local expenditure or voice in public management; a gentry, in short, debarred from active life, except as officers of the army-shut out by monarchic jealousy from interference in affairs, and by the pride of birth from the pursuits of commerce-is not a gentry at all. A clergy, in the same way, is a priesthood only in right of its belief in the doctrines it professes to hold, and the attention it bestows on its parishioners. Except in some few instances, the Christianity both of faith and practice had disappeared from France. It was time, therefore, that nobility and clergy should also disappear. The excesses of the Revolution which broke out in 1789, and reached their climax in the murder of the king in 1793, showed the excesses of the misgovernment of former years. If there had been one redeeming feature of the ancient system, it would have produced its fruits in the milder treatment of the victims of the reaction. In one or two provinces, indeed, we are told that hereditary attachment still bound the people to their superiors, and in those provinces, the philosophic chronicler of the fact informs us, the centralizing system had not completed its authority. The gentry still performed some of the duties of their station, and the priests, of their profession. Everywhere else blind hatred, unreasoning hope, and bloody revenge. The century, which began with the vainglorious egotism of Louis the Fourteenth and the war of the Spanish Succession,-which progressed through the British masterdom of India and the selfsustaining republicanism of America,-died out in the convulsive strugglings of thirty-one millions of souls on the soil of France to breathe a purer political air and shake off the trammels which had gradually been riveted upon them for three hundred years. Great Britain had preceded them by a century, and has ever since shown the bloodless and legal origin of her freedom by the CLOSE OF THE CENTURY. 525 bloodless and legal use she has made of it. We emerged from the darkness of 1688 with all the great landmarks of our country not only erect, but strengthened. We had king, lords, and commons, and a respect for law, and veneration for precedents, which led the great Duke of Wellington to say, in answer to some question about the chance of a British revolution, that "no man could foresee whether such a thing might occur or not, but, when it did, he was sure it would be done by Act of Parliament." War with France began in 1793. Our military reputation was at the lowest, for Wolfe and Clive had had time to be forgotten; and even our navy was looked on without dismay, for the laurels of Howe and Boscawen were sere from age. But in the remaining years of the century great things were done, and Britannia had the trident firmly in her hand. Jervis, and Duncan, and Nelson, were answering with victories at sea the triumphs of Napoleon in Italy. And while fame was blowing the names of those champions far and wide, a blast came across also from India, where Wellesley had begun his wondrous career. Equally matched the belligerents, and equally favoured with mighty men of valour to conduct their forces, the feverish energy of the newly-emancipated France being met by the healthful vigour of the matured and self-respecting Britain, the world was uncertain how the great drama would close. But the last year of the century seemed to incline the scale to the British side. Napoleon, after a dash at Egypt, had been checked by the guns of Nelson in the great battle of the Nile. He secretly withdrew from his dispirited army, and made his appearance in Paris as much in the character of a fugitive as of a candidate for power. But all the fruits of his former battles had been torn from his A.D. 1798. A.D. 1799. countrymen in his absence. Italy was delivered from their grasp; Russia was pouring her hordes into the South; confusion was reigning everywhere, and the fleets of Great Britain were blocking up every harbour in France. Napoleon was created First Consul, and the Century went down upon the final preparations of the embittered rivals. Both parties felt now that the struggle was for life or death, and "the boldest held his breath for a time," when he thought of what awful events the Nineteenth Century would be the scene. INDEX. ABDELMALEK, the caliph, 167. Abelard, rise of free inquiry with, 280. Absolutism, rise of, in France under Louis Abu Taleb, uncle of Mohammed, 138. Adrian, the emperor, accession and reign Africa, progress of the Saracens in, 166- Agincourt, battle of, 381. America, the discovery of, 396-growing 329. Anglican Church, the, under Henry II., Anglo-Saxons, establishment of the, 120. Antharis, conquest of Italy by, 130. Antoninus Pius, the emperor, his character Aquileia, siege of, by Maximin, 70-taken Agriculture, state of, in seventh century, Aquitaine, power of the Dukes of, 204, 232. Agrippina, the empress, 22. Alaric the Goth, first appearance of, 98- Alexis, the emperor, and the Crusaders, 263. Alfred, rise and exploits of, 215. Alva, the Duke of, the St. Bartholomew Arcadius, the emperor, 101. Aristocracy, the Roman, their decay, 32 et Aristotle, supremacy given to, 297. Arteveldt, James Van, 355. Attila the Hun, career of, 109 et seq. 18. Aulus Plautius, landing of, in England, 21. Aurelian, the emperor, 72-his triumph, Bruce, the victory of, at Bannockburn, 352. Baldwyn, Count of Flanders, 263-habits Baliol, maintained by Edward I., 319. Bannockburn, the battle of, 352. Barbavara, a Genoese admiral, 355. Bedford, the Duke of, in France, 384. Berenger, transubstantiation assailed by, Bishops, increasing alarm of the, in the Black Hole of Calcutta, the tragedy of the, Blanche, mother of Louis IX., urges the Boniface VIII., bull against Edward I. by, Borgia, elevation of, to the Papacy, 369. Bruges, defeat of the townsmen of, at Cas- Brunehild, cruelties and career of, 150- Brunissende de Périgord, mistress of Cle- Buccaneers, rise of the, 452. 279 Burgundians, conquest of Gaul by the, 108. Cade, the insurrection of, 374. Cambrai, the league of, 409 et seq. Carausius, the revolt of, 75. Carlovingian line, close of the, 231. Cathedrals, building of, during the eleventh Catherine de Medicis, the massacre of St. Cavendish, the naval exploits of, 451. eleventh century, 252-enforced by Hil- Centuries, characters of different, 13, 15, et seq. Chæreas, assassination of Caligula by, 20. Charlemagne, accession and reign of, 186 seq. Charles the Simple and Rollo the Norman, Charles VI., decline of the French nobility Charles VII., accession of, 384-the Maid Charles IX., the massacre of St. Bartholo |