christians, and Witikind, the great Saxon leader, was fiercely resolved against yielding, viewing the honor of Odin as the honor of his country. They fought on and on, till, in 785, Charlemagne win- tered in Saxony, and at last persuaded Witikind to come and meet him at Attigny. There the Saxon chief owned that Christ had conquered, and con- sented to be baptized. Charlemagne made him Duke of Saxony, and he lived in good faith to the new vows he had taken. The Frisians and Bavari- ans, and all who lived in Germany, were forced to submit to the great King of the Franks. There was a new king of the Lombards, Deside- rio, and a new Pope, Adrian I. ; and, as usual, they 74 Young Folks' History of France, were at war, and Adrian entreated for the aid of Charlemagne. He came with a great army, drove Desiderio into Pavia, and besieged him there. It was a long siege, and Charlemagne had a chapel . set up in his camp to keep Christmas in ; but for Easter he went to Rome, and was met a mile off by all the chief citizens and scholars carrying palm branches in their hands, and as he mounted the steps to St. Peter's Church, the Pope met him, saying, " Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." He prayed at all the chief churches in Rome, and then returned to Pavia, which was taken soon after. He carried off Desiderio as a prisoner, and took the title of King of the Franks and the Lombards. This was in 775, while the Saxon war was still going on. He had likewise a war with the Arabs in Spain, and in 7T8 he crossed the Pyrenees, and overran the countr}" as far as the Ebro, where the Arabs offered him large gifts of gold and jewels if he would return without touching their splendid cities in the South. He consented, but as he was return- ing, the wild Basque people — a strange people who lived unconquered in the mountains — fell upon the rear guard of his army in the Pass of Roncevalles, and plundered the baggage, slaying DKATH OF HOLAXD. Carl the Grreat. 77 some of the bravest leaders, among tliera one Roland, Warden of the Marches of Brittany. Round this Roland wonderful stories have hung. It is said, and it may be true, that he blew a blast on his bugle-horn with his last strength, which first told Charlemagne, on far before, of this direful mischance ; and further legends have made him the foremost and most perfect knight in the army, nay, raised him to gigantic strength, for there is a great cleft in the Pyrenean Hills called La Breche de Roland, and said to have been made with one stroke of his sword. Pfalgraf, or Count of the Palace, was the title of some of the great Frank lords, and thus in these romances Roland and his friends are called the Paladins. But to return to Charlemagne. He had three sons — Carl, Pepin, and Lodwig. When the two younger were four and three years old, he took them both with him to Rome, and there Pope Adrian anointed the elder to be King of Lom- bardy ; the younger. King of Aquitania. As soon as they had returned, Charlemagne had the little Lodwig taken to his kingdom. As far as the Loire he was carried in his cradle, but when he entered Aquitania he was dressed in a little suit of armor and placed on horseback, that he might be shown 78 Young Folks' History of France. to his subjects in manly fashion. Wise, strong men formed his council, whose whole work was keeping the Arabs back beyond the Ebro ; but he was taken back after a time to be educated in his father's palace at Aachen. Charlemagne had gath- ered there the most learned men he could find — Alcuin, an Englishman, being one — and had a kind of academy, called the School of the Palace, where his young nobles and clergy might acquire the learning of the old Roman times. Discussions on philosophy were held, everyone taking some old name, Charlemagne himself being called David. He strove hard to remedy the want of a good education ; and such was his ability, that he could calculate the courses of the planets in his head, though he never wrote easily, in spite of carrying about tablets in his bosom, and practising at odd times. Latin was, of course, familiar to him ; St. Augustine's " City of God " was his favorite book ; and he composed several hymns, among them the Ve'ni Creator Spiritus — that invocation of the Holy Spirit which is sung at Ordinations- He also knew Greek, and he had begun to arrange a Prankish Grammar, and collect the old songs of his people. No one was so much honored and respected in SCHOOL OF THE PALACE. Carl The Grre.at, 81 Europe, and after two more journeys to Rome on behalf of the Pope, Leo III., the greatest honor possible was conferred upon hhn. In the old Ro- man times, the Roman people had always been supposed to elect their Emperor. They now elected him. On the Christmas Day of the year 800, as Carl the Frank knelt before the altar of St. Peter's, the Pope placed a crown on his head, and the Roman people cried aloud, " To Carolus Augustus, crowned by God, the great and peaceful Emperor of the Romans, life and victory ! " So the Empire of the West, which had died away for a time, or been merged in the Empire of the East at Constantinople, was brought to life again in the person of Carl the Great ; while his two sons were rulers of kingdoms, and all around him were numerous dukes and counts of different subject nations, all owning his empire. The old cities, likewise, in Provence — Aquitania, Lom- bardy, and Gaul — though they had councils that governed themselves, owned him as their Emperor. Moreover, he made the new territories which he had conquered along the German rivers great bishoprics, especially at Triers, Mentz, and Koln, thinking that bishops would more safely and loy- ally guard the frontier, and tame the lieathen 82 Young Folks' History of France. borderers, than fierce warrior counts and dukes. Aachen was the capital of this Empire. There Carl had- built a noble cathedral, and a palace for himself; and he collected from Italy the most learned clerks and the best singers of church music. His chosen name of David did not ill befit him, for he was a great founder and benefactor of the church, and gathered together synods of his bishops several times during his reign to consult for her good and defence. Indeed, his benefits to her, and his loyal service, were such that he has been placed in the calendar as a saint ; although he had several serious faults, the worst of which was that he did not rightly esteem the holiness and closeness of the tie of wedlock, and married and put away wives in a lax wa}^ that makes a great blot in his character. He was of a tall figure, with a long neck, and exceedingly active and dextrous in all exercises — a powerful warrior, and very fond of hunting, but preferring swimming to anything else. Nobody could swim or dive like him ; and he used to take large parties to bathe with him, so that a hundred men were sometimes in the river at once. His dress was stately on occasion, but he did not ap- prove of mere finery ; and ^^■hen he saw some Carl The areat. 83 young noble over-dressecl, would rather enjoy tak- ing him on a long muddy ride in the rain. He had intended his eldest son Carl to be Emperor, and Pepin and Lodwig to rule Lom- bardy and Aquitaine under him as kings ; but Pepin died in 810, and Carl in 811, and only Lod- wio; was left. This last son he caused to be ac- cepted as Emperor by all his chief nobles in the church at Aachen, and then made him a discourse on the duties of a sovereign to his people ; after which he bade the young man take a crown that lay on the altar and put it on his own head. "• Blessed be the Lord, who hath granted me to see my son sitting on my throne," he said. Charlemagne died the next year, in 814, in his seventj^-first year, and Avas buried at Aachen, sit- ting upright, robed and crowned, in his chair, with his sword by his side. CHAPTER VIIL THE CARLINGS. 814—887. THE Carlings after Charlemagne are nearly as difficult to understand or care about as the Meerwings. The best way to understand the state of things is to remember that the Empire — the Holy Roman Empire of the West — consisted of a whole collection of separate states — German, Tlie Carlings, 85 Frank, Lombard, Biirgunclian, Gallic, Latin, and that a Carling was always king in one or more of these, and the chief of the family Emperor ; but they were constantl}^ quarrelling, and whenever any of them died, it was as if the whole were shaken up together and the parts picked out afresh. They were far from being as wicked or as ignorant as the Faineants ; but it really was almost impossible for their utmost efforts to have succeeded in keeping the peace, even if they had been such giants in mind as Charlemagne had been. His only son, Lodwig — Ludovicus Pius, as the Latins called him ; Louis le Debonnaire, as he stands in French books — was a good, gentle, pious man, but his life was one continual warfare with his sons. After he had given three kingdoms to his three sons, their mother died ; he married again, and had a younger son, Carl or Charles ; and his desire to give a share to this poor boy led to no less than three great revolts on the part of the elder brothers, till at last their poor father died worn out and broken-hearted, on a little islet in the Rhine, in the year 840. The eldest son, Lothar, was then Emperor, and had for his own, besides the kingdom of Italy and 86 Young Folks' History/ of Franee, that country where Aaclien (the capital) stood, the strip ^^'hich is bounded by the Rhine and the Alps to the east, and the Meuse and the Rhone to the west. He was in the middle between his brothers — Lodwig, who had Germany ; and Charles, who had all the remainder of France. Of course, they fought over this ; and when Lothar died, his two sons divided his dominions again — the elder (whose name was the same as his own) got the northern half, between the Meuse and Rhine ; and the younger had the old Provin- cia. They both died soon, and would not be worth speaking of, but that the name of the two Lothars remained to the northern kingdom, Loth- arik or Lorraine, and because we shall sometimes hear of the old kingdom of Aries or Provence. Charles survived all his brothers, and came to be the head of the family, the second Emperor Charles, commonly cpJled the Bald. He was King from his father's death in 840, but Emperor only for two years, from 875 to 877 ; and his life was a dreary time of tumult and warfare, though he was an active, able man, and did his best. He had a good deal more learning than Charlemagne had to begin with, and like him had a school in his pal- ace, where the most remarkable person A7as a Kelt -7^ *'he shed tears at the sight. The Carlings. 89 from one of the old Scottish or Irish monasteries, called John ; and also Scot, or Erigena (a native of Erin). He was a great arguer and philosopher, and got into trouble with the Pope about some of his definitions. Kins^ Alfred the Great of Ensf- land, who had his own palace school, invited Scot to it, and afterwards placed him in the abbey at Malmesbury ; but there the rude English schol- ars' hatred to Scot broke out, and when he tried to keep order they killed him with the iron pens with which they wrote on wax tablets. At least so goes the story. Charles the Bald had little peace to enjoy his palace school, for the same reason as Alfred was at war. The Northmen were even more dreadful enemies to France than to England. The first fleet of their ships had been seen by Charlemagne, and he had shed tears at the sight ; for he per- ceived that all his efforts to subdue and convert Bavarians, Saxons, and Frisians had not saved his people from a terrible enemy of their own stock, far more earnest in the worship of Odin, and (as he foresaw) likely to come in greater numbers. All through the troubles of Louis le Debonnaire parties of Northmen were landing, and plundering any city or abbey that was not strong enough to 90 Young Folks' History of France. keep them off ; and when Alfred had made Eng- land too mighty for them, they came all the more to France. Sometmies they were met in battle, sometimes a sum was offered to them to spare a city from their plunder ; and if the walls were strong, they would generally accept it. Paris was thus bought off in the time of Charles the Bald from the terrible sea-king, Hasting. Sometimes the bishop of the threatened place would fancy he had converted the sea-king and would add baptism to the treaty. But once when this was done, and there was a scarcity of white robes for the con- verts, they turned round in a rage, declaring that wherever they had been washed before they had been more handsomely treated. Another heathen had almost accepted the faith, when he paused and asked what had become of all his dead fathers. His teachers, instead of answering that God is merciful, and deals with men according to what they have, not according to what they have not, replied that they were in hell fire. " Then," said the pupil, " do you think I will desert them ? I cast in my lot with them wherever they are." It is not certain whether it was one of Witikind's Saxons or a Northman who made this answer. After Charles the Bald, three very short reigns, NORTHMEN BEFORE PARIS. The Carlings, 93 only lasting seven years altogether, of his son and his two grandsons, and then the head of the Carl- ings was Charles III., commonly called der diche (the Thick or the Fat) — in France known as Charles le Gros. He was the son of Lodwig called the German, the son of Lodwig the Pious, and seems to have been less fit than most of his kindred for the difficulties of his post as Emperor of the West, or King of the Franks. The Northmen were worse than ever in his time, not so much from his weakness, as because Harald the Fairhaired had made himself sole King of Norway, driving out all opposition ; and those who would not brook his dominion now came south- ward, intending not only to plunder, but to win homes for themselves. One of these was the famous Rolf Gauge, or Walker, so called because he went into battle on foot. In the year 885 Rolf and another sea-king named Sigurd sailed up the Seine wdth seven hundred great ships, which stretched for six miles along the stream, and pre- pared to take Paris. First, however, Sigurd sent for Bishop Gozlin, and promised that if tlie city were only yielded to him he would allow no harm to be done, no man's goods to be touched. But the bishop said the city had been entrusted to 94 Young Folks' History of France. him and Count Eucles (the governer) by the Emperor, and that they could not yield it up ; and for full thii'teen months the place was besieged, until at last the Emperor arrived with an arm}- collected from all the nations under him : but, after all, he did not fight — he only paid the Northmen to leave Paris, and go to winter in Burgundy, which was at enmity with him. In fact, every part of the domains of the empire was at enmit}^ with poor fat Charles ; and the next year (887) a diet or council met on the banks of the Rhine and deposed him. Arnulf, a son of the short-lived Carloman, was made Emperor, Count Eudes was crowned King of France, Guy (Duke of Spoleto) set up a kingdom in Italy, Boso of Aries called himself King of Provence, and Kodolf (another count) was crowned at St. Moritz King of Burgundy; so that the Avhole Empire of Charle- magne seemed to have been broken up, and Rolf went on conquering more than ever, especiall}^ in Neustria. The seige of Paris, here mentioned, made an immense impression on French and Italian fancy, and was the subject of many poems and romances in later times. Only they mixed up together in one the three Karls — the Hammer, the Great, and COUNT EUDKS KNTERING T'AKIS. The Oarlings. 97 the Fat — and called liim Carlo Magno, sur- rounded him with Paladins, of whom Roland or Orlando was foremost ; made the Saracens besiege Paris, and be beaten off, and pursued into Spain, where the battle of Roncevalles and the horn of Roland played their part — all having of course the manners of knights and ladies of the fifteenth centur}^ with plenty of giants, enchanters, and wonders of all kinds of magical and fairy lore. CHAPTER IX. THE COUNTS OF PARIS. • 887—987. POOR Carl the Fat died of misei'y and grief the year after he was deposed, but he was not the last Carling. Besides the Emperor Arnulf, there was a son of Ludwig the Stammerer (another Carl), who tried to win the old French domains back from Eudes. In fact, the westerly Franks, who held Paris and all the country np to the At- lantic Ocean, had become much mixed with the old Gauls, and had learned to speak Latin a little altered — in fact, the beginning of what we call French — and they held with Eudes ; while the Franks round Laon and Soissons were much more German, and chiefly clung to the Carling Carl, though he bore no better surname than the Simple. The further eastward Franks of Franconia, as we now call it, with all the other German tribes — 98 The Counts of Paris. 99 Swabians, Frisians, Saxonis, Bavarians, &c., — were under Arnulf, and made up tlie kingdom of Germany. The Franks west of the Rhine never were joined to it again ; and after the death of Arnulf's only son, Ludwig the Child, no more Carlings reigned there, and soon the Saxons ob- tained the headship. The Counts of Paris were not Gauls, but Sax- ons who had settled in the Frank country and made common cause with the Gauls. They had the same sort of patience with which the first Carlings had waited till the Meerwings were qnite worn out. Eudes let Charles the Simple govern the lands between the Meuse and Seine, and when Eudes died, in 898, his brother Robert the Strong only called himself Duke of France, and left Charles the Simple to be King of the Franks. All this time Rolf and his Northmen had gone on conquering a home in Northern Gaul. They did not plunder and ravage like common vikings, but they spared the towns and made friends with the bishops ; and though they fouglit with the nations beyond, they treated all the country be- tween Brittany and the River Epte as if it were their own. Charles the Simple came to an agree- ment with Rolf. He said that if Rolf would 100 Young Folks' History of France. become a Christian, and accept him as his king, he would give him his daughter in marriage, and o-rant him the possession of all these lands, as Duke of the Northmen. Rolf consented, and in 911 he was bajDtized at Rouen, married Gisla (the king's daughter), and then went to swear to be faithful to the king. Now, this ceremony was called swearing fealty. It was repeated whenever there was a change either of the over or the under-lord. The duke, count, or whatever he was, knelt down before the over-lord, and, holding his hands, swore to follow him in war, and to be true to him always. The over-lord, in his turn, swore to aid him and be true and good lord to him in return, and kissed his brow. In return, the under- lord — vassal, as he was called — Avas to kiss the foot of his superior. This was paying homage. Kings thus paid homage, and swore allegiance to the emperor ; dukes or counts, to kings : lesser counts or barons, to dukes ; and for the lands they owned they were bound to serve their lord in council and in war, and not to fight against him. Lands so held were called fiefs, and the whole was called the feudal system. Now, Rolf was to hold his lands in fief from the king, and he swore his oath, but he could not bear to stoop to kiss the KNIGHTS AN1> I'EASAKTS. The Counts of Paris, 103 foot of Charles. So lie was allowed to pay hom- age by deputy ; but the Northman he chose was as proud as himself, and, mstead of bending, lifted the king's foot to his lips, so that poor Charles the Simple was upset backwards, throne and all. Rolf was a sincere Christian ; he made great gifts to the church, divided the land among his Northmen, and kept up such good laws that Nor- mandy, as his domains came to be called, was the happiest part of the country. It was even said that a gold bracelet could be left hanging on a tree in the forest for a Avhole year without any one steal- ing it. Charles the Simple, in the meantime, was over- thrown in another way ; for Robert of Paris and Duke Raoul of Burgundy made war on him, and took him prisoner. His wife was a sister of the English king Athelstan, and she fled to him with her young son Ludwig, or Louis. They stayed there while first Robert was king for a year, and then Raoul, and poor Charles was dying in prison at Peroune ; but when Raoul died, in 936, the young Louis was invited to come back from Eng- land and be king. The Count of Paris, Hugh the Great, and Rolf's son, William Longsword (Duke of Normandy), joined together in making him 104 Young Folks' History of France. king ; but he was much afraid of them, and lived at Laon in constant hatred and suspicion. The French people, indeed, held him as a stranger, and called him Louis d' Outre Mer, or from bej^ond seas. At last William Longsword was murdered by the Count of Flanders, when his little son Kichard was only seven years old. Louis thought this his opportunity. He went to Rouen, declared himself the little boy's right guardian, and carried him off to Laon, and there treated him so harshly that it was plain that there was an intention of getting rid of the child. So Osmond de Centeville, the little duke's squire, rolled him up in a bundle of straw, and carried him to the stable like fodder for his horse, then galloped off with him by night to Normandy. A great war began, and Harald Blue- tooth, King of Denmark, came to the help of the Northmen. Louis was made prisoner, and only gained his freedom by giving up his two sons as hostages in his stead. Hugh, Count of Paris, aided young Richard of Normandy ; while the Saxon Emperor of Germany, Otho, aided Louis ; and there was a fierce struggle, ending in the vic- tory of the Count of Paris and the Northmen. One of the young Frank princes died in the hands The Counts of Paris, 105 of the Normans ; the other, Lothar, was given back to his father when peace was made, giving the Counts of Paris another great step in power. In the year 954 Louis IV. died at Rheims., and his widow entreated that the great Count Hugh would protect Lothar. He did so, and so did his son and successor, Hugh — commonly called Capet, from the hood he wore — who managed everything for the 3^oung king. When there was a war with Otho, the Emperor, the Franks said, ''It is a pity so many brave men should die for two men's quarrel. Let them fight a single combat, and we will have for chief which- ever gains." This shocked the Germans, and one of them said, " We always heard that the Franks despised their king. Now we hear it proved." Peace was made, and the Emperor gave Lothar's younger brother Charles the province of Lotharik, or Lorraine, as it was coming to be called. Lothar died soon after, in 986 ; and though his son Louis V. was crowned, he only lived a year, and when he died in 987, the great counts and dukes met in consultation with the chief of the clergy, and agreed that, as the counts of Paris were the real heads of the State, and nobody cared for the Carlings, it would be better to do like the 106 Young Folks' History of France, Germans, and pass over the worn-out Carlings, who spoke old Frank, while the Paris Counts spoke the altered Latin, which came to be called French. So Charles, Duke of Lorraine, was not listened to when he claimed his nephew's crown, but was forced to return to his own dukedom, where his descendants ruled for full eight hundred years, and then again obtained the empire, as you will hear. And in 987, Hugh Capet, Count of Paris, was crowned King of France, and from that time French history begins. At first it was Gaulish history, then it was Frank history, but at last it has become French history. The family which began with Robert the Strong exists still, after more than one thousand years, of which it reigned over France for nine hundred at least. It is usually called the House of Capet, from Hugh's nickname, though it would be more sensible to call it the House of Paris. So, remem- ber three great families — Meerwings or Mero- vingians, Frank chiefs ; Carlings or Carlovingians, the chief of whom was Emperor of the West; House of Paris, or Capetians, Kings of France. CHAPTER X. HUGH CAPET. 987—997. GET one of the older maps of France, where it is in provinces, and not departments, and I will try to show you what it was to be King of France when Hugh Capet was crowned at Rheims. Remember, there had once been a great Empire of the West ; indeed, there was an empire still, only the head of it was a Saxon instead of a Frank, and it had been divided into different nations or tribes, as it were, each ruled over by an officer or count or duke of the Emperor's. Now, the na- tions had fallen apart in groups, and their chiefs held together according to what suited them, or who was the strongest, and some with more, some with less, feeling that the Emperor had a right over them all. But as to meddling in the manage- 107 108 Young Folks' History of France. ment of a duke or count's province, no emperor nor king had any power to do that. The new king was Duke of France, and Count of Paris, and Guardian of the Abbey of St. Denys. So in the place called the Isle of France he was really master, and his brother Henri was Duke of Burgundy. On the Loire was the great county of Anjou, with a very spirited race of counts ; and to the eastward were Vermandois and Champagne, also counties. In all these places the nobles, like the king himself, were d.escended from the old Franks ; but the people in the towns and villages were Gauls, and they all talked the form of broken Latin which was then called the Langue d'oil, because oil or oui was the word for yes. This has now turned into French. In Normandy the people were Northmen, but were fast learning to talk nothing but French ; and in Brittany both duke and people were still old Kymry, and talked Kymric. They had never been much under the Romans or Franks. They hated the French and Normans, and never paid them any homage if they could help it ; but the Norman dukes always con- sidered that Brittany had been put under them, and this led to plenty of wars. The southern half of the country had only been Hugh Capet. Ill overrun from time to time, never subdued or peo- pled even in the greatest Carling times. There the people were less Gaul than Roman, and talked a less altered Latin, which was called Langue d'oc^ because they said oc instead of oui ; and it was also called Romance or Provencal. Old Latin learning and manners, with their graces and ele- gances, were still kept up in these parts, and the few Frank chieftains who had come in had con- formed to them. These were the Dukes of Aquitaine or Guyenne, the Counts of Toulouse, and the Counts of Narbonne. But in the south- west of Aquitaine, near the Pyrenees and the sea, were an old race called Basques, who seem to be older still than the Gauls, and do not speak their language, but a strange and very difficult one of their own. The Basques, where more mixed with the other inhabitants in the plains, were called Gascons in France, Vascons in Spain, and were thought great boasters. These Romance-speaking counts were consid- ered by the King of France to belong to him ; but whether they considered themselves to belong to the King of France was quite a diffei^ent thing. The County of Provence, Old Provincia, certainly did not, but held straight from the Holy Roman 112 Young Folks' History of France, Empire. So did the other countries to the east- ward, where a German tongue was spoken, but Avhich had much to do with the history of France — namely, Lorraine, where the old Carlings still ruled, and Flanders. So 3^ou see a king of France was not a very mighty person, and had little to call his own. But just as the empire was cut up into little divisions, so each dukedom or county was cut into lesser ones. If the duke or count did homage to emperor or. king, he had under him barons (some- times counts) who did homage in their turn for the lands they held. And as the king could not make war without a council of his counts and dukes, no more could the duke or count without a parliament or council of his barons. When money was wanted, the clergy and the burghers from the towns had to be called too, and to settle what they would give. The lands held in this way were called fiefs, and the great men who held straight from the king himself were crown vassals ; those under them were their vassals. In time of war the king called his crown vassals, they called their barons, the barons called the vavasours or freemen under them, and got their men in from working on the farms, and out they went. Money was not Sugh Capet. 