A Political and Social History of Modern Europe Part 21

NATIONAL LITERATURES. Among the many extended bibliographies of national literatures the student certainly should be familiar with the _Cambridge History of English Literature_, ed. by A. W. Ward and A. R. Waller, 12 vols. (1907-1916); and with G. Lanson, _Manuel bibliographique de la litterature francaise moderne_, 1500-1900, 4 vols. (1909-1913). See also, as suggestive references, Pasquale Villari, _The Life and Times of Machiavelli_, 2 vols. in i (1898); A. A. Tilley, _The Literature of the French Renaissance_, 2 vols.

(1904); George Saintsbury, _A History of Elizabethan Literature_ (1887); and Sir Sidney Lee, _Life of Shakespeare_, new rev. ed.

(1915).

ART IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Architecture: A. D. F. Hamlin, _A Textbook of the History of Architecture_, 5th ed. (1902), a brief general survey; _A History of Architecture_, Vols. I, II by Russell Sturgis (1906), III, IV by A. L. Frothingham (1915); Banister Fletcher, _A History of Architecture_, 5th ed. (1905); James Fergusson, _History of Architecture in All Countries_, 3d rev. ed., 5 vols. (1891-1899).

Sculpture: Allan Marquand and A. L. Frothingham, _A Text-book of the History of Sculpture_ (1896); Wilhelm von Lubke, _History of Sculpture_, Eng. trans., 2 vols. (1872). Painting: J. C. Van d.y.k.e, _A Text-book of the History of Painting_, new rev. ed. (1915); Alfred von Woltmann and Karl Woermann, _History of Painting_, Eng. trans., 2 vols.

(1894). Music: W. S. Pratt, _The History of Music_ (1907). See also the _Lives of Seventy of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects_ by Giorgio Vasari (1512-1574), the contemporary and friend of Michelangelo, trans. by Mrs. Foster in the Bohn Library; Osvald Siren, _Leonardo da Vinci: the Artist and the Man_ (1915); and Romain Rolland, _Michelangelo_ (1915).

SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. _Cambridge Modem History_, Vol. V (1908), ch. xxiii, Vol. IV (1906), ch. xxvii, scholarly accounts of Galileo, Bacon, Descartes, and their contemporaries. A veritable storehouse of scientific facts is H. S. and E. H. Williams, _A History of Science_, 10 vols. (1904-1910).

Specifically, see Arthur Berry, _Short History of Astronomy_ (1899); Karl von Gebler, _Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia_, Eng. trans. by Mrs. George Sturge (1879); B. L. Conway, _The Condemnation of Galileo_ (1913); and Galileo, _Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences_, Eng.

trans. by Crew and Salvio (1914). _The Philosophical Works of Francis Bacon_, ed. by J. M. Robertson (1905), is a convenient edition. On the important thinkers from the time of Machiavelli to the middle of the eighteenth century, see Harald Hoffding, _A History of Modern Philosophy_, Vol. I (1900); W. A. Dunning, _A History of Political Theories from Luther to Montesquieu_ (1905); Paul Janet, _Histoire de la science politique dans ses rapports avec la morale_, 3d ed., Vol. II (1887).

PART II

DYNASTIC AND COLONIAL RIVALRY

In the seventeenth century and in the greater part of the eighteenth, public attention was directed chiefly toward dynastic and colonial rivalries. In the European group of national states, France was the most important. Politically the French evolved a form of absolutist divine-right monarchy, which became the pattern of all European monarchies, that of England alone excepted. In international affairs the reigning family of France--the Bourbon dynasty after a long struggle succeeded in humiliating the rulers of Spain and of Austria-- the Habsburg dynasty. The hegemony which, in the sixteenth century, Spain had exercised in the newly established state-system of Europe was now supplanted by that of France. Intellectually, too, Italian leadership yielded to French, until France set the fashion alike in manners, morals, and art. Only in the sphere of commerce and trade and exploitation of lands beyond the seas was French supremacy questioned, and there not by declining Portugal or Spain but by the vigorous English nation. France, victorious in her struggle for dynastic aggrandizement on the continent of Europe, was destined to suffer defeat in her efforts to secure colonies in Asia and America.

