Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

before the court. This is exactly, says a French historian, the habeas corpus of the English. We find it also in the institutions of St. Louis, and the capitularies of Charlemagne.

Charles VIII, was thirteen years old at the time of his father's death: his eldest sister was regent. The duke of Orleans, a descendant of Charles V., ambitiously sought her in marriage, and made great efforts to obtain her. but the states were assembled at Tours and he lost his cause. Some doubts were entertained of the competency of the states on this occasion: To whom does it belong to decide this question,' said Pot, a deputy of the nobility, if not to the same people, who first elected their kings, who conferred on them all the authority with which they are invested, and in whom, definitively, the sovereign power resides? When I say the people, I mean the assembly of all the citizens, of whatever rank they may be.' Such language was new, and must have produced a deep inpression. The states consulted on the miseries of the people, which the records describe in energetic terms: they were wandering about in the forests without food; men, women, and children, harnessed themselves to the plough in the night, through fear of being extorted upon during the day by the tax-gatherers and military. The states now, therefore, decreed the reduction of two-thirds of the taxes, with which Louis XI. had burdened the nation. The ministers objected, that they were paring the nails of the king; they replied, that the interest of the king was that of the people, and to cherish the one is to serve the other.' But they afterwards showed themselves very tractable.

On the duke of Orleans appearing to raise a party in Brittany, he was worsted at St. Aubin by that of the court; and Maximilian, the suitor of Anne, the heiress of Brittany, being rejected, she was married to Charles VIII. Brittany being thus united to France, the duke of Orleans was restored to favor. The young king now thought he would become a conqueror; and remembering that he held, by the succession of Sicilian Anjou, some pretended rights over Naples, he marched thither (1494) with an illequipped army. At Rome he was alternately flattered and betrayed by the execrable Borgia, pope Alexander VI. Naples, however, was conquered in haste, and fètes and tournaments were given by him in the capital; while a powerful league was formed against him in Lombardy. The French army repassed the Appennines, and 8000 men in less than an hour beat 30,000 Italians at Fornova. The conquest of Naples, however, was already lost; Ferdinand, king of Spain, who appeared in that country with the French as an ally, caused the rest of the army to be driven out by Gonsalvo of Cordova. The French gained nothing by this expedition but a dreadful malady, and Charles died of an apoplexy. Comines describes him as having a good heart but a bad head.

We are now arrived at the end of the fifteenth century. The Genevese Columbus had discovered America; the Portuguese Gama had doubled the Cape of Good Hope; the compass had opened the way to the new world, and commerce had

proceeded thither as well as ambition. Speculations, until this time confined within nanow limits, extended themselves over the two hemispheres. Voyages informed the minds of men and banished their prejudices. A German, by the invention of printing, had rendered a still more important service to the human mind. In the mean time men disputed, as they will always dispute, and the realists and the nominalists contended with one another to know whether they ought to employ themselves about words or things. The sum of observation and experience, however, increased; dogmas became less imperious and creeds less exclusive; men began to think more of laboring to some useful purpose, and of knowing, in order to enjoy.

The reign of which we have now to speak is described, by the French historians, as the happiest in their history, yet without much appearance of external policy. Louis XII. was perhaps the best of the kings of France. He had a real and ardent love for the people, of whom he was called the father, and restrained the great, without ill-treating them. The king of France,' said he, ‘does not avenge the injuries of the duke of Orleans.' For it was he, whom we have seen disputing for the regency in his youth, as the first prince of the blood; but age had matured him. Unfortunately the mania of conquest, however, pervaded the nation; and he yielded to the infatuation. At that time civil relations began to be more extensive in Europe. That ridiculous feudal policy, unknown to the ancients, which treats a nation as a dowry, an inheritance, an indemnity, and which makes the fate of nations depend on a bad administration, prevailed more than ever. Louis divorced his wife in order to marry the widow of Charles VIII., and to retain possession of Brittany. He had some claims on the Milanese in right of his grand-father, and he set out with an army (A D. 1501) to assert them. The Milanese were conquered in twenty days; Naples soon followed; and, always the dupes of Ferdinand's perfidy, the French, beaten at Carignoles, were again driven out of Naples. Louis by a treaty was about to give his daughter, with a third part of France as her dowry, to this treacherous ally, when the states, which he assembled at Tours, diverted him from it.

