Footnotes:
[352] ‘From the beginning it may be said that the yeomanry and trading classes of towns were generally hostile to the king's side, even in those counties which were in his military occupation; except in a few, such as Cornwall, Worcester, Salop, and most of Wales, where the prevailing sentiment was chiefly royalist.’ Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. i. p. 578. See also Lingard's Hist. of England, vol. vi. p. 304; and Alison's Hist. of Europe, vol. i. p. 49.
[353] On this division of classes, which, notwithstanding a few exceptions, is undoubtedly true as a general fact, compare Memoirs of Sir P. Warwick, p. 217; Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. iii. p. 347; Clarendon's Hist. of the Rebellion, pp. 294, 297, 345, 346, 401, 476; May's Hist. of the Long Parliament, book i. pp. 22, 64, book ii. p. 63, book iii. p. 78; Hutchinson's Memoirs, p. 100; Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 104, vol. iii. p. 258; Bulstrode's Memoirs, p. 86.
[354] Lord Clarendon says, in his grand style, ‘the rabble contemned and despised under the name of roundheads.’ Hist. of the Rebellion, p. 136. This was in 1641, when the title appears to have been first bestowed. See Fairfax Corresp. vol. ii. pp. 185, 320.
[355] Just before the battle of Edgehill, in 1642, Charles said to his troops, ‘You are called cavaliers in a reproachful signification.’ See the king's speech, in Somers Tracts, vol. iv. p. 478. Directly after the battle, he accused his opponents of ‘rendering all persons of honour odious to the common people, under the style of cavaliers.’ May's Hist. of the Long Parliament, book iii. p. 25.
[356] M. Saint-Aulaire (Hist. de la Fronde, vol. i. p. v.) says, that the object of the Frondeurs was, ‘limiter l'autorité royale, consacrer les principes de la liberté civile et en confier la garde aux compagnies souveraines;’ and at p. vi. he calls the declaration of 1648, ‘une véritable charte constitutionnelle.’ See also, at vol. i. p. 128, the concluding paragraph of the speech of Omer Talon. Joly, who was much displeased at this tendency, complains that in 1648, ‘le peuple tomboit imperceptiblement dans le sentiment dangereux, qu'il est naturel et permis de se défendre et de s'armer contre la violence des supérieurs.’ Mém. de Joly, p. 15. Of the immediate objects proposed by the Fronde, one was to diminish the taille, and another was to obtain a law that no one should be kept in prison more than twenty-four hours, ‘sans être remis entre les mains du parlement pour lui faire son procès s'il se trouvoit criminel ou l'élargir s'il étoit innocent.’ Mém. de Montglat, vol. ii. p. 135; Mém. de Motteville, vol. ii. p. 398; Mém. de Retz, vol. i. p. 265; Mém. d'Omer Talon, vol. ii. pp. 224, 225, 240, 328.
[357] I use the word ‘parliament’ in the sense given to it by writers of that time, and not in the legal sense.
[358] In May 1642, there remained at Westminster forty-two peers, Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. i. p. 559; but they gradually abandoned the popular cause; and, according to Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1282, so dwindled, that eventually ‘seldom more than five or six’ were present.
[359] These increasing democratic tendencies are most clearly indicated in Walker's curious work, The History of Independency. See among other passages, book i. p. 59. And Clarendon, under the year 1644, says (Hist. of the Rebellion, p. 514): ‘That violent party, which had at first cozened the rest into the war, and afterwards obstructed all the approaches towards peace, found now that they had finished as much of their work as the tools which they had wrought with could be applied to, and what remained to be done must be despatched by new workmen.’ What these new workmen were, he afterwards explains, p. 641, to be ‘the most inferior people preferred to all places of trust and profit.’ Book xi. under the year 1648. Compare some good remarks by Mr. Bell, in Fairfax Correspond. vol. iii. pp. 115, 116.
[360] This was after the appointments of Essex and Bedford, and was in 1643. Ludlow's Mem. vol. i. p. 58; Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. i. p. 189.
[361] ‘When the king attempted to arrest the five members, Manchester, at that time Lord Kymbolton, was the only peer whom he impeached. This circumstance endeared Kymbolton to the party; his own safety bound him more closely to its interests.’ Lingard's England, vol. vi. p. 337. Compare Clarendon, p. 375; Ludlow, vol. i. p. 20. It is also said that Lord Essex joined the popular party from personal pique against the king. Fairfax Corresp. vol. iii. p. 37.
[362] Mr. Carlyle has made some very characteristic, but very just, observations on the ‘high Essexes and Manchesters of limited notions and large estates.’ Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. i. p. 215.
[363] Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 110; Hutchinson's Memoirs, pp. 230, 231; Harris's Lives of the Stuarts, vol. iii. p. 106; Bulstrode's Memoirs, pp. 112, 113, 119; Clarendon's Rebellion, pp. 486, 514; or, as Lord North puts it, ‘for General Essex began now to appear to the private cabalists somewhat wresty.’ North's Narrative of Passages relating to the Long Parliament, published in 1670, in Somers Tracts, vol. vi. p. 578. At p. 584, the same elegant writer says of Essex, ‘being the first person and last of the nobility employed by the parliament in military affairs, which soon brought him to the period of his life. And may he be an example to all future ages, to deter all persons of like dignity from being instrumental in setting up a democratical power, whose interest it is to keep down all persons of his condition.’ The ‘Letter of Admonition’ addressed to him by parliament in 1644, is printed in Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 274.
[364] Lingard's Hist. of England, vol. vi. p. 318. See also, on the hostility between Essex and Waller, Walker's Hist. of Independency, part i. pp. 28, 29; and Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 177. Sir Philip Warwick (Memoirs, p. 254) contemptuously calls Waller ‘favourite-general of the city of London.’
[365] Compare Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. i. pp. 569, 570, with Bulstrode's Memoirs, p. 96, and Lord Bedford's letter, in Parl. Hist. vol. iii. pp. 189, 190. This shuffling letter confirms the unfavourable account of the writer, which is given in Clarendon's Rebellion, p. 422.
