A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon Part 32

Their policy was to appear in the light of victims of persecution.

There was to them no medium between reigning as despots or dying as martyrs. Mediocrity would have degraded them. Ricci, the general of the order, would not permit them to land in Italy, to which country they were sent by the king of Spain. Six thousand priests, in misery and poverty, were sent adrift upon the Mediterranean, and after six months of vicissitude, suffering, and despair, they found a miserable refuge on the Island of Corsica.

[Sidenote: Pope Clement XIV.]

Soon after, the pope, their most powerful protector, died. A successor was to be appointed. But France, Spain, and Portugal, bent on the complete suppression of the Jesuits, resolved that no pope should be elected who would not favor their end. A cardinal was found,--Ganganelli,--who promised the amba.s.sadors that, if elected pope, he would abolish the order. They, accordingly, intrigued to secure his election. The Jesuits, also, strained every nerve, and put forth marvellous talent and art, to secure a pope who would _protect them_. But the amba.s.sadors of the allied powers overreached even the Jesuits. Ganganelli was the plainest, and, apparently, the most unambitious of men. His father had been a peasant; but, by the force of talent and learning, he had arisen, from the condition of his father, to be a Roman cardinal. Under the garb of a saint, he aspired to the tiara. There was only one condition of success; and that was, to destroy the best supporters of that fearful absolutism which had so long enslaved the world. The sacrifice was tremendous; but it was made, and he became a pope. Then commenced in his soul the awful struggle. Should he fulfil his pledge, and jeopardize his cause and throne, and be branded, by the zealots of his church, with eternal infamy? or should he break his word, and array against himself, with awful enmity, the great monarchs of Europe, and perhaps lose the allegiance of their subjects to him as the supreme head of the Catholic Church? The decision was the hardest which mortal man had ever been required to make. Whatever course he pursued was full of danger and disgrace. Poor Ganganelli! he had better remained a cowherd, a simple priest, a bishop, a cardinal,--any thing,--rather than to have been made a pope! But such was his ambition, and he was obliged to reap its penalty. Long did the afflicted pontiff delay to fulfil his pledge; long did he practise all the arts of dissimulation, of which he was such a master. He delayed, he flattered, he entreated, he coaxed. But the monarchs called peremptorily for the fulfilment of his pledge, and all Europe now understood the nature of the contest.

It was between the Jesuits and the monarchs of Europe. Ganganelli was compelled to give his decision. His health declined, his spirits forsook him, his natural gayety fled. He courted solitude, he wept, he prayed. But he must, nevertheless, decide. The Jesuits threatened a.s.sa.s.sination, and exposed, with bitter eloquence, the ruin of his church, if he yielded her privileges to kings. And kings threatened secession from Rome, deposition--ten thousand calamities. His agony became insupportable; but delay was no longer possible. He decided to suppress the order of the Jesuits; and sixty-nine colleges were closed, their missions were broken up, their churches were given to their rivals, and twenty-two thousand priests were left without organization, wealth, or power.

[Sidenote: Death of Ganganelli.]

Their revenge was not an idle threat. One day, the pope, on arising from table, felt an internal shock, followed by great cold. Gradually he lost his voice and strength. His blood became corrupted; and his moral system gave way with the physical. He knew that he was doomed--that he was poisoned--that he must die. The fear of h.e.l.l was now added to his other torments. "_Compulsus, feci, compulsus, feci!_"--"O, mercy, mercy, I have been compelled!" he cried, and died--died by that slow but sure poison, such as old Alexander VI.

knew so well how to administer to his victims when he sought their wealth. Pope Clement XIV. inflicted, it was supposed, a mortal wound upon his church and upon her best friends. He, indeed, reaped the penalty of ambition; but the cause which he represented did not perish, nor will it lose vitality so long as the principle of evil on earth is destined to contend with the principle of good. On the restoration of the Bourbons, the order of the Jesuits was restored; and their flaming sword, with its double edge, was again felt in every corner of the world.

[Sidenote: Death of Louis XV.]

