Glass Book \ ■ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/outlinesofuniver01webe OUTLINES UNIVERSAL HISTORY, THE CREATION OF THE WORLD THE PRESENT TIME. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF y- DR. GEORGE WEBER, ii PROFESSOR AND DIRECTOR OF THE HIGH SCHOOL OF HEIDELBERG, BY DR. M. BEHR, PROFESSOR OF GERMAN LITERATURE IN WINCHESTER COLLEGE. LONDON: WHITTAKER AND CO. AVE MARIA LANE. 1851. .\Al3G WSJ TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. The plan that has prevailed in the composition of the following work will be best gathered from the words of the author, in his preface to the German edition. " Influenced by the considera- tion that a Guide to History can only answer its object when it awakens the interest of the scholar, stimulates his desire for information, and excites his zeal for inquiry, I have every where/' writes he, " arrayed the historical material in a narra- tive form, and have endeavoured to give clearness, consistency, and animation to the form itself. My effort has been so to bring together the events of the world's history in their more prominent aspects and decisive moments, that the reader may carry away a clear idea of them, that the important facts may exhibit themselves with their causes and consequences, and thus be more strongly impressed upon the imagination, and conse- quently upon the memory ; and that the course of the narrative may be neither disturbed nor broken by interpolations and remarks which might require a further explanation. Far from following the usual course of compendiums, text books, and outlines, and heaping up a mass of materials in the smallest possible space, and thus forming a kind of skeleton register of the events of history as a resting point for the memory, I have rather endeavoured to limit my materials, and giving place only to the most important and influential, to arrange those in his- torical succession." ..." Mere historical events with names and dates are not retained by the memory, neither do they possess any instructive or educative power ; it is only when the historical fact is presented in combination with other objects, so that the VI TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. imagination and thinking faculty are both employed upon it, that it permanently impresses itself upon the mind of youth." A Text Booh of History written on the principles thus sug- gested, appeared to the translator to be a desideratum in Eng- lish literature, and the great reputation of Weber as an historian seemed a guarantee that a work proceeding from his pen would be superior in point of execution to the bulk of historical com- pilations at present in use. It may be essential to add that the book is written through- out in a spirit of orthodox Protestantism, and is entirely untinctured with the neology and infidelity at this time so prevalent in Germany. "Winchester, June 1851. ERRATA. Page 23, line 21, et seqq.for Donau read Danube. 364, line C from bottom, for April read March. CONTENTS. FIRST BOOK. HISTORY OE THE ANCIENT WORLD. INTRODUCTION, p. 1—5. I. § 1. The first race of Men, p. 1. II. § 2. The manner of living among the earliest races, p. 2. III. § 3. Forms of government ; distinction of Castes, p. 2. IV. § 4. The religion of the heathen world, p. 3. A. THE EASTERN RACES, p. 5—24. I. § 5. The Asiatics, p. 5. II. § 6. The Chinese, p. 6. III. § 7- The Indians, p. 7- § 8. Their religion, literature, art, p. 8. IV. Babylonians and Assyrians, p. 10. § 9. Nimrod, Semiramis, Salmanasser. § 10. The Chaldeans in Babylon; Nebuchad- nezzar. V. Egyptians, p. 11. § 1 1 . Division of Egypt. § 12. Religion and arts. § 13. History. VI. Phoenicians, p. 14. § 14. Navigation, commerce, discoveries. § 15. History of Tyre and Sidon. VII. The people of Israel, p. 15—20. § 16. The patriarchs. § 17. Exodus. § 18. Moses as lawgiver. § 19. Division of the pro- mised land. § 20. The Judges. § 21. Samuel and Saul. § 22. David ; Solo- mon ; division of the kingdom. § 23. Worship of idols ; the prophets. § 24. The Assyrian and Babylonian captivities. VIII. Medes and Persians, p. 19 — 24. § 25. Zoroaster's religious system. § 26. Astyages and Cyrus. § 27- Croesus of Lydia. § 28. Death of Cyrus. § 29. Cambyses ; Ammonium. § 30. Darius. § 31. Manners and customs of the Persians. B. HISTORY OP GREECE, p. 24—68. I, Geographical Survey, p. 24—26. § 32. a. The Greek Continent, p. 24. § 33. b. The Greek Islands, p. 25. II. § 34. The religion of the Greeks, p. 26. I. GREECE BEFORE THE PERSIAN WAR, p. 27—31. I. The time of the Trojan war, p. 27- § 35. Pelasgi ; eastern immigration. § 36. Hellenic races ; expedition of the Argonauts. § 37. Trojan war. § 38. Homer ; epic poetry. § 39- Immigration of the Dorians ; Codrus. § 40. Colonies. Mil CONTENTS. 2. The period of the wise men and lawgivers, p. 31. a. General view. § 41. Greeks and barbarians. § 42. Amphictyonic council ; Delphic oracle ; Olympic games. b. Lycurgus the Spartan lawgiver, p. 32. § 43. Laws of Lycurgus. a. Institutions of state. b. Mode of life. § 44. War with the Messenians. c. Solon, the lawgiver of the Athenians, p. 35. § 45. Draco ; laws of Solon. d. The tyrants, p. 36. § 4G. Their origin. § 47. Periander of Corinth ; Polycrates of Samos ; Pisistratus of Athens. § 48. The seven wise men ; Pythagoras. § 49. e. Lyric poetry. II. THE FLOURISHING PERIOD OF GREECE, p. 39. 1. The Persian war. § 50. Insurrection of the Greeks of Asia Minor. § 51. Battle of Marathon. § 52. Aristides and Themistocles. § 53. Thermopylae. §54. Salamis. § 55. Plattea; Mycale ; Eurymedon. 2. The supremacy of Athens, and the age of Pericles, p. 44. § 5G. Pausanias, the traitor. § 57. Deaths of Themis- tocles and Aristides. § 58. Cimon ; Pericles. 3. The Peloponnesian war (b.c. 431 — 404), p. 46. § 59. Origin of the war. § 60. The war to the peace of Nicias. § 61. Alcibiades; battle of Mantinaea. § 62. Disasters of the Athenians in Sicily. § 63. Death of Alcibiades. § 64. The fall of Athens ; the thirty tyrants. 4. So- crates, p. 49. § 65. Sophists ; Socrates ; Plato ; Xenophon. 5. § 66. The retreat of the ten thousand (b.c. 400), p. 50. 6. The time of Agesilaus and Epaminondas. § 67. The Corinthian war and the peace of Antalcidas. § 68. Expedition against Olynthus and siege of Thebes. § 69. The Theban war and the battle of Leuctra. § 70- Epaminondas in Peloponnesus ; battle of Mantintea. 7- The most flourishing period of Greece in literature and the arts. § 71 • Dramatic poetry; iEsehylus ; Sophocles; Euripides; Aristophanes. § 72. Prose literature ; Plato; Herodotus; Thucydides ; Xenophon. § 73- Rhetoric ; Isocrates ; Demosthenes ; JEschines. § 74. The fine arts of the Greeks. II. THE MACEDONIAN PERIOD, p. 57. 1. Philip of Macedon (b.c. 361—336). § 75. Character of Philip. § 76. The Sacred war. § 77- Battle of Cheeronea ; Philip's death. 2. Alexander the Great, p. 59. § 78. Fall of Thebes. § 79. Battle of Granicus. § 80. Battle of Issus. § 81. Tyre and Alexandria. § 82. Arbela and Gaugemala. § 83. Expedition into Bactria. § 84. March to India. § 85. Last years of Alexander. THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD, p. 63. § 86. a. Alexander's successors. b. Greece's last struggle ; the Achaian league, p. 64. § 87- Athens ; Phocion ; Demosthenes ; Demetrius. § 88. Sparta and the Achaian league. § 89. c. The Ptolemies and the Seleucidae, p. 65 § 90. d. The Jews under the Maccabees, p. 66. e. State of civilization during the Alexandrian period, p. 67. § 91. Theocritus ; Stoics and Epicureans. C. THE HISTOBY OE SOME, p. 69. § 92. The races and institutions of ancient Italy. I. ROME UNDER THE GOVERNMENT OF KINGS AND PATRICIANS, p. 70- 1. Rome under the kings (b.c. 753—509). § 93. Rome built. § 94. Rome under Romulus. § 95. Numa Pompilius. § 96. Tullus Hostilius and Ancus Marcius ; origin of the plebeians. § 97- Tarquinius Priscus and Servius Tullius. § 98. Tarcpiinius Superbus. 2. Rome as a republic under the patricians, p. 73. a. Horatius Codes ; the tribunes ; Coriolanus. § 99. Contest between the republi- CONTENTS. IX cans and Porsenna and Tarquin. § 100. Emigration to the sacred hill; Coriolanus. b. The Fabii; Cincinnatus ; the decemvirs, p. 75. § 101. War with theVeians and iEqui. § 102. Agrarian law ; Sp. Cassius. § 103. The decemvirs. § 104. Mili- tary tribunes and censors. c. Sack of Rome by the Gauls (b.c. 389), and the laws of Licinius Stolo (b.c. 366), p. 77- § 105. Taking of Veii by Camillus. § 106. Brennus in Rome. § 107- M. Manlius and the laws of L. Stolo. II. ROME'S HEROIC PERIOD, p. 79- 1. The time of the war with the Samnites, and the battles with Pyrrhus. § 108. First Samnite war. § 109. War with the Latins. § 110. Second Samnite war; Caudinian passes ; Sentinum. § 111. War with Tarentum and Pyrrhus. 2. The time of the Punic wars, p. 81. a. The first Punic war (b.c. 263-241). § 112. Carthage; Agathocles ; the Mamertines. § 113. Regulus. § 114. Hamilcar Bar- cas; termination of the first Punic war. b. The second Punic war (b.c. 218 — 202), p. 83. § 115. Sicily and Gallia Cisalpina Roman provinces. § 116. Saguntum. § 117. Hannibal's passage over the Alps and through Italy. § 118. Fabius Maxi- mus and the battle of Cannae. § 119. Capua; Syracuse ; Tarentum. § 120. Has- drubal's defeat on the Metaurus. § 121. Zama. c. Macedonia conquered ; Corinth and Carthage destroyed, p. 87- § 122. Philip II. and Antiochus III. subdued by the Romans. § 123. Battle of Pydna and destruction of Corinth. § 124. Destruc- tion of Carthage in the third Punic war. d. The manners and culture of the Romans, p. 90. § 125. Contest between Conservatism and progress ; Plautus ; Terence ; Cato. III. ROME'S DEGENERACY, p. 91. 1. Numantia ; Tiberius; Caius Gracchus. § 126. Rome's government of her provinces ; Numantia's insurrection and fall. § 127. Tiberius Gracchus. § 128. Caius Gracchus. 2. The times of Marius and Sylla, p. 93. § 129. The Jugurthine war. § 130. Cimbri and Teutones. § 131. The Social war. § 132. The first Mithridatic war. § 133. The first civil war ; death of Marius. § 134. The Corne- lian law and Sylla's death. 3. The times of Cneius Pompey and M. Tullius Cicero, . p. 97. § 135. Sertorius. § 136. The Servile war. § 137- War against the pirates. § 138. The second Mithridatic war. § 139. Catiline's conspiracy. 4. The times of Caius Julius Caesar, p. 99. § 140. The triumvirate. § 141. Caesar's wars in Gaul. § 142. The second civil war. § 143. Caesar's victories. § 144. Caesar's death. 5. The last years of the republic, p. 102. ' § 145. The second triumvirate ; Cicero's death. § 146. Philippi. § 147. Actium. IV. THE ROMAN EMPIRE, p. 103. 1. The times of Caesar Octavianus Augustus, p. 103. § 148. Rome's golden age. § 149. Roman literature. 2. The struggles of the Germans for liberty, p. 105. § 150. Hermann's victory in the Teutoburger forest. § 151. Germanicus. § 152. Tacitus on the manners and institutions of the Germans. 3. The Caesars of the Augustine race, p. 106. § 153. Tiberius. § 154. Caligula; Claudius. § 155. Nero. § 156. Galba ; Otho ; Vitellius. 4. The Flavii and Antonines, p. 109. § 157. Vespasian. § 158. The destruction of Jerusalem ; destruction of the Jewish state. § 159. Britain conquered by Agricola. § 160. Titus. § 161. Domitian ; Nerva; Trajan. § 162. Adrian ; Plutarch. § 163. Antoninus Pius ; Marcus Aure- lius. § 164. Cultivation and morals. 5. Rome under military government, p. 1 12. § 165. Commodus ; Pertinax ; Septimius Severus. § 166. Caracalla ; Heliogabalus ; Alexander Severus. § 167- Philippus Arabus ; Decius ; Gallienus. ' § 168. Aure- lian. § 169. Tacitus; Probus; Carus. § 170. Time of Diocletian. § 171. Con- stantine's victory at the Milvian bridge and sole empire. X CONTENTS. SECOND BOOK. MIGKATION OF NATIONS AND THE MIDDLE AGE. A. MIGRATION OF NATIONS AND ESTABLISHMENT OF MONOTHEISM. I. THE TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY OVER PAGANISM. 1. The Christian Church of the first century. § 172. Persecutions of the Chris- tians. 2. Constantine the Great and Julian the Apostate. § 173. Constantine's proceedings in Church and state. § 174. Arianism ; Augustine; the fathers of the Church. § 175- Julian the Apostate. II. THE MIGRATION OF NATIONS, p. 119—127. 1. Theodosius the Great. § 176. Huns and West Goths. 2. West Goths ; Bur- gundians and Vandals, p. 120. § 177- Alaric ; Stilicho ; Radagais. § 178- Alaric in Italy. § 179. The Vandals in Africa. 3. Attila king of the Huns (a.d. 450), p. 122. § 180. Battle with the Huns; Aquileja. 4. § 181. Destruction of the Western Roman empire (a.d. 476), p. 122. 5. § 182. Theodoric the Ostrogoth (a.d. 500), p. 123. G. Clodion, king of the Franks and the Merovingians, p. 123. § 183. Battle of Zulpich. § 184. The Merovingians and their Mayor of the palace. 7. § 185. The Anglo-Saxons, p. 124. 8. The Byzantine empire and the Longobards, p. 125. § 186. The court; Justinian. § 187. Subjection of the Vandals and the Ostrogoths. § 188. Alboin. § 189. The Iconoclasts and the Iconoduli. III. MOHAMMED AND THE ARABIANS, p. 127—131. § 190. Arabia. § 191. Mohammed the prophet. § 192. The Mohammedans in Persia and Egypt. § 193. Ali and the Ommiades. § 194. The Arabs in Spain and France. § 195. The Abbassides in Bagdad. § 196. The battles between Christians and Mohammedans in Spain. § 197- Arab cultivation and literature. B. THE MIDDLE AGE. I. THE PERIOD OF THE CARLO VINGI, p. 131—135. I. Pepin the Little (a.d. 752— 768) ; Charlemagne (768—814). § 198. Pepin the Little and Bonifacius. § 199. Saxons and Longobards. § 200. War with the Saxons, and defeat at Roncesvalles. § 201. Charlemagne, Roman emperor. § 202. His internal government. 2. Dissolution of the Frank empire, p. 134, 135. § 203. Louis the Debonnaire ; Treaty of Verdun. § 204. Charles the Fat and Arnulf. § 205. Charles the Simple and Hugh Capet. II. NORMANS AND DANES, p. 135. § 206. Scandinavia ; Iceland ; Russia. § 21)7- England ; Alfred ; Canute ; William the Concp-ieror. § 208. Lower Italy ; Robert Guiscard. III. THE SUPREMACY OF THE GERMANO-ROMAN EMPIRE, p. 137- 1. The House of Saxony (919—1024.) § 209. Henry the Fowler. § 210. Otto the Great. § 211. Otto II. and III. § 212. Henry II.; German cultivation under the Ottos. 2. The House of Franconia, p. 139—142. § 213. Conrad II. and CONTENTS. XI Henry III. § 214. Henry IV. and the Saxons. § 215. Henry IV. and pope Gregory VII. § 216. Henry IV.'s death. § 217. Henry V. and Lothaire of Saxony. IV. THE ASCENDANCY OF THE CHURCH IN THE TIME OF THE CRUSADES, p. 122. 1. The Crusades. § 218. The assembly of the Church at Clermont. § 219. Peter of Amiens and Walter the Penniless. § 220. The first crusade under Godfrey of Bouillon. § 221. Conquest of Jerusalem. § 222. The second crusade. § 223. The third crusade. § 224. The fourth crusade ; the Latin empire in Constantinople. § 225. The fifth crusade ; the emperor Frederick II. § 226. The sixth crusade, under Louis IX. § 227- The consequences of the crusades ; orders of knights. § 228. War against the Albigenses. 2. The Hohenstaufens (a.d. 1138 — 1154), p. 151 — 158. § 229. Welfs and Waiblings. § 230. Frederick Barbarossa in Italy; Arnold of Brescia. § 231. Milan destroyed ; Alexandria founded. §232. Battle of Legnano ; peace of Constance. § 233. Frederick Barbarossa and Henry the Lion. § 234. Henry VI. and Philip of Swabia. § 235. Pope Innocent III. and the emperor Otto IV. § 236. Frederick II. 's contest with the papacy. § 237. Rival emperor in Germany. § 238. Frederick II. 's death. § 239. Death of Manfred at Beneventum. § 240. Conradine's death ; the Sicilian vespers. 3. General view of the Middle Ages, p. 158. § 241. The feudal system. § 242. Chivalry. § 243. Hierarchy. § 244. Monachism. § 245. Mendicant orders ; Franciscans and Dominicans. § 246. State of the towns. § 247. Literature (1), Scholastics and Mystics. § 248. (2) Science and the writing of history. § 249. (3) Poetry. V. DECAY OF CHIVALRY AND CORRUPTION OF THE CHURCH, p. 166. 1. The Interregnum (a.d. 1250 — 1273). § 250. Club law; confederations of towns. 2. Origin of the House of Hapsburg and the Helvetic confederation, p. 166 — 169. § 251. Rudolf of Hapsburg. §252. Rudolf's proceedings in the empire. § 253. Adolf of Nassau and Albert of Austria. § 254. The confederation of the Rutli ; William Tell ; Morgarten. 3. Philip the Fair of France and the emperor Louis the Bavarian, p. 169 — 172. § 255. Philip IV. and pope Bonifacius VIII. ; the popes at Avignon. § 256. Dissolution of the order of the Temple. § 257. Henry of Luxemburg. § 258. Louis the Bavarian and Frederick the Fair. § 259. Diet at Rense ; Louis' death. 4. The emperors of the House of Luxemburg, p. 172 — 174. § 260. Charles IV. § 261. Wenceslaus ; the German town war. § 262. Rupert of the Palatinate and Sigismund. 5. The division in the Church and the great councils, p. 174. § 263. The division in the Church; WiclifF and Huss. § 264. The council of Constance. § 265. The Hussite war. § 266. The council of Basle. 6. Germany under Frederick III. and Maximilian I., p. 178. § 267. Albert II. and Frederick III. § 268. Maximilian I. ; change in the German consti- tution. § 269. End of the middle age. VI. HISTORY OF THE REMAINING EUROPEAN STATES DURING THE MIDDLE AGE, p. 179. 1. France. § 270. a. France under the House of Capet (a.d. 987 — 1328). h. France under the House of Valois (a.d. 1328—1529), p. 180. § 271. Philip VI. and John the Good ; Crecy and Poictiers. § 272. Charles V. and VI. ; civil war. § 273. Battle of Agincourt. § 274. Maid of Orleans ; Louis XI. 2. England, p. 183—186. § 275. Henry Plantagenet and Thomas a. Becket. § 276. Richard Lion-heart and John Lackland. § 277- Edward I. and the war of liberty in Scotland. § 278- Edward III. ; the House of Lancaster. § 279. The wars of the red and white Xll CONTENTS. rose. 3. Spain, p. 186— 189. § 289. State of Spain in the middle age. §231. Aragon and Castile. § 282. Ferdinand and Isabella; the Inquisition. § 283. Expulsion of the Moors. § 4. Italy, p. 189—194. a. Upper Italy. § 284. Venice. § 285. Genoa. § 280. Milan. § 287- Savoy and Piedmont. h. Middle and Lower Italy, p. 191. § 288. Florence; Cosmo de Medici. § 289. Lorenzo the Magnificent; Savanarola ; fine arts. § 290. State of the Church ; Ferrara. §291. Naples and Sicily. 5. The new Burgundian territory, p. 194. § 292. Condition of the kingdom under the first dukes. § 293. Charles the Bold. § 294. The new Burgundian territory after the death of Charles. 6. Scandinavia, p. 195. § 295. Establishment of Christianity in the three Scandinavian kingdoms. § 296. Denmark before the union of Calmar. § 297- Sweden before and after the union of Calmar. 7. Hungary, p. 198. § 298. Stephen the Pious; the Saxons in Transylvania ; the " Golden Privilege." § 299. Louis the Great and Matthias Corvinus. 8. Poland, p. 199. § 300. State of Poland; Casimir the Great. § 301. The Jagellons ; formation of the power of the nobles. 9. The Russian empire, p. 201. § 302. The imperial House of Ruric; Ivan ; Vasilyevitsch. 10. Moguls and Turks, p. 202 — 205. § 303. Zengis-Khan and his sons. § 304. The Osman Turks in Asia Minor. § 305. Bajazet and Timur. § 30G. Murad II. ; the Christian army defeated at Warna. § 307. Taking of Constantinople ; greatness and decay of the Osman empire. THIRD BOOK. THE MODERN EPOCH. I. THE FORERUNNERS OF THE MODERN EPOCH, p. 206. 1. The sea passage to the East Indies, and the discovery of America, p. 206". § 308. Invention of the compass ; gunpowder ; printing. § 309. The Portuguese in the East Indies. § 310. Christopher Columbus. § 311. Balboa; Cortez ; Pizarro. § 312. Consequences of the discovery of America. 2. The revival of the arts and sciences, p. 210. § 313. Italy ; Germany (Reuchlin, Erasmus, Hutten) ; Humanists and Obscurantists. II. THE TIME OF THE REFORMATION, p. 212. 1. The German Reformation, p. 212—221. a. Dr. Martin Luther. § 314. The sale of indulgences and the ninety-five theses. § 315. Luther. § 316. Cajetan ; Frederick the Wise ; Miltitz. § 317- His disputation at Leipsic ; burning of the pope's bull. § 318. Diet of Worms. § 319. Dr. Carlstadt and the Anabaptists ; Philip Melancthon. § 320. Extension of the Reformation. b. The peasant war, p. 210". § 321. Thomas Munzer. § 322. Subjection of the peasants. c. The Augsburg confession, p. 218. § 323. Activity of Luther and Melancthon ; Diet of Spire. § 324. Diet of Augsburg. d. Ulric Zwingle, p. 220. § 325. Reformation in Switzerland. § 32G. Religious war; battle of Kappel. 2. Wars of the House of Hapsburg against France, p. 221. § 327. Charles V. and Francis I. ; wars respecting Milan. § 328. Battle of Pavia ; taking of Rome ; Ladies' Peace of Cambray. § 32;). Campaign against Tunis ; second and third war between Charles and Francis. 3. The war of religion in Germany, p. 225. § 330. The league of Smalcald ; the gospel in Wirtcmbcrg. § 331. The Anabaptists in Munster. § 332. Extension of the Reformation in Saxony, Brandenburg, the Palatinate, &c. § 333. The war of Smalcald; campaign on the Danube. §334. Charles V.'s triumphant expedition into Southern Germany. § 335. Battle near CONTENTS- Xlll Miihlberg; the elector of Saxony and the landgraf of Hesse taken prisoners. § 336. The Augsburg interim. § 337. Maurice of Saxony ; the treaty of Passau. § 338. The religious war of Augsburg. § 339. Charles V. dies. 4. Progress of the Reformation through Europe, p. 234. a. Lutheranism and Calvinism. § 340. Germany; the Lutheran and Reformed Churches. §341. Switzerland; Calvinism. § 342. Calvinism in France, in the Netherlands, in Scotland. b. Establishment of the Anglican Church, p. 237. § 343. England ; Henry VIII. 's ecclesiastical innova- tions. § 344. Henry VIII. and his wives. § 345. Establishment of the Episcopal Church under Edward VI. § 346. The English Church under Maria and Elizabeth. c. The Reformation in the three Scandinavian kingdoms, p. 240. § 347- Scandi- navia ; Sweden under Gustavus Vasa. § 348. The Reformation in Denmark. § 349. Sweden under the sons of Gustavus Vasa. § 350. Poland. d. The Catholic Church, p. 243. § 351. Inquisition ; papacy; Council of Trent. § 352. Order of Jesuits: 5. The times of Philip II. (a.d. 1556—1598) and Elizabeth (a.d. 1558— 1603), p. 245. § 353. Philip II. : character and mode of government. a. Portugal united with Spain, p. 246. § 354. King Sebastian. b. Struggle for liberty in the Netherlands, p. 247. § 355. Philip's attacks on the privileges of the Netherlanders. § 356. Compromise ; the Gueses ; sacrilege. § 357. Alba in the Netherlands. § 358. Don Juan ; Alexander Farnese ; William of Orange. § 359. The Armada ; termination of the war. § 360. Trade ; government synod of Dort. c. France during the war of religion, p. 251. § 361. Position of parties. § 362. The first three wars of religion. § 363. The Bartholomew night. § 364. Henry III. and the holy league. § 365. Henry IV. d. Elizabeth and Mary Stuart, p. 256. § 366. Difference in the characters of the two queens ; Knox. § 367- Mary Stuart in Scotland. § 368. Mary Stuart in England. § 369. Rise of England, and death of Elizabeth ; Essex. e. Culture and literature in the century of the Reformation. § 370. 1. Germany ; 2. Italy ; 3. Spain and Portugal ; 4. England, p. 259. III. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, p. 261. 1. The thirty years' war (a.d. 1618 — 1648). a. Bohemia; Palatinate; Lower Germany; Tilly; appearance of Wallenstein. §371- Union and league. §372. The letters patent, and the proceedings in Prague. § 373. Frederick V., and the battle of the White Hill. § 374. Tilly in the Palatinate. § 375. Wallenstein in the north of Germany. § 376. Edict of restitution ; Diet of Regensburg ; Wallenstein's deposition. b. Interference of Sweden ; Gustavus Adolphus and Wallenstein, p. 26'7. § 377- Gustavus Adolphus in Pomerania ; destruction of Magdeburg. § 378. Battle of Breitenfield and Leipsic ; triumphant course of Gustavus Adolphus. § 379. Nuremberg ; Lutzen. § 380. Alliance of Heilbron ; Wallenstein's death. c. Ter- mination of the war; peace of Westphalia, p. 270. § 381. Bernhard of Weimar; Baner. § 382. Torstenson ; Wrangel ; termination of the war. § 383. Peace of Westphalia. d. Sweden under Christina and Charles X. ; change in the constitution of Denmark, p. 272. § 384. Sweden under Christina. § 385. Charles X., and the change in the constitution of Denmark. 2. The revolution in England, and the ex- pulsion of the Stuarts, p. 2?3. a. The first two Stuarts (James I. 1603 — 1625, Charles I. 1625 — 1649). § 386. James's character and principles. § 387. The gunpowder-plot ; nuptial expedition of the prince of Wales ; position in relation to parliament. § 388. Petition of right ; Strafford ; Laud. § 389. Hampden and the Scottish covenant. § 390. The long parliament; Strafford's fall. § 391. Civil war ; Cromwell's appearance. § 392. Victory of the Independents ; Charles with the Scots. § 393. Death of Charles. b. Oliver Cromwell, p. 280. § 394. Crom- well's victories at Dunbar and Worcester. § 395. Cromwell as Lord Protector, the parliament. § 396. Restoration. c. The last two Stuarts (Charles II. 1660 — 1685, and James II. 1685—1688), p. 283. § 397. Government of Charles II.; Test XIV CONTENTS. Act ; Habeas Corpus Act ; Whigs and Tories. § 398. Government and fall of James II. § 399. William and Mary; Bill of Rights; union with Scotland. 3. The age of Louis XIV., p. 286. a. Richelieu and Mazarin. § 400. Louis XIII. ; government and activity of Richelieu. § 401. Anne of Austria and Mazarin ; war of the Fronde. b. Government and conquests of Louis XIV., p. 289. § 402. Louis XIV. and his ministers and generals. § 403. The Spanish and Dutch war ; peace of Aix. § 404. Sasbach ; Fehrbellin ; peace of Nimeguen. § 405. Reunions ; Stras- burg wrested from the empire. c. Austria's distress and triumph, p. 292. § 406. The Turks before Vienna ; peace of Carlowitz. d. The war of Orleans, p. 293. § 407. Desolation of the Palatinate ; peace of Ryswick. e. Life at the court ; litera- ture ; Church, p. 294. § 408. Industry ; court of Versailles ; art and literature. § 409. Jansenists ; persecution of the Huguenots. IV. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, p. 297- 1. The Spanish war of succession (1702—1714). § 410. Origin of war; position of parties. §411. Hochstadt ; Prince Eugene and Marlborough. §412. Ramil- lies; Turin; Spain. §413. Humiliation of France ; Malplaquet. §414. Change in affairs; peace of Utrecht. § 415. France; Orleans; duke-regent. § 416. Spain; Philip V. ; Ferdinand VI. § 417. England under the House of Hanover; attempts of the Stuarts frustrated. 2. Charles XII. of Sweden and Peter the Great of Russia in the Northern war (1700— 1718). § 418. Sweden and Russia under the House of Romanoff. §419. Peter's reforms. §420. Poland under Frederick Augustus the Strong. § 421. Charles XII. in Denmark and Poland; Stanislaus Lescinski. § 422. Charles XII. in Saxony ; his character. § 423. Peter on the Baltic ; battle of Pultowa. § 424. Charles XII. in Turkey. § 425. Death of Charles XII. § 426. Reformation in Russia. § 427- Alexei ; Menzikoff ; Elizabeth. § 428. The Polish war of succession. 3. The rise of Prussia, p. 309. § 429. Frederick I. § 430. Frederick William I. § 431. Youth of Frederick II. 4. The times of Frederick II. and Maria Theresa, p. 312. a. The Austrian war of succession (a.d. 1740 — 1748). § 432. Cause of the war; Pragmatic sanction; Charles Albert. § 433. The first Silesian war ; Charles' coronation. § 434. The Hungarians ; diffi- culties of Bavaria. § 435. Prague ; Dettingen. § 436. The second Silesian war. § 437. Close of the war ; peace of Aix. b. The seven years' war (a. d. 1756 — 1763), p. 315. § 438. Austria's alliance with Russia, France, and Saxony. § 439. Dres- den and Pirna. §440. Prague; Collin; Rosbach ; Leuthen. §441. Zorndorf; Hochkirch. § 442. Kunersdorf; Bergen; Minden. § 443. Leignitz ; Torgau. § 444. Peter III. and Catharine II. of Russia. § 445. Close of war ; peace of Hubertsburg. c. The German empire and the age of Frederick, p. 320. § 446. Condition of the German empire. § 447. Frederick's internal government. § 448. The Bavarian war of succession and the alliance of princes. d. The intellectual popular life in Germany, p. 323. § 449. Poetry. § 450. Religion; historical writing ; philosophy ; education. FOURTH BOOK. THE LATEST PEEIOD. A. THE FORERUNNERS OF THE REVOLUTION, p. 326. 1. The literature of illumination. § 451. Character of French literature. § 452. Voltaire ; Montesquieu ; Rousseau. § 453. Effects of the literature of illumination ; CONTENTS. XV dissolution of the Jesuits' society of illuminati. 2. The American war of independ- ence, p. 329. § 454. Origin of the war ; position of parties in England. § 455. The war to the capitulation of Saratoga ; Washington ; Franklin ; Lafayette. § 456. Sym- pathy of France ; armed neutrality. § 457- Extension of the war ; siege of Gibraltar. § 458. Peace of Versailles ; Holland ; United States of America. 3. Innovations of princes and ministers, p. 333. § 459. Character of political and ecclesiastical reforms. § 460. Portugal under Pombal ; Spain under Charles III. and Aranda ; France ; Choiseul; Turgot and Malasherbes. § 461. Struensee in Denmark. § 462. Gus- tavus III. of Sweden. § 463. Reforms of Joseph II. in Austria. § 464. Internal government of Catharine II. in Russia. 4. The partition of Poland, p. 339. § 465. State of Poland ; king Stanislaus Poniatowski. § 466. The contest with the Dissidents ; Confederation of Radom and Bar. § 467. First Turkish war ; first parti- tion of Poland. § 468. Tauris ; second Turkish war ; Poland's new constitution. § 469. Confederation of Targowicz ; second partition of Poland. § 470. Poland's end. B. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, p. 345. 1 . The last days of absolute monarchy, p. 345—376. § 471. Louis XV. and the em- pire of the passions. § 472. Taxation; parliament. § 473. Louis XVI. and his court ; increasing financial difficulties ; Necker ; Calonne. § 474. Contest with the parlia- ment ; summoning of the estates-general. 2. The period of the national assembly, p. 348. § 475. The third estate declares itself a national assembly. § 476. Storm of the Bastile. § 477- The new system. § 478. The king and the national as- sembly at Paris. § 479. Ceremony of the federation ; death of Mirabeau ; flight of the king. 3. The legislative assembly and the fall of the monarchy, p. 353. § 480. Position of parties ; Girondist minister. § 481. The tenth of August. § 482. The days of September. 4. Republican France under the government of the National Convention, p. 356. § 483. Execution of the king. § 484. The war ; Dumourier. § 485. Fall of the Girondists. § 486. Rule of the Jacobins. § 487- I- Persecutions of the aristocrats. § 488. 2. Horrors in the south. § 489. Bloody scenes in La Vendee. § 490. Fall of the Dantonists. § 491. 3. Wars of the republic ; first coalition. § 492. Peace of Basle. § 493. Robespierre's fall. § 494. The last days of the convention. 5. France under the Directory, p. 368. § 495. Napoleon in Italy. § 496. Internal state of France; Babeuf ; royalists. § 497. The republicans in Italy; revolution in Switzerland. § 498. War of the second coalition. § 499. Napoleon in Egypt and Syria. § 500. The eighteenth Brumaire. C. GOVERNMENT OF NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, p. 377. I. The consulate (1800— 1804). § 501. The consular constitution. § 502. Ma- rengo and Hohenlinden. § 503. Egypt ; the peace of Amiens ; murder of the emperor Paul. § 504. The new court and the concordat. § 505. Conspiracies. II. Napoleon emperor (1804—1814), p. 382. 1. § 506. The empire. 2. Austerlitz ; Presburg ; Confederation of the Rhine, p. 383. § 507- Hanover ; Italy; Prussia. § 508. Ulm; Trafalgar. § 509. Austerlitz; peace of Presburg. § 510. Establishment of the Rhenish Confederation. 3. Jena; Tilsit; Erfurt, p. 388. § 511. Occasions of the Prussian war. § 512. Battle of Jena, and its immediate consequences. § 513. Preuss ; Eylau; Friedland; peace of Tilsit. §514. Proceedings in Sweden and Denmark; Napoleon and Alexander in Erfurt. 4. The events in the Pyrenean peninsula, p. 392. § 515. Junot in Lisbon ; intrigues in Bayonne ; Joseph Buonaparte king of Spain. § 516. Insurgent war in Spain; Dupont's capitulation. § 517. Guerilla war; La Romana; constitution of the year '12. § 518. End of the Peninsular war. § 519. Imprisonment of the pope. 5. The second Austrian war; Hofer; Schill Xvi CONTENTS. (1809), p. 390. § 520. Aspern and Wagram. § 521. Popular war in the Tyrol ; the peace of Vienna. § 522. Schill ; William of Brunswick ; Stein ; Scharnhorst. § 523. The French empire at its height. 6. The war against Russia (1812), p. 400. § 524. Origin of the wars. § 525. Napoleon in Poland. § 520. March to Moscow. § 527. Retreat of the grand army. D. DISSOLUTION OF THE FRENCH EMPIRE, AND ESTABLISHMENT OF A FRESH SYSTEM, p. 403. 1. The German war of liberation, and the fall of Napoleon, p. 403. § 528. Rise of Germany. § 529. German war of liberty from the year 1813. § 530. Battle of Lcipsic, and its results. § 531. Napoleon's last struggle. 2. Napoleon's death, and the restoration, p. 407. § 532. Napoleon's abdication; the first peace of Paris. § 533. Congress of Vienna, and the first period of the restoration. § 534. Napoleon's return, and the government of the hundred days. § 535. Triumph of legitimacy, and Murat'a death. § 530. Waterloo. § 537- St. Helena. § 538. Second peace of Paris ; second restoration. E. THE PEOPLE AND STATES OF EUROPE FROM THE HOLY ALLIANCE TO THE PRESENT TIME, p. 412. 1. The Holy Alliance and the position of parties, p. 412. § 539. The Holy Al- liance. § 540. Liberals and conservatives. 2. France, p. 413. § 541. Louis XVIII. § 542. Reign of Charles X. 3. The constitutional struggles in the Pyrenean peninsula and in Italy, p. 415. § 543. Ferdinand VII. and the camarilla. § 544. Victory of the constitutionalists. § 545. Intervention of the Holy Alliance in Italy. §540. Destruction of the Cortes' government in Spain. § 547- Constitutional struggles in Portugal. 4. Great Britain, p. 418. § 548. State of England; increasing poverty. § 549. Court and government. § 550. Ireland. 5. Germany, p. 421. § 551. Struggle of opinions and position of parties. § 552. Feast of the Wartburg; Sand; decrees of Carlsbad. 0. Greece's struggle for liberty, p. 424. § 553. Ypsilanti and the sacred band. § 554. Greece's struggle till the fall of Missolonghi, the Philhellenists. § 555. Navarino ; Adrianople ; conclusion. 7- The new romantic literature, p. 427. 8. The July revolution of Paris and its conse- quences, p. 428. § 557. The July revolution. § 558. General consequences. § 559. The revolution in Belgium. § 500. Rise and fall of Poland. § 501. Liberal movements in Germany. § 502. Insurrections in Italy; struggles between throne and constitution in Spain. 9. Overthrow of the throne of July, and the latest revo- lutionary tempests, p. 435. a. The years of political and social agitation. § 503. In- ternal state of France. §504. Italy; Germany; Switzerland, b. The Paris revolution of February and its consequences, p. 440. § 504. The revolution of February and the French republic. § 506. The March days in Vienna and Berlin, and commotions in Germany. § 507. Preliminary parliament ; committee of fifty ; national assembly. § 568. Italy's rise and fall. § 509. The truce of Malmo, and the Frankfurt September horrors. § 570. The Vienna October days. §571. Programme of Gagern ; dissolu- tion of the Berlin National Assembly. § 572. Kremsier ; Hungary's rise and fall. § 573. The imperial constitution, and deputation to the emperor. § 574. Revolu- tionary movements in Saxony, Palatinate, and Baden, and the rump parliament. § 575. Schleswic-Holstcin ; conclusion. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE, p. 454. BOOK FIRST. HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. INTRODUCTION. I. THE FIRST RACE OE MEN". § 1. Aeter God in the beginning had created the heavens and the earth, had adorned the heavens with the sun, moon, and stars, had clothed the earth with plants, and anhnated it with living animals ; he made man in his own image, the crown of creation, and designed him by the gifts of speech and reason for the ruler of the world. The first pair came forth pure and spotless from the hands of their Creator, and lived in child-like innocence in their native dwelling- place Paradise, until seduced by the tempter the serpent, they ate of the forbidden tree of knowledge, and by this violation of the commands of Grod lost their unconscious innocence and the posses- sion of their dwelling-place. After this, they and their posterity were obliged to spend their lives in labour and trouble, and to eat their bread in the sweat of their face. Evil passions and desires were awakened, and disturbed the peace of society ; the violent impulses of a savage and unrestrained nature plunged the later generations deeper and deeper into the disorders of vice and crime, till at length a great flood called the deluge, destroyed the whole race with the exception of JSToah and his descendants from the face of the earth. Noah's posterity, however, increased again so rapidly, that the later generations descended from his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, were compelled to spread themselves abroad over the neighbouring countries, on account of their home being no longer large enough to contain them. It then entered into their minds to erect the Tower of Babel, " whose top was to reach unto heaven 1 ,'' and to be a perpetual memorial to them. God frustrated this presumptuous attempt by confusing their lan- guage, and by this diversity of speech brought about their separation. 1 Gen. xi. 4. o THE ANCIENT WORLD. They dispersed themselves to all the four quarters of the earth, and colonized the three oldest divisions of the globe, Asia, Africa, and Europe, forming themselves Lato different peoples and nations, according to the varieties of then* language. 11. THE M \\M SB or LIVING AMONG THE EARLIEST RACES. § 2. Men chose different occupations and manners of living-, according to the diversities in their places of residence. The inhahit- anis of steppes and deserts, interspersed only here and there with fruitful pasture grounds, chose the life of shepherds, and roved as wandering tribes from place to place with then* tents and herds. They are called aomads, and their principal occupation is the breeding of cattle. Those who settled upon favourably situated parts of the sea-coast, soon discovered, with increasing popidation and develop- ment, the advantages of their position. They practised navigation and commerce, and sought after wealth and comfort, and in further- ance of these objects, were incited to lay out towns and erect elegant dwelling-houses ; whilst the inhabitants of inhospitable shores sup- ported a joyless existence by means of fisheries. Those who lived in plains devoted themselves to agriculture and the arts of peace, whilst the rude and hardy mountaineer gave himself up to the chase, and urged on by a violent impulse for freedom, sought his delight in wars and battles. By the taming of wild cattle, man procured for himself at an early period those indispensable assistants of labour, domesticated animals. A mighty instrument in the civilization of the human race, was commerce and the intercourse among different nations that sprang out of it. Those who lived in fruitful plains, or on the banks of suitable rivers, carried on an inland trade; the dwellers on the shores, on the contrary, a coasting trade. At first men exchanged one article for another (barter), and it was not till a later period that it occurred to them to fix a certain value upon the precious metals, and to employ coined money as an artificial and more convenient means of exchange. The inhabitants of towns addicted themselves to trade and inventions, and cultivated arts and sciences for the enriching and embellishment of life and the development of the human understanding. III. EORMS OE GOVERNMENT. DISTINCTION OF CASTES. § 3. AVith the process of time nations divided themselves into the civilized and uncivilized, according as the development of their intellectual powers was furthered by talents and commerce, or cramped by dulness and isolation. Uncivilized nations are either wild hordes under the command of a chief who possesses uncon- INTRODUCTION. $ trolled power over life and death, or wandering nomadic tribes, guided by a leader, who as father of the family, exercises the func- tions of prince, judge, and high priest. Neither these nomadic races with their patriarchal government, nor the wild hordes that dwell in the unknown deserts of Africa (Negroes), in the steppes and lofty mountain ranges of Asia, or in the primaeval forests of America, find any place in history. This concerns itself only with those civilized nations who, from similar manners and for mutual convenience, have united themselves in peaceful intercourse and fellowship. States are divided into republican and monarchical, according to the form of their government or constitution. A state is called a monarchy when a single person stands at the head and manages its affairs. This single person is called Emperor, or King, Duke, or Prince, according to the extent of his dominions. The term, Free State or Republic, is given to that form of government in which the supreme power is placed in the hands of an elective body composed of numerous members. The republican form of government is some- times aristocratic, that is, when only a few families distinguished by birth or wealth, govern the community ; sometimes democratic, when the whole body of the people make the laws and select the responsible officers of government. The most ancient states were simple and uniform, and possessed for the most part that great hindrance to freedom, the system of castes. By this is to be understood, a strict separation of men according to their states and callings, which descended in unalterable succession from father to son ; by which means all interchange of conditions, or passing from one state to another, was rendered imprac- ticable. The priests, who alone possessed a knowledge of the religious customs and institutions, and who bequeathed their knowledge to their descendants, constituted the first caste. The second caste comprehended the soldiers, who were afterwards successful in raising themselves to an equality with the priestly condition. These two castes divided the government between them. The third caste were the cultivators of the soil. The fourth the artisans. If shepherds constituted a distinct caste, they were the lowest and most despised. The institution of castes was preserved for the longest time and in the greatest purity in India and Egypt. IV. THE RELIGION OE THE HEATHEN WOULD. § 4. As men dispersed themselves over the earth, the original belief in the one true God (Monotheism) was lost, and people fell into the worship of many deities (Polytheism), adoring the visible works of creation, more particularly the sun and the stars of heaven, instead of their Creator, or else reverencing the operative powers of nature as divine beings. The faith in a single divinity was preserved b2 4 THE ANCIENT WORLD. among the Jewish people alone, in the -worship of their hereditary God, Jehovah. The religions of all other nations diversified as they may be, are included under the term Paganism. Instead of regarding the Supreme Being, the Creator and Preserver of the universe, as a Spirit, and worshipping him in spirit and in truth, the ancient nations gave him the figure of a man, deified his different powers and attri- butes, and then represented them under the greatest variety of forms. Idols were fashioned from stone and metal, wood and clay ; temples and altars were erected, and sacrifices offered to them ; partly to appease their wrath, and partly to obtain their favour. The sacrifices varied in character with the civilization of the people who offered them. The Greeks and Eomans instituted joyous festivals to their gods, in which the fruits that were presented, and the animals that were slain, from the modest gift of a firstling of the flock to the solemn sacrifice of a hundred oxen, (hecatomb) were socially consximed ; whilst savage tribes slaugh- tered human beings upon their altars, for the purpose of appeas- ing by blood the wrath of hostile powers, for such they con- sidered their divinities to be. The Phoenician and Syrian tribes actually placed their own children in the arms of a red-hot idol, Moloch. If at first the image of the idol was only a visible symbol of a spiritual conception, or of an invisible power, this higher meaning was lost in the progress of time in the minds of most nations, and they came at length to pay worship to the lifeless image itself. The priests alone were acquainted with any deeper meaning, but refused to share it with the people ; they reserved it under the veil of esoteric doctrines, as the peculiar appanage of their own class. "With the same object they invented legends, stories, and fables, about the gods whom they worshipped, clothed these in poetical forms, and thus gave origin to mythology, or the science of the gods. In these stories, the actions and histories of the different deities, and the relations of men in regard to them, are described, not in clear and intelligible language, but veiled in enigmatical allusions, allegorical histories, and figurative forms of expression. The greater the amount of creative imagination and religious impulse possessed by a nation, the richer is its mythology. If these legends of the gods served to excite the people to superstition, the solemn worship in the sacred spaces of the temple -with its mysterious ceremonies and symbolical usages, was no less calculated to maintain in them a feeling of vene- ration and religious awe, and for the purpose of establishing a belief in 1 he presence of God and his interference in human affairs more firmly, sacred places and temples of note were provided with oracles, from which the credulous multitude might gain information of the future, i ix obscure, and oftentimes, ambiguous language. In this way the mind of man was led away from Divine Truth, and ensnared in INTRODUCTION. lifeless ceremonies ; the simple relation and inward tendency of the creature to the Creator was disturbed and torn asunder, the priest- hood ruled the people by the might of superstition, and acquired wealth, honour, and power for themselves. A. THE EASTEEN EACES. I. TIIE ASIATICS. § 5. Asia, called from its situation, the Eastern land, was the cradle of the human race. The situation of Paradise must be sought for in the attractive neighbourhood of the Himalaya mountains, the tops of which lose themselves in the clouds. In the East arose those vast nations and cities from whence other lands have derived a part of their civil institutions, their religion, and their culture, and which have consequently received the name of cities of civilization. In the East, the land of the camel "the ship of the desert," first originated the splendid inland traffic called the caravan trade, which exercised so important an influence on the progress of human culture. Eor the purpose of more easily undergoing the difficulties and perils of lengthened journeys through regions but little known, and thickly inhabited by predatory tribes, the Eastern merchants assembled them- selves in companies, and escorted their wares packed upon camels from one place to another, in large, and frequently armed bands. These commercial journeys were the occasion for building towns and places for traffic, and for the erection of storehouses and caravan- saries. They brought about a mutual intercourse between the inhabitants of distant places, and were the means of communicating, not only the productions, but also the religious institutions, and the social policy of one land to another. Temples and oracles of celebrity frequently served for markets and warehouses. It was in the East that all the varieties of religion took their origin, and gained then perfect development ; not only the belief in one God, which prevailed among the Jews, and which afterwards re-appeared with renewed strength and purity in Christianity, but the pagan worship of idols in all its multiplied varieties, with its priestly power, its sacrifices, and its ceremonial worship. Eor upon every thing that concerns the relation of the creature to its Maker, the people of the East have thought most deeply and zealously, and have attained to results to which no other nation has arrived. The forms of Eastern governments and constitutions were less numerous than the religions. Among the nomadic races, the heads of the tribes ruled with patriarchal authority ; in countries where the distinction of castes prevailed, the privileged classes were priests and soldiers : from both arose, in the course of time, the unlimited kingly power (despotism), which gave to the ruler the uncontrolled 6 THE ANCIENT WORLD. sovereignty of tlie nomadic chief, and the religions sanctity of the priestly king. In this manner the kingly authority gradually grew to such a height in the East, that the possessor shared a respect almost equal to that which was paid the Divinity. In relation to the ruler, all the officers of state were regarded as slaves and menials, without either personal rights or property. The king disposed at will of the lives and possessions of his subjects, he gave or took away at his pleasure, and no one dared to appear in his presence, except with his body prostrated on the ground. He lived like a god, in the midst of pleasure and enjoyment, surrounded by slaves, who complied with his wishes, executed his commands, and submitted themselves to his pleasures ; and encircled by all the riches and possessions, l>j all the pomp and magnificence of the earth. Such governments as these, in which law and human rights go for nothing, where despotism and slavery are alone to be met with, possess no vital energy, nor any capability of permanent civilization, and for this reason all oriental states have become the prey of foreign conquerors, and their early civilization has either been destroyed, or prevented from making farther advances. By disposition, the Orientals are more inclined to contemplative ease and enjoyment than to active exertion ; hence it has come to pass, that the Eastern nations have never attained to freedom or spontaneous activity, but have either silently submitted themselves to their native rulers, or groaned under the yoke of foreign oppressors. By dint of their intellectual capacity, they quickly attained to a certain grade of civilization, but afterwards gave themselves up to an unenterprising pursuit of pleasure, until they gradually sunk into sloth and effeminacy. This effeminacy was further promoted by the practice of polygamy, a custom peculiar to the East, which is subver- sive of the family affections and of the domestic purity and morality which are their attendants. As regards the art of the Orientals, the gigantic designs of their buildings, and their incredible patience and perseverance in executing and completing them, are most worthy of admiration ; but their architecture never displays the symmetry, the harmonious beauty, or the adaptation of means to ends, which characterize the architecture of a free people. The productions of their arts and industry afford evidence rather of manual dexterity, attained by long practice, and rendered inalienable by the tyranny of castes and guilds, than of inventive genius or active handicraft. Slavery hung like a leaden weight on every outward manifestation of life in the East. II. THE CHINESE. § 6. As the progress of the human race has in general followed the course of the sun, it will be most advisable to commence its history INTRODUCTION. 7 with the tribes of the extreme East. In the vast empire of China has lived, since the earliest period, a race of Mongolian origin, which has preserved unchanged for ages the same culture and the same institutions. Every thing is there regulated by hereditary laws and customs, and freedom is entirely banished. This want of progressive development is occasioned partly by the tenacious character of the people, which induces them to cling fast to the customary and traditionary modes of living, partly by the empire being cut off by mountains, seas, and the lofty and extensive wall of China, from all intercourse with foreign nations, and from all strangers being strictly prohibited from entering the kingdom, and is partly produced by political institutions. The emperor, who is possessed of absolute power, and regarded with almost religious veneration, and the numerous and privileged aristocratic class, (mandarhis) alike compel the slavish and despised people to a strict observance of their tradi- tionary customs and usages, and deprive them of every thing new. As the Chinese are thus prevented from profiting by the experience of foreign nations, they remain inferior to other people in civilization, though they have been acquainted from the earliest ages with gun- powder, the art of printing, and the mariner's compass. Not- withstanding they have long been celebrated for their skill in the manufacture of silk, and in the preparation of porcelain, writing materials, carved work, and similar productions, their industry cannot be compared with the commercial activity and diligence in the arts of the cultivated states of the "West. The object of their education is not such a development of the intellectual powers as would lead to the cultivation of the whole of the human faculties, but rather the teaching of that which then predecessors have known and practised before them. This education, this mode of life, and form of govern- ment, render the Chinese weak and cowardly ; they entertain, nevertheless, the greatest opinion of their own excellence, and regard all other notions with lofty contempt. Their language is so clumsy and difficult, that it requires several years to learn even to read it. The Chinese pay great respect to Confucius (Hong-fu-tse) as the founder of their religion. III. THE INDIANS. § 7. To the south of the snow-covered heights of the lofty Hima- laya, extends a fertile and prosperous region, blessed with a healthy and varying climate, and rich in productions of the most diversified character. In this land, watered by the Indus, the Granges, and other large rivers, lived, ages ago, a remarkable people called Hindoos or Indians, whose former greatness is still attested by numerous buildings, ruins of towns and temples, surprising memorials in inscriptions on stone, and innumerable historical recollections. 8 THE ANCIENT WORLD. The Indians are descended from the Aryans, who at one time undertook an expedition from their native highlands, and subjected the less powerful aborigines of India. They soon changed their native nomadic customs for the system of castes, which they adopted in its severest form. The most important caste were the priests ; a wealthy, honourable, and privileged class, who were called Brahmaus, or Brahmins. This caste was considered sacred and inviolable ; they could not be subjected to corporeal punishment for any crime, they were exempt from taxation, formed the chief council of the king, and filled ah! offices. Next to the Brahmins came the warriors, who in return for their pay and certain privileges, were responsible for the security and defence of the kingdom. As how- ever, the frequent necessity for waging war or encountering enemies was precluded by the remote situation of the country and the peace- ful character of its inhabitants, these soldiers soon became slothful and degenerate, and thus rendered it easy for the priests to retain their political ascendancy. The kings belonged to the caste of soldiers. The farmers and artisans were heavily oppressed with imposts, and held their land only in fee. The Pariahs, from whom the gipsies are said to be descended, are the dark-coloured descend- ants of the wild aborigines, and are regarded by the other Indians as the refuse of mankind, and treated with the deepest contempt. " They do not venture to dwell in the towns, cities, or villages, or even in their neighbourhood ; every thing they touch is looked upon as unclean, and it is j>ollution even to have seen them." Any inter- mixture of castes by means of marriage, was severely prohibited. Persons who were guilty of an infringement of this law, were cast out of society, and exposed to contempt. This rigorous division into castes, which the priests laid down as a divine ordinance, checked the progress of civilization, and was the occasion that it never passed beyond a certain point, and then lapsed into a state of repose and stagnation. EELIGIOK, LITEEATUEE, AET. § 8. The Indians reverenced in Brahma a divine first principle, which appears under three forms, as Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer, and, besides him, a crowd of spirits and inferior divinities. The central point of their religion is the doctrine of the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis). According to this doctrine, the human soul is only joined to earthly bodies for the purposes of punishment, and its aim and effort is to again unite itself with the divine spirit of the universe. The Indian therefore, regards existence in this world as a time of trial and punishment, which can only be abridged by a holy life, by prayer and sacrifice, by penance and purification. If man neglects this, and sinks himself still deeper into vice by depar- INTRODUCTION. 9 ture from Gk>d, his soul after death will be joined to the body of a different and inferior animal, and will have to commence its wander- ings afresh. On the other hand, the souls of the wise, of heroes and penitents, enter upon their upward path through shining stars, and are finally united with the spiritual first principle from whence they proceeded. This doctrine was interpreted by the Brahmins to signify that man could only attain the end of his being by the uninterrupted contemplation of divine things, and by abstraction from earthly. They placed therefore, a higher value upon silent meditation and abstraction, than upon an active life, withdrew from the inferior castes, and believed that by acts of penance and self-inflicted tortures, by alms-giving and acts of outward holiness, and by the strict observance of innumerable laws, rules, and precepts, they brought themselves into closer union with the Deity. Since it followed from the doctrine of transmigration, that the souls of men might inhabit the bodies of animals, the Brahmins dared not kill or injure any thing en- dowed with life, nor eat any flesh unless it had been offered in sacrifice. The Indians possessed sensibility and creative imagination. This is particularly apparent in their copious literature. Many of their works and poems, the whole of which are composed in the sacred and now obsolete Sanscrit language, and are intimately related to their religion and theology, are already three thousand years old. The most important works are the four books of the Yedas, which are held in the most profound respect, as the sources of the Brahminical religion. They contain religious hymns and prayers, directions respecting sacrificial offerings, and moral precepts and proverbs. Next to the Vedas, the code of Menu is held in the greatest estimation. Besides these, the Indians possess a great multitude of poetical works of all descriptions, distinguished by highly figurative language, as well as deep sensibility and religious feeling. Many of these works were brought, to Europe by the English who conquered the country, and afterwards translated by learned men into German and other European languages. Indian art, as weU as its literature, is intimately connected with religion. More par- ticularly worthy of remark are the rock-hewn temples and grottos, of which the most celebrated are to be found at Ellora in the middle of Lower India, at Salsette near Bombay, and at the island of Ele- phanta in the bay of Bombay. In these places we meet with temples, grottos, dwelling-houses, and passages, covered with images and inscriptions hewn one above another in the rock, and extending for miles. These grottos coutain an incredible quantity of works artistically and elaborately executed, which must have required the labour of many thousand hands for numberless ages, and the greatest patience and perseverance for their completion. The abundance of the productions of nature and art, pearls, 10 THE ANCIENT WORLD. precious stones, ivory, spice, frankincense, and silks, made India from an early period the great centre and emporium of the maritime and caravan trade ; but it also proved a lure to foreign invaders. Dis- united and dismembered, as well by the system of castes as by their political institutions, and enervated and stupified by their want of freedom, the Indians fell an easy prey to their warlike enemies. IV. BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS. § 9. The fertile regions watered by the Euphrates and Tigris, and the grassy uplands of Mesopotamia, were formerly inhabited by Semitic Nimrod tribes, including the Babylonians and Assyrians. Nhn- b.c. 2100. rod, " a mighty hunter before the Lord," is named as the founder of the Babylonian empire, and its chief city Babylon. This city was built in form of a square, and washed by the waters of the Euphrates, which flowed through it. A hundred years later, Ninus Ninus is said to have built the great city Nineveh, on the b.c. 2000. banks of the Tigris, and to have subjected the Baby- lonians to his ride. The wife and successor of Ninus, the legendary Semiramis, is described as an heroic and victorious woman, who carried her conquests as far as India, embel- lished Babylon with magnificent works, (the hanging gardens raised upon terraces,) and provided her land with skilfully constructed roads, canals, and buildings of every description. Beneath the rule of her incapable and effeminate successors, the Assyrian empire fell gra- dually into decay, till at length the warlike governor of the Medes rose against the unworthy sovereign, took possession of Nineveh, and Sardanapalus reduced the last king, Sardanapalus, who was notorious b.c. 888. for his luxury, intemperance, and voluptuousness, to such straits, that he burnt himself in his palace, together with his wives and treasures. Nevertheless, in the following century, a few warlike sovereigns, (among whom were Salmanasser and San- b.c. 7:30. herib, were distinguished by their deeds and fortunes in Sanherib, Palestine,) were successful in again restoring the Assyrian empire, and increasing it by fresh conquests. But the new Assyrian monarchy was, like the old, but of short duration. A hundred Nineveh ana twenty-five years after the reign of Salmanasser, Ni- destroyed, neveh was taken and destroyed by the Medes and Chal- deans, and the victors divided the land among themselves. Babylon fell to the lot of the Chaldeans. Antiquities and works of art are still dug from the ground where Nineveh once stood. § 10. Erom this period, the Chaldeans or Babylonians possessed the ascendancy, particularly during the reign of the warlike and Nebuchad- powerful Nebuchadnezzar, who laid Judah under tribute. nezzar, But the splendour of Babylon soon passed away. A b.c. GOO. generation later, the Medes were the dominant race, and INTRODUCTION. | \ after thern. came the Persians. Babylon was provided with wonderful architectural works by the Chaldees. A broad and lofty wall sur- rounded the whole city, which is said to have had a circumference of nearly sixty miles. The two imperial palaces on the banks of the Euphrates, the square and lofty temple of Baal the god of the sun, which was magnificently adorned with statues and ornaments of gold and served the purposes of an observatory, were, together with the hanging gardens, the most remarkable objects. In building the Chaldeans made use of burnt bricks. Their water buildings, bridges, canals, dams, dikes, and so forth, were the most remarkable of their works. The worship of the heavenly bodies led the Babylonian priests (who were more especially called Chaldeans), to make astronomical observations ; they reckoned the course of the sun, and divided the year : but as they mingled astrological specu- lations with their science, they fell into errors, and wandered -about the world at a later period, as diviners, interpreters of dreams, and magicians. We are also indebted to the Chaldeans for the divisions of weights and measures, and for the elements of geometry and medicine. The fertility of the land, and their extensive commerce, brought wealth and its necessary attendants, splendour and luxury. The Babylonians were, in consequence, not less celebrated for their luxurious productions, their fine linen, their sumptuous carpets, &c, than they were renowned and infamous for their sensuality, their luxury, and their voluptuousness. Masses of ruins, and heaps of rubbish, and a few monuments with inscriptions, mark the spot where once stood the world-renowned Babylon. T. THE EGYPTIANS. § 11. The Creeks called Egypt a gift of the Nile ; for it is from the regular annual overflow of the river, occasioned by rains in the high lands of Abyssinia, the waters of which are drawn off by all sorts of means, canals, dams, and cisterns, that the land preserves its remarkable fertility. The valley of the Nile was divided, even at a remote period, into three parts. Eirst, Upper Egypt, where the vast and striking ruins of Thebes with their gigantic fragments of statues and columns, their colossal sphinxes, (lions, with women's heads,) the tombs of kings hewn in the bare rock, the subterranean catacombs, and the prostrate colossal statue of Memnon which is reported to have uttered musical sounds at the rising of the sun, yet testify to the former splendour and magnificence of the priestly city. Secondly, Middle Egypt, with its capital, Memphis, the vicinity of which is also distinguished by the magnificent remains of an historical antiquity. Among these are the ruins of the Labyrinth, a building consisting of a number of intricate passages communicating with each other, and the group of pyramids, which to this day are gazed upon with amaze- ]2 THE ANCIENT WORLD. ment, as the miracles of architectural science. These pyramids are built of hard freestone, rise from a square base, and terminate at an immense height, in a point, or small flat surface ; they appear to have served as the sepulchral memorials of kings. Thirdly, Lower Egypt, with its ancient metropolis, Heliopolis, which was, however, afterwards eclipsed by Alexandria, and the historically remarkable places, Sais, Naucratis, &c. Two branches of the Nile enclose Lower Egypt, and together with the sea, give it the triangular form from whence it derives its name, Delta. § 12. Egypt possessed at an inconceivably early period, numberless towns and villages, and a high amount of civilization. Arts, sciences, and civil professions, were cherished there, so that the Nile land has always been regarded as the mysterious cradle of human cidture ; but the system of castes checked free development and continuous improvement. Every thing subserved to a gloomy religion and a powerful priesthood, who held the people in terror and superstition. The doctrine, that after the death of man the soul could not enter into her everlasting repose unless the body were preserved, occa- sioned the singular custom of embalming the corpses of the departed to preserve them from decay, and of treasuring them up in the shape of mummies, in shaft-like passages and mortuary chambers. Through this belief, the priests, who as judges of the dead possessed the power of giving up the bodies of the sinful to corruption, and by this means occasioning the transmigration of their souls into the bodies of animals, obtained immense authority. The religion of the Egyptians consisted partly in the worship of the heavenly bodies, but also bore relation to the Nile and the natural qualities of the country. Their principal deities were Osiris, Serapis, and Isis ; but as besides these gods, the animals sacred to them were objects of veneration, the Egyptian religion gradually degenerated into the most monstrous animal worship. This degeneracy became apparent in then' art. At first, the statues of their gods were represented with the human figure, although in stiff attitudes and in stern and solemn repose ; but they appeared at a later period with the heads of beasts, and soon after under an exclusively animal form. Notwithstanding the magnificence of their architectural productions, and the vast tech- nical skill and dexterity in sculpture and mechanical appliances which they display, the Egyptians have produced but little in literature or the sciences ; and even this little was locked up from the people in the mysterious hicroglyphical writing which was understood by the priests alone. There were three kinds of these hieroglyphics, which are met with on the writing-rolls which the Egyptians prepared out of an aquatic plant called papyrus, and on the obelisks,- — pointed, four- cornered columns, hewn from a single block of granite, and erected before the porticos of the temples. INTRODUCTION. 13 Egypt was already an object of wonder and curiosity in the time of the Eomans ; and such she remains even to the present day. The fact is attested by the eleven obelisks and the innumerable Egyptian carvings in the hardest stone at present in Borne, and by the multi- tude of mummies, ancient utensils, trinkets and ornaments, rolls of papyrus, and so forth, that are to be met with in all the museums, and cabinets of natural history in Europe. But much as we may admire the patience of the Egyptians and their skill and dexterity in the practice of their arts, we are every where struck with a want of free development, creative industry, and personal freedom. The curse of the caste system lay upon every external manifestation of life, whilst superstition and religious oppression gave a gloomy colouring to existence, and disturbed every cheerful and pleasurable feeling. § 13. So long as the priestly class possessed the government and elected the king, the "hundred-gated" Thebes may have remained the principal city ; but when the Egyptians were subjected to hostile attacks from neighbouring nations, and the military caste attained in consequence to greater importance, Memphis appears to have been chosen as the metropolis of Middle Egypt. Warlike sovereigns were about this time successful in raising the military caste to an equality with the priestly, so that they divided their privileges between Sesostris, them, and were both subjected to the kingly power. b.c. 1500. Sesostris, who reduced the Ethiopians to tribute, and who is said to have reigned over a considerable portion of Asia and Mceris and Africa, is particularly mentioned as one of these vic- Cheops, 1080. torious monarchs. After him, Mceris and Cheops are the most renowned kingly names. The first, on account of the lake which he constructed, and which was named after him, and which appears to have served the purpose of regulating the inun- dations of the Nile; the second, as the builder of the largest of the pyramids, which is 450 Erench feet in height, and on which 100,000 men are said to have been employed for 40 years. The lives and actions of these ancient kings are shrouded in darkness. The gloom begins to disappear about the middle of the seventh century, when the royal house of Sais, in Lower Egypt, assumed the sovereignty, in the person of Psammeticus. Eor the purpose of weakening the power of the priests, Psammeticus entered into alliance with the Greeks, and received Greek soldiers and colonists into Egypt. Disgusted at this proceeding, 240,000 Egyptians mi- grated into Nubia, and there founded a state of their own. Among Necho, the successors of Psammeticus, Necho, the founder of the b.c. 800. Egvptian naval and maritime power, and the war- like Amasis, are particularly to be mentioned. The son of the latter, Psammenitus, lost both kingdom and victory to the Persians, in the bloody battle of Pelusium (Suez). The Persians afterwards 14, THE ANCIENT WORLD. reigned over Egypt for a period of 200 years. But the Egyptians did not unite themselves with their conquerors ; they retained their own manners, institutions, and religious customs, together with their aversion to every thing foreign. YI. THE PHOENICIANS. § 14. On the narrow strip of coast between the Mediterranean and Lebanon, dwelt the maritime and commercial people of Phoenicia in many popidous towns, among which Tyre and Sidonwere the most remarkable. The Phoenicians, an active and energetic race, would not subject themselves to the restraints imposed by the caste system. On the contrary, every city with the territory adjacent to it, consti- tuted an independent commonwealth, at the head of which stood an hereditary sovereign, whose power however, was greatly restricted by the priests and nobles. Collectively they formed a league of towns, of which, at first Sidon, and afterwards Tyre, was the chief. Intellectual activity and diligence in business led this people to many discoveries ; among them were glass, the art of dyeing purple, and of writing by means of letters. They were also distinguished by their skill in casting metals, weaving, architecture, and various other matters. Sidonian garments, Tyrian purple, Phoenician glass, and articles of ivory, gold, and other metals, were precious and coveted wares in all antiquity. The favourable situation of their country made them sailors, and the cedars of Lebanon supplied the materials for ship-building. Not only did the Phoenicians navigate the coasts and islands of the Mediterranean in their splendid ships, for the purpose of trafficking both in their own productions and in those of the distant East, spices, frankincense, oil, wine, corn, and slaves, but they even ventured beyond the Pillars of Hercules, (Straits of Gibraltar,) purchased tin from the inhabitants of the British Isles, and amber from the people of the East Sea, and undertook venturous expeditions to India (Ophir) and the southern parts of Arabia. They are even said to have doubled the Cape of Good Hope, in a voyage of three years' duration, undertaken at the instigation of Necho, king of Egypt. They established colonies on Crete and Cyprus, at Sicily and Sardinia, in the south of Spain (Tartessus and Gades, now called Cadiz), and in northern Africa. The commercial city, Carthage, founded there by the Tyrians, under the conduct of Queen Dido, soon eclipsed the renown of the mother country. The Phoenicians paid less attention than the other Oriental nations to the cultivation of religion. Their worship of Moloch was accompanied with frightful human sacrifices, that of Baal with obscene rites. § 15. In their contests with the warlike nations of Asia, the Phoenicians disjnaycd both courage and patriotism. "When INTRODUCTION. 1 5 the Assyrian Salmanasser subjected Phoenicia to his sceptre, and compelled the inhabitants to pay tribute, the Tyrians built New Tyre upon a neighbouring island, and defended it Avith success for five years against the superior power of the enemy. The merchant fleet of Tyre soon again ruled the sea. Even the Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar, who had subdued b.c. 590. t ^ e ma i n i an d f Phoenicia, and had transplanted the in- habitants of Old Tyre along with the Jews into the interior of his kingdom, was unable to shake the courage of the New Tyrians. But these repeated attacks seem to have broken their power ; for when shortly after, the Persians subjected the countries of western Asia, Tyre also lost its freedom and independence. Phoenicia became a Persian province. In the middle of the fourth cen- b.c. 350. tur ^ ^g oppression of the foreign governor produced a rebellion, at the head of which stood Sidon. It was unsuccessful. Sidon fell into the hands of the Persian king ; and when this prince gave orders for the execution of the principal citizens, the inhabitants themselves set fire to the town, and consumed themselves and their treasures. Tyre existed some time longer ; but when Alexander the Macedonian overthrew the Persian empire, and Tyre, proud of its former glory, ventured to oppose the conqueror, it was taken and destroyed after a seven months' siege. It never recovered from this stroke ; and its trade and maritime power were transferred to Alexandria. VII. THE PEOPLE OP ISRAEL. § 16. "Whilst the whole world was sunk into idolatry, a people of shepherds of Semitic origin, dwelling in Mesopotamia, pre- Abraham, served the original belief in a single God. Abram b.c. 2000. (Abraham), one of the ancestors of this nomadic race, left his native pastures at the command of Jehovah, and settled hhnself with his cattle, his men-servants and maidens, .and his brother's son, Lot, in "the promised land" Canaan (Palestine), where they continued their pastoral life and received from the inhabitants the name of the "Strangers from the other side" (Hebrews). Isaac, who was born to Abraham by Sarah at an advanced period of life, continued the race; whilst Tshmael, Abra- ham's son by his concubine Hagar, is regarded as the progenitor of the Arabs. Isaac took to wife Eebekah, one of his own relatives acknowledging the true faith, who brought him two sons, Esau and Jacob. By the cunning of his mother, Jacob, the younger son, con- trary to the usage that had hitherto obtained, was declared to be the Jacob cnief °f ^ s race ' ^ ut coulc * onl y S 3 "™ 1 P ossess i° n °f nis inheritance after a long period of probation. Jacob had twelve sons, biit as he distinguished Joseph, the gift of his beloved IQ THE ANCIENT WORLD. Joseph, Kaehel, by his peculiar affection, the others, moved by b.c. 1800. envy, entertained the purpose of getting rid of their brother, and sold him to some travelling merchants who took him with them into Egypt. As Joseph held fast his integrity, God rewarded him with prosperity and wisdom. By his skill in the interpretation of dreams he obtained the favour of the Egyptian king, and arrived at high dignity and honours. He saved the land from famine, and by this means attained such credit, that he was permitted to invite his father and brethren into Egypt, and to bestow upon them the fertile pasture lands of Goshen. The He- brews were generally called Israelites, from Jacob's surname of Israel. § 17. At first the Israelites were prosperous in the rich meadows of Goshen. But when Joseph was dead, and fresh rulers who knew nothing of his services, assumed the government, dislike to strangers, and contempt for the pastoral state, incited the Egyptians to cruelty and severity against the foreigners. They commenced by imposing severe socage duties upon them, and when it was found that despite this oppression they increased so rapidly that the Egyptians at length became alarmed at their superior numbers, Pharaoh gave command- ment to drown all the newly-born male children in the Nile. Moses Moses would have experienced this fate had not the b.c. 1500. daughter of Pharaoh, who chanced to be walking on the banks of the river just as he was about to be drowned, taken pity on the infant and saved him. Moses came to the Egyptian court, where lie was carefully brought up, and instructed in all wisdom. The slaughter of an Egyptian whom he saw misusing one of the Israelites, compelled him when he was forty years old, to fly to the deserts of Arabia. It was here that he was inspired with the lofty purpose of becoming the deliverer of his people from their Egyptian bondage. At first Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites depart ; but after terror and distress had been spread over the land by the ten plagues which were sent upon it, he at length consented to the retreat required by Moses and his brother Aaron. The attempt to bring them back again by force after their passage over the Red Sea, was attended with the destruction of the pursuers. § 18. Eor a period of forty years Moses led a discontented people, Avho were often pining for the fleshpots of Egypt, wandering in the desert, for the purpose of strengthening their bodies, restoring virtue and a love of freedom to their minds, and of rearing up a young ami hardy race, who should possess strength and courage for the conquest of the promised land. It was during this pei'iod that I In' ten commandments, and other laws relative to the religion and policy of the Israelites, were delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai. These laws were preserved in the ark of the covenant, the most THE EASTERN RACES. 17 sacred of tabernacles. Their interpreters were the high priests, to whose offices Aaron and his posterity were appointed. By their side stood the Levites, as sacrificing priests, teachers, lawyers, and physi- cians. According to the system of Moses, Jehovah himself was king and ruler ; it was in his name that the elders of the tribes conducted the temporal government, whilst the chief priest and Levites super- intended the affairs of religion. Sacrifices and feasts (those of the passover, pentecost, and tabernacles) formed the pleasant bond be- tween Jehovah and the "chosen" people. In the sabbath-year the lands were left untilled, and that which grew spontaneously was given up to the poor. In every fiftieth year (year of Jubilee), lands that had been alienated, were returned to their original possessors, that property might not be too unequally divided. Moses determined upon agriculture in preference to the pastoral life, as the principal occupation of his people. § 19. It was not permitted to the great lawgiver to lead his people into the promised land. He gazed from the top of Mount Kebo on the beautiful plains of the Jordan, and then departed from among the Joshua, living, after having chosen Joshua as his successor, and b.c. 1450. exhorted the assembled people to hold fast upon the God of their fathers, and to root out the Canaanites. Scarcely, how- ever, had the people, under the command of the valiant Joshua, conquered the Amorites and the other tribes, than they gave up war, and demanded the distribution of the vanquished lands. This distri- bution took place by lot (in accordance with the regulation of Moses) among the twelve sons of Jacob, in such a way that Ephraim and Manasseh succeeded to equal shares; while on the other hand the descendants of Levi had no distinct inheritance, and received only a few towns and a tenth part of the productions of the earth. Eeuben, Gad, and half Manasseh, chose the pasture land on the east of Jordan, the others settled on the western side of the river. § 20. But many powerful tribes, as the Ammonites and Philistines, were still left unsubdued, and disturbed the Israelites in the enjoy- ment of their possessions. Bloody and destructive wars induced a rude and barbarous condition of society; and the Israelites not unfrequently forgot the living Gfod who had brought them out of bondage, and fell into the practice of idolatry, until misfortunes and defeats again brought them back to a better understanding. At these times men of heroic courage would arise, defeat the enemy in victorious fields, and restore the ancient manners and the faith of then ancestors. These men are called Judges, in the sacred writings. . . . The most renowned among them are Gideon, Jephthah, Samson Samuel, * ne strong, and the heroic Deborah. But the high priest b.c. 1150. Samuel, a pious and patriotically disposed man, was the first who was successful in reuniting the ancient ties which bound c 18 THE ANCIENT WORLD. the people of Israel to their God, and in restoring to the laws of Moses their former ascendancy. He overthrew the Philistines, and founded the schools from whence proceeded those inspired oracles of the people, distinguished in the Bible by the name of Prophets. § 21. The sons of Samuel did not walk in the steps of their father, hut perverted the right. At this period the Israelites, in imitation of the surrounding nations, desired a king, who as perpetual chief might lead them forth to battle and victory. It was in vain that the grey-headed high priest sought to dissuade them from this request, whilst he pourtrayed in the strongest colours the misery and oppres- sion that awaited them under a kingly ride. The Israelites persisted gjroj in their intention, and Samuel anointed Saul, of the tribe u.c. 1095. of Benjamin, to be king. Said was a man of majestic person, brave, experienced in military affairs, and successful in the field ; but as he placed his trust in his army, and did not hold fast the commandments of Jehovah, he was rejected, and Samuel anointed the shepherd lad, David, of the tribe of Judah. Saul at this time was attacked with a spirit of melancholy, which nothing but the harp of David could alleviate. But envy of the renown acquired by David in the wars against the Phdistines, and a secret presentiment of the destiny that awaited him, m'ged Saul to hate and persecute the young shepherd ; Said's son, Jonathan, on the other hand, was devoted to him with true affection. David nevertheless, in the midst of dangers and distresses, escaped the attempts of his enemy, and at length when Saul, after having sustained a defeat, threw himself in despair upon his sword, David was gradually recognized as king by the whole of the tribes. Davitl § 22. The reign of David is the glorious period of n.c. 1050. Jewish history. By means of successful wars he enlarged his kingdom to the south and east; he made the Syrian town, Damascus, his footstool, and broke for ever the power of the Philis- tines ; he conquered Jerusalem, the chief city of the Jebusites, together with the strong fortress Zion, and selected it for a residence, and the central point of a solemn religious worship ; and with this view commanded the ark of the covenant to be brought thither. David was also a great poet, as is abundantly shown by his admirable religious hymns, (Psalms) and despite many grievous transgressions, he still remained the "man after God's own heart," since by sorrow and repentance he always regained the forgiveness of Jehovah. The end of his reign was disturbed by the rebellion of his beloved son, Solomon, Absalom, who was led astray by evd counsellors. The b.c. 1000. Avise Solomon completed the work of his father. As David had been great in war, so his son was illustrious in the arts of peace. He adorned his capital with splendid buddings, and erected on the hill of Moriah, by the aid of Tyrian artists and masons, the THE EASTERN RACES. 19 magnificent temple which bore his own name, and which on account of the richness of its gilding and ornaments, was the object of uni- versal admiration. But Solomon departed in many things from the laws of Moses. He traded with the neighbouring nations, and thereby acquired incalculable wealth, which stimulated his love of luxury, pleasure, and magnificence ; he took to himself wives from a foreign people, permitted them the exercise of their idolatrous worship, and even took part in it himself. His lofty mind and admired wisdom did not secure him from folly. His love of magnificence and extra- vagance were the occasion of oppressive taxes, and even during his own life an insurrection broke out under the guidance of Jeroboam. This was indeed suppressed, and the originator compelled to take flight, but when Solomon's son Rehoboam, Behoboam, pursued the same course his father had taken, b.c. 975. and repelled with threats the prayers of the people for relief, many of the tribes fell from him, and chose Jeroboam for king. Judah and Benjamin alone remained faithful to the legitimate royal race. § 23. Prom this division there arose two states of unequal magnitude, the kingdom of Israel, or Ephraim, formed of ten of the tribes, with its capital Sichem, and Samaria, and the kingdom of Judah, consisting of two tribes, with its chief city Jerusalem. As Jerusalem preserved the ark of the covenant, and was in consequence regarded by the Le- vites and many pious Israelites as the true chief city, Jeroboam set up the worship of idols in the southern and northern parts of his king- dom, a sin which was shared by the whole of his successors. One of the most impious among these was Ahab, whose wife, Jezebel, a Tyrian, introduced the blasphemous Phoenician worship of Baal, and raged violently against those who would not do him homage. By means of her daughter, Athaliah, who was married to a king of Judah, the same worship was introduced into Judah, and favoured by the court. The consequences were, intense hatred and contention and at length civil wars between the two kingdoms, by which they were mutually weakened ; they then entered into alliances with other nations. The voices of the prophets who boldly foretold the destruc- tion of the state if the worship of Jehovah were thrust aside for the worship of idols, died away unheeded. When the land was threatened by the Babylonians and Assyrians, Isaiah referred to the coming Messiah as the only Saviour ; and Jeremiah lived to see that destruc- tion of the state, concerning which he had in vain warned the blinded people. § 24, The Ephraimitic kingdom of Israel was first subjected to tribute by the Assyrians. But when the king, Hoshea, entered into an alliance with the Egyptians for the purpose of escaping from this impost, the Assyrian king marched an army into the land, subdued c2 20 THE ANCIENT WORLD. Samaria, and led away the king, with the greater portion of his subjects, into the Assyrian captivity. Foreigners entered into the land, and the intermixture of these with the remaining Israelites gave rise to the Samaritans. Judah survived 130 years louger. After the fall of Israel it became tributary to Assyria. But when this nation went to war with Egypt, the king of Judah sided with the latter, and refused the tribute to the Assy- rians. The Assyrian king, Sanherib, (Sennacherib) came up against Jerusalem and laid siege to it. But Judah's hour was not yet come whilst the pious Hezekiah sat upon the throne. The host of the Assyrians was almost entirely destroyed in a siugle night, and San- herib (Sennacherib) retreated from the land in horror. It was to the victorious Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, that it was first allotted to make an end of the nation polluted with new idolatries. He took Jerusalem, plundered the temple, and carried away the king and the chief inhabitants into the ulterior of his dominions, and oppressed with a heavy hand those whom he suffered to remain. This induced the last king, Zedekiah, to try once more the chances of war, but he met with little success. Ne- buchadnezzar burnt the city and temple, slaughtered the citizens, and at length carried away the deluded king and the greater part of his people into the seventy years' Babylonian captivity. In their necessity the Jews again sought the God of their fathers, and found grace in his sight. One of the prisoners, the prophet Daniel, an'ived at high honours, and alleviated the fate of his brethren. After some years, Babylon was conquered by the Per- sians, upon which Cyrus suffered the Jews to return to their homes. Only a small portion returned at first, under the conduct of Zcrubbabel, these commenced the rebuilding of the temple. But as they avoided all intercourse with the Samaritans, this people, moved by hatred, endeavoured in every possible way to disturb their purpose. They procured a prohibition of the budding which was already commenced, and which in consequence was not completed till b.c. 515. the reign of Darius. During the reign of Artaxerxes in b.c. 460. Persia, fresh troops, led by Ezra and Nehemiah, returned to their homes, rebudt the city, and re-established the laws of Moses. They had been taught by suffering, that salvation and deliverance were only to be found in a stedfast adherence to the faith of their ancestors ; and from this time forth they were more careful in shunning idolatry, and all contact with idolatrous nations. Ylir. MEDES A1S T D PERSIANS. § 25. Media and Persia, two countries where savage and occasion- ally attractive mountainous regions alternate with rich pasture grounds, and fertile arable lands, were formerly inhabited by tribes THE EASTERN RACES. 21 who drew their origin from the ancient Zend races dwelling farther to the eastward. They possessed a remarkable religion which was founded by the ancient sage, Zoroaster, and had been delineated by him in the sacred books of the Zend-Avesta. According to this system, there are two first principles ; a spirit of light, Omuzd, and an evil spirit of darkness, Ahriman. Both of these have armies of similar spirits under them, and are to wage perpetual war with each other till the end of the world, when the spirit of light will become victorious ; upon this the evil spirit is to disappear, and the human race to be rendered happy. This doctrine was veiled by a powerful hierarchy of priests, the magi, in a solemn religious ceremonial. The god of light was worshipped under the form of the sun and of fire, the spirit of darkness was propitiated by sacrifices and prayers. § 26. The Medes remained for a long time under the dominion of foreign nations ; at length they roused their courage and fought valiantly for their freedom. But a few warlike kings soon after succeeded in suppressing the newly-acquired liberties of the people, and in establishing a military despotism. They at the same tune subdued some of the neighbouring people, and among others the cognate tribe of the Persians. But their rule was but of short Astyages, duration ; Astyages, the last of the Median kings, had a e.c. 575. vision, which the diviners interpreted to signify, that the son of his daughter should at some time rule over Media and west- ern Asia. Alarmed at this, he gave his daughter in marriage to a petty prince of the subjected tribe of Persians, and when she brought forth a son named Cyrus, he commanded him to be put to death in the obscurity of a remote forest. Cyrus only escaped the fate designed for him, through the compassion of the shepherd to whom the execution of the murder was entrusted. He was brought up as the son of the shepherd, but whilst yet a youth gave such evidence in his pastimes of an innate spirit of command, as led to his being brought before the king and recognized. Astyages, pacified by the diviners, now allowed Cyrus to be brought up in a manner suitable to his rank, and sent him back when he had arrived at maturity, to his parents in Persia. It was here that the project of freeing his brave but subjected countrymen from the yoke of the Medes, and leading them forth to victory and conquest, first arose in his mind. His mighty spirit and commanding person, compelled the Persians to admiration and obedience. He marched against the Medes ; Asty- ages, betrayed and overcome, relinquished the throne to his successful Cyrus, grandson, who now became the founder of an empire that b.c. 560. embraced almost all the civilized nations of Asia. § 27. At this time, King Crcesus, who possessed such enormous wealth that his name is become proverbial, reigned in Sardis, the principal city of Lydia. Cyrus declared war 22 THE ANCIENT WORLD. against him. Croesus, deceived by an ambiguous oracle, passed over the boundary stream of the Halys to attack the Persians, but suffered a defeat, and was obliged to fly in haste to his capital. Cyrus pursued him, took Sardis, and commanded the captured king to be cast into the flames. Crcesus already sat bound upon the funeral pile, when his recollection of Solon," the wise man of Athens, saved him from destruction. Solon had once visited Sardis, and been hospitably entertained by the king. Proud of his prosperity, Croesus had the sage led through his treasure chambers, and displayed before him the whole of his riches. He then asked him who it was that he considered to be the happiest of mortals, nothing doubting that Solon would name Croesus. The sage however mentioned a few persons, who, after leading a virtuous life, had met with a becoming death : when Croesus again asked him whether he did not look upon himself as a happy man, Solon made the significant reply, " that no man could be considered happy before death." These words occurred at this moment to the captive king, and he exclaimed bitterly, " Oh ! Solon, Solon!" The exclamation awakened the curiosity of Cyrus, he had the story related to him, and struck by the truth of the words of Solou, set Croesus at liberty, held him in high estimation, and consulted him in all his undertakings. § 28. With the same good fortune did Cyrus overthrow the empire of Babylon. As the Babylonians, in full security of the impregna- bility of their city, were celebrating a festival, and their luxurious king, Nabonnedus, (Belshazzar) was contemptuously defiling the sacred vessels of the Jews, the Persians penetrated into the town by an arm of the Euphrates, the waters of which they had drained off, killed the king, and subdued the country. By this conquest, Syria, Palestine, and Phoenicia, also fell under the dominion of the Persians, and the captive Jews received permis- sion to return to their country. Soon after this, Cyrus undertook an expedition against the Massa- getse, a wild nomadic race living near the borders of the Caspian Sea. He was successful at first, by means of a military stratagem, and destroyed many of the enemy, among them a son of their queen, Thorny ris. But shortly after this, he and a great part of his army fell into the hands of the Massagetse ; and the queen, thirsting for revenge, cast the severed head of the mighty Persian king, with an expression of contempt, into a vessel filled with blood. Cambyses, § 29. Cambyses, the victorious and tyrannical son of b.c. 529. Cyrus, enlarged the Persian empire by the conquest of Egypt. The fate of the dwellers on the Nile was frightful. The unfor- tunate king, Psammenitus, after witnessing the oppression of his subjects, and the dishonour of his family, was put to a violent death ; the Egyptian temples and sanctuaries were pro- THE EASTERN RACES. 23 faned, the treasures plundered, and the inhabitants abused. But the Persians also encountered a heavy doom. Two armies that Cambyses dispatched for the conquest of the priestly state of Ammonium, found their graves in the sandy deserts of Libya. This state had its central point in the temple and oracle of the ram-horned Jupiter- Ammon in the oasis of Siwah, and was, like Thebes, a colony of the original pontifical state, Meroe, which had once subsisted in Nubia in the midst of a savage negro population. Cambyses died after a violent reign of seven years, in consequence of an injury he accidentally inflicted on himself with his own sword. The Egyptians ascribed his sudden death to the vengeance of the gods for the slaughter of the sacred ox, Apis. Daring § 30- Some time after this, seven illustrious Persians Hystaspes, agreed together, that they would ride in the direction of b.c. 521. ^ e rjg^g SUIlj anc [ ^afc the man whose horse neighed first should be made king. In this manner Darius, the son of Hys- taspes, and the son-in-law of Cyrus, gained the throne, which he occupied not without renown, for the space of thirty-sis years. He divided the kingdom into Satrapies, regulated the imposts, and con- ducted great wars. But his arms were not always successful. "When he invaded the nomadic tribes called Scythians, dwelling on the steppes of the lower Donau, this people retreated with their tents and herds and surrendered their naked fields to the enemy, who were soon reduced by want to the brink of destruction ; and when at length attacked by the Scythians, were compelled to make a most disastrous retreat over the Donau. § 31. The simple manners and military virtue of the Persians soon degenerated. The magnificence of the court, where crowds of offi- cials and priestly counsellors, of servants and guards, battened on the prosperity of the country, destroyed the well-being of the provinces. The royal table was furnished with dishes and liquors of the rarest quality, brought from the most distant regions. A harem of osten- tatious and intriguing women, who frequently had the revenues of whole towns and provinces allotted to them to defray the expenses of their trinkets and wardrobes, increased this luxury and profuseness. The court moved with the seasons. The winter was passed in the genial climate of Babylon ; the spring in Susa ; the summer in the cool Ecbatana. Numerous gardens arranged for the production of fruit, and enclosures where wild animals were preserved, contributed to the more refined pleasures of the Persian monarchs when on their travels. The governors of the provinces imitated the luxury and extravagance of the royal court, to the detriment of their lands which were protected neither by laws nor the regular administration of justice from arbitrary and despotic authority. Por the rest, the vast empire of Persia was but a conglomeration of heterogeneous elements, pi THE ANCIENT WORLD. where the most diversified manners, institutions, and nationalities, were approximated to each other, without internal union, without strength, and without support. B. HISTOEY OF GKEECE. I. GEOGRAPHICAL SUBYEY. — «. THE GBEEK CONTINENT. § 32. Greece is the southern portion of a large half-insular piece of land, which appears broad and unbroken in its northern part, narrow, irregular, and perforated by bays and inlets on its southern coast. It is traversed by numerous ranges of mountains, and consists of rocky and hilly tracts which divide the country into a multitude of small, secluded, and isolated regions, and favour the production of numerous and separate states. Greece is divided into — Northern Greece, Central Greece, and Peloponnesus. Northern Greece consists of the rude mountain region of Epirus and Thessaly. Between these two lands extends, from north to south, the wild and rugged mountain range of Pindus, the summit of which is almost always covered with snow. Thessaly, with its fruitful plains and luxuriant pasture grounds admirably fitted for the breeding of horses, is enclosed by another branch of the same range. The vale of Tempe, near Olym- pus, the hill of the gods, was celebrated in antiquity for its natural beauties. Among the cities may be mentioned Larissa, on the Peneus, and Pharsalus, with its battle-field. The southern range of hills is called (Eta. Between the foot of these mountains and the bay, is a narrow defile that forms the only natural communication between Thessaly and central Greece. This is the celebrated pass of Thermopylae. Central Greece, or Hellas, traversed by branches of the (Etian range, is divided into eight small and independent states. The most important among them are, Attica, a hilly country, rich in olives, figs, and honey, with its chief city, Athens, its sea-port, Piraeus, and the battle-field of Marathon. Opposite Athens lie the two islands, JEgina and Salamis ; the first renowned for its early cultiva- tion, its trade and navigation ; the latter for the naval engagement during the Persian war. Boeotia, a fertde corn-producing country, with its seven-gated capital, Thebes ; the heroic Plataea, and the renowned battle-fields of Leuctra and Chaeronea. Phocis, with the lulls of Helicon and Parnassus, renowned as the seats of the Muses. At the foot of the latter, in a spot that was looked upon as the centre of the earth, lay the sacred temple city of Delphi with its celebrated oracle, and numerous magnificent buddings. Peloponnesus (at present Morea) is connected with Central Greece- by the isthmus of Corinth. This peninsula is surrounded on four of its sides by the sea, and is an entirely mountainous country. In its centre is situated the rude region of Arcadia, with its beautiful HISTORY OF GREECE. £>5 valleys and fertile pastures inhabited by a bardy race of shepherds. Mantinea and ^Megalopolis, founded by Epaminondas, are among the most celebrated of its towns. In the north of the Peninsula, on the shores of the Corinthian gulf, lies Achara, with its twelve cities which were united together in the third century by the celebrated Achaian league. Sicyon, and the rich and art-loving Corinth, were also joined in this confederation. To the East was Argolis, a rocky region abounding in bays and creeks, with its chief city, Argos ; Mycene, the ancient royal seat of Agamemnon and Thynthus, in the neighbourhood of which were to be found the remains of gigantic buildings (Cyclopean walls). To the south lay the rugged Laconia, or Lacedsemonia, with the mountain of Taygetus, and a few fertile plains in the valley of the Eurotas ; near this was the renowned city of Sparta, with about 60,000 inhabitants. Westward from Lace- daemon, extended to the sea-coast the fruitful region of Messenia, with the fortress Ithome, and the maritime city Pylos : northward from this lay Elis, the territory of which was regarded as sacred, and in consequence was never visited with war, together with the city and plain of Olympia, rendered famous by the Olympian games. b. THE GBEEK ISLANDS. § 33. To the east and west of Greece lay a multitude of large and small islands which are of the greatest importance in Greek history. They were almost all remarkable for their fertility in wine, oil, fruits, and similar productions ; carried on an extensive trade, and possessed even at an early period a high amount of civilization. The most remarkable among them are, on the west, Corcyra, (at present Corfu) renowned even in the earliest ages for its wealth and culture, and where at a later period the Corinthians founded a colony ; and the stony Ithaca, the dwelling-place of Ulysses. In the southern sea, the large island of Crete, which in the time of Homer numbered a hun- dred cities, but which was dreaded and infamous on account of it3 piracy ; Cyprus and Cythera, celebrated for the worship of Yenus ; and Bhodes, renowned for the casting of metals, and for its statue of the god of the sun (Colossus), seventy cubits in height. But the sea the most rich in large and small islands is the iEgean on the east, which for this reason has given its name — Archipelago — to every sea abounding in islands. Off the eastern coast of Greece, and only divided from it by the narrow channel Euripus, lies the long and fertile island Euboea (Xegropont), with the maritime and commercial cities Eretria and Chalcis. Farther eastward, we meet with Lemnos, Thasos, Imbros, and Samothrace, the anciently renowned localities of mysterious religious customs. The group of islands lying nearest the east coast of Peloponnesus, are called Cyclades, because they he in a circle (Cyclos). Among them are Delos, the sacred birth-place of 26 THE ANCIENT WORLD. Apollo and Diana ; Paros, celebrated for its marble ; and Naxos, for its wine. Eastward from tbese we encounter a number of scattered islands, the Sporades. The most important, both on account of their size and fertility, and the wealth and civilization of their inhabitants, are the islands lying off the coast of Asia Minor, Lesbos, with its floimshing town Mitylene, Chios, Samos, Cos, and others. Lastly, the rocky island of Patmos, celebrated as the residence of the Evan- gelist, St. John. II. RELIGION Or THE GREEKS. § 34. No wbere did the heathen worship of idols assume a more cheerful aspect than among the Greeks, a great part of whose mytho- logy was afterwards adopted by the Eonians and incorporated with their own religious system. According to the religious views taken by the Greeks, the world was originally a rude and formless mass, (chaos) from which the heaven and earth separated themselves as independent divinities. The earth after this, produced beings of superhuman stature and strength, the Titans, who were possessed of the supreme authority, until a more spiritual race who gathered themselves around the king of heaven, Zeus, or Jupiter, deprived them of their power, overcame the giants and Titans who attempted to storm the skies, and buried them in the abysses of the earth. After the unruly forces of nature and the power of the elements had been thus subdued, Zeus erected his throne upon Olympus, whilst Pluto governed the gloomy regions of the subterranean world, (Hades, Tartarus, Orcus,) and Poseidon, (Neptune) with his trident, ruled the sea. Hera or Juno, the queen of heaven, the virgin Pallas Athene, (Minerva) armed -with helm and shield, the protectress of the Liberal arts, and of all intellectual employment, Apollo, the glorious god of light, and some others, were the objects of similar veneration. Besides these, woods and ruountains, fields and meadows, rivers and lakes, were inhabited by an innumerable multitude of divine beings, nymphs, nereids, tritons, sirens who with their magic songs allured men to destruction, and many others that frequently interfered in human affairs. An heroic race that derived its origin from Zeus, was the connecting link between gods and men ; whilst the interval between men and the animal tribes was filled up by an inferior race of fauns and satyrs, who united together human and bestial qualities. Human life and this world of divinities were supposed to be most intimately related with each other. Erom the moment of his birth a guardian spirit (genius, demon) stood by the side of every man for his whole life, exercised an influence upon his resolutions and actions, without however interfering with the free dom of his will. The household hearth was the residence of sacred domestic and family deities, (lares, penates) who preserved the HISTORY OF GREECE. 27 dwelling from evil ; and every important event of life was under the guardianship of a separate divinity. In opposition to the Christian view, which looks upon the life of this world as a state of probation, and of transition to a higher form of existence, the joyous Greeks referred all their pleasures to the earthly life, and looked upon the shadowy existence of the subterranean world as but its melancholy continuation. They nevertheless believed in rewards and punish- ments, and in a state of immortal existence. The departed were brought by Hermes, (Mercury) the conductor of the dead, before the three judges of the lower world, and according to their decision, they were either sent to the residence of the righteous (Elysium, the happy islands), or to the place of condemnation (Tartarus) . Many sacrifices were offered on the graves by the survivors to the souls or shadows (manes) of the departed. This free and beautif id system of mythology is displayed in the most perfect productions of Greek art and poetry. I. GREECE BEFORE THE PERSIAN WAR. I. THE TIME OE THE TROJAN WAE. § 35. The Pelasgi are believed to have been the most ancient inhabitants of Greece. They were an agricultural and peaceful people, with a religion that was founded upon the veneration of nature, and in which the earth-mother Demeter (Ceres), the wine- producer Dionysus (Bacchus), and the oracle-giving nature-god, Zeus of Dodona in Epirus, were the divinities that enjoyed the greatest reverence. This religion of nature, together with the remains of a primaeval architecture, towns and royal cities, and especially the im- perishable Cyclopean walls in Peloponnesus which are built of squared stones fitted together without cement, lead to the opinion that the Pelasgi bore a resemblance in their culture and religious institutions to the people of the East ; and that consequently inter- course must have existed at an early period between Greece, Asia, and Egypt. This view receives corroboration from the legends respecting oriental colonists who settled in Greece and diffused the seeds of civilization at an inconceivably remote period. In the same way Cecrops the Egyptian came to Attica, the Phoenician Cadmus to Bceotia, the Phrygian Pelops to the peninsula named after him, Pelo- ponnesus. § 36. The Pelasgi were either driven out or subjugated by the warlike Hellenes, who gradually subjected the whole of Greece to then power. These Hellenes are divided into three tribes : the Dorians, in Peloponnesus ; the Ionians, in Attica and the islands ; and the JEolians, in Bceotia and the other states. They distinguished themselves at an early period by great warlike achievements, and by 28 THE ANCIENT WORLD. founding cities and foreign colonies. It is in the poetical legends of the twelve labours of Hercules, of the voyage of the Athenian hero Theseus to the sea-ruling Crete, and of the daring Argonautic expedition, that the first traces of historical facts are preserved, distorted and obscured as they may be, by a mass of fables. The Thessahan Jason, with the most renowned heroes of his time, (Her- cules, Theseus, Castor and Pollux from Lacedseinon, and the Thracian musician Orpheus,) undertook the Argonautic expedition in the ship Argo to the distant land of Colchis on the east coast of the Black Sea, for the purpose of obtaining the golden fleece, which, as the legend reported, Phryxus the son of the Thessahan king had years before suspended there, and which was watched over by a sleepless dragon. This Phryxus and his sister Helle had a wicked step-mother, who entertained designs against the lives of the two children. Their departed mother, Nephele, the goddess of clouds, appeared to her two chfldren and presented them with a wonderful ram, which conveyed them across the sea ; Helle, however, fell off and was drowned at the spot which has received from her the name of the Hellespont. Phryxus reached the land and sacrificed the ram. Jason and his companions reached Colchis after a difficult voyage, completed their undertaking by the aid of the sorceress Medea, daughter of the king of the country, and returned home with their spoil. But the Argo- nauts had many wonderful adventures and perfis to encounter on their return through the ocean and the mysterious river Eridanus, which formed the materials of many a poetical legend. The early commercial intercourse between the iEolic race and the inhabitants of the distant Asiatic coast, appears to be symbolized by this history of the Argonautic expedition. § 37. The greatest event of the Greek heroic age is the celebrated Trojan war. In Ilium, or Troy, on the north-west coast of Asia Minor, reigned King Priamus over a rich and cultivated people. His youngest son Paris carried off Helen wife of the Lacedaemonian king, Menelaus, who had hospitably received him. The injured husband summoned the princes of Greece to undertake an expedition to revenge the affront. This expedition shortly after took place under the command of Agamemnon of Mycenae, brother of Menelaus, and with the assistance of the most renowned warriors of Greece. Achilles and his friend Patroclus from Thessaly, the subtle Ulysses from Ithaca, Diomedes from Argos, the sage Nestor from Pylos, Ajax, and many others were among the number. The army ] laving embarked in a vast fleet, sailed for the Asiatic coast from the sea-port town of Aulis, where Agamemnon had devoted his daughter as a sacrifice to Diana. They found however, the Trojans, especially Hector, son of Priam, and iEneas, such valiant opponents, that it was only after a ten years' struggle that the city was at length taken and HISTORY OF GREECE. 29 destroyed by an artifice of Ulysses (a wooden Horse filled with armed men). Priam and most of his subjects fell either in battle or at the destruction of the city ; the rest were carried away as slaves. But the victors also suffered many misfortunes. Achilles, Patroclus, and many others found an early grave in Ilium. Agamemnon, after a troublesome voyage home, was murdered at the instigation of his faithless wife Clytemnestra ; and Ulysses, tossed by tempests, wan- dered for ten years to inhospitable shores, over islands and seas, before it was permitted him again to see his faithful wife Penelope and his son Telemachus, and to purge his house of the audacious suitors who were contending for the hand of his spouse, and who in the meanwhile were feasting themselves upon his property. § 38. Homer. — The Trojan war is of more importance to poetry and art than to history, since the combats of the heroes and their adventures and wanderings on their return home, formed two legend- ary cycles from which the materials of heroic or epic poetry have usually been selected. The first and greatest poet who has employed these legends in the construction of an immortal work, was Homer, who according to tradition, was a blind singer whose life was so obscure, that even in ancient times, seven cities contended for the honour of having given him birth. The two great heroic poems that pass under his name, are the Iliad, in which the battles that took place before Troy in the last year of the siege are described, and the Odyssea, in which are sung the fate and adventures of Ulysses and his companions, on and around Sicily in the western sea. Even a mock heroic poem, Batrachomyomachie, in which the combats of frogs and mice are described in the same manner as those of the Grecian and Trojan heroes, has been attributed to him. But as at that time the art of writing was unknown in Greece, these poems were at first circulated from mouth to mouth, and portions of them were committed to memory and recited by wandering singers (Khap- sodists) . Even at a later period, when they had been collected and reduced to writing, they were still impressed upon the memory of young people, and employed as a means of exciting patriotism, religion, and a feeling for the beautiful. As Homer was the chief of a school of poets in Asia Minor who under the name of Homerides continued for some centuries to compose poetry in a similar spirit to their master, so Hesiod, about a hundred years later, became the founder of an iEolic school of poetry that flourished more especially in Bceotia. We still possess an epic poem of Hesiod on the origin and fate of the Grecian deities (Theogony), and a didactic poem, the " Works and Days." The hexameter measure derived from Homer was from this time made use of in epic poetry. § 39. Shortly after the Trojan war, great disturbances and political revolutions took place in Greece. New races of men drove the old 30 THE ANCIENT WORLD. ones from the possessions they had hitherto occupied ; these in their turn attacked other tribes, till at length the weaker resolved to expa- triate themselves, and to found transmarine colonies. The most important in its consequences of these emigrations, was that undertaken by the Dorians to Peloponnesus, under the conduct of the descendants of Hercules (hence called the return of the Heraclidae) . This event entirely changed the face of Pelopon- nesus, by giving the command of the peninsula to the hardy moun- taineers of Doria, instead of the Ionic population that had hitherto possessed it. The Dorians gradually subdued Argolis, Laconia, Mes- sinia, Sicyon, Corinth, and Megaris beyond the isthmus. They even made an irruption into Attica and threatened Athens, but were compelled to a retreat by Codrus, the Athenian king, offering his life in sacrifice for his country. An oracle had declared that victory would incline to the side of those whose king should fall. When the Dorians heard this they gave the strictest commands that no injury should be done to Codrus. But this long disguising himself as a peasant, commenced a quarrel before the gates with the outposts, and was killed without being recognized. The Dorians despairing of victory, immediately retreated from Athens. The old inhabitants of Peloponnesus experienced a triple fate. The boldest and strongest quitted their country, and established the Ionian colonies on the western shores of Asia Minor, and the islands of Chios, Lesbos, Samos, &c. These colonies by the fruitfulness of their soil, their navigation, their trade, and their diligence in business, soon attained a degree of prosperity and civilization that far sur- passed that of the mother country. Those that remained behind, either submitted freely to the Dorians, in which case they were com- pelled to pay tribute and were excluded from all participation in the government but were permitted to retain their possessions, or they were subdued with weapons in then' hands, by force of arms, in the latter case they were reduced to the condition of serfs or slaves. The first class were called Periaeci, or Lacedaemonians, to distinguish them from the Doric Spartans ; the second class were styled Helots. § 40. Colonies. — In process of time the Ionian colonies united themselves into a confederacy consisting of twelve commonwealths, among which Miletus, Ephesus with the celebrated temple of Diana, and Smyrna, were the most powerful. The affairs of the union were debated in a temple on the promontory of Mycale. The twelve colonial towns of the JEolians to the north of Ionia, and the six Dorian towns on the south, possessed similar arrangements. Among the latter, the town of Halicamassus, the birth-place of the historian Herodotus, is the most remarkable. The island of Rhodes also be- longed to the latter union. The shores of the Hellespont, (Dar- danelles) of the Propontis, (sea of Marmora) of the Pontus Euxinus, HISTORY OF GREECE. 31 (Black Sea) were covered in a similar manner with Greek colonies. The most important, were Byzantium, (Constantinople) Sinope, Cerasus, (the native land of cherries) and Trapesus. Flourishing colonies were also to be found on the coasts of Thrace and Mace- donia ; viz. Abdera, Amphipohs, Olynthus, &c. In Lower Italy, the number of Greek colonial towns was so great, that the inhabitants of the interior spoke Greek, and the whole ' country was known by the name of Great Greece. The most celebrated of these towns were Tarentum, the wealthy and luxurious Sybaris, and the ancient Cumse, the parent city of Naples. The greater part of the beautiful island of Sicily was in possession of the Greeks, who founded numerous opulent cities there, but none which, in point of size, power, and civilization, could compare with Syracuse. On the north coast of Africa, Cyrene rivalled Carthage in wealth and commerce, and in South Gaul, Massilia was a model of civil order, and a seminary of cultivation to the rude population in its neighbourhood. All these towns carried on a flourishing trade in the productions of art and the produce of the soil. Their vicinities were covered with beautiful buildings, and adorned for miles with villas and summer-houses. They exercised a salutary influence on the manners and culture of the natives, but degenerated in course of time, when wealth and refine- ment introduced hvxury, sensuality, and effeminacy. The colonial cities occupied the position of blood relations to the mother state, but were entirely free and independent. They retained the manners and religious customs of the parent city, and honoured it with filial piety, but they entered into no dependent relations with it, like the colonies of the Romans, or those of modern times. II. THE PERIOD OE THE WISE MEN AND LAWGIVERS. a. GENERAL VIEW. § 41. Greece never formed a united state, but was separated into a number of independent communities, among which the most powerful exercised from time to time a predominant influence. Sparta, Athens, and Thebes, for the most part. But language, manners, and religious institutions, united the different tribes into a single nation. They called themselves Hellenes — all other people they included under the general term of barbarians. The Greeks, a people full of talent, and eminently capable of civilization, arrived at a degree of culture that has never since been equalled. Love of freedom, and a masculine energy, led them to establish a number of independent republics, to which at first they attached themselves with enthusiastic patriotism, and in defence of which they poured forth their heart's blood, till the rage of faction had choked the more generous feelings. Activity and diligence produced general pros- perity, and a beautiful land under a sky of unvarying brightness, 32 THE ANCIENT WORLD. with a healthy and happy climate, engendered cheerfulness of mind, and made existence a pleasure. Simplicity of life lessened the num- ber of the wants, and the frugal use of what a fruitful soil and a happily situated country produced with hut little labour, banished the cares and anxieties of life, and permitted every one to enjoy the pleasures afforded by poetry, art, and the sciences. § 12. Certain institutions and establishments connected with reli- gion were common to all the Greek races. The first among these was the ancient Amphictyonic Council, a court of arbitration to which twelve states sent their deputies, and the office of which was to defend the national sanctuary at Delphi, and to prevent the wars that broke out between single states from becoming too cruel and destructive. It was also the defender of the Delphic oracle, with its rich temple. In all important undertakings the Delphic Apollo was consulted ; the response was given by the inspired priestess, Pythia, from her golden tripod, in obscure, and frequently ambiguous and enigmatical expres- sions. The temple of Delphi possessed extensive territories, and rich treasures in gifts and offerings. The celebration of numerous games, as the Pythian, (at Delphi) the Isthmian, Neinsean, &c, was a third bond to connect together the various states and families of Greece. None of these games however were so renowned as the Olympic, which from the time 776 B.C. were celebrated every fourth year in the plain of Olympia in Elis. They principally consisted in running, boxing, 'wrestling, throwing the discus or spear, and in chariot racing ; and the crown of olive branches that was presented to the victor, was regarded as an enviable distinction that rendered illustrious not the receiver only, but his whole family, and his native dwelling-place. The works of artists, poets, and literary men were also objects of attention. There is even a tradition that Herodotus, the father of history, read the first book of his works at these games, and by so doing excited the emulation of Thucydides, the greatest of historical writers. The temple of the Olympian Jupiter, and the colossal sitting statue of this deity which was overlaid with ivory and gold, are among the most splendid examples of Greek art. Pindar of Thebes, the great lyric poet, celebrated the victors in these games in his immortal odes. b. LTCUBGTJS THE SPARTAK LAWGIVER. § 43. The manners of the Dorians gradually degenerated in their new possessions ; the affairs of the state fell into disorder, and an un- warlike spirit threatened to diffuse itself. To remedy these evils, Lycurgus, a patriotic Spartan of royal descent, determined to give his native city the pre-eminence over the other states, by restoring and establishing the ancient institutions of the Dorians. "With this purpose he visited the island of Crete, which HISTORY OF GREECE. S3 was at this time celebrated for its excellent laws ; made himself acquainted with the systems that prevailed there, and on his return gave the Spartans the remarkable constitution, of which the following are the chief outlines : — ■ a. Institutions op State. — The whole power of government was in the hands of the Dorians, who, without engaging in any other occu- pation, devoted themselves entirely to the exercise of arms, the con- duct of war, and the affairs of the state. In the assemblies of the people they elected the senators, or council of ancients, whose duty it was to conduct the government and protect the laws ; and the five ephori, who at first superintended the regulations of the city, but who afterwards obtained the greatest power of control over the public life and actions of those who were in office, and by this means gaiued such an authority for themselves, that even kings were subject to their tribunal. The senate consisted of twenty-eight members, of at least sixty years of age, the presidency of this assembly devolved upon the two kings of Sparta, who were chosen from the race of the Heraclidse, and whose office was consequently hereditary. At home, they possessed more honour than power ; but in war they were always the leaders, and had an unlimited command. The fundamental prin- ciple of the whole constitution was the equality of property. In furtherance of this, the whole lands of Laconia were divided hi such a way, that each of the 9000 Spartan families received an equal portion. These estates were indivisible, and descended to the eldest born by the law of primogeniture. The 30,000 families of periceci were in a similar manner provided with lands of less extent, whilst the helots were left uncared for, and were obliged, in their capacity of serfs, or day-labourers, to till the ground of the Dorians, and to deliver a certain proportion of the productions of the soil, in corn, wine, oil, and similar matters, to the Spartan magazines. i. Mode oe Liee. — The rights of the Dorian depended less upon his birth than upon his education ; this, therefore, was entirely under- taken by the state. "Weak and deformed children were cast into a gulf immediately upon their birth ; the vigorous were removed from their parents at the age of six years, and educated in public. The great object of this education was to produce bodily hardihood ; the gymnastic exercises of the palaestra were, for this reason, one of its most important branches. But the understanding was also culti- vated, and the Spartan was not less celebrated for his craft and shrewdness, than for the terse brevity of his speech, which was after- wards distinguished by the term " laconic." The feelings and imagina- tion were alone neglected, and consequently, science and poetry were neither esteemed nor cultivated in Sparta. Doric art was merely distinguished by vast strength, not, like the Ionic, by grace and beauty. The male part of the population were divided according to D 34 THE ANCIENT WORLD. their ages, into companies, who dined together at public meals, (sys- sitia) fifteen usually sitting at one table. These meals were extremely temperate and simple, and were furnished from the supplies of the helots. The so-called black broth and a vessel of wine were the chief features of the entertainment. The kings sat at the heads of their tables, and received a double portion. Luxury and effeminacy were by all means to be avoided ; for this reason the houses were rude and devoid of convenience ; no instrument but the axe was permitted to be employed in their construction. Money was banished in ordinary intercourse, to the end that no one should possess the means of pro- curing unnecessary pleasures ; and that the Spartans should not learn and accustom themselves to these pleasures, they were not permitted to travel into foreign countries, nor were strangers allowed to make a long residence in Sparta. The chase, and the exercise of arms were the chief employments of those who were grown up ; the cultivation of the ground was left to the helots ; trade and business to the periceci. The whole life of the Spartan was a preparation for war. In the city he lived as though he were in the camp, and the time of war was his time of joy and rejoicing. The Spartans marched into the field with purple mantles and long hair, and adorned themselves before battle as if for a festival. The strength of the army lay in the heavy-armed infantry, (hoplites) which consisted of numerous divi- sions, and which was in consequence enabled to execute without con- fusion, many movements and evolutions. The Spartan never retreated from his ranks ; he conquered or died in his place. Strict obedience, and subordination of the young to their elders, was the soul of the military education and discipline in Sparta, which was the true temple of honour of the age. § 44. After these laws had been confirmed by the oracle of Delphi, Lycurgus caused the Spartans to take an oath that they would never alter any thing contained in them, till he came back from the journey he was about to undertake. Upon this he is said to have gone to Crete, and there to have died. The consequences of the laws of Lycurgus soon became apparent. Not only did the hardy Spartans overcome the kindred race of the Messenians in two b.c. 743. lengthened wars, but they soon established their power b.c. 724. over the whole Peloponnesus. The Messenians were reduced to pay tribute in the first of these wars, after their citadel, Ithoine, had been destroyed, and their hero, Aristodemus, had slain himself on the grave of his daughter whom he had sacrificed. The tyranny of the Spartans in a short time provoked the Messenians to a second war. In this they at first obtained some advantages, by the heroic deeds of the brave and cunning Aristomenes ; but the Spartans, inflamed by the war-songs of the Athenian poet, Tyrtaeus, finally proved the victors. A part of HISTORY OF GREECE. 35 the Messenians quitted their country, and founded Messina in the island of Sicily: those who remained were led into slavery, and condemned to the miserable fate of the helots. C. SOLON, THE LAWGIVER OE THE ATHENIANS, B.C. 600. § 45. Whilst the Spartans, a race of steady and inflexible charac- ter, held fast for centuries the laws of Lycurgus, the lively and fickle Athenians introduced among themselves every possible form of government. After the glorious death of Codrus, (§ 39) the Athenians declared that no one was worthy to be his successor, and abolished the monarchy. Some one of the nobles (eupatrides) chosen for life to the office of archon, received the supreme power. At first the family of Codrus had the preference in this election, but as the government with time assumed more and more the form of an aristocratic republic, the office of archon was b.c. 752. thrown open to the whole body of nobles, and the period b.c. 682. of its existence reduced to ten years. For the purpose of admitting a greater number to this honour, they at length adopted the expedient of electing nine archons every year, who were to super- intend the government, the affairs of religion, military matters, legis- lation, and the administration of justice. The nobles now held the power in their own hands, and excluded the people (demos) from all share in the government, or in the administration of the laws. They alone gave judgment, because they only were acquainted with the unwritten and traditionary statutes ; in this way, arbitrary decisions, partiality, and injustice, were of no unfrequent occurrence. This induced the citizens in the assemblies of the people, to insist upon the framing of written laws. The nobles for a long time refused to accede to the demands of the people, but when at length they found that further resistance was impossible, they determined upon a differ- Draco, ent method of oppressing the commons. They com- b.c. 624. missioned one of their own number, Draco, surnamed the Cruel, to draw up a code of laws. These proved so severe, that they were said to be written in blood. Every offence was punished with death. By this means, the nobles hoped again to reduce the discontented people to their former state of dependence. Desperate struggles followed, and contention and party spirit rose to such a height, that the state was reduced to the verge of destruction. At this juncture, Solon, one of the seven wise men, and greatly esteemed both as a poet, and a friend of the people, proved the saviour of his country. He gave the state a new and republican form of govern- ment, in which the principal authority was vested in the assemblies of the people. These assemblies made the laws, named the judges and officers of state, and elected the council of the four hundred ; that the nobility, however, should not be deprived of the whole of d 2 S6 THE ANCIENT WORLD. their power, lie secured to them certain privileges : they alone could fill the office of archon, or the high court of the Areopagus, which Solon had established to preserve the laws, the government, and public morals. This court consisted of the most respected citizens ; it superintended the education of youth, and kept an eye upon the lives of the burghers, to the end that morality and discipline might be preserved, an honourable and industrious course of life might be maintained ; and that luxury, riot, and extravagance in dress,, might be banished. Solon, at the same time, relieved the necessities of the people by the so-called remission of burthens, by which the poorer citizens were freed from a portion of their debts, and restored to the unfettered enjoyment of their mortgaged estates. After Solon had completed these measures, he caused the Athenians to swear that they would make no alterations in them for the space of ten years : he then set forth on his travels to Asia and Egypt, in the course of which he held the before-mentioned conversation (§ 27) with Croesus at Sardes. d. THE TYRANTS. § 46. All the Grecian states had at first been governed by kings, who, as high priests, judges, and leaders of the army, exercised a patriarchal power. But the rich and distinguished class who had hitherto stood by the side of the king as his councillors, gradually attained the upper hand, and seized the first favourable opportunity of ridding themselves of the monarch, and of establishing an aristo- cratic republic, in which they exercised the supreme power. This institution became, in time, extremely oppressive to the people. But as the nobles were in the exclusive possession of arms, and of the prac- tice of war, it was no easy matter to deprive them of the government. This took place for the first time, when an ambitious noble separated himself from his order, and placed himself at the head of the people. But the ride of the aristocracy was not at once succeeded by a democratic government ; on the contrary, the leaders of the peojde (demagogues) seized in most of the states upon the supreme power. They were distinguished by the name of "tyrants;" by which term, however, we are not always to understand a violent and arbitrary ruler, but merely one who unites in his own person all the functions of government, in a state that had previously been a republic. Many of these tyrants possessed great talents for their office, and ruled with splendid success. For the purpose of giving employment to the people to whom they were indebted for their rise, they erected magnificent buildings ; their wealth gave them the means of attract- ing artists and poets, whilst their splendid courts contributed to the magnificence of the cities. But the government of the tyrants was not of long duration. The nobles neglected no means to effect their HISTORY OF GREECE. 37 overthrow ; and in this they were supported by the Spartans, who were every where favourable to aristocratic institutions. Their sons, who had grown up in the enjoyment of power, frequently forgot the consideration they owed to the people, and hastened their own destruction by cruelty and despotism. Periander § 47. The most celebrated of the tyrants were Periander b.c. COO. of Corinth, Poly crates of Samos, and Pisistratus of Athens. The first two are well known by poetical legends. Perian- der' s friend, the singer, Arion, once wished to return to Corinth by ship, from Lower Italy. The sailors, who were greedy after the treasures he had acquired in Tarentum, made attempts tipon his life. "When every hope of deliverance had vanished, Arion sang, and played some notes upon his harp, and then leaped into the waves. The dolphins who had followed the ship bore the singer to the shore. He hastened to Periander, at Corinth, who easily discovered and punished the offenders. Not less celebrated is the story of the ring of Polycrates Polycrates. The rich and powerful ruler of Samos was b.c. 550. successful in every thing he undertook. At one time, when the king of Egypt was paying him a visit, messenger after messenger came to announce some fortunate event. Psammetichus appeared thoughtful, and warned his friend of the instability of fortune and the envy of the gods, and advised him to inflict some vexation upon himself to appease the irritated divinities. Upon this Polycrates cast a costly and exquisitely wrought ring, upon which he placed a great value, from the roof of his house into the sea. But the gods despised the gift. On the following day some fishermen brought a large fish to the palace, and as the servants were preparing it for the table, they discovered the ring in its entrails. They pre- sented it with joy to the tyrant, but Psammetichus saw in this the omen of approaching misfortune, and took a melancholy leave. Shortly after, Polycrates was taken prisoner by the Persians, and crucified. Pisistratus The most celebrated of all the tyrants, was Pisistratus, b.c. 560. of Athens, who ' succeeded, even during the lifetime of Solon, in grasping the sole power. He contrived by dint of cunning, having first wounded himself and then given out that his life had been attempted, to procure a body-guard, and to obtain possession of the citadel. His enemies were indeed twice successful in banishing him from the city, but he again returned, succeeded in establishing himself in the government, and bequeathed it at his death to his two sons, Hippias and Hipparchus. Pisistratus, and at first his son Hippias, ruled with much glory. Agriculture, trade, and commerce, received a great impulse. The poems of Homer, that had hitherto only been delivered orally by the wandering 38 THE ANCIENT WORLD. singers, (rliapsodists) were now reduced to writing, and by this means preserved to posterity. Artists of every kind found in them liberal patrons. Athens was embellished with temples and public buildings, and the lyric poet, Anacreon, was a resident at Hippias' court. But when Hipparchus, who was a man devoted to riot and the pleasures of the senses, had been killed at the panathenaic festival, by two Athenians, Harmodius and Aristogiton, in revenge of some injury they had suffered from him, Hippias gave free scope to his violent disposition. By his severity and cruelty he alienated the affections of the popular party, and by this means prepared the way for his own expulsion. He took refuge with the Persian king, Darius, and encouraged him in his design of making war upon the Athenians. Shortly after his departure, the democratic republic was established in Athens. THE SEVEN WISE MEN. — PTTH1GOEAS. § 48. Periander of Corinth, and Solon of Athens, were numbered among the seven wise men ; of the remainder, Hales of Miletus, the founder of the Ionic school of philosophy, was the most renowned. Their principles and practical rides of life were embodied in short mottos, as "Know thyself," "Avoid excess," "Consider the end," " Be watchful for opportunities," and numerous others. One of the most distinguished men of this period, who did not however call himself a wise man, (sophos) but only a lover of wisdom, (philosophos) was Pythagoras of Samos, the founder of the sect of the Pythagoreans, which had many adherents in Crotona and other towns of Lower Italy, and enjoyed great respect. The members led a life- of temperance and severe morality, had their meals and exercises in common, and were devoted with the greatest veneration to their master. They practised themselves in mathematics, geometry, and music, for Pythagoras is known as the inventor of the theorem, which is named after him, the Pythagorean. e. LYKIC POETRY. § 49. A cheerful mode of life prevailed at the courts of the tyrants, where singers and poets were welcome guests. The severe heroic poetry was not suited to the pleasures and amusements that were there principally sought after, and its place was in consequence supplied by a lighter and less prolix kind, which was distinguished by the term lyric, because it was intended to be sung to the lute (lyra). All lyric poetry, therefore, originally consisted in cheerful songs, which exhorted to the enjoyment of life on account of the shortness of its duration, and were filled with the praises of love and wine, because they drove away care and trouble. In this style Anacreon HISTORY OF GREECE. 39 of Teos, in Ionia, who passed his life at different courts, and died in his eighty-fifth year, was the most celebrated ; and for B ' c ' ' this reason, these kind of songs are called Anacreontic. If the shortness of life, and the transitory character of every thing earthly, gave occasion to Anacreon to exhort to the enjoyment of existence, there were not wanting others to whom these considerations were a source of melancholy and sorrow, and who poured forth their complaints over the instability and uncertainty of human happiness. This style was called the " elegiac," and was usually composed in a measure consisting of hexameters and pentameters united (disticha). The best known elegiac poets are Mimnermus of Colophon, and Simonides of Ceos. Those lyrical compositions that are distinguished by a more lofty feeling, and in which the poet sings with enthusiasm or passion of some sublime object, are called "odes." Sappho of Lesbos, a poetess celebrated for her amatory songs, and her voluntary death, distinguished herself in this style of composition. But the Theban, Pindar, was the first who gave to the ode its full perfection. At a later period, the term "lyric" was applied to all the shorter specimens of poetry, even though they were not fitted to be sung to music. Thus satire, the object of which is to punish the vices and failings of men, by ridicule, and by this means to bring about their instruction and improvement, is called " lyric poetry." b.c. 700. Archilochos, of Paros, the discoverer of iambics, is b c. 600. named as the first satiric poet ; at whose side Alcseus of Mitylene, the freedom-inspired opponent of the tyrants, occupies no unworthy place. In like manner, the short stories where animals are introduced acting and speaking, (fables) and the object of which is the inculcation of some useful maxim or rule of life, are distinguished by the same term. iEsop, a Phrygian slave, whose history is involved in obscurity, and disfigured by many fabulous stories, acquired a great renown in this sort of composition. II. THE FLOURISHING PERIOD OF GREECE. I. THE PERSIAN WAE. § 50. The Greek colonial cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, had been brought by Cyrus under the Persian dominion. Accustomed to freedom, they bore this foreign yoke with the greatest reluctance, but were unable to free themselves from it, because the principal Greeks, who were appointed by the Persians to the office of prince, or tyrant, of the different towns, and who were consequently devoted to the court of Susa, knew well how to keep their countrymen in subjection. One of the most powerful of these was Histiseus, prince of Miletus. He had accompanied Darius in his expedition against the Scythians, (§ 30) and had received, together with some other Greeks, the charge 40 THE ANCIENT WORLD. of guarding the bridges that had been thrown over the Donau. "When the news of the disasters of the Persians became known, Mil- tiades, the Athenian, advised that these bridges should be destroyed, and the king and his whole army given up to destruction. But Histiseus opposed this project, and was afterwards rewarded by being invited to the Persian capital, and passing his life there in splendour and luxury. But no pleasures could extinguish his longing after his native country, and when he found that he was so much mistrusted as not to be permitted to depart, he secretly instigated his relative, Aristagoras of MUetus, to stir up the discontented Greeks to rebel- lion, hoping by this means to gain an opportunity of returning. In a short time, Mdetus and the other Greek towns were in arms. Sparta, and the other states of the mother country, were applied to for assistance ; but Athens only, who Avas afraid that Darius might again restore Hippias, who was residing at his court, and the small town of Eretria, in Euboea, sent a few ships. At first the insurrec- tion appeared successful. The Greeks took and burnt Sardes, the chief city of Asia Minor, upon which the revolt spread over the whole of Ionia. But fortune soou changed. Divisions among themselves, and the superior force of the enemy, occasioned the loss of a mari- time engagement, and the capture and destruction of MUetus. Many of the Mdesians were led into slavery ; Aristagoras fled to the Thracians, where he met with his death ; Histiseus was taken prisoner and crucified. Ionia again fell under the dominion of the Persians, and Darius vowed a bloody vengeance against the Athenians and Eretrians, for the assistance they had afforded the rebels. § 51. Mardonius, the son-in-law of Darius, sailed with a fleet and army along the coast of Thrace, towards Greece, whilst the Persian heralds demanded earth and water, the symbols of submission, from the whole of the Greek cities. But the fleet was driven against the promontory of Athos by a storm, and the Thracians destroyed a part of the land force, so that Mardonius was compelled to lead back the remains of his army into Asia, without effecting his purpose. It fared no better with the heralds. JEgina, and the greater number of the islands indeed, presented the earth and water ; but when they made the same demands at Athens and Sparta, they were put to death by the inhabitants, in defiance of all the laws of nations. Darius, enraged at this insult, dispatched a . second fleet, under the command of Dates and Artaphernes. They sailed through the Archipelago, and reduced the islands of the Cyclades to submission, and afterwards landed at Eubcea. Eretria, after a gallant resistance, fell by treach- ery into the hands of the enemy, who razed the city to the ground, and sent away the inhabitants into Asia. The Persians marched through the island, burning and destroying ; and at length, under the HISTORY OF GREECE. 41 command of Hippias, landed on the coast of Attica, and encamped on the plain of Marathon. The Athenians sent in haste to the Spartans for assistance ; bnt these not appearing at the proper time, in conse- quence of an ancient law of their religion, which forbade them to march to battle before a full moon, the Athenians, under the com- mand of ten leaders, advanced upon the enemy. The most esteemed among these leaders was Miltiades, who had formerly served in the Persian army, and was thoroughly acquainted with its qualities and tactics. By his direction, 10,000 Athenians, and 1000 Plataeans, attached the army of Persians of ten times their number, in a place unfavourable for cavalry, and gave them a complete over- throw in the battle of Marathon. The victors gained a rich booty, and placed the fetters they discovered, and which were intended for themselves, on the bodies of their enemies. Great was the renown acquired by the Athenians, who here for the first time proved that they were worthy of the democratic freedom they had lately introduced among themselves ; and centuries later, patriotic orators would excite the enthusiasm of the people by calling to their remembrance the victory of Marathon. Hippias was one of the slain. § 52. Miltiades, the saviour of Greece, did not long enjoy his honours. He persuaded the Athenians to equip a fleet for the pur- pose of subduing the islands of the iEgean Sea which had submitted to the Persians. But when the attempt upon the island of Paros miscarried, the people condemned him to pay the cost of the expedition, and to be cast into prison till the debt should be discharged. The sentence was carried into execution, and Miltiades died in prison of his wounds. Cimon his son paid the debt, and conferred an honour- able burial upon his father. At that time there lived in Athens two men of remarkable cha- racter, Aristides, surnamed the Just, and Themistocles. Both sought to render their coimtry illustrious, but by different methods. Aris- tides would make use of no means that were not strictly just and honourable, nor consent to any measure that excited the scruples of his conscience. Themistocles was less scrupulous : he would regard nothing but the greatness and advantage of his native city, and not unfrequently had recourse to artifice and deceit. Shrewder and more talented than his rival, Themistocles soon won a greater share of the popular esteem ; and to free himself from a hindrance to his plans, he urged the banishment of the more honest Aristides by ostracism 1 . 1 Ostracism was an arrangement by which any citizen who was so superior to his fellows in power, influence, authority, or other qualities, as to endanger the civic equality, or the democratic constitution of the state, might be banished for a term (usually ten) of years. The term was derived from the Greek word for the shell (ostracon) on which the name of the accused citizen was written. — Trans. 42 THE ANCIENT WORLD. By this means Themistocles became the sole leader of the Athenian republic, and he exerted the whole of his influence to obtain an in- crease of the fleet ; for it was only by this means that the Athenians could attain a superiority to the other states. A declaration of the Delphic oracle, that the safety of Athens depended upon its "wooden ■walls," was of great service to him in the execution of tins project. § 53. Darius died in the midst of vast preparations for a fresh invasion of Greece. But his successor, Xerxes, a man puffed up with pride and arrogance, pursued his father's designs of vengeance, and carried on his preparations on such a scale, that he collected an army of a million and a half of men, and a fleet of more than 12,000 large vessels. But this immense crowd of people of all nations and tongues, with habits and weapons of the most diversified character, and accus- tomed each to its own method of warfare, was rather a hindrance than an assistance to the enterprise. When Xerxes had completed his preparations, and with wonderful good fortune had quelled a revolt that broke out in Egypt, (a circumstance that contributed not a little to swell his confidence,) he ordered his troops, with an enor- mous crowd of sutlers, beasts of burden, waggons, and dogs of chase, to defile for seven days and nights across the Hellespont, on two bridges of boats, and then to march through Thrace and Macedonia towards Thessaly, whilst his fleet coasted along the shore to supply the army with whatever it needed. To prevent his ships being wrecked on the promontory of Athos, as in the first expedition, Xerxes separated the mountain from the mainland, by cutting a canal. Thessaly submitted without a blow. Bceotia, and a few of the smaller states pusillanimously yielded earth and water, and the threatening foe still marched on. At this juncture Greece showed what union, courage, and patriotism, are capable of effecting. The greater num- ber of the states united in a confederacy, and placed themselves under the guidance of Sparta. It was in July, just at the time of the celebration of the Olympic games, that Xerxes arrived at the narrow pass of Ther- mopylae, which Leonidas had occupied with three hundred Spartans and a few thousands of the allies. It was in vain that the Persian king attempted for several days to force a passage ; thousands of his troops fell beneath the swords of the brave Greeks ; even the 10,000 Immortals, as they were called, the flower of the Persian army, were compelled to yield to the Spartan valour. At length a traitorous Greek conducted a part of the Persians by a footpath over the summit of the mountain Octa, who attacked the rear of the Greeks. Upon receiving intelligence of this, Leonidas dismissed the troops of the allies. He himself, with his 300 Spartans, and about 700 of the citizens of Thespia, who united themselves to him, devoted HISTORY OF GREECE. 43 themselves to an heroic death for their country. Surrounded on all sides, they fought like lions, till, overpowered by numbers, and Avearied with slaughter and contest, they sunk to the earth. Leonidas and his heroic band lived long in song, and a monument pointed out to the traveller the spot where they fell. The Persians now subjected Eoeotia without opposition, pursued their devastating course into Attica, and reduced Athens to ashes. The old warriors who defended the city were slaughtered. The citizens who were fit to bear arms were serving in the fleet. The women and children, together with the effects, had been sent, by the advice of Themistocles, to iEgina, Salamis, and Trazosne. § 54. Themistocles now became the saviour of Greece. The united fleet of the Greeks had sailed from the promontory of Artemesium, where it had been for some days successfully engaged, into the Saronic gulf, whither it was followed by the Persians. It was here that Themistocles, by his prudence, rendered abortive the ruinous design of the Spartan admiral, Eurybiades, of separating himself with the Pelopennesian fleet and deciding the battle in the Corinthian gulf, by craftily provoking the Persian king to a sudden attack in the narrow channel, where the enemy's fleet was embarrassed by its own magnitude. Thus originated the sea-fight of Salamis, in which the Greeks obtained a complete victory. Xerxes gazed in despair from a neighbouring eminence on the destruction of his fleet, and then commenced a hasty retreat with a portion of his army through Thessaly, Macedon, and Thrace, during which he lost some thousands of his soldiers from cold, hunger, and fatigue. § 55. Xerxes on his retreat left 300,000 of his best troops behind him in Thessaly. These marched again into Attica in the following spring, and compelled the Athenians, who had returned home, once more to disperse themselves. But the Greeks, under the conduct of the Spartan Pausanias, lieutenant of the Athenian general, Aristides, obtained so signal a victory in the great battle of Platsea, over a force of three times their number, that only 40,000 of the Persians saved themselves across the Hellespont. The remainder, with their leader, were slain, either in battle, in the storming of their camp, or in the flight. The booty was enormous. On the same day, the Persians suffered a decisive defeat at the promontory of Mycale, in Asia Minor, from the Greeks on board the fleet. In this case also a Spartan was the leader, but it was the Athenians and Milesians who bore off the prize of valour. The fleet and camp of the enemy were taken and destroyed. The slaughter among the broken and flying crowd was frightful. Valour triumphed over strength, and the truth, that patriotism and love of freedom can bear away the victory from superior numbers, received a splendid confirmation in the glorious triumph of the Greeks over the Persians. Ten years after- 44 THE ANCIENT WORLD. wards, the double victory of Cimon on the river Euryme- don, over the fleet and army of the Persians, brought the war to a temporary conclusion. The peace of Cimon freed the whole of the Greek cities from the Persian yoke. THE SUPREMACY OE ATHENS, AND THE AGE OE PERICLES. § 56. After the battle of Plataea, the war was principally carried on at sea. As the Spartans possessed but few ships, the command had gradually fallen into the hands of the Athenians, who, moreover, during the whole war had displayed the greatest courage and mag- nanimity. The supremacy of the Athenians was also forwarded by the treachery of the Spartan general Pausanias. Pausanias, at the taking of Byzantium, had made prisoners of some illustrious Persians. He sent these without any ransom to Xerxes, with the message, that " He would assist him in subduing the Greeks, if Xerxes would give him his daughter in marriage, and make him governor of Pelopon- nesus." When the Persian king acceded to these terms, the vain and ambitious man became so insolent, as entirely to neglect the Spartan laws and manner of living ; he clothed himself in costly garments, maintained a luxurious table, and was waited on and accompanied by a band of Persian guards. At the same time, lie rendered the Lacedaemonian ride universally odious by his imperious behaviour. The Spartans when made acquainted with this conduct, recalled their faithless general ; but their authority in maritime affairs was already so much weakened, that they voluntarily renounced the command. Pausanias, even in Sparta, kept up a private correspond- ence with the king of Persia. But this treachery being exposed by means of a slave, he perished of hunger in a temple in which he had taken refuge. § 57. Whilst Pausanias was thus weakening the power of his native city, the three Athenian generals, by their various capacities and talents were instrumental in raising that of their own. Themistocles, by dint of wisdom and cunning, succeeded in get- ting Athens surrounded by a strong wall, and in founding the admirable harbour of Piraeus, which Cimon and Pericles afterwards connected with Athens, by means of a long double wall. By this undertaking, Themistocles incurred the implacable hate of the Spar- tans, who were very averse to the fortification of Athens, and who for this reason attempted at a later period to implicate him in the treachery of Pausanias. This happened at a time, when his enemies in Athens had succeeded in getting the ambitious man banished by ostracism, for a term of ten years. Perse- secuted in this way, the great general fled in the midst of innumer- able dangers to Asia, where he was honourably received by the Persian king, and had the revenues of three cities of Asia Minor HISTORY OF GREECE. 45 allotted to him for his support. But when the king wanted his assistance in the subjection of Greece, he is said to have swallowed poison, rather than prove -a traitor to his country. As Themistocles by prudence, so Aristides by justice, aided the interests of his native city. The perfect confidence that was placed in his character and opinions, induced the islands and maritime cities to enter into alliance with the Athenians, and to pledge themselves to a supply of ships and money for the continuation of the war. The treasury of the confederacy, which was established in Delos for this purpose, was entrusted to the management of Aristides, and the command of the united fleet was also given to an Athenian. The supply of ships soon became burdensome to the smaller states, and they were glad to compromise for their delivery, by the payment of an additional sum of money. This gave the Athenians the oppor- tunity they so much wished for, of increasing their fleet, of subjecting the smaller maritime states, and treating them as tributary vassals. Aristides died so poor, that the state was obliged to defray the expenses of his burial, and to provide for the establishing of his children. § 58. Cimon, the son of Miltiades, and Pericles, were not less instrumental in the aggrandizement of Athens. The first rendered many services to his country by successful expeditions at sea, and gained the people by his affability and generosity. He enlarged the territory of Athens, and employed his vast wealth in the embellish- ment of the city, where he established the beautiful gardens called the Academy. During his time Sparta was visited by a fearful earthquake. The greatest part of the principal city was destroyed, and to increase the calamity, the helots and Messenians seized their arms for the purpose of regaining their freedom. In their distress the Spartans turned to Athens for assistance, and by the influence of Cimon, an army was dispatched to their aid. But the suspicious Spartans sent it back again, a proceeding which so offended the Athenians, that they banished Cimon by the ostracism ; and when the Messenians, after a contest of ten years, were compelled to surrender their citadel, IthSme, they gave up the sea-port town, Naupactus, to them for a residence. Cimon died, much respected, in Cyprus, B.C. 449. Pericles, a soldier and statesman, distinguished by great talents, cultivation, and eloquence, exercised during his life such an influence on the state and people of Athens, that the years of his rule were distinguished as "the age of Pericles." This period includes the time when Athens had attained its highest point of refinement within, and possessed the greatest power abroad. Pericles adorned Athens by the erection of temples and magnificent buildings ; he encouraged 46 THE ANCIENT WORLD. the ai'ts and sciences, he invited men of genius, and in particular the great artist, Phidias, to his hospitable court. He gave to every one the means and opportunity of educating and distinguishing himself, and produced by these means a taste for art, literature, and poetry, even among the lowest classes of the people. Though descended from a rich and illustrious family, he was nevertheless a man of the people, and devoted to democratic principles. He passed a law, by which every Athenian citizen who sat in judgment, or was present at an assembly of the people, or served in the fleet or army, was entitled to a stipend. He distributed large alms to the necessitous, he instituted magnificent festivals, plays, and processions, for the gratification of the sight-loving people. By his exertions, the Athenian state attained such an exalted state of cultivation, that the citizens were almost all equally well fitted to fill offices or discharge business ; so that the regu- lation, that the greater part of the public offices should be filled by lot, was attended with less inconvenience at Athens, than such arrange- ment would have produced at any other place. At the same time, Athens, by means of Pericles, attained the greatest renown abroad. Her ships rided over the iEgean Sea, and compelled the islanders to pay tribute, by which means enormous sums of money flowed into her treasury. The statue of Minerva was covered with a robe of solid gold ; the Athenian armies engaged in successful conflicts with the Thebans and Spartans, till the unfor- tunate battle of Chseronea put an end to their military glory. After this engagement, in which the Athenians were either killed or taken prisoners, Pericles was obliged to save Athens from the destruction by which it was threatened, by concluding the peace named after him, "the peace of Pericles." THE PELOPONNESIAN WAE, B.C. 431 — 404. § 59. The peace of Pericles was of short duration. The prosperity of the Athenians filled the Spartans with envy and malevolence ; and the insolence and severity with which they treated their subjected allies, more particularly the inhabitants of iEgina, who had only sub- mitted after a long struggle, excited hatred and disgust. In a short time, two armed and hostfle powers stood opposed to each other : the Athenian confederation, which included most of the islands and mari- time towns, and which was favoured by the democratic party in all the states, and the chief strength of which laid in its fleet ; and the Pelo- ponnesian alliance, with Sparta at its head, to which the Doric and the greater part of the iEohan states (Bceotia and others) attached themselves, and which reposed its confidence on a gallant army. The Spartans declined for a long time to commence hostilities. But when the Corinthians complained that Athens had violated the peace by assisting the island of Corcyra in its war against the mother country, HISTORY OF GREECE. 47 Corinth, and had laid siege to the Corinthian colony, Potidsea, in Macedon, the Peloponnesian war, which for a period of twenty-seven years ravaged Greece in the most frightful manner, at length broke out. § 60. As soon as war was declared, a Spartan army marched into Attica, and devastated the country. Upon this Pericles summoned the inhabitants of the country into the town, fitted out a fleet, and, landing on the coast of Peloponnesus, commenced reprisals. These were continued for some time, till at length a plague broke out in Athens, in consequence of the overcrowded state of the city, swept away many thousands of the inhabitants, and finally carried Pericles himself to the grave, after he had witnessed the death of his three sons. The death of this great man was a heavy loss to Athens : for now a crowd of selfish demagogues, and among them, Cleon, a tanner, obtained great influence, seduced the people by flattery, and strove to prolong the war. "Weakened by their own divisions, the Athenians were compelled to look on, whilst the Platseans, their most faithful allies, were subdued after an heroic struggle, by the Lacedsemonians and Boeotians : Plateea itself was levelled with the earth, the citizens who were capable of bearing arms put to the sword, and their wives and children led into slavery. The Athenian general, Demosthenes, shortly after succeeded in gaining possession of the Messenian town of Pylos, from whence he harassed the Spartan territories with devastating inroads. It was in vain that the Spartans endeavoured to drive him from his position, their attacks were repulsed, and more than four hundred heavy-armed Spartan troops shut up in the barren island of Sphacteria, where they were reduced to great extremities. They only obtained the means of subsistence by the desperate land- ing effected by some helots, to whom the Spartans had promised freedom if they were successful in the attempt. At last, to escape starvation, they were compelled to surrender themselves to Cleon, who had arrived with reinforcements. This success inflamed the insolence of the democratic leader. He fancied himself a hero, and obtained the command of an army that was intended to subdue the Spartan general, Brasidas, in Thrace. But Cleon suffered a defeat before the city of Amphipolis, and was afterwards killed in the flight; whereupon the opposite party gained the upper hand in Athens, and concluded the peace of Nicias. In the mean time, a desperate struggle was going on between the aristo- cratic and democratic factions, in the greater number of the Greek cities ; but no where was the strife more sanguinary than in the island of Corcyra, where the most illustrious families were completely destroyed. By the help of the Athenians, the democrats got their adversaries in their power, shut them up in a building, and killed 48 THE ANCIENT WORLD. them by casting down stones upon their heads. "Where the Spartans gained the upper hand, the aristocratic party became predominant, and punished their enemies by death and banishment ; if the Athen- ians prevailed, the democrats assumed the direction of affairs, and treated their opponents with similar severity. § 61. The conclusion of peace separated the Spai'tans and Corinth- ians. The latter, in consequence, united themselves with Argos, Elis, and other cities of Arcadia, for the purpose of depriving the Spartans of their superiority (hegemonie) in Peloponnesus. In this attempt they received the assistance of Alcibiades, who was then in his twentieth year, and sister's son to Pericles, and who here displayed for the first time his address and powers of persuasion. Alcibiades w r as endowed with the greatest advantages both of mind and person. He was rich, handsome, accomplished, and a most admirable orator ; so that he was exactly fitted to supply the place of Pericles, had he only possessed more stability and prudence. The war, which the Spartans now had to sustain with the Corinthians and allies, would have been fatal to their authority, had not fortune declared b c 418 . . for the Lacedaemonian arms in the battle of Mantinaea. § 62. Not long afterwards, the Athenians dispatched the finest fleet and the most admirable army that had ever sailed from the Piraeus, to Sicily, under the command of Alcibiades, Nicias, and Lamachus, for the purpose of attacking the Dorian city, Syracuse. This undertaking faded. Alcibiades, during his absence, was accused by his enemies of many crimes against religion and the government, and was in consequence hastily recalled by the Athenian magistrates. Thirsting for vengeance, he fled to Sparta, and endea- voured to stir up that state to make war upon Athens. The brave Lamachus fell in the siege of Syracuse ; the Athenian fleet was destroyed in the harbour; and when Nicias attempted to escape by land with the remains of the army to a friendly city, he was attacked during a night march, and after a bloody fight taken prisoner with the whole of his troops. Those who did not fall in the engagement, were employed as slaves in the stone quarries. The valiant generals, Nicias and Demosthenes, died in the market-place by the hands of the executioner. § 63. Dark reports conveyed to Athens the first news of this dreadful blow ; when the frightful intelligence was confirmed, there was scarcely a family that had not occasion to mourn. The Athenian allies fell off and joined the Lacedaemonians ; the Spartans renewed the war by sea and land, and were assisted by the Persian governor of Asia Minor. Within the city, the aristocratic party were attempt- ing to overturn the constitution, and entered secretly into a traitorous alliance with the Spartans. Athens nevertheless defended herself for eight years against the superior force of the enemy, and was victor in HISTORY OF GREECE. 49 two important engagements at sea. But no exertions could restore the crippled state to its former greatness. It was in vain that the Athenians recalled Alcibiades, gave him the command of the fleet and army, and cast the column on which his crimes were inscribed into the sea, — even he could not bring back its ancient glories to the Athenian navy. A few months after he had entered Athens amidst the exulting shouts of the popidace, he was again deprived of his command, because his lieutenant in his absence had lost the sea-fight of Ephesus. § 64. About this time the Spartans gained an excellent leader in the artful and adventurous Lysander, who obtained the favour of the new governor of Asia Minor, Cyrus the younger, for the purpose of increasing the Lacedaemonian fleet by the assistance of the Per- sians. This Lysander took advantage of the carelessness of the Athenian commanders, who had suffered their men to go on shore, by making an unexpected attack upon their ships at the Goat's River (iEgos-potamos) , on the Hellespont, and cap- turing the whole of them, except nine. The power of Athens was now vanished. After Lysander had reduced to submission the islands and towns that were friendly to the Athenians, he blockaded Athens itself by land and sea, and the overcrowded city was soon reduced by hunger to surrender. The long walls and fortifications were pulled down to the sound of flutes ; the ships, with the exception of twelve, delivered to the Spartans, and all fugitives and outlaws recalled. Lysander then annulled the democratic con- stitution, and placed the government in the hands of thirty illustrious Athenians, who were the allies of Sparta. These aristocrats, dis- tinguished by the name of Thirty Tyrants, with the clever but violent Critias at their head, breathed nothing but death and banishment against the democratic party. But this reign of terror was but of short duration. Thrasybulus, a patriotic man, collected around him the fugitives and those who had been banished, and marched upon Athens. Critias was slain in battle ; the rest fell by treachery into the hands of the conqueror, who put them to death, re-established the democratic constitution, and by the assurance that the past should be forgotten and forgiven, succeeded in again restoring tran- quillity and order. 