Part 120

The Sorbonne, the seat of the Paris faculties of letters, science, and Protestant theology, has been rebuilt and increased in size. The Sorbonne contains lecture-halls and class-rooms, and an extensive library open to the public. There gratuitous lectures are given and degrees are granted by the University of France.

Near the Sorbonne is the Collège de France, where gratuitous lectures are also delivered by eminent scholars and men of letters, as well as a large number of colleges and lycées, the great public schools of France for secondary instruction.

The Ecole Polytechnique, the School of Medicine and the School of Law, the Observatory, and the Jardin des Plantes, with its great museums of natural history, are situated in the same quarter of Paris.

The principal public library is Bibliothèque Nationale, which originated in a small collection of the books placed by Louis XI. in the Louvre.

INDUSTRIES OF PARIS.--Paris cannot be described as a manufacturing town. Its chief and peculiar industries produce articles which derive their value not from the cost of the material, but from the skill and taste bestowed on them by individual workmen. They include jewelry, bronzes, artistic furniture, and decorative articles known as articles de Paris. In consequence of the intelligence and taste required in their trades the Paris workmen are in many respects superior to the machine hands of manufacturing cities.

=Versailles= (_vér-sālz´_ Fr. pron. _ver-säy´_), is situated eleven miles west-southwest of Paris. It contains a famous royal palace, a great part of which is now occupied by the Museum of French History, consisting of paintings; but some of the apartments are still preserved with the fittings of a royal residence. The chapel is well proportioned and sumptuous. The great gallery, called the Galerie des Glaces, is one of the finest rooms existing; it is two hundred and forty by thirty-five feet, and forty-two feet high, adorned with mirrors and gilding, and with ceiling-paintings by Lebrun representing the triumphs of Louis XIV.

Here King William of Prussia was proclaimed German emperor in 1871. The council-chamber, the bedroom of Louis XIV., the antechamber of the Mil de Boeuf, the Petits Apartements of the queen, and the theater are all historic and highly interesting.

The gardens are the finest of their kind. They abound with monumental fountains profusely adorned with groups of sculpture, and supplied the model for those of half the palaces of Europe.

=St. Denis= (_saṅ-dė-nē´_), two and one-half miles north of the fortifications of Paris, is chiefly notable for its abbey church, the historic burial-place of the kings of France. Dagobert built the church, which was the nucleus of one begun by Pepin, finished by Charlemagne in 775, and demolished and a larger one built on its ruins four hundred years later. During the Revolution the church was pillaged. It was restored by Viollet-le-Duc. Here Charlemagne was anointed; the Oriflamme was kept; Abélard dwelt; Joan of Arc hung up her arms; Henri IV. abjured Protestantism; and Napoleon I. was married to Marie Louise. The bones of the kings of France from Dagobert (630) to Louis XV. (1774) were buried here; and the mad Revolutionists tore them from their tombs, and buried them in a common ditch. They are now in the crypt, and superb royal monuments adorn the church, whose interior is lighted by splendid stained windows, and enriched with mosaics and statuary.

Among the monuments of greatest interest are those of Frédégonde, Dagobert, Pepin, Charlemagne, Clovis II., Charles Martel, Henry II., Catherine de Médicis, Francis I., Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, Henry IV., Louis XII., and Louis XIV.

Of the 167 sepulchral monuments, 53 are new or were brought from other churches. In 1817, Louis XVIII. caused the remains of Louis XVI. to be removed from the Madeline cemetery to St. Denis.

=Fontainebleau= (_Fong´tehn-blȯ´_), near the Seine’s left bank, thirty-seven miles southwest of Paris, is chiefly famous for its royal château, and the beautiful forest that surrounds it. The château, said to have been founded by Robert the Good toward the end of the tenth century, was rebuilt in 1169 by Louis VII., and enlarged by Louis XI. and his successors. After being allowed to fall into decay, it was repaired and embellished by Francis I., Henry IV., Napoleon I., and Louis-Philippe.

