The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII.

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corporate body, it had enervated and deformed it, or dislocated and

disjointed it.



Corporations and local bodies, thus deprived of, or diverted from, their

purpose, had become unrecognisable under the crust of the abuses which

disfigured them; nobody, except a Montesquieu, could comprehend why they

should exist. On the approach of the revolution they seemed, not organs,

but excrescences, deformities, and, so to say, superannuated

monstrosities. Their historical and natural roots, their living germs

far below the surface, their social necessity, their fundamental

utility, their possible usefulness, were no longer visible.





_II.--The Body-Social of a Despot_





Corporations, and local bodies being thus emasculated, by the end of the

eighteenth century the principal features of modern France are traced; a

creature of a new and strange type arises, defines itself, and issues

forth its structure determining its destiny. It consists of a social

body organised by a despot and for a despot, calculated for the use of

one man, excellent for action under the impulsion of a unique will, with

a superior intelligence, admirable so long as this intelligence remains

lucid and this will remain healthy; adapted to a military life and not

to civil life and therefore badly balanced, hampered in its development,

exposed to periodical crises, condemned to precocious debility, but able

to live for a long time, and for the present, robust, alone able to bear

the weight of the new dominion and to furnish for fifteen successive

years the crushing labour, the conquering obedience, the superhuman,

murderous, insensate effort which its master, Napoleon, exacts.



However clear and energetic the ideas of Napoleon are when he sets to

work to make the New Regime, his mind is absorbed by the preoccupations

of the sovereign. It is not enough for him that his edifice should be

monumental, symmetrical, and beautiful. First of all, as he lives in it

and derives the greatest benefit from it, he wants it habitable, and

habitable for Frenchmen of the year 1800. Consequently, he takes into

account the habits and dispositions of his tenants, the pressing and

permanent wants for which the new structure is to provide. These wants,

however, must not be theoretic and vague, but verified and defined; for

he is a calculator as close as he is profound, and deals only with

positive facts.



To restore tranquillity, many novel measures are essential. And first,

the political and administrative concentration just decreed, a

centralisation of all powers in one hand, local powers conferred by the

central power, and this supreme power in the hands of a resolute chief

equal in intelligence to his high position; next, a regularly paid army,

carefully equipped, properly clothed, and fed, strictly disciplined, and

therefore obedient and able to do its duty without wavering or

faltering, like any other instrument of precision; an active police

force and _gendarmerie_ held in check; administrators independent of

those under their jurisdiction--all appointed, maintained, watched and

restrained from above, as impartial as possible, sufficiently competent,

and, in their official spheres, capable functionaries; finally, freedom

of worship, and, accordingly, a treaty with Rome and the restoration of

the Catholic Church--that is to say, a legal recognition of the orthodox

hierarchy, and of the only clergy which the faithful may accept as

legitimate--in other words, the institution of bishops by the Pope, and

of priests by the bishops. This done, the rest is easily accomplished.



The main thing now is to dress the severe wounds the revolution has

made--which are still bleeding--with as little torture as possible, for

it has cut down to the quick; and its amputations, whether foolish or

outrageous, have left sharp pains or mute suffering in the social

organism.



Above all, religion must be restored. Before 1789, the ignorant or

indifferent Catholic, the peasant at his plough, the mechanic at his

work-bench, the good wife attending to her household, were unconscious

of the innermost part of religion; thanks to the revolution, they have

acquired the sentiment of it, and even the physical sensation. It is the

prohibition of the mass which has led them to comprehend its importance;

it is the revolutionary government which has transformed them into

theologians.



From the year IV. (1795) the orthodox priests have again recovered their

place and ascendancy in the peasant's soul which the creed assigns to

them; they have again become the citizen's serviceable guides, his

accepted directors, the only warranted interpreters of Christian truth,

the only authorised dispensers and ministers of divine grace. He attends

their mass immediately on their return, and will put up with no other.



Napoleon, therefore, as First Consul, concludes the Concordat with the

Pope and restores religion. By this Concordat the Pope "declares that

neither himself nor his successors shall in any manner disturb the

purchasers of alienated ecclesiastical property, and that the ownership

of the said property, the rights and revenues derived therefrom, shall

consequently remain incommutable in their hands or in those of their

assigns."



There remain the institutions for instruction. With respect to these,

the restoration seems more difficult, for their ancient endowment is

almost entirely wasted; the government has nothing to give back but

dilapidated buildings, a few scattered investments formerly intended for

the maintenance of a college scholarship, or for a village schoolhouse.

And to whom should these be returned, since the college and the

schoolhouse no longer exist? Fortunately, instruction is an article of

such necessity that a father almost always tries to procure it for his

children; even if poor, he is willing to pay for it, if not too dear;

only, he wants that which pleases him in kind and in quality, and,

therefore, from a particular source, bearing this or that factory stamp

or label.



The state invites everybody, the communes as well as private persons, to

the undertaking. It is on their liberality that it relies for replacing

the ancient foundations; it solicits gifts and legacies in favour of new

establishments, and it promises "to surround these donations with the

most invariable respect." Meanwhile, and as a precautionary measure, it

assigns to each its eventual duty; if the commune establishes a primary

school for itself, it must provide the tutor with a lodging, and the

parents must compensate him; if the commune founds a college or accepts

a _lycee,_ it must pay for the annual support of the building, while the

pupils, either day-scholars or boarders, pay accordingly.



In this way the heavy expenses are already met, and the state, the

manager-general of the service, furnishes simply a very small quota; and

this quota, mediocre as a rule, is found almost null in fact, for its

main largess consists in 6,400 scholarships which it establishes and

engages to support; but it confers only about 3,000 of them, and it

distributes nearly all of these among the children of its military or

civil employees, so that the son's scholarship becomes additional pay

for the father; thus, the two millions which the state seems, under this

head, to assign to the _lycees,_ are actually gratifications which it

distributes among its functionaries and officials. It takes back with

one hand what it bestows with the other.



This being granted, it organises the university and maintains it, not at

its own expense, however, but at the expense of others, at the expense

of private persons and parents, of the communes, and, above all, at the

expense of rival schools and private boarding-schools, of the free

institutions, and all this in favour of the university monopoly which

subjects these to special taxation as ingenious as it is multifarious.

Whoever is privileged to carry on a private school, must pay from two to

three hundred francs to the university; likewise, every person obtaining

permission to lecture on literature or on science.





_III.--The New Taxation, Fiscal and Bodily_





Now, as to taxes. The collection of a direct tax is a surgical operation

performed on the taxpayer, one which removes a piece of his substance;

he suffers on account of this, and submits to it only because he is

obliged to. If the operation is performed on him by other hands, he

submits to it voluntarily or not; but if he has to do it himself,

spontaneously and with his own hands, it is not to be thought of. On the

other hand, the collection of a direct tax according to the

prescriptions of distributive justice is a subjection of each taxpayer

to an amputation proportionate to his bulk, or at least to his surface;

this requires delicate calculation and is not to be entrusted to the

patients themselves; for not only are they surgical novices and poor

calculators, but, again, they are interested in calculating falsely.



To this end, Napoleon establishes two divisions of direct taxation: one,

the real-estate tax, which has no bearing on the taxpayer without any

property; and the other the personal tax, which does affect him, but

lightly. Such a system favours the poor; in other words, it is an

infraction of the principle of distributive justice; through the almost

complete exemption of those who have no property, the burden of direct

taxation falls almost entirely on those who own property. If they are

manufacturers, or in commerce, they support still another burden, that

of the license tax, which is a supplementary impost proportioned to

their probable gains. Finally, to all these annual and extra taxes,

levied on the probable or certain income derived from invested or

floating capital, the exchequer adds an eventual tax on capital itself,

consisting of the _mutation_ tax, assessed on property every time it

changes hands through gift, inheritance, or by contract, obtaining its

title under free donation or by sale, and which tax, aggravated by the

_timbre_, is enormous, since, in most cases, it takes five, seven, nine,

and up to ten and one-half per cent, on the capital transmitted.



One tax remains, and the last, that by which the state takes, no longer

money, but the person himself, the entire man, soul and body, and for

the best years of his life, namely, military service. It is the

revolution which has rendered this so burdensome; formerly it was light,

for, in principle, it was voluntary. The militia, alone, was raised by

force, and, in general, among the country people; the peasants furnished

men for it by casting lots. But it was simply a supplement to the active

army, a territorial and provincial reserve, a distinct, sedentary body

of reinforcements, and of inferior rank which, except in case of war,

never marched; it turned out but nine days of the year, and, after 1778,

never turned out again. In 1789 it comprised in all 75,260 men, and for

eleven years their names, inscribed on the registers, alone constituted

their presence in the ranks.



Napoleon put this military system in order. Henceforth every male

able-bodied adult must pay the debt of blood; no more exemptions in the

way of military service; all young men who had reached the required age

drew lots in the conscription and set out in turn according to the order

fixed by their drafted number.



But Napoleon is an intelligent creditor; he knows that this debt is

"most frightful and most detestable for families," that his debtors are

real, living men, and therefore different in kind, that the head of the

state should keep these differences in mind, that is to say, their

condition, their education, their sensibility and their vocation; that,

not only in their private interest, but again in the interest of the

public, not merely through prudence, but also through equity, all should

not be indistinguishably restricted to the same mechanical pursuit, to

the same manual labour, to the same indefinite servitude of soul and

body.



Napoleon also exempts the conscript who has a brother in the active

army, the only son of a widow, the eldest of three orphans, the son of a

father seventy-one years old dependent on his labour, all of whom are

family supports. He joins with these all young men who enlist in one of

his civil militias, in his ecclesiastical militia, or in his university

militia, pupils of the Ecole Normale, seminarians for the priesthood, on

condition that they shall engage to do service in their vocation, and do

it effectively, some for ten years, others for life, subject to a

discipline more rigid, or nearly as rigid, as military discipline.





