text:
Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/900

HISTORY] Broglie formed an anti-republican ministry, and Marshal MacMahon, in virtue of the presidential prerogative conferred by the law of 1875, adjourned parliament for a month. When the Chamber reassembled the republican majority of 363 denounced the coalition of parties hostile to the Republic. The president, again using his constitutional prerogative, obtained the authorization of the Senate to dissolve the Chamber. Meanwhile the Broglie ministry had put in practice the policy, favoured by all parties in France, of replacing the functionaries hostile to it with its own partisans. But in spite of the administrative electoral machinery being thus in the hands of the reactionaries, a republican majority was sent back to the Chamber, the sudden death of Thiers on the eve of his expected return to power, and the demonstration at his funeral, which was described as a silent insurrection, aiding the rout of the monarchists. The duc de Broglie resigned, and Marshal MacMahon sent for General de Rochebouet, who formed a cabinet of unknown reactionaries, but it lasted only a few days, as the Chamber refused to vote supply. Dufaure was then called back to office, and his moderate republican ministry lasted for the remainder of the MacMahon presidency.

Thus ended the episode of the Seize Mai, condemned by the whole of Europe from its inception. Its chief effects were to prove again to the country the incompetency of the monarchists, and by associating in the public mind the Church with this ill-conceived venture, to provoke reprisals from the anti-clericals when they came into power. After the storm, the year 1878 was one of political repose. The first international exhibition held at Paris after the war displayed to Europe how the secret of France’s recuperative power lay in the industry and artistic instinct of the nation. Marshal MacMahon presided with

dignity over the fêtes held in honour of the exhibition, and had he pleased he might have tranquilly fulfilled the term of his Septennate. But in January 1879 he made a difference of opinion on a military question an excuse for resignation, and Jules Grévy, the president of the Chamber, was elected to succeed him by the National Assembly, which thus met for the first time under the Constitutional Law of 1875.

Henceforth the executive as well as the legislative power was in the hands of the republicans. The new president was a leader of the bar, who had first become known in the Constituent Assembly of 1848 as the advocate of the principle that a republic would do better without a president. M. Waddington was his first prime minister, and Gambetta was elected president of the Chamber. The latter, encouraged by his rivals in the idea that the time was not ripe for him openly to direct the affairs of the country, thus put himself, in spite of his occult dictatorship, in a position of official self-effacement from which he did not emerge until the jealousies of his own party-colleagues had undermined the prestige he had gained as chief founder of the Republic. The most active among them was Jules Ferry, minister of

Education, who having been a republican deputy for Paris at the end of the Empire, was one of the members of the provisional government proclaimed on 4th September 1870. Borrowing Gambetta’s cry that clericalism was the enemy, he commenced the work of reprisal for the Seize Mai. His educational projects of 1879 were thus anti-clerical in tendency, the most famous being article 7 of his education bill, which prohibited members of any “unauthorized” religious orders exercising the profession of teaching in any school in France, the disability being applied to all ecclesiastical communities, excepting four or five which had been privileged by special legislation. This enactment, aimed chiefly at the Jesuits, was advocated with a sectarian bitterness which will be associated with the name of Jules Ferry long after his more statesmanlike qualities are forgotten. The law was rejected by the Senate, Jules Simon being the eloquent champion of the clericals, whose intrigues had ousted him from office. The unauthorized orders were then dissolved by decree; but though the forcible expulsion of aged priests and nuns gave rise to painful scenes, it cannot be said that popular feeling was excited in their favour, so grievously had the Church blundered in identifying itself with the conspiracy of the Seize Mai.

Meanwhile the death of the Prince Imperial in Zululand had shattered the hopes of the Bonapartists, and M. de Freycinet, a former functionary of the Empire, had become prime minister at the end of 1879. He had retained Jules Ferry at the ministry of Education, but unwilling to adopt all his anti-clerical policy, he resigned the premiership in September 1880. The constitution of the first Ferry cabinet secured the further exclusion from office of Gambetta, to which, however, he preferred his “occult dictatorship.” In August he had, as president of the Chamber, accompanied M. Grévy on an official visit to Cherbourg, and the acclamations called forth all over France by his speech, which was a hopeful defiance to Germany, encouraged the wily chief of the state to aid the republican conspiracy against the hero of the Republic. In 1881 the only political question before the country was the destiny of Gambetta. His influence in the Chamber was such that in spite of the opposition of the prime minister he carried his electoral scheme of scrutin de liste, descending from the presidential chair to defend it. Its rejection by the Senate caused no conflict between the houses. The check was inflicted not on the Chamber, but on Gambetta, who counted on his popularity to carry the lists of his candidates in all the republican departments in France as a quasi-plebiscitary demonstration in his favour. His rivals dared not openly quarrel with him. There was the semblance of a reconciliation between him and Ferry, and his name was the rallying-cry of the Republic at the general election, which was conducted on the old system of scrutin d’arrondissement.

The triumph for the Republic was great, the combined force of reactionary members returned being less than one-fifth of the new Chamber. M. Grévy could no longer abstain from asking Gambetta to form a ministry, but he had bided his time till jealousy of the “occult power”

of the president of the Chamber had undermined his position in parliament. Consequently, when on the 14th of November 1881 Gambetta announced the composition of his cabinet, ironically called the “grand ministère,” which was to consolidate the Republic and to be the apotheosis of its chief, a great feeling of disillusion fell on the country, for his colleagues were untried politicians. The best known was Paul Bert, a man of science, who as the “reporter” in the Chamber of the Ferry Education Bill had distinguished himself as an aggressive freethinker, and he inappropriately was named minister of public worship. All the conspicuous republicans who had held office refused to serve under Gambetta. His cabinet was condemned in advance. His enemies having succeeded in ruining its composition, declared that the construction of a one-man machine was ominous of dictatorship, and the “grand ministère” lived for only ten weeks.

Gambetta was succeeded in January 1882 by M. de Freycinet, who having first taken office in the Dufaure cabinet of 1877, and having continued to hold office at intervals until 1899, was the most successful specimen of a “ministrable”—as recurrent portfolio-holders have been called under

the Third Republic. His second ministry lasted only six months. The failure of Gambetta, though pleasing to his rivals, discouraged the republican party and disorganized its majority in the Chamber. M. Duclerc, an old minister of the Second Republic, then became president of the council, and before his short term of office was run Gambetta died on the last day of 1882, without having had the opportunity of displaying his capacity as a minister or an administrator. He was only forty-four at his death, and his fame rests on the unfulfilled promise of a brief career. The men who had driven him out of public life and had shortened his existence were the most ostentatious of the mourners at the great pageant with which he was buried, and to have been of his party was in future the popular trade-mark of his republican enemies.

Gambetta’s death was followed by a period of anarchy, during which Prince Napoleon, the son of Jerome, king of Westphalia, placarded the walls of Paris with a manifesto. The Chamber thereupon voted the exile of the members of the families which

title: Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/900


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hankinson, Thomas Edwards

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/910

HISTORY] by a majority of nearly two to one the Senate voted the placarding of the prime minister’s speech in all the communes of France, and that the mover of the resolution was M. Combes, senator of the Charente-Inférieure, a politician of advanced views who up to that date had held office only once, when he was minister of education and public worship for about six months, in the Bourgeois administration in 1895–1896.

The “Law relating to the contract of Association” was promulgated on the 2nd of July 1901, and its enactment was the only political event of high importance that year. The Socialists, except in their anti-clerical capacity, were more active outside parliament than within. Early in the

year some formidable strikes took place. At Montceau-les-Mines in Burgundy, where labour demonstrations had often been violent, a new feature of a strike was the formation of a trade-union by the non-strikers, who called their organization “the yellow trade-union” (le syndicat jaune) in opposition to the red trade-union of the strikers, who adopted the revolutionary flag and were supported by the Socialist press. At the same time the dock-labourers at Marseilles went out on strike, by the orders of an international trade-union in that port, as a protest against the dismissal of a certain number of foreigners. The number of strikes in France had increased considerably under the Waldeck-Rousseau government. Its opponents attributed this to the presence in the cabinet of M. Millerand, who had been ranked as a Socialist. On the other hand, the revolutionary Socialists excommunicated the minister of commerce for having joined a “bourgeois government” and retired from the general congress of the Socialist party at Lyons, where MM. Briand and Viviani, themselves future ministers, persuaded the majority not to go so far. The federal committee of miners projected a general strike in all the French coal-fields, and to that end organized a referendum. But of 125,000 miners inscribed on their lists nearly 70,000 abstained from voting, and although the general strike was voted in October by a majority of 34,000, it was not put into effect. Another movement favoured by the Socialists was that of anti-militarism. M. Hervé, a professor at the lycée of Sens, had written, in a local journal, the Pioupiou de l’Yonne, on the occasion of the departure of the conscripts for their regiments, some articles outraging the French flag. He was prosecuted and acquitted at the assizes at Auxerre in November, a number of his colleagues in the teaching profession coming forward to testify that they shared his views. The local educational authority, the academic council of Dijon, however, dismissed M. Hervé from his official functions, and its sentence was confirmed by the superior council of public education to which he had appealed. Thereupon the Socialists in the Chamber, under the lead of M. Viviani, violently attacked the Government—shortly before the prorogation at the end of the year. M. Leygues, the minister of education, defended the policy of his department with equal vigour, declaring that if a professor in the “university” claimed the right of publishing unpatriotic and anti-military opinions he could exercise it only on the condition of giving up his employment under government—a thesis which was supported by the entire Chamber with the exception of the Socialists. This manifestation of anti-military spirit, though not widespread, was the more striking as it followed close upon a second visit of the emperor and empress of Russia to France, which took place in September 1901 and was of a military rather than of a popular character. The Russian sovereigns did not come to Paris. After a naval display at Dunkirk, where they landed, they were the guests of President Loubet at Compiègne, and concluded their visit by attending a review near Reims of the troops which had taken part in the Eastern manœuvres. Compared with the welcome given by the French population to the emperor and empress in 1896 their reception on this occasion was not enthusiastic. By not visiting Paris they seemed to wish to avoid contact with the people, who were persuaded by a section of the press that the motive of the imperial journey to France was financial. The Socialists openly repudiated the Russian alliance, and one of them, the mayor of Lille, who refused to decorate his municipal buildings when the sovereigns visited the department of the Nord, was neither revoked nor suspended, although he publicly based his refusal on grounds insulting to the tsar.

