Part 2 — Chapter III. (These four articles abrogated by the four articles following them, 118-122.) Article 118. The Federal Constitution may at any time be amended. (continued 58)

H. Martin, Popular History of France from the First Revolution, volume 3, chapter 24.

ALSO IN: E. B. Washburne, Recollections of a Minister to France, volume 2, chapters 5-7.

P. Vésinier, History of the Commune of Paris.

P. O. Lissagaray, History of the Commune of 1871.

W. P. Fetridge, Rise and Fall of the Paris Commune.

J. Leighton, Paris under the Commune.

FRANCE: A. D. 1871 (April-May). The government of the Commune in Paris.

"For the conduct of affairs the Communal Council divided itself into ten 'commissions,' of finance, war, public safety, external relations, education, justice, labour and exchange, provisions, the public service, and the general executive. Of these the most efficient appears to have been that of finance; by advances from the bank and by the revenues of the post, the telegraph, the octrois, &c., means were found to provide for the current expenditure. The other commissions were admittedly inefficient, and especially the one which was most important for the moment, that of war:—'as to a general plan,' says Lissagaray, 'there never was one: the men were abandoned to themselves, being neither cared for nor controlled;' 'at the Ministry,' says Gastyne, 'no one is at his place. They pass their time in running after one another. The most insignificant Lieutenant will take orders from nobody, and wants to give them to everybody. They smoke, chat and chaff. They dispute with the contractors. They buy irresponsibly right and left because the dealers give commissions or have private relations with the officials;' 'in the army of Versailles,' said a member of the Commune, 'they don't get drunk: in ours they are never sober;' 'the administration of war,' said another, 'is the organisation of disorganisation;' 'I feel myself,' said Rossel, on resigning his command, 'incapable of any longer bearing the responsibility of a command where everyone deliberates and no one obeys. The central committee of artillery has deliberated and prescribed nothing. The Commune has deliberated and resolved upon nothing. The Central Committee deliberates and has not yet known how to act. … My predecessor committed the fault of struggling against this absurd situation. I retire, and have the honour to ask you for a cell at Mazas.' The same incompetence, leading to the same result of anarchy, was displayed by the Executive Commission:—'in less than a fortnight,' said Grosset, 'conflicts of every kind had arisen; the Executive Commission gave orders which were not executed; each particular commission, thinking itself sovereign in its turn, gave orders too, so that the Executive Commission could have no real responsibility.' {1392} On April 20 the Executive Commission was replaced by a committee, composed of a delegate from each of the nine other commissions; still efficiency could not be secured, and at the end of the month it was proposed to establish a Committee of Public Safety. This proposition was prompted by the traditions of 1793, and brought into overt antagonism the two conflicting tendencies of the Commune: there were some of its members who were ready to save the movement by a despotism, to secure at every cost a strong administration, and impose the Commune, if need be by terror, upon Paris and the provinces. … On the other hand there was a strong minority which opposed the proposal, on the ground that it was tantamount to an abdication on the part of the Communal Council. … The appointment of the Committee was carried by forty-five votes to twenty-three; many of those who voted for it regarded it as merely another 'Executive Commission,' subordinate to, and at any moment subject to dismissal by, the Commune; and so, in effect, it proved; it was neither more terrible nor more efficient than the body to which it succeeded; it came into existence on the 1st of May, and on the 9th the complaint was already advanced that 'your Committee of Public Safety has not answered our expectations; it has been an obstacle, instead of a stimulus;' on the 10th a new committee was appointed, with similar results; all that the innovation achieved was to bring into clear relief the fact that there existed in the Commune a Jacobin element ready to recur to the traditions of 1793, and to make Paris the mistress of France by the guillotine or its modern equivalent."

G. L. Dickinson, Revolution and Reaction in Modern France, pages 267-270.

FRANCE: A. D. 1871-1876. The Assembly at Bordeaux. Thiers elected Chief of the Executive Power. The founding of the Republic. The recovery of order and prosperity. Resignation of Thiers. Election of Marshal MacMahon. Plans of the Monarchists defeated. Adoption of the Constitution of 1875.

