Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/614

 578 FRANCE [HISTORY. 1683. The system of &quot; re unions.&quot; Madame de Main- tenon. Mons. It was in these years that abroad and at home Louis XIV. carried out to the full his autocratic ideas, the king all powerful at home, the kingdom omnipotent abroad. So in this time, while the other nations thank fully disbanded their armies, those of Louis remained on foot. Vauban was named commissary-general of fortifica tions, a new office, in 1677, and the moment peace was signed began to fortify and secure all the frontiers of France with strongholds which should be at once gateways for aggression and bulwarks against attack. Finding also that a complete scheme of defences demanded some points which were not yet in his hands, the king began that system of &quot; reunions,&quot; as they were called, by means of which he applied old feudal rules to the acquirement of territories and towns in time of peace. Thus, for example, he niched Strasburg away from Germany, because he wanted that ancient Teutonic city to make his eastern frontier safe and aggressive. The peace of Westphalia to which that of Nimwegen, so far as it dealt with Germany, went back, had in it the feudal term &quot;dependencies.&quot; When it de clared a city to be ceded, it spoke of it as being ceded &quot;with its dependencies&quot;; and Louis XIV. having determined to push this phrase to its furthest application, established in 1679 and the following years three &quot;Chambers of Reunion,&quot; one for the three bishoprics at Metz, a second at Besangon for Franche Comte, the third at Breisach for Alsace. These bodies inquired into all matters of feudal jurisdiction ; and as these old usages, specially the episcopal ones, were wide and vague, they formed a convenient basis for decisions in which the claimant was both judge and executor of his own judgments. The French overlordship over many Germanic districts was at once affirmed and acted on ; territories were occupied with French soldiers, and the strong points fortified or further strengthened ; and before Europe well knew what was doing, the frontiers of France had been pushed forward into Germany, and so strengthened as to make it very difficult to wrest them again away. The Breisach chamber thus secured almost all the lordships in that district, and succeeded, partly by legal argument, partly by bribery, lastly by force, in winning Strasburg in November 1681. At the same time by secret agreement with Charles III. of Mantua, the last of the Gonzaga-Nevers dukes, Louis XIV. became master of Casale, which seemed to secure his permanent influence in northern Italy. The capture of Luxembourg, Courtrai, and Dixmuyde, in the little war with Spain which was waged in 1683- 1684, set the French frontier well forward on the north side of the three bishoprics. All went well with the monarch in these days. Unfortunately for his glory he had still thirty- two years of reign before him ; and these years, the period of Madame de Maintenon, are crowded with blunders, darkened with misfortune. &quot;Here ends&quot; (in 1683), savs the duke of Saint-Simon, &quot; the apogee of this reign, the height of its glory and prosperity. The great captains, the great home and foreign ministers, are no more ; only pupils and disciples remain. We are now to see the second age, which will fall short of the first, though it will be far better than the third and last period of the reign.&quot; Colbert died in this year ; in this year John Sobieski drove the Turks from the walls- of Vienna ; and from the day of their defeat, the fortunes of the Ottoman allies of France also began to recede. Above all, in this same year Louis XIV. was privately married to Madame de Maintenon, and she, with unbounded influence over him, intentionally or not, had a share in the worst errors^of his reign. Franchise d Aubigne&quot; was a Huguenot by birth and breeding; in 1652 the comic poet Scarron, a cripple, and, as he called himself, &quot; an abstract of all human miseries,&quot; married her when she was penniless and friendless ; eight years later she was left a widow, and again without re sources. She had a soft and gentle beauty, a grace and tact, a cold temperament and placid manner, which recom mended her, by way of contrast, to Madame de Montespan, the violent and dangerous beauty who for several years reigned supreme over Louis XIV. At her suggestion poor Madame Scarron was engaged, in 1666, as a kind of nursery governess to her children, the duke of Maine and a daughter. It is curious to see how great are the contrasts in her history. At first Louis was ofiended and hurt at the introduction of this person at court ; she seemed odious to him. He gave her the little Maintenon estate with a stipu lation that he should see her no more ; he thought her a precise and disagreeable predeuse. She had been the wife of a playwright, the centre of a little literary coterie ; the king, with his instinctive dislike for literature, felt a distaste, almost an aversion, for her. Her placid temperament stood the trial well ; after a time, when Madame de Montespan was unusually imperious, he would betake himself to the sweet gentleness of the governess, and cool his heated temper in her calm society. Her influence was all for good ; she weaned him from Montespan, and did not take her place ; she reconciled him to his poor queen, whom he had so long and so scandalously neglected ; and when the queen died in 1683, the governess became the king s wife, and queen in all but name. She never was publicly acknow ledged ; still her position was recognized, and her power felt. Louis worked with her, consulted her in all things ; she was a warm friend to the high Catholic party ; though not openly subject to Jesuit influences (her early training making that unlikely), she did work which the Jesuits could not but like. The king, naturally religious in a stiff and ignorant way, and Madame de Maintenon, narrow, placid, and obstinately afraid of intellect or independence, worked together towards the same ends. The necessity of disarm ing any suspicion the king might feel as to the leaven of Huguenot opinion still fermenting within her led Madame de Maintenon often to countenance things which she could not in heart have approved. She had known the light, and could never afterwards have fallen into utter darkness. Jansenists and Huguenots, in these years, felt the king s dislike increased ; the eagerness for the submission of the one, the conversion of the other, grew day by day into an absorbing passion. And Louis had had no small temptation to interfere with the Jansenists. They held opinions-which, his Jesuit advisers assured him, were of a fatal wrongness ; and in 1682 they had sided to a great extent with Innocent XI. against him. His horror of independence of views combined with his horror of a divided allegiance, and led him to act promptly against them. He convoked a great assembly of clergy, which, under the influence of Bossuet, drew up those four articles which have often been quoted *&quot; as the clearest statement of the liberties of the Gallican church, liberties, that is, as face to face with the pope, not as against the royal power. These articles affirm (1) the independent authority of the secular power; (2) the superi ority of general councils ; (3) the inviolable character of the Gallican usages; (4) the fallibility of the pope except when supported by the assent of the church. There was talk also of a Gallican patriarchate, so far did the quarrel go. The Jansenists, the &quot; Ultramoutanes &quot; of that day, seemed to side with pope against king. In these years the papacy and the monarch were not on good terms together. Innocent XI. looked with favour on the growing resistance, and rejoiced when Protestant William overthrew Catholic James of England. The Jansenists were thus kept down ; the Huguenots were more severely treated, Louvois, un luckily for them, here taking the lead. Great numbers were bribed or threatened into giving up their opinions, others were driven to it by actual hard usage, until in 168.5 Louis, believing that all had been converted except a small