Part 61 (1/2)
THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR (1756-1763).--The eight years of peace which followed the war of the Austrian Succession were improved by Frederick in developing the resources of his kingdom and perfecting the organization and discipline of his army, and by Maria Theresa in forming a league of the chief European powers against the unscrupulous despoiler of her dominions. France, Russia, Poland, Saxony, and Sweden, all entered into an alliance with the queen. Frederick could at first find no ally save England,--towards the close of the struggle Russia came to his side,--so that he was left almost alone to fight the combined armies of the Continent.
At first the fortunes of the war were all on Frederick's side. In the celebrated battles of Rossbach, Leuthen, and Zorndorf, he defeated successively the French, the Austrians, and the Russians, and startled all Europe into an acknowledgment of the fact that the armies of Prussia had at their head one of the greatest commanders of the world. His name became a household word, and everybody coupled with it the admiring epithet of ”Great.”
But fortune finally deserted him. In sustaining the unequal contest, his dominions became drained of men. England withdrew her aid, and inevitable ruin seemed to impend over his throne and kingdom. A change by death in the government of Russia now put a new face upon Frederick's affairs. In 1762 Elizabeth of that country died, and Peter III., an ardent admirer of Frederick, came to the throne, and immediately transferred the armies of Russia from the side of the allies to that of Prussia. The alliance lasted only a few months, Peter being deposed and murdered by his wife, who now came to the throne as Catherine II. She reversed once more the policy of the Government; but the temporary alliance had given Frederick a decisive advantage, and the year following Peter's act, England and France were glad to give over the struggle and sign the Peace of Paris (1763). Shortly after this another peace (the Treaty of Hubertsburg) was arranged between Austria and Prussia, and one of the most terrible wars that had ever disturbed Europe was over. The most noteworthy result of the war was the exalting of the Prussian kingdom to a most commanding position among the European powers.
FREDERICK'S WORK: PRUSSIA MADE A NEW CENTRE OF GERMAN CRYSTALLIZATION.-- The all-important result of Frederick the Great's strong reign was the making of Prussia the equal of Austria, and thereby the laying of the basis of German unity. Hitherto Germany had been trying unsuccessfully to concentrate about Austria; now there is a new centre of crystallization, one that will draw to itself all the various elements of German nationality. The history of Germany from this on is the story of the rivalry of these two powers, with the final triumph of the kingdom of the North, and the unification of Germany under her leaders.h.i.+p, Austria being pushed out as ent.i.tled to no part in the affairs of the Fatherland. This story we shall tell in a subsequent chapter (see Chap. LXL).
CHAPTER LVIII.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. (1789-1799.)
1. CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION: THE STATES-GENERAL OF 1789.
INTRODUCTORY.--The French Revolution is in political what the German Reformation is in ecclesiastical history. It was the revolt of the French people against royal despotism and cla.s.s privilege. ”Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” was the motto of the Revolution. In the name of these principles the most atrocious crimes were indeed committed; but these excesses of the Revolution are not to be confounded with its true spirit and aims. The French people in 1789 contended for those same principles that the English Puritans defended in 1640, and that our fathers maintained in 1776. It is only as we view them in this light that we can feel a sympathetic interest in the men and events of this tumultuous period of French history.
CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION.--Chief among the causes of the French Revolution were the abuses and extravagances of the Bourbon monarchy; the unjust privileges enjoyed by the n.o.bility and clergy; the wretched condition of the great ma.s.s of the people; and the revolutionary character and spirit of French philosophy and literature. To these must be added, as a proximate cause, the influence of the American Revolution. We shall speak briefly of these several matters.
THE BOURBON MONARCHY.--We simply repeat what we have already learned, when we say that the authority of the French crown under the Bourbons had become unbearably despotic and oppressive. The life of every person in the realm was at the arbitrary disposal of the king. Persons were thrown into prison without even knowing the offence for which they were arrested. The royal decrees were laws. The taxes imposed by the king were simply robberies and confiscations. The public money, thus gathered, was squandered in maintaining a court the scandalous extravagances and debaucheries of which would shame a Turkish Sultan.
THE n.o.bILITY.--The French n.o.bility, in the time of the Bourbons, numbered about 80,000 families. The order was simply the remains of the once powerful but now broken-down feudal aristocracy of the Middle Ages. Its members were chiefly the pensioners of the king, the ornaments of his court, living in riotous luxury at Paris or Versailles. Stripped of their ancient power, they still retained all the old pride and arrogance of their order, and clung tenaciously to all their feudal privileges.
