2. At this very time the commotions of the Fronde* broke out in Paris. The jealousy felt by the nobility of Mazarin's power, the unpopularity of his measures, the disorder of the finances, and the oppression of new taxes, inflamed the nation; and the intrigues of the coadjutor, afterwards Cardinal de Retz, blew up this flame into a civil war. The parliament of Paris took part with the rebels, who were headed by the Prince of Conti, the Dukes of Longueville and Bouillon, and the chief nobility. The queen and the royal family removed to St. Germain's, and the ministerial party besieged Paris. Turenne, who at first supported them, was gained over by the rebels. The women, who have always their part in the disturbances of France, had a conspicuous share in those of the Fronde. A short pacification ensued; but the imprudent violence of Mazarin soon renewed the disorders. At length the parliament of Paris assumed the right of banishing this unpopular minister, who retired to the imperial dominions, though his influence continued still to regulate the measures of state.

3. A change ensued, on the king's coming of age (1652). De Retz and Orleans, the chief promoters of the rebellion, were banished, and Mazarin resumed his station as minister.-Condé had joined the Spaniards in an attack on the French Netherlands, but was overmatched by Turenne, who revenged this insult by the taking of Dunkirk, and several fortified towns under the Spanish government. Dunkirk was, by convention with Cromwell, ceded to the English, and afterwards sold back to France, as we have seen, by Charles II.

4. The war with Spain was ended in 1659, by the peace of the Pyrenees. Many cessions were made on both sides, but France kept Roussillon and part of Artois. It was stipulated that Louis XIV. should marry the infanta, daughter of Philip IV., but should renounce all right that might thence open to the crown of Spain.

5. The treaty of the Pyrenees gave peace to the south of Europe; and the wars in the north between Sweden, Poland, and Denmark, which arose after the abdication of Christina of Sweden, were terminated in the year following by the treaty of Oliva. Christina, a singular but not a great character, held the sceptre of Sweden for twenty-two years after the death of her father, Gustavus Adolphus; till at length, tired of the cares of government, and affecting a passion for literature and philosophy, she resigned the crown, in 1654, to her cousin, Charles X.; an example which was followed soon after by Casimir, king of Poland, though after an honourable reign, and for a better reason-age and sickness.

6. Mazarin died in 1661, and Louis XIV. entered on a vigorous and splendid career. The finances, which from the time of Henry IV. had been in extreme disorder, were admirably regu

*So called, from the insurgents throwing stones at their adversaries by means of slings, which in French are called frondes.

lated by Colbert (1661–83); and the commerce and manufactures of the kingdom, wisely encouraged by government, were soon in the most flourishing situation. The canal of Languedoc joined the Bay of Biscay and the Mediterranean (1680); the principal sea-ports were enlarged and fortified; and the internal police of the kingdom was regularly and strictly enforced. The arms of France aided at the same time England against the Dutch, Germany against the Turks, and Portugal against Spain. 7. On the death of Philip IV., Louis, on pretence that Spain had failed in payment of the dowry of his queen, besieged and took Lisle, with several other fortified towns of Flanders; and, in the next campaign, made himself master of Franche-Comté (1667-8). The sovereign marched with his armies; but the glory of these conquests was owing to Turenne and Vauban. The triple alliance formed by England, Holland, and Sweden, checked this career, and brought about the treaty of Aix-laChapelle (1668), by which Louis, though he retained Flanders, restored Franche-Comté, and confirmed the peace of the Pyrenees.

8. The strength and prosperity of the kingdom continued to increase under the able administration of Colbert (minister of finance), and Louvois (minister of war). The civil factions of Holland, between the Stadtholder and the party of the De Wits, tempted Louis to undertake the conquest of that country; and England, Germany, and Sweden, favoured his views. He overran the provinces of Utrecht, Overyssel, and Guelderland, and advanced almost to the gates of Amsterdam; when the Dutch inundated the country by letting in the sea, and the French were forced to retreat (1672-8).

