A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1.

by Carlton J. H. Hayes

[Illustration: THE BOURBON FAMILY, 1589-1915 KINGS OF FRANCE, SPAIN,
AND NAPLES]

ADDITIONAL READING

GENERAL. Brief accounts: J. H. Robinson and C. A. Beard, The Development of Modern Europe, Vol. I (1907), ch. i-iii; H. O. Wakeman, The Ascendancy of France, 1598-1715 (1894), ch. ix-xi, xiv, xv; A. H. Johnson, The Age of the Enlightened Despot, 1660-1789 (1910), ch i- iii, vi; J. H. Sacret, Bourbon and Vasa, 1610-1715 (1914), ch. viii- xii; Arthur Hassall, Louis XIV and the Zenith of the French Monarchy (1897) in the "Heroes of the Nations" Series; H. T. Dyer, A History of Modern Europe from the Fall of Constantinople, 3d ed. rev. by Arthur Hassall (1901), ch. xxxvii, xxxix-xl, xlii-xliv; A. J. Grant, The French Monarchy, 1483-1789, Vol. II (1900), ch. x-xvi; G. W. Kitchin, A History of France, Vol. III (1899), Books V and VI, ch. i, ii; Victor Duruy, History of Modern Times, trans. and rev. by E. A. Grosvenor (1894), ch. xxi-xxiii. More detailed treatments: Cambridge Modern History, Vol. V (1908), ch. i-iii, vii-ix, xiii, xiv, Vol. VI (1909), ch. iv-vi; Histoire générale, Vol. VI, ch. iii-v, vii-ix, xii-xvi, xx, Vol. VII, ch. i-iii; Histoire de France, ed. by Ernest Lavisse, Vols. VII and VIII (1906-1909); History of All Nations, Vol. XIII, The Age of Louis XIV, by Martin Philippson.

DOMESTIC AFFAIRS OF FRANCE. Cécile Hugon, Social France in the Seventeenth Century (1911), popular, suggestive, and well- illustrated. On Colbert: A. J. Sargent, Economic Policy of Colbert (1899); S. L. Mims, Colbert's West India Policy (1912); Émile Levasseur, Histoire des classes ouvrières et de l'industrie en France avant 1789, Vol. II (1901), Book VI; Pierre Clément (editor), Lettres, Instructions et Mémoires de Colbert, 7 vols. in 9 (1861- 1873). H. M. Baird, The Huguenots and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 2 vols. (1895), a detailed study by a warm partisan of the French Protestants. Among the numerous important sources for the reign of Louis XIV should be mentioned especially F. A. Isambert (editor), Recueil général des anciennes lois, Vols. XVIII-XX, containing significant statutes of the reign; G. B. Depping (editor), Correspondance administrative sous le règne de Louis XIV, 4 vols. (1850-1855), for the system of government; Arthur de Boislisle (editor), Correspondance des contrôleurs généraux, 2 vols., for the fiscal system. Voltaire's brilliant Age of Louis the Fourteenth has been translated into English; an authoritative history of French literature in the Age of Louis XIV is Louis Petit de Julleville (editor), Histoire de la langue et de la littérature française, Vol. V (1898). The best account of the minority of Louis XV is that of J. B. Perkins, France under the Regency (1892); a brief summary is Arthur Hassall, The Balance of Power, 1715-1789 (1896), ch. i-iv.

