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Part VI
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31 An Unlucky King and a Lucky King
The Stuart king, Charles I - Cromwell and the Puritans - The rise of England
- The year of the Glorious Revolution - France's prosperity- Richelieu's
policies - Mazarin - Louis XIV - A king's lever-Versailles - Sources of the
government's wealth - The peasants' misery - Predatory wars
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Louis and his family portrayed as Roman gods in a 1670 painting by Jean
Nocret. L to R: Louis's aunt, Henriette-Marie; his brother, Philippe,
duc d'Orléans; the Duke's daughter, Marie Louise d'Orléans, and wife,
Henriette-Anne Stuart; the Queen-mother, Anne of Austria; three
daughters of Gaston d'Orléans; Louis XIV; the Dauphin Louis; Queen
Marie-Thérèse; la Grande Mademoiselle.
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The only important country not to join in the fighting of the Thirty
Years War was England. Lucky English, you may say. But they too were
going through troubled times even if the end, when it came, was not as
devastating as it was in Germany. Now you may remember that in 1215 King
John of England signed a great Charter of Liberties - the Magna Carta -
in which he made a solemn promise that he and his successors would never
act without first consulting the barons and the nobility. For nearly
tour hundred years English monarchs kept this promise, until one day a
new king, Charles I, the grandson of the beheaded Mary Stuart, came to
the throne, and he didn't wish to abide by the agreement. He disliked
having to consult the nobility and the elected members of his
parliament. He preferred to govern as he pleased, and this cost the
country a great deal of money.
The English didn't like it at all. Many of them were strict and zealous
Protestants, called Puritans, who had a deep loathing for all forms of
wealth and display. A farmer and member of parliament named Oliver
Cromwell was their leader in the conflict that eventually broke out
between Parliament's supporters and those of the king which split the
country in two. (People called Cromwell's supporters Roundheads because
they wore their hair close-cropped, unlike the long-haired royalists who
were known as Cavaliers.) Cromwell was a deeply religious man and a
brave, determined and ruthless commander. His soldiers were well trained
and no less ardent than he was. After many battles the king was taken
prisoner and brought to trial at Westminster, where he was charged with
high treason. He refused to recognise the court and made no effort to
defend himself, for he believed that only God could be the judge of the
king of England. Charles was sentenced to death, and in 1649 he was
beheaded. Oliver Cromwell then ruled England, not as king, but as 'Lord
Protector of the Commonwealth', as he described himself. And this wasn't
just a title, because it is exactly what he did. Following in
Elizabeth's footsteps he devoted himself to increasing England's power
-through her colonies in America and trading settlements in India, and
by building a strong fleet and expanding sea trade - and did his utmost
to weaken England's Dutch neighbours. After his death, however, kings
soon ruled England once again. But government was now less difficult
than it had been before and went on becoming easier. And since that time
no other English monarch has ever dared break the ancient promises laid
down in the Magna Carta.
It was easier for the kings of France. There they had no great charter.
Moreover, they ruled over a prosperous, well-populated country which was
in no danger of collapse, even after the terrible wars of religion. But
above all, at the time of the Thirty Years War the real ruler of France
had been that formidably gifted minister, Cardinal Richelieu. He
achieved at least as much for France as Cromwell did for England - if
not more. Richelieu had been especially good at winning over the knights
and the nobility. Through skill and cunning - like a good chess-player
who knows how to exploit every move and turn a small advantage into a
greater one — he gradually reduced their powers until he was able to
assume them all himself, including, as you saw, the power of France in
Europe. And because he had helped weaken the German emperor in the
Thirty Years War, and because Spain had been reduced to poverty and
Italy dismembered, and because Kngland wasn't yet very powerful, by the
time Richelieu died France was the dominant country in Europe. A year
after the cardinal's death, in 1643, King Louis XIV ascended the throne.
He was then four years old and still holds the world record for the
length of his reign. He ruled until 1715: that is, for seventy-two
years. And what's more, he really did rule. Not, of course, when he was
a child, but as soon as his guardian, Cardinal Mazarin, had died
(Mazarin had been Cardinal Richelieu's successor), he was determined to
rule himself. He gave orders that no passport was to be issued to any
Frenchman unless he himself had granted it. The court was highly amused,
imagining his interest to be no more than a young king's whim. He would
soon tire of ruling. But he didn't. For to Louis, kingship was no mere
accident of birth. It was as if he had been given the leading role in a
play which he would have to perform for the rest of his life. No one
before or since has ever learnt that role so well, or played it with
such dignity and ceremony to the end.
All the powers that Richelieu, and later Mazarin, had held, Louis XIV
now took upon himself. The nobility had few rights other than that of
watching him perform his role. This solemn performance - the so-called
lever - began early, at eight o'clock in the morning, when he deigned to
rise. First to enter the bedchamber were the royal princes of the blood
together with the chamberlain and the doctor. Then two great curled and
powdered wigs, like flowing manes, were ceremoniously extended to him on
bended knee. Depending on his inclination, he chose one, and then
inserted himself into a magnificent dressing gown, before seating
himself beside the bed. Only at this point were the noblemen of highest
rank, the dukes, permitted to enter the bedchamber, and while the king
was shaved his secretaries, officers and various officials all entered
in their turn. After which the doors were thrown wide to admit a host of
splendid dignitaries - marshals, governors, princes of the Church and
royal favourites - all there to gaze with admiration upon the solemn
spectacle of His Majesty the King getting dressed.
Everything was regulated down to the last detail. The greatest honour
was to be permitted to offer the king his shirt, which had first been
carefully warmed. This honour belonged to the king's brother or, in his
absence, to the person next in rank. The chamberlain held one sleeve, a
duke the other and the king inserted himself. And so it went on, until
the king was fully dressed, in brightly coloured silk stockings, silk
knee-breeches, a satin brocade doublet and a sky-blue sash, with his
sword at his side, and an embroidered coat and a lace collar which a
high official with the title of Guardian of the King's Collars held out
to him on a silver tray. The king then left his bedchamber, plumed hat
on his head and cane in hand, smiling and elegant, to make his entry
into the Great Hall with a well-turned and courteous greeting for each,
while all those around gaped at him with awestruck expressions and
declared that today he was more beautiful than the sun god Apollo,
stronger than Hercules, hero of the ancient Greeks. He was the God-given
sun itself, le Roi Soleil- the Sun King - on whose warmth and light all
life depended. Just like the pharaoh, you might think, for he had been
called the Son of the Sun. But there was one big difference. The ancient
Egyptians really believed it, while for Louis XIV it was only a sort of
game which he and everyone present knew was no more than a ceremonious,
well-rehearsed and magnificent performance.
In his antechamber after morning prayers the king announced the
programme for the day. There then followed many hours of real work which
he undertook in order to have personal control over all affairs of
state. Apart from this there was a lot of hunting, and there were balls
and theatrical productions by great poets and actors which the court
enjoyed and which he, too, always attended. Every meal involved a
ceremony no less wearisome and solemn than the lever, and even his going
to bed was a complicated ballet-like production that gave rise to some
comical moments. For example, everyone had to bow to the king's bed,
like the faithful before the altar in church, even when the king wasn't
in it. And whenever the king played cards and made conversation there
was always a swarm of people standing around him at a respectful
distance, hanging on his every word.
To dress like the king, to carry one's cane as he did, to wear ones hat
as he did, to sit and move as he did, was the aim of all men at court.
And that of the women was to please him. They wore lace collars and
ample, rustling robes made of the richest fabrics and were adorned with
precious jewels. Life revolved around court and was staged in the most
magnificent palaces anyone had ever seen. For palaces were Louis XIV's
great passion. He had one called Versailles built for himself outside
Paris. It was almost as big as a town, with an infinite number of rooms
covered in gold and damask, and crystal chandeliers, mirrors in their
thousands, and furniture that was all gilded curves, upholstered in
velvets and silks. The walls were hung with splendid paintings where
people could see Louis in many guises. There is one that shows him
dressed as Apollo, receiving homage from all the peoples of Europe.
