A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year Part 4

[Sidenote: Irving's "Sketch Book"]

Notwithstanding the political agitation, general progress in America was p.r.o.nounced and rapid during this period. Steam navigation was no longer a novelty. The Erie Ca.n.a.l was well under way. New towns were springing up along its course. Blanchard invented his lathe for turning irregular forms.

The famous Danish physicist, Hans Christian Oersted, made his cla.s.sical electrical experiments with the magnetic needle and laid the foundation of our modern theory of electromagnetism. The literary event of the year in America was the appearance of Washington Irving's "Sketch Book." The work found favor in England, where Sir Walter Scott befriended Irving.

[Sidenote: Polar expedition]

[Sidenote: Cochrane in Chilean service]

In England, too, it was a period of new industrial and colonial expansion.

Following the unsuccessful polar expeditions of the previous year, Lieutenant Franklin undertook his second search for the northwest pa.s.sage, and a similar expedition, under Perry and Liddon, set out for Arctic waters. In India, where the Sikhs under Runjeet Singh were engaged in their great conquest of Cashmere, a British settlement was established in Singapore. British supremacy at sea received its tribute in an invitation from the Chileans to Sir Thomas Cochrane to command their new navy. After their victory on the Maypo, the patriot leaders of Chile had set to work to create a navy for their country. The British ship "c.u.mberland" was purchased in London, and renamed the "San Martin." Within a few months she captured the "Maria Isabella" from the Spanish. The prize was taken to Valparaiso, remounted, and renamed the "O'Higgins." To these ships were added the "Galvarino," "Araucano," "Interpodo," and the "Independencia."

With the "O'Higgins" for a flagship, Cochrane took this squadron up and down the coast of South America, harrying the Spanish sea-ports everywhere.

[Sidenote: The "Six Acts"]

[Sidenote: Birth of Victoria]

In England, meanwhile, there was renewed agitation for Parliamentary reforms. Henry Grattan in Parliament moved for a Committee of the Whole House to consider the laws excluding Catholics from public offices. His motion was defeated by a narrow vote of 243 against 241. Instead of this reform the British Government, falling in line with the reactionary measures of the Continental governments, pa.s.sed through Parliament the so-called "Six Acts" for the prevention and punishment of sedition in England. To latter-day Englishmen this year is princ.i.p.ally noted for the birth of Queen Victoria. The little princess, the daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent, son of George the Third and Maria Louisa Victoria of Saxe-Coburg, a sister of Leopold I. of Belgium, was born at Kensington Palace, and was named Alexandrina Victoria.

[Sidenote: Schopenhauer]

Germans of the present day remember this year for the appearance of Schopenhauer's great philosophic work "The World, as Will and Idea"--"Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung." Schopenhauer, in this book, laid down the doctrine that the universe, and therefore human life as such, is governed by the conflicting principles of the ungoverned will and of the unattainable ideal. The true solution of life, he held, was to be found in subjecting brute will to the intellectual force of the ideal.

[Sidenote: a.s.sa.s.sination of Kotzebue]

Schopenhauer's book at that time pa.s.sed almost unnoticed. The educated cla.s.ses of Germany were in too much of a ferment over the recent police restrictions inflicted upon the universities and public press. By this time it had become well known what part Czar Alexander had played at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle. A vehement outcry arose at the universities against the interference of foreigners in German affairs. The wrath of the Liberals turned against August von Kotzebue, the prolific playwright, who held the office of Russian agent in central Germany. Kotzebue conducted a weekly newspaper at Mannheim in which he inveighed against the German national movement of the day, and ridiculed the patriotic eccentricities of the students. Having himself studied at Jena, Kotzebue was denounced by the students there as a traitor. He was believed to be responsible for the Czar's conversion from liberal ideas to reactionary principles. This belief cost Kotzebue his life. One Sand, a theological student at Jena, noted for piety and patriotic ardor, formed a fanatical resolution to do away with this enemy of the country. An extract from Sand's diary, written on the eve of his last New Year's day, reveals the character of the man: "I meet the last day of this year in an earnest festal spirit, knowing well that the Christmas which I have celebrated will be my last. If our strivings are to result in anything, if the cause of mankind is to succeed in our fatherland, if all is not to be forgotten, all our enthusiasm spent in vain, the evil doer, the traitor, the corrupter of youth must die. Until I have executed this, I have no peace; and what can comfort me until I know that I have with upright will set my life at stake? O G.o.d, I pray only for the right clearness and courage of soul, that in that last supreme hour I may not be false to myself." On March 23, Sand sought out Baron Kotzebue in the midst of his family and stabbed him to the heart. Then he turned the dagger against himself. Unfortunately Sand recovered from his wounds, and thus lived to die on the scaffold.