[366] Dr. Bates, who had been physician to Cromwell, intimates that this was foreseen from the beginning. He says, that the popular party offered command to some of the nobles, ‘not that they had any respect for the lords, whom shortly they intended to turn out and to level with the commoners, but that they might poison them with their own venom, and rise to greater authority by drawing more over to their side.’ Bates's Account of the late Troubles in England, part i. p. 76. Lord North too supposes, that almost immediately after the war began, it was determined to dissolve the House of Lords. See Somers Tracts, vol. vi. p. 582. Beyond this, I am not aware of any direct early evidence; except that, in 1644, Cromwell is alleged to have stated that ‘there would never be a good time in England till we had done with lords.’ Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. i. p. 217; and, what is evidently the same circumstance, in Holles's Memoirs, p. 18.
[367] This was the ‘Self-denying Ordinance,’ which was introduced in December, 1644; but, owing to the resistance of the peers, was not carried until the subsequent April. Parl. Hist. vol. iii. pp. 326–337, 340–343, 354, 355. See also Mem. of Lord Holles, p. 30; Mem. of Sir P. Warwick, p. 283.
[368] On this great Epoch in the history of England, see Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1284; Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. i. p. 643; Campbell's Chief-Justices, vol. i. p. 424; Ludlow's Mem. vol. i. p. 246; Warwick's Mem. pp. 182, 336, 352.
[369] ‘Cornet Joyce, who was one of the agitators in the army, a tailor, a fellow who had two or three years before served in a very inferior employment in Mr. Hollis's house.’ Clarendon's Rebellion, p. 612. ‘A shrewd tailor-man.’ D'Israeli's Commentaries on the Reign of Charles I., 1851, vol. ii. p. 466.
[370] Ludlow (Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 139); Noble (Memoirs of the House of Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 470); and Winstanley (Loyal Martyrology, edit. 1665, p. 108), mention that Pride had been a drayman. It is said that Cromwell, in ridicule of the old distinctions, conferred knighthood on him ‘with a faggot.’ Orme's Life of Owen, p. 164; Harris's Lives of the Stuarts, vol. iii. p. 478.
[371] ‘The fifth-monarchy, headed mainly by one Venner, a wine-cooper.’ Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. iii. p. 282. ‘Venner, a wine-cooper.’ Lister's Life and Corresp. of Clarendon, vol. ii. p. 62.
[372] ‘The second to Venner was one Tuffnel a carpenter living in Gray's Inn Lane.’ Winstanley's Martyrology, p. 163.
[373] ‘He was stoaker in a brewhouse at Islington, and next a most poor chandler near Lion-Key, in Thames Street.’ Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1605. See also Winstanley's Martyrology, p. 122.
[374] Some of the clumsy eulogists of Cromwell wish to suppress the fact of his being a brewer; but that he really practised that useful trade is attested by a variety of evidence, and is distinctly stated by his own physician, Dr. Bates. Bates's Troubles in England, vol. ii. p. 238. See also Walker's History of Independency, part i. p. 32, part ii. p. 25, part iii. p. 37; Noble's House of Cromwell, vol. i. pp. 328–331. Other passages, which I cannot now call to mind, will occur to those who have studied the literature of the time.
[375] ‘John Jones, at first a serving-man, then a colonel of the Long Parliament, … married the Protector's sister.’ Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1600. ‘A serving-man; … in process of time married one of Cromwell's sisters.’ Winstanley's Martyrology, p. 125.
[376] ‘Richard Deane, Esq., is said to have been a servant to one Button, a toyman in Ipswich, and to have himself been the son of a person in the same employment; … was appointed one of the commissioners of the navy with Popham and Blake, and in April (1649) he became an admiral and general at sea.’ Noble's Lives of the Regicides, vol. i. pp. 172, 173. Winstanley (Martyrol. p. 121) also says that Deane was ‘servant in Ipswich.’
[377] ‘Apprentice to one Vaughan a dry-salter.’ Noble's House of Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 507: and see his Regicides, vol. i. p. 255.
[378] ‘Bound apprentice to a woollen-draper.’ Winstanley's Martyr. p. 108. He afterwards set up in the same trade for himself; but with little success, for Dr. Bates (Troubles in England, vol. ii. p. 222) calls him ‘a broken clothier.’
[379] ‘Altogether illiterate.’ Clarendon's Rebellion, p. 152. Two extraordinary speeches by him are preserved in Burton's Diary, vol. i. pp. 24, 25, 48–50.
[380] Holles's Mem. p. 82; Ludlow's Mem. vol. ii. p. 39; and a letter from Fairfax in Cary's Memorials of the Civil War, 1842, vol. i. p. 413.
[381] ‘Berkstead, who heretofore sold needles, bodkins, and thimbles, and would have run on an errand any where for a little money; but who now by Cromwell was preferred to the honourable charge of lieutenant of the Tower of London.’ Bates's Account of the Troubles, part ii. p. 222.
[382] Noble's Regicides, vol. ii. pp. 272, 273. Lord Holles (Memoirs, p. 174) also mentions that he was ‘a linen-draper.’
[383] ‘Edward Harvy, late a poor silk-man, now colonel, and hath got the Bishop of London's house and manor of Fulham.’ Walker's Independency, part i. p. 170. ‘One Harvey, a decayed silk-man,’ Clarendon's Rebellion, p. 418.
[384] Owen Rowe, ‘put to the trade of a silk-mercer, … went into the parliament army, and became a colonel.’ Noble's Regicides, vol. ii. p. 150.
[385] ‘A silkman in London; … went into the army, and rose to the rank of colonel.’ Noble's Regicides, vol. ii. p. 283. ‘A broken silk-man in Cheapside.’ Winstanley's Martyrol. p. 130.
[386] Walker's Independency, part i. p. 143; Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1608; Ludlow's Mem. vol. ii. pp. 241, 259; Noble's Regicides, vol. ii. pp. 158, 162.
[387] He was ‘a woollen-draper at Dorchester,’ and was ‘one of the council of state in 1649 and 1651.’ Noble's Regicides, vol. i. p. 99: see also Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1594.
[388] ‘A brewer in Chichester; … in 1650–1 he was appointed one of the council of state.’ Noble's Regicides, vol. i. p. 136. ‘William Cawley, a brewer of Chichester.’ Winstanley's Martyrol. p. 138.