"The elections passed off more quietly than was to be expected, and the Assembly which came together at Bordeaux on the 13th of February exactly represented the sentiment of the nation at that particular moment. France being eager for peace, the Assembly was pacific. It was also somewhat unrepublican, for the Republic had been represented in the provinces only by Gambetta, the promoter of war to the knife, who had sacrificed the interests of the Republic to what he conceived to be the interests of the national honor. Politics had, in truth, been little thought of, and Thiers was elected in 27 departments upon very diverse tickets, rather on account of his opposition to the war and his efforts in favor of peace than on account of his fame as a liberal orator and historian. Moved by the same impulse, the Assembly almost unanimously appointed him Chief of the Executive Power of the French Republic, and intrusted to him the double task of governing the country and of treating with the German Emperor. … It was apparently in the name of the Republic that peace was negotiated and the Government gradually reconstructed. … The Assembly, however, which was all-powerful, held that to change the form of government was one of its rights. It might have been urged that the electors had scarcely contemplated this, and that the Monarchists were in the majority simply because they represented peace, while in the provinces the Republic had meant nothing but war to the hilt. But these distinctions were not thought of in the press of more urgent business, namely, the treaty which was to check the shedding of blood, and the rudiments of administrative reconstruction. No monarchy would have been willing to assume the responsibility of this Treaty. … The Right accordingly consented to accept the name of Republic as a makeshift, provided it should be talked about as little as possible. Thiers had come to think, especially since the beginning of the war, that the Republic was the natural heir of Napoleon III. … He had, however, been struck with the circumstance that so many Legitimists had been elected to the Assembly, and he was no more eager than they to stop to discuss constitutions. … He was the more disposed to wait, inasmuch as he saw in the Chamber the very rapid formation and growth of a group in which he had great confidence. Of these deputies M. Jules Simon has given a better definition than they could themselves formulate,—for this political philosopher has written a masterly history of these years. … Here is what Simon says of this party in the Assembly: 'There were in this body some five-score firm spirits who were alike incapable either of forsaking the principles whereon all society rests, or of giving up freedom. Of all forms of government they would have preferred constitutional monarchy, had they found it established, or could they have restored it by a vote without resort to force. But they quickly perceived that neither the Legitimists nor the Bonapartists would consent to the constitutional form; that such a monarchy could obtain a majority neither in the Parliament nor among the people. … Some of these men entertained for the Republic a distrust which, at first, amounted to aversion. Being persuaded, however, that they must choose between the Republic and the Empire … they did not despair of forming a Republic at once liberal and conservative. In a word, they thrust aside the Legitimate Monarchy as chimerical, Republican and Cæsarian dictatorship as alike hateful. … Of this party M. Thiers was not merely the head, but the body also.' … But there was another party, which, although the least numerous in the Assembly and split into factions at that, was the most numerous in the country,—the Republican party."

