History of Civilization in England, Vol. 2 of 3

According to some authorities, a man ought to be a duke before his wife could be allowed to meddle with the queen's shift; according to other authorities, the lady-in-waiting, whoever she might be, had the right, unless a princess happened to be present. On these alternatives, and on the difficulties caused by them, compare Mém. de Saint-Simon, 1842, vol. vii. p. 125, with Mém. de Motteville, vol. ii. pp. 28, 276, 277.

430

Also connected with the institution of chivalry, both being cognate symptoms of the same spirit.

431

Even just before the French Revolution, these feelings still existed. See, for instance the extraordinary details in Campan, Mém. sur Marie-Antoinette, vol. i. pp. 98, 99; which should be compared with an extract from Prudhomme's Mirror de Paris, in Southey's Commonplace Book, third series, 1850, p. 251, no. 165.

432

Ludlow thus expresses the sentiments which induced him to make war upon the crown: ‘The question in dispute between the king's party and us being, as I apprehend, whether the king should govern as a god by his will, and the nation be governed by force like beasts? or whether the people should be governed by laws made by themselves, and live under a government derived from their own consent? being fully persuaded, that an accommodation with the king was unsafe to the people of England, and unjust and wicked in the nature of it.’ Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 230. Compare Whitelocke's spirited speech to Christina, in Journal of the Swedish Embassy, vol. i. p. 238; and see pp. 390, 391.

433

On the disgraceful subserviency of the most eminent men of letters, see Capefigue's Louis XIV., vol. i. pp. 41, 42, 116; and on the feeling of the people, Le Vassor, who wrote late in the reign of Louis XIV., bitterly says, ‘mais les Français, accoutumés à l'esclavage, ne sentent plus la pesanteur de leurs chaînes.’ Le Vassor, Hist. de Louis XIII, vol. vi. p. 670. Foreigners were equally amazed at the general, and still more, at the willing servility. Lord Shaftesbury, in a letter dated February 1704–5, passes a glowing eulogy upon liberty; but he adds, that in France ‘you will hardly find this argument understood; for whatever flashes may now and then appear, I never yet knew one single Frenchman a free man.’ Forster's Original Letters of Locke, Sidney, and Shaftesbury, 1830, p. 205. In the same year, De Foe makes a similar remark in regard to the French nobles, Wilson's Life of De Foe, vol. ii. p. 209; and, in 1699, Addison writes from Blois a letter which strikingly illustrates the degradation of the French. Aikin's Life of Addison, vol. i. p. 80. Compare Burnet's Own Time, vol. iv. p. 365, on ‘the gross excess of flattery to which the French have run, beyond the examples of former ages, in honour of their king.’

434

The terms of this compact between the crown and the church are fairly stated by M. Ranke: ‘Wir sehen, die beiden Gewalten unterstützten einander. Der König ward von den Einwirkungen der weltlichen, der Clerus von der unbedingten Autorität der geistlichen Gewalt des Papstthums freigesprochen.’ Die Päpste, vol. iii. p. 168.

435

This part of his character is skilfully drawn by Sismondi, Hist. des Français, vol. xxv. p. 43.

436

Flasson supposes that the first persecuting laws were in 1679: ‘Des l'année 1679 les concessions faites aux protestans avaient été graduellement restreintes.’ Diplomatie Française, vol. iv. p. 92. But the fact is, that these laws began in 1662, the year after the death of Mazarin. See Sismondi, Hist. des Français, vol. xxv. p. 167; Benoist, Edit. de Nantes, vol. iii. pp. 460–462, 481. In 1667, a letter from Thynne to Lord Clarendon (Lister's Life of Clarendon, vol. iii. p. 446) mentions ‘the horrid persecutions the reformed religion undergoes in France;’ and Locke, who travelled in France in 1675 and 1676, states in his Journal (King's Life of Locke, vol. i. p. 110) that the Protestants were losing ‘every day some privilege or other.’

437

An account of the revocation will be found in all the French historians; but I do not remember that any of them have noticed that there was a rumour of it in Paris twenty years before it occurred. In March 1665 Patin writes, ‘On dit que, pour miner les huguenots, le roi veut supprimer les chambres de l'édit, et abolir l'édit de Nantes.’ Lettres de Patin, vol. iii. p. 516.