[389] John Berners, ‘supposed to have been originally a serving-man,’ was ‘one of the council of state in 1659,’ Noble's Regicides, vol. i. p. 90.
[390] ‘Holland the link-boy,’ Walker's Independency, part iii. p. 37. ‘He was originally nothing more than a servant to Sir Henry Vane; … upon the establishment of the Commonwealth, he was made one of the council of state in 1649, and again in 1650.’ Noble's Regicides, vol. i. pp. 357, 358.
[391] Noble's Mem. of Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 502.
[392] Walker's Hist. of Independency, part i. p. 167.
[393] Ellis's Original Letters illustrative of English History, third series, vol. iv. p. 219, Lond. 1846.
[394] Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1407; Rose's Biog. Dict. vol. iii. p. 172; Clarendon's Rebellion, p. 794.
[395] ‘A poor child bred upon charity.’ Harris's Stuarts, vol. v. p. 281. ‘A man of an obscure birth, and more obscure education.’ Clarendon's Life of Himself, p. 1116.
[396] See Vaughan's Cromwell, vol. i. pp. 227, 228, vol. ii. pp. 299, 302, 433; Lister's Life and Corresp. of Clarendon, vol. ii. p. 231, vol. iii. p. 134. The common opinion is, that he was the son of a clergyman at Hackney; but if so, he was probably illegitimate, considering the way he was brought up. However, his Hackney origin is very doubtful, and no one appears to know who his father was. See Notes and Queries, vol. iii. pp. 69, 213.
[397] Noble's Regicides, vol. i. p. 362. Cromwell had a great regard for this remarkable man, who not only distinguished himself as a soldier, but, judging from a letter of his recently published, appears to have repaired the deficiencies of his early education. See Fairfax Correspond. vol. iv. pp. 22–25, 108. There never has been a period in the history of England in which so many men of natural ability were employed in the public service as during the Commonwealth.
[398] Noble's House of Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 507.
[399] Noble's Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 518; Bates's Troubles, vol. ii. p. 222.
[400] Bates's Late Troubles, vol. i. p. 87; Ludlow's Mem. vol. i. p. 220.
[401] Walker's Hist. of Independency, part ii. p. 87.
[402] Ludlow who was well acquainted with Colonel Hewson, says that he ‘had been a shoemaker.’ Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 139. But this is the amiable partiality of a friend; and there is no doubt that the gallant colonel was neither more nor less than a cobbler. See Walker's Independency, part ii. p. 39; Winstanley's Martyrol. p. 123; Bates's Late Troubles, vol. ii. p. 222; Noble's Cromwell, vol. ii. pp. 251, 345, 470.
[403] Walker, who relates what he himself witnessed, says, that, about 1649, the army was commanded by ‘colonels and superior officers, who lord it in their gilt coaches, rich apparel, costly feastings; though some of them led dray-horses, wore leather-pelts, and were never able to name their own fathers or mothers.’ Hist. of Independ. part ii. p. 244. The Mercurius Rusticus, 1647, says, ‘Chelmsford was governed by a tinker, two cobblers, two tailors, two pedlars.’ Southey's Commonplace Book, third series, 1850, p. 430. And, at p. 434, another work, in 1647, makes a similar statement in regard to Cambridge; while Lord Holles assures us, that ‘most of the colonels and officers (were) mean tradesmen, brewers, taylors, goldsmiths, shoe-makers, and the like.’ Holles's Memoirs, p. 149. When Whitelocke was in Sweden in 1653, the prætor of one of the towns abused the parliament, saying, ‘that they killed their king, and were a company of taylors and cobblers.’ Whitelocke's Swedish Embassy, vol. i. p. 205. See also note in Carwithen's Hist. of the Church of England, vol. ii. p. 156.
[404] Even De Retz, who vainly attempted to organise a popular party, found that it was impossible to take any step without the nobles; and, notwithstanding his democratic tendencies, he, in 1648, thought it advisable ‘tâcher d'engager dans les intérêts publics les personnes de qualité.’ Mém. de Joly, p. 31.
[405] Mably (Observations sur l'Hist. de France, vol. i. p. 357) frankly says, ‘L'exemple d'un grand a toujours été plus contagieux chez les Français que partout ailleurs.’ See also vol. ii. p. 267: ‘Jamais l'exemple des grands n'a été aussi contagieux ailleurs qu'en France; on dirait qu'ils ont le malheureux privilège de tout justifier.’ Rivarol, though his opinions on other points were entirely opposed to those of Mably, says, that, in France, ‘la noblesse est aux yeux du peuple une espèce de religion, dont les gentilshommes sont les prêtres.’ Mém. de Rivarol, p. 94. Happily, the French Revolution, or rather the circumstances which caused the French Revolution, have utterly destroyed this ignominious homage.
[406] The Duke de la Rochefoucauld candidly admits that, in 1649, the nobles raised a civil war, ‘avec d'autant plus de haleur que c'était une nouveauté.’ Mém. de Rochefoucauld, vol. i. p. 406. Thus too Lemontey (Etablissement de Louis XIV, p. 368): ‘La vieille noblesse, qui ne savait que combattre, faisait la guerre par goût, par besoin, par vanité, par ennui.’ Compare, in Mém. d'Omer Talon, vol. ii. pp. 467, 468, a summary of the reasons which, in 1649, induced the nobles to go to war; and on the way in which their frivolity debased the Fronde, see Lavallée, Hist. des Français, vol. iii. pp. 169, 170.
[407] Hence the duchesses were called ‘femmes assises;’ those of lower rank ‘non assises.’ Mém. de Fontenay Mareuil, vol. i. p. 111. The Count de Ségur tells us that ‘les duchesses jouissaient de la prérogative d'être assises sur un tabouret chez la reine.’ Mém. de Ségur, vol. i. p. 79. The importance attached to this is amusingly illustrated in Mém. de Saint-Simon, vol. iii. pp. 215–218, Paris, 1842; which should be compared with De Tocqueville, Règne de Louis XV, vol. ii. p. 116, and Mém. de Genlis, vol. x. p. 383.
