APPENDIX (continued 3)

The soldier Paris escaped at the time, but when about to be arrested a few days later, he blew out his brains.

SHEARES, John.

Born, 1766; executed, 1798.

This young Irish patriot, who is described by Yorke as having been the fervent admirer of and even suitor for the hand of Théroigne de Mirecourt, was the fourth son of Henry Sheares, of Whiterock (who was a connection of the then Earl of Shannon). This gentleman was a member of the Irish Parliament from 1761 to 1767, and was eventually appointed to a well-paid Governmental sinecure office. When his father died, John Sheares, a student in Trinity College, Dublin, inherited £3000. He was called to the Irish Bar in 1790.

In 1792 he and his brother Henry visited France and he became a convert to the views of the most revolutionary party in that country. He was a member of the Convention, voted for the death of Louis XVI., and was present at his execution. He was obliged to fly from France, as his views were considered too moderate by the leaders of the Jacobin Club. He returned to Dublin and there led a retired and literary life, following at the same time his profession as a barrister, when unfortunately for himself he began to take a leading part in Irish politics.

When the “Press,” an anti-Governmental organ, was started by Arthur O’Connor in 1797, Sheares wrote several leading articles for it; and one of these, a violent attack upon Lord Clare, caused the total suppression of that newspaper in March 1798.

The hostility of Lord Clare having stopped him in the practice of his profession, Sheares and his brother Henry decided to emigrate to America. But they not only did not do so but joined in a plot to disaffect the militia in King’s County against the Government. A certain Captain Armstrong of that regiment made their acquaintance, and after having gained their confidence, informed against them, and they were both arrested May 21, 1798, and confined in Kilmainham Gaol. They were tried for high treason six weeks later. John Sheares, knowing that his own fate was sealed, only desired and hoped to save his brother Henry, his senior by thirteen years, a married man with six children, and whom he declared had acted entirely under his (John Sheares’) guidance.

The only witness against the brothers was Armstrong. The trial lasted for sixteen consecutive hours—an adjournment was moved for by the prisoner’s counsel, as every one connected with the affair was sinking from exhaustion, but the motion was opposed by the Attorney-General—and at eight o’clock in the morning, after a summing up lasting only a few minutes, a hurried verdict of guilty against the prisoners was returned by the wearied and worn out jury. Henry Sheares fainted in court upon hearing the sentence of death pronounced. After their condemnation no friends or relatives were allowed an interview with the brothers, who were hanged the following morning before the prison gates. After remaining for some time on the gallows their heads were struck off; but their bodies were not quartered (July 14, 1798).

ST. JUST, Louis Antoine de Saint Just.

Born August 25, 1767; guillotined, July 28 (10th Thermidor), 1794, in Paris.

His father, a retired army captain, died in 1777, and St. Just was placed in the Oratorian school of Soissons, where he remained for seven years. On leaving school he studied law for a short time at Rheims, but finally decided to embrace a literary career. Having written a volume of poems, he proceeded to Paris, to arrange about their publication, towards the close of the year 1789, and he there became an enthusiastic revolutionary, giving up literature for politics. His youthful ardour and natural eloquence were assisted by an extraordinary beauty of form and feature, grave and serious manners, and a haughty and resolute demeanour. His private life was that of an ascetic until the termination of his short but chequered career.

The inhabitants of his native town, Decize (Minervais) elected him lieutenant-colonel of their newly formed National Guard, and he conducted a detachment of that regiment to Paris in 1790 to join in the Feast of Federation. His youth prevented his election to the Legislative Assembly until September 1792, when he attained the age of twenty-five.

From that time he took a most active part in the Government, and became the intimate (perhaps the only intimate) friend of Robespierre.

On November 12, when the question of the King’s trial came before the Convention, St. Just’s diatribe was by far the most violent of the many violent and fanatical speeches made on that occasion. On December 16 he proposed the exile of all the Bourbons. At the trial of Louis XVI. he voted for the immediate execution of the King.

In the meantime the Republic was attacked on all sides, from both without and within, for, of the eighty-four Departments, sixty-five were known to be secretly hostile to the Revolution, and to desire the restoration of the ancien régime. On April 24, 1793, St. Just presented to the Convention the following scheme:

The Republic, one and indivisible, was to be represented by a Legislative Assembly, elected every two years by universal suffrage and by a Council elected every three years by the electors of the second degree. This Council, composed of a member for each Department, could only act by the authority of the Assembly, and the Ministers whom it was to appoint were to have no personal or individual power. Any conflict between the Council and the Assembly should be settled by an appeal to the people.

This impossible and impracticable project gives an excellent example of the exaggerated humanitarianism which at that time pervaded the opinions of the young legislator. The Girondins were, in the opinion of St. Just, a danger to the Republic. Their dreams of a federation by which France would be governed in the same way as the United States, and Paris cease to be the head and centre of government, filled him with apprehension. When the Girondins fell St. Just took an important part in their impeachment; his report on the matter was received with applause, and in July he became one of the leading members of the Committee of Public Safety.

From this moment a coalition was formed between Robespierre, Couthon, Le Bas, and St. Just, which continued until they all perished twelve months later. They banded themselves together with a settled purpose, and pitilessly destroyed any and every individual who opposed their views. St. Just was the principal instrument of Robespierre; he read, on October 10, the report upon the organisation of a revolutionary government until a general peace should be declared. “In the present circumstances,” he said, “no Constitution can be established; for it would be an attack upon liberty; with a Constitution the Government could not use sufficient violence against the enemies of the Republic.” He then proposed a decree, which was unanimously adopted by which the Ministers, the Generals, the Admirals, the Executive Council, and all constitutional bodies were to be placed under the immediate supervision of the Committee of Public Safety.