This period of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was marked likewise by the constant decay of old political and social inst.i.tutions in Italy and in Germany, by the gradual decline of the might and prestige of the Ottoman Turks, and by the extinction of the ancient kingdom of Poland. In their place appeared as great world powers the northern monarchies of Prussia and Russia, whose royal lines-- Hohenzollerns and Romanovs--were to vie in ambition and prowess, before the close of the period, with Habsburgs and Bourbons.

Socially, the influence of n.o.bles and clergy steadily declined. As steadily arose the numbers, the ability, and the importance of the traders and commercial magnates, the moneyed people, all those who were identified with the new wealth that the Commercial Revolution was creating, the lawyers, the doctors, the professors, the merchants,--the so-called middle cla.s.s, the _bourgeoisie_, who gradually grew discontented with the restrictive inst.i.tutions of their time. Within the _bourgeoisie_ was the seed of revolution: they would one day in their own interests overturn monarchy, n.o.bility, the Church, the whole social fabric. That was to be the death-knell of the old regime--the annunciation of the nineteenth century.

CHAPTER VI

THE GROWTH OF ABSOLUTISM IN FRANCE AND THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN BOURBONS AND HABSBURGS, 1589-1661

GROWTH OF ABSOLUTISM IN FRANCE: HENRY IV, RICHELIEU, AND MAZARIN

For the first time in many years France in 1598 was at peace. The Edict of Nantes, which in that year accorded qualified religious toleration to the Huguenots, removed the most serious danger to internal order, and the treaty of Vervins, concluded in the same year with the king of Spain, put an end to a long and exhausting foreign war. Henry IV was now free to undertake the internal reformation of his country.

Sorry, indeed, was the plight of France at the close of the sixteenth century. Protracted civil and foreign wars had produced their inevitable consequences. The state was nearly bankrupt. Country districts lay largely uncultivated. Towns were burned or abandoned.

Roads were rough and neglected, and bridges in ruins. Many of the discharged soldiers turned highwaymen, pillaged farmhouses, and robbed travelers. Trade was at a standstill and the artisans of the cities were out of work. During the wars, moreover, great n.o.blemen had taken many rights into their own hands and had acquired a habit of not obeying the king. The French crown seemed to be in danger of losing what power it had gained in the fifteenth century.

That the seventeenth century was to witness not a diminution but a p.r.o.nounced increase of royal power, was due to the character of the French king at this critical juncture. Henry IV (1589-1610) was strong and vivacious. With his high forehead, sparkling eyes, smiling mouth, and his neatly pointed beard (_Henri quatre_), he was prepossessing in looks, while his affability, simplicity, and constant expression of interest in the welfare of his subjects earned him the appellation of "Good King Henry." His closest companions knew that he was selfish and avaricious, but that his quick decisions were likely to be good and certain to be put in force. Above all, Henry had soldierly qualities and would brook no disloyalty or disobedience.

[Sidenote: Sully]

Throughout his reign, Henry IV was well served by his chief minister, the duke of Sully, [Footnote: 1560-1641.] an able, loyal, upright Huguenot, though avaricious like the king and subject to furious fits of jealousy and temper. Appointed to the general oversight of financial affairs, Sully made a tour of inspection throughout the country and completely reformed the royal finances. He forbade provincial governors to raise money on their own authority, removed many abuses of tax- collecting, and by an honest, rigorous administration was able between 1600 and 1610 to save an average of a million livres a year. The king zealously upheld Sully's policy of retrenchment: he reduced the subsidies to artists and the grants to favorites, and retained only a small part of his army, sufficient to overawe rebellious n.o.bles and to restore order and security throughout the realm. To promote and preserve universal peace, he even proposed the formation of a World Confederation--his so-called "Grand Design"--which, however, came to naught through the mutual jealousies and rival ambitions of the various European sovereigns. It proved to be much too early to talk convincingly of general pacifism and disarmament.

[Sidenote: Agricultural Development]

While domestic peace was being established and provision was being made for immediate financial contingencies, Henry IV and his great minister were both laboring to increase the resources of their country and thereby to promote the prosperity and contentment of the people. Sully believed that the true wealth of the nation lay in farming pursuits, and, therefore, agriculture should be encouraged even, if necessary, to the neglect of trade and industry. While the king allowed Sully to develop the farming interests, he himself encouraged the new commercial cla.s.ses.