4. SOCEATES. § 65. During the Peloponnesian war, the morals of the Athenians had deteriorated, and honesty and civil virtue came to be less esteemed than wit and intelligence. This state of things was in a great degree brought about by the sophists, — false teachers, who paraded a factitious kind of wisdom founded upon fallacies and sophisms, and who presumed by oratorical arts and tricks of disputa- 50 THE ANCIENT WORLD. tion, to put lies in the place of truth, and to convert truth into error. They enticed to themselves wealthy young men, and instructed them in these arts for great rewards, by which means domestic and public life were poisoned in their very sources. At this juncture arose Socrates, an Athenian citizen, unmasked these sophistical mounte- banks, and awakened the sentiments of religion, justice, and virtue, in the bosoms of his pupils. Socrates taught his practical philosophy, the end of which was, "Know thyself;" not in elaborate discourses from the lecturer's chair, but by questions and answers in the public streets, under the open sky, or in the workshops of mechanics. The sophists were reduced to silence by his clear intellect, his simple and upright life, and his moral worth; wlnlst the richest and most talented young men united themselves to him. This exasperated the vain and greedy sophists, and they accused him of seducing the youth, and introducing false gods. Socrates, in a simple defence, disproved before the judges the truth of this accusation. But instead, as was then the custom, of imploring his acquittal with prayers and lamentations, he concluded his discourse by asserting that he was entitled to be received into the number of those illustrious men who, on account of their services to the commonwealth, were maintained at the public expense. This offended the judges, and Socrates was condemned to death by a small majority. It was in vain that his friends, particularly the rich citizen Crito, persuaded him to fly ; he rejected their counsels, and in the midst of elevating discourses on the immortal nature of the soul, (Plato's Phsedo) he drank the cup of poison, and died with the cheerfulness and composure of mind of a phdosopher. He has left nothing in writing : but his illustrious dis- ciple, Plato, has placed his own philosophy in the mouth of Socrates. This Plato was so distinguished as a writer and thinker that he was named the " Divine," as well on account of his splendid and exalted ideas and poetical images, as the perfect art of representation which is displayed by his works, written in the form of dialogues. Next to him, Xenophon the Athenian, at once a soldier and a writer, was the most distinguished of the disciples of Socrates. He has made the world acquainted with the life and doctrines of his master, in several philosophical pieces, entitled " Memorabilia of Socrates." 5. THE EETKEAT OE THE TEN THOUSAND. B.C. 400. § 66. Xenophon's most admirable historical work, is the "Ana- basis," or the description of the campaign of the younger Cyrus in Persia, and of the retreat of the Greek troops under the command of Xenophon himself. After its contest with Greece, the Persian em- pire had grown gradually weaker. The governors rided the provinces in an arbitrary manner, and excited insurrections by their oppression. The court was swayed by selfish and effeminate men and intriguing HISTORY OF GREECE. 51 women, who practised the most frightful crimes, gave themselves up to every lust and excess, and perplexed the affairs of the kingdom by their contests for the crown. It was under these circumstances, that the younger Cyrus, governor of Asia Minor, entertained the project of depriving his elder brother, Artaxerxes, of the crown. He assem- bled a considerable army of mercenaries, the flower of which was composed of Spartan and other Greek troops, and marched with them into Persia. A battle was fought in the plain of Cunaxa, a few miles from Babylon, in which the Greeks indeed proved victorious, but Cyrus fell by the hand of his brother. The Greeks were summoned to surrender, and when they refused, the Persians invited Clearchus and the other captains to an interview, in which they were treacher- ously murdered. The Athenian, Xenophon, then placed himself at the head of the helpless host, and led them under the most incredible hardships through Armenia to the Black Sea, and from thence to Byzantium. Without any knowledge of the land or of the language, without guides on whom they could depend, they were compelled to climb pathless mountains, to wade through rivers, to march through inhospitable and snow-covered deserts, pursued by the Persians, and attacked by the inhabitants. When they caught the first glimpse of the Black Sea from an eminence, they fell upon then knees and saluted it with a shout of joy as the termination of their miseries. 6. THE TIME OE AGESILAUS AND EPAMLTSTONDAS. § 67. Sparta, by the Peloponnesian war, had become the first power in Greece. She abused her authority however, by tyrannizing over the other states, and by this means brought upon herself the hatred of her allies, in the same way that Athens had formerly done. Her inhabitants had long degenerated from the simplicity and severity of manners enjoined by Lycurgus. Foreign wars had brought riches, these produced avarice and love of pleasure, and from these again proceeded a host of vices. Kings and generals suffered themselves to be bought by sums of money, and disgraced themselves by corruption. A few families acquired enormous wealth and possessions, and plunged into luxury and intemperance, whilst the poorer classes starved. Even the powerful king, Agesilaus, a strenuous advocate for the old Spartan virtue and simplicity, was unable to restrain these vices. The other states had also long equally degenerated from the virtues and patriotism of an earlier period. Their citizens disaccustomed themselves from the use of arms, and relinquished the practice of war to hired mercenaries ; and when king Agesilaus declared war against the crumbling empire of Persia, and penetrated with his victorious banners into Asia Minor, the Athenians, Corinthians, Boeotians, and some others, were so forgetful of their honour and national feelings, that they suffered themselves to be persuaded by E 2 52 THE ANCIENT WORLD. the Persian monarch to take the field against Sparta ; so that Agesi- laus was compelled to retreat, and to turn his arms in the so-called Corinthian war against the Greeks themselves. Disunion, enerva- tion, and jealousy, at length produced such an indifference to national honour, that the Greek states rivalled each other to secure the favour of Persia, and consented to the shameful peace of Antal- cidas, hy which the west coast of Asia Minor was given up to the Persians, and in consequence lost for ever to liberty and Greece. § 68. The peace of Antalcidas contained the farther condition, that all the Grecian states should be free. The Spartans, who were appointed the guardians and executors of the treaty, took this oppor- tunity to dissolve all alliances between the states, and to increase their own power. But their arrogance was soon punished. The Greek town Olynthus, in Macedonia, had united several neighbouring cities in a confederation, over Avhich, as the principal city, it exercised authority. The Spartans objected to this, as contrary to the con- ditions of the peace of Antalcidas, and on the Olynthians refusing to dissolve the confederacy, marched an army into the country, besieged then' town, and compelled them to submission. During the march through Boeotia, the Spartan general allowed himself to be persuaded by the aristocratic party in Thebes, to invest the town and overturn the democratic constitution. The undertaking was successful. The chiefs of the popular party were either executed, banished, or im- prisoned, the aristocrats seized upon the government, and confident of the support of the Spartans, ruled with insolence and violence. § GO. But the hour of retribution was approaching. The banished democrats united themselves in Athens, from whence they commenced a correspondence with then' friends in Thebes. At their instigation they in a short time returned in secret in the disguise of clowns, assembled themselves in the house of one of the party, and issuing forth at midnight fell upon the aristocrats who were collected together at a luxurious repast. After these had been dispatched, they summoned the citizens to liberty, re-established the democratical government, and forced the Spartan garrison to retreat from the citadel. This occasioned a war between the Thebans and Lacede- monians. The commonwealth of Thebes was at that time conducted by two men, who joined patriotism and virtue to courage and military talents, and who were united together by the bonds of friendship, — Epaminondas and Pelopidas. They united their efforts in the attempt to elevate their country. Epaminondas introduced a new system of tactics, "the oblique order of battle," and Pelopidas was the originator of the sacred band, which, composed of a number of youths united together by friendship, and inspired by a love of honour and freedom, olfered a successful resist- HISTORY OF GREECE. 53 ance to the Spartans. At first the Athenians sided with the Thebans, and by means of their generals, Iphicrates, Chabrias, and Timotheus, did much mischief to the Lacedaemonians, both by sea and land. But when Thebes subjected the lesser cities of Bceotia to its authority, and destroyed Plataea, a town that was on friendly terms with Athens, the old jealousy again awoke, Athens concluded a peace with Sparta, and when the Thebans refused to accede to its conditions, the Lacedaemonian troops again marched into their terri- tory, but suffered so terrible a defeat from Epaminondas and Pelopidas, in the battle of Leuctra, that Sparta never recovered from its effects. For the first time the Lacedaemonian troops fled from the field of battle, so that the old Spartan law, which declared fugitives to be infamous, could not be put in force. § 70. Epaminondas shortly after marched into Peloponnesus, and approached the unwalled capital of Laconia, that for five centuries had never seen an enemy in its neighbourhood. But the preparations for defence made by the old king, Agesilaus, and the determined attitude assumed by the Spartans, whose wives and children prepared to aid in the struggle, preserved it from attack. But Epaminondas expiated an old act of injustice. He called the Messenians to liberty, and restored to the exiles who returned from abroad, the land of their fathers, with the newly-built town of Messene. Some years later, Epaminondas again appeared in Peloponnesus. The Spartans and their allies under the command of Ao;esilaus pre- b.c. 362. sented themselves and fought with him the battle of Man- tinaea. In this battle the Thebans indeed proved victorious, but conquest was dearly bought by the death of Epaminondas. A javelin had pierced his breast, but it was not till he heard that the enemy were defeated, that he allowed the weapon to be withdrawn, and breathed forth his heroic spirit. Two years before, the brave Pelo- pidas lost his life in Thessaly, and in the following year, at the age of eighty, died Agesilaus, after witnessing Sparta's highest glory and her deepest fall. Epaminondas was magnanimous, experienced in war, and as just, unselfish, and poor as Aristides himself ; the lofti- ness of his aims, and the sense of his own personal worth, elevated him above avarice and the pursuit of pleasure, and the single cloak which he possessed was a greater ornament to him than any wealth could have been. His death was followed by a general flagging in the energies of the Greeks. 7. THE MOST FLOURISHING PERIOD OE GREECE IN LITERATURE AND THE ARTS. § 71. Whilst the Greeks were destroying their own power and disturbing the public tranquillity by their internal contests, literature and the plastic arts attained their highest perfection. Dramatic 54 THE ANCIENT WORLD. poetry, that in its origin had been connected with the festivals of the wine-god, Dionysius, "was raised to a wonderful height by the three great poets, Sophocles, Euripides, and iEschylus. The lives of these three men, who were the perfecters of the serious drama (tragedy), may be connected with the battle of Salamis, since iEschylus, who was then in his forty-fifth year, fought in the ranks of the combatants ; Sophocles, at fifteen, took a part in the chorus of youths in the fes- tival held after the battle for the celebration of the victory, and Euripides was born on the clay of the engagement. In the seven pieces of iEschylus, (the Prometheus vinctus, Persae, Agamemnon, &c.,) we may recognize the great period of the Persian war, when the souls of the Greeks were inspired by a noble enthusiasm for freedom and their fatherland. His compositions, which breathe a reverence for the gods, a respect for ancient institutions, and the self-consciousness of a lofty mind, are occasionally rendered obscure by the bold flight of the ideas, and the solemn energy of the lan- guage. In the tragedies of Sophocles, of which also seven are preserved (Antigone, CEdipus, Electra, &c), we see the age of Pericles, with its cultivation aud intellectual sociality ; and hence these compositions remain unapproachable models of beauty and harmonious perfection of style. Euripides, of whom we possess nineteen pieces (Medea, Hecuba, Iphigenia, &c), belongs to a less energetic period. He prefers to linger amidst scenes of justice, in which the Athenians took especial delight ; he makes abundant use of the artfully-con- structed speeches, sentences and common-places then in vogue among philosophers, and seeks to affect his auditors by scenes of sorrow and distress. He replaces the creative power and genuine feeling of his predecessors, by sensibility, and elegant and polished language. Euripides' cotemporary, Aristophanes, brought comedy to perfection. His pieces, in which he contrasts the vices of his own age with the virtues of an earlier period, were often rendered more effective by living characters, who were introduced by name, and pourtrayed so accurately, that it was impossible to mistake them. Thus, in his "Progs," and in another of his pieces, he ridiculed Euripides and his flat and lachrymose tragedies ; in his " Clouds," he held up to derision the sophists (under the name of Socrates) who attempted to undermine the faith of the people ; and he was even bold enough to attack the powerful Cleon and the selfish demagogues, in his " Knights." The chorus, which was a feature peculiar to the Greek drama, uttered in unimpassioned and lyrical poetry, the sentiments and reflections of the audience upon what was going on upon the stage. The splendid theatres which were every where erected, and which were magnificent examples of architecture, contributed not a little to HISTORY OF GREECE. 55 the elevation of the dramatic art. A rich citizen could find no better way to the favour of the people than exhibiting a dramatic perform- ance at his own expense. § 72. It was at this same period that the prose literature of the Plato, b.c. Greeks rose to its highest point of cultivation. In the 429—348. dialogues of Plato, (§65,) the lofty thoughts of a rich and creative mind are clothed in the finest language, and presented in the Herodotus most attractive form. Herodotus, of Halicarnassus, is b.c. 450. looked upon as the father of history. He described the contests of the Greeks and Persians in simple and copious language, but occasionally introduced portions of the earlier history of the oriental and Greek tribes, so that his account contains a great deal that is fabulous, which he copied from the narrations of the priests. During his extensive travels he made himself acquainted by personal observation with most of the countries of which he relates the history. His Avork is written for the people, and therefore its lan- guage is simple and cordial. He shows how the love of freedom, the discipline, and the moderation of the Greeks, bore off the victory from the servility, the disorderly masses, and the pomp of the Asiatics. Thucydides, The historical works of Herodotus kindled the emulation b.c. 430. of the patriotic Athenian, Thucydides. He had been banished at the time of the battle of Amphipolis, (§ 60,) and devoted the years of his absence to the composition of his " History of the Peloponnesian war." His " thought- weighted " language, and the profundity of his reflections, render this work unintelligible, except to the learned. The history of Thucydides ends with the twenty-first year of the Peloponnesian Avar. Xenophon, Xenophon, his continuator, takes up the historical b.c. 400. thread where Thucydides rehnquished it. He is distin- guished by the clearness, ease, and beauty of his style, but is far inferior to Thucydides in depth and historical accuracy. Although an Athenian, Xenophon respects and praises the Spartans, especially their king, Agesilaus, of whose life he had also written a description. Por this reason, his Greek history is composed with a conscious partiality ; the illustrious Thebans, Pelopidas and Epaminondas in particular, are thrown entirely into the shade. His history concludes with the battle of Mantinssa. Another work of Xenophon's, was a history of the elder Cyrus (Cyropaedia), a sort of romance, in which he displays the founder of the Persian empire as the model of a regent. § 73. Rhetoric also about this time rose in Athens to its highest point of perfection. If eloquence had originally been a gift of nature, an inborn talent, it began, after the Peloponnesian war, to be treated as an art, and rules and -theories were established respecting it. Schools of oratory were opened, where the Athenian youth who 53 THE ANCIENT WORLD. ■wished to devote themselves to public life or to the affairs of govern- ment or the law, received instruction. For in a democratic republic like Athens, he alone could hope to exert himself with success, who was capable of speaking well. Among the ten Athenian orators who B c have left written discourses behind them, Isocrates takes 436—338. the first rank, both on account of the artistic skill and per- fection of style displayed by his discourses, and more particularly, from the great success of his oratorical school. The most renowned of the D th pupils of Isocrates, was Demosthenes, who from his youth b.c. upwards, kept his purpose so steadily before his eyes that 385—322. k e exer ted incredible efforts to overcome his natural impediments, that he might render himself an orator. No one pos- sessed to an equal degree with himself the gift of exciting, enchaining, and inspiring his auditors. Animation of delivery, alternations from severity to ridicule, bitter outbursts, and happy turns of expression, all served him as weapons. The most remarkable of his productions are the twelve political orations against Philip of Macedon (Philippics), in which he endeavours to excite the Athenians to make war upon this enterprizing monarch, who was at that time meditating the sub- jection of Greece. The rival of Demosthenes was iEschines, an orator equal to himself, who sided with the king of Macedon and his party. When the Athenian senate awarded a golden crown to Demosthenes, iEschines attempted, in a brilliant speech, to procure a revocation of the vote by calling in question the merits of him to whom it had been presented. This gave Demosthenes the oppor- tunity of so overwhelming his opponent in his incomparable oration, " de Corona," that iEschines was sentenced to punishment, and experienced so much annoyance, that he betook himself to Bhodes, where he established a school of oratory. § 74. The most flourishing period of the fine arts, under which term are included architecture, sculpture, and painting, was from the time of Pericles to the death of Alexander. The feeling for art that was inherent in the Greeks, was the chief cause of this perfection. Grecian architecture was particularly distinguished by symmetry and harmony, so that every budding formed a beautiful whole. The prin- cipal feature in a Greek edifice, are the pillars, which are divided into three orders by the differences in then capitals. The plain and massive Doric, the slender Ionic with its voluted capital, and the highly-decorated Corinthian. They were particularly employed in the entrances of the temples, and in halls and porticoes. The dwelling- houses of the ancients were small and insiguificant, so that their architectural skill could only be displayed in their public buddings, temples, theatres, senate-houses, monuments, &c. The art of sculpture was carried to its highest perfection by the Greeks, the master-pieces of antiquity that have been preserved to HISTORY OF GREECE. 57 us are even now regarded* as unapproachable examples of beauty. Amongst the artists, the next in celebrity to Phidias, (§ 58,) are Scopas of Paros, Praxiteles of Athens, and Lysippus of Sicyon. Since the best way of showing respect to a celebrated or deserving man, in Greece, was to erect his statue or set up his bust or hermes (bust placed on a pedestal), artists every where found employment and encouragement. Every city made it a point of honour to possess a multitude of statues in its streets and public places. The splendid physical conformation of the Greeks which was disfigured by no ugly habiliments, and the opportunity afforded by the exercises of the gymnasium of seeing the naked figure in every variety of attitude, tended materially to the perfection of the art of sculpture. The statue of the Belvidere Apollo, the group of the Laocoon, and innumerable figures and works in bas-relief, afford splendid evidence of the high artistic capabilities of the Greeks. In painting, the names of Parrhasius, Zeuxis, and Apelles, are par- ticularly celebrated. "We possess no specimen of ancient pahiting except the figures on the Grecian vases of burnt earth, and a few pictures on the walls of old buildings. Music, dancing, and the his- trionic art were also cultivated by the Greeks with enthusiasm. III. THE MACEDONIAN PERIOD. 1. PHILIP OP MACEDON, B.C. 361 336. § 75. Northward from Greece lies the rude and mountainous tract of Macedonia, the inhabitants of which were not looked upon as belonging to the Hellenes, though they had adopted the military system and many institutions of the Greeks. They were a military race, delighting in war and the chase and in chivalrous exercises and entertainments. A year after the death of Epaminondas, Philip assumed the government of this people. He was a man who united the shrewdness and dexterity of a statesman, the talents of a general, and the generosity and magnanimity of a prince. He both loved and respected the cultivation and the artists and poets of Greece, but held fast, nevertheless, to the manners of his own people, and even shared the disposition to intemperance indulged in by his nobles. He pos- sessed a well-appointed and efficient army, which was rendered particularly formidable by a newly invented order of battle, called the phalanx. § 76. Philip's great aim was the subjection of the disunited Greek states. The sacred war afforded him the wished for opportunity for this purpose. The Thebans wanted to reduce the neighbouring state, Phocis, under their own dominion, and had cited the inhabitants before the council of Amphictyons, on a charge of having taken pos- session of and brought into cultivation, some of the lands belonging 58 THE ANCIENT WORLD. to the temple of Delphi. The council inflicted a heavy fine upon the Phocians, and upon their refusing to pay it, they were placed under a ban, and the Thebans were directed to carry the punishment into execution. Upon this the Phocians took possession of the temple of Delphi, and employed the treasures deposited there in hiring an army of mercenaries, by whose assistance they succeeded in defending themselves for ten years against all the attacks of their enemies. The Thebans addressed themselves to Philip for assistance. Philip yielded to their request, first subjected the Thessalians, and then penetrated by the pass of Thermopylae into Phocis. After a gallant resistance, the Phocians were compelled to submit. They were thrust out of the council of the Amphictyons as a people accursed, and Philip was admitted in their place ; their cities were razed to the ground, some of the inhabitants quitted then country, others were carried into slavery, those that remained were compelled to pay tribute. § 77. Previous to this, Philip had taken possession of the Greek colonial cities Amphipolis and Potidgea, in Macedonia, and had founded the strong town of Philippi in the neighbourhood of the former, in a region abounding in gold mines ; after this he had subjected the haughty city Olynthus, and punished it severely in its possessions and liberties. But it was only by the breaking out of a second sacred war that he was enabled to attain his object. The Locrians were now accused in the same way the Phocians had formerly been, of having appropriated and brought under cultivation a portion of the lands belonging to the temple of Delphi ; and for this crime they were visited with a heavy fine by the council of Amphictyons. As this fine was not paid, the Amphictyons, at the suggestion of the orator, vEschines, who in his capacity of Athenian deputy was present at their council, commuted the punishment of the Locrians. The Macedonian king, Philip, hastened thither with his army, subdued the Locrians, and laid siege quite unexpectedly to the importantly situated town of Elatea. This arbitrary proceeding roused the Athenians from their indifference, and induced them to give a hearing to the exhortations of Demosthenes. The orator himself arranged an alliance with the Thebans, and effected the equipment of a consider- able army. But these troops, collected together in haste, and placed under the command of incompetent leaders, were unable to sustain the shock of the Macedonian phalanx. Despite the valom of the sacred band of the Thebans, who fell to a man on the field, Philip gained the battle of Chseronea, which put an end for ever to the liberties of Greece. Demosthenes pronounced the funeral oration over the bodies of those who had fallen, and Isocrates, who was then nearly a hundred years old, put himself to death rather than survive the liberties of his country. Por the rest, Philip treated the Greeks with kindness and affability to aecus- HISTORY OF GREECE. 59 torn them more readily to the Macedonian yoke. He cherished the purpose of attacking the crumbling empire of Persia at the head of the united states of Greece, and summoned an assembly of the whole nation at Corinth to make the necessary preparations. He was already named generalissimo of the forces with unlimited powers, and every state was directed to furnish him with its contin- gent of troops, when he was killed from motives of private ven- geance, by one of his body guard, at the nuptials of his daughter at Pella, in Macedonia. 2. ALEXANDER THE GREAT. § 78. After the death of Philip, the Macedonian throne was ascended by his son Alexander, at the age of twenty-one ; a high-spirited prince, and susceptible of all that is great and honourable. He was brought up and instructed in the culture of the Greeks, by Aristotle, the great philosopher, thinker, and inquirer, and in consequence, remained through his whole life a friend and admirer of the Grecian art and literature. As soon as Alexander had established himself upon the throne, he was acknowledged by the Greeks as the successor of his father in the office of generalissimo against the Persians. Before, however, he could vmdertake the campaign to Asia Minor, he had to sustain a severe encounter with some wild tribes who had made an irruption into Macedonia. A false report of his death was suddenly spread abroad in Greece, and filled the Greeks with the hope of again regaining their independence. The Thebans killed a part of the Macedonian garrison in their citadel, and the Athenians and Peloponnesians made preparations for war. But Alexander came upon them with- the rapidity of lightning, Thebes was taken, its walls and houses levelled with the ground, and the inhabitants reduced to slavery. Only the temple and the house of the poet Pindar were spared. The rest of the Greeks were terrified, and the victor, who soon repented of his severity, forgave them. § 79. It was in the spring of the year 334 B.C., that Alexander commenced his expedition against the Persians with a small but valiant army, commanded by admirable officers, Clitus, Parmenio, Ptolemus, and Antigonus. The army arrived at the Hellespont by the same path that Xerxes had taken, but in the contrary direction. At the passage, Alexander was the first who sprang upon the Asiatic continent, where, upon the plain of Troy, he instituted solemn games and sacrifices in honour of the ancient heroes who had fallen there. Achilles was his model, for this reason he always carried the compo- sitions of Homer about with him. Shortly after, the battle at the stream G-ranlcus took place, where Alexander carried off b~c. 334. . the victory from the far superior force of the Persians. His courage and chivalrous spirit here plunged him into imminent 60 THE ANCIENT WORLD. hazard of his life, from which he was only rescued hy the timely assistance of his general, Clitus. The conquest of Asia Minor was the consequence of this victory. The Greek cities submitted them- selves voluntarily, and hailed with joyful enthusiasm the kingly hero who had sprung from their own race. In the city of G-ordium there existed a very ancient royal chariot, with a knot twisted in the most intricate manner, respecting which an oracle had declared, that who- ever should unfasten this knot should gain the empire of Asia. Alexander accomplished the prophecy by cutting the Gordian knot with his sword. After this he crossed by perilous marches the Cilician mountains, where he got a dangerous illness by bathing in the cold waters of the Cydnus, from which he was only restored by the skill of the Greek physician, Philippus, and his own confidence in human virtue. § 80. Darius Codomannus himself now opposed him with a much stronger force, but suffered a complete overthrow in the battle of the Issus. This unfortunate king, who was worthy of a better fate, fled with the remains of his army into the interior of his dominions, whilst Alexander prepared to attack Phoenicia and Palestine, so as not to leave these lands unsubdued in his rear. The booty after the battle of the Issus was immense, and the number of the prisoners, amongst whom were the mother, wife, and daughter of Darius, who contrary to the customs of antiquity, were generously treated by the conqueror, not at all inferior. § 81. Palestine and Phoenicia submitted without resistance, but Tyre, confident in the strength of its position, rejected the summons to surrender with defiance. Upon this Alexander undertook the celebrated siege of Tyre, which lasted seven months. He commanded a mole, with towers, to be erected from the main land to the island on which the city was built, and from this mole his soldiers attempted the conquest of the town by machines for casting stones and every means that art could supply, whilst his ships blockaded the place by sea. But the Tyrians defeated his attempts by ingenioiis methods of defence, and maintained a desperate resistance. For this, Tyre had to make a heavy expiation when it was at length taken. Those of the inhabitants who had not escaped or perished in the siege, were reduced to slavery, and the city itself was levelled to the ground. Por the purpose of directing the commerce of the world into a different channel, Alexander, after he had conquered Egypt, built Alexandria on an arm of the Nile, and this city soon became the central point of trade and civilization. Prom Egypt he marched to the widely renowned temple of Jupiter Ammon in the oasis of Sivah, where the pi^iests declared him to be the son of Jupiter, a distinction that gained him no little respect in the eyes of the superstitious orientals. HISTORY OF GREECE. 61 § 82. After Alexander had established a new government in Egypt, he marched against Darius, who in the mean time had collected a large army. He crossed the Euphrates and Tigris, and with, a force only the twentieth part of that of the enemy, he defeated the enormous host of the Persians which had been assembled together from all the East in the plains of Babylon, in the battle of Arbela and Gangemala. The conquest of Babylon, and the capture of the two ancient capitals, Susa and Persepolis, with an enormous treasure, were the fruits of this splendid victory. Darius fled from Ecbatana, the beautiful summer residence of the Persian kings, to the mountainous region of Bactria, where he received his death from the hand of his treacherous governor, Bessus. Alexander shed tears over the fate of his unfortunate rival, and caused his murderer, who had assumed the title of king, but who was soon over- come and taken prisoner by the Macedonians, to be crucified in con- formity with the Persian custom. § 83. The enterprizing conqueror succeeded by dint of a daring march across the snow-covered Indian Caucasus, dining which his soldiers narrowly escaped perishing by hunger and fatigue, in making himself master of the mountain region to the south-east of the Cas- pian Sea, and rendering it approachable by the roads he caused to be constructed. His lofty spirit was not entirely absorbed by scenes of war and conquest, but could attend to the civilization of the savage inhabitants. Eour newly erected towns, named after him, Alexandria, became the centre of the caravan trade, and diffused the G-reek culti- vation among the farthest nations of the East. At the storming of a strong fortress he took prisoner the beautiful princess, Boxana, " the Pearl of the East," and made her his wife. § 84. Although the Macedonians repeatedly expressed their dis- content at their leader's unbounded love of conquest, Alexander dievertheless proceeded onwards to subjugate the lands on the banks of the Indus. But the warlike inhabitants of northern India, urged on by their priests, offered him a far more vigorous resistance than the dastardly subjects of the Persian king. Alexander's life was exposed more than once to the greatest peril in the storming of their strongholds. The quarrels of the native princes facilitated the con- quest of the Land of the Eive Eivers (Punjaub) by the Macedonians. Some of them leagued themselves with Alexander against Porus, the most powerful of these princes on the farther side of the Hydaspes (Dschelum). The passage of this river in the face of the enemy, and the action that followed, in which the gallant Porus was wounded and taken prisoner, are among the greatest military achievements of antiquity. Two new cities, Buchepala (so named in honour of Alex- ander's charger, Bucephalus), and Nicsea (city of Victory), were to diffuse Grecian civilization among these lands also. Alexander con- Q2 THE ANCIENT WORLD. turned his course by difficult marches, still farther eastward, to Hyphasis, and was already making preparations to add the rich lands of the Ganges to his dominions, when the murmurs of the Mace- donians became so loud that he was compelled, though with inward reluctance, to retreat. Twelve stone altars on the banks of the river mark the eastern termination of his conquests. After restoring their lands to Porus and the other Indian princes under Macedonian supremacy, he sailed down the Indus to discover another way of returning. This undertaking proved most fatal. In two months he lost three- fourths of his army in the frightful deserts of Gedrosia. The heroic warriors who had bidden defiance to sword and lance in so many battles, fell victims in the barren and waterless desert to want and fatigue, to the miseries of the climate, the fervid sun, the heated sand, and the nightly frosts. Alexander magnanimously shared all the dangers and difficulties with the meanest of his troops, and rewarded those who escaped with entertainments and presents ; by this means the feasting became as excessive as the previous want. § 85. Upon his return, Alexander dismissed his veteran soldiers to their homes, after having laden them with presents ; inflicted punish- ments upon the faithless governors and officers who, during his absence, had committed acts of violence and oppression, and then devoted himself zealously to the plan of assimilating the conquered people with their victors, and uniting them together in one nation possessed of the arts and cultivation of Greece. He treated the Persians with kindness, for the purpose of attaching them to his person and his rule. He surrounded himself with a court after the fashion of their kings, assumed the royal habit and diadem, and em- ployed Persian guards and attendants. He encouraged marriages between his generals and soldiers and the maidens of the country, by presents, and he himself espoused one of the daughters of Darius* By this conduct Alexander offended the Macedonians and Greeks, who wished to rule over the conquered people. Already, during the Indian campaign, the soldiers had displayed their discontent and ill humour in dissatisfied murmurs. This induced Alexander to have Philotas, the playfellow of his youth, and who was now the head of the malcontents, stoned by the army, and to put to death his aged father, Parmenio, who had remained behind in Persia. Alexander had at first imitated the customs of the Persian monarchs for the purpose of conciliating the conquered people, but he soon began to take delight in this oriental magnificence. His court at Babylon, which he intended to make the seat of the government of his empire, shone with the highest splendour, riotous feasts and banquets crowded upon each other, and in the intoxication of sensual indulgence he committed deeds that afterwards cost him bitter HISTORY OF GREECE. 63 repentance. Among these may be mentioned the murder of his deserving general, Clitus, who saved his life at the Granlcus, but who afterwards excited his anger by some sarcastic speeches as they were drinking. His heart was corrupted by flatterers, who thrust his honest and weU-meaning advisers from his side. The intemperate indulgence in strong wines undermined his health and brought him to an early grave. One of the last acts of the hero, was instituting magnificent funeral solemnities in honour of his prematurely departed friend, Hephaestion. His grief for this friend of his youth had not yet passed away, when an illness carried him to the grave in the midst of fresh schemes of conquest and before he had determined upon a successor. When he was asked to whom he left his kingdom, he is said to have replied, "To the worthiest." His dead body was brought from Babylon to Alexandria, and there interred. 3. THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD. a. Alexander's successors. § 86. As Alexander left no heir behind him who was capable of assuming the government, — only a brother, who was imbecile, and two children who were minors, — his empire fell to pieces as rapidly as it had been constructed. After many fierce and bloody wars in which the house of Alexander was totally destroyed, his generals succeeded in grasping separate portions of his territories and erect- ing them into iu dependent kingdoms. At first Perdiccas, to whom Alexander had given his signet-ring, received the greatest respect, and took upon himself the office of regent. But when he b c. 321. • made war upon Ptolemy, the governor of Egypt, he was killed by his own soldiers, whereupon Antigonus assiuned the chief power. Antigonus made himself master of the treasury b.c 316. r . in Susa, and hired such a number of mercenary troops, that he was enabled to bid defiance to the rest of the generals, and compel them to acknowledge him as commander and regent of the empire. As he allowed it, however, to be pretty plainly seen that he aimed at nothing less than the sovereignty of the whole of the Alexandrian dominions, the other generals, Seleucus of Syria, Ptolemus of Egypt, and Cassander of Macedon, leagued them- selves together against him and his son Demetrius, who afterwards obtained the surname of Poliorcetes (Taker of Cities). Erom this originated a long contest, that was carried on at the same time both in Greece and Asia with various success, and which was only ter- minated by the great battle of Ipsus, in Asia Minor, where the hero Antigonus, who was then eighty years old, lost his life, and his son Demetrius was obliged to fly. After many partitions and inter- 6i THE ANCIENT WORLD. changes, Alexander's empire (a few smaller states excepted) was finally divided into the three following kingdoms : — I. Macedonia and Greece. II. The Syrian empire of the Seleucidse. III. Egypt under the Ptolomies. b. &reece's last struggle, the achaian league. § 87. From the time of the battle of Chaeronea, Greece had remained under the government or influence of the Macedonian kings, and all attempts made by individual states to shake off this yoke had proved ineffectual. Thus the attempt of the brave Spartan king, Agis II., who with 5000 of his fohWers died the b c 330 death of heroes in the bloody field of Megalopolis, was productive of no resrdt. The contests between the aristocratic and democratic parties still continued in Athens during the Macedonian period. When the aristocrats, with the noble Phocion at their head, obtained the government by the aid of the Macedonians, many of the popular party, and among others, Demosthenes, the vehement op- poser of the royal house of Macedon, quitted the city. Threatened with being given up, the great orator fled to a Pelopon- nesian temple, where he destroyed himself by poison to save himself from falling into the hands of his enemies. Some years afterwards, the democrats again gained the upper hand, when they compelled Phocion in his turn to drink the cup of poison. Prom this time party violence diminished in Athens, but the love of freedom, patriotism, and civic virtue decayed with it. Effeminacy and the pursuit of pleasure choked the nobler feelings, and although the arts and sciences still continued to flourish, and Athens still remained the centre of civilization, the greatness of the people was gone for ever. The citizens disgraced themselves by servility and flattery, parti- cularly at the time when the two Demetrii, Phalereus and Poliorcetes, were resident in their city, and destroyed all morality by their sen- suality and debauchery. ^~ § 88. About the middle of the third century, Greece made a final effort in the Achaian league, to which Aratus of Sicyon gave such power and consequence, especially after the strong city of Corinth had placed itself at the head of the confedera- tion, that he was enabled to attempt the supreme power over Pelo- ponnesus, and even over the whole of Greece. This excited the jealousy of Sparta, where just at that time two high-spirited kings, Agis III. and Cleomenes, were endeavouring to restore the ancient strength and military virtue. Eor since the Spartans had decided that one person might become the proprietor of numerous estates, the Avliole of the laud had gradually got into the possession of a few rich families, who governed the state by choosing the ephori from among HISTORY OF GREECE. 65 themselves. The remainder of the citizens possessed neither rights nor property, and were in debt to the rich. The two kings sought to remedy these evils by abolishing the office of the ephori, by destroying the bonds of the debtors, and by re-establishing the laws and customs of Lycurgus. But Agis was dethroned and cruelly murdered by his enemies ; and Cleomenes, who by dint of resolution succeeded in carrying his objects in Sparta, and then endeavoured to compel the rest of the Peloponnesian states to acknowledge the Spartan supre- macy, was defeated in the battle of Sellasia in Arcadia, by the Achaian league supported by the Macedonians, and found himself compelled to fly to Alexandria ; where he and his faithful followers, after being baffled in attempting an insurrection, perished by their own daggers. In the same year in which Cleo- menes met with his death, Sparta was subdued by the valiant Philo- pcemen (who had been chosen head of the Achaian league after Aratus), and compelled a short time after to join the league and abolish entirely the laws of Lycurgus. Philopcemen afterwards fell into the hands of his enemies during a war with the Messenians, and was obliged to drink the cup of poison. After the death of this " last of the Greeks," the power of the Achaian league declined, so that the Romans were enabled to take possession of the whole country without any great effort. €. THE PTOLEMIES AND SELEUCID^l. § 89. Seleucus and Ptolemus were the most fortunate of Alex- ander's successors. The former, after many wars which were attended with important results, succeeded in reducing all the countries between the Hellespont and the Indus, and founding the Syrian empire of the Seleucidee. He built the magnificent city of Antioch on the Orontes, and Seleucia on the Tigris. By means of these cities, and forty others, erected by himself and his successors, the Greek language and culture became more and more predominant in the East, and from this period, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, were the chief seats of civilization and commerce. But this condition of extreme refinement afforded little matter for rejoicing. The enormous wealth that flowed into these states produced luxury, effeminacy, and sensuality; indolence enervated the people, and produced a servile spirit, which displayed itself by the most abject adulation of oppres- sive rulers. Sanguinary crimes, the empire of women and favourites, universal reprobation and corruption of morals, are the prominent features in the history of the Seleucidae, of whom Antiochus III., surnamed the Great, is the best known, as well by his expedition into India, as from his unfortunate contest with the Romans. Under monarchs so weak and abandoned as these, it was no difficult matter for enterprising men to establish small independent states. The most E 66 THE ANCIENT WORLD. celebrated of these were the kingdom of Pergamus in Asia Minor, and that of the Parthians on the north-east of the Euphrates. The Egyptians under the Ptolemies were in a similar position. The three first kings established a large naval and military force, by means of which they enlarged their empire on all sides. Trade and com- merce produced wealth ; the science of government and taxation was brought to a high degree of perfection. Alexandria became the seat of the commerce of the world, and the centre of Greek art, literature, and civilization ; the world-renowned museum, with its extensive library and residences for poets and men of learning, was connected with the royal palace. But the men who were the producers of all this prosperity were, like the royal family itself, aliens — Greeks and Jews. The glory of the Ptolemaic dynasty was of short duration, for the civilization of Alexandria had no root among the people. It was an exotic plant that embellished the surface but left the soil un- changed. The court of Alexandria was not less distinguished by cruelty, debauchery, and corruption of morals, than by its splendour, wealth, and refinement. d. THE JEWS UNDER THE MACCABEES. § 90. Judasa was for a long time an object of contention between the Seleucidse and the Ptolemies. The latter were the first to take possession of the land and to render it tributary; but they suffered the old institutions to remain, and allowed the high priest, with the council of seventy (Sanhedrim) , to manage the affairs of religion and the internal government. Many of the Jews settled in Alexandria where they acquired wealth and power, but gradually lost the language, manners, and religion of their own country, or mingled them with those of the Greeks. The translation of the Hebrew text of the Bible into Greek, which was executed at the instigation of the second of the Ptolemies, by seventy-two Alexandrian Jews (hence called the Septuagint), was afterwards extremely serviceable to the propagation of Christianity. Judsea was subjected to the Seleucidae by the Syrian king Antio- chus III. (the Great), and grievously oppressed with taxes. His second successor Antiochus Epiphanes plundered the temple in Jerusalem of its treasures, and even entertained the purpose of destroying the Jewish institutions and the worship of Jehovah, and substituting the Greek idolatry in its place. To this project the Jews offered an obstinate resistance, and by this means drew a severe persecution on themselves. When this persecution was carried beyond all endurable limits, the people rose in desperation against their oppressors, and under the command of the high priest, Matta- thias, and his five heroic sons (Maccabees), encountered the Syrians with courage and success. The eldest son, HISTORY OF GREECE. 67 Judas Maccabaeus, enforced a peace, which granted the re-establish- ment of the Jewish worship. His brother Simon freed Judsea from the Syrian yoke, and reigned wisely and righteously as prince and high priest. Under his successors the limits of the kingdom were enlarged, and the Idumseans (Edomites) induced to accept the Jewish law. But internal dissensions, and the hatred of sects, soon again impaired the strength of the people. The Phari- sees, who held firmly to the prophets and the law of Moses, attributed great merit to the accurate observance of trifling precepts and out- ward ceremonies, and fell by this means into hypocrisy and false righteousness ; the Saclducees were less severe in their interpretation of the Mosaic laws, and attempted to bring them into accordance with the morals, doctrine, and way of thinking of the Greeks ; the Essenes lived together in brotherhoods, who had all their possessions in common, and served God by acts of penance and works of charity. The weakness produced by the mutual hostility of these sects, at length brought the Jewish race under the dominion of the Romans. The last of the Maccabees was slain by Herod the Idumsean, who thereupon ascended the throne of David by the assistance of the Romans, and ruled over Judaea as tributary king (Tetrarch). For the purpose of conciliating the Jews, who hated him as a foreigner, he enlarged and beautified the temple of Solomon ; but towards the end of his reign, suspicion caused him to degenerate into a blood- thirsty tyrant, who even attempted the life of that Jesus of Nazareth who was sent into the world to redeem the lost race of man. e. THE STATE OE CIVILIZATION DURING THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD. § 91. By the conquests of Alexander and his successors, the Gre- cian arts and refinements were diffused over the greatest part of the old world, and a high amount of civilization in consequence produced. The great increase of commerce and intercourse among all nations was favourable to the spread of this civilization. But the inward strength was weakened by the outward diffusion. Nothing worthy of notice was produced in poetry, except the Idyls, in which Theocritus the Sicilian describes a pastoral life full of innocence and simplicity, and a few dramatic compositions which are now lost. History and oratory were far behind the splendid examples of an earlier period. Learning, and the practical sciences, which are based on experience and inquiry, attained, on the other hand, to a great degree of perfection. Learned critics and gram- marians arranged and illustrated the works of the older Greek writers ; natural history and mathematics, geography and astronomy, of which the elements alone had previously existed, were now greatly Euclid advanced. Euclid, a contemporary of the first Ptolemy, b.c. 280. composed a text-book of geometry that was employed in e 2 68 THE ANCIENT WORLD. Archimedes, education for centuries ; Archimedes of Syracuse gained b.c. 212. imperishable renown by bis discoveries in mechanical and physical science ; and the art of medicine, that had been first esta- blished on a scientific basis by Hippocrates, was considerably extended by the Alexandrian physicians. But philosophy was the subject that received the greatest attention. As Paganism in its corruption afforded no rest to the soul, and no support in life, men sought for refuge in the pursuit of wisdom. The precepts of the philosophers of an earlier period were expanded and applied to the regulation of life. In this way arose the schools of philosophy, some of which reposed on the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle, and others were originated by the disciples of Socrates and other wise men. The Stoics and the Epicureans became the most distinguished of these philosophical sects. Socrates had especially taught, that happiness was the end of existence. His scholar Antisthenes, believed that the surest way of attaining this happiness was to renounce all pleasures, and taught that moderation, abstinence, and a freedom from wants, were the highest objects of human exertions. His dis- ciple Diogenes carried these doctrines to the greatest excess: he lived in a tub, deprived himself voluntarily of property and all the pleasures of life, and by this "heroism of abstinence," excited the admiration of the great Alexander. This school was called the Cynic, from the place in which Antisthenes taught ; and in allusion to this, Diogenes received the surname of kuon (hound), because the wretched and joyless life he led seemed fitter for a dog than a human bein°\ This doctrine in a more noble form constitutes the basis of the Stoic philosophy, which was taught by Zeno, a contem- porary of Alexander, in the porticoes (stoa) of Athens. According to his teaching, man only attains felicity by bearing with invincible indifference all the changes and chances of life, — joy and grief, misfortune or happiness : this is his duty the rather, that every thing is determined on beforehand by an eternal natural necessity or fate. In opposition to this view, another disciple of So- crates, Aristippus of Cyrene, maintained the enjoyment of life as his chief principle, and taught the art of wisely mingling together sensual and intellectual pleasures. This art of enjoyment was erected by one of his scholars, Epicurus, into a system that numbered many adherents. Whilst, however, Epicurus made hap- piness to consist in a freedom from all painful and distressing emo- tions, his followers overstepped the bounds of moderation, placed luxury and the gratification of the appetites as the ends of existence, and rendered Epicurism the philosophy of effeminacy and excess. HISTORY OF ROME. 69 C. HISTOET OE EOME. THE KACES AND INSTITUTIONS OE ANCIENT ITALY. § 92. The beautiful peninsula which is bounded on the north by the Alps, surrounded on the east, west, and south by the Mediter- ranean, and traversed throughout its whole length by the Apennines, was formerly inhabited by numerous races of men of different origin. Upper Italy, on either bank of the Po (Padus), was the dwelling- place of the Gallic race, who were divided into many tribes and states, and possessed numerous cities, both in the fertile plains and on the sea-coast. Central Italy was inhabited by many small tribes, a part of which had dwelt in the land from time immemorial, and might be looked upon as the aborigines of the country; whilst others had wandered thither from abroad. To the latter class belonged the remarkable family of the Etruscans, to the former the sturdy race of the Sabelli, who were again divided into numerous warlike and free- dom-loving tribes, among whom the Samnites, the Sabines, and the -ZEqui, were the most distinguished. The Latins, a powerful rustic tribe on the south of the Tiber, were a mixed race, composed of natives and immigrants, to which after the conquest of Troy a Trojan race, under the conduct of ^Eneas, is said to have united itself. The coast of Lower Italy was covered with Greek colonies ; the inland parts were the seat of warlike tribes of Sabelline origin, Samnites, Campanians, Lucani. Campania, with its vineyards and corn-fields, is one of the most beautiful and fertile spots on the globe, and was chosen accordingly by the Romans for the erection of their magni- ficent villas. Of all these races, that of the Etruscans is the most worthy of remark.. They formed a confederation of twelve independ- ent cities, of which Caere, Tarquinii, and Pelusium, in the neighbour- hood of the Trasimenian lake, Clusium, and Yen, are the best known. The separate cities were governed by an aristocratic priesthood. These nobles (Lucumos) elected the head of the confederation, the insignia of whose office were an ivory chair, a purple mantle, and axes inclosed in bundles of rods (fasces), such as were afterwards borne before the Roman consuls. The Etruscans were a religious people, and paid great observance to predictions derived from the sacrifice of animals (auspices), and the flight of birds (auguries). They were proficient in the art of founding, and in working earth and metals, and their skill in architecture is attested by the existing remains of gigantic walls, and the ruins of temples, dykes, roads, &c. The innumerable vessels of clay and cinerary urns (Etruscan vases), ornamented with paintings, which are dug out of the earth, are evidence of the diligence of the Etruscans in arts and manufactures. But the oppressive power of the aristocracy, which proved destruc- tive to the freedom and energy of the middle and lower classes, was 70 THE ANCIENT WORLD. the occasion of the early decay and extinction of the arts of culture among the people. The Sahines, Sanmites, and other tribes of Sabel- line origin, led a simple and temperate life in open or only slightly fortified towns. They loved the pastoral life, agriculture, and war, and looked upon their freedom as their greatest blessing. From time to time they celebrated a sacred spring, during which tbe newly-born cattle were offered in sacrifice, and the children who came into the world in the course of the year, left their country as colonists, on arriving at the age of twenty. The Latins dwelt in thirty cities, which were united together in a confederation, of Avhich Alba Longa was the head. Agriculture and civil freedom flourished among them ; their religion was founded upon the worship of nature, and bore a relation to the cultivation of the soil. The seed-god Saturn, and his spouse Ops (the abundance flowing from the earth), were among their deities. The venerable goddess Vesta, whose sacred and perpetual fire was watched by twelve virgins (Vestals), was also one of the native deities of the Latins. The representatives of the union held their meetings in a wood on the Albanian hill. I. ROME UNDER THE GOVERNMENT OF KINGS AND PATRICIANS. I. EOME TJNDEE THE KINGS. § 93. "We are told by an old legend, that king Munitor of Alba Longa, a successor of the Trojan ^Eneas, (§ 37,) was deprived of his crown by his brother Amulius, and his daughter Bhaea Silvia placed among the sacred virgins of Vesta, that she might remain unmarried and without offspring. But when she bore the twins Romulus and Beinus, to tbe god Mars, her cruel uncle commanded the children to be exposed on the banks of the Tiber, where however they were dis- covered and brought up by shepherds. Informed by an accident of the mystery of their birth and the fate of their grandfather, they restored the throne of Alba Longa to Munitor, and then founded Borne on the Palatine hill on the left bank of the Tiber. The rising walls of the city are said to have been stained by the blood of Bemus, who was slain in a quarrel, by his brother. Romulus, § 94. When the little town was built, Bomulus b.c. 730. attracted inhabitants, by declaring it a place of refuge for fugitives. But as the fugitives had no wives, and the neighbour- ing people hesitated to give them their daughters in marriage, Bomulus arranged some military games, and invited the neighbours as spectators. At a given signal, every Boman seized upon a Sabine virgin, and carried her off into the city. This outrage gave rise to a war between the Sabines and the new colony. The two armies were HISTORY OF ROME. 71 already opposed to each other, when the abducted virgins rushed between the combatants, and put an end to the strife, by declaring that they would share the fate of the Eomans. A treaty was arranged, in consequence of which the Sabines, who dwelt on the Capitoline hill, agreed to vinite themselves in a single community with the Latins, who lived on the Palatine, and the Etruscans, who inhabited the Cselian hill : it was decided further, that tbe Sabine king, Titus Tatius, should share the government with Romulus ; and that a Latin and Sabine should be elected alternately from the senate to the office of king. Romulus disappeared from the earth in an unknown manner, and received divine honours under the name of Quirinus. His citizens from this time bore the name of Quirites conjointly with that of Romans. Numa § 95. The warlike Romulus was succeeded by the wise Pompilius, Sabine, Numa Pompihus, who reduced the rising state to order by his laws and religious institutions, and improved and civilized the inhabitants. He built temples, and established a form of religious worship, increased the number of priests, and made regulations respecting sacrifices and divinations. He dedicated a temple at the entrance of the forum to Janus Bifrons, the god who presides over the beginning of every thing both in time and space : the doors of this temple were open in time of war, and closed during peace. As the Greeks confirmed their laws by the means of oracles, so Numa maintained that he had derived his system of reli- gion from conversations with the nymph Egeria, who had a wood sacred to her on the south of Rome. b.c. 650. § 96. The two following kings, Tullus Hostilius the b.c. 625. Latin, and the ' Sabine Ancus Martius, enlarged the territory of the little state by successful wars ; so that four other hills were added to the three before-mentioned, and gradually supplied with inhabitants. Eor this reason Rome is called the seven-hilled city. Under Tullus Hostilius the Romans engaged in a war with Alba Longa. Just as the armies were about to engage, it was agreed to decide the fate of the two cities by a combat between three brothers, the Horatii and the Curiatii, chosen from each of the parties. Two of the champions of the Romans had already fallen, when the victory was decided in their favour by the cunning and bravery of the third, and the possession of Alba Longa fell at once into their hands. The city was destroyed, and the inhabitants trans- planted to Rome. The same fortune happened to many other cities in the neighbourhood, during the reign of Ancus Martius. The con- quered citizens settled in Rome, where they received houses and small estates, but were not admitted to the privileges of the elder citizens. The latter, from this time, were called "patricians," the new- 72 THE ANCIENT WORLD. comers bore tlie name of "plebeians." Ancns Martins founded the sea-port of Ostia, at tbe mouth of the Tiber. § 97. The last three kings, Tarquinius Priscus, Servius Tullius, and Tarquinius Superbus, belonged to the Etruscan race, as is evident from the buildings they erected, and the Etruscan institutions they introduced into Rome. The elder Tarquin laid the foun- dation of the vast structure of the Capitol, which was completed by his son Tarquinius Superbus, in accordance with his father's design. It consisted of a citadel and a magnificent temple. He constructed, in addition, the enormous cloacse (sewers), budt of freestone, for the draining of the city, the circus maximus, and the forum. After the murder of Tarquin by the sons of his predecessor, his son-in-law Servius Tullius ascended the throne. He b c 550 originated two measures that were followed by important consequences. First, he divided the plebeians in the city and its vicinity into thirty tribes, with their own overseers and assemblies ; he then divided the entire population of the state, according to their property, into five classes, and these again into hundreds, in order to facilitate the collection of imposts and the arrangement of military service. By these means, the rich obtained greater privdeges, coupled however with the condition of serving as heavy-armed troops without pay, and at their own expense. A sixth class, which included the proletaries (persons without property), were exempt from taxes and military service, but were also excluded from aU political rights. By these measures, Servius Tullius brought upon himself the hate of the patricians, and was in consequence murdered by his son-in-law, Tarquinius Superbus, with their assistance. § 98. Tarquinius Superbus enlarged the boundaries of the state by successful wars with the Latins, whom he united in a confederacv under the direction of Borne : he b c 500. . • completed the Capitol, and ordered the collection of ancient oracles, called the Sibylline books, to be preserved there ; he founded the first colony in the neighbouring country of the Vol- scians, for the purpose of extending the power of Borne. But despite all these services, he rendered himself odious to the patrician party by attempting to extend the limited kingly authority. His acts of violence against the senate and the patricians, and the severe imposts and socage duties with which he visited the plebeians, produced general discontent, which finally burst into rebellion when it became known in Rome that the outrage which one of the king's sons had offered to the virtuous Lucretia, had driven her to self-destruction. Two relatives of the royal house, Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, the husband of Lucretia, and Juuius Brutus, were the leaders of the HISTORY OF ROME. 73 insurrection. Upon receiving information of what was taking place, the king, who was just then occupied in the siege of the ancient sea- port of Ardea, hastened to Rome with his army, for the purpose of suppressing the tumult ; but he found the gates closed against him, and being deposed from the throne by a vote of the popular assembly, and finding himself deserted by his army, he and his sons were obliged to retire into banishment. 2. ROME AS A REPUBLIC UNDER THE PATRICIANS. a. HORATIUS COCLES. THE TRIBUNES. CORIOLANUS. § 99. After the banishment of the royal family, the supreme power in Home fell into the hands of the senate. They confirmed the laws that were passed in the assemblies of the people, and pro- posed the officers that it was the province of the commons to elect. Instead of a king, two consuls were chosen every year, who ruled the state, superintended the administration of justice, and in time of war led the army to the field. The patricians alone, could be chosen to these or any other offices. The young republic had severe conflicts to sustain both within and from without. Under the first consuls, a number of young Romans of patrician family, entered into a conspiracy for the purpose of bringing back the banished royal family. "When this was discovered, the inflexible Brutus punished the offenders, among whom were two of his own sons, with death. From without, the Romans were threat- ened with the most imminent danger, by the Etruscan king Porsenna, to whom Tarquin had applied for help, and who had taken possession of the hill Janiculum,.on the right bank of the Tiber. The Romans were repulsed in an attempt to drive him from this position, and were only saved by the valour of Horatius Codes, who defended the wooden bridge that crossed the river. After the Romans had secured themselves and destroyed the bridge, Codes sprang into the stream, armed and wea- poned as he was, and swam safely to the opposite shore. Another Roman, Mutius Scsevola, penetrated into the Etruscan camp for the purpose of killing the king. He made a mistake, however, and stabbed the royal secretary. "When Porsenna, upon this, endeavoured by threats to terrify him into a confession, Mutius, to show that he feared neither pain nor death, laid his right hand in the midst of a fire that was burning on an altar. It was from this circumstance that he received the name of Scsevola (left hand) . Astonished at such a proof of courage and patriotism, Porsenna made a peace with the Romans, and withdrew his forces. The Romans were however obliged to relinquish a third part of their lands, and to give hostages. The Veians also, and the confederation of the Latins, took the field in support of the Tarquins. Brutus, the founder of the republic, and 74 THE ANCIENT WORLD. Armis Tarquinius, encountered in the battle, and fell by the hands of each other. It was in the war against the Latins that the Romans for the first time appointed a dictator, an officer Avho was superior to the consiils, and who possessed unlimited power both in the city and the field. It was only in times of the greatest distress and danger that such a dictator was appointed, and he relin- quished his extraordinary office as soon as the necessity for it ceased to exist. § 100. "When Tarquin found that all the attempts to regain pos- session of his throne had miscarried, he retired to Cumse, in Lower Italy, where he died. The patricians now governed the state, and oppressed the plebeians by their severe laws of debtor and creditor. They (the plebeians) were obliged to pay ground-rent for their small properties, to perform military service without pay, and to provide their own arms and accoutrements. When they were engaged in war their lands were left untilled at home : bad harvests brought poverty ; and for the sake of escaping from the temporary pressure, they incurred debts with the wealthy patricians. If the plebeian failed in paying the large interest (10 or 12 per cent.) the moment it became due, his person and estate were seized upon by his creditor, he was reduced to the condition of a serf, and his family were left to starve. When this state of things became intolerable, and there was no law to protect the unfortunate debtor against his merciless creditor, the plebeians resolved upon quitting Some, and building a new town upon the sacred hill, about a league and a half from the city. The patricians sent Menenius Agrippa after them to induce them to return. He ex- plained to them the disadvantages that were likely to arise from their dissensions, by relating the fable of the quarrel between the stomach and the limbs, and the danger the whole body was reduced to in con- sequence, and promised them a redress of their grievances. The plebeians allowed themselves to be persuaded, and obtained on their return at first five, and afterwards ten tribunes. These were accounted sacred and inviolable whilst they were in office : they possessed the power of placing their veto upon any resolution of the senate or decree of the consuls, which appeared injurious to the interests of the people; and if this was not sufficient, they could prevent the levies of troops and the collection of taxes. Shortly after this, a famine broke out in Eome ; and when at last ships arrived from Sicily with corn, the haughty patrician, Marcius Coriolanus, proposed that none should be yielded to the people till they had consented to the dismissal of their tribunes. "Upon this the people, in then assembly, passed a sentence of banish- ment upon Coriolanus, and compelled him to fly. Thirst- ing for vengeance, he betook himself to the Volscians, and persuaded HISTORY OF ROME. 75 them to make an inroad under his command upon the Eoman terri- tories. They had already penetrated in their destructive course, to within five miles of Eome, when their general was prevailed upon to retreat by the united prayers of his wife and mother. Coriolanus is said to have fallen a victim to the rage of the Volscians, who never- theless retained possession of the towns they had conquered. h. THE TABU. CINCTNNATTTS. THE DECEMVIRS. § 101. Eome was so weakened by the dissensions between the different classes, that her foreign foes were able to possess themselves of one provincial town after another, and gradually to diminish her territory. The plebeians, whose arms were to win the battle, had little pleasure in shedding their blood to increase the wealth and power of their oppressors ; they even willingly allowed themselves to be defeated when they were under the command of one of the rigor- ous patricians. Such an event took place in a war against the people of Veii, when one of the Fabii was general. The disgrace was so severely felt by the high-spirited family of Fabius, that they deserted their own party, and making common cause with the plebeians, pro- ceeded together to attack the Yeians, but were all ensnared in an ambuscade, and died like heroes. One only, who had not arrived at years of maturity, survived the destruction of his race. "Whilst the Veians were attacking the Eoman territory on the north, the Volsci and iEqui made inroads no less destructive on the south. The latter of these tribes, whose possessions extended as far as Praeneste, but a few miles from Eome, once attacked the Eomans at mount Algidus, with such success, that the latter were surrounded in their camp, and must have been taken prisoners if Cin- cinnatus had not come to their rescue. When the senate were informed of the danger the army was in, they appointed the patrician Cincinnatus dictator. Cincmnatus was so reduced in his circum- stances by misfortunes, that he possessed nothing but a small estate on the right bank of the Tiber, which he was tilling with his own hands, when the summons of the senate was brought to him. He at once quitted the plough, hastened to the place of danger with the Eoman youth that assembled themselves about him, and surrounded the ^Equi in the night. When these, awakened in the following morning by a great shout, saw the situation they were in, they were compelled to surrender themselves prisoners of war, and, after giving up their arms, to pass under a yoke formed of three spears. § 102. The plebeians waged a hot contest with the patricians for an equality of rights. They demanded, above all, an agrarian law, a written code, and a share of the pubHc offices. The Eoman state was in possession of large tracts of land, which were not the exclusive property of any one, but the use of which had 76 THE ANCIENT WORLD. been granted to the patricians, upon condition that a tenth part of the produce should be paid to the state. This common land (ager publicus) the patricians looked upon as their own, had it cidtivated by their clients, and mutually overlooked each other's remissness when the stipidated duty did not find its way to the treasury. The plebeiaus demanded from time to time an agrarian law, by which a portion of these common lands should be surrendered to them. But as often as the application was made it was encountered by a most decided resistance. The consul, Sp. Cassius, who moved the first agrarian law, was thrown from the Tarpeian rock of the Capitol, and the place where his house had stood remained empty and desolate. § 103. The administration of the law was exclusively in the hands of the patricians, who gave judgment and pronounced decisions according to custom and unwritten traditionary rules, and were thus frequently guilty of arbitrariness and partiality. The plebeians, to escape from these evils, demanded a fixed and written code, but experienced a violent resistance from the patricians. After many stormy debates, the tribunes of the people were at last successful in having envoys sent to Grsecia Magna and Athens, to ex- amine the laws, and to select those that should appear suitable. "When these envoys returned, both parties agreed that all the officers of government (consuls, tribunes, &c.) should give up then places ; and that ten patricians shovdd be appointed with abso- lute power, and commissioned to draw up fresh laws. At first the new officers, who, from their number, were called " decemvirs," per- formed the task committed to them in an exemplary manner, and at the end of the year, their laws gave so much satisfaction to the assem- bly of the people, that the decemvirate was allowed to continue another year, for the completion of its work. But now the ten patricians abused their authority by violent and arbitrary measures : they proceeded against their plebeian opponents by fine, imprison- ment, banishment, and the axe of the executioner ; when a war broke out with the iEqui and Volscians, they put to death an ancient ple- beian hero in the field ; and continued themselves in office by their own power, after the second year had passed, and the compilation of the laws of the twelve tables had been completed. The general dis- content was fanned into revolt by a licentious outrage of Appius Claudius, the most illustrious of the decemvirs. This man had con- ceived a passion for the beautifid Virginia, daughter of one of the plebeian leaders, and the bride of another. In order to gain posses- sion of her, he instructed one of his adherents to declare the maiden to be one of his runaway slaves, and to claim her as his property before the judgment-seat of the decemvirs. Appius Claudius heard the claim in the forum in the presence of a great multitude of the people ; but scarcely had he, by his decision, put Virginia into the power of HISTORY OF ROME. 77 the appellant, when her father hastened to the spot and plunged a knife into her heart. The plebeians now seized upon the Aventine hill, and insisted with threats upon the expulsion of the decemvirs and the restoration of the old system. They obtained both : Appius Claudius destroyed himself in prison, another of the decemvirs was executed, and the rest expiated their crimes by perpetual exile. The laws of the twelve tables, however, remained in operation, and became the basis of the Roman code. § 104. Shortly after this, the plebeians succeeded in having it enacted, that the two classes might contract lawful mar- riages Avith each other, without the children of such unions forfeiting any of the privileges of their class ; and they at length pro- ceeded to claim a participation in the considate. But this demand was resisted by the patricians with their whole strength ; and when at last the plebeians prevented the raising of levies for military service, they declared that they would rather have no more consuls than agree to the admission of the plebeians to the office. At length it was arranged, that three or four military tribunes, with the authority of consuls, should be chosen every year from both classes, as leaders of the army and chief magistrates. This arrangement lasted for some centuries. But it occasionally happened that the patrician party gained the upper hand, and then consuls would be again elected for a few years, or the office of military tribune would remain unfilled. To make amends for their loss, the patricians instituted the office of censors. These, two in number, had the keeping of the lists in which every Roman was entered according to his property, as senator, knight, or citizen ; they super- intended the building of temples, streets, and bridges, and exercised a censorial supervision, by virtue of which they might deprive men of vicious lives of the privileges of their class. C. THE TAKING OE ROME BY THE GAULS (B.C. 389), AND THE LAWS OE LICTHTUS STOLO (B.C. 366). § 105. Whilst these struggles were going on within the city, the Roman army was successfully engaged against the enemy. Since the regulation that the citizens should receive pay during war, the troops could continue longer in the field. After extending their territories on the south, they turned their whole force against the Etruscans, and under the command of Camillus, subdued, after a b.c. 396. siege of ten years, the hostile city of Veii, the inhabitants of which were either killed or rediiced to slavery. The haughty general who had drawn upon himself the hatred of the plebeians by his splendid triumph and unequal distribution of the booty, withdrew voluntarily into exile when summoned by the tribunes of the people to answer for his conduct, and by this means 78 THE ANCIENT WORLD. deprived the state of his aid at the very moment it was most required. § 106. For it was about this time that the Gaids in the neighbour- hood of the Po, crossed the Apennines and laid siege to the Etruscan city of Clusium. The inhabitants turned for assistance to the Romans, who, however, contented themselves with sending an em- bassy to effect a reconciliation. When this faded of success, the ambassadors took part in the contest, and killed one of the leaders of the Gallic army. This outrage of the rights of nations inflamed the anger of the G-auls. They left Clusium, advanced by rapid marches upon Rome, and gave the force sent to oppose them so complete an overthrow at the river Allia, that only a few fugitives saved them- selves across the Tiber in Veii ; and the day of the battle was ever after distinguished by a black mark in the Roman calendar, and observed as a time of fasting and prayer. Rome itself, after being deserted by the women and children, fell without resistance into the hands of the enemy. The Gauls burnt the empty city to the ground, slaughtered about eighty old men in the forum, who were desirous of devoting themselves as expiatory sacrifices, and then laid siege to the Capitol, whither those who were capable of bearing arms had with- drawn themselves. The garrison, however, under the command of the heroic Marcus Manlius, making a gallant resistance, and the ranks of the Gauls being thinned by sickness and hunger, a treaty was entered into after the siege had continued seven months, by which the Gauls consented to withdraw themselves upon being paid a ransom of a thousand pounds weight of gold. It is well known how their insolent leader, Brennus, increased the stipulated amount by the weight of his sword, which he cast into the scale. The story of the banished Camillus pursuing the retreating enemy with a troop of fugitive Romans, and again recovering the spoil from them, is doubted, and may be attributed, not without reason, to Roman vanity. § 107. After the retreat of the enemy, the Romans were so dispirited that they had not courage to rebuild their city, but wished to settle themselves in the empty town of Veii. It was only with difficulty that the patricians prevented the execution of this project, and that no similar purpose might again be entertained, the houses in Veii were given up to the people to be pulled down. Scarcely had Rome been hastily rebuilt with narrow and crooked streets, and ' small dwelling-houses, when the patricians again asserted the whole of their claims, and in particular revived the ancient laws of debtor and creditor in all their ancient severity. The preserver of the capitol, M. Manlius (Capitolinus), took the part of the oppressed and impoverished plebeians ; but incurred the enmity of those of his own order to such an extent by doing so, that, under the frivolous pretext that he was attempting to gain the kingly power, he was con- HISTORY OF ROME. 79 derailed to death, and thereupon cast from the Tarpeian rock, his house levelled with the ground, and his memory declared infamous. But this severity against the friend of the people roused the plebeians from their apathy. Two bold and able tribunes, Licinius Stolo and L. Sextius, proposed the three following laws : — 1. Consuls shall be again chosen, but one of them shall always be a plebeian. 2. No citizen shall hold more than 500 acres of public land in lease ; the remainder shall be distributed in small portions among the plebeians as their own property. 3. The interest already paid upon debts shall be deducted from the capital sum, and the residue shall be paid in the course of three years. These proposals were resisted to the utmost by the patricians, for the space of ten years ; but all their efforts proved unavailing against the firmness of the tribunes, who prevented the election of officers and the military levies. The proposals became laws, and the privi- leges of the patricians received a severe shock. It is true that they still retained exclusive possession of the priesthood and certain other dignities ; but in the course of a few decades, the plebeians were admitted to these offices also, so that a perfect equality between the two classes shortly followed. This civil concord, to which Camillus a short time before his death dedicated a temple, brought with it a period of civic virtue and heroic greatness. II. ROME'S HEROIC PERIOD. 1. THE TIME OE THE ¥AE WITH THE SAMNITES, AND THE BATTLES WITH PTKRHUS. § 108. After the Eomans had exercised their military prowess in some successful engagements with the wandering hordes of the Gauls, they attempted to subdue the neighbouring tribes. Among these the warlike and freedom-loving Samnites, who dwelt amidst the lofty ridges of the Apennines, gave them the greatest trouble, and they were forced to carry on the war against them, almost without intermission, for more than seventy years. The inhabitants of Capua and the Campanian plain, who were unable to withstand the hostile attacks of the warlike Samnites, and who turned to the Eomans for assistance, were the occasion of the war. At first the Eomans refused them assistance ; but the Capuans having recognised their authority, and placed themselves entirely under their protection, they marched into the field and defeated the enemy with great courage, at Cumse, near Mount Graurus. § 109. Shortly after this, the Eomans found them- selves menaced with a war by the Latins, who had hitherto been their allies. These were no longer disposed to recog- nise Eome as the head of the confederation, but required a share in 80 THE ANCIENT WORLD. the senate, the consulate, and all offices. Upon this, the Romans, who were not inclined to yield to these demands, con- cluded a hasty peace and alliance with the Samnites, that they might turn their arms against the nearer enemy. When the army was at the foot of Vesuvius, the consul Manlius Torquatus forbade any skirmishing. In defiance of this command, his valiant son made an excursion against the enemy, and overcame them, but was condemned to death for disobedience by his inflexible father. The battle of Vesuvius was determined in favour of the Romans by the patriotism of the plebeian consul, Decius Mus, who, having had himself devoted to death by a priest, enveloped himself in a white robe, and, mounting on horseback, plunged among the thickest of the enemy ; whereupon the Latins, together with their neighbours, the Volsci, iEqui, and Hernici, submitted them- selves, and were received, with different privileges, as the allies of the Romans. In this capacity they were obliged to perform military service in the Roman army. § 110. The success of the Romans awakened the jealousy of the Samnites. Quarrels respecting boundaries led to a re- newal of hostilities, in which the Romans at first had the advantage, till the imprudent advance of the consuls, Veturius and Posthumius, into the Caudinian passes, brought the army into such a desperate position, that it was obliged to surrender to the hostile general, Pontius, who had surrounded it on every side, and after giving up its weapons, to pass ignominiously under the yoke. The senate however, with an unworthy equivocation, declared the treaty that the generals had concluded in their necessity with Pontius, to be invalid, and delivered up the consuls, at their own request, in chains to the Samnites. The generals who succeeded them, especially the vigorous Papirius Cursor and Pabius Maximus, strained every nerve to wipe away the disgrace ; and their endeavours were crowned with such success, that, after a few years, the Samnites, being no longer able to resist the attacks of the Romans, were obliged to look around them for assistance. They united themselves with the TJmbrians, the Gauls, and Etruscans, who were also threatened by Rome's love of conquest ; and, for the sake of being closer to their new allies, they quitted their own country and marched into ITmbria. B c 9 95 • • But the battle of Sentinum, which was decided in favour of the Romans by the self-oblation of the younger Decius Mus, destroyed the last hopes of the allies. Their great general, Pontius, fell shortly afterwards into the hands of the Romans, and was put to a violent death. It was in vain that the sacred band of the Samnites once more tried their strength and their swords against the Romans ; Curius Pentatus gave them a second overthrow, in which the Sam- nite youth, the pride of the nation, moistened the field of battle with HISTORY OF ROME. SI their blood. The Samnites and their confederates, the ITmbrians, Etruscans, and the Senonian Gauls, were compelled to B.C. 290. acknowledge the supremacy of Borne, and to serve -as allies in her army. § 111. During the war with the Samnites, the rich, effeminate, and cowardly Tarentines had behaved in an equivocal manner, and insulted a Roman ambassador. Scarcely therefore had the Romans completely mastered their enemies, than they turned their arms against Lower Italy. Hereupon the Tarentines called the warlike Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, to their assistance, who eagerly seized this opportunity for conquest and military renown, and embarked with his forces for Italy. Pyrrhus was victorious in two engagements, partly from the admirable disposition he made of his army, and partly by means of his elephants, an animal with which the Romans were unacquainted ; and the senate seemed not unwilling to conclude a disadvantageous peace with the con- queror, who was marching upon Rome. But the blind Appius Claudius opposed this design, and induced the assembly to reply, that no proposals for peace could be entertained till Pyrrhus had quitted Italy. The admiration of the king, who had hitherto only been ac- quainted with the degenerate manners of the Greeks, was not less excited by the wisdom and dignified demeanour of the senate, and the civic virtues, honesty, and simplicity of the Roman generals, Eabricius and Curius Dentatus, than by the heroism, the bravery, and the warlike skill of the legions. A short time after, Pyrrhus was called into Sicily by the Syra- cusans, to assist them against the Carthaginians. A love of adven- ture and conquest induced him to accept the invitation; but he failed in his plan of making himself master of the beautiful island, and was compelled by the Sicilian Greeks to return. He again marched towards Tarentum, but suffered such a defeat at Male- is c 275 ventum (afterwards called Beneventum), from Curius Dentatus, that he found himself obliged to make a hasty retreat. Pyrrhus fell a few years afterwards, before Argos, a city of Peloponnesus ; and about the same time, the Tarentines lost their fleet, and a portion of their treasures of art, and were made tributaries by the Romans. The fall of Tarentum was followed by the subjugation of the whole of Lower Italy, in the course of which the Greek states were treated with peculiar severity. 2. THE TIME OF THE PUNIC WAPS. a. THE FIRST PUNIC WAR. (B.C. 263 — 241.) § 112. Many centuries before, some Phoenician emigrants had founded the trading city of Carthage, on the north coast of Africa (§ 14), S2 THE ANCIENT WORLD. which soon attained to power and opulence by the skill and enter- prising spirit of its inhabitants. The Carthaginians carried on an extensive traffic with all the lands on the coast of the Mediterranean, established tributary colonial cities in Sicily and the south of Spain, and acquired such wealth, that they laid out the land in the vicinity of their own city after the manner of a garden, and embellished it with innumerable magnificent vfllas. But civic freedom, mental cultivation, and nobility of mind, were possessions foreign to the Carthaginians. The government was in the hands of a purse-proud aristocracy, art and literature were little esteemed, their religious sys- tem was so barbarous as to permit the sacrifice of human victims, and then cunning and falsehood so notorious, that the "Punic faith" was proverbial. Long was the contest between the Carthaginians and Syracusans, for the possession of the island of Sicily. At the time that the gallant adventurer Agathocles, had raised himself from the humble condition of a potter to tbe empire of Syracuse, this contest was carried on with such changes of fortune, that Syra- b.c. 317. cuse was besieged by the Carthaginians, and Carthage by the army of Agathocles, at the same time. The latter made him- self master of the north coast of Africa, and assumed the title of king. But a change soon took place : his army was destroyed, and he himself obliged to fly secretly to Syracuse, where his vital powers was so wasted by a poison that was administered to him, that the hoary tyrant consented to his own death by fire. His death gave rise to a state of lawless violence in Sicily, owing to his B.C. 289. . . Campanian soldiers (Mamertines) having seized upon the town of Messina on their way home, slaughtered or driven away the male part of the inhabitants, and then filled the island with robbery and devastation. In this distress, the Syracusans elected the valiant Hiero for their king. He marched, in conjunction with the Cartha- ginians, against the Mamertines, defeated them, and laid siege to their city Messina. The Mamertines were shortly reduced to such extremities that they applied to the Romans for assistance. § 113. The Romans did not long hesitate to enter into a defensive alliance with the rapacious Mamertines, and to gain by this means an opportunity of subjecting the rich and beautiful island, although they saw plainly that the jealous Carthaginians, who were already in pos- session of the citadel of Messina, would oppose them with all their strength. A Roman army shortly after succeeded in driving back the disunited enemy from the walls of the city, in bringing Hiero into an alliance with Rome, and depriving the Carthaginians of the important town of Agrigentum. Upon this, the Romans built a fleet after the model of a shipwrecked Punic vessel, and won the first naval engagement, by means of the consul Duillius, at Mylse, near the Liparian islands. Encouraged by this success, HISTORY OF ROME. 33 they now determined to deprive the Carthaginians of their supre- macy at sea, and passed over to Africa with a fleet and a large army, under the command of the heroic consul Eegulus. Eegulus gradually approached, conquering and devastating, to the gates of Carthage. The terrified Carthaginians sued for peace, but when they found the conditions offered them by the haughty conqueror too severe, they prepared for resistance, increased the number of their mercenary troops, and committed the conduct of the defence to an experienced general, the Spartan Xantippus. This leader gave the Eomans so severe a defeat at the sea-port town of Tunes, that only 2000 of their splendid army escaped, the others were either killed or made prisoners of war, with the consul Eegulus. § 114. This blow was followed by a succession of misfortunes : two fleets were destroyed by tempests, so that for some years the Eomans renounced all thoughts of success by sea ; on land they only ventured upon trifling engagements, from fear of the elephants, of which they themselves never made use, though the battle at Tunes had been decided by them. In a few years, however, they recovered them- selves ; they made a successful sally from Panormus (Palermo), drove back the Carthaginians, and took pos- session of all their elephants. Hereupon the Carthaginians sent Eegulus to Eome to negotiate an exchange of prisoners, after they had obtained from him an oath that if not successful he would return to captivity. Eegulus advised the senate not to consent to the exchange, on the ground that it would be disadvantageous to their country ; and then, true to his oath, returned to Carthage. Upon this, the Carthaginians were greatly enraged, and put Eegulus to death in a most barbarous manner. Victory remained for some years dubious. At length the admir- able Carthaginian general, Hamilcar Barcas, made himself master of the citadel Eryx, and overlooked from a lofty rock all the movements of the Eomans. But this was only possible so long as there was no Eoman fleet to prevent the communication with the sea. As soon as 200 ships had been fitted out at Eome, by private contributions, and by employing the treasures in the temples, and the consul Lutatius Catulus had defeated the enemy's fleet at the iEgatian islands, the Carthaginians were compelled to consent to a peace, in which they renounced their claims upon Sicily, and promised to pay a large sum to defray the expenses of the war. b. THE SECOND PTJNIC WAE. (B.C. 218 — 202.) § 115. Whilst the Carthaginians, after the peace, were engaged for three years in a frightful war with their rebellious mercenaries, the g2 84 THE ANCIENT WORLD. Romans were enlarging their territory in every direction. They transformed Sicily into the first Roruan province; took possession of Corsica and Sardinia after a severe struggle with the semi-barbarous inhabitants ; and wrested the island of Corcyra (Corfu) and a few maritime towns from the piratical Illyrians. But the hardest conflict they had to sustain was with the Cisalpine Gauls, who, supported by their brethren in the Alps, had made a destructive inroad upon Etruria. After the Romans had overthrown their brave, but badly-armed enemies, in two bloody engagements, the fertile regions on either side of the Po were erected into a Roman province, under the name of Gallia Cisalpina, and con- nected with Rome by two military roads. § 116. In the meanwhile, the Carthaginians, at first under the command of the brave Hamilcar Barcas, and after his death under that of the prudent Hasdrubal, extended their conquests into the richly metalliferous region of South Spain, and established an admir- able military station in New Carthage (Carthagena). This aroused the fear and envy of the Romans, and iuduced them to enter into a defensive alliance with the Greek colony of Saguntum, on the north- east coast of Spain. Hasdrubal soon died, and his place was supplied by Hamilcar' s son, Hannibal, who was then twenty-five years of age,' and who joined the courage and military talents of his father to the prudence of his predecessor, and who, whilst yet a boy, had sworn eternal hatred against the Romans upon the paternal altar. Eager to measure himself against the Romans, he laid siege to the confederate town of Saguntum. It was iu vain that the Roman envoys warned him to desist, he referred them to the Carthaginian senate, but in the meanwhile pressed the town so closely, that he took it in eight months. The most resolute of the inhabitants collected their goods together in the market-place, set them on fire, and threw themselves into the flames ; the others died by the sword of the enemy, or beneath the ruins of their houses. Saguntum was reduced to a heap of rubbish. The Roman embassy, Avhen too late, declared war in Carthage. § 117. It was in the spring of the year 218 B.C. that Hannibal crossed the Ebro, subjected the tribes in that neighbourhood; and then, with an army of 60,000 men, and thirty-seven elephants, pene- trated across the Pyrenees into Gaul, whilst his brother Hasdrubal, with an equal number of troops, held Spain in subjection. After Hannibal had forced a passage through South Gaul and over the Rhone, he commenced his ever memorable passage of the Alps (probably by the way of mount Cenis). In the midst of perpetual contests with the savage inhabitants, the soldiers climbed over lofty mountains covered with snow and ice, without road and without HISTORY OF ROME. 85 shelter, — over precipices and gulfs. Nearly half the troops and the whole of the beasts of burden were destroyed. But these losses were soon replaced, when, after a march of fourteen days, Hannibal arrived in Upper Italy. For no sooner was the consul Corn. Scipio defeated and severely wounded, in an affair of cavalry on the Ticinus, and his fellow-consul, the imprudent Sempronius, completely routed at the rashly undertaken battle of Trebia, than the Cisalpine Gauls joined Hannibal's standard. After a short rest in Liguria, he crossed the rugged Apennines, a most toilsome march (in the course of which he lost an eye from inflammation), and continued his devastating course into Etruria. The consul Plaminius en- countered him at the lake Trasimenus, but by his inconsiderate rashness sustained a total defeat, in which he himself lost his life, and his soldiers were either killed or drowned in the waters of the lake. The road to Rome was now open to the victor ; but he deter- mined upon marching into Apulia, for the purpose of inducing the inhabitants of Lower Italy to revolt. § 118. It was at this time, that a man opposed himself to the Carthaginian general, who, by his prudence and circumspection, occa- sioned him many difficulties, — the dictator Pabius Maxhnus, the Delayer. He avoided an open engagement, but followed the hostile army foot by foot, and turned every unfortunate movement to his own advantage. He reduced it to such a perilous position in Cam- pania, by taking possession of the mountain heights, that Hannibal was only able to save himself by an artifice, — driving oxen, with bundles of lighted brushwood tied to their horns, up the hill, by which means he deceived the enemy. But the discontent of the imprudent people at this lingering mode of warfare, induced the consul Terentius Varro, in the following year, again to hazard an engagement, against the advice of his colleague, Paulus iEmilius. Hereupon followed the dreadful defeat of the Romans at Cannae, where the number of the slain was so great, that Hannibal is said to have sent three bushels of rings to Carthage, which were stripped from the arms of the Boman knights. The high-minded Paulus ■JEmilius was found among the slain. The day of the battle of Cannae, like that of the defeat at the Allia, (§ 105,) was marked in the Boman calendar as a time of prayer and fasting. The immoveable senate, however, preserved its courage and composure ; all who fled at Cannae were declared infamous, and expelled from the army. § 119. Hannibal did not consider it advisable to advance at once upon Borne with his shattered forces, but established his winter quar- ters in the rich and luxurious city of Capua. But it was here that his rugged warriors were rendered effeminate and lost their love of war. The Bomans, on the other hand, made new preparations with extraordinary rapidity, so that in the spring they were able to send 86 THE ANCIENT WORLD. fresh troops into the field, whilst in the mean time Hannibal's army- had received no re-inforcements from Carthage. Two B c °15 successful engagements restored the courage of the Ro- mans, and put them in a position to chastise the towns of Sicily and Lower Italy, which after the battle of Cannae had revolted B c 9 14 to Hannibal. Marcellus went over to Sicily and laid siege to Syracuse ; which defended itself with so much courage and success, by the aid of the ingenious mathematician and philosopher, Archimedes, that it was only by the greatest efforts, and after a siege of three years, that Marcellus could make himself master of the place. The revenge of the Romans was fearful : the soldiers plundered and slaughtered ; Archimedes was slain at his studies, the finest works of art were sent to Rome, and the glory of Syracuse was gone for ever. Capua experienced a similar fate. The place was closely besieged by two Roman legions ; the terrified inha- bitants implored the assistance of Hannibal, who advanced upon Home in the hope that the Romans woidd hasten to the relief of their capital, and relinquish the siege. But one legion, in conjunc- tion with a few other troops, was sufficient to compel Hannibal to retreat, and the Capuans, reduced by hunger, were obliged to surrender to the other. Twenty-seven senators died by their own hands, and fifty-three by the axe of the executioner ; the citizens were reduced to slavery, and their property bestowed upon foreign colonists. The treasures of Capua were sent to Some, all her privileges were destroyed, and from henceforth the city was governed by a Roman prefect. Two years later, Tarentum fell again into the hands of the Romans. Fabius Maximus reduced the in- habitants to slavery, and took possession of the treasures, but suffered the statues of the "Angry Cods" to remain. Pear soon brought all the revolted states back to the Romans, and Hannibal's position, without money, without re-inforcements, and without supplies, be- came every day more precarious. § 120. Spain was now Hannibal's only hope, since he was deserted by his ungrateful country. It was there, that Hannibal's brother, Hasdrubal, after having opposed the Romans for a long time with success, was at length reduced to such straits by the young and high- spirited Cornelius Scipio, that he was unable to remain in the country any longer, and consequently resolved upon uniting himself with his brother, who had summoned him into Italy. Following Hannibal's passage across the Alps, he marched into Upper Italy, and then directed his course towards the coast of the Adriatic sea, B.C. 208. .,1,1 n ...,., , , with the purpose ol joining his brother, who was en- camped in Lower Italy, opposite the consul Claudius Nero. But the daring resolution of this consul to effect a secret junction with his colleague, Livius Salinator, by a rapid march upon TJmbria, led to the HISTORY OF ROME. 87 death of Hasdrubal and the destruction of his army, at the river Metaurus, before Hannibal had received notice of his approach. In the bloody head of Hasdrubal, which the consul, on his return, threw into the enemy's camp, the dispirited general recognized the " fearful fate of Carthage." § 121. It was in misfortune that Hannibal displayed the real great- ness of his military talents. "Without help from without, and without allies in Italy, he still maintained himself, with the remains of his army, for some years, in the extreme south, against the superior force of the enemy. But when the victorious Scipio returned, after the subjugation of Spain, passed over from Sicily into Africa, with some fugitives and volunteers, and, setting fire in the neigh- bourhood of Utica to the enemy's camp, which consisted of tents made of straw and reeds, attacked them during the con- fusion, Hannibal was recalled to defend his country. Sorrowful and angry he quitted the land of his renown. It was in vain that he endeavoured, during a conference, to persuade his opponent to con- clude a treaty, by representing the instability of fortune. Scipio would not listen to the proposal ; whereupon the battle of Zama followed, and ended in the defeat of the Car- thaginians. Hannibal himself now advised a peace, hard as the conditions were. The Carthaginians were obliged to take an oath never to commence war without the consent of the Romans, they were compelled to renounce their claims upon Spain, to give up their ships of war, and to pledge themselves to pay an enormous sum to defray the expenses of the contest. After burning the Carthaginian fleet, and investing Masinissa (afterwards called Africanus), a friend of the Romans, with the kingdom of Numidia, Scipio returned to Rome, where a splendid triumph awaited him. Hannibal, on the other hand, was obliged, a short time after, to leave his home, a per- secuted refugee, and carried his hatred of the Romans to the court of the Syrian king, Antiochus. C. MACEDONIA CONQUERED ; CORINTH AND CARTHAGE DESTROYED. § 122. About this time, King Philip II. reigned over Macedonia and a part of Greece. He had entered into an alliance with Han- nibal, and made war on the Romans and their confederates in Greece and Asia Minor. It was for this reason that the Romans now turned their arms against him. They sent their general, Flaminius, a clever man, and one who took an interest in Greek art and literature, into Greece; he summoned the states to freedom, and then gave the Macedonians an overthrow at the Dogsheads, a range of hills in Thessaly. By this, Philip saw himself compelled to a peace by which he acknowledged the independence of Greece, gave up his fleet and a great sum of money, and renounced the right 88 THE ANCIENT WORLD. of making war on his own account. To gratify the vanity of the Greeks, the suhtle Plaminius caused the deliverance of Greece from the Macedonian yoke, to be proclaimed with magnificent ceremonies at the Isthmian games. But it was soon evident that the Romans were quite as eager to assume the government of Greece as ever the Macedonians had been. It was for this reason that many of the Greek tribes, and in particular the warlike iEtolians, who had united themselves in a confederation similar to that of the Achaians, applied to the Syrian king, Antiochus III., for aid (§ 90) . Antiochus, at whose court Hannibal was living, yielded to the demand ; but instead of joining Philip II. and attacking the Romans with united forces, he squandered his time idly in feasting and luxury, and gave offence to the Macedonian king ; whilst the Romans marched rapidly into Thessaly, and after storming the pass of Thermopylae under Porcius Cato, compelled the Syrian king to retreat into Asia. But he was immediately followed thither by a Roman army, under the command of L. Corn. Scipio, with his brother Africanus at his side, for coun- sellor. A murderous engagement took place at Magnesia, near mount Sipylus, which terminated to the disadvantage of Antiochus, who was compelled to purchase a peace by the cession of "Western Asia, this side the Taurus, and by the payment of an enormous sum for the expenses of the war. The rapacious JEtolians were also subdued and punished in their purses and their treasures of art. Hannibal, threatened with being delivered up to the Romans, fled to Prusias, king of Bithynia ; but when this prince coidd no longer venture to defend him, he swallowed poison on a lonely hill, to escape falling into the hands of his mortal ene- mies. At the same time, his great antagonist, Scipio, died at his estate in Lower Italy, far away from Rome, from whence he had been driven by the malice of his enemies. To make this year thoroughly fatal, Philopoemen was also compelled to drink the cup of poison (§88). § 123. Perseus, the wicked son of Philip II., made his way to the Macedonian throne by crimes, inasmuch as he provoked the suspicious father to the murder of his son Demetrius, a noble prince, and well disposed to the Romans. Perseus was scarcely in possession of his crown, before his hatred to the Romans induced him to begin a new war. His enormous wealth enabled him to make vast preparations, but avarice and perverse measures soon occasioned his fall. After the victory obtained by the expert tactician and accom- plished man, Paulus iEmflius, at Pydna, Perseus fell into the power of the Romans, was led in triumph, together with his trea- sures and his captive children and friends, through the streets of the mistress of the world ; and shortly after, ended his life in solitary HISTORY OF ROME. 89 confinement. Macedonia was divided into four provinces, and placed under a republican form of government ; 1000 noble Aehaians, among whom was tbe great historical writer, Polybius, were conveyed to Rorne as hostages, on the plea of a secret understanding with Perseus. Twenty years later, a pretended son of Perseus raised the standard of rebellion. This gave the Romans the wished-for oppor- tunity of converting Macedonia into a Roman province, after the subjection of the impostor by Metellus. Metellus had not yet quitted the conquered territory, when the Achaian league also took up arms to rid themselves of Rome's oppressive authority. Metellus overthrew the Aehaians who marched against him in two engagements ; but was obliged to leave the termination of the war to his rude successor, Mummius, who stormed Corinth, and burnt it to the ground. The inhabitants were either slain or reduced to slavery, the treasures of art destroyed or sent to Rome, and Greece was converted into a Roman province, under the name of Achaia. The prosperity of the once-flourishing states dis- appeared beneath the pressure of Roman taxation, and every spark of the patriotism and love of liberty of a former age was extinguished. The Spartans continued their rude trade of war as mercenaries, whilst the Athenians sought a subsistence among the Romans, as artists and men of learning, as players and dancers, as poets and beaux esprits ; but were treated with little respect. § 124. In the meanwhile, Carthage had again recovered a portion of her prosperity. This re-awakened the envy of the Romans, and gave emphasis to Cato's expression, "that Carthage must be de- stroyed. " Masinissa, king of Numidia, relying upon Roman pro- tection, enlarged his own territories at the expense of those of the Carthaginians ; and at last irritated them so much by perpetual quarrels about boundaries, that they took up arms to defend their own possessions. This was looked upon in Rome as an infringement of the peace, and occasioned a declaration of war. The Car- thaginians implored indulgence, and delivered up, at the demand of the Romans, first, 300 respectable hostages, and afterwards, their ships and weapons. But when this was followed by a decree that Carthage should be burnt to the ground, and a new city erected farther from the coast, the inhabitants determined rather to perish beneath the rains of their houses than submit to such a disgrace. A spirit of courage and patriotism took possession of all sexes and conditions. The town presented the appearance of a camp ; the temples were converted into smithies for forging arms, and every thing was made subservient to the lofty purpose of saving the state. Even the veteran legions of Rome were unable to withstand such enthusiasm as this. They were repeatedly repulsed and reduced to a precarious condition, until the younger Scipio, the able son of Paulus iEmilius, 90 THE ANCIENT WORLD. who had been adopted into the family of Scipio during childhood, was appointed to the consulate before the lawful age, with dictatorial power. After a most desperate resistance, and a murderous conflict for six days in the streets, it was he who at length succeeded in reducing the city, after it had suffered all the extremities of famine. The rage of the soldiers, and a conflagration that lasted for seventeen days, converted Carthage, the once proud mistress of the Mediter- ranean, into a heap of ruins ; 50,000 inhabitants, whom the sword had spared, were carried into slavery by the conqueror, who from this time bore the name of the younger Africanus. The territory of Carthage was turned into a Roman province, called Africa, and the rebuilding of the city denounced with a curse. d. THE MANNERS AND CULTURE OE THE ROMANS. § 125. The acquaintance of the Romans with Greece was attended with the most important consequences to their civilization, manners, and mode of living. The works of Greek art and literature that had been taken from the conquered towns, produced in the more susceptible part of the nation, a taste for cultivation, and awakened a fresh class of feelings. A powerful party, at the head of which stood the Scipios, Marcellus, Flaminius, and many others, patronised the Greek philosophy, poetry, and art; cherished and supported the learned men, philosophers, and poets, of that nation ; and sought to transport the spirit and language of the conquered people to Rome, together with their works of art. Under the protection of the Scipios, Roman poets wrote verses in imitation of their Greek prototypes. This was the case with their writers of comedy, Plautus and Terence, the latter of whom is said to have been assisted in his compositions by the younger Scipio and his friend Laflius. Since, however, the minds of the Romans were directed entirely to the practical, to the conduct of war, the government of the state, and the administration of justice, intellectual culture never could attain to the same height among them as with the Greeks : the people found more pleasure in spectacles addressed to the senses, rough gladiatorial combats, and the contests' of wild animals, than in the productions of the mind. But literature and the arts were not the only things that were borrowed ; elegance and refinement in the arrangement of dwellings, luxury and extravagance in meals and dress, politeness and suavity in social intercourse, sensual enjoyments and luxurious pleasures, were copied by the Romans from the Greeks and Orientals. The victors inherited the vices and excesses of the conquered people, along with their wealth and civilization. An opposite party, with Porcius Cato at its head, earnestly combated the new system that threatened to destroy the ancient manners, discipline, simplicity, moderation, and hardihood. The severity with which this remarkable man, in his HISTORY OF ROME. 91 office of censor, opposed the new direction of things, has made his name proverbial. By his aid, the Greek philosophers were banished from Rome ; the schools of oratory closed ; the dissolute festivals of Bacchus, and other religious customs derived from abroad, inter- dicted ; the Scipios punished as corrupters of morals ; and laws proclaimed against luxury and excess. For the purpose of counter- acting the influence of the new literature, he himself wrote works upon agriculture, the basis of Borne' s former greatness, and upon the people of ancient Italy, whose simplicity and purity of morals he wished to contrast to the commencing degeneracy of his time. But the example of Cato, who learned Greek in his old age, shows that the rigid attachment to the ancient and traditional, invariably gives way before new efforts at progress. III. ROME'S DEGENERACY. 1. NUMANTIA, TIBERIUS, AND CAIUS GRACCHUS. § 126. In proportion as the Boman territory increased in extent, the heroism, the civic virtues, and the patriotic feelings on which Borne' s greatness had been built, disappeared. Eresh aristocratic families were formed from the rich and the illustrious, who, like the patricians of old, monopolized all honours and offices. They sought perpetually for new wars, the conduct of which was given to them alone, for the purpose of increasing the renown they inherited from their ancestors by victories and triumphs ; and the provinces were exhausted to the end that they might give themselves up to all kinds of pleasure and enjoyments, without lessening the wealth on which the power and splendour of their families were founded. As pro- consuls and propraetors, they conducted the government and the administration of justice in the conquered provinces, with a host of writers and subordinates, but had their own interest more in view than the welfare of the governed. The wealthy members of the knightly class undertook, as farmers-general of the revenue, for a certain sum they paid into the exchequer, to collect all taxes, imposts, and tolls, and then sought, by the most shameless exactions practised by their toll-collectors, receivers, and under-farmers, to idemnify themselves for their outlay by an enormous profit. "What the officials and revenue -farmers left, was appropriated by a tribe of hungry merchants and usurers, so that a few decads sufficed to ruin the prosperity of a Boman colony. It is very true, that there existed a law which gave the abused provincials the right of impeaching their oppressors on the expiration of their office ; but as the judges all belonged to the same wealthy and noble families, the criminal gene- rally escaped free, or was fined in a small amount, for the sake of appearances. 92 THE ANCIENT WORLD. Single provinces would occasionally attempt to shake off this oppressive yoke, and to regain their freedom by dint of arms. The first example of such a revolt was given by the inhabitants of the Pyrenean peninsula, and above all others, by the heroic race of Spain whose chief city was Numantia. For five years they set all the efforts of the Bonians at defiance, and extorted a treaty of peace and an acknowledgment of their independence, from a consul whom they had enclosed in the hollows of their mountains. Bat the senate did not confirm the treaty, and behaved as they had done in the affair of the Caudinian passes (§ 110). It was only when the younger Scipio, the conqueror of Carthage, put himself at the head of the army, and restored the abandoned energy and discipline of the camp, that Numantia, after a desperate defence, was compelled by hunger to surrender. The citizens escaped from the insults of the victors, by heroically killing themselves. Scipio destroyed the empty town, the ruins of which still look admonishingly down upon posterity, a memorial of a magnanimous struggle for freedom. § 127. The new family aristocracy not only filled all the offices and excluded men of inferior birth from posts of honour, but they also possessed the whole of the arable land, inasmuch as they again claimed an exclusive right to the common lands, and got the smaller farms into their hands by purchase, usury, chicanery, and sometimes even by violence. By these means, the greatest inequality of pro- perty was produced. The class of free husbandmen, upon which the ancient strength, honesty, and military virtue of Home was established, disappeared entirely; whilst the nobles got possession of immense estates, which they had cultivated by hosts of slaves, who had been made prisoners in war. Numbers of impoverished tenants, who had been driven from their houses and farms by hard-hearted landlords, wandered through the land, a picture of misery and distress. In the midst of this state of things, the noble tribune of the people, Tiberius Gracchus, (son of Cornelia, daughter of the great Scipio Africanus) presented himself as the defender of op- pressed poverty, by proposing a renewal of the agrarian law of Licinius Stolo (§ 107), which enacted that no one should possess more than 500 acres of the public land, and that the remainder should be distributed to necessitous families in small lots, as their own property. Upon this, the nobles raised a dreadful storm, and prevaded upon another tribune to oppose the measure. According to the Boman code, no proposal could become law unless all the ten tribunes were unanimous. It was owing to this, that Gracchus allowed himself to be seduced into the illegal course of getting his refractory colleague deposed by the people, and thus violating the sanctity of the tribunitial dignity. This afforded his adversaries ground for the suspicion that Gracchus HISTORY OF ROME. 93 was meditating the overthrow of the constitution, for the purpose of assuming the kingly authority. He lost the favour of the misguided people, and was killed in the Capitol, together with 300 of his adher- ents, during a new election of tribunes. The people discovered their delusion when it was too late, and erected a statue in honour of their high-spirited champion. § 128. This result did not deter the younger and more able brother, Caius Gracchus, ten years afterwards, from motioning anew for the agrarian law, and, in connexion with it, for a corn law, (by which deliveries of corn were to be made to the poorer citizens for a moderate price,) and other popular measures. His great eloquence and his philanthropic exertions gained him a power- ful party among the lower class of the people, whose immediate dis- tress he sought to alleviate by the making of roads and public works. But when, at the instigation of his impetuous friend, Fulvius Flaccus, he proposed that the right of Roman citizenship should be extended to the allies, the nobles became alarmed and tried to destroy him. A dreadful combat took place at one of the popular assemblies between the aristocratic party, with the consul Opimius at their head, and the adherents of Gracchus and Fulvius. The latter were defeated : Tul- vius, with 3000 of his companions, were killed and their bodies thrown into the Tiber. Gracchus fled into a wood on the other side of the river, and commanded a slave to thrust a sword B.C. 121. . . into his bosom. Their laws and institutions were an- nulled, and their adherents punished with death, imprisonment, and banishment. The aristocracy were now, more than ever, the rulers of the republic. 2. THE TIMES OE MARIUS AND SYLLA, THE JUGUJRTHINE WAR. B.C. 112—106. § 129. The aristocrats disgraced their government by avarice and corruption, and renounced all sentiments of honour and justice. Jugurtha, the grandson of Masinissa of JSTumidia, a cunning and ambitious man, and experienced in war, trusting to the depravity of morals and the corruption prevalent in Rome, put to death the two sons of his uncle, who had been made co-heirs with himself, seized upon their states, which had been conferred upon them by the Ro- mans, and succeeded, by dint of bribing the most influential senators, in retaining possession of his plunder, and heaping crime upon crime with impunity. "When at length the senate were compelled, by the indignation of the people, to send an army into Africa, the Numidian king actually succeeded in producing such enervation and looseness of discipline among the troops, by bribery and seduction, that they were defeated at the first attack, and obliged to pass under the yoke. 94 THE ANCIENT WORLD. This disgrace produced the greatest exasperation in Rome, so that the senate were compelled to adopt more stringent measures, in order to appease the discontent of the people, and conciliate the outraged sentiment of justice, by the punishment of the oifender. They accordingly dispatched the upright Metellus, with fresh troops, into Africa. Metellus restored the discipline of the army, and brought back the military renown of the Romans by successful engagements and conquests. But the people were so em- bittered against the aristocracy, that they resolved to deprive them of the government by any means. For this purpose, they required an intrepid leader, and the aspiring and ambitious C. Marius presented himself, a man of obscure condition, who was at that time serving as lieutenant in the army of Metellus, and who joined courage, the talents of a general, and rude military virtue, to rough manners, hatred of the nobles, and contempt for their cultivation and refine- ment. Disgusted at the aristocratic haughtiness of his B.C. 107. . commander, Marius returned to Rome, where he was chosen consul by the popular party, and entrusted with the conduct of the Jugurthine war. Jugurtha, with all his cunning and inventive genius, was unable long to withstand the energetic Marius and his army, now hardened by severe discipline. He was conquered, and fled to the faithless Bocchus, king of Mauritania ; but was delivered up by him to the shrewd and dexterous lieutenant L. Corn. Sylla, and led in triumph to Rome, where he was starved to death in prison. § 130. Ctmbki akd Teuto^tes. — Marius had not yet concluded the Jugurthine war, when the Cimbri and Teutones appeared on the borders of the Roman empire. They were a northern people of Germanic origin, and gigantic stature and strength, who had left their country with their wives, children, and all their property, to seek for a new habitation. They were clad in iron coats of mail and the skins of beasts ; they bore shields the height of a man, with long swords and heavy maces. They first defeated the Romans in a bloody battle in Carinthia, passed through Gaul, devastating and plundering, and within four years cut to pieces five consular armies on the banks of the Rhone and the lake of Geneva. Marius, whom the Romans, against the law, had elected five succes- sive times to the consulate, came forward as deliverer. With his army, hardened by the labours of digging and hewing, he defeated the Teutones in a bloody engagement at Aquae Sextiae, (Aix in Provence) in South Gaul. In the meanwhile, the Cimbri, in a separate body, had penetrated through the Tyrol and the valley of the Adige, into Upper Italy ; bat when there, had care- lessly given themselves up to the pleasures afforded by the rich country, till they suffered a similar frightful overthrow on the plains HISTORY OF ROME. 95 near Vercellae, from Marius, who had united himself with his colleague Lutatius Catulus. The courage of these Grermans, who killed themselves and their children, to prevent their being reduced to slavery, made the Romans tremble. § 131. The social wae. — A sixth consulate rewarded B.C. 100. Marius, the saviour of Italy, the pride and hope of the popular party. By his assistance, this party again gained the supe- riority, which induced the aristocracy to array themselves around Corn. Sylla, a politic and ambitious man, and versed in war, who united in himself the cultivation and love of art of the nobles, with their vices and excesses. Prom this time two powerful parties, the democrats under Marius, and the aristocrats under Sylla, stood opposed in arms to each other. The former endeavoured to strengthen their ranks by attracting thither the allies, and for this purpose held out to them the prospect of the Roman citizenship. When this was not conceded, the disappointed party took up arms for the purpose of freeing themselves from Rome, or of compelling the cession of the refused privileges. This occasioned the perilous social B c go 33 r o r war. All the tribes of Sabelline origin, the warlike Samnites and Marsians at their head, renounced allegiance to the Romans, formed an Italian confederation, and declared Corfinium, which was also called Italica, chief city of the new alliance. Veteran armies marched into the field. In Rome the people put on mourning, armed the manumitted slaves, and conferred the privileges of Roman citizenship upon the Latins, Etruscans, and Umbrians, who had remained faithful, to prevent their joining with the others. The Romans were successful, after many changes of fortune and many bloody engagements, in gradually mastering their opponents. But the ferment was still so dangerous, that they thought it advisable, to prevent a fresh insurrection, by conferring the rights of citizenship upon the whole of the allies. They nevertheless restricted the elective rights of the new citizens. § 132. The eibst wae, against Mithkidates. — The allies were scarcely appeased, before the Romans were threatened from the East, by an enemy as sagacious as he was bold, — Mithridates, king of Pontus, on the Black Sea. Like Hannibal, an enemy of the Romans, this warlike jmnce, who was a good linguist, endeavoured to unite the Grecian and Asiatic states in a vast confederacy, and to free them from the Roman dominion. By his orders, all the Roman subjects (togati) in Western Asia, 80,000 in number, were put to death in one frightful day of slaughter. At the same time he seized upon some countries in alliance with the Romans, and sent an army into Greece to protect Athens, Bceotia, and other states that had joined him. Hereupon the Roman senate gave the command against Mithridates to Sylla, who had distinguished him- 9G THE ANCIENT WORLD. self in the social war, and been rewarded by the consulate. But Marius envied his opponent this Asiatic campaign, and procured a resolution of the people by which he himself was appointed to con- duct the Mithridatic war. Sylla, who was with his army in Lower Italy, now marched upon Eome, had Marius and eleven of his con- federates outlawed as traitors to their country, and adopted proper measures for the preservation of peace. He nevertheless be- haved with moderation, that he might be able to commence the cam- paign against Mithridates as soon as possible. Marius, after multi- tudinous dangers and adventures, escaped over the marshes of Min- turnoe into Africa. § 133. The first civil war. — Sylla now passed over into Greece, stormed Athens, that expiated its revolt by a frightful effusion of blood, seized upon the treasures in the temple of Delphi, and overthrew the generals of the king of Pontus in two engagements. He then marched through Macedonia and Thracia into Asia Minor, and compelled Mithridates to a peace, by which Eome not only recovered her dominion over the whole of Western Asia, but was indemnified for the expenses of the war by the pay- ment of a large sum of money, and the cession of the Pontic fleet. The revolted towns and districts were severely punished in their property. In the mean time, Marius had returned from the ruins of Carthage back again into Italy ; and surrounding himself with a band of desperate men, had marched to the gates of Eome in conjunction with the democratic leaders, Cinna and Sertorius. The city, weakened by famine and dissension, was compelled to surrender. Upon which, Marius gave free course to his thirst for vengeance. Troops of rude soldiers marched, plundering and slaughtering, through the streets of the capital ; the heads of the aristocratic party, including the most renowned and respected senators and consuls, were murdered, their houses plundered and destroyed, their estates confiscated, and then' dead bodies given to the dogs, and the fowls of the air. After the gratification of his vengeance, Marius had himself chosen consul for the seventh time, but died a few months after,, from the effects of excitement and a dissolute life. § 134. In the year 83 B.C., Sylla landed in Italy after the termi- nation of the first Mithridatic war, and marched, with the support of the aristocracy, upon Eome. In Lower Italy he defeated the demo- cratic consuls in numerous engagements, drove the younger Marius to self-destruction iu the strong city of Prameste, by the close siege be laid to the place, and in a murderous battle before the gates of Eome, annihilated the Marian party and the rebellious Samnites, 8000 of whom he slaughtered before the eyes of the trembling senate. The civil war had already cost the lives of 100,000 men, HISTORY OF ROME. 97 when Sylla (surnained the Fortunate), for the purpose of completing his triumph, made public his proscriptions, upon which were written the names of the Marian party who were to be killed and plundered. Hereupon all the ties of blood, of friendship, of dependence and piety, were torn asunder : sons were armed against their parents, and slaves against their masters ; informations were rewarded ; terror and corruption of morals were every where prevalent. Upon this, Sylla, who was named dictator for an indefinite period, proclaimed the Cornelian law, by which the whole power of the government fell into the hands of the aristocracy, and the influence of the tribunes was destroyed. After the conclusion of these arrangements, Sylla retired to his estate, where he shortly after died of a b.c. 78. frightful distemper. 3. THE TIMES OE CNEIUS POMPEY, AND M. TULLIUS CICERO. § 135. SykVs death did not bring back repose to the disturbed state. The outlawed and persecuted Marians assembled themselves around the brave and upright democratic leader, Sertorius, and fought against the Roman armies in Spain with fortune and success. It was not until Sertorius had been assassinated by his envious associates, that Pompey, who whilst yet a youth, had joined himself to Sylla, and was now regarded as the head of the aristocratic party, succeeded in overpowering the rebels. His mild and placable character, and his courteous and popular bearing, rendered him an admirable mediator between contending factions. § 136. When Pompey returned to Italy from Spain, he encoun- tered a new enemy — the rebellious slaves. Seventy gladiators had fled, in Capua, from the scourge of their task-masters, broken open the slave prisons in Lower Italy, and exhorted the inmates to fight for their liberties. Their numbers soon increased to 70,000. The valiant Thracian, Spartacus, was at their head. Their intention at first was to return to their homes ; but after they had overthrown two Roman armies that opposed their passage, they entertained the hope of destroying the Roman power, and revenging themselves of the injuries they had received. The danger of the Romans was great. But dissension and want of mili- tary discipline produced a division among the slaves, and led to uncombined movements, so that the consul, M. Crassus, succeeded in subduing their ill-armed bands in detail. After the bloody fight on the banks of the Silarus, in which Spartacus fell, after an heroic contest, the remainder marched into Upper Italy, where they were utterly destroyed by Pompey. § 137. Pompey rendered his name even more illustrious in Asia, b.c. 67. where he brought the war against the pirates, and the b.c 74—55. second Mithridatic war, to a conclusion, than in the H 98 THE ANCIENT WORLD. expedition against the slaves. In the sterile mountain regions on the south of Asia Minor, lived a daring race of freebooters, who disturbed the whole Mediterranean by piracy, visited the coasts and islands with plunder and desolation, dragged off noble Eonians as prisoners, for the purpose of exacting a heavy ransom, and interrupted trade and commerce. Hereupon, Pompey was invested with the most unlimited dictatorial power over all seas, coasts, and islands. With a splendidly equipped fleet and army he cleared in three months the whole Mediterranean from the pirates, subdued the towns and for- tresses in their own country, and settled many of the inhabitants in the newly-built town, Pompeiopolis. § 138. In the mean time, Mithridates, encouraged by Rome's internal disturbances, had begun a fresh war. He had already laid siege to the rich inland town of Cyzicus, which was favoured by the Romans, when Lucullus fell upon him and gave him such an over- throw that he retreated in haste to his kingdom of Pontus; and when this also fell a prey to the victor, sought for aid and protection from his son-in-law, Tigranes, king of Armenia. But Lucullus defeated the enormous host of the Armenian king in the neigh- b.c. 69. bourhood of his capital, Tigranocerta, and was already making preparations for overthrowing the whole empire, and extending the Roman dominions as far as Parthia, when the legions refused obedience to their general. Upon this, Lucullus retired to his wealth and his pleasure gardens, and Pompey united the command of the Armenio-Pontic armv to his other dignities. He con- b.c. 66. quered Mithridates, who had assembled fresh forces, in a night engagement on the Euphrates, reduced the Armenian king to homage and submission, and then put an end to the rule of the Seleucida? in Syria. Mithridates, deprived of the greater part of his territories, and despairiug of a successful issue, destroyed himself. After Pompey, at his own pleasure, had disposed of the conquered lands in Asia, in such a way that the Roman empire was enlarged by three provinces, and some of the more distant lands had been ceded to tributary kings, he returned to Rome, where he held a public entry of two days, and filled the treasury with enormous wealth. § 139. A short time before this, M. Tullius Cicero, Pompey' s friend and the companion of his thoughts, had acquired the honour- able title of father of his country. Cicero, born in a provincial town, and of citizen parents, had so distinguished himself by his talents, his industry, and his irreproachable life, that although ignoble (novus homo) he obtained the consulate. He had devoted himself in Athens and Rhodes with such zeal and success to the sciences of the Greeks, and especially to eloquence and philosophy, that he might be com- pared, both as a statesman and an orator, to Demosthenes, and had composed profound works on rhetoric and philosophy. Though vain, HISTORY OF ROME. 99 boastful, and weak, he possessed civic virtue, patriotism, and a strong sense of justice. During his consulate, Catiline, a man of noble family, but disgraced by an infamous life, and loaded with debts, formed a con- spiracy with certain other Romans of desperate fortunes, the objects of which were, to murder the consuls, to set fire to the city, to overthrow the constitution, and in the confusion to seize upon the government by the aid of the soldiers of Sylla and the populace. But the vigdant consul Cicero had baffled this atrocious project. By his four orations against Catiline, he unmasked the dissembling villain in the senate, and reduced him to fly into Etruria, where he met with his death in a courageous defence against the consular army. His confederates were put to a violent death in prison. 4. THE TIMES OE JULIUS C^ISAR. § 140. The triumvirate. — Sylla' s fortune excited ambitious men to imitate it. Every one sought to be first, and to rule the state at his pleasure. But whdst Pompey, who was now in possession of almost kingly authority, was reposing upon the laurels of his .renown, in the full enjoyment of his happiness and prosperity, he was gra- dually overtaken by his great competitor, Julius Caesar. This man united talents of the most varied character, so that he was not less distinguished as a writer and orator, than as a general and soldier. His liberality gained him the favour of the people, and his ambition urged him to great deeds. To make himself a match for the old republican party, at the head of which stood the eccentric M. Porcius Cato, Caesar formed an alliance with Pompey and Crassus, called the triumvirate (league of three men), in which they pledged themselves to mutually assist each other. Erom this time, these three men ruled the state without troubling themselves farther about the senate. In a short time, Caesar had the government of Gaul, in which he had a long war to conduct, transferred to himself. That he might not be disturbed in his undertak- ings, he renewed the triumvirate in a meeting that was held at Lucca. By this means, the government of Gaul was again continued to him for five years. Pompey received Spain as his province, but governed it by means of his legates, whdst he himself exercised a dictatorial power in Borne. Crassus, the richest man in Borne, to gratify his avarice, chose Syria with its riches ; but was overthrown by the Parthians in the plains of Mesopotamia, and killed in the flight. His more valiant son, and almost the whole of the army, died on the field of battle. The Boman ensigns fell into the hands of the enemy. § 141. Cjssar's wars in Gaul.' — The Celts, a people divided into many states and tribes, were the ancient inhabitants of Gaul (Erance) and Helvetia (Switzerland). The h 2 100 THE ANCIENT WORLD. southern part of this Gaul had already become a Roman province (hence Provence), when the Helvetii embraced the project of leaving their sterde mountains, and settling themselves in its south-Avestern portion. The Romans would not permit this, and Csesar in conse- quence marched into Gaul. He overthrew the Helvetii in a battle, compelled them to return to their burnt villages and desolated coun- try, and reduced them to pay tribute. He then subdued the German leader, Ariovistus, who by means of his hardy troops had severely oppressed the Sequani and iEqui who were dwelling in eastern Gaul, and obliged him to return again to his trans-Rhenish country. After Caesar had subdued the Belgi and other Gaulish tribes, he twice crossed the Rhine for the purpose of terrifying the warlike inhabit- ants of the rude and woody Germany, and preventing their hostde attacks upon Gaul. It is to this undertaking that Ave owe the first short description of our country, in Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic war. But the Roman general never thought of making per- manent conquests, either in Germany or Britain, on the coasts of which he twice landed. After a few engagements with the skin-clad inhabitants of the British islands, he sailed back again for the purpose of completely subjecting the Gauls. For this restless and fickle people were perpetually revolting and taking up arms when Caesar was employed in another quarter. It was not till he had put down the last general insurrection, at Alesia, in Bur- gundy, that he succeeded in gradually reducing the whole country as far as the Rhine, and converting it into a province of the Roman empire. § 142. The second civil war. — In the meanwhile the rage of party had grown in Rome to the greatest excess, and murder and plunder were matters of daily occurrence. This induced the senate and the old republicans to attach themselves entirely to Pompey, and to place the consulate at his disposal. Pom- pey employed this vast power to depress Csesar, of whose military renown he had become jealous. At his instigation, a command was sent to Caesar from the senate at the termination of the war in Gaid, to lay down his command and to quit his army. Two tribunes of the people (Curio and Antonius) Avho opposed this resolution, and de- manded that Pompey should also give up his power, were driven out of the city ; they fled to Caesar's camp and summoned him to step forward as the defender of the outraged privileges of the people. After a little hesitation, Caesar crossed the boundary ji c 4!) . stream of the Rubicon and advanced upon Rome. Pom- pey, aroused Avhen it was too late from his indolence and careless security, did not venture to await his reproach in the city : he hastened to Brundusium with a fcAV troops and a great train of senators and nobles ; and when the victor approached the place, HISTORY OF ROME. 10 1 escaped across the Ionian Sea into Epirus. Caesar did not pursue hint, but fell back upon Rome, where he took possession of the trea- sury, and then proceeded to Spain. Here he compelled the army of Pompey to a capitulation, the result of which was, that the generals and officers were allowed to depart, and the greater part of the com- mon soldiers joined the victor. "When Caesar on his return, after a close siege, had reduced Massilia, a town that wished to remain neu- tral, and punished it severely in its possessions and liberties, he again marched to Rome, had himself appointed dictator and consul for the following year, and adopted many serviceable measures. He then passed over the Ionian Sea for the purpose of making head against Pompey. The decisive battle of Pharsalus, in the plains of Thessalv, "R c dfi 'I: J > was soon fought, in which Caesar's veteran troops gained a splendid victory over an army of double their numbers. Pompey, with a few faithful followers, fled across Asia Minor into Egypt, where, instead of a hospitable reception, he met with his death by assassination. Ptolemy, in the hope of obtaining the favour of Caesar, ordered the conquered Pompey to be killed on his landing at Pelusium, and his dead body to be cast unburied upon the shore. § 143. Caesar's triumphs. — Shortly after, Caesar also arrived in Italy. He shed tears of compassion over Pompey' s death, and refused the instigator of the murder his promised reward. Eor when he was chosen umpire between Ptolemy and his beautiful sister Cleopatra, in a dispute concerning the throne, he decided in favour of the latter, and by this means got involved in a war with the king and the people of Egypt that retained him for nine months in Alex- andria, and reduced him to great peril. It was only when fresh troops had arrived, and Ptolemy had been drowned after an unsuccess- ful engagement on the Nile, that he could place the government in the hands of Cleopatra (by whose charms he had been enchained), and proceed to fresh conquests. The rapid victory that he gained by the terror of his name over the son of Mithridates has been rendered immortal by the memorable letter that announced the event : " I came, saw, conquered" (Veni, vidi, vici). After a short delay in Pome, he passed over into Africa, where the friends of republican government and the adherents of Pompey had collected a vast army. Here Caesar gained the bloody battle of Thapsus, where the hopes of the republicans were destroyed. Thousands fell in the field ; many of the survivors perished by their own hands, and among them, the high-spirited Cato, who put himself to death in Utica with calm composure. A magnificent triumph of four days awaited the victor on his return to Rome, which he, however, soon quitted for the purpose of attacking the last of his enemies, who had assembled themselves around the sons of Pompey. The last rem- 102 THE ANCIENT WORLD. milts of the friends of Ponipey and the republic were destroyed in the frightful battle near Munda, where they fought with the courage of desperation. One of the sons was killed in the flight, the survivor followed the life of a pirate, till he fell by the hand of an assassin. § 144. Cjesar's death. — Caesar now returned, as chief and ruler of the Roman empire, to the capital, where he was saluted as " Father of the country," and elected dictator for life. He sought to win the soldiers' and people by liberality, and the nobles by offices : he en- couraged trade and agriculture, embellished the city with temples, theatres, and public places, improved the calendar, and forwarded all kinds of good and useful projects ; but his evident attempts to gain the title and dignity of king induced some fanatical friends of liberty to' engage in a conspiracy. His friend and flatterer, Marc Antony, offered him the kingly diadem during a feast, and despite the feigned distaste with which Caesar rejected it, his secret satisfaction was easily discernible. At the head of the conspiracy stood the high- minded enthusiast for liberty, M. Junius Brutus, the friend of Csesar, and the severe republican, Caius Cassius. In despite of every warn- ing, Csesar held a meeting of the senate during the ides of March, in the hall of Pompey. It was here that, with the exclama- tion, " Et tu, Brute I '-' he fell, pierced by twenty-three daggers, at the feet of the statue of his former opponent. 5. THE LAST TEAES OF THE REPUBLIC. § 145. It was soon apparent that the idea of freedom only existed among a few men of cultivated minds, but was quenched in the hearts of the populace. The first enthusiasm for the newly-acquired free- dom was soon changed into hatred and invectives against the mur- derers of the dictator, when Marc Antony, in an artful speech at the funeral of Caesar, extolled his merits and services, and ordered pre- sents of money to be distributed amoug the poor. The senate, on the other hand, were for the most part favourable to the conspirators, and conferred upon some of them the government of provinces ; and when Antony attempted to take possession of one of these provinces by force, Cicero obtained by his Philippine Orations that the senate declared him an enemy of the country. The senate, at the same time, gave offence to Octavius, the son of Caesar's sister, who was then nineteen years of age, and who, as heir of his uncle's name, (Caesar Octavianus, afterwards Augustus,) had all the old soldiers on his side. Octavianus in consequence, raised the standard of Caesar's vengeance, and formed a second triumvirate with Antony and Lepi- dus on a little island of the river Rhenus, near Bologna. New prescriptions took place, which proved particularly fatal to the knightly and senatorial ranks. The most deserving and illustrious HISTORY OF ROME. 103 men fell beneath the blows of assassins, the clearest relations of blood, of friendship, and of piety were torn asunder. Among the victims of Antony was Cicero, who was killed during an attempt at flight. His head and his right hand were placed upon the rostrum. § 146. After the possessors of power in Italy had satiated their vengeance, they marched against the republicans, who had established their camp in Macedonia, under the command of Brutus and Cassius. It was here, in the plains of Philippi, that a decisive double engagement took place, in which Cassius was obliged to yield to Antony, whilst Brutus repulsed the legions of Octavius. But when Cassius, deceived by false intelligence, had over-hastily fallen upon his own sword, and the triumvirs, twenty days afterwards, renewed the fight with united forces, Brutus, " the last of the Romans," was forced to succumb, and fell, like Cassius, upon his own sword. His wife, Portia (Cato's daughter), destroyed herself with live coals, and many champions of liberty died by their own hands ; so that Philippi became the grave of the republic. Henceforth, the contest was no longer for freedom but for empire. The victors divided the Roman territory between them ; Antony chose the east, Octavius the west ; the feeble Lepidus, who at first received the province of Africa, but who never possessed much influ- ence, was soon robbed of his share. § 147. But whilst the luxurious Antony was leading a voluptuous life at Cleopatra's court in Alexandria, the shrewd Augustus and his high-spirited admiral Agrippa, were winning the affections of the Soman people by liberal donations and diversions, rewarding the soldiers by a distribution of lands, and keeping up the discipline of the fleet and army. At length, when Antony lavished Roman blood and Roman honour in an unsuccessful campaign against the Parthians, married Cleopatra, and gave the provinces of Rome to her son, the senate, at the instigation of Octavius, deprived him of all his honours and declared war against Cleopatra. East and west stood opposed in arms. But the sea-fight of Actium, despite the superiority of the Egyptians, was decided in favour of Octavius. Antony and Cleopatra fled. But when the victor approached the gates of Alexandria, the former fell on his sword, and Cleopatra finding that her charms produced no impression on the new poten- tate, destroyed herself by the poison of two vipers. Egypt became the first province of the Roman Empire. IV. THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 1. THE TIMES OF C^SAR OCTAYIANUS AUGUSTUS. from U ?o US B c. § 148 - The w° od y civil war had ^pt awa y aU tne to a.d. 14. men of ability and patriotism; and the crowd that was 10-1; THE ANCIENT WORLD. left demanded nothing but food and entertainment, and forgot freedom and civil virtue in the enjoyment of the moment. This rendered it easy to the dexterous Augustus to change the Roman republic into a monarchy, but he yielded so far to the prejudices of the Romans, as not to assume the title of king, or master, and to retain the republican names and forms, with the appellation of Caesar, whilst he gradually got all the offices and privileges of the senate and people placed in his own hands, and had them renewed from time to time. He united a profound understanding and talents for govern- ment, with clemency, temperance, and constancy, and as he was a master in the art of dissimulation, and knew how to turn the failings of men to advantage, he gained his ends more surely than his greater uncle, Caesar. It was under Augustus that the Roman empire pos- sessed the greatest power abroad, and the highest cultivation at home. It extended from the Atlantic Ocean to the Euphrates, and from the Donau and Rhine, to the Atlas and Falls of the Nile; art and literature flourished to such a degree, that the reign of Augustus was called the golden age. Vast military roads, provided with milestones, connected the twenty-five provinces Avith Rome, and facilitated intercourse ; magnificent aqueducts and canals attested the enterprising spirit of the Roman people ; Rome itself was adorned with temples, theatres, and baths, and so much changed, that Augustus was able to say, that he found Rome brick, and left it marble. The temple which Agrippa consecrated to all the gods (the Pantheon), is still one of the greatest ornaments of the eternal city. Augustus and his friend Maecenas, Pollio, and others, Avere the favourers of art and literature, and the patrons of poets and authors. The first public hbrary was founded on the Palatine hill ; the citizens, who now no longer marched to the wars, and who had relinquished the conduct of state affairs to Caesar and his ministers, employed their leisure in reading and writing, left actions for words, and performing for thinking ; it was by this means that polished manners soon prevailed among all classes. § 149. Roman literature. — Virgil, Horace, and Ovid claim the first place among the poets that adorned the Augustan age. The first composed the iEneid, an heroic poem on the model of Homer (§ 38), pastoral poetry, and a didactic poem on agriculture; Horace, to whom his patron Maecenas presented a small Sabine farm, wrote odes, satires, and humorous epistles, in Avhich he exhibits his cheerful views of life in a Avitty and engaging manner; Ovid, the clever Avriter of mythological stories (Metamorphoses), was banished by Augustus to the rude steppes of the Caspian Sea, from whence he Avrote letters of complaint to his distant home. Among historians, the most celebrated are Sallustius, who, in his account of the Avars against Jugurtha and Catiline, gives a true but frightful picture of the corrupt times ; and Titus Livius, the tutor of HISTORY OF ROME. 105 the grandson of Augustus, who wrote a complete history of Rome, in 142 books ; of which only thirty-five are preserved. We possess a biography of distinguished men, by his contemporary Cornelius Nepos. The Romans took the Greeks for their models in art and literature, but fell far short of their masters. 2. THE STKUGGXES OP THE &EEMAJSTS EOB, EIBEETT. § 150. About the time that the Saviour of the world was brought forth in lowliness and humility in Bethlehem, in the land of Judaea, to bring the joyful news of salvation to the lost race of man, our fore- fathers were engaged in a severe struggle with the Eomans for the preservation of their liberties and national customs. Drusus, the brave son-in-law of Augustus, was the first Roman who made any conquests on the right bank of the Rhine. He undertook many successful campaigns against the tribes in alliance with the Suevi, between the Rhine and the Elbe, and attempted to secure the land by intrenchments and fortifications. Being killed in the flower of his years, by a fall from his horse during his return home, his brother Tiberius completed the conquest of Western Germany, rather by dint of skilfully conducted negotiations with the disunited Germans, than by force of arms ; whereupon, the country between the Rhine and the Weser was erected into a Roman province. Foreign customs, lan- guage, and laws already threatened to destroy German nationality ; German soldiers already fought in the ranks of the Romans, and prided themselves on foreign marks of distinction, when the insolence and indiscretion of the governor Quintilius Varus, aroused the slum- bering patriotism of the people. Several tribes united themselves in a confederacy, under the guidance of Hermann (Arminius), the valiant prince of the Cherusci, for the purpose of throwing off the foreign yoke. It was in vain that Segestus, whose daughter Thu- snelda had been carried off and married by Hermann, against the consent of her father, warned the careless governor. Varus marched with three legions and several auxiliaries, through the Teutoburger forest, for the purpose of quelling an insurrection that had been pur- posely raised, but suffered such a defeat from the Germans under Hermann's command, that the defiles of the wood were covered far and wide with the corpses of the Romans. The eagles were lost, and Varus died by his own hands. Augustus, when he heard the news, exclaimed in despair, " Varus, give me back my legions ! " § 151. Upon the death of Augustus, in his 76th year, at Nola, in Lower Italy, Drusus, the valiant son of Ger- manicus, again crossed the Rhine, ravaged the lands of the Chatti (Hesse), buried the bleaching remains of the Romans in the Teuto- burger forest, and carried off into captivity Thusnelda, the high- 106 THE ANCIENT WORLD. spirited wife of Hermann, whom her treacherous father had given up to the enemy. But although he defeated the Cherusci and their allies in two engagements, and at the same time pressed Germany closely by sea, the Koman dominion was never firmly or permanently established on the right bank of the Ehine. Storms destroyed the fleet, and a pathless country and the swords of the Germans brought the army to the brink of destruction ; and when at length Gerinani- cus (to whose noble wife, Agrippina, the town of Cologne owes its prosperity), was recalled by his jealous uncle, Tiberius, and shortly after, met with his death by poison in Syria, the Germans were no longer disturbed by the ambition of the Romans. But the Lower German confederation of the Cherusci now turned its arms against the Upper German confederation of the Marcomanni, at the head of which stood Marbodius. This gave the Romans the opportunity of embroiling Germany from the south. Marbodius fell into the power of the Romans, who kept him for eighteen years at Ravenna as their pensioner ; Hermann was killed by envious friends. His deeds sur- vived in song, and our own age has erected a colossal statue, on the Teuthill at Detmold, in joyful commemoration of the deliverer of Germany. TACITUS OX THE MANNEES AND CUSTOMS OF THE GEBHANS. § 152. About 100 years after Augustus, the great historian Tacitus, after having pourtrayed the events of the Roman empire in his History and Annals, embraced the resolution of describing the manners and customs of the German tribes, and presenting them as models to his degenerate country. Although the work remained a mere sketch, it is to this resolution that we are indebted for the first accurate in- formation respecting our native land. We learn from it, that Germany was inhabited by numerous independent tribes, sometimes united and " sometimes at war with each other, who were perpetually changing their places of residence, in obedience to an innate wandering impulse. "War and the chase were their chief employments ; they built neither towns nor strongholds ; their huts and farms were scattered about in the midst of their grounds, a peaceful life behind stone Avails agreed neither with their love of liberty nor their passion for war. They united purity of morals, hospitality, good faith, and honesty, respect for women, and reverence for the marriage tie, to the external advantages of lofty stature, beauty of person, strength, and courage. The only vices attributed to them are a disposition to drunkenness and gambling. 3. THE CiESAES OE THE AUGUSTAN EACE. § 153. Domestic misfortunes disturbed the happiness of Augustus. The promising sons who sprung from the marriage of his daughter HISTORY OF ROME. 1Q7 Julia with Agrippa, died in their youth ; Juha herself occasioned her father such distress by her profligate life that at length he banished her. By the intrigues of the ambitious Livia, the emperor's third Tiberius, Avife, the empire descended to Tiberius, the adopted son- a.d. 14—37. in-law of Augustus. The clemency at first displayed by this hypocritical prince soon gave way to his natural malevolence, particularly when his crafty and vicious favourite, Sejanus, assisted him in establishing a military despotism. He advised him to unite the prsetorian body-guard in a permanent camp before Eome. Here they soon became the oppressors of the people, raised and dethroned emperors, and introduced a military despotism. The assemblies of the people were no longer held, and the dastardly senate sunk into a mere tool of the despot. The frightful court of majesty, which took cognizance of cases of high treason, was a means of destroying every man of ability, inasmuch as it inflicted the punishment of death, and imposed fines, not only for actions, but even for words and thoughts. Pensioned spies undermined all faith and trust among the people, and destroyed every spark of freedom by terror. The misanthropical Tiberius, tortured by fear and the reproaches of his conscience, passed the last years of his life in the island of Caprese (Capri), in Lower Italy, where he abandoned himself to luxury and the most infamous pleasures, whilst Sejanus was practising every vice in Eome. "When the latter at length attempted to possess himself of the throne, the emperor sent an order to the senate to put him to death. Tibe- rius, sick and advanced in years, perished by a violent death on his estate in Lower Italy. During his reign, a dreadful earthquake destroyed many of the richest and most beautiful cities in Asia Minor. Caligula, § 154. His successor, Caj. Caligula, the unworthy son a.d. 37 — 41. f the noble Gfermanicus and the high-minded Agrippina, was a blood-thirsty tyrant, who took delight in signing sentences of death and having them executed ; a frantic spendthrift, who lavished money in buddings without a purpose ; an insolent boaster, who caused divine honours to be paid to himself, and celebrated magnificent tri- umphs over the Germans and Britons, whom he scarcely ever saw ; and a glutton, by whose riotous table enormous sums were swallowed up. The praetorians at length kflled the crazy tyrant, and raised his Claudius, uncle, the imbecde Claudius, to the throne. This emperor a.d. 41 — 54. wag i ec [ D y W omen and favourites, the latter, especially the freedmen Narcissus and Pallas, were in possession of all the oifices, and enriched themselves at the expense of the people, whilst his wife Messalina yielded herself up to every lust, and trampled morality and decency under foot. At length the emperor commanded her to be put to death, and married his ambitious and profligate niece Agrip- pina, who, however, soon got rid of her weak and uxorious husband 106 THE ANCIENT WORLD. spirited wife of Hermann, whom her treacherous father had given up to the enemy. But although he defeated the Cherusci and their allies in two engagements, and at the same time pressed Germany closely by sea, the Roman dominion was never firmly or permanently established on the right bank of the Rhine. Storms destroyed the fleet, and a pathless country and the swords of the G-ermans brought the army to the brink of destruction ; and when at length Grermani- cus (to whose noble wife, Agrippina, the town of Cologne owes its prosperity), was recalled by his jealous uncle, Tiberius, and shortly after, met with his death by poison in Syria, the Germans were no longer disturbed by the ambition of the Romans. But the Lower German confederation of the Cherusci now turned its arms against the Upper German confederation of the Marcomanni, at the head of which stood Marbodius. This gave the Romans the opportunity of embroiling Germany from the south. Marbodias fell into the power of the Romans, who kept him for eighteen years at Ravenna as their pensioner ; Hermann was killed by envious friends. His deeds sur- vived in song, and our oavu age has erected a colossal statue, on the Teuthill at Detmold, in joyful commemoration of the deliverer of Germany. TACITUS ON THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OE THE GERMANS. § 152. About 100 years after Augustus, the great historian Tacitus, after having pourtrayed the events of the Roman empire in his History and Annals, embraced the resolution of describing the manners and customs of the German tribes, and presenting them as models to his degenerate country. Although the work remained a mere sketch, it is to this resolution that we are indebted for the first accurate in- formation respecting our native land. We learn from it, that Germany was inhabited by numerous independent tribes, sometimes united and ' sometimes at war with each other, who were perpetually changing their places of residence, in obedience to an innate wandering impulse. War and the chase were their chief employments ; they built neither towns nor strongholds ; their huts and farms were scattered about in the midst of then grounds, a peacefid life behind stone walls agreed neither with their love of liberty nor their passion for war. They united purity of morals, hospitality, good faith, and honesty, respect for women, and reverence for the marriage tie, to the external advantages of lofty stature, beauty of person, strength, and courage. The only vices attributed to them are a disposition to drunkenness and gambling. 3. THE CvESARS OE THE AUGUSTAN RACE. § 153. Domestic misfortunes disturbed the happiness of Augustus. The promising sons who sprung from the marriage of his daughter HISTORY OF ROME. 107 Julia with Agrippa, died in their youth ; Julia herself occasioned her father such distress by her profligate life that at length he banished her. By the intrigues of the ambitious Livia, the emperor's third Tiberius, wife, the empire descended to Tiberius, the adopted son- a.d. 14—37. in-law of Augustus. The clemency at first displayed by this hypocritical prince soon gave way to his natural malevolence, particularly when his crafty and vicious favourite, Sejanus, assisted him in establishing a military despotism. He advised him to unite the praetorian body-guard in a permanent camp before Rome. Here they soon became the oppressors of the people, raised and dethroned emperors, and introduced a military despotism. The assemblies of the people were no longer held, and the dastardly senate sunk into a mere tool of the despot. The frightful court of majesty, which took cognizance of cases of high treason, was a means of destroying every man of ability, inasmuch as it inflicted the punishment of death, and imposed fines, not only for actions, but even for words and thoughts. Pensioned spies undermined all faith and trust among the people, and destroyed every spark of freedom by terror. The misanthropical Tiberius, tortured by fear and the reproaches of his conscience, passed the last years of his life in the island of Capreee (Capri), in Lower Italy, where he abandoned himself to luxury and the most infamous pleasures, whilst Sejanus was practising every vice in Home. When the latter at length attempted to possess himself of the throne, the emperor sent an order to the senate to put him to death. Tibe- rius, sick and advanced in years, perished by a violent death on his estate in Lower Italy. During his reign, a dreadful earthquake destroyed many of the richest and most beautiful cities in Asia Minor. Caligula, § 154. His successor, Caj. Caligula, the unworthy son a.d. 37 — 41. f the noble Grermanicus and the high-minded Agrippina, was a blood-thirsty tyrant, who took delight in signing sentences of death and having them executed ; a frantic spendthrift, who lavished money in buildings without a pinpose ; an insolent boaster, who caused divine honours to be paid to himself, and celebrated magnificent tri- umphs over the GS-ermans and Britons, whom he scarcely ever saw ; and a glutton, by whose riotous table enormous sums were swallowed up. The praetorians at length killed the crazy tyrant, and raised his Claudius, uncle, the imbecile Claudius, to the throne. This emperor a.d. 41 — 54. wag i ec i D y women and favourites, the latter, especially the freedmen Narcissus and Pallas, were in possession of all the offices, and enriched themselves at the expense of the people, whilst his wife Messalina yielded herself up to every lust, and trampled morality and decency under foot. At length the emperor commanded her to be put to death, and married his ambitious and profligate niece Agrip- pina, who, however, soon got rid of her weak and uxorious husband 108 THE ANCIENT WORLD. by poison, for the purpose of raising the depraved Claud. Nero, her son by a former marriage, to the throne. N er0 § 155. The clemency which Nero displayed in the com- a.d. 54 — GR. mencement of his reign, soon gave place to the most exquisite cruelty. He, Avho once when he had to sign an order for an execution, wished that he could not write, now not only persecuted, put to death, and confiscated the property of every man who displayed the virtues of a citizen, or the mind of a Roman, but exercised his tyranny at the expense of his nearest relations. His step-brother, Germanicus, died by poison from the imperial table ; his mother was first sunk at sea in a ship, and when she succeeded in saving herself, put to death by assassins dispatched for the purpose; his virtuous wife, Octavia, the daughter of Claudius, found a violent death in an overheated bath. A conspiracy, in which the republican poet Lucan (whose heroic poem Pharsalia still breathes the old Roman spirit) was implicated, was made use of by the emperor to destroy not only Lucan, but his uncle Seneca, the Stoic philosopher, who had been Nero's own preceptor. Seneca opened his own veins. Nero, at the instigation of his courtiers and mistresses (Poppa?a Sabina), perpetrated the most shameful follies and crimes. Spectacles and riotous processions, in which the emperor himself, disguised as a singer and harp-player, took a share along with the companions of his pleasures, luxurious feasts and banquets, and extravagances of every description, consumed the revenues of the state. The despot, in the plenitude of his insolence and wickedness, ordered Rome to be set on fire, that he might sing the destruction of Troy from the battlements of his palace. To divert the hatred of his subjects from himself, he afterwards attributed the crime to the Christians, who were subjected, in consequence, to the most frightful persecutions. The rebuilding of the city, and Nero's " Golden House," on the Palatine hill, increased the oppression, till at length, repeated enormities induced the Spanish legion to revolt. As the troops under the command of Galba approached the capital, Nero fled to a country house, where he caused himself to be stabbed by one of his freedmen. § 156. The house of Augustus became extinct with Nero. C 11 Otho Gaum was his successor. But as the avaricious old man Vitellius, would not gratify the rapacity of the prastorians, they a.d. G8— 70. p roc l a i mec l Otho emperor, and put Galba and the suc- cessor he had appointed to death. At the same thne, Vitellius raised his standard on the Rhine, marched with his legions into Italy, and defeated the army of his opponent on the banks of the Po. Otho, and several of his adherents, died by their own hands. Vitellius was a more glutton, who found pleasure in nothing but luxurious banquets. Accordingly, when Vespasian, whom the Syrian legions had proclaimed emperor, approached the gates of Rome, Vitellius was killed by a HISTORY OF ROME. 109 troop of rude soldiers, and his body dragged with hooks into the Tiber. 