The French people

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. — The arrival of the Franks ii

The first period in the history of France — Gaul at the time of the Roman Conquest — Gallia Narbonensis — Roman Gaul — Lugdunum or Lyons — Teutonic invasions — The Visigoths — The Burgundians — The Franks — The accession of Clovis — His conversion — Brittany — Burgundy, Aquitaine — Kingdom of the Merovingians — The Frankish settlement — France Christian — Continuity with the Roman Empire.

Introduction

France is a country which from Roman times has influenced the ideas of Christendom. Abounding in natural wealth, her compactness and central position have given her many advantages over the rest of Europe, Recovering rapidly from the onslaughts of the Northmen, she led the crusades, and, having checked the feudal instincts of her baronage, became under Philip Augustus and Louis IX ihe first centralized national monarchy in Europe. In spite of her temporary effacement during the horrors of the Hundred Years' War she soon regained her lost position, and' under Louis XI was built up a great absolute monarchy for other nations to imitate. In 1494 her invasion of Italy inaugurated modern times, and France led the way in endeavouring to reconcile the movements of the Renaissance and the Reformation. Though she failed to establish her supremacy in Italy, and though for some forty years was the prey to religious and civil war, she suddenly under Louis XIII and XIV shook ofif her internal troubles, and, having suppressed the nobles, the Huguenots, and the Frondeurs, dominated Europe politically and intellectually for nearly a century. Her failure in the eighteenth century to compete with the colonial expansion of England relegated her for a time to a secondary position among the great nations. This retirement was, however, only momentary, for the French revolutionary wars found her with vigour unimpaired and the enthusiasm of her sons for noble ideals unabated.

The victories of Napoleon, in spite of his eventual defeat and captivity, left France in possession of a Napoleonic legend which is by no means a mere memory. And, though republican experiments have been and are still being tried, France remains " the centre of life, heart of Europe, France of Charlemagne, St. Louis, Napoleon," with Napoleonic and revolutionary legends struggling for mastery.

Her Geographical Position. — Her eastern frontier is partly arbitrary, partly natural. From Dunkirk a line drawn through the Ardennes forests along the Belgian and Luxemburg frontiers to a point on the Vosges mountains nearly opposite Strasbourg would fairly and accurately represent her northeastern boundary.

Thence the line runs along the heights of the Vosges southward so as to include the pass of Belfort, and from Belfort it passes along the line of the Jura skirting Geneva and to the summit of Mont Blanc.

It then follows the Alps till it deflects to the east so as to include all that was Savoy before 1859. Turning suddenly westward to the Pass of Mont Cenis it takes a southern direction along the Alps, skirts Dauphine, and reaches the Mediterranean about three miles east of Mentone. This boundary has suffered many changes during French history, and under the Directory and Napoleon

The Rivers of France 3

France could boast that the Rhine itself was the eastern and northeastern limit of her territories.

Four great rivers are to be found in France. Of these, the Rhone flows from north to south between the Alps and the Cevennes, and passes Lyons, Vienne, Orange, Avignon, and Aries before it falls into the Mediterranean. Above Lyons the population is mainly Gallic; below it are to be found Ligurians with traces of Greek and Roman blood.

The Garonne, which flows from east to west, drains Guienne and Gascony, and passes by Bordeaux into the Bay of Biscay. South of this river, in the southwestern corner of France, are still to be found the Basques, an Iberian race who are a dark people, untouched by foreign civilization and attached to seafaring pursuits.

North of the Garonne the GalHc race is to be found, and it is especially pure between the Garonne and the Loire and between the Loire and Normandy. The Loire itself, like the Garonne, flows from the east of France to the western sea, passing by Nevers, Orleans, Blois, Tours, and Nantes. Near it the Angevin kings of England spent much of their time, and the whole region is one of the most interesting, historically speaking, in France.

From the Vosges, past Troyes, Paris, and Rouen, flows the Seine, which empties itself at Havre into the English Channel. In Normandy, as in the northeast and east, an infusion of Teutonic blood is to be found, which is largely modified elsewhere by a mixture of Celtic blood.