On October 16, the very day of the execution of the Queen, St. Just presented a report by which all foreigners residing in Paris, and particularly the English, were to be arrested. He referred to the death of Marie Antoinette in these words: “Your Committee has punished Austria by bringing a scaffold and the infamy of a public execution into the reigning family of that country.”

A few days later St. Just was despatched to Alsace as a superintendent of military operations; le Bas accompanied him. Arrived at Strasburg, they immediately established a commission to punish summarily “crimes, disorders, and abuses.” No legal forms were observed: a colonel accused of having spoken against the Republic was shot upon the spot; an officer accused of striking one of his men was degraded to the ranks; General Eisenberg, who had been defeated by the Austrians, was executed without a trial. The soldiers were in want of boots. St. Just wrote to the Strasburg municipality: “Ten thousand men in the army are bare-footed; strip the boots and shoes from the feet of the aristocrats of Strasburg. To-morrow, before 10 o’clock, 10,000 pairs of boots must be on their way to the military headquarters.” An immense number of persons were arrested and imprisoned, and innumerable executions took place. The commissioners left Strasburg and joined the army beyond the Rhine, where the generals were treated in the same high-handed manner. On the 12th Frimaire (November 9) St. Just wrote to General Hoche: “Thou hast taken at Kaiserslautern (where he had won a great battle) a further engagement; for instead of one victory, we require TWO.”

After remaining two months with the army St. Just returned to Paris in January 1794. He only remained a couple of weeks in the metropolis, departing for Flanders to supervise the conduct of those military chiefs who commanded in the north. In a few days he had inspected the various posts on the frontier, and, after carrying out his usual policy, he gave the supreme command to Pichegru, and returned to Paris. On February 19 St. Just was elected President of the Convention.

In March the fall of Hébert was followed by that of Danton. The impeachment of the latter was carried out by St. Just, his speech being composed from notes made by Robespierre. He accused Danton of having served the “Tyrant,” of being the protégé of Mirabeau, the friend of Lameth, the accomplice of Dumouriez, and of having defended the Girondins.

Danton’s execution, and those of his immediate allies, delivered Robespierre and St. Just from the enemies they feared, and they flattered themselves they could now carry out their plans without interruption.

On April 29 St. Just returned to the army, Robespierre remaining the head and centre of all government in Paris. This was the most sanguinary period of the Terror.

St. Just remained with the army in Flanders until June 27, when, Charleroi having fallen and the army of the Republic being everywhere victorious in Belgium, he returned in triumph to Paris. The conspiracy which was to break out on July 27 (9th Thermidor) was already in process of formation, but St. Just suspected nothing, and continued to attend the meetings of the Committee of Public Safety and to make many violent speeches. He attacked Fouché, Tallien, and other members without mercy, and on the very morning of 9th Thermidor was speaking in the Tribune, when he was interrupted by Tallien, and the well-known violent scenes which resulted in the arrest of Robespierre and his immediate friends took place.

St. Just, unlike Couthon, le Bas, and Robespierre, did not attempt suicide; he followed the mutilated bodies of his friends on foot, with his hands bound behind him, from the Hôtel de Ville to the Conciergerie. The next day he mounted the scaffold and died silently and courageously. He was not quite twenty-seven years of age.

TALLEYRAND, Perigard, Prince de Benevento, Charles Maurice de.

Born, 1754; died, 1838.

To give a description of the life and work of this statesman would far exceed the limits of this biographical supplement; but the following few facts may interest the reader.

The eldest son of the Comte de Talleyrand, as he was lame and slightly deformed he could not enter the army, he was therefore compelled by his parents to take holy orders; he had no vocation whatever for the priesthood. He received valuable ecclesiastical preferment, and in 1778 was ordained Bishop of Autun. He joined the revolutionary party, and was a member of the National Assembly.

On July 14, 1790, it was he who celebrated the Mass of the Federation in the Champs de Mars, and in December of the same year he took the constitutional oath. He ordained several of the constitutional bishops, and was in consequence excommunicated by the Holy See, who declared all constitutional priests and bishops schismatics.

He was sent to England in February 1792 as an envoy by the French Government, with the idea of reconciling the British Sovereign and his Ministers to the revolutionary changes being then carried out in France. He did not, however, inspire any confidence in either George III. or Pitt, with whom he had several interviews. He returned privately to London in December 1792, and three months later was accused of conspiring against the Republic. He continued to remain in England until the death of Louis XVI., when, finding his position intolerable, owing to the indignation the death of the King excited against all supposed revolutionaries, he departed to America, where he remained until his sentence of banishment from France was revoked in 1795. He did not arrive in France till the following year; he was accompanied by the then notorious Mdme. Grand, with whom he cohabited for a considerable time before he married her. She was the divorced wife of a merchant at Calcutta, and had created a considerable scandal in India owing to her intrigue with Sir Philip Francis, the enemy of Warren Hastings, and reputed author of the Junius Letters. Talleyrand reached Paris, March 1796.

In 1797, by the influence of Barras, and notwithstanding the opposition of Carnot (who was probably the only sincere and disinterested member of the Directorate), Talleyrand was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. He took a considerable part in the coup d’état of 18th Fructidor (September 4, 1797), by which the Directorate re-established, in the name of liberty, most of the tyrannical excesses of the Convention. He had already discovered the extraordinary genius of Bonaparte, and from that time until the fall of the Empire was more or less attached to the fortunes of the then youthful hero.