He afterwards had to contend with Julius II. the pope who made war in person, and mounted the breach. It was then that almost the whole of Europe entered into a league at Cambray against Venice, a powerful republic founded by poor fishermen. Louis marched first against the Venetians. Until betrayed by the pope and the Spaniards, forsaken by the Swiss, who were no longer the men of Morat, and fought only for those who would pay them best, he assembled the clergy, who decided on a war against the pope, and furnished a subsidy. The battle of Ravenna was gained over the Spaniards by Gaston de Foix, who perished in it. Money was now wanted, and the French were obliged to withdraw from the Milanese, notwithstanding the prowess of the famous Bayard. La Tremouille, however, re-entered that territory, and was defeated by the Swiss at Navarre. At the same time the English, united to the Imperialists, beat

the French in Picardy The Swiss penetrated as far as Dijon; in fine, after entering into a treaty with Henry VIII. king of England, whose sister he married as his second wife, Louis XII. died, the victim of numerous disappointments. He was economical and diminished the taxes; he knew how to search out merit in obscurity; protected the laborer and the artisan; watched over the administration of justice, and wished the law to be sovereign. It must be remembered, however, that at that time the law was nothing else than the will of the monarch. Unfortunately, in this reign, the states general only acted in appearance: the sole authority which seemed to plead the cause of the nation, was the parliament, which, according to its constitution, should have meddled with nothing but the judgment of suits. The people, however, deprived of the states, saw with pleasure a permanent and respected body becoming their defenders, although it was to give importance to itself. These judges sometimes resisted the royal power, refusing the formality of registering its edicts, and they shared the privilege of a veto with the legislative authority. Perhaps it was well that there should be the image of a deliberative assembly, which might struggle with the nobles; but it was often only the advocate of despotism. The parliament was at least useful in reducing arbitrary power within certain forms and regulations.

Louis XII. was called the plebeian king; Francis I. was the king of the gentlemen. He was also a descendant of Charles V. by another branch, and was a prince of handsome person, brave, prodigal, gallant, with high ideas of honor, a very brilliant knight, but a bad politician. 'We are laboring in vain,' said Louis XII., 'this great boy will spoil all;' his prediction was just. In order to carry on the war in Italy, the king began by selling the fees of the courts of justice, and setting out to gain over the Swiss in the pay of the emperor at the battle of Marignan; he beat them during two days. He then concluded a concordat with Leo X., which, annulling the Pragmatic sanction, and abolishing the elections of the clergy, transferred to the pope and the king the rights of the church of France: the Chancellor Duprat made this wretched treaty, because he wished to be a cardinal. The imperial throne being now vacant the king wished to compete with the emperor's heir and king of Spain, who, however, obtained the dignity and became Charles the Fifth. This rival of her prince was a terrible enemy to France, opposing the most refined policy to imprudence the most self conceited. Francis entered into alliance with Henry VIII; but Charles prevailed to disunite them; while another enemy, Leo X., assisted the emperor to deprive the French of the Milanese, where they had rendered themselves hated. All Europe was now therefore leagued against France, and one of her best and noblest warriors, the constable of Bourbon, being discontented, entered into the service of her enemies. Francis was not intimidated; he passed over into Italy, Charles's attempt upon Provence having been repulsed: but here slighting the advice of his oldest generals, he fought and lost the fatal battle of Pavia, and being made prisoner, after

exhibiting prodigies of valor, graced the return of his conqueror to Madrid. Francis now agreed to ransom himself by the cession of Burgundy; but the treaty was not executed, the states of Burgundy refusing to pass under a foreign yoke. The king of France, however, obtained his liberty; and leagued against Charles with a new pope, Henry VIII. and the Venetians, he re-passed the Alps and laid seige to Naples. But here the plague broke out in his army, and he again evacuated Italy. On a definitive treaty of peace being signed at Cambray, his ransom was finally settled at 2,000,000 of gold crowns.

About this time the duke of Bourbon, not having the means of paying his imperialists, led them on to pillage Rome: on which the pope, who was taken prisoner, also paid a great ransom to Charles V., who begged pardon of him for this violence; but kept the money.