_IV.--The Prefect Absolute_





Yet another institution which Napoleon gave to the Modern Regime in

France is the Prefect of a Department. Before 1870, when this prefect

appointed the mayors, and when the council general held its session only

fifteen days in the year, this Prefect was almost omnipotent; still, at

the present day, his powers are immense, and his power remains

preponderant. He has the right to suspend the municipal council and the

mayor, and to propose their dismissal to the head of the state. Without

resorting to this extremity, he holds them with a strong hand, and

always uplifted over the commune, for he can veto the acts of the

municipal police and of the road committee, annul the regulations of the

mayor, and, through a skilful use of his prerogative, impose his own. He

holds in hand, removes, appoints or helps appoint, not alone the clerks

in his office, but likewise every kind and degree of clerk who, outside

his office, serves the commune or department, from the archivist down to

and comprising the lowest employees, such as forest-guards of the

department, policemen posted at the corner of a street, and

stone-breakers on the public highway.



Such, in brief, is the system of local and general society in France

from the Napoleonic time down to the date 1889, when these lines are

written. After the philosophic demolitions of the revolution, and the

practical constructions of the consulate, national or general government

is a vast despotic centralised machine, and local government could no

longer be a small patrimony.



The departments and communes have become more or less vast

lodging-houses, all built on the same plan and managed according to the

same regulations, one as passable as the other, with apartments in them

which, more or less good, are more or less dear, but at rates which,

higher or lower, are fixed at a uniform tariff over the entire

territory, so that the 36,000 communal buildings and the eighty-six

department hotels are about equal, it making but little difference

whether one lodges in the latter rather than in the former. The

permanent taxpayers of both sexes who have made these premises their

home have not obtained recognition for what they are, invincibly and by

nature, a syndicate of neighbours, an involuntary, obligatory

association, in which physical solidarity engenders moral solidarity, a

natural, limited society whose members own the building in common, and

each possesses a property-right more or less great according to the

contribution he makes to the expenses of the establishment.



Up to this time no room has yet been found, either in the law or in

minds, for this very plain truth; its place is taken and occupied in

advance by the two errors which in turn, or both at once, have led the

legislator and opinion astray.



* * * * *









THOMAS CARLYLE





Frederick the Great



Frederick the Great, born on January 24, 1712, at Berlin,

succeeded to the throne of Prussia in 1740, and died on August

17, 1786, at Potsdam, being the third king of Prussia, the

regal title having been acquired by his grandfather, whose

predecessors had borne the title of Elector of Brandenburg.

Building on the foundations laid by his great-grandfather and

his father, he raised his comparatively small and poor kingdom

to the position of a first-class military power, and won for

himself rank with the greatest of all generals, often matching

his troops victoriously against forces of twice and even

thrice their number. In Thomas Carlyle he found an

enthusiastic biographer, somewhat prone, however, to find for

actions of questionable public morality a justification in

"immutable laws" and "veracities," which to other eyes is a

little akin to Wordsworth's apology for Rob Roy. But whether

we accept Carlyle's estimate of him or no, the amazing skill,

tenacity, and success with which he stood at bay virtually

against all Europe, while Great Britain was fighting as his

ally her own duel in France in the Seven Years' War,

constitutes an unparallelled achievement. "Frederick the

Great" was begun about 1848, the concluding volumes appearing

in 1865. (Carlyle, see LIVES AND LETTERS.)





_I.--Forebears and Childhood_





About the year 1780 there used to be seen sauntering on the terrace of

Sans-Souci a highly interesting, lean, little old man of alert though

slightly stooping figure, whose name among strangers was King Friedrich

II., or Frederick the Great of Prussia, and at home among the common

people was _Vater Fritz_--Father Fred. A king every inch of him, though

without the trappings of a king; in a Spartan simplicity of vesture. In

1786 his speakings and his workings came to _finis_ in this world of

time. Editors vaguely account this man the creator of the Prussian

monarchy, which has since grown so large in the world.



He was born in the palace of Berlin, about noon, on January 24, 1712; a

small infant, but of great promise and possibility. Friedrich Wilhelm,

Crown Prince of Prussia, father of this little infant, did himself make

some noise in the world as second king of Prussia.



The founder of the line was Conrad of Hohenzollern, who came to seek his

fortune under Barbarossa, greatest of all the kaisers. Friedrich I. of

that line was created Elector of Brandenburg in 1415; the eleventh in

succession was Friedrich Wilhelm, the "Great Elector," who in 1640 found

Brandenburg annihilated, and left it in 1688 sound and flourishing, a

great country, or already on the way towards greatness; a most rapid,

clear-eyed, active man. His son got himself made King of Prussia, and

was Friedrich I., who was still reigning when his grandson, Frederick

the Great, was born. Not two years later Friedrich Wilhelm is king.



Of that strange king and his strange court there is no light to be had

except from the book written by Frederick's little sister, Wilhelmina,

when she grew to size and knowledge of good and evil--a flickery wax

taper held over Frederick's childhood. In the breeding of him there are

two elements noticeable, widely diverse--the French and the German. Of

his infantine history the course was in general smooth. The boy, it was

said, was of extraordinary vivacity; only he takes less to soldiering

than the paternal heart could wish. The French element is in his

governesses--good Edict-of-Nantes ladies.



For the boy's teachers, Friedrich Wilhelm has rules for guidance strict

enough. He is to be taught useful knowledge--history of the last hundred

and fifty years, arithmetic, fortification; but nothing useless of Latin

and the like. Spartan training, too, which shall make a soldier of him.

Whereas young Fritz has vivacities, a taste for music, finery, and

excursions into forbidden realms distasteful and incomprehensible to

Friedrich Wilhelm. We perceive the first small cracks of incurable

division in the royal household, traceable from Fritz's sixth or seventh

year; a divulsion splitting ever wider, new offences super-adding

themselves. This Fritz ought to fashion himself according to his

father's pattern, and he does not. These things make life all bitter for

son and for father, necessitating the proud son to hypocrisies very

foreign to him had there been other resource.



The boy in due time we find (at fifteen) attached to the amazing

regiment of giants, drilling at Potsdam; on very ill terms with his

father, however, who sees in him mainly wilful disobedience and

frivolity. Once, when Prussia and Hanover seem on the verge of war over

an utterly trivial matter, our crown prince acquires momentary favour.

The Potsdam Guards are ordered to the front, and the prince handles them

with great credit. But the favour is transitory, seeing that he is

caught reading French books, and arrayed in a fashion not at all

pleasing to the Spartan parent.





_II.--The Crown Prince Leaves Kingship_





The life is indeed so intolerable that Fritz is with difficulty

dissuaded from running away. The time comes when he will not be

dissuaded, resolves that he will endure no longer. There were only three

definite accomplices in the wild scheme, which had a very tragical

ending. Of the three, Lieutenant Keith, scenting discovery, slipped over

the border and so to England; his brother, Page Keith, feeling discovery

certain, made confession, after vigilance had actually stopped the

prince when he was dressed for the flight. There was terrible wrath of

the father over the would-be "deserter and traitor," and not less over

the other accomplice, Lieutenant Katte, who had dallied too long. The

crown prince himself was imprisoned; court-martial held on the

offenders; a too-lenient sentence was overruled by the king, and Katte

was executed. The king was near frenzied, but beyond doubt thought

honestly that he was doing no more than justice demanded.



As for the crown prince himself, deserting colonel of a regiment, the

court-martial, with two dissentients, condemned him to death; sentence

which the Junius Brutus of a king would have duly carried out. But

remonstrance is universal, and an autograph letter from the kaiser

seemingly decisive. Frederick was, as it were, retired to a house of his

own and a court of his own--court very strictly regulated--at Cuestrin;

not yet a soldier of the Prussian army, but hoping only to become so

again; while he studied the domain sciences, more particularly the

rigidly economical principles of state finance as practised by his

father. The tragedy has taught him a lesson, and he has more to learn.

That period is finally ended when he is restored to the army in 1732.



Reconciliation, complete submission, and obedience, a prince with due

appreciation of facts has now made up his mind to; very soon shaped into

acceptance of paternal demand that he shall wed Elizabeth of

Brunswick-Bevern, insipid niece of the kaiser. In private correspondence

he expresses himself none too submissively, but offers no open

opposition to the king's wishes.



The charmer of Brunswick turned out not so bad as might have been

expected; not ill-looking; of an honest, guileless heart, if little

articulate intellect; considerable inarticulate sense; after marriage,

which took place in June 1733, shaped herself successfully to the

prince's taste, and grew yearly gracefuller and better-looking. But the

affair, before it came off, gave rise to a certain visit of Friedrich

Wilhelm to the kaiser, of which in the long run the outcome was that

complete distrust of the kaiser displaced the king's heretofore

determined loyalty to him.



Meanwhile an event has fallen out at Warsaw. Augustus, the physically

strong, is no more; transcendent king of edacious flunkies, father of

354 children, but not without fine qualities; and Poland has to find a

new king. His death kindled foolish Europe generally into fighting, and

gave our crown prince his first actual sight and experience of the facts

of war. Stanislaus is overwhelmingly the favourite candidate, supported,

too, by France. The other candidate, August of Saxony, secures the

kaiser's favour by promise of support to his Pragmatic Sanction; and the

appearance of Russian troops secures "freedom of election" and choice of

August by the electors who are not absent. August is crowned, and Poland

in a flame. Friedrich Wilhelm cares not for Polish elections, but, as by

treaty bound, provides 10,000 men to support the kaiser on the Rhine,

while he gives asylum to the fugitive Stanislaus. Crown prince, now

twenty-two, is with the force; sees something of warfare, but nothing

big.



War being finished, Frederick occupied a mansion at Reinsberg with his

princess, and things went well, if economically, with much

correspondence with the other original mind of those days, Voltaire. But

big events are coming now. Mr. Jenkins's ear re-emerges from cotton-wool

after seven years, and Walpole has to declare war with Spain in 1739.

Moreover, Friedrich Wilhelm is exceedingly ill. In May 1740 comes a

message--Frederick must come to Potsdam quickly if he is to see his

father again. The son comes. "Am not I happy to have such a son to leave

behind me?" says the dying king. On May 31 he dies. No baresark of them,

nor Odin's self, was a bit of truer stuff.





_III.--The Silesian Wars_





Shall we, then, have the philosopher-king, as Europe dimly seems to half

expect? He begins, indeed, with opening corn magazines, abolishing legal

torture; will have freedom of conscience and the Press; encourage

philosophers and men of letters. In those days he had his first meeting

with Voltaire, recorded for us by the Frenchman twenty years later; for

his own reasons, vitriolically and with inaccuracies, the record

amounting to not much. Frederick was suffering from a quartan fever. Of

which ague he was cured by the news that Kaiser Carl died on October 20,

and Maria Theresa was proclaimed sovereign of the Hapsburg inheritance,

according to the Pragmatic Sanction.