4. THE FLAVII AND ANTONINES. Vespasian, § 157. Vespasian, the first in the succession of good a.d. 70 — 70- emperors, restored the discipline of the army and the praetorians by severe measures, improved the administration of justice after abolishing the court of majesty, and by economy and good management succeeded in replenishing the treasury. At the same time, he embellished the city by building the Temple of Peace and the Amphitheatre, the gigantic remains of which (Coliseum) still excite the admiration of travellers, and enlarged the boundaries of the empire by the conquest of Judaea and Britain. § 158. The tyranny of the Roman governor who ruled over the land of Judaea, had at last driven the people to rebellion. They fought with the courage of despair against the advancing legions, but were forced to yield to Roman superiority and take refuge in their capital, where they were now besieged by Vespasian's son, Titus. Thousands were soon carried off by famine and pestdence in the over-crowded city. It was in vain that the compassionate general made offers of pardon ; rage and fanaticism urged the Jews to a des- perate resistance. They defended themselves in their temple with an utter contempt for death, till that magnificent structure was destroyed by fire on the taking of the city, and death raged in every shape among the conquered. The complete destruction of Jeru- salem then took place. Among the prisoners who fol- lowed the triumphal car of the conqueror, was Josephus, the Jewish historian of this war. The triumphal arch of Titus in Rome displays to this day, representations of the sacred vessels of the Jews that were at this time conveyed to the metropolis of the world. Those who were left behind were exposed to grievous oppression under the Roman yoke. But when a heathen colony, sixty years after the destruction of the city, was transplanted by the emperor Adrian to the sacred sod of Jerusalem, (which from this time was called iElia Capitolina,) and a temple erected to Jupiter on the eminence once occupied by Solomon's temple to Jehovah, the Jews, deceived by a false Messiah, took up arms once more to prevent this outrage. After a murderous war of three years' duration, in which upwards of half a million of the natives were slaughtered, the Jews submitted to the military skill of the Romans. The sur- vivors left the country in crowds, the land resembled a desert, and the Jewish state was at an end. Since then, the Jews have been scattered abroad over the whole earth, but without mingling with other people, and faithful to their own customs, religion, and super- stitions. HO THE ANCIENT WORLD. § 159. It was during the reign of Vespasian, that the high-spirited Agricola, father-in-law to the historian Tacitus, by whom his life has been written, subdued Britain as far as the highlands of Caledonia (Scotland), and introduced the Roman language, manners, and insti- tutions. Britain remained subject to the Romans for nearly four hundred years. The warlike energy of the people was destroyed by civilization, so that they were afterwards as little able to resist the attacks of the rude Caledonians (Picts and Scots) as the wall erected by Adrian proved a defence against their inroads. Titus, § 160. The simple and energetic Vespasian was suc- a.d. 79 — 81. ceeded by his son Titus, who cast off the failings and crimes of his youth when he ascended the throne, and became so ad- mirable a prince that he might have been called " the delight of man- kind." It was during his reign that a frightful irruption of Mount Vesuvius destroyed the towns of Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabise. The inquisitive natural philosopher, the elder Pliny, lost his Life by the vapour produced by this eruption, as we learn from two letters written by his nephew, Pliny the younger, the friend and encomiast of the emperor Trajan, to the historian Tacitus. The exhumation of these buried towns, which was begun about a hundred years ago, more especially that of Pompeii, has been of the utmost importance to the knowledge of antiquity and to the artistic taste of our own day. § 161. The noble Titus was unfortunately followed by his brother, Domitian the cruel Domitian, a gloomy and misanthropical tyrant, a.d. 81 — 96. w ho took pleasure in nothing but the contests of wdd- beasts and gladiatorial combats. "When he was at length murdered Nerva, a t the instigation of his wicked wife, the throne was a.d. 9G— 98. taken possession of by Nerva, an old senator. Nerva Trajan, adopted the energetic Spaniard, Trajan, who, by his govern- a.d. 98— 117. ment at home, and his victories abroad, deserved the sur- name of the best, and the glory of the greatest, of the Caesars. He provided for the proper administration of justice, facilitated trade and commerce by making new roads and harbours (Civita Vecchia), and embellished Rome with pubHc buddings, temples, and a new forum, in which he ordered the beautiful column of Trajan to be erected. He at the same time reduced the turbulent Dacians on the Donau, and established the province of Dacia ("Wallachia and Transylvania), which was soon peopled by Roman settlers, on the northern bank of the river. In the east he made war on the Parthians, conquered Babylon, Seleucia, and other cities, and converted Armenia and Mesopotamia into Roman provinces. The country between the sources of the Donau and the Upper Rhine, (Black Forest) was surrendered to settlers from Gaul and Germany, and was afterwards protected from hostde attacks by a ditch fortified with stakes. It was called Decumatland, and the ruins of numerous towns, and the anti- HISTORY OF ROME. \ \ \ quities that are dug up there, show that it must have shared in the civilization of its conquerors. § 162. Trajan's relative and successor, ^Elius Adrianus, was more intent upon defending than enlarging the bounds of his empire, and Adrian, found greater pleasure in art and literature than in war. a.d.117 — 138. He was a man of great cultivation of mind, but vain, and open to flattery. His eagerness for knowledge, and love of art, induced him to take journeys of many years' duration, both into the East, where he Lingered in Greece, Asia, and Egypt, and into the "West, where he visited Gaul, Spain, Britain, and the Khine-land. Among the many writers, artists, and interpreters who surrounded the brilliant court of Adrian, the most distinguished was the Greek Plutarch, the author of numerous writings. His biographies, in which he compares together the Greek and Roman statesmen and generals, are especially calculated to excite admiration for the heroic deeds of antiquity. Adrian's love of art is borne witness to more particularly, by the ruins of his villa at Tivoli ; his magnificent mausoleum ; the castle of Adrian, at Some ; and innumerable remains of sculpture and building. Antoninus § 163. Adrian's adopted son, the simple and benevolent Pius, a.d. Antoninus Pius, was an ornament of the throne. He lir avoided war that he might devote all his care to the arts Marcus ° Aurelius, a.d. of peace. His successor, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, 161 180. the philosopher, was as much distinguished in war as in peace. He conquered the Marcomanni on the frozen Donau, and drove back over the frontiers, after a long war, the German tribes who were their confederates. He died at Yindobona (Vienna), during a campaign. Marcus Aurelius was a man of simple and hardy habits, who when on the throne remained true to his stoic virtue and severity of morals (§ 91) . He promoted civilization and useful institutions, and the collection of reflections which he composed and dedicated to himself, bears witness to his noble principles and efforts. § 164. Cultivation and moeals. — During this period, the high- est civilization prevailed in the Roman empire, along with the greatest depravity of morals. Arts and sciences were encouraged in the courts of the Csesars and the palaces of the wealthy, and were shared in by persons of all conditions. Trades and commerce flourished ; and prosperity and refinement were visible in the populous cities and elegant dwelling-houses ; establishments for education sprang up in Rome and the more considerable provincial towns. The ruins of buddings, military roads, and bridges, that we admire even at this day, not only in Italy, but in many provincial towns (Treves, JNlmes), the statues, sarcophagi, and altars with bas-reliefs and inscriptions, the vases of clay and bronze of elegant forms that are dug out of the HO THE ANCIENT WORLD. earth, all bear testimony to the cultivation and feeling for art existing among the people in the times of the Caesars. But this refinement was but a superficial polish ; morality, nobility of soul, and strength of character, were held in no estimation. The people, no longer invigorated by war, or the labours of the field, sunk into luxury and effeminacy ; they sought their gratification in the barbarous sports of the amphitheatre, gladiatorial combats, and the contests of wild beasts, and gave themselves up to a relaxing enjoyment of the luxurious baths, with which the city was amply provided by the emperors, for the purpose of withdrawing the citizens from the consideration of graver matters. _ It is in vain, that Persius angrily shakes the scourge of his stern satire over the degenerate race, and endeavours to bring back the ancient vigour, simplicity, and morality ;— it is in vain, that the witty Juvenal unveils in his sportive satire the frightful depths of crime and wickedness, and lashes his degenerate contemporaries ; it is in vain, that the waggish Greek, Lucian, in his witty and satirical writings, jests at all the existing conditions of life and religion, for the purpose of destroying what is old, and thereby making room for something new and better, — human counsel came too late ; nothing but a higher power could save the perishing world ; the help had already appeared, but the blinded Eomans did not recognize it, because it came not in the pomp of authority, but in the garment of humility. 5. ROME UNDER MILITARY GOVERNMENT. Commodus § ^^' R° me ' s downward course commences with a.d. Commodus, the unworthy son of Aurelius. He was a 180—192. barbarous tyrant, who delighted in nothing but the com- bats of gladiators and wild beasts, and who distressed the people in every way, till at length he was put to death by those around him. Pertinax Pertinax, his valiant successor, had a similar fate. After a.d. 193. his death, the insolence of the praetorians rose to such a height, that they put up the crown to the highest bidder. Septimius Septimius Severus first restrained their insolence by his inexorable Severus, a.d. severity, and re-established the imperial power. He was a rude soldier, and enlarged the empire by his conquests in the East, where he took Mesopotamia from the Parthians ; and secured Britain by new defences against the turbulent Picts and Scots. But he deprived the senate of their last remains of power, and placed his whole reliance on the army, so that he Avas the actual establisher of the military government. § 166. The death of Septimius Severus at Eboracum (York) in Caracalla a.d. Britain, placed his cruel son, Caracalla, on the throne, 211—217- who, true to his father's teaching, honoured the soldiery, but treated other men with contempt. He killed his brother, Greta THE HISTORY OF ROME. Ug in the arms of his mother, and then put his preceptor, the great jurist Papinian, to death, for refusing to justify the fratricide. For the purpose of augmenting the revenue, he gave the right of Eoman citizenship to all the freeborn men in the empire. After the murder of the profligate tyrant by his own soldiers, in a campaign against the Parthians, his relative, Heliogabalus, a priest of the Syrian sun-god, Heliogabalus, succeeded to the throne. Heliogabalus was a weak and a.d. 218— 222. cruel epicure, who, by the introduction of the sensual worship of Baal from Syria, destroyed the last remnants of the ancient Eoman discipline and morality. The praetorians at length put the effeminate debauchee to death, and raised his cousin, Alex- Alexander ander Severus, to the throne. Severus was a man of Severus, a.d. respectable character, who adopted many excellent mea- 222—235. sures, and listened to the advice of his sagacious mother ; but his powers were inferior to the conduct of such difficult affairs of state. The praetorians killed the great jurist, Ulpian, before his eyes, with impunity ; and on the eastern boundary, Ardschir (Artaxerxes) overthrew the Parthian government, and established the new Persian empire of the Sassanidse, who soon pursued their conquests into the Eoman territory. § 167. The death of the emperor and his mother, by an insurrec- tion of the soldiers at Mayence, reduced the empire to such confusion, that twelve emperors were raised and dethroned within the space of Philippus twenty years. Philippus Arabus, who, like Alexander Arabus, a.d. Severus, was a friend to the Christians, sought to signalize 243—249. kj; s reign D y a magnificent celebration of the thousandth Deems a.d. anniversary of Eome. His successor, Decius, persecuted 249—251. the Christians, but found an early death in battle against the Goths, a German tribe who had established themselves on the Lower Danube, and made predatory excursions from thence, both by land and sea, into the Eoman territory. After his death, the empire seemed on the point of dissolution. The generals in the different provinces caused themselves to be proclaimed emperors, so that the Gallienus, historians of the period, during which Gallienus reigned in A.D.259— 268. Eome, and his father, Valerianus, was pining in captivity in Persia, call this the age of the thirty tyrants. In the mean time, the empire was attacked on the east by the New Persians, under the command of the valiant Sapores, whilst the German tribes threatened the other quarters. § 168. At this juncture, Aurelianus, a man imbued with the old Aurelianus, Eoman courage and military discipline, was the restorer a.d. 270— 275. of the empire. He subdued the rebellious generals, and marched against the kingdom of Palmyrene, which Odenatus had founded on an oasis in Syria, and which was governed, after his death, by his beautiful and heroic wife, Zenobia. Palmyra, the capital city, 114 THE ANCIENT WORLD. rich in arts, philosophy, and commerce, Avas taken and destroyed, and Zenobia led in triumph to Home. Her preceptor and adviser, the gallant philosopher, Longinus, died a violent death. At first, a % follower of the new Platonists, who joined the Oriental profundity, supersitition, and belief in miracles, to the doctrines of Plato, and put the inactive contemplation of the East in place of the practical intelli- gence of ancient Rome, Longinus had afterwards relinquished this obscure wisdom. The ruins of Palmyra yet enchain the admiration of the traveller. Aurelian again restored the boundary of the Danube on the north, gave up the province on the farther side of the river to the enemy, and transplanted the inhabitants to the right bank. Lest his capital should be endangered by any sudden attack, he surrounded Rome with a wall. § 169. After Aurelian had been killed by his soldiers, and his suc- Tacitus, a.d. cessor, Tacitus (a descendant of the historian), had per- 275—276. ished in an expedition against the Goths, the courageous Probus, a.d. an( i upright Probus was raised to the throne. He en- 270—282. larged and completed the boundary wall (Devil's Wall), from the Bavarian Danube to the Taurus, and secured it by means of troops ; he planted vineyards on the Rhine and in Hungary, and reformed the affairs of the army. After Probus also had been killed Carus, a.d. D y hi s troops, and his successor, Cams, had fallen in an 282—284. expedition against the Persians, either by a stroke of lightning or the hand of an assassin, the throne was assumed by the sagacious Diocletian. § 170. Diocletian increased the imperial power, and lowered the Diocletian dignity of the senate ; he projected a division of the a.d. 284— 305. empire for the purpose of more easily resisting the enemy. He himself, with the title of Augustus, governed the Eastern region, together with Thrace, whilst his assistant in the empire (Caesar), Galerius, was at the head of the Illyrian provinces ; in the same manner, Maximianus, under the title of Augustus, ruled over Italy, Africa, and the islands ; and his son-in-law, Constantius (Chlorus), governed the "Western provinces, Spain, Gaul, and Britain. Eor twenty years Diocletian governed the empire with vigour and dexterity, and restored its former strength and stability. But when he allowed himself to be seduced into commanding a bloody persecution against the Christians, he disturbed the evening of a most active life, and stained his name and government with an indelible mark of infamy. The sword of persecution was still raging among the confessors of the crucified Jesus, when Diocletian abdicated his throne to pass his remaining years in rural retire- ment at Salona, in Dalmatia, and to forget the bustle of the world in the arrangement of his palace and gardens. § 171. The abdication of Diocletian was followed by a period of THE HISTORY OF ROME. 115 confusion and sanguinary civil wars, which was only put an end to, when Constantinus, the brave and wise son of Constantius, assumed the government of the "West, and marched into the field against Maxi- mian's hard-hearted son, Maxentius. Constantine, who had been won over to Christianity by his mother, Helena, erected the banner „,„ of the cross (labarum), and overthrew the cruel Maxen- A.D. 312. . ... this at the Milvian Bridge, and took possession of Koroe after his opponent had been drowned in the waters of the Tiber. It was from this point that Constantine ruled over the "West, whilst his brother-in-law, Licinius, governed the East. But the ambition of Constantine soon occasioned another war, in which Licinius lost victory, kingdom, and, at last, his life. It was thus that Constantine became sole governor of the Roman empire, and showed favour to the Christians. But that the doctrines of Jesus had little effect upon his mind, is shown by the cruelty with which he caused whole troops of his captured enemies to be thrown to wild beasts, by the severity he displayed in the execution of his wife and his noble son, Crispus, and by the love of vengeance and want of truth displayed in his character. i2 BOOK SECOND. MIGRATION OF NATIONS AND THE MIDDLE AGE. A. MIGRATION OP NATIONS AND ESTABLISHMENT OF MONOTHEISM. I. THE TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY OVER PAGANISM. 1. TIIE CHRISTIAN CHURCH OF THE FIRST CEKTTTRY. § 172. The Romans were very tolerant of the heathen forms of religion amongst other nations, as is apparent at once from the fact, that they adopted not only the mythology of the Greeks, bnt also, by degrees, the theology of the East, of the Chaldeans, Persians, Egyptians, and Syrians. But as Christianity forbade any combination with Paganism, the Christians carefully avoided all participation in the feasts and religious rites of the heathen, and kept themselves sepa- rate even in the dady intercourse of life ; whilst the hatred of the people and the mistrust of their rulers was roused, and heavy perse- cutions arose against them. Ten persecutions of Christians are recorded from the days of Nero, when Peter and Paul are said to have met their death, to the first decennium of the fourth century, when Diocletian and Galerius drove the confessors of the crucified Saviour, by rack and axe, to the altar of sacrifice ; burnt down the churches, and gave the Holy Scriptures to the flames. Even the noble-minded Marcus Aurehus thought it his duty to break by force the stubbornness of the supposed fanatics ; and the short reign of Decius has become memorable for one of the most violent persecutions of the Christians. But the holy joy with which the martyrs, bearing- witness by their blood, endured torture and death, multiplied the number of believers, so that the blood of martyrs is justly called " the seed of the Church." The objects of persecution concealed themselves in subterraneous passages (the Catacombs), near the graves of those they loved, in caves and mountain clefts. Oppression heightened their trust in God ; and the number of apostate believers who deli- vered up the Bible to be burned, or offered incense before the statue of the emperor, was small when compared with the number of those who stood firm in their faith. During the years of persecution, Chris- CONSTANTINE THE GREAT AND JULIAN THE APOSTATE. 1 1 7 tianity continued to spread, by the indwelling force of truth, and favourable circumstances from without, to all quarters of the heavens, so that as early as the third century, before Constantine raised it to a state religion, it overstepped the bounds of the Boman empire. 2. CONSTANTINE THE GREAT AND JULIAN THE APOSTATE. § 173. Constantine, as sole emperor, transferred his residence to Byzantium, which from this time forward was called Constan- tinople. He fortified the city, which was favourably situated, with walls and towers, and embellished it most magnificently with palaces and churches, race-grounds, and works of art. He then abolished the antiquated constitution of the Roman empire ; vested all power in the imperial throne ; surrounded himself with a brilliant court of chamberlains, ministers, officials, and servants ; and established a galling system of taxation. The better to conduct the management of his vast empire, he divided it into four prefectures or lieu- tenancies : the east, to which Thrace and Egypt were assigned ; Hlyricum with Greece ; Italy with Africa ; the west (containing Gaul, Spain, Britain) . Each of these he divided into a greater or less number of districts (dioceses), and these again into states (provinces). The last years of his life Constantine devoted principally to religious and ecclesiastical matters, but he deferred the rite of baptism which cleanseth from sin, till shortly before his death. He founded many churches, and endowed them with landed estates. He granted to the clergy an immunity from taxes, and other privileges, and allowed legacies to the Church. Erom this time forward, the constitution of the Christian Church took a new shape ; whereas before, the Elders and Bishops were chosen from the whole Church-community, and the principle of brotherly equality amongst all Christians was held in honour, now, the priesthood (clergy) separated from the people (laity), and introduced degrees of rank, so that the Bishops of the principal cities were placed over the remaining Bishops as metropolitans, and these again had the superintendence of the priests in their immediate neighbourhood. At the same time, the Church services, which before consisted only in singing, prayer, and reading the Bible, and con- cluded with the love-feasts, were made more solemn by the aid of music and other arts. § 174. Aeianism. — Augustine. — Fathers oe the Church. — The doctrine (dogma) also of Christianity did not long remain in its original simplicity and purity, when many learned men made it the subject of their inquiry and meditation. The first point which they investigated was the relation of Christ to Grod, and the mysterious junction of His divine and human natures. On this question, vehe- ment contentions arose as early as the time of Constantine, between the Alexandrian ecclesiastics, Arius and Athanasius, the first of whom 118 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. maintained that Christ, the Son of God, was inferior to God the Father, and dependent on Him ; while the latter laid down the doc- trine of the Trinity in Unity, through the principle that God the Son was of the same substance with God the Father. The first general Church Council ((Ecumenical Synod), which Constantine convened at Nice, declared the opinion of Athanasius to be the true (orthodox) faith of the Chinch ; but the German nations, the Goths, Vandals, Longobards, to whom Christianity had been brought by Arian missionaries, continued in Arianism for another century, and were therefore excommunicated and driven out as heretics from the Catholic (universal) Church. An equally important dispute arose in the fifth century, about original sin and predestination, since Augustine, Bishop of North Africa, laid down the principle that the nature of man, through Adam's fall, has become unable to do good by its own strength ; that this strength is produced only by the grace of God in one portion of mankind, while the other remains abandoned to ruin ; so that one man may be from the beginning appointed (pre- destinated) to salvation, another to condemnation. These harsh doc- trines were disputed by Pelagius, a monk, residing in Africa, and the principle maintained, that man can, by the strength of his own free will, do good, and become a partaker of salvation. — The Christian writers of the first century were called Fathers of the Church. Their works are the more important, because on them depend the traditional doctrines of the Catholic Church. The nearer therefore they stand to the time of the Apostles, the greater is their authority, as we assume that the disciples of Jesus made many oral communi- cations to then contemporaries, which are not found in the apostolic writings, but might well be known from the works of the Fathers. They wrote partly in Greek, and partly in Latin. Constantius § 1^5. Of Constantine's three vicious sons, who ac- a.d.357— 3G0. cording to their father's will divided the empire, Con- stantius, after long years of bloody struggles, obtained the sole sovereignty. As he was himself busied in Asia, he sent his cousin, Julian, to Gaul, to protect the frontiers of the empire against the Germanic nations. Julian besieged the Allemanni, in Strasburgh, twice passed the Ehine, repidsed the Franks in the Netherlands, and restored the ancient renown of the Eoman arms. Proclaimed emperor by his soldiers in his favourite city, Paris, Julian marched against Constantius, and a civil war would have ensued, had not the latter died just at this Julian crisis. Juliau now without hindrance entered the imperial A.D.3(il— 303. castle in Constantinople, as sovereign of the vast empire. He immediately removed all the superfluous officers of the court, reduced the imperial household, and in his dress and mode of bring studied the greatest simplicity ; he provided for the impartial adminis- THE MIGRATION OF NATIONS. 119 tration of justice, and restored discipline and military virtue in the army. Strongly as he worked by these means on an indolent gene- ration, yet his zeal to revive Paganism hindered the success of his efforts. The constraint which he endured in his youth under Christian masters had produced in him an aversion to the Gospel ; whilst his lively imagination, and his love for Plato's philosophy (§ 65, 72), and for the literature and poetry of antiquity, made him a most enthusiastic admirer of paganism. For this reason he was branded by Christian writers with the title of Apostate. Nevertheless, he was too just and too wise to inflict bloody persecutions on the Christians. He contented himself with removing them from his presence, and from public and professional offices, opposing their opinions in writings, and re-establishing the heathen worship, with its feasts and sacrifices. He himself sometimes offered solemn heca- tombs of 100 bulls to the god of the sun. Having, however, with the heroism of old Rome, undertaken an adventurous campaign against the New Persians, he pressed forward victorious over the Euphrates and Tigris ; but being entrapped into an inaccessible moun- tainous district, and compelled to commence a difficult retreat, he was wounded mortally by an arrow, and his schemes brought to nought. Jovian, His successor Jovian, in a dishonourable peace, restored a.d. 363-364. the conquered territory, and made Christianity again the Valens, dominant religion. After his death, the empire was a.d. 364—378. divided, the Arian Valens ruling over the East, whilst his Valentinian, brother, the rude and warlike Valentinian I., governed a.d. 364-395. the Wegt> II. THE MIGRATION OF NATIONS. 1. THEODOSITJS THE GREAT. § 176. When Valens was ruling the East, the Huns, a wild, hideous, well-mounted nomad people, came from the steppes of Central Asia to Europe. After the overthrow of the Alani, the brave East Goths (whose grey-haired king, Hermanrich, devoted him- self to death), conquered them, and then fell upon the "West Groths. But this people having' been already converted to Arian Christianity by Bishop Ulfilas, obtained permission from Valens to cross the Danube, with their wives and children, and to occupy new abodes. Through the venality of the Roman officers, the West Goths, contrary to agree- ment, remained in possession of their arms ; and as from the severity and avarice of the governor they soon fell into the greatest distress from hunger, they seized the accustomed sword, stormed the city of Marcianople, and carried robbery and desolation through the land.. Valens marched hastily against the enemy ; but in the murderous 120 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. battle of Adrianople lie lost tlie victory, and his life, during the flight, in a binning hut. The victors now roved through the defence- less land with unrestrained fury, as far as the Julian Alps, and menaced even the frontiers of Italy. Then was the brave Spaniard Theodosius chosen sovereign of the East. He terminated the Gothic war, by settling one part of the enemy in the southern Danubian provinces, and enlisting another part as soldiers in the Roman armies. After many contests and military exploits, Theodosius, henceforth called the Great, at length obtained the sovereignty of the West also, and so united, for the last time, the whole world-wide Roman empire under one sceptre. He was a powerful, but passionate prince ; and on one occasion, in Thessalonica, he put to death 7000 citizens, because they had slain his governor. For this, the Chinch's penance was inflicted on him by the undaunted bishop, Ambrose, of Milan, — a punishment which he willingly underwent. Theodosius was a zealous champion of the Catholic faith. He denounced and perse- cuted Arianism, interdicted the use of sacrifices and divinations, and permitted the heathen temples to be plundered and destroyed. Now was extinguished the sacred fire of Vesta — the oracles and sibyls were silent — and the pagan pantheism yielded to the faith in the crucified Saviour. At his death, Theodosius made over the East, with Illyria, to his son, Arcadius, who was eighteen years old, by whose side stood the Gaul, Rufinus ; while Honorius, then in his eleventh year, under the guidance of the politic and warlike Vandal, Stdicho, was to be lord of the West. Erom this time forwards the empire remained divided. 2. WEST GOTHS. — BTJEGUNDIANS VANDALS. § 177. Envy of Stdicho induced Rufinus to provoke the valiant Alaric, king of the West Goths, to invade the provinces of the Western empire. The Goths marched forthwith, murdering and plun- dering, through Thessaly, Central Greece, and Peloponnesus, and treading under foot the remains of Greek civilization, until, being surrounded by Stilicho's forces, they were compelled to retreat. A short time after this, Alaric fell upon Upper Italy, pursued his devastating course up the banks of the Po, but suffered so much loss in two undecisive battles against Stdicho, that he retreated upon IUyria, to wait for a more favour- able opportunity. This enemy of the empire had scarcely been repidsed, before vast hordes of pagan Germans, Vandals, Bur- gunclians, and Suevi, &c, burst into Italy, under the command of duke Radagais, destroyed the towns and vfllages, and filled every place with cruel slaughter and desolation. But these also were over- , „ come near Florence, bv the military skill of Stilicho. a.d. 406. 'J J Their leaders were killed: thousands fell beneath the THE MIGRATION OF NATIONS. \0 ] swords of the victors, or perished by hunger and disease ; others entered into the Roman service. The remains of their army threw themselves into G-aul, where, after repeated acts of devastation, the Burgundians settled on the Rhine and the Jura, and founded the kingdom of Burgundy, which extended from the Mediterranean to the Vosges. The Vandals and Suevi, on the other hand, crossed the Pyrenees, and won dwelling-places for themselves by the sword, in Spain and Portugal, which they however gave up again twenty years afterwards, and crossed over into Africa with the Vandal king, Genseric. § 178. The brave Stilicho, in his necessity, had entered into a friendly alliance with Alaric, and consented to pay him a yearly tribute. His enemies founded an accusation of high treason upon this, and procured his execution at Ravenna. Hereupon, Alaric, enraged at the withdrawal of the tribute, and appealed to by Stdicho's adherents for protection, marched into Italy, laid siege to Rome, and compelled the terrified inhabitants to purchase the clemency of the conqueror with gold, silver, and costly apparel. But when the court at Ravenna disdainfidly rejected Alaric' s proposals of peace, the Gothic prince again appeared before the walls of the former mistress of the world, stormed it at length dming the night, and surrendered it to be plundered for three days by his army. The hero died shortly after in the flower of his age, in Lower Italy. There is a legend that declares that his coffin and treasures were buried in the bed of the stream Busento, which had been diverted from its course for the purpose. His brother-in-law, Adolf, concluded a treaty with Honorius, by virtue of which the West Goths marched a d 412 ^ n *° Southern Gaul. It was here that they founded the kingdom of the West Goths, which at first extended from the Garonne to the Ebro, and had Tolosa (Toulouse) for its principal city. When, however, the Vandals, some years later, went into Africa, the West Goths gradually conquered the whole of Spain; but, on the other hand, were compelled to relinquish the territory between the Pyrenees and the Garonne to the Pranks. Valentinian § ^ 9 - After Honorius followed Valentinian III., with IIL.a.d. 425 iEtius at his side, for general and influential minister. —455. rj^g governor of Northern Africa, Bonifacius, lived in enmity with this vEtius ; and being afraid of his anger, he rebelled, and summoned the Vandals, under their bold and crafty king, Gense- ric, out of Spain, to his assistance. It is true, that upon their arrival he repented of this rash act, and opposed them with his forces. But the warlike Vandals overcame him, and, in defiance of the court of Ravenna, made themselves masters of Northern Africa, where they established the empire of the Vandals, with its capital, Carthage, conquered Sicily and the Balearic islands, and rendered themselves 122 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. formidable to all islands and lands near the coast by their piracies. The kingdom of the Vandals existed for a hundred years in North Africa. Genseric died in 477. 3. ATTILA, KIKG OP THE HUNS (A.D. 450). § 180. About the middle of the fifth century, Attila, surnamed the Scourge of God, left his wooden residence on the banks of the Theiss, in Hungary, for the purpose of conquering the "Western empire of Roine by the sword. More than half a million savage warriors, partly Huns, and partly G-ermans, who were their subjects or allies, marched through Austria, Bavaria, and Alemannia, to the Rhine, where they annihfiated the royal house of Burgundy in "Worms (Nibelungenlied), destroyed the Roman towns, and then carried slaughter and desolation into G-aul. It was here that the valiant JEtius, with an army composed of Romans, Burgundians, West Goths, and Franks, succeeded, in the Catalaunian plains (Chalons on the Marne), in setting a limit to Attila' s victorious course. 162,000 dead bodies, and among them that of the brave king of the West Goths, covered the field of battle. Eroin his camp, fortified with wagons, the Hun bade defiance to the attacks of the enemy, and then retreated into Hungary a.d. 452. (Pannonia), with the purpose of invading Italy in the following year. Aquileja was destroyed ; Milan, Pavia, Verona, and Padua taken by storm ; and the fertile banks of the Po turned into a desert. The unfortunate inhabitants of Aquileja sought for refuge on the rocks and sand-islands of the lagunes, and thus laid the foundation of Venice. Attila was already on his march towards Rome, where he was induced by the prayers of the Roman bishop, Leo I., to conclude a peace with Valentinian, and to retreat. Attila's sudden death, either by haemorrhage, or the vengeance of his Bur- gundian bride, checked the progress of the Hunnish empire. The Ostrogoths, the Gepidse, and the Longobards obtained their inde- pendence after a severe struggle, whilst the remains of the nomadic Huns were lost in the rich pastoral steppes of Southern Russia. 4. UESTRUCTION OP THE WESTERN BOMAN EMPIRE. § 181. The Roman power was now rapidly approaching to its fall. Valentinian with his own hand killed iEtius, the last support of the empire. Shortly after, the luxurious emperor lost his own life by Petronius Maximus, whose wife he had corrupted. Petronius, raised to be Valentinian's successor, aspired to the hand of the impe- rial widow, which induced the latter to summon the Vandals against the murderer of her husband. Genseric landed at Ostia, took Rome, and subjected the city for fourteen clays to plunder, during which time the works of art were ruthlessly mutilated (Vandalism). Laden with THE MIGRATION OF NATIONS. 123 plunder and prisoners (the empress and her two daughters among the number), the Vandals returned to the coast of Africa, where they resumed their piratical employments with more audacity than before. After some time, the Sueve, Ricimer, a bold, crafty, but blood- stained man, acquired such power, that to the day of his death he managed the crown and empire at his pleasure, without even assuming the imperial title. Three years after Ricimer' s death, the ambitious general, Orestes, invested his son, Romulus Augustulus, with the power- less crown. Upon this, the German troops in the pay of the Romans demanded a third part of the lands of Italy ; and when this was not granted, the valiant Odoacer commanded the captive Orestes to be put to death, and, by assuming the title of King of Italy, put an end to the Western empire of Rome. Odoacer bestowed a yearly a d 476. pension, and a residence in Lower Italy, upon the inoffen- sive Romulus Augustulus. 5. THEODORIC THE OSTROGOTH (A.D. 500). § 182. Odoacer had reigned, not without renown, for twelve years, when Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, with the consent of the Byzantine emperor, marched from the Danube upon Italy. He was followed by 200,000 men fit for war, with then wives, children, and goods. Odoacer was unable to resist this force. Overcome by Theodoric near Verona, he concealed himself behind the walls of Ravenna ; and it was only after a gallant defence of three years that he at length surrendered upon honourable conditions. But he Was killed not long after, by the Goths, at a riotous banquet. From this time, the empire of the Ostrogoths, which extended from the southern point of Italy to the Danube, was governed wisely and jiistly by Theodoric, from Ravenna. He paid respect to the ancient laws and institutions, employed the original inhabitants of the country in trade, agriculture, and commerce, and committed war and the use of arms to the Goths. Even literature and civilization rejoiced in his protection ; and learned Romans, like the historian Cassiodorus, were advanced to the highest offices of the state. Theodoric's authority was so great abroad, that contending kings brought their differences to his judgment-seat. It was only a short time previous to his death, that he was rendered cruel by suspicion, and commanded the worthy senator Boethius and his father-in-law, Symmachus, to be executed, because they were suspected of having invited the Byzantine court to expel the Goths. It was in prison that Boethius wrote his cele- brated work the " Consolations of Philosophy." 6. CLODION, E!ING OP THE ERANKS AND THE MEROVINGIANS. § 183. The Franks, a tribe of German origin, had marched from their hereditary possessions on the Lower Rhine to the Maase and 124 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. the Sainbre. From hence, their warlike king, Clodion, led them forth to war and plunder. After he had conquered and put to death the last Roman governor, Syagrius, in Soissons, and made himself master of the country between the Seine and the Lone, he advanced against the Alemanni, who were in possession of an extensive kingdom on both banks of the Rhine. He defeated them in the great battle of Zulpich (between Bonn and Aix), and subjected their country on the Moselle and the Lahn. In the heat of the battle, Clodion had sworn, that if the doubtful com- bat shoidd terminate in his favour, he would" embrace the faith of his Christian wife ; and in the same year he, with 3000 nobles of his train, received baptism in the waters of the Rhine. But Christianity produced no emotions of pity in his savage heart. After he had extended the Frank empire to the Rhone on the east, and to the Garonne on the south, he attempted to secure the whole territory to himself and his posterity, by putting to death the chiefs of all the Frank tribes. § 184. The wickedness of the father was inherited by his four sons, who, after Clodion' s death, divided the Frank empire between them; the eldest received the eastern kingdom, Austrasia, with the capital, Metz ; the three younger sons shared the western territory Neustria, and Burgundy which was connected with it. But the empire was again from time to time united. The kingly house of the Merovin- gians displays a frightful picture of human depravity. The murders of brothers and relatives, bloody civil wars, and the explosion of un- bridled passions, fill the annals of its history. The savage enormities of the two queens, Brunhilda and Fredigonda, are particularly dread- ful. These horrors at length destroyed all the power of the race of Clodion, so that they are distinguished in history as sluggish kings, whilst the steward of the royal possessions (Mayor of the palace) gradually obtained possession of all the powers of government. A visit to the yearly assemblies of the people (Marzfelder), upon a carriage drawn by four oxen, was at last the only occupation of the imbecde Merovingians. At first, each of the three kingdoms had its own mayor, until the brave and shrewd Pepin von Heristall suc- ceeded in uniting the mayoralties of Neustria and Burgundy with that of Austrasia, and making them hereditary in his own family. From this time, Pepin's descendants, who were called dukes of Fran- conia, possessed the regal power, whilst the Merovingians were kings in nothing but the name. 7. THE ANGLO-SAXONS. § 185. About the middle of the fifth century, the Roman army left Britain, which it was unable any longer to retain. The inha- bitants, who were too weak to resist the attacks of the wild Picts and THE MIGRATION OF NATIONS. 125 Scots (§ 159, 168), sought assistance from the Angles and Saxons of the Lower Elbe. These obeyed the summons ; but after they had repulsed the enemy, they turned their swords against the Britons themselves, and, after a fearful contest, subdued their country, which was henceforth called England. The greater number of the Celtic inhabitants perished by the sword, those who were able took refuge in Gaul (Bretagne). It was only in the mountainous districts of "Wales and Cornwall that the Celts asserted their independence and national peculiarities, till as late as the thirteenth century. The rest of the kingdom fell into the power of the Anglo-Saxons, who esta- blished there seven small monarchies. These existed in a separate state in the midst of perpetual contests till the ninth century, when Egbert united the seven kingdoms (Heptarchy), and assumed the title of King of England. The paganism of Germany had yielded to Christianity as early as the seventh century, when the Benedictine monk, Augustine, with a crowd of missionaries, landed in Kent, led the king and his nobles to baptism, and founded the seat of the archbishopric of Canterbury. 8. THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE AND THE EONGOBARDS. § 186. The Byzantine empire displays a melancholy picture of moral depravity. A court filled with oriental luxury and magnifi- cence, where women and favourites raise and dethrone weak or vicious emperors by crimes or intrigues ; an insolent body-guard, who carried on the same audacious game with the crown that the praetorians had formerly done ; and a fickle population, who took pleasure in nothing but questions of religious controversy, and the rude sports of the race-course (hippodromus) . In these race-courses, two great parties who mortally hated and persecuted each other, distinguished them- selves, according to the colours of the chariot-drivers, into the Blue Justinian a.d. an & the Green. It was under these circumstances, that 527—565. Justinian, a man of low origin, ascended the throne, where he completed several great undertakings. He subdued the Green party, that had raised an insurrection against him, and closed the race-course for ever ; he ordered the code of laws known by the name of Corpus Juris and Pandects, to be prepared by his minister, Tri- bonian ; he procured silk-worms from China by an artifice, and trans- planted the manufacture of silk into Europe ; he built the church of St. Sophia in Constantinople, and he persecuted the heathens and Arians. § 187. Both the Vandals and Goths had made a profession of Arianism. Hence Justinian embraced the project of visiting them with war, and, by the conquest of their lands, of restoring his empire to the same extent it had possessed under Constantine. Beli- sarius, the great hero of his time, subdued in a few months the king- 128 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. mon, and other spices, is called Arabia Felix, lived for ages in proud independence, a people capable of civilization. Their religion was a rude paganism ; a black stone in the Caaba at Mecca, served as the national palladium, the care of which belonged to the Koreishites. They were rendered rich by an extensive commerce, and took pleasure in mental cultivation and poetry. It was in the midst of this people Mohammed ^ ia ^ Mohammed was born, towards the end of the sixth a.d. 571 — century, from the respected priestly race of the Koreishites. ti3 -" During his youth, he made journeys with the caravans into foreign lands in the capacity of merchant, and thus became con- vinced that the religion of the Jews and Christians must be preferable to the idolatrous worship of the Arabs. As soon, therefore, as he had acquired an independent position by his marriage with a rich widow, he withdrew from the bustle of the world to the recesses of his own bosom, and sought how he might elevate his countrymen from their degradation. The expectation entertained by the Jews of a Messiah, the promise of Christ to send a Comforter to those who loved him, who shoidd guide them into all truth, wrought upon his ardent imagination, and excited within him the conviction, that he must be the person of whom the world stood in need. His epileptic fits favoured the pretence that he held communion with angels, and was the subject of divine inspiration. § 191. In his fortieth year, Mohammed came forth with his doctrine, "There is but one God, and Mohammed is his prophet." But with the exception of his wife, his father-in-law Abu Bekir, his son-in- law Ali, and a few of his friends and relations, no one at first believed in his mission ; nay, he was even compelled, by a menacing tumult, to 16th July % from Mecca to Medina. (The Mohammedans reckon 622. their years from this event, which is called Hejira.) He here found adherents with whom he undertook expeditions, and at length, after some victorious encounters, he forced his return to Mecca. In Medina he composed a part of the sentences of which the holy book of the Koran consists. Mecca soon acknowledged him as a prophet, and his doctrine, called Islam, was soon predominant all over Arabia. He combined in it the fundamental doctrines of Judaism and Christianity, with maxims that were adapted to the East. He commanded frequent ablutions and prayers, circumcision, fasts, almsgiving and pilgrimages to Mecca, forbade the use of wine and swine's flesh, and sanctioned polygamy. A chief commandment of the Koran was, to diffuse Islam by every means, and to compel the nations to receive it by fire and sword. Those who feU bravely in battle were promised a paradise of sensual enjoyments. The prophet died in the eleventh year of the Hejira. Mecca, where he was born, and Medina, the place where his grave is situated, are regarded as sacred cities of pilgrimage. Mohammed united gravity and dignity THE MIGRATION OF NATIONS. 129 in his carriage and bearing; he was benevolent, simple in his manner of living, and not devoid of domestic virtues ; but he was too much addicted to women. § 192. Ali, the husband of the favourite daughter of the prophet, hoped to become Mohammed's successor (Khalif). But Mohammed's Abu Bekir, intriguing wife, Ayesha, procured the election of her father, a.d. 632— Abu Bekir, who was succeeded by the simple and ener- Omar, a.d. getic Omar. Under this man, the Arabs, inspired by their 634—644. new faith, carried their victorious swords beyond the limits of Arabia. Palestine and Syria were conquered, and Moham- med's warriors marched into the Christian cities of Antioch, Damas- cus, and Jerusalem. Kaled, "the sword of God," and the crafty Amru conducted the valiant bands. Persia was subjected, after a succession of bloody engagements. The last king, Tes- dejird fled (as once Darius before Alexander), with the sacred fire in his hand, to the mountainous highlands, where he perished by the hands of an assassin. The Arabs now pursued their victorious course through the eastern highlands, and carried the doctrines of Mohammed to the Upper Indus. The Persian fire- worship fell before the Koran, and henceforth, Islam was the ruling religion of the East. The new cities of Basra, Cufa, and Bagdad, on the Tigris, soon became the centres of trade, and the seats of oriental luxury and magnificence. Shortly after this, Amru marched from Syria into Egypt, took Alexandria, (by which means the remains of the library are said to have perished, § 125,) burnt Memphis, (in the neighbourhood of which the chief city, Cairo, took its origin from the camp of the general,) and thrust aside the Gospel by the Koran. § 193. Omar shortly after, fell by the dagger of a Persian slave, Othman, a.d. an( l Othman, the collector and arranger of the Koran, 644—656. succeeded to the Khalifate. But Othman was also assas- sinated ; and when Ah at length ascended the sacred chair that had long been his right, the family of the Ommiades rose against him and excited a civil war, in which Ali and his whole house perished, and the Khalifate was taken possession of by the Ommiades, who established their residence in the beautiful Damascus. The Arabians prosecuted their conquests under the Ommiades both by land and water. Cyprus, Rhodes, Asia Minor, aU felt the edge of their swords; the capital of the Byzantine empire had to sustain A D# seven attacks and sieges, and was only saved by the newly- 668—675. discovered Greek fire. The north coast of Africa was subdued at the same time, and the Christian religion and civilization destroyed in the course of a lengthened war. The Arabians also gained a firm footing in Sicily, from whence they made predatory excursions upon the coasts of Italy. K 130 TII E HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. § 194. It happened about the beginning of the eighth century of the Christian era, that the "West Goth, Roderick, deprived his brother of the Spanish throne. Hereupon, the sons of the banished man called the Arabs into Africa to revenge him. Taric, the Arabian general, crossed the straits of the sea, founded the town of Gibraltar (Gebel al Taric), and overthrew the "West Goths at the battle of Xeres de la Prontera, where Roderick and the flower of his chivalry were slain in the field. The Arabians overran the whole of Spain as far as the rocky Asturias in a rapid course of victories. The Saracens crossed the Pyrenees at their side, conquered the south of Prance as far as the Rhone, and threatened France and Christianity with destruction ; when Charles Martel, the mayor of the palace of Pepin Heristal (§ 184), overthrew them between Tours and Poitiers, in a battle that lasted seven days, and compelled them to fall back upon Spain. Charles Martel was thus the saviour of Christian Germany in the West. § 195. Twenty years after Charles Martel's death, the dynasty of the Ommiades was overthrown by the Abbassides, and their whole famfly destroyed. Populous towns sprang up. Attention was paid to trade, agriculture, and the rearing of cattle ; mines were opened, and the prosperity of the country was displayed in rich villages, flourishing farms, and splendid palaces (Alhambra) : arts and sciences were encouraged. But after the race of the Ommiades became extinct, the Moorish power in Spain was broken up into a number of small states, that gradually yielded before the Christians of the North. The latter had enlarged then territories by successfid wars from their head-quarters, the Asturias, so that with time, three kingdoms had been established, Castfle, Arragon, and Portugal, each of which existed independently of the other, and waged furious contests with the Arabs of the South. These wars produced a spirit of chivalry, religious zeal, and freedom among the Christian Spaniards. The deeds of these God-inspired warriors, particularly those of the great Cid Campeador, were handed down to posterity in heroic songs (Ro- mances), and kept alive the courage and chivalrous spirit of the Spanish nobflity. Civic freedom was at the same time flourishing in the cities. The victory gained by the united Christian force at Tolosa, in the Sierra Morena, broke for ever the power of the Arabians. § 196. The arts and sciences flourished in all the countries inhabited by the Arabs, as well as in Spain. Mosques, palaces, and gardens, were to be met with in every Arabian town. Industry and commerce brought wealth, — the source of refinement, but, at the same time, of the love of splendour and effeminacy. Architecture, music (the system of notes), and decorative painting (arabesques), THE CARLOVINGI. 131 flourished in all the chief Arabian towns. The sciences were taught at Cordova, Cairo, Bagdad, Salerno, and many other cities ; more particularly, grammar, philosophy, mathematics (the Arabian ciphers, algebra), astronomy and astrology, natural philosophy (chemistry), and medicine. The Arabians translated the writings of the Greeks, especially those of Aristotle and Euclid, and cultivated the art of poetry. The literature and civilization of this people had the great- est influence upon the development of the Christian middle age. B. THE MIDDLE AGE. I. THE PERIOD OF THE CARLOVINGI. 1. pepin the little (a.d. 752 768) ; charlemagne (a.d. 768—814). § 197. The Austrasian duke, Pephi of Heristall, and Charles Martel, had gained the confidence of the nation by then warlike deeds, and the favour of the priests by their zeal in the propagation of Christianity. Both parties were instrumental in raising Pepin the Little to the throne of the Pranks. Por when the assembly of the nation deposed the last imbecile representative of the Merovin- gians (Childeric III.), and proclaimed the chief steward, Pepin, king, the pope confirmed the election, in the hope of finding in the Prank ruler a support against the Longobards and the iconoclastic emperor of Byzantium. In return for the royal consecration, which was first performed by Boniface, and afterwards by Pope Stephen himself, Pepin endowed the Roman chair with the portion of coast on the Adriatic Sea, southwards from Ravenna. This was the founda- tion of the temporal power of the pope. This Boniface (properly Wmfried), was one of those active Eng- lish missionaries, who, under the protection of the first Carlovingian monarchs, proclaimed the doctrine of a crucified Redeemer to the rude inhabitants of Germany. He preached the Gospel in Hesse (where he buflt the abbey of Pulda), founded bishoprics and colleges for education among the Thuringians, Pranks, and Bavarians, and displayed such zeal that he obtained the name of an " apostle of the Germans." Having been appointed archbishop of Mayence, he undertook in his old age another mission to the heathen Philanders, among whom he met with a violent death. All the bishoprics and colleges established by Bonifacius, were closely united with the Roman see ; and as these efforts were favoured by the Carlovingian monarchs, the pope, about the year 800, came to be looked upon as the head of the church in Pranconia. § 198. Pepin reigned for sixteen years with vigour and renown over the Prank empire, which extended far into South and Central k2 132 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. Germany, and which, at his death, he divided between his two sons, Charles and Carloinan. When the latter died, about three years afterwards, Charlemagne was declared A D 771 sole rider of the Franks, by the voice of the estates of the empire. He conducted many wars, and advanced Christian cul- tivation and civd order. For the purpose of securing the boundaries of his kingdom and extending Christianity, he made war for thirty- one years on the Saxon confederation, which was formed by various pagan tribes on the Weser and Elbe. Charles took the A D 77'"' fortress of Eresburg, on the south of the Teutoburger forest, destroyed the national palladium — the statue of Arminius, and compelled the Saxons to a peace. He next proceeded against the Longobard king, Desiderius, in obedience to the summons of Pope Adrian. With an army collected together near Geneva, he crossed the St. Bernhard, stormed the passes of the Alps, and conquered Pavia. Desiderius ended his days in a cloister. Charles erected the Lombard throne in Milan, united Upper Italy to the kingdom of the -Pranks, and confirmed the gift of Pepin to the pope. § 199. During the absence of Charles, the Saxons had expelled the Prank garrisons and re-established their ancient boundaries. Charles again marched into their country, subdued them, and compelled the chiefs of the tribes to submission at Paderborn. Their warlike duke, Witikind, alone, fled to the Danes and refused to confirm the treaty. In the two following years, Charles fought against the Moors in Spain, took Pamplona and Sara- gossa, and united the whole country as far as the Ebro to his own kingdom, as a Spanish province. But during his return, his rear, under the command of Poland, suffered a defeat in the valley of EoncesvaUes, in which the bravest champions of the Pranks were destroyed. Poland's battle at Poncesvalles was a favourite theme with the poets of the middle ages. The Saxons took advantage of his absence to make a fresh insurrection, and pursued their devastating course as far as the Phine. Charles hastened to the spot, gave them repeated overthrows, and subdued their land afresh. But when he attempted to employ them as militia against the Slavonic tribes in the East, they fell upon the Prank troops who were marching with them, at the Suntal (between Hanover and Hameln), and slew them. This demanded vengeance. The Prank emperor marched through the land, plundering and destroying, and then held a court of judg- ment at Verden on the Aller. 4500 prisoners expiated with their blood the crime of their brethren. Upon this, hostilities were resumed with fresh violence. But the battle on the Hase, which terminated to the disadvantage of the Saxons, put an end to the war. AVitflund and the other chiefs took an oath of fealty and military service, and allowed themselves to be baptized. The people followed their example. THE CARLOVINGI. 133 Eight bishoprics (Osnabruck, Minden, Verden, Bremen, Paderborn, Minister, Halberstadt, Hildersheim,) provided for the maintenance and extension of Christianity among the Saxons. Another insurrec- tion, however, was occasioned a few years afterwards, by the oppres- sive arriere-ban, and the unwonted payment of tithes to the church, which resulted in 10,000 Saxon families being carried away from their homes, and colonies of Franks being established in their place. To oppose the Slavonic tribes to the east of the Elbe, Charles founded the Margravate of Brandenburg. § 200. Shortly after, Thassilo, duke of Bavaria, at- tempted to render himself independent of the Frank power, by the assistance of the Avars who lived to the east. He was overpowered, and expiated his breach of faith by perpetual con- finement within the walls of the cloisters of Eidda. Bavaria was hereupon incorporated with the Erank empire, and Charles established" the eastern march as a check upon the wild Avars. "When Charle- magne had reduced all the lands from the Ebro and the Apennines to the Eider, and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Baab and the Elbe, he repaired to Borne at the conclusion of the century. It was here that during the festival of Christmas he was invested with the crown of the Roman empire, in the church of St. Peter, by Leo III., whom he had defended against a mob of insurgents. It was hoped, that by this means, western Christendom might be formed into a single body, of which the Pope was to become the spiritual, and Charles the secular head. It was at this point that the long-existing variance between the western (Boman catholic), and the eastern (Creek catholic) churches, terminated in a complete separation. § 201. The domestic policy of Charlemagne was not less fer- tile of results than the foreign. 1. He improved the government and the administration of justice by abolishing the office of duke, dividing the whole kingdom into provinces, and appointing counts and deputies for the conduct of the affairs of justice, and clerks of the treasury for the management of the crown lands and the collection of imposts. The laws were confirmed by the popular assemblies (maifeldern), in which every freeman had a share. 2. He promoted the cultivation of the land, and the education of the people. Agriculture and the breeding of cattle were encouraged, farms and villages sprang up, and barren heaths were converted into arable fields. He founded conventual schools and cathedrals, had the works of the ancient Boman writers transcribed, and formed a collection of old German heroic ballads. Learned men, like the British monk, Alcuin, and the historian Eginhard, from the O den- wood, had ample reason to con- gratulate themselves on his encouragement and support. 3. He favoured the clergy and the church. It was by his means that the former obtained their tithes and vast gifts and legacies; church music 134 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. was improved, missionaries supported, and churclies and monasteries erected. Ingelheim on the Rhine, and Aix, were Chaides' favourite places of residence. He lies buried in tbe latter town. 2. DISSOLUTION" Or THE FRANK EMPIRE. Louis the § 202. The son of Charlemagne, Louis the Debon- a.d. 814— ' nahe, was better fitted for the repose of a cloister than for 84 °- the government of a warlike nation. A too hasty division of his kingdom among his three sons, Lothaire, Pepin, and Louis, was the occasion of much sorrow to himself, and confusion to the empire. For when at a later period he proposed an alteration in favour of his fourth son, Charles (the Bald), the fruit of a second mar- riage, the elder sons took up arms against then father. Louis, faithlessly deserted by his vassals on "the field of lies," near Strasburg, and betrayed to his own sons, was compelled by Lothaire to do penance in the church, and to abdicate his throne ; and was afterwards shut up for some time in a cloister. It is true that Louis procured his lather's re-instatement ; but when the weak emperor, after the death of Pepin, by a new division of the kingdom, deprived Louis of Germany, in favour of his brothers, Lothaire and Charles, Louis raised his standard against him. This broke the old em- peror's heart. Pull of sorrow, he ended his days on a small island of the Rhine, near Ingelheim. The hostile brothers now turned their arms against each other. A bloody civil war depopulated the country, so that at last, after a battle of three days' duration, at Pontenaille in Burgundy, the Prank nobility refused to obey the arriere-ban, and by this means brought about the treaty of partition of Verdun. By virtue of this treaty, Lothaire received the imperial dignity, together with Italy, Burgundy, and Lorraine ; Charles the Bald, western Pranconia (Prance) ; and Louis the German, the lands on the right bank of the Rhine,— Spire, "Worms, and Mayence. § 203. This division was followed by a time of great confusion, during which, Europe was severely harassed, on the south by the Arabs ; on the east by the Slavi ; and on the north and west by the Normans. To oppose these predatory inroads, the Carlovingian monarcbs, who were all men of weak and narrow minds, were obliged to restore the ducal office in the different provinces, and to sanction the hereditary authority of the Margraves, so that in a short time all the power fell into the hands of the nobles. By the rapid deaths of most of the posterity of Louis the Debonnaire, nearly the whole of Charles ^ ie em P u ' e 0I " Charlemagne devolved upon Charles the the Fat, a.d. Fat, a prince weak and indolent, and simple almost to 87G-887- imbecility. Incapable of resisting the valiant Normans, he purchased a disgraceful peace from them. This proceeding so exas- NORMANS AND DANES. J 35 perated the German princes, that they decreed his deposition, at Tribur on the Ehine, and elected his nephew, the brave Arnulf, as Amulf, a.d. his successor. Arnulf governed with vigour. He over- 887—898. threw the Bomans at Louvain, and called the aid of the wild Magyars or Hungarians on the Ural, a people expert in horse- manship and archery, and who were now, under their valiant captain, Arpad, occupying the plains on the Danube (named after them Hun- garia), against the Slavi and Avars. The Avars were either sub- jected or compelled to retreat. But the strangers (the Hungarians), soon became a more dreadful scourge to Germany than either the Slaves or the Avars. They made their predatory inroads and exacted a yearly tribute, even under Louis the Child, the youthful son of Arnulf, who died in the flower of his age, after a glorious campaign in Italy. This still continued, when, after the early death of this last of the Carlovingian race, the German nobles, among whom the dukes of Saxony, Franconia, Lorraine, Swabia, and Bavaria, were pre-emi- Conrad I nen ^ ^ or P ower > me * together and elected Duke Conrad a.d. 911 — of Franconia, emperor. Germany thus became an elect- " ive empire. § 204. The rule of the Carlovingians survived longest in France, Charles the ^ u ^ ^ P ossesse( l neither strength nor dignity. Under Simple, a.d. Charles the Simple, who had ascended the French throne 898—929. after the deposition and subsequent death of Charles the Fat, the dukes and counts rendered themselves entirely independent, and one of the most powerful among them, Hugh of Paris, kept the imbecile king in strict confinement. France, on the other hand, was delivered from the devastating forays of the Normans, by Charles admitting duke Bollo into the province named after them, Normandy, upon condition, that he and his followers would suffer themselves to be baptized, and recognise the king as their suzerain. The Normans, a people readily susceptible of civilization, soon acquired the lan- guage, manners, and customs of the Franks. Charles the Simple was followed by two other kings of the Carlovingian race ; but their power was at last so limited that they possessed nothing but the town of Laon, with the surrounding country ; every thing else had fallen into the hands of the insolent nobility. After the death of the Hugh Capet childless Louis V., Hugh Capet, son and hen of Hugh a.d. 987— of Paris, assumed the title of king, and put to death in 9 prison Louis' uncle, Charles of Lorraine, who attempted to assert his right to the throne by force of arms. II. NORMANS AND DANES. § 205. The inhabitants of the Scandinavian peninsula belong to the German race, and share with it the violent passion for liberty, 13(3 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. love of action, and disposition to wander, as well as language, religion, and manners. Divided into numerous tribes, they undertook vast expeditions to all quarters, and trusted their lives and property on the stormy waves in their light rowing vessels. Under the name of Normals, they ravaged the coasts of the North Sea, sailed up the mouths of rivers in their small ships, and returned laden with booty to their homes ; as Danes they were feared by the English, from whom they exacted a heavy tribute (Danegeld). The remote island of Iceland was discovered and peopled by Norwegians, who founded a nourishing republic there, with the religion, language, laws, and institutions of the mother country ; and Norman Varangians were invited as rulers by the Slavonic inhabitants of the shores of the Gulfs of Finland and Bothnia. Ruric, the warlike prince of the Russians and of the Varangian race, accepted the invitation, estab- lished himself in Novogorod, and became the progenitor of a race that ruled over Russia till the end of the sixteenth century, but adopted the manners and language of the aborigines. Greenland was dis- covered and peopled from Iceland. Even America is said to have been known to the Normans. The Normans loved war, the chase, and the exercise of arms ; agriculture and the breeding of cattle they left to the Slaves. Good faith was their most prominent virtue, and a love of poetry the solitary tender feeling indulged by these rude men. The singers (scalds), celebrated the illustrious deeds of their forefathers in melancholy songs and legends. The most celebrated collection of such sacred and heroic songs is called the Edda. § 206. England, under the weak successors of Egbert (§ 185), suffered the most severely from the Danes. They plundered the Alfred the coasts and the shores of the rivers, and destroyed the Great, a.d. Christian churches. Even Alfred the Great was thrust 871—901. £ or a g^ort time from his throne by them, until he con- trived, by dint of cunning, courage, and watchfulness, to put an end to their inroads. Crowds of them who had been converted to Chris- tianity were permitted to settle in Northumberland. After this, Alfred devoted himself to the internal improvement of his people. Like Charlemagne, he divided his land into communities and dis- tricts, and placed counts and aldermen over them to conduct the affairs of justice ; he founded schools and churches, made a collection of the Anglo-Saxon heroic ballads, and translated the writings of Boethius (§ 182). But when the Anglo-Saxon poptdation, under his successors, slaughtered several thousands of the Danes in Northum- berland (the Danish vespers), Swein the Fortunate, king of Denmark Canute tlie ail( ^ Norway, recommenced the predatory incursions with Great, a.d. such success, that his son, Canute the Great, united the English crown to the Danish and Norwegian. He governed justly and wisely. After his death, and that of his son, THE GERMANO-ROMAN EMPIRE. ]37 Edward the Confessor, a descendant of the ancient royal Confessor, family, ascended the throne. He had resided a long time a.d. 1041 — " n Normandy, and imbibed a preference for Erench- Norman customs. It was for this reason, that during his reign he encouraged foreigners to the prejudice of the natives, and appointed "William, Duke of Normandy, heir to his crown, in the event of his death without issue. This was resisted by the nation, who elected the chivalrous Harold to be king. But by the battle of Hastings, in which Harold and the flower of the Anglo-Saxon nobility fell on the field, "William the Con- queror was made master of England, where he proceeded with great severity to establish a new condition of things. He endowed his Norman knights with the estates of the Anglo-Saxon landlords, in- troduced the Erench language and the Norman law, and presented the richest benefices of the chiu'ch to his friends. ~§ 207. A short time before, Robert Gfuiscard, a Norman noble, had made himself master, by his courage and* cunning, of the greater part of Lower Italy. He called himself Duke of Aptdia and Calabria, and acknowledged the pope as his feudal superior. His heroic son, Bohemond, increased this terri- tory by further conquests. But Robert's family soon Roger II became extinct, upon which his brother's son, Roger II., a.d. 1130— united Sicily with Lower Italy, obtained from the pope the • title of king, and established the kingdom of Naples and Sicily. Eor fifty-six years these rich and beautiful lands remained in the possession of Roger and his descendants ; they then passed into the house of Hohenstanfen. III. THE SUPREMACY OF THE GERMANO-ROMAN EMPIRE. 1. THE HOUSE OE SAXONY (919 — 1024). § 208. The violence of the nobles, and the destructive inroads of the Hungarians, had reduced Germany to a wfld and lawless state. The first freely elected emperor, Conrad the Salic (§ 204), endea- voured to correct these evils by harshness and severity, and ordered the insubordinate Count Erchanger and Berthold von Allemanien to be beheaded as examples. But as he saw that his family did not pos- sess sufficient political influence, he favoured the advancement of his , powerful rival, Henry I. (the Eowler), of Saxony. This Fowler, a.d. energetic prince enlarged the boundaries of the empire 919-936. on the north, where he established the march of Schleswig against the Danes ; on the west, where he again won back Lorraine to the empire ; and on the east, where the march of Meissen w T as intended to keep the Slavi in check. He purchased a nine years' truce from the Magyars, and employed the time in the im- 138 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE A.GE. provemont of tb.e army, and in erecting Btrong fortresses. By the building oi these citadels, which grevs up with bime into (owns, Henrj became the originator of the burgher class, and earned the name of the Founder of Cities. Relying on these preparations, he refused bhe Hungarians al the termination of the truce the tribute that bad hitherto been paid; and when they undertook an expedition for the purpose of revenging themselves, he gave them a severe defeat at the battle of Merseburg. 8 209. Otto I. the Great, trod in the steps of his father. ( )U<> the ° . ' Great, \..d. He sought, like him, to preserve the peace of the empire 936—973. by conferring dukedoms and bishoprics on bis friends and relatives; he also enlarged the bounds of his territories, and dif- fused Christianity; and when the Hungarians again renewed I heir inroads upon Germany, this valiant, prince defeated them with such slaughter in the Lechfeld near Augsburg, that only a lew out of the vast multitude escaped; from this time (here was an end a d 055 of their depredations. ( ihristianity, which towards I he end of the century, in the reign of King Stephen the Pious, the Lawgiver ;ind regulator of the country, penetrated even into Hungary, pro- duced gentler manners, and a more peaceable disposition. Otto's at- tainment of the imperial dignity was an occurrence pregnant with results for Germany, which from this time, remained part a d 962. . . of " the holy Boman empire of the (J en nan nation." By lus marriage with Adelheid, queen of Burgundy and Upper Italy, who had appealed to him for protection against the attempts of Berenger of [vrea, Otto gained the kingdom of Italy, and was investedin Milan with the Lombard crown. Hereupon he proceeded to Rome, obtained the imperial Roman crown, established the protector- ship of I lie ( J en i em emperor over the papal chair, and exacted an oath from the Romans, that they would \u-w\- acknowledge a pope without the knowledge and consent of himself or his successors. This pro- tectorship the popes were afterwards unwilling to allow to be valid. Otto II. a.d. § 210. The ten years of Otto II. 's reign were tilled »T-i -983. with contests with the turbulent nobility in Germany and Italy; with the French, who wished to get possession of Lorraine ; and with the Greeks iii Lower Italy, where he laid claim to the Byzantine possessions as the dowry of his wile Theophania. Being Overcome near Basantello, he fell into the hands of the enemy, from Otto III., a.d. whom he only escaped by his skill in swimming. His 983—1002. son, Otto I I I., was superior to most of his contemporaries in cultivation and learned acquirements, in which he had been instructed by the celebrated Gerbert, under the guidance of his mother Theophania, and his grandmother Adelheid, so that- he was called the Imperial Prodigy; hut he was wanting in the vigour neces- Sary to the ruler of a rude and warlike people. 1 1 is love for Greek THE HOUSE OF FRANCONIA. J 39 and Italian refinement induced him to entertain the notion of making Eome the metropolis of his kingdom, but all his plans were thwarted by his early death. § 211. After many struggles, Henry II. of Bavaria, a relative of the Ottos, succeeded him in the empire. His love for the church and the clergy, which he displayed more particidarly in founding the cathedral and bishopric of Bamberg, procured him the surname of Saint. When this cathedral was consecrated by the pope in person, it was from his hands that the emperor received the signs of his impe- rial power, the sceptre and the golden apple ; and although during his Roman expeditions he exercised the right of protectorship over the holy city, yet the ceremonies practised on the occasion afforded a pretext to succeeding popes to represent the imperial throne as their fief. Under Henry II. and the mditary bustle of the following age, the civilization that had flourished in Magdeburg, Halle, Bremen, and Bardewick, during the reign of the Ottos, and under the influence of the foreign empress and Otto II. 's sisters, was again extinguished. The mathematical science of Gerbert, who was versed in Greek and Arabian learning, the elements of architecture, sculpture, and trade, in which the Bishop Bernhard, about the time of Silvester II. 's assumption of the chair of St. Peter, particularly distinguished him- self, the Latin poetry of Khoswitha and others found little study or encouragement ; nevertheless the colleges founded by the Ottos stfll preserved the germs of civilization. 2. THE HOUSE OF EEAKC05TIA. § 212. . Conrad II. was more bent upon enlarging his kingdom and Conrad II obtaining knightly renown, than upon governing in peace. a.d. 1024— After he had been invested with the iron crown of the 1039. Lombards in Milan, and the imperial diadem in Eome, he added to his dominions the kingdom of Burgundy on the Rhone and the Jura. This involved him in many quarrels both with the Burgun- dian nobles and bishops, who looked upon themselves as independent princes ; and, with his son-in-law Ernest, of Swabia, who asserted a more valid claim to the empire, and raised the standard of rebellion in the south of Germany, in conjunction with his friend Welf. Both were subdued after a long struggle, and the deeds and fate of the chivalrous duke Ernest supplied the materials for poetry and popular legends. Conrad and his successor lie buried in the cathedral of Spire, of which magnificent structure the former was the commencer. Con- Henry III ra( i' s son > Henry III., was a man of great power, under a.d. 1039— whose reign Germany attained its greatest limits ; even 1056. Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary acknowledged the supre- macy of the Germano-Eoman emperor. For the purpose of sup- pressing the insolence of the turbulent nobles of the kingdom, he J 40 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. entertained the project of founding an absolute, imperial, hereditary monarchy, and either of abolishing the office of duke in Germany, or making it entirely dependent upon the emperor. In the same manner, he took advantage of a division in the church, to depose the three contending popes, and to raise the German bishops in succession to the papal chair. He attempted to elevate the imperial power above the princes of Germany, as well as over the court of Borne. He enforced respect throughout his whole kingdom for the "peace of God," according to which, no weapons might be used between the evening of Wednesday and Monday morning; an arrangement which, in that iron time, was the -only means of preserving a vestige of order. He also preserved himself unspotted from the crime of simony, i. e. the disposing of property or dignities of the church for money or worldly considerations. § 213. Henry III.'s son was the highly-gifted but misled Henry IV., who, from the age of five years, was under the tutelage of his judicious mother, till the ambitious Hanno, archbishop of Cologne, succeeded in getting the young emperor into his power. The severe method of education employed by this prelate disgusted Henry, who was only the more pleased with the magnificent Bishop Adelbert, of Bremen, who snatched him from the hands of Hanno, and made him- self agreeable to the young prince by flattery, and the gratification of his sensual inclinations. The emperor established his residence at Goslar, for the purpose of chastising the Saxons, among whom, Henry's rival, Otto of Nordheim, had many adherents. He here established a riotous court ; oppressed and maltreated both the nobles and people; and, in the insolence of youth, disturbed ? with his companions, the security of the neighbouring country. The Saxon nobility at length took up arms under the conduct of Otto ; the for- tresses were taken, the strong citadel of Harzburg destroyed, and the emperor compelled to take flight. This proved the commencement of a destructive war, which was terminated to the disadvantage of the Saxons, by the superior talents of Henry, and his victory on the Unstruth. This finally induced them to call in the pope as umpire. § 214. The chair of Borne was at that time occupied by Gregory VII., a prelate of resolute will and decided temper, who cherished the purpose of rendering the church independent of the sccidar authority, and of exalting the papacy above the power of the emperor, and that of every other temporal prince. With this object, lie had induced his predecessors to withdraw the election of pope from the hands of the Boman people, and to transfer it to the newly- created college of cardinals. After his elevation, he turned his atten- tion to the purifying of the church ; he accordingly issued a strict prohi- bition against all simony, deposed and banished the bishops who had THE HOUSE OF FRANCONIA. 141 obtained their offices by purchase, and forbade lay investiture (ap- pointment to church offices by a temporal prince) ; and, for the pur- pose of binding the clergy more closely to the church, he passed a law which enforced a rigid observance of celibacy by all persons of the priestly condition. The appeal to his arbitration by the Saxons came very opportunely to the daring priest after these arrangements ; it served to confirm the principle, that the pope, as Christ's vice- gerent, was superior to all temporal rulers, and that emperors, kings, and princes, were consequently his vassals. He summoned Henry IT. before his judgment-seat. Instead of obeying the summons, the emperor obtained a resolution from a council of the church assembled at Worms, which declared the pope to be deposed, and this reso- lution he forwarded to Gregory with a contemptuous letter. Upon this, Gregory excommunicated Henry and his adherents, and deposed him from the crown. This happened at a time when Henry's con- duct towards the Saxons, and his matrimonial quarrel with his vir- tuous wife, from whom he attempted to get himself separated by the archbishop of Mayence, created universal dissatisfaction. He soon found himself forsaken by his people, and the princes who assembled at Tribur announced to him his deposition, unless he were released from the excommunication within a year. Upon this, Henry hastened across the Alps, in the midst of a severe winter, to the at) 1 077 pope, who was residing at the castle Canossa ; but it was not until after waiting three days barefoot, and in the dress of a peni- tent, in the court of the castle, that he was admitted to an audience. After this humiliation the ban was withdrawn. § 215. During Henry's absence, his enemies had raised Rudolf, duke of Swabia, to the imperial throne. A civil war broke out in consequence, in which Henry remained the victor. Rudolf, having lost a hand in the battle of the Elster, died shortly afterwards, upon which, Henry undertook an expedition to revenge himself upon Gregory, who, deceived by false intelligence respect- ing the victory, had renewed the ^excommunication. He left the finishing of the war in Germany to his son-in-law, Frederick of Hohenstaufen, whom he had created dake of Swabia, and then marched with his army over the Alps. A council of the church, assembled by him at Brixen, deposed Gregory and elected Clement III., from whom Henry immediately received the crown. It is true, that "Gregory still maintained himself for some time in the castle of Angelo, under the protection of Eobert Guiscard (§ 208), with whom he had entered into an alliance; but the dreadful excesses of the Normans produced so much exasperation among the Eomans, that the pope thought it most advis- A,D " ' able to take refuge in Salerno, where he died in the fol- lowing year. But Henry's troubles were not yet at an end. Two 142 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. rival emperors arose in GTermany, and in Italy the successor of Gregory created him a crowd of enemies, and renewed the sentence of excommunication. At length his own misguided children rose against him. Conrad was disowned by him, and died in disgrace ; but in a short time after, Henry, who was already crowned, drew the sword against his father, took him prisoner, and when he escaped from confinement, continued the war against him so long, that Henry IV., bowed down by misery and misfortune, ended his days at Liege. But even now he was not at rest. For five years his dead body remained unburied in an unconsecrated chapel at Spire, before it was allowed to be interred in the imperial sepulchre. § 216. As long as Henry V. continued the disgraceful contest with Henry V. a.d. ^is father, so long he remained the friend of the pope. HOC— 1125. But scarcely was he in exclusive possession of the im- perial dignity, before he quarrelled with his ally on the subject of investiture. He seized upon the pope and cardinals, and succeeded, despite the thunders of excommunication by which he was assailed, in effecting a fair compromise of the subject of dispute, by means of the concordat of "Worms. It was arranged by this contract, that the bishops and abbots should be freely elected and installed in their offices by the pope, but that they should be endowed with their tem- poralities and privileges by the king with his sceptre. The severity with which Henry had humbled the insolent princes of the empire, prevented them from raising to the throne the nearest relative of the house of Franconia, Frederick of Hohenstaufen, upon L thaire the Henry's death without children. They elected Lothaire Saxon, a.d. the Saxon, the heir of Otto of Mordheim, but produced a 1120—1137. fatal division by this step. For when the brothers of the Hohenstaufen fanuly refused to do homage to the new emperor, Lothaire united himself with Henry the Proud of Bavaria, of the house of Welf, by giving him his daughter in marriage, and increas- ing the vast possessions of this family by the dukedom of Saxony. The Hohenstaufens were unable to resist such superior power, and they were compelled to acknowledge Lothaire emperor, and to accom- pany him in his Italian campaign. IV. THE ASCENDANCY OF THE CHURCH IN THE TIME OF THE CRUSADES. 1. THE CRUSADES. § 217. Ever since the fourth century, it had been a prevalent custom to undertake a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, for the health of the soul and the expiation of a sinful life, and to pray, at what was believed to be the site of the sepulchre of Christ, and where, in consequence, the Empress Helena had erected a church. These pilgrimages became more THE CRUSADES. 143 numerous as the Christian faith acquired more influence over the minds of men. As long as the mercantile Arabians retained possession of the land, the pilgrims came and went without molestation ; hut when Syria and Palestine were conquered by the Seljookian Turks, the native Christians, as well as the pilgrims, were exposed to severe oppression. They were compelled to pay a heavy tax, and were fre- quently robbed, maltreated, and killed. At this juncture, a pilgrim, Peter of Amiens, who was returning from Jerusalem, presented him- self before Pope Urban II., described the sufferings of the Christians in the East, and received the charge of wandering through town and country, and preparing the minds of men for the great enterprise of recovering the Holy Land from the hands of the infidels. "Wonder- ful was the agitation produced in all lands by the descriptions of the eloquent and meagre-visaged pilgrim. When the pope, in consequence, held an assembly at Clermont, in the south of Prance, at which several bishops and nobles, and a numberless crowd of people of all conditions were present, called upon the "West to arm itself against the East, and concluded his passionate address by an exhortation to every one, " To deny himself and take up his cross, that he might win Christ." The shout of " It is the will of God," pealed from every throat, and thousands fell on their knees, and demanded to be at once admitted among the number of the sacred warriors. They attached a red cross to the right shoulder, from which the new brotherhood received the name of crusaders. Complete remission of sins, and an everlasting reward in heaven was promised to them. This was the commencement of the first crusade of 1096 — 1099. § 218. A mighty enthusiasm took possession of all minds ; no sex, age, or condition, would be left behind. Many were too impatient to wait for the preparations of the princes, a disorderly and half-armed crowd, under the direction of Peter of Amiens, and a Prench knight, Walter the PennUess, marched through Germany towards Hungary, in their way to Constantinople. When they were denied the necessaries of life in Bulgaria, they stormed Belgrade, and filled the country with robbery and murder. Here- upon the inhabitants rose upon them and slaughtered them by thousands. The remnant reached Constantinople with their leaders, but were nearly all destroyed in Asia Minor by the Seljooks. The dis- orderly crowd, which, after a bloody persecution of the Jews, marched out of the Rhenish towns, Strasburg, Worms, Mayence, &c, under the conduct of the priest, Gottschalk, and the count Enrico of Leiningen, fared no better. § 219. A hundred thousand men had already perished, when the high-spirited Godfrey of Bouillon, duke of Lorraine, marched towards Constantinople by the same path, with his brothers and a vast host of well-appointed knights, whilst Hugh of Vermandois, the 141 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. brother of the French king, and the Norman prince, Bohemond of Lower Italy, with his chivalrous nephew, Tancred, departed by sea to the same destination. After they had promised the Byzantine emperor, Alexander Comnenus, the restoration of all the Greek towns that had formerly belonged to the Eastern empire, they were transported into Asia. A review took place in a plain near Nicaea, and the army was found to consist of 100,000 cavalry, and 300,000 foot, fit for battle. The most celebrated of the leaders, besides those already named, were Robert of Normandy, son of "William the Con- queror (§ 207) ; Stephen of Blois, who numbered as many castles as there are days in the year ; the rich and powerful Count Raymond of Toulouse, and others. The siege and capture of Nica?a was the first important deeds of arms achieved by the crusaders. From this point, their march proceeded southwards through the dominions of the sultan of Iconium. The Seljooks suffered a defeat in the battle of Dorykeum. But the Christian army was soon reduced to the greatest straits by the want of the necessaries of life, so that many returned home, and others, separating themselves from the main body, estab- lished independent governments among the pagans. In this way, Baldwin, Godfrey's brother, established himself in Edessa on the Euphrates. At length the host reached the beautiful territory of Autioch. But the siege of this strong and amply provided city presented so many difficulties to the unpractised knights, that it was only after an investment of nine months that they obtained possession of it by a stratagem of the crafty Bohe- mond, who contrived that a door should be treacherously left open to him. The punishment inflicted by the Christians on the conquered city was frightful. But they had scarcely held possession of it for three days before the Seljook sultan of Mosul made his appearance, and enclosed the place with an innumerable army. The crusaders were in a short time so reduced by famine, that then- destruction appeared inevitable. From this perilous position they were rescued by a holy lance that was found in the church of St. Peter in Autioch, and the discovery of which produced such enthusiasm amongst them, that, sallying out of the city, they put to flight a very superior army of the besiegers, and opened for themselves the road to Jerusalem. The faith in the genuineness of the lance soon however disappeared, when the priest who had discovered it died from the consequences of the divine ordeal to which he was subjected. § 220. The army now compelled the contending princes to a rapid march. When they arrived, about the time of Pentecost, to the heights above Bamla and Emaus, from whence Jerusalem first becomes visible, they fell upon their knees in an ecstasy of devotion, shed tears of joy, and glorified God with psalms of thanksgiving. But the conquest of this strong city was a difficult THE CRUSADES. 145 undertaking for an army of pilgrims, wearied with travel,, and unpro- vided with the necessary engines. The want of water, and the burning heat, proved more destructive than the arrows of the enemy. But the newly-aroused enthusiasm triumphed over all 15th July, obstacles. After a siege of thirty-nine days, Jerusalem a.d. 1099. -was at length taken by the crusaders after a two days' storm, accompanied by the shouts, "It is the will of God," " God helps us." The fate of the vanquished was frightful. The steps of the mosques were washed by the blood of 10,000 slaughtered Sara- cens ; the Jews were burnt in their synagogue ; neither age nor sex was spared, the streets were filled with corpses, blood, and mutilated limbs. It was only after the thirst for revenge and plunder had been slaked, that Christian humility again resumed its empire over the mind, and the same men who a short time before had been raging like ravenous beasts, might now be seen with bare feet and uncovered heads, marching with songs of praise to the church of the holy sepul- chre, to thank God with fervent devotion for the success vouchsafed to their enterprise. § 221. The next step was to elect a king of Jerusalem. The choice fell upon the pious and valiant Godfrey of Bouillon, who refused how- ever to wear a kingly diadem on the spot where the Saviour of the world had bled beneath a crown of thorns. He rejected the outward symbols of power, and called himself the defender of the holy sepulchre. The new kingdom of Jerusalem was arranged according to the prin- ciples of the "Western feudal system (§ 241). Godfrey, moreover, won August, the glorious victory at Ascalon, over the army of the a.d. 1099. Egyptian sultan, but died during the following year, from the effects of the climate and his extreme exertions. His brother, Baldwin, succeeded to the government, and assumed the title of king. § 222. The kingdom of Jerusalem had severe encounters to sustain with the infidels. When reinforcements no longer arrived from the West, the situation of the Christians became extremely precarious, especially after the powerful sultan of Mosul had taken and destroyed Edessa, and threatened their borders from the East. At this junc- ad 1147 ture, St. Bernhard, abbot of Clairvaux, in Burgundy, aroused afresh the slumbering zeal for religion, and was a.d. 49. ^ e originator of the second ckttsade. The authority of this pious man was so great, that Louis VII. of Erance yielded obedience to his exhortations, and even Conrad III. was unable to resist the fiery eloquence with which he addressed him in the cathe- dral of Spire. Conrad assumed the cross, and marched with a stately army through Constantinople into Asia Minor. But here he was decoyed by the artifice of the Greek generals into a water- less desert, where the crusaders were suddenly attacked by innu- 146 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. nierable squadrons of Turkish cavalry, who gave them so signal an overthrow, that scarcely a tenth part escaped with Conrad into Con- stantinople. The French army that marched along the coast fared no "better. The greater number of the pilgrims perished either by the sword of the enemy, or by hunger and fatigue. The shattered forces of the two kings at length reached Jerusalem, but were unable to perform any action of importance, so that the position of the Christian kingdom became from day to day more difficult, especially, as shortly after their retreat, the magnanimous and valiant Curd, Saladin, made himself master of Egypt, and united in a short time all the lands between Cairo and Aleppo under his sceptre. The kingdom of Jerusalem was soon in distress. Saladin granted a truce; but when this was violated by a Christian knight, who had audaciously inter- rupted the passage of Saladin's mother, robbed her of her treasures, and slaughtered her attendants, the sultan took the field with his army. The battle of Tiberias was decided against the Christian s. King Guy and many of his nobles were taken prisoners ; Joppa, Sidon, Acre, and many other towns fell into the hands of the conqueror, and at length Jerusalem was also taken. The crosses were torn down, and the furniture of the churches destroyed, but the inhabitants were treated with forbearance. Saladin, far superior in virtue to his Christian adversaries, did not stain his triumph with cruelty. § 223. The news of the taking of Jerusalem occasioned the utmost a.d. 1189. alarm throughout the whole West, and gave rise to the a.d. 1192. third crusade. From the southernmost point of Italy to the rude mountains of Scandinavia, armed bands streamed towards the Holy Land. Those who remained behind paid a tax (Saladin's tenth). The three most powerful monarchs of the West, Frederick Barbarossa of Germany, Philip Augustus II. of France, and Richard Lion-heart of England, assumed the cross. The Emperor Frederick, with a well-appointed army, took the way by land to Asia Minor, defeated the sultan of Iconium in a furious battle near the walls of his chief city, and displayed prudence, courage, and resolution in the whole undertaking. But when the old hero attempted, with the boldness of youth, to cross the rapid mountain stream of the Saleph, into the South of Asia Minor, he was carried away by the torrent. His dead body was dragged on shore near Seleucia. Some of the knights returned home, and others followed the second son of the emperor, Frederick of Swabia, to Palestine, where they took part in the siege of Acre. The kings of France and England, who had taken the sea voyage by Sicily, met shortly after before this town. Their united efforts were crowned by the fall of Acre, where Richard distinguished himself as much by his severity, pride, and cruelty, as by his valour and heroism. The German banner THE CRUSADES. J 47 that duke Leopold of Austria had first planted on the battlements, was torn down and trampled under foot by the commands of Richard ; and when the stipidated ransom for the captive Saracens was not paid at the appointed moment, he ordered 3500 of these unfortunates to be put to the sword. Richard's name was the terror of the East. But despite all his strength and bravery, he was unable to take Jerusalem. Quarrels between Richard and Philip Augustus (who returned home after the capture of Acre), and dissensions among the crusaders, checked the enterprise. After the conclusion of a treaty, by which the sea-coast from Tyre to Joppa, and undisturbed access to the holy places was assured to the Christians, Richard also turned homewards. Having been cast by a storm on the coast of Italy, he attempted to pursue his journey through Germany, but was seized near Vienna, and given up to the avaricious emperor Henry VI., who shut him up in the castle of Trifels, and only released him on the payment of a heavy ransom. a.d. 1203. § 224. The fourth crusade had a termination a.d. 1204. altogether peculiar. The knights of Prance and Italy assembled together at Venice in the beginning of the thirteenth cen- tury, under Baldwin of Flanders, for the purpose of getting them- selves conveyed to the Holy Land. Whilst here, the Byzantine prince, Alexius, whose father, Isaac Angelus, had been deprived of the throne, rendered blind, and shut up in prison by his own brother, presented himself before them, and implored their assistance against the usurper. Alexius prevailed upon the crusaders by the promise of vast rewards. They sailed for Constantinople under the command of the blind doge, Dandolo of Venice, who was then in his ninetieth year, took the city, and placed Alexius and his father on the throne. But when they insolently demanded the fulfilment of the promises made to them, the populace excited an insurrection, during which, Alexius was killed, and his father died of fright, whilst the leader of the tumult was raised to the government. Upon this, the Franks stormed Constan- tinople, plundered the churches, palaces, and dwelling-houses, destroyed the noblest works of art and antiquity, and filled the whole city with terror and outrage. They flung the emperor from a pillar, and then divided the Byzantine kingdom. The newly-established Latin empire, with its chief city, Constantinople, fell to the share of the heroic Baldwin; the Venetians appropriated the lands on the coast and several islands of the iEgean Sea, and gained possession of the whole trade of the East ; the count of Montferrat received Macedonia and Greece under the title of the kingdom of Thessalonica ; Villehar- douin, the describer of this transaction, became duke of Achaia ; Athens and other Greek towns were shared among the Erank nobles. As before, in Jerusalem, so here, the feudal monarchy was established under the "Western forms, by which means, the greater l2 148 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. part of the old population was reduced to the condition of serfdom. But the new empire had no solid foundation nor any long continu- ance. It preserved itself with difficulty for half a century, hy aid from the "West against its numerous enemies ; the greater A.D. 12G1. . . part of it then returned to Michael Palseologus, a descendant of the ancient imperial family, who had estahlished an iudependent government in Nicrea. § 225. This crusade, however, was without results as far as Jerusa- lem was concerned, and as the Latin kingdom besides, drew away the strength from the Holy Land, the latter soon fell into distress. The separate hands, that without leaders and without system, from time to time ventured upon this hazardous undertaking, brought as little assistance to the closely-pressed kingdom as did the fanatical enthu- siasm that impelled crowds of children to assume the cross. Nearly 20,000 children left then paternal homes for the purpose of reaching the holy sepulchre, but either perished by hunger and exhaustion, or were sold for slaves by rapacious mer- chants and pirates. The expedition to Egypt, undertaken by Andrew of Hungary and other princes, was also unproductive of any per- manent result. With such examples before him, the excommunicated emperor, Frederick II., undertook the fifth ckusade, at a time when the sultan of Egypt was engaged in a war with the governor of Damascus, respecting the possession of Syria and Palestine. But the pope was indignant with the excommunicated man, and forbade all Christian warriors to support his undertaking ; and when Frederick nevertheless succeeded, by dexterously availing himself of circumstances, in bringing the sultan to a a.d. 1229. . treaty, by which Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth, together with their territories and the whole of the sea-coast between Joppa and Sidon were ceded to the Christians, the pope fulminated an excommunication against the city and the holy sepulchre, so that Frederick II. was obliged to place the crown of Jerusalem on his oWn head, without either a mass or the consecration of the Church. Hated and betrayed by the Christian knights and priests in Jeru- salem, Frederick, with shattered health, retired from the holy land. Fourteen years afterwards, the Carismians, a savage Eastern race, poured themselves into Palestine, carrying death and destruction in their train. They took Jerusalem, destroyed the holy sepulchre, and tore the bones of the kings from their graves. The flower of the Christian chivalrv fell at Gaza beneath then blows. Acre A D 1^44 and a few other towns on the coast was all that remained to the Christians. § 226. Upon receipt of this intelligence, Louis IX. (the Saint), of France, with many of his nobles, took the cross and sailed by Cyprus to Egypt. The strong frontier town of Damietta fell into the hands THE CRUSADES. 149 of the Franks, but when they proceeded up the Nile to attack Cairo, the army was enclosed between the canals and an arm of the river, whilst the fleet was destroyed by the Greek fire. After the king's brother and the bravest knights had fallen, Louis and the remainder of the army were taken prisoners, and he was compelled to ransom himself and a portion of his followers by the payment of a large sum of money and the surrender of the conquered towns. In the mean- while, the government of Egypt had fallen into the hands of the warlike Mamelukes, the former slaves of the Curds. Six- teen years after his return, Louis again undertook another crusade, which however he first directed against the piratical Sara- cens at Tunis in Northern Africa, partly to compel them to pay tribute, and partly with a hope of introducing Christianity amongst them. He had already laid siege to their principal city, when the unusual heat produced an infectious disease which hurried the king himself and many of his warriors into the grave. The French leaders concluded a hasty treaty with the Saracens, and returned home. The feeble remains of the kingdom of Jerusalem were more and more threatened by the warlike Mamelukes. When Antioch fell into their hands, and Acre or Ptolemais was stormed after an heroic defence, the Frank Christians that were still alive volun- A.D. 1291. tarily retired from Syria, that for the last two hundred years had been drenched by the blood of so many millions. § 227. The consequences of the crusades were of vast importance to the progress of the European races. — 1. Cultivation of mind was forwarded by them, inasmuch as an acquaintance with foreign lands and nations enlarged the hitherto contracted sphere of human know- ledge, gave men an insight into the sciences and arts of other people, and enlightened their minds with regard to the world and human relations. — 2. They ennobled the knightly class by furnishing a more elevated aim to their efforts, and gave occasion for the establishment of fresh orders, who presented a model of chivalry, and were supposed to combine all the knightly virtues. Of these orders, those which most distinguished themselves were the knights of St. John (Hos- pitallers), the Templars, and the Teutonic knights. They combined the spirit of the knight and the monk ; for, in addition to the three conventual vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, they joined a fourth, war to the infidels, and protection to pilgrims. a.) The order of St. John was divided into three classes : serving brothers, who were devoted to the care of sick pilgrims; priests, who ministered to the affairs of religion; and knights, who fought with the infidels and escorted pilgrims. After the loss of the Holy Land, they obtained the island of Rhodes, and when they were compelled after a most desperate resistance to relinquish this to the Otto- a d 1522 mans, the island of Malta was presented to them by the 150 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. emperor Charles V. — 1>.) The Templars acquired vast wealth by donations and legacies. After the loss of their possessions in Pales- tine, the greater number of their members returned to France, where they gave themselves up to infidelity and a life of voluptuousness, which finally occasioned the dissolution of their order (§ 256). The order of Teutonic knights is less renowned for its deeds in Palestine than its services in the civilization of the countries on the shores of the Baltic. Summoned to defend the germs of Christianity against the heathen Prussians on the banks of the Vistula, the order, after many bloody encounters, succeeded in converting the lands between the Vistula and the Niemen to Christianity, and introducing the German manners, language, and cidtivation. The cities of Culm, Thorn, Elbing, Conigsburg, and others, arose under the influence of the active traders of Bremen and Lubeck. Bishoprics and churches were founded; the woods were cleared and converted into arable land, G-erman industry and Grerman civilization produced a complete transformation ; but the ancient freedom of the people was destroyed. The knights of the order (who since 1309 had had their residence in Marienburg) conducted the government, the peasantry sunk into the condition of serfs. About the time of the first crusade, the Mohammedan prophet, Hassan, formed the fanatical sect of the Assassins, who dwelt in the ancient Parthia and the mountainous heights of Syria, and were remarkable for the entire renunciation of their own wills. They obeyed the commands of their chief, " the old man of the mountain," with the blindest devotion, executed with subtlety and courage every murderous deed that was entrusted to them, made a jest of the torture when seized, and were the terror of both Turks and Christians. § 228. — 3. The crusades gave rise to a free peasantry, inasmuch, as by means of them many serfs attained then liberty, and raised and extended the power and importance of the burgher class and of the towns ; whilst a nearer acquaintance with foreign lands and foreign productions, gave an impulse to trade, developed commerce, and pro- duced prosperity. — 4. They increased the power and the authority of the clergy, multiplied the riches of the church (the clergy and the monasteries got possession of vast estates during the crusades, either by legacies and donations, or by purchase), and exalted the zeal for religion into a gloomy fanaticism. The latter quality was frightfully displayed in the persecution of the Waldenses and Albigenses, a reli- gious sect who were desirous of restoring the apostolical simplicity of the church and clergy. Provence and Languedoc in the South of Prance, where, under a beautiful and serene sky, a prosperous race of burghers had developed themselves with their free institutions, where the cheerful Provencal poetry of the troubadours had indulged its THE HOHENSTAUFENS. 151 petulant and satirical humour at the expense of priests and bishops, was the residence of these Albigenses (so called from the city Alby) . Against these men and their protector, Bahnond VI. of Toulouse, Innocent III. ordered the cross to be preached by the Cistercian monks. Hereupon, bands of savage warriors, with some fanatical monks bearing the cross before them, marched into the blooming land, destroyed the rich cities, towns, and villages, slaugh- tered the innocent with the guilty, lighted up the flames of death, and filled the whole country with murder, plunder, and desolation. Bahnond for a long time resisted his enemies ; but when Louis VIII., excited by an ignoble cupidity for extending his possessions, under- took the war against the heretics, the count submitted himself, and concluded a peace by which he surrendered the greater part of his territories to Prance. But a desolating war of twenty years had destroyed the beautiful culture of the South of France, turned the land into a wilderness, and silenced for ever the cheerful song of the troubadour. A few years afterwards, the gallant peasant republic of the Stedingers was visited in a similar manner by a war of exter- mination, at the instance of the bishops of Bremen and Batsburgh. 2. THE HOHENSTAUFENS (A.D. 1138 1154). § 229. Upon the death of the emperor Lothaire (§ 216), on his return from Italy, his son-in-law, Henry the Proud, believed himself to possess the nearest claims to the throne. But the great power of the house of Welf, who held Bavaria and Saxony, and whose posses- sions extended from the Mediterranean to the Baltic, together with the arrogance of the haughty duke, induced many of the princes assembled at the imperial diet at Coblentz, to elect Conrad of Hohen- staufen. But Henry hesitated to recognise the election, and refused Conrad III. tne required homage. Upon this, Conrad pronounced the a.d. 1138— ban of the empire against him, and declared the forfeiture 1152- of both his dukedoms. This occasioned a renewal of hostilities between the houses of Hohenstaufen and Welf, and a desolating civil war. It was at the siege of Weinsberg, an hereditary possession of the Welfs, that the war cries, "Hurrah for Welf!" " Hurrah for Waibling ! " which gave rise to the party names, Welfs and "Waibhngs (Italice, Guelfs and Grhibellines), were first heard. The citadel was obliged to surrender to the emperor, but the garrison was preserved by the wit and fidelity of the women. The war con- tinued till the death of Henry the Proud. It was only when his son Henry the Lion received back his paternal inheritance, and the two dukedoms of Bavaria and Saxony, that a complete reconciliation was, for a time, effected. Conrad was a brave and good man; but his war against the "Welfs, and the second crusade in which he engaged, prevented his being of 152 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. any great service to Germany. A short time before his death, he exerted his influence with the princes to procure the election of his high-spirited and energetic nephew, Frederick Barbarossa (Red- beard), who was esteemed the flower of chivalry, and with whose qualities Conrad had made acquaintance during the crusade. This great emperor, Frederick I., gave peace and order to Barbarossa the empire within, and respect and security without. a.d. 1152 — The genius for government displayed by this powerful man, who combined severity with justice, awakened every where respect and obedience. § 230. Frederick found the hardest conflict in Italy, to which country he made six expeditions. The Lombard towns, and the haughty Milan in particular, entertained the project of erecting their temtories into small republics. Inspired by patriotism and a love of freedom, they formed an effective burgher militia, and attempted to rid themselves of the imperial authority. This refractory spirit dis- played itself even during Frederick's first campaign, when, in accord- ance with a long-established custom, he held a review of his troops in the plains near Piacenza, and required the princes and cities of Upper Italy to do him homage. He coidd not indeed at this time coerce the powerful Milan, but he sought to terrify her by the destruction of some smaller towns, before he had himself invested with the Lombard crown in Pavia, and the imperial crown in Pome. He only obtained the latter by giving up Arnold of Brescia. This remarkable man wished to bring back the church to its apostolic simplicity. In furtherance of this project, he denounced the worldly possessions and the arrogance of the clergy, and affirmed that the temporal authority of the head of the church was an infringement on the Holy Scriptures. Inflamed by these discourses, the Romans renounced their obedience to the pope, and set up a republic in imitation of the ancient govern- ment. But when the bold preacher of this reformation was delivered up to the pope and burnt before the gates of the city, the courage of the Romans was subdued. They consented to the abolishing of the new institutions, and again submitted to the power of the pope. § 231. After Frederick's departure, the Milanese persisted in their defiance, and destroyed several cities that adhered to the emperor (for example, Lodi). Upon this, Frederick undertook a second expedition, had his sovereign rights (regalia) de- termined by jurists according to the code of Justinian (§ 186), and when Milan refused to submit to the decision, uttered the ban against the refractory city. A fierce war was at length decided in favour of the emperor. Milan was obliged to surrender, after a siege of three years and a half. After the carriage (carroccio) that supported the chief banner of the city had been broken to pieces, and the citizens had humbled themselves before the conqueror, the THE HOHENSTAUFENS. 153 walls and houses were levelled with the earth, and the inhabitants were compelled to settle themselves in four widely separated points of their territory. Terrified at this result, the remainder of the Lom- bard towns submitted themselves, and received the imperial legates (podesta) within then walls. A short time after, Frederick engaged in a violent quarrel with the obstinate pope, Alexander III. The angry priest fulminated an excommunication against the emperor, and united himself with the Lombard cities, which were exasperated with the tyranny of the imperial legate. Under the guidance of the pope, a confederation of Lombard cities was rapidly formed, which was joined by Milan, which had again recovered itself, and by almost all the city communities of Upper Italy. The confederation built the strong city of Alexandria, which was named after the pope, in defiance of the emperor, and defended itself with courage and success against all the attacks of Frederick ; so that the latter, having lost many of his soldiers by the summer fever, and being busied with the affairs of Germany, was obliged to leave Italy for a long time undisturbed. § 232. At length Frederick again crossed the Alps with a vast army, but was detained so long by the siege of Alexandria, that he feared to lose all the fruits of his campaign, and resolved, against the advice of his friends, upon hazarding a battle. But Henry the Lion deserted the emperor in the hour of danger ; he refused his as- sistance, though Frederick implored it at his feet at the lake of Como ; and thus brought about the defeat of the Germans at the battle of Legnano, where the Milanese, united together for the defence of the car which bore the ensign (the legion of A.D. 1176. . O V t> death), performed prodigies of valour. The emperor him- self was missing for some days. But so great was the respect for Frederick's heroism, that the pope and Lombard confederation willingly accepted his proffer of peace. At a meeting in Yenice, a truce of six years, which proved the foundation of the peace of Constance, was arranged between the belligerent parties. Alexander was acknowledged as the lawful head of the church, Frederick was released from the anathema, and the confederate towns were required to do homage, and admit the emperor's rights as sovereign. Imperial legates were to fill the chief offices of justice, and the imperial troops were to be supported by the towns during their marches through them. Before Frederick quitted Italy, he married his eldest son, Henry, to Constantia, the heiress of the Norman kingdom in Naples and Sicily. § 233. Henry the Lion was much alarmed when the news of Frederick's reconciliation with the pope became known in Germany. He had extended his rule over the Slavonic tribes in Pomerania and Mecklenburg; had made war npon the Frislanders on the Baltic, 1 51 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. and the peasant republic of the Ditmarsens, in Holstein ; and had got possession of a large kingdom. He had established mines in the Harz mountains ; he had founded cities and bishopricks (Lubeck, Munich, Ratzeburg), and attracted settlers from the Netherlands. But his ambition and acts of violence against princes and clergy, were not less known than his great feats in war, so that the brazen lion that he erected before the citadel of his chief city, Brunswick, might be regarded as an emblem of his rapacity, as well as of his strength. The complaints, accordingly, that arose on all sides against Henry, upon the emperor's return, gave the latter the opportunity he so much wished for, of summoning him before the supreme court of the empire ; and upou his neglect of the repeated summons, of pro- nouncing against him the ban of the empire, and de- priving him of his two dukedoms, Bavaria and Saxony. The former devolved to the Wittelsbachs, who were devoted to the Hohenstaufens, and who afterwards received the palatinate of the Rhine; and Saxony was shared between Bernhard of Anhalt, son of Albert the Bear, and the neighbouring bishops and princes. But the Lion could only be subdued after a destructive war. For two years he withstood all his enemies. It was not until Frederick himself took the field against him, that he humbled himself before his great adversary, prostrated himself at his feet at Erfurt, and retired into three years' banishment in England. He nevertheless retained for himself and family his hereditary possessions of Brunswick and Luneburg. After Frederick had subdued all his enemies, he under- took the third crusade, that he might finish his heroic course in the same manner that he had commenced it. From this expedition he never returned ; he found his death in the distant East. But he hives still in the legends of his people, in which the restoration of the ancient strength and greatness of the G-erman empire is connected with his return. Henr VI § ^34. Frederick's son, Henry VI., was an avaricious a.d. 1190— and cruel prince, who resided more in Italy than in Ger- 1197- many. After the death of the last Norman king, he wished to take possession of Naples and Sicily, the inheritance of his wife, Constantia. But the nobility, who were afraid of Henry's ambition and avarice, opposed this project, and attempted to place one of the native nobles, the brave Tancred, on the throne. It was not until Henry had ecpiipped fresh armaments with the ransom of the English king (§ 223), that he succeeded, with the assistance of the crusaders of Northern Germany and Thuringia, whom he enticed by a promise of a free passage to Lower Italy, in subduing his enemies, and in getting possession of Naples and Palermo. The revenge of the angry ruler was frightful. The prisons were filled with nobles and bishops, some of whom were deprived of THE HOHENSTAUFENS. 155 their eyes and empaled, while others were burnt, or buried alive in the earth. The plunder was conveyed hy heavily-laden pack-horses to the Hohenstaufen castles. Henry died suddenly a few years afterwards, at the age of thirty-two, leaving behind hhn a son of two years of age, who was entrusted to the guardianship of the highly- accomplished pope, Innocent III. The adherents of the Hohenstau- fens elected Philip of Swabia, brother of Henry VI., to be emperor, whilst the Welf faction proclaimed Otto IV., second son of Henry the Lion : the former was acknowledged in the south, the latter in the north. The consequence of this division was a ten years' war, during which the greatest lawlessness and violence prevailed, and such devastations were committed, that sixteen cathedrals and 350 parishes with churches were burnt to the ground. Even after Philip had been murdered at Bamberg, from motives of private revenge, by the hasty Palgrave, Otto of Wittelsbach, peace did not return for any length of time. For now a quarrel broke out between the emperor Otto IV. and pope Innocent III. § 235. Innocent III., a politic prince, endowed with unusual talents for government, gave the papacy its highest power by estab- lishing the principle, that the church was superior to the state, and its spiritual head superior to any temporal ruler ; so that all the princes of the world were bound to consider the pope as their liege lord and arbiter. He at the same time laid the foundation of an ecclesiastical state, by getting all previous donations confirmed by Otto, and inducing him to renounce all the imperial feudal rights over Eome and the central provinces of Italy. But when the em- peror at length attempted to set some limits to the am- bition of the pontiff, the latter excommunicated him, and sent the young Frederick into Germany, to stir up afresh the war between the Gruelfs and the Ghibellines. The Ghibelline party gladly united themselves to the handsome and promising youth, so that Frederick II. of Hohenstaufen was universally ac- knowledged emperor, even before Otto IV.'s death. Otto IV. died at Brunswick in the year 1218. But a powerful Frederick II °PP onen t °f the head of the church arose in the free- a.d. 1218— ' thinking Frederick II, who had been educated in the 125 °- wisdom of the Arabians, and who entertained a favourable feeling towards the professors of Islam, and the Oriental mode of life ; so that his reign presents a continual contest between the imperial power and the papacy. Frederick's position, as king of Upper and Lower Italy, threatened no less danger to the temporal power of the pope, than his sceptical turn of mind to the authority of the church. It was for this reason, that Innocent and his successors laboured to separate the government of Naples and Sicily from the imperial office. § 236. As Frederick for a long time refused to undertake the 156 TIIE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. promised crusade (§ 225), he was first excommunicated by Gregory IX., and when he proceeded to the Holy Land in the following year, without being released from the curse, the pope became more angry than ever, and not only paralyzed all the emperor's undertakings in Palestine, but commanded his territories in Lower Italy to be at- tacked by soldiers, who were distinguished by the badge of the keys of St. Peter. This hastened Frederick's return. He repulsed the papist troops, and approached the frontiers of the ecclesiastical terri- tories, upon which Gregory consented to a peace, and the removal of the excommunication. After this, Frederick devoted his whole attention to the internal well-being of his kingdom. He restrained the increasing feuds and depredations of the knights in Germany; he gave the inhabitants of Lower Italy a new code of laws ; he encou- raged trade, industry, and poetry. But when he attempted to compel the inhabitants of the Lombard towns to fulfil the conditions of the peace of Constance (§ 232), and to discharge the regalian rights that pei'tained to him as emperor, a furious war broke out. Frederick, in conjunction with the Ghibellmes, under the inhuman tyrant Ezzebno, in Verona, and supported by his trusty Saracens, whom he had settled in Lower Italy, overcame the united army of the Lombards, and reduced most of the towns to submission. But when he pursued his conquest with severity, threatened the Milanese with a fate similar to that which they had experienced from Frederick Barbarossa (§ 231), and presented his natural son, the brave and handsome Enzio, Avith the kingdom of Sardinia, the aged prince of the church again renewed his excommunication, joined the Lombards, and attempted to raise up enemies on every side against the emperor, whom he accused of infidelity and contempt for religion. Frederick retorted these accusations in some violent written replies, and repaid invective with invective, but the church carried off the victory. § 237. When Gregory IX. at the age of nearly a hundred years, at length sunk into the grave, Frederick's position seemed to become more favourable. But the pope's suc- cessor, the resolute Innocent IV., trod the same path. For the pur- pose of being free from restraint, he left Italy, and called a solemn council of the church, at Lyons. Without listening to Frederick's defence, Innocent here renewed the sentence of excommunication against the emperor in the severest form. He denounced him as a blasphemer of God, a secret Mohammedan, and an enemy of the church ; declared him to have forfeited his kingdom, released all his subjects from their oath of allegiance, and threatened his adherents with the ban of the church. Upon this, the war broke out afresh in every country. The popish party succeeded in Germany in carrying the election of a rival emperor, Henry liaspe, of Thuringia, and when, after the unfortunate engagement at Ulm, THE HOHENSTAUFENS. 157 against Frederick's son, Conrad, Henry died powerless and forsaken in the castle of Wartburg, the young count, "William of Holland, allowed himself to be persuaded to assume the title of emperor. But the imperial towns and most of the secular princes sided with Conrad. § 238. In the mean time, the war between G-uelfs and GThibellines raged furiously in Italy. The fiery temperament of the revengeful southerns occasioned deeds of unheard-of atrocity : family was arrayed against family, city against city ; neither age nor condition refrained from the combat. Ezzelino, the leader of the Ghibelline nobility, perpetrated the most monstrous cruelties in his attacks upon the Guelf cities, till at length he met with the punishment he deserved in the prison of Milan. Frederick for a long time maintained his lofty attitude ; the num- ber of his foes only increased his courage. But when his son, Enzio, fell into the hands of the Bolognese, who kept the fair-haired king for twenty years in confinement ; when his chancellor, Peter of Vinea, suffered himself to be gained by the opposite party, and then either from fear or remorse deprived himself of life in prison, — his heart at length broke. He died in his fifty-sixth year, in the arms of his best beloved son, Manfred, in Lower Italy. Frederick II. united great cultivation of mind and aptitude for science and poety, with courage, heroism, and beauty of person. Surrounded by pomp, luxury, and pleasures of all descriptions, he had every pretension to happiness, had not his sceptical spirit resisted the church, and had he only learnt to moderate his desires and bridle his passions. § 239. Upon the news of Frederick's death, Innocent IV. returned in triumph to Borne. He declared Naples and Sicily to be lapsed fiefs of the chair of St. Peter, and excommunicated Conrad IV. and Manfred, who wished to take possession of their paternal inheritance. Conrad soon sunk into an early grave ; but his chivalrous half-brother, Manfred, defended Lower Italy with his German and Saracen troops with such courage and success, that the greater part of the towns tendered their allegiance, and the Guelfic troops were obliged to retreat into the ecclesiastical states. Distress at this hastened the death of Innocent IV. His successor, Urban IV., pursued however the same path. Determined to deprive the Hohenstaufens of Naples and Sicily at any price, he offered this beautiful kingdom, as a papal fief, to the energetic but despotic Charles of Anjou, brother of the French king, Louis IX., under condition that he should conquer it by G-uelfic assistance and with French troops, and should pay a yearly tribute to the Boman court. Manfred valiantly resisted his insolent rival. But when the battle of Beneventum was a.d. 1260. deeded against him by Italian treachery, he plunged into the thickest of the enemy and died the death of a hero. A 158 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. simple grave, to which, every soldier contributed a stone, inclosed his remains. § 210. After the battle of Beneventum, the power of the Ghibel- lines was broken ; Naples and Sicily fell into the hands of the stern victor, who made the unfortunate land feel all the miseries of con- quest. The adherents of the Hohenstaufens were punished with death, imprisonment, and banishment ; then possessions were divided among the French and Guelfic soldiers. Upon this, the oppressed people called Conrad IV. 's youngest son, Conradine, from Germany into Italy. Conradine, in whose bosom dwelt the lofty spirit and heroic courage of his ancestors, left his home for the purpose of again conquering the inheritance of the Hohenstaufens, with the assistance of his youthful friend, Frederick of Baden, and a few faithful adhe- rents. Received with rejoicing by the Ghibellines, he marched vic- toriously through Upper and Middle Italy, put the pope to flight, and crossed the frontiers of Naples. The battle at Scurcola ter- minated in his favour ; but his over-hasty advance threw the victory into the hands of the enemy, who were watching in ambuscade. His troops were either killed or dispersed ; he himself, betrayed into the hands of his rival, Charles of Anjou, was beheaded at Naples, along with his bosom friend, Frederick. Thus sank the last scion of a glorious race of heroes, robbed of his honour, into an early grave. The still remaining members of the house of Hohenstaufen also experienced a cruel fate. King Enzio died in prison in Bologna (§ 236). The ruthless Charles allowed the sons of Manfred to pine in prison till they died ; and Margaret, the daughter of Frederick II., was ill-treated and threatened with death by her husband, Albert of Thuringia, called the Uncourteous, so that she fled by night from the castle of Wartburg. In her agony at her separation from her two sons, she bit one of them in the cheek whilst embracing him, so that he retained the mark and the surname of "the Bitten." After Conradine's death, Charles proceeded with cruelty and severity against all his adherents. Upon this, John of Procida, a Ghibelline, who had been deprived of his property, swore vengeance against the tyrant. By his influence, all the French were killed by the Sici- lians, on the so-called Sicilian vespers, and the island was given up to Manfred's valiant son-in-law, Peter of Ara- gon, by whose assistance, the inhabitants successfully repelled all the attacks of Charles, and established an independent kingdom. Peter's second son, Frederick, was the first king of Sicily. 3. GENEKAL VIEW OE THE MIDDLE AGES. § 241. The relations which obtained during the middle ages origi- nated from a mingling together of Roman and Germanic institutions, GENERAL VIEW OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 159 and were based upon the greater or less amount of personal freedom or the want of it. These intricate relations are included under the general term of " feudal system." After the conquest of the depopulated Roman provinces, the land was generally- divided into three portions : the king took one ; another he divided among his companions in the war, as their free property (allodium), under the condition of military service ; the third was left to the original inhabitants, upon the payment of a tax. "But for the purpose of binding the freemen more closely to the throne, the king granted por- tions of his own lands to a part of them for life. This was called a fief ; the giver was the liege-lord, the receiver was called liege-man, or vassal. In the same way, rich freemen enfeoffed those who were less wealthy with portions of their estates, and even of their fiefs (sub-infeudation), and thus obtained liegemen or vassals of their own. Bishops and abbots also gave fiefs to knights, subject to the condition of defending the convent and supplying the required contingent of troops to the arriere-ban. These relations, founded upon mutual good faith, con- stituted a chain that bound the men of the middle ages in a variety of ways, and proved a grievous hindrance to the freedom of person and property. The vassals of the crown or empire gradually obtained possession of their fiefs as hereditary estates, and by this means became so powerful, that they opposed the king as his equal; the rich proprietors deprived the less wealthy of their lands, so that in their capacity of free landlords (barons), they belonged to the class of nobles, whilst the free holders of small estates were degraded to the condition of dependents, and cultivated their former possessions as hereditary tenants. The number of serfs, who were looked upon as belonging to the land, and surrendered as slaves without rights to the arbitrary will of their masters, was still very great. All who were in the position of dependents or serfs, were under certain obligations to the landowner, in the shape either of tithes or rent on their produce of fruit, wine, or cattle, or of contributions of money upon stated occasions, or of unpaid labour (socage duties). These taxes and duties, under the name of "feudal burdens," became more numerous and oppressive with time. § 242. Men were divided in the middle ages, according to their callings, into three classes, warriors, teachers, and producers : — 1. The warrior class embraced the nobility and the knights with their vassals and followers. The rank of knight depended upon being descended from a knightly family, and the knightly education as page or squire, during which, the spurs were to be earned by some feat of arms, before the candidate could be received into the fellowship by the accolade. The great end of knighthood was war, sometimes for the purpose of displaying strength or acquiring honour ; sometimes to defend religion and its ministers, the church and the clergy ; and 160 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. sometimes to protect women, as the weaker sex. That respect for women which is the peculiar distinction of the German character, produced the devotion to the fair sex and the services of gallantry which were the soid of the chivalry and poetry of the middle ages. Knightly games or tournaments, in which the prize was presented to the victor by a maiden of noble condition, served to preserve and invigorate the spirit of chivalry ; and that no unqualified person might surreptitiously introduce himself under cover of his armour, coats of arms were introduced as symbols of names and families. § 24-3. — 2. The teacher class included the whole of the clergy ; not only the manifold grades of the priesthood, but also the monks. In exclusive possession of the learning of the time, and invested with the power of deciding the salvation of men's souls, the clergy acquired vast authority over the ignorant and superstitious people of the middle ages. The head of the church, the pope, assumed the command over all temporal princes and kingdoms, and regarded the imperial crown as his fief; the superior clergy, besides their ecclesiastical dignities, were frequently in possession of the most influential offices of the state, and the greater number of the archbishoprics, bishoprics, and abbacies, gradually acquired great possessions, so as to be raised to an equality with principalities. Magnificent cathedrals, adorned with all the productions of art, gave evidence of the greatness of the episcopal residences. A luxurious life in splendidly ornamented houses seemed the chief privilege of the superior clergy. The episcopal power, which at first was very con- siderable, was jDerpetually curtailed by the Roman Consistory. The investiture of bishops, which had originally been in the hands of the prince, was gradually claimed as the exclusive privilege of the Eoman court ; the spiritual jurisdiction of the rural bishops was more and more abridged, whilst the papal court of judicature in Rome decided all important questions before its own tribunal, and withdrew many cloisters and abbeys from the episcopal authority, and placed them under its own immediate jurisdiction. Vast sums were obliged to be paid for all appointments, decisions, and dispensations, by Avhich means much money poured into Rome. For the purpose of keeping a watchful eye upon the affairs of the whole church, and managing every thing from Rome, papal legates were constantly traversing the different kingdoms. By these means, the papal power became un- limited, and the higher it rose, the less did any one dare to raise his voice against it. Every opposer of the existing ecclesiastical institu- tions was regarded as an enemy of the church, and the audacious offenders were threatened with the most fearful punishments of the church in their triple gradation, — excommunication, which affected only the individual ; the interdict, which was pronounced over whole countries, and forbade the exercise of every religious and ecclesiastical GENERAL VIEW OF THE MIDDLE AGE. 161 function ; and a crusade (kreuzzug) with the inquisition, by which whole provinces were given up to utter destruction. This power of the papacy was especially promoted, first, by the spurious Isidorian decretals, a collection of ecclesiastical laws and decisions, which, pro- fessedly belonging to the first four centuries, were in reality most of them produced in the ninth, and which give the whole legislative and judiciary authority of the Church to the pope ; secondly, by the rapid increase of the monks, of the ecclesiastical orders, and of convents ; thirdly, by the learned men of the middle ages, called schoolmen. § 244. Monachism took its rise in the East, where a solitary and contemplative life devoted to the consideration of divine subjects, had always been considered more meritorious than active exertion. This calling was gradually adopted by so many, that at the end of the third century, the Egyptian Antonius, who had cast away his vast possessions and chosen the desert for his residence, collected together the hitherto dispersed anchorites (mo- nachi) into fenced places (monasteria, coenobia, claustra, cloisters), that they might live together in fellowship ; and his disciple, Pacho- mius, gave the brotherhood a ride. Monachism soon extended to the "West. In the sixth century, Benedict of Nursia established the first monastry on Mount Casino, in Lower Italy, and became by this means the founder of the widely-spread order of Benedictines, which rapidly extended itself among all nations, and built many convents. These monasteries, erected for the most part in beautiful and remote situations, and the inhabitants of which were obliged to take the three vows of chastity (celibacy), personal poverty, and obedience, proved, in those days of lawlessness and barbarism, a blessing to mankind. They converted heaths and forests into flourishing farms ; they afforded a place of refuge (asylum) to .the persecuted and oppressed ; they ennobled the rude minds of men by the preaching of the Gospel ; they planted the seeds of morality and civilization in the bosoms of the young by their schools for education ; and they pre- served the remains of ancient literature and philosophy from utter destruction. Many of the Benedictine monasteries were the nurseries of education, the arts, and the sciences, as St. Gallen, Fulda, Reiche- nau, and Corvey (in Westphalia), and many others. When the Benedicthie orders grew relaxed, the monastery of Clugny, in Bur- gundy, separated itself from them in the tenth century, and intro- duced a more rigid discipline. In the twelfth century the monks of Clugny numbered upwards of 2000 cloisters. But this order also soon proved insufficient to satisfy the strong demands of the middle age against the allurements of sin and the seductions of the flesh ; so that at the end of the eleventh century the Cistercians, and a few decades later, the order of Premonstrants sprang up ; the former in Burgundy (Citeaux), the latter in a woody country near Laon (Pre- M 1G2 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. montre). The order of Carthusians, founded about the year 1084, which commenced with a cloister of anchorites (Carthusia, Chartreuse) in a rugged valley near Grrenoble, was the most austere in its practice. A life of solitude and silence in a cell, a spare and meagre diet, a penitential garment of hair, flagellations, and the rigid practice of devotional exercises, were duties imposed upon every member of this fraternity. § 245. The establishment of the so-called mendicant orders, in the Franciscans thirteenth century, was remarkably productive of results, and Domini- Francis of Assisi (a.d. 1226), the son of a rich merchant, renounced all his possessions, clothed himself in rags, and wandered through the world begging and preaching repentance. His fiery zeal procured him disciples who, like himself, renounced their worldly possessions, fasted, prayed, tore their backs with scourges, and supplied their slender wants from voluntary alms and donations. The order of Franciscans or Minorites, founded by him, spread them- selves rapidly through all countries. Contemporaneously with the Franciscans, who in process of time divided into numerous branches, arose the order of Dominicans or preaching monks, founded by an illustrious and learned Spaniard, Dominicus, and whose dearest objects were the maintenance of the predominant faith in its purity, and the extinction of heretical opinions. The conversion of the Albi- genses (§ 228), among whom their founder had resided for a con- siderable time, was the first attempt of the order, the members of which took a vow of entire poverty, and endeavoured to win heaven by austerity and the practice of a rigid devotion. It was for these reasons that the court of inquisition, with its frightful examinations, dungeons, and tortures, was committed to them. The mendicant orders were the most powerful support of the pope, by whom they were consequently endowed with the greatest privileges, and with- drawn from the jurisdiction of the bishops. The Franciscans pos- sessed the hearts of the people, with whose joys and sorrows they sympathized, and were principally occupied in the cure of souls : the Dominicans devoted themselves to the sciences, gradually filled the chairs of the universities, and numbered mauy of the greatest teachers of the Church among their members. § 246. — 3. To the productive class belonged the inhabitants of the towns and country who were engaged in the occupations of peace. The peasantry, who were for the most part in a condition of serfdom, and took no share in public life, were at first exclusively understood by this title. But when the number of the towns was increased by the efforts of the emperors of the Saxon and Hohenstaufen lines, aud many of the inhabitants of the country settled in them, the third class divided itself into citizens and peasants, and obtained various privileges and liberties. These towns were distinguished as imperial towns, which GENERAL VIEW OF THE MIDDLE AGE. \Q% were under the immediate control of the emperor, and represented in the imperial diet ; — and provincial towns, which belonged to the terri- tory of a prince. The former were the most ancient as well as the richest and most powerful, and it was in them that the town policy of the middle ages was developed. The inhabitants originally con- sisted, as in ancient Rome, of free patrician families, and a tributary and dependent class employed in trade and agriculture, who as tenants and inferior burghers, possessed no share in the privileges of the citizens. It was from the former that the mayor (scoff enrath) was chosen. After a time, the inferior burghers succeeded in gaining the ascendancy over the patrician families. With this object, the artificers formed themselves into guilds and corporations, by which means a public spirit was awakened, and the inferior class of citizens rendered more powerful. These guilds, whose strength consisted in the stout arms of their members, soon attained such power, that they not only every where obtained the rights of citizenship, and a share in the government of the city, but in very many towns the rule of the patricians was thrust aside by the power of the guilds. The guilds marched into the field with their own banners, under the con- duct of the guild-master, and defended their liberties without, as they had known how to gain and maintain them within. § 247. The literature of the middle ages was of a threefold character : — 1. Writings on religion and the Church ; the most important of which were composed by the schoolmen and the mystics. By schoolmen, are to be understood those philosophical writers who made the doctrines and dogmas of the Church the objects of their speculation and inquiry. In doing this, they employed the rules of the Aristotelian dialectics, and invented a number of formu- laries and scholastic terms (terminologies), and descended at length to trifling subtleties and frivolous definitions and demonstrations. The schoolmen produced works in which we hardly know whether most to admire the acuteness displayed in the divisions of the subject, and in the development and connexion of the conclusions, or the diligence, the learning, and the wonderful power of applica- tion. In the thirteenth century, scholasticism attained its highest perfection in the persons of the Dominican, Thomas Aquinas, and the Franciscan, Duns Scotus ; so that from this period, the scholastics were all divided into Thomists and Scotists. Men of warm feelings and sensitive natures were not content with the dry logic of these schoolmen, they opposed therefore a religion of feeling, of poetry, and of imagination, to their Christianity built upon philosophical rules and forms of reasoning. This was first done by St. Bernhard of Clairvaux (§ 222), and by the noble Bonaventura (a.d. 1274) ; but in the most comprehensive way by the mystics. These latter imitated M 2 164 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. the necessitous life of Christ, and sought to overcome the wickedness of the world by the castigation of the body and the mortification of the fleshly appetites, and strove to effect a spiritual union between themselves and God. Mysticism has had a powerful influence both upon life and literature ; and although the inculcation of meekness and self-humiliation paralyzed active exertion, and a life devoted to the emotions and sentiments occasionally pro- duced fanaticism, yet its influence upon a race which was sunk in barbarism and stupidity was, on the whole, beneficial. The " Imita- tion of the Life of Christ" of the Dominican monk, John Tauler of Strasburg, and the "Book of Everlasting Wisdorn," of Henry Suso of Constance, were held in great esteem. The Brethren of the Com- mon Life, to whom belonged Thomas a, Kempis (a.d. 1471), the writer of the widely circulated devotional work, called the "Imitation of Christ," which has been translated into all languages, were the most active among the mystics. § 218. — 2. Not only theological and philosophical studies were, and remained in the hands of the clergy, but also mathematical and natural science and the writing of history. The Greeks and Arabians exercised the greatest influence in extending and perfecting the material sciences. It was from the Arabian schools that the western clergy drew the greatest part of their admired wisdom. Albertus Magnus, a widely travelled and much esteemed teacher, possessed such a knowledge of physics, chemistry, and similar subjects, that he was generally regarded as a sorcerer. Among the composers of Latin chronicles and annals, William of Tyrus, the historian of the crusades and the Holy Land, took the first place in France ; and Otto of Freisingen, the half-brother of the emperor Conrad III., in Germany. By the side of these learned historical compositions, there were already, at the time of the crusades, in Italy, France, and Spain, his- torical descriptions of particular periods and events, in the vernacular tongues, which, although less trustworthy than the former, are more interesting to read, and of more importance to the history of civiliza- tion. Among these may be mentioned the History of the Fourth Crusade, by Villehardouin (§ 224), Joinville's History and Chronicle of St. Louis ; and, before all, Froissart's History and Clnonicle of his own Times (a.d. 1329—1400). § 249. — 3. Whilst learned literature was cultivated by the priests exclusively, the art of poetry passed at an early period into the hands of the knights, chiefly because love (minne), and devotion to the ladies, feelings, to which the clergy, on account of their con- dition, dared not devote themselves, were the soid and essence of the latter. The poetry of the middle ages was alike, both as to its form and subject-matter, in all the nations of Europe. This was partly occasioned by the great intercourse that took place among people GENERAL VIEW OF THE MIDDLE AGE. 165 during the crusades, which facilitated the interchange of legends and poems, and partly by the great diffusion and general intelligibility of the Romance language. In Erance, Italy, Spain, and to a certain ex- tent in England, languages were then spoken which bore a strong resemblance to each other, so that the literary productions of one country could be understood without difficulty in the rest. The middle-age poetry was divided into three kinds, according to the sub- ject; — Heroic poems and heroic ballads (Epopee, Romance), where the deeds of knights, battles, adventures, and love affairs — the indis- pensable element of romantic poetry — formed the materials ; sonnets, in which the poet expressed his feelings, emotions, or thoughts, in melodious verses ; and religious poetry, in which the outpourings of devotion and religious enthusiasm, the praises of God and the Virgin, or the pious actions and histories of the saints, formed the subject. The epic poems dealt with certain cycles of legends, partly derived from the ancient world, as the Alexandriad of the priest Lamprecht, and partly from the Christian period, as the romance of Charlemagne and his Paladins (for example the lay of Roland, by the priest Conrad), and the British king Arthur and his round table, with which the "Welsh legend of the Grale was afterwards connected. To the latter cycle of romance belong the two greatest epics of the middle age, the Percival of "Wolfram of Eschenbach (a.d. 1200), and the Tristran and Isolde of Gottfried of Strasburg. But the glory of German heroic poetry is the Niebelungenlied, the materials of which are derived from the migrations of nations. The lyric poets, that in Germany were called " minnesanger," and in Erance "troubadours," made the tender emotions of the heart or the feelings of love the sub- ject of their poems, or they lashed depravity of morals and the cor- ruptions of the clergy in satirical compositions called Sirventes. In Germany, the most celebrated of the minnesangers was "Walter Vogelweide, who lived at the court of Hermann of Thuringia. At that time, the castle of Wartburg, near Eisenach, in Thuringia, was the place of assembly for the greatest and most renowned sangers. But Italy could display the greatest poet of the middle ages. After the stern Ghibelline, Dante of Elorence (a.d. 1321) had moulded the poetical language of Italy in his great epic poem, " The Divine Comody," Petrarch (a.d. 1374) brought it to the highest perfection of harmony in his Odes to Laura, whilst his contemporary, Boccaccio, became the creator of Italian prose by his tales and novels (Decame- ron). Dante's sublime poem, which consists of three parts, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, contains the whole wisdom of the middle ages, the whole treasure of the then acquired science, so that it was said with truth, that heaven and earth had each pat a hand to Dante's poem. Petrarch's other works are written in Latin. He, 166 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. as 'well as Boccaccio, were mainly instrumental in the restoration of the ancient literature and civilization. V. DECAY OF CHIVALRY AND CORRUPTION OF THE CHURCH. 1. THE INTERREGNUM (1250—1273). § 250. The period after the death of [Frederick II. was a momen- tous one for Germany. The imperial title was borne by foreign princes without power or influence, whilst at home a state of disorder and lawlessness prevailed, in which the strong alone could obtain justice. After Wdliam of Holland (§ 237) had faUen in battle against the brave Frislanders, the archbishop of Cologne turned the election to the wealthy Richard of Cornwall, brother of the English king, whilst the archbishop of Treves and his party adorned Alfonso X. the "Wise of Castile with the title of emperor. The former sailed repeatedly up the Rhine laden with treasures, to satisfy the avarice of the princes who had elected him ; the latter never visited the kingdom to the government of which he had been invited. The princes and bishops employed this interregnum in enlarging their territories, and possessing themselves of privileges, whilst the knights and vassals abused their strength by waylaying and plundering. They led a wild and predatory life in their castles, which, as the ruins yet show, were budt upon the banks of navigable streams or near frequented highways ; dragged travellers into their dungeons for the purpose of extorting a heavy ransom ; plundered the wagons of the mercantile towns, and bade defiance, from behind their strong walls to the powerless laws and tribunals. Attempts were made to remedy this state of things, 1. By the secret proceedings of the Eehmgericht (secret tribunal), established by the archbishop of Cologne in Westphalia (Dortmund) ; 2. By confederations of numerous towns for the purpose of mutual defence. The most im- portant of these confederations were the Hanseatic, in Northern Germany, which included Hamburg, Lubeck, Bremen, Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, Riga, and many other trading cities ; and the confederation of the Rhine, which embraced the towns of Worms, Mayence, Spire, Strasburg, Basle, and numerous others. 2. ORIGIN OE THE POWER OF THE HOUSE OE HAPSBURG AND OE THE HELVETIC CONEEDERATION. § 251. During the interregnum, many of the princes and bishops had assumed the rights of sovereignty. To avoid losing what had been obtained, the princes to whom the right of election then chiefly belonged, and who were in consequence called electors, sought to prevent the elevation of any prince whose lands and vassals rendered DECAY OF CHIVALRY AND CORRUPTION OF THE CHURCH. 167 him formidable. At the same time, they required an energetic man who should be able to restrain the prevailing lawlessness, and to break the threatening power of Ottocar, king of Bohemia, Moravia, ■r j 1f f an d Austria. All these qualities were possessed by Count Hapsburg, Rudolf of Hapsburg, who was elected emperor by the a.d. 1273 — influence of the archbishop of Mavence, with whom he 1293 . . was then on friendly terms. His moderate hereditary estates in Alsatia, occasioned no alarm to the princes ; his courage, strength, and skill, had been long proved and acknowledged ; and what contributed especially to his election was his piety, and the in- clination he had always displayed to the church and clergy. When therefore Rudolf had assured to the pope and the GTerman princes the continuance of the privdeges and territories that they had either usurped or acquired by violence, his election was generally recog- nized, and Alfonso of Castde was induced to abdicate. Ottocar alone refused to do homage, and faded to appear at the appointed diet. Upon this, Rudolf declared war against him, marched into the enemy's territories with the aid of his Switzers and Alsatians, and that of the German princes whom he had connected to his house by marriages with his numerous daughters, and won the glorious victory on the Marchfeld. Ottocar was killed in the fight ; nothing but Bohemia and Moravia was left to his son Wenceslaus ; the remaining countries of Austria, Stiria, and Carniola, Rudolf settled on his sons, and by this means became the founder of the Austrian house of Hapsburg. § 252. As Rudolf of Hapsburg avoided all interference in the affairs of Italy, he was able to turn his undivided energies to Ger- many. He succeeded, after a succession of campaigns and battles, chiefly in Swabia, against the rapacious Eberhard of Wirteinberg, and in Burgundy, in regaining many of the fiefs, lands, privdeges, and revenues, that had been alienated from the empire. But his greatest service was his securing the peace of the country and restoring law and order. He traversed the whole empire, and caUed the robber nobdity to a severe reckoning. In Thuringia alone he had twenty- nine knights executed, and destroyed sixty castles, and reduced in a single year upwards of seventy fortresses in Franconia and on the Rhine. He died at an advanged age, at Oomersheim, during one of these expeditions, and was buried at Spire. His simplicity, virtue, and honesty, gained him no less respect than his intelligence, his im- partial justice, and his warlike achievements. He was only wanting in the poetical magnanimity of the house of Hohenstaufen. § 253, The princes, partly out of fear of the power of the Haps- burgers, and partly from dislike to Rudolf's cruel and avaricious son Albert, were induced, at the instigation of the archbishop of May- ](3S THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. Adolf of ence, to elect Count Adolf of Nassau. But he, like Nassau, a.d. Rudolf, attempted to enlarge his own small territories, 1291 1298. an( j mac "[ e use f Djq i oan ^ e ^ad rec eived from the king of England to assist him in raising German troops, in purchasing Thuringia and Misnia from Albert the Uncourteous (§ 240). This disgraceful transaction involved him in a war with Albert's son Fre- derick " with the bitten cheek," and Diezman, whom their degenerate father had attempted to deprive of their patrimony. The public dis- gust at this dishonest proceeding, and the discontent of the electoral princes of the Ehine (the Palatinate, Mayence, Treves, and Cologne), whom the emperor had deprived of the unjustly acquired tolls of the river, had aided in forming a party favourable to his opponent Albert. Albert procured the deposition of Adolf and his own election ; he then marched with his army upon the Ehine, and was victorious in ad 1^98 ^ e Da ^^ e a ^ Collheim near the Donnersberg. Adolf, hurled from his horse by the lance of his rival, found his Albert of death in the tumult. His body rests in the cathedral of Austria, a.d. Spire. Albert of Austria was an energetic but severe 1298—1308. manj w ;h 0S e inflexible disposition might be read in his gloomy and one-eyed visage. He was ambitious, and desirous of en- larging his territories ; and he therefore not only prosecuted the war against Thuringia, but attempted to gain other lands besides. Eeared and hated, Albert was at length murdered at AVmdisch on the Eeuss, by his own nephew, John of Swabia (Parricida), just as he was making preparations for the subjugation of the free Swiss. John expiated his deed in a cloister; but a fearful revenge was taken by the emperor's wife and daughter upon those who assisted in the assassi- nation (Wart, Bohn, and Eschenbach), and upon all then friends and relatives. § 254. Albert's severity was the foundation of the Helvetic con- federation. Helvetia was a component part of the GTerinan empire, and was under the protection of prefects who exercised there the highest offices of jurisdiction. This office was at first filled by the rich and powerfid dukes of Zahringen, — the founders of Bern and other states. After the extinction of this house, the counts of Savoy in the South, and the Hapsburgs in the North, elevated themselves above the other families by their power and pos- sessions. The latter, to whom the landgravate of Aargau belonged, exercised in the name of the empire the functions of protectors over the original cantons on the lake of Lucerne, Schwyz, TJri, and Unterwalden, where they held possessions. When the Hapsburgs ascended the imperial throne they attempted to bring these cantons under the sovereignty of Austria. In further- ance of this purpose, Albert gave permission to the governors (Vogte), DECAY OF CHIVALRY AND CORRUPTION OF THE CHURCH. 169 who ruled the lands of Hapsburg, to exercise the laws of the empire over the free communities and peasants, and to abuse their position by the oppression of the simple, warlike, and freedom-loving moun- taineers. Upon this, the three oldest cantons, under the guidance of "Walther Furst, Werner Stauffacher, and Arnold Melchtal, concluded an alliance on the Butli for the protection of their liberties, the results of which were that the fortresses were stormed and the gover- nors expelled, after "William Tell (as the legend goes) had killed GTesler, the most tyrannical of their number with an arrow, because he had compelled him, for some trifling disobedience, to shoot an apple from the head of his son. Albert's assassination saved the Swiss from the effects of his anger, but his plans were taken up by his son Leopold. He marched against the forest cantons with an army, but suffered a severe overthrow in the narrow pass of Morgarten. The power of the Hapsburgs declined from this period in Switzerland. By the accession of the Austrian town of Lucerne, in 1332, the whole of the shore of the lake of the four cantons fell into the power of the confederation, which was soon joined by Bern, a.d. 1339. Zurich, Zug, and many other towns. In the battle of a.d. 1351. Sempach (§ 261), the allies (like the Athenian demo- cracy at Marathon) underwent a fiery trial against the Austrian and German chivalry, and proved themselves worthy of their freedom. 3. PHILIP THE PAIR OP PRANCE AND THE EMPEROR LOUIS THE BAVARIAN. § 255. The ambitious Boniface VIII. , in whose person the papacy attained its highest glory, was the origin of its downfall. He assumed the office of umpire in a war between Philip IV. the Fair of France, and Edward I. of England ; and when Philip declined his interference, he forbade the levying of taxes upon the French ecclesiastics. Upon this, Philip prohibited the exportation of silver and gold from his kingdom, and by this means prevented the receipt of the papal revenue. The quarrel to which these proceedings gave rise, during which Boniface declared every man a heretic who did not believe that the king was subject to the pope in spiritual as well as temporal matters, and Philip by his deputies solemnly asserted the independ- ence of the throne, ended by an excommunication. Upon this, Nogaret, the chancellor of France, entered Italy, and having hired some troops, seized the pope in his native city Anagni, and held him prisoner. It is true that Boniface was rescued by the country people, who rushed to his assistance, and that he hastened to Borne; but the impression made by the disgrace upon the proud and violent man was so powerful that he went mad and died. The French party now succeeded not only in getting the excommu- nication withdrawn, but in inducing the new pope, Clement V. 170 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. (hitherto Bishop of Bordeaux), to take up his residence in Avignon in the south of France, and thus to put the papacy under the influ- ence of the French court. This separation of the head of the church from Borne, which was mourned over as a second Babylonian captivity, lasted for nearly seventy years. § 256. The dissolution of the order of the Temple (227 b) was the first consequence of the alliance between the pope and the French king. Dark reports of the blasphemous practices, of the secret crimes and vices, of the infidelity and voluptuousness of which the order had rendered itself guilty, gave Philip the Fair a pretext for suddenly seizing upon the persons of the Templars, and confiscating their vast possessions. By an unjust prosecution of six years, and by the tortures of the rack, a confession was at length obtained from the prisoners which appeared to prove the crimes laid to their charge ; and when fifty-four of their number retracted the confession extorted from them by torture, as untrue, they were condemned as apostates to a lingering death by fire. It was in vain that Jacob of Molay, the head master, protested against the pro- ceedings, and offered to disprove the whole of the accusations. He himself died on the funeral pile, after he had sum- moned the king and the pope to a higher judgment-seat. The people reverenced him as a martyr, and recognized the judgment of God in the death of the two princes which shortly followed. The French king appropriated the largest share of the estates and trea- sures of the Templars. Henry VII. § -^7. During these events, Henry VII. of Luxem- a.d. 1308— burg, was governing Germany not without renown. After adopting vigorous measures for the preservation of the internal peace of the empire, he took advantage of a contest for the crown of Bohemia to add this kingdom to the possessions of his own house, with the consent of the Bohemian estates, by marrying his son John to the sister of the last king, who was childless. Scarcely had he brought this affair, which was the foundation of the vast power of the house of Luxemburg, to a happy conclusion, than he turned his eyes to the long-forgotten and disunited Italy, and undertook an expedition to Borne. The advent of the emperor was greeted with joy by the oppressed Ghibellines ; and the great poet Dante of Florence (§ 249), celebrated his appear- ance by a Latin essay on monarchy, and by songs that were soon in the mouths of. every body. Henry received the crown of Lombardy in Milan, collected with rigour the taxes that were due in the towns of Upper Italy, and experienced an honourable reception in the Ghibel- line city of Pisa. But despite all his efforts to assume the character of an estabbsher of peace, the Guelfs and the haughty Florence, with the king of Naples at their head, rose against him with reason. The DECAY OF CHIVALRY AND CORRUPTION OF THE CHURCH. 171 pope himself opposed him, so that his coronation at Rome only took place after a lengthened contest. Upon marching into Tuscany for the purpose of humbling Florence, Henry died suddenly in the flower of his age, near the Arno. The joy displayed upon his death by the Guelfs, gave rise to the belief that he had been poisoned by a Domi- nican monk. The sorrowing Pisans buried him in the churchyard (Campo Santo) of their town. § 258. The death of Henry YII. again produced a contest for the crown in Germany ; for of the seven princes who now usually exer- cised the right of election (Palatinate, Mayence, Treves, Cologne, Bohemia, Saxony, Brandenburg), some chose Louis of Bavaria, the others, Frederick the Pair of Austria. The consequence of this divi- sion was an eight years' war, which was carried on with particular vigour by Frederick's brother, Leopold. Despite the superior strength of the Austrian party, Louis, who was an excellent general, maintained his cause with success, especially after Leopold's force had been weakened at Morgarten (§ 254). It was not, however, till the battle of Mtihldorf (or Amfing), where Frederick was defeated and taken prisoner by the skill of the Nuremberg general, Seyfried Schwepperman, that Louis attained a decided superiority. Leopold, however, would not submit to a peace. Supported by the pope, John XXII., who pronounced an excommu- nication and an interdict against Louis for having aided the Ghibel- lines in Milan, and by several princes of the empire, Leopold con- tinued the war and attempted a new election of emperor. Upon this, Louis set at liberty his rival who was imprisoned in the castle of Trausnitz, upon condition that he should renounce the imperial dignity, and persuade his party to a peace. But when neither the pope nor Leopold would listen to the proposal, Frederick, true to his word, returned to captivity, a conduct which so moved his chivalrous opponent that he lived with him henceforth in the closest friendship, and would even have shared the empire with him had not the electors prevented it. Leopold died shortly afterwards, but the impetuous pope retained his animosity against Louis, which induced the latter to appoint Frederick regent of the empire, and undertake an expedition into Italy. § 259. Louis was at first successful in Italy. Supported by the G-hibellines and the -Minorites, he made brilliant progress, and suc- ceeded in getting an anti-pope elected ; but when, for the purpose of satisfying his mercenary troops, he exacted heavy levies of money from the Italian towns, matters were quickly altered. His retreat to Germany, where Frederick had in the mean time died, completed the triumph of the papal party. On the other hand, the obstinacy with which John XXII. and his successor Benedict XII. retained the excommunication pronounced against Louis, and rejected all attempts 172 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. at reconciliation, irritated the German princes to such a degree that at an electoral Diet held at Bense, they uttered the declaration, " that henceforth every election of emperor by the princes was valid, with- out the confirmation of the pope." The ecclesiastics who obeyed the interdict were treated as disturbers of the public peace, and deprived of their offices. The notorious influence exercised by the French court upon all the proceedings of the pope, and the avarice and sensuality of the head of the Church and of the cardinals in Avignon, diminished the authority of the court of Home. But Louis himself very soon forfeited the confidence and affection of the German princes by allowing his avarice and desire of enlarging his territories to lead him into unjust and violent measures. Thence it was that the French and papal party succeeded in gaining over a part of the electoral princes, and getting a rival emperor chosen from the house of Luxemburg. But the greater part of the German people, and particularly the imperial towns, sided with Louis, so that the new emperor, Charles IV. (son of King John of Bohe- mia), was not generally recognized, until the robust Louis lost his life in a bear-hunt, near Munich, and his successor, Gun- ter of Schwarzburg, elected by the Bavarian party, had sunk into an early grave at Frankfort. 4. THE EMPERORS OE THE HOUSE OE LUXEMBURG. „ , jy § 260. Charles IV". was a sagacious prince who was a.d. 1347 — intent upon his own interests and the increase of the 1373. power of his house, and in whose mind money and pro- perty held a higher place than honour or renown. It was through him that the imperial power lost all respect in Italy, where he per- mitted the imperial privileges to be purchased by the towns and princes. The contests between Guelf and Ghibelline ceased from this time, but they only gave place to contentions between the princes and free towns concerning the enlargement of their territories ; mercenary troops were now employed (as formerly in Greece) instead of the earlier mditia, and the enterprising leaders of these bands (Condottieri) not unfrequently held the fate of states in their hands, and succeeded in getting possession of their government. The efforts of Charles in Germany also were chiefly directed to the gratification of his avarice and lust of territory. He sold the liber- ties and privileges of the imperial towns ; he granted letters of nobility for money ; he added Brandenburg and other territories to his patrimonial possessions. His agency was most beneficially felt in Bohemia, which attained by his means to greater pi^osperity. Artists and artisans were summoned from Germany and Italy, towns (Carlsbad) and villages were built, agriculture and trade encouraged, roads and bridges planned, and heaths and forests brought into culti- DECAY OF CHIVALRY AND CORRUPTION OF THE CHURCH. 