An Introduction to the History of Western Europe Part 67

257. Napoleon had been as thoroughly despotic in his government as any of the monarchs who regained their thrones after his downfall, but he was a son of the Revolution and had no sympathy with the ancient abuses that it had done away with. In spite of his despotism the people of the countries that had come under his influence had learned the great lessons of the French Revolution. Nevertheless, the restored monarchs in many of the smaller European states proceeded to reestablish the ancient feudal abuses and to treat their subjects as if there had been no French Revolution and no such man as Napoleon. In Spain, for example, the Inquisition and the monasteries were restored and the clergy exempted anew from taxation. In Hesse-Ca.s.sel, which had formed a part of the kingdom of Westphalia, all the reforms introduced by Napoleon and his brother were abolished. The privileges of the n.o.bility, and also the feudal burdens of the peasantry, were restored. The soldiers were even required to a.s.sume the discarded pigtails and powdered wigs of the eighteenth century. In Sardinia and Naples the returning monarchs pursued the same policy of reaction. The reaction was not so sudden and obvious in the greater European states,--France, Prussia, Austria, and Russia.

[Sidenote: The restoration of the Bourbons in France.]

[Sidenote: Policy of Louis XVIII, 1814-1824.]

258. The French had aroused themselves in 1793-1794 to repel the foreign powers, Austria and Prussia, who threatened to intervene in the domestic concerns of the country, and to reestablish the old regime. Twenty years later, in 1814, when the allies entered Paris, there was no danger either of a popular uprising, or of the reestablishment of the old abuses. It is true that the Bourbon line of kings was restored; but France had always been monarchical at heart. It was only the ill-advised conduct of Louis XVI in the peculiar circ.u.mstances of 1791-1792 that had led to his deposition and the establishment of a republic, which Napoleon had easily converted into a monarchy. The new king, Louis XVIII, left the wonderful administrative system of Napoleon intact and made no effort to destroy the great achievements of the Revolution. He granted the nation a const.i.tution called the "Charter," which is a most interesting doc.u.ment from two standpoints.

[Sidenote: The Charter of 1814.]

In the first place, the provisions of the Charter of 1814 furnish us with a statement of the permanent results of the Revolution. The concessions that Louis XVIII found it expedient to make, "in view of the expectations of enlightened Europe," help us to measure the distance that separates his time from that of his elder brother. In the second place, no other const.i.tution has yet lasted the French so long as did the Charter.[438] Although somewhat modified in 1830, it was maintained down to 1848.

All Frenchmen are declared by the Charter to be equal before the law, and equally eligible to civil and military positions. Personal and religious liberty is insured, and all citizens, without distinction of rank, are required to contribute to the taxes in proportion to their means. In short, almost all the great reforms proclaimed by the first Declaration of the Rights of Man are guaranteed. The laws are to be made by the king in cooperation with a House of Peers and a popular body, the Chamber of Deputies; the latter may impeach the king's ministers.

[Sidenote: Policy of the reactionary party in France.]

In spite of these enlightened provisions attempts were made by the old emigrant n.o.bles--still led by their original leader, the king's brother, the count of Artois--and by the clergy, to further a reaction in France.

This party induced the French _parlement_ to pa.s.s certain oppressive measures, and, as we shall see, persuaded Louis XVIII to cooperate with the other reactionary rulers in interfering to quell the revolutionary movements in Italy and Spain.

THE LAST BOURBON KINGS

Louis XIII (d. 1643) | +------------------+---------------------------------+ | | Louis XIV (d. 1715) Philip, Duke of Orleans | | Louis XV (d. 1774), | great-grandson of Louis XIV | | | Louis the Dauphin (d. 1765) | | | +------------------+-----------------+ | | | | | Louis XVI Louis XVIII Charles X | (d. 1793) (d. 1824), (deposed 1830), | | Count of Provence Count of Artois | | | Louis XVII (d. 1795) Louis Philippe I, great-great-grandson of Philip (deposed 1848)

[Sidenote: Charles X deposed in 1830 and replaced by Louis Philippe.]