Although holding one-fifth of the lands of France, they paid scarcely any taxes.
THE CLERGY.--The clergy formed a decayed feudal hierarchy. They possessed enormous wealth, the gift of piety through many centuries. Over a third of the lands of the country was in their hands, and yet this immense property was almost wholly exempt from taxation. The bishops and abbots were usually drawn from the families of the n.o.bles, being too often attracted to the service of the Church rather by its princely revenues and the social distinction conferred by its offices, than by the inducements of piety. These ”patrician prelates” were hated alike by the humbler clergy and the people.
THE COMMONS.--Below the two privileged orders of the State stood the commons, who const.i.tuted the chief bulk of the nation, and who numbered, at the commencement of the Revolution, probably about 25,000,000. It is quite impossible to give any adequate idea of the pitiable condition of the poorer cla.s.ses of the commons throughout the century preceding the Revolution. The peasants particularly suffered the most intolerable wrongs. They were vexed by burdensome feudal regulations. Thus they were forbidden to fence their fields for the protection of their crops, as the fences interfered with the lord's progress in the hunt; and they were even prohibited from cultivating their fields at certain seasons, as this disturbed the partridges and other game. Being kept in a state of abject poverty, a failure of crops reduced them to absolute starvation. It was not an unusual thing to find women and children dead along the roadways.
In a word, to use the language of one (Fenelon) who saw all this misery, France had become ”simply a great hospital full of woe and empty of food.”
REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT OF FRENCH PHILOSOPHY.--French philosophy in the eighteenth century was sceptical and revolutionary. The names of the great writers Rousseau (1712-1778) and Voltaire (1694-1778) suggest at once its prevalent tone and spirit. Rousseau declared that all the evils which afflict humanity arise from vicious, artificial arrangements, such as the Family, the Church, and the State. Accordingly he would do away with these things, and have men return to a state of nature--that is, to simplicity.
Savages, he declared, were happier than civilized men.
The tendency and effect of this sceptical philosophy was to create hatred and contempt for the inst.i.tutions of both State and Church, to foster discontent with the established order of things, to stir up an uncontrollable pa.s.sion for innovation and change.
INFLUENCE OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.--Not one of the least potent of the proximate causes of the French Revolution was the successful establishment of the American republic. The French people sympathized deeply with the English colonists in their struggle for independence. Many of the n.o.bility, like Lafayette, offered to the patriots the service of their swords; and the popular feeling at length compelled Louis XVI to extend to them openly the aid of the armies of France.
The final triumph of the cause of liberty awakened scarcely less enthusiasm and rejoicing in France than in America. In this young republic of the Western world the French people saw realized the Arcadia of their philosophers. It was no longer a dream. They themselves had helped to make it real. Here the Rights of Man had been recovered and vindicated. And now this liberty which the French people had helped the American colonists to secure, they were impatient to see France herself enjoy.
”AFTER US, THE DELUGE.”--The long-gathering tempest is now ready to break over France. Louis XV. died in 1774. In the early part of his reign his subjects had affectionately called him the ”Well-beloved,” but long before he laid down the sceptre, all their early love and admiration had been turned into hatred and contempt. Besides being overbearing and despotic, the king was indolent, rapacious, and scandalously profligate. During twenty years of his reign the king was wholly under the influence of the notorious Madame de Pompadour.
The inevitable issue of this orgy of crime and folly seems to have been clearly enough perceived by the chief actors in it, as is shown by that reckless phrase so often on the lips of the king and his favorite--”After us, the Deluge.” And after them, the Deluge indeed did come. The near thunders of the approaching tempest could already be heard when Louis XV.
lay down to die.
CALLING OF THE STATES-GENERAL (1789).--Louis XV. left the tottering throne to his grandson, Louis XVI., then only twenty years of age. He had recently been married to the fair and brilliant Marie Antoinette, archd.u.c.h.ess of Austria.
The king called to his side successively the most eminent financiers and statesmen (Maurepas, Turgot, Necker, and Calonne) as his ministers and advisers; but their policies and remedies availed little or nothing. The disease which had fastened itself upon the nation was too deep-seated. The traditions of the court, the rigidity of long-established customs, and the heartless selfishness of the privileged cla.s.ses, rendered reform and efficient retrenchment impossible.
In 1787 the king summoned the Notables, a body composed chiefly of great lords and prelates, who had not been called to advise with the king since the reign of Henry IV. But miserable counsellors were they all. Refusing to give up any of their feudal privileges, or to tax the property of their own orders that the enormous public burdens which were crus.h.i.+ng the commons might be lightened, their coming together resulted in nothing.