Part 217

"Charles III. had just died when the French Revolution commenced. He was the best sovereign that Spain had had in a long time; he left good ministers: Aranda, Campomanès, Florida Blanca; but it was not given to them to continue his work. This reparative reign was followed by one the most disintegrating. Spain, elevated anew for an instant by an intelligent prince, was, in a few years, under the government of an imbecile one, to founder in an ignoble intrigue. The web of this latter was begun immediately upon the accession of the new king. Charles IV. was forty years old; corpulent and weak-minded, simple and choleric, incapable of believing evil because he was incapable of conceiving it: amorous, chaste, devout, and consequently the slave of his wife even more than of his temperament, the first years of his marriage blinded him for his entire life. Scrupulous to the point of separating himself from the queen when he no longer hoped to have children by her, he took refuge in the chase, manual labor, violent exercise, caring only for the table, music and bull-fights, exhausted when he had followed his trade of king for half an hour. Small and without beauty, dark of complexion, but with some grace, with elegance and above all carriage, Marie Louise of Parma was at once superstitious and passionate, ignorant, uneasy, with a very frivolous soul as a foundation, with obstinacy without firmness, with artifice without intelligence, with intrigue leading to no result, more covetousness than ambition, much emptiness of mind, still more of heart. Her husband seemed to her coarse and brutish; she despised him. She detested her eldest son and cared moderately for her other children. She was thirty-four years old, of perturbed imagination, of uneasy senses, without any curb of religion or virtue, when she ascended the throne and the fortune of Godoy threw him in her way. He was a small provincial gentleman; for lack of something better, he had entered the life-guards at seventeen. He was then twenty-one. He was very handsome, with a grave beauty frequent in the men of the south, which gives to youth that air of restrained and imperious passion, to mature age that impenetrable and imposing exterior so well calculated to conceal mediocrity of mind, barrenness of heart, despotic selfishness, and all the artifices of a corruption the more insinuating because it seems to be unaware of itself. The queen fell in love with him, and abandoned herself wildly; he took advantage of it without shame. She was not satisfied to make of Godoy her lover, she desired to make a great man of him, a minister, to make him a partner in her power. She introduced him to the court and into the intimacy of the royal household, where Charles IV. tractably became infatuated with him. Marie Louise had at first some circumspection in the gradation of the honors which she lavished upon him, and which marked, by so many scandals, the progress of her passion; but she was very soon entirely possessed by it. Godoy obtained over her an ascendancy equal to that which she arrogated to herself over Charles IV. Thus on the eve of the French Revolution, these three persons, so strangely associated, began, in court costume, and under the austere decorum of the palace of Philip II., that comedy, as old as vice and stupidity, of the compliant husband duped by his wife and of the old mistress exploited by her lover. At the beginning of the reign, Charles IV. from scruple, the queen from hypocrisy, Godoy from policy, became devout. The queen wished power for Godoy, and Godoy wished it for lucre. It was necessary to set aside the old counsellors of Charles III. They were philosophers, the nation had remained catholic. Marie Louise and Godoy relied on the old Spanish fanaticism. The ministers very soon lost influence, and after having secluded them for some time, the queen disgraced them. A complete reaction took place in Spain. The church regained its empire; the Inquisition was re-established. It would appear then that the Revolution must necessarily have found Spain hostile; a Bourbon king and a devout government could but detest it. But before being a Bourbon the king was a husband, and Marie Louise was devout only to mask her intrigues. The same passions led her to desire by turns, war to make her lover illustrious and peace to render him popular. This debilitated and corrupt court found itself given over in advance to all the suggestions of fear, to all the temptations of avidity. Those who had to treat with it did not fail to profit by its feebleness to dominate it. We see it successively linked to England, then to France; treat the Revolution with consideration, condemn it with violence, combat it without vigor; seek an alliance with the Directory, and abandon itself to Napoleon who annihilated it. France found at Madrid only too much docility to her designs; the illusions that she conceived from it became more fatal for her than were for Spain the incapacity and turpitude of its rulers. The French were led by the habits and traditions of the 'ancien regime' to treat the Spaniards as a subordinate nation consigned to the role of auxiliary. Holding the court of Spain as cowardly and venal, the politicians of Paris neglected to take account of the Spanish people. They judged them to be divisible and governable at mercy. {3805} It was not that they despised them nor that they intended to reduce them to servitude as a conquered people; but they thought that the last Austrian kings had enervated and enfeebled them, that they had been uplifted from this decadence only by the Bourbons, that that dynasty was degenerating in its turn; that another foreign government, more intelligent, more enlightened, more resolute, alone could take up again the work of reparation and bring it to a successful result by means of rigorous treatment and appropriate applications. What Louis XIV. had undertaken solely in the interest of despotism, France, herself regenerated by the Revolution, had the right and the power to accomplish, for the highest good of Spain and of humanity. These calculations in which the essential element, that is to say the Spanish character, was suppressed, deceived the Convention, led the Directory astray, and ended by drawing Napoleon into the most fatal of his enterprises."