Bounded on the southeast and east by the Alps, the Jura, and the Vosges, with the Cevennes stretching from the Rhone to near Lyons, if we accept the long series of heights extending from the Pyrenees to Mont St. Gothard, and excluding the mass of the Cevennes and the lower hills of the Lyonnais Charolais and Cote d'Or, France is mainly composed of a great plain divided into three parts by the Seine, the Loire, and the Garonne, and peopled to a very large extent by Celts.

With a temperate climate and a clever and industrious people, France has been by nature enabled to play an important part in the world's history. Certain characteristics in her development and in her government force themselves upon the notice of all students of her past.

Her Wars. — The influential position always enjoyed by France was due in great measure to the frequent wars waged by her, either for conquest or defence.

Her sons took a leading part in resistance to Islam and in the crusades, and spread all over Europe and the East the fame of the French arms and the knowledge of the French tongue. Her Italian wars, together with the long struggle with the Hapsburgs, which was waged by Francis I and Henry II in the sixteenth, by Richelieu and Louis XIV in the seventeenth, by Louis XV, the Committee of Public Safety, and the Directory in the eighteenth, and by Napoleon in the present century, spread the influence of French ideas far and wide.

These wars, waged either in defence of France or for conquest, were often caused by circumstances connected with the geographical position of France or by the warlike tendencies of the races which inhabited the country.

Leading Characteristics of the French Nation. — The history of France presents in its course many features

The Love of Monarchy 5

peculiar to itself and which differentiate it from that of other European countries.

The steady growth of the absolute monarchy, due to the love of the majority of Frenchmen for a strong government, to the financial maladministration extending over centuries, and to the gradual concentration in Paris of all the threads of government, can be traced clearly from the accession of the Capetian dynasty. The very checks to the increased influence of Paris and to the formation of a centralized monarchical system, as exemplified by the difference between the people living north and south of the Loire and by such institutions as the Parlement of Paris, impeded for a time, but could not stay, the regular development on the lines already described. In fact, such centrifugal tendencies as exemplified by the Albigensian war, the adhesion of Bordeaux and the surrounding district to England for some centuries, the Huguenot attempts to gain an independent position, the rising in the Cevennes at the beginning and the Girondist movement at the end of the eighteenth century do but intensify the interest which attaches to the study of the history of a Latin nation possessed of many diversities of language, traditions, and aims. The Gaul of Julius C^sar, the West Prankish dominions of Charles the Great, the France of Hugh Capet, of St. Louis, and of Louis XIV, in spite of the irruption and settlement of ahen peoples, have in the main identical characteristics.

Love of a Monarchy. — Of the above characteristics the most noticeable is the love of a strong government. The monarchy was always popular in France, while representative institutions never flourished. The monarchy was associated with triumphs abroad and with territorial unity at home. Philip Augustus, St. Louis, Philip IV, Charles V, Louis XI, Henry IV, Louis XIV — all were supported by the mass of the French nation.

In spite of periods of weakness the French monarchy always asserted itself successfully against its foes; it became absolute and despotic in the seventeenth century, and was not overthrown till 1792.

Since the Revolution the French have professedly substituted the passion for equality for their veneration of a monarchical form of government. Napoleon's career was, however, popular, and a successful soldier who would satisfy the national love of equality and the universal appreciation of glory might hope again to control the destinies of France.

Financial Maladministration. — ^What overthrew the monarchy and has throughout the whole of her history weakened France was financial maladministration. An enormously rich country, France has suffered in a most extraordinary way from bad financial management.

As early as the days of Philip IV the evil of financial maladministration had appeared, and in spite of the efforts of reformers like Jacques Coeur, Sully, and Colbert was never removed. This serious drawback to real improvement in the condition of France was not due entirely to the despotic action of the Crown. The States- General of 1356 and 1357 committed grave financial blunders, and found themselves compelled to re-establish the gabelle — as the unpopular tax on salt was called. Charles V, the greatest of the French kings before Louis XI, carried out many valuable reforms, but his financial measures are open to criticism. He compelled every family to buy a certain amount of salt, and, what

Financial Mismanagement 7

was worse, he frequently sold or granted exemptions from taxation to districts, corporations, and even to a class. His taxes were thus unequal and arbitrary, and he began the system of imposing customs on the transit of trade from one province to another.