In 1824 Louis XVIII died and was succeeded by the count of Artois, who took the t.i.tle of Charles X. Under his rule the reactionary policy of the government naturally became more p.r.o.nounced. A bill was pa.s.sed indemnifying the n.o.bility for the property they had lost during the Revolution. Other less just measures led to the dethronement of the unpopular king in 1830, by a revolution. Louis Philippe, the descendant of Henry IV through the younger, or Orleans, branch of the Bourbon family, was put upon the throne.[439]

[Sidenote: Three chief results of Napoleon's influence in Germany.]

[Sidenote: Disappearance of most of the little states.]

259. The chief effects of the Napoleonic occupation of Germany were three in number. First, the consolidation of territory that followed the cession of the left bank of the Rhine to France had, as has been explained, done away with the anomalous ecclesiastical states, the territories of knights, and most of the free towns. Only thirty-eight German states, including four towns, were left when the Congress of Vienna took up the question of forming a confederation to replace the defunct Holy Roman Empire.

[Sidenote: Advantageous position of Prussia.]

Second, the external and internal conditions of Prussia had been so changed as to open the way for it to replace Austria as the controlling power in Germany. A great part of the Slavic possessions gained in the last two part.i.tions of Poland had been lost, but as an indemnity Prussia had received half of the kingdom of Saxony, in the very center of Germany, and also the Rhine provinces, where the people were thoroughly imbued with the revolutionary doctrines that had prevailed in France.

Prussia now embraced all the various types of people included in the German nation and was comparatively free from the presence of non-German races. In this respect it offered a marked contrast to the heterogeneous and mongrel population of its great rival Austria.

The internal changes were no less remarkable. The reforms carried out after Jena by the distinguished minister Stein and his successor, Hardenberg, had done for Prussia somewhat the same that the first National a.s.sembly had done for France. The abolition of the feudal social castes, and the liberation of the serfs made the economic development of the country possible. The reorganization of the whole military system prepared the way for Prussia's great victories in 1866 and 1870, which led to the formation of a new German empire under her heads.h.i.+p.

[Sidenote: Demand for const.i.tutional government.]

Third, the agitations of the Napoleonic period had aroused the national spirit. The appeal to the people to aid in the freeing of their country from foreign oppression, and the idea of their partic.i.p.ation in a government based upon a written const.i.tution, had produced widespread discontent with the old absolute monarchy.

[Sidenote: The German Confederation of 1815.]

When the form of union for the German states came up for discussion at the Congress of Vienna, two different plans were advocated. Prussia's representatives submitted a scheme for a firm union like that of the United States, in which the central government should control the individual states in all matters of general interest. This idea was successfully opposed by Austria, supported by the other German rulers.

Austria realized that her possessions, as a whole, could never be included in any real German union, for even in the western portion of her territory there were many Slavs, while in Hungary and the southern provinces there were practically no Germans at all. On the other hand, she felt that she might be the leader in a very loose union in which all the members should be left practically independent. Her ideal of an international union of sovereign princes under her own heads.h.i.+p was almost completely realized in the const.i.tution adopted.

[Sidenote: Character of the German const.i.tution.]

The confederation was not a union of the various _countries_ involved, but of "The Sovereign Princes and Free Towns of Germany," including the emperor of Austria and the king of Prussia for such of their possessions as were formerly included in the German empire; the king of Denmark for Holstein; and the king of the Netherlands for the grand duchy of Luxembourg. The union thus included two sovereigns who were out-and-out foreigners, and did not include all the possessions of its two most important members.[440]

The diet which met at Frankfort was composed (as was perfectly logical), not of representatives of the people, but of plenipotentiaries of the rulers who were members of the confederation. The members reserved to themselves the right of forming alliances of all kinds, but pledged themselves to make no agreement prejudicial to the safety of the union or of any of its members, or to make war upon any member of the confederation on any pretense whatsoever. The const.i.tution could not be amended without the approval of _all_ the governments concerned. In spite of its obvious weaknesses, the confederation of 1815 lasted for a half a century, until Prussia finally expelled Austria from the union by arms, and began the formation of the present German federation.