438

Compare Burnet's Own Time, vol. iii. pp. 73–76, with Siècle de Louis XIV, in Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. xx. pp. 377, 378. Voltaire says that the Protestants who persisted in their religion ‘étaient livrés aux soldats, qui eurent toute licence, excepté celle de tuer. Il y eut pourtant plusieurs personnes si cruellement maltraitées qu'elles en moururent.’ And Burnet, who was in France in 1685, says, ‘all men set their thoughts on work to invent new methods of cruelty.’ What some of those methods were, I shall now relate; because the evidence, however painful it may be, is necessary to enable us to understand the reign of Louis XIV. It is necessary that the veil should be rent; and that the squeamish delicacy which would hide such facts, should give way before the obligation which the historian is under of holding up to public opprobrium, and branding with public infamy, the church by which the measures were instigated, the sovereign by whom they were enforced, and the age in which they were permitted.

The two original sources for our knowledge of these events are, Quick's Synodicon in Gallia, 1692, folio; and Benoist, Histoire de l'Edit de Nantes, 1695, 4to. From these works I extract the following accounts of what happened in France in 1685. ‘Afterwards they fall upon the persons of the Protestants; and there was no wickedness, though never so horrid, which they did not put in practice, that they might enforce them to change their religion… They bound them as criminals are when they be put to the rack; and in that posture, putting a funnel into their mouths, they poured wine down their throats till its fumes had deprived them of their reason, and they had in that condition made them consent to become Catholics. Some they stripped stark naked, and after they had offered them a thousand indignities, they stuck them with pins from head to foot; they cut them with pen-knives, tear them by the noses with red-hot pincers, and dragged them about the rooms till they promised to become Roman Catholics, or that the doleful outcries of these poor tormented creatures, calling upon God for mercy, constrained them to let them go… In some places they tied fathers and husbands to the bed-posts, and ravished their wives and daughters before their eyes… From others they pluck off the nails of their hands and toes, which must needs cause an intolerable pain. They burnt the feet of others. They blew up men and women with bellows, till they were ready to burst in pieces. If these horrid usages could not prevail upon them to violate their consciences, and abandon their religion, they did then imprison them in close and noisome dungeons, in which they exercised all kinds of inhumanities upon them.’ Quick's Synodicon, vol. i. pp. cxxx. cxxxi. ‘Cependant les troupes exerçoient partout de cruautez inouies. Tout leur étoit permis, pourveu qu'ils ne fissent pas mourir. Ils faisoient danser quelquefois leurs hôtes, jusqu'à ce qu'ils tombassent en défaillance. Ils bernoient les autres jusqu'à ce qu'ils n'en pouvoient plus… Il y en eut quelques-uns à qui on versa de l'eau bouillante dans la bouche… Il y en eut plusieurs à qui on donna des coups de bâton sous les pieds, pour éprouver si ce supplice est aussi cruel que les relations le publient. On arrachoit à d'autres le poil de la barbe… D'autres brûloient à la chandelle le poil des bras et des jambes de leurs hôtes. D'autres faisoient brûler de la poudre, si près du visage de ceux qui leur resistoient, qu'elle leur grilloit toute la peau. Ils mettoient à d'autres des charbons allumez dans les mains, et les contraignoient de les tenir fermées, jusqu'à ce que les charbons fussent éteints… On brûla les pieds à plusieurs, tenant les uns long-tems devant un grand feu; appliquant aux autres une pelle ardente sous les pieds; liant les pieds des autres dans des bottines pleines de graisse, qu'on faisoit fondre et chauffer peu à peu devant un brasier ardent.’ Benoist, Hist. de l'Edit de Nantes, vol. v. pp. 887–889. One of the Protestants, named Ryau, they ‘lièrent fort étroitement; lui sevrèrent les doigts des mains; lui fichèrent des épingles sous les ongles; lui firent brûler de la poudre dans les oreilles; lui percèrent les cuisses en plusieurs lieux, et versèrent du vinaigre et du sel dans ses blessures. Par ce tourment ils épuisèrent sa patience en deux jours; et le forcèrent à changer de religion,’ p. 890. ‘Ses dragons étoient les mêmes en tous lieux. Ils battoient, ils étourdissoient, ils brûloient en Bourgogne comme en Poitou, en Champagne comme en Guyenne, en Normandie comme en Languedoc. Mais ils n'avoient pour les femmes ni plus de respect, ni plus de pitié que pour les hommes. Au contraire, ils abusoient de la tendre pudeur qui est une des propriétez de leur sexe; et ils s'en prevaloient pour leur faire de plus sensibles outrages. On leur levoit quelquefois leurs juppes par dessus la tête, et on leur jetoit des seaux d'eau sur le corps. Il y en eut plusieurs que les soldats mirent en chemise, et qu'ils forcèrent de danser avec eux dans cet état… Deux filles de Calais, nommées le Noble, furent mises toutes nuës sur le pavé, et furent ainsi exposées à la mocquerie et aux outrages des passans… Des dragons ayant lié la dame de Vezençai à la quenouille de son lit, lui crachoient dans la bouche quand elle l'ouvroit pour parler ou pour soupirer.’ pp. 891, 892. At p. 917 are other details, far more horrible, respecting the treatment of women, and which indignation rather than shame prevents me from transcribing. Indeed, the shame can only light on the church and the government under whose united authority such scandalous outrages could be openly perpetrated, merely for the sake of compelling men to change their religious opinions.