113 common then, so the lands were held on condition of serving the lord in war or by council, of giving a share of help on great occasions in his family or their own, and so many days' work on his own farm when it was wanted. This was called the feudal system, and some- times it worked well ; but if the baron was a hard man, the poor peasants often suffered sadly, for he would call them to work for him when their own crops were spoiling, or take the best of all they had. And the Franks had got into such a way of despising and ill-treating the poor Gauls, that they hardly looked on them as the same creatures as themselves. When two barons went to war — and this they were always doing — the first thing they did was to burn and destroy the cottages, corn, or cattle on each other's property, and often the peas- ants too. The barons themselves lived in strong castles, with walls so thick that, as there was no gunpowder, it was not possible to break into them. They filled them with youths whom they were training to arms — the younger ones called pages, the elder esquires or shield-bearers ; and as they practised their exercises in the castle court, the bearing of a gentleman was called courtesy. When a squire had attended his knight battle, 114 Young Folk's History of France, grown perfect in all his feats of arms, could move about easily in his heavy shirt of little chains of linked steel, and ride a tilt with his lance against another man armed like himself, and had learned enough to be a leader, he was made a knight or chevalier, as the French called it, by the accolade, that is a blow on the shoulders with the flat of the sword before an elder knight. A belt and gilded spurs marked the knight ; and he was re- quired to vow that he would fight for God and his Church, be faithful and true, and defend the poor and weak. Gradually chivalry, as this spirit of knighthood came to be called, did much to bring in a sense of honor and generosity ; but at this time, in the reign of Hugh Capet, there was very little good to be seen in the world. All over France there was turbulence, cruelty, and savage ways ; except, perhaps, in Normandy, where Duke Kichard the fearless and his son Duke Richard the Good kept order and peace, and were brave, up- right, religious men, making their subjects learn the better, rather than the worse ways of France. Just at this time, too, the Church and the clergy were going on badly. The Pope had — ever since, at least, the time of Carl the Great — been looked on as the head of the whole Western Church, and THE ACCOLADES. Hugh Capet, 117 the people at Rome had the power of choosing the Pope. Two wicked women, named Marozia and Theodora, gained such power by their riches and flatteries, that they managed to have anyone chosen Pope whom they liked ; and of course they chose bad men, who would do as they pleased. This had gone on till the year 962, when the Emperor Otho came over the Alps, conquered Italy, and turned out the last of these shameful Popes. Then he and his successors chose the Pope ; but _ this was not the right way of doing things, and the whole Church felt it, for there was no proper restraint upon the Avickedness of the nobles. The bishops were too apt to care only for riches and power, and often fought like the lay nobles ; and in the monasteries, where prayer and good works and learning ought to have been kept up, there was sloth and greediness, if not worse ; and as to the people, they were hardly like Christians at all, but more like brute beasts in their ignorance and bad habits. Indeed, there hardly was a worse time in all the history of Europe than the reign of Hugh Capet, which lasted from 987 to 997. CHAPTER XL ROBEKT THE PIOUS, 997—1031. HENRY I., 1031—1000. PHILIP L, 1060^1108. IN a very curious way a better spirit was stirred up in the world. In the Book of Revelation it is said that Satan is to be bound for a thousand years. Now, as the year 1000 of our Lord was close at hand, it was thought that this meant that tlie Day of Judgment was coming then, and there 118 Henry I. 119 was great fear and dread at the thought. At first, however, the effect only seemed to be that the wicked grew worse, for they feasted and drank and revelled, like the men before the flood ; and when the year 1000 began, so many thought it not worth while to sow their corn, that there was a most dreadful famine and great distress every- where, so that there were even wretches who set traps in the woods to catch little children for their food. But all this time there were good men who taught repentance, and one blessed thing they brought about while people's hearts were soft with dread, was what was called the Truce of God, namely, an agreement that nobody should fight on Sundays, Saturdays, or Fridays, so that three days in the week were peaceable. The monasteries began to improve, the clergy to be more diligent, and the king himself, whose name was Robert, was one of the best and most religious men in his kingdom. He used to come to the Abbey at St. Denys every morning to sing with the monks ; he used the Psalms every day in prayer and praise, and wrote and set to music several Latin hymns, which he carried to Rome and laid on the altar at St. Peter's ; and he loved nothing so well as wait- 120 Young Folks' History of France. ing on beggars, aud dressing the wounds of the sick. But he could not manage his kingdom well, and everyone took advantage of him. He had married his cousin, Bertha of Burgundy, who was heiress of ArJes in Provence. Now Provence belonged to the Empire, and the Emperor did not choose that the Kings of France should have it ; so he made the Pope, whom he had appointed, declare that Robert and Bertha were such near relations that they could not be husband and wife, and, with great grief, Robert submitted. Bertha went into a nunnery and he married Constance of Aquitaine. She brought all the gay fashions of Southern France with her, and her followers wore their clothes and cut their hair, sung songs and made jokes, in a way that offended the Northern French verv much. She was vain and liofht- minded herself, could not endure the king and his beggars, and grew weary of his hymns and prayers. The sons were more like her than like their father, and Robert had a troubled life, finding little peace except in church, until he died in the year 1031. His eldest son, Henry I., reigned after him, and the second, Robert, became Duke of Burgundy, and began a family of dukes which lasted on four hundred years. The spirit of improvement that BOBEKT AXD THE POOK. Henry L 123 had begun to stir was going on. EveiybocI}^ was becoming more religious. The monks in their con- vents began either to set themselves to rights, or else they founded fresh monasteries in new places, with stricter rules, so as to make a new beginning. And a very great man, whose name was Hilde- brand, was stirring up the Church not to go on leaving the choice of the Pope to the Emperor, but to have him properly appointed by the clergy of the Diocese of Rome, who were called Cardinals — that is, chiefs. Though there was much fierce- ness and wildness, and much wickedness and cru- elty, among the great nobles, they still cared more for religion ; they built churches, they tried to repent as they grew old, and some went on pil- grimage to pray for the forgiveness of their sins at the Holy Sepulchre, where our Blessed Lord once lay. One of these pilgrims was Robert the Magnifi- cent, Duke of Normandy. He walked on foot very humbly in the country, but at Constanti- nople, he rode through the gates of the city with his mule shod with silver shoes, loosely fastened on, so that the people might pick them up. He died on his way, and his young son, William, had 124 Young Folks' History of France. to fight very hard with enemies on all sides before he could keep his dukedom. Henry I. had been dead six years, and his son Phillip I. had reigned six, from 1060, when this great Duke of Normandy became still greater, by winning for himself the kingdom of England. Philip did not much wish this. He was afraid of "William, and did not at all wish to see him grow so much more powerful than himself. He spoke contemptuously of the new King of England whenever he could, and at last it was one of his foolish speeches that made William so angry as to begin the war in which the great conqueror met with the accident that caused his death. Philip was by no means a good man. After he had lost his first wife, he fell in love wdth the beautiful Countess of Anjou, Bertrade de Mont- fort, and persuaded her to come and pretend to be his wife. His son Louis, who was so active and spirited that he was called VSvSille^ which means the Wide-awake, showed his displeasure, and Philip and Bertrade so persecuted him, that he was obliged to come for refuge to England. How- ever, in spite, of the king's wickedness, there was much more spirit of religion in the people. There were many excellent Bishops and Abbots, and GOD WILLETH IT. PJiilip I. 127 some good nobles ; Godfrey de Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine, the descendant of the old Carlings, was one of the very best of the princes at that, or in- deed any other time. It was in this reign that a pilgrim, named Peter the Hermit, came home with a piteous history of the cruelty of the Mahometans, who had possession of the Holy Land. He obtained leave from the Pope, Urban II., to call all the warriors of Christ- endom to save the Holy Sepulchre, where our Blessed Lord had lain, from the hands of the un- believers. The first great preaching was at Cler- mont, in Auvergne ; and there the whole people were so much moved that they cried as if with one voice, " God willeth it," and came crowding round to have their left shoulders marked with a cross made of two strips of cloth. An army came to- gether from many of the lands of the west, and the princes agreed to lay aside all their quarrels while the Crusade lasted. The good Duke Godfrey led them, all through Germany and Hungary, and across the narrow straits of the Bosphorus, meet- ing with many troubles and perils as they went ; but at last they did get safe to Jerusalem, laid seige to it and conquered it. Then they chose Godfrey to be Kiiig of Jerusalem, but he would 128 Young Folk^' History of France. never be crowned ; he said it was not fitting for him to wear a crown of gold where his Lord had worn a crown of thorns. Many nobles and knights stayed with him to help him to guard the holy places, while the others went home. Two convents of monks resolved that, besides being monks they would be soldiers of the Holy War. These were called the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or Hospitaller Knights, and the Knights of the Tem- ple. The Hospitallers had their name because they had a house at Jerusalem for receiving the poor pilgrims, and nursing them if they were sick or wounded. People from England, Spain, Germany and Italy were of the Crusade, and might belong to the two orders of knighthood, but there were always more French there than of any other nation. Louis the Wide-awake was fetched home by the French barons, and ruled for his father for the last six years of Philip's reign, though the old king did not die till the year 1108. THE LEADEKS OF THE FIRST CBUSADK. CHAPTER XII. L O U I S V I. L E G R O S. 1108-1137. IT is disappointing to find that Louis the Wide- awake soon became Louis the Fat (Louis le Gros, as in that time when everybody had a nickname, he was called). But still he was spirited and ac- tive, and much more like the old Counts of Paris than any of the four kings before him had been ; and he was a good, brave and just man, who made himself respected. One great change was going on in his time, which had begun in that of his father. The old Roman cities in the South of France had gone on governing themselves much as in the Roman times, but the northern towns had most of them fallen under the power of some Prankish noble family, who were apt to call on them for money, and take away the young men to fight. Whenever one of these towns grew rich and strong enough, it would buy leave from the king and the noble to take care of itself. Then 131 132 Young Folks' History of France, the noble had no more right over it ; but the burgh- ers built their walls, practiced themselves in fight- ing, and guarded their gates and towers. All the chief men in each trade made up a town council, and one of them was chosen each year to be the mayor or provost, and manage their affairs. A great bell was rung when the people were wanted to come together, or in time of danger ; and they knew well how to take care of themselves. The burghers only went out to war when the king him- self wanted them, and then they went on foot, and wore plain armor, not like the gentlemen, wha were all knights and squires. The free towns were called communes ; but often they could not get or keep their freedom without a great deal of fighting, for the nobles were very jealous of them, and the kings never made more communes than they could help. Do you remember that when Robert, Duke of Normandy, governed so badly, his Normans asked King Henry L, his brother, to help them ? Louis did not choose to see the eldest brother despoiled, and he was glad that the King of England and the Duke of Normandy should not be the same person. So he helped Robert, but could not keep him from be- ing beaten at Tenchebray, and afterwards made pris- Louis FT., Le G-ros. 133 oner. Afterwards Louis befriended poor young William, Robert's son ; but he was beaten again at Brenneville. There were nine hundred knights in the battle of Brenneville, and only three were killed, the armor they wore was so strong. After- wards Louis helped William to obtain the County of Flanders, which he inherited in right of his grandmother, Queen Matilda ; but the poor young prince had not long been settled in it before he died of a hurt in the hand from a lance-point. Three noted men lived in the time of Louis YI. They were Suger, St. Bernard, and Pierre Abail- ard. Suger was abbot of the monastery of St. Denys', of which the Kings of France, as Counts of Paris, were always the protectors ; where their most precious banner, the oriflamme, was kept, and where they always were buried. He was a clever and able man, the king's chief adviser, and may, perhaps, be counted as the first of the men who filled the place of king's adviser, or, as we now call it, prime minister. In those times these statesmen were almost always clergy, because few others had any learning. Pierre Abailard was a learned Bre- ton, who studied deeply at Paris (where there was a University much esteemed), and went very far into all sorts of sciences. He became the teacher 134 Young Folks^ History of France. of a young lady called Heloise, niece to a clergy- man at Paris. They fell in love with one another, and he took her away to Brittany ; but she left him soon after their marriage, because a married man could not be a priest, and only clergy could flourish as scholars. So she went into a convent, and at last became the abbess ; and Abailard became a monk of St. Denys', where he went on studying and writing till at last he confused himself, and taught wrong doctrines, which a council of the Church condemned ; but the struggle and debate went on many years longer, until the death of Abailard in the course of the next reign. Helo'ise, who survived him, made this epitaph for him in Latin : " Here lies Pierre Abailard, to whom alone was open all possible knowledge." But to know all that can be known does not bring peace and happiness ; and Bernard, the monk, was a more really great man. He was the son of a nobleman in Burgundy, and had been brought up by a good mother. One of the monasteries that had lately been made the most strict, and which was much esteemed for the holy lives led there, was at Cit- eaux ; and Bernard, at the age of twenty-three, not only retired there himself, but persuaded all his brothers (six in number) to go thither with him. LOUIS THE FAT ON AN EXPEDITION. Louis FT., Le Gros. 137 They intended to have left the 3^oungest, a little boy, to keep up the castle and inherit the lands ; but he said, '• What ! all heaven for you, and earth for me?" and insisted on going with them. It seems to us a mistake ; but we must remember that a noble in the twelfth century had dreadful temp- tations to be cruel and lawless, and that a convent often seemed the only way to avoid them. Citeaux grew so overfull of monks that a branch convent was founded at Glairvaux, of, which Ber- nard was made the abbot. His brothers went thither with him, and their old father came after a time to end his days among his sons. Bernard was one of the most holy and earnest of men, and so learned and wise that he is sometimes called the last of the Fathers of the Church, for many of his writings still remain. His sermons were full of love and beauty, though he never failed to reprove men for their crimes ; and though he was the most humble of men, his fame reached throughout his own country and the whole Church, and he was the adviser of kings and popes. He was the person best able to argue with Abailard's subtle errors, and the discussion between them lasted for many years — on, indeed, into the next reign. 138 Young Folks'^ History of France. For Louis YI., tliougli not an old man, fell soon into declining healtli. He tliouglit he had con- trived admirably to get more power for the kings, by giving his son in marriage to Eleanor, the daughter of the Duke of Aquitaine. As she had no brother, her son would own that great southern dukedom as entirely as the County of Paris, and this would make a great difference. Young Louis was sent to marry the lady, and fetch her home ; but while he was gone his father became worse, and died in the year 113T. It will help you with the dates to remember that Louis began to govern in his father's name in 1100, just as the English Henry I. came to the crown ; and that he died three years after Henry, while Stephen and Matilda were fighting in England. CHAPTER XTTL LOUIS VII., th:<: young. 1137—1180. THE " Young" is an odd historical name for a king who reigned a good many years ; hut he was called so at first hecause he was only eighteen years old when he came to the throne, and the name clung to him because there was always some- thing young and simple about his character. Tlie first great event of his reign was that St. Bernard stirred Europe once more to a crusade to help the Christians in Palestine, who were hard pressed by the Mahometans. At Vezelay there was a great assembly of bishops and clergy, knights and nobles ; and St. Bernard preached to them so eagerly, that soon all were fastening crosses to their arms, and tearing up mantles and robes because enough crosses had not been made before- 130 140 Young Folks' History of France. hand for the numbers who took them. The young kmg and his beautiful q[ueen, Eleanor of Aqui- taine, vowed to make the crusade, too, and set out with a great army of fighting men, and, besides them, of pilgrims, monks, women and children. The queen was very beautiful and very vain ; and though she called herself a pilgrim, she liad no no- tion of denying herself, so she carried all her fine robes and rich hangings, her ladies, waiting-maids, minstrels and jesters. The French had no ships to take them direct to the Holy Land, but had to go by land all the way, along the shore of Asia Minor. Numbers of the poor pilgrims sank down and per- ished by the way ; and just as they had passed the city of Laodicea, the Mahometan army came down on the rear guard in a narrow valley, and began to make a great slaughter. The king himself had sometimes to get behind a tree, sometimes behind a rock ; iind the whole army would have been cut off, if a poor knight named Gilbert, whom no one had thought much of, had not come forward, taken the lead, and helped the remains' of the rear guard to struggle out of the valley. Through all the rest of the march, Gilbert really led the army ; and 3^et after this he never is heard of again, and never seems to have looked for any reward. CRTJSADBRS' RETURN. Louis VIL, The Young, 143 When Palestine was reached at last, there were not 10,000 left out of the 400,000 who had set out from home ; and the gay queen's zeal was quite spent ; and while the king was praying at the Holy Sepulchre, and trying to fight for it, she was amus- ing herself with all the lively youths she could get around her. She despised her good, pious hus- band, and said he was more like a monk than a king ; and as soon as they returned from this un- happy crusade, they tried to find some excuse for breaking their marriage. The Pope allowed the king to rid himself of this wicked lady, and let them both marry again. He married Constance, of Castille, and Eleanor took for her husband the young English king, Henry II., and brought him all her great possessions. The very thing had come to pass that the King of France feared — namely, that the Dukes of Nor- mandy should get more powerful than he was. For Henry II. was at once King of England and Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou, and his wife was Duchess of Aquitaine and Guienne ; and as time went on, Henry betrothed his little son Geof- frey to Constance, the orphan girl who Avas heiress to Brittany, and undertook to rule her lands for her ; so that the lands over which Louis had any 144 Young Folhs* History of France, real power were a sort of little island within the • great sea of the possessions of the English king. Besides, Henry was a much cleverer man than Louis, and always got the better of him in their treaties. The Kings of France and Dukes of Normandy always met at Gisors, on their border, under an enormous elm-tree, so large that three hundred horsemen could find shelter under its branches; and these meetings never went on well for Louis. He was obliged to promise that his two daughters, Margaret and Alice, should marry Henry's two sons, Henry and Richard, and to give them to Henry to be brought up. When Henry had his great dispute with Archbishop Becket, about the question whether clergymen were subject to the law of the land, Becket fled to France. Louis loved and respected him very much, gave him shelter iii an abbey, and tried hard to make peace between him and Henry, but could never succeed, till, after six years, Henry pretended to be recon- ciled, and Becket went home in the year 1170. He was murdered very soon after, as you have heard in the history of England. Louis must have been very much surprised when his own former wife. Queen Eleanor, came dis- guised as a man with her three eldest sons to his Louis VII.^ The Young. 145 court, making great complaints of Henry for keep- ing the government of their provinces in his own hands. He must have thought it only what they and he both deserved, and he gave them what help he could ; but Henry was a great deal more strong and craftj^ than any of them, and soon put them down. Eleanor was thrown into prison, and kept there as long as she lived. She richly deserved it ; but her sons and the people of Aquitaine did not think so. Those people of Aquitaine were a curi- ous race — they were very courtly, though not very good ; and they thought more of music, poetry, and love-making than of anything else, though they were brave men, too. Every knight was ex- pected to be able to hold an argument in the courts of love. The best poets among them were called troubadours; and Eleanor herself, and her two sons, Richard and Geoffrey, could compose songs and sing them. All were as much beloved in Aqui- taine as Henry was hated ; and the troubadours did nothing but stir up the youths to fight with their father and set their mother free ; but though they broke out many times, they could never pre- vail against him. Louis yil. was married three times — to Elea- nor of Aquitaine, to Constance of Castille, and to 146 Young Folks' History of France, Alice of Champagne. These three queens had among them six daughters, but no son ; and this was a great grief, since no woman had ever reigned in France, and it was believed that the old Salian Franks had a law against women reigning. At any rate, this grew to be the rule in France, and it is called the Salic law. However, the question had not to be settled this time, for at last a son was born to Louis ; and in his joy he caused the babe to be christened Philip, Dieu-donne^ or God- given. The bo}' was the cleverest son who had sprung from the House of Paris for ages past; and while still quite young, cared for all that concerned his father and his kingdom, at an age when other boys care only for sports and games. When his father met the English king at the elm of Gisors, young Philip looked on and saw liow Henr}^ over-reached and took advantage of Louis ; and he was bitterly grieved and angered, and made up his mind that some day he would get back all that his father was losing. However, in the midst of his plans, young Philip was one day out hunting in a forest with his father, when he missed his companions, lost his way, and wandered about all night. When he was found, he was so spent with hunger and cold that he had Louis VIL, The Young. 147 a bad illness, and was in great danger for some days. When he grew better, King Louis, in great jo}^ thought this precious life had been granted for the prayers of his old friend Thomas a Becket, and asked leave of Henr}^ to come and give thanks at the archbishop's tomb at Canterbury. He came, and was welcomed as a friend and guest. He gave great gifts to the cathedral, and especially a beau- tiful ring, Avliich became one of the great treasures of the place. He had had his beloved son, though only fifteen, crowned, that France might have a king over her while he was away ; and Philip was verj^ soon the only king, for good, honest, simple-minded Louis the Young died ver}^ soon after his return from Canterbury, in the year 1180, nine years before the death of his great enemy, Henry 11. CHAPTER XIY: PHILLIP II., AUGUSTUS. 1180-122.S. PHILIP the Gift of God is most commonly known in history as Philip Augustus. Why, is not quite plain ; but as he became a very power- ful King of France, it is most likely that one of the old names of the Western Emperors, Avho were all Caesar Augustus, got applied to him. If his father had still been Louis the Young in his old age, Philip might in his youth have been called Philip the Old, for he was much older in skill and cunning at fifteen than his father had been all his life. The whole history of his reign is of his endeavor to get the better of the Plantage- net kings of England. He so much hated the thought of what he had seen under the elm-tree of Gisors, that he cut it down ; and though he hated 148 Philip 11.^ Augustus. 149 King Henry and his sons all alike, he saw that the best way to do them harm was by pretending to be the friend of whichever was not the king, and so helping on their quarrels. The eldest and third sons, Henry and Geoffrey, were by this time dead, and Richard, of the Lion-heart was the favor- ite of the Aquitaine troubadours. There came news from Palestine that the Chris- tians had been conquered by the great Saracen chief Saladin, and that Jerusalem had been taken by him. There was great lamentation, and a fresh crusade was determined on by all the princes of Europe, the Emperor, the King of France, the King of England, and his sons. The Emperor, Frederick of the Red Beard, set off first, but he was lost by the way while bathing in a river in Asia Minor ; and the two kings waited to arrange their affairs. Philip's way of doing this was to get Richard to his court, and to pretend to be so fond of him that they both slept in the same bed, drank out of the same cup, and ate out of the same dish ; but he was stirring up Richard — who needed it little — to demand his mother's • freedom and the land of Aquitaine, and to rebel against his father, leading his brother John with him. This was the rebellion which broke the heart of Henry II. He 150 Young Folks' History of France, died, and Richard went on his crusade as king. It was the first crusade when the armies went by sea instead of land. Richard Iiad his own fleet, but Philip was obliged to liire ships of the mer- chants of Genoa ; and when the two fleets reached Sicily, they did not venture to sail on till the win- ter was over, but waited till spring. Now that Richard was king, Philip no longer pretended to love him i and there were many disputes among the Crusaders. At last they sailed on to help the Christians, who were besieging Acre. Philip ar- rived first, and quickened the works ; but still no great things were done till Richard arrived; and then Philip was vexed that every one talked so much more of the English king's brave doings than of himself. The heat of the climate soon made both kings fall sick ; and when the city was taken, Philip's doctors declared that he must go home at once if he wished to recover. Most likely they were right ; but he was glad to go, for he hoped to do Richard a great deal of harm in his absence. The Pope forbade any one to attack a Crusader's lands while he was away ; but Philip could stir up Richard's subjects and his brother against him. And when, as you remember, Richard was made captive in Austria, on his way home, Philip even CAPTUKE OF AOKE. Philip 11.^ Augustus. 153 sent money to the Emperor of Germany to keep him prisoner. At last, when the German princes had forced the Emperor to set him free, Philip sent word to John, in this short note, " Take care of yourself, for the devil is let loose. " But when, two years later, Richard of the Lion- heart was killed at Limoges, Philip became John's most bitter enemy, and the friend of the only other Plantagenet left, namely, Geoffrey's son, Arthur, Duke of Brittany, who appealed to his suzerain, Philip, to make him Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou, as son of the elder brother. Philip called on John to give up these lands ; but John offered to make a peace by marrying his niece, Blanche, the daughter of his sister and the King of Castille, to Philip's son, Louis the Lion. Philip was in trouble himself at the time, and consented to make peace. Philip's trouble was by his own fault. His first wife, Isabel of Hainault, was dead, and he had thought to make friends with the King of Den- mark by marrying his daughter Ingeborg. But the Danes were then very rough and untaught, and poor Ingeborg was a dull, clumsy, ignorant girl, not at all like a courtly lady. Philip took such a dislike to her that he sent her into a convent, and 154 Young Folks'^ History of France. married tlie beautiful Agnes de Meranie, the daughter of the Duke of the Tyrol. But there was then ruling one of the mightiest Popes who ever lived, called Innocent III. He was deter- mined not to let any one, however great, go on in * sin unwarned ; and he called on Philip to put Agnes away, and take back his only true wife. And when Philip would not, Innocent laid the kingdom under an interdict — that is, he forbade any service to go on in an}' church except in those of the monks and the nuns, and there only with the doors shut against all outside. The whole na- tion vfas, as it were, cut ofp from God for their prince's sin. Philip tried to stand up against this dreadful sentence, at first ; but he found the peo- ple could not bear it, so he sent Agnes away, and took Ingeborg back. He was then absolved, and his kingdom went on prospering. When, in 1203, Arthur of Brittany perished in prison, Philip sum- moned John, as a vassal of France, to answer for the murder. The great vassals met, the trumpets sounded, and John was called on to appear ; but as he did not come, he was sentenced to have for- feited his lands of Normandy and Anjou, and Philip entered them with his army and took the castle, while John could not get men or money to PhUlp 11.^ Augustus. 155 come and stop him ; and only the lands of old Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was still alive, remained to the English. This forfeit made a great step in the power of the French kings, since not only had the English kings lost Normandy and Anjou, but these two great domains belonged to the French king as entire- ly as his County of Paris. He had no duke or count between him and the barons or cities. Philip's de- signs against the Plantagenets were favored by John's own crimes. The quarrel with the Pope that you have heard of, about the Archbishop of Canterbury, made Innocent III. invite Philip to go and conquer England, but the fear of this brought John to make peace with the Pope. However, John's nephew, Otho of Brunswick, was emperor, and he too had quarrelled with the Pope, who wanted to make young Frederick of Sicily emperor. Philip took Frederick's part, and Otho marched ao-ainst him into Flanders. All the o French nobles had gathered round their king, and at Bouvines there was one of the greatest battles and victories that French history tells of. Otho had to gallop away from the battle, and Philip said, " We shall see nothing more of him than his 156 Young Folks' History of France. back." This great battle was fought in the year 1214. Very shortly after, Philip's eldest son, Louis, called the Lion, was invited to England by the barons, because they could no longer bear the hor- rible cruelties and wickednesses of John ; and he would not keep Magna Charta, which he had signed. Louis went to England, and London was put in his hands ; but when King John died, the barons liked better to have his little innocent son, Henry III., as their king, than to be joined on to France. So, after Louis's troops had been beaten by land and by sea, he came home and gave up the attempt. But Philip Augustus certainly had the wish of his life fulfilled, for he had seen his foes of the House of Plantagenet humbled and brought to bitter trouble, and he had taken to himself the chief of their great possessions. He died in the year 1223, having lived in the reigns of four English kings, and done his utmost to injure them all. He was not a good man ; but as he was brave and clever, and a good friend to the towns, the French were very proud of him. CHAPTER XV. THE ALBIGENSES ..... 1190. LOUIS YIII., THE LION" . . . 1223—1226. LOUIS, tlie Lion had a very short reign, but most of his doings had been in his father's time ; and I left them out that you might hear, all in one, as it were, the history of Philip Augustus and his crafty dealings with the House of Planta- genet. Now, we will go back and speak of Louis, before he came to the throne, and of the ]3eople he chiefly fought with. You remember that the South of France, which had first been settled by the Romans, and had never been peopled by the Franks, was much more full of learning and thinking than the northern part. The Langue doc was much more used for poetry and elegant speech than the Langue cfoui. But somehow, among these people there 157 158 Young Folks' History of France. arose up a heresy (that is, a false doctrine), which seems to have come to them from the East. It would not be well to tell you all about it, even if you or I could understand it ; but one great point in it was that these people said that the Power of Evil is as great and strong as the Power of Good, thus making Satan like another God, as some old Eastern pagans thought. The evil ways of Chris- tians strengthened the notions of these people, who were called Albigenses, from the town of Albi. Their southern cleverness saw what was amiss, and they made songs laughing at the clergy, and at the way they dealt with holy things, and often at the holy things themselves, till they led away a great many people after them, and even some of the great princes of the South, who began to feel as if the Albigenses were something specially be- longing to themselves, and to the old culture of the Roman Provincia. But the great Pope, Innocent III., could not allow all this country to fall away from the Church. While he was thinking what was to be done, two men offered themselves to him. One was a Span- iard, named Dominic, who wished to found an order of brethren to go forth, preach, teach and bring back heretics ; the other was an Italian, The Alhigenses. 