[Sidenote: Political a.s.sociations of German students.]

260. The liberal and progressive party in Germany was sadly disappointed by the failure of the Congress of Vienna to weld Germany into a really national state. They were troubled, too, by the delay of the king of Prussia in granting the const.i.tution that he had promised to his subjects. Other indications were not wanting that the German princes might not yet be ready to give up their former despotic power and adopt the principles of the French Revolution advocated by the liberals. A "League of Virtue" had been formed after the disastrous battle of Jena to arouse and keep alive the zeal of the nation for expelling the invader. This began to be reenforced, about 1815, by student a.s.sociations organized by those who had returned to their studies from the war of independence. The students anathematized the reactionary party in their meetings, and drank to the freedom of Germany. October 18, 1817, they held a celebration in the Wartburg to commemorate both Luther's revolt and the anniversary of the battle of Leipsic. Speeches were made in honor of the brave who had fallen in the war of independence, and of the grand duke of Weimar, who was the first of the North German princes to give his people a const.i.tution. The day closed with the burning of certain reactionary pamphlets.

This innocent burst of enthusiasm excited great apprehension in the minds of the conservative statesmen of Europe, the leader among whom was the Austrian minister, Metternich. The murder by a fanatical student of a journalist, who was supposed to have influenced the Tsar to desert his former liberal policy, cast discredit upon the liberal party. It also gave Metternich an opportunity to emphasize the terrible results which he antic.i.p.ated would come from the students' a.s.sociations, liberal governments, and the freedom of the press.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Metternich]

[Sidenote: The 'Carlsbad Resolutions,' 1819.]

The extreme phase in the progress of reaction in Germany was reached when, with this murder as an excuse, Metternich called together the representatives of the larger states of the confederation at Carlsbad in August, 1819. Here a series of resolutions were drawn up with the aim of checking the free expression of opinions hostile to existing inst.i.tutions, and of discovering and bringing to justice the revolutionists who were supposed to exist in dangerous numbers. These "Carlsbad Resolutions" were laid before the diet by Austria and adopted, though not without protest.

They provided that there should be a special official in each university to watch the professors. Should any of them be found "abusing their legitimate influence over the youthful mind and propagating harmful doctrines hostile to the public order or subversive of the existing governmental inst.i.tutions," the offenders were to lose their positions.

The general students' union, which was suspected of being too revolutionary, was to be suppressed. Moreover, no newspaper, magazine, or pamphlet was to go to press without the previous approval of government officials, who were to determine whether it contained anything tending to foster discontent with the government. Lastly, a special commission was appointed to investigate the revolutionary conspiracies which Metternich and his sympathizers supposed to exist throughout Germany.[441]

The attack upon the freedom of the press, and especially the interference with the liberty of teaching in the great inst.i.tutions of learning, which were already becoming the home of the highest scholars.h.i.+p in the world, scandalized all the progressive spirits in Germany. Yet no successful protest was raised, and Germany as a whole, acquiesced for a generation in Metternich's system of discouraging reform of all kinds.

[Sidenote: The southern German states receive const.i.tutions, 1818-1820.]

[Sidenote: Formation of a customs union--_zollverein_--with Prussia at its head.]

Nevertheless, important progress was made in southern Germany. As early as 1818 the king of Bavaria granted his people a const.i.tution in which he stated their rights and admitted them to a share in the government by establis.h.i.+ng a parliament. His example was followed within two years by the rulers of Baden, Wurtemberg, and Hesse. Another change for the better was the gradual formation of a customs union, which permitted goods to be sent freely from one German state to another without the payment of duties at each boundary line. This yielded some of the advantages of a political union. This economic union, of which Prussia was the head, and from which Austria was excluded, was a harbinger of the future German empire.[442]

[Sidenote: Metternich opposes revolutionary movements in Spain and Italy.]