It was Talleyrand who drew up the treaty of Campo-Formio (October 17, 1794), which Talleyrand and Bonaparte concluded in direct opposition to the desires of the Directorate. Talleyrand first suggested to Bonaparte the idea of an expedition to Egypt, in lieu of that invasion of England which was then the favourite scheme of the French Government.

Bonaparte endeavoured to persuade Talleyrand to accompany him to Egypt; but this he refused, and remained in Paris during the Egyptian and Syrian campaigns, carrying out unchecked his ingenious and tortuous foreign policy. He it was who brought about the occupation of the Papal States by the French, and the imprisonment and capture of the Pope (see Pius VI.), and he also caused the destruction of the Swiss Republic, on the ground that its government was not sufficiently democratic. By diplomatic ruses and threatened violence he extorted an act of abdication from Charles Emmanuel, King of Sardinia, December 9, 1798.

During this time Talleyrand was obtaining in various ways large sums of money for his own private use, more particularly from the Kings of Spain and Portugal, who by lavish bribes to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs hoped to prevent the invasion of their kingdoms.

These circumstances, coupled with the fact that the French army met with defeat after defeat, and, since the departure of Bonaparte, lost all hold over Northern Italy, brought about a violent movement against Talleyrand, who resigned his office as Minister of Foreign Affairs in July 1799.

The return of Napoleon changed the situation, and on November 22 Talleyrand once more occupied his old post, which he held until 1807, when, a month after the treaty of Tilsit, he gave up the seals of this office to Champagny, Duke de Cadore. He was promoted to the dignity of a Prince Electeur of the Empire; he had been created Prince of Benevento, with a fief granted from the Papal States in the previous year.

He continued to hold the key of office as Lord High Chamberlain until 1809, but his intimate relations with the Emperor ceased from the time he abandoned the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His astute nature had already foreseen the inevitable fall of the Empire, and he secretly used every effort to hasten this catastrophe. He continued to act, nevertheless, as Napoleon’s emissary with foreign Powers; gave up his château at Valençay as a State prison for the Spanish Princes; was present at the interview between Napoleon and Alexander at Erfurt, and in an audience with the Russian Emperor, explained to that sovereign Napoleon’s project for a divorce, and asked him, in his master’s name, for the hand of the Grand Duchess Catherine Paulovna, sister to the Czar.

In 1813, when the troubles of the Empire had reached their zenith, Talleyrand was summoned to St. Cloud, and offered the portfolio of Foreign Affairs. He consented to take it on condition peace should immediately be concluded. His advice was not accepted.

During the winter of 1814 he was in secret communication with the Bourbons; had much to do with the conclusion of peace in the April of that year, and entered as Foreign Minister into the first Cabinet of Louis XVIII. May 12, 1814, he represented France at the Council of Vienna.

On the return of Napoleon, Talleyrand during “the Hundred Days” absolutely refused to listen to any offer from the Emperor. After the Second Restoration he took up his old office in the Cabinet, but his opposition to the return of the artistic treasures with which the Republic and the Empire had enriched the Museums of Paris, and his efforts to prevent any cession of French territory, diminished his credit with the Czar and the English commander-in-chief, who were at that time the rulers of France. By their influence he was compelled to leave the Cabinet, Louis XVIII. creating him the same day Lord Chamberlain with a salary of 100,000 francs (£4000).

During the whole of the Restoration, Talleyrand was excluded from taking any leading part in public affairs.

After the Revolution of 1830, to which he had contributed not a little, Talleyrand, who had had for a considerable period a private understanding with Louis Philippe, became his principal political auxiliary.

In September 1830, Prince Talleyrand was sent as Ambassador from the King of the French to the Court of St. James’. He remained in London in that capacity for four years, and notwithstanding his great age showed himself an astute and admirable diplomatist. He received a warm welcome in all the higher circles of English society.

In November 1834 he retired from political life; but his mind was still fresh and vigorous, and his life during the next four years was occupied by social amenities and intellectual pursuits. On March 3, 1838, having entered his eighty-fifth year, he gave an address to the Academy of Science upon the death of the Comte Reinhard, a celebrated diplomatist.

A few weeks later he was suddenly attacked by a painful internal malady, and died on May 17, aged eighty-four years and three months. Before his death he received the Sacraments, signing a letter in which he regretted his abjurations and sins against religion; this letter was despatched to Pope Gregory XVI.

TALLIEN, Jean Lambart.

Born in 1769; died in 1820.

The son of the house steward of the Marquis de Bercy. He received, through the kindness of this nobleman, a good education, and became a notary’s clerk.

At the outbreak of the Revolution he gave up this employment for journalism, publishing for five months under the title of L’Ami des Citoyens, a newspaper which was a worthy companion to the Ami du Peuple of Marat. His newspaper was financed by the Jacobin Club.

He took a prominent part in the events of August 10, and in the massacres in the prisons on September 2. Elected member of the Convention, he defended Marat and denounced General Montesquieu and Roland (then Minister). His speeches against Louis XVI. and the Royal family were so violent and so frequent as actually to evoke a vote of censure from the Convention. At the King’s trial he voted, “For instant death in the interests of humanity.”

It was upon his proposal five months later that the Girondins were put hors de la loi; and in September 1793, Tallien departed with Ysabeau for Bordeaux, “to utterly extirpate any remains of that hydra Girondism.”

Here he instituted a reign of terror. He added tortures to executions, and, under the name of “requisitions,” made, as he said, war upon the commercial aristocracy, by plundering all the wealthy merchants of the town. To the mean cruelties of the worst form of Roman pro-consul he added in his private life the luxury and pomp of a Persian satrap.