In order to promote agriculture, Sully urged the abolition of interior customs lines and the free circulation of grain, subsidized stock raising, forbade the destruction of the forests, drained swamps, rebuilt the roads and bridges, and planned a vast system of ca.n.a.ls.

On his side, Henry IV was contributing to the wealth of the middle cla.s.s. It was he who introduced silkworms and the mulberry trees, on which they feed, thereby giving an impetus to the industry which is now one of the most important in France. The beginnings of the industrial importance of Paris, Lyons, and Ma.r.s.eilles date from the reign of Henry IV.

The king likewise encouraged commerce. A French merchant marine was built up by means of royal bounties. A navy was started. Little by little the French began to compete for trade on the high seas at first with the Dutch, and subsequently with the English. French trading posts were established in India; and Champlain was dispatched to the New World to lay the foundations of a French empire in America. It was fortunate for France that she had two men like Henry IV and Sully, each supplementing the work of the other.

The a.s.sa.s.sination of Henry IV by a crazed fanatic in 1610 threatened for a time to nullify the effects of his labors, for supreme power pa.s.sed to his widow, Marie de' Medici, an ambitious but incompetent woman, who dismissed Sully and undertook to act as regent for her nine- year-old son, Louis XIII. The queen-regent was surrounded by worthless favorites and was hated by the Huguenots, who feared her rigid Catholicism, and by the n.o.bles, Catholic and Huguenot alike, who were determined to maintain their privileges and power.

The hard savings of Henry IV were quickly exhausted, and France once more faced a financial crisis. In this emergency the Estates-General was again convened (1614). Since the accession of Louis XI (1461), the French monarchs with their absolutist tendencies had endeavored to remove this ancient check upon their authority: they had convoked it only in times of public confusion or economic necessity. Had the Estates-General really been an effective body in 1614, it might have taken a position similar to that of the seventeenth-century Parliament in England and established const.i.tutional government in France, but its organization and personnel militated against such heroic action. The three estates--clergy, n.o.bles, and commoners (bourgeois)--sat separately in as many chambers; the clergy and n.o.bles would neither tax themselves nor cooperate with the Third Estate; the commoners, many of whom were Huguenots, were disliked by the court, despised by the First and Second Estates, and quite out of sympathy with the peasants, the bulk of the French nation. It is not surprising, under the circ.u.mstances, that the session of 1614 lasted but three weeks and ended as a farce: the queen-regent locked up the halls and sent the representatives home--she needed the room for a dance, she said. It was not until the momentous year of 1789--after a lapse of 175 years--that the Estates-General again a.s.sembled.

After the fiasco of 1614, affairs went from bad to worse. n.o.bles and Huguenots contended between themselves, and both against the court favorites. As many as five distinct uprisings occurred. Marie de'

Medici was forced to relinquish the government, but Louis XIII, on reaching maturity, gave evidence of little executive ability. The king was far more interested in music and hunting than in business of state.

No improvement appeared until Cardinal Richelieu a.s.sumed the guidance of affairs of state in 1624. Henceforth, the royal power was exercised not so much by Louis XIII as by his great minister.

[Sidenote: Cardinal Richelieu]

Born of a n.o.ble family of Poitou, Armand de Richelieu (1585-1642), at the age of twenty-one had been appointed bishop of the small diocese of Lucon. His eloquence and ability as spokesman for the clergy in the fatuous Estates-General of 1614 attracted the notice of Marie de'

Medici, who invited him to court, gave him a seat in the royal council, and secured his nomination as a cardinal of the Roman Church. From 1624 until his death in 1642, Richelieu was the most important man in France.

With undoubted loyalty and imperious will, with the most delicate diplomacy and all the blandishments of subtle court intrigue, sometimes with sternest and most merciless cruelty, Richelieu maintained his influence over the king and proceeded to destroy the enemies of the French crown.