159 named Francis, who cared above all for holiness, and longed to be like our Lord, and wanted to draw together men within the Chnrch to be more spiritual and less worldly, and give the enemy no cause to take offence at their faults. Both these good men were allowed to institute brotherhoods, orders not quite like the monks in the old con- vents, but still poorer. Their brethren were called friars, and went about preaching and hearing con- fessions, and helping men and women to lead holier lives — those of St. Francis in Christian places, those of St. Dominic wherever there was heresy. Dominic was further allowed to judge and punish with severe penances and captivity such as would not be convinced, and the inquiry into opinions which he and his friars made was called the Inquisition. But the great dukes and counts in the South of France — in Provence, Toulouse, Foix, Albi, and many others — did not choose to have their people interfered with. They all spoke much the same language, and they were resolved, right or wrong, to hold together ; and it is really one of the most difficult questions in the world whether it is well or ill to put down false teachings. The more peo- ple think and read the more they doubt about per- 160 Young Folks' History of France. secution ; and so these Provencal princes, being cleverer than their rough neighbors, were the less disposed to punish their subjects ; but they were also less religious and less earnest, and Pope Inno- cent had no question but that they ought to be called to an account. So he proclaimed a crusade against them, as if they had been Saracens, and made the leader of it Simon, Count de Montfort, a stern, hard, though pious old kuight, the father of the Simon de Montfort who fought with Henry HI. Pedro II., King of Aragon, joined the Albigenses, and there was a terrible war all over the south. In the year 1213 a great battle was fought at Muret, in the County of Toulouse, in v/hich the Albigenses were beaten, and the King of Aragon killed. Those were cruel times, and the Crusaders treated their captives very savagely. The Count of Toulouse, Raymond, stood against the Crusaders, and with his son, also named Ray- mond, fought hard ; but the Pope declared them unworthy to rule, and granted Simon de Montfort all the lands he had conquered in the South of France. In the northern parts he was looked on as a saint, and when he went to do homage to the king, people ran to touch his horse and his clothes as something holy. Indeed, he was a sincerely ^'^l ■"^4 THE I'.ATTLE OF MUKET. Louis VIIL, The Lion. 163 good man ; and though he did many things so cruel that I cannot tell you of them, it was all be- cause he thought it his duty. Louis the Lion aided him, and learnt the art of war during these battles ; but when tlie Crusaders tried to take the city of Toulouse, the people, knowing how horribly they would be treated, held out against them ; and at last, in 1217, the year of our King John's death, one night, when Simon was attacking the walls, a woman threw down a heavy stone, which struck him on the head and killed him. His eldest son, Amaury, was not such an able warrior, and the Albigenses began to get the better of the Crusaders, while Louis the Lion was away in England ; but in the year 1223, when Philip died, and he became King of France, he was called upon by the Pope to begin war again. He fought with all his might ; but in spite of his title of the Lion, he was not as able a soldier as he was a brave man, and in the three j^ears of his reign he did not much weaken the Albigenses, though he was at war ^\ith them all through his short reign. While he was passing through Auvergne, a sickness broke out in his army, he fell ill himself, and died in the year 1226. His eldest son, Louis IX., was only eleven years 164 Young Folks' History of France. old ; but the queen, Blanche of Castille, his mother, was a very good and spirited woman, and man- aged the kingdom excellently. She sent troops, who gained such successes that at last Count Ray- mond of Toulouse was forced to make peace, and to give his only child into Blanche's hands to be brought up as a wife for her third son, Alfonso. The Count of Provence, who held from the Em- peror, had four daughters, and no son, and these ladies were married in due time to the King of France and his brother Charles, and to the King of England and his brother Bichard, and thus all that great country of the Languedoc Avas brought under the power and influence of the north. The Dominican friars and the Inquisition were put in authority everywhere, that the false doctrine of the Albigenses might be rooted out ; and there was much of barbarous punishment, imprisonment tor- ture, and even burning of heretics. It was a cruel age, and no doubt terrible things were done ; but that the punishments were savage does not make the faith of the Albigenses right. It was a time when much thought was going on throughout Europe. Pope Innocent III. had made the Church of Rome very powerful, and though no one who came after was as great as he was, his Louis VIIL, The Lion. , 165 23lans were followed out, and the King of France, who was always called the Eldest Son of the Church, was one of the first to be reckoned on for carrying them out. They were often plans for mere earthly power more than spiritual, but all good men thought it their duty to aid them, and it was a time when there were many good men. The work of St. Bernard and the example of St. Francis were doing much to make the lives of men and women more pure and holy, and there was more learning and less roughness than in the last age. Everything that was then made was strangely beautiful too — castles, churches and cities were in most graceful architecture ; armor and dress were exquisite in color and shape, and the illuminations in the manuscripts were as lovely as hand could make them. CHAPTER XVI. ST. LOUIS IX. 1226. THE little king, Louis IX, who came to the throne in 1226, when he was only eleven years old, was happy in having a good and wise mother, Queen Blanche of Castille, who both brought him up carefully, and ruled his kingdom for him well and wisely. She was sometimes a little too jealous and stern, and as he grew up she was jealous of his caring for anybody else. When he married Margaret of Provence, she did not like the voung: husband and wife to be very much together, for fear Louis should be drawn off from graver matters ; but on the whole she was an excellent mother and queen, and there have been very few kings in any country so good and just and holy as Louis was. He never 166 jSl Louis IX, 167 seems in all his life, to have clone anything that he knew to be wrong, and he cared more for God's honor than anything else. Sometimes such very pious kings forgot that they had any duty to their people and did not make good rulers ; but Louis kncAV that he could not do his duty properly to God if he did not do it to man, so he showed himself a wise, just prince and good warrior. He was so much stronger and cleverer than our poor foolish Henry HI., that his barons thought he could take away all Guyenne, which had been left to King John ; but he said he would not do an injustice. Henry had married his queen's sister, and their children would be cousins, so he would not do what would lead to wars between them. But Avhen Henry wanted him to give back Normandy and Anjou, he had the matter well looked into ; and he decided that King John had justly forfeited them for murdering Arthur of Brittany, and so he ought to keep them. So he was always sensible as well as just. He was still a young man, when he had a very bad illness and nearly died. In the midst of it he made a vow that if he got well he would go to the Holy Land, and fight to set Christ's Sepulchre free from the Mahometans. As soon as he grew better 168 Young Folhs' History of France. he renewed the yow, though it grieved all his peo- ple very much ; but he left them to be governed by his mother, and as soon as he could get his army together, he set out on his crusade with his wife and his brothers. As the Mahometans who held the Holy Land came from Egypt, it was thought that the best way of fighting them would be to attack them in their own countr}^ So Louis sailed for Egypt, and be- seiged and took Damietta ; and there he left his queen, Margaret, while he marched on by the side of the Nile, hoping to meet the enemj^ But it was a bad season, for the Nile was overflowing, and the whole country was one swamp, where the knights and horses could hardly move, and grievous sick- ness broke out. The king himself became very ill, but he and his men roused themselves when they found that a battle was near. It was fought at Mansoureh. The adversaries were not native Egyptians, but soldiers called Memlooks. They had been taken from their homes in early infancy, made Mahometans, and bred up to nothing but war ; and very terrible warriors they were and quite as much feared by the Sultan and the Egyp- tians as by the enemy. However, the French feared nothing; they were only too fool-hardy; St. Louis IX. 169 and when the Enghsh Earl of Salisbury gave ad- vice to be prudent and keep a guard at the camp, the kinc!-'s brother Robert called out that he was afraid, and the earl answered in a passion that he should go as far among the enemy as Kobert him- self. So they all dashed in, and many others, and the ]\Iemlooks got between them and the camp, and cut them off and killed them. The king was so weak that he could hardly sit on his horse, but he tried to call his men together and save them ; but it was all in vain, the Memlooks were all roiuid them, and he was so faint that his knights took him off his horse, and laid his head in a woman's lap, fearing each moment to see him die. He gave himself up as a prisoner, and lay day after day in a hut with two priests waiting on him. He re- spected them so much that he could not bear to let them do servants' work for him ; and he was so patient and brave, that the Memlooks themselves said he was the best man they had ever seen, and wanted to make him Sultan of Egypt. At last it was settled that he should be set free, if he would pay a heavy ransom, and give up the city of Damietta, which he had taken. This was done, and afterwards he embarked with his queen and the remains of his army, and went to the Holy 170 Young Folks' History of France. Land ; but there was a peace just then, and no fightmg ; and after he had fulfilled his vow of pilgrimage, he returned to France, but not to find his mother there, for she had died in his absence. Fourteen most happy and good years followed his return. He was a most wise and valiant king in his own kingdom, and thoroughly just and up- right. There was a great oak-tree near his palace of Vincennes, under which he used to sit. hearing- the causes of the poor as well as the rich, and doing justice to all. He had a clear good sense and judgment, that made him see the right thing to do. The Pope had a great quarrel with the Emperor Frederick n., and tried to make Louis take up arms against him, as his father had done against King John of England i but the good king saw that even the Pope's bidding would not make this right, and held back. He and Henry III. of England were yqtj loving brothers-in-law; and during the barons' wars in England, Eleanor, the young wife of Ed- ward, the heir of England, was left with his aunt. Queen Margaret of France. You recollect that Louis IX. and Henry III. and their two brothers, Charles, Count of Anjou, and PJchard, Earl of Cornwall, had married the four daughters of the St. Louis IX. 171 Count of Provence. The Earl of Oornwall was chosen to be King of the Romans — that is, next heir to the Western Empire — and when her three sisters were queens, the fourth sister, Beatrice, kept the County of Provence. She is said to have been unhappy because her sisters sat on thrones, when she only sat on a stool ; but before long the Pope offered the kingdom of the two Sicilies to her husband, Charles of Anjou. It rightl}' be- longed to the grandson of the EmjDcror Frederick, and Louis wished his brother to have nothing^ to do with it ; but Charles was a false and ambitious man, though he pretended to be as religious as Louis ; and with an army of Provengals he set out and gained the kingdom we now call Naples and Sicily. The young heir Conradin set off to try to regain his inheritance, but Charles defied him in battle, made him j)i'isoner, and put him to death on the scaffold. Louis had always intended to make another cru- sade, and Charles promised to join him in it, as well as Edward of England. All the North of Africa was held by the Moors, Vt^ho were Mahom- etans ; but Louis had had letters that made him think that there was a chance of converting the Dey of Tunis to the Christian faith, and his brother 172 Young FoUcs^ History of France. Charles wished to show them the crusading army in hopes of alarming them, and getting power there. So Louis, with his army, landed in the Bay of Tunis, and encamped in the plains of Old Carthage to wait for King Charles and Edward of England : but the Moors were foes instead of friends. It was very hot and unwholesome, and deadly sickness broke out. The good king went about from one tent to another, comforting and helping the sick, but he was soon laid low himself. Pie lay repeating Psalms, and dictating a beautiful letter of adyice to his daughter, as he grew v/orse and worse ; and at last, with the words, " O Jeru- salem, Jerusalem ! " on his tongue, he died in the year 1270, nor has there ever been such a king in France again, and few in any other country. Charles of Sicily and Edward of England came three days later ; and as soon as they could get together the poor, broken, sad and sick army, they sailed for Sicily, taking with them the poor young king, Philip, who was very ill himself, and could not go on with the crusade, so that Edward was obliged to go alone, as we all know. Louis and his youngest son, who had died a day or two before him, were buried together at St. Denys, and he has ever since borne the well-deserved title of saint. DKATJr OF I.OUIS. CHAPTER XVIL PHILIP III., THE HAEDY ; AXD PHILIP lY., THE PAIR. 1271—1284—1814. ST. LOUIS left three sons. The second, Rob- ert, Count of Clermont, must be remembered, because three hundred years later his descendants, the House of Bourbon, came to the throne of France. The eldest son, Philip IIL, was a man who left very little mark, though he reigned thir- teen years. The most remarkable thing that hap- pened in his time was a great rising against his uncle, Charles of Anjou, in Sicily. The French and Provengal knights he had brought with him were proud, and rude in their behavior to the peo- ple of the country, and oppressed them heavily. At last, on Easter Monday of 1282, as the people of Palermo were on their way to hear vespers, all in holiday attire, a French soldier was rude to a 175 176 Young Folks' History of France. Sicilian girl, and a fight broke out, which ended in the killino; of all the Frenchmen in the island ex- cept one, who had been more kind and gentle than the rest. This was called the Sicilian Yespers. The Sicilians then sent to offer the crown to Pedro, King of Aragon, the nearest kinsman of their old line. The Pope was so angry with him for accepts ing it as to declare his own kingdom forfeited, and to send Philip of France to take it from him. But soon after the French army had advanced into Aragon, sickness broke out among them, the king himself caught it, and died in the year 1284 ; and Pedro of Aragon gained the island of Sicily and kept it, though Charles of Anjou and his sons reigned on in Naples on the mainland. Philip IV., called Le Bel^ or the Fair, was only seventeen years old when he came to the crown ; but he was as clever and cunning as his uncle, Charles of Anjou, or his great grandfather Philip Augustus, and his great object was to increase the power of the crown by any means he could. He had not to deal with an English king like John ; but Edward I. was so much more anxious to make one kingdom of Great Britain than to be powerful in France, that he took little concern for his French duchies. So when Philip IV. picked a quarrel and FMip in.. The Hardy. ITT seized Guyenne, Edward would not draw off his men from Scotland to fight for it, but made a peace which only left him Gascony, and sealed it by him- self marrying Philip's sister Margaret, and be- trothed his son Edward to Philip's little daughter Isabel. It was very wrong — almost the worst action of the great king's life — for young Edward was already betrothed to the young • daughter of the poor Count of Flanders, Guy Dampierre, whom Philip was cruelh^ oppressing. When England thus forsook their cause, Philip made the count prisoner, and so kept him all the rest of his life. Nothing but misery came of the marriage. But the most remarkable part of the history of Philip lY. is what concerns the Church and the Popes. For the last two hundred years the Popes had been growing more and more poAverful, and ruling over kings and princes — sometimes rebuk- ing them manfully for their crimes, but too often only interfering with what disturbed the worldly power of the Church. Now Philip was a man of evil life, and was, besides, very hard and grasping in requiring money from the clergy. The Pope, Boniface YIIL, was an old man, but full of fiery vehemence ; and he sent a letter of reprimand, 178 Young Folks' History of France. bidding the king release the Count of Flanders, make x^eace, and exact no more from the clergy. Philip was very angry, and the two went on writing letters that made matters worse, until the Pope threatened to depose the king ; and Philip sent off to Anagni, where the Pope generall}^ lived, a French knight, named Nogaret, and an Italian called Sciarra Colonna, who had quarrelled with the Pope and fled to France. They rode into Anagni, cry- ing, " Long live the King of France ! death to Boniface ! " at the head of a troop of worthless fellows Avho had gathered round them. The people of Anagni were so shocked that they never moved, and the men went on to the church, where they found the Pope, a grand old man of eighty-six, seated calmly b}^ the altar in his robes, with his tiara on his head. They rushed up to him, insult- ing him and striking him on the cheeks ; indeed, Colonna would have killed him on the spot but for Nogaret. They dragged him out of the church, and kept him prisoner three days ; but after that, the townspeople recovered from their fright, rose, rescued him, and conducted him safely to Rome ; but what he had gone through had been too much for him, and a few mornings later he was found COL.O^:SA. STRIKING THE POPE. Philip IV., The Fair, l8l lying quite dead, tlie head of liis stick at his lips, gnawed and covered with foam, and his white hair stained with blood, as if in a fit of terror he had dashed his head against the wall. This piteous death was in the year 1303. Another Pope was chosen ; but as soon as Philip found that the new one was determined to control him, he caused him to be poisoned, and then deter- mined to get the future one into his hands. There were a good many French cardinals who would, he knew, vote for any one he chose ; and meeting in secret the Archbishop of Bordeaux, the king told him he should have their votes on six condi- tions. Five of these related to the making up of the old quarrel with Boniface ; the sixth Philip would not tell then, but the archbishop swore it should be fulfilled ; and the king then brought about his election as Pope, when he took the name of Clement Y. To everyone's surprise, he chose to be crowned at L5'ons instead of Rome, and then took up his abode at Avignon, in Provence, which, though it belonged to the empire, was so much in France as to be entirely in the king's power. As long as the Popes remained at Avignon, they were nothing but tools to the kings of France ; and this really 182 Young Folks' History of France. seems to have been the greatest misfortune that happened to France. The power of the Popes was stretched much too far, and their interference in temporal matters was often wrong, but it was the only authority that ever kept kings and princes in order; and when the Popes lived on French ground, and were afraid to reprove the lords of the countr}^ there was nothing to hinder the evil ways of either kings and nobles, and they went on from bad to worse, unrestrained by the Church, the wit- ness of truth. Philip the Fair was a very greedy man, always seeking after money, and oppressing his people heavily to obtain it. Now, you remember that two orders of soldier monks had been set up to defend the Holy Sepulchre. Soon after St. Louis' last crusade. Acre, the last spot that belonged to the Christians, had been taken from them. The Knights Hospitallers had settled in the island of Rhodes, hoping some day to return ; but the Knights Templars had gone to the houses in Europe, where they used to train up young men to arms. They were rich in lands, and, having nothing to do, were proud and insolent. And Philip cast his eyes on their great wealth, and told tlie Pope that his sixth condition was that all the Templars should PhUip IV., The Fair. . 183 be destroyed. Most of them were living in France, but the others were invited to hold a great chapter there ; and when almost all were come, horrible accusations were made — that they were really heathen, that no one came into their order without being made to renounce his baptism and trample on the Cross, that they murdered little children, and other frightful stories ; and then five hundred and two were imprisoned by the Inquisition, and seventy-two tortured to make them confess. Most of them were brave and denied it all ; but there were a few who could not bear the pain, and said whatever was put into their mouths. Then, after being kept in prison two years, the rest were sentenced, brought out in parties of fift}' and burnt to death, while the Pope declared the order dissolved, and gave the king all his possessions. This was in 1311. The Grand Master, James de Molay, was kept in prison three years longer, but then was brought out at Paris, and burnt before the king's palace garden. He was a fine old white- bearded man ; and as he stood there in the fire, he called on Clement, Pope of Rome, and Philip, King of France, to appear before the judgment seat of God — the first within forty days, the sec- 184 Young Folks* History of France. ond within a year — to answer for their usage o£ him and his knights. Before the fortieth day, Clement V. actually died ; and before the year was out, Philip the Fair sank away from consumption, and died in his forty- sixth year, in the year 1314, leaving the most hate- ful name in French history. CHAPTER XVIII. LOUIS X., HUTIN, .1814—1316. PHILIP v., LE LONG, 1316—1322 CHARLES IV., LE BEL, . . . . . .1322. PHILIP YL, 1350. PHILIP the Fair left three sons — Louis, Philip, and Charles — and one daughter, Isabel, who was married to Edward of England. Louis X. was called by the nickname of Hutin^ which is said to mean the Peevish or Ill-tempered. He was married to the young Queen of Navarre, in her own right ; but he only reigned two years, and his only son lived but five days. The French barons declared it was against the old law of the Salic Franks that their kingdom should fall to a woman, so Louis's little daughter Joan was only to be Queen of Navarre, while his brother, Philip Y. (Xe Long^ or the Tall), became king. He must have been as cruel as his father, for there rose up in his time a 185 186 Young Ii^'oWs Mist or y of France. foolish story that the fountains of water had been poisoned by the lepers and the Jews, whereupon he gave orders that they should suffer for it. They were killed on the spot, or else burnt at the stake throughout France, while the king and his nobles seized the treasures of the Jews ] but in the midst the king died, at only thirty years old, in the year 1322, leaving only four girls ; so that his brother, Charles IV., reigned after him. It was during the six years that Charles was on the throne that his sister Isabel came from England with complaints of her husband, Edward II., and succeeded in collect- ing the knights, who helped her to dethrone him, after which he was brought to a miserable end in prison. Every one believed that the sins of the wicked father had been visited on these three sons — dying young, and without heirs ; and the French were glad when Charles the Fair died, in 1328, that their kingdom should go to Philip YL, Count of Valois, the son of the younger brother of Philip IV., Charles of Valois. But Edward III. of England called himself the right heir, declaring himself nearer in blood to his uncle, Charles IV., than Philip of Valois, their first cousin, could be. This was true ; but, then, if all Philip VL 189 the daughters of the last three kings were shut out from reigning, it was not reasonable that he should pretend to a right through their aunt. At first, though he put his claim forward, he seems to have been willing to let it sleep, for he appeared before the French king in the Cathedral at Amiens, and did homage for the duchy of Aquitaine ; but there was a certain Robert of Artois, who had been deprived of what he thought his lawful inheritance, and who was suspected of wanting to bring about Philip's death by sorcery. He was said to have made a waxen image of the king and stuck it full of pins and set it before the fire, expecting that as the wax raelted, so Philip would perish away and die. Philip believed the story, and Robert was obliged to fly to England, Avhere, out of hatred and revenge, he stirred up the king to put forward his claim, and to begin the war with France which is sometimes called the Hundred Years' War. The great cities in Flanders, where cloth was woven, were friendly to the English, because in that peace- able country the sheep that bore the wool could feed quietly, and their supplies of material came from thence. Besides, Philip had tried to make them accept a count whom they hated, so they drove him away, and invited Edward to Ghent. 190 Young Folhs^ History of France. The French fleet tried to meet and stop him, bat their ships were defeated and sunk, with great loss of men, off Slays, in the year 1340. Not long after, there was a great dispute about the dukedom of Brittany, which was claimed by the daughter of the elder brother, and by the younger brother of the late duke. The niece had married Charles de Blois ; the uncle was the Count de Montfort. The King of, France took the part of the niece, the King of England that of Montfort. Before long, Montfort was made prisoner and sent to Paris ; but his wife, the brave Joan, defended his cause as well as any knight of them all. She shut herself up in Hennebonne, and held out the town while De Blois besieged her ; and when the townsmen began to lose heart, and say they must surrender, she bade them look out to the sea ; and there was the English fleet coming to their aid. Sir Walter Manny commanded the troops it brought, and the first thing he did was to lead a party to sally out and burn the French machines for battering the town. When they came back, Countess Joan came to meet them, and kissed all the knights, like a right valiant lad}' that she was, says the old chronicler Froissart, who has left us a charming history of these times. The war in Brit- "bapje them look out at thk sea." Philip VL 193 tany lasted twenty-four years altogether. Montfort made his escape from prison, but he died very soon after he reached home ;' and his widow sent her little son to be bred up in Edward's court in Eng- land, while she took care of his cause at home. The English were ver}- much hated and disliked in Brittan}^ and seem to have been very fierce and rough with the people, whose language they did not understand ; and some of the knights who were the greatest foes of all to the English grew up in Brittany, more especially Bertrand du Guesclin and Oliver de Clisson, but they were as yet boys. Edward made his greatest attack on France in the year 1346. Philip had gathered all the very best of his kingdom to meet him. The knights of France were nearly as strong as the knights of England, but there was one great difference be- tween the two armies, and that arose from the harshness of the counts and barons. Every one below them was a poor, miserable serf (unless he lived in a town), and had never handled arms. Now, in England there were farmers and stout peasants, who used to practice shooting with the bow once a week. So there were always sturdy English archers to fight, and the French had nothing of the same kind to meet them, and tried 194 Young Folks' History of France. hiring men from Genoa. The battle was fought at Ore 97, near Ponthieu ; and when it was to begin by each troop of archers shooting a flight of arrows at one another, it turned out that a shower of rain which had just fallen had slackened the bow-strings of the Genoese archers; but the Englishmen had their bows safe in leathern cases, and their strings were in full order, so the arrows galled the French knights, and a charge was ordered to cut them down. But full in the way stood the po££i1 .^'■-■i*-:^^'. .