The Jesuits, on their expulsion, found shelter in Prussia, and protection from the royal infidel who had been the friend of Voltaire.

A schism between the crowned heads of Europe and infidel philosophers had taken place. Frederic, who had sympathized with their bitter mockery, at last perceived the tendency of their writings; that men who a.s.sailed obedience to divine laws would not long respect the inst.i.tutions and governments which mankind had recognized. He perceived, too, the natural union of absolutism in the church with absolutism in the state, and came to the rescue of the great, unchanged, unchangeable, and ever-consistent advocates of despotism.

The frivolous Choiseul, the extravagant Pompadour, and the debauched Sardanapalus of his age, did not perceive the truth which the King of Prussia recognized in his latter days. Nor would it have availed any thing, if they had been gifted with the clear insight of Frederic the Great. The stream, on whose curious banks the great and the n.o.ble of France had been amusing themselves, soon swelled into an overwhelming torrent. That devastating torrent was the French Revolution, whose awful swell was first perceived during the latter years of Louis XV.

He himself caught glimpses of the future; but, with the egotism of a Bourbon, he remarked "that the throne would last during his time."

Soon after this heartless speech was made, he was stricken with the small-pox, and died 1774, after a long and inglorious reign. He was deserted in his last hours, and his disgusting and loathsome remains were huddled into their last abode by the workmen of his palace.

Before the reign of Louis XVI. can be described, it is necessary to glance at the career of Frederic the Great, and the condition of the various European states, at a period contemporary with the Seven Years' War--the great war of the eighteenth century, before the breaking out of the French Revolution.

REFERENCES.--For a general view of the reign of Louis XV., see the histories of Lacretelle, Voltaire, and Crowe. The scheme of Law is best explained in Smyth's Lectures, and Anderson's History of Commerce. The struggles between the king and the Parliament of Paris are tolerably described in the History of Adolphus. For a view of the Jansenist Controversy, see Du Pin's Ecclesiastical History, Ranke's History of the Popes, Pascal's Provincial Letters, and Stephens's article in the Edinburgh Review, on the Port Royalists. The fall of the Jesuits has been admirably treated by Quinet. James has written a good sketch of the lives of Fleury and Choiseul. For the manners of the court of Louis XV., the numerous memoirs and letters, which were written during the period, must be consulted; the most amusing of which, and, in a certain sense, instructive, are too infamous to be named.

CHAPTER XXIII.

FREDERIC THE GREAT.

[Sidenote: Frederic William.]

Frederic II. of Prussia has won a name which will be immortal on Moloch's catalogue of military heroes. His singular character extorts our admiration, while it calls forth our aversion, admiration for his great abilities, sagacity, and self-reliance, and disgust for his cruelties, his malice, his suspicions, and his tricks. He had no faith in virtue or disinterestedness, and trusted only to mechanical agencies--to the power of armies--to the principle of fear. He was not indifferent to literature, or the improvement of his nation; but war was alike his absorbing pa.s.sion and his highest glory. Peter the Great was half a barbarian, and Charles XII. half a madman; but Frederic was neither barbarous in his tastes, nor wild in his schemes. Louis XIV.

plunged his nation in war from puerile egotism, and William III.

fought for the great cause of religious and civil liberty; but Frederic, from the excitement which war produced, and the restless ambition of plundering what was not his own.

He was born in the royal palace of Berlin, in 1712--ten years after Prussia had become a kingdom, and in the lifetime of his grandfather, Frederic I. The fortunes of his family were made by his great-grandfather, called the _Great Elector_, of the house of Hohenzollern. He could not make Brandenburg a fertile province; so he turned it into a military state. He was wise, benignant, and universally beloved. But few of his amiable qualities were inherited by his great-grandson. Frederic II. resembled more his whimsical and tyrannical father, Frederic William, who beat his children without a cause, and sent his subjects to prison from mere caprice. When his amba.s.sador, in London, was allowed only one thousand pounds a year, he gave a bounty of thirteen hundred pounds to a tall Irishman, to join his famous body-guard, a regiment of men who were each over six feet high. He would kick women in the streets, abuse clergymen for looking on the soldiers, and insult his son's tutor for teaching him Latin.