FOREIGN WARS OF LOUIS XIV. On Louis XIV's relations with the Dutch: P. J. Blok, History of the People of the Netherlands, Part IV, Frederick Henry, John DeWitt, William III, abridged Eng. trans. by O. A. Bierstadt (1907). On his relations with the empire: Ruth Putnam, Alsace and Lorraine from Cæsar to Kaiser, 58 B.C.-1871 A.D. (1914), a popular narrative; Franz Krones, Handbuch der Geschichte Oesterreichs, Vol. III, Book XVI, Vol. IV, Book XVII (1878), a standard German work. On his relations with Spain: M. A. S. Hume, Spain, its Greatness and Decay, 1479-1788 (1898), ch. ix- xiii. On Louis XIV's relations with England: Osmund Airy, The English Restoration and Louis XIV (1895), in the "Epochs of Modern History" Series; Sir J. R. Seeley, The Growth of British Policy, 2 vols. (1895), especially Vol. II, Parts IV and V; Earl Stanhope, History of England, Comprising the Reign of Queen Anne until the Peace of Utrecht (1870), a rather dry account of the War of the Spanish Succession; G. J. (Viscount) Wolseley, Life of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, to the Accession of Queen Anne, 4th ed., 2 vols. (1894), an apology for Marlborough; J. S. Corbett, England in the Mediterranean, 1603-1713, Vol. II (1904), for English naval operations; J. W. Gerard, The Peace of Utrecht (1885). On the diplomacy of the whole period: D. T. Hill, History of Diplomacy in the International Development of Europe, Vol. III (1914), ch. i-iv, a clear outline; Emile Bourgeois, Manuel historique de politique étrangère, 4th ed., Vol. I (1906), ch. iii, iv, vii, ix, xiv; Arsène Legrelle, La diplomatie française et la succession d'Espagne, 1659-1725, 4 vols. (1888-1892), a minute study of an important phase of Louis XIV's diplomacy; the text of the principal diplomatic documents is in course of publication at Paris (20 vols., 1884-1913) as the Recueil des instructions données aux ambassadeurs et ministres de France depuis les traités de Westphalie jusqu'à la révolution française.

MEMOIRS OF THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV. Among the multitudinous memoirs of the period, the most significant, from the standpoint of the general historian, are: Marquise de Sévigné, Lettres, delightful epistles relating mainly to the years 1670-1696, edited in fullest form for "Les grands écrivains de la France" by Monmerqué, 14 vols. (1862- 1868), selections of which have been translated into English by C. Syms (1898); Duc de Saint-Simon, Mémoires, the most celebrated of memoirs, dealing with many events of the years 1692-1723, gossipy and racily written but occasionally inaccurate and frequently partisan, edited many times—most recently and best for "Les grands écrivains de la France" by Arthur de Boislisle, 30 vols. (1879-1916), of which a much-abridged translation has been published in English, 4 vols.; Marquis de Dangeau, Journal, 19 vols. (1854-1882), written day by day, throughout the years 1684-1720, by a conscientious and well- informed member of the royal entourage; Life and Letters of Charlotte Elizabeth (1889), select letters, trans. into English, of a German princess who married Louis XIV's brother, of which the most complete French edition is that of Jaeglé, 3 vols. (1890). See also Comtesse de Puliga, Madame de Sévigné, her Correspondents and Contemporaries, 2 vols. (1873), and, for important collections of miscellaneous memoirs of the period, J. F. Michaud and J. J. F. Poujoulat, Nouvelle collection des mémoires relatifs à l'histoire de France depuis le 13e siècle jusqu'à la fin du 18e siècle, 34 vols. (1854), and Louis Lafaist and L. F. Danjou, Archives curieuses de l'histoire de France, 27 vols. (1834-1840).

CHAPTER VIII

THE TRIUMPH OF PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND

CONFLICTING POLITICAL TENDENCIES IN ENGLAND: ABSOLUTISM VERSUS PARLIAMENTARIANISM

Through all the wars of dynastic rivalry which have been traced in the two preceding chapters, we have noticed the increasing prestige of the powerful French monarchy, culminating in the reign of Louis XIV. We now turn to a nation which played but a minor rôle in the international rivalries of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Later, from 1689 to 1763, England was to engage in a tremendous colonial struggle with France. But from 1560 to 1689 England for the most part held herself aloof from the continental rivalries of Bourbons and Habsburgs, and never fought in earnest except against Philip II of Spain, who threatened England's economic and political independence, and against the Dutch, who were England's commercial rivals. While the continental states were engaged in dynastic quarrels, England was absorbed in a conflict between rival principles of domestic government—between constitutional parliamentary government and unlimited royal power. To the triumph of the parliamentary principle in England we owe many of our modern ideas and practices of constitutional government.