[408] ‘Survint incontinent une autre difficulté à la cour sur le sujet des tabourets, que doivent avoir les dames dans la chambre de la reine; car encore que cela ne s'accorde régulièrement qu'aux duchesses, néanmoins le feu roi Louis XIII l'avoit accordé aux filles de la maison de Bouillon,’ &c. Mém. d'Omer Talon, vol. iii. p. 5. See also, on this encroachment on the rights of the duchesses under Louis XIII., the case of Séguier, in Duclos, Mémoires Secrets, vol. i. pp. 360, 361. The consequences of the innovation were very serious; and Tallemant des Réaux (Historiettes, vol. iii. pp. 223, 224) mentions a distinguished lady, of whom he says, ‘Pour satisfaire son ambition, il lui falloit un tabouret: elle cabale pour épouser le vieux Bouillon La Marck veuf pour la seconde fois.’ In this she failed; but, determined not to be baffled, ‘elle ne se rebute point, et voulant à toute force avoir un tabouret, elle épouse le fils aîné du duc de Villars: c'est un ridicule de corps et d'esprit, car il est bossu et quasi imbécile, et gueux par-dessus cela.’ This melancholy event happened in 1649.
[409] As to the Countess de Fleix and Madame de Pons, see Mém. de Motteville, vol. iii. pp. 116, 369. According to the same high authority (vol. iii. p. 367), the inferiority of the Princess de Marsillac consisted in the painful fact, that her husband was merely the son of a duke, and the duke himself was still alive ‘il n'étoit que gentilhomme, et son père le duc de la Rochefoucauld n'étoit pas mort.’
[410] The long account of these proceedings in Mém. de Motteville, vol. iii. pp. 367–393, shows the importance attached to them by contemporary opinion.
[411] In October 1649, ‘la noblesse s'assembla à Paris sur le fait des tabourets,’ Mém. de Lenet, vol. i. p. 184.
[412] ‘Tous ceux donc qui par leurs aïeux avoient dans leurs maisons de la grandeur, par des alliances des femmes descendues de ceux qui étoient autrefois maîtres et souverains des provinces de France, demandèrent la même prérogative que celle qui venoit d'être accordée au sang de Foix.’ Mém. de Motteville, vol. iii. p. 117. Another contemporary says: ‘Cette prétention émut toutes les maisons de la cour sur cette différence et inégalité.’ Mém. d'Omer Talon, vol. iii. p. 6; and vol. ii. p. 437: ‘le marquis de Noirmoutier et celui de Vitry demandoient le tabouret pour leurs femmes.’
[413] Indeed, at one moment, it was determined that a counter-demonstration should be made on the part of the inferior nobles; a proceeding which, if adopted, must have caused civil war: ‘Nous résolûmes une contre-assemblée de noblesse pour soutenir le tabouret de la maison de Rohan.’ De Retz, Mémoires, vol. i. p. 284.
[414] Mém. de Motteville, vol. iii. p. 389.
[415] ‘Signé d'elle et des quatre secrétaires d'état.’ Ibid. vol. iii. p. 391.
[416] The best accounts of this great struggle will be found in the Memoirs of Madame de Motteville, and in those of Omer Talon; two writers of very different minds, but both of them deeply impressed with the magnitude of the contest.
[417] Saint-Aulaire (Hist. de la Fronde, vol. i. p. 317) says, that in this same year (1649), ‘l'esprit de discussion fermentait dans toutes les têtes, et chacun à cette époque soumettait les actes de l'autorité à un examen raisonné.’ Thus, too, in Mém. de Montglat, under 1649, ‘on ne parlait publiquement dans Paris que de république et de liberté,‘**RSQU
[418] That the failure of the Fronde is not to be ascribed to the inconstancy of the people, is admitted by De Retz, by far the ablest observer of his time: ‘Vous vous étonnerez peut-être de ce que je dis plus sûr, à cause de l'instabilité du peuple: mais il faut avouer que celui de Paris se fixe plus aisément qu'aucun autre; et M. de Villeroi, qui a été le plus habile homme de son siècle, et qui en a parfaitement connu le naturel dans tout le cours de la ligue, où il le gouverna sous M. du Maine, a été de ce sentiment. Ce que j'en éprouvois moi-même me le persuadoit.’ Mém. de Retz, vol. i. p. 348; a remarkable passage, and forming a striking contrast to the declamation of those ignorant writers who are always reproaching the people with their fickleness.
[419] This knotty point was decided in favour of the Duke of York, to whom, in 1649, ‘la reine fit de grands honneurs, et lui donna une chaise à bras.’ Mém. de Motteville, vol. iii. p. 275. In the chamber of the king, the matter seems to have been differently arranged; for Omer Talon (Mém. vol. ii. p. 332) tells us that ‘le duc d'Orléans n'avoit point de fauteuil, mais un simple siège pliant, à cause que nous étions dans la chambre du roi.’ In the subsequent year, the scene not being in the king's room, the same writer describes ‘M. le duc d'Orléans assis dans un fauteuil.’ Ibid. vol. iii. p. 95. Compare Le Vassor, Hist. de Louis XIII, vol. viii. p. 310. Voltaire (Dict. Philos. art. Cérémonies) says: ‘Le fauteuil à bras, la chaise à dos, le tabouret, la main droite et la main gauche, ont été pendant plusieurs siècles d'importants objets de politique, et d'illustres sujets de querelles.’ Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. xxxvii. p. 486. The etiquette of the ‘fauteuil’ and ‘chaise’ is explained in Mém. de Genlis, vol. x. p. 287.
[420] See Mém. de Motteville, vol. iii. pp. 309, 310.
[421] See a list of those it was proper for the queen to kiss, in Mém. de Motteville, vol. iii. p. 318.
[422] Mém. de Omer Talon, vol. i. pp. 217–219. The Prince de Condé hotly asserted, that at a Te Deum ‘il ne pouvait être assis en autre place que dans la première chaire.’ This was in 1642.
[423] For a quarrel respecting the ‘drap de pied,’ see Mém. de Motteville, vol. ii. p. 249.
