Memoirs of celebrated characters. By Alphonse de Lamartine. In two volumes. / Lamartine, Alphonse de, 1790-1869

MEMOIRS 



CELEBRATED CHARACTERS. 



ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE. 

AUTHOR OF " niSTORY OF TIIE GIRONDISTS." 



IX TWO VOLUMES. 
VOL. II. 



LONDON : 
RICHARD BENTLEY, 

PUBLISHER IN ORDINARY TO HER MAJESTY 

MDCCCLIV. 

This Translation is Copyright, 



^ 



LONDON : 
R. OLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

SOCRATES 1 

JACQUARD 15 

JOAN OF ARC 5l 

CROMWELL 18 ° 



HOMER 



264 



GUTTENBERG 301 

FENELON 336 



CELEBRATED 



EUROPEAN CHARACTERS. 



SOCEATES. 

B.C. 470. 

All the world recognises the name of Socrates as 
synonymous with wisdom ; few are acquainted with his 
doctrines, and nothing is known of his life, beyond his 
conversations and the manner of his death. He was 
neither a prophet nor a revealer, nor the founder of a 
religion or sect ; he speaks not to men in the name of 
the Supreme Deity, he imposes on them no particular 
faith, he envelops himself in no mysteries, he pronounces 
no oracles, he performs no miracles ; he is a man, and 
partakes of humanity even in its weaknesses and doubts. 
But he lived well, he spoke well, and he died well ; that 
is to say, he performed the part in all its humility, and 
all its greatness, which Providence imposes on every 
mortal, of thinking justly, leading an honest life, and 
dying with hope. Such was Socrates, the purest incar- 
nation of good sense and practical philosophy, which 
Greece, the land of his birth, has exhibited to antiquity. 

VOL. II. b 



2 SOCRATES. 

We shall say but little of his life, for life with him 
was reflection. We shall principally confine ourselves 
to an account of his most illustrious act — his death. 
Socrates was a native of Athens, the political, civilized, 
literary, artistic capital of that Greece, which was then 
in itself the metropolis of human intelligence. He was 
the son of a poor sculptor and a midwife. We may 
believe that these two avocations which supported his 
parents, gave him with the first impressions of infancy, 
the original bent of his genius. From his father he 
learned to adore the beautiful, to seek and find it in the 
mind as the artist reflected it in the marble ; from his 
mother, to assist man in the birth of light, and enable 
him to bring forth truth. The young Socrates had more 
trouble and greater merit than most men, in refining and 
chiselling out in himself the model of intellectual excel- 
lence which constituted the study and passion of his 
existence. Nature in forming him had denied the 
physical graces usually bestowed upon those favourites of 
Providence, who exhibit in their features the external 
signs of that beauty and virtue, which shine forth from 
the soul through the mantle of the senses. He was low 
and clumsy in figure, his shoulders high and broad, like 
those of a workman employed in carrying heavy blocks 
of marble ; his neck thick and short ; his head round 
and flat ; his mouth partially unclosed with an habitual 
smile ; his lips coarse and sensual ; his nose misshapen 
and turned up like that of Silenus ; his eyes sarcastic ; 
his forehead rough, projecting, and badly delineated. 
The entire aspect, although supremely intelligent in 
general expression, announced the carnal instincts and 
gross appetites of a labouring man, rather than the 
divine aspirations of a thinking philosopher. From this 
ungainly, graceless form, was to be extracted by strokes 



SOCRATES. 



of the chisel, the purest moral beauty, the most imma- 
terial image of virtue which had ever charmed the sight 
of ancient Greece. The accomplishment of this work 
occupied the life of Socrates. He said continually when 
looking on the shapeless masses of stone, rough-hewn by 
the hand of his father, " Since beauty springs from 
thence, I will make it emanate from myself;" and as he 
heard his mother relate the sufferings of the females she 
had assisted in the pangs of child -birth, " as the physical 
man," thought he, " springs into existence through effort 
and suffering, neither will I spare both, to produce the 
intellectual and moral being for the glorj of truth and 
virtue." 

Socrates adopted the business of his father, and 
earned his livelihood in the workshop. But while the 
sire remained a simple artisan, the son became rapidly 
an artist. The exquisite and ideal type of perfection 
which he carried in his mind, soon embodied itself under 
his hand, in contours, attitudes, and features, more 
delicately moulded than the rough chisellings of his 
father. "There was exhibited," says Xenophon, his 
pupil and historian, " a group of the three Graces veiled, 
so happily executed by the younger Socrates, that it 
stood without injurious comparison close to the most 
divine statues of Phidias." The Athenians placed this 
group in the portico of the Pantheon, in itself a master- 
piece of architecture, which contained nothing but 
master-pieces. 

But Socrates aspired inwardly to sculpture souls and 
not stones. He gave to his profession only the time 
which was absolutely necessary for the support of his 
family; he occupied every superfluous hour in reflection, 
in reading, in study, in frequenting the schools of philo- 
sophy and eloquence, which an incalculable cloud of 

b 2 



4 SOCRATES. 

rhetoricians and sages, some wise, but others visionary, 
erected at that time in every quarter of Athens. With 
an eminently acute and critical discernment, Socrates at 
once detected the truth and falsehood of these doctrines- 
He adopted the good while he ridiculed the evil. He 
became the terror and scourge of the sophists, those 
mountebanks of wisdom ; he received no assertion without 
proof; he demanded a reason for everything, and by a 
process of minute interrogation, drove them into con- 
tradictory answers, exposed them to the derision of their 
hearers, and retired victorious from the contest, happy in 
having fortified the minds of their disciples against .their 
dreams and subtilties. On the other hand, full of defer- 
ence for true knowledge, he seated himself as a child 
amongst the blowers of Anaxagoras. He listened with 
rapturous conviction when they spoke of the divine 
essence, of justice, of laws, and of immortality, that firm 
assurance of hope. Socrates left their lessons, impressed 
with contempt for things transitory, which are only the 
road to things eternal. He looked upon himself as a 
traveller who halts in the public inn of the earth, but who 
appropriates no article of furniture in the house to him- 
self; well knowing that none of them belong to him, and 
that he cannot carry them away with him on the morrow. 
He merely reposed and purified himself there from 
material corruptions, that he might be ready to appear 
when summoned, with suitable reverence before the gods. 
But, not content with improving himself, Socrates 
was inspired with the more disinterested and divine 
passion of improving others. He employed every 
moment he could abstract from his domestic avocations, 
in the instruction and correction of his fellow-citizens of 
every class. Often indeed, (and his wife justly com- 
plained of this,) he forgot the necessities of his house- 



SOCRATES. 5 

hold, and would sit for whole days in dreamy abstraction, 
his head buried in his hands, or holding philosophical 
converse with the first stranger who demanded from him 
lessons in wisdom. By degrees, the profound truth of 
his remarks, the novelty of his ideas, the penetrating, 
unexpected simplicity of his arguments, the familiarity 
of the images and parables which he borrowed from the 
commonest employments of life, to elevate the minds of 
those with whom he was conversing to the most sublime 
conceptions of genius, as the jeweller uses the vilest dust 
to polish the diamond, — these combined attractions drew 
round Socrates an extensive circle of disciples. Athens 
was a free republic, rich, idle, and luxurious ; given to 
doctrines, controversies, sects, truths, sophistries, and 
even falsehood ; the government, which w r as carried on 
in public, was little more than a perpetual conversation 
between the citizens, on politics, law T s, religion, nature, 
and the Deities. In that lovely climate, where men 
passed their lives in the sun, — the porticoes of the 
temples, the studios of the artists, the open shops of 
the tradespeople, the streets, the squares, the market- 
places, were so many academies or schools, where all 
discoursed together, and the most eloquent, the most 
seductive, or the most able, carried away the greatest 
number of auditors from his rivals. Perpetual converse 
was, in fact, the leading institution of Athens. It 
supplied the place of what the periodical press has 
become with us, since the discovery of printing, with 
this distinction, that the press speaks separately to 
single readers, and allows neither dialogue nor reply; 
while the public conversations of Athens became so 
many animated discussions, and gathered together the 
idlers and the followers of the most popular speaker in a 
sect or college. Thus it was that Socrates, though 



SOCRATES. 



always speaking, and on every subject, wrote nothing ; 
his lessons were all dialogues with his listeners, and 
after his death, Plato and Xenophon, his disciples, 
transcribed from memory, and under this constrained 
form, the doctrines which they had heard and noted 
during the life of their master. 

At the same time, Socrates, who was above all things 
a man of duty and practical sense, neglected none of the 
functions of life, whether as a soldier, a citizen, a magis- 
trate, or a statesman, under the pretext of despising 
temporal affairs, and of being occupied exclusively in 
more exalted contemplation. He understood and de- 
monstrated by his example that to serve men was the 
true mode of serving the gods, and that the defence and 
government of his country are binding obligations on 
every member of a free republic. His conscience, his 
principal sense, because it was the sense of duty, was so 
just, powerful, and infallible, that it appeared to him a 
physical voice speaking within his bosom, and which he 
in honest belief designated his oracle and genius. This 
voice of conscience commanded him to become a hero 
during the wars in which his country was engaged, and 
accordingly he became one. 

At the siege of Potidsea, the young Alcibiades having 
been made prisoner by the enemy, Socrates, with a 
handful of Athenians, threw himself into the thickest of 
the fight, dispersed the conquerors who were carrying 
away their captive, and rescued his friend at the price 
of his own blood. On his return, the prize of valour 
having been decreed to him, he declared Alcibiades more 
brave than himself, inasmuch as he was younger and 
handsomer, and by risking his life had exposed himself 
to greater loss. At the battle of Delium in Bœotia, the 
Athenians being worsted, were on the brink of perishing 



SOCRATES. 7 

through the incapacity or cowardice of their general, 
chosen capriciously by the demagogues ; when Socrates, 
rushing to the rear-guard, and gathering round him the 
veteran soldiers, drove back the assailants, brought off 
another of his pupils, Xenophon, from the field, and 
carried him on his shoulders to the camp. Peace 
restored him to his studies and his disciples. The 
heroism he had shown in arms, the utter indifference 
to ambition and glory which he demonstrated by re- 
suming his profession, recommended him to the votes of 
the public assembly for the high magisterial offices 
appointed by the citizens. He there exhibited the 
virtue of the politician, more rare and difficult than 
that of the warrior ; clearness of perception, impartiality, 
moderation, and inflexible resistance to the propensities, 
passions, and blind fury of the people. The Athenian 
admirals, after a naval defeat, not having been able to 
inter their dead, were condemned to an unjust punish- 
ment — their life or death depended on the vote of 
Socrates, who that day presided in the senate. His 
colleagues, intimidated by the cries and arms of the 
multitude, yielded up the unfortunate commanders to 
ensure their own safety. Socrates offered his life to 
preserve the innocent. He triumphed over the collected 
anger of Athens, which dared not violate in his person 
the living law. But thenceforward the people ceased to 
love him, and the demagogues of the city never forgave 
him for having disappointed them of a crime. IVom 
the moment of this denial, his death was registered in 
the hearts of his enemies. 

Calumny now began to make free with his name, and 
the poet Aristophanes, the Beaumarchais of Athens, 
amused the people at his expense in a personal comedy, 
called "The Clouds." Socrates in this drama is exposed to 



8 SOCRATES. 

the eyes of the public as a dreamer awakened, suspended 
between heaven and earth, and demanding oracular 
responses from the Clouds, floating and intangible 
divinities who answer him from the midst of fogs. This 
was the vengeance of common-place habit against 
thought ; of prejudice opposed to wisdom. Aristophanes, 
a vile adulator of the follies and superstitions cherished by 
vulgar ignorance, excited at the same time the derision 
and anger of the people against the wisest of the 
Athenians. Derision, by representing Socrates as seek- 
ing to elevate himself over the heads of the crowd; 
anger, by charging him with endeavouring to discover in 
the heavens a divine essence more immaterial than the 
physical deities which their abject credulity had invented. 
Aristophanes became thus the first murderer of Socrates. 
This Camille Besmoulms of Athens, by holding the sage 
up to ridicule, delivered him beforehand to the execu- 
tioner. When you wish to immolate a victim you com- 
mence by stripping him of respect. Popular frenzy 
invariably originates from the scornful mockery of the 
demagogues. 

The real crime of Socrates was not philosophy but 
politics. He was accused of impiety against the esta- 
blished gods of the country, merely to mask under a 
religious pretext the hatred which sprang exclusively 
from another cause. The republic of Athens was con- 
stantly divided into two factions. The friends of rational 
liberty, having for limit and guarantee, just laws, and 
for magistrates the most enlightened and most virtuous 
citizens of the state, constituted the first of these parties. 
The anarchists, the radicals, the demagogues, the flat- 
terers of the people, composed the second. This last 
section kept Athens in perpetual confusion. Socrates 
held them in abhorrence. lie neither disguised his 



SOCRATES. 9 

contempt for an ignorant and turbulent democracy, 
nor his indignation against the corruptors of the govern- 
ment. He proclaimed loudly that the head should rule 
the members of the State as of the human body ; that 
education, moral propriety, and virtue, were indispensable 
conditions for the admission of citizens into the public 
assembly and important offices ; that to elect magistrates 
by lot was to govern the republic by chance ; that they 
should be chosen with discernment, and after having 
given proofs of their probity and capacity. In a word, 
he advocated a graduated scale of suffrage in the nomi- 
nation of candidates for public functions. He wished 
to establish, not the blind and often unjust aristocracy 
of rank or riches, but the inspired and more exclusive 
supremacy of intelligence and integrity. 

These opinions, although palpably sound and wise, 
were at that moment doubly suspicious at Athens, as 
the Republic had with difficulty shaken off the yoke of 
the Thirty Tyrants ; and to require the acknowledgment 
of superiority and order, from a people drunk with 
recovered liberty, was almost, in the eyes of the demo- 
cratic orators, to mourn over the exiled despotism. 
Socrates had boldly defied it when erect, but now 
when overthrown, he became as much detested by the 
agitators as he had been formidable to the autocrats. 
He experienced the lot of all just men in every age, who 
are proscribed by the two extremes, because conscience 
equally prevents them from participating in the intoler- 
ance of either. Means were sought anxiously to destroy 
this man, whose moderation eclipsed to-day the influ- 
ence of the demagogues, as a few days before he had 
offended the omnipotence of the tyrants. 

A certain Anytus, a rich citizen of Athens, who had 
contributed to the abolition of the tyranny, and thus 



10 SOCRATES. 

had won the favour of the people, endeavoured basely to 
preserve his position by the most abject deference to the 
caprices and prejudices of the multitude. The multitude 
loved superstition, the slavery of mind, and the religion 
of ignorance. Anytus and his friends resolved to accuse 
Socrates of blasphemy against the popular idols, the 
divinities of the crowd. An infamous poet, named 
Melitus, once his pupil, but now his enemy, excited by 
the low envy which cannot pardon the reputation it is 
unable to rival, took on himself the charge of accusing 
his former master of atheism. Melitus was one of those 
men who sanctify personal hatred to the public eye, by 
affecting an overwhelming zeal in the service of the gods. 
They thus skilfully impress the divine character of their 
cause on their unholy passions, and elevate personal 
vindictiveness as the result of a sacred impulse. They 
calumniate, they insult, they denounce, they strike their 
enemies, always in the name of heaven. The sincerely 
superstitious admire their zeal, and give them credit 
for persecution as for the fulfilment of a religious duty. 
Such was Melitus at Athens. He had written evil 
books, but he had constituted himself the vindicator of 
the ancient worship. He had clients in Olympus. The 
people dared no longer despise him, lest in him they 
should contemn their gods. 

This young man accused Socrates before the tri- 
bunals, of introducing new points of faith, divinities, 
and doctrines, to the consideration of his disciples. 
Philosophy was suspected by the people, as it shed 
light upon mystery, and light itself was an attack upon 
ignorance. Socrates declined all defence, doubtless 
because he was unwilling to stoop to falsehood. He 
had been guilty of no impiety beyond reflection, and 
although his thoughts ascended far above the miserable 



SOCRATES. 11 

symbols at that time acknowledged in Greece, he had 
never outraged the established worship of his fellows- 
citizens, well knowing that the adoration of a Supreme 
Being was a matter so holy in itself, that it should not be 
disturbed, even though the object might be mistaken. 
He carried his respect for established forms of religion 
to too great an extent for a philosopher, by observing 
(according to Xenophon) all the external ordinances, 
and by offering sacrifices to the deities of Olympus, in 
his own house and in the public temples. His inward 
conscience appeared more complete and incorruptible in 
presence of his judges. " If you acquit me," said he, in 
addressing them, " on condition that I shall give up my 
philosophy, I answer without hesitation, Athenians, I 
honour and love you, but I shall obey God rather than 
you." 

The judges, amounting in number to five hundred 
and fifty-six, were almost equally divided in opinion. 
Socrates was only condemned by an overplus of three 
voices, obtained through the union of the demagogues 
with the fanatics. The law of Athens, in similar cases, 
allowed the sentenced criminal to redeem his life by 
banishment, or by a fine pronounced by himself when 
acknowledging his guilt. Socrates jested to the last 
between life and death. " Athenians," said he, with 
that light but bitter irony, which constituted at the 
same time the strength and vice of his style (for sarcasm 
stings while it convinces), " for having dedicated my 
whole existence to the service and moral improvement of 
my country, 1 condemn myself to be supported for the 
remainder of my days, in the Prytaneum, at the expense 
of the Republic." The judges thus provoked, pro- 
nounced sentence of death by an overwhelming majority. 
" It is no evil," said Socrates, on hearing the decree; 



12 SOCRATES. 

" nothing can harm a pions man either in life or after 
death. God never abandons him. It is willed that he 
should be cut off. I have no resentment either against 
the people or the judges. They live and I die. The 
Supreme Intelligence alone can tell which has the hap- 
piest lot." 

The sentence declared that he should drink hemlock, 
a poisoned beverage which produced death under the 
form of sleep. The law forbade the execution of any 
condemned person until the return of a galley which the 
Athenians despatched every year to the isle of Delos, to 
carry votive offerings to the temple of the Delian Apollo. 
Socrates passed the interval in conversation with his 
friends. His last day and his final colloquy are accu- 
rately preserved by Plato in the dialogue which we 
formerly transcribed and embodied in a poem. " All 
those," says Xenophon, his pupil and historian, " who 
were acquainted with Socrates, regret him still, as they 
found him stored with the most ample resources in the 
search after virtue. I knew him intimately. I have 
described him exactly as I saw him. So truly pious, 
that he undertook nothing without first seeking in his 
conscience, which he called his tutelary genius, the 
counsel of Heaven. So just, that he wronged no one, 
and did good to all who approached him. So well regu- 
lated, that he invariably preferred what was right to 
what was agreeable. So infallible in prudent discern- 
ment, that he never wavered or erred between the good 
and evil side. Such, in reality, Socrates appeared to 
me ; the best, and at the same time the happiest of 
mortals." 

For ourselves, while with Xenophon we admire the 
wisdom of the Grecian philosopher, we do not hesitate 
to prefer, by a thousand degrees, the more divine inspi- 



SOCRATES. 13 

rations of India, of China, and above all of the Christian 
revelation. The wisdom of Socrates was intelligence 
only, not sufficiently imbued with love. It reflects 
justly, but fails in self-devotion. Personal sacrifice, 
the highest consummation of virtue, and prize of truth, 
can scarcely be awarded to him, despite his punishment, 
which was entirely political and not religious. He is a 
sage, but not a martyr. He accommodates himself to 
the manners, the faith, and even the failings of his 
age and country. He delivers animated and able 
lectures on virtue to those who require them, but he 
also discourses on vice with youths and courtesans. He 
believes in one only God, the Creator and Regulator of 
the universe, but publicly worships the multiplied and 
carnal divinities, formed after the conceptions of man. 
He dies heroically, but he dies for himself as much as 
for truth. His very death is a fortunate incident in his 
destiny, which he turns to advantage with consummate 
intelligence. " I am old," says he to Xenophon, " and 
nothing remains for me but to decay in faculties and 
genius. This is the proper moment to die." Socrates 
exhibits little sympathy with human nature ; he has no 
strong tenderness even for his wife and children ; he is 
always a man of genius, rather than a being devoted to 
his fellow-creatures. His conversations, although occa- 
sionally sublime, attest this want of heavenly love in his 
nature and his wisdom. He banters sometimes, he 
ridicules often, he laughs always. Irony, which renders 
truth itself offensive, is the inseparable feature of his 
dialogues. He argues by teazing interrogatories, as if to 
force his antagonist to contradict himself; he draws him 
on from point to point, hiding with dexterity the end to 
which he proposes to lead him. Finally, he confounds 
him in his own admissions, as if truth itself might be 



14 SOCRATES.' 

entangled in a snare. He is always critical, scarcely 
ever imaginative. Plato, his divine disciple, has given 
him wings, without which he would often creep. 

Prom this summary, we conclude that Socrates was 
neither wiser, more virtuous, nor more religious than all 
the other philosophers of antiquity, but that he was the 
most witty and the most amiable of Athenian citizens ; 
that he knew how to think well, to speak well, to die 
well; but that he also knew how to live well, and, 
according to our ideas, had too much prudence in his 
wisdom, and too much cleverness in his virtue. Charity 
(in its Christian sense) had not yet appeared in the 
world. 



JACQUAKD, 

THE SILK WEAVER OF LYONS. 

a.d. 1752. 

The first object of history is truth ; the second, that it 
should accord the due meed of praise or glory to its 
heroes. 

We wish not to exalt into a poem or a romance, an 
humble life passed before the loom, in the use of joiner's 
tools, employed for sixty years in bringing to perfection 
the instruments of his trade, and in watching the play 
of certain pulleys between four pillars. We shall not 
apply the title of a great man to a poor silk-weaver, 
a good, useful, and simple member of society, whose 
mind was bounded by the horizon of his profession, and 
received no rays of light except those borrowed from his 
lamp. But he was thoughtful, ingenious, persevering in 
discovery, absorbed by invention, and gifted with such 
an exclusively mechanical genius, that men of superior 
intellect hearing him speak on subjects unconnected 
with his trade, said, "He is not a man, but a mere 
machine that has invented another." 

This is also our own opinion. We do not compare 
him to Triptolemus, the inventor of the plough, the 
foster-mother of mankind ; nor to Plato, the originator of 



16 JACQUARD.' 

a new system of philosophy ; nor to Homer, who created 
imaginary worlds, poems, sentiments, and images which 
cause tears of pity to mingle with the noblest passions 
of the human heart ; nor to Archimedes, who discovered 
the power of the lever by which mountains might be 
moved by the strength of an insect; nor to Phidias, 
who created the beautiful in the forms of the temples, 
which contained the gods, the most sublime creations of 
the imagination ; nor to Christopher Columbus, who 
discovered the New World ; nor even to Montgolfier, the 
inventor of aerial navigation, of which our children's 
children will unfold the wings, and reap the benefits of 
new civilizations. No ; it would profane the glory and 
gratitude of mankind to apply the same name to inven- 
tions so opposite. The great man deserves immortality; 
all that is due, and all that is paid to him who is useful 
only to his fellow-labourers, is the esteem of his class, of 
his fellow -townsmen, of his generation, and a line in the 
history of arts. 

In this list we inscribe the name of Jacquard, the silk- 
weaver of Lyons, to set him before operative mechanics 
in manual trades now so interesting and numerous, as 
at the same time the warning and example upon which 
their class should mould themselves. 

We must first state what strikes us as singularly 
peculiar in the life of this man. The excess of fatigue, 
misery, moral and physical deprivations endured by in- 
dustrious workmen, induced Jacquard to seek how to 
ameliorate the condition of his brethren, and to devote 
sixty years to the working out of his invention. This is 
the first lesson inculcated in the life we are about to 
write. It ought to make agricultural labourers, living 
by the cultivation of the soil, the natural, universal, and 
ever-enduring occupation of man, reflect long and 



JACQUARD. 17 

soundly, before they quit this first of all employments, 
which peoples the earth, while it creates and affords 
unlimited nourishment to its children. They would do 
well to pause before they go into the hearts of cities to 
engage in the precarious, fleeting, and uncertain trades 
which one caprice nourishes and another destroys. The 
invention of a peg or the displacing of a bobbin, may 
ruin the weaver's labour, and yet millions of the popu- 
lation are destroyed body and soul by the inducement of 
better remuneration. Let us compare the tiller of the 
soil with the workman of the garret, and the comparison 
will produce astonishment, even if it fails to excite pity. 

I reside in the country, close to this huge modern 
workshop, this Sidon of France, this Damascus of the 
West, called Lyons. I am well acquainted with the 
manners and condition of the tribe of European pariahs, 
called " Canuts" from I know not what degrading 
assimilation to the " canette" an implement of their 
trade ; or from some unintelligible cynism in language — 
a trivial name, intended to denote infirmity of race or 
hereditary misfortune. 

On the other hand, I was born and have lived for tho 
greater part of my life amongst peasants, in a poor and 
mountainous district, where the soil is thin, hard, rocky 
and ungrateful ; producing nothing but what is abso- 
lutely wrested from it. Let me ask the reader to follow 
me for a moment, in thought, into the industrial work- 
shop of Lyons, or the more extensive workshop of 
nature, the fields. Each time that I have, in imagina- 
tion, made this comparison, I could not help repeating 
this line of the English poet : — 

" God made the country, and man made the town." 

Let us enter this suburb of Lyons. The roofs, 

VOL. II. c 



18 JACQUARD. 

blackened by the smoke of the machinery, and by the 
vapour from the coppers in which they dye the silk and 
wool, are hardly visible above the fog of the streets ; 
a tangible, black, and enduring miasma rests perpetually 
on the tops of these houses. The fresh breeze which 
follows the current of the two rivers, vainly tries to carry 
away with it towards the hills some particles of this 
perpetual mist. The winds from the Ithone and the 
Saône can only extract from the sun some watery rays, 
which appear unwilling to come in contact with the 
impure breath of this smoky and noisy city. 

To the right and left of this suburb, (unwholesome 
artery of a diseased body,) rise winding, narrow and 
tortuous streets, intersected with stone steps, bounded 
on each side by houses from four to six stories high, 
which obstruct light and air, and not having ground 
room enough, ascend one above the other, to gain from 
heaven that space which is denied them below. Their 
blackened and green-stained walls are pierced by millions 
of windows without sills or balconies. Not even a pot of 
flowers is to be seen, that consoling miniature of the 
vegetable world, which recals some agreeable remem- 
brance, or affords a pleasant perfume to the young girl ; 
not even the cage of the bird, whose chirp delights the 
infant. The greater number of these windows are 
destitute of glass, the only avenue through which light 
is conveyed. The broken panes are replaced by sheets 
of oiled paper, turned yellow by the rain, and which are 
pasted in the frames, that the strong glare of day may not 
fade the colours of the stuffs. Many of these sheets of 
paper, torn by the hail or wind, hang fluttering in pieces, 
and sound to the ears of passers-by like the mournful 
rustling of dried leaves, the only murmur of the perishing 



JACQUARD. 19 

shadows which revive no more. They give to the houses 
a vault-like, indigent, and ruinous appearance, which 
saddens the heart of the casual passenger, while it 
induces him to quicken his step, that he may leave those 
regions of gloom, and return to light and life. No sounds 
issue from these abodes save the monotonous cadence of 
the shuttle, and the noise of wheels and pulleys, grinding 
and whistling in every story without an interval of repose 
or silence. It seems as if the dull perpetual working of 
the wooden muscles and sinews of avarice and industry, 
were moved by invisible springs in the automaton or 
skeleton of a dead city. 

If you venture into one of these habitations or human 
ant-hills, you will see in the first place a narrow, low, 
and dark archway, called an alley, on either side of 
which are foul, offensive gutters, communicating with 
the common street sewer. You slide along in the 
mire incessantly fermented by the muddy feet of the 
inhabitants or visitors, the drippings of umbrellas, 
and the filth accumulated through this tributary drain, 
which forms a channel to the main Cloaca. This alley 
conducts to the common staircase used by the 200 
inmates of this abode. The steps, worn by the constant 
friction of iron-heeled shoes, exude a fetid dampness 
like the pavement of the alley. At each landing-place 
the half- open doors emit exhalations from other sub- 
terranean shores. At the side and within the circling 
odour of this filth, eight or ten other doors, hermetically 
closed, allow no sound to issue, except the cries of 
infants and the impatience of mothers, interrupted in 
their work to fulfil the duties of the nurse. These noises 
are mingled with the dull sound of the pedals of the 
loom, which never repose under the foot of daughter, 
father, or brother. 

c 2 



20 JACQUARD. , 

Ascend, descend, follow the landings and corridors of 
this labyrinth without a guide, everywhere you will see 
the same scene and hear the same melancholy murmur. 
The whole constitutes a vast prison of labour, in which 
the gaolers are invisible. 

Look through one of the doors, half opened by the 
manufacturer who has come to inspect the stuff, to bring 
a new pattern, or to distribute the weekly wages ; you 
will see bare rooms, of which nearly the whole extent is 
filled with that family pillory — the loom. 

Skeins of silk hang on the walls ; wooden pillars, 
ropes, pulleys, threads, bobbins, shuttles, cylinders, paste- 
board pierced with holes, counter-weights and levers, 
play with incessant noise under the hands of the artizan, 
who is crcr.~hing before his web, while his sons assist 
him at another loom, which the daughters cause to rise 
and fall by turns, with a fixed mechanical movement, the 
silk being stretched upon the frame. 

The entire family carry in their attitudes and faces the 
impress of the sedentary, confined, immovable, and 
torturing avocation, which imprisons them in these cells 
of labour : stunted growth, bandy legs, swollen knees, 
long feet, high shoulders, sunken chests, slender arms, 
thin fingers, attenuated cheeks, pallid complexions, and 
hollow eyes. Their expression is mild, but without 
vigour in the man, or attraction in the woman. It seems 
as if they had contracted from seclusion a sort of me- 
chanical stupor, which has indelibly engraved itself upon 
their countenances. Their thick lips are parted by a 
joyless and unmeaning giggle ; their large round eyes 
widely opened, appear struck with perpetual astonishment. 
Their voices are broken, and even the language of this 
race, separated from the rest of the population by exclu- 
sive intercourse amongst themselves, resembles no longer 



JACQUARD. 21 

that spoken in the streets. It possesses ideas, words, 
cant phrases, and proverbs, which render it a dead or 
unknown tongue to the rest of mankind. They speak 
in a whining drawl, they sing like captives, their com- 
plaints are as tedious as the unvarying monotony of their 
lives. They look upon themselves as a more suffering 
community than any other upon earth, — a tribe who 
labour in the shade like the weaver in his cellar, and 
whose occupation, always the same, excites neither the 
mind nor heart, and reduces human existence to a 
single movement, everlastingly repeated from the cradle 
to the grave. 

The miserable " canut " can hardly leave his loom to 
take refreshment ; he consumes his bread and lettuce 
while seated on his bench, and during the entire week 
never quits the frame, but at the scanty interval of 
sleep. The source of his maintenance is ever before his 
eyes ; it is the last object he beholds at night, the first 
that greets him in the morning. His wife and children 
have no other horizon. Hardly has light penetrated into 
the garret window through the mists of early dawn, when 
all resume their places round the frame, and the thread 
which they left the night before ; then the groaning of 
wheels and pulleys announces to the street that a new day 
of toil has commenced for the same ill-fated community. 
Sunday alone, with a repose as regular as their task, 
breaks the weary regularity of this existence. The work- 
man changes his linen and places himself at his window 
that he may chat with his brother labourers in the other 
stories, or in the opposite house. Their conversation may 
be overheard by strangers without being understood. 
The wives, daughters, sons, and apprentices, go out into 
the streets in their Sunday dresses, but mingle little 
with the rest of the inhabitants. They may be seen 



22 JACQUARD. , 

leaving the churches and walking with slow steps, each 
family by itself, like strangers in a new land, looking 
around with astonishment at the light and bustle of 
the city. In the evening they wander about the un- 
frequented roads and waste grounds in the outskirts of 
Lyons. They seat themselves upon the dusty grass, in 
the trenches, or by the road side, and look mournfully 
at the setting sun behind the green hills of the Saône. 
Sometimes the young men and girls dance, and leisure 
affords their parents the opportunity of visiting the tea- 
gardens, exclusively frequented by their own class. 
They then return with still slower steps to the dark 
street, and the high room, and recommence the fol- 
lowing day the same alternations between labour and 
repose. 

Some by length of years and great economy exercised 
in their daily food, contrive to scrape together sufficient 
money to buy one or more looms. Around these frames 
they parsimoniously extract as much work as they can 
from their apprentices, as the manufacturers did from 
them in their youth. They become manufacturers in 
their turn, assume a position in the town, and exchange 
the brown vest of the " canut " for the long-skirted coat 
of the merchant. They accumulate saving upon saving, 
they become amalgamated in a few years with the honest 
and industrious citizens of Lyons, but they still bear a 
distinctive mark of their origin in the severe economy 
which is at once the virtue and vice of those who enrich 
themselves by labour. They do not appreciate a man for 
his own sake, but for what he possesses. They have 
a single and cabalistical sign by which they found their 
opinion of all here below — this symbol is fortune. 
Nothing retains any value in their eyes, except what 
weighs in the hand and rings upon the counter. They 



JACQUARD. 23 

idolize money, and tliey have experienced such difficulty 
in acquiring gold, that they look upon spending it as 
a crime. 

But this class is not numerous ; the greater number 
consume in the maintenance of their families the pro- 
duce of their fortunate days, and then when work ceases, 
and wages are stopped, the father and sons tighten their 
belts round their bodies to lessen the pangs of hunger. 

They wander in indigent groups of women and 
children in the streets of their native city, or in the 
distant fields of Forez or Bresse, singing mournful com- 
plaints of their misery under the windows of the rich. 
They live without a murmur on the bread of charity, 
until occupation again recals them to their looms. 
Others stricken with premature old age, (a common 
calamity of their class,) leave off work, and giving them- 
selves up to intemperance, die in the hospitals. They 
are buried in the common cemetery of the suburbs, and 
there is one mouth less in the family. The next day the 
loom is again in motion ; — and this is a race of men, for 
such was the life of the workman of Lyons scarcely fifty 
years ago. 

The life of the poorest labourer in the fields is enviable 
when compared with the mechanical drudgery of the 
weaver of silk and cotton, the inhabitant of a city. The 
former is never forced to leave his native soil, his native 
sky, or the little cottage in which he was born, to 
immure himself within four walls. The vitality of the 
tree is in its roots ; man's vitality is in his heart. 
Happy is he whose sap is not dried up in the vigour 
of his youth. The labourer increases in strength and 
size in the scenes where he was born. The customs 
and feelings of his relations, his family, his neighbour- 
hood and country, constitute for him an atmosphere of 



24 JACQUARD. 

natural affections which it would be cruel to destroy, 
and difficult to renew. He is not forced to shut him- 
self out from all physical nature, the natural element 
of man which renders him strong and vigorous. He 
has the sky above his head, the grass under his feet, 
the sun before his eyes, and fresh air within his 
organs of respiration. The vast and free horizon 
bounds his view; the uncertain but always new 
wonders of the firmament, the earth, day, night, and 
the different seasons, are all mute occupiers of the 
senses, heart, and mind of the inhabitant of the 
country. His labours are rude but varied, admitting 
of a thousand different applications of the mind, a 
thousand changing attitudes of the body, and a thousand 
various employments of their strength and time. Dig- 
ging, ploughing, sowing, weeding, mowing, planting 
hedges, building walls, feeding, bringing up, taking care 
of and milking domestic animals, reaping, threshing, 
winnowing, pruning vines, gathering and squeezing 
grapes, collecting chestnuts and walnuts, drying and 
preserving them for the winter, watering the fields, 
cleaning the mill and sluices, dragging the ponds, 
yoking and unyoking oxen, shearing sheep, milking 
goats, cutting brooms or fagots for the hearth, mending 
the thatches of the roofs, plaiting rushes, combing 
hemp, feeding silk worms, and in snowy weather, 
spinning wool ; such are the numerous occupations 
which diversify the life of the agriculturist. Variety 
gives him an interest which prevents the sensation 
of fatigue, and causes him to like, and indeed often to 
feel a passionate attachment for labour. Nearly all 
these works, performed in open air and light, make a 
man healthy and cheerful, for he is not a mere machine, 
he is a rational human being. They excite his emula- 



JACQUARD. ZÙ 

tion, pride, address, strength, punctuality, and dexterity. 
He is active and assiduous, but not a slave. He is free 
to direct bis steps wherever he pleases in this vast rural 
workshop. He becomes robust, and continues healthy ; 
incessantly wrestling with the forces of nature, he 
increases his own. He has the courage and spirit of 
freedom, and is equal to anything. When he has thus 
multiplied his strength in the hard discipline of field 
labour, the musket or sabre will appear light in his 
hands, compared to the pickaxe or plough. He is ready 
to defend the country he has cultivated. An impress of 
health, vigour, freshness, liberty, and modest pride, give 
a manly expression to his features. He looks you boldly 
in the face, walks upright, speaks aloud, draws a full 
breath, and neither fears nor envies any one. Place side 
by side, the weaver of Lyons and the peasant of Auvergne 
or the Alps of the same age, and compare them together. 
You will feel proud of the one, but the other will make 
you sad when you reflect that you too belong to the 
human race, which produces at the same time such weak- 
ness and such majestic strength. 

Misery itself in the country is not like the misery of 
manufacturing towns. They may there suffer privations, 
but seldom destitution and hunger. If the son of the 
cultivator of the soil does not possess a little inheritance 
of his own to cultivate, he can easily procure a place as 
servant or day labourer with the small farmer or landed 
proprietor. As a servant he can save nearly all his 
wages ; as a day labourer he may lay by some of his 
earnings. 

Food and clothing are to be had for so little, that 
the leading necessaries of life are almost gratuities to 
the sober peasant. In a few years he is enabled to 
buy a small field, in which he builds almost without 



26 JACQUARD 1 . 

assistance his house and stable. Such is the condition 
of nearly all the families of the cultivators of the soil 
in mountainous districts. A revenue of two or three 
thousand francs from these waste lands procures shelter 
and nourishment for father, mother, and children, until 
the latter are old enough to enter into the service of the 
neighbouring farmers, to earn and save in their turn. 

Men sometimes die of starvation in great cities ; this 
is a legitimate reproach to civilization. They never die 
from such a cause in the peasant's cottage. So little 
ground is required to produce bread enough for a 
winter, maize, potatoes, chestnuts, buckwheat for the 
fowls, clover for the cows, leaves for the goats, thorns or 
dead wood for the fire, straw and stubble, that the real 
sufferings of hunger are almost unknown. When the 
cry of rural poverty arises, every door opens, and a piece 
of bread is seen in every hand ; for though the peasant 
is saving, his heart is open to assist the distress which 
presents itself before his eyes. But these extreme cases, 
which require alms, never include the active, healthy 
labourer and his family. They only occur in those 
cottages where there are no able-bodied inhabitants, or 
to some decrepit or infirm old man, some widow or 
orphans who are left alone in the deserted home made 
solitary by the death of fathers, husbands, sons, or near 
relations. This incidental indigence is seldom felt by 
more than one or two in every hundred of the popula- 
tion, and consequently the assistance that the landed 
proprietor can afford is amply sufficient. 

As for the difference between the moral and physical 
happiness of the field labourer, and that of the artizan 
of the workshop, it may be told in a word. It is that 
the one lives and dies in communication with God and 
nature, the other lives and dies in a cell. The occupation 



JACQUARD. 27 

of one brings him in contact with the earth, plants, 
living animals, trees, water, and sun. The other is 
engrossed by four pieces of wood and an interminable 
woof, between the walls of a prison which endures for 
life. One may be compared to the poor worm which 
spins its silken web and dies; the other to a being 
incorporated by thought and feeling with the entire 
creation, and which lacks nothing of the endurance, 
activity, intelligence, feelings, sentiments, and happiness 
that God has bestowed upon mankind. How then there 
can be found generation after generation who every day 
rush into these workshops of the city to increase the 
tribe of silk-weavers, and die at their looms, is beyond 
our comprehension to divine. It is the mystery of gold 
which we cannot fathom. There are invisible currents 
in cities as in the sea, which imperceptibly draw the 
inhabitants of the fields towards these fatal rocks and 
quicksands. 

The father of Jacquard was one of these country pro- 
prietors, in easy circumstances, in a village situated 
within the township of Lyons, called Couzon, where the 
excavations of a mountain on the banks of the Saône 
furnish the large blocks of solid stone, red as Egyptian 
granite, of which the public buildings in Lyons are con- 
structed. He left his small paternal domain to enter 
into the business of a silk-weaver. He failed to improve 
his fortune, and died young, as labourers in his pro- 
fession usually die, and left to his only son a couple of 
looms for his inheritance. This son was Jacquard, 
destined to immortalize his name in his native city. 

Jacquard, whose intelligence rose beyond the manual 
labour in which he had been brought up, dreamed when 
very young of two things of which all men dream when 
in the morning of life — love and fame. He loved the 



28 JACQUARD. 

daughter of a gunsmith of Lyons, his father's friend. 
The gunsmith gave him his daughter's hand, and Jac- 
quard was happy. Claudine Boichon (such was his wife's 
name) compensated by her grace, tenderness, and docility, 
for the somewhat chimerical fancies of her husband, and 
the want of a marriage portion which her father had pro- 
mised to bestow upon his daughter, and of which promise 
his failing fortune had prevented the fulfilment. This 
was of little importance to Jacquard, who sought only 
happiness in marriage, and that peace and quiet, neces- 
sary for the carrying out of those mechanical inventions 
which formed the innate vocation of his mind. He 
went to sleep at night and woke in the morning with 
some new plan in his head for simplifying or bringing 
to perfection the tools used in his own and all other 
trades. Instead of sentimental imagery, the reality of his 
poetry was filled with levers, pulleys, springs, cylinders, 
and wheels, which he placed in motion, in the revolutions 
of his thought, and caused them to accomplish all works 
hitherto performed by the hands of man. Poetry in 
artizans almost invariably takes mechanical forms. Mecha- 
nicians are the poets of matter; instead of verses and 
dramas, they regulate the evolutions of weights, counter- 
weights, and wheels ; and as the poet influences the 
actions of the soul, the mechanician regulates that of the 
body. Archimedes and Vaucanson are the Homer and 
Virgil of this poetry. Jacquard in an inferior degree 
belonged also to the same inventive family. 

Ordinarily the mechanician can do nothing without 
geometry and mathematics ; these sciences are the figures 
by which he calculates, and the terms by which he 
expresses his thoughts. But sciences, which are the 
necessary tools of vulgar minds, are the servants of 
genius. When genius finds them not ready at hand, it 



JACQUARD. 29 

passes them over, or invents others for its own use. 
A vigorous and patient imagination, the gift of nature, 
which the learned by profession affect to despise, is 
the only source of all the great inventions which have 
exercised such material influence over the entire world. 
The most valuable machines have been invented in their 
full perfection by the labouring artizan, the shepherd, 
the dreaming monk, the potter, the wool-carder, the 
sailor, the weaver, or the ignorant blacksmith, and not 
by the learned philosophers. The workshop has given 
birth to more master-pieces in practical art than the 
academy. The movement of worlds themselves, the 
science of astronomy, has been developed, overturned, 
and reconstructed, bit by bit, star by star, by the 
Chaldean shepherds. Chance and imagination are the 
parents of invention ; science is only its nurse. 

Jacquard knew nothing, and invented everything. 
Talking one day to a cutler with whom he was intimate, 
he remarked that the blade of a knife had to pass 
through the hands of three or four workmen before it 
was fitted to the handle. He stood lost in thought for 
an instant before the bench of the artizan. " What 
are you dreaming of?" demanded the cutler. " You 
shall see to-morrow," was the reply ; and the next day 
Jacquard brought to his friend's shop the complete plan 
of a machine which would accomplish by itself, in five 
minutes, that which it took four men an entire day to 
execute. The cutler, too poor to get this machine of 
Jacquard's made, contented himself with admiring and 
preserving it in his garret as a wonderful specimen of 
ingenuity. Unknown to him, his apprentices some days 
after broke it, fearing that the invention of machinery, 
by simplifying labour, might deprive millions of working 
cutlers of salary and subsistence. 



30 JACQUARD. 

A short time later, having learned that the maritime 
towns of France and England had offered a prize to the 
inventor of the most economical machine for making 
fishing nets, Jacquard thought over it for a whole day, 
on a Sunday, while he was walking alone in the fields. 
In the evening he returned with the plan arranged in 
his head, and that night constructed a model of the 
machine. The next morning he presented it to his 
employer. This enlightened merchant, M. Pernon, dis- 
suaded him from his unproductive invention, and directed 
his thoughts to the improvement of silk-looms, an object 
which, if accomplished, promised to the inventor unlimited 
fame and fortune. 

Jacquard pondered long upon the suggestion. He 
was encouraged in the exercise of his imagination, by 
a more noble motive than the hope of mere personal 
advantage, — brotherly compassion for the misery and 
sufferings of his fellow-men, women, and children, who 
dislocated their limbs and shortened their lives in fol- 
lowing this laborious handicraft. From this time he 
devoted his whole mind to the machinery of the silk- 
loom ; as it stood, a complicated torture to the numerous 
class of operatives of both sexes, who were condemned 
to labour at it. Success would not only promote industry, 
but would benefit human nature. 

The weaving of silk, reaching from the extremity of 
India to the centre of France, supplies several hundred 
millions with the means of subsistence. A small insect, 
by spinning its own tomb, has changed, nourished, paid, 
peopled, and civilized, one-third of the inhabitants of the 
earth. Never has political economy exhibited to the 
admiration of mankind a greater phenomenon of industry 
under a more insignificant form. Let us bestow a few 
minutes on the examination of this wonderful insect, that 



JACQUARD. 31 

we may better appreciate the full bearing of an in- 
vention, the use of which is continually increasing. 

The silk-worm changes its form four times during a 
short life of a few weeks' duration. The egg is hatched 
in eight days by the rays of the sun, from which, 
without doubt, it borrows its colours. It then becomes 
a caterpillar, assumes and casts three or four coats of 
different shades in less than a month, as if to adorn 
itself in the same silky and brilliant tissues which it is 
about to weave for us. After that, it becomes a work- 
man, and spins its own shroud, in which it wraps itself 
and remains concealed from every eye for twenty days, 
during which period is completed a mysterious change 
into another form ; on the twentieth day, it silently 
tears this winding sheet or cocoon ; a head appears, the 
wings follow, a butterfly soars into the air, and seeks a 
female companion that they may perpetuate the species. 
The female deposits her eggs, which resemble the seed of 
an air plant ; then male and female die at the same 
moment, to revive again together in their progeny. Man 
comes forward, takes possession of the empty tomb, 
surrounded by its white or yellow shroud, moistens it, to 
produce decomposition, unravels the substance, and 
discovers silk. 

At first, man contented himself with collecting this 
cocoon at the foot of the plant upon which the insect 
had spun it ; but soon industry, in order to multiply the 
valuable produce, took possession of the animal itself, 
studied its wants, its habits, its food, and the process of 
its labours, that by this intimate companionship the skeins 
of golden thread might be infinitely multiplied. To the 
more delicate fingers of women was committed the 
charge of handling, without destroying, these almost 
imperceptible artizans of their attire. They collected 



32 jacquard'. 

the eggs; and to communicate an equal temperature, 
covered them up in their own bosoms, so that they 
were thus hatched by natural heat. Others sheltered 
and warmed them under their pillows, and gathered 
green and tender leaves suited to their minute organs of 
mastication. After a few weeks they beheld, with de- 
light, exude from the mouths of these worms (as from 
the bee) by two orifices, a liquid and golden saliva, 
which afterwards, at the will of the insect, united and 
became a solid thread : then, when exposed to the air, 
assumed the form of a cobweb, winding like an oval 
vault around the caterpillar, serving him for nest, 
clothing, veil, shade, cover, or tomb. 

Having admired this nest, the women weigh it, as 
the lightness attests the fine tissue of the web. They 
then unravel it to ascertain the solidity. They measure it, 
and the length astonishes them by its tenuity. The silken 
thread extends, without breaking, to the length of one 
thousand feet. This is the work of a spinner scarcely 
larger than a flesh-worm. 

These women, by watchful care and multiplied atten- 
tion, overcome the difficulties which diseases, seasons, 
and climates unfavourable to their development, oppose 
to the hatching, rearing, and nourishment of these 
invaluable workmen of nature. They themselves spin 
this novel fleece, and thus silk replaces, in the use and 
admiration of men, all those coarser stuffs which hemp, 
flax, cotton, the down of plants and the fur of animals, 
had hitherto furnished as their clothing, or for articles of 
luxury. The invention of woven — coloured and brocaded 
silks — has formed an epoch in the existence of mankind. 

Europe, as usual, was the last portion of the globe to 
profit by this discovery. The East, that cradle and 
birthplace of all that is original in the ideal, in philo- 



JACQUARD. 33 

sophy, in religion, and in the fine arts, understood the nse 
of silk long before it had reached the knowledge of our 
own immediate ancestors. Seventeen hundred years 
before Christ, the Chinese had discovered the silk- worm, 
planted the mulberry, and manufactured the most won- 
derful, as well the most ordinary tissues, from the animal 
thread of this minute insect. The Persians and Indians 
received by the caravans from China these marvellous 
brocades ; but the materials of which they were com- 
posed were unknown to them ; and the walls of the 
Babylonian palaces of Chosroës were hung with 30,000 
of these rich tapestries. The Chinese — a persevering 
and enduring nation, who were acquainted with the 
most refined political economy before Europe had a 
glimmering of the effect that the smallest industry might 
produce upon the destiny of her people — comprehended 
perfectly the exclusive command which the possession of 
this insect would give them in the commerce of the 
eastern world. They concealed it as a great mystery, as 
they did later with regard to tea ; and forbade everybody, 
upon pain of death, to disclose its nature, its mode of 
propagation and labour, or to export the eggs to other 
countries. 

India and Persia were the only nations that endea- 
voured to naturalize the silk- worm. Pome, and that 
little space encircling the Mediterranean, which the 
vanity of antiquity has designated the Roman world, was 
scarcely acquainted with the name of China, and had 
only seen some small shreds of silk brought by the 
Persians or Parthians as far as Tyre. 

The Tyrian women, w r ho extracted a purple colour 
from the veins of another insect or shell fish, with which 
they dyed their avooI, beheld in stupefied astonishment 
these novel specimens. They felt a presentiment that 

VOL. II. D 



34 JACQUARD.' 

they would supersede their purple, and that the new 
insect would triumph over the old one. Notwithstand- 
ing this, urged by the curiosity natural to women, with 
regard to all that can adorn their beauty, vanity pre- 
vailed with them over interest. The fair weavers of the 
Tyrian and Sidonian purple unravelled the pieces of silk 
stuffs that the merchants of the Persian Gulf had brought 
from China. They dyed and wove them anew, and invented 
a material composed of silk and wool, with open stitches 
light as air, transparent as the waters of their sea, and 
fit for the apparel of queens. They called this stuff, 
" air tissue." 

The Chinese had preserved their secret and monopoly 
for 1,200 years. It was not until 600 years after 
the birth of our Saviour, and in the decline of Rome 
under the Emperor Justinian, who governed at Constan- 
tinople, that this monarch succeeded in wresting from 
China her peculiar treasure of industry and civilization. 
The Chinese were at that time indulgent in matters 
of religion. They permitted the introduction of new 
ideas and new gods into their empire, with as much 
philosophical tolerance as they exercised the most active 
watchfulness in interdicting the exportation of the ele- 
ments and produce of eastern manufactures. The God 
of the Christians was preached throughout China. Jus- 
tinian despatched two Persian monks there, professing 
Christianity, under the pretext of spreading the new faith. 
But their real mission had for its object, the discovery of 
the secret and material of silk, that they might introduce 
it into Europe. Commerce had begun to carry all the 
European and Asiatic gold to China, Persia, and the 
Indies. Justinian became alarmed at this impoverish- 
ment of the empire, which was threatened with ruin by 
the popularity of a simple tissue. 



JACQUARD. 35 

The two monks arrived at Pekin, and remained there 
two years, trying to discover the nature of the insect 
and the manufacture of its produce. They procured 
some of the eggs, and enclosed them in two hollow canes 
sufficiently large to contain them. In this manner, 
disguising their theft from the Chinese, they returned to 
Constantinople, and breaking their sticks in the presence 
of Justinian, deposited the eggs on the lap of the most 
beautiful and artful of women, the Empress Theodora, 
the Cleopatra of the Grecian empire ; a worthy cradle 
for an insect which was sent to weave for woman and 
divinity, the ornaments of beauty, and the decorations 
of the temples. We shall not follow this art beyond its 
infancy. Everybody knows with what rapidity it ex- 
panded throughout the world, and what masterpieces of 
tissues, brocades, richness, taste, design, colour, and 
relief, emanated from Persia, Syria, Italy, and Lyons. 
The weavers of silk became lapidaries ; their works 
produced as great a price as precious stones. 

Afterwards, this manufacture attained its apogee, low 
prices; and the use of silk descended from empresses 
and queens, to men and women of the humblest classes. 
At the present time, it furnishes the clothing and food of 
almost innumerable populations. The mulberry is culti- 
vated for the nourishment of these insects over one-third 
of the globe. 

Four hundred millions of men in China, five hundred 
millions in Thibet, Tartary, and India, forty millions 
in Africa, thirty in Asia Minor, twenty round the Black 
Sea and in the Turkish Empire ; other millions in the 
islands of the Archipelago, in Greece, in the Caucasus, 
on the shores of the Adriatic; twenty-six millions in 
Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, and Savoy; eight millions in 
France, Toulon, and Lyons, are occupied in planting 

d 2 



36 JACQUARD. ' 

the mulberry, in rearing the silk-worm, in procuring, 
manufacturing, completing, and disposing of the silk. 
It is by billions that we must compute the different 
workmen engaged in this agricultural or industrial 
pursuit. Corn itself covers less space upon the earth 
than that which is shadowed by the mulberry-tree. 

Lyons is the capital of the silk-worm in Trance, and 
we may even say in Europe. The people, plodding, 
sedentary, and laborious, as the insect whose work it 
completes, send forth in tissue that which the silk-worm 
spins in cocoons. The one scarcely provides sufficient 
labour for the other. Within the memory of man, Lyons 
has had no rival in Europe in the beauty of its manu- 
factures. Its weavers, patient and economical, have 
gained, and maintain by the superiority of their work- 
manship, and low prices, the best market in the world. 
Labour was not slow in calling mechanical genius to its 
aid. Nature formed this genius to its wish in Vau- 
canson, born at Grenoble at the commencement of the 
eighteenth century. Vaucanson was the Archimedes of 
Erance. He would have equalled the artificer of Sicily, 
if the invention of gunpowder in China had not substi- 
tuted a chemical for the mechanical force hitherto used 
in war, and which has given to man the illimitable power 
of the volcano. Even the first childish sports of Vaucan- 
son were extraordinary : his imagination disdained to 
imitate ought but his Creator. His automaton duck, 
which swam, walked, paddled, flew, eat, and digested ; 
his mechanical wrestler, his flute-player, and above all, 
his chess-player, were organized with all the muscles 
and movements of nature ; they only wanted souls to 
become animated beings. Europe was astounded at the 
miracle, and remains so still, even after the lapse of more 
than a century. 



JACQUARD. 37 

The government sent Vaucanson to Lyons, to exert his 
incomparable talent in the improvement of the loom. He 
was appointed inspector of the silk manufactories. In 
reality, his genius was above his task. Having heard 
the resident manufacturers complaining of the difficulty 
of finding workmen who could at once weave and shade 
the stuffs, he smiled, and invented a machine, set in 
motion by an ass, which wove, brocaded, and coloured 
at the same time, as perfectly as the most intelligent 
workman. He provided the silk-looms with every move- 
ment and action of the human hand. All that the manu- 
facturer at that time demanded, he bestowed without 
limit. He died, leaving behind him as a legacy to this 
industrious class, the looms which bear his name, and 
which hands, less gifted than his, had only to keep in 
repair, to supply them with the improvements which an 
increasing demand required. Glory is the only heritage 
of true genius such as that of Vaucanson. We must 
not by plagiary deprive him of it. 

The art of silk weaving had arrived at this point 
when the youug Jacquard conceived the idea of bringing 
it to perfection, and above all of economising, by sparing 
many of the hands which prepare the silk, and in adding 
several ingenious wheels, which dispensed with the labour 
of children, at the looms of Vaucanson. The enthusiasm, 
of his imagination, his experiments, dreams, and perpe- 
tual tension of mind, in order to simplify the machinery ; 
the rash undertakings which made him abandon labour 
of body for exhaustion of the mind, ruined in a short 
time his small fortune. His rivals laughed at him, his 
friends blamed him, his wife alone understood and con- 
soled him. They had a son, for whom she prophesied 
the fortune and fame of his father. She thought that 
the sacrifice of her whole life to assist the studies of her 



38 JACQUARD.' 

husband, would sooner or later be repaid with certain 
and immeasurable interest. 

Without a murmur, she sold their two looms, her 
trinkets, and even her bed, to defray the expense of the 
experiments, and pay the debts of the poor artizan. At 
length, when the household were without bread, Jacquard 
was compelled with tears to quit his young wife and 
infant in the cradle, and engage himself as a labourer to 
a lime-burner of Bugey. His wife worked in a manu- 
factory of straw bonnets, and the same fingers that had 
been engaged in weaving gold and silk into flowers at 
the looms of her husband, which were sold by auction, 
were now occupied in plaiting stalks of rice or straw, 
while at the same time she had to nurse her child. 

We lose sight of them for a long time in this abyss of 
misery. We again find them seventeen years later, when 
Lyons was besieged by the army of the Convention. 

Lyons, like all commercial towns, is one in which 
republican opinions prevail. The fluctuations of fortune, 
subversive of the aristocracy, the feeling of equality 
which admits of no superiority but that of labour and 
success, the hatred of luxury although they live by it ; 
austerity of life maintained for the sake of economy as 
much as virtue, the esteem in which personal exertion, 
that glory and pride of the citizens, is held ; the distance 
from courts, the rivalry with Paris; all these causes conduce 
to render Lyons revolutionary and democratic. But revo- 
lutions are sacrifices which the present makes to the future, 
and compel those who cause them to the immediate exer- 
cise of great disinterestedness. The poor and lonely are 
alone capable of those utter changes in institutions and 
ideas, which courageously overturn the old order of things, 
that new principles may rise from their ashes. The rich 
and exalted soon tire of this game, which when not terrible 



JACQUARD. 39 

is always ruinous. They start up for a moment at the cry 
of reform, which awakes them ; they make a few efforts, 
and return quickly to their slumber in the bed of the 
past, recoiling in terror before the important conse- 
quences of their own work. 

This usual effect of revolutions upon selfish and worn- 
out communities, is still more prompt when these are 
furious, sanguinary, and disorganized ; requiring at the 
sword's point, soldiers from the people, plunder from 
the rich, and victims from every opposing party. 

Such was the National Convention. Lyons, more 
anxious for the preservation of property than life, rose 
not. against the republic, but against plunderers and 
executioners. The republican army had sworn to 
destroy this hotbed of egotism, moderatism, and not 
long after, of royalism. Loyalty, as it refused to submit 
to the tyranny of the "public safety" — gentlemen, priests, 
manufacturers, workmen — all took up arms and fought 
heroically; some for their altars, others for their king, 
some for their possessions, some for their local profes- 
sions, and all for their country. The struggle was 
sublime but short ; Lyons was forced to submit to 
France. The vengeance, informations, and political 
murders, of the military and civil proconsuls of the 
Convention, inundated the devoted city with blood. 

Jacquard, who had returned to Lyons to defend his 
invaded hearth, and had fought on the side of the 
citizens, concealed himself after the capitulation, in the 
straw workshop of his wife. His son, then sixteen 
years old, enlisted in one of the republican regiments 
recruiting in the conquered town, in order to march 
against the foreign enemy on the frontiers. The young 
man demanded two enlistments of volunteers in place of 
one, and gave the second to his father. Father and son 



40 JACQUARD., 

having changed their cause, left the city together, and 
marched towards the Rhine, in company with the repub- 
licans against whom they had fought upon the Rhône. 
In one of the first combats on the banks of the river, a 
cannon-ball struck the son by the father's side. Jac- 
quard, covered with the blood of his only child, buried 
him in the field of battle, languished for some time 
between grief and exhaustion, in the hospitals, obtained 
his discharge, and finally returned to his native place 
which had been decimated by the conquerors. 

He was ignorant in what asylum his wife had taken 
refuge; he at last discovered her in a hay-loft in the 
suburbs, where to gain a miserable livelihood she spread 
out the linen of the laundresses to dry. She divided this 
hard-earned bread with her husband. They wept together 
over the loss of their child, their youth, their fortune, and 
their hopes. The poor woman died of grief, still with 
her last breath encouraging her husband to trust to Pro- 
vidence and his genius. 

Jacquard, plunged in grief and solitude, applied him- 
self once more to his inventions. He worked by day as 
a task-labourer with a master manufacturer; at night 
he carved with his knive the bobbins and pullies of his 
machine. Aided by M. Pernon, his patron, he finished 
it at last in 1800, and the model was placed in the 
Industrial Exhibition. The jury accorded him the 
bronze medal, " for a machine," said they, " which 
abolished one workman in the number employed in the 
manufacture of brocaded silks." 

Jacquard, happy at being distinguished by this medal, 
which would procure him fame and fortune, hastened to 
take out a patent of invention — the right of title which 
should assure to him the exclusive advantage of his own 
discovery. This machine, although not yet generally 



JACQUARD. 41 

adopted by the manufacturers, gave hi in a degree of 
attention and importance in the city. Carnot, Minister 
of the Interior, to occupy the leisure of the deputies from 
Milan, who were waiting the arrival of the first consul 
at Lyons, conducted them to the workshop of the silk- 
weaver, the inventor of the new loom. Jacquard, 
although he had soon become familiarized to his fame, 
was elated at this visit of the representatives of two 
nations to the workshop of the poor silk-weaver. He 
remembered the king picking up the painter's brush ; he 
enlarged his plan, then only roughly sketched, in pro- 
portion as the public attention was directed towards it. 
He had done aw T ay with one workman at the loom ; he now 
proposed to supply the place of many. The ambition of 
genius is insatiable, like every other ambition; and when it 
has surpassed all other rivals, seeks a competitor in itself. 
Jacquard, in his elation, did not perhaps sufficiently 
reflect that he was working against the interest of his 
fellow-labourers ; that in supplying the place of so many 
men he deprived them of their subsistence, and that the 
lives of millions would be the price of his invention. On 
the contrary, he thought that he should be a benefactor 
to the innumerable hosts of men, women, and children, 
chained to the old looms, forced to bend in constrained 
positions, which induced physical deformities ; and that by 
taking away the shuttle, he should remove their instrument 
of torture. Thus genius is ever prone to imagine that 
it is prompted by motives of humanity. To consecrate his 
discovery, he performed a religious ceremony which 
lasted nine days ; a votive prayer to the image of the 
holy Virgin, which stood on a hill of Lyons, called Notre 
Dame de lourvières. Nine times he ascended the steps 
of this sacred eminence ; and upon his return he again 
shut himself up before a model of Vaucanson's machine, 



42 JACQUARD. 

which contained the germ developed in his own. He 
then made an important alteration, by means of which 
the silk thread took its own place in the tissue without 
the aid of the weaver, and he thus discarded a whole 
category of workmen who were called silk drawers. He 
also invented a method by which the weaver would be 
aware himself of the colour of the shuttle he was about 
to throw, and so did away with another class of female 
operatives, named the pattern readers. 

Three workmen and two workwomen less at every 
frame, in a town which then contained 20,000, and 
now numbers no less than 60,000 weavers in silk, was a 
diminution of labour calculated to deprive millions of 
his class, of bread and life. 

JacquuiJ succeeded. He presented his model to the 
authorities, who forwarded it to Paris, that the Emperor 
might examine it, and reward in this man the promoter 
of the national manufacture, who by lowering the price 
of handicraft in France, would lessen foreign competition 
and increase the general demand. The Emperor, who 
was far-sighted — beholding collectively and perspectively 
the results of this invention, without considering the 
present deprivations that it would cause — in talking with 
the inventor, discovered a hidden genius under his appa- 
rent rusticity, and installed Jacquard in the conservatory 
of arts and trades, that he might there at leisure con- 
struct his machine. When finished, Jacquard, with his 
own hands, and by himself, wove a magnificent brocaded 
silk dress, which he presented to the Empress Josephine. 
The government granted him a pension of a thousand 
crowns, upon condition that he should reserve the benefit 
of his looms exclusively for his own country. 

Jacquard returned to Lyons, to give publicity to his 
invention, reserving to himself the privileges belonging 



jacquard. 43 

to the discoverer. He proposed to the manufacturers an 
easy method of enriching themselves, by adopting a loom 
which could be worked by fewer hands, and would ma- 
terially diminish their weekly pay-list. In a short time 
the instinct of gain triumphed over old habits — those 
hereditary enemies to all new inventions. The looms 
to which Jacquard gave his name, were soon adopted 
throughout the city, and each new one that appeared, 
turned men, women, children, and whole families, without 
bread, into the streets. They began to see that this 
machine, though incalculably advantageous for the mas- 
ter manufacturer, was death to the operative artizan. 
The name of Jacquard, at first lauded to the skies, was 
now associated with the murmurs and maledictions of 
the people. They formed themselves into groups, that 
they might break the machines and sacrifice to their 
resentment the unwelcome innovator whose genius had 
caused their ruin. 

"Behold the traitor!" cried bands of unemployed 
men, women, and children, attenuated by misery, who 
were collected in the streets ; " the traitor who mingled 
with us that he might learn the secret of our trade, and 
so deprive us of our bread. He sells the poor to the 
rich ; they reward him for what brings death to us ; they 
pay him the price of our blood ! What does he wish us 
to do ? — we who, from our cradles, have been taught no 
other trade than that which he now destroys before our 
eyes. Let him provide for our wives and children, now 
driven as mendicants from door to door; or let him, the 
destroyer of the people's labour, share in the death which 
he has prepared for us." 

These murmurs, this mob, these imprecations, unjust 
with regard to the future, but just when uttered by those 
who were dying of hunger, caused the luckless mecha- 



44 JACQUARD. 

nician to tremble and conceal himself. Recognised, one 
day, and surrounded upon the quay of the Rhône, by 
a crowd of starving workmen, he was hooted at, knocked 
clown, and dragged in the mud to the banks of the 
river, where they were about to throw him in, when the 
police rescued him, torn and bleeding, from the hands of 
these infatuated people. He left the city in consternation, 
and took refuge in the country until the storm should 
have blown over, and labour, which, after such an 
outburst is always suspended, had been resumed. The 
rapidly increasing number of the looms, soon gave occu- 
pation to those workmen who had been discharged at 
first as superfluous : in the meantime, some died, others 
emigrated, and their successors profited by the change — 
the usual effect of a revolution in ideas as in trade. 

Jacquard retired from the world where he had involun- 
tarily caused such a void and created such a stir ; grew 
old in repose, silence, and reputation, and perhaps also 
in grief at the first results of his ingenious discovery. 

He had purchased a small house and garden in the 
village of Oullins, near Lyons, on the banks of the Rhône 
and facing the Alps. He could distinctly hear, when the 
wind blew from the north, the sound of the innumerable 
silk-looms to which he had given form, motion, and life. 
They were to him like children, and he delighted in this 
dull sound from a city which owed to him her pre- 
eminence over all the other manufacturing towns of 
Europe. A faithful and disinterested servant, that 
blessing of the old, watched over him. She was a former 
friend of his wife's, named Toinette. Madame Jacquard, 
on her death-bed, had confided her husband to this 
servant as an infant who required leading-strings until 
the hour of his own decease, as he always looked beyonc 
his steps, and injured himself against every obstacle. 



JACQUARD. 45 

Toinette sniothed his path, and relieved him from all 
domestic cares. Jacquard had nothing to occupy him 
but his own thoughts, old like himself, and ever the 
same. He was continually devising improvements in 
his machinery. He knew not that Tasso, in trying to 
remodel his masterpiece, had disfigured it, and that when 
the fruit, more or less perfect, has fallen from the tree, 
the tree which bore can no longer supply it with sap. 

His recreation consisted in cultivating his garden. 
The house which he inhabited at Oullins was that in 
which the poet Thomas, the friend of Ducis, had lived for 
several months before his death, when he came to seek 
upon this hill near the Rhône, facing the rising sun, a 
milder air and a more serene sky than he could find in 
Paris. Thomas had composed his last verses in the same 
alleys where Jacquard pondered over his last mechanical 
inventions. They were types of two different cen- 
turies, although they lived within a few years of each 
other. One sought new ideas, the other new inventions 
in industry. One dreamt of glory, the other of gold. 
Fame and fortune deceived them both, but both had in 
common a more exalted feeling than the love of lucre or 
renown — that of religion, which sanctified their lives and 
sweetened their deaths. Their devotion differed only 
like their natures. Tn the poet and philosopher Thomas, 
it was the worship of Plato ; universal love, listening to 
the language of the spheres, and reading the infinite 
and omnipotent Name, inscribed on every wheel formed 
by the great contriver of the celestial machine. The 
religion of Jacquard was that of the Christian, repeating 
with simple faith the creed taught him by his mother, and 
recognising a divine Providence in the formation of those 
fingers which enabled the poor workman to weave the 
thread of an insect, and thus obtain his daily bread. 



46 JACQUARD. 

He might be seen every morning attending early mass 
in the small church of his village. On leaving it he 
distributed pieces of copper money, his small superfluity, 
amongst the poorer children. The villagers and prome- 
naders from Lyons on Sundays, looked on and pointed 
out this old man as he sat behind his garden wall. 
They respected him as a great genius superior to them- 
selves, who had received from heaven one of those 
mighty inspirations which change the face of the earth — 
inspirations which consecrate the organ through which 
God manifests himself to mortals by a discovery or an 
idea. 

The travellers, manufacturers, and learned men, who 
visited the city from time to time, knocked at the door 
of the celebrated inventor, that they might converse with 
him. They departed astonished at the extreme simplicity 
and confined intellect of this strange individual, who in 
eighty years had only possessed a single notion. Those 
who saw his machinery, saw Jacquard. He was incor- 
porated with it, his conversation with his visitors always 
turned upon the same subject ; he was a sort of superior 
automaton, endowed with only one action of the mind, 
which he exercised incessantly whenever the spring was 
touched. 

Jacquard lived thus until his eighty-second year, and 
died in the consciousness of his acquired fame. As 
soon as he expired, the gratitude of the commerce he 
had enriched, raised a statue to his memory in a public 
place in his native city. It is better to serve a trade 
than a nation, and individual interest in preference to an 
abstract idea, if you desire to enjoy a speedy immor- 
tality. How many philosophers still want the statue of 
the artizan ! " 

The sculptor has faithfully represented Jacquard. We 



JACQUARD. 47 

saw hiiii ourselves in his old age, and can therefore 
compare the marble with the man. 

He was tall, but bow r ed in form, from long manual 
labour and fatigue of mind. He had abandoned the 
workman's dress, and wore a long cloth tunic, which 
hung in folds on his person, and the lengthened skirt 
descending to his heels, appeared to show, by the pro- 
digality of material, the easy circumstances of the retired 
workman. His head inclined towards one shoulder, 
and was usually depressed in walking, but he raised his 
eyes with a secret modest satisfaction to those Avho 
saluted him in passing. His forehead was w r ide, his 
eyes large, his mouth thick and declining at the corners, 
his cheeks hollow^, and his complexion sallow, like that 
of the workman who lives always in the shade. A sad 
and thoughtful languor was the prevailing expression of 
his countenance, whether it proceeded from the struggles 
of his mind, the ineffaceable impress of the first mis- 
fortunes of his life, or the wounded self-pride of the 
inventor who triumphed late, and when his glory was 
confounded with his tomb. Nevertheless, a visible con- 
sciousness of his own merit shone through this melan- 
choly and sombre cast of countenance. He delighted 
in being noticed, and was flattered by the homage and 
caresses of the rich manufacturers who had been his 
masters, and whose superior he had now become. He 
looked upon his certificates as patents of nobility. His 
bronze medal accorded by the Exhibition, his patents of 
invention, his correspondence with the ministers, were 
always kept before him ; and he gloried in wearing over 
his coat the large red ribbon and cross of unusual 
dimensions which distinguished him from the crowd. 
The distinctive pride of the old man was thus displayed 
in wearing this insignia, which recalled the services he 



48 JACQUARD. 

had rendered to himself and others — a little vanity 
founded upon fame, but natural in one of obscure 
station, who finds himself suddenly an object of general 
notice, and becomes dazzled by his own celebrity. But 
innate rectitude, Christian humility, and grief, tempered 
the pride of Jacquard, and his self-satisfaction neither 
offended nor injured any one. Because he was so often 
told that he was a great man, he believed it ; but he was 
simply a great mechanic. He complained sometimes of 
ingratitude. His machine appeared to him to be a monu- 
ment of fame ; it was only a service done to his country, 
a service recompensed by an easy competence, honour, 
respect, repose, and a statue in perspective. Such were 
the rewards of a reputation that Jacquard had carried 
off from Vaucanson, and which will remain attached to 
his name until another shall have invented a more perfect 
and economical process, which will in turn supersede 
his and assume its place. Thus the world progresses. 
" Sibi lampada tradunt" according to the old Roman 
poet Lucretius.* 

This service, although actually real and valuable, was 
bitterly condemned by those masses of workpeople from 
whom, without their own consent, it had wrested their 
daily bread. The invention of machines is a momentous 
question. The inventor who will become a future bene- 
factor is a present enemy. Undoubtedly he who enriches 
the human race w T ith new x power, a new idea, or a new 
machine, doubles the influence of the arts, of industry, 
and trade, multiplies labour, produces consumption, 
wealth, and population, and deserves well at the hands 

* While writing these lines, we read in the Italian journals that 
a Milanese, named Bonelli, has just constructed a machine worked by 
electricity, which weaves the silk itself, and entirely supersedes the 
invention of Jacquard. 



JACQUARD. 49 

of his fellow-creatures. Inventors are the revealers of 
matter — they deserve, and often receive, homage almost 
amounting to worship. 

But the instant they send forth their. new discovery 
into the world, they deprive, without wishing it, the 
human hands of work who were employed in vast num- 
bers in making that which they now cause inanimate 
wheels to perform. What can become of these hands ? 
They wither over the implements of their trade, hence- 
forth useless, and abolished for ever. He who invented 
the first machine for spinning wool or cotton caused 
more deaths than an epidemic. The distaff afforded 
subsistence for more than half the human race ; the 
women spun in the fields from their cradles to then- 
graves. Their moderate but continuous earnings 
clothed, nourished, and consoled, above all others, the 
aged mothers of families. The mechanist has reduced 
them to the condition of burdens on their poor relations, 
while he has saddened and shortened their lives. Their 
sedentary occupation and supererogatory bread are at an 
end, and they have nothing left but to die. It may be 
said, new modes of gaining a livelihood will open to them ; 
but in the meantime existing generations suffer, groan, and 
perish, while execrating the baneful genius of invention. 
Has not the divine human machine a right to be pro- 
tected, and also the privilege of complaint, when injured 
to destruction? 

The inventors of industrial machinery, like the dis- 
coverers of religious, moral, or political truth, are the 
great revolutionists of matter. All reforms overturn 
received opinions or interests, and destroy violently 
something that has been, to replace it with something 
that is to be. The future only progresses by trampling 
under foot the past. Thus reformers of every class, 

VOL. II. e 



50 JACQUARD,. 

although benefactors to succeeding ages, are cursed by 
contemporaneous generations. Sad and fatal condition 
of poor humanity — stupid if it does not advance, and 
cruel if it does ! It appears as if God had only left a 
choice between the two calamities of this deplorable 
dilemma — either to rest for ever stationary, and allow 
existing evils to remain, or to endure perpetual revolutions 
that good may ensue ! 

We are mistaken. The force of public reason, and the 
power of the great modern states, have placed in the 
hands of the people and the governments, a means of 
reconciling, without injury to any, the interests of all 
who benefit by moral and industrial progress, as well as 
the wordly advantage of those who are displaced by a new 
idea or a recent invention. This process consists in the 
gradual and equitable management of changes and 
transitions ; in the influence used over the people to 
convince them that these mutations are in the cause of 
truth, or for the public good; in circumspection in its 
progress, and in a national indemnity which defrays all 
the expenses of the overthrown system and remunerates 
personal loss. Thus when truth and justice have 
declared that " the French law abolishes slavery, and 
man shall no longer look upon any of God's creatures as 
belonging to himself," we have valued at the utmost, the 
marketable price of our 300,000 slaves in the colonies, 
and have said to the colonial proprietors, " Take your 
money, and surrender up our brethren." 



JOAN OF ARC. 



Patriotism is to nations what the love of life is to 
individuals, for a country is the life of a nation. The 
love of country has produced in all times, and in all ages, 
wonderful inspirations, wonderful acts of devotion and 
heroism. And how should it be otherwise? Actions 
are proportioned to the impulses which produce them. 
The love of a citizen for his country is the result of 
the personal as well as the disinterested passions with 
which God has imbued the human heart ; self-love, and 
the defence of that inviolable right, which every man 
born into this world possesses, of occupying his place 
beneath the sun ; affection for his family, which is only 
a diminished image of the country, brought home to 
the heart of its sons ; love of father, mother, ancestry, 
indeed of all those to whom we owe our birth, language, 
education, or the material and spiritual inheritance pre- 
pared for those who come to take their place amongst 
us or after us ; or love of the wives whose weakness our 
strength should protect, — love of our children, in whom 
we live again by the perpetuation of our lineage, and to 
whom it is our duty to leave, even at the sacrifice of our 
lives, the name, the soil, the independence, and the honour 

e 2 



52 



JOAN OF ARC. 



of our nation, which constitute the dignity of our race, — 
the love of property, the preserving instinct of our species, 
which annexes to each man a portion of that earth of 
which he was formed, — love for the sky, the air, the 
mountains, the scenes, the climate, whether mild or 
severe, under which we were born, and which have be- 
come by habit a portion of ourselves, a delightful neces- 
sity to our souls, our eyes, and our feelings, — love for the 
manners, the language, the laws, the government in 
which we have grown up from the cradle, and which we 
should wish to be able to modify freely by our own 
intelligence and by the expression of our national will, 
but which we must not yield to the sword of the 
stranger ; for civilization itself, when forced upon us, is 
but slavery, and the first condition for the acquiescence 
of a nation in social progress, is the liberty of refusing it. 

Calling to mind- all these instincts or passions, of 
which the love of country is composed, and adding to 
them another passion natural to man — the desire for 
his memory to remain upon earth, that he may not be 
forgotten by his contemporaries and his descendants 
— the desire for that posthumous honour which inspires 
and forms the glorious, though distant, reward of 
great sacrifices, of patriotic devotion, even unto death 
— we can perceive, that amongst all the nobler passions 
of man, patriotism is the most powerful, because it em- 
braces all others ; and that if we look into history with 
the expectation of finding a record of almost superhuman 
achievements performed by man, it is from patriotism 
that we must expect them to arise. 

Whenever such a feeling rises to enthusiasm in a 
nation, the women experience it to an equal, and even 
to a greater degree, than the men. The country is not 
more peculiarly theirs than ours ; but as they are by 



JOAN OF ARC. 53 

nature more impassioned, more sensitive, and more loving, 
they identify themselves more strongly, by all their senti- 
ments, and with their entire hearts, with what surrounds 
them. The fond and delightful idea of their country 
consists, in their minds, of their mothers, sisters, brothers, 
their husbands and children, their firesides, their tombs, 
their temples, and their Gods ; and they attach themselves 
to this conception, as the weak to the strong. When 
their support fails, they perish with it. 

Then, too — our fathers knew it — woman, though in- 
ferior to us in mind, is superior in her soul. The 
Gauls attributed to her an additional feeling — the divine 
feeling. They were right. Nature has given her two 
painful but heavenly gifts, which distinguish her from 
the condition of men, and often raise her above it — pity 
and enthusiasm. Through pity she sacrifices herself — en- 
thusiasm ennobles her. Self-sacrifice and enthusiasm ! — 
what else is there in heroism ? Women have more heart 
and imagination than men. Enthusiasm arises from the 
imagination — self-sacrifice springs from the heart. They 
are therefore by nature more heroic than heroes. And 
when this heroism becomes supernatural, it is from 
woman that the wonder must be expected. Men would 
stop at valour. 

All nations have in their annals some of those miracles 
of patriotism, in which a woman is the instrument in the 
hand of God. When everything is desperate in the 
cause of a people, we need not yet despair, if the spirit 
of resistance still subsists in the heart of a woman, 
whether she be a Judith, a Clelia, or a Joan of Arc — a 
Cava in Spain, a Victoria Colonna in Italy — in our days 
a Charlotte Corday. God forbid that I should compare 
with each other those whom I have named. Judith and 
Charlotte Corday sacrificed themselves, but they sacri- 



54 JOAN OF ARC. 

ficed themselves even unto crime. Their inspiration 
was heroic, but it made a wrong choice of weapons — it 
took the knife of the assassin in place of the sword 
of the hero. Their devotion became celebrated ; but it 
bore a stain, and was therefore justly blamed. Joan of 
Arc wielded only the sword of her country, and in her 
time, accordingly, she was regarded not only as inspired 
with patriotism, but as the prophetess of God. 

These inspirations, which popular credulity converts 
into miracles, are they indeed supernatural ? Are they 
really divine calls summoning young girls from out of 
the crowd by name, to give them the mission of saving 
their country ? Or are they simply natural phenomena, 
the voices of internal whisperings — the concentrated 
recoil and reaction of a whole nation condensing its suf- 
ferings into the heart of one, compressing its universal 
wail into the shriek of a woman, and thus marvellously 
accomplishing by a single hand the salvation of all ? 

The serious historian never even raises this question 
and these doubts. If he reproves the scoff — that sin 
against admiration with which a great man has profaned 
his genius while endeavouring to profane this unfortunate 
martyr to her country — he does not introduce into 
history the puerilities of a popular legend. The miracle 
of the heroism is greater than that of the fable. The 
historian does not discuss, he merely relates it. Criti- 
cism falls before the pure sincerity of a child. Enthu- 
siasm is a holy fire — its flame cannot be analysed, for it 
dazzles while it burns. 

Such is the spirit in which we shall relate this history 
■ — a history more resembling a tale from the Bible than 
an episode of the modern world. 

It was in the year 1429, and France was crumbling to 
pieces before it had become coherent. This great monarchy. 



JOAN OF ARC. 55 

then little else than a confused federation of independent 
vassals, frequently bidding defiance to the Crown, had 
fallen into anarchy and ruin. With the loss of its unity, 
it would soon have lost its independence. Providence had 
afflicted it with two scourges — a wicked queen and an 
insane king — an interregnum and a regency. An inter- 
regnum in a monarchy is a disappearance of authority — 
a regency is a government of weakness. Either of these 
conditions would of itself suffice to ruin a kingdom. Any 
government is preferable to a government without a head, 
and which ambitious factions are fighting or intriguing to 
lead. 

Charles the Sixth was the nominal king. Seized With 
madness from the fright he received on risking his life at 
a party of pleasure in which he and his boon companions 
had covered themselves with tow and rosin to imitate 
beasts, and in which he had seen four of his courtiers 
burnt to death, he lived in a state of idiocy, with fits of 
furious insanity alternating with intervals of depression, 
in which he became completely childish. He had married 
Isabel of Bavaria, The young Queen, endowed by nature 
with the beauty of a Poppasa or a Theodora, courtezans 
raised to royalty by vice, shared also their frivolity, per- 
verseness, and ambition. 

This young princess was hardly seated on the throne 
before she perceived in her husband the childishness 
which was soon to pass into lunacy. The corrupt 
manners of the time and of the court threw her into a 
whirl of the most unlicensed pleasure ; and she gave way 
to a culpable, though politically prudent, attachment for 
the young Duke of Orleans, brother of the King. This 
prince, better qualified by his courage for the throne, 
and by his manners for winning the heart of a woman, 
than his brother, had shared her attachment both from 



56 JOAN OF ARC. 

inclination and from ambition. A nocturnal debauch 
after a masquerade gave them the criminal opportunity. 
Erom that fatal hour, the Duke of Orleans and the 
Queen, united by affection, by crime, and by interest, 
governed the nation. The great vassals, the uncles of 
the King, and the Dukes of Burgundy, Anjou, and 
Brittany, jealous of the authority which deprived them 
of the management of the kingdom, had drawn over to 
their side the king's son, who was still a child. In those 
ferocious times, in which the murders remind one of 
ancient Rome, and the conspiracies of modern Italy, all 
intrigues ended in assassination. The Duke of Orleans, 
called out one night under some false pretence, was 
dragged from his horse as he was leaving the Queen's 
palace, and received thirteen stabs from a party of twenty 
unknown men, who left his bloody corpse in the street 
at the door of Lis mansion. Public report accused the 
Duke of Burgundy of committing the crime, the young 
Dauphin of acquiescing in it, and his partisans of being 
accomplices. The Queen, who lost at once her lover 
and her principal support, swore to wash away her tears 
with the blood of the murderer. She leagued with the 
Constable D'Armagnac, father-in-law of the murdered 
Duke, against the Duke of Burgundy. The Armagnacs, 
a bloodthirsty family, by turns proscribed and murdered, 
and by turns suffered from proscription and assassi- 
nation. Serving, and at the same time managing, the 
Queen, their instrument and their victim, they took 
alarm at the increasing power of a new favourite, the 
young Boisbourdon. They murdered him at the feet of 
the Queen, that they might reign alone in her name. 

In despair at his death, rendered furious by her 
crimes, and feeling the humiliation attending her sub- 
jection, Isabel sacrificed her resentment for the past to 



JOAN OF ARC. 57 

her present hatred. She conspired with the Duke of 
Burgundy to bring about the overthrow and death of the 
Armagnacs, and sold him at the same time their blood 
and her affection, in return for the revenge she expected 
him to accomplish. In pursuance of this intrigue, he 
returned to Paris, murdered the Armagnacs, satisfied 
and controlled the Queen, assumed the guardianship of 
the King, and carried on the war in the provinces against 
the remnant of the opposite faction, which was joined by 
the English. The Trench, thus split into parties, were 
routed at the battle of Agin court, which gave up the 
country to the King of England, over the bodies of the 
Erench nobility. Seven princes of the blood royal were 
buried on the field of battle. The eldest son of the King 
died of grief; his brother from poison administered by 
the enemies of the Burgundians. The third son, now 
Dauphin, afterwards Charles the Seventh, was brought 
up amidst this alternate luxury and proscription, which 
reminds us of Rome by its bloodiness, and of Gaul by 
its frivolity. He tried to govern by means of the 
Armagnacs. He pretended to be tired of war and 
anxious for peace. He with difficulty persuaded the 
Duke of Burgundy to grant him an interview, preceded 
by a general reconciliation of the princes and the 
factions, on the bridge of Montereau. The duke, 
always pursued by the shade of his victim, the Duke of 
Orleans, hesitated, dreading deceit in his triumph. He 
was, however, overpersuaded ; and, on entering the place 
of conference, was at once struck down by the axe of 
Tanneguy du Châtel. A cry of horror rose throughout 
Erance, and especially from Paris, which had been sold 
to the Burgundians. The Dauphin was accused of the 
crime, but wrongfully ; for it was the Armagnacs alone 
who had done it, to prevent the reconciliation of the two 



58 JOAN OF ARC. 

princes. Isabel, who accused her son, was rescued 
by the Burgundians from the captivity in which the 
Armagnacs kept her at Tours. The Burgundians and 
the Queen joined the English, who were already masters 
of half the kingdom. She returned with them to Paris, 
over the bodies of 2,000 Parisians slain in revenge 
for Montereau. She gave her daughter to Henry the 
Fifth of England. The Parisians, blinded by the popu- 
larity of the new Duke of Burgundy, proclaimed, at his 
instigation, the King of England, Regent during the life 
of Charles the Sixth, and King of Prance after the mad- 
man's death. 