P. de Rémusat, Thiers, chapters 6-7.

{1393}

"In the wake of Thiers followed such men as Rémusat, Casimir Périer, Leon Say, and Lafayette. This added strength made the Republicans the almost equal rivals of the other parties combined. So great was Thiers' influence that, despite his conversion to Republicanism, he was still able to control the Monarchical Assembly. A threat of resignation, so great was the dread of what might follow it, and so jealous were the Monarchists of two shades and the Imperialists of each other, was enough to bring the majority to the President's terms. It was under such political conditions that the infant Republic, during its first year, undertook the tasks of preserving peace, of maintaining internal order, of retrieving disaster, of tempting back prosperity and thrift to the desolated land, of relieving it of the burdens imposed by war, and, at the same time, of acquiring for itself greater security and permanency. The recovery of France was wonderfully rapid; her people began once more to taste sweet draughts of liberty; the indemnity was almost half diminished; and her industries, at the end of the year, were once more in full career. But the Republic was a long way from complete and unquestioned recognition. The second year of the Republic (1872-73) was passed amid constant conflicts between the rival parties. Thiers still maintained his ascendency, and stoutly adhered to his defence of Republican institutions; but the Assembly was restive under him, and energetic attempts were made to bring about a fusion between the Legitimists and the Orleanists. These attempts were rendered futile by the obstinacy of the Count of Chambord, who would yield nothing, either of principle or even of symbol, to his cousin of Orleans. The want of harmony among the Monarchists postponed the consideration of what should be the permanent political constitution of France until November of the year 1872, when a committee of thirty was chosen to recommend constitutional articles. Against this the Republicans protested. They declared that the Assembly had only been elected to make peace with Germany; … that dissolution was the only further act that the Assembly was competent to perform. This indicated the confidence of the Republicans in their increased strength in the country; and the fact that the Monarchists refused to dissolve shows that they were not far from holding this opinion of their opponents. Despite the rivalries and bitterness of the factions, the Republic met with no serious blow from the time of its provisional establishment in February, 1871, until May, 1873. Up to the latter period two thirds of the enormous indemnity had been paid, and the German force of occupation had almost entirely retired from French territory. … But in Italy, 1873, a grave misfortune, alike to France and to the Republican institutions, occurred. At last the Monarchical reactionists of the Assembly had gathered courage to make open war upon President Thiers. Perceiving that his policy was having the effect of nourishing and adding ever new strength to the Republican cause, and that every month drifted them further from the opportunity and hope of restoring Monarchy or Empire … they now forgot their own differences, and resolved, at all hazards, to get rid of the Republic's most powerful protector. … The Duc de Broglie, the leader of the reactionary Monarchists, offered a resolution in the Assembly which was tantamount to a proposition of want of confidence in President Thiers. After an acrimonious debate, in which Thiers himself took part, De Broglie's motion was passed by a majority of fourteen. The President had no alternative but to resign; and thus the executive power, at a critical moment, passed out of Republican into Monarchical hands. Marshal MacMahon was at once chosen President. … MacMahon was strongly Catholic in religion; and so far as he was known to have any political opinions, they wavered between Legitimism and Imperialism—they were certainly as far as possible from Republicanism. Now was formed and matured a deliberate project to overthrow the young Republic, and to set up Monarchy in its place. All circumstances combined to favor its success. The new President was found to be at least willing that the thing should, if it could, be done. His principal minister, De Broglie, entered warmly into the plot. The Orleanist princes agreed to waive their claims, and the Count of Paris was persuaded to pay a visit to the Count of Chambord at his retreat at Frohsdorf, to acknowledge the elder Bourbon's right to the throne, and to abandon his own pretensions. The Assembly was carefully canvassed, and it was found that a majority could be relied upon to proclaim, at the ripe moment, Chambord as king, with the title of Henry V. The Republic was now, in the early autumn of 1873, in the most serious and real peril. It needed but a word from the Bourbon pretender to overthrow it, and to replace it by the throne of the Capets and the Valois. Happily, the old leaven of Bourbon bigotry existed in 'Henry V.' He conceded the point of reigning with parliamentary institutions, but he would not accept the tricolor as the flag of the restored monarchy. He insisted upon returning to France under the white banner of his ancestors. To him the throne was not worth a piece of cloth. To his obstinacy in clinging to this trifle of symbolism the Republic owed its salvation. The scheme to restore the monarchy thus fell through. The result was that the two wings of Monarchists flew apart again, and the Republicans, being now united and patient under the splendid leadership of Gambetta, once more began to wax in strength. It only remained to the Conservatives to make the best of the situation—to proceed to the forming of a Constitution, and to at least postpone to as late a period as possible the permanent establishment of the Republic. The first step was to confirm MacMahon in the Presidency for a definite period; and 'the Septennate,' giving him a lease of power for seven years—that is, until the autumn of 1880—was voted. … It was not until late in the year 1875 that the Constitution which is now the organic law of France was finally adopted.

