Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/611

 PRANCE UNDER COLBERT.] manufactures and introduced new ones, such as tapestries, silk, mosaics, cabinet-making, lace, cloth of gold, pottery, steel-work, and the like, a long series of &quot; royal manufac tures,&quot; the industries of taste and luxury, which can flourish only on the favour of the great. Colbert s system was therefore one of protection and bounties, and never enabled France to discover for what forms of labour she was by nature specially suited. The true wealth of France lies in her soil, in her varied agriculture and the thrifty habits of her people ; yet the world has ever believed that these &quot; Louis Quatorze &quot; ornaments, these works of art and of little use, are the special glory of French workmanship, the models of good taste. This royal direction thus given to French industry, though it only slowly (if at all) increased the true wealth of the nation, added largely to its credit, and heightened its splendour in the eyes of the world. On industrial movement commerce must naturally wait ; and Colbert attempted much for the circulation of productions. He set on foot four great companies, though they never really prospered. Patronage and direction, which could establish and freshen manufactures, failed here. In the end Frenchmen, with little gifts for colonization, and no decided bias for the sea, learnt chiefly to produce for their own con sumption. In these years, the same royal and official patronage was largely extended to letters and science as well as to the arts. The last was no doubt regarded as directly connected with the general progress of the favourite industries mentioned above ; in building a great palace at ruinous cost, Louis XIV. and Colbert both thought that French industry was being encouraged, and money circu lated. Versailles was undertaken in 1G61 (it had previ ously been a royal hunting-box built by Louis XIII.) ; the famous colonnade of the Louvre. Perrault s work, was begun iu 1665; Bernini was summoned from Rome that same year to assist in the great works. The buildings erected in this period have all the same deadness of style ; they are splendid, no doubt, and crowded with ornaments; we note iu all a want of spontaneous fire ; no longer does genius create ; talent, at the service of a master, can only copy or conceal its poverty under the cloak of rich ornamenta tion. The paving and lighting of Paris was a more bene ficial work ; the quays, squares, and triumphal gates of the period did much to make up for the abandonment of the capital by its kings, for after the days of Henry IV. the Bourbons spent very little time in Paris. Colbert also established at Paris those new learned or scientific academies which were intended, after the pattern of the new Royal Society of London, to stimulate and direct the progress of knowledge. Such were the Academy of Inscriptions, founded in 1663 ; that of the Sciences, in 1666 ; of Archi tecture, in 1671. He also established the school of Rome, built the Observatory, and in every way did his utmost to advance learning and observation. In all, his practical principle was to trust to rule and organization, and to leave as little as possible to genius or national selection, and French industry, arts, and sciences have all suffered accordingly. Nor was the case different in literature : here also Colbert desired to encourage and direct ; the baneful patronage of kings finds here its highest example. For the true golden age of French literature scarcely touches the active reign of Louis XIV.; it is to Richelieu s time, when at the head of affairs was one who not merely patron ized but who warmly interested himself in literature, that the greatest masterpieces belong. The 17th century saw two periods of literary activity, of which the earlier extends to 1661, and is the period of originality and fire ; the later runs from 1661 to the end of the century, and (except for MoliiVe and the great preachers) is lacking in character, if improved in taste and style. France has always been justly proud of her stage, little as wo may admire its pedantic The De- volution war 575 limitations, its unnatural heroics, and the frigidity of some 1661-6. of its finest efforts : we feel that we are among those who would have thought Addison s Cato far superior to Shake speare. Still, in its own style, French tragedy produced masterpieces, and these chiefly under Richelieu and Mazarin, rather than under Louis XIV. Rotrou, who showed the way, died in 1630; the great Corneille wrote the Cid in 1636, Les Horaces and Cinna in 1639. After 1646 his powers declined, and though he still wrote to his life s end, no one now cares for his Agesilaus or his Attila. His brother Thomas, a far inferior dramatist, was worthily re served for Colbert s days. Moliere belonged to both ages ; his Precieuses Ridicules appeared in 1659, Sganarelle in 1660, FJficole des Marls in 1661, while the Medecin male/re lui (1666) and the Tartvffe (1667) belong to Louis XIV. Racine s earlier period, and the best part of him, extends to 1677; after that he fell under royal influences, wrote nothing for some years, and afterwards became the quasi- religious poet of the court; the Esther appeared in 1689 and the A thalie, vhich the French public treated with indifference, was printed 1691. In other lines of poetry Malherbe, the great purist of the century, who, as Boileau sung, &quot; reduisit la muse aux regies du devoir,&quot; died in 1628; Benserade, a trifling wit, flourished with pensions from Richelieu, Mazarin, and Colbert ; La Fontaine wrote many of his fables in the days of the Precieitses, and pub lished his first volume in 1668,- he was one of Fouquet s friends, and therefore not likely to attract the favour of Louis XIV.; Boileau is properly of the later age; satire and comedy seemed alone able to thrive by the side of obsequious oratory. In these palmy days of the reign, Louis XIV. saw with pleasure war break out between England and the Dutch (1664). He was slowly preparing to take part in it against Charles II. when the death of Philip IV. of Spain changed his views completely. He made peace with England in July 1667 (treaty of Breda), and plunged into those complications of European law and usage which interested him intensely. The Spanish succession ques tion at once came up, for no one expected Charles II. of Spain to live long or leave posterity; and the imme diate question of the claims of the queen of France on a large part of the Spanish Netherlands occupied his ener gies. Louis and Lionne snapped their fingers at the queen s renunciations of her Spanish rights, and went even further ; they made claims which, to modern international law, seem to be utterly indefensible. The claim for the Spanish Netherlands was based on the &quot; Jus Devolutions,&quot; the old feudal custom by which certain territories descended to the offspring, male or female, of the first wife, to the ex- elusion of the children by the second. Now Maria Theresa, queen of France, was daughter of Elizabeth of France, the first wife of Philip IV., while his other children sprang from his second wife, Maria Anna of Austria ; and Louis there fore proposed to apply ancient customs of feudal lordship to international matters, to the transfer of territories from one monarch to another. The customs of different districts varied much ; in one way or another he hoped to lay undis puted hands on the Netherlands, Hainault, part of Luxem bourg, even of part of Franche Comte&quot; ; he was prepared to support these flimsy claims by the stronger argument of war. To war it came ; the king with Turenne overran the Netherlands in 1667; Conde, who was governor of Bur gundy, overran Franche Comte in 1668. It was a little war of town taking; places fell, like ripe fruit, for the shaking. Meanwhile Lionne, busy over the negotiations which sprang out of the succession question, had sketched out a partition treaty, in which Leopold and Louis arranged the whole affair to their liking. With this in hand the king, who had returned in high triumph to Paris, and who &quot; Jus Devolu- tlonls -