The Dauphin, proscribed by his uncles and his 
mother, wandered from province to province, declared 
guilty of a crime of which he was innocent. The King 
of England came to take possession of the Regency in 
Paris. France divided — two kings, two regencies, two 
armies, two governments, two nations, two nobilities, 
two systems of justice — met face to face : father, son, 
mother, uncles, nephews, citizens, and strangers, fought 
for the right, the soil, the throne, the cities, the spoil, 
and the blood of the nation. The King of England died 
at Vincennes, and was shortly followed by Charles the 
Sixth, father of the twelve children of Isabel, leaving the 
kingdom to the stranger and to ruin. The Duke of 
Bedford insolently took possession of the Regency in the 
name of England, pursued the handful of nobles who 
wished to remain French with the Dauphin, defeated them 
at the battle of Verneuil, and exiled the Queen, who had 
become a burden to the Government after having been 
an instrument of usurpation. He then concentrated the 
armies of England, France, and Burgundy round Orleans, 
which was defended by some thousands of the partisans 
of the Dauphin, and which comprised almost all that 



JOAN OF ARC. 59 

remained of the kingdom of France. The land was 
everywhere ravaged by the passing and repassing of 
these bands — sometimes friends, sometimes enemies — 
driving each other on, wave after wave, like the billows 
of the Atlantic; ravaging crops, burning towns, dis- 
persing, robbing, and ill-treating the population. In 
this disorganization of the country, the young Dauphin, 
sometimes awakened by the complaints of his people, at 
others absorbed in the pleasures natural to his age, 
was making love to Agnes Sorel in the castle of Loches. 
This mistress of a young king without a kingdom, 
blushed both for herself and for him, at happiness with- 
out glory. Having introduced, one night, a diviner 
into the castle to consult fortune in the presence of the 
Dauphin about her destiny — the diviner, in order to 
flatter her love or her ambition, foretold that she would 
one day be the bride of the greatest of the kings of the 
earth. "If that be the case," said she, rising and 
addressing the Dauphin, " I must leave this place, and 
go at once and marry the King of England, for, with the 
indolence that retains you here, I see you will not long 
remain King of France." The Dauphin wept with 
shame, overcame his sloth, and took the field. He is 
perhaps the only prince wdiose duty has been advised, 
and whose valour has been awakened, by love. The 
King seeking in vain his subjects amongst his people ; 
the people vainly seeking their king in the monarchy ; 
the Frenchman fruitlessly looking for his country in 
France; such was the state of the nation, when Pro- 
vidence showed it a saviour in a child. 

There was then at Domrémy, a village in Upper 
Lorraine, on the frontier of Champagne, on the wooded 
slopes of the Vosges, not far from the little town of 
Vaucouleurs, a family named D'Arc. The father of the 



60 JOAN OF ARC. 

family was a common labourer, but a labourer who 
tilled his own patrimony, and whose dwelling, owned 
and built by his progenitors, would afterwards be the 
property of his sons. Judging from the manners and 
domestic habits of the family, there would appear to have 
been in that peasant's dwelling the leisure and piety 
which easy circumstances afford, and that nobleness of 
mind and brow which is found more amongst those who 
cultivate their own inheritance, than in those who work 
in the factory of a stranger ; because the possession of 
a plot of ground, be it ever so small, preserves an inde- 
pendent spirit in the breast of the peasant, by making 
him feel that he relies on God and himself for his bread. 
The father was called Jacques d'Arc, the mother Isabelle 
JRomée, a name given in that part of the country to pil- 
grims who had been to Rome to visit the sacred tombs 
of the martyrs. 

They had three children : two sons, one called James 
after his father, the other Peter d'Arc, and an only 
daughter, born some time after her brothers, and bearing 
the name of Joan, although her godmother had also 
christened her Sybilla. 

A ploughshare, the labourer's emblem, was roughly 
carved on the stone lintel over the cottage door. 

In that part of the country, the labouring horses were 
as fit for chargers as for the plough. The mother re- 
mained at home to take care of the house. She was 
rich enough to attend solely to domestic work, without 
wielding the sickle or binding the sheaf herself. She 
brought up her daughter in a similar state of ease 
to that which she personally enjoyed. Although Joan, 
in her early childhood, played and strolled at the edge 
of the woods with the little girls of the village, her 
mother never set her to watch the sheep. She could not 



JOAN OF ARC. 61 

read and write, and was unable to teach her daughter what 
she did not herself know ; but she taught her the good 
and pious love which a mother of a family hands down for 
the remembrance of her child. She taught her to sew 
with that perfection which has been the characteristic of 
women from the most ancient times. Joan had become 
so skilful in the sedentary labours of the needle, that no 
Norman matron, as she herself stated, could have taught 
her anything new in the peculiar work in which Rouen 
then excelled. She also spun wool and flax by her mo- 
ther's side. From her alone she received the rudiments 
of religion. " No girl of her age and condition," said 
one of her companions, examined as to how her child- 
hood was passed, " was more fondly treated in her 
parents' house. How often I visited at her father's ! 
Joan was a mild and innocent girl. She loved to go to 
church, and on holy pilgrimages. She attended to her 
household duties like other girls. She went frequently 
to confession. She blushed with an honourable modesty 
when laughed at for her piety, and for being too fond of 
praying in the churches. She was charitable and liberal 
to the poor. She nursed the sick children in the neigh- 
bouring cottages." A poor labourer of the district told 
her judges that he remembered her having thus nursed 
him when he was a child. 

" With a pleasing countenance, she grew up active 
and strong-limbed. Living in a time when women 
never moved but on horseback, she used to go with her 
brothers to take her father's poultry to the meadow of 
the Château des Isles, where they shut them up for fear 
of the soldiery. It was probably this that accustomed 
her to war-horses, which no man ever managed with 
a bolder hand than hers. She also relates that she 
sometimes went with the village girls to the edge of the 



62 JOAN OF ARC. 

woods which adjoined the fields, beneath a great oak 
which the countrymen called the Fairy Tree ; and that 
under this oak there was a fountain whose water was re- 
ported to cure fevers and diseases ; she had drawn water 
from it, as the others did, for this purpose ; the sick, after 
their cure, were accustomed to sit and enjoy themselves 
under its shade ; the Mayflowers grew round the spring, 
and in autumn she and her companions gathered them to 
make garlands for the statue of our Lady of Domrémy. 
Her godmother's daughter used to tell her that the 
fairies and { good people ' occasionally appeared there, 
and that she herself had seen them. As for Joan, she had 
never seen them. But it is true that they used to sus- 
pend wreaths of flowers to the lower branches of the tree ; 
she had Jone as the others did, her companions some- 
times taking away the flowers when they w r ent away, some- 
times leaving them upon the tree ; but from the moment 
she had become inspired to deliver France, she scarcely 
ever went to disport herself thus beneath the Fairy Oak ; 
she might have danced there, and especially sung with 
the other children, while herself a child ; but she did not 
think she had danced there once since. There was also, 
opposite her father's door, another wood near the house, 
but there were no apparitions there. At the time her 
mission was revealed to her, her father had said, re- 
proachfully, that the report was current that she had 
received her inspiration from beneath the Fairy Tree. 
She answered him that this was not the case — that a 
prophet of the country had indeed said that from the 
Oak Forest a wonder-working girl should come ; but that 
she had not believed even that." 

These reminiscences of her childhood often pleased her 
in her prison ; they comforted her as the freshness of the 
morning, and she thus unwittingly left a record of those 



JOAN OF ARC. 63 

obscure years of her life, into which the eye loves to 
penetrate, that it may discover from what an obscure 
source her glory rose, and what happiness she exchanged 
for martyrdom. 

One of those popular prophets, who spread in all 
directions dark sayings of the future, in the certainty that 
they will be taken up by the credulity natural to an age 
of ignorance, the enchanter Merlin, had written that the 
calamities of the kingdom should arise from a vicious 
woman, and that deliverance would come at the hands 
of a young and chaste girl. This rumour stirred the 
imagination of the people in the provinces, and might 
Avell excite in the mind of every maiden the involuntary 
hope of realizing the prophecy herself. 

The pensive and retiring beauty of Joan, while it 
attracted the attention of men, repelled familiarity. 
Several, nevertheless, pleased with her grace and modesty, 
solicited her hand from her parents. She persevered in 
remaining single and free, possibly through some obscure 
presentiment which warned her that she would one clay 
have to give birth, not to a family, but a kingdom. One 
of the suitors, more violent, had the boldness to claim her 
love as of right, swearing before a court of justice that 
she was betrothed to him. The poor girl, abashed but 
indignant, appeared before the judges at Toul, and con- 
tradicted by oath this calumny of passion. The judges 
saw through the plot, and sent her home free. 

While her beauty thus charmed the eye, the com- 
posure of her face, the thoughtfulness of her features, 
the solitude and silence of her life, astonished her father, 
her mother, and her brothers. She possessed only the 
grace and attractions of her sex — she had none of its 
weakness. Her face exhibited neither her feelings nor 
the emotions of her heart. Its expression, concentrated 



64 JOAN OF ARC. 

in her eyes, seemed rather that of meditation than of 
feeling, yet she was compassionate and tender ; but her 
pity and tenderness extended to something greater and 
more distant than her immediate horizon. She prayed 
unceasingly, spoke little, and avoided the company of her 
equals in age. She generally retired alone, and plied her 
needle in a secluded nook, under a hedge behind the 
house, from which she could only see the bine sky, the 
tower of the church, and the distant crest of the moun- 
tains. She seemed to hear voices within her which the 
noise of the world would have stilled. 

She was scarcely eight years of age, when these signs of 
inspiration began to appear in her. In this she resembled 
the Sybils of old, marked from their infancy with the fatal 
seal of sadness, beauty, and solitude, amongst the daugh- 
ters of men — instruments of inspiration reserved for ora- 
cles, and to whom every other employment of mind was 
prohibited. She loved everything that suffered, particu- 
larly animals — those intelligent beings gifted with love for 
us, but deprived of words to convey their feelings. Her 
companions say that she was mild and merciful to birds. 
She considered them as creatures condemned by God to 
live near men, in a state of transition between soul and 
matter, and having in their nature nothing as yet com- 
plete but the painful faculties of suffering and love. 
All that was melancholy and indefinite in the sounds 
of nature attracted and absorbed her. " She was so 
fond of the sound of bells," says the old Chronicler, 
"that she promised the ringer hanks of wool for the 
autumn gathering, if he would sound the Angelus longer 
in the mornings." 

But her pity was most strongly excited for the king- 
dom of Trance, and for the young Dauphin — motherless, 
without a country, and without a throne. The tales she 



JOAN OF ARC. 05 

daily heard from monks, soldiers, pilgrims, and beggars, 
the cottage newsmen of the time, filled her heart with 
compassion for the young prince. His image was 
associated in her mind with the calamities of her father- 
land. It was in him that she saw it perish, it was 
through him that she prayed to God for its deliverance. 
Her spirit was ceaselessly occupied with this anxiety and 
sadness. Is it matter of wonder that such concentration 
of thought in a poor, simple, and untutored girl, should 
at length have effected a real change of feeling in her, 
and that she should have heard sounding in her ears the 
voices from within that were always speaking to her 
soul? The mind and the feelings are so closely con- 
nected in our being, that as on the one hand the feelings 
may deceive or trouble the mind by their excitement or 
disorder, so, on the other hand, the mind easily disturbs 
and deceives the senses. These visions and wondrous 
voices, illusions though they be, are no falsehoods to 
those who experience and relate them. Sincere objects 
of wonder, they are phenomena, though not prodigies. 
It is difficult for man, and more so for woman, if pas- 
sionately absorbed by an idea or a doubt, when they 
inwardly question or listen to themselves, to distinguish 
between their own voice and that of heaven, and to say 
to themselves, " This is mine : that is of God." In this 
state man yields his judgment to his own oracle ; he 
takes his inspiration for the voice of God. The wisest of 
mortals, as well as the weakest of women, have so deceived 
themselves. History is full of such marvels. The Egeria 
of Numa, the familiar genius of Socrates, were simply in- 
spirations of their souls, taken for divinities. How should 
the poor peasant of a fairy-haunted village, trained to 
these popular superstitions by her mother and her com- 
panions, doubt what Socrates and Plato did not refuse to 
vol. n. F 



C6 JOAN OF ARC. 

believe ? Her candour was the snare of her belief : her 
inspiration shared the wilclness of her age, her sex, her 
time, and her credulity. She believed in the voices, the 
visions, and the prodigies ; but the inspiration itself was 
the true cause for wonder, and her triumphant patriotism 
attested, in her, at least, the divine origin of the feeling, 
and the truthfulness of the heart. 

She heard these voices long, without mentioning them 
even to her mother. A dizziness in her eyes announced 
their coming, with a burst of pleasing light which she 
supposed to descend from heaven. The voices some- 
times whispered to her wisdom, piety, and virtue — 
sometimes they recounted to her the woes of France, and 
the groans of its afflicted people. Once, at mid-day, when 
she was alone in the garden, under the shade of the 
church wall, she distinctly heard a deep voice calling her 
by name, and saying : " Arise, Joan : go and help the 
Dauphin, and give him back his kingdom of Prance." 

The vision was so heavenly, the voice so distinct, and 
the order so imperative, that she fell on her knees, and 
excused herself, saying : " How should I do this, seeing 
that I am but a poor girl, who can neither back a horse, 
nor lead the men-at-arms?" 

The voice was not content with these excuses : " Go," 
it said to Joan, " and find the Lord of Baudricourt, 
captain for the King, at Vaucouleurs. He will guide you 
to the Dauphin. Fear nothing : St. Catherine and St. 
Margaret will help you." 

This first vision, which made her tremble and weep 
with anguish, but which she kept as a secret between 
herself and the angels, was succeeded by others. She 
saw St. Michael armed with his lance, surrounded with 
rays, the conqueror of demons, such as he is painted on 
the altarpiece of his chapel. The archangel described the 



JOAN OF ARC. G7 

ruin and slavery of the monarchy, and commanded her 
to take compassion on her country. St. Margaret and 
St. Catherine, holy and popular saints in those districts, 
appeared to her in the clouds, according to promise. 
They spoke to her with the voices of women, calmed and 
softened by eternal bliss. They had crowns on their 
heads : angels as bright as gods escorted them. It was 
the beautiful vision of paradise that burst upon her 
view. Her soul, in these divine interviews, forgot the 
severe nature of her mission, and indulged in this de- 
lightful contemplation. When these voices were silent, 
the figures retired, and the sky closed, Joan of Arc was 
alone, and weeping : " Oh ! that those angels had taken 
me with them!" But such was not the object of her 
terrible mission. It was only upon the flames which 
rose from the pile of her martyrdom that she could reach 
the haven of her hopes. 

These angelic conversations and calls, these hesitations 
and delays, lasted several years. She at length confessed 
them to her mother. Her father and brothers were 
informed of them, and the report got abroad in the 
country — a subject of wonder for the simple, of doubt for 
the wise, of satire for the evil- disposed, and of conver- 
sation for all. 

At the same time, the same idea and the same 
visions were occupying, in different parts of the country, 
other maidens and other women. When the people no 
longer expect relief from man, they turn to miracles. 
Wonders and revelations became contagious. A woman 
of Berry, named Catherine, saw fair ladies in robes of 
gold, who commanded her " to go through the towns, 
asking for subsidies and men-at-arms for the Dauphin, 
She required to be accompanied by esquires and heralds, 
to proclaim everywhere, orders, to bring her buried 

f 2 



63 JOAN OF AUG. 

treasures, Avhich she would well know how to discover." 
Thus when the air is infected, everybody breathes the 
contagion. Pity for France, loyalty to the Dauphin, 
hatred of the Burgundians, horror of a foreign yoke, 
roused the spirit of the women. All heard the cry from 
earth ; some heard the voices from on high. More- 
over, the poets, the romancers, and the strolling story- 
tellers of the middle ages, had accustomed the imagina- 
tion to the assumption of warlike duties by women, as 
we read in Tasso and in Ariosto. They followed their 
lovers to the Crusades, served them as pages or esquires, 
girded on their armour, led their coursers, and shed their 
blood for their God, their country, or their love. This 
disguise of a woman under a cuirass, gave even to civil 
wars the chivalrous character, the touching adventures, 
and the wonderful romance which was dreamt of by 
children, and which would therefore be frequently 
imitated. Exceptional beings are always found who 
realize anything that exists in the imagination of all. 
The idea of a maiden leading armies into the field, 
crowning her young king, and delivering her country, 
sprang both from the Bible and the legendary tale. It 
was the poetry of the village fireside, that Joan of Arc 
made the religion of the country. 

Her father, an aged and austere man, heard with 
regret these rumours of visions and wonders under his 
peasant roof. He did not think his family worthy of 
these dangerous favours from Heaven, or of these visits 
of angels and saints which made the neighbours talk. All 
dealings with spirits he suspected, the more so as it was 
a time when popular superstition attributed so much to 
evil influences, and when the exorcist and the executioner 
punished with fire all traffic with the invisible world. 
He attributed his daughter's melancholy and her mental 



JOAN OF ARC. 09 

illusions to disordered health. He wished to see her 
married, that the love of a husband and children might 
satisfy her heart, and that the occupations of the mother 
might dispel these imaginations of the child. He some- 
times carried his incredulity even to harshness, and told 
his daughter that, " If he heard that she gave credit to 
her pretended conversations with the spirits that tempted 
her, or meddled with soldiers, he would rather have her 
drowned by her brothers, or would even destroy her 
with his own hands." 

The displeasure of her mother, and even the threats 
of her father, stopped neither the visions nor the voices. 
Obedient in all other respects, Joan wished to obey even 
in this ; but the inspiration was stronger than her will. 
Heaven must be obeyed before man, and the prodigy 
was to her more imperative than the call of natural duty. 
It was with sorrow that she disobeyed, and she prayed 
to God to spare her these efforts, which w r ere breaking 
her heart. She hoped at some future period to obtain 
the leave and forgiveness of her parents, as in fact she 
did when her glory had justified her disobedience in 
their eyes. Inspiration is like genius ; it is never 
crowned until it has been opposed. 

But Joan had beside her, a relation either more simple, 
more kind, or naturally more enthusiastic than her father, 
in whom the poor girl found belief, or at least sympathy. 
This was her uncle, whose portrait and whose name 
should have been preserved by history, as the first believer 
in the mission of his niece, and the first from whom her 
genius derived assistance. These secondary fathers in 
families, are often more tender and more full of paternal 
affection than the natural sires ; and they are the more 
indulgent to the children of the house, because they are 
less suspicious of their fondness, and their love is a 



70 JOAN OF ARC. 

matter of choice rather than of duty. Such appears to 
have been Joan's uncle, the father of her choice, her 
consoler, her confidant, and subsequently the mediator 
between his niece and Heaven. 

To withdraw Joan from the persecution and reproaches 
of her father and her brothers, her uncle took her home 
with him for some time under the pretence of nursing 
his bedridden wife. Joan made use of this short 
absence from her parents' care, to obey the ruling 
desire of her heart. She begged her uncle to go to 
Vaucouleurs, a garrison town, near Doinrémy, and to 
apply for the aid of the Lord of Baudricourt, who com- 
manded in the place, that she might accomplish her 
mission. 

The uncie, induced by his niece, and additionally per- 
suaded by his wife, yielded easily to their wishes. He 
went to Vaucouleurs, and gave the Lord of Baudricourt 
the message with which he had been so kindly charged. 
The warrior listened to the peasant with good-humoured 
contempt. There seemed no other course, in fact, than 
to smile at the madness of a peasant girl of seventeen, 
offering to accomplish for the Dauphin and for the 
kingdom, what thousands of knights, warriors, and poli- 
ticians could not effect by dint of skill and arms. " The 
best thing you can do," said Baudricourt as he dismissed 
the messenger of miracles, "is to send back your niece 
to her father with her ears well boxed." 

The uncle returned, no doubt convinced by Baudri- 
court's incredulity, and determined to remove for ever 
this illusion from the minds of the women. But Joan had 
such command over him, and the strength of her con- 
viction made her so eloquent, that she soon restored the 
shaken belief of her uncle, and even persuaded him to 
take her himself to Vaucouleurs, without the knowledge 



JOAN OF AllC. 71 

of her parents. She well knew that it was a deeisive 
step, and that, once out of the village, she should never 
return to it. She confided the secret of her departure 
to a girl whom she tenderly loved, named Maugète, with 
whom she prayed, commending her to the care of God. 
She concealed her project from one to whom she was still 
more attached, named Haumette; "Fearing," as she 
afterwards said, " lest she should be unable to overcome 
the pain of leaving her, if she bade her adieu, she cried 
a great deal by herself, but at last overcame her tears." 

Clad in a red cloth gown, the usual dress of the 
peasant girls of the district, Joan set off on foot with 
her uncle. Having reached Vaucouleurs, she was hos- 
pitably received by a charcoal-dealer's wife, a cousin of 
her mother's. Baudricourt, overcome by the importu- 
nity of the uncle and the obstinacy of the niece, con- 
sented to receive her, not through credulity, but because 
he was tired of refusing. He was struck with the 
beauty of the peasant girl, whom Daulon, her knight, 
describes about that period in these terms : — " She was 
young, handsome, and of a good figure ; her movements 
had a womanly grace and modesty." 

Baudricourt having questioned her, Joan told him 
with a tone of modest firmness, which appeared to 
derive its authority, not from herself, but from the in- 
spiration she had received from on high — " I come to 
you in the name of the Lord my God, in order that you 
may tell the Dauphin to maintain his present position, 
and not to give battle to the enemy now ; because God 
will assist him about Mid-Lent. The kingdom," she 
added, " does not belong to him ; but to God. "Never- 
theless God destines the kingdom to him : in spite of 
his enemies, he shall be king, and I myself shall guide 
him to his coronation at llheims." 



72 JOAN OF AIH'. 

Baudricourt dismissed her to gain time for reflection, 
fearing no doubt either to despise or believe too much, at 
a period where public opinion might have blamed him 
as strongly for incredulity as for belief. He prudently 
consulted the clergy, the proper judges of supernatural 
events. He consulted the priest of Vaucouleurs : they 
went in form to visit the peasant girl at the house of her 
cousin, the charcoal-dealer's wife. The priest, wishing 
to be prepared for anything, had put on his sacerdotal 
garments, as an armour against the tempting spirit. He 
exorcised Joan, in case she should be possessed by a 
demon, and commanded her to retire if she was in league 
with Satan. But the spirits which possessed her, were only 
her piety and her genius. She bore the trial without 
giving scan Jul either to the priest or the warrior : they 
returned undecided, though greatly edified. 

The report of this visit of the governor and the priest 
to the charcoal-dealer's house, astonished and excited the 
little town. People of every rank, and especially women, 
went there. Joan's mission became a matter of belief to 
some, of remark to all. The rumour had become too 
general for Baudricourt to hush it up any longer. He 
was already accused of indifference or indolence. " Was 
it not betraying France and the Dauphin to neglect such 
succour from Heaven?" A gentleman of the neigh- 
bourhood, having come to visit Joan as the others did, 
remarked to her, as if blaming Baudricourt, " Well, 
my dear, I suppose the king must be driven out, and 
we must become English." 

Joan added her complaints to those of the gentleman 
and of the populace ; but she seemed to lament less for 
herself than for France ; and strengthening herself with 
the promise she had heard from on high, " Nevertheless," 
said she, " I must be taken to the Dauphin before Mid- 



JOAN OF ARC. 73 

Lent, even if I wear my legs clown to my knees to get 
to him. For nobody in the world, neither kings, nor 
dukes, nor princesses of Scotland, can recover the king- 
dom of France, and he has no aid except myself ; although 
I should prefer," she sadly observed, " to be spinning by 
my poor mother's side ! for I know that righting is not 
my work ; but I must go and do what is commanded me, 
for my Lord wills it so." 

They asked her, " And who is your Lord ?" She 
answered, " God !" 

Two knights who chanced to be present, one young, 
the other old, were much moved. They pledged their 
words, with their hands in hers, that, by the help of 
God, they would enable her to speak to the King. 

During this delay, which seemed necessary, even out 
of respect for the Dauphin, Baudricourt conducted Joan 
to the Duke of Lorraine, from whom he held Vaucou- 
lcurs, in order to discharge himself of his responsibility, 
and to receive his orders. 

The Duke saw Joan, and questioned her respecting 
a disease, with which he happened then to be afflicted. 
She only spoke to him about healing his mind by a recon- 
ciliation with the duchess, from whom he was separated. 
Baudricourt then took Joan back to Yaucouleurs. 

While she was travelling, and staying with the Duke 
of Lorraine, the Dauphin himself had received intimation 
by letter of the extraordinary events at Domrémy. Some 
are of opinion that Baudricourt had preferred to have 
instructions from the Dauphin, and his mother-in-law, 
Queen Yolande of Anjou, and that the Dauphin, Queen 
Yolande, and the Duke of Lorraine, arranged with 
Baudricourt to take advantage for their party of this ap- 
pearance of a young, beautiful, and pious girl, worthy to 
obtain the divine protection for the people, to raise the 



74 JOAN OF ARC. 

enthusiasm of the army, and to effect deliverance for the 
kingdom. There is nothing improbable in this opinion, 
and the policy of such a belief does not disprove its 
sincerity, in an age when courts and camps shared in all 
that was believed by the people. The preparations for 
Joan's journey and for her reception at Court, and the 
respect paid to her upon her arrival by the Dauphin and 
Queen Yolande, sufficiently prove that the wonder was 
expected, and that there was a desire to heighten its 
effect. 

The townspeople of Vaucouleurs bought her a horse 
of the value of sixteen francs, and a military dress, as 
well to protect her person, as to denote her warlike 
mission. Baudricourt gave her a sword. The report of 
her departure for the army having spread to Doinrémy, 
her father, mother, and brothers came to persuade her to 
return. She cried with them ; but tears melted her 
heart without altering her resolution. 

Accompanied by the two knights and some mounted 
servants, she started for Chinon, where the Dauphin 
resided. Her escort took her rapidly through the 
provinces held by the English and Burgundians, for fear 
their charge should be lost. Undecided at first as to 
what they should think of the girl — sometimes they 
revered her as a saint, and at others, kept from her as a 
sorceress. Some even secretly deliberated about getting 
rid of her on the road, by throwing her into a moun- 
tain torrent, and attributing her disappearance to her 
being taken off by a demon. Often, when near carrying 
their plot into execution, they were held back as if by a 
divine hand. Her youth and beauty, innocence, and 
holy candour, no doubt constituted the supernatural 
charm, which softened their hearts and disarmed their 
hands. Incredulous at starting, they arrived convinced. 



JOAN OF ARC, 75 

The Court was then at the castle of Chinon, near 
Tours. The Prophetess of Vaucouleurs was expected 
there with various feelings. The counsellors of highest 
reputation for wisdom dissuaded the Dauphin from 
receiving and listening to a child, who, if she were not 
an instrument of the Prince of Darkness, was at least the 
preacher of her own delusions. Others, more credulous, 
or more frivolous, pressed the Dauphin at any rate to 
consult this oracle. Queen Yolande and the ladies of 
the Court, were proud that their deliverance was to arise 
from a woman. Easy of belief, with a tendency to 
deceive themselves as well as others, they felt that all 
human means of recovering the king's cause were ex- 
hausted, and that something supernatural, either true 
or supposed, could alone restore enthusiasm and hope, 
to the soldiers and the people. " It was perhaps God 
who brought the relief." Policy or credulity, anything 
was good for a defeated and desperate cause. 

The Dauphin, wavering, with the natural uncertainty of 
youth, between love and glory, and between grave coun- 
sel and female influence, was in one of those critical periods 
of moral weakness in which man is inclined to believe 
everything, because there is nothing more to expect. 

Such were the circumstances under which Joan arrived 
at Chinon. She w T as quartered in the neighbourhood, at 
the castle of the Lord de Gaucourt. Visited by the nobles, 
and ladies of the King's suite, her simplicity disappointed 
some, and pleased others. The knights on the King's 
side at Orléans were too much in want of a miracle to 
hesitate in believing her mission. They sent some of 
their number to encourage and beg assistance from their 
future deliverer. The Dauphin, at their instigation, at 
length consented to receive her ; but he at the same time 
resolved to bring her to the test. 



76 JOAN OF AJIC. 

The humble peasant girl of Domrémy was introduced 
in her village dress before this assembly of warriors, 
counsellors, courtiers, and queens. The Dauphin, dressed 
with extreme plainness, and surrounded by knights in 
in rich armour, purposely gave her no clue to discover 
which amongst them was her sovereign. " If God really 
inspires her," said he, " He will lead her to the only one 
in whose veins the blood royal flows ; if the demon, he 
will conduct her to the handsomest of my warriors." 

Joan advanced confused, dazzled, and apparently with 
hesitation, into this crowd, but timidly seeking with her 
eyes the only one amongst them all, to whom she had a 
message. She recognised him without asking any one, 
and, turning modestly, but without hesitation, towards 
him, fell on her knees before the young king. " I am 
not the King," said the Prince, seeking to raise a doubt 
in her mind. But Joan, guided by her heart, only 
persevered, saying, " By my God, noble Prince, you, and 
no one else, are the King." Then, with a louder and 
more solemn voice, she added, "Most noble lord, and 
Dauphin, the King of Heaven informs you through 
me, that you shall be anointed and crowned in the 
town of Rheims, as His lieutenant in the kingdom of 
! ranee. 

At this sign the Court was astonished, and the Dauphin 
was struck with admiration for the maiden. Neverthe- 
less he required another more secret and more difficult 
sign. Taking her aside into the recess of a window, he 
conversed with her in a whisper, about a mystery which 
agitated his conscience, and inspired him with inward 
doubts as to his right to the throne. He had never 
revealed this secret trouble to any one. It might have ' 
made his mother blush, and have torn the crown from 
his brows. The conduct of Isabel of Bavaria rendered it 



JOAN OF ARC. 77 

doubtful whether he was the son of Charles the Sixth. 
Joan's inspired reply, although not heard by the company, 
spread joy and security across the Dauphin's face. Often, 
and even recently, he had shut himself up in his oratory, 
and prayed to God with tears, that, if indeed he were 
the legitimate heir of the kingdom, Providence might 
graciously give him some confirmation of it, and defend 
his inheritance, or at least save his life, and procure him 
shelter amongst the Spaniards or the Scots, his only 
friends. " I tell you, from God," said Joan in a louder 
voice, " that you are really the son of the king, and heir 
of France. " 

This conversation with the King, the favour of the 
princesses, the pressing request of the messengers from 
the army at Orléans — popular rumour, always more 
ready to believe what is miraculous than what is possible 
— the adventure of an unbelieving man-at-arms, who, 
having insulted Joan upon a bridge, was shortly after- 
wards drowned in the Loire — and lastly, the policy which 
either simulated or augmented a belief favourable to its 
designs — everything contributed to invest the young 
stranger with a halo of respect and hope which made the 
slightest doubt appear an impiety. 

The Bastard of Orleans, the famous Dunois, was con- 
tinually sending messages to her to come to Orléans 
to renew the courage of his soldiery. The Duke of 
Alençon, a chivalrous and courteous prince, came to 
see the prodigy, and embraced the cause of the pro- 
phetess with the fervour and enthusiasm of youth. The 
courtiers thronged around her at the castle of Coudray. 
Some gave her w r ar-horses, others taught her how to 
keep her saddle, to manage her charger, and to break a 
lance ; all were delighted with the boldness, grace, and 
dexterity she showed in warlike exercises, as if the soul 



78 JOAN OF ARC. 

of a hero had by mistake animated the body of a maid 
of seventeen, endowing her with the love of arms, and 
with intrepidity in battle. 

The Dauphin still hesitated to give way to the 
maiden's inspiration, being restrained by his chancellor, 
who feared the ridicule of the English, in case France 
were to confide her sword to a hand that had only 
wielded the distaff. The chancellor also dreaded the 
clergy, who might have attributed the inspiration to 
witchcraft, and have disapproved a belief which they had 
not authorized. The King wisely thought it best to send 
Joan in the first place to Poitiers, to have her examined 
by the University and the Parliament. These two 
oracles of the time, driven out of Paris, were then sitting 
in that prosrince. 

" I see clearly," said Joan, " that I shall be severely 
tried at Poitiers, where they are taking me ; but God 
will assist me, so I shall go there with confidence." 

Questioned kindly, but scrupulously, by the doctors, 
she astonished them all by her self-reliance, as much as 
by her patience and gentleness. One of them said, 
" But, if God be resolved to save Prance, Pie will have 
no need of men-at-arms." " Ah !" she answered, "the 
men-at-arms will fight, and God will give them the 
victory." 

Another told her, " If you give no other proof of the 
truth of your words, the King will entrust to you no 
soldiers to lead into danger." " By my God," said Joan, 
" it was not to Poitiers that I was sent to exhibit signs ; 
but take me to Orléans, with as few men as you like, 
and I will give you some. The sign that I have to show 
is to raise the siege of Orleans." 

When the doctors cited texts and books which forbade 
hasty belief in such revelations, " That is true," she said ; 



JOAN OF ARC. 79 

" but there are more things written in the book of God 
than in the pages of men." 

At length, the bishops declared that nothing was 
impossible before God, and that the Bible was full of 
mysteries and examples which might authorize an 
humble woman to fight in man's apparel for the deliver- 
ance of her country. Queen Yolande, of Sicily, the 
Dauphin's mother-in-law, and the most respected ladies 
of the Court, attested the purity and chastity of the pro- 
phetess. There was no longer any hesitation to trust 
her with the army, which, under the command of 
d'Alençon, her most zealous believer, was marching to 
the relief of Orléans. 

Some light armour was forged for her, the whiteness 
of which denoted the purity of the heroine. She claimed 
a long rusty sword, marked with five crosses, which she 
said Mas buried in a chapel of a church near Chinon, 
and which was accordingly found there. She also 
received a white standard covered with fleurs-de-lis, the 
heraldic bearing of France. She then started on her 
journey, followed by an old and valiant knight, her pro- 
tector Daulon, by two young children, her pages, by two 
heralds, a chaplain, a number of servants, and a crowd 
of people who blessed beforehand the miracle and de- 
liverance she was expected, to effect. 

She was received triumphantly at Blois by the chiefs 
of the army, who had collected to see her and to receive 
her divine inspirations — the Maréchal de Boussac, Du- 
nois, Lahire, Saintrailles, all warned by the chancellor to 
respect, in this girl, the mission of God and the will of 
the King. But the enthusiastic fanaticism of the people 
for the warrior maid of Domrémy produced more effect 
on the army than even the orders of the Dauphin. 
Serving God as much as the Crown, Joan began by 



80 JOAN OF AilC. 

reforming the disorderly habits and misconduct of the 
camp. Cards, dice, and ali the implements of witchcraft 
and gambling, both in tent and city, were burnt. Popular 
preachers followed her steps, and declaimed in praise of 
women and of war. One of them raised such excitement 
and stirred the people so much more as a tribune than 
as a priest, that the Pope had him seized by the In- 
quisition, and burnt as a disseminator of heresy. 

Another, the friar Richard, a monk of the Franciscan 
order, drew such multitudes after him, that thousands 
of men and children would sleep on the bare ground 
around his pulpit the night before he was to preach. 
The breath of the spirit blew like a tempest on the souls 
of men. Religion, patriotism, and war agitated the 
crowds. Joan humbly followed the preachers, on foot, 
in the town of Blois ; but her very humility marked her 
out for the homage of the multitude. The Franciscan 
took jealous umbrage at her, while he pretended to 
share the fanaticism of the army. Everything was 
already prepared for miracles, both in the course of 
events, and in the minds of men ; even envy, and the 
torture after the triumph. 

The army, purified by the reformation and discipline 
which Joan introduced, was recruited by numerous 
companies of men-at-arms, hastening from all the pro- 
vinces, on hearing the wonderful reports. The standard 
of the maiden of Domrémy was indeed the Oriflamme of 
France. 

The chiefs, hastening to profit by this enthusiasm, 
set their troops in motion. Joan, whom they consulted, 
desired them, without considering the number or dis- 
position of the English army, to march straight on 
Orléans by the shortest road, that of the Beauce. The 
generals pretended to agree with her, but they deceived 



JOAN OF ARC. 81 

her for the safety of the army, and took her across the 
Loire in order that the river might protect their advance 
through the woods and marshes of the Sologne. Joan's 
chaplain marched at the head of the army, bearing her 
banner, and chanting hymns. The march resembled a 
procession in which the priest leads the soldiery. 

Joan arrived before Orléans on the third day. Seeing 
the river between herself and the army, she was angry 
at having been deceived by the generals, and wished 
them to attack at once the English lines, which were 
between the troops and the town. They succeeded in 
calming her impatience. 

Dunois, who was commander-in-chief both of the 
relieving force and of the garrison of Orléans, jumped 
into a light boat when he saw the maid from the top 
of the ramparts. When he landed at her horse's feet, 
" Are you," said she, "the Bastard of Orléans?" "I 
am," replied Dunois, " and am very glad you are come." 
She answered with the voice of gentle reproof, " Then 
it was you who recommended the army to take the road 
of the Sologne away from the enemy?" "It was the 
advice of the wisest and oldest captains," said Dunois. 
" The counsel of God, my Lord," said Joan, " is better 
than yours. You thought to deceive me, but you have 
deceived yourself. Fear nothing ; God makes my road, 
and it is for this that I was born. I bring you the best 
help that ever knight or city received — the assistance of 
Heaven." 

At this moment the wind, which was driving the 
waves of the Loire against the course of the current, and 
prevented the boats laden with arms and provisions from 
landing at the port of Orléans, suddenly changed, as if 
by a miracle, and the town was provisioned in spite of 
the English. 

VOL. II. g 



82 JOAN OF ARC. 

The next clay, having dismissed the king's army, 
which was only to escort the convoy as far as the gates 
— and had to return to defend the low country — 
Joan entered Orleans at the head of 200 lances, fol- 
lowed by Dunois and the brave Lahire. Mounted on 
a white jennet, raising her standard in her right hand, 
and clad in her light armour sparkling with a chastened 
light, she appeared to the townspeople and the soldiers 
to be the angel both of peace and war. Priests and 
people, women and children, threw themselves at her 
horse's feet, to try to touch even her spurs, thinking a 
divine emanation radiated from this messenger of God. 
She bade them lead her to the cathedral, where a 
Te Dam? was sung as a thanksgiving for the relief of 
the town. But the succour which most comforted the 
people, was the supernatural aid which they seemed to 
see and to possess in the person of the prophetess. 

Joan was led from the cathedral to the house of the 
woman of best reputation in the town, in order that her 
honour might be protected from scandal, and that her 
good fame might remain unblemished amidst the license 
of the camp. A feast had been prepared for her ; but 
she only accepted a little bread and wine out of 
humility, and in remembrance of her father's frugal 
board. 

She thence dictated a letter to the English, the terms 
of which she had considered during her journey. This 
letter resembled, in its style and manner, the summons 
which a Homeric hero might give to another before 
fighting, from the walls or on the battle-field. " King of 
England," she said ; " and you, Duke of Bedford, calling 
yourself Regent of France; and you, William, Earl of 
Suffolk ; you John Talbot, and you, Thomas Scales, 
styling yourself the lieutenant of the Dnke of Bedford ; 



JOAN OF ARC. 83 

obey the King of heaven, and give up the keys of the 
kingdom to the maiden sent by God ! And you, 
archers and men-at-arms, who are before Orléans, go 
back in the name of God to your country ! King of 
England, if you do not do this, I command the battle ; 
and wherever I reach you, this will I compel you to do. 
And know for certain that the King of heaven will send 
more strength to me than you can lead in your attacks." 
She then invited them to peace, and promised them 
safety and a good reception if they would come to treat 
with her at Orléans. 

Laughter, ridicule, and sneering jibes, were the only 
answer this letter produced from the besiegers. They 
called her a jade and a cow-keeper. They dishonourably 
kept her herald a prisoner. She sent Talbot a second 
message, offering to meet him in single combat under the 
ramparts of the town. " If I am conquered," she said to 
Talbot, " you may burn me at the stake ; if I am vic- 
torious, you will raise the siege." Talbot only answered 
by a disdainful silence. He would have thought himself 
dishonoured by accepting the challenge of a girl. 

When summoned to be present at the council of war, 
out of respect to the wishes of the King and the super- 
stition of the people, Joan showed the same eagerness to 
fight, and the same reliance on the divine aid she 
brought with her. Dunois pretended to give way to her 
in everything, even contrary to his own opinion ; know- 
ing that by this yielding, he satisfied the people, and 
roused the enthusiasm of the soldiery. The Bastard — a 
skilful leader as well as a brave soldier — if he only half 
credited the revelations, believed entirely in the enthu- 
siasm which they created. The grace and fervour of 
Joan interested him strongly. He agreed remarkably 
well with her, assisting her with his advice at the 



84 JOAN OF ARC. 

council-board, and sharing her heroism in the field of 
battle. 

The knight of Gamaches, an old soldier, seeing the 
indulgence with which Dunois and Lahire regarded the 
maiden's rashness, was indignant from the first that they 
preferred the revelations of a peasant girl to the advice of 
an experienced captain like himself. " Since the opinion," 
said he, " of a base born adventurer is listened to in pre- 
ference to the judgment of a knight like myself, I shall 
make no further opposition. My sword shall speak for 
me at a proper time and place, and I may perhaps lose 
my life ; but my own honour, as well as obedience to my 
king, forbid me to sanction such absurdities. I strike 
my banner, and am now only a simple squire. I would 
rather serve under a nobleman than under a girl who was 
previously — I do not well know what." Then, folding 
his banner, he gave it to Dunois. 

Joan breathed nothing but war, and every delay in 
the deliverance of the country by arms, seemed to her to 
be doubting the divine promise, and a sin against faith. 
She rode off the next day, to accompany a detachment 
which was going to Blois for reinforcements ; and on her 
return, leaped her horse on to the rampart of one of the 
fortifications which the English had thrown up round 
the town, and, raising her voice to make them hear 
her, summoned them to evacuate their lines. 

Two English knights, Granville and Gladesdale — cele- 
brated for their valour, and for the harm they had done 
to the besieged — answered by insult and scorn, recom- 
mending her to mind her distaff and her flocks. "You 
lie!" said Joan; "you shall soon leave this place; many 
of your men will be killed, but you yourselves will not 
see it ! " — thus foretelling their defeat and death. 

The second reinforcement, brought from Blois by 



JOAN OF ARC. S5 

Dunois himself, got into the town without having been 
attacked. 

Dunois came to thank Joan for the good advice which 
she had given him, and announced the speedy arrival of 
the English army which was coming up to complete the 
blockade. " Bastard, Bastard," said Joan, " I command 
you to let me know as soon as this army appears in the 
field ; for if it shows itself without my giving it battle, I 
will have you beheaded," she added jestingly. Dunois 
promised to give her the information. 

A few days afterwards, while she was lying on her bed 
at mid-day to rest from the fatigue she had undergone 
in restoring order, piety, and good manners, amongst the 
soldiers, a supernatural anxiety prevented her sleeping. 
Suddenly, sitting up in bed, she called her equerry, the 
old knight Daulon. " Arm me!" she said; " my heart tells 
me to go and fight with the English, but it does not say 
whether it is against their forts or their army." 

While the knight was buckling on her armour, a great 
noise arose in the street. The people thought the French 
were being slaughtered at the gates. "My God!" said 
Joan, " the blood of Frenchmen is streaming on the 
ground ! Why was I not sooner awakened ? My arms ! 
my arms ! My horse ! my horse ! " and without waiting 
for Daulon, who was still without his own armour, she 
rushed, half accoutred, out of the house. 

Her little page was playing like a child on the 
threshold. "You false page!" said she, "not to come 
and tell me that French blood was running ! Quick ! — 
my horse !" 

She sprung on her charger, and going to a high 
window from which her standard was handed to her, 
she went off at full gallop, following the noise, to the 
gate of the town. On her way she met one of her men, 



86 JOAN OF ARC. 

who was being brought back, wounded and bleeding, 
from the wall. " Alas ! " said she, " I never saw a 
•Frenchman's blood without my hair standing on end." 

It was the bastion of Saint-Loup that the French 
knights had endeavoured to surprise, and which Talbot 
had just relieved, driving the French before him to the 
ramparts of Orléans. Joan dashed out of the gates, 
rallied the fugitives, drove back Talbot, attacked the fort, 
slaughtered the English, took the garrison prisoners; and, 
passing at once from anger to pity, wept over the dead, 
and gave quarter to the conquered. Both prophetess 
and champion of her cause, the miracle of her wake- 
fulness, of her intelligence, her strength and her mercy, 
raised her name far above all doubts in the French camp, 
and made her appearance the terror of the English. 

She wished to spare the blood even of her enemies. 
Having resolved upon a decisive attack on their fortifica- 
tions, she went to the top of a tower, and fastening to 
an arrow a letter in which she summoned them to sur- 
render, and promised them mercy, she drew her bow, 
and shot the arrow into their camp. They remained 
deaf to this second summons, and sent back insulting 
replies by other arrows. 

She blushed on hearing them read, and could not even 
restrain her tears before her followers ; but she quickly 
comforted herself with the thought that God did her 
more justice than men. " Bah !" she said, drying her 
tears ; " the Lord knows that they are only lies." 

By the advice of Dunois, she ordered a sortie, and a 
general assault on the four English forts on the left bank 
of the Loire. The attack was repulsed, and the French 
routed. Joan was looking on at the fight from an islet 
in the middle of the river, and, seeing the defeat, she 
sprang into a light boat, and, towing her horse, landed in 



JOAN OF ARC. 87 

the midst of the confusion. Her presence, her voice, her 
standard — the divinity which the soldiers thought they 
saw shining on her fine face — rallied, turned, and in- 
duced them to follow her to the palisades ; she took 
the forts, and set fire to them with her own hand. The 
ashes of the English ramparts, stained with the blood of 
their defenders, were the trophy of this victory. Joan 
returned triumphant, though wounded in the foot by 
an arrow. She was losing blood, without taking either 
food or drink, because she had sworn to fast on that 
day for the sake of the people. 

Dunois and his lieutenants thought they had done 
enough in clearing one bank of the river. " No, no," 
said Joan, " you have been to your council, and I have 
been to mine ; believe me, the advice of my King and 
Lord will prevail over yours. Be ready to-morrow with 
the army : I shall then have more work before me than 
I have done to-day. I shall lose blood — I shall be 
wounded." 

In vain the captains closed the gates next day to 
restrain her ardour. The people and the soldiers, mad 
with enthusiasm and faith in Joan, mutinied against 
them, and threatened the generals. The gates were 
forced by the multitude, which poured like a torrent 
after the prophetess. The chiefs were obliged to follow 
the soldiers. Dunois, Gaucourt, Granville, Gouthant, 
De Raiz, Lahire, baintrailles, rushed forward to the 
attack of the principal fort occupied by the English. 
The English army, surrounded by ramparts and ditches, 
mowed down these masses with its artillery. The 
ladders, felled by axes, were thrown back upon the 
assailants. The foot of the wall was heaped with the 
dead. The multitude became discouraged. Joan only 
persisted in her faith. She seized a ladder, and placing 



88 JOAN OF ARC. 

it against the wall of the bastion, climbed it the fore- 
most, sword in hand. An arrow pierced her neck near 
the shoulder, and she rolled senseless into the ditch. 
The English, to whom taking Joan would have been 
worth a victory, came out of the entrenchments to 
seize her. Gamaches strode across the maid, and de- 
fended her with his axe. The French rallied at his 
shouts, and saved her. On coming to her senses, she 
saw Gamaches wounded, and a conqueror for her sake. 
" Ah/' said she, repenting that she had once offended 
him ; " take my horse, and without purchase. I was 
wrong to think ill of you, for never saw I a more gene- 
rous cavalier." Joan was taken to a place of safety, to 
disarm her and look to her wound. The arrow stuck 
out two handbreadths behind her shoulder, and she was 
covered with blood. She was compelled, like Clorinda, 
to submit the chaste beauty of her person to the eyes 
and hands of men. But the purity of her mind, and 
the sacredness of the blood spilt for her country, made 
her appear so holy, that no one in beholding her, says 
Daulon, could conceive an idea of profanation. More 
like an angel than a woman, in the eyes of the soldiery 
and of the people, her divine mission was a sufficient 
protection. 

Yet she was a woman, and a weak one, for she cried 
at seeing her blood flow. Then she comforted herself, 
praying to her heavenly patronesses. She afterwards 
drsw out the arrow with her own hand, and told the 
armed men, who recommended the superstitious remedies 
of enchantment and of witchcraft then used in the camp, 
" I would rather die than thus offend against the will of 
God." Her wound was dressed with oil, and she again 
mounted her horse to follow the crest-fallen army and 
people in their retreat. 



JOAN OV ARC. 89 

She went into a barn to pray. Her heart told her 
that she must still fight ; but she dared not tempt God, 
and resist the advice of the captains. 

Her banner, however, had remained in the ditch, at 
the foot of the ladder where she had first fallen. Daulon, 
her knight, having perceived it, ran with some men-at- 
arms to rescue this spoil, the loss of which would have 
much afflicted Joan, and would have raised the spirits 
of the English. Joan rode on after them. While Daulon 
was placing the standard in the hand of his mistress, its 
folds, shaken by the wind and by the motion of the 
horse, spread out in the sun, and appeared to the French 
as a signal which Joan was making to recal them to her 
help. The French, already retreating, advanced once 
more to save their heroine. The English, who believed 
her killed, seeing her again on horseback leading the 
assailants, thought her either invulnerable, or risen from 
the dead : they were panic-struck. The flash of the 
cannon through the white smoke of the powder, seemed 
to be the tutelar angel of Orléans riding on the clouds, 
and fighting for Joan and her cause with the sword of 
God. A beam thrown across the ditch served for a 
bridge to a bold knight, who cleared a way to the ram- 
parts for the French battalions. The English com- 
mander, Gladesdale, giving way before this onslaught, 
was endeavouring to cross a second ditch to gain the 
bastion. " Surrender, Gladesdale ! " said Joan ; " you 
have disgracefully insulted me, but I will have pity on 
your life and on your men." 

At these words the drawbridge, on which the last 
remnant of the English was fighting desperately, gave 
way under the repeated blows of a ram, and the Loire 
received their bodies. 

Joan returned to Orléans amidst the ringing of the 



90 JOAN OF ARC. 

bells, with her armour covered with blood, proud of a 
victory which the army owed entirely to her, but 
humble, inasmuch as she acknowledged that she was 
indebted for it to God. The madness of the people 
deified her. She was at once their salvation, their glory, 
and their religion. Never did popular notions mingle 
heaven and earth with more effect in the figure of a 
virgin, a saint, and a hero. The humility of her origin 
made her dearer to the multitude, because it resembled 
their own. 

The English generals saw the arm of God in the irre- 
sistible ascendancy of this heroine. They themselves 
burnt the few fortresses they still possessed in the 
country, and retreated beyond the ramparts of Orléans. 

The French knights and the people wished to take 
advantage of their discomfiture to attack and destroy 
them. " No," said Joan, with gentle firmness ; " do 
not kill them. It is enough for us that they are gone." 
Then, causing an altar to be raised upon the ramparts of 
Orléans, she had high mass performed, and hymns of 
victory sung while the enemy was marching away. 

The deliverance of Orléans proved the deliverance of 
the kingdom. That town made a tutelar saint of its 
deliverer, and, not daring as yet to consecrate altars to 
her, it set up her statues in its squares. 

But Joan wasted no time in vain triumphs. She 
brought back the victorious army to the Dauphin, to 
assist him in reconquering city after city of his kingdom. 
The Dauphin and the Queens received her as the mes- 
senger of God, who had found and recovered the lost 
keys of the kingdom. " I have only another year," she 
remarked with a sad presentiment, which seemed to 
indicate that her victory led to the scaffold ; " I must 
therefore set to work at once." 



JOAN OF ARC. 91 

She begged the Dauphin to go and be crowned 
at Rhehns, although that city and the intermediate 
provinces were still in the power of the Burgundiaus, 
Flemings, and English. The imprudence of this advice 
was apparent to the councillors and generals about the 
court. The coronation of the King at Rheims appeared 
to them all an impossibility, or a piece of rashness ; 
which, for a vain shadow of power, would have made 
them abandon the fruits of victory actually in their 
hands. They wished first to reconquer Normandy and 
the capital. Council followed council. Joan was tired 
of the idleness of the Court ; her inspirations urged her, 
and sbe pressed the Dauphin. 

One day that he was closeted with a bishop and some 
councillors to deliberate on the plan to be followed, 
Joan came and tapped gently at the door of the council 
chamber. The King, recognising her voice, allowed her 
to enter. 

" Noble Dauphin," said she, kneeling before him, 
"hold not such long councils; come at once and receive 
your crown at Rheims. Voices from on high are urging 
me to lead you there." 

" Joan," said the bishop, " how is your advice com- 
municated to you?" 

" Ay, Joan," said the King ; " tell us how." 

" Well," said she, " I knelt down to prayer, and as I 
was lamenting over your not believing in my advice, 
I heard a voice which said to me, ' Go ; go, my child ; 
I will assist thee — go;' and when I hear this internal 
voice, I feel exceedingly rejoiced, and I could wish to 
hear it always." 

The Dauphin yielded to her, and gave the command 
of the army to the Duke of Alençon, who marched 
against the English under the command of the Earl of 



92 JOAN OF ARC. 

Suffolk. The number of enemies to be passed shook 
the confidence of the Court and of the handful of soldiers 
who followed Joan. " Fear not to attack," said she, 
" for God is our leader. Were it not for that, should I 
not prefer watching my sheep to running into such 
danger? " 

They followed her through Orléans, still full of her 
glory, and marched against Suffolk, who shut himself up 
in Jergeau. The assault was sanguinary. Joan, mount- 
ing the wall with her standard in her hand, was hurled 
into the moat by a large stone, which split her helmet. 
Her steel cap and long hair saved her. She crawled 
out of the ditch and took the town. Suffolk surrendered 
to one of her knights. 

She was continually urging the army forward. " You 
are afraid, noble sir !" she would say, smiling, to the 
Duke of Alençon, who was prudent as well as brave ; 
" but fear nothing — I have promised to bring you back 
safe and sound to your wife." 

They were looking for another English army, com- 
manded by Talbot, in the Beauce. Separated from this 
force by a forest, Lahire, who led the van, did not know 
what road to take. A stag, starting up before his 
horse, dashed into the English camp, and showed its 
position by the shouts which this nation of hunters 
could not restrain at the sight of game. The French 
army, thus miraculously led, marched upon them and 
defeated them. Their most dreaded chieftains, Talbot 
and Scales, surrendered, and were taken prisoners to 
the feet of the Dauphin. Joan, seeing the carnage after 
the victory, felt compassion for the conquered. She 
dismounted, gave her bridle to her page, raised the 
wounded from the ground, and dressed their wounds 
with her own hands. 



JOAN OF ARC. 93 

The Duke of Bedford, the regent, remained trembling 
in Paris. " All our misfortunes," he wrote to the Car- 
dinal of Winchester, " are owing to a young witch, who, 
by her sorcery, has restored the courage of the French." 
The Duke of Burgundy, recalled from Flanders by Bed- 
ford, returned to support and defend Paris in conjunc- 
with the English. 

Joan, however, after this victory, went back to the 
King. She had at length persuaded him to go to 
Rheims. Paris was turned by way of Auxerre, and she 
marched on Troy es, the capital of Champagne. The 
town surrendered to the summons of the deliverer of 
Orléans. 

As Joan drew near to her own country, she excited 
both more enthusiasm and additional envy. Her family 
at length considered her inspired, after having long 
lamented her as mad. Her brothers, whom she called 
to the camp, received honour and arms from the 
Court ; they fought and triumphed under their sister's 
eyes. 

But the monk Richard, the zealous preacher whom 
we have named before, was already undermining her 
popularity by accusations of witchcraft, calumnies ma- 
liciously thrown out amongst the people. As she entered 
Troyes, he advanced towards Joan, and began to utter 
exorcisms and make signs of the cross from his horse, 
as if she had been an evil spirit. " Come on," said 
Joan; " I shall not fly away." 

Chalons and Rheims opened their gates. The King 
was crowned, and Joan's mission was accomplished. 
" Noble King," said she, embracing his knees in the 
cathedral, after the coronation, " now is accomplished 
the will of God, which commanded me to bring you to 



94 JOAN OF ARC. 

tins city of Rlieims to receive your holy unction — now 
that you at last are King, and that the kingdom of 
France is yours." 

She was the visible palladium of the people, of which 
the King was only the sovereign. The women made 
their little children touch lier, as if she had been a holy 
relic. The soldiers kissed her standard, kneeling, and 
blessed their swords by touching them with hers. She 
modestly and devoutly avoided this superstitious adora- 
tion of the multitude, attributing no superhuman virtue 
to herself, except her obedience to the orders she had 
received from the inspiration of God. "Oh!" she ex- 
claimed, beholding the joy of the King restored to his 
people, and of the people restored to their King, " why 
can I not die here?" 

" Where do you then expect to die?" said the Arch- 
bishop of Rheims." " I know not," said the holy 
maiden ; " I shall die where it pleases God. I have 
done what the Lord my God has commanded me ; and 
I wish that he would now send me to keep my sheep, 
with my mother and sister." 

She was beginning to experience that vague fear of 
the future which seizes heroism, genius, and even virtue, 
when they have finished the first half of every great 
human work, their rise and victory ; and when there 
only remains the second, their fall and martyrdom. She 
already began to feel the voices, no longer of heaven, 
but of home, by which man, tired of ambition and glory, 
is in vain recalled to the asylum of his first affections, 
the humble occupations of his youth, and the obscurity 
of his early days. 

Poor Joan ! why did she not listen to these voices ? 
But God had determined that her cup should be full, and 



JOAN OF ARC. 95 

it could not be filled without the wickedness of man, and 
her own martyrdom for her country. 

Genius springs from the inspiration of the heart ; but 
this inspiration must be, in its turn, assisted by circum- 
stances. When those extreme circumstances — which 
produce in us that tension of all our faculties called 
genius — cease or disappear, genius itself seems to sink. 
It is no longer restrained by what raised it above 
humanity. Then happens what has been said of heroes 
and prophets — God has ceased to speak through them. 

Such was the state of Joan of Arc's mind after the 
coronation of Charles the Seventh at Rheims. From that 
moment a great depression and a fatal hesitation seem to 
have come over her. The King, the people, and the army, 
to whom she had given victory, wished her to remain 
always their prophetess, their guide, and their enduring 
miracle. But she was now only a weak woman, lost 
amidst courts and camps, and she felt her weakness 
beneath her armour. Her heart alone remained cou- 
rageous, but had ceased to be inspired. She wished 
to give utterance to an oracle which had no longer 
inspiration, language, or voice. This avowal of the state 
of her mind may be seen in her replies to her judges, 
upon her trial. 

France, too, no longer required her. The sudden 
arousal of the Dauphin by her voice — a young and 
valiant prince, snatched by a shepherdess from the arms 
of his mistresses — the miraculous deliverance of Orléans 
— Bedford's defeat in the plains of the Beauce — the 
captivity or death of the most celebrated English leaders 
— the fanaticism, both political and religious, of the 
people, roused by the appearance, the call, and the arm 
of a girl, and always taking exploits for miracles : all 
these circumstances had breathed hope and patriotism 



90 JOAN OF ARC. 

throughout the country, and terror and hesitation 
amongst the Burgundians and the English. 

The earth had expelled or devoured its enemies ; they 
at length felt that they were usurpers on the throne, and 
foreigners in the country. The coronation of Rheims — 
that ordinance considered divine, which in those days 
introduced the hand of God and the holy unction to 
judge of the legitimacy of princes — had restored to the 
Dauphin not only the love, but also the religious reve- 
rence of the nation. In defending their sovereign, the 
people now thought they were defending the anointed of 
heaven. Joan of Arc had been happily inspired in lead- 
ing him straight to the altar of Rheims. Elsewhere he 
would only have won a victory or a city ; at Rheims he 
obtained a kingdom and a divine authority. Rebellion 
against him became blasphemy and impiety. A con- 
summate politician could not have given better advice 
than this unlettered peasant girl. 

Moreover (as always happens in reverses), division, dis- 
cord, rivalry, and mutual recrimination, had found their 
way into the councils of the English and Burgundians. 
The Duke of Burgundy, enervated by prosperity and 
excess, contented himself with coming from time to time 
from Elanders to the capital, to parade, like Mark Antony 
after the death of Caesar, the blood of his father who was 
murdered in sight of Paris, and to receive the empty 
acclamations of a multitude more tumultuous than 
devoted to his cause. 

The Duke of Bedford, regent of France on behalf of 
Henry the Sixth, King of England, and the Cardinal of 
Winchester, who governed England during the infancy 
of the King, disliked and thwarted each other, while re- 
taining the appearance of mutual agreement and coalition. 
At last, however, the Cardinal became alarmed at the 



JOAN OF ARC. 97 

serious reverses of Bedford, and determined to bring a 
new army to Paris. The Duke of Bedford trembled within 
the walls. All the towns and adjacent provinces sur- 
rendered to the increasing forces of the King of France, 
and as soon as Joan's standard was seen from the walls 
of a besieged city, its gates were opened to Charles. 
The superstition of the people made them believe that 
they saw fire flashing round the standard — an emana- 
tion of the divine radiance which surrounded the mes- 
senger of God. 

Her humility was not changed to pride amidst this 
triumph, neither was her chastity tarnished in the camp. 
" Every evening," say the chroniclers, " she went to 
lodge with the woman of best reputation in the town, 
and frequently even shared her bed. She slept with 
her arms close at hand, and half clad in her war- 
like accoutrements, in order the better to protect her 
virtue." 

She was by no means vain of the honours which were 
paid to her. " What I do," she would say to the super- 
stitious multitude, " is not a miracle of my own, but a 
service which I am commanded to perforin, and that is 
why I am supported. Do not kiss my clothes or armour 
as prodigies, but as instruments of the grace of God." 

After some manoeuvres of the French and English 
armies round Paris, to open and close the road respec- 
tively, the King advanced to St. Denis, and the Duke of 
Bedford immediately threw himself into the city, to 
defend it both from the attacks of Cyharles, and the 
fickleness of the citizens. 

The Duke of Burgundy — who already saw which was 
the winning side, and whose policy had less to fear from 
the possession of Paris by a king, his blood relation, 
than from the English power commanding both sides of 

VOL. II. h 



98 JOAN OF ARC. 

the channel, close to his Netherlands — was beginning to 
entertain secret negotiations with Charles the Seventh. 
Joan of Arc, being consulted respecting these negoti- 
ations, used every effort to encourage them. The letters, 
written by her dictation to the Duke of Burgundy, 
breathe only peace, mutual forgiveness, and the alliance 
of all the members of the French royal family against 
the foreigner. Her heart, which could give such power- 
ful aid in the field, now rendered equally essential service 
in the council. Wisdom appears in all she said. No 
doubt can be entertained of the effect of her letters in 
conciliating the Duke of Burgundy. She did not even 
upbraid the King's enemies ; she entreated them. The 
gentleness of her language equalled her intrepidity in 
battle. 

She pressed the King to attack Paris — mistaking 
her impatience for an inspiration, and her own desire for 
an illumination from above. The generals still opposed 
it. She drew them against their will to the suburb of 
the Chapel of St. Denis, and fixed her quarters there 
with the vanguard, commanded by the Duke of Alençon, 
Marshals de Raiz and de Boussac, the Count of Vendôme, 
and the Lord of Albes. The army was quartered in the 
villages to the north of the capital. 

The inhabitants — restrained by the forces of Bedford, 
by the Parliament, and by the burghers, who were too 
much compromised with the English and Burgundians 
to expect mercy from the King — rose only to defend the 
strangers who held in subjection both the capital and the 
throne. The spirit of sedition, kept up for so many 
years by Isabel, and by the Armagnacs and other factions, 
had destroyed every feeling of nationality in this incon- 
stant city. The gates were closed, the ditches inundated, 
the paving-stones heaped on the battlements ; trust funds 



JOAN OF ARC. 99 

were seized to pay the troops, and the rumour was spread 
that the King and his sorceress had sworn to drive the 
plough over the ruins of the capital. 

On being acquainted with these reports, Joan endea- 
voured to disprove them by the discipline which she 
maintained in the King's army. Angered one day by the 
disgraceful conduct of some soldiers who were assaulting 
a peasant girl, she struck one of the offenders on the 
breast with the flat of her sword so fiercely, that the 
blade broke across — the miraculous weapon w r hich had 
wrought such wonders in her hand. It was an evil 
omen. The King reproved her, and Joan of Arc herself 
cried at the loss of her sword. 

" Still," she said, " she preferred her white standard 
and her little battle-axe ; for she struck to conquer, not 
to kill, and the blood of an enemy never soiled her 
arms." Always feminine, even in the midst of warriors, 
she assumed for herself, as the minister of deliverance to 
her country, the repugnance to bloodshed which cha- 
racterises the priesthood. 

After a week of useless delay, Joan ordered an attack 
upon the ramparts, from the top of that little hill which 
is now covered with streets, buildings, and churches, and 
still retains the name of the " Butte des Moulins." With 
the Duke of Alençon and the generals, she cleared the 
first ditch under the tire of the town. Having reached 
the edge of the second, and being exposed almost alone 
to the missiles from the ramparts, she was sounding the 
depth of the water with her spear — and having the ditch 
filled up with fascines by the soldiery, still waving her 
standard and summoning the rebellious city to sur- 
render — when an arrow pierced her leg, and she fell 
fainting on a heap of dead and wounded. 

She was taken behind the bank that faced the ditch, 

h 2 



100 JOAN OF ARC. 

whore the shot and arrows passed clear above her head, 
and stretched upon the grass to draw the arrow from 
her wound. As soon as she recovered her senses, she 
cheered her party forward to the attack. In vain her 
brave knights besought her to allow them to carry her 
back to the camp ; in vain the shot ploughed up the 
ground around her, and the dead heaped the ditches — she 
insisted upon victory or death. It might have been sup- 
posed that she was leading the forlorn hope of her destiny. 
The Duke of Alençon, trembling lest he should lose with 
her the support and faith of his army, was obliged to 
come up himself, and have her borne away by his soldiers 
from the battle-field where she desired to die. 

Under the cover of night the King's generals withdrew 
their troops in silence. To conceal the extent of their 
losses, which the next morning would have exhibited to 
the Parisians, they carried off their dead from the edge of 
the ditch, and heaped them up as if for a funeral pile, in 
the barn belonging to the Ferme des Mathurins, and 
burnt them in the night, that they might leave only their 
ashes to the English. 

This reverse, crossing in such a marked manner the 
prophecies of Joan of Arc, was the first contradiction 
given by Providence to her spirit of divination, and the 
first blow to her popular prestige of infallibility. She 
began to doubt herself. Her spirit failed with her for- 
tune. She humbled herself before God and her King, 
and, renouncing war, hung her white armour and sword 
on the tomb of St. Denis, in the royal abbey. But 
the King and his knights entreated her so earnestly to 
resume them, charging upon themselves the faults which 
had disconcerted her prophecies, that she was weak 
enough to w r ear them once more at the desire of the 
army, and to continue to fight and inspire others when 



JOAN OF ARC. 101 

the Divine breath no longer inspired herself, and the 
Spirit had ceased to combat with her. 

The army dispersed after the disastrous attack upon 
Paris, and a truce was concluded, to give time for nego- 
tiations of peace. Joan went to Normandy, to aid the 
Duke of Alençon in recovering his private possessions 
from the English. The Lord of Albret then requested 
her to join him in fighting at Bourges. She performed 
wonders at the siege of St. Pierre-le-Moûtier, and her 
inspiring genius returned to her amidst the smoke of the 
attack. Abandoned by her troops, and left almost alone 
on the edge of the ditch, she still continued to resist. 
Her faithful esquire Daulon shouted to her in vain, "What 
are you doing there, Joan ? you are alone ! " " No 1" 
said she, pointing to the sky, " I have fifty thousand 
men." And continuing to rally the discouraged soldiers, 
and shaming their cowardice by her valour, she brought 
them back to the walls, and successfully headed them in 
escalading the ramparts. 

On the resumption of hostilities between Charles the 
Seventh and the English, she brought the King an army 
under the walls of Paris. Finding negotiation fruitless, 
she told him now that she carried peace at the point of 
her lance. She dispersed several corps of Burgundians 
and English, and shut herself up in Compiègne to defend 
it, like Orléans, against the Duke of Burgundy. The fate 
of Erance was pledged, as if in the lists, against the 
fortune of the allied armies of England and Elanders. 

A brave but ferocious warrior, William de Eleury, 
commanded in the town. Rumour accused him of enter- 
taining either hatred or contempt for the heroine of the 
camp. 

Joan had promised to save the place. In one of the 
first sallies made by the garrison, she fought with her 



102 JOAN OF ARC. 

usual bravery against the troops of Montgomery and 
Luxembourg. Twice repulsed, she twice restored vic- 
tory to her banner. Towards the close of the day, the 
English and Burgundians united, and concentrating all 
their efforts upon the handful of knights who surrounded 
her, pursued her alone, as though she were the soul of 
their enemies, and the only cause of their ow r n defeat. 

Tracked and pursued amidst her own troops, she 
sacrificed herself to save those who had trusted to her. 
While they were crossing the drawbridge to get back to 
Compiègne, she remained behind, exposed to the attack 
of the English, and fighting for the safety of all. At 
the moment when she w T as spurring her horse on to the 
drawbridge to shelter herself behind the wall, the bridge 
rose and shut her out. Seized by her clothes, and 
dragged from her horse, she rose to fight again ; but, 
surrounded and disarmed by the increasing numbers 
of her enemies, she surrendered to Lionel, Bastard of 
Vendôme, and was taken to the Lord of Luxembourg, 
the general of the Duke of Burgundy's forces. 

No victory was so valuable to the English and Bur- 
gundians, as this spoil which chance or treason had 
thrown in their way. Joan was, in their eyes, the saving 
genius of France and of Charles the Seventh. In gaining 
possession of her, they thought they commanded his 
throne. 

The Duke of Burgundy came himself to make sure of 
his triumph by seeing his captive. He conversed with 
her privately in the room where she was confined. The 
cannon of the camp and the Te Beum in the cathedral 
instantly announced the capture of the Maid of Orléans 
in all the towns and provinces held by the allies. They 
thought they had conquered France in gaining pos- 
session of a girl. 



JOAN OF ARC. 103 

The people, on the contrary, everywhere wept and 
lamented her fate. They spoke in whispers, both in 
camp and cottage, of the supposed treason of De Fleury, 
the commander of Corapiègne, who, the people thought, 
had sold the heroine of God to the Prince of Luxem- 
bourg. To support this accusation, which was without 
proof or probability, they brought forward her presages 
and remarks on the eve of her last conflict. 

" Alas, my good friends and my dear children," she 
had said to her hosts and pages, " I say it with sorrow, 
there is a man who has sold me. I am betrayed, and 
shall shortly be given up to death. Pray God for me, 
for I shall soon be unable to serve either my King, or 
the noble realm of France." 

Did she allude to Fleury, a warrior too rough to flatter 
popular credulity, but too courageous for treachery ? 
Or was she thinking of the monk Richard, whose ac- 
cusations of sorcery pursued her everywhere? None 
knew her thoughts, but all were struck by her presenti- 
ments. 

Her mother, who had come to see her at Rheims, and 
was astonished at her intrepidity in battle, remarked to 
her one day: "But, Joan, do you then fear nothing?" 
" No," she replied, " I fear nothing but treachery." 

It is by treason, indeed, that heroism, virtue, and 
genius are overcome. These powerful faculties, which 
cannot be opposed face to face in the broad daylight, are 
taken in a snare like the eagle and the lion. 

It was remarked that her fervour had, for some time, 
much increased. At evening she would go to the 
churches or field chapels, and pray amongst the children 
who were receiving instructions in the mysteries of 
religion. She was frequently observed in meditation and 
prayer by herself, in the darkest shade of the columns. 



104 JOAN OF ARC 

These sufferings of mind and body redoubled in 
bitterness after her capture. The laws of war and of 
chivalry; her sex, her age, her beauty; the gentleness and 
humanity that she had always shown after victory; the 
even scrupulous care she had taken never to shed blood 
in battle ; the purity of her manners, the childlike sim- 
plicity of her faith — everything ought to have assured 
the safety, mercy, and respect due to a warrior who 
surrendered, and to a woman who had become a marvel 
and a tale in the camp. It was an infamous crime for 
a knight to give up or sell to another the prisoners who 
had trusted to his mercy. The forced hospitality of the 
prison was as sacred as that of the hearth. Sir Lionel 
de Ligny, to whom Joan had surrendered, was answer- 
able, both In honour and by custom, for the proper 
treatment of his prisoner. By the laws and usages of 
war, he could only exchange Joan for her ransom, if 
France thought fit to redeem her. 

But Ligny was a vassal of the Lord of Luxembourg, 
and it was his interest to natter this noble, of whom he 
held his lands. The most precious gift he could offer to 
curry favour with Luxembourg, the ally of Burgundy, 
was the tutelar genius of Charles the Seventh. 

After having sent Joan as a prisoner to one of his own 
castles, on the borders of Picardy, he gave her up to 
the Prince of Luxembourg. The Duke of Burgundy 
was already bargaining for her with Luxembourg ; the 
English were treating with the Duke of Burgundy ; and 
the Inquisition in Paris demanded her from them all; 
anxious to rid the earth of a victim, whose patriotism 
was a crime in the eyes of this ally of the usurping 
powers. " Resting upon the rights of our holy office," 
the Vicar-General of the Inquisition wrote to the agents 
of the Duke of Burgundy, " we require and insist, in the 



JOAN OF ARC. 105 

name of the faith, and under the appointed pains and 
penalties, that you send or bring to us, as a prisoner, 
Joan suspected of crime, in order that proceedings may 
be taken against her by the holy Inquisition." 

Thus they were Frenchmen who demanded revenge 
for England, and it was the Church of France who 
insisted on maltreating the liberator of her altars. 

Luxembourg, though a stranger, was less cruel than 
the heroine's fellow-countrymen. He sent her to his 
castle of Beaurevoir, where the ladies of his family treated 
her with gentleness and compassion. 

The University of Paris, scandalised at this mercy and 
delay, and in cowardly alliance with the Inquisition, 
against innocence and misfortune, supported by more 
violent and imperative letters the requisitions of the 
Vicar -General. " Verily," said the University to the 
Prince of Luxembourg — " Verily, in the judgment of 
every good Catholic, never within the memory of man, 
has there been so great an injury to public faith, such 
immense peril and damage to the commonwealth of this 
kingdom, as will accrue from her escaping by such 
damnable means without proper punishment." 

We see that in all ages the hatred of the man appears 
to be the justice of the judge, and that neither learning 
nor sacerdotal functions preserve corporate bodies from 
this detestable feeling of the partizan. As Luxembourg 
still resisted, the University and the Inquisition aroused 
the ecclesiastical authority in the person of Cauchon, 
Bishop of Beauvais, a ferocious fanatic. 

Cauchon, either from principle or from interest, had 
sold his very soul to the hostile cause. He even dared 
to require the Duke of Burgundy to give up his prisoner, 
and to settle her price with him. " Although this woman 
ought not," said his requisition, " to be treated as a 



106 JOAN OF ARC. 

prisoner of war, nevertheless, to 'reward those who have 
taken and kept her, the King (the English King of Paris) 
is willing to give them six thousand francs (then a con- 
siderable sura), and to the Bastard who took her a 
pension of three hundred livres." He moreover offered, 
by way of security, ten thousand francs, " as if for a 
king, a prince, a grandee, or a dauphin." 

The Prince of Luxembourg, not daring to resist at the 
same time the secret desire of the Duke of Burgundy — 
the power of the English in the coalition — the University, 
the organ of public opinion — the Inquisition, the organ of 
the Church— unwillingly yielded to this combined in- 
fluence, and gave up Joan. It was a complex crime, in 
which each party got rid of responsibility, but in which 
the accusation rests with Paris, the cowardice with 
Luxembourg, the sentence with the Inquisition, the 
blame and punishment with England, and the disgrace 
and ingratitude with Prance. 

This bartering about Joan by her enemies, of whom 
the fiercest were her countrymen, had lasted six months. 
She had been unwillingly torn from the care and friend- 
ship of the ladies of the house of Luxembourg at 
Beaurevoir, removed to Arras, and at length placed in 
irons at Rouen. During these six months, the influence 
of this goddess of war upon the troops of Charles the 
Seventh — her spirit, which still guided the camp and 
council of the King, — the patriotic though superstitious 
veneration of the people, which her captivity only doubled 
— and lastly, the absence of the Duke of Burgundy, 
tired of war, disposed to negotiate, satiated with power, 
absorbed by love and gaiety, and remaining idle in his 
Flemish possessions — all these causes had brought reverse 
after reverse upon the English, and a series of successes 
to Charles the Seventh. 



JOAN OF ARC. 107 

Joan, although absent, triumphed everywhere. The 
hatred of her name amongst the English, and in the 
University and Inquisition, servile or interested partisans 
of the foreign dynasty, increased in proportion to the 
disasters which befel their cause. Policy required the 
popular prestige to be quenched in the blood of the 
heroine. The blindness of the clergy would have the 
sorcery burnt with the witch — hate cried for vengeance — 
fear for security. The condemnation and death of Joan 
were the result of the tacit compact of these, the vilest 
passions of the human heart. 

The Bishop of Beauvais pressed forward the trial, 
which was accordingly opened at his requisition. Such 
was the impatience for her condemnation amongst both 
the lay and clerical authorities, that the clergy of Beau- 
vais authorized Cauchon to act in place of the Arch- 
bishop of Rouen, whose see was then vacant. 

The knights of the three nations — even those whom 
their dishonourable conduct should have made blush 
before the captive they had sold and given up — seemed as 
glad to be rid of her presence, as the Inquisition was 
delighted to sacrifice her to their resentment. It is 
related that a short time before Joan of Arc appeared 
before her judges, the Prince of Luxembourg, whose 
prisoner she had been, and who had sold her to gratify 
his own avarice, as he was passing through Rouen, went 
in cruel sport to enjoy the sight of his victim in prison, 
taking with him the Earls of Stafford and Warwick, as 
if to show them the terror of the English disarmed and 
ironed. " Joan," he said, with a sarcastic attempt to 
take advantage of her credulity, "Iain come to deliver 
and ransom you, on condition that you promise never 
more to bear arms against us." 

" Ah ! my God ! " answered the poor girl with a tone 
of mild reproach, " you are making sport of me. You 



108 JOAN OF ARC. 

have neither the power to do so, nor the will. I know 
well that the English will put me to death, hoping to win 
France by killing me ; but, were there a hundred thou- 
sand more of them, they should not have this kingdom." 
Stafford drew his dagger from the sheath, as if to punish 
this courageous defiance from a captive to her gaolers. 
Warwick, more honourable and humane, turned his arm 
aside, and prevented the outrage. 

Above a hundred ecclesiastic and secular doctors had 
assembled at Rouen to form the terrible tribunal. It 
might have been supposed that the perverse or fanatical 
judges in this great cause had wished to share the 
iniquity with a greater number, in order to diminish 
the individual responsibility, and the horror in which 
each would be held by France and by posterity. These 
hundred judges, however, were only authorized to take 
the informations against the accused, and to discuss the 
charges and evidence. The Bishop of Beauvais and the 
Vicar-General of the Inquisition had alone the right to 
decide — and they had already pronounced sentence in 
their hearts. 

No pains had been spared to procure accusations 
against her. Spies, sent to Domrémy to rake up faults 
even from her cradle, and to defame her reputation by 
those popular rumours which form the basis of the 
greatest calumnies, had only collected evidence of her 
faith, her candour, and her virtue. The companions of 
her childhood, true to friendship and sincerity, had 
spoken of her with compassion and tears. The soldiers 
only named her with admiration, and the people with 
gratitude. It became necessary to seek in darker and 
fouler sources the means of accusation. The most in- 
famous perfidy had indicated them. 

A priest named Loiseleur, pretending to come from 
Lorraine, and to be a fellow-countryman of Joan, was 



JOAN OF ARC. 109 

thrown into her prison, under pretence of attachment to 
the party of Charles the Seventh, in order that their 
common country and punishment, with their similarity of 
opinions, might induce Joan to open her heart to him 
in confidence. While Loiseleur questioned his fellow- 
prisoner, and endeavoured to draw from her confessions 
which might be converted into crimes, the Bishop of Beau- 
vais and the Earl of Warwick, concealed behind a par- 
tition, heard the conversation without being seen, and took 
note of her confiding complaints. Even the scriveners 
who were concealed with the bishop, and charged with 
recording these secrets, blushed at their duty, and 
refused to write down information so villainously ob- 
tained. Loiseleur continued his work of perdition under 
another disguise. He worked upon her religious feelings, 
received her confession in the dungeon, and, by arrange- 
ment with the bishop, advised his penitent, under the 
seal of religion, to make every avowal which could afford 
a pretence for her condemnation. 

While these preliminary proceedings were pending at 
Rouen, means were taken to intimidate the witnesses 
who might have given testimony to her innocence or to 
her honour. A poor woman in Paris, who said that 
Joan was an honest woman, was burnt alive. 

Such was the disposition of the judges and of public 
opinion at Paris and Rouen, when the bishop at length 
ordered the accused to be brought before him on the 
21st February. Persecuted by her enemies, she seemed 
to be forgotten by her friends. Charles the Seventh, 
victorious, and caring little for her to whom he owed 
his triumph, was already in treaty with the Duke of Bur- 
gundy, and does not appear to have made one serious 
effort to ransom the heroine who was about to die for 
his sake. 

The bishop, fearing lest the prisoner might even for a 



110 JOAN OF ARC. 

moment escape from the custody of the English, and be 
liberated by some patriotic emotion of the people, carried 
on the trial in the castle of Rouen, commanded by 
Warwick, captain of the guards of King Henry the 
Sixth of England. It was in the chapel of this castle, 
that Joan, in irons, but always clothed in the dress of 
a warrior, appeared before him. The vicar of the 
Inquisitor-General, probably feeling some scruple or 
compassion for the victim, appears rather to have re- 
strained than excited the fierce impetuosity of the bishop, 
and to have given the trial a slight appearance of impar- 
tiality and calmness. In those days the Church judged, 
but did not strike with its own arm. Satisfied with 
purging the heresy or sacrilege by its decision, it left 
to the civil power the odium and unpopularity of the 
execution. The Inquisition, throughout the case, seems 
to have been less anxious to condemn the Maid of 
Orléans than to try her. It displayed Roman impar- 
tiality. Joan of Arc, in point of fact, had only offended 
the English, whose minister and pander was the Bishop 
of Beauvais. 

The bishop spoke to the accused with kindness, to 
assume an appearance of impartiality or mercy, which 
would afterwards give more weight to his decision. She 
at first complained of the weight and pressure of the 
iron rings which hurt her limbs. The bishop told her 
that these irons were a precaution which it had become 
necessary to take to defeat her repeated attempts to 
escape. The prisoner confessed that at the beginning of 
her confinement she had naturally desired to achieve 
liberty; but that there was nothing criminal or dis- 
honourable in that, as she had never pledged herself not 
to leave the castle. The report of the trial does not 
state whether her irons were made lighter. 

After this episode, they read her indictment, which 



JOAN OF ARC. 1 Jl 

was more religious than political, and in which she was 
charged with crimes against the faith, with heresy, and 
sorcery. 

She stated her age to be about nineteen. With regard 
to her belief, she said that her mother had taught her the 
Lord's Prayer, the Ave Maria, and the Creed, the three 
prayers and profession of faith of all believers ; and that 
no one but her mother had given her any religious 
instruction. She was called upon to repeat these two 
prayers and the confession of faith of her childhood ; 
but she was apparently afraid, lest in reciting them 
aloud in the presence of the doctors, she should make 
some omission or error, which might be turned against 
her as a proof of heresy ; for she replied, " I will repeat 
them willingly enough, provided that my Lord Bishop 
of Beauvais, who is here present, consents to receive my 
confession." She no doubt considered, that she had no 
better means of convincing the judge of the sincerity 
and orthodoxy of her faith, than by opening her heart to 
him as a priest. Her stay at Court, her long captivity, 
and the love of life incidental to her youth, gave the 
young girl the ingenuous skill and instinctive prudence 
necessary to her situation. 

She was takeu back to her dungeon, staggering 
under the weight of her irons. 

The next day she was called upon to swear that she 
would make true answers to all questions that might be 
put to her. She excepted those which related to God 
and the King, but not to herself. " On the latter," she 
said, " I will speak the whole truth, but not on the 
others." 

As she could not be blamed for this prudence, they 
went on to ask whether she had ever learned a business ? 
"Yes," she replied, "my mother taught me to sew as 



112 JOAN OF ARC. 

beautifully as any townswomaiu" She confessed that 
she had once secretly left her mother's house, but said 
that it was for fear of the troops of Burgundians wan- 
dering about the province — that a woman, named La 
Rousse, had taken her to the village of Neufchâtel — 
that she had only lived a few days with that woman's 
family — and that during that time she attended to the 
household, or acted as a domestic servant ; but that she 
did not go to the field to keep sheep or cattle. 

She confessed that, from the age of thirteen, she had 
heard voices, and had been dazzled by luminous appear- 
ances in her mother's garden, on the side next the 
church — that these voices had only given her good 
advice — that they had perseveringly commanded her to 
come into France and raise the siege of Orléans — that 
she had resisted — but that, after long conflicts, she had 
persuaded her uncle to take her to Vaucouleurs, where 
Baudricourt had said to her, when sending her to Chinon, 
" Go, and may God's will be done ! " 

She related, without vanity and without fear, her 
presentation to the Dauphin, and her instinctive recog- 
nition of him amid all his Court. She was asked what 
she had said in secret to the Dauphin. She refused to 
answer, for fear of revealing the King's doubts as to 
the legitimacy of his birth. On being asked whether 
she had seen any divine mark or celestial sign on the 
forehead of the Dauphin, she said, " Excuse my not 
answering anything on this point." She then returned 
to her dungeon for the night. 

The bishop, on opening the third sitting, admonished 
her again to speak the truth on all subjects respecting 
which she might be questioned, even if they concerned 
the State. 

" My lord bishop," said she, " consider well that you 



JOAN OF ARC. 113 

are my judge, and that you take much on yourself in the 
sight of God, if you press me too hard." Innocent in 
the eyes of the Church, she felt that she would infallibly 
be pronounced guilty by the enemies of the King ; and 
that, by evading political questions, she evaded death. 
The bishop knew this as well as she, and tried in vain to 
entangle her in the snare. ".No," said she ; " I will tell 
nothing but the truth, but I will not tell the whole truth." 
She thus qualified her oath to diminish her danger. 

The examination was resumed, with the design of 
extracting a confession of sorcery from the maiden's 
simplicity. " You still hear your internal voice ?" — 
"Yes." "When did you last hear it?" — "Yesterday, 
and again to-day." " What were you doing when the 
voice addressed you ?" — " I was sleeping, and it woke 
me." "Did you kneel down to answer it ?" — "No: I 
only thanked it for the consolation it afforded me, sitting 
upon my bed, and I begged it to comfort and assist me 
in my distress." " Did it tell you that it would save 
you from the peril in which you now are ?" — " To that 
question I have no answer to give." 