[Sidenote: Retaliatory measures]

[Sidenote: German liberals persecuted]

The mad deed was followed by the worst possible results for Germany.

Minister Hardenberg, when he heard of the murder of Kotzebue, declared that a Prussian Const.i.tution had now been rendered impossible. Metternich, who was then in Rome, instantly drew up a scheme for further repressive measures and summoned the ministers of the various German States for a meeting at Carlsbad. "By the help of G.o.d," wrote Metternich, "I hope to defeat the German revolution, just as I vanquished the conqueror of the world. The revolutionists thought me far away, because I was five hundred leagues off. They deceived themselves; I have been in the midst of them, and now I am striking my blows." A number of innocent persons were arrested in various parts of Germany under utterly unwarrantable circ.u.mstances. The houses of professors were searched and private papers were seized. Jahn, the founder of the popular Gymnastic schools, was arrested in Berlin. De Wette, a professor of theology at the University of Berlin, had to flee to Switzerland on account of a letter of sympathy addressed by him to Sand's mother. With him Oken, the great naturalist, and Corres, the pamphleteer, became exiles in Switzerland. Professor Fries lost his chair at Jena; the poet Arndt was suspended at Bonn, and his private papers, in garbled form, were published by the government. Many of the younger professors, accompanied by their favorite students, emigrated to America.

[Sidenote: Convention of Carlsbad]

[Sidenote: Police censors appointed]

[Sidenote: Binzer's poem]

During August the German ministers met at Carlsbad. Their conferences, in the memory of the German people, are justly a.s.sociated with the suppression of intellectual freedom for a whole generation. It was ordered that in every State within the German federation a strict censorship should be established over all publications. Within fifteen days an inquisitorial commission was called together at Mainz to investigate the students'

societies at the universities. The commission was empowered to arrest any subject in any German State. Special police commissioners were appointed at the universities, whose duty it was to keep a strict eye on the drift of the professor's teachings. Any professor or student expelled from a university was not to be employed by any other German government. The students' societies were suppressed, at least to all outward appearance.

The poet Binzer wrote a defiant song ending with the lines:

The Spirit liveth in us all, For G.o.d is still our stronghold.

[Sidenote: Resignation of Wilhelm Humboldt]

[Sidenote: South German liberalism]

So far was repression carried in Prussia that out of 203 students arrested for wearing black-red-yellow ribbons, no less than 94 were condemned to death. Wilhelm von Humboldt, the best and most liberal of Prussian Ministers during the first half of the nineteenth century, resigned his portfolio in disgust. The zeal with which the Prussian Government accepted these measures made it useless for the minor German States to offer much opposition. Yet they formed the only remaining bulwark against Metternich's restrictive policy. In spite of his strenuous opposition, the rulers of Bavaria and Baden granted to their subjects const.i.tutional forms of government. Representative a.s.semblies with lower and upper houses, after the manner of the English Parliament, were established. In Wurtemberg, serfdom was abolished, and a const.i.tution was published a few days before the enrolment of the decrees of Carlsbad.

[Sidenote: Laennec's stethoscope]

In France, Dr. Laennec published his epoch-making work "Traite d'Auscultation Mediate," the result of his recent experiments in listening to human heart-beats and lung respirations through a hollow cylinder.

Various names were given to the instrument until Laennec decided to call it "stethoscope," the name it has ever since retained. Laennec's contributions to the study of diseases of the lungs, of the heart and of the abdominal organs may be said to have laid the foundation of modern clinical medicine.

[Sidenote: Decazes Prime Minister]

[Sidenote: The Gregoire episode]

[Sidenote: Troubles in Spain]

Parliamentary government in France worked none too smoothly. In the Chambers the rise of the independent party and anti-Bourbon faction caused the Duc de Richelieu to resign. When the news of Kotzebue's a.s.sa.s.sination reached Paris, the Comte d'Artois remarked exultingly to the king: "Well, brother, you see what they are driving us to." Louis XVIII. intrusted to his favorite, Decazes, the formation of a new Cabinet. Decazes found it difficult to select competent men for the various portfolios. His Cabinet, when finally brought together, lacked internal unity and outward support.

Its career was early imperilled by the untoward election of Bishop Gregoire of Gren.o.ble, one of the regicides, to the Chamber of Deputies. This popular manifestation, though sufficiently explained by the sterling public qualities of the bishop himself, created the utmost apprehension among the Royalists. Decazes had to bend to the storm, and the election of Gregoire was declared null and void by the Ministerial majority in the Chambers. The French Royalists next professed to find cause for apprehension in Spain.