Undoubtedly his military and civil expenses, owing to the war with England, were high, and a similar condition of things prevailed under Louis XI, while Louis XII's empty treasury was in great part due to the Italian wars of his predecessor, Charles VIII. At any rate, it was Louis XII who raised the sale of offices into a regular system, thus surrendering the hold of the Crown on its own officials. Henry IV still further systematized this disastrous custom, and by instituting the paillette enabled the Parlement of Paris to grow into a powerful hereditary corporation, which henceforward showed its independence by becoming in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries one of the most serious opponents of royalty.

Richelieu had the power, but, unfortunately, had not the desire to carry out financial reforms. He openly proclaimed his ignorance and indifference to finance, interfering with it as little as he could. Had Richelieu given France an efficient financial system his country would have been far better able to cope with England in America and India during the eighteenth century. As it was, he never attempted to grapple with the unfair system of taxation, and his successor, Mazarin, also failed to carry out any improvements. Colbert, indeed, made a partially successful series of efforts to cleanse the Augean stable, but Louis XIV's wars and domestic expenditure, and the exemptions enjoyed by the upper classes, reduced France soon after his great minister's death to a condition of semi-bankruptcy. In fact, it is hardly too much to say that if it had not been for the existence of a vast system of privilege, which, rendered financial reforms impossible, the Revolution would never have taken place. During the eighteenth century things worsened steadily. In spite of the efforts of such men as the brothers Paris and Turgot, the financial maladministration continued, and was one of the principal causes of the outbreak of the French Revolution.

That such a subtle evil should have been allowed to grow till it overthrew the monarchy was due in great riieasure to the lack of able financial administrators. It was also partly caused by the failure of the French to establish a check upon the executive, such as England has, in a system of parliamentary government.

One of the most remarkable features in French history is the way in which the States-General never succeeded in establishing itself as a regular and recognised means of expressing the wishes of the mass of the people. The cleavage between classes and the isolated position of the provinces were the causes of this phenomenon, so difficult of explanation to the Teutonic mind. France, unlike England, never experienced the blessing of a Norman conquest to give her unity and homogeneity.

Grozuth of Paris. — And as the provinces, which were of diverse origin and interests, remained isolated and estranged from each other Paris increased steadily in importance till she gained her present position and dominated France.

French Colonies 9

This supremacy of Paris was finally and completely effected by the Revolution of 17^, which, in order to destroy all remains of provincial independence and to make France a really compact power, substituted eighty-three departments for the thirty-two provinces. Thus a united France was created, and being attached by a coalition the French were enabled to occupy the boundaries of ancient Gaul.

Territorial Expansion. — Through the greater part of French history, certainly since the days of Francis I, the object of the great rulers of France was to extend the French borders to the Scheldt, the Rhine, and the Alps. Henry IV, Richelieu, Louis XIV, and Louis XV — all endeavoured, not entirely without success, to advance the French boundaries. Even to this day, in spite of the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, Frenchmen look forward to the time when the Scheldt and the Rhine shall be the border lines of France on the northeast and east frontiers.

Failure to Found Colonies. — The endeavours of France to found a colonial system have not proved very encouraging. Successful colonial expansion and the power of forming self-supporting settlements across the seas seem to be denied to her. Yet France Had apparently admirable opportunities of anticipating England in the foundation of colonies and the conquest of dependencies in various parts of the world. But France was hampered, partly by the rooted aversion of her people to emigration, partly by the methods used and the policy adopted towards her colonists, and was forced to see herself supplanted in North America and in India by the less-organized but more enterprising Anglo-Saxons.

lo The French People

The Position of France. — Her central position, which enables her to exer^se a controlling influence upon Spain and Italy, and which adapts her for wars of aggression, gives France at once a powerful influence in Europe, while her contact with the Mediterranean and her African possessions now brings her into connection with the far East. With her western shores washed by the Atlantic, her American interests are naturally very extensive, and though Louis XIV's extensive colonial schemes in Canada failed, France brought to the Americans in the war against England invaluable assistance.

