Question CHAPTER I. ENGLAND AND FRANCE FROM 1638 TO 1763. THE two nations that were in the van of Europe of prece- would inevitably lead the van in America. The dence. question of precedence between them was decided, as that of their common precedence had been, in Europe. Let us look thither in search of the controlling causes. Reign of Louis We shall see France submitting to the sceptre of a boy, Louis XIV., whose reign of nearly three quarters of a century (1643 to 1715) determines the point of French decline. We may call it decline, since this was the result, although the name of Great was then, and has since been given to the king, as if his government had been fruitful in grandeur and in beneficence. It was fruitful in neither. Its grandeur consisted of a dazzling court and a glittering army elements of feebleness, as every one knows, rather than of greatness. Its beneficence was confined to courtiers and to commanders, to men not only of high but of low estate, provided they ministered to the royal will and to the royal luxury. But to be more definite. The mon The reign of Louis was hostile to the true princiarchy. ple of monarchy; that is, to the principle of ruling for the good of a people. He used his power for selfish ends, in striving after which he did far more to precipitate than to secure the royal authority. If he made himself the preeminent sovereign, he did not make his nation the preeminent nation in Europe. Nor was he himself supreme for any length of time. He saw his intrigues baffled, his armies defeated, his conquests and his resources gone, his court overshadowed, even before he ceased to rule. The The one point, however, on which he failed most church. of all, was in relation to the national religion. He found this, it will be remembered, a moderate form of Romanism. He left it an extreme form. His displeasure bore down the liberal Romanists. His persecution crushed the Protestants. The edict of Nantes, beneath which the Protestants had found protection for nearly a century, was revoked, not without previous outrages, (1685.) Bigotry and priestcraft triumphed, but in a manner that tended to their overthrow, nay, to the jeopardy of the religion itself which they professed to uphold. No crisis in French history was more important than this. It changed the character not only of the national religion, but of the national goveven of the nation. The signs of feebleness within and of feebleness without in the administration, the disunion and the degradation amongst the people, sprang from no cause more clearly than from the transformation of the French church into a church of subjection to Rome, and of ferocity to all the world besides. It was thus chiefly that Louis left France shaken to the centre and to the base. ernment The nation. At the same time, the development of the French nation, begun in previous years, was not stopped. It was not even checked in some directions. Their chivalrous natures could not be turned back upon themselves. They were still the same ardent, the same generous race that they had been, more generous and more ardent than their king who was misleading them. Their higher minds gazed upwards steadily, in defiance of the errors and the wrongs around them. The names of Corneille the poet, of Pascal the philosopher, of Fenelon at once the poet, the philosopher, and the priest, bear witness to the aspirations of the French nation. Such an age as that of Louis XIV. was sure to Reaction. be followed by a reaction. The long reign of his successor, Louis XV. (1715–74) was marked by almost every sign of degeneracy. Profligacy rather than splendor, sensuality rather than ambition, ruled at the court, while the church sank into indifference and infidelity. The people beneath these decaying oppressions is represented by Voltaire and Rousseau, both defying the corruptions in high places, yet neither believing in any principle that could restore purity or liberty. The English nation had its difficulties. In the The English na first place, the people was but partially in existence. tion. Such men as pursued their callings at home, or crossed the sea to the colonies, with any thing like independence of spirit, formed but a small class. The greater proportion were of the dependent and the inefficient. In the next place, a succession of struggles was interfering with all steadiness in the present, all security in the future. Periods First came the period of Charles I., when the of trial. monarch excited his subjects to rebellion, (1625-49.) Next followed the period of the commonwealth, when the fierce excesses of the people threatened general ruin, (1649-59.) Then came the period of the restoration, when the brothers Charles II. and James II. renewed the arbitrary government of their father, the first Charles, without any of his principle or enthusiasm, (1660-88.) These periods were all of trial - trial to the church, trial to the state. The monarchy was in danger of falling, now into anarchy, now into tyranny. The church was in peril at one time of returning to the extreme of Romanism, and at another of falling into the extreme of Protestantism. Revolu From these trials it is common to say that the tion of nation was saved by the revolution of 1688. So far as this event brought the despotism and the 1688. extreme Romanism of James II. to an end, it did save England. But it had its own evil effects. It reduced both church and state beneath an aristocracy whose principles, on many points, were utterly adverse to the true concerns of either. There was no liberation, no elevation of the people. To them the revolution was as little a matter of interest as if it had occurred at the antipodes. The truth is, that the revolution, in itself, was but a cessation of the swayings to and fro of the preceding years. Inasmuch as it brought some measure of stability, it was a national blessing. Aristocracy in power. But the stability was the stability of the aristocracy. The sovereigns sank to a secondary place. William III., the hero of the revolution and the successor of James, was one to follow events rather than to lead them, (1688-1702.) His successors, Anne and the first and second Georges, (1702-60,) had no decided influence upon the national destinies. The rulers of England were its ministers and its Parliaments, turbid in themselves, yet the channels through which the stream was running before reaching its clearer and its wider course. The monarchy necessarily continued limited. But the church did not continue moderate, or even united. Its moderation gave way to the conservative aristocracy, the tories; its union yielded to the anti-conservative whigs. When these predominated, it was to the gain of Puritanism; when the tories got the upper hand, an extreme churchmanship prevailed. English Yet the star of England was not going down. progress. The very facts of an aristocracy and a Parliament imply that a larger number were sharing in the national power. A larger number also amongst the subject classes was rising to culture and to influence. The grandeur of such strains as Milton's, of such discoveries as Newton's, and the gentleness of such meditations as Addison's, of such creations as Goldsmith's, betoken wider circles of intelligence and of elevation. After all its humiliations, the nation still stood erect, still struggled forward. England and Here lies the difference between England and France. The latter came out of her trials listless, France. corrupt, unbelieving. The former emerged in faith and in activity, many of her best interests broken and imperfect, but still capable of being restored, and to a higher state than they had ever reached. To England, the cycle of revolutions seemed closed for the time. To France, it seemed to be but opened. The one nation was still on the decline. The other had begun to rise. 7 |