[Sidenote: Richelieu's Policies]

Richelieu's policies were quite simple: (1) To make the royal power supreme in France; (2) to make France predominant in Europe. The first involved the removal of checks upon royal authority and the triumph of absolutism; the second meant a vigorous foreign policy, leading to the humiliation of the rival Habsburgs. In both these policies Richelieu was following the general traditions of the preceding century, essentially those of Henry IV, but to an exaggerated extent and with unparalleled success. Postponing consideration of general European affairs, let us first see what the great cardinal accomplished in France.

[Sidenote: Disappearance of Representative Government]

First of all, Richelieu disregarded the Estates-General. He was convinced of its futility and unhesitatingly declined to consult it.

Gradually the idea became current that the Estates-General was an out- worn, medieval inst.i.tution, totally unfit for modern purposes, and that official business could best--and therefore properly--be conducted, not by the representatives of the chief social cla.s.ses in the nation, but by personal appointees of the king. Thus the royal council became the supreme lawmaking and administrative body in the country.

Local estates, or parliaments, continued to exist in certain of the most recently acquired provinces of France, such as Brittany, Provence, Burgundy, and Languedoc, but they had little influence except in apportioning taxes: Richelieu tampered with their privileges and vetoed many of their acts.

[Sidenote: The Royal Army]

The royal prerogative extended not only to matters of taxation and legislation, including the right to levy taxes and to make expenditures for any purpose without public accounting, but it was preserved and enforced by means of a large standing army, which received its pay and its orders exclusively from the crown. To the royal might, as well as to its right, Richelieu contributed. He energetically aided Louis XIII in organizing and equipping what proved to be the best army in Europe.

Two factions in the state aroused the cardinal's ire--one the Huguenots, and the other the n.o.bles--for both threatened the autocracy which he was bent upon erecting. Both factions suffered defeat and humiliation at his hands.

Richelieu, though a cardinal of the Roman Church, was more politician and statesman than ecclesiastic; though living in an age of religious fanaticism, he was by no means a bigot. As we shall presently see, this Catholic cardinal actually gave military support to Protestants in Germany--for political purposes; it was similarly for political purposes that he attacked the Protestants in France.

As has already been pointed out, French Protestantism meant an influential political party as well as a religion. Since Henry IV had issued the Edict of Nantes, the Huguenots had had their own a.s.semblies, officers, judges, and even certain fortified towns, all of which interfered with the sovereign authority and impaired that uniformity which thoughtful royalists believed to be the very cornerstone of absolutism. Richelieu had no desire to deprive the Huguenots of religious freedom, but he was resolved that in political matters they should obey the king. Consequently, when they revolted in 1625, he determined to crush them. In spite of the considerable aid which England endeavored to give them, the Huguenots were entirely subdued.

Richelieu's long siege of La Roch.e.l.le, lasting nearly fifteen months, showed his forceful resolution. When the whole country had submitted, the Edict of Alais was published (1629), leaving to the Protestants freedom of conscience and of worship but depriving them of their fortifications and forbidding them to hold a.s.semblies. Public office was still open to them and their representatives kept their judicial posts. "The honest Huguenot retained all that he would have been willing to protect with his life, while the factious and turbulent Huguenot was deprived of the means of embarra.s.sing the government."

The repression of the n.o.bles was a similar statesmanlike achievement, and one made in the face of redoubtable opposition. It had long been customary to name n.o.blemen as governors of the various provinces, but the governors had gradually become masters instead of administrators: they commanded detachments of the army; they claimed allegiance of the garrisons in their towns; they repeatedly and openly defied the royal will. The country, moreover, was sprinkled with n.o.blemen's castles or _chateaux_, protected by fortifications and armed retainers, standing menaces to the prompt execution of the king's orders. Finally, the n.o.blemen at court, jealous of the cardinal's advancement and spurred on by the intrigues of the disaffected Marie de' Medici or of the king's own brother, hampered the minister at every turn. Of such intolerable conditions, Richelieu determined to be quit.

Into the ranks of n.o.ble courtiers, Richelieu struck terror. By means of spies and trickery, he ferreted out conspiracies and arbitrarily put their leaders to death. Every attempt at rebellion was mercilessly punished, no matter how exalted in rank the rebel might be. Richelieu was never moved by entreaties or threats--he was as inexorable as fate itself.

[Sidenote: Demolition of Private Fortifications ]