See CONSTITUTION OF FRANCE.

The chief circumstance which impelled a majority of the Assembly to take this decisive step was the alarming revival of Imperialism in the country. This was shown in the success of Bonapartists in isolated elections to fill vacancies. Much as the Royalists distrusted a Republic, they dreaded yet more the restoration of the Empire; and the rapid progress made by the partisans of the Empire forced them to adopt what was really a moderate Republican Constitution. This Constitution provided that the President of the Republic should be elected by a joint convention of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies; that the Senate should consist of 300 members, of whom 75 were to be elected for life by the Assembly, and the remaining 225 by electoral colleges, composed of the deputies, the councillors-general, the members of the councils d'arrondissement, and delegates chosen from municipal councils; that the vacancies in the life senatorships should be filled by the Senate itself, while the term of the Senators elected by the colleges should be nine years, one third retiring every three years; that the Chamber of Deputies should consist of 533 members, and that the deputies should be chosen by single districts, instead of, as formerly, in groups by departments: that the President could only dissolve the Chamber of Deputies with the consent of the Senate; that money bills should originate in the Lower Chamber, and that the President should have the right of veto. {1394} The 'Septennate' organized and the Constitution adopted, the Assembly, which had clung to power for about five years, had no reason for continued existence, and at last dissolved early in 1876, having provided that the first general election under the new order of things should take place in February. … The result of the elections proved three things—the remarkable growth of Republican sentiment; the great progress made, in spite of the memory of Sedan, by the Bonapartist propaganda; and the utter hopelessness of any attempt at a Royalist restoration."

G. M. Towle, Modern France, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: J. Simon, The Government of M. Thiers.

F. Le Goff, Life of Thiers, chapters 8-9.

FRANCE: A. D. 1872-1889. Reform of Public Instruction.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES. FRANCE: A. D. 1833-1889.

FRANCE: A. D. 1875-1889. Stable settlements of the Republic. Presidencies of MacMahon and Grevy. Military operations in Tunis, Madagascar and Tonquin. Revision of the constitution. Expulsion of the princes. Boulangerism. Election of M. Sadi Carnot to the presidency.