173 vation. Charles, with the consent of the pope and the co-operation of the poet Petrarch, erected the first German univer- sity in Prague (§ 249), which soon numbered from 5000 to 7000 students. Prom Charles IV. emanated the first im- perial code of laws known by the name of the Golden Bull, which referred the choosing of emperors exclusively to the seven electors, and determined the precedence of the princes. § 261. The imperial authority was much decayed, and confusion and lawlessness prevailed all over Germany. The laws respecting disturbance of the public peace were little regarded ; club law (faust- recht), the only law attended to, called upon every man to take care of himself, and alliances were formed to do this more effectually. This state of disorder became particularly prevalent under Charles' Wenceslaus son an< ^ s " accessor j Wenceslaus, a rude, hot-headed man, a.d. 1378 — devoted to drink. Por whilst the emperor was leading a 1400. dissolute life in Bohemia, devoting himself to hunting, quarrelling with his nobles and the clergy, and rendering himself hateful and contemptible by his cruelty, and barbarous conduct to the vicar Nepomuk, whom he ordered to be thrown from the bridge of Prague into the Moldau, the German empire, with its battles and its miseries, was left to its fate. The towns in Swabia, in Pranconia, and on the Bhine, united themselves in an alliance to preserve the peace of the country, and for defence against the rapacioiis nobles. The knights, who gained their living by plunder and highway robbery, and who were threatened by this alliance, followed the example of their enemies, and strengthened themselves by confederations of knights (called the Schlegler, and the Lowen and Hornerbund) . The two confederations were perpetually engaged in war with each other, till at length the murder of the bishop of Salzburg by a Bavarian duke occasioned the great cities' war, which produced extreme distress in the south of Germany. The citizens were victorious in Bavaria ; in Pranconia the fortune of war was rendered dubious by the courage of the JSTuremburgers ; but in Swabia, where the valiant enemy of the towns, Eberhard the Grumb- ler of Wirtemberg stood at the head of the nobility, the burghers suffered great loss near Doffingen, and at "Worms and Prankfort suc- cumbed to the iron ranks of the knights of Hesse and the Palatinate. About the same time, the Swiss confederation was contending with far greater success against the nobles of Southern Germany. Duke Leopold of Austria invaded the freedom-loving mountaineers with a host of armed nobles, who reverenced him as the flower of chivalry. But in the battle of Sempach, where the heroic Arnold Winkelried of Unterwalden "made a path" for his countrymen into the iron-clad ranks of the knights, by embracing a number of their lances and bivrying the points in his bosom, the 174 T1IE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. proud duke, with G56 of his nobles, fell beneath the maces of the Swiss peasants. § 262. The inability of the emperor to remedy the prevailing con- fusion at length induced the electors, in a diet at Lahn- stein, to pronounce Wenceslaus' deposition, " because he had not aided the peace of the Church, had sold the title of duke to the rich and crafty Visconti in Milan, had not maintained the public peace, and had governed tyrannically and with cruelty in Bohemia." Rupert, a.d. Rupert of the Palatinate was elected in his place ; he was 1400—1410. the grandson of that Rupert who in the year of the battle of Sempach had founded the university of Heidelberg. But even he, despite many good qualities, was not equal to the diffi- culties of the times. He was compelled to grant the princes and estates the right of forming confederations, and of maintaining the public peace in their own way ; and when he attempted to restore Milan to the empire, he suffered a defeat from the Italian Condottieri (§ 260), who had discovered a more scientific system of tactics. He was equally unsuccessful in his attempts to restore tranquillity to the Church, an object that was first accomplished with unspeakable diffi- culty by his successor, Sigismund, the brother of Wenceslaus. The „. . , great council of the Church, that was held by Sigismund Sigismund, ° ' •> o a.d. 1410— for this purpose, exhausted the treasury to that degree, 143 7- that the emperor was obliged at first to pledge the March of Brandenburg and the electoral dignity to Frederick of Hohenzol- lem, and afterwards to surrender them to him as his private and hereditary property. 5. THE DIVISION IN THE CHUECH AND THE GEEAT COUNCILS. § 263. It had long been wished that the papal chair shoidd be removed from Avignon to Home ; but the cardinals who were in the French interest, and who felt themselves better and more inde- pendent under the mild and beautiful sky of Southern France, pre- vented the measure. This at length induced the Italian party to elect a pope of their own. By this means the Church got two popes, one in Avignon, the other in Rome, each of whom declared himself the rightfully elected head of the Church, and fulminated anathemas against his rival and his adherents. The whole of Western Christen- dom was divided, consciences perplexed, and the Church rent asunder. It was in vain that the synod of Pisa attempted to heal the evil by deposing one pope and electing another — the former two maintained their claims, so that the Church was now triply divided. A general discontent spread through the Christian world, and engendered a loud demand for a reformation of the Church both in its head and members. Whilst the moderate party, and in particular the learned theologians of the university of Paris (Sorbonne), wished to bring DECAY OF CHIVALRY AND CORRUPTION OF THE CHURCH. ] 75 about this reformation by a general council which should be superior to the pope, the disciples and adherents of the Oxford professor, John Wicliff, aimed at a thorough change both in the doctrine and constitution of the Church. Wick- liff had not only declared the papacy to be an unchristian institu- tion, and preached zealously against absolution, monachism, the wor- ship of saints, and similar matters, but had stood forward as a reformer, by translating the Bible into English, and rejecting many articles of faith, as auricular confession, celibacy, and transubstan- tiation. The most celebrated of his followers was John Huss, pro- fessor in Prague, a man distinguished for his learning and moral life, as well as by Christian gentleness. He preached against the abuses of the papacy ; against the wealth and secular power of the clergy ; against monachism and absolution : and although the pope excommuni- cated him and condemned his writings, the number of his adherents, among whom a Bohemian nobleman, Hieronymus of Eaulfisch, dis- tinguished himself by his zeal, increased every day. The Germans in the university of Prague were curtailed of their privileges for showing an inclination t<5 the new doctrines of Huss, for which reason 5000 students and professors quitted the place, and thus brought about the foundation of other universities, that of Leipsic among the first. § 264. When at length, Pope John XXIII. , importuned by the Emperor Sigismund, called the Council of Constance, Constance, troops of temporal and spiritual dignitaries of all nations a.d. 1414 — poured into the town, where the splendour of the whole "West was at once united. 150,000 men are said to have assembled there. The unity and reformation of the Church was the lofty aim of the synod. In the first place, therefore, the three popes were either deposed or persuaded to resign ; and when John XXIII. seized the opportunity afforded by a tournament to escape in disguise by the aid of Erederick of Austria, and recalled his abdication, the council declared itself independent and superior to the pope, and united with the emperor in punishing the refractory. Erederick of Austria was outlawed, and deprived of Aargau and other posses- sions by the Swiss, and John was for a long time held prisoner in the castle of Heidelberg. But the efforts of the Erench and Germans, who wished in the first place to reform the Church and then to elect a new pope, were frustrated by the Italians (Ultramontani), who insisted before all things upon an election of pope. Their opinion prevailed, and Martin V. was raised to the papal chair. He was a moderate man, who contrived, by abolishing a few abuses, and by skilfully conducted negotiations, to divide the votes and baffle the efforts of the council. In this way, the hopes and wishes of the 176 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. people were disappointed; the pope retained his power, and the Church was left in her corruption. But the Council of Constance has enriched history with one deed of horror, — the burning of Huss and Hieronymus. The council proceeded at its commencement to an examination of doctrines deviating from those of the Church, and had condemned "Wicliff's writings to the flames, and summoned Huss to answer for his opinions. Huss proceeded to Constance, provided with an imperial passport by which he was assured of a safe return to his home, but was imprisoned as soon as he arrived there, and accused of disseminating heresy. It was in vain that he defended himself with dignity against the charges — his judges were his accusers ; it was in vain that his friends appealed to the imperial safe-conduct, — the synod laid down the principle, that no faith was to be kept with heretics, and demanded an unconditional abjuration. "When Huss refused to do this, he was condemned to suffer death by fire as an obstinate teacher of heresy ; a doom which he underwent with the firmness and composure of a martyr. A year later, Hieronymus also endured the agonies of the bimiing pile with the courage of a stoic. § 265. The intelligence of this horrible event at Constance incited the Hussites to a furious rebgious war. The cup, which according to the views of Huss was not to be withheld from the laity, was borne before their armies as the symbol of their cause (hence TJtraquists and Calixtines) ; and a heavy vengeance was exacted from the priests who refused to administer it. It was in vain that the pope fulminated an interdict against the adherents of Huss, then numbers increased daily ; they stormed the town-house of Prague, and murdered the counsellors, which so enraged the old Emperor "Wences- laus, that he died of apoplexy. Sigismund ought now to have become king of Bohemia also ; but the whole nation flew to arms to prevent the faithless emperor from taking possession of the country. John Ziska, a general expert in war, valiant, and endowed with a wonderful talent of governing the masses, placed himself at its head. It was in vain that Sigismund led three imperial armies against the Hussites ; his troops recofled in dismay before the wild fury of the enraged people. The Hussites burnt down the Bohemian churches and convents, and carried their ravages into the neighbour- ing countries. The name of Ziska, the blind general, was a terror to the nations. After his death, the moderate party (Calixtines) sepa- rated themselves from the radicals (Tahorites). The latter, under the conduct of Procopius the Great and the Little, continued their incendiary course, ravaged Saxony, and extorted tribute from Bran- denburg and Bavaria, whilst the Calixtines consented to a peace when the Council of Basle consented to the use of the cup in the DECAY OF CHIVALRY AND CORRUPTION OF THE CHURCH. 177 Lord's Supper, and to preaching in the vernacular tongue. It was ..„„ only when the Taborites suffered a defeat near Prague, and the two Procopius were killed, that the emperor, by the dexterity of his chancellor Schlick, succeeded in bringing them to a peace ; whereupon Sigismund was acknowledged king. But the glory of Bohemia was humbled to the dust. A few decades later a small party of the former Hussites separated from the Church and formed a separate sect, since known as the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren, "poor, scripture-proof, and peaceful." Council of § ^66. In the council of Basle, to the summoning of Basle, a.d. which, Martin V., successor of Eugenius IV., had, after "" long hesitation, consented, the reformation of the Church, which had been interrupted in that of Constance, was to be con- cluded, and the Hussite controversy arranged. But the proceedings here soon took a course that seemed to endanger the papal power. The assembly, which consisted in part of the lower order of clergy, diminished the money charges that the court of Rome imposed upon the provincial churches, and interdicted the encroachments of the pope in the filling up of bishoprics and benefices. Eugenius was rendered so anxious by these and other similar resolutions, that he seized the first pretext for removing the council to Eerrara, and afterwards to Elorence. But many of the clergy would not attend, but chose another pope, and again asserted the former principle, that a synod of the Church was superior to the pope, and that the former and not the latter was infallible. Upon this, Eugenius, encouraged by the fears entertained both by princes and people, of another division in the Church, anathematized the refractory members of the council, and rejected their decisions ; and for the purpose of overcoming more surely the opposition of the Germans, gained over the crafty Italian, iEneas Sylvius (afterwards Pius II.) , who was private secretary to the emperor Erederick III. By the aid of this shrewd man, who is also known as an author, the pope succeeded in winning over the weak emperor to the Aschaffenburg concordat, by means of which, the Church remained in its former state, and all the abuses and extortions, with a few trifling exceptions, were continued. It was in vain that the patriotically-minded Gregory of Heimburg advocated the liberties of the Church and the rights of Germany with intelli- gence and eloquence ; abandoned by the emperor and most of the princes, the council, after a little hesitation, recognized Eugenius's successor, Nicholas V., as lawful pope, and then dissolved itself. In this way, the papacy came forth, for the second time, victorious from the fight, but less by the inherent power of truth than by uneccle- siastical expedients. 17S THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. G. GERMANY UNDER EREDERICK III. AND MAXIMILIAN I. § 267. When the male line of the house of Luxemburg expired Albert II. of wu ^ x Sigmund, his son-in-law, Albert II. of Austria, Austria, a.d. ascended the imperial throne of Germany, which from '~ 39- this time remained in possession of the Hapsburg- Aus- trian family. Albert was a well-disposed and energetic man ; but as Bohemia and Hungary engaged the whole of his exertions, he coidd effect nothing of importance during the short period of his govern- FrederickHI men ^- His nephew, Frederick III., was his successor in a.d. 1440— the empire, a prince endowed with domestic virtues, but possessing slender talents for government, and who opposed nothing to the troubles of his lengthened reign but a didl and passive indifference. He looked quietly on while the Turks took possession of Constantinople, and carried their ravages into the hereditary territories of Austria, when Hungary and Bohemia elected native kings, when Charles the Bold of Burgundy extended his dominions to the banks of the Bhine (§ 293), when Milan and Lombardy were separated from the German empire (§ 261). In Germany, the imperial authority fell into utter contempt, the princes made themselves independent, and exercised the privilege of private warfare, without hesitation. The Swabian alliance was engaged in a furious war with Albert (Achilles or Ulysses), the valiant margrave of the Brandenburg territories in Franconia (Bayruth), a war in which nine battles were fought and 200 villages reduced to ashes. The neighbourhood of the Bhine and the Neckar was desolated by the war of the Palatinate, during which, the palgrave, Fre- derick the Victorious, gained a glorious victory near Seckenheim, and made prisoners of his enemies, Ulrick of Wurtern- burg, the margrave of Baden, and the bishop of Metz ; but was unable to prevent the deposition of his ally, the banished arch- bishop, Dieter of Mayence, in whose defence he had taken up arms. § 268. This state of disorder and self-redress increased the desire for a fresh constitution of the empire. But as the princes refused to sacrifice any of their real or pretended rights, every pro- posal that seemed likely to increase the power of the emperor or diminish that of the princes, encountered a resolute opposition. At Maximilian length, Maximilian I. agreed with the electors, the secular I., a.d. 1493 and spiritual nobles, and the representatives of the free towns, at the imperial diet at Worms, to a form of con- a.d. 1495. stitution which restrained the right of private warfare, but completely undermined the authority of the emperor. At this diet, the eternal Land-peace was established, and every act of self- redress by arms forbidden, under pain of ban and outlawry. An FRANCE. 179 imperial chamber was at once established to compose all quarrels among the members of the empire, and a short time afterwards the empire was divided into ten circles, 1. The Austrian. 2. The Bava- rian. 3. The Swabian. 4. The Franconian. 5. The Rhenish elec- torate. 6. The Upper Rhenish. 7. The Lower Rhenish Westphalian. 8. Upper Saxony. 9. Lower Saxony, and, 10. The Burgundian. By this alteration the power of the princes was raised to a still greater height, so that at last they could act in their own territories as absolute rulers. The confederates, who were at that time in alliance with France, refused to recognize the imperial chamber, and denied the contingent of troops. Hereupon, Maximilian attempted to compel them by force of arms, but was worsted in the contest, and obliged to forego his demands in the peace of Basle, and to admit the independence of the Swiss of Germany. § 269. Maximilian's reign forms the transition period between the middle age and the modern time. He himself, with his stately aspect, his bold and dangerous huntings, his valiant deeds in battle and tournament, may well be looked upon as the "last knight" on the imperial throne of Germany ; his love of the decaying chivalrous poetry, his marriage with Maria of Burgundy, his wars in the Nether- lands and in Italy, are all stamped with the character of the middle age. On the other hand, it was at this time that the commence- ments of a more refined political science, and of a greater intercourse among nations, displayed themselves, which, combined with new discoveries and inventions, brought about the modern period. VI. HISTORY OF THE REMAINING EUROPEAN NATIONS DURING THE MIDDLE AGE. 1. FRANCE. a. FRANCE UNDER. THE HOUSE OF CAPET. § 270. The first successors of Hugh Capet (§ 205) possessed but little power and a narrow territory. The dukes and counts of the different provinces looked upon the king, who, properly, was only lord of Prance, as their equal, and only allowed him the first rank among themselves, in so far as they were obliged to recognize him as their feudal superior. The nobles dared not weaken the rights that appertained to him in this capacity, lest they should afford an example of breach of faith to their own subjects, and encourage them to similar behaviour towards themselves. For the rest, the possessions of the great vassals were independent counties and principalities, which had no closer connexion with the French throne than the western terri- tories on the Seine, Loire, and Garonne, which belonged to the king of England ; or the eastern (Burgundian) lands on the Rhone and N 2 180 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. the Jura, which were portions of the German, empire. But in the attempt to increase the kingly power, the house of Capet were not less aided by their good fortune than by their wisdom. It was for- tunate, that owing to the lengthened lives of most of their kings, the throne was seldom vacant, that there was almost always a son of age to succeed his father, and that consequently there was never an interregnum. But it was wisdom in the first kings to have their eldest sons crowned during their lives, and to make them their partners in the government, so that on the death of the father little Lo is VII or B0 cn ange was suffered. The most important kings a.d. 1137 — after Hugh Capet, were Louis VII., who undertook the 1180. second crusade, and during his absence entrusted the Philip Au- government in Trance to the politic Abbot Suger of S ustl * a H-> St. Denis ; Philip Augustus II., who wrested Normandy 1223. and the other territories in the west from the English Louis VIII., king, John Lackland; and Louis VIII. , who enlarged a.d. 1223— hig dominions on the south by the war against the Albi- genses (§ 228). But the reigns which had the greatest a.d. 1220— influence upon the history of France were those of St. 1270. Louis and Philip the Pair. The former improved the laws, and caused the royal courts of justice to be looked upon as the highest in the land, and that the disputes of the nobles among them- selves or with their vassals were brought before them for decision : the latter, on the other hand, increased the consequence of the towns Philip the hy granting various privileges and liberties to the citizens, Fair, a.d. and by being the first who summoned the representatives 1285—1314. f th e towns to the diet during his contest with the pope. (§ 255.) After the death of Philip's three sons, who reigned one after the other, but left no male heirs, the Prench throne A ' D * ' ' passed to the house of Valois. b. TRANCE UNDER THE HOUSE OE VALOIS (a.D. 1328 — 1589). § 271. Philip VI. of Valois, brother's son of Philip the Pair, Philin VI inherited the Prench throne. But Edward III. of Eng- a.d. 1328— land also asserted his claims, as son of a daughter of 1347. Philip the Pair. "Without regard to the Salic law, which prohibited the succession of females, he assumed the title of king of Prance, and made war upon Philip. After a bloody contest of a few years, the battle of Crecy was fought, in which the English were the victors, and the flower of the Prench chivalry, together with John, the blind king of Bohemia, fell on the field. The possession of the important town of Calais was the fruit T , , of the day. Philip died in the following year, and his Good, a.d. son, John the Good, succeeded to the contested crown. 1347—1304. j] a g er to obliterate the memory of Crecy, he attacked FRANCE. 181 the English army, which was under the command of Edward III.'s heroic son, the Black Prince, but suffered a decisive defeat at Poictiers, and was obliged to proceed as a captive to the capital of England. Whilst he was absent, the kingdom was governed by the crown prince (Dauphin) . During his rule, an insurrection broke out in Paris and over the whole land, which was attended with great devastations and outrages, until the imperfectly-armed citizens and peasants were subdued by the Erench knights, and visited with severe punishment. Shortly after this, a peace was established between Erance and England, by which Calais and the south-west of Erance was surrendered to the English, and a heavy ransom promised for John, whilst Edward, on the other hand, renounced his pretensions to the Erench throne. But when the collection of the ransom money was delayed, John voluntarily returned into captivity, and died in a.d. 1364. T , London. Charles V. § 2 ^ 2 - John's son, Charles V. (the Wise), healed the a.d. 1364— wounds of his country. He quieted men's minds by his good and gentle government, and by prudence and valour, recovered the lands that had been lost on the Loire and the Garonne ; so that when the Black Prince fell a victim to a wasting disease, and Edward III. shortly after followed him into the grave, nothing remained to the English of all their conquests but Calais. But under his successor, Charles VI., who became insane r , , VT shortly after coming of age, Erance again fell into a state a.d. 1380— of confusion and lawlessness. Two powerful court parties, 1422. headed by the uncle of the king (the duke of Burgundy), and the king's brother (the duke of Orleans), contended for the government ; whilst the burghers rebelled against the heavy imposts, and demanded an increase of their privileges. About the same timo in which the towns were waging war against the knights in Germany (§ 2G1), the Swiss peasants were contending against the nobility, and a, dangerous popular insurrection, under Wat Tyler and others, was making rapid progress in England, the citizen and peasant class rose against the court and the nobility in Elanders and Erance also. But want of union among the insurgents gave the latter the victory, and the outbreak was followed by a diminu- tion of the privileges of the people. The Burgundian party favoured the citizens, the Orleans party the nobility. § 273. The chivalrous king, Henry V. of England, took advantage of these circumstances to renew the war with Erance. He demanded the former possessions back again ; and when this was refused, he entered Erance by Calais, and renewed at Agincourt, on A ' D ' ' the Somme, the days of Crecy and Poictiers. The Erench army, four times the number of its opponents, was over- 132 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. thrown, and the flower of the French chivalry either fell in the field, or were taken prisoners by the enemy ; nothing stood between the victor and Paris, where party violence had just now attained its highest point, and murders and insurrections were matters of daily occurrence. The Orleans party joined the Dauphin, whilst the Bur- gundian party, with the queen Isabella, united themselves with the English, and acknowledged Henry V. and his descendants as the heirs of the French crown. The whole of the country to the north of the Loire was soon in the hands of the English. But Henry A D 14^2 . . • V. was snatched away by death in the midst of his heroic course, in the same year in which the crazy Charles VI. sank into the grave, and the Dauphin took possession of the throne under the m i -17-tt title of Charles VII. But this made little difference to Charles VII., a.d. 1422— France. The English and their allies proclaimed Henry 1461. yj #j who was scarcely a year old, the rightful ruler of the country, and retained their superiority in the field, so that they already held Orleans in siege. § 274. In this necessity, the Maid of Orleans, a peasant girl of Dom Eemy in Lorraine, who gave out that she had been summoned to the redemption of France by a heavenly vision, aroused the sinking courage of Charles and his soldiers. Under her banner, the town of Orleans was delivered, the king conducted to Eheims to be crowned, and the greater part of their conquests wrested from the English. The faith in her heavenly mission inspired the French with courage and self-confidence, and filled the English with fear and despair. This effect remained after Joan of Arc had fallen into the hands of the latter, and had been given up to the flames on a pretended charge of blasphemy and sorcery. The English lost one province after another ; and when Philip the Good of Burgundy reconciled himself with the king, Calais soon became their last and only possession in the land of France. Paris opened its gates and a.d. 1436. received Charles with acclamations. He reigned over France in peace for twenty-five years ; but he was a weak man, who suffered himself to be guided by women and favourites. He was . XT followed by Louis XL, a crafty but politic prince, who a.d. 1461— by cunning, violence, and unexampled tyranny, rendered 1483. -the power of the throne absolute, and enlarged and con- solidated his empire. He robbed the nobility of all their choicest privileges, and gradually united all the great fiefs with the crown. He then, by the assistance of the Swiss (whose hardy youth he and his successor engaged as mercenaries), overthrew Charles the Bold, and made himself master of the dukedom of Burgundy. The stings of conscience and the fear of men tortured him in the a.d. 1483 — ' lonely castles where he spent the last years of his life. ENGLAND. 183 1498. His two successors, Charles VIII. and Louis XII., 1S 1493— con( l liere( i Brittany, but dissipated the strength of the 1515. kingdom in their expeditions to Italy. 2. EKGLAND. xj tt § 275. "With Henry II., of Anjou, the great-grandson a.d. 1154— of William the Conqueror (§ 207), the renowned race of 1189. Plantagenet ascended the English throne. They pos- sessed much land on the Loire and the Garonne, and as Normandy also belonged to the English, the whole of the west of Erance was in the power of the kings of England. Many quarrels and battles arose from this state of things, for the kings of Erance laid claim to the rights of feudal supremacy over these western lands, which rights the English kings refused to render. Henry II., a contemporary of Fre- derick Barbarossa, was a powerful and intelligent regent, who acquired especial renown by his improvement in the administration of the laws. In furtherance of this object, he attempted, by the Constitutions of Clarendon, so to limit the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, that the clergy should be subject to the royal tribunals in temporal matters, without any appeal to the pope. Upon this point Henry had a violent con- test with the archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas a Becket. Thomas rejected the Constitutions of Clarendon, and dismissed every priest that submitted to them ; and when he was threatened with legal pro- ceedings he quitted England and anathematized Henry. But an arrangement was brought about, for a short time, by the intervention of the pope. But scarcely was Thomas returned to Canterbury, when he resumed all his former severity against the clergy who received the Constitutions of Clarendon. The king, who was just then in arms against Erance, suffered an exclamation of discontent against Thomas to escape him, which induced four of his servants to hasten to Eng- land, and to slaughter the archbishop on the steps of the altar. This sacrilegious deed occasioned universal horror, and procured the pope a complete triumph in England. The mur- derers were punished, the Constitutions of Clarendon abolished, and Thomas Becket canonized. Thousands made pilgrimages to his altar ; and the king, a few years afterwards, gave a memorable example of his penitence, by suffering the monks to scourge his bare shoulders at the grave of the martyr. § 276. Two of Henry's sons survived their father ; Eichard Lion- It' h d L' heart (§ 223), and John Lackland. Much as the former heart, a.d. distinguished himself by his courage and chivalrous 1189—1199. ^ arm g ) h^ r eign was not advantageous to England. The T , T , latter was worsted in every contest in which he engaged. John Lack- •; ° land, a.d. In the first place, he lost Normandy, and all the hereditary 1199—1216. possessions of his house on the Loire and the Garonne to ]Sj. THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. the shrewd and enterprising Philip Augustus of Prance ; and when he got involved in a quarrel with the pope, about the appointment to the chair of the archbishopric of Canterbury, in consequence of which the holy father pronounced an anathema and interdict upon England, released his subjects from their oath of allegiance, and summoned the king of Prance to take possession of the land, John humbled himself, surrendered the throne of England by a solemn act to the pope, and received it back again from the hands of the legate as a papal fief, in return for a yearly tribute of 1000 marks. John was now released from the interdict, and the Prench king forbidden to prosecute the expedition against him. Enraged at this disgraceful transaction of a king who, by his severity, arbitrariness, and cruelty, had embittered every class against himself, the people of England seized their arms and compelled John, by the grant of the great charter (Magna Charta), in a meadow near Windsor, to lay the foundation of the free constitution of England. The long reign of „ TTT John's son, Henry III., was favourable to the growth of a.d. 1216— liberty, melancholy as, on the whole, the condition of the 1272. land under him was. His extravagant profuseness to favourites, and the exactions of the papal legates and the Italian clergy, inflicted grievous wounds on the prosperity of the country, and at length drove the people to rebel and seize upon the king and his family, till the abuses were removed, and fresh liberties granted. § 277. Henry III. was succeeded by his chivafrous son, Edward I., El d I whose reign is rendered memorable by a succession of a.d. 1272— bloody wars. He added the hitherto independent "Wales 1307. t hig dominions, introduced there the laws and constitu- tion of England, and was the first who gave the title of Prince of Wales to the heir to the throne. Upon a quarrel for the crown breaking out shortly after in Scotland, between Robert Bruce and John Baliol, in which he was chosen umpire, Ed- ward took advantage of the opportunity to establish the much con- tested feudal superiority of the English kings over Scotland, and de- cided in favour of Baliol, who was ready to do him homage. This irritated the Scotch, who were proud of their independence. They seized the sword, and under the conduct of heroic knights like Wal- lace, fought many battles for their liberties which are renowned in song and legend. Purious contests drenched the plains of the south of Scotland with the blood of heroes ; Wallace died as a prisoner by the axe of the executioner. The coronation stone of the Scottish kings at Scone was brought to London, where it still ornaments Westminster Abbey ; Edward's victorious host marched through the whole of Scotland as far as the highlands, and yet the Scots still maintained their independence. Robert Bruce, the grandson of the ENGLAND. Jg5 before-mentioned candidate for the throne, after many changes of fortune, obtained possession of the crown, which became hereditary in his family, and passed at length to the related house of Stuart. Edward II., Edward's son of the same name was a weak prince, ad. 1307— who could neither make conquests abroad nor preserve peace and order at home. The nobles repeatedly took up arms against him, killed his favourites, and at last looked quietly on, whilst the queen and her paramour, Mortimer, thrust the unfortunate monarch from the throne, and had him put to a cruel death in prison. Edward III., But when his energetic son, Edward III., came of age, a.d. 1327 — he punished the atrocious deed by executing Mortimer, and banishing the queen to a solitary fortress. § 278. Edward III. governed with vigour and renown. He took measures for checking the encroachments of the pope upon the English Church, in which he was actively supported by the Oxford professor, Wicliff, and granted to many towns the privilege of sending representatives to parliament, as his predecessors had before done. By this means, the number of representatives increased to such an extent that they were divided, and from this time, the nobles and bishops formed the Upper House (House of Peers), and the members for the towns, the Lower House of Parliament. Wo tax could be imposed without their consent. The wars of succession which Ed- ward III. and his son, the Black Prince, waged -with Erance, were to the advantage of the English (§ 271). But the government of his Richard II. grandson and successor, Eichard II., was disturbed by a.d. 1377 — domestic troubles ; a dangerous insurrection of the people was only suppressed with difficulty by the ready courage of the king ; and when Bichard at length banished his cousin, Henry of Lancaster, who was the originator of the disturbances, from the kingdom, Henry formed a party, had the king deposed from the throne by an act of parliament, and then assumed himself the royal House of title. Bichard died of starvation in a remote castle, Lancaster. whilst Henry IV., in whose person the house of Lancaster a.d. 1399— ascended the English throne, was securing to himself and 1413. his posterity, by his prudence and valour, the crown he had so flagitiously obtained. An insurrection of the English nobles under the duke of Northumberland and his heroic son Percy, surnamed Hotspur, ended with the defeat of the insurgents. The followers of "Wicliff, called Lollards, were persecuted for the sake of propitiating the clergy in favour of the royal house. Henry IV. was succeeded Henry V. ^y his more valiant son, Henry V., whose youthful follies, a.d. 1413 — as well as his nobleness of soul and heroic greatness, have 1422. been pourtrayed in so masterly a way by the great British poet, Shakespeare. He conducted successful wars with Erance, but J 86 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. all that he gained by his fortune and courage was again lost in the reign of his infant son, Henry VI. § 279. This sixth Heury was the most unfortunate prince that Henry VI. ever sa ^ on a throne. The crown of Trance, which he a.d. 1422 — had received when a child of one year old (§ 274), was wrested from him by the Maid of Orleans, and he was deprived of his English possessions also, by the wars of the Red and the White Roses. Richard, duke of York, great-grandson of king Edward III., deemed that he had better pretensions to the crown of England than Henry VI. He formed a powerful party, unfurled the banner of rebellion, and commenced the bloody civil war which, from the cognizance borne by the chiefs of the parties, was called the "War of the Bed (Lancaster) and White (York) Rose. It is true that Richard was defeated in a furious battle by the forces of the queen, who ornamented his head with a paper crown, and placed it upon the House of battlements of York. But Richard's eldest son, the York. chivalrous Edward, revenged the insults offered to his a.d. 1461— father. He got possession of the throne, and, despite the 1483. many changes of fortune he met with during his reign, he finally maintained himself upon it, after Henry of Lancaster, who had four times exchanged the crown for a prison, had ended his miserable existence in the Tower, and his son had been put to death. But the blood-stained throne brought no blessing to the house of York. Edward first got rid of his brother Clarence by assassination ; and when he himself died, leaving behind him two infant princes, his younger brother, Richard (III.), had these put to death a.d. 1483 — in the Tower, and took possession of the throne, upon 1485. which he in vain hoped to secure himself by fresh crimes. Henry Tudor, a descendant of the royal house of Lancaster, who had saved himself from the general ruin of his family by flying to Erance, landed on the coast of England and won crown and vic- tory in the field of Bosworth, where Richard was slain. House of Upon this, Henry VII., with whom the house of Tudor Henry VII. rose to the throne, brought about a reconciliation between a.d. 1485— the Roses by marrying the daughter of Edward IV. The history of the world scarcely relates another war in which so many atrocities were committed as in the contest between the Red and the White Rose. Eighty members of royal families, and the orna- ments of the nobility, fell by the sword. Owing to this, the politic and hard-hearted Henry VII. could give greater power to the crown than it had possessed under the Plantagenets. 3. SPAIN. § 280. Eor several centuries, the two kingdoms of Aragon and SPAIN. 187 Castile (§ 191) stood side by side in separate independence. The former attempted to extend itself towards the east, and gained pos- session, not only of the coast lands of Catalonia, Yalentia, and Murcia, and the Spanish islands, Majorca and Minorca, but subjected, at Alf V different times, Sardinia and Sicily, and in the reign of a.d. 1416 — Alfonso Y., even conquered Naples. Castile, on the 1456. other hand, enlarged itself on the south, and by success- ful wars against the Moors, gained possession of Cordova, Seville, and Cadiz. These contests had the greatest influence on the history and character of the Spanish nation. First, They produced a love of war and a chivalrous turn of mind, and were the occasion that the Spanish nation took delight in contests and arms, in tournaments and knightly exercises, and in romantic poetry and minstrelsy. Secondly, They preserved the zeal for religion, and were the foundation of that pre- dominance of the clergy which was always a characteristic of Spain. Thirdly, They aroused a feeling of liberty and self-reliance among the people, — hence the Spanish Estates, which assembled regularly in the Cortes, claimed and exercised privileges which were to be met with in no other monarchy. The Estates of Aragon not only possessed the right of legislating and of consenting to the levying of taxes, but the king was obliged to consult them in the choice of his council. Quar- rels between the Estates and the king were decided by an independent chief-justice (Justitia). § 281. The chivalrous Peter III., the conqueror of Sicily (§ 240), is the best known of the Aragonian kings, and Alfonso X., the Alfonso X. Wise, of the Castilian. The latter occupied himself with a.d. 1252 — astronomy and astrology, with music and poetry, enlarged the university of Salamanca, encouraged the development of the national language, and had works prepared on history and jurisprudence ; but he was wanting in the practical wisdom of life. To gain the shadow of the imperial Roman throne, and to gratify his taste for magnificence and pleasure, he oppressed his people with taxes, and plunged his land into confusion by extravagance, and by Alfonso XI debasing the coinage. Alfonso XI. overcame the Moors a.d. 1324 — on the river Salado, and took the strong town, Algeciras, 1340. ^ Andalusia. T defray the expenses of the war, the a.d. 134 . Estates introduced the tax alcavala, which was levied upon all moveable and immoveable property as often as it was sold or exchanged, and which proved extremely detrimental to trade and commerce. This impost has continued to exist in Spain ever since. Peter the Alfonso's son, Peter the Cruel, outraged his wives, his Cruel, a.d. brothers and relatives, the nobles and the people, so long, 1350—1369. fasti a £ i en gth hi s half-brother, with the assistance of some French troops, overcame and killed him, and then assumed his place. 1 88 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. Isabella ^ e niari> i a g e °f queen Isabella of Castile, with Ferdinand a.d. 1474— the Catholic of Aragon, led to the union of the two x£ i" ■ v kingdoms, and consequently to a new epoch for Spain, a.d. 1479— towards the conclusion of the fifteenth century. 1516> § 282. Ferdinand and Isabella, directed by the coun- sels of the shrewd cardinal Ximenes, strove for a common object ; — they sought to diminish the power of the nobility and clergy, and exalt that of the crown. For this purpose, Ferdinand obtained from the pope the grand mastership of the three wealthy orders of Cas- tiliau knights, and the privilege of filliug up the Spanish bishoprics. He next deprived the nobility of the administration of justice, that he might transfer it to the royal courts, and established the armed Her- mandad (police), to preserve the peace of tbe land, and to abolish robbery and private warfare. But the most important means of raising the power of the throne was the court of inquisition, in which the king had the appointment of the grand-inquisitor and all the judges. This royal court of faith, provided with spiritual weapons, was not only the terror of heretics and secret Mohammedans and Jews, but held the nobility and clergy in awe, and imposed heavy chains upon the free activity of the mind. The slightest suspicion, the false testi- mony of an enemy, might lead to the frightful dungeons of the inqui- sition, wdiere the most dreadful tortures of the rack were employed to force a confession of guilt, and wiles, equivocations, and ensnaring questions were made use of to entrap the resolute. Numberless victims were given up to the flames in the midst of pomp and magni- ficence (auto de fe), or pined away their lives in mouldering dungeons, whilst the treasury of the state was enriched with their property. Never were the throne and altar united in a bond so dangerous to the liberties of the people, as in Spain since the establishment of the inquisition. § 283. The banishment of the Moors is one of the most melan- choly phenomena in Spanish history. When the Moorish kingdom of Granada, after a war of ten years, fell before the arms of Ferdi- nand and Isabella, the Mohammedans were allowed no alternative but to leave their country or embrace Christianity ; hereupon many of them quitted their native land, others, with inward repugnance, adopted the doctrines of the Gospel, but were driven, by the cruelty of the inquisition and the oppression of the government, to repeated rebellions, by which their condition was always rendered worse than before. But their lot Avas most deplorable under the fanatical Philip II. and his successor of the same name. A command was first given that they should renounce their language, their national dress, and their peculiar customs ; and as if even this tyrannical order were not sufficient to destroy the last traces of their Arabian origin and then ITALY. 189 foreign faith, they were mercilessly driven away from the Spanish territory. 800,000 Moors, men and women, old men and children, left the land of their birth, their blooming fields, and the houses their own hands had built. The flourishing plains of the south soon became a desert, agriculture decayed, and trade stagnated ; prosperous villages were reduced to ruins, towns once animated by commerce became depopulated, poverty, dirt, and sloth, took possession of the once rich and happy country, the departed splendour of which is still attested by magnificent ruins. A similar fate attended the Jews ; priests and courtiers divided the possessions and treasures of the banished. The destruction of the privileges of the Estates and of the liberties of the people, were also consequences of this mischievous union between the crown and the altar. 4. ITALY. a. UPPER ITALT. § 284. In Upper Italy, the two republics of Venice and Genoa raised themselves by their trade and navigation, to a prosperity that recals the memory of the most flourishing period of ancient Greece. Venice directed her view to the Adriatic and JEgean seas, and sought to make conquests on their coasts for the purpose of obtaining suit- able havens, marts, and magazines ; as those in Dalmatia, Greece, the Archipelago, Constantinople, and many other places. This remark- able city, which had originated from the union of several islands, became rich and powerful by her oriental traffic. Magnificent churches (the cathedral of St. Mark), gorgeous palaces (that of the doge), splendid squares (the place of St. Mark), boldly constructed bridges (that of the Kialto), made Venice a wonder of the world. But magnificence, wealth, and pleasures, could not make amends for the want of freedom. The original democratic constitution was changed during the thirteenth and fourteenth century, into an oppres- sive hereditary aristocracy. An elected doge, with limited authority, stood at the head of the state ; but the whole power rested in the high council, to which only a limited number of noble families (nobili), whose names were written in the golden book, had admis- sion. For the purpose of preventing any alteration in the constitu- tion of the state, a council of ten persons were furnished with dicta- torial power, and provided with a state police of spies and informers, ' and a state inquisition with subterraneous dungeons, racks, and leaden roofs. Every motion was watched, every word listened to, every movement of the people observed. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Venice attempted to estend her rule on the Italian continent, and obtained possession by the help of skilful generals, of Verona, Padua, Brescia, and many other cities and territories of Upper Italy. By this means, however, she came into 190 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. hostile contact with other European states, and was not unfrequently threatened with destruction, particularly in the beginning of the sixteenth century, by the league of Cambray, in which, the emperor Maximilian, Louis XII. of France, Ferdi- nand the Catholic of Aragon, and pope Julius II., united together for the purpose of dividing the Venetian territory. The French were already threatening the wealthy city, when the Venetian council succeeded in dividing the league and gaining over the pope and Ferdinand. In this manner, Venice was saved and the French driven out of Italy. But the wounds which Venice received in her eastern possessions by the establishment of the Osman empire, and in her trade by the discovery of a sea passage to the East Indies, were incurable. Since then, the allegorical marriage of the doge with the Adriatic in the state vessel, the Bucentaur, has been a ceremony without a meaning. § 285. Genoa was the proud rival of Venice. The mutual jealousy of the two republics respecting the trade with the East was the occa- sion of many wars and many bloody naval engagements, in which, however, Venice was generally the victor. Genoa's splendid marble palaces, her havens covered with a forest of masts, and her exchange, bore witness to her wealth. But quarrels between democrats and aristocrats, between Guelfs (Fieschi and Grimaldi) and Ghibellines (Spinola and Doria), weakened her internal strength. Incapable of governing herself, she sought for foreign rulers, till at length she fell alternately under the power of the French and Milanese. The excel- lent constitution which the naval hero, Andreas Doria, planned in the sixteenth century for his native city, after he had overthrown the French government there, and brought back the republican forms, restored the state to its outward independence, but by no means to its internal tranquillity. Twenty years later, the handsome, rich, and accomplished Fiesco attempted to deprive the house of Doria of the office of doge ; but the enterprize was frustrated by the unexpected death of the daring conspirator. § 286. Milan came gradually under the government of the wealthy family of Visconti, who obtained the ducal title from the emperor, and conquered the greater part of Lombardy by the aid of condot- tieri and mercenary troops. When the male line of the Visconti became extinct in the middle of the fifteenth century, the Milanese transferred the sovereignty of their beau- tiful land, which was aimed at both by the French and Spaniards, to Francisco Sforza, the most able of these condottieri. A.D. 1500. ml „ ,, , _ I he conquest of the country by Louis XII. of France, was facilitated by quarrels in Sforza' s family. Louis carried away the duke (Louis Moro) prisoner, and suffered him to pine for ten ITALY. 191 years in a subterranean dungeon. The French were indeed driven out of Italy a few years later, and the son of the captive Moro raised to the dukedom of Milan ; but the first warlike action of the chivalrous Francis I. was the "battle of giants" of Marignano, in which the duke and his Swiss were defeated, and Milan again joined to the French kingdom. Ten years afterwards, the duke- dom fell into the hands of the Spaniards, who remained in possession of it for nearly two hundred years. § 287. The western states of Upper Italy fell, for the most part, under the power of the counts of Savoy, who, by prudence, good for- tune, and force of arms, gradually enlarged their originally narrow territory to a dukedom, which extended northward over the south of Switzerland to Jura (Geneva, Yaud, Valois), and included on the south, Piedmont, with Turin, the G-rafschaft of Nice, and other territories. But when the warlike confederates on the north, and on the west, France, which was now united into a powerful king- dom, became the neighbours of Savoy's frontiers, its circumference began gradually to lessen. The Valois was lost in the Burgundian war (§ 293), Geneva freed itself during the contests of the refor- mation, and in the wars which Francis I. carried on with Charles V., for the possession of Milan, duke Charles III. of Savoy, the ally of the latter, lost the greater part of his hereditary estates, which his son again received, with some loss, at the peace of Cambresis. But his successors, by taking advantage of favourable opportunities, amply repaid themselves for their losses by conquests in other quarters (Sardinia, Genoa), and at length obtained possession of the kingly power. i. MIDDLE AND LOWER ITALY. § 288. The trading town of Pisa was the first to flourish in Tus- cany. "When this city had fallen before the army of the Genoese, Florence raised itself above the other towns, and at length reduced Pisa itself to subjection. Florence was at first governed by the nobility; but when this class had been weakened by the party contentions of the Guelfs (Black) and GhibeUines (White), the government was obtained by the people, who were divided in guilds, and who consisted, for the most part, of masters of manufactories and workers in wool. But scarcely was a complete democracy established in Florence, when a new quarrel for supremacy sprung up between the rich merchants and the poorer artisans, the result of which was, that the state was governed alternately by a money aristocracy and by the democratic guilds. Love of freedom, patriotism, and refinement were developed in the midst of these contests, so that Florence might be compared to the ancient Athens. At length, the wealthy family of the Medici succeeded in so completely winning to themselves the 192 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. affections of the poor by their kindness and benevolence, and those of Cosmo de the illustrious by their friendly affability, that Cosmo de Medici, a.d. Medici, a man of lofty mind and patriotic spirit, without assuming either rank or title, governed the Florentine state with almost unlimited power, and rendered it flourishing and powerful by successful wars abroad, and by encouragement of the arts and sciences at home. To him belongs by right the surname of Tather of his country. T ., S 289. Cosmo's grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent, trod Lorenzo the . Magnificent, in the path of his ancestors, and rendered Florence the seat 1472—1492. f every art and science, and a seminary for all Europe. His court was ornamented with artists, poets, and writers ; learned men from Byzantium, who were flying from the sword of the Turks, taught the Greek language and literature in Florence. Under his rule, the arts of sculpture, painting, and music began to unfold their choicest blossoms. After Lorenzo's death, the animated discourses of the Dominican, Savanarola, induced the Florentines to drive out the Medici, and to restore the democratic republic. But when the pope excommunicated the bold "prophet of Florence" and the priests, against whose wealth and luxurious lives his zeal had been chiefly directed, rose against him, his enemies succeeded in effecting his overthrow ; upon which, he was condemned to be burnt as a dis- turber of the Church and a corrupter of the people. The Medici soon returned : and when a democratic spirit, after some a.d. 1498. . ' r ' time, again awoke, and a second banishment followed, the emperor, Charles V., having an understanding with the Medician pope, Clement VIL, inarched upon Florence, compelled it to surrender , ro „ after a close siege, and placed the cruel Alexander de' a.d. 1530. o ' i Medici as duke over the humbled republic. Alexander after many years' tyranny was killed by the people, but the govern- ment, nevertheless, remained in the hands of the Medici. Among the many artists and writers that lived about this time in Florence, Michael Angelo, who was equally distinguished as an ar- Angelo, a.d. chitect, sculptor, and painter ; and the clever statesman, 1474-1563. Macchiavelli, author of " The Prince," the "History of a.d. 1527. ' Florence," and " Conversations on Titus Livius," are the most distinguished names. § 290. During the residence of the popes in Avignon (§ 255), violence and lawlessness, occasioned by the bloody family quarrels of the Colonna and Orsini, had reigned in the ecclesiastical state of Borne. This inspired Cola di Bienzi, a man filled with enthusiasm for ancient Borne, with the project of bringing back peace and the ancient greatness to the state by the restoration of the republican constitution. His fiery eloquence transported the Romans. They a.d. 1347. established a new republican Borne, raised the popular ITALY. 193 orator to the office of tribune, and drove the nobles from their walls. But Kienzi's splendid part was soon played out. Pride and vanity blinded him ; oppressive taxes deprived him of the favour of the peo- ple ; so that his enemies succeeded in procuring his overthrow, and compelled him to fly. He returned, indeed, a few years after, but it .__. was only to meet with his death in a popular commotion. After arranging the division in the Church (§ 263), a few distinguished popes made an attempt to heal the wounds of the state and the Church. Among these, may be particularly mentioned a.d. 1450— Nicholas V., the founder of the "Vatican library, and Pius 1460. II. (iEneas Silvius, § 266), known as a clever and versa- tile writer, — both of them patrons of cultivation and science. On the other hand, Alexander VI. (Borgia) was the scandal of all Chris- tendom by his abandoned life, and his family (Caesar and Lucretia Borgia in particular) were guilty of frightful crimes. Alexander's successor, Julius II., possessed a magnanimous disposition, but his passion for war suited ill with his spiritual office. He marched into the field himself, and enlarged the possessions of the Church by the addition of Bologna, Ancona, Perrara, and other towns and territories. Leo X., the highly accomplished son of Lo- renzo de' Medici, united in the Vatican all the splendour of art and refinement as an inheritance of his house. But in studying the produc- tions of Greek and Soman paganism, he lost sight of the doctrine of the Church and of reverence for the Gospel; yet he taxed the religious faith of the people by the sale of indulgences, that he might be able to Raphael, support the expense of building the magnificent church of a.d. 1483— St. Peter, and to reward artists with a liberal hand. The "divine" painter, Eaphael, was the ornament of his court. In Perrara, during the fifteenth century, reigned the younger branch of the house of Este, which was not less distinguished for refinement and encouragement of the arts and sciences than the Medici. Ariosto, the writer of " Orlando Purioso," and Torquato Tasso, the poet of " Jerusalem Delivered," were the ornaments of the ducal court of Perrara. § 291. The descendants of Charles of Anjou reigned in Naples, which, since the fall of the house of Hohenstaufen (§ 239, 240), had become a papal fief. The Guelfic party found in them as zealous defenders, as the Ghibelline in the kings of Sicily of the princely Johanna I nouse °f Aragon. Two wicked queens, Johanna I. and a.d. 1343— Johanna II., filled the kingdom with acts of cruelty, war, I 3 ? 2 ' TT and confusion. The latter, before her childless departure, Johanna II., ' ■ ... a.d. 1414— named, first, an Aragoman, and afterwards a 1 rench prmce 1435. f or h er h^ an( j by this means produced two parties, a Prench and an Aragonian, that contended till the end of the fifteenth 19i TOE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. century, with great bitterness and various success, for the possession of Naples, till Frederick the Catholic of Aragon at length gained possession of it by craft and the success of his arms, and again united it with Sicily. The kingdom of Naples and Sicily remained subject to the Spanish sceptre for two hundred years, and was governed by a vice-king. Increase of taxatiou, and the destruction of the privileges of the Estates, gradually produced poverty and loss of freedom. 5. THE JTEAV BTJBGUNDIAN TERB.TTOET. § 292. Philip the Bold had received the dukedom of Burgundy Philip the from his father, king John of Prance, in fief. He united Bold, a.d. to this, by inheritance and marriage, the Burgundian 1363—1404. ;p re ig ra ft sc h a ft (Pranche Comte), formerly an appanage of the German empire, and the rich lands of Planders, together with j , Artois, Mechlin, Antwerp, and some other towns. His Poeur, a.d. son, John sans Poeur, and his grandson, Phdip the Good, PKT~rti* 19 " ex t enaea their possessions still farther over the other Good, a.d. states of the Netherlands, and established a kingdom that 1419—1467. [ n civdization, industry, and prosperity, could vie with Italy. Philip the Good was one of the most powerful and richest princes of his time, and his Netherland chivalry were distinguished by their splendour, adroitness, and polished manners. The wealthy trading and manufacturing towns of Ghent, Brussels, Antwerp, Bruges, Louvain, &c, possessed great privdeges and liberties, and a warlike mditia. § 293. Phdip' s son, Charles the Bold, enlarged the dukedom, and Ch 1 s the rjuse d the splendour of the chivalrous court to the highest Bold, a.d. point. He was a man of vigour, courage, and warlike 1467—1477- spirit; but ambition and violent passions rendei'ed him rash, insolent, and obstinate. His efforts were directed to the en- largement of his dukedom into a Gallo-Burgundian kingdom, with the Bhine for its eastern boundary. But his undertakings were frustrated by the crafty and faithless Louis XL of Prance. Por when Charles the Bold threatened the duke of Lorraine (whose lands and chief city, Nancy, he was longing for) with war, Louis brought about an alliance between Lorraine and the Swiss. Hereupon, Charles, with a stately and splendidly equipped army, marched across Jura against the Swiss, but suffered such a defeat in the battle A ' D ' ' of Granson, that the survivors were dispersed in dis- orderly flight ; and the admirable artillery, together with a magnificent camp filled with costly stuffs, gold, silver, and precious stones, fell into the bauds of an enemy who did not know their value. Maddened by this disgrace, Charles, a few months afterwards, marched with a fresh army against the confederates. But the battle of Murten ended SCANDINAVIA. 195 in the same way : the victors were again enriched with an enormous booty ; Berne wrested the Valais from the royal house of Savoy, which was in alliance with Burgundy, and the duke of Lorraine again gained possession of his lands, which had been seized upon by Charles. Misfortune confused the mind of the Burgundian duke : blind with rage, and meditating nothing but vengeance, he rejected every pro- posal of accommodation, and marched for the third time against the enemy, who were prepared for the encounter. But in January, 1477, his army suffered a thud frightful overthrow in the frozen fields before Nancy, partly by the swords of the brave Swiss, Alsacians, and Lorrainers, and partly by the treachery of his Italian condottieri. Charles himself was killed in a frozen morass during the flight. § 294. After the death of Charles, Louis XL seized upon the proper dukedom of Burgundy (Burgogne), as a vacant fief of the French crown, and attempted to get possession of the other lands. At this juncture, Charles's daughter, Maria, was married to the chivalrous Maximilian of Austria, who overcame the French, and compelled them to relinqiiish their purpose. Maria died shortly afterwards by a fall from her horse, whilst hawk- ing. The French king again renewed his treacherous intrigues for the purpose of exciting the towns of the Netherlands against Maxi- milian, who had been appointed guardian of his infant son, Philip of Burgundy. Ghent fell off, the guilds of Bruges kept him for some time a prisoner, Brabant wavered ; but nevertheless, Maximilian, by his courage and conduct, brought the whole of the Netherlands to acknowledge his rights of guardianship. Philip's son, Charles (V.), who was born to him by the Spanish Johanna, and who was born in the beginning of the century at Ghent, inherited all the lands of his parents and grand-parents. Yet his heart was with the rich, cultivated, and industrious Netherlands, which he had united into a whole by the acquisition of Utrecht, Gueldres, and some other towns, and added to the German empire, under the title of the Burgundian Circle. 6. SCANDINAVIA. § 295. After the daring sea expeditions and wanderings of the Normans and Danes (§ 204, 206) had ceased, an enterprising prince was here and there successful in raising himself above the other heads of tribes (fylken kings), and in founding a kingdom by uniting several tribes (fylken) together. This was effected in Norway by Harald Pairhair ; in Denmark, by Gorm the Old ; and in Sweden by the Tnglians. But it was with reluctance that the a.d. 900. war liie e Norman chiefs bowed beneath the authority of a supreme king, and many of the discontented renewed the expeditions by sea, and sought for a new home abroad. Thus, Bollo (Robert) in o 2 196 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. Normandy (§ 205). The contests of the kings with the chiefs of the tribes lasted for many centuries, and impeded the rapid and effectual introduction of Christianity into the Scandinavian kingdoms. For although the Gospel had been preached in the three kingdoms as early as the ninth century, by Ansgar, the " apostle of the north," and single kings, as Harald Bluetooth in Denmark, and Olaf Skot- konung in Sweden, had been converted to it as early as the tenth century, yet the pagan worship of Odin still wrestled with Christianity for the mastership, for more than a hundred years. In Denmark, Harald' s grandson, Canute the Great (§ 207), and in Norway, Olaf the Saint, gave the victory to the doctrine of a crucified Saviour ; but this did not take place in Sweden till the middle of the twelfth century, in the reign of Erick the Pious, and not till even later than this among the half-savage Pins. Christianity produced the most beneficial effects in the Scandinavian kingdoms. The Benedictine monks laid, not only the germ of spiritual develop- ment, but they also improved the manner of living, and made the people acquainted with the advantages of civilization. They intro- duced the art of writing, and banished the rude and defective Runic characters by the Latin alphabet ; they encouraged agriculture and planted new kinds of corn; they built mills, opened mines, and accustomed the warlike people to the arts of peace, to trade and agriculture. Christianity diminished the vast gulf that had hitherto existed between freemen and slaves, by awakening in every breast the sentiments of the dignity of human nature, and the equality of all men in the sight of God. In a word, the clergy obtained great wealth, privileges, and possessions, so that they could place themselves on terms of equality by the side of the free holders of land. But the peasant class, on the other hand, remained in a state of dependence, and the towns arrived at neither prosperity nor importance. § 296. Denmark, to which Norway was united, acquired a great -r.7 ,. tt extent in the eleventh and twelfth centurv, under a few Waldemar II., J a.d. 1202— warlike kings. Waldemar II. the Conqueror, prosecuted 1241 - the conquests of his father and grandfather on the coasts of the East sea with such success, that he at last united all the Slavish lands on the south and east coasts of the Baltic, from Holstein to Esthonia, — Lauenburg, Mecklenburg, Pomerania, a part of Prussia, the coast land of Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia, with his other possessions, and could call himself king of the Danes and Slaves, and lord of Nordalbingia (Sleswick-IIolstein) . But his severity engen- dered hate and bitterness ; so that when, whilst engaged in the chase, he fell into the power of count Henry of Schwerin, whom he had deeply injured, and was kept prisoner by him for more than two years in the strong castle of Danneberg ; the princes who were his vassals revolted from him and maintained their SCANDINAVIA. 197 independence with the sword ; so that in a short time the proud fabric of Waldeniar fell to the ground. Hamburg and Lubeck became free imperial towns ; the peasant republic of the Ditanarsens regained their independence, and the German provinces returned to the government of the emperor. After Waldeniar II. 's death there occurred a time of internal confusion, which was taken advantage of by the aristo- cracy of nobles to increase their privileges. In addition to their free- Waldemar ^ om & om taxes, the holders of land now obtained a juris- III., a.d. diction peculiar to themselves. "Waldeniar III. again 1340 1375. governed with a firm hand : his daughter, Margareta, united the three Scandinavian kingdoms under one sceptre by the Union of Calmar. § 297. In Sweden also, the power of the kings had been much diminished, and that of the chivalrous nobility increased, by the pro- tracted contests for the crown. Even the powerful family of the Eolkungs, which had ascended the throne about the middle of the thirteenth century, succumbed in a few generations to the strokes of fate which smote all the princely houses of Sweden. Of the seven kings of this royal house, five were dethroned, and died either in prison or in banishment. After the deposition of the last Folkung, Magnus II., the Swedish throne descended upon his a d 1363 sister's son, Albert of Mecklenburg, who, however, after a few years, was conquered and robbed of his kingdom by the Danish Margareta ; whereupon Sweden concluded the Union of Calmar with Denmark. This Union of Calmar proved a blessing to neither of the three kingdoms. In Denmark and Norway, under the weak kings who succeeded Margareta, the power of the state fell more and more into the hands of the rich nobles, whilst Sweden was treated and governed by the Danish kings almost as though it were a conquered country. Dissension soon loosened the bonds of the Union of Calmar, without, however, tearing them completely asunder. The Hanseates, who sought to prevent a firm union of the three kingdoms by every possible method, encouraged these divisions from interested motives. Christian I -^e house of Oldenburg assumed the government of Den- a.d. 1448 — mark, in the person of Christian I. Sweden also, at the if ' o f same time, obtained a sagacious and valiant ruler in Steno a.d. 1471— Sture. This prince curbed the insolence of the nobles, 1504. elevated the peasant and burgher classes, founded the university of Upsala, and invited men of learning and printers from foreign lands into the country. Steno Sture governed the kingdom with almost absolute power ; but when his second successor, Steno Sture the younger, quarrelled with the archbishop of Upsala, the tyrannical Christian II. succeeded, by the aid of the latter, in esta- blishing anew the supremacy of Denmark over Sweden. Steno Sture 198 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. was overcome in the field and mortally wounded, where- upon Christian II. commanded ninety -four of the most influential and powerful nobles to be beheaded in Stockholm. But this cruelty, after a few years, dissolved for ever the bonds between Denmark and Sweden. A.D. 973. 7. KUNGAEY. § 29S. Shortly after Otto's victory on the Lechfeld (§ 210) had put an end to the incursions of the Hun- garians, Greisa became a convert to Christianity, and ordered the doctrines of the Grospel to be taught to his own people by GTerman missionaries. What he began was brought to a conclusion by his Stephen the son ' Stephen ^ ne Pious, who received the kingly dignity Pious, from the pope. He provided for the diffusion of Chris- a.d. 1000. tianity, to which the Magyars, partly from inherent bar- barism, and partly from dislike of the Germans, were averse, by founding monasteries, and calling the Benedictine monks into the country ; he reduced the state to order by dividing the kingdom into comitates (shires), and by entrusting the management of the affairs of the army, the government, and the administration of justice, to intendants appointed by himself; he became a legislator, inasmuch as he accustomed his subjects to civil order, agriculture, and industry. But the warlike character of the Magyars, and their repugnance to the Christian worship of the West, which brought servitude, socage duties, and the troublesome labours of agriculture with it, in place of the old wild freedom, occasioned desolating wars and fresh confusion after the death of Stephen. Geisa II., Under Greisa II. troops of Flemish and Low-German a.d. 1150. settlers established themselves in Transylvania, who, under the name of Saxons, retain to this day the manners, customs, and institutions of their fatherland. By patience and industry they have converted the land from a desert into a blooming region, with rich towns and prosperous villages, and have vigorously defended their liberties against all attacks. In the thirteenth century, the Hungarian nobles (magnates) wrested a charter (" the golden privi- lege ") from the king, Andreas II., which secured import- ant privileges to the clergy and nobility, and, like the Magna Charta of England (§ 276), formed the foundation of the free constitution of Hungary. An infringement of the " golden privilege " by the king, justified the nobles in an armed opposition. § 299. When the royal house of Arpad was extinguished by the death of Andreas III., Hungary became an elective kingdom. Here- in is th upon, Louis the Great of the royal Neapolitan house of Great, a.d. Anjou, was raised to the throne. Under this distin- 1342—1348. g U j snec i king, Hungary reached the highest point of its POLAND. 199 external power and domestic prosperity. He obtained the crown of Poland, extended the frontiers of Hungary to the Lower Danube, and made the Venetians his tributaries. The hills around Tokay were planted with vines, the administration of justice was improved, the citizens and peasants were secured against oppression and arbi- trary treatment ; schools for education were established. After the death of Louis, who conducted many wars in Italy, long and violent contests were carried on for the throne, at the termination of which, the German emperor, Sigismund, united the Hungarian crown with his others, and arranged the representation of the kingdom by means of Estates. Under the weak successors of his daughter, Hungary would have fallen a prey to the Osman Turks, had not the heroic Huniades saved the land by his valour and military skill. The nation, out of gratitude, conferred the throne of Hungary upon his energetic Matthias Cor son ' Matthias Corvinus, who occupied it for thirty-two vinus, a.d. years, as the worthy successor of Stephen the Pious and 1458 1490. Louis the Great. Matthias shone in the arts of peace as well as in those of war. He held the power of the Osmans in check, enlarged his territories towards Austria and Germany, and improved the affairs of the army. A new university was founded by him in Ofen (Buda), a library established, and the civilization of the people promoted by the introduction from all quarters of men of learning and artists, printers and architects, gardeners, economists (persons skilled in agriculture), and artificers. These advantages were again lost under his successors. The Turks carried their victorious arms over Belgrade, the- western acquisitions were surrendered by treaties of peace ; at the same time, the royal power was so curtailed, that henceforth, not only the levying of taxes, but even war and peace were dependent upon the National Convent, and at length, the mag- nates took possession of the whole authority for themselves. The fall of Louis II. at Mohacs (§ 307) occasioned a contest for the crown, the result of which was, that the country was divided into two halves : Transylvania and East Hungary as far as the Theiss, which was under the dominion of the Turks ; and West Hungary, which Eerdinand of Austria incorporated for some time with his other dominions, till the whole fell into the hands of his successors. 8. POLAND. § 300. The vast plains of the Vistula and the lands on the Oder and the "Wartha were inhabited by Slavonic tribes, who were some- times governed by a single chief, and sometimes divided into several principalities. Erom the time of the conversion of duke Miesco (Mieceslav) to Christianity by German missionaries, Po- land was looked upon as a fief of the German empire, but was very slightly connected with it, and in the time of Frederick II. 200 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. rendered itself entirely independent. The kingdom of Poland was torn and weakened by many divisions, so that in the twelfth century, the Silesian principality on the Oder was entirely dissevered from it, Vladislaus anc ^ Im ited with Germany. Poland first rose to import- IV., a.d. ance in the fourteenth century, when Vladislaus IV. permanently united the principalities on the Wartha (Posen, &c), as Great Poland, with the lands on the Vistula (Little Poland) ; had himself crowned in Cracow, and transmitted Casimirthe ^ e title of king to his posterity. His son, Casimir Great, a.d. the Great, who extended his domains over Gallicia and 1^70. j£ e( j Russia, and built a university in Cracow, also deserved well of Poland by his merits as a legislator. But despite Ins efforts to diminish the power of the nobility and to increase that of the cities, no free burgher class could flourish in a nation so addicted to war and so deficient in civilization. The dominion that rested on the sword still remained with the nobles, — money, retail traffic, and trade, with the Jews ; the peasant led a wretched life as a serf, and won but a miserable support from the fertile corn-fields of the Vistula. § 301. "With Casimir, the male line of the Piasti became extinct, whereupon, the Poles transferred the crown to his sister's son, Louis Louis the the Great of Hungary. Prom this time forth, Poland Great, a.d. became an elective kingdom, the nation, nevertheless, ad- The Jagel- ' hered for two hundred years to the race of the Jagellons, Ions, a.d. which, however, was obliged to grant the nobles an immunity — °' ' from taxes and other great privileges in return for its election. Under the first king of this race, Jagello (Vladislaus), Li- thuania was added to the Polish empire, after Christianity had been established and the idols overthrown there. The woollen garments that were distributed during baptism attracted thousands of half- willing Casi ' TV Lets to the new faith. Jagello' s second successor, Casimir a.d. 1447— I V"-> induced the German orders to relinquish Culm, Elbing, * ! ' 2, and Marienwerder, and to recognize the suzerainship of Po- land, in doing which, he was obliged to purchase by fresh concessions the aid of the nobles, who, in the Polish Diet, alone possessed the privi- lege of consenting to the raising of taxes and the levying of troops. That every noble might not always be obliged to appear personally at the Diet, it was arranged that a certain number of authorized deputies should be sent from all the Voiwodeschafts, to whom the king added besides a few representatives of the clergy and of the higher officials. Without the consent of this assembly, to which the burgher class was not admitted, the king could adopt no measure, either of taxation or legislation, nor take any important step in the government or in the conduct of war. The nobles were regarded as the only true citizens of the state; and the principle that they were all exactly on THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE. 20 1 an equality, raised their power in the same proportion that frequent changes of the throne and wars of succession depressed that of the king. In the century of the Reformation, king Sigmund established the suzerainship of Poland over the dukedom of Prussia, which had been recently founded by the grand-master of the German order, Albert of Brandenburg, who was a convert to Lutheranism, and enfeoffed Gotthard Keltler, chief commander of the order of the sword, who had also gone over to Protestantism, with Courland : but owing to the selfishness of the nobles and internal dissensions, the Polish king- dom was unable, for a permanency, to afford any sufficient opposition to the advance of the Turks and Russians. 9. THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE. § 302. When the great-grandson of the Varangian chief, Ruric Vladimir the (§ 206), Vladimir the Great, who held his residence in Great, a.d. Kiow, introduced the Greek Christian church into his dominions, the latter extended from the Dnieper to the lake of Lodoga and to the banks of the Dvina. But they suffered so much in their union and strength under his successors, by divisions among heirs and internal wars, that the Lithuanians, Poles, and brethren of the sword, &c, in the West, gained possession of large portions of territory, and at length the Moguls conquered all the land from the Dnieper to the Vistula, and made Russia tributary. The great khan of the Golden Horde of Kaptschak, whose residence and fixed quarters were on the east bank of the Volga, exacted, during two hundred years, an oppressive tribute from the Russian princes and their subjects. It was not until the power of the Golden Horde had been broken by dissension, that the chief prince, Ivan Vasilyevitsch the Great of Moscow, succeeded in freeing Ivan Vasily- bis kingdom from tribute, and in extending it in all direc- evitsch, a.d. tions by successful wars. The rich city of Novogorod, which belonged to the Hanseatic confederation, and which had possessed, for centuries, a republican constitution, and had known how to defend its liberties by a stout militia, was subjected and robbed of its privileges, and a number of its chief citizens were re- moved to other towns. Ivan was not only a conqueror but a legis- lator and politician, although in mind and manners he remained a rude and cruel barbarian. He adopted measures respecting the suc- cession of the throne, to the end that the kingdom might not be farther divided ; and he invited masons and mechanics from Germany and Italy, to plant the seeds of civilization among his barbarous peo- ple. He built the Kremlin (citadel) for the defence of his chief city, Moscow. Since the destruction of Constantinople by the Turks, the Russian 202 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. metropolitan (afterwards called Patriarch) had been elected by the native bishops, and thus the independence of the church maintained. t„™ v«;i™ Ivan's grandson, Ivan Vasilyevitsch, who first assumed vitsch II., the title of Tzar or ruler of all the Eussians, conquered |;°- 1533 ~ Kasan and Astracan, extended his kingdom to the Cau- casus, and made preparations for the discovery and sub- jection of Siberia. He laid the foundation of a standing army by the establishment of the brigade of arquebusiers (Strelitzes). The a.d. 1598. male line of Euric became extinct with Ivan's son, Eeodor. 10 MOGULS AND TUBES. Zengis-Chan, § 303. In the beginning of the 13th century, Zengis- a.d. 1227. Chan (Temudschin), the chief of a warlike nomadic horde, marched forth to conquest from the elevated plains of Middle Asia. He scaled the Chinese wall and subdued the "celestial empire." Neither Hindostan nor the vast empire of the Carisimans on the Caspian sea and in Persia coidd withstand the savage strength of this advancing pastoral tribe. Bochara, Samarcand, and Balch, with all their treasures of art and science, perished in the flames. Zengis- Chan' s sons and grandsons pursued his conquests. Batu subdued the lands to the north of the Black Sea, made Russia tributary, burnt Cracow, and filled Poland and Hungary with slaughter and desola- tion. At length, the Moguls (who are also called Tatars) crossed the Oder ; Breslau was reduced to ashes, duke Henry of Lower Silesia fell, with the flower of his Christian warriors, on the field of battle near Leignitz, beneath the blows of the pagan nomads ; the people took refuge hi the mountains ; the whole West trembled ; the pope and the emperor, engaged in a furious quarrel (§ 236), did nothing towards aiding Christendom. Happily the enemy proceeded no farther. The bravery of the European warriors and the strength of their castles scared them away. They turned back from a land where there were no riches to attract them, and carried their arms against the luxurious khalifate of Bagdad, for which they prepared a bloody end. After the last khalif, Avith 200,000 Moslems, had fallen, and the ancient seat of the empire of the Abassides had been plundered for forty days, the Tatars pressed forwards upon Syria, where they destroyed the magnificent Haleb (Aleppo) and Damascus, and tram- pled the Christian and Arabian culture under the hoofs of their horses. In a few generations, the empire of the Moguls separated into a number of independent states. But the Eussians on the east of the Volga still bore for more than two centuries the yoke of the " Golden Horde," and Hungary and Poland recovered but slowly from their devastations. § 304. Towards the end of the thirteenth century, the Osmans, pressed upon by the Moguls, left the region they had hitherto occu- MOGULS AND TURKS. 203 pied, on the east coast of the Caspian sea, and descended upon Asia Minor. They were a warlike, nomadic race, professing the Moham- medan religion, and incited "by their priests (dervishes) to make war upon the Christians. Osman marched into Bithynia, chose Prusa (Bursa) for the seat of his empire, and maintained his conquests against the indolent Greeks and their Western mercenaries. His successors improved their army hy form- ing the strongest and handsomest youths, whom they selected from their Christian captives, into an effective infantry (janissaries), by Murad I. means of a military education. After Murad I. had a.d. 1361 — reduced the whole of Asia Minor under his yoke, he passed into Europe, and subjected, in a few campaigns, the whole country between the Hellespont and the Hoemus. Adrian- ople was taken, embellished with splendid mosques, and selected for the seat of Murad's government. His son, the energetic but cruel Bajazet, continued the victorious course of his predecessor with such Bajazet, a.d. success, that he was called the "lightning." He con- 1389—1403. quered Macedonia and Thessaly, penetrated through Thermopylae into the desolated Greece and Peloponnesus, took Argos by storm, and allowed his swift horsemen to wander to the southernmost point of the ancient Laconia. At length, the West armed itself against this terrible enemy. Sigismund of Hungary, John of Burgundy, the flower of the French chivalry, and many German and Bohemian nobles, together more than 100,000 strong, marched to the Lower Danube. But in the bloody battle of Nicopoli the Christians, despite their valour, suffered a great defeat. Many counts and knights fell into the hands of the Turks, and only obtained their liberty by a heavy ransom. 10,000 prisoners of inferior rank were put to death by the order of Bajazet. § 305. The victorious course of this mighty prince was checked by an enemy who trod a more vast and bloodier path than himself. This enemy was the Mogul ruler, Timur the Lame (Tamerlane), a descend- ant of Zengis-Chan, whose dilapidated kingdom he determined to restore. He left Samarcand, the charmingly situated seat of his empire, at the head of his warlike pastoral tribes, for the purpose of subjecting every nation between the wall of China and the Mediter- ranean, by the edge of the sword. After he had marched trium- phantly through India and Persia, and destroyed Bagdad and Damascus, he filled Asia Minor with desolation and terror. Smoke, ruins, and hills of slain marked his victorious path. At this point Bajazet relinquished the siege of Constantinople, and marched against the conqueror of the world. A fearful battle was fought near Angora (Ancyra), which, despite the valour and conduct of the Turks, terminated to the advantage of the Moguls. 201< THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGE. Bajazet was taken prisoner, and died the following year of grief. Timour's empire fell to pieces as rapidly as it had been formed. Murad II., § ^06. Bajazet's grandson, Murad II., restored the a.d. 1421— shattered Ottoman kingdom to its ancient strength and former compass in Asia and Europe. He reduced the Byzantine empire to the strong chief city and a few neighbouring places, and made it tributary. At this juncture John VII. (Palseo- logus), determined to gain the aid of the "West, by uniting the Eastern church with the Roman. With this object, he proceeded to Italy, accompanied by the patriarch and a few bishops, where, after a long and vehement dispute upon certain religious and ecclesiastical questions, an ambiguous union was effected, which, however, was rejected by the zealous confessors of both churches, and the division made greater than before. Nevertheless, the composition was attended with this result, that the pope, by his legate, Julian, united the Christian princes in a campaign against the Turks, and in the meanwhile attempted to persuade the Hungarians and Poles to an attack upon the Osman empire. Ladislaus, king of Hungary and Poland, and the heroic Huniades of Transylvania, crossed the Danube, but were totally defeated in the bloody battle of "Warna. The young king was one of the slain ; his head was carried about on a spear; the legate, Julian, was overtaken by death during the flight. § 307. The last hour of the Byzantine empire was approaching, when, upon the death of Murad II., his energetic but blood-thirsty Mohammed S0U ' Mohammed II., became sultan of the Osmans. II., a.d. Resolved upon making Constantinople the seat of his government, he advanced to the siege of the city, and harassed it for fifty days by repeated assaults, to such a degree, that, despite a gallant defence, it could hold out no longer. "When the walls were scaled, the last emperor, Constantine, who still possessed some feeling for the old Roman greatness — for freedom, for religion, and for his country, — joined in the combat, and fell bravely fighting on the walls of his capital. The ancient seat of Byzantine magnificence became the residence of the sultan. The church of St. Sophia was turned into a mosque, and the half-moon of Islam was planted on the ruins of Christian civilization. Many learned men fled in terror to the West, and were instrumental in diffusing the Greek language and literature. The fall of Constantinople was followed by the con- quest of Greece and the Morea (Peloponnesus), and the subjection of the countries on the Danube ; it was only in the mountainous regions of Albania and Epirus, that the warlike hero, Alexander Castriota (Scanderberg), maintained an independent authority till his death, whilst the independence of MOGULS AND TURKS. 205 Soliman the Hungary was secured by the victory of Huniades at ^nfS- Bel g rade - But under Soliman the Magnificent, who 1526. wrested the island of Rhodes (§ 227) from the knights of St. John after a most gallant resistance, the half of Hungary, together with Buda, fell, after the terrible battle of Mohacs, into the hands of the Ottomans, who now extended their ravages a.d. 1529 . to the walls of Vienna, and alarmed the whole West. It was under Soliman that the Turkish empire attained its most extended limits and its greatest internal strength. In Asia, it embraced Syria and the whole country as far as the Tigris ; in Africa, Egypt, with the sea-coast, and the piratical states of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripolis. After Soliman, who died at an advanced age before Sigeth, in Hungary (in defence of which the magna- nimous Zriny met with the death of a hero), the warlike power of the Turks gradually decayed under the exhausting influence of de- bauchery and sensual indulgence. BOOK THIRD. THE MODERN EPOCH. I. THE EOBEBITNNEES OE THE MODEEN EPOCH. 1. THE SEA PASSAGE TO THE EAST INDIES, AND THE DISCOVERT OE AMERICA. § 308. En the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, many great inven- tions hegan to be applied, by which the conditions of the middle ages experienced a complete revolution. An Italian, Elavio Gioga, pre- pared a compass by means of the magnetic needle, by which a mighty impulse was given to navigation ; gunpowder, which, according to some, was the invention of a German monk, Berthold Schwarz, and in the opinion of others, had been known at a remote period by the Chinese and Arabians, came into use in the middle of the fourteenth century, and prepared the downfal of chivalry. But the invention which was most fertile in results, was the art of printing, which was called into existence by John Guttenburg of Mayence. His assistants in the work, who alone derived any advan- tage from the discovery, were Eust or Eaust, a goldsmith of Mayence, and Peter Schoffer, a writer of books. The latter introduced types of metal in place of the wooden ones which Guttenburg had em- ployed. At first, the art was kept secret; but it was carried by German workmen into all the countries of civilized Europe. By this means, books, which had hitherto been only attainable by the rich, came into the hands of the people, inasmuch as their cost was ma- terially lessened by the ease with which they were multiplied. § 309. By the use of the compass it became possible to extend navigation, which had hitherto been confined to the coast and the Mediterranean, over the ocean. This was first done by the Portu- guese. The discovery of the islands of Porto Santo and Madeira, where the culture of the vine and sugar-cane succeeded admirably, was soon followed by the possession of the Azores and the discovery of the Cape de Verd and the coast of Upper Guinea, rich in gold- MARITIME DISCOVERIES. 207 dust, ivory, gum, and Negro slaves. Lower Guinea (Congo) was also discovered in the reign of king John II. It was from this point that the daring Bartholomew Diaz reached the southern extremity of Africa, the original name of which, " the Cape of Storms," was soon changed by the sanguine king into that of " the Cape of Good Hope." Not more than twenty years after, the enterprising Vasco da Grama discovered from this point, in the reign of Emanuel the Great, the sea passage to the East Indies, when he sailed from the east coast of Africa over the Indian Ocean to the coast of Malabar, and entered the haven of Calicut. It was here that the Portuguese, after some sharp encounters with the natives, established the first European commercial colony, — an undertaking which they completed with perseverance and courage. After Yasco da Grama and Cabral (who discovered Brazil during the passage, and took possession of it for Portugal,) came the gallant Almeida, who reduced many of the Indian princes to pay tribute, and compelled them to submit to the establishment of factories in their chief cities. After he had been killed by the wild Hottentots on his return, Albuquerque, in whom heroic courage was united with wis- dom, received the governorship of India. He conquered ~Goa, and made it the capital of the Indian colony; he stormed Malacca, the emporium of the trade of Upper India, reduced the ruler of Ormuz in the Gulf of Persia to subjection, and caused the name of Emanuel to be feared and respected. But the latter rewarded his faithful servant with ingratitude ; and grief at this broke the hero's heart. During the next ten years, the Portu- guese established colonies and factories on the island of Ceylon and the coast of Coromandel, and subjected the spice-bearing Molucca and Sunda islands. Lisbon became the seat of the commerce of the world ; but avarice and selfishness soon stifled the nobler emotions in the hearts of the Portuguese. § 310. The zeal for discovery which was awakened by the enter- prizes of the Portuguese, inspired the bold Genoese, Christopher Columbus (Colon), with the thought of discovering a new way to the vaunted Indies, by a western passage. He imparted his project to his native city, Genoa, and begged for support ; but there, as well as by the Portuguese and English, he was refused. At length, Isabella of Castile, in the joy of her heart at the fortunate conquest of Granada, allowed herself to be persuaded to fit out three vessels, and to intrust them to the bold voyager. The title of Great Admiral and Viceroy of all the lands and islands that should be discovered, and a tenth part of the revenue that might be expected to be received from them, was promised to himself and his posterity, as the reward of his success. On the 3rd of August, 1492, the little fleet left the Anda- 208 THE MODERN EPOCH. lusian harbour of Palos, and passed the Canary Islands, sailing con- stantly to the "westward. The fear and anxiety of the seamen in- creased with the distance they traversed, and at length broke into murmuring and open mutiny. The crew were already threatening their magnanimous leader with death and destruction unless he returned, when the discovery of the island Guahanani (since then called St. Salvador), on the 12th of October, saved him. They found a beautiful and fruitful country, with naked copper-coloured savages, who looked on without the slightest suspicion, whilst their land was taken possession of in the names of the royal pair of Spain, and exchanged their goods for toys and spangles ; but the anticipated treasures in gold, precious stones, and pearls, were not met with in the abundance that was hoped for, either here or on the two larger islands of Cuba and Hayti (Hispaniola, St. Domingo), which were shortly afterw r ards discovered. After Columbus had established a colony on Hispaniola, he returned to Spain, and after a daugerous voyage, brought back to astonished Europe the intelligence of a new world, which, in consequence of the original error, received the name of the West Indies. In the course of his three following voyages, Columbus discovered more islands (for example, Jamaica), and at length also, the north-east coast of South America, not far from the mouth of the Oronoco. But this new portion of the world did not bear the name of its discoverer, but that of its describer, the Floren- tine, Amerigo Vespucci. Columbus shared the lot of many other great men — he was not permitted to enjoy the fruits of his labours. The colony that had been left behind in Hispaniola had fallen into confusion, in consequence of quarrels among themselves and with the natives. AVhen Columbus, for the purpose of restoring order, wished to punish some of the most licentious disturbers of peace, the latter made an accusation against him at the Spanish court. Hereupon, king Ferdinand sent a narrow-minded official to make inquiries, who commenced his undertaking by depriving Columbus of his governor- ship, and ordering him to be carried in fetters to Spain. Here he was indeed released from his chains, but nothing was thought about the fulfilment of the stipulated contract. Columbus, deprived of his offices and dignities, died, shortly after his last unfortunate voyage, in Valladolid, from whence his dead body was afterwards carried to Cuba. The fetters in which he had been brought bound to Spain, were placed with him in his grave by his son, Diego. § 311. A new spirit of heroism had been awakened by Columbus ; all courageous men who were acquainted with the sea went forth to make discoveries. Who could wish to remain idle when so rich a field for gold, renown, and ambition stood open ? The hardy and CONQUEST OF MEXICO AND PERU. 209 enterprising Balboa surmounted the rocky isthmus of Panama under incredible difficulties, and discovered tbe Pacific Ocean. The Portuguese, Magelhaens sailed through the straits, named after him, into the Pacific, reached the East India islands, after enduring the extremities of famine, and thus made the first voyage round the world. Both died violent deaths, the former by his envious followers, the latter by the hand of an assassin on the Philip- pines. The most remarkable event however, was the discovery and con- quest of Mexico by Ferdinand Cortez. The contest here carried on was not with savages, but with a people who AD 1 521 dwelt in towns, exercised arts and trade, clothed them- selves in cotton stuffs, and lived under a regular system of govern- ment, with a king, a rich nobility, and a powerful priesthood. "With 500 valiant Spaniards, who were accompanied by a few native tribes (the Tlascalani) as allies, Cortez subjected a populous nation, who were deficient neither in warlike spirit nor patriotism, took their king, Montezuma, prisoner in his own palace, and conquered the chief city, Mexico. The frightful effects of the thundering ordnance, the stately cavalry, the splendour of the European military accoutre- ments, engendered a notion among the natives, that the Spaniards must be a higher order of beings, whom it was impossible for them, with their feeble strength and miserable weapons (iron was unknown to them), to withstand. "Within two years, Cortez conquered the land, and put an end to the horrible idol-worship, in which thousands of men were every year offered in sacrifice ; but he was prevented by the suspicious government from establishing a new and regulated system. He was recalled, and died forgotten in Spain, a.d. 1547. a.d. 1529— With still smaller means than Cortez, Pizarro and Al- 1535. magro, men of great courage and enterprise, but without cultivation, and governed by selfishness and the coarser passions, effected the conquest of the golden land of Peru. The Peruvians, ruled over by the rich royal race of Incas, were a civilized nation of mild character, and unstained by the frightful idolatry of the Mexicans, but also devoid of their military virtue. A contest for the throne among the royal family facilitated the conquest of the land by the Spaniards. After the cruel Pizarro had made himself master of the king, and, despite his promise to set him free in return for an enormous mass of gold, ordered him to be executed, he subjected the beautiful land which abounded in gold mines, and founded the new a.d. 1535— capital, Lima. Erancis Pizarro and his brother soon 1538. quarrelled with Almagro (who in the mean time had dis- covered Chili), and they turned their arms against each other. Al- magro was overcome and beheaded, but his son avenged the death of his father on Erancis Pizarro. The land was reduced to the brink glO THE MODERN EPOCH. of destruction by tlie wild rage of the discoverers. At tliis crisis, Charles V. sent a wise and prudent priest, Gasca, as governor to Peru: Gasca subdued the rebellious troops, had the last Pizarro , ,„ hunej on the gallows, and then arranged the state anew. a.d. 1548. § 312. Much as Ave may admire the heroic courage and the enterprising spirit displayed by Europeans in the conquest of the New World, we must equally deplore the severity and avarice which impelled them to the most cruel ill-usage of the natives. Those who escaped from the sword, the destructive effects of gun- powder, and the multiplied diseases, were mercilessly destroyed by severe labours. They were compelled to take care of the plantations which the conquerors made on their property, to dig in the gold and silver mines which were opened in their country, and to carry bur- dens for which their feeble bodies were not fitted. It was in vain that well-meaning priests, who attempted as missionaries to bring Christianity to the savages, preached kindness and humanity, — selfishness hardened the hearts of the Europeans and rendered them insensible to the teaching of the Gospel ; and when at length the noble priest Las Casas, with the purpose of lightening the lot of the Indians, recommended the more robust African negro for the severe labours of the plantations, this gave occasion to the horrible slave- trade, which was a curse upon the black population, without prevent- ing the gradual extinction of the copper-coloured native. The dis- covery of the New World and the introduction of American produc- tions were attended with vast results on the European manners and mode of living. Have not colonial wares, coffee, sugar, tobacco, &c, since they have been in general use, become indispensable necessaries ? Do not potatoes, which we received from thence, form the most im- portant part of the food of the people ? What influence has not the increased quantity of the precious metals which the mines of Peru have yielded exercised upon all the relations of life and upon the value of property ? The natural sciences and geography have been so enriched, that since then they have had an entirely different aspect. Trade also took a different direction: — as formerly the Italian trading towns, so now the western states, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, and, somewhat later, England, became the centre of commerce and the seat of wealth. But as both the former fettered their trade from its very commencement, and excluded other nations from their colonies, the season of their prosperity was but transient. 2. THE EEVIVAL OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES. § 313. In the fifteenth century Italy was the central point of Western civilization; many splendid courts and opulent cities contended for the glory of becoming patrons of the arts and sciences. The Medici in Plorence (§ 288, 289), and several popes, caused manuscripts to THE REVIVAL OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES. 211 be purchased, and founded libraries and academies ; the printing establishments wbich arose in all quarters came to the assistance of their efforts. At first, attention was exclusively directed to the Latin language and literature ; but when, after the taking of Con- stantinople by the Turks, many of the learned men of Byzantium took refuge in Italy, Greek also came into fashion. Dictionaries and grammars were compiled ; the comprehension of the ancient authors was facilitated by commentaries and translations, and a classical Latin style became the distinguishing mark of an educated man. The next consequence of the revival of classical studies was the establishment of fresh seminaries of education, first, in Italy, and afterwards, in the other countries of Europe. Many universities, gymnasiums, and edu- cational establishments of all sorts arose, especially in Germany, which had long maintained a close intercourse with Italy ; and many learned men, as John Eeuchlin from Pforzheim (a.d. 1521), Erasmus of Rot- terdam (a.d. 1536), and Ulrick of Hulten (a.d. 1523), rivalled the great Italians in the knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages and of science. The friends of the new culture were called Human- ists ; their opponents, the supporters of the scholastic wisdom of the middle ages, and above all others, the Dominicans, were named Obscu- rantists. The Humanists of all countries were connected with one another. Latin, then the universal language of all learned and edu- cated men, and a rapid interchange of letters, which supplied the place of newspapers, facilitated this intercourse. The contest between the new culture and the Obscurantists with their barbarous Latin, reached its highest point in the dispute which wasconductedby Eeuchlin with the Dominicans of Cologne. The latter wished to burn all the Hebrew books, because they were supposed to contain blasphemies against Jesus Christ. Eeuchlin, who was appointed umpire in the matter by the emperor, declared the charge to be untrue, and opposed himself to the design. This so enraged the monks, that they accused Eeuchlin of heresy, openly burnt one of his works, and condemned the study of the Greek and Hebrew languages. This produced a literary war, in which all the friends of education took the part of Eeuchlin, and the cause of the Humanists obtained a complete triumph. The pope at length put an end to the contest : the Domi- nicans were condemned to pay the costs of the process ; and when they delayed to do this, they were forced to discharge their obliga- tions by Erancis Sickingen. Erom the crowd that assembled itself around Eeuchlin, proceeded the Epistolse obscurorum virorum, which are said to have been chiefly the production of IJlrick von Hutten. In these letters, the proceedings and stupid insolence of the monks are faithfully but satirically displayed in their own barbarous Latin. Hutten, one of the boldest and most powerful advocates of Germany's freedom and independence, died, persecuted and a fugitive, p2 212 THE MODERN EPOCH. on the island of Ufhau in the lake of Zurich, in the 36th year of his life. Erasmus of Rotterdam, an elegant scholar in ancient literature, fought, with all the weapons of wit and intellect, against schoolmen and monks. Among his numerous works, the most important are The Praise of Polly, — a satirical composition, and an edition of the New Testament in the original Greek text, with a Latin translation and paraphrase. At first, a friend of Luther and Hutten, he after- wards turned from them and opposed them in vehement controversial writings. II. THE TIME OF THE EEFOEMATION. 1. THE GEEMAN EEFOEMATION. a. DE. MAETIN LTTTHEE. § 311. The cry that passed through Europe in the fifteenth cen- tury, for a reformation of the Church hoth in its head and members, had remained unheeded by the popes ; and the great ecclesiastical synods (§ 264, 266) had been followed by no results. The Church had refused the voluntary self-purification that had been required of her, and turned a deaf ear to the voice of the people. Since then, the abuses had not been diminished. The court of Eome derived a vast revenue from the Churches of other countries ; the lower clergy were lazy, immoral, and ignorant, and took little or no interest in the new culture and the impulse that had been produced by it ; the higher clergy led an entirely worldly life, found their enjoyment in sensual indulgences and princely magnificence, and in the study of works of art and literature, and of the philosophy of heathen anti- quity, frequently lost sight of the doctrines of the Gospel. Nothing but an impulse was wanting to unite the dissatisfied members of the Church in a mighty opposition. This impulse was given by Pope Leo X. Por the purpose of defraying the expenses of the erection of the church of St. Peter, and of other works of art, Leo offered an indulgence for sale, through the elector, Albert of Mayence, in which forgiveness of sins, re-attainment of God's grace, and remission from the punishments of purgatory, was assured to the piu'chaser. Albert, who received one-half of the profits, employed in Saxony the Domini- can monk Tetzel, in the sale, who went so audaciously to work, that the Augustine monk, Dr. Martin Luther, who saw that real penitence and the respect for the confessional was thereby endangered, felt himself compelled to affix ninety -five theses to the Castle church at Wittenberg, on the eve of All-Saints, with the offer to defend them against any one. In these he contested the efficacy of absolution without repentance, and denied the power of the pope to grant remis- sion of sins to any except the penitent. THE GERMAN REFORMATION. 213 § 315. Martin Luther was born on the 10th of November, 1483. Destined to study by his father, a respectable miner, he had devoted himself to jurisprudence, for four years, in Erfurt, when anxiety for the salvation of his soul, and the sudden death of a friend during a heavy thunder-storm, determined him to enter a cloister. He once more entertained himself among his friends with cheerful singing, music, and wine, and then shut himself up in the silent cell of an Augustine monastery at Erfurt. He here submitted himself to all the duties and servile offices of a mendicant monk, but without thereby obtaining alleviation of his melancholy, or of the sufferings of his soul. It was not until he arrived at the conviction that man can only be saved, not by his own works, but by the mercy of God in Christ, that his heart found repose. By the recommendation of the chief of the order, Staupitz, Luther was summoned to "Wittenberg, in 1508, to give lectures in the university, newly established by Frederick the "Wise. He had attended with great diligence to his duties as teacher, preacher, and pastor of souls, when he was now called by fate to a more extended sphere of exertion. § 316. This bold stepping forward of Luther, in whom a deep religious earnestness was not to be mistaken, found great sympathy in the whole of Germany. A summons was soon issued to him to come and defend himself in Rome ; but upon the intercession of the elector of Saxony, who was favourably disposed to the reformer, the papal nuncio, Cajetanus, undertook the examination in Augsburg. Luther, provided with a safe conduct, appeared in a poor plight at Augsburg : the proud Dominican thought to refute the humble monk by his theological learning ; but Luther displayed more depth and reading than the former had given him credit for. After a' short disputation, Cajetan commanded him to be gone, and not to appear again before him till he (Cajetan) should caU him. After drawing up an appeal to the pope better informed, Luther fled hastdy from Augsburg during the night. It was in vain that Cajetan required the elector either to send the audacious preacher to Home, or at least to banish him from his states. Erederick replied that Luther's wish to be brought before an hnpartial tribunal appeared to him to be reasonable. This protection of the elector was of the more importance to Luther, as the former, since the death of the emperor Maximilian, was conducting the government, until the princes cOuld agree respect- ing a fresh election. Eor as the pope wished to exercise an influence on the election of emperor, he attempted to gain over the electors to his own side. He sent his chamberlain, Miltitz, an adroit Saxon nobleman, with a golden rose to Wittenberg. He was commissioned at the same time to dissuade Luther from farther proceedings against the Church. Luther promised to let the contest drop if the trade in indulgences was put a stop to, and silence imposed upon his adver- 214 THE MODERN EPOCH. saries as well as on himself; and to prove his sincerity, he required, in one of his writings, every man to give respect and ohedience to the Roman Church, and assured the pope, in a humble letter, that it had never been his intention to attack the privdeges of the Roman chair. § 317. But the wished-for reconciliation did not take place. John von Eck (Eckius), professor in Ingolstadt, a learned man and skilful in argument, had a disputation with Luther in Leipsic. Here Luther, in the heat of controversy, maintained that the bishop of Rome had become the head of the Church, not by the ordination of Jesus, but by human arrangements made cen- turies later, and threw doubts upon the infallibility of popes and councils. Irritated at this audacity, Eckius at once composed a learned book, in which he attempted to prove that the papacy was derived from Christ himself through Peter, and that, consequently, it must be a Divine institution. Eckius hastened to ' Rome with this book, and procured a Bull, in which a succession of Luther's doctrines were condemned as heretical, his writings sentenced to be burnt, and he himself threatened with excommunication uidess he recanted within sixty days. This pro- ceeding of the Roman court, which condemned the German reformer upon the accusation of an opponent, without so much as hearing his defence, was disapproved of by all Germany. The Bull of excom- munication, which was made known by Eckius, produced, therefore, very little effect ; it was only in Cologne, Mayence, and Lon^ain, that the order for burning Luther's writings was carried into effect ; the Bull was not even admitted into Saxony. By so much the greater was the effect of some vigorous pamphlets of Luther, " To the Christian Nobles of the German Nation," aud " On the Babylonian Captivity and Christian Ereedom," in which he exposed without reserve the abuses and failings of the existing Church, and demanded their removal. Encouraged by the enthusiasm with which these writings were received, and the cry for freedom that resounded through the German nation, Luther now ventured to take a step that separated him by an impenetrable gidf from the Romish Chmch. He proceeded, at the head of all the students, to the Elster gate of Wit- December 10, tcnberg, and there cast the Bull of excommunication, 1520. together with the canons and decretals of the Church, into the flames. § 318. In the mean time, Maximilian's grandson, Charles V. of Spain and Burgundy (§ 291), was elected emperor of Germany, and his first undertaking was to be an arrangement of the contentions of the Church, lie appointed a diet at Worms, and ordered Luther, under the assurance of a safe conduct, to appear. Eull of coinage and confidence in God, but not without fear of experiencing the fate of THE GERMAN REFORMATION. 215 Huss (§ 264), Luther arrived at "Worms in the midst of the sym- pathizing crowd that was streaming thither. The splendid assembly, in which, besides the emperor and the papal ambassador (Alexander), there were present many princes, nobles, prelates, and deputies from the states, at first disconcerted him. When called upon to recant, he begged till the following day for consideration. At his second appearance he had recovered the whole of his strength and resolution. He declared himself, freely and openly, to be the author of the writ- ings that were produced before him ; rejected the invitation to recant with the words, " That so long as he should not be convinced out of the Holy Scriptures that he was in error, he coidd not and would not retract, for that his conscience was imprisoned in God's Word ;" and concluded Avith the exclamation, " Here I stand, I can take no other course ; Grod help me. Amen." All attempts to induce him to soften this declaration failed ; yet no violent proceeding was ventured upon. Luther departed in safety ; many princes and members of the diet did the same ; then, the ban of the empire was first uttered against Luther and his adherents, and his writings condemned to the flames. Charles V., at this time in more close alliance with the pope, was determined to exterminate heresy. But Luther was already secure. Dming his return home, the elector Frederick had him seized upon, and carried as a prisoner to the castle of Wartburg, under the title of Hitter George. He lived here nearly a year ; at first he was lamented by his friends, till some bold fugitive pieces, and an angry letter against Albert of Mayence, who was again prac- tising the sale of indidgences, convinced them that he was still alive and active. Albert repented, and discontinued the traffic. § 319. Whilst Luther, although troubled by sickness and melan- choly, was leading an active life at the Wartburg, — proceedings calcu- lated to disturb tranquillity arose in Wittenberg, which were not repressed with sufficient earnestness by the pious and peace-loving- elector. Dr. Carlstadt, a man of confused mind and unsettled in his principles, abolished the mass, extended the cup to the laity, and exercised his zeal against images and ceremonies. He was soon joined by the so-called Zurickkauer prophets, — men without education, and under the dominion of fanatical feelings, — who declaimed against the baptism of infants, insisted upon the re-baptism of adults (hence called Anabaptists), and believed in immediate inspirations from Grod. Images, and the garments used in the celebration of the mass, were destroyed in some churches, monks fled from their clois- ters, and confusion took possession of men's minds. Luther was no longer at peace in the castle of Wartburg. He hastened to Witten- berg, preached daily for a week against the over-hasty and uncharitable innovations, dismissed the Zurickkauer fanatics, and won men's minds to a peaceable development of the 0\Q THE MODERN EPOCH. Reformation. "Wittenberg now became the centre of German culture. It was here that Philip Melancthon of Bretten, who, when a youth of twenty, had already fathomed the depths of learning, and by whose means the Saxon schools and church attained a high degree of pros- perity, laboured by the side of Luther. Luther's impetuous and boisterous energy was well fitted to pluck down, whilst Melancthon' s mild and yielding nature was adapted to the work of restoration ; and, as Melancthon, the great adept in, and promoter of, humane studies, sought, by his learned Latin writings to establish the new Church doctrines on a scientific basis, so Luther won the hearts of the people by his Grerman writings and songs, and especially by his translation of the Bible. This Lutheran Bible, which was begun in the castle of Wartburg and finished in "Wittenberg, after careful consultation with his friends, appeared completed in 1534, a master-piece of the German language and of the Grerman spirit. § 320. The new doctrine soon spread beyond the limits of Saxony. Besides the elector of Saxony, the energetic landgraf, Philip of Hessen, the founder of the university of Marburg, was, in particidar, a zealous promoter of the Gospel. But it was the educated burghers of the imperial cities who distinguished themselves beyond all others by their zeal. The assembled people would often of their own accord set up a psalm or a hymn, and by this means gave an impulse to the abolishing of the mass. Where the church was denied to the evan- gelically-minded people, they held their devotions in the open air, in fields and meadows ; and where religious motives were not sufficiently powerful, there the view of the Church property and worldly advan- tages helped out what was wantiug. The whole of Germany appeared to be hurried away in this Church movement, and a national Church, independent of Rome, to spring up from it. But the pope won over Perdinand of Austria, the duke of Bavaria, and several South German bishops, to the alliance of Regensburg, in which they vowed mutually to support each other, and to exclude the innovations of Wittenberg from their dominions. Thus were the seeds of an unhappy division spread abroad in Germany at the very moment when the freedom and independence of the nation was the aspiration of her noblest spirits. h. THE PEASANT WAR. § 321. The general call to freedom and independence that, since Luther's appearance, had resounded through all Germany, filled the peasants with the hope of alleviating their condition by their own exertions. In this way originated the peasant war. At first patrioti- cally disposed men, like Sickingen and Hutten, appeared to wish to place themselves at the head of the movement, and to carry through the renovation of Germany, both in state and Church, by the sword. THE PEASANT WAR. 217 But Sickingen's early death during the siege of his castle of Land- stuhl, and Hutten's flight, delayed the outbreak, and robbed it of plan and proportion. The fanatical discourses of the fickle Ana- baptist, Thomas Miinzer, who talked of abolishing temporal and spiritual power, and of setting up a heavenly kingdom where all men should be equal, and every distinction between rich and poor, noble and base, should disappear, confused the understandings of the excited peasants. It was not long before the people, from the Boden Lake to Dreisam, assembled themselves around Hans Midler of Bulgen- bach, who had formerly been a soldier. He marched in a red mantle and cap from village to village, at the head of his followers. The chief banner was borne behind him on a carriage decorated with boughs and ribbons. They carried twelve Articles with them, the importance of which they were ready to maintain with their swords. By these Articles, they demanded the liberty of hunting, fishing, cutting wood, &c. ; the abolition of serfdom, socage duties, and tithes ; the right of choosing their own ministers ; and the free preaching of the Gospel. Their example was soon followed by the peasants in the Odenwald, and by those on the Neckar and in Eranconia, under the conduct of the audacious publican, G-eorge Metzler. They compelled the counts of Hohenlohe, Lowenstein, "Wertheim, Gennningen, the superiors of the German order in Mergentheim, and others to accept the Articles, and to concede the privileges demanded, to their sub- jects ; whoever dared to resist them, as count Helfenstein von "Weins- berg, was put to a cruel death. They marched through the land burning and devastating ; they destroyed the monasteries and castles, and took a bloody revenge on their oppressors and adversaries. Under the conduct of brave knights like Florian Geier and Gotz von Berlechingen of the Iron Hand, they penetrated into Wurzburg, whilst other bands ravaged the lands of Baden. The insurrection soon extended itself over the whole of Swabia, Franconia, Alsacia, and the lands of the Bhine. The spiritual and temporal princes became alarmed, and conceded a part of the demands of the irritated peasants. In Thuringia and the Harz the revolt assumed more of a religious character. In Muhlhausen, Thomas Miinzer had acquired great respect and the reputation of a prophet. He rejected Luther's moderate views, girded himself with the sword of Gideon, and wished to establish a Divine kingdom, the members of which should be all free and equal. The people, excited by his preaching, destroyed castles, monasteries, and the memorials of antiquity, in their bar- barous fury. § 322. In the commencement, before the insurrection had yet assumed so formidable an aspect, Luther attempted to restore peace : he repre- sented to the nobles and princes that they had been guilty of acts of violence ; and at the same time exhorted the peasants to refrain from 21 S THE MODERN EPOCH. rebellion. But when the danger increased, Avhen temporal and spiritual things were mingled together, he published a forcible tract " against the plundering and bloodthirsty peasants," in which he called upon the magistrates to attack them with the sword, and to show them no sort of mercy. Upon this, the nobles and knights assembled themselves from all quarters against the rebels. The elec- tor John of Saxony, the landgraf Philip of Hessen, and others, marched into Thuringia and won an easy victory, by means of their artillery, over Thomas Miinzer and his half-armed peasants. A place of execution was set up before Miihlhausen, on which the Thuringian "prophet" was put to a bloody death after undergoing frightful tortures. Truchsess of Waldburg, captain of the Swabian league, restored peace in Swabia, and then marched, in conjunction with the elector of the Pala- tinate and the warlike archbishop of Triers, against the bands of Bran- conia, who were besieging the strong castle of Wurzburg. Here again superior military skill and better arms triumphed over the disorderly crowd. The insurgents, after a short defence, betook themselves to a headlong flight, in which most of them were killed ; the prisoners were put to death, and a severe punishment inflicted on the citizens of the Prank towns, who had sided with the rebels. The axe of the exe- cutioner was long busy in "Wurzburg. The same was the case in Alsacia and the Middle Blnne-land, and also in the Black Porest and at the sources of the Danube, where the insurrection had lasted longest. At length, the Truchsess of "Waldburg and the renowned condottiere, George of Prendsberg, succeeded, by dint of severity, in restoring order. In the majority of places, the peasants were again oppressed with all their former burdens, and in many spots the cry was loudly echoed, " If they have formerly been chastised with rods, they shall now be scourged with scorpions." C. THE PROTESTATION AND THE CONFESSION OE AUGSBERO. § 323. The new Church grew stronger and stronger in the midst of battles and disturbances, and Luther's energy increased with oppo- sition. He left the cloister of Augustines in 1524, and, in the fol- lowing year, married Catherine of Bora, who had been formerly a nun. Surrounded by a circle of sincere friends, and by his brothers in office, he now led the life of domestic happiness which was so well suited to his disposition. His energy, and cheerful confidence hi God were neither broken nor disturbed by his poverty, or the repeated attacks of illness he experienced. By his two Catechisms he laid the foundation oi" a uniform confession of faith, and of a better religious education. Mclancthon, upon whom the elector, about this time, devolved the troublesome task of holding a general visitation of the churches all over Saxony, was not less active. The Beformation made THE CONFESSION OF AUGSBURG. gl9 such advances by the united efforts of these two men, that the Catholic princes, both temporal and spiritual, became alarmed. They therefore passed a resolution at the Diet of Spire, that no farther innovations should be made in religion, that the new doctrines should not be farther disseminated, and that no impediment should be given to the celebration of the mass. It was against this decree of the Diet, by which the Reformation would have been condemned to a fatal pause, that a Protest was entered by many of the princes and imperial towns. It was for this reason that they, in common with all those who rejected the authority of the pope and the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, received the name of Protestants. As the emperor woidd not receive the pro- testation, which was brought to him in Italy, the protesting princes and towns would at once have arranged a confederacy for their mutual defence, had not Luther and the evangelical theologians, with " a magnanimous scrupulousness," rejected every defence of the Word of God by worldly weapons. § 324. In the following spring, the emperor opened the splendid Diet of Augsburg. It was here that the protesting Estates presented their Confession, which had been drawn up by Melancthon both in the German and Latin languages, and approved of by Luther. In this Confession, they endeavoured to show that they had no wish to establish a new Church, but only to purify and restore the old one. This Confession of faith, which was composed with great temperance and clearness, embraced, in the first part, the doctrines of the reformers, laid down in as close accordance as was possible with the faith of the Catholic Church ; and in the second part, the abuses against which the reformers were contending. After the reading of the Augsburg Confession, the assembly embraced the resolution of justifying the doctrines and usages of the Catholic Church by a refu- tation, and then seeing if it would not be possible to bring about a composition by a conference between men of moderate tempers selected from both parties. But the " Refutation," drawn up by Eekius, Cochleeus, and some others, produced but little effect, owing to the weakness of its arguments, and was entirely overthrown by Melancthon' s "Apology ;" the conference also led to nothing, since both the pope and Luther, who, during the Diet, had remained at Coburg, were averse to any further concessions. It seemed that the unity of the Church could be only restored by the sword. The pro- testing princes and the principal imperial towns rejected the decision of the Diet by which they were prohibited from extending their doc- trine and were described as a sect, and quitted Augsburg. The resolution of the Diet that was determined on after their departure, in which the new sect was threatened with a rapid extirpation, and the sentence of excommunication denounced against all those who, 220 THE MODERN EPOCH. ■within a certain space, should not renounce their arbitrary innova- tions, alarmed neither the princes, the peace of whose consciences was a matter of higher importance to them than the favour of the emperor, — nor the reformer of AVittenberg, whose confidence and cheerful trust in God was at that time at its height, as is testified by the immortal hymn, "The Lord is a strong castle," which was com- posed during the storms of those days. (I. ULKIC ZWINGLE. § 325. The Protestant Church of Germany was unhappily, even at this time, divided into the Lutheran and Zwinglian. TJlric Zwingle (born 1484), a classically-educated, liberally-minded priest of repub- lican principles, exerted himself zealously as canon of Zurich against the sale of indidgences by the Franciscan monk, Samson ; against ecclesiastical abuses of all kinds ; and against the custom of the Swiss of engaging themselves as mercenaries in foreign services. Zwingle, a man of practical understanding, without the religious depth of mind or the disposition of Luther, did not busy himself with the reformation of doctrine and articles of faith, but with the improvement of life and morals. He set about the work also with far less ceremony, inas- much as he wished to restore primitive Christianity in its simplest form. Having a good understanding with the chief council of Zurich, he undertook a complete revolution of ecclesiastical doctrine and practice, banished all images, crosses, candles, altars, and organs, from the churches, and administered the Lord's Supper, in which he recognized nothing but a token of remembrance and fellowship, after the manner of the early Christian love-feasts, that is, the communi- cants received the consecrated elements whilst sitting. This latter proceeding entangled Zwingle in a fatal controversy with Luther. Luther would not receive the words employed in instituting the sacrament, "this is my body," in the sense of "this represents my body," as Zwingle explained them, but asserted the bodily presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. It was in vain that Philip of Hessen attempted to prevent this dangerous division by a disputation at Marburg. Luther saw a denial of Christ in the doctrine maintained by his opponent, and thrust back the brotherly hand that Zwingle offered him with tears. He also opposed himself to any union with the towns of Upper Germany which had adopted Zwingle's views, so that these presented their own confession of faith to the Augs- burg Diet. § 326. The same disturbances succeeded the appearance of Zwingle in Switzerland as had followed that of Luther in Germany. In Zurich, Basle, Berne, in Schaifhausen, the Bhinethal, and other cantons, the Church was reformed according to the principles of Zwingle; in Appenzell, the Grisons, St. Gall, Glarus, and other THE WARS OF THE HOUSE OF HAPSBURG. 221 places, the adherents of the old Church contended with those of the new ; but in the four forest cantons (Schwitz, Uri, Unterwalden, and Lucerne), and in Zug, the Catholic faith remained predominant. This was occasioned, in addition to the influence exercised on the simple inhabitants of these original cantons by the monks and clergy, by the circumstance that the engaging in foreign military services, a custom opposed by the reformers, here formed one of the principal means of support. These five places concluded an alliance with Austria, and suppressed every innovation with a strong hand ; whilst Berne and Zurich, on the other hand, afforded their assistance with uncharitable zeal and violence in the frontier towns of the Reformation. In this ex- cited state of men's minds a war was inevitable, particularly as Zwingle entertained the project of effecting such a political revolution in Switzerland as would give the supremacy to the two most powerful cantons, Berne and Zurich. Mutual revilings of the clergy, which remained unpunished, increased the irritation and provoked hostilities. Zurich and Berne blocked up the public roads, and prevented the transport of goods and of the necessaries of life. This proceeding enraged the Catholic cantons. They made preparations in secret, and fell upon the people of Zurich. The latter, surprised, irresolute, and forsaken by the Bernese, marched with a troop of 2000 men against an enemy of four times their number, but sustained a bloody defeat in the battle of Kappel. The courageous Zwingle, who had marched with them as field preacher, fell beside the banner of the city, and with him fell the staunchest friends of the reformation. . His dead body, after being exposed to the insults of the enraged midtitude, was at length burnt and the ashes scattered to the winds. This event restored the old Church in many places that were favourably disposed to the reformation, and was the occa- sion of the religious divisions that since that time have prevailed in Switzerland. 2. THE WARS Or THE HOUSE OE HAPSBTTKG WITH EKAKCE. r) , v § 327. Charles V. reigned over an empire such as had a.d. 1500— not existed since the days of Charlemagne. Before 1558. arriving at years of maturity he was already lord of the rich Netherlands, which had devolved upon him as his paternal in- heritance ; when a youth (after the death of his paternal grandfather, Frederick the Catholic), he obtained possession of the united Spanish empire, with the beautiful kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, and the newly-discovered territories in America in the West Indies ; he in- herited in early manhood the Hapsburgo-Austrian States (which he relinquished to his brother, Ferdinand), and became the successor of his grandfather, Maximilian, on the imperial throne of Germany, by the choice of the electors. He might say with truth that the sun ooo THE MODERN EPOCH. never set in his dominions. He was a man of rare sagacity and inde- fatigable activity ; great in the cabinet as director of the affairs of state, and brave in the field as leader of the ranks of -war. His antagonist and rival was Francis I. of France, who was as mnch renowned for his love of the arts and sciences, and for his chivalrous conduct in the field, as he was infamous for his tyranny, his luxury, and love of pleasure, and his devotion to his mistresses. An unex- tinguishable jealousy subsisted between Francis and Charles. Each wished to be the first prince in Europe ; and each eagerly contested the possession of the imperial throne of Germany, which could alone procure him this supremacy. Charles triumphed, and from that moment Francis became his decided enemy, and sought every means of weakening his power. Four wars arose out of this contention, which were principally occasioned by Milan. This beautiful duke- dom had remained in the hands of the French since the battle of Marignano (§ 286) ; but Charles claimed it as a fief of the German empire, and led a vast army, composed chiefly of German peasants, under the conduct of the valiant condottieri, Frundsberg, Schartlin, and others, against the French and their allies, the Swiss. At that time war was carried on with mercenary troops exclusively ; no nation could venture to oppose themselves to the Helvetians and Germans ; the knightly tactics of an earlier period had fallen before their match- locks, as the castles before their heavy artillery. The French were conquered. They lost Milan and Genoa after several bloody encoun- ters, and were forced to retreat over the Alps. It was during the retreat, that the gallant Bayard, "the knight without fear and without reproach," fell by a ball from a German arquebusier. The imperial army, conducted by the Constable of Bourbon, the richest and the most powerful of the French nobles, who had entered into Charles's service for the purpose of revenging his injuries and wrongs upon the French court, marched into the south of France, but soon saw itself compelled to retreat by the gallant resistance of the burghers of Marseilles. § 328. Francis I. himself now marched into Italy, at the head of a stately and well-appointed army, for the purpose of wiping off the disgrace of the defeat, and winning back that which had been lost. But being detained for a long time before the walls of Pavia, the active Bourbon succeeded in collecting a fresh army of peasants, and uniting himself with the Spanish general, Pescara. But want of money and the necessaries of life soon reduced the united forces to the greatest distress, whilst the wealthy camp of the French was abundantly supplied with every thing needful. Bourbon and Frunds- berg took advantage of this circumstance to excite the peasants to attempt the storm of the French camp. The bloody fight of Pavia, in which the French were defeated, originated THE WARS OF THE HOUSE OF HAPSBURG. £23 in a nocturnal attack. Francis I. himself, after a chivalrous defence, was compelled to surrender, and to proceed as a prisoner to Madrid. 10,000 gallant warriors found their deaths on the field of battle or in the waters of the Ticino. After a year's captivity, Francis, with inward reluctance, consented to the Peace of Madrid, in which he swore to renounce his claims iipon Milan, and to surrender the duke- dom of Burgundy. Scarcely, however, had Francis, after giving up his two sons as hostages, regained his own kingdom, than the pope released him from his oath, and concluded a holy alliance with him, the king of England, and some Italian princes, for the purpose of delivering Italy from the Spanish yoke. The flames of war burst forth anew in Italy ; the beat of the drum was again heard in the German states to sum- mons the peasants to the standard. As this was an expedition against the pope, the Lutherans came forward in crowds, so that the brave Frundsberg was soon enabled to lead a gallant army across the Alps, and to unite himself with Bourbon. But money was soon wanting to pay the troops ; a rebellion in the army gave such a shock to Frundsberg that he was deprived of speech by an attack of apoplexy, and shortly after lost his life. The troops demanded to be led to Home, and Boiubon yielded to their wishes. It was on the 6th of May, 1527, that the Spanish and German soldiers scaled the walls of Rome. Bourbon was one of the first who fell. The licentious bands, unchecked by the presence of a leader, dispersed themselves through the city and committed every sort of outrage. The rich palaces and dwelling-houses were plundered, the churches robbed of their vessels and ornaments ; the Germans insulted the pope and cardinals by ridiculous processions and mummeries. Clement was obliged to purchase his freedom under harsh conditions, and made use of the first opportunity to escape. The emperor affected a display of grief and displeasure at the injuries suffered by the head of the Church, though inwardly pleased at his humiliation. In the meanwhile, the French had made some conquests in Upper Italy, and then marched into Naples, for the purpose of wresting this kingdom from the Spaniards. But their army sufferhig severely from pestilence, and the troops of the emperor being reduced one-half by their excesses in Borne, both parties became desirous of peace. The contending kings arranged their differences by the interposition of the mother of Francis and the aunt of Charles, in what was called the Ladies' Peace of Cambray ; in virtue of which Francis relinquished his pretensions to Milan, and paid two mil- lion crowns for the ransom of his two sons, but retained possession of Burgundy. The pope also, and the Italian princes, soon made them peace. Charles was invested with the Roman and Lombard crowns by Clement, who lived with him in Bologna under the same 224 THE MODERN EPOCH. roof, and promised, in return, to exterminate heresy and to bring back the expelled Medici to Florence. The latter project was accomplished ; Florence was conquered and deprived of its republican constitution (§ 289). But the restoration of the unity of the Church was no longer in the power of man. The Diet of Augsburg, that was appointed for this purpose, did not conduce to the desired result (§ 32-1). § 329. Francis, however, did not relinquish the thought of again recovering the dukedom of Mdan, and even entered into an alnance with the Turks a short time after, for the purpose of attaining this object. In the same year in which Charles took Tunis by a gallant attack, put an end to the piracies of the Mohammedan prince, Hayraddin Barbarossa, and set 20,000 Christian captives at liberty, Francis made a sudden campaign into Upper Italy, and took possession, as a preliminary step, of Savoy and Pied- mont, the duke of which was a relative and ally of Charles. But in the following year, Charles marched with a stately army into Pro- vence, for the purpose of carrying the war into his enemy's own terri- tory ; but was compelled to retreat with loss, in consequence of the French general, the Constable Montmorenci reducing the whole of the level country between the Rhone and the passes of the Alps to a desert, and thus producing scarcity and disease in the emperor's army. But as the whole of Christendom Avas indignant at the alliance between Francis and the Osmans, who committed horrible devasta- tions in Lower Italy and the Greek islands, Pope Paul III. interposed as a mediator, and brought about the conclusion of the a.d. 1538. ^.^ war ky ^g ten y ears ' truce of Nice, which allowed every one to retain that of which he was then in possession. A per- sonal interview between the two monarchs was to have obliterated all their differences for ever ; and Charles was so convinced a.d. 1539. of the kuiglltl y faitll of llis rival, that in the following year, when an insurrection in Ghent required his immediate presence in the Netherlands, he took his road thither through Paris. But this friendship was not of long duration. In the year 1511, Charles undertook a second African expedition for the purpose of a.d. 1541. coni pl e tely destroying the corsairs, who rendered the Mediterranean insecure from Algiers, as they had formerly done from Tunis. But this time the attack was frustrated by the storms and rains of the latter autumn, and by the attacks of the enemy, which were rendered particularly dangerous by the swampy character of the ground. The emperor, who magnanimously shared all the dangers and sufferings of the meanest of his followers, was obliged to retreat without effecting his object, after suffering a considerable loss in ships and troops. This termination of the enterprise may have filled the French king with the hope that he might at length be able to over- THE WAR OF RELIGION IN GERMANY. 005 power his adversary. He, therefore, after effecting an alliance with a.d. 1542— the snltan, commenced a fourth war against the emperor. 1544. ;b u £ w h eri the latter marched with a vast army out of Germany into Champagne, and approached within two days' march of the terrified capital, Francis hastened to conclude the peace of Crespy. From this time the supremacy of the house of Hapsburg in Italy remained undisputed. Francis I. died three years afterwards, but his son and successor, Henry II., followed Henry II. ^e same P a th. During the war of religion in Germany a.d. 1547— he entered into alliance with the Protestant princes 1559. ^g 337), whilst in his own dominions he suppressed the new doctrines by bloody persecutions. When Charles V. at length quitted the world's stage, the war was still continued for a few years between his son, Philip II., and the French king, till at length the peace of Chateau- Cambresis put an end to the open contest between the two monarchs, without, however, extinguish- ing the hereditary animosity between the royal houses of France and Hapsburg. 3. THE WAR OE RELIGION IN GERMANY. § 330. This war, and the apprehensions that were entertained of the Turks, who led army after army into the Austrian territories, prevented the emperor from putting into effect the resolution of the Diet of Augsburg against the German Protestants, and compelling them by force to return to the bosom of the Catholic Church. When, in consequence of. this order, the imperial chamber began to proceed against the evangelical states on account of their confiscation of ecclesiastical property, the Lutheran princes and cities, under the conduct of the elector of Saxony and the landgraf of Hesse, formed themselves into a league at Smalcald, in the Thuringian A.D. 1531. . . forest, for their mutual defence in case any of them shoidd be attacked for the Word of God's sake. In the following year the emperor concluded the peace of Nuremberg with this league, in which both parties promised to refrain from hostilities till a Council of the Church, the calling of which was vehemently urged upon Clement VII. by the emperor, shoidd be assembled. The law pro- ceedings were, in the mean time, to cease. This treaty bound the hands of the Protestants without giving them any assurance for the future ; but afforded great facilities for the diffusion of the Gospel over the whole of Germany. The introduction of the Lutheran form of worship into Wirtemberg was an event of the greatest importance. Duke Ulrick, a hasty- tempered and cruel man, who, from motives of jealousy, had slain a knight of his court (Hans von Hutten) with his own hand, had compelled his wife to take flight by his bad treatment had oppressed his subjects and conquered the imperial city of Reut- Q £26 THE MODERN EPOCH. lingen, was at length outlawed for disturbing the peace of the coun- try, and driven from his land and vassals by the Swabian league. For fourteen years TJlrick was compelled to lead a wandering life abroad, and to shun his dukedom, which, in the mean time, was placed under the government of Austria, when landgraf Philip of Hesse embraced the resolution of restoring to Wirtemberg, the duke who was then living at his court. He marched into Swabia with a well-appointed army, defeated the Austrian governor at Laufeu on the Neckar, and re-established the lawful ruler. TJlrick was received with joy by his people, who had forgotten his former tyranny, and who were easily induced to receive the evangelical doctrines which TJlrick had adopted in his misfortunes, and which he now had disseminated by Brenz and Schnepf. The Church in Wirtemberg soon became Lutheran, and Tubingen was one of the most distinguished seminaries of evangelical learning. § 331. But the new Church was not wanting in spurious growths. The doctrine of the Anabaptists, who mistook their own passions for divine inspirations, had not been suppressed by the death of Thomas Miinzer (§ 322). Notwithstanding the opposition of the reformers and the discouragement given by every lawful magistrate, it would re-appear here and there, in places where it had been secretly carried by fugitives. The doctrines of these Anabaptists displayed them- selves in their most frightful shape in Munster. It was in this place that the Reformation had made violent way for itself, and had com- pelled the bishop and canons to take flight. But it soon became evident that Bottman, the most influential of its preachers, enter- tained anabaptist notions. When two vagabond prophets from the Netherlands, Jan Matthys and his countryman and disciple, the tailor, John Bockold (called John of Leyden), joined themselves to him, the anabaptist party in a short time attained so complete a supremacy, that they got possession of all the city offices, drove all the inhabitants who were not of their own way of thinking out of the town in the midst of winter, and divided their property among them- selves. They now established a religious commonwealth, in Avhich Matthys possessed unlimited power, introduced community of goods, and conducted the defence of the city against the besieging army of the bishop of Munster. The fanaticism rose to its height when Matthys was killed in a sally against the enemy and Bockhold was placed at the head of the commonwealth. This man transferred the government of the city to tw r elve elders, whom he selected from the most violent of the fanatics, and among whom, Knipperdoling, who was burgomaster and executioner 1 , played the most distinguished part. He then introduced the practice of polygamy, and mercilessly put to death those who indignantly denounced this outrage to Christian morality. "When this crazy fanaticism had reached its highest pitch, THE WAR OF RELIGION IN GERMANY. 227 the prophet assumed the title (from Divine inspiration) of " King of the New Israel." This "tailor king," ornamented with the insignia of his rank (a crown and a globe suspended by a golden chain), and magnificently clothed, held his sittings for the administration of justice in the market-place of Minister, where the " chair of David " was set up, and introduced a government of mixed tyranny and fanaticism, in which spiritual pride and carnal lust were most repul- sively associated. For a long time, the Anabaptists resisted the attacks of their imperfectly-armed enemies with courage and success ; when the besieging army had been re-inforced by the empire, and the closely pressed town began to suffer the horrors of famine, they still reso- lutely maintained their defence ; and even when the enemy were within their walls they still resisted with the courage of desperation. Hottinan fell fighting ; John of Leyden and Knipperdoling were put to death by torture, and their dead bodies suspended in iron cages on the tower ; the others were either executed or expelled the city. The bishop, the canons, and the nobility, returned and introduced Catholi- cism again in all its rigour, which since that time has retained its pre-eminence in Munster. After a few decenniums, the Anabaptists experienced a wholesome reformation of their doctrines and discipline from Menno, in which they have continued to the present day, under the name of Men- nonites. They are still distinguished by simplicity of dress and manner of living, by their rejection of a separate priesthood, of infant baptism, of oaths, of military service, &c, but they have given up those principles of an earlier period which were dangerous to morality and the state. They lead a quiet life as tenant farmers and peasants. § 332. Shortly after this, the reformed doctrines gained admission into the duchy of Saxony and the electorate of Brandenburg, by the death of two princes who had hitherto clung resolutely to the Roman Catholic creed. Duke George of Saxony was followed by his brother Henry, who, like his son Maurice, was devoted to the Reformation, and ordered the reformed worship to be esta- blished in Leipsic, Meissen, and Dresden. In the same year, Joachim II. received the Lord's Supper under both forms in Spandau, upon which the country embraced the Protestant doctrine. The conversion of Saxony and Brandenbiu'g was decisive for the whole north of Ger- many. Henry of Braunschweig- Wolfenbuttel, a cruel and profligate man, alone adhered to the ancient Church, less from conviction than from animosity to the landgraf of Hesse, the former friend of his youth. . But the Gospel triumphed even in Wolfenbiittel, when, after a furious controversy, injurious alike to the dignity of princes and human nature, Henry was overpowered by Hessian and Saxon troops Q 2 228 THE MODERN EPOCH. and carried into captivity. Otto Heinreicli ordered the Lutheran doctrines to be taught in the Upper Palatinate by the Nuremburger preacher, Osiander; and a few weeks before Luther's death, the Eucharist was administered in both forms in the Palatinate of the Rhine, after the congregation which assembled on the 3rd of January to hear mass, in the church of the Holy Ghost, had set up the evan- gelical hymn, "Salvation hath visited us." Baden-Durlach also acknowledged the reformed confession ; and when the elector, Her- mann of Cologne, proposed a moderate plan of reformation to his Estates, and the duke of Cleves appeared inclined to join the league of Smalcald, it seemed that the Catholic Church of Germany must succumb, unless a stop were put to the progress of the Reformation by force. The emperor was convinced that neither Diets nor religious discussions could heal the division in the Church ; his hopes rested entirely on the general council which Pope Paul III. had summoned at Trent. But the Protestants, who foresaw that their doctrines would be condemned in a council that was thus held under the autho- rity of the pope, rejected it, as being neither free nor impartial, and demanded a general synod of the Church of Germany. This destroyed the emperor's last hope of an amicable arrangement, and determined him to attempt the restoration of the Church by force of arms. One Luther dies J ear a ^ev Luther's death, at his native city of Eisleben, Feb. 18th, whither he had been summoned to compose a difference, the war of Smalcald broke out between Charles V. and the Protestant princes and cities of Germany. § 333. When the emperor had determined upon war, he entered into a secret alliance with the pope, who promised him subsidies of money, with the spiritual electors, and Avith the duke of Bavaria ; but he found the most important of his allies in the Protestant duke, Maurice of Saxony. This young, shrewd, and military prince, who, since 1541, had been the rider of Albertine Saxony, had long sepa- rated himself from the league of Smalcald and joined the emperor, out of envy and hatred to his cousin, John Frederick, although Philip of Hesse was his father-in-law. This alliance was again renewed. Maurice promised obedience and devotion to the emperor, and sub- mission to the resolutions of the Tridentine Council, provided it gave its sanction to the three chief points in the Protestant view, — justifi- cation by faith, the cup, and the marriage of the clergy. Charles, in return, held out the prospect of an increase of his territories and the electorship of Saxony. The Protestants had so little suspicion of this arrangement, that when the Smalcald forces marched into the field, I lie elector, during his absence with the army, made over the govern- ment of Courland to his cousin Maurice. The brave Schartlin, whom the Upper German cities had chosen general, wished to bring matters to a conclusion, by making a rapid advance upon Regensburg, where THE WAR OF RELIGION IN GERMANY. 229 the emperor was posted with a handful of troops, but the council of war, fearful of doing injury to Bavaria, forbade the enterprise. Upon this, Schartlin turned towards Tyrol, with the purpose of cutting off the advance of the Italian troops, or of dispersing the Council of Trent ; — but this undertaking was also disapproved of, lest Ferdinand should be offended. In this manner, Charles, who had already pro- nounced the ban against the electors and landgraves for treason against the emperor and the empire, gained time to draw his auxi- liaries from Italy, and to occupy a strong position at Ingolstadt. Here also the Protestants threw away the time in trifling and useless encounters, till the troops of the Netherlands having united them- selves to the imperial army, Charles was in a position to assume the offensive. He marched into Swabia, whither he was followed by the army of Smalcald. The damp and cold weather occasioned sickness among the Spanish and Italian troops, and afforded the Protestants a hope of effecting a favourable composition, when the intelligence that Maurice and his friends and companions in the faith had proved traitors, and had marched an hostile army into Courland, changed the whole face of affairs. John Frederick at once hastened back to his states ; the landgraf and the other leaders soon returned, and in a short time the whole army of Smalcald was dissolved. § 334. South Germany now stood open to the emperor. Well- intentioned advisers endeavoured to persuade him to allow free tolera- tion to religious opinions, and by this means to bring back his Estates to their former obedience and devotion. But Charles was bent upon bringing back the unity of the Church, and, at the same time, on restoring the imperial authority to its ancient dignity. "With this object, he required the princes and cities of Southern Germany to submit themselves, and to renounce the league of Smalcald. The terrified imperial cities soon yielded obedience to the demand. Ulm surrendered her artillery, and purchased the favour of the emperor by large sums of money ; Heilbron, Esslingen, Beutlingen, and many others did the same. Augsburg was so well provided with artillery and provisions, that Schartlin offered the magistrates to defend it for a year and a day, till Protestant Germany should have recovered itself and be prepared for fresh encounters ; but the pusillanimous council of traders (Pugger in particular) gained the victory. The emperor took pos- session of the town, and with it, the admirable artillery and a large sum of money. Frankfort and Strasburg soon followed. The old duke of Wirtemberg humbled himself, paid his contributions to the war, and surrendered his most important fortresses to the imperial troops. The old elector of Cologne, anathematized by the pope, threatened by the Spanish troops, and at last abandoned by his Estates, renounced his office in favour of a follower of the old creed, who soon thrust aside the German worship of God by the mass. By 230 THE MODERN EPOCH. the spring of 1547 the whole of Southern Germany was reduced to obedience without a blow being struck. § 335. In the mean time, John Frederick had repulsed the troops of Maurice, taken possession of his own territories with but little trouble, and conquered the greater part of Albertine Saxony as far as Dresden and Leipsic. Wherever he went he Avas received with ac- clamations by the Protestant part of the population, and it would not have been difficult for him to have collected a considerable force and to have bidden defiance to the enemies of the evangelical doctrines ; but John Frederick was not an enterprising man, and despite the ban, respect for the emperor was not yet extinguished in his pious heart, — he rejected the proffered aid. Maurice in his need invoked the assistance of the emperor. The latter hastened with his army into Bavaria, in defiance of the gout, and, uniting his forces with those of Maurice and Ferdinand, marched against his enemy, who was posted on the Elbe with 6000 men. Upon the approach of the emperor, John Frederick wished to fall back upon the strong town of Wittemberg, until he could collect the scattered divisions of his army ; but the imperial force, 27,000 strong, crossed the Elbe under the guidance of a peasant, surprised the cavalry, who were engaged in a retreat, on a Sunday morning when the elector was attending Divine worship, and won an easy victory in the battle of Miihlberg. John Frederick, a heavy man, was wounded in the face and taken prisoner after a brave defence. In prison he displayed the serenity of soul which is the fruit of a good conscience and a firm trust in God. He heard the sentence of death that was pronounced upon him by the emperor with the greatest composure, and without even interrupting the game of chess in which he was engaged. But Charles did not venture to carry the sentence into execution. He proposed to change the punishment of death into that of imprison- ment for life, upon condition that John Frederick should give up his fortresses to the emperor, and surrender his territories, together with the electoral dignity, to Maurice. In this manner the electorship of Saxony passed from the line of Emest to that of Albert. It was now the turn of the landgraf of Hesse to be punished. Maurice and Joachim of Brandenbtu'g interceded for him and obtained the assurance, " that if he would make an unconditional surrender, apologize for his proceedings, and deliver up his castles, he should be punished neither with death nor with perpetual imprisonment." These conditions were afterwards modified during a personal interview, and the two princes assured the landgraf of the safety of his person and possessions. In reliance on this assurance, Philip, provided with a safe conduct, presented himself at Halle, where the imperial camp was posted. It was here that, after having asked pardon on his knees in the midst of a magnificent assembly,, he was invited to THE WAR OF RELIGION IN GERMANY. 231 supper by the duke of Alba, and on going to tbe castle was retained prisoner in spite of all objections. Tbe emperor could not deny him- self the triumph of having his two greatest opponents in his power. He shortly afterwards left Saxony and took his prisoners with him. This proceeding was the first occasion of a coolness between Maurice and the emperor. § 336. In the mean while, the Council of Trent, which was opened on the 13th of December, 1545, had held its first deliberations. But as the proceedings were carried on under the guidance of the papal legates, and the chief part of the assembly consisted of the regular clergy and the uncompromising adherents of the pope, the resolutions assumed such a shape that the Protestants saw in them rather a widening of the previous divisions than any approach to a reconcilia- tion. This course was highly displeasing to the emperor, who hoped now to have brought about that unity of faith which had so long been wished for ; he remonstrated, and wished the resolutions to be kept secret, as he had just brought the Protestant Estates to promise that they would submit themselves to the Council, if the points already determined upon might be reconsidered. But Paul III., who saw clearly that the emperor cherished the wish of limiting the power of the pope, and of introducing such reforms into the Catholic Church that the Protestants should no longer hesitate to join her communion, not only allowed the resolutions to become known, but removed the Council to Bologna. The emperor was extremely irritated at this ; he forbade the clergy to leave Trent, but could only retain the smaller number, and for the purpose of paving the way to a reunion of the Church in Germany, he proclaimed an edict which set forth how matters should be conducted until the termination of the Council. This was done by the Augsburg Interim ; which, at first designed for both religious parties, was afterwards restricted to the Protestants. By this instrument, the use of the cup and the marriage of priests was permitted to the confessors of the evangelical Church ; an attempt was made to approach their opinions on the doctrines of justification, the mass, &c, by the use of indefinite modes of expression ; but in the celebration of Divine worship and in the ceremonies, the old usages were retained. This Interim met with great opposition, less from the Protestant princes than from the towns and preachers. The latter could not be prevailed upon to receive a religion that was offensive to their consciences, either by deprivation of their offices or by loss of their property or freedom. Driven from their posts, they left their homes and household hearths to fly by secret paths to the north of G-ermany, where the Interim was utterly rejected. Nearly 400 preachers became exiles ; Magdeburg, which was under the ban, afforded an asylum to the greater number. In Saxony also, the cradle of the Reformation, many preachers fled, from dislike to the 232 THE MODERN EPOCH. Leipsic Interim, by the composition of which Melancthon incurred the charge of weakness and want of courage. A multitude of pamph- lets, satires, satirical poems, and woodcuts, proceeded from Magde- burg, which were intended to bring down hatred and contempt upon the Interim and its originators. § 337. At the moment when the emperor believed himself to be on the point of attainiug the object of his wishes ; when the Council had been again removed to Trent, and even attended by some of the Protestant Estates ; when every circumstance seemed to combine to raise him to the position of temporal head of Christendom in the sense in which the term was understood in the middle ages, wheu he already cherished the. thought of having his son elected as his successor, and thus rendering the imperial throne hereditary in his family, — he suddenly found an unexpected opponent in the man to whom he had been hitherto indebted for his triumphs — in Maurice of Saxony. This sagacious prince saw plainly in what a perilous position the civil and religious liberties of G-ermany would stand if Charles shoidd conduct his plans to a successful issue ; he saw clearly that he had incurred the hate of all Protestants by his treachery to the common cause, since he had undertaken in the name of the emperor to prosecute the ban against Magdeburg, and had already commenced the siege of the city, where alone the pure word of the Gospel had found an asylum. He could only restore his lost repu- tation by a great and daring action. He concluded a secret alliance with several German princes, and assured himself of the aid of the French king, Henry II., by a treaty, in virtue of which the latter was permitted to occupy the towns of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, without infringement of the rights of the empire. The chivalrous markgraf, Albert of Brandenberg Culnbach, conducted the negotiation. Upon this, Maurice granted pardon and the free exercise of religion to Magdeburg, which immediately submitted. "Warnings were sent to the emperor, who was at that time in Insbruck ; but Maurice, who was a master in the art of deception, knew how to dissipate all suspicions as they arose in his mind, and Charles, who was practised in the intrigues of Spain and Italy, thought it impossible that he should be outwitted by a German. Maurice suddenly advanced with three divisions of his army into the south, took possession of Augsburg and marched into the Tyrol. He was already approaching Insbruck with the purpose of making the emperor prisoner, when a mutiny among the German peasants afforded the latter an opportunity for escape. The Tridentine Council was broken up in confusion, and Charles, after setting the imprisoned elector, John Frederick, at liberty, fled during the night, ill with the gout and disheartened, over the snow-covered mountains of the Tyrol into Carinthia; leaving to his brother Ferdinand the difficult task of THE WAR OF RELIGION IN GERMANY. establishing peace. Ferdinand immediately concluded the treaty of Passau with the Protestant princes, by which unconditional religious liberty was granted to the adherents of the Augsburg Confession, the Interim was abolished, the Protestants were declared independent of the Council of Trent, and the landgraf of Hesse was set at liberty. A permanent peace and amnesty was at the same time decided upon. § 338. The treaty of Passau was the last work of Maurice. When his former confederate, Albert of Brandenburg, refused to accede to it, and continued his wars and robberies in Lower Saxony, Maurice marched against him to compel him to pea^e. A battle was fought near Sivershausen. The active Maurice was vic- torious, but he received a gun-shot wound in the wild confusion of the battle, of which he died two days after, in the flower of his manly strength. He was a man of rare qualities, "prudent and secret, enterprising and energetic." Two years after his death, the Eeligious Peace of Augsburg was concluded, by which the Protestant Estates who followed the Augsburg Confession were not only assured of full liberty of conscience and religion, but also of political rights equal to those enjoyed by the Catholics, and the continued possession of the confiscated ecclesiastical property. A free right of departure was permitted to subjects who did not follow the religion of the electors ; and a free toleration for those that remained. The demand made by the adherents of the ancient faith, that in future those of the clergy who should join the new Church should lose their incomes and offices, occasioned the most vehement disputes. As it was impossible to come to an agreement, the point was left undecided, and admitted as a spiritual reservation into the laws of peace — " a seed of bloody contests." § 339. This religious peace frustrated the most zealous attempts of the emperor to restore the unity of the Church, and deprived him of the interest he had hitherto taken in the affairs of the world. Op- pressed with discontent and bodily suffering, he embraced the resolu- tion of renouncing his government, and of passing the remainder of his days in quiet retirement and monastic penance. "With this object he made over to his son Philip, at a solemn assembly at Brussels, first, the Netherlands, and a short time after, the kingdoms of Spain and Naples, together with the New "World ; he committed the govern- ment of the Austrian states and the affairs of Germany, however, to his brother Perdinand. After this he retired to the west of Spain, where he had had a residence built near the convent of St. Juste, on the pleasant declivity of a hill, surrounded by plantations of trees. He lived here for two years in quiet retirement, busied with the practices of religion and with pious contemplation. In the mean time, Prederick I. received the imperial throne of Germany by the 234 THE MODERN EPOCH. election of the princes, after he had pledged himself to observe the Peace of Religion, — an engagement he honestly fulfilled. 4. PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION" THROUGH EUROPE. a. LUTHERANTSM AND CALVINISM. § 340. The greatest divisions arose in Germany where the move- ments in the Church had taken their origin, in consequence of the Reformation. The Lutheran form of worship strove long with the Catholic for the mastery. The former extended itself gradually from Saxony and Hesse over the neighbouring countries, acquired the supremacy in Northern Germany, made triumphant progress in Swabia and Franconia, and opened itself a path from Strasburg into Alsacia and Lorraine. The doctrines of Luther had penetrated at an early period to the Vistula and the shores of the Baltic, where the Grand Master of the German order (§ 227), Albert of Brandenburg, pressed upon by the Poles and deserted by the emperor and empire, had joined the evangelical Church, converted Prussia into an heredi- tary dukedom, and acknowledged the suzerainship of Poland. The same thing happened in Courland and Livonia, with the Head of the order of the Sword. The Catholic form of worship found its most zealous partisans in the dukes of Bavaria, in the royal house of Aus- tria, in the spiritual electors, and in the prince-bishops. Ingolstadt was an active seminary for the ancient faith. Nevertheless, as the two emperors, Ferdinand I. and Maximilian II., both disdained to do violence to the consciences of their subjects, the evangelical doctrines soon obtained numerous adherents in the hereditary possessions of Austria. The Protestants obtained religious toleration for themselves, and built several churches in the archduchy of Austria, in Carinthia, and Styria. In Hungary and Transylvania the Reformation made such progress that the evangelical party outnumbered their opponents and obtained religious freedom and equal political rights with the Catholics. In Bohemia, the old Hussites (TJtraquists) mostly em- braced the Lutheran doctrines. But numerous as were the treaties that guaranteed the rights of Protestants in the Austrian dominions, they were disregarded by later rulers, who restored the Catholic State Church to the pre-eminence. The reformed Church that originated in Switzerland, also found its way into Germany at an early period. It is true that the doctrines of Zwingle were only received and maintained by a few towns in the south of Germany ; but when Calvin in Geneva seized upon the principles of Zwingle, and fashioned them into a complete sys- tem of doctrine by uniting them with his own views, the reformed Church in Germany gained a constant succession of adherents. Frederick III. introduced this system into his ow r n land from the Palatinate, and ordered Ursinus and Olevianus to draw up the PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION THROUGH EUROPE. OQ5 Heidelberg Catechism, a widely-extended compendium of Calvin's doctrine ; the same thing happened in Hesse, Bremen, and Brandenburg. Even Melancthon and his disciples (Philippists, Cryptocalvinists) were convinced in their hearts of the truth of Calvin's views. The former so embittered the evening of his life by promulgating these opinions, that he sank into his grave calumniated and full of sorrow, and his disciples brought persecution and imprisonment upon themselves in Saxony. The Form of Concord, a confession of faith that was subscribed about 1580, by ninety-six of the Lutheran Estates of the empire, was in- tended to have restored harmony among the German Protestants, but it merely confirmed the division between the Calvinists and Lutherans, and increased the unhappy animosity of one party against the other. § 341. Switzerland also received evangelical confessions of faith as well as the Catholic doctrines, only the system of Zwingle that was received in the greater German cantons (§ 326), differed less from the doctrine of Calvin which was predominant in Erench Switzerland, than did that of Luther from the doctrine of the reformed Church. John Calvin, a learned refugee from Erance, introduced the Reformation and the confederation into Geneva, a town delightfully situated on the frontiers of Savoy and Erance, and then, like the lawgivers of antiquity, exer- cised the greatest influence on the government, the religion, the manners, and the education of the city, till his death in 1564. Calvin was a man of great intellect and moral power ; severe to others and to himself, and hostile to all worldly enjoyments, — he acquired a command over men by the reverence that was due to his strong and pure will. The doctrine of Calvin is impressed with the character of its originator, — severity and simplicity. In matters of faith he ad- heres to Zwingle only so far as the latter embraces the severe views of Augustine (§ 174), and holds that men are incapable of doing good by their own wills. Calvin, like Zwingle, goes back to the primitive apostolic times, and commands the greatest simplicity in ceremonies and forms of worship. Images, ornaments, organs, candles, crucifixes, all are banished from the churches ; the service consists in prayer, preaching, and the singing of psalms, which Calvin's faithful fellow-minister, Theodore Beza, had translated into Erench ; there is no Church feast except the rigorously observed Sunday (Sabbath). The constitution of the Calvinistic Church is a republican synodial government. The congregation, represented by freely elected elders (presbytery), exercises the power of the Church, chooses the mini- sters, watches over morals by means of the elders, administers the discipline and punishments of the Church and the distribution of alms. The ministers and a portion of the elders constitute the 2SG THB MODERN EPOCH. synod, from -whence the country churches receive then laws. Their severity of morals occasionally induced the Calvinists to wage war against lawful amusements, such as the theatre, dancing, and the more refined pleasures of society ; for this reason their doctrines found less acceptance among the higher than in the middle classes. § 342. The Calvinistic doctrines extended themselves from Geneva over the flourishing towns of Southern Prance, where they soon numbered so many adherents that they were able to wage war for many years with the dominant Church. The French court Avas for some time hesitating which form of religion it should adopt, political motives swayed the decision in favour of the Catholic Church. Commands were now issued against " the so-called reformed religion," Calvinistic ministers were given over to the flames, and an attempt was made to prevent the diffusion of their doctrine by perse- cution and punishment. Calvinism penetrated into the Netherlands from France and Switzerland, where, after many struggles, it became victorious in the Northern provinces (Holland). At the synod of Dort (a.d. 1618), the views of the Arminians, who wished to give a milder form to Calvin's severe doc- trine of predestination, were condemned, and the Augustine doctrine of election maintained. The chiefs of the Arminians, particularly the deserving statesman, Oldenbarnveld, and the distinguished historian, Hugo Grotius, were punished, the one by death, the other by im- prisonment (§ 3G0). In Scotland, the evangelical doc- trines were long suppressed by the court and the clergy, and many courageous confessors perished in the flames. The regent, Mary of Guise, sprung from a French family, which was zealously devoted to the Romish Church, in conjunction with Cardinal Beaton, suppressed the innovators by severity. But when the cardinal had fallen in his own house beneath the blows of a troop of conspirators, and the regent had died after a three years' contest with the people who were striving for the Gospel, the rude preacher, John Knox, who had known Calvin in Geneva, succeeded in rendering the reformed doctrines triumphant. The doctrines, the form of worship, and the synodial constitution of the Calvinistic Church, were intro- duced into Scotland by a resolution of the parliament, the mass for- bidden as idolatrous, under penalty of fine and death, and the goods of the Church confiscated. Monasteries, cathedrals, and treasures of art were destroyed with a blind fury. At a later period, the Scottish Church received the name of Presbyterian, from its assemblies. In England similar principles, entertained by the Puritans, succumbed to the power of the High Church ; but they were diffused by numerous sects, and received their fullest development on the free shores of North America. PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION THROUGH EUROPE. 037 b. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ANGLICAN" CHTJECH. § 343. In England, the disciples of Luther were at first bloodily persecuted, and King Henry YIII. obtained such favour with the court of Koine by a learned controversial work against Luther on the subject of the seven sacraments, that it conferred upon him the title Henry VIII °^ Defender of the Faith. But Henry's attachment to a.d. 1509— the pope was converted into hatred when Clement VII. 1547. refused to separate him from his Spanish wife, Catherine, an aunt of the emperor Charles V. Some internal scruples respecting the validity of his marriage with Catherine, who had been the wife of his departed brother, and a wish to unite himself to the lovely Anna Boleyn, at length induced Henry to attempt the desired separation by a rupture with Kome. Supported by the opinions of native and foreign universities and of many learned bodies as to the invalidity of his marriage, he had had himself divorced from Catherine and mar- ried to Anne by Thomas Cranmer, the new bishop of Canterbury ; he then compelled the clergy to acknowledge him as the head of the English Church, and had a number of acts passed by the parliament by which the pope's authority and influence was destroyed in En- gland. The king then set about effecting such alterations in the Church as appeared to him to be useful or which suited his caprice, with unexampled severity and arbitrariness. The numerous monas- teries were violently dissolved, the monks and nuns scarcely protected from hunger, and the conventual property either united to the crown or bestowed upon, courtiers . The tomb of Becket with its rich altar was desecrated and plundered, and the memory of the ancient saint (§ 275) turned to ridicule by a ludicrous ceremony. The flames by which Lu- therans as well as papists were consumed were lighted by the wooden images of the saints. On the other hand, he left the remaining insti- tutions of the Catholic Church untouched, and commanded, by the statute of the six Bloody Articles, the observance, under penalty of death, of celibacy, auricular confession, monastic vows, low mass, tran- substantiation, and the withholding of the cup. The venerable bishop Eisher and the intellectual chancellor, Thomas More, the author of the "Utopia," died upon the scaffold because they did not approve the innovations in the Church. Enraged at this, the pope at length fulminated a violent anathema against Henry and his adherents at the moment when the discontent at the dissolution of the cloisters had produced an insurrection among the peasantry in the north of the kingdom, in which monks marched at the head of the bands. Upon this, Henry condemned the friends and relations of Cardinal Pole, who had prepared the anathema, to die upon the scaffold or gallows, and delivered over abbots and monks in the dress of their order to the executioner. 288 THE MODERN EPOCH. § 344. But the despotism and sensuality of the king were most clearly displayed in his treatment of his wives. Scarcely had the divorced Cathei'ine died, far from the court, a victim to her sorrows and her wrongs, before her rival, Anne Boleyn, was beheaded by the command of her jealous husband. His third wife, the young and gentle Joanna Seymour, died a few days after giving birth to the delicate Edward ; upon which, Henry suffered himself to be seduced by the advice of his chancellor and by a portrait of Holbein's intosueing for the hand of a German princess, Anna of Cleves. But neither her figure nor her disposition suited the amorous king, who accordingly procured another divorce upon grounds altogether frivolous. Cathe- rine Howard, Henry's fifth wife, retained her affection for a former lover after her elevation, and expiated her want of faith upon the scaffold; and Catherine Parr, the last of his queens, had only her own shrewdness to thank that she did not fall a victim to her zeal for the Reformation. Since the days of Nero and Domitian, there had hardly been a monarch who had surrendered himself so completeby to the promptings of a despotic nature, a passion for blood, and a tyrannical will. Even on his death-bed he issued orders for executions. Edward VI. § 345. At the time of his father's death, Edward VI. a.d. 1547— numbered but six years ; Henry had in consequence ap- pointed a council to conduct the government during his son's minority. In this council, Edward's maternal uncle — the duke of Somerset, and the Archbishop Cranmer, attained the greatest authority. The former, raised to the office of protector of England, gradually got the whole power of the state into his own hands, and favoured the establishment of an Anglican Church which had been undertaken with prudence and moderation by his friend Cranmer. This consists of a mixture of Catholic and Protestant elements. Public worship was accommodated to the Book of Common Prayer in the English language which was compiled from the ancient Mass books ; the Communion was administered in both kinds ; the abolish- ing of ceUbacy, and the confession of faith in the thirty-nine Articles is in conformity with other Protestant Churches ; on the other hand, the episcopal constitution, the continuance in the use of coloured robes during divine worship, and a few ecclesiastical statutes, call the Roman Catholic system io mind, only instead of the pope, the king is the head of the Church, and the bishops and archbishops are appointed by him. Somerset made many enemies by his ambition, who first procured his fall, and at length his execution. Warwick, earl of Northumber- land, the ambitious chief of the opposite party, stepped into his place, and exercised the same unlimited authority over the weak king and the empire as his predecessor had done. For the purpose of prolong- PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION THROUGH EUROPE. 239 ing his sway, he persuaded the dying Edward to alter the will of his father, by appointing as his successor, Jane Gray, a niece of Henry VIII., who was disposed to the evangelical doctrines, instead of his Catholic sister, Mary. But hatred to the ambitious Northumberland, whose son, Dudley, was the husband of Jane Gray, and the hereditary reverence for the legitimate inheritor, operated in favour of Mary. Mary Tudor, She brought the people over to her side by the assurance a.d. 1553— that nobody should be disturbed on account of his re- 1558 • ligion, and succeeded in gaining the throne. Northum- berland died on the scaffold. Dudley and the classically accomplished Jane Gray, who was not less versed in the writings of Plato than in the Bible, after pining for some time in prison, were the victims of a similar fate. § 346. Mary did not remain true to her promise. Bred up in the Catholic faith, for which her mother, Catherine, had suffered, she looked upon the restoration of papacy and the ancient Church forms as the most important of her duties as a ruler. She had the Church Eeform of Edward VI. abolished by act of Parliament, and adopted measures, in conjunction with Cardinal Pole whom she raised to the archiepiscopal chair of Canterbury, for the extirpation of heresy and the restoration of the old system. The refractory bishops were de- posed ; Cranmer and two of his most zealous coadjutors given over to the flames, and the fires of martyrdom lighted all over the kingdom. To neglect attending Mass was to put life in perd. Crowds of re- fugees fled over the seas to seek for refuge in Germany and Switzer- land. "When Mary gave her hand to the fanatical Philip of Spain the persecution waxed hotter. But grief at the evident dislike of her husband, melancholy and misanthropy shortened her days. She died at the moment when she was deceiving herself with the idle hope that she was about to present a Catholic successor to the nation. Her half-sister, Elizabeth, the daughter of the unfortunate Anne Boleyn, exchanged the residence she had hitherto occupied in the Tower, where she had passed a troublous youth in the midst of sor- row and danger, for the royal palace, and restored, by the Act of Uniformity, the Eeformation that had been established under Ed- ward VI. The Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-nine Articles again resumed their authority ; and Elizabeth exercised the influence which she possessed as the spiritual head of the Church, in establish- ing the Court of High Commission. It was in vain that the exiles on their return home hoped to induce the queen to undertake a thorough Eeformation on the model of the Calvinistic Church. Elizabeth's lofty spirit, and her love for religious ceremonial and ecclesiastical pomp, despised the simplicity and popular equality of the Calvinists, who, from their insisting upon the purification of the 24,0 THE MODERN EPOCH. Church, were called Puritans. When these men found there was no hope for the reception of their doctrines into the Anglican Church, they separated themselves as nonconformists, and established a reli- gious system of their own, with presbyteries and synods, a religious service from which art and poetry were banished, and a system of Church discipline in which every earthly pleasure was a sin. Perse- cution was soon let loose against the Puritans, under which they became still more gloomy and morose, and at length increased to a dangerous party. C. THE REFORMATION IN THE THREE SCANDINAVIAN KINGDOMS. § 347. In the sixteenth century a complete revolution in the state of affairs took place in the three Scandinavian kingdoms. Christian II., the last king of the united empire (§ 296), irritated the nobility to such an extent by his severity and cruelty, that insurrections broke out at the same time both in Denmark and Sweden, in conse- quence of which the union of Calmar was dissolved and the evangelical Church obtained the supremacy. Gustavus Yasa, a courageous youth, endowed with the valour and wisdom of the Stures, who were his relations, was the originator of this ecclesiastical and political revolution in Sweden, and the founder of a vigorous race of monarchs. He was carried into Denmark as a hostage by Chris- tian II. From thence, however, he soon found an opportunity to escape into Lubeck, where he was not only protected but provided with money, and encoui'aged with promises of the liberation of his . r9 „ native country. In the same year in which the slaughter of Stockholm produced a universal horror of the Danish government, Gustavus landed on his native shores. In the midst of a thousand dangers and adventures, he escaped the pursuits of Christian's emissaries, who were perpetually at his heels, by his own courage and the fidelity of his countrymen, till at length he found aid and protection from the rude inhabitants of Northern Dalecarlia. With a band of hardy peasants he conquered Falun, repulsed the troops of the Danes and then* allies, and took TJpsala. The fame of his name and the attractive call of liberty soon resounded through all lands and attracted many warriors to his side. Supported by the Liibeckcrs with troops, money, and artfilery, he compelled the Danish garrison to retreat, and then, after having been elected king by the , ~„ Diet of Streinmas, he held his entrv into Stockholm. At June 1523. first, the new kingdom of Sweden . remained an elective monarchy, till twenty years later the crown was declared by the Diet to be hereditary in the male line of Vasa. But as the possessions of the throne had been so dilapidated by neglect as not to be sufficient to support the expenditure, the new kingly dignity could not be supported with honour except by an PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION THROUGH EUROPE. 2il augmentation of the kingly revenue. For this, the Reformation afforded a welcome opportunity. The people, instructed in the Lutheran doctrines by the brothers Olaus and Laurentius Petri, willingly accepted the new faith, and the Diet placed the possessions of the clergy, who during the war had sided with the Danes, and shown no interest in the independence of their country, at the dis- posal of the king. Grustavus, supported by this resolution, gradually introduced the Reformation into the whole country, and deprived the Church of the greater part of its posses- sions for the purpose of attaching them to the crown. The nobility, who were enriched by the proceeding, supported the undertaking. The bishops, who, after a long resistance, submitted to the new sys- tem, remained Estates of the empire and heads of the Church, but were dependent upon the king, and held in check by consistories. § 348. A similar revolution had in the mean time taken place in Denmark. Frederick I., acknowledged as king by the nobility and people, sought, by supporting the evangelical doctrine, to strengthen himself against his rival, Christian II., who, although at first favourable to the Reformation, had afterwards united himself to the emperor and the pope for the purpose of regaining possession of his states. In the same time in which Frederick admitted Pro- testants to equal civil rights with Catholics at the Diet of Oden- see, and established the Danish Church's independence of Rome, Christian II. made an attack upon Denmark from Norway ; but was taken prisoner, and compelled to pine for sixteen years in a gloomy tower, with no other companion than a Norwegian Christian III., dwarf. Under Christian III., the son of Frederick I., the a.d. 1534 — Lutheran form of worship attained a complete triumph in Denmark also. The clergy lost the greater part of their possessions to the crown and the nobility, and the bishops, whose titles were retained in the Scandinavian kingdoms, fell into complete dependence upon the government. In Norway, the new Church was quietly established by the peasantry; but in Iceland, the Episcopal party fell with the sword in their hands. The Swedish and Danish nobility gained great wealth, power, and privileges by the Reformation. § 349. Grustavus Vasa had attempted to establish Sweden's pros- perity by wholesome laws, and by the encouragement of trade and industry ; but evil times came upon the land under the government of his sons. Erich XIV. was of so passionate a disposition that he Erich XIV., at length became insane. "Whilst in this state, he mur- a.d. 1560— dered with his own hand several members of the family 1568 ' of Sture, and caused all the nobles to tremble in antici- pation of a similar fate ; which induced his brothers to place him in confinement, and at length to send him out of the world by poison. 0[0 THE MODERN EPOCH. John III ^ s brother, John III., a weak-minded prince of unstable a.d. 1508 — character, succeeded to the government. Led astray by 1592. j^ s w jfg j a r igid Catholic and the daughter of a Polish prince, and by a Jesuit who lived secretly in Stockholm as an ambas- sador, John attempted again to introduce the ancient form of religion into his kingdom, and consented that his son Sigmund, who was to be king both of Sweden and Poland, should be brought up as a Catholic. His scheme proved abortive from the resistance of the Swedish people to the Catholic ceremonies ; he himself afterwards repented of his attempt, when his second wife exerted herself in favour of the evangelical doctrine. But the attachment to the Ca- tholic Chm-ch proved of great detriment to his son, the Polish king, Sigmund III. For when he refused compliance with the resolution of the Diet, that the evangelical-Lutheran religion shoidd be solely predominant and alone tolerated in Sweden, his uncle, Charles of Sudermania, was named regent. It was in vain that Sigmund at- tempted to defend his rights by force of arms, he was defeated by his uncle ; whereupon the Diet required him either to renounce popery, and to govern his hereditary kingdom in person ; or to send his son to Sweden, that he might be brought up in the religion of the country. "When Signmnd refused compliance with this demand, Charles IX. received the crown he had long been striving for, and a new law of succession secured it to his family. § 350. At this time, a war arose between Sweden and Poland. Charles IX., This war, which after Charles's death was inherited by his a.d. 1600 — SO n, Grustavus Adolphus, terminated to the advantage of Sweden, who soon united Livonia and a part of Prussia to Finland and Esthonia, her other provinces on the Baltic. From this time the power of Poland gradually decayed. An at- tempt at a reformation of the Church, which would have been at- tended by a renovation of the state, and a more intimate connexion with neighbouring countries, was suppressed by a selfish nobility, who thought of nothing but increasing their own power and privileges. It was only a few persecuted and fugitive teachers of the new doc- trines that found protection and toleration in Poland. They were opposed to the Catholic Poles under the comprehensive term of Dis- sidents, and succeeded, after many struggles, in obtaining toleration for their religion, and an equality of civil rights ; possessions in which they were afterwards seriously disturbed. Several opinions found toleration in Poland that had been rejected by the Beformers as unorthodox. Among these, may be mentioned those entertained by the sect of Socinians (Unitarians) founded by the Italian brothers, Socinus, who denied the Divine nature of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 043 d. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. § 351. Traces of the Reformation displayed themselves both in Spain and Italy, but were prevented from extending partly by the character of the people, and partly by the severity of the inquisition • the suspected died in frightful dungeons, or at the stake. Among the confessors of the new doctrine were found the most illustrious authors and men of learning, who, for the most part, took refuge abroad. Some adopted principles that were rejected as heretical even by the Reformers ; thus, the two Italian brothers, Socinus (§ 350) ; and the Spaniard, Servetus, who was burnt to death at Geneva, at the suggestion of Calvin, for holding unorthodox opinions on the subject of the Trinity (a.d. 1553). The heads and leaders of the Catholic Church did not give up the thought of suppressing the new doctrines : wherever it was in their power, they sought to attain this object by persecution and violence ; and when this was not practicable, they opposed and impeded their Adrian VI., diffusion in every possible way. Almost all the popes, a.d. 1522, even those who, like Adrian VI. and Paul III., were 1523. ... Paul III. convinced of the prevailing abuses of the Church, and a.d. 1543— meditated plans for their removal, displayed great severity Paul IV against the Protestants. Thus Paul IV., an octogenarian a.d. 1555— and a gloomy monk, provoked the people to such a degree, p 559 - that on the day of his death they mutilated his statues, a.d. 1559— and burnt down the house of the inquisition. His suc- 1565. cesser, Pius IV., brought to a termination the twice interrupted Council of Trent, the third assembling of which com- menced with the January of 1562. The resolutions of this Council (in which the Catholics see their own Reformation), form the foun- dation of the Catholic Church. The religious doctrines that had hitherto been regarded as orthodox were here recognized as infallible, and embodied in expressions as indefinite as possible ; a purer code of morals was established, the Church discipline improved, and a more rigorous supervision of the clergy established. The Council of Trent, which was gradually received in all Catholic countries, is the final con- clusion of Catholic doctrine ; from this time, no more synods have been held. In this manner every attempt at innovation was prevented, and the character of stability impressed upon Catholicism ; whilst, on the contrary, the essence of Protestantism is development and progress. Gregory XIII Gregory XIII., who gave the calendar, which had fallen a.d. 1572 — into confusion, its present improved arrangement, by 1585. passing at once from the 18th of February to the 1st of March, ordered a Te Deum to be sung for the extirpation of the enemies of Christ when he heard the intelligence of the night of St. n 2 244. THE MODERN EPOCH. Bartholomew (§ 363). The most remarkable prince of the Church „. . , r during the whole century, was Sixtus V., who, from the Sixtus V., to niTi- i a.d. 1585— condition of a poor shepherd boy, had risen to be a Fran- lo9 °- ciscan, inquisitor, cardinal, and at length, pope. He was a man of a strong and imperious nature, who maintained the discipline of the Church with inexorable severity, erected several remarkable buildings, drew forth the gigantic works of antiquity from their rub- bish, and attempted to restore the ancient splendour to the papal chair. § 352. The attempts of the popes to suppress the Eeformation, or at least to prevent its diffusion, found their chief support in the order of Jesuits, which was founded by Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish nobleman of excitable imagination and enthu- siastic temperament. Affected by the histories of the saints, which he read during the healing of a wound, Ignatius renounced the pro- fession of soldier, to which he had hitherto belonged, and accom- plished a toilsome pilgrimage, with prayers and penance, to the Holy Sepulchre. After his return, he acquired, with incredible perseverance, the education in Avhich he was deficient, in Salamanca and Paris ; and then, together with six associates, swore vipon the host not only to be true to the three monastic vows of poverty, chastity, and obedi- ence, but to allow the object of their efforts to be determined on by the pope, and then to submit themselves to his decision with uncon- ditional compliance. A short time after, they prostrated themselves at the feet of the Roman pontiff, and obtained a confirmation of the new order, which received the name of the Society of Jesus. Igna- tius became the first general of the order ; but it is not to him, but to his successor, the Spaniard, Lainez, that the Society of Jesus is indebted for its artfully designed constitution. This constitution was military-monarchical. The superintendents of the provinces — the provincials, were subject to the general in Home, and under these were again a multitude of heads in various steps and gradations. Ohedience and rigid subordination were the soul of the alliance. All the members were most heedfully watched over, and were compelled to tear asunder all the bands that connected thern with the world. Postulants were required to pass through a long period of probation, during which, the talents and disposition of every individual were minutely scrutinized, so that he might be devoted to his most appropriate sphere of action. The Jesuits, who were endowed with great privileges, soon attained a vast and multi- farious activity. The chief aim of the order was to oppose Pro- testantism, and to suppress the freedom of inquiry that had been awakened by the Eeformation. They attempted these objects by a variety of ways ; they endeavoured to lead back the adherents of the new faith into the bosom of the ancient Church by persuasion THE TIMES OF PHILIP II. AND ELIZABETH. 245 and seduceinent ; the confessional was made use of to induce princes and men in authority to oppose the Reformation, and to put limits to the freedom of belief ; and by the education of youth, which they had known how to get into their own hands, they sought to bring up the young in their own principles. The order was enriched by presents and legacies, and this wealth facilitated the erection of Jesuitical seminaries, which, plentifully provided with every thing that was requisite, imparted instruction gratuitously, and thus attracted many of the necessitous. Moreover, the object aimed at by the instruction given by the Jesuits was not a free development of the mind, but only the acquirement of knowledge that might be serviceable in life. It might rather be called training than education. Sciences were presented in a certain contracted form, and free speculation was pre- vented. Readiness in the Latin language, and an acquaintance with a few sciences that were of practical utdity, were the aim of the Jesuitical education ; the means — severe discipline and the excitement of am- bition : philosophy, on the other hand, history, and every thing that directs men's minds to more elevated or comprehensive views, was either banished or taught with restrictions. But what drew down the curses of the people on the Jesuitical order was, that by its dan- gerous morality it became the destroyer of truth and faith, and the disseminator of malicious and false principles. The revolting doctrine that the end sanctifies the means, and that words and oaths might be rendered invalid by a mental reservation, were brought into use by the Jesuits in a most audacious manner. 5. THE TIMES OE EHILLP II. (a.D. 1556 — 1598) AND ELIZABETH (a.d. 1558—1603). § 353. Philip II. of Spain was a gloomy and misanthropical prince, who proposed three objects to himself as the aims of his existence, — the increase of his power, the extirpation of Protestantism, and the annihilation of liberty and popular rights. In the attainment of these ends he sacrificed the happiness of his people, the prosperity of his kingdom, and the affection of his subjects and nearest relations. His chivalrous half-brother, Don Juan, who defeated the Turks in the sea-engagement at Lepanto, was surrounded by the suspicious king with such a web of falsehood, intrigue, and espionage, and so fettered in all his undertakings, that grief and vexation plunged him into an early grave. Philip's son, the im- petuous and passionate Don Carlos, died in the dungeons of the in- quisition, — that mighty spiritual court, that, under Philip, became the terror and horror of the people. By means of this horrible inqui- sition, and the dreadful autos da fe, he was indeed successful in destroying every trace of heresy in Spain and Naples, and in depriv- ing the people of their freedom ; but he at the same time annihilated 246 T1IE MODERN EPOCH. tlie prosperity, the wealth, and the national greatness of these coun- bries; and when he attempted to hend the Netherlands under the same yoke, that memorable contest burst forth, out of which liberty came forth triumphant. After a reign of twelve years, which proved the grave of Spain's greatness, and burdened the once rich land with an oppressive national debt, Philip tell a victim to a dreadful disease. He had a cruel executor of his tyrannical commands in Duke Alba. The curse of the people rests on the names of both. a. PORTUGAL TJNITEn WITH SPAIN. § 354. Portugal had a similar fate with Spain. In both countries a powerful priesthood, supported by an absolute king, suppressed the spiritual movements of the people, and paralysed their powers. Pree- dom and rights were lost, and the ancient heroism, the bloom and the prosperity of an earlier period, disappeared beneath sloth and slavery. This was particularly the case when Portugal, by a gloomy fatality, was united to Spain. King Sebastian, a young man, and who had been educated by the priests in rigid faith and obedience to the Church and pope, under- took an expedition against the infidel Moors in Northern Africa, with the purpose of gratifying at once both his zeal for proselytism and his love of conquest. Pie commenced an impetuous attack, during the burning heat of an August day, upon the superior force of the enemy, in the plain of Alcassar, and suffered a dreadful defeat. 12,000 Christian warriors covered the field of battle ; Sebastian himself was among those who were missing, but his body could be no where discovered. The crown of Portugal descended to an ancieni relative ; and when he died, two years afterwards, without children, Philip II. of Spain made pretensions to the kingdom, and sent Duke Alba with an army against the Portuguese, who, out of national hatred and neighbourly jealousy, favoured the pretensions of a rival claimant, Antonio. But the latter was not in a position to contest his pretended hereditary claims against the superior power of Spain. lie was defeated and compelled to fly, upon which Lisbon and the whole country submitted to the Spaniards. Antonio, after a few unsuccessful attempts, died, poor and harassed by perpetual plots, in Paris ; and the false Sebastians that arose from time to time, and endeavoured to stir up the Portuguese against their detested neighbours, did not meet with the necessary support. The fourth Sebastian, who bj mam was regarded as the true one, ended his days a.d. 1580— m :| Spanish prison. The pernicious domination of Spain 1640. over Portugal endured for sixty years. At the end of this period, the illustrious duke of Braganza succeeded in bringingthe crow □ into his own family. But in the meanwhile, the navy of Portugal had fallen into decay, and her foreign possessions passed into other hands. THE TIMES OP PHILIP II. AND ELIZABETH. 04,7 b. THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY IN THE NETHERLANDS. § 355. The Netherlands, from time immemorial, had possessed chartered rights and liberties, among which, consent to taxation by the Estates of the country, an independent judicature, and the ex- clusion of Spanish troops and officials, occupied the most prominent place. These rights had been already occasionally infringed during the time of Charles V. ; but the love of the emperor for the Netherlander, among whom he had been born, and for whose manners and customs he retained an affection, prevented any greater hostilities. Philip, on the contrary, was a haughty Spaniard, who looked upon the Netherlands as a conquered country, and who perpetually violated their hereditary privileges. He appointed his half-sister, Margaret of Parma, a woman of masculine spirit, his vicegerent in Brussels ; but placed a state council at her side, in which a foreigner, Cardinal Granvella, was president, and sent a Spanish garrison into the coun- try. But the Netherlanders, many of whom were inclined to the evangelical doctrines, felt themselves most aggrieved, when the king, for the purpose of maintaining the pure faith, and the discipline of the Church, ordered the laws against heresy to be rendered more strin- gent, and appointed fourteen new bishops in addition to the four already existing. These regulations were intended to facilitate the gradual introduction of the Spanish inquisition ; and the Cardinal Granvella, who, as archbishop of Mechlin, had all the other bishoprics under him, already assumed the title of Grand-Inquisitor. All at- tempts of the patriotic party, at the head of which stood "William of Orange and Count Egmont, to induce the king by petitions to re- spect the institutions of the country, to mitigate the laws against heresy, and to allow freedom of belief, were ineffectual. Philip repUed, " that he would rather die a thousand times, than suffer the slightest change in religion." § 356. It was among the burgher class alone that any disciples of the new Church were to be met with ; the nobility for the most part adhered to the ancient faith, but were resolute in opposing the in- November, quisition with all their power. With this object, about 1565. 400 nobles subscribed the so-called Compromise, and drew up a petition for the repeal of the laws against heresy, and the discontinuance of the proceedings of the inquisition. When they presented themselves with this before the palace of the vice-regent, she fell into a state of agitation. One of the council who was stand- ing beside her exclaimed, that she should not be alarmed by these beggars (gueux), a word that was communicated to the confederates, and made use of by them as the sign of their alliance. They named them- selves Gueses, and from this time wore a medal round the neck, with the effigy of the king, and the inscription, " True to the wallet." The g48 THE MODERN EPOCH. petition remained without result. Heretics were punished in their freedom, property, and lives. Despite all this, the new doctrines made more and more progress ; psalms were sung, the preachings of the evangelical clergy, which Avere often held in the open air, were attended by thousands ; monks, images of the Virgin, and holy ob- jects, were turned to ridicule. At length the long restrained wrath of the people at the religious persecution burst its bounds in Antwerp, Brussels, and the whole of Brabant. A mob, consisting of the lowest class of the people, mutilated the crucifixes and images of the saints which were standing in the roads ; but the increasing multitude soon attacked the churches and cloisters, and perpetrated every kind of sacrilegious atrocity. These occurrences produced a division. The moderate party joined the regent, and assisted her in punishing the guilty. Order was in a short time restored, and Mai'garet recommended gentleness and moderation as the only means by which the tranquillity of the country could be permanently established. But her representa- tions found no acceptance in Madrid. It was determined to send the cruel Alba with a Spanish army to the Netherlands, and to re- duce the people by force and severity. Alba, a.d. § 357. The intelligence of Alba's arrival caused the 15G7 — 1573. Netherlanders to take to flight in crowds. William of Orange, a prudent and circumspect man, in the full vigour of life, resolute, energetic, and taciturn, yielded to the storm and retreated to Holland. He parted in tears from Egmont, whom he vainly at- tempted to persuade to follow the same course. Egmont's happy nature could not give credit to the Spanish treachery, against which Orange warned him. He trusted to his former services to the royal famfly of Spain, and remained. But Alba had hardly arrived at Brussels with unlimited powers, before he placed the unsuspecting Egmont and the gallant Horn under arrest, and caused them, with eighteen others of the nobility, to be executed as traitors. He then established a council of rebellion, called by the Netherlander The Bloody Council, which punished with unexampled severity not only the disciples of the evangelical doctrine, but the resolute defenders of their country's rights and institutions. The regent, disgusted with these horrors, resigned her office and retired to Italy. Her memory was held in honour. Alba, however, erected a citadel in Antwerp, and for six years (a.d. 15G7 — 1573) exercised an oppressive tyranny that threatened the greatest danger to liberty and prosperity. Without regard to the laws of the land, which re- quired that the taxes should be allowed by the Estates of every district, and collected in a manner the best suited to their object, Alba im- posed a fixed tax upon the country, and levied it in a manner ex- tremely unfavourable to trade and commerce, inasmuch as in addition to ii property tax he introduced a high tarif. The discontent and THE TIMES OF PHILIP II. AND ELIZABETH. 249 irritation of the people at these oppressive imposts at length produced such a fermentation in the country, that Alba's recall was decided upon in Madrid. The intelligence that a band of exiles, called Water- GTueses, had stormed the sea-port, Briel, and that the northern states, Hol- land, Zealand, Utrecht, and Friesland, had united together and recog- nized "William of Orange as their Stadth older, might have a.d. 1572. . . & . convinced the Spanish court that Alba's proceedings were not leading to the desired result. Shortly after the duke's de- parture from the Netherlands, the northern states, in the synod of Dort, raised Calvinism to be the religion of the state, received the Heidelberg Catechism, and erected a Protestant university in the town of Leyden, as a reward for the heroic defence of the citizens against the beleaguering Spanish army. Zuniga, a.d. § 358. Alba's successor, Louis of Zuniga and Beques- 1573—1576. cens, abolished the Bloody Council, and attempted by milder measures again to confirm the tottering power of Spain iu the Netherlands ; but the hatred of the people against the foreign troops, whose licentiousness every day increased, prevented a reconciliation. Even his victory on the Mokerheath, where two of the brothers of Orange died as became heroes, failed in producing the expected re- sidts. Zuniga died two years afterwards. Before his successor, Don Juan, Philip's gallant half-brother, could enter tipon his difficult Don Juan office, the insolence of the savage and unpaid soldiery a.d. 1576 — attained its highest pitch. They filled the wealthy cities 1578. £ ]\/[ ae stricht and Antwerp with murder, plunder, and desolation. At this crisis, the shrewd Orange was successful in uniting the whole of the states, by the alliance of Ghent, a.d. 1576. in the resolution of mutually assisting each other, with life and property, in driving out the Spanish troops ; and Don Juan was not in a position, during the brief period of his exertions in the Netherlands, to re-establish firmly the shattered power of Spain. But Don Juan, as well as his more experienced successor, Alexander Alexander Farnese of Parma, son of the regent, Margaret, was intent Farnese, a.d. upon fostering the jealousy and hereditary envy between 1578 1592 . the northern and southern states, and on maintaining the rights of the Catholic Church in the latter, that the dominion of Spain might be preserved in the southern states at least. This scheme was seen through by Orange, who, being convinced that even , ._„ the weak were strengthened by union, united the northern a.d. 1579. ? . . J states, (Holland, Zealand, Grelders, Utrecht, Priesland,) into a closer confederacy for the purpose of mutual co-operation, by the union of Utrecht. This alliance was the foundation of the United States of the Protestant Netherlands. On the other hand, matters in the south became every day more confused and divided by the in- termeddling of foreign princes and nobles, so that the energetic £50 THE MODERN EPOCH. Parma was enabled in many places to suppress the insurrection, and to bring back many of the towns to obedience. Philip's wrath was now directed against Orange. He had already outlawed him, and promised a title of nobility and a vast reward to whosoever should deliver him up either alive or dead. This tempting promise, and the activity of fanatical priests was followed by several attempts at assas- sination. Orange escaped one of these, but the bullet of the fanatic, Gerhard of Pranche-Comte, laid him dead at the door of the royal banqueting-hall of Delft. The murderer was however seized and put to a cruel death. In the place of Orange, the northern states elected his gallant son, Maurice, as Stadtholder and general. § 359. About this time, the religious animosity between Catholics and Protestants was greater than ever in the west of Europe ; and whilst the former placed all their hopes upon Philip of Spain, the latter received assistance either private or open from Elizabeth of England. She sent her favourite, Leicester, with an army into the Netherlands to prevent Parma's complete triumph ; she assisted the Huguenots against Philip's allies, the Leaguists and Jesuits (§ 3G2, . r „_ 361), and consented to the execution of Mary Stuart when she found that her own life was threatened by the daggers of fanatics (§ 368). Upon this, Philip determined to anni- hilate all the enemies of the Catholic Church by a mighty blow, and above all, to chastise heretical England and her excommunicated queen. With this view, he fitted out the Armada or " Invincible Eleet," consisting of 130 large ships of war, and sent them into the lrno Channel, under the command of Medina Sidonia, to the A.D. 1588. ' end that, supported by Parma's land force, they might subject at the same time, England, Erance, and the Netherlands. But the undertaking ended in the shame and ruin of Spain. The " Invincible Eleet" was destroyed by storms, and the skill and courage of the English ; the greatest part of that which escaped the fire-ships, the rocks, and the enemy, in the Channel, was wrecked upon the Hebrides and Shetland Islands, when Sidonia attempted to return to Spain by sailing round Scotland. It was a fatal blow. Philip ad- mitted this when he composed the trembling admiral with the words, "I sent you against men, not against rocks and storms." This event destroyed Spain's supremacy at sea, and secured the inde- pendence of the Netherlands. The Avar indeed continued for twenty years longer ; but the Spaniards, despite the bravery of their troops and the skill of their commanders, were not in a condition to subject the whole of the country. The northern states, who possessed an admirable leader in Maurice of Orange, maintained the struggle for freedom and independence. A short time before his death, Philip presented the Netherlands to his daughter, Clara Eugenia, on her THE TIMES OF PHILIP II. AND ELIZABETH. g51 marriage with the archduke, Albert of Austria, as a fief, under the condition, that the land should revert to Spain hi the event of her dying without chddren. The United States of Holland, however, would not consent to this scheme. They still continued the war after the death of Philip II., till at length, by the intermediation of Henry IV. of France, a truce was arranged, by which their independence, religious freedom, and trade with the East Indies, was secured to them. But it was not till the peace of "Westphalia that the independence of the United States of Holland was formally acknowledged. The southern provinces (Belgium), on the other hand, remained for a whole century subject to Spain, and then fell into the hands of Austria. § 360. Trade. — Government.' — Synod oe Dort. — Holland came forth from the struggle flourishing and powerful. Navigation and commerce received a vast impulse, after the Hollanders (particularly the East India Company, established in 1602) entered into direct commercial relations with India, and deprived the Portuguese of many of their colonies. Batavia, in the island of Java, was the centre of their lucrative traffic. The constitution of the United States, which was mainly the work of the great statesman, Oldenbarnveldt, was republican. The States General, which were formed by deputies from the seven provinces, possessed the power of legislation ; the High Council, with the stadtholder at its head, conducted the government ; the affairs of war however, and the supreme command over the sea and land forces, belonged to the stadtholder alone. The arts and sciences at the same time flourished prosperously ; the study of an- tiquity, m particular, met with unusual attention in the Dutch uni- versities. But even Protestant Holland did not remain free from the mis- chievous wars of religion. A dispute respecting the Calvinistic doc- trine of predestination divided the country into two parties, — a severe party (Gomarists), to which Maurice of Orange and his adherents attached themselves, and a moderate party (Arminians), whose sup- porters were Oldenbarnveldt and Hugo Grotius. The synod of Dort (§ 342) decided in favour of the former ; upon which, Oldenbarnveldt, who had deserved so highly and was then in his seventy-second year, perished on the scaffold ; and Hugo Grotius, the learned historian of the struggles of the Netherlands for liberty, and the founder of civil and international law according to the principles of the ancients, was confined in prison till rescued by the cunning and fidelity of his wife. C. ERANCE DURING THE WAR OE RELIGION. § 361. During this period, furious religious wars were raging in Erance also. Henry II., a determined enemy of the Huguenots 252 THE MODERN EPOCH. (§ 342), died in. consequence of a wound he received during a tourna- Francis II. ment. His feeble and delicate son, Francis II., was his a.d. 1559, successor. This prince was married to the fascinating Mary Stuart of Scotland, whose uncles, the Guises, in consequence, enjoyed great influence at the French court. The Guises, as zealous adherents of the Catholic Church and the papacy, made use of their lofty position to suppress the reformed party ; but by doing this gave their opponents, and in especial, the Prince Conde, of the family of Bourbon, and the Admiral Coligni, the opportunity of strengthening themselves by joining the Huguenots. The schism increased daily ; the one party strove to overthrow the other, and to secure the victory to their own side by the assistance of the king. The day on which the Estates assembled at Orleans was selected by both parties as a befitting time for the execution of this project. The Guises gained the advantage. The chiefs of the Huguenots already found themselves in prison, when a turn was given to affairs by the sudden death of the king. The queen-mother, Catherine of Medicis, placed herself at the head of affairs during the minority of Charles IX. * ne new kipg, Charles IX., and the Bourbons assumed a a.d. 1560 — position suited to their birth. The Guises, irritated at the neglect they experienced, retired with their niece, Mary Stuart, into Lorraine, from whence the latter, shortly after, departed Avith sorrow and mourning into Scotland. § 362. The removal of the Guises from the court was of advantage to the reformed party. They obtained toleration. Enraged at this concession, the duke of Guise concluded an alliance with some other powerful nobles for the preservation of the ancient faith in France, and returned to Paris. During this return, a horrible slatighter was perpetrated by the Guises and their attendants upon some Calvinists of the town of Vassy, who were assembled together in a barn, for the celebration of Divine worship. This proved the signal for a religious war. The outrage given to the conceded liberty of conscience by this bloody act of violence cried for vengeance. France was soon divided into two hostde camps, that attacked each other with bitter animosity and religious rage. The most horrible atrocities were committed, and the kingdom disturbed to its inmost depths. The Catholics obtained aid from Borne and Spain, the Protestants were assisted by England ; Germany and Switzerland supplied soldiers. After the undecisive battle of Dreux, and the murder of the Duke Francis of Guise, at the siege of Orleans, peace Avas for a short time restored, and the Cal- vii lists again assured of religious toleration — a promise that met with but little attention. The tAvo parties Avere soon again arrayed in arms against each other. But despite the bravery of the Huguenots in the battle of St. Denis, where the elder Montmorenci lost his life, the superiority remained on the side of the THE TIMES OF PHILIP II. AND ELIZABETH. 25S Catholics ; particularly when Catherine de Medicis, who had hitherto sided with neither party, embraced the interests of the latter. The sight of crucifixes and sacred objects broken to pieces, during a journey under- taken by the queen and her son, and the advice of the duke of Alba, with whom she had an interview in Bayonne, had produced this altera- tion in her opinions. After several bloody engagements in the vicinity of La Eochelle, which the Huguenots had selected as their battle- field, and after their gallant leader, Conde, had been basely assas- sinated during one of them, the peace of St. Germain was arranged, by which the Calvinists were again assured of the free exercise of their religion. Conde' s nephew, Henry of Beam, who had been bred up in the doctrine of Calvin by his mother, Johanna von Albret, now placed himself at the head of the Hugue- nots ; but the soul of the party was the brave Coligni, who stood by the side of the prince as his guide and adviser. § 363. Coligni possessed great influence at the court after the peace. The young king respected him, and favoured him with his confidence. For the purpose of bringing about a permanent recon- ciliation between the religious parties, the king now urged a marriage between his sister, Margaret of Valois, and the Bourbon, Henry of Beam. This offended the Cruises, who believed that Coligni had proeured the assassination of Francis of Guise, and they resolved upon his destruction. Coligni was fired at one evening as he was returning to his own house from the Louvre. The ball, however, only shattered his arm, and it was necessary to devise a fresh plan of destruction. The Guises, in conjunction with Catherine of Medicis, now entertained the horrible project of taking advantage of the approaching marriage, for the solemnization of which many illustrious Calvinists had hastened to the capital, to destroy the chiefs of the Huguenot party. Thus originated the Bloody Nuptials of Paris in the night of St. Bartholomew, August 24th, 1572. When the alarm bell of St. Grermain l'Auxerrois gave the signal at midnight, bands of armed ruffians fell upon the defenceless Calvinists. The grey-headed hero, Coligni, was the first victim that the Guises sacrificed to their hate ; the murderous bands then marched through all parts of the city, filled the streets and houses with blood and corpses, and laughed to scorn every sentiment of humanity and justice. The butchery lasted for three days, and was imitated in other towns, so that at the lowest computation 25,000 Huguenots must have perished. The king, to whom the plan was communicated a short time before its execution, listened to the voice of his passions, and fired himself upon the fugitives. After the deed had been accomplished, and the Guises had been fixed upon by the public voice as its instigators, and called upon to answer for their conduct, Charles took the whole affair upon himself, and excused the crime by a pretended conspiracy. Many of 251< THE MODERN EPOCH. the French quitted their homes in horror, and sought for security in Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands. Henry of Beam saved his life by a compulsatory abjuration, but returned to his old faith as soon as he found himself in security. § 364. Charles IX. died two years after the night of a n 1 ^7 J. St. Bartholomew, troubled with evil dreams. His brother Henry, who had been for a twelvemonth the elected king of Poland, Hem-v III ne( ^ secre tly from the rude shores of the Vistula to take a.d. 1574 — possession of the fairer crown of France. Henry III. 1589 » was a weak and luxurious prince, without either assiduity or energy. Shut up with his favourites and pet dogs in the inmost apartments of the palace, he forgot his kingdom with its disturbances and miseries ; and when remorse at his sinful life, which was passed in lust and debauchery, seized upon him, he sought consolation in superstitious devotion, in pilgrimages and processions, and in penance and flagellations. To bring the Huguenots to peace, so that he might be able to devote himself to the undisturbed enjoyment of the pleasures of his capital, Henry, immediately upon his accession, granted them freedom of conscience, and equal civil rights with the Catholics. Enraged at these concessions, which destroyed all the fruits of their previous exertions, the zealous Catholics, under the guidance of Henry of Guise, and with the cognizance of Philip II. of Spain, concluded the Holy League for the preservation of the Church in all its ancient rights. Many members were won to this alliance by the insinuations of the priests and monks, and by the intrigues of the Jesuits. The fickle and faithless king, disturbed by this move- ment, united himself with the Catholic zealots, declared himself the head of the League, and curtailed the religious peace. The duke of Anjou, Henry's younger brother, died a few years after this ; and as he, like the king, was without children, the Bourbon, Henry of Na- varre (Beam), became the nearest heir to the throne. This pi'ospect of a Protestant king alarmed the Catholic part of France, A d 1584 and gave fresh vigour to the League. The weak king was obliged to recall all treaties with the Huguenots, to announce the extirpation of heresy, and to approve the arrangements of the League. Henry of Guise, at first, only entertained the notion of putting aside the Protestant successor to the throne, who had been excommunicated by the pope ; but his courage rose with his increas- ing power ; he soon made attempts upon the crown himself, whilst, as a pretended descendant of the Carlovingi, he asserted the supe- riority of his claims to those of the reigning family. A conspiracy was formed in Paris (where the citizens were kept in a state of per- petual agitation by fanatical popidar orators) against the freedom or life of the king ; and when Henry III. attempted to defend himself by calling in Swiss troops, the agitation burst into rebellion. The people THE TIMES OF PHILIP II. AND ELIZABETH. 055 assembled themselves around the Guises, Who, against the king's commands, were entering the capital, barricaded the ' streets and bridges, and commenced a furious contest with single divisions of the troops. The trembling king fled with his favourites to Chartres, and left his capital in the hands of his rival. Henry of G-uise now possessed the same power that had belonged to the mayors of the palace in the time of the Merovingi (§ 184). But September, even this position did not satisfy the ambitious party 1588. leader. An assembly of Estates convoked at Blois, where the adherents of the Guises were the strongest party, proposed not only to deprive the Bourbons of their right to the throne and to exterminate Calvinism, but to change the government, and to place the whole power in the hands of the Guises. At this crisis Henry hazarded a bold stroke ; he had the duke of Guise and his brother, the Cardinal Louis, assassinated, and imprisoned the most influential leaders of their party. This proceeding produced a fearful commotion in the whole nation : in Paris, allegiance was renounced to the God- forsaken king, who had overthrown the pillar of Catholicism ; the pope fulminated an excommunication at him ; revolutionary move- ments took place in many quarters. Despised and forsaken, Henry III. saw no other way to safety open to him than an alliance with Henry of Navarre and the Huguenots. A frightful civil war burst out afresh, but fortune was hostile to the League. Henry had already laid siege to Paris, and threatened to reduce the faithless town to a heap of ruins, when the knife of a fanatical monk put an end to his life. . Henry III., the last Valois, died on the 1st of August, 1589, after appointing Henry of Navarre and Beam his successor. § 365. Henry IV. had still a long struggle to sustain before his head was ornamented by the crown of Prance. Mayenne, the brother of the murdered Guise, placed himself at the head of the League, and offered a vehement resistance to the Calvinistic claimant of the throne. Philip II. sought to turn the confusion to his own advan- tage, and commanded his able general, Alexander of Parma, to march his forces from the Netherlands into Prance. Henry tried for a long time to get possession of his inheritance by the sword : he laid siege to Paris, and caused the citizens to feel all the horrors of famine ; but he at length became convinced that he never could gain peaceable possession of the Prench throne by battles and victories. He thought the crown of Prance was worth a mass, and went over to the Catholic Church in the cathedral of St. uy ' ' Denis, and by this means destroyed the power of the League. Paris now threw open its gates, and welcomed the bringer of peace with acclamations. The pope recalled the anathema; the heads of the League concluded a treaty with him, and Philip II., a 25G THE MODERN EPOCH. short time before his death, consented to the peace of Vermis. After foreign and domestic tranquillity had been thus restored to Prance, the king, by the Edict of Nantes, conferred upon the Calvinists liberty of conscience, the full rights of citizen- ship, and many other privileges ; such as separate chambers in the courts of justice, several castles, with all their warlike munitions (La Bochelle, Montauban, Nimes, &c.,) and freedom from episcopal juris- diction. He next sought to heal the wounds that had been inflicted on the land by the war, by encouraging agriculture, trade, and com- merce ; and had the economy of the state and the taxation admirably arranged by his friend and minister, Sully. He won for himself the warmest affections of his people by his genuine Trench character, and by his cordial and cheerful disposition. His solitary failing, his too great love for women, was a merit in the eyes of the French. But fanaticism was only slumbering. Henry's tolerant disposition towards heretics awakened it. As he was meditating the vast plan (with the approval of the Dutch Union and other European powers) of founding a Christian community with equal privileges for the three Confessions, and by this means destroying the supremacy of the royal house of Hapsburg, he fell beneath the knife of Eavaillac. d. ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART. El'zabeth § ^66- Whilst Erance was being torn to pieces by the a.d. 1558 — war of religion, England, under Elizabeth, was making 1603. mighty advances in trade and commerce, in navigation, agriculture, and literature. Elizabeth was a despotic ruler, who sup- pressed the ecclesiastical freedom of the people, and who would suffer no opposition to her will in parliament ; but she possessed great talents for government, a mind invigorated by severe studies, and an under- standing that enabled her invariably to recognize and select that which was most profitable for the country. She surrounded herself by sage councillors, among whom, Cecil (Lord Burleigh) held the first ranis, and maintained order and economy in the management of the state ; but the dissimulation she had been accustomed to practise during her perilous youth, rendered the crooked path of falsehood, and the subterfuges of a disingenuous policy agreeable to her. She displayed the latter more especially, in her conduct towards Mary Stuart, queen of Scotland, who, in character, personal qualities, and history, formed a contrast to her neighbouring rival. Whilst Elizabeth, from the misfortunes of her youth, had carried with her into life a dowry of unamiabdity, severity, falsehood, and envy, the beautiful Mary, after a youth passed in joy and happiness, had brought to the Scottish throne a cheerfid and engaging nature, an open heart, and a joyous disposition; and whflst the English queen was closely bound to Protestantism and THE TIMES OF PHILIP II. AND ELIZABETH. 257 united in one Church with her people, Mary held fast to the Catholic faith and the papacy, in the midst of a rude nation, who, with their own hands, had raised the Presbyterian Church to be the Church of the kingdom, and who detested the mass as idolatry. Her private chapel was attacked, and the stern reformer, Knox, pronounced severe discourses against her from the pidpit of the palace, as the prophets had once done against the idolatrous kings of Israel. S 367. Mary united herself in a second marriage with Darnley, a Scotch nobleman, who had been brought up in England. The union, however, proved unfortunate. The vain, un- thinking husband, abandoned to the councils of insincere friends, found pleasure in nothing but hunting and feasting ; and was indig- nant at finding that the queen neglected him, and bestowed her con- fidence on the singer, Bizzio, from Turin, who conducted her corre- spondence with the Guises and the pope. Darin 1 ey, urged on by jealousy and a feeling of injured honour, and irritated by malicious friends, formed a conspiracy with some nobles, — and Mary's favourite, pierced by many daggers, fell lifeless before the eyes of his mistress, in her own chamber. This horrible deed filled the heart of the queen with bitterness against her husband, of whose guilt, despite his denial, she felt convinced. She separated herself more and more from him, entertained thoughts of a divorce, and turned her favour upon Bothwell, another Scottish nobleman. It was not till Darnley fell ill that she appeared to lay aside her dis- pleasure. She attended upon him with the greatest assiduity, in a February 10, remote garden-house. But the inhabitants of Edinburgh 1567. were awakened one night, during Mary's absence, by a dreadful explosion. The garden-house was found shattered to pieces, and Darnley' s body apparently suffocated. The public voice pointed out Bothwell as the perpetrator of the deed ; and three months after, he was Mary's husband. Was it at all wonderful that she was accused of being an accomplice in the murder ? Irritated at this criminal marriage, the Scottish nobflity took up arms. Bothwell fled before the battle was fought, and led the life of a freebooter near the Hebrides, but was taken by the Danes, and died in prison, insane. Mary was led in triumph to Edinburgh amidst the execrations of her people, and then imprisoned in a solitary castle on the island of Lochleven, Avhere she was compelled to abdicate her crown, and to transfer the government to her half-brother, Murray, during the minority of her son, James. Mary, indeed, escaped and found assist- ance from the powerful family of Hamilton ; but having been over- come in a battle, she would have fallen a second time into the hands of her enemies, had she not fled with the greatest haste into England, to seek protection from Elizabeth. § 368. The queen of England declined every interview with Mary £58 TliE MODERN EPOCH. unlil the latter should have cleared herself from the charge of having murdered her husband ; and since Mary, as an independent sovereign, would not submit herself to an English tribunal, it was considered necessary to retain her in England. But her presence soon endan- gered Elizabeth's safety. The duke of Norfolk attempted to gain Mary's hand, but lost first his freedom and afterwards his life. The ancient Church still numbered many adherents in the northern counties ; the earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland raised the standard of rebellion, with the purpose of setting Mary at liberty, and restoring the Catholic Church. Their undertaking failed. Northumberland, given up by the Scots as a fugitive, died upon the scaffold. Mary was suspected as an accomplice ; she was removed from that neighbourhood and more closely watched. All the efforts of foreign courts to procure her liberation were fruit- less. The disturbed state of Scotland, where the rage of party was leading to assassination and civil war, and the religious contests on the continent, seemed to render her continued imprisonment neces- sary. At this juncture, Babington, with a few companions, embraced the project of murdering Elizabeth, and placing Mary, by the aid of Spanish troops, upon the English throne. Their purpose was discovered. The conspirators died upon the scaffold, and when it appeared, upon examination, that Mary was privy to the plot, the court pronounced her guilty, and Elizabeth was requested by the parliament, for the preservation of religion and the peace of the country, and for the security of her own person, to let justice take its course. She wished for the death of her enemy, but she feared the consequences. At length the struggle ended. Elizabeth signed the death-warrant, and Burleigh had it hastily executed. Mary's head fell on the 7th of Eebruary, 1587, in the nineteenth year of her im- prisonment and the forty-fifth of her life. She died with firmness, and true to her faith. Elizabeth, however, complained that her minister had ordered the execution against her commands, and punished her secretary, Davison, by fine and imprisonment, for having let the warrant out of his hands. § 369. The pope and Philip II. heard of the deed with horror. The former outlawed the heretical queen, and summoned the Catholic powers to vengeance ; the latter fitted out the vast Armada (§ 359), for the purpose of subjecting England and the Netherlands at one blow, and of afterwards foimding a Catholic empire in the west of Europe, under the supremacy of Spain. But the destruction of the " Invincible Elect " raised the renown of England and its queen, and laid the foundation of Britain's empire of the sea and of the great- ness of her commerce. Erom this point, her trade, her navigation, and her colonies, received a vast impulse. Drake, the celebrated circumnavigator of the globe, and other maritime heroes, had dis- LITERATURE IN THE CENTURY OF THE REFORMATION. ?59 covered the element on which the power and glory of England was to be raised. It was only in Ireland that Elizabeth's undertakings were unsuc- cessful. This island, which for centuries had been conquered but never taken possession of, had been raised into a kingdom by Henry VIII. , and subjected to the religious laws of England. But it was only a small proportion of the population, namely, the British colo- nists, who received the Reformation ; the native Irish remained true to their ancient faith and clergy. Elizabeth attempted to bring about a closer political and ecclesiastical union between the island and Eng- land. The earl of Tyrone, one of the military chiefs, opposed himself to this project, and obtained help from Spain and Borne. Upon this, the chivalrous earl of Essex, to whom the queen had transferred the favour she had so long bestowed upon his unworthy father-in-law, the earl of Leicester, received the governorship of Ireland. But instead of subduing Tyrone, he concluded a disadvantageous treaty with him. Essex, by this means, incurred the displeasure of the queen ; and when, instead of waiting quietly for a more favourable time, he formed a plot with James of Scotland, and attempted to compel Elizabeth by an insurrection to appoint James her successor, he was seized, and beheaded in the Tower, at the age of thirty-three. Grief and remorse at the death of her favourite, and the conscious- ness that the affections of her people had much cooled towards her, embittered the last years of the queen's life to such a degree, that she passed days and nights in tears on the cushions with which the floors were covered, till her death, at the age of seventy years, put an end to her sorrows. On her death-bed she appointed Mary's son, James of Scotland, her successor. e. CULTURE AND LITERATURE IN THE CENTURY OE THE REFORMATION. § 370. Civilization received a mighty impulse during the sixteenth century in all countries. Schools were improved and universities multiplied ; art and literature were fostered and supported. The works of the ancients, which were every where translated and ex- plained, awakened new views and cultivated the taste ; and the mental energy that had been called into existence by the disputes respecting religion and the Church, furthered the general cultivation and enlightenment, and exalted literary activity. The interest in intellectual gifts produced marvellous creations in the regions of art and science. Germany and Italy were considered the chief seminaries of civilization. 1. The science of antiquity was more especially cultivated and developed in the numerous universities of Germany, and those learned seminaries that rested upon the study of the ancient classical lite- s 2 0(30 THE MODERN EPOCH. rature were established by the efforts of Melancthon, which extended Copernicus themselves over all countries. It was in Germany that a.d. 1473 — Nicholas Copernicus, the great astronomer of Thorn, showed that the Ptolemaic system of the universe, the truth of which had remained unquestioned for fifteen hundred years, was founded on incorrect data ; that the sun remained stationary in the midst of the planetary system, but that the earth, like the other planets, in addition to the revolution on its axis, had besides an K d1 r extremely regular circular motion around the sun. And a.d. 1571 — Kepler, one of the greatest thinkers of any age, sought, 1631. in the spirit of Plato, for the laws that govern the eternal order of the world, with the inspiration of a prophet, and the creative power of a poet. Unappreciated, however, and persecuted by religious zealots, he led a melancholy life, in the midst of oppressive anxieties c ,-, for the means of living. It fared no better with his great a.d. 15C5 — contemporary, Galileo of Pisa, who, because he shared the 1631, astronomical opinions of Copernicus, was summoned before the tribunal of the inquisition, and compelled to renounce his opinions on his knees. He was obliged after this to linger for some years in the dungeons of the inquisition, where he contracted an affection of the eyes, which afterwards terminated in blindness. In the mean time, the " Meistersong," a kind of burgher poetry in which Hans Sachs, a shoemaker of Nuremberg, particu- a.d. 1494— laxly distinguished himself, was flourishing in the German 15/C. towns ; and Sebastian Brandt of Strasburg (author of the 1458— 'l 521 "Ship of Pools"), and John Pischart of Mayence, raised Fischart, a.d. satirical didactic poetry to high perfection. Luther, how- ever, Avas the creator of German prose by his translation of the Bible, and the founder of German sacred poetry by his spiritual hymns. The Germans were also distinguished at this time in the fine arts. The pictures of Albert Durer (a.d. 1548), Hans Holbein (a.d. 1563), and Lucas Cranach (a.d. 1553), are still much esteemed, although they do not rival those of their great Italian contemporaries, Michael Angelo (a.d. 1563), Eaphael (a.d. 1520), Titian (a.d. 1576), Leonardo da Vinci (a.d. 1519), or Correggio (a.d. 1513). 2. In Italy, the flourishing period of art and literature, which had commenced in the fifteenth century, continued throughout the whole Macchiavelli °f ^ 10 sixteenth. In Florence, Macchiavelli, one of the a.d. 1527- acutest of thinkers and most politic of statesmen, com- posed his remarkable works, " Discourses on Titus Livius," "History of Florence," "The Prince," which still excite universal admiration. In the much-talked-of book "The Prince," Macchiavelli presents the picture of a ruler who, without regard to virtue, morality, or religion, knows how to establish lus own absolute power, and to make his own THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. %Q\ will the law. Freedom and national prosperity are as little regarded in this book as truth and justice ; intellect alone is held in any esti- mation. [For this reason, a faithless system of policy is distinguished Ariosto ky the epithet, Macchiavellian. In Eerrara, Ariosto a.d. 1474 — wrote the fascinating and sportive heroic poem of " Or- T) '. ' , lando Eurioso ;" and the melancholy Torquato Tasso cele- Tasso, a.d. brated the first crusade in beautiful language in his 1595. « Jerusalem Delivered." 3. The sixteenth century was the golden age of art and literature Cervantes ^ Spain an d Portugal also. Cervantes, in his comico- a.d. 1547— satirical romance of " Don Quixote," has represented, with such art, a man who completely mistakes the misty crea- tions of a world of dreams for actual existences, and fights for an object that exists no where but in his own imagination, that the name of his hero has become proverbial. The dramatic poetry of Lope de Vega, Spain reached its culminating point in Lope de Vega and ^'?' 1552 Calderon. The Portuguese poet, Camoens, has ennobled Calderon,A.D. the great epoch of the discovery of India in his poem of 1600— 1687. the "Lusiad." During a passage home from the East A D 15i! 4 Indies he lost his property by a shipwreck, and saved 15G9. nothing but his poem, that he held fast with his teeth as he swam. In Portugal he gradually fell into such poverty that he had bread collected by an Indian servant to prevent his dying of hunger. 4. In England, William Shakspeare, one of the greatest poets of Shakspeare an y a & e ' § ave ^ s ^^ perfection to dramatic poetry, a.d. 1564— whether tragedy or comedy. His great dramas are 1616. founded either upon historical events ("Henry IV.," "Bichard III."), or upon the ordinary events of human life ("Mac- beth," "Lear," "Romeo and Juliet," "Othello"); the best known of his comedies are, " Midsummer Night's Dream," and " The Merry "Wives of Windsor ; " in the latter, the fat Ealstaff, the companion of Henry V., and the type of a comic character, plays the chief part. III. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 1. THE THIRTY YEABS' WAR (A.D. 1618 1648). a. BOHEMIA, PALATINATE, LOWEB GEBMANY, TILLY. APPEABANCE OF WALLEKSTELN". § 371. Whilst the dark fanaticism of Philip II. was plunging the Ferdinand West of Europe into a bloody religious war, arms were a.d. 1556 — at rest in Grermany under the gentle government of Eer- Jj? 64 : ... dinand I. and Maximilian II. Both these princes upheld Maximilian r . r . II., a.d. the Peace of Religion with impartiality and justice 1564—1576. (§ 340). But when, after the premature death of Maxi- 2CyO THE MODERN EPOCH. Rudolf II milian II., his son, Rudolf II., who had been brought up a.d. 157G— in Spain, came to the throne, complaints arose of the 1612. infringement of the law, and of violation of liberty of con- science. Rudolf, a prince zealously devoted to the Catholic Church, but possessed of but slender talents for government, neglected the affairs of his kingdom for the study of astronomy, painting, and antiquities, and trusted to the advice of the Jesuits, who strewed with busy hands the seeds of religious discord, and called forth strife, party-spirit, and confusion, both in the German empire and in the hereditary states of Austria. "When the archbishop, Gebhard of Cologne, went over to the evangelical Church, that he might marry the beautiful countess of Mansfeld, he was deprived of his dignity ; a proceeding that was declared by the evangelical States to be an in- fringement of the "spiritual proviso." The archduke, Ferdinand, bred up and guided by the Jesuits, refused the numerous Protestants in Styria, Carinthia, and Krain, the religious liberties they had hitherto enjoyed; had the evangelical churches and schools pulled down, and the Bibles burnt, and drove out of the country, without mercy, all those who refused to attend the mass. The imperial city of Donauworth, which was chiefly Protestant, was placed under the ban for disturbing a procession, taken possession of by the impatient duke, Maximilian I. of Bavaria, and deprived of its Protestant wor- ship. It was in vain that the evangelical Estates presented com- plaints, the weak and indifferent emperor gave no redress. It was on this account that a number of evangelical princes and imperial a r> 1C08 cities concluded a Protestant Union, at the instigation of the elector of the Palatinate, for mutual assistance against a.d. 1009. aggression and violence. This Union Avas opposed by the Catholic League, formed by Maximilian of Bavaria and the spiritual electors (Mayence, Treves, and Cologne), and some bishops (AVurz- burg, Augsburg, &c). In this manner, Germany was again divided: the League united itself with Spain; the Union secured the aid of Henry of Prance and the Dutch. The death of the childless duke of Cleves and Berg, which occasioned a quarrel for his inheritance between the palgravc of JNeuburg, who had gone over to the Catholic Church, and the evangelical elector of Brandenburg, gave the first occasion for hostilities between the two religious parties. After a long and destructive war, a division was agreed upon, by which Cleves was allotted to Brandenburg, and Berg with Dusseldorf to the Pala- tinate. § 372. The incompetence and carelessness of Rudolf threatened to destroy all respect for the royal house of Hapsburg. His relatives, therefore, compelled him to surrender Austria and Hungary to his brother, Matthias. Rudolf, who was extremely favourable to the Bohemians, whose capital, Prague, he had chosen for a residence, THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 0(33 maintained them for some time in their allegiance by the granting of letters patent, which gave to the Utraquists and Lutherans freedom of conscience, equality with the Catholics, and their own defenders. But he was obliged at length to relinquish this kingdom also, with its surrounding territories, to Matthias, so that when death put an end to his inglorious life, he was in possession of nothing but the powerless imperial throne. Matthias -^ u ^ Matthias had j us t as little energy or talents for a.d, 1G12 — government as Rudolf; and being old and childless, he appointed his cousin, Ferdinand of Carinthia, his succes- sor in Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia. The elevation of this rigid Catholic filled the Protestants (Utraquists, Lutherans) in Bohemia with alarm for their religious liberties. This alarm increased, when, upon the building of two Protestant churches on the territories of the abbot of Brunau and of the monastery of Grab, near Toplitz, a deci- sion was given, that no evangelical church should be erected upon ecclesiastical property ; and in consequence of this prohibition, one church was shut up and the other destroyed. The defenders, who saw in this an infringement of the letters patent, held a meeting, and proposed a remonstrance to the emperor, who was then absent in Hungary. The reply confirmed the prohibition, and contained a severe reproof to the complainers. Irritated at this, the defenders, under the guidance of the Count von Thurn, marched in arms to the councd-house, for the purpose of calling to account the imperial councd, to whom they attributed the offensive writing. After a short dispute, the irritated Protestants seized upon two of the councillors who were present, Martinitz and Slawata, who were particularly offen- sive to them as zealous Catholics, and threw them, together with the secretary, Pabricius, out of the castle window. But notwithstanding the height, and the shots that were fired after them, they all escaped with their lives. Upon this, the evangelical Estates established a new government, expelled the Jesuits, and fitted out an army under the command of Thurn. The intelligence of these proceedings has- tened the death of Matthias, who was already afiing. He ' died at the moment, in which Thurn, supported by the brave general, Ernest von Mansfeld, defeated the imperial troops who had marched into Bohemia, and appeared with his army before the gates of Vienna. The oppressed Pro- testants of Austria entered into an alliance with Thurn, their ambas- sadors forced their way into the imperial palace, and demanded from Frederick, with threats, religious toleration, and an equality of their rights with those of the Catholics. The danger was pressing ; but Ferdinand resolutely refused every concession, till the arrival of Dam- pierre's dragoons freed him from constraint. Unfavourable weather and a deficiency in provisions compelled Thurn to retreat. 26 I, THE MODERN EPOCH. § 373. Shortly after this, Ferdinand II. was elected emperor of Germany in Frankfort ; but before his coronation took place, the Estates of Bohemia and Moravia fell off from the house of Austria, and chose for king the elector, Frederick V., of the Palatinate, the head of the Protestant Union. It was in vain that well-disposed friends warned him of the dangerous gift, — the voice of his haughty wife, a daughter of James I. of England, the exhortations of his Cal- vinistic court preacher, Scultetus, and his own ambition, determined November, ^ fle result. The vain and weak man assumed the Bo- 1619. hernial^ throne, and hastened to receive homage and be invested with the crown at Prague, where he squandered the time in idle shows, gave himself up to luxurious living, and offended the Utraquists and Lutherans in Bohemia by his zeal for Calvinism. Ferdinand's conduct was altogether different. He concluded an alliance with the shrewd Maximilian of Bavaria, who had been edu- cated by the Jesuits, and who was the head of the well-provided League ; and who soon ordered his able general, Tilly, the Nether- November 7, lander, to march with his army into Bohemia. The battle 1G25. at the "White Hill was soon fought, in which Frederick's exhausted ti-oops were defeated by the superior force of the enemy, and sought their safety in headlong flight. A single hour decided the fate of Bohemia. Frederick lost all courage and discretion so completely, that he fled with the greatest haste across Silesia to the Netherlands, pursued by the imperial sentence of outlawry, which deprived him of his hereditary possessions of the Palatinate. Bo- hemia and Moravia were again in a few months subjected to Austria. Ferdinand cut the letters patent to pieces with his own hand ; twenty- seven of the most illustrious nobles died on the scaffold ; hundreds expiated their offences by the forfeiture of their goods ; and the con- fiscated property was bestowed upon the Jesuits and other religious orders. Tyranny, oppression, and seduction, gave a complete triumph to the Catholic religion in a few decades, after upwards of 30,000 families had left the country. Shortly after this, the Union, which had looked quietly on during these proceedings, was dissolved in the midst of universal contempt. § 374. After the subjugation of Bohemia, Tilly marched against the Palatinate of the Rhine. Three courageous men ventured to take the field in the cause of the outlawed electors and endangered Protestantism : Christian of Brunswick, administrator of the bishop- ric of Halberstadt, a rude soldier, who presented himself as the defender of the electoress Elizabeth, and who, having collected a troop of soldiers, marched plundering through "Westphalia towards the Maine ; Ernest von Mansfeld, a knightly adventurer, who main- tained his troops by plunder and levying contributions, and treated the bishoprics and monasteries on the Maine and Bhine with great THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 055 severity ; and the margrave, George Frederick of Baden-Durlach. The two latter united gained a victory over Tilly at Wiesloch (Mingolsheim) . But when the victors shortly after separated themselves, George Frederick, the follow- ing month, lost the battle of Wimpfen, and would have himself fallen into the hands of the enemy had not 400 of the citizens of Pforzheim covered his retreat by an heroic death. A few months later, Christian of Brunswick also suffered a defeat near Hochst, from Tilly's veteran troops, and marched hi con- junction with Mansfeld into the Netherlands, to obtain help from England, whilst the League general stormed Heidelberg, Manheim, and Frankentkal, sent the Heidelberg library to Borne, and filled every place with blood and plunder. In the following year, Maxi- milian of Bavaria received the electorship of the Palatinate, as a reward from the Diet of Begensberg. § 375. Ferdinand, not content with the defeat of his enemies, wished to make use of his superiority to restore the Catholic Church and to suppress Protestantism. This occasioned anxiety, and procured the enemies of the emperor the assistance of England, Holland, and Denmark. Mansfeld, Christian of Brunswick, and the margrave of Baden, appeared again in the field provided with troops and money, and were still supported by Christian IV. of Denmark, who was induced to assume arms, partly by religious zeal, and partly by the hope of increasing his territories. A new storm burst forth. Upon this, the emperor, to whom the dependence upon the League and the great authority of Maximilian appeared dangerous, determined to raise an army of his own. In this undertaking, Albert of Wallen- stein, a Bohemian nobleman, offered him his assistance. In posses- sion of a vast property that he had gained by marriage, Wallenstein presented himself before Ferdinand with the offer of supporting an army of 50,000 men at his own expense, if he were allowed the unlimited command of them, and the privdege of indemnifying him- self from the conquered lands. After some hesitation, Ferdinand acceded to the proposal of the bold adventurer, and granted him the governorship of Friedland, on the northern frontier of Bohemia, raised him to the office of elector of the empire, and afterwards conferred iipon him the dignity of duke. The war now extended itself into the north of Germany. But when Wallenstein with his wild bands took possession of the shores of the Elbe, and effected a junction with Tilly, the army of the League and emperor soon obtained the advan- tage. Mansfeld suffered a defeat from the Friedlanders at the bridge of Dessau, and he was overtaken by death at Bosnia, as he was conducting the remains of his army by a difficult march through Hungary into the Netherlands . Christian of Brunswick sunk into the grave in the same year, and Christian IV. OQQ THE MODERN EPOCH. was defeated by Tilly at Lutter, near the Barenberg, ' and compelled to retreat into Denmark. His ally, the duke of Mecklenburg, was obliged to leave his territories, of which, from that time, Wallenstein, with the emperor's permission, took possession ; Holstein, Schleswic, and Jutland soon fell into the hands of the imperialists in the midst of horrible devastations ; Po- merania and Brandenburg were compelled to receive imperial garri- sons ; the whole north laid subdued at the feet of the emperor, and the Protestant princes and cities awaited with fear and trembling the destiny that it should please Austria and Bavaria to award them. In this strait, Stralsund gave an ennobling example of patriotism and heroic courage. The citizens resolutely refused to admit an imperial garrison within then walls. Hereupon, Wallenstein advanced upon the town with his formidable army, and swore that lie woidd take it if it were bound to heaven with chains. But all his attacks were frustrated by the strength of the place and the heroism of the citizens. After he had encamped for ten weeks before the city, and sacrificed 12,000 men, lie gave up the attempt. This result cheeked Wallen- stein's plans of conquest, and brought the war to a more rapid ter- mination. Christian IV. recovered his devastated lands a.d 1629. by the peace of Liibeck, but was obliged to promise that he would refrain from any farther interference in the affairs of Germany. § 376. Austria was again victorious ; and the more decisive her victory, the greater was to be the triumph of the Catholic Church. The Protestant worship was suppressed by violence in all the con- quered and occupied lands, and the supremacy of Catholicism gra- dually prepared for. With this object, the emperor, at the insti- gation of the spiritual electors, published the Edict of Restitution, by virtue of which, all foundations and ecclesiastical property that had been confiscated since the treaty of Passau (§ 337), were to be restored to the Catholic Church, the Calvinists were excluded from the religious peace, and the Catholic Estates were not to be interfered with in their attempts to convert their subjects. This arrangement, which threatened to Avrest a great number of bishoprics, and almost all the foundations and abbeys of Northern Germany, from the hands of their then proprietors, filled the whole of the Protestant part of the country with terror and alarm, and prolonged the destructive civil war. Many princes and cities refused compliance, and the emperor found himself obliged to retain his army under arms to give effect to the execution of the Edict. But this army was no longer under the command of Wallenstein. Eor when the princes made a general complaint, at the Diet of Eegensburg, of the frightful ravages and barbarous method of warfare pursued by the duke of Friedland, and Maximilian imperatively THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. £(57 demanded the removal of his presuming and overhearing rival, Ferdi- nand, who wished to produce a favourahle disposition towards the contemplated election of his son, found himself compelled to pro- nounce "Wallenstein's deposition. The general was informed of the resolution whilst busied with his astrological studies. He retired to his Bohemian estates, where, in proud repose, and in the enjoyment of kingly wealth, he awaited the time when his presence would be again required. Tilly assumed the command over the assembled host, and marched against Magdeburg, which had opposed the execution of the Edict of Restitution. But whilst the Protestant Estates of Germany, helpless and overawed, bent before the superior power of Austria, and looked forward in melancholy expectation for the postponed execution of the Edict of Restitution, a fresh hero made his appearance on the soil of Germany — the Swedish king, Gustavus Adolphus. b. INTERFERENCE OE SWEDEN. GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS AND WALLENSTEIN. § 377. Gustavus Adolphus, the grandson of Gustavus Yasa (§ 349), determined to interfere in the war of Germany, partly to defend Pro- testantism, and partly to increase the power of Sweden. He was sup- ported by the shrewd Cardinal Richelieu (§ 400), who at that time governed Erance, and who looked with jealousy upon the increasing power of the house of Hapsburg. As soon as Gustavus Adolphus had effected a landing on the coast of Pomerania, the old ' duke of the country surrendered his lands, which had been frightfully ravaged by the imperial troops, to Sweden. The piety of Gustavus, and the strict discipline of his soldiers, who assembled themselves twice a day around their field preachers, formed a striking contrast to the desolating mode of warfare pursued by Tilly and Wallen- stein, so that the people every where greeted the Swedes and their high- minded king as resellers and deliverers. Not so the princes, who, from February, ^ ear °^ ^ ne em peror's vengeance, rejected the alliance that 1C31. was offered them, and at the Diet of Leipsic, embraced the resolution of observing a neutral position. The electors of Brandenburg and Saxony refused permission to the Swedes to march through their territories ; and whilst Gustavus Adolphus was delayed by negotiations on this subject, Magdeburg,' after repeated ' assaults, was taken and destroyed by Pappenheim and Tilly. The barbarous troops, urged on by a desire for vengeance, and a love of plunder, burst into the luckless town, which was surrendered to them for three days' plunder, and which now became the scene of the most revolting horrors, till a conflagration, which extended itself on all sides, converted it at length into a heap of ashes. Two OQS THE MODERN EPOCH. churches and a few fishermen's huts, were the sole remains of this flourishing imperial city. § 378. The destroyer of Magdeburg now turned a threatening aspect towards Saxony. The elector, in the anguish of his heart, concluded an alliance with Gustavus Adolphus, that he might be able, by the help of Sweden, to prevent the entrance of Tilly's incen- September 7, diary' troops into his territories. The battle of Leipsic 1631. and Breitenfeld was soon fought, where the imperial army was completely defeated. Tilly, who was himself in danger of his life, was obliged, after a great loss, to retreat rapidly into the south, whilst the Swedes turned towards the Rhine and the Maine. Before the winter Avas over, the bishopric of Wurzburg, and the greater part of the Lower Palatinate, were in the hands of the Swedes ; and the towns of the Rhine also fell into the power of Gustavus, after he had accomplished the passage of the Rhine at Oppenheim, and driven back the Spaniards. In the spring he marched upon Nuremburg-on-the-Lech, where Tilly had occupied a strong position. The Swedes forced a passage across the vigorously defended river. During the storming of the intrenchments, Tilly was so severely wounded by a cannon-ball that he died fourteen days after at Ingol- stadt, his mind busied with military afiairs in the very hour of death. War filled the entire soul of this hero. Simple and moderate in his mode of living, he despised wealth and possessions, as well as titles and dignities. Sensual enjoyments were as unknown to him as high cultivation or nobility of mind. After the occupation of Augsburg, where the evangelical form of worship was again restored, Gustavus Adolphus marched into Bavaria, and took possession, as an indulgent conqueror, of Munich, which had been deserted by the court. A fine, and carrying off 140 con- cealed cannons, was the only punishment inflicted by the king upon the trembling Bavarians. § 379. In the mean time, the emperor in his necessity had again had recourse to Wallenstein, and prevailed upon him, by prayers and great concessions, to raise a fresh army and to take the supreme command. After a successful campaign against the Saxons in Bo- hemia, Wallenstein, in conjunction with the Bavarians, marched into Branconia, where the Swedes had oocupied a strong position near Nuremburg. "Here the hostile armies lay encamped opposite each other for months without coining to an engagement, till at length all the land for seven miles around the spot was wasted, and even the abundant stores of Nuremburg began to fail. Hereupon, Gustavus resolved to attack the si n>ng camp of Wallenstein, but the gallant assailers were driven back by the tremendous discharge of artillery. The attempt, after a severe loss, was obliged to be relinquished, upon THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 0Q() which, the Wallensteiners marched into Saxony. The Swedes soon November 16, followed them hither, and the eventful battle of Lutzen, 1032. where the Swedes triumphed, but their king found the death of a hero in the tumult of the fight, took place upon a foggy day in November. Pappenheim, the gallant leader of cavalry, was also borne from the field of battle mortally wounded ; and Wallenstein found himself compelled to leave the field to the enemy, and to re- treat into Bohemia with his defeated army. The Swedes dragged the body of their heroic king, plundered, and defaced by the hoofs of horses, from beneath the dead, and had it committed to the earth in its native land. § 880. After the death of Grustavus Adolphus, the Swedish chan- cellor, Axel Oxenstierna, a prudent and energetic statesman, under- took the conduct of the war in Germany, after he had prevailed upon a number of the evangelical princes and cities, by the alliance of Heilbron, to continue stedfast in the treaty they had entered into with the king of Sweden. Bernhard of "Weimar and the Swedish general, Horn, stood by his side as the chief military leaders. France gave supplies of money. Thus this mischievous war continued to rage. Bavaria was severely visited by the Swedes, who since the death of their king had not been a whit behind their opponents in the destructive way of carrying on the war ; and the Friedlanders behaved in such a way in Silesia, that the prosperity of the land Avas for a long time destroyed. But Wallen- stein' s course was approaching its termination. His dilatory way of conducting the war, and his unintelligible lingering in Bohemia, were made use of by his numerous enemies and enviers to his destruction. He was accused of entertaining the project of entering into an alliance with Sweden, and of placing the crown of Bohemia upon his own head ; it was for this reason that he had set at liberty the captive Count Thurn, the hereditary enemy of Austria ; and the contract that had been entered into, by the mediation of Illo, between "Wal- lenstein and the leaders of the different divisions for mutual ad- herence, pointed to revolt and treachery. The emperor, guided by the friends of Maximilian, by monks and Jesuits, who hated the duke on account of the freedom of his religious views, determined upon the destruction of his too powerful general. After the most influen- tial leaders, Grallas, Piccolomini, and Altringer, had been secured, Ferdinand pronounced Wallenstein' s deposition ; and when the latter marched towards Eger, with the most devoted of his troops, to be nearer a juncture with the Swedes, he was assassinated, together with his most trusty adherents, Illo, Terska, and Kinsky, by the Irish- February 25, man, Butler, and a few confederates. The vast posses- 1C34. sions of the duke and his friends were confiscated, and presented to his betrayers and murderers. Honours, dignities, and 270 THE MODERN EPOCH. wealth, were the rewards of the criminals. Thus died Wallenstein, the terror of the people, and the idol of the soldiery. He possessed an audacious and enterprising spirit, a commanding character, that was exalted hy the taciturnity of his disposition and the gloomy severity of his aspect, and a boundless pride and ambition. "When his lofty figure, enveloped in a scarlet mantle, and with a red feather in the hat, was seen pacing through the camp, a strange horror took possession of the soldiers. C. TEKMI^ATION OE THE WAIt. PEACE OE WESTPHALIA. § 381. After the death of Wallenstein, the imperial army marched into Bavaria, and defeated Bernhard of Weimar in the battle of Nord- September G, hngen. Several German princes took occasion from this 1534. to conclude the peace of Prague with the emperor. But ay ' ' ' the frightful war was not yet terminated. Richelieu, who was not willing that the favourable moment for diminishing the power of the Hapsburgs, and extending the territories of France, should escape unimproved, promised efficient assistance both in money and troops to the Swedes, and supported Bernhard of Weimar in his ,„™ undertakings on the Upper Rhine. The Swedish general, a.d. 163G. & Ll . D ' Bauer, conquered Saxony and Thuringia, and converted the fertile country into a depopulated desert. Unspeakable calamities February 15, were pressing upon the German nation when the emperor, 1637. Ferdinand II., sank into' the grave, and was succeeded by j j j x n his son of the same name. The warlike actions of Bern- 1G37 — 1G57- hard of Weimar were crowned with success. He con- quered Rheinfelden, Freiburg, and Breisach, and entertained the pro- ject of establishing an independent principality on either side of the Rhine. But Bernhard died suddenly in the flower of life, July 18, 1G39. .,, , . . _ . . J , , . „ , , ■,' not without suspicion ot poisoning ; and the _b rencn took advantage of the circumstance to take his army into their own pay, and make themselves masters of Alsace. They soon crossed the Rhine and carried the war into the south of Germany, whilst the gallant Bauer again visited the unfortunate Bohemia with the most frightful calamities. Bauer's audacious plan of breaking suddenly from his Avinter quarters, aud seizing upon the electors and emperor at the Diet in Regensburg, had not the expected result. The breaking up of the frost and the arrival of the enemy compelled the Swedish general to a retreat, during which he died from the effects of his ex- ertions and of an intemperate life. § 382. Torstenson was Baner's successor, he was the most talented disciple of the school of Gustavus Adolphus. On account of his suffer- ings from the gout he was usually carried about in a litter ; never- theless the rapidity of his movements was the astonishment of the world. He overthrew the imperial army near Leipsic, and at the lull THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 07 { .„ Tabor; penetrated repeatedly into the heart of the Aus- trian states, and made the emperor tremble in his capital ; he then appeared unexpectedly on the Lower Elbe, took possession of Holstein and Schleswic, and compelled the Danish king to a dis- advantageous peace. At length, exhausted by dlness, he laid down the leading staff, which was obtained by the gallant Wrangel. Wrangel, in conjunction with the French general, Turenne, carried ,-„ JH , the war into Bavaria, compelled Maximilian to fly, and to A.D. 104/. x . J conclude a truce, and was about to unite himself with the Swedish general, Konigsmark, in Bohemia, when the news of the conclusion of the peace of Westphalia put an end to military opera- tions. The war ended in Prague where it had also taken its origin. § 383. After five years of negotiations in Minister and Osnaburg, the peace of Westphalia, which the people who were wearied out by the war demanded in despair, was at last concluded. France received the Austrian portion of Alsace, Sundgau, and Breisach ; but was obliged to secure to the imperial cities both their former privileges and their relations to the German empire. Sweden received Upper Pomerania, the island of Bugen, and the towns of Stettin, Weismar, &c, the bishoprics of Bremen and Verdun, and an indemnification in money. Brandenburg obtained the eastern part of Lower Pomerania, with the bishoprics of Magdeburg, TIalberstadt, Minden, &c. Saxony was indemnified by Lusatia ; other princes with other cities, founda- tions, and bishoprics. Bavaria remained in possession of the Upper Palatinate and of the electoral dignity ; and the Palatinate of the Bhine, with the eighth electoral dignity, was restored to Charles Louis, the son of Frederick V. who died in the year 1632. The remaining princes and Estates retained their former possessions ; and Switzerland and the Low Countries were acknoAvledged as inde- pendent states. With regard to the affairs of the Church, it was arranged, after long disputes, that the treaty of Passau, and the religious peace of Augsburg, should be confirmed to the Protestants, the " spiritual proviso" abolished, and the peace extended to the Calvinists. In regard to the possession of ecclesiastical property, and the right of free exercise of religion, the year 1624 was taken as the standard. Every thing was to remain or to become what it had been at that time. At the same time, the privilege of reformation possessed by the princes ceased, and a free exercise of religion and equal civd rights were assured to the three Christian confessions. The farther consequences of the Thirty Tears' War Avere : — 1. An increase of the power of the princes, which was the occasion of ex- pensive courts, standing armies, a multitude of officials, and a high and regularly levied taxation. 2. A purity of faith in the Church, which was not founded upon mere warmth of religious feeling, but 272 THE MODERN EPOCH. upon an unalterable veneration for the literal meaning of the Sym- bolical Books. 3. A decay of trade, of industry, and of profitable commerce. Though agriculture revived again, and the plough and the mattock restored its former aspect to the desolated country, the aforetime prosperity of Germany never returned. Many of the trading towns sunk into poverty ; the imperial towns were gradually overtaken by the princely residences ; and trade, industry, and wealth, established their seats in Holland and England. German art and literature decayed ; every thing native was neglected, and fashions, language, and poetry, borrowed from the French. From this period, the old German nationality succumbed to the influence of foreigners. d. SWEDEN UNDER CHRISTINA AND CHARLES X. CHANGE IN THE CONSTITUTION OF DENMARK. § 384. After the premature death of Gustavus Adolphus, the crown devolved upon his daughter Christina, during whose minority the government was conducted by a senate, and the opportunity made use of to increase the privileges and property of the noble families. When the queen herself assumed the govern- ment, she assembled around her a brilliant court, sum- moned artists and learned men out of all the countries of Europe to Stockholm, and displayed a masculine spirit and character in every thing. Her taste for art and her love of science found little support in the Protestant North, and she consequently never felt herself at home there. It was on this account, that after a reign of ten years, Christina abdicated the throne of Sweden in favour of her cousin, Charles Gustavus of Pfalz-Zweibrucken, reserved an annuity for herself, and quitted the land of her fathers. She was solemnly admitted into the Roman Catholic Church at Ins- bruck; she then travelled through the Netherlands, France, and Italy, and at length established her permanent residence in a town filled with all the splendour of art — Eome. She died there in 16S9. Charles X. § ^85. Christina's successor, Charles (X.) Gustavus, a.d. 1054 — was a great warrior. He undertook a campaign for the conquest of Poland, and made himself master of the western territories of that country, in conjunction with the great elector, Frederick William, of Brandenburg, to whom, in return, he promised the liberation of Prussia from the suzerainship of Poland. He would have gained possession of the whole country after the three days' battle of Warsaw, had not an inroad of the Danes into the territory of Sweden called him to a different scene. He left Poland, and marched with restless haste to the Lower Elbe. The Danish army opposed no resistance, so that before the commencement of the winter, Slcswic and Jutland, with the excep- tion of the fortress of Fredericia, were in the hands of the Swedes. THE REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND. 273 This fortress also was stormed in the midst of winter by so daring an enterprise, that the king became jealous, and attempted to eclipse the exploit of his general by one still more venturous. He crossed with his army on foot, over the frozen channel of the Little Belt, in January, into Funen, and a few days after he passed the Great Belt into Zealand, in which passage two companies were drowned before his eyes. Here such confusion was occasioned by the sudden ap- pearance of the enemy, that defence was scarcely thought of, and proposals for peace were at once entered into. But great as were the sacrifices that the hardly-pressed Danish king offered to make, they were rejected by Charles, who hoped to bring the three Scandi- navian kingdoms under his own sceptre. But the gallant attitude of the citizens of Copenhagen, who, for a whole twelvemonth bade defiance to the besieging Swedes, and the assistance of the Dutch, prolonged the war till the sudden death of the king gave a turn to affairs. The Swedish Diet that conducted the government during the minority of Charles XI. concluded the peace of Oliva with the Poles, ,„„ and that of Copenhagen with the Danes. So great at that A.D. 1660. . L n , -T, t -n j. , 1 c< 1 time was the respect ior the military skill ol the bwedes, that Sweden obtained large territories and important advantages by both these peaces. Prussia's independence of Poland was acknow- ledged. This war, in which the Danish nobility who were in posses- sion of great privileges and revenues made an open display of their cowardice and selfishness, was made use of by the court to overthrow the existing constitution. The elective monarchy was converted into an hereditary one, and unlimited power conferred upon the king by the royal law. The nobility lost their former power and independent position, and were bound to the throne by titles and orders. In Sweden also, the vast power of the nobility was broken by the politic Charles XL, an d severe Charles XL, who rigidly demanded back the a.d. 1660— alienated possessions of the crown; the ancient institutions he, however, allowed to remain. 2. THE REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND AND THE EXPULSION OE THE STUARTS. a. THE EIEST TWO STUARTS (JAMES I. 1603 — 1625, CHARLES I. 1625—1649.) James I § 386 - Mary's son, James I., was a weak and pedantic a.d. 1603— prince, of narrow mind and perverted mental constitution. 1625. Bred, up amidst the contentions of Presbyterian preachers, he was especially furnished with theological learning, and willingly engaged in controversies respecting disputed points of divinity. He was extremely desirous of gaining the reputation of a deeply learned man both by his writing and conversation, and composed many books, but he was utterly wanting in the penetration and shrewdness neces- T 274 THE MODERN EPOCH. sary iu a rider. A lover of peace from timidity, he sacrificed the honour of his country to its external quiet, and he was so prodigal of his favour as frequently to give himself up entirely to the guidance of unworthy favourites. Among these, George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, distinguished by the symmetry of his figure, exercised the greatest influence upon him. James entertained the most ex- travagant notions respecting the kingly power. He was firmly per- suaded that it was derived immediately from God, and that it was unlimited ; and he sought for proofs of this in the Old Testament. It was on this account that he hated the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, Avhere the king was nothing more than an ordinary member of the congregation, but was devoted to the Episcopal Church of Eng- land, in which the king was regarded as the head and source of all spiritual power. "No bishop no king" became therefore the motto of all the Stuarts, and the introduction of the Episcopal Church into Scotland, and the suppression of the Puritans in England, was, hence- forth, the great object of the whole family. § 387. There are three points particularly worthy of notice in the reign of James ; the gunpowder plot, the nuptial expedition of the prince of Wales, and the increasing opposition in parliament. 1. James had promised toleration to the English Catholics for the pur- pose of rendering them favourable to his ascension of the throne. Scarcely, however, was the crown firmly settled upon his head before he, like Elizabeth, levied a heavy capitation tax upon the Catholic non- conformists, that he might enrich his favourites, and defray the ex- penses of his court festivals. The deluded Catholics were exasperated. A conspiracy was formed for blowing up the king and all the mem- bers of the Upper and Lower House at the opening of parliament, by means of a mine of gunpoAvder to be formed in the cellar of the parliament-house, and then for changing the government. The plot Avas discovered and frustrated a short time before its execution, by a warning in writing received by a Catholic peer. The chief con- spirator (EaAvkes) was seized and executed ; the other participators in the plot fled, and excited an insurrection, in which most of them perished. The English Catholics Avere then compelled to pay a heavy fine and to take a particular oath of fidelity to the king. 2. James, in his conceit, thought that no one but the daughter of a king of the first rank Avas a fit spouse for his son, and accordingly made proposals for the hand of one of the Spanish princesses. This project excited great ( I i-content among the English, both because they \vere unAvilling to have a Catholic queen, and because the lengthened negotiations Avith Spain that were occasioned by it prevented the king from giving any assistance to his exiled Protestant son-in-law, Frederick V. of the Palatinate (§ 373). At length the pope and the Spanish court gave their consent, and there appeared to be nothing more to prevent the THE REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND. 275 union. At this point, the frivolous Buckingham persuaded prince Charles to make a voyage to Madrid, and the king, who in his youth had surprised his Danish bride in a similar manner, favoured the undertaking. They arrived at Madrid under assumed names, and were treated when recognized with great distinction. But Bucking- ham's loose and insolent behaviour gave offence. He made enemies of the Spanish court and prevented the marriage. Henrietta of France became the wife of Charles. 3. Elizabeth had given but little liberty to the parliament ; but the greatness of her talents for government, and her frugal administration, had afforded the people a compensation. But when James, in the conviction of his kingly perfection, pursued the same path, abridged more and more the privi- leges of the parliament, burthened the importation and exportation of every kind of goods with arbitrary taxes, a vehement opposition arose. It was in vain the king threatened, repeatedly dissolved the parliament, and placed the boldest speakers under arrest ; every fresh assembly held the same language ; and when James at length declared that their supposed rights were nothing but privileges for which they were indebted to the royal grace, the members of the Lower House registered a protest, by which they declared that the making of laws, ,_„ the consenting to taxes, and the other befitting rights and A.D. 1621. . to ' & . *=> privileges of parliament, were the undoubted native rights and inheritance of every Englishman. Enraged at this audacity, the king tore the leaf with his own hand from the register, dissolved the parliament, and ordered a few deputies to be imprisoned ; but the spirit of resistance remained alive among the people, and displayed itself still more violently, when Charles I., a proud and obstinate ruler, took possession of the throne. Charles I., § 388. The government of Charles I. began with so a.d. 1625— violent a quarrel with the parliament that the latter was twice dissolved during the first two years of his reign. The support afforded to the Grerman Protestants, and a war with France occasioned by the fickle Buckingham, occasioned great ex- penses. The king was consequently extremely indignant that the parliament was sparing in voting supplies, and had not once during his whole government consented to the levying of tonnage and poundage upon exports and imports, as had hitherto been the custom. But when the French war took a disastrous termination, and the blood and honour of England were ignominiously sacrificed, the third par- ,„™ liament threatened Buckingham with an impeachment, A.D. 1628. XI- • • ITT the king, to save his favourite, was obliged to recognize the validity of the Petition of Bight presented by both houses, and by this means to grant its ancient privileges to the parliament, and liberty of speech and security of person and property to its mem- bers. Buckingham was shortly after assassinated, upon T 2 276 THE MODERN EPOCH. which the king removed Thomas Wentworth, an eloquent member of the opposition, from parliament into the privy council, made him earl of Strafford and governor of Ireland, and followed his advice in everything. Wentworth, an ambitious and energetic man, now exerted his most zealous efforts to strengthen the power of the throne, and with this object, advised the king to govern for some time without a parliament. For the purpose of raising money for the current expenses, the government levied the usual imposts without the consent of the Estates, laid heavy indirect taxes upon light, wine, salt, soap, and similar articles, and revived ancient and obsolete claims of the throne, such as ship-money, which in former times had replenished the royal treasury. Charles, at the same time, endeavoured to establish the Anglican Church on a firmer foundation, and to suppress the Puritans and Presbyterians whose democratic opinions were every day extend- ing among the people. In this undertaking he made use of the sendees of Bishop Laud of London, whom he appointed to the arch- bishopric of Canterbury. Laud had the cathedral of St. Paul's conse- crated afresh, enriched the churches with images and ornaments, and the worship of God with ceremonies, removed the Puritan preachers from their offices, and had heavy and degrading punishments pronounced by the spiritual courts (the High Commission and the judges of the- Star Chamber) against all those who opposed the existing institutions. Thus Prynne, a Puritan writer, was condemned to be exposed in the pillory, to lose both his ears, and to be imprisoned for life, because, in a bulky volume he had written, he had condemned dancing, masks, and theatrical amusements, matters in which the court delighted. § 389. These measures, which threatened to annihilate the civil and religious liberties of England, excited a great commotion over the whole country. John Hampden, a man of considerate and resolute character, refused payment of the ship-money, and conducted his de- fence before a court of justice so successfully, that the injustice of the government became most apparent. The deposed Puritan minis- ters wandered about the country representing the proceedings of Laud as the commencement of the restoration of Catholicism, and, by their passionate exhortations strewed the seeds of hatred against the court and the clergy. But the king retained his resolution ; and, unwarned by the discontent openly expressed in England, he even attempted to introduce the Episcopal Church and the Anglican form of worship into Scotland, a country ever zealous for its faith. When the first attempt at celebrating divine service under the new form was math; in the cathedral church of Edinburgh, a tumult arose against the performance of the "worship of Baal." The crowd shouted " P°P e •" " Antichrist ! " " Stone him ! " hurled seats at the priest, and drove him from the building. The old Cove- nant " for the protection of the pure religion and the Church against THE REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND. 277 the errors and corruptions of Popery" was renewed amidst fasting and prayer. The bishops were driven away, the Presbyterian form of worship restored, and the people called to arms. Upon this, Charles determined to put down resistance by force ; but his troops gave way powerless before the zealous Scots, who marched into the field with prayer and psalmody ; the hostile squadrons crossed the English borders, and nothing was left to the king but to call to- gether the parliament after an interval of eleven years, and to ask the assistance of the nation. § 390. The parliament now summoned is known in history under the name of the Long Parliament. The most influential members and speakers, as Hampden, Hollis, Hazelrig, Cromwell, &c, were opposed to absolute monarchical power and Episcopal Church govern- ment ; they wanted security for the ancient privfleges of the Estates, and for religious liberty. But during their contest against the abso- lute power of kings and bishops, they separated from each other : the more violent gradually acquired the democratical views of the Puritans ; and whilst they mingled civil and religious freedom together, they aimed at an object that was only attainable in a free republican commonwealth. The new parliament immediately assumed a hostile attitude against the court and government. Instead of at once voting supplies against the Scottish rebels, the parliament entered into a secret alliance with them, and was the cause that they maintained their position on the frontiers. It then commenced its attack upon the arbitrary proceedings in Church and State. Strafford, " the great apostate," and Archbishop Laud, were impeached. It was in vain that the king, for the purpose of saving them, yielded to all the demands of the house, it was in vain that Strafford defended himself for seventeen days with dignity and presence of mind, and proved, in the most convincing manner, that the charges brought against him coidd not be regarded as high treason — the Lower House declared that he must be considered as convicted of an attempt to destroy the liberties of the country ; the Upper House embraced the same opinion, and the king had the weakness to confirm the sentence, and to sacri- fice the most faithful of his servants to the rage of the people. Straf- ford died upon the scaffold with great composure. Laud, May 11, 1641. , . £...-.„. 5 , . /,, . his companion m misfortune, was retained three years m confinement, before his life also was put an end to by the axe of the executioner. The abolition of the spiritual courts, and the exclusion of the bishops from the Upper House, were the forerunners of the fall of the Episcopal High Church. § 391. Shortly after this, intelligence got abroad that the Protest- ant settlers in Ireland had been set upon and murdered by the Catholic inhabitants. This event was laid to the charge of the court, and especially of the queen, and made use of as a proof that Papists, 278 THE MODERN EPOCH. bishops, and courtiers, had united in a conspiracy for the destruction of religion and liberty. From this point, the struggle assumed more and more of a religious character ; and as the parliament now over- stepped the limits of a monarchical constitution in their demands, inasmuch as they interfered with the prerogatives of government, and required that the appointment of the higher officers of state, and of the commanders of the army, together with the management of the land and sea forces, should be dependent upon their approval, the two parties became more decidedly adverse. The people called the ad- herents of the king, who were mostly noblemen and officers, " Cava- liers ;" they distinguished their opponents, however, by the nickname of Roundheads, from the cut of their hair. The attempt of the king to arrest five of the most violent leaders of the opposition during a debate failed. They fled, but were brought back the next day to the parliament-house in triumph by the people. Enraged at this, Charles C '1 W r retired to York and declared war. The queen fled to a.d. 1642— Holland to claim foreign assistance; but as the whole 1646. military force of the Continent was engaged in the Thirty Tears' War, no help could be obtained. The war commenced with unequal means for the contest. For whilst the king was unpro- vided with money, and his army suffered from every kind of want, the parliament was in possession not only of all the public revenue, but was amply supported by private contributions. At the first sum- mons, famfiies brought their plate, women their ornaments ; and every tax and impost that had been obstinately contested with the king, was cheerfully surrendered to the parliament. Charles's small but practised army was nevertheless at first successful against the parliamentary forces that were led into the field by the earl of Essex. In two encounters, the royal cavalry, which was commanded by Charles's nephew, Rupert of the Palatinate, gained the advantage. In the commencement of the second year, the parliament also ex- perienced losses, among which, the death of the upright and gallant Hampden was the most severely felt. But when Oliver Cromwell, a zealous Puritan, formed a resolute band of cavalry from amongst his devout friends, which, in the cause of God, rushed blindly into the T i ., *n t . fiffht, matters assumed a different aspect. In the battle July i, J 044. „ . . of Marston Moor, Rupert, by his impetuosity, lost the victory to Cromwell's gloomy squadrons. From this time the name of Cromwell stood uppermost in the army, and the Puritans took advantage of the favourable opportunity to banish the Book of Com- mon Prayer from Divine Avorship, and to thrust aside Episcopacy by the C;il\ inistic discipline and the synodial form of Church govern- ment. Images, ornaments, organs, and so forth, disappeared from the churches, painted windows were broken, monuments destroyed, and festivals forbidden. THE REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND. 279 § 392. But divisions soon arose in the camp of the conquerors. The Independents, the boldest and most energetic of the Puritans, were discontented with the synodial constitution of the Presbyterians, they demanded the entire independence, in religious matters, of every individual congregation, and refused to recognize the decisions of the synods as laws universally valid. Violent contests took place between the moderate Puritans (Presbyterians), and the Radicals (Independ- February, ents). The latter passed the self-deuying ordinance 1645. through the parliament, in virtue of which, no member of either house could fill any place of command or official situation. Essex was, by this means, compelled to lay down his military office, and Fairfax, a talented officer, entirely under the influence of Crom- well, was placed at the head of the army. Cromwell, the head of the Independents, had been one of the most zealous advocates of the self-denying ordinance. He repaired to the army to resign his com- mand into the hands of Fairfax ; but the latter at once gave the parliament to understand that Cromwell was indispensable — it was only he who could lead the cavalry ; for where he fought, in the name of Grod, along with his pious squadron, there the victory was sure to be. Parliament consented, and the civil war burst forth afresh with redoubled violence. But the battle of Naseby ' destroyed the last hopes of Charles : he retreated with the remains of his army to Oxford. But when Cromwell and Pair- fax prepared to besiege him there, he embraced a desperate resolu- tion ; disguised as a servant, he escaped with two attendants to the Scottish camp on the Northern frontier, in the hope of finding truth and attachment among his own countrymen. But all sympathy for fallen greatness was extinguished in the bosom of the Scots, who were guided entirely by their austere clergy. They watched him narrowly, and compelled him to attend the lengthened discourses of then ministers, whose usual text was the misdeeds of himself and his ancestors ; and when they found that it was impossible to prevail upon him to accept the Presbyterian faith, or to subscribe the Cove- nant, they sold their king for a small price. Por a moderate sum of money, Charles was delivered up to the commissioners of parliament, who confined him in a strong castle. § 393. In the mean time, the division between the Presbyterians, who were the superior party in the parliament, and the Independents, who prevailed in the army, became every day greater. Cromwell was on the side of the latter ; but he knew well how to conceal the false- hood of his heart by an outward appearance of sanctimony 1 . Whilst 1 The character given by Weber in the text to Cromwell cannot be regarded as an impartial one. Cromwell's behaviour was certainly not always distinguished by per- fect candour, but his worst enemies will scarcely deny that his religious professions were, in a great measure, sincere. — Translator. 280 THE MODERN EPOCH. he was playing the part of a mediator, the captive Charles was carried off by a zealous tailor, with a troop of horse, and delivered up into the power of the army. Upon this, Cromwell marched upon the capital for the purpose of giving the Independ- ents the superiority in parliament also. In the mean while, the king November, escaped to the Isle of "Wight; and both Presbyterians and lfi48. Independents sougbt, for some time, to gain him over to their own side, and to make their peace with him in return for certain concessions. But Charles, who relied upon foreign assistance, con- ducted himself in a deceitful and ambiguous manner, and thus deprived himself of the last chance of a peaceful release. Cromwell now resolved upon his destruction. The army, acting under his secret directions, made itself master of the king's person, and con- ducted him to a solitary castle on the sea-coast. Colonel Pride then surrounded the parliament-house with his troops, and commanded December eighty-one of the Presbyterian members to be carried off 16 J 8. by force. After this proceeding, which was known by the name of " Pride's Purge," Cromwell took possession of the royal apartments in Whitehall, — for he was now lord and ruler, and the so-called Eiunp Parliament, which consisted of Independents, was a mere passive tool in his hand. It was determined to accuse the king of treason before an extraordinary court, for having made war against the parliament. " Charles Stuart" was four times put upon his trial, and condemned to death as a traitor, murderer, and enemy of his country. He was allowed three days to prepare himself, and to take leave of his children. He was then led forth upon a scaffold con- structed in front of Whitehall, and covered with black, where the January 30, sentence was carried into execution by two masked exe- 1G49. cutioners. An innumerable multitude gazed in silence upon the frightful scene. It was only when the executioner seized the blood-dropping head by the hair, and exclaimed, " This is the head of a traitor!" that the assembled people relieved their oppressed bosoms by a hollow groan. h. OLIVER CROMWELL (A.D. 1649 1658). § 394. The intelligence of the king's death excited a fearful sensa- tion in Ireland and Scotland. The Prince of Wales, who was living in Holland, Avas recalled thither and acknowledged as Charles II., but was obliged, beforehand, to sign the Covenant and enter the Presbyterian Church. Ireland also acknow- ledged the new king and flew to arms. Upon this, Cromwell, after arranging a republican government in England, in which Milton, the blind composer of" Paradise Lost," occupied a post, marched against the disobedient island. His path to victory laid over blood and corpses, and when he himself left the country to carry the sword into THE REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND. 281 Scotland, other republican generals pursued the same course. In three years the threatening rebellion was quelled ; but Ireland became a depopulated country of lawless beggars, where the avenger of blood established his fearful dwelling. The arms of the republic were triumphant in Scotland also. The Scottish army had occupied a stong position which Cromwell could not reach. Hunger and sick- ness soon diminished the number of his troops, so that he was already meditating a retreat. At this juncture, the preachers who accom- panied the Scottish army, and who were annoyed by the cheerful military life and the hilarity of the king and his associates, advised the commanders to make an attack. When Cromwell beheld the movement in the Presbyterian army, he exclaimed, " They are coming down, the Lord has delivered them into our hands !" The battle of Dunbar, fought upon Cromwell's birthday, September 3rd, terminated in the defeat of the Scots. Cromwell took Edinburgh, and penetrated into the heart of the country. The Lord of Hosts, who was invoked both by Presbyterians and Inde- pendents with fasting and prayer and hypocritical lip-service, was with the bold and strong. Charles suddenly hazarded a daring under- taking. He marched with his troops across the English border, and called upon the adherents of royalty for support. Pew joined him, September 3, an d thus it happened that the royal army suffered a com- 1651. plete overthrow at Worcester, exactly a twelvemonth after the battle of Dunbar. This battle made Charles a houseless fugitive, for whose capture the parliament offered a large reward. He escaped in disguise to Prance, after a thousand dangers and adventures. Scotland was compelled to submit to the republican government by General Monk. The free state of England was also involved in a war with Holland. During this, the republicans showed that they were not only victorious on land, but powerful at sea. Greatly as the maritime heroes of Holland, Tromp and Euyter, dis- tinguished themselves by their courage and ability, Admiral Blake, a man of the old republican stamp, and of rude virtues, and General Monk, who was equally experienced in land and naval warfare, suc- ceeded at length in carrying off the victory. The Dutch were obliged to consent to a disgraceful peace, whilst the Navigation Act, which was proclaimed in England during the war, and which prohibited October, foreigners from bringing any thing but their own produc- 1651. tions to England in their own ships, gave a fresh impulse to commerce. § 395. During these proceedings, Cromwell had fallen out with the Lower House, and for this reason he resolved upon dissolving the Long (Eiimp) parliament. After surrounding the house with troops, he entered the apartment in his dark puritanical dress, pn ' delivered a discourse which was filled with invectives, 282 TIIE MODERN EPOCH. and then, with the help of the soldiers who had entered, drove forth those who were present, exclaiming to one, "You are a drunkard;" to another, " You are an adulterer;" to a third, "You are a blas- phemer of God !" A state council, under the presidentship of Crom- well, then undertook the formation of a new parliament. For this purpose, lists of all the God-fearing people were made out in every quarter, and from these " saints" the representatives of the kingdom were chosen. This assembly (named in mockery, Barebones' parlia- ment, from the leather-seller, Praise-God Barebones), soon gave evi- dence of its disposition and religious views by the Biblical surnames of the greater number of its members (Habakkuk, Ezekiel, Stand-fast- in-the-Faith, &c). But Cromwell was not able to manage these strange men so easily as he had hoped ; and as they wished to intro- duce several vigorous measures, which wovdd have produced great changes, he took advantage of the openly-displayed discontent to December effect a violent dissolution by means of his soldiers. After 1053. this, a new constitution, projected by General Lambert, came into existence, in which a parliament of 400 members composed the legislative body, and Cromwell, as Lord Protector, possessed the executive power and the command of the land and sea forces. As Protector, Cromwell governed energetically and gloriously. His talents for government and his strength of will procured him respect and authority abroad, and his respectable household, and his frugal and citizen-like mode of life, awakened esteem and confidence at home. But honourably as he filled the lofty situation in Avhich fate had placed him, he nevertheless found many enviers and opponents both among the republicans and royalists, who embittered the evening of his life, and never suffered him to attain to a quiet possession of the government. Rendered gloomy by suspicion, and in constant September 3, f eal * of assassination, Cromwell died on his birthday, a 1658. J a y that he had always regarded as particularly fortunate. § 396. Cromwell's imbecile son inherited the dignity of Lord Pro- tector, which, however, he did not know how to maintain. Three powers were soon arrayed in hostile opposition, the protector, the parliament, and the army, commanded by Monk, Lambert, and others. The military power was victorious ; the parliament was dissolved, and the old Hump parliament again summoned ; Richard Cromwell, who was neither a soldier nor a prayer, was obliged to abdicate, and to seek for safety in a foreign land. But the Rump parlia- ment was also obliged to yield in a short time to the power of the army; upon which, the direction of affairs was undertaken by a committee of safety under the presidentship of Lambert. During all these constitutional struggles, the opinion gradually gamed ground that nothing but the return of the royal family, and the re-establish- ment of monarchy, could effect the permanent re-establishment of THE REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND. 283 order. For this purpose, General Monk entered into an alliance with Charles Stuart, who was living in the Netherlands, but concealed his plans and opinions most carefully. He obtained the arrest of Lam- bert, the dissolution of the committee of safety, and the assembly of a new parliament. With this assembly, which consisted for the most part of royalists, Monk hastened to effect the restoration of the Stuarts. An amnesty, and liberty of conscience, were all that Charles had to promise before his solemn entrance into London, ' where he was received by an exulting people. But even these conditions were not observed. Sentence of death was pro- nounced upon all those who had sat in judgment upon Charles I., and ten of them were actually executed as regicides. The triumph of the royalists at the destruction of their enemies was much dimi- nished by the resolution displayed by the Puritans in their last mo- ments. Cromwell's body was torn from the grave and suspended on the gallows. The Episcopal Church was restored, and the Presby- terian clergy again deprived of their places. C. TIIE LAST TWO STTTAKTS (CHARLES II. 1660 — 1685, AND james ii. 1685—1688). § 397. The government of the fickle, characterless, and voluptuous Charles was fatal to England. Neither the fate of his father, nor the melancholy passages in his own life served him either for instruction or warning. Severely as the land was visited by the plague, and by a frightful conflagration that destroyed two-thirds of London, no inter- ruption was given to the splendid and joyous life that was led by the royal court ; and when extravagant expenditure had produced debts and want of money, and the parliament was not so free in its grants as the king desired, Charles sold the honour and interests of his country to the Erench king, Louis XIV. At that time especially, it was looked upon as a mark of refinement in Erance if a man left the Protestant Church for the Catholic. This way of thinking found some imitation in England. The duke of York, the brother of the king, openly em- braced Catholicism, and Charles was a Catholic in heart, although he outwardly conformed to the English Church, and only betrayed his real convictions when on his death-bed, by receiving the Catholic sacraments. The more, however, the Stuarts favoured; Catholicism, the more sturdily did the people adhere to the faith of their fathers. The fire of London was attributed by them to the Papists, and this belief was perpetuated' by a monument ; and lest the public offices should be made use of as rewards for these changes of religion, the parliament, after a long contest, carried the Test Act, which enacted that no one but members of the English Church, and confessors of the Protestant doctrine should be capable of admission into parlia- ment or of holding offices or military posts. As long as Clarendon, 284 THE MODERN EPOCH. the historian of the English "rebellion," remained at the head of the ministry, the king was in some degree restrained within the bounds of moderation and legality ; but when the former fell into disgrace, and was compelled to end his days as an outlaw in a foreign country, Charles allowed himself to commit acts of all kinds of violence, tyranny, and lawlessness. A ministry that was formed of talented but unprincipled statesmen, and distinguished by the people as the Cabal Ministry from the initials of its members, now conducted the government according to the wishes of the king, without regard to the privileges and honour of the people. Corruption and venality were no longer regarded as disgraceful among the higher classes, since the king himself drew a yearly stipend from Louis XIV. for supporting the French in their war against the Dutch. A new con- test at this time sprung up between the king and the parliament. For the more openly the former strove for absolute power, the more did the latter endeavour to protect the privileges of the people and the religion of the country. The parliament, anxious lest the English Church should be exposed to danger under a Catholic king, demanded the exclusion of the duke of York from the throne ; and Charles found himself so far obliged to yield, that he sent his brother out of the country for some time, and formed a new ministry, in which the ingenious earl of Shaftesbury, who had gone over from the king's council to the popular party, was the president. It was under his administration that the Habeas Corpus Act, that sacred law for the freedom of person, came into existence. Accord- ing to this act, no one could be imprisoned, without a written order of the court stating the grounds of the imprisonment ; and within three days the prisoner was to be brought before the ordinary judges. In the midst of these parliamentary struggles, two parties sprang up, the Whigs and the Tories, that exist to the present day. The "Whigs regarded the constitution of the state as a mutual compact between the king and the nation, and attributed to the latter the right of active resistance in case of any infringement of the compact ; the Tories, on the other hand, rejected the principle that the royal power proceeded from the people, and demanded passive obedience from the subject. The Tories gained the upper hand during the latter years of Charles II. 's reign, inasmuch as the court took advan- tage of a conspiracy contrived by some worthless men against the lives of the king and his brother, to ruin the heads of the Whig party. Lord Russell and Algernon Sidney, two of the noblest and most respected of men, died upon the scaffold ; Shaftesbury fled to Holland ; I lie duke of York again regained his rights and offices; and when Charles died a few years afterwards without legitimate offspring, he ascended the English throne, under the title of James II. THE REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND. Og5 James II., § 398- A few weeks after James's ascension of the a.d. 1685 — throne, Monmouth, a natural son of Charles II., at- 1 f»88 tempted, by the aid of the Whigs, to deprive his uncle of the crown. The insurrection failed of success. Monmouth died on the scaffold, and the frightful cruelty that James displayed against all the supporters and abettors of the enterprise destroyed the last sparks of attachment in the hearts of the people. The name of the chief judge, Jeffreys, who passed through the counties with the axe of justice and a crew of executioners, is written with letters of blood in the annals of English history. The victory which he had gained so easily, and the terror of the people, induced the king to hope, that by cunning and severity he might gradually restore the Catholic religion to its former supremacy in England. "With this object, he made the detested Jeffreys chancellor, presented many offices and military appointments to the Catholics and those who had gone over to the Roman Church, and aimed at neutralizing the Test Act by the introduction of an edict of toleration. But as the parlia- ment, despite the bribery used in the elections, could not be brought to accept this edict, James attempted to destroy the Test Act by another plan ; he declared that the throne possessed the power of granting a dispensation from this law, a privilege by which the power and operation of all laws would have been paralyzed. The English people looked on quietly for some time at these proceedings, although with inward repugnance, inasmuch as the king being old and having no male descendants, and his two daughters having been brought up in the English Church and married to Protestant princes, the elder Maria, to William of Orange (§ 403), and the younger, Anne, to a Danish prince, they hoped for a speedy deliverance. But when the intelligence of the birth of a prince of Wales put an end to all hope of a release from the yoke of popery, they began to entertain the purpose of freeing themselves by their own efforts, with the assistance of William of Orange. The genuineness of the young prince was called in question ; crowds of discontented Britons streamed towards the Hague ; the Whigs united themselves with Orange, and promised him the support of the Protestant part of the nation. James did not perceive the storm that was gathering around his head, untd William had landed with a Dutch force on the shores of England, with the avowed purpose of defending the Protestant religion and the liberties of the country. It was in vain that the king now turned himself to the army and the people, and promised the removal of every measure repugnant to the Constitution ; the ground on which he stood had been rendered insecure by the treachery, hypocrisy, and perjury with which the Stuarts had rendered the nation familiar. When a part of the army went over to William, and the general voice declared itself against the king, James sent his wife and son to Prance, threw 28(3 THE MODERN EPOCH. the great seal into the Thames, and then fled himself in despair from December, the land of his fathers, of whose fair crown he had de- 1688. prived himself and his Catholic offspring. He lived from this time forth at St. Germain, a pensioner of Lonis XIV. § 399. After the flight of James, the representatives of the English people declared the throne forsaken, and agreed that the Catholic line of the house of Stuart should be excluded from the government, and that this should be placed in the hands of the royal pair, "William and Mary. Instructed however by the past, they secured the liberties of the nation against any future arbitrary acts by the Bfll of Rights, without at the same time weakening overmuch the power of the king. The Scots acknowledged the new government, and regained their Presbyterian Church ; but the Catholic Irish, supported by tiii ron France, an d led i^o the field by James II. himself, were first compelled to submission by the bloody battle of the Boyne, and again curtaded of their privileges and property. Prom this time England, by her naval power, her trade, industry, and pros- a.d. 1701. perhty, took the lead of all other nations. "When a pre- Anne, a.d. mature death carried the sickly "William childless to the 1701—1714. g rayej kg was succeeded by Anne, the younger daughter of James II., during whose reign the union between Scotland and England was completed, so that from this time, the Scot- tish representatives gave their voices in the English par- liament. Anne also survived the whole of her children, so that the English crown devolved upon the Elector, George of Hanover, the grandson of Elizabeth, Palgravine and Queen of Bohemia. Two attempts of the Stuarts to expel the house of Hanover by violence, and to repossess themselves of the English crown, terminated un- successfully. 3. THE AGE OE LOUIS XIV. a. RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN. L ' XIII § ^®®- ^ ie ^ rs ^ P ar * °^ ^ ne re ^S n °f *he wea, k Loais a.d. 1610— XIII. , who only numbered nine years at the time of his 1G43, father's murder (§ 365), was full of mischief for Prance. During the time the queen-mother, Mary of Medicis, conducted the government, Italian favourites exerted a great influence upon affairs, enriched themselves at the expense of the Prench, and irritated the pride of the nation by their insolence. Enraged at this, the nobility took up arms, and filled the country with rebellion and the tumult of Avar. "When at length Louis XIII. himself, upon coming of age, assumed the government, he indeed consented that the foreign favourites should be removed by murder and execution, and banished his mother from the court ; but the people gained little by it. The new favourites in whom the king, who possessed no self-reliance, AGE OF LOUIS XIV. 287 reposed his confidence, were not distinguished from the former either by virtue or talents ; for this reason, both the nobles of the kingdom and the Huguenots, who felt themselves injured in their rights, again rose against the government, and threw the land into fresh confusion. This melancholy condition of affairs was only put an end to when Cardinal Richelieu was admitted into the state council, and introduced a complete change of system. This great statesman maintained an almost absolute sway in the court and in the kingdom for nearly eighteen years, though the king never loved him, the queen and the nobility were constantly attempting his overthrow, and a succession of cabals and conspiracies were plotted against him. The greatness of his mind triumphed over all obstacles. Richelieu's efforts were directed towards the extension and rounding of the French territory without, and the increasing and strengthening of the royal power within. In furtherance of the former of these objects, he sought to weaken the house of Hapsburg, and for this purpose entered into alliances with the enemies of the emperor not only in Germany, in the time of the Thirty Years' War, but in Italy and other places ; and, to attain his aims in regard to the latter project, he neglected to call together the Estates of the king- dom, broke the power of the nobility and of the independent officials and judges in the parliament, and attacked the Huguenots, who had formed an almost independent alliance in the south and west of France with their own fortresses, an effective militia, and great privi- leges. After conquering the most important of the Huguenot towns (Nimes, Montauban, Montpellier,) and destroying their fortifications, in three wars, and when he had at length taken Rochelle, the bul- wark of the Calvinists, after a siege of fourteen months, he proceeded to deprive the Protestants of their political privileges and of their independent position, but granted them, by the Edict of Nimes, liberty of conscience and equal rights with Catholic subjects. The turbulent nobles had been deprived of their greatest support by the disarming of the Huguenots, and the war could now be prosecuted against them with success. The most daring were got rid of by banishment and the executioner. Even the queen-mother and her second son, the duke of Orleans, who had attempted to procure the fall of Richelieu, were compelled to leave the country, and the confi- dential friend of the latter, Henry, duke of Montmorency, a scion of one of the most renowned families of Erance, died at Toulouse by the hand of the executioner. A similar fate awaited the count of Cinq- Mars and his friend, De Thou, a few years later, when, in conjunction with the queen and some of the nobles, they formed a conspiracy against the mighty cardinal. The parliament, the upper tax-offices and courts of justice, which, like the king, claimed an independent authority on account of their offices being 288 THE MODERN EPOCH. hereditary, were weakened by the establishment of extraordinary courts and higher officers, who were dependent upon the minister. § 101. In the year 1642 died Richelieu, hated and feared by the nobility and the people, but admired by contemporaries and pos- terity ; Louis XIII., a prince without either great virtues or great vices, and dependent upon every one who could either acquire his favour or render himself formidable to him, soon followed him. Anna, queen of Austria, the proud and ambitious sister of the king of Spain, Louis XIV., undertook the government during the minority of his son. a. d. 1643— But as she reposed the whole of her confidence on the Italian, Mazarin, the inheritor of the office and the prin- ciples of Richelieu, she met with vehement opposers among the nobility and in the parliament, who attempted to regain their former power and position. The people, in the hope of being relieved of some of their heavy taxes, and guided by the clever and dexterous Cardinal Retzch, embraced their cause, with the intent of com- pelling the court to remove Mazarin, and to adopt a different plan of a.d. 1648— government. This gave occasion to a furious civil war, 16o3. which is known in history as " the "War of the Fronde." Mazarin was obliged to leave the country for a short time, but so immoveable was the favour and confidence of the queen, that he governed France from Cologne as he had formerly done in Paris. But his banishment did not last long. When Louis XIV. had at- tained the years of kingly majority, and Turenne, the commander of the royal troops, had conquered his rival, the great Conde, the general of the insurgents, in the suburb of St. Antoine, Mazarin returned in triumph. His solemn entry into Paris was a sign that absolute power had gained the victory, and that hence- forth the will of the monarch was to be law. Mazarin enjoyed for six years longer the greatest respect in Prance and Europe ; Cardinal Retsch, the ingenious composer of the Memoirs of this war, was obliged to leave his country after he had previously expiated his turbulent conduct in the prison of Vincennes ; Conde, poor and un- happy, wandered among the Spaniards, till the grace of his master allowed him to return and take possession of his estates ; Mazarin' s nieces, Italian females without name or position, were endowed with the wealth of Prance, and sought for as brides by the greatest nobles ; and the members of parliament adapted themselves without oppo- sition to the directions they received from above, after Louis had appeared before them in his boots and riding whip, and demanded their obedience with threats. Louis would now give effect to his principle, "I am the state" (l'etat e'est moi). The peace of the a.d. 1659. Pyrenees with Spain was the last work of Mazarin. He March 9, a * e d shortly after, leaving enormous wealth behind him. 1661. His death took place at the moment when Louis began AGE OF LOUIS XIV. 289 to grow weary of him, and was longing to seize the reins of govern- ment in his own powerful grasp. i. GOVERNMENT AND CONQUESTS OE LOUIS XIV. § 402. After the death of Mazarin, Louis XIV., in whom kingly absolutism attained its highest point, appointed no prime minister, but surrounded himself with men who merely executed his will, and whose highest aim was to increase and spread abroad the renown, glory, and honour of the king. In the choice of these men, Louis displayed judgment and the talents of a rider. His ministers, espe- cially Colbert, the great promoter of French industry, manufactures, and trades, as well as his generals, Turenne, Conde, Luxemburg, and the engineer, Vauban, as much surpassed in talent, acquirements, and dexterity, the statesmen and soldiers of all other countries, as Louis XIV. himself was pre-eminent among the princes of his age, in the greatness of his power, in commanding presence, and kingly dignit}^. He rendered the age of Louis XIV. the most fllustrious in the Trench annals, and caused the court of Versailles (the seat of the royal residence) to be every where praised and admired as the model of taste, of refinement, and of a distinguished mode of living. But as he sought nothing but the gratification of his own selfishness, of his own love of pleasure, of his pride, and of his desire for renown and splendour, his reign became the grave of freedom, of morals, of firm- ness of character, and of manly sentiments. Court favour was the end of every effort, and flattery the surest road to arrive at it ; virtue and merit met with little acknowledgment. § 403. Louis XIV. wished to enlarge his empire, and to render his name illustrious by military renown. He took advantage, therefore, of the death of the Spanish king, Philip IV., to make pretensions to his in- Spanish War heritance as the husband of his daughter, and to march an a.d. 1667, army into the Spanish Netherlands. By the triple alliance of England, Holland, and Sweden, he was indeed compelled by the peace of Aix, to surrender, after a short campaign, the greater part of his conquests ; but many of the frontier towns of Flanders remained with France, and were converted by Vauban into impregnable fortresses. As Holland had been the chief instrument in checking the victorious course of the haughty king, so she did not fail to experience the vengeance of the French potentate. He won Sweden to his side, purchased the favour of the English king by annuities and mistresses (§ 397), and concluded an alliance with the elector of Cologne and the bishop of Munster. Thus prepared and protected on every side, Louis began a second Dutch War war > which at first was directed against Holland alone, a.d. 1672— but in which almost all the European states were involved 1679. during the seven years of its continuance. After the u O90 TITE MODERN EPOCH. celebrated passage of the Bhine at Tolhuis, the French army pursued its rapid course of victories into the heart of the States General.. Holland was now in extremities. The republicans, who had hitherto conducted the affairs of the State with great credit, had been more solicitous about improving the navy than upon maintaining or increas- ing the land forces, how could they resist the stately armies of France, conducted, as they were, by the most celebrated generals ? Liege, Utrecht, and Upper Issel, fell into the hands of the enemy ; French dragoons already made incursions into the province of Holland, and approached to within two miles of the capital, — the terrified republi- cans implored peace, but were not listened to. But whilst the French army was wasting time in the siege of the Dutch fortresses, the republicans, to whom the whole of the mischief was ascribed, were overthrown by the Orange party, their chiefs, John and Cornelius de Witt, murdered in the streets of the capital, and the government then placed in the hands of the shrewd and warlike stadtholder, William III. of Orange. This celebrated general aroused the courage and patriotic enthusiasm of the Hollanders : they cut through their dams, and rendered the inundated country inapproachable by the French ; the Avails of Groningen defied all the efforts of the enemy, and the marshal of Luxemburg's daring march against Amsterdam, over the frozen waters, was frustrated by a sudden thaw. These and other circumstances saved Holland. For as the great elector of Bran- denburg, Frederick William, now came to the assistance of the Dutch, and also induced the emperor Leopold to take an interest in the war, the French were obliged to divide their power, and to send their chief force to the Bhine. Spain also, and the German empire, soon entered into the war against France. § 404. The military power of France increased with the number of her enemies. Turenne crossed the Bhine, after having barbarously ravaged the lands of the Falatinate, and pressed forwards, burning and ravaging, into Franconia. The German princes were divided ; the imperial minister of war was in the pay of Louis, and betrayed the military plans to the enemy ; the Austrian generals were either incompetent, or, like Montecuculi, engaged in Hungary. The triumph of France woidd have been complete, had not the great elector saved the military reputation of Germany. Louis XIV., for the purpose of compelling the latter to separate himself from the army of the Bhine, had induced his allies, the Swedes, to attack the march of Branden- burg. But the energetic Frederick William appeared in his own territories before the enemy entertained the slightest suspicion of his approach, and gave the surprised Swedes a complete overthrow in the battle of Felirbellin. This battle was the foundation of Prussia's greatness. A month later, Turenne, the greatest general of his age, was killed by a cannon-ball, near Sasbach, AGE OF LOUIS XIV. 291 and the enemy compelled to retreat across the Rhine. But the war nevertheless continued for three years longer, and was particularly destructive to the lands on the Mosel and the Saar, where the French committed frightful ravages. It was not until the English parliament demanded, with menaces, that the government should dissolve the alliance with Trance and support the Dutch, that Louis resolved to put an end to the war. By the peace of Nimeguen the Dutch, who in the mean time had made the office of stadtholder hereditary in the male line of the gallant William of Orange, received back the whole of their lost towns and territories. On the other hand, the Spaniards were obliged to relinquish Franche- Cointe, and the whole of the fortified places in the line of Valenciennes and Maubeuge, to France, and the German empire lost not only the town of Freiburg in the Breisgau, but was obliged to submit to the greatest humiliations. The dukedom of Lorraine, which belonged to Germany, and of which the French had taken possession at the com- mencement of the war, was given back to the duke, who was engaged in the Austrian service, under such degrading conditions, that the latter preferred to allow it to remain still in the hands of the enemy ; and the great elector saw himself compelled to give up the lands and towns he had conquered with so much difficulty in Pomerania to the Swedes. § 405. The timorous acquiescence of the German princes inflamed the insolence and ambition of Louis XIV. He asserted that a num- ber of districts and portions of territory that at an earlier period had belonged to the towns and provinces which had fallen to France in the Peaces of Westphalia and Nimeguen, were included in the cession. To arrange this matter, he established the so-called chambers of reunion in Metz and Breisach, and, supported by their decisions, took possession of a number of cities, towns, boroughs, villages, mills, nay, even whole provinces on the left bank of the Rhine. Success only increased the audacity of the French king, so that at length, in the midst of peace, he wrested the free town of Strasburg from the September, German empire. The traitorous bishop, Francis Egon of 1681. Furstenburg, assisted in the surprise and occupation of the place. The once free burghers were compelled, after being dis- armed, to take the oath of subjection to the foreign potentate upon their knees. The ornaments of German architecture were restored to the Catholic worship, and the arsenal was emptied. Instead of chastising this insolence with their united forces, Austria, Spain, and August 15, the German empire, concluded a truce for twenty years 1684. with the tyrannical king, at Regensburg, by which all the annexed and plundered provinces were given up to Louis, with the single condition, that he should be satisfied with what he had got, and should put an end to his reunions. v2 OQ2 THE MODERN EPOCH. c. Austria's distress and triumph. § 406. During this time, the emperor Leopold was engaged in the eastern portion of his dominions. In Hungary the oppression exer- cised by the government upon the Protestants, the burdensome quar- tering of troops, and some acts of violence against certain magnates, had produced a formidable rebellion at the moment when the Turks were renewing their former plans of conquest, and some active chief viziers were awakening the warlike spirit of the janisaries. The Aus- trian government hoped to suppress the insurrection by severity. It condemned the leaders to death upon the scaffold, and outraged the chartered rights of the nation. But these acts of violence excited the love of freedom and the military spirit of the Hungarians. Emmerick Tokeli, an active noble, whose property had been confiscated, unfurled the banner of rebellion. In a short space he had a considerable army at his command, with which he drove the Austrian forces out of Hungary. Louis XIV. afforded him assistance, and the Porte, which recog- nized him as tributary king of Hungary, dispatched a powerful army for his defence. The Turks marched, plundering and devastating, to the walls of Vienna. The court fled to Linz, and the capital of Austria seemed lost. But the courage of the citizens and of their leader, Budiger von Staremberg, together with the Os- mans' want of skill in conducting sieges, preserved Vienna for sixty days in spite of all attacks, tfll at length the imperial army, com- manded by Charles of Lorraine, and in conjunction with a Polish force under the heroic king, John Sobieski, came to the help of the September, hardly-pressed town. A bloody engagement under the 1683. walls of Vienna terminated to the disadvantage of the Turks. They made a hasty retreat, and left an enormous booty in the hands of the victors. Prom this time the fortune of the war remained with the Austrians. Hungary was conquered, Tokeli compelled to fly, and Buda, which had been in possession of the Turks for 146 years, was wrested from their hands. After the criminal court of Eperies had deprived the Hungarian nobility of their most enter- prizing leaders, and spread terror through the whole nation, the emperor Leopold was enabled at the Diet at Presburg to abolish elective monarchy, and to banish certain privileges from the constitu- tion that interfered with the royal power, without any opposition. In this way, Hungary became the inheritance of the house of Haps- burg. The Turks made great efforts to regain that which had been lost, and streams of Turkish and Christian blood were shed around the walls of Belgrade ; but those great heroes, Charles of Lorraine, prince Eugene, and Louis of Baden, held victory firmly to the Austrian banners. By the peace of Carlowitz, Trail- AGE OF LOUIS XIV. 293 sylvania, and the whole of the land between the Danube and the Theiss were ceded to the Austrians, d. THE WAR Or ORLEANS. § 407. For the purpose of creating a diversion in favour of the Turks against the superior power of Austria, Louis XIV. took ad- vantage of affairs relating to the inheritance of the Palatinate and War of the election of the archbishop of Cologne, to engage in Orleans, a.d. the third war, called the war of Orleans. When the elector Charles died without male issue, and the land fell into the collateral Catholic line of Pfalz Neuberg, Louis XIV. claimed not only the moveable property, but also the immoveable estate, as the inheritance of Elizabeth Charlotte, the sister of the deceased elector, and the wife of Louis' brother, the duke of Orleans, and when this claim was not admitted he marched an army upon the Bhine. For the purpose of rendering it impossible for the enemy to penetrate into Prance, Louvois, the hard-hearted minister of war, gave command for creating a desert between the two kingdoms by devastating the banks of the Bhine. Hereupon, the wdd troops fell like incendiaries upon the nourishing villages of the Bergstrasse, the rich cities on the Bhine, and the blooming districts of the southern Palatinate, and reduced them to heaps of ashes. The shattered tower of the castle of Heidelberg is yet a silent witness of the bar- barity with which Melac and other leaders executed the commands of a merciless government. Towns and villages, vineyards and orchards were in flames from Haardtgebirge to Nahe ; in Mannheim the in- habitants themselves were obliged to assist in destroying their own buildings and fortifications ; a great part of Heidelberg was consumed by fire, after the bridge of the Neckar had been blown up ; in "Worms, the cathedral with many of the dwelling-houses became the prey of the flames, and in Spire, the Prench drove out the citizens, set fire to the plundered city and the venerable cathedral, and desecrated the bones of the ancient emperors. The second occasion of the war, in which, beside the German em- pire and the emperor, the Netherlands, Spain, and the dukes of Savoy and Piedmont became involved, was the appointment to the spiritual electorship in Cologne, where Louis XIV., by dint of bribery, had secured the election of William von Purstenburg, a man in the in- terests of Prance ; but both pope and emperor refused confirmation. In this war also, which lasted for eight years, the Prench army, which was conducted by the most distinguished generals, maintained its supremacy over the far superior force of the enemy. In Italy, in the Netherlands, in heavily afflicted Grermany, in the north of Spain, the Prench had generally the advantage ; even at sea they maintained Og 1< THE MODERN EPOCH. tlieir honour, although the battle of La Hogue went a.d. 1692. against them. It was the cause of much surprise that Louis should consent to the universally desired termination of the war, and should show himself far more moderate in the \. d 1 GO 7 peace of Byswick (between Hague and Delft) than in that of JSTimeguen. The German empire was the only loser, inasmuch as it was obliged to leave Strasburg and all the annexed provinces to France. Louis' reason for concluding the peace so hastdy was, that he wished to have his hands free at the approaching vacancy of the Spanish crown. 