He met Mdme. Fontenay and fell desperately in love with her. He saved her from prison and brought her back with him to Paris. He was in consequence ill received by the Committee of Public Safety, who immediately imprisoned the woman he loved, on the accusation of being an aristocrat.

To avert suspicion, Tallien affected an even more vehement and sanguinary patriotism than he had previously shown, and on March 22, 1794, was elected President of the Convention. Robespierre denounced him to the Convention on June 12. He also erased the name of Tallien from the Jacobin Society; this was tantamount to a sentence of death.

Tallien determined to strike first, and to save not only his own life, but that of his mistress; he therefore joined those who feared and hated the triumvirate of Robespierre, St. Just, and le Bas, and who wished to avenge Danton and save their own lives. Tallien became the leader of the party who six weeks later overthrew Robespierre.

After this he occupied for a short time the place that the death of Maximilien Robespierre had left unoccupied. He married the woman he loved, closed the Club of the Jacobins, and put upon their trial le Bon, Fouquier-Tinville and other agents of terrorism. He retained predominant power in the State until July 1795, when he visited the army on the western frontier on a mission to General Hoche. Here he was once more guilty of summary executions and caused much unnecessary bloodshed.

The advent of the Directorate in October of the same year practically finished his active political career. He was accused of venality and treason, and though he became a member of the Five Hundred, his speeches were received with indifference or insult.

In May 1798 he left that assembly, and here his public life may be said to have terminated.

He accompanied the expedition of Bonaparte to Egypt in the capacity of a savant! Bonaparte and he were friends at the time owing to the intimacy of their wives, and he had acted as witness when the general married Madame Beauharnais.

In Egypt Tallien was appointed Administrator of the Interior, and he wrote a work called “Décade Egyptienne.” On his return to Europe a year after the departure of Napoleon, the ship upon which he sailed was taken by an English cruiser and he was carried to London. Here he was enthusiastically received by the Radical party.

After the peace of Amiens he returned to France, but did not find a warm welcome. His wife had been notoriously unfaithful to him during his absence; he divorced her immediately.

After vainly petitioning the First Consul for an appointment he received, by the influence of Talleyrand and Fouché, the unenviable situation of Consul in the unhealthy Spanish seaport of Alicante several months later. Here he remained for some years, nearly dying on one occasion of yellow fever, by which he lost the sight of an eye.

He returned to France, and ended his days living in obscurity on a small pension, and dying in 1820, at the age of fifty-one.

TALLIEN, Comtesse of Caramon, Princesse de Chimay, Theresa Cabarrus.

Born at Saragossa, in Spain, 1773; died at Chimay, in Belgium, 1835.

This beautiful woman was the daughter of the Count of Cabarrus, Spanish Minister of Finance. At the age of sixteen she married M. Devin de Fontenoy, Counsellor to the Parliament of Bordeaux. Her married life was unhappy; and when the Republic instituted divorce, she obtained one from her husband. After this she led a life of absolute freedom, joined the revolutionary party, and became a conspicuous feature in their meetings at Bordeaux. For some reason, now unknown, she was imprisoned. Tallien, on his mission to Bordeaux as Commissionary of the Republic, heard her beauty praised, visited her in her cell, fell madly in love with her, and carried her back with him to Paris; there she was arrested and again imprisoned. After her release and marriage to Tallien, she became one of the most brilliant leaders of the corrupt and immoral society of the Directorate. Her conduct, during the absence of her husband in Egypt, passed all bounds of decency, and she gave birth to two children, whom Tallien refused to acknowledge. He divorced her in 1802.

In 1805 she married M. de Caramon, who became Prince de Chimay, by whom she had a family of two sons and two daughters.

Although she had been the companion in prison of Josephine Beauharnais, and both Tallien and herself intimate friends of the Bonapartes in the early days of their married life, Napoleon would never allow his wife to receive her publicly at the Tuileries, either as Mdme. Tallien or the Princess de Chimay.

TREILHARD, Jean Baptiste, Comte de.

Born at Brives, January 3, 1742; died in Paris, 1810.

He began life as a lawyer, being a prominent notary at Limoges. The whole aristocracy and higher clergy in the town put their business affairs into his hands. In 1789 he was sent to Paris as a member of the Tiers État. His opinions were moderate at first, but soon became intensely democratic. It was he who undertook the business of reporting on Church property, and he presided over the Ecclesiastical Committee in the Assembly. He proposed and passed a decree which suppressed all religious orders, and made the property of the Church national. In 1791 he proposed that Voltaire should receive the honours of the Panthéon, adding “that Voltaire was perhaps the man amongst the dead who most deserved the honours accorded to great patriots.” During the session of 1792, Treilhard presided over the criminal tribune of the departments of Paris. He decreed that Louis XVI. was guilty of conspiracy against public liberty, and against the security of the State. At the King’s trial he voted for his death, but with a respite and appeal to the people. He was sent to Bordeaux to suppress the rising of the Girondins, but recalled under the accusation of showing too much moderation, and was replaced by Tallien.

He was Minister of Justice under the Directorate. Later he underwent much persecution, owing to the intrigues of Sieyès, who was his enemy. Napoleon appointed him President (or Judge) of the High Court of Appeal, and he held this appointment till 1808, when he became President of the Council of State until his death, two years later, at the age of sixty-eight.

TURENNE, Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne, Vicomte de.

Born at Sedan, September 11, 1611; killed at Salzbach, July 27, 1675.