^M' L-16-; FKANCIS II. AND MARY STUAKT. Francis IL 31 Q such gracious manners that all loved him. He was quite the head of the zealous Roman Catholics, and Catherine wanted to keep him down. So, as she did not much care for any religion, she made friends with the chiefs of the Huguenots. Queen Jane of Navarre was the real chief, for she had made her little count}^ of Beam quite Calvinist ; but her husband, Antony, Duke of Bourbon, loved amuse- ment more than any thing else, and never cared enough to make up his mind. However, his brother Louis, Prince of Conde, saw that they would be thought more of by the Huguenots than by the other party ; and though not a very religious man, he was sincere in thinking the Roman errors wrong. So these two drew Antony their way. Besides, the Admiral de Coligny, who had defended St. Quentin, was a thoroughly good, pious, sincere man, and was much looked up to as the noblest of Huguenots. Conde hated nothing so much as the Duke of Guise, and he had a plan for seizing him and the young king, but it was found out in time ; and Guise, on his side, laid a plan for inviting the prince and his brother (who was always called the king of Navarre) into the king's chamber. Francis was to call out, '' Here, guards ! " and the guards were to dash in and seize or kill the two brothers. But 314 Young Folks' History of France, Francis could not make up his mind to do such a cruel, treacherous thing ; so he would not give the word, and let the princes go safely. Guise was ver}^ angry, and said he was a coward ; but it was happy for the poor boy that he was kept from this evil deed, for it was the last act of his life. He died of a swelling in his ear, in his seventeenth year, in 1560. His wife. Queen Mary, went back to Scotland ; and his brother, Charles IX., who was only twelve years old, began to reign. The Duke of Guise lost power at court when his niece went away, and Catherine listened more to Cond^. Indeed, she consented that the Chief Cal- vinist ministers should have a conference at Passy with the bishops, to try if the}^ could not be recon- ciled to the Church ; but though they began peace- ably, the argument soon ended in a quarrel. How- ever, the Huguenots were allowed to hold meetings for worship, provided it was not in a walled town, or where they could disturb Catholics ; and in their joy at gaining so much, they ventured to do much more ; and wherever they were the stronger, they knocked down the crosses and the images of the saints, and did all they could to show their dislike of the Catholic worship. At Yassy, where the mother of the Duke of Charles IX. 317 Guise lived, there was a barn where the Huguenots used to meet. When her son was visiting her, she complained of them ; and when he went to church on Sunday, he heard them singing. His followers were very angry at what they thought imperti- nence, broke into the barn, made a riot and hilled several. This was the beginning of the great war between the Catholics and Huguenots — a sad and terrible one. It was interrupted by many short times of peace, but you would only be puzzled -if I tried to tell you of all the wars and all the treaties. The chief thing you have to remember is, that a Guise was always at the head of the Catholics, and a Bourbon at the head of the Huguenots ; and that though the queen Avas a Catholic, -she sometimes favored the Huguenots, for fear of the Guises ; but she was so false that nobody could believe a word she said. The most honest man at court was old Constable de Montmorency, but he was terribly stern and cruel, and every one feared him. The cit}^ of Kouen fell into the hands of the Huguenots, and Guise besieged it ; but in the course of the siege he was shot by a murderer named Poltrot, and died in a few hours. His son Henrj', wlio was very young at the time, always believed that the murderer had been sent by the Admiral de Coligny ; 318 Young Folk's History of France. and though this was not at all likely, the whole family vowed vengeance against him. During this siege, Antony, Duke of Bourbon (called King of Navarre) was also killed. He was no great loss to the Huguenots, for he had gone over to the other side, and his wife, Queen Jane, was freer to act without him. Old Montmorency was killed, not long after, in a battle with the Prince of Conde, near St. Denis ; and the queen thought the Huguenots so prosper- ous that she said, in a light way, to one of her ladies, " Well, we shall have to say our prayers in French." Her sons were beginning to grow up. She did not like to put the king forward, lest he should learn to govern, and take away her power ; but her third son, Henry, the Duke of Anjou, was very handsome and clever, and quite her favorite, for he was as false and cruel as herself. In the battle of Jarnac he commanded. The Prince of Cond^, who was on the other side, had his arm in a sling, from a hurt received a few days before ; and just as he had ridden to the head of his troops, a horse kicked and broke his leg ; but he would not give up, and rode into battle as he was. He was defeated, and taken prisoner. He was lifted off his horse ; and while he sat under a tree, for he Charles IX, 319 could not stand, a friend of the Duke of Anjo'u shot hiiji througli the head. The Queen of Navarre felt that she must come to the head of her party. She had one son, Henr}^, Prince of Beam. As soon as he was born, his grandfather had rubbed his lips with a clove of garlic, and bidden him be a brave man ; and the cradle he was rocked in, a great tortoise's shell, is still kept at Pan, in Beam. He had run about on the hills with the shepherd lads to make him strong and hardy ; and Queen Jane had him most carefully taught both religion and learning, so that he was a boy of great promise. He was fifteen years old at this time ; and his cousin Henry, son of the Prince of Conde, was about the same age. Queen Jane took them to the head of the Huguenot army, and all were delighted to serve under them, while Ad- miral de Coligny managed their affairs. Under him and Queen Jane they prospered more than before, and Queen Catherine began to see that she should never put them down by force. She pretended to make friends with them, and she and her son, Charles IX., made them grants that af- fronted all the zealous Roman Catholics very much ; but it was all for the sake of getting them in her 320 Young Folks' History of France, power. She offered to marry lier daughter Mar- garet to the Prince of Beam, and invited him to her court. Poor Queen Jane could not bear to let her boy go, for she knew what would happen. Catherine kept a whole troop of j^oung ladies about her, who were called the Queen Mother's Squadron, and who made it their business, with their light songs, idle talk, and pleasant evil habits, to corrupt all the young men who came about them. Now Jane's little court was grave, strict and dull, and Henry enjoyed the change. Catherine read Italian poetry with him, put amusements in his way, and found it only too easy to laugh him out of his strict notions of his home. Poor Jane tried to keep up his love ; slie wrote to him about his dogs and horses, and all he used to care for ; but cunning Catherine took care never to have mother and son at her court together. She sent Henry home be- fore she invited his mother to the court. When Jane came, Catherine said to one of her friends, "I cannot understand this queen ; she will alwa3'S be reserved with me." " Put her in a passion," was the answer ; " then she will tell you all her secrets." But Jane would never be put in a pas- sion, and Catherine could get no power over her. Charles IX. 321 While still at court Jane fell suddenly ill and died. Every one thought Catherine had poisoned her. There was a man about court, a perfumer, whom people called in whispers, " The Queen's Poisoner." CHAPTER XXXI. CHARLES IX. 1572—1574. POOR young Charles IX. would have been a good man if his mother would have allowed him ; but she taught him that the way to reign was to deceive, and he was so much afraid of her that he choked all his better feelings. She was exceed- ingly afraid of the Huguenots, and thought they were conspiring against her ; and the young Henrj^ Duke of Guise, was ready to do anything to be re- venged on Coligny, whom he viewed as his father's murderer. So, to get the Huguenots into her power, Catherine invited all their chief nobles to come to the wedding of her daughter Margaret with young Henry, who had become King of Navarre. The Pope would not give leave for the princess to marry one who stood outside the Church, but the 322 I Charles IX. 323 queen forged his consent ; and the poor bride, who was in love with the Duke of Guise, was so unwill- ing, that, at the wedding itself, when she was asked if she would have this man for her husband, she would not say yes ; but her brother Charles pushed her head down into a nod, to stand for yes. Coligny and his friends had come to the wedding ; and the king was so delighted with the brave, honest old soldier, that Catherine thought she should lose all her power over him. One day, Coligny was shot in the streets of Paris by a murderer ; and though only his hands were shattered, he was so ill that the king came to see him, and all his friends mustered round him to protect him. Thereupon, Catherine settled with her son, the Duke of Anjou, and the Duke of Guise, that, when the bell of the Church of St. Germain I'Auxerrois, close to the palace of the Tuileries, should begin to ring at midnight before St. Bartholomew's Day, the people of Paris, who were all devoted to the Duke of Guise, should rise upon the Huguenots who were lodging in their houses, and kill them all at once. It was hard to get King Charles to consent, for there were many Huguenots whom he had learnt to love ; but when he found he could not save Coligny, he said, " Let them all die ; let none live to reproach 324 Young Folks' History of France. me." However, he called into his own bedroom those whom he most wished to save — namely, his good doctor and his old nurse ; but there were a great many more in the palace, attending upon the young King of Navarre, and every one of these was slaughtered, except one man, who dashed into Queen Margaret's room and clung to her. Every- where murder was going on. The followers of Guise wore white scarves on one arm, that they might know one another in the dark ; and a troop of them rushed in, slew good old Colign}^ in his bedroom, and threw his corpse out of the window. His chaplain escaped over the roof and hid in a hayloft, where a hen came every day and laid an Qgg^ which was all he had to live on. All the rabble of Paris were slaying and plundering their neigh- bors, and all the other towns where the Huguenots were weakest the same horrid work was going on. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew is the deadliest crime in the history of France. The young king was half mad that night. He is said to have shot from the palace window at some whom he saw run- ning away ; and though this may not be true, it is quite certain that he drew his sword against the King of Navarre and Prince of Conde, and would have struck them, if his young wife, Elizabeth of 5^^. ;<.%C; •.. i V \ Charles IX. 327 Austria, had not heard of it, and ran in, as she was, with her hair hanging down, entreating him to spare them ; and their lives were given them on condition that they would return to the Church, which they did ; but they were watched and forced to live like a sort of prisoners at court. When the English Queen Elizabeth heard of this shocking da}', she dressed herself and all her court in mourning, and would not speak to the French ambassador. She broke oif the plans for marrying her to the Duke of Anjou — a scheme on which Catherine de Medicis was much set, as it would have made her third son a king without the death of the second. However, a kingdom did come to him, for the old realm of Poland always chose the king by election by all the nobles, and their choice fell upon Henry, Duke of Anjou. He did not like going to that wild country, away from all the amusements of Paris, and delayed as long as he could, but he was forced to set off at last. Meantime, the poor young king was broken- hearted. He tried to foro^et the horrors of the nig^ht of St. Bartholomew, and the good men he had learnt to love and respect, while he was only draw- ing them into a trap. He went out hunting, rode violently for long distances, and blew furious blasts 328 Young Folks History of France, on his hunting horn ; but nothing could drive away that horrible remembrance, and all that he did was to hurt his own health. His lungs were injured ; and whenever a bleeding came on, it seemed to him that he was in the midst of the blood of the Hu- guenots. All the comfort he h;id was in his old nurse and surgeon, whom he had saved; for his mother was too busy trying to secure the throne for his brother to attend to liim, and kept him closely watched lest his grief for the massacre should be known. So he died in the year 1574, when only twenty-three years old, and his last words were, " If our Lord Jesus will have mercy on me I " And so we may hope that his repentance was true. The war with the Huguenots was still going on when he died, for though Coligny was slain, and the King of Navarre still closely watched and guarded at court, there were enough nobles left alive, especially in the South of France, to hold out against their enemies. Everybody was growing dreadfully cruel on both sides. It was the fashion to boast of killing as many as possible. If the troops of the queen and Duke of Guise came on a preaching of the Huguenots, they burnt the build- iug, and slew every one who came out of it; and if the Huguenots found a church or convent not de- Charles IX. 829 fended, they did not use the monks or nuns much better. The Count de Montgomery, whose lance had caused the death of Henry II., was on the Huguenot side, and had some ships, with which he sailed about, capturing all the vessels that came in his way, and plundering them. It was a miserable time, and every one watched anxiously for the new king ; but though he was delighted to leave Poland, and galloped away in the night from Cracow, as if he were a thief, for fear the Poles should stop him, he was in no hurry to take all the troubles of his French kingdom upon him, but went out of his way to Italy, and stayed there amusing himself, while all the time the Duke of Guise was growing more and more strong, and a greater favorite with the people of Paris, who would do anything for him. Catherine, too, was trying to marry her fourth son, the Duke of Alengon, to Queen Elizabeth, who pretended to think about it, and even sent for him to see her ; but it was all in order to keep peace with France — she never really meant it — and the duke was an ugly little spiteful youth, whom every- body at court hated and feared. CHAPTER XXXTL HENRY in. 1574. THE new king, Henrj HI., was a strange per- son. He seemed to have used up all his spirit and sense at the battle of Jarnac, Avliich made the people think him a hero ; and though he was not a coward in battle, he had no boldness in thinking of danger — no moral courage in making up his mind. On his way home through Savoy, he saw Louise de Yaudemont, a beautiful girl, a cousin of the Duke of Guise, and determined to marry her. Queen Catherine tried to prevent it, because Mary of Scotland had been so haughty with her, and poor Louise herself was betrothed to a man she loved ; but the king would not be withstood, and she led a dreary life with him. He cared for little but fine clothes, his own beauty, and a sort of religion that 330 / '' // ,, ' '///', '"; ,1 '' Henry IIL 333 did him no good. He slept in a mask and gloves for the sake of his complexion, and painted his face ; and every day he stood over his wife to see her hair dressed, and chose her ornaments. He had a set of friends like himself, who were called his mignons^ or darlings, and were fops like him ; but they all wore rosaries, of which the beads were carved like skulls ; and they, king and all, used to go in procession, barefoot and covered with sack- cloth, to the churches in Paris, with whips in their hands, with which to flog one another in penance for their sins. Yet they were horribly cruel, and thought nothing of murder. If one of them was killed, the king would go and weep over him, take out the earrings he himself had given him, and then become just as fond of another mignon. Henry was very fond of little dogs ; he used to carry a basket of them slung round his neck, and fill his carriage with them, when he went out with the queen, generally to church, where he used to stick illuminations, cut out of old books of devotion, upon the wall. Henry of Navarre stayed in this disgraceful court for nearly tw^o years longer ; but at last, in 1576, he grew ashamed of the life he was leading, fled away to the Huguenot army, in the South of 334 Young Folks' History of France. France, and professed himself a Calvinist again. He soon showed that he was by far the ablest leader that the Huguenots had had, and he obtained an- other peace, and also that his wife Margaret should be sent to him to his little court at Nerac ; but she had been entirely spoilt by her mother's wicked court, and had very little sense of right and wrong. The pair never loved one another ; and as they had no children,- there was nothing to draw them to- gether, though they were friendly and civil to one another, and Margaret tried to help her husband by the lively court she kept, and the letters she wrote to her friends at Paris. Even the Duke of Alen^on, the youngest brother, could not bear the life at Henry's court, and fled from it. At one time the Dutch, who had revolted from Philip of Spain, invited him to put himself at their head ; but he did them no good, and on his way home he died. He had never been worth any- thing, but his death made a great difference, for Henry III. had no children ; and as women could neither reign in France themselves nor leave any rights to their children, the nearest heir to the crown was Henry of Navarre, whose forefather, the first Count of Bourbon, had been a son of St. Louis. k MURDER OF GUISE. Henry III. 337 Everybody knew he was the right heir ; but to have a Calvmist king to reign over them seemed so frightful to all the more zealous Catholics, that they formed themselves into a society, which they called a League for maintaining the Church, and the great object of which was to keep Henry of Navarre from being King of France. The Duke of Guise was at the head of this League, which was so pow- erful, especially at Paris, that he could do almost everything, and threatened and cowed the king till Henry was almost a prisoner in his hands. There was a third party — Catholics, but loyal, and with the Count de Montmorency at their head — and these were the persons to whom Henry trusted most. He was fond of his bright, kindly brother- in-law, the King of Navarre, and never would do anything to prevent him from succeeding, although he found that it was not safe to remain in Paris, and went to his palace at Blois. Here he framed a plot for freeing himself from the Duke of Guise. He placed guards on whom he could depend under the staircase and in his ante-room ; and when Guise came to visit the king in early morning, they fell upon him, thrcAV him down, and murdered him. When Henry knew that the duke was dead, he came out of his room to look at his late enemy. 338 Young Folks' History of France. " How tall he is ! " was all that the king said. His brother, the Cardinal of Guise, was killed the same day ; and Henry went up to his mother, Queen Catherine, who was ill in bed, to tell her that he was free from his enemy ; but she saw plainly that he was bringing more trouble on himself. "You have cut," she said ; " can you sew up again ? Have you thought of all that you will bring on yourself? " He said he had done so. " Then you must be prompt and firm," she said ; but she did not live to help him through his difficulties. She died a fortnight later, having done the most cruel harm to her chil- dren, her country, and her Church. Henry was far from able to sew up again. All the League was mad with rage. Guise's sons were little children ; but his brother, the Duke of May- enne, took the lead, and though he was not a clever man, the party was so strong that it took no great ability to make it terrible to the king. The duke's sister, the Duchess of Montpensier, really was like a fury, and went about the streets of Paris stirring up the people who already hated and despised the king, and who now raged against him. They tried him in effigy, deposed him, carried his figure through the streets heaping insults upon it, and made an anagram of his name, Henri de Valois into Vilain Henry III, 339 Serodes. All the world seemed to have turned against him, and he was brought to such distress that he was obliged to beg Henry of Navarre to come and help him. The two kings met at Plessis- les-Tours, and Avere most friendly together. They joined their armies and began to besiege Paris ; but of course this made the Leaguers more violent against Henry than ever, and a young monk named Clement, fancying that there was no sin, but even virtue, in freeing the Church from a man like Henry, crept out of Paris with a packet of letters, and while the king was reading one, stabbed him in the body with a dagger. Clement was at once slain by the gentlemen of the guard, and the King of Navarre was sent for in time to see his brother- in-law still alive. Henry embrfced him, bade his people own him king of France, and added, " But you will never be able to reign unless you become a Catholic." Then he died, in the year 1589, the last and most contemptible of the miserable house of Valois. The Leaguers rejoiced in his death, and praised the murderer Clement as a saint and mar- tyr, while they set up as king the Cardinal of Bourbon, the old uncle of the King of Navarre, de- claring that it was impossible that a heretic should ever reisrn in France. CHAPTER XXXIII. HENRY IV. 1589—1610. THE new king, Henry IV., was so poor, that he was obliged to dress himself in the velvet coat left by his brother-in-law to receive the gentlemen who came to make submission to him. France was now divided into two parties instead of three, for the Leaguers were of course set against the Hu- guenots, while the moderate Catholics, who thought that the birthright of the crown called them to be loyal to any sort of king, all came over to Henry. And he was so bright, gracious and good-natured, that no one could help being fond of him, who had once heard his frank voice and seen his merry smile. His old uncle, Cardinal Charles, the Leaguers' king, ^oon died, and then tliey talked of Isabel, a 340 HENRY IV. AT IVRY. Henrij IV, 343 daughter of Philip II. of Spain, because her mother had been eldest sister of the last three kings ; but as there Avas a great hatred of the Spaniards among the French, this plan rather did harm to their cause, and made many more of the Catholics turn to Henry. He was fighting his way to the throne, through more battles and sieges, ups and downs, than it is possible to tell of here, though the ad- Yentures he met with are delightful to read of. At the battle of Ivry, in Normandy, he told his follow- ers that if they wanted a guide in the thick of the fray they had only to follow his white feather ; and the saying became a by-word after his great victory. The Spaniards came to help the League, and the war lasted year after year, while Henry still Avas kept out of Paris. At last he made up his mind that he would return to the Roman Catholic Church.- He used to say in after times that one of the true things that nobody would believe, was, that he had changed out of an honest belief that the Calvinists were wrong ; and certainly he did gain a kingdom by so doing ; but the truth was that he had very little ricrht reliscion at all, and that he did not like the strict ways of the Calvinists. If the Catholic clergy had been in a better state, they would not have received him unless he had left off all the sin- 344 Young Folks'* History of France. ful habits he loved ; but they were only too glad to gain him over and accept him heartily. But still the League was not satisfied, and only in the year 1594, when he had been king five years, did he ride into Paris, with his hair and moustache gray from his cares and toils ; and even then the Leaguers went on opposing him. till at last his wisdom, and that of his good old friend, the Duke of Sully, suc- ceeded in overcoming the remains of their dislike, and the Duke de Mayenne consented to make peace with him. Then only did Henry begin to reign. He had to put down some of the great nobles who had grown over-powerful and insolent during the long civil war; but he was one of the most kind-hearted of men, and never punished if he could help it. He felt kindly towards, the poor, and wished that the time would come when every Frenchman should have a fat hen to boil in his pot. And besides, he tried to do justice between the Catholics and Cal- vinists. He had friends on both sides, and was anxious to make them live in peace, without fight- ing with one another or persecuting one another — • a plan which had been proved to convince nobody, and only to lead to hatred, cruelty, and misery. So he brought about a law which gave the Calvinists HENRY IV. AND MINISTERS. I Henry IV. 349 leave to have places of worsliip where there was a sufficient congregation, provided it was not where they would annoy the Catholics. And they were not hindered from taking offices at court or in the arm}^ nor from keeping schools in certain places ; and to secure all this to them, they were allowed to hold three towns as pledges — La Rochelle, Mon- tauban, and Montpellier. In this last, there was a college for educating their pastors, and at each of the three in turn there were meetings of their clergy to consult on the affairs of the Church. This law was called the Edict of Nantes, because Henry had it registered by the Parliament of the old duchy of Brittany, since each old province still kept its own laAvs and parliament. He obtained this Edict of Nantes Avith great difficulty, for almost all the Catholics thought it a very wicked thing to allow any person to remain outside tlie Church ; but every one was worn out with the long and bloody civil war, and was glad to rest ; so the Edict was passed, and France began to recover. Henry had no children, and wished to be rid of his wife Margaret, that he might marry another, in- stead of having to leave his crown to his young- cousin, the Prince of Conde. So, as there had never been real consent on the Pope's part to the 850 Young Folks' History of France, marriage of the cousins, and as the bride had been forced into it against her will by her mother and brother, the Pope was persuaded to pronounce the wedding null and void, and that the two were free to marry again. Still, it was not easy to find a princess, for all the Spaniards and Austrians and their allies Avere his greatest enemies, and he could not now marry a Protestant ; so he ended by choos- ing one of the Medici family, Mary, who proved to be a dull, selfish woman, not so clever as Catherine, and not much of a companion to him. However, she gave him two sons and three daugh- ters, and there was never a fonder father. Once, when the Austrian ambassador came to see him, he was found on all-fours, with his little son riding on Ms back, " Are ^'■ou a father, sir ? " he said to the new-comer. " Yes, sire." " Then we will finish our game," returned the king. There were many of the remnants of the Leaguers who hated the king for having once been a Hugue- not, and for the Edict of Nantes ; and though the love of the whole country was more and more with him, he still was not willing to gather a great crowd together in Paris, lest harm might follow. So, as he had been crowned long before he was married, the coronation of Mary de Medicis was put off, Henry IV, 351 year after year, till it should seem safer ; but she was vexed at the delay, and prevailed at last. Henry was not with her, and only looked on from a private box at the pageant, and while so doing, he gravely said to the friend who was with him, that he had been thinking how all this crowd would feel if the last trumpet were at once to sound. His own call Was nearer than he thought. The next day, just as he had seated himself in his car- riage, a man named Francis Ravaillac sprang on the wheel, held a paper to him to read, and the next moment stabbed him to the heart . with a knife, so that he died in an instant, one of the greatest losses his country had ever known. It was on the 14th of May, 1610. He was greatly beloved by his people, and his memory is affectionately cherished to this day ; and he was really a great man, though he would have been far greater if he had been really good. CHAPTER XXXTV. LOUIS XIII. 1610—1643. THE eldest son of Henry IV., Louis XIII., was but nine years old when his father was killed ; and his mother, Mary de Medicis, became regent. She was a weak, foolish woman, and let herself be entireh^ guided by a lady in her train, named Leo- nora Galigai, who had married a man named Con- cini. Mary made her son give him the title of Marshal d'Ancre, and it was they who really ruled France. When Leonora was asked how she man- aged the queen, she answered, " By the poAver of a strong mind over a weak one." But all the old French nobles greatly hated d'Ancre for his pride and insolence, and many declared that Leonora had bewitched the queen. Their rule lasted seven years ; but when the 352 CONCINI AND MARY DE MEDICIS. Louis XIII. 355 young king was sixteen years old, a young noble- man named Liiynes stirred liim up to free himself from them telling him that, now he was growing up, they would secretly kill him, that his mother might continue regent in the name of his little brother. So Louis desired his guards to arrest d'Ancre next time he came to the ^^^^kice, and to kill him if he resisted. He did resist, and was cut down and slain, and his wife tried for bewitcliing the queen, and put to death. Mary had to leave the court and go into the country ; whence, after some years of wrangling with her son, she went to England, after her youngest daughter, Henrietta Maria, had married King Charles I. ; and she after- wards died in great poverty. Louis XIII. was a strange person — slow, dull, and cold-hearted, though not ill-disposed. His health was bad, and he hated trouble and thinking more than anything else. What he chiefly cared for was to have some friend about him, who would hunt, talk, and amuse him, while all trouble was saved him. One very clever man was in his court, Armand de Richelieu, Bisliop of Lu^on, who was the ablest man in court. Albert de Luynes was the king's first minister after d'Ancre's fall ; but when he died of a fever, Richelieu obtained the 356 Young FoWs History of France. management of everj^thing. He let the king have young men as ]iis companions and favorites; but if ever one of tliese showed any spirit, and tried to stir up the king to act for himself and overthrow the tyranny he lived under, Richelieu always found it out and put the bold man to death. The king did nothing to save his friends, and when they were once out of his sight seemed to forget all about them ; for in truth he disliked trouble more than anj^thing else, and would have been ver}^ sorry to think for himself instead of letting Richelieu think and act for him. The cardinal, for so the Pope created him, was really one of the most wonderful statesmen who ever lived, and made France a much greater and more mighty power than ever before, and the king, much more powerful too. He was a hard, stern man, and did not care for justice, or for any one's suffering, provided he could do that one thing — make the crown of France more powerful. The nobles, who had grown strong and haughty during the long wars, were very sternly, and even cruelly, put down by him. He thought nothing of getting them accused of treason, shutting them up in prison, or having them put to death ; and he thus man- aged to get rid of al]- the great men who had been LOUIS THE YIII. AA'D ALBERT DE LUTNES. Louis XIll. 359 almost princes, such as the Count cle Montmorency, grandson to the okl Constable. He also made war upon the Huguenots, in spite of the Edict of Nantes, and tried to take La Rochelle from them. There was a long and terrible siege. Charles I. of England sent them help ; and his favorite, the Duke of Buckingham, was to have had the command of the fleet that was coming to them, but he was killed at Portsmouth, as jou have heard. When at last the people were starved out, after fourteen months, the cardinal made the king himself come down to receive their submission. La Rochelle was a terrible loss to them, and thej were far more at the king's mercy than when they had such a strong town. But at least the Roman Catholic Church was in a much better state than it had been when they had broken away from it. Much still needed to be set right ; but some of the worst evils had been put a stop to, and there were many very good men among the clerg}^, especially Francis de Sales, Bishop of Geneva, and Vincent de Paul, a good priest, who gathered together the poor desolate children who had no homes, and were starving in the streets of Paris, and set good ladies to take care of them. He also first established the order of Sisters of Mercy, who are like nuns, only 360 Young Folks' History of France. not shut up in convents, but going about to nurse the sick, take care of orphans, and teach poor chil- dren. The great ladies at court used to put on plain dresses and go to nurse the sick in hospitals, even the queen herself. She was a Spanish prin- cess, called Anne of Austria — a good, kind, and gracious lady — but no one cared for her much at court ; and for many years she had no children, but at last when all hope had been given up, she had first one and then another boy, and there was im- meuse rejoicing. Wars were going on with the Spaniards, all through the reign, in Italy and the Low Countries, as well as a terrible fight between the Roman Catholics and Protestants in Germany, which is called the Thirty Years' War. Cardinal de Riche- lieu managed matters so well that France always gained the advantage ; and some excellent generals were growing up in the army, especially the Vis- count de Turenne, brother to the Duke of Bouillon, and the Duke d'Enghien, eldest son of the Prince of Conde, who gained some wonderful victories in the Low Countries while still a mere youth. But Richelieu's own iron rule was coming to an end. He had been in very bad health for years, but he never seemed to care about it, and was as J^ .3/ '? « *■»■' ^ 'liV i'fiii ■ iiii BICHELIBU AND FATHEB JOSEPH. Louis XIIL 363 ever if a friend of the king tried to take away liis power. The Baron de Cinq Mars was put to death for conspiring against him when he was ahnost at the gates of the grave. He declared, when he was receiving his hist communion, that he had always meant to work for the honor of God and the good of the State ; and he died, in his fifty-eighth year, on the 4th of December, 1642, after advising the king to trust an Italian priest named Mazarin, as he had trusted to him. Louis seemed to care very little for the loss of Richelieu. He only said, " There's a great states- man dead ; " and when there was a great storm on the day of the funeral, he said, " The Cardinal has a bad day for his journey." But he was in a very weakly state himself, and only lived five months after Richelieu, dying at forty-two years old, on the 14th of May, 1643. Never was a son more unlike his father than he had been to Henry IV., seeming to be his exact opposite in every one of his better or worse qualities ; and though his reign nas a grand one to France, it was no thanks to him, but to the great statesman who ruled both him and the country. CHAPTER XXXV. LOUIS XIV. — YOUTH. 