As the bishop still plied her with more queries, she 
told him again that he ran great risk for his soul by 
showing himself both her judge and her enemy. " The 
children say," she added, "that the innocent are fre- 
quently hung for speaking the truth." " Do you 
consider yourself in a state of grace before God?" said 
the bishop. She reflected a little, and then replied, as 
one who considered both God and men, not wishing to 
give scandal to one, or offence to the other : " If I am 
not, may it please God to restore me to it ; and if I am, 
may it please Him to maintain me in it !" 

This wise answer disconcerted her accusers, and they 
again turned to politics. 

VOL. II. i 



114 JOAN OF ARC. 

" Did the inhabitants of Domrenry favour the Bur- 
gundians or the Armagnacs ?" — " I know but one of 
the Burgundian party." It was a man who had stood 
godfather to one of her godchildren, and to whom she 
had once remarked, " I could tell you something, if you 
did not side with the Burgundians." But the difference 
of opinion between them had prevented her from com- 
municating anything respecting her visions to this man. 
" Did you go with the village children, who divided 
themselves for amusement, into French and English, to 
fight each other?" — " I do not remember having gone 
with them ; but I have seen them coming back bruised 
and bleeding from these combats." " Had you, in 
your youth, a very great hatred of the Burgundians ? " 
— " I heartily wished the Dauphin might recover his 
kingdom." 

She was then dismissed for the day. 

She appeared again on the 27th February. Her 
sufferings were such, that she even gave her judges 
some anxiety. " How have you been since Saturday ?" 
said one of the assessors. — " As well as I could expect," 
said Joan. " Have you observed the fast-days ?" — " Is 
that in your brief?" said she, with some astonishment. 
And upon being told that it was, " Yes," said she, " I 
have always fasted on the days of abstinence." 

They returned to her visions, in order to infer sorcery 
from them. She related, with her customary candour, 
the visits of St. Michael, St. Margaret, and St. Catherine 
— names which she had given in her childhood to these 
unknown visitors of her soul. When they insisted on 
hearing from her all the inspirations which she received 
from these different spirits — " There are some visions," 
said she, sternly, " which were addressed to the King of 
France, and not to those who dare to ask for them." 



JOAN OF AKC. 115 

"Were these spirits naked when they visited yon?" — ■ 
"Do you think," she replied, "that the King of heaven 
has no means of clothing them with his light ?" " Will 
you tell us the sign you gave the Dauphin, to show him 
that you came from God?" — " I have already told you 
that I will never reveal what concerns the King. Go 
and ask it of himself." 

The following day they demanded of her whether her 
revelations had foretold that she should escape death. 
" That does not concern the trial," said she. " Would 
you have me, then, speak against myself? I put my 
trust in God, who will do as he pleases." " Did you 
not ask the Queen for men's clothes when you were 
presented to her?" — " That is true." " Were you 
never requested to take off your soldier's dress, and 
to wear women's clothes ?" — " Yes, certainly ; and I have 
always answered that I should only change my clothes 
at the command of God. The daughter of the Lord of 
Luxembourg, who begged her father not to give me up 
to the English, desired me to do so, and so did the lady 
of Beaurevoir when I was in her castle. They offered 
to give me women's clothes, or cloth to make them. 
I answered that I had not yet had God's permission, 
and that the time was not yet come. And if I had 
thought I could do it innocently, I would rather have 
done it for the sake of those two good ladies than to 
please any ladies in France, except the Queen." It was 
evident that the kindness and compassion of the females 
of the house of Luxembourg, had impressed her with 
gratitude, which she was desirous of showing even at 
the approach of death. 

" Have you not had an image of yourself made ? 
and were not prayers offered in your name in camp and 
town?" — "Whether our partisans prayed in my name I 

i 2 



116 JOAN OF ARC. 

know not ; but I know that they had not my consent to 
do so. If they have prayed for me, I do not see any 
harm in that. Many people, it is true, were glad to see 
me, and pressed round me, kissing my clothes, my arms, 
my standard, and anything of mine they could reach ; 
but it was because the poor came to me with confidence, 
because I gave them no offence or annoyance, but con- 
soled them, and saved them as much as I could from 
the evils of war. The women and girls used to touch 
my ring with theirs ; but I was not aware that they had 
any evil intention in so doing. It is true that, when 
I was at Rheims, at Château-Thierry, and Lagny, 
several persons desired me to stand godmother for their 
children, and that I consented to do so ; but I never 
performed any miracles. The child I was requested to 
hold at Lagny was three days old; some girls brought 
it to Our Lady, to pray her to restore it to life. I went 
to pray at her altar with them. At length the child 
gave signs of life, moved its lips, and was baptized. 
It died immediately afterwards." " Did not the King 
give you a crest and coat-of-arms, and treasure for his 
service?" — "I never received either crest or coat-of- 
arms ; but the King gave them to my brothers. As for 
me, he only gave me horses, five war horses and seven 
for travelling, and money to pay my hosts." 

They recurred to the sign she had given the Dauphin, 
and commanded her to describe it. But she answered 
with a double meaning, and said, in allusion to this sign, 
which was no other than the kingdom of France, " No 
one could describe the richness of it. As to you," she 
added, with a disdainful mirth, which showed the free- 
dom of her spirit, " the sign that you want is that God 
should deliver me into your hands. That would be the 
most splendid token he could give you." 



JOAN OF ARC. 117 

In the course of the subsequent sittings, she admitted 
that her father had had a dream during her childhood, 
in which he had seen, with dismay, his daughter Joan 
fighting amongst armed men. Required to speak about 
her revelations, she broke through the snare at once, 
and answered, that whatever good she had done she had 
effected by her own inspiration. 

She was asked if there was not a magical sign on 
the ring she wore on her finger, and why she looked 
piously at this ring when going into battle. " It is be- 
cause the name of Jesus," she said, " is engraved on 
it," and because also it was a pleasing remembrance 
of her father and mother, she liked to feel it in her 
hand and on her finger. " Why did you have your 
standard carried into the cathedral of Rheims, at the 
King's coronation?" — "It had shared the trouble," 
answered Joan, her heart animated with this inani- 
mate sign ; " it was but fair that it should share the 
triumph !" 

Tempted first through her simplicity, then through 
her patriotism, it still remained that she should be 
assailed through her conscience. The temptation on 
this point was sure to win. The University, the Inqui- 
sition, the Episcopal power, represented by the Bishop of 
Noyon, sided with the English crown, the Burgundians, 
and the Parisians. To refuse obedience to this party 
seemed to be refusing it to the Church. She was asked 
to recognise in everything the authority of this Church. 
She could not consent to abjure her political cause, nor 
could she refuse consent without declaring herself a 
rebel to the faith. " I refer it to my judge," said she, 
with that sublime inspiration of skill, by which the judg- 
ment is elevated so as to confound human judges ; and 
she would give no other reply than this, which she 



118 JOAN OF ARC. 

repeated seven times in the same' words, in answer to 
all the craft of her accusers. 

" Once for all," they at last impatiently said, " will 
you or will you not submit to the Pope?" " Take me 
to him," she replied, " and I will give him an answer." 

During the rest of that day she remained silent. 
Troubled in her conscience, she confessed her anguish in 
this prayer, which she addressed to Heaven to deliver 
her from temptation. " Most merciful God," said she, 
" I pray thee by the Passion, if thou lovest me, to reveal 
unto me what I should answer to this clergy. As con- 
cerns my life, I know well what to do ; but as for the 
rest, I do not understand the commands of my guides." 

Her anguish, more terrible than the fetters of her 
dungeon and the presence of death, threw her into an 
illness wliLli interrupted the public examinations. But 
the bishop and his assessors went to pester her even to 
the foot of the pillar to which she was chained, sick 
with fever, and troubled in mind. She was asked if she 
cordially submitted to a council. She did not know 
what a council was. They explained to her that it was 
a general assembly of the Church. She then said that 
she submitted to it. The scrivener, who was present, 
noted her reply. The bishop saw it, and being desirous 
at all hazards of giving up his prey to the parties of 
whom he was the tool, " Be silent ! in the name of 
God?" said he to the doctor who had put the question, 
and obtained the answer. Then turning to the scrivener, 
he forbade him to write down what might acquit the 
prisoner. "Alas!" said Joan, looking mournfully at 
the bishop ; " you write down what is against me, and 
you will not write clown what speaks in my favour." 

Warwick, whom the bishop had informed of this, 
having met in the evening this either unskilful or 



JOAN OF ARC. 119 

merciful doctor, addressed him angrily, accused him 
of prompting the wretched prisoner, and threatened to 
have him thrown into the Seine. The doctor tied, 
trembling, from Rouen, and Joan's prison was closed to 
all, even to Cauchon. 

The thirst for her punishment was so great that the 
English party trembled lest disease might snatch her 
from her executioners. " For nothing in the world," 
said her savage warder, " would the king let her die 
a natural death ; he has bought her dear enough to be 
anxious to have her burnt. Let her be cured as quickly 
as possible." 

The bishop, however, again obtained admission to her 
dungeon, and pointed out the danger to her soul which 
would arise from her dying without adopting the opinion 
of the Church. " Considering my sickness," said she, 
" I think that I am in great danger of death. If it is to 
be, God's will be done. I only desire to confess my sins, 
and to be buried in holy ground." She was asked if 
she wished to have prayers and processions made for her 
recovery. " Yes," said she, " I should be very glad to 
have good souls praying for me." 

They reverted to the accusation of suicide which had 
been brought against her, in consequence of a desperate 
attempt to escape during her first captivity at Beaure- 
voir. She confessed that her horror at finding herself 
a prisoner, and without arms, while her King and 
countrymen were fighting and shedding their blood, had 
maddened her ; that she had leaped, at the risk of lier 
life, from the top of the battlements into the moat ; that 
the fall from so great a height had stunned her, and that 
she was therefore retaken ; and that on recovering her 
senses she had seen her fault, and prayed to God for 
forgiveness. 



120 JOAN OF ARC. 

Her youth saved her from one death for another. Her 
strength returned. The insolence, the insults, the joy 
and the songs of her gaolers, announced her approaching 
trial, and certain condemnation. Three soldiers slept in 
her room. They talked of submitting her to the grossest 
outrages before burning her, and Joan trembled in her 
dungeon for fear of these premeditated insults. She 
carefully kept her warrior's dress, that she might defend 
her honour even to the death against the dark plots of 
her guards. The bishop reproved her for wearing this 
habit, which savoured of her former life. He made a 
change in it the condition of granting the favour she 
asked of being allowed to pray with the faithful, and to 
attend mass on Sundays. She consented, provided that 
the woman's garb which she was to assume should be 
like those irora by the modest girls of Rouen— a long 
and close-fitting gown, the folds of which should cover 
her decently, and be a protection from insult. 

During Passion- week, and on the festival of the Re- 
surrection, when all Christendom was sharing in the 
agony of the Son of Man and rejoicing in their re- 
demption, Joan felt more bitterly her solitude and her 
separation from the communion of souls. The sound of 
the merry Easter bells rang in her heart, as a discordant 
mockery of her loneliness and sorrow. 

In the meanwhile, the University of Paris, to whom 
her depositions had been referred, had declared her to be 
possessed of Satan, undutiful to her family, and drunk 
with the blood of the faithful. 

The lawyers, who were also consulted, had limited her 
guilt to the event of her persevering in her errors. 

The Inquisitor, and the Bishop of Beauvais himself, 
frightened at last by the clamour of the populace, which 
was now beginning to take pity on this innocent girl, 



JOAN OF ARC. 121 

seemed to become more merciful, and to appear content 
with her condemnation to repentance and imprisonment, 
in place of death. They made a last effort to extract 
from their victim a disavowal of her obstinacy, thinking 
by this means to satisfy the people by clemency, and the 
English by her punishment. 

Joan was dragged, sick and weak as she was, from the 
pillar, at the foot of which she had languished for four 
months, to undergo mental torture in public. Two 
scaffolds had been erected in the cemetery of St. Ouen, 
behind the royal abbey of that name. The Cardinal of 
Winchester, who represented the crown of England in 
France, — Cauchon, the embodiment of servile ambition 
selling its country for rank — the judges, the clergy, the 
doctors, the assessors, the preachers of the University, 
the representatives of right submitting to might — were 
seated on one of these scaffolds. 

Facing them on the other scaffold stood Joan, fettered 
and handcuffed, and chained to a stake, with an iron 
belt round her waist, surrounded by reporters ready to 
note her every word, and by the ministers of torture with 
their dreadful implements, prepared to force from her 
the cry of agony beyond endurance ; — within sight, the 
executioner with his hurdle, ready to remove her muti- 
lated corpse. 

Superstitious,, and awed by these preparations — hesi- 
tating between respect for the civil and religious power, 
fear of the foreigner, horror for the reputed witch, and 
pity for the maiden, whose beauty was touchingly 
enhanced by the shadow of death — an immense and 
anxious crowd covered the square and the surrounding 
roofs. A celebrated preacher of the day, named William 
Erard, addressed Joan of Arc, and endeavoured to per- 
suade her into a disavowal of her errors, and a complete 



122 JOAN OF ARC. 

submission to whatever the Church might decide respect- 
ing the rights of the two competitors for the Crown of 
France. " Alas ! thou noble house of France ! " he cried, 
thinking to strengthen his arguments by a stirring appeal 
to the line of Valois, — " thou noble house of France, that 
wast ever the guardian of the faith, how hast thou been 
so perverted as to attach thyself to a heretical schis- 
matic ? Yes, it is of thee that I speak, Joan," said he, 
turning his withering glance upon her ; " I tell thee that 
thy King is schismatic and a heretic ! " 

Joan had listened until then in silence and with hu- 
mility to abuse which only fell upon herself, but she 
could no longer restrain her feelings when she heard the 
Dauphin insulted. "By my honour, Sir," said she, 
interrupting the preacher ; "I swear that he is the 
noblest Christian throughout all Christendom, and the 
one who best loves the faith of our holy Church, and 
that nothing of what you say is true." " Silence her ! " 
exclaimed the Bishop of Beauvais. The officers ordered 
her to be quiet. 

The bishop then read her a form of recantation, with 
which they pressed her to comply. " I will submit to 
the Pope," said Joan. " The Pope is too far off," 
answered the bishop. " Well, then, let her be burnt ! " 
shouted the preacher. 

The officers, the executioners, and the people who 
surrounded her, begged her to sign this declaration of 
submission to the Church — a simple expression of re- 
pentance for her faults before God, without any dis- 
avowal of her party or of her opinions before men. 
" Well, I will sign ! " she said. 

At these words a great shout of joy burst from the 
crowd. The Bishop of Beauvais asked Winchester what 
lie was to do. " She must be admitted to repentance," 



JOAN OF ARC. 123 

said the Englishman. This was giving her, her life. 
While Winchester's adherents were quarrelling with the 
Bishop of Beauvais on the platform, accusing him of 
favouring the prisoner, and while the bishop was angrily 
contradicting them, a secretary went up to Joan, and 
handed her a pen to sign the recantation, which she 
could not read. The poor girl blushed and smiled at 
her own ignorance, rolling her pen clumsily in those 
fingers that wielded the sword so easily. Under the 
officer's direction, she drew a circle, with a cross in the 
centre. They then read her reprieve, which inflicted on 
her, imprisonment for the remainder of her life, to re- 
pent of her sins on the bread of misery and w r ater of 
affliction. 

At these words, the partisans of the English cause, 
and the soldiers, disappointed in their hope of revenge 
by a sentence which they thought cowardly from its not 
including her death, murmured and began to be excited ; 
they crowded tumultuously round the tribunal, and 
picking up stones and bones from the burial-ground, 
threw them on the platform at the cardinal, the bishop, 
the judges, and doctors, shouting, " You rascal priests ! 
you are betraying the King ! " But the judges, in order 
to escape the pelting, and to get safely through the 
crowd, told the most furious : " Keep quiet, keep quiet ; 
we will have her another way! " 

Joan was more astonished at the hatred of the people 
she had loved so much, than at the prospect of death. 
She returned to the castle, pursued by the shouts of the 
populace. She had again to bear her fetters, and the 
sneers and insults of her enemies. " The affairs of our 
King are going on badly," said Warwick, the governor 
of the castle ; " this woman will escape burning ! " 

Her female garments, which she had worn as a mark 



124 JOAN OF ARC. 

of obedience upon the scaffold, Were taken away from her 
while she slept, and she was therefore obliged to resume 
her man's attire which had been left by her bedside. 
As soon as she had been thus forced to put on the 
clothing which was considered the mark of her crime and 
obstinacy, they called the bishop, in order that he might 
catch her in her contumacy. The bishop rated her 
very severely for this relapse after her abjuration. She 
protested that she had abjured nothing but her sins, and 
that she preferred death to remaining thus riveted to 
her dungeon pillar. The Bishop of Beauvais, convinced 
of the desire of his party for the punishment of this girl, 
whose existence called to mind the defeat of the English 
and the crimes of the Burgundians, ceased his contest 
with Warwick. He persuaded the judges and doctors 
of the necessity of punishing this unrepentant criminal 
with death. The ecclesiastics gave her over to the secu- 
lar arm, thus charged with all the odium of carrying 
into execution a sentence which they were content to 
dictate. This sentence condemned her to the stake. 

A confessor sent by the bishop entered her cell, and 
announced her approaching doom. " Alas ! alas ! " said 
she, stretching her hands as far as her chains would allow, 
and throwing back her dishevelled head ; " must I be 
treated so horribly and cruelly? must my pure and 
delicate body, which has never been soiled by any stain 
or corruption, be so soon burnt and reduced to ashes ? 
Ah ! I would rather be beheaded seven times than burnt ! 
I appeal to God, the supreme Judge, from the injustice 
and the tortures they inflict upon me !" Her soul was 
clinging to her body, at the moment that they were 
about to be separated by fire — her instinct of life was 
struggling with her faith — her womanly feeling overcame 
the fearlessness of the soldier. 



JOAN OF ARC. 125 

As a last favour, she was allowed to receive the com- 
munion of the dying in her dungeon. The bishop was 
in attendance with the officers of the prison, at this the 
last consolation allowed her by her executioners. She 
saw him, and said in a tone of gentle reproof, " Bishop, 
you are the cause of my death." She also recognised 
amongst the persons present, a preacher from whom she 
had received spiritual advice before her trial, and with 
whom she had contracted the usual familiarity of the 
prisoner with the visitor : " Ah ! Master Pierre," said 
she, weeping, " where shall I be this evening ? " 

They gave her back her woman's clothes to be worn 
at the stake, to which she was driven in a cart be- 
tween her confessor and an officer. A charitable monk 
followed her on foot, praying for her soul — a type of 
pity at the foot of the gallows. He was called Isambard : 
history should record the names of those whose love 
endures unto death. The wretch Loiseleur, employed by 
the bishop to worm out Joan's secrets under the pretence 
of confession, ascended the cart before it moved off, to 
obtain from his victim forgiveness for his treachery. 
Even the English were roused at the sight of this traitor 
and hooted and threatened him — a versatility natural to 
a mob, which is willing enough to strike, but loathes 
treachery. " O Rouen ! Rouen ! " said she weeping, 
" is it then here that I must die ? " She wondered that 
Heaven suffered her to perish so young before her work 
was done, and France completely freed from its oppres- 
sors. She was uncertain, even at the foot of the scaffold, 
whether to expect a miracle or death. 

The bishop, the inquisitor, the University, and the 
doctors, were waiting for her on a stand placed opposite 
a platform of mortar, covered with dry wood, for this 
human sacrifice. 



126 JOAN OP ARC. 

When the cart stopped at the foot of the stand, the 
preacher said to her in the name of the judges, " Joan, 
depart in peace ; the Church can no longer defend thee ; 
it delivers thee to the secular arm : " a cruel excuse for 
those who had authorized the crime, and only made 
others the instruments of death. 

Joan then knelt down in the cart, not to ask her life of 
the judges who condemned her, but to implore mercy from 
Heaven for the bishop and the priests who were about to 
burn her. She clasped her hands, and bowed her head ; 
and, addressing herself with a mild and pathetic energy, 
sometimes to her celestial protectors, and sometimes to 
her destroyers, who were seated below her on the scaffold, 
she asked for their aid, their compassion, and their 
prayers, with so tender a tone, and with womanish sobs 
mixed with dreadful shrieks ; that at seeing such youth, 
innocence, and beauty about to be reduced to ashes, and 
at the sound of the wail which seemed already to be rising 
from her funeral pile, the doctors, the inquisitors, the 
officers — even Winchester and the Bishop of Beauvais 
himself — burst into tears ; and some of them, unable to 
bear the sight, and faint with emotion, came down from 
the stand, and were lost amidst the crowd. 

She then confessed aloud the mental errors or the false 
suggestions of the heart, which she might have honestly 
entertained in her journey upon earth. 

Did she repent of her devotion to a glorious inspiration 
and to an ungrateful country ? The chronicles say not ; 
but her tears and lamentations, her willingness of mind 
to undergo what her feelings revolted from, leave us to 
conclude that she did. She was more touching than if 
she had been stoical — she was natural — she was womanly 
at the stake. Human nature seems to have struggled 
hard with force of will and with death at the foot of her 



JOAN OF ARC. 127 

funereal pile. The multitude stood gazing on this torture 
of mind and body, and this stupid and ferocious audience 
were gratified with a sight of genuine agony. 

At last Joan felt a wish to strengthen herself by con- 
templating the symbol of the highest sacrifice, undergone 
by the Son of God for man. She prayed for permis- 
sion at least to die with the cross in her hand — a last 
sign of communion with the Church which rejected her. 
For a long time her request was unnoticed. An English- 
man, however, handed her two rough sticks with the 
bark on, tied across each other with a morsel of string, so 
as to form a rough image of the cross. She took it and 
kissed it ; and opening her dress, placed it in her bosom, 
as if to make the efficacy of the sign approach nearer to 
heart. 

The monk Isambard, attentive to her least gesture, and 
seeing her wishes so ill complied with, ventured to take 
upon himself an act of generous boldness, at the risk of 
his compassion appearing impious. He went with the 
mace-bearer to a church near the market-place, took the 
parish cross from the altar, and placed it in the hands of 
Joan of Arc. 

The executioners made her walk to the pile. Her 
confessor mounted it with her, murmuring pious advice 
in her ear. Her coolness did not abandon her in her 
despair. When the executioner, after fastening her to 
the pole, had set fire to the faggots at the bottom of the 
heap, — " Oh, my God ! " she said, " go back, father ; and 
when the flame rises round me, lift up the cross that I 
may see it as I die, and speak holy words to me to the 
last." 

The Bishop of Beauvais, seemingly wishing to obtain a 
final justification of his conduct by the poor girl's accusing 
herself, came near the pile as the flames rose. " Bishop ! 



128 JOAN OF ARC. 

Bishop ! you are the cause of my death;" was all that the 
suffering victim said, with a voice that sounded as 
though it already came from another world. 

Then, looking through her tears at this multitude 
thirsting for the blood of its deliverer — " Rouen," said 
she, " I fear you will one day rue my death !" She then 
prayed with a low voice. 

A deep silence had succeeded the roar of the tumul- 
tuous crowd. The dense mass of men listened without 
sound to catch the last sob of her departing life. A cry 
of horror and anguish was heard from the pile as the fire 
rose before the wind and caught the clothes and hair of 
the condemned. " Water ! water ! " she cried, by a last 
instinctive effort ; then, wrapped as in a garment by 
the sweeping flame, nought more was heard but some in- 
distinct and broken sounds half-lost amidst the crackling 
faggots ; until her head, overtopped by the flame, fell 
upon her bosom, and with her dying voice she called 
upon the name of Jesus. 

Her voice was heard no more on earth, and of her body 
nothing was found but a few ashes. Winchester had 
the embers of her pyre swept into the Seine, that there 
might remain upon the soil of France no vestige of the 
body or soul of the peasant girl who fought for its 
liberty. 

He was mistaken. The Maid of Orléans was dead, 
but France was saved. 

Such was the life of Joan of Arc, the prophetess, the 
heroine, and the saint of French patriotism, the glory 
the deliverance, and equally the shame of her country. 
The people, in order to enshrine her amongst the most 
sublime and touching figures of history, need not receive 
the enthusiastic ideas of the multitude, or the colder 
explanations of a later age. The oppressed country 



JOAN OF ARC. 129 

breathed its spirit over the soul of the peasant girl ; — her 
passion for its freedom endowed her with the gift of 
miracles, a gift which nature never refuses to great and 
unselfish passions. Sprung from the people, held back 
by her relatives, drawn on by her devotion, accepted by 
policy, put forward as a champion by the chiefs and 
warriors of a ruined cause, deified by the populace, 
victorious over her enemies ; abandoned by her king, her 
countrymen, and her genius as soon as her work was 
complete : hateful to the usurpers, sold by ambition, 
judged by cowards, condemned by her brethren, burnt as 
a holocaust to strangers, — she vanished like a meteor in 
a sacrifice which appears to some an expiation for crime, 
to others, an assumption to glory. Everything in her 
life seems miraculous ; and yet the miracle is not in 
her voice, her visions, her sign, her standard, or her 
sword, — but in herself. The strength of her national 
feeling was her surest inspiration. Her triumph attests 
the energy of this innate passion. Her mission was 
simply the bursting into action of patriotic faith. She 
lived in it, and died through it, and she was lighted 
to victory and to heaven by the flame of her enthusiasm 
as well as of her funeral pyre. Angel, maiden, warrior, 
martyr, — she has become a fit blazon for the soldier's 
banner — a type of France commended to the people 
by beauty, and rescued by the sword, — her memory 
survived her martyrdom, and she was deified by the holy 
superstition of her country. 



VOL. II. 



\ 






CROMWELL. 



ENGLAND. 



A.D. 1599. 



The name of Cromwell up to the present period has 
been identified with ambition, craftiness, usurpation, 
ferocity, and tyranny ; we think that his true character 
is that of a fanatic. 

History is like the sybil, and only reveals her secrets 
to time, leaf by leaf. Hitherto she has not exhibited 
the real nature and composition of this human enigma. 
He has been thought a profound politician ; he was only 
an eminent sectarian. Far-sighted historians of deep 
research, such as Hume, Lingard, Bossuet, and Voltaire, 
have all been mistaken in Cromwell. The fault was not 
theirs, but belonged to the epoch at which they wrote. 
Authentic documents had not then seen the light, and 
the portrait of Cromwell had only been painted by his 
enemies. His memory and his body have been treated 
with similar infamy ; by the restoration of Charles the 
Second, by the royalists of both branches, by Catholics 
and Protestants, by Whigs and Tories, equally interested 
in degrading the image of the republican Protector. But 
error lasts only for a time, while truth endures for ages. 
Its turn was coming, hastened by an accident. 

One of those inquiring minds, who are to history 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 131 

what excavators are to monuments, Thomas Carlyle, 
a Scotch writer, endowed with the combined qualities 
of exalted enthusiasm and enduring patience, dissatis- 
fied also with the conventional and superficial portrait 
hitherto depicted of Cromwell, resolved to search out 
and restore his true lineaments. The evident contra- 
dictions of the historians of his own and other countries, 
who had invariably exhibited him as a fantastic tyrant 
and a melodramatic hypocrite, induced Mr. Carlyle to 
think with justice, that beneath these discordant compo- 
nents there might be found another Cromwell, a being 
of nature, not of the imagination. 

Guided by that instinct of truth and logic in which is 
comprised the genius of erudite discovery, Mr. Carlyle, 
himself a sectarian, and resolved to follow up his own 
ideas, undertook to search out and examine all the cor- 
respondence buried in the depths of public or private 
archives, and in which at the different dates of his 
domestic, military, and political life, Cromwell, without 
thinking that he should thus paint himself, has in fact 
done so for the study of posterity. 

Supplied with these treasures of truth and revelation, 
Mr. Carlyle shut himself up for some years in the soli- 
tude of the country, that nothing might distract his 
thoughts from his work. Then having collected, classed, 
studied, commented on, and re-arranged these volumi- 
nous letters of his hero, and having resuscitated, as if 
from the tomb, the spirit of the man and the age, he 
committed to Europe this hitherto unpublished corre- 
spondence, saying with more reason than Jean Jacques 
Rousseau, " Receive, and read ; behold the true Crom- 
well!" It is from these new and incontestable docu- 
ments that we now propose to write the life of this 
dictator. 

k 2 



132 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

Cromwell, whom the greater number of historians 
(echoes of the pamphleteers of his day) state to have 
been the son of a brewer, or butcher, was in reality born 
of an ancient family descended from some of the first 
English nobility. His great uncle, Thomas Cromwell, 
created Earl of Essex by Henry the Eighth, and after- 
wards beheaded in one of those ferocious revulsions of 
character in which that monarch frequently indulged, 
was one of the most zealous despoilers of Romish 
churches and monasteries, after Protestantism had been 
established by his master. The great English dramatist, 
Shakspeare, has introduced Thomas Cromwell, Earl of 
Essex, in one of his tragedies. It is to him that Car- 
dinal Wolsey says, when sent to prison and death by the 
fickle Henry, — 

" Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition ; — 
Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal 
I serv'd my king, he would not in mine age 
Have left me naked to mine enemies." 

This Cromwell, Earl of Essex, was for a brief space 
Henry the Eighth's minister; he employed one of his 
nephews, Richard Cromwell, in the persecution of the 
Catholics, enriching him with the spoils of churches and 
convents. Richard was the great grandfather of Oliver 
the Protector. 

His grandfather, known in the country by the name 
of the " Golden Knight," in allusion to the great riches 
which were bestowed on his family at the spoliation of 
the monasteries, was called Henry Cromwell. He lived 
in Lincolnshire, on the domain of Hinchinbrook, for- 
merly an old convent from which the nuns had been 
expelled, and which was afterwards changed by the 
Cromwells into a seignorial manor-house. His eldest son, 
Richard, married a daughter of one of the branches of the 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 133 

house of Stuart, who resided in the same county. This 
Elizabeth Stuart was the aunt of Oliver Cromwell, who 
afterwards immolated Charles the First. It appears as 
if destiny delighted thus to mingle in the same veins the 
blood of the victim and his executioner. 

King James the First, when passing through Lincoln- 
shire on his way to take possession of the English 
crown, honoured the dwelling of the Cromwells by his 
presence, on account of his relationship to Elizabeth 
Stuart, aunt of the future Protector. The child, born in 
1599, was then four years old, and in after years, when 
he himself reigned in the palace of the Stuarts, he might 
easily remember having seen under his own roof and at 
the table of his family, this king, father of the monarch 
he had dethroned and beheaded ! 

It was not long before the family lost its wealth. The 
eldest of the sons sold for a trifling sum the manor of 
Hinchinbrook, and retired to a small estate that he 
possessed in the marshes of Huntingdonshire. 

His youngest brother, Robert Cromwell, father of the 
future sovereign of England, brought up his family in 
poverty on a small adjoining estate upon the banks of 
the river Ouse, called Ely. The poor, rough, and 
unyielding nature of this moist country, the unbroken 
horizon, the muddy river, cloudy sky, miserable trees, 
scattered cottages, and rude manners of the inhabitants, 
were well calculated to contract and sadden the disposi- 
tion of a child. The character of the scenes in which 
we are brought up impress themselves upon our souls. 
Great fanatics generally proceed from sad and sterile 
countries. Mahomet sprang from the scorching valleys 
of Arabia ; Luther from the frozen mountains of Lower 
Germany ; Calvin from the inanimate plains of Picardy ; 
Cromwell from the stagnant marshes of the Ouse. As 



134 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

is the place, so is the man. The mind is a mirror before 
it becomes a home. 

Oliver Cromwell, whose history we are writing, was 
the fifth child of his father, who died before he attained 
maturity. Sent to the University of Cambridge, a town 
adjoining his paternal residence, he there received a 
liberal education, and returned at the age of eighteen, 
after the death of his father, to be the support of his 
mother, and a second parent to his sisters. He con- 
ducted with sagacity beyond his years, the family estate 
and establishment, under his mother's eye. At twenty- 
one he married Elizabeth Bourchier, a young and 
beautiful heiress of the county, whose portraits show, 
under the chaste and calm figure of the North, an enthu- 
siastic, religious, and contemplative soul. She was the 
first and only love of her husband. 

Cromwell took up his abode with his wife in the 
house of his mother and sisters at Huntingdon, and 
lived there ten years in domestic felicity, occupied with 
the cares of a confined income, the rural employments 
of a gentleman farmer who cultivates his own estate, 
and those religious contemplations of reform which at 
that period agitated almost to insanity, Scotland, Eng- 
land, and Europe. 

His family, friends, and neighbours were devotedly 
attached to the new cause of puritanic protestantism ; 
a cause which had always been opposed in England by 
the remnant of the old conquered church, ever ready to 
revive. The celebrated patriot Hampden, who was 
destined to give the signal for a revolution on the 
throne, by refusing to pay the impost of twenty shillings 
to the crown, was the young Cromwell's cousin, and a 
puritan like himself. The family, revolutionists in 
religion and politics, mutually encouraged each other in 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 135 

their solitude, by the prevailing passion of the times then 
concentrated in a small body of faithful adherents. This 
passion in the ardent and gloomy disposition of Crom- 
well, almost produced a disease of the imagination. He 
trembled for his eternal salvation, and dreaded lest he 
should not sacrifice enough for his faith. He reproached 
himself for an act of cowardly toleration in permitting 
catholic symbols, such as the cross on the summit, and 
other religious ornaments, left by recent protestantism, 
to remain upon the church at Huntingdon. He was 
impressed with the idea of an early death, and lived 
under the terror of eternal punishment. Warwick, one 
of his contemporaries, relates that Cromwell, seized 
on a particular occasion with a fit of religious melan- 
choly, sent frequently during the night for the physician 
of the neighbouring village, that he might talk to him 
of his doubts and terrors. He assisted assiduously at 
the preachings of those itinerant puritan ministers, who 
came to stir up polemical ardour and antipathies. He 
sought solitude, and meditated upon the sacred texts by 
the banks of the river which traversed his fields. 

The disease of the times, the interpretation of the 
Bible, which had then taken possession of every "mind, 
gave a melancholy turn to his reflections. 

He felt within himself an internal inspiration of the 
religious and political meaning of these holy words. He 
acknowledged, in common with his puritanic brethren, 
the individual and enduring revelation shown in the 
pages and verses of a divine and infallible guide, but 
which, without the Spirit of God, no prompting or ex- 
planation can enable us to understand. The puritanism 
of Cromwell consisted in absolute obedience to the 
commands of Sacred Writ, and the right of interpret- 
ing the Scriptures according to his own conviction : — 



136 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

a contradictory but seductive dogma of his sect, which 
commands on the one hand implicit belief in the divinity 
of a book, and on the other, permits free licence to 
the imagination, to bestow its own meaning on the 
inspired leaves. 

From this belief of the faithful in true and permanent 
inspiration, there was but one step to the hallucination 
of prophetic gifts. The devout puritans, and even 
Cromwell himself, fell naturally into this extreme. Each 
became at the same time the inspirer and the inspired, 
the devotee and the prophet. This religion, ever audibly 
speaking in the soul of the believer, was in fact the 
religion of diseased imaginations, whose piety increased 
with their fanaticism. Cromwell, in his retreat, was 
led away by these miasmas of the day, which became 
the more powerfully incorporated with his nature from 
} T outh, natural energy, and isolation of mind. 

He had no diversion for his thoughts in this solitude, 
beyond the increase of his family, the cultivation of his 
fields, the multiplying and. disposing of his flocks. 
Like an economical farmer, he frequented fairs that 
he might there purchase young cattle, which he fat- 
tened and sold at a moderate profit. He disposed of 
a portion of his paternal estate for 2,000 guineas, to 
enable him to buy one nearer the river, and with 
more pasture land close to the little town of St. Ives, a 
few miles from Huntingdon. He settled there with his 
already numerous family, consisting of two sons and four 
daughters, in a small manor-house buried under the 
weeping-willows which bordered the meadows, and 
called " Sleep Hall." He was then thirty-six years old. 
His correspondence at that time was filled with affection 
for his family, praises of his wife, satisfaction in his 
children, domestic details, and the solicitude of his soul 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 137 

for those missionary puritans whose preaching he en- 
couraged, and whose zeal he promoted by voluntary 
contributions. His exemplary life, careful management 
of his household, his assiduous aud intelligent attention 
to all the local interests of the county, gained for him 
that rural popularity which points out an unobtrusive 
man as worthy of the esteem and confidence of the 
people, and their proper representative in the legislative 
councils of the country. Cromwell, who felt that he 
possessed no natural eloquence, and whose ambition at 
that time went no further than his own domestic felicity, 
moderate fortune, and limited estate, solicited not the 
suffrages of the electors of Huntingdon and St. Ives ; 
but in the cause of religion, which was all powerful with 
him, he thought himself bound in conscience to accept 
them. 

He was elected on the 17th of March, 1627, a 
member of Parliament for his county. His public 
career commenced with those political storms which 
consigned a king to the scaffold, and raised a country 
gentleman to the throne. 

To understand well the conduct of Cromwell in that 
position in which, without his own connivance, destiny 
had placed him, let us examine the state of England at 
the period when he entered, unknown and silently, upon 
the scene. 

Henry the Eighth, the Caligula of Britain, in a fit of 
anger against the Church of Rome, changed the religion 
of his kingdom. This was the greatest act of absolute 
authority ever exercised by one man over an entire 
nation. The caprice of a king became the conscience of 
the people, and temporal authority subjugated their 
souls. The old Catholicism repudiated by the sovereign, 
was abandoned to indiscriminate pillage and derision, with 



138 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

its dogmas, hierarchy, clergy, monks, monasteries, ecclesi- 
astical possessions, territorial fiefs, hoarded riches, and 
temples of worship. The Roman-catholic faith became a 
crime in the kingdom, and its name a scandal and reproach 
to its followers. National apostasy was as sudden and 
overwhelming as a clap of thunder ; the Catholic nation 
had disappeared beneath the English nation. Henry the 
Eighth and his councillors, nevertheless, wished to pre- 
serve the ancient religion of the State, so far as it was 
favourable to the interests of the king, useful to the 
clergy, and delusive for the people. In other words, the 
king was to possess supreme authority as head of the 
church, over the souls of his subjects ; ecclesiastical dig- 
nities, honours, and riches, were to be secured to the 
bishops : the liturgy and ceremonial pomp to the people. 
Selecting a politic medium between the church of Rome 
and the church of Luther, England constituted her own. 
This church, rebellious against Rome, whom she imi- 
tated while opposing her, submitted to Luther, whom 
she restrained while she encouraged his tenets. It was 
a civil rather than a religious arrangement, which cared 
for the bodies before the souls of the community, and 
gave an appearance more of show than reality to the 
formal piety of the nation. The people, proud of having 
thrown off the Romish yoke, and disliking the ancient 
supremacy which had so long bent and governed the 
island ; recoiling in horror from the name of the Papacy, 
a word in which was summed up all that was super- 
stitious, and all that related to foreign domination, readily 
attached themselves to the new church. They beheld in 
her the emblem of their independence, a palladium 
against Rome, and the pledge of their nationality. Every 
king since Henry the Eighth, whatever may have been 
his personal creed, has been obliged to protect and defend 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 139 

the worship of the Church of England. An avowal of 
the Roman -catholic faith would be his signal of abdi- 
cation. The people would not trust their civil liberties 
to the care of a prince who professed spiritual depen- 
dence on the Church of Rome. 

The right of liberty of conscience had naturally followed 
this change in the minds of Englishmen. Having re- 
volted, at the command of their sovereign, against the 
ancient and sacred authority of the Romish Church, it 
was absurd to think that the conscience of the nation 
would submit without a murmur to the unity of the new 
institution, the foundations of which had been planted 
before their eyes in debauchery and blood, by the English 
tyrant, too recently for them to believe in its divine 
origin. Every conscience wished to profit by its liberty, 
and different sects sprang up from this religious anarchy; 
they were as innumerable as the ideas of a man delivered 
up to his own fancies, and fervent in proportion to their 
novelty. To describe them would exceed our limits. 

The most widely extended were the Puritans, who may 
be called the Jansenists of the Reformation ; an extreme 
sect of Protestants, logical, practical, and republican. Once 
entered into the region of liberal and individual creeds, they 
saw no reason why they should temporize with what they 
called the superstitious idolatries, abominations, symbols, 
ceremonies, and infatuations of the Romish Church. They 
admitted only the authority of the Bible and the supre- 
macy of Sacred Writ, of which they would receive no 
explanation or application but that which was communi- 
cated to them from the Spirit ; in other words, from the 
arbitrary inspiration of their own thoughts. They carried 
their oracle within their own bosoms, and perpetually 
consulted it. In order to invest it with more power, 
they held religious meetings, and established conventicles 



140 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

and churches, where each, as the Spirit moved him, 
spoke ; and the incoherent ravings of the faithful passed 
as the word of God. 

Such was the sect which, from the time of Henry the 
Eighth, struggled at the same time against the power of 
the Anglican Church and the remains of the proscribed 
Romanism. 

Three reigns had been disturbed by religious dissen- 
sions ; that of Mary, the Catholic daughter of Henry 
the Eighth, who had favoured the return of her subjects 
to their original faith, and whose memory the Puritans 
abhorred as that of a papistical Jezebel ; that of Eliza- 
beth, the Protestant daughter of the same king, by 
another wife, who persecuted the Catholics, sacrificed 
Mary Stuart, and ordained recantation, imprisonment, 
and even death to those who refused to sign at least once 
in six months their profession of the reformed creed. And 
finally, that of James the First, son of Mary Stuart, who 
had been educated in the Protestant faith by the Scotch 
puritans. This Prince succeeded to the English throne, by 
right of inheritance from the house of Tudor, upon the 
death of Elizabeth ; a mild, philosophical, and indulgent 
monarch, who wished to tolerate both faiths and make the 
rival sects live peaceably together, although they trembled 
with ill-suppressed animosity at this imposed truce. 

Charles the Eirst, his son, succeeded to the throne in 
his twenty-sixth year. He was endowed by nature, 
character, and education, with all the qualities necessary 
for the government of a powerful and enlightened nation 
in ordinary times. He was handsome, brave, faithful, 
eloquent, honest, and true to the dictates of his con- 
science ; ambitious of the love of his people, solicitions for 
the welfare of his country, incapable of violating the 
laws or liberty of his subjects, and only desirous of 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 141 

preserving to his successors that unlimited and ill-defined 
exercise of the royal prerogative, which the constitu- 
tion, in practice rather than in true essence, affected to 
bestow upon its kings. Upon ascending the throne, 
Charles found and retained in the office of prime 
minister, out of respect to the memory of his father, 
his former favourite the Duke of Buckingham ; a man 
of no merit, whose personal beauty, graceful manners, 
and overbearing pride, were his sole recommendations, 
and who furnishes a remarkable instance of the caprice 
of fortune and the foolish partiality of a weak king, 
which could transform him into a powerful noble, while 
it failed to render him an able statesman. He was 
more qualified to fill the place of favourite than minister. 
Buckingham having repaid with ingratitude the kindness 
of the father, against whom he secretly excited a parlia- 
mentary cabal, endeavoured to continue his habitual 
sway under the new reign of the son. 

The diffidence of Charles allowed Buckingham for 
several years to agitate England and embroil the State. 
By turns, according to the dictates of his own interests, 
he caused his new master to increase or lessen that 
relationship between the Crown and parliament beyond 
or below the limits which right or tradition attributed to 
these two powers. He created thus a spirit of resistance 
and encroachment on the part of the parliament, in 
opposition to the spirit of enterprise and preponderance, 
on that of the royal authority. Buckingham affected 
the absolute power of Cardinal Richelieu, without posses- 
sing either his character or genius. The poignard of a 
fanatic who stabbed him at Portsmouth, in revenge for 
an act of private injustice which had deprived him of his 
rank in the army, at length delivered Charles from this 
presumptuous favourite. 



142 OLIVER CROMW,ELL. 

From this time, the King of England, like Louis the 
Fourteenth of France, resolved to govern without a 
prime minister. But the unfortunate Charles had 
neither a Richelieu to put down opposition by force, 
nor a Mazarin to silence it by bribery. Besides, at the 
moment when Louis the Fourteenth ascended the throne, 
the civil wars which had so long agitated France were 
just concluded, and those of England were about to 
commence. We cannot, therefore, reasonably attri- 
bute to the personal insufficiency of Charles those mis- 
fortunes which emanated from the times rather than from 
his own character. 

In a few years the struggles between the young king 
and his parliament, struggles augmented by religious 
more tha'B political factions, threw England, Scotland, 
and Ireland into a general ferment, which formed a pre- 
lude to the long civil wars and calamities of the state. 
The parliament, frequently dissolved from impatience at 
these revolts, and always re-assembled from the neces- 
sity of further grants, became the heart, and active 
popular centre of the different parties opposed to the 
King. All England ranged herself behind her orators. 
The King was looked upon as the common enemy of 
every religious sect, of public liberty, and the foe of each 
ambitious malcontent who expected to appropriate a 
fragment of the Crown by the total subversion of the 
royal authority. 

Charles the First energetically struggled for some 
time, first with one ministry then with another. The 
spirit of opposition was so universal, that all who ven- 
tured into the royal council became instantly objects of 
suspicion, incompetence, and discredit, in the estimation 
of the public. 

A bolder and more able minister than any of his 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 143 

predecessors, Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, a man 
who had acquired a high reputation with the opposition 
party by his eloquence, and whose fame had pointed him 
out to the notice of the King, devoted his popularity and 
talents to the service of his sovereign. Strafford appeared 
for a time by the force of persuasion, wisdom, and 
intrepid firmness, to support the tottering throne, but 
the parliament denounced, and the King who loved, was 
unable to defend him. Strafford, threatened with capital 
punishment, more for actual services than for imaginary 
crimes, was summoned by the parliament, after a long 
captivity, to appear before a commission of judges com- 
posed of his enemies. The King could only obtain the 
favour of being present in a grated gallery, at the trial of 
his minister. He was struck to the heart by the blows 
levelled through the hatred of the parliament against his 
friend. Never did an arraigned prisoner reply with 
greater majesty of innocence than did Strafford in his 
last defence before his accusers and his kin°;. Neither 
Athens nor Rome record any incident of more tragic 
sublimity in their united annals. 

" Unable to find in my conduct," said Strafford to his 
judges, " anything to which might be applied the name 
or punishment of treason, my enemies have invented, in 
defiance of all law, a chain of constructive and accumu- 
lative evidence, by which my actions, although innocent 
and laudable when taken separately, viewed in this col- 
lected light, become treasonable. It is hard to be 
questioned on a law which cannot be shown. 

" Where hath this fire lain hid so many hundreds of 
years without smoke to discover it till it thus bursts 
forth to consume me and my children ? It is better to 
be without laws altogether than to persuade ourselves 
that we have laws by which to regulate our conduct, 



144 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

and to find that they consist only in the enmity and 
arbitrary will of our accusers. If a man sails upon the 
Thames in a boat, and splits himself upon an anchor, 
and no buoy be floating to discover it, he who owneth 
the anchor shall make satisfaction ; but if a buoy be set 
there, every one passeth it at his own peril. Now where 
is the mark, where the tokens upon this crime, to declare 
it to be high treason ? It has remained hidden under the 
water ; no human prudence or innocence could preserve 
me from the ruin with which it menaces me. For two 
hundred and forty years, every species of treason has 
been defined, and during that long space of time, I am 
the first, I am the only exception for whom the definition 
has been enlarged, that I may be enveloped in its meshes. 
My Lords, we have lived happily within the limits of 
our own iand ; we have lived gloriously beyond them, 
in the eyes of the whole world. Let us be satisfied with 
what our fathers have left us ; let not ambition tempt 
us to desire that we may become more acquainted than 
they were with these destructive and perfidious arts 
of incriminating innocence. In this manner, my Lords, 
you will act wisely, you will provide for your own safety 
and the safety of your descendants, while you secure that 
of the whole kingdom. If you throw into the fire these 
sanguinary and mysterious selections of constructive 
treason, as the first Christians consumed their books of 
dangerous art, and confine yourselves to the simple 
meaning of the statute in its vigour, who shall say that 
you have done wrong? Where will be your crime, and 
how, in abstaining from error, can you incur punishment ? 
Beware of awakening these sleeping lions for your own 
destruction. Add not to my other afflictions, that 
which I shall esteem the heaviest of all ; — that for my 
sins as a man, and not for my offences as a minister, 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 145 

I should be the unfortunate means of introducing such a 
precedent, such an example of a proceeding- so opposed 
to the laws and liberties of my country. 

" My Lords, I have troubled you longer than I should 
have done were it not for the interest of these dear 
pledges a saint in heaven hath left me." [Here he 
stopped, letting fall some tears, and then resumed] : 
" What I forfeit myself is nothing, but that my indiscre- 
tion should extend to my posterity, woundeth me to the 
very soul. You will pardon my infirmity, something 
I should have added, but am not able, therefore let it 
pass. And now, my Lords, for myself, I have been by 
the blessing of Almighty God, taught that the afflictions 
of this present life are not to be compared to the eternal 
weight of glory which shall be revealed hereafter. And 
so, my Lords, even so, with all tranquillity of mind, I 
freely submit myself to your judgment ; and whether 
that judgment be for life or death, — ' Te Deum Lau- 
damus ! ' " 

Sentence of death was the reply to this eloquence and 
virtue. 

The warrant was illegal without the signature of the 
King ; to sign it, was to be false to conviction, gratitude, 
friendship, and dignity; to refuse to do so, would be to 
defy the parliament and people, and draw down upon the 
throne itself the thunderbolt of popular indignation, 
which the death of the minister would for a time divert. 
Charles tried by every means of delay to avoid the 
shame or danger ; he appeared more as a suppliant than 
as a king before the parliament, and besought them to 
spare him this punishment. Urged by the Queen, who 
disliked Strafford, and whose heart could not hesitate 
for an instant between the death of Charles or his 
minister, the King acknowledged that he did not think 

VOL. II. L 



140 OLIVER CROMWELL; 

Strafford quite innocent of some irregularities and 
misuse of the public money, and added that if the 
parliament would confine the sentence to the crime of 
embezzlement, he would give his sanction conscientiously 
to the punishment ; but for high treason, his own 
internal conviction and honour, forbade his confirming 
calumny and iniquity by signing the death-warrant of 
Strafford. 

The Parliament was inflexible ; the Queen wept ; 
England was in a ferment. Charles, although ready to 
yield, still hesitated. The Queen Henrietta, of France, 
daughter of Henry the Fourth, a beautiful and accom- 
plished princess, for whom until his death the King 
preserved the fidelity of a husband and the passion of 
a lover, presented herself before him in mourning, 
accompanied by her little children. She besought 
him on her knees to yield to the vengeance of the 
people, which he could not resist without turning upon 
the innocent pledges of their love, that death which he 
was endeavouring vainly to avert from a condemned 
head. " Choose," said she, " between your own life, 
mine, these dear children's, and the life of this minister 
so hateful to the nation." 

Charles, struck with horror at the idea of sacrificing 
his beloved wife and infant children, the hopes of the 
monarchy, replied that he cared not for his own life, for 
he would willingly give it to save his minister; but to 
endanger Henrietta and her children, was beyond his 
strength and desire. He, however, still delayed to sign 
the warrant. 

Strafford, yielding probably to the secret solicitations of 
the Queen, wrote a letter himself to his unhappy master, 
to ease the conscience and affection of the King as being 
the cause of his death. 



ÛLlVKH CROMWELL. 147 

w Sire," said lie in this letter — a sublime effort of that 
virtue which triumphed over the natural love of life, that 
he might lessen the remorseful feelings of his murderers — 
" Sire, hesitate not to sacrifice me to the malignity of 
the times and to public vengeance which thirsts for my 
life. My voluntary consent to the signature of my own 
death-warrant which they require of you, will acquit 
you before God more than the opinion of the whole 
world. There is no injustice in consenting to that which 
the condemned desires, and himself demands. 

" Since Heaven has granted me sufficient grace to 
enable me to forgive my enemies with a tranquillity and 
resignation which impart an indescribable contentment 
to my soul, now about to change its dwelling-place, 
I can, Sire, willingly and joyfully resign this earthly life, 
filled with a just sense of gratitude for all those favours 
with which your Majesty has blessed me." 

This letter overcame the last scruples of the King ; he 
thought that the consent of the victim legalized his 
murder, and that God would pardon him as the con- 
demned had done. He accepted the sacrifice of the life 
offered him in exchange for the lives of his wife and 
children, perhaps for his own, and the safety of the 
monarchy. Love for his family, the hope of averting 
civil war, and of bringing back the parliament to a sense 
of reason and justice from gratitude for this sacrifice, 
completely blinded his eyes. He thought to lessen the 
horror and ingratitude of the act by appointing a com- 
mission of three members of his council, and delegating 
to them the power of signing the parliamentary death- 
warrant against Strafford. The commissioners ratified 
the sentence, and the King shut himself up to weep 
and avoid the light of that morning which was to 
witness the fall of Ins faithful and innocent servant. 

L 2 



148 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

] le thought that by obliterating this day from his life, he 
would also expunge it from the memory of heaven and 
man. He passed the whole time in darkness, in prayers 
for the dying, and in tears; but the sun rose to com- 
memorate the injustice of the monarch, the treachery of 
the friend, and the greatness of soul of the victim. 

" I have sinned against my conscience," wrote the 
King several years after to the Queen, when reproaching 
himself for that signature drawn from him by the love he 
bore his wife and children : " It warned me at the time ; 
I was seized with remorse at the instant when I signed 
this base and criminal concession." 

" God grant/' cried the Archbishop, his ecclesiastical 
adviser, on seeing him throw down his pen after signing 
the nomination of the commissioners ; " God grant that 
your Majesty's conscience may not reproach you for this 
act." 

'■ Ah ! Strafford is happier than I am," replied the 
prince, concealing his eyes with his hands. " Tell him, 
that did it not concern the safety of the kingdom, I 
would willingly give my life for his ! " 

The King still flattered himself that the House of 
Commons, satisfied with his humiliation and deference to 
their will, would spare the life of his friend, and grant a 
commutation of the punishment. He did not know these 
men, who were more implacable than tyrants, — for 
factions are governed by the mind not the heart, and are 
inaccessible to emotions of sympathy. Men vote, unani- 
mously with their party from fear of each other, for 
measures which, when taken singly, they would abhor to 
think of. Man in a mass is no longer man, he becomes 
an element. To move this deaf and cruel element of the 
House of Commons, Charles used every effort to flatter 
the pride and touch the feelings of these tribunes of the 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 



149 



people. He wrote a most pathetic letter bedewed with 
his tears, and sent it to the parliament, to render it more 
irresistible, by the hand of a child, his son, the Prince of 
Wales, whose beauty, tender age, and innocence, ought 
to have made refusal impossible from subjects petitioned 
by such a suppliant. 

The King in this letter laid bare his whole heart before 
the Commons, displayed his wounded feelings, described 
the agony he felt in sacrificing his kingly honour, and his 
personal regard for the wishes of his subjects. He 
enlarged upon the great satisfaction he had at length 
given to the Commons, and only demanded in return for 
such submission, the perpetual imprisonment, instead of 
the death, of his former minister. But at the end. as if 
he himself doubted the success of his petition, he conjured 
them in a postscript, at least to defer until the Saturday 
following, the execution of the condemned, that he might 
have time to prepare for death. 

All remained deaf to the voice of the father, and the 
intercession of the child. The parliament accorded 
neither a commutation of the punishment, nor an addi- 
tional hour of life to the sentenced criminal. Their 
popularity forced them to act before the people with the 
same inexorable promptness that they exacted from the 
King. The beautiful Countess of Carlisle, a kind of 
English Cleopatra, of whom Strafford in the season of his 
greatness had been the favoured lover, used every effort 
with the parliament to obtain the life of the man whose 
love had beeu her pride. The fascinating Countess 
failed to soften their hearts. 

As if it were the fate of Strafford to suffer at the same 
time the loss of both love and friendship, this versa- 
tile beauty, more attached to the power than to the 
persons of her admirers, transferred her affections quickly 



] 50 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

from Strafford to Pym, and became the mistress of the 
murderer, who succeeded to the victim. 

" Pyni," says the English history so closely examined 
by M. Chasles, " was an ambitious man who acted fana- 
ticism without conviction. Homo ex luto et argïlla Epicu- 
rea /actus" according to the energetic phrase of Hacket, 
" A man moulded from the mud and clay of sensuality." 
Such men are often seen in popular or in monarchical 
factions ; servants and flatterers of their sect, who in 
their turn satisfy their followers by relieving the satiety 
of voluptuousness with the taste of blood. 

Strafford was prepared for every extremity after being 
abandoned by the two beings he had most loved and 
served on earth. Nevertheless, when it was announced 
to him that the King had signed the death-warrant, 
nature triumphed over resignation, and a reproach 
escaped him in his grief. " Nolite jidere prineipibus et 
filiis hominum" cried he, raising his hands in astonish- 
ment towards the vaulted ceiling of his prison, " quia 
non est solus in Hits." 

" Put not your trust in princes, nor in any child of 
man, for in them is no salvation." 

He requested to be allowed a short interview with the 
Archbishop of London, Laud, imprisoned in the Tower 
on a similar charge with himself. Laud was a truly 
pious prelate, with a mind superior to the age in which 
he lived. This interview, in which the two royalists 
hoped to fortify each other for life or death, was refused. 
" Well," said Strafford to the Governor of the Tower, 
" at least tell the Archbishop to place himself to-morrow 
at his window at the hour when I pass to the scaffold, 
that I may bid him a last farewell." 

The next day it was pressed upon Strafford to ask for 
a carriage to convey him to the place of execution, fear- 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 151 

ing that the fury of the people would anticipate the 
executioner, and tear from his hands the victim, de- 
nounced by Pym and the orators of the House of Com- 
mons as the public enemy. " No," replied Strafford, 
" I know how to look death and the people in the face ; 
whether I die by the hand of the executioner or by the 
fury of the populace, if it should so please them, matters 
little to me." 

In passing under the Archbishop's window in the 
prison-yard, Strafford recollected his request of the pre- 
vious night, and raised his eyes towards the iron bars, 
which prevented him from seeing Laud distinctly. He 
could only perceive the thin and trembling hands of the 
old man stretched out between the bars, trying to bless 
him as he passed on to death, 

Strafford knelt in the dust, and bent his head. " My 
lord," said he to the Archbishop, " let me have your 
prayers and benediction." 

The heart of the old man sank at the sound of his 
voice and emotion, and he fainted in the arms of his 
jailors while uttering a parting prayer. 

" Farewell, my Lord," cried Strafford, " may God 
protect your innocence." He then walked forward with 
a firm step, although suffering from the effects of illness 
and debility, at the head of the soldiers who appeared 
to follow rather than to escort him. 

According to the humane custom of England and 
Rome, which permits the condemned, whoever he may 
be, to go to the scaffold surrounded by his relations and 
friends, Strafford's brother accompanied him weeping. 
" Brother," said he, " why do you grieve thus ; do you 
see anything in my life or death which can cause you to 
feel any shame ? Do I tremble like a criminal, or boast 
like an atheist? Come, be firm, and think only that 



153 OLIVER CKO Al WELL. 

this is my third marriage, and that you are my brides- 
man. This block," pointing to that upon which he was 
about to lay his head, " will be my pillow, and I shall 
repose there well, without pain, grief, or fear." 

Having ascended the scaffold with his brother and 
friends, he knelt for a moment as if to salute the place 
of sacrifice ; he soon arose, and looking around upon the 
innumerable and silent multitude, which covered the 
hill and Tower of London, the place of execution, he 
raised his voice in the same audible and firm tone which 
he was accustomed to use in the House of Commons, 
that theatre of his majestic eloquence. 

" People," said he, " who are assembled here to see 
me die, bear witness that I desire for this kingdom all 
the prosperity that God can bestow. Living, I have 
done my utmost to secure the happiness of England, 
dying it is still my most ardent wish ; but I beseech 
each one of those who now hear me to lay his hand 
upon his heart and examine seriously if the commence- 
ment of a salutary reform ought to be written in 
characters of blood. Ponder this well upon your return 
home. God grant that not a drop of mine may be 
required at your hands. I fear, however, that you can- 
not advance by such a fatal path." 

After Strafford had spoken these words of anxious 
warning to his country, he again knelt and prayed with 
all the signs of humble and devout fervour for upwards 
of a quarter of an hour. The revolutionary fanaticism 
of the English, at least did not interrupt the last moments 
of the dying man ; but Strafford, hearing a dull murmur 
either of pity or impatience in the crowd, rose, and 
addressing those who immediately surrounded him, said, 
" All will soon be over. One blow will render my wife 
a widow, my dear children orphans, and deprive my 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 153 

servants of their master. God be with them and 
you! 

" Thanks to the internal strength that God has given 
me." added he, while removing his upper garment, and 
tucking up his hair that nothing might interfere with 
the stroke of the axe upon his neck, " I take this off 
with as tranquil a spirit as I have ever felt when taking 
it off at night upon retiring to rest." 

He then made a sign to the executioner to approach, 
pardoned him for the blood he was about to shed, and 
laid his head upon the block, looking up and praying to 
heaven. His head rolled at the feet of his friends. 
"God save the King!" cried the executioner, holding 
it up to exhibit it to the people. 

The populace, silent and orderly until this instant, 
uttered a cry of joy, vengeance, and congratulation, which 
demonstrated the frenzy of the times. They rejoiced like 
madmen at the fall of their greatest citizen, and rushed 
through the streets of London to order public illumi- 
nations. 

The King during this, shut himself up in his palace, 
praying to God to forgive him his consent to a murder 
forced from his weakness. The ecclesiastic w r ho had 
aecompanied Strafford to the scaffold, was the only 
person admitted into Charles's apartment, that he might 
give an account of the last moments of his minister. 
"Nothing could exceed," said the clergyman to the 
King, " the calmness and majesty of his end. I have 
witnessed many deaths, but never have I beheld a purer 
or more resigned soul return to Him who gave it." At 
these words the King turned his head away and wept. 

Repentance for his yielding, and a presentiment of 
the inutility of this concession to purchase the welfare 
and peace of the kingdom, were mingled with agonising 



154 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

grief in his soul. lie saw clearly that the same blow 
which he had permitted to fall upon his friend and 
servant, would sooner or later recoil upon himself, and 
that the execution of Strafford was only a rehearsal of 
his own. With subdued spirit, but awakened con- 
science, Charles no longer defended himself with sophis- 
try from the feelings of remorse. He ceased to excuse 
himself inwardly, politically, or before God ; but blamed 
himself with the same severity that subsequent historians 
have bestowed on this act of weakness. He deeply 
lamented his fault, and vowed that it should be the first 
and last deed by which he would sanction the iniquity of 
his enemies ; and he derived from the bitterness of his 
regret, strength to live, to fight, and die, for his own 
rights, for liic rights of the Crown, and for the rights of 
his last adherents. 

The parliament saw only in the death of Strafford a 
victory over the royal power and the heart of the King. 
The conflicts between the Crown and the House of 
Commons recommenced instantly, upon other pretences 
and demands. The King in vain selected his ministers 
from the bosom of the parliament ; he was unable to 
discover another Strafford— nature had not made a 
duplicate. Charles could only choose between faithful 
mediocrity or implacable enmity ; and again, his 
enemies summoned by the King to his council that he 
might place the government in their hands, refused to 
attend. The spirit of faction was so irresistible and 
irreconcilable against the Crown, that the popular mem- 
bers of parliament felt themselves more powerful as the 
heads of their parties in the House of Commons, than 
they could become as ministers of a suspected and con- 
demned sovereign. The puritan party in the Commons 
held Chailcs the First of England as isolated as the 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 155 

Girondins afterwards held Louis the Sixteenth of France, 
in 1791 ; eager for government, yet refusing to be 
ministers, that they might have the right of attacking 
the royal power, offered to them in vain, or only con- 
senting to accept, that they might betray it; from 
adulation giving it into the hands of the people, or from 
complicity surrendering it into those of the republicans. 

Such were the relative positions of the King and the 
Parliament during the first years when Cromwell sat as 
a member of the House of Commons. 

Parliamentary disputes had no interest for Cromwell, 
and purely political agitations affected him but little. He 
was not naturally factious, but had become a sectarian. 
Religious motives induced him to aid the triumph of the 
puritan party ; not a desire to triumph over the Crown 
itself, but over the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches 
which the Crown was suspected of favouring. All other 
motives were strangers to his austere nature. His feel- 
ings, cold in all that related not to religion, his just, but 
ill-understood mind, his abrupt elocution, without 
imagery or clearness, his ambition bounded by the 
success of his co-religionists, and actuated by no prospect 
of personal advantage beyond the salvation of his soul, 
and the service of his cause, made him abstain from 
taking a part in any of the debates. A silent member 
for many sessions, he was only remarkable in the House 
of Commons for his abnegation of all personal import- 
ance, for his disdain of popular applause, and the fervour 
of his zeal to preserve liberty of conscience to his brethren 
in the faith. 

There was certainly nothing either in Cromwell's 
personal appearance or genius, to excite the attention of 
an assembly occupied by the eloquence of Strafford and 
Pym. His face was ordinary, combining the features of 



156 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

a peasant, a soldier, and a priest. There might be seen 
the vulgarity of the rustic, the resolution of the warrior, 
and the fervour of the man of prayer ; but not one of 
these characteristics predominated sufficiently to an- 
nounce a brilliant orator, or to convey the presage of 
a future ruler. 

He was of the middle height, square-chested, stout- 
limbed, with a heavy and unequal gait, a broad, promi- 
nent forehead, blue eyes, a large nose, dividing his face 
unequally, somewhat inclining to the left, and red at the 
tip, like the noses attributed to those addicted to drink ; 
but which in Cromwell indicated only the asperity of his 
blood, heated by fanaticism. His lips were wide, thick, 
and clumsily formed, indicating neither quick intelligence, 
delicacy of sentiment, nor the fluency of speech, indis- 
pensable to persuasive eloquence. His face was more 
round than oval., his chin was solid and prominent, a 
good foundation for the rest of his features. His like- 
nesses, as executed either in painting or sculpture, by 
the most renowned Italian artists, at the order of their 
courts, represent only a vulgar, common-place individual, 
if they were not ennobled by the name of Cromwell. In 
studying them attentively, it becomes impossible for the 
most decided partiality to discover either the traces or 
organs of genius. We acknowledge there, a man elevated 
by the choice of his party and the combination of circum- 
stances, rather than one great by nature. We might 
even conclude from the close inspection of this counte- 
nance, that a loftier and more developed intellect would 
have interfered with his exalted destiny ; for if Cromwell 
had been endowed with higher qualities of mind, he 
would have been less of a sectarian, and had he been 
so, his party would not have been exactly personified 
in a chief, who participated in all its passions and 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 157 

credulities. The greatness of a popular character is less 
according to the ratio of his genius than the sympathy 
he shows with the prejudices and even the absurdities of 
his times. Fanatics do not select the cleverest, but the 
most fanatical leaders ; as was evidenced in the choice 
of Robespierre by the Trench Jacobins, and in that of 
Cromwell by the English Puritans. 

The only traces of the presence of Cromwell in the 
House of Commons for ten years, which the parliamentary 
annals retain, are a few words spoken by him, at long 
intervals, in defence of his brethren, the puritanic mis- 
sionaries, and in attack of the dominant Anglican Church 
and the Roman Catholics, who were again struggling 
for supremacy. It might be seen from the attention 
paid by his colleagues to the sentences uttered with such 
religious fervour by the representative of Huntingdon, 
that this gentleman farmer, as restrained in speech as in 
his desire of popularity, was treated in the House with 
that consideration which is always shown in deliberative 
assemblies, to those men who are modest, sensible, 
silent, and careless of approbation, but faithful to their 
cause. 

A justice of the peace for his county, Cromwell 
returned after each session or dissolution of parliament, 
to fortify himself in the religious opinions of his puri- 
tan neighbours, by interviews with the missionaries of 
his faith, by sermons, meditations, and prayers, the sole 
variations from his agricultural pursuits. 

The gentleness, piety, and fervour of his wife, devoted 
like himself to domestic cares, country pursuits, the 
education of her sons, and affection for her daughters, 
banished from his soul every other ambition than that of 
spiritual progress in virtue, and the advancement of his 
faith in the consciences of men. 



158 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

In the whole of his confidential correspondence during 
these long years of domestic seclusion, there is not one 
word which shows that he entertained any other passion 
than that of his creed, or any ambition distinct from 
heavenly aspirations. What advantage conld it have 
been to this man thus to conceal that hypocrisy which 
historians have described as the foundation and master- 
spring of his character ? When the face is unknown to 
all, of what use is the mask ? No ! Cromwell could not 
dissemble so long to his wife, his sister, his daughters, 
and his God. History has only presented him in disguise, 
because his life and actions were distinctly revealed. 

Let us give a few extracts from the familiar letters 
which throw some light upon this obscure period of his 
life :— 

" My very dear good friend," wrote he from St. Ives, 
Jan. 11th, 1635, to one of his confidants in pious 
labours : " To build material temples and hospitals for 
" the bodily comfort and assembling together of the 
" faithful is doubtless a good work : but those who 
" build up spiritual temples, and afford nourishment to 
" the souls of their brethren, my friend, are the truly 
" pious men. Such a work have you performed in 
" establishing a pulpit, and appointing Doctor Wells to 
"fill it; an able and religious man, whose superior I 
" have never seen. I am convinced that since his arrival 
" here, the Lord has clone much amongst us. I trust 
" that he who has inspired you to lay this foundation, 
" will also inspire you to uphold and finish it. 

" Raise your hearts to Him. You who live in London, 
" a city celebrated for its great luminaries of the Gospel, 
" know that to stop the salary of the preacher is to cause 
" the pulpit to fall. For who will go to war at his own 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 15^ 

" expense ? I beseech you then, by the bowels of Jesus 
" Christ, put this affair into a good train ; pay this wor- 
" thy minister, and the souls of God's children will bless 
" you, as I shall bless you myself. 

" I remain, ever your affectionate 

" Friend in the Lord, 

"Oliver Cromwell." 

It was not alone by words, but by contributions from 
his small fortune, the produce of hard and ungrateful 
agricultural labour, that Cromwell sustained the cause of 
his faith. We read three years after the date of the 
above lines in a confidential letter written to Mr. Hand, 
one of his own sect : — 

" I wish you to remit forty shillings" (then a consi- 
derable sum,) " to a poor farmer who is struggling to 
" bring up an increasing family, to remunerate the 
" Doctor for his cure of this man Benson. If our friends, 
" when we come to settle accounts, do not agree to this 
" disposal of the money, keep this note, and I will repay 
" you out of my private purse. 

" Your friend, 

" Oliver Cromwell." 

" I live," wrote he, several years after, but always in 
the same spirit of compunction, to his cousin, the wife of 
the Attorney-General St. John : " I live in Kedar, a 
"name which signifies shadow and darkness; never- 
" theless the Lord will not desert me, and will finally 
" conduct me to his chosen place of repose, his 
" tabernacle. My heart rests upon this hope with my 
" brethren of the first-born ; and if I can show forth the 
" glory of the Lord either by action or endurance, I shall 
" be greatly consoled. Truly no creature has more 



100 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

" reason to devote himself to the cause of God than I 
" have ; I have received so many chosen graces that I 
" feel I can never make a sufficient return for all these 
" gifts. That the Lord may be pleased to accept me for 
" the sake of his Son, Jesus Christ, and that he may 
" give us grace to walk in the light, for it is light indeed. 
" I cannot say that he has altogether hid his face from 
" me, for he has permitted me to see the light at least 
" in him, and even a single ray shed upon this dark 
" path is most refreshing. Blessed be his name that 
" shines even in such a dark place as my soul. Alas ! 
" you know what my life has been. I loved darkness ; I 
" lived in it ; I hated the light ; I was the chief of 
" sinners : nevertheless God has had mercy on me. 
" Praise him for me, pray for me, that he who has 
" commenced such a change in my soul may finish it 
" for Jesus Christ's sake. The Lord be with you, is the 
" prayer of 

" Your affectionate Cousin, 

" Oliver Cromwell." 

All that we find written by the hand of Cromwell 
during this long examination of his life from the age of 
twenty to forty, bears the same stamp of mysticism, 
sincerity, and excitement. A profound melancholy, 
enlivened sometimes by momentary flashes of active faith, 
formed the basis of his character. This melancholy was 
increased by the monotony of his rural occupations, and 
by the sombre sky and situation of the district in which 
fortune had placed him. 

His house, still shown to travellers in the low 
country which surrounds the little hamlet of St. Ives, 
bears the appearance of a deserted cloister. The 
shadows of the trees planted like hedges on the borders 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 161 

of his fields in the marshes, intercept all extent of view 
from the windows. A lowering and misty sky weighs 
as heavily on the imagination as on the roofs of houses. 
Tradition still points out an oratory, supported by 
broken arches, built of brick by the devout puritan 
behind his house, adjoining the family sitting-room; 
where Cromwell assembled the peasants of the neigh- 
bourhood to listen to the word of God from the mouths 
of the missionaries, and where he often prayed and 
preached himself when the spirit moved him. Long 
and deep lines of old trees, the habitations of ill-omened 
crows, bound the view on all sides. These trees hide 
even the course of the river Ouse, whose black waters 
confined between muddy banks, look like the refuse from 
a manufactory or mill. Above them appears only the 
smoke of the wood fires of the little town of St. Ives, 
which continually taints the sky in this sombre valley. 
Such a spot is calculated either to confine the minds of 
its inhabitants to the vulgar ideas of traffic, industry, or 
grazing, or to cause them to raise their thoughts above 
the earth in the ecstasy of pious contemplation. 

It was there, nevertheless, that Cromwell and his 
young wife, who modelled her own character upon the 
simplicity and piety of her husband's, brought up in 
poverty and seclusion their seven children. They sought 
not the world, — the world sought them. 

It may be seen from all that has been discovered 
relating to the life of Cromwell at that period, how 
much the report of the religious controversies in England, 
Ireland, and Scotland, and the political pamphlets which 
increased with the passion of the public, occupied his 
solitude, and with what avidity he perused them ; but 
his attention was entirely directed to the portions of those 
writings which were confined to Scriptural arguments. 

VOL. II. M 



162 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

The immortal name of the great poet Milton, the 
English Dante, appeared for the first time as the author 
of one of these republican pamphlets. 

Milton had just returned from Italy, where, amidst 
the ruins of ancient Rome he had become impressed 
with the grandeur of her former liberty, and the melan- 
choly spectacle of her modern corruption. Rome drove 
him back to independent thought in matters of belief. 
Milton, like Chateaubriand and Madame de Staël, in 
1814, has given immortality to the fleeting passions of 
the time. 

Independence in religious faith gave rise to the desire 
of equal independence in affairs of government. The 
one necessarily followed the other, for how could free 
opinions is f aith be maintained, in the servitude which 
prevented the expression of feelings and the practice of 
a creed ? The strong yearning of Cromwell to profess 
and propagate the doctrines of his belief, inclined him 
to republican opinions. 

Hampden, his relative, then at the height of popu- 
larity from resistance to the royal prerogative, wishing 
to strengthen the republican party by the accession of a 
man as conscientious and irreproachable in conduct as 
Cromwell, procured his return to parliament as member 
for Cambridge, where Hampden exercised predominant 
influence. 

This new election of Cromwell by a more important 
county, did not distract his thoughts from the sole aim 
of his life. " Send me," wrote he to his friend Wil- 
lingham in London, " the Scottish arguments for the 
maintenance of uniformity in religion as expressed in 
their proclamations. I wish to read them before we 
enter upon the debate, which will soon commence in the 
House of Commons." 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 163 

Popular interest was for the moment mixed up with 
the cause of religion. Cromwell, without doubt, em- 
braced this from attachment to his sect and the love of 
justice, and also to bring the people over to the side of 
the republicans and independents by that support which 
the popular cause found in the adherents of this party 
against the encroachments of the Crown. He contested 
the right of enclosing the common lands, by adding 
them to the fiefs which the kings of England had 
formerly accorded to their favourites ; and this right 
the people with justice denied. " Cromwell," said the 
prime minister in his memoirs, " who I never heard 
open his mouth in the house, has been elected member 
of a parliamentary committee, charged with addressing 
the ministers upon this subject. Cromwell argued 
against me in the discussion. He reproached me with in- 
timidating the witnesses, and spoke in such a gross and 
indecent manner, his action was so rough and his atti- 
tude so insolent, that I was forced to adjourn the com- 
mittee. Cromwell will never forgive me." 

The popularity acquired by Cromwell and his party 
from their advocacy of this cause, encouraged him to 
increase it by the defence of those bitter writers against 
the Crown and Church, whose pamphlets were delivered 
by the king and the bishops from time to time, to be 
burnt by the hands of the executioner. He presented a 
petition to the parliament from one of these martyrs. 
Indignation and his wounded conscience caused him for 
the first time to open his lips. 

" It was in November, 1640," says a royalist spec- 
tator* in his memoirs, " that I, who was also a member, 
and vain enough to think myself a model of elegance 
and nobility, for we young courtiers pride ourselves on 

* Sir Philip Warwick.— Tr. 
M 2 



104 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

our attire, beheld on entering the house a person 
speaking. I knew him not ; he was dressed in the most 
ordinary manner, in a plain cloth suit which appeared 
to have been cut by some village tailor. His linen 
too was coarse and soiled. I recollect also observing 
a speck or two of blood upon his little band, 
which was not much larger than his collar. His hat 
was without a hat -band; his stature was of a good size; 
his sword stuck close to his side ; his countenance 
swollen and reddish ; his voice sharp and untunable ; 
and his eloquence full of fervour, for the subject-matter 
would not bear much of reason, it being in behalf of a 
libeller in the hands of the executioner. I must avow 
that the attention bestowed by the assembly on the 
discourse of this gentleman has much diminished my 
respect for the House of Commons." 

All means of resistance and concession on the part 
of Charles towards his parliament being exhausted, the 
presentiment of an inevitable civil war weighed upon 
every breast. They prepared for it more or less openly 
on both sides. 

Cromwell profited by one of these calms which precede 
great political tempests, to return home to console his 
wife and mother, and to embrace his children at St. 
Ives before he entered upon the struggle. He animated 
the people of his neighbourhood by his religious ardour, 
and converted sectarians into soldiers. He spent all his 
household and agricultural savings in sending arms to 
Cambridge. He ventured even to take possession, as 
a member of parliament, of the castle there ; and to 
defray the expenses of the militia, he confiscated the 
Royal University plate which bad been deposited in the 
castle treasury. This militia regiment recognised him 
as their colonel in right of his membership ; and as he 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 165 

was one of the most resolute of citizens, he also by 
the sole appeal to the feelings which they possessed in 
common, raised the militia in the country between 
Cambridge and Huntingdon, intercepted the Royalists 
who were about to join the King, and everywhere dis- 
armed the partisans of the Crown. 

" I shall not harm you," replied lie at this troubled 
time, to a neighbouring gentleman who remonstrated 
against the invasion of their homes, " for, on the con- 
trary, I wish to save the country from being more torn 
to pieces. Behave with integrity and fear nothing, but 
if you should act badly, then you must forgive the 
rigour which my duty towards the people will force me 
to exercise." 

He did not even spare the manor-house of his uncle, 
Cromwell of Hinchinbrook, a ruined royalist gentleman, 
who lived in an old keep in the marshes. " The 
present age is one of contention," wrote he to another 
gentleman. " The worst of these struggles in my mind 
are those which, originate in differences of opinion. To 
injure men personally either by the destruction of their 
houses or possessions, cannot be a good remedy against 
this evil. Let us protect the legitimate rights of the 
people." 

Associations for the defence of independence and 
religion against the Church and Crown were formed all 
over England, but were not long before they dissolved 
from the want of an active chief and united minds. 

There only remained of these associations, the seven 
western counties, of which Cromwell was the arm and 
soul. His fame spread over the country, and began to 
designate him a future chief of the religious war. They 
called him in the puritanical assemblies, the Maccabeus 
of God's Church. " Continue," wrote Cromwell, how- 



160 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

ever, to a clergyman of the Church of England, cc to 
read the Scriptures to the people, and to preach in your 
cathedral as you have been accustomed to do, and even 
a little more frequently." 

Thus Cromwell, who had risen to fight for liberty of 
faith for himself and his friends, protected that of others. 
" You dismiss from your troop an anabaptist officer," 
thus he wrote to one of his lieutenants, " and in this 
you are certainly badly advised. I cannot understand 
how a deplorable unbeliever, known for his irreligion, 
swearing, and debauchery, can appear to you more 
worthy of confidence than he who shuns all these sins. 
Be tolerant towards those who hold a faith different 
from your own. The state, Sir, in choosing her servants 
thinks not of their religious opinions, but of their actions 
and fidelity." 

It may be seen from this that the first acts of Crom- 
well, precursors to him of civil war and future empire, 
were imbued with that spirit of government which drew 
partisans to his cause instead of delivering up victims 
to those who had already espoused it. 

The association of the seven counties, submitting thus 
willingly to the influence of such an active patriot and 
zealous religionist, was the stepping-stone of Cromwell's 
ensuing popularity. It soon became the lever with which 
the Long Parliament raised and sustained the civil war. 

We have seen that from day to day this war had 
become inevitable. Scotland, more fanatical even than 
England through her puritan chiefs, men of ardent faith 
and sanguinary dispositions, gave the first signal of 
hostilities. This kingdom, although retaining inde- 
pendent laws and a local parliament, still formed a part 
of Charles's dominions. The spirit of revolt, concealed 
as in England under that of independence and oppo- 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 167 

sition, caused a Scottish army to advance into the English 
territory, on the pretence of defending, in conjunction 
with the puritans and parliament of London, the rights 
of the two nations, which were menaced by the Crown. 
Emboldened by this support, the opposition orators in 
the English legislative assembly, and the zealous puritans, 
placed no bounds to their audacity and encroachments 
on the royal prerogative. Even the least infatuated of 
the professors of the new faith, such as Pym, Hampden, 
and Vane, assumed the appearance of extreme partisans. 
They became in the eyes of the republicans, the Catos, 
Brut uses and Cassiuses of England, while in the opinion 
of the puritans they were consecrated as martyrs. The 
suspicious susceptibility of the party was outraged at 
beholding several Catholic priests who had been brought 
from France by Queen Henrietta as her ghostly advisers, 
residing at the Court, and exercising in London the cere- 
monial duties of then creed. They affected to see a 
terrible conspiracy against Protestantism in this harmless 
fidelity of a young and charming Queen to the impres- 
sions of her conscience, and the religious rites to which 
she had been accustomed from her youth. They accused 
the King of weakness, or of being an accomplice with 
the wife he adored. 

Charles in the spirit of peace yielded to all these 
exigences. He was called upon to sanction a bill 
authorizing the parliament to reassemble of itself, in 
case an interval of three years should elapse without the 
royal convocation. 

Until then, the annual or triennial meeting of parlia- 
ment had been more a custom than a privilege of 
English liberty. Charles in consenting, acknowledged 
this representative sovereignty as superior to his own. 
The parliament, whose ambition was increased by all 



168 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

these concessions on the part of the monarch, established, 
still with his consent, the permanence of their control and 
power through a committee which was always to sit in 
London during the interval between the sessions. They 
also appointed another, to attend the King in the journey 
which he undertook, to conciliate the Scotch. 

At length they even carried their audacity and usurpa- 
tion to the length of demanding the appointment of a 
protector of the kingdom ; a kind of national tribune or 
parliamentary viceroy raised in opposition to the King 
himself. It was this title, thought of ever since that 
time in the delirium of party-spirit, that was naturally 
bestowed upon Cronrwell when the civil war had made 
him the ruler of his country. He did not, as has been 
imagined, invent it for his own use ; he found it already 
created by the factions which dethroned the King. 

During the absence of the King in Scotland, Ireland, 
left to herself by the recal of the troops who had 
maintained peace there in Charles's name, became 
agitated even to revolt against the royal authority. 
The Irish parliament also followed in its turbulence 
and encroachments the example of the English legislative 
assembly. Ireland, divided into two classes, and two 
religions, who had ever been violently opposed to each 
other, agreed for once unanimously to throw off the yoke 
of the Crown. 

The Catholics and the old Irish of the distant pro- 
vinces were the first to break the league. They took 
advantage of the feebleness of the royal authority that 
sought to control them, and perpetrated a more san- 
guinary massacre than that of the Sicilian Vespers, by 
slaughtering indiscriminately all the English colonists 
who had for centuries resided in the same villages, and 
who by the ties of friendship, relationship, and marriage, 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 169 

had long been amalgamated with the original inhabit- 
ants. 

The massacres of St. Bartholomew, and of the days 
of September, the Roman proscriptions under Marius, or 
those of France during the Reign of Terror, fell below the 
cruel atrocities committed by the Irish in these counties ; 
atrocities which cast a stain upon their character and 
sully the annals of their country. 

The chiefs of this conspiracy in the province of Ulster 
even shuddered themselves at the ferocity of the revenge- 
ful, fanatical, and inexorable people they had let loose. The 
feasts by which they commemorated their victory, gained 
by assassination, consisted of more slow and cruel tortures 
than the imaginations of cannibals ever conceived. They 
prolonged the martyrdom and sufferings of both sexes 
that they might the longer revel in this infernal pastime. 
They caused blood to fall drop by drop, and life to ebb 
by lengthened gasps, that their revengeful fury might be 
the more indulged. The murders spread by degrees over 
every district of Ireland, except Dublin, where a feeble 
body of royal troops preserved the peace. The corpses of 
more than one hundred thousand victims, men, women, 
children, the infirm and aged, strewed the thresholds of 
their habitations, and the fields that they had cultivated 
in common with their destroyers. The flames in which 
their villages were enveloped, were extinguished only in 
their blood. All who escaped by flight the fury of their 
assassins, carrying their infants in their arms to the 
summits of the mountains, perished of inanition and cold 
in the snows of winter. Ireland appeared to open, to 
become the tomb of half the sons she had brought forth. 

We cannot read even in the most impartial histories, 
the accounts of this enduring national crime, without a 
feeling of execration towards its instigators and execu- 



170 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

tioners. We can then understand the misfortunes 
inflicted by heaven upon this devoted country. Tyranny 
can never be justified, but a nation which has such cruel- 
ties to expiate, ought not to accuse its oppressors of harsh 
treatment without at the same time recalling the memory 
of its own delinquencies. The misfortunes of a people 
do not always proceed from the crimes of their conquerors; 
they are more frequently the punishment of their own. 
These evils are the most irremediable, for they sweep 
away with them independence and compassion. 

The parliament accused the King as the author of 
these calamities ; the King with more justice reproached 
the parliament as the cause of his inability to check them. 
The republican party gained fresh strength in the country 
from this obstinate and fruitless struggle between the 
King and the parliamentarians, which allowed the 
kingdom to be torn to pieces, and their co-religionists 
to be murdered by the Catholics. The leaders easily 
persuaded the parliament to issue under the form of a 
remonstrance, an appeal to the people of Great Britain, 
which was in fact a sanguinary accusation against the 
royal government. They therein set forth in one cata- 
logue of crime, all the mistakes and misfortunes of the 
present reign. They accused the King of every offence 
committed by both parties, and accumulated upon his 
head even the blood of the English murdered in Ireland 
by the Catholics. They therefore concluded or tacitly 
resolved, that henceforth there was no safety for England 
but in the restriction of the royal power, and the 
unlimited increase of the privileges of parliament. The 
King driven to the utmost limits of concession, replied to 
this charge in a touching but feeble attempt at justifica- 
tion. The insolence of several members of the House 
of Commons, which burst forth in evident violation 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 171 

of his dignity and royal prerogative, left him no choice 
between the shameful abandonment of his title as kino-, 
or an energetic vindication of his rights. He went down 
himself to the house, to cause the arrest of those 
members who were guilty of high treason, and called 
upon the president to point them out. 