=Barbizon= (_Bar-bee-song´_), is close to the Forest of Fontainebleau. It is a great artists’ resort, and was the home and death-place of Millet. Corot, Diaz, Daubigny, and Rousseau were other members of the “Barbizon School” of painters.

=Chief Industrial Centers.=--Textile manufactures are the most important of the mechanical industries of France.

_Lyons_, the third city of France, at the junction of the Saône with the Rhone, is the center of the silk-growing region and the metropolis of the _silk manufactures_, in which the country stands unrivalled. _St. Etienne_ (146,000), southwest of Lyons, comes second to it in this manufacture, after which come _Nimes_, near the delta of the Rhone, _Tours_, on the Loire, and _Paris_. Inland trade and manufactures in the south are most active at ancient _Toulouse_, on the Garonne, and at _Montpellier_, near the Rhone delta.

_Woolen, linen, and cotton manufactures_ are almost entirely confined to the northern region. Foremost among these manufacturing towns of the north stands _Lille_, with its neighbor towns of _Roubaix_ and _Tourcoing_, still nearer the Belgian manufacturing region; and _Cambrai_, _Douai_, _Valenciennes_, and _St. Quentin_, southeast of it. _Rouen_, on the Seine in Normandy, and _Amiens_, on the Sommer, between Rouen and Lille, _Reims_, in the Champagne district, _Sedan_, on the Ardennes and _Nancy_, in French Lorraine, still farther east, are the other chief manufacturing towns of the northern region.

At _Sèvres_, southwest of Paris, are the chief _porcelain_ factories, which give the models and take the lead in this industry. _Limoges_ is also a noted center of porcelain manufacture.

_Glass_ is very extensively made in the northern departments. Paris itself excels in every kind of luxurious and fanciful manufacture. _Besançon_, the largest town near the frontier of Switzerland, is a great depot for the produce of the French half of that country, and manufactures watches largely.

The mining industries of France are comparatively limited. _Coal_ is drawn chiefly from the _basin of Valenciennes_, which continues the Belgian coalfield on the north, from the basin of the Loire and Rhone, and from that of _Creuzot_, on the south of the heights of the Côte d’or. Iron occurs in eleven districts and is of excellent quality, but generally lies distant from the fuel necessary to smelt it, so that this metal must also be imported in large quantity. _St. Etienne_, southwest of Lyons, is the most noted center of the French hardware manufactures, especially of guns and machinery; _Le Creuzot_, in the midst of its coal basin, has also noted ironworks.

The trade of France is only inferior to that of Britain, Germany, and the United States; the position of the country, with coasts on three of the most frequented seas, is exceedingly favorable to its commerce. The great seats of maritime traffic with all the world are _Marseilles_, on the Mediterranean coast; _Bordeaux_ and _Nantes_, with _St. Nazaire_, on the coast of the Bay of Biscay; _Le Havre_ (at the mouth of the Seine), _Boulogne_, _Calais_, and _Dunkerque_, on the English Channel. All of these may in a sense be called the harbors of the central point of the life of the state, luxurious _Paris_.

=Naval and Military Centers.=--The naval arsenals of France, dockyards, and stations of the fleet, are at _Cherbourg_ and _Brest_, on the northwest coast; _L’Orient_ and _Rochefort_ (south of La Rochelle) on the Bay of Biscay; and _Toulon_, on the Mediterranean. _Nice_ and _Cannes_, on the Riviera, are favorite winter resorts.

France has more than one hundred fortified places; indeed almost every town along the northern and northeastern border is a fortress. _Briançon_, the highest town in the country, in the Alps, south of the pass of Mont Cenis into Italy, is the chief arsenal and depot of this mountain barrier, and is considered impregnable.

HISTORY

The name France first appears in history about the ninth century. Prior to that time the country which constitutes the greater part of modern France was occupied successively by Celts, Gauls and Franks.

