It was in May that the great Powers, in response to another appeal from Otto, King of Greece Greece, suggested Prince Otto of Wittelsbach, the second son of the Philhellene King of Bavaria, for the vacant throne. This choice was ratified in October amid general rejoicings by the population of Greece.
In Italy, early in the year, the Pope's failure to carry out his promise of reform created new troubles. An amnesty, which had been granted by the legate Benvenuti, was disregarded and the papal soldiery practiced all manner of repression. Another revolt broke out and once more the Austrians, at the Pope's request, crossed the frontier. They restored order so well Foreign intervention in Italy that they were actually welcomed as protectors against the ruthless condottieri of the papal troops. Austria's intervention was resented by France as a breach of the peace. Casimir Périer, now on his deathbed, despatched a French force to Ancona. The town was seized before the Austrians could approach it. Austria accepted the situation, and both powers in Italy remained face to face jealously watching each other. Had Casimir Périer lived he might have made Ancona a lever for effecting the desired reforms at Rome. As it was, the French garrison at Ancona remained merely as a balancing point between the contending parties in Italy.
France in the same year lost one of its distinguished men of science, by Death of Cuvier the death of Baron Cuvier, the great naturalist. Georges Leopold Cuvier was born in 1769 at Montbeliard. After studying at Stuttgart he became private tutor in the family of Count D'Hericy in Normandy, where he was at liberty to devote his leisure to natural science and in particular to zoology. A natural classification of the Vermæ or worms was his first achievement. The ability and knowledge shown in this work procured him the friendship of the greatest naturalists of France. He was invited to Paris, took a chair at the Ecole Centrale, and was received by the Institute as a member of the first class. His lectures on natural history, distinguished not less for the elegance of their style than for profound knowledge and daring speculation, were attended by some of the most accomplished persons of Paris. In January, 1800, Cuvier was appointed to the Collège de France. Under Napoleon, who fully recognized his merits, Cuvier held important offices in the department of public instruction. Under the Restoration he was made one of the forty members of the French Academy. In 1831, a year prior to his death, he was appointed a Peer of France. Among the numerous works by which Cuvier greatly expanded the study of natural history may beCuvier's Works mentioned as foremost "Researches into Fossil Bones," "Discourse of the Revolutions on the Surface of the Globe," "A Course of Comparative Anatomy," "Natural History of Fishes," and his great work, "The Animal Kingdom," with its subdivisions into the four great classes—vertebrates, mollusks, articulates and radiates.
On March 22, Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany's foremost man of letters, Death of Goethe expired at Weimar. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born in 1749, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, the son of a councillor under the old German empire. His best traits were inherited from his mother. As he himself sang in later years:
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Vom Vater hab ich die Statur, Des Lebens ernstes Fuhren, Vom Mutterchen die Frohnatur Und Lust zum Fabuliren.[A] |
From my father I have my stature
And serious view of life;
From dear little mother my glad heart
And fondness for telling stories.
His father had him educated for the study of law. In his sixteenth year he Goethe's career was sent to the University at Leipzig. Later he went to Strasburg, where he became acquainted with the poet Herder, and had his first love affair with Friederike Brion of Sesenheim, whose charm has been kept alive in Goethe's autobiography, "Dichtung und Wahrheit." In 1772 he returned to Frankfort "Goetz von Berlichingen" and practiced law. While thus engaged he wrote his first romantic-historical play, "Goetz von Berlichingen." In the following year he published his sentimental romance, "The Sorrows of Werther," based in a measure on one of his own unfortunate love affairs at Wetzlar. Both of "The Sorrows of Werther" these early works achieved instant success. "The Sorrows of Werther" inaugurated in German literature what is known as the period of storm and stress. Disenchantment of life, or "Weltschmerz," became a fashionable malady. The romantic suicide of Goethe's sentimental hero Werther was aped by a number of over-susceptible young persons. Wieland drew the attention of the Duke of Weimar to Goethe, and the young poet was invited to Weimar. Goethe at Weimar He remained under the patronage of this enlightened prince until the end of his days. At Weimar, Goethe was the centre of a court comprising some of the foremost spirits of Germany. The little capital became a Mecca for poets, scholars, artists and musicians from all over the world. Goethe's only rival poet in Germany, Schiller, was drawn into the circle and the two became life-long friends. Most of Goethe's lyric poems were written during the first ten years at Weimar. At the outbreak of the French Revolution he "Hermann und Dorothea" accompanied the Duke of Weimar in one of the campaigns against France. The thrilling atmosphere of the Revolution furnished him with a literary background for his epic idyl, "Hermann und Dorothea." Goethe's subsequent journey to Italy, which was a turning-point in the poet's career, was commemorated in his "Letters from Italy"—a classic among German books of travel. Another eminently successful creation was the epic of "Reynard, the Fox," modelled after the famous bestiary poems of early Flemish and French literature.