6. LIFE AT THE COURT. LITEEATUBE. CHITECH. § 408. It was during the last three decades of the seventeenth century that France stood at the culminating point of her power abroad and of her prosperity at home, so that the nattering chronicles of those days described the age of Louis XIV. as the golden age of Prance. Trade and industry received a prodigious development by the care of Colbert ; the woollen and silk manufactories, the stocking and cloth weaving, which flourished in the southern towns, brought prosperity, the maritime force increased, colonies were planted, and the productions of France were carried by trading companies to all quarters of the globe. The court of France displayed a magnificence that had never before been witnessed. The palace of Versailles, and the gardens which were adorned with statues, fountains, and alleys of trees, were a model of taste for all Europe ; fetes of all kinds, jovial parties, ballets, fireworks, the opera and the theatre, in the service of which the first intellects in France employed their talents, followed upon each other in attractive succession ; poets, artists, men of learning, all were eager to do honour to a prince who rewarded with a liberal hand every kind of talent that conduced either to his amusement or to his glory. Sumptuous buildings, as the Hospital of Invalides, costly libraries, magnificent productions of the press, vast establishments for the natural sciences, academies, and similar institutions, exalted the glory and renown of the great Louis. The refined air of society, the polished tone, the easy manners of the nobility and courtiers, subdued Europe more permanently and extensively than the weapons of the army. The French fashions, language, and literature, bore sway from this time in all circles of the higher classes. The conse- quences of the establishment of the French Academy by Richelieu were a development of the language, style, and literary composition, that was extremely favourable to the diffusion of the literature. The language, so particularly adapted for social intercourse, for conversa- tion and for epistolary writing, remained from henceforth the language AGE OF LOUIS XIV. £95 of diplomacy, of courts, and of the higher classes ; and although the literary productions are wanting in strength, elevation, and nature, the polish of the form, and the ease and felicity of the style, gave French taste the siipremacy in Europe, and strengthened the French people in the agreeable delusion that they were the most civilized of nations. In the time of Louis, dramatic poetry reached its highest excellence in Peter Corneille (1684), whose " Cid" is regarded as the founda- tion and commencement of classical stage poetry ; in J. Racine (1699), who, in his Iphigenia and Phsedra ventured to emulate Euri- pides, and in the talented writer of comedies, Moliere (1673), whose Tartuffe, L'Avare, Le Misanthrope, &c, announce a profound know- ledge of human nature in its aberrations. Boileau (Despreaux) (1711), a dexterous versifier, was admired as the French Horace on account of his odes and satires ; Lafontaine's (1694) fables and stories are still familiar in all families as school and children's books, and the adventures of Telemachus by Bishop Fenelon (1715) are translated into all European languages, and have an incredible circulation. At the same time, the eloquence of the pulpit was cultivated by Bossuet (1704) and other spiritual orators, the philosophy of scepticism, by the Huguenot, Bayle, and the literature of polemics by the religious party of the Jansenists, in its contests against the Jesuits and their dangerous morality. In this latter class, the Provincial letters of Pascal occupy the first rank. § 409. But however flatterers may sing the praises of the age of Louis XIV. one spot of shame remains ineradicable — the persecution of the Huguenots. The French king believed that the unity of the Church was inseparable from a perfect monarchy. For this reason he oppressed the Jansenists, a Catholic party, which first contended against the Jesuits and afterwards against the head of the Church himself; and he compelled the Calvinists, by the most severe persecutions, either to fly, or to return into the bosom of the Catholic Church. Colbert, who esteemed the Huguenots as active and industrious citizens, pre- vented for some time these violent measures ; but the suggestions of the royal confessor, La Chaise, the zeal for conversion of the affectedly pious Madame Maintenon, who had been first a tutoress of the court, and afterwards Louis' trusted wife, and the cruelty of Louvois, the minister of war, at length triumphed over the advice of Colbert. A long succession of oppressive proceedings against the Huguenots pre- pared the way for the great stroke. The number of their churches was restricted, and their worship confined to a few of the principal towns. Louis' paroxysms of repentance and devotion were always the sources of fresh oppressions to the Calvinistic heretics, by whose conversion he thought to expiate his own crimes. They were gradu- ally excluded from office and dignities ; converts were favoured ; in this way, the ambitious were enticed, the poor were won by money, £96 THE MODERN EPOCH. which flowed from the king's conversion chest, and from the liberal gifts of the pious illustrious ; a wide field was opened to the zeal for proselytism by the enactment that the conversion of children under age was valid. Families were divided, children were torn from their parents and brought up as Catholics. Com-t and clergy, the heart- less and eloquent bishop Bossuet at their head, set all means in motion to establish the ecclesiastical unity of France. "When all other means of conversion failed, came the dragonades. At the command of Lou- vois, the cavalry took possession of the southern provinces, and es- tablished their quarters in the dwellings of the Huguenots. The prosperity of the industrious citizens, whose substance was devoured by the dragoons, soon disappeared. The bad treatment of these booted missionaries, who quitted the houses of the apostates to fall in doubled numbers upon those who remained stedfast, operated more effectually than all the enticements of the court or the seductions of the priests. Thousands fled abroad that they might preserve their October, faith upon a foreign soil. At last came the revocation 1685. f the Edict of Nantes. The religious worship of the Calvinists was now forbidden, their churches were torn down, their schools closed, their preachers banished from the land ; when the emigration increased to a formidable degree, this was forbidden, under punishment of the galleys and forfeiture of goods. But despite all threats and prohibitions, upwards of 500,000 French Calvinists carried their industry, their faith, and their courage to Protestant lands. Switzerland, the Palatinate of the Bhine, Brandenburg, Holland, and England, offered an asylum to the persecuted. The silk manufacture and stocking-weaving were carried abroad by the fugitive Huguenots. Flatterers extolled the king as the exterminator of heresy, but the courage of the peasants in Cevennes, and the num- ber of Huguenots who contented themselves with private devotion, show how little religious oppression conduced to the desired end. For when the persecution was carried into the distant valleys of the Cevennes, where Waldenses and Calvinists lived, according to ancient custom, in the simplicity of the faith, the oppressors met with an obstinate resistance. Persecution called forth the courage of its victims, oppression urged zeal into fanaticism. Led on by a young mechanic, the Camisardes, clad in a linen frock, rushed " with naked breast against the marshals." A frightful civil war filled the peaceful valleys of Cevennes ; fugitive priests, in the gloom of the forest, ex- horted the evangelical brethren to a desperate defence, till at length the persecutors grew weary. Nearly two millions of the Huguenots remained without rights and without religious worship. AGE OF LOUIS XIV. 097 IV. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 1. THE SPANISH "WAR OF SUCCESSION (1702 — 1714). § 410. "When the childless Charles II., the last of the house of Hapsburg in Spain, was near his end, he suffered himself, from a feeling of irritation towards the European powers who had arranged a partition of his lands during his life, to be persuaded by the Erench ambassadors to make a secret will, by which the second grandson of Louis XIV., duke Philip of Anjou, was named heir to the whole Spanish monarchy, to the exclusion of Austria, which, according to an earlier family compact, had the nearest claim upon the vacant throne. Charles II. died at the commencement of the new century, and Louis XIV. guided by his council and his second wife, Madame Maintenon, a woman of inferior birth, determined, after some hesitation, to adopt the will, much as his exhausted king- dom required repose. This resolution was followed by the most Leopold, desperate wars that had hitherto taken place. The em- ajj. 1657— peror Leopold took up arms for the purpose of securing the inheritance of the Hapsburgs for his second son, Charles, by force. On the side of Austria were ranged not only the greater part of the princes of Germany, particularly the elector, Frederick of Brandenburg, who for this assistance was adorned with the title of king of Prussia ; and Hanover, for which a ninth elec- torate had recently been made, but the maritime powers, England and Holland ; the latter, out of fear of the threatening superiority of Erance, the former, from anger that the Erench king had recognized the Pretender, James (III.) Stuart, on the death of his father, as king of England. The elector of Bavaria and his brother, the elec- tor of Cologne, were the only princes that sided with Erance. Spain was divided. The eastern provinces, Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, were for the Austrian claimant of the throne ; Castile, on the other hand, and the rest of the kingdom, took up arms to defend the Bour- bon king, Philip V., who was descended on his mother's side from the Hapsburgs, and whose character bore the impress of Spain. § 411. The reason that the fortune of the war remained this time so closely bound to the banners of Austria and England, was, that their armies were conducted by the two greatest generals of the age, prince Eugene of Savoy, and the duke of Marlborough. The former at once increased the renown he had already acquired in the war against the Turks, by a masterly campaign in Italy, where he drove back the gallant General Catinat and brought over the duke of Savoy and Piedmont to the side of Austria ; but Marlborough, who was the chief of the "Whigs (§ 397), (who since Anne's coming to the government (§ 399) had guided the political helm,) and consequently, endowed with almost unlimited power, was 298 THE MODERN EPOCH. distinguished both as a warrior and statesman, but stained his glory by avarice and love of gain. The duke of Savoy brought the calami- ties of war upon his own land by his alliance with Austria. Vendome, a skilful general, subdued Piedmont and the fertde plains of Lombardy, and thought to have united himself with the elector of Bavaria who bad marched into the Tyrol ; but the daring rise of the gallant Tyro- lese, who, from their inaccessible mountain heights and the AD 1 70S crevices of their valleys, attacked the Bavarians with their rifles, and prevented their advance by a well-managed guerilla warfare, prevented this plan. Tbe elector was compelled, after severe loss, to evacuate the Tyrol ; whereupon he joined the French army, which had marched through the Kinzigthal in Swabia, under the command of the marshals Villars and Tallard. It was here that Eugene, and Louis of Baden, the commander of the imperial forces, opposed them- selves to the enemy. Marlborough, after a masterly march on the Bhine and the Mosel, soon joined the other two, upon which, Eugene and Marlborough dispatched the old and cautious Louis to the siege of Ingoldstadt, and then defeated the French and Bavarian army at August 13, the battle of Hochstadt (or, as the Enghsh call it, the !704. battle of Blenheim). Tallard, and a great part of his force, were made prisoners ; the whole of the munitions of war fell into the hands of the enemy. The elector of Bavaria was obliged to follow the French over the Bhine, and expose his territories to the Austrians, who exercised the most frightful oppression there ; so that at length the people, driven to despair, made an insurrection, which, however, had only the effect of increasing the measure of their suffer- ings. Eor the purpose of chastising the unpatriotic sentiments of the Joseph I., princely house of Bavaria, the new emperor, Joseph I., who a.d. 1705— trod the same path his father had done, pronounced the ban against Max Emanuel, and his brother, the elector of Cologne. § 412. Fortune was also adverse to the French both in the May 23, Netherlands and in Italy. In the former country, Marl- 17O6. borough gained the splendid victory of Bamillies from the incompetent marshal Villeroi, the favourite of Madame Maintenon ; upon which, the Spanish Netherlands acknowledged the Austrian September 7, competitor for the throne : and in Italy, prince Eugene 1706'. defeated the superior force of the French at Turin ; where- upon, Milan and Lombardy, together Avith Lower Italy and Sicily, fell into the hands of the victors. The glory of Eugene spread far and vide, and his name became henceforth familiar in the mouths of the people, who celebrated his deeds in their songs. It was in Spain only that Philip of Anjou maintained himself against the English and Aus- trian army. It is true, that the provinces of the ancient kingdom of Aragon, out of national hatred to Castde, sided, for the most part, AGE OF LOUIS XIV. g9Q with the Austrian claimant of the throne, when the latter landed in Catalonia. Barcelona, A r alencia, and all the cities of hnportance united themselves to him, whilst the English fleet took Gibraltar. Philip V. nevertheless maintained his supre- macy by the adherence of the Castilians, and visited the revolted pro- vinces with a severe chastisement after the victory of Almanza. The April 25, beautiful plains of Valencia were ravaged, the resolute 1707- inhabitants who were prepared to undergo the worst extremities rather than submit themselves to the detested Castilians, suffered death in all its forms ; and, to avoid the insults of their ene- mies, they even set fire to their own houses, and perished, like the citizens of Saguntum and Numantia, beneath the ruins. When at length resistance was broken by the capture of Saragossa and Lerida, and the heads of the boldest had fallen beneath the axe of the execu- tioner, the three provinces of Valencia, Catalonia, and Aragon lost the last remains of then rights, and were governed henceforth by the laws of Castile. Barcelona, however, maintained a gallant resistance to the end of the war. § 413. In the year 1708, the two great generals, Eugene and Marlborough, increased their military renown by the victory of Oude- July 11, narde on the Scheld. At this point Louis XIV. began to 1708. despair of the successful termination of the war ; and, taking the exhausted condition of his kingdom into consideration, he now wished for peace. But, by the influence of Eugene and Marl- borough, who wished to take advantage of their success for the hu- miliation of Erance, conditions of great severity- were demanded of him. It was not only required that the Erench king should renounce all pretensions to the collective empire of Spain, but that he should surrender Alsace and Strasburg ; and hard as this abasement must have appeared to the proud potentate, he would have accepted the conditions, had not his enemies added the degrading demand, that Louis should himself assist in driving his own grandson out of Spain. This appeared too severe to the Erench court, and the war continued. September But in the murderous battle of Malplaquet, Erance lost 11, 1709. more troops than in any previous engagement, and would have been compelled to accept peace under any conditions, had not Divine Providence now wished to chastise the insolence of others, that men might learn moderation. § 414. A quarrel between the proud and ambitious wife of Marl- borough and queen Anne, and the intrigues that sprung from it, had occasioned the exclusion of the duchess from the court, and the ex- pulsion of the Whig ministry by the Tories. The latter, with the celebrated statesman and writer Bolingbroke at their head, now wished for the termination of the war, in order that Marlborough, who was at the head of the opposite party, might be no longer indispen- 300 THE MODERN EPOCH. sable ; and ■with this object, entered into negotiations for peace -with France, which were brought to a more rapid termination A.D. lylO. by the death of the emperor Joseph I. without male heirs, in the following year, and by the succession of his brother, Charles, who was the intended inheritor of the Spanish monarchy. It could Charles VI. now De B0 longer the interest of the foreign powers to a.d. 1711 — add the territories of Spain to those of Austria, and thus to establish the supremacy of the house of Hapsburg in Europe. A truce between England and Spain, after the conclusion of which Marlborough lost all his offices, and was accused in parlia- May 11, ment of embezzlement, was the forerunner of the peace of ^IS- Utrecht. By this, the Spanish and American possessions were left to the Bourbon king, Philip V., under the condition, that the crowns of France and Spain were never to be united ; England received Nova Scotia and other possessions in North America from France ; and Gibraltar, and certain commercial advantages from Spain ; the duke of Savoy received the island of Sardinia and the title of king. The emperor and the German empire did not join in the peace of Utrecht, and continued the war for some time longer. But the em- peror quickly became convinced that he was unequal to conduct the war by himself for any lengthened period, and gave his consent to the peace of Rastadt, to which also the German empire 1714. acceded at Baden in the Aargau. By this, Austria ob- September, tained the Spanish Netherlands, and Milan, Naples, and 1714. Sicily, in Italy ; the electors of Bavaria and Cologne were a^ain restored to their lands and titles, and the royalty of Prussia generally acknowledged. September 1 § 415- France. — Louis XIV. died in the following 1714. year, weary of life, and borne down by severe strokes of fate. Within two years he had lost his son, his grandson, and his intellectual wife, and his eldest great-grandchild, so that his youngest Louis XV., great-grandchild, then five years of age, succeeded to the a.d. 1715— throne, under the title of Louis XV. During his minority 1774 • • the government was conducted by duke Philip of Orleans. Regent,' a.d. This prince, like his former preceptor, cardinal Dubois, 1715—1723. w hoin he raised to the ministry, Avas a man of intellect and talent, but of most profligate morals, who despised religion and virtue, and by his dissolute and voluptuous life outraged decency and morality, and squandered the revenues of the state. The bank, which was esta- blished by the Scotchman, Law, and which not only promised a high rate of interest, but held out hopes of vast profits in America, pro- duced an incredible intoxication of mind throughout all France, which the unprincipled regent and his companion well knew how to take advantage of. Almost all the gold coin flowed into the bank, and was SPAIN. ENGLAND. 301 exchanged for paper money, till at length a bankruptcy took place, which deprived thousands of their property, whilst the greedy mag- nates were enriched by the spofls. § 416. Spain. — The Spanish king, Philip V., was a weak prince, who was governed by women, and who at length fell entirely into melancholy, and surrendered the government of his empire to his am- bitious second wife, Elizabeth of Parma, and the intriguing Italian, Alberoni. These two contrived, by dint of war and intrigue, that Elizabeth's eldest son, Charles, should receive the kingdom of Naples and Sicdy ; and her second son, Philip, the dukedom of Parma, with Piacenza and Gruastalla. In this Avay, these states received Bourbon Ferdinand rulers. "When Phdip Y. sunk, full of trouble, into the VI., a.d. grave, he was succeeded by his son, Eerdinand VI., who 1740—1759. inherited his father's hypochondria, and at length sunk into an incurable melancholy, which, like that of Saul, could only be relieved by singing and playing on the harp ; hence the singer Eari- nelli obtained great influence at the court. § 417. England. — The free constitution of England obtained such George I. stability during the reigns of the kings of the house of a.d. 1714— Hanover, George I., II., III., that the personal character '"'' of the monarch exercised but little influence upon the course of events. The government, which was responsible to parlia- George II., ment, had more regard to the prosperity of the kingdom r™' ^ 2 ^ an( ^" ^° ^ ie g rea ^ ness °f the nation, than to the wishes of ' the court. It was for this reason that trade, industry, a.d. 1760— navigation, and prosperity, received an immense develop- 1820. ment. Under George I., who restored the Whigs to bis a.d. 1715-17- confidence, James (III.) Stuart attempted, with the aid of the discontented Tories (Jacobites), to regain the English throne ; but his undertaking failed, and involved his adherents in heavy penal- ties. The same thing took place in a second attempt, which was hazarded by James's son, Charles Edward, in the reign of George II. Aided by Erance, he landed in Scotland, where he found ugu ' ' numerous adherents among the gallant Highlanders. His first successes encouraged him to march upon England. But fortune soon forsook him. The battle of Culloden destroyed the ' hopes of the Stuarts for ever. Charles Edward, upon whose head the English government had set a price, was saved, as once Charles II. had been, by the friends and adherents of his house, in a wonderful and romantic manner. His abettors were proceeded against with frightful severity ; there was no end to executions and confiscations of property ; the prisons were filled with Jacobites from Edinburgh to London. 302 THE MODERN EPOCH. 2. CHARLES XII. 01? SWEDEN AND PETER THE GREAT OE RUSSIA IK THE NORTHERN WAR (1700 — 1718). § 418. Sweden and Russia. — At the commencement of the eighteenth century, Sweden stood at the highest point of her power. The possessions of the crown had been increased, and the treasury filled, by the prudence and frugality of Charles XI. ; the fleet and army were in good condition ; the coast lands of the Baltic, with the rich towns of Wismar, Stralsund, Stettin, Riga, and Reval ; and the effluxes of the "Weser, Oder, Dwina, and Neva, were included in the Swedish territory, and the site now occupied by St. Petersburg was a swampy hollow on Swedish land. In courage and military spirit the Swedes Avere inferior to none. But a powerful neighbour Imperial . . . x . ° . _ house of Ro- had arisen in the East since the Russians had united manof, a.d. anc l strengthened themselves under the rule of the house 1613 1730 , of Romanof, and now began to extend his frontiers in every direction. This Avas especially the case under Alexei Romanof Alexei, a.d. an d his two sons, Peodor and Peter. Alexei conquered 1645— 1G76. Smolensk and Severia, compelled the warlike and well- mounted Cossacks to acknowledge the supremacy of Russia, and encouraged the civilization and industry of the country ; but it was Feodor, a.d. Peodor who established the absolute power of the Tzars, by 1676 — 1682. destroying the genealogical registers upon which the noble families founded their pretensions. § 419. Peter the Great. — Peter the Great perfected that which Peter the ^ s predecessors had commenced. By his extensive tra- Great, a.d. vels through the countries of Europe, he made himself 1725. aC q ua i n ted with the customs of civilized nations, and with the advantages of a regular government ; by this means he obtained a love for civilization, and directed the whole of his efforts to convert Russia from an Asiatic state, which it had hitherto been, into an European one. With this object, he encouraged the immigration of foreign artizans, mariners, and officers into Russia, without regard to the hatred to foreigners entertained by his countrymen ; that he might himself be able to share their labours, he made himself ac- quainted with the art of ship-building in Holland and England, and inspected the workshops of artists and of the artizans of mills, dams, machinery, &c. An insurrection of the Strelitzes, produced by the exasperation occasioned by these innovations, was suppressed, and taken advantage of by the emperor for reforming the affairs of the army upon the European model. By the frightful punishments in- flicted upon the gudty, the hangings, headings, and breakings upon the wheel, which lasted for weeks, and in which the Tzar himself took a share, Peter showed that civilization had not penetrated his own heart. Despite all his efforts to introduce European refinement CHARLES XII. PETER THE GREAT. 303 into his dominions, and despite his European dress, which he com- manded to be worn by all his subjects, in manners, in mind, and in his mode of governing, he remained a barbarian, devoted to brandy, coarse in his desires, and frantic in his wrath. § 420. Poland under Frederick Augustus the Strong. — • Whilst Russia was raising and confirming her power, Poland, by her wild and ungoverned freedom, was progressing towards her downfall. After the death of the military king, John Sobieski, a furious contest arose respecting the election of another sovereign, from which Frederick Augustus, elector of Saxony, a prince distinguished for his bodily strength, as well as for gallantry and love of magnificence, at length came forth victorious. He was called to the throne of Poland, after having previously gone over to the Roman Catholic Church. But the Polish nobility, who alone were in possession of any political rights, whilst the pea- sants pined in serfdom, and the citizens were unable to raise them- selves from their subordinate position, had already so contracted the royal power, that the state had acquired the form of an aristocratic republic, in which the elected chief was little more than the executor of the resolutions of the Diet. § 421. "When Charles XII. ascended the throne at the age of Charles XII sateen years, the rulers of Russia, Poland, and Den- a.d. 1697 — mark, thought the time was arrived for depriving Sweden 1718. of the lands she had conquered. The Russian tzar, Peter the Great, wished to obtain a firm footing on the shores of the Baltic ; the elective king of Poland, Prederick Augustus the Strong, elector of Saxony, endeavoured to get possession of Livonia, and the Danish king, Prederick IV., attempted to wrest Schleswic from the duke of BZolstein-Gottorp, a brother-in-law of Charles XII. They accordingly concluded an alliance by the mediation of the Livonian, Patkul, after which, Prederick Augustus marched with a Saxon army to the fron- tiers of Livonia, and threatened Riga ; whilst the Russians attacked Esthonia and besieged Narva ; and the Danish king waged war with the duke of Holstein-Grottorp. But to the astonishment of Europe the young king of Sweden, who had hitherto been looked upon as obtuse and of weak intellects, suddenly displayed a lively and ener- getic spirit and distinguished military talents. Enraged at the un- principled attempts of his enemies, he rapidly crossed over to the island of Zealand with his gallant army, commenced at once the siege of Copenhagen, and spread such terror among the Danes, that Prederick IV. renounced the alliance against the Swedes, in the peace of Travendal, and promised to indemnify the duke of BZolstein. Hereupon, Charles directed his arms against his other opponents. On the 30th of November, with 8000 Swedes, he defeated a force of the Russians of ten 301 THE MODERN EPOCH. times that number, before Narva, and captured a number of cannon and a large quantity of ammunition. He then marched across Li- vonia and Courland into Poland, repeatedly defeated the united armies of Saxony and Poland, and took one town after the other. _ M The trembling citizens of Warsaw surrendered him the a.d. 1702. . . keys of their capital, and paid the military levies imposed upon them ; Cracow fell into his hands, and the fertile plains of the Vistula, with Thorn, Elbing, and Dantzic were soon in the power of the Swedes. Charles now demanded of the Poles that they should depose their king, Frederick Augustus, and undertake a AD 1 70^ new election ; and despite the resistance of the nobility, the Swedish king, supported by the Polish party spirit, compelled the required deposition, and obtained the election of Stanislaus Lescinski, voiwode of Posen, a creature of his own, in an elective assembly which was surrounded by Swedish soldiers. § 422. After a few difficult campaigns in the southern provinces of Poland, where the Swedish king, despite the boggy soil and the poverty of the country, drove back the superior foi*ces of the enemy, Charles determined upon seeking his opponent, Frederick Augustus, in his own territories. Without asking permission of the emperor he marched across Silesia into Lusatia, and was soon in the heart of Saxony, which, notwithstanding the severe military discipline of Charles, was dreadfully mishandled by the hostile force. The inhabit- ants of the plains fled into the towns, the royal family sought refuge in the neighbouring state. Augustus, for the sake of saving his land, gave his consent to the disgraceful peace of Altranstadt, by which he September 24, was engaged to renounce the crown of Poland for hhnself 1706. and his posterity, to dissolve his alliance with the tzar, and to give up the Livonian, Patkul, to the king of Sweden, who put him to a cruel death upon the wheel. Nevertheless, the hostfle army still remained for a whole year in Saxony, to the great detriment of the country, which suffered from the extravagance of the court of Dresden, as well as by the quartering of troops and military levies. Whilst the estates consented with sighs to the heavy taxes, and the impoverished peasant was almost starving, the elector gave one mag- nificent court banquet after the other, and squandered enormous sums upon his country-seats. What did not the entertainment and support of the mistresses and illegitimate children of the gallant prince cost ! Charles XII. was a remarkable contrast to this luxurious and frivolous prince. He possessed the nature of a perfect soldier ; his temperance was so great that he refrained from all spiri- tuous liquors, and whilst in the field, contented himself with the slender rations of the army ; he wore the same plain dress both in summer and winter — a long soldier's frock, with brass buttons, and CHARLES XII. PETER THE GREAT. 305 large horseman's boots ; during a march or in battle, he subjected himself to the greatest toils, privations, and dangers ; he avoided the company of women; the only thing that possessed any charms for him was the military life and its dangers ; the noise of battle, the whistling of balls, the neigh of the war-horse, were more congenial to him than operas, court-banquets, and concerts. § 423. Whilst Charles XII. was lingering in Poland and Saxony, Peter the Great was making preparations for subjecting the posses- sions of Sweden on the Baltic, and adding them to his own dominions. He built the fortresses of Schliisselburg and Kronstadt, had the swampy hollows of the Neva drained by serfs after unspeakable ex- _ ertions, and laid the foundation of the new residence, St. Petersburg. Nobles, merchants, artisans and their fami- lies, from Moscow and other cities, were compelled to settle there, and foreigners were encouraged to emigrate thither. Had Charles XII., when he at length left Saxony to turn his arms against the last and greatest of his foes, chosen the lands of the Baltic for the scene of his military operations, Peter's new plans and creations might easily have been destroyed ; but fortunately for him, Charles decided to march upon Moscow, and to penetrate into the heart of the Russian dominions. He captured Grodno and Wilno, crossed the Beresina in June, and pursued his course towards Smolensk. No Russian army opposed the fool-hardy king, who, at the head of his gallant forces, waded through streams and marched across pathless morasses. But now came the turning point in the life of Charles. Instead of waiting for his general, Lowenhaupt, who was on his way to join him with fresh troops, and with clothing and provisions for the exhausted army, he suffered himself to be persuaded by the old Cossack chief, Mazeppa, to undertake a toilsome march in the woody and desert Ukraine. Lowenhaupt, attacked by a su- perior force of Russians, despite his distinguished military talents, was obliged to sacrifice the whole of his artillery, his baggage, and his provisions, to enable himself, with a small host, to reach the king, who was restlessly hastening forward. The autumnal rains were followed by an unusually severe winter, in the course of which, many hardy warriors perished of cold, and the hands and feet of thousands became frost-bitten. At length Charles advanced to the siege of the strong city of Pultowa, which, however, was pro- tracted by the want of artillery till Peter himself approached with a vast army. The battle of Pultowa, which terminated in u y ' ' the total defeat of the Swedish army, was now fought ; all the baggage and the rich military chest fell into the hands of the enemy, and the surviving officers and soldiers were made prisoners. Charles XII., the once proud conqueror of three kings, was now a helpless fugitive, who by his utmost exertions barely succeeded in x 30G THE MODERN EPOCH. saving himself with about 2000 followers, in a foodless and shelter- less desert in the dominions of Turkey. Lowenhaupt collected the remainder of the fugitives, hut as retreat was impossible from the want of provisions and artillery, he was obliged to surrender himself with 16,000 men. Not one of these brave warriors ever revisited his home ; they were dispersed over the vast empire, and some died in the mines of Siberia, others as beggars on the highways. Thus perished this heroic band, as admirable in their endurance as in their triumphs. § 424. Charles XII. was honourably received and generously treated by the Turks. In his camp before Bender, he lived in royal fashion as the guest of the sultan. But the thought of returning as a vanquished man, without an army, to his kingdom was unendurable to his haughty soul. He wished to persuade the Turks to a war with Russia, and then to march at their head through the territories of his enemy. Whilst he was wasting his time and ener- gies at Bender in furtherance of this project, and employing every means to gain over the Turks to his plans, his three opponents renewed their former alliance ; iipon which, Frederick Augustus again made himself master of the throne of Poland, the tzar Peter extended his conquests to the Baltic, and the king of Denmark again took possession of Schleswic. Prussia and Hanover, also, soon united themselves and seized irpon the Swedish possessions in Germany. At length, the plans of Charles seemed about to succeed. A Turkish army marched into Moldavia, and reduced the tzar to so critical a position on the Pruth, that he and his whole army were 'in great danger of becoming prisoners of war. But Peter's wife, Catherine, who, from a slave of the Russian minister, Menzikoff, had become empress of all the Russias, found means to corrupt the Turkish army, and to bring about the conclusion of a peace. Charles XII. foamed with rage at finding the end he thought so near now farther removed than ever. He however still adhered to his purpose, and even remained at Bender after the Porte had with- drawn its hospitality, discontinued the supplies of money it had hitherto furnished, and commanded him to quit the Turkish territory. He allowed the Porte to supply money for Ins journey and neverthe- less remained. At length the janisaries stormed his camp, set fire to the house in which he defended himself like a Hon, and took him prisoner as he made a furious sally. But he still remained ten months longer in captivity in Turkey, and wasted his strength in childish obstinacy. Was it to be wondered that people at length began to look upon him as deranged ? It was not untd news was brought him that his possessions in Germany, as far as Stralsund, were in the hands of the enemy, that lie suddenly quitted Turkey, after a residence of five years, and arrived unexpectedly before the CHARLES XII. PETER THE GREAT. 307 October, gates of Stralsund, after a journey of fourteen days, per- 1711. formed on horseback without the slightest interruption. § 425. Stralsund was defended by dint of the greatest exertions December, f° r upwards of a year by the brave Swedes ; at length the 1715. c ity was compelled to yield, whereupon Pomerania, with the island of Eugen, fell into the hands of the Prussians. But still the obstinate king would not listen to a peace. By the advice of the intriguing Baron von Grdrz, he caused paper money to be prepared to defray the expenses of his new preparations for war, and without awaiting the result of the negotiations that Gorz had entered into with the Eussian emperor, he fell upon Norway with two divisions of his army, for the purpose of chastising the king of Denmark for his breach of the peace. It was here that Charles met with his death before the fortress of Friedrichshall, which he was besieging in the midst of winter. As he was leaning at night upon a breastwork, inspecting the operations in the trenches, he was killed by a bullet, which came, apparently, from the hand of an assassin. The Swedish nobility now assumed all the power to them- December 11, selves, excluded the rightful heir to the throne (Frederick !718. of Holstein-G-ottorp) from the government, and presented it, under great restrictions, to Charles's younger sister, Ulrica Eleo- nora, and her husband, Frederick of Hesse-Cassel. From this time forth, Sweden was a monarchy in nothing but name ; the power was all in the hands of a senate of nobles. The barbarous execution of the count Gorz, and the hasty conclusion of a succession of treaties of peace, by which Sweden, in return for an indem- nification in money, gave up all her foreign possessions, with the exception of a small portion of Pomerania, was the commencement of the government of a selfish aristocracy, who cared nothing for the honour or well-being of the country. § 426. Whilst Sweden, broken and exhausted, was thus escaping from the contest, Eussia was rishig into European importance. The acquisition of the Swedish provinces of Ingria, Esthonia, and Livonia, to which Comiand was also added a few decades later, was the com- mencement of a new epoch for Eussia. As long as Moscow had remained the capital city, the views of the tzars had been directed towards Asia, to the inhabitants and customs of which the Eussians were more assimilated than to those of Europe ; but since Petersburg, which lay nearer to the civilization of the west, had become the seat of the government, and risen into importance by the magnificence of its plan and of its buildings, Eussia had become a European empire. The restless activity of the great emperor produced a total revolu- tion. Trade and navigation were encouraged by the formation of roads, canals, and harbours ; internal industry, trades, manufactories, and mining met with special encouragement ; and even learning and a x2 30S THE MODERN EPOCH. higher grade of refinement were provided for by the foundation of an academy of sciences. The government and police were also remodelled upon the pattern of other free states, so that the power of the emperor was increased and that of the nobles (Boyards) diminished. One of the innovations of Peter the Great which was followed by the most important consequences, was the abolition of the dignity of Patriarch, and the creation of the sacred synod as the chief ecclesi- astical court, to which the emperor communicated his orders. § 427. "Whilst Peter was thus reforming his kingdom, he saw, with grief, that his only son, Alexei, was disinclined to the alterations, restricted his intercourse entirely to the friends of the old system, and cherished the intention of again removing his residence to Mos- cow. It was in vain that the emperor attempted to bend the stub- born and defiant spirit of his son, and to make him a friend to Euro- pean civilization ; Alexei retained his opinions, and at length disap- peared from the kingdom. Upon this, Peter, anxious for the per- manence of his institutions, ordered his son to be arrested, brought home as a prisoner, and condemned to death. Whether a d 1722 Alexei was put to death, or whether he died before the execution of the sentence, is disputed. An Ukase declared the ap- pointment of a successor to the throne to be dependent upon the Catherine I. wu l °f the reigning emperor. After Peter's death, his a.d. 1725— w ife, Catherine I., succeeded him in the government. Under her and her successor, Peter II., Menzikoff, who a.d 1727— had risen from the lowest condition to be the favourite 1730. of the emperor and an all-powerful minister, exercised the greatest influence upon the government. But he was overthrown at the moment when he imagined that he was about to marry his daughter to the young emperor, and ended his days in exile in Siberia. Anna, a.d. Anna, the successor of Peter II., reposed her confidence 1730—1740. m two energetic Germans, Ostermann and Munnich, of whom the former was at the head of the cabinet, the latter conducted and arranged the affairs of the army. But these, as well as Anna's favourite, Biron, who was to have managed the government after her Elizabeth, death, were banished to Siberia, when Elizabeth, the a.d. 1741— youngest daughter of Peter the Great, was raised to the throne by a revolution in the palace. Ivan, a child one year old, whom Anna had named her successor, was thrown into prison, where he grew up like a brute without the slightest education. Elizabeth gave herself up to a voluptuous and profligate life, and relinquished the government to her favourites. § 428. Under Frederick Augustus II., the love of magnificence, the luxury and debauchery that prevailed in Dresden, penetrated into Poland, and destroyed the remaining moral power of the nobles. New \ ices were associated to the old ones, and proved the more pernicious, RISE OF PRUSSIA. 309 inasmuch as the Polish nobility possessed merely the outward polish of European civilization, and that inward barbarism and sensual ex- citability were united with refinement. Frivolity, arrogance, and religi- ous intolerance were now more prevalent in Poland than ever. The Jesuits succeeded in depriving the Polish Dissidents of their civil and religious privileges by an extraordinary Diet, and when the general hatred broke forth in a popular insurrection hi the Protestant town of Thorn against the Jesuitical colleges, the burgo- master was put to death and the town severely punished. After the death of Frederick Augustus II. arose the Polish war of succession. Stanislaus Lescinski (who, flying from Poland after the a.d. 1733. battle f p u itowa, § 423, had wandered in poverty about Alsacia, till he was dehvered from want by the marriage of his daugh- ter with Louis XV.) again made claims to the crown, and, trusting to aid from Prance, travelled in disguise to "Warsaw. But Russia and Austria supported the claim of Frederick Augustus III. of Saxony. F , . , Stanislaus, although acknowledged by the majority of the Augustus, a.d. Polish nation, was obliged to yield the field to his opponent 1733—1703. w h en the Russian army, under the conduct of Mlinnich, marched into Poland. He fled in the dress of a peasant to Konigsburg, and from thence to France. After some time, however, a peace was concluded which was extremely favourable both to France and Stanislaus. "When the house of Medici was nearly extinct in Florence, the emperor Charles VI. wished his son-in-law, Francis Stephen, to exchange his hereditary dukedom of Lorraine for Tuscany, so that the former might devolve upon Stanislaus, and, after his death, upon France. Charles VI. made this sacrifice to secure the accession of the French king to the Pragmatic Sanction (§ 432). Stanislaus Lescinski lived for twenty-nine years after this in Nancy, a benefactor of the poor, and a patron of the arts and sciences. But Poland, under the govern- ment of the weak and indolent Frederick Augustus III. was approach- ing every day nearer to its dissolution. 3. RISE OF PEUSSIA. Frederick § 429, Frederick William, the great elector of Bran- William, a.d. denburg, enlarged his territories on the east and west by 1640—1688. guccess f u i warSj an a secured the lofty position of his state by the formation of a considerable army ; he, at the same time, encouraged the internal prosperity and civilization of his dominions, by giving efficient aid to industry and the arts of peace, and by favouring immigration from civilized foreign countries, especially that of the French Huguenots, into his own states. After this energetic and sagacious prince followed his splendour-loving son, elector 310 THE MODERN EPOCH. Frederick III. Frederick HI., to whom the outward magnificence with as king. which Louis XIV. had surrounded the court of Ver- Frederick I., saillcs appeared the greatest triumph of earthly majesty. 1713 . ~~ -^ e accor dhigly attached the highest importance to a splendid court and magnificent feasts. He looked with envy upon the electors of Hanover and Saxony, who had obtained that, which, in his eyes, was the most inestimable of possessions — a royal crown, the former in England (§ 399), the latter in Poland (§ 420) ; and great was his joy Avhen the emperor Leopold showed him- self disposed to confer upon him the title of king of Prussia, in return for his assurances of vigorous support in the Spanish war of succession. After a solemn coronation in Konigsburg, in which the elector placed the crown upon his own head and upon that of his wife, and after a succession of splendid banquets, the new king, Frederick I., held a magnificent entry into Berlin, which he attempted to render a suitable residence for royalty, by public buildings, pleasure grounds, and monuments of art. The arts and sciences were encouraged. In the country seat of Charlottenberg, where the highly accomplished queen Sophia Charlotte held her gra- cious rule, there was always an assemblage of distinguished and intel- lectual people. Societies for the cidtivation of the arts and sciences were established in Berlin under the auspices of the great philosopher Leibnitz ; a flourishing university arose in Halle, distinguished by a noble freedom of spirit, and became the scene of the labours of such men as Christopher Thomasius, the powerful advocate of reason, and of the G-erman language and mode of thinking, the pious Hermann Franke, the founder of the orphan asylum, that " trophy of trust in Cod and love to men," and the philosopher, Christopher Wolf. § 430. This expenditure, combined with the support of a consider- able army in the sendee of the emperor, pressed hard upon the im- poverished land ; the citizen and peasant class were oppressed with heavy taxes ; the new splendour of the royal house appeared to be full of evil for the country ; fortunately, the extravagant Frederick I. was F d ' kWil succee ded by the frugal Frederick William I., who was liam I., a.d. in every thing the counterpart of his predecessor. The 1713 -1740. j ewe i s an( j costly furniture that had been collected by the father were sold by the son, who paid the debts with the proceeds ; every thing in the shape of luxury was banished from the court, the attendants were reduced to those that were absolutely necessary, and every superfluous expense avoided. The king and his court lived like citizens, the meals consisted of household fare, and the queen and her daughter were obliged to occupy themselves in domestic duties. The clothing and furniture were simple. The smoking-club, in which Frederick William and his "good friends" practised coarse RISE OF PRUSSIA. 311 jests at the expense of the simple or good-natured, and where every one was obliged to have a pipe in his mouth, usurped the place of the intellectual circle with which Frederick I. and his wife had surrounded themselves ; the opera-singers and actors were discharged ; French beaux esprits, as well as teachers of languages and dancing, were banished ; poets, artists, and men of learning were deprived of their pensions in part or entirely ; Wolf, whose philosophy was offensive to the orthodox and pious, received notice to quit Halle within twenty- four hours, "under penalty of the rope." But offensive as this severity and coarseness on the part of the king might be, as well as his contempt for all cvdtivation, learning, and refinement, it must ' nevertheless be confessed that his powerful nature, his sound judg- ment, and his sparing housekeeping gave strength and firmness to the young state. He relieved the peasants for the purpose of raising agriculture ; he encouraged internal industry, and forbade the impor- tance of foreign manufactures ; he settled the Protestants who had been driven from their houses by the bishop of Salsburg in his own dominions ; and although his severity was occasionally exercised at the expense of personal freedom, it also compelled judges and officials to an efficient performance of their duties. The king's own example affords a proof of how much may be effected by frugality and good management ; for although he spent enormous sums upon his Potsdam guards, for which he had "long fellows" enlisted or kidnapped from all the countries of Europe, and although he called many xiseful insti- tutions into existence, he left, at his death, a sum of money amount- ing to 8,000,000 thalers, a great treasure in silver plate, a regulated revenue, and a large and admirably organized and disciplined army. § 431. His great son, Frederick II. pursued a different path ; whilst his father was engaged in his wild hunting parties or pursuing Bom January bis coarse amusements with his companions, the talented 24, 1712. an d. intellectual prince was busied with the writers of France, and with his flute, which he passionately loved. The differ- ence of their dispositions rendered them strangers to each other. Frederick was offended by his father's harshness, and the latter was angry witli his son for pursuing a different course, and would willingly have forced him from it by severity. This coldness and aversion increased with years ; so that Frederick, when his father, out of caprice, refused to sanction his intended marriage with an English princess, embraced the resolution with a few young friends of flying to England. An intercepted letter of Frederick's to his confidant, the lieutenant von Katte, revealed the secret. The king foamed with rage. He commanded the crown prince to be brought to a fortress, and Katte to be executed before the windows ; all those who were suspected of being implicated were severely punished by the irritated monarch. It was not until Frederick had 312 THE MODERN EPOCH. penitently implored his father's pardon, that he was released from the fortress, and had his sword and uniform restored to him. Shortly after this, followed the marriage of Frederick with a daughter of the princely house of Braunschweig-Bevern. But his spirit found little pleasure in the narrow bounds of domestic life ; he seldom visited his wife, especially after his father had re- linquished the little town of Bheinsberg to him, where, from this time, he led a cheerful life amidst a circle of intellectual, accom- plished, and free-thinking friends, in which wit, jest, and lively con- versation alternated with grave and diversified studies. He read the works of the ancients in Trench translations, and derived from them a noble ambition of emulating the heroes of Greece and Borne in their mighty deeds and their mental cultivation ; he admired French literature, and conceived such a veneration for Voltaire, that he addressed the most flattering letters to him, and, at a later period, summoned him to his presence. They were both however soon con- vinced that no personal intercourse could long endure between men of such similarly sarcastic natures, and separated from each other in anger ; a correspondence was nevertheless still kept up in writing. Frederick displayed his free way of thinking by receiving a number of French authors who had been banished from France on account of the hostility of their writings to the Church ; and, after his ascension of the throne, proved the liberality of his views in regard to religion, by recalling "Wolf to Halle, with the well- known expression, " that in his kingdom every man might be happy in his own way." 4. THE TIMES OE EREDERICK II. AND MARIA THERESA. a. THE AUSTRIAN WAR OE SUCCESSION (a.D. 1740 — 1748). § 432. The emperor Charles VI., a good-natured but in no ways distinguished prince, died shortly after the ascension of Frederick II., September having, however, concluded the disgraceful peace of Bel- 18, 1739. grade with the Turks previous to his death. As he had no male heirs, it had been his anxious care throughout his whole reign, to secure the succession of his only daughter, Maria Theresa, wife of Francis Stephen of Lorraine, to the hereditary states of Aus- tria. With this object, he purchased, by great sacrifices, the acknow- ledgment from all the courts of the domestic law known as the Prag- matic Sanction, by virtue of which, the Austrian hereditary lands remained undivided, aud, in the event of the male line becoming extinct, descended upon the female branch. Scarcely had the emperor closed his eyes, before Charles Albert, elector of Bavaria, who was descended from the eldest daughter of the emperor Ferdinand I., made claims upon* the Austrian patrimonial states, not only in l-ight of his descent, but upon some pretended testamentary intentions of FREDERICK II. MARIA THERESA. 313 the emperor. Charles Albert, who was a weak, narrow-minded man, devoted to superstition and ostentation, would not have been in a position to make his claims valid by the resources of his exhausted land, had not the French court, despite its acknowledgment of the Pragmatic Sanction, supported him with money and troops, in the hope of thereby rendering the emperor and the German nation dependent upon France. In the treaty of JNymphenberg the Bavarian elector sold himself to France, as his predecessor, Charles Emanuel (§ 410) had done before, for gold for his vanity, and troops for the acquisition of the throne. Frederick II. of Prussia, however, was not willing to let slip the favourable opportunity of urging the established pretensions of his family to the inheritance of the Silesian princi- palities of Jagendorf, Leignitz, Brieg, and "Wohlau, and accordingly supported the Bavarian elector in his claims upon Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia, and in his suit for the imperial crown. Saxony, also, would not relinquish her share of the expected booty ; the indolent and stupid Augustus III., who left his government entirely in the hands of the extravagant and unprincipled coivnt Briihl, raised claims to Moravia, and brought inexpressible misery upon his wretched and heavily oppressed country by his participation in the war. October 10, § 433. A few weeks after the death of Charles YI., 1740. Frederick II. marched with his admirable army into Silesia. The king himself accompanied his troops, more for the sake of learning the art of war, and of exciting the courage of the soldiers by his presence, than with any purpose of assuming the chief com- mand, which he rather relinquished to the two experienced generals, a.d. 1740 Schwerin and Leopold of Dessau. This first Sdesian war 1742. soon showed that a fresh spirit had come over the Prus- April 10, sians. After their victory in the battle of Molwitz, they 1 ? 41 - took possession of the greater part of Upper and Lower Silesia. The French army, under Belleisle, shortly after marched into Ger- many, and being supported by Bavaria and Saxony, made themselves masters of the territories of Upper Austria and Bohemia. Charles October, Albert received homage as archduke in Linz, and was in- 1741. vested with the royal crown of Bohemia at Prague, in the midst of magnificent coronation banquets. He now stood at the Charles VII., summ it of his happiness. The election of emperor had a.d. 1741— terminated in his favour, and he was already making pre- parations for a splendid coronation in Frankfurt. § 434. In this distress, Maria Theresa turned towards the Hun- garians. At a Diet in Presburg (where, according to a widely-circu- lated legend, she is said to have appeared with her young son, Joseph, in her arms) she excited such an enthusiasm among the magnates by the description of her distresses, and by gracious promises, that they 314 THE MODERN EPOCH. rose up with an unanimous shout of " Vivat Maria Tlieresa Rex," and called their warlike countrymen to arms. The Tyrolese also, in a similar manner, announced their ancient truthfulness to Austria. A gallant force soon marched into the field from the lowlands of Hun- gary. The warldce tribes of the Theiss and the Marosch, the wild bands of the Croats, Slaves, and Pandours, under the conduct of Khevenhiiller and Barenklau (Pereklo), marched into Austria, drove back the Bavarian and French troops with little difficulty, and pressed forward, plundering and ravaging, into Bavaria. At the very moment at which Charles Albert, by French assistance, and in the midst of splendid banquets, was invested with the much-coveted imperial January 24, crown, the enemy entered his capital, Munich, occupied 1742. Landshut, and foraged the country as far as the Lech with their wild horsemen. Deprived of his hereditary possessions, the new emperor, Charles VII., was soon reduced to such extremities that he could only support himself by the assistance of France. § 435. At the same time, an Austrian army marched into Bohemia to drive the French out of this country also ; and Maria Theresa, to deprive them of the assistance of the Prussians, consented, though with a heavy heart, to the peace of Breslau, by which ' almost the whole of Upper and Lower Silesia was sur- rendered to Frederick. In a short time, the greater portion of Bo- hemia was again in the hands of the Austrians ; the capital, where Belleisle lay with a considerable army, was already besieged. At this juncture, Belleisle, by his daring retreat from Prague to Eger, in the midst of winter, showed that the military spirit of the French was not yet extinguished. The road was indeed strewed with dead or torpid bodies, and even those who escaped bore the seeds of death within them. In the following spring, Maria Theresa was crowned in Prague, and at the same time acquired a powerful con- federate in George II. of Hanover and England. After June 27 1743. . " the battle of Dettingen (near Aschaffenburg), where the English and Austrian troops bore off the victory, the French retreated over the Rhine, and Saxony embraced the cause of Austria and received subsidies from England. § 436. The success of the Austrians rendered Frederick II. anxious for the possession of SUesia, and he therefore commenced a second a.d. 1744, Silesian war against Maria Theresa. Whilst he was 1745. hastily advancing upon Bohemia, as a confederate of the emperor, with a strong army of imperial auxiliaries, Charles VII. found an opportunity of regaining his hereditary territory of Bavaria, January 20, au( l °f returning to his capital, Munich, where, however, 1745. he shortly after died. His son, Maximilian Joseph, renounced all claim to the Austrian heritage in the treaty of Fiissen, and at the election of emperor, gave his voice THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. 315 for the husband of Maria Theresa, whereupon the latter was crowned in Frankfurt as Francis I. In the mean while, Frederick II. had lost the greater part of Silesia to the brave Austrian field-marshal, Traun, but the splendid victory of Hohenfriedberg again restored him the superiority. The military renown of the Prussian monarch, and of his generals, Ziethen, Winterfeld, and others, had spread far and wide, and prince Ferdinand of Brunswick gave the first proof of his talents as a general at Sorr. "When the old Dessauer conquered the Saxons in the midst of winter, in the bloody field of Kesselsdorf, and Frederick marched into the capital of Dres- December25, den, which had been deserted by Augustus III., Maria 1745. Theresa, in the peace of Dresden, again consented to the ncis I., cession of Silesia; and Frederick, in return, acknowledged a.d. 1745— ,,.',' ' ' 6 1765. her husband as emperor. § 437. The war, which was ended in Grermany, continued for some time longer in the Netherlands. It was here that the French, imder the conduct of the talented and brave, but unmoral and dissolute, marshal of Saxony, a natural son of Frederick Augustus II., gained a a.d. 1745 succession of splendid victories in the battles of Fonte- 1747- noy, Paucoux, and Laffeld, by which the Austrian Nether- lands fell almost entirely into their power. But as the exhausted states were all longing for a cessation of hostilities, the 20 1748. peace of Aix was at length arranged, by which the Aus- trian hereditary territories were awarded to Maria Theresa, with the exception of Silesia, which remained with Prussia, and a few possessions in Italy, which she gave up to Sardinia and to the Spanish- Bourbon prince, Philip (§ 416). The other states resumed their former relations, and France gained nothing by this expensive war but military renown. b. THE SEVEN tears' wae (a.d. 1756 1763). § 438. Maria Theresa could not forget the loss of Silesia. She therefore took advantage of the eight years of peace that followed the conclusion of the Austrian war of succession, to form alliances that produced important consequences. Russia's dissolute empress, Eliza- beth, offended by the sarcasms of Frederick, was easily induced by her minister, Bestucheff, to enter into a confederation with Maria Theresa ; as was also Augustus III. of Saxony by count Briihl, who likewise felt himself injmed by the scorn with which the great king always spoke of him. But it was a master-stroke of crafty policy that Maria Theresa, by her shrewd and dexterous minister, Kaunitz, induced the court of Versailles to renounce the ancient policy of France, which had always been directed to weakening the house of Hapsburg, and to unite itself with Austria against Prussia. For many years past, Louis XV. had allowed himself to be led into a profligate 316 THE MODERN EPOCH. course of life by the pleasure-seeking and dissolute nobles. In the society of his licentious favourites and shameless mistresses, he gave himself up entirely to his sensual nature, and plunged from one plea- sure into another. In the excesses of the table, and the joys of the chase and the bottle, he forgot his kingdom and the welfare of his people. Maria Theresa made use of these circumstances for her own advantage. The proud empress, who stood upon her morality and virtue, descended so far as to write a nattering letter to Louis's all-powerful mistress, the marquise Pompadour, for the purpose of winning her over to her interest. An alliance was accordingly entered into, by means of the Pompadour and her creatures, by France and Austria, the object of which was to deprive the king of Prussia of his September, conquests, and to reduce him again to the condition of 1751. an elector of Brandenburg. § 439. Frederick, who received accurate information of all the plots laid against him from a secretary of Braid's, whom he had corrupted, determined to anticipate his enemies by an unexpected attack. He fell suddenly upon Saxony, took possession of Leipsic, "Wittenberg, and Dresden, which had been deserted by the court, and established the Prussian form of govern- ment. The taxes and all the public rents were seized, the magazines thrown open to the Prussian army, and the arms and artillery sent to Magdeburg. For the purpose of justifying these proceedings he published the documents which he had discovered in Dresden, and which contained the plans of his opponents. The Saxon troops, who had taken up a strong position at Pirna, on the Elbe, were blockaded by the Prussians, and compelled by hunger to surrender. 14,000 gallant warriors were made prisoners. Frederick compelled them to enter the Prussian service ; but they fled in troops at the first oppor- tunity into Poland, where the Saxon court remained during the whole war. Frederick lingered in Dresden, and exacted heavy contributions in money and recruits from the conquered country, for which, war was declared against him by the German empire, for breach of the Land-peace ; and the aristocratic government of Sweden, which only acted according to the instigations of France, also joined the enemies of Prussia. It was only England and a few German states (Hanover, Brunswick, Hesse- Cassel, Gotha) that adhered to the cause of Frederick. § 440. In the spring of the following year, Frederick marched with his chief force towards Bohemia, whilst his allies advanced against the French, who were between the Ehine and the Weser. By the gallant efforts of his troops, and by the heroic courage Ma G 1757 an< ^ ner oic aca th of Schwerin, Frederick won the splendid June 18 ^ Jut ^ ear ^ bought victory of Prague. But no later than the following month, the defeat at Collin by the brave Austrian THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. 317 field-marshal Daun, deprived the Prussian king of all his advantages. His melancholy hoth before and after the day of Collin gave evidence of the weight of care by which he was oppressed. A short time after, the Trench also gained a victory over Frederick's allies at U y ' Hastenbeck, on the Weser, and prepared to take up their Avinter quarters in Saxony along with the German imperial army. The prince of Soubise, a favourite of madame Pompadour, and a con- fidential associate in the orgies of Louis XV., was already on the Saale with a large army, when Frederick made an unexpected attack, and in the battle of Rosbach gained a most splendid victory. The imperial army fled so hastily at the very commence- ment of the battle, that it received the name of the Runaway Army from the jests of the witty ; the French soon followed, abandoning their baggage, which was rich in articles of luxury and fashion. Seyd- litz, the leader of the cavalry, had particularly distinguished himself. A month later, the Prussian king also won a famous vie- tory from Daun, in the battle of Beuthen, and again oc- cupied Silesia. But in the mean time, the miseries of war pressed heavily upon poor Germany ; Hanover, Brunswick, and Hesse- Cassel, in particular, were harshly treated by the extravagant and dissolute duke of Richelieu, by exactions and military levies. § 441. Since the battle of Rosbach, Frederick had been no less the idol of the people in England, than in France and Germany. The English ministry, in which the elder Pitt (Lord Chatham) possessed the greatest influence, accordingly determined to support the king of Prussia more liberally with troops and money ; and to leave the appointment of generals in his hands. He named the circumspect Ferdinand of Brunswick the leader of the allied force, who drove back the French over the Rhine in the commencement of the spring, and secured the north of Germany against their predatory inroads. In the mean while, the Russians, under Bestucheff, had penetrated as far as the Oder ; but as this general behaved in a very ambiguous maimer during a dangerous illness of the empress Elizabeth, he was banished, and Fermor appointed in his stead. The latter occupied East Prussia, compelled Konigsburg to do homage, and advanced with his wild hordes, ravaging and plundering, into Brandenburg. Hereupon, Frederick executed a masterly march upon the Oder, and, in the bloody battle of Zorndorf, gained a victory that was certainly dearly purchased. After this, Frederick wished to march into Saxony to the assistance of his brother Henry ; but being surprised in an unfavourable position by the superior force of Daun, he lost the whole of his artillery and many brave soldiers in the attack at Hochkirck. He nevertheless 318 THE MODERN EPOCH. effected a juncture -with Henry by a dexterous march, and again drove the enemy out of Silesia and Saxony. § 442. Frederick's means of continuing the war began to dwindle. Whilst he was with difficulty filling up the gaps hi his ranks by oppressive levies of young and inexperienced recruits, and could only supply his want of money and necessaries by severe war-taxes and imposts, Maria Theresa was constantly receiving fresh supplies of money and men from France and Russia. For the purpose of preventing the union of the Russians and Austrians, Frederick advanced to the Oder, but was so completely defeated by the Austrians under their skilful general, Laudon, in the August 12, bloody engagement of Kunersdorf, after he had already 1759. victoriously repulsed the Russians, that he began to despair of a successful termination of the war. Dresden, and the greater part of Saxony was lost to the Prussians. But the want of union between the Russians and Austrians prevented the proper ad- vantage being taken of the victory. In the mean time, the allies of Frederick, under Ferdinand of Brunswick, had been more successfully engaged against the French. It is true, that Broglio had obtained April 13, the advantage in the battle of Bergen at Frankfurt-on-the 1759. Main, but Ferdinand's victory at Minden drove back the French over the Rhine, and saved Westphalia and Hanover. § 443. The war had already so weakened the Prussian army, that the king, contrary to his usual custom, was compelled to remain on the defensive. It is true that Frederick's name, and the dexterity of his recruiting officers, brought troops of soldiers from all quarters to the Prussian standard ; but even Frede- rick's military talents could not entirely replace the loss of expert officers and veteran troops. To defray the expenses of the war he was obliged to have recourse to the most oppressive taxes and to a debased coinage. Whilst Frederick was in Saxony, the brave Fou- quet, the friend of the king, suffered a defeat in Silesia, in consequence of which the Austrians took possession of the whole country. Upon this, Frederick relinquished Saxony, that he might again conquer Sdesia. He gained this obiect bv the victory over Laudon August 15. at Leignitz on the Katzback ; but he was unable to pre- vent the Austrian and Russian troops from breaking into the march, taking possession of Berlin, and visiting the hereditary lands of the king with plunder and desolation. Daun now occupied a strong position on an eminence near the Elbe, for the purpose of wintering in Saxony. To prevent this, Frederick hazarded a desperate attack upon Daun's camp, though his brave soldiers fell in crowds before t the artillery. By the dearly bought victory of Torgau, which was gained by the assistance of Ziethen, the Prus- THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. 319 sian king again regained Saxony, and could make, his winter quarters in Leipsic : but 14,000 of his soldiers required no shelter ; Daun's camp had been their burial place. § 444. (1761—1763.) In the year 1761 it appeared that Frederick must succumb before the disasters that were pouring in upon him on all sides, for not only had his numerous enemies taken possession of a great part of his lands, but England, after the accession of George III., had refused all farther assistance. Frederick indeed resisted with vigour the enemies that were pressing upon him, but his melan- choly and despondency are betrayed in his letters to his friends, and in his poetry. It appeared that Sdesia must fall to Austria, and Prussia to Eussia. But in the very extremity of Frederick's distress, January 5, the empress Elizabeth died, and her nephew, who was a 1762. great venerator of the Prussian king, ascended the throne of Eussia. This change produced a sudden alteration in the state of affairs. Peter, a good-natured but inconsiderate prince, who acted over hastily, at once concluded a treaty of peace with Frederick, and united his Eussian army with the Prussian. This connexion, how- ever, did not last long. Peter made enemies of his subjects by im- prudent innovations in the Church and State, and by remodelling the army upon the Prussian pattern. A conspiracy was formed against him, with the knowledge of his wife, whom Peter treated harshly on account of her dissolute behaviour, in consequence of which, Peter III. was barbarously murdered by some Eussian noblemen, and Ca- therine II. made herself mistress of the government which belonged by right to her son, Paul. The empress recalled her army from Prussia, but confirmed the peace that had been con- cluded with Frederick ; and the Eussian general, before his departure, assisted the Prussian king in obtaining a victory. § 445. The exhausted states were now all anxious for the conclusion of the war. The Germans, whose lands had been ravaged, whose industry had become stagnant, whose agriculture had been ruined, and whose prosperity had been destroyed, demanded peace in despair ; this induced the greater number of the princes to withdraw from the alliance against Frederick ; and as the finances of Austria were also deranged, Maria Theresa no longer opposed the peace that was uni- February 21, versally desired. A truce afforded an opportunity for 1763. negotiations, which, in the following February, led to the peace of Hubertsburg. In this, the possession of Sdesia was secured to the king of Prussia for ever. The fluctuating land and naval war, that had been carried on between England and France in America, was at the same time terminated by the peace of Paris, by which England got possession of Canada. From this time, Prussia assumed her position among the five great powers of Europe. 320 THE MODERN EPOCH. C. THE GERMAN EMPIRE AND THE AGE OE EREDERICK. § 446. The German empire had so entirely lost all respect as a political body, that it was not represented at the peace negotiations at Hubertsburg, and that the sentence of outlawry pronounced against Frederick II. was received with scorn aud ridicule. The power of the emperor was sunk to an empty shadow, and his revenue to a few thousand florins. Nearly 350 regents and republican commonwealths with the most varied powers and the most unequal extent of territory, ruled in Germany with all the rights of sovereignty, and left nothing to their common chief but the confirmation of mutual compacts, pro- motions, declarations of majority, and the determination of precedence. During war, the German princes not unfrequently embraced the hos- tile cause. Bavaria was always in alliance with France. The Diet, which had, for a long time, been held in Eegensburg, and which con- sisted of representatives of the princes and imperial towns, had lost all respect, since it was too much occupied with speeches and debates to come to any decision, or if it came to any, was unable to give it authority. Obsolete rights were contended for with a little- minded jealousy ; rank, title, and the right of suffrage, were watched over with the greatest care, and all time and energy devoted to doc- trinal disputes without object ; whilst foreign nations made Germany the theatre of their wars, and treated the imbecile body politic with insolence and contempt. The state of tribunals of justice was not less melancholy. The imperial chamber of "Wetzlar, in which the complaints of Estates of the empire against each other or against their vassals were examined, proceeded with such tediousness and prolixity, that causes were often pending for years before judgment was pronounced, the suitors either died or fell into poverty, and the records increased to an immeasurable extent. The judges were chiefly dependent upon the fees for their remuneration, and in this way a door was thrown open to corruption. An attempt on the part of the Joseph II emperor, Joseph II., to improve and accelerate the pro- a.d. 1765— gress of justice in the imperial chamber was frustrated by the selfishness of the interested parties. As regards the lower courts, the great diversity in the laws, the number of small states, and the unlimited power of the judges and officials, rendered it extremely difficult for the humble man to procure justice. The weak were exposed without defence to every injustice of the crafty and the strong. It was the golden age of jurists and advocates. § 447. Whilst the German empire was sinking lower and lower, Prussia, under her sagacious and energetic king, rose to ever increas- ing power and prosperity. Frederick attempted to heal the wounds inflicted by the seven years' war, to the best of his ability, by support- ing the decayed land proprietors and the manufacturers in Silesia THE GERMAN EMPIRE AND THE AGE OF FREDERICK. 321 and the March with money, by remitting their taxes for a few years, and by relieving the lot of the peasants. He encouraged agriculture, planting, and mining ; established colonies in the uncultivated portions of his dominions ; and fostered industry, trade, and commerce with the greatest care. By these means the country became prosperous, and he was enabled to increase his taxes without oppressing the people, His own frugality, the simplicity of his court, and the well-regulated economy of the state, were the occasion that the public treasury was every year better replenished. It was not until a later period that he adopted severe and oppressive measures. Among these, his management of the customs and excise maybe particularly mentioned. He made the sale of coffee, tobacco, salt, &c, a royal monopoly, and forbade the free trade in these articles. For the purpose of prevent- ing any clandestine traffic, he appointed a number of French excise officers, who, by their insolence, made the regulation, which was other- wise so oppressive to the citizens and peasants, utterly detestable. The affairs of the Church and of education gained the least by the attention of the king. In a small place, the situation of public in- structor was frequently a retiring post for a discharged petty officer, whilst the higher institutions were often left to the management of Frenchmen. The free-thinking king took little interest in the affairs of Christianity or the Church ; but we must admit with honour that he procured the universal admission of the principle of Christian toleration in his dominions. Frederick devoted great attention to the affairs of justice. The rack and the horrible and degrading punishments of the middle age were abolished, the course of justice simplified, and the laws improved. The new book of laws that was introduced under his successor, Frederick "William II., as the Prus- sian code, was prepared under Frederick. More important, however, than all these laws and arrangements was the fact, that Frederick II. inspected every thing himself, and narrowly inquired, during his jour- neys, after the administration of justice and the management of affairs, ejected the negligent and chastised the dishonest. By his untiring activity from early morning to late at night, he acquired a comprehensive knowledge of all the affairs of his kingdom, and his commanding character, which scrupled not at corporal punishment, terrified the slothful and the unjust. One peculiarity of the great king has often been blamed with justice — his love for what was foreign, and his neglect, nay contempt, for the things of his own coun- try. It was not only in literature that Frederick gave the preference to the French, so that he wrote his own letters and works in their language, the whole proceedings of this nation were admired, and, as far as possible, imitated by him. French adventurers by the hundred found honour and support in Prussia; and as this admiration of foreigners became the mode in other courts, all quarters of Germany T 3:22 the modern epoch. swarmed with hair-brained Frenchmen. Parisian barbers, dancing- masters, and boasters, were often preferred to the most deserving natives in the appointment to the higher offices of the court and government. § 448. Frederick, in his old age, was once more involved in a war with Austria. At the close of the year 1777, the Bavarian line of the house of "Wittelsbach became extinct with Maximilian Joseph, and the electorship devolved to the next heir, Charles Theodore of the Palatinate. This licentious, profligate, and bigoted prince, who, despite his many failings and vices, is still affectionately remembered by the people of the Palatinate, and whose love of art is borne witness to by many remarkable erections in Mannheim, Scbwetzingen, and Heidelberg, possessed neither legitimate offspring nor love for the land he inherited. He consequently easily allowed himself to be per- suaded by the emperor Joseph II. to a treaty, in which he acknow- ledged the validity of Austria's claims to Lower Bavaria, the Upper Palatinate, and the territory of Mindelheim, and declared himself ready to relinquish these lands in return for certain advantages being assured to his natural chddren. Frederick II., alarmed at this ag- grandizement of Austria, attempted to interfere with the project by inducing the future hen, duke Charles of Zweibrucken, to protest against the contract in the Diet ; and as this was attended by no results, he ordered an army to march into Bohemia to prevent any change in the existing state of things. This gave occasion to the a.d. 1778, Bavarian war of succession, which was carried on more 1779- with the pen than the sword, inasmuch as both parties attempted to prove themselves in the right by learned treatises. But as all the states were averse to a general war, Russia and Prance succeeded in persuading Maria Theresa, who had no liking for the zeal for innovation displayed by her son, to the peace of Teschen, by which Bavaria was secured to the house of the Palatinate, Inn- viertel with Braunau to Austria, and the succession of the Margra- vate of Anspach and Bayreuth to Prussia. The emperor, irritated at this, made a second attempt, after the death of Maria Theresa, to possess himself of Bavaria, offering in exchange the Aus- trian Netherlands (Belgium) as the Burgundian kingdom. Charles Theodore allowed himself to be persuaded to this also. But Frederick II. now attempted to frustrate this project, and to secure the succession in Bavaria to the house of the Palatinate, by establish- ing an alliance of princes, which was gradually joined by most of the princes of Germany. This princely confederation increased the power and consequence of the king of Prussia, in the same proportion that it entirely undermined the authority of the emperor. Each prince sought for independent and unlimited power ; each formed a miniature court, to which, in magnificence and profusion, in morals THE INTELLECTUAL POPULAR LIFE IN GERMANY. S23 and fashions, in language, literature, and art, the court of Versailles served as a pattern. d. THE INTELLECTUAL POPULAR LIEE EST GERMANY. § 449. Prejudicial as this division of Germany was to its external power and greatness, it was in an equal degree advantageous to the development of the arts and sciences. Many princes were patrons and encouragers of literature and cultivation ; they sought to attract men of celebrity to their capitals and universities, and encouraged poets and men of learning to undertake great works by rewards and distinctions. Thus it happened, that in the second half of the eighteenth century, when Germany's political and military consequence was entirely lost, literature, poetry, science, and the entire spiritual life, received a mighty impulse, and created a degree of refinement such as has scarcely been equalled in modern history. Klopstock. Poetry especially flourished. Klopstock, by his great a.d. 1724— epic poem, the "Messiah," and by his odes and Avar- 1803. songs, awakened a warmth of Christian feeling, and a patriotic spirit of liberty ; he formed his severe and solemn diction and his rhymeless metre upon the model of the ancients. Les- Lessing, a.d. sing, the great thinker and critic, in his " Hamburg- 1729—1781. Dramaturgy," first exposed the weakness of French dramatic literature, and by his own pieces for the stage (" Minna von Barnhelm," "Emilia Galotti," "Nathan the Wise") showed the way by which it was possible to attain to genuine dramatic poetry; he at the same time, in his " Laocoon," opened the eyes of thinkers to the essence of poetry and plastic art, the understanding of which was Winckelmann veYee ^ G & during the same period by "Winckelmann, in a a.d. 1717— 'different way; and in his remarkable controversial !768. writings against the pastor Goze of Hamburg, on the Wolfenbuttel fragments, he displayed a vigour of language and a clearness of argument which are astonishing. Upon his shoulders Herder, a.d. stands the poetical and intellectual Herder, who went 1744—1803. -back to the original source of language and poetry, and revealed with fine taste the beauties of the Oriental poetry of nature ("On the Spirit of Hebrew Poetry," "Palm-leaves," &c), and dis- played the deep merit of the artless popular songs of different nations (in the " Cid," " Voices of the People in Songs"), and gave a mighty impulse to further inquiries by his " Ideas towards a Philo- Wieland, a.d. sophy of the History of Man." Wieland, the cheerful 1733—1813. philosopher of life, in his romances ("Agathon," "The Abderites," " Aristippus"), which are for the most part based upon the ancient Greek manners, with a modern colouring, addressed the sentiments and mode of thinking of the upper classes, which were formed upon the French model, and preached the wise enjoyment of t2 304, THE MODERN EPOCH. life in loose and "waggish language, a doctrine well suited to the higher ranks of society, and introduced German literature into a circle that had hitherto read nothing but French works. He, at the same time, renewed the romantic epic poetry of the middle age in his " Oberon." German prose received a complete revolution from these three men: Lessing gave it strength, sharpness, and perspicuity; Herder, elevation and richness of imagery ; "Wieland, fluency and Goethe, a.d. grace. It was on the ground prepared by these men, that 1749—1832. Goethe, the great genius of the century, brought forward his creations, in which the spiritual life of the nation and the progress of his own culture are reflected. At the genial and energetic age of seventeen, when the youth who was pressing onwards with violence despised all the rules of art and of customary usage, set no value on any thing but the productions (even when formless) of genius, praised the depths of original and natural poetry, delighted in popular ballads, and gazed in wondering admiration upon Ossian and Shak- spear, "The Sorrows of "Wertker," a romance in letters, and the drama of " Gotz von Berlichingen," in which these poets served as models, awakened a storm of enthusiasm ; when Lessing and "Winckel- mann had revived the interest for ancient art in Germany, in the time adapted for them appeared the classical dramas "Tasso" and "Iphigenia," in the spirit and in the clear and harmonious form of antiquity, and animated by the impressions and feelings that the poet had received during his travels in Italy, and which are reflected in the unsurpassable popular scenes of the tragedy of " Egmont." The idyllic epic " Hermann and Dorothea," touched upon the mighty period of the French revolution and the sorrows of the emigrants ; the romance of " Wilhelm Meister," in which the life of a player is described, and the novel of " Elective Attractions," belong to the new-romantic time, which found pleasure in the mysterious, the wonderful, and the fabulous. In " Poetry and Truth " Goethe displays the progress of his own life and mental development ; and in the magnificent dramatic poem of " Faust " with which we find him engaged throughout his whole life, he has left to posterity a picture of the most inward conditions of his soul. In the mean while, the political world had experienced violent convulsions, and the atten- tion of the people was directed towards history and the affairs of Schiller state. At this juncture, Schiller, by his historical dramas, a.t). 1759— that presented before the soul of the nation similar 180o# tempestuous periods taken from foreign and domestic history, and by his enthusiasm for freedom, fatherland, and human happiness, struck the chords that found the deepest response in the bosoms of the people. His first three tragedies, "The Rob- bers," "Love and Intrigue," and " Fiesko," belong to the stormy period of youth; with the drama of "Don Carlos" begins a more THE INTELLECTUAL POPULAR LIFE IN GERMANY. 3^5 refined period ; during his residence in Jena as professor of his- tory, he occupied himself with the " Thirty Tears' "War," with the "Revolt of the Netherlands," and with the trilogy of " Wallenstein ;" and in the last years of his life, in Weimar, which were rendered gloomy by sickness and anxieties about the means of subsistence, he composed "Maria Stuart," the "Maid of Orleans," the "Bride of Messina," and the magnificent drama of " William Tell." Schiller gained the friendship of Goethe by the purity of his feelings and the truthfulness of his efforts, different as the natures of the two men were. Then united activity marks the culminating point of German poetry. § 450. But not poetry alone, but the science of religion, philosophy, history, the affairs of education, in a word, the whole spiritual life, experienced a mighty revolution. Protestant theologians searched through the Bible, and presented systems of Christianity in accord- Lavater, a.d. ance with the direction of their own minds. Some, like 174] — 1801. Lavater, the pastor of Zurich, sought to preserve the world in a rigid faith by means of religious writings, and to establish the conviction that man is brought into immediate union with God Nioolai, a.d. b.Y prayer ; others, like the Berlin bookseller and author, 1783—1811. Nicolai, would admit no other judge in spiritual things than human reason and the power of reflection, and declared that every thing that was opposed to this was superstition. The former class were called Supernaturalists, the latter Rationalists. A third party, which included Hamann, the philosopher, Pr. H. Jacobi, and the poet Fr. Stolberg, made religion, like the mystics of the middle ages, a matter of feeling. Lavater was also the inventor of the dubious science of physiognomy, which teaches how to discover men's characters from the contour of the head and features of the coun- tenance, but was exposed to some severe attacks from the clever humorist and satirist, Lichtenberg of Gottingen. In philosophy, Kant, a.d. the great thinker Kant of Konigsburg, erected a system 1724—1804. that soon penetrated into all the sciences, and excited and swayed the learned world of Germany. Spittler, by his perspi- cuity and acuteness, and the Swiss, John Muller, by his learning and artistic descriptions, established a new epoch in historical writing ; and in the affairs of education, Basedow, by the model seminary of Dessau (Philanthropium), and Campe and Salzmann, by their writings for children, called a new method of instruction into existence, upon which the Swiss, Pestalozzi, founded his system of infant education and of popular schools. BOOK FOURTH. THE LATEST PERIOD. A. THE FORERUNNERS OE THE REVOLUTION. 1. THE LITERATURE OE ILLUMINATION. § 451. In the course of the eighteenth century a shock was given to all existing ideas by the literature of France. Ingenious, but, in part, mistaken men, opposed religious constitutions and ecclesiastical order, attacked the forms of government, and represented the condi- tions and shapes of society in the light of antiquated abuses. "Whilst at first they laid hold of real blemishes and faidts as points of attack, in religion and Church, in politics and law, in civil regulations and social relations, they undermined by degrees all the foundations of human society, and convidsed all rides of customary ordinances ; whilst they sought to annid immunities, privileges, and class preroga- tives, and to give freedom and personal merit their due value, they weakened also the force of old statutes and rights, and the strength of authority; and whdst they assailed superstitious prejudices and worn-out opinions, they perplexed at the same time faith and con- science, destroyed the veneration and esteem for things holy and customary in the hearts of men, and propagated the idea that the happiness of the world could blossom only on the ruins of existing things. This was done especially by Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau, whose ingenious writings, owing to the charm of beautiful language and powers of description, were read by the whole of edu- cated Europe. Their paths were different, but the result the same. § 452. Voltaire, a versatile and ingenious author, who had dis- Voltaire tinguished himself in all kinds of literature, attacked a.d. 1G94- with the arms of wit and a sharp intellect every thins? 177!' • • ' '' customaiy and old-established, all dominant opinions and existing regulations, without concerning himself about what should come in their place. In poems, dramatic and epic, ("Mahomet," "The Henriad," " The Maid of Orleans,") in satires and romances, LITERATURE OF ILLUMINATION. 327 in historical and philosophical works (" Essay on the Customs and Genius of Nations," " Times of Louis XIV.," "History of Charles XII. of Sweden," &c.) he laid down his views and doubts, his thoughts and criticisms, his investigations and conclusions. Religion and Church, priesthood and popidar belief, experienced the most violent attacks; and if it cannot be denied that Voltaire's scorn and wit has destroyed many prejudices, removed many superstitions, and exhibited ecclesiastical exclusiveness in all its nakedness, so also, on the other hand, it is to be lamented that he has broken down religious feeling in many a heart, sown doubt and unbelief in many a mind, together with cold, worldly wisdom, and therewith selfishness, and represented self-love and self-interest as the highest motives of human actions. Montesquieu Montesquieu, a more earnest writer, drew attention to a.d. 1689— the faultiness and absurdity of the existing state of things, with a view to its improvement and reorganization in accordance with the spirit of the age. In the " Persian Letters " he attacked with the same wanton scorn as Voltaire the faith of the Church, and the whole form and system of government in France, and in the same way, by wit and irony, turned the customs and social position of his contemporaries into ridicule. In his ingenious " Trea- tises on the Causes of Greatness," and " The Decline of the Romans, and their Republican State," he tried to prove that patriotism and self- reliance rendered a state great, but that despotism brought it to destruc- tion. His third work, " On the Spirit of the Laws," presents the constitutional government of England as that best suited to the pre- sent race of men. J. J Rous- ^- J- Rousseau, the son of a watchmaker of Geneva, seau, a.d. combated existing conditions by an alluring description 1712 177- f an opposite state of things. After a youth full of muta- tions and abounding in necessities and errors, which he has displayed to the world with singular candour in his " Confessions," he arrived, hy the solution of a prize question on the influence of the arts and sciences upon manners, at the fundamental doctrine of his whole life and efforts, namely, to the principle, that a high degree of civilization is the occasion of all the misery and all the crimes of mankind ; and that, consequently, it is only by a return to a state of nature, full of innocence and simplicity, and by shakhig off all the fetters imposed hy civihzation, education, and custom, that the world can arrive at happiness and safety. This principle forms the central point of all his writings, which are more distinguished by sentiment and attrac- tive descriptions, than by profundity or truthfulness. In the " Nouvelle Heloise," a romance written in poetical language and in the episto- lary form, he contrasts the pleasures of a sentimental life of nature with the perverted relations of actual existence and the compulsions 3£S THE LATEST PERIOD. of society. In the " Emile," lie attempted to establish a rational education, founded upon nature and parental affection, and thus expiated the sin he had committed by allowing his own children to be taken to the foivndling hospital. The " Confession of Eaith of a Savoy Vicar," which is to be found in this work, and in which he taught and recommended a religion of the heart and feelings in opposition to the predominant Church doctrine, brought banishment and persecu- tion upon him. In the " Contrat Social " he represented the equality of all men as the condition of a well-ordered state, and found the most estimable government in a perfect democracy, with legislative popular assemblies. In all these writings, golden truths are contained side by side with many essential errors and seductive fallacies. His words are the expression of a deep inward feeling, and penetrate to the heart because they come from the heart. The effect of his writ- ings was immeasurable, and every spot which his foot had trod, or where he had resided as a persecuted fugitive, was gazed upon with reverence by the rising generation. A feeling for nature, simplicity, and the domestic affections, was awakened in Trance by Rousseau ; but at the same time, there was aroused a passionate longing for the lauded state of primitive liberty and equality, which could only be slaked by the destruction of existing arrangements and relations. § 453. The influence of these men upon the opinions of all Europe was by so much the greater, that Paris then gave the mode in every thing, that the French language and literature were alone read or spoken by the higher classes, and that these writings excited universal attention by their agreeable form and ingenious descrip- tions. Princes, like Frederick II., Gustavus III. of Sweden, Charles III. of Spain, Catherine II. of Eussia, the greatest statesmen of all countries, and many persons of influence, were in personal or epis- tolary correspondence, with Voltaire, and many of his similarly-minded contemporaries. Among these contemporaries, d'Alembert, mathe- matician and philosopher, and the wanton poet, Diderot, are particu- larly well known. They were the originators of the Encyclopaedic Dictionary, which was a clear, large-minded, and unprejudiced sum- mary of all human science, but hostile to every lofty effort. Erom this work, they and their coadjutors received the name of Encyclo- paedists. The first consequence of this literaiy activity was the triumph of enlightenment in most of the countries of Europe. This victory shortly displayed itself in religious toleration, in the successful struggle of reason against superstition and prejudice, in the vigorous reforms of many princes and ministers, and then, above all, in the abolition of the order of the Jesuits, in the formation of the society of Illuminati, in the Latin Avork of the suffragan bishop, Hontheim of Treves (who, under the name of Eebro- THE AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 329 nius, pointed out the origin of the papal power, and attempted to derive a new canon law therefrom), and in the attempts of several German prelates, in the congress of Ems, to procure for the Catholic Church of Germany a free position in regard to the Roman See. The order of the Jesuits, the great effort of which was to hinder this enlightenment, to retain the people in a state of pupilage, and to oppose every reform and innovation, could not long exist at a time when the whole educated world was striving in the contrary direction. Accordingly, when the minister, Pombal, in Portugal, closed the colleges of the Jesuits, and sent the members of the order to the States of the Church, and when his example was followed in all the countries governed by the house of Bourbon (Spain, Naples, Parma), Pope Clement XIV., a liberal and sensible prince of the Church, saw himself constrained to abolish the order. This obliged Maria Theresa, who had long attempted to retain the order in Austria, to consent to its disso- lution, and the papal order was also carried into effect in Bavaria and the other Catholic countries of Germany. But the activity of the members of the order was not thereby put an end to. Ex-Jesuits prosecuted the objects of the society with undisturbed perseverance, and strove against the spirit of the time. Eor the purpose of para- lyzing their efforts, Adam Weishaupt, professor in Ingol- stadt, in conjunction with Knigge and others, founded the secret society of Illuminati, whose objects were the enlightenment of the people, and the improvement of humanity. Their contest against the ex-Jesuits, monks, and clergy, was soon checked by the law pro- secutions of the Bavarian government. 2. THE AMEKICAN WAE, OE INDEPENDENCE. § 454. In the war which the British colonies of North America carried on against the mother country, in 1770 — 1780, Europe, which was filled with the ideas and dreams of Rousseau, saw the beginning of that great struggle, by which mankind were to enter into a state of paradisiacal happiness ; a struggle, by the victorious termination of which, the inborn rights of humanity and the people were to attain validity. The North American "War of Independence was the first contest of young freedom against the ancient prerogatives, forms, and arrangements, and for this reason it had a particular interest for Europe. In the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the English colonies in North America had greatly increased in size, in population, and in prosperity. This increase had not been obtained without great sacrifices and exertions on the part of England ; and the English government therefore considered it right and proper to impose taxes upon the colonies. With this pixrpose, duties were 330 THE LATEST PERIOD. put upon certain wares, and a stamp-tax introduced. Bat the Americans, who had acquired strength and self-confidence from their internal development, resisted this taxation. They maintained, that a parliament in which they were not represented had no right to bur- den them with arbitrary imposts ; and that the duties for their own necessities were already sufficiently great. Their cause, which they pleaded with dexterity, soon found sympathy in the whole of Europe ; and in England itself it was embraced by a powerful party, which opposed the measures of government both in speech and writing. At the head of this opposition stood the great statesman and orator, the elder "William Pitt (Lord Chatham), and the most talented members of the Lower House, Eox, Burke, &c. The celebrated " Letters of Junius" pamphlets, distinguished by the energy of the language and powers of representation, supported the opposition party in its struggle. This violent opposition, both on the part of America and iu the parliament, produced a change of ministry and a repeal of the stamp-tax. But as the government would not surrender the right of taxation, and imposed, in the following year, a slight duty upon tea, glass, paper, &c, the resistance still continued. Boston, the chief town of Massachusetts, and the sur- rounding states, which were named collectively, New-England, were the scene of the struggle. The inhabitants of this district, mostly the descendants of the English Puritans (§ 389), had remained true to the defiant and obstinate character of their progenitors. The merchants of Boston decided upon admitting none of the taxed articles ; and when England immovably persisted upon her right of taxation, three cargoes of tea were thrown into the sea bj some December y oun g people who had disguised themselves as savages. 13, 1773. Upon this, the English increased their forces in Boston, shut up the harbour, and issued several ordinances injurious to liberty. § -155. Tins " Boston Harbour Bill" was the beginning of the war- A congress of the deputies from the whole colony met together in September Philadelphia, and determined to persist in the resistance, 17, 1774. and to increase the military strength of the country. The congress at the same time issued a letter, drawn up with great art aud dexterity, to the king, to the English people, to the inhabit- ants of Canada, &c, wherein it was shown, in the most convincing manner, that the Americans only sought to defend their native and acquired rights against the despotism and arbitrary enactments of the English government and parliament. This address made the greatest impression, and dvcw the attention of all Europe to the country where simple and peaceable men defended then freedom and natural rights with the greatest discretion and resolution against force and superior power. The English declared Massachusetts in THE AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 331 rebellion ; but, in the first two encounters at Lexington and Bunker' s-hill they suffered so much loss, that, al- though the victors, they considered it expedient to leave Boston. For this result the Americans had to thank their magnanimous fellow-citizen, Washington, who devoted his energy and abilities to the lofty object of liberating his country. "Whilst he was employing his sword in the field, Benjamin Franklin, the sometime printer, celebrated as the discoverer of the lightning-rod, and as the composer and disseminator of useful popular books, was busied as the ambas- sador of his country, both in speech and writing, at the courts of London and Paris. The appearance of this plain, sensible man, in his simple Quaker habit and natural white hair, produced such an enthusiasm for freedom and democracy in the excitable capital of Paris, that the young and rich marquis of Lafayette and other simi- larly-disposed noblemen crossed the sea, with a noble enthusiasm to hazard life and property in the cause of American freedom. Germans also, as Kalb, Steuben, &c, the Pole, Kosciusko, and a great number of volunteers of all nations, went to the aid of the Americans. Encouraged by this, the deputies of the thirteen United States declared the independence of the American colonies of England. But despite this sympathy, and despite the efforts of the noble leader of the young State, it seemed that the Americans must nevertheless yield when the English government concluded treaties with several German princes, in consequence of which numerous Hessians, Hanoverians, Waldeckers, and other Germans, who were collected together by crafty recruiting officers, and sold to England for money, went over to the New World to prove their European tactics on the free sons of America. The English generals in New York and Canada now made victorious progress, and even took possession of Philadelphia ; but the circumspection and knowledge of the country possessed by the vigdant Washington, who made use of every advan- tage, prevented any great results ; and when, at length, the capitula- October 15, lation of Saratoga took place, by which 7000 English 1777- troops laid down their arms, the war took a turn that promised a successful issue for the Americans. § 456. The news of the capitulation of Saratoga was received in France with rejoicing, and was the cause that the French government, February 6, hurried away by public opinion, concluded an alliance 1778. with the Congress, in which it recognized the independ- ence of North America, and promised its assistance tdl this independ- ence should be firmly estabbshed. Supported by France with money, ships, and troops, and by many volunteers distinguished by birth, wealth, and education, the Americans could now undertake the war with England with greater confidence ; and, though the young repub- 332 THE LATEST PERIOD. lie had still many dangers to overcome, and many calamities to undergo ; though there were still the sufferings of war, want of money, and treachery, to he home with, the final victory was no June 2G longer doubtful, when Spain also united herself to the 1779- American alliance. The war was now carried on princi- pally in the southern states of North America, where there were still many adherents of the English monarchy to he found. But, as the struggle went on simultaneously in several places both by land and water, and the enemies of England became more numerous with every year, the operations in America were gradually relaxed. Not only did the French and Spanish fleets attack the English ships in the "West Indian seas, in the Atlantic Ocean, and in the Mediterranean ; hut the Dutch were also involved in the war against England, just as they were ahout to join the armed neutrality. For the purpose of checking the superiority of the British, who, during the war, disturbed free maritime trade, ruled over every sea by their privateers, and molested the ships of every country by an oppressive search for contraband wares, Catherine II. concluded an alliance with the several naval powers, by which the motto, " Neutral ship, neutral goods," should be maintained, and the trade of the neutral states on the coasts and in the harbours of the belligerent powers secured. This neutral alliance was gradually joined by Russia, Denmark, Sweden, Prussia, Austria, Naples, and Portugal ; but Holland, whose adherence Avould have been extremely important, from her situation and maritime power, hesitated so long, that England got information of the project, and hastened to declare November, war against the Dutch before the latter could convey their 1780. declaration of adhesion to St. Petersburg. Holland thus disappeared from the list of neutral powers, and, consequently, was unable to join the alliance. § 457. Never was England's empire of the sea more endangered than now. But that which was devised for the destruction of these haughty islanders proved, in some degree, the means of their glory. Holland, where the hereditary Stadtholder, "William V., and his former guardian and constant adviser, Ernest of Brunswick, were entirely devoted to the English, whilst the aristocracy, from regard to the interests of commerce, were in alliance with the French, was injured in its trade, in its navigation, and in its colonies, by this war ; the united fleets of France and Spain were repeatedly defeated by the English admiral, Rodney ; and Catherine of Russia withdrew from the neutral alliance, which was in consequence shortly dissolved. It was only in America that the fortune of the war was adverse to England. The gallant general Cornwallis was shut up near York- town by the French-xlmerican army in such a manner that he was THE AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. S33 October 19, obliged to surrender with the whole of his forces. On !7 81 - the other hand, the siege of Gibraltar, upon which the a.d. 1782. ejes f a \\ Europe were directed, terminated in the defeat of the enemies of England, and covered the commandant, Elliot, and his troops, who were mostly Hanoverians, with eternal renown. The strong town of Gibraltar, which had passed into the possession of the English during the Spanish war of succession, had been long blockaded on land by French and Spanish troops, and was now to be September, attacked from the sea also, by means of " floating bat- 1782. teries." This invention, which was made by the French engineer, D'Arcon, consisted in this : — A number of dismasted ships were covered with a sloping roof of wet hides, so that the citadel could be approached without danger. But this undertaking, which was conducted at an enormous expense, soon proved an entire failure. The floating batteries, with their covering of hides, were set on fire and destroyed by red-hot cannon-balls, and the whole scheme frus- trated. Gibraltar remained in possession of the English. § 458. In the mean time, the members of the opposition, Fox, Burke, and Sheridan, had succeeded to the ministry. These men were more disposed to a friendly arrangement with America on the basis of the independence of the United States, than then- predeces- November, sors had been. Shortly after the siege of Gibraltar, 1782. negotiations were entered into, which, in the following- year, resulted in the peace of Versailles. In this, the independence of the North American Republic was acknowledged, and the mutual claims of the other belligerent power composed by the surrender or return of the conquered towns and islands. Holland suffered the greatest losses. The unfortunate war had inflicted wounds upon her trade and naval power from which they never recovered. Besides the irreparable losses incurred by the East and "West Indian trading com- panies, the Dutch possessions in the East Indies also suffered a dimi- nution. Since that time Holland has entered into more intimate relations with France ; but her people excited by the notions of republicanism and democratic freedom, which, since the American war, had spread over Europe, gave vent to the animosity they felt against their government, which was favourably disposed towards , _„ , England, by an insurrection : Duke Ernest of Brunswick A.D. 1784. ° . ' J was obliged to leave the country, the Stadtholder and his wife were threatened, insurrections of armed mobs took place in some of the towns. At length, Frederick "William II. of Prussia, brother of the hereditary female Stadtholder, marched troops into Holland. ,_„_ These quickly put an end to the insurrection, and again restored order. America alone gained any thing by the war. After many contests respecting the nature of the government, the "United States" at length agreed that the supreme government 334 THE LATEST PERIOD. of the confederation should consist of the Congress, and a President, ,-„.. who was to be elected every four years. The iudicial A.D. ]/8f}. .'line i power rests m the hands of a supreme court and a number of provincial courts with juries. Every individual state had a free and independent government for the management of its internal affairs ; and religious freedom, without any state Church, is pre- dominant every where. The president has the supreme command over the sea and land forces, and appoints all officials. The estimable "Washington filled this honourable post for eight years. Franklin died, universally lamented, in 1790, in Ins 84th year. 3. INNOVATIONS OF PKINCES AND MINISTEBS. § 459. The French illuminative philosophy and the Parisian spirit of the age, exercised the greatest influence upon the views and mea- sures of princes and governments. Not only were all the productions of French literature eagerly read and admired in the higher circles of Europe, but it also became the fashion for the well-born youth to spend some time in Paris to complete their education, and no man of consequence could reckon upon consideration or regard if he had not been admitted into the intellectual circles of the French capital. All the princes and statesmen of Europe strove for the favour and friendship of the French literati and philosophers ; is it then to be wondered at, that in the three last decenniums which preceded the French Revolution many reforms and innovations were undertaken, which had their origin in that spirit of the times which had been formed in France ? It was sought to apply practically that which in speech and in writing was allowed to be the truth. Zealous eftbrts were accordingly displayed on all sides to revolutionize ancient forms and arrangements, laws and customs, and to force them by fresh adjustments to the spirit of the age. In the region of religion and the Church, this spirit first displayed itself in the establishment of the liberal and magnanimous principle of toleration in matters of faith, in the abolition of the order of the Jesuits and of the inquisition, and in the moderation of all principles and arrangements dangerous to philanthropy or the rights of mankind. This new epoch of humanity exhibited itself most actively and with the best residts, in the affairs of law, where efforts were every where made to establish, as far as possible, the equal administration of justice to every man, and to ame- liorate or abolish the statutes and burdens which had descended from the middle ages. In many countries serfdom was abolished, socage duties were done away with, oppressive or degrading relations removed ; new codes and ordinances respecting the administration of justice annulled the cruel punishments of a stern and gloomy period, as the rack, wheel, &c, and conferred the privileges of humanity even on the criminal. In regard to the economy of the state, new principles INNOVATIONS OF PRINCES AND MINISTERS. 335 were established in Prance, which were adopted in many countries. According to these, money is the lever of state science, and, conse- quently, the great object is to raise as large a revenue as possible by labour and by making use of natural powers. If this principle, on the one hand, was the occasion of the encouragement of agriculture, mining, and planting, and that trade, industry, and useful inventions were patronised, it led, on the other, to oppressive duties, to the royal right of pre-emption, to indirect taxation, and to paper money. § 460. The first who reorganized the relations of the state upon Pombal these principles was Pombal, in Portugal, the all-powerful Portugal minister of Joseph Emanuel. An attempt to murder the EmanueTTo ki n S> which was ascribed to the powerful family of Tavora 1750—1777- and the instigations of the Jesuits, was made use of to a.d. 1759. drive the members of this order out of Portugal, and afterwards to effect the enlightenment of the people by new semi- naries of education and by the diffusion of printed books. The per- vading activity of this powerful man was felt hi every quarter. He had the affairs of the army and those relating to war placed on a better footing by the German marshal William, of Lippe-Schaumburg ; he encouraged agriculture and industry to draw the people from dirt and indolence ; and when a fearful earthquake destroyed 30,000 November houses in Lisbon, he was indefatigable in repairing the 1755. mischief. Pombal united the severity and arbitrariness of a despot to the courage and the penetrating will of a reformer. All the prisons were filled with those who opposed him. When these regained their liberty under the reign of the weak Maria, they united themselves for the overthrow of the minister, after which, Portugal was again plunged into the same wretched state as formerly. „ . In Spain, similar attempts were made to reorganize the Charles III., affairs of Church and state by liberal ministers, like a.d. 1759— Aranda and others. When the Jesuits opposed these in- novations, Aranda ordered 5000 of them to be arrested in a single night, embarked on board ships, without distinction of age or rank, and carried off like criminals, with great harshness, to the States of the Church. Their property was confiscated and their establish- ments closed. During the latter years of the reign of Charles III., however, the clergy and inquisition again acquired great influence, and destroyed or disturbed the greater number of the innovations. France, In Prance, the minister Choiseul belonged to the pro- Choiseul. moters of enlightenment and progress ; but under the government of a voluptuous king, like Louis XV., no improvement could take place. After the ascension of the throne by Louis XVI., two men were called to the ministry who possessed both the power and the will to heal the shattered constitution of the state by S36 THE LATEST PERIOD. Turcot and effectual reforms — Tiirgot arid Malasherbes. They pro- Malasherbes, posed that a new mode of taxation should be intro- a.d. 17/0. cluced, that the nobility and clergy should bear their share of the burdens of the state, and that the arrangements of the middle ages should be modified so as to suit the present times. Civil legal equality, without regard to person, rank, or religiou, was to be everywhere maintained; but their plans were shipwrecked by the selfish- ness of the nobles and the clergy, and by the blindness of the court. § 461. Similar attempts at reform were made about the same time Denmark, hi the North and East of Europe. Iu Denmark, under Struensee, the imbecile king, Christian VIL, the German physician, a..d. 1766— ' Struensee, arrived at the dignity of count of the empire 1808. and prime minister, by the aid of the queen, Caroline Matilda, a daughter of the royal house of England. Furnished with unheard-of powers, so that all orders signed by him and pro- vided with the seal of the cabinet, possessed the same validity as if the king himself had subscribed them, Struensee adopted a multi- tude of arrangements, in the spirit of the age, for the relief of the citizen and peasant classes, for the curtailment of the power of the nobility, and for the improvement of the proceedings of justice. A man without remarkable qualities, without strength of character, without courage, and without resolution, he soon laid himself open in such a way that his fall was readily accomplished. His confidential relations with the high-minded although imprudent queen received an unfavourable interpretation ; he offended the national feeling of the Danes by his use of the German language in all official proclama- tions ; and by the want of courage he displayed on the occasion of a trilling tumult among the military and sailors, he rendered himself contemptible, and inspired his opponents with confidence. Whfist the minister was at a ball, Juliana, Christian's stepmother, pressed into the king's bedchamber with some of her confidants, and, by her description of the dangers that were threatening, induced him to sign a number of orders of arrest that were already prepared. Upon this, Struensee and his friend Brandt were committed to prison, and, after a most iniquitously conducted trial, punished, the one by being be- August 28, headed, the other by the loss of his right hand. Caroline 1772. Matilda, betrayed by the weakness of Struensee, was separated from the king, and died, after three years of wretchedness, in Celle. After the death of Struensee, Juliana took possession of the government, and ordered, through her favourite G-uldberg, all the offensive innovations to be repealed. But when the Crown Prince, Frederick, came of age, he conducted the government iu his father's name, and made over the conduct of the ministry to the gallant Bernstorf. INNOVATIONS OF PRINCES AND MINISTERS. 337 § 462. In Sweden, the power of the aristocracy attained its full „ , development under the reign of the good-natured king, Ad If F d Adolf Frederick. The council of state, which had the rick, a.d. management of every thing, consisted of men without 1757—1771- either honour or patriotism, who sold themselves to foreign powers, and served the interests of those states from which they drew the largest sums of money ; the honour and well-being of the country was a point they never considered. Two parties, called " Hats " and " Caps," the former in the pay of Prance, the latter in that of Bussia, hated and persecuted each other even unto bloodshed, and made the Diet the scene of their hostile attacks. The king possessed neither power nor respect. This state of things came to an end, when, after Gustavus III. * ne death of Adolf Frederick, the adroit and popular Gfus- a.d. 1771 — tavus III. ascended the throne. Brave, chivalrous, and eloquent, he easily gained over the Swedish army and people to his side, and then compelled the state council, after he had surrounded their house of assembly with troops, to consent to the alterations in the government. By this bloodless revolution the exe- cutive power was restored to the crown, and the council of state reduced within the bounds of a deliberative assembly. The disposi- tion of the land and sea forces, and the appointment of state and military officers, were in the hands of the king. He was to collect the votes of the Estates before levying a tax, declaring war, or con- cluding a peace. But after a few years, he freed himself from this restraint also, by an exercise of power, and, at the same time, gave absolute authority to the throne. Endowed with many talents and kingly qualities, Gfustavus III. took advantage of his lofty position to introduce many reforms and arrangements in the government and administration of justice, which contributed to the welfare of his people, and were in accordance with the spirit of the times. But many of his creations were the result of a love of magnificence, a desire to imitate Erench fashions, and an attachment to the departed times of chivalry. The founding of an academy upon the Erench model, the erection of theatres and opera houses, the revival of tour- naments and running at the ring, occasioned great expenses to the impoverished country. The king's unseasonable dreams of heroism, and his chivalrous whims, gave a distorted turn to his activity. "When he declared that the distillation of brandy was a privilege of royalty, and compelled the Swedes to buy their accustomed beverage, which hitherto almost every family had prepared for itself, for a high price at the royal distilleries, and when he undertook a useless and expen- . _ 00 sive war, both by sea and land, with Bussia, the affection A.D. 1788. . ' J ' ' of his people gradually decayed; and when, at length, before the former wounds had ceased to bleed, he medi- tated a war with Erance, for the purpose of opposing the Bevolution z 338 THE LATEST PERIOD. and saving the crown of Louis XVI., a conspiracy was formed, in March 29 consequence of which Gustavus III. was shot at a masked 1792. ball, by Ankarstrom, a former officer of the guard. § 463. In Austria, Maria Theresa, in conjunction with the enlightened minister, Kaunitz, was the first to abolish many ahuses, and to introduce many timely alterations. The affairs of the army and of war were reorganized, the administration of justice was in every way improved ; new seminaries of education were established, and the economy of the state properly arranged. But she proceeded with prudence and discretion, and treated with forbearance not only the national faith, but the national rights, and the established usages y , tj and customs. Not so her son Joseph II. Scarcely had a.d. 1780— he become the absolute ruler of the vast Austrian empire 1790. before he undertook a series of reforms which offended the clergy and the zealous friends of the Church, prejudiced the pri- vileged nobdity, and outraged the national feelings of the subjects of the imperial house. He first introduced religious toleration, and af- forded the adherents of the Lutheran, Calvinistic, and Greek Churches the free exercise of their religion and equal civil and political rights with the Catholics ; he then diminished the number of monasteries, and applied the property of the Church which was thus obtained to the improvement of schools, and to the erection of establishments of gene- ral utility ; he limited pilgrimages and processions, and embarrassed the communication and intercourse of the clergy with Boine. It was in vain that pope Pius VI. endeavoured to bring the emperor to a dif- ferent course by the unexampled proceeding of a journey to Vienna. Joseph received him with the greatest respect, but remained firm to his purpose. Not less fertile of residts were his reforms in civil and po- litical matters. He established personal freedom by the abolition of serf- dom, and civd legal equality by the introduction of an equitable system of taxation and of equality in the eye of the law without regard to rank or person. Joseph II. had the noblest intentions in these innovations ; but he proceeded with too great haste, had too little regard to exist- ing relations, customs, and prejudices, and did not allow the seed the necessary time to ripen. He thus placed in the hands of the oppo- nents of progress the means of throwing suspicion upon his actions and efforts, and of depriving his intentions, which were calculated for the happiness of mankind, of all their fruits. "When he attempted to introduce his reforms into the Austrian Netherlands also, established a new high court of justice in Brussels, and commenced the reorgani- zation of the university of Louvain, which was under the guidance of the clergy, disturbances arose that at length terminated in a universal rebellion. The Nctherlanders refused the taxes, drove the a.d. 7 7- Austrian regency along with the weak garrison out of the country, and declared in a congress the independence of the INNOVATIONS OF PRINCES AND MINISTERS. 339 Netherlands. This event, which had been brought about by the nobility and clergy, and similar occurrences in February 20, Hungary, broke the heart of the irritable emperor, and !790. hastened his death, the seeds of which he had imbibed in the unhealthy lands of the Damibe, during the Turkish wars, when he was the ally of Russia (§ 468). Joseph's indefatigable exertions, and the activity with which he superintended every thing himself, the freedom with which he admitted both high and low to his presence, and his abolition of the tyranny of officials, met with no appreciation ; his views were misunderstood and misrepresented, his noblest plans were frustrated, and his name calumniated. But posterity, which can appreciate more justly his intentions and his efforts, will ever Leopold II bless his memory. His brother and successor, Leopold a.d. 1790— II., restored most of the ancient usages, and thus brought ' back peace in Belgium and Hungary. Russia § 464. Even uncivilized Russia felt the influence of Catherine II. ^ ne s pi r it of the age under the long and splendid reign a.d. 1762 — of Catherine II. The empress possessed great talents for government, and a susceptible mind ; she main- tained a correspondence with Voltaire and others of similar sen- timents, invited Diderot to St. Petersburg, and encouraged sciences and arts. She improved the administration of justice, founded schools and academies, and adopted many arrangements that gave an air of civilization to the country, and which were loudly applauded by the French authors. But the greater part was mere illusion ; the cele- brated journey of the empress to Tauris, during which, artificial vil- lages, shepherds and their flocks driven to the spot, and country fes- tivals along the road, were to produce the belief that the land was blooming and prosperous, is an image of her whole reign. As re- gards the private life of the empress and her court, the same immo- rality, dissoluteness, and luxury, reigned in St. Petersburg, as in Paris. After Gregor Orloff, to whom the voluptuous empress had surrendered both her person and her empire in return for the share he had taken in the murder of her husband (§ 444), followed a suc- cession of other paramours who were all loaded with wealth and honours. The situation of the favoured lover of the empress was at length disposed of like a court-office. No one, however, enjoyed her favour so long as Potemkin the Taurian. For a space of sixteen years he conducted the affairs of government and the plans of con- Potemkin, quest, lived during the whole of the time in a state of a.d. 1791. magnificence that bordered on the fabulous, and displayed the wealth that was showered upon him by his liberal mistress in a manner truly remarkable. It was only a man with a spirit of enter- prise so daring as to spare neither money nor human life, who, in the eyes of the empress, was capable of giving the befitting glory and z2 3-[0 THE LATEST PERIOD. renown to her government. The rebellion of Pugatscheff, a Don Cossack, who called himself Peter III., and who found many adherents in the neighbourhood of the Volga, was speedily suppressed. Pugatscheff, betrayed by his bosom friend, was beheaded in Moscow, and his body cut to pieces. 4. THE PARTITIONS OF POLAND, AIsT) RUSSIA'S WAP WITH THE TURKS. § 465. The kingdom of Poland had long been a rotten structure, which was only preserved upright by the divisions and jealousies of the neighbouring states, and not by its own strength. The elective constitution was the misfortune of the country ; every vacancy of the throne produced the most violent contests, by which the nation was divided into parties, bribery and corruption became predominant, and the nobles attained such privileges as were inconsistent with any well organized state policy. The throne was powerless ; the Diet, from which "Republican Poland" received her laws, is become proverbial from the vehement party contests that rendered every debate fruit- less ; the whole power was placed in the hands of the armed confede- ration. A kingdom, where it was only the noble who possessed liberty or the privilege of bearing arms, and who, relying upon his sword, despised the law, where enslaved peasants were held in a con- dition of serfdom, where trade and commerce, which in other lands were carried on by a cultivated class of citizens, was in the hands of sordid and avaricious Jews, must needs have excited the cupidity of ambitious neighbours. Augustus III., After the death of Augustus III. the Polish empire a.d. 17C3. again became the prey of the old elective tempests, till at length, Stanislaus Poniatowski, one of the former lovers of the em- press, Catherine II., was chosen king in the plain of "Wola, amidst Se t b 4 ^ ne c ^ asn °f Russian sabres. Poniatowski was a connoi- 1764. sieur and patron of literature and the arts, and an amiable Poniatowski, and accomplished gentleman, but without strength of jAq - 5 character or power of will. Weak, and with no consis- tency of character, he was a mere tennis-ball in the hands of the powerful. The Russian ambassador in Warsaw possessed greater power than he did ; and, to prevent the possibility of Poland's escape from this state of disorder and feebleness, Russia and Prussia determined upon maintaining the ancient constitution unaltered. § 4G6. It happened at this crisis, that the Polish Dissidents, under which term were included, not only the Protestants and Socinians, but also the adherents of the Greek Church, petitioned the Diet for the restoration of the ecclesiastical and civil privileges of which they had been deprived by the Jesuits. Their petition, although sup- WAR OF RUSSIA WITH THE TURKS. 341 ported by Russia, Prussia, and most of the Protestant governments, was rejected at the Diet by the Catholic nobility, at the instigation of the clergy. The Dissidents, in combination with the " discon- July 23, tented," now formed the General Confederation of Ba- 176*7- dom, called upon Eussia for assistance, and extorted the free exercise of religion, admission to offices, and the churches they had before possessed, from the Diet. Surrounded by Russian troops, the representatives subscribed, under the portrait of the empress, the act of toleration, that was greeted by all Europe, and which was the sign of the impotence of Poland. That this impotence might be permanent, it was decided that no change should be made in the existing constitution without the consent of Eussia. The proceedings offended the national feeling of the Polish patriots and aroused the religious hatred of the Catholic zealots. The anti- February 28, confederation of Bar was formed, which was to free the 1768. Poles from Eussian supremacy, and to wrest from the Dissidents the rights that had been conceded them. France supported it with money and officers. A furious war now arose between the two confederations. But the Eussian army, which had remained in the country for the protection of the Diet and the Dissidents, carried off the victory. Bar and Cracow, the chief strongholds of the enemy, were stormed, and themselves compelled to take refuge in the Turkish dominions. The Eussians followed them over the borders, and did not refrain from murdering, plundering, and devastating even on the foreign soil. § 467. This infringement of territory induced the Porte, which was urged on by the French ambassadors, to declare hostilities First Turkish against Eussia, whereupon the Turkish war burst forth, War, a.d. which for six years fearfully convulsed the east of 1768—1774. Europe both by land and sea. "Whilst Eomanzoff, after two bloody encounters, was conquering Moldavia and Wallachia, and the dreadful storm of Bender was filling all Europe with astonish- ment, the Morea, where the Greeks, relying upon the assistance of Eussia, had risen against the rule of the Turks, was horribly ravaged with fire and sword by the latter, so that whole districts were covered with ruins and corpses ; and in the haven of Tschesme, opposite the island of Chios, the whole Turkish fleet was set in flames, which produced a trembling of the earth in Smyrna, and caused an agitation of the sea like that produced by a storm. At the same time, Moscow and its neighbourhood were visited by a deso- lating pestilence, and in Poland the civil war still raged with increasing fury. It was only by a miracle that Poniatowski escaped from some conspirators who wished to carry him off from "Warsaw. On every side the eye encountered plains soaked 342 THE LATEST PERIOD. with blood, villages burnt to the ground, and weeping inhabitants. The impotence and divisions of Poland invited to a partition. After a personal interview between Frederick II. and Joseph II. (the right- minded Maria Theresa was hostile to the scheme), and a visit of August 5, prince Henry of Prussia to Petersburg, a treaty of par- !772. tition was arranged between Russia, Austria, and Prussia, hi consequence of which each of these states took possession of the portion of Poland which adjoined then own territories. It was in vain that the Diet opposed itself courageously and resolutely to the execution of this project, and showed that the pretended rights and claims which the powers insisted upon had long been given up by contracts, surrenders, and treaties of peace ; it was in vain that it solemnly protested before God and the world against such an abuse of superior power, and against a proceeding which outraged truth and good faith ; — surrounded and threatened by Russian arms, it at length yielded to force, and consented to the surrender of the country. It was thus that Polish Prussia, together with the district of the JSTetz, and the fertile lands of the Vistula (Elbing, Marienburg, Culm, &c.) became the property of Prussia ; Galieia, with the rich mines of Wielicza, of Austria ; and the lands on the Dwina and Dnieper, of Russia. The establishment of a " perpetual council," that was completely under Russian influence, deprived the king of the last remains of power. Prom this time forth the Russian ambassador in "Warsaw was the real governor of the Polish republic. Shortly after, Russia, by the peace of Kudschuck Kainardsche with the Porte, obtained the right of passage through the Dardanelles, and the protective government of Moldavia and "Wallachia, and the peninsida of the Crimea. § 468. Russia's thirst of conquest was not satisfied with this. A few years afterwards, the khan of the Tatars was compelled to lay clown his office ; iipon which, Potemkin conquered the Crimea, after dreadful devastations, and united it, with the other lands on the Black Sea, into one territory, distinguished by the ancient name of Tauris. Colonists were caUed forth from Ger- many into the desolate steppes, the trading toAvns of Cherson and Odessa arose, and deceived the world by the outward appearance of civilization. But the happiness and prosperity of the inhabitants disappeared with freedom ; the once splendid city of tents degene- rated into a camp of gipsies ; and the houses and palaces of stone fell into ruins. The threatening neighbourhood of Russia was a cause of Second Turk- aux i e ty t° the Porte. Before long, a second furious war ish War, a.d. broke out, by land and sea, between Russia and Turkey. 17«7 17U2. -g u £ ^ 9 time also victory accompanied the Russian army and its dreadful leader. In the midst of winter, Potemkin stormed THE PARTITIONS OF POLAND. 343 December 17, the strong city of Oczakow, after lie had filled the trenches 1 788. with, blood and dead bodies ; and the brave Suwaroff took the fortress of Ismael under circumstances of similar horror. The December 22, road to Constantinople now stood open to the Russians, 1790. an( j the name of Catherine's second grandchild, " Con- stantine," was supposed to indicate the secret intention of the empress to introduce a Christian prince into the Byzantine capital. This love of conquest displayed by Russia occasioned uneasiness to the other states. England and Prussia assumed a threatening aspect ; Grus- tavus III. of Sweden attacked the Russians by sea and land (§ 462) ; and Poland thought that the favourable moment was arrived for withdrawing herself from the dictatorial influence of Russia, and for again regaining her political independence. In alliance with Prussia, the Poles dissolved the perpetual council, turned the elective empire into an hereditary monarchy, gave themselves a constitu- k ' tional government with two chambers, and a stricter separation of the executive, legislative, and judicial powers. § 469. This constitution, appropriate to the age, and the work of patriotically-disposed men, was received with applause by the whole of Europe. The king swore to observe it. Erederick William II. expressed his favourable wishes : even Catherine concealed her vexa- tion. A new spirit seemed . to have taken possession of the nation. But party-spirit and selfishness destroyed the good work. Many of the nobles were discontented with the change ; a party was formed for the preservation of Polish " liberty," as they, in their delusion, called the ancient system, and invoked the aid of the empress. The latter had just concluded the peace of Jassy with the Porte, and embraced with avidity the opportunity of marching her army upon the frontiers. January, Trusting to this assistance, the Russian party formed the 1792. confederation of Targowicz for the restoration of the old May 14 constitution. A Russian army soon stood in the heart of 1792. Poland. In vain the patriots called upon Prussia for assistance ; opinions had changed in Berlin ; an alliance with Russia was preferred to the friendship of Poland, more particularly as an imitation of the new Erench ideas and forms of government was detected in the new constitution. Nevertheless, the Poles did not despair of their righteous cause. Kosciusko, a brave soldier, who had fought in the cause of freedom under Washington in America, placed himself at the head of the patriots, and encountered the superior July 17, force of the Russians at Dubienka. But party-spirit, dis- 1792. sension, treachery, and want of system, impeded every undertaking, and paralyzed every power. The king, hitherto an enthusiastic adherent of the new constitution, soon fell into his old irresolution and faint-heartedness, and allowed himself to be so terri- 3 14 THE LATEST PERIOD. fied by a threatening letter of the empress, that he joined the alliance of Targowicz, and renounced all further hostilities. The gallant warriors laid down the sword in wrath, and left their homes to escape the scorn of the victors. But a new act of violence followed the victory. In April, Russia and Prussia declared that it was necessary to enclose Poland within narrower limits, for the purpose of stifling the intoxication of liberty which had penetrated into the republic from Prance, and to preserve the neighbouring states from every taint of democratic Jacobinism. It was in vain that the Diet assem- bled at Grodno opposed itself to this new treaty of partition. Every opposition gradually ceased, when Russian troops surrounded the house of assembly, and violently carried off the boldest speakers. July 22 • Thus followed the second division of Poland, by which October u, Russia obtained the most important of the eastern dis- 1 70S • ... tricts (Lithuania, Little Poland, Volhynia, Podolia, Ukraine) ; Prussia gained possession of Great Poland, along with Dantzic and Thorn. The republic of Poland retained scarce a third of her former territory. § 470. The partitioned land was occupied by Russian and Prussian troops; and Catherine's ambassador, the coarse and brutal Igelstrom, ruled with pride and insolence in "Warsaw. The national spirit of Poland was once more aroused. A secret conspiracy was formed which extended its branches over the whole country. Kosciusko and the emigrant patriots returned, and placed themselves at the head of the movement, the central point of which was Cracow. It was from this point that Kosciusko, who had been named the absolute chief of the national force, issued a summons to the people, in which he repre- sented the restoration of the freedom and independence of the coun- try, the reconquest of the separated territories, and the introduction April 17, of a constitutional government, as the objects of the 17 94. struggle. The insurrection quickly extended itself to the capital. The Russian garrison in Warsaw was attacked on Maundy- Thursday, and either cut to pieces or made prisoners. Igelstrom' s palace was destroyed by fire ; four of the most illustrious adherents of Russia died upon the gallows. The provinces followed the example of the capital; the king approved the revolt of the misused ration; and every thing promised a successful issue. The Prussians, who had marched into the neighbourhood of Warsaw, were compelled to a hasty and disastrous retreat by the brave generals Kosciusko, Dom- browski, and Joseph Poniatowski (the nephew of the king). But the success of the Poles increased the enemy's desire of vengeance. Catherine, with the consent of Austria and Prussia, sent her most redoubted general, Suwaroff, into Poland. Kosciusko was obliged to THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 345 yield to the superior strength of his opponent. After an unsuccess- ful engagement he fell, wounded, from his horse, with the exclama- October 10 tion, " the end of Poland ! " and was carried off a prisoner. 1794. On the 4th Novemher the suburb, Praga, was stormed by Suwaroff; 12,000 defenceless people were either slain or drowned in the Vistula. The shrieks of the slaughtered terrified the inhabit- ants of the capital, and made them willing to surrender. On the 9th November Suwaroff made his splendid entry into Warsaw as a conqueror. Pouiatowski was obliged to surrender the crown. He lived in St. Petersburg, on an annuity, till his death in 1798, an ob- ._ ject of deserved contempt. A few months later, the ' three powers declared, that out of love for peace and the welfare of their subjects, they had decided upon the partition of the whole republic of Poland. Accordingly the south, with Cracow, went to Austria; the land on the left of the Vistula with the capital, "Warsaw, to Prussia ; Russia took possession of all the rest. Thus the once renowned and powerful Poland disappeared from the ranks of independent states, a victim to a weakness for which she was indebted to herself, and a violence that despised the rights of foreign nations. Kosciusko, after being set at liberty by Paul I., died as a private man in Switzerland (October, 1817). His dead body was conveyed to Cracow. B. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 1. THE LAST DATS OF ABSOLUTE MOFAECHT. Louis XV., § 471. Louis XV. at first possessed the affections of a.d. 1774. his people to such a degree, that he was named the " Much-beloved ;" and when he was attacked by a dangerous ill- ness in Metz, the whole land went into mourning, and his recovery was celebrated by the greatest rejoicings. But this love gradually changed into hatred and contempt when the king gave himself up to the most shameless debaucheries, and surrendered the government of the country, the command of the army, and the decision upon points of law and state policy, to the companions of his orgies and the ministers of his lusts and pleasures, and when mistresses without morals or decency ruled the court and the empire. Among these women, none possessed greater or more enduring influence than the Marchioness of Pompadour (1764), who guided the whole policy of Prance for a period of twenty years, filled the most important offices with her favourites, decided upon peace or war, and disposed of the revenues of the state as she did of her private purse, so that after a life passed in luxury and splendour she left millions behind her. 346 THE LATEST PERIOD. She and her creatures encouraged Louis' excesses and love of plea- sure, that he might plunge continually deeper in the pool of vice, and leave to them the government of the state. For the rest, the Pompadour used her position and her influence with a certain dignity, and with tact and discretion ; but when the countess Dubarry, a woman from the very dregs of the people, occupied her place, the court lost all authority and respect. § 472. This reign of lust and extravagance, together with the use- less and costly wars in Germany, exhausted the treasury and increased the burden of debts and taxation. And as all these taxes and imposts pressed entirely upon the citizen and peasant class, whilst the wealthy nobility and the clergy enjoyed an exemption, the man of moderate means was very heavily burdened, especially as the government did not superintend their collection, but left it in the hands of the farmers-general of the revenue and of their blood-sucking subordinates. The land and property-tax, the capitation-tax, the house-tax, the tolls and duties upon salt, wrested from the lower classes, who, in addition, had to pay tithes, socage-dues, and other feudal taxes to their landlords, the fruits of their industry, and prevented the rise of a prosperous middle class. It was now the custom that all laws and ordinances relating to taxes should be registered in the parliament of Paris ; hence it followed, that in default of the States- General, which since 1614 had no more been summoned, the validity of taxes and orders depended upon its sanction ; and that it also possessed the right of opposing the laws and edicts relating to taxes by refusing then registration. This produced a violent contest between the parliament and government at every new tax, which was usually terminated by the king holding a "bed of justice" and overpowering resistance. Beside the tax edicts, the arbitrary lettres de cachet were another source of contention between the court and the parliament. These terrible letters, which were easily to be obtained by any one possessing any influence at court, were a despotic attack upon the liberty of the person, inasmuch, as by their means, any one might be arrested and imprisoned without a hearing. For ten years did the parliament struggle against the court and government, till Louis XV., weary of the perpetual opposition, at length gave a new direction to .__. the matter, and ordered the members of the opposition to be arrested. But they again assumed the same attitude under his successor. § 473. "When Louis XV., in consequence of his excesses, was carried off" in the midst of his sins by a frightful distemper, the trea- sury was exhausted, the country in debt, credit gone, and the people Louis XVI. heavily oppressed by their burdens. It was under these a.d. 1774 — melancholy circumstances, that an absolute throne de- scended to a prince who certainly possessed the best of THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 347 hearts but a weak understanding ; who was good-natured enough to wish to relieve the condition of the people, but who possessed neither strength nor intellect for efficient measures. This prince was Louis XVI. Weak and indulgent, he allowed the frivolity and extrava- gance of his brothers, the count of Provence (afterwards Louis XVIII.), and the count of Artois (Charles X.) ; and permitted his wife, Marie Antoinette, the highly-accomplished daughter of Maria Theresa, to interfere in matters of state, and to exert a considerable influence upon the court and government. The queen, by her pride and haughty bearing, incurred the dislike of the people, so that they ascribed every unpopular measure to her influence, and put a bad construction upon every liberty she allowed herself in private. Even in the celebrated story of the necklace, in which some swindler made use of her name to gain possession of a splendid ornament, many believed her participation in the guilt. The prevailing want of money, and the disordered state of the revenue, could only be remedied by including the nobility and clergy in the taxation, by large reforms in the whole system of government, like those proposed by Turgot and Malasherbes (§ 460), and by order and economy in the expenditure. But Louis XYI. had neither strength nor resolution to carry out such decisive measures ; and as for economy, the extravagant court of Versailles would not listen to it. Necker's first -^ ne G-enevese banker, JN"ecker, who undertook the ma- ministry, a.d. nagement of the finances after Turgot, was as little in a - 1771 1/81. p OS ition as his predecessor to reduce the disorder in the state economy ; and when, upon the occasion of a loan, he exposed the financial condition of Trance in a pamphlet, he drew upon him- self the displeasure of the court and the aristocracy to such a degree, that he was obliged to resign his office. This happened at the time when the American war had increased the scarcitv of money, and aroused the feeling of liberty and republicanism in Trance. It was, therefore, a great misfortune for the Trench monarchy, that just at this critical moment the frivolous and extrava- gant Calonne undertook the management of the finances. This man departed from the frugal plan of Keeker, acceded to the wishes of the queen and the necessities of the princes and courtiers, and deluded the world with high-soimding promises of putting an end to all difficulties. The most splendid festivals were celebrated in Ver- sailles, and the talents of Calonne loudly extolled. But his means, also, were soon exhausted. He was obliged to resolve upon calling February, an Assembly of Xotables, consisting of nobles, clergy, 1787- high state officials, parliamentary councillors, and a few representatives of the towns. They rejected the proposal of a uni- versal taxation, which should embrace both the nobles and clergy, 348 THE LATEST PERIOD. and threatened the minister of finance with impeachment, who there- upon resigned his situation and proceeded to London. § 474. Calonne's successor in the management of the finances, Lomenie de Brienne, was in a difficult position. To cover the deficit in the revenue he was obliged to have recourse to the usual measures, increasing the taxes and raising a loan, but encountered so violent an opposition from the parliament of Paris, that the government deter- mined, since the worn out method of compulsion — a royal sitting— no * l ,*„* longer availed, to arrest the boldest speakers and to August, 1 787. . ' _. . l banish them to Troyes. This proceeding excited a great commotion among the people, which induced the government to arrange a composition with the banished members, and to again sanction the assemblies. But the spirit of opposition had become too strong, and had already seized upon the people. They formed a tumultuous meeting around the House of Assembly, saluted the speakers of the opposition with acclamations and the government party Avith abuse. They burnt the detested minister of finance every day in effigy, and in several towns displayed the excited state of then minds by riotous proceedings. The cry for the States- General was heard in the streets as well as in parliament. It was in vain that the ministry attempted to overcome the opposition by converting the parliament into an upper court (cour pleniere) and several infe- „ rior courts — a new spirit had taken possession of the August, 1788. . _ , , i ,i . ■ . 1 • . -n- nation, that was at length to gain the victory. Brienne was compelled to resign at a time when the scarcity of money was become so great that all ready money payments were suspended, and a state bankruptcy appeared inevitable. The popular favourite, Necker, was a second time summoned to the ministry. i^cckcr's -, . . . second minis- He first allayed the irritation by repealing the resolutions try, a.d. against the parliament, and then made preparations for 1788 1780 • • summoning the Estates. Owing to this, there soon arose a division between him and the parliament and Notables, whom he had again consulted. The latter were of opinion that the new as- sembly should conform itself, both as to the number of representatives and the mode of procedure, to the Estates of 1614, whilst JNecker wished to allow a double representation to the third Estate, and that they should vote individually, and not as a class ; a view that was supported by some of the ablest speakers of the nation in a multitude of pamphlets. (Abbe Sieyes : "What is the third Estate ?") Necker's opinion triumphed. An order of the king fixed the number of noble December an( l ecclesiastical members at 300 each, that of the citi- 1788. zens at 600, and appointed the following May as the time of opening. Necker was the hero of the day, but he was not the pilot of the ship, he only " drove with the wind." THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 349 2. THE PEEIOD OE THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY. § 475. In the beginning of May the deputies of the three Estates, and among them some of the most talented and accomplished men of France, assembled themselves in Versailles. The third Estate, irri- tated by the neglect of the court at the opening and during the audience, came to a rupture with the two privileged Estates at the first sittings, when the latter required that the Estates should carry on their debates separately, whilst the former insisted upon a general council and individual votes. After a contest of some weeks, the third Estate, which had chosen the astronomer, Bailli, the freedom- inspired representative of Paris, for its president, but which was guided by the siiperior talents of Sieyes and Mirabeau, declared itself a National Assembly, upon which it was joined by portions of the other Estates. The Assembly at once passed the resolution of allowing the levying of the present taxes for only so long as the Estates should remain undissolved. This pro- ceeding disturbed the court, and inspired it with the thought of granting a constitution to the nation, and thus rendering the Es- tates unnecessary. Eor this purpose a royal sitting was appointed, and the hall of assembly closed for a few days. Upon the intelligence of this, the deputies proceeded to the empty saloon of the Ball-house, and raised their hands in a solemn vow not to separate till they had given a new constitution to the nation. When this saloon was also closed, the meetings were held in the church of St. Louis. The royal sitting took place on the 23rd of June. But neither the speech of the king, nor the sketch of the new constitution afforded due satisfaction, and they were consequently received with coldness. After the termination of the sitting, Louis dissolved the Assembly. The nobility and clergy obeyed, but the citizen class retained their seats, and when the master of the cere- monies called upon them to obey, Mirabeau exclaimed, "Tell your master that we sit here by the power of the people, and that we are only to be driven out by the bayonet!" The weak king did not venture to encounter this resolute resistance by force, June 27. . . . he rather advised the nobility and clergy to join the citizens. § 476. The Stoem oe the Bastile. — During these proceedings, the fickle populace of Paris were kept in a state of perpetual excite- ment by journals, pamphlets, and inflammatory harangues. In the open squares, in the coffee-houses, in taverns, and especially in the Palais-Royal, the dwelling of the profligate, ambitious, and wealthy duke of Orleans, violent discourses were held upon popular freedom, the rights of men, and the equality of all classes, by seditious dema- gogues, and the assembled crowds were excited to obtain these advan- 350 THE LATEST PERIOD. tages by violence. Among these popular orators, the accomplished advocate, Camille Desmoulins, a fanatic in the cause of liberty, was especially pre-eminent. The military who were present in the capital were hurried away by the enthusiasm for liberty, and a portion enrolled themselves in the newly-formed National Guard. The government of the city was made over to a democratic municipality, at the head of which stood Bailli, as mayor. The court, alarmed at this increas- ing ferment, determined upon retiring to Versailles with a few regi- ments of German and Swiss troops. In this proceeding, the leaders of the movement believed they saw the purpose of some act of violence, and made use of it accordingly to excite fresh irritation. The intelli- gence was spread abroad in Paris that Necker had been suddenly dismissed, and banished from the country, and a favourite of the queen placed in his office. This was interpreted as the first step in the contemplated outrage, and proved the signal for a general rise. Crowds of the lowest mob, wearing the newly-invented national cockade (blue, white, and red), paraded riotously through the streets, the alarum-bell was sounded, the workshops of the gunsmiths plun- dered ; tumult and confusion reigned every where. On the 14th July, after the populace had taken 30,000 stand of arms and some cannon from the Hospital of Invalides, took place the storming of the Bastile, an old castle that served as a state prison. The gover- nor, Delaunay, and seven of the garrison, fell victims to the popular rage ; their heads were carried through the streets upon poles ; and many men who were hated as aristocrats were put to death. The banished Necker was recalled, and his entrance into the towns and villages of France was celebrated as that of a hero crowned with victory. In this joyous reception of the minister the people displayed their enthusiasm for liberty, and their hatred to the court and the aristocracy. Lafayette, the champion of the liberty of America, was appointed commander of the National Guard, and whilst the king returned to Paris, and exhibited himself to the assembled people from the balcony of the council-house, with the cockade in his hat, the count of Artois, and many nobles of the first rank, as Conde, Polignac, left their country in mournful anticipation of the coming event. § 477. TnE New System. — Since the storm of the Bastile, the laws and magistrates had lost their authority in Prance, and the power lay in the hands of the populace. The country people no longer paid their tithes, taxes, and feudal dues to the clergy and nobles, but took vengeance for the long oppression they had suffered by destroying the manorial castles. "When intelligence of these pro- ceedings spread abroad, it was proposed in the National Assembly, that the xipper classes should prove to the people by their actions, that they were willing to lighten their burdens, and that, with this THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 351 purpose, they should renounce, of their own free will, all the inherited feudal privileges of the middle ages. This proposal excited a storm of enthusiasm and self-renunciation. None would be behind-hand. Estates, towns, provinces, each strove for the honour of making the greatest sacrifices for the common good. This was the celebrated 4th of August, when in one feverous and excited assembly, all tithes, socage duties, manorial rights, corporate bodies, &c, were abolished, the soil was declared free, and the equality of all citizens of the state before the law and in regard to taxation was decreed. These resolutions, and the necessary laws and arrange- ments required for their reduction to practice which were gradually adopted, produced, in a short time, a complete revolution in all exist- ing conditions. The Church lost her possessions, and was subjected to the state ; monasteries and religious orders were dissolved and the clergy paid by the state, the bishoprics newly regulated, and religious freedom established. Priests were required to swear allegiance, like officers of state, to the new constitution ; but as the pope forbade it, the greater number refused the oath, which was the occasion of the French clergy being divided into sworn and unsworn priests : the latter lost then offices and were exposed to all kinds of persecutions, but enjoyed the confidence of the faithful among the people. The noble forfeited not only his privileges and the greater part of his income, but he also lost the external distinctions of his rank, by the abolition of all titles, coats of arms, orders, &c. Upon the principle of equality, all Frenchmen were to be addressed as " citizens." For the purpose of utterly annihilating every remnant of the ancient system, France received a new geographical division into departments and arrondissements ; a new system of jtidicature with jurymen ; equality of weights, measures, and standards ; and lastly, a consti- tutional government, in which the privileges of royalty were limited beyond what was befitting, and the legislative power committed to a single chamber, with a general right of election. § 478. The King and the National Assembly at Paeis. — When the king hesitated to promulgate the resolutions of the Assem- bly as laws, the report was again propagated of a contemplated stroke of state policy. This report gained strength when the Flemish regi- ment was ordered to Versailles, and the king was indiscreet enough to show himself, with the queen and dauphin, at a feast given by the body-guard to the newly-arrived officers, and thus to give occasion to imprudent speeches, toasts, and songs, among the assembled troops, who were heated with drinking. This occurrence was soon made known by busy tongues in Paris, and added to the popular excite- ment, which had besides been increased by a scarcity of bread. Ac- cordingly, on the 5th of October, an innumerable multitude, chiefly of women, proceeded to Versailles to demand from the king relief 552 THE LATEST PERIOD. from the scarcity of bread, and a return of the court to Paris. The king at first attempted to pacify them by a conciliatory ansAver. But a wing of the palace was stormed during the night, and the guard put to the sword; the arrival of Lafayette, with the National Guard, prevented any farther mischief. Upon the following day, the king was obliged to consent to proceed to Paris with his famdy, under the escort of this frightful crew, and to take up his residence in the Tuileries, which had for many years remained unoccupied. Shortly after followed the National Assembly also, for which the riding- school in the neighbourhood of the palace had been prepared. The power now fell more and more into the hands of the lower class, who were kept in perpetual excitement by licentious journalists and popular leaders, and were goaded to hatred against the court and the " aristocrats." The " Priend of the People" of the insolent Marat, a physician from Neuchatel, was distinguished by its violence. The democratic clubs, which increased every day in extent and influence, also aided the revolution. The Jacobin club, iu particular, which had branches in all the towns of Prance, acquired a place in the history of the world. The members, who wore the red cap of the convicts of the galleys, as a distinction, aimed at a republic, with freedom and equality for all the " citizens." With these was joined the club of Cordeliers, which numbered some of the most daring men of the revolution, as Danton and Camille Desmoulins, among its members. The Constitutional club, on the other hand, to which Lafayette had joined himself, declined in importance every day. § 479. The Ceremony oe Federation. — Plight oe the King. On the day of the year in which the Bastile was taken a ' ' ' grand federative festival was arranged in the Champ de Mars. It must have been a moving spectacle, when Talleyrand at the head of 300 priests, clothed in white, and girded with tri-coloured scarves, performed the consecration of the banner at the altar of the country ; when Lafayette, in the name of the National Guard, of the president of the National Assembly, and, at length, of the king himself, vowed fidelity to the constitution ; when the innumerable multitude raised their hands aloft and repeated after him the oath of citizen- ship, and the queen herself, carried away by enthusiasm, raised the Dauphin in the air and joined in the acclamations. This was the last day of happiness for the king, whose situation after this grew constantly worse. Necker, no longer equal to the difficulties, left Prance and retired to Switzerland. Mirabeau, won over by the court, opposed farther encroachments upon the kingly poAver with the whole of his eloquence, inasmuch as he believed a constitutional monarchy and not a republic to be the best government for Prance. Unfortu- nately for the king, this great man died in his forty- second year of a sickness brought on by his disorderly life THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 353 and by over-exertion. A splendid funeral ceremonial gave evidence of the influence of the man in whom sank the last strong pillar of the throne. "Weak and unself-reliant as Louis XVI. was, he now lost all firmness. By his refusal to receive an unsworn priest as his confessor, or to declare the emigrants traitors, who were endeavour- ing from Coblentz to excite the European courts to a crusade against Prance, he excited a suspicion that he was not honestly a supporter of the constitution he had sworn to, and not altogether ignorant of the efforts of the emigrants. The more this suspicion gained ground with the people, the more perilous became the position of the king. At this crisis, Louis embraced the desperate resolution of secretly flying to the northern frontier of his kingdom. Bouille, a resolute general, in Lorraine, was let into the secret, and promised to support the scheme with his troops. Leaving behind him a letter, in which he protested against all the acts which had been forced from him since October, 1789, the king happily escaped, with his family, from Paris in a large carriage. But the clumsily executed project ' ' nevertheless miscarried. Louis was recognized in St. Mene- hould by the postmaster, Drouet, stopped by the militia at Varennes, and led back to Paris at the command of the National Assembly, who sent three of their members, and among them, Petion, to receive the royal family. The suspension of the royal authority, which had already been pronounced by the Assembly, remained in force, till Louis proclaimed, and swore to observe, the Constitution completed at the end of September. 3. THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY AND THE EALL OE THE MONARCHY (OCTOBER 1, 1791 — SEPTEMBER 20, 1792). § 480. The Girondists. — As the members of the Constituent Assembly had voluntarily excluded themselves from the new Cham- ber, the elections to the Legislative Assembly which were carried on under the influence of the Jacobins, mostly terminated in favour of the republicans. These latter, however, soon divided into a radical- democratic and a moderate party : the former, from its position in the House, was called the Mountain ; the latter received the name of Girondists, because many of its speakers were from Bordeaux and the department of the Gironde. Among the latter, who, at the commencement, assembled themselves around the minister, Poland, and his intelligent and high-minded wife, were men of great oratorical talents and exalted civic virtues, as Vergniaud, Lanjuinais, Barba- rous, Brissot, &c. The Girondists formed the majority, as the minis- try, consisting of Poland, Dumourier, &c, belonged to this party. The attention of the government and the Assembly was particu- larly directed to the priests, who had refused the oath, and to the emigrants. Both were endeavouring to overthrow the existing order a a So [' THE LATEST PERIOD. of things : the former by exciting hatred and discontent among the French people ; the latter by making military preparations at Coblentz, and endeavouring to stir up foreign powers to an armed invasion of France. The Assembly therefore determined upon seeking out and arresting the unsworn priests, and declaring the emigrants traitors and conspirators, and punishing them by the loss of their estates and incomes. The king put his veto upon both these resolu- tions, and prevented their execution. This refusal was ascribed to the secret hopes entertained by the court of assistance from foreign powers and of the triumph of the emigrants, and thus the temper of the people grew continually more hostile. It was also known that the queen was in correspondence with her brother, the emperor of Austria, and that she looked for support and safety in the emigrant noblesse. Neither was it any longer doubtful that the war must soon break out, since the emperor of Austria and the long of Prussia, after a conference in Pillnitz (August, 1791), were making preparations, and demanded of the French government not only to make befitting indemnification to the German princes and nobles who had suffered loss by the abolition of tithes and feudal burdens, and to restore the province of Avignon that had been wrested from the pope, but to arrange the government upon the plan proposed by the king himself in June, 1789. These demands were April 20, followed by a declaration of war against Austria and 1792. Prussia on the part of the French government, to which the king yielded his consent with tears. For the purpose of securing the capital and the National Assembly against any attack, it was resolved to summon 20,000 of the federates from the southern pro- vinces, \mder pretence of celebrating the festival of the Bastile, and to commit the defence of Paris to them. But Louis refused his consent to this resolution also. Upon this, the Girondist ministers laid down their offices, after Madame Poland had reproached and reprimanded the king in a letter that was soon in the hands of every body. These proceedings inflamed the irritation to such an extent that it became easy for the republicans to excite a popular insurrection. On the 20th of June, the day of the year of the meeting in the ball- house, the terrible mob, armed with pikes, marched from the suburbs, under the conduct of the brewer, Santerre, and the butcher, Legen- dre, into the Tuileries, to force the king to confirm the decree against the unsworn priests and for the summoning of the National Guard. But here also Louis l'emained firm. He defied for several hours all threats and dangers, and endured the insolence of the mob, which even placed the red Jacobin cap upon his head and gave him wine to drink, with the courage of a martyr. The rather tardy arrival of Petion with the burgher guard at length freed him from his perilous position. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 355 § 481. These proceedings were the prelude to the eventful Tenth or Atjoust. War had already commenced to the great joy of the Prussian officers, who promised themselves great glory and little trouble from the " military promenade " as they called the French campaign. The Prussians marched into Lorraine under the command of duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, known in the seven years' war. An Austrian force under Clerfait was placed at his command ; 12,000 emigrants joined themselves to him, who were burning with eagerness to overthrow the " government of advocates," and to have vengeance upon their enemies. On setting out, the duke published a mani- festo, drawn up by one of the emigrants, full of injurious menaces against the National Assembly, the city of Paris, the National Guard, and all the French who favoured the new system. The insolent tone of this proclamation made an indescribable impression upon the peo- ple who were "enthusiastic for the new order of things, and produced the fiercest rage against the emigrants and their defenders. This feeling was taken advantage of by the Jacobins for the overthrow of the king. Supported by the declaration of the Assembly, " The coun- try is in danger," they summoned from Marseilles, Brest, and other maritime towns, crowds of the lowest refuse of the people, even galley- slaves, to Paris, then formed a committee of insurrection, and prepared the rude and sturdy inhabitants of the suburbs for a decisive blow. The alarm sounded at midnight on the 10th of August. A fearful mob proceeded, in the first place, to the Hotel de Ville for the pur- pose of establishing a new democratic municipality, and then marched to the royal palace which was defended by 900 Swiss, and the Parisian National Guard under the command of Mandat. The honest Mandat was resolved to check the advancing masses which were ever assuming a more menacing aspect, by force ; his destruction was consequently resolved upon by the democrats. He was commanded to appear at the Hotel de Yille, and assassinated on his way thither ; upon which the National Guard, uncertain what to do, and disgusted by the presence of a number of nobles in the palace, for the most part dis- persed themselves. The mob constantly assumed a more threatening aspect ; cannon were turned upon the palace, the pikemen pressed forwards upon every entrance, the people loudly demanded the de- position of the king. At this crisis, Louis suffered himself to be persuaded to seek for protection with his family in the hall of the National Assembly, where they passed sixteen hours in a narrow closet. The king had scarcely left the palace before the tumultuous multitude pressed forward more violently ; the Swiss guard maintained a gallant resistance, and defended the entrance. When the report of musketry was heard in the adjoining Assembly, the indignant representatives of the people compelled the intimidated king to give his guard orders to cease firing. By this order the faithful defenders of monarchy a a 2 356 THE LATEST PERIOD. were doomed to destruction. Scarcely had the furious mob observed that the enemy's fire had ceased, before they stormed the palace, slaughtered those they found in it, and destroyed the furniture. Nearly 5000 men, and among them, 700 Swiss, fell in the struggle, or died afterwards, the victims of the popular fury. In the mean time the National Assembly, upon the proposal of Yergniaud, em- braced the resolution, " to suspend the royal authority, to place the king and his family under control, to give the prince a tutor, and to assemble a National Convention." The Temple, a strong fortress erected by the knights templars, soon enclosed the imprisoned royal family. § 482. The Days oe September. — After the suspension of the king, a new ministry was formed by the National Assembly, in which, by the side of the Girondist, Roland, and others, the terrible Danton held office as minister of justice. This ministry, and the new Common Council of Paris which had appointed itself, and which, after the 10th of August, had strengthened itself by members who might be de- pended upon as hesitating at no wdckedness, now possessed the whole power. The Municipal Council ordered the police of the capital to be conducted by pikemen, and the prisons were quickly filled with the "suspected" and "aristocrats." It was now that the frightful resolution was matured of getting rid of the opponents of the new order of things by a bloody tribunal, and of suppressing all resistance by terror. After the recusant priests had been slaughtered by hun- dreds in the monasteries and prisons, the dreadful days of September were commenced. Prom the 2nd to the 7th of September bands of hired murderers and villains marched into the prisons. Twelve of them acted as jurymen and judge, the others as executioners. The imprisoned, with the exception of a few whose names were marked upon a list, were then put to death by this inhuman crew under a semblance of judicial proceedings. Nearly 3000 human beings were either put to death singly or slaughtered in masses by these wretches, who received a daily stipend from the Common Council for their "labours." Among the murdered was the princess Lamballe, the friend of the queen ; a troop of pikemen carried her head upon a pole to the Temple, and held it before Maria Antoinette's window. The example of the capital was imitated in many of the departments. The barbarous destruction of all statues, coats of arms, inscriptions, and other memorials of a former period, formed the conclusion of the August and September days, which were the transition period between the French monarchy and republic. The autumnal equinox was dis- tinguished as the commencement of the reign of liberty ' and equality under the republican National Convention. Lafayette, who was Berviug with the northern army, and who, after the days of June, had returned to Paris on his own responsi- THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 357 bility, for the purpose, if possible, of saving the ting, was now sum- moned before the National Assembly to answer for his conduct. Convinced that the Jacobins were seeking his death, he fled with some friends, who shared his sentiments, to Holland, that he might escape to America ; but he fell into the hands of enemies, who treated him like a prisoner of war, and allowed him to live for five years in the dungeons of Olmutz and Magdeburg. Talleyrand repaired to England, and from thence to America, where he awaited better times. 4. REPUBLICAN TRANCE "UNDER THE GOVERNMENT OE THE NATIONAL CONVENTION (SEPTEMBER, 1792 — OCTOBER, 1795). § 483. Execution oe the King. — The new Assembly, which, under the influence of the Jacobins, had been elected by general suffrage, was composed almost exclusively of republicans, but of different dispositions and opinions. The moderates, Girondists, who were aiming at a republican form of government upon the model of antiquity, or upon that of the North Americans, and who abhorred bloodshed as a means, gradually fell before the radicals and demo- crats, who first overthrew by violence all the existing arrangements, and then sought to found a new system of " liberty and equality " upon the levelled surface. They acted upon the principle, " That he who is not for us is against us," and attempted to bear down all opposition by terror and bloodshed. Strong in the Jacobin clubs and in the wild bands of the numerous combatants of the revolution, who were distinguished by the name of " Sans- Culottes," and who were maintained in a constant state of excitement by songs (Marseillaise, C,a ira), revolution festivals, trees of liberty, and such like matters, the destructive party soon obtained the upper hand. The process against the king, "Louis Capet," was one of the first proceedings of the National Convention. An iron safe had been discovered in a wall of the Tuileries containing secret letters and documents, from which it was apparent that the Erench court had not only been in alliance with Austria and the emigrants, and had projected plans for overthrowing the constitution that had been sworn to by Louis, but that it had also attempted to win over single members of the National Assembly (for example, Mirabeau), by annuities, bribery, and other means. It was upon this that the republicans, who would willingly have been quit of the king, founded a charge of treason and con- spiracy against the coimtry and the people. Louis, with the assist- ance of two advocates, to whom the noble Malasherbes (§ 460), of his own free impulse, associated himself, appeared twice before the Convention (11th and 26th December), but despite his own dignified bearing and defence, and despite the efforts of the Girondist party to have the sentence referred to a general assembly of the people, Louis 358 TIIE LATEST PERIOD. January 17, was condemned to death in a stormy meeting, by a small 1793. majority of five voices. The party of the Mountain, where the advocate, Maximilian Eobespierre, the former marquis St. Just, the frightful Danton, the lame Couthon, and the duke of Orleans, who had assumed the name of Citizen Egalite, were the leaders and chiefs, had left no means unattempted to produce this result by terror ; they would, nevertheless, have failed in their purpose, had they not carried a resolution beforehand in the Assembly, that a bare majority should be sufficient for a sentence of death, and not, as had heretofore been the custom, that two-thirds of the votes should be necessary. The murder was thus veiled by a show of justice. On the 21st of January the unfortunate king ascended the scaffold in the square of the Revo- lution. The drums of the National Guard drowned his last words, aud " Robespierre's women" greeted his bloody head with the shout of " Vive la Republique." § 484. Dttmourieb. — In the mean time, the Prussians had marched through Lorraine into Champagne. But the duke of Brunswick, accustomed to the slow and circumspect proceedings of the seven years' war, wasted time in the conquest of unimportant fortresses, and entered Champagne in an unfavourable period of the year, when the roads were impassable from the rain, and the army was weakened and destroyed by the use of unwholesome provisions and of unripe September fruit. After the battle of Valmy, where Dumourier and 20, 1792. Kellermann successfully repulsed the attack of the enemy, the Prussian generals relinquished the idea of any farther advance, and concluded a composition with Dumourier, by which the Prussians were assured of an uninterrupted retreat. The Austrians, who had marched from the Netherlands, met with no better success. After the battle of Jemappes, Dumourier conquered Belo-imn ISiovember G. . " ' x ° and Liege, and threatened the frontiers of Holland, whilst the Hussar-general, Custine, made himself master of the towns on October 21, ^ ie Rhine, and gained the fortress of Mayence, where 1792. there were many adherents of the ideas of freedom and equality, for the French republic. The citizens of Mayence, deserted by their elector, their clergy, and the nobility, received the French troops with enthusiasm. George Forster, the circumnavigator of the globe, was the soul of the republican party in Mayence. This success of the French arms inspired the republicans with fresh courage, and the powers of Europe with fresh alarm. Were they to look quietly on, whilst a king was murdered in a revolting manner in Paris, whilst the revolutionists, intoxicated with success, called upon the people every where to overthrow their monarchical governments, and pro- mised them the protection of the French nation in establishing their republics ? The enthusiasm of the people for the new ideas gave great assistance to the republican arms : not only the thrones of kings THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 359 and the dominions of princes, but the privileges and possessions of the nobility and clergy were in peril. Fresh armies from all parts of Europe were therefore marched across the French frontiers for the purpose of suppressing a revolution which endangered the peace and security of other states. England, where the Tories, under the guid- ance of the younger Pitt, were in possession of the government, and where the orator, Edmund Burke, once the advocate of the American War of Liberty both in speech and writing, took the field against the revolution, and solemnly separating himself from his old friend, Fox, the leader of the liberal "Whigs, headed the " Coalition" against France. English subsidies soon gave fresh life to the war. An Aus- trian army appeared in the Netherlands under the prince of Coburg, who was assisted by Clerfait and the Archduke Charles, drove back March 18, the French over the Maase, and defeated Dumourier at 17'J3. Neerwinden. This defeat was ascribed by Dumourier principally to the Jacobins, because they had corrupted the army, had neglected the necessary military supplies, and had placed an incompetent coadjutor by his side. In his disgust, he allowed it to appear pretty unequivocally that he meditated the overthrow of the republican constitution, and the re-establishment of a king (for which office he had selected the duke of Orleans, or his son Louis-Philippe) . The Convention, apprized of this intention, impeached the general, and required his presence in Paris to answer for himself. But instead of obeying the summons, Dumourier ordered the ambassadors of the Convention to be seized and delivered up to the enemy, and then went over with a part of- his troops to the Austrians. About the same time, Mayence, after the most obstinate defence, and after enduring the extremities of famine, fell again into the hands of the Prussians, who once more approached the frontiers of France. § 485. Dumourier's treachery was employed by the Jacobins for the overthrow of the Girondists, to which party Dumourier had belonged. The Girondists, enraged at the increasing power of the populace in Paris, and the unbridled acts of violence committed by the mob, entertained the project of converting France into a repub- lican union like North America, and by this means, destroying the supremacy of the capital. The Mountain and the Jacobins, who saw that this scheme would weaken the revolutionary power of France, and endanger the future of the democratic republic, commenced a war of life and death with the Girondists (also called Brissotins) upon this point. They accused them of an understanding with Dumourier, they reproached them with weakening the power of the people, and destroying the republic at a moment when France was threatened with enemies both within and without, and when all these attacks were ignominiously repulsed by the victorious eloquence of the Girondists, the savage Marat, in his "Friend of the People," 3G0 THE LATEST PERIOD. called upon the populace to rise against the moderate and lukewarm, and thus gave occasion to daily riots and tumults, which disturbed the capital and endangered life and property. All moderate and reputable people were in continual peril. It was in vain that the Girondists succeeded in having Marat brought before a court of justice, he was acquitted by the Jacobins, and carried back to the Convention in triumph by the people ; it was in vain that the Giron- dists procured the appointment of a Commission of Twelve, who were to discover and punish the exciters of the tumult — when the Com- mission ordered Hebert, who, in his vulgar and libellous journal, " Pere Duchesne," excited the people to tumult and murder, aud some of his associates, to be imprisoned, the raging mob compelled their release — and then arranged the great insurrection of the 31st of May and 1st of June. They made the branded Henriot, who had first been a lacquey, then a smuggler, and lastly a spy of the police, commander of the National Guard. Under his guidance, the innu- merable multitiide of the sans-culottes surrounded the Tuileries, where the Convention was holding its meeting, and demanded with threats the abolition of the Commission of Twelve, and the exclusion of the Girondists and the moderates. It was in vain that the latter employed the whole force of their eloquence to induce the Assembly not to consent to the demands of the people : the mob pressed into the hall and the galleries, and demanded its sacrifice with wild shouts and cries. It was in vain that the majority of the Assembly, the courageous president, Herault, at their head, attempted to leave the apartment where they could no longer debate in freedom ; driven back by Henriot, nothing was left to them but to consent to the demands of the people and the party of the Mountain, and to admit the supremacy of the mob. Thirty -four Girondists were immediately thrust out and imprisoned; twenty of them (Petion, Guadet, and Barbaroux, were of the number) escaped, and summoned the inhabit- ants of Normandy, Bretagne, and the maritime cities of the south, to take up arms against the Jacobins ; the remainder died some time after on the guillotine. The assassination of Marat, by the noble Charlotte Corday, who was inspired by a spirit of genuine liberty, and a frightful civil war, were the first results of this act of violence. Most of the escaped Girondists also died violent deaths, by their own hands or those of others. Thus, Roland, Petion, Barbaroux, Con- dorcet, and others. Madame Poland also died on the guillotine. Seventy-three members of the Convention, who had sided with the Girondists, were also expelled, so that the Convention was now entirely ruled by the democrats of the Mountain. § 486. The Reign of the Jacobins. — The National Convention acquired greater unanimity by the exclusion of the Girondists and the moderates ; so that from this point it was enabled to develop a frightful THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 361 power and activity. For the purpose of better superintending and conducting its multitudinous affairs, it resolved itself into committees, of which the committee of public safety and that of public security acquired a frightful celebrity by the persecution of every one opposed to the new order of things. A revolutionary tribunal, consisting of twelve jurymen and five judges, to which that man of blood, Fouquier Tinville, occupied the office of public accuser, seconded the activity of these committees by a cruel and summary administration of justice. At the head of the committee of public safety stood three men whose names became the terror and horror of all just men — the envious and malignant Robespierre, the bloodthirsty Couthon, and the fanatic for republican liberty and equality, St. Just. They pursued their bloody object without regard to human life : every thing that ventured to oppose their stormy course was unpityingly hurled down. Thus originated the terrible period of the years '93 and '94, which displayed itself in three different directions' — within, by a cruel persecution of all citizens who were known as aristocrats or favourers of royalty, and by a bloody suppression of insurrections in the south and west ; with- out, by a vigorous defensive war against innumerable enemies. § 487. — 1. Persecution oe Aristocrats. — Since the municipal government in Paris had been in the exclusive possession of Jacobins and democrats of the most extreme class, since democratical commit- tees had had the political supervision of all the sections, since, beside the National Guard, a revolutionary army of sans-culottes had stood at the disposal of the republican government, the whole power had been in the hands of the populace and their frantic leaders. The Jacobin clubs in Paris and the provincial cities possessed the government ; their orators and presidents executed, with the aid of the people, the most sanguinary outrages upon all who were not of their own party. The most effectual means of destroying all oppo- nents was the frightful law against the suspected, which threatened with death all "enemies of the country," all who manifested any attachment to the former condition of things, or to the priesthood or the nobility. In consequence of this and similar laws, the prisons were filled with thousands of so-called aristocrats ; and forty or sixty men were daily dragged to the guillotine. All those who were distinguished from the ruling democracy by rank, wealth, refinement, or nobility of mind, stood in continual peril of their lives. The malicious slander of an enemy, the accusation of a spy, the hatred of a sans-culotte, were sufficient to bring an innocent man to prison, and from prison to the scaffold. The transition was so sudden, that death lost its terrors, and the prisons became the scenes of cheerful and refined society, and of intellectual conversation. The most noble and distinguished men of France were among the victims. The former minister, Malasherbes, the members of the constituent assembly, 362 THE LATEST PERIOD. Bailli, Barnave, &c, all who belonged to the old monarchy, and who had not saved themselves by flight, died by the guillotine. Among them was the severely-tried queen, Marie Antoinette, Avho displayed, during her trial, and at her execution, a firm- ness and strength of soul that was worthy of her education and her birth. Her son died beneath the cruel treatment of a Jacobin ; her daughter (the duchess of Angouleme) carried a gloomy spirit and an embittered heart with her to the grave. Louis XVI.'s pious sister, May 10, Elizabeth, also died on the scaffold ; the head of the 1794. profligate duke of Orleans, whom even the favour of Danton could not preserve from the envy of Eobespierre, had fallen before her own. § 4S8. — 2. Outeages ix the South. — The bloody rule of the Mountain party displayed itself in its most frightful height in the suppression of the revolt against the reign of terror. When the inhabitants of Normandy and Bretagne rose in support of the excluded Girondists, the committee of public safety ordered the district between the Seine, the Loire, and the extremest sea-coast to be visited with blood and slaughter by the terrible Carrier. This monster ordered, at Nantes, his victims to be drowned by hundreds in the Loire, by means of ships with movable bottoms (noyades). The proceedings of the Jacobins in the cities of the south, Lyons, Marseilles, and Toulon, were still more barbarous. In the first of these towns, Chalier, who had formerly been a priest, and now, as president of the Jacobin club, excited the people by scandalous placards, to plunder and destroy the " aristocrats." Irritated at this audacity, the respectable and wealthy citizens of Lyons, who were t i r -m ^ us menaced in their kves and property, procured the execution of the demagogue. This deed filled the Parisian terrorists with fury. A republican army appeared before the walls of the town, which, after an obstinate contest, was taken and fearfully punished. Ereron, a companion of Marat, Eouche, Couthon, and others, caused the inhabitants to be shot down in crowds, because the guillotine was too tedious in its operations ; whole streets were either pulled down or blown into the air with gunpowder. The goods of the rich were divided among the popidace ; Lyons was to be annihilated, reduced to a nameless common. The republicans raged in a similar way in Marseilles and Toulon. The royalists of Toulon had called upon the English for assistance, and surrendered to them their town and harbour. Confident in this assistance, and in the strength of their walls, the citizens of Toulon bade defiance to their republican enemies. But the army of sans-culottes, in which the young Corsican, Napoleon Buonaparte, exhibited the first proofs of his military talents, overcame all obstacles. Toulon was stormed. The English, unable to maintain the town, set fire to the fleet, and left the unfor- THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. gQ3 turtate inhabitants to the frightful vengeance of the Convention. Here also the barbarous Ereron ordered all the wealthy citizens to be shot, and their property to be divided among the sans-culottes. The respectable inhabitants fled, and abandoned the city to the mob and the galley-slaves. Tallien behaved in a similar manner in Bourdeaux ; and in the north of Trance, Lebon marched from place to place with a guillotine. § 489. Scenes oe blood in La Yexdee. — But the fate of La Yendee was the most frightful. This singular country, situated in the west of Prance, was covered with woods, hedges, and thickets, and intersected by ditches. Here dwelt a contented people, in country quietude, and in the simplicity of the olden time. The peasants and tenants were attached to their landlords ; they loved the king; and clung with reverence to their clergy and their church iisages, which had been dear and sacred to them from their youth. "When the National Assembly slaughtered or expelled their unsworn priests, when the blood of their king was poured out on the guillotine, when the children of the peasants were called away, by a general summons, to the army — then the enraged people roused themselves to resistance and civil conflict. Under brave leaders, of undis- tinguished birth, as Charette, Stofflet, Cathelineau, who were joined by a few nobles, Laroche-Jaquelein, D'Elbee, &c, they at first drove back the republican army, conquered Saumur, and threatened TSTantes. Upon this, the Convention dispatched a revolutionary army to La Yendee, under the command of AYestermann and the frantic Jacobins, Bonsin and Bossigiiol. These fell upon the inhabitants Kke wild beasts, set fire to towns, villages, farms, and woods, and attempted to overcome the resistance of the " royalists " by terror and outrage. But the courage of the Yendean peasants remained unsubdued. It was not until the general, Kleber, marched against La Yendee with the brave troops who had returned to their homes after the surrender of Mayence, that this_ unfortunate people gradually succumbed to the attacks of their enemies, after the land had become a desert, and thousands of the inhabitants had saturated the soil with their blood. La Yendee, however, was only restored to tranquillity when Hoche, who was equally renowned for his courage and philanthropy, assumed the command of the army, offered peace to those who were weary of the contest, and reduced the refractory to submission. Stoffiet and Charette were made prisoners of war, and shot. § 490. Ball oe the Danto>"tsts. — The rage and cruelty of the Jacobins at length excited the disgust of the chiefs of the Cordeliers, Danton and Camille Desmoulins. The former, who was rather a voluptuary than a tyrant, and who was capable of kindly feelings, had grown weary of slaughter, and had retired into the country for a few months with a young wife, to enjoy the wealth and happiness that 364 THE LATEST PERIOD. the revolution had brought him ; hut Camille Desrnoulins, in his much read paper, "The Old Cordelier," applied the passages where the Eoman historian, Tacitus, describes the tyranny and cruelty of Tiberius so appropriately to his own times, that the application to the three chiefs of the committee of safety and their laws against the suspected was not to be mistaken. This enraged the Jacobins ; and when, about this time, several friends and adherents of Danton (Fabre d'Eglantine, Chabot, &c.) were guilty of deceit and corruption in connexion with the abolition of the East India Company, and others gave offence by their sacrilegious proceedings, the committee of safety made use of the opportunity to destroy the whole party of Danton. For since the Convention had altered the calendar and the names of the months, had made the year commence on the 22nd of September, had abolished the Sunday and festivals, and introduced in their place the decades and sans-culotte feasts, many Dantonists, like Hebert, Chaumette, Momoro, Cloots, and others, had occasioned great scandal by their animosity to priests and Christianity. They desecrated and plundered the churches, ridiculed the mass vestments and the church utensils, which they carried through the streets in blasphemous processions, raged with the spirit of Vandals against all the monuments of Christianity, and at length carried a resolution through the Convention, that the worship of Eeason should be intro- duced in place of the catholic service of God. A solemn festival, in which Momoro's pretty wife personated the Goddess of Eeason in the church of Notre Dame, marked the commencement of this new reli- gion. Eobespierre, who plumed himself upon his reputation for virtue because he was not a participator in the excesses or avarice of Danton and his associates, took offence at these proceedings. He determined to destroy their originators, and in their fall to involve the destruction of Desrnoulins and Danton, before whose powerful natures his own spirit, which was filled with envy and ambition, stood abashed. Scarcely, therefore, had Danton resumed his seat in the ™ i ,«,.„ Convention, before St. Just began the violent struggle by March, 1794. ' . . & •,••-,-, i • a remarkable proposal, in which he divided the enemies of the republic into three classes, the corrupt, the ultra-revolutionary, and the moderates, and insisted upon their punishment. This pro- posal resulted in nineteen of the ultra-revolutionaries, and among them Cloots, Momoro, Eonsin, and several members of the Common Council being led to the guillotine on the 19th of March. On the 31st of April the corrupt were placed before the Eevolutionary Tri- bunal, and Danton, Camille Desrnoulins, Herault de Sechelles, &c. maliciously distinguished as their partisans and involved in their process. But Danton and Desrnoulins, supported by a raging mob that were devoted to them, demanded with vehemence that their accusers should be confronted with them. For three days Danton's THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 365 voice of thunder and the tumult among the populace rendered his condemnation impossible. For the first time, the bloody men of the Bevolutionary Tribunal became confused. The Convention at length, by a law of its own, gave the Tribunal the power of condemning the accused who were endeavouring to subvert the existing order of things by an insurrection, without further hearing ; upon which the blood-stained heroes of the 10th of August and the days of September, who during their trial had shown that a lofty spirit might dwell even in the bosom of criminals, were led to the guillotine and beheaded, a -i ^ ,«^i with a crowd of inferior Hebertists. Thev died with April 5, 1794. J courage and resolution. § 491. — 3. Wabs of the Eepublic. First Coalition. — Whilst these bloody proceedings were going on within, the armies of almost all the nations of Europe were marching upon the frontiers of France. The Dutch, Austrians, and English were in the Netherlands ; Dutch, Prussian, and Austrian troops crossed the Ehine ; Sardinia threatened the south-east ; and Spanish and Portuguese armies occupied the Pyrenees : at the same time, the English government, conducted by Pitt, sought to destroy the naval power of France, to conquer her colonies, and to keep the war alive by large subsidies to the con- tinental powers. At first, the arms of the allies met with some suc- cess ; Alsace and Flanders fell into their hands, and the way to Paris stood open. But want of union and want of system prevented any brilliant success, although the new method of warfare had not yet been created in France. The republicans wished to gain the victory by terror. General Beauharnois, who arrived too late to relieve Mayence, died on the guillotine ; Custine and his son experienced the same fate ; Houchard, the victor of the Dutch and Hanoverians September 8, a ^ Handschooten, had a similar fate when he was after- 1793. wards obliged to retire before the superior force of the November enemy ; and Hoche expiated in prison the defeat suffered 28—30. hy the Hollanders and Prussians at Kaiserslautern. But the brave and active Carnot now took his seat in the committee of safety, and gave unity and system to the military operations. The whole nation was interested in the war by a general summons ; the newly acquired freedom awakened courage and enthusiasm among the troops ; fanatical bands were now opposed in masses to the enemy, and no longer in small divisions ; and the greatest commanders of the century rose from the ranks. The generals with their antiquated tactics, and with soldiers who fought for pay, and not for liberty or their fatherland, could not maintain their ground. Jourdain corn- June 26 1794 P euea the evacuation of Belgium in June, after the battle of Fleurus ; and, by the beginning of autumn, the Aus- trian Netherlands and the frontier fortresses of Holland were in the hands of the French. It thus became practicable for General 366 THE LATEST PERIOD. Pichegru to undertake a daring expedition in December and January across the frozen waters, against the States- General of Holland. Pichegru, with an army that was suffering from a want of clothing and provisions, made himself master of the rich land, drove the here- ditary Stadtholder to England, and brought about the establishment of a Batavian Republic, with democratic signorial rights, with trees of liberty, and popular unions. Prom this time Holland remained united with France ; but not only were the French troops clothed and main- tained at the cost of the country, and vast sums sent to Paris to defray the expenses of the war, but the English at the same time seized upon the Dutch ships and colonies, so that the unfortunate country was a sufferer on all hands. § 492. The Peace oe Basle. — The French arms were equally successful on the Rhine. The Austrian and Prussian troops retreated . _„ . across the German river in October, and abandoned the A.D. 1794. . ' further side to the French. Shortly after, the Prussian government, which was busied with the proceedings in Poland (§ 470), ,. ]c . 17qr commenced negotiations with France which led to the peace of Basle. By this disgraceful peace not only was the left bank of the Rhine, together with Holland, abandoned to the enemy, but the northern portion of Germany separated by a line of demarcation from the southern. "Whilst the war was carried on in the latter, the former was declared neutral territory. The Austrians, on the other hand, under the conduct of the brave leaders Clerfait and "Wurmser, continued the war with greater energy. After Cler- fait's victory over Pichegru at Handschuchsheim, the imperialists took September 24, Heidelberg, Avhich was in the possession of the French, 1795- and, after a frightful bombardment of several days, the strong town of Mannheim, which, with its abundant military pro- visions, had been disgracefully surrended to the enemy at the first summons by the governor, Palgrave Oberndorf. A part of the town was in ruins when the Germans again entered it. The archduke Charles, the brother of the emperor, gave splendid proofs of dis- September3, tinguished military talents. He defeated Jourdain at 1796. Wiirzburg, and compelled him to a hasty retreat upon the Rhine. The inhabitants of Spessart and Odenwald, enraged at the oppressions and exactions of the French, rose upon their retreating enemies, and destroyed them wherever they appeared singly. Moreau was more fortunate : he was indeed driven back from Bavaria and Swabia, but he gained the Rhine without any great loss by a masterly « * 1 m retreat through the valleys of the Black Forest. The September 19 & •> —October 24, German governments, far from encouraging the people in 179G. .j-]^ r i s i n g against the enemies of the empire, imitated, for the most part, the example of Prussia, and concluded a peace with France. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. SG7 § 493. Robespiebee's fall.— Since the fall of Danton, the com- mittee of safety had ruled with well nigh unlimited sway, and by repeated executions and arrests had brought the reign of terror to its highest point. But its chiefs had lost the confidence of the people and of the Convention : the friends of Danton were on the watch for the favourable moment of attack, and the number of their enemies was increased, when Robespierre, to put an end to the blasphemous proceedings of the adherents of the worship of Reason, had a resolution passed by the Convention in May ; " That the existence of a Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul were truths:" and rendered himself at once hateful and ridiculous by his pride at the new festival in honour of the Supreme Being in the Tuileries, at which he offi- ciated as high priest. Among his opponents was Tallien, who at a former period had been guilty of excesses in Bourdeaux, but who had been brought to adopt different principles by the fascinating Fontenay Cabarrus. "With him were joined Freron, Fouche, Vadier, the po- T i n -r i««i lished rhetorician Barrere, and others. On the 9th Ther- July27, 1794. .-,,,„,./, midor a battle for life or death commenced in the Conven- tion. Robespierre and his adherents were not allowed to speak; their voices were drowned in the cries of their enemies, who carried through a stormy meeting the resolution, " That the three chiefs of the committee of safety, Robespierre, St. Just, Couthon, and their confederate, Henriot, should be denounced, and conveyed as prisoners to the Luxembourg palace." They were liberated by the mob on then 1 way ; whereupon the drunken Henriot threatened the Conven- tion with the National Guard, whilst the others betook themselves to the Hotel de Ville. But the National Assembly was beforehand with them by a hasty resolution. A loudly proclaimed sentence of outlawry suddenly dispersed Henriot' s army, whilst the citizens who were opposed to the Jacobins arranged themselves around the Con- vention. The accused were again secured in the Hotel de Ville. Henriot crept into a sewer, from whence he was dragged forth by hooks. Robespierre attempted to destroy himself by a pistol-shot, but only succeeded in shattering his lower jaw, and was first con- veyed, horribly disfigured, amidst the curses and execrations of the people, before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and then guillotined, with twenty-one of his adherents. On the two following days, seventy-two Jacobins shared the fate of their leaders. § 494. The Last Days oe the Convention. — Robespierre's overthrow by the " Thermidorians" was the commencement of a return to moderation and order. The assemblies of the people were gradually limited, the power of the Common Council diminished, and the lower classes deprived of their weapons. Freron, converted from a republican bloodhound into an aristocrat, assembled the young men, who from their clothing were called the "gilded youth," around 368 THE LATEST PERIOD. him. These, with the heavy stick they usually carried ahout them, attacked the Jacobins in the streets and in their clubs at every oppor- tunity, and opposed the song of the " Awakening of the People " to the Marseillaise. At length the club was shut up and the cloister of the Jacobins pulled down. The Convention strengthened itself by the recal of the expelled members and of such Girondists as were still left (§ 485), and ordered the worst of the Terrorists, Lebon Carrier, Pouquier Tinville, &c, to be executed. But when four of the most active members of the committee of safety (Barrere, Vadier, Collot d'Herbois, and Billaud-Varennes) were denounced, the Jacobins collected the last remains of their strength, and drove the people, who were suffering from a scarcity and want of money, to a frightful insurrection. Crowds of grisly wretches surrounded the House of March 31, Assembly, and demanded, with threatening cries, the April], 1795. liberation of the patriots, bread, and the constitution of 1793. Pichegru, who was just at this moment in Paris, came to the assistance of the distressed Convention with soldiers and citizens, and dispersed the crowd. The still more formidable insurrection of the May 20, 1st Prairial, in which the mob held the Convention sur- 1795. rounded both within and without from seven o'clock in the morning till two at night, for the purpose of enforcing a return to the reign of terror, was also suppressed by the courageous president, Boissy d'Anglas. Prom this time the power of the Terrorists was no more. Many Jacobins died by their own hands ; others were beheaded, imprisoned, or transported. By so much the stronger became the party of the royalists who wished to have a king again ; and when the new government was shortly after determined upon, by which the executive power was to be delivered to a Directory of five persons, the legislative power to a council of Elders and to the council of Pive Hundred, the republican members of the Convention feared that during the new election they might be thrust aside by the royalists. They therefore made additions to the original charter of the constitution, wherein it was declared that two-thirds of the two legislative councds must be chosen from members of the Convention. The royalists raised objections against this and some other limitations of the freedom of election ; and when these were unattended with success, they occasioned the insurrection of the Sections. Hereupon, the Convention made over to the Corsican, Napoleon Buonaparte, the suppression of the insurgent royalists, who were joined by all the enemies of the republic and of the revolution. The victory of the October 5 13th Vendemiaire, which was fought in the streets of Paris, 1705- gave the supremacy to the republicans of the Convention, and the command of the Italian army to Napoleon, who was then twenty-six years of age, and who, a short time before, had married Josephine, the widow of General Beauharnois. FRANCE UNDER THE DIRECTORY. gQQ 5. FRANCE TINDER THE DIRECTORY (OCTOBER, 1795 NOVEMBER 9lH, 1799). § 495. Napoleon in Italy. — The French army in Savoy and on the frontiers of Italy was in a melancholy condition. The soldiers were in want of every thing. At this crisis, Napoleon appeared as their commander-in-chief, and in a short time contrived so to inspirit the desponding troops and attach them to his person, that under his guidance they cheerfully encountered the greatest dangers. Where the love of glory and the sentiment of honour was not sufficient, there the treasures of the wealthy Italy served as a stimulus to valour. In April, Napoleon defeated the octogenarian Austrian general, Beaulieu, at Milesimo and Montenotte, separated, by this victory, the Austrians from the Sardinians, and so terrified the king, Victor Amadeus, that he consented to a disadvantageous peace, by which he surrendered Savoy and Nice to the Trench, gave up six fortresses to the general, and submitted to the oppressive condition of allowing the French army to march through his land at any time. By these and other oppressive conditions, the country became entirely de- pendent upon France, so that upon the king's death, which took place soon after, his son, Charles Emanuel (1796 — 1802), surrendered Pied- mont to the enemy, and settled himself and his family in Sardinia. The course of Napoleon's victories in Upper Italy was equally rapid. May 10, After the memorable passage of the bridge of Lodi, he 1796. marched into Austrian Milan, subjected the Lombard towns, and so terrified the smaller princes by the success of his arms and his insolence, that they were only too happy to make peace with the victor at any price. Napoleon extorted large sums of money, and valuable pictures, treasures of art and manuscripts, from the dukes of Parma, Modena, Lucca, Tuscany, &c. He behaved as the Boman generals, with whose lives he was acquainted from the descriptions of Plutarch, had once done ; he enriched the French capital with the productions of the mind, that he might please the vain and spectacle loving Parisians. He supported the weak Direc- tory with the extorted supplies of money. "Wurmser now took the place of the old Beaulieu. But he also was defeated at Castiglione, and afterwards besieged in Mantua. The army under Alvinzi that was sent to his relief sustained three defeats (at Areola, Bivoli, La Favo- February, rata), by which the whole Austrian force in Italy was de- 1797- stroyed, dispersed, or captured. This compelled the gallant Wurmser to deliver up Mantua to the glorious victor. Buo- naparte, respecting the courage of his enemy, permitted a free retreat to the grey-headed marshal, his staff, and a part of the brave garrison. Pope Pius VI., terrified at these rapid successes, hastened to purchase Bb 370 THE LATEST PERIOD. the peace of Tolentino by cessions of territory, sums of February 19. i i x- x money, and works 01 art. Archduke Charles now assumed the command of the Austrian army in Italy. But he also was compelled to a disastrous retreat, and was pursued by Buonaparte as far as Klagenfurt with the view of falling upon Vienna. The emperor Francis, anxious for the fate of his capital, allowed himself to be persuaded by female influence to conclude the disadvantageous preliminary peace of Leobon, at the very April 18, moment when, by the non-arrival of the expected rein- 1797- forcements, and the threatening movements of the Tyro- lese, Stirians, and Carinthians, the position of the French army was becoming critical. About the time this treaty of peace was concluded, a popular insurrection arose in the rear of the French army in the territory of the republic of Venice, in consequence of which many Frenchmen were murdex^ed in Verona and its neighbourhood, and even the sick and wounded in the hospitals were not spared. This was taken advantage of by Napoleon to destroy the Venetian republic. The cowardice of the aristocratic councillors, who, instead of offering a brave resistance and falling with honour, humbly implored the grace of the proud conqueror, and surrendered the government to a democratic council, facilitated the enterprise. As early as May, the French marched into Venice, carried off the ships and the stores of the arsenal, robbed the churches, galleries, and libraries, of their choicest ornaments and most valued treasures, and kept possession of the town till the negotiations with Austria were so far advanced, that October 17, the peace of Campo Formio, by which Upper Italy fell 1797. into the hands of France under the name of the Cisal- pine Republic, was concluded. Austria, who by this peace also surrendered Belgium to the French republic and consented to the cession of the left bank of the Rhine with Mayence, received the territory of Venice together with Dalmatia, as a recompense for this loss. The princes, prelates, and nobles, who suffered by this abandon- ment of the farther Rhineland, were to be indemnified on the right bank of the river, and this, as well as all other points relating to Germany, were to be settled at the Congress at Rastadt. Napoleon December, opened this congress himself, and then returned to Paris 1797. w here he was received with acclamations. § 496. Gracchus Babeuf. The Royalists. — The reign of the five directors, among whom La Reveillere-Lepeaux (founder of the Society of the Theo-Philanthropists, Friends of God and Men), and Carnot, possessed the greatest influence, was detested by the violent republicans as well as by the royalists, and had, consequently, to sustain the attacks of both parties. The first attempt to overthrow it was made by the republicans, under the guidance of Gracchus Babeuf, who, like the Roman tribune whose name he had assumed, wished to FRANCE UNDER THE DIRECTORY. 371 establish an equalization of property, and a new division of lands. He was joined by some of the old Jacobins, particularly by Drouet. The conspiracy was discovered. After some legal proceedings, which attracted a great deal of attention, Babeuf commanded his breast to be pierced by a dagger ; the others were either executed or banished. But greater than this was the danger with which the directoral govern- ment was threatened by the royalists. When, in accordance with the charter of the constitution, at the expiration of the first year, a third part of the council vacated their seats, and were replaced by a fresh election, the royalists, who had founded the club of Clichy, succeeded, almost entirely, in returning people of their own way of thinking to the legislative assembly. Among them was Pichegru, who, as commander of the Rhine army, had been connected with the emi- grants, and now, as president of the Council of the Five Hundred, was seeking to effect the restoration of the king. This caused anxiety to the republicans in the Directory and in the legislative chamber. They accordingly sought assistance from Buonaparte. The latter dispatched a division of his army to Paris, under the conduct of the shrewd Bernadotte and the gallant Augereau, ostensibly to convey thither the conquered standards, but in reality to assist the Directors September 4, against the royalists. On the 18th Fructidor, Augereau 1797- surrounded the Tuilleries with his troops, and ordered the royalist deputies to be arrested ; upon which, eleven members of the Council of Ancients, forty-two of the Five Hundred (among them Pichegru), and two Directors, were sentenced to deportation. The royalist elections were then declared invalid, the returned emigrants again banished, and many journals suppressed. The directoral government, however, possessed neither respect nor confidence. Trade, industry, and agriculture fell into decay, and the national finances were in a ddapidated state. At the commencement of the - Revolution, the government had ordered paper money to be prepared, for the security and guarantee of which they assigned the confiscated property of the Church and of the emigrants. These notes were called assignats. A want of confidence in the stability of the revolu- tionary government soon produced a depreciation of this paper money, especially as the increasing number of assignats rendered their realization every day more improbable. During the reign of terror, no one refused an acceptance that was commanded by law, and the assignats had thus a compulsatory circulation. But after the fall of Robespierre, and the decline of terrorism, this paper money sank daily in value ; and, despite the efforts made by the directoral government to restore the confidence of the people by discharging the old assignats and issuing fresh bdls (mandates, inscriptions), the new notes were soon as worthless as the old ones. The losses were enormous ; property had fled from the rich and the illustrious to the b b 2 372 THE LATEST PERIOD. lower classes. To defray the expenses of war and other outlays, the Directory established a complete system of plunder in the conquered countries. § 497. The Republicans in Italy. Changes in Switzeeland. — Italy and Switzerland were particularly exposed to the insolence and rapacity of the directoral government. In the winter of 1797 repub- lican commotions took place in Rome and other parts of the States of the Church, which were occasioned by French influence. During the suppression of these by the papal troops, general Duphot, who was present in Rome, lost his life. This afforded the French government an opportunity of ordering Berthier to march with an army into February, Rome. A tree of liberty was erected in the midst of the 179H- Roman Forum, the Pope was deprived of his temporal power, which was made over to a republican government, consisting of consuls, senators, and tribunes. The French then imposed severe military levies and imposts upon the town, and carried off the most valuable works of art to Paris ; and when this proceeding occasioned some popular commotions, the grey-headed pope, Pius VI., was led A 7oo awav to Paris, where he died in the following year, and the cardinals were subjected to severe persecutions. Lucca and Genoa also received democratical constitutions, and paid for them with their treasures. But the most remarkable occurrences took place in Naples. The hard-hearted and cowardly king Ferdinand governed here, and devoted himself entirely to hunting and fishing, whilst he left the business of the state to his impetuous wife, Caroline, a daughter of Maria Theresa, who, on her side, allowed herself to be entirely guided by the notorious courtezan, Lady Hamilton, the wife of the English ambassador. Filled with deadly hate against France and the regicide republicans, and informed that the European powers had determined upon a fresh campaign, the queen persuaded her husband to allow a Neapolitan army, under the command of the Austrian general Mack, to march into the States of the Church. The French were at first driven out of Rome, and the town taken posses- sion of; but hi a few days they again returned, under Championnet, put the Neapolitans to flight, and marched into the territory of their enemy. Confused and helpless, the Neapolitan court fled to Sicily, November ordered its own fleet to be set on fire, and abandoned the December, capital and the whole country to the conquerors. But 1798. ^.] ie p p U ] ace f Naples, excited by the monks and clergy, now arose. Troops of ragamuffins (lazzaroni), united with peasants and galley-slaves, took possession of Naples, and spread such alarm, ; bat the viceroy fled to Sicily and Mack sought protection among the French. Championnet then marched over blood and corpses into the January, stubbornly defended town, and established the Partheno- 1799- peian Republic. All the respectable and educated Neapo- FRANCE UNDER THE DIRECTORY. 373 litans who were inspired with any feeling of patriotism, delighted to escape from years of kingly and priestly despotism, attached them- selves with enthusiasm to the new order of things. In the year 1798 Switzerland also experienced a change in her con- stitution. Bern, and its associate, Vaud, were governed by an aristo- cratic council, all the members of which belonged to patrician families. The Vaudois, excited by the French republicans, seized their arms for the purpose of freeing themselves from the government of the Ber- nese. But as they were not a match for their opponents, they claimed the assistance of France ; upon which general Brune took possession of Bern, made himself master of the rich treasures and of the arsenal, and extorted large sums from the land by military levies. Supported by the democratic party, with Ochs of Basle and Laharpe of Vaud at their head, the French converted Switzerland into the single and indivisible Helvetic Republic, with a form of policy borrowed from the directoral government of France. It was in vain that the Ca- tholic cantons on the lake of Lucerne, excited by their priests, opposed themselves to this arrangement and took up arms ; they were de- feated, and compelled to conform to the new system. Geneva was united to France. § 498. The War oe the Second Coalition. — These proceedings, and the simultaneous expedition of Napoleon to Egypt and Syria (§ 499), produced a fresh coalition of the three great European powers, Russia, England, and Austria, against France. Russia had been governed since the year 1796 by Paul, the eldest son of Cathe- rine, a prince with a mind somewhat deranged, who cherished the bitterest hatred against the Revolution ; and who, as a great reverencer of the order of Malta, to the Grand Mastership of which he had had him- self appointed, saw, in the capture of that island by Napoleon (§ 499), a cause for war. England feared danger to her foreign possessions from the Egyptian expedition, and scattered money with a liberal hand to raise up fresh enemies against France. Austria was at vari- ance with the directoral government, because the house of the French ambassador in Vienna, Bernadotte, had been broken open, and the tricolour flag torn down and burnt, during a popular festival, without the Austrian government having afforded the required satisfaction. "VVar was waged, at the same time, in Germany, in Italy, in Switzerland, and in the Netherlands. After the French had been March 25, defeated at Stockach by the archduke Charles, and forced 1799. over the Rhine, the French ambassadors (Roberjot, Bon- nier, Jean Debry),who had hitherto conducted the affairs of peace in Rastadt, and rendered themselves universally odious by their pride and insolence, wished to return. But scarcely had they left Rastadt . .. at the commencement of night, before they were attacked, in defiance of all the rights of nations, by Szekler hussars, 374 THE LATEST PERIOD. robbed of tbeir papers, and treated in such a way that two died immediately, and Jean Debry, who was severely wounded, only saved bis life by crawling into a ditch. This deed excited universal disgust, and was taken advantage of by the Directory to excite the people to vengeance. In Italy, also, the French had the disadvantage. The Eussians, under Suwarrow, conquered the Cisalpine Bepublic in a few weeks, after Moreau had been defeated at Cassano, and Macdonald, t 17 wuo ^ a( ^ ^ ec ^ ^ ne French army out of Naples, at Trebia, famous for the victory of Hannibal. The bloody defeat August 5. £ ^e French in the battle of Novi, where the young- general Joubert died the death of a hero, completed the loss of Italy. This change in affairs was a death-blow to the Parthenopeian Ee- public. Scarcely had the French army left Naples, before the bar- barous cardinal Euffo stormed the city with bands of June 13. • . Calabrian peasants and exasperated lazzaroni, and the court returned from Sicily. The republicans of Naples were now visited by a frightful punishment. Supported by Admiral Nelson, who lay with his fleet before the city, and who, seduced by the charms of Lady Hamilton, allowed himself to be made the instrument of an ignominious vengeance, the priesthood and the royal government practised deeds, before which the atrocities of the French reign of terror retreat into obscurity. After the murderings and plunderings of the lazzaroni were over, the business of the judge, the executioner, and the gaoler commenced. Every partisan, adherent, or favourer of the republican institutions was persecuted. Upwards of 4000 of the most respectable and refined men and females died upon the scaffold or in frightful dungeons. For it was precisely the noblest portion of the nation, who wished to redeem the people from their degrada- tion and ignorance, that had joined themselves with patriotic enthu- siasm to the new system. The grey-haired prince, Caraccioli, the former confidant of Ferdinand and the friend of Nelson, was tied to a sail-yard and plunged, loaded with weights, into the waves. The republican government was also dissolved in Eome, whereupon the new pope, Pius VII., again took possession of the Vatican. After the conquest of Italy, Suwarrow surmounted the pathless icebergs of the Alps, with the purpose of driving the French out of Switzerland. The Eussian army had incredible difficidties and dangers to encounter in this expedition. Combats were sustained on the Gothard and at the Devil's Bridge against the enemy and natural diffi- culties that may be classed with the most daring feats in the world's history. But despite all their efforts, the Eussians, owing to not being sufficiently supported by the Austrians, were defeated by the September 25, French in the battle of Zurich. (During the capture of 26, 1799. Zurich, winch followed, Lavater was mortally Avounded.) Suwarrow conducted the remains of his army across the frozen FRANCE UNDER THE DIRECTORY. 375 M 1800 h^g^s of the Grisons to their home, where he shortly after died. The simultaneous attempt of the English to drive the French out of the Netherlands and restore the Stadtholder had a disastrous termination. The unskilful general, the duke of York, purchased the retreat of himself and his army by a disgraceful October, composition, without troubling himself about his allies, 1799. the Russians. This ignoble and selfish behaviour of the English and Austrians exasperated the Russian emperor, Paul, so much against the allies, that he retired from the coalition. § 499. Buonaparte in Egypt and Stbia. — During these trans- actions Buonaparte found himself in Egypt, at the head of a consider- able army. In the June of ^1798 he had sailed from the island of Malta, which had been wrested from the knights of St. John by treachery, towards the land of the Nile. The chief inducements to this strange and adventurous undertaking were the wish to inspire the excitable French nation with enthusiasm for himself by extra- ordinary actions, the desire of glory, and the thought of being able to weaken the maritime power of England, and to threaten her posses- sions in the East Indies from Egypt. After his disembarkation at Alexandria, the whole of the Erench fleet at Aboukir, owing to the carelessness of the admiral, was cut off and carried away by the English naval hero, Nelson ; and Napoleon was in consequence obliged to make arrangements for a longer stay. In July he marched from Alexandria through the Egyptian desert to Cairo. The distress of the army, unprovided with water or sufficient necessaries, July 21, i n the burning heat, was very great. In the battle of the 1798. Pyramids, "from the tops of which 4000 years looked down upon the combatants," the Mamalukes, who at that time swayed Egypt under the Turkish government, were defeated ; where- upon Buonaparte marched into Cairo, and established a new govern- ment, police, and taxation, upon the European pattern, and ordered the curiosities of this wonderful land to be examined, and its monu- ments and antiquities to be collected and described, by the artists and men of learning who accompanied his army. In the meanwhile, although Buonaparte and his troops treated the religious customs of the Mahommedans with every possible forbearance, and showed all outward respect to their priests, mosques, ceremonies, and customs, fanaticism was, nevertheless, raging in the bosoms of the Mussul- men, and rendered the rule of the Christians detestable to them. This hatred was increased when the Erench general levied taxes and imposts ; and the Porte, which would not allow itself to be deceived by Napoleon's false shows of friendship and devotion, called upon the Mahommedans to fight against the Christians. A dreadful insurrec- October21, tion broke out in Cairo, which could only be suppressed 1798. ^th difficulty by the superiority of European tactics, 376 THE LATEST PERIOD. after nearly 6000 Mahommedans had been slain. Napoleon made February, use of the victory to extort money, and then marched 1799. with his Turkish troops against Syria. After the con- quest of Jaffa, where he ordered 2000 Arnauts, whom he had a second time taken prisoners, to be shot as perjured, he proceeded to the siege of Jean d'Acre. It was there that the fortune of Napoleon met with its first rebuff. The Turks, pro- vided with artillery by the English admiral, Sir Sidney Smith, re- pelled the assaults of the enemy, despite their wonderful valour. At the same time, a Turkish army threatened the European soldiers in the interior of the country. The former was, indeed, defeated and dispersed by Junot at Nazareth, and at Mount Tabor by Kleber ; nevertheless, upon the plague breaking out among his troops, Napo- leon found himself compelled to give up Acre and to commence a retreat. The horses were laden with the sick ; the soldiers suffered the most dreadful privations ; the dangers and distresses of the war were frightful. Napoleon shared all the fatigues with the meanest of his army ; he is even said to have visited a hospital filled with those sick of the plague. He again reached Cairo in June, and in the following month defeated a Turkish army of three times u y " his number, at Aboukir. A short time after this, he learnt the disasters of the Erench in Italy from some newspapers ; and the intelligence produced such an effect upon him, that he deter- mined upon returning to France. He quietly made his preparations for departure with the greatest expedition. After transferring the command of the Egyptian army to Kleber, Napoleon sailed from the harbour of Alexandria with two frigates and a few small transports, and about 500 followers, and, guided by the star of his fortunes, October 9 reached the coast of France undiscovered by the English, 1799. and landed at Erejus amidst the acclamations of the people. § 500. The Eighteenth Beumaire. — TJpon his arrival in Paris, Napoleon embraced the resolution of overthrowing the directoral government, which had lost all authority and consideration. "With this purpose, he made himself secure of the officers and troops that were in Paris, and consulted with Sieyes, one of the directors, and his own brother, Lucien Buonaparte, who had been elected president of the Eive Hundred, on the means of carrying his plan into execu- tion. Lucien transferred the sittings of the council to St. Cloud, for the purpose of bringing the members within the power of the soldiers. There, Napoleon first attempted to win over the members to his plans by persuasion ; when he found that he could not succeed in this, but, rather, that he was overwhelmed with threats and reproaches, he commanded his grenadiers to clear the room with levelled bayonets. The republicans, who presented a bold front to the danger, were at length compelled to yield to superior force, and GOVERNMENT OF NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 377 sought their safety through doors and windows. This done, a November 9 commission of fifty persons was appointed to draw up a 1799- fresh constitution. Thus ended the violent procedure of the 18th Brumaire, in consequence of which Napoleon Buonaparte took the conduct of affairs into his own strong hands. C. GOVEKNMENT OE NAPOLEON BITONAPAKTE. I. THE CONSULATE (1800 1804). § 501. According to the consular constitution, the power of the state was divided in the following manner : — 1. To the senate, which consisted of eighty members, belonged the privilege of selecting from the list of names sent in by the departments the members of the legislative power, and the chief officials and judges. 2. The legis- lative power was divided (a) into the tribunate, which numbered one hundred members, and whose office it was to examine and debate upon the proposals of the government ; and (b) the legislative bodies, who had only to receive or reject these proposals unconditionally. 3. The government consisted of three consuls, who were elected for ten years. Of these consuls, the first, Buonaparte, exercised the powers of government, properly so called ; whilst the second and third consuls (Cambaceres and Lebrun) were merely placed at his side as advisers. Buonaparte, as first consul, surrounded himself Avith a state council and a ministry, for which he selected the most talented and experienced men. Talleyrand, the dexterous diplomatist, was minister of the exterior ; the astute Eouche superintended the police ; Berthier held the staff of general. The Code Napoleon, in the composition of which the most renowned lawyers of Erance were employed, is an illustrious proof of the sagacity of the state council. § 502. Makengo and Hohenlinden. — After the arrangement of the new constitution, Buonaparte wrote a letter with his own hand to the king of England, in which he made an offer of peace ; he did the same to the emperor. But this unusual proceeding found little sympathy. A cold answer, in measured terms, spoke of the restora- tion of the Bourbons, and of a return to the ancient boundaries. The contrast between the apparent warmth, openness, and magna- nimity of Napoleon, and the repulsive coldness of the cabinets of London and Vienna, excited the greatest enthusiasm and military ardour among the fiery Erench. Napoleon was more successful in his attempts to gain over the czar of Bussia to his cause. Paul's love for soldiers, and his disgust at the Austrians and English, who would not exchange the captured Bussians, were dexterously made use of by Napoleon. He sent some thousands of these prisoners, fresh armed and clothed, back to their homes, without ransom. By this means he won 378 THE LATEST PERIOD. the heart of the emperor, who, with all his eccentricities, possessed a chivalrous spirit ; so that the latter entered into a friendly alliance with Buonaparte, and withdrew himself entirely from his former allies. The Chief Consul now assembled a large army, with all secrecy, in the neighbourhood of the Lake of Geneva, and undertook the wonder- ful passage of the great St. Bernhard with the main body, May, 1800. ^^ other divisions penetrated into Italy by the Sim- plon, St. Gothard, and other passes. This bold undertaking, with its difficulties and dangers, recals to mind the heroic age of Hannibal. The army marched past the Hospice, placed in the midst of snow and icebergs, down into the valley of the Dora Baltea, where the fortress of Bard, which was occupied by the Austrians, appeared to present insurmountable difficulties. But Napoleon's genius discovered an escape. The troops surmounted the neighbouring heights by a sheep-path, whdst the artillery was conveyed secretly under the guns of the fort by an artifice. In this way the French descended, quite unexpectedly, upon Upper Italy, at the very moment when the Austrians had compelled Genoa to surrender, and were in possession of the whole country. But the position of affairs was soon changed. June 9 Five days after the fall of Genoa, the Austrians received June 1 4. a defeat at Montebello, and a short time after the battle of Marengo was fought near Alexandria, where the Austrians under Melas were completely routed. The unexpected arrival of the brave Desaix from Egypt produced this change, and snatched the victory that was deemed secure from the hands of the Austrians. Desaix, one of the greatest and most noble men of the time of the Revolution, died the death of a hero at Marengo. Milan and Lombardy were the prize of the day. At the same time, an army under Moreau had forced its way into Swabia and Bavaria, driven back the Austrians in several encounters, and compelled them to a truce ; but it was the glorious march of Macdonald and Moncey over the icy Grisons, and Moreau' s splendid victory in the bloody December 3. fi e id f Hohenlinden, that first compelled the Austrians to accept, in the peace of Luneville, the conditions that had been entered into at Campo Dorado, and to acknow- ledge the valleys of the Rhine and the Etsch as the boundaries of the French empire. The formation of an Italian republic under the presidentship of Buonaparte, and the indemnification of the losses of the German princes and of the imperial estates, by the secularized Church property and the abolished imperial cities on the right side of the Rhine, were the most important articles in the peace of Lune- ville. The arrangements that were made two years later in the territories of the German States, by the so-called decree of the GOVERNMENT OF NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 379 February 25, Imperial Diet, was the first step towards the dissolution 1803. of the German empire, and the establishment of sove- reign kingdoms and principalities. § 503. The Peace oe Amiens. — After the peace of Luneville, England alone retained her arms, and as the Russian emperor, Paul, out of hatred to the selfish and insolent islanders, had only a short time before renewed the alliance with Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark, for an armed neutrality (§ 456), and by this means stirred up enemies against the British in the Baltic, the English people also were longing for rest and refreshment. Negotiations for peace were accordingly entered into, but were attended for a long time by no result, inas- much as the parties could not agree respecting Egypt. Eor Kleber, angry as he was at Napoleon's retreat (§ 499), had successfully maintained himself against the Turks and the English, and in the March 20, battle near Heliopolis, had defeated an army of six times 1800. Ms numbers. But after he had fallen by the dagger of a fanatical Mussulman, in the garden of his palace at Cairo, on the day of the battle of Marengo, the Erench army, under the conduct of his incompetent successor, Menon, who had embraced Islam, fell gradually into such distress, that the English entertained the hope of com- pelling it to surrender, and consequently delayed the negotiations for March 21, peace. It was not until the gallant English general, 1801. Abercrombie, had fallen in the battle of Canopus, that they were convinced that neither their own land force, which was composed of recruits from all nations, nor the undisciplined Turkish squadrons, were in a condition to overcome the tactics of the Erench September, i n Egypt. A treaty was concluded, by virtue of which, 1801. the Erench army, 24,000 strong, with arms, munitions, and all the treasures of science and art, were conveyed back to Erance in English vessels. This was the preliminary to the peace of Amiens, March 27, D y which the English promised to surrender the greater 1802. p ar t of then foreign conquests, and to relinquish the island of Malta, of which they had gained possession, to the knights of St. John. This peace, which was concluded with great precipi- tation on the part of England, met with violent opposition in the country. The press raised its voice loudly against it, and adopted at the same time a hostile tone towards Napoleon. These attacks irri- tated the Eirst Consul, who could bear neither censure nor opposi- tion ; he replied in a similar strain by the Erench government paper (Moniteur). This occasioned a mutual ill-temper, which promised a speedy renewal of hostilities, and the English accordingly delayed the evacuation of Malta, and the execution of the disadvantageous condi- tions of the peace. The dread of Russia had passed, since Paul had met with a violent death. The cruelty, the arbitrary measures, and the gloomy suspicions of this emperor, had increased to such an 380 TIIE LATEST PERIOD. extent, that there could be no longer a doubt that his mind was incurably affected. A conspiracy was therefore formed amongst those around him, the threads of Avhich were guided by the powerful count Pahlen. The result of this was, that the emperor Paul was attacked in his bedchamber by Suboff, Benningsen, and others, and when he refused the required abdication of the throne, he was cruelly strangled, and his son Alexander proclaimed as his successor. Under ' these circumstances, the peace of Amiens had no per- manence. At the expiration of a year the English again ' declared war, and Pitt re-entered the ministry. A short time before, Napoleon had reduced Switzerland to the same state of subjection as Holland and Italy. By the so-called Act of Mediation, February ne h&d. effected such a change in the constitution of the 1803. Helvetic republic, that the cantons had again become independent, but a Landamman and a Diet represented the confede- ration as a collective state. § 504. The new Court and the Concordat. — Buonaparte was at first engaged in reconciling the old with the new, in combining the results of the Revolution with the forms and manners of the monarchical period. But he very soon made known his preference for the ancient system by the restoration of all the former arrangements and customs. The times and fashions of a previous period, the forms of the old etiquette, the elegance of the kingly period, were soon to be seen at the court of the First Consul in the Tuilleries. An aristocratic demeanour, a dignified bearing, and polished manners, were again held in estimation, as the advantages of good society. The social gifts of his wife, Josephine, the beauty and ainiabdity of his step-children (Eugene and Hortense Beauharnais) and sisters (Pauline, Elise), assisted him in this matter'. The reductions in 1 Genealogical Table of the Buonaparte family of Ajaccio, in Corsica : — Charles Buonaparte -Laetitia, nee Ramolini, a.d. 1736, at Rome. 1. Joseph B., 2. Napoleon B., 3. Lucieu B., 4. Eliza Bacciochi, Count Survilliers, a.d. 17G9— 1821. Prince Canino, a.d. 1777—1820. a.d. 1/G7-1844. a.d. 1772—1841. 5. Louis B., G. Pauline Borghese, 7- Caroline Murat, Duke of St. Leu, a.d. 1781 — 1825. a.d. 1782— 1839. a.d. 1778— 184G. 8. Hieronynius B., Born 1784, Duke of Monfort. Napoleon Buonaparte, Josephine Beauharnais, nee Tascher de la Pagerie, a.d. 1763— 1814. Eugene, Duke of Leuchtcnberg, Hortense, Duchess of St. Leu, Louis B. a.d. 1781—1824. a.d. 1837. Louis Napoleon, President of the French Republic* GOVERNMENT OF NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 381 the emigrant lists brought back many royalists to their homes, and the favour shown to them made them courteous and pliant in the service of the new court. Madame de Stael (daughter of Necker) collected, as in the old time, a circle of accomplished and illustrious men in her saloon. The vanity of the French favoured Napoleon's efforts ; when he instituted the order of the Legion of Honour, republicans and royalists grasped eagerly at the new plaything of human weakness. One of the first cares of the Consul was the restoration of Christian worship in the French churches. After he had abolished the republican festivals (10th August, 21st January), and introduced July 15, the observance of the Sabbath, negotiations were opened 1801. with the Soman court, which at length led to the con- clusion of the Concordat. By this Concordat the French clergy lost their early independence, and were subjected to the head of the Church as well as to the ruler of the state. No less attention did Napoleon devote to the affairs of education ; he, however, particularly patronized the establishments for practical science, as the Polytechnic School in Paris. An arbitrary and power- loving man, Napoleon wished to guide and govern every thing him- self, and thus became the creator of the pernicious system of centrali- zation, by which the vital circulation was suppressed, and the seeds of death were planted in the whole body of the state. § 505. Conspiracies. — Napoleon possessed a despotic nature, that found no pleasure in a life of state freedom, he accordingly daily cur- tailed the liberty and political rights of the citizens, persecuted the Jacobins and republicans whom he called "Ideologists," and reposed his confidence in his guard, and in a vigorous triple police, under the superintendence of the crafty Fouche. Repeated conspiracies against the life of the First Consul, sometimes undertaken by the republicans and sometimes by the royalists, were always followed by fresh restric- tions and a more rigorous system of espionage. The most desperate undertaking of this kind was the attempt, by means of the so-called infernal machine, — a cask filled with gunpowder, bullets, and inflam- December24, niable materials, to blow up Buonaparte on his way to 1800. the opera-house, an attempt which Napoleon escaped by the rapidity with which his coachman was driving, but which destroyed many houses and killed several people. In consequence of this atro- cious deed a great number of Jacobins were condemned to deporta- tion, though it afterwards turned out that the plot was undertaken by the royalists. Still more dangerous and extensive were the con- spiracies against Napoleon, when the office of consul was conferred August 2, u P on kim for life by the voice of the people, with the 1802. privilege of naming his successor. By this means the 382 THE LATEST PERIOD. Bourbons were cut off from the last hopes of a return, and the emi- grants accordingly left no means untried of destroying him. The desperate George Cadoudal, and Pichegru, who was residing in Eng- land, and who was as strong as a giant, allowed themselves to be em- ployed as tools. They conveyed themselves secretly to France, but were discovered, and arrested with about forty confederates. Before their fate was decided, Napoleon allowed himself to be hurried into the commission of a revolting crime. It had been represented to him that the duke d'Enghien, the chivalrous grandson of the prince of Conde, was the soul of all the royalist conspiracies. Accordingly, the young nobleman, who was residing at Ettenheim, a small towu of Baden, was seized upon at Napoleon's command, by a troop of armed men, conducted with the greatest haste through Strasburg to Paris, condemned to death by a kuiTied court-martial, and, despite a mag- March 21, nanimous defence, shot in the trenches of Vincennes. 1804. This deed, which placed Buonaparte on a level with the men of the reign of terror in 1793, revolted all Europe, and put an end to the praises of his admirers. The poet Chateaubriand, the author of the " Genius of Christianity," resigned the official situation that had been conferred upon him by Buonaparte's sister, Eliza, and retired to Switzerland. The fate of the conspirators was shortly after decided upon. Pichegru had already died a violent death in prison, whether by his own hand or that of another is uncertain : George Cadoudal, with eleven confederates, ascended the guillotine. General Moreau, who was implicated, retired into voluntary banishment in America. II. NAPOLEON, EMPEROR (a.D. 1S04 — 1814). 1. TEE EMPIRE. § 506. The royalist conspiracies were made use of by Buonaparte to establish an hereditary monarchy. At the instigation of his adherents, the making over the hereditary dignity of emperor to Napoleon was proposed to the Tribunate, sanctioned by the senate, and confirmed by the whole people by the subscription of their names. Whilst the minds of men were still painfully excited by the late bloody execu- tions, Napoleon was proclaimed emperor of the Erench, ' and at the end of the year solemnly anointed by the pope in the church of Notre Dame. The crown, however, he placed on his own head, as well as on that of his wife, Josephine, who knelt before him. This magnificent coronation appeared to be the conclusion of the Revolution, since the whole ancient system, for the extinction of which thousands of human lives had been sacrificed, gradually returned. The new emperor surrounded his throne with a brilliant court, in which the former titles, orders, and gradations of rank were NAPOLEON, EMPEROR. 383 revived under different names. He himself certainly retained his old military simplicity, but the members of his family were made princes and princesses ; his generals became marshals ; the devoted servants and promoters of his plans were connected to the throne as the great officers of the crown, or as senators with large incomes. The estab- lishment of a new feudal nobdity, with the old titles of princes, dukes, counts, barons, completed the splendid edifice of a magnificent imperial court, which soon outshone the courts of princes. The republican arrangement gradually disappeared. The old calendar was again restored ; the new nobility were at liberty to establish the right of primogeniture, the press was placed under a censorship, and civil freedom more and more restricted. Any opposition was intolerable to the ruler ; for this reason he first reduced the number of tribunes to fifty, and then abolished the whole tribunate. Obedi- ence was henceforth the only thing; and France was placed under a tyranny more severe than that of the ancient monarchy. But then the tyrant was a great man, and therefore the people willingly submitted to him ; and hardly as the rigorous conscription, the severe restrictions upon trade, and the heavy taxation might press upon them, the burden was the more lightly borne, inasmuch as the great ends attained by the Revolution — equality before the law, the pea- sants' right of property in the sod and other possessions, remained untouched. Industry made great progress, civd arts and trades received a vast impidse ; and an unaccustomed prosperity made itself every where visible. Magnificent roads, like those over the Alps, canals, bridges, and improvements of all kinds, are, to the present day, eloquent memorials of the restless activity of this remarkable man. Splendid palaces, majestic bridges, and noble streets, arose in Paris, every thing great or magnificent that art had produced was united in the Louvre, the capital of Prance glittered with a splendour that had never before been witnessed. The university was arranged upon a most magnificent footing, and appointed the supreme court of supervision and control over the whole system of schools and educa- tion. The glory that was conferred by the emperor upon the nation rendered every yoke fight to the latter ; she forgot that the voice of freedom was dying away amidst the clash of arms and the clang of trumpets, and that the high-flown tone of bulletins, and the ornate language of the senate and legislative body, were destructive of truth and justice. 2. AUSTEELITZ, PKESBEEG. COTEDEEATIOX OE THE EHI^E. § 507. The English took advantage of the renewal of the war with Prance to make an unexpected seizure of Dutch and Prench ships, and then sought to unite Eussia and Austria in a new coalition. 384 THE LATEST PERIOD. Napoleon, on the other hand, ordered his troops to advance upon the Weser, and to occupy the electorate of Hanover, which belonged to the king of England. The Hanoverian people and army were resolved to hazard life and property in defence of their country ; but the selfish aristocracy and officials preferred a disgraceful capitulation which surrendered the whole country to the French, to fighting. The gallant army was forced to retreat across the Elbe, and there to disband. Arms, munitions of Avar, and splendid horses, fell into the hands of the French, who forthwith occupied the country with their troops, and exhausted it by military levies and exactions. The threatening attitude assumed by Napoleon in Hanover against the whole north, as well as his arbitrary proceed- ing in Holland, Italy, and other countries, were sources of anxiety to other powers. In Italy, not only was the Italian republic changed March 17, i^o the kingdom of Italy, and Eugene Beauharnais, the 1805. son-in-law of the emperor, placed there as viceroy, but Napoleon also enlarged it by the addition of Parma, and gave Lucca to his sister Eliza, the wife of the Corsican, Bacciochi. In Spain and Germany, also, Napoleon acted in the same imperious and arbitrary manner. These, and other causes, united Bussia, Austria, and Sweden with England against France, and renewed the war with greater vigour. In Prussia, also, there was a strong party, headed by the high-spirited queen Louisa and prince Louis Ferdinand, in favour of an alliance with the united powers against Buonaparte ; but the three ministers, Haugwitz, Lucchesini, and Lombard, who were inclined to France, and utterly wanting in any feeling of patriotism, still possessed the confidence of the irresolute and peace-loving king. Thus Prussia remained neutral, to its own destruction. § 508. Whilst the attention of all Europe was directed to the western coast of France, where Napoleon was fitting out ships of every kind with the greatest dUigence, and assembling a vast camp at Boulogne, with the purpose, as was believed, of effecting a landing on the English coast, he was making preparations, in all silence, for the memorable campaign of 1805. Never were Napoleon's talents for com- mand or his military genius displayed in a more briUiant light than in the plan of this campaign. Assured of the assistance of most of the princes of Southern Germany, Buonaparte crossed the Bhine in the autumn with seven divisions, commanded by his most experienced marshals, Ney, Lannes, Marmont, Soult, Murat, &c. ; and marched into Swabia ; whilst Bernadotte, disregarding Prussia's neutrality, pressed forward through the Brandenburg Margravate of Anspach- Bavreuth upon the Isar. This violation of his neutral position irritated the king, Frederick William III., to such a degree, that he NAPOLEON EMPEROR. SS5 entered into closer relationship with the allies, and assumed a threat- ening aspect, without, however, actually declaring war. The electors of Baden, Wirternberg, and Bavaria, on the other hand, strengthened with their troops the army of the too-powerful enemy, from whose grace they had as much to hope as they had to fear from his frowns. The dukes of Hessen, Nassau, &c, did the same. After Ney's suc- cessful engagement at Elchingen, the Austrian general, Mack, was shut up in TJlm, and cut off from the main army. Helpless, and despairing of deliverance, the incompetent commander commenced negotiations with the French, which termi- nated in the disgraceful capitulation of TJlm. By this arrangement 33,000 Austrians, including 13 generals, became prisoners of war. Covered with shame, the once-brave warriors marched before Napoleon, laid down their arms before the victor, placed forty banners at his feet, and delivered up sixty cannon with their horses. When too late, it was seen in Vienna that Mack was not equal to his lofty position, and he was deprived of his honour, his dignities, and the advantages of his office, by a court- martial. Napoleon's joy at this unexampled good fortune was, how- ever, diminished by the contemporaneous maritime victory of the English at Trafalgar, which annihilated the whole French fleet, but which also cost the life of the great naval hero, Nelson. § 509. The war party had gained the upper hand in Prussia since the violation of the neutral territory by Bernadotte. The king renewed the bond of perpetual friendship with the sensitive emperor Alexander in the church of the garrison at Potsdam, over the coffin of Frederick the Great, at night, and then sent Haugwitz with threat- ening demands to Napoleon. The French emperor, in the mean time, proceeded along the Danube towards the Austrian states, not with- out many bloody engagements, of which the battles of Dimstein and , Stein against the Russians under Kutusoff and Bagration November 11. ' were of especial importance. If the French found brave and circumspect opponents in the Russians in these encounters, they had the easier game in Austria. Murat took possession ' of Vienna without the slightest trouble ; and the prince of Auersburg, who had orders either to defend the bridge over the Danube, which was fortified and filled with gunpowder, or to blow it into the air, allowed himself to be so completely deceived by the bold cunning of the French general, and by pretended negotiations of peace, that he surrendered it to the enemy uninjured and undefended. The irresolution of the emperor Francis, and the divisions between the Austrians and Russians, facilitated the victory of the French, who, laden with enormous booty, pursued the Austro-Russian army, c c 386 THE LATEST PERIOD. in the midst of perpetual engagements, into Moravia. In Moravia, December 2, the battle of Austerlitz, in which three emperors were 1JJ05. present, was fought on the day of the year in which the emperor was crowned, and in which the winter sun shone upon the most splendid of Napoleon's victories. The emperor Francis, wishing for the termination of the war, suffered himself to be persuaded to pay a humble visit to Napoleon in the French camp, and then con- sented to a truce which stipulated for the retreat of the Bussians _ , from the Austrian states. Upon this, negotiations were December 26. . r ' commenced which terminated in the peace of Presburg. By this peace, Austria lost the territory of Venice, which was united to the kingdom of Italy ; Tyrol, which fell to Bavaria ; and a portion of Austria, of which the Briesgau and the lands of the Black Forest were allotted to Baden. Bavaria and "Wirtemberg received the rank of kingdoms ; Baden, that of an archduchy ; and all three were joined to the imperial house of Napoleon by the ties of relation- ship. The daughter of the new king, Mas Joseph of Bavaria, was married to the empei^or's adopted son-in-law, Eugene Beauharnois, in Wirtemberg ; Catherine, the noble daughter of a princely house, was obliged to consent to a marriage with Napoleon's frivolous brother, Hieronyinus, who had shortly before been separated from his citizen wife ; and in Baden, Charles, the grandson of the excellent archduke Frederick, was united to Stephanie Beauharnois, a niece of the empress Josephine, who had been adopted by Napoleon. The lands on the Lower Ehine were united into the archduchy of Cleve- Berg, with the capital, Dusseldorf, and presented to the emperor's brother-in-law, Joachim Murat. Holland also was compelled to exchange her republican constitution for a monarchy, and to beg a creature of Napoleon's for a ruler ; upon which, the French emperor named his brother Louis king of Holland. The royal family of Naples experienced the wrath of the potentate beyond all others. During the war, an Anglo-Russian fleet had landed at Naples, and been received by Ferdinand and Caroline with joy. Hereupon, Napoleon, the day after the conclusion of the peace of Presburg at Schonbrunu, subscribed the decree which contained the notorious decision, " The dynasty of the Bourbons has ceased to reign in Naples." Upon this, Joseph Buonaparte was named king of Naples, and installed in his new dignity by a French army. The royal family, who vainly strove to avert the loss of the beautiful land, at first by entreaf Les, and afterwards by stirring up the lazzaroni and Calabrese, fled with their friends and treasures to Sicily, where they lived under the protection of the English till Napoleon's down tall. A number of imperial fiefs, with considerable revenues, were established in the conquered and surrendered provinces NAPOLEON EMPEROR. g87 of Italy, and conferred upon French marshals and statesmen together with the title of duke. After the battle of Austerlitz, the Prussian ambassador, Haugwitz, did not venture to convey the charge of his court to the victorious emperor ; without asking permission in Berlin, he allowed himself to be induced, partly by threats, and partly by the engaging affability of Napoleon, to subscribe an unfavourable contract, by which Prussia exchanged the Franconian principality of Anspach, some lands on the Lower Rhine, and the principality of Neuremberg in Switzerland, for Hanover. It was in vain that the king resisted the exchange, which threatened to involve him in hostilities with England ; separated from Austria by the hasty conclusion of the peace of Presburg, nothing was left to the king but to submit to the dictation of the victor. The news of the sudden change in affairs produced by the battle of Austerlitz produced such an effect upon the English minister, Pitt, that he shortly after died. § 510. The constitution of the German empire was already dis- solved by the elevation of the elector of Bavaria and of the duke of "Wirtemberg into independent monarchs. Napoleon, in consequence, entertained the project of entirely removing the south and west of Germany from the influence of Austria, and of uniting them to him- self by the formation of the Confederation of the Rhine. A prospect of enlarging their territories and increasing their power, and fear of the mighty ruler from whose side victory appeared inseparable, induced a great number of princes and estates of the empire to separate themselves from the German empire and to join France. Self-interest was more powerful than patriotism. On the 12th July, the treaty was signed in Paris, by virtue of which Napoleon, as protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, recognized the full sovereignty of the individual members, upon condition of their main- taining a certain contingent of troops ready at the emperor's disposal. Bavaria, Wirtemberg, Baden, Hessen-Darmstadt, Nassau, and several others, formed the kernel around which the lesser principalities, as Plohenzollern, Leichtenstern, Solms, &c, collected themselves, till at length almost all the German confederate states of the second and third rank gave in their adhesion. The elector arch-chancellor Dalberg, who had been made prince-primate, and who had received Frankfort, together with Hanau and Fulda as a principality, was chosen Napoleon's representative in the Confederation of the Rhine. By the subjection of many small and formerly independent states of the empire under the government of the great prince, the power of the larger number of the members of the confederation was consider- ably increased. Francis II. now abdicated the title of emperor of Germany, and called himself Francis I., emperor of Austria, and withdrew the whole of his states from the German Union. By this c c 2 8S8 THE LATEST PERIOD. proceeding the " Holy Boman empire of the German nation" was dis- solved. It had been long since reduced to a shadow by internal dissensions and a powerless supreme government. Its mightiest limbs were now the vassals of a foreign tyrant. The sense of degra- dation pressed heavily upon many a German breast ; but who would dare to utter his thoughts after the bold bookseller, Palm, of Nurem- berg, had become the victim of a disgraceful judicial murder for Au ust ^6 refusing to give up the author of a pamphlet published by him on the abasement of Germany ? 3. JENA. TILSIT. EKFUKT. § 511. The wavering conduct of Prussia had filled Napoleon with the deepest anger, and convinced him that the king would be untrust- worthy as a friend, and cowardly and innocuous as an enemy. He accordingly flung aside all respect and forbearance, and purposely inflicted many mortifications upon the Prussian government. The irritation produced by this was soon aggravated into a complete rupture by two causes. 1. The formation of the Confederation of the Rhine appeared to indicate an intention of gradually rendering Germany as dependent upon the Prench empire as were Italy and Holland. Prussia accordingly attempted to frustrate this plan by the establishment of a northern confederation, to which all the estates of the empire which had not yet joined that of the Ehine might connect themselves ; and felt herself deeply aggrieved when Napoleon prevented the execution of the project. 2. It was made known in Berlin that the Prench emperor, during the renewal of the negotiations for peace with the English government, had offered to restore the electorate of Hanover, that had been surrendered to Prussia without consulting with the Prussian government on the subject. This intelligence, to- gether with numerous violations of territory, convinced the Prussian government that they had the worst to expect from Prance. A redress of all grievances was demanded in the so-called Ultimatum, the army was placed upon a war-footing, and all connexion with Prance broken off. § 512. Whilst people in Berlin were expecting the final answer of Prance, the Prench troops under Napoleon and his experienced marshals were already in the heart of Thuringia and Saxony, the elector of which had united himself, after some hesitation, to Prussia. The first engagement at Saalfeld, where the gallant prince Louis found his death, went against the Prussians ; but the defeat suffered by the army under the command of the old duke of Brunswick in the great double battle of Jena and October 14. Auergtadt was terrible and fatal. It decided the fate of the countries between the Rhine and the Elbe. The former presump- tion of the officers and young nobles was suddenly turned into NAPOLEON EMPEROR. 389 despondency, and the greatest confusion and helplessness took possession of the leaders. Hohenlohe, with 17,000 men, laid down arms at Prenzlow ; the fortresses of Erfurt, Magdeburg, Spondau, Stettin, &c, surrendered within a few days, with such wonderful celerity, that the commandants of many of them were suspected of treachery, so utterly unaccountable did such cowardice and such entire want of self-reliance appear. Bliicher alone saved the honour of Prussia by the bloody combat in and around Eubeck, though he could not prevent the horrible storming of this slightly-fortified town ; in Colberg, also, Gneisenau and Schill, supported by the brave citizen, Nettlebeek, courageously resisted the superior force of the enemy. Thirteen days after the battle of Jena Xapoleon marched into Berlin, and issued his mandates from thence. The elector of Hessen, who wished to remain neutral, and who had withdrawn his forces from the contest, was obliged to surrender both land and army to the enemy, and to seek for protection as a fugitive in a foreign land. He took up his residence in Prague, The duke of Brunswick, who had been severely wounded, and who was carried into his capital on a litter after the battle of Jena, was compelled to seek for refuge in Denmark to die in peace. Jena and East Pries- land were united to Holland ; the Hanse towns, as well as Leipsic, were oppressed by the deprivation of all English wares, and by severe military taxes ; and treasures of art and science, and the trophies of former victories, were carried away from all quarters. It was only to the elector of Saxony, whose troops had fought at Jena, that Napo- leon showed any favour. He set the Saxon prisoners at liberty, and granted the elector a favourable peace : upon which the latter, dignified with the title of king, joined the Confede- ration of the Bhine, like the other Saxon dukes. From this time, Frederick Augustus, to the misfortune of himself and his people, felt himself bound by the ties of gratitude to the French emperor. § 513. The king of Prussia had fled to Konigsberg, where he vainly attempted to obtain peace. Napoleon's demands rose with his for- tunes. In his necessity, Frederick "William turned to his friend Alexander, who immediately dispatched a Bussian army under Ben- ningsen and others into East Prussia, to prevent the French passing the Vistula. Upon this, Napoleon issued a proclamation to the Poles, pretendedly in the name of Kosciusko, by which these misused people were summoned to fight for liberty and independence. The Poles willingly made the greatest sacrifices and strengthened the ranks of the French by their brave soldier-; under the command of Dombrowski. Xapoleon marched into Warsaw amidst the rejoicings of the people ; but the Poles discovered, only too soon, that the foreign potentate was more intent upon the gratification of his own ambition and love of power, than upon the restoration of their empire. Alur- 390 THE LATEST PERIOD. derous battles were now foaglit on the banks of the Vistula, and torrents of blood shed at Pultusk and Morungen. But the great February 8, blow was struck in the battle of Preuss-Eylau, where the 1807. martial spirit of the French and Russians gave rise to a contest which in loss of men equals any event of the sort in the world's history. Both parties claimed the victory, and the efforts and exhaustion were so great, that the war suffered an interruption of four months. During this interval negotiations were again renewed ; but much as the king, who was waiting with his family in Memel, might desire the termination of the war, that he might free his sub- jects from the dreadful exactions of the French, he was too honest to dissever his own cause from that of his ally. But when the Silesian fortresses on the Oder, Glogau, Brieg, Schweidnitz, and Breslau fell into the hands of the French by the cowardice of their commandants, and even Dantzic was surrendered to the marshal Lefebvre by the gallant governor Kalkreutk, the kino- lost all confidence in a successful issue. When, after the re- commencement of hostilities, the French gained a brilliant victory over the Russians in the battle of Friedland, on the anniversary of the battle of Marengo, and took possession of Konigsberg, the allied monarchs, after a personal interview with Buonaparte on the Niemen, thought it prudent to consent to the peace of Tilsit, op- June 7—9. p ress i ve as were the conditions. By this peace, Frederick William lost half his states ; he was compelled to surrender all the lands between the Rhine and the Elbe, to consent to the establish- ment of a dukedom of "Warsaw under the supremacy of the king of Saxony, to the elevation of Dantzic into a-free state, and to the pay- ment of the unheard sum of 150 millions to defray the expenses of the war. Napoleon formed the states ceded by Prussia, along with electoral Hessen, Brunswick, and South Hanover, into the new king- dom of AVestphalia, with the capital Kassel, and placed there bis youngest brother Hieronymus as king, under condition, that, as a member of the Bhine Confederation, he should supply the emperor with Westphalian troops, and make over to him one-half the receipts of his treasury. § 514. Austerlitz and Jena had broken the power of Austria and Prussia, so that the destinies of Europe were now guided by France, England, and Russia. These three great powers were iinanimous in this, that they paid no regard to right except where there existed the power of self-defence, as was shown by the proceedings in Sweden and Denmark. Grustavus IV. of Sweden would not accede to the peace of Tilsit ; but, supported by England, continued the war alone ao-ainst Napoleon. Although his conduct at first displayed strength of character and magnanimity, his boundless conceit, and his total misapprehension of his position and powers, soon showed that his NAPOLEON EMPEROR. 391 mind must be in a deranged state. Strongly impressed with the sanctity of the kingly dignity, he refused the title of emperor to the ruler of France, and only addressed him as General Buonaparte ; involved in the meshes of religious fanaticism, he believed himself ordained by Providence to re-instate the Bourbons, and to overthrow the " beast of the Bevelations" (Napoleon). He carried his hatred against Buonaparte so far as mortally to offend Russia and Prussia by sending back their orders, and banishing their ambassadors from. Stockholm, because these powers had concluded a peace with the usurper. The Prench conquered Stralsund and the island of Bugen, whilst the Russian army penetrated into Pmnland and made themselves masters of the country. The attempts of the Prench emperor to destroy the trade of Great Britain by a continental blockade made the Swedish war a matter of importance to the English. They feared lest the Prench shoidd establish a firm footing on the Baltic, and exclude their ships from its shores by shutting up the Sound. They accordingly made a proposal to Denmark to enter into an alliance with them, and to yield up her noble fleet to then keeping. This proposal was rejected with indignation ; whereupon the English fleet appeared in September 2 the Sound, bombarded Copenhagen, laid a part of the —5, 1807. town in ashes, and carried off the whole Danish fleet as their prey. This breach of the rights of nations enraged the king of Denmark to such a degree, that he united himself closely to Prance, and declared war against the English and their ally, the king of Sweden. At this time Napoleon and Alexander were allies. They September 27, held the celebrated meeting in Erfurt, where the whole 1808. splendour of European magnificence was displayed, and where four kings and thirty-four princes were assembled together out of Germany for the purpose of paying their homage to the mighty potentate. Here the two emperors promised not to interrupt each other in their plans of conquest, so that Napoleon was to be left unfettered in Spain (§ 515), and Alexander in Pinnland, Moldavia, and Wallachia. The kingdom of Sweden was now threatened on all sides. The Russians were already approaching the capital, the Danes, and the Spanish troops, who, under the command of La Romana, were serving Napoleon, were upon the frontiers ; the army and military affairs of Sweden were in the most wretched condition ; the heavy taxes could not be raised from the exhausted land ; and yet the king obstinately refused all proposals of peace. At this crisis, a con- spiracy was formed in the army and capital, in consequence of which Gustavus IV. was violently seized upon in his palace, compelled to abdicate his throne, and then conducted to an old insular castle. March 13 Hereupon the Diet declared Gustavus IV. and all his 1809. posterity to have forfeited the crown, invited his uncle, Charles XIIL, to the throne, and restricted the monarchical power. 392 THE LATEST PERIOD. This revolution was followed by a peace by which Pinnland and the Aaland islands remained with Russia. The election of a successor to the throne, which was rendered necessary by the childless old age of the king, fell upon the marshal Bernadotte (Ponte-Corvo), who, by his friendly treatment of the Swedish troops during the Prussian war, had gained many friends among the officers. Bernadotte was, with August 21, the unwillingly yielded consent of Napoleon, declared 1810. successor to the Swedish throne, and, after his accession to the Lutheran church, adopted by Charles XIII. 4. THE EVENTS IN THE PYKENEAN PENINSULA. § 515. Led astray by the success of his arms, Napoleon now pro- ceeded from one enterprise to another. Like Charlemagne, whom he adopted as his model, he wished to unite the Southern and Western states of Europe into a vast empire under the supremacy of Prance. "With this object he sought to gain possession of the Spanish penin- sula, and to make himself master of the provinces still left unconquered in Italy. In the first place he demanded of the Portuguese government to renounce the alliance with England, and to close their harbours against EngUsh vessels. "When the court of Lisbon refused to yield submission to this mandate, Napoleon brought over the all-powerful favourite of the royal pair of Spain, the "prince of peace," G-odoy, by the prospect of a principabty in Portugal, and sent marshal Junot with an army directly through Spain into that country. The dastardly court of Lisbon did not await the coming of the Prench, but fled, November, with all its treasures, in English ships, to the Brazils ; 18(>7. upon which Junot, who had been created duke of Abrantes, took possession of the capital and the whole country, and then de- clared, in the name of his commander, " that the house of Braganza had ceased to reign." Godoy, who, without either virtue, talent, or February 1, merit, had become the absolute ruler of Spain by the 1808. mere favour of the profligate queen and the boundless weakness of Charles IV., now delivered up his country into the hands of Napoleon. Spanish troops under La Romana entered into the sendee of the emperor, and fought on the Danish islands agaiust the Swedes, whilst the soldiers of Prance were occupying Spain in great numbers. Tins caused commotions amongst the Spanish people: disturbances broke out in Aranjuez and Madrid, in which the palace of the detested favourite was plundered and destroyed, and he himself roughly handled and threatened with death. Terrified by these occurrences, the weak Charles abdicated his throne in favour of his eldest son Ferdinand, who, as the enemy of Godoy, was loved by the people, but, for the same reason, mortally hated by his parents. But notwithstanding the humflity with which Ferdinand attempted to gain Napoleon's consent to this change of NAPOLEON EMPEROR. 393 the crown, and at the same time became a suitor for the hand of one of his relatives — the French emperor concealed his sentiments, ordered M urat to take possession of Madrid, and then invited the royal pair, along with the " prince of peace " and Ferdinand, to a personal confer- ence with him in Bayonne. Ferdinand did not dare to resist the summons of the potentate, although warned by his friends, and though the people sought to restrain him from undertaking this fatal journey. Once in Bayonne, the royal family of Spain was entangled by Na- poleon in the meshes of a false and insidious state policy. Charles was prevailed upon to revoke his abdication, and to transfer the re- gained crown to Napoleon and his family. Ferdinand, incapable of a vigorous resolution, allowed himself to be induced by the emperor's threats and intrigues to acknowledge this arbitrary act. He resided henceforth in France, in the enjoyment of an annuity, whilst Charles IV. and his family settled in Borne. Napoleon then named his brother Joseph king of Spain, and sought to win over the people to the new system by the restoration of the Cortes Constitution, and by improving the affairs of government, and of the administration of justice. But the frightful insurrection in Madrid by which 1200 French .soldiers of Murat's army were killed whilst the intrigues in Bayonne were yet pending, showed that the nation would not submit so easily to the foreign yoke as the imbecile royal family. § 516. Even before Joseph, after the surrender of the kingdom of Naples to his brother-in-law, Murat, held his solemn entry into Ma- drid, juntas were formed in several towns, which, as provisional governments, took the regulation of affairs into their own hands, and refused obedience to the new king. Armed bands under daring leaders, served them for defence ; and, favoured by the ravines and mountain heights of their country, began a guerilla war against the French soldiers. "Whilst the educated and enlightened were more attached to the new system, which afforded a life of political freedom, than to the kingly absolutism and priestly rule of the former period, and were consequently nicknamed u Josephines." the great mass of the people blindly followed the exhortations of fanatical monks and priests, who held the sacrilegious French in horror. It is true that Napoleon's army possessed sufficient power to maintain the king and his minister in Madrid, but their laws were respected no further than they could be supported by French bayonets. The more remote towns and provinces followed partly the juntas, which had their cen- tral point in the grand junta of Seville, and partly their own will, without recognizing any government whatever. But anarchy was the very thing that saved Spain in this stormy period. Europe gazed in astonishment upon a people, who courageously faced death for their nationality and independence, for their ancient manners and 394 TIIE LATEST PERIOD. religious usages, for their superstitions and customary arrangements. The leaders of the bands, with their brave but undisciplined followers, avoided open battles ; their strength consisted in unexpected attacks and petty warfare. And whilst the French dissipated their strength in these siugle encounters, and in the siege of well-defended towns, the English, supported by the natives, began the first successful war by land against Napoleon. At first the French arms were successful. Bessieres drove back the unpractised troops of Spain at u y ' ' Eio Secco, and it seemed as if the assumption of arms by the Spanish people was only to increase the triumph of the military emperor, — when suddenly the report spread abroad of Dupont's capitulation at Baylen, in Andalusia, by which 20,000 Frenchmen were made prisoners of war, and perished miserably. This blow filled the nation with enthusiasm and mflitary ardour. Joseph left Madrid, the French army retreated beyond the Ebro, and when intelligence was shortly after brought that in Portu- gal also the French were obliged to retreat before the English, under "Wellington, Moore, and others, and that they would have experienced a fate similar to that of Dupont's army, if the English, by the over- Auo-ust 30 hasty capitulation of Cintra, had not allowed Junot's 1808. troops a free passage to France. The affairs of the French in the Pyrenean peninsula seemed ruined. § 517. Napoleon himself now marched at the head of a mighty army into Spain. The unpractised troops of the insurgents, who opposed themselves without any regular plan to the great winner of battles, were defeated in several engagements, so that the emperor in December 4, f° ur weeks was able to enter Madrid and to give back 1808. the crown to his brother Joseph. "Whilst Napoleon was making fresh arrangements in the capital, attempting by kindness and threats to induce the Spaniards to acknowledge Joseph, and in- flicting severe punishments upon some of the most refractory, his marshals were sustaining bloody encounters with the guerilla chiefs February 20, an( i the English. Saragossa was taken after the most 1809. desperate resistance, and the gallant defender of the city, July 28. Palafox, conveyed to France ; the brave general Moore was kdled whilst embarking his troops at Corunna; and although Wellington obtained the advantage in the battle of Tala- vera, yet the English army restricted itself for some time to the defence of Portugal. Seville, also, and the whole of Andalusia and Granada, fell into the hands of the French. Spain, nevertheless, held herself erect. The national government removed to Cadiz, which bade defiance to every storm ; and the Spanish general, La Eomana, who, upon the news of his country's rise, had escaped with his troops from Denmark in English ships to his native soil, brought system and order to the guerilla warfare. NAPOLEON EMPEROR. 395 "When in the year 1809 the new war with Austria called the em- peror from Spain, he left behind him a large army, consisting for the most part of Germans. At the conclusion of the Austrian war this force was increased to nearly 300,000 men, who, under the command of his most experienced marshals (Soult, Massena, Suchet, Ney, St. Cyr, Marmont, Macdonald, &c), traversed the peninsula in every direction, and raised the renown of the French arms. But victories only increased the hatred towards the French ; the petty war, under the daring leaders, Ballasteros, Empecinado, MoriUo, O'Donnel, Mina, Moreto, assumed a more sanguinary character, and no courage was of avail against the assassination to which the revengeful Spaniards were driven by rage and fanaticism. The most heroic deeds that were per- formed by Napoleon's warriors, under the fervid sun of Spain, now in the battle-field, and now in toilsome marches, through mountains and ravines, and again in sieges and storms (Valencia, Gerona), contri- buted nothing to the quiet possession of the country. In the mean while the Cortes Assembly in Cadiz projected the liberal constitution which is known as the Constitution of the year '12, and which was to have destroyed absolute monarchy and the power of the priests in Spain for ever. But this constitution, owing to the hatred of the priests, remained unknown and detested by the people. § 518. The Russian campaign of 1812 compelled the emperor to diminish the Spanish army. Wellington took advantage of this to march into Spain with a larger force. Supported by the guerilla bands, the British army soon obtained advantages over their oppo- July 22, nents, who were suffering from every kind of want. After 1812. Marmont' s defeat at Salamanca by Wellington, the Eng- lish took possession of Madrid and drove out the French king. Suchet, duke of Albufera, and Soult, both alike brave and rapacious, held fortune firm to their standards, and Joseph was once more able to take possession of his tottering throne ; .but the frightful cata- strophe produced by the Russian campaign, compelled the French army in the western peninsula also to retreat, and obliged Joseph to June 21 q 11 ^ the Spanish territory. After the victory of Vittoria, 1813. Wellington foUowed the retreating forces over the Pyre- nees, but found a brave opponent in Soult, even on French ground. So late as the 10th of April, 1814, when the allies were encamped on the Elysian fields of Paris, the marshal still resisted the advancing enemy at Toulouse, although compelled to yield the field to the superior enemy. § 519. Imprisonment or the Pope. — The hatred against the French, and the fanatical fury of the Spaniards, were the work of the priests : Napoleon might have learned from this what power the religion he denied, and its venerable usages, were capable of exerting upon the minds of believers ; but in his pride he refused to recognize 396 THE LATEST PERIOD. any bonds that could limit his ambition. When the pope refused to lay an embargo upon the English ships in the ports of the States of the Church, and to enter into an offensive and defensive alliance with France, Napoleon inflicted upon him a succession of injuries, and united some portions of the ecclesiastical States to the kingdom of Italy. This, however, in no ways subdued the resolution of the in- flexible prince of the Church ; on the contrary, he was thereby induced, in the second war with Austria, to make common cause with the opponents of the emperor, against the supremacy of France. Here- May 27, upon, Napoleon, in a decree published at Schonbrunn, 1809. declared that the temporal power of the pope had ceased ; and when the holy father, irritated at this, fulminated an excommuni- June 16 cation against the emperor, Napoleon ordered him to be carried off from Borae by violence, banished the cardinals, and united the States of the Church with the French territory. Pius VII. lived in several towns, till at length a residence was allotted him in Fontainbleau. As he obstinately refused, whilst in a state of captivity and deprived of his council of cardinals, to fill lip the vacant bishoprics, or to arrange any ecclesiastical affairs, Napoleon found himself again compelled to arbitrary and despotic measures. The pope, however, at length allowed himself, hi an unguarded moment, to be persuaded to an arrangement by which his authority was diminished. 5. THE SECOND AUSTRIAN WAR. HOEER. SCHILL. (1S09.) § 520. Napoleon's arbitrary proceedings in Italy, and his increas- ing influence in Grermany, awakened the anxiety of Austria. The cabinet of Vienna, therefore, resolved once more to try the fortune of war. The popular war in Spain, in which the French emperor was obliged to employ a considerable portion of his forces, the universal discontent at the restrictions upon commerce, the deep movement in Northern Grermany, all this seemed to point out that the favourable moment was arrived for Austria to regain the power she had lost, and to break to pieces the foreign despotism. The landsturm was called out, and an attempt was made, by means of vehement proclama- tions, full of fine promises, to awaken enthusiasm and patriotic feel- ing. But the magic of the imperial name was still too powerful. The princes of the Rhine Confederation strengthened the French army with their brave troops, and the soldiers of South Germany poured forth their blood for a foreign despot against the warriors of .their own race. In April, Austria ordered its army, which was placed under the command of the archduke Charles, to march into Bavaria and Italy. But the first encounters decided the fate of the war. Napoleon, supported by Wirtemberg and Bavaria, marched NAPOLEON EMPEROR. 397 down the Danube with a considerable force, drove the enemy over the Inn by a succession of victorious encounters (Abensberg, Eck- April 20—22, miihi), and marched for the second time into the heart 1809. of the Austrian dominions. On the 10th of May the emperor stood before the walls of the capital, which three days after he entered as a conqueror. Below Vienna, the north bank of the Danube, which is there crossed by numerous bridges, was defended by the archduke Charles. Upon the French army attempting to cross the river from Lobau, an island in the stream, they met with such opposition in the two days' combat of Aspern and Eshngen, that they were obliged to relinquish the attempt. This bloody, though indecisive battle, where 12,000 French soldiers, including marshal Lannes, were left upon the field, gave the first shock to the belief in Napoleon's invincibility, and increased the con- fidence of the oppressed people. It was only when the emperor had received re-enforcements, and Eugene Beauharnais had united himself to the grand army, after the victory at Raab, that the French again, and this time with more success, attempted the passage of the river, and defeated the archduke in the great battle of Wagram. The loss on both sides was tolerably equal, and it was not to be disputed that the French no longer retained their former superiority in the field. Austria, a few days later, concluded, over hastily, the truce of Znaym, that she might open nego- tiations for a fresh peace. § 521. This truce was fatal to the Tyrolese. The warlike inhabit- ants of the mountainous region of the Tyrol, who were attached with the truest devotion to Austria, had risen at the commencement of the Avar to free themselves from the detested government of Bavaria, under which they had been placed by the peace of Presburg. The stimulating exhortations of their priests, who possessed great in- fluence over these simple mountaineers, and the enticements and promises of Austria produced a general insurrection. Trusting to the assistance of Austria, the Tyrolese seized the familiar rifle, and, like the Spaniards, directed from the mountain heights and gullies the unerring tube against the French and Bavarians, to hazard life and property in defence of the customs of their fathers. At then' head stood Andreas Hofer, a publican in the Passeyrthal, a man of great consideration among his countrymen both on account of his bodily strength and courage, as well as his piety, his patriotism, and his honourable character. Shrewder and more far-sighted men, as Hormayr, the historian of the Tyrol and of this war, made use of Hofer 's influence with the people to carry the movement through the whole land. By the side of Hofer stood Speckbacher, the soul of the confederation. A frightful war broke out ; the Bavarians were compelled to evacuate the German Tyrol, and Hofer took possession 39S THE LATEST PERIOD. of Innsbruck as the Austrian commandant. The truce of Znayin produced discouragement and irresolution among the insurgents, without, however, putting an end to the war. But when the con- clusion of the peace of Vienna or Schonbrunn, by Avhich Austria again lost 2000 square (German) miles and three millions of subjects, deprived the Tyrolese of all hopes of assistance, and the Bavarians and French, with increased forces, marched into the land from three different quarters, the insurrection was quelled. Innsbruck again fell into the hands of the Bavarians. Speckbacher and other leaders sought their safety in flight ; but Hofer, who, led astray by bad counsel, had again taken up arms, was discovered in a cave where he February 18, naa concealed himself for two months with his family, 1810. and shot in Mantua. He died with the courage of a hero, and highly reverenced by his countrymen. Tyrol was divided into three portions. § 522. During the second Austrian war attempts were made in various parts of Germany to shake off the foreign yoke. In Kur- hessen the colonel von Dorenberg attempted to overthrow the king of Westphalia by an insurrection. The failure of this attempt did not deter the brave major von Schill from hazarding a similar one in Prussia. With a troop of bold volunteers he hoped to arouse the North of Germany against the foreign despotism. But fear of the great emperor of battles paralyzed the arms of the people. Pursued by the enemy, Schill threw himself into the strong town of Stralsund, May 31, ^ the bope of being able to take ship from thence to 1809. England. But he fell during an assault, together with most of his companions in arms, beneath the sabres of the enemy's cavalry ; the rest were made prisoners of war, the officers shot in Wesel and Brunswick, and the privates condemned to the French galleys. Duke William of Brunswick, the heroic son of the field marshal, was more fortunate. He had marched to the aid of Austria with his "black band;" but treated the truce of Znaym with contempt, be- cause in it he had only been regarded as an Austrian marshal, and not as an independent prince of the empire, fought his way with incredible bravery through hostile lands and armies to the North Sea, from whence he escaped Avith his followers to England. The intense October 12, excitement of men's minds was evinced by the attempted 1809. assassination of Napoleon by a young man of Hamburgh named Staps. Being seized by general Rapp, and confessing his intention, he was led to death. If the enterprises of Schill and Dorenberg were foolhardy and incon- siderate, they were nevertheless of importance as proofs of the senti- ments prevailing among the people, and of the newly-aroused patriotism. These sentiments were encouraged and fostered chiefly in Prussia. NAPOLEON EMPEROR. 399 It was here that patriotically disposed men had assumed the conduct of affairs after the disastrous days of Jena and Tilsit, and driven the characterless old Prussian party from the councils of the king. The high-minded baron von Stein attempted to elevate the citizen and peasant class by introducing a liberal municipal government, render- ing the possession of landed property attainable by every one, and limiting the class privileges of the middle ages. Scharnhorst com- pletely revolutionized the affairs of the army : the employment of mercenary troops was superseded by the universal obligation to bear arms, the feelings of honour were excited among the privates by throwing open the rank of officer to all, and by the abolition of degrading punishments. It is true that the king in a short time found himself compelled to remove his patriotic advisers, when the mandate of Napoleon outlawed the baron von Stein, and compelled him to take refuge in Russia. But their works, nevertheless, re- mained, and formed the groundwork of a system of government which was founded upon the legal equality of the whole of the citizens. Stein's successor, the astute chancellor von Hardenberg, proceeded, as much as possible, upon the same principles ; and the Tugenbund, which was joined by some of the noblest men of the country, aroused and encouraged patriotism and love of freedom among the people and the ardent youth. § 523. The Bbench Empibe at its height. — Napoleon stood at the summit of his power and greatness after the peace of Yienna. It was only the reflection that he had no heir that occasioned him any disquiet ; he accordingly got himself divorced from Josephine upon December 15, the ground of some informality in their nuptials, and 1809. married Maria Louisa, daughter of the emperor of Austria. It was on the 1st of April, 1810, that he celebrated his nuptials with the "daughter of the Caesars." Five queens supported the train of the bride, and an unexampled magnificence was displayed. But a fire during the ball that was given by the Austrian ambassador, Schwarzen- berg, in honour of the newly-married pair, and in which his sister perished in the flames, was regarded as an omen of evil promise. March 20, When a son was born to the emperor in the following I 811 - year, who received the pompous title of king of Borne, Napoleon's fortune seemed to be complete and the future of France secured. But pride and ambition drove him on from one act of violence to another ; there was no end of the alliances, separations, and interchanges of lands and territories : what the despot created to-day he destroyed on the morrow ; he who he made a great man one year he humbled in the following. The blockade of the continent became daily more rigid, to the despair of merchants and traders. "When king Louis of Holland resisted this, and permitted his people some relaxation, he was so unkindly and unworthily treated by his 400 THE LATEST PERIOD. imperial brother that he renounced the throne, upon which Napoleon united the kingdom of Holland with France. A few months later he also added the Hanse towns, Hamburg, Bremen, Lubeck, and, be- sides these, the dukedom of Oldenburg and the provinces between the Rhine and the Elbe, to the French empire, which now ruled the whole coast of the North Sea, and numbered 130 departments. Hamburg was made the capital of the new territory, and the cruel Davoust placed there as ruler. The slavery within increased with the extension without. A formidable state-police suppressed the last remains of freedom, and threatened every suspected person with per- secution and imprisonment. Arbitrariness, passion, and despotism, usurped the place of popular rights ; restrictions on trade, oppressive taxation, and military conscriptions were the burdens imposed upon friendly states ; the calamities of war, exactions, and the quarterings of troops, the miseries of the hostile. 6. TIIE WAK AGAINST RUSSIA. § 524. The extension of the empire of France even to the shores of the Baltic, by which means the duke of Oldenburg, a near relation of the imperial family of Russia, was deprived of his lands, completely destroyed the friendship between Alexander and Napoleon, which had already grown cold since the increase of the dukedom of Warsaw by the peace of Vienna. This hostile feeling, which was first dis- played in the angry language of diplomatists and in newspaper articles, was increased when the Russian government proclaimed a new tarif unfavourable to the importation of French goods. Botli parties prepared themselves for a desperate struggle. The emperor of Russia concluded a peace with the Turks by the mediation of the English, and brought over to his side Bernadotte of Sweden, whom Napoleon had greatly injured; the French emperor, on the other hand, arranged a treaty with Prussia and Austria, by which he obtained a considerable increase of his forces. Alexander's defiant demand, that the French garrisons should at once evacuate Pomerania and Russia, pi*oduced a declaration of war. § 525. In May, Napoleon, accompanied by his wife, made his appearance in Dresden, where the princes of the Rhine Confederation, the emperor of Austria, and the king of Prussia, were likewise present to pay their homage to the potentate who was now summoning half Europe to arms against Russia. After a residence of ten days among this brilliant assemblage of princes, Napoleon hastened to his army, nearly half a million strong, and which, with more than a thousand cannon and 20,000 baggage waggons, was lying scattered along between the Vistula and the Nicmen. The left wing, consisting for the most part of Poles and Prussians, under the command of Mac- donald, was placed upon the banks of the Baltic ; the right, formed NAPOLEON EMPEROR. 401 by the Austrian auxiliaries led by Schwarzenberg, with a division of French aud Saxons under Regnier, stood on the Lower Bug opposite the southern army of the Russians ; the body, commanded by Napoleon himself, and under him by the most experienced mar- shals of his school, crossed the Niemen in June and marched into Wilna. The appearance of the French awakened the most sanguine expectations and warlike enthusiasm among the Poles. The diet of Warsaw declared the restoration of the kingdom of Poland, and determined upon the formation of a general confederation. But popidar movements were not to Napoleon's taste ; he forbade a rise en masse, and damped the enthusiasm by declaring that out of regard to Austria he could not consent to the restoration of the Polish republic in its whole extent. Nevertheless, Polish warriors under Poniatowski and others fought with their accustomed valour beneath the eagles of Napoleon, and the Polish people supported, to the best of their power, the foreign troops that were now marching in the midst of dreadful rains from Wilna to Witepsk. Moscow, " the heart of Russia," was Napoleon's aim; but he soon discovered what powerful allies the Russians were possessed of in the nature of then country. The roads were impassable, supplies did not arrive, the poor and badly cultivated soil afforded little means of subsistence ; diseases diminished the number of troops and filled the hospitals. § 526. The Russian generals, Barclay de Tolly and Bagration, avoided a fixed battle, and lured the emperor onwards deeper into August 17, the country. The first battle was fought at Smolensk ; 1812. but after fighting a whole day without any decisive result, the Russians, in the night, left the town, which was in flames. On the following morning the French found the site of the town drenched with blood and covered with corpses. A council of war was held in Smolensk, but, despite the number of voices that were raised against the continuance of the campaign, Napoleon insisted upon the con- quest of Moscow, where he intended to pass the winter, and to force Alexander to a peace. The Russians murmured at Barclay's mode of conducting the war, as the Romans had once done at the delay of Fabius, for which reason Alexander appointed general Kutusoff to the command, who, as a native of the country, was nearer to the people, and who was much beloved by the lower class of Russians for his attachment to the religious customs, and to the old Russian manners and usages. Kutusoff dared not allow the holy city of Moscow, with its innumerable towers and golden cupolas, to fall into the hands of the French, unless he wished to forfeit all the affections of the people. He halted his troops, and by this means brought about the murderous battle of Borodino, on the Moskwa, in which the French indeed remained in possession of the field, but were obliged to allow the Russians to retire in good order. Dd 402 THE LATEST PERIOD. Upwards of 70,000 bodies covered the field ; Ney, " the prince of the Moskwa," was the hero of the day. On the 14th of September the French entered Moscow. The nobility and Ihe better class of citizens had left the place. A secret horror fell npon the soldiers as they entered the town, and saw nothing but a few of the rabble creeping about; but who can describe their terror when the four days' conflagration of Moscow, which, in the absence of all means of extinguishing it, soon became a sea of flame, reduced the city, which was built of wood, and the ancient Kremlin, which Napoleon him- self had chosen for a residence, to ashes ? The governor of Moscow, Rostopschin, had given orders for this horrible deed, without the com- mand of the tzar, for the purpose of depriving the grand army of its winter quarters, and of compelling it to a disastrous retreat. Forgetful of all order and discipline, the soldiers rushed into the burning houses to gratify their passions and love of plunder. § 527. From all this it was apparent that the Russians were waging a war of extermination, and yet Napoleon, from some unaccountable delusion, suffered himself to be decoyed, by the artfully sustained hopes of a peace, into remaining for thirty-four days in Moscow with- out caring to see that Kutiisoff was seeking to detain him till the commencement of whiter, that during the retreat the cold might destroy the half-clad soldiers, who were suffering from the want of the merest necessaries. At length, late in October, was commenced that fatal retreat of the grand army, which has no parallel in the history of the sufferings of war. The plan at first contemplated, of marching upon Kaluga, Avas given up after the dreadful battle of Malo-Jaroslowetz, and the road towards Smolensk over the corpse-covered battle-field of Borodino was entered upon. In November the cold reached 18, and afterwards became 27 degrees below zero. Who can describe all the sufferings, battles, and fatigues, by which the grand army was gradually destroyed in the midst of the stern winter ? Hunger, cold, and exhaustion, produced greater ravages than the bullets of the Russians or the lances of the Cossacks. It was a horrible sight to see thousands of starved or frozen soldiers lying in the public roads or on the desolate steppes covered with snow and ice, intermingled with fallen horses, abandoned arms, and rich articles of plunder. Kutusoff, who, in a proclamation, ascribed the burning of Moscow to the French, to inflame the hatred of the people still more against them, never left their flank, and forced them to contest every yard of ground. AVhen Smolensk was reached, about the middle of November, the army still numbered about 40,000 men, fit for service ; these were followed by upwards of 30,000 unarmed si ragglers, \\ ithout discipline, order, or leaders ; a picture of wretched- ness and horror. And yet it was here that the greatest misery began, inasmuch as by some error in the orders, the expected supplies GERMAN WAR OF LIBERATION. ' 403 of arms, clothes, and necessaries, were not forthcoming in the town, and the enemy with increased forces were obstructing the path of march. The hero of the retreat was Ney, the commander of the rear, the "bravest of the brave." His passage over the frozen but partly thawed Dnieper during the night, was one of the most daring feats recorded in history. On the 25th of November the army arrived at the ever-memorable river Beresina. Two bridges were thrown across the stream in the presence of the hostile army, and the small remnant that still preserved its discipline passed over in the midst of innu- merable dangers, but nearly 18,000 stragglers that did not arrive in time fell into the hands of the enemy. How many Were drowned between the masses of ice in the cold waves of the river, or were trampled down and destroyed in the dreadful press, no one can November tell. After the passage of the Beresina, Napoleon had 26—29. still 8000 soldiers fit for service. Ney was the last man of the rear-guard. According to the official account 243,600 enemies' bodies were buried in B-ussia. Half Europe had to mourn. On the 3rd of December Napoleon published the celebrated 29th bulletin, which informed the expectant people who had been without intelli- gence for months, that the emperor was safe and the grand army destroyed. Two days afterwards he made over the command to Murat, and hastened to Paris to arrange fresh armaments. D. DISSOLUTION OF THE EEENCH EMPIEE, AND ESTABLISHMENT OE A EEESH SYSTEM. 1. THE GEBMAN WAB, OE LIBEBATION, AND THE EALE OE NAPOLEON. § 528. The saying attributed to Talleyrand, that the Russian cam- paign was "the beginning of the end," soon proved true. No doubt oppressive conscriptions soon filled up the chasms in the Erench army, but the faith in Napoleon's invincibihty was gone ; and fresh armies formed from young and inexperienced men were opposed to an enemy that was inspired to great actions both by the victory it had attained and by the newly-awakened feeling of patriotism. So early as the 30th of December the Prussian general, York, who com- manded under Macdonald, on the east coast, had entered into an understanding with the Eussian marshal, Diebitsch, and had desisted, together with his troops, from any farther hostilities. It is true that this proceeding was publicly censured in Berlin, but the king's jour, ney to Breslau, where many patriotic men assembled themselves around him, was the first step towards the alliance with Eussia, which was completed in the following February. The boundless ill- February 3, usage experienced by Prussia had excited such a detesta- 1813. tion against the foreign despotism, that the king's " Call d d2 40 I THE LATEST PERIOD. to his people" to take up arms awakened au incredible ardour for war. The enthusiasm seized upon all ages and conditions. Touths and men withdrew themselves from their wonted occupations, and from the circles of affection, that they might dedicate their strength to the liberation of their fatherland. Students and teachers left the lecture- room, officials left then posts, young nobles the homes of their fathers ; they seized the musket and knapsack, and placed themselves in the ranks as common soldiers along with the mechanic who had come forth from his workshop, and the peasant who had exchanged the ploughshare for the sword. § 529. The allied monarchs attempted to win over the king of Saxony to their cause. But Frederick Augustus resisted the invita- tion. Gratitude for the many proofs of favour and confidence which had been shown him by Napoleon, and fear of the anger of the poten- tate, bound him fast to his alliance with the French emperor. He placed his lands, his fortresses, and his troops at his disposal, and Saxony accordingly became the seat of the war. In the first battles ,, „ at Liitzen and at Bautzen the French indeed retained May 2. M 20 possession of the field, and drove back their opponents as far as the Oder ; but the heroism of the young German warriors, who fearlessly presented their breasts to the storm of balls, showed the enemy that a different spirit had taken possession of the Prussians from that displayed at Jena. Scharnhorst breathed forth his heroic soul at Liitzen. Among the thousands who strewed the field in these two engagements were Bessieres and Duroc. The death of the latter, whom Napoleon loved and esteemed above all others for his, amiability, fidelity, and attachment, was a great shock to the French emperor. For the first time, a dark presentiment of the mutabilities of life seemed to take possession of his breast. But pride and presumption hurried him onwards. It was in vain that Austria endeavoui'ed, during a short cessation of hostilities, to negotiate a peace at the Congress of Prague ; Napoleon insolently refused to surrender any of the conquered countries. This was followed bv a breaking up of the truce, and bv August 12. . . . . Austria's declaration of war against France. It is true August 26, 27- that Napoleon, in the battle of Dresden, once more chained victory to his eagles, and had the pleasure of seeing his opponent, Moreau, whom Alexander had summoned from America, carried from the field mortally wounded ; but the fruits of the Dresden victory were destroyed (1) by Bliicher's simultaneous engagement on the Katzbach in Silesia, against Mac- donald, a battle in which Marshal "Forwards" gained the title of a prince of the battle-field. (2) By the French general, Vandamme, being surrounded and made prisoner with his whole army, in the hotly-contested battle of Culm, a catastrophe that was GERMAN WAR OF LIBERATION. 405 brought about by Kleist's daring march across the ' heights of Nollendorf, and by the pertinacious courage of the Russian guards under Ostermann ; and (3) by the splendid August 23. feats of the Prusso-Swedish army at Grros-Beeren and September 6. JJennewitz. § 530. By the autumn the result of this great struggle was scarcely doubtful ; the princes of the Confederation of the Bhine gradually fell off from Napoleon, and joined the allies ; thus Bavaria, who concluded the treaty of Bied with Austria. In October the armies united themselves together in the broad plain of Leipsic ; the Austrians, under prince Schwarzenberg, in whose hands the management of the whole was placed ; the Bussians, under Barclay, Benningsen, and others ; the Prussians, under Blu- cher ; and the Swedes, under Bernadotte. The forces of the allies (300,000 men) were superior to the army conducted by Napoleon himself by 100,000 men. It was in vain that the Prench emperor, to whom the god of battles had so often been propitious, unfolded his mighty talents ; it was in vain that the most distinguished marshals of his school, Ney, Murat, Augereau, Macdonald, the Pole Ponia- towski, and many others, exerted their strength to the utmost. The October 16 three days' battle fought in Leipsic and the neighbouring 18. villages was the grave of the Prench empire. After suffering an enormous loss,* Napoleon, in the night of the 19th October, quitted the town, which was immediately taken possession of by the allies. The over-hasty destruction of the Elster bridge delivered up 18,000 soldiers fit for battle into the hands of the victors, to say nothing of the sick and the wounded. Poniatowski, who during the battle had been made marshal, found his death in the waters. The Prench, closely pursued by the enemy, advanced by hasty marches by Erfurt to the Bhine. Their passage was opposed at Hanaii by Wrede, with Bavarians and Austrians ; but by this he only gave the " dying Hon " an opportunity of displaying his military October 30, skill. The victory that was gained at Hanau over the 31 • wounded Wrede opened to the Prench the passage to the Bhine by the way of Prankfurt. But the unfortunates all carried the germs of mortal disease in their breasts, and half of them died before the end of the year in over-crowded hospitals. The dissolution of the kingdom of Westphalia, the return of the elector of Hessen, and of the dukes of Brunswick and Oldenberg to their own dominions, the imprisonment of the king of Saxony, and the breaking up of the Confederation of the Bhine, now followed in quick succession. Dalberg renounced his archdukedom of Prankfurt ; "Wirtemberg, Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, concluded treaties with Austria, and arrayed their troops beneath the standard of the allies. It was only in Ham- burg that the Prench maintained themselves, under the cruel 406 THE LATEST PERIOD. Davoust, till the May of 1814, and practised dreadful exactions and oppressions. The king of Denmark was punished for his adherence to Napoleon by the loss of Norway, which was given to Sweden by j amiary i4 j the peace of Kiel. The same thing happened in Italy. 1814. The viceroy, Eugene, left the beautiful lands of the Po to the Austrians, after a gallant defence, and joined his father-in-law in Bavaria. The archduke Ferdinand returned to Tuscany, and the States of the Church received the severely-tried pope Pius VII. Naples alone remained for a short time in the hands of the cavalry leader, Murat, who, having quarrelled with his brother-in-law, joined himself to Austria. § 531. The allied monarchs held a council with their ministers and generals in Frankfurt, established a provisional government over the conqxiered lands, and again made the French emperor an offer of peace, if he would content himself with the Rhine as the boundary of France. As, however, the vast preparations that Napoleon was making, by means of a severe conscription, convinced the allied powers that their adversary was going once more to try the chances January 1, °f battle, it was determined to cross the Rhine. It was 1814. on New-year's night that Blucher crossed over the Ger- man river at several points between Mannheim and Coblentz with the Silesian army, whilst Schwarzenberg marched with the main body through Switzerland to the south-east of France, and a second Prus- sian army under Bulow freed Holland, and enabled the Stadtholder to return to his states. In Champagne the armies of Blucher and Schwarzenberg met together, and won the battle of Brienne (la Rothiere) . But, as the difficulty of obtaining provisions compelled the two armies again to separate, whilst Schwar- zenburg marched along the Seine, and Blucher followed the course of the Marne, the French emperor, whose military talents again blazed forth in then fullest lustre, succeeded in repeatedly defeating the Silesian army (at Montmirail, Chateau-Thierry), and compelling it to retreat. After this, he suddenly threw himself upon the main army, and drove this also back upon Troyes by the victory of Montereau. These events made such an impression upon the allies, that it would not have been difficult for the emperor, in the fresh negotiations for peace that were opened at Chatillon, to have secured himself upon the throne of France, if he would only have given up the other conquered countries. But, as he increased his demands wath every favourable turn of fortune, only gave limited powers to his ambassador, Caulaincourt, and paralyzed the negotia- tions by ambiguous and undecisive declarations, the decision was delayed until Blucher, Napoleon's most implacable enemy, had gained fresh advantages over the debilitated French army at Craonne and Laon. The negotiations were now broken NAPOLEON'S DEATH, AND THE RESTORATION. 407 off, and the dethronement of Buonaparte resolved. The ' battle of Arcis on the Aube, convinced the French emperor that his weakened and exhausted army would avail no longer against the iron ranks of the enemy ; and this conviction made him irresolute. Whilst the allies were marching upon Paris, and his presence in the capital was imperatively called for, he wasted his time in daring but fruitless marches. The heroic exertions of a few thou- sand National Guards at Fere-Champenoise was the last display of popular energy. A few days later the hostile army stormed Mont- martre. Upon this, Joseph, to whom Napoleon had entrusted the defence of the capital, placed his authority in the hands of Mortier and Marmont, and retired with the empress and the regency to Blois. The two marshals were soon compelled to yield to superior force, and to surrender the city by treaty. Hereupon followed the March 31. ... . entrance of the allies into Paris, and the establishment of a provisional government under the presidentship of Talleyrand. This astute diplomatist, a master in every intrigue and artifice, now devoted himself to the interests of the royal family, and attempted, by the employment of the principle of legitimacy, to exclude Napo- leon, and to bring about the restoration of the Bourbons. 2. napoleon's death, and the bestobation. § 532. In the meanwhile, Napoleon, with his guard and his friends, the number of which diminished every day, was lingering in Fontain- bleau. He varied helplessly from one resolution to another, till, at length, the news of Marmont' s defection decided him upon abdicating the throne in favour of his son. But this conditional abdication was not received by the allied powers ; he could not continue the contest, for even his nearest friends, Berthier, Ney, Oudinot, and others, had deserted him, and turned towards the new sun. In this extremity Napoleon p ' signed the unconditional act of abdication as dictated by the allies. He received the island of Elba as his property, an income of 2,000,000 francs, and the permission to retain 400 of his faithful guard around his person. His wife, Maria Theresa, obtained the duchy of Parma. On the 20th of April Napoleon ordered the grena- diers of his guard to be drawn up in the castle-yard of Pontainbleau, and, with a broken heart, took an affecting leave of them, amidst the sobs of the veteran heroes. On the 4th of May he landed at Elba. Shortly after, to the great joy of the people, who were weary of war, the First Peace of Paris was concluded, by which France received Louis XVIII. as king, a new constitutional government, and the boundaries of 1792. The foreign armies left the French territories, and the Congress of Vienna was to have placed the new order of things in Europe upon a firm foundation. 408 THE LATEST PERIOD. § 533. It was a splendid assembly this Vienna Congress. Empe- rors and kings, princes and nobles, of tbe most celebrated men of all countries were there assembled, and rejoicing over their victory. The majesty and civilization of all Europe there displayed themselves in their fullest lustre ; and the magnificent festivals, the riotous feasts, splendid balls, and evening assemblies, had no end. But the establishment of the new system was no light task ; and, in the midst of all this splendour and rejoicing violent passions were in motion, which threatened to destroy the work of peace before its completion. The return of the legitimate royal families to their lost thrones, and the most complete putting aside possible of the republican constitu- tions, were the two principles on which all parties were soon agreed ; but when questions respecting the division of the conquered and vacated lands, and the indemnification of the allies, came to be dis- cussed, envy, selfishness, avarice, and all impure motives were aroused. The court of Berlin demanded the union of Saxony with the Prus- sian kingdom, and Bussia entertained the view of getting entire possession of Poland ; both demands met with vehement opposition ; the dispute seemed to threaten a renewal of hostilities, and the armies were placed upon«a war footing. These appearances, and the proceedings in Erance, where the constitution granted by Louis XVIII. afforded but little defence against the reaction, awakened new hopes in Napoleon. The Bourbons betrayed by their proceedings "that they had learned nothing, and forgotten nothing." The memory of the Bevolution and of the empire was, as far as possible, destroyed. The tricoloured national cockade was thrust aside by the white ; the old aristocracy treated the new elevations with insolence and contempt, and drove them from the neighbourhood of the court, where the tone was given by the polite count of Artois and the gloomy duchess of Angouleme (daughter of Louis XVI.), whose heart was filled with hatred and venom against the men of the Bevolution. The guards were discharged, and their places supplied by well-paid Swiss ; the officers of the grand army were dismissed upon half-pay ; the Legion of Honour was rendered mean and contemptible by the distribution of innumerable crosses to the unworthy ; the compact with the banished emperor himself was not adhered to ; the clergy and the emigrants, who met with particular favour in the palace, began to dream of a restoration of their lost estates, tithes, and feudal privileges ; great discontent took possession of the nation ; the wish for a change again became lively, particularly when nearly 100,000 Erench soldiers, some who had been prisoners of war, and others from foreign fortresses, returned to their country, and diffused their Buonapartist sentiments over the whole land. § 534. When Napoleon heard of these errors of the Bourbons, when he learnt that there was a wish to restore their lands to the emi- NAPOLEON'S DEATH, AND THE RESTORATION. 409 grants because " they kept the straight path," when he was instructed by Pouche, Davoust, Maret, the duchess of St. Leu, and others of his adherents who kept up a constant correspondence with him, of the disposition of the people, he resolved once more to try his fortune. March 1, H e landed on the south coast of Prance with a few 1815. hundred men; he soon won all hearts to himself by some shrewdly planned and rapidly diifused proclamations. The tricolour was in a short time again predominant every where, the troops that were sent to oppose him deserted to him in crowds ; the citizens of -, . _ Grenoble threw open their gates when he approached their town, and Colonel Labedoyere placed the garrison at his disposal. It was in vain that Artois hasted to Lyons, and at- tempted to gain the soldiers by confidence. The shout of " Yive rempereur!" rang every where in his ears; and when even Ney, who had sworn to bring the usurper in chains to Paris, went over to -j. his former companion in arms, the Bourbons, helpless and confounded, quitted for the second time the land of their home. Louis XVIII., with a few faithful adherents, took up his residence in Ghent, whilst Napoleon once more entered the Tuileries, and formed a new ministry from among his followers. Thus began the reign of the hundred days, and Europe was threatened with fresh convulsions. Clubs were again formed, and the songs of the Revolution were again heard. But Napoleon had not yet laid aside his dislike to popidar movements, he also had learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. The imperial throne, with its splendour and its national nobility, was again to arise. This, however, was resisted T by the people. The new constitution, which was sworn to at the festival of the Champ de Mai, did not satisfy their demands. § 535. These events produced the greatest confusion in the Vien- nese Congress, and restored the unanimity which had been dis- turbed. Austria and Russia did not at first appear disinclined to open fresh negotiations with Napoleon, who promised to abide by the conditions of the Peace of Paris and never again to disturb the tran- quillity of Europe, and to leave either him or his son in possession of the crown of Prance. But the activity of Talleyrand and the im- prudence of Murat again gave the victory to the principles of legi- timacy. Murat had at first joined tbe allies, and made war on the viceroy of Italy. But he soon felt that this was an unnatural pro- ceeding ; such treachery to the common cause revolted his honest military feelings. Napoleon's landing and triumphant course were the signal for his taking up arms. The emperor in vain warned him against over-hasty proceedings. "Without waiting to see what course events would take, Murat declared war against Austria, and called the people of Italy to arms to defend the unity and independence of 410 THE LATEST PERIOD. May 23, the beautiful land of the Apennines. The battle of 1815. Tolentino went against him ; his army melted away, and whilst he was flying in haste to the south of France, the Austrians marched into his capital and gave back his crown to its former possessor, Ferdinand. After the battle of Waterloo (§ 536) Murat wandered for some time around the south coast of France, only care- fully concealing himself from the pursuit of the Bourbons. At length he escaped to Corsica, and undertook from thence a voyage to Calabria for the purpose of exciting the people to revolt against Ferdinand. But he and his few followers were easily overpowered, and Murat paid the penalty of his attempt with his life. On the 15th of October, Joachim Murat, who by his courage and good for- tune had been raised from the son of an innkeeper to be the king of the most beautiful of lands, was shot at Pizzo. § 536. Napoleon's fate was decided even earlier. The European powers set upwards of half a million of men in motion against the outlawed usurper. Before they had all marched forth, Napoleon, after the opening of the chambers of Paris, advanced, with the sol- diers that flocked to him from all quarters, into the Netherlands, to make head against the armies of Wellington and Blticher. The j ,„ commencement of the campaign was favourable to the French. At Ligny the Prussians were forced back after the most desperate resistance ; whilst at Quatre Bras Ney resisted Wellington's army, composed of English, Dutch, Hanoverians, &c. Bliicher was wounded in the former place, and in the latter the chivalrous duke William of Brunswick found his death. Even on the decisive day the victory was long doubtful. It was not till the Prussians at the critical moment came to the assistance of the hardly- pressed army of Wellington, whilst marshal Grouchy, who had been dispatched by Napoleon to follow Bliicher, kept aloof from the field, that the French, despite the heroic bravery of the veteran warriors, , were totally defeated in the battle of Belle- Alliance or Waterloo. The struggle on the height of Mount St. Jean, from whence the French name the battle, was terrible ; and the words which were afterwards attributed to general Cambronne, " The guard dies, it never yields !" were retained by the nation in honour- able remembrance : whilst the disgrace which Bourmont incurred by his treachery, and Grouchy by his ambiguous conduct, could be obli- terated by no defence. Napoleon, pale and confused, allowed himself to be led out of the battle by Soult, and hastened to Paris. The flight soon became general; the whole of the artillery fell into the hands of the enemy ; only a fourth part of the brave army was able to escape. § 537. The Chambers of Paris, in which Fouche was exhibiting a wretched display of intrigue and deceit, proposed to the emperor, on NAPOLEON'S DEATH, AND THE RESTORATION. 41 1 his return, that he should renounce the crown. After some resist- ance, the humbled potentate yielded to the proposal ; he laid down June 22 ^ G S 0Yernmen ^ W favour of his son, Napoleon II., and then fled to Eochefort with the purpose of escaping to America, when he saw the victorious enemy a second time ap- proaching the walls of Paris. As the English, however, held the harbour blockaded, Napoleon, trusting to the generosity of the British people, sought shelter in one of their ships (Bellerophon) . But the statesmen who then held the rudder had no compassion for fallen greatness. Arrived at the coast of England, Napoleon received the terrible information that he must pass the remainder of his life as a state prisoner on the island of St. Helena. All protestations were useless : on the 18th of October he landed on the place of his banishment, in the midst of the Atlantic ocean. Here Napoleon lived, a chained Prometheus, separated from his friends, in an unhealthy climate, and under the rigid guardance of the unfriendly governor, Hudson Lowe. A few friends, among them general Bertrand and his family, Montholon, Las Casas, shared his banishment. Grief at his fall, want of his accustomed activity, and irritation at the unworthy treatment he received, broke his proud and strong spirit before its time. After six years of suffering be found that quiet in the grave, to which during life he had been a stranger. He died on the 5th of May, 1821. His ashes were after- wards conveyed to Paris (1842), and buried in the Hotel of Invalides. § 538. After Napoleon's abdication, a provisional government was established under the direction of Pouche. The latter arranged with Wellington and Bliicher that no man was to be punished for his actions or opinions, and then surrendered the capital. A few days later the Bourbons again entered the Tuileries, under the guard of foreign bayonets. The people were quiet and indifferent. The armies were disbanded, the Chambers dissolved, and by a succession of proscriptions, a number of men who had hitherto guided the fate of Prance and of her armies, were either deprived of their offices, thrust into banishment, or, as in the case of Ney and Labedoyere, condemned to death 1 . The allied monarchs again esta- 1 Labedoyere and Ney were condemned to death by the Court of Peers, and shot. The execution of the renowned marshal of the Moskwa, who, when he was shot, with military spirit gave the word of command himself, was looked upon as an infraction of the treaty arranged with Wellington, and brought great disgrace upon the court of Paris. Lavalette also, who in his capacity of director of the post had exerted himself for Napoleon's restoration, was condemned to death, but was delivered from prison by his faithful wife. Among the banished were to be found all the members of Na- poleon's family ; the marshals and statesmen who had joined him during the hundred days, as Soult, Maret, Thibaudeau, Mouton, &c. ; and finally, all the regicides, i. e. the members of the Convention who had voted for Louis XVI. 's death ; Fouche was one of these, and he was accordingly obliged to relinquish the office of minister of 412 THE LATEST PERIOD. Wished their residence in Paris, and assisted the Bourbons in settling November the new system. At length, when the Restoration ap- 20, 1815. peared secure, the second Peace of Paris was arranged, by which Prance was confined to the boundaries of 1790, restored all the plundered treasures of art and science to their former owners, paid 700,000,000 francs for the expenses of war, and was obliged to support an allied army of 150,000 men in the frontier fortresses. These garrison troops remained for three years in the Prench fortresses. E. THE PEOPLE AND STATES OP EUROPE PROM THE HOLT ALLIANCE TO THE PRESENT TIME. 1. THE HOLY ALLIANCE AND THE POSITION OE PARTIES. § 539. The uppermost strata of society, which in the ordinary course of events suffer little from the mutations of life, had, through the Revolution and the military despotism of Napoleon, been visited by severe strokes of fortune. A more profound consideration of the revolutionary movement pointed to the supervision of a Higher Power, which brings to nought every impious endeavour, and every presump- tuous self-reliance. Religious feeling again returned to the bosoms of men, and gave predominance to piety and Christian faith among the upper classes. Penetrated by this feeling, the three allied mo- narchs, Alexander of Russia, Prancis of Austria, and Frederick Wil- liam III. of Prussia, before their departure from Paris, concluded the September Holy Alliance, which was joined by all the sovereigns of 25, 1815. Europe, with the exception of the pope and the king of England. In this holy alliance, which was formed without reference to religious vigws, the three potentates swore, " That in accordance with the words of Holy Scripture, which commands all men to love each other as brethren, they would remain united in the bands of true and indissoluble brotherly love, that they would mutually help and assist each other ; that they would govern their people like fathers of families, and that they would maintain religion, peace, and justice." This alliance, beautiful in theory, was soon made the instru- ment of a faithless and liberty-endangering policy, which sought, by means of religion, to establish the absolutism of princes, and the omnipotence of governments, and to suppress the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, and the democratical and constitutional forms of government which are its necessary result. "Whilst the police, which he had at first been allowed by the Bourbons to retain, and to retire abroad. Carnot, Sieyes, Cambaceres, and others did the same. Most of them resided in Brussels. FRANCE. 413 Holy Alliance made use of Christianity to establish reactionary principles, it drew upon the whole work the reproach of hypocrisy, and the hatred of the people. § 540. Whilst princes and governments were for the most part striving after absolute monarchical forms, the wishes of the people were directed to the establishment of constitutional governments. According to this form of ride which has grown up on the free soil of Britain, the right of voting taxes and of looking into the government, and a share in the legislation, belongs to the people as represented by their members of parliament. As the authority of the king and the rights and liberties of the people are alike discerned in this repre- sentative constitution, this form appeared best suited for civilized states. The chief efforts of the European nations were accordingly directed to the establishment or enlargement of this constitutional form of government, and public energy was almost exclusively turned to affairs of state and of the inner political life. Two powerful parties were formed, the one (called sometimes aristocratic, sometimes con- servative, sometimes servile) which wished to grant the people as few, the other (called democratic, liberal, and, when its views were extreme, radical) which wished to grant the people as many privileges as possible ; and whilst the former hindered, as far as it could, the introduction of constitutional forms of state, or, if introduced, attempted to deprive them, by any means, of their democratical elements ; the efforts of the latter were directed to the founding and developing of the constitutional life, and to increasing the privdeges of the people. Governments were in general in the hands of the former, consequently, the liberals formed the opposition. Of the five great European powers, England and Erance alone possessed consti- tutional governments ; Bussia, Austria, and Prussia held fast their monarchical absolutism. In Germany, Italy, and the Pyrenean peninsula, history turns principally upon these constitutional con- tests, by which now one, and now the other, of these state principles obtained the upper hand. 2. FBANCE. § 541. A remarkable revolution in opinions and mode of thinking took place in this much convulsed country after the Eestoration. The party of zealous royalists (Ultras, or " "White Jacobins," as they were called by their opponents) acquired such predominance, that the king had some difficulty in maintaining the constitutional charter. In the place of the freethinking opinions, and the hostility to the Church, which prevaded at a former period, a fanatical religious credulity made its appearance, which, combined with the most enthusiastic royalty, called into existence horrors which surpassed the ' bloodiest deeds of the Eevolution. In Marseilles, Toulon, 414 THE LATEST PERIOD. Mines, Toulouse, and other places, a furious and fanatical mob fell upon such inhabitants as were known for Protestants, Buona- partists, or republicans, and murdered hundreds of them (among others, marshal Brune) in a most barbarous manner. The assas- February 13, sination of the due de Berri, that nephew of the king 1820. upon whom all the hopes of the Bourbons were placed, by Louvel, a political fanatic, facilitated the efforts of the reactionary party, at the head of which stood the count of Artois and the duke of Angouleme. The king found himself compelled to dismiss the mode- rate ministry of Decaze, and to consent to a limitation of the freedom of the person, of the press, and of the right of voting. The zeal of the royalists reached its climax under the ministry of Villele. The Chamber expelled the liberal deputy, Manuel, from their body, and the army, conducted by Angouleme, crossed the Pyrenees at the command of the Holy Alliance, for the purpose of restoring unlimited monarchy in Spain. § 542. On the 16th September, 1824, Louis XVIII. concluded his varied and severely -tried existence. Stern experience had taught him compassion and moderation ; the impetuous violence of the other members of the royal family filled the heart of the dying man with melancholy auguries for the future. His brother the count of Artois, May 29, became king of Prance as Charles X. By his solemn 1825. coronation and anointing in Rheims, he appeared to indi- cate that he intended to govern after the manner of the old " Most Christian" kings. He accordingly turned his affections towards the nobility and clergy, and surrendered himself entirely to the reaction- ary party, with the watchword "Throne and altar." The emigrants who had suffered losses during the Revolution received 1000 million francs from the royal chambers as an indemnification, and a series of laws in favour of the Church and of the Christian religion, announced the intention of the king to erect a mighty barrier against revolu- tionary notions by the ecclesiastical regeneration of Prance. Charles X. thought to establish this regeneration by founding rich prelacies, by restoring to the clergy their former influential position, by favour- ing the system of orders, and by bringing back that holiness of the Church which is founded upon works, together with the whole of the new Romish pomp. The Jesuits, who had long been re-esta- blished by the pope, returned, although not publicly ; they founded meetings for pious exercises (congregations), and attempted to get the education of youth into their hands. By these means the king st lengthened the liberal opposition, inasmuch as all men of philo- sophical education, every friend of light and of enlightenment, turned from a government that favoured obscurantism. Whilst the deluded monarch believed that he could impose the old fetters upon the minds of the people by inopportune missions and penitential processions, or SPAIN. PORTUGAL. ITALY. 415 by coinpulsatory laws and limitations, the assiduous youth were listening to the liberal discourses and doctrines of the enlightened professors of the University of Paris (Guizot, Vdlemain, Pvoyer- Collard, &c), or reading the bold and free discussions of the opposi- tion press (Globe, National, ConstitutionneT), or delighting themselves with Beranger's songs of freedom, and the satires of the Hellenist, Paul Louis Courier, whilst the citizen read the widely-spread works of Voltaire and of the Encyclopaedists, or the histories and memorials of the Revolution, and of the renowned reign of Napoleon (Thiers, Mignet, &c). 3. THE CONSTITUTIONAL STRUGGLES IN THE PYBENEAN PENINSULA AND IN ITALY. § 543. In Spain and Italy the new political ideas had made no pro- gress among the people, who were ruled by their priests ; they existed in the heads of the educated, and, as it was dangerous to avow them openly, they were disseminated in secret societies. Such political associations were the "Freemasons" in Spain and Portugal, and the " Carbonari " in Italy. Abolition of priestly power, introduction of free constitutional forms, enlightenment of the people, arousing patriotism and a feeling of nationality, were their great objects. Their influence was first attended with results in Spain. Ferdinand, a false and suspicious man, and a master in dissimulation, overthrew, after his return, the Cortes' constitution in Spain, and ' brought back the unlimited monarchy of the old time and all its evils. Nobility and clergy again recovered their exemption from taxes ; the monasteries were restored ; the Jesuits ventured to make their appearance ; the Inquisition re-appeared, and with it the rack and all the horrors of a dark age. A frightful persecution now- arose, not only against all the adherents of Prance (Afrancesados), and all who had filled offices under Joseph, or had in any way served him, but against the chiefs and adherents of the Cortes, against the leaders of the bands who had shed their heart's blood for king and country, and who now claimed, as a well-deserved reward, a share in the government and civfl freedom. Many of these heroic warriors died by the hand of the executioner, others wandered in foreign countries as outlaws and fugitives ; those who remained behind concealed their views and their resentment in the silence of their own bosoms. A camarilla, consisting of the selfish privileged class, fanatical priests, obsequious courtiers and intriguing women, secured Ferdinand's con- fidence, and incited him to the most cruel persecution of every liberal. The government and the affairs of justice were in a most deplorable condition, the treasury was exhausted, despite the oppressive taxes, ■ trade was stagnant, the South American colonies renounced al- legiance to Spain, and engaged in a war which ended in the inde- 416 THE LATEST PERIOD. pendence of the separate states, and the establishment of several republics. § 544. At this juncture it happened that on the New Tear's Day of 1820 a military conspiracy broke out among the regiments assem- bled at Cadiz for embarkation for South America. The standard of rebellion was raised, and the constitution of the Cortes proclaimed. Colonel Eiego was the soul of the undertaking ; Quiroga, who had been liberated from prison, undertook the conduct of the whole. The insurrection soon spread to every quarter of Spain ; the constitu- tion of the year '12 (§ 517) was every where demanded, and nothing was left to the king but to yield to the demand, to summon the March 7 Cortes, and to swear to the constitution. This triumph 1820. of the Spanish democrats excited their party in Portugal and Italy to imitation. Popular tumults took place in Lishon and Oporto, and resulted in the removal of Lord Beresford, who governed the country in the name of the king, who was still lingering in Brazil, the summoning of the Estates (Cortes), and the introduction January 26, °f a constitution on the model of that of Spain. John VI. 1821. returned to Lisbon, and swore to the new constitution for Portugal and Brazil. The Carbonari excited a military conspi- racy in Naples, which soon made such progress, that king Ferdinand found himself compelled to consent to the introduction of the Spanish constitution. William Pepe and Carascosa, the heads of the con- T i 82n s pi rac y> marched in triumph at the head of the insurgent troops and the Carbonari, who had joined them, into Naples. A revolutionary movement broke out also in Piedmont against the absolute monarchy, supported by the aristocracy and priesthood, in consequence of which Victor Emanuel ab- dicated, and the Spanish constitution was introduced into the kingdom of Sardinia also. § 515. The chiefs of the Holy Alliance, disturbed by this new revolutionary spirit that seemed to have seized upon the German youth also, embraced the resolution, at the instigation of Metternich, January, °f suppressing the liberal movement. At the congress of 1821. Laybach, at which king Eerdinand of Naples was also present -by the invitation of the monarchs, it was determined to overthrow the constitutional government in Naples by violence. Eerdinand approved the proposal. An Austrian army was marched in : the dastardly forces of Pepe and Carascosa were quickly over- powered, and either dispersed or forced to surrender, upon which the king again abolished the constitutional government. From this time priestly power and absolute monarchy, supported by mercenary troops and a system of police, were united together for the suppression of every movement of freedom by terror and the bondage of the intellect. This result decided the fate of the Piedmontese constitution. It SPAIN. PORTUGAL. ITALY. 