Grander still than the palace was its park. Everything about it was
magnificent, elaborate and theatrical. No tree might grow as it pleased,
no bush retain its natural form. Everything green was clipped, trimmed
and shaped into walls of green foliage, curved hedges, vast lawns and
spiralling flowerbeds, avenues and circuses, set with statues, lakes and
fountains. Forced to live out their lives at court, once-mighty dukes
and their ladies strolled up and down white gravel paths, exchanging
witty and well-turned phrases on the way the Swedish ambassador had
recently performed his bow, and things of that sort.
Just think what such a palace and such a way of life must have cost! The
king had two hundred servants for himself alone, and that was only the
start of it. But Louis XIV had clever ministers, mainly men of humble
origin chosen for their outstanding ability. These men were all experts
at extracting money from the country. They kept tight control of foreign
trade and encouraged France's own crafts and industry as much as they
could. But the true cost fell on the peasants, who were burdened with
crippling taxes and duties of all kinds. And while at court people ate
off gold and silver dishes, piled high with the choicest delicacies, the
peasants ate scraps and weeds.
But it wasn't life at court which cost the most. Far more expensive were
the wars that Louis XIV kept waging, often with no other purpose than to
increase his own power at the expense of the neighbouring states. With
his immense and well-equipped army he invaded both Holland and Germany,
seizing, for example, Strasbourg from the Germans, without offering any
real pretext for his actions. He saw himself as the master of all Europe
which, in a sense, he was. All the great men of Europe imitated him.
Soon every German prince - even those who owned no more than a miserable
patch of land - had his own gigantic castle in the style of Versailles,
with all the gold and damask, the clipped hedges, the men in great wigs,
the powdered ladies in voluminous gowns, the courtiers and the
flatterers.
They tried to imitate him in every way, but there was always something
missing. They were what Louis XIV only played at being: somewhat comical
puppet-kings, with pompous airs and glittering fancy dress. Louis XIV
himself was more than that. And in case you don't believe me, I'm going
to quote something from a letter he wrote to his grandson, when his
grandson was leaving to become king of Spain: 'Never favour those who
flatter you most, but hold rather to those who risk your displeasure for
your own good. Never neglect business for pleasure, organise your life
so that there is time in it for relaxation and entertainment. Give the
business of government your full attention. Inform yourself as much as
you can before taking any decision. Make every effort to get to know men
of distinction, so that you may call on them when you need them. Be
courteous to all, speak hurtfully to no man.' These really were the
guiding principles of King Louis XIV of France, that remarkable mixture
of vanity, charm, extravagance, dignity, indifference, frivol-it v and
sheer hard work.
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32 Meanwhile, Looking Eastwards...
Turkish conquests - Insurrection in Hungary - The siege of Vienna - Jan
Sobieski and the relief of Vienna - Prince Eugene - Ivan the Terrible - Peter
the Great - The founding of St Petersburg - Charles XII of Sweden — The race to
Stralsund - The expansion of Russian might
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This shows you the route taken by Charles XII, King of Sweden, the
daring young adventurer who marched through Poland and into Russia, and
later raced back to Slralsund from Turkey and met his death besieging a
fortress in Norway.
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While Louis XIV was holding court in Paris and Versailles, Germany
suffered a new misfortune: the Turks. As you know, more than two hundred
years earlier (in 1453), they had conquered Constantinople and
established a great Muslim empire, known as the Ottoman empire,
incorporating Egypt, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor and Greece - in
other words, the whole of the ancient Roman Empire of the East, of whose
magnificence and splendour, it must be said, not much remained. Under
their great leader, Suleiman the Magnificent, they had then pushed
onwards beyond the Danube and defeated the Hungarian army in 1526.
Almost every Hungarian nobleman, including the king, had been killed.
Having conquered the better part of Hungary, the Turks had tried to take
Vienna, but they soon turned back. As you remember, their fleet had been
destroyed in 1571 by King Philip II of Spain and his Venetian allies.
But they were still a powerful state and a Turkish pasha - or governor -
was ruling in Budapest. Now many Hungarians were Protestants, and when
their king had been killed they had become unwilling subjects of the
Catholic emperor
and had fought against him during the religious wars. After the Thirty
Years War these uprisings continued, until one day the Hungarian
nobility asked their Turkish neighbours for help.
The sultan, as the Turkish ruler was called, was only too happy to
respond to this request. For a long while he had been wanting a war
because his soldiers and warriors had become too powerful at home. He
was afraid that he would lose control of them and was delighted to be
able to send them off to fight. If they won, so much the better, and if
they lost he would be rid of them. You can see what sort of a person he
was! So in 1683 he mobilised a huge army from all four corners of his
empire. The pashas of Mesopotamia and Egypt brought their soldiers, and
Tatars, Arabs, Greeks, Hungarians and Romanians all assembled in
Constantinople under the leadership of the Grand Vizier - or prime
minister - Kara Mustafa, and prepared to march on Austria. There were
more than two hundred thousand of them, armed to the teeth and dressed
in exotic and colourful costumes and turbans with banners bearing their
sign: the crescent moon.
The emperor's armies stationed in Hungary were in no position to
withstand such an assault. They retreated and left the way to Vienna
open to the Turks. Like all towns at that time, Vienna had
fortifications at the ready. These were now hastily put in place, and
cannon and supplies brought in. Twenty thousand soldiers were to hold
the city until the emperor and his allies came to their aid. But the
emperor and his court had fled, first to Linz and then to Passau. And
when the Viennese saw smoke rising from distant villages and suburbs set
on fire by the Turks, some sixty thousand people abandoned the city, in
an unending stream of carts and carriages.
Now the Turkish cavalry arrived. Their gigantic army ringed Vienna and
began firing cannon balls at the walls and undermining them with
explosives. The Viennese fought back with all their might. A month went
by. With each day the danger increased as more and more breaches
appeared in the walls, and still no help came. Terrible outbreaks of
disease began to sweep through the town, far more deadly than the
Turkish bullets. Supplies of food were running low, despite daring
sorties by soldiers who sometimes returned with an ox or two. As time
went on, people found themselves paying twenty or thirty crowns for a
cat - no small sum in those days for such unappetising fare! The walls
were on the verge of collapse when the imperial troops finally reached
Vienna. The Viennese could breathe at last! However, the imperial troops
from Austria and Germany hadn't come on their own. The Polish king, Jan
Sobieski, who had previously signed an alliance with the emperor against
the Turks, had declared himself willing to help in return for
significant concessions. These included the honour of supreme command
which the emperor wanted himself, so precious time was lost in
negotiation. In the end Sobieski's army took up position on the heights
above Vienna and from there charged down upon the Turks. After fierce
fighting, the Turks fled without even taking the time to decamp, leaving
rich pickings for the imperial soldiers. The camp, consisting of forty
thousand tents, set out in neat, straight lines separated by narrow
lanes, was just like a small town, and a truly magnificent sight.
The Turks continued to retreat. Had they succeeded in taking Vienna, the
situation would have been almost as bad as if the Muslim Arabs had
defeated Charles Martel at Tours and Poitiers a thousand years earlier.
However, the imperial troops pushed them further and further back, while
Sobieski's men went home. A distinguished French general was to lead the
Austrian army in this triumphant pursuit. This was Prince Eugene of
Savoy, a man whom Louis XIV wouldn't have in his army on account of his
plain appearance. In the years that followed he took country after
country from the Turks. The sultan was forced to give up all of Hungary,
which then became part of Austria. These victories brought much wealth
and power to the imperial court at Vienna, and now Austria too began to
build magnificent castles and many fine monasteries in a sparkling new
style which they called Baroque. Meanwhile, Turkish power continued to
decline, not least because a new and mighty enemy had appeared behind
them. This was Russia.