439

M. Blanqui (Hist. de l'Economie Politique, vol. ii. p. 10) says, that the revocation of the Edict of Nantes cost France ‘cinq cent mille de ses enfants les plus industrieux,’ who carried into other countries ‘les habitudes d'ordre et de travail dont ils étaient imbus.’ See also Siècle de Louis XIV, chap. xxxvi., in Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. xx. pp. 380, 381. Several of them emigrated to North America. Compare Godwin on Population, pp. 388, 389, with Benoist, l'Edit de Nantes, vol. v. pp. 973, 974, and Lyell's Second Visit to the United States, edit. 1849, vol. ii. p. 159. See also, on the effects of the Revocation, Lettres inédites de Voltaire, vol. ii. p. 473.

440

On the diminished respect for kings, caused by the abandonment of divine right, see Spencer's Social Statics, pp. 423, 424; and on the influence of the clergy in propagating the old doctrine, see Allen's learned work on the Royal Prerogative, edit. 1849, p. 156. See also some striking remarks by Locke, in King's Life of Locke, vol ii. p. 90.

441

‘Qu'est devenu, en effet, le droit divin, cette pensée, autrefois acceptée par les masses, que les rois étaient les représentants de Dieu sur la terre, que la racine de leur pouvoir était dans le ciel? Elle s'est évanouie devant cette autre pensée, qu'aucun nuage, aucun mysticisme n'obscurcit; devant cette pensée si naturelle et brillant d'une clarté si nette et si vive, que la souveraine puissance, sur la terre, appartient au peuple entier, et non à une fraction, et moins encore à un seul homme.’ Rey, Science Sociale, vol. iii. p. 308. Compare Manning on the Law of Nations, p. 101; Laing's Sweden, p. 408; Laing's Denmark, p. 196; Burke's Works, vol. i. p. 391.

442

In this, as in all instances, the language of respect long survives the feeling to which the language owed its origin. Lord Brougham (Political Philosophy, vol. i. p. 42, Lond. 1849) observes, that ‘all their titles are derived from a divine original – all refer to them as representing the Deity on earth. They are called “Grace,” “Majesty.” They are termed “The Lord's anointed,” “The Vicegerent of God upon earth;” with many other names which are either nonsensical or blasphemous, but which are outdone in absurdity by the kings of the East.’ True enough: but if Lord Brougham had written thus three centuries ago, he would have had his ears cut off for his pains.

443

‘La première période du gouvernement de Louis XIV commence donc en 1661.’ Capefigue's Louis XIV., vol. i. p. 4.

444

Biog. Univ. vol. xi. p. 157.

445

In Biog. Univ. vol. xxxiii. p. 50, he is said to have composed it ‘à l'âge de seize ans;’ and at p. 46, to have been born in 1623.

446

Leslie's Natural Philosophy, p. 201; Bordas Demoulin, Le Cartésianisme, vol. i. p. 310. Sir John Herschel (Disc. on Nat. Philos. pp. 229, 230) calls this ‘one of the first, if not the very first,’ crucial instance recorded in physics; and he thinks that it ‘tended, more powerfully than any thing which had previously been done in science, to confirm in the minds of men that disposition to experimental verification which had scarcely yet taken full and secure root.’ In this point of view, the addition it actually made to knowledge is the smallest part of its merit.

447

Montucla (Hist. des Mathématiques, vol. ii. p. 61) says, ‘vers 1658;’ and at p. 65, ‘il se mit, vers le commencement de 1658, à considérer plus profondément les propriétés de cette courbe.’

448

Montucla (Hist. des Mathémat. vol. ii. p. 136) enthusiastically declares that ‘si Descartes eût manqué à l'esprit humain, Fermat l'eût remplacé en géométrie.’ Simson, the celebrated restorer of Greek geometry, said that Fermat was the only modern who understood porisms. See Trail's Account of Simson, 1812, 4to. pp. 18, 41. On the connexion between his views and the subsequent discovery of the differential calculus, see Brewster's Life of Newton, vol. ii. pp. 7, 8; and compare Comte, Philosophie Positive, vol. i. pp. 228, 229, 726, 727.