Whereupon, without delay, Frederick forms a resolution, which had sprung

and got to sudden fixity in the head of the young king himself, and met

with little save opposition from all others--to make good his rights in

Silesia. A most momentous resolution; not the peaceable magnanimities,

but the warlike, are the thing appointed for Frederick henceforth.



In mid-December the troops entered Silesia; except in the hills, where

Catholics predominate, with marked approbation of the population, we

find. Of warlike preparation to meet the Prussians is practically none,

and in seven weeks Silesia is held, save three fortresses easy to manage

in spring. Will the hold be maintained?



Meanwhile, France will have something to say, moved by a figure not much

remembered, yet notable, Marshal Belleisle; perhaps, after Frederick and

Voltaire, the most notable of that time. A man of large schemes,

altogether accordant with French interests, but not, unfortunately, with

facts and law of gravitation. For whom the first thing needful is that

Grand Duke Franz, husband of Maria Theresa, shall not be elected kaiser;

who shall be is another matter--why not Karl Albert of Bavaria as well

as another?



After brief absence, Frederick is soon back in Silesia, to pay attention

to blockaded Glogau and Brieg and Neisse; harassed, however, by Austrian

Pandours out of Glatz, a troublesome kind of cavalry. The siege of

Neisse is to open on April 4, when we find Austrian Neipperg with his

army approaching; by good fortune a dilatory Neipperg; of which comes

the battle of Mollwitz.



In which fight victory finally rested with Prussians and Schwerin, who

held the field, Austrians retiring, but not much pursued; demonstration

that a new military power is on the scene (April 10). A victory, though,

of old Friedrich Wilhelm, and his training and discipline, having in it

as yet nothing of young Frederick's own.



A battle, however, which in effect set going the conflagration

unintelligible to Englishmen, known as War of the Austrian Accession. In

which we observe a clear ground for Anglo-Spanish War, and

Austro-Prussian War; but what were the rest doing? France is the author

of it, as an Anti-Pragmatic war; George II. and Hanover are dragged into

it as a Pragmatic war; but the intervention of France at all was

barefacedly unjust and gratuitous. To begin with, however, Belleisle's

scheming brings about election to kaisership of Karl Albert of Bavaria,

principal Anti-Pragmatic claimant to the Austrian heritage.



Brieg was taken not long after Mollwitz, and now many diplomatists come

to Frederick's camp at Strehlen. In effect, will he choose English or

French alliance? Will England get him what will satisfy him from

Austria? If not, French alliance and war with Austria--which problem

issues in treaty with France--mostly contingent. Diplomatising

continues, no one intending to be inconveniently loyal to engagements;

so that four months after French treaty comes another engagement or

arrangement of Klein Schnelendorf--Frederick to keep most of Silesia,

but a plausible show of hostilities--nothing more--to be maintained for

the present. In consequence of which Frederick solemnly captures Neisse.



The arrangement, however, comes to grief, enough of it being divulged

from Vienna to explode it. Out of which comes the Moravian expedition;

by inertness of allies turned into a mere Moravian foray, "the French

acting like fools, and the Saxons like traitors," growls Frederick.



Raid being over, Prince Karl, brother of Grand Duke Franz, comes down

with his army, and follows the battle of Chotusitz, also called of

Czaslau. A hard-fought battle, ending in defeat of the Austrians; not in

itself decisive, but the eyes of Europe very confirmatory of the view

that the Austrians cannot beat the Prussians. From a wounded general,

too, Frederick learns that the French have been making overtures for

peace on their own account, Prussia to be left to Austria if she likes,

of which is documentary proof.



No need, then, for Frederick to be scrupulous about making his own

terms. His Britannic Majesty is urgent that Maria Theresa should agree

with Frederick. Out of which comes Treaty of Breslau, ceding Silesia to

Prussia; and exceeding disgust of Belleisle, ending the first Silesian

War.



With which Frederick would have liked to see the European war ended

altogether; but it went on, Austria, too, prospering. He tries vainly to

effect combinations to enforce peace. George of England, having at last

fairly got himself into the war, and through the battle of Dettingen,

valorously enough; operations emerging in a Treaty of Worms (September

1743), mainly between England and Austria, which does _not_ guarantee

the Breslau Treaty. An expressive silence! "What was good to give is

good to take." Is Frederick, then, not secure of Silesia? If he must

guard his own, he can no longer stand aside. So the Worms Treaty begets

an opposition treaty, chief parties Prussia, France, and Kaiser Karl

Albert of Bavaria, signed at Frankfurt-on-Maine, May 1744.



Before which France has actually declared war on England, with whose

troops her own have been fighting for a not inconsiderable time without

declaration of war; and all the time fortifications in Silesia have been

becoming realities. Frederick will strike when his moment comes.



The imperative moment does come when Prince Karl, or, more properly,

Traun, under cloak of Prince Karl, seems on the point of altogether

crushing the French. Frederick intervenes, in defence of the kaiser;

swoops on Bohemia, captures Prag; in short, brings Prince Karl and Traun

back at high speed, unhindered by French. Thenceforward, not a

successfully managed campaign on Frederick's part, admirably conducted

on the other side by Traun. This campaign the king's school in the art

of war, and M. de Traun his teacher--so Frederick himself admits.



Austria is now sure to invade Silesia; will Frederick not block the

passes against Prince Karl, now having no Traun under his cloak?

Frederick will not--one leaves the mouse-trap door open, pleasantly

baited, moreover, into which mouse Karl will walk. And so, three weeks

after that remarkable battle of Fontenoy, in another quarter, very

hard-won victory of Marechal Saxe over Britannic Majesty's Martial Boy,

comes battle of Hohenfriedberg. A most decisive battle, "most decisive

since Blenheim," wrote Frederick, whose one desire now is peace.



Britannic Majesty makes peace for himself with Frederick, being like to

have his hands full with a rising in the Scotch Highlands; Austria will

not, being still resolute to recover Silesia--rejects bait of Prussian

support in imperial election for Wainz, Kaiser Karl being now dead. What

is kaisership without Silesia? Prussia has no insulted kaiser to defend,

desires no more than peace on the old Breslau terms properly ratified;

but finances are low. Grand Duke Franz is duly elected; but the empress

queen will have Silesia. Battle of Sohr does not convince her. There

must be another surprising last attempt by Saxony and Austria; settled

by battles of Hennensdorf and Kesselsdorf.



So at last Frederick got the Peace of Dresden--security, it is to be

hoped, in Silesia, the thing for which he had really gone to war;

leaving the rest of the European imbroglio to get itself settled in its

own fashion after another two years of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.



Frederick now has ten years of peace before him, during which his

actions and salutary conquests over difficulties were many, profitable

to Prussia and himself. Frederick has now, by his second Silesian war,

achieved greatness; "Frederick the Great," expressly so denominated by

his people and others. However, there are still new difficulties, new

perils and adventures ahead.



For the present, then, Frederick declines the career of conquering hero;

goes into law reform; gets ready a country cottage for himself, since

become celebrated under the name of Sans-Souci. General war being at

last ended, he receives a visit from Marechal Saxe, brilliant French

field-marshal, most dissipated man of his time, one of the 354 children

of Augustus the Physically Strong.



But the ten years are passing--there is like to be another war. Peace of

Aix-la-Chapelle, made in a hurry, had left some questions open in

America, answered in one way by the French, quite otherwise by English

colonists. Canada and Louisiana mean all America west of the

Alleghanies? Why then? Whomsoever America does belong to, it surely is

not France. Braddock disasters, Frenchmen who understand war--these

things are ominous; but there happens to be in England a Mr. Pitt. Here

in Europe, too, King Frederick had come in a profoundly private manner

upon certain extensive anti-Prussian symptoms--Austrian, Russian,

Saxon--of a most dangerous sort; in effect, an underground treaty for

partitioning Prussia; knowledge thereof extracted from Dresden archives.





_IV.--The Seven Years' War Opens_





Very curious diplomatisings, treaties, and counter-treaties are going

on. What counts is Frederick's refusal to help France against England,

and agreement with George of England--and of Hanover--to keep foreign

troops off German soil? Also Kaunitz has twirled Austrian policy on its

axis; we are to be friends with France. In this coming war, England and

Austria, hitherto allies, to be foes; France and Austria, hitherto foes,

to be allies.



War starts with the French capture of Minorca and the Byng affair, well

known. What do the movements of Russian and Austrian troops mean?

Frederick asks at Vienna; answer is no answer. We are ready then; Saxony

is the key to Bohemia. Frederick marches into Saxony, demands inspection

of Dresden Archives, with originals of documents known to him; blockades

the Saxons in Pirna, somewhat forcibly requiring not Saxon neutrality,

but Saxon alliance. And meanwhile neither France nor Austria is deaf to

the cries of Saxon-Polish majesty. Austrian Field-Marshal Browne is

coming to relieve the Saxons; is foiled, but not routed, at Lobositz;

tries another move, executing admirably his own part, but the Saxons

fail in theirs; the upshot, capitulation, the Saxon troops forced to

volunteer as Prussians.



For the coming year, 1757, there are arrayed against Frederick four

armies--French, Austrian, Russian, Swedish; help only from a Duke of

Cumberland on the Weser; the last two enemies not presently formidable.

He is not to stand on the defensive, but to go on it; startles the world

by suddenly marching on Prag, in three columns. Before Prag a mighty

battle desperately fought; old Schwerin killed, Austrian Browne wounded

mortally--fatal to Austria; Austrians driven into Prag, with loss of

13,000 men. Not annihilative, since Prag can hold out, though with

prospect of famishing.



But Daun is coming, in no haste--Fabius Cunctator about to be

named--with 60,000 men; does come to Kolin. Frederick attacks; but a

blunder of too-impetuous Mannstein fatally overturns the plan of battle;

to which the resulting disaster is imputed: disaster seemingly

overwhelming and irretrievable, but Daun does not follow up. The siege

of Prag is raised and the Prussian army--much smaller--retreats to

Saxony. And on the west Cumberland is in retreat seawards, after

Hastenbeck, and French armies are advancing; Cumberland very soon

mercifully to disappear, Convention of Kloster-Seven unratified. But

Pitt at last has hold of the reins in England, and Ferdinand of

Brunswick gets nominated to succeed Cumberland--Pitt's selection?