Until now we have heard nothing about Russia. It was a vast wilderness
of forests, with great steppes in the north. The landowners ruled the
poor peasants with terrible cruelty and the sovereign ruled the
landowners with, if anything, greater cruelty. One of Russia's tsars,
around 1580, was known as Ivan the Terrible, and rightly so. Beside him
Nero was mild. In those days Russians took little notice of Furope and
what went on there. They were too busy fighting among themselves and
killing each other. Although they were Christians they didn't come under
the pope's authority. Their spiritual leader was the bishop or patriarch
of the Roman empire of the Fast in Constantinople. So they didn't have a
great deal to do with the West.
In 1689 that is, six years after the Turkish siege of Vienna -a new tsar
came to the throne. This was Peter, known as Peter the Great. He was no
less barbarous or cruel than many of his predecessors. Nor was he any
less fond of drinking or less violent. But he was determined to model
his empire on western states, like France, Fngland or the German empire.
He knew what was needed: money, trade and cities. But how had other
countries acquired these? So he went to find out. In Holland he saw
great seaports with mighty ships that sailed as far as India and America
to do business. He wanted ships like these, and he needed to know how
they were made. Without a second thought, he took a job as a ship's
carpenter, first in a Dutch shipyard and later in the dockyard of the
Royal Navy in England, to learn the art himself. Then he went home,
taking with him a team of skilled craftsmen to build his ships.
All he needed now was a seaport. So he gave orders for one to be built.
A city on the sea, just like those he'd seen in Holland. The coast to
the north of Russia, however, was nothing but barren marshland and
actually belonged to Sweden, with which Peter the Great was at war. This
didn't deter him. Peasants were rounded up from the surrounding
countryside and made to drain the swamps and drive piles into the
ground. He had eighty thousand labourers toiling there, and soon a real
seaport rose up out of the marshes.
He named it St Petersburg. Next, Russians had to be made into true
Europeans. They had to stop wearing their traditional lout; skirled
kaftans and weren't allowed to grow their hair and beards long. From now
on they were to dress like Frenchmen or Germans. Anyone who protested or
disagreed with Peter's innovations was flogged and then executed. Even
his own son. He was not a nice man, but he achieved what he wanted. The
Russians may not have become Europeans overnight, but they were now
ready to enter the field as players in Europe's bloody contest for
power.
"The Morning of the Streltsy Execution" after their
failed uprising in 1698 by Vasily Ivanovich Surikov
Peter the Great made the first move. He attacked Sweden which, following
the victories of Gustavus Adolphus in the Thirty Years War, had become
the mightiest state in northern Europe. Sweden's ruler in Peter's time
may not have had the piety or the perspicacity of Gustavus Adolphus, but
he was one of the most extraordinary adventurers the world has ever
known. The young King Charles XII came to power in 1697. He might have
leapt straight out of the pages of the popular adventure books that left
me spellbound as a boy in Vienna. His exploits can hardly be believed.
He was as foolhardy as he was brave - and that's saying something! He
and his army fought Peter the Great and defeated an army five times as
strong as his own. Then he conquered Poland and pushed straight on into
Russia without bothering to wait for another Swedish army, which was on
its way to assist him. On he went, deeper and deeper into Russia, always
at the head of his troops, wading through rivers and trudging through
swamps, without ever meeting any resistance from the Russian army.
Autumn came, and then winter - the bitter, biting-cold Russian winter
-and still Charles XII had had no chance to prove his courage against
the enemy. Only when his men were half-dead with hunger, cold and
exhaustion did the Russians finally appear and inflict a massive defeat
on them. This was in 1709. Forced to flee, Charles made for Turkey. And
there he remained for five years, vainly trying to persuade the Turks to
go to war with Russia. Eventually, in 1714, news reached him from Sweden
that his subjects had had enough of their king's adventures in Turkey.
The nobility were about to elect a new ruler.
Disguised as a German officer and with only one attendant, Charles
crossed the Turkish frontier without delay and, riding as fast as he
could by day and sleeping in mail coaches by night, raced back to
Stralsund in north Germany- in those days part of Sweden - in a mad
sixteen-day journey that involved all sorts of perilous adventures as
they passed through enemy territory. Roused from his bed, the governor
of the fortress could scarcely believe his eyes when he saw his king
standing before him, for like everyone else he thought he was somewhere
in Turkey. The town was delighted with Charles XII's dramatic
appearance, but Charles simply fell into bed and slept for a very long
time. His feet were so swollen from his long ride that his boots had to
be cut off him. But there was no more talk of electing a new king.
Charles hadn't been back in Sweden long before he embarked on a new
military adventure. He made enemies of England, Germany, Norway and
Denmark. Norway was first on his list. He died while besieging a
Norwegian fortress in 1718, shot, some say, by someone on his own side
because the country simply would not tolerate any more wars.
With this enemy out of the way Peter the Great, who now called himself
Emperor of All the Russias, was able to increase his empire's might,
expanding in all directions: into Europe, into Turkey, into Persia and
into the countries of Asia.
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33 A Truly New Age
The Enlightenment - Tolerance, reason and humanity - Critique of the
Enlightenment - The rise of Prussia - Frederick the Great -Maria Theresa - The
Prussian army - The Grand Coalition - The Seven Years War — Joseph II - The
abolition of serfdom - Overhasty reforms - The American War of Independence -
Benjamin Franklin - Human rights and negro slaves
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Washington Crossing the Delaware, by Emanuel Leutze
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If you could talk to a gentleman from the time of the Turkish siege,
there would be many things about him that would surprise you. The way he
spoke and the many Latin and French words he used. His elaborate and
convoluted turns of phrase and habit of slipping in Latin quotations
that neither you nor I could place, and his grand and solemn bows. You
would, I think, suspect that beneath that venerable wig was someone with
a large appetite for good food and fine wines. And - if you will forgive
me for mentioning it - you could hardly fail to notice that beneath the
fancy lace, the embroidery and the silk, this prinked, perfumed and
powdered gentleman stank, because he hardly ever washed.
But nothing could prepare you for the shock you would have if he were to
begin to air his views. All children should be thrashed. Young girls (no
more than children) should be married (and to men they barely know). A
peasant's lot is to toil and not complain. Beggars and tramps should be
whipped and put in chains in the marketplace for everyone to mock.
Thieves should be hanged and murderers publicly chopped into pieces.
Witches and the other harmful sorcerers that infest the country should
be burnt. People of different beliefs should be persecuted, treated as
outcasts or thrown into dark dungeons. A comet seen recently in the sky
must mean bad times ahead. As protection against the coming plague,
which has already claimed many victims in Venice, it would be sensible
to wear a red armband. And finally, a Mr So-and-so - an Eng-lish friend
- has an excellent and well-established business selling negroes from
Africa to America as slaves: a brainwave of that most worthy gentleman
since, as we all know, American Indian convicts don't take well to
manual labour.
And you would hear these opinions not only from the mouth of some coarse
or uncouth fellow, but from the most intelligent and pious people in all
walks of life and from all nations. Only after 1700 did things gradually
change. The widespread and terrible suffering that Europeans endured
during the wretched wars of religion had made some people wonder if it
was really right to judge someone by his or her religious belief. Was it
not more important to be a good and honest human being? Would it not be
better if people got on with one another regardless of any differences
of opinion or belief that they might have? Better if they respected one
another and tolerated each other's convictions? This was the first and
most important idea that the people who thought about such things now
voiced: the principle of tolerance. Only in matters of religion could
there be differences of opinion. No rational person disputes the fact
that two plus two makes four. Therefore reason —or sound common sense,
as they also termed it - is what can and should unite all men. In the
realm of reason you can use arguments to convince others of the
Tightness of your opinions, whereas another's religious beliefs, being
beyond rational argument, should be respected and tolerated.