" Sire," replied he kneeling, " in tlie place that I 
occupy, I have only eyes to see, and a tongue to speak 
according to the will of the house I serve. I therefore 
humbly crave your Majesty's pardon for venturing to 
disobey you." 

Charles, humiliated, retired with his guards, and 
repaired to Guildhall to request the city council not to har- 
bour these guilty men. The people only replied to him on 
his return with cries of " Long live the Parliament." 
The inhabitants of London armed themselves at the 
scriptural call, — " To your tents, O Israel ! " and passed 
proudly in review by land and water under the windows 
of Whitehall where the King resided. The King, 
powerless, menaced, and insulted by these outbursts, 
retired to the palace of Hampton Court, a solitary 
country residence, but fortified and imposing, situated at 
some little distance from London. 

The Queen, alarmed for her husband and children, 
besought the King to appease the people by submission. 
All was in vain. The parliament, which since the 
retreat of the King had become the idol and safeguard 
of the nation, was beset with inflammatory petitions. 
Under the pretext of protecting the people against the 
return of the royal army, they took upon themselves the 
military authority, and appointed the generals of the 
troops and governors of the fortified places. Charles, 
who retained only a few partisans and followers at 
Hampton Court, was resolved to declare war, but before 



172 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

adopting this last resource, he conducted the Queen to 
the sea-side, and persuaded her to embark for the conti- 
nent, that she, at least, who was dearest to him on earth, 
might be secure from misfortune and the evil pressure of 
the times. 

The separation was heart-rending, as if they had a 
presentiment of an eternal farewell. The unfortunate 
monarch adored the companion of his youth, and looked 
upon her as superior to all other women. He could not 
suffer her to share his humiliations and reverses, and 
desired to shield her as much as possible from the 
catastrophe which he foresaw would inevitably arrive. 

Henrietta was carried fainting on board the vessel, and 
only recovered to utter reproaches to the waves, which 
bore her from the English shores, and prayers to heaven 
for the safety of her beloved partner. 

The King, agonized at the loss of his consort, but 
strengthened in courage by her departure, left Hampton 
Court and established himeelf in his most loyal city of 
York, surrounded by an attached people and devoted 
army. He took his children with him. 

The parliament, representing this act as a declaration of 
public danger, raised an army to oppose that of the 
King, and gave the command to the Earl of Essex. The 
people rose at the voice of the commons, and each town 
contributed numerous volunteers to swell the ranks of 
the republicans. 

Charles, greater in adversity than when on the throne, 
found in a decided course, that resolution and light 
which had often failed him in the ambiguous struggles 
with a parliament which he knew not either how to 
combat or subdue. The nobility and citizens, less 
impressed than the lower orders by the doctrines of the 
puritans, and less open to the seductions of the parlia- 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 173 

mentary tribunes, for the most part espoused the party 
of the King. They were designated Cavaliers. London 
and the large cities, hot-beds of agitation and popular 
opinion, devoted themselves to the parliament. 

The Earl of Essex, an able but temporising general, and 
more experienced in regular war than civil commotion, 
advanced at the head of fifteen thousand men against the 
King, whose camp contained only ten thousand. 

The first encounter (doubtful in its result) between the 
two armies, proved only the personal valour of the King. 
He fought more like a soldier than a monarch, at the head 
of the foremost squadrons. Five thousand slain on both 
sides, covered the field of battle. London trembled, but 
recovered confidence on learning that the King was too 
much weakened by the conflict to advance against the 
capital. 

This first engagement, called the battle of Edge-Hill, 
though glorious for the arms of Charles, decided nothing. 
The almost universal fanaticism of the nation augmented 
incessantly the forces of the parliament. The nobility, 
and soldiers of the regular troops, alone recruited the 
ranks of the King. The royal cause was defended only 
by an army ; the cause of the rebels was upheld by the 
nation. A protracted war would exhaust the one, while 
it strengthened the other. " Let our enemies fight for 
their ancient honour," exclaimed the republican Hampden, 
in the House of Commons, "we combat for our religion." 

The French ambassador, at Charles the First's Court, 
notwithstanding his partiality for the royal cause, wrote 
thus to Cardinal Mazarin : — " I am astonished to behold 
how little care the King takes of his life ; untiring, 
laborious, patient under reverses, from morning till 
night he marches with the infantry, oftener on horseback 
than in a carriage. The soldiers appear to understand 



J 74 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

all the wants and distresses of their sovereign ; they 
content themselves cheerfully with the little he can do 
for them, and without pay, advance boldly against troops 
better equipped and better armed than themselves. I 
observe all this with my own eyes. This Prince, in 
whom misfortune reveals a dauntless hero, shows himself 
the most brave and judicious of monarchs, and endures 
with fortitude these terrible vicissitudes of politics and 
war. He delivers all orders himself, even to the most 
minute, and signs no paper without the most scrupu- 
lous examination. Often he alights from his horse, and 
marches on foot at the head of the army. He desires 
peace, but as he sees that peace has been unanimously 
rejected, he is compelled to have recourse to war. I 
think he will gain advantages at first, but his resources 
art too limited to allow of his maintaining them long." 

The King had not even bread to give his soldiers, who 
demanded nothing from him but food. The history 
of these four years of unequal and erratic warfare, re- 
sembles more the romantic life of an adventurer, than the 
majestic struggle of a King against rebels in the midst 
of his armies and people. "At one time," says the 
faithful follower who preserved a journal of this mo- 
mentous period, " we sleep in the palace of a Bishop ; at 
another in the hut of a woodcutter. To-day the King 
dines in the open air, to-morrow he has not even a crust 
of bread to eat. On Sunday, at Worcester, we had no 
dinner; it was a dreadful day; we marched without 
tasting food from six in the morning, until midnight. 
Another day we travelled for a long time on foot in the 
mountains, and the King tasted nothing but two small 
apples. We could often procure no food until two in 
the morning. We lay down with no shelter over us 
before the castle of Donnington." Again, the same 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 175 

chronicler says, "the King slept in his chariot on 
Bockonnok heath; he had not dined. The next day 
he breakfasted with a poor widow on the borders of a 
forest." 

The fortitude displayed by the King in struggling 
with his misfortunes, and his patient submission to the 
same privations and dangers, bound the soldiers to him 
by a feeling of personal attachment. They only desert 
kings who desert themselves. He resembled Henry 
Quatre fighting for his kingdom, with the same courage, 
but with unequal fortune. The sight of this constancy 
and resignation, induced even some of his enemies in 
the countries they passed through, to join the royal cause. 
" One of them named Roswell deserted the parliamentary 
army, and joined the inferior forces of the King. Being 
taken prisoner by the republicans, they interrogated him 
as to his motives for this defection. ' I passed,' replied 
Roswell, ' along a road which bordered the heath, where 
King Charles, surrounded only by a few faithful subjects, 
was seated, dividing a morsel of bread with his followers. 
I approached from curiosity, and was so struck by the 
gravity, sweetness, patience, and majesty of this prince, 
that the impression dwelt in my breast, and induced me 
to devote myself to his cause." 

Charles concealed his feelings from his soldiers and 
attendants, lest he should display in the King the more 
permissible weakness of the man. One day when he 
beheld Lord Litchfield, one of his most faithful and 
intrepid companions in arms fall at his feet, struck mor- 
tally by a cannon ball, he continued to give his orders 
and to fight with an appearance of insensibility, which 
deceived everybody. After having secured the retreat 
and saved the army by taking the command of the rear- 
guard, he ordered the troops to encamp, and then shut 



176 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

himself up in his tent to consider the operations of the 
morrow. He spent the night alone, writing, but his 
servants on entering his tent at daybreak, perceived from 
his still moist eyes, that a portion of the time, at least, 
had been occupied in weeping for Litchfield. 

While Cromwell, his antagonist, who then fought 
against the King under Essex, spoke and acted with 
such mystical excitement, that, according to the writers 
of the day, many looked upon this enthusiasm of religion 
as the effect of inebriety, Charles, as became a man 
who was grappling with misfortune, exhibited his reco- 
vered majesty by imperturbable serenity. " Never," 
wrote one of his generals, " have I beheld him exalted 
by success or depressed by reverses. The equality of 
his soul appears to defy fortune, and to rise superior to 
circumstances." 

" He often," says another writer, " rode the whole 
night, and at break of day galloped up to the summit 
of some hill that he might examine the position or 
movements of the parliamentary army." 

" Gentlemen," said he one day to a small group of 
cavaliers who followed him, " it is morning ; you had 
better separate, you have beds and families. It is time 
you should seek repose. I have neither house nor home ; 
a fresh horse awaits me, and he and I must march 
incessantly by day and night. If God has made me 
suffer sufficient evils to try my patience, he has also 
given me patience to support these inflictions." 

" Thus," said a poet of the age, " did he struggle for 
the maintenance of his rights ; he rowed on without 
a haven of refuge in view. War increased the greatness 
of this King, not for the throne but for posterity." 

Our limits will not permit us to follow all the various 
changes of fortune that occurred during this four years' 






OLIVER CROMWELL. 177 

war between the King and his people ; the longest, the 
most dramatic, and most diversified of all civil contests. 
Cromwell, who at the beginning, commanded a regiment 
of volunteer cavalry in Essex's army, raised amongst his 
Huntingdon confederates, grew rapidly in the opinion of 
the whole camp, from the religious enthusiasm by which 
he was animated, and which he communicated to the 
soldiers. Less a warrior than an apostle, he sought 
martyrdom upon the field of battle rather than victory. 
Neither success, reverses, promotion, nor renown, diverted 
him from the one absorbing passion of his soul during 
this holy war. 

The Earl of Essex, Lord Fairfax, Waller, Hampden, 
and Falkland, fought, yielded, or died, some for their 
prince, and others for their country and their faith. 
Cromwell alone never sustained a defeat. Elevated by the 
Parliament to the rank of general, he strengthened his 
own division by weeding and purifying it. He cared 
little for numbers provided his ranks were filled with 
fanatics. By sanctifying thus the cause, end, and 
motives of the war, he raised his soldiers above common 
humanity, and prepared them to perform impossibilities. 
The historians of both sides agree in allowing that this 
religious enthusiasm inspired by Cromwell in the minds 
of his troops, transformed a body of factionaries into an 
army of saints. Victory invariably attended his encounters 
with the King's forces. On examining and comparing 
his correspondence, as we have already done, at the 
various dates of his military life, we find that this piety 
of Cromwell was not an assumed, but a real enthu- 
siasm. His letters show the true feelings of the man in 
the leader of his party ; and the more convincingly, as 
they are nearly all addressed to his wife, sisters, daughters, 
and most intimate friends. Let us look over them, for each 

VOL. II. N 



178 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

of these letters is another stroke of the pencil to complete 
the true portrait of this characteristic hero of the times. 

First, we must give the description of his troops. 

" The puritan soldiers of Cromwell are armed with all 
kinds of weapons, clothed in all colours, and sometimes in 
rags. Pikes, halberds, and long straight swords are ranged 
side by side with pistols and musquets. Often he causes 
his troops to halt that he may preach to them, and fre- 
quently they sing psalms while performing their exercise. 
The captains are heard to cry ' Present, fire! in the name 
of the Lord!' After calling over the muster roll, the 
officers read a portion of the New or Old Testament. 
Their colours are covered with symbolical paintings and 
verses from the Scriptures. They march to the Psalms 
of David, while the Royalists advance singing loose 
bacchanalian songs." 

The licence of the nobility and cavaliers composing 
the King's regular troops, could not prevail, notwith- 
standing their bravery, against these martyrs for their 
faith. The warriors who believe themselves the soldiers 
of God, must sooner or later gain the victory over those 
who are only the servants of man. Cromwell was the 
first to feel this conviction, and predicted the fulfilment 
after the first battles, in a letter to his wife. 

" Our soldiers," wrote he the day after an engage- 
ment, " were in a state of exhaustion and lassitude 
such as I have never before beheld, but it pleased God 
to turn the balance in favour of this handful of men. 
Notwithstanding the disparity of numbers, we rushed 
horse against horse, and fought with sword and pistol 
for a considerable time. We obliged the enemy to 
retreat, and pursued them. I put their commander 
(the young Lord Cavendish, twenty-three years of age, 
and the flower of the court and army) to flight as far as 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 179 

the borders of a marsh, where his cavalry fell into the 
mire, and my lieutenant killed the young nobleman him- 
self by a sword-thrust in his short ribs. We owe this 
day's victory more to God than to any human power. 
May he still be with us, hi what remains to do !" 

He bestowed his fortune as well as his energies upon 
the cause which he considered sacred. " I declare," 
he wrote in the second year to his cousin St. John, " that 
the war in Ireland and England has already cost me 
1,200/.; this is the reason why I can no longer with 
my private purse assist the public treasury. I have 
bestowed on the cause my fortune and my faith. I put 
my trust in God, and for his name I would willingly 
lose my life. My companions, soldiers, and family 
would all do the same. My troops are daily augmented 
by men that you would esteem if you knew them. All 
true and exemplary believers." These soldiers were 
called " Iron-Sides" in allusion to their imperturbable 
confidence in God. 

" My soldiers do not make an idol of me," said he in 
another letter to the president of the Parliament ; "I 
can say truly that it is not upon me, but on you that 
their eyes are fixed, ready to fight and die for your 
cause. They are attached to their faith, not to their 
leader. We seek only the glory of the Most High. 
The Lord is our strength, pray for us, and ask our 
friends to do so also." 

" They say that we are factious," said he some days 
after to a friend, " and that we seek to propagate our reli- 
gious opinions by force, a proceeding that we detest and 
abhor. I declare that I could not reconcile myself to 
this war if I did not believe that it was to secure the 
maintenance of our lawful rights, and in this just quarrel 
I hope to prove myself honest, sincere, and upright." 

x 2 



180 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

" Excuse me if I am troublesome ; but I write rarely, 
and this letter affords me an opportunity, in the midst of 
the calumnies by which we are misrepresented, of pour- 
ing my feelings into the bosom of a friend." 

He relates next to his colleague, Fairfax, an encounter 
that took place between his troops and an assembly of 
clubmen, a neutral but armed party, whose patriotic 
feelings induced them to unite and throw themselves 
between the parliamentarians and royalists, that they 
might save their country from the calamities which 
stained it with blood. 

" Having assured them," wrote Cromwell, " that we 
were only desirous of peace, and that we firmly in- 
tended to put a stop to all violence and pillage, I sent 
back their deputies, charging them to transmit my mes- 
sage to their employers. They fired on my troops, 
whereupon I charged theirs, and we made several 
hundred prisoners. Although they had treated some 
captives of our party with cruelty, I looked upon them 
as idiots, and set them at liberty." 

There had long ceased to be any communication 
between the two extreme parties that divided the 
kingdom. The royalists refused to temporise with a 
parliament that fought against its king. The parlia- 
mentarians had become republican upon logical prin- 
ciples, having originally been factious from anger. The 
Biblical texts against kings, commented upon by the 
puritans in town and country, made the people and the 
army all republicans ; and thus republican doctrines 
thenceforth became a part of the religion of the people. 
Cromwell, naturally indifferent to controversies purely 
political, could not assure the triumph of his own faith 
without associating it with the popular government. 
The established Church of England and the monarchy, 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 181 

were one, in the person of Charles and every other 
sovereign of his race. The only safeguard of the puri- 
tans was republicanism. The clear sense of Cromwell 
made him decide upon dethroning the house of Stuart, 
and establishing the Heign of God. 

His conviction soon rendered him insensible to all 
spirit of pacification. He marched from victory to 
victory, and, although he did not yet assume the actual 
title of Lord-General-in-Chief of the parliamentary 
army, he possessed all the authority of the office wdiich 
public opinion could bestow upon him. The parliament 
was only victorious where he fought, and he ascribed to 
God the praise and glory of his successes. " Sir," 
wrote he after the taking of Worcester and Bristol ; 
" this is a fresh favour conferred on us by Heaven. 
You see that God does not cease to protect us. I again 
repeat, the Lord be praised for this, for it is his work." 
All his despatches and military notes show the same 
confidence in the divine intervention. " Whoever 
peruses the account of the battle of Worcester," said 
he in concluding his narrative of this event, " must see 
that there has been no other hand in it but that of God. 
He must be an atheist," added he with enthusiasm, 
" who is not convinced of this. Remember our soldiers 
in your prayers. It is their joy and recompense to 
think that they have been instrumental to the glory of 
God and the salvation of their country. He has deigned 
to make use of them, and those who are employed in 
this great work, know that faith and prayer alone have 
enabled them to gain these victories and take these towns. 
Presbyterians, puritans, independents, all are inspired 
with the same spirit of faith and prayer, asking the 
same things and obtaining them from on high. All 
are agreed in this. What a pity it is that they are not 



182 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

equally unanimous in politics ! In spiritual things we 
employ towards our brethren no other constraint than 
that of reason. As to other matters, God has placed 
the sword in the hands of the parliament to the terror 
of those who do evil. Should any one try to wrest this 
weapon from them, I trust they may be confounded. 
God preserve it in your hands." 

In the interval between the campaigns, Cromwell had 
married two of his daughters ; the youngest and dearest 
was united to the republican Ireton. She was called 
Bridget. Her enlightened intellect and fervent piety 
made her the habitual confidante of all her father's 
religious feelings. We may trace in some scraps of his 
letters to this young female the constant preoccupation 
of his mind. 

" I do not write to your husband, because he replies 
by a thousand letters to every one that I address to him. 
This makes him sit up too late ; besides, I have many 
other things to attend to at present. 

" Your sister Clay pole (his eldest daughter) is labour- 
ing under troubled thoughts. She sees her own vanity 
and the evils of her carnal spirit, and seeks the only 
thing which will give her peace. Seek also, and you will 
gain the first place next to those who have found it. 
Every faithful and humble soul who struggles to gain 
such peace will assuredly find it in the end. Happy are 
those who seek ; thrice happy are those who find ! Who 
has ever experienced the grace of God without desiring 
to feel the fulness of its joy? My clear love, pray fervently 
that neither your husband nor anything in the world may 
lessen your love for Christ. I trust that your husband 
may be to you an encouragement to love him more 
and serve him better. What you ought to love in him 
is the image of Christ that he bears in his person. 



OLIVER CROMWELIi. 183 

Behold that, prefer that, and love all else only for the 
sake of that. Farewell ; I pray for you and him ; pray 
for me." 

Is this the style of a crafty hypocritical politician, who 
would not even unmask himself before his favourite 
daughter? and whose most familiar family confidences 
are to be considered as unworthy tricks to deceive a 
world, not likely to read them during his life-time ? 

This mysticism was not confined to the General, but 
imbued the hearts of the whole army. " While we were 
digging the mine under the castle," — thus he writes at a 
later period from Scotland. — "Mr. Stapleton preached, 
and the soldiers who listened, expressed their compunc- 
tion by tears and groans." 

"This is a glorious day," said he, after the victory of 
Preston ; " God grant that England may prove worthy 
of, and grateful for his mercies." And after another 
defeat of the Royalists, in a letter to his cousin St. 
John, he says, as if he were overcome with gratitude : 
" I cannot speak ; I can say nothing but that the Lord 
my God is a great and glorious God, and he alone de- 
serves by turns our fear and confidence. We ought 
always to feel that he is present, and that he will never 
fail his people. Let all that breathe praise the Lord. 
Remember me to my dear father, Henry Vane," (his 
parliamentary colleague, who was inflamed by the same 
religious and republican zeal;) may God protect us 
both. Let us not care for the light in which men regard 
our actions ; for whether they think well or ill of them 
is according to the will of God ; and we, as the bene- 
factors of future ages, shall enjoy our reward and 
repose in another world ; — a world that will endure 
for ever. Care not for the morrow, or for anything 
else. The Scriptures are my great support. Read 



184 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 



Isaiah, chapter viii. verses 11, 14. Read the entire 
chapter." 

" One of my poor soldiers died at Preston. On the 
eve of the battle he was ill, and near his last moments ; 
he besought his wife, who was cooking in his room, to 
bring him a handful of herbs. She did so, and holding 
the green vegetable in his hand, he asked her if it 
would wither now that it was cut. 'Yes, certainly,' 
replied the poor woman. 'Well, remember then,' 
said the dying man, ' that such will be the fate of the 
King's army :' and he expired with this prophecy on 
his lips." 

Cromwell called the civil war an appeal to God. He 
defended the parliament against those who reproached 
them for having carried the revolt too far, and asserted 
that they haé been actuated by religious motives alone. 
He endeavoured to rouse his friends from their hesitation 
and dislike of war, by impressing them with the sanctity 
of their mission. This Mahomet of the North was 
endowed, under adverse circumstances, with the same un- 
failing resignation as the Mahomet of the East. The cha- 
racter of martyr became him as readily as that of victor. 
He had made himself the popular idol at the conclu- 
sion of these years of conflict, but never was he for an 
instant intoxicated by vain-glory. " You see this crowd," 
said he, in a low voice to his friend Vane, on the day of 
his triumphant entry into London ; " there would have 
been a much greater assemblage to see me hanged !" 

His heart was on earth ; his glory above. Nobody 
could govern the people better ; and in governing he did 
not think he had the right to despise them, for the 
lowest are God's creatures. He merely desired to rule, 
that he might serve them. He cared not for permanent 
empire ; he had no desire to found a dynasty. He was 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 1S5 

nothing more than an interregnum. God removed him 
when he had achieved his work, and established his 
faith, by assuring the right of liberty of conscience to 
the people. 

In the meantime, the bravery of the King, and the 
fidelity of his partisans, prolonged the struggle with 
varied success. 

The Queen, impatient again to behold her husband 
and children, had returned to England, with reinforce- 
ments from Holland and France. The admiral who 
commanded the parliamentary fleet, not having been 
able to prevent the disembarkation of the Queen, ap- 
proached the coast on which she had landed, and fired 
during the whole night at the cottage which served as an 
asylum for the heroic Henrietta. She was obliged to 
escape half-clothed from the ruins of the hut, and seek 
shelter behind a hill from the artillery of her own subjects. 
She at length joined the King, to whom love imparted 
fresh courage. 

In a battle with equal forces at Marston Moor, Charles 
commanded in person against the army led by Crom- 
Avell.* Fifty thousand men, children of the same soil, 
dyed their native land with blood ! The King, who, 
during the early part of the day, was victorious, — in the 
evening being abandoned by his principal generals and a 
portion of his troops, was forced to retire into the North. 

During the retreat, he ventured to attack the Earl of 
Essex, generalissimo of the parliament, who, being sur- 
prised and vanquished, embarked and returned to London 
without his army. 

The parliament, after the example of the Romans, 

* This is a mistake. Charles was not present at Marston Moor, and 
Fairfax, not Cromwell, commanded in chief on the side of the parlia- 
ment. — Tr. 



186 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

thanked their general for not having despaired of his 
country, and appointed him to the command of fresh 
levies. Essex, reinforced by Cromwell and the Earl of 
Manchester, routed the King at Newbury : but though 
victorious, he became weary of the dissensions which 
existed in the army, and was replaced by Eairfax, a 
model of patriotism, and a hero in battle ; yet incapable 
of directing war on the grand scale. The modesty of 
Fairfax induced him to ask for Cromwell as his lieu- 
tenant and adviser. These two chiefs united, deprived 
the King of all hopes of reconquering England, and 
scarcely left him the choice of a field of battle. Eairfax, 
Cromwell, and Ireton, Cromwell's son-in-law, attacked 
and vanquished the Royal forces at Naseby. The rem- 
nants of Charles's last supporters were successively 
destroyed by Fairfax and Cromwell. 

While England was thus gliding rapidly from the 
grasp of the King, a young hero, the Earl of Montrose, 
raised, by a chivalric combination, the royalist cause in 
Scotland, and gained a battle against the puritans of 
that kingdom. Montrose's brave mountaineers, more 
qualified, like our own Vendéans, for dashing exploits 
than regular campaigns, having dispersed after the victory 
to visit their families, he was attacked by the puritans 
during their absence, and lost in one day all that he had 
gained in many gallant actions. He was obliged to take 
refuge in the mountains, and hide himself from his ene- 
mies under various disguises ; but the remarkable beauty 
of his features betrayed him ; he was recognised, taken 
prisoner, and ignominiously executed. His death was as 
sublime as his enterprise had been heroic. He died a 
martyr of fidelity to his King, as while living he had 
been his firmest friend. 

Charles, who now only retained about his person a 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 187 

handful of cavaliers, wrote to his wife that as he could 
no longer fight as a king, lie wished to die like a soldier. 
He once more compelled the Queen, his only object of 
anxiety, to embark for the Continent, and succeeded in 
conducting the wreck of his army to Oxford. He left 
that place in the night, by a secret portal, accompanied 
only by three gentlemen, and reached without being recog- 
nised the summit of Harrow-on-the-Hill : from whence 
he for a long time contemplated his capital, deliberating 
whether he should enter the city, and throw himself 
upon the mercy of the parliament, or embarrass them 
by his presence. Then, changing his mind, he, with a 
slender hope, proceeded to join the Scottish army, acting 
in alliance with his enemies, but which had not as yet, like 
the English, totally abjured their fidelity to the Crown. 

The generals of the Scottish forces astonished at his 
arrival, and not daring at first to deceive his confidence, 
received him with the honours due to their sovereign : 
and appointed him a guard, intended more to watch than 
to defend him. These outward distinctions ill concealed 
the fact of his captivity. Negotiations were again 
opened between Charles and the parliament. The con- 
ditions proposed by the latter, actually involved the 
abdication of the throne, and anticipated the con- 
stitution of 1791, imposed by the legislative assembly, 
and the Jacobins, upon Louis the Sixteenth. The King 
refused to agree to them. 

During these negotiations, the Scottish army in the 
most base and treacherous manner sold the liberty of the 
prince who had trusted to their honour, and consented 
to deliver him up to the parliament for the sum of three 
millions sterling;* a Jewish traffic which, from that day 

* M. De Lamartine has mistaken the sum, which did not exceed 
500,000/.— Tr. 



188 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

to this, has been an enduring' stigma on the name 
of Scotland. 

The Scotch parliament at first refused to ratify the 
bargain, but the popular and fanatical party of their 
own clergymen compelled them to do so. Charles the 
First was playing at chess in his room at the moment 
when they brought the despatch which deprived him of 
the last illusion he had indulged in with regard to his 
fate. He had become from habitual adversity so 
resigned, and possessed such command over himself, 
that he continued his game with undiminished atten- 
tion, and without even a change of colour, so that the 
spectators began to doubt if it were really the order for 
his arrest that he had perused. 

Delivered up that evening by the Scotch to the 
parliamentary commissioners, he traversed as a captive, 
but without insult, and even amidst tokens of respect 
and the tears of the people, the counties which separated 
Scotland from Holmby, the place chosen as his prison. 
He there endured a confinement often rigorous even to 
brutality. The parliament and army, who were already 
at variance, disputed the possession of the prisoner. 
Cromwell, who had excited in the troops a fanaticism 
equal to his own, and who feared lest the parliament, now 
master of the King's person, should enter into a com- 
promise with royalty fatal to the interests of the republic, 
the only guarantee in his opinion for the security of the 
puritan faith, — without the knowledge of Fairfax, his 
immediate commander, sent one of his officers at the head 
of five hundred chosen men to carry off the King. 
Charles, who foresaw a worse fate at the hands of the 
soldiers than of the people, vainly attempted to resist the 
emissary and orders of Cromwell. At length he yielded, 
and reluctantly submitted to his new gaolers. He was 






OLIVER CROMWELL. ISO 

then conducted to the army, in the close vicinity of 
Cambridge. 

The parliament, indignant at this assumptive authority 
on the part of the army, demanded that the King should 
be delivered up to them. The army, already accustomed 
to place itself above the civil power, declared rebelliously 
against the parliament and Fairfax, in favour of Crom- 
well, whom they placed at their head, and marched 
upon London, forcing their generals to accompany 
them. The parliament, intimidated, stopped their 
advance at the gates of the capital, by conceding all 
their demands. 

From that day, the parliament became as much sub- 
jugated by the army, as the King had formerly been 
controlled by the parliament, and sank into the mere tool 
of Cromwell. He himself purged the legislative assembly 
of those members who had shown the greatest opposition 
to the troops. Cromwell and Fairfax treated the King 
with more consideration than the parliamentary com- 
missioners had shown. They permitted him to see his 
wife and younger children, who until then had been 
retained in London. Cromwell, himself a father, being- 
present at the interview between Charles and his family, 
shed tears of emotion. At that moment, the man 
triumphed over the sectarian. Up to that time he 
believed that his cause required only the dethronement, 
not the sacrifice of the King. He showed towards his 
captive all the respect and compassion compatible with 
his safe custody. He always spoke with the tenderest 
admiration of Charles's personal virtues, and the 
amiable light in which he shone forth as a husband and 
a parent. 

Charles, touched by this respect, and holding even 
in prison a shadow of his Court, said to Cromwell and 






190 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

his officers, " You arc driven back to me by necessity, 
you cannot do without me ; you will never succeed in 
satisfying the nation for the loss of the sovereign autho- 
rity." The King now looked for better things from the 
army than from the parliament. A royal residence was 
appointed for him, the palace of Hampton Court ; and he 
there became, although a prisoner, the centre and arbi- 
trator of the negotiations between the principal factions, 
who each wished to strengthen themselves with his name, 
by associating him to their cause. 

The three leading parties were, the army, the par- 
liament and the Scotch. Cromwell and his son-in-law, 
Ireton, were confident in their personal influence over 
the King; an accident undeceived them. The King 
having written a private letter to his wife, charged one of 
his confidential servants to conceal this letter in his 
horse's saddle, and convey it to Dover, where the fishing 
boats served to transmit his correspondence to the 
continent. Cromwell and Ireton, who had some sus- 
picion of the nature of this missive, resolved to ascertain 
by personal examination the private sentiments of the 
King. Informed of the departure of the messenger, and 
of the manner in which he had concealed the letter, 
they mounted their horses and rode that night to Wind- 
sor, which place they reached some hours before the 
emissary of the King. 

" We alighted at the inn, and drank beer for a portion 
of the night," said Cromwell subsequently, " until our 
spy came to announce that the King's messenger had 
arrived. We rose, advanced with drawn swords towards 
the man, and told him we had an order to search all who 
entered or quitted the inn. We left him in the street, 
and carried his saddle into the room where Ave had been 
drinking, and having opened it, we took from thence the 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 191 

letter, and then returned the saddle to the messenger 
without his suspecting that it had been despoiled. He 
departed, imagining that he had preserved the secret. 
After he was gone, we read the King's letter to his wife. 
He told her that each faction was anxious that he should 
join them, but he thought he ought to conclude with the 
Scotch in preference to any other. We returned to the 
camp, and seeing that our cause had nothing to expect 
from the King, from that moment we resolved on his 
destruction. 5 ' 

The guard was doubled, but the King eluded their 
vigilance. Followed only by Berkley and Ashburnham, 
his two confidential friends, he crossed Windsor forest 
by night, and hastened towards the sea-shore, where the 
vessel appointed to await him was not to be seen. He 
then sought a safe and independent asylum in the Isle 
of Wight, the strong castle of which, commanded by 
an officer he believed devoted to his service, promised 
him security. He expected from thence to treat freely 
with his people, but he found too late that he was a 
prisoner in the castle, where he had supposed himself 
master. 

Charles passed the winter in negotiations with the 
commissioners appointed by the parliament. During 
these vain discussions, Cromwell, Ireton, and the most 
fanatical of the officers, uneasy at delay, assembled at 
Windsor in secret council, and after having in their 
enthusiasm implored with prayers and tears that they 
might be endowed with spiritual light, they took the 
resolution of proclaiming the republic, of bringing the 
King to trial, and of sacrificing him to the welfare of the 
nation. " There will be no peace," cried they, " for the 
people, no security for the Saints, so long as this prince, 
even within the walls of a prison, is made the instrument 




192 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

of factious treaties, the secret hope of the ambitious, 
and an object of pity to the nation." 

Implacable religion inspired the fanatics, fear impelled 
the base, ambition excited the daring, and the individual 
passion of each appeared in the eyes of all as the 
announced decree of Heaven. The consummation was 
decided on without a dissentient voice. From this clay 
forth, the crime already accomplished in the anticipation 
of Cromwell, visibly appears to disorder his mind, to 
deprive his religion of its innocence, his words of their 
sincerity, his actions of their piety, and to associate 
fatally in all his conduct, the craftiness of ambition, and 
the cruelty of the executioner, with the superstitious 
bigotry of the sectarian. His soul is no longer clear ; 
it becomes obscure and enigmatical for the world as well 
as for himself. He wavers between the fanatic and the 
assassin. Just punishment of a criminal resolution, 
which assumes, that the interest of a cause conveys the 
right of life and death over the victim, and employs 
murder as the means of producing the triumph of 
virtue. 

At the same moment when the conspirators of 
Windsor decreed the arrest of Charles, he himself pro- 
nounced his own sentence, in breaking off the rigorous 
negotiations with the parliament, and in refusing to 
affix his signature to the degradation of the royal 
authority. From that time forward his captivity was 
no longer disguised under the outward semblance of 
honour and respect. Shut up in the keep of a strong- 
castle, and deprived of all communication with his 
friends, he had no society during a long winter, but 
that of an old domestic who lit his fire and brought in 
his food. Throughout this protracted and painful 
solitude, with a menacing fate present to his imagina- 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 193 

tion, and the waves of the ocean bursting on his ears, 
he fortified his mind, naturally courageous, though 
tender, by the aid of religion, and prepared for the 
death with which all parties combined to threaten him. 
His life constituted a pledge which each faction was 
afraid to leave in the hands of their opponents. None 
of them hated the man, but all were equally anxious to 
get rid of the monarch. His death, like that of the 
proscribed victims of Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus, 
at Rome, became the mutual sacrifice, reciprocally 
demanded by opposing ambition or baseness. 

Another faction still more radical, that of the Levellers, 
the religious communists of the day, had already begun 
to spread amongst the troops of Cromwell ; armed, 
after his example, with texts from the Old and New 
Testament, interpreted by them as ordaining a perfect 
equality of all classes, and an impartial division of the 
gifts bestowed by Heaven on man. This sect, which 
Cromwell had, without his own knowledge, excited, he 
energetically and promptly suppressed in the blood of 
several of his own soldiers. In proportion as he ap- 
proached supreme authority, and exercised uncontrolled 
command, the religionist gave way to the politician. In 
his soul the spirit of sectarianism disappeared under 
the desire of ride. He banished to heaven all those 
sublimated theories, saintly in their essence, but utterly 
inapplicable to human institutions. His clear natural 
sense impressed on him the necessity of power, and the 
sacredness of persona] property, the two leading instincts 
of public and domestic government. He repaired to 
London, purified the parliament, through the agency of 
Colonel Pride, of those members who were opposed to 
him, and proclaimed the republic under the title of an 
Assembly, or Convention of the People. 

VOL. II. o 



194 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

The army and the parliament, instigated by the Puri- 
tans and Republicans, determined on the King's trial. 
Cromwell appeared to hesitate before the enormity of 
the outrage. From his place in the House, he spoke, 
more in the tone of an inspired enthusiast than a rational 
politician, and appeared to surrender his consent under 
the influence of a supernatural impression. " If any 
one," said he, with an extravagant emotion which 
approached insanity, " had voluntarily proposed to me 
to judge and punish the King, I should have looked 
upon him as a prodigy of treason ; but since Providence 
and necessity have imposed this burden on us, I pray 
Heaven to bless your deliberations, although I am not 
prepared to advise you in this weighty matter. Shall 
I confess to you," added he, in a tone and attitude of 
inward humiliation, " that when a short time since I 
offered up a prayer for the preservation of his majesty, 
I felt my tongue cleave to my palate ? I took this 
extraordinary sensation as an unfavourable answer from 
Heaven, rejecting my humble entreaty." This expres- 
sion recalled the " Jacta est alea " of Caesar, when he 
pushed his horse into the Rubicon. But the Rubicon 
of Cromwell was the blood of an innocent man, and 
a sovereign, shed by the crime and ingratitude of his 
people. 

The parliament, carried away by the animosity and 
vehemence of the common excitement, decreed the trial. 
Colonel Harrison, the son of a butcher, brutal in man- 
ners and sanguinary in disposition, was sent to conduct 
the King from the Isle of Wight, as a victim for the 
shambles. Charles, passing through Windsor, under 
the shadow of the royal castle of his ancestors, 
heard a voice choked with tears, which addressed him 
through the bars of a dungeon : " My master ! my 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 195 

beloved master ! is it really you that I behold again, and 
in this condition ?" The words proceeded from one of 
his old servants, Hamilton, a prisoner, and, like himself, 
destined for the scaffold. The King recognised him, 
and replied, " Yes, it is I, and this is what I have always 
wished to suffer for my friends." The savage Harrison 
would not permit any further conversation, but forced 
the King to accelerate his pace. Hamilton followed him 
with his eyes, his gestures, and his speech. 

A high court of justice, nominally composed of 333 
members, but of which 70 alone assumed their places, 
awaited the arrival of the monarch in London. He was 
lodged in his own palace of Whitehall, now for the 
occasion converted into a prison. 

It was difficult to recognise the noble countenance 
of the captive, still stamped with its usual characteristics 
of grace, majesty, and serenity. During his solitary 
confinement in the castle of Carisbrook, he had allowed 
his beard to grow, and the gloomy shade of his dungeon 
appeared to have given an unnatural pallor to his com- 
plexion. He was habited in mourning, as if in antici- 
pation of death. He had abandoned all hopes on earth ; 
his looks and thoughts were now centred solely on 
eternity. No victim was ever more thoroughly prepared 
to submit to human injustice. The judges assembled in 
the vast Gothic Hall of Westminster, the palace of the 
commons. At the first calling over of the list of 
members destined to compose the tribunal, when the 
name of Fairfax was pronounced without response, a 
voice from the crowd of spectators cried out, " He has 
too much sense to be here." When the act of accu- 
sation against the King was read, in the name of the 
people of England, the same voice again replied, "Not 
one-tenth of them !" The officer commanding the guard 

o 2 



; 



196 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

ordered the soldiers to fire upon the gallery from whence 
these rebellious words proceeded ; when it was discovered 
that they had been uttered by Lady Fairfax, the wife of 
the Lord-general. This lady, originally induced to 
adopt the cause of the parliament, from party spirit 
and attachment to the opinions of her husband, now 
trembled with him at the consequences of their own act, 
and redeemed by a courageous expression of indignation 
and pity, the mischief they had promoted by leading the 
sufferer to the feet of his judges. 

The King listened to this avowal of repentance, and 
forgave Fairfax in his heart for the victories which he 
had tempered with mercy, and the success he had used 
with moderation. The act of accusation was read to 
him, drawn up after the customary formula, in which 
the words traitor, murderer, and public enemy, were as 
usual, freely applied by the conquering to the vanquished 
party. He listened to them unmoved, with the calm 
superiority of innocence. Determined not to degrade 
the inviolable majesty of kings, of which he conceived 
himself the depositary and responsible representative, 
he replied that he would never stoop to justify himself 
before a self-elected tribunal of his own subjects ; a 
tribunal which the religion as well as the laws of 
England equally forbade him to acknowledge. " I shall 
leave to God," said he, in conclusion, " the care of my 
defence, lest by answering, I should acknowledge in 
you an authority which has no better foundation than 
that of robbers and pirates ; and thus draw on my 
memory the reproach of posterity, that I had myself 
betrayed the constitution of the country, instead of select- 
ing the more estimable and enviable fate of a martyr." 

The president, Bradshaw, repelled this noble recu- 
sancy of the King as an act of blasphemy ; his words, 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 197 

in which personal hatred superseded dignity and jus- 
tice, mingled the bitterness of a revolted subject with 
the calmness of an impartial judge. The soldiers Avith 
whom Cromwell had surrounded the hall, imitated the 
example of Bradshaw, and heaped insults upon their 
former sovereign, now their prisoner. As he passed 
through their ranks on his return to Whitehall, he was 
assailed with cries of "Death !" on every side, and some 
even spat in his face. Charles, without irritation, or 
feeling himself degraded by these intemperate ebulli- 
tions, raised his eyes to heaven in pious resignation, and 
bethought him of the patience of the sacred founder of 
the faith he professed, under similar outrages. " Poor 
wretches !" exclaimed he, to those who accompanied 
him, " they would do the same to-morrow, to their own 
officers, for the trifling remuneration of sixpence." 
The unsteady temper of the army, alternately the tool 
of all parties, had struck his mind forcibly since the 
revolution, and inspired him with pity rather than with 
anger. 

A single veteran protested against the base venality 
of his comrades. As he saw the discrowned monarch 
pass before him, he fell on his knees, and with a loud 
voice called for the blessing of Heaven on that royal and 
unhonouied head. The officers indignantly struck him 
with their swords, and punished his prayer and com- 
passion as a double crime. Charles turned his head 
aside, and uttered mildly, " Truly, the punishment 
was too heavy for the offence." The populace, over- 
awed by the soldiers, remained immoveable spectators 
of the trial, and confined themselves to expressing by 
a mournful silence their repugnance at being compelled 
to submit to this national tragedy. 

It was expected by many, that the army, having 



198 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

obtained the sentence of their sovereign, would spare Eng- 
land the disgrace of the punishment. The King himself 
had no longer hope in man. The republicans were 
determined not to acknowledge the rights of his children 
to the crown, which might be construed into a super- 
stitious weakness in favour of monarchy. Cromwell, 
however, did not conceal from himself the certainty of a 
restoration, after a temporary eclipse. He knew the 
dispositions of men too well, to suppose that he could 
found a dynasty of his own blood. He had ever too 
much religious disinterestedness to desire that selfish 
glory. The transitory nature of earthly grandeur dis- 
appeared in his eyes, when compared with futurity. 
His eternal safety was, at the bottom, the leading point 
of his ambition ; but he was desirous that the republic, 
cemented by the blood of the King, and thus protected 
from monarchical enterprises, should last at least until 
religious liberty was too solidly founded in the three 
kingdoms, for either the Romish or Anglican Church 
ever again to interfere with the unshackled freedom of 
conscience. Everything in the confidential letters and 
private conversations of Cromwell with his family at 
this epoch, proves that he had no other object in surren- 
dering Charles the First to the scaffold. An utter dis- 
regard of selfish motives at this momentous crisis of his 
life, hid from him the ferocity and iniquity of the act ; 
and enabled him, when once his inspiration was ex- 
amined and obeyed, to assume that calmness of de- 
meanour, and imperturbable serenity of countenance, 
which historians have described as cruelty, but which in 
fact was only fanaticism. 

This singular tranquillity, which M. Villemain has 
eloquently designated the gaiety of crime, signified itself 
by the most repulsive words and questions during the 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 199 

last days of the trial. The military sectarian appears to 
have entirely replaced ths man of human sympathies in 
Cromwell : — a tender husband to his wife, a father affec- 
tionate even to weakness to his own children, he spared 
neither the husband nor the father, nor the children, in 
the victim he offered up to Heaven, as if he had been a 
leader under the old law, commanded by an implacable 
prophet of the Bible to sacrifice a king, the enemy of 
his people. From the records of those scriptural times 
he had impressed his heart with their ferocity. He 
grasped the knife of the executioner with a hand as 
obedient as that which had hitherto wielded the sword. 
The punishment of Charles the First was less an English, 
than a Jewish murder. Cromwell with difficulty granted 
the respite of three days which Charles demanded after 
his sentence was pronounced, to prepare for death, and 
to administer his last consolation to his absent wife, and 
children who were with him. He deluded, by miserable 
and ironical subterfuges, the pity and indecision of the 
other generals less hardened than himself, and who 
earnestly represented to him the enormity, the useless- 
ness, and the barbarism of the execution. He equally 
evaded the remonstrances of the foreign ambassadors, 
who offered to purchase the life of Charles by large 
subsidies to England, and an enormous tribute to him- 
self. He pitilessly set aside the intercession of his near 
relative, Colonel Sir John Cromwell. He answered all 
by the oracle and inspiration repeatedly consulted in 
his prayers, and to which he declared, in spite of tears 
and entreaties, that there was but one answer — Death ! 
Another of his relations, Colonel Ingoldsby, entered 
the hall accidentally while the officers were signing the 
sentence of the parliament, and refused to set his name 
to an act that his conscience disapproved. Cromwell 



200 OLIVER CKOMWELL. 

rose from his seat, and clasping Ingoldsby in his arms, 
as if the death-warrant of the King was a camp frolic, 
carried him to the table, and guiding the pen in his 
hand, forced him to sign, with a laugh and a joke. 
When all had affixed their names, Cromwell, as if unable 
to contain his joy, snatched the pen from the fingers of 
the last, dipped it anew in the ink, and smeared the 
face of his next neighbour, either thinking or not think- 
ing, that in that ink he beheld the blood of his king. 

Never before had there been exhibited such a striking- 
contrast between the murderer and his victim, — the 
fanatic and the man of genuine piety. While Crom- 
well sported thus with the sword in his hand, the three 
days of respite accorded to the King by the decorum of 
political justice, unveiled to the world all that the heart 
of a monarch, a man, a husband, a father, and a Christian 
could contain, of heroism, manly tenderness, resignation, 
immortal hope, and holy reliance. 

These last hours were entirely employed, minute by 
minute, by Charles, in living to the last with the super- 
human self-possession of a sage whose whole existence 
had been an apprenticeship to death, or of a man who 
saw before him the certainty of a protracted life. His 
resigned conversations, his pious exercises, his severe 
scrutiny, without indulgence or weakness, of his own 
conscience, his examination of his past conduct, his 
remorse for having sacrificed Strafford, to smooth a diffi- 
culty in his reign which became more insurmountable 
towards the end ; his royal and patriotic anxieties re- 
specting the fate of the kingdom, which he left to all 
the hazards of a gloomy future ; finally, the revived feel- 
ings of love for a young, beautiful, and adored wife, and 
the agonizing thoughts of a father for the children of 
tender age still in England in the hands of his inveterate 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 201 

enemies ; — all these conflicting emotions filled those fu- 
nereal days and nights with worldly cares, with tears of 
anguish, with recommendations of his soul to Heaven, 
and, above all, with an earnest of eternal peace ; that 
peace from above which descends through the vaulted 
roof of the dungeon, and nestles in the heart of the just 
and innocent. Of all modern historical sufferings, in- 
cluding those of Louis the Sixteenth in the Temple, the 
end of Charles the First bears the most striking resem- 
blance to the end of an ancient philosopher. Royalty 
and religion add to both something even more august 
and divine than we can discover in any of the earlier ex- 
amples. The throne and the scaffold appear to be divided 
by a more immeasurable abyss than the narrow interval 
whieh separates ordinary life and death. The greater 
the portion of earthly grandeur and happiness we are 
called upon to abandon, so much more sublime is the 
philosophy which can renounce it with a tranquil smile. 
But although the virtue of the two monarchs is equal, 
that of Charles is the most brilliant ; for Charles the First 
was a hero, while Louis the Sixteenth was only a saint. 
In Charles there was the courage of a great man, while 
in Louis there was only the resignation of an exemplary 
martyr. 

Nature nevertheless (and herein consists the pathetic 
sublimity of his last hours, for nothing is truly beautiful 
which departs from nature,) combated without subduing 
his firmness, when it became necessary to take leave of 
his beloved children. These were the Princess Eliza- 
beth and the Duke of Gloucester, scarcely old enough 
to weep for the parent they were about to lose. Their 
mother had rescued the others, including the Prince of 
Wales, from the power of parliament. She kept them 
iii France, to preserve the succession, and revenge their 



202 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

father. Her daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, was 
endowed with reason and maturity of feeling beyond her 
age. The vicissitudes, the flights, the imprisonments, 
the domestic woes of the family, to which she had been 
accustomed from her cradle, had strengthened her intellect 
by misfortune, and given her a precocity superior to her 
years. Her father delighted to recognise in her the 
grace and sensibility of her absent mother, whom she 
replaced in the last confidence of the dying husband. 
He consoled himself with the idea that she would retain 
the vivid impression of his farewell thoughts, and trans- 
mit them still glowing with tenderness to his beloved 
partner. " Tell her," said he to his young daughter, 
" that throughout the whole course of our union I have 
never, even in imagination, violated the fidelity I pledged 
to her, more from choice than duty, and that my love 
will only expire with the minutes which terminate my 
existence. I shall end by loving her here below, to 
recommence my affection again through all eternity." 

Then taking the little Duke of Gloucester, who was 
only five years old, upon his knees, and desiring to im- 
press upon the mind of the infant, by a tragical image, 
the counsel which through him he addressed to all the 
family, " My child," said he, " they are going to cut off 
thy father's head !" The boy gazed with anxious and 
astonished looks upon the countenance of the speaker. 
" Yes," continued the King, seeking to fix the terrible 
remembrance by repetition, " they will cut off my head, 
and perhaps may make thee king ! But pay attention 
to my words ; thou must not be made a king by them 
while thy elder brothers Charles and James are living. 
They will cut off their heads also, if they can lay hands 
on them, and will end by cutting off thine. I there- 
fore command thee never to be made a king by them." 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 203 

The child, who was impressed with the mournful scene 
and solemn warning, appeared suddenly struck by a 
light, and a sense of obedience beyond his age. " No," 
he replied, " I will not consent — they shall never make 
me a king. I will be torn to pieces first !" Charles, 
in this infantine heroism, recognised a voice from 
heaven, which assured him that his posterity would be 
true to themselves in seeking to restore the throne after 
his decease. He shed tears of joy as he surrendered back 
the Duke of Gloucester to the arms of the gaolers. 

From his chamber in the palace of Whitehall he 
could distinctly hear the noise of the workmen, who were 
hastily employed night and clay, in erecting the timber- 
work of the scaffold on which he was to suffer. These 
preparations, which multiplied whilst they anticipated 
the keen sensations of his approaching death, neither 
disturbed his sleep, nor interrupted his conversations.* 
On the morning of his execution he rose before the dawn. 
He called Herbert, the only attendant allowed to wait 
upon him, and instructed him to bestow more than 
ordinary care on his apparel, befitting such a great and 
happy solemnity ; as he designated it, — the close of his 
earthly troubles, and the commencement of his eternal hap- 
piness. He passed some time in private prayer with the 
Bishop of London, the venerable and eloquent Juxon, a 
man worthy by his virtue to comprehend, console, and 
emulate his death. Already they communicated with 
heaven. The officers of Cromwell interrupted them, to 
announce that the hour of execution had struck, and that 
the scaffold waited for the victim. It was fixed against 

* M. de Lamartine appears to have followed Hume in this account ; 
but it is certain that King Charles slept at St. James's Palace on the 
night that preceded his execution, and walked through the Park, 
attended by the guards, to the Banqueting House at Whitehall, where 
the scaffold was erected. 



204 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

the palace, facing the great square of Whitehall, and was 
reached by passing through a gallery on the same floor. 
Charles walked with a slow and steady step, which sought 
not to hasten the last moment, as if, by an involuntary emo- 
tion of human weakness, the victim desired to anticipate 
the hour appointed by Heaven. A dense mass of Crom- 
well's troops surrounded the place of execution. The in- 
habitants of London, and strangers from the neighbouring 
districts, crowded the open space in front, the roofs of the 
houses, the trees, and the balconies on every side, from 
which it was possible to obtain a glimpse of the proceed- 
ings. Some came to see, others to rejoice, but by far 
the greater portion to shudder and weep. Cromwell, 
well knowing the general impression of horror which the 
death of the King would convey to the minds of the 
people, and which they looked upon as a species of déi- 
cide, was determined to prevent the favourable effect his 
last words might produce, and removed the crowd of 
citizens beyond the reach of a human voice. Colonel 
Tomlinson, selected especially to guard the prisoner and 
conduct him to the block, was overcome by the con- 
sistent spectacle of intr pidity, resignation, and majesty 
which the royal victim exhibited. The gaoler had been 
converted into the friend and consoler of his captive. 
The other officers had also experienced the softening of 
hatred, and involuntary respect for innocence, which 
Providence often reserves for the condemned as the last 
adieu of earth, and a tardy acknowledgment of human 
justice. Surrounded by this cortège of relenting enemies 
or weeping friends, Charles, standing erect, and more 
a king than ever, on the steps of his eternal throne, 
assumed the privilege awarded in England to every 
sentenced criminal, of speaking the last words in his 
own cause. 

After having clearly demonstrated that he only per- 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 205 

formed his duty in appealing to arms when the parlia- 
ment had first resorted to that alternative, and that he 
was called upon to defend in the royal prerogative a 
fundamental principle of the constitution, for which he 
was responsible to his successors, to his people, and to 
God himself, — he acknowledged with true Christian 
humility, that although innocent before the law, of the 
crimes for which he was about to suffer, his conscience 
told him that he had been guilty of many faults and 
weaknesses, for which he accepted without a murmur 
Ins present death as a meet and salutary expiation. " I 
basely ratified," said he, in allusion to the fate of Straf- 
ford, " an unjust sentence, and the similar injustice 1 
am now to undergo, is a seasonable retribution for the 
punishment I inflicted on an innocent man. T hold none 
amongst you responsible for the death to which I am 
condemned by divine decree, and which works its ends 
by human instruments. I lay not my blood on you or 
on my people, and demand no other compensation for 
my punishment than the return of peace, and a revival 
of the fidelity which the kingdom owes to my children." 
At these words every eye was suffused with tears. He 
concluded by bidding adieu to those who had been his 
subjects, and by a last solemn invocation to the only 
Judge to whom he was now responsible. Sighs alone 
were heard during the intervals which marked those last 
out-pourings of his heart. He spoke, and was silent. 
Bishop Juxon, who attended him to the last moment, as 
he approached the block, said to him, " Sire, there is but 
one step more, a sharp and short one ! Remember that 
in another second you will ascend from earth to heaven, 
and that there you will find in an infinite and inex- 
haustible joy the reward of your sacrifice, and a crowm 
that shall never pass aw r ay." 



20G OLIVER CROMWELL. 

" My friend," replied Charles, interrupting him with 
perfeet composure, " I go from a corruptible crown to 
an incorruptible one, and which, as you say, I feel 
convinced I shall possess for ever without trouble or 
anxiety." 

He was proceeding to speak further, when, perceiving- 
one of the assistants stumble against the weapon of 
the executioner, which lay by the side of the block, and 
who by blunting the edge might increase the sensation 
of the blow, — " Touch not the axe !" he exclaimed in a 
loud voice, and with an expression of anger. He then 
prayed again for a few moments, in a low tone, and ap- 
proaching Bishop Juxon to embrace him for the last 
time, while pressing his hand with fervour, uttered in a 
solemn tone the single word, "Remember!" This 
enigmatical expression, which afterwards received many 
mysterious and forced interpretations, was simply a 
repetition of what he had already instructed Juxon to 
convey to his children when they grew up, and became 
kings, — to forgive their enemies. Juxon bowed without 
speaking, which indicated implicit obedience to his royal 
master's wishes. The King knelt clown, and calmly 
inclined his head upon the block. Two men in masks 
laid hold of Charles respectfully, and arranged him in a 
suitable position. One of them then raised the axe, and 
severed his head at a single blow. The other lifted it 
up, still streaming with blood, and exhibiting it to the 
people, cried out, " Behold the head of a traitor ! " 

A general murmur of disapprobation arose simulta- 
neously from that vast crowd, when they heard those 
words, which seemed to surpass the outrage of the execu- 
tion itself. The tears of the nation protested against the 
ferocious butchery of the army. England felt as if she 
had laid upon herself the crime and future punishment of 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 207 

parricide. Cromwell was all- powerful, but detested. In 
hiin, the murderer was thenceforward associated with 
the politician and the hero. Liberty could no longer 
voluntarily bend under the iron rule of a man who had 
thus abused his authority and reputation. He ceased 
to govern except by the influence of the army, whose 
complicity he had purchased, who obeyed without reason- 
ing, and who had no conscience beyond their pay. He 
reached the dictatorship through the avenues of crime. 
The parliament had already become too subservient to the 
army, and too much estranged from the popular feeling 
of England, to offer any opposition to the views of 
Cromwell. To obtain a protector, they were forced to 
accept a master ; they had voted for the suppression of 
the monarchy, but not for the establishment of slavery. 
The royal children embarrassed them. It was debated 
whether or not the Princess Elizabeth should be appren- 
ticed to a button-maker in the city, but this, the beloved 
daughter of her father, more susceptible of grief than 
her young brother, died of the shock occasioned by the 
King's execution. The Duke of Gloucester was per- 
mitted to join his mother in France. 

A terrible book, the posthumous work and justification 
of Charles the First, entitled, " Eikon Basilike," came 
forth like a subterranean voice from the tomb which had 
scarcely closed over the King, and excited the conscience 
of England even to delirium. It was the appeal of 
memory and virtue to posterity. This book, spreading 
with rapidity amongst the people, and throughout Europe, 
commenced a second trial, an eternal process between 
kings and their judges. Cromwell, intimidated by the 
universal murmur which this publication excited against 
him, sought amongst his partisans a living voice suffi- 
ciently potent to counterbalance that of the dead. 



208 OLIVER ( FtOMWELL. 

He found Milton, the most epic of poets, and the only 
candidate for immortality amongst the republicans of 
England. Milton had just returned from Italy ; there 
he had imbibed, with the dust of many a Brutus and 
Cassius, the miasmas of political assassination, justified, 
according to his notions, by individual tyranny. He had 
contracted in his literary commerce with the great popu- 
lar celebrities of history, the noble passion of republican 
liberty. He saw in Charles the First, a tyrant ; in 
Cromwell, a liberator. He thought to serve the op- 
pressed cause of the people by combating the dogma of 
the inviolability of the persons and lives of Kings ; but 
in this particular instance he was base enough to plead 
the cause of the murderer against the victim. His book 
on regicide paralysed the world. These are questions to 
be probed with the sword, and never with the pen. 
Whenever the death of one by the hands of many forms 
the basis of a polemical principle, that death is an act of 
cowardice, if not of criminality; and a just and generous 
mind abstains from defending it, either in mercy or from 
conviction. Milton's book, rewarded by the gratitude of 
Cromwell, and by the place of secretary to the new 
council of state under the republican government, is a 
stain of blood on the pure page of his reputation. It 
became effaced in his old age, when blind, indigent, and 
proscribed, like Homer, he celebrated, after his example, 
in a divine poem, the early innocence of man, the revolt 
of the infernal powers, the factious of the heavenly 
agents, and the triumph of eternal justice over the spirit 
of evil. 

Cromwell, compelled to support tyranny by imposing 
silence, ordered his parliament to interdict the liberty of 
the press. He trembled for a moment before the popular 
faction of the Levellers, who wished to erect on evange- 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 209 

lical equality, the anti-social consequence of a community 
of lands and goods. For the second time he discovered 
that every dictator who abandoned public and domestic 
rights to these wild dreams, subversive of proprietorship 
and hereditary right (the only conditions on which human 
institutions can subsist), would soon become a chief of 
banditti, and not the head of a government. His strong 
sense showed him the impossibility of reasoning with 
such extreme doctrines, and the necessity of utterly ex- 
tirpating their advocates. " There can be no middle 
course here," exclaimed he to the parliament and the 
leaders of the army ; " we must reduce this party to 
dust, or must submit to be scattered into dust by them." 
The Levellers vanished at the word, as they disappeared 
some years later before the insurrection of London under 
Charles the Second, and as the impossible will ever give 
way before the really practicable. 

But all the opposing factions, whether in the parlia- 
ment or the army, agreed in calling upon Cromwell to 
reduce rebellious and anarchical Ireland. He set out in 
regal state, in a carriage drawn by six horses, escorted by 
a squadron of guards, and attended by the parlia- 
ment and council of state, who accompanied him as far 
as Brentford. The Marquis of Ormond, who com- 
manded the forces of the Royalists, was defeated near 
Dublin. Cromwell converted his victories into mas- 
sacres, and pacified Ireland through a deluge of blood. 
Recalled to London, after nine months of combats and 
executions, by the commotions in Scotland, he left Ire- 
land to the care of his son-in-law and lieutenant, Ireton. 

The Royalist cause sprang up anew under his feet 
from its subverted foundations. The Prince of Wales, 
the eldest son of Charles the First, and now King by 
the execution of his father, but abandoned and shame- 

VOL. II. p 



210 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

fully banished from France, fay the complaisance of 
Cardinal Mazarin for Cromwell, had taken refuge in 
Holland, and afterwards in the little island of Jersey, to 
watch the favourable moment for re-entering England 
through the avenue of Scotland. The Scotch parliament, 
composed of fanatical Presbyterians, as hostile to the 
Independent faith of Cromwell as to the Papacy itself, 
treated for the throne with the Prince of Wales. They 
only required of him, in acknowledgment of his restora- 
tion in Scotland, the recognition of their national church. 
This church was a species of biblical mysticism, savage, 
and calling itself inspired, founded on the ruins of the 
Romish faith by a prophet named John Knox, with the 
sword in his hand, excommunication on his lips, and 
superstition in his heart, — the true religion of civil war, 
replacing one intolerance by another, and adding to the 
natural ferocity of the people the most ridiculous as- 
sumption of extreme sanctity. Scotland at that time 
resembled a Hebrew tribe, governed by a leader assum- 
ing divine inspiration, interpreted through his disciples 
and priests. It was the theocracy of madness, and the 
practice was worthy of the dogma. An honest supersti- 
tion in some, a sombre hypocrisy in others, impressed on 
the manners, the government, and the army itself, an 
austerity and remorseless piety, which gave to this in- 
surrection against Catholicism, the silence, the terrors, 
and the flaming piles of the Spanish Inquisition. The 
Prince of Wales, young, handsome, thoughtless, volup- 
tuous, and unbelieving, — a true English Alcibiades, — 
condemned to govern a nation of bigoted and cruel 
sectarists, hesitated to accept a throne which he could 
only keep by feigning the hypocrisy and fanaticism of 
his parliament, or by rashly repudiating the yoke of the 
clergy. 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 211 

But, at the saine moment when the parliament offered 
him the crown on these debasing conditions, another 
promised it to him as the price of glorious and daring 
achievements. This was the young Montrose, one of 
those lofty spirits cut short in the flower of their career, 
equally belonging by nature to antiquity and chivalry, 
and alternately compared, by the historians of the time, 
to the demi-gods of romance and the heroes of Plutarch. 

Montrose was a Scottish nobleman of high rank and 
opulent possessions. After having combated at the 
head of the royal army for Charles the First, until his 
chances were extinguished, he had fled for refuge to the 
Continent. His name, his cause, his youth, his personal 
beauty, the graces of his conversation, and the report of 
his character, had obtained for him at the different 
courts of Germany, a reception which encouraged his 
hopes of restoring the legitimate monarchy in his own 
country. He detested and despised the ultra-puritans, 
as the leprosy of the land. He was adored by the High- 
land clans, a rural and warlike class, somewhat resem- 
bling the Vendéans of France, who acknowledged only 
their sword and their King. Montrose having levied at 
his own expense five hundred German auxiliaries, to 
serve as a nucleus for the army that he expected the 
sound of his steps would raise for Charles the Second in 
the mountains, landed in Scotland, and fought like an 
adventurer and a hero, at the head of the first groups 
of his partisans he could collect together. But being 
surrounded by the army of the Scottish parliament, 
before he could assemble the insurgent clans, he was 
conquered, wounded, imprisoned in irons, and carried 
in triumph to Edinburgh, to serve as a mockery and 
a victim to the clergy and the government. His forehead 
bare, and cicatrised by wounds, his garments stained 

p 2 



212 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

with his own blood, an iron collar encircling his neck, 
chains fastened round his arms, and attached on each 
side to the stock of the wheel of the cart in which he 
was placed, the executioner on horseback in front of the 
vehicle : — in this manner he entered the capital of Scot- 
land, while the members of the parliament and the 
ministers of the Church alternately howled forth psalms, 
and overwhelmed him with execrations. The people 
wept at the sad spectacle, but concealed their tears, lest 
pity should be construed into blasphemy by the presby- 
terians of Knox. The clergy, on the following Sunday, 
preached against tins compassionate weakness, and 
declared that a hardening of the heart was the chosen 
token of the elect. Montrose defended himself with 
eloquence, to vindicate his honour, not to preserve his 
life. His discourse was w r orthy of the most eloquent 
advocates of Rome or Athens. It was answered by 
a prompt and ignominious execution. 

The presbyterian ministers, under the pretext of 
praying for his salvation, after having demanded his 
blood, came to insult him in his dungeon by their de- 
risive charity. " Have pity, O Lord !" cried they aloud, 
" on this unbeliever, this wicked persecutor, this traitor, 
who is about to pass from the scaffold of his earthly 
punishment, to the eternal condemnation reserved for 
his impieties." 

They announced that the sentence condemned him 
"to be hung on a gibbet thirty feet high, where he 
was to be exposed during three hours ; that his head 
would then be cut off and nailed to the gates of his 
prison, and that his arms and legs, severed from his 
body, would be distributed to the four principal cities, 
of the kingdom." "I only wish," replied Montrose, 
" that I had limbs enough to be dispersed through every 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 213 

city in Europe, to bear testimony in the cause for which 
I have fought and am content to die." 

Delivered from the presence of his religious perse- 
cutors, Montrose, who had cultivated poetry as the relax- 
ation of his mind, composed some verses, inspired by 
love and death, in which he perpetuated, in language 
that will endure for ever, his last farewell to all he had 
valued on earth. The poet in these parting lines is worthy 
of the hero. On the following day he underwent his 
punishment with the constancy of a martyr. His head 
and limbs were exposed, according to the sentence, in 
the four leading cities of Scotland. Charles the Second, 
on learning at Jersey the defeat and death of his friend, 
with the triumph of the parliament, hesitated no longer 
to accept the crown from the ensanguined hands of the 
Scotch presbyterians, henceforward without competitors 
in Edinburgh. He disembarked in Scotland, in the midst 
of the army which came to meet him. The first sight 
that greeted his eyes was a fragment of the body of his 
devoted partisau Montrose, nailed to the gate of the city. 

It is easy to imagine what must have been the 
reign of this young sovereign ; enslaved by a par- 
liament ; watched by the clergy ; domineered over 
by the generals of the army ; a prisoner rather than 
a king amongst his superstitious subjects ; obliged 
to feign, in order to conciliate them, a fanatical aus- 
terity which he laughed at in his heart ; persecuted 
even in his palace by the exhortations of presbyterian 
prophets, who spied into his inmost thoughts, and 
construed the lightness of youth into public enormities. 
One morning he escaped from them by flight, preferring 
liberty, to a throne held on such conditions. He was 
overtaken and carried back to Edinburgh ; the necessity 
of his name induced them to grant him a small addition 



214 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 



of authority. He was permitted io fight at the head of 
the army, destined to invade England, at the instigation 
of the royalists of the north. Cromwell marched against 
him, and entered Scotland. The Prince of Wales, 
escaping, with 14,000 Scotchmen, from the ill-combined 
manœuvres of his opponent, penetrated boldly through 
the rear of his army, and advanced into the heart of the 
kingdom. He obtained possession of Worcester, and 
there rallied round him his supporters from every 
quarter. Cromwell, surprised, but indefatigable, allowed 
him no time to collect reinforcements. He fell upon 
Worcester with 40,000 men, fought in the streets of the 
town, inundated them with blood, and utterly dispersed 
the army of the Prince of Wales. The Prince himself, 
after performing prodigies of valour, worthy of his rank 
and pretensions, escaped under cover of the darkness, 
attended only by a handful of devoted cavaliers. After 
having traversed twenty leagues in a single night, they 
abandoned their horses and dispersed themselves in the 
woods. 

Attended only by the Earl of Derby, an English 
nobleman who had brought him succours from the 
Isle of Man, Charles sought refuge with a farmer named 
Penderell, assumed the garb and implements of a wood- 
cutter, and worked with the four sons of the farmer, to 
deceive the search of Cromwell's troopers, scattered 
through the fields and forests in pursuit. Sleeping on a 
bed of straw, and furnished with coarse barley bread in 
the cottage of Penderell, he was even compelled, by the 
domiciliary visits of the puritans, to quit that humble 
abode, and conceal himself for several nights within the 
branches of a large tree, called ever after the Royal Oak, 
the thickly spreading leaves of which concealed him 
from the soldiers posted below. 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 215 

A royalist colonel named Lane sheltered him after- 
wards at Bentley, and assisted him to reach the port of 
Bristol, where he hoped to embark for the Continent. 
The feet of the young king were so blistered by walking, 
that he was obliged to pass on horseback through the 
districts traversed by the dragoons of the enemy. The 
second daughter of Colonel Lane conducted him in the 
disguise of a peasant to the house of her sister, Mrs. 
Morton, in the vicinity of Bristol. Arriving at her 
sister's abode, she entrusted to no one the name of the 
young countryman who attended her ; she merely asked 
for an apartment and a bed for him, saying that he was 
suffering from a fever, and recommended him to the 
special care of the servants. One of them entered the 
room to bring him refreshment. The noble and majestic 
countenance of the prince shone forth under his humble 
vestments, and carried conviction to the eyes of the 
domestic. He fell on his knees before the couch of 
Charles, saluted him as his master, and uttered aloud 
the prayer in common use amongst the royalists, for the 
preservation of the King. Charles in vain endeavoured 
to deceive him ; he was forced to acknowledge his 
identity, and to enjoin silence. 

From thence, not being able to find a vessel on the 
coast, he was conveyed to the residence of a widow 
named Windham, who had lost her husband and three 
eldest sons in the cause of Charles the First, and with 
unshaken devotion now offered her two surviving ones 
to the successor of the decapitated monarch. She re- 
ceived Charles, not as a fugitive, but as a king. " When 
my husband lay on his death-bed," said she, " he called 
to him our five sons, and thus addressed them : ' My 
children, we have hitherto enjoyed calm and peaceful 
days under our three last sovereigns ; but I warn you 



216 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

that I see clouds and ten) pests gathering over the king- 
dom. I perceive factions springing up in every quarter, 
which menace the repose of our beloved country. Listen 
to me well ; whatever turn events may take, be ever 
true to your lawful sovereign ; obey him, and remain 
loyal to the crown ! Yes,' added he, with vehemence, 
' I charge you to stand by the croivn, even though it 
should hang upon a bush /' These last words engraved 
their duty on the hearts of my children," continued the 
mother, " and those who are still spared to me are 
yours, as their dead brothers were given to your 
father!" 

All the royalists of the neighbourhood were acquainted 
with and guarded the secret of the residence of Charles 
at the house of the Windhams. The seal of fidelity was 
upon the lips as upon the hearts of the entire country. 
This secret, so long and miraculously kept, was only in 
danger of being betrayed at the moment when the 
young king, still disguised, was flying towards the coast 
to place the seas between his head and the sword of 
Cromwell. His horse having loosened a shoe, the farrier 
to whom he applied to fasten it, with the quick intel- 
ligence of his trade, examined the iron, and said, in a 
low and suspicious tone, " These shoes were never forged 
in this country, but in the north of England." But the 
smith proved as discreet and faithful as the servant. 
Charles, remounting his horse without discovery, gal- 
loped towards the beach, where a skiff was waiting for 
him. The Continent a second time protected him from 
the pursuit of Cromwell. 

The royalists conquered, the king beheaded, the level- 
lers suppressed, Ireland slaughtered, Scotland reduced 
to subjection, the nobility cajoled, the parliament tamed, 
religious factions deadened or extinguished by liberty of 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 217 

conscience, the maritime war against Holland teeming 
with naval triumphs, the resignation of his command 
by Fairfax through disgust and repentance, the subser- 
viency of Monk, left by Cromwell in Edinburgh to keep 
the Scotch in order, — the voluntary, servile, and crouch- 
ing submission of the other military leaders, eager to 
rally round success; — all these coinciding events, aU these 
crimes, all these acts of cringing baseness, all these 
accumulated successes, which never fail to attend the 
steps of the favourites of fortune, during her smiles, left 
nothing for Cromwell to desire, if the undisputed pos- 
session of England had been his only object. But all 
who study his character with impartiality will perceive 
that he had yet another — the possession of Heaven. 
His future salvation occupied his thoughts beyond 
earthly empire. He was never more a theologian than 
when he Avas an uncontrolled dictator. Instead of 
announcing his sovereignty under a special title, he 
allowed his friends to proclaim the republic. He was 
content to hold the sword and dictate the word. His 
decrees were oracles ; he sought only to be the great 
inspired prophet of his country. His correspondence 
at this epoch attests the humble thoughts of a father of 
a Christian family, who neither desires nor foresees a 
throne as the inheritance of his children. 

" Mount your father's little farm horse, and ride not 
in luxurious carriages," he whites to his daughter-in-law, 
Dorothy. He married his eldest son, Richard, to the 
daughter of one of his friends, of middle station and 
limited fortune, and on his espousals gave him more 
debts than property. To this friend, the father-in-law 
of his son, he writes thus : — " I entrust Richard to you ; 
I pray you give him sage counsel ; I fear lest he should 
suffer himself to be led away by the vain pleasures of 



218 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

the world. Induce him to study ; study is good, par- 
ticularly when directed to things eternal, which are 
more profitable than the idle enjoyments of this life. 
Such thoughts will fit him for the public service to 
which men are destined." 

" Be not discouraged," he says to Lord Wharton, 
another of his own sect ; " you are offended, because 
at the elections the people often choose their repre- 
sentatives perversely, rejecting profitable members and 
returning unfruitful ones. It has been so for nine years, 
and behold, nevertheless, what God has done with these 
evil instruments in that time ! Judge not the manner 
of his proceedings !" 

"With you, in consequence of these murmurings of 
the spirit," continues Cromwell, " there is trouble, pain, 
embarrassment and doubt ; with me, confidence, cer- 
tainty, light, satisfaction ! Yes, complete internal satis- 
faction ! Oh ! weakness of human hearts !" concluded 
he, hastily, as his thoughts flowed ; " false promises of 
the world ! short-coming ideas which flatter mortal 
vanity ! How much better is it to be the follower of 
the Lord, in the heaviest work ! In this holy duty, how 
difficult do we find it to rise above the weakness of 
our nature to the elevation of the service which God 
requires from us ! How soon we sink under discourage- 
ment when the flesh prevails over the spirit ! " 

The pomp and enthusiasm which greeted him on his 
return from the double conquest of Ireland and Scot- 
land dazzled not his constancy. " You see that crowd, 
you hear those shouts," he whispered in the ear of 
a friend who attended him in the procession ; " both 
would be still greater if I were on my way to the gal- 
lows." A light from above impressed on his clear judg- 
ment the emptiness of worldly popularity. 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 219 

His private letters to his son Richard are full of that 
piety and domestic affection which we should never 
expect in a man whose feet were bathed in the blood of 
his King, of Ireland, of Scotland, of England ; but whose 
heart was calm in the serenity of a false conscience, 
while his head was encircled by a glory of mysticism 
which he persuaded himself was sincere. 

" Your letters please and affect me," he wrote to 
Richard Cromwell, addressing him by the infantine 
diminutive of Dick ; " I love words which flow naturally 
from the heart, without study or research. I believe 
that the special goodness of Heaven has placed you in 
the family where you now reside. Be happy and grate- 
fid for this ; and carefully discharge all the duties you 
owe them, for the glory of God. Seek the Lord con- 
tinually, and his divine presence : make this the object 
of your life, and give it your whole strength. The 
knowledge of God dwells not in books, and theological 
definitions ; it comes from within ; it transforms the 
spirit by a divine action independent of ourselves. To 
know T God, is to partake his divine nature, in him, 
and through him ! How little are the holy Scriptures 
known amongst us ! May my feeble prayers fortify 
your intentions. Endeavour to understand the Republic 
I have established, and the foundations on which it 
rests. I have suffered much in giving myself up to 
others. Your wife's father, my intimate associate, Mayor, 
will assist you with much information on this point. 
You will, perhaps, think that it is unnecessary for me to 
enjoin you to love your dear wife. May the Lord 
instruct you to cherish her with worldly affection, or 
you will never feel for her a saintly regard. When 
the bed and the love are pure, such an union is justly 



220 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

compared to that of the Lord with the lowly members of 
his Church. Give my regards to your wife ; tell her that 
I love her with my whole heart, and I rejoice in the 
favours which Heaven has poured upon her. I earnestly 
pray that she may be fruitful in every sense : and you, 
Dick, may the Lord bless you with many blessings ! 
" Your affectionate father, 

" Oliver Cromwell." 

The same devotion to heavenly matters, mixed with 
uneasiness respecting the affairs of this world, is revealed 
in every line of his private letters to his early friends. 
What cause had he to dissemble with his children and 
his intimates? What a strange hypocrisy must that 
have been, which never dropped the mask for a single 
moment throughout his life, even in the most familiar 
intercourse with his family, and in his last hours, 
when he lay upon the bed of death ! 

" I am very anxious to learn how the little fellow goes 
on" (the child of Richard and Dorothy), he writes to the 
father-in-law of his son, his former gossip and friend; 
" I could readily scold both father and mother for their 
negligence towards me. I know that Richard is idle, 
but I had a better opinion of Dorothy. I fear her hus- 
band spoils her ; tell them so from me. If Dorothy is 
again in the family way, I forgive her, but not otherwise. 
May the Lord bless her ! I hope you give good advice 
to my son Richard ; he is at a dangerous period of life, 
and this w r orld is full of vanity. How good it is to ap- 
proach the Lord early ! We should never lose sight of 
this. I hope you continue to remember our ancient 
friendship. You see how I am occupied ; I require your 
pity. I know what I suffer in my own heart. An 
exalted situation, a high employment in the world, are 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 221 

not worth seeking for. I should have no inward conso- 
lation in my labours, if my hope and rest were not in 
the presence of the Lord. I have never desired this 
earthly grandeur ! Truly, the Lord himself has called 
me to it. In this conviction alone I trust that he will 
bestow upon his poor worm, his feeble servant, the force 
to do his will, and reach the end for which he was cre- 
ated. To this effect, I demand your prayers. Remember 
me to the love of my dear sister, to my son, to our 
daughter Dorothy, and to my cousin Anna. 

" I am always your affectionate brother, 

" Oliver." 

The same expressions, rendered still more tender by 
the holy union of a long life, are continually repeated 
with emotion in his correspondence with his wife. The 
following letter bears the superscription, " For my be- 
loved wife, Elizabeth Cromwell." "You scold me in your 
letters, because by my silence I appear to forget you and 
our children. Truly, it is I who ought to complain, for 
I love you too much. Thou art dearer to me than all 
the world ; let that suffice ! The Lord has shown us an 
extreme mercy. I have been miraculously sustained 
within. Notwithstanding that I strive, I grow old, 
and feel the infirmities of advancing years rapidly press- 
ing on me. May God grant that my propensities to 
sin may diminish in the same proportion with my 
physical powers. Pray for me that I may receive this 
grace." 

He confirms the strong, he fortifies the doubtful, he 
instructs the weak in faith, with a burning fever of con- 
viction, which shows how sincerely he was himself con- 
vinced. He perceives that his zeal sometimes carries 
him to extravagant expressions. " Pardon me," he 



222 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

writes, when at the apogee of his power, to a friend who 
had kept aloof from him, in consequence of his military 
severities in Ireland and Scotland ; " sometimes this 
harshness with which you reproach me has been produc- 
tive of good ; although not easily made evident, it is 
inspired by charity and zeal ! I beseech you to recognise 
in me, a man sincere in the Lord." " O Lord ! " he 
concludes, " I beseech thee, turn not thy face and thy 
mercy from my eyes ! Adieu." 

On another occasion he addressed his wife as follows : 
" I cannot suffer this courier to depart without a word 
for you, although, in truth, I have little to write, but 
I do so for the sake of writing to my well-beloved wife, 
whose image is always at the bottom of my heart. May 
the Lord multiply his blessings upon you ! The great 
and only good that your soul can desire is, that the 
Lord should spread over you the light of his strength, 
which is of more value than life itself. May his blessing 
light on your instructions and example to our dear 
children. Pray for your attached Oliver." 

His son-in-law, Fleetwood, one of the lieutenants he 
had left in command in Scotland with Monk, shared 
equally in these effusions, at once affectionate and theo- 
logical. After expressing his grief at being necessarily 
separated by business from that portion of his family, he 
says, in writing to him — " Embrace your beloved wife 
for me, and caution her to take care (in her piety) of 
nourishing a servile heart. Servility produces fear, the 
opposite of love. Poor Biddy ! I know that is her weak 
point. Love reasons very differently. What a father we 
possess in and through the Saviour ! He designates him- 
self the merciful, the patient, the bestower of all grace, 
the pardoner of all faults and transgressions ! Truly 
the love of God is sublime ! Remember me to my son 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 223 

Henry; I pray incessantly that lie may increase and 
fortify himself in the love of the Lord. Remember me 
to all the officers." 

Everything succeeded with Cromwell, and he attri- 
buted all the glory and prosperity of the republic to 
Heaven. There is no evidence either public or private, 
which betrays any desire on his part to establish his 
fortune and power by a change in his title of general, or 
in the voluntary submission of the parliament, the army, 
and the people. History, which ultimately knows and 
reveals everything, has discovered nothing in Cromwell 
at this epoch, but an extreme repugnance against eleva- 
ting himself to a higher position. It is evident from his 
own expressions that he sought God in his will, and the 
oracle of God in events. Neither were sufficiently 
explained to him. Equally ready to descend or rise, he 
waited for the command or the inspiration. Both came 
from the natural instability of the people, and the 
ambitious impatience of the army. 

The long parliament of five years duration, christened, 
by one of those contemptuous designations which mark 
popular disgust, The Rump, a term suggested by its 
apparently interminable session upon the benches of 
Westminster, had thoroughly wearied out the people of 
England. The long harangues of the puritans, the 
bigoted discourses of the saints, the personal unpopu- 
larity of the demagogues, the anti-social absurdities of 
the levellers, the murder of an innocent and heroic 
monarch, which penetrated the conscience of the nation 
with remorse, the imposts and slaughters of the civil 
war; finally, the heaviness of that anonymous tyranny 
which the people endured more impatiently than the 
autocracy of a glorious name, — all these combined 



224 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

objections fell back in accumulated odium and ridicule on 
the parliament. 

Cromwell had had the art, or rather the good fortune, 
to act while the parliament talked, to strengthen himself 
as they became weak, to leave on them the responsibility 
of crime, and to attribute to himself the advantages of 
victory. The parliament, unconscious of weakness, began 
to writhe under a master. Five or six influential re- 
publicans thought to compass the fall of Cromwell. Sir 
Henry Vane, their principal orator, disputed altogether 
the intervention of military authority. His speech 
was received with significant applause, which sounded 
like a menace to the army. The principal leaders, pre- 
sent in London, foreseeing the danger, united together, 
and petitioned Cromwell to insist on the dissolution of 
this corrupted senate. Cromwell, who has been accused 
of suggesting the petition to the army, had no participa- 
tion in the act. It is never necessary to suggest ambition 
to generals, or despotism to soldiers. The petition was 
too plain to be mistaken. The strife between the army 
and the parliament was hastening to the issue. The vic- 
tory of either would equally sweep away Cromwell, if he 
persisted in remaining neuter. " Take care ; stop this in 
time, or it will prove a very serious affair," whispered in a 
low voice Bulstrode, one of his most intimate friends, while 
the officers were haranguing on their petition. Cromwell 
hesitated to decide, and confined himself to thanking 
their orator for the zeal demonstrated by the army in the 
public safety. Night and reflection suggested to him 
the course he should pursue. He attempted to bring 
about an accommodation between the army and the 
parliament, in a conference held in his presence. The 
parliament filled up the full measure of their demands 
by requiring a permanent committee, chosen from the 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 225 

present members, who should ratify, or invalidate, at their 
own pleasure, all future elections. 

"This is too much!" exclaimed Cromwell, at last, 
and still undecided, when he was informed of this 
unqualified proposal. It was on the 20th of April, 
early in the morning; he was walking up and down 
his room, dressed in black, with grey stockings. He 
came forth in this simple costume, crying out to all he 
encountered, " This is unjust ! It is dishonest ! It is 
not even the commonest honesty." As he passed by 
he ordered an officer of his guards to repair with three 
hundred soldiers to Westminster, and take possession of 
all the avenues to the palace. He entered himself, and 
sat down in his usual place, apparently listening for 
some time in silence to the debates. The republican 
orators and members were at that moment speaking in 
favour of the bill, which was to assure the perpetuity 
of their power, by giving them arbitrary control over 
all future elections. The bill was going to be put to 
the question, when Cromwell, as if he had waited the 
moment to strike the whole body at the crisis of their 
iniquitous tyranny, raised his head, hitherto reclined 
between his hands, and made a sign to Harrison, his 
most fanatical follower, to come and sit close to him. 
Harrison obeyed the signal. Cromwell remained silent 
for another quarter of an hour, and then as if suddenly 
yielding, in his own despite, to an internal impulse, 
which conquered all hesitation in his soul, exclaimed to 
Harrison, " The moment has arrived ! I feel it ! " He 
rose, advanced towards the president, laid his hat upon 
the table, and prepared to speak amidst the profound 
silence and consternation of his colleagues. According 
to his ordinary custom, his slow phraseology, obscure, 
embarrassed, incoherent, full of circumlocution and 

VOL. II. Q 



226 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

parentheses, rambling from one point to another, and 
loaded with repetitions, rendered his train of thought 
and reasoning almost unintelligible. He began by such 
a warm eulogium on the services which the parliament 
had rendered to the cause of liberty and free conscience, 
and to the country in general, that the members who 
had proposed the bill expected that he was going to 
side with them in its favour. Murmurs of encourage- 
ment and satisfaction arose from the republican party 
as he paused on an emphatic period ; when suddenly, 
as if long suppressed anger had at last mastered his 
thoughts, and inflamed the words upon his lips, he 
resumed, and looking with a stern and contemptuous air 
on the fifty-seven members who on that day composed 
the entire parliament, passed at once by rapid tran- 
sition from flattery to insult. He enumerated all the 
cringing baseness and insolence of that corrupt body, 
alternately practised for revolt or servitude, and fulmi- 
nated against them, in the name of God and the people, 
a sentence of condemnation. 

At these unexpected invectives, for which his compli- 
mentary exordium had so little prepared them, the 
members rose in a burst of indignation. The president, 
worthy of his office by his courage, commanded him to 
be silent. Wentworth, one of the most illustrious and 
influential of the extreme party by his personal cha- 
racter, demanded that he should be called to order. 
" This language," said he, "is as extraordinary as 
criminal in the mouth of a man who yesterday possessed 
our entire confidence, whom we have honoured with the 
highest functions of the republic ! of a man who" — 
Cromwell would not suffer him to conclude. " Go to ! 
go to !" exclaimed he in a voice of thunder, " we have 
had enough of words like these. It is time to put an 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 227 

end to all this, and to silence these babblers ! " Then, 
advancing to the middle of the hall, and placing his hat 
on his head with a gesture of defiance, he stamped upon 
the floor, and cried aloud, " You are no longer a par- 
liament ! You shall not sit here a single hour longer ! 
Make room for better men than yourselves !" At these 
words, Harrison, instructed by a glance from the general, 
disappeared, and returned in a moment after at the head 
of thirty soldiers, veterans of the long civil wars, who 
surrounded Cromwell with their naked weapons. These 
men, hired by the parliament, hesitated not at the com- 
mand of their leader to turn their arms against those 
who had placed them in their hands, and furnished 
another example, following the Bubicon of Cœsar, to 
prove the incompatibility of freedom with standing armies. 
'• Miserable wretches !" resumed Cromwell, as if violence 
without insult was insufficient for his anger, " you call 
yourselves a parliament ! You ! — No, you are nothing 
but a mass of tipplers and libertines ! Thou," he 
continued, pointing with his finger to the most notorious 
profligates in the assembly, as they passed him in their 
endeavours to escape from the hall, " thou art a 
drunkard ! Thou art an adulterer ! And thou art a 
hireling, paid for thy speeches ! You are all scandalous 
sinners, who bring shame on the Gospel ! And you 
fancied yourselves a fitting parliament for God's people ! 
No, no, begone ! let me hear no more of you ! The 
Lord rejects you !" 