[424] A very serious dispute was caused by the claim of the Prince de Marsillac, for ‘permission d'entrer dans le Louvre en carrosse.’ Mém. de Motteville, vol. iii. pp. 367–389.
[425] Mém. de Pontchartrain, vol. i. pp. 422, 423, at the coronation of Louis XIII. Other instances of difficulties caused by questions of precedence, will be found in Mém. d'Omer Talon, vol. iii. pp. 23, 24, 437; and even in the grave work of Sully, Œconomies Royales, vol. vii. p. 126, vol. viii. p. 395; which should be compared with De Thou, Hist. Univ. vol. ix. pp. 86, 87.
[426] Mém. de Lenet, vol. i. pp. 378, 379. Lenet, who was a great admirer of the nobles, relates all this without the faintest perception of its absurdity. I ought not to omit a terrible dispute, in 1652, respecting the recognition of the claims of the Duke de Rohan (Mém. de Conrart, pp. 151, 152); nor another dispute, in the reign of Henry IV., as to whether a duke ought to sign his name before a marshal, or whether a marshal should sign first. De Thou, Hist. Univ. vol. xi. p. 11.
[427] This difficulty, in 1652, caused a violent quarrel between the two dukes, and ended in a duel in which the Duke de Nemours was killed, as is mentioned by most of the contemporary writers. See Mém. de Montglat, vol. ii. p. 357; Mém. de la Rochefoucauld, vol. ii. p. 172; Mém. de Conrart, pp. 172–175; Mém. de Retz, vol. ii. p. 203; Mém. d'Omer Talon, vol. iii. p. 437.
[428] Pontchartrain, one of the ministers of state, writes, under the year 1620: ‘En ce même temps s'étoit mû un très-grand différend entre M. le prince de Condé et M. le comte de Soissons, sur le sujet de la serviette que chacun d'eux prétendoit devoir présenter au roi quand ils se rencontreroient tous deux près sa majesté.’ Mém. de Pontchartrain, vol. ii. p. 295. Le Vassor, who gives a fuller account (Règne de Louis XIII, vol. iii. pp. 536, 537), says, ‘Chacun des deux princes du sang, fort échauffez à qui feroit une fonction de maître d'hôtel, tiroit la serviette de son côté, et la contestation augmentoit d'une manière dont les suites pouvoient devenir fâcheuses.’ But the king interposing, ‘ils furent donc obligez de céder: mais ce ne fut pas sans se dire l'un à l'autre des paroles hautes et menaçantes.’
[429] According to some authorities, a man ought to be a duke before his wife could be allowed to meddle with the queen's shift; according to other authorities, the lady-in-waiting, whoever she might be, had the right, unless a princess happened to be present. On these alternatives, and on the difficulties caused by them, compare Mém. de Saint-Simon, 1842, vol. vii. p. 125, with Mém. de Motteville, vol. ii. pp. 28, 276, 277.
[430] Also connected with the institution of chivalry, both being cognate symptoms of the same spirit.
[431] Even just before the French Revolution, these feelings still existed. See, for instance the extraordinary details in Campan, Mém. sur Marie-Antoinette, vol. i. pp. 98, 99; which should be compared with an extract from Prudhomme's Mirror de Paris, in Southey's Commonplace Book, third series, 1850, p. 251, no. 165.
[432] Ludlow thus expresses the sentiments which induced him to make war upon the crown: ‘The question in dispute between the king's party and us being, as I apprehend, whether the king should govern as a god by his will, and the nation be governed by force like beasts? or whether the people should be governed by laws made by themselves, and live under a government derived from their own consent? being fully persuaded, that an accommodation with the king was unsafe to the people of England, and unjust and wicked in the nature of it.’ Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 230. Compare Whitelocke's spirited speech to Christina, in Journal of the Swedish Embassy, vol. i. p. 238; and see pp. 390, 391.
CHAPTER IV.
The reader will now be able to understand how it was that the protective system, and the notions of subordination connected with it, gained in France a strength unknown in England, and caused an essential divergence between the two countries. To complete the comparison, it seems necessary to examine how this same spirit influenced the purely intellectual history of France as well as its social and political history. For the ideas of dependence upon which the protective scheme is based, encouraged a belief that the subordination which existed in politics and in society ought also to exist in literature; and that the paternal, inquisitive, and centralizing system which regulated the material interests of the country, should likewise regulate the interests of its knowledge. When, therefore, the Fronde was finally overthrown, everything was prepared for that singular intellectual polity which, during fifty years characterised the reign of Louis XIV., and which was to French literature what feudalism was to French politics. In both cases, homage was paid by one party, and protection and favour accorded by the other. Every man of letters became a vassal of the French crown. Every book was written with a view to the royal favour; and to obtain the patronage of the king was considered the most decisive proof of intellectual eminence. The effects produced by this system will be examined in the present chapter. The apparent cause of the system was the personal character of Louis XIV.; but the real and overruling causes were those circumstances which I have already pointed out, and which established in the French mind associations that remained undisturbed until the eighteenth century. To invigorate those associations, and to carry them into every department of life, was the great aim of Louis XIV.; and in that he was completely successful. It is on this account that the history of his reign becomes highly instructive, because we see in it the most remarkable instance of despotism which has ever occurred; a despotism of the largest and most comprehensive kind; a despotism of fifty years over one of the most civilized people in Europe, who not only bore the yoke without repining, but submitted with cheerfulness, and even with gratitude, to him by whom it was imposed.[433]
What makes this the more strange is, that the reign of Louis XIV. must be utterly condemned if it is tried even by the lowest standard of morals, of honour, or of interest. A coarse and unbridled profligacy, followed by the meanest and most grovelling superstition, characterized his private life, while in his public career he displayed an arrogance and a systematic perfidy which eventually roused the anger of all Europe, and brought upon France sharp and signal retribution. As to his domestic policy, he formed a strict alliance with the church; and although he resisted the authority of the Pope, he willingly left his subjects to be oppressed by the tyranny of the clergy.[434] To them he abandoned everything except the exercise of his own prerogative.[435] Led on by them, he, from the moment he assumed the Government, began to encroach upon those religious liberties of which Henry IV. had laid the foundation, and which down to this period had been preserved intact.[436] It was at the instigation of the clergy that he revoked the Edict of Nantes, by which the principle of toleration had for nearly a century been incorporated with the law of the land.[437] It was at their instigation that, just before this outrage upon the most sacred rights of his subjects, he, in order to terrify the Protestants into conversion, suddenly let loose upon them whole troops of dissolute soldiers, who were allowed to practise the most revolting cruelties. The frightful barbarities which followed are related by authentic writers;[438] and of the effect produced on the material interests of the nation, some idea may be formed from the fact, that these religious persecutions cost France half a million of her most industrious inhabitants, who fled to different parts, taking with them those habits of labour, and that knowledge and experience in their respective trades, which had hitherto been employed in enriching their own country.[439] These things are notorious, they are incontestable, and they lie on the surface of history. Yet, in the face of them there are still found men who hold up for admiration the age of Louis XIV. Although it is well known that in his reign every vestige of liberty was destroyed; that the people were weighed down by an insufferable taxation; that their children were torn from them by tens of thousands to swell the royal armies; that the resources of the country were squandered to an unprecedented extent; that a despotism of the worst kind was firmly established;—although all this is universally admitted, yet there are writers, even in our own day, who are so infatuated with the glories of literature, as to balance them against the most enormous crimes, and who will forgive every injury inflicted by a prince during whose life there were produced the Letters of Pascal, the orations of Bossuet, the Comedies of Molière, and the Tragedies of Racine.