417 is true that the enthusiastic liberals under Santa Rosa resisted their . .. _ enemies at Novara not without glory ; but their strength was soon broken. Turin and Alessandria were occupied by the Austrians ; and unlimited monarchy in its severest form, and with all the horrors of the reaction, was again restored in Sardinia. § 546. Not much more splendid was the end of the Spanish Cortes. When the liberals abused their victory, placed undue restrictions upon the kingly power, and proceeded with great violence against the cloisters, the privileged classes, and the ancient and traditionary privileges and usages, the priests and the adherents of absolute power stirred up the people to resistance. A bloody civil war once more threatened to tear the unhappy country to pieces. At this October, juncture, the members of the Holy Alliance at the Con- 1822. gress of Yerona required the Cortes in Madrid to alter the constitution and to give the king greater powers. The Cortes rejected this demand with defiance. A French army, under the corn- February, mand of the duke of Angouleme, now marched over the 1823. Pyrenees. It was in vain that the Cortes summoned the nation to arms ; constitutional freedom was a word without meaning for people led by priests and monks, and the new system was opposed to their habits and feelings ; the popular war, the old renowned guerilla, on which the Cortes had placed its confidence, did not arise ; the people and the camarilla saluted the French as deliverers from the detested rule of the freemasons. It was in vain that a few leaders, like Mina in Barcelona and Quiroga in Leon, resisted with courage and spirit the foreign army ; the soldiers showed little love for fight- ing, and sought to secure themselves betimes by capitulations. The French marched triumphantly into Madrid, and, as the Cortes and king had fled to the south, they appointed a regency. The strong city of Cadiz was the last place of refuge for the friends of the constitution — August 5, the French appeared before the town. The courage of 1823. the members of the Cortes sank ; instead of burying themselves beneath the ruins of the town, as they had formerly grandiloquently expressed it, they concluded a treaty with the be- siegers, by which they consented to their own dissolution and set the king at liberty. Ferdinand VII. was now replaced in the fulness of his power by foreign bayonets ; the constitution and all its arrange- ments fell into desuetude, and the apostolic party let loose all the demons of rage and vengeance against its opponents. Biego and many of his confederates died by the hands of the executioner, thousands wandered about in foreign countries as starving and houseless fugitives and outlaws, and an equal number were compelled to expiate in mouldy dungeons the crime of having attempted to rob the people of the constitutions and institutions to which three hundred years of depotism had accustomed them. "E e 4 1 8 THE LATEST PERIOD. § 547. The lamentable end of the Cortes government of Spain in- spired the queen of Portugal (sister of Ferdinand VII.) and her second son, Don Miguel, with the project of getting rid, at the same time, of the detested constitution by an act of violence. They induced the weak king, John VI., to abolish the constitution of the Cortes, and to sanction the persecution of the constitutionalists and the free- masons. Shortly after this, Don Miguel excited a rebellion against his own father with the purpose of obtaining the regency, but gained April, 1824. instead a sentence of banishment from the country. March 10, John VI. died two years afterwards. His eldest son, 182(>. Don Pedro, who, being constitutional emperor of Brazil, could not at the same time become king of Portugal, made over the government of the mother country to his daughter, Donna Maria da Gloria, who was a minor, and granted the Portuguese a liberal consti- tution. His brother, Don Miguel, having returned from banishment, succeeded some time after in again overthrowing this constitution by the aid of the apostolic party. He robbed his niece of her right to the throne, had himself proclaimed absolute king, and proceeded by banishment, imprisonment, and death against the friends and adherents of constitutional order. But his reign was but short. Don Pedro, compelled in Brazil to surrender his crown to his son, who was under age, landed in Portugal with the soldiers a.d. 1832— ne had raised, and reduced his tyrannical bixrther to such 1834. extremities in a war of two years' duration, that he at length renounced the crown and retired abroad. Upon this, Pedro again restored the Cortes government, which, after his early death, however, underwent many attacks and alterations. 4. GREAT BRITAIN. § 548. England had come forth from the long struggle with Prance powerful and victorious. She had destroyed the fleets of other na- tions, and put her own marine on such a footing that her empire of the sea was incontestable ; she had increased her colonies in the "West Indies, had raised Canada, had planted colonies in the west and south of Africa, and had created an empire in the East Indies, after the conquest of the mighty sultan Tippoo Saib, that far surpassed the mother country in size and population, and was an inexhaustible source of trade and commerce. Distant islands, opened to the view of the astonished world by daring navigators, like Cook and others, bowed themselves beneath the sceptre of the island empress of the sea. The possession of Gibraltar and Malta, the protective govern- ment of the Ionian Isles, the free passage through the Dardanelles, secured to her, after the peace of Paris, the dominion of the Mediter- ranean and the intercourse with the Levant. By her firmly-established constitution, with the liberty of the press and of speech, and the GREAT BRITAIN. 4 [9 narrowly defined limits between the rights of the king and of the people, England excited the envy of other nations. But with all this power and prosperity without, the state was suffering from incurable wounds. 1. Whilst a small proportion of the people had amassed enormous wealth, the great bulk was sunk in the most oppressive poverty. The expensive land and naval wars and the enormous subsidies that the government sent to the Continent had raised the national debt to such a sum that the yearly interest amounted to thirty -four million pounds. This burden of debt, together with an extravagant court and excessive salaries, increased the expenditure of the state to a degree that the necessary sums could only be obtained by a perpetually increasing taxation of articles of trade, necessaries of life, income (income-tax), houses, and landed property. This occasioned the impoverishment of the small land proprietors and of tradesmen with moderate capitals. The lands fell into the hands of the rich nobles, who discovered the means of increasing their incomes by raising rents and preventing the importation of foreign corn by the corn-laws. Trade fell into the hands of the rich manufacturers, who by enlarging their business outdid men of smaller means ; the middle class of citizens decreased, whde the number of artisans, who lived from hand to mouth, increased to a formidable amount. Heavy poor-rates imposed upon the public, and occasional contributions by the government, were not sufficient to counteract the evil. The lower orders, excited by want and misery, made repeated attempts to improve their condition by insurrections, but their illegal proceedings invariably resulted in then own injury. The unarmed crowd was easily dispersed by the military; but the sanguinary punishments ,„,„ inflicted upon the insurgents of Manchester brought A.D. 1819. r ... ° _ , ■■ ■ ■ O severe censure upon the government. The lower classes soon began to strive for political influence also. To give themselves a voice in the legislature they demanded universal suffrage, yearly parliaments, and vote by ballot. They laid down their principles in a people's charter, from whence they received the name of Chartists. It is to their exertions that the relaxation of the corn-laws, by which ,„.„ the introduction of foreign corn was facilitated, is to be a.d. 1842. ascribed. Court and § 549. 2. After the severe contest against Napoleon there Government, came a period of torpor in England. George IV., a king sunk in vice and pleasure, who in his youth had gone with the oppo- sition, put his confidence in the cold-blooded Tories who had grown grey in the state-wisdom of Pitt, and turned away his eyes and his heart from the people. The latter rewarded him with aversion and hatred, especially when he gave celebrity to the first year of his independent reign by a scandalous action for divorce, before the Upper House, against his wife, Caroline of e e 2 420 TIIE LATEST PERIOD. Brunswick, who was living in unwilling separation from him. "When the queen died in the following year, the sympathy and compassion of the nation followed her to the grave, little as her conduct or morals were deserving of praise. Castlereagh, the ancient associate of George, and the supporter of a false and faithless Au °-ust 12, policy, died by his own hand during a paroxysm of melan- 1822. choly. This was a great shock to the king, who was burdened by so many sins of youth, and made him shun society. He passed the last years of his life in gloomy retirement, whilst the great statesman, Canning, who approached the principles of the Whigs, restored its former pre-eminence to the insular empire of England. "When George IV. 's only daughter, the intelligent and amiable princess Charlotte (wife of Leopold of Coburg, afterwards king of the Belgians), died young and without children, William IV., the king's brother, a plain, homely man, ascended the throne after George's William IV. death. Under him, the Whigs got the management of a.d. 1830— affairs into their hands, and the important measure of parliamentary reform, by which the elections for parlia- ment were arranged afresh according to the number of the population, and the right of suffrage was made dependent upon a certain income, March 1 was carried after the most violent opposition, and formed 1831. the triumph of the middle class over the aristocracy. August, 1835. Shortly after this, slave emancipation, at which Wilber- force and other philanthropists had been working for years, was carried. England, after vast sums paid in indemnifying the planters, set the slaves at liberty in her colonies, and has since endeavoured with all her strength to induce other nations to a similar step, and to June 20 entirely suppress the slave traffic. After William IV., 1837. his niece, Victoria, married since (the 10th of February, 1810) to prince Albert of Coburg, received the crown of England. Under her government the great statesman, Sir Robert Peel, at- tempted to give a fresh impulse to trade by moderating the import duties. Since then "free-trade" has been the watch-word of the day. § 550. Ireland to the present hour is the sore spot in the body politic of England. The maltreatment of former generations has produced a gulf between England and Ireland which never permitted a perfect union between two people different in their nature, religion, and institutions. Two things in especial, produced by an old injustice, excited the hatred of the irritable Irish — the harsh treatment of the poor peasants by their noble English- derived landlords ; and the unnatural condition of the Church, where Anglican priests are in possession of the Irish Church temporalities, whilst the poor Catholic population are obliged to maintain then- unpaid clergy from their necessity. The complaints of the Irish were GERMANY. 421 unheard ; the insurrections that were attempted were suppressed, and increased the oppression. It was not until admission into the English parliament was granted to Irish Catholics by the Emancipation Act that the Irish people had an oppor- tunity of demanding an abolition of abuses. Daniel O'Connell, who now entered parliament with a "tail " of more than forty similarly- minded Irishmen, threatened a Eepeal of the Union, unless attention was paid to the righteous demands of the Irish people. The increas- ing poverty which, owing to the failure of the potato crop, produced pestilence and famine, required stringent remedies for the prevailing abuses. Owing to the irritable and excitable nature of the Irish, it was an easy task for the great popular orator and demagogue, O'Con- nell, to keep the country in a perpetual ferment, and, by the watch- word of " repeal," to direct the whole energy of the people to a single object. Eepeal associations were formed in every spot and corner, with a common fund for furthering the aims of O'Connell; the Catholic priesthood, who exercised an unlimited power over the ignorant people, were in his service : his word was law in Ireland. The prin- cipal demand of the Irish was the abolition of the tithes, which were paid in Ireland to the English clergy. "When their proposals were not received by the English parliament, the tenants refused to pay the tithes, and opposed the distraints ; and, when the English had recourse to force, they employed force against them. Bands of armed men marched through the country, marking their course with blood and fire. These things pressingly admonished the government to give its best attention to " starving and revolutionary Ireland, the land of passions and of misery." The country was threatened with a state of warfare by the Irish Coercion Bill, in order to maintain obedience by terror ; and an attempt was made by the Irish Church Bill, and the so-called appropriation clause, to abolish or moderate the Church payments of the tenants, and to apply a portion of the Church property to secular purposes, namely, to the improvement of public education. But this project encountered such resistance from the High- Church party and the aristocratic Tories that it was not till after a parliamentary contest of a twelvemonth that the Tithes Bill was passed, and even then in a mutilated shape. The High-Church opposition formed the so-called Orange clubs, which attempted to frustrate all concessions to the Irish, and kept religious and national hatred in constant activity. 5. GERMANY. § 551. G-ermany, after the Congress of Vienna, was weaker and less united than she had been during the empire. It is true that the number of independent principalities and states had been lessened by more than a hundred, and that the bishoprics, abbeys, and imperial 422 TIIE LATEST PERIOD. towns deprived of their independent position ; but, on the other hand, thirty-eight territories which had been included in the German Union received sovereign powers, as far as their internal affairs were concerned. In place of the old imperial Diet appeared the Federative Diet of Franlvfort-on-the-Maine, composed of representatives of the different governments, under the presidentship of Austria. But, as this assembly was entirely directed by the wishes of single govern- ments, it had no independent power ; and the German Union was an impotent member among European states, dependent upon the influ- ence of the two great powers, Austria and Prussia, which assumed the first rank, in virtue of then German provinces. Even foreign kingdoms sent representatives to the Frankfort Diet, as Denmark for Holstein, and the Netherlands for Luxemburg. This powerless condition of Germany gave as little satisfaction abroad as the internal arrangements sufficed at home. Instead of a strong union, with a united federative government and a popular representation, such as patriotic men had hoped and striven for, the creation of the Viennese Congress was a union formed of a number of sovereign states, in which the governments, but not the people, were repre- sented ; and the 13th article of the Union Act, by which a general promise was given of the introduction of a state constitution, without any distinct notice of the time and manner of its accomplishment, did not satisfy the expectations of the people. As Prussia, where the men of the retrograde movement, Haller, Schmalz, and others soon obtained the upper hand of the patriots of the war of liberty, delayed bringing forward the promised state constitution, and at length, instead of the desired imperial estates, granted only provincial estates with consulting voices, without either publicity or general interest, the discontent of the German people became every day greater. Austria, under the influence of Metternich, was governed in a spirit of complete absolutism, and kept as far aloof from Germany as possible ; and Prussia gave herself up more and more to the same news, and allowed herself to be made the instrument of the execution of most unpopular measures. As there was no general system of management or debate, the constitutions that were gradually intro- duced into Sachsen- Weimar, Baden, "Wirtemberg, Bavaria, Hessen, and many other small states, tinned out very different from each other, so that in this respect also Germany appeared torn and divided. And then the duties between different countries, which acted as a bar to their intercourse ! It seemed as though Germany was about to be broken up into its separate races and states ! § 552. This state of things filled the German people with discon- tent, and shook their confidence in the patriotism of the governments. The liberal party, which was aiming at a progressive development of state affairs in a democratic direction, and kept alive the idea of GERMANY. 423 G-erman unity, gained ground daily. But, above all, the German youth, who had been filled with an admiration of the middle ages by the new romantic poetry (§ 556), were dissatisfied with the present. They longed for the empire of the middle age, and for the former unity and greatness of Germany ; and sought to give life to the new ideas of popular government under the old German forms and titles. "With- out clearness of aim, and without knowledge or respect for obstacles, the youths who in the German high schools had formed the fraternal alliance of the " General Burschenschaft," strove after an ideal world and state creation - upon the old German system. This feeling first October 1 8, displayed itself during the festival of the Wartburg. On 1817- the day of the battle of Leipsic, a festival was celebrated as an introduction to the 300th anniversary of the Reformation, which is always solemnized with great enthusiasm in Protestant Germany, and at the same time, in remembrance of the bloody struggle for liberty, by a number of students at the Wartburg, near Eisenach, at which some fiery speeches were made by the young men, and at the conclusion, following the example of Luther, certain writings of Kotzebue, Kamptz, Haller, Jarke, and others, which were offensive to their views, together with some symbols of an antiquated and feudal period, as pigtails, breast-laces, corporals' canes, were, with youthful wantonness, committed to the flames. If an undue import- ance was attached by the government to this occurrence, yet it is not to be wondered at that the bloody deed of one of these confederates of the Wartburg, George Sand, should be looked upon as the act of a great political conspiracy, and give rise to a series of legal investiga- tions and prosecutions, on account of "demagogic intrigues." Sand of Wunsiedel, a pious and patriotic youth, but full of fanaticism and governed by vanity, embraced the criminal resolution of killing the Russian councillor, Augustus von Kotzebue, who was suspected March 23, °f endangering Germany's freedom and politic develop- 1819. ment by conveying information to St. Petersburg, for the purpose of ridding the German nation from this " Russian spy," this " traitor to the country." He approached the unsuspecting man in Mannheim with a letter, and pierced him through with a stroke of a dagger as he was reading it. The attempt to kill himself was not successful. Sand, recovered from his wounds, ended his life on the September, scaffold. After this followed the decrees of Carlbad, 1819. which restrained the freedom of the press by the censor- ship, established a court of investigation in Mayence, for the sup- pression of " demagogic intrigues," interdicted the alliances of the Sursclienschaft with their gymnasia, placed the universities under the supervision of special government officials, and finally gave uncon- ditional validity to the resolutions of the Diet for all governments. Bounds were at the same time set to the democratical spirit of the 424 THE LATEST PERIOD. South German provinces by the concluding act of Vienna. ' Prussia, which had been so long the hope and confidence of all German patriots, now took the lead in the reactionary and unpopular measures. Men like Arndt, Jahn, &c, whose voices and example had had such influence in time of need, were now brought to judgment as favourers of demagogic intrigues, deprived of then- offices, and watched by the police. From this time the unity of Germany was looked upon as a dream ; he who expressed a wish of the sort made himself suspected of demagogic efforts. Every separate state was regarded as an independent whole, and governed without relation to the general interest of the country ; and, although many excellent arrangements were adopted in the government, administra- tion of justice, and the affairs of religion and education, little or nothing was done for aroushig the feelings of nationality and pa- triotism. 6. Greece's struggle eor liberty. § 553. As the public energies of the nations of Europe were held in firm bonds by the Holy Alliance, the news of Greece's rise against the Turks produced great enthusiasm, and aroused a fresh political interest among the torpid people. Alexander Ypsilanti, a Moldavian noble in the military service of Russia, was the first who rose up in his country as a liberator, and published a call, which referred to the protection of Russia, to his countrymen, to shake off the Turkish yoke. A society, Hetceria, with widely-spread ramifications, the secret object of which was a separation from Turkey, came to the aid of the project. In a short time, Morea (Peloponnesus), Livadia (Hellas), Thessaly, and the Greek islands, were in arms. But the expected aid of Russia did not arrive. "Willingly as the emperor Alexander would have favoured the movement, both from religious sympathy and political interest, the influence of Metternich, who at the Congress of Laybach placed the insurrection of the Greeks on a par with the simultaneous democratical movements in Italy and Spain, prevented any support being given to them. The Turks foamed with rage, and took a bloody vengeance. The Patriarch of Constantinople, the supreme head of the Greek Church, was torn from the high altar on Easter-day by the infidel Mahommedans, and hung up along with his bishops at the principal door of his church ; the greater number of the Greek families of the capital died by vio- lence, or were obliged to wander forth as beggars into banishment. The sacred band of Greeks, under the conduct of Ypsilanti, suc- June 19, cumbed to the superior power of the Turks in "Wallachia, 1821. and were totally annihilated in the desperate battle of Dragaschan, where they fought with the heroic courage of a Leonidas. Ypsilanti fled to Austria, but was doomed to pine for years in a GREECE'S STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY. 425 Hungarian fortress. The fall of these magnanimous warriors showed that they were animated by a different spirit from that of the Spanish and Italian champions of freedom. § 554. A frightful national war now broke out in all quarters of Greece. In Morea, the wild and warlike Mainottes of the Taygetus rose up under the conduct of Mauromichali and Kolokrotoni, the other inhabitants of Pelopennesus shortly after followed, restrained to a more systematic plan of warfare by Demetrius Tpsilanti, the brother of Alexander. At the same time the Greeks in Livadia and the islands fought with glory and success ; their valour recalled to recollection the deeds of their ancestors, little of the Hellenic blood as may flow in the veins of the modern Greeks. Europe gazed in sympathy upon this gigantic war in the east, and hastened to collect money and troops by means of Philhellenic unions to support the courage of the warriors, who, in the beginning of the year 1822, had united themselves into a republic under Tpsilanti and Maurokordato. The object was to support civilization and Christianity against savage barbarians. Whilst the princes of the Holy Alliance, from a regard for their ease, were exposing a Christian people to the attacks of infidel bands of murderers, crowds of foreign Philhellenists, under the conduct of JSTormann and others, marched to the ancient birth-place of Christian civilization. The English poet, Byron, devoted his talents, April 19, his wealth, and his energy, to the affairs of Greece, where 1824. the climate and exertion occasioned his death. Despite the dissensions and selfishness of the Greek leaders, their arms were generally successful till the June of 1825. At that period the Porte obtained a powerful support in Mehemet Ali, who, as Pashaw of Egypt, destroyed the power of the Mamalukes, and established an army and government upon the plan of those of Europe, by which means Western civdization and Oriental despotism were placed in horrible conjunction. This man sent his son, Ibrahim, with a con- siderable army of mingled materials to Peloponnesus, on the busi- ness of the sultan. The small and disunited body of Greeks was unable to resist him ; one town after another fell into his hands ; the march of Ibrahim and his brutal troops proceeded onwards over blood, corpses, and burning houses. Peloponnesus and the coasts of Livadia were frightfully ravaged for two years from the strong city of Tripolizza, which they had chosen as their point of support, whilst cabinets were in vain endeavouring to restrain the war by diplomatic negotiations. April 22, The fall of Missolonghi first produced a change in affairs. 1826. When, namely, the hardly-pressed town was unable any longer to defend itself, the heroic inhabitants with their wives and children made a sally upon the beleaguring enemy ; the third part were slain, Missolonghi disappeared in flames, and all who remained in it perished beneath the ruins. The cry of anger that passed 426 THE LATEST PERIOD. through all Europe at this event, awakened the governments from their lethargy. December 1 § 555. A short time before this, the emperor Alexander 1825. had descended to his grave, and as the elder brother Con- stantine had already renounced the throne, his brother Nicola swayed the Eussian sceptre after the bloody suppression of a military con- spiracy that was to have changed the government and the succession to the throne. In England the rudder of state was intrusted to the skilful hands of the high-minded Canning, who in the maturity of his life had not forgotten the dreams of his youth or his enthusiasm for the liberation of Greece. In France the government thought itself obliged to pay some attention to the loud clamours of the Philhelle- nists, especially as at this time the bloody destruction of June, 1826. ^ Jannissaries in Constantinople, by which 15,000 Mahommedans died a violent death, filled civilized Europe with horror at the inhumanity of the Turks. At the proposal of Canning, there- fore, the three European powers, Eussia, England, and France, con- cluded an alliance by which they agreed to employ their common ex- ertions to induce the Porte to allow the Greeks their liberty. A com- bined fleet appeared in the waters of the Morea, and demanded from Ibrahim the evacuation of the peninsula ; upon the rejection of this October 20, demand followed the battle of Navarino, where the Turko- 1827- Egyptian fleet was annihilated by the European. This decision came so quickly that the allied powers were astonished at the "unexpected event." The battle of Navarino consequently August 8, remained without results, and as after Canning's death 1827- the Eno-lish, who were anxious about their trade, showed themselves more favourably disposed to the Porte, the resolute sultan Mahmud remained firm to his purpose of not giving the Greeks their liberty, and behaved so insolently to the Eussians that they declared war against him. This roused the hopes of the Greeks. Whilst the forces of the Osmans were marching into the lands of the Danube, Ibrahim was at length compelled by the French fleet to evacuate the Morea, whereupon Capo d'lstria from Corfu, was appointed president July, 1829. °f the Greek state. The daring military achievements of September the Eussians, who under Diebitsch (Sabalkanski) sur- 14, 1829. mounted the Balkan, at length compelled the Porte, by the peace of Adrianople, to grant the Eussians favourable conditions, and to acknowledge the independence of Greece. But as it "was long before the question of boundaries could be settled, the war still con- tinued for some time in Greece, during which time the admiral Miaulis blew up the Greek fleet rather than allow it to fall into strange hands. At length the powers agreed in London to form a constitutional kingdom out of Morea, Livadia, a part of Thessaly, Eubcea, and the Cyclades, over which (as Capo d'lstria had in the THE NEW ROMANTIC LITERATURE. 497 mean time been murdered by the brothers Mauromichali) Otto I. of the royal house of Bavaria was placed as king. . Since then Greece has striven to elevate herself to the position of a civilized state, the forms of which she has assumed, without how- ever being able to free herself entirely from the conditions of barba- rism and a life of plunder. At a later period, the Greeks, from national jealousy, drove away the German foreigners that had come in the train of the court, and thus deprived themselves, at the same time, of the supports of modern civilization. 7. THE KEW ROMANTIC LITERATURE. § 556. The years of the Holy Alliance were the flourishing period of romantic literature and art, the chief creators and supporters of The Schle- which were the brothers, Augustus William and Frederick gels. Schlegel, the poet Novalis, and Ludwig Tieck. They Novalis. quitted the path of religious illumination and of political candour, and escaped to the middle age and the religious * contemplation of the East. The faith in miracles and the religious mysticism of an early period of Christianity, the love affairs and the sensual religious worship of the departed days of chivalry, the sacred art of the middle ages, the flowery poetry of the East, the popular songs and the meditative world of fable of the distant past, permanently engaged their interest. It was for this reason that their views were directed to the forgotten productions of the literature of romance, whilst, following the example of Herder, they collected and elaborated the legends, traditions, and popular songs of German antiquity, and then sought to introduce the chival- rous poetry of the Italians and Spaniards into Germany by means of translations ; and drew the mythology, and the poetry founded upon it, of the East and of the Scandinavian North, within the circle of their activity. The profound Dante, the profuse Shakspeare, the Spanish poet Calderon, Cervantes, and many others, were admirably translated by the romancists, and naturalized in Germany. The Schlegels in particular distinguished themselves by their critical and sesthetical writings, by their intelligent researches in the region of the history of literature, by translations, and by references to the language, literature, and "wisdom" of the Indians. Tieck obtained his greatest fame by his elaboration of old popular legends and tales (Genoveva, Kaiser Octavianus, Eortunatus, &c.) ; and the prematurely departed Erancis von Hardenburg (Novalis), by his melancholy poems and poetical essays (" Bliithenstaub," " Spiritual Songs,"), and the unfinished romance, Henry of Offcerdingen. In the same spirit sang the lyric poets, Matthison, Chamisso, Mas von Schenkendorf, the romance writer Arnim, de la Motte Eouque, Clemens Brentano, Hoffmann, &c. The orientalist, Hammer-Purgstall, excited by the 4,28 THE LATEST PERIOD. romancists, undertook the translation of the Arabian and Persian poets ; and the great collective work, " Fundgruben des Orients;" and Fr. Biickert, renowned as a lyric poet (" Harnessed Sonnets," "Eastern Boses,"), brought the art of translation and imitation to perfection ("Nal and Damijanti," "Die Makamen des Hariri"). The brothers Grimm (Jacob and William), were excited by the romancists to their successful inquiries into the old German language and literature, and to their collection of popular and domestic tales. At the same time the romancists elevated poetry and literature generally to a loftier station, gave it dignity and nobleness, and awakened love and sensibility for the fine arts ; on the other hand they aiforded pernicious examples, in regard to public morality and decency of life. An unbridled and restless life of wandering and travels, to which most of them gave themselves up without restraint, favoured the sensual appetites and passions. TJnmisled by the romancists, and treading in the path of Schiller, Theodore Korner, Ludwig Uhland, Moriz Arndt, H. Zschokke, Senme, and others, composed poetry ; and the lyric and dramatic wri- ters in the spirit of Aristophanes, Augustus von Platen (" The Ro- mantic CEdipus," "The Fatal Pork"), paid homage to the spirit of progress. The party of the liberals and the great mass of the German people took most pleasure in the freer, if less vigorous poetry of the latter. 8. THE JULY REVOLUTION OE PARIS, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. § 557. Charles X. proceeded in the path of reaction without regard to public opinion. The liberal ministry of Martignac had been obliged, since January, 1828, to yield to an ultra royalist one under August 8 the presidentship of Poliguac, and when the Chambers, in 182D. their opening address, expressed their discontent at the policy of the government, they were dissolved and a new election followed. In vain the men of the opposition re-appeared in increased numbers, and confirmed the mistrust of the people in the new ministry. Charles X. would not learn wisdom. He ' vainly hoped that the military renown which the French troops had gained about this time in Africa, where, to revenge the insults offered by the Dey of Algiers to the ships and consid of France, they had taken possession of his capital, and planted the French banners upon the battlements of the old city of robbers, would have produced a favourable feeling in the nation. Scarcely had the " Moniteur ' ' published the three celebrated ordinances, by which the freedom of the press was suspended, the new Chambers dissolved, and the order of election of the next, arbitrarily changed, before the July Revolution broke out, by which the people, after an heroic contest of three days, obtained their release from the royal house of Bourbon, and from the rule of the JULY REVOLUTION OF PARIS, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 499 priests. The deputies who were present in Paris established a pro- visional government on the 29th July whilst the contest in the streets was at the hottest, in which the banker Lafitte, Casimir Perier, Odillon-Barrot, and others, bore a part, until the constitu- tional party triumphed over the republican, and Louis-Philippe, duke of Orleans, was named regent of the empire. When it was too late Charles X. offered to recal the obnoxious ordinances, and to summon a popular ministry — but he was obliged for the third time to go into exile with his family, whilst his more sagacious relative, Louis- Philippe, after he had sworn to observe the hastily revised charter, ascended the throne as king of the Prench. The restoration of the national colours, and the re-establishment of the National Guard, under the command of Lafayette, marked the commencement of the new citizen monarchy established by the people. Charles X. died in the year 1836 at Grorz. § 558. The revolution of July occasioned the total fall of the Holy Alliance, which had already received a shock by the death of Alex- ander, and called forth a movement throughout all Europe which produced an important change in affairs. It is true that the govern- ment of the " citizen king " soon assumed a pacific attitude in regard to other states, and the liberals who had arrived at power in Paris preferred moderate and conciliatory modes of proceeding to waging war, and attempted to win over all the moderate and undecided to the support of the existing system, by establishing the principle of "the right mean;"- but the tumult of the first storm was strong- enough to give a severe shock to the artful structure of the Viennese Congress. In Belgium, Germany, Poland, Italy, &c, insurrections broke out that could only be suppressed or composed after a two years' contest ; and though the influence of the absolute powers of the East — Russia, Austria, and Prussia — was strong enough to pre- serve or bring back the old system in most states, free opinions, from this time, acquired greater importance, and public opinion increased to a power that bade defiance to all efforts of " state police " and "bureaucracy." In the West of Europe, owing to the influence of England and Erance, coustitutional government and the civil freedom which is allied to it maintained the pre-eminence. § 559. The Revolution in Belgium was the first consequence of the Parisian July days. The Congress of Vieuna, without regard to religion, language, or national interest, had united the Elemish and Brabant provinces to the States-General of Holland in one king- dom of the Netherlands. The Hollanders regarded themselves as the rulers, they compelled the Belgians not only to share the great national debt and the high taxes, but attempted to force their own language and laws upon them, and placed the education of the Catholic people under the supervision of Protestant courts. When 430 TIIE LATEST PERIOD. the press allowed itself to adopt a hostile tone against the govern- ment, the writers were proceeded against with fine, imprisonment, and banishment. Upon this, the Trench liberal party, which was struggling for a free political life, and which was in alliance with the chiefs of the Paris opposition, formed a confederacy with the Catholic ultramontane party, which demanded freedom of education, against the Dutch government, which the king in his speech from the throne designated as "infamous." The dissatisfaction produced by this had already reached the highest pitch, when the news arrived in Brussels of the July events, and set the whole land in a flame. On the even- ing of the 25th August, after the representation of the opera " The Mute of Portici," the mob destroyed the printing-house of a journal favourable to the interests of Holland, the palace of the minister of justice, the dwelling of the director of police, &c. To restrain any farther devastations on the part of the people a burgher guard and committee were formed, till the radical and ultramontane parties united themselves in a National Congress, under the guidance of Potter. The example of the capital was followed, so that in a short time the standard of Brabant was waving over the whole of Belgium. An attack of the Dutch upon Brussels was repulsed, and the Belgian insurgents even marched against Antwerp, to deprive then- detested neighbours of this town also. Upon this, the Dutch general, Chasse, retired into the strong citadel and fired upon the unfortunate town for seven hours, with 300 cannon, by which a vast amount of goods of great value was destroyed. Irri- tated at this proceeding, the National Congress now declared the independence of Belgium, and the exclusion of the house of Orange from the Belgian throne. During the continuance of the war between Belgium and Holland the five great powers held a conference in London. It was here resolved, after long diplomatic negotiations, to separate Belgium from Holland, and to arrange the boundaries in an equitable manner. In accordance with this, Leopold of Sachsen-Coburg, who was related to the royal family of England, and who was shortly after united, by a second marriage, to a daughter of Louis-Philippe, received the Belgian throne, and attempted to conciliate the liberals by granting a free representative constitution, and the Catholic clergy by the complete independence of the Church of the state. It was in vain that the Hollanders attempted again to subject the rebels by force. Threatened and opposed by the Prench and English, they were compelled, despite December, the bravery of their army and the courage of their sailors, 1832. to desist from the contest. Belgium, on the other hand, flourished under the influence of free institutions and energetic industry. § 5G0. The successful termination of the Erench and Belgian JULY REVOLUTION OF PARIS AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 43 J revolutions urged the Poles to an insurrection. Raised to a kingdom by the Congress of Vienna, and placed under the government of the emperor of Russia, Poland was in a better position than when sub- jected to the old anarchy. The constitution, with diets and a national armament, afforded the people a regulated freedom ; industry increased, literature flourished, passable roads facilitated intercourse ; but all these advantages, which, to say the truth, suffered much pre- judice from the despotic character of the viceroy, Constantine, were not sufficient to prevent the Poles from cherishing the thought of again revivifying their divided country ; and the hope that the French of the revolution of July would not neglect to hasten to the assistance of their old confederates, confirmed them in the belief that the moment for the regeneration of the old Poland was again come. It was six o'clock on the evening of the 20th November, when twenty armed young men of the Cadet school, members of a widely-spread military conspiracy, rushed into the palace of the viceroy for the purpose of dispatching him, whilst other conspirators called the inhabitants of the capital to arms. It was only with difficulty that the prince escaped the fate designed for him. He yielded to the storm, and retired from the country with his Russian soldiers and officials. A provisional government, with Czar- toryski, Niemcewicz, general Chlopiki, and others at its head, under- took the conduct of affairs in Poland. Instead, however, of employ- ing the newly-aroused military spirit and the fresh enthusiasm of the people in a spirited attack upon unprepared Russia, the regency, which belonged to the aristocracy of Poland, chose the path of nego- tiation, and placed their hopes upon the promises of French diploma- tists. It made little difference that Chlopiki was shortly after named dictator, and entrusted with the supreme command of military affairs ; and that the diet, which was hastily called together, invested the prince Radzivil with the most unlimited power ; the irresolute aristo- cracy, discontented with the violence of the republican and democratic clubs, kept things in check, and paralysed every undertaking by hesi- tation and dissensions. "Whilst the emperor of Russia ordered an army of 200,000 men to march into Poland, under the command of January 25, field-marshal Diebitsch, the diet pronounced the dethrone- 1831. ment of the house of Romanoff in Poland, but rejected, from selfish motives, that which could alone save the country, the liberation of the peasants and the excitement of a popular war. "What mattered it that the Polish army again gave the most splendid proofs of courage in the field, that Chlopiki and Skrzynecki fought like heroes, and that Dwernicki, who wished to excite Volhynia to insurrection, astonished the world by his daring retreat upon the Austrian territory ; — when Diebitsch carried off the victory from the 432 THE LATEST PERIOD. army of Skrzynecki, in the battle of Ostrolenka, Poland, May 26, 1831. ., v j- • • •- , ', . through dissension, party spirit, treachery, and the siren voices of French go-betweens, went rapidly to her downfall. Die- bitsch died of the cholera. His successor was the enterprising Paskewitsch (Eriwanski). He crossed the Prussian Vistula and approached the walls of Warsaw. The inhabitants of the capital, believing that the miscarriage of the revolution had been occasioned by treachery, gave the reins to their fury against the aristocrats and friends of the Eussiaus, and slaughtered thirty of these unfortunates. Czartoryski, in whose hands the government had been placed, fled in horror to the camp of Dembinski. Kruko- wiecki was now named president of the government by the diet with dictatorial power, and thus the supreme authority was placed in the hands of a man who was either a fool or a traitor. When Paske- witsch approached the capital, the dictator gave evidence of his cowardice and despair by the most contradictory orders and prepos- terous arrangements. The Polish army made a gallant resistance to the attacks of the enemy at Wola, the ancient place of election of the kings, and the heroic deeds of the fourth regiment have since September been celebrated in songs ; but after a storm of two days, 6, 7, 1831. Krukowiecki surrendered Warsaw and Praga by capitula- tion, whereupon the government and the diet, with the troops that were still left, fled to the Prussian territory. Here the bold warriors were disarmed, and detained till the complete subjection of Poland ; they then obtained permission to return, under the assurance of an amnesty. But thousands among them rejected the grace of the emperor, and turned their backs upon their fatherland, preferring to eat the bread of affliction upon free, if foreign ground; rather than to gaze quietly upon the gradual extinction of the nationality of their country. The sympathy of the German people, who received and entertained the unfortunates in their melancholy journey, was an alleviation of their misery. Severe punishments were inflicted upon the guilty in Poland, Lithuania, Volhynia : the mines of Siberia grew populous with the condemned. Poland then lost her constitution, her diet, and her state council, by the "organic statute," and was attached to the great Muscovite empire, with a separate government and administration of justice. Since then Paskewitsch reigns as imperial lieutenant, with iron sceptre, in humbled Warsaw. The Poles had once more shown that they were capable of magnanimous, patriotic emotions, and of gallant deeds ; but not of a united effort or of noble self-sacrifice. The emigrants, however, in vain attempted in the sequel to effect the restoration of their country by conspiracies and insurrections in Cracow, Gallicia, and Posen. Fresh perse- cutions, and at length, the incorporation of the free state of Cracow THE REVOLUTION OF PARIS AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 433 with the Austrian empire (1846), were the consequences of their foolhardy attempts. § 561. In Germany also the news of the July revolution called forth a mighty movement. The princes, anxious lest the well-known hankering of the French for the boundary of the Rhine should be the occasion of a new war, saw with uneasiness the existing divisions between subjects and governments, and hastened to allay irritation and prevent a general movement, partly by reasonable concessions, and partly by the hasty recognition of successfully accomplished reforms. The insurrections in the kingdoms of Hanover and Saxony were appeased by granting liberal constitutions, and by abolishing oppressive abuses and restrictions ; in Brunswick, where the people destroyed the palace and compelled the tyrannical duke Charles to fly, his brother assumed the government, and conciliated the minds of his subjects by improving the constitution of the country. In Hesse- Cassel, the elector, William II., was compelled by an insurrection to give the country a free constitution. But the hatred which the peo- ple shortly after displayed against the countess Reichen- bach (Lessonitz), his wife, a woman of inferior birth, offended the elector to that degree, that he raised his son, the electoral prince, to the co-regentship, and removed with his wife and treasures from Hessen. The freedom of the press was introduced in Baden, the liberals obtained the upper hand in the Chambers of Southern Germany, and insisted upon alterations and reforms in the constitu- tion and government. But their increasing audacity in speech and May 27, writing, which was particularly displayed at the Hamba- 1832. cher festival in Rhenish Bavaria, soon brought about a reaction and restrictions. The peaceful character of the July monar- chy and the fall of Warsaw relieved the German governments from the apprehension that the liberal movements might be supported from abroad ; and the inconsiderate attempts of a few young madcaps, students, literary men, and political refugees, to disperse the Diet, and to produce a violent revolution by the con- spiracy of Frankfurt, aided the cause of the retrogressive party. This foolish attempt and its lamentable result gave a deep wound to the cause of liberalism, and brought a severe persecution upon its chiefs and leaders. The guilty and the suspected were visited by numberless arrests and judicial examinations, prisons and fortresses were filled with political offenders ; numberless fugitives were wander- ing in France and Switzerland. The censorship was again employed with the greatest severity, the book trade watched, and the privileges of the Estates circumscribed. Thus again were the efforts of the progressive party frustrated by the violence and indiscreet zeal of some of its champions. The governments obtained the most complete rf ■ I;; |, THE LATEST PERIOD. triumph; I ml by I lie use I he v made ofit they outraged the people's sen 8 of justice and insulted public opinion. This was especially the case, when, by the ascension of bhe bhrone of England by queen Viotoria, bhe crown of Hanover fell, according bo the prerogative of German princes. In her uncle, Ernest Augustus of Cumberland, who abolished bhe constitution which bad been united b\ bis predecessors with bhe Estates, and restored bhe former arrangements. Unde- berred l>\ bhe opposition bhat was displayed against bins arbitrary proceeding from every quarter, bhe king ordered an oath of obedience and homage bo be bendered bo all servants of I be state; and when seven professors of bhe GottingOU university, among thorn, Dahlmann, Gervinus, and bhe brothers Grimm, would not yield lo I be demand, I bey were deprived of their chairs, and some of them banished from bhe country 5 when bhe assembled Estates were incompetent bo pass resolutions from a deficiency of numbers, bhe absentees were replaced by the election of Ihe minority. By these measures a deep mill' was formed between the people and Ihe government, and a profound dissatisfaction with the "police stale," mid the rule of I he writing ofil.Ce look possession of I he nalion. The existing government was attacked l>\ means of bhe press, literature, and poetry, and every opposition bo the state officials was saluted bj t be nation with joy. One single ellorl was visible in the midst of con- tests and divisions, and was bhe "red thread" that ran through bhe whole public life of the people bhe striving after national and poli- tical unity, and this ellorl Ihe Prussian government came forward bo assisi b\ establishing the Zollverein, the foundation-stone of German unity. § r>(»'J. In Italy also, Ihe July revolul ion occasioned some serious commotions. But the hopes of Ihe patriots found an early grave. 'The insurrections in Bologna, IModeua, and I'arma, were soon sup- pressed by Austrian troops ; and the regents, who had been driven from bhe two latter places, restored to bheir governments. In bhe Slates of the ( Ihurch, I be papal I roops, w ho were re-in forced by bandits and convicts, were employed in keeping down I he rebe I lious provinces. These men behaved in such a wa\ Ilia! if was necessary to call in Ihe forces of Austria bo protect the land against its own soldiers. To prevent ihe A.ustrians getting the whole power over Italy into bheir February 23 " un bands, Ihe French seized upon Aucona b\ a COWp de 1832. main, and held il for several years. An attack upon Savoy, from Switzerland, undertaken l>\ a troop of refugees under t he command of t he Polish general, Ivamorino, wilh Ihe purpose of overthrowing bhe Sardinian bhrone, and, in conjunction with "young llal\," of exciting Ihe whole land lo a revolution, hail a lamentable resull . THE LATEST REVOLUTIONARY TEMPESTS. 4,'Jo In Si-AiN, fche liberals, after the .July revolution, again got fche upper hand, not by fcheir own strength, however, but in consequence of a quarrel for fche crown. Frederick, namely, bad allowed himself 1,0 be Induced by his fourth wife, Maria Christina, bo abolish fche Salic law which prevails in all Bourbon states, and which excludes females March 2D, from succeeding fco fche fchrone, and fchus fco secure fche in- WSO. heritance of the crown fco his daughter, [sabella, who was October, born in fche same year. This alteration displeased fche 1880. apostolic party, which bad placed all its trust on Ferdi- nand's younger brother, Don Carlos. Scarcely therefore, had fche September 20, king closed his eyes, before fche absolutists (Carlists) called 1833. Don Carlos to the fchrone as Charles V., and excited a civil war. They found support in fche north, especially among fche ni<\<; mountaineers of the Basque provinces, Inflamed by priests and October, monks, and Jed by hold and enterprising chiefs (Zumala* 1833. carreguy, Cabrera), the warlike Basques drew the sword for an absolute king who sought for nXut/c among them. For fche purpose of resisting them with success, the queen, Maria Christina, who had been appointed fco fche regency until fche majority of her daughter [sabella, sought to win fche party of the, constitution and fche liberals fco her cause by again introducing fche Cortez constitution, and permitting fche fugitives and OUtlaWS fcO return to their home::. In thi: j , manner fche contest for fche throne took fche shape of a civil war and a struggle of opinion:-;. After many hloody battles the " Christines" gained' the upper band. Q-eneral Bspartero reduced August 31 the Carlist leader, Maroto, fco lay down his arm:-, by fche 1839. treaty of Pergara, whereupon Don Carlos, with bis family and several officers and priests, took refuge in France. Jn Spain itself Bspartero fell into a quarrel with fche queen mother, which pro- duced a fresh crop of party contests, alteration:! of fche constitution, a/id intrigues of the palace. Bspartero, made duke of V if fork, was sufficiently powerful fco effect the removal of Christina for May, 1841. l' a a j. xi i ■ t i • i i some time, and to get the government into run own nanus. But he was soon overthrown by general Narvaez, an adherent of the queen mother, and compelled to fly to England, After fchis, Christina, and her daughter, when she came of age, carried on the government in entire accordance with the wishes of France. 9. ovj-.it/j imow 01 TEE TiiuoNK Or' JULY, and 'iiii, LATUM BEVOXUG 10VA BT 3 BMPESTS. a. THE yi.ailh 02 POLITICAL A2STO SOCIAX A.0ITATIO2T. §563. FbAJTCE. — The July monarchy, erected upon the unstable foundation of the sovereignty of fche people, was exposed fco many attack;-;. Both the adherent;-; of* the Bourbons and of monarchy u \>j j f 2 4j'6 THE LATEST PERIOD. the grace of God" (Legitimists, Carlists), and the republicans grumbled at the new system, and attempted to overthrow it. It was only the prosperous middle class, which, intent upon gain and the peaceable enjoyment of its earnings, could find its safety and object in a constitutional monarchy, that was content with the government of July ; and it was upon this class in especial that Louis Philippe leant for support. But, as the king neglected to give the less wealthy class of citizens a share of political power by extending the suffrage or diminishing the census, the number of his adherents was not great. Neither did the king understand how to win the hearts of the Trench by greatness of mind and noble actions. In the possession of enormous wealth, he made use of his lofty position for the constant increase of his property, and thereby incurred the reproach of selfish- ness, avarice, and cupidity. This reproach also attached more or less to his councillors, ministers, and officials, who were accused of covet- ousness and venality ; so that, in the eyes of the people, the stain of "corruption" infected the whole July government. The first hostilities against the citizen throne and the ministry of the " right mean " proceeded from the legitimists. But the hatred of the people against the Bourbons was still too recent for their attempts to be February 15, successful. The erection of the white banner on the day 1831. of the death of the due de Berri excited a disturbance, in consequence of which the archiepiscopal palace was destroyed. Just November, as little success attended the attempt of the duchess of 1832. Berri to rouse the faithful Vendee to arms. When she was arrested, and the secret of a private marriage came to light, the romantic magic that had hitherto attached to the royal family gradu- ally melted away. The legitimists, with the grey-haired poet, Chateau- briand, at then' head, now gave up the hope of raising to the throne their favourite, the duke of Bourdeaux (Chambord), whom they had bedecked with the ostentatious name of Henry V., and retired sullenly into the suburb of St. Germaine. The undertakings of the republicans were more perilous to the a.d. 1831. throne of July. After the public insurrections in Lyons a.d. 1832. and Paris had been suppressed by the military power, and a.d. 1834. their originators and participators punished, they re- frained from any further attempts by open violence, but made constant efforts to increase the number of their adherents by diffusing their opinions in journals, and by means of secret societies. The "National," conducted by Armand Carrel, and, after his death in a duel, by Marrast, was the much-persecuted and much-punished organ of their party. But the republicans soon separated themselves in different directions. Whilst the moderate (honest) republicans ouly sought to attack the existing government, and aimed at revolutioniz- ing the a flairs of state, others (like Proudhon) declared property to be THE LATEST REVOLUTIONARY TEMPESTS. 437 robbery, and threatened war to all who were in possession of anything ; or (like Louis Blanc) they flattered the self-love and self-respect of the working-classes by an over-estimation of their functions and importance, preached up the equality of capital and labour, and demanded better payment and greater security to the latter from the state. These men sought to revolutionize social relations, and to reduce to practice the systems of socialism and communism, devised by a few visionaries and men of perverted intellects. "Without any conception of the vast machinery of human intercourse, they applied to society the petty measure of the workshop and the club. Liberty, equality, fraternity, were their watchwords ; and hatred to the bourgeoisie the essence of their doctrine. These communistic and social ideas spread and increased; shrouded in the veil of the for- bidden and the mysterious, they seemed to narrow minds and stunted natures the depth of wisdom, the anchor of salvation from poverty and wretchedness. Influenced by the notion that the French govern- ment was only held together by the skill and dexterity of its chief, the members of the secret union sought the life of the king, that they might proclaim a republic in the moment of confusion, and then proceed at once with their social reforms. Eight attempts at assassi- nation were made upon Louis Philippe, from the whole of which he escaped with wonderful good fortune. The most dreadful of these was that executed iu the Boulevards on the celebration July 28. of ^ Jul y da ^ 18g ^ ^ the Corsican, Pieschi, by means of the so-called infernal machine, by which twenty-one people who were near the king, and, among others, the grey-haired marshal Mortier, lost their lives. Pieschi and his two confederates died by the guillotine ; but their death did not deter others from similar attempts. Eestrictions of the press, of the privilege of forming unions, and of personal liberty, were the result of each of these designs. It was a hard fate for Louis Philippe that his eldest son, July 13 tne De l° ve< 3- duke of Orleans, met with his death by a fall 1842. from his carriage. § 564. In the second half of the fifth decennium all the States of Europe were powerfully excited by events of varied character. In Italy, pope Pius IX. took the lead of all other princes by his timely reforms, and again made the papacy the political centre of the country. He gave greater freedom to the press, improved the affairs of government and the administration of justice, gave the city of Rome a liberal municipal government, and took preparatory measures for a confederation of the Italian States. A mighty enthusiasm seized upon the excitable Italians, and fresh hopes sprung up in. the bosoms of the patriots. Sicily raised the standard of independence, January, an ^ commenced a fierce war against its oppressor ; the 1848. ' king of Naples sought to appease the threatened insur- 438 THE LATEST PERIOD. rection of his subjects by giving them a constitution, and thus obliged the other princes to take a similar step. Archduke Leopold of Tuscany and Charles Albert of Sardinia followed his example. The duke of Modena, a zealous defender of the divine right of princes, withdrew himself from the hatred of his people by flight ; and in December 18 Parma the throne became vacant by the death of the 1847. duchess Maria Louisa, the little-loved and little-respected widow of Napoleon. These events filled the Italians with the hope of national unity and civil freedom. Only two powers, a spiritual and a secular, seemed to stand in the way of this object — the Jesuits and the Austrians. The fiery hate of the Italians was consequently directed against both. Vivas for Gioberti, the enemy of the Jesuits, and "Death to the Germans," against Austria, were mingled with the shouts for Pio JSTono. In Geemant the opposition between the people and the govern- ments had risen to the uttermost. The polite literature of " young Germany ;" the stirring poetry of a Herwegh, Hoffman von Faller- sleben, and other singers of political freedom ; the daring daily press ; the freethinking and anti- Church writings of young philosophers and theologians; the discourses and doctrines of the "friends of Hght" in the Protestant Church, and of the " German Catholics in the Catholic — all these spiritual strivings betrayed the profound discon- tent of a large portion of the German people with the existing con- ditions of State and Church, and their aversion to the system retained and defended by the governments. Frederick William IV., who since 1840 had borne the crown of Prussia, a prince of high accomplish- ments and active mind, deemed himself obliged to make some conces- sions to the spirit of the age. He threw open the courts of justice, and permitted oral pleadings ; he diminished ecclesiastical restraints by an edict of toleration ; and by the patent of the 3rd of February he summoned the " United Estates " to a Diet in Berlin. It was here that, despite all the restrictions con- tained in the patent, so violent an opposition was displayed, former promises were so emphatically referred to, the righteous claims of a civilized nation to liberty of the press and the other privileges of a free state, were so eloquently urged, that the old system of govern- ment appeared no longer tenable. The nation followed with pride the proceedings of an assembly which displayed such splendid powers of oratory and such a fulness of intelligence and judgment. Whilst the educated and wealthy were following with intense interest these inward struggles in the region of Church and State, and looking with anxiety on the disturbances in the trading world, where a succession of bankruptcies had deprived thousands of their property, the cry of la i nine sounded in the huts of the starving, who, in the increasing dearness of provisions, were unable to supply their necessities. The THE LATEST REVOLUTIONARY TEMPESTS. 439 intelligence of the fearful distress which in Upper Silesia had engen- dered pestilence, and in many trading and manufacturing places had produced scenes of Irish misery, together with the exciting literature in the hands of the lower classes, and the suffering that was every where prevalent, produced a vast irritation, which at length burst forth in insurrections in Stuttgardt, Munich, and other towns. It is true that these were suppressed by the military and the police, and the benevolence of the wealthy and an abundant harvest soon put an end to the temporary distress ; but the increasing poverty, and the great inequality in propert}' - and in the enjoyments of life were now for the first time revealed in their full extent. Men gazed into the abyss of misery and wretchedness in which the lower classes were found. The irritation and discontent thus excited against the political arrangements, to which the whole of the mischief was ascribed, was increased to the highest pitch by the intelligence that the old king Louis of Bavaria had been entangled in the snares of a Spanish dancer, Lola Montes, and had allowed himself to be led by her into acts of folly and enormous extravagance. The ultramontane party, which had ruled the king and the country for years, quarrelled with this courtesan, who had been created countess of Landsfeldt, and suddenly found itself threatened with loss of power. The ministry of Abel and the heads of the ultramontane party in the universities were dismissed. This occasioned a commotion among the Bavarian people ; and when the king, indignant that the students attached themselves to the ultramontane party, and did not show the respect he required to the insolent dancer, ordered the university of Munich to be closed, and commanded the students to leave the place, an insurrection broke out, by which Louis found himself obliged to recal the suspension, and to get rid of the countess. About this time there prevailed a great enmity in Switzerland be- tween the Catholics and Protestants, and the conservatives and radicals. In the Aargau the radical government had abolished the eight monas- teries of the country as " meeting-places of rebellion," and confiscated their property. The protests of the seven Catholic cantons (Schwytz, Uri, Unterwalden, Lucerne, Zug, Freiburg, Valais) produced no effect at the Diet. The division was increased when the ultramontane government of Lucerne, with the aid of the people of the canton, called in the Jesuits to superintend the education of the youth, and repulsed the radicals, who wished to produce a revolution by means of a volunteer expedition. The contest now resolved itself into a desperate struggle between Jesuitism and radicalism. The seven Catholic cantons demanded punishment of the volunteers, and legal protection against similar undertakings, and the restoration of the monasteries of the Aargau; and when their 440 THE LATEST PERIOD. demands were not acceded to, formed a " special confederation " for mutual defence against attacks from within and without. The radicals, who by means of the " Putsche " had a majority in the Diet at Vaud, Geneva, and other places, procured a resolution which dissolved the special confederation as incompatible with the govern- ment of the union, and banished the Jesuits. As the ' ' members of the special confederation refused submission to the decisions of the Diet, the sword became the arbiter. Contrary to expectation, the struggle was soon over. A confederate army, under Dufour, subdued Freiburg and Lucerne with little resistance, whereupon the other cantons freely submitted. December 1. They were obliged to renounce the Sonderbund, to banish the Jesuits, to alter the cantonal government, and to pay the expenses of the war. When too late, the three great powers, Austria, France, and Prussia, offered their mediation. The French found the Sonderbund already dissolved ; and the discovery that the minister, Guizot, took the part of the Jesuits, increased the dissatisfaction in France with the July government. The Swiss took advantage of circumstances to remodel their constitution, and to create a stronger federative government. I. THE PAEIS REVOLUTION OE EEBRTJARY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. § 565. About the time that the events in Italy and Switzerland were exciting a strong feeling in France, and the policy of Gruizot was giving great offence to the liberals, an action for bribery against general Cubieres and the minister, Teste, and the dreadful murder of the duchess of Praslin in her bed-chamber by her own husband, revealed the total want of morality in the upper classes that were grouped around the throne of July. The feeling that a system of govern- ment founded upon such rotten supports coidd not endure, became more and more prevalent among the nation ; and the call for elective reform, by which it hoped to infuse fresh vigour into the Estates and the government, became the watchword of the day. Reform, banquets were arranged in all corners of the land, in which the sins of the existing government were mercilessly exposed in daring speeches and toasts. But the government not only prohibited this reform festival, but censure was cast in the speech from the throne on a movement that was excited by blind or hostile passions. Despite the prohibi- tion, the chiefs of the opposition in the Chambers, and some of the leaders of the liberals and moderate republicans, proceeded with their preparations for a reform banquet, and publishe/l a programme of the procession and the arrangement of the dinner ; when, however, the government adopted military measures to ensure respect to its orders, the greater number of the arrangers of the festival desisted THE LATEST REVOLUTIONARY TEMPESTS. 44J from their purpose, and the members of the Left (opposition) resolved to bring forward a motion in the next session for impeaching the ministry for injuring the constitution. But the people were already too much excited to be pacified by such a measure as this. Crowds of artisans, men in blouses, stu- dents, and the refuse of the streets, paraded through the squares and thoroughfares of the capital with the cry of " Reform !" and " Down with Gruizot!" Their numbers increased from hour to hour; the military acted with forbearance, the police was no match for the multitude ; in some streets barricades were erected and maintained. The contest had continued for two days with increasing bitterness February 22, when the king dismissed the ministry of Gruizot and 23 - promised reform. This news occasioned unspeakable pleasure among the excited popidace. The crowds marched through the streets with songs and shouts of joy, the barricades disappeared, and the houses were illuminated. At this point it happened that a troop of people marched through the Botdevards about ten o'clock with banners and torches. They halted before the foreign ministry, and demanded the illumination of the house. At this moment a shot was heard, and occasioned a belief among the military posted in the building that they were attacked. A volley was suddenly fired upon the crowd, fifty-two of whom fell to the ground either killed or wounded. An indescribable fury took possession of the people. A bier was covered with dead bodies and paraded through the streets of the city with torches in the midst of the cries, " To arms !" " We are slaughtered !" The alarum-bell was sounded at midnight, and by the morning of the 24th of February the whole of Paris was closed up with barricades. Victory, after a violent contest, inclined to the side of the people. Louis Philippe abdicated in favour of his grand- son, the count of Paris, and fled with his wife to England, where the other members of his family also arrived by different ways and after many perfls. Hereupon, a republican government was established in Paris, under the presidentship of the old Dupont de l'Eure, and in which the poet Lamartine, Ledru-Bollin the leader of the Left, Arago, Gamier- Pages, and the socialist Louis Blanc had a share. But the new form of government did not bring the anticipated happiness. The intoxication of the republican festival, with its joyous feasts and consecration of banners, and the enthusiasm for the watchwords, "liberty, equality, fraternity," passed away, and the sober practical life brought with it many difficulties. As the Revo- lution was the work of the labouring-classes, it was necessary to give some thoughts to their elevation and improvement. National work- shops were raised, where the unemployed were to find occupation and support. It was now that the utter instability of socialism became apparent. The expenses of the state rose incredibly, and 442 THE LATEST PERIOD. the number of paupers increased daily. It was soon clear to every one that such a system must in a short time lead to the ruin of the state, the impoverishment of those who possessed any thing, and the destruction of civilization. Accordingly, when a constituent National Assembly, elected by the voices of the whole people, met together in May, one of its first measures was to close these shops and to with- draw the assistance of the state from the workmen. Upon this the workmen attempted a new revolution, for the purpose of giving the supreme power to the fourth estate. This led to the dreadful scenes of June, when the supporters of the "red republic" disgraced them- selves by deeds of savage brutality. They murdered general Brea and the archbishop of Paris, and filled the barricades with the dead bodies of their opponents. Horrified at this barbarity, the National Assembly invested general Cavaignac with dictatorial power. Ca- vaignac defeated the rebels, had crowds of them arrested and de- ported, and put Paris under military law. Protected by these measures, the Assembly then completed the republican government with a single Chamber, and a president, who was to be elected every four years. It would willingly have given the majority of votes, also, to general Cavaignac at the election of president ; but the people, dazzled by the lustre of the imperial name, chose Louis Buonaparte, the same nephew of Napoleon who had before twice attempted to overthrow the government of Louis Philippe by insurrections, and who had paid the penahy of his folly by long imprisonments. § 566. The news of the Paris revolution of February occasioned a violent shock all over Europe. Popular commotions took place in Germany, Hungary, Italy, and other places, which in extent and violence far surpassed all previous disturbances. A propaganda, which had its seat and centre in Paris, stirred the revolutionary fire, and diffused republican ideas, with a tincture of communism and socialism, as the means of exciting the lower classes. The first effects displayed themselves in Baden. The active political life which has always distinguished the Grand Duchy, appeared to give it the right of marching foremost with the banner of progress and reform. Urgent petitions, tumultuously presented to the Estates of the country just then assembled, demanded freedom of the press, juries, a militia under freely elected leaders, and a German parliament, as a popular house, by the side of the Diet. The Baden government not only granted these demands so far as laid in its power, but it even adopted other conciliatory measures. The example of Baden acted upon the other states of Germany. The same demands were gradually made every where, and yielded to, and others joined with them. In Wir- temberg, Saxony, and other states, the heads of the liberal opposition were summoned to the ministry and the reins of government placed in their hands. But the Austrian empire suffered the greatest con- THE LATEST REVOLUTIONARY TEMPESTS. 443 M his vidsions. An insurrection in Vienna, occasioned by some students and young rioters, and supported by the rabble, bad sucb unexpected success tbat prince Metternicb laid down bis exalted office, and sougbt refuge as a grey-beaded fugi- tive in England. Upon tbis tbe old system was dissolved, and a state of lawlessness took possession of the capital. Tbe freedom of tbe press soon produced a revolutionary daily literature ; tbe right of assembly was made use of for forming tumultuous mobs and demo- cratic clubs ; tbe great number of unemployed workmen facilitated the schemes of the revolutionary party. Thus it happened that by the activity of the democrats, who streamed together into Vienna from all quarters, insurrections and street fights were crowded upon each other. The emperor retired, with his court, to Innsbruck ; and only returned to his capital when the Diet, which had in the mean time been chosen by universal suffrage, T , assembled, and required him by pressing messages to resume his seat in Vienna. Berlin had its March days as well as the imperial city. After long hesitation, the Prussian government at length consented to ,, ' „ freedom of tbe press and other reforms, and held out a March 17- _ r ' _. prospect of a revolution m the relations of the German confederation. But as hostile encounters had for several days past taken place between the nrilitary and the people, these concessions did not restore tranquillity ; the removal of the troops and the forma- tion of a militia was demanded. Poles and other foreign agitators increased the hatred and excitement by inflammatory discourses. ,»■ , ,„ The assemblies in front of the palace increased, and the March 18. . jn l ' threats against the soldiery became constantly louder. A division of infantry now marched out of the palace to drive back the increasing masses. Two shots were fired, by whom or from which party is uncertain. They gave the signal for a desperate street-battle of fourteen hours. On the morning of the 19th of March the contest was yet undecided, although most of the barricades bad been taken or destroyed by tbe courage of the soldiers and the effects of the grape-shot. The king at length gave command for the retreat of the military, dismissed the ministry, and consented to the formation of a militia for the defence of the city and the guard of the palace. An unconditional amnesty, which was shortly after announced, and which was imitated in the other states of Germany, freed from punishment all those condemned for political crimes or offences, and permitted the return of fugitives ; and three days later, the king promised in a proclamation and during a solemn procession through the city, that he would place himself as constitutional king at the head of a free and united Germany. A constituent National Assembly, elected by universal suffrage, under- 444- THE LATEST PERIOD. took, a few weeks later, the great work of framing a representative constitution for the Prussian monarchy. § 567. In the mean time a mighty revolution had taken place in all the German states. The Diet had experienced an increase of liberal members, and seventeen trustworthy men were commissioned „ , „ to design a new constitution. In Bavaria king Louis March 20. gave way before public opinion, and resigned the govern- ment to the crown prince, Maximilian ; a similar change took place in Hessen-Darmstadt. In Hanover, Kur-Hessen, and the greater number of states, the often-persecuted leaders of the liberals were now called to the ministry, and reforms were introduced in a demo- cratic spirit and with destructive haste. But the movement soon became so powerful that reforms were no longer sufficient, and here and there the path of revolution was entered upon. In some neigh- bourhoods the peasants drove away the stewards, destroyed the land and tithe registers and the seats of the landlords. It was not suffi- cient for the men of outward progress that the parliament of Frankfurt-on-the-Main, which assembled by its own authority in the beginning of April, laid down the principle of the sovereignty of the people, and embraced the resolution that a freely elected National Assembly should prepare a new constitution for collective Germany, and that a perpetual committee of fifty should watch over the strict execution of this resolution on the part of the government — a radical party, with Hecker, Struve, and others at its head, called the people to arms in the upper part of Baden, for the purpose of establishing a German republic. The republican arms, however, made little pro- gress. After a few expeditions, in which the union general, Frederick von Gagern, lost his life, the insurrection was quelled and the leaders obliged to fly. On the 18th of May the sittings of the National Assembly, which was to frame a constitution, were opened. The assembly in the church of St. Paul in Frankfurt, distinguished by its talent and eloquence, was a worthy expression of German opinion and civilization. One of the first acts of the Frankfurt parliament was to set aside the Diet and establish a new central power. After some sharp parlia- mentary contests, in which the "bold grasp" of the president, Henry von Gagern, determined the result, it was finally arranged that the National Assembly should choose an irresponsible regent, who was then to surround himself with a responsible ministry. The election, which took place on the 29th of June, was decided in favour of archduke John of Austria, who, after his entrance into Frankfurt, received from the hands of the president of the Diet the power exercised by that body. § 508. Not less violent were the convulsions and mutations pro- duced in Italy by the revolution of February. In Sicily the war THE LATEST REVOLUTIONARY TEMPESTS. 445 against Naples was continued for upwards of a year with great vigour and perseverance, without, however, the unfortunate island being able to attain its asserted independence. The king of Naples, strong in his mercenary Swiss troops, reduced the Sicilians to submission, and then destroyed by violence the constitutional government in Naples, which he had granted in a moment of necessity. In Rome the movement soon became too powerful for the weak pope, Pius IX., to control. It was in vain that he promised a constitutional government to the Ecclesiastical State, and summoned an assembly of the Estates to the capital. His minister, Rossi, was November 15, killed by the thrust of a dagger in the throat on the steps 1848. of the House of Assembly, after which the democrats took the whole power into their own hands. The pope, filled with terror, fled in disguise to Graeta, and relinquished the eternal city to February, the populace and the volunteers, who now established the 1849. Roman republic and seized upon the property of the Church. Mazzini, the energetic chief of Young Italy, and Garibaldi, the daring leader of the volunteers, ruled in Rome. The pope now addressed himself to the protecting powers of the Church, and suc- ceeded so far that a Erench army under the command of general Oudinot marched to the walls of Rome and demanded the restoration of the former system. "When this was refused, the Erench proceeded to lay siege to the city, but encountered so fierce a resistance, that it was only after weeks of sanguinary attacks and encounters that T s 1 840 ^ e y got possession of the place. The republicans sought for safety in flight ; and the old state of things gradually came back under the protection of bayonets. In Tuscany, also, the democrats gained the upper hand for a short time, and compelled the Grand Duke to take flight ; but the republican government lasted but a few weeks. The most remarkable revolution in affairs took place in Upper M h 1848 I TALT - I n Milan and Venice the Austrian garrisons were driven out by popular insurrections and street-fights, whereupon the standard of independence was raised throughout the whole of Lombardy. This filled the king Charles Albert of Sardinia with the hope of making himself master of the Lombard- Venetian kingdom. He declared war against Austria ; and being supported in the first moments of enthusiasm and surprise by numerous Italian volunteers, he drove back the enemy to the northern frontier of Italy. But the state of affairs soon changed. On the 25th of July field-marshal Radetzky, who was eighty-six years of age, gained a victory at Custozza, which was followed by the reconquest of Milan and the whole of Lombardy. The king of Sardinia fled during the night to his own dominions, and concluded a truce with the victors. Urged on by the democrats, Charles Albert again tried the fortune 413 THE LATEST PERIOD. March 20 — °f arms in the following spring. But the old Radetzky's 24, 1849. campaign of four days on the Tessino and near Novara brought the enterprise to a rapid termination, and rendered abortive the hopes of the Italian patriots. Charles Albert, despairing of suc- cess, abdicated his throne in favour of his son, Victor Emanuel, and fled by secret paths from the land of his fathers till he found a refuge in Portugal, where he shortly after died. The young king then con- cluded a disadvantageous peace with Austria. Venice, rendered impregnable by its position, withstood for some months longer the besieging army of Austrians, till dissensions within . and sufferings without gave back the renowned city of lagunes to its ancient possessors. Things now every where returned to their former state, but the honour of Italy had been redeemed by the struggle. § 569. In the mean time Germany and Hungary experienced still more violent revolutionary storms and convulsions. Whilst the con- stituent National Assembly was consulting in Frankfurt over the new confederate constitution, a sanguinary national war was going on in Schleswic-Holstein against Denmark. Supported by a good old right, according to which the duchies Schleswic-Holstein were to remain united and to descend as a heritage to the male line of the princely house of Oldenburg only, the sturdy inhabitants of these duchies wished, upon the approaching extinction of the royal family of Denmark, to be united to their German relations under the legitimate and native duke of Augustenburg. This hope the king of Denmark, T l r ijuk incited by the strong Danish party, had destroyed by the "public letter" in which he announced the indis- soluble connexion of Schleswic with Denmark and the undisturbed integrity of the Danish monarchy. When, in consequence of the February revolution, a mighty movement was communicated to all nations, the duchies also thought that they must gain their rights by their own strength. Trusting to the assistance of Germany, which had been promised to them in many addresses, they erected a provi- sional government till their legitimate position shoidd be secured. The central government of Frankfurt recognized their right, and appointed a Heutenancy. This was the signal for war. The German people interested themselves for the land attacked by the Danes. Volunteers, among whom were many students and promising youths, perilled life and health in the unequal contest ; the German con- federate troops, under the command of Prussia, cleared Schleswic of the Danes. But the strife, was rendered unequal by the want of a German fleet, and the maritime trade of the north suffered much loss and disturbance. This circumstance, and the threatening attitude of Russia and England, operated in favour of the Danes ; so that the Prussian government, which had committed the management of the THE LATEST REVOLUTIONARY TEMPESTS. 447 Schleswic-Holstein question to the central authority of Germany, entered into diplomatic negotiations, and concluded the not very August 26, creditable truce of Malmo. When this truce, after long 1848. and violent opposition, was sanctioned by the National Assembly at Frankfurt, the German republican party, which had long been dissatisfied with the prudent moderation of the parliament, made this decision a pretext for attempting to disperse the assembly in the church of St. Paul by means of an insurrection and street- fight, and then to bring about a revolution and a republic. The project was frustrated by calling in the confederate troops ; ' but the frightful murder of two members of the parlia- ment, Auerswald and Lichnowsky, in the Bornheimer wood by the mob, afforded a fearful proof of the height to which rudeness and barbarism had already risen among the irritated populace. § 570. This barbarism shortly afterwards displayed itself in the Austrian empire by two deeds not less horrible. The Httngabians, who had for some time past been excited against Austria by Magyar agitators, strove to obtain national independence. The kingdom of Hungary was to have its own government and a separate political existence totally independent of the imperial government in Vienna, and to share neither in the military system, the national debt or the finance, tax, or trade legislation of the rest of the empire. These efforts of the Magyars, by which the kingdom of Hungary was to have retained merely a "personal union" with the Austrian empire, were now developed with greater energy, but encountered a vehement resistance, not in Vienna alone, but among the Slavish races, Croats, Slavonians, Servians, &c, which were united with the Magyars in the Hungarian kingdom. Jellachich, Ban of Croatia, took the field against the Magyars ; his undertaking met with secret encourage- ment from the court and ministry. This excited the rage of the Magyars to such a height that the furious mob put the imperial corn- October 3, missioner, Lamberg, to a frightful death upon the bridge 1848. of Buda-Pesth. This deed called forth an imperial war manifesto, in consequence of which a portion of the Austrian army received orders to march upon Hungary. But the Viennese demo- crats, who saw their own cause in the insurrection in Hungary, pre- vented the march, and excited a rebellion in the capital that surpassed in violence and importance all that had preceded it. A crowd of people, furious with Latour, the minister of war, who had had communications with Jellachich, forced their way into the war office and killed the un- fortunate man with blows of hammers and thrusts of pikes. This was the commencement of the Vienna October days, the most violent catastrophe of this deeply -moved time. Horrified at the fierce proceedings of the aroused masses, the king again left the capital and retired to Olmiitz in Moravia. Prom thence he issued 448 THE LATEST PERIOD. his commands to prince AVindischgratz, who a few months before had displayed his vigour and resolution by the energetic suppression of a Slavish insurrection in Prague, to reduce the insurgent capital to submission. Thus commenced the memorable siege and storm of Vienna. For three weeks, the democrats, who were supported by a licentious press, by clubs, and public speeches, defended themselves against the besieging troops. Yolunteers and democratic leaders, united together from all parts in the capital, kept alive the spirit of contest. At length the military superiority of the army carried off the victory. The town was taken by storm and put under martial law ; and the leaders and promoters of the revolutionary movement severely punished. Many found their death from what in military law is called "powder and lead." Among these was Robert Blum, a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly, and chief speaker of the " Left." He had taken a share in the struggle ; his character as representative of the people coidd not save him from the iron severity of the general ; the German democrats regarded him as the martyr of liberty, and celebrated a general funeral solemnity. The Austrian legislative National Assembly was removed from Vienna to Kremsier in Moravia. § 571. These proceedings and the violent contest that now sprung up in Hungary, when "Windischgratz, with the proud consciousness of a victor, led the Austrian army against Pesth, confirmed the majority of the Frankfurt parliament in the persuasion that it would be advan- tageous as well for the Germans as the Austrian confederacy if each were separately to erect its new system of government upon a liberal basis, and then to conclude farther federative relations with a trade and customs legislation common to both. Prussia was to be at the head of the German union. This project found its most decided supporter in the president, Henry von Gagern, who, for the purpose of carrying out the scheme more effectually, assumed in December the presidentship of the imperial ministry. The plan however encountered the greatest opposition from the Austrian delegates, who discovered in it the ex- clusion of Austria from Germany ; from the Catholics, who feared the preponderance of Protestant Prussia ; and from the republicans, who saw, in a powerful hereditary monarchy, an insuperable obstacle to the realization of their principles, and who were irritated with the Prussian government on account of the dissolution of the constituent i 1 1 1 1 icrial assembly in Berlin. The king of Prussia, namely, had long been a Avitness of the senseless proceedings of the democrats ; he had repeat- edly changed his ministry in accordance with their wishes, he had offered no impediment to the debates of the Diet where the democratic part}- was in a majority, he had surrendered the capital to the defence of the militia. But when the presumption of the populace who were kept in a constant state of fermentation by foreign and native agi- THE LATEST REVOLUTIONARY TEMPESTS. 449 tators, by placards on the walls, and by public orators, exceeded all bounds ; when the popular unions ruled the city, when crowds of " Bummlern" surrounded the National Assembly and exercised an influence upon the course of the debates by intimidation, the king at length resolved to put an end to these proceedings. The new Bran- denburg- Manteuffel ministry adjourned the National Assembly, and removed the next sitting to the town of Brandenburg ; and when a considerable number of the members refused obedience to the com- mand, and continued their meetings in Berlin, despite the state of war with which the city was threatened, and, at length, when driven November ou ^ ^J ^ e m ilitary, declared the levying of taxes to be and Decern- contrary to law, the dissolution took place. At the same er, 1848. time, the government itself proclaimed a constitution upon an extremely liberal basis, which was to be submitted to a new elec- tive assembly with two chambers, for its examination and approval. § 572. It was not long before a similar measure followed in Aus- tria. For the purpose of getting a free field, the emperor Ferdinand, who, at the time of the disturbances, had made many promises, had been induced to resign the government as early as December, where- upon his youthful nephew, Francis Joseph, obtained the imperial throne. He dissolved the constituent Diet of Kremsier, in March, 1849, and then proclaimed an " octroyed" constitution, and a law respecting seignorial rights and the indemnification for socage dues. Hungary was at the same time to be restrained by fresh exertions of power. But the Austrians encountered a noble resistance from this warlike and hardy equestrian and nomadic people, the Magyars. Excited by the fiery eloquence of Kossuth, and supported by Polish leaders, like Dembinski and Bern, the Hungarians compelled the hostile forces to retreat, captured Buda, and got possession of all the fortresses. Grorgey, a brave and talented general, was at the head of the forces. The army of the insurgents was strengthened by the native militia (Honveds), and by foreign volunteers ; Hungarian bank-notes, pre- pared by Kossuth, were paid and accepted as money. Full of proud April 14, confidence the Diet of Debreczin declared Hungary's in- 1849. dependence of Austria, and established a provisional go- vernment under the direction of Kossuth. It was now discovered in Austria that Windischgratz had undertaken a task to which he was not equal ; he was recalled, and field-marshal Haynau appointed in his place. As the Austrian court was convinced that he could not, with his own forces, suppress the Hungarian insurgents, who were now approaching to the frontiers of Austria, it called upon Russia for assistance. The hostile armies now marched into Hungary from three quarters : on the north, Paskewitsch with his Russians ; on the west, Haynau with his Austrian troops ; and on the south, Jellachich with Gg 450 THE LATEST PERIOD. his Croats. The Hungarian army nevertheless resisted for many months, and Gorgey, Klapka, and other brave generals yet gained many a splendid victory. But internal dissensions among the Polish and Magyar leaders, and a division that had arisen between Kossuth and Gorgey, paralyzed the strength of the insurgents. Pressed upon on all sides, Gorgey, who had been named dictator, August 11, hiid down his arms to the Eussians at Vilagos, and thus 1849. brought about tbe subjection of the country. Kossuth and many of the insurgent leaders found refuge in Turkey ; but who can tell bow great was the number of those who died by the sentence of courts-martial, or pined away in dungeons, or who served in the baggage and conveyance department of the Austrian army ? Gorgey has since lived in Carinthia, but the public voice of his nation accuses him of treachery to the cause of his country. § 573. Hungary's fall by the catastrophe of Vilagos was the close of the revolutionary movement that had spread over Europe after the Parisian revolution of February. It had reached its termination some time previously in Germany. In the- midst of many contests, the Frankfurt National Assembly had at length accomplished the solution of its task. It had esta- blished and made known the "fundamental rights of the German peo- ple," and had at last accomplished the formation of an imperial con- stitution. The Gagern party, which was striving for a German con- federacy, with an hereditary emperor and a legislative assembly, divided into a government and popular house, had at last carried their pro- posal by a small majority, after they had won the support of many members of the Left by accepting a democratic elective law with universal right of suffrage. The new imperial constitution was brought to a conclusion by this " compromise," and the transference of the hereditary dignity of the emperor to the king of Prussia was also carried. A solemn deputation, headed by the worthy president Simson, now conveyed the resolution of the Assembly to the king of Prussia, and made him an offer of the im- perial crown, upon condition of his accepting the constitution in all its details. It was a great historical moment when, on the 3rd of April, king Frederick William IV. met the deputation in the great hall of his palace in Berlin : the results of this event were looked for with the utmost eagerness by the German nation. But the king first gave an ambiguous answer, and at length decisively rejected the dignity offered him by the people. The deputies of parliament had gone forth, as it were, in triumph ; they returned to Frankfurt very like scattered fugitives. "When the Prussian Assembly of Estates, which, in the mean time, had been again summoned, voted an address to the throne, in which the acceptance of the imperial office and constitution THE LATEST REVOLUTIONARY TEMPESTS. 45 \ was recommended as the wish of the nation, the second chamber was dissolved and the first adiourned, and then followed an ADril ^*7 alteration of the elective law, so that, in future, an elec- tion arranged upon the three tax-paying classes was to take place of the universal right of suffrage. § 574. This rejection of the imperial constitution brought fresh revolutionary storms upon Germany. The democrats, who had hitherto been satisfied neither with the Frankfurt parliament, with the imperial constitution, nor with the " historical sentimentality " of an hereditary emperor, now took advantage of the rejection for again assuming arms. Violent insurrections and sanguinary street-fights took place for the purpose of " carrying through the imperial consti- tution ;" and even first of all in those states which had opposed its introduction — in Saxony, in the Bavarian Palatinate, and in some parts of Rhenish Prussia. Other states also were soon hurried away by the movement ; and when a mutiny broke out among the soldiers in the fortress of Bastatt, in the grand duchy of Baden, where the government had acknowledged the imperial constitution, which extended itself to Carlsruhe, and in consequence of which the grand duke was compelled to take flight, and the government fell into the hands of the democratic and republican party, the revolution had gained a broad foundation. In the Frankfurt National Assembly, also, the Left was constantly gaining power by the opposition of the' govern- ments to the work of the constitution ; especially when many of the conservative and constitutional party voluntardy resigned their seats, and others yielded obedience to the calls of their governments. In this melancholy position, Germany was saved from ruin by the bravery of the Prussian army. Prussian troops first repressed the isolated outbreaks in Eberfeld, Dusseldorf, and many other places ; Prussian troops marched to Dresden at the call of the Saxon govern- ment, and rescued the city, after a barricade-fight of six days, from the hands of the provisional government ; lastly, Prussian troops and mditia marched into Baden and the Bavarian Palatinate, when the grand duke sought assistance from Berlin, aud suppressed the revolu- tion at the moment when it threatened to seize upon the kingdom of Wirtemberg. For whilst these proceedings were taking place, the Frankfurt National Assembly was gradually losing its conservative members, so that at last the whole authority devolved upon the men of the Left. These determined to support themselves upon the revolution, and accordingly removed their sittings from Frankfurt to Stuttgart, to be nearer the revolutionary mass. The " Bump Parlia- ment," scarcely a hundred men strong, went over to Wirtemberg, established an "imperial regency" of five members, and gave a weight to the revolutionary movements, till the minister, Bomer, a gst2 452 THE LATEST PERIOD. mau of firm hand and resolute temper, put a term to their proceedings, and compelled them to leave the king- dom. At the same time, the Russian soldiers, supported by the imperial forces, marched through the grand duchy of Baden, defeated the revolted troops and volunteers, under the Polish adventurer, Mierolawski, in several engagements, and again restored the old system. Some promoters of the insurrection, and among them the parliamentary member, Triitschler, were shot by the sentence of a court-martial ; but the immediate originators and leaders saved themselves by flying to republican countries. "Whilst the movement was still raging unsuppressed in the open field, the king of Prussia issued a proclamation to his people which was calculated to awaken their confidence. He promised to satisfy the longing for German unity by establishing a union with a popular representation ; and, shortly after, appeared a new imperial constitution on the basis of the Frankfurt proposal, in the name of the three kingdoms, Prussia, Hanover, and Saxony. The approval with which this proffered gift was received by all the moderate party, and in favour of which a large number of the Frankfurt parliament assembled in GTotha (the after parliament) declared themselves, contributed materially to the pacifi- cation of the disturbed countries. It was not long, however, before Saxony and Hanover, supported by Austria, retired from the " league of the three kings ;" upon which Prussia who, since swearing to the new constitution on February 6, 1850, has entered into the number of constitutional monarchies, attempted, at the Erfurt Diet, to unite the German States which still adhered to the league into a confede- racy. But this plan also met with opposition from Austria and the other kingdoms which required the restoration of the old Diet. § 575. Owing to these divisions and parties, affairs in Schleswig- Holstein took a disastrous turn. The contest had begun anew in March, 1849, and the news flew like lightning in the dark night through the country that German troops had sunk the Danish ship of the fine, "Christian VIII.," by means of strand batteries ; and that the proud frigate, " Gefion," had been compelled to surrender, after the loss of her rudder. The victorious Germans soon marched to Frederica, and laid siege to this frontier fortress. But the activity of the allied troops of Prussia and Germany being paralyzed by the peace negotiations commenced with Denmark, the enemy found an opportunity to reinforce the garrison of Frede- rica, and afterwards to drive back the German army by an unex- pected sally, and to make themselves masters of the trenches and the artillery. A fresh truce was now arranged, in conse- quence of which Schleswig was placed under a neutral government, and garrisoned with German and Swedish troops. This THE LATEST REVOLUTIONARY TEMPESTS. 453 truce became a peace in the following year, by which Schleswig- Holstein was to have resumed its former relations with Denmark. But the lieutenancy that had been established there during the war by the German central power would not accede to the peace, and determined, after the retreat of the Prussian garrison, to maintain its right by its own strength, and the voluntary assistance of the German nation. Conci/usion. The revolutionary storms of the years 1848 and 1849 have just now reached -their termination. These two years were rich in hopes and experiences, in disappointments and griefs. Providence has once more placed the conduct and shaping of affairs in the hands of princes — may they employ this power wisely, and to the benefit of their people, that confidence may be once more restored to the minds of men ! For, true as it is, that no political or social ar- rangement can secure the true happiness of the people, unless a deeper morality and religion, a more active sense of civil and domestic virtue, and a warmer feeling of duty pre-exist in their minds ; so true is it also, that states can only prosper and nourish when the public faith between a prince and his people is firmly established, and the con- fidence in the honest and benevolent intentions of the government is exposed to no disturbance. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. B.C. Nimrod builds Babylon 2100 Minus builds Nineveh 2000 Abraham nourished 2000 Joseph do. 1800 Sesostris king ......... 1500 Moses nourished ......... 1500 Joshua do. ........ . 1450 Trojan war ......... 1184 Samuel nourished ........ 1150 Heraclidse return to Peloponnesus ..... 1104 Saul flourished 1095 Mceris and Cheops 1080 Codrus, king of Athens, dies ...... 1068 David flourished 1050 Solomon do 1000 Eehoboam do. ........ 975 Jeroboam do. ........ . 971 Sardanapalus destroys himself ...... 888 Lycurgus reforms the Spartan constitution .... 884 Carthage founded ........ 880 Necho (Pharaoh) 800 Foundation of Rome ........ 753 Annual Archons at Athens ....... 752 First Messenian war 743 — 724 Salmaneser flourishes ........ 730 Salmaneser subdues Phoenicia ...... 730 Ten tribes of Israel removed by Salmaneser . 722 (Judah remains 130 years longer.) Sennacherib flourishes ........ 720 Sennacherib besieges Jerusalem, but his army is destroyed . 720 Archilochus the poet born at Paros ..... 700 Numa Pompilius king of Eome ...... 700 Second Messenian war ...... 687 — 670 Psammetichus puts down the power of the Egyptian priests by Greek mercenaries ....... 650 Tuliius Hostilius king of Eome 650 Ancus Martius do. ...... 625 Draco legislator ......... 624 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 455 B.C. 605 600 and 600 600 600 600 600 590 Nineveh destroyed ..... Nebuchadnezzar begins to reign over Babylon Nebuchadnezzar plunders the Temple at Jerusalem removes the chief inhabitants Periander reigns in Corinth Sappho the poetess born at Lesbos Alcarus the poet born at Mitylene Tarquinius Priscus king of Rome Nebuchadnezzar's attempt on Tyre fails Judah taken into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar, and remains therein seventy years : the city and Temple of Jerusalem destroyed .... Pythagoras flourishes, born at Samos Astyages the Median king flourished Cyrus the Great do. Pisistratus tyrant of Athens Servius Tullius king of Pome . Polycrates tyrant of Samos Babylon taken by the Persians,, and Cyrus leave to return home Tarquinius Superbus reigns . ■ . Cambyses conquers Egypt, and flourishes Hippias and Hipparchus begin to rule at Athens DaiTiis Hystaspes comes to the throne, and reigns The Temple at Jerusalem completed in the reign of Darius Republic established at Athens ..... Abolition of royalty in Rome ... Oppression of the plebeians by patricians for debt Secession to the Sacred Mount ..... Destruction of Miletus ... Coriolanus excites the resentment of the people, and is banished from Rome Battle of Marathon . Battle at the Pass of Thermopylae Battle of Salamis Battle of Platsea Banishment of Themistocles for ten years . Earthquake at Sparta ..... Ezra and Nehemiah rebuild Jerusalem Cincinnatus taken from the plough to be dictator Ambassadors sent to Grsecia Magna and Athens, to collect the laws of Solon and select others . . . . 452 Decemvirs appointed ....... 450 Herodotus born ........ 450 Battle of Chaeronea 447 The peace of Pericles . . . . . . . 445 The plebeians obtain a share in the consulate . . . 444 Military tribunes appointed ...... 442 Isocrates flourished ....... 436—388 588 584 575 560 560 550 550 gives the Jews 538 from 533—509 / from 529 \to 521 527 f from 521 \ to 485 515 510 509 495 494 494 Victories gained > by the Creeks < J over the Persians I 490 490 480 480 479 471 465 460 458 456 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. B.C. Thucydides born ........ 430 Plato flourished 429 — 348 Death of Pericles by plague, which visited Athens . . 429 Athenians under Demosthenes capture Pylos . . . 425 The peace of Kicias with Sparta ..... 421 The Athenian expedition against Syracuse, led by Alci- biades, Nicias, and Lysimachus ..... 415 Destruction of the Athenian fleet at JEgos Potamos . . 405 Destruction of Athens by the Spartans . . . . 404 Xenophon bom ........ 400 Socrates dies by poison ....... 399 Antisthenes flourished 396 Veii subdued by Camillus ...... 396 Demosthenes flourished ...... 385 — 332 Peace of Antalcidas (Corinthian War) .... 387 Death of M. Manlius (Capitolinus) 383 Battle of Leuctra ..." 371 Aristippus flourished ....... 370 Battle of Mantinea 362 Destruction of Sidon ....... 350 "War between the Romans and Latins .... 342 Peace between the Romans and Samnites .... 340 The Latins are defeated at the battle of Vesuvius by the patriotism of Decius ....... 338 Battle of Chseronea, Liberty of Greece ended . . . 338 Battle of Granicus (Persians defeated) .... 334 Darius Codomanus defeated at Issus .... 333 Destruction of Tyre by Alexander ..... 332 Battles of Arbela and Gangamela ..... 331 Agis II., king of Sparta, defeated at Megalopolis . . 330 Rupture between the Romans and Samnites . . . 325 Diogenes flourished ........ 324 Alexander the Great dies at Babylon .... 323 Demosthenes destroys himself ...... 322 Antigonus assumes the chief power after Alexander's death 321 Syracuse besieged by Carthaginians, and Carthage by Syracusans ......... 317 Antigonus is acknowledged regent of Alexander's empire . 316 iEschines flourished ........ 314 The Stoics flourished 312 Battle of Issus. Defeat of Antigonus .... 301 Samnites defeated at Lentinum by the devotion of the younger Decius ........ 295 Samnites and confederates acknowledge the supremacy of Rome 290 The Mamentines seize Messina, and devastate Syracuse . 289 The translation of the Bible from Hebrew to Greek, called bhe Septuagint Version ...... 284 Pyrrhus engaged in war with Rome ..... 281 Theocritus the poet flourished ...... 280 Euclid the mathematician flourished in Alexandria . . 2S0 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 457 B.C. 275 272 261 260 250 242 242 240 238 230 Pyrrlms defeated by the Romans at Beneventum Pyrrlms dies before Argos ...... The Romans win their first naval battle at Myla3 . - The Epicureans flourish ........ Aratus the Sicyon chosen commander-in-chief of the Achaean league ........ The Romans make a successful sally against the Cartha- ginians from Panormus ....... The Carthaginians, defeated at the iEgatian islands, consent to peace, and give up Sicily ...... Agis III., king of Sparta, flourished ..... Sicily made a Roman province ...... Cleomenes III., king of Sparta, flourished The Cisalpine Cauls make an inroad into Etruria, but are defeated. The Roman province Callia Cisalpina esta- blished 222 Defeat of the Spartans by the combined forces of the Achaeans and Macedonians at Sellasia .... 221 Hannibal crosses the Apennines . . . . . 217 Defeat of the Romans at Cannae, by Hannibal . . . 216 They successfully engage twice with the Carthaginians . 215 Marcellus besieges Syracuse ...... 214 Archimedes the mathematician flourished in Sicily . . 212 Syracuse, by the aid of Archimedes, holds out three years before it is taken and destroyed ..... 212 The Capuans, deserted by Hannibal, surrender to Rome . 211 Hasdrubal crosses the Alps to join Hannibal . . . 208 Philopcemen reduces Sparta and destroys it 207 Hasdrubal is slain, and his army destroyed, at the river Metaurus 207 Scipio passes over into Africa ...... 204 Battle of Zama. Defeat of the Carthaginians . . . 202 Philip compelled by the Romans to acknowledge the inde- pendence of Greece ....... 197 Perseus defeated at Pydna by Paulus iEmilius . . . 168 Macedonia made a Roman province by Metellus . . 148 Corinth destroyed by Mummius ..... 146 The Maccabees are governors and high priests of Judea 142 — 135 JN"umantia taken by the younger Scipio .... 135 Tib. Gracchus proposes the renewal of the agrarian law . 133 His brother, Caius Gracchus, proposes the same after his death 123 The attempts of C. Gracchus utterly defeated . . . 121 The Romans defeated by the Teutones and Cimbri at Carinthia ......... 113 MeteUus sent into Africa against Jugurtha, and retrieves the character of the Roman army ..... 109 C. Marius chosen consul by the people .... 107 The Teutones are defeated at Aqua? Sextiae by Marius . 102 Marius chosen consul for the sixth time .... 100 The Social war 90—88 458 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. Sylla sent against Mithridates (first Mithridatic war) Athens captured. Delphi plundered by Sylla . Marius gratifies his revenge : is chosen consul for the seventh time, but dies a few months after The death of Sylla The second Mithridatic Avar ..... Pompey puts down the rebels under Sertorius . The revolt of the slaves ...... They are defeated by M. Crassus on the banks of the Silarus ........ Lucullus defeats Tigranes at Tigranocerta Pompey brings the Armenians into submission, and defeats Mithridates ........ Pompey turns his arms against the pirates in the East The Tx'iumvirate formed (Pompey, Cassar, Crassus) Caesar made governor of Graul ..... Caesar's wars in Graul ...... The last insurrection put down at Alesia, by Caesar . The second civil war at Pome ..... Caesar advances upon Pome with his army Pompey defeated at Pharsalus : is assassinated in Egypt The hopes of the republicans at Pome and their army destroyed at Thapsus ...... The remnants of Pompey' s friends defeated at Munda Caesar assassinated ....... The second Triumvirate formed (Octavius'J Anthony, Le- pidus) . The republicans, under Brutus and Cassius, defeated at Philippi ........ The victory of Octavius at Actium .... Egypt becomes a province of the Roman empire Augustus, emperor ....... B.C. 88 87 86 78 74—65 73 72 71 69 66 67 60 58 58—50 52 49,48 49 48 46 45 44 43 42 31 30 B.C. 30 A.D. 14 The Eoman legions under Varus defeated by the Ger- mans Augustus dies at Nola Tiberius emperor Caligula do. Claudius do. Nero do. Galba, Otho, Vitellius, emperors . Vespasian emperor Jerusalem destroyed by Titus Vespasian succeeded by his son Titus Domitian emperor Nerva do. Trajan do. Adrian do. The Jewish nation, as a state, at an end A.D. 9 14 14—37 37—41 41—54 54—68 68—70 70—79 70 79—81 81—96 96-98 98—117 117—138 125 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 459 Antoninus Pius emperor Marcus Aurelius do. Commodus do. Pertinax do. Septunius Severus do. Caracalla do. Heliogabalus Alexander Severus do. do. Philippus Arabus Decius do. do. Gallienus do. Aurelianus do. Tacitus (descendant of the historian) do Probus do. Cams do. Diocletian do. Constantine overthrows Maxentius at the Milvian bridge and takes possession of Rome Constantine becomes sole emperor. He favours the Christians .... Constantinus emperor . Julian restores the renown of the Roman army in the Netherlands .... Julian proclaimed emperor Constantius' death Julian reigns as emperor Jovian do. do. The empire divided'/ Valens rules over the East r (_ Vaientiman 1. rules over the West The Goths devastate Thessaly, Central Greece, and the Peloponnesus : made to retreat by Stilicho Alaric devastates the banks of the Po, but is obliged to retreat ..... Duke Radagais and his barbarous horde defeated by Stilicho ....... Rome besieged, taken, and plundered by Alaric Adolf founds the kingdom of the "West Goths in South Gaul ....... Valentinian III. reigned .... Clodion defeats the Alemanni at Zulpich iEtius defeats Attila on the Catalaunian plains Attila retreats into Hungary An end is put to the "Western Empire of Rome by Odoacer ........ Clodion, king of the Pranks, conquers the country be tween the Seine and Loire .... Clodion puts to death the chiefs of the Prank tribes Justinian emperor of the Byzantine empire Amalasanta, Theodoric's daughter, murdered . Belisarius defends Rome for twelve months against the Goths A.D. 138—161 161—180 180—192 193 193—211 211—217 218—222 222—235 243—249 249—251 259—268 270—275 275, 276 276—282 282—284 284—305 312 325 357—360 357 360 361—363 363, 364 364—378 364—395 396 403 406 410 412 425—455 436 451 452 467 486 507 527—565 534 537 460 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. A.D. Totila made king of the Goths ..... 540 Tejas made king of the Goths, but slain in a battle with Narses 554 Mohammed flourished ....... 571 632 Mohammed's flight from Mecca (Hegira), 16th July . 622 Abu Bekir succeeds Mohammed ..... 632 — 634 Omar khalif 634 — 644 Persia becomes subject to the Moslems . . . 634 Alexandria taken by the Mohammedans under Amru . 640 Othman succeeds to the khalifate ..... 644 — 656 The Ommiades take the khalifate ..... 660 The Mohammedans carry their arms through Cyprus, Rhodes, Asia Minor, and attack Byzantium . . 668 — 675 Leo the Isaurian emperor of Byzantium . . . 717 — 741 Charles Martel defeats the Saracens between Tours and Poictiers ......... 732 Constantine Copronymus emperor of Byzantium . . 741 — 745 The dynasty of the Ommiades overthrown . . . 752 Pepin dies, and divides his kingdom between his sons . 768 Charlemagne made emperor of the Pranks . . . 771 The West Goths overthrown at Xeres de la Prontera by the Arabians ........ 771 Charlemagne takes the fortress of Eresburg, and compels the Saxons to make peace ...... 772 Charles conquers Pavia, and unites Upper Italy to his empire ......... 774 Leo IV. emperor of Byzantium ..... 775 — 780 Charles the second time subdues the Saxons . . . 777 Thassilo, duke of Bavaria, attempts to throw off the Prank yoke ... .... 788 Irene empress of Byzantium ..... 800 Leo the Armenian emperor of Byzantium . . . 813 — 820 Louis the Debonnaire flourished ..... 814 — S40 Egbert establishes the hierarchy in England . . . 827 The sons of Louis take up arms against him ... 836 Louis dies near Jugelheim ...... 840 The treaty of partition of Verdun ..... 843 Basflrus the Macedonian emperor of Byzantium . . 867 Alfred the Great flourished 871 — 901 The kingdom in Norway founded by Harold Pairhair; and in Denmark by Gorm the Old .... 875 Charles the Pat flourished 876 — 8S7 Arnulf flourished 887 — 898 Charles the Simple flourished 898—929 Kingdom formed in Sweden by the Ynglians . . 900 Conrad I. elected emperor of Germany .... 911 — 919 Henry the Fowler 916 — 936 I le defeats the 1 1 migarians at Merseburg . . . 933 Otto the Great flourished 936 — 973 He puts an end to the depreciations of the Hungarians . 955 The victory of Otto over the Hungarians on the Lechfield 973 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 461 Otto II. emperor of Germany Otto III. do. Hugh Capet king of the Franks Stephen the Pious king of Hungary . Vladimir the Great emperor of Russia Canute the Great flourished Conrad II. emperor of Germany Canute the Great of Denmark and Olaf of Norway become Christians The Moorish dynasty in Spain divided Henry III. emperor of Germany Edward the Confessor Robert Guiscard (a JSTorman noble) becomes master of part of Lower Italy ...... William the Conqueror overthrows Harold at Hastings Robert Guiscard' s son, Bohemond, increases his territory ..... Henry IV. defeats the Saxons at Unstruth He personally implores the withdrawal of the ban of excommunication at Rome Gregory deposed, and Clement III. elected pope Henry's expedition against pope Gregory . Pope Gregory dies at Salerno At the Assembly at Clermont pope Urban II. calls upon Europe to recover Palestine . The first Crusade .... A large army under celebrated leaders arrives at Antioch on its way to Jerusalem They come in sight of Jerusalem Jerusalem taken by the Crusaders, July 15 The Cid (Campeador) flourished Henry V. emperor of Germany Lothaire the Saxon emperor of Germany . Roger II. flotuished, and forms the kingdom of Naples and Sicily ...... Louis VII. king of Prance Conrad III. emperor of Germany Henry the Proud (House of Welf).dies The second Crusade originated by St. Bernhard Grisa II. king of Hungary Frederick Barbarossa emperor of Germany Henry II., of Anjou, king of England Frederick undertakes a second expedition against Milan Death of archbishop Thomas-a-Becket The Germans, under Frederick, defeated at Legnano Frederick deprives Henry the Lion of his dukedoms Philip Augustus II. king of France . The Crusaders defeated at Tiberias, and many towns together with Jerusalem, taken by Saladin Richard Lion-heart ascends the English throne ■. A.D. 973—983 983—1002 987—996 1000 1000 1017—1035 1024—1039 1025 1038 1039—1056 1041—1066 1060 1066 1072 1075 1077 1081 1083 1084 1085 1096—1099 1097 1099 1099 1099 1106—1125 1125—1137 1130—1154 1137—1180 1138—1152 1142 1149 1150 1152—1190 1154—1189 1158 1170 1176 1179 1180—1223 1187 1189, 1190 462 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. Henry III. emperor of Germany .... The news of the taking of Jerusalem gives rise to the third Cnisade ..... John Lackland king of England Waldemar II. the Conqueror king of Denmark The fourth Crusade ..... The Cross is preached, by order of the Pope, against Raimond VI. and the Albigenses Philip of Swabia murdered Innocent III. renews the war between the Gruelphs and Ghibellines .... Twenty thousand children leave their homes for the Holy Land ..... Magna Charta granted Henry III. king of England Frederick II. emperor of Germany The House of Zahringen becomes extinct Louis VIII. king of Erance S. Louis do. Waldemar, king of Denmark, made prisoner by Henry of Schwerin ...... Zengis Khan, chief of the Moguls, or Tatars The fifth Crusade undertaken by Erederick II. Jerusalem and a part of Palestine ceded to him Charter ("The Golden Privilege") obtained by the Hungarians from Andreas II. Russia made tributary to the Moguls Pope Gregory IX. dies The Christians are defeated at Gaza by the Carismians Henry Raspe, of Thuringia, rival emperor to Erede- rick II. ..... Alfonso X. king of Spain Manfred defeated at Beneventum by treachery . Conradine falls into the hands of Charles of Anjou Egypt falls into the hands of the Mamelukes Edward I. king of England .... Ottocar, king of Bohemia, defeated at Marchfield Rudolf of Hapsburg chosen emperor of Germany The French are slain on the Sicilian vespers Peter of Aragon frees Sicily of Charles of Anjou Dispute between Bruce and Baliol for the Scottish crown Philip the Fair king of France Adolf of Nassau emperor of Germany The Christians retire from Syria, when the Mamelukes take Antioch ..... Adolf of Nassau is defeated and slain in the battle at Gollheim ..... Albert of Austria ernpcror of Germany Osman makes Prusa in Bithynia his capital, and carries on war against Greece . Pope Boniface VIII. dies . 1190- 1199 1202— 1203, 1216— 1218— 1223— 1226 A.D. -1197 1192 -1216 1241 1201 1205 1208 1210 1213 1215 1272 1250 1218 1226 -1270 1227 1227 1228 1229 1231 1237 1241 1244 1246 1258—1284 1260 1268 1270 -1307 1273 -1293 12S2 1272- 1273- 1285— 1291— 1298- 1283 1314 1298 1291 1298 -1308 1299 1303 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 463 Pope Clement V. removes his court from Eome to Avignon ....... Edward II. on the English throne Henry VII. of Luxemburg emperor of Germany The persecution of the Templars by Philip the Pair . 1 Molay, their Grand Master, tried upon various charges J Henry VII. makes an expedition into Italy Molay condemned and burnt .... Leopold defeated by the Swiss at Margarten Vladislaus IV. king of Poland .... Frederick the Pair defeated at Miihldorf . Alfonso XL king of Spain .... Death of Leopold, the brother of Prederick the Pair Edward III. king of England .... Philip VI. king of Prance .... Cashnir the Great king of Poland The tax, Alcavala, introduced into Spain Waldemar III. king of Denmark Louis the Great (of Anjou) elected king of Hungary Johanna I. queen of Naples .... Louis of Bavaria has a rival for the empire in the son of John of Bohemia Battle of Cressy (English victorious) A new republican Borne established Charles IV. emperor of Germany John the Good king of Prance Charles IV. opened the German University in Prague Louis of Bavaria lost his life in a bear-hunt near Munich ....... Peter the Cruel of Spain ..... The Swiss obtain their freedom by the battle of Sem pach . . . The death of Cola di Bienzi, instigator of the rebellion at Borne .... Victory of the English at Poictiers Insurrection in Paris Calais and the south-west of Prance ceded to the English .... Murad I., chief of the Osmans, subdues Asia Minor and passes into Europe Philip the Bold duke of Burgundy . Magnus II. deposed from the Swedish throne John the Good returns to his captivity, and dies Charles V. king of Prance The crown of Poland given to Louis the Great of Hungary .... Death of the Black Prince Calais alone left to the English Bichard II. king of England Wenceslaus emperor of Germany Charles VI. king of Prance 1307- 1308- A.D. 1305 -1327 -1313 1310 1310 1312 1315 1320 1322 1324—1340 1326 -1377 -1347 -1370 1340 -1375 -1348 -1382 1346 1346 1347 -1378 -1364 1348 1327- 1328- 1333- 1340- 1342- 1343- 1347- 1347- 1349 1350—1369 1351 1354 1356 1358 1360 -1389 -1404 1363 1364 -1380 -1382 1377 -1399 -1400 -1422 1361- 1363- 1364- 1370- 1377- 1378- 1380- 464 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. "Wickliff flourished .... Battle of Sempach .... The Jagellons retain the crown of Poland The great cities' war commenced Bajazet, chief of the Osmans, continued the victories of his father, Murad I. The three Scandinavian kingdoms under one sceptre by the union of Calrnar ..... Henry IV. (Lancaster) king of England Zurich, Berne, and Zug join the Swiss Confederation The electors depose Wenceslaus from the empire of Germany ..... Bupert of the Palatinate is chosen emperor The Turks are defeated, and Bajazet made prisoner by the Moguls, under Tamerlane, at Angora John sans Pceur duke of Burgundy Sigismund emperor of Germany Henry V. king of England Council of Constance Johanna II. queen of Naples Huss condemned Victory of the English under Henry V. at Agincourt Alfonso V. of Spain . Wenceslaus died of apoplexy Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy Murad II. restores the Ottoman empire Death of Henry V. of England, and Charles VI. of Prance ...... Henry VI. succeeds to the English throne Charles VII. to that of Prance . Cosmo de Medici (Plorence) Joan of Arc delivers Orleans She is captured hy the English and burnt Council of Basle .... The Taborites defeated at Prague Calais remains the only possession of the English in Prance ..... Charles' entry into Paris . Albert II. of Austria emperor Frederick III. do. John Guttenburg of Mayence invents printing Hungarians and Poles defeated by the Turks at Warna Cashnir IV. on the Polish throne Christian I. (Oldenburgh) of Denmark Nicholas V. Pope, foimder of the Vatican library The House of Visconti extinct in Milan Mohammed II. on the Ottoman throne: he takes Constantinople, and puts an end to the Byzantine empire . . . - Sebastian Brandt, poet of Strasburg, flourished Matthias Corvinus (son of Huniades) made king A.D. 1384 13S6 1386—1572 1388 1389—1403 1399 1397 1413 1399 1400- 1400 -1410 1402 1419 1437 1422 1418 1435 1415 1415 1416—1456 1419 1467 1451 1404- 1410- 1413- 1414- 1414- 1419 1421 1422- 1422- 1428- 1422 -1461 -1461 -1464 1429 1431 1431—1449 1433 1437- 1440- 11-17- 1448- 1450- 1451- 1458- 1458- 1435 1436 -1439 -1493 1440 1444 -1492 -1481 -1460 1450 -1481 -1521 -1490 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. Palgrave Frederick's (the Victorious) victory near Seckenheim ........ Louis XI. on tlie French throne .... Edward IV. (York) king of England . Dieter of Mayence deposed ..... Ivan Vasilyevitsck the Great, of Moscow, throws off the Mogul yoke ....... Alexander Castriota maintains his independence against the Turks among the mountains of Albania and Epirus ..... Charles the Bold duke of Burgundy Steno Sture king of Sweden (separated from Denmark) Lorenzo the Magnificent (Florence) . Copernicus, the astronomer, flourished Isabella queen of Spain . . Ariosto, the poet, flourished Michael Angelo flourished Charles of Burgundy defeated at Granson by the Swiss Maximilian of Austria foiled the attempt of Louis XI upon the dukedom of Burgundy Frederick king of Spain Raphael, the painter, flourished . Bichard III. of England Charles VIII. of France Battle of Bosworth Henry VII. (House of Tudor) king of England Bartholomew Diaz, setting out from Congo, reaches the southern extremity of Africa Louis XII. of France ..... Maximilian I. emperor of Germany Hans Sachs, the shoemaker poet, flourished The land-peace established at the Diet of "Worms The return of the Medici ..... Maximilian compelled to admit the independence of the Swiss in Germany .... Louis XII. of France conquers Milan Charles V. of Burgundy .... Frederick of Aragon gets possession of Naples Death of Columbus at Valladolid The League of Cambray, for dividing the Venetian territory .... Henry VIII. of England . Julius II. the warlike pope Albuquerque makes Goa the capital of the Portuguese colony in India Balboa discovers the Pacific Ocean The Portuguese establish colonies and factories in Ceylon and on the Coromandel coast " Battle of the Giants" of Marignano. Swiss defeated Luther denies the divine origin of the supremacy of the pope ......... 1461- 1461- 1461 -1483 -1483 1462 1462—1505 1467- 1471- 1472- 1473- 1474- 1474- 1474- 1467 -1477 -1504 -1492 -1543 -1504 -1533 -1563 1476 1479 1516 1520 1485 1498 1485 1485—1509 1479 1483 1483 1483 1493- 1493- 1494- 1509- 1486 -1515 -1495 -1576 1495 1498 1499 1500 1500 1504 1506 1508 -1547 1510 1510 1514 1515 1515 1519 Hh 466 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. Leonardo da Vinci flourished ..... Steno Sture slain in battle with Christian II. Sweden reunited to Denmark ..... Soliman the Magnificent on the Ottoman throne Discovery and conquest of Mexico by Cortez Luther's doctrines denounced as heretical, and his writings sentenced to be burnt Luther separates himself from the Church of Rorne by burning the bull of excommunication Slaughter at Stockholm ..... The Knights of St. John, expelled from Rhodes, receive Malta Luther establishes peace at Wittemberg by his preaching ....... Adrian VI. pope ...... Gustavus made king of Sweden by the Diet of Strengnas Camoens the Portuguese poet .... The defeat of the French at Pavia by the Germans Hungary divided on the death of Louis II. at Mohaes Macchiavelli, the statesman, flourished Rome taken by the Spaniards and Germans Gustavus introduced Christianity into his dominions Andrea Doria frees Genoa of the French . Half of Hungary falls into the power of the Ottomans at Mohaes ....... Pizarro and Almajio conquer Peru Diet of Spire ....... The Ladies' peace of Cambray .... Charles V. restores the Medici, expelled a second time The men of Zurich defeated, and Zwingle slain at Kappel ......... League between the Landgrave of Hesse and Elector of Saxony at Smalcald ..... Ivan Vasilyevitsch II. the first czar . The Bible completed in German by Luther Christian III. on the Danish throne introduces Christianity into Denmark .... Contest between Pizarro and Almajio. Discovery of Chil Charles V. captures Tunis .... The ten years' truce of Nice .... The Reformed religion established at Leipsic and Dresden ....... Charles sends a second expedition against the African pirates ........ Francis !. commences a fourth war against Charles V The order of the Jesuits founded by Ignatius Loyola Paul III. pope of Rome ..... Correggio flourished ...... The peace of Crespy ...... The crown of Sweden made hereditary in the male line of Vasca ........ A.D. 1519 1520 -1526 1521 1520 1520 1520 1522 1522 1523 1523 -1569 1525 1526 1527 1527 1527 1528 1529 -1535 1529 1529 1530 1531 1531 1533—1588 1534 1520- 1520, June 16, Dec. 10, March, 1522, 1524- May 6, 1529- 1534- 1535- 1542- 1543- -1559 -1538 1535 1538 1539 1541 -1544 1542 -1549 1543 1544 1544 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 467 A.D. Council of Trent opened ...... Dec. 13, 1545 Death of Luther Feb. 18, 1546 Fiesco attempts the overthrow of the house of Doria . 1547 Henry II. on the French throne .... 1547 — 1559 Edward VI. of England 1547—1553 Cervantes flourished ..:.... 1547 — 1616 Grasca sent to settle the affairs of Peru . . . 1548 Albert Durer flourished . . - . . . . 1548 Maurice of Saxony rises against Charles V., and takes possession of Augsburg ...... March, 1552 Lopez de Vega, Spanish poet ..... 1552 — 1635 The victory of Maurice over Albert of Brandenburg near Sivershausen. He dies from a wound received in the battle . . . . Mary Tudor queen of England . Lucas Cranach flourished . Paul IV. pope .... Phdip II. of Spain Ferdinand I. emperor of Germany Elizabeth queen of England Peace of Cambrensis . The Heidelberg Catechism drawn up Pius IV. pope .... Francis II. on the French throne Death of Melancthon Erich XIV. king of Sweden Charles IX. king of France Hans Holbein flourished . Shakspeare, the English poet . Maximilian II. emperor of Grermany Four hundred nobles subscribe to the compromise, and draw up a petition against the inquisition in the Netherlands ..... Mary Stuart marries Darnley Galileo flourished .... Death of Soliman at Sigeth (Hungary) Mary's favourite, Bizzio, murdered Duke Alba of Spain sent to subdue the Netherlands . Death of Darnley by the explosion of the house in which he lay ill ...... . John III. king of Sweden ..... Count Egmont and other nobles put to death in the Netherlands ........ The Huguenots defeated at St. Denis by the Catholics Mary Stuart's flight into England .... Earls of Northumberland and "Westmoreland fail to set Mary at liberty . ... Henry of Beam places himself at the head of the Huguenots . . . . .~ Kepler flourished ....... Gregory XIII. pope (arranged the present calendar) . h h 2 1553- 1555- 1556- 1556- 1558- 1559- 1559- 1560- 1560- 1564- 1564- 1553 -1558 1553 -1559 -1598 -1564 -1603 1559 1559 -1565 -1560 1560 -1568 -1574 1563 -1616 -1576 Nov. 1565 1565 1565—1631 1566 1566 1567—1573 Feb. 10, 1567 1568—1592 1568 1568 1568 1569 1570 1572—1631 1572—1585 468 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. recognize The Northern States of the Netherlands William of Orange as Stadtholder . Louis of Zuniga and Requescens sent to succeed Alba in the Netherlands Henry III. king of France Don Juan succeeds Zuniga The alliance of Ghent Titian flourished .... Rudolf II., emperor of Germany King Sebastian of Spain defeated at Alcassar by the Moors ...... Alexander Farnese succeeds Don Juan The Union of Utrecht The domination of Spain over Portugal lasts sixty years William of Orange assassinated . Sixtus V. rose from a shepherd boy to be pope Execution of Mary Stuart in England The Invincible Armada sent against England Henry of Guise creates a rebellion in Paris Henry IV. besieges Paris .... John Fischart, poet of Mayence, flourished Henry IV. becomes a Catholic . Tasso the poet flourished .... Henry allows liberty of conscience to the Calvinists by the Edict of Nantes Charles IX. king of Sweden Calderon, Spanish poet James I. (Stuart) king of England The Protestant Union in Germany concluded at the instigation of the elector of the Palatinate A truce between the Netherlander and Spaniards the independence of the former acknowledged . Henry IV. murdered by Ravaillac Louis XIII. of France Matthias on the imperial throne Imperial House of Romanoff (Russia) Death of Matthias .... Frederick V. of the Palatinate made king of Bohemia The House of Commons protests against the abridg- ment of its privileges ...... Ernest of Mansfield, and George Frederick of Baden Durlach, defeat Tilly, the general of Ferdinand II., at Wiesloch ....... Richelieu changes the government in France Charles I. of England ...... Frederick of Bohemia defeated by the troops of Ferdi- nand II. at White Hill Ernest von Mansfield and Christian of Brunswick die Christian IV. defeated by Tilly at Lutter . The validity of the Petition of Right acknowledged Duke of Buckingham assassinated .... 1572 1573—1576 1574—1589 1576—1578 1576 1576 1576—1612 1578 1578—1592 1579 1580—1610 1581 1585—1590 1587 1588 May 12, 1588 1590 1591 1593 1595 1598 1600-1611 1600—1687 1603—1625 1608, 1609 1609 1610 1610—1613 1612—1619 1613—1676 May 20, 1619 Nov. 1619 1621 April, 1622 1621 1625—1649 Nov. 7, 1625 1626 Aug. 27, 1626 1628 1629 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 469 A.D. 1629 1629 1630 Feb. 1631 May 16, 1631 1634 1635 1636 1637—1657 1637 1639 1640 1640—1688 1641 1642—1646 Christian recovers his lands by the peace of Lubeck . The Edict of Restitution published by Ferdinand II. Pomerania surrendered to' Gfustavus Adolphus of Sweden ........ Diet of Leipsic ....... Magdeburg taken by Tilly ..... The imperial army defeated at the battle of Leipsic and Breitenfield Sept. 7, 1631 The victory of the Swedes at Lutzen . . . Nov. 16, 1632 Execution of Caiquet of Cuiquillars .... 1632 Alliance of Heilbron (Swedes and Germans) . . 1633 Wallenstein, the general of Ferdinand II,, murdered Feb. 25, 1634 The peace of Prague between the German princes and the emperor ....... Bichelieu encourages the Swedes in their undertakings in Germany ...... Saxony and Thuringia conquered by them . Ferdinand III. emperor of Germany Episcopal form of service repelled from Scotland Death of Bernhard of "Weimar .... Charles calls a parliament after eleven years Frederick William elector of Brandenburg Strafford and Laud condemned of high treason Civil war between Charles and the parliament . The Swedes defeat the imperial army at Leipsic, and compel the Danish king to a disadvantageous peace Louis XIV. on the French throne Christina queen of Sweden .... Battle of Marston-Moor . . . . < . Contests between the Puritans (Presbyterians) and Radicals (Independents) .... Charles defeated at Naseby .... Alexis compels the Cossacks to acknowledge Russian supremacy . . . . . • • Charles delivered prisoner to the parliamentarians Peace of Westphalia . . . . • Cromwell marches upon London to give the Indepen dents the superiority in parliament Escape of Charles I. . . . . . Eighty-one Presbyterians carried by force from parlia ment .....-•• "War of the Fronde Execution of Charles I. .... Prince of Wales recalled from Holland, and acknow ledged as Charles II. by the Presbyterians Cromwell's victory over the Scots at Dunbar The royal army overthrown' at Worcester . Navigation act passed in England Long parliament dissolved by Cromwell Cromwell dissolves by force his second parliament Mazarin's return to Paris 1643- 1642 1715 1644 July 3, 1644 Feb. 1645 June 14, 1645 1645- 1676 1646 1647 June, 1647 Nov. 1648 Dec. 1648 1648—1653 Jan. 30, 1649 1650 1650 1651 1651 April, 1653 Dec. 1653 1653 470 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. Christina abdicates in favour of her cousin, Charles Gustavus ....... Charles X. of Sweden ..... Rattle of Warsaw ...... Emperor Leopold takes up arms to secure the crown of Spain for his son ...... Cromwell's death ...... Rump parliament restored and dissolved by the army- Charles II. returns as king . . . . Oliva, king of the Poles, makes peace with Sweden Charles XI. of Sweden Death of Mazarin ...... Spanish war ....... Louis XIV. compelled to surrender the greater part of his conquests in the Spanish Netherlands The Austrian government executes the leaders of the insurrection in Hungary .... Louis XIV. carries his arms against Holland (Dutch war) ........ Moliere died ....... Spain and Germany join hi the war against Trance The Swedes defeated by Frederick William at Fehr bellin ........ Feodor czar ....... The peace of Ximeguen ..... Habeas Corpus act ..... Strasburg taken from the Germans by Louis XIV. The Turks defeated before the walls of Vienna by the imperial army ...... Peter Corneille, French dramatic poet Peace concluded with France for twenty years at Regensburg ....... James II. ascended the English throne Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. James fled from England ..... Frederick I. king of Prussia .... The French take and burn Spire Montesquieu flourished ..... War of Orleans ...... Peter the Great czar ..... French defeated in the battle of La Hogue Lafontaine died ...... Voltaire flourished ...... Death of king John Sobieski of Poland Frederick Augustus, elector of Saxony, chosen king of Poland Charles XII. of Sweden ..... Peace of Ryswick ...... James II., at the head of the Catholic Irish, defeated at the Boyne ...... Peace of Carlowitz ...... Racine died ....... A.D. 1654 1654—1660 July, 1656 1657-1705 Sept. 3, 165S AprU, 1659 May 29, 1660 1660 1660—1697 March 9, 1661 1667, 1668 1668 1671 1672- -1679 1673 1674 1675 1676- -1682 1679 1679 Sept 1681 Sept 16S3 1684 Aug. 15 ,1684 1685- -1688 Oct 1685 Dec 1688 1688- -1713 June, 1689 1689- -1755 1689- -1697 1689- -1725 1692 1694 1694- -1778 1696 1697 1697- -1718 1697 July, 1699 1699 1699 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 471 Death of Charles II. of Spain ..... Charles of Sweden besieges Copenhagen Frederick I. solemnly crowned at Konigsburg Anne queen of England ...... General Catinat defeated, and the duke of Savoy and Piedmont brought over to the side of Austria by prince Eugene ...... Charles of Sweden defeats the Prussians near Narva Spanish war of succession .... Surrender of Warsaw to Charles XII. The rise of the Tyrolese ..... Charles obtains the deposition of Augustus, king of Poland ....... Peter the Great founds St. Petersburg Bossuet died ....... Battle of Hochstadt (Blenheim) Stanislaus Lexinski elected king of Poland Capture of Gibraltar by the English . Joseph I. emperor . . ... Defeat of the French at Ramilies by Marlborough The French defeated at Turin by prince Eugene Peace of Altranstadt ..... Scottish representatives admitted into parliament Victory of Almanza ...... Battle of Ouclenarde won by Marlborough and prince Eugene ....... Charles XII. makes an expedition against Moscow Charles's army suffers greatly from the severe winter The SAvedish army defeated at Pultowa Battle of Malplaquet. Defeat of the French Death of Joseph I. ..... . Charles XII. escapes into Turkey, where he is honour ably received ...... Boileau died ....... Charles YI. emperor of Germany The army of Peter the Great almost made prisoners on the Pruth by the Turks .... Charles XII. suddenly arrives before the gates of Stral sund ........ Frederick II. born ...... Eousseau flourished . Peace of Utrecht ...... Frederick William I. king of Prussia Peace of Kastadt, between the Germans and French The Spanish Netherlands, Milan, Naples, and Sicily given to Austria . ... • , The electors of Bavaria and Cologne restored to their lands and titles ...... Death of Louis XIV. ..... George I. of England ..... Bishop Fenelon died ...... A.D. 1700 1700 1700 1701—1714 1701 1701 1702—1714 1702 1703 1703 1703 1704 Aug. 13, 1704 1704 1704 1705—1711 May 23, 1706 Sept. 7, 1706 Sept. 24, 1706 1707 Apr. 25, 1707 July 11, 1708 1708 1708 July 8, 1709 Sept. 11, 1709 1710 1710 1711 1711—1740 1711 Oct. 1711 Jan. 24, 1712 1712—1772 May 11, 1713 1713—1740 Mar. 7, 1714 Sept. 1714 Sept. 1, 1714 1714—1727 1715 472 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. Louis XV. of France ..... Philip of Orleans regent ..... James (III.) Stuart attempts to regain the throne Stralsund surrendered to the Prussians [nsurrection in Thorn against the Jesuits . AVinkelmann flourished ..... Charles XII. killed before Friederichstadt . Execution of Baron de Gorz .... Sweden surrenders all her foreign possessions except Pomerania ....... Alexis condemned to death by his father, Peter the Great Ivlopstock, the poet ...... Kant, the philosopher ..... Catherine I. empress of Russia .... G-eorge II. of England ..... Peter II. emperor of Russia .... Lessing flourished ...... Anna empress of Russia ..... The Polish war of succession .... Frederick Augustus III. king of Poland Wieland lived ....... Frederick II. marries into the House of Braunschweig Bevern ........ Francis Stephen exchanges his dukedoni of Lorraine for Tuscany ...... Charles VI. concludes the peace of Belgrade with the Turks Frederick II. ascends the Prussian throne . He makes an expedition into Silesia . First Silesian war ...... Battle of Molwitz. Victory of the Prussians Elizabeth empress of Russia .... Charles Albert crowned king of Bavaria at Prague He is elected emperor of Germany, and reigns . His capital, Munich, taken by the enemy . Peace of Breslaw ...... Maria Theresa crowned at Prague French defeated at the battle of Dettingen Second Silesian war ...... Herder ........ Death of Charles VII. at Munich Treaty of Fiissen ...... Vieiiny of Frederick II. at Hoheufriedberg I Jai t le of Kcsseldorf. Frederick marches to Dresden Silesia ceded to him in the peace of Dresden . Francis I. emperor of German \ Victories of the French at Fontenoy, Raucoux, and Laffeld Charles Edward, son of James, attempts to regain the British crown ...... A.D. 1715—1774 1715—1723 1715—1717 Dec. 1715 1717 1717—1768 Dec. 11, 1718 1719 1719, 1720 1724- 1724- 1725- 1727- 1727- 1729- 1730- 1733- 1733- Sept. 18, Oct. 1740— April 10, 1741— Oct. 1741- Jan. 24, July 28, June 27, 1744, 1744— Jan. 20, April, June 4, 1722 -1803 -1S04 -1727 -1760 -1730 -1781 -1740 1733 -1763 -1813 1734 1737 1739 1740 1740 1742 1741 1762 1741 1745 1742 1742 1743 1743 1745 1803 1745 1745 1745 Dec, 25, 1745 1745—1765 1745—1747 1745 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 473 A.D. Ferdinand VT. king of Spain 1746—1759 The hopes of the Stuarts destroyed by the defeat of the Pretender at Culloden April 27,1746 Hostilities between the allies and French terminated by the peace of Aix Oct. 18— 20, 1748 Goethe flourished 1749—1832 Joseph Emanuel king of Portugal .... 1750 — 1777 An alliance made between Maria Theresa and the French king to reduce the king of Prussia to the condition of elector of Brandenburg . . . Sept. 1751 Earthquake in Lisbon ...... Nov. 1755 Frederick of Prussia is informed of a plot laid against him and falls suddenly on Saxony .... 1756 He marches against Bohemia ..... 1757 He is victorious at the battle of Prague . . . May 6, 1757 He is defeated at Collin June 18, 1757 The French obtain a victory over his allies at Hasten- beck July, 1757 He gains a splendid victory at Ptosback . . . Nov. 5, 1757 He defeats Daun at the battle of Beuthen . . Dec. 1757 Adolf Frederick of Sweden 1757—1771 Frederick of Prussia receives support from England . 1758 His victory at Zorndorf Aug. 25, 1758 He is worsted at Hochkirk Oct. 14, 1758 He is defeated by the Austrians at Kunersdorf . . Aug. 12, 1759 Ferdinand defeats the French at Minden . . . April 13, 1759 Schiller flourished 1759—1805 The Jesuits expelled from Portugal .... 1759 Charles III. of Spain . . .. . . _ . 1759—1788 Ferdinand defeats Landon at Leignitz, and regains Silesia Aug. 15, 1760 George III. king of England 1760—1820 Ferdinand obtains the dearly-bought victory of Torgau Nov. 3, 1760 Elizabeth empress of Russia dies .... Jan. 5, 1762 Peter III. emperor of Russia murdered . . . July 9, 1762 Catherine II. of Russia 1762—1796 Frederick concludes the peace of Hubertsburg . . Feb. 21, 1763 The English obtain Canada by the peace of Paris . 1763 Death of Augustus III. of Poland . . . . 1763 Poniatowski chosen king of Poland . . . Sept. 1764 — 1795 Joseph II. ascends the imperial throne of Germany . 1765 — 1790 Repeal of the stamp-tax ...... 1766 Christian VII. of Denmark. Struensee his minister . 1766 — 1808 The General Confederation of Radovi formed . . July 23, 1767 The Confederation of Bar against Russian supremacy in Poland defeated Feb. 1768 The war between Russia and Turkey . . . 1768 — 1774 The American war ....... 1770 — 1780 Gustavus III. comes to the throne of Sweden . . 1771 — 1791 Moscow visited by pestilence, and civil war in Poland 1771 474 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. of Poland between Russia, Louis XV. orders his opponents in the paidiaruent to be arrested ........ Neckar's first ministry The treaty of partition Austria, and Prussia ...... Resistance against taxation being shown in Boston, the English increase their forces, and shut up the harbour .... The abolition of the order of Jesuits A congress of deputies from the colonies meet to take measures against taxation Rebellion of Pugatscheff, a Don Cossack Louis XV. of France dies .... Louis XVI. of Prance .... Engagements at Lexington and Bunker's Hill Juliana, stepmother of Christian, directs the Danish government ..... Pugatscheff is betrayed, and suffers death Turgot and Malasherbes (ministers) reorganize Prance Adam Weishaupt and others found the Society of Llluminati ..... The English capitulate at Saratoga The Bavarian war of succession The French form an alliance with America Spain allies with America . England declares war against Holland Joseph II. of Austria Neckax obliged to resign his office General Cornwallis surrenders to the French- American army ......... The attempt of the Spaniards to take Gibraltar foded The independence of America acknowledged by the English in the peace of Versailles .... Nicolai of Berlin . Crimea conquered by Potemkin ..... A democratic insurrection in Holland Joseph II. offers the Austrian Netherlands in exchange for Bavaria ........ The German prelates in the congress at Ems endea- vour to become independent of Rome Frederick William II. of Prussia restores order in lli'lhmd ........ The Xetherlanders expel the Austrians from their country ........ Second Turkish war . . Calonne calls an Assembly of Notables : he resigns his office ......... The boldest speakers against taxation in the parlia- ment of Paris are arrested and banished to Troyes . Gustavus III. wages war with Russia 1771 1771—1781 Aug. 5, 1772 Dec. 13, 1773 1773 Sept. 17, 1774 1774 1771 1774—1793 1775 17/ o 1775 1776 1777 Oct. 15, 1777 1778, 1779 Feb. 6, 1778 June 26, 1779 Nov. 1780 1780—1790 1781 Oct. 19, 1782 Sept. 1782 Nov. 1782 1783—1811 1783 1784 1785 1785 1787 17S9 1787-1792 Feb. 1787 Aug. 1787 1788 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 475 Brienne compelled to resign his ministry . Nectar's second ministry . . . . The estates summoned ..... Oczakow stormed by Potemkin .... A congress and president appointed to manage the government of the United States Bailli president of the third estate, which declares itself a National Assembly ..... The Hall of Assembly closed .... Mirabeau and citizens oppose the dissolution of the Assembly ....... Storming of the Bastile ..... The equality of citizens declared Grustavus meditates war with Prance . The Netherlands declare their independence Death of Joseph II. ...... Leopold II. of Austria ..... The fortress of Ismael stormed by Suwaroff Feast of the Federation at Paris Prince Potemkin, favourite of Catherine II., died The death of Mirabeau ..... The Poles reorganize then government Louis attempts to escape from Paris . The Russian party in Poland form the Confederation of Targowicz ....... Grustavus is murdered by Ankarstrom Prance declares war against Austria and Prussia A Russian army advances into Poland Kosciusko, at the head of the Polish patriots, is defeated by the Russians ...... The assault on the Hotel de Ville The Prussians defeated at Valmy Repubhcanism established in Prance . Custines obtains possession of Mayence Battle of Jemappes ...... A new treaty of partition of Poland between Russia and Prussia ....... Condemnation of Louis . • His execution ....... Dumourier defeated by the Austrians at Neerwinden Chalier the demagogue executed at Lyons The Dutch and Hanoverians defeated at Handschooten Trial and execution of Marie Antoinette The French under Hoche defeated at Kaiserslautern Insurrection of the Poles under Kosciusko . Execution of Danton and Desmoidins Execution of Elizabeth, sister of Louis XVI. , Jourdain compels the evacuation of Belgium The Jacobins denounced in the Convention Execution of Robespierre, St. Just, Couthon, Henriot and others of the Jacobins .... Aug. 1788, Dec. Dec. 17, June 17, June 20, June 27, July 14, Aug. 4, Feb. 20, 1790— Dec. 22, July 14, Apr. 2, May 3, June 21, Jan. Mar. 29, April, May, July 17, Aug. 10, Sept. 20, Sept. 21, Oct. 21, Nov. 6, Jan. 17, Jan. 21, Mar. 18, July 16, Sept. 8, Oct. Nov. Apr. Apr. 5, May 10, June 26, July 27, A.D. 1788 1789 1788 1788 1788 1789 1789 1789 1789 17S9 1790 1790 1790 1792 1790 1790 1791 1791 1791 1791 1792 1792 1792 1792 1792 1792 1792 1792 1792 1792 1793 1793 1793 1793 1793 1793 1793 1793 1794 1794 1794 1794 1794 July 28, 1794 476 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. Defeat of Kosciusko ....... Oct. 10, The French compel the Austriaus and Prussians to retreat and cross the Rhine ..... Oct. Poland divided between Austria, Prussia, and Russia . Jan. The assembly house surrounded by the mob Mar. 31, Ap. 1, Peace of Basle ....... April 5, The insurrection of the 1st Pramal .... May 20, The Austrians get possession of Heidelberg . . Sept. 24, The Royalists suppressed. Victory of the 13th Ven- demiaire ........ Oct. 5, Napoleon defeats Beaulieu at Mileshno and Montenotte Napoleon's victory at the bridge of Lodi . . . May 10, "Wurinser defeated at Castiglione .... Aug. 5, Jourdain defeated at Wurzburg ..... Sept. 3, Retreat of Moreau through the valleys of the Black Porest Sept. 19, Peace concluded between the Germans and Prench . Oct. 24, The Austrians defeated at Areola, Rivoli, La Fa- vorita ....... Jan., Peb. Pope Pius VI. concludes the peace of Tolentino . . Peb. 19, Emperor Prancis of Austria concludes the peace of Leoben with Napoleon ...... Ap. 18, The royalist deputies arrested at the Tuileries . . Sept. 4, Upper Italy falls to the Prench by the peace of Campo- Formio ......... Oct. 17, Napoleon opens the congress at Rastadt . . . Dec. Pius VI. deprived of his temporal power by the Prench Peb. Mamelukes defeated by Napoleon near the Pyramids . July 21, Insurrection at Cairo against the Prench . . . Oct. 21, Rome retaken from the Neapolitans .... Nov. The Parthenopeian republic established at Naples . Jan. Napoleon marches against Syria .... Peb. He besieges Jean d'Acre, but is repulsed . . . Mar. 20, Prench defeated at Stockach by Archduke Chaides . Mar. 25, The assault on the Prench ambassadors on then de- parture from Rastadt ...... Ap. 28, The Russians conquer the- Cisalpine republic . . June, Cardinal Ruffo storms Naples June 13, Napoleon defeats the Turks at Aboukir . . . July 25, Pope Pius VI. dies in Paris ..... Aug. French defeated at the battle of Novi . . . Aug. 5, Russians defeated by the French at Zurich . Sept. 25, 26, The Duke of York's retreat from the Netherlands . Oct. N a | )i ileon returns to France ..... Oct. 9, He forms a new constitution in France, and takes the direction in his own hands ..... Nov. 9, Victory of Kleber at Heliopolis Mar. 20, Death of Suwaroff ... ... May, X.ipoleon's passage of the Great St. Bernliard . . May, The Austrians defeated at Montebello . . . June 9, A.D. 1794 1791 1795 1795 1795 1795 1795 1795 1796 1796 1796 1796 1796 1796 1797 1797 1797 1797 1797 1797 1798 1798 1798 1798 1799 1799 1799 1799 1799 1799 1799 1799 1799 1799 1799 1799 1799 1799 1800 1800 1800 1800 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 477 A.D. The rout of the Austrians at Marengo . . . June 14, 1800 March of Macdonald and Moncey over the Grisons . July, 1800 Defeat of the Austrians at Hohenlinden ... . Dec. 3, 1800 Attempt made on Napoleon's life by the infernal machine . Dec. 24, 1800 Peace of Luneville Feb. 9, 1801 Death of Abercrombie. Battle of Canopus . . Mar. 21, 1801 The French clergy made subject to the head of the Church . . April 8, 1801 Alexander, son of Paul, declared emperor of Russia . May 24, 1801 The concordat concluded with Rome .... July 15, 1801 The French army conveyed by the English from Egypt Sept. 1801 Peace of Amiens Mar. 27, 1802 Napoleon made consul for life ...... Aug. 2, 1802 The Imperial Diet (Germany) . . ...... Feb. 25, 1803 The cantons in Switzerland are made independent . Feb. 1803 War declared by the English against the French . May 18, 1803 Napoleon's troops advance upon the electorate of Hanover May, 1803 Execution of the duke d'Enghien .... Mar. 21, 1804 Napoleon proclaimed emperor ..... May 18, 1804 Republicanism in Italy changed into monarchy . . March, 1805 The Austrian general, Mack, shut up in Ulm . . Oct. 14, 1805 The capitulation of Ulm Oct. 20, 1805 Annihilation of the French fleet at Trafalgar. Death of Nelson Oct. 21, 1805 Victories of Napoleon over the Russians at Dirnstein and Stein Nov. 1805 Murat conquers Vienna . . . ■ . . . Nov. 13, 1805 Victory of Napoleon at Austerlitz .... Dec. 2, 1805 The peace of Presburg ...... Dec. 26, 1805 The dynasty of the Bourbons ceases in Naples . . Dec. 27, 1805 Death of Pitt 1806 Palm, bookseller of Nuremberg, suffers death, because he refuses to give up the author of a pamphlet on the abasement of Germany ..... Aug. 26, 1806 The Prussians defeated at Saalfield by the French . Oct. 10, 1806 The double battle of Jena and Auerstadt . . . Oct. 14, 1806 Hohenlohe and 17,000 men lay down their arms at Prenzlow Oct. 28, 1806 Napoleon makes a favourable peace with the elector of Saxony, who joins the Confederation of the Rhine . Dec. 1806 The sanguinary battle of Preuss-Eylau, between the French and Russians Feb. 8, 1807 Dantzic surrendered to marshal Lefebvre . . . May 24, 1807 Napoleon abolishes the tribunate .... 1807 Peace of Tilsit concluded . . . . . June 7— 9, 1807 Bombardment of Copenhagen. Capture of the Danish fleet by the English . . ', . . . Sept. 2—5, 1807 478 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. A.D. The flight of the Lisbon court to the Brazils. Jimot takes possession of Lisbon ..... Nov. 1807 G-odoy delivers Spain to Napoleon .... Feb. 1, 1808 Charles IV. abdicates the throne of Spain . . . March, 1808 1200 French soldiers killed in the insurrection at Madrid May 2, 1808 Napoleon names his brother Joseph king of Spain . June 6, 1808 The Spaniards driven back at Rio Secco by Bessieres . July 14, 1S08 Dupont's capitulation at Baylen, in Andalusia . . July 22, 1S0S Capitulation of Cintra . ' Aug. 30, 1808 The celebrated meeting of Erfurt between Alexander and Napoleon Sept. 27, 1808 Napoleon enters Madrid, and restores the crown to Joseph Dec. 4, 1808 Saragossa taken by the English Feb. 20, 1809 Gustavus IV. and his posterity deprived of the crown of Sweden' . . . . " . . . . Mar. 13, 1809 Austria sends an army into Bavaria and Italy . . 1809 It suffers two defeats at Abensberg and Eck- muhl April 20— 22, 1809 The two days' combat at Aspern and Eslingen . May 21, 22, 1809 Napoleon declares the temporal power of the pope to have ceased May 27, 1809 Major von Schill falls during the assault of Stralsund . May 31, 1809 Pope Pius VII. taken from Borne by violence . . June 16, 1809 The Austrians defeated at Wagrarn . . . July 5, 6, 1809 Napoleon unites the States of the Church to the French territory ... ... July 6, 1809 The Austrians conclude the truce of Znaym . . July 12, 1809 The French defeated by Wellington at Talavera . July 26, 1809 Death of Sir John Moore at Corunna . . . July 28, 1809 The attempted assassination of Napoleon by Staps of Hamburgh . . Oct. 12, 1809 Napoleon divorced from Josephine .... Dec. 15, 1S09 Ilofer, the Tyrolese, shot at Mantua .... Feb. 18, 1810 Napoleon annexes Hamburg, Bremen, Lubeck, and the duchy of Oldenburg to the French empire . . July 9, 1810 Bernadotte declared successor to Charles XIII. on the Swedish throne . Aug. 21, 1810 Birth of a son to Napoleon. Receives the title of king of Eome Mar. 20,1812 The French army crosses the Niemen, and enters Wilna June 28 -July 16, 1812 AWllingi on defeats Marmont at Salamanca . . July 22, 1812 The battle of Smolensk fought Aug. 17, 1812 The French gain a slight success at the battle of the Borodino " Sept, 7, 1812 The French army enters Moscow . . . . Sept. 14, 1812 The battle of Malo-Jaroslowetz Oct. 24, 1812 The passage of the Beresina .... Nov. 26— 29, 1812 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 479 A.D. Prussia forms an alliance with Russia . . . Feb. 3, 1813 The French victorious in the battles of Liitzen and Bautzen May 2 and 20, 1813 The English gain the battle of Vittoria . . . June 21, 1813 Austria endeavours to negotiate a peace at the con- gress of Prague July 12, 1813 Austria declares war against Prance .... Aug. 12, 1813 The Prusso-Swedisb army victorious in the battles of Grros-Beeren and Dennewitz . . Aug. 23 and Sept. 6, 1813 Napoleon wins the battle of Dresden . . Aug. 26, 27, 1813 Macdonald defeated on the Katzbach, in Silesia . . Aug. 26, 1813 Yahdamme with his whole army surrounded and made prisoners at Culm Aug. 29, 30, 1813 The allied armies unite in the plain of Leipsic . . Oct. 8, 1813 The Erench defeated, and suffer severe loss, at the battle of Leipsic Oct. 16— 18, 1813 Victory gained by the French at Hanau . . Oct. 30, 31, 1813 Blucher crosses the Bhine ..... Jan. 1, 1814 Norway given to Sweden by the peace of Kiel . . Jan. 14, 1814 The armies of Blucher and Schwarzenberg meet in Champagne, and gain the battle of Brienne . . Feb. 1, 1814 Napoleon, by the victory of Montereau, drives the allied army back on Troyes Feb. 18j 1814 Blucher gains fresh advantages over the French at Craonne and Laon Mar. 7 and 9, 1814 Negotiations between the allies and Napoleon broken off, and his dethronement resolved on . . Mar. 20, 21, 1814 The allies enter Paris '. Mar. 31, 1814 Napoleon resolves to abdicate in favour of his son . April 4, 1814 He is forced to sign an unconditional act of abdication, as dictated by the allies ..... Aprd 7, 1814 The French, under Soult, defeated by "Wellington at Toulouse Aprd 10,1814 Napoleon lands at Elba May 4, 1814 Ferdinand restores unlimited monarchy in Spain . May 10, 1814 First peace of Paris concluded ..... May 30, 1814 Louis XYIII. placed on the French throne . . May 30, 1814 Napoleon lands on the south coast of France . . Mar. 1, 1815 Grenoble opens her gates to him .... Mar. 20, 1815 Murat declares war against Austria, but is defeated in the battle of Tolentino _ .May 23, 1815 The French compel the Prussians to retreat at Ligny . June 16,1815 Battle of "Waterloo .June 18, 1815 Napoleon resigns in favour of Napoleon II. . June 22, 1815 Paris surrendered to "Wellington and Blucher . . July 8, 1815 Alexander of Bussia, Francis of Austria, and Frederick "William III. of Prussia form the Holy Alliance . Sept. 25, 1815 Napoleon arrives at St. Helena ..... Oct. 18, 1815 Second peace of Paris arranged . . " . . . Nov. 20, 1815 Democratic feelings displayed at the festival of the Wartburg . Oct. 18, 1817 480 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. George Sand assassinates the Russian councillor, Augustus von Kotzebue Mar. 23, 1819 Sand is executed ....... Sept. 1819 Disturbances at Manchester suppressed by the mili- tary 1819 A conspiracy breaks out among the soldiers at Cadiz Jan. 1, 1820 G-eorge IV. king of England 1820—1830 Assassination of the due de Berri by Louvel . . Feb. 13, 1820 The king of Prance compelled to dismiss the moderate ministry of Decaze ...... March, 1820 Ferdinand of Spain obliged to summon the Cortes and swear to the constitution ..... Mar. 7, 1820 The act of Vienna restrains the democratic spirit of Southern Germany ...... May 15, 1820 "William Pepe and Carascosa, at the head of insurgents, enter Naples July 13, 1820 George IV. divorces his wife, Caroline of Brunswick . 1820 The Holy Alliance attempts to stop the liberal move- ment * " . . . . Jan. 1821 John VI. returns to Lisbon, and swears to a new constitution for Portugal and Brazil . . . Jan. 26, 1821 A revolution in Piedmont. Victor Emanuel abdicates, and the Spanish constitution introduced . . . March, 1821 Greece rises in arms ....... March, 1821 The Piedmontese liberals, under Santa Eosa, resist their enemies at Novara ..... April, 1821 Napoleon Buonaparte died ..... May 5, 1821 The sacred band, of the Greeks annihilated by the Turks in Wallachia June 19, 1821 Queen Caroline died ....... Aug. 7, 1821 Lord Castlereagh committed suicide .... Aug. L2, 1S22 The Holy Alliance requires the Spanish Cortes to alter the constitution ....... Oct. 1822 A Prench army, under the duke of Angouleme, crosses the Pyrenees Peb. 1823 They appear before Cadiz ...... Aug. 5, 1823 Ferdinand VII. replaced on the Spanish throne by foreign arms ........ Nov. 7, 1823 Byron dies in Greece ...... April 19, 1824 Don Miguel, having excited a rebellion against his father, is banished Portugal ..... April, 1S24 Louis XVIII. dies Sept. 16, 1824 Count of Artois becomes kiug of France, as Charles X. May 29, 1825 Emperor Alexander dies ...... Dec. 1, 1825 John VI. of Portugal dies Mar. 10, 1826 Missolonghi taken .... . . April 22, 1826 The bloody destruction of the Janissaries in Constan- tinople ......... June, 1826 Canning, prime minister of England, dies . . . Aug. 8, 1827 Battle of Navarino Oct. 20, 1827 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 48} A.D. Don Miguel, robbing bis niece, Donna Maria, of ber rigbt, is proclaimed king of Portugal . . . June, 1828 Tbe Emancipation Act admits Irisb Catbobcs to par- bament 1829 Capo d'Istria appointed President of tbe Greek State July, 1829 Tbe Prencb Chambers dissolved ..... Aug. 8, 1829 Tbe Btissians surmount tbe Balkan .... Sept. 14, 1829 William IY. on tbe Engbsb tbrone .... 1830—1837 Frederick of Spain abobsbes tbe Sabc law . . . Mar. 29, 1830 Algiers taken by tbe Prencb ..... Jidy 5, 1830 July Bevolution broke out ..... July 26, 1830 Louis Pbibppe appointed regent .... July 29, 1830 Louis Pbibppe king of tbe Prencb .... 1830—1847 A conspiracy against Eussia breaks out in Poland . 1830 Isabella, daughter of Prederick of Spain, born . . Oct. 1830 Antwerp bombarded for seven hours by tbe Dutch general, Chasse Xov. 1830 A free constitution given to Hesse Cassel by tbe elector, William II 1831 The emperor of Eussia orders an army of 200,000 men to march into Poland ...... Jan. 25, 1S31 A disturbance excited in Paris on tbe day of the due de Berri's death, by the raising of the white flag . . Peb. 15, 1831 Tbe Eeform Bill passed Mar. 1, 1831 Insurrections in Paris and Lyons suppressed by mili- tarv power . . . ' . . . . 1831, 1832, 1834 Battle of Ostrolenka May 26, 1831 Belgium separated from Holland .... June, 1831 The inhabitants of Warsaw slaughter thirty friends of the Bussians. Czartorvski flies to the camp of Dem- binski Aug. 1831 Warsaw and Praga surrender after a storm of two days Sept. 6, 7, 1831 Don Pedro, after a war of two years, compels Don Miguel to renounce the Portuguese crown, and leave the country 1832—1834 The Trench seize on Ancona, and keep it several years, Peb. 23, 1832 Otto elected king of Greece May, 1832 The Hambacber Pestival, in Ehenish Bavaria . . May 2*7, 1832 The duchess of Berri unsuccessful in raising Vendee . JSov. 1832 HoUand desists from the contest with Belgium . . Dec. 1832 An attempt made by tbe German bberals to disperse tbe Diet April 3, 1833 Prederick YLI. of Spain dies . . . . _ . Sept. 29, 1833 The Basques, led by Zumalacarreguy and Cabrera, rise in favour of Don Carlos Oct. 1833 Twenty-one persons lose their hves by the attempt of Pieschi to murder Louis Phuippe .... July 28, 1835 Slave Emancipation Bill passed . . . • • Aug. 1835 Charles X. dies at Gorz 1836 482 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. A.D. Ernest Augustus becomes king of Hanover . . 1837 Victoria ascends the British throne . . . .June 20, 1837 The old constitution of Hanover restored . . . July, 1837 The Carlist leader, Maroto, lays down his arms by the Treaty of Pergara Aug. 31, 1839 Frederick William IV. king of Prussia . . . 1840 Queen Victoria marries prince Albert of Saxe Coburg, Feb. 10, 1840 Espartero, duke of Vittoria, eifects the removal of Christina, and gets the government of Spain into his own hands May, 1841 The English com laws relaxed ..... 1842 Duke of Orleans dies from an accident . . . July 13, 1842 The Greeks from jealousy drive German foreigners from their court ....... 1843 The peace of Switzerland destroyed by a struggle be- tween Jesuitism and Radicalism .... March, 1843 Espartero being overthrown, Christina and her daughter carry on the Spanish government .... July, 1843 The king of Denmark destroys the hope of the Schles- wig-Holsteiners of being united to Germany . • July 8, 1846 Frederick "William IV". makes some concessions to the liberal wishes of the Prussians .... 1847 The Swiss radicals dissolve the special confederation, and banish the Jesuits ...... July, 1847 A confederate army under Dufour subdues Freiburg and Lucerne ....... Nov. 4, 1S47 The other cantons obliged to submit .... Dec. 1, 1847 The throne of Parma vacant by the death of the duchess Maria Louisa ...... Dec. 18, 1847 Sicily revolts from the king of Naples . . . Jan. 1S48 Louis Philippe dismisses Guizot, and promises reform, Feb. 22, 23, 1848 Louis abdicates in favour of the count of Paris. A republican government formed .... Feb. 24, 1848 An insurrection in Vienna causes Metternich to resign his office Mar. 13, 1848 The Prussian government consents to freedom of the press, and other reforms ..... Mar. 17, 1848 Disturbances iu Berlin Mar. 18, 1848 King Louis resigns the crown of Bavaria to prince Maximilian . . ... . Mar. 20, 1848 After an undecided street fight of fourteen hours, the Icing of Prussia grants an unconditional amnesty . Mar. 21, 1S4S The Austrian garrisons in Milan and Venice expelled by popular insurrections ..... March, 1848 The' emperor of Austria and court retire to Innsbruck . May, 1S48 He returns on the invitation of the Diet . . . July, 1848 Archduke John of Austria is elected regent of Ger- many, and enters Frankfurt ..... July 11, 1848 Eadetzky gains a victory at Custozza . . . July 25, 1848 The truce of Malmo concluded by Prussia . . A ug. 26, 1848 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 483 A.D. An unsuccessful attempt made by the German repub- licans to disperse the National Assembly, and bring abont a revolution and republic .... Sept. 18, 1848 The Austrian mob, enraged at Jellachich taking the field against the Magyars, murders Lamberg at Buda, Pesth Oct. 3, 1848 Latour murdered at Vienna ..... Oct. 6, 1848 Rossi, the pope's minister, murdered . . . Nov. 15, 1848 Francis Joseph becomes emperor of Austria, Ferdinand having abdicated ....... Dec. 2, 1848 The Prussian government publishes a liberal constitu- tion Dec. 5, 1848 The pope flies to Gaeta. A republic is established in Rome ......... Feb. 1849 Charles Albert takes up arms for the Italians, but is soon defeated by Radetzky . . . March 20—24, 1849 The dignity of emperor of Germany offered to the king of Prussia ....'. . March, 1849 The Danish line-of-battle ship " Christian YIIL," and frigate " Gefion," destroyed by the Germans at Eckernford . . . . ' . . . . April 5, 1849 The Hungarian Diet declares Hungary to be indepen- dent of Austria, and appoints a provisional govern- ment April 14, 1849 The dissolution of the second, and prorogation of the first, chamber of the German Assembly . . . April 27, 1849 Prince "Windischgratz sent to reduce Vienna . . June, 1849 The minister, Romer,' puts a stop to the revolutionists, and compels them to leave Germany . . , June 18, 1849 A truce completed between Schleswig and Denmark July, 1849 The French, after a fierce resistance, get possession of Rome July 3, 1849 Gorgey lays down his arms to the Russians at Vil- lagos Aug. 11, 1849 Venice retaken by the Austrians .... Aug. 25, 1849 THE END. LOW DON : GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, ST. JOHN'S SQUARE. J3"X\ Deacidified using the Bookkeeper proce Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: APR 200: PreservationTechnologif A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATI 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111