[ocr errors]

At this same period a new religious schism,' as our French neighbours call it, was preparing for the emancipation of the human mind, and for great political changes. Leo X., wanting money to build St. Peter's at Rome, commanded the preaching of indulgences; and when the Dominicans fulfilled this mission in Germany, and publicly sold in the ale-houses seats in Paradise, the Augustinians were much discontented at being deprived of all share of the profits. One of these monks, named Luther, say the historians whom we follow in this article, a fiery theologian, preached against the Dominicans, the pope, and all the clergy. The scandals of which he complained, were open, and served to support his discourses. He then attacked with the Scriptures, the doctrine and discipline of the church; he rejected the confession, broke the monastic vows, claimed for every man the right of praying to God in the language that he understood, and demanded the reform of Christianity. The pope excommunicated him; but in opposition to some juggling tricks, which might have made a few dupes in a credulous age, this reformer converted the whole of the north of Germany. Henry VIII., excommunicated for having changed his wife, and on account of the delay of a courier, separated from Rome through private pique, and constituted himself the regulator of the protestants of England; the reformec were so called, because they had protested against the diet of Spires, which condemned them. Charles V., after persecuting them, ma naged them with prudence. Francis, who had entered into alliance with them in Germany, burned them in a slow fire in France, with the approbation of the parliament and for the amusement of his court.

Sforza, the duke of Milan, having furnished a pretext, the king again asserted his claims to that territory. The emperor, on his side, undertook to invade France but without success. Being accused of poisoning the dauphin, he was cited before the parliament, which confiscated Artois and Flanders by a decree of default, and after this the king contracted an alliance with the sultan Soliman; with whom we have already seen the pope in alliance. The concerted plan failed; the cunning Charles obtained a truce, and a passage through France to go to

Ghent, which had revolted from him. Any other than Francis I. would have seized this opportunity of exacting a ransom in his turn; but this confidence of a man of bad faith is a fine testimony to the honor of his dupe.

The two princes having quarrelled, a new war broke out, A.D. 1542, and raged along all the frontiers. The king's galleys joined those of Barbarossa the Turk, and the count d'Enghien gained the battle of Cerisoles, in Italy, but without any advantage to France. Charles, in league with Henry VIII., penetrated as far as Soissons, and a peace was again signed at Crecy, which did not, however, procure the slightest rest to the world. On the inhabitants of Cabrières and Merindol, cantons of Provence, where the traditions of the Albigenses had been preserved, embracing Lutheranism, the parliament of Provence condemned them to the flames: the troops which were returning out of Italy executed this decree, and 3000 persons were massacred for the honor of the faith, by bands of robbers. These things did not prevent Cauvin or Calvin from making fresh proselytes to a reform more entire than that of Luther. He denied the real presence, suppressed the ceremonies of worship, and submitted the Scriptures and the faith to the test of reason. He, however, caused poor Servetus to be burned, who did not believe in the trinity. His doctrine spread in Switzerland, France, Holland, and England. Francis I. died of a disease called the Neapolitan in France, and at Naples the French.

Francis I. was the most absolute of the kings of France; he loaded the people with taxes without the authority of the states; and substituted, instead of these, assemblies of the nobles, that is to say, courtiers, whom it was his pleasure to consult, and who always approved his actions. He enslaved the Gallican church, instituted the censorship, sold the office of the judges, and corrupted the nation by his bad example. He was called the restorer of learning and the arts, because they grew while he was on the throne; he doubtless protected them, but the age for their advancement had arrived. The genius of republicanism had prepared the way for them in Italy; Erasmus, the Hollander, the Voltaire of the sixteenth century, had ridiculed the pedantry of theologians; liberty had peopled Florence with great men, and the Medici, merchants who had become magistrates, were the Mecanates of the age. The honor of the revival of letters has also been very improperly attributed to the Greeks, who, having emigrated from Constantinople in 1453, brought into Western Europe the reveries of Plato, a taste for subtilties that was by no means wanted, and the mania of erudition instead of the spirit of enquiry. Francis I. is only to be celebrated for having founded the college of France, and established the use of the French tongue in public documents.