1643—1661. I AM Louis XIV.," cried the little five years' old Dauphin, as he stood by his dying father's bedside. " Not yet," the old king was still strong, enough to say, though he did not live many more hours. Poor child ! he did not know what he re- joiced in. His was the longest reign that ever king 364 Louis IV. — Youth. 365 had (no less than seventy-seven years), and he was sick and weaiy of it long before it ended. At first his mother, Queen Anne, was Kegent, and she trusted entirely to Mazarin. He was not a great man, like Richelieu, but he was clever and cunning, and the saying was, " The fox comes after the lion ;" for as he was a foreigner, and of low birth, the French found it much harder to submit to him, than to Richelieu, who was of one of the noblest families in France. Only four days after the accession of the little king, the Duke of d'Enghien won the great battle of Rocroy, in the Low Countries, which quite destroyed the fine old SjDanish foot soldiers ; and after two more victories, peace was made between France and Spain. But this did not make things easier for Mazarin, for all the nobles who had been away with the army came home, with nothing to do, and especially the Duke d'Enghien, who soon, on his father's death, became Prince of Conde, and who was proud and fiery, and hated the upstart Mazarin. All this hatred broke out in a great quarrel be- tween the queen and the parliament of Paris. You must remember that the parliament of Paris was a very different thing from the English parliament, It did not represent the whole kingdom, for each 366 Young FolJcs' History of France. of the great old provinces had a separate parlia- ment of its own ; and it was only made up of the lawyers of Paris, and the great nobles who be- longed to the old duchy of France, with the bishops and princes of the blood-royal. It used to judge peers of France for State offences, and in matters of property ; but it could not make laws or grant taxes. All it could do was to register the laws and the taxes when the king had made them ; and the king's acts were not valid till this had been done. Now, when Mazarin, in the king's name laid an un- just tax on all the food that was brought into Paris, the parliament refused to register the act, and there was a great struggle, which is known by the strange name of the Fronde. Fronde is the French name of a sling ; and in the earlier part of the quarrel the speakers used to stand up and throw sharp words at one another, then draw back, just like little boys slinging stones at one another. But they soon came to much worse weapons. You could not un- derstand or remember all the strauge things that then took place ; it is enough for the present to re- member that the Fronde was the effort of parlia- ment to stand up against the royal power, and that^ there were two sieges of Paris in the course of it. The Prince of Conde at first would not turn against Louis XIV. — Youth. 367 the king, and helped to make a short peace ; but then he insisted on the queen sending Mazarin away, and when he was gone, the queen found Cond^ such a stern, insolent master, that she con- trived to get Mazarin back, and he threw Conde into prison. Conde's wife joined with the other Frondeurs to trj^ to gain his freedom again, and he was set free, but only to make another war, in which, however, he was overcome, and forced to go into banishment, when, to his shame be it spoken, he joined the Spaniards, and helped them to make war against his own country. It was no small punishment for him that Mar- shal Turenne was commanding the French, and Conde was under a very lazy, indolent Spanish gen- eral, so that he was sure that there must be a de- feat. He said to the Duke of York, who Avas serving with him, " Now you will see how a battle ousfht not to be fouofht." For this was the time when all King Charles's family were living scattered about in banishment. Queen Henrietta was at Paris with her youngest daughter ; but when Oliver Cromwell made a treaty with the French, he had required that Charles II. and his brother, the Duke of York, should not be allowed to live in France. 368 Youncf Folks' History of France. Cardinal Mazarin followed up all the plans of Riclielieu, and France went on prospering and gain- ing victories, until the Spaniards at last, in the year 1659, made what is called the Peace of the Pyr- enees, giving up several towns in the Low Coun- tries. The young King Louis was to forgive the Prince of Conde, and to marry Maria Teresa, the daughter of the King of Spain. Only two years later died Cardinal Mazarin, leaving an immense fortune. He had, like Richelieu, cared for the greatness of the kingdom of France and for the power of the crown more than for the charac- ter of the king who held all this power, and so he had let the young king grow up very ignorant, for fear of being interfered with. Anne of Austria, who was a good woman, tried hard to make her boys religious, and they always respected religion ; but their flatter- ers did not teach them how it should tame their pride or make them care for the good of the people, and Louis XIV. grew up thinking that the nation was made for his glory, and not himself for the good of his people. Yet he was a wonderfully able man. Mazarin said, " There is stuff in him to make four kings, and an honest man into the bargain. When the cardinal died, and the ministers asked to whom they should come, he answered, " To myself;" and DEATH OF CARDINAL, MAZARIN. Louis XIV. — Youth. 373 for all the half-centuiy after that his reign lasted, he was always ready for them. He tried afterwards to study and make up for the neglect of his youth, but he never was the same he might have been with good training. One thing he had from his mother, namely, the grandest and most stately courtesy and the most kingly manners that perhaps were ever seen. He never received a courtsey from a woman without a bow, and his gracious dignity seems fairly to have dazzled the eyes of the very best and wisest men, so that they looked up to him like a sort of divinity, and could not even see his faults. His court was exceedingly splendid, and very stiff. Every one had his place there, and never came out of it : and who must stand or who might sit, who might be on stools and who must kneel, in the royal presence, was thought a matter of the greatest importance. Richelieu and Maza- rin had robbed the nobles of all useful work ; so all thev cared for was Avar and waitino^ at court, and getting money from their poor peasants to sup- port expense. CHAPTER XXXVI. LOTJIS XIV. MIDDLE AGE, 1661—1688. LOUIS XIV. loved to be called the Great, but he did not understand that real greatness is making a kingdom happier instead of making it larger, and he only cared for his own glory. He had the two best generals then in Europe, the Viscount de Turenne and the Prince of Conde, and 374 Louis XIV. — Middle Age. 375 his nobles were very brave and spirited ; so lie was always going to war, without thinking whether it was justly or not, and fancying the honor was his, whereas his victories were all owing to his generals ; and when he went out to war, he only went to the siege of some city, where he rode about in a splen- did gold-laced coat, with a huge Avhite feather in his cocked hat, quite out of reach of danger. And yet his people were all so proud of him that the very sight of him made his soldiers fight all the better, and poets wrote verses comparing him to Jupiter and Mars, and every other warlike hero they could think of. He had married Maria Teresa, daughter to the King of Spain ; and when her father died, he pre- tended that he ought to inherit all the Low Coun- tries instead of her little brother Charles. This was very unjust, and would have made France much too powerful ; so the Dutch and English joined together to prevent it, and there were some terrible fights. But it was when Charles II. was king, and his youngest sister, Henrietta, had mar- ried Louis's brother, the Duke of Orleans. So Louis sent the duchess to persuade King Charles and his minister, by promises of money and favor, to desert the Dutch ; and to the great shame of the 376 Young Folks' History of France. English, she succeeded. The brave Dutch were left alone agamst all the power of France. William, Prince of Orange, commanded their armies ; and though he was beaten again and again, the little State ncA^er gave in ; though to keep out the French, it was needful to open the flood-gates that protect Holland from the sea, and let in so much water that the enemy could not pass. Then the Emperor of Germany took up the cause of the Dutch, but Louis sent Turenne against his troops, and conquered Alsace. Turenne went on into Germany, and there liis army was grievously cruel. Crops were burnt down, houses and villages burnt and plundered, and the inhabitants brought to misery beyond imagination. Turenne could hardly help what he was commanded to do, but this war was the darkest spot in his life. He was a kind and merciful man in general, and ver}^ just and upright ; and his soldiers loved him so much, that once, when he had fallen asleep during a short halt on a bare, bleak hill-side, and it began to snow, they made a tent for him with their own cloaks. In this war he was killed, while standing under a tree near the village of Salzbach,by a cannon-shot, which nearly cut his body in two, and mortally wounded a nobleman close by. " Do not weep for ^ Si-^ "-y^- DEATH OF TUEENNE. Louis XIV. — Middle Age. 3T9 me, but for that great man," were the words of this gentleman to his son. Turenne was buried among the kings at St. Denys, and Conde took command of the army, gaining many hard-fought battles ; until at last peace was made, leaving Louis in possession of Alsace and of the city of Stras- burg, both of which properly belonged to the empire. But glory, or what he fancied glory, was all Louis cared about ; and besides his great generals, he .had about him many of the ablest men who had ever lived in France, both ministers of State and writers. He had likewise most excellent bishops and clergy, such as Bossuet, bishop of Meaux, who was a won- derfully good preacher, as well as a great scholar. Louis made Bossuet tutor to his only son ; but the Dauphin was a very dull and silly youth, who cared for nothing but playing at cards and shooting, and very little could be taught him. He married a German princess, who was duller still, and the}* had three sons, the Dukes of Burgundy, Anjou, and Berri. To them the king gave as tutor, Pens- ion, Archbishop of Cambrai, one of the best and holiest men then living. The Duke of Burgundy, was a fiery, selfish, passionate boy ; but under Fdn- elon he learnt to rule himself, and his whole thought 380 Young Folks' Eistory of France. was how to be a good religious prince, heedful of his people rather than himself. Fenelon would not have thought it right to blame the king himself, but he could not teach the young prince his duties without showing something very different from Louis XIV. as a model. He wrote a story for him of a young Greek prince named Telemachus, who went on his travels in search of his father, and saw all forms of government in his way. A servant who was employed to write out the story, stole a copy, and sent it to Holland and had it printed there ; and when the old king saAv it, he was keen- sighted enough to perceive that it was meant to teach his grandson how to be a better king than himself, and he hated Fenelon accordingly. How- ever, it was not for this open reason that the good archbishop was kept awa}^ from court, but because he had taken the part of a religious lad}/- named Madam Guyon, who had written a book about the Love of God, where there were sentences that Bossuet thought likely to do harm. Fenelon wrote a book himself on the subject ; and though the Pope could see no fault in it, Louis forced him to condemn it, and Fenelon submitted most meekly, and went on quietly with his work in his own dio- cese at Cambrai, often writing to his dear pupil, Louis XIV. — Middle Age. 381 though he was only once allowed to see him again. Louis lost his wife, Maria Teresa of Spain, and then married a lady called Madam de Maintenon ; but he never owned her as his queen, and not more than three or four people at court knew that she was his wife. He looked up to her and respected- her opinion very much ; and she used to sit by with her work when he was consulting with his . minis- ters, and he would ask at the end, " What does your solidity think ? She was very religious, and tried to make him so ; but he was so proud that he never could bear to think that our Blessed Lord had been a poor man and humble. And the one thing she could make him do was a sad one, and that was to persecute. All the poor nuns of Port Royal were turned out, and shut up in other con- vents, because they held fast to the teachings of their old guide, M. de St. Cyran. And, what was worse, she led him to repeal the Edict of Nantes, which protected the Huguenots, and begin to per- secute them. Dragoons were quartered in their houses, who ate up their food, spoilt their goods, and tortured them to make them become Catholic ; they were allowed no schools ; their children were taken away to be bred up in convents ; numbers were thrown into prison ; and if they were caught B82 Young Folks'' History of France. escaping, they were sent to work as convicts, or put to death. However, many did escape to Eng- land and Prussia, and the English gave them a kind welcome. Many who came from the south were silk weavers, and settled at Spitalfields, Avhere they worked and flourished for several generations. Some, who were noblemen, came to court, and were officers in the army ; and the loss to France became gain to England. CHAPTER XXXVII. LOUIS XIV. OLD AGE. 1688—1715. IX 1688, Louis lost the English alliance. Charles II. and James II. having spent their youth in France, and being Roman Catholics — the one at heart, and the other openly — had always looked up to him and been led by him ; but when the Revolution took place and James was driven away 383 884 Toung Folks' History of France. to take refuge once more in France, Louis's greatest enemy, William of Orange, became King of Eng- land. Louis gave James and his queen a home at his palace of St. Germain's, and did all he could for them, sending an expedition with James to Ireland ; but all in vain — the English only hated James the more for bringing the French upon them, and his troops were beaten at the river Boyne and his ships at Cape La Hogue, so that he was obliged to cease from the attempt. But another great war soon began. Charles IL, King of Spain, died in 1700, leaving no children. His sister and his two aunts had married Emperors of Germany and Kings of France ; but as the Spaniards did not choose to have their kingdom joined on to another, it was always the custom for the princesses to renounce all right to the crown for themselves and their children. However, the whole Spanish line had come to an end, and there really was nobody else who had any right at all. Now, Louis XIV. had married the sister, so his son was the nearest heir ; but, on the other hand, the Emperor of Germany was descended from the brother of the great Charles V., who had been Em- peror and King of Spain both at once. The emperor wanted to make his second son, the Archduke Louis IK— Old Age. 385 Charles, King of Spain ; and. Louis put forward liis second grandson, Pliilip, Duke of Anjou. The Spaniards woukl have preferred Charles, but Louis was ready first. He made the Dauphin and Duke of Burgundy give up their right to Philip, saluted him as King of Spain, and sent him off with an army to Madrid, saying, "There are no more Pyrenees ;" by which he meant that France and Spain were now to be like only one country. Now this was just what the rest of the world did not wish. France was a great deal too powerful al- ready, and nobody could be glad to see Spain and the Low Countries ruled over by a young man who was sure to do exactly what his grandfather bade him ; and so England and all the other States of Europe joined to assist the Archduke Charles in winning Spain. Thus began what was called the War of the Spanish Succession. The Archduke Charles went to Spain, and the English helped him there ] and a French army invaded Germany, but there they met the English and Austrian armies, under the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy, and w^ere terribly defeated at Blenheim. The Prince Eugene's father had alwa3^s lived in France, and his mother was a niece of Cardinal 386 Young Folks' History of France. Mazarin ; but he and some other young men had grown tired of the dull court life, and had run away to fight in the Austrian army against the Turks. Louis had been very angry, and had had their letters seized ; and there he found himself laughed at, and called a stage king in peace, and a chess king in war. He was very angry, and never forgave Prince Eugene, who took service under the Emj)eror of Germany, and was the second-best general then in Europe. For all the great generals of Louis's youth were dead ; and though Marshals Villars and Boufflers were able men, they were not equal to Marlborough, and were beaten again and again in the Low Countries. The only victory the French did gain was in Spain, at Almanza, where, strangely enough, the English were commanded by a French Huguenot, and the French by Marl- borough's nephew, the Dnke of Berwick, who had left home with James II. But troubles came thick upon Louis XIV. He lost his only son, known in history as the Grand Dauphin, to distinguish him from the other two princes who successively bore that title in the reign of Louis XIV. ; and all his great men who had made his reign so sj^leiidid were dying round him, and nobody rising up equal to them. His subjects, Louis XIV.— Old Age. 387 too, were worn out ; all their strongest young men had been carried off to be soldiers, and there were not enough left to till the ground properly. Be- sides, the money that the king wanted for his wars and buildings was far more than they could pay, and it was the tradesmen, farmers, and lawyers who had to pay it all ; for in France no priest and no noble ever paid taxes. Moreover, all the family of a noble was considered as noble for ever, instead of, as it is in England, only the head of the house himself; and so all the younger §pns and their children for ever paid no taxes, and were allowed to be of no profession, but only to be clergy or soldiers. They were always the officers, so that a soldier, however clever and brave, never could rise unless he was of good birth. People were getting very discontented, and especially when, instead of getting glory, they were always beaten, at Ramillies and Oudenarde and Malplaquet ; and Louis's build- ings and gardens at Versailles and Trianon heavily oppressed them. Old as Louis was, there was untamable pride and resolution in him, and his steadiness was admired even by his enemies, when he continued dauntlessly to resist even when there seemed little to hinder Marlborough aud Eugene from marching upon 888 Young Folks' History of ^France. Paris. However, this humiliation was spared the proud old king by the change in Queen Anne's councils, which deprived Marlborough of power, and led to a peace at last with France. The Arch- duke Charles became emperor after the death of his father and brother ; and thus Philip of Anjou was allowed to remain King of Spain. Everything, however, was sad and mournful at the French court. The king kept up all his old state, but his strength and spirit were gone ; and Madam de Maintenon used to say no one could guess what a dreadful thing it was to have to amuse an unamusable king. The brightest person at court was the young Dauphiness, Adelaide of Savoy, wife to the Duke of Burgundy, who was now Dauphin. She used to play merrily with the knig, and coax him into cheerfulness as no one else could ; but she was giddy and gay, and sometimes grieved her husband. He was a grave, thoughtful man, very pious and religious, always trying to fol- low the counsels of his dear friend and master, F^nelon, and thinking anxiously of the load that the kingdom would be in the state in which his grandfather would leave it. But he never had to bear that load. A dreadful form of malignant measles came into the court, and DEATH OF LOUIS XFV. Louis XIV. — Old Age. 891 tlie Dauphiness caught it and died, then the eldest of her two little sons, and lastly, the good Dauphin himself. All were ill so very few days that people talked about poison ; and no one was left of the whole family except the old king and one little great-grandson, the Dauphin's second son, a baby not able to walk alone, and the king's nephew, Philip, Duke of Orleans, the son of his brother, who was known to be a very bad and selfish man. It was a sad prospect for France, when, a year later, Louis XIY. died, after a reign of seventy years, when he had been the greatest monarch in Europe, and might have been one of the grandest of men, if he had only known what true greatness is. CHAPTER XXXVIII. LOUIS XY. 1715— ir<4. THE poor little boy who had become Kmg of France was so young that he could scarcely walk alone, and so forlorn that he had no kinsman near enough to take his hand when he was shown to the people, but had to be held in purple ribbon leading-strings. It was a sad reign altogether. The regent was the Duke of Orleans, a thoroughly dissipated man, not unlike the English Charles II., but worse in conduct, though quite as good-natured ; and the whole court became nothing but a sink of iniquity under him. He died just as the young king was growing up ; but the boy was slow, dull, and painfully shy — not at all fit to take the command of every thing, like Louis XIV. He had had a good tutor, Cardinal 392 "1 ^ ''/■/ A / MAKIA LECZINSKA", Louis XK 395 Fleury, who was ruler for a little while, but soon died ; and then there was nothing to hinder the king from being drawn into all sorts of evil by the wicked men who had grown up in the time of the regent, Duke of Orleans. The queen was a Polish princess, named Maria Leczinska. She was a gentle, kindly person, though not at all clever, and at first the king was very fond of her ; but these wretches thought it dull to have a respectable court, and wanted to manage the king their own way, so they taught him to be a glutton and a drunkard, and to think it witty to talk the low, coarse language of the vulgar crowd in Paris. The queen was shocked, and when she showed her offence, Louis was angry, and never cared for her again, but only showed himself with her in public, and spent all his spare time in the most disgraceful amusements. Yet the people, who did not know all as yet, had such a love and loyalty for the very name of king, that they were ready to break their hearts when he had a bad fever, and almost went mad with joy when he recovered. They then called him Louis the Well-beloved, a name that sounded very sad in after times. There was a great war going on all this time be- 396 Young FoWs History of France, tween Maria Theresa, tlie Queen of Hungary and Archduchess of Austria, and Frederick II., King of Prussia. The English held with the Austrians, and the French with the Prussians; and at the battle of Dettingen George 11. had defeated the Marshal de Noailles. Again, at Fontenoy the Eng- lish were defeated; and though Louis XV. was with the army, the victory was owing to his general, Marshal Saxe. The wars, however, pressed heavily on the French, and the poor were even more wretched than in the former reign. The Duke of Orleans, a good man, son to the wicked regent, one day brought a horrible bit of black bread to the council to show the king what his subjects lived upon ; but nothing would make Louis care for any- body but himself. However, there was peace made for a little while, but what was called the Seven Years' War soon broke out again ; but this time the English were with the Prussians and the French with the Aus- trians, and there was a great battle at Minden, which the French lost, and soon after there was a more lasting peace in Europe. But nothing could do the unfortunate kingdom of France any good while it had such a king as Louis XV., who had no feeling for any one but BATTLE OF FONTENOY. I Louis XV. 899 himself, and had such low tastes that he liked nothing but the basest, coarsest pleasures, and hated all that interfered with them. He had only one son, the Dauphin, who had grown up, in the midst of that wicked court, pure, upright, and pious, and lived a peaceful, quiet life with his good wife, a Polish princess ; but there Avas nobody the king disliked so much, because their goodness was a continual reproof, and he could not help think- ing that the people would rather have had the Dauphin for their king than himself. So the Dauphin was never allowed to take any part in business, and all he could do was to try to brino- up his children well, and to help his four sisters, whom the king had scarcely educated at all, and who lived a very dull life in the palace, so that the happiest was Madame Louise, who became a nun. The good Dauphin died of a decline, when only thirty-six years old, leaving five children, the eldest eleven years old ; and his wife followed him fifteen months after, begging her sisters-in-law to watch over her children. The king only grew worse than ever, and used to amuse himself by going in disguise to low dances among the Paris mob. Yet all the time he went every morning to church ; and among all the clergy in the country, 400 Young Folks'' History of France, only one good Bishop once dared to tell Mm what a sinner he was. There were still a great many- good clergy, but it was only the bad ones who would not speak out about the wickedness at court who met with any favor. Half the people in the country were getting mad with misery ; and when they saw that the priests did nothing to rebuke all the crimes they suffered from, it seemed to them that even the Christian religion itself must be a mistake. There were a great many clever men at that time, of whom the most noted were Voltaire and Rousseau, who wrote books that everyone was reading, which made attacks on all Christianity, and pretended that the old heathen philosophers were much better and wiser than Christians ; and it was a strange thing that though Huguenots were still persecuted, and their religious books burnt, nobody meddled . with these infidels, who had no religion at all. Everyone saw that a great storm was coming, and that there must be a terrible downfall of the royal power that Richelieu, Mazarin, and Louis XIV. had built up, and which Louis XV. used so shamefully ; but when he was told that there was danger, he only said the kingdom would last his time. His grandson, the young Dauphin, had Louis XV. 401 grown up, and was married to the beautiful, bright young daughter of Maria Theresa — Marie Antoi- nette. The evening she arrived at Paris, there were grand illuminations and fireworks, and in the midst some terror seized the people that there was a fire, and they all rushed crowding together in the gates of the Champs Elysees, so that a number of them were trampled to death ; and this, though the poor young bride had nothing to do with it, made people feel that it had been a bad beginning. Louis XY. died at the age of sixty-four, in the year 17T4, after a disgraceful reign of sixty years, in which he had constantly fallen deeper and deeper into the mire of sin and disgrace. CHAPTER XXXIX. LOUIS XVI. 1774—1793. THE yoimg king, Louis XVI., and liis queen, Marie Antoinette, threw themselves on their knees when they lieard that their grandfather was dead, crying out, " O God ! help us ; we are too 3^oung to reign." It was as if they knew what dreadful times were 402 „'i'l I ^-JsJliiill^T^] " Lours XVI. Louis XVT. 405 coming, brought on by the selfishness and wicked- ness of those who had gone before them. Nobody could be more good or anxious to set things right than Louis XYI. ; but the evils that had been working up for hundreds of years could not be set to rights b}^ one word, and it was hard to know how to begin. And though the king wished well to all, he was not a clever man, and could not see how to act. Besides, he was very shy and awk- ward ; he hated speaking to strangers, and was so confused that people went away offended ; and, besides, they were so much used to bad kings, that they could not believe that he was a good and innocent man. The queen gave offence in other ways. She was a young, merry girl, who had been brought up in a court where the habits were much more simple and less stately than those in France ; and she was always laughing at the formal court ways, and tr}^- ing to get free from them. When the ladies came to pay their respects, some of her own attendants grew tired of standing round her, and sat down on the floor, hidden by the hoops of the others. She saw and nodded and smiled ; and the old ladies who were being presented thought she was making game of their dresses, and were very 406 Young Folks' History of France. angry. Her chief lad}^ of the bedchamber, the Duchess of Noailles, tried to keep her in order ; but she laughed, and gave the old lady the name of Madame I'Etiquette. When once she was riding a donkey, and it fell with her, she sat on the ground laughing till the duchess came up, and then said, " Pray, madame, when the queen and her donkey both tumble down together, which ought to be the first to get up? " The great palace that Louis XIY. had adorned at Versailles was so grand that nobody could live in it in comfort. Even he had made a smaller one at Trianon, and this was too stately for the queen's tastes ; so she had another smaller house, with a farm and dairy, where she and her ladies used to amuse themselves, in white muslin dresses and straw hats i but the people would not believe but that something very wrong went on there ; and hated her greatly because she was an Austrian, and her country had been at war with theirs. It was just then that the Americans began their war with George IIL, and a young French noble- man, the Marquis de la Fayette, ran away from home to fight in the army. Afterwards, Louis XVI. sent troops to help them ; and the sight of the freedom the United States had gained made Louis XVL 407 Lafayette and his friends feel far more bitterly the state of things at home, where the poor were ground down to wretchedness by all the old rights of their lords ; and till the laws were changed, neither king, nobles, nor clergy, however much they might wish it, could help them. No one felt this more than the king himself. At last, in 1789, he called together his States-General — that is, all his peers, and deputies from the towns and prov- inces, to see what could be done. It was not like the English parliament, where the peers form one chamber and the commons another : but they were all mixed up together, and there were a great many more deputies than peers, so that they had it all their own way. Besides, they sat in the middle of Paris, and the people of the city could not bear to wait. Perhaps it was no wonder, for they were very poor and miserable, and were fierce with hunger. Whenever they saw anyone whom they fancied was against the changes, they used to fly at him, crying out, " To the lamp ! " and hang him up to the lamps, which were fastened by iron rods over the streets. They rushed to the great old prison, the Bastile, where the former kings had kept their State pris- oners, and tore it down ; but they found hardly 408 Young Folks' History of France. anyone there, for Louis XYI. had released all his grandfather's prisoners. Most of the men were enrolled in what was called the National Guard, and all wore cockades, and scarfs of red, blue, and white. Lafayette was made general of this guard. The States-General called itself the National Assembly, and went on changing the laws. It was at first settled that no law could be passed without the king's consent ; but the notion that he could stop any plan added to the people's hatred, and they were always fancying he would bring his soldiers to stop the reforms. At last, when there was a scarcity of food in Paris, the mob all rushed out to Versailles, that most splendid of palaces, upon which Louis XIV. had spent so much, and whose iron gates looked down the long avenue of trees leading from Paris, a memorial how little pity for their people the two last kings had had. It was the less wonder that the mob of Paris believed that Louis XVI. and Marie Antoi- nette had the same hard hearts, and were willingly letting them starve. They came and filled the courts of the palace, shouting and yelling for the queen to show herself. She came out on the bal- cony, with her daughter of twelve years old and her son of six. " No children! " they cried; and Louis XVI. 409 she sent tliem back, and stood, fully believing that they would shoot her, and hoping that her death might content thenio But no hand was raised, and night came on. In the night they were seized with another fit of fury, and broke into the queen's room, from which she had but just escaped, while a brave lady and two of her guards were barring the outer door. The next day the whole family were taken back into Paris, while the fishwomen shouted before them, " Here come the baker, his wife, and the lit- tle baker's boy ! " The l^ational Assembly went on to take away all the rights of the nobles, and the property of the Church, and to decree that the clergy must swear to obey them instead of the Church, while those who refused were turned out of their par- ishes. The National Guard watched the Tuileries, and made the life of the royal family so miserable that they tried to escape in disguise ; but fearing that they would come back with armies to put down the Revolution, the National Guard seized and stopped them, and they were more closely watched than ever. On the 20th of June, 1792, the mob rushed into the palace, threatened all the family , and spent three hours in rioting and insulting 410 Young Folks' History af France. them ; and on the 10th of August another attack was made. The queen longed to let the Swiss guards and the loyal gentlemen fight for her husband ; but Louis could not bear to have a drop of blood shed in his defence, and hoped to save life by going to the ISTational Assembly with his wife, children, and sister ; but no sooner were they gone, than every one of the gallant men who would have defended him was savagely massacred, and their heads were carried about the streets of Paris on pikes. It was fear that made the Parisians so ferocious, for the German princes and the French nobles had collected an army to deliver the king, and, as the mob thought, to destroy them : and in the bitter hatred that had now risen against all kings, the Assembly voted that Louis XVI. was no longer King of France, but that the nation was free. So his reign ended on the 10th of August, 1792. CHAPTER XL. THE GREAT FRENCH REVOLUTION". 