It may be mentioned that the census returns of 1901 showed that the total increase of the population of France since the previous census in 1896 amounted only to 412,364, of which 289,662 was accounted for by the capital, while on the other hand the population of sixty out of eighty-seven departments had diminished.

As the quadrennial election of the Chamber of Deputies was due to take place in the spring of 1902, the first months of that year were chiefly occupied by politicians in preparing for it, though none of them gave any sign of being aware that the legislation to be effected by the new Chamber would be the most important which any parliament had undertaken under the constitution of 1875. At the end of the recess the prime minister in a speech at Saint Etienne, the capital of the Loire, of which department he was senator, passed in review the work of his ministry. With regard to the future, on the eve of the election which was to return the Chamber destined to disestablish the Church, he assured the secular clergy that they must not consider the legislation of the last session as menacing them: far from that, the recent law, directed primarily against those monastic orders which were anti-Republican associations, owning political journals and organizing electioneering funds (whose members he described as “moines ligueurs et moines d’affaires”), would be a guarantee of the Republic’s protection of the parochial clergy. The presence of his colleague, M. Millerand, on this occasion showed that M. Waldeck-Rousseau did not intend to separate himself from the Radical-Socialist group which had supported his government; and the next day the Socialist minister of commerce, at Firminy, a mining centre in the same department, made a speech deprecating the pursuit of unpractical social ideals, which might have been a version of Gambetta’s famous discourse on opportunism edited by an economist of the school of Léon Say. The Waldeck-Rousseau programme for the elections seemed therefore to be an implied promise of a moderate opportunist policy which would strengthen and unite the Republic by conciliating all sections of its supporters. When parliament met, M. Delcassé, minister for foreign affairs, on a proposal to suppress the Embassy to the Vatican, declared that even if the Concordat were ever revoked it would still be necessary for France to maintain diplomatic relations with the Holy See. On the other hand, the ministry voted, against the moderate Republicans, for an abstract resolution, proposed by M. Brisson, in favour of the abrogation of the Loi Falloux of 1850, which law, by abolishing the monopoly of the “university,” had established the principle of liberty of education. Another abstract resolution, supported by the government, which subsequently become law, was voted in favour of the reduction of the terms of compulsory military service from three years to two.

The general elections took place on the 27th of April 1902; with the second ballots on the 11th of May, and were favourable to the ministry, 321 of its avowed supporters being returned and 268 members of the Opposition, including 140 “Progressist” Republicans, many of whom were

deputies whose opinions differed little from those of M. Waldeck-Rousseau. In Paris the government lost a few seats which were won by the Nationalist group of reactionaries. The chief surprise of the elections was the announcement made by M. Waldeck-Rousseau on the 20th of May, while the president of the Republic was in Russia on a visit to the tsar, of his intention to resign office. No one but the prime minister’s intimates knew that his shattered health was the true cause of his resignation, which was attributed to the unwillingness of an essentially moderate man to be the leader of an advanced party and the instrument of an immoderate policy. His retirement from public life at this crisis was the most important event of its kind since the death of his old master Gambetta. He had learned opportunist statesmanship in the short-lived grand ministère and in the long-lived Ferry administration of 1883–1885,

title: Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/910


text:
Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/920

HISTORY] The idea that the Mediterranean might become a French lake has, in different senses, been a preoccupation for France and for its rivals in Europe ever since Algeria became a French province by a series of fortuitous incidents—an insult offered by the dey to a French consul, his refusal to

make reparation, and the occasion it afforded of diverting public attention in France from interior affairs after the Revolution of 1830. The French policy of preponderance in Egypt had only for a secondary aim the domination of the Mediterranean. The French tradition in Egypt was a relic of Napoleon’s vain scheme to become emperor of the Orient even before he had made himself emperor of the West. It was because Egypt was the highway to India that under Napoleon III. the French had constructed the Suez Canal, and for the same reason England could never permit them to become masters of the Nile delta. But the possessors of Algeria could extend their coast-line of North Africa without seriously menacing the power which held Gibraltar and Malta. It was Italy which objected to a French occupation of Tunis. Algeria has never been officially a French “colony.” It is in many respects administered as an integral portion of French territory, the governor-general, as agent of the central power, exercising wide jurisdiction. Although the Europeans in Algeria are less than a seventh of the population, and although the French are actually a minority of the European inhabitants—Spaniards prevailing in the west, Italians and Maltese in the east—the three departments of Constantine, Algiers and Oran are administered like three French departments. Consequently, when disturbances occurred on the borderland separating Constantine from Tunis, the French were able to say to Europe that the integrity of their national frontier was threatened by the proximity of a turbulent neighbour. The history of the relations between Tunis and France were set forth, from the French standpoint, in a circular, of which Jules Ferry was said to be the author, addressed by the foreign minister, M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire on the 9th of May 1881, to the diplomatic agents of France abroad. The most important point emphasized by

the French minister was the independence of Tunis from the Porte, a situation which would obviate difficulties with Turkey such as had always hampered the European powers in Egypt. In support of this contention a protest made by the British government in 1830, against the French conquest of Algiers, was quoted, as in it Lord Aberdeen had declared that Europe had always treated the Barbary states as independent powers. On the other hand, there was the incident of the bey of Tunis having furnished to Turkey a contingent during the Crimean War, which suggested a recognition of its vassalage to the Sublime Porte. But in 1864, when the sultan had sent a fleet to La Goulette to affirm his “rights” in Tunis, the French ambassador at Constantinople intimated that France declined to have Turkey for a neighbour in Algeria. France also in 1868 essayed to obtain control over the finances of the regency; but England and Italy had also large interests in the country, so an international financial commission was appointed. In 1871, when France was disabled after the war, the bey obtained from Constantinople a firman of investiture, thus recognizing the suzerainty of the Porte. Certain English writers have reproached the Foreign Office for its lack of foresight in not taking advantage of France’s disablement by establishing England as the preponderant power in Tunis. The fact that five-sixths of the commerce of Tunis is now with France and Algeria may seem to justify such regrets. Yet by the light of subsequent events it seems probable that England would have been diverted from more profitable undertakings had she been saddled with the virtual administration and military occupation of a vast territory which such preponderance would have entailed. The wonder is that this opportunity was not seized by Italy; for Mazzini and other workers in the cause of Italian unity, before the Bourbons had been driven from Naples, had cast eyes on Tunis, lying over against the coasts of Sicily at a distance of barely 100 m., as a favourable field for colonization and as the key of the African Mediterranean. But when Rome became once more the capital of Italy, Carthage was not fated to fall again under its domination and the occasion offered by France’s temporary impotence was neglected. In 1875 when France was rapidly recovering, there went to Tunis as consul an able Frenchman, M. Roustan, who became virtual ruler of the regency in spite of the resistance of the representative of Italy. French action was facilitated by the attitude of England. On the 26th of July 1878 M. Waddington wrote to the marquis d’Harcourt, French ambassador in London, that at the congress of Berlin Lord Salisbury had said to him—the two delegates being the foreign ministers of their respective governments—in reply to his protest, on behalf of France, against the proposed English occupation of Cyprus, “Do what you think proper in Tunis: England will offer no opposition.” This was confirmed by Lord Salisbury in a despatch to Lord Lyons, British ambassador in Paris, on the 8th of August, and it was followed in October by an intimation made by the French ambassador at Rome that France intended to exercise a preponderant influence in Tunis. Italy was not willing to accept this situation. In January 1881 a tour made by King Humbert in Sicily, where he received a Tunisian mission, was taken to signify that Italy had not done with Tunis, and it was answered in April by a French expedition in the regency sent from Algeria, on the pretext of punishing the Kroumirs who had been marauding on the frontier of Constantine. It was on this occasion that M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire issued the circular quoted above. France nominally was never at war with Tunis; yet the result of the invasion was that that country became virtually a French possession, although officially it is only under the protection of France. The treaty of El Bardo of the 12th of May 1881, confirmed by the decree of the 22nd of April 1882, placed Tunis under the protectorate of France. The country is administered under the direction of the French Foreign Office, in which there is a department of Tunisian affairs. The governor is called minister resident-general of France, and he also acts as foreign minister, being assisted by seven French and two native ministers.