The second son of Henri, Duc de Bouillon, and Elizabeth, daughter of William the Silent, Prince of Orange, and granddaughter of Admiral Coligny. He was educated in his mother’s religion, Calvinism. At the age of fifteen (1626), he went to study military science and the art of war under his uncles, the Princes Maurice and Henry of Nassau. In 1630 he arrived in France, and Richelieu gave him the colonelcy of a regiment. For the next eight years he was incessantly engaged in active service, and distinguished himself as a commander, both on the Rhine and in Flanders. Richelieu, who had the highest opinion of his military capacity, wished to attach him to his interests, and offered him the hand of one of his nieces who had a large dowry. Turenne took advantage of the difference of religion as a pretext for refusing this alliance.

In 1639 Turenne served in Italy, and saved the army of the Prince de Carignan by the celebrated battle of the “Route de Quiers.” His courage and tenacity of purpose brought about the capture of Turin. The Duke de Bouillon, his elder brother, was implicated in the plot of Cinq Mars and arrested. Turenne used his influence over the Cardinal to obtain his brother’s release. The Duke left France, abjured Calvinism, and became commander-in-chief of the Papal army. At the commencement of the Regency of Anne of Austria, Turenne was commanding the French army in Italy; but Richelieu, fearing that he and his elder brother might become allies against him, despatched Turenne to Germany, with orders to collect and reform the dispersed and broken mercenary Westphalian troops, then in the pay of France. In this he was successful. From 1644 to 1648 he continued the German campaign, until the conclusion of the Treaty of Westphalia (October 24, 1648), which terminated the Thirty Years War. At this time the troubles of the Fronde, which had been long simmering, blazed out. The Duke de Bouillon, Turenne’s brother, was one of the principal leaders of the movement. The Queen, Condé, and the Cardinal used every effort to prevent Turenne following his brother’s example. Mazarin offered him one of his nieces in marriage and the Governorship of Alsace. Turenne brought his troops back to France, and then attempted to lead them against the Minister; but the men, having been bribed by Cardinal Mazarin, refused to obey their general, who was compelled to take refuge in Holland. A month later he returned to Paris. When the Princes were arrested (January 18, 1650), Mazarin again offered him his protection, and the command of the army in Flanders. By this time the seductive graces of the Duchess de Longueville had completely captivated Turenne, and he left Paris for Stenay, a fortified town near Sedan, in the principality of the Duke de Bouillon. Here he was joined by the Duchess. Under her influence he signed a treaty with the Spaniards, by which he agreed to fight with them against France until the imprisoned Princes should be released. He joined the Archduke Leopold, marched through Picardy, took several towns, and pushed on until he and his army were within a few hours of Vincennes, where the Princes had been confined; but hearing they had been transferred to the Castle of Marcoussis, near Rambouillet, he recrossed the River Aisne and directed his march in that direction; he encountered the whole Royal army, 19,000 strong, and though enormously outnumbered, was forced to fight in a valley near Sompuis. He was totally defeated. He then retired from the civil war, and returned to the Archduke the 100,000 crowns which the latter had given him to continue the campaign. The Princes were shortly afterwards released, Mazarin exiled, and the Duc de Bouillon’s just claims, which he had been making unavailingly for eight years, fully satisfied. Turenne then returned to France, and married, in 1651, Charlotte de Caumont, daughter of the Maréchal Armand de la Force. The bridegroom was forty and the bride thirty, but their attachment had lasted many years, and it was for her sake Turenne had already refused many brilliant alliances.

Turenne was greatly opposed to the second rebellion of Condé, who up to that time had been his intimate friend. He conducted the campaign against the army of the Fronde during the critical year of 1652, defeated the rebellious Princes, and was able to bring back the King to Paris on October 21. Condé and his allies, the Spaniards, were eventually absolutely vanquished and driven from France, but the war lasted for nearly seven years, and it was not until November 1659, that a peace, glorious for France, was concluded by the Treaty of the Pyrenees.

From this time forth Turenne was one of those few men in whom Louis XIV. had absolute confidence, and he consulted him on all matters of foreign policy. Turenne took a very considerable part in the restoration of Charles II. In 1667 a fresh war with Spain was imminent, the King of France informed Turenne that it was his intention to march at the head of the army, and learn from his commander-in-chief the art of war.

At this time Turenne abjured Calvinism and joined the Catholic Church. There is every reason to believe his change of religion was sincere and not dictated by political motives. He had for two years been anxious to become a Catholic, and made a serious study of religious questions under the guidance of Bossuet; and in 1668 he was privately re-baptised by the Archbishop of Paris.

Turenne in 1672 took supreme command on the occasion of the war with Holland; the King acting as a figure-head. The campaign was long, arduous and only partially successful.

The year 1674 was the apogee of the military career of Turenne. At a moment when several armies were gathered together ready to invade France, he determined, notwithstanding the inferiority of his forces, to divide his enemies and attack them separately. He marched down the left bank of the Rhine, and, meeting the Imperialists, defeated them at Sinzheim upon June 16. He then passed the river, and defeated another body of the enemy’s troops at Ladenburg. The allies, having reorganised their army, invaded Alsace and established there their winter quarters. Turenne brought his troops by the Vosges mountains, entered Alsace, and attacking the Imperialists (who were taken entirely by surprise, not expecting an army would venture to move in the winter), defeated them first at Mulhouse (December 29) and at Turckheim on January 5. Alsace was thus entirely reconquered. Turenne made a triumphant return to Versailles, where Louis XIV. publicly embraced him.

In the following year, 1675, Turenne found himself the adversary of Montecuccoli, the greatest living tactician in Europe. For six weeks the two generals manœuvred and out-manœuvred each other in their respective efforts to cross the Rhine. At length Turenne found a favourable opportunity. The two armies were face to face near the village of Salzbach (July 27), and Turenne was riding round the advance posts, when his lieutenant-general, St. Hilaric, rode up to inform him a column of the enemy was approaching. At this moment a shell struck the party, St. Hilaric lost his left arm, and Turenne was wounded in the side. The marshal never spoke again, but fell dead from his horse.