During these apostrophes, the members, forced by the 
soldiers, were driven or dragged from the hall. Crom- 
well returned towards the table, and lifting with a con- 
temptuous air the silver mace, the venerated symbol of 
parliamentary sovereignty, showed it to Harrison, and 
said, " What shall we do with this bauble ? Take it 



228 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

away." One of the soldiers stepped forward and obeyed 
him. Cromwell turned round and saw behind him 
Lent-hall, the Speaker of the house of commons, who, 
faithful to his delegated duty, retained his place, and 
refused to surrender up right to force. " Descend 
from that seat," cried aloud the Dictator. " I shall not 
abandon the post the parliament has confided to me," 
replied Lenthall, " until I am compelled by violence." At 
these words, Harrison rushed forward, dragged him from 
his chair, and thrust him into the midst of the soldiers. 

Cromwell carried away the keys of Westminster Hall 
in his pocket. " I do not hear a dog bark in the city," 
he wrote to a friend a few days afterwards. The Long 
Parliament, so powerful to destroy, proved itself impo- 
tent to re-establish. The civil war excited by this very 
parliament had produced the never-failing consequences; 
it had substituted the army for the people, and had 
created a dictatorship in the place of a government. It 
had extinguished right, and inaugurated force. A single 
man had taken the place of the country. 

This individual was Cromwell. Men always gain credit 
from the force of events and the power of circumstances. 
Results which are often the effect of chance, are supposed 
to be achieved by long concerted ambition, slow preme- 
ditation, and wily combinations. Everything unites in 
this instance to show, on the contrary, that the outrage of 
Cromwell against the commons was unpremeditated, 
that he was urged on to it by the influence of passing 
occurrences, by the people and the army, and that he 
was decided at the last moment by that internal feeling 
which Socrates called his demon, Caesar his counsellor, 
Mahomet his angel Gabriel, and Cromwell his inspi- 
ration, — that divinity of great instincts which strikes con- 
viction to the mind, and sounds the hour in the ear. 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 229 

The laborious efforts made by Cromwell to reconcile on 
the preceding evening the parliament and the army ; the 
new parliament that he convoked on the following day, 
and to which lie transferred all legislative authority, 
without even reserving to himself the right of sanctioning 
the laws ; and finally a political conversation which took 
place some days before with closed doors, between him 
and his leading advisers in these matters ; all appeared to 
attest that this thunder-clap emanated spontaneously 
from an accumulation of clouds. 

Cromwell and his council occupied themselves at 
this debate, in seeking out amidst the wrecks of the 
destroyed monarchy the elements of a parliamentary 
constitution. The members present were Cromwell, Har- 
rison his disciple, Desborough, Cromwell's brother-in- 
law, Oliver Cromwell, his cousin, Whitelocke, his friend, 
Widdrington, an eminent orator and statesman of the 
commons, the Speaker of the house, Lenthall, and several 
other officers or members, enlightened republicans. 

" It is proposed," said Harrison, "to consider together, 
in concert with the general, how we should organize 
a government." 

" The great question is, in fact," said Whitelocke, 
" whether we shall constitute absolute republicanism, or 
a republic combined with some of the elements of 
monarchy?" 

" Just so," said Cromwell : " shall we then establish a 
complete republic, or one qualified by some monarchical 
principles and monarchical authority ? And in the latter 
case, in whose hands shall we place the power thus bor- 
rowed from the Crown ?" 

Widdrington argued for a mixed government, which 
should combine republican liberty and monarchical autho- 
rity, and that the latter should be placed in the hands of 

vol. n. R 



230 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

its natural possessor, one of the sons of the decapitated 
king. Widdrington, who was a flatterer and of a gentle 
disposition, would not have made such a proposal before 
Cromwell, if he could have divined that the Dictator 
possessed an insatiable ambition in himself which would 
never allow him to pardon this suggestion. 

" It is a delicate question," said Fleetwood, without 
compromising himself further. 

" The Lord Chancellor, St. John, declared that in his 
opinion, unless they desired to undermine all the old 
laws and customs of the nation, a large portion of 
monarchical power would be necessary in any govern- 
ment that they might establish. 

" There would, in fact, be a strange overturning of all 
things." said the Speaker, " if in our government there 
were not something of the monarchical character." 

Desborough, Cromwell's relative and a colonel in the 
army, declared that he saw no reason why England 
should not govern itself on republican principles, after 
the example of so many other ancient and modern 
nations. 

Colonel Wh alley pronounced with his military colleague 
in favour of pure republicanism. " The eldest son of 
our king is in arms against us," said he ; " his second 
son is equally our enemy, and yet you deliberate." 

" But the King's third son, the Duke of Gloucester, 
is in our hands," rejoined Widdrington ; " he is too 
young to have raised his hand against us, or to have 
been infected by the principles of our enemies." 

" The two eldest sons can be summoned to attend the 
parliament upon an appointed day, and debate with 
them upon the conditions of a free monarchical govern- 
ment," said Whitelocke without fearing to offend 
Cromwell. 






OLIVER CROMWELL. 231 

Cromwell, hitherto silent and unmoved, now spoke 
in his turn. " That would be a difficult negotiation," 
said he, " nevertheless I do not think it would be impos- 
sible, provided our rights as Englishmen as well as 
Christians are secured ; and I am convinced that a liberal 
constitution, with a strong dose of monarchical principles 
in it, would be the salvation of England and religion." 

Still they arrived at no conclusion. Cromwell appeared 
to lean towards the republic consolidated by monarchical 
authority, confided to one of the King's sons ; a govern- 
ment which would have assured to himself the Ions; 
guardianship of a child, and to the country the peace- 
able transmission of national power and liberty. 

A council, entirely selected by him from his partisans 
and most fanatical friends, assembled and constituted 
a republican form of government under a Protector. 

One individual alone possessed all the executive power 
for life ; this was Cromwell ; and one elected body 
retained all the legislative authority ; this was the parlia- 
ment. Such was in its simplicity the whole mechanism 
of the English constitution : — an actual Dictator, with 
a more acceptable and specious name, which disguised 
servitude under the appearance of confidence, and power 
under that of equality. 

All the prerogatives of royalty devolved upon Crom- 
well, even that of dissolving parliament and of appointing 
a new election in case of a conflict between the two 
powers. He had, moreover, the almost dynastic privi- 
lege of naming his successor. He had sons ; what, 
therefore, was wanting to his actual royalty but the 
crown ? Cromwell sufficiently showed by the ten years 
of his absolute government that he was far from desiring 
it. Though he felt himself the elect of God, chosen by 
inspiration to govern his people, he by no means felt 

r 2 



232 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

that the same inspiration extended to his family. He 
took only from the nation that which he believed he 
received from heaven — the responsibility of governing 
for life ; trusting the rest to other Divine inspirations 
which would raise up successors equally inspired with 
himself. 

In studying attentively his conduct, we find his entire 
sect revealed in his politics. It was then more difficult 
for him to elude the title of King than to accept it. 
The parliament would gladly have placed him on the 
throne to fortify themselves against the army ; the army 
almost forced it upon him to deliver themselves from 
the parliament. In Cromwell's speeches before the newly 
elected house, we find the truth of all his self-denial. 
Far from desiring a higher title, he even tried to release 
himself from that of Protector, which he had been 
forced to accept. 

" The members of the Council, of the Commons, and 
of the army, who have debated," said he, "in my 
absence upon this constitution, did not communicate 
their plan to me until it had been deliberately and 
ripely considered by them. I opposed repeated delays 
and refusals to their proposals. They showed me plainly 
that if I did not change the present government, all 
would be involved in confusion, ruin, and civil war; 
I was, therefore, obliged to consent in spite of my great 
repugnance to assume a new title. All went well. 
I wished for no more, I was satisfied with my position. 
I possessed arbitrary power in the general command of 
the national army ; and I venture to say with the appro- 
bation of both army and people. I believe in all sin- 
cerity that I should have been more acceptable to them 
if I had remained as I was, and had declined this title 
of Protector. I call upon the members of this assembly, 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 233 

the officers of the army, and the people, to bear witness 
to my resistance, even to the point of doing violence to 
my own feelings. Let them speak, let them proclaim 
this. It has not been done in a corner, but in open 
day, and applauded by a large majority of the nation. 
I do not wish to be believed on my own word, to be my 
own witness ; let the people of England be my testi- 
monies ! How 7 ever, I swear to uphold this constitution, 
and consent to be dragged upon a hurdle from my tomb, 
and buried in infamy, if I suffer it to be violated. We 
are lost in disputes carried on in the name of the liberty 
of England! This liberty God alone can give to us. 
Henceforward, none are privileged before God or man. 
The plenitude of legislative power belongs to us. I am 
bound to obey you if you do not listen to my remon- 
strances ; I shall first remark upon your laws, and then 
I must submit." 

He kept his word faithfully ; he only reserved his 
inspiration as his sole prerogative ; and as often as he 
saw the spirit of resistance, of faction, or of languor in his 
houses of commons, he did not hesitate to dissolve them, 
as he had dissolved their predecessor, the long parliament. 

The confined space that the nature of this work 
imposes on the historian, obliges us to pass over some 
of the less important acts of his administration. This 
interregnum added more strength and prosperity to 
England than the nation had ever experienced under her 
most illustrious monarchs. Factions had recognised the 
authority of the leader of factions. Nothing is more 
compliant or more servile than subjugated parties. As 
they are generally endowed with more insolence than 
strength, and more passion than patriotism — when the 
passion is exhausted within them, factions resemble 
balloons, which appear to occupy a large space in the 



234 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

heavens, and are confounded with the stars when they 
ascend in their inflation ; but when the gas evaporates, 
they fall collapsed to the ground, and a child may hold 
them in its hand. True patriotism and the real spirit 
of liberty were not annihilated even by the ten years' 
eclipse of parliamentary factions. 

The English nation, proud of having so long banished 
kings without being lowered in the eyes of Europe, and 
without internal divisions, only recalled their monarchs 
upon the understanding that those prerogatives and 
dignities of the people were secured, which made 
England a true representative republic with a royal and 
hereditary protector, the crowning glory of this free 
government. The idea was borrowed from Cromwell 
himself, as Ave have seen in his conference with his 
friends. He ruled as a patriot who only thought of the 
greatness and power of his country, and not as a king 
who would have been reduced to temporise with diffe- 
rent parties or courts for the interests of his kingdom. 
He had, moreover, through the supreme power of the 
republic, the strength to accomplish that which was 
beyond the power of kings. Republics bring an increase 
of vigour to the nation. This increase multiplies the 
energy of the government by the collected energy of the 
people. They do not even find that impossible which 
has palsied the resolution of twenty monarchies. Anony- 
mous and irresponsible, they accomplish by the hands of 
all, revolutions, changes, and enterprises such as no 
single royalty could ever venture to dream of. 

It was thus that Cromwell had conquered a king 
subjugated an aristocracy, put an end to religious war 
crushed the levellers, repressed the parliament, established 
liberty of conscience, disciplined the army, formed the 
navy, triumphed by sea over Holland, Spain, and the 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 235 

Genoese, conquered Jamaica and those colonies since 
become empires in the New World ; obtained possession 
of Dunkirk, counterbalanced the power of France, and 
obliged the ministers of the youthful Louis the Four- 
teenth to make concessions and alliances with him ; and 
finally, by his lieutenants or in person, annexed Ireland 
and Scotland to England so irrevocably, that he accom- 
plished the union of the British empire by this fede- 
ration of three discordant kingdoms, whose struggles, 
alliances, skirmishes, and quarrels, contained the germ 
of eternal weakness, and threatened destruction to the 
whole fabric. The revolution lent hirn its aid to put 
down despotism on the one hand, and factions on the 
other, and to accomplish a complete nationality. 

All this was accomplished in ten years, under the 
name of a Dictator ; but in reality by the power of the 
republic, which, to effect these great works, had become 
concentrated, incarnated, and disciplined in his single 
person. This might have occurred in France in 1790, 
if the French revolution had selected a dictator for 
life from one of the great revolutionists animated by 
fanaticism, such as Mirabeau, La Fayette, or Danton, 
instead of confiding to a soldier the task of forming a 
new empire upon the old foundations. 

A domestic misfortune struck Cromwell to the heart 
at this exalted epoch of his life ; and we are astonished 
to behold the man moved to tears who had witnessed 
with dry eyes the unfortunate Charles the First torn 
from his children's arms to perish on the scaffold. He 
lost his mother at the advanced age of ninety-four. This 
was the Elizabeth Stuart, a descendant of that race 
of kings which her son had dethroned. She was 
sincerely religious, mother of a numerous family, the 
source of their piety, and the nurse of their virtues ; she 



230 OLIVE H CROMWELL. 

inspired tliem with a lively passion for the liberty of 
conscience, which their sect upheld, and enjoyed, in 
the full possession of her faculties, the mortal fame, but 
above all the heavenly glory, of the greatest of her 
sons, the Maccabaeus of her faith. Cromwell, in all his 
greatness, respected, and regarded his mother as the root 
of his heart, his belief, and his destiny. 

" The Lord Protector's mother," (wrote at this date, 
1G54, the private secretary of Cromwell, Thurloe,) 
" died last night, nearly a century old. At the moment 
when she was about to expire, she summoned her son to 
her bedside, and extending her hands to bless him, said, 
' May the splendour of the Lord's countenance continu- 
ally shine upon you, my son. May he sustain you in 
adversity, and render your strength equal to the great 
things which the Most Mighty has charged you to 
accomplish, to the glory of his holy name, and the 
welfare of his people. My dear son,' added she, dwell- 
ing on that name in which she gloried even in her dying 
moments, ■ my dear son, I leave my spirit and my heart 
with you ; farewell ! farewell ! ' and she fell back," 
continued Thurloe, " uttering her last sigh." Cromwell 
burst into tears, like a man who had lost a portion of 
the light which illuminated his darkness. His mother, 
who loved him as a son, and respected him as the chosen 
instrument of God, lived with him at the palace of 
Whitehall, but in a retired and unadorned apartment, 
" not wishing," as she said, " to appropriate to herself 
and her other children that splendour which the Lord 
had conferred upon him alone; " but which resembled 
only the furniture of an hotel, to which she did not 
desire to attach her heart, or to rely upon it for the 
future subsistence of her family. Anxious cares dis- 
turbed her days and nights in this regal palace, and she 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 237 

regretted her simple country farm in the principality of 
Wales. 

The hatred of the royalists, the jealousy of the re- 
publicans, the anger of the levellers, the sombre fanati- 
cism of the presbyterians, the vengeance of the Irish 
and Scotch, the plots of the parliament, always present 
to her mind, showed her the poniard or the pistol of 
the assassin, aimed incessantly at the heart of her son. 
Although she had formerly been courageous, she could not 
latterly hear the report of fire-arms in the court, without 
shuddering and running to Cromwell's apartments to 
assure herself of his safety. Cromwell caused his mother 
to be buried with the funeral obsequies of a queen, more 
as a proof of his filial piety, than of his ostentation. She 
was interred in the midst of royal and illustrious dust, 
under the porch of Westminster Abbey, the St. Denis of 
British dynasties and departed heroism. 

Cromwell had himself thought for some years that he 
should perish by assassination. He wore a cuirass under 
his clothes, and carried defensive arms within reach of 
his hand. He never slept long in the same room in the 
palace, continually changing his bed-chamber to mislead 
domestic treason and military plots. A despot, he suf- 
fered the punishment of tyranny. The unseen weight of 
the hatred which he had accumulated, weighed upon his 
imagination and disturbed his sleep. The least murmur- 
ing in the army appeared to him like the presage of a 
rebellion against his power. Sometimes he punished, 
sometimes he caressed those of his lieutenants whom 
he suspected would revolt. He encouraged Warwick, 
flattered Fairfax, subdued Ireton, with much difficulty 
reconciled the republican Fleetwood, who had married 
one of his daughters, also a republican, and as strongly 
opposed to the dictator as her husband; he banished 



/( 



23S OLIVER CROMWELL. 

Monk ; he trembled before the intriguing spirit and 
popularity of Lambert, a general, who one moment 
sought to join the royalists, the next the republicans, 
and, finally, the malcontents of the army. He feared to 
wound or alienate the military section by dealing harshly 
with this ambitious soldier. He compensated for the 
command he took from him by a pocketful, of money, 
which secured his obedience through the powerful bonds 
of corruption. But parties were too much divided in 
England to combine in a mortal conspiracy against the 
dictator, as in the case of the Roman senate against 
Caesar. The one was a check and spy upon the other. 
Cromwell was permitted to live, because none felt certain 
that they should profit by his death. Nevertheless he 
was conscious of his unpopularity ; his modest ambition, 
and his ten speeches to the different parliaments during 
the interregnum, attest the efforts, sometimes humiliating, 
to which he descended to obtain pardon for having 
seized the supreme power. We should be incapable of 
understanding the man if we were not acquainted with his 
style. The soul speaks in the tongue. We comprehend 
a few sentences in this deluge of phraseology. The 
meaning seems confounded in a mass of verbiage, 
alternately cringing and imperious. We see throughout, 
the farmer promoted to the throne, and the sectarian 
converting the tribune into a pulpit to preach to his 
congregations after he has subdued them. " What had 
become," said he, in his first speech to the united repre- 
sentatives of the three kingdoms, after the dissolution of 
the Long Parliament, " what had become, before our 
time, of those fundamental privileges of England, liberty of 
conscience, and liberty of citizenship ? Two possessions 
for which it is as honourable and just to contend, as for 
any of the benefits which God has vouchsafed to us on 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 239 

earth. Formerly the Bible could not be printed without 
the permission of a magistrate ! Was not that placing 
the free faith of the people at the mercy of the legislative 
authority? Was it not denying civil and religious 
liberty to this nation, who have received those unalien- 
able rights with their blood ? Who now shall dare to 
impose such restrictions on the public conscience?" 
He fulminated more in the tone of a prophet than a 
statesman, against the " fifth monarchy men," a religious 
and political sect who announced the immediate reign of 
Christ upon earth, returning in person to govern his 
chosen people. It was even asserted that he had already 
appeared in the flesh, in the person of a young ad- 
venturer, who had caused himself to be worshipped under 
the sacred name of Jesus. Then suddenly, he passed 
without preparation to his joy at seeing before him a 
parliament freely elected. "Yes," declared he, with 
warm satisfaction, " I see before me a free parliament ! 
Let us now discuss a little the state of public affairs." 
He then proceeded to detail the progress and success 
of his operations in Holland, France, Spain, and Por- 
tugal. Finally, he dismissed them with a paternal air, 
declaring that he should pray for them, and enjoining 
every man to return quickly to his own abode, and reflect 
on the excellent management of public affairs, which he 
was going to submit for their consideration. 

In the following speech, he dwells bitterly on the 
heavy yoke which the public safety imposes on him, so 
contrary to his own desire. " I declare to you," he said, 
" in the candour of my soul, that I love not the post in 
which I am placed. I have said this already in my 
previous interviews with you. Yes, I have said to you, 
I have but one desire, namely, to enjoy the same liberty 
with others, to retire into private life, to be relieved 



240 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

from my charge. I have demanded this again and again ! 
And let God judge between me and my fellow men, if I 
have uttered falsehood in saying so ! Many here can 
attest that I lie not ! — But if I speak falsely in telling 
yon what you are slow to believe, if I utter a lie or act 
the hypocrite, may heavenly wrath condemn me I Let 
men without charity, who judge of others by themselves, 
say and think what they please, I repeat to you, that I 
utter the truth. But alas ! I cannot obtain what I so 
ardently desire, what my soul yearns to accomplish ! 
Others have decided that I could not abandon my post 
without a crime, — I am, however, unworthy of this 
power which you force me to retain in my hands ; I am 
a miserable sinner ! " He then rambled into an in- 
coherent digression on the state of affairs. " At last," 
he concluded, " we have been raised up for the welfare 
of this nation ! We enjoy peace at home, and peace 
abroad ! " 

His fourth speech comprises a vehement reproach 
against this same parliament, which he said had suffered 
itself to become corrupted by the old factions, and which 
he suddenly dissolved, after having balanced for two 
hours between caresses and maledictions, according to 
the suggestions of the Spirit which soothed, and the 
words which crushed. 

The fifth, delivered before the new parliament, is a 
rambling jumble of incoherency, which lasted for four 
hours ; at this distance of time it is totally incompre- 
hensible, and finishes by the recitation of a psalm. 
"I confess," says Cromwell, "that I have been diffuse; 
I know that I have tired you ; but one word more : Yes- 
terday I read a psalm, which it will not be out of place 
to introduce. It is the sixty-sixth, and truly a most 
instructive and applicable one in our particular circum- 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 241 

stances. I call upon you to peruse it at leisure — it 
commences thus : ' Lord, thou wert merciful to man ; 
thou hast redeemed us from the captivity of Jacob ; thou 
hast remitted all our sins.' ' He then recited the entire 
psalm to his auditory, and closing his Bible, added ; 
"Verily, I desire that this psalm may be engraved on our 
hearts more legibly than it is printed in this book, and 
that we may all cry with David, ' It is thou, Lord, alone, 
who hast done this !' Let us to the work, my friends, 
with courage!" continued he, addressing the whole 
house, " and if we do so, we shall joyfully sing this 
additional psalm : ' In the name of the Lord, our ene- 
mies shall be confounded.' No ! we shall fear neither 
the Pope, nor the Spaniards, nor the devil himself ! No ! 
we shall not tremble, even though the plains should be 
lifted above the mountains, and the mountains should be 

precipitated into the ocean ! God is with us ! I have 

finished! I have finished!" he exclaimed at last; "I 
have said all that I had to say to you. Get you gone, 
together, and in peace to your own dwellings !" 

These speeches, of which we have given only a few 
textual lines, lasted for hours ; it is very difficult to fol- 
low their meaning. In the same voice we recognise 
Tiberius, Mahomet, a soldier, a tyrant, a patriot, a priest, 
and a madman. We perceive the laborious inspiration 
of a triple soul, which seeks its own idea in the dark, 
finds it, loses it, finds it again, and keeps its auditors 
floating to satiety, between terror, weariness, and com- 
passion. When the language of tyranny is no longer 
brief, like the stroke of its will, it becomes ridiculous. It 
resembles the letters from Capreae to the Roman senate, 
or the appeals of Bonaparte vanquished, to the French 
legislative body in IS 13. The absolutism which seeks 
to make itself understood, or to enter into explanations 



242 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

with venal senates or enslaved citizens, becomes embar- 
rassed in its own sophisms, mounts into the clouds or 
creeps into nothingness. Silence is the true eloquence of 
power, because it admits of no reply. 

Never did these peculiar characteristics of Cromwell's 
oratory display themselves more than in his answers to 
the parliament, which thrice offered him the crown in 
1G58. The first time, it was merely a deputation, who 
came to apprise him in his own private apartment of the 
intended proposal. The answer and the interview are 
equally familiar to us. He desired not the title of king; 
because his political inspiration told him that instead of 
increasing his actual strength, it would tend to destroy 
it. On the other hand, he dared not reject the offer 
with too peremptory a refusal, because his generals, 
more ambitious than himself, would insist on his accept- 
ance of the throne, to compromise beyond recal his 
greatness, and that of his family, with their own for- 
tunes. He dreaded, lest, in discontent for his denial, 
they might offer the sovereignty to some other leader in 
the army, more daring and less scrupulous than himself. 
His embarrassment may be construed in his words. It 
took him eight days and a thousand circumlocutions 
before he could explain himself. 

" Gentlemen," replied he, on the first day, to the con- 
fidential deputation of the parliament : " I have passed 
the greater part of my life in fire, (if I may so speak,) 
and surrounded by commotions ; but all that has hap- 
pened to me since I have meddled with public affairs for 
the general good, if it could be gathered into a single 
heap, and placed before me in one view, would fail to 
strike me with the terror and respect for God's will, 
which I undergo at the thought of this thing you now 
mention, and this title you offer me ! But I have 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 243 

drawn confidence and tranquillity in every crisis of my 
past life, from the conviction that the heaviest burdens I 
have borne have been imposed npon me by His hand 
without my own participation. Often have I felt that I 
should have given way under these weighty loads, if it 
had not entered into the views, the plans, and the great 
bounty of the Lord, to assist me in sustaining them. If 
then, I should suffer myself to deliver you an answer on 
this matter, so suddenly and unexpectedly brought under 
my consideration, without feeling that this answ T er is 
suggested to my heart and lips by Him w T ho has ever 
been my oracle and guide, I should therein exhibit to 
you a slender evidence of my wisdom. To accept or 
refuse your offer in one w r ord, from desires or feelings of 
personal interest, would savour too much of the flesh, 
and of human appetite. To elevate myself to this height 
by motives of ambition or vain-glory, would be to bring 
down a curse upon myself, upon my family, and upon 
the whole empire. Better would it be that I had never 
been born. Leave me then to seek counsel at my 
leisure, of God and my own conscience ; and I hope 
neither the declamations of a light and thoughtless 
people, nor the selfish wishes of those who expect to be- 
come great in my greatness, may influence my decision, 
of which I shall communicate to you the result, with as 
little delay as possible." 

Three hours afterwards, the parliamentary committee 
returned to press for his answer. It was in many 
respects confused and unintelligible. We can fancy that 
we behold the embarrassed motion of Caesar when he 
pushed aside the crown offered to him by Antony and 
the soldiers, in the circus. There was, as yet, no 
decision. After four days of urgent and repeated 
entreaty on the part of the parliament, of polite but 



244 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

significant delays on that of the Protector, Cromwell 
finally explained himself in a deluge of words : — 

" Royalty," said he, " is composed of two matters, the 
title of king and the functions of monarchy. These 
functions are so united by the very roots to an old form 
of legislation, that all our laws would fall to nothing, did 
we not retain in their appliance a portion of the kingly 
power. But as to the title of King, this distinction 
implies not only a supreme authority, but I may venture 
to say, an authority partaking of the divine ! I have 
assumed the place I now occupy to drive away the 
danger which threatened my country, and to prevent 
their recurrence. I shall not quibble between the titles of 
king or protector, for I am prepared to continue in your 
service, as either of these, or even as a simple constable, 
if you so will it, the lowest officer in the land. For, in 
truth, I have often said to myself that I am, in fact, 
nothing more than a constable, maintaining the order 
and peace of the parish ! I am therefore of opinion that 
it is unnecessary for you to offer, or for me to accept the 
title of king, seeing that any other will equally answer 
the purpose ! " 

Then, with a frank confession, too humble not to 
be sincere, "Allow me," he added, "to lay open my 
heart here, aloud, and in your presence. At the moment 
when I was called to this great work, and preferred by 
God to so many others more worthy than myself, what 
was I ? Nothing more than a simple captain of dragoons 
in a regiment of militia. My commanding officer was a 
dear friend, who possessed a noble nature, and whose 
memory I know you cherish as warmly as I do myself. 
This was Mr. Hampden. The first time I found myself 
under fire with him, I saw that our troops, newly levied, 
without discipline, and composed of men who loved not 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 245 

God, were beaten in every encounter. With the permis- 
sion of Mr. Hampden, I introduced amongst them a new 
spirit, a spirit of zeal and piety ; I taught them to fear 
God. From that day forward they were invariably 
victorious. To him be all the glory !" 

" It has ever been thus, it will ever continue to be 
thus, Gentlemen, with the government. Zeal and piety 
will preserve us without a king ! — Understand me well ; 
I would willingly conseut to become a victim for the 
salvation of all ; but I do not think, no, truly, I do not 
believe that it is necessary this victim should bear the 
title of a king 1" 

Alas ! he had unfortunately thought otherwise in the 
case of Charles the First. The blood of that monarch 
rose up too late and protested against his words. He 
had in him chosen an innocent victim, not for the people, 
but for the army ! 

Remorse began to weigh upon him. It has been said, 
that to appease or encourage these sensations, while the 
debates in parliament held the crowm, as it were, sus- 
pended over his head, he descended into the vaults of 
Whitehall, where the body of the decapitated Charles the 
First had been temporarily placed. Did he go to seek 
in this spectacle an oracle to solve his doubts, or a lesson 
to regulate his ambition ? Did he go to implore from the 
dead a pardon for the murder he had permitted, or 
forgiveness for the throne and life of which he had 
deprived him ? We cannot say ; all that is certain is, that 
he raised the lid of the coffin which enclosed the 
embalmed body and head of the executed monarch; that 
he caused all witnesses to absent themselves, and that he 
remained for a long time alone, silently looking on the 
deceased, — an interview of stoical firmness, if not of 
repentance ; a solemn hour of reflection, from which he 

VOL. II. s 



240 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

must have returned, hardened 'or shaken. His atten- 
dants observed an unwonted paleness on his features, 
and a melancholy compression of his lips. Painting has 
often revived this strange scene. Some have recognised 
in it the triumph of ambition over its victim ; we should 
prefer to recognise the agony of the remorseful murderer. 

His private correspondence at this time expresses the 
weariness of aspirations which have sounded the depths 
of human grandeur, and which see nothing but emptiness 
in a destiny so apparently full. They breathe also a 
softening of the heart, which slackens the severity of 
government. " Truly," says he, in a letter to Fleetwood, 
his son-in-law, and deputy in Scotland, " truly, my dear 
Charles, I have more than ever need of the help and 
prayers of my Christian friends. Each party wishes me 
to adopt their own views. The spirit of gentleness 
which I feel within me at present pleases none of them. 
I may say with sincerity, my life has been a voluntary 
sacrifice for the benefit of all. Persuade our friends who 
are with you to become very moderate. If the Lord's 
day approaches, as many maintain, our moderation ought 
so much the more to manifest itself. In my heaviness, 
I am ready to exclaim, ' Why have I not the wings of a 
dove, that I might flee away ? ' But I fear me, this is 
a most culpable impatience. I bless the Lord, that I 
possess in my wife and children ties which attach me to 
life !— Pardon me, if I have discovered to you my inmost 
thoughts. Give my love to your dear wife, and my 
blessing, if it is worth anything, to your infant child." 

In the midst of these heavenly aspirations, he was 
anxious to leave independent fortunes to his sons and 
daughters. The large income allotted by parliament to 
maintain the splendour of his rank, his hereditary estate, 
and the austere economy of his habits, had enabled him 



0LTVER CROMWELL. 247 

to acquire some private property. The list of his pos- 
sessions is contained in his letters to his son Richard. 
They comprise twelve domains, producing an annual rent 
of about 300/. " Of what consequence is this," he said 
sometimes ; " I leave to my family the favour of God, 
who has elevated me from nothing to the height on 
which I am placed." It would seem as if he anticipated 
his approaching end. 

Those who came in contact with him were sensible of 
it themselves. The Quaker Fox, one of the founders of 
that pious and philosophic sect, who comprise all 
theology in charity, was in the habit of familiar inter- 
course with Cromwell. About this time he wrote to one 
of his friends as follows : " Yesterday I met Cromwell 
in the park of Hampton Court ; he was on horseback, 
attended by his guards. Before I approached him, I 
perceived that there came from him an odour of death. 
When we drew near to each other, I noticed the paleness 
of the grave upon his face. He stopped, and I spoke to 
him of the persecutions of the friends (quakers), using 
the words which the Lord suggested to my lips. He 
replied, ' Come and see me to-morrow.' On the following 
day I went to Hampton Court, and was informed that 
he was ill. From that day I never saw him more." 

Hampton Court, the magnificent feudal residence of 
Henry the Eighth, was an abode which by its melancholy 
and monastic grandeur was well suited to the tem- 
perament of Cromwell. The château, flanked by large 
towers resembling the bastions of a fortress, was crowned 
with battlements, blackened incessantly by broods of 
rooks. It stood on the border of vast forests, luxurious 
produce of the soil, so dear to the Saxon race. The 
aged oaks of the extensive park appeared to assume the 
majesty of a royal vegetation, to accord with the gothic 

s 2 



'- 18 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

architecture of the castle. Long avenues veiled in 
shadow and mist, terminated in a perspective of green 
meadow, silently traversed by herds of tame deer. 
Narrow, low portals with pointed arches, resembling the 
apertures of a cavern in the solid rock, gave admission 
to subterraneous apartments, guard-rooms, and vaulted 
fencing schools, decorated with devices of ancient armour, 
escutcheons, and knightly banners. Everything breathed 
that mistrustful superiority which creates a void round 
monarchs, either through respect or terror. Hampton 
Court was the favourite residence of Cromwell, but at 
the period of which we are writing, he was detained there 
as much by pain as relaxation. 

Providence, as often happens to exalted individuals, 
had determined to inflict the expiation of his prosperous 
fortunes, through the medium of his own family. Several 
daughters had embellished his domestic hearth. The 
eldest was married to Lord Falconbridge, the second to 
Fleetwood, the third to Claypole, while the fourth and 
youngest was already, at seventeen, the widow of Lord 
Rich, grandson of the Earl of Warwick, an old com- 
panion in arms of the Protector. The grief of this young 
woman, the favourite of her mother, saddened the in- 
ternal happiness of the circle at Hampton Court. Fleet- 
wood, a moody republican, ever divided between the 
ascendancy of Cromwell, to which he submitted with 
a pang of conscience, and the pure democratical opinions 
which saw individual tyranny in the protectorate, con- 
tinually reproached his father-in-law with having absorbed 
the republic which he appeared to save. Between fana- 
ticism and affection he had drawn over his young wife to 
join in his discontented murmurs. Lady Fleetwood, like 
the second Brutus, experienced at the same time an 
invincible attachment and repugnance to her father, 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 24'9 

who had become the tyrant of his country. The ties of 
blood and the spirit of sectarianism divided her heart. 
She embittered the life of the Protector by incessant re- 
proaches. Cromwell, surrounded by the cares of govern- 
ment, was at the same time beset by the invectives of his 
republican daughter against his absolute measures, and 
trembled to discover the hand of Fleetwood and his wife 
in some hostile machinations. The deprecatory tone of 
his letters to Lady Fleetwood, describe the anguish 
endured by this father, compelled to justify his actions to 
his own family, when England and all Europe trembled 
at his nod. But this child of Cromwell, perpetually 
agitated by remorse for ruined liberty, never remained 
long silent under his urgent remonstrances. It was 
necessary to convince her, for fear of being compelled to 
punish. She was, in truth, the Nemesis of her father. 

His daughter Elizabeth, Lady Claypole, became his 
consoling spirit. This young and amiable female, in 
grace, in mind, in sentiment, was endowed with every 
quality which justifies the preference, or, we should 
rather say, the admiration by which Cromwell distin- 
guished her. The royalist historian, Hume, who can 
scarcely be expected of flattery, or even of justice, when 
speaking of the family of the murderer of his king, 
acknowledges that Lady Claypole possessed charms and 
virtue sufficient to excuse the admiration of the whole 
world. One of those cruel fatalities which resemble 
chance, but are in fact ordained chastisements of tyranny, 
had recently pierced the heart of this accomplished woman 
almost to death, and excited between her and her father 
a tragical family dissension, in which nature, torn by two 
conflicting feelings, (like Camille,* divided between her 
country and her lover,) is unable to renounce one without 

* In the Horace of Corneille. — Tr. 



250 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

betraying the other. Death is the only issue of such an 
awful predicament. In one of the recent royalist con- 
spiracies against the authority of the Protector, a young 
Cavalier (the name commonly applied to the partisans of 
Charles the Second) had been condemned to death. 
Cromwell had the power of mercy, which he would 
have exercised, if the guilty prisoner, for whom he was 
aware his daughter felt the warmest interest, would have 
afforded him the least pretext for clemency, by even 
a qualified submission. But the intrepid Hewett (such 
was the name of the criminal) had defied the Protector 
on his trial, as he had braved the danger in the conspi- 
racy. Cromwell, deaf for the first time to the supplica- 
tions, the sobs, and despair of his daughter prostrated at 
his feet, imploring the life of a man who was dear to her, 
ordered the execution to proceed. Lady Claypole felt 
herself stricken mortally by the same blow. Cromwell 
had slain his daughter through the heart of one of his 
enemies. Elizabeth, sinking under a deadly weakness, 
returned to Hampton Court, to receive the tender cares of 
her mother and sisters, and only roused herself from her 
stupor to reproach her father with the blood of his victim. 
Her lamentable imprecations, interrupted by the remorse 
and returning tenderness of her father, filled the palace 
with trouble, mystery, and consternation. The life of 
Lady Claypole rapidly consumed itself in these sad 
alternations of tears and maledictions. Cromwell was 
consumed by anguish, fruitless supplication, and unavail- 
ing repentance. He felt that his cruelty had made him 
hated by the being whom he loved most on earth ; and 
to complete his agony, he himself had launched the bolt 
against his child. Thus, the republic that he had de- 
ceived on the one hand, and the royalty he had martyred 
on the other, seized on the fanaticism and feelings of his 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 251 

two daughters, to revenge on his own heart, and under 
his domestic roof, the ambition and inhumanity with 
which he had trampled on both. He presented a modern 
Atrides, apparently at the summit of prosperity, but in 
fact an object of compassion to his most implacable 
enemies. Lady Claypole died in his arms at Hampton 
Court, towards the end of 1658. With her last words 
she forgave her father, but nature refused to ratify the 
pardon. From the day when he buried his beloved 
daughter he languished towards his end, and his own 
hours were numbered. 

Although he was robust in appearance, and his green 
maturity of fifty-nine, maintained by warlike exercises, 
sobriety, and chastity, had enabled him to preserve the 
activity and vigour of youth, — disgust of life, that para- 
lysis of the soul, enclosed a decayed heart in a healthy 
body. He seemed no longer to take any interest in the 
affairs of government, or in the divisions of his own 
family. His confidential friends endeavoured to divert 
his thoughts from the grave of his daughter, by inducing 
him to change the scene and vary his occupations, so as 
to dissipate the depressing moral atmosphere which sur- 
rounded him. His secretary, Thurloe, and others of his 
most trusted adherents, in concert with his wife, con- 
trived, without his knowledge, reviews, hunting-parties, 
races, and avocations of duty or amusement to distract 
or occupy his attention. They took him back to 
London, but he found the city even more distasteful 
than the country. They thought to reanimate his lan- 
guor by repasts in the open air, brought by his servants 
from the house, and prepared on the grass, under the 
shadow of the finest trees, and in his favourite spots. 
His earliest taste, the love of rural nature, and of the 
animals of the field, was the last that remained in his 



252 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 



closing hours. The gentleman farmer and trainer of 
cattle, again broke forth under the master of an empire. 
The Bible and the patriarchal life, to which he constantly 
alluded, associated themselves in his mind with the re- 
membrances of rural occupations, which he regretted, 
even in the splendours of a palace : he often exclaimed, 
as Danton did long afterwards, " Happy is he who 
lives under a thatched roof, and cultivates his own 
field !" 

One morning, when Thurloe and the attendants of 
Cromwell had spread his meal on the ground, under the 
shadow of a clump of magnificent oaks, more distant 
from the neighbouring city, and thicker than at present, 
he felt his spirits lighter and more serene than usual, 
and expressed a wish to pass the remainder of the day in 
that delightful solitude. He ordered his grooms to bring 
out six fine bay horses, which the States of Holland had 
lately sent him as a present, to try them in harness in 
one of the avenues of the park. Two postilions mounted 
the leaders. Cromwell desired Thurloe to seat himself 
in the carriage, while he ascended the box, and took the 
reins in his own hands. The fiery and unbroken ani- 
mals began to rear, threw their riders, and ran away 
with the light vehicle, which they dashed against a tree, 
and Cromwell was violently precipitated to the ground. 
In his fall, a loaded pistol went off, which he always 
carried concealed under his clothes. For a moment he was 
dragged along on the gravel, entangled with the broken 
carriage. Although he escaped without a wound, his 
fall, the explosion of the pistol, revealing to those about 
him his precautionary terrors, the sarcastic remarks to 
which this mishap gave rise, all appeared to him ominous 
of evil, and caused a sudden shock which he concealed 
with difficulty. He affected, notwithstanding, to laugh 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 253 

at the accident, and said to Thurloe, " It is easier to 
conduct a government than to drive a team of horses ! " 

He returned to Hampton Court, and the constant 
image of his cherished daughter appeared to people those 
halls, which her presence no longer animated, with re- 
membrances less painful than oblivion. He was prayed 
for throughout the three kingdoms. By the puritans, 
for their prophet ; by the republicans, for their champion ; 
by the patriots, for the bulwark of their country. The 
antechambers resounded with the murmured supplica- 
tions of preachers, chaplains, fanatics, personal friends, 
and members of his own family — all beseeching God to 
spare the life of their saint. Whitehall resembled more 
a sanctuary than a palace. The same spirit of mystical 
inspiration which had conducted him there, governed 
him in the last moments of his residence. He discoursed 
only of religion, and never alluded to politics, so much 
more was he occupied by the thoughts of eternal sal- 
vation than of prolonging his earthly power. 

He had designated his son Richard as his successor (in 
a sealed paper which had since gone astray), on the same 
day when he had been named Protector. Those who 
now surrounded him wished him to renew this act, but 
he appeared either indifferent or unwilling to do so. 
At last, when he was asked in the presence of witnesses, 
if it was not his will that his son Richard should succeed 
him; "Yes," he muttered, with a single affirmative motion 
of his head, and immediately changed the subject of con- 
versation. It was evident that this man, impressed with 
the vicissitudes of government, and the fickleness of the 
people, attached but little importance to the will of a 
dictator, and left in the hands of Providence the fate of 
his authority after his death. " God will govern by the 
instrument that he may please to select," said he ; " it js 



254 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

lie alone who has given me power over his people." He 
believed that he had left this document at Hampton Court, 
where messengers were despatched to seek it, but without 
success, and the topic was never again adverted to. 

Richard, who resided usually in the country, in the 
paternal mansion of his wife, hastened to London, with 
his sisters and brothers-in-law, to attend the death- bed 
of the chief of the family. He seemed as indifferent as 
his father, as to the hereditary succession of his office, for 
which he had neither the desire nor the ambition. The 
whole generation, left by the Protector in the mediocrity 
of private life, appeared ready to return to it, as actors 
quit the stage when the drama is over. They had nei- 
ther acquired hatred nor envy by insolence or pride. 
Like the children of Sylla, who mixed unnoticed with 
the crowd, the tender affection of this united family, and 
their unfeigned tears, constituted the only funeral pomp 
which waited round the couch of the Protector. 

A slow, intermittent fever seized him. He struggled 
with the first attack so successfully, that no one about 
him suspected he was seriously ill. The fever became 
tertian and more acute ; his strength was rapidly giving 
way. The physicians summoned from London, attri- 
buted the disease to the bad air engendered by the 
marshy and ill-drained banks of the Thames, which joined 
the gardens of Hampton Court. He was brought back 
to Whitehall, as if Providence had decreed that he should 
die before the same window of the same palace, in front 
of which he had ordered to be constructed, ten years 
before, the scaffold, of his royal victim. 

Cromwell never rose again from the bed on which he 
was placed when he returned to London. His acts and 
words during his long agony, have been wildly misre- 
presented according to the feelings of the different parties 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 255 

who sought revenge for his life, or who gloried in his 
death. A new document, equally authentic and inva- 
luable, notes taken without his knowledge, calculating 
every hour and every sigh, and preserved by the comp- 
troller of his household, who watched him day and night, 
have verified beyond dispute his thoughts and expres- 
sions. The sentiments expressed in these last moments 
speak the true secrets of the soul. Death unmasks every 
face, and hypocrisy disappears before the raised finger 
of God. 

During the periods between the paroxysms of the 
fever, he occupied the time with listening to passages 
from the sacred volume, or by a resigned or despairing 
reference to the death of his daughter. " Read to me," 
he said to his wife, in one of those intervals, " the Epistle 
of St. Paul to the Philippians." She read these words : 
" I know both how to be abased, and I know how to 
abound : every where and in all things I am instructed 
both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and 
to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ, 
which strengtheneth me." The reader paused. " That 
verse," said Cromwell, " once saved my life when the 
death of my eldest born, the infant Oliver, pierced my 
heart like the sharp blade of a poniard. Ah ! St. Paul," 
he continued, " you are entitled to speak thus, for you 
answered to the call of grace ! But I !" — he broke off, 
but after a short silence, resuming a tone of confidence, 
continued, " but he who was the Saviour of Paul, is he 
not also mine?" 

" Do not weep thus," said he to his wife and children, 
who were sobbing loudly in the chamber ; " love not 
this vain world ; I tell you from the brink of the grave, 
love not the things of earth !" There was a moment of 
weakness when he seemed anxious for life. " Is there 



256 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

no one here," he demanded, " who can deliver me from 
this danger?" All hesitated to answer. " Man is help- 
less," he continued, " God can do whatever he pleases. 
Are there none, then, who will pray with me?" 

The silent motion of his lips was interrupted from 
time to time by indistinct and mystical murmurings 
which indicated inward supplication. " Lord, thou art 
my witness, that if I still desire to live, it is to glorify 
thy name, and to complete thy work !" " It is terrible, 
yea it is very terrible," he muttered three times in suc- 
cession, " to fall into the hands of the living God ! " 
" Do you think," said he to his Chaplain, " that a man 
who has once been in a state of grace, can ever perish 
eternally?" " No," replied the chaplain, "there is no 
possibility of such a relapse." "Then I am safe," 
replied Cromwell, " for at one time I am confident that 
I was chosen." All his inquiries tended towards futurity, 
none bore reference to the present life. " I am the 
most insignificant of mortals," continued he, after a 
momentary pause ; " but I have loved God, praised be 
his name, or rather I am beloved by him ! " 

There was a moment when the dangerous symptoms 
of his malady were supposed to have subsided ; he even 
adopted this notion himself. Whitehall and the churches 
resounded with thanksgivings. The respite was short, 
for the fever speedily redoubled. Several days and 
nights were passed in calm exhaustion, or incoherent 
delirium. On the morning of the 30th of August, one 
of his officers, looking from the window, recognised the 
republican Ludlow, banished from London, who hap- 
pened to be crossing the square. Cromwell, informed 
of his presence, became anxious to know what motive 
could have induced Ludlow to have the audacity to 
show himself in the capital, and to pass under the very 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 257 

windows of his palace. He sent his son Richard to 
him, to endeavour if possible to fathom the secret views 
of his party. Ludlow assured Richard Cromwell that 
he came exclusively on private affairs, and was ignorant 
when he arrived, of the illness of the Protector. He 
promised to depart from the capital on that same day. 
This is the Ludlow, who being proscribed amongst the 
regicides after the death of Cromwell, retired to grow 
old and die impenitently at Vevay, on the borders of 
Lake Leman, where his tomb is still exhibited. 

Cromwell, satisfied as to the intentions of the re- 
publicans, thought no longer but of making a religious 
end. The intendant of his chamber, who watched by 
him, heard him offer up his last prayers in detached 
sentences, and in an audible tone. For his own satis- 
faction he noted down the words as they escaped from 
the lips of the dying potentate, and long afterwards 
transmitted them to history. 

" Lord, I am a miserable creature ! But by thy 
grace I am in the truth, and I hope to appear before 
thee in behalf of this people. Thou hast selected me, 
although unworthy, to be the instrument of good here 
below, and to have rendered service to my brethren. 
Many of them have thought too favourably of my 
strength, while many others will rejoice that I am cut 
off. Continue, Lord, to give thy help to all ; endow 
them with constancy and a right understanding ; render 
through them, the name of our Saviour Jesus Christ 
more and more honoured upon earth ; teach them 
who trust too much to thy instrument, to rely on thee 
alone. Pardon those who are impatient to trample 
under their feet this worm of earth, and grant me a 
night of peace, if it be thy good pleasure." 

On the following day, the anniversary of the battles of 



258 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

Dunbar and Worcester, his two greatest victories, the 
sound of the military music by which they were cele- 
brated penetrated to his dying chamber. " I could 
wish," he exclaimed, " to recal my life, to repeat once 
more those services for the nation ; but my day is over. 
May God continue ever present with his children." 

After a last restless night, he was asked if he wished 
to drink or sleep ? " Neither," he replied, " but to pass 
quickly to my Father." By sun-rise his voice failed, 
but he was still observed to pray in an inarticulate 
tone. 

The equinoctial gale, which had commenced on the 
preceding day, now swelled into a storm which swept 
over England with the effect of an earthquake. The 
carriages which conveyed to London the friends of the 
Protector, apprised of his extreme danger, were unable 
to stem the violence of the wind, and took refuge in the 
inns on the road. The lofty houses of London, undu- 
lated like vessels tossed upon the ocean. Roofs were 
carried off, trees that had stood for centuries in Hyde 
Park were torn up by the roots, and prostrated on the 
ground like bundles of straw. Cromwell expired at two 
o'clock in the afternoon, in the midst of this convulsion 
of nature. He departed as he was born, in a tempest. 
Popular superstition recognised a miracle in this coinci- 
dence, which seemed like the expiring efforts of the 
elements to tear from life and empire the single man 
who w r as capable of enduring the might of England's 
destiny, and whose decease created a void which none 
but himself could fill. Obedience had become so habitual, 
and fear so universally survived his power, that no oppo- 
sing faction dared to raise its head in presence of his 
remains ; his enemies, like those of Caesar, were com- 
pelled to simulate mourning at his funeral. Several 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 259 

months elapsed before England felt thoroughly convinced 
that her master no longer existed, and ventured to ex- 
hibit a few faint throbs of liberty after such a memorable 
servitude. If at that time there had been found an 
Antony to place himself at the head of the army in 
London, and if a new Octavius had appeared in Richard 
Cromwell, the Lower Empire might have commenced in 
the British Islands. But Richard abdicated after a very 
short exercise of power. He had formerly, with tears, 
embraced his father's knees, imploring him to spare the 
head of Charles the First. His resignation cost him 
nothing, for he had examined too closely the price of 
supreme power. He became once more a simple and 
unostentatious citizen, enjoying, in the tranquillity of 
a country life, his obscurity and his innocence. 

We have sought to describe the true character of 
Cromwell, rescued from romance and restored to history. 
This supposed actor of sixty becomes a veritable man. 
Formerly he was misapprehended, now he is correctly 
understood. 

A great man is ever the personification of the spirit 
which breathes from time to time upon his age and 
country. The inspiration of Scripture predominated, in 
1G00, over the three kingdoms. Cromwell, more 
imbued than any other with this sentiment, was neither 
a politician, nor an ambitious conqueror, nor an Octavius, 
nor a Caesar. He was a Judge of the Old Testament ; 
a sectarian of the greater power, in proportion as he 
was more superstitious, more strict and narrow in his 
doctrines, and more fanatical. If his genius had sur- 
passed his epoch, he would have exercised less influence 
over the existing generation. His nature was less 
elevated than the part assigned to him ; his religious 
bias constituted the half of his fortune. A true military 



269 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

Calvin, holding the Bible in one hand, and the sword in 
the other, he aimed rather at salvation than temporal 
empire. Historians, hitherto ill-informed, have mistaken 
the principle of his ambition. It was the feature of the 
times. All the factions of that age were religious, as all 
those of the present day are political. In Switzerland, 
in Germany, in the North, in France, in Scotland, in 
Ireland, in England, all parties borrowed their con- 
victions, their divided opinions, their opposing fierceness 
from the Bible, which had become the universal Oracle. 
Interpreted differently by the different sects, this Oracle 
imparted to each exposition the bitterness of a schism, 
to each destiny the holiness of a revelation, to each 
leader the authority of a prophet, to each victim the 
heroism of a martyr, and to each conqueror the ferocity 
of an executioner offering up a sacrifice to the deity. 
A paroxysm of mystical frenzy had seized upon the 
whole Christian world, and the most impassioned 
trampled upon the rest. Danton has said, that in a 
revolution the greatest scoundrel must gain the victory. 
With equal justice it may be observed that in religious 
wars the most superstitious leader will win the day. 
When that leader is at the same time a soldier, and 
inspires his followers with his own enthusiasm, there is 
no longer a limit to his career of fortune. He subjects 
the people by the army, and the army by the super- 
stitions of the people. If endowed with genius he 
becomes a Mahomet ; a Cromwell if gifted only with 
policy and fanaticism. 

It becomes, therefore, impossible to deny that Crom- 
well was sincere. Sincerity was the inciting motive of 
his elevation, and without excusing, completely explains 
his crimes. This quality, which constituted his virtue, 
impressed on his actions, faith, devotedness, enthusiasm, 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 



261 



consistency, patriotism, toleration, austerity of manners, 
application to war and business, coolness, modesty, 
piety, denial of personal ambition for bis family, and all 
those patriarchal and romantic features of the first re- 
public which characterised his life, and the period of his 
reign. It also imparted to his nature the implacability 
of a religionist who believed that in striking his own 
enemies he was smiting the enemies of God. The 
massacres of the vanquished rebels in Ireland, and the 
cold-blooded murder of Charles the First, exhibit the 
contrasted extravagance of this false conscience. In 
Cromwell it was untempered by the natural clemency 
which palliates in the first Cœsar the barbarities of 
ambition. We recognise the vœ ri dis of the sectarian, 
the demagogue, and the soldier, united in the same 
individual. 

Thus, as it always happens, these two leading crimes, 
perpetuated without pity, rebounded back upon his 
cause and his memory. What did Cromwell desire ? 
Assuredly not the throne, for we have seen that it was 
frequently within his grasp, and he rejected it, that Provi- 
dence alone might reign. He wished to secure for his 
own party, the Independents, full religious liberty in 
matters of faith, guaranteed by a powerful representation 
of the people and the parliament, and presided over 
by a monarchical form of government at the head of 
this republic of saints. This is the direct conclusion to be 
drawn from his entire life, his actions, and his words. 

Now, in sparing the life of the vanquished sovereign, 
and in concluding, either with him or his sons, a national 
compact, a new Magna Charta, establishing religious and 
representative freedom throughout England, Cromwell 
would have left a head to the republic, a king to 
the royalists, an all-powerful parliament to the people, 

vol. IT. t 



262 OLIVER CROMWELL, 

and a victorious independence to the conscience of the 
nation. By putting Charles to death, and Ireland to the 
sword, he furnished a never-dying grievance to the sup- 
porters of the throne, martyrs to the persecuted faiths, 
with a long and certain re-action to absolute power, the 
established protestantism of the State, and the followers 
of the Roman-catholic Church. He prepared the inevi- 
table return of the last Stuarts, for dynasties are never 
extinguished in blood ; they expire rather by absence. 
His severity, sooner or later, recoiled upon his cause, 
and tarnished his memory. This biblical Marius can 
never be absolved from his proscriptions. After much 
slaughter, that he governed well and wisely, cannot be 
disputed. He laid the foundations of the great power of 
England, both by land and sea. But nations, who are 
often ungrateful for the virtue sacrificed in their cause, 
are doubly so for the crimes committed to promote their 
grandeur. Whatever the disciples of Machiavel, and the 
Convention, may say to the contrary, there are such 
things as national repentance and remorse, which per- 
petuate themselves with national history. Cromwell 
deeply wounded the conscience and humanity of England 
by his systematic cruelties. The stains of the royal and 
plebeian blood, which he shed without compunction, have 
indelibly imprinted themselves on his name. He has left 
a lofty but an unpopular memory. His glory belongs 
to England, but England inclines to suppress it. Her 
historians, her orators, her patriots, seldom refer to his 
name, and evince no desire to have it paraded before 
them. They blush to be so deeply indebted to such 
a man. British patriotism, which cannot historically 
ignore the reality of his services, profits by the basis of 
national power which Cromwell has established in Europe, 
but at the same time denies his personal claims ; it 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 263 

acknowledges the work, but repudiates the workman. 
The name of Cromwell, in the acceptation of the English 
people, resembles one of those massive druidical altars 
upon which their barbarous ancestors offered up sacrifices 
to their gods ; and which, while they have been thrown 
in to assist in the foundations of later edifices, can never 
be dis-interred or restored to light, without disclosing 
the traces of the blood so profusely scattered by savage 
superstition, 



t 2 



HOMER. 



TENTH CENTURY B. C. 



One of the most natural and universal faculties of man 
is that of re-producing, internally, by imagination and 
thought, and externally, by art and speech, the material 
and moral universe in the midst of which he has been 
placed by Providence. Man is the reflecting mirror of 
nature. Everything is re-created by him, and, through 
poetry, everything is re-animated and receives new life. 
It is another state of existence, which God has permitted 
man to make, by multiplying external being in his 
thoughts and in his words — an inferior power, but not 
the less real — which truly creates, although it only does 
so from the elements, the images, and recollections of 
what nature has embodied before him — an imitation 
like the sport of a child, yet still the play of the mind 
upon the impressions which it receives from nature — 
a play in which we continually reiterate the fleeting 
image of the external and internal worlds, which ex- 
pands, passes away, and renews itself unceasingly before 
us. Therefore doth poetry mean creation. 



HOMER. 265 

Memory is the first element of this creation, because 
it is by memory that we retrace upon our minds the 
image of things that have passed. The Muses, symbols 
of inspiration, were said by the ancients to be the 
daughters of Memory. 

Imagination is the second, — for imagination colours 
and animates the outline drawn by memory. 

Sensitiveness is the third, — because, on the sight or 
remembrance of past events presenting itself to the 
mind, sensitiveness causes us to receive physical or 
moral impressions, almost as strong and intense, as 
would be the impression of the events themselves, if 
actually occurring before our eyes. 

Judgment is the fourth, — for by it alone are we taught 
in what order, in what proportions, in what relations, 
and in what true harmony, to combine and arrange 
these remembrances or phantasms — these historical or 
imaginary incidents or feelings — that we may make them 
conform as much as possible to nature, to probability, 
and to truth, so that they may produce upon ourselves 
and upon others an impression as complete as if the 
fiction were reality. 

The fifth element necessary to this creation or to this 
poësy, is the gift of expressing by language what we 
observe and feel internally, — of producing outwardly 
what stirs us from within, — to paint with words, to give 
to words, as we may say, the colour, the impression, the 
movement, the pulsation, the life, the joy or the grief, 
felt by our own hearts at the sight of the object which 
we imagine. To this end two things are required ; 
firstly, that the language should already be rich, strong, 
and possessing delicate gradations of expression, without 
which the palette of the painter-poet would be incom- 
plete. Secondly, that the poet himself should be a 



266 HOMER. 

human instrument, very impressionable, very sensitive, 
and very complete in its sensations, — that not one chord 
should be wanting to his imagination or to his heart, — 
that he should be a living lyre vibrating with all its 
strings, — a human scale, in compass equal to nature, — 
so that everything, grave or trivial, mournful or gay, 
painful or pleasing, may find its note returned. But 
this is not enough : the notes of this human lyre must 
be sonorous and powerful, in order to communicate 
their vibration to others, and this internal vibration 
must give birth on the lips to strong, graphic, and 
striking expressions, which stamp themselves upon the 
mind by the force of their utterance. It is simply the 
strength of the impression which creates the word, for 
the language is but the echo of the thought. If the 
thought be strong, the word is forcible ; if the thought 
be mild, the language is soft, — weak, if the thought be 
weak. As is the blow, so is the sound. Such is the 
law of nature. 

Lastly, the sixth element necessary to this creation, 
which Ave call poësy, is that the poet's ear should possess 
musical feeling : for he sings where others speak, and 
all song requires music to mark its melody, and to 
render it more sonorous and more voluptuous to our 
senses, and to our mind. If you ask me, Why is song 
a necessary incident of poetical language? I answer, 
Because song is more beautiful than simple speech. 
But if you go a step farther and inquire of me, Why is 
this so? I tell you, I know not. Ask it of Him who 
made the senses and the ear of man to be more voluptu- 
ously impressed by the cadence, the symmetry, the 
measure, and the unison of sounds and words, than by 
discordant noises thrown out at random. I tell you, 
that rhythm and harmony are the two mysterious laws 



HOMER. 26*7 

of nature, which constitute the sovereign beauty and 
order of language. The spheres move to the measure 
of a divine melody ; the stars have each their song, and 
God is not only the great architect, the great mechanist, 
and the great poet of the universe, but he is also the 
dispenser of music. He measured the rhythm of crea- 
tion — He listens to its harmony. 

But the poet, as I have described him, must not 
only be gifted with a vast memory, a copious imagination, 
a keen sensitiveness, a clear judgment, a strong power 
of expression, a musical feeling as well of time as of 
harmony, — he must be a deep philosopher, for wisdom 
is the soul of his song ; he must be a legislator, for he 
should understand the laws which control the relations 
of men to each other, which are to society and to na- 
tions what mortar is to buildings ; he must have the 
warrior's spirit, for he has to sing of the battle-field and 
the storm of towns, the march and flight of armies ; 
he must have the soul of a hero, for he relates the 
achievements and the devoted sacrifices of the great ; he 
must be a historian, for his poems are narratives ; he 
must be eloquent, for his characters must harangue and 
debate ; he must have travelled, for he describes earth, 
sea, and mountains, the productions of nature, the 
monuments of men, and tire manners of people ; he must 
know animated and inorganic matter, geography, astro- 
nomy, navigation, agriculture, the arts, and even the 
common trades of his time, for his songs extend over 
heaven, earth, and ocean, and he draws his metaphors, 
his illustrations and his comparisons from the motion of 
the stars, the handling of vessels, the forms and habits 
of the wildest and the tamest beasts — a seaman amongst 
sailors, a herdsman amongst graziers, a labourer amongst 
labourers, a smith amongst smiths, a workman amongst 



2GS HOMER. 

workmen, even a beggar amongst the beggars at the palace 
or the cottage gate. His mind should be simple as a 
child's ; tender, compassionate, and pitiful as a woman's ; 
firm and inflexible as that of a judge or of a patriarch ; 
for he tells of the sports, the innocence and the can- 
dour of childhood, the loves of men and beauteous 
maidens, the affections and the woes of the heart, and 
the sympathy of compassion with misery : he writes with 
tears ; his masterpiece is to make them flow. He should 
be able to inspire men with pity, the most beautiful, 
because the most unselfish of human sympathies. Lastly, 
he should be truly pious, filled with the presence and 
worship of the Almighty, for he speaks as much of 
heaven as of earth. His mission is to make men 
aspire to the invisible and superior world, — to force all 
things, even though inanimate, to proclaim the name of 
the Most High, and to impress all the emotions he ex- 
cites in the mind or in the heart, with that immortal, 
infinite, and undefinable character which is, as it were, 
the atmosphere and invisible element of the Divinity. 

Such should be the perfect poet ; a living epitome of 
all the gifts, all the perceptions, all the endowments, all 
the wisdom, all the tenderness, all the virtuous and 
heroic instincts of the soul ; a creature as perfect as our 
imperfect humanity will allow. 

But even as soon as such a man appears upon earth, 
excommunicated by his very superiority, from the com- 
mon mass, unbelief and envy follow him as his shadow. 
Fortune, ever jealous of the gifts of nature, shuns him ; 
the vulgar, unable to understand him, scorn him as 
an unwelcome guest, — childhood, youth, and woman, 
secretly and stealthily listen to his song, for it awakens 
echoes in their still fresh and feeling hearts. Maturer 
men shake their heads, as not liking that their -wives 



HOMER. 209 

and children be thus drawn from the cold realities of 
life, and treat as dreams the ideas and the feelings 
which genius excites in the heads and hearts of their 
companions ; old men fear for their laws and customs ; 
the great and powerful, for their position ; courtiers, for 
their favours ; rivals, for a sharer in their glory. Real 
or affected disdain stifles the renown of these inspired 
spirits, misery and want accompany them from town 
to town, exile scatters, and persecution vexes them ; 
a child or a dog leads them, blind, infirm, and begging 
from door to door — or, a prison receives them, and their 
genius is called madness, that their gaolers may be ex- 
cused from pity. 

It is not only the vulgar that thus treat these sons of 
memory. A philosopher, even Plato himself, proposed 
laws and proscriptions against poets ! Yet Plato was 
right in his anathema against poetry ; for if the blind 
Ionian had entered Athens, perchance the people might 
have dethroned the philosopher. There is more practical 
wisdom in one song of Homer than in all the Utopian 
theories of Plato. 

Homer is this ideal, this superhuman being, unappre- 
ciated and persecuted in his day, immortal after his 
disappearance from earth. Let us endeavour to present 
his history. 

Some learned men have affirmed, and there are still 
those who maintain, that he never existed, and that his 
epics are rhapsodies or fragments of poetry strung toge- 
ther by the itinerant minstrels who wandered over Greece 
and Asia, singing popular ballads. Such an opinion is in- 
fidelity to genius. Its very absurdity refutes it. Would 
not a hundred Homers be more wonderful than one? 
Does not the unity and perfection of the work argue 
the unity of thought and perfection of hand of the 



270 HOMER, 

workman ? If the Minerva of Phidias had been broken 
up by the barbarians, and the limbs were brought to 
me, one by one, mutilated and soiled, yet fitting accu- 
rately together, and all bearing the mark of the same 
chisel, from the toe to the tips of the hair, should 
I be likely to say, after examining these incomparable 
fragments, " This statue is not the work of one Phi- 
dias — it is the work of a thousand unknown sculptors, 
the fragments of whose labours have been accidentally 
combined into this masterpiece of design and execu- 
tion ?" No ! I should reason from the unity of design 
to the unity of the artist, and I should say it was 
Phidias ; as all the world now says, it is Homer. We 
may therefore pass over these scepticisms, remnants of 
the old envy which has pursued him even to late pos- 
terity, and tell the story of his life. 

Homer was born 907 years* before the birth of Christ. 
He was of Greek origin, whether born at Chios, an island 
of the Archipelago between Greece and Asia Minor, or 
at Smyrna, an Asiatic town, but a Greek colony. 

The Greeks were then in a state of transition from 
their primitive condition of herdsmen and warriors, 
labourers and seamen, to the period of intellectual and 
moral development ; in that respect resembling the snows 
of their native Thessaly and Olympus, which roll down 
the hills in dark and troubled streams, before they sub- 
side, clear and still, in the valleys. This people, destined 
to occupy, for so small a country, so great a place in 
history, was a mixture of five or six races, some 
European, some African, and others Asiatic, which the 
close proximity of Europe, Asia, and Africa had com- 
mingled in this meeting point of the ancient world, 
this border land of three continents. Their cradle 

* According to the chronology of the Parian marble*. 



H0MEK. 271 

was amongst the rocks of Macedon and Epirus, but the 
boldness of the mountaineer, the adventurous spirit of 
the seaman, the wildness of the Asiatic, the religion of 
the Egyptian, the thoughtfulness of the Indian, and the 
vivacity of the Persian, were so well blended in their 
physical appearance, and in their varied genius, that 
their nation, by its beauty, its heroism, its grace, its 
adventurous and versatile character, was, as it were, the 
model of all nations. The forests of Europe gave the 
Greeks their fierce and heroic manners ; Egypt, their 
priests and their gods ; the Phoenicians, their alphabet ; 
the Persians and Lydians, their arts and poetry ; the 
Cretans, their Olympus and their laws ; the Thracians, 
their arms ; the Hellenes, their seamanship and their 
confederation as independent tribes ; the Hindoos, their 
mysteries and religious allegories ; so that their heaven 
was a colony of gods, just as their continent and their 
islands were a colony of men, drawn from all parts 
of the earth, with characteristics as varied as their 
derivations. 

The Greek Archipelago, with its gulfs and straits and 
tortuous channels winding along its indented coasts, now 
sweeping round a bluff head-land, now gliding past a 
fertile shore, seems meant to keep apart the two con- 
tinents, almost meeting where Byzantium sits hesitating 
between them. Sails, numerous as the sea birds, pass 
incessantly from isle to isle, from Africa to Asia, from 
Asia to Europe, like swarms from the same hive which 
mix in spring time on a bank of flowers. 

The climate of this mountainous and maritime country 
is as varied as its shape, and as mild as its latitude 
would indicate. Erom the eternal snows of Thessaly to 
the perpetual summer of the Lydian valleys, and the 
airy freshness of the isles, all the extremes and means 



272 HOMER. , 

of temperature meet or mingle amongst its mountains, 
plains, and estuaries. The sky is clear as that of Egypt, 
the earth fruitful as Syria, the sea occasionally calm, 
frequently stormy as in the tropics. The aspect and 
views of nature are, within a limited distance, and 
near enough for contrast, vast, confined, sublime, grace- 
ful, alpine, maritime, circumscribed, or unlimited as 
the imagination of man. All its features are imposing, 
picturesque, and dazzling. Sometimes as a hymn, at 
others as a poem, now an elegy, then a song, and again 
a voluptuous measure ; such is the land which more than 
all others addresses itself to the senses. The echoing 
rocks of the Peloponnesus, the thunder-stricken capes of 
the Taurus, the winding gulfs of Eubcea, the broad 
channel of the Bosphorus, the gloomy bays of Asia, the 
blue and green islets scattered upon the waters like the 
buoys of a cable connecting shore with shore ; Crete 
with its hundred cities ; Rhodes, from whence the rose re- 
ceived its name, or which derived its appellation from the 
flower; Scyros, the queen of the Cyclades ; Naxos; Hydra, 
the advanced guard of continental Greece ; Cyprus, vast 
enough for two kingdoms ; Chalcis, joined to Europe 
by a bridge across the Euripus ; Tenedos, the key of 
the Dardanelles ; Lemnos, Mytilene, and Lesbos, which 
repeats on a smaller scale the mountains and valleys, 
the gorges and gulfs of the continent of Asia, which it 
flanks ; Chios, which presents as it were, on its opposite 
sides, a double terrace of flowers, turning its olive-trees 
to Europe and its oranges to Asia ; Samos, with its deep 
havens and its peaks rivalling the height of My cale, 
round whose base it sweeps ; and many a group of isles 
besides, each with its people, its manners, its arts, its 
temples, its gods, its fables, its history, its name in 
Grecian story, — -but all of them already speaking the 



HOMER. 273 

same tongue and singing the same verses, — such was 
Greece when poetry became incarnate in the person of 
Homer. She wanted a historian, a national poet, one 
who should sing her gods, her heroes, and her exploits, 
to give her unity of thought and fame for the present 
and the future. 

In his hymn to the Delian Apollo, the god of Greek 
inspiration, Homer himself has described in some 
geographical verses these groups of isles and continents 
which unite all the poetry of nature. 

" Thou lovest," he says, " the peaks of the lofty 
mountains, the airy summits whence the sight pierces 
far, the rivers rolling to the sea, the head-lands sloping 

to the waves, and the broad havens ! Yes ! since 

the time when thy mother, Latona, resting upon Cynthus, 
bore thee to the sound of the blue waves, which the 
roaring wind was driving on both shores, thou reignest 
over this land and those that dwell therein ; over those 
of Crete and Attica; over those who inhabit iEgina 
and Eubcea, famous for its ships ; iEgaea, Iraesia, and 
Peparethus by the sea ; Athos and Samothrace and the 
summits of Pelion ; the wooded hills of Ida ; Imbros ; 
with houses spread along its coasts ; the inaccessible 
Lemnos ; Chios, fairest amongst the isles of the iEgaean ; 
the steep Mimas, and the peaks of Corycum; Claros, 
that dazzles the seaman, and iEsacus with its cloud- 
piercing summit ; Samos, full of fountains, and Mycale, 
with its terraces of hills ; Miletus and Cos, the abode 
of the Meropes ; Cnidos, seat of tempests ; Naxos and 
Paros, where the sea foams on the shoals. This Delos," 
he continues, " where Latona, seized with the pains of 
labour, clasps the palm-tree in her arms and presses 
the soft turf with her knees ; the earth which bore 
her smiled Then Delos gleams with gold, 



274 HOMER. 



like a mountain covered with forests. This is the 
isle in which the lonians (Smyrniotes) meet, in flowing 
garments, with their children and their chaste brides. 
Assembled in front of the temple, they appear like the 
immortals, free from age. The soul expands in behold- 
ing the beauty of the men, the majestic stature of the 
women, the swiftness of their galleys, and their mar- 
vellous wealth " 

Then the poet turns back upon himself after this 
enumeration, and addresses the maidens of Delos. " If 
ever," he says in his last stanza, " If ever amongst 
mortals an unfortunate traveller lands, and asks you, 
' Maidens, who is the greatest of the singers who visit 
your isle, and whom love you best to hear ? ' answer 
then all of you, remembering me, 'The blind old man 
of Chios' rocky isle ; and ever through the future shall 
his song surpass all other songs.' ' 

Such, in Homer's own language, were the country, 
the people, and the manners of Greece in his time. 

We take the story of his life simply from the ancient 
and local traditions, which have been orally trans- 
mitted amongst those who were most interested in his 
memory, since he was their preeminent glory. Traditions, 
extraordinary as they appear, are the lore of nations ; 
we believe more in them than in the learned, who come, 
centuries after, to dispute or deny them. In the absence 
of written books, the traditions of nations are the records 
of their races. What the father has told the son, and 
the son has repeated to his children, from age to age, is 
never without some real foundation. Retracing to their 
origin, through generation after generation, these family 
or national traditions, which are augmented by various 
fables in their transmission, is like following up the 
course of an unknown river. We at length reach a 



: 



HOMER, 



275 



source, small it is true, but still a source of truth. We 
shall therefore relate what was said concerning the most 
ancient and the most national genius of their race, by 
the Greeks, who were either the contemporaries, or the 
immediate followers, of Homer. 

In the city of Magnesia, a Greek colony of Asia 
Minor, separated by a chain of mountains from Smyrna, 
lived a Thessalian named Melanopus. He was poor, as 
those wanderers usually are, who emigrate from a country 
with which they are not connected by hereditary lands 
or wealth. He quitted Magnesia for another city at a 
short distance, into which the Magnesian valley, already 
too thickly peopled, was throwing new offshoots. This 
city was called Cumse. Melanopus there married a 
young Greek, as poor as himself, the daughter of his 
countryman Omyrethes. She bore him an only daughter, 
named Ciïtheïs, and shortly afterwards died. He him- 
self, feeling his death approaching, bequeathed his 
daughter, still an infant, to an Argive friend named 
Cleânax. 

The orphan's beauty was a source of misfortune to 
herself, and of happiness to Greece and to the world. It 
seems as if the most wonderful amongst men had been 
predestined not to know his father, as though Providence 
had seen fit to throw a mystery over his birth, in order 
to increase the prestige which accompanied him even 
from his cradle. 

Critheïs was beloved by a stranger, and allowed her- 
self to be surprised or seduced. The family of Cleânax, 
having discovered her fault, was afraid to encounter the 
reproach of an illegitimate birth beneath its roof. The 
disgrace of Critheïs was concealed, and she was sent to 
another Greek colony, w T hich was* then forming at the 
head of the Hermgean Gulf, and was called Smyrna. 



276' HOMER. 

Bearing within lier him who was now her shame, but 
who was hereafter to render her name famous, she was 
sheltered at Smyrna by a relation of Cleânax, a Boeotian, 
who had migrated to this new colony. He was named 
Ismenias. It does not appear whether this man was 
acquainted with her state ; she probably passed as a 
widow, or as having married at Cumae. However this 
may be, the orphan girl, having accompanied the Smyr- 
niote women to the banks of the Meles, where a festival 
in honour of the gods was held in the open air, was 
overtaken by the pains of labour. Under a plane-tree, 
on the grassy bank of the stream, her child saw the 
light, amidst the singing of hymns, and the march of a 
procession in honour of those divinities of whose worship 
he was afterwards to be the apostle. 

The companions of Critheïs brought her back in their 
arms, with the new-born infant, to Smyrna, to the house 
of Ismenias. From that day forth the little streamlet 
which glides amongst the cypresses and the reeds, past 
the suburbs of Smyrna, has borne a fame equal to that 
of the great rivers of the earth. The glory of the child 
is reflected even on the blade of grass on which he fell 
from his mother's bosom. Traditions tell, and chroniclers 
have written, how Orpheus, the first of the Greek poets 
who sung in verse his hymns to the immortals, was 
torn to pieces by the women of Mount Rhodope, angry 
at his preaching of greater gods than theirs ; and how 
his head, torn from his body, was thrown into the 
Hebrus, whose mouth is more than a hundred leagues 
from Smyrna. The river rolled the still tuneful head 
to the sea, and the blue waves carried it to the mouth 
of the Meles, landing it on the greensward of the meadow 
in which Critheïs gave birth to her child — as though it 
had come of its own accord to transmit its soul and its 



HOMER. 277 

inspiration to Homer. The nightingales, they say, sing 
nowhere so sweetly as on his tomb.* 

Whether Ismenias was too poor to keep both mother 
and child, or whether the birth of this fatherless infant 
had left a stain on the honour of Critheïs, he dismissed 
her from his hearth. She went from door to door seek- 
ing protection and shelter for herself and her offspring. 

At that time there dwelt in Smyrna a man, not rich, 
but good and kind of heart, as men frequently are who 
have been detached from things perishable by the study 
of things eternal. His name was Phemius. He kept a 
music school. Song was at that time the generic name 
for all that speaks to the imagination, the heart, and the 
senses ; all to which we can give utterance — grammar, 
reading, writing, eloquence, verse, music ; for what the 
ancients understood by music, addressed itself to the 
mind as much as to the ear. Poetry was sung ; it was not 
spoken. This music w r as but the art of making the 
verse conform to the accent, and the accent to the 
verse. Therefore was the school of Phemius called a 
school of music — music of the mind as well as of the 
ear — music which absorbs the whole soul. 

Phemius received in return for the care that he be- 
stowed on the youth under his charge, a payment, not in 
money, but in kind. The mountains which enclose the 
Gulf of Hermus, with Smyrna at its head, then formed, 
as they do now, a pastoral country, rich in flocks. The 
women spun the wool to make cloths, the ancient manu- 
facture of Ionia. Each of the children, on coming to the 
school of Phemius, brought with him an entire fleece, or a 
handful of wool from his father's sheep. Phemius used 
to have them spun by his servants, and dyed ready for 
the loom, and then exchanged them for the necessaries 

* M. de Marcellus, Episodes Littéraires eu Orient, vol. ii. 
VOL. II. U 



278 HOMER. 

of life. Critheïs, who had hoard of the schoolmaster's 
kindness to children, and had no doubt intended trust- 
ing her own son to him when of proper age, led him 
by the hand to Phemins' door. His heart was touched 
at once by the girl's beauty and grief, and by the youth 
and destitution of the child ; he received Critheïs into his 
house as a servant, allowing her to keep and bring up 
her child. He employed the young Magnesian in spin- 
ning the wool, the price of his lessons, and found her 
as modest as industrious, and as skilful as she was 
fair. He became attached to the child, whose pre- 
cocious intelligence seemed already to augur glory to 
the house to which the gods had directed it, and he 
proposed to Critheïs to marry her, thus giving a father 
to her infant. The hospitality and love of Phemius, 
and the advantage to the boy, induced her to become 
the wife of the schoolmaster, and the mistress of the 
house at the threshold of which she had stood but a few 
years before as a suppliant. 

Phemius became more and more attached to the young 
Melesigenes. This name, given familiarly to Homer, 
means child of Meles — in remembrance of the brook on 
whose banks he was born. His adopted father loved 
him as well for his own as for his mother's sake. At 
once a teacher and a parent to the child, he opened to 
him his whole heart and all the treasures of his skill. 
Homer, whose affections were won by the gentleness of 
Phemius, and who was endowed by nature with an 
intelligence that grasped everything, and a memory which 
nothing escaped, amply repaid by his progress the care 
of the old man, and satisfied his mother's pride. He 
was looked upon as likely soon to be capable, despite 
his extreme youth, to teach in the school, and one 
day to become the successor of Phemius. The gods, 



HOMER. 279 

unknown to him, had destined him less happiness and 
a different glory — the world to teach, and immortal 
honour for his reward. The child revered his master as a 
father, and, as a lasting recompense, gave the name of 
Phemius to the divine singer in his poems. 

Phemius died, leaving the child his little property and 
his school. Critheïs, deprived of the support she had 
found in the affection of her kind host, who had made her 
mistress of his house and even of his heart, was afflicted 
even unto death, and followed the old man to the grave. 
Homer was left alone, a mere youth, in the house from 
which he had received everything, and in which he had 
lost all. His wisdom supplied his want of years ; he 
kept on the school of Phemius, and soon increased its cele- 
brity, as Phemius himself had foretold on his death-bed. 
The future singer of the Iliad and the Odyssey, scarcely 
emerging from childhood, teaching music to children, 
speaking and singing an inspired tongue, seemed to the 
inhabitants of Smyrna a miracle which verified the pro- 
digy of his divine birth on the banks of their own Meles. 
Grown men, matrons, and even the old, went to admire 
and to weep at his lessons. The merchants of corn and 
wool, strangers whom commerce or curiosity drew from 
all the isles of Greece and the maritime cities of Ionia, 
in their vessels to the crowded roads of Smyrna, heard 
of this wonder. When they had shipped their cargoes, 
they would not return home without hearing one of his 
lessons. They carried the fame of the young school- 
master into their own countries. 

One of these strangers was called Mentes, and was 
both owner and master of his vessel. He had come to 
fetch wheat from Lyclia, to carry it to Leucadia, in the 
mountainous isle of Lesbos. Fonder of divine poetry 
than the other seamen who were in the roads, he sought 

u 2 



280 HOMER. 

not less for wisdom and knowledge than for wealth, in 
the lands which he visited. Struck with the genius 
and superiority of Homer over all whom he had heard 
in the schools and temples of Greece and Ionia, he 
sought the friendship of the young Melesigenes. He 
talked to him of the lands, the isles, the seas, the reli- 
gions, the cities, and the ports of the various shores to 
which his trade in corn had taken him; and he con- 
vinced him that the living and infinite book of nature 
was the real school of all truth, of all poetry, of all 
wisdom. He excited in the youth's mind the desire of 
reading with his own eyes in this book of God. Homer, 
to whom were wanting the images and types necessary 
to render intelligible the inexhaustible conceptions of his 
mind, nobly gave up the fortune and domestic renown 
which smiled upon him at Smyrna, that he might en- 
rich his imagination, improve his mind, and bring 
away recollections and observations from all parts of the 
earth. He closed his school, and sold the house and 
the wool of Phemius ; then, making the vessel of Mentes 
his home, he paid him the rent of this wandering abode 
for several years in advance. 

Homer, accompanied by his friend and pilot, Mentes, 
wandered over the ocean for many a year. By turns, or 
at once, traveller, merchant, sailor, and singer, he visited 
Egypt, — then the source of civilization, and the ori- 
ginal country of all the Pagan gods, — Spain, Italy, the 
shores of the Adriatic and the Peloponnesus ; the isles, 
the rocks, and the continents ; conversing with all, 
learning from the wise, and collecting, in notes which 
have since been lost, the descriptions, the recollections, 
the stories, and the types, from which he afterwards 
composed his poems. He was coming back, poor in 
purse, but rich in the stores of memory, to rest at length 



HOMER. 281 

in his own country, again to work for his bread, when a 
disease of the eyes, brought on by exposure to the sun, 
by study, and mental labour, obliged him to remain in 
Ithaca, where the commerce of Mentes had induced him 
to land. 

Mentes, obliged to take his freight to Lesbos, left his 
sick friend to the care of an Ithacan named Mentor, the 
son of Alcinoiis, rich, compassionate, and an admirer 
of poets. Mentor gave the divine singer the conso- 
lations of medicine, and the comforts of hospitality. 
Homer, who repaid by glory the debts of kindness, soon 
afterwards immortalized Mentor and Alcinoiis, by 
making the one the oracle of all wisdom, and the other 
the model of the happiness of a man absorbed, after a 
stormy life, in the cultivation of his gardens. He made 
Ithaca the scene of his poem of the Odyssey. In Ithaca 
he found the traditions of his hero, Ulysses ; he fixed 
them in his memory, and he gave to this little isle a 
gigantic renown. 

His rest in the grounds of Alcinoiis, the care of 
Mentor, and the balsams of the Ithacan physicians, 
whom he described as those divine men who heal the 
wounds of mortals, restored his health and sight. 

Mentes, faithful to his promise, crossed the iEgaean 
to convey him home from Ithaca. Homer again sailed 
several years with him. Seized once more with blind- 
ness in the port of Colophon, Mentes left him there to 
recover, as he had done before at Ithaca, Neither his 
staying ashore, nor the physicians' skill, coidd prevail 
against the will of the gods : he became blind, and the 
aspect of nature, which he so loved to look upon, was 
completely effaced from his eyes. But the picture was 
all the more brightly coloured, the stronger, and the 
deeper in his mind. What he no longer saw without, 



282 HOMER. 

he still could perceive within : memory supplied it all. 
Even his regret for the gladness of day and the joyous 
face of nature and of man, that he no longer saw, 
imparted a more piercing tone, and a more touching 
melancholy to this recollection of a world which had 
passed from his gaze. He turned his eyes back on 
himself, and he described the better, what he mourned 
that he could not behold. 

The first idea which presents itself to the mind, 
when all hope of cure is lost, is the idea of home. The 
wounded bird flies to its native cover. Homer had 
himself led back to Smyrna, to the house of Phemius, 
and near his mother's tomb. He reopened his school ; 
but during his long absence the citizens had forgotten 
his name and his art : others had filled his place. 
His blindness seemed a mark of the anger of the gods. 
The people could not understand that a man deprived 
of the most useful of the senses could teach the most 
sublime of the arts. His voice re-echoed in the empty 
hall ; his school was deserted ; his old friends had 
forgotten him. Poverty obliged him to sing ballads 
from door to door, to draw from the cold indifference 
of his fellow-countrymen the bread necessary for his 
support, and for the child who guided his steps. Always 
noble and majestic in expression and movement, despite 
the humiliating character of a sightless mendicant, he 
resembled one of the gods of his own fables, conscious 
of his superioritVj even while asking alms of mortals. 
Ulysses in the beggar's rags, as described in the 
Odyssey, is a reminiscence of this period of the poet's 
life. 

Whether it was that his fellow-citizens were deaf 
to his song, or that the feeling of shame, which drives 
the unfortunate from the scenes of their happier days, 



HOMER. 283 

made Homer's stay at Smyrna more bitter than hunger, 
he departed to seek in other towns a kinder audience. 
He crossed on foot the plain of the Hermus, intending 
first to go to Cumse, the home of his mother and of 
his grandfather, doubtless hoping that he should there 
find some traces of them in the remembrance of the 
old friends of her family. Fatigue stopped him at 
Neontichos, a little rising town, a colony of Cumse, built 
at the foot of Sedenus, and on the banks of the Hermus. 
As is the custom with beggars, who oftener seek con- 
versation with the humble labourer than with the rich, 
because the one works in the open air, while the other 
enjoys the shelter of his house or garden, Homer entered 
the workshop of a poor currier, who was dressing a hide, 
and poured forth his first verses to the Cumsean : — 

" O thou that dwellest in the town on the hill-side, 
below the forest -covered top of Sedenus, and that 
drinkest of the cool waters of the foaming Hermus, pity 
the homeless wanderer, and admit him to the hospitality 
of thy threshold and thy hearth." The currier, moved 
with compassion, and touched by this poetical appeal, 
brought him in, and offered him a seat in his workshop 
and a home in his house. The marvel of this beggar 
who spoke the language of the gods, spread through the 
town, and a crowd collected round the currier's door. 
The chief men of the place came into the shop, and, 
sitting round the blind man, kept questioning him 
and listening to his verses far into the night. He 
recited a heroic poem on the fall of Thebes, and sang 
hymns to the immortal gods, which filled his hearers 
with patriotism and religious fervour : for the ideas of 
their country and their God are the two impressions 
that tell most strongly on an assembled multitude. 
The conversation between Homer and the sages of the 



284 HOMER. 

town continued, and turned upon the beautiful poems 
which Orpheus and his disciples had handed down for 
the remembrance of men. He discussed and praised 
them with the tone of one who could equal them, — 
showing that he possessed the consummate skill of the 
artist as well as the power of the inspired poet. His 
hearers begged of him to honour their town with a long 
stay : they envied the currier the credit of having been 
the first host of the unknown stranger, to whom they 
sent presents, in order that they might have their share 
in the hospitality extended by the leather-dresser to the 
singer of the gods. 