9. The confederate powers now became jealous of the ascendency of France; and the Prince of Orange had sufficient influence with England, and both branches of the house of Austria, to obtain their alliance in aid of the republic. The arms of Louis, however, still continued to be successful; and the peace concluded at Nimeguen, in 1678, was much to the honour of France. Franche-Comté was assured as a part of her dominions, and Spain allowed her right by conquest to a great proportion of the Netherlands.

10. Notwithstanding the peace, Louis, with the most culpable insincerity, seized Strasburg and Casale (the keys of Upper Germany and Lombardy), on the same day, and secretly took part with the Hungarians and Turks in their attack on the imperial dominions (1681). Vienna must have fallen into the hands of the Turks, had it not been seasonably relieved by the victorious arms of John Sobieski, king of Poland (1683).

11. One of the weakest and most impolitic measures of Louis XIV. was the revocation of the edict of Nantes, granted by Henry IV. for the toleration of the Protestants. While their worship was suppressed, their churches demolished, and their

ministers banished, the Protestant laity were forbidden, under the most rigorous penalties, to quit the kingdom (1685). France, however, by this measure lost above 500,000 of her most industrious and useful subjects, [who emigrated to Protestant countries, and carried thither the arts of France, particularly the manufacture of silk], and the name of Louis XIV. was execrated over a great part of Europe.-It was not long after this time, that a similar excess of intolerant bigotry precipitated James II. from the throne of Britain, and forced him to seek an asylum from the monarch of France (1688).

12. William, prince of Orange, the inveterate enemy of Louis, brought about the league of Augsburg (1686); and the war was renewed with France by Germany, Sweden, Spain, England, and Holland. The French arms were still successful. The Duke of Luxemburg defeated William in the battles of Steenkirk (1693) and Neerwinden (1693); Noailles was victorious in Spain; and an army of 100,000 French ravaged the Palatinate, and took many of the most important towns on the Rhine. This was the crisis of the glory of Louis, whose fortunes were to sustain the most mortifying reverse.

13. Those various and most extensive military enterprises, however flattering to the pride of the monarch, had been attended with enormous expense, and no solid advantage to the nation. The finances had fallen into disorder after the death of Colbert (1683); a peace was absolutely necessary; and by the treaty of Ryswick, concluded in 1697, Louis restored to Spain all the conquests made in the two last wars, the dutchy of Lorraine to its duke, and acknowledged the right of William III. to the crown of England, (and retained of the German "reunions" only Alsace, with Strasburg and Landau.)

14. The succession to the kingdom of Spain, on the expected death of Charles II. without issue, was now the object of political intrigue. The emperor and the king of France had the only natural right of succession; but William III. of England, from the dread of such an increase of power to either, proposed a treaty of partition of the Spanish dominions, at home and abroad, between the Elector of Bavaria, the Dauphin, and the emperor's second son. Charles II. chose rather to make his own destination, and appointed by will that the Duke of Anjou, second son of the Dauphin, and grandson of Louis, should inherit Spain; on whose death without issue, it should devolve on the archduke Charles, youngest son of the emperor.

15. On the death of Charles, the Duke of Anjou succeeded to the throne of Spain (as Philip V.), in virtue of this settlement. The emperor, the king of England, and the Dutch, proposed to separate from his crown the Spanish dominions in Italy. In this enterprise, Prince Eugene, son of the Count de Soissons, commanded the imperial troops-an illustrious renegado from France, of great prowess and military skill.

16. James II. of England died in 1701 at St. Germain's, and Louis gave mortal offence to that government by acknowledging the title of his son. On the death of king William in the year following, war was declared by England, Holland, and the empire, against France and Spain. Louis XIV. was now in the decline of life. He had lost the ablest of his ministers and his greatest generals. The finances of the kingdom were exhausted. The armies of his enemies were commanded by Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough, the ablest generals of the age, and supported by the treasures of the united powers. Savoy and Portugal joined this formidable confederacy to overwhelm both branches of the house of Bourbon, and place the emperor's son on the throne of Spain.