The annexation of Tunis was important for many reasons. It was the first successful achievement of France after the disasters of the Franco-German War, and it was the first enterprise of serious utility to France undertaken beyond its frontiers since the early period of the Second

Empire. It was also important as establishing the hegemony of France on the southern shores of the Mediterranean. When M. Jules Cambon became governor-general of Algeria, his brother M. Paul Cambon having been previously French resident in Tunis and remaining the vigilant ambassador to a Mediterranean power, a Parisian wit said that just as Switzerland had its Lac des quatre Cantons, so France had made of the midland sea its Lac des deux Cambons. The jeu d’esprit indicated what was the primary significance to the French of their becoming masters of the Barbary coast from the boundary of Morocco to that of Tripoli. Apart from the Mediterranean question, when the scramble for Africa began and the Hinterland doctrine was asserted by European powers, the possession of this extended coast-line resulted in France laying claim to the Sahara and the western Sudan. Consequently, on the maps, the whole of northwest Africa, from Tunis to the Congo, is claimed by France with the exception of the relatively small areas on the coast belonging to Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Liberia, Germany and England. On this basis, in point of area, France is the greatest African power, in spite of British annexations in south and equatorial Africa, its area being estimated at 3,866,950 sq. m. (including 227,950 in Madagascar) as against 2,101,411 more effectively possessed by Great Britain. The immensity of its domain on paper is no doubt a satisfaction to a people which prefers to pursue its policy of colonial expansion without the aid of emigration. The acquisition of Tunis by France is also important as an example of the system of protectorate as applied to colonization. Open annexation might have more gravely irritated the powers having interests in the country. England, in spite of Lord Salisbury’s suggestions to the French foreign minister, was none too pleased with France’s policy; while Italy, with its subjects outnumbering all other European settlers in the

title: Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/920


text:
Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/926

HISTORY] of decreased activity in French colonial expansion. The unpopularity of the Tongking expedition was one of the causes of the popularity of General Boulanger, who diverted the French public from distant enterprises to a contemplation of the German frontier, and when Boulangism came to an end the Panama affair took its place in the interest it excited. But the colonial party in France did not lose sight of the possibility of establishing

a position on the Upper Nile. The partition of Africa seemed to offer an occasion for France to take compensation for the English occupation of Egypt. In 1892 the Budget Commission, on the proposal of M. Étienne, deputy for Oran, who had three times been colonial under secretary, voted 300,000 francs for the despatch of a mission to explore and report on those regions, which had not had much attention since the days of Emin. But the project was not then carried out. Later, parliament voted a sum six times larger for strengthening the French positions on the Upper Ubanghi and their means of communication with the coast. But Colonel Monteil’s expedition, which was the consequence of this vote, was diverted, and the 1,800,000 francs were spent at Loango, the southern port of French Congo, and on the Ivory Coast, the French territory which lies between Liberia and the British Gold Coast Colony, where a prolonged war ensued with Samory, a Nigerian chieftain. In September 1894, M. Delcassé being colonial minister, M. Liotard was appointed commissioner of the Upper Ubanghi with instructions to extend French influence in the Bahr-el-Ghazal up to the Nile. In addition to official missions, numerous expeditions of French explorers took place in Central Africa during this period, and negotiations were continually going on between the British and French governments. Towards the end of 1895 Lord Salisbury, who had succeeded Lord Kimberley at the foreign office, informed Baron de Courcel, the French ambassador, that an expedition to the Upper Nile was projected for the purpose of putting an end to Mahdism. M. Hanotaux was not at this moment minister of foreign affairs. He had been succeeded by M. Berthelot, the eminent chemist, who resigned that office on the 26th of March 1896, a month before the fall of the Bourgeois cabinet of which he was a member, in consequence of a question raised in the chamber on this subject of the English expedition to the Soudan. According to M. Hanotaux, who returned to the Quai d’Orsay, in the Méline ministry, on the 29th of April 1896, Lord Salisbury at the end of the previous year, in announcing the expedition confidentially to M. de Courcel, had assured him that it would not go beyond Dongola without a preliminary understanding with France. There must have been a misunderstanding on this point, as after reaching Dongola in September 1896 the Anglo-Egyptian army proceeded up the Nile in the direction of Khartoum. Before M. Hanotaux

resumed office the Marchand mission had been formally planned. On the 24th of February 1896 M. Guieysse, colonial minister in the Bourgeois ministry, had signed Captain Marchand’s instructions to the effect that he must march through the Upper Ubanghi, in order to extend French influence as far as the Nile, and try to reach that river before Colonel Colvile, who was leading an expedition from the East. He was also advised to conciliate the Mahdi if the aim of the mission could be benefited thereby. M. Liotard was raised to the rank of governor of the Upper Ubanghi, and in a despatch to him the new colonial minister, M. André Lebon, wrote that the Marchand mission was not to be considered a military enterprise, it being sent out with the intention of maintaining the political line which for two years M. Liotard had persistently been following, and of which the establishment of France in the basin of the Nile ought to be the crowning reward. Two days later, on the 25th of June 1896, Captain Marchand embarked for Africa. This is not the place for a description of his adventures in crossing the continent or when

he encountered General Kitchener at Fashoda, two months after his arrival there in July 1898 and a fortnight after the battle of Omdurman and the capture of Khartoum. The news was made known to Europe by the sirdar’s telegrams to the British government in September announcing the presence of the French mission at Fashoda. Then ensued a period of acute tension between the French and English governments, which gave the impression to the public that war between the two countries was inevitable. But those who were watching the situation in France on the spot knew that there was no question of fighting. France was unprepared, and was also involved in the toils of the Dreyfus affair. Had the situation been that of a year later, when the French domestic controversy was ending and the Transvaal War beginning, England might have been in a very difficult position. General Kitchener declined to recognize a French occupation of any part of the Nile valley. A long discussion ensued between the British and French governments, which was ended by the latter deciding on the 6th of November 1898 not to maintain the Marchand mission at Fashoda. Captain Marchand refused to return to Europe by way of the Nile and Lower Egypt, marching across Abyssinia to Jibuti in French Somaliland, where he embarked for France. He was received with well-merited enthusiasm in Paris. But the most remarkable feature of his reception was that the ministry became so alarmed lest the popularity of the hero of Fashoda should be at the expense of that of the parliamentary republic, that it put an end to the public acclamations by despatching him secretly from the capital—a somewhat similar treatment having been accorded to General Dodds in 1893 on his return to France after conquering Dahomey. The Marchand mission had little effect on African questions at issue between France and Great Britain, as a great

settlement had been effected while it was on its way across the continent. On the 14th of June 1898, the day before the fall of the Méline ministry, when M. Hanotaux finally quitted the Quai d’Orsay, a convention of general delimitation was signed at Paris by that minister and by the British ambassador, Sir Edmund Monson, which as regards the respective claims of England and France covered in its scope the whole of the northern half of Africa from Senegambia and the Congo to the valley of the Nile. Comparatively little attention was paid to it amid the exciting events which followed, so little that M. de Courcel has officially recorded that three months later, on the eve of the Fashoda incident, Lord Salisbury declared to him that he was not sufficiently acquainted with the geography of Africa to express an opinion on certain questions of delimitation arising out of the success of the British expedition on the Upper Nile. The convention of June 1898 was, however, of the highest importance, as it affirmed the junction into one vast territory of the three chief African domains of France, Algeria and Tunis, Senegal and the Niger, Chad and the Congo, thus conceding to France the whole of the north-western continent with the exception of Morocco, Liberia and the European colonies on the Atlantic. This arrangement, which was completed by an additional convention on the 21st of March 1899, made Morocco a legitimate object of French ambition.

The other questions which caused mutual animosity between England and France in the decline of the 19th century had nothing whatever to do with their conflicting international interests. The offensive attitude of the English press towards France on account of the

Dreyfus affair was repaid by the French in their criticism of the Boer War. When those sentimental causes of mutual irritation had become less acute, the press of the two countries was moved by certain influences to recognize that it was in their interest to be on good terms with one another. The importance of their commercial relations was brought into relief as though it were a new fact. At last in 1903 state visits between the rulers of England and of France took place in their respective capitals, for the first time since the early days of the Second Empire, followed by an Anglo-French convention signed on the 8th of April 1904. By this an arrangement was come to on outstanding questions of controversy between England and France in various parts of the world. France undertook not to interfere with the action of England in Egypt,

title: Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/926


text:
Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/927

Rh while England made a like undertaking as to French influence in Morocco. France conceded certain of its fishing rights in Newfoundland which had been a perpetual source of irritation between the two countries for nearly two hundred years since the treaty of Utrecht of 1713. In return England made several concessions to France in Africa, including that of the Los Islands off Sierra Leone and some rectifications of frontier on the Gambia and between the Niger and Lake Chad. Other points of difference were arranged as to Siam, the New Hebrides and Madagascar. The convention of 1904 was on the whole more advantageous for England than for France. The free hand which England conceded to France in dealing with Morocco was a somewhat burdensome gift owing to German interference; but the incidents which arose from the Franco-German conflict in that country are as yet too recent for any estimate of their possible consequences.