He lived for some time by his lyre at Neontichos. In 
the time of Herodotus the place was still pointed out, 
where he used to sit to recite his verses, as well as 
the old poplars, whose first leaves had fallen on his 
brow. 

Having exhausted the wonder and admiration of the 
inhabitants, he feared lest they might tire of his longer 
sojourn, and he left them as poor as he came, having 
received from them nothing but a bare subsistence. He 
turned his steps to Cumse, and composed on the road 
some verses in honour of the Cumseans, to ensure a good 
reception. He passed through Larissa. At the request 
of the citizens, he gave them an inscription in verse for 
a column they had raised to the memory of a king 
whom they loved. These verses still exist. When he 
reached the gates of Cumse, he made himself known, 
and was recognised as a descendant of the Cumaeans. 
Brought before an assembly of the elders, he enchanted 
them with his poems. Delighted at finding men so 
fond of the lyre, he engaged to remain amongst them 
and to immortalize their name, provided the city would 
secure him a home and the means of subsistence. 



HOMER. 285 

The old men persuaded him to appear before the senate, 
to ratify the agreement between himself and the citizens. 
A crowd of his admirers escorted him. He appeared 
before the senators, repeated his demand, and withdrew, 
after his song was finished, to await the decision of the 
rulers. They were all inclined to maintain Homer, in 
return for the fame and glory that he would confer upon 
the town. But there arose one of those morose beings, 
who think themselves wiser than the multitude, because 
they share neither its enthusiasm nor its feeling. He 
warned them that if the city thus undertook to receive 
and maintain all the blind beggars wandering through 
Ionia, it would ruin the public treasury. The senate, 
unwilling to appear less wise, or less sparing of the 
public money than this member, changed its opinion, 
and refused Homer the hospitality of their city. The 
chief of the senate was charged with the communication 
of this harsh decision to the poet. He sat down on a stone 
by his side, and tried to soften the refusal by explaining 
the considerations of prudence and public interest which 
had influenced the determination of the council. Homer, 
grieved and indignant at the harshness of his fellow- 
citizens, burst into lamentations and reproaches before 
the pitying crowd around him. 

" To what miserable fate," he sung amidst his tears, 
" have the gods abandoned me ? Cradled in the lap of 
a tender mother, I drew her milk in this town whose 
shores are beaten by the waves of the sea, and whose 
gardens are watered by the Meles, henceforth a sacred 
stream. Tracked by misfortune, and shut out from 
the light of day, I was coining here, to the country of 
my mother, bringing with me the Muses, the sweet 
daughters of Jove, to ensure eternal fame to Cumse. 
And do its citizens refuse to hear their divine voices ? 



286 HOMER. 

May they be disinherited of memory, and may they 
reap the reward of those who insult misery and drive 
away the needy ! But as for me," he continued, " I 
can bear unmoved the destiny, whatever it may be, 
which the gods marked out for me when they cursed 
me with life. Already my impatient feet are drawing 
me away from this ungrateful town." 

He departed, praying the gods that Cumse might 
never give birth to a singer capable of giving renown to 
his birth-place. 

He dragged his weary steps to Phocsea, another 
Greek colony of Ionia, whence sprung the founders of 
Marseilles. The gulf, surrounded with rocks, and over- 
shadowed by plane-trees, seems to be a haven made by 
nature expressly to draw round it a sea-faring nation. 
Poetry flourished at Phocasa more than elsewhere, for 
the sea naturally excites meditation and song. There 
was a celebrated school of music in the town, kept by 
an eloquent, but jealous and astute man, who was 
acquainted with Homer's genius through the accounts 
of merchants from Smyrna, which was not far from 
Phocaea. His name was Thestorides. On hearing of 
the arrival of the poor blind man, Thestorides pretended 
to feel a generous pity. He went to meet him, and 
offered him board and lodging at his school, on the 
condition that Homer should commit to writing the 
poems that he had sung during his travels, and all 
those with which he might afterwards be inspired by 
the Muses. Homer, under the pressure of misery and 
blindness, yielded to the stringent requirements of 
Thestorides, and sold his talent to purchase life. 

Here it was that he wrote the most perfect of his 
poems, the " Iliad," a work both national and religious, 
in which the manners of the Greeks, the exploits of 



homer. :2S7 

their heroes, and the tables of their gods, are sung in 
melody never equalled in any language. 

Thestorides, having enriched his memory with a great 
number of verses purchased of his guest, and fearful 
that the theft might be too easily discovered, if he 
recited them as his own at Phocsea, went and esta- 
blished a school in the isle of Chios. There he grew 
rich by singing and selling the spoil of Homer, while 
the real author was himself languishing and begging 
at Phocaea. But this was not all. He was not only 
robbed of his glory, but he was even accused of himself 
pillaging from Thestorides Some sailors returning 
from Chios, where they had heard this poetry, hearing 
Homer recite the same verses on the quay at Phocaea, 
declared that the song was that of a poet at Chios. At 
this last blow, Homer, who until then had borne all 
with patience, grew indignant at the insults of fortune. 
He determined to confront his calumniator at Chios. 
He begged some sailors, who were proceeding to that 
island, to take him on board, promising to pay his 
passage by verses, of which the Greeks, even of the 
humblest callings, were passionately fond. The sailors 
suffered him to embark, out of compassion, as a pledge 
of the protection of the gods. He sang to them all day. 
They landed him at night upon a rock on the island, at 
which they themselves did not intend to stop. He 
slept near the shore under a pine-tree, from which a 
cone, shaken by the wind, fell on his head. This pine 
reminded him of the woods of Cumae, his country, and 
of the ingratitude of the town under the shadow of 
which he had in vain sought a refuge for his life. He 
speaks of it with bitterness in some verses which he 
addressed to the tree. At length he rose, and endea- 
voured to grope his way to the town. He followed 



288 HOMER. 

the bleating of a herd of goats, in the hopes of meeting 
with a shepherd. The watch dogs flew at his rags. 
The shepherd, named Glaucus, called them off, and ran 
to the traveller to save him from injury. He felt pity 
for his condition, and coidd not understand how a blind 
man had been able to climb those steep cliffs alone. He 
took Homer by the hand, led him into his cabin, lit the 
fire, prepared a simple meal, and made the poet sit down 
to it with him, the dogs barking at their feet, expecting 
their share. 

Homer, in some extempore verses, counselled the 
shepherds how to control these watchful guardians of 
the flocks. He subsequently remembered this adven- 
ture, and described it in the Odyssey, in the episode of 
the dog of Ulysses, first growling at, and then recognis- 
ing him. The imagination is little else than fragments 
of memory.* 

After the meal, Homer conversed with the shepherd 
of the places, the things, and the men he had seen in 
his long travels; and sung to him the most beautiful 
parts of his poems which are descriptive of pastoral or 
nautical life. The shepherd, fascinated by the know- 
ledge, wisdom, and poetry of his guest, forgot that the 
hours of the night were passing away. They at last lay 
down to rest on the same leaves. 

Before dawn, the shepherd, leaving Homer asleep in 
his cottage, went to the neighbouring town and told his 
master how he had met with this divine old man, and 
had entertained him hospitably. The master blamed 
him for his imprudence in trusting so easily the word 

* M. de Lamartine, quoting, no doubt, from memory, appears to have 
confounded the two episodes of Ulysses attacked by the dogs of Eu- 
mseus (Odyssey, b. xiv. lines 29 — 36) and of Ulysses recognised by his 
own dog Argus (b. xvii. lines 291 — 327). — Tr. 



HOMER. 289 

of a stranger. He however told Glaucus to bring his 
guest to Bolissus, that he might judge for himself. 
Homer accompanied the shepherd, and delighted the 
master with his conversation and his verses. He was 
entrusted with the education of the children of the 
family. Thestorides, hearing of his arrival at Chios, and 
afraid of being discovered and unmasked by the appear- 
ance of the man whom he had robbed of his glory, fled 
from the island, and went elsewhere to hide himself and 
his disgrace. 

After having educated the children of Glaucus' master 
at Bolissus, Homer, becoming more and more celebrated, 
founded a public school in the maritime city of Chios, 
the capital of the island. He obtained in this foreign 
land the popular favour he could never find in Smyrna, 
his own country. The youth of the island crowded to hear 
his lessons, and he became rich enough, by the gifts of 
their parents, to gather round him a family of his own. 
He married a native girl, who was able to forget his 
blindness in her admiration for his divine genius. His 
love for her may be estimated from the delicious pictures 
of conjugal affection so frequent in his poems. Two 
daughters were the offspring of this late marriage. One 
died in her youth ; the other married at Chios, and per- 
petuated his race in this isle, the adopted country of his 
old age. 

It was while in easy circumstances, and in the sweet 
leisure of his wedded life at Chios, that he wrote the 
Odyssey, the poem of his old age, a summary of his 
travels, his observations, his misfortunes, and his happi- 
ness ; and in which he introduces both as actors and 
speakers, under names dear to his memory, himself and 
all the persons whose kindness had made a lasting 
impression on his heart : — 



290 HOMER. 

Phemius, " his dear master and his second father, 
who excels all mortals in the art of song, and pressing 
with his finger the strings of his lyre, strikes the prelude 
of his sweet hymns." 

Mentes, his friend and his pilot from sea to sea, of 
whom he says, " I boast the name of Mentes, son of the 
noble Anchialus ; I command the Taphians, skilful to 
navigate ships upon the waves." 

Penelope, under whose name he celebrates " the 
beauty and fidelity of the chaste spouse, whom neither 
the seductions nor the gold of the young suitors, nor 
the rumours of the death of Ulysses, nor the absence, 
the adversity, nor the rags of her husband, could move 
from her love or from her fidelity to his bed." 

Tychius, the tanner, his first host at Neontichos, whose 
name he has immortalized in a passing allusion, in con- 
nexion with the shield of Ajax. " Ajax approached 
bearing a brazen buckler with seven folds of hide, 
strong as a tower, the work of Tychius, the tanner, who 
dwelt in his home of Hylè, by far the best of all makers 
of shields." 

He did not even forget his slaves ; and the faithful 
Eum^eus is no doubt the poetical reminiscence of one of 
those old servants whom attachment and years identify 
with a family, and who wait on its prosperity and decay, 
as the shadow of the tree on the lawn grows and dimi- 
nishes on the threshold, as each succeeding spring and 
autumn returns. 

The fame of his renown spread late, but wide, with 
his verses, from isle to isle, from port to port, through 
Ionia and throughout Greece. Every vessel that left 
Chios, carried away a scrap of his poems in the memory 
of its sailors or its warriors. Each sail, as it neared 
the island he had made his resting-place, brought him 



HOMER. £91 

admirers and disciples. lie grew older in glory than in 
years. The historian, as well as the poet, of Greece, 
each town, each colony, every family of the continent 
or of the isles, begged him to immortalize their names, 
their deeds, or their legends. He was, like Minos, the 
judge over the living and the dead ; he held the keys 
of the future : he was the high-priest of posterity, that 
divinity to which all great minds are devoted. Never 
on earth until the time of the prophets had poetry 
exercised such power. Genius had become greater 
than a king — it had made itself the arbiter of human 
immortality. 

Each land of Greece now desired to feel the footsteps 
of the blind old man whom each had repulsed a few 
short years before. Messengers and deputations of 
citizens came to him in their vessels to beg him to visit 
Greece, already full of his name. 

At a late period of his life he yielded to the impor- 
tunities of his country. He had, doubtless, lost the 
companion of his life, who, had she been still alive, 
would have detained him in the home of his happy 
days, from which the old man should not wander far, 
lest his tomb might be elsewhere. He departed for the 
last time to visit Greece, the country of his verses and of 
his fame. He first sailed for the mountain-isle of 
Samos, and landed on a day when they were celebrating 
a festival of the gods. Recognised, at the moment of 
his landing, by one of the islanders who had seen him 
at Chios, the rumour of the poet's arrival spread at once 
through the city ; the Samians crowded round him and 
begged him to enhance their ceremony by his presence. 
He accompanied the procession to the temple, and 
reaching its threshold just as they had lighted the holy 
tire, he sang, in verses inspired by the glare of the 



292 HOMER. 

sacred flames, — " O Samians, ' whose children are the 
delight of their parents, whose towers are the honour of 
the city, whose coursers adorn the meadows as they 
bound along the turf; whose vessels are the pride of 
the sea, and whose riches are the glory of its great 
houses ! Thy chiefs and ancients seated on their 
thrones in the great square afford one of the most 
majestic sights that the eye of man can witness ; but 
there is nothing on earth more noble and more holy 
than the dwelling-place of a family illumined by the 
flame from its hearth." 

The Samians, proud of the honour done to their 
island by such a guest, gave him the first place in their 
festival, and led him back in pomp to the house that 
had been prepared for him. 

On the morrow, while he was walking over the island, 
and having its towns and remarkable places described 
to him, so that he might again behold in spirit what 
years ago he had seen with his eyes, he passed a kiln, 
where some potters were moulding jars and baking 
their earthenware. The workmen recognised him and 
crowded round him, praying him to stop for a moment 
at their workshop, and to sing some verses to the 
honour of their art ; and they offered him, as his 
reward, the finest that they had made. Homer smiled, 
and taking his seat on the bottom of a jar, sang these 
verses, since well known amongst the potters by the title 
of " the Furnace :" — 

" Ho ! ye moulders of clay, who offer me a cup as 
the reward of my verses, hearken ye to the voice of 
my song ! 

" Thee I invoke, O Minerva, goddess of industry ! 
Come down, I pray thee, amongst these men, and lend 
thy skilful hand to their work. May the vessels which 



HOMER. 293 

come from this kiln, and especially those which are for 
the altars of the gods, be uniformly coloured by the hot 
breath of the furnace ! Let them harden gradually by 
the well moderated heat of the fire, and be sought after, 
for their beauty and strength, through all the streets 
and markets of Greece, that their price may bring 
wealth to the workmen, and bear out the praises of 
the poet. 

" But if you intend to deceive the blind man, and not 
to give me the cup you have promised, may the scourge 
of the immortal gods fall upon your furnace ! May the 
■fire destroy your pottery, and the oven give out a noise 
like a mad horse grinding his teeth ! May the potter 
behold with tears the ruins of his kiln, and he that 
stoops to look into the fire, may his face be seared by 
the recoil of the flame that shall consume your vases ! " 

He remained all the winter at Samos. Though no 
longer obliged by want to sell his songs for bread, he 
would still, from time to time, out of gratitude to the 
hospitable inhabitants of the island, sing verses adapted 
to the fortunes or conditions of the houses which he 
visited in the calm leisure of his latter days. A child 
guided him through the streets of the towns and along 
the paths in the countiy. Samian tradition has handed 
down from father to son some of these blessings of the 
blind poet of Chios, even as coins which we find here 
and there in the sand of the Samian shores. 

In remembrance of his former wanderings, Homer 
bore in his hand, like the beggars of old, a leafy bough. 
" We have now come," he would sing to his guide, " to 
the portal of the vast mansion of a wealthy citizen, echo- 
ing incessantly to the tread of servants and retainers. 
May its gates open to let Fortune in, and with her, 
serenity and leisure. Let there never be a store jar 

VOL. II. x 



294 HOMEK. 

empty in this happy dwelling, and may its granary 
always be full of fine flour. May the young bride of its 
heir leave it in her chariot, every time she goes ont, and 
let the hard-footed mnles bring her home in safety, that 
with her feet resting on a stool adorned with amber, she 
may embroider a costly tissue with her needle. As for 
me, I shall return to this roof like the swallow with 
each revolving year ! " 

The children of Samos used for a long while to sing 
these verses from door to door, while collecting for the 
religious festivals consecrated to benevolence or charity. 

At the return of spring, when the waves are calm 
and the breezes mild, he sailed again for the Gulf of 
Attica. The vessel which bore him being detained by 
a storm in the roadstead of the little island of Ios, Homer 
felt that life was leaving him. He had himself brought 
ashore, that he might die in peace on its sunny sands. 
His companions had made a bed for him under the sail, 
close to the sea. The rich people of the neighbouring 
town, which was built away from the coast, hearing of 
his arrival, and his sickness, came down the hill to offer 
him their houses, to bring him relief, to make him 
presents, and to show their respect. The shepherds, 
the fishermen, and the sailors of the coast crowded 
round him, expecting oracles, as though he were the 
mouth-piece of the gods upon earth. He continued 
speaking his inspired language with the learned, and 
conversing, even to his last breath, with the simple men, 
of whom he had so often described in his poems the 
manners, the labours, and the afflictions. His mind had 
passed into theirs with his song, and in giving up his 
soul to the gods, he did not snatch it from earth ; it had 
become the soul of Greece. 

And here it was that he expired, a shipwreck of life, 



HOMER. 295 

by the shore of the sounding sea. The sailors and the 
child who guided his footsteps, with the inhabitants of 
the town, and the fishers of the coast, dug him a grave 
in the sand, on the spot where he chose to die. They 
rolled a rock upon it, with these words engraved with a 
chisel -. — " This stone covers the sacred head of the 
divine Homer." Ios ever retained the ashes of him to 
whom she had given the last hospitality. The tomb of 
Homer gave to this hitherto obscure isle an interest far 
greater than would have done his birth, for which seven 
cities still contended. The recollection of the exact cove 
in which the blind old man was buried, became lost 
in the course of time and the changing fortunes of the 
isle. No rivalry of funerals, of monuments, or of vain 
observances, troubled his last long rest. The memory 
of man was his burial-place ; his own verses were his 
monument. 

In the isle of Chios, near the town, they still show 
a ridge of stone, of circular form, shaded by a plane- 
tree, which has existed, being renewed by off-shoots, for 
more than three thousand years. They call it the 
School of Homer. There, say they, the old blind man 
used to be led by his daughters, to whom he used to 
sing and teach his poems. Thence can be seen the two 
seas, the capes of Ionia, the snow-capped peaks of 
Olympus, and the golden shores of the isles, with the 
sails now shaking as they turn into the bays, now filling 
as they glide into the open sea. His daughters could 
look on this view, of which the magnificence and 
variety would have disturbed his inspirations. It would 
seem that nature, cruel, but at the same time compas- 
sionate, had intended to concentrate his whole soul on 
his internal perceptions, by throwing this veil over his 
sight, 

x 2 



296 HOMER. t 

From that time, they say, in the isles of the Archi- 
pelago, to blindness has been attributed the gift of 
inspiring song, and therefore do the cruel shepherds 
destroy the eyes of the nightingales, that they may 
strengthen the instinct of melody in the poor bird's 
brain and note. 

Such is the story of Homer — simple as nature, sor- 
rowful as life. It consists of suffering and song : and 
such is usually the fate of poets. Strings that are not 
strained can yield but little sound. Poetry is a cry of 
pain. None can give utterance to its piercing tones, 
save he that is wounded to the heart. Job cried to the 
Lord from his dung-heap and his anguish. In our 
days, as in the olden time, men gifted with this power 
must choose between their genius and their happiness, 
between life and immortality. 

And now ; is poetry worth this sacrifice ? What in- 
fluence had Homer upon civilization, and how did he 
contribute to its extension ? 

To answer this inquiry, it is sufficient to read. 

Suppose, in the infancy or youth of the world, that a 
half savage man, endowed only with the elementary, 
gross, and ferocious instincts, which are the foundation 
of our animal nature, before society, religion, and art 
have moulded, softened, spiritualized, and sanctified the 
human heart, — suppose that to such a man, alone in the 
depths of the forests, and engrossed by sensual appetites, 
a heavenly spirit were to teach the art of reading cha- 
racters traced upon papyrus, and then to disappear, 
leaving with him only the works of Homer. The savage 
reads, and as he turns page after page, a new world 
opens before his eyes. He feels expand within him 
thousands of thoughts, ideas, and feelings unknown 



HOMER. 297 

before ; a mere sensual being when he began to read, 
he has become an intellectual, and will soon be a moral 
creature. Homer reveals to him in the first place, the 
superior world, the immortality of the soul, the judg- 
ment after death, sovereign justice, the expiation, re- 
wards according to our virtues or our crimes, Heaven, 
and Hell ; — disguised no doubt by fables and allegories, 
but still visible and apparent through these symbols, as 
the figure beneath the drapery which covers while it 
shows it. He next tells him of glory, that passion for 
mutual esteem and eternal honour, which has been given 
to men as the instinct most nearly allied to virtue. He 
teaches him patriotism, in the exploits of the heroes who 
leave their ancestral realms, tearing themselves from the 
arms of wives and mothers, to shed their blood in na- 
tional expeditions, like the Trojan war, to give honour 
to their native land. He tells him of the calamities of 
war by describing the burning of Troy, and the com- 
bats beneath the walls. He teaches friendship by the 
example of Achilles and Patroclus ; wisdom, by that of 
Mentor ; conjugal fidelity, by Andromache ; considera- 
tion for age, by the old King Priamus, to whom Achilles 
gives up with tears the corpse of his son ; disgust for 
outrage to the dead, by the body of Hector dragged 
seven times around the walls of his own capital ; com- 
passion, for Astyanax led into slavery by the Greeks, 
while still a child in his mother's arms ; the vengeance 
of the gods, in the early death of Achilles ; the conse- 
quences of infidelity, in Helen ; scorn for the breach of 
domestic ties, in Menelaus ; the sacredness of laws, the 
utility of trades, the invention and the beauty of the 
arts ; — everywhere, in short, the interpretation of the 
language of nature, always pervaded by a moral signi- 



298 HOMER. 

ficancc, revealed in each of its phenomena in earth, sea, 
and sky : as it were, a cypher of correspondence between 
God and man, given so completely and so exactly in the 
verses of Homer, that the unseen and the material 
world, reflected each in the other like stars in a lake, 
seem to be but a single thought, and to speak with but 
one harmonious tongue to the gifted intelligence of the 
sightless poet. And yet this language is marked by such 
a melodious rhythm in its measure, and is full of such 
music in its expressions, that each thought seems to 
enter the mind through the ears, not only as an intel- 
ligent idea, but also as a sensuous delight ! 

Is it not clear that, after a long and familiar inter- 
course with this volume, the brutal and ferocious instincts 
would disappear, and the moral and intellectual nature 
expand in the savage to whom Homer would have been 
thus taught by Heaven ? 

What such a process would have done for a single 
man, Homer effected for an entire nation. Scarcely 
had death interrupted his heavenly song, before the 
Rhapsodists, or Homeric bards, wandering minstrels, 
their ears and memories still ringing with his verses, 
passed from isle to isle, and through all the towns 
of Greece, each boasting the exclusive knowledge of 
some mutilated fragment of his poems, and reciting it 
year after year, through one generation after another, in 
public festivals and religious solemnities, in the halls of 
the palaces and by the cottage hearths, as well as in the 
schools of the children ; so that an entire nation became 
the living and imperishable repository of this universal 
volume of classical antiquity. In the time of Ptolemy 
Philopater, the Smyrnseans built him temples. The 
Argives, also, paid him divine honours. For two 



homer. 299 

thousand years one soul breathed its spirit over this 
portion of the world. In the year 884 b. c. Lycurgus 
brought Homer's verses to Sparta, to train the minds 
of its citizens. Then came Solon, the founder of the 
democracy of Athens, and who, a greater statesman than 
Plato, understood the influence of genius on civilization, 
and had these scattered fragments collected into one 
book, as in later days the Romans collected the sacred 
pages of the Sibyl. Then came Alexander the Great, 
anxious above all things for immortal renown, and well 
knowing that the key of the future is in the hands of 
the poets ; he had a casket of marvellous richness made 
to contain the songs of Homer, and always put them 
under his pillow, that he might enjoy heavenly dreams. 
Then came the Romans, who esteemed none of their 
conquests in Greece equal to the possession of these 
poems ; and all the poetry of their nation was but the 
lengthened echo of this voice from the rocks of Chios. 
Then followed the darkness of the middle ages of bar- 
baric invasion, which for nearly a thousand years sank 
the West in ignorance, and which was scarcely begin- 
ning to break, before the manuscripts of Homer, re- 
discovered amongst the nuns of paganism, again became 
the study, and the source of inspiration and enthusiasm 
to the minds of men. Thus, the ancient world, with its 
history and poetry, its arts and trades, its civilization, 
manners, and religion, is all contained in Homer ; and 
even the literature of the modern world owes its ex- 
istence in so great a measure to him that, before this 
noblest of inspired writers, no man, be he whom he 
may, could without blushing take the title of poet. To 
ask whether such a man may be ranked amongst the 
benefactors of the human race, is to ask whether genius 



300 HOMER. 

sheds light or darkness over trie world ;. it is to renew 
the blasphemy of Plato ; it is to expel poetry from civili- 
zation ; it is to deprive humanity of its most glorious 
attribute, its perception of the infinite ; — it is to fling 
back to the Almighty the highest faculties with which 
he has endowed us, lest jealous minds be offended, and 
the material world appear poor and little, as compared 
with the splendour of imagination and the magnificence 
of nature. 



GUTENBEllG, 

THE INVENTOR OF PRINTING. 



A.D. 1400. 



Printing is the telescope of the soul. For, as the 
optical instrument called a telescope, brings near to 
the eye and magnifies all the objects of creation, and 
even the minute and distant stars of the firmament, so 
printing draws together and places the mind of the iso- 
lated individual in immediate, continuous, and perpetual 
communication with all the ideas of the invisible world, 
in the past, the present, and the future. It has been 
said that railways and steam have annihilated space. It 
may be said that printing has annihilated time. Thanks 
to this art, we are all contemporaries. I hold converse 
with Homer and Cicero, and the Homers and Ciceros 
of future ages will converse with us ; so that we may 
raise a doubt whether the press is not as truly an intel- 
lectual sense, revealed to man by Gutenberg, as a mate- 
rial machine. Doubtless its produce consists of paper, 
ink, characters, figures, and letters, which fall under the 
notice of the senses, but it at the same time gives birth 



302 GUTENBERG. 

to poetry, sentiment, morality, religion ; or, as we may- 
say, a portion of the human mind. 

Before mentioning the inventor, let us discuss the 
phenomenon. 

What constitutes man, is not simply the senses ; for 
the brute beasts have senses like our own, and some of 
them infinitely more delicate, stronger, and more un- 
erring than ours. What especially constitutes man, is 
thought. But so long as this thought does not exhibit 
itself either to us or to others by language, it is as if it 
were not. Language is not thought, but its necessary 
and co-ordinate manifestation. So long as a man has 
not been able to say " I think," he has not thought ; he 
has dreamed ; he has possessed instinct, not ideas. There 
has been intellect, doubtless, but intellect imprisoned and 
sleeping in the lethargy and night of the senses, like the 
fire hidden in powder, which does not appear until the 
spark coming near it makes it burst forth to life, light, 
and liberty. The spark which gives to thought its fire, 
its light, its liberty, its living power in man and in the 
human race, is Language : — the Word, as it was called 
by the ancients, who supposed the existence, under the 
name of this truly divine faculty, of something inter- 
mediate between God and man. 

They were right. Language is the revelation of soul 
to soul. Who else than God could reveal to the soul 
his own mysterious creation, this revelation of itself ? 

We are moreover inclined to think that language was 
not born of itself on the lips of the primitive man, chat- 
tering by accident, and attaching, as centuries rolled on, 
some vague meaning to inarticulate noises, and giving 
to others lessons which he had not received himself on 
the sound, the sequence, and the meaning of these human 
bleatings. To pass from these bleatings to speech, from 



GUTENBERG. 303 

speech to the unanimous agreement as to the meaning 
of words, from the meaning of a few words to the verb 
and the phrase, from the verb and phrase to logical 
syntax, from this logical syntax to the language of 
Moses, of David, of Cicero, of Confucius, and Racine, 
we must allow to the human race more centuries of 
existence on this ball of mud than there are stars visible 
or invisible in the milky way. We must also suppose 
centuries without number of brutishness, during which 
the race of man (a being essentially moral and intellec- 
tual) must have vainly sought, like the animals, an instru- 
ment of morality and intelligence, without being able to 
discover it until after the lapse of numberless gene- 
rations, without speech, and consequently without intel- 
ligence, and without morality. The human race deaf and 
dumb for a hundred thousand years ! I should think it 
blasphemy to believe in such an incredible mystery ! 

I prefer the other alternative, the paternal mystery 
of the Creator himself inspiring into the lips of his 
infant creature, speech, words, language, and that 
natural expression which affixes to things, at first sight, 
names appropriate to their form and character. For 
giving things their real names is in fact creating them 
anew. Yes, indeed ! He must have taught the first 
word and the first language ; He who has made intellect 
and feeling to be communicated from man to man, the 
breast to serve as a sounding-board to the tense and 
trembling strings of our heart, like a musical scale, 
always complete, which we carry within us; He who 
made the tongue to articulate, the lips to pronounce, the 
voice to carry out the echo of the soul. The wreck of 
this first and perfect language, decomposed by intellec- 
tual decay, must have been remodelled into other various 
and imperfect languages, as the stones of a ruined temple 



304 GUTENBERG. 

are slowly built up in the desert' to form a shelter for the 
caravan. 

When language had been given, found, or invented, 
there were still many centuries to elapse before reaching 
the other phenomenon, of confining invisible and imma- 
terial thought in visible and material signs, engraven on 
a palpable substance. This phenomenon is the art of 
writing. Writing transfers thought from one sense to 
another. Speech communicates the thought from the 
mouth to the ear, through the medium of sound ; writing 
seizes the impalpable sound on its passage, transforms 
it into signs or letters, and thus communicates thought 
from the hand to the eyes. The eyes communicate it to 
the mind, by that ever mysterious relation which exists 
between our intellect and our senses, and behold speech 
become visible and palpable, instead of invisible and 
immaterial as it was before ! Is any miracle comparable 
to this ? 

It is not really known who invented writing. All that 
is almost divine is anonymous. It is not given to a man 
to affix his individual name to a discovery which is 
evidently collective, and belongs to all humanity : but 
here we may incontestably trace the action of men, not 
of God. When once speech was recognised and made, it 
only remained to transpose it from the ear to the eyes. 
That was a difficult work, but still it was a work for 
man. By writing, language acquired two inseparable 
qualities, which it did not possess, so long as it was only 
spoken, and fugitive as the sound. Written language 
acquired permanency and the faculty of transmission, 
thus becoming eternal and universal. It might be re- 
tained for ever, and be heard everywhere. 

Thus from the day when language became written, the 
human race, in perpetual communion with itself, in spite 



GUTENBERG. 305 

of distance, and in spite of death, made immense and 
almost uninterrupted strides in civilization. It became, 
like God, present to all time. It enriched itself with 
the past, cultivated the present, and laid up store for the 
future. It recorded its ideas, its songs, its histories, its 
laws, its sciences, its arts, its religions, its earth, and its 
heaven. It fixed, so to speak, its fugitive ideas, and 
it wrote institutes. The civilization of any particular 
country of the earth was included everywhere in a single 
manifestation, The Book. The world was nothing but 
Bibles. Zoroaster, Moses, Confucius, Mahomet, had 
each their book — each their own civilization, their moral 
code, their legislation, their philosophy, their creed, their 
theology, each in turn ruling the world, or fighting for 
its possession. And now the world belongs to the most 
holy and most universal of books. 

A million hands grasped the reed of the Egyptian, the 
pen of the Greek, the stylus of the Roman, the papyrus, 
the palm-tree bark, the parchment of the middle ages, 
the paper of the modern European, and hastened to 
transfer to all tongues the written word, an object of 
faith for the mind, an instrument for art and commerce, 
and a means of occupation for the industrious. Manu- 
scripts were produced in incredible numbers over all the 
earth. China, our precursor in all inventions, alone 
possessed, with a language three times as perfect as 
ours, a species of stereotype or printing, which spread 
amongst its innumerable population ideas, morality, 
laws, and religion. 

Everywhere else the unaided hand of man was the 
interpreter of the mind. The business of a transcriber 
was one of the most numerous, most honourable, and 
most lucrative occupations. Booksellers kept thousands 
of scribes, sold their copies, paid them their wages, and 



306 GUTENBERG. 

made a profit upon thought. In Rome, and in the large 
towns of Greece and Asia, there were particular quarters 
for this trade in written ideas and language. Rich men 
kept chosen slaves, bought at a higher price and treated 
more familiarly than other slaves, and who were specially 
occupied in copying the celebrated works of antiquity, 
and of their own time, for their libraries. The govern- 
ment kept a great number for its decrees, and the orators 
for their discourses. Later, in the times of the Lower 
Empire, it was the eunuchs, a degraded and at the 
same time a privileged class, who copied the master- 
pieces of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew antiquity, at 
Byzantium. 

Lastly, there were the monks, voluntary transcribers, 
who, in the silence of their monasteries, devoted them- 
selves to this multiplying of holy writ or profane history, 
by copying and re-copying millions of manuscripts of 
the Bible and Testament, and of the illustrious authors 
of antiquity, on the revival of literature. Like the slaves 
and eunuchs, these monks, lodged, fed, and clothed 
gratuitously, in monasteries founded and endowed by 
the munificence of kings, landowners, or wealthy be- 
lievers, could publish works of genius at a very moderate 
price. They needed no pay, because their order, enriched 
by the gifts and endowments of their religion, provided 
for all their wants. 

These manuscripts, the leisure occupation of the 
monks, and the manual labour and commercial profit of 
laymen and clerks, soon became objects for artistic 
embellishment, giving rise to masterpieces of patience, 
calligraphy, miniature, and designs drawn with the pen, 
and coloured with the hair-pencil. The art of printing, 
however perfect it may now be in the hands of the 
Bidots, the Bodonis, the Bentleys, and other great leaders 



GUTENBERG. 307 

of the press, has not yet equalled, and perhaps will never 
equal, some of these manuscripts, the pages of which, 
like the temples of Jerusalem, Rome, or Cologne, have 
employed thousands of hands, and employed successive 
generations of monks and artists. 

Nevertheless, there were always two points in which 
this mode of re-producing writing was immensely inferior 
to printing. It was slow, and it was expensive. It did 
not produce a sufficient number of copies to meet the 
requirements of an unlimited number of readers, and 
rich men alone could have libraries. The enlightenment 
of the mind was the privilege of the clergy, of princes and 
courts, and of the great men of the earth : it did not 
descend to the lower classes of the people. The head of 
society was in the sunshine, its feet in shadow. 

Another power was also wanting in the manuscript 
system — rapidity. The newspaper, which spreads ideas 
with the speed of light, in a few hours, and in a small 
compass, from one extremity of an empire to the other, 
could not then exist. Language formed a book, never 
a sheet. It was not coined so as to pass from hand to 
hand over the whole universe, like the common penny ; 
there were vast vacancies, and long periods of silence in 
the intercommunication of the human mind. The pro- 
gress of truth, of science, of letters, of art, of political 
knowledge, was slow and uncertain for long ages. 

Such was, in the year 1400, the state of human lan- 
guage. It required a revolution in machinery to prepare 
the innumerable revolutions in ideas, of which Providence 
reserved the accomplishment for the human race by the 
hand of an obscure mechanic ; and what is more remark- 
able is, that this mechanic, as if he had been propheti- 
cally inspired by Providence, did not work out this 
wonder by chance or from greediness of gain, as so many 



308 GUTENBERG. 

inventors have done : no ; he worked it out from piety, 
and with the holy passion and conscientious prescience 
of what he was to accomplish. He had said to himself 
from his earliest years : " God suffers in the multitude 
of souls whom his holy word cannot reach. Religious 
truth is imprisoned in a small number of manuscript 
books which confine instead of spreading the public 
treasure. Let us break the seal which seals up holy 
things, and give wings to truth, in order that she may 
go and win every soul that comes into this world, by her 
word, no longer written at great expense by a hand 
easily palsied, but multiplied like the wind by an untiring 
machine." 

The man who addressed this noble sentiment to him- 
self, and who set himself this problem, either to solve it, 
or to perish at the task, was Gutenberg. 

Hans Gensfleich Gutenberg von Sorgeloch was a 
young patrician, born at Mayence, a free and wealthy 
city on the banks of the Rhine, in the year 1400. His 
father, Eriel Gensfleich, married Else von Gutenberg, 
who gave her name to her second son John. 

It is probable that if Mayence, his country, had not 
been a free city, this young gentleman would have been 
unable to conceive or to carry into execution his inven- 
tion. Despotism and superstition equally insist upon 
silence ; they would have stifled the universal and resist- 
less echo which genius was about to create for written 
words. Printing and liberty were both to spring from 
the same soil and the same climate. 

Mayence, Strasburg, Worms, and other municipal 
towns on the Rhine, then governed themselves, under 
the suzerainty of the Empire, as small federal republics, 
like Florence, Genoa, Venice, and the other states of 
Italy. The nobility warlike, the burgesses increasing in 



GUTENBERG. 309 

importance, and the labouring population vacillating 
between these two classes, who alternately oppressed 
and courted it, and from time to time, here as every- 
where, fought for supremacy. Outbursts of civil war, 
excited by vanity or interest, and in which the victory 
remained sometimes with the patricians, sometimes with 
the burgesses, and at others with the artizans, made them 
alternately victors, conquered, and proscribed. This is 
the history of all cities, of all republics, and of all 
empires. Mayence was a miniature of Rome or Athens, 
only the proscribed party had not the sea to cross to 
escape from their country ; they went outside the walls, 
and crossed the Rhine; those of Strasburg going to 
Mayence, and those of Mayence to Strasburg, to wait 
until their party recovered power, or until they were 
recalled by their fellow-citizens. 

In these intestine struggles of Mayence, the young 
Gutenberg, himself a gentleman, and naturally fighting 
for the cause most holy in a son's eyes — that of his 
father — was defeated by the burgesses, and banished, 
with all the knights of his family, from the territory of 
Mayence. His mother and sisters alone remained there 
in possession of their property, as innocent victims on 
whom the faults of the nobility should not be visited. 
His first banishment was short, and peace was ratified 
by the return of the refugees. A vain quarrel about 
precedence in the public ceremonies on the occasion of 
the solemn entry of the Emperor Robert, accompanied 
by the Archbishop Conrad, into Mayence, refreshed the 
animosity of the two classes in 1420, and young Guten- 
berg, at the age of nineteen, underwent his second 
exile. 

The free city of Frankfort now offered itself as a 
mediator between the nobles and plebeians of Mayence, 

VOL. II. y 



310 



GUTENBERG. 



and procured their recal on condition of the governing 
magistracy being equally shared between the high classes 
and the burgesses. But Gutenberg, whether his valour 
in the civil war had rendered him more obnoxious and 
more hostile to the burgesses ; whether his pride, 
fostered by the traditions of his race, could not submit 
patiently to an equality with plebeians ; or whether, 
more probably, ten years of exile and study at Strasburg 
had already turned the bent of his thoughts to a nobler 
object than the vain honours of a free city, refused to 
return to his country. His mother, who watched over 
her son's interest at Mayence, petitioned the republic to 
allow him to receive as a pension, a small portion of the 
revenues of his confiscated possessions. The republic 
replied that the young patrician's refusal to return to 
his country was a declaration of war, and that the re- 
public did not pay its enemies. Gutenberg, persisting 
in his voluntary exile, and in his disdain, lived on the 
secret remittances of his mother. 

But at Strasburg he already enjoyed so great a popu- 
larity for his disposition and his acquirements, that one 
day, when the chief magistrate of Mayence was passing 
through the territory of Strasburg, he was arrested by 
the friends of Gutenberg, shut up in a castle, and did 
not recover his liberty until the city of Mayence had 
signed a treaty which restored the exile his patrimony. 
Thus this youth, the great tribune of the human mind, 
whose invention was destined to destroy for ever the 
prejudices of race, and to restore, in after times, liberty 
and civil equality to all the plebeians of the world, began 
his life, as yet unrecognised, at the head of the patrician 
party of his country, in these struggles between the privi- 
leged castes and the people. Fortune seemed to delight 
in the contrast. But Gutenberg's wisdom, increasing 



GUTENBERG. 311 

with his age, was afterwards destined to re-unite 
the people and nobility, who looked on each other 
as enemies. 

The restoration of his goods allowed young Gutenberg 
to satisfy his literary, religious, and artistic tastes, by 
travelling from town to town to study monuments, and 
visit men of all conditions celebrated for their science, 
their art, or even their trade. The artisans of Germany 
then held nearly the same rank as the artists. It was at 
the time when the trades, scarcely known, were confused 
with the arts, and when the most humble professions 
produced their earliest masterpieces, which, on account 
of their novelty, were looked upon as prodigies. Guten- 
berg travelled alone, on foot, carrying a knapsack con- 
taining books and clothes, like a mere student visiting 
the schools, or a journeyman looking for a master. He 
thus went through the Rhenish provinces, Italy, Switzer- 
land, Germany, and lastly Holland, not without an 
object, like a man who lets his imagination wander at 
the caprice of his footsteps, but carrying everywhere 
with him a fixed idea, an unchanging will led by a 
presentiment. This guiding star was the thought of 
spreading the word of God and the Bible amongst 
a vaster number of souls. 

Thus it was religion which, in this young wandering 
apostle, was seeking the soil wherein to sow a single 
seed, of which the fruit hereafter was to be a thousand 
various grains. It is the glory of printing that it was 
given to the world by religion, not by industry. Reli- 
gious enthusiasm was alone worthy to give birth to the 
instrument of truth. 

What mechanical processes Gutenberg may until then 
have revolved in his mind, remains unknown. What- 
ever they were, chance effaced them all, and brought 

y 2 



312 GUTENBERG. 

him at once upon his great discovery. One day at 
Haarlem, in Holland, the verger of the Cathedral, named 
Lawrence Koster, with whom he had established friendly 
relations, showed him in the sacristy a Latin grammar, 
curiously wrought in engraved letters on a wooden 
board, for the instruction of the seminarists. Chance, 
that gratuitous teacher, had produced this approach to 
printing. 

The poor and youthful sacristan of Haarlem was in 
love. He used to w r alk on holy day s in the spring out- 
side the town, and sit under the willows by the canals, 
to indulge in his day dreams. His heart full of the 
image of his bride, he used to amuse himself, in true 
lover's fashion, by engraving with his knife the initials 
of his mistress and himself, interlaced, as an emblem of 
the union of their hearts and of their interwoven desti- 
nies. But, instead of cutting these cyphers on the bark, 
and leaving them to grow with the tree, like the myste- 
rious cyphers so often seen on the trees in the forests 
and by the brooks, he engraved them on little blocks of 
willow stripped of their bark, and still reeking with the 
moisture of their sap ; and he used to carry them, as 
a remembrance of his dreams and a pledge of affection, 
to his lady-love. 

One day, having thus cut some letters on the green 
wood, probably with more care and perfection than 
usual, he wrapped up his little work in a piece of parch- 
ment and brought it with him to Haarlem. On opening 
it the next day, to look at his letters, he was astonished 
to see the cypher perfectly re-produced in brown on the 
parchment, by the relieved portion of the letters, the 
sap having oozed out during the night and imprinted its 
image on the envelope. This was a discovery. He 
engraved other letters on a large platter, replaced the 



GUTENBERG. 313 

sap by a black liquid, and thus obtained the first proof 
ever printed. But it would only print a single page. 
The movable variety, and endless combinations of cha- 
racters infinitely multiplied, to meet the vast require- 
ments of literature, were wanting. The invention of 
the poor sacristan would have covered the surface of the 
earth with plates engraved or sculptured in relief, but 
would not have been a substitute for a single case of 
movable type. Nevertheless, the principle of the art 
was developed in the sacristy of Haarlem, and we 
might hesitate whether to attribute the honour of it to 
Koster or Gutenberg, if its invention had not been with 
one the mere accidental discovery of love and chance, 
and, in the other, the well-earned victory of patience 
and genius. 

At the sight of this coarse plank, the lightning from 
heaven flashed before the eyes of Gutenberg. He 
looked at the plank, and, in his imagination, analysed 
it, decomposed it, put it together again, changed it, 
undid it, readjusted it, reversed it, smeared it with ink, 
placed the parchment on it, and pressed it with a screw. 
The sacristan, wandering at his long silence, was un- 
wittingly present at this development of an idea, over 
which his visitor had brooded in vain for the last ten 
years. When Gutenberg retired, he carried a new art 
with him. 

On the morrow, like a man who possesses a treasure, 
and knows neither rest nor sleep until he has hidden it 
safely, Gutenberg left Haarlem, hastened up the Rhine 
until he reached Strasburg, shut himself up in his work- 
room, fashioned his own tools, tried, broke, planned, 
rejected, returned to his plans, and again rejected them, 
only to return to them again, and ended by secretly 
executing a fortunate proof upon parchment with mov- 
able wooden types, bored through the side with a small 



314 GUTENBERG. 

hole, strung together and kept close by a thread, like 
square beads on a chaplet, each with a letter of the 
alphabet cut in relief on one side ; — the first printer's 
alphabet, coarse, but wonderful ; — the first company of 
twenty-four letters, which multiplied like the herds of 
the patriarch, until at last they covered the whole earth 
with written characters, in which a new and immaterial 
element — human thought — became incarnate ! 

The enthusiasm of success took possession of him. 
He slept ill the following night. In his short and 
troubled sleep he had a dream, which he afterwards 
related to his friends. This dream was so prophetic 
and so near the truth, that we may almost question, 
in reading it, whether it is not rather the prescient 
reflection of waking genius than the fevered imagination 
of a sleeping workman. 

Here is the account or recital of this dream, as it is 
preserved in the library of the Aulic Councillor Beck : — 

" In a cell of the cloister of Arbogast, a man with a 
pale face, long beard, and steadfast look, sate before 
a table, with his head leaning on his hand. That man 
was called John Gutenberg. Sometimes he raised his 
head, and his eyes gleamed as if reflecting a light from 
within : then he would pass his fingers through his 
beard with a quick movement of joy. It was because 
the hermit of the cell was working a problem of which 
he already half perceived the solution. Suddenly Guten- 
berg arose, and a cry burst from him like the relief of 
a thought long repressed. He ran to a chest, opened 
it, and took out a cutting tool ; then, with convulsive 
efforts he began working a piece of wood, all his move- 
ments evincing joy and anxiety, as if he feared lest his 
idea should escape him, and that he should lose the 
diamond he wished to shape and set for posterity. He 



GUTENBERG. 315 

worked hard and with feverish anxiety, the perspiration 
streaming down his forehead, while his eyes ardently 
watched the progress of his labour. He worked for a 
long time; but the time seemed short. At last he 
dipped the wood into a black liquid, placed it on the 
parchment, and throwing all the weight of his body on 
his hand, for want of a press, he printed the first letter 
he had cut out. He looked, and a second cry, full of 
the ecstacy of successful genius, burst from him. He 
closed his eyes with a look of happiness, such as the 
saints of Paradise might envy, and fell exhausted on 
a bench. When sleep overtook him he was murmuring, 
" I am immortal." 

Then he had a dream which troubled his mind. 

" I heard two voices," he says, " two unknown 
voices of different tones, which spoke alternately in my 
soul. One said to me, - Rejoice, John : thou art 
immortal ! Henceforth, by thy means shall all know- 
ledge be spread over the world. Nations which dwell 
thousands of miles from thee, strangers to the ideas of 
thy country, shall read and understand thoughts yet 
silent, but hereafter to be spread and multiplied like the 
reflection of fire, by thee, and by thy hand ! 

" ' Rejoice, John : thou art immortal ; for thou art the 
interpreter whom the nations await before holding con- 
verse with each other. Thou art immortal, for thy dis- 
covery will give everlasting life to genius which would 
have been still-born without thee, and whose gratitude 
will in return proclaim the immortality of him who has 
made it immortal !' 

" The voice was still, and left me full of the joyous 
madness of glory. I heard another voice, which said — 

" c Yes, John, thou art immortal ! but at what a cost ! 



316 GUTENBERG. 

Are then the thoughts of thy fellow-men always so holy 
and so pure as to merit being given to the eyes and ears 
of the Imman race ? Are not many of them, and per- 
haps the greater part, such as would a thousand times 
rather deserve to be stifled and annihilated, than 
repeated and multiplied over the world ? 

" ' Man is oftener perverse, than wise and good. He 
will profane thy gift : he will abuse the new sense 
with which thou hast endowed him. Many a century 
shall give thee a curse instead of a blessing ! 

" ' Men will arise of powerful and attractive minds, 
but of proud and corrupt hearts. Without thee, they 
would have remained in darkness, and confined to a nar- 
row circle, doing evil only to their neighbours and in 
their own time. By thy means, they will bring mad- 
ness, misfortune, and crime upon all men and all ages ! 

" ' See the thousands of souls polluted by the corrup- 
tion of one ! Youths perverted by books from whose 
pages distils the venom of the spirit ! Young girls 
become immodest, unbelieving, and harsh to the poor, 
owing to the pages which poison their hearts ! See the 
mothers weeping over their sons, and the fathers blush- 
ing for their daughters ! 

" ' John ! the immortality which costs such tears and 
anguish, is it not too dear? Wilt thou purchase glory, 
at such a price? Nearest thou not the responsibility 
which will weigh upon thy soul ? 

" ' Believe me, John, live as though thy discovery had 
not been. Look upon thine invention as an attractive 
but fatal dream, of which the realization would be useful 
and holy, only if man were good. But man is evil, and, 
lending arms to the wicked, is it not sharing in their 
guilt?' 

" I awoke in an agony of doubt. I hesitated for a 



GUTENBERG. 317 

moment, but I reflected that the gifts of God, though 
sometimes dangerous, were never evil, and that giving 
another instrument to reason, and to the glorious liberty 
of man, was opening a wider field to intellect and virtue, 
both divine ! I pursued my discovery." 

Gutenberg, perceiving at the first glance the immense 
social and industrial bearing of his invention, felt that his 
weak hand, short life, and moderate property, would be 
spent in vain on such a work. He experienced two 
opposite wants ; the necessity of associating with him- 
self persons to assist in meeting the expenses and in 
executing the mechanical labour, and the necessity of 
concealing from his assistants the secret and real object 
of their labours, for fear lest his invention might be 
divulged and pirated, and the glory and merit of his dis- 
covery taken from him. He cast his eyes on the nobility 
and rich gentry of his acquaintance at Strasburg and 
Mayence. He probably met with rebuffs from all quar- 
ters, on account of the prejudice then prevailing that 
handicrafts were derogatory to a gentleman. He was, 
therefore, obliged boldly to sink his rank, become a 
workman, associate with artisans, and mix with the 
people, in order to raise the people to the high level of 
morality and intelligence. 

Under the pretence of working together at a new a?id 
marvellous craft, such as jewellery, clock-making, and 
grinding and setting precious stones, he entered into a 
deed of partnership with two wealthy inhabitants of 
Strasburg, Andrew Dritzehen and Hans Riffe, bailiff of 
Lichtenau ; and afterwards with Faust, a goldsmith and 
banker of Mayence, whose name, confounded with that 
of Faustus, the wondrous sorcerer of German fable, the 
master of mystery, and the friend of the Evil One, 



318 GUTENBERG. 

caused tlie invention of printing to be attributed to 
magic; and lastly with Heilmann, whose brother had 
just established the first paper mill at Strasburg. 

In order the more effectually to conceal from his 
partners the real object of his pursuit, Gutenberg joined 
them in several artistic and secondary enterprises. Con- 
tinuing in secret his mechanical researches on printing, 
he employed himself publicly in these other occupations. 
He taught Dritzehen the art of cutting precious stones. 
He himself polished Venetian glass for mirrors, or cut 
pieces of it into facets, setting them in copper frames 
ornamented with wooden figurines representing per- 
sonages from history or fable, from the Bible or the 
Testament. These articles, which found sale at the fair 
of Aix-la-Chapelle, kept up the funds of the association 
and assisted Gutenberg in the secret expenses reserved 
for accomplishing and perfecting his design. 

To conceal it the better also from the restless curiosity 
of the public, who began to circulate a suspicion of 
witchcraft against him, Gutenberg left the town, and 
established his workshop in the ruins of an old deserted 
monastery, called the Convent of St. Arbogast. The 
solitude of the place, only inhabited by the houseless 
poor of the suburbs, covered his first attempts. 

In a corner of one of the vast cloisters of the 
monastery, occupied by his partners for their less secret 
labours, Gutenberg had reserved for himself a cell, 
always closed with lock and bolt, and to which none but 
himself ever had access. He was supposed to go there 
to draw the designs, arabesques, and figurines for his 
jewellery and the frames of his glasses ; but he passed his 
days and sleepless nights there, wearing himself out in 
the pursuit of his invention. There it was that he 
engraved his movable types in wood, and projected 



GUTENBERG. 319 

casting them in metal, and studied hard to find the 
means of enclosing them in forms, whether of wood, or 
of iron, to make the types into words, phrases and lines, 
and to leave spaces on the paper. There it was that he 
invented coloured mediums, oleaginous and yet drying, 
to re-produce these characters, brushes and dabbers to 
spread the ink on the letters, boards to hold them, and 
screws and weights to compress them. Months and 
years were spent, as well as his own fortune, and the 
funds of the firm, in these persevering experiments, with 
alternate success and disappointment. 

At length, having made a model of a press which 
seemed to him to combine all the requirements of printing, 
according to his ideas at that time, he concealed it 
under his cloak, and walking to the town, went to 
a skilful turner in wood and metal, named Conrad 
Saspach, who lived in the Mercer's Lane, asking him to 
make the machine of full size. He requested the work- 
man to keep it secret, merely telling him that it was a 
machine by the help of which he proposed to produce 
some masterpieces of art and mechanism, of which the 
marvels should be known in due time. 

The turner taking the model in his hands and turning 
it backwards and forwards with the smile of contempt 
that a skilful artist usually puts on w r hen looking at a 
rough specimen, said somewhat scornfully, " but it is 
just simply a press that you are asking me for, Master 
Hans !" 

" Yes," replied Gutenberg, with a grave and enthu- 
siastic tone, " it is a press, certainly, but a press from 
which shall soon flow in inexhaustible streams the most 
abundant and most marvellous liquor that has ever flowed 
to relieve the thirst of men ! Through it, God will spread 
his Word. A spring of pure truth shall flow from it : 



320 GUTENBERG. 

like a new star it shall scatter the' darkness of ignorance 
and cause a light heretofore unknown to shine amongst 
men." He retired. The turner, who understood not 
these words, made the machine, and delivered it at the 
monastery of Arbogast. 

This was the first printing press. 

On giving it into Gutenberg's hands, the turner began 
to think there was some mystery about it, and said to 
Gutenberg, " I see clearly, Master Hans, that you are 
really in communication with celestial spirits. Hence- 
forward, therefore, I will obey you as I would a spirit I" 

As soon as he was in possession of his press, Gutenberg 
began printing. Little is known of the first works which 
he sent out ; but the strongly religious disposition of the 
inventor leaves no doubt concerning the nature of the 
labours to which he devoted the first fruits of his art. 
They were, to a certainty, religious books. The art 
invented for the sake of God, and by his inspiration, 
began with his worship. His later publications at 
Mayence are a proof of it ; the divine songs of the 
Psalmist, and the celebrated Latin Bible, were the first 
works issued at Mayence from the machine invented by 
Gutenberg, and applied to the use of the most sacred 
powers of man, lyrical praise of his Maker, and lamenta- 
tion for the woes of earth. Under the hands of this 
pious and unfortunate man, praise and prayer were the 
first voices of the press. The press ought ever to be 
proud of it. 

No particulars are known, even at Strasburg or 
Mayence, where we have looked for them, concerning 
these first authentic impressions ; because, whether from 
humility or pride, Gutenberg did not print his name on 
any of his publications. Some think that he abstained 
from signing them, from a feeling of Christian modesty, 



GUTENBERG. 321 

which would not give to the name of a man, the glory 
which belonged entirely to the divine inspirer of his 
invention : others think that he did not sign them, because 
these printed works were in his time considered servile, 
and work for artisans, which would have disgraced his 
family, and his noble descent, and degraded him from 
his rank in his country. 

We only know by a deed of gift to his sister Ebel, a 
nun of the convent of St. Clara, at Mayence, that he gave 
her the religious works he had printed at Strasburg, and 
engaged to send her copies of all that should thereafter 
issue from his press. 

But great tribulation awaited him after his triumph. 
We have seen that the necessity of procuring funds 
obliged him to take partners. The necessity that subse- 
quently arose of getting assistance for the multifarious 
labour of a great printing establishment obliged him to 
confide his occupation, and even the secret of his process, 
to his partners and to a number of workmen. His 
partners, tired of supplying funds to an enterprise, which, 
for want of perfection, was not then remunerative, refused 
to persevere in the ungrateful occupation. Gutenberg- 
begged them not to abandon him at the very moment 
that fortune and glory were w T ithin his grasp. They 
consented to make fresh advances, but only on condition 
of sharing completely his secret, his profits, his property, 
and his fame. 

He sold his fame, to procure success to his work. The 
name of Gutenberg disappeared. The firm absorbed the 
inventor, who soon became a mere workman in his own 
workshop. It was a parallel to the case of Christopher 
Columbus brought back in irons on board his own vessel 
by a crew to whom he had opened a new world. 

This was not all. The heirs of one of the partners 



322 GUTENBERG. 

brought an action against him to contest his invention, 
his property, and his right of carrying on the work. 
They compelled him to appear before the judges at 
Strasburg, to make him submit to some more complete 
and more legal spoliation than the voluntary abandonment 
he had himself acknowledged. His perplexity before the 
court was extreme. To justify himself, it was necessary 
to enter into all the technical details of his art, which he 
did not as yet wish to make completely public, reserving 
to himself at least the secret of his hopes. The judges, 
being inquisitive, pressed him with insidious questions, 
the answers to which would have exposed the secret of 
all his processes. He evaded them, preferring an adverse 
decision to the publication of his art. To succeed in 
penetrating the secret of the discovery which filled 
people's imaginations, the judges summoned his most 
confidential workmen, and required them to give evidence 
of what they knew. These men, simple minded, yet 
faithful, and strongly attached to Gutenberg, refused to 
reveal anything. Their master's secret was safer in their 
hearts than in the breasts of his more grasping associates. 
None of the great mysteries of the art transpired. 
Gutenberg, ruined, condemned, perhaps banished, retired 
alone and in poverty to Mayence, his native place, to 
recommence his labours and begin his life and fame 
anew. 

He was still young, and the report of his lawsuit at 
Strasburg had made his fame known all over Germany, 
but he returned a workman to a city which he had quitted 
as a knight. Humiliation, poverty, and glory, contended 
with each other in his fate and in the behaviour of his 
fellow-citizens. Love alone recognised him for what he 
had been, and for what he was one day to become. 

This is what local tradition says on the subject, and is 



GUTENBERG. 323 

attested by two authentic records in the archives of 
Strasburg Cathedral, of the year 1437, — one of them 
stating, that Dame Annette of the Iron Gate, wife of 
Gutenberg, made a gift to the Cathedral in order to 
acquire the right of inscribing her name on the list of 
benefactors, and thus assuring prayers for the repose of 
her soul, and for those of her descendants, — the other 
mentioning her decease. 

Gutenberg, proscribed a second time by the plebeians 
conquering the nobility, was loved by a young lady, like 
himself of noble birth, of Strasburg. She was named 
Annette of the Iron Gate, the name of her house being 
doubtless taken from some feudal castle on the rocks of 
the Rhine. He himself loved her with the burning, 
sincere, and chivalrous affection of those days of faithful 
attachment. They were betrothed to each other by 
written engagement. Annette of the Iron Gate did not 
consider herself relieved from her plighted faith by the 
poverty and misfortunes of her lover : she reserved for 
him her youth, her beauty, and her heart. Gutenberg, 
on returning to the territory of Mayence, was to have 
claimed the fulfilment of her pledge, and complied with 
the terms of his own engagement. He did not do so. 
Whether from a fear of involving Annette, a girl of 
honour and of noble birth, in the humiliation and indi- 
gence into which he had himself fallen, or whether 
the feeling of having by his mechanical labours fallen 
from the feudal honour of his house, and rendered 
himself in his own eyes unworthy of aspiring to a 
noble alliance, Gutenberg did not claim her hand, or 
redeem his own pledge. He awaited a return of fortune 
and of better days before asking the woman he loved to 
share his lot. His humility and his scruples resisted the 
most pressing suggestions of his betrothed, and could 



324 GUTENBERG. 

only be overcome by a legal process in the courts of 
Strasburg, to compel him to keep the promise of mar- 
riage which he had formerly made. 

This citation of her lover by Annette of the Iron Gate 
still exists, and forms the only authentic record of her 
marriage. Gutenberg at length yielded to the generous 
compulsion of love, and espoused Annette. None of their 
children lived. 

The inheritance of great men is their invention : their 
heirs are the human race. 

After the decision of the lawsuit, in 1439, which left 
Gutenberg in possession of his secret, merely compelling 
him to indemnify the heirs of Andrew Dritzehen, he gave 
up the cloisters of the monastery of St. Arbogast, and 
removed into the city of Strasburg. He then lived in 
the Thiergarten Haus, and established his first printing 
office there. 

It may be worthy of remark that the site of this house 
is now the site of the Lyceum, as if the spot had been 
marked out by destiny for a great design, and that, after 
having given fixity of character to the sciences by typo- 
graphy, it was afterwards to propagate them by instruc- 
tion. 

When Gutenberg was compelled to quit Strasburg in 
1446, he left behind him the traditions of his art amongst 
his partners and his workmen, who were initiated into 
his discovery and his processes. We find Mentel or 
Metelin, a notary public, who was only admitted a 
burgess of Strasburg in 1447, and Von Eckstein, a pre- 
bendary of the Cathedral, who, assisted by funds supplied 
by the convent of the Charterhouse (Chartreux) and 
without having themselves ever worked at this art, then 
so little known, set up as printers, and proceed at once 
to print off quickly, and publish, a German Bible. 



GUTENBERG. 325 

Several other works followed in succession, from the 
press of Mentel, who made a rapid fortune, while the 
unfortunate Gutenberg, driven away by extreme poverty, 
was obliged to escape to Mayence. 

Wealth had increased Mentel's influence ; and the 
rivalry which existed between the independent cities of 
Mayence and Strasburg, favoured his ambition to sup- 
plant Gutenberg. He succeeded so completely in this, 
that in a few years Gutenberg was forgotten, or induced 
to keep himself aloof, and Mentel was proclaimed, at 
Strasburg, the inventor of the divine art, and feasts 
instituted in his honour. 

On his return to Mayence, and being relieved from 
degradation and ruin by the woman he loved, as 
Mahomet was by his first wife, Gutenberg gave himself 
entirely up to his art, entered into partnership with 
Faust and SchcefFer, Faust's son-in-law, established offices 
at Mayence, and published, still under the name of the 
firm, Bibles and Psalters, of remarkable perfection of 
type. 

SchcefFer had for a long time carried on the business of 
a scrivener, and a trade in manuscripts in Paris. His 
travels, and his intimacy with the artists of that town, 
had made him acquainted with mechanical processes for 
working in metals, which he adapted on his return to 
Mayence, to the art of printing. These new means 
enabled him to cast movable leaden types in a copper 
matrix, with greater precision than before, and thus to 
give great neatness to the letters. It was by this new 
process that the Psalter, the first book bearing a date, 
was printed, in 1457. Soon afterwards the Mayence 
Bible, recognised as a masterpiece of art, was produced 
under the direction of Gutenberg, from types founded by 
Peter Schceffer's process. 

VOL. II. z 



326 GUTENBERG. 

The tendency of the new art, which began by 
cheapening sacred books, under the auspices of the 
church alone, escaped, during the first years of its exist- 
ence, the notice of the Roman Court, which saw an 
auxiliary in what it afterwards considered as an opponent. 

" Amongst the number of blessings which we ought to 
praise God for having vouchsafed during your pontifi- 
cate," says a dedication in the time of Paul IL, "is this 
invention, which enables the poorest to procure libraries 
at a low price. Is it not a great glory to your Holiness 
that volumes which used to cost one hundred pieces of gold, 
are now to be bought for four, or even less, and that the 
fruits of genius, heretofore the prey of the worms, and 
buried in dust, begin under your reign, to arise from the 
dead, and to multiply profusely over all the earth?" 

The city of Venice soon gave up its presses to 
religious controversy, and the works of John Huss were 
printed in Sclavonic, in 1490, scarcely twenty years 
after Gutenberg's death. 

But already in 1480, France had encouraged the Ger- 
man printers to establish themselves in Paris. Louis the 
Eleventh was especially remarkable for his enlightened 
patronage of printing, and for the generous encourage- 
ment he bestowed on the new art. 

A suit was brought, in Paris, against Faust, for having 
sold printed Bibles, adorned with vignettes, as manu- 
scripts, at exorbitant prices, and there still exists a 
receipt signed by him in Paris, in 1468, for a copy of a 
work of St. Thomas Aquinas, sold at the enormous cost 
of fifteen golden crowns. The parliament of Paris, at the 
instance of Louis the Eleventh acquitted him on this 
charge, on consideration of these books being produced 
by a new invention until then unknown in Paris. 

The king even gave up his right of escheat, on the 



GUTENBERG. 327 

death of Herman Statters, who sold at Paris the books 
printed by Schœffer, and which by the laws of that day, 
became the property of the Crown, by the death of a 
foreigner. " Considering," the order runs, " the utility 
arisen and to arise to the commonwealth from the art of 
printing, for the advancement of science, and for divers 
other good reasons, &c. &c, we of our sovereign liberality 
have been graciously pleased to order the restitution to 
the heirs of the sum of 2,428 crowns, and 3 sols, tour- 
nois, &c." 

Cicero was the first book printed after the sacred 
volumes. It was not until the time of Leo the Tenth, 
that is to say, until a century after the invention of 
printing, that regulations and restrictions on the press 
were thought of. 

Meanwhile, Faust the banker, and Schœffer the work- 
man, Gutenberg's new partners, were not long in giving 
way, like Mentel or Metelin at Strasburg, to the tempta- 
tion of absorbing by degrees Gutenberg's glory, the 
most tempting of all possessions, because of its immor- 
tality. Like many others, they hoped to deceive 
posterity, if not their own contemporaries. After 
recognising, in the Epistle Dedicatory prefixed to the 
German translation of Livy, printed by Hans Schœffer, 
and addressed to the Emperor Maximilian, " that the art 
of printing was invented at Mayence by that sublime 
mechanician Hans von Gutenberg," they forget this 
confession, and, seven years later, assume to themselves 
all the merit and honour of the discovery. 

A short time afterwards, the Emperor Maximilian, 
erecting the printers and compositors into a species of 
intellectual priesthood, relieved them by the nobility of 
their occupation from all degradation of rank. He 
ennobled the art and the artists together; he autho- 

z 2 



328 GUTENBERG. 

rized them to wear robes embroidered with gold and 
silver, which nobles only had a right to wear, and gave 
them for armorial bearings, an eagle with his wings 
spread over a globe, a symbol of the flight of written 
thoughts, and of its conquest of the world. 

But Gutenberg was no longer upon earth to enjoy 
the possession of that intellectual world, religious and 
political, of which he had only had a glimpse, like Moses, 
in the vision of his dream in the monastery of St. Arbo- 
gast. Despoiled by his partners of his property and of 
his fame, expelled again and for the last time from his 
country by poverty, his only consolation being that he 
was followed by his wife, who remained faithful through 
all his troubles ; deprived by death of all his children, 
advanced in years, without bread, and soon afterwards, 
by his wife's decease, a widower, he was received by the 
Elector of Nassau, the generous Adolphus. The Elector 
created him his counsellor of state, and chamberlain, in 
order to enjoy in an honourable familiarity, the conver- 
sation of his surpassing genius, who was afterwards to 
hold converse with all times and all places. This shelter 
afforded to Gutenberg sheds everlasting lustre on Nassau 
and its prince. We meet in history with instances 
where a generous hospitality has given happiness and 
immortal fame to the most insignificant potentates and 
to the smallest of states. 

Gutenberg continued printing with his own hands, at 
Nassau, under the eyes of his Mecsenas, the Elector, 
during several years of peace and quiet. He died at 
the age of sixty-nine, leaving his sister no inheritance, 
but bequeathing to the world the empire of the human 
mind, discovered and achieved by a workman. 

" I bequeath," he says in his will, " to my sister, 
all the books which I printed at the monastery of 



GUTENBERG. 329 

St. Arbogast." The poor inventor's only legacy to his 
surviving relative was the common property of almost 
all inventors like himself, — wasted youth, a persecuted 
life, a name aspersed, toil, watchings, and the oblivion 
of his contemporaries. 

Such was the life and death of this great man. His 
art did not expire with him. Printing spread with the 
rapidity of an explosion. In a few years there were 
presses in all the capitals of Europe. It was the definite 
date of returning civilization. France (in the reign of 
Louis XI.) England, Holland, Germany, Venice, Geneva, 
Rome, Poland, vied with each other in securing the 
new invention for multiplying copies of their sacred 
and profane literature. 

The new art was carried into the East by some 
Jewish refugees at Constantinople, who printed several 
works of Rabbinical Literature in 1500. But the Mus- 
sulmans themselves only adopted it about the eighteenth 
century. 

Lastly, in 15S0, Russia, with the help of some work* 
men from Magdeburg, established a press at Moscow, 
under the inspection of the Metropolitan. 

It seems fated that there is to be no progress of 
humanity that is not purchased with tears : suffering 
seems the fatal concomitant of all great beginnings. 
Printing had its apostles, and it had also its martyrs. 
Of all these, Stephen Dolet was the most illustrious, by 
the brilliancy of his talent, the purity of his life, and the 
atrocity of his death. He was born at Lyons in 1509, 
at the time of the revival of science and letters, and 
when religious controversy was just beginning its first 
struggles : he was a learned man, like William Bade, 
a poet like Marot, and perhaps also a philosopher 
like Rabelais, without, however, mingling with his 



330 GUTENBERG. 

philosophy the licentious scepticisfn of the parish priest 
of Mention. This may be the more readily believed, 
considering that this fiery and impetuous man, — who 
never compromised his opinions, and who had taken for 
his significant crest, and for the emblem of the effect of 
printing, an axe or bill felling a knotty tree, — protested 
against the doctrines of Luther, notwithstanding that he 
was afterwards condemned as an atheist. It appears to 
have been the reasoning and the man that his opponents 
struck at, in seeking his destruction, rather than his 
creed. 

At this period of violent manners and passions, the 
life of one who devoted his energies to the development 
of human intellect, was a long struggle, in which, sooner 
or later, he must fall. First a student at Paris, after- 
wards at Padua, then secretary of John de Lauzeac, the 
ambassador of the King of France to the Venetian 
Ilepublic, afterwards a student at law at the University 
of Toulouse, Stephen Dolet had scarcely attained his 
twenty-fourth year, when, as an ultimate argument in 
their discussions, his enemies had him cast into a dun- 
geon. The intercession of John Pinus, Bishop of Rieux, 
soon got him out; but hired assassins began a series 
of attempts on his life, and as, despite his dangers, this 
courageous youth would not quit Toulouse, a decree of 
the parliament was at last (in 1533) obtained, banishing 
him from the town. 

Dolet then returned to Lyons, where, after long efforts, 
he obtained (in 1535) a privilege for printing his Com- 
mentaries on the Latin language, a work of immense 
erudition, which places him beside Bembo, Scaliger, and 
Erasmus, and made him occupy a prominent place in the 
great literary tournament that then took place in relation 
to Cicero. These glorious studies were troubled by a 



GUTENBERG. 331 

new attempt to assassinate Dolet, who, however, bravely 
killed his aggressor. But this served as a pretext for 
his persevering enemies, and he was imprisoned as an 
assassin. To release him from prison, it required nothing 
less than the absolute will of Francis the First, interested 
in Dolet, partly by his talent, and also, as it would ap- 
pear, by the influence of the Qneen of Navarre. The 
royal munificence then (in 1537) conferred on the perse- 
cuted scholar the most liberal patent that could at that 
time be granted, to carry on his printing, as a just com- 
pensation for his unmerited sufferings. 

Dolet's press successively issued, after this date, the 
works of Marot and Rabelais : he also published every 
year some of his own works, and selections from the most 
celebrated books of antiquity. In 1542, new persecutions 
interrupted his labours. Vague accusations of heresy 
caused his detention for fifteen months in the concier- 
gerie, at Paris. Francis the First was no longer young : 
his glorious protection of literature was waning. A 
splendid book, or a work of art, no longer sufficed to 
protect an artist from his fanatical advisers. Robert 
Etienne and Marot had quitted France. Confident in 
his faith, and always of an adventurous spirit, Dolet 
refused to follow their example. It was in vain that the 
parliament of Paris burnt his books, after having been 
compelled to release his person, in consequence of the 
evident absurdity of the charges brought against him. 
He did not shrink from the struggle, and the writer 
avenged the wrongs of the publisher. On his return to 
Lyons, he published poems on his captivity, and a trans- 
lation of Plato's dialogues. This activity was at last fatal 
to him. In 1544 he was again imprisoned. This time, 
fearing the partiality of his judges, he succeeded in 
escaping, and took refuge in Piedmont. But his love 



332 GUTENBERG. 

lor his art soon brought him back to the snare in which 
he was to be caught. He had addressed to the King 
some poetical epistles to implore a protection which had 
saved him on previous occasions. He could not resist 
the temptation of superintending their publication him- 
self. He returned secretly to Lyons ; but his enemies 
were watching their prey. He was arrested and brought 
before the Board of Theology in Paris, who condemned 
him as a relapsed atheist for passages in his books, 
which he three several times protested that he had never 
written. 

Dolet was put to the torture, and to the extraordinary 
question, as a lesson to his companions, to use the words 
of his sentence. He was then hung, and burnt in the 
Place Maubert : his body and his books were reduced 
to ashes, and his property confiscated. Dolet died at the 
age of thirty-seven, as courageously as he had lived, 
leaving a widow and child in poverty. 

But the impulse was given, and all these persecutions 
could only throw lustre on the new invention, without 
stopping it for a single hour. Sovereigns themselves 
took pride in engraving and printing with their own 
hands the recently-discovered works of ancient literature, 
as if this participation in the mechanical re-production of 
these masterpieces of genius could imbue them with a 
portion of the genius itself. Intellect became royal, and 
reigned over kings. Mary de' Medici, the consort of Henry 
the Fourth, used to draw and print cuts for the royal 
editions. A figure of a young girl, engraved with her 
own hand, was given by this queen to Philip of Cham- 
pagne. Louis the Fifteenth, in his youth, pursuing this 
art as an instructive curiosity, printed in his own palace a 
treatise on the geography of Europe. The great printers 
of the sixteenth century were also artists, learned men, 



GUTENBERG. 333 

and writers. They dug up the whole literature of anti- 
quity, and in exhuming its masterpieces, they commented 
on them, and explained and interpreted them to the 
modern world. History owes its second birth to 
printing. 

From Gutenberg's time to our own day, there have 
been schools, traditions, and families of celebrated prin- 
ters, as there have been schools of painting, sculpture, 
and philosophy. Typographers, justly honoured with 
the name of compositors, shared the glory which their 
editions of the Greek and Latin authors restored to the 
poets, historians, and orators of antiquity ; they, as it 
were, entered into the family of these men of genius ; 
they became a power, by turns honoured, feared, re- 
warded, or persecuted by the governments, accordingly 
as these governments were the children of light or of 
darkness. The editions of the Aldi, Morell, Turnebus, 
and the Elzevirs, made these great names of the press 
familiar to the literary world by the neatness of their type, 
the correctness of their text, and the great number of 
works with which they filled the libraries of Europe. 

The family of the Etiennes,* at Paris, for a century and 
a half held the first rank in the art. Protected by the 
crown, and especially by Francis the First — persecuted 
by the University, (as jealous a guardian of its ignorance 
as of its knowledge,) — imprisoned by the Church for 
an edition of the Bible, alleged to contain errors — re- 
fugees at Geneva, and again imprisoned in that metropolis 
of Calvinism for printing works adverse to the reformed 
religion, — recalled to France, and again banished, — ■ 
removing their presses to and fro, from Geneva to Paris, 
and from Paris to Geneva, — the history of this race of 

* Better known to classical students by their Latinized name of 
Stephanus. — Tr. 



334 GUTENBERG. 

printers would be, as M. Didot -remarks, the history of 
the human mind during the revival of letters. 

But throughout these five centuries, mechanical im- 
provements and machinery had given as great an impetus 
to the art of printing, as science had to literature. In the 
Bodonis at Parma, and the Didots in Paris, this art found 
a Phidias to mould for the eye, as we may say, the material 
envelope of thought into characters and ornamental em- 
bellishments. In 1753, one of the Didots invented 
the single-action press. Another wrote a poem on the 
progress of his art, and printed his poem himself. A 
third brought over from England, Lord Stanhope's me- 
tallic press, and the cylindrical printing machine, a sort 
of perpetual re-production of characters, which throws 
out unceasing floods of printed language like a torrent of 
human intellect, for newspapers and reports. Lastly, in 
our own day, a fourth of the name, M. Ambroise Timlin 
Didot, has written and published, under the modest title 
of an Essai/ on Typography, a most erudite and complete 
history of the art, of which he is at the same time the 
master and the historian. 

The elementary instruction of the masses gives an 
unlimited supply of readers to the press. The railways 
open roads for it, steam lends it wings, the optical tele- 
graph gives it signals ; and lastly, the recent invention 
of the electric telegraph makes its communications as 
instantaneous as the thunderbolt. More truly than in 
the celebrated motto of Franklin "Eripuit Cœlo fitlmen !" 
it has snatched the lightning from heaven. Yet a few 
years, and a word uttered or repeated in any spot on the 
globe may enlighten or blast the universe. By the per- 
fection of Gutenberg's invention, language will have 
become, by means of matter, as free from material 
bonds, as it was while it remained mere thought ; while 



GUTENBERG. 335 

thought will become universal as it springs from the 
intellect or the will of man. The mind is unable to 
realize the future consequences of these inventions, and 
the approaching reign of intellect by means of language. 
Gutenberg has given the world a soul. 

Long has his name been unrecognised ! Long has 
his honour been denied him ! — But we must remember 
that human glory was not his aim. His object was 
a higher one ; and may he enjoy it ! It is the lot of the 
discoverer, in philosophy as well as in physics, that his 
name is lost, but the good service is found by its results, 
amongst the secret causes of human changes, and God 
knows to whom it ought to be attributed. If the 
Almighty Judge forgets not, what matters the oblivion 
or ingratitude of man? 



F E N E L N. 



A.D. 1631. 



Of all modern men, Pénelon bears the strongest 
resemblance to the sages of antiquity. His countenance 
is beautiful as that portrayed by Raphael when he repre- 
sents St. John, slumbering upon the bosom of his Divine 
Master. His conversation while traversing the gardens 
of Versailles resembles that of Plato amidst the shades of 
Acaclemus. He holds the lyre of Homer, and sings, like 
one inspired, the sacred records of the past ; he inhabits 
the dwelling of a monarch illustrious as Cyrus, or 
Sesostris, where he gives lessons of wisdom, heroism, and 
divine morality to the young Prince. He walks clothed 
in the sacred robe of the temple, through the corridors 
of a palace. He passes from the court to the altar, from 
solitude to the encounter of wit with politicians and 
learned men, to the society of courtiers and favourites 
of his royal master. We behold him as a legislator 
and a poet, a statesman and a pontiff, desirous of as- 
sociating Christian love and charity with the councils 
of government ; and of seeing, as in ancient Egypt, re- 
ligious and civil law, hand in hand with the politics of 



FÉNELON. 337 

empire. In the antechamber of despotic power, he 
meditates upon the institutions of liberty. He pene- 
trates as it were from the sublime height of his piety, 
the perfections and chimeras of that political code, which 
became the germ and sometimes the snare of those 
philosophic legislators, the parents of the French 
Revolution. His lamentations over the condition of the 
people, and the lessons he inculcates in his youthful 
pupil, disquiet the king, who, fearing to see the spirit of 
royalty degenerate in his heir, from that exaggerated 
virtue wdiich, desirous of changing an empire into a 
Utopia, opens (though with good intent) a yawning 
gulf of destruction, banishes Fénelon from the seat of 
government. The philosopher retires weeping over the 
destiny of his country and his prince ; he seeks and finds 
the consolations of religion, and in his solitude shows an 
example of that virtue so difficult of attainment to men of 
genius — humility. Unable to improve the legislature, he 
seeks but to govern and sanctify his own spirit, and dies 
in his retreat the victim of inactivity and a holy sadness. 
His works and noble qualities expand and multiply from 
his tomb, as the liquid rushes from a vase, broken and 
crushed beneath the feet of its destroyers; while his name 
becomes the type of poetry, of political wisdom, and of 
all goodness, during two centuries. 

Such is Fénelon. Shall he not be called the Pytha- 
goras, or Plato of France ? Let us now trace this life, one 
of the most beautiful of the latter ages. 

Fénelon was a descendant of a noble military family of 
Perigord, who, living sometimes in the camp, sometimes 
iu the retirement of their native province, and surrounded 
only by rustics, were untainted by the air of courts. His 
Father, Pons de Salignac, Comte de Fénelon, retired from 
the army, and married Isabelle d'Esparbès, by whom 



338 FÉNKLON. 

he had several children. A widower and somewhat 
advanced in years, he entered into a second alliance with 
Lonise dc Saint-Abre, the daughter of a noble house in 
the same province. This union was the cause of much 
annoyance to his children, who murmured against the 
conduct of their father. They feared that the probable 
increase of family would so diminish the inheritance of 
each, as to cause their decline from the high rank they 
had hitherto held in the country. 

Antoine de lenelon, the uncle of these young people, 
having been informed of their complaints, wrote to his 
nephews, rebuking their opposition in a letter, preserved 
amidst the family archives. 

" Learn, " said he, " to bow with deference and 
respect to the wishes of your father : Providence has 
ever its secret intentions, unfathomable to the eyes of 
men. Often the fortune and exaltation of a house 
proceed from causes opposed to the desires of our 
short-sighted wisdom." 

It might have been said, that this uncle, gifted with 
prophecy, foresaw in the child still unborn, the lasting 
glory of their name. 

The first offspring of this marriage was Francis Fénelon, 
Archbishop of Cambray. The son of an old father and a 
youthful mother, he was endowed by nature with the 
mature wisdom of the one and the graces of the other. 
Cherished in the paternal mansion like a late and delicate 
fruit, till the age of twelve years, he was brought up 
beneath the eyes of his parents. As he grew to maturity, 
the clear sense of his father and the sweet tenderness of 
his mother were impressed upon his mind, his conduct, 
and his writings. Under a domestic preceptor the first 
food offered to his imagination was the study of sacred 
literature, with the Greek and Latin classics. His heart 



FÉNELON. 339 

and reason, thus modelled upon all that was good and 
beautiful in antiquity, naturally took a noble form and 
colouring. It may be said that though this child was born 
in France during the seventeenth century, Iris genius was 
conceived at Athens in the age of Pericles. His education 
was finished at the University of Cahors. The fame of 
his brilliant qualities, resounding from the precincts of 
his school, reached the ears of Antoine de Fénelon, the 
same uncle who had proved so true an augur before the 
infant's birth. This relative, having now attained a high 
rank in the army, invited his nephew to join him in 
Paris. The youth was destined to the priesthood, being 
looked upon as a burden on the family, which they were 
desirous of transferring to the Church. His philoso- 
phical and theological studies were pursued with in- 
creased success in the eminent schools of Paris. His 
natural and versatile genius developed itself more bril- 
liantly there than at Cahors, while his talents and 
graceful accomplishments gained the attachment of 
many eminent friends. The lustre of glory and admi- 
ration by which the young Fénelon was surrounded, 
excited the apprehensions of his venerable uncle, who 
hastened to withdraw his nephew from the seductions of 
friendship and society, by sending him to the seminary 
of St. Sulpice, where he was to enter on his noviciate. 

While Fénelon pursued his sacred studies, his uncle, 
desirous of teaching his own son the rudiments of 
war, conducted him to the siege of Candia, against the 
Turks. The young man fell in the first assault, struck 
by a ball, and expired in his father's arms. The old 
warrior returned to Paris, bringing with him the body 
of his son. He now only possessed a daughter, whom 
he bestowed in marriage upon the Marquis de Montmo- 
rency-Laval, of the illustrious house bearing the same 



340 'FÉNELON. 

name. The loss of his only son attached Antoine de 
Fénélon still more strongly to his nephew. Good and 
pious himself, he desired for the young neophite no 
ecclesiastical honours, but only the reward of piety and 
virtue. 

The ardent imagination of the young priest carried 
him to the point of enthusiasm in his profession. He 
formed the resolution of leaving the cloister, to enrol 
himself amongst the missionaries who were endeavouring 
to convert Canada to Christianity, and of consecrating 
his life, like the first preachers of the Gospel, to the 
rescue of heathen souls in the forests of the New World. 
He was irresistibly attracted by the resemblance which 
the devotion and self-denial of these modern Thebaids 
bore to the apostles of old. His ardent imagination 
from early youth, and throughout his entire existence, 
mingled itself with all his dreams, and even with his 
virtues. 

Thus, one destined to improve courts and to instruct 
monarchs, desired only to civilize savages in the solitude 
of a desert. The Governor of St. Sulpice, a wise and 
prudent man, informed M. Antoine de Fénelon of the 
resolution taken by his young pupil. The uncle remon- 
strated affectionately with his nephew upon this mistaken 
vocation, which would extinguish in the forests of 
America, a flame lighted by the Almighty to shed radiance 
upon an accomplished age. Fénelon was obstinate ; his 
family insisted, and sent him to the house of another 
uncle, the Bishop of Sarlat, who solemnly forbade his 
embarking upon this perilous enterprise, and commanded 
him to return to St. Sulpice, complete his novitiate, and 
take the final vows of his sacred order. The young man 
obeyed, became a priest, and remained in Paris, where 
for three years he employed himself on Sundays and 



i'ENELON. 341 

holidays in the vestry of the church of St. Sulpice, by 
instructing the children of the poor. His uncle, the 
Bishop of Sarlat, summoned hiin to his diocese from 
these humble avocations, to offer himself as representa- 
tive of the clergy of his province at the General Assem- 
bly. The youth of Fénelon defeated his uncle's ambition, 
and another ecclesiastic of high birth gained the neces- 
sary votes. 

Fénelon, while at Sarlat, revived his earnest desire of 
becoming an errant apostle for the conversion of the 
heathen. He wrote thus : " I meditate a great voyage. 
Greece opens to my footsteps ; Mohammedanism recoils 
before them ; the Peloponnesus becomes again free ; 
the church of Corinth flourishes once more, and the 
voice of the Apostles is heard within her walls. I behold 
myself transported to those glorious lands where amidst 
sacred ruins I raise together the monuments and the 
spirit of the past. I visit the Areopagus where St. Paul 
announced to the sages of the world ' the unknown 
God.' But the profane follows the sacred, and I disdain 
not to descend to the Piraeus, where Socrates formed 
the plan of his republic. I shall not forget thee, oh, 
blessed Patmos, isle consecrated by the visions of the 
beloved disciple ! There will I kiss that earth which 
bore the traces of St. John's feet ; and like him per- 
chance I shall see heaven opened, and behold the East 
and West, so long divided, once more united, and Asia, 
after her long night, awake to the light of day !" 