_A. Sorel, L'Europe et la Revolution française (translated from the French), part 1, pages 373-377._

SPAIN: Libraries.

See LIBRARIES, MODERN (page 2013).

SPAIN: End--------

STAMP TAX ON NEWSPAPERS, English.

See PRINTING AND PRESS: A. D. 1712, and 1853-1870 (pages 2599 and 2602).

STANLEY, Henry M., Explorations of.

See (in this Supplement) AFRICA: 1866-1873, and after.

SUEZ CANAL, Effects of the opening of the.

See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, MODERN: THE RECENT REVOLUTION IN COMMERCE.

SUMERIAN.

See SEMITES: PRIMITIVE BABYLONIA (page 2888).

SUMNER, Senator Charles, The assault of Preston Brooks on.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1856 (page 3398).

SUMTER, Thomas, in the War of the American Revolution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780 (page 3273).

SWEDEN: Start--------

SWEDEN: A. D. 1810. The election of Bernadotte.

"It was necessary to look out for a new successor to the throne. Adlersparre desired the brother of the deceased crown prince, Frederic Christian, duke of Augustenborg, thinking by this means to secure the fruits of the revolution and to keep in view the union between Sweden and Norway. He succeeded in persuading Charles XII. to give his voice for this prince, and the council of State even sustained this idea, with the exception of Adlercreutz who proposed the emperor Alexander's brother-in-law, the Duke of Oldenburg. A third candidate was King Frederic VI. of Denmark, and even Napoleon himself worked in secret for him as he had by this time realized the advantage of the formation of a strong Northern power as a balance against Russia. But the king of Denmark as a candidate was far from popular among the Swedes, and still less prospect was there of the election of prince Gustaf. The Swedish government which had made its determination sent a writing to Napoleon in order to gain his influence in favor of the prince. The message was sent in duplicate by different roads. The choice of the Swedish government did not meet his approval; still he declared that he would not oppose it. One of the couriers who brought the above writing to Paris, was lieutenant in Upland's regiment, baron Carl Otto Mörner. This young officer was no friend of the candidacy of the Duke of Augustenborg; like many other Swedes, especially in the army, he desired as a successor to the throne a warrior, above all a French marshal, persuaded that in that way Sweden would most readily gain the alliance with France, and revenge upon Russia. Among the French marshals Bernadotte, prince of Ponte Corvo, was particularly known in Sweden through his contact with them during the last wars and to him their thoughts had turned in the first place. Young, bold, and forward, at the same time full of the wish to be useful to his country, Mörner had contrived to obtain the office of courier in order to find a successor to the crown at his own risk. He calls on a certain Captain La Pie whose acquaintance he had made on a former visit to Paris, and explains his plans, and La Pie strengthens him in his ideas, that Bernadotte would be preferable before Macdonald, Eugene Beauharnais, and others whom Mörner had in his mind. Through La Pie and the Swedish general consul Signeul, Mörner obtains the necessary information which enables him to meet the Marshal. He calls on Bernadotte and finds him, however careful in his utterance regarding the matter, not opposed to the project; nay Bernadotte hastens immediately after the conference with Mörner to the emperor to impart it to him. Napoleon, who had officially been informed of the thoughts of the Swedish government, looked on the whole matter as a ghost of the brain, but declared that he would not meddle with it. At Mörner's last visit (27 June 1810) Bernadotte gave him leave to communicate that the emperor had nothing against Bernadotte's election and that he himself was ready to accept if the choice fell on him. It is easy to imagine the astonishment of Engström, the minister of state, when he heard Mörner's description of his bold attempt in Paris. 'What do you bring from Paris?' Engström asked, when Mörner came into the foreign Minister's cabinet in Stockholm. 'That I have induced the prince of Ponte Corvo to accept the Swedish crown.' 'How could you speak to him about it without being commissioned?' 'Our only safety lies in the prince of Ponte Corvo.' 'Are you sure that he will receive it so that we are not doubly committed?' 'Certainly. I have a letter here.' 'From him to you?' 'No, from me to him.' 'Boy.' exclaimed Mörner's relation, his excellency Von Essen, at the end of the conference, 'You ought to sit where neither sun nor moon will shine on you.' But Mörner's project won more and more favor in the country though he himself was arrested in Orebro, whereby the government desired to prevent his presence as a member of the house of knights at the special diet called at Örebro for election. Through messengers and a pamphlet on the succession in Sweden he though absent worked for his plan even among the estates which met the 23d July 1810."