This method of estimating the merits of a sovereign is, indeed, so rapidly dying away, that I shall not spend any words in refuting it. But it is connected with a more widely diffused error respecting the influence of royal patronage upon national literature. This is a delusion which men of letters have themselves been the first to propagate. From the language too many of them are in the habit of employing, we might be led to believe that there is some magical power in the smiles of a king which stimulates the intellect of the fortunate individual whose heart they are permitted to gladden. Nor must this be despised as one of those harmless prejudices that still linger round the person of the sovereign. It is not only founded on a misconception of the nature of things, but it is in its practical consequences very injurious. It is injurious to the independent spirit which literature should always possess; and it is injurious to princes themselves, because it strengthens that vanity of which they generally have too large a share. Indeed, if we consider the position they now occupy in the most civilized countries, we shall at once see the absurdity of an opinion which, in the present state of knowledge, is unfit to be held by educated men.
From the moment that there was finally abandoned the theological fiction of the divine right of kings, it necessarily followed that the respect felt for them should suffer a corresponding diminution.[440] The superstitious reverence with which they were formerly regarded is extinct, and at the present day we are no longer awed by that divinity with which their persons were once supposed to be hedged.[441] The standard, therefore, by which we should measure them is obvious. We should applaud their conduct in proportion as they contribute towards the happiness of the nation over which they are intrusted with power; but we ought to remember that, from the manner in which they are educated, and from the childish homage always paid to them, their information must be very inaccurate, and their prejudices very numerous.[442] On this account, so far from expecting that they should be judicious patrons of literature, or should in any way head their age, we ought to be satisfied if they do not obstinately oppose the spirit of their time, and if they do not attempt to stop the march of society. For, unless the sovereign, in spite of the intellectual disadvantages of his position, is a man of very enlarged mind, it must usually happen that he will reward, not those who are most able, but those who are most compliant; and that while he refuses his patronage to a profound and independent thinker, he will grant it to an author who cherishes ancient prejudices and defends ancient abuses. In this way, the practice of conferring on men of letters either honorary or pecuniary rewards, is agreeable, no doubt, to those who receive them; but has a manifest tendency to weaken the boldness and energy of their sentiments, and therefore to impair the value of their works. This might be made evident by publishing a list of those literary pensions which have been granted by European princes. If this were done, the mischief produced by these and similar rewards would be clearly seen. After a careful study of the history of literature, I think myself authorised to say, that for one instance in which a sovereign has recompensed a man who is before his age, there are at least twenty instances of his recompensing one who is behind his age. The result is, that in every country where royal patronage has been long and generally bestowed, the spirit of literature, instead of being progressive, has become reactionary. An alliance has been struck up between those who give and those who receive. By a system of bounties, there has been artificially engendered a greedy and necessitous class; who, eager for pensions, and offices, and titles, have made the pursuit of truth subordinate to the desire of gain, and have infused into their writings the prejudices of the court to which they cling. Hence it is, that the marks of favour have become the badge of servitude. Hence it is, that the acquisition of knowledge, by far the noblest of all occupations, an occupation which of all others raises the dignity of man, has been debased to the level of a common profession, where the chances of success are measured by the number of rewards, and where the highest honours are in the gift of whoever happens to be the minister or sovereign of the day.