This letter, written to the then young Bossuet (his 
friend in the beginning of life, but antagonist at the 
end), contained a dream never destined to realization. 
The Bishop of Sarlat appeared to consent, but turned 
the thoughts of his nephew to another channel by in- 
direct means. 

VOL. II. A A 



342 FENELON. 

Fénelon, recalled to Paris by^tlie Archbishop, M. de 
Harlay, was nominated, despite his youth, Superior of 
the new converts to Catholicism, whose number had 
rapidly increased through the persecutions of Louis the 
Fourteenth. Fénelon was then only twenty-seven years 
of age ; but the austerity of his habits, the intensity of 
his faith, the power of his oratory, and the stern, upright 
bent of his mind, already bestowed upon him the dignity 
of age. Living in the Abbey of Saint-Germain des 
Prés (the home of his uncle, the Marquis Antoine de 
Fénelon, who had retired to the shade of the cloister), 
aided by the experience of the Superior of St. Sulpice, 
M. Tronson ; encouraged by Bossuet, his rival and 
friend ; holding intercourse with the rigid Duke de 
Beauvilliers, and the most austere intimates of Louis the 
Fourteenth ; his society sought by the Archbishop of 
Paris, who beheld in this young ecclesiastic an ornament 
to his diocese ; — Fénelon governed the order committed 
to him with premature and consummate wisdom. Be- 
neath the auspices of M. de Harlay, he might rapidly have 
aspired to the highest dignities of the Church ; but he 
rather preferred the then sterile friendship of Bossuet, 
the pursuits of science, and the accpiirement of theolo- 
gical eloquence. Instead of cultivating the favour of 
M. de Harlay, he became the disciple of Bossuet, esti- 
mating fame beyond preferment. M. de Harlay became 
jealous of Bossuet, and resented this negligence on the 
part of the young priest. " Monsieur l'Abbé," said he 
to him one day, after complaining of the little desire 
exhibited by Fénelon to please him, " you wish to be 
forgotten, and you shall be so !" 

In truth, Fénelon was passed over in the distribution 
of all Church preferment, and his uncle, the Bishop of 
Sarlat, was compelled, in order to support his nephew 



FENELON. 343 

in Paris, to bestow upon him the small living of Carénac, 
which belonged to his own diocese. A revenue of 3,000 
francs, which barely sufficed for the necessities of an 
ascetic life, constituted the sole income possessed by 
Fénelon until he had reached the age of forty-two. He 
passed some weeks in this rural priory, and distributed 
to the surrounding poor all that he could retrench from 
his own moderate expenses. He there composed verses 
which prove that the contemplation of nature increased 
his veneration for that Mighty Creator whose presence 
filled his solitude. Like many great spirits of all ages, — 
Solon, Caesar, Cicero, Montesquieu, J. J. Rousseau, 
Chateaubriand, — he sang before he thought. In man, 
the music of numbers is the forerunner of eloquence, as 
the emotions of the heart ever precede the exercise of 
the reasoning faculties. Fénelon's verses have all the 
tenderness and grace of youth, but do not display that 
true vigour of a poet which at the first step, surmounting 
all the difficulties of metrical composition, creates senti- 
ments, words, and verses. He felt this himself, and 
after one or two attempts, resigned poetry to Racine, 
the Virgil of France. He next essayed prose, which he 
found a less laborious, less perfect, but a more com- 
plaisant alembic of his thoughts, and still continued to 
be the greatest poetical genius of his age. 

Fénelon once more returned to Paris, and resumed 
for ten years the direction of the establishment which 
had been committed to his care, nourishing and ripening 
in the shade, talents and virtues which were soon to be 
unveiled. He prepared himself by speaking and writing 
upon sacred subjects, and composed for the Duchess of 
Beauvillier, the mother of a young and numerous family, 
a treatise upon the education of daughters. This work 
is far superior to the " Emile " of J. J. Rousseau : it 

a a 2 



344 FENELON. 

displays no Utopian dream, but points out a practical and 
reasonable mode of education, suited to the epoch at 
which Fénelon wrote. We see at once that the author 
writes not for fame, but for the true benefit of his fellow- 
beings. The labours and duties of his profession were 
lightened by a correspondence full of pious ardour and 
chastened happiness, which he carried on with his most 
intimate friends, of whom he now possessed an exten- 
sive circle ; but the dearest and most constant of all 
was the young Abbé de Langeron, whose memory is 
well worthy of being associated with that of Fénelon. 
Bossuet was more than a friend : he was a preceptor 
also ; but a master beloved as much as he was admired. 
This great man, then in his full vigour, and endowed 
with the authority which had increased with years, 
possessed at Germigny, near Paris, a country-house, 
where he enjoyed ease and relaxation from his labours. 
Fénelon, the Abbé Fleury, the Abbé Langeron, and 
other chosen luminaries of the Church and of sacred 
literature, were admitted to the retreat of Bossuet. 
They there shared his severe leisure, listened in confi- 
dence to his sermons, his funeral orations, and his 
polemic discourses. They submitted to him their own 
essays, and enriched their minds by familiar intercourse 
with that exalted spirit, who was more sublime in private 
than in his pulpit, simply because he was more natural. 
The association of such intellects ripened the ideas, 
enlarged the views, polished the style, and cemented the 
affections. As the river of knowledge had flowed through 
ancient Borne, so had a flood of genius, philosophy, and 
piety rolled into Germigny, with this difference, that 
the latter was superior, both in its men and their 
objects. Thus passed the happiest years of the life of 
Fénelon, in the enjoyments of friendship and retirement. 



FENELON. 345 

In this retreat, his fame no longer attracted the applause 
or envy of the world ; his own renown had merged in the 
reputation of Bossuet, and his personal ambition in the 
friendship of these illustrious men ; his genius became 
the sweeter to himself from being displayed only in private. 
How little did Fénelon imagine that the thunderbolt 
was soon to burst on him from this cherished banqueting 
hall, where hitherto he had breathed only peace, retire- 
ment, and happiness ! 

Religious warfare had scarcely been quelled in France, 
when the revocation of the Edict of Nantes struck a fatal 
blow at liberty of conscience, by violating the treaty be- 
tween opposing creeds, solemnly accorded by Henry the 
Fourth. Three hundred thousand families were expelled, 
deprived of their children, and their property confiscated. 
Millions of others, in the Protestant provinces, were 
placed under constraint. Some were persuaded, others 
compelled by force, to renounce the religion of their 
fathers, and adopt that of the State. Bossuet approved 
of these internal crusades against the Reformation. In 
his eyes the end sanctified the means. Missionaries, 
supported by troops and officers of the law, scoured the 
provinces, compelling faith, converting the weak, strength- 
ening the doubtful, and punishing the obstinate. That 
part of the kingdom where Protestantism had taken the 
deepest root, presented only the appearance of a vast 
battle-field after the victory, where ambulatory ecclesias- 
tics, armed with the tongue and the sword, brought 
back all by zeal, by seduction, or by terror, into unity 
of faith. This was the work of Louis the Fourteenth, 
now become old and fanatical. He thought to gain 
heaven himself, by offering to the church this vast spoil 
of souls, crushed and terrified under his authority. 
Bossuet was the private counsellor of this government, 



346 FENELON. 

so absolute in the disposal of consciences. Uniting in 
himself the double character of a controversial priest and 
a statesman, he served with his whole heart and soul the 
church for the King, and the King for the church. His 
vast ambition, which he concealed from himself beneath 
the cloak of pious zeal, induced him to maintain an 
equal balance between the court of Rome and the pride 
of Louis the Fourteenth ; swaying skilfully the alternate 
favour of these two powers, who mutually served while 
they feared each other. In the name of the King he 
reduced Protestant France to Catholicism ; but claimed 
in return from this French Catholicism, some temporal 
advantages and immunities for the King, almost verging 
upon the point of schism. A zealous, yet haughty 
servant, Bossuet commanded Rome by his services to 
the church, Versailles by his ascendency at Rome, and 
the world by the sublimity of his genius. Without the 
title, he possessed all the patriarchal power in France. 
The court feared while it respected him. Madame de 
Maintenon, though forbearing to gratify the ambition of 
Bossuet, (who aspired to the Archbishopric of Paris and 
the Cardinal's hat, but who, if raised to such an exalted 
position, might become too absolute, and possibly un- 
manageable), guided, in him, the oracle of the Church 
and the keeper of the King's conscience. 

She who had been torn from her cradle by the perse- 
cutions of the reformed faith (which her family professed), 
sought now, with all her influence, to imbue Louis with 
the same cruel spirit of intolerance. The authority of 
Heaven and that of the King united, sanctified, in her 
estimation and the opinion of the court, any severities 
used for the conversion of the multitude. A persecution, 
the horrors of which two centuries have been powerless 
to efface from the memory of the provinces, ravaged a 



FENELON. 347 

portion of Languedoc and Vivarais. This excess of 
cruelty called aloud for vengeance. The cry of their 
victims became embarrassing to the court, who sought 
to silence them, not by restoring to the sufferers liberty 
of conscience, but by bestowing upon them more in- 
sinuating and humane ministers. 

Bossuet cast his eyes upon Fénelon. No man was so 
capable of re-assuring the terror-stricken people, of 
making the yoke imposed upon them appear light and 
easy, and of restoring amnesty of conscience in the 
provinces where persecution and preaching had so dis- 
creditably contended. 

At the first presentation of Fénelon to Louis the 
Fourteenth, by Bossuet, the sole favour he demanded of 
the King was, to disarm religion of all coercive power ; 
to release Protestants from the terrors which petrified 
their souls, and to allow them once more to breathe ; to 
banish troops from the provinces he was about to visit ; 
and to let persuasion, charity, and mercy, alone operate 
upon the minds he desired rather to enlighten than to 
subdue. Louis, who looked only to the end, cared little 
for the means that were adopted. He was charmed with 
the grace, modesty, and eloquence of the young ecclesi- 
astic, and at once bestowed upon him the mission of 
Poitou. In this work Fénelon was aided by his two 
friends, the Abbé de Langeron and the Abbé Fleury, 
both of whom were animated by his own spirit. His 
presence, his mildness, and his preaching in the country, 
soothed turbulent spirits, and gained numerous recanta- 
tions. He allowed neither the King nor Bossuet to 
credit the sincerity of the forced abjurations which had 
preceded his ministry, and which had imposed a political 
faith upon the provinces. In his correspondence with 
the court, he courageously upheld the right and dignity 



348 TENELON. 

of conviction ; and, when accused by the advocates of per- 
secution, of a lenity which allowed freedom of belief to 
all, Fénelon wrote thus to Bossuet : "If they desire the 
people to abjure Christianity and to adopt the Koran, 
they need but to send them a troop of dragoons." Such 
language addressed to Bossuet himself, by a young 
minister aspiring to the dignities of his order, proved 
that he was at least two centuries in advance of his 
time. 

" Continue," wrote he again to the King's ministers, 
" to supply corn; you cannot adopt a more persuasive 
controversy. The people are only to be gained through 
conviction. Let them find as much advantage in 
remaining at home as peril in leaving the kingdom." 

Nevertheless, we discover with regret at a later period, 
in Fénelon's letters to Bossuet, some traces of weak con- 
cession to the merciless zeal of the pontiff, and a timid 
acquiescence in forcing people to heaven through the 
royal authority. It must be remembered, that no man 
escapes entirely from the prevailing opinions of his time ; 
least of all one who belongs to a body which trains its 
members in the sentiments and passions of an epoch. 

Upon his return from Poitou, Fénelon was recom- 
mended to Louis the Fourteenth, by the Duke de Beau- 
villier, and Madame cle Maintenon, as an eligible precep- 
tor for the Duke of Burgundy, the King's grandson. 
The Duke de Beauvillier held the office of governor to the 
youthful heir to the throne. The choice reflected equal 
honour upon the King, the governor, and Madame de 
Maintenon. Fénelon seemed predestined by nature for 
this duty. His mind was essentially royal, and it 
needed but to transfuse his own spirit into that of the 
child born to a throne, to render him an accomplished 
monarch and the pastor of his people in the most 



FENELON. 349 

ancient acceptation of the title. lenelon never courted 
this elevation. Fortune herself had found him in the 
hvilio-ht where he sought concealment. His associates 
rejoiced for him, but mourned for themselves ; the court 
was about to deprive them of his society. When 
Bossuet heard of this appointment, respecting which he 
had certainly been consulted, he expressed his pleasure 
in a short letter to Madame de Montmorency-Laval, 
the cousin and friend of Fénelon. 

" Yesterday, Madame," wrote he, " I was occupied 
with the cares of church and state. To-day I have 
leisure to think of your happiness, in which I warmly 
participate. Your father (the Marquis Antoine de 
Fénelon), my kind and good friend, is with me in spirit. 
My imagination pictures his feelings upon this occasion 
— could he witness the public exaltation of a merit 
which sought so carefully to conceal itself. Do not think, 
Madame, that we lose our friend. You can still enjoy 
his intercourse, and I, though forced by my duties to 
quit Paris, can sometimes return and embrace him." 

In this note the whole character of the man is dis- 
played. The joy, untainted with envy, of a master who 
beholds his own triumph in that of his pupil ; the 
memory of an old friendship with the head of the 
family which refils his heart and would open the tomb 
to congratulate the dead; and the manly tenderness of a 
father who in his old age sometimes needs the presence 
of his son. Bossuet's heart was, at times, hardened 
by bigotry and inflated by pontifical authority, but 
naturally it was tender. Devoid of this sensibility, he 
would have been a mere rhetorician, but how could 
he have possessed true eloquence? from whence would 
have proceeded those accents w 7 hich, penetrating the 
souls of men, drew from them cries and tears? 



350 FENELON. 

Fénelon's other friend, the Abbé Tronson, Director of 
St. Sulpice, and his spiritual adviser, addressed him in a 
long congratulatory letter, anxious and affectionate, one 
in which joy and fear were mingled. " The portals of 
earthly grandeur are opened to you," said this holy man, 
" but beware lest they shut out the more solid greatness 
of heaven. Your friends, doubtless, felicitate you with 
the assurance of this post having been bestowed un- 
sought, and this is truly a source of consolation ; but do 
not plume yourself too highly upon it, we have often 
more to do with our own elevation than we like to 
believe. Unknown to ourselves w r e assist in removing 
obstacles. We do not absolutely court those who can 
serve us, but we willingly display ourselves to them in 
the most favourable point of view. It is to these natural 
revealings, in which we suffer our merit to appear, that 
may be attributed the commencement of promotion. 
Thus no man can say he has not contributed to elevate 
himself." 

It is easy to be seen that the scrupulous director 
of the conscience, knew the secrets of his disciple's heart, 
and warned him against an ambition, created by the gift 
and desire of pleasing, which formed at once the charm 
and danger of Fénelon. 

The first thoughts of Fénelon upon attaining his new 
honours, were directed to friendship. He appointed the 
Abbe Fleury, and the Abbe de Beaumont (his nephew) 
sub-preceptors to the young Prince ; and to the Abbé de 
Langéron he assigned the office of reader. Thus he 
concentrated all his affections in his employment, and 
multiplied around his pupil the same spirit under 
different names. The Duke of Beauvillier, his first 
patron, and on whom the management of the young 
Prince depended, left his uncontrolled education to 



FENELON. 351 

Fénelon, and retained merely the title of his appoint- 
ment. Equally delicate and important were the duties 
of that office which comprised in the destiny of this 
child, confided to Fénelon, the future fate of a nation. 

It is difficult at this remote period, when the over- 
throw of thrones and manners have still further increased 
the distance, to comprehend thoroughly the court of 
Louis the Fourteenth. It represented a sort of chris- 
tain monarchy of Olympus, in which the King was 
the Jupiter, around whom revolved inferior gods and 
goddesses, deified by the adulation of the great and the 
superstition of the ignorant. Their virtues and their 
vices were alike extravagantly displayed with an auda- 
cious superiority that seemed to place between the people 
and the throne, the difference exhibited in the moral 
system of the gods as opposed to the moral system of 
men. 

Louis the Fourteenth must be looked upon as an 
exception to everything, even to humanity itself. This 
king must not be judged like other kings ; he seems to 
have had a conscience, a virtue, a God, apart from the 
rest of mortals. It w T as a unique period in the history 
of the greatness of courts, the intoxication of courtiers, 
and the prostration of the people. 

The lustre of the throne proceeded less from the 
sovereign who reigned, than from the events which that 
reign brought forth. Complete and absolute sovereignty 
was ripe at this epoch, and Louis had but to gather the 
fruit. Of two great ministers, Richelieu and Mazarin, 
the former had aided despotism by abating the power of 
the nobles ; the latter had obtained peace and obedience, 
by lightening the yoke of the oppressed people, by win- 
ning the parliaments, by purifying factions, by seducing 
the court, by corrupting princes, and by placing, through 



352 FENELON. 

the power of his smooth Machiavelism, France, van- 
quished, bought, pardoned, and wearied, within the hands 
of a child. The energetic and dominant nature of the 
Gaul displayed by Richelieu, the Greek and Italian 
finesse of Mazarin, seemed to have been created in con- 
cert, for the purpose of moulding the kingdom to servi- 
tude and tranquillity. 

The entire reign of Louis the Fourteenth is contained 
in the lives of these two men : the one the terror, the 
other the attraction, of royalty. Richelieu has been 
fully appreciated, and, it may be, somewhat too highly 
lauded; but history has not yet accorded to Mazarin 
his just meed. He was the Machiavel, unspotted with 
ciime, of the French monarchy. After his death, Louis 
the Fourteenth had neither to struggle for power nor 
respect ; he was only called upon to reign. 

Owing to these two antecedents — he was not re- 
quired to be a great man in order to become a great 
king. 

It was sufficient to possess an exalted heart with an 
upright mind, and both dwelt in Louis ; yet his intellect 
was irradiated, not by genius, but by good sense ; his 
heart elevated, not by grandeur of soul, but by pride. 
Mazarin had taught him to despise men, and to believe 
in the divine character of his power. He did so believe, 
and therein lay his strength : the idolatry he bore 
towards himself served as an example for that incense 
which he expected to breathe, and commanded in his 
couit. He had well learnt from his first minister, the 
most penetrating of statesmen, to discern the true value 
of men. To reign well, for Louis the Fourteenth, was 
but to be served well. He seldom made a mistake in 
his selections for office ; his kingdom represented nothing 
more than his house, the ministers his domestics, the 



FENELON. 353 

state his family ; in fact, the government was but a 
reflection of his own individual character. 

This character, embellished upon the surface by a 
remnant of the chivalry of the race of Valois, which 
adorned egotism in the monaich, and servility in his 
court, possessed nothing great beyond its personality. 
He thought only of himself; he was born a master, he 
well understood the art of command, he was polished in 
manners, steady in all political relations, faithful to those 
who served him, capable of appreciating merit, and 
desirous of absorbing in what he considered his own 
glory, the fame of all who were renowned either for great 
virtue or great talent. 

Troubles of long continuance were appeased, civil wars 
extinguished, peace established, and literature revived : 
nature ever more productive after storms, assigned to 
this reign the date of French genius in literature and the 
fine arts. Louis, like a fortunate man, and one worthy 
of his fate, seized the advantages of his time, which he 
stimulated and encouraged by his munificence and con- 
descension. He claimed every rising genius as a new 
subject. With regard to religion he professed two 
faiths, the one exclusively political, which consisted of 
fulfilling literally, by force if necessary, his part of most 
christian king, crowned son and Kctor of the Church ; 
the other was altogether private, an inheritance from 
his mother, brought from Spain ; scrupulous in con- 
science, literal in practice, and superstitious in creed. 
Such a piety as this, up to advanced age exercised but 
little influence over his conduct ; it had no true elevation, 
no independence of soul, no sublime view of the Creator. 
It was more that of a slave who trembles, than of a king 
who prays. He accommodated it to all his inclinations, 
and profaned it by his many weaknesses. Devoted to 



354 IENEL0N. 

love more by the senses than the intellect, his intrigues 
were numerous ; nevertheless, they partook but little of 
a libertine character. A certain sincerity of admiration, 
and constancy of regard, invested them with comparative 
purity. It was less vice than passion; but such an 
oriental passion resembled more the attachment of a 
Sultan to his favourite, than the devotion of a lover to his 
idol : he flattered, he adored, he insisted upon the court, 
the army, and the people, worshipping the object of his 
fancy, which he soon crushed to exalt another. Thus he 
lived, environing his wife with his mistresses, and never 
thinking himself sufficiently adored unless his weaknesses 
were included in the worship. At length came maturity, 
and remorse succeeded to voluptuousness. He sought 
to reconcile the necessity of a favourite with the demands 
of devotion. A woman formed expressly by nature and 
art to fill such a position, attracted his regard ; he culti- 
vated her society, but when he sought to conquer, found 
lie could do so only by marrying her. This woman was 
Madame de Maintenon. At the period when Fénelon 
was summoned to the Court, Madame cle Maintenon had 
reigned for several years. Her destiny was less the 
result of a fortunate chance, than of an ably studied 
calculation. 

Thus crafty though virtuous women, make respect an 
auxiliary of intrigue, and adopt this eminent example as 
the saint and patron of ambition. 

Men do not sympathise with her, as passion held no 
sway in her capitulation with the King. If she nego- 
tiated for a long time, it was but to sell herself at the 
highest price to a man whom she had never loved. 

Descended from a family, persecuted and ruined for 
their attachment to protestantism, brought as a child 
from the colonies by a relation without a home, increasing 



FKNELON. 355 

with years in all those charms which expose a young girl 
so early to temptation, inspiring those who beheld her 
with an admiration increased by her misfortunes, edu- 
cated amidst the usages of an equivocal society, living in 
domestic familiarity with the most celebrated courtezan 
of the time, Ninon de l'Enclos, marrying finally the old 
infirm and burlesque poet, Scarron, her chaste and 
melancholy beauty contrasting with the age and ill-temper 
of her husband, her poverty so nobly endured, her strict 
and irreproachable conduct amidst surrounding license 
and seductions, the severe graces of her mind cultivated 
in the shade, a cheerful yet sincere piety, which formed 
at once the safeguard of her youth and the foundation of 
that respect which the world entertained for her ; — all 
these combining causes attracted towards her the atten- 
tion of those who came from the court to relax them- 
selves at the house of the Diogenes of the day. Having 
soon become the widow of Scarron, during the period of 
mourning she concealed herself in a convent, from the 
injurious remarks of the world. Compelled to supplicate 
for the small pension to which she was entitled, as sur- 
viving her husband, she approached the court where she 
formed various connexions, when a fortunate opportunity 
occurred. A sure and devoted confidante was required, 
to whom could be confided the Duke du Maine, the 
invalid child of Madame de Montespan. Upon the pre- 
sentation of the young widow to the favourite, the latter 
became fascinated at once, and Madame de Maintenon 
received the young prince from the hands of the King 
and his mistress. She conducted him to the baths of 
the Pyrenees, in order to re-establish his health, and 
commence his education. The correspondence she was 
obliged to carry on from thence with Madame do Mon- 
tespan and the King, dissipated any prejudice Louis had 



356 FENEL0N. 

formed against her. She gained liis confidence, and won 
his interest. No woman of her time, or perhaps of any 
other, wrote in a style so simple, varied, and forcible ; 
her pen displayed the solidity of her judgment, and the 
capability of her mind. Good sense, clearness, and 
force, were her muses ; these were the qualities which 
accorded well with the rigid and precise spirit of Louis 
the Fourteenth, and were at the same time those which 
the favourite least dreaded in a confidante. The supe- 
riority of her own imagination, the brightness of her 
sallies, her strength of passion, the sparkling flow of her 
conversation, secured her from all rivalry. She possessed 
genius and the arts of seduction, and looked without 
alarm upon a simple esteem. 

It was beneath the mask of this modest temperament, 
and this humble assumption of the part of confidante, 
that the widow insinuated herself more and more into 
the friendship of the favourite and the intimacy of the 
King. This accordance with a liaison which scandalized 
all Europe, demanded concessions from the virtue of the 
confidante which were scarcely compatible with the 
rigour of her piety. But we have already said that the 
King was an exception to the recognised rules of morality. 
The new friend of Madame de Montespan and of the 
monarch, satisfied her conscience by blaming in gentle 
words, a guilty intercourse which she sanctioned by her 
actions. Her complaisance never extended absolutely to 
approbation or connivance, and in the interviews which 
her charge and her residence in the house of the favourite 
rendered frequent with the sovereign, she reproached 
him for his weakness, and urged him to repentance. 
Her ripened beauty, preserved in all its freshness by the 
coldness of her temperament, had at least as much effect 
in the king's conversion as the sternness of her language. 



FENELON. 357 

When at length liberated by the death of the Queen, he 
asked himself if a calm, sincere, and virtuous attachment 
to a woman at the same time attractive and sensible, 
would not offer to his mind and his senses a felicity as 
superior as it would exceed in virtue the voluptuous love of 
his unreformed years. The charm augmented with every 
interview, and the jealousy and angry reproaches of 
Madame de Montespan served only to increase it. She 
accused the friend whom she had raised from so low 
a condition, of ingratitude and domestic treachery, and 
declared she had but availed herself of her intimacy, to 
suborn the heart of the King by pious seductions, and 
to gain the place of Esther in the royal bed, from whence 
she should be driven with opprobrium and infamy. 
The predictions of despairing love were fulfilled ; the 
accusation of ingratitude proved only too just. Before 
many years had elapsed, Madame de Montespan was 
disgraced, and dragged out her sorrowing existence in 
exile, while the widow of Scarron became queen. Still, 
the dignity of the throne and the pride of the monarch 
prevailed sufficiently over his love, to prevent, the public 
announcement of his slavery to this new wife. He was 
contented to satisfy the demands of the church by 
obtaining the benediction of the Archbishop of Paris on 
the night of his marriage, in presence of a few trusty 
courtiers. The ceremony was secret, but the connexion 
public. Madame de Maintenon occupied in the people's 
eyes, the equivocal position of the King's revered favourite. 
The royal family, the court, the ministers, the clergy, 
the sovereign himself, all became subservient to her 
influence. Favourite, wife, arbitress of the church, 
oracle of the council, she was at the same time the 
Richelieu and Mazarin of the King's old age ; her clever 
humility bowed in outward appearance to the royal 

VOL. II. B B 



35S FENEL0N. 

authority, and while her will became the King's law, she 
ever induced him to draw forth her opinions as if by 
compulsion. It was as though a monarch had espoused 
his prime minister. 

Piety, which had succeeded to love, formed the lasting 
bond of this union. The court, inspired by the example 
of a religious woman, — governed by a master alarmed 
for his salvation, — domineered over by such stern bishops 
as Bossuet, — reprimanded by confessors, sometimes 
terrible as Letellier, at others, gentle as Lachaise, — 
agitated by opposing factions, — divided between am- 
bition and mysticism, — resembled more a synod than 
a government. Versailles at that period recals to mind 
the palace of the Blacquernal at Byzantium, under 
the sway of the Greek rulers of the Lower Empire ; 
where metaphysical quarrels distracted the court and 
the people, and left Constantinople open to the advance 
of destruction and the legions of her conquerors. 

The King had a son, who bore the title of Monseigneur. 
This prince, who had been educated by Bossuet and 
Montausier, was gifted by nature with courage and 
intelligence ; but the eastern jealousy of Louis withdrew 
him from the camp the moment he displayed ability, 
and banished him to Meudon, where he resided, with a 
single companion, almost in a state of indigence. The 
son ultimately consented to occupy this obscure position 
in order to remove from Louis the insupportable presence 
of an heir to the throne. The King trembled less before 
the shadow of death than before the knowledge that one 
day lie must cease to reign. The Duke of Burgundy, 
the guidance of whose studies had been confided to 
Fénelon, was the son of Monseigneur, and grandson of 
the King, who, following the custom of grandfathers, 
preferred this child to his own son. His extreme youth 



FENELON. 359 

removed all unpleasant feelings, as the great disparity of 
years placed a wide distance between the monarch's 
reign and that of this youthful successor. Some of the 
courtiers attached themselves to these different branches 
of the royal family. The greater number surrounded 
the King, and all paid homage to Madame cle Maintenon. 
Such was the Court of France when Fénelon entered upon 
his functions as preceptor to the Duke of Burgundy. 

The disposition of this child inspired more fear 
than hope. " He was terrible from his birth," said St. 
Simon, the untaught but impressive Tacitus of the end 
of this reign. " In his earliest years he caused those 
about him to tremble ; unfeeling, displaying the most 
violent passion, which extended towards inanimate 
objects, incapable of bearing the slightest contradiction, 
even from the hours or the elements, without giving way 
to a whirlwind of rage sufficient to break all the blood- 
vessels in his body ; I speak of what I have often wit- 
nessed : opiniated to excess ; absorbed in the pursuits of 
pleasure, fond of good living, following the chase with 
furious impetuosity, enjoying music with a sort of de- 
lirium, madly attached to play, but unable to bear loss, 
and when defeated, becoming positively dangerous ; in 
fact, abandoned to all the evil passions, and transported 
by every corrupting pleasure ; often savage, naturally 
cruel; bitter in raillery, ridiculing with a remorseless 
power, regarding all men (irrespective of merit), from 
his high position, but as atoms with whom he could have 
no affinity. 

" Wit and powers of penetration shone through all he 
did or said, even in his paroxysms of extreme violence. 
His repartees were marvellous, his replies always just and 
profound. He but glanced superficially at the most 
abstruse points of learning; the extent and vivacity of 

b b 2 



3G0 EENELON., 

his powers were so varied that they prevented his fixing 
upon any distinct branch of knowledge, and almost ren- 
dered him incapable of study. From this abyss came 
forth a prince," &c. This prince was the child confided 
to Fénelon to remodel. The King, Madame de Main- 
tenon, and the Duke de Beauvillier had been admirably 
guided, either by chance or discernment, in the selection 
of such a master for such a disciple. Fénelon had been 
endowed by nature with the two attributes most requisite 
in those who teach — the power of command and the gift 
of pleasing. Dignity and fascination emanated from his 
wdiole being,— nature had traced in his lineaments the 
beauty of his soul. His countenance expressed his 
genius even in moments of silence. The pencil, the 
chisel, and the pen of his contemporaries, some of whom 
were his enemies, all agree in their delineation of 
Fénelon. D'Aguesseau and St. Simon have been his 
Vandyck and his Rubens. He lives, he speaks, and 
enchants in their hands. His figure was tall, elegant, 
and flexible in its proportions as that of Cicero. Nobility 
and modesty reigned in his air and governed his motions; 
the delicacy and paleness of his features added to their 
perfection. He borrowed none of his beauty from the 
carnation, owed none of it to colour ; it consisted entirely 
in the purity and grace of outline, and was altogether of 
a moral and intellectual cast. In moulding his expres- 
sion, nature had employed but little physical material. 
We feel while contemplating this countenance, that the 
rare and delicate elements of which it was composed, 
afforded no home to the more brutal and sensual 
passions. They were shaped and moulded only to dis- 
play a quick intelligence, and to render the soul visible. 
His forehead was lofty, oval, rounded in the centre, de- 
pressed and throbbing towards the temples ; surmounted 



PENEL0N. 361 

by fine hair of an undecided colour, which the in- 
voluntary breath of inspiration agitated like a gentle 
wind, as it curled around the cap that covered the top of 
his head. His eyes, of a liquid transparency, received, 
like water, the various reflections of light and shadow, 
thought and impression. It was said that their colour 
reflected the texture of his mind. Eyebrows arched, 
round, and delicate, relieved them ; long, veined, and 
transparent lids covered and unveiled them alternately 
with a rapid movement. His aquiline nose w r as marked 
by a slight prominence, which gave energy of expression 
to a profile more Greek than Roman. His mouth, the 
lips of which were partly unclosed, like those of a man 
who breathes from an open heart, had an expression, 
wavering between melancholy and playfulness, which 
revealed the freedom of a spirit controlled by the gravity 
of the thoughts. It seemed to incline equally to prayer 
or to smiles, and breathed at the same time of heaven 
and earth. Eloquence or familiar conversation flowed 
spontaneously from every fold; the cheeks were depressed, 
but unwrinkled, save at the two corners of the mouth, 
where benevolence had indented lines expressive of 
habitual graciousness. His chin, firm and somewhat 
prominent, gave a manly solidity to a countenance other- 
wise approaching to the feminine. His voice corre- 
sponded, in its sweet, grave and winning resonance, with 
all the harmonious traits of his countenance. The tone 
conveyed as much as the words, and moved the listeners 
before the meaning was conveyed to them. 

" This exterior," continues d'Agnesseau, " was ren- 
dered more imposing by a lustre of distinction which 
spread around his person, and by an indescribable ex- 
pression, at once sublime and simple, which impressed 
upon his character and his features an almost prophetic 



362 FENELON. 

air. Without effort lie gave a new turn to all his concep- 
tions, which made his hearers fancy that inspiration had 
rendered him master of every science, and that instead 
of acquiring he had invented them. He was always new, 
ever original, imitating none, and himself inimitable. 
The theatre in which he performed was not too great for 
so great an actor ; he held no place there but that 
assigned to him by the public, and his position was 
worthy of his genius." 

To these endowments of nature, Fénelon added all 
those which are bestowed by a natural power of pleasing, 
without an effort to beguile or flatter. The desire of 
being loved as he himself loved, was his sole art of flat- 
tery and seduction ; but in this also lay all his power. 
" This power," said his friends, " became an irresistible 
fascination, in proportion as it was involuntary." This 
ardent inclination to please was no effort of his mind, it 
was simply his good fortune. Drawn towards all, by 
his love, he drew all in turn to himself. Benevolence 
was so completely his essence, that in breathing he im- 
parted it to others. The universal regard which he met 
with, was but the rebound of that affection he displayed 
towards his fellow- creatures. This desire to please was 
no artifice ; it was a spontaneous emotion. He did not, 
like the ambitious, exert it only where interest beckoned, 
towards those who by their friendship could aid his 
advancement or his schemes ; it extended to all, without 
other distinction than deference to the great and con- 
descension to the humble. Equally anxious, said St. 
Simon, to delight his superiors, his equals, and his 
inferiors, in this desire of reciprocal love he recognised 
no distinctions of great and small, high or low ; he 
sought only to conquer hearts with his own ; he neglected 
none, and noticed even the humblest domestics of the 



FENELON. 363 

palace ; nevertheless, this prodigality of regard had no- 
thing vulgar or uniform in its expression which might 
have vulgarised or deteriorated its value. It was marked, 
distinctive, and proportioned, not in tenderness, but 
in familiarity of manner, according to the rank, the 
worth, and the degree of the individual. To some 
respectfully affectionate, to others displaying ardent 
friendship ; giving a smile here, and a word there, — a 
kindly glance, a natural benevolence, spontaneously 
governed all his motions : his guide was sentiment, not 
form. A faultless tact (that instinct of the mind), in- 
voluntarily prevented his evincing too much considera- 
tion for one person, or too little for another. The 
measure bestowed on each was correctly proportioned. 

To all other charms he joined a marvellous grace : a 
grace the gift of nature, and to which good taste was 
added by gentle birth. Born within the ranks of the 
aristocracy, educated amidst the distinguished, accus- 
tomed from infancy to move in a sphere above the 
crowd, his manners bore that undeniable stamp of supe- 
riority which raises by its condescension, and flatters by 
its love. His politeness never seemed an attention to 
all, but a peculiar notice bestowed on each ; it imparted 
its own character to his genius. He never sought to 
dazzle by display those who might have felt obscured or 
humiliated under the ascendency of his talents. He 
suited his discourse to the capacity of his associates, 
equalling always, but never trying to surpass them. 
The conversation which forms the true eloquence of 
friendship was super-eminently his. Ever adapted to the 
man, the hour, and the subject, it was grave, flexible, 
luminous, sublime, or playful, but always noble and in- 
structive. In his most unstudied flights there was 
something sweet, kind, and winning, which the most 



3G4 FENELON. ' 

humble comprehended, and which compelled them to 
pardon his superiority. 

" None," continues St. Simon (who dreaded his 
genius), " could leave, or deprive themselves of the charm 
of his society, without wishing to return to it again. 
His conversation left that impression on the soul which 
his voice left on the ear, and his features on the eyes, 
— a new, powerful, and indelible stamp, which could 
never be effaced, either from the mind, the senses, or 
the heart. Some men have been greater; none have 
been more adapted to humanity ; and none have swayed 
more by the power of the affections." 

Such was Fénelon, when he appeared at Court, in his 
forty-second year. He speedily obtained dominion over 
all except only the envious, who could not endure supe- 
riority, and the King, who, in opposition to genius, pos- 
sessed only the gift of plain common sense, and could 
not endure that any other than himself should be an 
object of general regard. Madame de Maintenon, a 
woman of truly superior discernment wherever ambition 
did not obscure her faculties, recognised at once in 
Eénelon the dominating mind of this secondary court 
which surrounded the heir to the throne. His gentle, 
pure, and sincere piety, prevented any danger from the 
universal influence he exercised. She drew him into 
intimacy, and even wished to render him the confidant 
of her thoughts, in choosing him for her spiritual direc- 
tor. Such a confidence would have rendered the will 
of Fénelon the arbiter of the will of Madame de Main- 
tenon, who herself ruled the disposition of the King. 
The oratory of a female would have become the oracle of 
an age. It is believed that the comparative youth of 
Eénelon, and the instinctive repugnance of the monarch 
to such an alarming superiority, deterred her from the 



FENELON. 365 

fulfilment of this intention. She confided her conscience 
to another, but still bestowed all her favours upon 
Fénelon. No mind in the court so quickly understood, 
admired, and loved him. With the exception of Bossuet, 
all connected with the pious intercourse of Louis the 
Fourteenth and Madame de Maintenon, were persons of 
middling capacity. The genius of Fénelon soared far 
above this circle ; but we have already said that no man 
could so well adapt himself to those whom he could 
never raise to his own height. The greatest triumph of 
his genius consisted in forgetting itself. He confined 
himself, under the patronage of the Duke de Beauvillier, 
and the intimacy of the Duke de Chevreuse, both rather 
his friends than his superiors, to the delicate functions 
of his charge : the recital of those endeavours and suc- 
cesses by which the master achieved the transformation 
of his pupil, belong rather to the studies of philosophy 
than the records of history. The first process adopted 
by Fénelon was the influence of his own character. He 
succeeded in persuading, because he had succeeded in 
making himself loved ; and he became loved, from having 
begun by bestowing love himself. In a few years he 
had remodelled this rude nature, at first sterile and 
unproductive, but afterwards ductile and fruitful, into 
the Germanicus of France. This Germanicus, like he 
of Rome, can only be exhibited to the world for a 
moment ; we shall meet him again on the borders of 
the grave. 

It was in the midst of the studious leisure of this 
royal education, which forced upon Fénelon's mind the 
contemplation of the philosophy of societies, that he 
secretly composed, in a poetical form, his moral and poli- 
tical code of government. We speak of " Telemachus," 
which perpetuates the genius of Fénelon to all posterity. 



3G6 ÏENELON.' 

If he had merely been the lettered and elegant courtier 
of Madame de Maintenon's private circle, the exemplary 
and eloquent pontiff of Cambray, the tutor of a prince, 
carried off from his regal inheritance while yet under 
age, his name would already have been forgotten. But 
he has moulded his soul and genius into an imperishable 
poem. His mind is his immortal monument, and lives 
in this work. 

The exact period and method adopted by the poet in 
the composition of " Telemachus," have been subjects of 
much discussion. Some have thought that the intentions 
of the writer never destined it to assume the form of a 
book, and that it was transcribed without forethought, 
a page at a time, to afford introductory subjects upon 
Greek and Latin studies to his pupil. The scope, the 
regularity, the conformity, and sublimity of the work, 
evidently composed from a sustained train of ideas, and 
breathed by continued inspiration, defeat these puerile 
suppositions. They are no less falsified by the nature 
of the subjects which Fénelon discusses in Telemachus. 
Can any one suppose that a sensible instructor, a scru- 
pulous guardian of the imagination of his pupil, would 
have bestowed upon him as the subject of his studies, 
and as an example of the best theories of government, 
the equivocal fables of the mythology, and the soft images 
of the amours of Eucharis? Such a conclusion is to 
calumniate the good sense and modesty of the poet. 
This book, which was in truth composed expressly for 
the young prince, was evidently written with the inten- 
tion of fortifying his mind, when formed by manhood, 
against the doctrines of tyranny and the snares of volup- 
tuousness; pictures which the master presented to his 
pupil, to arm him beforehand against the seductions of 
a throne, and the allurements of his own heart. The 



FENELON. 367 

truth of this hypothesis is, that the instructor detached 
from time to time, a page of his manuscript suited to the 
age and faults of the pupil, and made him translate 
it, with the intention of presenting to him in this com- 
position, either the maxims he sought to inculcate, or 
the portraits of those vices he was desirous of counter- 
acting by indirect lessons. But the entire poem, as a 
whole, formed the relaxation, the treasure, and the secret 
of the poet. 

All the world are acquainted with this poem — chris- 
tian in its inspiration, pagan in its form. This original 
defect corresponds perfectly with the man and the period. 
Fenelon, like his book, possessed a pagan genius and a 
christian spirit. Despite this vice of composition, which 
destroys the character of co-existence and nationality, — 
which all truly monumental books ought to display, if 
they seek to be the living and eternal memorials of true 
and original thoughts, — it is the most perfect treatise 
upon education and political economy that exists in 
modern times : and this treatise has the unusual merit of 
being, at the same time, a poem, a moral essay, and a nar- 
rative ! It bears a three-fold existence : it instructs, it 
interests, and it charms. It is true it lacks the melody 
of verse. Fenelon never possessed sufficient power 
of imagination to exercise over his ideas that force of 
composition which embodies them in rhythm, or, as we 
may say, blends together words and images by throwing 
them into the mould of poetry. But his prose was 
intrinsically poetical ; and if it has not the perfection, 
the cadence, and harmony, it has, nevertheless, the full 
charm of measured numbers. It is always music, al- 
though of an uncertain sound, which flows softly and 
freely through the ear. This poetry may be less durable, 
but is also less fatiguing, than that of Homer or Virgil. 



368 FENELON. 

If it possesses not the lasting quality of metal, neither is 
it encumbered with the weight. An ordinary compre- 
hension can follow it with less effort. Eénelon and 
Chateaubriand are poets as much through sentiment as 
by the power of imagery. They possess that which 
forms the essence of poetry, and makes the greatest 
poets. The only distinction is, that they speak instead 
of singing their stanzas. The true imperfection of this 
beautiful book, consists not in its being written in prose, 
but rather in its being a copy from the antique, instead 
of a modern original. We can fancy ourselves reading 
a translation from Homer, or a continuation of the 
Odyssey, by a disciple equal to his master. The 
places, the names, the customs, the people, the events, 
the images, the fables, the deities, the men, the earth, 
the sea, and the heaven, — all are Greek and pagan ; 
there is nothing French, and nothing christian. The 
whole work is a caprice of genius — the disguise of a 
modern imagination beneath the fictions and vestments 
of the ancient mythology. We feel it to be a sublime 
imitation, but an imitation in every line. Fénelon is 
here like a second Homer, living amidst another people 
and in another age, singing fables to a generation who 
no longer believe them. Herein lies the fault of the 
poem. This was also the vice of the period, which, not 
having yet created its own poetry or its own imagery, 
and finding itself surrounded, upon the revival of let- 
ters, by the monuments of Greek inspiration, thought 
nothing could be more beautiful than to copy these ves- 
tiges ; and thus original thought remained impotent 
from the force of admiration. But this error explained 
and excused, does not render the work of Eénelon less 
sublime. It seems the dictation of filial piety ; we may 
almost say, that it is a poem containing every virtuous 



FENELON. 3G9 

and religious emotion belonging to man. The poet tells 
us that the young Telemachus, the son of Ulysses and 
Penelope, conducted by Wisdom, in the shape of an 
old man denominated Mentor, navigates the eastern 
seas in search of his father, who has been driven for 
ten years, by the anger of the gods, from his kingdom, 
the small island of Ithaca. Telemachus, during this 
long voyage, sometimes auspicious, occasionally the re- 
verse, landing or driven upon numerous coasts, is often 
present at different forms of civilization, explained to 
him by his attendant guardian, Mentor. He encounters 
many dangers, experiences many passions ; is exposed 
to the snares of pride, of glory, of voluptuousness, and 
triumphs over all, through the assistance of that invisible 
wisdom which counsels and protects him. Matured by 
years, and instructed by experience, he becomes an 
accomplished prince ; and, having encountered in the 
countries he has traversed, sometimes good kings, some- 
times tyrants, and occasionally republics, he reduces the 
lessons which he has been taught by example, to the 
practical government of his own people. 

Like Emile, the plebeian Telemachus of J. J. Rous- 
seau, this poem is exclusively social and political. It is 
at once the critic and theorist of society and govern- 
ments. It was intended to furnish the programme of 
a future reign, in which the Duke of Burgundy was to 
be the Telemachus, and Fénelon the Mentor. It is 
chiefly under this point of view, that this book has 
exerted such a powerful influence over the mind of 
man. Fénelon was not only a poet, but also a political 
legislator ; a modern Solon ; a living date throughout 
all the revolutions of society which have agitated the 
world since the appearance of his poem. We may say, 
without romance or exaggeration, that all good and all 



370 FENELON. 

evil, all that is true, all that is false, all that is real and 
all that is chimerical in the great European revolution 
of opinions and institutions, of which we have been the 
instruments, the spectators, and the victims, during a 
century, has flowed from this book, as from the fountain 
of good and evil. Telemachus is at once the grand 
revelation and Utopia of all classes of society. When 
we follow the chain attentively, link by link, from the 
most fanatic tribunes of the Convention to the Girondins, 
from the Girondins to Mirabeau, from Mirabeau to 
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, frem Bernardin de Saint- 
Pierre to J. J. Rousseau, from J. J. Rousseau to Turgot, 
from Turgot to Vauban, from Vauban to the preceptor 
of the Duke of Burgundy, we shall discover in Fénelon 
the first revolutionist, the first tribune of the people, the 
first reformer of kings, the first apostle of liberty ; and 
in Telemachus we shall acknowledge the evangelist of 
the truths and errors of modern revolutions. The poli- 
tics of Fénelon were virtuous, but chimerical. Hence the 
summits and precipices upon which this revolution rises, 
or down which it plunges lower and lower at each effort 
to become practical. The moral principles inculcated 
by Telemachus are admirable, but the ideas upon 
government are absurd. In Fénelon the political trans- 
formation of the world possessed its prophet ; but it 
was compelled to wait another century for its statesman. 
The good sense of Louis the Fourteenth, sharpened by 
the exercise of government, taught him at once the true 
estimate of the man and the book. " Fénelon," said 
he, " is the most chimerical individual in my kingdom." 
All his general maxims, healthy in theory, have been 
destroyed in practice, by the imperfections inseparable 
from humanity. People ruled by their own wisdom; 
patrician and plebeian republics ; royalties tempered by 



FENELON. 371 

the sacerdotal or popular authority ; representative 
government ; triennial assemblies of the states-general 
of the nation ; provincial administrations and assem- 
blies ; the election and deposition of princes ; the sove- 
reignty of the people in action ; the suppression of 
hereditary succession to the throne and magisterial 
offices ; liberty of conscience ; perpetual concord between 
the people ; fraternity and equality amongst the citizens ; 
the destruction of individual wealth, under the pretext 
of advantage to the community ; the arbitrary dictation 
of the state, as to the fortunes of its subjects ; the dis- 
tribution of lands and professions by the government ; 
public education enforcing equalizing principles, which 
all the children of the kingdom were compelled to 
undergo ; the community of benefits ; the condemnation 
of luxury ; the sumptuary laws, operating upon houses, 
lodgings, food, and elementary trades, such as agricul- 
ture, where the toils of the lower orders met with the 
strongest incitement from the suppression of luxury and 
the arts ; the maximum of price and of consumption in 
provisions ; a system of political economy, by turns the 
best or the worst ; truth, error, Utopias, inconsistencies, 
contradictions, illusions, possibility, impossibility, ex- 
tended views, short-sighted systems, dreams, undefined 
ideas, aspirations devoid of any solid foundation, with- 
out aim or possibility of being reduced to action ; — all 
contribute to render the political code inculcated by 
Telemachus merely the pastoral of government. All is 
confused ; we feel ourselves floating in an ocean of human 
imagination, without compass to direct us ; tending to- 
wards neither pole, and without a coast to land upon. 
It resembles the Contrat social of J. J. Rousseau, the 
Utopia of Plato, or that of Thomas More ; and is, in 
fact, a Pandemonium of empty speculations. Every- 



372 FENELON. 

thing in it is a shadow, and nothing substantial. While 
contemplating these four books, the Republic of Plato, 
the Utopia of More, the Telemachus of Fénelon, and 
the Contrat Social of J. J. Rousseau, we can repeat 
with conviction the saying of Frederic the Great, " If I 
had an empire to punish, I would bestow the govern- 
ment of it upon the philosophers." 

These philosophers, despite the grandeur of their 
genius, the elevation of their views, and the virtue of 
their designs, plan systems for humanity at large which 
are suited only to an abstract portion. Minds, without 
practical experience, construct their imaginary institu- 
tions upon clouds, and the moment these clouds touch 
the earth, their institutions melt into vapour, or fall 
to ruins. Fénelon, in " Telemachus," proves himself 
one of those philosophers who have created for the age 
which they imagine, the most beautiful, but the most 
mistaken perspectives ; who equally mingle sound and 
unsound opinions ; and who have confounded a passion 
for ameliorating the condition of humanity with a passion 
for attaining the impossible. It is against such practical 
impossibilities that inexperienced revolution (of whom 
they are the parent) wounds, struggles, and always 
destroys itself; and it is also from the anger created by 
the resistance which reality offers to chimera that spring 
the deceptions, the frenzies, the tyrannies, and the 
crimes of this very spirit of change. The visionary 
Utopiasts, who advocate a purely metaphysical form of 
government, and the annihilation of power, produced 
the crimes and anarchies of the revolution of 1793. The 
Utopiasts of levelling property and social communism 
produced the panic, the disavowal, and the adjournment 
of the revolution of 1848. These two dreams of 
Fénelon have been looked upon as serious practicalities 



FENELON. 873 

by short-sighted reasoners. The saintly poet has unin- 
tentionally been the first radical and the first communist 
of his age. 

The influence of this book in matters of political 
economy, has been no less powerful and equally fatal ; 
but its errors in this respect are more easily demonstrated. 
The declamations against art and luxury, the sumptuary 
laws to regulate the consumption of articles produced by 
labour, which are useless in our epoch, were applicable 
to the primitive condition of that antiquity from which 
Fénelon unfortunately drew his examples and imbibed 
his ideas. Upon the first establishment of any community 
strictly pastoral and agricultural, where the earth is culti- 
vated with difficulty, and scarcely supplies the necessary 
aliment of man, it becomes the enforced law and virtue 
of citizens to consume as little as possible, that their 
sobriety and abstemiousness may thus leave a larger 
portion to satisfy the wants of their brethren. The aim 
of such laws was to prevent scarcity, that scourge of 
new-born empires, whose existence depends upon abun- 
dance of provision. Under this view, temperance, which 
is now a virtue confined to ourselves, became a benefit 
conferred on society. Abstinence was an act of devotion 
— luxury a crime. We can thus comprehend the useful- 
ness of sumptuary laws in the remote periods of antiquity ; 
but when a community is firmly established, and has 
increased its productive powers by clearing land, by the 
acquisition of flocks and machinery, when it no longer 
fears scarcity, and supports its immense population by 
the wages paid for the various products of art, intellect, 
and industry ; when the luxury of one class creates the 
riches of another ; when each pleasure, each vanity, and 
each caprice of the rich, pays, voluntarily or involuntarily, 
a reward for the labour which has supplied it, the system 

vol. ii. c c 



374 FENELON. 

of Fénelon, of Plato, and of J. J. Rousseau, appears no 
longer a mere absurdity, but assumes the serious aspect 
of a ruinous injury to the people. Consumption then 
becomes a virtue, and luxury proportioned to fortune 
supplies the necessities of the rest of mankind. This 
error of " Telemachus " is one of those which produced 
the worst evils of the Revolution, and its impression is 
still un-effaced from the minds of the people, much as it 
has misguided and injured them. Such is " Telemachus," 
— virtuous in maxim, deplorable in application. But as 
this poem responds by anticipation to the most noble 
and most legitimate instincts of justice, equality, and 
purity in the government of empires — as it was inspired 
by a pious mind, and written by a poetical genius — 
we can imagine the effect such a book w r as likely to 
produce upon the world. 

But " Telemachus" contained also the secret of Fénelon. 
He wrote it in the palace of Louis the Fourteenth, and 
concealed it from the notice of the King and the courtiers 
until near the close of the reign. In this book there 
was a terrible accusation, which he reserved for the 
period when his pupil, the Duke of Burgundy, should 
have attained the years of maturity, and have approached 
more closely to the throne. It was a sealed confidence, 
to remain until then unbroken, between the master and 
the pupil. Perhaps this book was also destined at the 
moment of the young prince's accession, to proclaim 
a new political system — to be, in fact, the programme 
of a Fénelonian government. It was also a sort of 
indirect aspiration to the post of first minister, for which 
Fénelon might have felt a presentiment, without even 
acknowledging it to himself. The ambition which his 
friend, the Abbé Tronson, had warned him against, as 
we have already seen, — that species of ambition which 






PENELON. 375 

does not seek to aggrandize its possessor, but which is 
involuntarily created and revealed by intellectual ability, 
— such was that of Fénelon. There are certain men whom 
nature has endowed with distinct privileges. Their 
ambition, instead of being the offspring of passion, is the 
emanation of mental power. They do not aspire, but 
they mount by an irresistible force, as the aerostatic 
globe rises above an element heavier than itself, by the 
sole superiority of specific ascendency. The very goodness 
of Fénelon caused him to desire some future elevation, 
where his benevolent spirit could shed itself with more 
effect upon all around him. But envy now began to 
penetrate into the shade where he had sought conceal- 
ment. People began to be alarmed at the influence 
exercised by him not only in the capacity of master, but 
as a friend, over the mind of his pupil. The increasing 
interest daily evinced by Madame de Maintenon for the 
charms of his conversation, had a powerful influence at 
Court. The correspondence between her and Fénelon 
was as frequent as it was intimate. These letters display 
the boldness of those counsels which Fénelon gave to the 
woman who in her turn counselled the King. He 
encouraged her to reign. " You have more resolution 
than you believe yourself to possess." (He wrote thus 
in obedience to an expressed wish of hers that he would 
speak the truth, no matter how severe.) " You distrust 
yourself, or rather, you fear entering into discussions 
opposed to the inclination you have always felt for a life 

of tranquillity and retirement As the King is 

guided much less by the force of principles than by the 
impulsion of those individuals who surround him, and 
upon whom he bestows his authority, it becomes essen- 
tial that he should be influenced upon all occasions by 
truly good men, who, acting in concert with you, will 

c c 2 



37G FENELON. 

induce the fulfilment, in their most extended view, of 
those duties which he never contemplates. Since he 
must be surrounded, the grand point is, how to surround 
him ; since he must be ruled, how to rule him. His 
welfare consists in his being influenced by those who are 
upright and disinterested. You must, then, apply your- 
self to the task. Give him views of peace ; induce him 
to ameliorate the condition of the people ; above all, to 
adopt principles of moderation and equity ; to suppress 
all harsh and violent counsels, and to hold in abhorrence 
acts of arbitrary authority. . . . There are at court many 
people of virtuous and noble qualities, who merit your 
kindness and encouragement; but you must exercise 
great precaution, for thousands would become hypocrites 
to please you." 

We see that Fénelon speaks of the errors of the King, 
as a man who places himself entirely in the power of 
Madame cle Maintenon, the future mistress of his confi- 
dences ; we also see that, faithful to friendship, he sought 
to draw towards the virtuous section of the court, the 
Dukes de Chevreuse and Beauvillier, all the favour of 
the sovereign ruler. We must not, however, forget that 
the cause of virtue was at the same time the cause of his 
friends and patrons. 

This correspondence, and this pious intercourse between 
Madame de Maintenon and Fénelon, gained more and 
more for the future author of " Telemachus " the regard 
and esteem of one who reigned with uncontrolled power : 
she frequently reverted with pleasure, in her advanced 
years, to the sentiments she had then experienced. 

" I have often since wondered," writes she, " why I 
did not select the Abbé de Fénelon as the guide of my 
conscience, when his manners charmed me so much, and 
when his mind and virtues had so influenced me in 



FENELON. 377 

his favour." She, more than any other woman in her 
position, required the society of a man in all points 
equally attractive and superior, surrounded as she was 
by common-place spirits, and by empty coldness. " Ah! " 
(she wrote at one period to her favourite niece), " alas 
that I cannot give you my experience, that I could only 
show you the weariness of soul, by which the great are 
devoured; the difficulty which they find in getting 
through their days. Do you not see how they die of 
sadness in the midst of that fortune which has been 
a burden to them ? I have been young and beautiful ; I 
have tasted many pleasures ; I have been universally 
beloved. At a more advanced age, I have passed years 
in the intercourse of talent and wit, and I solemnly 
protest to you, that all conditions leave a frightful void." 
This friendship of Madame de Maintenon for the most 
fascinating man in the kingdom, inspired the monarch 
with the idea of recompensing ïenelon for his success in 
the education of his grandson, by the gift of the Abbacy 
of Saint-Valery. The King in person announced to 
him his gracious intention, and made many excuses for 
bestowing upon his services so tardy and dispropor- 
tionate a reward. All things seemed to smile upon 
Fénelon. The heart of Madame de Maintenon seemed 
to have gained for him the love of the entire court. 

But a snare was upon his path, and this snare lay in 
himself, in his pure soul, and in his poetic imagination. 
He allowed himself to be seduced, not by his success, but 
by his piety. 

We have already stated at the commencement of this 
narrative, that the court of Louis the Fourteenth, in his 
advanced age, resembled rather a synod than a seat 
of government ; and that the most subtle dogmas of 
orthodoxy and theology occupied the place of war an 



378 PENELON. 

politics. We must now proceed to name the period 
when the fortune of this bright genius, and, perhaps, the 
destiny of France, were overthrown by the hallucinations 
of a woman and the anger of Bossuet. 

About that epoch there resided at Paris a young, 
beautiful and rich widow, Jeanne-Marie de Lamothe. 
She had been married to M. Guy on, the son of the 
constructor of the canal of Briare, whom she had lost 
at the early age of twenty-eight. Madame Gnyon was 
gifted by nature with beauty of a dreamy and melan- 
choly order, a passionate soul, and an imagination so 
exalted that earth could not satisfy it ; but seeking for 
love it mounted to heaven. She had been acquainted in 
Paris, before her marriage, with a young Barnabitc 
recluse, of the name of Lacombe. The tender piety and 
mystic exaltation of this monk, produced upon the heart 
and mind of the young neophyte, one of those sudden 
impressions where grace and nature seem equally 
mingled ; as in the friendship of St. François de Sales 
and Madame de Chantai, where it was impossible to 
discern whether admiration was most yielded to celestial 
virtue or human attraction. Madame Guyon, who had 
always kept up a correspondence with her religious 
instructor, no sooner became a widow than she retired 
to Gex, a little village of Bugey, on the declivity of the 
Jura, where father Lacombe awaited her. The Bishop 
of Geneva, who held as a lief the small village of Gex, 
was acquainted with the name, the attractions, the 
talent, the fortune, and the already notorious sanctity of 
the young widow. He considered it as an added glory 
to his church, that a woman so endowed with natural 
and supernatural gifts, should bury all in this solitude 
in order to consecrate them to the service of God. He 
therefore resolved to bestow upon Madame Guyon, the 



EENELON. 379 

direction of a convent of young girls, converted by ins 
exertions from the schismatic doctrines of Calvin. 
Madame Gnyon selected father Lacombe for the 
superior of her convent. The intimacy of the widow 
and the monk, consecrated by the pious intercourse of 
their mutual residence, became exalted almost to a sort 
of ecstasy. The ardent imagination of the woman soon 
surpassed that of the man ; the master changed places 
with the disciple, and received from the eyes and lips of 
his penitent, inspirations and revelations as direct mani- 
festations from heaven. 

This mystic commerce appeared suspicious to the 
minds of the unsophisticated. The Bishop of Geneva, 
after having involuntarily favoured it, became alarmed, 
and removed the monk in disgrace to Thonon, another 
small village in his diocese, upon the banks of the lake 
of Geneva. Madame Guyon immediately followed her 
spiritual friend, and retired to an Ursuline convent at 
Thonon, where she constantly received father Lacombe 
without restraint, and continued that ecstatic intercourse 
which gave her complete dominion over his feebler spirit, 
which it both subdued and charmed. From thence she 
went to Grenoble, to expand the fame of her heavenly love 
in conference with a small number of sectarians. The 
forests and rocks of the Grande-Chartreuse attracted her 
by their sublime grandeur, and she there seemed to 
resemble the Sibyl of the desert. Finally, hoping to find 
on the other side of the Alps, the Italian imagination 
more susceptible of the fire of her new doctrines, she 
sent her disciple, Lacombe, to preach her faith at Verceil, 
in Piedmont. Thither she again followed him, and wan- 
dered about in his company for several years, from Gex 
to Thonon, from Thonon to Grenoble, from Verceil to 
Turin, from Turin to Lyons, leaving the world undecided 



380 FENELON. 

between admiration and scandal. Admiration prevailed 
with all who examined closely the sincerity of her enthu- 
siasm, the austerity of her life, and the purity of her 
habits. Upon her return from this long pilgrimage, she 
published at Lyons an exposition of the Song of Solomon, 
and several other works upon meditation. The doctrines 
they inculcated were drawn from Plato, and the first 
Christian commentators, chiefly those belonging to Spain, 
that country of enthusiasm. Their object was to incul- 
cate upon pious minds, as the type of true perfection, the 
love of the Deity for himself alone, devoid of all desire of 
reward or fear of punishment. She recommended also 
a profound and absorbing contemplation of God, wherein 
the soul, drowned in the ocean of the divine essence, 
would contract the sinlessness of a purely innocent spirit, 
and becoming incapable of ascent or fall, would cast the 
body aside as a worn-out vestment, leaving it at liberty 
to fulfil its simply material functions, while the soul, 
exalted to heaven, would cease to be held responsible for 
its earthly tenement. It was in fact the virtue of 
Divinity transplanted into man, by the indissoluble 
union of man to the Divinity ; the dream of every soul 
upon earth, and the anticipated condition of heaven. 
These maxims contained sublimity and sanctity for saints, 
but they were replete with dangerous snares for vulgar 
minds. 

The Church became alarmed at the rumour of such 
doctrines, and the Cardinal Lecamus, Bishop of Grenoble, 
denounced them to M. de Harlay, Archbishop of Paris, 
at court. Madame Guyon and father Lacombe returned 
to the capital. The apostle and disciple were both 
arrested ; the monk was interrogated, thrown into the 
Bastille, afterwards confined in the Isle of Oléron, and 
ultimately incarcerated in the Castle of Lourdes, amidst 



FENEL0N. 381 

the roughest wilds of the Pyrenees, there to linger 
through many long and dreary years of expiation. 
Madame Guyon, confined in a convent in the street of 
Saint-Antoine, underwent the most strict examinations 
of the church, and cleared herself triumphantly from all 
the accusations of scandal and impiety, by which she had 
been assailed upon her return to Paris. She became 
the example, the worship, the delight, and the admira- 
tion of the convent, which had been selected as her 
prison. Madame de Miramion, a person at that time 
also celebrated for her fervent light and zeal in the cause 
of piety, heard of the female captive, sought an interview 
with her, and became fascinated. She interceded with 
Madame de Maintenon to obtain the liberty of a woman 
so unjustly persecuted. Madame de la Maisonfort, a 
relative of Madame de Maintenon, the Duchess of 
Béthune, daughter of the unfortunate Fouquet, and 
Madame de Beauvillier herself, the daughter of Colbert, 
united their entreaties to those of Madame de Miramion ; 
Madame de Maintenon granted liberty to the protegee 
of such irreproachable women. In the first moment of 
her freedom, Madame Guyon flew to express her gratitude 
to her liberator. Madame de Maintenon succumbed to 
the universal fascination ; she felt drawn towards Madame 
Guyon as to the focus of piety, eloquence, and grace, 
which had been only obscured by the vapours of an effer- 
vescing imagination. She introduced her to Saint-Cyr, 
an establishment where she had assembled beneath her 
own inspection the élite of all the nobly born young girls 
in the kingdom ; and engaged her to hold discourses 
there upon the mighty gifts of God, and to communicate 
her contemplative and pious thoughts upon divinity to 
the youthful residents. Madame de Maintenon stimu- 
lated this good work by her presence. She became the 



382 FENELON. 

innocent accomplice of all the pious subtilties in which a 
mystical spirit indulged when rhapsodizing on divine 
love ; and infected the sternest men about the court 
with the same degree of admiration, including the Duke 
de Beauvillier, and the Duke de Chevreuse ; and she 
admitted Madame Guyon to a confidential intimacy 
inaccessible to others. It was in such a position, and be- 
neath such auspices, that Fénelon encountered Madame 
Guyon. The resemblance in gentleness and elevation of 
these two spirits, equally pious, and guided by imagina- 
tions equally ardent, established at once between Fénelon 
and Madame Guyon a spiritual intercourse, in which 
there was no seduction but piety, and nothing to be 
seduced but enthusiasm. 

The mystic recitals of Madame Guyon, while affording 
such ecstacy to Fénelon and Madame de Maintenon, ap- 
peared to them as the exhalations of a peculiar devotion, 
the exercise of which was suited only to the privacy of 
the sanctuary, and which must be carefully veiled from 
the gaze of the vulgar, as likely to produce only in- 
toxication in the uneducated mind. The King, whose 
faith was as simple as his imagination, held a sterner 
opinion. 

" I have read extracts from the works of our friend, 
to the King," writes Madame de Maintenon, "but he 
tells me they are mere ravings ; he is not yet sufficiently 
advanced in piety to appreciate their perfection." She 
adds, in another place : " The maxims of the Abbé 
Fénelon should not be published to those who cannot 
understand them. As regards Madame Guyon, we must 
be content to monopolise her to ourselves. The Abbé 
Fénelon is right in advising that her works should be 
kept private, for they would preach of the liberty of the 



FENEL0N. 3S3 

children of God, to those who have not yet become his 
children." 

We see that Fénelon opposed himself to the display of 
an ideal perfection likely to become a cause of offence to 
the weak-minded ; his spiritual accordance with Madame 
Guyon was less complete than that of Madame de Main- 
tenon and the court, and his admiration, held in check 
by prudence, though enthusiastic, never reached the point 
of fanaticism. 

His strong attachment to these doctrines proceeded 
from his peculiar mental organization, and from a lean- 
ing to that mystical love of the Deity, in which tenderness 
is mixed with subtilty. Let us listen to him speaking 
of St. Teresa, and we shall discover in his admiration the 
peculiar bent and natural source of his own devotion. 
We shall at the same time perceive the reserve, the judg- 
ment, and the prudence which ever pervaded his lofty 
mind. 

"From the simple worship in which Teresa was at 
first absorbed, God elevated her mind to the most sub- 
lime height of contemplation. She entered into that 
union wdiere the virginal marriage of husband and Avife 
commences, where she becomes all to him, he everything 
to her. Revelations, the spirit of prophecy, visions 
which assumed no tangible form, raptures, ecstatic tor- 
ments, as she herself said, in which the spirit is over- 
whelmed, and the body succumbs, and in which the 
presence of God is so realized that the soul sinks over- 
whelmed and consumed, unable to support its burden of 
sublime awe; in fact, every supernatural gift, seemed 
poured upon her. Her directors were at first sight mis- 
taken. They judged of her capability for the practice of 
virtue by the nature of her prayers, and by the remains 
of that weakness and imperfection which God left, in 



384 FENEL0N. 

order to humiliate her. They concluded her to be under 
the influence of a dangerous illusion which they desired 
to exorcise. Alas ! what trouble for a soul simply de- 
sirous of obedience, and influenced as that of St. Teresa 
was by terror, when she felt her mental powers com- 
pletely overturned by her instructors. ' I was,' said she, 
' like one in the midst of a river on the point of being 
drowned without hope of succour.' She no longer re- 
cognised herself, nor knew what she said when praying. 
That which had formed her consolation for so many years 
now added bitterness to her distress. In order to obey, 
she tore herself from her inclination, but involuntarily 
returned without the power to abandon or resume it. 
Assailed by these doubts, she experienced all the horrors 
of despair. Everything seemed confused and terrifying ; 
every hope appeared to desert her. God himself, upon 
whom she had hitherto reposed with such confidence, 
had become to her as a dream ; and in her agony she 
cried, like Mary Magdalen, ' They have taken away my 
Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.' 

" Oh ! ye anointed of the Lord, cease not to study 
by incessant prayer and meditation the most profound 
and mysterious operations of his grace, since ye are its 
dispensers ! What does it not cost the souls that you 
instruct, when the coldness of your peculiar studies and 
your ignorance of internal guides causes you to condemn 
all that has not come within the course of your expe- 
rience ! Happy are those who find men o£ God, as St. 
Teresa ultimately did — the holy Francis de Borgia and 
Peter of Alcantara, who smoothed the difficulties of her 
path. ' Till then,' said she, ' I felt more shame in de- 
claring my revelations than I had ever experienced in the 
confession of my greatest sins.' And let us also shrink 
from speaking of these revelations in a century when 



FENELON. 3S5 

incredulity is considered wisdom. Let us blush at the 
mention of praise for that grace which effected so much 
in the heart of St. Teresa. No, no; be silent, O century ! 
in which even those who believe the truths of religion, 
pride themselves upon rejecting without examination, as 
mere fables, all the miracles which God has displayed in 
his elected instruments. 

" I know that these emotions mast be experienced in 
order to feel that they come from God. God forbid that 
I should sanction a weak credulity in extravagant visions ! 
But let me neither hesitate in faith where he directly 
sends the revelation ! He who poured miraculous gifts 
in a stream from on high, upon the first believers, has 
he not promised to shed his spirit upon all humanity ? 
Has he not said, ' On my servants and on my hand- 
maidens ? ' Although these latter times are less worthy 
than an earlier period of such celestial communications, 
must we therefore look upon them as impossible? Is 
their source exhausted ? Is heaven closed against us ? Is 
it not rather that the unworthiness of our age renders 
such mercies more necessary, to enlighten the faith and 
increase the charity now almost extinct ? 

" Ah ! rather would I forget myself than forget the 
writings of Teresa. So simple, so earnest, so natural, 
that in the act of reading we forget that we read, and 
fancy ourselves listening to her voice. Oh ! how wise and 
gentle are those counsels in which my soul has tasted of 
the hidden manna ! with what ingenuousness does she 
recount facts ! It is not a recital, but a picture. What 
a power does she possess of describing various condi- 
tions ! I behold with ecstasy, that like St. Paul, words 
fail to express all that she conceived. What a living 
faith ! The heavens lay open before her. She compre- 
hended all things, and discoursed as familiarly of the 



330 FENELON. 

sublimest revelations as she did of the commonest occur- 
rences. Imbued only with a spirit of obedience, she 
spoke incessantly of herself and her sublime gifts without 
pride or ostentation, without allusion to any personal 
superiority. Mighty soul, which estimates itself as no- 
thing, and, beholding God in all things, abandons itself 
without fear to the instruction of others ! Oh ! how 
dear are these instructions to all who seek to serve God 
in prayer, and how highly have they been lauded by the 
voice of the church ! I dare not display them to the gaze 
of the profane. Away, away, haughty and prying spirit, 
seeking to read these works only to tempt God, and to 
despise the riches of his goodness ! Where are ye, simple 
and meditative souls to whom they belong ? ... If ye fully 
comprehend the happiness of dwelling in God and seeking 
to dwell in him only, ye will taste the centuple promise of 
this life ; your peace will flow on like a river, and your 
justice will be fathomless as the depths of the ocean." 

Despite the intention of the Abbé Fénelon and Ma- 
dame Guyon to keep the new doctrines which so kindled 
their ardent souls, confined within the precincts of St.Cyr 
and Versailles, their fame transpired and reached the 
Archbishop of Paris, Bossuet, and the Bishop of Chartres, 
the spiritual director of Madame de Main tenon. 

These three oracles of the church, united, and de- 
nounced Fénelon as a dangerous abettor of new and 
presumptuous opinions, whom it was necessary for the 
safety of that religion so lately re-established to remove 
from the King and his grandson. 

Bourclaloue, a celebrated and venerated pulpit orator, 
consulted upon these doctrines, replied in a stern letter : 
" Silence on these subjects is the best guardian of peace : 
they should only be mentioned in sacred confidence with 
spiritual directors." This private conspiracy of harsh 



FENELON. 3S7 

condemnation against Fénelon smouldered for a long 
time before it burst into flame. Nothing up to this 
period indicated any plan on the part of Bossuet to lower 
his cherished disciple in the King's estimation ; he dis- 
played only the alarmed suspicions incidental to a believer 
in tradition who repels with contempt and pride all new 
opinions ; and the anxious grief of a doctrinal instructor 
who beholds his pupil's faith wavering. The explosion 
of Bossuet's holy indignation was caused by the feelings 
w r e have described, and not by the impulse of petty 
jealousy ; a passion which has no existence in a haughty 
mind. Bossuet was equally exalted in his nature and 
his pride ; he envied not, he crushed at once. With the 
thunderbolt in hand, ambuscade is unnecessary. Bossuet 
likewise sought in the beginning of this quarrel rather 
to suppress than condemn. He treated the visions of 
Madame Guyon as the errors of a diseased mind. He 
consented to see this celebrated female, and listened 
with indulgence to her explanations, and expressions of 
regret for the troubles she had unintentionally caused. 
He invited her to participate in the solemnities of his 
private chapel, and counselled her to silence, obscurity, 
and absence from Paris and the Court, during some 
months. He undertook in the meantime to examine 
personally and at his leisure, her writings, and to pro- 
nounce upon them a final decision, to which she should 
submit with voluntary deference. He fulfilled his pro- 
mise, read, and censured the books of his fair penitent. 
He wrote to her and pointed out with pious benevolence 
passages opposed to reason aud dangerous to morality. 
He conversed confidentially with Fénelon upon the aber- 
rations of his spiritual friend, and conjured him to join 
in their condemnation, Fénelon, convinced of Madame 
Guyon's orthodoxy, and distressed at the persecutions 



388 FENEL0N. 

by which she was menaced, attempted, with more mag- 
nanimity than policy, to justify her in the estimation of 
Eossuet. He refused to condemn as a theologian that 
which he admired as a man, a poet, and a friend. He 
replied that God often chose the feeblest instruments 
for the manifestation of his glory ; that the spirit was 
impelled according to his will ; that the lofty eloquence 
of prophets and sibyls acknowledged not the laws which 
regulate the language of the schools; and that before 
pronouncing the sentence of madness upon those inspired 
by God, time should be allowed to prove their revela- 
tions. Bossuet was overwhelmed with grief. 

The King, who meddled with theology, but com- 
prehended only the discipline and infallible authority of 
the Church, now displayed his indignation. Madame 
de Maintenon, the introducer of all this scandal to St. Cyr, 
to the Court, and the Church, trembled at the thought 
of appearing before his Majesty as the accomplice and 
abettor of those who had alarmed the royal conscience. 
She immediately abandoned her friends and withdrew 
from them her countenance. She did not, however, at 
first unite with their persecutors, and continued to render 
in secret, justice to their intentions and their innocence ; 
but she pressed for the assembling of a doctrinal synod 
to judge the question, and to relieve her of a responsi- 
bility in this affair which had become too weighty. 

" Yet another letter from Madame Guyon," she writes ; 
" this woman is very troublesome ; it is true she is also 
deeply unfortunate ! She entreats of me to-day to pro- 
cure the nomination of M. Tronson, a friend of lenelon, 
as one of the judges. I am not certain that the King 
would like to offer such a mortification to the Archbishop 
of Paris . . . M. l'Abbé de Fénelon has too much piety 
not to feel that it is possible to love God for himself 



FENELON. 389 

alone, ami he lias too great a mind to allow of his 
believing that we can associate this love with the most 
shameful vices. He is not solely the advocate of Madam 
Guyon. Although he is her friend, he is the defender 
of religion and christian perfection. I repose upon his 
truth because I have known few men equally sincere, 
and I permit you to communicate this to him." 

The conferences opened under the superintendence of 
Bossuet, who, a stranger to all subtilties, entreated of 
Fénelon again to initiate him into the mystic flights 
of various French, Spanish, and Italian works which the 
church had tolerated, and which he, in his rude common 
sense, denominated amusing extravagances. Fénelon 
analysed for Bossuet all the books which contained the 
source from whence Madame Guyon had drawn her 
peculiar enthusiasm, and the letter which he wrote upon 
them proves that he was still restramed by deference to 
the opinion of the Bishop of Meaux. " No longer feel 
anxiety on my account ;" (thus he writes when forwarding 
the volumes,) " in your hands I am a mere child ; these 
doctrines pass by me without leaving an impression ; 
one form of belief appears to me as good as another. 
From the moment that you spoke, all has been effaced. 
When even what I have read appears to me as clear as 
that two and two make four, I behold it less distinctly 
than the necessity of rejecting the guidance of my own 
judgment, and of preferring to it that of such a pontiff 
as you are ! ... I hold too firmly by tradition ever to 
abandon that which in these days ought to be the chief 
column of our support." 

Meantime the Archbishop of Paris, impatient of the 
length of these conferences, delivered privily his own 
opinion against Madame Guyon and her doctrines. 
Madame de Maintenon, fearing that Fénelon would be 

vol. n. D D 



«390 EENELON. 

compromised in these denunciations of the church of 
Paris, and torn from the court, where she wished to 
retain him, had recourse to the seduction of royal favour 
in order to detach him from Madame Guy on. The 
King appointed him Archbishop of Cambray. Under 
this title, Madame de Maintenon hoped to associate him 
with those bishops who were appointed as the judges of 
Madame Guyon, and to compel his condemnation as a 
pontiff of that which he had admired as a friend. The 
King at once entered into this well-meaning plot, and 
we see here mingled all the ability of a courtier and the 
affection of a warm adherent. She sought at the same 
time to re-assure the King as to the soundness of 
Fenelon's doctrines, and to withdraw the latter from 
Madame Guyon, whom she abandoned to the bishops. 

Fenelon, alarmed at the prospect of a dignity which 
would separate him from his pupil, represented to the 
King that the greatest honour, in his eyes, was the tender 
love subsisting between himself and his grandson ; and 
that he would not voluntarily exchange it for any other. 
Louis the Fourteenth answered him with great kindness, 
" No ; I intend that you shall still continue the preceptor 
of my grandson. The discipline of the Church only 
demands nine months' residence in your diocese. You 
will give the other three to your pupils here, and you 
will superintend at Cambray their education during the 
rest of the year as thoroughly as if you were at court." 

Fénelon, transported by such favours, resigned, con- 
trary to custom, an abbey wdrich he possessed, and 
resisted with the most exemplary disinterestedness all 
the persuasions and examples which encouraged him to 
retain these ecclesiastical revenues. He desired to carry 
to his bishopric no portion of the income which he con- 
sidered as belonging to others, who were in necessity. 



ÏENRLOX. 391 

The world admired, but hestitatcd to imitate his 
example. The King, through the instigation of Madame 
de Maintenon, added him to the committee of bishops 
appointed to investigate the doctrines of Madame Guyon ; 
but the conference was already dissolved, and Bossuet, 
sole reporter, and exclusive dictator, privately arranged 
the decision. Fénelon, after having discussed and suc- 
ceeded in modifying the terms so far as to exclude all 
personal censure of Madame Guyon, signed the exposi- 
tion of the purely theological principles of this manifesto. 
Peace seemed so thoroughly cemented between these 
two oracles of the faith in France, that Bossuet desired to 
preside in person, as consecrating pontiff, at the installa- 
tion of his disciple and friend. The King, his son and 
his grandson, with the entire court, assembled in the 
chapel of St. Cyr, to witness the ceremony in which the 
genius of eloquence consecrated the genius of poetry. 

But scarcely had this peace been re-established by the 
intervention of Madame de Maintenon, the forbearance 
of Bossuet, the humility of Fénelon, and the silence of 
Madame Guyon, than new causes of discussion sprang 
up between the bishops. Madame Guyon secretly 
evaded the offer made to her by Bossuet of a safe retreat 
in a convent at Meaux, the capital of his diocese. She 
had written to him that she would retire into solitude, far 
from the world and its storms ; but she still lingered at 
Paris, concealed amongst her disciples, whose devotion 
daily became more fervent. In the number were included 
Fénelon and his two friends, the Duke de Beauvillier 
and the Duke cle Chevreuse. At this period, the Arch- 
bishop of Paris expired. He was a man of worldly 
habits, whose demeanour disquieted the conscience of 
the King. A successor of exalted virtue was now sought 

I) d 2 



392 FENELON. 

for, to purify the see. The church nominated Bossuet, 
the public, selected Penelon. Madame de Main tenon 
hesitated between the two ; one was more dreaded, the 
other more loved ; suspicions of a tendency to new doc- 
trines clung to Pénelon, and apprehensions of tyranny 
were associated with Bossuet. Madame de Maintenon 
bestowed the see of Paris upon M. de Noailles, an 
exemplary pontiff and one in favour at Court. Bossuet 
resented the injury with dignity, and neither abased 
himself to solicit nor refuse. " All things show," wrote 
he to his friends in Paris, " that God, as much from his 
mercy as his justice, designs to leave me where I am. 
When you desire that they should offer in order that I 
should refuse, you seek only the gratification of my 
vanity. It would be better to look for the increase of 
humility ! there can no longer be a doubt that, despite 
the empty disquisitions of men, and according to my 
own wishes, I shall be interred here at the feet of 
my saintly predecessors, and shall continue to work out 
the salvation of that flock which has been confided 
to me." The grandeur of this ambition lay in its 
frankness. Bossuet resented the indignity offered to 
his talents in the preference of M. de Noailles ; but 
he condescended neither to murmur nor to regret. He 
did not even express a wish : he felt his vengeance in 
his superiority. 

Nevertheless, whether from the humiliation he expe- 
rienced in being weighed in the scale against the youth 
of Pénelon and the mediocrity of M. de Noailles, whether 
from any suspicion that the disloyal evasion of Madame 
Guyon and her continued residence in Paris was insti- 
gated by Pénelon, who thus betrayed the confidence he 
had placed in his disciple, the concealed resentment 



FENELOX. 393 

of his soul soon burst forth. He solicited from the 
King the arrest of Madame Guyon, who was conse- 
quently discovered in Paris, and incarcerated in a mad- 
house. 

" How do you desire that she should be disposed of?" 
wrote Madame de Maintenon, to the Archbishop of 
Paris ; " and what are we to do with her friends and her 
papers?" " The King remains here all day; write to 
him directly." — " I am delighted at this arrest," also 
wrote Bossuet to Madame de Maintenon ; " this mystery 
concealed many injuries to the Church." 

Fénelon, then at Cambray, heard with grief that his 
friend was to be conveyed to Vincennes. The Duke de 
Beauvillier now began to fear that the education of the 
young Duke of Burgundy would be taken out of the 
hands of Fénelon. 

" It is evident," wrote he, " that a powerful and 
determined intrigue exists against the Archbishop of 
Cambray. Madame de Maintenon obeys what has been 
suggested to her, and is ready to lend herself to any 
extreme measures in opposition to him. I behold him 
upon the verge of being torn from the Princes, as a man 
suspected of inspiring them with dangerous doctrines. 
If this plan should succeed, my turn will follow ; but I 
feel no anxiety with regard to myself — as to M. de 
Fénelon, I should not counsel him, even if he wished it, 
to announce any formal condemnation of the books of 
Madame Guyon. It would afford the greatest joy to 
the libertines of the Court, and at the same time confirm 
all the injurious reports which have been spread abroad 
to the prejudice of her sanctity. Would not such a 
step afford grounds of belief that he was an accomplice 
in all that they impute to this unfortunate woman, and 
that policy and fear of disgrace compelled his abjuration ? 



394 KEKELOK. 

I feel myself conscientiously forced on all occasions 
openly to declare whatever can justify M. de lenelon ; 
and when he is disgraced I shall do it still more loudly, 
because it will then be even more evident that truth and 
justice alone compel my vindication?" 

After various examinations, Madame Guyon was 
transferred to the Convent of Vaugirard, under the 
superintendence of the Curé of St. Sulpice. " For this 
mild treatment," wrote Madame de Maintenon, " we 
have not the approbation of Bossuet, but for myself I 
feel it to be my duty as much as possible to turn aside 
all severities." 

" They desire me to condemn the person of Madame 
Guyon," wrote Fénelon at the same time. " When the 
church issues a decree against her doctrines, I shall be 
ready to sign it with my blood. Beyond that I neither 
can nor ought to agree to anything. I have closely 
examined a life which has infinitely edified me. Where- 
fore should they wish me to condemn her upon other 
points of which I know nothing ? Would it be right 
that I should help to crush an individual whom others 
have united to destroy, and one to whom I have been 
a friend ? . . . . 

" As regards Bossuet, I shall only be too glad to 
adhere to the doctrines of his book if he wishes it ; but 
I cannot honestly or in conscience join him in attacking 
a woman who appears to me innocent, and writings 
which I have abandoned to condemnation without at- 
taching to them my own censure Bossuet is 

a holy pontiff, an affectionate and stedfast friend ; but 
he seeks by an excessive zeal for the church and friend- 
ship for me, to carry me beyond due bounds. I believe 
Madame de Maintenon to be influenced by the same 
feelings. She condemns and pities me by turns, with 



FENEL0N. 395 

every new impression that others convey to her 

All, then, as regards myself, is reduced to this, — I will 
not speak against my conscience, nor will I consent to 
insult a woman whom, from what I have personally 
observed, I have reverenced as a saint." .... 

" If I were capable," added he afterwards, in another 
letter of tender reproach to Madame de Maintenon, who 
persecuted him from friendship, — " if I were capable of 
approving of a woman who preached a new Gospel, I 
ought to be deposed and brought to the stake rather 
than supported as you sustain me. But I may very 
innocently have mistaken a person whom I believe to be 
devout. I have never felt any natural affection for her. 
I have never experienced any extraordinary personal 
emotion, that could influence me in her favour ; she is 
confident to excess ; the proof of this is manifest, since 
he (Bossuet) has related to you as impieties the parti- 
culars which she confided to him I count her 

pretended prophecies and her assumed revelations as 
nothing 1 have never heard her use the blasphe- 
mous images which they attribute to her in her mystical 
disquisitions upon divine love ; I would wager my head 
that all this has been exaggerated ; but Bossuet is inex- 
cusable for having repeated to you as one of Madame 
Guyon's doctrines what in effect was nothing more than 

a dream or figurative expression All that has 

been said against her conduct is mere calumny. I feel 
so persuaded of her never having designed anything evil, 
that I undertake to say on her part that she will give 

every satisfactory explanation and retractation 

Perhaps you think I say this in order to obtain her 
liberty, but so far from that, I promise that she shall 
give her explanations without emitting her prison. I 
will not even see her ; I will only write to her unsealed 



3 ( J6 EENEL0N. 

letters, which you and her accusers shall read 

After all that, leave her to die in prison ; I am content 
that she should perish there — that we should never see 
her again, and never more hear her name mentioned. 