And so reason was the second most important thing to these people. Clear
and reasoned thinking about mankind and nature was rediscovered in the
works of the ancient Greeks and Romans and in those of the Florentines
during the time of the Renaissance. But, more than anywhere else, it was
to be found in the works of men like Galileo, who had boldly set out to
investigate the magic of nature's mathematical formulas. Differences of
belief played no part in these things: there was only experiment and
proof. Reason alone could explain the appearance of nature and the
workings of the universe. Reason, which is given in equal measure to all
mankind the world over.
Now if reason is given to all, it must follow that all people are of
equal worth, and as you remember, that was just what Christianity had
taught: that all men are equal before God. But those who preached
tolerance and reason took this argument one step further: they didn't
only teach that all people were essentially equal; they demanded that
they be treated equally as well. That every human being, as God's
creature, endowed by Him with reason, had rights that no one might or
should deny him. The right to choose his own calling and to choose how
he lived: and the freedom to act or not to act as his reason and his
conscience dictated. Children, too, should not be taught with the cane
but with reason, so that they might come to understand the difference
between right and wrong. And criminals were human beings too - no doubt,
they had done wrong, but they could still be helped to mend their ways.
It was dreadful, they argued, to brand a man's cheek or forehead with a
red-hot iron for one wrongdoing, leaving a mark he would bear for the
rest of his life so that all might say 'That man is a criminal'. There
was something, they said, which forbade a person to be publicly
humiliated. It was called human dignity.
All these ideas, which from 1700 onwards were debated first in England
and later in France, came to be called the Enlightenment, because the
people who held them wanted to combat the darkness of superstition with
the pure light of reason.
Many people today think that the Enlightenment only taught what was
obvious, and that people in those days had a rather simple view of the
great mysteries of nature and the world. This is true. But you must
realise that what seems obvious to us wasn't in the least so then, and
that it took a great deal of courage, self-sacrifice and perseverance
for people to keep on repeating them so that they seem obvious to us
today. And of course you must also realise that reason cannot, and never
will, give us the key to all mysteries, although it has often put us on
the right track.
In the two hundred years that followed the Enlightenment, more mysteries
of nature were studied and explained than in the preceding two thousand
years. But what you must never forget is the importance for our own
lives of tolerance, reason and humanity -the three fundamental
principles of the Enlightenment. Because of them we no longer take
someone suspected of having committed a crime and torture them inhumanly
on the rack until, half out of their wits, they confess to anything we
want. Reason has taught us that there's no such thing as witchcraft, so
no more witches are burnt at the stake. (The last time a woman was
convicted of witchcraft in England was in 1712.) Diseases are no longer
fought by superstitious means, but mainly through cleanliness and the
scientific investigation of their causes. We don't have slaves or
peasant serfs any more. All citizens are subject to the same laws and
women have the same rights as men. All this we owe to the brave citizens
and writers who dared stand up for these ideas. And it was daring. They
may have lacked understanding and behaved unjustly in their struggle
with ancient and long-held traditions, but they fought a long and hard
battle to win tolerance, reason and humanity.
The battle would have taken much longer, and involved far greater
sacrifices, if some of Europe's rulers hadn't fought in the front line
for the ideas of the Enlightenment. One of the first to do so was
Frederick the Great, king of Prussia.
As you know, the title of emperor, passed down through several
generations of Habsburgs, was by this time not much more than a
venerable title. The Habsburgs' only real power was over Austria,
Hungary and Bohemia, whereas in Germany power was in the hands of
numerous princes who ruled over Bavaria, Saxony and many other big and
small states. The Protestant lands in the north were among those which
had paid the least attention to the Catholic emperor in Vienna since the
Thirty Years War, and the most powerful of these princedoms was Prussia.
Since the reign of its great sovereign Frederick William I, who ruled
from 1640 to 1688, Prussia had taken more and more land from Sweden,
until finally, in 1701, its princes had declared themselves kings.
Prussia was a severe warrior state, whose nobility knew no greater
honour than to serve as officers in the distinguished army of their
king.
Now, since 1740, Prussia had been under the rule of its third king,
Frederick II, who was a member of the Hohenzollern family. Known as
Frederick the Great, he was without doubt one of the most cultivated men
of his age. He was on friendly terms with a number of Frenchmen who
preached the ideas of the Enlightenment in their writings, and he
himself wrote much on the subject in French. For although he was king of
Prussia he scorned the German language and customs, which, as a result
of the Thirty Years War, were in a very poor state. His aim and his
duty, as he saw it, was to make Prussia a model state and in so doing
demonstrate the value of the thinking of his friends in France. He liked
to say that he saw himself as the first servant of the state: the
butler, as it were, rather than the owner. And in that role he concerned
himself with every detail of his project of putting the new ideas into
practice. One of the first things he did was to abolish the barbaric
practice of torture. He also relieved the peasants of some of the
heavier duties to their landlords. And he was always particularly
concerned that all his subjects, from the poorest to the mightiest,
should receive equal justice. A rare thing in those days.
But, above all, Frederick wanted to make Prussia the mightiest of all
the German states, and destroy Austria's imperial power. He didn't
foresee any difficulty in this. Austria was ruled by a woman, the
Empress Maria Theresa. When she came to the throne in 1740, aged only
twenty-three, Frederick thought it a suitable moment to remove one of
the empire's possessions. So he took his well-trained army to the
province of Silesia and seized it. From that time on he would spend most
of the rest of his life fighting the empress of Austria. The state of
his army was always of the utmost importance to him. He drilled his
troops unremittingly until he had the best army in the world.
But Maria Theresa was a far more formidable opponent than he had first
thought, although no warmonger at heart. She was deeply religious, and
first and foremost a mother. She had sixteen children
in all. Although Frederick was her enemy, she followed his example in
introducing many of his reforms in Austria as well. Like him, she
abolished torture, made the peasants' lives easier, and took a special
interest in establishing good education throughout the land. She
genuinely saw herself as a mother to her people, and never pretended to
know all the answers herself. She chose the ablest people to be her
advisers, among them men quite capable of holding their own against
Frederick during the long wars, not only on the battlefield, but also as
envoys to all the courts of Europe, where they won sympathy for her
cause. Even France, which for centuries had taken sides against the
empire, was eventually won over, after which Maria Theresa gave her
daughter Marie Antoinette in marriage to the future King Louis XVI of
France, as a pledge of their new friendship.
Frederick now found himself surrounded by enemies on all sides: Austria,
France, Sweden and Russia, now a vast and mighty empire. Without waiting
for them to declare war on him, he occupied Saxony, which was also
hostile. He then went on to wage a bitter war that lasted seven long
years, in which his only support came from the British. But his
perseverance paid off, for despite the superior strength of his enemies,
not only did he not lose the war, he even managed to hold on to Silesia.
From 1765 Maria Theresa ceased to rule Austria alone. Her son Joseph
ruled with her and succeeded her after her death as Emperor Joseph II.
He was an even more zealous fighter for the ideas of the Enlightenment
than either Frederick or his mother. Tolerance, reason and humanity were
all that mattered to him. He abolished the death sentence and peasant
serfdom. Protestants were once again allowed to worship freely, and
although a good Catholic himself, he confiscated some of the lands and
wealth of the Catholic Church. He was an invalid and, knowing that he
might not have long to rule, he did everything with such zeal, such
impatience and such haste that it was often all too quick, too
unexpected and altogether too much for his subordinates to endure. He
had many admirers, but his people loved him less than they loved his
more cautious and pious mother.
