Chapter 11

Turning from the recluse to the men of the world, where can we find a more distinguished bachelor than Voltaire? Born in 1694, this witty Frenchman lived his memorable life among the gayest men and women of the world, and yet when his last hour came there was no wife to close his eyelids, there were no children to follow him to the tomb.

A weakling from birth, he was not baptized until he was nine months old. The Abbé de Chateauneuf, a cynical relative, gave him his first lessons in atheism and introduced him to Ninon de l'Enclos, the famous beauty. Ninon was so charmed with the boy that she left him a considerable sum of money in her will, with instructions that it be spent in furnishing his library.

The youth soon made his début as a poet and wit, but his father, who abhorred verses, was vexed at his notoriety and sent him to Holland. There the lad got entangled in a love affair and was promptly summoned home again. His father's next move was to banish him to the country, but he was again disappointed in thinking that his son would reform. Voltaire began to write an epic poem on Henry IV, and, his talents as a satirist being known, was suddenly arrested on the charge of lampooning Louis XIV, and imprisoned in the Bastile.

When he came out he began to write for the theaters, and as a playwright and a merciless critic of creeds and other cherished beliefs his life was spent. He was a favorite in society, and the fair sex petted him to his heart's content, yet he never married.

Mme. Denis, his niece, for whom he had a great affection, looked after his house at Ferney, near Geneva, and with her he spent his last days. It was she, too, who accompanied him to Paris in 1778 and who watched by his bedside when, overcome by the fatigues of his reception in the French capital--the greatest triumph of his life--he lay calmly, waiting for the angel of death to call him.

HORACE WALPOLE, EARL OF ORFORD (England--1717-1797).

Another distinguished man of letters who never entered the bonds of matrimony was Horace Walpole. Born in 1717, he entered Cambridge University, and there became intimately acquainted with the poet Gray. In 1741 he became a member of the House of Commons, but won little distinction there, his time and thoughts being almost wholly devoted to the study of art and literature. In 1765 he took a trip to Paris, and at this period the romance of his life began. He became attached to Mme. du Deffand, and in her society passed the pleasantest hours of his life.

Walpole was a polished gentleman, a charming conversationalist, and a letter-writer of the first rank. He wrote French as well as English, and it may be that his thorough knowledge of French aided him greatly in making his English letters the masterpieces that they are. There was in him, too, much of the Gallic temperament. Bachelor though he was, we discover in him no moroseness, and see only the gay man of the world, who knows how to enjoy life in a rational manner.

EDWARD GIBBON (England--1737-1794).

Born in 1737, Gibbon studied at Oxford, and at the age of fifteen became so zealous a student of history that he undertook to write an account of the reign of Sesostris. It was at Rome in 1764 that he conceived the idea of writing a history of the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." The entire work, however, was not finished until 1788. Five years previously he had gone to Lausanne, in Switzerland, and there he stayed until he was brought home to die.

A severe student, whose views about religion were the reverse of orthodox, he was by nature much of a recluse and seems never to have shone in society. Only one woman is known to have inspired a deeper feeling than friendship, and the fates were against their marriage. The lady subsequently became Mme. Necker. That Gibbon was sincerely attached to her is certain, and that had it not been for untoward circumstances she would have married him seems to be almost equally certain. Their paths in life, however, were divided; her fate was to become a shining light in the French capital and his was to spend the noon and evening of his life in solitude at Lausanne.

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE (England--1540-1596).

A renowned man of action and a celibate was Francis Drake, the navigator and discoverer. The sea was his mistress, and fighting the Spaniards was his lifework. Queen Elizabeth crowned him with honors, and he repaid the compliment by capturing stores of Spanish gold and taking possession of California in her name. In 1595 he waged his last attack against the Spanish colonies in America, which proved unsuccessful, and in which both he and Sir John Hawkins died of fever.

Honored throughout England as a courtier and a seaman, Drake ever maintained his high reputation. Constantly at sea, he had really no home on land. No woman had a nest ready for him after his travels; no children looked out for his home-returning ship. For fifty years he waged a good fight against England's foes and then rested forever from his labors.