In these months nothing comes but ill-fortune; clouds gathering; but all

leading up to a sudden and startling turning of tables. In October,

Soubise is advancing; and then--Rossbach. Soubise thinks he has

Frederick outflanked, finds himself unexpectedly taken on flank instead;

rolled up and shattered by a force hardly one-third of his own; loses

8,000 men, the Prussians not 600; a tremendous rout, after which

Frederick had no more fighting with the French.



Having settled Soubise and recovered repute, Frederick must make haste

to Silesia, where Prince Karl, along with Fabius Daun, is already

proclaiming Imperial Majesty again, not much hindered by Bevern.

Schweidnitz falls; Bevern, beaten at Breslau, gets taken prisoner;

Prussian army marches away; Breslau follows Schweidnitz. This is what

Frederick finds, three weeks after Rossbach. Well, we are one to three

we will have at Prince Karl--soldiers as ready and confident as the

king, their hero. Challenge accepted by Prince Karl; consummate

manoeuvring, borrowed from Epaminondas, and perfect discipline wreck the

Austrian army at Leuthen; conquest of Silesia brought to a sudden end.

The most complete of all Frederick's victories.



Next year (1758) the first effective subsidy treaty with England takes

shape, renewed annually; England to provide Frederick with two-thirds of

a million sterling. Ferdinand has got the French clear over Rhine

already. Frederick's next adventure, a swoop on Olmuetz, is not

successful; the siege not very well managed; Loudon, best of partisan

commanders, is dispatched by Daun to intercept a very necessary convoy;

which means end of siege. Cautious Daun does not strike on the Prussian

retreat, not liking pitched battles.



However, it is now time to face an enemy with whom we have not yet

fought; of whose fighting capacity we incline to think little, in spite

of warnings of Marshal Keith, who knows them. The Russians have occupied

East Prussia and are advancing. On August 25, Frederick comes to

hand-grips with Russia--Theseus and the Minotaur at Zorndorf; with much

ultimate slaughter of Russians, Seidlitz, with his calvary, twice saving

the day; the bloodiest battle of the Seven Years' War, giving Frederick

new views of Russian obstinacy in the field. The Russians finally

retire; time for Frederick to be back in Saxony.



For Daun has used his opportunity to invade Saxony; very cleverly

checked by Prince Henri, while Frederick is on his way back. To Daun's

surprise, the king moves off on Silesia. Daun moved on Dresden.

Frederick, having cleared Silesia, sped back, and Daun retired. The end

of the campaign leaves the two sides much as it found them; Frederick at

least not at all annihilated. Ferdinand also has done excellently well.





_V.--Frederick at Bay_





Not annihilated, but reduced to the defensive; best of his veterans

killed off by now, exchequer very deficient in spite of English subsidy.

The allies form a huge cordon all round; broken into at points during

the spring, but Daun finds at last that Frederick does not mean any

invasion; that he, Daun, must be the invader. But now and hereafter

Fabius Cunctator waits for Russia.



In summer Russia is moving; Soltikoff, with 75,000 men, advancing,

driving back Dohna. Frederick's best captains are all gone now; he tries

a new one, Wedell, who gets beaten at Zuellichau. Moreover, Haddick and

Loudon are on the way to join Soltikoff. Frederick plans and carries out

his movements to intercept the Austrians with extraordinary swiftness;

Haddick and Austrian infantry give up the attempted junction, but not so

swift-moving Loudon with his 20,000 horse; interception a partial

failure, and now Frederick must make straight for the Russians.



Just about this time--August 1--Ferdinand has won the really splendid

victory of Minden, on the Weser, a beautiful feat of war; for Pitt and

the English in their French duel a mighty triumph; this is Pitt's year,

but the worst of all in Frederick's own campaigns. His attack now on the

Russians was his worst defeat--at Kunersdorf. Beginning victoriously, he

tried to drive victory home with exhausted troops, who were ultimately

driven in rout by Loudon with fresh regiments (August 9).



For the moment Frederick actually despaired; intended to resign command,

and "not to revive the ruin of his country." But Daun was not capable of

dealing the finishing stroke; managed, however, to take Dresden, on

terms. Frederick, however, is not many weeks in recovering his

resolution; and a certain astonishing march of his brother, Prince

Henri--fifty miles in fifty-six hours through country occupied by the

enemy--is a turning-point. Soltikoff, sick of Daun's inaction, made

ready to go home and England rejoiced over Wolfe's capture of Quebec.

Frederick, recovering, goes too far, tries a blow at Daun, resulting in

disaster of Maxen, loss of a force of 12,000 men. On the other hand,

Hawke finished the French fleet at Quiberon Bay. A very bad year for

Frederick, but a very good one for his ally. Next year Loudon is to

invade Silesia.



It did seem to beholders in this year 1660 that Frederick was doomed,

could not survive; but since he did survive it, he was able to battle

out yet two more campaigns, enemies also getting worn out; a race

between spent horses. Of the marches by which Frederick carried himself

through this fifth campaign it is not possible to give an idea. Failure

to bring Daun to battle, sudden siege of Dresden--not successful,

perhaps not possible at all that it should have succeeded. In August a

dash on Silesia with three armies to face--Daun, Lacy, Loudon, and

possible Russians, edged off by Prince Henri. At Liegnitz the best of

management, helped by good luck and happy accident, gives him a decisive

victory over London's division, despite Loudon's admirable conduct; a

miraculous victory; Daun's plans quite scattered, and Frederick's

movements freed. Three months later the battle of Torgau, fought

dubiously all day, becomes a distinct victory in the night. Neither

Silesia nor Saxony are to fall to the Austrians.



Liegnitz and Torgau are a better outcome of operations than Kunersdorf

and Maxen; the king is, in a sense, stronger, but his resources are more

exhausted, and George III. is now become king in England; Pitt's power

very much in danger there. In the next year most noteworthy is Loudon's

brilliant stroke in capturing Schweidnitz, a blow for Frederick quite

unlooked for.



In January, however, comes bright news from Petersburg: implacable

Tsarina Elizabeth is dead, Peter III. is Tsar, sworn friend and admirer

of Frederick; Russia, in short, becomes suddenly not an enemy but a

friend. Bute, in England, is proposing to throw over his ally,

unforgivably; to get peace at price of Silesia, to Frederick's wrath,

who, having moved Daun off, attacks Schweidnitz, and gets it, not

without trouble. And so, practically, ends the seventh campaign.



French and English had signed their own peace preliminaries, to disgust

of Excellency Mitchell, the first-rate ambassador to Frederick during

these years. Austria makes proffers, and so at last this war ends with

Treaties of Paris and Hubertsburg; issue, as concerns Austria and

Prussia, "as you were before the war."





_VI.--Afternoon and Evening of Frederick's Life_





Frederick's Prussia is safe; America and India are to be English, not

French; France is on the way towards spontaneous combustion in

1789;--these are the fruits of the long war. During the rest of

Frederick's reign--twenty-three years--is nothing of world history to

dwell on. Of the coming combustion Frederick has no perception; for what

remains of him, he is King of Prussia, interesting to Prussia chiefly:

whereof no continuous narrative is henceforth possible to us, only a

loose appendix of papers, as of the extraordinary speed with which

Prussia recovered--brave Prussia, which has defended itself against

overwhelming odds. The repairing of a ruined Prussia cost Frederick much

very successful labour.



Treaty with Russia is made in 1764, Frederick now, having broken with

England, being extremely anxious to keep well with such a country under

such a Tsarina, about whom there are to be no rash sarcasms. In 1769 a

young Kaiser Joseph has a friendliness to Frederick very unlike his

mother's animosity. Out of which things comes first partition of Poland

(1772); an event inevitable in itself, with the causing of which

Frederick had nothing whatever to do, though he had his slice. There was

no alternative but a general European war; and the slice, Polish

Prussia, was very desirable; also its acquisition was extremely

beneficial to itself.



In 1778 Frederick found needful to interpose his veto on Austrian

designs in respect of Bavarian succession; got involved subsequently in

Bavarian war of a kind, ended by intervention of Tsarina Catherine. In

1780 Maria Theresa died; Joseph and Kaunitz launched on ambitious

adventures for imperial domination of the German Empire, making

overtures to the Tsarina for dual empire of east and west, alarming to

Frederick. His answer was the "Fuerstenbund," confederation of German

princes, Prussia atop, to forbid peremptorily that the laws of the Reich

be infringed; last public feat of Frederick; events taking an unexpected

turn, which left it without actual effect in European history.



A few weeks after this Fuerstenbund, which did very effectively stop

Joseph's schemes, Frederick got a chill, which was the beginning of his

breaking up. In January 1786, he developed symptoms concluded by the

physician called in to be desperate, but not immediately mortal. Four

months later he talked with Mirabeau in Berlin, on what precise errand

is nowise clear; interview reported as very lively, but "the king in

much suffering."



Nevertheless, after this he did again appear from Sans-Souci on

horseback several times, for the last time on July 4. To the last he

continued to transact state business. "The time which I have still I

must employ; it belongs not to me but to the state"--till August 15.



On August 17 he died. In those last days it is evident that chaos is

again big. Better for a royal hero, fallen old and feeble, to be hidden

from such things; hero whom we may account as hitherto the last of the

kings.



* * * * *









GEORGE FINLAY





History of Greece





George Finlay, the historian of Greece, was born on December

21, 1799, at Faversham, Kent, England, where his father, Capt.

J. Finlay, R.E., was inspector of the Government powder mills.

His early instruction was undertaken by his mother, to whose

training he attributed his love of history. He studied law at

Glasgow and Goettingen universities, at the latter of which he

became acquainted with a Greek fellow-student, and resolved to

take part in the struggle for Greek independence. He proceeded

to Greece, where he met Byron and the leaders of the Greek

patriotic forces, took part in many engagements with the

Turks, and conducted missions on behalf of the Greek

provisional government until the independence of Greece was

established. Finlay bought an estate in Attica, on which he

resided for many years. The publication of his great series of

histories of Greece began in 1844, and was completed in 1875

with the second edition, which brought the history of modern

Greece down to 1864. It has been said that Finlay, like

Machiavelli, qualified himself to write history by wide

experience as student, soldier, statesman, and economist. He

died on January 26, 1875.