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34 A Very Violent Revolution
Catherine the Great - Louis XV and Louis XVI - Life at court - Justice and
the landowning nobility - The Rococo - Marie Antoinette - The convocation of the
Estates-General - The storming of the Bastille - The sovereignty of the people -
The National Assembly - The Jacobins - The guillotine and the Revolutionary
Tribunal - Danton - Robespierre - The Reign of Terror - The sentencing of the
king - The foreigners defeated - Reason - The Directory - Neighbouring republics
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The storming of the Bastille, by Jean-Pierre-Louis-Laurent Houel
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All countries felt the ideas of the Enlightenment to be just and
fair, and ruled accordingly. Even the empress of Russia, Catherine the
Great, regularly exchanged letters with the French thinkers of the
Enlightenment. The only exceptions were the kings of France, who behaved
as if they neither knew nor cared about the new ideas. Louis XV and
Louis XVI, the Sun King's successors, were incompetent, and content
merely to imitate their great predecessor's outward show of power. The
pomp and magnificence remained. Vast sums were spent on entertainments
and operatic productions, on a succession of new chateaux and great
parks with clipped hedges, on swarms of servants and court officials
dressed in lace and silk. Where the money came from didn't concern them.
Finance ministers soon became expert swindlers, cheating and extorting
on a grand scale. The peasants worked till they dropped, and citizens
were forced to pay huge taxes. Meanwhile at court, amid exchanges that
were not always light-hearted and witty, the nobility dissipated and
gambled the money away.
But if a noble landowner happened to leave the palace and go home to his
estate, it was even worse for the peasants. For he and his attendants
would rampage across the land after hares and foxes, their horses'
hooves trampling the carefully tended fields. And woe betide the peasant
who protested! He would be lucky to escape with a few blows across the
face from his lord's riding whip, for a noble landowner was also his
peasant's judge and could punish him as he pleased. A landowner who
enjoyed the king's favour could obtain a note from him which simply
said: 'Mr____is to be
imprisoned. Signed: King Louis XV The nobleman wrote in the name
himself, so that anyone who displeased him for any reason whatsoever was
simply made to disappear.
But at court these lords were elegant, prinked, powdered and perfumed,
rustling in their robes of silk and lace. Weary of the heavy pomp and
splendour of Louis XIV's time, they favoured a lighter, less formal way
of speaking. Instead of their full-bottomed wigs they now wore light,
white-powdered ones with a little plait at the back. No one could dance
and bow better than they - unless it was their ladies, tight-laced in
their corsets, the skirts of their crinolines billowing and round like
giant bells. And while all these fine lords and ladies strolled in the
gardens of the royal palaces, their estates decayed and the peasants
starved. Yet even they sometimes tired of such an unnatural life that
was all elegance and sophistication, so they invented a new pastime.
They played at Simplicity and Nature. This consisted of living in
charming shepherds' huts which they had built in the grounds of their
chateaux, and giving themselves the names of shepherds and shepherdesses
taken from Greek poems. What could be more natural or more simple?!
Into this bright confusion of elegance, gracefulness and over-refinement
came Maria Theresa's daughter, Marie Antoinette. She was a very young
girl, barely fourteen years old, when she became the wife of the future
king of France. And, of course, she thought everything was as it should
be. She threw herself delightedly into all the fairy-tale masked balls
and operas, she acted in plays, she was an enchanting shepherdess and
thought life in the French royal palaces was altogether wonderful.
Nevertheless, her elder brother, the emperor Joseph II, and her mother
repeatedly warned her to live simply and to avoid stirring up further
resentment among the poor with foolish extravagance and frivolity. In
1777, the emperor Joseph wrote her a long and serious letter saying:
'Things cannot go on like this, there will be a terrible revolution if
you do not do something to prevent it.'
Yet things did go on like that, for twelve more years. And the
revolution when it came was all the more terrible for it. By then the
court had squandered all the country's wealth. Nothing was left with
which to pay for the monstrous daily extravagances. In 1789, King Louis
XVI finally decided to summon a meeting of the three estates - the
nobility, the clergy and the bourgeoisie - to advise him on how to
restore the country's finances.
However, their proposals and requests did not please the king, and he
told his master of ceremonies to give the order for the representatives
of the estates to leave the chamber. Bui when he attempted to do so, the
impassioned voice of a very clever man named Mirabeau was heard to call
out: 'Go and tell his majesty that we are here through the will of the
people, and will not leave except at the point of a bayonet!'
No one had ever spoken to the king of France like this before. The court
officials had no idea what to do. While they consulted one another, the
assembled representatives of the nobility, clergy and the bougeoisie
went on discussing what was to be done about the economic crisis. It was
no one's intention to overthrow the king. All they wanted to do was to
introduce the sorts of reform that other states had already adopted. But
although the king was a weak and indecisive man who liked nothing better
than pottering about and making things - locks, in particular - he was
not accustomed to taking orders, and it never occurred to him that
anyone would dare to oppose him. So he called out troops to disperse the
assembly of the three estates by force. The people of Paris were
enraged, for they had pinned their hopes on this assembly. Crowds
gathered and everyone rushed to the state prison, the Bastille, where
many Enlightenment thinkers had been confined, and where a whole host of
innocent people were now thought to be held. The king did not dare fire
on his own subjects for fear of further increasing the fury of the mob.
So the mighty fortress was stormed and its garrison killed. The mob
surged through the streets of Paris in triumph, parading the liberated
prisoners, although it turned out that the only people in the prison at
the time were common criminals.
Meanwhile the assembled representatives had made some extraordinary
decisions. They wanted the principles of the Enlightenment to be put
into effect in their entirety - in particular the one which said that
reason, being common to all men, meant that all men were equal and must
be treated as such under the law. The assembled nobility led the way by
grandly renouncing all their privileges, to everyone's delight. Any
citizen of France would have the right to any job, and each would have
the same rights and the same duties in relation to the state - human
rights, as these were called. Henceforth the people, it was proclaimed,
would be the true rulers, and the king merely their representative.
As you can imagine, what the assembly of the estates actually meant was
that the ruler was there to serve the people rather than vice versa, and
that he would no longer be allowed to abuse his power. But the Parisians
who read it in the press took the doctrine of the sovereignty of the
people to mean something entirely different. They thought it meant that
people in the streets and marketplaces, communally known as 'the
people', would be the rulers. And when the king still refused to see
reason and entered into secret negotiations with foreign courts, asking
for help against his own people, a procession led by market women went
out to the Palace of Versailles. They killed the guards, burst into the
magnificent rooms with the wonderful chandeliers, mirrors and damask
hangings, and forced the king and his wife, Marie Antoinette, together
with their children and their entourage, to return to Paris where they
were under the people's control.
The king and his family made one attempt to flee abroad. But because
they did it with all the ceremony and formality of someone setting out
to a masked ball at court, they were recognised and
brought back, and placed under close guard. The National Assembly had
meanwhile decided to introduce many more changes. All the possessions of
the Catholic Church were confiscated, as were those of noblemen who had
fled abroad in fear of the revolution. Then the Assembly decreed that
the people must elect new representatives, to vote on the laws.
And so in 1791 a great number of young people came to Paris from all
over France to give their advice. But the other kings and rulers of
Europe had had enough. It was not as if they felt Louis deserved their
support, for they had little respect for his behaviour, nor were they
altogether sorry to see the might of France reduced. But they could not
sit back and watch while a fellow monarch was stripped of his powers. So
Prussia and Austria sent a few troops to France to protect the king.
This threw the people into a frenzy. The whole country was up in arms at
the uninvited interference. Every nobleman or supporter of the king was
now deemed to be a traitor, in league with foreign accomplices of the
court. Noblemen were dragged from their beds at night by raging mobs,
thrown into prison and murdered. Things grew worse by the minute. Soon
everything that had to do with the past had to be rooted out and
destroyed.
It began with dress. Supporters of the Revolution gave up wearing wigs,
knee breeches and silk stockings, and wore red nightcaps on their heads
and long trousers as we still do today. This was both simpler and
cheaper. Dressed in this way they took to the streets shouting: 'Death
to all aristocrats! Liberty! Equality! Fraternity! 'As far as fraternity
was concerned, the Jacobins - as the most violent party was called - had
a rather odd understanding of the word. They were not only against
aristocrats: they were against anybody who disagreed with them, and
anyone who crossed them lost his head. A special machine called a
guillotine was invented, which did the job quickly and efficiently. A
special court was set up, known as the Revolutionary Tribunal, and day
in, day out, it sentenced people to death, upon which they were
guillotined in the squares of Paris.