His death caused universal mourning all over France. General Montecuccoli, on hearing of the death of his rival, said: “A man has died to-day who was an honour to humanity.” Turenne is buried under the same dome as Napoleon—at the Invalides.

VAUBAN, Sebastian le Prestre, Seigneur de.

Military engineer and Marshal of France. Born, May 1, 1633; died, March 30, 1707. His father, the cadet of an ancient family, was styled by himself “the poorest gentleman in France.”

Young Vauban, left a penniless orphan at the age of ten, was adopted and educated by the village priest. At seventeen he enlisted in Condé’s rebel army, being taken prisoner a year later, and brought before Mazarin, who, discovering his natural genius, gave him a commission of lieutenant and put him under the orders of the Chevalier de Clermont, the greatest military engineer of the day.

In 1655 Vauban obtained the brevet of engineer. His reputation grew rapidly. Acting under the orders of Turenne he was of the greatest service at the sieges of Stenay, Clermont, Landrecies, Condé, Valenciennes, and Montmedz, and this notwithstanding the fact that he was several times severely wounded.

In 1658 he directed on his own responsibility the sieges and attacks upon Mardyk, Gravelines, Oudenarde and Ypres. After the Peace of the Pyrenees he employed the succeeding next years of profound peace in constructing new fortresses and modernising old ones. When, in 1667, war broke out again he at once reassumed his old post. In the presence of Louis XIV. he conducted the sieges of Tournai and Douai, and took Lille after only eighteen days’ investiture.

The following year he captured Dôle, and was then desired by Loubois, who was his principal protector, to construct new fortifications at all the recently conquered Flemish towns. He carried out these orders so completely that when the Dutch war occurred five years later the northern frontier of France was defended by a chain of almost impregnable forts. The siege of Maestricht, which fell after an attack lasting only thirteen days, raised his credit to an enormous height.

In 1674 he was created Brigadier of the Royal army, and in 1675 Maréchal de camp. Two years later he succeeded the Chevalier M. Clermont as Commissary-General of the fortifications of France. During the next ten years he surrounded France from north to south with admirably planned and almost impregnable fortresses. He also constructed the aqueduct of Maintenon and the canal of Riquet. Another war taking place in 1688, Vauban conducted the sieges of Phillipsburg, and, after saving Dunkirk and other French towns from the enemy, conquered Mons and Namur in the King’s presence. In 1697 the Peace of Ryswick put an end to his military career, during which he had built or repaired 333 fortresses, conducted 53 sieges, and been present at 140 battles and skirmishes.

After the Peace of Ryswick, Vauban devoted the remaining ten years of his life to the study of political economy; and the result of his labours was the composition of a book, famous in its day and still remembered by economists, called Dîme Royale. This book described the system of political economy Vauban wished to introduce, which was to substitute for all taxes and levies of money from the people a contribution of the tenth part (or less) of the annual value of all lands and money in the hands of private individuals; in fact, a graduated income tax.

He wished to abolish all taxes and Governmental duties on articles of food and upon salt; but he desired to retain duties upon articles of luxury and certain merchandise, such as spirits, tea, coffee and tobacco. This book, which also included a graphic description of the misery and want which the lower classes in France were suffering at the time, appeared in 1707.

St. Simon gives a vivid description of the King’s fury, when he received a copy from Maréchal Vauban. His Majesty had already obtained a pretty good idea of the scope and matter it contained.

A few weeks later the book was seized and confiscated by an Act of Parliament, and its publication stopped. Vauban did not long survive the blow; he died in Paris three weeks after this decree was promulgated. To quote St. Simon:

The King looked now upon Marshal Vauban as a fanatical defender of the people, and a criminal who was attempting an attack upon the authority of the Ministers, and, through them, upon the Crown. The unfortunate Marshal could not survive the loss of the favour of a master to whom he was deeply attached and whom he had served so faithfully; he died soon after, seeing no one and consumed with grief. The King received the news of his death with indifference, and did not even recognise that he had lost one of his most illustrious servants.

The writings of Vauban upon fortifications and military matters are well-known to all experts, and are still the best works that have been written on these subjects.

VISCONTI, Ennio Quirino.

Born in Rome, 1751; died in Paris, 1818.

He was an extraordinarily precocious child, and at the age of thirteen had translated “Hecuba” of Euripides and the “Olympics” of Pindar. He obtained the degree of doctor of law and literature in 1771 (aged twenty), and was then appointed camararis to the Pope and sub-librarian to the Vatican. He steadily refused to take holy orders, notwithstanding personal pressure from the Pope. When he married in 1785, he was dismissed from the Vatican, although he had compiled the whole of the catalogues of the Museo Clementius. Prince Chigi then took him into his service as librarian. During the next ten years he arranged and classified the collections the two Englishmen, Jenkins and Wortley, had made from excavations at Athens and other parts of Greece. He also organised the Borghese Museum.

When the French entered Rome in January 1798, Visconti was appointed by General Berthier Minister of the Interior, and, later, one of the five Consuls who were to govern the Roman Republic; he had only occupied this post seven months, when the intrigues of his enemies compelled his flight to Perugia, his honesty and moderation having excited the hatred of his four fellow Consuls.