The character of Henry II. much resembled that of his father; their reigns are also in some respects similar. The war was still carried on against Charles, in the course of which the king took Metz, Taul, and Verdun, and the emperor laid siege to Metz with 100,000 men. The duke

of Guise, a celebrated member of the ancient house of Lorrain, repulsed him, when Charles avenged himself by rasing to the ground 400 towns, and soon after Europe heard with astonishment, that he had quitted the empire to retire into a convent. Ferdinand, his brother, was made emperor, and his son Philip II. king of Spain. The latter was the Louis XI. of this age, and the most powerful prince in Europe. He moved it with two great levers, the gold of Mexico and Peru, and religious zeal. While the French were carrying on a fruitless war in Italy, the duke of Savoy, his general, obtained at St. Quentin, a victory disastrous to France. Terror spread on all sides; Paris was fortified; the Spaniards could have easily entered it; Philip, however, thought proper to retreat. The duke of Guise, who was now appointed lieute nant general of the kingdom, repaired this loss by taking Calais from the English; but, when a peace was signed at Cateau Cambresis, it was stipulated that Calais should be restored in eight years (which has never been done) while the French were to keep possession of Metz, Toul, and Verdun. Henry II. was killed soon after this at a tournament, while jousting with one of his knights.

Under this reign, as under the preceding, women began to assume great influence at court; their intrigues, say the historians, have always been fatal to France. Henry II. suffered himself to be governed by his mistress, Diana of Poitiers, who had already governed his father. The ingenious Rabelais, and the lively Brantome, have satirised these two kings, and described the dissolute manners of the age. In 1558 the states were assembled in conjunction with the parliament, and figured in it as a fourth order: an anomaly which has not since been renewed. The nobles, humbled by Louis XI., had become the courtiers of his successors, until the luxury of the court had completely attached them to the king, and they appeared formed for obedience to his will. External wars now no longer occupied them, and, while they resumed a portion of their independence, those factions re-appeared of which religion was the motive or the pretext. The prince of Condé, and the king of Navarre, his brother, of the branch of Bourbon, were the chiefs of the protestant party; Guise, the uncle of Mary Stuart, the king's wife, directed that of the Catholics. The constable, Montmorency, had also his party. The imperious queen dowager, Catharine of Medicis, alternately protected and betrayed each party, while she endeavoured to preserve the balance between them, by the celebrated maxim, 'divide and rule.'

The magistrate, Anne Dubourg, having been hanged as a protestant, A. D. 1560, his brethren formed a conspiracy at Amboise, to revenge his death. This the duke of Guise defeated, and the conspirators perished in arms. The punishments of the Calvinists were now redoubled; they defended themselves, and in the assembly of Fontainbleau claimed liberty of conscience, but in vain: the states were convened at Orleans, in order to draw the Bourbons thither; and when Condé attended he was arrested, and

condemned, and would have been executed, had not the king died. Francis II. is described as an excellent young man; but he was a weak prince. His brother Charles IX. succeeded him at the age of ten years.

The states were now very much agitated: L'Hospital, a virtuous citizen, and philosophical magistrate, a prodigy for his time, endeavoured in vain to bring their minds back to moderation and union. He merely succeeded in re-establishing the Pragmatic sanction in relation to the election of bishops. Catharine then turned about from the Calvinist or Huguenot party (from a German word signifying confederates), and proposed to terminate the existing differences, by a conference at Poissy which only revived them. It was at this period that the Jesuits first established themselves in France.

A massacre of the Huguenots now took place at Vassy in Champagne, in consequence of some njuries committed by the duke of Guise's people. At Toulouse 4000 of the Protestants were murdered; an outrage which the people of Toulouse, for two centuries, have annually celebrated, and this furnished a fresh motive for rupture. The civil war broke out; the Protestants were conquered by the royalists at Dreux; and two of their ablest generals were taken. The rapacious and ambitious duke of Guise laid siege to Orleans, and was assassinated there: he had made use of religion wholly as a means of aggrandising himself. A short peace ensued; but the persecution of the Protestants soon re-commenced; and was continued with impunity. The Huguenots were driven to extremities. Condé undertook to carry off the king, in order to get possession of the government; for so absurd are the consequences of absolute power, that it is often exercised in the name of the titulary sovereign against himself. This attempt failed, and the doubtful battle of St. Denis took place soon after (A. D. 1567), in which the able Montmorency was slain. On a renewal of the war, the Huguenots, assisted by the Protestants of Germany and England, ventured upon another pitched battle at Jarnac, and were defeated by the duke of Anjou, the king's brother. Here the prince of Condé fell; assassinated it is said, near the field of battle, and while surrendering himself to his enemies as a prisoner. Coligny, a prudent chief, repaired this defeat, and rallied the forces, until Henry of Navarre, whom he had formed for war, was placed at the head of the party. The duke of An ou was again victor, however, at Mocontour.