The leaders of these frenzied mobs were remarkable people. One of them,
Danton, was an impassioned orator, a bold andunscrupulous man whose
powerful speeches incited the people to ever new attacks upon the king's
supporters. Robespierre was the opposite of Danton. He was a stiff,
sober and dry lawyer who made interminable speeches in which he never
failed to mention the heroes of Greece and Rome. Always impeccably
dressed, he would climb the steps of the pulpit of the National Assembly
and speak about nothing but virtue - the virtue of Cato and the virtue
of Themistocles, the virtue of the human heart in general, and the
heart's hatred of vice. And because vice had to be hated, the heads of
France's enemies had to be chopped off, so that virtue could triumph!
And who exactly were these enemies of France? Why, all those who did not
share his opinions. So Robespierre had hundreds of his opponents killed
in the name of the virtue of the human heart. But you mustn't think he
was a hypocrite. He was probably convinced that he was right. No one
could bribe him with gifts, or move him with tears. He was terrifying.
And his aim was to spread terror. Terror among the enemies of Reason, as
he called them.
Even King Louis XVI was brought before the People's Tribunal and
condemned to death because he had appealed to foreigners for help
against his own people. Soon afterwards Marie Antoinette was beheaded.
In dying they both displayed more dignity and greatness than they had
during their lives. There was genuine outrage abroad over the
executions, and many troops marched on Paris. But the people had no
intention of giving up their newfound freedom. Men were called up to
fight from all over France, and the German armies were beaten back,
while in Paris, and above all, in provincial towns where opposition to
the Jacobins was greatest, the Reign of Terror intensified.
Robespierre and the representatives had declared Christianity to be an
ancient superstition and abolished God by decree. Instead, people were
to worship Reason. And a printer's young bride wearing a white dress and
a blue cloak, representing the goddess of Reason, was led through the
city amid festive music. Soon even this was not virtuous enough for
Robespierre. A new decree was issued announcing that God did exist and
man's soul was immortal. Robespierre himself appeared as priest of the
Supreme Being — as God was now called - wearing a hat decorated with
feathers, and with a bunch of flowers in his hand. He must have looked
quite ridiculous, and many people must have laughed when they saw him.
However, his power was almost at an end. Danton had had enough of the
daily beheadings and asked for mercy and compassion. Robespierre's
reaction to this was to say: 'Only criminals ask for mercy on behalf of
criminals.' So Danton, too, was beheaded and Robespierre had his final
victory. But soon, after yet another of his interminable speeches, in
which he insisted that the executions had barely begun, that freedom's
enemies were still all around, that vice was triumphant and the country
in peril, it so happened that, for the first time, nobody clapped.
Instead there was just a deathly hush. A few days later, he, too, was
beheaded.
France's enemies had been defeated. The nobility had either been killed,
driven out of France, or had opted to become common citizens. Equality
before the law had been achieved. The possessions of the Church and the
ruling class had been shared out among the peasants, who had been
liberated from feudal serfdom. Every Frenchman was free to choose his
profession and aspire to any office. The people were tired of fighting
and wanted to enjoy the fruits of this tremendous victory in peace and
stability. The Revolutionary Tribunal was abolished, and in 1795 five
men were elected to form a Directorate, which was to rule the country
according to its new constitution.
Meanwhile the ideas of the French Revolution had reached out beyond the
frontiers and been met with great enthusiasm in neighbouring countries.
Belgium and Switzerland also formed republics based on the principles of
human rights and equality, and these republics were given military
support by the French government. And it so happened that, in the ranks
of France's armies, there was a young officer who would one day prove
stronger than the whole Revolution.
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35 The Last Conqueror
Napoleon in Corsica - To Paris - The siege of Toulon - The conquest of Italy
- The Egyptian expedition - The coup d'etat - The consulate and the Code
Napoleon - Emperor of the French -Victory at Austerlitz - The end of the Holy
Roman Empire of the German Nation - Francis I - The Continental System - Victory
over Russia - Spain and the War of Spanish Resistance - Aspern and Wagram - The
German uprising - The Grande Armee - The retreat from Moscow - The Battle of
Leipzig - The Congress of Vienna -Napoleon's return from Elba - Waterloo - St
Helena
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Here you can clearly see the power of the little man from Corsica, who
set his relatives up as rulers all over Europe like pieces on a chess
board.
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What I have always loved best about the history of the world is that
it is true. That all the extraordinary things we read were no less real
than you and I are today. What is more, what did happen is often far
more exciting and amazing than anything we could invent. I am now going
to tell you the story of one of the most astonishing of all those
adventures, which was nevertheless as real as your life or mine. It took
place not so long ago. My own grandfather was alive then, and he would
have been about your age.
It begins like this. Near Italy there is an island, mountainous, sunny
and poor, called Corsica. On that island there lived a lawyer, together
with his wife and their eight children. His name was Buonaparte. At the
time when his second son, Napoleon, was born, in 1769, the island had
just been sold to France by the Genoese. This did not go down well with
the Corsicans and there were many battles with the French governors. The
young Napoleon was to become an officer, so his father sent him, at the
age of ten, to a military school in France. He was poor - his father
could barely support him, and this made him withdrawn and unhappy and he
didn't play with his fellow students. 'I sought out a corner of the
school,' he was to say later, 'where I could sit and dream to my heart's
content. When my companions tried to take over my corner, I defended it
with all my might. I already knew instinctively that my will could
triumph over the will of others, and that anything I wanted could be
mine.'
He learnt a lot and had a wonderful memory. At seventeen he became a
second lieutenant in the French army, and it was there that he was given
the nickname 'the little corporal', because he was so short. He almost
starved. He read widely and missed nothing. When the Revolution broke
out three years later in 1789, Corsica wanted to free itself from French
rule. Napoleon returned home to fight the French. But he was soon back
in Paris, for, as he wrote in a letter at the time, 'only in Paris can
one do anything.' He was right. In Paris he did succeed in doing
something. It so happened that one of Napoleon's fellow countrymen was
serving as a senior officer in an army sent by the revolutionaries to
crush resistance in the provincial town of Toulon. He took the
twenty-five-year-old lieutenant with him, and didn't regret it. Napoleon
gave such sound advice, on where to place the cannons and where to aim
them, that the city was quickly taken. For this he was made a general.
But in those troubled times this was no sure sign of a great career. If
you were the friend of one party, you were the enemy of another. When
the government, which was made up of Robespierre's friends, was
overthrown, Napoleon was arrested too. True, he was soon released, but
in punishment for his friendship with the Jacobins he lost his command
and was dismissed from the army. He was desperately poor and the future
looked grim. However, once again, thanks to someone he knew, his name
was put forward to the five men of the Paris Directorate, and they gave
him the task of crushing a violent demonstration of young noblemen.
Napoleon didn't hesitate to fire into the crowd and so dispersed the
demonstrators. In recognition, he was reinstated to the rank of general
and given command of a small army sent to Italy to spread the ideas of
the French Revolution.
It seemed a hopeless task. The army lacked everything. France was
destitute and in chaos. In 1796, at the outset of the campaign, General
Napoleon (who now signed himself 'Bonaparte', in the French manner)
spoke briefly to his troops: 'Soldiers! You are almost naked and
ill-fed. The government owes you much and cannot pay you. But I will
lead you to the most fertile plain in the world. Rich provinces and
great towns will fall into your hands, and in them you will find honour,
glory and riches. Soldiers! Do you lack courage and steadfastness?' With
these words he inspired his soldiers, and so great was his skill in the
face of the far greater strength of his enemies that he won victories
everywhere he went. Within a few weeks of the start of the campaign he
was able to write in a letter of command to his troops: 'Soldiers! In
fourteen days you have won six victories, captured twenty-one banners
and fifty-five pieces of cannon. You have won battles without cannon,
crossed rivers without bridges, marched great distances without boots,
slept in the open without brandy and often without bread. I rejoice that
each of you, upon returning home, will be able to say with pride: I too
was of that army that conquered Italy!'