" "Wherefore then, Madame, do you close your heart 
against us, as if our religion were different from yours ? 
.... Fear not that I shall oppose Bossuet ; I never 
even speak of him but as my master ; I willingly look 
upon him as the conqueror, and as one who has brought 
me back from my wanderings ; in all sincerity, I feel 
only deference and obedience towards him " 

Fénelon, thus placed by his own imprudence, and by 
the sternness of his judges, in such a position that his 
only alternative was the crime of condemning one he 
believed innocent, or the humiliation of condemning 
himself and drawing upon his own head the thunders of 
Bossuet, who then ruled the church of France, — retired 
in sadness, and foreboding the ruin of his cherished 
prospects, to the solitude of Cambray. There, in order 
to vindicate the purity of his faith and to clear himself 
from the accusations of Bossuet, he composed his book, 
entitled " Maxims of the Saints." This was a justification, 
through extracts taken from the works and opinions 
promulgated by the very oracles of the church, of the 
disinterested love of God; the transcendant doctrine of 
the mystics of all ages. He humbly submitted his 
manuscript, page by page, to M. de Noailles, who pro- 
mised that it should only be inspected by his theolo- 
gians, and not communicated to Bossuet. He corrected 
from their notes every passage with which they did not 
agree, in the most minute point ; and his friend the 
Duke de Chevreuse undertook to have the book pub- 
lished. 

Bossuet, incensed at the rumour of the approaching 



FENELON. 397 

appearance of a book which had been kept a profound 
secret from him, wrote as follows : " I feel sure that 

this work will be productive of enormous scandal 

I cannot in conscience suffer it to go forth ! God 
guides me to the knowledge that they thus wish to 
establish presumptuous opinions, which would lead to 

the overthrow of religion This is the truth, for 

which I would sacrifice my life ! ... . They exclude me 
on this occasion, after having proffered so much submis- 
sion in words, simply because they feel that God, on 
whom I rely, will give me the power of exploding their 
mine !...." 

The anger of Bossuet upon the appearance of this 
book, w r as contagious. Fénelon's justification appeared 
a crime against the authority of the great oracle of the 
church in France. The King adopted the cause of the 
episcopal leader. D'Aguesseau, an impartial and con- 
temporary historian, attributed this manifestation of 
anxiety by Louis the Fourteenth, to the bitter aversion 
he cherished against the superior qualities of Fénelon. 

" Whether the King feared," says D'Aguesseau, 
" minds of a superior order ; whether it was a refined 
singularity, a peculiar reserve in the manner and habits 
of Fénelon, which were displeasing to a prince whose 
ideas flowed in a simple and ordinary current ; whether 
it was that Fénelon, from a profound policy, sought to 
absorb himself in his immediate functions, and abstained 
from any attempt to insinuate himself into the confi- 
dence and favour of the King ; it is quite certain that 
Louis the Fourteenth never loved him, and felt no 
repugnance against sacrificing him to his enemies." 
Bossuet strengthened this disposition by the fears which 
he excited in the King's conscience. He accused him- 
self " of a criminal complicity, in not having sooner 



398 FENEL0N. 

revealed to the King the fanaticism of his pupil." The 
Court being made aware of the King's secret antipathy, 
now universally joined in condemning the presumptuous 
arch-heretic. 

" A natural temperament so happy," again said 
D'Aguesseau, " was perverted, like that of the first man, 
by the voice of a woman. His talents, his ambition, 
his fortune, even his. reputation, were all sacrificed, not 
to an illusion of the senses, but to a fascination of the 
mind. We behold this sublime genius, impelled to 
become the prophet and oracle of a sect, fertile in spe- 
cious and seducing imagery. He seeks to be a philo- 
sopher, but we find him only an orator; a character 
which he has preserved in every work emanating from 
his pen to the close of his life." 

Calumny went so far as to accuse Fénelon of having 
flattered the king's devotion, in order to render it instru- 
mental in the advancement of his fortune ; and of having 
planned a junction of politics and mysticism, in order to 
establish, through the unseen ties of a secret language, a 
powerful cabal, at the head of which he would always 
reign by the force and mastery of his genius. 

These imputations fell at once before the courage dis- 
played by Fenelon, in braving the anger of the king, and 
opposing Bossuet, to support a persecuted woman, and 
a calumniated doctrine. 

He was universally abandoned. The dread of being 
involved in the disgrace into which he had voluntarily 
precipitated himself, caused every one to fear and avoid, 
not only any attempt in his justification, but also every 
emotion of pity ; he remained as much isolated at Ver- 
sailles as he had been at Cambray, while he awaited in 
daily expectation an order to exile himself from the 
court. It was in this crisis of mental distress that a 



FENELON. 399 

fire consumed his episcopal palace of Cambray, with the 
furniture, books, and manuscripts, comprising all the 
wealth he had transported thither. He received this 
blow with his habitual serenity. " I had rather," said 
he to the Abbé Langeron, who hastened to inform him 
of this domestic calamity, " that the fire had seized my 
house than a poor man's cottage." 

In the meanwhile Bossuet fulminated severe censures 
against Fénelon's book, but at the same time continued 
to display the feelings of old attachment. " It is hard," 
said he, " to speak thus of one accustomed till now to 
listen as readily to my voice as I listened to his in 
return. God, before whom I now write, is aware of the 
agony which has demonstrated my deep grief, that a friend 
of so many years should judge me unworthy of his confi- 
dence ; I who have never even raised my voice in a 
whisper against him ! the friend of my whole life ! ... a 
beloved adversary, who, as God is my witness, I love 
and cherish in my inmost heart !" 

At the moment when Bossuet wrote these lines, the 
King sent an order to Fénelon, commanding him to quit 
Versailles, and repair to Cambray, without pausing at 
Paris. He forbade his going to Rome to make any 
appeal to the Pope for a judgment upon his doctrines, 
fearing, doubtless, that his genius and virtue would 
exercise the same influence at Rome that it had done 
everywhere else ; the King, at the same time, wrote to 
Rome, to demand from the Sovereign Pontiff the con- 
demnation of the Archbishop of Cambray, promising to 
carry it into execution by all the power of his royal 
authority. The separation between Fénelon and the 
Duke of Burgundy, his pupil, mutually lacerated their 
hearts. The tears of the Duke de Beauvillier, and the 
Duke de Chevreuse, mingled with those of the young 



400 FENELON. 

prince and his friend. The Duke of Burgundy in vain 
threw himself at the feet of the King his grandfather, 
imploring him to send a counter order, a reprieve, a 
pardon. " No, my son," replied the King ; " I have no 
power as a master to make this a matter of clemency. 
It touches the safety of our faith ; Bossuet is a better 
authority on this point than either you or I !" 

Madame de Maintenon was deeply distressed, but 
continued the more inexorable from having been an 
accomplice, and refused to see lenelon. The Duke 'de 
Beauvillier, faithful to virtue as to friendship, unbosomed 
all his feelings to the dispenser of grace. " Sire," said 
he to the King, " I am the work of your Majesty's hands ; 
you have elevated and you can abase me. In the com- 
mands of my Sovereign I recognise the commands of 
God. I shall quit the court, Sire, with regret for having 
displeased you, but with the hope and prospect of a life 
of greater tranquillity." Fénelon conjured the Duke de 
Beauvillier and his friends to adopt a different course, 
and not to involve themselves in his ruin. 

" I am here overwhelmed by the opprobriums which 
all have cast upon me," he wrote to these friends; "but 
let me alone be sacrificed ; in a short time all the unreal 
dreams of this life will vanish, and we shall be reunited 
for ever in the kingdom of truth, where we shall en- 
counter neither error, division, nor censure ; where we 
shall be partakers of the peace of God ! In the mean- 
time let us suffer, let us hold our peace, too happy if by 
being trampled in the dust our ignominy tends to his 
glory!" 

Arrived at his diocese, Fénelon gave himself up en- 
tirely to study, and to works of charity. From this 
solitude emanated thousands of pages breathing the 
literary genius of the purest Avorks of antiquity, and the 



FENELON. 401 

modern inspiration of Christian benevolence. They treat 
of the Divinity with a lofty power of mind and language, 
and often display the tenderest enthusiasm. We feel 
that each word contains a prayer, or some incense of 
adoration, as heat pervades vitality. We may with truth 
say, that Fenelon could not name God without a prayer. 

We shall present to the reader a few pages extracted 
at hazard from the multiplicity of treatises and letters in 
which he poured forth his thoughts : they depict his 
mind with more fidelity than any expressions we could 
select of our own. 

" Everything in the universe bears the stamp of 
Divinity ; the heavens, the earth, plants, animals, and 
above all the human race. All things demonstrate a 
consistent design, a chain of subordinate causes, con- 
nected and guided in order, by one superior cause.". . . . 
" There is nothing left to criticise in this great work — the 
defects which we encounter proceed from the uncon- 
trolled and disordered will of man, who produces them 
by his own blindness ; or they are designed by that God 
who is always holy and just, for the punishment of the 
unfaithful ; and sometimes he uses the wicked as instru- 
ments to exercise and draw the good to perfection. 
Often that which appears to our contracted views an error, 
proves by its ultimate purpose to be a portion of the 
great universal design, the sublime whole which 
our finite intellects are incapable of comprehending. 
Does it not occur each clay that certain portions of the 
works of men are hastily blamed? and does it not 
require a comprehensive mind to grasp the extent of their 
designs ? This is continually evidenced in the productions 
of painters and architects. If the characters used in 
writing were of enormous size, when viewed closely one 
alone would occupy the whole vision of a man ; it would 



402 FENELON. 

be impossible for him to distinguish more than one at a 
time ; he would be incapable of assembling them in a 
body, or of reading their collective sense. It is the same 
with the great features displayed by Providence in the 
entire guidance of the world during a long succession of 
centuries ; only as a whole can it be intelligible, and the 
whole is too vast for a close inspection. Every event 
resembles a single character, too great for the insignifi- 
cance of our organs, and conveying no meaning if sepn- 
rated from the rest. When, at the end of all time, we 
shall behold God truly as he is, and comprehend the sum 
of events which have fallen upon the human race from 
the first day of the universe to the last, and their propor- 
tionate aim in the designs of the Almighty, then we shall 
exclaim, 'Thou only, O Lord, art wise and just !' 

" But after all, the greatest defects in this creation 
are merely the blemishes left by God, in order to show 
us that he raised it from a void. There is nothing in 
the universe which does not and ought not to display 
these two opposite characteristics. On one side the sea 
of the Great Worker, and on the other the mark of 
that nothingness from which all has proceeded, and into 
which at any moment all may again be resolved. It is 
an incomprehensible mingling of baseness and grandeur, 
of frailty in material, and art in construction. The 
hand of God shines through all gradations, down to the 
organization of an earthworm ; while nothingness reveals 
itself everywhere, — even in the sublimest and most com- 
prehensive genius." 

"All that is not of God can possess only a limited 
perfection ; and that which possesses only such a limited 
perfection remains always incomplete at the point where 
the limit reveals itself, and proves to us that much is 
still wanting. The creature would become the Creator 



FENELON. 403 

himself, if nothing were wanting in him ; for he would 
possess the fulness of perfection, which comprises actual 
Divinity. Since, then, we cannot become infinite, we 
must remain limited in perfection ; that is to say, im- 
perfect in some particular point. We may possess more 
or less imperfection ; but, after all, must be ever imper- 
fect. It is desirable that we should always mark the 
precise point in which we are wanting, that penetration 
may declare, This is what we might still have, and what 
we do not possess." 

gp TJs qp yfc 7j£ 

" Let us study creation in any way we may select, — 
whether we descend to the minutest detail ; whether we 
examine the anatomy of the most insignificant animal ; 
whether we closely inspect the smallest grain of corn 
sown in the ground, and the process by which this germ 
multiplies itself; whether we observe with attention the 
arrangement by which a rosebud expands under the 
rays of the sun, and closes towards the approach of 
night; — we shall discover a more perfect plan of arrange- 
ment and industry, than in all the works of art. That 
which we even call the art of man, is nothing more than 
a feeble imitation of the great art which we denominate 
the laws of nature, and which the impious have not 
blushed to call blind chance. 

" Must we then, wonder, if poets have animated the 
whole universe ; if they have given wings to the wind, 
and arrows to the sun ; if they have painted the great 
rivers which rush to precipitate themselves into the sea, 
and the trees, which, mounting towards heaven, conquer 
the rays of the sun by the depth of their shade ? So 
natural is it to man to feel ihat art with which all nature 
is replete, that these figurative expressions have become 
colloquial. Poetry merely attributes to inanimate things 



404 FENELON. 

the intents of that Providence which guides and sets in 
motion all their operations. From the figurative lan- 
guage of poets, these ideas have been transfused into 
the theology of pagans, whose ministers of religion were 
their poets. These have imagined the existence of an 
art — a power and a wisdom which, they designated the 
Divine Will — even in creatures the most devoid of in- 
telligence. With them the rivers were gods, and the 
fountains naiads ; the woods, the mountains, each pos- 
sessed their peculiar divinities ; the flowers had Flora, 
and the fruits Pomona. The more we study nature with 
an unprejudiced mind, the more do we discover in all 
things a deep and inexhaustible wisdom, which resembles 
the soul of the universe." 

" What follows from all this ? The conclusion comes 
of itself. ' If so much thought and penetration is re- 
quired,' says Minutius Felix, * only to examine the 
order and wonderful design of the structure of the 
world, how much mightier must that wisdom have been 
which formed all ! If we admire philosophers to such 
an extent for having merely discovered a small portion 
of the secrets of that power which created, must we 
not indeed be blind, if we do not admire the Creator 
himself? ' 

" This is the grand object of the entire world in which 
God reflects himself, as it were, in a mirror before the 
human race. But these (I speak of philosophers) are 
lost in their own ideas, and all things for them are 
turned into vanity. From the effect of subtle reasoning, 
mostly amongst themselves, they lose sight of a truth 
which simply and naturally, and unaided by philosopy, 
they would have discovered." 

v!c %. % % % % 

" A traveller penetrating into the Sais, the country of 



FENEL0N. 405 

the ancient Thebes of a hundred gates, would find it now 
deserted, but would discover columns, pyramids, obelisks, 
and inscriptions in unknown characters. Is it likely 
that he would say, this place has never been inhabited 
by man ; human hands nave never laboured here ; it is 
chance which has formed these columns, which has 
placed them upon their pedestals, and which has 
crowned them with their capitals, all in such just 
proportion ; it is chance which has so firmly united the 
different pieces that form the pyramids ; it is chance 
Avhich has hewn the obelisks from a single stone, and 
engraved upon them all these characters ? No ; would 
he not rather say with the most certain conviction of 
which the mind of man is capable ; ' These magnificent 
ruins are the remains of the majestic architecture which 
flourished in ancient Egypt ! ' 

" This is what simple reason would utter at first sight, 
and without feeling the necessity of any argument on 
the question. The same applies to the first glance 
thrown upon the universe, — we can only confuse ourselves 
with vain reasonings, and render obscure that which 
was as clear as possible before ; the first simple impres- 
sion is the true one. Such a work as the world cannot 
have formed itself; the bones, the tendons, the veins, 
the arteries, the nerves and the muscles which compose 
the frame of man, display more art and nicety of propor- 
tion, than all the architecture of ancient Greece or Egypt. 
The eye of the smallest animal surpasses in its structure 
the most perfect human mechanism. If we found a 
watch amidst the sable children of Africa, we should not 
venture to declare seriously that chance had formed it in 
these deserts ; and yet men have felt no shame in saying 
that the bodies of animals, the mechanical art of which no 
watch can ever equal, are merely the results of chnnce !" 

VOL. IT. E E 



400 FENELON. 

* * * * * * 

" O my God ! If so many do not behold yoa in the 
sublime spectacle of creation which you bestow upon 
them, it is not because you are far removed. Each of 
us can touch you as it were with our hands, but the 
senses and passions dwelling within us prevent all recog- 
nition of your Spirit. Thus, Lord, thy light shineth in 
darkness, and the darkness is so profound that it com- 
prehendeth it not : thou displayest thyself in all things, 
and in all things heedless man neglects to perceive thee ; 
all nature speaks of thee, and resounds thy holy name, 
but she speaks to those who do not hear, and who are deaf 
because they confound themselves in their own mazes ; 
thou art about and within them, but they are as fugitives 
who fly from their own nature : they would find thee, oh 
shining light! oh eternal beauty ! always old, and always 
new ; oh fountain of pure delight ! oh pure and blessed 
life for all those who truly live, if they would but seek thee 
within their own hearts. Yet the impious lose thee only 
by losing themselves. Alas, they are so absorbed in thy 
gifts that that which ought to display, prevents their 
seeing the hand of the giver ; they live through thee, and 
yet exist without thinking of thee, they die within reach 
of life, from imbibing false nourishment ; for is it not 
death to be ignorant of thee ! " 

" I am convinced that there is of necessity in nature 
a Being who exists by himself: and is consequently 
perfect. I know that I am not this being, because 
I am infinitely below infinite perfection. I feel that he 
is distinct from me, and that I live through him. 
Nevertheless, I discover that he has given me the true 
idea of himself in making me comprehend the existence 
of an infinite perfection, in which I cannot be mistaken. 



FENEL0N. 407 

for I hesitate at no bounded perfection that presents itself 
to me. Its limit compels me to reject it, and I say to 
it in my heart, Thou art not my God; thou art not 
infinitely perfect ; thou art not created by thyself. Such 
perfection as thou hast is measured ; there is a point 
beyond which thou hast nothing, and thou art but nothing. 
The same applies not to God ; he is all ; he is and can 
never cease to be ; he is, and for him there is neither 
degree nor measure ; he is, and nothing is but through 
him. Such is my belief. Since then I know that he is, 
there is nothing marvellous to me in the existence of 
such a being. All things around me are but through 
him ; but that which is wonderful and inconceivable, is 
that I should be able to comprehend him. It must be 
that he is not alone the immediate subject of my 
thoughts, but as much their creator as he is the author 
of my entire being ; let him raise that which is finite to 
the contemplation of the infinite." 

" This is the prodigy that I bear continually within me. 
I myself am a prodigy. Being nothing, at least possess- 
ing only a dependant, lowly, and transient existence, 
I hold by the infinite and immutable which I have con- 
ceived. This is where I am incapable of comprehending 
myself; I embrace all, and yet am nothing, a nothing 
which knows the infinite. Words fail me to express 
how much I at once admire and despise myself. O God ! 
O Being beyond all beings ! O Being before whom I am 
as if I were not ! Thou showest thyself unto me, and 
nothing which is not of thee can resemble thee. I behold 
thee ; it is thyself, and the light of thy countenance 
reaches me and supports my heart while waiting for the 
great day of truth. * * * 

" I demand wherefore has the Almighty given us this 
capacity of knowing and loving him. It is manifestly 

E E 2 



403 EENELON. 

the most precious of all his gifts. Has he accorded it to 
us blindly, without reason, purely by chance, not desiring 
that we should use it ? He has bestowed upon us cor- 
poral eyes to behold the light of day. Can we believe 
that he has given us spiritual eyes, capable of seeing his 
eternal truth, and yet desire that we should remain in 
ignorance ? I confess we cannot infinitely know or love 
infinite perfection. Our loftiest recognition will ever 
remain infinitely imperfect compared with a Being of 
infinite perfection. 

" In a word, intimately as we may be acquainted with 
God, we can never comprehend him ; but we know him 
sufficiently to recognise all things in which he is not, and 
to attribute to him those sublime properties which are 
his without any fear of error. The universe holds no 
being that we can confound with God, and we know 
how to depict his infinite character as one, and incom- 
municable. We must seek to know him perfectly, since 
the clearness of our knowledge must force us to prefer 
him to ourselves. An idea which compels us to dethrone 
ourselves must indeed be a powerful one — with blind 
mankind, so prone to self-idolatry. Never has anything 
been so combated, never has anything proved so vic- 
torious. Let us judge of its strength by the confession 
of weakness it tears from us. 

" We have preserved the book, which bears all the 
marks of divinity, since it is this volume which incul- 
cates upon us the supreme love and knowledge of the 
true God. It is here that the Almighty speaks as God, 
when he says, '/ am' No other book has painted 
God in a manner worthy of him : the deities of Homer 
are the opprobrium and derision of divinity. The 
volume which we hold in our hands, after having demon- 



FENELOX. 409 

strated God to us such as he really is, inculcates the 
only faith worthy of him. It speaks not of appeasing 
him by the blood of victims ; it tells us to love him 
better than ourselves; we must love him for himself alone, 
and for his love ; we must renounce ourselves for him, 
and prefer his will to our own : his love will then create 
in us every virtue, and exclude each inclination to vice. 
This is such a renewal of the heart of man as man him- 
self can never have imagined. He could not have 
invented a religion which would lead him to abandon 
his own thoughts and his own will, to follow implicitly 
that of another. Even when this religion is offered to 
him by the most supreme authority, his mind cannot 
conceive it ; his inclination revolts, and his deepest feel- 
ings are agitated. We need not be surprised at such a 
consequence, since it is a faith which teaches man to 
debase and crush the idol, self; to become a new crea- 
ture, and to place God in the shrine which self has 
hitherto occupied, in order to make him the source and 
centre of our love. * * * # 

" God has united mankind in a society, where it becomes 
a general duty to love and succour each other, as the 
children of one family, owning a common father. Every 
nation is merely a branch of this numerous family, 
which is spread over the whole surface of the globe. 
The love of this universal parent ought to reign sen- 
sibly, manifestly, and inviolably, throughout the entire 
community of his beloved children. None of these 
should ever fail to say to those who proceed from 
them, ' Know the Lord, who is thy Father.' 

* * * " These children of God are only placed in 
the world to acknowledge his perfection ; to fulfil Ins 
will ; and to communicate to one another the recosr- 
nition of his power and divine love." 



410 PENELON. 

" There ought then to be amidst us a body de- 
voted to the worship of God. This is true religion ; 
that all men should instruct, edify, and love one another, 
in order to love and serve the common Father. The 
essence of religion consists in no external ceremony, but 
in perfect knowledge of truth and surpassing love." 

-;ic- & * -» & * 

" But merely to know God is not sufficient ; we must 
also demonstrate our knowledge, and in such a fashion 
that none of our brethren can be so unfortunate as to 
continue in ignorance or forgetfulness. These visible 
signs of faith are merely the tokens by which men show 
their desire for mutual edification, and their wish of 
re-awakening in each other the remembrance of the faith 
they bear within. Man, weak and inconsiderate as he 
is, requires the constant renewal of such outward signs, 
to reveal to him the presence of the invisible God whom 
he ought to love." * 

" This, then, is what is denominated religion. Sacred 
ceremonies, the public worship of God our Creator, are 
the means by which' man, who cannot recognise and 
love the Almighty without making his love evident, 
seeks to display his adoration to an extent proportioned 
to the greatness of its object. He literally seeks to 
excite love by the signs of love itself." 

The question of the book of " The Maxims " was long 
debated at Rome. Fénelon sent one of his most fervent 
disciples, the Abbé de Chantérac, thither, to defend him 
against the accusations of Paris. While the pontifical 
court deliberated with the slowness and prudence by 
which it was characterised, an excited controversy be- 
tween Fénelon and Bossuet proceeded in France. 

" What can be thought of your intentions ? " said 
Fénelon to Bossuet. "I am that beloved disciple whom 



EENELON. 41 L 

you cherish in your inmost heart. You go everywhere 
lamenting over me ; and while you compassionate, you 
destroy. What can be thought of these tears, which 
tend only to give greater force to your accusations?" 

" Who was the originator of this scandal ? Who has 
written with such a bitter zeal ? You ; you, who no 
longer deserve that I should keep silence, while you 
bring against me the most atrocious accusations !" 

" Yes, I say it with grief," responded Bossuet, 

" you seek to refine upon holiness ; you hold nothing 
of value but the beauty of God by itself. You complain 
of the force of my expressions ! and they relate to 
new doctrines which you seek to introduce into the 
Church." 

"The world calls my language exaggerated, bitter, 
severe, and bigoted, because I will not allow a dogma 
to establish itself quietly without unveiling its error ! 
Ought I to let it flow concealed, and, by such weakness, 
to relax the holy rigour of theological language ? If I 
have done aught beyond this, show it to me ! If I have 
done only this, God will be my protector against the 
weakness of the world and its hypocritical complai- 
sance." 

" Compose as many letters as you please ; amuse 

the Court, the town ; excite their admiration for your 
talents, your eloquence ; re-create the period of the 
* Letters from the Provinces ;' — I desire no longer to 
participate in the drama that you exhibit to the pub- 
lic !" 

" You and I are both," replied Fénelon, " the 

objects of derision to the irreligious, and the cause of 
mourning to good men ! That all other men should act 
as fallible beings is not surprising; but that the minis- 
ters of Jesus Christ, the angels of the Church, should 



412 EENELON. 

offer such a spectacle to a profane and unbelieving 
world, calls for tears of blood ! Too happy should we 
be if, instead of this war of doctrines, we had taught 
our catechism to the poor villagers of our dioceses, to 
lead them to the love and knowledge of God !" 

Bossuet having sent to Rome, upon his part, one of 
his nephews, the Abbé Bossuet, to solicit the thunders 
of the Vatican against Fénelon, this young priest, pos- 
sessed of none of his uncle's qualifications, save his 
violence and love of rule, incessantly spread abroad in 
Rome the shadows of calumny against Fénelon and his 
doctrines. "Press matters forward," he wrote to his 
uncle ; " what do you wait for in order to deprive 
Fénelon of the title of preceptor to the Prince ? Make 
no delay in sending hither any one who can bear testi- 
mony to the attachment of M. de Cambray for Madame 
Gnyon, for the Father Lacombe, for their doctrines and 
their mode of life : this is of the greatest importance ! 

" I am enchanted with the little book " (a horrible 
calumny printed in Holland) ; " he has been named there, 
and well named ; it has produced here a terrible effect to 
his disadvantage." 

This future Jansenist was carried by zeal of sect and 
family so far as to call Fénelon in his correspondence, 
" This ferocious beast!" 

During these negotiations, the calumnies circulated at 
Rome and Paris, excited great animosity, and tended 
not only to cast a stain upon the conduct of Madame 
Guy on and the doctrines of the Archbishop of Cambray, 
but also upon his virtue. 

The mind of the monk Lacombe, enclosed in the 
dungeons of the Chateau de Lourdes, in the Pyrenees, 
became weakened and confused by the torture of soli- 
tude. He had latterly written., several letters to the 



FENELON. 413 

Bishop of Tarbes, in which he appeared to acknowledge 
a guilty connexion with Madame Guy on. As soon as 
these confessions of delirium were known at Paris, the 
monk was transferred to the château of Vincennes. 
From thence he wrote a letter to Madame Guyon, either 
under suggestion or compulsion, in which he exhorted 
her as his accomplice to confess their mutual errors, and 
to repent. 

The Cardinal de Noailles, Archbishop of Paris, read 
this letter to Madame Guy on, and also the sum of the 
confused avowals made by the monk. She suspected 
him of insanity, and said that the ravings of a prisoner 
were used against her and Fénelon. She at once de- 
fended herself from such horrible imputations. Her 
denial and indignation w^ere looked upon as crimes. 
Transferred to the Bastille to undergo a stricter captivity, 
she persisted in declaring her innocence, and continued 
to endure her punishment. In the meantime, her accusers 
hastened to forward these infamous letters to Rome, in 
order to tarnish the fame of Fénelon, on whose ruin 
they were determined. 

The Cardinal de Noailles, Bossuet, Madame de Main- 
tenon herself, upon the evidence of these maniacal 
ravings, doubted no longer the guilt of the monk and 
Madame Guyon. " These letters," wrote the Abbe 
Bossuet, to his uncle, " make more impression than 
twenty theological demonstrations ; these are the argu- 
ments that we required." The monk's insanity soon 
transpired ; he was thrown into a lunatic asylum, where 
he died without recovering his senses. They were 
forced to acknowledge that Fénelon had never seen the 
monk, nor entered into any correspondence with him. 

They revenged this disappointment to their animosity 
by banishing all Fénelon's friends from the court of the 



414 EENEL0N. 

Duke of Burgundy. Bossuct published a discourse on 
" Quietism," in whicli all his anger and Lis condemna- 
tion of their doctrines assumed a grave tone towards the 
sectarians themselves. lenelon sought to keep silence, 
fearful of drawing the Duke de Beauvillier into his own 
ruin, who was now his only friend attached to the person 
of his pupil. The arguments of his representative at 
Rome, at length induced him to reply, and his answer 
changed and melted all hearts. 

The contrast of the stern severity of Bossuet to the 
patient forbearance of the accused, became evident to 
the eyes of all. " Can you compare," exclaimed Féneïon, 
at the close of his reply, " your proceedings to mine ? 
You publish my letters only to defame me. I publish 
yours to show that you were my consccrator. You 
violate the secrets of my most private correspondence 
only to cause my destruction ! I make use of yours, 
(but only after you have shown mine,) and then not to 
accuse you, but to vindicate my oppressed innocence ! 

" These letters of mine which you have brought forward, 
contain, next to confession, the greatest secrets of my 
life, and render me according to your definition, the 
Montanus of a new Priscilla. 

" Ah ! why does such glory as yours descend to 
defame me? Who can refrain from being astonished 
that genius and eloquence are so far misled as to com- 
pare an innocent, legitimate, and necessary defence, to 
such an odious revelation of the secrets of a friend ? " 

" We find with grief," says the cotemporary D'Agues- 
seau, " that one of these two great opponents has spoken 
falsely ; and it is certain that Fénelon knew, at least, how 
to gain in the public estimation the advantage of con- 
sistency." 

"Who will deny his ability?" exclaimed Bossuet, 



FENELON. 415 

while reading this defence ; " he has enough to alarm 
any one ! his misfortune is being implicated in a cause 
calling for so much !" 

Fénelon soon showed in this crisis of his life, that his 
soul was superior to his genius. 

But the condemnation of the "Book of Maxims" did 
not arrive ; Home hesitated. Pope Innocent the Twelfth 
faintly concealed his secret conviction of the innocence of 
Fénelon, of the purity of his manners, and the charm of 
his virtue. The Cardinals who were appointed to ex- 
amine his book were half in favour and half against it. 
Bossuet and Louis the Fourteenth interfered and dictated 
the order of suppression in an imperative letter to the 
sovereign pontiff. 

" I cannot learn, without grief," said the King to the 
Pope, " that this necessary judgment should be retarded 
by the machinations of those whose interest it is to 
suspend it. Quiet can only be obtained by a clear, 
plain decision, which admits of no ambiguous interpre- 
tation, and which will strike at the root of the evil. I 
demand this judgment for your own credit, added to 
those great motives which ought to induce you to show 
that consideration which I beseech you to accord to my 
request, &c. &c." 

While this objurgation was despatched to the Pope, 
accompanied by a severe reprimand to the King's 
ambassador for his weakness, Louis the Fourteenth fore- 
stalled the condemnation by ordering the list of the 
officers of the household of the Duke of Burgundy to be 
brought to him, and with his own hand struck off the 
name of Fénelon from the office of preceptor, deprived him 
of his salary, and shut up his apartment at Versailles. 

Thus prevented from exercising his office as teacher, 
and from entering the palace, Fénelon was not long 



416 EENELON. 

before he discovered that the sentence of the Church 
would strike him even in his pontifical character. 

"Lord, save us, or we perish!" wrote his faithful 
friend, the Abbe of Chanterâc from Rome, " though our 
sufferings will be blest if they serve to defend the true 
love of God." " And I rejoice to think that it will 
preserve our union throughout time and eternity. Ah ! 
how often have I exclaimed in these troubled and gloomy 
days, ' Let us go and die with him !' " 

" Yes, let us die in our innocence," replied Fénelon. 
" If God desires my services no longer in my ministry, I 
shall think of nothing for the rest of my life but my own 
love for him, as I can no longer impress it on the minds 
of others." 

At the same time, the death of Madame Guy on in the 
Bastille was announced to him. It was a false report, 
but Fenelon believed it to be true. " They have just 
told me," wrote he, " that Madame Guyon has died in 
her captivity. I must say now after her death what I 
have often repeated during her life, that I knew nothing 
of her but what was in the highest degree edifying. 
Were she an incarnate angel of darkness, I can only 
speak of her as I found her on earth. It would be an 
act of horrible cowardice to do otherwise for the sake of 
delivering myself from personal apprehension. I have 
nothing to conceal, for her sake : truth alone restrains 
me. 

At length, the condemnation obtained with so much 
trouble from the mild justice of Innocent the Twelfth 
arrived in Paris, accompanied by a shout of joy from the 
enemies of Fénelon at Rome. " We send you the skin 
of the Lion we have had much trouble in catching," 
wrote they, " and who has for many months astonished 
the world by his roaring." 



FENELON. 417 

At the moment when Fénelon received at Cambray 
the first news of his condemnation, he was about to 
ascend his pulpit and address the people on a sacred 
subject, upon which for some days he had been medi- 
tating. He had not time to exchange a syllable with 
his brother, who had been the bearer of the information, 
that he might soften this heavy blow. Those who w T ere 
present could not observe that he either coloured or grew 
pale at the fatal intelligence. He knelt for a moment 
with his face buried in his hands, that he might change 
the subject of his discourse ; and rising, with his usual 
calm inspiration he spoke with impressive fervour upon 
the unreserved submission due under all conditions of 
life to the legitimate authority of superiors. The report 
of his condemnation spreading from mouth to mouth in 
whispers throughout the cathedral, caused all to fix their 
eyes upon him, and his resignation drew tears from 
many. The whole flock appeared to suffer with their 
pastor. He alone felt himself sustained by the hand that 
had just struck him, for his grief was not caused by 
pride, but by the uncertainty of his conscience. The 
authority which he recognised, in freeing him from this 
doubt, at the same time released him from his mental 
agony. He had submitted his conscience to the church; 
she had pronounced her sentence ; he believed it to be the 
voice of heaven, and submitted to the decision. 

" The supreme authority has eased my conscience," 
wrote he on the evening of the same day. "There 
remains nothing for me now but to submit in silence, 
and to bear my humiliation without a murmur. Dare I 
tell you that it is a state which carries with it consolation 
to a man who cares not for the world. The humiliation 
is without doubt most painful, but the least resistance 
would cost my heart much more." 



418 FENELON. 

The next day he published a declaration to his 
diocesans, in which he accused himself of error in his 
book of " Saintly Maxims." " We shall console our- 
selves," said he in this avowal, the most Christian act 
of his life, " for our mortification, provided that the 
minister of the word sent by God for your edification be 
not weakened, and that the humiliaton of the pastor 
may increase the grace and fidelity of his flock." 

This great action and these expressive words were 
interpreted by the enemies of the living Fénelon as a 
sacrifice of his pride as a bishop to the still greater 
vanity of the courtier. They saw in it an artful desire to 
raise a pretext by which his rivals might lose favour, an 
advance towards reconciliation at the expense of his 
conscience, with Louis the Fourteenth, a base and 
pretended disavowal of those religious opinions which he 
still held intact in his soul, and which he only con- 
demned from policy. 

Impartial judgment must free his memory from these 
calumnies. If Fénelon had possessed sufficient worldly 
ambition and dissimulation to disavow an opinion dis- 
pleasing to the King and Court, he would also have 
had enough of the same qualities to prevent his express- 
ing his views openly before them, and thus risking a 
disgrace voluntarily incurred. He had been out of 
favour for several years, therefore it is not likely that at 
the end of his martyrdom he would have renounced his 
faith. The truth is, that he suffered for his transcendental 
philosophy and ethereal piety, as long as it was only 
reprobated by the King and the world ; but the instant 
that religious authority had pronounced its opinion, he 
sacrificed to duty that which he had refused to immolate 
to ambition. Undoubtedly the official sentence of Rome 
did not change in his inmost heart his sublime con- 



FENEL0N. 419 

viciions of the disinterested and absolute love of God. 
He did not believe he was mistaken in what he had felt, 
but thought he might have gone too far in expressing it ; 
above all, he imagined that the church wished to impose 
silence with regard to those subtilties which might 
trouble the minds of the people, and interfere with 
ecclesiastical government; and he submitted in good 
faith, humility, and silence. 

This humility and silence, which instructed the world, 
increased the irritation of his enemies. They wished to 
overthrow the author of a heresy, but in lenelon they 
found only a victim to admire. 

" It is astonishing," exclaimed Bossuet, himself, " that 
Fénelon, who is so keenly alive to his humiliation, should 
be insensible to his error. He wishes everything to be 
forgotten except that which redounds to his honour. 
All this is like a man who seeks to place himself under 
the shelter of Rome, without perceiving the advantage." 

The genius of this great but bitter theologian only 
served to illustrate his hatred, which he carried with him 
to the grave. His death speedily succeeded his triumph. 
" I have wept before God and prayed for this old in- 
structor of my youth," said Fénelon, to a friend, when 
he heard of this event, " but it is not true that I cele- 
brated his obsequies in my cathedral and preached his 
funeral sermon. You know that such affectation is 
foreign to my nature." 

Bossuet's persecution of this most gentle of disciples 
has stained his memory. Nothing goes unpunished in 
this world, not even the weaknesses of genius. 

The zealous ardour of the pontiff for the unity of 
faith cannot excuse the cruelty of the polemical con- 
troversialist. Bossuet was a prophet of the Old Testa- 



420 FENELON. 

meut ; Fénelon an evangelical apostle ; — the one an 
embodiment of terror, the other an emblem of charity. 
All the world admires Bossuet as a writer, but few 
would wish to resemble him as a man. It becomes the 
expiation of those who know not how to love, that their 
memory is not regarded with affection. 

Madame Guy on, the cause of all these troubles, was 
liberated from Vincennes after the death of Bossuet, and 
resided in exile in Lorraine with one of her daughters. 
She died there after many years, still celebrated for 
that unchanging piety and virtue which justified the 
esteem of Fénelon. 

All now appeared tranquil, and promised to Fénelon a 
speedy return to the charge of his pupil, the Duke of 
Burgundy, whom the lapse of years had brought nearer 
to the throne : when the treachery of a copyist who gave 
to the printers in Holland a manuscript of Telemachus, 
plunged the author once more and for ever into disgrace 
at court, and excited anew the anger of the King. 
Telemachus, thus pirated, burst forth like a revelation, 
and spread with the rapidity of fire. The times called 
for it; the vicissitudes of glory and tyranny, the servi- 
tude and misfortunes of the nation at the end of the wars 
of Louis the Fourteenth, had impressed the whole mind 
of Europe with a sort of presentiment of this book. It 
contained the vengeance of the people, a lesson to kings, 
with the introduction of philosophy, and religion, into 
politics. A brilliant and harmonious poetry served as 
the organ of truth as well as fictiou. 

All responded to the gentle voice of a legislative and 
poetical pontiff, who presented himself to instruct, 
console, and charm the world. The presses of Holland, 
Belgium, Germany, France, and England, could not 



IENELON. 421 

issue sufficient copies of Telemachus to satisfy the avidity 
of its readers. It became in a few months the gospel of 
modern imagination ; a classic in its birth. 

The reputation of this great work reached Louis the 
Fourteenth. His courtiers, in pointing out to him his 
likeness, in the feeble and hard-hearted Idomeneus, the 
scourge of his people, said, " he who has thus painted 
your Majesty's portrait, must be your enemy." They 
saw in the recitals and theories of paganism an inju- 
rious satire upon monarchs and government. Public 
malignity delighted to find in all the personages of 
which lenelon's pictures were composed, resemblances 
to the king, the princes, the ministers, and favourites of 
both sexes. These portraits, conceived and executed 
in the palace of Versailles, at a time when Fénelon 
enjoyed all the confidence that the King placed in the 
preceptor of his heir, appeared as a flagrant instance of 
domestic treason. 

The refined dreams of Fénelon, contrasted with the 
sombre realities of the Court, and the sadness of a reign 
in its decline, rose like so many accusations against the 
representative of royalty. Temerity and black ingra- 
titude were attributed to the mind of a poet, whose only 
fault amounted to his having indulged in creations of the 
fancy, more surpassingly beautiful than those of nature 
herself. The instinctive antipathy of Louis the Fourteenth 
to Fénelon originated in indignation and resentment. 
When we compare the reign, and the poem, we can 
scarcely feel surprised, or accuse the King of injustice. 
Such a book, composed under the shadow of the palace, 
and published without the knowledge of the prince, 
appeared in truth a most outrageous satire, as well as 
a cruel violation of the intimate confidence and majesty 
of the sovereign. The mind of Fénelon had never 

VOL. II. F F 



4 22 FENEL0N. 

conceived the sinister allusions and ungrateful accusa- 
tions which were attributed to him. Pie had innocently 
surrendered himself to his pure imagination, which 
coloured everything up to the level of his own moral 
perfection, his candour and love of human nature. He 
wished to prepare in silence, for the instruction of his 
royal charge, a model of a monarch, and of legislative 
government. It was neither his intention nor his fault 
that the resplendent virtue which shone forth in his 
speakers and personages should throw a deeper shadow 
upon the arbitrary, haughty, and persecuting reign of 
Louis the Fourteenth. The dread even of these remarks 
had made him conceal his poem, as a mysterious secret 
between himself and his pupil. He had no desire to 
make it the vehicle of personal fame ; he reserved it for 
the instruction and glory of a future sovereign. He never 
sought literary publicity for his waitings ; they w T ere 
intended for the contracted privacy of friendship or reli- 
gion, and their own brilliancy was the cause of their 
more extensive circulation. 

It was in this view that he had composed Telemachus. 
This poem, which he destined not to see the light until 
after the death of Louis the Fourteenth, he had written 
with his own hand in his private apartments, and after- 
wards had it copied by a person on whose fidelity he 
thought he could rely. He intended it as a legacy to his 
family, that they might make such use of it after his death 
as the times admitted. In his own private feeling, the 
publication of Telemachus caused him as much trouble 
as grief. He saw in it his certain condemnation to a 
perpetual exile, and beheld himself in the situation of a 
public enemy in a court which would never forgive him. 
He was not mistaken. The universal resentment 
against him was immediate. The court had an intuitive 



FENELON. 423 

feeling of the harm which this book would do them in 
the eyes of posterity, and unskilfully disguised their 
terrors under the semblance of disdain. 

" Fénelon's book," said Bossuet, who was still alive at 
the time of its first reputation, " is a romance. Opinions 
are divided on the subject ; the cabal admire it, but the 
rest of the world consider it scarcely serious enough to 
be worthy of a clergyman." 

" I have not the least curiosity to read Telemachus," 
writes Madame de Maintenon. The King, who seldom 
read anything, disdained to peruse it. The Court thought 
to smother it in silence. It was agreed at Versailles 
that they should not even mention the name before the 
King, and they believed the book forgotten by the 
world, because they chose to forget it themselves. 

Sixteen years later, when Telemachus, printed in 
every form, and translated into every language, inundated 
all Europe, the orators of the French Academy, in 
speaking of the literary works of their time, were silent 
upon this, which held possession of the age, and will 
descend to all posterity. 

The anger of the court deeply grieved the Duke of 
Burgundy, whom separation, injustice, and adversity had 
more strongly than ever attached to his preceptor. To 
escape the jealous tyranny of his grandfather, he was 
obliged to make a secret of his attachment to Fénelon, 
and to conceal as a State crime his correspondence with 
his friend. 

" At last," wrote the young Prince, " I find an oppor- 
tunity of breaking the silence which I have been forced 
to maintain for four years. I have suffered many evils, 
but one of the greatest was the not being able to tell you 
what I felt for you during this long interval, and how 
much my love has increased, instead of being diminished, 

F f 2 



404 FENELON. 

by your misfortunes. I reflect with delight upon the 
time when I shall see you again, but I fear that period 
is still far distant. I continue to study alone, and I am 
fonder of reading than ever. Nothing interests me 
more than philosophy and ethics, and I am continually 
practising myself in those exercises. I have written 
several little essays, which I should like to send to you 
to correct. I will not tell you in this, how angry I am 
at all that they have done to you, but we must submit 
for the present. Do not show this letter to any person 
whatever, except only to the Abbé de Langeron, for I 
can depend upon his secresy ; and do not answer it." 

Fénelon replied from time to time by letters written 
at long intervals, containing the advice of a man of 
piety and a statesman, and filled with expressions of 
paternal tenderness. 

" I speak to you only of God and yourself," wrote he ; 
" you must not think of me. Heaven be praised, my 
mind is at peace ; my most severe cross is not beholding 
you ; but I bear you with me before God in a more 
intimate form than that of the senses. I would give a 
thousand lives as a drop of water, to see you all that 
Heaven intended you to be. Amen. Amen." 

The Duke of Burgundy, in going to take command 
of the army in Flanders, during the campaign of 1708, 
passed by Cambray : — 

" The King was less concerned," says St. Simon, 
"with the equipment of his grand-son, than with the 
necessity of his passing near Cambray, which place he 
could not avoid without an appearance of studied inten- 
tion. He was strictly forbidden, not only to sleep there, 
but even to stop and dine; and to avoid the chance 
of a private interview with the Archbishop, the King 
further commanded him not to leave his carriage. 



FENELON. 425 

Sauniery was instructed to see this order strictly complied 
with ; he acquitted himself like an Argus, with an air of 
authority that scandalised everybody. The Archbishop 
was waiting to receive them at the post-house, and 
approached his pupil's carriage as soon as it arrived ; 
but Saumery, who had just alighted, and informed him 
of the King's orders, stationed himself at his elbow. 
The crowd surrounding the young Prince were moved 
at the transports of joy which escaped him, in spite of 
all restraint, when he beheld his preceptor. He embraced 
him repeatedly, and the warmth of the glances which he 
darted into the eyes of the Archbishop, conveyed all 
that the King had interdicted, and expressed an elo- 
quence which none could behold without emotion. 
The Prince only stopped to change horses, but without 
hurry ; then followed fresh embraces, and they parted. 
The scene had been too public, and had excited too 
much curiosity not to be reported on all sides." 

" As the King had been strictly obeyed, he could not 
find fault with what had been so little concealed from 
those who pressed around, or with the looks that were 
exchanged between the Prince and the Archbishop. 
The Court thought much of this, and the army still 
more. The influence which, notwithstanding his dis- 
grace, the Archbishop exercised in his own diocese, and 
even in the Low Countries, communicated itself to the 
troops, and those who thought of the future, from that time 
forth passed more willingly by Cambray, in their journeys 
to and fro from Flanders, than by any other route." 

It was at Cambray, during those sad years in which 
confederated Europe made Louis the Fourteenth atone 
for the splendour of his government, the long prosperity, 
and exalted glory of his entire reign, that we must 
chiefly admire Pénelon. In recurring to the past, 



426 FENELON. 

posterity meets with nothing more beautiful, more simple, 
more devoted, more wise, more respectable, or more re- 
spected, than this supremely amiable being, devoting 
himself to the duties of his mission. As priest, bishop, 
administrator for the poor, friend, citizen and man, all 
the noble sentiments which adorn human nature shone 
forth, collected with remarkable brilliancy in this single 
individual. Above all, throughout the vicissitudes of a 
complicated and unfortunate Avar, of which his diocese 
was the theatre and the victim, he appeared as the 
most touching personification of charity. The true 
qualities of christian love, called forth each day by 
the miseries which increased them as they themselves 
augmented, caused the name, and above all, the presence, 
of Fenelon to be blessed by many voices. In his example, 
they found a resource which assisted them to brave the 
common calamity with patience and resignation. Imagi- 
nation became excited, and added a thousand particulars 
to the truths which were so naturally combined with 
it, that they only appeared to embellish facts to paint 
them with more fidelity. A kind of legend thus grew 
beneath the steps of the "good drc/ièis7top," and followed 
him like the sweet odour of his virtues. These true or 
exaggerated recitals of charity, are commemorated in all 
the records of the time. 

During the winter and scarcity of 1709, this charity 
was exercised with the most active zeal, and under the 
greatest variety of forms, in order to ameliorate the 
triple trials of war, cold, and famine. Disasters accu- 
mulated. The strong places, which had been fortified 
with so much care by the prudence of the King, fell into 
the enemy's power. The troops, badly paid, forgot their 
discipline and obedience, as they had also forgotten the 
way to victory. The treasury was empty. The inex- 



FENELON. 427 

haustible imagination of the exchequer was thoroughly 
worn out, and knew not upon what pretext, or by what 
mercenary bait, to extract another crown from the 
country. The severity of the weather had everywhere 
rendered the grain which had been sown unproductive. 
During the winter, men expired of cold ; and when 
the summer came, they might be seen lying dead of 
starvation, with a bunch of withered herbs in their 
mouths. In numerous towns and provinces, seditions 
unexpectedly burst upon the government, which found 
its resources every where exhausted. Executions followed 
on the mad extravagances of misery. Peace, which he 
had never known how to preserve, now fled from the 
humble solicitations of Louis the Fourteenth. The 
ambition of Prince Eugene and the avarice of Marl- 
borough, prolonged the war, which was profitable to 
them, and to their glory. After Hochstedt and Ramillies, 
Oudenarde, Lille and Malplaquet, appeared to toll the 
funeral knell of France. 

She retained for a long time the cruel impression, and 
shudders still at the remembrance of that year when God 
appeared to punish men for their internal discord, in 
accumulating with a severe hand the full measure of 
those evils which they had commenced by heaping on 
themselves. 

But above this sad recollection, and inseparably con- 
nected with it, there still rises the remembrance of one 
of those great men, accorded as an example and consola- 
tion under the heaviest blows which it pleases the Divine 
Providence to dispense — an immutable law established 
by historical evidence. To alleviate anarchy, spring up 
virtuous patriots ; to soothe calamities, heroes of charity ; 
to temper the massacre of the Indians, there was Las 
Casas ; to assuage the fury of the religious wars. 



428 FENELON. 

L'Hôpital; amidst the vices of his times, St. Vincent 
de Paul ; at Milan, Charles Borromeus ; at Marseilles, 
Belzimce ; and to balance against the executioners during 
the reign of terror, there were the victims. Flanders, 
and the year 1709, possessed Fénelon. In these re- 
deeming signs may be recognised the hand which only 
chastises to instruct. 

The episcopal palace of Cambray was transformed into 
the common asylum of the unfortunate. When it be- 
came too small to contain them, Fénelon opened his 
seminary, and hired several houses in the town. The 
inhabitants of entire villages, which had been ravaged by 
the soldiers, took refuge under his protection. These 
poor people were received like children ; and those who 
had suffered most, were treated with the first and greatest 
care. 

On the other hand, generals, officers, and soldiers, 
sick or wounded, were brought to this untiring charity, 
which never paused to count the numbers to be relieved. 
Let us give attention to what St. Simon says upon this 
subject. He praises rarely, and then against his will ; 
but when he writes of Fénelon, he is forced to wipe 
away the gall from his pen : — 

"His open house and table had the appearance of 
those of a governor of Flanders, and of an episcopal pa- 
lace, combined. There were constantly many renowned 
officers, and distinguished soldiers, sick, wounded, or in 
good health, living with him. All expenses were defrayed 
by him, and they were served equally, as if there was only 
one honoured guest to attend upon. He himself was 
usually present at all the medical and surgical consulta- 
tions. He also exercised towards the sick and wounded, 
the functions of the most charitable pastor ; and often 
went to the houses and hospitals in which the soldiers 



FENELON. 429 

were lodged, to fulfil the same office. All these duties 
were performed without neglecting anything, without 
any interested motive, and always with an open hand. 
A liberality well understood, a magnificence which never 
insulted, was showered alike on officers and men ; and 
although he exercised this unbounded hospitality, his 
table, furniture, and equipages, were within the limits of 
his station. He gave in secret, with equal eagerness and 
modesty, all the assistance that could be concealed, and 
which was incalculable. He used such consideration 
towards others, as to make those on whom he conferred 
favours believe that he was the obliged party ; and he 
showed a common politeness to all, so carefully modified 
that it appeared to each like a mark of personal consi- 
deration. In all things he acted with that nice delicacy 
in which he so singularly excelled. He was beloved by 
every one. Admiration and devotion filled the hearts of 
all the inhabitants of the Low Countries, throughout 
every district, who looked up to him as an object of 
universal love and veneration." 

Behold, then, lenelon in his true vocation. He de- 
voted himself to the unfortunate. He did better than 
merely succour and nurse them ; he lived with them 
entirely. In his own house, in the hospitals, in the 
town, he was to be seen wherever his presence was ne- 
cessary. No miseries disgusted him, no infectious 
diseases deterred him from the motive which inspired 
him with the most earnest desire to soothe those who 
suffered ; he bestowed what was better than alms or 
medicine — a look, a gentle word, a sigh, a tear. He 
thought of all, he foresaw all, he descended to the most 
minor details. Nothing appeared to him beneath his 
care, and nothing was beyond his ability to accom- 
plish. This was only the natural exercise of his heart. 



430 FENELON. 

He kept his mind at liberty, he 'prayed, he meditated 
like a monk in the cloister. As a man who sought to 
occupy his leisure hours, he continued an extensive corre- 
spondence, kind, useful, serious, and full of information, 
with the most distinguished men, and often upon the 
most intricate and arduous questions. Theologian and 
bishop, he composed several works, instructions, and 
essays upon difficult subjects, which at the moment 
occupied the church of France. His powers and re- 
sources appeared exhaustless, as if he had only to draw 
them from the depths of his own soul. Rigid and sparing 
in his habits, he was accustomed to eat alone, and live 
entirely upon vegetables. He did not even partake of 
the repast which he provided for his guests, and 
allowed himself nothing that he could spare for the 
benefit of others. 

The veneration which his name inspired, enabled him 
to cross the enemies' lines, through which our arms had 
been unable to force a passage. Alone and unprotected, 
he could traverse his entire diocese. The most disorderly 
of all the troops, the Imperial hussars, might be seen 
attending him as a voluntary escort in his pastoral 
journeys. The estates which belonged to him, respected 
by the orders of Eugène and Marlborough, became a 
refuge for the peasants of the neighbourhood, who, at the 
approach of the soldiers, ran there with their families, 
and all that they could carry. Often, the better to pro- 
tect their grain, woods, and fields from marauders, the 
generous enemy would place a guard over them. 

On one occasion, carts laden with corn arrived in the 
square at Cambray, under the escort of some of Marl- 
borough's soldiers. Fearing that the scarcity of pro- 
visions would not permit this supply to remain long in 
security in the little town of Cateau Cambresis, where 



FENELON. 431 

Fénelon had placed it, the English general caused it to 
be brought into the French city, within view of his own 
camp. 

It is the privilege of great minds to elevate others to 
their own standard, and to inspire as well as perform 
noble actions. The sanctity of the archbishop conferred 
reflected honour even on the enemies of his country, 
from the respect with which it inspired them for his 
character. 

The devotion of Fénelon was not simply confined to 
private actions. He even assumed the noble part of a 
public deliverer, and brought succour to his country. 
The consequences of the admiration which he inspired, 
were useful to France. At the moment when our army, 
without food, was nearly annihilated by hunger, he had 
the glory (and never was there a purer or more personal 
renown) of saving it. He opened his store-houses to 
the ministers of war and finance ; and when the 
comptroller-general asked him to name the price of the 
corn which necessity had rendered so valuable, he re- 
plied, " I have given it up to you : order as much as you 
please ; it is all yours." 

At the same time, he wrote thus to the Duke de 
Chevreuse : " If money is wanting for pressing emergen- 
cies, I offer my service of plate, and anything else that I 
possess, and also the small quantity of corn which still 
remains. I wish to serve my country with my money 
and my blood ; and not simply to make myself popular 
at court." 

And when no sacrifice or effort could any longer sup- 
ply the most urgent necessities of the army and inha- 
bitants of Flanders, he addressed the following letter 
to the commissioner-general, in which he paints to the 
life, the miseries against which he was struggling: — 



432 FENELON. 

" I can no longer delay that wliich our desolated city 
and country compel me to communicate. It is to beg 
you instantly to have the kindness to procure us the suc- 
cour which you have long promised in the King's name. 
This district and town have had no other resource for 
the entire year than the produce of the oat crops, the 
corn having entirely failed. Consider then, Sir, that the 
armies, wliich are almost at our doors, and who can 
only subsist upon what is left, will consume a great 
portion of the oats still in the fields : and much more 
will be destroyed by waste and plunder than from regu- 
lar foraging. Wheat is no longer to be procured ; it 
has risen to such an enormous price, that even the most 
industrious families cannot afford to buy it, and it is, 
moreover, extremely scarce. We have no barley ; and 
the little oats we have left will not suffice for the men 
and horses alone. The people must perish ; and a 
contagion is to be dreaded, which may extend from 
hence to Paris. 

" Further, you understand, Sir, better than anybody, 
that if the people can neither plant nor live, your troops 
will not be able to exist upon a frontier whose inhabitants 
are unable to furnish them with the commonest neces- 
saries. You see also that it will be impossible to carry 
on the war next year in a ruined country. That in 
which we now are has almost fallen into this last ex- 
tremity ; we can no longer assist our poor, for the rich 
are themselves reduced to poverty. You have done me 
the honour to tell me that the King will have the good- 
ness to send into this district a large supply of grain, 
that is to say, barley and oats. There are no other 
means of preserving a frontier so close to Paris and so 
important to Prance. I should consider that I failed in 
my duty to God and the King, did I not represent our 



FENELOX. 433 

condition to yon witfcout disguise. We expect every 
thing from the compassion of his Majesty towards these 
people, who will not show him less affection and fidelity 
than his subjects of the ancient kingdom." 

Meanwhile the King was growing old, and a sudden 
illness carried off the father of the Duke of Burgundy, 
the son of Louis the Fourteenth, who would have suc- 
ceeded to the throne before the pupil of Fénelon. The 
courtiers, who now saw no step between the monarchy 
and the young Duke, began to turn their eyes towards the 
rising sun, and once more to perceive Fénelon in the back- 
ground. The picture that the courtly lynx, St. Simon, has 
drawn of the death of the great Dauphin, father of the 
Duke of Burgundy, imparts the light of truth to the darkest 
understanding. Never has the veil of interest, egotism, 
simulated grief, secret joy, fluctuating hope, hourly 
changing from the throne to the tomb, been so piti- 
lessly drawn aside by the pen of the universal satirist. 

" While Meudon was overwhelmed with despair, Ver- 
sailles remained tranquil and unsuspecting. Supper was 
over; some hours after, the company had separated, and 
I was conversing with Madame de St. Simon, who was 
preparing to retire to rest, when the valet de cham- 
bre of the Duchess de Berri entered in consternation, 
and told us that bad news had arrived from Meudon. I 
then immediately ran to the Duchess de Bern's apart- 
ments. Nobody was there. They were all gone to 
the house of the Duchess of Burgundy, whither I fol- 
lowed immediately. 

" I there found all Versailles either already assembled, 
or arriving. The ladies in dishabille, the greater number 
as they had been preparing for bed, the doors all open, 
and everything in confusion. I learnt that Monseigneur, 
the Dauphin, had received extreme unction, that he 



434 FENEL0N. 

knew nobody, and that his condition was hopeless. 
The King had sent to inform the Duchess of Burgundy 
that he was going to Marly, and that she was to meet 
him in the avenue between the two stables, that she 
might see him as he passed. 

" This assembly attracted all the attention that was not 
occupied by the various emotions of my soul, and by 
what at the instant presented itself to my imagina- 
tion. The two princes and princesses were in a small 
cabinet in the space between the bed and the w r all. The 
night toilet w r as usually held in the chamber of the 
Duchess of Burgundy, which was now filled by the whole 
court in a state of utter bewilderment. She went back- 
wards and forwards from the closet to the bed-room, 
waiting for the moment when she was to meet the King. 
She maintained her usual graceful demeanour, but filled 
with a sorrow and compassion that each individual pre- 
sent thought was caused by their own trouble. She 
spoke a few words to every one in passing to and fro. All 
had most expressive countenances, for even eyes that 
had never before beheld the court could easily distin- 
guish the eager expectations depicted on some features, 
from the inanition of those who looked for nothing. 
These latter remained tranquil, but the former were 
obliged to hide, under the appearance of excessive grief, 
the overflowing of their joy. 

"My first impulse was to makem any inquiries, and not 
to believe readily what I either saw or heard ; my next, 
to think that there was not much cause for such great 
alarm ; and finally, to consider within myself that misfor- 
tune is the common lot of all mankind, and that I too 
should some day find myself at the gates of death. 

" A feeling of joy, however, crossed these momentary 
impressions of religion and humanity, by which I was 



FENELON. 435 

trying to recal myself. My own personal deliverance 
appeared to me so great and unexpected, that I consi- 
dered it even a more perfect evidence than truth itself, that 
the state would Ije the gainer by this great loss In the 
midst of these reflections I could not help entertaining, 
in spite of myself, a fear that the sick man might yet 
recover, and I felt greatly ashamed of the feeling. 
Although thus apparently plunged in thought, 1 did 
not fail to remark to Madame St. Simon, that it was 
fortunate she had come ; and to cast, peering but furtive 
glances, upon every face, demeanour, and movement, to 
satisfy my curiosity ; to feed the opinion that I had 
formed of each individual, which had never yet deceived 
me ; and to draw just conjectures of the truth from those 
first impulses which people can so seldom master, and 
which, to those who know the machinery and the pup- 
pets, are sure indications of sentiments and feelings 
which are almost imperceptible in moments of greater 
self-possession. 

" I saw the Duchess of Orleans arrive, but her com- 
posed and majestic countenance told nothing. Some 
moments after, the Duke of Burgundy passed with a 
troubled countenance, full of care, but the glance which 
I quickly threw towards him showed me nothing tender 
in his expression. I only beheld the pre-occupation of 
an absorbed mind. 

" The valets and waiting- women were already weeping 
with indiscreet violence, and their grief showed fully the 
loss which their class were about to sustain. It was 
nearly half-past twelve when news arrived of the King, 
and I immediately saw the Duchess of Burgundy leave 
the little cabinet with the duke, whose countenance 
appeared more moved than when I saw him at first, and 
who quickly re-entered the closet. The princess, taking 



436 FENELON. 

from the toilet-table her scarf and head-dress, deli- 
berately crossed the apartment, her eyes scarcely moist- 
ened, but her real feelings betrayed by stealthy looks 
cast here and there as she passed along. Followed by 
her ladies alone, she reached her carriage by the grand 
staircase. 

" I took advantage of her leaving the chamber to seek 
the Duchess of Orleans, whom I was anxious to see. I 
ascertained that she was in the apartments of Madame ; 
and proceeding through the other rooms, I found the 
duchess surrounded by five or six of her familiar ladies. 
I felt impatient at the presence of so large a company. 
The duchess, who was not less annoyed at it, took a 
light and went to the back of her room. I then pro- 
ceeded to say a word or two privately to the Duchess 
de Villeroy. She and I held the same opinions on the 
present event. She pushed me away, and whispered to 
me in a low voice to restrain myself. I was forced to 
be silent, amidst the complaints and surprise of the 
ladies, when the Duke of Orleans appeared at the door 
of the cabinet and called me. 

" I followed him into an interior apartment, situated 
below upon the gallery : he, ready to faint, and I, with 
my legs trembling under me, at all that was passing 
before my eyes and in my mind. We seated ourselves 
accidentally opposite to each other ; but what was my 
astonishment when soon after I beheld tears stream 
from his eyes ! ' Monsieur !' cried I, rising in the excess 
of my surprise. He understood me instantly, and 
replied in a broken and truly lamentable tone of voice, 
'You have a right to be surprised, and I am so myself; 
but this event touches me deeply. He is a good man, 
with whom I have passed my life ; he has treated me 
kindly, and has ever shown me as much friendship as 



FENEL0N. 437 

they would permit. I know perfectly well that this 
grief cannot last long : in a few days I shall find motives 
for consolation from the state in which I was placed with 
him ; but at present, relationship, proximity, humanity, 
all touch me, and my heart is grieved." I applauded 
this sentiment, and the prince rose, leant his head in a 
corner, his face turned to the wall, and wept, sobbing 
bitterly ; a circumstance which, if I had not seen, I 
should never have believed. I besought him to calm 
himself; he tried to do so, and just then it was an- 
nounced that the Duchess of Burgundy had arrived ; he 
was obliged to join her, and I followed. 

" The Duchess of Burgundy stopped at the avenue 
between the two stables, and had not to wait long for 
the king's arrival. As soon as he approached, she 
alighted and ran to the door of his carriage. Madame 
de Maintenon, who was on that side, cried out, '"'What 
are you about, Madame ? Do not come near us, we are 
infected ! " I do not know what the king did, who 
could not embrace her on this account. The princess 
instantly re-entered her carriage and returned. 

" On her arrival she found the two princes and the 
Duchess de Berri, with the Duke de Beauvillier, whom 
she had sent to summon. The princes, each with his 
princess at his side, were seated on the same couch, 
near the windows, with their backs to the gallery ; the 
rest of the assembly were scattered about, some seated, 
some alone, and all in confusion throughout the apart- 
ment. The most confidential ladies were standing, or 
sitting on the ground near the sofa. 

" Throughout the whole room every countenance might 
be clearly read. Monseigneur was no more ; they knew 
it ; they said it ; there was no longer any restraint on 
his account, and these first moments were those in 

VOL. II. G G 



438 FENELON. 

which the emotions could be viewed in their natural 
colours ; for the instant, divested of all studied policy 
by the unexpected trouble and confusion of the night. 
Above all, might be heard the continual howling of 
valets ; then followed the lamentations of the courtiers 
of every degree. The greater number, that is to 
say, the fools, drew sighs up from their very heels, and 
with wild and dry eyes praised Monseigneur, but 
always in the same words, lauding him for his good- 
ness, and pitying the king for having lost so vir- 
tuous a son. The most cunning, or most considerate, 
became already alarmed for the king's health. They 
had wit enough to retain so much sagacity amidst all 
this trouble, and did not leave room to doubt it by the 
frequency of their repetitions. Others, truly afflicted, 
and of the fallen party, cried bitterly, or tried to calm 
themselves by an effort as palpable as their sobs. 

" Amidst these various evidences of affliction, little 
or not at all appropriate, there was no conversation. 
A casual exclamation might now and then be heard to 
proceed from some unhappy individual, who received an 
answer from his sorrowful neighbour. A word in a 
quarter of an hour ; haggard and sorrowful eyes ; occa- 
sionally an involuntary movement of the hand, while all 
the rest of their persons remained motionless. Those 
who were only curious and little uneasy were few ; not 
counting the fools, who had nearly all the talk to them- 
selves, asking questions and exhibiting despair enough 
for all the rest. Those who already looked upon this 
event as favourable, had great difficulty in carrying 
their demeanour to the necessary point of austere grief; 
but all was merely a transparent veil, which could 
not prevent quick eyes from ascertaining real feelings. 
These last were as careful as those who were really 



FENELOX. 439 

affected, but their looks betrayed how in reality their 
minds were agitated. Constant changes of position, like 
people who were not at ease either sitting or standing, a 
careful avoidance of each other from fear of a mutual 
encounter of eyes, the momentary embarrassment which 
occurred when they did meet, the appearance of a sort 
of indescribable freedom in their whole air in spite of 
their efforts to restrain and compose themselves ; a quick 
and sparkling glance around, betrayed them notwith- 
standing their utmost endeavours at concealment. 

" The two princes, and the two princesses seated at 
their sides, taking care of them, were the most exposed 
to view. Monseigneur the Duke of Burgundy, shed from 
real emotion and good feeling, with a gentle mien, na- 
tural, religious, and patient tears. The Duke de Berri 
also wept abundantly and bitterly, and uttered not only 
sobs, but cries and groans. These were carried to such 
an extent that they were obliged to undress him on the 
spot, and to have recourse to doctors and remedies. 
The Duchess de Berri was beside herself. The most 
agonizing despair, mingled with horror, was depicted on 
her countenance, on which might be seen, as if written 
in palpable characters, a perfect frenzy of grief; not 
caused by feelings of friendship, but by those of interest. 
Often roused by the cries of her husband, prompt in 
assisting and supporting him, she showed a lively anxiety 
for his sufferings, but soon after appeared again totally 
absorbed in her own thoughts. The Duchess of Burgundy 
also tried to console her spouse, and found it a less difficult 
task than that of appearing as if she herself wanted con- 
solation. A few tears drawn forth by the spectacle, and 
often with difficulty kept up, sufficed, with the aid of a 
handkerchief, to make her eves red and swollen, and to 
disfigure her face, although frequent stolen glances fell 

g g 2 



440 FENELON. 

upon all the assembly, and scrutinised separately the 
countenance of each. 

" The Duke de Beauvillier stood near them, and with 
a cold and tranquil air, issued orders for the consolation 
of the other princes. 

"Madame, re-attired in full dress, entered crying loudly, 
not really recognising anybody, but inundating all with 
tears as she embraced them alternately, causing the whole 
château to resound with renewed lamentations. She 
presented the grotesque spectacle of a princess arrayed 
in full costume, in the middle of the night, coining to 
mingle her tears and groans with a crowd of women, 
half undressed and entirely in masquerade. 

" The Duchess of Orleans, and some of her ladies who 
regarded the event in the same light with herself, had 
retired into the little cabinet, and were shut in there 
when I arrived. 

" I wished still to doubt, though all revealed itself in 
its true colours ; but I could not make up my mind to 
abandon the belief that I might hear a confirmation of 
the truth from some one that I could trust. By chance 
I stumbled on M. D'O., to whom I put the question, 
and he replied distinctly. I then endeavoured to appear 
as if I were not glad. I cannot tell if I succeeded ; but 
it is at least certain that neither joy nor grief blunted my 
curiosity, and that in taking care to preserve every ap- 
pearance of decorum, I committed myself to none of the 
unhappy assembly. I no longer dreaded a return of fire 
from the citadel of Meudon, nor the cruel conduct of its 
implacable garrison ; and I restrained myself less than 
I did before the King's departure for Marly, to observe 
at freedom this numerous company ; to cast my eyes 
upon the most grieved or on those who were not grieved 
at all ; to follow both with my looks, and to scrutinise 



FENELON. 441 

them with my stolen glances. It must be confessed, 
that to those who are quite an fait to the internal ma- 
chinery of a court, the first aspect of rare events of this 
kind, so interesting in their different characteristics, af- 
fords extreme satisfaction. Every countenance speaks 
of the cares, the intrigues, the labour employed to advance 
fortune, of the formation and progress of cabals, of the 
address necessary to maintain some and overthrow others, 
of the various means employed to carry on all these 
schemes ; of combinations more or less advanced ; of 
mutual repulses, coldness, hatred, and underhand base- 
ness ; of the manceuverings, advances, management, little- 
ness, meanness, of some ; of the overthrow of others in 
the midst of their career, or when on the point of realiz- 
ing their hopes. I saw r the utter consternation of those 
who were in full possession of their wishes, and the blow 
sustained by their opponents who were yet in expectation. 
I beheld the power of that elasticity which even in such 
a moment could profit by unlooked-for circumstances ; 
I noted the extreme satisfaction of some (and I was one 
of the foremost), the rage of others, and their spiteful 
embarrassment in the endeavour to hide their real feel- 
ings. I saw eyes darted round in every direction to 
fathom souls under the first emotions of surprise, and 
under an unlooked-for overthrow. Astonishment, dis- 
appointment, suspicion, anxious inquiry, all were mingled 
and exhibited with characteristic variety. From this 
living mass of contradiction, a keen observer might 
extract intense enjoyment, which, however shadowy and 
fleeting, is nevertheless one of the most profitable as well 
as useful lessons which can be acquired in a court." 

" But he," continues St. Simon, " on whom this event 
produced the greatest impression, was Fénelon. How 
long he had prepared his mind for this catastrophe ! How 



442 FENEL0N. 

near was now his approach to a certain and complete 
triumph, which burst at once, like a powerful ray of 
light into the abode of darkness ! Confined for twelve 
years to his diocese, this prelate had grown old under the 
weight of hopes deferred, and saw time roll on in un- 
varying uniformity, which reduced him to despair. Al- 
ways obnoxious to the King, before whom nobody dared 
to pronounce his name, even on indifferent matters, and 
more hateful still to Madame de Maintenon, because she 
had caused his ruin ; more exposed than others to the 
terrible cabal which had disposed of the deceased 
Dauphin, he had no other resource than in the unalter- 
able attachment of his pupil, who had also been marked 
as a victim by this party ; and who, according to the 
ordinary course of nature, was likely to continue so, 
longer than his preceptor could hope to survive. In the 
twinkling of an eye this pupil became Dauphin ; in an- 
other, he attained to a kind of regency." 

The whole Court, on this event, internally thought of 
Pénelon ; his name presented itself as a subject of re- 
morse or hope, for all. They believed that they saw him 
reign in the background, which this unexpected and 
sudden death had brought closer to their imaginations. 
The conduct of the King towards his grand-son, who 
until then had been kept in obscurity by his grand-father, 
redoubled the anxiety of some, and the expectations of 
others. 

Louis the Fourteenth one morning retained the young- 
Prince in his cabinet at the hour of council, and com- 
manded all the ministers to consult with the Duke of Bur- 
gundy whenever he summoned them, and when he did 
not, they were to go of their own accord, and render him 
an account of state affairs, as if they were communicating 
with the King himself. " This order came like a thun- 



FENELO.N. 443 

derbolt upon the ministers, who were almost all Féne- 
lon's enemies," says the author of the " Mysteries of the 
Palace." " What a fall for such men," he adds, " to 
have to deal with a prince who had now no obstacle 
between him and the throne, and who was clever, en- 
lightened, just, and of a superior understanding; who 
weighed everything conscientiously, and who, in addi- 
tion to all this, was in the strictest confidential inter- 
course, both mind and heart, with Fenelon." 

This change was the work of Madame de Maintenon, 
towards whom the young Prince, by Fénelon's advice, 
had ever shown a scrupulous deference, flattering to her 
pride, and promising well for the future. Mingled with 
the death of the Dauphin, she had felt a shudder at the 
prospect of the future reign. To secure eventually a 
prolongation of her influence, she wished to purchase the 
gratitude of the successor. On the day after the funeral, 
she passed over to the party which until then she had 
held estranged from favour. The King, who only 
thought as she did, appeared himself even to prepare for 
the transition from his own tomb to the throne of his 
grand-son. 

Fénelon, relieved from his hopeless state by the hand 
of death, which he took for the hand of Providence, 
uttered a cry of deliverance and restrained joy, to his 
pupil. " God," he wrote to him, " has just struck a 
great blow ! but his hand is often merciful even in its 
severest chastisement. This unexpected affliction is 
given to the world, to show to blinded men that princes, 
however great they may appear, are iu reality but of 
trifling importance. Happy are those who have never 
looked upon authority in other light than that of a trust 
confided to them for the benefit of their people. Now 
is the time to render yourself beloved, feared, esteemed. 



444 FENELON. 

You must endeavour more and more to please the King, 
to insinuate yourself into his heart, that he may feel a 
boundless affection for you. Watch over him and con- 
sole him with all suitable assiduity and obliging atten- 
tions. You must become the King's adviser, the father 
of the people, the consoler of the oppressed, the resource 
of the unfortunate, the support of the nation. Discard 
flatterers, distinguish merit, seek it out, forestall it, learn 
to bring it into action ; make yourself superior to all, as 
you are placed above all. You must endeavour to act 
as a father, not as a master. All cannot belong to one, 
but one must belong to all, to promote the general hap- 
piness of the people." 

This direct advice of Fénelon was enforced every day 
by the most intimate counsellors that he could attach to 
the Prince, in the persons of his two friends, the Dukes 
de Beauvillier and Chevreuse. 

" Let him undeceive the public," wrote Fénelon to 
them, " respecting the little matters of scrupulous piety 
which they impute to him ; he may be strict as far as 
concerns his private feelings, but do not let him cause 
them to dread a severe reform, of which society is inca- 
pable. He ought only to talk of that which he can 
carry through ; no puerilities or trifling in religion. He 
can better learn to govern men, by studying them, than 
by studying books." 

The palace of Fénelon, hitherto deserted, now became 
the vestibule of royal favour. The courtiers and place- 
hunters, who for twelve years had kept aloof as from 
a contagion, during his disgrace, crowded to Cambray 
upon every possible pretext. Each wished to receive 
the guarantee of future consideration. He received 
everybody with that natural grace which caused him to 
reign by anticipation in every heart, as he already in 



FENEL0N. 445 

effect occupied every thought. The notes upon govern- 
ment which he addressed through the Duke de Chevreuse 
to the Dauphin, contain an entire monarchical constitu- 
tion. His political reforms had passed from poetry into 
reality, but they were divested of the chimeras which 
brought them into dis-repute in Telemachus, and bore 
the impress of maturity, reflection, and experience. The 
saint had become a minister, the poet a statesman. In 
his maxims were found all that has since been accom- 
plished, attempted, or prepared, for ameliorating the 
condition of the people. 

The term of military service was to be reduced to a 
period of five years. 

The pensions to discharged soldiers were to be distri- 
buted amongst their families, to be spent in their villages, 
instead of being wasted in idleness and debauchery at 
the Palace of the Invalids in the capital. 

France was never again to be engaged in a general 
war against the whole of Europe. 

There was to be a system of alliances varying with the 
legitimate interests of the country. 

A regular and public account of the receipts and 
expenses of the State. 

A fixed and registered assessment of taxes ; the votes 
for, and division of these subsidies, to be decided by the 
representatives of the provinces. 

There were to be provincial assemblies. 

The suppression of the reversion and right of inherit- 
ance of public offices. 

The States General of the kingdom were to be con- 
verted into National Assemblies. 

The nobility were to be deprived of every feudal 
authority and privilege, and to be reduced to an im- 
portance derived only from their family title. 



446 FENELON. 

The office of judge was to be gratuitous, and not 
hereditary. 

The right of commerce was to be regulated ; manu- 
facturers were to be encouraged. 

Public pawnbrokers and savings banks were to be 
established. 

All strangers who wished to become naturalised in 
France were to have full liberty to do so. 

Church property was to be rated for the benefit of 
the state. 

Bishops and ministers were to be elected by their 
peers or by their people. 

There was to be perfect liberty of conscience. 

Such were the plans of Fénelon, already prepared 
against the moment when he should be called upon to 
become a minister. If the Duke of Burgundy had 
lived, and if Fénelon had retained the same ascendency 
over him which for so many years he had maintained, 
1789 would have commenced in 1716, and the reformed 
monarchy would only have been a christian republic 
with a supreme head. 

But it is never permitted to one man to step in 
advance of a nation. Providence was about to overturn, 
in the premature grave of the prince, all the ideas, plans, 
virtues, dreams, ambition, hopes, and existence of the 
philosopher. 

The blast of death was upon the royal family ; all fell 
under it before Louis the Fourteenth, who was ready to 
fall with the last. The Duchess of Burgundy, the 
delight of the Court, and the joy of her husband, unex- 
pectedly struck, brought him with her to the grave. 
The blow was as sudden as it was terrible. Fénelon 
had no time to prepare his heart ; he learnt almost at 
the same moment the illness and death of his pupil. 



FENELON. 44? 

This pupil had become the hope of France ; his reign 
was looked forward to, as the revival of virtue and public 
happiness. lenelon had corrected and brought to per- 
fection in this soul, the work roughly hewn by nature, 
of an unaccomplished Prince. 

" What a love of the truly good ! " exclaims the least 
adulatory of historians. "What forgetfulness of self, 
what purity of intention, what proofs of divinity in 
this candid, simple, and powerful mind, which, as much 
as is permitted to man below, bore the impress of its 
sacred derivation. What sudden bursts of thankful- 
ness during his last agony, for his preservation from the 
sceptre, and the account which he should have had to 
render of its use ! T\ hat ardent love of God ! what a 
lowly opinion of his own insignificance ! what a magni- 
ficent idea of the infinity of mercy ! what a modified 
confidence ! what profound peace ! what invincible pa- 
tience ! what sweetness ! what pure charity, which 
made him desire to be with his Creator ! France at last 
sinks under this heavy chastisement. God showed her 
a prince that she did not deserve : the earth ' was un- 
worthy of him !' 

This prince, his virtues, his holiness, the hopes re- 
vealed and then withdrawn, all were the work of Fene- 
lon. The master had expired with the disciple ; Fénelon 
died with the Duke of Burgundy. 

tie only allowed a few words to escape him. " All 
my ties are broken : there is no longer any thing 
to bind me to the earth !" His life from that mo- 
ment was rendered desolate ; he had lost its aim : 
this reign, of which he had dreamt, as a boon to 
the human race, was buried with the Germanicus of 
France. " He has shown him to the world, and he 
has taken him away," wrote he several weeks after to the 



448 FENEL0N. 

Duke de Chevreuse, the confidant of his grief. " I am 
struck with horror, and ill without a malady, from 
the shock. In weeping for the dead prince, I mourn 
for the survivors. The King must make peace. What 
will be our fate if we should fall into the troubles 
of a minority ? Without a mother ! without a regent ! 
an unfortunate war abroad, and all resources exhausted 
at home ! I would give my life not only for the state, 
but for the children of our dear prince, who is dearer to 
me now than when he was spared to us." He urgently 
entreated the Duke de Beauvillier to impress on Madame 
de Maintenon the urgent necessity that the King should 
form a council of government, at the head of which his 
most virtuous friends should preside. " I expect but 
little," said he, " from this superannuated favourite, full 
of the anger, jealousy, littleness, dislikes, spite, and 
artfulness common to women ; but God makes use of 
many implements." 

He conjured the Duke de Chevreuse not to refuse, 
from ill-timed modesty, to become one of the council of 
regency. This government, composed of those whom 
he had for so many years inspired, would still have 
been that of the Duke of Burgundy. 

Fénelon pursued the dream of his life, for the happi- 
ness of the nation, even to the sepulchre of the prince for 
whom he had conceived it, and wished him to reign 
even after his death. In the midst of this idea, which 
actuated him to the end, he trembled lest the King 
should discover amongst the papers of the Duke of Bur- 
gundy a writing which would appear to him a more 
unpardonable crime than " Telemachus." This was 
entitled, "A Guide for the Conscience of a King," — a 
code of piety, toleration, and of duty towards the people, 
every line of which was an accusation against the 



PENELON. 449 

egotism, persecutions, and unprofitable personal glory of 
Louis the Fourteenth. But the friends of Fénelon had 
removed this manuscript from the papers of the King's 
grand-son. 

The death of Fénelon's two intimates, the Duke de 
Chevreuse and the Duke de Beauvillier, caused this last 
chimaera of the public good to fade into nothing ; the 
holy ambition of their friend died with them. Fénelon 
turned his thoughts from the decline and misfortunes of 
the reign about to end, and fixed them solely on things 
immortal. His writings and correspondence at this 
time bear the impress of that melancholy, which, in 
worldly men, shows the disappointment of a mistaken 
life, and in religious minds the transfer of their hopes 
from earth to heaven. He wrote, as Socrates in his 
last hour discoursed, upon the immortality of the soul. 
Friendship still remained, but he lost much by the death 
of the Abbé de Langeron, the pupil, confidant, and 
support of his heart through all his varying fortunes. 
The Abbé de Langeron expired in the arms of his 
master. " Alas ! I have not the strength you suppose," 
wrote Fénelon to a mutual friend who congratulated him 
upon not allowing his pious feelings to be disturbed by 
the grief of human separations ; " I confess that I have 
wept for myself while weeping for my friend. I feel a 
sort of internal languor, and can only derive consolation 
by giving way to the lassitude of my sorrow. Our dear 
departed friend died with an enlightened and consoling 
view of his end, that would have affected you deeply. 
Even when his ideas became a little clouded, his senti- 
ments expressed hope, patience, and entire submission 
to the will of God. I tell you all this that I may not 
trouble you with my distress, without, at the same time, 
showing you the comfort which faith affords in grief, 



450 FENELON. 

of which St. Augustin speaks, and which God has upon 
this occasion permitted me to feel. God has done as 
he thinks best ; he has preferred the happiness of my 
friend to my earthly consolation. I offered up him whom 
I trembled to lose !" 

" I live no longer but for friendship," exclaimed he 
afterwards, in reverting to this loss, " and friendship will 
cause my death. But we shall soon regain what we 
appear to have lost ; in a little time there will be no 
longer cause to weep." 

A fever caused by his distress of mind seized him on 
New Year's day, 1715, and in six days after consumed 
the small portion of vitality which years, labour, and 
grief had spared in that heart which had been devoted 
to the cause of humanity. He died as a saint and a 
poet, causing to be read aloud to him from the sacred 
canticles, the most sublime and soothing hymns, which 
carried at the same time his soul and imagination to 
heaven. 

" Repeat that passage again," said he to his reader, 
delighted with these songs of hope. " Again, again ! I 
can never hear enough of these divine words," cried he 
when they were silent, thinking that he slept. His 
desire for this foretaste of immortality was insatiable. 
" Lord," he once exclaimed, " if I am still necessary to 
your people, I refuse not to labour for the rest of my 
days. Thy will be done ! " These words afflicted 
those present, and the Abbé de Chantérac, his first 
and last friend, said to him, " But why do you leave 
us ? In this desolation to whom will you confide us ? 
Perhaps ferocious beasts may come and devour your 
little flock." 

He replied only by a tender look and a sigh. He 
expired gently on the following morning, with a resip;- 



FENELON. 451 

nation whieH appeared like joy, surrounded by the 
prayers and affectionate offices of his weeping attendants. 

The Abbé de Chantérac, as if he had nothing more 
to do on earth after the death of him for whom he had 
solely lived, expired of grief after the funeral of his 
friend. All France mourned in her soul for the loss of 
her saint and poet. Louis the Fourteenth himself ap- 
peared to discover at last, but when it was too late, that 
a mighty mind was wanting to his empire, and a great 
sustaining force to his old age. " Here was a man," 
exclaimed he, " who would have served us well under 
the disasters by which my kingdom is about to be 
assailed !" Vain posthumous regret, which appreciates 
not genius until it is extinct, nor virtue until buried in 
the tomb ! 

Such was the life and death of Fénelon. His name 
has become even more popular and immortal than his 
works, because the perfections of his soul exceeded 
those of his genius ; adored for himself alone, his name 
is his immortality. Men are more just in their retri- 
bution than is generally believed. It was the nature of 
Fénelon to love ; it was his glory to be beloved. Of all 
the great men of this grand age of Louis the Fourteenth, 
not one has left the recollection of so gentle a ministry. 
There is a tenderness in the accent of all when speaking 
of him, which describes the individual man. His poetry 
enchants our infancy, his religion breathes the gentle- 
ness of the lamb, the emblem of our Saviour ; even his 
political doctrines show only the errors and illusions of 
mistaken love. His whole life is the history of a good 
man struggling with the impossibilities of the times. 

It has been said that he has not worked out the good 
which he intended : but he has done better ; he has 
originated the idea; he has in thought applied the 



452 FENELON. 

Gospel to society ; he desired to see the reign of heaven 
upon earth ; he taught kings the sacred rights of man, 
w liile he showed the people the duties of subjects ; he 
thirsted for Christian equality ; he established liberty, 
justice, morality, and charity, in the dealings of the 
government with the people, and of the people with 
the government. He was the tribune of virtue, the 
prophet of social improvement. How has he demon- 
strated this ? it has been asked again. He has expanded 
his own soul over the souls of two centuries ; he has 
softened and christianized the genius of France. Often 
he was the poet of imagination, but always of charity. 
Conscience owes him an additional virtue — toleration ; 
thrones another duty — the love of the people ; repub- 
lics, an added glory — humanity. France has possessed 
bolder natures, but she has given us none so full of 
tenderness. If genius acknowledged a sex, it might 
be said that Fenelon had the imagination of a woman 
to dream of heaven, and her soul to love the earth. 
When we pronounce his name, or open his book, we 
fancy that we look on his face, and persuade ourselves 
that we hear the voice of a friend. What quality of 
fame can surpass this love in veneration and solid 
value? The epitaph of Fénelon may be written in 
these words : — 

" There are men who have made France more feared 
or renowned, but none have rendered her more beloved 
by other nations." 



THE END. 



R. CLAY, PIUNTEK, BREAD STREET IIILL. 



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