France is thus fitted by her position, by the character of her people, and by her history to excel in the arts of civilization no less than in war, both by sea and land. Her peasants, diligent, industrious, and conservative by nature, are always guided by the militant instincts of the upper classes and influenced by the existence of a powerful army. Both in the domain of thought and also by her arms France has in the past swayed Europe; it is by no means improbable that she will long continue to be one of the great centres of European political and social life.

Chapter I The Arrival Of The Franks

From the year 121 b. c, the beginning of the Roman conquest, to the year 843 A. d,, the date of the break-up of Charles the Great's empire by the Treaty of Verdun, is comprised the first period in the history of France.

During that period the country which we call France was occupied by Iberians, Gauls, Romans, and Teutons, and the French nation was gradually formed from a mixture of these three elements. The Gauls, who belonged to the Celtic portion of the Aryan race, at the time of the Roman conquest, between 121 and 49 b. c, were divided into eighty or ninety independent tribes. Under the Romans Gaul included not only modern France, but also Switzerland, Alsace, and Belgium — in other words, the lands between the Alps, the Rhine, the Pyrenees, and the ocean. In later French history Louis XIV attempted to extend France to these ancient boundaries of Gaul, while the French Revolutionary armies in 1794 and following years successfully carried out the aim of the Grand Monarque, but Napoleon, fortunately for Europe, failed to grasp the opportunity presented to him, as late as 1814, for establishing the Rhine as the French boundary on the east.

At the period of the Roman conquest the north of Gaul was not far advanced in civiHzation, while the south, where the Gauls traded with the Greeks, was more developed, and was accustomed to letters and to coined money. Massilia, or Marseilles, was practically a Greek city whose influence extended from Nice to Montpellier and far up the Rhone Valley. But the Gauls were under the influence of the Druids; they had no organized military system, they had no political unity, and, like the Anglo- Saxons before the reign of Athelstan, they had no real city life. In Aquitania, in the southwest, lived the Iberians who inhabited Gaul before the Gauls, and whose descendants, the Basques, so celebrated as hardy sailors, still reside under the shadow of the Pyrenees and speak a strange language; to the east the Ligurians, whose tongue is extinct, dwelt on the Mediterranean Riviera; while on the centre and northeast the German tribes were ever threatening to overrun Gaul.

Till the fall of the Roman Empire Julius Caesar and his Roman successors kept these fierce Teutons at bay, but after 476 a. d. they oC?;upied Gaul and eventually gave it the name of France.

Between 121 and 58 b. c. Rome contented herself with occupying Gallia Narbonensis — i. e., all southeastern Gaul which was not influenced by Marseilles — and Narbonne became, its capital. It gradually was extended so as to include all the land between the Rhone, the Cevennes, and the Pyrenees. This district has always remained distinct from the rest of France, and its sons developed qualities not found among the stolid inhabitants of Normandy or the keener dwellers in Brittany. Julius Caesar, however, conquered the whole of Gaul between 58 and

Roman Gaul 13

51 B. c, the fall of Alesia and the capture of Vercingetorix in 52 B. c. deciding the fate of the country. " Henceforward," writes Mr. Warde Fowler, " that splendid country with its gifted population was to exercise an ever-increasing influence on European history; an influence on the whole for good, and one which, in some ways at least, has surpassed that of every other European race."* Finally in 49 b. c. Julius Caesar annexed the Massiliot land to Gallia Narbonensis. All Gaul was now subject to Rome.

Between 27 b. c. and 250 a. d. Gaul was organized and Romanized, principally through the efforts of Augustus. Narbonensis, in the south, had its own municipal system based on' the Roman model, while the rest of France was divided into three provinces — Belgica in the north, Lugdunensis in the centre, and Aquitania in the southwest, and the sixty-four tribes who inhabited the country were given what practically amounted to home rule under the great landowners.

Lugdunum, or Lyons, was the capital of these tribes, a great commercial city, and the meeting-place of a council of representatives of each tribe, which met each August to maintain the state worship — the centre of the Roman administration. An armed force was stationed along the eastern frontier, which preserved Gaul from fear of invasion and overawed the warlike Teutonic tribes.