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (Germany--1770-1827).

Great artists have much of the recluse in them, and Beethoven, the composer, was no exception to the rule. For art he lived, and the joys and sorrows of domestic life he never knew. Yet the story goes that he was once deeply in love and that his unconquerable shyness alone prevented him from becoming a happy lover and husband.

Indeed, his aversion to society was abnormal. Melancholy and morose, he shunned his fellows and found pleasure only in his music. Monarchs showered compliments and gifts on him, but to the imaginative eye he appears always solitary and abstracted. Seated in a reverie before his piano, in his silent, gloomy chamber, he wrote passionate love music for others, but he won no woman's love for himself.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (United States--1807-1892).

In America, also, there has been no lack of bachelors who have achieved fame. The poet Whittier is, perhaps, the best known.

The son of a Quaker farmer, his boyhood was spent mainly upon the farm, but he early displayed a talent for verse, and learned the art of slipper-making to support himself while improving his education. In 1829 he was made editor of a Boston paper, and soon, aside from his poetry, became a real force in the anti-slavery movement in Massachusetts.

Yet in all his long and active life as editor, author, legislator, reformer, and poet, he had no thought--so far as we can tell--of marriage.

SAMUEL JONES TILDEN (United States--1814-1886).

There is perhaps no better example of the bachelor statesman in America than Samuel J. Tilden.

The story goes that he was once deeply in love with a Southern lady, but that fate, in some form, intervened. He never married, however, nor did he allow disappointment to interfere with his career. He became governor of New York, and later was nominated for president, being defeated by one electoral vote (though he was the popular choice by a majority of two hundred and fifty thousand). At his death he left more than five million dollars, chiefly to philanthropic purposes, of which the Tilden Foundation Fund of the New York Public Library received about one half.

Little Glimpses of the 19th Century

The Great Events in the History of the Last One Hundred Years, Assembled so as to Present a Nutshell Record.

[_Continued from page 46_.]

SECOND DECADE.

1811

The French army under Masséna was finally driven from Portugal by the British under Wellington. France, the south and middle German states, and Austria formed an alliance against Russia. Bernadotte, Crown Prince of Sweden, and formerly one of Napoleon's marshals, refused aid to France. Napoleon threatened Sweden and began preparations against Russia.

The United States seized West Florida. The American ship President and the British ship Little Belt exchanged shots, and friction between the two countries increased. At Tippecanoe, General Harrison defeated the Indians under Tecumseh. Resentment against Great Britain because of her conduct on the sea, and her assertion of her right to search American ships, increased in the United States.

The Mamelukes decoyed to attend a festival in Cairo and slaughtered by Mehemet Ali. Dutch settlements in Java captured by the English. The King of Rome, son of Napoleon and Marie Louise, born on March 20. Agitation in England against flogging soldiers and sailors. Luddites smashed machinery in Nottingham. Heinrich Kleist, German poet, committed suicide. Bishop Percy, ballad compiler, died.

=POPULATION.--Washington, D.C., 8,208; New York, 96,373; London (including Metropolitan District, census 1811), 1,009,546; United States, 7,239,881; Great Britain and Ireland (census 1811), 15,547,720.=

=RULERS--The same as in the previous year, except that the Prince of Wales became regent of Great Britain.=

1812

The English under Wellington captured Ciudad Rodrigo, and began to press hard on the French in Spain. Badajos, held by the French under General Philippon, stormed by the British after a fight in which five thousand men fell. American privateers began to prey on British commerce. June 18, war began between America and England. The first contest was between the American ship President and the British ship Blandina; the Blandina escaped. The Essex, Captain David Porter, and with Midshipman David G. Farragut, aged thirteen, on board, captured a British transport with two hundred soldiers, and forced the Alert to surrender. The United States frigate Constitution sunk the British frigate Guerrière, but the British Poictiers captured the American sloop Wasp. Other naval duels ended in favor of American ships. Decatur, commanding the frigate United States, took the Macedonian, while the Constitution captured the Java. President Madison refused the services of General Andrew Jackson; Jackson thereupon organized an independent corps, which was reluctantly accepted when reverses came. General Hull led the Americans to Canada, and was defeated at Mackinaw. Hull surrendered Detroit to Brock, British governor of Upper Canada, who had formed an alliance with the Indians. Fort Dearborn (Chicago), was burned by the Indians, and the settlers massacred. In a battle near Fort George, on October 13, General Brock was killed, but the Americans were forced to retreat. Dearborn made a fruitless attempt to invade Canada.