But, abating his coa.r.s.eness, his brutality, and his cruelty, he was a Christian, after a certain model. He had respect for the inst.i.tutions of religion, denounced all amus.e.m.e.nts as sinful, and read a sermon aloud, every afternoon, to his family. His son perceived his inconsistencies, and grew up an infidel. There was no sympathy between father and son, and the father even hated the heir of his house and throne. The young prince was kept on bread and water; his most moderate wishes were disregarded; he was surrounded with spies; he was cruelly beaten and imprisoned, and abused as a monster and a heathen.

The cruel treatment which the prince received induced him to fly; his flight was discovered; he was brought back to Berlin, condemned to death as a deserter and only saved from the fate of a malefactor by the intercession of half of the crowned heads of Europe. A hollow reconciliation was effected; and the prince was permitted, at last, to retire to one of the royal palaces, where he amused himself with books, billiards, b.a.l.l.s, and banquets. He opened a correspondence with Voltaire, and became an ardent admirer of his opinions.

[Sidenote: Accession of Frederic the Great.]

In 1740, the old king died, and Frederic II. mounted an absolute throne. He found a well filled treasury, and a splendidly disciplined army. His customary pleasures were abandoned, and dreams of glory filled his ambitious soul.

Scarcely was he seated on his throne before military aggrandizement became the animating principle of his life.

His first war was the conquest of Silesia, one of the richest provinces of the Austrian empire. It belonged to Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, daughter of the late emperor of Germany, whose succession was guaranteed by virtue of the Pragmatic Sanction--a law which the Emperor Charles pa.s.sed respecting his daughter's claim, and which claim was recognized by the old king of Prussia, and ratified by all the leading powers of Europe. Without a declaration of war, without complaints, without a cause, scarcely without a pretext, from the mere l.u.s.t of dominion, Frederic commenced hostilities, in the depth of winter, when invasion was unexpected, and when the garrisons were defenceless. Without a battle, one of the oldest provinces of Austria was seized, and the royal robber returned in triumph to his capital.

Such an outrage and crime astonished and alarmed the whole civilized world, and Europe armed itself to revenge and a.s.sist the unfortunate queen, whose empire was threatened with complete dismemberment.

Frederic was alarmed, and a hollow peace was made. But, in two years, the war again broke out. To recover Silesia and to humble Frederic was the aim of Maria Theresa. She succeeded in securing the cooperation of Russia, France, Sweden, and Saxony. No one doubted of the ruin of the house of Brandenburg. Six hundred thousand men were arrayed to crush an upstart monarchy, and an unprincipled king, who had trampled on all the laws of nations and all the principles of justice.

[Sidenote: The Seven Years' War.]

The resistance of Frederic to these immense forces const.i.tutes the celebrated _Seven Years' War_--the most gigantic war which Europe had seen, from the Reformation to the French Revolution. This contest began during the latter years of George II., and was connected with the colonial wars of Great Britain and France, during which Wolfe was killed and the Canadas were gained. This war called out all the energies of the elder Pitt, and placed Great Britain on the exalted height which it has since retained.

Frederic was not so blinded as not to perceive the extent of his dangers; and his successful resistance to the armies which his own offensive war had raised up against him, has given him his claims to the epithet of _Great_. Although he provoked the war, his successful defence of his country placed him on the very highest pinnacle of military fame. He would gladly have been relieved from the contest, but it was inevitable; and when the tempest burst upon his head, he showed all the qualities of exalted heroism.

Great and overwhelming odds were arrayed against him. But he himself had some great advantages. He was absolute master of his army, of his treasury, and of his territories. The lives and property of his subjects were at his disposal; his subjects were brave and loyal; he was popular with the people, and was sustained by the enthusiasm of the nation; his army was well disciplined; he had no sea-coast to defend, and he could concentrate all his forces upon any point he pleased, in a short time.

His only hope was in energetic measures. He therefore invaded Saxony, at once, with sixty thousand men. His aim was to seize the state papers at Dresden, which contained the proofs of the confederation.