1792—1796. THE Government, after the king was deposed^ was placed in the hands of the National Assembly — or Convention, as it now called it- self — of deputies chosen by the people. There is nothing but what is sad and terrible to be told of France for the next four or five years, and the whole account of what happened would be too hard for you to understand, and some part is too dreadful to dwell upon. The short account of it is that, for years and years before, the kings, the nobles, and some of the clergy too, had cared for little but their own pride and pleasure, and had done nothing to help on their people — teach, train, or lead them. So now these people were wild with despair ; and when the hold on them was a little loosened, they 411 412 Young Folks' History of France, threw it off, and turned in furious rage upon their masters. Hatred grew, and all those who had once been respected were looked on as a brood of wolves, who must be done away with, even the young and innocent. The king, queen, his chil- dren, and sister (Madame Elisabeth), were shut up in a castle called the Temple, because it had once belonged to the Knights Templars, and there they were very roughly and unkindly treated. A National Guard continually watched them, and these men were often shockingly rude and insult- ing to them, though the}* were as patient as possi- ble. Great numbers of the nobles and clergy were shut up in the other prisons ; and when news came that an army of Germans and emigrant nobles was marching to rescue the king, a set of ruffians were sent to murder them all, cutting them down like sheep for the slaughter, men and women all alike. The family in the Temple were spared for the time, but the emigrant army Avas beaten at Jemappes ; and the brave nobles and peasants who had risen in the district of La Vendee, in hopes of saving them, could not make head against the regular French army, all of which had joined in the Revolution, being angered because no one not of noble birth could be an officer. All his friends MARAT. The Grreat IFrench Revolution. 415 did for the king only served to make his enemies hate him trebly ; and three men had obtained the leadership who seem to have had a regular thirst for blood, and to have thought that the only way to make a fresh beginning was to kill everyone Avho had inherited any of the rights that had been so oppressive. Their names were Marat, Danton, and Robespierre ; and they had a power over the minds of the Convention and the mob which no one dared resist, so that this time was called the Reign of Terror. A doctor named Guillotin had invented a machine for cutting off heads quickly and painlessly, Avhich was called by his name ; and this horrible instrument was set up in Paris to do this work of cutting off the old race. The king — whom they called Louis Capet, after Hugh, the first king of his line — was tried before the Assembly, and sentenced to die. He forgave his murderers, and charged the Irish clergyman, named Edgworth, who was allowed to attend him in his last moments, to take care that, if his family were ever restored, there should be no attempt to revenge his death. The last words of the priest to him were, "Son of St. Louis, ascend to the skies." The queen and her children remained in the 416 Young Folks' History of France. Temple, cheered by the piety and kindness of Madame Elisabeth, until the poor little prince — a gentle, but spirited boy of eight — was taken from them, and shut up in the lower rooms, under the charge of a brutal wretch (a shoemaker) named Simon, who was told that the boy was not to be killed or guillotined, but to be "got rid of" — namely, tormented to death by bad air, bad living, blows, and rude usage. Not long after, Marie Antoinette was taken to a dismal chamber in the Conciergerie prison, and there watched day and night by National Guards, until she too was brought to trial, and sentenced to die, eight months after her husband. Gentle Madame Elisabeth was likewise put to death, and only the two children remained, shut up in separate rooms ; but the girl was better off than her brother, in that she was alone, with her little dog, and had no one who made a point of torturing her. Meanwhile the guillotine was every day in use. Cart-loads were carried from the prisons — nobles, priests, ladies, young girls, lawyers, ser- vants, shopkeepers — everybody whom the savage men who were called the Committee of public Safety chose to condemn. There were guillotines in almost every town ; but at Nantes the victims The G-reat French Revolution. 417 were drowned, and at Lyons they were placed in a square and shot down with grape shot. Moreover, all churches were taken from the faithful. A Avicked woman was called the Goddess of Reason, and carried in a car to the great cathe- dral of Notre Dame, where she was enthroned. Sundays were abolished, and every tenth day was kept instead, and Christianity was called folly and superstition ; in short, the wliole nation was given up to the most horrible frenzy against God and man. In the midst, Marat was stabbed to the heart by a girl named Charlotte Corday, who hoped thus to end these horrors ; but the other two continued their work of blood, till Robespierre grew jealous of Danton, and had him guillotined ; but at last the more humane of the National Convention plucked up courage to rise against him, and he and his inferior associates were carried to prison. He tried to commit suicide with a pistol, but only shattered his jaw, and in this condition he was guillotined, when the Reign of Terror had lasted about two years. There was much rejoicing at his fall ; the prisons were opened, and people began to breathe freely once more. The National Convention governed 418 Young Folks' History of Prance. more mildly and reasonably ; but they had a great deal on their hands, for France had gone to war with all the countries round ; and the soldiers were so delighted at the freedom they had obtained, that it seemed as if no one could beat them, so that the invaders were everywhere driven back. And thus was brought to light the wonderful powers of a young Corsican officer. Napoleon Bonaparte, who had been educated at a military school in France as an engineer. When there was an attempt of the mob to rise and bring back the horrible days of the Reign of Terror, Colonel Bonaparte came with his grape shot, and showed that there was a government again that must be obeyed, so that some quiet and good order was restored. Some pity had at last been felt for the poor chil- dren in the Temple. It came too late to save the life of the boy, Louis XYII., as he is reckoned, who had for the whole ninth year of his life lain alone in a filth}^ room, afraid to call anyone lest he should be ill-used, and without spirit enough to wash him- self, so that he was one mass of sores and dirt ; and he only lingered till the 8th of June, 1795, when he died, thinking he heard lovely music, with his mother's voice among: the rest. In the The Great French Revolution. 419 end of the same year his sister was released^ and went to Russia to join her uncle, who had fled at the beginning of the Revolution, and was now owned b}^ the loyal among the French as Louis XVIII. In the meantime, the French army had beaten the Germans on the frontier, and had decided on attacking their power in the north of Italy. Bona- parte made a most wonderful passage of the Alps, where there were scarcely any roads but bridle- paths, and he gained amazing victories. His plan was to get all the strength of his army up into one point, as it were, and with that to fall upon the centre of the enemy ; and as the old German gen- erals did not understand this way of fighting, and were not ready, he beat them everywhere, and won all Lombardy, which he persuaded to set up for a republic, under the protection of the French. All this time, the French were under so many different varieties of government, that you would not understand them at all ; but that which lasted longest was called the Directory. People were be- ginning to feel safe at last ; the emigrants were coming home again, and matters were settling down a little more. CHAPTER XLL NAPOLEON I. 1796—1814. WHEN Bonaparte had come back from Italy, he persuaded the Directory to send him with an army to Egypt to try to gain the East, and drive the English out of India. He landed in Egypt, and near Grand Cairo gained the battle of the Pyramids, and tried to recommend himself to the people of Egypt by showing great admiration for Mahomet and the Koran. But his ships, which he had left on the coast, were attacked by the English fleet, under Sir Horatio "Nelson, and every one of them taken or sunk except two, which car- ried the tidings home. This was the battle of the Nile. The Sultan of Turkey, to whom Egypt belonged, fitted out an army against the French, and Bona- 420 Wapolfon I. 421 parte marched to meet it half-way in the Holy Land- There he took Jaffa, cruelly massacred the Turkish garrison, and beat the Sultan's army at Tabor ; but Acre was so bravely and well defended, under the management of a brave English sailor. Sir Sidney Smith, that he was obliged to turn back without taking it. He led his troops back, suffering sadly from hunger and sickness, to Egypt, and there de- feated another Turkish army in the battle of Abou- kir. However, he there heard news from home which showed him that he was needed. The French had, indeed, gone on to stir up a revolution both in Rome and Naples. The Pope was a pris- oner in France, and the King of Naples had fled to Sicily ; but the Russians had come to the help of the other nations, and the French had nearly been driven out of Lombardy. Besides, the Directory was not able to keep the unruly people in order; and Napoleon felt himself so much wanted, that, finding there were two ships in the port, he em- barked in one of them and came home, leaving his Egyptian army to shift for themselves. However, he was received at home like a con- queror ; and the people of France were so proud of him, that he soon persuaded them to change the Directory for a government of three consuls, of 422 Young Folks' History of France. whom he was the first. He lived in the Tuileries, and began to keep something very like the old court ) and his wife, Josephine, was a beautiful, graceful, kind lady, whom every one loved, and who helped very much in gaining people over to his cause. Indeed, he gave the French rest at home and victories abroad, and that was all they desired. He won back all that had been lost in Italy ; and the battle of Marengo, on the 14th of June, 1800, when the Austrians were totally routed, was a splendid victory. Austria made peace again, and nobody was at war with France but England, which conquered everywhere by sea, as France did by land. The last remnant of the French army in Egypt was beaten at Alexandria, and obliged to let the English ships transport them to France ; and after this there was a short peace called the Peace of Amiens, but it did not last long ; and as soon as Bonaparte had decided on war, he pounced without notice on every English traveller in his dominions, and kept them prisoners till the end of the war. He had made up his mind to be Emperor of the French, and before declaring this, he wanted to alarm the old royalists ; so he sent a party to seize the Duke d'Enghien (heir of the Princes of Conde), who was living at Baden, and conduct him to Vin- TUILEKIBS. Napoleon L 425 cennes, where, at midnight, he was tried by a sham court-martial, and at six in the morning brought down to the court-yard, and shot beside his own graYe. After this, every one was afraid to utter a whis- per against Bonaparte becoming emperor, and on the second of December, 1804, he was crowned in Notre Dame, with great splendor. The Pope was present, but Bonaparte placed the crown on his own head — a golden wreath of laurel leaves ; and he gave his soldiers eagle standards, in memory of the old Roman empire. He drcAv up an excellent code of laws, which have been used ever since in France, and are known by his name ; and his wonderful talent did much to bring the shattered nation into order. Still, England would not acknowledge his unlawful power, and his hatred to her was very great. He had an army ready to invade England, but the English fleet never allowed him to cross the Channel ; and his fleet was entirely destroyed by Lord Nelson, at the great battle of Trafalgar, on the 21st of October, 1805. But Napoleon was winning another splendid vic- tory at Ulm, over the Austrians ; and not long- after, he beat the Prussians as entirely at Jena, and had all Germany at his feet. lie was exceedingly 426 Young Folks' History of France, liarsli and savage to the good and gentle Queen Louisa, when she came with her husband to try to make better terms for her country, thus sowing seeds of bitter resentment which were to bear fruit long after. The Russians advanced to the aid of Germany, but the battles of Eylau and Friedland made them also anxious for peace. There never, indeed, was a much abler man than Napoleon ; but he had no honor, honesty or generosity, and had very little heart amid all his seeming greatness. He made his family kings of conquered countries. His brother Louis was King of Holland ; Jerome, of Westphalia, and the eldest brother, Joseph, King of Naples ; but in 1808 he contrived to cheat the King of Spain of his crown, and keep him and his son prisoners in France, while Joseph was sent to reign in Spain, and General Murat, the husband of liis sister Caroline, was made king of Naples. The Portuguese royal family were obliged to flee away to Brazil ; but the Spaniards and Portuguese would not submit to the French yoke, and called the En- glish to help them. So year after year the Duke of Wellington was beating Napoleon's generals, and wearing away his strength ; but he still went on with his German wars, and in 1809, after two ter- rible battles at Aspern and Wagram, entered Napoleon L 427 Vienna itself. Again there was a peace ; and Napo- leon, who was grieved to have no child to leave his empire to, had tlie wickedness and cruelty to de- cide on setting aside his good, loving Josephine, and making the Emperor Francis of Austria give him his young daughter, Marie Louise. In 1810^ the deed was done ; and it was said that from that time all his good-fortune left him, though he had one little son born to him, whom he called King of Rome. He set out with what he named the Grand Army, to conquer Russia ; and after winning the battle of Borodino, he entered Moscow ; but no sooner was he there than the whole town was on fire, and it burnt on, so that it was not possible to sta}^ there. Winter was just coming on, the Russian army was watching everywhere, and he could only retreat ; and the unhappy Grand Army, struggling in the snow, with nothing to eat, and beset by the enemy everywhere, suffered the most frightful misery. Napoleon left it in the midst, and hurried home ; but no sooner had this blow been given him, than all the Germans — the Prussians especially, to wliom he had been so harsh — rose up and banded together against him. France was worn out with the long wars ; and though Napoleon still showed wonderful 428 Young Folks* History of France, skill, especially at the battle of Leipzic, he was driven back, inch by inch, as it were, across Germany, and into France, by the Emperors of Austria and Russia and King of Prussia ; for though each battle of his was a victory, force of numbers was too much for him. He went to the palace of Fon- tainebleau, and tried to give uj) his crown to his little son, but the Allies would not accept this ; and at last, in the spring of 1814, he was forced to yield entirely, and put himself into the hands of the English, Prussian, Russian, and Austrian sover- eigns. They decided on sending him to a little isle called Elba, in the Mediterranean Sea, where he was still to be treated as a prince. His deserted wife Josephine loved him so much that she died of grief for his fall ; but Marie Louise returned to her father, and did nothing to help him. CHAPTER XLII. LOUIS XVIII. 1814-1824. THE Allies had entered Paris — Russians, Aiistrians, and Prussians — and the Duke of Wellington, after winning the battle of Toulouse, came up from the south to meet them there. It was left to the French to decide what gov- ernment they would have ; and those who loved the old royalty took the lead, and invited back the brothers of their king, Louis XVIIL and Charles, Count: of Artois, whose eldest son, the Duke of Angouleme, was married to Marie Therese, the only survivor of the prisoners of the Temple. Louis XYin. was a clever, cunning old man by this time, and meant to do what he could to con- tent the French and keep the peace ; but the Count of Artois was stiff and haughty, and the poor Duchess of Angouleme so grave and sad that 429 430 Young Folhs^ History of France. she could not exert herself to please and amuse the people. There was much discontent at the changes that had to be made, and at the giving up of all that ]N''apoleon had robbed other countries of and given to France. He had carried off all the best pictures and statues wherever he went, and set them up in the Louvre ; and these were all sent home to their right owners. The lands that he had taken were to be restored ; and ministers from all the Allies met at the Congress of Vienna to settle how this should be done. Full in the midst came the news, like a thunder- bolt, that Napoleon had escaped from Elba, and landed in France on the 27th of February, 1815. No soldier who had served under him would fight against him. The army threw away the white flag, and shouted his name in ecstasy. Louis XVIIL was obliged to flee to Belgium ; and in a very short time Napoleon seemed as powerful as ever. But the Allies were collecting their forces against him ; and England and Prussia, as being the nearest, first had their armies ready near Brussels. Napoleon hoped to beat them before Austria and Russia could come to their help, and marched thither with all speed in the beginning of June. Four days of battles with the Prussians BATTI.E OF WATERLOO. Louis XVIIL 433 left matters undecided ; but on the IStli of June, 1815, the Duke of Wellington, assisted by the Prussians, gave the French an overwhelming defeat at Waterloo, and marched direct on Paris ; while Napoleon, after vainly seeking shelter, went at last to Rochefort, and there finding it impossible to escape to America, gave himself up to the cap- tain of an English ship, the Bellerophon. He was taken to Plymouth harbor, and remained on board until his fate was decided by the Allied Sover- eigns, who determined to send him where he should not again escape to disturb all Europe ; and he was therefore placed in the little lonely island of St. Helena, in the midst of the Atlantic Ocean, under the custody of an English governor, who was to see him every day. He fretted and chafed in his confinement ; and the governer (Sir Hudson Lowe) was continually anxious, and therefore seemed harsh and insulting to him in the fallen pride that did not know how to be really great. After six miserable years, Napoleon died, in 1821, of cancer in the stomach, and was buried under the willow trees of Longwood, in St. Plelena. Of course his brothers and sisters had all been put down from the thrones he had given them. Murat tried to recover Naples, but was taken and 434 Young Folks History of France, shot ; but the others submitted quietly, having never much enjoyed their honors. Marie Louise had a little Italian duchy given to her, and her son was called the Duke of Reichstadt, and brought up at the court of his grandfather, the Emperor of Austria. He died in early youth, and the person who cared the most for the great- ness of the Bonaparte name was Louis Napoleon, son to Louis, once King of Holland, and of Hortense Beauharnais, the daughter of Josephine by her first marriage. Meantime, the English army had remained for three years in France, to assist Louis XYIII. in case of any fresh outbreak ; and Marshal Ney, the foremost of the generals who had gone over to Napoleon, was tried by court-martial and shot. Almost everybody else was forgiven ; and Prince Talleyrand, one of the cleverest and most cunning men who ever lived, who had risen under Napo- leon, worked on still with Louis XVIII. It was the saying in France that in their exile the Bourbons had learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. This was not quite true of Louis XVIII. , who was clever in an indolent way, and resolved to please the people enough to remain where he was till his death, and really gave them a very Louis XVIIL 435 good charter ; only he declared he gave it to them by his free grace as their king, and they wanted him to acknowledge that they had forced it from royalty by the Revolution. But his brother Charles, Count of Artois, was much more strongly and openly devoted to the old ways that came before the Revolution, and, as Louis had no children, his accession was dreaded. His eldest son, the Duke of Angouleme, had no children ; and his second son, the Duke of Berri, who was married to a Nea- politan princess, was the most amiable and hopeful person in the family ; but on the 12th of February, 1820, he was stabbed by a wretch called Louvet, as he was leaving the opera, and died in a few hours. His infant son, Henry, Duke of Bordeaux, was the only hope of the elder branch of the Bourbons. France was worn out and weary of war, so that little happened in this reign, except that the Duke of Angouleme made an expedition to assist the King of Spain in putting down an insurrection. The French nobility had returned to all their titles ; but many of them had lost all their property in the Revolution, and hung about the court, much needing offices and emplo3^ments ; while all the generation who had grown up among the triumphs of Napoleon, looked with contempt and dislike at 486 Young Folks^ History of France. the endeavor to revive old habits and ways of thinking. Louis XVIII. was in failing health, but he kept up much of the old state of the French court, and was most careful never to keep any one waiting, for he used to say, " Punctuality is the politeness of kings." Even when very ill, he would never give up any of the court ceremonies ; and when urged to spare himself, said, " A king of France ought to die standing ; but for some years he was unable to walk, being dreadfully tormented by the gout, and he was obliged to let his brother manage his affairs. But he was shrewd enough to dread the Count of Artois' desire to return to the old times of the overgrown royal power ; and when he found himself dying, lie put his hand on the head of his little four years' old great-nephew, Henry, and said to his brother, " Let Charles X. take care of the crown for this child." He died in Septem- ber, 1824. CHAPTER XLIII. CHARLES X. 1824—1830. WHEN Charles X. had been the young Count of Artois, before the Revolution, he had been gay, lively, and thoughtless — a playfellow of Marie Antoinette in those bright, giddy days when she had caused so much, ill-will. After all his exile and wanderings, and in his old age, he had become very religious ; but not in a wise way, for he was guided entirely by the Pope and a few clergy, who wanted to bring things back to what they were be- fore the Revolution. It was just the same with the State. His ministers were trying to get back the old power of the crown, and this made every one discontented and jealous, though France had a share in two victories in his time. The first was made on behalf of the Greeks, 437 438 Young Folks' History of France, who had long been trying to break away from the rule of the Turks ; and at last the Prussian, English, and French fleets joined and defeated the Turks and Egyptians at the battle of Navarino ; after which, Greece was able to become a kingdom under Christian rule. The other was to clear the Mediterranean Sea of the Moorish robbers who had infested it for centu- ries past. Ships came from the African ports, es- pecially Algiers, and fell upon any merchant vessel they could seize, taking the goods and carrying the crew and passengers off into slavery. Even the coasts of France, Spain, and Italy were not safe ; and people were continually carried off, and set to work for the Moors, until they were ransomed by their friends in Europe. But in 1830 the English and French fleets united to attack this nest of pirates, and gained a grand victory, which put an end to all further sea robberies in the Mediterranean. But no one was pleased by the victory, for the doings of the king and his ministers enraged the public, and the newspapers found great fault with them, and accused them of all sorts of impossible things. On this, on the 26th of July, 1830, the king put an edict putting an end to the liberty of the press — that is, forbidding anything to appear Chcrles X, 439 in any newspaper without being approved by tlie government. Some other edicts were also made, which offended the people so much that there was a frightful disturbance at Paris. Every one begged the king to change his mind, and withdraw the edicts ; but he thought it was yielding that had ruined his brother Louis XVI., and nothing would persuade him to give way, till too late, when for what are called the " three days of July" there had been fighting throughout Paris, and his troops had been broken and driven out by the National Guard. Then he did consent ; but the people would not be satisfied without dethroning him, and he was obliged to leave France again, taking with him his son and daughter-in-law (the last Dauphin and Dauphiness), and his grandson, the little Henry. They lived first in Scotland, and afterwards in Ital}^ and in Germany ; and while all the old loyal French still viewed Charles, and after his death, his grandson, Henry Y., as they have always called him, as the only true kings of France. The ]\Iarquis de la Fayette, who had been one of the first movers in the old Revolution, had lived to assist in tliis, the Revolution of 1830, a far less bloody and mischievous one. Some of the French 440 Young Folks' History of France, wanted to have another republic, but most of them wished to try a limited monarchy, like that of England, with a king at the head, but witliout power to do anything without the consent of the subjects. They resolved to put at the head of their new constitution the Duke of Orleans. He was of the Bourbon royal blood, for he was descended from Louis XIV.'s brother, the Duke of Orleans, and from the wicked regent of the childhood of Louis XV. After these two, there had been two quiet dukes, not noted for much, but the fifth had been vehement in the cause of the Bevolution. He had given up his title of Duke of Orleans, and called himself Citizen Philip Egalitd, or Equality, and he liad even voted for the death of Louis XVL , but when, in the Reign of Terror, everyone who had any high birth was put to death, he was guillo- tined. His eldest son, Louis Philippe, had been brought up by a very clever governess, Madam de Genlis, who wrote the " Tales of the Castle," and many other books for children; and she made a great point of his learning many useful habits which princes had thought quite beneath them. He served in the French army till his father, mother, and younger brothers were thrown into Charles X. 441 prison, and he was obliged to earn his bread as a teacher in a school. Afterwards he came to Eng- land, where his brothers joined him ; but they both fell into declines and died, one in England, and the other at Malta, where Louis Philippe had taken him for his health. Next he travelled in America, and there, when he had a bad fall from his wagon in a little lonely settlement, took out his own lancet, and bled himself so dextrously, that the people begged him to remain and be their doctor. At the Restoration, he came back to France, with his wife, Marie Amelie, the daughter of the King of Naples, and his sister Adelaide, both very good and clever women. They brought up their large family at the Palais Royal, and were very kind and sensible people, though all along there were many who thought he was scheming to get the people's favor away from King Charles X. Whether this were true or not is not certain. At any rate, when Charles fled, the leaders of the nation all agreed to offer the crown to the Duke of Orleans, but it was not to be as an old heredi- tary monarch. He was not to be King of France, but King of the French ; he was not to be Louis XIX., but Louis Philippe I. ; and his eldest son 442 Young Folks' History of France. was not to be Dauphin, but Duke of Orleans ; and bis power was to be bounded by peers and depu- ties, much as the power of the English king is bounded by the peers and commons. This was the Revolution of the " three days of July," 1830. CHAPTER XLIV, LOUIS PHILIPPE. 