Danger of war with the United States, before the cession of Florida, had caused King Ferdinand of Spain to a.s.semble an army at Cadiz to embark for America. It was now proposed to send these troops to South America to quell the revolutionary movements there. The return of a number of soldiers stricken with yellow fever in the colonies filled the troops at Cadiz with consternation. The common soldiers, lying in squalor and inaction at their barracks, came to regard their expected order of embarkation as a sentence of death. Their officers plotted with the secret societies in Cadiz and neighboring towns. Abisbas, the commandant at Cadiz, to safeguard his own interests pretended to encourage these plots. Then, convinced of their ultimate failure, he arrested the princ.i.p.al leaders by a stratagem and hurried to Madrid to reveal all and claim credit for saving the crown. The ringleaders were imprisoned and the troops were distributed into cantonments. As it turned out this only served to foment the growing spirit of dissatisfaction throughout Spain.

1820

[Sidenote: Spanish military revolt]

[Sidenote: Riego's plight]

New Year's Day was fixed for the outbreak of revolt by the revolutionists of Spain. The chosen leaders were Riego, Cabazes and Quiroga. It was arranged that Quiroga, who was held in light confinement at Medina, east of Cadiz, should gather the battalions outside of Cadiz, throw himself into the city, and there await the co-operation of his fellow conspirators.

Riego with a band of chosen men was to pounce upon the military headquarters at Arcos, and to arrest the general officers before they could interfere. Accordingly, Riego, on the first day of January, proclaimed the Const.i.tution of 1812, and, falling upon headquarters, seized the general officers and rallied the men to his standard. Quiroga was less successful.

After gaining possession of San Fernando at the eastern point of the peninsula of Leon, he failed to get into Cadiz. The commandant closed the gates against him, and the troops within gave no sign of defection. By the time Riego arrived, there were but 5,000 insurgents wherewith to overcome the strong garrison and fortifications of Cadiz. Leaving Quiroga before Cadiz, Riego set himself to raise the people of the surrounding towns. He was received with kindness, but the obvious weakness of his force discouraged others from joining him. Strong forces were sent in pursuit, and the insurgents were compelled to march back and forth through the country to escape their pursuers. At Cordova, Riego was made to realize that the game was lost. The soldiers of the government were upon him, and he had only some two hundred followers left. The little band took to the mountains and there dispersed.

[Sidenote: Spread of the revolt]

The revolt, despite its miserable end, was followed by widespread results.

The example of a bold stroke had been given, and the weakness of the government had been exposed. While Riego's followers were still hunted from place to place, the soldiers and citizens of Corona together declared for the Const.i.tution. The revolutionary movement spread to Ferrol and thence along the coast towns of Galicia.

[Sidenote: Cochrane's exploit]

[Sidenote: Abisbas' treachery]

[Sidenote: King Ferdinand succ.u.mbs]

In South America, Cochrane in a brilliant action took the Spanish stronghold of Valdivia, held to be a Gibraltar in strength. King Ferdinand in Madrid was terrified. From all points of Spain the commandants wrote that they could not answer for their garrisons. Abisbas was ordered to return to Cadiz with reinforcements. On leaving Madrid he boasted to the king that he knew how to deal with rebels. By the time he reached Ocana, early in March, he himself proclaimed the Const.i.tution. The news of Abisbas' defection created consternation in Madrid. On the night of March 6, the king convoked his Council of State. On the morrow he issued a summons for the Cortes. This was not enough. Crowds gathered in the streets and clamored for the Const.i.tution. A report that the guards were on the point of going over to the people brought the king around. From the balcony of the royal palace Ferdinand announced his readiness to take the oath to the Const.i.tution. The next day was spent in riotous rejoicing. The prison of the Inquisition was sacked and all political prisoners were liberated.

On the following day the mob broke into the gates and gardens of the royal palace. The members of the old munic.i.p.al council entered the royal private chamber and called for a fulfilment of the king's public promise. Ferdinand accepted the inevitable under a smiling exterior, and swore an oath of fidelity to the Const.i.tution of 1812. A provisional Junta took charge of affairs until the new Cortes should be convened.

[Sidenote: Duc de Berry a.s.sa.s.sinated]

The news of the Spanish revolution astounded Europe. In France a fanatic by the name of Louvel deemed the moment come to strike at the reigning house of France. Louvel had followed Napoleon to exile in Elba. After the Hundred Days he dogged the footsteps of the Bourbon princes with a settled project of murder. The heir-presumptive to the French crown was the Duc de Berry.

If he died without a son the elder Bourbon line was bound to become extinct as a reigning house. On the night of February 13, Louvel attacked the Duc de Berry at the entrance of the opera house and plunged a knife into his heart. The d.u.c.h.ess was covered with her husband's blood. That night Duc de Berry died beseeching forgiveness for the man who had killed him. King Louis XVIII. himself closed the eyes of his nephew.