"The last day of the year 1875 saw a final prorogation of this monarchist assembly which had established the Republic. It had been in existence nearly five years. The elections to the Senate gave a small majority to the Republicans. Those to the Chamber of Deputies (February, 1876) gave about two-thirds of its 532 seats to Republicans, mostly moderate Republicans. The ministry to which the leadership of this assembly was soon confided, was therefore naturally a ministry of moderate Republicans. M. Dufaure was prime minister, and M. Léon Say minister of finance. … The Dufaure ministry was not long-lived, being succeeded before the year 1876 closed, by a ministry led by M. Jules Simon, a distinguished orator and writer. The tenure of French cabinets in general has been so little permanent under the Third Republic, that in the nineteen years which have elapsed since the fall of the Empire, twenty-five cabinets have had charge of the executive government. … Few events had marked the history of the Simon ministry when, suddenly, in May, 1877, the President of the Republic demanded its resignation. Much influenced of late by Monarchist advisers, he had concluded that the moderate Republican cabinets did not possess the confidence of the chambers, and, feeling that the responsibility of maintaining the repose and security of France rested upon him, had resolved, rather than allow the management of the affairs of the country to fall into the hands of M. Gambetta and the Radicals, to appoint a ministry of conservatives, trusting that the country would ratify the step. A ministry was organized under the Duke of Broglie, and the Chamber of Deputies was first prorogued, and then, with the consent of the Senate, dissolved. The death of M. Thiers in September caused a great national demonstration in honor of that patriotic statesman, 'the liberator of the territory.' The result of the ensuing elections was a complete victory for the Republicans, who secured nearly three-fourths of the seats in the new Chamber. The Marshal, appointing a ministry composed of adherents of his policy who were not members of the Assembly, attempted to make head against the majority, but was forced in December to yield to the will of the people and of their representatives, and to recall M. Dufaure and the moderate Republicans to office. The year 1878 therefore passed off quietly, being especially distinguished by the great success of the universal exhibition held at Paris. … At the beginning of 1879 elections were held in pursuance of the provisions of the constitution, for the renewal of a portion of the Senate. … Elections were held for the filling of 82 seats. Of these the Republicans won 66, the Monarchist groups 16. This was a loss of 42 seats on the part of the latter, and assured to the Republicans a full control of the Senate. It had also the effect of definitively establishing the Republic as the permanent government of France. The Republican leaders therefore resolved to insist upon extensive changes in the personnel of the Council of State and the judiciary body. … When they also proposed to make extensive changes in other departments, Marshal MacMahon, who foresaw the impossibility of maintaining harmonious relations with the cabinets which the Republican majority would now demand, took these new measures as a pretext, and, on January 30, 1879, resigned the office of President of the Republic. On the same day the Senate and Chamber, united in National Assembly, elected as his successor, for the constitutional term of seven years, M. Jules Grevy, president of the Chamber of Deputies a moderate Republican who enjoyed general respect. M. Grévy was 71 years old. M. Gambetta was chosen to succeed him as president of the Chamber. The cabinet was remodelled, M. Dufaure resigning his office and being succeeded by M. Waddington. In the reorganized ministry one of the most prominent of the new members was M. Jules Ferry, its minister of education. He soon brought forward two measures which excited violent discussion: the one dealing with the regulation of superior education, the other with the constitution of the Supreme Council of Public Instruction. … In March, 1880, the Senate rejected the bill respecting universities. The ministry, now composed of members of the 'pure Left' (instead of a mixture of these and the Left Centre) under M. de Freycinet, resolved to enforce the existing laws against non-authorized congregations. The Jesuits were warned to close their establishments; the others, to apply for authorization. Failing to carry out these decrees, M. de Freycinet was forced to resign, and was succeeded as prime minister by M. Ferry, under whose orders the decrees were executed in October and November, establishments of the Jesuits and others, to the number of nearly 300, being forcibly closed and their inmates dispersed. Laws were also passed in the same year and in 1881 for the extension of public education, and a general amnesty proclaimed for persons engaged in the insurrection of the commune. In April and May, 1881, on pretext of chastising tribes on the Tunisian frontier of Algeria, who had committed depredations on the French territories in Northern Africa, a military force from Algeria entered Tunis, occupied the capital, and forced the Bey to sign a treaty by which he put himself and his country under the protectorate of France. … {1395} The elections, in August, resulted in a Chamber composed of 467 Republicans, 47 Bonapartists, and 43 Royalists, whereas its predecessor had consisted of 387 Republicans, 81 Bonapartists, and 61 Royalists. In response to a general demand, M. Gambetta became prime minister on the meeting of the new Assembly in the autumn. … But his measures failed to receive the support of the Chamber, and he was forced to resign after having held the office of prime minister but two months and a half (January, 1882). On the last day of that year M. Gambetta, still the most eminent French statesman of the time, died at Paris, aged forty-four. … The death of Gambetta aroused the Monarchists to renewed activity. Prince Napoleon issued a violent manifesto, and was arrested. Bills were brought in which were designed to exclude from the soil of France and of French possessions all members of families formerly reigning in France. Finally, however, after a prolonged contest, a decree suspending the dukes of Aumale, Chartres, and Alençon from their functions in the army was signed by the President. Some months later, August, 1883, the Count of Chambord ('Henry V.') died at Frohsdorf; by this event the elder branch of the house of Bourbon became extinct and the claims urged by both Legitimists and Orleanists were united in the person of the Count of Paris. During the year 1882 alleged encroachments upon French privileges and interests in the northwestern portion of Madagascar had embroiled France in conflict with the Hovas, the leading tribe of that island. The French admiral commanding the squadron in the Indian Ocean demanded in 1883 the placing of the northwestern part of the island under a French protectorate, and the