449

See extracts from two letters written by Fermat to Roberval, in 1636, in Montucla, Hist. des Mathématiques, vol. ii. pp. 136, 137; respecting which there is no notice in the meagre article on Fermat, in Hutton's Mathematical Dictionary, vol. i. p. 510, 4to. 1815. It is a disgrace to English mathematicians that this unsatisfactory work of Hutton's should still remain the best they have produced on the history of their own science. The same disregard of dates is shown in the hasty remarks on Fermat by Playfair. See Playfair's Dissertation on the Progress of Mathematical Science, Encyclop. Brit. vol. i. p. 440, 7th edition.

450

Hutton's Mathemat. Dict. vol. i. p. 572.

451

Ibid. vol. ii. p. 46.

452

Of which Sauveur may be considered the creator. Compare Eloge de Sauveur, in Œuvres de Fontenelle, Paris, 1766, vol. v. p. 435, with Whewell's Hist. of the Induc. Sciences, vol. ii. p. 334; Comte, Philos. Pos. vol. ii. pp. 627, 628.

453

In the report presented to Napoleon by the French Institute, it is said of the reign of Louis XIV., ‘les sciences exactes et les sciences physiques peu cultivées en France dans un siècle qui paroissoit ne trouver de charmes que dans la littérature.’ Dacier, Rapport Historique, p. 24. Or, as Lacretelle expresses it (Dix-huitième Siècle, vol. ii. p. 10), ‘La France, après avoir fourni Descartes et Pascal, eut pendant quelque temps à envier aux nations étrangères la gloire de produire des génies créateurs dans les sciences.’

454

A writer late in the seventeenth century says, with some simplicity, ‘the present king of France is reputed an encourager of choice and able men, in all faculties, who can attribute to his greatness.’ Aubrey's Letters, vol. ii. p. 624.

455

The Principia of Newton appeared in 1687; and Maupertuis, in 1732, ‘was the first astronomer of France who undertook a critical defence of the theory of gravitation.’ Grant's Hist. of Physical Astronomy, pp. 31, 43. In 1738, Voltaire writes, ‘La France est jusqu'à présent le seul pays où les théories de Newton en physique, et de Boerhaave en médecine, soient combattues. Nous n'avons pas encore de bons éléments de physique; nous avons pour toute astronomie le livre de Bion, qui n'est qu'un ramas informe de quelques mémoires de l'académie.’ Correspond. in Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. xlvii. p. 340. On the tardy reception of Newton's discoveries in France, compare Eloge de Lacaille, in Œuvres de Bailly, Paris, 1790, vol. i. pp. 175, 176. All this is the more remarkable, because several of the conclusions at which Newton had arrived were divulged before they were embodied in the Principia; and it appears from Brewster's Life of Newton (vol. i. pp. 25, 26, 290), that his speculations concerning gravity began in 1666, or perhaps in the autumn of 1665.

456

‘L'abbé Picard fut en société avec Auzout, l'inventeur du micromètre.’ Biog. Univ. vol. xxxiv. p. 253. See also Préface de l'Hist. de l'Acad. des Sciences, in Œuvres de Fontenelle, Paris, 1766, vol. x. p. 20.

457

The best account I have seen of the invention of the micrometer, is in Mr. Grant's recent work, History of Physical Astronomy, pp. 428, 450–453, where it is proved that Gascoigne invented it in 1639, or possibly a year or two earlier. Compare Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. iii. p. 52; who also ascribes it to Gascoigne, but erroneously dates it in 1640. Montucla (Hist. des Mathémat. vol. ii. pp. 570, 571) admits the priority of Gascoigne; but underrates his merit, being apparently unacquainted with the evidence which Mr. Grant subsequently adduced.

458

For a short account of this able man, see Lankester's Mem. of Ray, p. 17.

459

Notwithstanding the strong prejudice then existing against Englishmen, Butterfield was employed by ‘the king and all the princes.’ Lister's Account of Paris at the close of the Seventeenth Century, edited by Dr. Henning, p. 85. Fontenelle mentions ‘M. Hubin,’ as one of the most celebrated makers in Paris in 1687 (Eloge d'Amoltons, in Œuvres de Fontenelle, Paris, 1766, vol. v. p. 113); but has forgotten to state that he too was an Englishman. ‘Lutetiæ sedem posuerat ante aliquod tempus Anglus quidam nomine Hubinus, vir ingeniosus, atque hujusmodi machinationum peritus opifex et industrius. Hominem adii,’ &c. Huetii Commentarius de Rebus ad eum pertinentibus, p. 346. Thus, again, in regard to time-keepers, the vast superiority of the English makers, late in the reign of Louis XIV., was equally incontestable. Compare Biog. Univ. vol. xxiv. pp. 242, 243, with Brewster's Life of Newton, vol. ii. p. 262; and as to the middle of the reign of Louis XIV., see Eloge de Sebastien, in Œuvres de Fontenelle, vol. vi. pp. 332, 333.