_Sveriges Historia, 1805-1875 (translated from the Swedish by L. G. Sellstedt), pages 29-31._

See, also, SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1810 (page 2831).

SWEDEN: Libraries.

See LIBRARIES, MODERN (page 2013).

SWEDEN: End--------

{3806}

SWEDENBORG, and the New Church.

"Swedenborg was born in 1688, and died in 1772. The son of a Lutheran Bishop of Sweden, a student at several universities, and an extensive traveler throughout all the principal countries of Europe, he had exceptional opportunities for testing the essential quality of contemporaneous Christianity. … Until he was more than fifty years of age, Swedenborg had written nothing on religious subjects, and apparently given them no special attention. He was principally known, in his own country, as Assessor Extraordinary of the Board of Mines, and an influential member of the Swedish Diet; and not only there, but throughout Europe, as a writer on many branches of science and philosophy. In this field he acquired great distinction; and the number and variety of topics which he treated was remarkable. Geometry and algebra, metallurgy and magnetism, anatomy, physiology, and the relation of the soul to the body were among the subjects which received his attention. There is to be noticed in the general order of his publications a certain gradual, but steady, progression from lower to higher themes,—from a contemplation of the mere external phenomena of nature to a study of their deep and hidden causes. He was always full of devout spiritual aspirations. In all his scientific researches he steadfastly looked through nature up to nature's God. … Maintaining this inflexible belief in God and revelation, and in the essential unity of truth, Swedenborg, in his upward course, at last reached the boundary line between matter and spirit. Then it was that he entered on those remarkable experiences by which, as he affirms, the secrets of the other world were revealed to him. He declares that the eyes of his spirit were opened, and that he had, from that time forward, conscious daily intercourse with spirits and angels. His general teaching on this subject is that the spiritual world is an inner sphere of being,—not material, and in no wise discernible to natural senses, yet none the less real and substantial,—and that it is the ever-present medium of life to man and nature."

_J. Reed, Why am I a New Churchman? (North American Review, January, 1887)._

"The doctrine of Correspondence is the central idea of Swedenborg's system. Everything visible has belonging to it an appropriate spiritual reality. The history of man is an acted parable; the universe, a temple covered with hieroglyphics. Behmen, from the light which flashes on certain exalted moments, imagines that he receives the key to these hidden significances,—that he can interpret the 'Signatura Rerum.' But he does not see spirits, or talk with angels. According to him, such communications would be less reliable than the intuition he enjoyed. Swedenborg takes opposite ground. 'What I relate,' he would say, 'comes from no such mere inward persuasion. I recount the things I have seen. I do not labour to recall and to express the manifestation made me in some moment of ecstatic exaltation. I write you down a plain statement of journeys and conversations in the spiritual world, which have made the greater part of my daily history for many years together. I take my stand upon experience. I have proceeded by observation and induction as strict as that of any man of science among you. Only it has been given me to enjoy an experience reaching into two worlds—that of spirit, as well as that of matter.' … According to Swedenborg, all the mythology and the symbolisms of ancient times were so many refracted or fragmentary correspondences—relics of that better day when every outward object suggested to man's mind its appropriate divine truth. Such desultory and uncertain links between the seen and the unseen are so many imperfect attempts toward that harmony of the two worlds which he believed himself commissioned to reveal. The happy thoughts of the artist, the imaginative analogies of the poet, are exchanged with Swedenborg for an elaborate system. All the terms and objects in the natural and spiritual worlds are catalogued in pairs."

_R. A. Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics, book 12, chapter 1, (volume 2)._

"It is more than a century since the foundation of this church [the New-Church] was laid, by the publication of the theological writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. For more than half of that time, individuals and societies have been active in translating them, and in publishing them widely. There have been many preachers of these doctrines, and not a few writers of books and periodicals. The sale of Swedenborg's writings, and of books intended to present the doctrines of the church, has been constant and large. How happens it, under these circumstances, that the growth of this church has been and is so slow, if its doctrines are all that we who hold them suppose them to be? There are many answers to this question. One among them is, that its growth has been greater than is apparent. It is not a sect. Its faith does not consist of a few specific tenets, easily stated and easily received. It is a new way of thinking about God and man, this life and another, and every topic, connected with these. And this new way of thinking has made and is making what may well be called great progress. It may be discerned everywhere, in the science, literature, philosophy, and theology of the times; not prevalent in any of them, but existing, and cognizable by all who are able to appreciate these new truths with their bearings and results. … Let it not be supposed that by the New-Church is meant the organized societies calling themselves by that name. In one sense, that is their name. Swedenborg says there are three essentials of this Church: a belief in the Divinity of the Lord, and in the sanctity of the Scriptures, and a life of charity, which is a life governed by a love of the neighbor. Where these are, there is the Church. Whoever holds these essentials in faith and life is a member of the New-Church, whatever may be his theological name or place. Only in the degree in which he so holds these essentials is anyone a member of that church. Those who, holding or desiring to hold these essentials in faith and life, unite and organize that they may be assisted and may assist each other in so holding them, constitute the visible or professed New-Church. But very false would they be to its doctrines, if they supposed themselves to be exclusively members of that Church, or if they founded their membership upon their profession or external organization. For there is no other true foundation for this membership than every man's own internal reception of the essentials of the Church, and his leading the life which its truths require."