261. Metternich had met with signal success in his efforts to keep Germany at a standstill. When, in 1820, the kings of Spain and Naples were compelled by popular uprisings to accept const.i.tutions, and so surrender their ancient right to rule their subjects despotically, it was but natural that Metternich should urge the European powers to unite for the purpose of suppressing such manifestations. He urged that revolts of this kind set a dangerous example and threatened the tranquillity and security of all the other absolute monarchs.

[Sidenote: Italy only 'a geographical expression' in 1820.]

Italy was at this time what Metternich called only "a geographical expression"; it had no political unity whatever. Lombardy and Venetia, in the northern part, were in the hands of Austria, and Parma, Modena, and Tuscany belonged to members of the Austrian family. In the south, the considerable kingdom of the Two Sicilies was ruled over by a branch of the Spanish Bourbons. In the center, cutting the peninsula in twain, were the Papal States, which extended north to the Po. The presence of Austria, and the apparent impossibility of inducing the pope to submit to any government but his own, seemed to preclude all hope of making Italy into a true nation. Yet fifty years later the kingdom of Italy, as it now appears on the map of Europe, came into existence through the final exclusion of Austria from the peninsula and the extinction of the political power of the pope.

[Sidenote: Reforms introduced in Italy during the Napoleonic occupation.]

Although Napoleon had governed Italy despotically he had introduced a great many important reforms. He had established political equality and an orderly administration, and had forwarded public improvements; the vestiges of the feudal regime had vanished at his approach. Moreover, he had held out the hope of a united Italy, from which the foreign powers who had plagued and distracted her for centuries should be banished. But his unscrupulous use of Italy to advance his personal ambitions disappointed those who at first had placed their hopes in him, and they came to look for his downfall as eagerly as did the n.o.bility and the dispossessed clergy, whose hopes were centered in Austria. It became clear to the more thoughtful Italians that Italy must look to herself and her own resources if she were ever to become an independent European state.

[Sidenote: Reaction in Italy after Napoleon's downfall.]

[Sidenote: The _Carbonari_.]

The downfall of Napoleon left Italy seemingly in a worse state than that in which he had found it. The hold of Austria was strengthened by her acquisition of Venice. The petty despots of Parma, Modena, and Tuscany, reseated on their thrones by the Congress of Vienna, hastened to sweep away the reforms of the Corsican and to reestablish all the abuses of the old regime, now doubly conspicuous and obnoxious by reason of their temporary abolition. The lesser Italian princes, moreover, showed themselves to be heartily in sympathy with the hated Austria. Popular discontent spread throughout the peninsula and led to the formation of numerous secret societies, which a.s.sumed strange names, practiced mysterious rites, and plotted darkly in the name of Italian liberty and independence. By far the most noted of these a.s.sociations was that of the _Carbonari_, i.e., charcoal burners. Its objects were individual liberty, const.i.tutional government, and national independence and unity; these it undertook to promote by agitation, conspiracy, and, if necessary, by revolution.

[Sidenote: Temporary const.i.tutions in Spain and Naples, 1820.]

The Italian agitators had a superst.i.tious respect for a const.i.tution; they appear to have regarded it not so much as a form of government to be carefully adapted to the needs of a particular country and time, as a species of talisman which would insure liberty and prosperity to its happy possessor. So when the Neapolitans heard that the king of Spain had been forced by an insurrection to grant a const.i.tution, they made the first attempt on the part of the Italian people to gain const.i.tutional liberty by compelling their king to agree to accept the Spanish const.i.tution (July, 1820). However, at the same time that he was invoking the vengeance of G.o.d upon his own head should he violate his oath of fidelity to the const.i.tution, he was casting about for foreign a.s.sistance to suppress the revolution and enable him to return to his old ways.