These were found and published, which showed that now, at least, he acted on the defensive.

The campaign of 1756 commenced, and the first great battle was won by the Prussians. By the victory of Lowositz, Frederic was in a better condition to contend with Austria. By this he got possession of Saxony.

The campaign of 1757 was commenced under great solicitude. Five hundred thousand men were arrayed against two hundred thousand. Near Prague, Frederic obtained a victory, but lost twelve thousand men. He then invested Prague. General Daun, with a superior army, advanced to its relief. Another b.l.o.o.d.y battle was fought, and lost by the Prussian king. This seemed to be a fatal stroke. At the outset, as it were, of the war, he had received a check. The soldiers' confidence was weakened. Malevolent sarcasm pointed out mistakes. The siege of Prague was raised, and Bohemia was abandoned. A French army, at the same time, invaded Germany; and Frederic heard also of the death of his mother--the only person whom he loved. His spirits fell, and he became haggard and miserable.

The only thing for him to do now was, to protect Saxony, and secure that conquest--no very easy task. His dominions were now a.s.sailed by a French, a Swedish, and a Russian army. His capital was in the hands of the Croatians, and he was opposed by superior Austrian forces. No wonder that he was oppressed with melancholy, and saw only the ruin of his house. On one thing, however, he was resolved--never to be taken alive. So he provided himself with poison, which he ever carried about his person.

The heroic career of Frederic dates from this hour of misfortune and trial. Indeed, the heroism of all great men commences in perplexity, difficulty, and danger. Success is glorious; but success is obtained only through struggle. Frederic's career is a splendid example of that heroism which rises above danger, and extricates a man from difficulties when his cause is desperate.

[Sidenote: Battle of Rossbach.]

The King of Prussia first marched against the French. The two armies met at Rossbach. The number of the French was double that of the Prussians; but the Prussians were better disciplined, and were commanded by an abler general. The French, however felt secure of victory; but they were defeated: seven thousand men were taken prisoners, together with their guns, ammunition, parrots, hair powder, and pomatum. The victory of Rossbach won for Frederic a great name, and diffused universal joy among the English and Prussians.

[Sidenote: Battle of Leuthen.]

After a brief rest, he turned his face towards Silesia, which had again fallen into the hands of the Austrians. It was for this province that he provoked the hostilities of Europe; and pride, as well as interest, induced him to bend all his energies to regain it. Prince Charles of Lorraine commanded the forces of Maria Theresa, which numbered eighty thousand men. Frederic could only array against him an army of thirty thousand. And yet, in spite of the disparity of forces, and his desperate condition, he resolved to attack the enemy. His generals remonstrated; but the hero gave full permission to all to retire, if they pleased. None were found to shun the danger. Frederic, like Napoleon, had the talent of exciting the enthusiasm of his troops. He both encouraged and threatened them. He declared that any cavalry regiment which did not, on being ordered, burst impetuously on the foe, should after the battle, be dismounted, and converted into a garrison regiment. But he had no reason to complain. On the 5th of December, the day of the ever-memorable battle of Leuthen, he selected an officer with fifty men as his body-guard. "I shall," said he, "expose myself much to-day; you are not to leave me for an instant: if I fall, cover me quickly with a mantle, place me in a wagon and tell the fact to no one. The battle cannot be avoided, and must be won."

And he obtained a glorious victory. The Austrian general abandoned a strong position, because he deemed it beneath his dignity to contend with an inferior force in a fortified camp. His imprudence lost him the battle. According to Napoleon, it was a masterpiece on the part of the victor, and placed him in the first rank of generals. Twenty thousand Austrians were either killed or taken. Breslau opened its gates to the Prussians, and Silesia was reconquered. The king's fame filled the world. Pictures of him were hung in almost every house. The enthusiasm of Germany was not surpa.s.sed by that of England. London was illuminated; the gay scions of aristocracy proposed to the Prussian king to leave their country and join his army; an annual subsidy of seven hundred thousand pounds was granted by government. The battle of Leuthen was the most brilliant in Prussian annals; out the battle of Rossbach, over the French, was attended by greater moral results. It showed, for the first time for several centuries, that the Germans were really a great people, and were a match for the French, hitherto deemed invincible.