This tendency forms of itself a decisive objection to the views of those who wish to entrust the executive government with the means of rewarding literary men. But there is also another objection, in some respects still more serious. Every nation which is allowed to pursue its course uncontrolled, will easily satisfy the wants of its own intellect, and will produce such a literature as is best suited to its actual condition. And it is evidently for the interest of all classes that the production shall not be greater than the want; that the supply shall not exceed the demand. It is, moreover, necessary to the well-being of society that a healthy proportion should be kept up between the intellectual classes and the practical classes. It is necessary that there should be a certain ratio between those who are most inclined to think, and those who are most inclined to act. If we were all authors, our material interests would suffer; if we were all men of business, our mental pleasures would be abridged. In the first case, we should be famished philosophers; in the other case, we should be wealthy fools. Now, it is obvious that, according to the commonest principles of human action the relative numbers of these two classes will be adjusted, without effort, by the natural, or, as we call it, the spontaneous movement of society. But if a government takes upon itself to pension literary men, it disturbs this movement; it troubles the harmony of things. This is the unavoidable result of that spirit of interference, or, as it is termed, protection, by which every country has been greatly injured. If, for instance, a fund were set apart by the state for rewarding butchers and tailors, it is certain that the number of those useful men would be needlessly augmented. If another fund is appropriated for the literary classes, it is as certain that men of letters will increase more rapidly than the exigencies of the country require. In both cases, an artificial stimulus will produce an unhealthy action. Surely, food and clothes are as necessary for the body as literature is for the mind. Why, then, should we call upon government to encourage those who write our books, any more than to encourage those who kill our mutton and mend our garments? The truth is, that the intellectual march of society is, in this respect, exactly analogous to its physical march. In some instances a forced supply may, indeed, create an unnatural want. But this is an artificial state of things, which indicates a diseased action. In a healthy condition, it is not the supply which causes the want, but it is the want which gives rise to the supply. To suppose, therefore, that an increase of authors would necessarily be followed by a diffusion of knowledge, is as if we were to suppose that an increase of butchers must be followed by a diffusion of food. This is not the way in which things are ordered. Men must have appetite before they will eat; they must have money before they can buy; they must be inquisitive before they will read. The two great principles which move the world are, the love of wealth and the love of knowledge. These two principles respectively represent and govern the two most important classes into which every civilized country is divided. What a government gives to one of these classes, it must take from the other. What it gives to literature, it must take from wealth. This can never be done to any great extent, without entailing the most ruinous consequences. For, the natural proportions of society being destroyed, society itself will be thrown into confusion. While men of letters are protected, men of industry will be depressed. The lower classes can count for little in the eyes of those to whom literature is the first consideration. The idea of the liberty of the people will be discouraged; their persons will be oppressed; their labour will be taxed. The arts necessary to life will be despised, in order that those which embellish life may be favoured. The many will be ruined, that the few may be pleased. While every thing is splendid above, all will be rotten below. Fine pictures, noble palaces, touching dramas—these may for a time be produced in profusion, but it will be at the cost of the heart and strength of the nation. Even the class for whom the sacrifice has been made, will soon decay. Poets may continue to sing the praises of the prince who has bought them with his gold. It is, however, certain that men who begin by losing their independence, will end by losing their energy. Their intellect must be robust indeed, if it does not wither in the sickly atmosphere of a court. Their attention being concentrated on their master, they insensibly contract those habits of servility which are suited to their position; and, as the range of their sympathies is diminished, the use and action of their genius become impaired. To them submission is a custom, and servitude a pleasure. In their hands, literature soon loses its boldness, tradition is appealed to as the ground of truth, and the spirit of inquiry is extinguished. Then it is, that there comes one of those sad moments in which, no outlet being left for public opinion, the minds of men are unable to find a vent; their discontents, having no voice, slowly rankle into a deadly hatred; their passions accumulate in silence, until at length, losing all patience, they are goaded into one of those terrible revolutions, by which they humble the pride of their rulers, and carry retribution even into the heart of the palace.
The truth of this picture is well known to those who have studied the history of Louis XIV., and the connection between it and the French Revolution. That prince adopted, during his long reign, the mischievous practice of rewarding literary men with large sums of money, and of conferring on them numerous marks of personal favour. As this was done for more than half a century; and as the wealth which he thus unscrupulously employed was of course taken from his other subjects, we can find no better illustration of the results which such patronage is likely to produce. He, indeed, has the merit of organizing into a system that protection of literature which some are so anxious to restore. What the effect of this was upon the general interests of knowledge, we shall presently see. But its effect upon authors themselves should be particularly attended to by those men of letters who, with little regard to their own dignity, are constantly reproaching the English government for neglecting the profession of which they themselves are members. In no age have literary men been awarded with such profuseness as in the reign of Louis XIV.; and in no age have they been so mean-spirited, so servile, so utterly unfit to fulfil their great vocation as the apostles of knowledge and the missionaries of truth. The history of the most celebrated authors of that time proves that, notwithstanding their acquirements, and the power of their minds, they were unable to resist the surrounding corruption. To gain the favour of the king, they sacrificed that independent spirit which should have been dearer to them than life. They gave away the inheritance of genius; they sold their birthright for a mess of pottage. What happened then, would under the same circumstances happen now. A few eminent thinkers may be able for a certain time to resist the pressure of their age. But, looking at mankind generally, society can have no hold on any class except through the medium of their interests. It behoves, therefore, every people to take heed, that the interests of literary men are on their side rather than on the side of their rulers. For, literature is the representative of intellect, which is progressive; government is the representative of order, which is stationary. As long as these two great powers are separate, they will correct and react upon each other, and the people may hold the balance. If, however, these powers coalesce, if the government can corrupt the intellect, and if the intellect will yield to the government, the inevitable result must be, despotism in politics, and servility in literature. This was the history of France under Louis XIV.: and this, we may rest assured, will be the history of every country that shall be tempted to follow so attractive but so fatal an example.
The reputation of Louis XIV. originated in the gratitude of men of letters; but it is now supported by a popular notion that the celebrated literature of his age is mainly to be ascribed to his fostering care. If, however, we examine this opinion, we shall find that, like many of the traditions of which history is full, it is entirely devoid of truth. We shall find two leading circumstances, which will prove that the literary splendour of his reign was not the result of his efforts, but was the work of that great generation which preceded him; and that the intellect of France, so far from being benefited by his munificence, was hampered by his protection.
I. The first circumstance is, that the immense impulse which, during the administrations of Richelieu and of Mazarin, had been given to the highest branches of knowledge, was suddenly stopped. In 1661 Louis XIV. assumed the government;[443] and from that moment until his death, in 1715, the history of France, so far as great discoveries are concerned, is a blank in the annals of Europe. If, putting aside all preconceived notions respecting the supposed glory of that age, we examine the matter fairly, it will be seen that in every department there was a manifest dearth of original thinkers. There was much that was elegant, much that was attractive. The senses of men were soothed and flattered by the creations of art, by paintings, by palaces, by poems; but scarcely any thing of moment was added to the sum of human knowledge. If we take the mathematics, and those mixed sciences to which they are applicable, it will be universally admitted that their most successful cultivators in France during the seventeenth century were Descartes, Pascal, Fermat, Gassendi, and Mersenne. But, so far from Louis XIV. having any share in the honour due to them, these eminent men were engaged in their investigations while the king was still in his cradle, and completed them before he assumed the government, and therefore before his system of protection came into play. Descartes died in 1650,[444] when the king was twelve years old. Pascal, whose name, like that of Descartes, is commonly associated with the age of Louis XIV., had gained an European reputation while Louis, occupied in the nursery with his toys, was not aware that any such man existed. His treatise on conic sections was written in 1639;[445] his decisive experiments on the weight of air were made in 1648;[446] and his researches on the cycloid, the last great inquiry he ever undertook, were in 1658,[447] when Louis, still under the tutelage of Mazarin, had no sort of authority. Fermat was one of the most profound thinkers of the seventeenth century, particularly as a geometrician, in which respect he was second only to Descartes.[448] The most important steps he took are those concerning the geometry of infinites, applied to the ordinates and tangents of curves; which, however, he completed in or before 1636.[449] As to Gassendi and Mersenne, it is enough to say that Gassendi died in 1655,[450] six years before Louis was at the head of affairs; while Mersenne died in 1648,[451] when the great king was ten years old.
