Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/231

Rh as Grotius. A wonderful man ! This I knew him to be before I had seen him ; but the rare excellence of that divine genius no one can sufficiently feel who does not see his face, and hear him speak. Probity is stamped on his features ; his conversation savours of true piety and pro found learning. It is not only upon me that he has made this impression ; all the pious and learned to whom he has been here introduced have felt the same towards him ; the king especially so!&quot; After Grotius s return from England the exasperation of theological parties in Holland gradually rose to such a pitch that it became clear that an appeal to force would sooner or later be made. This Grotius must have foreseen, but he could hardly have anticipated that he himself would be one of the first and principal victims. Grotius was not suffi cient of a philosopher to rise above the level of a mere theo logical wrangle. But from a natural moderation of temper he sought to find some mean term in which the two hostile parties of Remonstrants and Anti-remonstrants, or as they were subsequently called Arminians and Gomarists (see REMONSTRANTS), might agree. A form of edict drawn by Grotius was published by the states, recommending mutual toleration, and forbidding ministers in the pulpit from handling the disputed dogmas. To the orthodox Calvinists the word toleration was insupportable. They had the populace on their side. This fact determined the stadt- holder, Maurice of Nassau, to support the orthodox party a party to which he inclined the more readily that Olden barnevelt, the grand pensionary, the man whose uprightness find abilities he most dreaded, sided with the Remonstrants. In 1618 Prince Maurice set out on a sort of pacific campaign, disbanding the civic guards in the various cities of Guelders, Holland, and Zeeland, and occupying the places with troops on whom he could rely. The states of Holland sent a commission, of which Grotius was chairman, to Utrecht, with the view of strengthening the hands of their friends, the Remonstrant party, in that city. Feeble plans were formed, but not carried into effect, for shutting the gates upon the stadth older, who entered the city with troops on the night of 26th July 1618. There were con ferences in which Grotius met Prince Maurice face to face, and taught him that Oldenbarnevelt was not the only man of capacity in the ranks of the Remonstrants whom he had to fear. On the early morning of 31st July the prince s coup d etat against the liberties of Utrecht and of Holland was carried out ; the civic guard was disarmed, Grotius and his colleagues saving themselves by a precipitate flight. But it was only a reprieve. The grand pensionary, Olden barnevelt, the leader of the Remonstrant party, Grotius, and Hoogeoberz were arrested by order of the stadtholder, brought to trial, and condemned, Oldenbarnevelt to death, and Grotius to imprisonment for life and confiscation of liis property. In June 1619 he was immured in the fortress of Lovestein near Gorcum. His confinement was rigorous, but after a time his wife obtained permission to share his captivity, on the condition that if she came out, she should not be suffered to return Grotius had now before him, at thirty-six, no prospect but that of a lifelong captivity. He did not abandon himself to despair, but sought refuge in returning to the classical p-irsuits of his youth. Several of his translations (into Latin) from the Greek tragedians and other writers, made at this time, have been printed. They are without any philological value, and only prove his taste and facility in the classical languages. &quot; The Muses,&quot; he writes to Voss, &quot; were now his consolation, and appeared more amiable than ever.&quot; The address and ingenuity of Madame Grotius at length devised a mode of escape. It had grown into a custom to send, at stated intervals, the books which he had done with. in a chest, along with his linen to be washed at Gorcum, For many months the warders of the fortress were very exact in searching the chest. But never finding anything but books and linen they grew careless, and began to let the chest pass without opening it. Madame Grotius, per ceiving this, prevailed on her husband to allow himself to be shut up in it at the usual time. The two soldiers who carried the chest out complained that it was so heavy &quot;there must be an Arminian in it.&quot; There are indeed,&quot; said Madame Grotius, &quot; Arminian books in it.&quot; The chest was carried by canal to Gorcum. When it came there they wanted to put it on a sledge ; but the maid telling the boatmen there were some brittle things in it, it was put on a horse, and so carried to the house of a friend, where it was opened, and Grotius released. He was then dressed up like a mason with hod and trowel, and so conveyed in disguise over the frontier. His first place of refuge was Antwerp, from which he proceeded to Paris, where he arrived in April 1621. In October he was joined by his wife. There he was presented to the king, Louis XIII., and a pension of 3000 livres conferred upon him. French pensions were easily granted, all the more so as they were never paid. Grotius was now reduced to great straits. He had not the means of procuring the bare necessaries of life. His family was a growing one, and it was with difficulty that he procured them clothes. His relations in Holland sent him occasionally small remittances in money, clothes, or Dutch butter. He looked about for any opening through which he might earn a living. There was talk of something in Denmark ; or he would settle in Spire, and practise in the court there. Some little relief he got through the intervention of D Aligre, the new chancellor, who procured a royal mandate which enabled Grotius to draw, not all, but a large part of his pension. In 1623 the president Henri de Meme lent him his chateau of Balagni near Senlis (dep. Oise), and there Grotius passed the spring and summer of that year. De Thou gave him facilities to borrow books from the superb library formed by his father. Under these circumstances the De. jure belli d pads was composed. The biographers are naturally astonished by the fact that a work of such immense reading, consisting in great part of quotation, could have been written in little more than a year. The achievement would have been, not wonderful, but impossible, but for the fact above mentioned that Grotius had with him the first draft of the work made in 1604. He had also got his brother William, when he was reading his classics, to mark down all the passages which touched upon law, public or private. In March 1625 the printing of the J)e jure belli, which had taken four months, was completed, and the edition despatched to the fair at Frankfort. His own honorarium as author consisted of 200 copies, of which, however, he had to give away many to friends, to the king, the principal courtiers, the papal nuncio, &c. What remained he sold for his own profit, at the price of a crown each, but the sale did not recoup him his outlay. But though his book brought him no profit it brought him reputation, so widely spread, and of such long endurance, as no other legal treatise has ever enjoyed. Grotius naturally hoped that his fame would soften the hostility of his foes, and that his country would recall him to her service. In this he was disappointed. Theological rancour prevailed over all other sentiments. After some fruitless attempts to re-establish himself in Holland, Grotius was fain to accept service under the crown of Sweden, in the capacity of ambassador to the court of France. He was not very successful in negotiating the treaty on behalf of the Protestant interest in Germany, Richelieu having a special dislike to him. He never enjoyed the confidence 