On June 22, Napoleon, with over six hundred thousand men, began his disastrous Russian campaign. The Russians devastated the country as they retired before his advance. At Smolensk they inflicted upon the French a loss of fifteen thousand, fired the city, and retreated. The French, stricken with disease, suffering from lack of food, and beset on all sides by the Russians, pushed on toward Moscow. At Borodino, after a desperate battle, Napoleon won a disastrous victory; nearly a hundred thousand men fell on both sides. The French entered Moscow, but within a few hours the city was in flames--fired by the Russians at the order of the governor, Rostopchin. Russian peasants slaughtered thousands of French stragglers. Napoleon's peace overtures being rejected, he was compelled to evacuate Moscow, after blowing up the Kremlin. The retreat of the French was worse than the battles, and thousands of them perished from cold or lack of food. The Russians pursued, and won battle after battle. Of the grand army that invaded Russia, only a tenth recrossed the frontier. In Spain, the French lost Cadiz and Madrid, and were defeated by Wellington at Salamanca. In December, Napoleon hurried to Paris, crushed Malet's conspiration against him, and called for a new conscription of three hundred and fifty thousand men. This year more than a million lives were lost in the Napoleonic wars.

Louisiana admitted to the Union. Iodin discovered by Dr. de Courtois, of Paris. An earthquake in Caracas killed twelve thousand persons. The English publisher of Thomas Paine's books fined and pilloried. Luddite anti-machinery agitation increased in England.

=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=

1813

Napoleon set Pius VII at liberty, and arranged the Concordat between church and state in France. Prussia joined Russia against Napoleon, who fought a series of battles with the allies in central Germany, the most important being those of Lützen and Bautzen. Wellington's decisive victory over the French at Vittoria--where shrapnel shells were first used in warfare--gave renewed vitality to the combination of England, Russia, Prussia, and Sweden against France and Denmark.

In America, eight hundred Americans were captured by the British at Frenchtown, in Michigan. At sea, the American Hornet, Captain Lawrence, sunk the Peacock; the Hazard captured the British frigate Albion, but the Shannon took the American frigate Chesapeake, killing Captain Lawrence, who said as he died: "Don't give up the ship!" The Enterprise captured the British brig Boxer. On Lake Erie, September 12, Commodore Perry fought the famous battle which he thus reported: "We have met the enemy and they are ours; two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop." General Harrison put an end to the Creek rebellion by his victory at Fort Malden.

Austria joined the allies against France, and Moreau, hero of Hohenlinden, and Bernadotte sided against their old leader, Napoleon. At Dresden (August 26, 27) Napoleon won his last great victory; Moreau was killed. At Wahlstatt, Blücher routed the French, and Ney met disaster at Dennewitz. King Jerome Bonaparte was forced to flee from Westphalia. Bavaria refused longer to support Napoleon. The campaign in Germany culminated in the great battle of Leipzig, fought October 16 to 19, in which four hundred thousand Germans and Russians totally defeated two hundred thousand Frenchmen, killing or capturing nearly half of them, and sweeping Germany free of invaders. Meanwhile Wellington invaded France from the south, and Napoleon's empire began to crumble fast. Spain was forever lost to him. Napoleon dissolved the Corps Législatif, determined to carry out his plans for prosecuting the war, and called for a new conscription of three hundred thousand men.

Cape of Good Hope ceded to the British by the Dutch. George Stephenson built his first locomotive. The Jesuit order restored by Pius VII.