_I.--Greece Under the Romans_





The conquests of Alexander the Great effected a permanent change in the

political conditions of the Greek nation, and this change powerfully

influenced its moral and social state during the whole period of its

subjection to the Roman Empire.



Alexander introduced Greek civilisation as an important element in his

civil government, and established Greek colonies with political rights

throughout his conquests. During 250 years the Greeks were the dominant

class in Asia, and the corrupting influence of this predominance was

extended to the whole frame of society in their European as well as

their Asiatic possessions. The great difference which existed in the

social condition of the Greeks and Romans throughout their national

existence was that the Romans formed a nation with the organisation of a

single city. The Greeks were a people composed of a number of rival

states, and the majority looked with indifference on the loss of their

independence. The Romans were compelled to retain much of the civil

government, and many of the financial arrangements which they found

existing. This was a necessity, because the conquered were much further

advanced in social civilisation than the conquerors. The financial

policy of Rome was to transfer as much of the money circulating in the

provinces, and the precious metals in the hands of private individuals,

as it was possible into the coffers of the state.



Hence, the whole empire was impoverished, and Greece suffered severely

under a government equally tyrannical in its conduct and unjust in its

legislation. The financial administration of the Romans inflicted, if

possible, a severer blow on the moral constitution of society than on

the material prosperity of the country. It divided the population of

Greece into two classes. The rich formed an aristocratic class, the poor

sank to the condition of serfs. It appears to be a law of human society

that all classes of mankind who are separated by superior wealth and

privileges from the body of the people are, by their oligarchical

constitution, liable to rapid decline.



The Greeks and the Romans never showed any disposition to unite and form

one people, their habits and tastes being so different. Although the

schools of Athens were still famous, learning and philosophy were but

little cultivated in European Greece because of the poverty of the

people and the secluded position of the country.



In the changes of government which preceded the establishment of

Byzantium as the capital of the Roman Empire by Constantine, the Greeks

contributed to effect a mighty revolution of the whole frame of social

life by the organisation which they gave to the Church from the moment

they began to embrace the Christian religion. It awakened many of the

national characteristics which had slept for ages, and gave new vigour

to the communal and municipal institutions, and even extended to

political society. Christian communities of Greeks were gradually melted

into one nation, having a common legislation and a common civil

administration as well as a common religion, and it was this which

determined Constantine to unite Church and State in strict alliance.



From the time of Constantine the two great principles of law and

religion began to exert a favourable influence on Greek society, and

even limited the wild despotism of the emperors. The power of the

clergy, however, originally resting on a more popular and more pure

basis than that of the law, became at last so great that it suffered the

inevitable corruption of all irresponsible authority entrusted to

humanity.



Then came the immigration and ravages of the Goths to the south of the

Danube, and that unfortunate period marked the commencement of the rapid

decrease of the Greek race, and the decline of Greek civilisation

throughout the empire. Under Justinian (527-565), the Hellenic race and

institutions in Greece itself received the severest blow. Although he

gave to the world his great system of civil law, his internal

administration was remarkable for religious intolerance and financial

rapacity. He restricted the powers and diminished the revenues of the

Greek municipalities, closed the schools of rhetoric and philosophy at

Athens, and seized the endowments of the Academy of Plato, which had

maintained an uninterrupted succession of teachers for 900 years. But it

was not till the reign of Heraclius that the ancient existence of the

Hellenic race terminated.





_II.--The Byzantine and Greek Empires_





The history of the Byzantine Empire divides itself into three periods

strongly marked by distinct characteristics. The first commences with

the reign of Leo III., the Isaurian, in 716, and terminates with that of

Michael III., in 867. It comprises the whole history of the predominance

of iconoclasm in the established church, of the reaction which

reinstated the Orthodox in power, and restored the worship of pictures

and images.



It opens with the effort by which Leo and the people of the empire saved

the Roman law and the Christian religion from the conquering Saracen. It

embraces the long and violent struggle between the government and the

people, the emperors seeking to increase the central power by

annihilating every local franchise, and to constitute themselves the

fountains of ecclesiastical as completely as of civil legislation.



The second period begins with the reign of Bazil I., in 867, and during

two centuries the imperial sceptre was retained by members of his

family. At this time the Byzantine Empire attained its highest pitch of

external power and internal prosperity. The Saracens were pursued into

the plains of Syria, the Bulgarian monarchy was conquered, the

Slavonians in Greece were almost exterminated, Byzantine commerce filled

the whole of the Mediterranean. But the real glory of the period

consisted in the respect for the administration of justice which

purified society more generally than it had ever done at any preceding

era of the history of the world.



The third period extends from the accession of Isaac I., in 1057, to the

conquest of the Byzantine Empire by the Crusaders, in 1204. This is the

true period of the decline and fall of the Eastern Empire. The

separation of the Greek and Latin churches was accomplished. The wealth

of the empire was dissipated, the administration of justice corrupted,

and the central authority lost all control over the population.



But every calamity of this unfortunate period sinks into insignificance

compared with the destruction of the greater part of the Greek race by

the savage incursions of the Seljouk Turks in Asia Minor. Then followed

the Crusades, the first three inflicting permanent evils on the Greek

race; while the fourth, which was organised in Venice, captured and

plundered Constantinople. A treaty entered into by the conquerors put an

end to the Eastern Roman Empire, and Baldwin, Count of Flanders, was

elected emperor of the East. The conquest of Constantinople restored the

Greeks to a dominant position in the East; but the national character of

the people, the political constitution of the imperial government, and

the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the Orthodox Church were all destitute

of every theory and energetic practice necessary for advancing in a

career of improvement.



Towards the end of the thirteenth century a small Turkish tribe made its

first appearance in the Seljouk Empire. Othman, who gave his name to

this new band of immigrants, and his son, Orkhan, laid the foundation of

the institutions and power of the Othoman Empire. No nation ever

increased so rapidly from such small beginnings, and no government ever

constituted itself with greater sagacity than the Othoman; but no force

or prudence could have enabled this small tribe of nomads to rise with

such rapidity to power if it had not been that the Greek nation and its

emperors were paralysed by political and moral corruption. Justice was

dormant in the state, Christianity was torpid in the Church, orthodoxy

performed the duties of civil liberty, and the priest became the focus

of political opposition. By the middle of the fourteenth century the

Othoman Turks had raided Thrace, Macedonia, the islands of the Aegean,

plundered the large town of Greece, and advanced to the shores of the

Bosphorus.



At the end of the fourteenth century John VI. asked for efficient

military aid from Western Europe to avert the overthrow of the Greek

Empire by the Othoman power, but the Pope refused, unless John consented

to the union of the Greek and Latin Churches and the recognition of the

papal supremacy. In 1438 the Council of Ferrara was held, and was

transferred in the following year to Florence, when the Greek emperor

and all the bishops of the Eastern Church, except the bishop of Ephesus,

adopted the doctrines of the Roman Church, accepted the papal supremacy,

and the union of the two Churches was solemnly ratified in the cathedral

of Florence on July 6, 1439. But little came of the union. The Pope

forgot to sent a fleet to defend Constantinople; the Christian princes

would not fight the battles of the Greeks.



Then followed the conquest, in May 1453, of Constantinople, despite a

desperate resistance, by Mohammed II., who entered his new capital,

riding triumphantly past the body of the Emperor Constantine. Mohammed

proceeded at once to the church of St. Sophia, where, to convince the

Greeks that their Orthodox empire was extinct, the sultan ordered a

moolah to ascend the Bema and address a sermon to the Mussulmans

announcing that St. Sophia was now a mosque set apart for the prayers of

true believers. The fall of Constantinople is a dark chapter in the

annals of Christianity. The death of the unfortunate Constantine,

neglected by the Catholics and deserted by the Orthodox, alone gave

dignity to the final catastrophe.





_III.--Othoman and Venetian_





The conquest of Greece by Mohammed II. was felt to be a boon by the

greater part of the population. The sultan's government put an end to

the injustices of the Greek emperors and the Frank princes, dukes, and

signors who for two centuries had rendered Greece the scene of incessant

civil wars and odious oppression, and whose rapacity impoverished and

depopulated the country. The Othoman system of administration was

immediately organised. Along with it the sultan imposed a tribute of a

fifth of the male children of his Christian subjects as a part of that

tribute which the Koran declared was the lawful price of toleration to

those who refused to embrace Islam. Under these measures the last traces

of the former political institutions and legal administration of Greece

were swept away.



The mass of the Christian population engaged in agricultural operations

were, however, allowed to enjoy a far larger portion of the fruits of

their labour under the sultan's government than under that of many

Christian monarchs. The weak spots in the Othoman government were the

administration of justice and of finance. The naval conquests of the

Othomans in the islands and maritime districts of Greece, and the

ravages of Corsairs in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, reduced

and degraded the population, exterminated the best families, enslaved

the remnant, and destroyed the prosperity of Greek trade and commerce.



Towards the end of the seventeenth century ecclesiastical corruption in

the Orthodox Church increased. Bishoprics, and even the patriarchate

were sold to the highest bidder. The Turks displayed their contempt for

them by ordering the cross which until that time had crowned the dome of

the belfry of the patriarchate to be taken down. There can be no doubt,

however, that in the rural district the secular clergy supplied some of

the moral strength which eventually enabled the Greeks successfully to

resist the Othoman power. Happily, the exaction of the tribute of

children fell into disuse; and, that burden removed, the nation soon

began to fed the possibility of improving its condition.



The contempt with which the ambassadors of the Christian powers were

treated at the Sublime Porte increased after the conquest of Candia and

the surrender of Crete in 1669, and the grand vizier, Kara Mustapha,

declared war against Austria and laid siege to Vienna in 1683. This was

the opportune moment taken by the Venetian Republic to declare war

against the Othoman Empire, and Greece was made the chief field of

military operations.