One result was the retirement of M. Delcassé from the foreign office on the 6th of June 1905. He had been foreign minister for seven years, a consecutive period of rare length, only once exceeded in England since the creation of the office, when Castlereagh held it for ten years,

and one of prodigious duration in the history of the Third Republic. He first went to the Quai d’Orsay in the Brisson ministry of June 1898, remained there during the Dupuy ministry of the same year, was reappointed by M. Waldeck-Rousseau in his cabinet which lasted from June 1899 to June 1902, was retained in the post by M. Combes till his ministry fell in January 1905, and again by his successor M. Rouvier till his own resignation in June of that year. M. Delcassé had thus an uninterrupted reign at the foreign office during a long critical period of transition both in the interior politics of France and in its exterior relations. He went to the Quai d’Orsay when the Dreyfus agitation was most acute, and left it when parliament was absorbed in discussing the separation of church and state. He saw the Franco-Russian alliance lose its popularity in the country even before the Russian defeat by the Japanese in the last days of his ministry. Although in the course of his official duties at the colonial office he had been partly responsible for some of the expeditions sent to Africa for the purpose of checking British influence, he was fully disposed to pursue a policy which might lead to a friendly understanding with England. In this he differed from M. Hanotaux, who was essentially the man of the Franco-Russian alliance, owing to it much of his prestige, including his election to the French Academy, and Russia, to which he gave exclusive allegiance, was then deemed to be primarily the enemy of England. M. Delcassé on the contrary, from the first, desired to assist a rapprochement between England and Russia as preliminary to the arrangement he proposed between England and France. He was foreign minister when the tsar paid his second visit to France, but there was no longer the national unanimity which welcomed him in 1896, M. Delcassé also accompanied President Loubet to Russia when he returned the tsar’s second visit in 1902. But exchange of compliments between France and Russia were no longer to be the sole international ceremonials within the attributes of the French foreign office; M. Delcassé was minister when the procession of European sovereigns headed by the kings of England and of Italy in 1903 came officially to Paris, and he went with M. Loubet to London and to Rome on the president’s return visits to those capitals—the latter being the immediate cause of the rupture of the concordat with the Vatican, though M. Delcassé was essentially a concordatory minister. His retirement from the Rouvier ministry in June 1905 was due to pressure from Germany in consequence of his opposition to German interference in Morocco. His resignation took place just a week after the news had arrived of the destruction of the Russian fleet by the Japanese, which completed the disablement of the one ally of France. The impression was current in France that Germany wished to give the French nation a fright before the understanding with England had reached an effective stage, and it was actually believed that the resignation of M. Delcassé averted a declaration of war. Although that belief revived to some extent the fading enmity of the French towards the conquerors of Alsace-Lorraine, the fear which accompanied it moved a considerable section of the nation to favour an understanding with Germany in preference to, or even at the expense of, friendly relations with England. M. Clémenceau, who only late in life came into office, and attained it at the moment when a better understanding with England was progressing, had been throughout his long career, of all French public men in all political groups, the most consistent friend of England. His presence at the head of affairs was a guarantee of amicable Anglo-French relations, so far as they could be protected by statesmanship.

By reason of the increased duration and stability of ministries, the personal influence of ministers in directing the foreign policy of France has in one sense become greater in the 20th century than in those earlier periods when France had first to recuperate its strength after the war and then to take its exterior policy from Germany. Moreover, not only have cabinets lasted longer, but the foreign minister has often been retained in a succession of them. Of the thirty years which in 1909 had elapsed since Marshal MacMahon retired and the republic was governed by republicans, in the first fifteen years from 1879 to 1894 fourteen different persons held the office of minister of foreign affairs, while six sufficed for the fifteen years succeeding the latter date. One must not, however, exaggerate the effect of this greater stability in office-holding upon continuity of policy, which was well maintained even in the days when there was on an average a new foreign minister every year. Indeed the most marked breach in the continuity of the foreign policy of France has been made in that later period of long terms of office, which, with the repudiation of the Concordat, has seen the withdrawal of the French protectorate over Roman Catholic missions in the East—though it is too soon to estimate the result. In another respect France has under the republic departed a long way from a tradition of the Quai d’Orsay. It no longer troubles itself on the subject of nationalities. Napoleon III., who had more French temperament than French blood in his constitution, was an idealist on this question, and one of the causes of his own downfall and the defeat of France was his sympathy in this direction with German unity. Since Sedan little has been done in France to further the doctrine of nationalities. A faint echo of it was heard during the Boer war, but French sympathy with the struggling Dutch republics of South Africa was based rather on anti-English sentiment than on any abstract theory.

—The scientific study of the history of France only begins with the 16th century. It was hampered at first by the traditions of the middle ages and by a servile imitation of antiquity. Paulus Aemilius of Verona (De rebus gestis Francorum, 1517), who may be called the first of modern historians, merely applies the oratorical methods of the Latin historiographers. It is not till the second half of the century that history emancipates itself; Catholics and Protestants alike turn to it for arguments in their religious and political controversies. François Hotman published (1574) his Franco-Gallia; Claude Fauchet his Antiquités gauloises et françoises (1579); Étienne Pasquier his Recherches de la France (1611), “the only work of erudition of the 16th century which one can read through without being bored.” Amateurs like Petau, A. de Thou, Bongars and Peiresc collected libraries to which men of learning went to draw their knowledge of the past; Pierre Pithou, one of the authors of the Satire Ménippée, published the earliest annals of France (Annales Francorum, 1588, and Historiae Francorum scriptores coetanei XI., 1596), Jacques Bongars collected in his Gesta Dei per Francos (1611–1617) the principal chroniclers of the Crusades. Others made a study of chronology like J. J. Scaliger (De emendatione temporum, 1583; Thesaurus temporum, 1606), sketched the history of literature, like François Grudé, sieur of La Croix in Maine (Bibliothèque françoise, 1584), and Antoine du Verdier (Catalogue de tous les auteurs qui ont écrit ou traduit en français, 1585), or discussed the actual principles of historical research, like Jean Bodin (Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem, 1566) and Henri Lancelot Voisin de La Popelinière (Histoire des histoires, 1599).

But the writers of history are as yet very inexpert; the Histoire générale des rois de France of Bernard de Girard, seigneur de Haillan (1576), the Grandes Annales de France of François de Belleforest (1579), the Inventaire général de l’histoire de France of Jean de Serres (1597), the Histoire générale de France depuis Pharamond of Scipion Dupleix (1621–1645), the Histoire de France (1643–1651) of François Eudes de Mézeray, and above all his Abrégé chronologique de l’histoire

title: Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/927


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hanmer, John (1809-1881)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hanmer, Jonathan


text:
Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/928

HISTORIOGRAPHY] de France (1668), are compilations which were eagerly read when they appeared, but are worthless nowadays. Historical research lacked method, leaders and trained workers; it found them all in the 17th century, the golden age of learning which was honoured alike by laymen, priests and members of the monastic orders, especially the Benedictines of the congregation of St Maur. The publication of original documents was carried on with enthusiasm. To André Duchesne we owe two great collections of chronicles: the Historiae Normannorum scriptores antiqui (1619) and the Historiae Francorum scriptores, continued by his son François (5 vols., 1636–1649). These publications were due to a part only of his prodigious activity; his papers and manuscripts, preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, are an inexhaustible mine. Charles du Fresne, seigneur du Cange, published Villehardouin (1657) and Joinville (1668); Étienne Baluze, the Capitularia regum Francorum (1674), the Nova collectio conciliorum (1677), the Vitae paparum Avenionensium (1693). The clergy were very much aided in their work by their private libraries and by their co-operation; Père Philippe Labbe published his Bibliotheca nova manuscriptorum (1657), and began (1671) his Collection des conciles, which was successfully completed by his colleague Père Cossart (18 vols.). In 1643 the Jesuit Jean Bolland brought out vol. i. of the Acta sanctorum, a vast collection of stories and legends which has not yet been completed beyond the 4th of November. (See .) The Benedictines, for their part, published the Acta sanctorum ordinis sancti Benedicti (9 vols., 1668–1701). One of the chief editors of this collection, Dom Jean Mabillon, published on his own account the Vetera analecta (4 vols., 1675–1685) and prepared the Annales ordinis sancti Benedicti (6 vols., 1703–1793). To Dom Thierri Ruinart we owe good editions of Gregory of Tours and Fredegarius (1699). The learning of the 17th century further inaugurated those specialized studies which are important aids to history. Mabillon in his De re diplomatica (1681) creates the science of documents or diplomatics. Adrien de Valois lays a sound foundation for historical geography by his critical edition of the Notitia Galliarum (1675). Numismatics finds an enlightened pioneer in François Leblanc (Traité historique des monnaies de France, 1690). Du Cange, one of the greatest of the French scholars who have studied the middle ages, has defined terms bearing on institutions in his Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis (1678), recast by the Benedictines (1733), with an important supplement by Dom Carpentier (1768), republished twice during the 19th century, with additions, by F. Didot (1840–1850), and by L. Favre at Niort (1883–1888); this work is still indispensable to every student of medieval history. Finally, great biographical or bibliographical works were undertaken; the Gallia christiana, which gave a chronological list of the archbishops, bishops and abbots of the Gauls and of France, was compiled by two twin brothers, Scévole and Louis de Sainte-Marthe, and by the two sons of Louis (4 vols., 1656); a fresh edition, on a better plan, and with great additions, was begun in 1715 by Denys de Sainte-Marthe, continued throughout the 18th century by the Benedictines, and finished in the 19th century by Barthélemy Hauréau (1856–1861).

As to the nobility, a series of researches and publications, begun by Pierre d’Hozier (d. 1660) and continued well on into the 19th century by several of his descendants, developed into the Armorial général de la France, which was remodelled several times. A similar work, of a more critical nature, was carried out by Père Anselme (Histoire généalogique de la maison de France et des grands officiers de la couronne, 1674) and by Père Ange and Père Simplicien, who completed the work (3rd ed. in 9 vols., 1726–1733). Critical bibliography is especially represented by certain Protestants, expelled from France by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Pierre Bayle, the sceptic, famous for his Dictionnaire critique (1699), which is in part a refutation of the Dictionnaire historique et géographique published in 1673 by the Abbé Louis Moréri, was the first to publish the Nouvelles de la république des lettres (1684–1687), which was continued by Henri Basnage de Beauval under the title of Histoire des ouvrages des savants (24 vols.). In imitation of this, Jean Le Clerc successively edited a Bibliothèque universelle et historique (1686–1693), a Bibliothèque choisie (1703–1713), and a Bibliothèque ancienne et moderne (1714–1727). These were the first of our “periodicals.”