Under this regime Gaul enjoyed peace for some three centuries, and by the end of that period the Romanization of the country was completed and the provincials had become free Roman citizens. But from about the year

250 A. D. a long period of storm and stress succeeded the years of prosperous though uneventful peace.

From the year 250 a. d. Gaul suffered from constant invasions of the Teutons. The Roman Empire was steadily decaying, its population was declining, and its power of resistance was lessening. Of the invading German hordes the Alamanni and the Franks proved the most dangerous, and the east of Gaul especially suffered from their ravages.

From the reign and policy of Diocletian (284-305) Gaul experienced a certain amount of relief. He divided the empire into four parts, placing a ruler over each; and Spain, Gaul, and Britain, first under Maximian, and then under Constantius Clorus, Julian, and Valentinian I, were able for a time to hold their own against their foes.

At last in 330 Constantine the Great set up Constantinople as a new capital of the empire, which after the death of Theodosius, in 395, split into the Western and the Eastern Empires. While the Eastern Empire survived till the capture of Constantinople, in 1453, the Western Empire perished, and for a time anarchy supervened.

With the end of the period of anarchy a new epoch in the history of Gaul was opened, and the kingdoms of the Visigoths, Burgundians, and Franks took the place in Gaul of the rule of the Roman Empire. The Visigothic kingdom about the year 500 extended from the Loire and Rhone to the south of Spain, and thus included all southwestern Gaul, while the Burgundians, fixing their capital at Lugdunum (Lyons), held most of southeastern Gaul.

The Franks, who arrived last, came, like the Danes

The Accession of Clovis 15

Into England in the ninth century, in tribes and settled in northern Gaul.

Of the two great portions into which the Prankish nation was divided about the middle of the fifth century, the Ripuarians established themselves about Cologne, while the Salian Franks advanced beyond the Scheldt and the Meuse.

These Salian Franks had developed into a nation with a legal system, the Salic law, and with a well-recognised royal power in the hands of the Merovingian family. Round Cambrai and Tournai (Cameracum and Tornacum) were their most important settlements, but in the latter half of the sixth century events occurred which had a very important bearing on the future of their race.

The Roman Empire still existed, and in 451 Aetius, " the last of the Romans," with Roman troops overthrew Attila the Hun at Chalons in what has been called one of the decisive battles of the world. In 476 the last Emperor of Rome, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed, and in 486 Syagrius, a Gallo-Roman noble who attempted to hold his own against the Teutons, was overthrown near Soissons by Clovis, who in 481 had become king of the Salian Franks.

The accession of Clovis marks the beginning of the supremacy of the Franks in the west, while the battle of Soissons decided the fate of northern Gaul. The next ten years were occupied by the Franks in strengthening their hold on all Gaul north of the Loire and in preparing for further conquests.

During these years Clovis conquered the Alamanni

beyond the Rhine and became a Christian. From 446 to

510 he made Burgundy a tributary state, and, what was even more important in the history of France, he overthrew the Visigoths at the battle of Vougle in 507, overran the country to the Garonne, and, though he was defeated near Aries, he continued to hold all Aquitaine between the Garonne and the Loire. It was not till the fifteenth century that this troublesome region was finally united to the French monarchy. Before he died he made himself the only Frankish king by compassing the death of Sigebert, the ruler of the Ripuarian Franks, and then by killing his son and annexing all the territory occupied by the Ripuarians beyond the Rhine. With the murder of all rivals among the Salian Franks he had by the time of his death removed his enemies from his path. Though Gregory of Tours might declare that " thus did God daily deliver the enemies of Clovis into his hand because he walked before his face with an upright heart," it remains apparent that Christianity had little effect upon the life of this savage Frank.

It is, however, none the less true that Clovis was one of the founders of modern France, though important limitations to his so-called conquest of Gaul must be observed.

Under him the Franks settled to a certain extent in northern Gaul, and Paris, Soissons, Orleans, and Metz became the seats of Frankish kingdoms.

But Brittany was never really conquered, and in Burgundy and Aquitaine the Franks hardly settled at all. Even after the expulsion of the Visigoths south of the Pyrenees and the conquest of Burgundy, Frankish populations never settled south of the Loire, and Aquitaine always tended when the kingly power was weak to recover its independence.