Morosini, the commander of the Venetian mercenary army, successfully

conducted a series of campaigns between 1684 and 1687, but with terrible

barbarity on both sides. The Venetian fleet entered the Piraeus on

September 21, 1687. The city of Athens was immediately occupied by their

army, and siege laid to the Acropolis. On September 25 a Venetian bomb

blew up a powder magazine in the Propylaea, and the following evening

another fell in the Parthenon. The classic temple was partially ruined;

much of the sculpture which had retained its inimitable excellence from

the days of Phidaeas was defaced, and a part utterly destroyed. The Turks

persisted in defending the place until September 28, when, they

capitulated. The Venetians continued the campaign until the greater part

of Northern Greece submitted to their authority, and peace was declared

in 1696. During the Venetian occupation of Greece through the ravages of

war, oppressive taxation, and pestilence, the Greek inhabitants

decreased from 300,000 to about 100,000.



Sultan Achmet III., having checkmated Peter the Great in his attempt to

march to the conquest of Constantinople, assembled a large army at

Adrianople under the command of Ali Cumurgi, which expelled the

Venetians from Greece before the end of 1715. Peace was concluded, by

the Treaty of Passarovitz, in July 1718. Thereafter, the material and

political position of the Greek nation began to exhibit many signs of

improvement, and the agricultural population before the end of the

eighteenth century became, in the greatest part of the country, the

legal as well as the real proprietors of the soil, which made them feel

the moral sentiment of freemen.



The increased importance of the diplomatic relations of the Porte with

the Christian powers opened a new political career to the Greeks at

Constantinople, and gave rise to the formation of a class of officials

in the Othoman service called "phanariots," whose venality and illegal

exactions made the name a by-word for the basest servility, corruption,

and rapacity.



This system was extended to Wallachia and Moldavia, and no other

Christian race in the Othoman dominions was exposed to so long a period

of unmitigated extortion and cruelty as the Roman population of these

principalities. The Treaty of Kainardji which concluded the war with

Russia between 1768 and 1774, humbled the pride of the sultan, broke the

strength of the Othoman Empire, and established the moral influence of

Russia over the whole of the Christian populations in Turkey. But Russia

never insisted on the execution of the articles of the treaty, and the

Greeks were everywhere subjected to increased oppression and cruelty.

During the war from 1783 to 1792, caused by Catherine II. of Russia

assuming sovereignty over the Crimea, Russia attempted to excite the

Christians in Greece to take up arms against the Turks, but they were

again abandoned to their fate on the conclusion of the Treaty of Yassi

in 1792, which decided the partition of Poland.



Meanwhile, the diverse ambitions of the higher clergy and the phanariots

at Constantinople taught the people of Greece that their interests as a

nation were not always identical with the policy of the leaders of the

Orthodox Church. A modern Greek literature sprang up and, under the

influence of the French Revolution, infused love of freedom into the

popular mind, while the sultan's administration every day grew weaker

under the operation of general corruption. Throughout the East it was

felt that the hour of a great struggle for independence on the part of

the Greeks had arrived.





_IV.--The Greek Revolution_





The Greek revolution began in 1821. Two societies are supposed to have

contributed to accelerating it, but they did not do much to ensure its

success. These were the Philomuse Society, founded at Athens in 1812,

and the Philike Hetaireia, established in Odessa in 1814. The former was

a literary club, the latter a political society whose schemes were wild

and visionary. The object of the inhabitants of Greece was definite and

patriotic.



The attempt of Alexander Hypsilantes, the son of the Greek Hospodar of

Wallachia, under the pretence that he was supported by Russia, to upset

the Turkish government in Moldavia and Wallachia was a miserable fiasco

distinguished for massacres, treachery, and cowardice, and it was

repudiated by the Tsar of Russia. Very different was the intensity of

the passion with which the inhabitants of modern Greece arose to destroy

the power of their Othoman masters. In the month of April 1821, a

Mussulman population, amounting to upwards of 20,000 souls, was living

dispersed in Greece employed in agriculture. Before two months had

elapsed the greater part--men, women, and children--were murdered

without mercy or remorse. The first insurrectional movement took place

in the Peloponnesus at the end of March. Kalamata was besieged by a

force of 2,000 Greeks, and taken on April 4. Next day a solemn service

of the Greek Church was performed on the banks of the torrent that flows

by Kalamata, as a thanksgiving for the success of the Greek arms.

Patriotic tears poured down the cheeks of rude warriors, and ruthless

brigands sobbed like children. All present felt that the event formed an

era in Greek history. The rising spread to every part of Greece, and to

some of the islands.



Sultan Mahmud II. believed that he could paralyse the movements of the

Greeks by terrific cruelty. On Easter Sunday, April 22, the Patriarch

Gregorios and three other bishops were executed in Constantinople--a

deed which caused a thrill of horror from the Moslem capital to the

mountains of Greece, and the palaces of St. Petersburg. The sultan next

strengthened his authority in Thrace and in Macedonia, and extinguished

the flames of rebellion from Mount Athos to Olympus.



In Greece itself the patriots were triumphant. Local senates were formed

for the different districts, and a National Assembly met at Piada, three

miles to the west of the site of the ancient Epidaurus, which formulated

a constitution and proclaimed it on January 13, 1822. This constitution

established a central government consisting of a legislative assembly

and an executive body of five members, with Prince Alexander

Mavrocordato as President of Greece.



It is impossible here to go into the details of the war of independence

which was carried on from 1822 to 1827. The outstanding incidents were

the triple siege and capitulation of the Acropolis at Athens; the

campaigns of Ibrahim Pasha and his Egyptian army in the Morea; the

defence of Mesolonghi by the Greeks with a courage and endurance, an

energy and constancy which will awaken the sympathy of free men in every

country as long as Grecian history endures; the two civil wars, for one

of which the Primates were especially blamable; the dishonesty of the

government, the rapacity of the military, the indiscipline of the navy;

and the assistance given to the revolutionaries by Lord Byron and other

English sympathisers. Lord Byron arrived at Mesolonghi on January 5,

1824. His short career in Greece was unconnected with any important

military event, for he died on April 19; but the enthusiasm he awakened

perhaps served Greece more than his personal exertions would have done

had his life been prolonged, because it resulted in the provision of a

fleet for the Greek nation by the English and American Philhellenes,

commanded by Lord Cochrane.



By the beginning of 1827 the whole of Greece was laid waste, and the

sufferings of the agricultural population were terrible. At the same

time, the greater part of the Greeks who bore arms against the Turks

were fed by Greek committees in Switzerland, France, and Germany; while

those in the United States directed their attention to the relief of the

peaceful population. It was felt that the intervention of the European

powers could alone prevent the extermination of the population or their

submission to the sultan. On July 6, 1827, a treaty Between Great

Britain, France, and Russia was signed at London to take common measures

for the pacification of Greece, to enforce an armistice between the

Greeks and the Turks, and, by an armed intervention, to secure to the

Greeks virtual independence under the suzerainty of the sultan. The

Greeks accepted the armistice, but the Turks refused; and then followed

the destruction of the Othoman fleet by the allied squadrons under

Admiral Sir Edward Coddrington at Navarino, on October 21, 1827.



In the following April, Russia declared war against Turkey, and the

French government, by a protocol, were authorised to dispatch a French

army of 14,000 men under the command of General Maison. This force

landed at Petalidi, in the Gulf of Coron. Ibrahim Pasha withdrew his

army to Egypt, and the French troops occupied the strong places of

Greece almost without resistance from the Turkish garrisons.



France thus gained the honour of delivering Greece from the last of her

conquerors, and she increased the debt of gratitude due by the Greeks by

the admirable conduct of her soldiers, who converted mediaeval

strongholds into habitable towns, repaired the fortresses, and

constructed roads. Count John Capodistrias, a Corfiot noble, who had

been elected President of Greece in April 1827 for a period of seven

years by the National Assembly of Troezen, arrived in Greece in January

1828. He found the country in a state of anarchy, and at once put a stop

to some of the grossest abuses in the army, navy, and financial

administration.





_V.--The Greek Monarchy_





The war terminated in 1829, and the Turks finally evacuated continental

Greece in September of the same year. The allied powers declared Greece

an independent state with a restricted territory, and nominated Prince

Leopold of Saxe-Coburg (afterwards King of the Belgians) to be its

sovereign. Prince Leopold accepted the throne on February 11, but

resigned it on May 17. Thereafter Capodistrias exercised his functions

as president in the most tyrannical fashion, and was assassinated on

October 9, 1831; from which date till February 1833 anarchy prevailed in

the country.



Agostino Capodistrias, brother of the assassinated president, who had

been chosen president by the National Assembly on December 20, 1831, was

ejected out of the presidency by the same assembly in April 1832, and

Prince Otho of Bavaria was elected King of Greece. Otho, accompanied by

a small Bavarian army, landed from an English frigate in Greece at

Nauplia on February 6, 1833. He was then only seventeen years of age,

and a regency of three Bavarians was appointed to administer the

government during his minority, his majority being fixed at June 1,

1835.



The regency issued a decree in August 1833, proclaiming the national

Church of Greece independent of the patriarchate and synod of

Constantinople and establishing an ecclesiastical synod for the kingdom

on the model of that of Russia, but with more freedom of action. In

judicial procedure, however, the regency placed themselves above the

tribunals. King Otho, who had come of age in 1835, and married a

daughter of the Duke of Oldenburg in 1837, became his own prime minister

in 1839, and claimed to rule with absolute power. He did not possess

ability, experience, energy, or generosity; consequently, he was not

respected, obeyed, feared, or loved. The administrative incapacity of

King Otho's counsellors disgusted the three protecting powers as much as

their arbitrary conduct irritated the Greeks.



A revolution naturally followed. Otho was compelled to abandon absolute

power in order to preserve his crown, and in March 1844 he swore

obedience to a constitution prepared by the National Assembly, which put

an end to the government of alien rulers under which the Greeks had

lived for two thousand years. The destinies of the race were now in the

hands of the citizens of liberated Greece. But the attempt was

unsuccessful. The corruption of the government and the contracted views

of King Otho rendered the period from the adoption of the constitution

to his expulsion in 1862 a period of national stagnation. In October

1862 revolt broke out, and on the 23rd a provisional government at

Athens issued a proclamation declaring, in his absence, that the reign

of King Otho was at an end.