=Under the Romans.=--When first known this country was called Gallia, and was the center whence swarms of plunderers poured over the mountains into Italy; but the Phœnicians and Greeks had a few trading cities on the Mediterranean coast--especially Marseilles--where in the seaport towns traces of descent from the Greeks are said still to be found.

In 125 B. C. the Romans formed in the east of the Rhone a settlement ever since called Provincia or “the Province,” whose capital was Aquae Sextiae (now Aix), and where corrupted Latin has never ceased to be the dialect, and their power and influence gradually spread. Between 58 and 51 B. C. Julius Caesar subdued the whole of Gaul, except the granite peninsula of the northwest. Later, refugees from Britain caused it to be called Brittany; and there to the present day the Celtic tongue has prevailed, and the habits have been peculiar. The Iberian or Basque tribes of the Pyrenees have likewise preserved their entirely different tongue, which is not even Aryan.

=The Impress of Roman Rule.=--Roman habits, civilization and speech were adopted all over the country, and Christianity became nearly universal. Many cities were founded as centers of government from the conquered population, and most of the great cities such as Arles and Lyons and many others date from this time. Nimes and Vienne show splendid monuments of Roman architecture. The Romans also made magnificent roads, and are said to have introduced the olive and the vine, to both of which the climate is eminently suitable.

=Under Teutonic Invaders.=--Continual warfare on the open frontier soon began between the Roman legions and the advancing Teutonic nations, of whom the Belgians, a mixed race, were the van. The city of Lutetia Parisiorum, now known by its tribal name, Paris, was the headquarters of Emperor Julian before his accession in A.D. 361, while he was struggling with these invaders. After his death, Gaul became a prey to the Teutons. They did not destroy the old population, but quartered themselves as guests on the proprietors of land; while the Roman cities kept up their self-government, and paid ransoms to escape pillage. Chief of these Teutonic tribes were the Goths, Burgundians and Franks.

=Merovingians.=--The Franks, whose dominion swallowed up those of both the foregoing tribes, had been long settled in the north; and Pharamond, their chief in 420, is considered the founder of the French monarchy, as he was of the first or Merovingian race of Frankish kings. In 485 Clovis defeated Syagrius, the Roman general, at Soissons, and finally extinguished the Roman power in the west, and in 507, by his victory over the Visigoths, he rendered himself master of the country between the Loire and Garonne, but was checked at Arles by Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths. He then settled in Paris, where he died. His chief aim was a united Frankish kingdom.

Clovis in 493 married Clotilda, a Christian Burgundian princess, and in 496 embraced her faith.

Though nominally Christians, the Franks brought their old hereditary Teuton customs of inheritance and chieftainship, which, as they had last come from the banks of the Yssel, were known as Salic laws--_i.e._ of the Salian Franks. Their German dominions were called Austreich (the eastern kingdom); their Gaulish Neaustreich (not Eastern) or Neustria; and both were Frankland. Their dynasty soon exhausted itself, and latterly their kings were called _Fainéants_ or “Do-nothing” kings while the mayors of the palace really governed.

=Carlovingians.=--One of the mayors, a Teuton wholly in blood, Charles Martel, in 721 checked the tide of Saracen invasion, and saved Gaul by the great battle of Soissons. His son, Pepin, in 753 was elected king, and thence descended the line known as Carlovingians. Under Pepin and Charles the Great, called by the French “Charlemagne,” the country was relatively peaceful and prosperous; but after the latter’s death things returned to their original state of confusion.

Charlemagne was one of the really great monarchs of the world. His dominions reached from the Ebro to the Channel, from the Elbe, to the Atlantic, and included North Italy, and in 800 he was crowned by the Pope Emperor of the West. His power was too vast for a single hand of less power, and fell to pieces after his son’s death. The Western Franks fell to Charles the Bald, and it was then (about 870) that France became a recognized term for the country between the Channel and the Pyrenees.