460

‘Les manufactures étaient plutôt dirigées vers le brillant que vers l'utile. On s'efforça, par un arrêt du mois de mars 1700, d'extirper, ou du moins de réduire beaucoup les fabriques de bas au métier. Malgré cette fausse direction, les objets d'un luxe très-recherché faisaient des progrès bien lents. En 1687, après la mort de Colbert, la cour soldait encore l'industrie des barbares, et faisait fabriquer et broder ses plus beaux habits à Constantinople.’ Lemontey, Etablissement de Louis XIV, p. 364. Lacretelle (Dix-huitième Siècle, vol. ii. p. 5) says, that during the last thirty years of the reign of Louis XIV. ‘les manufactures tombaient.’

461

Cuvier (Biog. Univ. vol. xxxvii. p. 199) thus describes the condition of France only seven years after the death of Louis XIV.: ‘Nos forges étaient alors presque dans l'enfance; et nous ne faisions point d'acier: tout celui qu'exigeaient les différents métiers nous venait de l'étranger… Nous ne faisions point non plus alors de fer-blanc, et il ne nous venait que de l'Allemagne.’

462

‘Certainement la découverte de Pecquet ne brille pas moins dans l'histoire de notre art que la vérité démontrée pour la première fois par Harvey.’ Sprengel, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. iv. p. 208.

463

Henle (Anatomie Générale, vol. ii. p. 106) says, that the discovery was made in 1649; but the historians of medicine assign it to 1647. Sprengel, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. iv. pp. 207, 405; Renouard, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. ii. p. 173.

464

Biog. Univ. vol. xxxviii. pp. 123, 124.

465

Some of the great steps taken by Joubert are concisely stated in Broussais, Examen des Doctrines Médicales, vol. i. pp. 293, 294, vol. iii. p. 361. Compare Sprengel, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. iii. p. 210. Fernel, though enthusiastically praised by Patin, was probably hardly equal to Joubert. Lettres de Patin, vol. iii. pp. 59, 199, 648. At p. 106, Patin calls Fernel ‘le premier médecin de son temps, et peut-être le plus grand qui sera jamais.’

466

See a summary of them in Sprengel, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. iii. pp. 405, 406, vol. vii. pp. 14, 15. Sir Benjamin Brodie (Lectures on Surgery, p. 21) says, ‘Few greater benefits have been conferred on mankind than that for which we are indebted to Ambrose Parey – the application of a ligature to a bleeding artery.’

467

‘C'était là une vue très-ingénieuse et très-juste qu'Ambroise Paré donnait pour la première fois. C'était un commencement d'ostéologie comparée.’ Cuvier, Hist. des Sciences, part. ii. p. 42. To this I may add, that he is the first French writer on medical jurisprudence. See Paris and Fonblanque's Medical Jurisprudence, 1823, vol. i. p. xviii.

468

‘L'un des premiers auteurs à qui l'on doit des observations cadavériques sur les maladies, est le fameux Baillou.’ Broussais, Examen des Doctrines Médicales, vol. ii. p. 218. See also vol. iii. p. 362; and Renouard, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. ii. p. 89. The value of his services is recognized in a recent able work, Phillips on Scrofula, 1846, p. 16.

469

‘The most celebrated surgeon of the sixteenth century was Ambroise Paré… From the time of Paré until the commencement of the eighteenth century, surgery was but little cultivated in France. Mauriceau, Saviard, and Belloste, were the only French surgeons of note who could be contrasted with so many eminent men of other nations. During the eighteenth century, France produced two surgeons of extraordinary genius; these are Petit and Desault.’ Bowman's Surgery, in Encyclop. of Medical Sciences, 1847, 4to. pp. 829, 830.

470

It is unnecessary to adduce evidence respecting the services rendered by Sydenham, as they are universally admitted; but what, perhaps, is less generally known, is, that Glisson anticipated those important views concerning irritability, which were afterwards developed by Haller and Gorter. Compare Renouard, Hist. de le Médecine, vol. ii. p. 192; Elliotson's Human Physiol. p. 471; Bordas Demoulin, Cartésianisme, vol. i. p. 170; In Wagner's Physiol. 1841, p. 655, the theory is too exclusively ascribed to Haller.