The 18th century continues the traditions of the 17th. The Benedictines still for some time hold the first place. Dom Edmond Martène visited numerous archives (which were then closed) in France and neighbouring countries, and drew from them the material for two important collections: Thesaurus novus anecdotorum (9 vols., 1717, in collaboration with Dom Ursin Durand) and Veterum scriptorum collectio (9 vols., 1724–1733). Dom Bernard de Montfaucon also travelled in search of illustrated records of antiquity; private collections, among others the celebrated collection of Gaignières (now in the Bibliothèque Nationale), provided him with the illustrations which he published in his Monuments de la monarchie françoise (5 vols., 1729–1733). The text is in two languages, Latin and French. Dom Martin Bouquet took up the work begun by the two Duchesnes, and in 1738 published vol. i. of the Historians of France (Rerum Gallicarum et Francicarum scriptores), an enormous collection which was intended to include all the sources of the history of France, grouped under centuries and reigns. He produced the first eight volumes himself; his work was continued by several collaborators, the most active of whom was Dom Michel J. Brial, and already comprised thirteen volumes when it was interrupted by the Revolution. In 1733, Antoine Rivet de La Grange produced vol. i. of the Histoire littéraire de la France, which in 1789 numbered twelve volumes. While Dom C. François Toustaint and Dom René Prosper Tassin published a Nouveau Traité de diplomatique (6 vols., 1750–1765), others were undertaking the Art de vérifier les dates (1750; new and much enlarged edition in 1770). Still others, with more or less success, attempted histories of the provinces.

In the second half of the 18th century, the ardour of the Benedictines of St Maur diminished, and scientific work passed more and more into the hands of laymen. The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, founded in 1663 and reorganized in 1701, became its chief instrument, numbering among its members Denis François Secousse, who continued the collection of Ordonnances des rois de France, begun (1723) by J. de Laurière; J.-B. de La Curne de Sainte Palaye (Mémoires sur l’ancienne chevalerie, 1759–1781; Glossaire de la langue française depuis son origine jusqu’à la fin de Louis XIV, printed only in 1875–1882); J.-B. d’Anville (Notice sur l’ancienne Gaule tirée des monuments, 1760); and L. G. de Bréquigny, the greatest of them all, who continued the publication of the Ordonnances, began the Table chronologique des diplômes concernant l’histoire de France (3 vols., 1769–1783), published the Diplomata, chartae, ad res Francicas spectantia (1791, with the collaboration of La Porte du Theil), and directed fruitful researches in the archives in London, to enrich the Cabinet des chartes, where Henri Bertin (1719–1792), an enlightened minister of Louis XV., had in 1764 set himself the task of collecting the documentary sources of the national history. The example set by the religious orders and the government bore fruit. The general assembly of the clergy gave orders that its Procès verbaux (9 vols., 1767–1789) should be printed; some of the provinces decided to have their history written, and mostly applied to the Benedictines to have this done. Brittany was treated by Dom Lobineau (1707) and Dom Morice (1742); the duchy of Burgundy by Dom Urbain Plancher (1739–1748); Languedoc by Dom Dominique Vaissète (1730–1749, in collaboration with Dom Claude de Vic; new ed. 1873–1893); for Paris, its secular history was treated by Dom Michel Félibien and Dom Lobineau (1725), and its ecclesiastical history by the abbé Lebeuf (1745–1760; new ed. 1883–1890).

This ever-increasing stream of new evidence aroused curiosity, gave rise to pregnant comparisons, developed and sharpened the critical sense, but further led to a more and more urgent need for exact information. The Académie des Inscriptions brought out its Histoire de l’Académie avec les mémoires de littérature tirés de ses registres (vol. i. 1717; 51 vols. appeared before the Revolution, with five indexes; vide the Bibliographie of Lasteyrie, vol. iii. pp. 256 et seq.). Other collections, mostly of the nature of bibliographies, were the Journal des savants (111 vols., from 1665 to 1792; vide the Table méthodique by H. Cocheris, 1860); the Journal de Trévoux, or Mémoires pour l’histoire des sciences et des beaux-arts, edited by Jesuits (265 vols., 1701–1790); the Mercure de France (977 vols., from 1724 to 1791). To these must be added the dictionaries and encyclopaedias: the Dictionnaire de Moréri, the last edition of which numbers 10 vols. (1759); the Dictionnaire géographique, historique et politique des Gaules et de la France, by the abbé J. J. Expilly (6 vols., 1762–1770; unfinished); the Répertoire universel et raisonné de jurisprudence civile, criminelle, canonique et bénéficiale, by Guyot (64 vols., 1775–1786; supplement in 17 vols., 1784–1785), reorganized and continued by Merlin de Douai, who was afterwards one of the Montagnards, a member of the Directory, and a count under the Empire.

The historians did not use to the greatest advantage the treasures of learning provided for them; they were for the most part superficial, and dominated by their political or religious prejudices. Thus works like that of Père Gabriel Daniel (Histoire de France, 3 vols., 1713), of Président Hénault (Abrégé chronologique, 1744; 25 editions between 1770 and 1834), of the abbé Paul François Velly and those who completed his work (Histoire de France, 33 vols., 1765 to 1783), of G. H. Gaillard (Histoire de la rivalité de la France et de l’Angleterre, 11 vols., 1771–1777), and of L. P. Anquetil (1805), in spite of the brilliant success with which they met at first, have fallen into a just oblivion. A separate place must be given to the works of the theorists and philosophers: Histoire de l’ancien gouvernement de la France, by the Comte de Boulainvilliers (1727), Histoire critique de l’établissement de la monarchie françoise dans les deux Gaules, by the abbé J. B. Dubos (1734); L’Esprit des lois, by the président de Montesquieu (1748); the Observations sur l’histoire de France, by the abbé de Mably (1765); the Théorie de la politique de la monarchie française, by Marie Pauline de Lézardière (1792). These works have, if nothing else, the merit of provoking reflection.

At the time of the Revolution this activity was checked. The religious communities and royal academies were suppressed, and France violently broke with even her most recent past, which was considered to belong to the ancien régime. When peace was re-established, she began the task of making good the damage which had been done, but a greater effort was now necessary in order to revive the spirit of the institutions which had been overthrown. The new state, which was, in spite of all, bound by so many ties to the former order of things, seconded this effort, and during the

title: Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/928


text:
Page:A Life of Matthew Fontaine Maury.pdf/148

134 by officers of the Navy, and Commander William Lewis Herndon had this one. He went down with his ship, leaving a glowing example of devotion to duty, Christian conduct, and true heroism.

All hopes of his having been picked up by some passing vessel have vanished. The survivors of the wreck have made their statements of the gale, the sinking of the ship, and their rescue. These have gone the rounds of the newspaper press, and we are probably possessed of all the particulars concerning that awful catastrophe that the public will ever know.

The department has already been informed officially of this wreck and disaster—how nobly Herndon stood to his post and gloriously perished—how the women and children were all saved, and how he did all that man could do, or officer should, to save his ship and crew also. But the particulars have been given to the department only in the perishable form of the newspaper records.

As a tribute to his memory, as material for history, as an heirloom in the nave, and a legacy to his country, I desire to place on record in the department this simple writing as a memorial of him.

We were intimates; I have known him from his boyhood; he was my kinsman and my wife's brother. The ties of consanguinity, as well as our professional avocations, brought us frequently and much together; we were close friends.

Under these circumstances, I ask your leave to file a report of that gale and his loss. I am to embody in it a simple narrative of incident derived from statements which the survivors from the wreck have made either publicly, through the prints of the day, or privately to his family and friends. These incidents, in the silent influence of the lessons they teach, constitute an inheritance of rare value to his country men; they are the heirlooms of which I spoke, and will, I am persuaded, be productive of much good to the service. The 'Central America,' at the time of her loss, was bound from Aspinwall, via Havana to New York. She had on board, as nearly as has been ascertained, about two millions


text:
Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/930

INSTITUTIONS] the accounts found in those legal works of the middle ages written in the neo-Celtic dialects, the most important and the greater number of which belong to Ireland. A reconstruction from them is always hazardous, however delicate and scientific be the criticism which is brought to bear on it, as in the case of d’Arbois de Jubainville, for example. Moreover, in the historical evolution of French institutions those of the Celts or Gauls are of little importance. Not one of them can be shown to have survived in later law. What has survived of the Celtic race is the blood and temperament, still found in a great many Frenchmen, certain traits which the ancients remarked in the Gauls being still recognizable: bellum gerere et argute loqui.

Roman Period.—It was the Roman conquest and rule which really formed Gaul, for she was Romanized to the point of losing almost completely that which persists most stubbornly in a conquered nation, namely, the language; the Breton-speaking population came to France later, from Britain. The institutions of Roman Gaul became identical with those of the Roman empire, provincial and municipal government undergoing the same evolution as in the other parts of the empire. It was under Roman supremacy too, as M. d’Arbois de Jubainville has shown, that the ownership of land became personal and free in Gaul. The law for the Gallo-Romans was that which was administered by the conventus of the magistrate; there are only a few peculiarities, mere Gallicisms, resulting from conventions or usage, which are pointed out by Roman jurisconsults of the classical age. The administrative reforms of Diocletian and Constantine applied to Gaul as to the rest of the empire. Gaul under this rule consisted of seventeen provinces, divided between two dioceses, ten in the diocese of the Gauls, under the authority of the praetorian prefect, who resided at Treves; and the other seven in the dioecesis septem provinciarum, under the authority of a vicarius. The Gallo-Romans became Christian with the other subjects of the empire; the Church extended thither her powerful organization modelled on the administrative organization, each civitas having a bishop, just as it had a curia and municipal magistrates. But, although endowed with privileges by the Christian emperors, the Church did not yet encroach upon the civil power. She had the right of acquiring property, of holding councils, subject to the imperial authority, and of the free election of bishops. But only the first germs of ecclesiastical jurisdiction are to be traced. In virtue of the laws, the bishops were privileged arbitrators, and in the matter of public sins exercised a disciplinary jurisdiction over the clergy and the faithful. In the second half of the 4th century, monasteries appeared in Gaul. After the fall of the Western empire, there was left to the Gallo-Romans as an expression of its law, which was also theirs, a written legislation. It consisted of the imperial constitutions, contained in the Gregorian, Hermogenian and Theodosian codes (the two former being private compilations, and the third an official collection), and the writings of the five jurists (Gaius, Papinian, Paulus, Ulpian and Modestinus), to which Valentinian III. had in 426 given the force of law.