And, true to his words, it wasn't long before his army had conquered the
whole of northern Italy and made it a republic along the lines of France
or Belgium. Wherever he went, if a beautiful work of art caught his eye,
he had it sent to Paris. Then he turned north towards Austria, because
the emperor had attacked him in Italy. Messengers from the emperor in
Vienna came to meet him in the town of Leoben in Styria. A raised seat
had been prepared for the emperor's envoy in the council chamber. 'Take
away that chair,' said Napoleon, 'I can never see a throne without
feeling the urge to sit on it.' He then demanded that the emperor cede
to France all the parts of Germany that lay to the west of the Rhine.
After that he returned to Paris. But in Paris there was nothing for him
to do. So he put forward a proposal to the government for an adventurous
undertaking. France's greatest enemy at this time was Britain, and,
thanks to their many colonial possessions in America, Africa, India and
Australia, the British had become very powerful. The French couldn't
attack Britain directly because their army was too weak and, besides,
they didn't have enough good ships. But on the other hand, if Napoleon
were to occupy Egypt, he could strike at the sources of Britain's wealth
by threatening the route to its colonial possessions in India.
Napoleon Bonaparte Visiting the Plague-stricken at Jaffa,
by Jean-Antoine Gros
So Napoleon took an army to Egypt. Like Alexander the Great, he wanted
to conquer the whole of the Orient. He took scholars with him too, to
observe and study the remnants of antiquity. On reaching Egypt he spoke
to the Muslim Egyptians as if he were a prophet, like Muhammad. In
solemn tones he told them that he could read the innermost secrets of
their hearts. His coming, he said, had been prophesied centuries before,
and they would find it written in the Koran. 'All efforts to resist me
are doomed, for I am destined to succeed in all I undertake.'
And at first events seemed to prove him right. He defeated the Egyptian
armies in a great battle beside the pyramids in 1798, and on other
occasions too, for no one was better than he at fighting battles on dry
land. But at sea the British had the upper hand, and their famous
admiral Nelson destroyed the French fleet off Aboukir on the Egyptian
coast. When plague broke out among his troops and news came that the
government in Paris was in disarray, Napoleon abandoned his soldiers and
secretly took ship for France. There he received a hero's welcome.
Everyone hoped that the famous general would prove as capable at home as
he had been in hostile lands. Encouraged by their support, in 1799 he
boldly turned his guns on the seat of government in Paris. His
grenadiers threw the elected representatives of the people out of the
council chambers, and he assumed supreme command. Following the example
of ancient Rome, he proclaimed himself consul.
In that role Napoleon held court in splendour in the former residence of
the kings of France, and brought back many noblemen from exile. But
mostly he worked night and day at establishing order in France. To him,
this meant that nothing should happen at any time or in any place unless
he wished it. And he succeeded. He established a collection of laws in
accordance with the new basic principles and named it after himself: the
Napoleonic Code. In a new campaign in Italy he defeated Austria once
again. He was idolised by his soldiers and all of France worshipped him
because he had brought the country glory and conquests. They made him
consul lor life. But this still did not satisfy Napoleon. In 1804 he
proclaimed himself emperor. Emperor of the French! The pope himself made
the journey to France to crown him. Soon afterwards he had himself
proclaimed king of Italy as well. The other countries grew fearful of
this mighty newcomer, and Britain, Prussia, Austria, Russia and Sweden
formed an alliance against him. Napoleon didn't let this worry him. He
wasn't afraid of enemy armies, however large they were. In the winter of
1805 he attacked and inflicted a crushing defeat on an alliance of enemy
troops at Austerlitz. Now Napoleon was lord of almost all of Europe. He
gave each of his relatives a kingdom - a little souvenir, as it were.
His stepson became viceroy of Italy, his elder brother was given Naples,
his younger brother Holland, his brother-in-law part of Germany and his
sisters duchies in Italy. Which was not bad going for a Corsican
lawyer's family who, hardly twenty years before, had been sitting round
a table on their distant island, sharing a simple meal.
In Germany, too, all the power was in Napoleon's hands, because the
German princes who had turned their backs on the emperor in Vienna long
ago had now become allies of the mighty Napoleon. The emperor Francis
gave up the title of German emperor, and that was the end of the Holy
Roman Empire of the German Nation which had begun with the coronation of
Charlemagne in Rome a thousand years before. The year was 1806. From now
on, Francis of Habsburg was merely emperor of Austria.
Next Napoleon attacked the Hohenzollerns, and in a matter of days the
Prussian armies had been soundly defeated. In the same year he entered
Berlin, and from there he imposed his laws on Europe. First and
foremost, he forbade anyone in the whole of Europe to have any business
dealings with France's enemies, the British. This was known as the
Continental System. Having lost his entire fleet to Admiral Nelson at
the Battle of Trafalgar the previous year, Napoleon could not invade
that powerful country. Instead he planned to bring the British to their
knees with an economic blockade. When the other states refused to agree
to this, he returned to Germany and attacked the Russians, now allied
with the Prussians. And, in 1807, he was able to present his youngest
brother with part of Germany as his kingdom.
Now it was Spain's turn. He conquered that country and gave its crown to
his brother Joseph, previously king of Naples, and gave Naples to one of
his brothers-in-law. But the day came when the inhabitants of all these
countries had had enough of being passed around the Bonaparte family as
presents. The Spaniards were the first to resist French rule, from 1808
onwards. They didn't fight any battles as such, but the entire
population was in a constant state of rebellion which the French
soldiers were unable to crush, despite their brutal efforts. The emperor
of Austria had also had enough of being bossed around by Napoleon. In
1809 a new war broke out. Napoleon's army was approaching Vienna and had
reached the outskirts, at Aspern. There, for the first time in his life,
Napoleon experienced defeat, at the hands of the valiant general
Archduke Charles. However, only a few days later he soundly defeated the
Austrian army at Wagram. He marched into Vienna, installed himself in
the imperial palace at Schonbrunn and forced the emperor Francis to give
him the hand of his daughter Marie-Louise in marriage. For a member of
the imperial house of Habsburg, whose family had reigned from Vienna for
more than 500 years, this was no easy thing to do. Napoleon had no
princely ancestry. He was just a jumped-up little lieutenant who,
through his extraordinary ability and nothing else, was now lord and
master of Europe.
In 1810 Marie-Louise gave birth to a son, to whom Napoleon gave the
title King of Rome. Napoleon's empire was by now considerably larger
than that of Charlemagne, if we include all the kingdoms of his brothers
and sisters and generals, which were theirs only in name. If he didn't
like their conduct he used to write them insulting letters. For example,
to his brother, the king of Westphalia, he wrote: 'I've seen one of your
orders of the day to the soldiers that will make you the laughing stock
of Germany, Austria and France. Have you no friend to tell you a few
home truths? You
are a king and the emperor's brother - titles worth nothing on the
battlefield. There, you have to be a soldier and nothing but a soldier.
Forget your ministers, your ambassadors and your finery. You have to
sleep out in the vanguard with your men, sit on your horse, day and
night. March in the vanguard, so you know what's going on.' The letter
ends: 'And for God's sake have the wit to write and speak correctly!'