These were the men who flourished in France just before the system of Louis XIV. came into operation. Shortly after their death the patronage of the king began to tell upon the national intellect; and during the next fifty years no addition of importance was made to either branch of the mathematics, or, with the single exception of acoustics,[452] to any of the sciences to which the mathematics are applied.[453] The further the seventeenth century advanced, the more evident did the decline become, and the more clearly can we trace the connexion between the waning powers of the French, and that protective spirit which enfeebled the energies it wished to strengthen. Louis had heard that astronomy is a noble study; he was therefore anxious, by encouraging its cultivation in France, to add to the glories of his own name.[454] With this view, he rewarded its professors with unexampled profusion; he built the splendid Observatory of Paris; he invited to his court the most eminent foreign astronomers, Cassini from Italy, Römer from Denmark, Huygens from Holland. But, as to native ability, France did not produce a single man who made even one of those various discoveries which mark the epochs of astronomical science. In other countries vast progress was made; and Newton in particular, by his immense generalizations, reformed nearly every branch of physics, and remodelled astronomy by carrying the laws of gravitation to the extremity of the solar system. On the other hand, France had fallen into such a torpor, that these wonderful discoveries, which changed the face of knowledge, were entirely neglected, there being no instance of any French astronomer adopting them until 1732, that is, forty-five years after they had been published by their immortal author.[455] Even in matters of detail, the most valuable improvement made by French astronomers during the power of Louis XIV. was not original. They laid claim to the invention of the micrometer; an admirable resource, which, as they supposed, was first contrived by Picard and Auzout.[456] The truth, however, is, that here again they were anticipated by the activity of a freer and less protected people; since the micrometer was invented by Gascoigne in or just before 1639, when the English monarch, so far from having leisure to patronize science, was about to embark in that struggle which, ten years later, cost him his crown and his life.[457]
The absence in France, during this period, not only of great discoveries, but also of mere practical ingenuity, is certainly very striking. In investigations requiring minute accuracy, the necessary tools, if at all complicated, were made by foreigners, the native workmen being too unskilled to construct them; and Dr. Lister, who was a very competent judge,[458] and who was in Paris at the end of the seventeenth century, supplies evidence that the best mathematical instruments sold in that city were made, not by a Frenchman, but by Butterfield, an Englishman residing there.[459] Nor did they succeed better in matters of immediate and obvious utility. The improvements effected in manufactures were few and insignificant, and were calculated, not for the comfort of the people, but for the luxury of the idle classes.[460] What was really valuable was neglected; no great invention was made; and by the end of the reign of Louis XIV. scarcely anything had been done in machinery, or in those other contrivances which, by economising national labour, increase national wealth.[461]
While such was the state, not only of mathematical and astronomical science, but also of mechanical and inventive arts, corresponding symptoms of declining power were seen in other departments. In physiology, in anatomy and in medicine, we look in vain for any men equal to those by whom France had once been honoured. The greatest discovery of this kind ever made by a Frenchman, was that of the receptacle of the chyle; a discovery which, in the opinion of a high authority, is not inferior to that of the circulation of the blood by Harvey.[462] This important step in our knowledge is constantly assigned to the age of Louis XIV., as if it were one of the results of his gracious bounty; but it would be difficult to tell what Louis had to do with it, since the discovery was made by Pecquet in 1647,[463] when the great king was nine years old. After Pecquet, the most eminent of the French anatomists in the seventeenth century was Riolan; and his name we also find among the illustrious men who adorned the reign of Louis XIV. But the principal works of Riolan were written before Louis XIV. was born; his last work was published in 1652; and he himself died in 1657.[464] Then there came a pause, and, during three generations, the French did nothing for these great subjects: they wrote no work upon them which is now read, they made no discoveries, and they seemed to have lost all heart, until that revival of knowledge, which, as we shall presently see, took place in France about the middle of the eighteenth century. In the practical parts of medicine, in its speculative parts, and in the arts connected with surgery, the same law prevails. The French, in these, as in other matters, had formerly produced men of great eminence, who had won for themselves an European reputation, and whose works are still remembered. Thus, only to mention two or three instances, they had a long line of illustrious physicians, among whom Fernel and Joubert were the earliest;[465] they had, in surgery, Ambroise Paré, who not only introduced important practical improvements,[466] but who has the still rarer merit of being one of the founders of comparative osteology;[467] and they had Baillou, who late in the sixteenth and early in the seventeenth century, advanced pathology, by connecting it with the study of morbid anatomy.[468] Under Louis XIV. all this was changed. Under him, surgery was neglected, though in other countries its progress was rapid.[469] The English, by the middle of the seventeenth century, had taken considerable steps in medicine: its therapeutical branch being reformed chiefly by Sydenham, its physiological branch by Glisson.[470] But the age of Louis XIV. cannot boast of a single medical writer who can be compared to these; not even one whose name is now known as having made any specific addition to our knowledge. In Paris, the practice of medicine was notoriously inferior to that in the capitals of Germany, Italy, and England; while in the French provinces, the ignorance, even of the best physicians, was scandalous.[471] Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that, during the whole of this long period, the French in these matters effected comparatively nothing; they made no contributions to clinical literature,[472] and scarcely any to therapeutics, to pathology, to physiology, or to anatomy.[473]