The Barbarian Invasion.—The invasions and settlements of the barbarians open a new period. Though there were robbery and violence in every case, the various barbarian kingdoms set up in Gaul were established under different conditions. In those of the Burgundians and Visigoths, the owners of the great estates, which had been the prevailing form of landed property in Roman Gaul, suffered partial dispossession, according to a system the rules regulating which can, in the case of the Burgundians, be traced almost exactly. It is doubtful whether a similar process took place in the case of the Frankish settlements, but their first conquests in the north and east seem to have led to the extermination or total expulsion of the Gallo-Roman population. It is impossible to say to what extent, in these various settlements, the system of collective property prevailing among the Germanic tribes was adopted. Another important difference was that, in embracing Christianity, some of the barbarians became Arians, as in the case of the Visigoths and Burgundians; others Catholic, as in the case of the Franks. This was probably the main cause of the absorption of the other kingdoms into the Frankish monarchy. In each case, however, the barbarian king appeared as wishing not to overthrow the Roman administration, but to profit by its continuation. The kings of the Visigoths and Burgundians were at first actually representatives of the Western empire, and Clovis himself was ready to accept from the emperor Anastasius the title of consul; but these were but empty forms, similar to the fictitious ties which long existed or still exist between China or Turkey and certain parts of their former empires, now separated from them for ever.

As soon as the Merovingian monarch had made himself master of Gaul, he set himself to maintain and keep in working order the administrative machinery of the Romans, save that the administrative unit was henceforth no longer the provincia but the civitas, which generally took the name of pagus, and was placed under the authority of a count, comes or grafio (Graf). Perhaps this was not entirely an innovation, for it appears that at the end of the Roman supremacy certain civitates had already a comes. Further, several pagi could be united under the authority of a dux. The pagus seems to have generally been divided into hundreds (centenae).

But the Roman administrative machinery was too delicate to be handled by barbarians; it could not survive for long, but underwent changes and finally disappeared. Thus the Merovingians tried to levy the same direct taxes as the Romans had done, the capitatio terrena and the capitatio humana, but they ceased to be imposts reassessed periodically in accordance with the total sum fixed as necessary to meet the needs of the state, and became fixed annual taxes on lands or persons; finally, they disappeared as general imposts, continuing to exist only as personal or territorial dues. In the same way the Roman municipal organization, that of the curiae, survived for a considerable time under the Merovingians, but was used only for the registration of written deeds; under the Carolingians it disappeared, and with it the old senatorial nobility which had been that of the Empire. The administration of justice (apart from the king’s tribunal) seems to have been organized on a system borrowed partly from Roman and partly from Germanic institutions; it naturally tends to assume popular forms. Justice is administered by the count (comes) or his deputy (centenarius or vicarius), but on the verdict of notables called in the texts boni homines or rachimburgii. This takes place in an assembly of all the free subjects, called mallus, at which every free man is bound to attend at least a certain number of times a year, and in which are promulgated the general acts emanating from the king. The latter could issue commands or prohibitions under the name of bannus, the violation of which entailed a fine of 60 solidi; the king also administered justice (in palatio), assisted by the officers of his household, his jurisdiction being unlimited and at the same time undefined. He could hear all causes, but was not bound to hear any, except, apparently, accusations of deliberate failure of justice and breach of trust on the part of the rachimburgii.

But what proved the great disturbing element in Gallo-Roman society was the fact that the conquerors, owing to their former customs and the degree of their civilization, were all warriors, men whose chief interest was to become practised in the handling of arms, and whose normal state was that of war. It is true that under the Roman empire all the men of a civitas were obliged, in case of necessity, to march against the enemy, and under the Frankish monarchy the count still called together his pagenses for this object. But the condition of the barbarian was very different; he lived essentially for fighting. Hence those gatherings or annual reviews of the Campus Martius, which continued so long, in Austrasia at least. They constituted the chief armed force; for mercenary troops, in spite of the assertions of some to the contrary, play at this period only a small part. But this military class, though not an aristocracy (for among the Franks the royal race alone was noble), was to a large extent independent, and the king had to attach these leudes or fideles to himself by gifts and favours. At the same time the authority of the king gradually underwent a

title: Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/930


text:
Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/929

Rh whole of the 19th century, and even longer, had a strong influence on historical production. The section of the Institut de France, which in 1816 assumed the old name of Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, began to reissue the two series of the Mémoires and of the Notices et extraits des manuscrits tirés de la bibliothèque royale (the first volume had appeared in 1787); began (1844) that of the Mémoires présentés par divers savants and the Comptes rendus (subject index 1857–1900, by G. Ledos, 1906); and continued the Recueil des historiens de France, the plan of which was enlarged by degrees (Historiens des croisades, obituaires, pouillés, comptes, &c.), the Ordonnances and the Table chronologique des diplômes. During the reign of Louis Philippe, the ministry of the interior reorganized the administration of the archives of the departments, communes and hospitals, of which the Inventaires sommaires are a mine of precious information (see the Rapport au ministre, by G. Servois, 1902). In 1834 the ministry of public instruction founded a committee, which has been called since 1881 the Comité des Travaux historiques et scientifiques, under the direction of which have been published: (1) the Collection des documents inédits relatifs à l’histoire de France (more than 260 vols. have appeared since 1836); (2) the Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques de France; (3) the Dictionnaires topographiques (25 vols. have appeared); and the Répertoires archéologiques of the French departments (8 vols. between 1861 and 1888); (4) several series of Bulletins, the details of which will be found in the Bibliographie of Lasteyrie. At the same time were founded or reorganized, both in Paris and the departments, numerous societies, devoted sometimes partially and sometimes exclusively to history and archaeology; the Académie Celtique (1804), which in 1813 became the Société des Antiquaires de France (general index by M. Prou, 1894); the Société de l’Histoire de France (1834); the Société de l’École des Chartes (1839); the Société de l’Histoire de Paris et de l’Île-de-France (1874; four decennial indexes), &c. The details will be found in the excellent Bibliographie générale des travaux historiques et archéologiques publiés par les sociétés savantes de France, which has appeared since 1885 under the direction of Robert de Lasteyrie.

Individual scholars also associated themselves with this great literary movement. Guizot published a Collection de mémoires relatifs à l’histoire de France (31 vols., 1824–1835); Buchon, a Collection des chroniques nationales françaises écrites en langue vulgaire du XIIIe au XVIe siècle (47 vols., 1824–1829), and a Choix de chroniques et mémoires sur l’histoire de France (14 vols., 1836–1841); Petitot and Monmerqué, a Collection de mémoires relatifs à l’histoire de France (131 vols., 1819–1829); Michaud and Poujoulat, a Nouvelle Collection de mémoires pour servir a l’histoire de France (32 vols., 1836–1839); Barrière and de Lescure, a Bibliothèque de mémoires relatifs à l’histoire de France pendant le XVIIIe siècle (30 vols., 1855–1875); and finally Berville and Barrière, a Collection des mémoires relatifs à la Révolution Française (55 vols., 1820–1827). The details are to be found in the Sources de l’histoire de France, by Alfred Franklin (1876). The abbé J. P. Migne in his Patrologia Latina (221 vols., 1844–1864), re-edited a number of texts anterior to the 13th century. Under the second empire, the administration of the imperial archives at Paris published ten volumes of documents (Monuments historiques, 1866; Layettes du trésor des chartes, 1863, which were afterwards continued up to 1270; Actes du parlement de Paris, 1863–1867), not to mention several volumes of Inventaires. The administration of the Bibliothèque impériale had printed the Catalogue général de l’histoire de France (10 vols., 1855–1870; vol. xi., containing the alphabetical index to the names of the authors, appeared in 1895). Other countries also supplied a number of useful texts; there is much in the English Rolls series, in the collection of Chroniques belges, and especially in the Monumenta Germaniae historica.

At the same time the scope of history and its auxiliary sciences becomes more clearly defined; the École des Chartes produces some excellent palaeographers, as for instance Natalis de Wailly (Éléments de paléographie, 1838), and (q.v.), who has also left traces of his profound researches in the most varied departments of medieval history (Bibliographie des travaux de M. Léopold Delisle, 1902); Anatole de Barthélemy made a study of coins and medals, Douët d’Arcq and G. Demay of seals. The works of Alexandre Lenoir (Musée des monuments français, 1800–1822), of Arcisse de Caumont (Histoire de l’architecture du moyen âge, 1837; Abécédaire ou rudiment d’archéologie, 1850), of A. Napoléon Didron (Annales archéologiques, 1844), of Jules Quicherat (Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire, published after his death, 1886), and the dictionaries of Viollet le Duc (Dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture française, 1853–1868; Dictionnaire du mobilier français, 1855) displayed to the best advantage one of the most brilliant sides of the French intellect, while other sciences, such as geology, anthropology, the comparative study of languages, religions and folk-lore, and political economy, continued to enlarge the horizon of history. The task of writing the general history of a country became more and more difficult, especially for one man, but the task was none the less undertaken by several historians, and by some of eminence. François Guizot treated of the Histoire de la civilisation en France (1828–1830); Augustin Thierry after the Récits des temps mérovingiens (1840) published the Monuments de l’histoire du tiers état (1849–1856), the introduction to which was expanded into a book (1855); Charles Simonde de Sismondi produced a mediocre Histoire des français in 31 vols. (1821–1844), and Henri Martin a Histoire de France in 16 vols. (1847–1854), now of small use except for the two or three last centuries of the ancien régime. Finally J. Michelet, in his Histoire de France (17 vols., 1833–1856) and his Histoire de la Révolution (7 vols., 1847–1853), aims at reviving the very soul of the nation’s past.