17. Marlborough took Venlo, Ruremonde, and Liege, and, together with Eugene, defeated Tallard and Marsin, with the Elector of Bavaria, in the signal battle of Blenheim (1704). England and Holland attacked Spain by sea and land. Catalonia and Valencia were subdued in six weeks; and Gibraltar, taken by the English, under Rooke, has ever since remained with them (1704). In the battle of Ramilies, Marlborough defeated Villeroy, and left 20,000 dead on the field (1706). The contest, at first doubtful in Italy, ended alike disastrously for the house of Bourbon. The archduke Charles was in the meantime proclaimed king at Madrid; and Philip V. had serious thoughts of abandoning Spain, and establishing his dominion in America. But the successes of the Duke of Berwick, natural son of James II., recovered for a while his desponding spirit, and even prompted his grandfather Louis to avenge himself on England, by aiding the bold but desperate enterprise of establishing the pretender James on the throne of Britain, on the death of Anne in 1714.

18. But France and Spain were daily losing ground. The pope had acknowledged the title of the archduke Charles; the English seized the Mediterranean islands; and Louis, fallen from all his proud pretensions, humbly entreated a peace, which was refused, unless on the condition of dethroning his grandson with his own arms. He maintained for a while this unequal contest, and was at length forced to propose terms equally humiliating: the cession of all his conquests in the Netherlands and on the Rhine, the acknowledgment of the archduke's title to the crown of Spain, and a promise to give no aid to his grandson; but these were refused, and the inhuman condition still insisted on, that he should himself assist in dethroning his grandson. A last exertion was made in Spain, under the Duke of Vendôme, at the head of a prodigious army; and the victory obtained by the French at Villa-vitiosa restored Philip V. to the throne of Spain (1710). His competitor, the archduke Charles, soon after became emperor, on the death of his elder brother.

19. The intrigues of the cabinet of Queen Anne, and the coming in of a Tory ministry, changed the politics of Europe. It

was resolved to make peace with France and Spain; and the treaty was concluded at Utrecht (1713). It was stipulated that Philip, king of Spain, should renounce all eventual right to the crown of France, as his brother should to the crown of Spain; the Dutch obtained an extension of frontier; the emperor a great part of Spanish Flanders: the English gained from Spain, Gibraltar and Minorca; and from France, Acadia, Newfoundland, and Hudson's Bay; with one term most humbling to the latterthe demolition of the harbour of Dunkirk. In the following year, a peace was concluded at Rastadt between France and the empire. 20. The conclusion of this peace, after an honourable war, was the most memorable event in the reign of Queen Anne, if we except the union of the two kingdoms of England and Scotland (1706), which was brought about by the negociation of commissioners mutually chosen, to secure the rights of either kingdom in the best manner for their mutual benefit. It was stipulated that they should be represented by one parliament (Sect. XXII., § 8), but that each kingdom should retain its own laws and its established religion, and that they should have the same privileges with respect to commerce. The succession to the crown was limited to the house of Hanover. Queen Anne died 30th of July, 1714; and Louis XIV. on the 1st September, 1715, in the 78th year of his age-a prince of great vigour of mind, of good talents, though unimproved by education, of dignified yet amiable manners, and whose greatest fault was his inordinate ambition, to which he sacrificed the real interests of his people. It was his highest honour, that he discerned and recompensed every species of merit; and France was in his time equally illustrious by the great military talents of her generals, and by the splendour of literature and the arts and sciences, which has made this period be considered the golden age of France.

SECTION XXXI.

OF THE CONSTITUTION OF FRANCE UNDER THE MONARCHY.

1. It is necessary, for understanding the history of France, that we should have some acquaintance with its former monarchial constitution; and we shall very briefly trace the progress of its government under the different races of its sovereigns. The regal prerogative was, under the Merovingian princes, extremely limited (-752. See M. A., Sect. II., III.) The general assembly of the nation had the right of electing the sovereign, and the power of legislation. Under the Carlovingian race, the authority acquired by Pepin and Charlemagne sunk to nothing in the hands of their weak posterity; and though the crown had ceased to be elective, the regal dignity was a mere shadow. The power