Early in the spring of 1758, Frederic was ready for a new campaign, which was soon signalized by a great victory over the Russians, at Zorndorff. It was as brilliant and decisive as the battles of Rossbach and Leuthen. A force of thirty-two thousand men defeated an army of fifty-two thousand. Twenty-two thousand Russians lay dead on the field. This victory placed Frederic at the zenith of military fame. In less than a year, he had defeated three great armies; in less than a year, and when nearly driven to despair,--when his cause seemed hopeless, and his enemies were rejoicing in their strength,--he successively triumphed over the French, the Austrians, and the Russians; the three most powerful nations on the continent of Europe.

And his moderation after victory was as marked as his self-reliance after defeat. At this period, he stood out, to the wondering and admiring eyes of the world, as the greatest hero and general of modern times. But, after this, his career was more checkered, and he was still in danger of being overwhelmed by his powerful enemies.

[Sidenote: Fall of Dresden.]

The remainder of the campaign of 1758 was spent in driving the Austrians from Silesia, and in capturing Dresden. No capital in Europe has suffered more in war than this elegant and polished city. It has been often besieged and taken, but the victors have always spared its famous picture gallery--the finest collection of the works of the old masters, probably, in existence.

But Frederic was now a.s.sailed by a new enemy, Pope Benedict XIV. He sent a consecrated sword, a hat of crimson velvet, and a dove of pearls,--"the mystic symbol of the divine Comforter,"--to Marshal Daun, the ablest of the Austrian generals, and the conqueror at Kolin and Hochkirchen. It was the rarest of the papal gifts, and had been only bestowed, in the course of six centuries, on G.o.dfrey of Bouillon, by Urban II., when he took Jerusalem; on Alva, after his ma.s.sacres in Holland; and on Sobieski, after his deliverance of Vienna, when besieged by the Turks. It had never been conferred, except for the defence of the "Holy Catholic Church." But this greatest of papal gifts made no impression on the age which read Montesquieu and Voltaire. A flood of satirical pamphlets inundated Christendom, and the world laughed at the impotent weapons which had once been thunderbolts in the hands of Hildebrand or Innocent III.

[Sidenote: Reverses of Frederic.]

The fourth year of the war proved disastrous to Frederic. He did not lose military reputation, but he lost his cities and armies. The forces of his enemies were nearly overwhelming. The Austrians invaded Saxony, and menaced Silesia, while the Russians gained a victory over the Prussians at Kunersdorf, and killed eighteen thousand men. The Russians did not improve this great victory over Frederic, which nearly drove him to despair. But he rallied, and was again defeated in three disastrous battles. In his distress, he fed his troops on potatoes and rye bread, took from the peasant his last horse, debased his coin, and left his civil functionaries unpaid.

The campaign of 1760 was, at first, unfavorable to the Prussians.

Frederic had only ninety thousand men, and his enemies had two hundred thousand, in the field. He was therefore obliged to maintain the defensive. But still disasters thickened. General Loudon obtained a great victory over his general, Fouque, in Silesia. Instead of being discouraged by this new defeat, he formed the extraordinary resolution of wresting Dresden from the hands of the Austrians. But he pretended to retreat from Saxony, and advance to Silesia. General Daun was deceived, and decoyed from Saxony in pursuit of him. As soon as Frederic had retired a considerable distance from Dresden, he returned, and bombarded it. But he did not succeed in taking it, and was forced to retreat to Silesia. It was there his good fortune to gain a victory over the Austrians, and prevent their junction with the Russians. At Torgau, he again defeated an army of sixty-four thousand of the enemy, with a force of only forty-four thousand. This closed the campaign, and the position of the parties was nearly the same as at the commencement of it. The heart of Frederic was now ulcerated with bitterness in view of the perseverance of his enemies, who were resolved to crush him. He should, however, have remembered that he had provoked their implacable resentment, by the commission of a great crime.