1830-1848. LOUIS PHILIPPE of Orleans began prosper- ously. He was called the Citizen King, and used the tricolored flag of the old Revolution instead of the white one of the Bourbons, and the cock of Gaul instead of the old blue shield with gold fleurs-de-lys, to show that he reigned not as a son of the old royal family, but by the choice of the people. There was a chamber of peers and a chamber of deputies ; and the constitution was a limited monarchy. Much was done to please the people, and much to make them prosperous. Railways and steam- boats came in, and manufactures began to flourish, more especially the weaving of silk at Lyons ; and though the French have never made articles as strong and useful as the English do, they have 443 444 Young Folks' History of France. much better taste, and all that is gay and elegant is better finished there ; so that Paris grew more and more to be the chief mart for dress and orna- ment in the world. Almost all the colonies the French had once made had been lost in wars since the time of Louis XIV. ; and Louis Philippe thought it would be well to form new ones, and to get the navy into good order again. So a settlement was made in Algeria ; but it caused a long and fierce war with the Arab chiefs, which lasted nearly throughout the reign ; for no sooner had a grant of land been made, and brought into good order, than the Arabs would fall upon the farm in the night, and burn, destroy, and plunder. Guards of soldiers had to be kept in the forts all round the border ; and there was much terrible fighting, for the Arabs were as brave as the French themselves, and had a most gallant chief, named Abd-el-Kader. At last, however, after years of fighting, he was forced to surrender himself a prisoner, and was taken to France ; but this was not till quite at the end of the reign of Louis Philippe, though I have told you about it all at once. The French also tried to make settlements in the Pacific islands, especially New Caledonia and Louis Pliilippe, 445 the island of Tahiti. They were not at all wel- come in this last, for the native queen, Pomard, had been taught to be a Christian by the English, and did not wish for French protection or Roman Catholic teaching. However, the French were the strongest, and have taken the management there, though the island still professes to be under its own government. Louis Philippe did his utmost to keep the Paris- ians in good humor, knowing that he could only reign by their favor ; and as the miseries of the old wars were forgotten, and the French only thought of the victories of the times of Napoleon, praising him as the greatest of heroes, the king gratified them by requesting the English to allow him to bring home the corpse of the Emperor from St. Helena, and bury it in the Church of the Invalides, a great asylum for old soldiers at Paris. It was fetched in a man-of-war by the king's sailor son, the Prince de Joinville, and brought to Paris in a triumphal car, which was followed through the streets by Louis Philippe and his sons. A chapel was built, and ornamented with splendid marbles, for the burials of the Bonaparte family. Napoleon's little son was dead, but his brother 446 Young Folks' History of France. Louis had left a son, who was living in exile in England or Germany. Do what he would, Louis Philippe could not prevent a great deal of discontent among the Bonapartists on the one hand, and the Repub- licans on the other. The richer the shopkeepers and merchants grew, and the more show they made, the bitterer was the hatred of the workmen, who said that everybody ought to be equal not only in rank but in property ; and these men used red alone, instead of the tricolor, for their badge. A horrible conspiracy was made by some wretches, of whom the chief was named Fieschi, for destro}'- ing the king, as he rode out, by what was called the Infernal Machine, which was like a whole bat- tery of guns fired off in a moment. The king was not hurt, but fourteen people were killed, of whom one was an old marshal of Napoleon's. The men were traced and seized, and Fieschi was put to death. The queen, Marie Amelie of Naples, was one of the best women who ever lived, and did all she could to promote goodness and piety. So did the king's prime minister M. Guizot, who was one of a staunch old Huguenot family ; but the Republi- can dislike to having religion taught in schools Louis Philippe, 449 hindered the growth of good; and there were a great number of unbelievers, though there were good and holj men struggling with the evil. There w*ere always many parties. There were the Legitimists, who viewed first Charles X., and then his grandson, Henry V., the Count of Chambord, as the only true king, and would take no office under Louis Philippe ; and there were the Bona- partists and the Ked Republicans, as well as the Moderate ones, who held by the king. The king had five sons, of whom the eldest, the Duke of Orleans, was much loved and looked up to. He married the Princess Helen of jMecklen- burg Schwerin, and they had had two little sons, before he was unhappily killed by leaping out of his open carriage while the horses were running away. It is a curious thing that the power of a French sovereign always seems to melt awa}^ as soon as he shov\^s any designs upon Spain. The king, Ferdinand YIL, whom Napoleon kept so long in prison, had left two little daughters ; and as they grew up, Louis Philippe interfered about their marriages in a way that caused much displeasure. He could only gain the younger one for his son, the Duke of Montpensier ; but he was thought to 4'50 Young Folds' History of France. be grasping at the crown for him, and this made everyone jealous. A little later, a nobleman, the Duke de Praslin, horrified all Europe by murder- ing his wife. He was, of course, condemned to death, but he put an end to his own life in prison, and the Red Republicans fancied that he must have been allowed the means, in order that there might not be a public execution of a nobleman ; and this added to the discontent and hatred of poor against rich that had been growing every year. At last, in February, 1848, after the council and the chambers of deputies had decided against some measures much desired by the people, there was a rising of the mob throughout Paris. The troops were drawn up, and the National Guard ; but when the moment came for action, the National Guard would not fire, but made common cause with the people. The army would still have fought, but Louis Philippe would not have blood shed for him. He sent a message that he abdi- cated in favor of his little grandson, the Count of Paris, with his mother, the Duchess of Orleans, as regent. Then he left the Tuileries privately, and under the name of William Smith, safely reached England. Louis Plulijjpe. 451 The Duchess of Orleans bravely came forward to the people with her two boys, but there was no shout in her favor, only angry looks, and her friends saw it was all in vain, and hurried her away as fast as they could. All the family made their way by different means, one by one, to Eng- land, where the queen and her people received them as kindly as warm hearts always welcome the unfortunate. Claremont Palace was lent to them as. a dwelling-place, and there Louis Philippe and his good queen spent the remainder of their lives. He died in the 3-ear 1849, and Amelie a few years later. CHAPTER XLV. THE BEPUBLIC. 184S-1852. AFTER Louis Philippe and his family had fled from France, there was a time of con- fusion. An assembly of deputies met from all parts of France to arrange a fresh government ; and a very clever poet and author, named Lamar- tine, at first tried to bring about something like order, but he v\ras not strong enough, and there was a great deal of tumult and disorder. In truth, the Red Republicans, who did not want to see anyone richer than themselves, were very much disappointed that, though noblemen and gentlemen had no more rights than other people, yet still rich men kept their money and estates; and though all sorts of occupations were devised at Paris, for which they were highly paid, in hopes of keeping them quiet and contented, they only 452 The Republic. 453 became more fierce and violent. They had devised a way of fortifjdng the streets, by seizing on all the carts, carriages, and cabs they could lay hands on, and fastening them together with ropes, so as to form a line across the street. Then they pulled Up the paving-stones, and built them up, banking them up with earth, and thus making what they called a barricade. And when the top and back of this was thronged with men and boys armed with muskets, it was almost impossible to dislodge them. In the end of June, 1848, there wqtq three dreadful days of barricades. It was really a fight of the Red Republicans against the Tricolored. Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality were the watch- words of them both ; but the Red Republicans meant much more than the Tricolored by these words, for they thought liberty was no order at all, and equality was that no person should be better off than the rest. The good Archbishop of Paris, jMonseigneur Affre, going out on one of these miserable days to try to make peace, was shot through the back from behind a barricade, and died in a few hours. However, General Cavaignac, one of the brave men wdio had been trained to war by the fighting 454 Young Folks' History of France. in Algeria, so managed the soldiers and the National Guard that they put down the Red Republicans, and restored order, though not with- out shedding much blood, and sending many into exile. Indeed, the two years 1847 and 1848 were un- quiet all over Europe. Much that had been settled at the Congress of Vienna, in 1814, after Napoleon had been overthrown, had been done more as if estates were being carved out than as if what was good for the people was considered ; and there had been distress and discontent ever since, especially in Italy, w^here all the north w^as under the Emperor of Austria, and his German officers were very rough and disagreeable in the towns where they were quartered. The Italians rose, and tried to shake them off by the help of the King of Sardinia ; and at the same time there was a great rising against the Pope, Pius IX., at Rome. The Popes had held Rome for more than a thousand years, and there ruled the Western Church ; but they had never been very good princes to their Roman subjects, and things had fallen into a sad state of confusion, which, when first he was chosen, Pius IX. had tried to improve ; but his people went on too fast for him, The Rejmblic. 455 and at last rose up and so alarmed liim that lie fled in the disguise of a servant behind an Austrian carriage. Now, the Roman Catholics think the Pope can- not rule over the Church freel}^ unless he has Rome quite of his own, and lives there as a prince, instead of only as a Bishop in a country belonging to some one else. And though there were so many in France who had not much faith in anything, vet there were a good many honest, religious people, who were very anxious to have him back, and said that it mattered more that he should govern the Church than that the Romans should be well off. So a French army was sent to restore him ; and the Italians were grievously disappointed, for the Austrians were putting them down in the north, and they thought Republicans bound to helj) them. But Rome was taken, and the Pope had his throne again ; and a strong guard of French soldiers were placed in Rome, for w^ithout such help he could no lonofer have rei^^ned. The French at home were in more j)arties than ever. The Red Republicans still wanted to over- throw everything ; the Moderate ones cared chiefly to keep peace and order; the Bonapartists longed to have another empire like Napoleon's ; the 456 Young Folks' History of France. Orleanists wished to bring back the Count of Paris, grandson of Louis PhiKppe ; and the Legit- imists still held fast bv Henry Y., the son of the murdered Duke of Berri, and the natural king by birth. Never was there such a house divided against itself ; but, in truth, the real fear was of the Red Republicans. All the rest were ready to be quiet, and submit to anything so long as these could be kept down. After much deliberating in the Assembl}-, it was settled to have a republic, with a president as the Americans have. Then Louis Napoleon Bona- parte, the son of Napoleon's brother Louis, offered himself as president, and Avas elected, all the quiet people and all the Bonapartists joiniiig in the choice. Most of the army were Bonapartists, for the sake of the old victories of Napoleon ; and when Algeria was quieted, and the}^ came home, Louis Napoleon had a great power in his hands. Soon he persuaded the people to change his title from president to that of first consul, as his uncle had once been called ; and then everyone began to see what would follow, but most were glad to have a strong hand over them, to give a little peace and rest after all the changes. And the next time there was any chance of a The Bepiiblic. 457 disturbance at Paris, Louis Napoleon was before- hand with the mob. He surrounded them with soldiers, had cannon planted so as to command every street, and fired upon the mob before it had time to do any harm, then captured the ringlead- ers, and either had them executed or sent into banishment. Some violence and cruelty there cer- tainly was, but the Parisians were taught whom they must obey, and quiet people were grateful. This master stroke is always called the coui? d'etat or stroke of policy, for it settled affairs for the time ; and after it Louis Napoleon did as he chose, for no one durst resist him. CHAPTER XLVI. THE SECOND EMPIRE. 1852—1870. N the beginning of the year 1852, the whole of the French nation was called upon to decide by Yote whether they would form an empire again, or continue to be a republic. Every man rich or poor, who was not a convict, had a vote ; and the larger number decided for the empire, and for Louis Napoleon Bonaparte as the emperor. He considered himself as the successor of his uncle, and therefore called himself Napoleon III., counting the little child ill whose favor the great Bonaparte had ab- dicated at Fontainebleau as the second Napoleon. He married a Spanish lady of high rank, but not royal, whose mother was Scottish. Her name was Eugenie de Montijo, and she was one of the most lovely women of her time. She was pious and kind-hearted, and al\^ays ready to do anything 458 The Second Umpire. 459 good ; but it was thought that the court would be more popuhir, and trade j)i'Osper more, if an exam- ple was set of great splendor and magnificence. So the ladies were encouraged to dress in a stjle of extravagance and brilliancy, with perpetual changes of fashion ; and tliis, as the Parisian dresses are always the models of those of other countries, has led to much folly in all grades of society every- where. One son Avas born of this marriage, who was called the Prince Imperial. The emperor ruled with a strong hand, but he got everything into order again, and he made Paris more beautiful than ever, throwing down old nar- row streets, a.nd building grand new ones, which, for the most part, had asphalt pavement, so that there might be no paving-stones to take up and make into barricades. He took away a good many of the places to which old historical remem- brances were attached ; and it has never seemed plain whether he did so for the sake of sweeping away the old remembrances, or only because they stood in the way of his plans. The name the emperor wished to be called by was the Napoleon of Peace, as his uncle had been the Napoleon of War ; but it was not always pos- sible to keep the peace. In the year 1852, just 460 Young Folks' History af France. after he had been crowned, the Russian emperor began to threaten to conquer Turkey, and there- upon the French joined with the English to protect the Sultan. The French and English armies, both together, landed in Turkey, and then made an ex- pedition to the Crimea, where the Russians had built a very strong fortified city named Sebastopol, whence to attack the Turks. Marshal Bugeaud was the French general, and, with Lord Raglan, commanded in the great battle fought on the banks of the Alma, and then laid siege to Sebastopol, •where again the Russians sallied out, in the night of the 4th of November, 1854, and attacked the camp at Inkerman. All the winter and spring the siege lasted, the two armies having much bitter cold to fear as they watched in the trenches ; but in the summer it was possible to assault the cit}^ an^ wdiile the English attacked the Redan, the French attacked the Malakoff Tower, and after much hard fighting this was taken. Then peace was made, on condition that all the fortifications of Sebastopol should be destroyed, and no fleet or ami}'' kept there for the future. Having thus been allies in war, England and France became much greater friends, and Queen Victoria and the emperor made visits to one The Second Empire. 461 another ; and the trade of the two nations was so mixed np togetlier as to make it much less easy to go to war, for the emperor had a love and affection for England, which had been a home to him in his days of exile. The Italians were more uneasy and miserable than ever under the rule of the Austrians, and begged Victor Emmanuel, King of Sardinia, to help them, and become an Italian king over them. Loais Napoleon gave them his help, and went in person to Lombardy, where the French and Ital- ians defeated the Austrians at Magenta and Sol- ferino ; after which there was again a peace, and Victor Emmanuel was owmed as King of Italy, on condition that, in return for the help he had received, he should give to France the little prov- ince of Nice, which had always been part of the dukedom of Savoy, the old inheritance of his fore- fathers long before they were kings, but v.diich seemed as if it ought to be a part of France. The Romans hoped that they, too, should have shaken off the Papal government ; but the guard of French soldiers was still maintained at Rome. Another undertaking of the emperor was to bring Mexico into order. This country had been settled by Spaniards, and belonged to Spain until 462 Young Folks'' History of France. it revolted ; and for many years there had been constant revolutions, and very little law, so that it was full of outlaws and robbers. Some of the better disposed thought that they might do better if they set up a monarchy, and the French prom- ised to help them. The Archduke Maximilian, brother of the Emperor of Austria, was chosen, and went out, with his 3'oung wife Charlotte, daughter of the King of Belgium, and guarded by a French army. But the Mexicans were much more fierce and treacherous than had been ex- pected ; and the French troops found that sta3dng there only made them more bitter, and it was costly to keep them there. So they were brought home ; and no sooner had they left Mexico, than the Mexicans rose up, made their emperor pris- oner, and shot him, while his poor wife lost her senses from grief. They were a good and noble pair — true-hearted, and anxious to do right ; and theirs is one of the saddest stories of our time. The Emperor of the French had ruled prosper- ously for a long time ; but the burning hatred of the Red Republicans was not quenched. His best advisers, too, were growing old and dying, and his own health and spirit were failing ; but he was trying to teach the peojjle to rule themselves in The Second Empire. 463 some degree, instead of expecting liim to keep order with his power from iiboye. He was anxious to be sure of his son reigning after him, and he put it to the vote all over France whether the empire should be hereditary. The vote was in his favor, and he seemed quite secure. But at this time the Prussians had been gaining great successes both against Denmark and Austria, and the French were very jealous of them, and expected a fight for some of the prov- inces that lie along the Rhine. Just then, too, the Spaniards had risen, and driven awa}' Queen Isabella, who had not ruled well ; and they elected a cousin of the King of Prussia to be their king. He never accepted the Spanish crown, but the bare notion made the French furious, and there was a great cry from the whole nation that the pride of the Prussians must be put down. The emperort saw his popularity was failing him, and that his only chance was to please the people by going to war. Nobody knew that the army had been badly managed, and that it was quite changed from what it was when it fought in Algiers and the Crimea. Indeed, the French never think that anything but victory can happen to them, so the army went off in high spirits to meet the Prus- 464 Young Folks History of France. sians on the Rhine - — singing, shouting, drinking ; cincl the emperor took his young son with him, and tried to seem as hopeful as they did ; but all who saw him near saw that he was both ill and sad. This was in the summer of the year 1870« CHAPTER XLVII. THE SIEGE OF PAKIS, 1870—1871. EVERYONE knew that whatever might be said to be the quarrel between France and Prussia, the truth was that the two fi(jhtino- nations were jealous of one another, and wanted to meas- ure their strength together. The Prussians had never forgotten the elder Napoleon's cruelty to their queen, and the harshness with which the whole nation had been treated ; and all the Ger- mans distrusted Napoleon III., and thought he had plans for spreading the French empire into the German provinces beyond the Rhine. All the Germans, therefore, felt as if they were defending their fatherland, and came to the arni}^ in a yevy different temper from the boastful one of the French. It was in the provinces of the Rhine that the 465 4:66 Young JFolks' History of France. battle was to be fought out. In the first fight, at Werth, the French were successful, and a great deal was made of the victory. The Prince Impe- rial was made to fire the first cannon, and all the newspapers profanely called it his baptism of fire. Indeed, one of the worst signs was that nobody was telling truth. The emperor had been deceived as to the strength and order of his arm}'^ ; and the whole French nation were entirely deceived as to the state of things with the army, and thought they were beating the Prussians, and should soon be at Berlin. Instead of this, all round the city of Sedan there was a most frightful battle, Avhich lasted day after day, and in which the French were entirely beaten, and so surrounded and cut off from retreat by the German forces, that the emperor was obliged to surrender himself a pris- oner to the King of Prussia. He had before sent his son to England, as soon as he saw how things were going. The Empress Eugenie had been left as regent at Paris ; but as soon as the dreadful news came, all the Parisians rose up, and declared that the emperor was deposed and that they would have a republic again. All that her best friends could do for her was to help her to pass out of the Tuileries in a plain black The Siege of Paris. 467 dress, get into a fl}^, and be driven to the station, whence she safely reached England. Marshal Macmahon and a large portion of the army who were in Sedan were made prisoners, and sent off to Germany. Still there was a general belief that help must come — that an army would come home from Algeria, or be put together from the garrisons — or that the whole nation would rise up and drive out the enemy. So the cities of Strasburg, Phalsburg, and Nancy shut their gates, and bravely stood a siege from the Germans ; and when the Parisians found that the main bodj- of the enemy was advancing, they likewise prepared for a seige, under their commandant, General Trochu, a good man, but not enterprising. They were in a strange delirium of ungrateful joy at being rid of the empire ; they went about knock- ing down the carved eagles and effacing the great crowned N's, and declaring that now the}^ should prosper, as if the enem}^ were not actually on their own ground. Almost every available man was enrolled in the National Guard or the Garde Mobile; but the Prussians put a stop to any warfare of the peas- antry, for at a little village called' Bazeille, where some shots were fired on them, they burnt and 468 Young Folks' History of France, 'destroyed every building, and killed all who fell into their hands. They gave out that though reo-ular soldiers would be treated as prisoners of war, and those who did not fight would not be hurt, there was to be no mercy for places where Germans were fired upon. The Prussians meant to be just, but their jus- tice was of a hard kind ; and though they hardly ever did violence to anyone's person, they had less scruple about plundering than they ough-t to have had. Indeed, they had bitterly hated the French ever since the elder Napoleon had so tyrannously misused Prussia, and broken the heart of Queen Louisa, the mother of the King William who was now leading his forces to Paris ; and much that they called retribution, lookers-on called revenge. The king placed his headquarters in the grand old palace of Versailles, and thence besieged Paris, cutting off all supplies and all communication from outside. No one could come in or out, save througli the German camp, except in a balloon ; and one of the Republican leaders, M. Gambetta, actually came out in a balloon, to try to raise the spirit of the rest of France to come to the relief of ■ the capital. Letters came and went, too, by car- rier pigeons ; and tiny letters on thin paper, and The Seige of Parish 471 newspapers in print so small tliat they could only be read with a magnifying glass, were prepared for this pigeon post. Meantime, the people ate up all their stores ; and after finishing the mutton and beef, all the horses were seized, and the cats and doQfs were killed : the flour was diluted with saw- dust ; and the starvation became all the more wretched as the winter came on ; and there was as sad a want of fuel as of food. Meanwhile, the German shells Avere constantly flying in, destroy- ing houses, and killing all whom their splinters struck. It was as bad at Strasburg, while these Paris- ians were consoling themselves by offering gar- lands to the statue of that city in the Place de la Concorde ; but Strasburg, Metz, and Phalsburg all were taken, and all the hopes of help from without faded away. The supposed army in the south never appeared at all, and one in the west, which at first had some success, was soon defeated. The Prussian army occupied more and more ground ; and though the Parisian troops tried to sally out and attack the German camp, this turned out to be all in vain. For the Parisians, both in the National Guard and Garde jMobile, had no notion of obeying orders or observing discipline, and 472 Young Folks' History of France. without these nobody can fight ; while even as to bravery, they showed themselves sadly unlike their loud boasts of themselves. Nobody did show any steady courage but the few real soldiers, the gentle- men, and the Bretons ; and their bravery ended in their being killed when no one supported them. It was all the worse, because there was bitter dis- trust between the Red Republicans and the Mod- erate party, and each expected to be betrayed by the other. The only pleasant thing to think of in the whole war was the care taken by a society, gathered from all nations — chiefly Swiss, German, and English — for sending nurses to the wounded and help to the ruined. They were known by the Red Cross, and wherever this was seen they were respected. One difficulty was — Who or what was the government which might make peace with the Prussians ? but after half-a-year of siege, M. Thiers and General Trochu, and others of the Moderate party, made terms. Paris was, in fact, surren- dered ; but the King of Prussia promised not to grieve the French by marching in at the head of his army, but to be content with quietly entering himself. The two provinces of Lorraine and Alsace, which used to be German, were to be The Siege of Paris. 473 given up to him ; Prussian troops were to be left for a 3'ear in garrison in France ; and a fine was to be paid. At the same time, quantities of f(jod and firing were sent in for tlie famished Parisians, the prisoners were released, and among them the emperor, who went to England. CHAPTER XLVIII. . THE COMMUNISTS. 1871. THE terms of the treaty were no sooner known than all the ill-will and distrust of the Red Republicans openly broke out. They declared that they were betra}- ed ; that their generals and the National Guards would not fight, and had sold them to the enemy ; and that the}^ would not give up their arms, or be bound by the treaty. They drew together on a height with their cannon, and closed the gates, and barricaded the streets again. The Government withdrew to Versailles, to wait for the arrival of all the troops who had been in captivity ; and these Red Republicans did what they chose. One horrible deed was, shooting, and that with many repeated wounds, two generals who had tried to maintain discipline in the first siege, and had thus offended them. 474 The Communists. _ 475 A sort of government was set up, calling itself the Commune — an old word for a town council governing itself — and thus the Red Republicans were known as the Communists. Thej were either newspaper writers, or else workmen and mechan- ics ; and there was one noble among them, quite as desperate as the rest. All the former pride in the first Bonaparte had turned into a ferocious hatred to the very name ; so that even the great column in the Place Vendome, raised in honor of his vic- tories, Avas thrown down ; and the Communists were as furious against law, order, property, and religion as ever their grandfathers in the Reign of Terror had been. They turned the clergy out of the churches, and the Sisters of Charity out of the hospitals, and uttered the maddest and most hor- rible blasphemies against all that Avas good or great. The women were equally violent, or even more so, with the men — they sang songs of liberty, and carried weapons, uttering fearful threats. Some of the leaders had been captured, and kept at Ver- sailles ; whereupon they seized on the archbishop, Monseigneur Darboy, and five more clergy — good and holy men, who had spent their whole lives in the endeavor to teach and help them, and who, all through the siege had toiled to lessen the suf- 476 Young Folks History of France. ferings of the poor. They were thrown into prison ; and when the Commune found that tlieir own members were not released, and that Marshal Macmahon and the army were closely besieging Paris, all these good priests were brought to the prison of La Roquette, and there shot, and hastily buried. The good archbishop died with his hand uplifted, as if in the act of blessing his mur- derers. This was on the 24th of May, 1871. All France was against the madmen who had possession of their much-loved Paris ; but the Communists held out desperately, and forced many quiet citizens to fight, b}^ making their carrying arms the only condition of obtaining food, which of course, they could not earn by honest labor as of old. At last, however, the soldiers from Ver- sailles began to force their way in, and then, in their final madness, the Red Republicans set fire to the city. The Hotel de Ville was soon blazing, and so was the Tuileries. It was said that inflam- mable materials had been placed in them for this purpose, and that women went about throwing petroleum in at the windows of houses to set them on fire. The Versailles government, their troops, and indeed all who looked on, were in a frenzy of rage The Communists* 477 and grief at seeing their beantiful city, the pride and darling of every Frenchman's heart, thus destroyed before their eyes. And as the soldiers slowly fought their way in, with cannon pointed down the streets, and mowing all before them, they made a most fearful slaughter of men and women alike — and, it may be feared, the innocent with the guilty, Indeed, the very cry of " une petroleuse " was enough to cause a woman to be hunted down, and shot without further trial. There was a last stand . made by the Communists in the great cemetery of Pere la Chaise, where most of them died the death of wolves ; and large herds of the captured were marched off towards Versailles — many to be shot at once, others im- prisoned, and after trial sent off to prison, and exiled to Cayenne or New Caledonia. Thus the Red Republic was extinguished in fire and blood, and order was restored. The citv was found to be less injured by the fires than had been feared when they were seen raging ; and for the time M. Thiers ruled as a sort of president, and set matters as right as was possible in the torn and bleeding country. Meantime, the emperor. Napo- leon III., died in his exile in England ; and the nation began to consider Avhat should be the gov- 478 Young Folks' History of France. ernment for tlie future. The old parties still existed — the Legitimists, still \ojdl to Henr}^, Count of Chambord ; the Orleanists, wishing for a son or grandson of Louis Philippe ; the Bonapart- ists, loving the memory of Napoleon III., and hop- ing to restore his son ; the Moderate Kepublicans, chiefly seeking rest and order, and now revenge upon Germany and the remnant of the Com- munists. Henr}^, Count of Chambord, having no children, so that the Count of Paris, eldest grandson of Louis Philippe, was his rigiit heir, there was a plan that the Legitimist and Orleans parties should join, and a proposal was made to restore the Count of Chambord as such a king as Louis Philippe was, and that the Count of Paris should reign after him. But the Count of Chambord's answer w^as that he would come to his forefathers' throne if he were invited, but only to reign as they did, by the right given to his family by God, not as the chosen of the people. He would be the Most Christian king - — the Kmg of France, not of the French — with the white flag of the Bourbons, not the tricolor — and the Eldest Son of the Church obedient to the Pope. Nobody except the old Legitimists was in a The Communists. 