When Otho and his queen returned in a frigate to the Piraeus they were

not allowed to land. Otho appealed to the representatives of the powers,

who refused to support him against the nation, and he and his queen took

refuge on board H.M.S. Scylla, and left Greece for ever.



The National Assembly held in Athens drew up a new constitution, laying

the foundations of free municipal institutions, and leaving the nation

to elect their sovereign. Then followed the abortive, though almost

unanimous, election as king of Prince Alfred of England. Afterwards the

British Government offered the crown to the second son of Prince

Christian of Holstein-Gluecksburg. On March 30, 1863, he was unanimously

elected King of Greece, and the British forces left Corfu on June 2,

1864.



* * * * *









J.L. MOTLEY





The Rise of the Dutch Republic





John Lothrop Motley, historian and diplomatist, was born at

Dorchester, Massachusetts, now part of Boston, on April 15,

1814. After graduating at Harvard University, he proceeded to

Europe, where he studied at the universities of Berlin and

Goettingen. At the latter he became intimate with Bismarck, and

their friendly relations continued throughout life. In 1846

Motley began to collect materials for a history of Holland,

and in 1851 he went to Europe to pursue his investigations.

The result of his labours was "The Rise of the Dutch

Republic--a History," published in 1856. The work was received

with enthusiasm in Europe and America. Its distinguishing

character is its graphic narrative and warm sympathy; and

Froude said of it that it is "as complete as industry and

genius can make it, and a book which will take its place among

the finest stories in this or any language." In 1861 Motley

was appointed American Minister to Austria, where he remained

until 1867; and in 1869 General Grant sent him to represent

the United States in England. Motley died on May 29, 1877, at

the Dorsetshire house of his daughter, near Dorchester.





_I.--Woe to the Heretic_





The north-western corner of the vast plain which extends from the German

Ocean to the Ural Mountains is occupied by the countries called the

Netherlands. The history of the development of the Netherland nation

from the time of the Romans during sixteen centuries is ever marked by

one prevailing characteristic, one master passion--the love of liberty,

the instinct of self-government. Largely compounded of the bravest

Teutonic elements--Batavian and Frisian--the race has ever battled to

the death with tyranny, and throughout the dark ages struggled

resolutely towards the light, wresting from a series of petty sovereigns

a gradual and practical recognition of the claims of humanity. With the

advent of the Burgundian family, the power of the commons reached so

high a point that it was able to measure itself, undaunted, with the

spirit of arbitrary power. Peaceful in their pursuits, phlegmatic by

temperament, the Netherlanders were yet the most belligerent and

excitable population in Europe.



For more than a century the struggle for freedom, for civic life, went

on, Philip the Good, Charles the Bold, Mary's husband Maximilian,

Charles V., in turn assailing or undermining the bulwarks raised age

after age against the despotic principle. Liberty, often crushed, rose

again and again from her native earth with redoubled energy. At last, in

the sixteenth century, a new and more powerful spirit, the genius of

religious freedom, came to participate in the great conflict. Arbitrary

power, incarnated in the second Charlemagne, assailed the new

combination with unscrupulous, unforgiving fierceness. In the little

Netherland territory, humanity, bleeding but not killed, still stood at

bay, and defied the hunters. The two great powers had been gathering

strength for centuries. They were soon to be matched in a longer and

more determined combat than the world had ever seen.



On October 25, 1555, the Estates of the Netherlands were assembled in

the great hall of the palace at Brussels to witness amidst pomp and

splendour the dramatic abdication of Charles V. as sovereign of the

Netherlands in favour of his son Philip. The drama was well played. The

happiness of the Netherlands was apparently the only object contemplated

in the great transaction, and the stage was drowned in tears. And yet,

what was the Emperor Charles to the inhabitants of the Netherlands that

they should weep for him? Their interests had never been even a

secondary consideration with their master. He had fulfilled no duty

towards them; he had committed the gravest crimes against them; he was

in constant conflict with their ancient and dearly-bought political

liberties.



Philip II., whom the Netherlands received as their new master, was a man

of foreign birth and breeding, not speaking a word of their language. In

1548 he had made his first appearance in the Netherlands to receive

homage in the various provinces as their future sovereign, and to

exchange oaths of mutual fidelity with them all.



One of the earliest measures of Philip's reign was to re-enact the dread

edict of 1550. This he did by the express advice of the Bishop of Arras.

The edict set forth that no one should print, write, copy, keep,

conceal, sell, buy, or give in churches, streets, or other places any

book or writing by Luther, Calvin, and other heretics reprobated by the

Holy Church; nor break, or injure the images of the Holy Virgin or

canonised saints; nor in his house hold conventicles, or be present at

any such, in which heretics or their adherents taught, baptised, or

formed conspiracies, against the Holy Church and the general welfare.

Further, all lay persons were forbidden to converse or dispute

concerning the Holy Scriptures openly or secretly, or to read, teach, or

expound them; or to preach, or to entertain any of the opinions of the

heretics.



Disobedience to this edict was to be punished as follows. Men to be

executed with the sword, and women to be buried alive if they do not

persist in their errors; if they do persist in them, then they are to be

executed with fire, and all their property in both cases is to be

confiscated to the crown. Those who failed to betray the suspected were

to be liable to the same punishment, as also those who lodged, furnished

with food, or favoured anyone suspected of being a heretic. Informers

and traitors against suspected persons were to be entitled on conviction

to one-half of the property of the accused.



At first, however, the edict was not vigorously carried into effect

anywhere. It was openly resisted in Holland; its proclamation was flatly

refused in Antwerp, and repudiated throughout Brabant. This disobedience

was in the meantime tolerated because Philip wanted money to carry on

the war between Spain and France which shortly afterwards broke out. At

the close of the war, a treaty was entered into between France and Spain

by which Philip and Henry II. bound themselves to maintain the Catholic

worship inviolate by all means in their power, and to extinguish the

increasing heresy in both kingdoms. There was a secret agreement to

arrange for the Huguenot chiefs throughout the realms of both, a

"Sicilian Vespers" upon the first favourable occasion.



Henry died of a wound received from Montgomery in a tournay held to

celebrate the conclusion of the treaty, and Catherine de Medici became

Queen-Regent of France, and deferred carrying out the secret plot till

St. Bartholomew's Day fourteen years after.





_II.--The Netherlands Are, and Will Be, Free_





Philip now set about the organisation of the Netherlands provinces.

Margaret, Duchess of Parma, was appointed regent, with three boards, a

state council, a privy council, and a council of finance, to assist in

the government. It soon became evident that the real power of the

government was exclusively in the hands of the Consulta--a committee of

three members of the state council, by whose deliberation the regent was

secretly to be guided on all important occasions; but in reality the

conclave consisted of Anthony Perrenot, Bishop of Arras, afterwards

Cardinal Granvelle. Stadtholders were appointed to the different

provinces, of whom only Count Egmont for Flanders and William of Orange

for Holland need be mentioned.



An assembly of the Estates met at Ghent on August 7, 1589, to receive

the parting instructions of Philip previous to his departure for Spain.

The king, in a speech made through the Bishop of Arras, owing to his

inability to speak French or Flemish, submitted a "request" for three

million gold florins "to be spent for the good of the country." He made

a violent attack on "the new, reprobate and damnable sects that now

infested the country," and commanded the Regent Margaret "accurately and

exactly to cause to be enforced the edicts and decrees made for the

extirpation of all sects and heresies." The Estates of all the provinces

agreed, at a subsequent meeting with the king, to grant their quota of

the "request," but made it a condition precedent that the foreign

troops, whose outrages and exactions had long been an intolerable

burden, should be withdrawn. This enraged the king, but when a

presentation was made of a separate remonstrance in the name of the

States-General, signed by the Prince of Orange, Count Egmont, and other

leading patricians, against the pillaging, insults, and disorders of the

foreign soldiers, the king was furious. He, however, dissembled at a

later meeting, and took leave of the Estates with apparent cordiality.



Inspired by the Bishop of Arras, under secret instructions from Philip,

the Regent Margaret resumed the execution of the edicts against heresies

and heretics which had been permitted to slacken during the French war.

As an additional security for the supremacy of the ancient religion,

Philip induced the Pope, Paul IV., to issue, in May, 1559, a Bull

whereby three new archbishoprics were appointed, with fifteen subsidiary

bishops and nine prebendaries, who were to act as inquisitors. To

sustain these two measures, through which Philip hoped once and for ever

to extinguish the Netherland heresy, the Spanish troops were to be kept

in the provinces indefinitely.



Violent agitation took place throughout the whole of the Netherlands

during the years 1560 and 1561 against the arbitrary policy embodied in

the edicts, and the ruthless manner in which they were enforced in the

new bishoprics, and against the continued presence of the foreign

soldiery. The people and their leaders appealed to their ancient

charters and constitutions. Foremost in resistance was the Prince of

Orange, and he, with Egmont, the soldier hero of St. Quentin, and

Admiral Horn, united in a remarkable letter to the king, in which they

said that the royal affairs would never be successfully conducted so

long as they were entrusted to Cardinal Granvelle. Finally, Granvelle

was recalled by Philip. But the Netherlands had now reached a condition

of anarchy, confusion, and corruption.



The four Estates of Flanders, in a solemn address to the king, described

in vigorous language the enormities committed by the inquisitors, and

called upon Philip to suppress these horrible practices so manifestly in

violation of the ancient charters which he had sworn to support. Philip,

so far from having the least disposition to yield in this matter,

dispatched orders in August, 1564, to the regent, ordering that the

decrees of the Council of Trent should be published and enforced without

delay throughout the Netherlands. By these decrees the heretic was

excluded, so far as ecclesiastical dogma could exclude him, from the

pale of humanity, from consecrated earth, and from eternal salvation.

The decrees conflicted with the privileges of the provinces, and at a

meeting of the council William of Orange made a long and vehement

discourse, in which he said that the king must be unequivocally informed

that this whole machinery of placards and scaffolds, of new bishops and

old hangmen, of decrees, inquisitors and informers, must once and for

ever be abolished. Their day was over; the Netherlands were free

provinces, and were determined to vindicate their ancient privileges.