payment of a large indemnity. These terms being refused by the queen of the Hovas, Tamatave was bombarded and occupied, and desultory operations continued until the summer of 1883, when an expedition of the Hovas resulted in a signal defeat of the French. A treaty was then negotiated, in accordance with which the foreign relations of the island were put under the control of France, while the queen of Madagascar retained the control of internal affairs and paid certain claims. A treaty executed in 1874 between the emperor of Annam and the French had conceded to the latter a protectorate over that country. His failure completely to carry out his agreement, and the presence of Chinese troops in Tonquin, were regarded as threatening the security of the French colony of Cochin China. A small expedition sent out [1882] under Commander Rivière to enforce the provision of the treaty was destroyed at Hanoi. Reinforcements were sent out. But the situation was complicated by the presence of bands of 'Black Flags,' brigands said to be unauthorized by the Annam government, and by claims on the part of China to a suzerainty over Tonquin. A treaty was made with Annam in August, 1883, providing for the cession of a province to France, and the establishment of a French protectorate over Annam and Tonquin. This, however, did not by any means wholly conclude hostilities in that province. Sontay was taken from the Black Flags in December, and Bacninh occupied in March, 1884. The advance of the French into regions over which China claimed suzerainty, and which were occupied by Chinese troops, brought on hostilities with that empire. In August, 1884, Admiral Courbet destroyed the Chinese fleet and arsenal at Foo-chow; in October he seized points on the northern end of the island of Formosa, and proclaimed a blockade of that portion of the island. On the frontier between Tonquin and China the French gained some successes, particularly in the capture of Lang-Sön; yet the climate, and the numbers and determination of the Chinese troops, rendered it impossible for them to secure substantial results from victories. Finally, after a desultory and destructive war, a treaty was signed in June, 1885, which arranged that Formosa should be evacuated, that Annam should in future have no diplomatic relations except through France, and that France should have virtually complete control over both it and Tonquin, though the question of Chinese suzerainty was left unsettled. … It was not felt that the expeditions against Madagascar, Annam, and China had achieved brilliant success. They had, moreover, been a source of much expense to France; at first popular, they finally caused the downfall of the ministry which ordered them. That ministry, the ministry of M. Jules Ferry, … remained in power an unusual length of time,—a little more than two years. Its principal achievement in domestic affairs consisted in bringing about the revision of the constitution, which, framed by the Versailles Assembly in 1875, was felt by many to contain an excessive number of Monarchical elements. … In 1885, after the fall of the Ferry cabinet, a law was passed providing for scrutin de liste; each department being entitled to a number of deputies proportioned to the number of its citizens, the deputies for each were to be chosen on a general or departmental ticket. In the same year a law was passed declaring ineligible to the office of President of the Republic, senator or deputy, any prince of families formerly reigning in France. … In December the National Assembly re-elected M. Grévy President of the Republic. In the ministry led by M. de Freycinet, which held office during the year 1886, great prominence was attained by the minister of war, General Boulanger, whose management of his department and political conduct won him great popularity. … The increasing activity of the agents of the Monarchist party, the strength which that party had shown in the elections of the preceding year, and the demonstrations which attended the marriage of the daughter of the Count of Paris to the crown prince of Portugal, incited the Republican leaders to more stringent measures against the princes of houses formerly reigning in France. The government was intrusted by law with discretionary power to expel them all from France, and definitely charged to expel actual Claimants of the throne and their direct heirs. The Count of Paris and his son the Duke of Orleans, Prince Napoleon and his son Prince Victor, were accordingly banished by presidential decree in June, 1886. General Boulanger struck off from the army-roll the names of all princes of the Bonaparte and Bourbon families. The Duke of Aumale, indignantly protesting, was also banished; in the spring of 1889 he was permitted to return. Meanwhile, within the Republican ranks, dissensions increased. The popularity of General Boulanger became more and more threatening to the cabinets of which he was a member. An agitation in his favor, conducted with much skill, caused fear lest he were aspiring to a military dictatorship of France. … {1396} In the autumn of 1887, an inquiry into the conduct of General Caffarel, deputy to the commander-in-chief, accused of selling decorations, implicated by Daniel Wilson, son-in-law of M. Grévy, who was alleged to have undertaken to obtain appointments to office and lucrative contracts in return for money. M. Grévy's unwise attempts to shield his son-in-law brought about his own fall. The chambers, determined to force his resignation, refused to accept any ministry proposed by him. After much resistance and irritating delays he submitted, and resigned the presidency of the Republic on December 2, 1887. On the next day the houses met in National Assembly at Versailles to chose the successor of M. Grévy. … The most prominent candidates for the Republicans were M. Ferry and M. de Freycinet; the former, however, was unpopular with the country. The followers of both, finding their election impossible, resolved to cast their votes for M. Sadi Carnot, a Republican of the highest integrity and universally respected. M. Carnot, a distinguished engineer, grandson of the Carnot who had, as minister of war, organized the victories of the armies of the Revolution, was accordingly elected President of the French Republic. … The chief difficulties encountered by the cabinet arose out of the active propagandism exercised in behalf of General Boulanger. … His name … became the rallying-point of those who were hostile to the parliamentary system, or to the Republican government in its present form. Alarmed both by his singular popularity and by his political intrigues, the government instituted a prosecution of him before the High Court of Justice; upon this he fled from the country, and the dangers of the agitation in his favor were, for the time at least, quieted. On May 5, 1889, the one-hundredth anniversary of the assembly of the States-General was held at Versailles. On the next day, President Carnot formally opened the Universal Exhibition at Paris, the greatest of the world's fairs which have been held in that city."