479 mood to accept this answer, and so, when the choice of a government was put to the vote of the nation, it was decided to have a republic, with a president, instead of a monarchy ; and Marshal Macmahon was soon after elected as president. Questions for Examination, Chapter I. — 1. Who were the Kelts ? 2. Into what were they divided ? 3. What does Pen mean in Keltic ? 4. What rivers did the Kelts name ? 5. What do Rhine and Rhone mean ? 6. What does Seine mean ? 7. What does Garonne mean? 8. What were the two divisions of Kelts? 9. How did the Kelts travel? 10. IIow did they dress? 11. Wlio were the Galatians ? 12. Who sacked Rome ? 13. What was Gallia Cis-Alpina ? 14. What was Gallia Trans-Alpina? 15. W^hat metals are found in Gaul? 16. Who found them out? 17. Who followed the Phoenicians ? 18. What cities did the Greeks huild ? 19. Whom did. the Greeks call to help them ? 20. What were the first two Roman towns ? 21. Who was the messenger to the Romans ? 22. Which was the hravest clan in Gaul? Chapter II,- -1. What did the Romans call their settle- ment ? 2. What was a colony ? 3. How was a colony hegun ? 4. How long were the Romans in gaining Gaul ? 5. Who broke into Gaul ? 6. Who defeated the Cimbri and Teutons ? 7. Who conquered Gaul ? and in Avhat year ?. 8. What tribe rose against him ? 9. Who was the great chief of the Arverni ? 10. Where did Yercingetorix fortify himself ? 11. How was 481 482 Questions for Examination. he shut in ? 12. How did Verciiigetorix surrender ? 13. What was his end ? 14. What cities did the Eomans huild in Gaul ? 15. Who governed Kome ? 16. Wlio made a rising against Eome ? 17. Wliat was tlie name of liis brave wife ? Chapter III. — 1. Who was tlie first Bishop of Aries ? 2. Who first persecuted the Gallic Christians ? 3. Who was their brave girl-martyr ? 4. Where were the Christians massacred ? 5. What were the three Keltic Provinces ? 6. How was Con- stantine converted ? 7. Who were the enemies of the Gauls ? 8, Who defended Gaul from them ? 9. Who set up an empire there ? 10. Who finished the conversion of Gaul ? 11. How long had the Komans held Gaul ? Chapter IV. — 1. What kind of people were the Teutons ? 2. Who were their gods ? 3. What were their chief tribes ? 4. Which tribes came to Gaul ? 5. What w^ere the two tribes of Franks ? 6. What was their kingly family called ? 7. In what year was Attila's invasion? 8. Where w^as Attila de- feated ? 0. Why was Gaul deserted by the Komans ? 10. What good did Genoveva do at Paris ? 11. Who was Clovis ? 12. What was Clovis' promise ? 13. Where was he baptized ? 14. What was his chief home in Gaul ? 15. What church did he build ? 16. What was the King of France always called ? 17. When did Clovis die ? IS. What part of Gaul belonged to the Franks ? 19. What part was still Roman ? 20. What part was still Keltic ? 21. How many sons had Clovis ? 22. What cruel thing did two of them do ? 23. Which child w^as saved ? Chapter V.— 1. Who were the Meerwings ? 2. Who were the two wicked queens ? 3. What were the two kingdoms of Questions for Examination. 483 the Franks? 4. When did rrede2;ond die ? 5. What good did Brynhild do ? 6. But whom did she reject ? 7. What was her end? 8. In wliat year? 9. What work was done in Dago- bert's time? 10. How many more Meerwings reigned after him ? 11. What are they called ? 12. Who governed for them ? 13. Which kingdom came to be greatest ? 14. Who ^yas Mavoi* of the Palace in Neustria ? Chapter YI. — 1. Who was the next Mayor of the Palace ? 2. What was Pepin's son called? 3. What was Charles Mar- tel's great battle? 4. In what year? 5. With whom did he fight ? 6. Who was the false prophet of the Arabs ? 7. What countries had they conquered ? 8. When did he die ? 9. Who was the first of these Mayors to become a king ? 10. In what year ? 11. What was their dynasty called ? 12. Who came to ask Pepin's help? 13. Against whom? 14. What reward did Pope Stephen give Pepin ? 15. What did Pepin give Pope Stephen ? 16, Wlien did Pepin the Short die ? Chapter VII. — 1. When did Carl the Great begin to reign ? 2. Who reigned with him at first ? 3. What were his great conquests ? 4. Who was the Saxon chief ? 5. Why did Charlemagne fight with the Lombards? G. Who was king of the Lombards ? 7. Who held Spain ? 8. What disaster did Carl meet with ? 9. How many sons liad Charlemagne ? 10. What were they kings of ? 11. Where did Carl generally live ? 12. What did he do to promote learning? J 3. What hymn did he write ? 14. What dignity was given him ? 15. In what year did his Empire begin ? 16. What was his capital ? 17. What great Bishoprics did he set up ? 18. When did he die ? 484 Questions for Uxammationc Chapter VIII.— 1. Of what was the Empire made up ? 2. Who was always head of it ? 3. Who was Emperor after Charlemagne ? 4. Why were there wars in Louis's time ? 5. When did Louis I. die ? 6. Which son was Emperor ? 7. Which . reigned in France? 8. What province is called after Lothar ? 9. What was the story of John Scot ? 10. What were the troubles of Charles the Bald ? 11. Whence did the Northmen come ? 12. When did Charles the Bald die ? 13. Who was Charles the Fat? 14. Who beseiged Paris? 15. When was Charles the Fat deposed? 16. How was the Empire broken up ? Chapter IX. — 1. Who warred for power ? 2. Who held with Charles the Simple ? 3. Who held with Arnulf ? 4. When did Carlings cease to reign in Germany ? 5. Who were the Counts of Paris ? 6. Who gained Normandy ? 7. When was Rolf baptized ? 8. What was homage ? 9. What was the story of Eolf's homage? 10. What became of Charles the Simple? 11. When? 12. Who reigned after him? 13. Where was his son bred up ? 14. Who brought back Louis lY.? 15. Whom did Louis IV. make prisoner ? 16. How was Richard saved ? 17. Who took his part ? IS. When did Louis IV. die ? 19. How long did Lothar reign ? 20. Who was the last of the Carlings ? 21. What family reigned next ? 22. When did Hugh Capet begin to reign ? Chapter X. — 1. What power had the King of France ? 2. What were the two languages of North and South called ? 3. What was talked in Brittany ? 4. Who were the great nobles in the South ? 5. To whom did Provence belong ? 6. What •..■as the feudal system ? 7. IIow did the barons treat their Questions for Examination, 485 vassals ? 8. How were people knighted ? 9. How were the Popes going on ? 10. Who reformed the papacy ? 11. When did Hugh Capet die ? Chapter XI.— 1. What was expected in the year 1000 ? 2. What was the consequence ? 3. What good came out of this ? 4. What was the Truce of God ? 5. What kind of man was Khig Robert ? 6. What were his troubles ? 7. When did Robert die ? 8. Who reformed the elections of the Popes ? 9. Who choose the Pope? 10. What was a pilgrimage? 11. When did Henry I. die ? 12. What was a Crusade ? 13. Who preached the first Crusade ? 14. "Where was it preached ? 15. Who led the Crusaders ? 16. What were the religious orders of knighthood ? 17. When did Philip I. die ? Chapter XII. — 1. How did the cities take care of them- selves ? 2. What were the free cities called ? 3. Whose part did Louis YI. take against Henry I.? 4. What were the battles then fought ? 5. Who was Suger ? 6. Who was Abailard? 7. Who was St. Bernard? 8. Of what was he abbot ? 9. What is he called ? 10. Whom did the sou of Louis marry ? 11. When did Louis YI. die ? Chapter XIII. — 1. Who preached the second Crusade ? 2. Where was it preached ? 3 Who went upon it ? 4. What misfortune happened on the way ? 5. How did the queen behave ? 6. How was the king separated from her ? 7. Whom did she marry ? 8. What parts of France were in the hands of Henry II. of England ? 0. What was the meeting- place of the kings? 10. Whom did Louis shelter? 11. Why did Becket flee from England ? 12. Whom did Louis help 486 Questions for Examination. against Henry II.? 13. Who were the troubadours? 14. What is the Salic law ? 15. What son was born to Louis ? 16. What clanger did Philip fall into ? IT. How did Louis show his joy ? 18. In what year did Louis die ? Chapter XIV. — 1. Why did Philip II. cut down the elm of Gisors? 2. YvHiat kind of person was Philip II.? 3. What is he called ? 4. Why was the third Crusade begun ? 5. Who went upon it? 6. What was the end of Henry II? 7. How did Philip travel to the Holy Land ? 8. What city was taken ? 9. Why did Phihp return ? 10. What did he do in Kichard's absence ? 11. What kept Kichard away so long ? 12. Who reigned after Eichard? 13. Whose part did Philip take against John ? 14. How Avas peace made ? 15. What sin had Philip committed ? 16. How did the Pope punish him ? 17. What is an interdict ? 18. Whom was Philip forced to take back ? 19. How did Philip gain Normandy ? 20. What was John's quarrel with the Pope ? 21. Who was the Pope who laid both France and England under interdicts ? 22. Whom did Innocent III. invite to conquer England ? 23. What Emperor did Philip defeat? 24. At what battle? 25. Why was Louis the Lion invited to England ? 26. What city was put into his hands.? 27. Why did he not stay there? 28. What was the great success of Philip Augustus ? 29. When did he die? 30. Which English kings were his contempo- raries ? Chapter XV.— 1. When did Louis VIII. come to the throne? 2. With whom was his chief war? 3. Where did the Albigenses live? 4. What was their false doctrine? 5. Who were the two men who came to Innocent HI ? 6. What was the work of the Franciscans ? 7. What was the work of Questions for Examination. 487 the Dominicans ? 8. Wlio suijported tlie Albigenses ? 9. Wliom did Innocent send against them? 10. Wliat -n^as the great battle with them? 11. Who was killed there? 12. How did tlie Crusaders treat their prisoners ? 13. Where was Simon de Montfort killed ? 14. When did Louis the Lion die ? 15. Who governed for his son ? 16, How was peace made ? 17. Whom did tlie four Provencal ladies marry ? 18. What was the Inquisition for ? Chaptek XYL— 1. When had Louis IX. come to the throne? 2. What was his character? 3. Why would he not take Guy- enne ? 4. Why would he not give up Normandy ? 5. What made him go on a Crusade ? 0. Where did he attack the Mo- hammedans ? 7. What city did he take ? 8. Where was he made prisoners? 9. What caused his disasters? 10. WIio were the Memlooks ? 11. How did Louis recover his liberty? 12, Where did he sit to do justice ? 13. Wb at county belonged to Louis's brother Charles ? 14. What kingdom did the Pope give him? 15. How many Crusades did Louis undertake? 16. Where did he go on the second journey ? 17. What was the cause of his death ? IS. When did he die ? Chapter XTII. — 1. When did Philip HI, begin to reign? 2. What were the Sicilian Vespers? 3. Who was made King of Sicily? 4, Who was sent to attack him in Aragon? 5. When did Philip HI. die? 6. What sort of jjerson was Philip lY.? 7. What province did he take from Edward I.? 8. How was peace made? 9. With whom was Philip's great quarrel? 10. What caused it? 11. Where was the Pope attacked ? 12. What was the end of Boniface YIII.? 13. What promise did the king obtain from Clement Y.? 14. 488 Questions for Examination, Where did Clement Y. come to live ? 15. What was the harm of the move to Avignon ? 16. What Order was destroyed hy Philip lY.? 17. Who was the Grand Master? 18. When did Philip the Fair die ? Chapter XYIII. — 1. How many sons did Philip the Fair leave ? 2. When did Louis X. begin to reign ? 3. When did Philip Y. begin to reign ? 4. When did Charles TV. begin to reign ? 5. When did he die ? 6. Who reigned after him ? 7. What relation was Philip YI. to him ? 8. Why did none of the daughters reign ? 9. But who laid claim to France .'' 10. What was Edward III.'s claim? 11. How was he stirred up? 12. Where did he go first? 13. "Wliere did he defeat the French ships ? 14. Who were fighting for Brittany ? 15. Who gained it? 16. Who were the great Breton knights ? 17. What made the English armies better than The French ? 18. Where did Edward defeat Philip ? 19. What misfortune led to a peace ? 20. What was the king's eldest grandson called? 21. Why was he called Dauphin ? 22. Who left him Yienne ? 23. When did Philip YI. die ? Chapter XIX.— 1. What had hurt the health of the Dau- phin ? 2. Who was Charles the bad ? 3. How was he of- fended ? 4. Who invaded France ? 5. Where was John made prisoner? 6. Where did the Black Prince rule? 7. What rufiians roamed in France ? 8. What were the troubles in Paris? 9. What was the rising of the peasants called? 10. What resolution had the Dauphin taken ? 11. How then did he cause the English to retreat ? 12. What were the condi- tions of peace ? 13. How did John fulfil them ? 14. When did John die ? 15. Who were his sons ? Questions for Examination, 489 Chaptek XX. — 1. How did Charles Y. manage his -war ? 2. Who T^'as his Constable ? 3. AYhat was the office of the Con- stable of France ? 4. When was Charles the Bad defeated ? 5. What question was settled at the battle of Auray ? 6. Who were the Free Companions ? 7. How did the king try to get rid of them ? 8. Who took up the cause of Peter the Cruel ? 9. Where did the Black Prince defeat Du Guesclin ? 10. Where was Peter the Cruel killed ? 11. Why did the Gascons appeal to Charles ? 12. How did he carry on the war ? 13. What town was sacked by the Black Prince ? 14. What was left to England in France '? 15. Where did Du Guesclin die? 16. Who was the next Constable ? Tl. Wlien did Charles Y. die ? Chaptek XXI. — 1. How old was Charles YI. when he came to the throne ? 2. Who quarrelled about him ? 3. What great quarrel was there in the Church ? 4. Where did these two Popes live ? 5. Where did the King of France hold by ? 6. How did the Count of Flanders get into trouble? 7. What were the cities of Flanders famous for ? 8. How was the Count hidden ? 9. Where were the Flemings defeated ? 10. Who tried to murder Clisson ? 11. What befel the king on his way ? 12. What brought on a second attack of his in- sanity ? 13. What Crusade was undertaken by the French ? Chaptek XXK. — 1. What was the state of Charles YI. ? 2. Y'hat was the state of France ? 3. Who were the chief princes ? 4. With which did Paris take part ? 5. What crime was committed ? G. What were the partizans of Orleans called? 7. How were the Armagnacs and Burgundians distinguished? 8. How many princes were Dauphins in turn ? 9. ^Vhat battle was lost by Dauphin Louis ? 10. Who had the chief power in 490 Questions for Examination. tlie Fi'encli councils ? 11. What agreement was made with Henry V. ? 12. Wliat murder was committed in the name of Dauphin Charles ? 13. What was the effect of the murder of John the Fearless ? 14. ITow much of France was held by Henry V.? 15. Who came to help the Dauphin? IG. What battle was won by the Scots allies ? 17- AVhat sieges were undertaken by Henry Y.? IS. When did Charles YI. die ? Chapter XXIII. — 1. Who was crowned King of France on Charles Yl.'s death? 2. What was Charles YII. called at first ? 3. Vv'ho stiiTed up France to his aid ? 4. What was the first exploit of Joan of Arc ? 5. What was her great object ? G. How was she misused ? 7. Where was she put to death ? 8. Who was the great Constable of France ? .9. What was the end of the hundred years' war ? 10. What was the end of the Great Schism ? 11. How had the hundred years' war begun ? 12. How had the Great Schism begun ? 13. Who was the mightiest prince in France ? 14. What was the end of Charles YII.? 15. When did he die ? Chapter XXIY.— 1. What were the faults of Louis XI.? 2. What was his religion ? 3. Who were his favorites ? 4. What became of his brother ? 5. Who was his great enemy ? 6. When did Louis fall into his own trap ? 7. How did he get out of it ? 8. Who invaded France ? 9. Where liad Louis and Edward a meeting ? 10. What war was stirred up against Duke Charles ? 11. What was the end of Duke Charles ? 12. Who succeeded him? 13. Whom did Mary of Burgundy marry ? 14. Who succeeded her ? 15, Whose rights did Louis buy ? IG. What right had Rene to Provence ? 17. What right Questions for Examination. 491 had Eene to ISTaples ? 18. Who were the children of Louis XL? 19. When did he die- ? Chaptek XXY. — 1. How old was Charles YIII. when he came to the crown ? 2. Who was the regent ? 3. With whom did she dispute ? 4. Who was wife to Charles VIIL? 5. How came Anno of Brittany to marry him ? C. Whom had the Bretons wislied her to marry ? Y. What was now joined to France ? 8. What expedition did Charles YIII. make ? 9. What duchy did the Duke of Orleans claim ? 10. How did Charles succeed ? 11. What battle did he win ? 12. But what became of his army in ilTaples ? 13. What good resolu- tions did Charles make ? 14. But how was ho prevented from keeping them ? 15. When did Charles YIII, die ? Chapteb XXYL— 1. Who succeeded Charles YIIL? 2. What was Louis XIFs right to the throne ? 3. Whom did he put away from being his wife ? 4. Whom did he marry ? 5. What expedition did he also make ? 6. What agreement was made? 7. Was it kept? 8. What battle was lost by the French ? 9. Who joined in the league of Cambrai ? 10. Who joined in the Holy League ? 11. What was the Holy League to do ? 12. What battle was gained by the French ? 13. But what befel them in Italy? 14. What little kingdom did the Spaniards seize? 15. What battle was won by the English? 16, What city was taken ? 17. How was peace made ? 18. When did Louis XII. die ? ChaptePv XXYII. — 1. What was the right of Francis I. to the throne? 2. What was his first war? 2. What was his 492 Question'^ for Examination. first battle ? 4. What agreement did Francis make with the Pope ? 5. What harm was done by the Concordat of Bologna ? 6. Where did Francis meet Henry YIIL? 7. Who was chosen emperor? 8. What subject of Francis became a traitor? 9. In what battle was Francis made prisoner ? 10. What was the date of the battle of Pavia ? 11. What engagement did Francis make. 12. What protest did he make ? 13. What did he cry when he was set free ? 14. How long had he been a prisoner ? Chaptek XXVIII.— 1. Who marched upon Rome ? 2. Who made peace ? 3. Who was trying to reform France ? 4. Who read Calvin's books ? 5. How were the Calvinists perse- cuted ? 6. What were they called in France ? 1. Where did Calvin go to live ? 8. Who was Francis's niece ? 9. Whom did Jane of Navarre marry ? 10. What part of France did Charles Y. invade ? 11. Who was sent against him ? 12. When did Charles visit Francis ? 13. Why did Charles Y. and Henry YIII. invade France ? 14. What city did Henry take ? 15. Why did he give it back ? 16. When did Francis I. die ? 17. What children did he leave ? Chapter XXIX. — 1. What state was the French court in ? 2. Who tried to improve it ? 3. How were the Huguenots treated? 4. Who was the queen? 5. Who was Henry's best general ? 6. What siege did Guise stand ? *7. Whither did Charles Y. retire ? 8. Who had the empire ? 9. What did Philip II. have ? 10. Who was his wife ? 11. What town was besieged ? 12. Who was defending it ? 13. What battle was fought? 14. AVhat peace was made? 15. What war was ended by the peace of Cateau Cambresis ? 16. What dukedom Questions for Examination. 493 had Henry to restore ? 17. To whom was he to marry his sister ? 18. What happened during tlie wedding feast ? 19. In what year did Henry II. die ? Chapter XXX. — 1. How old was Francis II. when he came to the crown ? Who governed for liim '? 3. WIio was his wife ? 4. Who was his chief nohle ? 5. Who were the chief Huguenots ? 6. Wliat plot was made against tlie Bour- bon brothers ? 7. How^ was the murder prevented ? 8. When did Francis II. die ? 9. How old was Charles IX.? 10. Who had influence with Catherine ? 11. What conferences were held ? 12. What was the massacre of Yassy ? 13. Who were the two parties.? 14. Who was always head of the Catholics ? 15. Who was always head of the Huguenots ? 16. What was the end of the Duke of Guise ? 17. Who was accused of the murder ? 18. Where was Montmorency killed .? 19. Who was killed at Jarnac ? 20. Who was now head of the Huguenots .? 21. Who w'as the son of Jane of Navarre ? 22. What was the death of Queen Jane ? Chapter XXXI — 1. Who were the sons of Catherine de Medici.'^ 2. Which was reigning? 3. What was her jDlot? 4. How did she bring the Huguenots together ? 5. What was the day of their murder ? 6. Who was the chief of the Huguenots killed at the St. Bartholomew.'' 7. Who were the chief actors in it .? 8. Who was kept a prisoner .? 9. What people chose Henry of Anjou for their king ? 10. Who was the favorite of the Catholics ? 11. When did Charles IX. die ? 12. How did Henry III. return from Poland ? Chapter XXXII.— 1. What were the habits of Henry HI .? 494 Questions for Examination, 2. Who took the command of the Huguenots ? 3. How came Henry of JTavarre to be heh- of France'? 4. Who objected to his reigning ? 5. What was the object of the League ? 6. What was the murder at Blois ? Y. How did tlie League try to revenge itself? 8. Where did the kings meet? 9. Who held out Paris against them ? 10. Who murdered Henry HI. ? 11. In what year ? Chapter XXXIIL— 1. What was Henry lY.'s right to the crown ? 2. Whom did the Leaguers want for queen ? 3. What did Henry do to win them over ? 4. LIow long was it before he could enter Paris ? 5. What did he do to bring about peace ? 6. What was the edict that tolerated the Calvinists ? 7. Whom did Henry lY. marry ? 8. By whom was he mur- dered ? 9. In what year ? 10. What do the French call him } Chapter XXXIV. — 1. How old was Louis XIII. when he came to the throne? 2. Who was regent ? 3. How was Mary de Medici ruled.? 4. What was the end of Concini ? 5. What became of Mary? 6. Who was Louis XIII. 's great minister? 7. Whose power did Eichelieu put down ? S. What was the last city of the Huguenots ? 9. Who were Louis's two great generals ? 10. What great wars were going on ? 11. When did Louis XIIT. die ? Chapter XXXV. — 1. How old was Louis XIV. when he came to the crown? 2. Who was regent? 3. Who was min- ister? 4. Who was his great general? 5. What battle did Conde win ? 6. What peace was made ? 7. What was the Fronde ? 8. Why was it so called ? 9. What was the differ- ence between the English and French Parliaments ? 10. What Questions for E.vamination. 495 edict v/onld not tlie Parliament register? 11. How many sieges of Paris were there? 12. Wlio toolc part against Maza- rin ? 13. Wliat was Conde forced to do ? 14. In whose: army- did be serve ? 15. Who commanded against him ? IC, What peace was made ? 17. Whom was Lonis to marry ? ZS. What was the cliai'acter of Louis XIV." Chapter XXXVI. — 1. How did Lonis go fd the wars ? 2. Wliat great war did lie begin ? 3. How were the English gained to his side.'' 4. Who was his great enemy in Holland ? 5. How did Holland protect itself ? 6. Who took the part of the Dutch ? 7. Who invaded Germany ? 8. Wliere was Turenne killed ? 9. Who commanded in his stead } 10. What town and state did Lonis take? 11. Who was tutor to Louis's son ? 12. Who was tutor to his grandson ? 13. What great offence was given by Fenelon } 14. Whom did Louis marry in his old age ? 15. What law f^'.i he repeal ? 16. What did the Huafuenots suffer ? Chapter XXXVIL— 1. How did Louis XIV. lose the Eng- lish for allies ? 2. W\.om did he try to restore in England ? 3. What defeats did he suffer } 4. What great war began ? 5. Who claimed the crown of Spain ? 6. Who was the nearest heir? 7. Whom did Louis put forward ? 8. Whose cause did the English take up? 9. Who commanded the English army? 10. Who commanded the Austrian army? 11. Who was Prince Eugene ? 12. Who commanded the French armies ? 13. WherCj were the Fi-ench beaten ? 14. Wliere were they victorious? 1-5. What ended the war? 16. Who became King jf Spain ? 17. What were the losses in the Royal 496 Questions for Exami'nation. Family ? 18. Who alone survived ? 19. How long did Louis SIV. reign ? 20. In what year did he die ? Chapter XXXYIII. — 1. How old was Louis XY. when he came to the throne ? 2. Who was regent ? 3. What was the state of the court? 4, What great war was going on? 5. What victories did the French gain ? 6. Who had all the power in France now ? 7. Who had huilt up that power? 8. How was it used by Louis XY.? 9. What was the state of the people? 10. Who were writing against religion? 11. Who was heir of France ? 12. Whom did the young Dauphin marry ? 13. When did Louis XY. die ? Chapter XXXIX. — 1. What were the evils in Louis XYI's time? 2. How did the queen affront jaeople ? 3. What was the American war? 4. Who ran away to fight among the Americans ? 5. What assembly did Louis call together ? 6. In what year did the States-General meet ? 7. What were they composed of ? 8. Who threatened the nobles ? 9. What prison did the mob pull down ? 10. What guard was enrolled ? 11. How did the States-General change its name ? 12. Where did the mob attack the king and queen ? 13. Where were they brought back to ? 14. What oath was required of the clergy ? 15. What happened on the lOtli of August ? 16. In what year w^as Louis XYI. deposed ? Chapter XL. — 1. Who professed to govern France ? 2. Where were the Royal Family shut up ? 3. Who tried to free them ? 4. What was the effect of all attempts for them ? Questions for Examination. 49T 5. Where were the emigrant nobles beaten ? 6. Who were the three men in power ? 7. What was this time called ? S. How were people put to death ? 9, Who were guillotined in the Koyal Family? 10. Who were left alive? 11. Who also were put to death ? 12. Who was enthroned at Notre Dame ? 13. What became of Marat ? 14. What became of Danton and Robespierre ? 15. How long had the Reign of Terror lasted ? 16. Who governed then ? 17. What wars were there ? 18. What great soldier came forward ? 19. Where was Bonaparte's home ? 20. Wliere did he lead the French ? 21. What road did he take into Italy ? 22. What part of Italy did he con- quer ? Chapter XLI. — 1. What was the government of France called ? 2. Where did Bonaparte lead his army ? 3. What battle did he gain there ? 4. But what became of his ships ? 5. Where did he march from Egypt? 6. What battle did he win in the Holy Land ? 7. What seige did he fail in ? 8. What called him home? 9. What was he chosen to be ? 10. What battle did he gain in Italy? 11. What became of his army in Egypt ? 12. When was the Peace of Amiens made ? 13. How soon was it broken ? 14. Whom did Napoleon put to death? 15. What rank did he take on himself? 16. What was the only nation that would not own him ? 17. Where was his fleet destroyed? 18. Where did Napoleon defeat the Austrians ? 19. Where did he defeat the Prussians ? 20. Where did he fight with the Prussians ? 21. What kingdoms did he give his bi-others ? 22. Who called the English to help them? 23. What battles opened the way to Yienna ? 24. Whom did Napoleon marry? 25, What was his last expedi- tion ? 26. What was the result ? 27. Who joined together 498 Questions for Examination. against him ? 28. What was he obliged to do ? 29. When did he abdicate ? oO. Where was he sent ? Chapter XLII. — 1. Who was made King of France ? 2. Who survived of the Royal Family ? 3. Who was the Duke of Angouleme ? 4. Who was his duchess ? 5. When did Napo- leon escape from Elba ? 6. How was he received ? 7. Where did Louis XYIII. flee ? 8. Who were the allies ? 9. Which were ready first ? 10. When was the battle of Waterloo ? 11. Who were engaged in it ? 12. To whom did Napoleon sur- render ? 13. Where was he confined ? 14. When did he die ? 15. What became of his son ? 16. Which of his marshals was put to death ? 17. Who was his great mhiister ? 18. What was the saying about the Bourbons ? 19. What did Louis grant the people ? 20. What murder took place in his time ? 21. When did Louis XVIII. die ? Chapter XLIII.—l. Who was the heir of Louis XYIII.? 2. By whom was he guided? 3, What made people discon- tented ? 4. With whom was the battle of Navarhio fought ? 5. What new khigdom arose ? 6. Why was there an expedi- tion to Algiers? 7. What edict of the king offended the French ? 8. What happened on the three days of July ? 9. In what year? 10. What became of Charles X.? 11. Who is his heir ? 12. Who was made king in his stead ? 13. Whose son was Louis Philippe } 14. From whom was he descended ? 15. What was he to be called ? 16. How was his power limited ? Chapter XLIV.— 1. What improvements took place in Questions for Examination. 499 France ? 2. Where was a settlement made ? 8. Who was the Arab chieftain ? 4. In what islands were settlements made ? 5. What honors were done to Napoleon ? 6. What parties were there in France ? 7. What was the badge of the moder- ate ? 8. What was the badge of the violent ? 9. What was the badge of the Legitimists ? 10. What was the conspiracy against Lonis Philippe ? 11. How did he lose his eldest son ? 12. What were the great discontents ? 13. How was Louis Philippe dethroned ? 14. In what year ? 15. What became of Louis Philippe ? Chaptek XLV. — 1. Who tried to bring in order ? 2. What did the Republicans want ? 3. What were their watchwords ? 4. What were barricades ? 5. What was the great day of barricades ? 6. Who was then killed ? 7. Who put down the Red Republicans ? 8. Whose cause did the French support in Italy? 9. Who were the live parties in France? 10. What did the Red Republicans want? 11. What did the moderate ones want ? 12. What did the Bonapartists want ? 13. What did the Orleanists want ? 14. What did the Legitimists want .'' 15. Who was made President at last ? 16. What was the coup d'etat ? Chapter XLYI. — 1. When did the Second Empire begin ? 2. What relation was the second emperor to the first ? 3. Whom did he marry ? 4. How did he alter Paris ? 5. In what war did the English and French become allies ? 6. What were the battles of the Crimean war? 7. To what war in Italy did the French assent? 8. What were the battles before ? 9. Who was made King of Italy ? 10. Who was made Emperor of Mexico? 11. Why did the French give him up? 12. What became of Maximilian ? 13. What vote was asked by the 500 Questions for Examination. emperor ? 14. What was the dispute with Prussia ? 15. When did the Prussian war begin ? Chapter XLYII. — 1. Where was the campaign in tlie war between France and Prussia ? 2. Wliat was the great battle ? 3. What became of the emperor ? 4. What became of the empress ? 5. What cities were besieged ? 6. How long did the siege of Paris last? 7. How were the wounded nursed? 8. On what terms was peace made? 9. What provinces were given up ? Chaptp:r XLVni. — 1. How did the Eetl Republicans break out ? 2. What did" they call their government ? 3. Where was the real government ? 4. How was Paris besieged ? 5. Who were mui-dered ? 6. What mischief was done ? 7. How was it a\^enged ? 8. Wiio are the parties in France ? 9. What iDlan was made? 10. What was Henry's answer? 11. Who alone accepted it? 12. How is France governed now ? £ 635