_T. Parsons, Outlines of the Religion and Philosophy of Swedenborg, chapter 14, section 5._

ALSO IN: _E. Swedenborg, The four leading Doctrines of the New Church._

_G. F. E. Le Boys Des Guays, Letters to a Man of the World._

_B. F. Barrett, Lectures on the New Dispensation._

SWITZERLAND, Libraries of.

See LIBRARIES, MODERN (page 2013).

{3807}

T.

TAORMINA. TAUROMENION.

About 392 B. C. Dionysios, the tyrant of Syracuse, expelled the Sikels, or natives of Sicily, from one of their towns, Tauromenion (modern Taormina) on the height of Tauros, overlooking the site of the old Greek city of Naxos, which Dionysios had destroyed ten years before. He peopled the town anew with some of his mercenaries; but after his death the scattered Naxians were brought together in it, and made it their home. "The city thus strengthened by new colonists grew and prospered, and became specially remarkable for the wealth of its citizens. Greek Tauromenion ran through the usual course of a Sikeliot city in later times. Settled again by a Roman colony, it lived on till the days of its greatest glory, as the last of Sikeliot cities to hold out for Christ and Cæsar against the assaults of the besieging Saracens. But even that greater memory does not shut out the thoughts of the stirring early days of the city. … The rocks and the heights are there still, and not the rocks and the heights only. There is the wall with the work of the Sikel and the Greek side by side. There is the temple of the Greek changed into the church of the Christian apostle of Sicily. There is the theatre, the work of the Greek enlarged and modified by the Roman; the theatre which, unlike those of Syracuse and Argos, still keeps so large a part of its scena, 'and where we hardly mourn the loss of the rest as we look out on the hills and the sea between its fragments. … The matchless site would be something even without a story, but at Taormina the story is for ever written on the site. On the long ridge of the town, on its walls and gates, on the rocks on which it stands, on the prouder rocks which rise above it, we may truly say that, of all who have assailed or defended the mountain-city, alongside of the names of Ibrahim and of Roger, the first names in the long story of Tauromenion dwell there also."

_E. A. Freeman, History of Sicily, chapter 11, section 2 (volume 4)._

ALSO IN: _The Century, September 1893._

TELEGRAPH, Invention of the Electrical.

See ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION (pages 771-772).

_T. O'Conor Sloane, The Standard Electrical Dictionary https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26535_

THIRTY YEARS WAR, The effects of.

See (in this Supplement) GERMANY: A. D. 1648; also page 1484.

"TIPPECANOE AND TYLER TOO."

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1840 (page 3377).

TOLERATION, Religious: Start--------

TOLERATION, Religious: A. D. 1631-1661. Denied in Massachusetts.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1631-1636, to 1656-1661 (pages 2103 to 2109).

TOLERATION, Religious: A. D. 1636. Established by Roger Williams in Rhode Island.

See RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1638-1647 (page 2639).

TOLERATION, Religious: A. D. 1649. Enacted in Maryland.

See MARYLAND: A. D. 1649 (page 2094).

TOLERATION, Religious: A. D. 1689. Partial enactment in England.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1689 (page 909).

TOLERATION, Religious: A. D. 1778. Repeal of Catholic penal laws in England.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1778-1780 (page 936).

TOLERATION, Religious: A. D. 1827-1829. Removal of disabilities from Dissenters and Emancipation of Catholics in England and Ireland.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1827-1828 (page 952); and IRELAND: A. D. 1811-1829 (page 1784).

TOLERATION, Religious: A. D. 1869. Disestablishment of the Irish Church.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1868-1870 (page 969).

TOLERATION, Religious: A. D. 1871. Abolition of religious tests in English Universities.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1871 (page 970).

TOLERATION, Religious: End--------

TORQUEMADA.

See INQUISITION (page 1751).

TRADE.

See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE.

TRADE-MARKS, Protection of.

See LAW, EQUITY: A. D. 1875 (page 1994).

TRADES UNIONS.

See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D: 1720-1800 (page 2933), and after.

TSIAM NATION, The.

See TONKIN (page 3115).

TULANE UNIVERSITY, or University of Louisiana.