V. Duruy, History of France, pages 666-677.

ALSO IN: H. C. Lockwood, Constitutional History of France, chapter 7, and appendix 10.

J. G. Scott, France and Tonkin.

F. T. Marzials, Life of Gambetta.

E. W. Latimer, France in the 19th Century, chapters 18-20.

Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, March, 1893, supplement.

FRANCE: A. D. 1877-1882. Anglo-French control of Egyptian finances.

See EGYPT: A. D. 1875-1882 and 1882-1883.

FRANCE: A. D. 1884-1885. Territorial claims in Africa. The Berlin Conference.

See AFRICA: A. D. 1884-1889.

FRANCE: A. D. 1892-1893. The Panama Canal scandal.

See PANAMA CANAL.

FRANCE: A. D. 1893. Election of Deputies.

Elections for a new Chamber of Deputies were held in France, ending on Sunday, September 3, 1893. The resulting division of parties in the Chamber is stated as follows: "Opportunists [those, that is, who would shape political action by circumstances—by opportunities—and not by hard and fast principles], 292; Converted Monarchists [who accept the Republic as a fixed fact], 35; Unconverted Monarchists, 58; and Radicals, including Socialists, 187. As the Converted Monarchists will vote with the Government, there will be a heavy Government majority to begin with; but … it is not perfectly reliable, and is singularly deficient in marked men."

Spectator, Sept. 9, 1893.

—————FRANCE: End—————

FRANCESCO MARIA, Duke of Milan, A. D. 1521-1535.

FRANCESCO SFORZA, Duke of Milan, A. D. 1450-1466.

FRANCHE COMTÉ.

In the dissolution of the last kingdom of Burgundy (see BURGUNDY, THE LAST KINGDOM: A. D. 1032), its northern part maintained a connection with the Empire, which had then become Germanic, much longer than the southern. It became divided into two chief states—the County Palatine of Burgundy, known afterwards as Franche Comté, or the "free county," and Lesser Burgundy, which embraced western Switzerland and northern Savoy. "The County Palatine of Burgundy often passed from one dynasty to another, and it is remarkable for the number of times that it was held as a separate state by several of the great princes of Europe. It was held by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in right of his wife; the marriage of one of his female descendants carried it to Philip the Fifth of France. Then it became united with the French duchy of Burgundy under the dukes of the House of Valois. Saving a momentary French occupation after the death of Charles the Bold, it remained with them and their Austrian and Spanish representatives. … But, through all these changes of dynasty, it remained an acknowledged fief of the Empire, till its annexation to France under Lewis the Fourteenth. The capital of this county, it must be remembered, was Dole. The ecclesiastical metropolis of Besançon, though surrounded by the county, remained a free city of the Empire from the days of Frederick Barbarossa [A. D. 1152-1190] to those of Ferdinand the Third [A. D. 1637-1657]. It was then merged in the county, and along with the county it passed to France."