After the Franco-German War begins a better organization of scientific studies, modelled on that of Germany. The École des Hautes Études, established in 1868, included in its programme the critical study of the sources, both Latin and French, of the history of France; and from the séminaire of Gabriel Monod came men of learning, already prepared by studying at the École des Chartes: Paul Viollet, who revived the study of the history of French law; Julien Havet, who revived that of Merovingian diplomatics; Arthur Giry, who resumed the study of municipal institutions where it had been left by A. Thierry, prepared the Annales carolingiennes (written by his pupils, Eckel, Favre, Lauer, Lot, Poupardin), and brought back into honour the study of diplomatics (Manuel de diplomatique, 1894); Auguste Molinier, author of the Sources de l’histoire de France (1902–1904; general index, 1906), &c. Auguste Longnon introduced at the École des Hautes Études the study of historical geography (Atlas historique de la France, in course of publication since 1888). The universities, at last reorganized, popularized the employment of the new methods. The books of Fustel de Coulanges and Achille Luchaire on the middle ages, and those of A. Aulard on the revolution, gave a strong, though well-regulated, impetus to historical production. The École du Louvre (1881) increased the value of the museums and placed the history of art among the studies of higher education, while the Musée archéologique of St-Germain-en-Laye offered a fruitful field for research on Gallic and Gallo-Roman antiquities. Rich archives, hitherto inaccessible, were thrown open to students; at Rome those of the Vatican (Registres pontificaux, published by students at the French school of archaeology, since 1884); at Paris, those of the Foreign Office (Recueil des instructions données aux ambassadeurs depuis le traité de Westphalie, 16 vols., 1885–1901; besides various collections of diplomatic papers, inventories, &c.). Those of the War Office were used by officers who published numerous documents bearing on the wars of the Revolution and the Empire, and on that of 1870–1871. In 1904 a commission, generously endowed by the French parlement, was entrusted with the task of publishing the documents relating to economic and social life of the time of the Revolution, and four volumes had appeared by 1908. Certain towns, Paris, Bordeaux, &c., have made it a point of honour to have their chief historical monuments printed. The work now becomes more and more specialized. L’Histoire de France, by Ernest Lavisse (1900, &c.), is the work of fifteen different authors. It is therefore more than ever necessary that the work should be under sound direction. The Manuel de bibliographie historique of Ch. V. Langlois (2nd edition, 1901–1904) is a good guide, as is his Archives de l’histoire de France (1891, in collaboration with H. Stein).

Besides the special bibliographies mentioned above, it will be useful to consult the Bibliothèque historique of Père Jacques Lelong (1719; new ed. by Fevret de Fontette, 5 vols., 1768–1778); the Geschichte der historischen Forschung und Kunst of Ludwig Wachler (2 vols., 1812–1816); the Bibliographie de la France, established in 1811 (1st series, 1811–1856, 45 vols.; 2nd series, 1 vol. per annum since 1857); the publications of the Société de Bibliographie (Polybiblion, from 1868 on, &c.); the Bibliographie de l’histoire de France, by Gabriel Monod (1888); the Répertoire of the abbé Ulysse Chevalier (Biobibliographie; new ed. 1903–1907; and Topobibliographie, 1894–1899). Bearing exclusively on the middle ages are the Bibliotheca historica medii aevi of August Potthast (new ed. 1896) and the Manuel (Les Sources de l’histoire de France, 1901, &c.) of A. Molinier; but the latter is to be continued up to modern times, the 16th century having already been begun by Henri Hausser (1st part, 1906). Finally, various special reviews, besides teaching historical method by criticism and by example, try to keep their readers au courant with literary production; the Revue critique d’histoire et de littérature (1866 fol.), the Revue des questions historiques (1866 fol.), the Revue historique (1876 fol.), the Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, accompanied annually by a valuable Répertoire méthodique (1898 fol.); the Revue de synthèse historique (1900 fol.), &c.

Celtic Period.—The remotest times to which history gives us access with reference to the law and institutions formerly existing in the country which is now called France are those in which the dominant race at least was Celtic. On the whole, our knowledge is small of the law and institutions of these Celts, or Gauls, whose tribes constituted independent Gaul. For their reconstruction, modern scholars draw upon two sources; firstly, there is the information furnished by the classical writers and by Caesar and Strabo in particular, which is trustworthy but somewhat scanty; the other source, which is not so pure, consists in

title: Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/929


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hanmer, Thomas


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hann, James


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Crowther, James


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Crowther, Jonathan (1760-1824)


text:
Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/952

INSTITUTIONS] August 1871, on the conseils généraux, considerably increased the powers and independence of these elective bodies, which have become important deliberative assemblies,

their sessions being held in public. The law of 1871 created a new administrative organ for the departments, the commission départmentale, elected by the council-general of the department from among its own members and associated with the administration of the prefect. The other law is the municipal law of the 5th of April 1884, which effected a widespread decentralization; the maires and their adjoints are elected by the municipal council.

The war of 1870–71 necessarily led to a modification of the military organization. The law of the 25th of July 1872 established the principle of compulsory service for all, first in the standing army, the period of service in which was fixed at five years, then in the reserve, and finally in

the territorial army. But the application of this principle was by no means absolute, only holding good in time of war. Each annual class was divided into two parts, by means of drawing lots, and in time of peace one of these parts had only a year of service with the active army. The previous exemptions, based either on the position of supporter of the family (as in the case of the son of a widow or aged father, &c.) or on equivalent services rendered to the state (as in the case of young ecclesiastics or members of the teaching profession), were preserved, but only held good for service in the active army in times of peace. Finally, the system of conditional engagement for a year allowed young men, for the purposes of study or apprenticeship to their profession, only to serve a year with the active army in time of peace. By this means it was sought to combine the advantages of an army of veterans with those of a numerous and truly national army. But the conditional volunteering (volontariat conditionnel) for a year was open to too great a number of people, and so brought the system into discredit. As those who profited by it had to be clothed and maintained at their own expense, and the sum which they had to furnish for this purpose was generally fixed at 1500 francs, it came to be considered the privilege of those who could pay this sum. A new law of the 15th of July 1889 lessened the difference between the two terms which it attempted to reconcile. It reduced the term of service in the active army to three years, and the exemptions, which were still preserved, merely reduced the period to a year in times of peace. The same reduction was also granted to those who were really pursuing important scientific, technical or professional studies; the system was so strict on this point that the number of those who profited by those exemptions did not amount to 2000 in a year. This was a compromise between two opposing principles; the democratic principle of equality, being the stronger, was bound to triumph. The law of the 21st of March 1905 reduced the term of service in the active army to two years, but made it equal for all, admitting of no exemption, but only certain facilities as to the age at which it had to be accomplished.

In 1883 the judicial personnel was reorganized and reduced in number. With the exception of a few modifications the main lines of judicial organization remained the same. In 1879 the conseil d’état was also reorganized. The whole fabric of administrative jurisdiction was carefully

organized, and almost entirely separated from the active administration.

The system of taxation has remained essentially unaltered; we may notice, however, the laws of 1897, 1898 and 1900, which abolished or lessened the duties on so called hygienic drinks (wine, beer, cider), and the financial law of 1901, which rearranged and increased the transfer fees, and established a system of progressive taxation in the case of succession dues.

The labour laws, which generally partook of the nature both of public and of private law, are a sign of our times. Under the Third Republic they have been numerous, the most notable being: the law of the 21st of March 1884 on professional syndicates, which introduced

the liberty of association in matters of this kind before it became part of the common law (see ); the law of the 9th of April 1898 on the liability for accidents incurred during work, and those which have completed it; that of the 22nd of December 1892 on conciliation and arbitration in the case of collective disputes between employers and workmen; that of the 29th of June 1893 on the hygiene and safeguarding of workers in industrial establishments, and the laws which regulate the work of children and women in factories; finally, that of the 15th of July 1893 on free medical attendance (see ).

As to criminal law, there have been more than fifty enactments, mostly involving important modifications, due to more scientific ideas of punishment, so that we may say that it has been almost entirely recast since the establishment of the Third Republic. The separate system applied in

cases of preventive detention and imprisonment for short periods; liberation before the expiry of the term of sentence, subject to the condition that no fresh offence shall be committed within a given time; transportation to the colonies of habitual offenders; the remission of the penalty in the case of first offenders, and the lapsing of the penalty when a certain time has gone by without a fresh condemnation; greater facilities for the rehabilitation of condemned persons, which now became simply a matter for the courts, and occurred as a matter of course at the end of a certain time; such were the chief results of this legislation. Finally, the law of the 8th of December 1897 completely altered the form of the preliminary examination before the juge d’instruction, which had been the weakest point in the French criminal procedure, though it was still held in private; the new law made this examination really a hearing of both sides, and made the appearance of counsel for the defence practically compulsory.