The king had, however, very little power; his lands were cut up into divisions under dukes, marquises, and counts, who simply paid him a nominal homage, and were bound to follow him in war, but who ruled quite independently. Moreover, the Northmen or Normans were horribly ravaging the whole country; Paris was fortified against them under Robert the Strong, but, in 911, Charles the Simple found himself obliged to make to Rolla, the chief of the Northmen invaders, a grant of the Neustrian lands, which took the name of Normandy. The Carlovingians finally were deposed in 987, and their last sovereign, Louis V., retired to Lotharingia or Lorraine as duke.

=Capetians.=--The grandson of Robert the Strong, Hugh, became king. He was called Capet, apparently from the hood which marked him as guardian of the Abbey of St. Denis; and the name is used for his dynasty, which reigned for eight hundred years.

The German influences had passed away, though the king and nobility were of Frankish blood. The whole realm was parcelled out into feudal holdings, the great chiefs of which hardly owned the royal power, and the only place where the king really ruled directly was the county of Paris. There was much confusion and private warfare, and after the conquest of England in 1066, the Dukes of Normandy overshadowed the French kings.

Louis IV. (“the Fat”), in 1108, was the first king of any ability. He judicially overcame a robber count, and in his time (though not on any fixed principles) cities began to be allowed to purchase their power of self-government, such as the southern one had preserved from Roman times. This was called the right of _commune_. Except in these cities, the lot of the people of Gallo-Roman blood was wretched. They were called villeins, and, except that they were attached to the soil, were almost slaves, cruelly oppressed and downtrodden by their irresponsible lords, mostly Franks, who covered the land with fortified castles. There was, however, much religious zeal, which found its outlet in the Crusades, first proclaimed at Clermont, in Auvergne, in 1095, and in the religious orders, whose beautiful monasteries and splendid cathedrals still exist.

France was at its weakest under Louis VII., when Henry II. of England, by inheritance Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou, had married the heiress of the great Duchy of Aquitaine, and obtained the heiress of Brittany for his son. Philip II., called Augustus, spent his life in undermining the power of the English kings, and when King John murdered his nephew Arthur of Brittany, Philip held a court of justice, cited him thither, and, on his non-appearance, adjudged him to have forfeited Normandy and Anjou, which easily were conquered, leaving only Aquitaine as the possession of John’s mother, and these lands, being held direct of the crown, much added to the royal power.

=Under Louis IX.=--The king, Louis IX., was the best and most blameless of French sovereigns. It was he who, in 1258, established the Parliament of Paris. In every Teuton nation the king was supposed to take counsel and do justice among the other nobles and freemen; but to attend courts of law in a large territory was a great vexation to the nobles, who would not come, and yet resented decisions made in their absence. Louis arranged that though every immediate vassal of the crown had a right to sit in it, yet in its working state it should only consist of men trained in the law, with just nobles enough to give authority. In this parliament the wills and edicts of the king, and the taxes he imposed, were registered. The provinces, likewise, had parliaments to serve as courts of law. Louis’s devotion led him to attempt two unfortunate crusades, and he died in the second, in 1270.

His grandson Philip IV. (“the Fair”), had a desperate quarrel with the Papacy, and by underhand means succeeded in forcing Pope Clement V. to reside in his dominions. The Popes fixed their residence at Avignon, in Provence, a province belonging to the Empire, and held at the time by Philip’s uncle, Charles, Count of Anjou, but near enough for French influence. Here the Papal court continued for seventy years. Philip V. was a violent and unscrupulous man, and the three sons who reigned in succession after him had not his force of character.

Philip was succeeded in turn by Louis X., Philip V., and Charles IV. The rivalry between France and England, consequent upon the accession of Duke William of Normandy to the throne of the latter, came to a decisive crisis during the first half of the fourteenth century.