After these checks, the Protestants again made an advantageous peace, and having had four cities surrendered to them as pledges for their civil and religious liberty, Catherine drew their chiefs to court, and lulled them into a false confidence of security. Young Henry had just married the king's sister; and scarcely had the festivities closed, when on a sudden, in the dead of the night, the alarm bell was sounded, and the royalists rushed into the houses of the Huguenots, and massacred them without distinction of age or sex. The Louvre flowed with blood; the infamous king fired from his balcony upon the French. At the same moment similar horrors

[ocr errors]

were perpetrated in the different provinces of the kingdom; but in the midst of this infatuation of cruelty, every one was filled with admiration at beholding two of the king's officers (D'Orthez and Curzay) who refused to act as executioners. The illustrious Coligny, however, was sacrificed; and on this occasion the infamous Charles IX. said, A dead enemy always smells well.' Henry and the new prince of Condé were compelled to a sudden abjuration of their sentiments; and the king openly avowed that every thing had been done by his orders: even the parliament applauded this massacre, and decreed an annual procession to commemorate the murder of 100,000 Frenchmen! It is sufficient at this day to mention St. Bartholomew's day to excite horror; and yet at this day, observes an able French writer, it finds some apologists.

If ever men were justified in assuming the sword in defence of religion, the Protestants of France were at this period. (A. D. 1573). The war was again kindled; and the duke of Anjou lost 4000 men at the siege of' La Rochelle; the women even fought with the courage of despair. The year following the party of the malcontents was formed, to which the Huguenots united themselves, and the contest still continued. In the midst of these transactions the king died. We learn with some surprise, says the worthy writer above alluded to, that this monster had some sense, wrote verses, and protected learning. During this reign the long continued council of Trent terminated its sitting; after being occupied wholly in matters of diplomatic etiquette, and in condemning the doctrines of the Protestants. At this time also the Belgians and the Hollanders rose against the Catholic despot, Philip II. The duke of Alva, his general, committed in those countries horrible excesses against the Huguenots, who were here called Beggars. But the latter found happily those means of resistance which enabled them to found one of the richest and most industrious communities of Europe. The manners of this age are a mixture of corruption and barbarity, of stoicism united with superstition, and debauchery with crime. By an ordinance of 1574, in conformity with a bull of Gregory XIII., the year, which used to commence with Easter, and consequently to alter every year, was fixed to begin regularly on the 1st of January. The parliament for three years opposed this reform: it had always an antipathy to useful innovations.

The duke of Anjou, who had just come from Poland, where he had been chosen king, returned to France under the name of Henry III. He proved himself a very successful general of an army: as a king he was idle, trifling, superstitiously devout, and given up to infamous debaucheries. He was advised to act mildly towards the Calvinists; he declared war against them. His brother, the duke of Alençon, and Henry of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV., united against him, and, in an edict of 1576, the Calvinists obtained some political advantages. The holy league was then formed: a combination of mad Catholics who pledged themselves to defend religion and the king in blind obedience to their chief, Henry of Guise. The states were

assembled at Blois, and the leaguers had the ascendancy, for the king was compelled to authorise the league; but they soon began to treat him with little respect; and having consulted the pope, to know if they might disobey him for the service of religion, were answered in the affirmative. Guise put forward the old cardinal Bourbon, who issued a manifesto in the name of all the Catholic monarchs of Europe; and the court, intimidated, yielded entirely to the leaguers. After this, however, the war called that of the three Henries broke out. Sixtus V. excommunicated Henry of Navarre; and the punishment of Mary Stuart, ordered by the Protestant Elizabeth, increased the fury of the Catholics. Henry, however, beat the royalists, under the command of Joyeuse and other favorites, at Coutras; while Guise, on the other hand, defeated the German Calvinists who were coming to his assistance. In the mean time, insurrections were organised at Paris under the name of the Sixteen; that is, the sixteen quarters of the commune. The Sorbonne, which supported them, decided that the government might be taken out of the hands of weak princes; and, having assembled at Nancy, the leaguers dictated orders to the king, who sent for the Swiss to Paris. The fanatical citizens immediately ran to arms, barricadoed the streets, even up to the Louvre, and surrounded the troops. The king fled and left the capital to Guise and the league. This was the day of the barricading.' The leaguers imposed on the king a new union against the heretics; and, about the same time, the English defeated the great invincible fleet of Philip.