The unique effect of these representations was stringent instructions

from Philip to Margaret to keep the whole machinery of persecution

constantly at work. Fifty thousand persons were put to death in

obedience to the edicts, 30,000 of the best of the citizens migrated to

England. Famine reigned in the land. Then followed the revolt of the

confederate nobles and the episode of the "wild beggars." Meantime,

during the summer of 1556, many thousands of burghers, merchants,

peasants, and gentlemen were seen mustering and marching through the

fields of every province, armed, but only to hear sermons and sing hymns

in the open air, as it was unlawful to profane the churches with such

rites. The duchess sent forth proclamations by hundreds, ordering the

instant suppression of these assemblies and the arrest of the preachers.

This brought the popular revolt to a head.





_III.--The Image-Breaking Campaign_





There were many hundreds of churches in the Netherlands profusely

adorned with chapels. Many of them were filled with paintings, all were

peopled with statues. Commencing on August 18, 1556, for the space of

only six or seven summer days and nights, there raged a storm by which

nearly every one of these temples was entirely rifled of its contents;

not for plunder, but for destruction.



It began at Antwerp, on the occasion of a great procession, the object

of which was to conduct around the city a colossal image of the Virgin.

The rabble sacked thirty churches within the city walls, entered the

monasteries burned their invaluable libraries, and invaded the

nunneries. The streets were filled with monks and nuns, running this way

and that, shrieking and fluttering, to escape the claws of fiendish

Calvinists. The terror was imaginary, for not the least remarkable

feature in these transactions was that neither insult nor injury was

offered to man or woman, and that not a farthing's value of the immense

amount of property was appropriated. Similar scenes were enacted in all

the other provinces, with the exception of Limburg, Luxemburg, and

Namur.



The ministers of the reformed religion, and the chiefs of the liberal

party, all denounced the image-breaking. The Prince of Orange deplored

the riots. The leading confederate nobles characterised the insurrection

as insensate, and many took severe measures against the ministers and

reformers. The regent was beside herself with indignation and terror.

Philip, when he heard the news, fell into a paroxysm of frenzy. "It

shall cost them dear!" he cried. "I swear it by the soul of my father!"



The religious war, before imminent, became inevitable. The duchess,

inspired by terror, proposed to fly to Mons, but was restrained by the

counsels of Orange, Horn, and Egmont. On August 25 came the crowning act

of what the reformers considered their most complete triumph, and the

regent her deepest degradation. It was found necessary, under the

alarming aspect of affairs, that liberty of worship, in places where it

had been already established, should be accorded to the new religion.

Articles of agreement to this effect were drawn up and exchanged between

the government and Louis of Nassau and fifteen others of the

confederacy.



A corresponding pledge was signed by them, that as long as the regent

was true to her engagement they would consider their previously existing

league annulled, and would cordially assist in maintaining tranquillity,

and supporting the authority of his majesty. The important "Accord" was

then duly signed by the duchess. It declared that the Inquisition was

abolished, that his majesty would soon issue a new general edict,

expressly and unequivocally protecting the nobles against all evil

consequences from past transactions, and that public preaching according

to the forms of the new religion was to be practised in places where it

had already taken place.



Thus, for a fleeting moment, there was a thrill of joy throughout the

Netherlands. But it was all a delusion. While the leaders of the people

were exerting themselves to suppress the insurrection, and to avert

ruin, the secret course pursued by the government, both at Brussels and

at Madrid, may be condensed into the formula--dissimulation,

procrastination, and, again, dissimulation.



The "Accord" was revoked by the duchess, and peremptory prohibition of

all preaching within or without city walls was proclaimed. Further, a

new oath of allegiance was demanded from all functionaries. The Prince

of Orange spurned the proposition and renounced all his offices,

desiring no longer to serve a government whose policy he did not

approve, and a king by whom he was suspected. Terrible massacres of

Protestant heretics took place in many cities.





_IV.--Alva the Terrible_





It was determined at last that the Netherland heresy should be conquered

by force of arms, and an army of 10,000 picked and veteran troops was

dispatched from Spain under the Duke of Alva. The Duchess Margaret made

no secret of her indignation at being superseded when Alva produced his

commission appointing him captain-general, and begging the duchess to

co-operate with him in ordering all the cities of the Netherlands to

receive the garrisons which he would send them. In September, 1567, the

Duke of Alva established a new court for the trial of crimes committed

"during the recent period of troubles." It was called the "Council of

Troubles," but will be for ever known in history as the "Blood Council."

It superseded all other courts and institutions. So well did this new

and terrible engine perform its work that in less than three months

1,800 of the highest, the noblest, and the most virtuous men in the

land, including Count Egmont and Admiral Horn, suffered death. Further

than that, the whole country became a charnal-house; columns and stakes

in every street, the doorposts of private houses, the fences in the

fields were laden with human carcases, strangled, burned, beheaded.

Within a few months after the arrival of Alva the spirit of the nation

seemed hopelessly broken.



The Duchess of Parma, who had demanded her release from the odious

position of a cipher in a land where she had so lately been sovereign,

at last obtained it, and took her departure in December for Parma, thus

finally closing her eventful career in the Netherlands. The Duke of Alva

took up his position as governor-general, and amongst his first works

was the erection of the celebrated citadel of Antwerp, not to protect,

but to control the commercial capital of the provinces.



Events marched swiftly. On February 16, 1568, a sentence of the

Inquisition condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as

heretics. From this universal doom only a few persons, especially named,

were excepted; and a proclamation of the king, dated ten days later,

confirmed this decree of the Inquisition, and ordered it to be carried

into instant execution, without regard to age, sex, or condition. This

is probably the most concise death-warrant ever framed. Three millions

of people, men, women, and children, were sentenced to the scaffold in

three lines.



The Prince of Orange at last threw down the gauntlet, and published a

reply to the active condemnation which had been pronounced against him

in default of appearance before the Blood Council. It would, he said, be

both death and degradation to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the

infamous "Council of Blood," and he scorned to plead before he knew not

what base knaves, not fit to be the valets of his companions and

himself.



Preparations were at once made to levy troops and wage war against

Philip's forces in the Netherlands. Then followed the long, ghastly

struggle between the armies raised by the Prince of Orange and his

brother, Count Louis of Nassau, who lost his life mysteriously at the

battle of Mons, and those of Alva and the other governors-general who

succeeded him--Don Louis de Requesens, the "Grand Commander," Don John

of Austria, the hero of Lepanto, and Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma.

The records of butcheries and martyrdoms, including those during the

sack and burning of Antwerp by the mutinous Spanish soldiery, are only

relieved by the heroic exploits of the patriotic armies and burghers in

the memorable defences of Haarlem, Leyden, Alkmaar, and Mons. At one

time it seemed that the Prince of Orange and his forces were about to

secure a complete triumph; but the news of the massacre of St.

Bartholomew in Paris brought depression to the patriotic army and

corresponding spirit to the Spanish armies, and the gleam faded. The

most extraordinary feature of Alva's civil administration were his

fiscal decrees, which imposed taxes that utterly destroyed the trade and

manufactures of the country.



There were endless negotiations inspired by the States-General, the

German Emperor, and the governments of France and England to secure

peace and a settlement of the Netherlands affairs, but these, owing

mostly to insincere diplomacy, were ineffective.





_V.--The Union of the Provinces_





In the meantime, the union of Holland and Zealand had been accomplished,

with the Prince of Orange as sovereign. The representatives of various

provinces thereafter met with deputies from Holland and Zealand in

Utrecht in January, 1579, and agreed to a treaty of union which was ever

after regarded as the foundation of the Netherlands Republic. The

contracting provinces agreed to remain eternally united, while each was

to retain its particular privileges, liberties, customs, and laws. All

the provinces were to unite to defend each other with life, goods, and

blood against all forces brought against them in the king's name, and

against all foreign potentates. The treaty also provided for religious

peace and toleration. The Union of Utrecht was the foundation of the

Netherlands Republic, which lasted two centuries.



For two years there were a series of desultory military operations and

abortive negotiations for peace, including an attempt--which failed--to

purchase the Prince of Orange. The assembly of the united provinces met

at The Hague on July 26, 1581, and solemnly declared their independence

of Philip and renounced their allegiance for ever. This act, however,

left the country divided into three portions--the Walloon or reconciled

provinces; the united provinces under Anjou; and the northern provinces

under Orange.



Early in February, 1582, the Duke of Anjou arrived in the Netherlands

from England with a considerable train. The articles of the treaty under

which he was elected sovereign as Duke of Brabant made as stringent and

as sensible a constitutional compact as could be desired by any

Netherland patriot. Taken in connection with the ancient charters, which

they expressly upheld, they left to the new sovereign no vestige of

arbitrary power. He was the hereditary president of a representative

republic.



The Duke of Anjou, however, became discontented with his position. Many

nobles of high rank came from France to pay their homage to him, and in

the beginning of January, 1583, he entered into a conspiracy with them

to take possession, with his own troops, of the principal cities in

Flanders. He reserved to himself the capture of Antwerp, and

concentrated several thousands of French troops at Borgehout, a village

close to the walls of Antwerp. A night attack was treacherously made on

the city, but the burghers rapidly flew to arms, and in an hour the

whole of the force which Anjou had sent to accomplish his base design

was either dead or captured. The enterprise, which came to be known as

the "French Fury," was an absolute and disgraceful failure, and the duke

fled to Berghem, where he established a camp. Negotiations for

reconciliation were entered into with the Duke of Anjou, who, however,

left for Paris in June, never again to return to the Netherlands.





_VI.--The Assassination of William of Orange_





The Princess Charlotte having died on May 5, 1582, the Prince of Orange

was married for the fourth time on April 21, 1583, on this occasion to

Louisa, daughter of the illustrious Coligny. In the summer of 1584 the

prince and princess took up their residence at Delft, where Frederick

Henry, afterwards the celebrated stadtholder, was born to them. During

the previous two years no fewer than five distinct attempts to

assassinate the prince had been made, and all of them with the privity

of the Spanish government or at the direct instigation of King Philip or

the Duke of Parma.



A sixth and successful attempt was now to be made. On Sunday morning,

July 8, the Prince of Orange received news of the death of Anjou. The

courier who brought the despatches was admitted to the prince's bedroom.

He called himself Francis Guion, the