The Neapolitans retook Rome in 1799, and Visconti, separated from his wife and family, was exiled, and departed for France. Here he was immediately employed in organising and arranging the Museum of the Louvre, then just founded. He was appointed Professor of Archæology and Member of the Institute. In 1801 appeared his celebrated Livret du Musée. He also made a complete catalogue containing elaborate descriptions of the works of art in the Louvre. By Napoleon’s orders he commenced the des dessins antiques, which was to contain illustrations drawn and engraved by him, comprising portraits of all the illustrious heroes of antiquity. The Academies of Europe vied with one another in asking his advice and judgment upon matters of art. In 1814 he was summoned to London to give his opinion upon the merits or possible demerits of the Elgin marbles, the English Government not being willing to give Lord Elgin the price demanded. Visconti valued them at 800,000 francs (£32,000) and decided that they were all the work of Phidias and his pupils. This sum was paid.

Soon after his return to Paris he was attacked by a painful internal malady, and died, aged sixty-six.

LA VALLÉE, Marquis Joseph de Bois, Robert de.

Born in 1747; died in 1816.

He was captain in a regiment of Champagne before the Revolution. He became an enthusiastic democrat; later, a devoted adherent of Napoleon. During the Empire he was head of the Chancellerie of the Legion of Honour. He lost this appointment, however, under the Restoration, and retired to London, where he died. La Vallée was a voluminous writer, a great linguist, and had a knowledge of ancient art and literature.

VOLTAIRE, François Marie, de.

Born, 1694, at Sceaux; died in Paris, 1778.

He was the son of Maître François Arouet, a lawyer who held a position in the Cour des Comptes in Paris. The birth of Voltaire took place under peculiar circumstances. His mother, who was not immediately expecting her confinement, joined a party one afternoon for a long walk in the environs of Paris. Before she could get home, she was taken suddenly in labour, and her child was prematurely born in a stranger’s house. The infant was so weak, small, and feeble that it could not be taken to church for baptism until nine months after its birth. Young Arouet lost his mother a few years later. His relations with his father were not happy, and his only brother, ten years his senior, was a bigoted Jansenist.

When only ten years of age, François Arouet was placed at the College of Louis le Grand, directed by the Jesuit Fathers. Here he remained for seven years, the favourite of his teachers, who considered him their most brilliant scholar, his amusing sallies and lively wit gained him popularity with his fellow students. At college, Voltaire (who through life assiduously cultivated intimacy with exalted personages) contracted friendships with the sons of noblemen, ministers and magistrates. When he was eleven years of age his godfather, the Abbé Châteauneuf, presented him to Ninon de l’Enclos, then nearly ninety years old, but still mentally and physically attractive. The clever and witty child delighted the aged courtesan, who in her will left him 2000 francs (£80) to buy books. He also met Jean Jacques Rousseau a few years later: the latter embraced him, and predicted a glorious future for the youthful genius.

After he left college, Arouet soon profited by the friendships he had made among his superiors in rank and position, and succeeded in obtaining a footing which he maintained till 1726 in the most exclusive and fashionable society in Paris. He had many adventures, notably a romantic affair when attached to the Legation in Holland. Accused of writing a series of satirical poems against the Government of the Regency, he was sent to the Bastille; but this only increased his fame and added to his notoriety. Released a year later, the Regent granted him a private and friendly interview, settling upon him a pension of 1000 livres (£120) a year. Ever afterwards he wrote in most eulogistic terms of the Regent, and dedicated his Tragedy of Œdipus to the Duchess of Orleans. He continued to write successful plays and to publish books of poetry and prose as well as to move in the highest society until 1726, when a catastrophe occurred which changed the bent of his whole life.

Arouet, who had now assumed the name and style of de Voltaire, was on December 10 of this year dining with one of his chief patrons, the Duke de Sully. Among the guests was a dissolute middle aged man, the Chevalier de Rohan (younger son of the Duke de Rohan). The Chevalier inquired in a loud voice—“Who was the young man who talked so much and gave his unasked-for opinion so freely?” Voltaire answered, “He is a man who cannot boast of an exalted name, but who understands how to keep up the honour of the humble name he does bear.” This sally almost convulsed de Rohan with fury, being a direct allusion to his notoriously evil reputation. Three days later Voltaire was seized on the very steps of the Hôtel du Sully and soundly flogged there and then in the open street by three of the chevalier’s lackeys, De Rohan enjoying the spectacle seated in a coach drawn up hard by. The chevalier’s victim could obtain no redress, his adversary refused to fight him, and when Arouet made further efforts to obtain satisfaction, he was again confined in the Bastille. Upon his release he immediately started for England, his pride forbade his reappearance among his old companions. His host in London was Bolingbroke, who had only just returned to Great Britain after a long exile. Arouet remained three years in England, making an earnest and thorough study of English literature, and becoming intimate with Pope, Addison, and Swift.

In 1729 he went back to Paris and recommenced his literary career. The bold unconventionality of his writings and the freedom of his opinions in religion and politics made the author an object of suspicion to the French Government. His “Letters from England” were suppressed, his Lettres Philosophiques publicly burnt by the common hangman, and their publisher incarcerated in the Bastille; to avoid sharing his fate, Voltaire again fled from France.

His liaison with the beautiful and cultivated Madame du Châtelet commenced about this time. She was about twenty-eight years of age. The Marquis and Marchioness du Châtelet inhabited a château in Lorraine, and there Voltaire principally lived until the death of the Marquis in 1749. He was occasionally absent for considerable periods—at Brussels in 1739, in Paris, 1740.

He had several interviews with Frederick the Great when the latter was Prince of Prussia.