As to private law, both civil and commercial, we could enumerate between 1871 and 1906 more than a hundred laws which have modified it, sometimes profoundly, and have for the most part done very useful work without attracting much attention. They are generally examined and drawn up by commissions of competent men, and pass both chambers almost without discussion. There have, however, been a few which aroused public interest and even deep feeling. Firstly, there was the law of the 27th of July 1884, and those which completed it; this law re-established divorce, which had been abolished since 1816, but only permitted it for certain definite causes determined by law. On the other hand, the law of the 6th of February 1893 increased the liberty and independence of a woman who was simply judicially separated, in order to encourage separation, as opposed to divorce, when the conditions allowed it. The law of the 25th of March 1896 on the succession of illegitimate children, who were recognized by the parents, treated them not in the same way as legitimate children, but gave them the title of heirs in the succession of their father and mother, together with much greater rights than they had possessed under the Code Civil. The law of the 24th of July 1899, on the protection of children who are ill-treated or morally neglected, also modified some of the provisions of the law as applied to the family, with a view to greater justice and humanity. Finally, on the occasion of the centenary of the Code Civil (see ), a commission, composed of members of the chambers, magistrates, professors of law, lawyers, political writers, and even novelists and dramatic authors, was given the task of revising the whole structure of the code.

See generally Adhémar Esmein, Cours élémentaire d’histoire du droit français (6th ed., 1906); J. Brissand, Cours d’histoire générale du droit français public et privé (1904); Ernest Glasson, Histoire du droit et des institutions en France (1887–1904); Paul Viollet, Histoire des institutions politiques et administratives de la France (3rd ed., 1903); Fustel de Coulanges, Histoire des institutions politiques de l’ancienne France; Jacques Flach, Les Origines de l’ancienne France (1875–1889); Achille Luchaire, Histoire des institutions monarchiques de la France sous les premiers Capétiens (2nd ed., 1900); Hippolyte Taine, Les Origines de la France contemporaine (1878–1894); Adhémar Esmein, Eléments de droit constitutionnel français et comparé (4th ed., 1906); Léon Duguit et Henry Monnier, Les Constitutions et les principales lois politiques de la France depuis 1789 (1898).

title: Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/952


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Crowther, Jonathan (1794-1856)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Croxall, Samuel


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Croxton, Thomas


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Crozier, Francis Rawdon Moira


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cruden, Alexander


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cruden, William


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cruikshank, George


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hanna, Samuel


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cruikshank, Isaac (1756?-1811?)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cruikshank, Isaac Robert


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cruikshank, William Cumberland


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cruise, William


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Crull, Jodocus


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hanna, William


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Crump, Henry


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Crumpe, Samuel


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Crusius, Lewis


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cruso, John


text:
Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/850

HISTORY] upon her by the harsh conditions of the treaty of Madrid—otherwise little respected—and later by those of Cambrai (1529); but it was not till later, too late indeed, that it was defined and became a national policy.

After having, despite so many reverses and mistakes, saved Burgundy, though not Artois nor Flanders, and joined to the crown lands the domains of the constable de Bourbon who had gone over to Charles V., Francis I. should have had enough of defending other people’s independence

as well as his own, and should have thought more of his interests in the north and east than of Milan. Yet between 1531 and 1547 he manifested the same regrets and the same invincible ambition for that land of Italy which Charles V., on his side, regarded as the basis of his strength. Their antagonism, therefore, remained unabated, as also the contradiction of an official agreement with Charles V., combined with secret intrigues with his enemies. Anne de Montmorency, now head of the government in place of the headstrong chancellor Duprat, for four years upheld a policy of reconciliation and of almost friendly agreement between the two monarchs (1531–1535). The death of Francis I.’s mother, Louise of Savoy (who had been partly instrumental in arranging the peace of Cambrai), the replacement of Montmorency by the bellicose Chabot, and the advent to power of a Burgundian, Granvella, as Charles V.’s prime minister, put an end to this double-faced policy, which attacked the Calvinists of France while supporting the Lutherans of Germany; made advances to Clement VII. while pretending to maintain the alliance with Henry VIII. (just then consummating the Anglican schism); and sought an alliance with Charles V. without renouncing the possession of Italy. The death of the duke of Milan provoked a third general war (1536–1538);

but after the conquest of Savoy and Piedmont and a fruitless invasion of Provence by Charles V., it resulted in another truce, concluded at Nice, in the interview at Aigues-mortes, and in the old contradictory policy of the treaty of Cambrai. This was confirmed by Charles V.’s triumphal journey through France (1539).

Rivalry between Madame d’Etampes, the imperious mistress of the aged Francis I., and Diane de Poitiers, whose ascendancy over the dauphin was complete, now brought court intrigues and constant changes in those who held office, to complicate still further this wearisome

policy of ephemeral “combinazioni” with English, Germans, Italians and Turks, which urgent need of money always brought to naught. The disillusionment of Francis I., who had hitherto hoped that Charles V. would be generous enough to give Milan back to him, and then the assassination of Rincon, his ambassador at Constantinople, led to a fourth war (1544–1546), in the course of which the king of England went over to the side of Charles V.

Unable in the days of his youth to make Italy French, when age began to come upon him, Francis tried to make France Italian. In his château at Blois he drank greedily of the cup of Renaissance art; but he found the exciting draughts of diplomacy which he imbibed

from Machiavelli’s Prince even more intoxicating, and he headed the ship of state straight for the rock of absolutism. He had been the first king “du bon plaisir” (“of his own good pleasure”)—a “Caesar,” as his mother Louise of Savoy proudly hailed him in 1515—and to a man of his gallant and hot-headed temperament love and war were schools little calculated to teach moderation in government. Italy not only gave him a taste for art and letters, but furnished him with an arsenal of despotic maxims. Yet his true masters were the jurists of the southern universities, passionately addicted to centralization and autocracy, men like Duprat and Poyet, who revived the persistent tradition of Philip the Fair’s legists. Grouped together on the council of affairs, they managed to control the policy of the common council, with its too mixed and too independent membership. They successfully strove to separate “the grandeur and superexcellence of the king” from the rest of the nation; to isolate the nobility amid the seductions of a court lavish in promises of favour and high office; and to win over the bourgeoisie by the buying and selling and afterwards by the hereditary transmission of offices. Thanks to their action, feudalism was attacked in its landed interest in the person of the constable de Bourbon; feudalism in its financial aspect by the execution of superintendent Semblançay and the special privileges of towns and provinces by administrative centralization. The bureaucracy became a refuge for the nobles, and above all for the bourgeois, whose fixed incomes were lowered by the influx of precious metals from the New World, while the wages of artisans rose. All those time-worn medieval institutions which no longer allowed free scope to private or public life were demolished by the legists in favour of the monarchy.

Their master-stroke was the Concordat of 1516, which meant an immense stride in the path towards absolutism. While Germany and England, where ultramontane doctrines had been allowed to creep in, were seeking a remedy against the economic exactions of the papacy in a

reform of dogma or in schism, France had supposed herself to have found this in the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges. But to the royal jurists the right of the churches and abbeys to make appointments to all vacant benefices was a guarantee of liberties valuable to the clergy, but detestable to themselves because the clergy thus retained the great part of public wealth and authority. By giving the king the ecclesiastical patronage they not only made a docile instrument of him, but endowed him with a mine of wealth, even more productive than the sale of offices, and a power of favouring and rewarding that transformed a needy and ill-obeyed king into an absolute monarch. To the pope they offered a mess of pottage in the shape of annates and the right of canonical institution, in order to induce him to sell the Church of France to the king. By this royal reform they completely isolated the monarchy, in the presumptuous pride of omnipotence, upon the ruins of the Church and the aristocracy, despite both the university and the parlement of Paris.

Thus is explained Francis I.’s preoccupation with Italian adventures in the latter part of his reign, and also the inordinate squandering of money, the autos-da-fé in the provinces and in Paris, the harsh repression of reform and free thought, and the sale of justice; while the nation became impoverished and the state was at the mercy of the caprices of royal mistresses—all of which was to become more and more pronounced during the twelve years of Henry II.’s government.

Henry II. shone but with a reflected light—in his private life reflected from his old mistress, Diane de Poitiers, and in his political action reflected from the views of Montmorency or the Guises. He only showed his own personality in an egoism more narrow-minded, in

hatred yet bitterer than his father’s; or in a haughty and jealous insistence upon an absolute authority which he never had the wit to maintain.

The struggle with Charles V. was at first delayed by differences with England. The treaty of Ardres had left two bones of contention: the cession of Boulogne to England and the exclusion of the Scotch from the terms of peace. At last the regent, the duke of Somerset,

endeavoured to arrange a marriage between Edward VI., then a minor, and Mary Stuart, who had been offered in marriage to the dauphin Francis by her mother, Marie of Lorraine, a Guise who had married the king of Scotland. The transference of Mary Stuart to France, and the treaty of 1550 which restored Boulogne to France for a sum of 400,000 crowns, suspended the state of war; and then Henry II.’s opposition to the imperial policy of Charles V. showed itself everywhere: in Savoy and Piedmont, occupied by the French and claimed by Philibert Emmanuel, Charles V.’s ally; in Navarre, unlawfully conquered by Ferdinand the Catholic and claimed by the family of Albret; in Italy, where, aided and abetted by Pope Paul III., Henry II. was trying to regain support; and, finally, in Germany, where after the victory of Charles V. at Mühlberg (1547) the Protestant princes called Henry II. to their aid, offering to

title: Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/850


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cruso, Timothy


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cruttwell, Clement