=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=

1814

On January 1 Blücher crossed the Rhine to begin the invasion of France. He was defeated at Brienne, but won at Rothière, and with the aid of the Russians pressed Napoleon hard in a series of battles. In March the allies won decisive victories at Laon and Arcis-sur-Aube. England, Russia, Prussia, and Austria bound themselves together for twenty years more, England agreeing to pay each of the other powers two million pounds; France was to be reduced to its original boundaries. Napoleon refused the terms offered him. Marie Louise fled from Paris. The allied armies entered Paris on March 31, and on April 11, after trying to poison himself, Napoleon abdicated at Fontainebleau. He retired to Elba, which was assigned to him as a mimic kingdom. Talleyrand now became dominant in Paris, and the Bourbons were restored, Louis XVIII being crowned King of France. Ferdinand VII resumed power in Spain. By the Treaty of Paris, France retained her old territory, received back the colonies captured by England, kept Alsace-Lorraine, and much of the plunder gathered by Napoleon. Russia held Poland and Finland.

In June the Americans, under Brown, seized Fort Erie and fought indecisive actions with the British at Chippewa and Lundy's Lane. In August a British force, under Ross and Cockburn, landed in Maryland, defeated the Americans at Bladensburg, and advanced to Washington. Madison and his cabinet fled. The defenseless city was entered by the enemy; the White House and uncompleted Capitol were burned, and the government stores and buildings at Alexandria were destroyed. An attack on Baltimore was repulsed, inspiring Key's "Star-Spangled Banner." On Lake Champlain, McDonough captured four vessels of a British squadron and put the rest to flight. Two hundred men from a British fleet on its way to New Orleans attempted to board the privateer General Armstrong (Samuel Reid, captain), in the neutral harbor of Fayal. They were repulsed. Three British vessels closed in, and after a plucky fight Reid and his ninety men scuttled the General Armstrong, and escaped, having seriously damaged the British fleet. Jackson took Pensacola, in Florida, from the British; he also killed eight hundred Creeks for their massacre of the inhabitants of Fort Mims, and finally broke the power of the Indians in Alabama and Georgia by his victory at Horseshoe Bend. During all this time New England had held practically aloof from the war with the British, giving little assistance to the other States. On Christmas Day a treaty of peace between England and the United States was signed at Ghent.

Norway accepted the King of Sweden as ruler--an arrangement only recently abandoned. The Bourbons entered on reprisals in France and Spain, having "learned nothing and forgotten nothing." Jesuits permitted to return to France. Despotism renewed in the German states. The Prince Regent of England excluded his wife, Caroline, from court. Count Rumford, scientist, and the ex-Empress Josephine, Napoleon's first wife, died.

=RULERS--The same as in the previous year, except that the Bourbons were restored in France and Spain; Louis XVIII King of France, and Ferdinand VII King of Spain.=

1815

On January 8, the news of the peace not having reached America, Jackson won the battle of New Orleans, inflicting a loss of two thousand on the British, and losing only twenty-one men. At Mobile, the Americans captured another British force, but off New York Commodore Decatur had to surrender, with his ship, the President, to the British blockading squadron.

England restored Java to Holland, but retained Demerara and the Cape of Good Hope. The Papal States were reestablished, and the Swiss Federation formed. On February 26 Napoleon slipped out of Elba; on March 1 he landed in France, where he was received with joy by his old soldiers, and on March 20 he entered Paris, beginning the Hundred Days. Ney deserted Louis XVIII to join Napoleon, and practically the whole army followed. Louis fled to Ghent.

England, Austria, Prussia, and Russia at once united against Napoleon. In a few days he mobilized and equipped an army of one hundred and twenty thousand veterans, and in June he was ready to attack the British and Prussian forces in Belgium. At Quatre-Bras, on June 16, Ney fought an indecisive engagement with the former, while at Ligny, on the same day, Napoleon defeated the Prussians under Blücher. On the 18th, Napoleon's army confronted that of Wellington before Waterloo. Before noon the fight began. Ney made repeated and gallant charges against the solid British squares, but his cavalry was slaughtered. Late in the day Blücher, after a forced march, arrived with part of his army, and, joining the British, sent the French forces flying. Napoleon barely escaped, and the allies pursued the shattered remnants of his army. The Napoleonic wars, which had cost nine million lives and untold treasure, and had remade the map of the world, were ended.