After the Battle of Fontenoy in 1744, an ode he composed upon that victory brought him once more into favour at Versailles, and for two years he enjoyed the immediate patronage of Madame de Pompadour. He could not, however, control his powers of satire, and in 1746 fell into disgrace at Court, from which he never successfully emerged. He then, in company with Madame du Châtelet, joined the literary coterie of the Duchess de Maine at Sçeaux, and afterwards, still accompanied by his fair friend, paid a visit to the Court of the ex-King Stanislaus, father of the Queen of France, at Luneville. Here Madame du Châtelet fell desperately in love with a handsome young officer, thirteen years her junior, the Marquis de St. Lombert. Voltaire accepted the situation with philosophic calm, saying he wished to change his position as lover for that of a sincere and devoted friend. A year later the Marquise died in child-bed, and a grotesque as well as melancholy scene took place; the three men, her husband, the Marquis du Châtelet, Voltaire, and St. Lombert, all weeping in each other’s arms over her body!

Voltaire established himself in Paris: a widowed niece, Mdme. Denis, whom he adopted as his daughter, kept house for him, and remained his companion for the rest of his life. In 1750 Frederick the Great invited the distinguished author to settle at Potsdam as his permanent guest. Voltaire accepted the offer, reaching Berlin in July of the same year. He was received with almost regal honours: a pension of 20,000 livres, the golden key of Great Chamberlain, and the Cross of the Order of Prussia bestowed upon him. All his plays were performed in succession at the theatre of Potsdam. At the King’s private suppers the French poet was privileged to make any remarks he pleased, and not bound to observe any form of Court etiquette. This (to Voltaire) ideal existence lasted two years and six months, during which time he wrote and published at Berlin the Siècle de Louis XIV. Voltaire began to take too great an advantage of the licence accorded to him by the Prussian monarch; he presumed to correct Frederick’s French prose, and to make light of his verses. He quarrelled with the Court banker, Hirsch (the direct ancestor of the late great financier Baron Hirsch), about a doubtful monetary speculation, and a lawsuit took place between them. It seems probable that this affair, which has never been satisfactorily cleared up, contributed far more than a literary dispute to the final rupture between King Frederick and his pet philosopher. Voltaire had always shown great financial ability, and had amassed a large fortune, which he continued to increase during the remainder of his career.

In the early spring of 1753, Voltaire and Frederick parted never to meet again, mutually disgusted with one another. The poet departed with his niece to Weime, on a visit to the Grand Duke and Duchess. Frederick, discovering soon after that Voltaire had taken with him a volume of very obscene, scurrilous, and questionable verse, which the King had had printed for private circulation only, a commission, led by a stupid and hotheaded officer named Freytag, was despatched in pursuit, with orders to take it by force if necessary from the former favourite, together with his golden key, and the Cross of Prussia. Voltaire and Mdme. Denis were accordingly arrested at Frankfort and kept in durance for thirty-six days, during which time they were subjected to every possible form of arrogant insult.

Although Voltaire desired to conciliate the religious party in France, even going so far as to confess and communicate at Easter in Lyons, he could not persuade them to overlook his anti-Christian publications. The appearance in print of the Siècle de Louis XIV., and an abominable skit upon Joan of Arc, called La Pucelle, destroyed the last chance of his ever again being received at Court. He therefore purchased an estate in Switzerland, where he built a charming villa called Les Délices; in 1760 he bought the estate of Ferney, near the Swiss and French frontier, but in French territory. For the next eighteen years he resided there in great state, and was visited by innumerable famous and distinguished personages, from kings and princes to authors and actors. One of his visitors has thus described life at Ferney:

Voltaire is very rich; he is as proud of his wealth as of his literary reputation. He loves to act the part of Seigneur du Village, and to show his guests his houses, gardens, fields, woods, horses (of which he has twelve in his private stable), and his cattle. He dresses with elegance and care; on feast days his attire is splendid. He has built a church for the villagers, and attends Mass in state on Sundays, with an escort of two game-keepers carrying loaded muskets. He exacts all feudal rights and privileges as a landlord. He is always ill, or ailing, and yet an indefatigable worker, with an activity and liveliness of mind and intellect of a young man. His temper is variable. He is by turns capricious, obstinate, irascible, passionate, and revengeful. His reputation for avarice is undeserved, but, on the other hand, he is often very liberal and generous; though, being a man of great business capacity, he administers his affairs with practical common sense, and will not allow himself to be cheated of a farthing.

His writings continued to make more and more stir in the world of letters, and he was to a great extent the arbiter of intellectual thought all over Europe during the last twenty years of his life. He hailed the advent of Louis XVI. to the throne of France with joy, believing a new and enlightened régime was about to begin.

Pressure was put upon him on all sides to return to Paris, Queen Marie Antoinette herself interceded with the King to give the required permission for the exile’s reception at Court, and in February 1778, Voltaire quitted Ferney and arrived in Paris on the evening of the 10th of that month. He had been an exile for twenty-nine years. From this time until his death his existence was one perpetual ovation. The excitement of this round of entertainments and receptions—which culminated, when after a performance of his new tragedy Irene, his bust was crowned upon the stage of the Théâtre Français—was too much for his aged feeble frame to support, and taken suddenly ill he expired on May 30, 1778, aged eighty-four and three months. He desired to receive the last Sacraments, but when the priest arrived the patient was already unconscious. He had, however, confessed himself to the Abbé Gauthier, an ex-Jesuit, and received the Communion on the previous March 2, when he signed a retractation of his deistic and infidel opinions. He added—“I shall die adoring God, loving my friends, and detesting superstition of every kind.”

Voltaire was buried in the Abbey of Scellières, where his body lay until it was removed to the Panthéon by the order of the Convention.

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