The states re-assembled at Blois (A. D. 1588), when the leaguers again had the majority. They occupied themselves much about the council of Trent, and not at all in the establishment of order. The Guises were now at the summit of their power, and could with equal ease play the parts of Pepin or of Capet. This the king perceived, and, being unable to resist them, procured, to his disgrace, their assassination. The rage of the leaguers was thus redoubled: in the duke of Mayenne they soon found a second head: they cursed the king in the pulpit; and those members of the parliament who resisted them were imprisoned in the bastile. At last the king, having only a few towns left, felt the necessity of being reconciled to Henry of Bearn; who received him very cordially and led him back towards Paris. They had already reached St. Cloud, when a young Dominican, under the direction of the leaguers, stabbed the king with a knife; a murder which the Parisians celebrated with joy: the Catholics generally, instigated by the Jesuits, endeavoured to prove from Scripture that it was lawful to kill a tyrant; and Clé, the assassin, was regarded as a saint. In this reign the order of St. Michael, founded by Louis XI., having fallen into discredit, that of the Holy Spirit was instituted to flatter the Catholics. The intriguing Catherine died in 1589, detested by all parties. SECT. V. THE BRANCH OF THE BOURBONS. The branch of the Valois being extinct, Henry of Bourbon Navarre ascended the throne as a descendant of Louis IX.: he merited it by his

virtues. Brought up in the mountains, and among shepherds, he had little knowledge of that which corrupts princes; he was a man long before he was a king; and became, so to speak, the author of that legitimacy which he had to prove sword in hand. Acknowledged only by a few provinces, in full possession of none, he first struggled against Mayenne, whose numerous army included a considerable body of Spanish infantry, at that time the best in Europe. He was on the point of determining to go over to England, when encountering Mayenne at Arques he defeated him with 5000 men, and marched immediately towards Paris, which he was very near surprising. Here the old cardinal of Bourbon, his cousin, had just been declared king under the title of Charles X. Henry, after this vanquished Mayenne, in another battle, at Ivr where he was heard to cry out Save the French, and then blockaded Paris. The leaguers defended themselves with fury; fanaticism supported them; they even formed regiments of priests and monks; but the famine became frightful and bread was made of the bones of the dead. Henry at last suffered provisions to be sent in to the besieged until the celebrated Farnese, the general of Philip II. came with an army to raise the siege.

[ocr errors]

During this time the duke of Savoy invaded Dauphiny and Provence; and, the new pope having proscribed Henry IV., Philip II., the demon of the south,' assisted by the Sixteen, labored to get himself elected king of France. Henry laid siege to Rouen, which Farnese delivered, and war raged throughout almost all the country. To increase the anarchy a new faction was formed at Paris, called the party of the politicians, which united with that of the malcontents. It consisted of some moderate Catholics who sought for peace by recognising the king. At length the various parties came to a conference. The king decided on recantation, and said,

Paris is worth a mass;' Mayenne signed a truce, and the league fell by the power of ridicule and contempt in an attempt to assassinate Henry, who entered Paris on the 22nd of March, 1594.

Thus closed the sixteenth century, the century of the Reformation, and of the most glorious events for mankind. Copernicus, Galileo, an Torricelli, notwithstanding the power of the inquisition, applied themselves in this memorable era to the study of the philosophy of experience and reason, while the pedants of the university were contending about the pronunciation of the letter Q. Bacon, the chancellor of England, introduced some order into the catalogue of human sciences; Montaigne carried independence of mind into the study of man; but political questions were still approached with much timidity. Morus, Bodin, and Grotius sought for the laws of the social body, rather among the ancients than in nature, while Boëtius attacked despotism with quotations and declamation. The Reformation, however. 't must be admitted, spread something of a repub lican spirit: the Calvinist politicians, in 1575. traced the plan of a constitutional organisation, and were the liberals of the age; but public

« ZurückWeiter »