=House of Valois and the “Hundred Years’ War.”=--On the death of Charles IV. (1328) Philip of Valois succeeded to the throne, beginning the Valois dynasty; but Edward III. of England, by virtue of hereditary right derived from his mother’s side, claimed not only such provinces as had been taken from his ancestors, but the whole kingdom. In this way began the protracted conflict which French historians call the “hundred years’ war” (1337-1453), a period covering the reigns of John II. (1350-1364), Charles V. (1364-1380), Charles VI. (1380-1422), and the greater part of the reign of Charles VII. (1422-1461). In 1340 an English fleet destroyed the naval force of France at Sluis, on the coast of Flanders; in 1346, at Crécy, the English archers overcame the flower of French chivalry; and at Poitiers (1356) the Black Prince defeated King John and made him prisoner.

The States-General were also the scene of a deadly struggle between the regent and the third estate, and the peasantry of several districts broke out into a fearful insurrection, which was named the _Jacquerie_, and marked by all the horrors of a servile war. Charles V., with the help of his great constable, Du Guesclin, regained in a few campaigns almost all the English acquisitions in France. On his death, in 1380, his son Charles VI., surnamed the _Well-Beloved_, ascended the throne.

The reign of this sovereign was signally unfortunate. He fell into a state of insanity, which rendered him incapable of attending to the administration of the government, and in consequence regents were appointed, whose misconduct threw the kingdom into a civil war. During these calamities which afflicted France, Henry V. of England invaded the country, and gained the memorable battle of Agincourt. The consequence of this victory, and other advantages gained by Henry, enabled him to conclude a treaty by which his succession to the throne of France was acknowledged on the death of Charles. Henry and Charles both died shortly after this event, A. D. 1422.

=Charles VII. and Joan of Arc.=--Charles VII., surnamed the _Victorious_, asserted his right to the throne of his father, while at the same time the infant Henry VI. of England was proclaimed King of France under the regency of his uncle, the Duke of Bedford. The English laid siege to Orleans, a place of the greatest importance, and so successful were they in their operations against this and other places that the affairs of France began to wear a most gloomy aspect. The tide of misfortune, however, was successfully turned by one of the most extraordinary events recorded in history.

When the hope of saving Orleans was almost abandoned, a young girl named Joan of Arc, about seventeen years of age, who had lived an humble life in a village on the borders of Lorraine, presented herself to the Governor of Vaucouleur, and maintained with much earnestness that she had been sent by Divine commission to raise the siege of that city, and procure the coronation of Charles in the city of Rheims.

After undergoing a most rigid examination before a committee of persons appointed for that purpose, and also before the court and the king himself, she was intrusted with the liberation of Orleans. As she approached the city her presence inspired the inhabitants with confidence, while it spread dismay and consternation among the English, who hastily raised the siege and retired with precipitation, but being pursued by the heroine at the head of the French army, they were entirely defeated at Patay, with a loss of nearly five thousand men, while the French lost only one of their number. From this event Joan was called the Maid of Orleans.

The second part of her mission, which yet remained to be accomplished, was equally arduous and dangerous. The city of Rheims and the intermediate country being in possession of the English or their allies, presented apparently insurmountable difficulties. Charles, however, placing full confidence in her guidance, commenced his march, and as he advanced every obstacle disappeared; the citizens of Rheims, having expelled the garrison, received him with every demonstration of joy. After the coronation was performed, Joan threw herself at the feet of Charles, declaring that her commission was accomplished, and solicited leave to return to her former humble station; but the king, unwilling to part with her services so soon, requested her to remain for some time with the army, with which at length she complied. She afterwards attempted to raise the siege of the city of Campiegne; but her good fortune seemed to have deserted her; she fell into the hands of the English, who, to gratify their revenge for the many losses they sustained through her valour, condemned her, under a charge of various pretended crimes, and caused her to be burned in the public square at Rouen.

By this cruel measure the English hoped to check the success that had attended the operations of Charles. In this they were disappointed; such was the impulse which the heroine had given to the affairs of France, that the English in a few years were expelled from all their possession in the country, with the exception of Calais.

Charles passed the remainder of his reign in improving the internal condition of his kingdom. The close of his life was embittered by the unnatural conduct of his son, who attempted to poison his father. He died in 1464, a prince of acknowledged virtue, justice and discretion.