General History for Colleges and High Schools

by P. V. N. Myers

FREDERICK'S WORK: PRUSSIA MADE A NEW CENTRE OF GERMAN CRYSTALLIZATION.— The all-important result of Frederick the Great's strong reign was the making of Prussia the equal of Austria, and thereby the laying of the basis of German unity. Hitherto Germany had been trying unsuccessfully to concentrate about Austria; now there is a new centre of crystallization, one that will draw to itself all the various elements of German nationality. The history of Germany from this on is the story of the rivalry of these two powers, with the final triumph of the kingdom of the North, and the unification of Germany under her leadership, Austria being pushed out as entitled to no part in the affairs of the Fatherland. This story we shall tell in a subsequent chapter (see Chap. LXL).

CHAPTER LVIII.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. (1789-1799.)

1. CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION: THE STATES-GENERAL OF 1789.

INTRODUCTORY.—The French Revolution is in political what the German Reformation is in ecclesiastical history. It was the revolt of the French people against royal despotism and class privilege. "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," was the motto of the Revolution. In the name of these principles the most atrocious crimes were indeed committed; but these excesses of the Revolution are not to be confounded with its true spirit and aims. The French people in 1789 contended for those same principles that the English Puritans defended in 1640, and that our fathers maintained in 1776. It is only as we view them in this light that we can feel a sympathetic interest in the men and events of this tumultuous period of French history.

CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION.—Chief among the causes of the French Revolution were the abuses and extravagances of the Bourbon monarchy; the unjust privileges enjoyed by the nobility and clergy; the wretched condition of the great mass of the people; and the revolutionary character and spirit of French philosophy and literature. To these must be added, as a proximate cause, the influence of the American Revolution. We shall speak briefly of these several matters.

THE BOURBON MONARCHY.—We simply repeat what we have already learned, when we say that the authority of the French crown under the Bourbons had become unbearably despotic and oppressive. The life of every person in the realm was at the arbitrary disposal of the king. Persons were thrown into prison without even knowing the offence for which they were arrested. The royal decrees were laws. The taxes imposed by the king were simply robberies and confiscations. The public money, thus gathered, was squandered in maintaining a court the scandalous extravagances and debaucheries of which would shame a Turkish Sultan.

THE NOBILITY.—The French nobility, in the time of the Bourbons, numbered about 80,000 families. The order was simply the remains of the once powerful but now broken-down feudal aristocracy of the Middle Ages. Its members were chiefly the pensioners of the king, the ornaments of his court, living in riotous luxury at Paris or Versailles. Stripped of their ancient power, they still retained all the old pride and arrogance of their order, and clung tenaciously to all their feudal privileges. Although holding one-fifth of the lands of France, they paid scarcely any taxes.

THE CLERGY.—The clergy formed a decayed feudal hierarchy. They possessed enormous wealth, the gift of piety through many centuries. Over a third of the lands of the country was in their hands, and yet this immense property was almost wholly exempt from taxation. The bishops and abbots were usually drawn from the families of the nobles, being too often attracted to the service of the Church rather by its princely revenues and the social distinction conferred by its offices, than by the inducements of piety. These "patrician prelates" were hated alike by the humbler clergy and the people.

THE COMMONS.—Below the two privileged orders of the State stood the commons, who constituted the chief bulk of the nation, and who numbered, at the commencement of the Revolution, probably about 25,000,000. It is quite impossible to give any adequate idea of the pitiable condition of the poorer classes of the commons throughout the century preceding the Revolution. The peasants particularly suffered the most intolerable wrongs. They were vexed by burdensome feudal regulations. Thus they were forbidden to fence their fields for the protection of their crops, as the fences interfered with the lord's progress in the hunt; and they were even prohibited from cultivating their fields at certain seasons, as this disturbed the partridges and other game. Being kept in a state of abject poverty, a failure of crops reduced them to absolute starvation. It was not an unusual thing to find women and children dead along the roadways. In a word, to use the language of one (Fénelon) who saw all this misery, France had become "simply a great hospital full of woe and empty of food."