This was how the emperor treated his brothers, the kings of Europe. But
he treated the people even worse. He cared nothing for what they thought
or what they felt. To him they were merely a source of money or, better
still, soldiers. But as time went on they became less and less willing
to obey him. After the Spaniards, the peasants in the Tirol were the
next to rebel against the French and Bavarian soldiers. The Tirol was a
region that Napoleon had taken away from the emperor of Austria and
given to the kingdom of Bavaria. Their rebellion ended only when
Napoleon captured their leader, Andreas Hofer, and had him shot. In
Germany, too, the whole population was in a state of great agitation and
indignation at the French emperor's wilful brutality. And now that most
of the German principalities were under French rule, for the first time
in their history they sensed a common destiny: they weren't French, they
were Germans. Who cared if the king of Prussia was on good terms with
the king of Saxony or not, or if the king of Bavaria had allied himself
with Napoleon's brother? The experience shared by all Germans, that of
being dominated by foreigners, had given birth to a shared desire: the
wish to be free. For the first time in the whole of history, all Germans
- students and poets, peasants and noblemen -joined forces against their
rulers to liberate themselves. But it wasn't as easy as that. Napoleon
was all-powerful. The great German poet Goethe said at the time: 'Shake
your chains how you may, the man is too great for you!'And indeed, for a
long time no amount of inspiration or heroism could match the might of
Napoleon. What finally brought him down was his insatiable ambition. The
power he had already never seemed to be enough: to him it was only the
beginning. And now it was Russia's turn. The Russians had defied his
command not to trade with the British, and for this they had to be
punished!
Napoleon assembled troops from every region of his vast empire until he
had an army of some six hundred thousand men -just think of it, more
than half a million human beings! One of the largest armies the world
had ever seen. And now, in 1812, this army marched on Russia. As the
soldiers penetrated deeper and deeper into the heartland, they met with
no resistance. When they advanced, the Russians retreated, just as they
had done before the troops of Charles XII of Sweden. At last, outside
the gates of Moscow, the mighty Russian army stopped. Napoleon attacked
and seemed to be victorious - I almost said 'of course', since for him
winning battles was the same as solving puzzles, if you are someone who
is good at that sort of thing. He would note the enemy's position and
knew immediately where to place his own troops in order to evade or
attack them. So he marched into Moscow, only to find the city almost
empty and most of its inhabitants fled. It was late autumn. Napoleon
installed himself in the Kremlin, the ancient imperial castle, and
waited to dictate his terms. Then came news that the suburbs of Moscow
were burning. In those days most of Moscow's houses were made of wood,
and as the fire spread, large parts of the city were engulfed in flames.
The Russians had probably started the fires to put pressure on the
French. All efforts to extinguish them were in vain.
Where could six hundred thousand men stay, with Moscow burnt? And how
could they be fed? Napoleon had no choice but to retreat. In the
meantime, however, winter had arrived and it was bitterly cold.
Everything in sight along their route had already been plundered and
consumed. The retreat across the endless, frozen wastes of the Russian
plains would now become something too terrible to describe. Overcome by
cold and starvation, more and more soldiers fell by the wayside. Horses
perished in their thousands. The Russian Cossacks rode up and attacked
the rear and flanks of the army. The soldiers fought with desperation.
Surrounded by Cossacks, and in the midst of a raging snowstorm, they
managed to cross the great Berezina River. But little by little their
strength ebbed away and they lost hope. Fewer than one in twenty of the
soldiers survived this terrible defeat and reached the German
frontier in the last stages of sickness and exhaustion. Disguised as a
peasant, Napoleon abandoned his troops and hurried back to Paris on a
sledge.
His first act was to raise fresh troops, for now that his strength was
reduced, there were rebellions everywhere. Yet once again, he succeeded
in raising a mighty army, this time made up entirely of young men. These
were the last men left in France, whom Napoleon now sent to combat the
subject peoples. He marched on Germany. The emperor of Austria sent his
chancellor, Metternich, to negotiate a peace treaty. Metternich talked
to Napoleon for a whole day: 'And what if this army of boys that you
have just raised is mown down?' At these words, Napoleon turned first
white, then purple with rage: 'You are no soldier!' he shouted. 'You
know nothing of a soldier's heart. I was raised on the battlefield, and
a man such as I doesn't give a fig for a million lives!' With this
outburst, so Metternich related, Napoleon hurled his hat across the
room.
Metternich left the hat where it lay and said calmly: 'Why should 1 be
the only person to hear this, within the privacy of these four walls?
Open the doors so that your words may resound from one end of France to
the other.' Napoleon rejected the terms of the emperor's peace treaty,
telling Metternich he didn't have any choice. If he wished to remain
emperor of the French, he would have to fight on and win. In 1813 a
battle took place, at Leipzig in Germany, between Napoleon's army and
those of his allied enemies. On the first day, Napoleon had the upper
hand. But when, on the second, he was suddenly abandoned by the Bavarian
troops who were fighting for him, he lost the battle and was forced to
retreat. During this retreat he fought with another large army of
Bavarians which was pursuing him, after which he returned to Paris.
He had been right: following his defeat the French deposed him. He was
given sovereignty over the little island of Elba, to which he retired.
However, the princes and the emperor who had brought about his defeat
met in Vienna in 1814 to negotiate with one another, and share out
Europe among themselves. It was their opinion that the Enlightenment had
been a disaster for Europe. The idea of Liberty, in particular, was
responsible for all the disturbances and the countless victims, both of
the Revolution and of Napoleon's wars. They wanted to undo the whole
Revolution. Metternich in particular was determined that everything
should be as it had been before, and that no similar upheaval should
ever be allowed to happen again. It was therefore vital, or so he
thought, that nothing should be written or printed in Austria without
the approval of the government and the emperor.
In France the Revolution was totally extinguished. The brother of Louis
XVI came to the throne as Louis XVIII (the title of Louis XVII having
been given to the son of Louis XVI, who had died during the Revolution).
The new Louis ruled with his court in France with the same pomp and the
same lack of judgement as his unhappy brother, just as if the twenty-six
years of revolution and empire had never taken place. The French became
increasingly discontented. When Napoleon heard about this, he secretly
left Elba (in 1815) and landed in France accompanied by a small number
of soldiers. Louis sent an army to fight him. But as soon as the
soldiers saw Napoleon, they deserted and went over to his side, and were
joined by soldiers from other garrisons. After a few days' march, the
emperor Napoleon entered Paris in triumph, and King Louis XVIII fled.
The princes, still conferring in Vienna, were furious and declared
Napoleon to be the enemy of humanity. Under the command of the English
duke of Wellington, an army, largely made up of British and Germans
soldiers, was assembled in Belgium. Napoleon attacked without delay. A
savage battle followed in 1815 at a place named Waterloo. Once again,
Napoleon seemed at first to be winning. However, one of his generals
misunderstood the order he had been given and led his troops in the
wrong direction. Towards evening, the commander of the Prussian troops,
General Blucher, gathered together his exhausted men and, with the words
'It looks pretty hopeless, but we mustn't give in', led them back into
battle. It was to be Napoleon's last defeat. He fled with his army, was
once again deposed and forced to leave France.
He embarked on a British ship, placing himself voluntarily in the hands
of his oldest enemies, the only ones he had never beaten. He was
counting on their magnanimity, and said that he wished to live as a
private citizen under English law. But in all his life Napoleon himself
had rarely shown any magnanimity. Instead the British declared him a
prisoner of war and sent him to a tiny uninhabited island far out in the
Atlantic, known as the Island of St Helena, so that he might never come
back again. There he spent the last six years of his life, abandoned and
powerless, dictating the memories of all his deeds and victories, and
quarrelling with the English governor, who wouldn't even let him take a
walk on his own around the island. And that was the end of the little
man with the pale complexion, whose strength of will and clarity of mind
were greater than those of any ruler before him. Meanwhile the great
powers of the past, those ancient and pious princely houses, once again
ruled Europe. And the austere and unyielding Metternich, who would not
stoop to pick up Napoleon's hat, guided the destinies of Europe from
Vienna through his emissaries as if the Revolution had never taken
place.
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