The Prankish Settlement 17

For many centuries Aquitaine and France north of the Loire had little in common, and in race and language there are still salient points of difference to be found among the inhabitants of northern and southern France.

The Merovingians from Clovis onward overran, indeed, southern Gaul, but their actual kingdom consisted of central Germany and northern Gaul. The Loire was practically the limit of their dominion in Gaul.

The whole character of their settlement is in many ways remarkable. Unlike the conquests of the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons in Britain, which meant a clean sweep with all traditions, as well as the disappearance of the Roman language, Roman town life, and the Christian religion, the coming of the Teutons into Gaul implied no break with the old civilization. Their arrival and settlement resembled in many ways the later invasions of the Danes into England, or the Norman conquest. At first as subjects, then as allies, lastly as conquerors,, the Teutonic displacement of the Roman rule was a gradual process. Influenced and impressed by Roman civilization, which survived their arrival, the Teutons showed no disposition to destroy. The Latin tongue as spoken by the common people " was adopted by the Frank, developed into the dialects of medieval France, and, through them, is the parent of modern French." Like the language, so the towns survived, and the great towns of medieval and modern France can date their foundation to Roman times, or, like Marseilles, to a still earlier civilization.

But under the stress of the barbarian invasions the towns were unable to stand alone as semi-independent, self-governing units. For safety and support they were driven to seek the protection of the great landowners, whose estates suffered comparatively little from the Teutonic supremacy, and on which the labour system which existed under the Roman rule survived. This highly civilized country, with its flourishing towns and its developed land system, had by the time of Constantine become Christian. Contact with Roman Christians had resulted in many of the invaders, especially the Visigoths, embracing the Christian religion before they entered Gaul.

At any rate, before the death of Clovis practically all of the newcomers were Christian. France can therefore claim a distinct continuity with the Roman Empire, the highly developed civilization of which formed part of, and immensely influenced the new order of things.

During this distracted time, however, when the barbarians were forcing their way into the empire, lawless violence seemed likely to prevail. It was thought by some that with the fifth century the end of the world was at hand, while the bishops saw in Clovis the " divinely appointed scourge of heresy and wickedness." His conversion preserved for northern France the services of the Church — the only institution of the Roman Empire which survived north of the Loire.

Chapter II The Alliance With The Church

The conversion of Clovis to the orthodox faith after his victory over the Alamanni in 496 is an event of enormous significance. He alone of the Teutonic kings adopted the faith of his Roman subjects, and consequently received from them, and especially from the clergy, that support which no Vandal or Goth or Burgundian could hope for. - The adhesion of Clovis to Christianity was one of the principal causes of his victories and of the permanence of his kingdom. " When you go to battle," wrote Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, to the king, " we shall conquer " ; and strengthened by his alliance with the Bishops of Aries and Langres he defeated the Burgundians. The Bishops of Rodez and Tours summoned him against the Visigoths, while the Bishop of Toulouse gave him every assistance, and the Bishop of Beam not only stirred up a rising against the Visigoths, but died with arms in his hands.

The Armorican states submitted in 497, the Burgundians in 501, and the Visigoths after a fierce combat at Vougle in 507 were broken and dispersed.

As head of the Catholics in Gaul, Clovis became in 510 the sole sovereign of the Franks, and, though his conversion had not changed his cruel, treacherous nature, his alliance with the Church was continued by his successors to their own and their country's advantage.

The conversion of Clovis was a severe blow to Arianism, that form of Christianity held by most of the Teutonic tribes which had settled in the west. The bishops of Rome were strongly opposed to Arianism, and welcomed Clovis as an ally, supported all his undertakings, and about 500 was begun that connection between the popes and Franks which was to have such important effects in the later history of Europe. The Burgundians and Visigoths were Arians, and in his campaign against them, in which their culture disappeared with their Arianism, Clovis acted as the defender of the pure faith of Christianity. Gregory of Tours declares that all sorts of miraculous events, such as the appearance of a brilliant meteor on the steeple of Saint Hilary at Poitiers, pointed to Clovis as the opponent of heresy.