On June 20 Napoleon reached Paris, and on June 22 he abdicated, the House of Representatives having adopted by acclamation Lafayette's motion that the chamber should sit permanently, and that any attempt to dissolve it should be high treason. On July 7 the allies again entered Paris; on the 15th Napoleon surrendered to Captain Maitland of the British ship Bellerophon, at Rochefort. He was taken to England, and thence sent as a prisoner to the island of St. Helena, where he arrived October 15.

Madison reelected President of the United States. Philadelphia began construction of waterworks system. United States victorious in the war with Algiers. The Holy Alliance formed, including all the rulers of Europe excepting the Sultan of Turkey, the Pope, and the King of England. Davy invented the safety lamp. Wollaston, English scientist, by means of electricity, brought platinum to incandescence--the forerunner of the incandescent electric light. Daniel O'Connell killed D'Esterre in a duel. Anti-corn-law riots in England. Robert Fulton died. Financial depression throughout the United States.

=RULERS--The same as in the previous year, except that for a hundred days (March to June) Napoleon was in power in France, Louis XVIII having fled from Paris.=

1816

Twenty years of continual warfare had left England with a debt of eight hundred million pounds, with business at a standstill, riots general throughout the country, and hundreds of thousands of discharged sailors and soldiers added to the unemployed. Fouché was expelled from France by the Bourbons, and Talleyrand replaced in the ministry by the Duc de Richelieu. The Inquisition was reestablished in Spain, and stringent measures employed in the effort to put down the revolts in the American colonies. Bolivar, in Venezuela, inflicted serious losses on the Spaniards. Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Paraguay, declared themselves independent of Spain.

The United States still suffered from a general commercial and industrial depression. First tariff imposed; New England, with Daniel Webster as its leading orator, was at that time for free trade; the South, led by Calhoun, was for protection. New England's shipping trade was practically suspended as a result of the new tariff. Seminole Indian uprising in Florida quelled. First savings-bank in the country opened in Philadelphia. Indiana admitted to the Union. Freemasons expelled from Italy. Goods of English manufacture excluded from Russia. Rebuilding of Moscow begun. First form of the stethoscope invented by Laennec, of Paris.

Gouverneur Morris, American statesman, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, English dramatist and statesman, died.

=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=

1817

The United States entered upon the prosperous period known as the Era of Good Feeling. Government land rapidly taken up by settlers, and people began to push westward. Resumption of the trouble with the Seminoles on the border of Florida. Jackson took command of the troops after many white settlers had been massacred. First line of steamships between New York and Liverpool opened. On July 4 ground was broken for the Erie Canal. First school for deaf-mutes opened at Hartford. First insane asylum in America opened by the Friends in Philadelphia. Mississippi admitted to the Union.

Depression continued in England; several Luddites executed for smashing machinery; eighteen persons hanged for forging Bank of England notes; habeas corpus suspended. Pindaree and Mahratta wars in India; Lord Hastings, the English governor-general, won a series of victories and greatly extended the British power. The Prince Regent of England hooted by mobs because of his conduct to his wife.

Eleven persons in Philadelphia and seven in Norwich, England, killed by steamboat boiler explosions, resulting in violent public opposition to steam vessels. Cholera epidemic started in Bengal, spread over Asia and Europe, crossed the Atlantic, and caused a million deaths before it was checked some years later. Béranger, French poet, imprisoned for blasphemy.

Mme. de Staël, French writer, and Thaddeus Kosciusko, Polish patriot and soldier in the American Revolution, died.

=RULERS--The same as in the previous year, except that James Monroe became President of the United States on March 4.=

1818