E. A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, chapter 8, section 5.

FRANCHE COMTÉ: A. D. 1512. Included in the Circle of Burgundy.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1493-1519.

FRANCHE COMTÉ: A. D. 1648. Still held to form a part of the Empire.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.

FRANCHE COMTÉ: A. D. 1659. Secured to Spain.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1659-1661.

FRANCHE COMTÉ: A. D. 1674. Final conquest by Louis XIV. and incorporation with France.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1674-1678; also, NIMEGUEN, PEACE OF.

—————FRANCHE COMTÉ: End—————

FRANCHISE, Elective, in England.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1884-1885.

FRANCIA, Doctor, The dictatorship of.

See PARAGUAY: A. D. 1608-1873.

FRANCIA.

See FRANCE: 9TH CENTURY. also, GERMANY: A. D. 843-962.

FRANCIS (called Phœbus), King of Navarre, A. D. 1479-1503.

Francis I. (of Lorraine), Germanic Emperor, 1745-1765.

Francis I., King of France, 1515-1547.

Francis I., King of Naples or the Two Sicilies, 1825-1830.

Francis II., Germanic Emperor, 1792-1806; Emperor of Austria, 1806-1835; King of Hungary and Bohemia, 1792-1835.

Francis II., King of France, 1559-1560.

Francis II., King of Naples or the Two Sicilies, A. D. 1859-18.61.

Francis Joseph I., Emperor of Austria, 1848;

King of Hungary and Bohemia, 1848-.

{1397}

FRANCISCANS.

See MENDICANT ORDERS, also, BEGUINES, ETC.

FRANCO-GERMAN, OR FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR, The.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (JUNE-JULY), to 1870-1871.

FRANCONIA: The Duchy and the Circle.

"Among the great duchies [of the old Germanic kingdom or empire of the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries], that of Eastern Francia, Franken, or Franconia, is of much less importance in European history than that of Saxony. It gave the ducal title to the bishops of Würzburg; but it cannot be said to be in any sense continued in any modern state. Its name gradually retreated, and the circle of Franken or Franconia took in only the most eastern part of the ancient duchy.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1493-1519.

The western and northern part of the duchy, together with a good deal of territory which was strictly Lotharingian, became part of the two Rhenish circles. Thus Fulda, the greatest of German abbeys, passed away from the Frankish name. In north-eastern Francia, the Hessian principalities grew up to the north-west. Within the Franconian circle lay Würzburg, the see of the bishops who bore the ducal title, the other great bishopric of Bamberg, together with the free city of Nürnberg, and various smaller principalities. In the Rhenish lands, both within and without the old Francia, one chief characteristic is the predominance of the ecclesiastical principalities, Mainz, Köln, Worms, Speyer, and Strassburg. The chief temporal power which arose in this region was the Palatinate of the Rhine, a power which, like others, went through many unions and divisions, and spread into four circles, those of Upper and Lower Rhine, Westfalia and Bavaria. This last district, though united with the Palatine Electorate, was, from the early part of the fourteenth century, distinguished from the Palatinate of the Rhine as the Oberpfalz or Upper Palatinate."

E. A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, chapter 8, section 1.

See, also, ALEMANNI: A. D. 496-504.

FRANCONIA, The Electorate of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1125-1152.

FRANCONIAN OR SALIC IMPERIAL HOUSE.

The emperors, Conrad II., Henry III., Henry IV., and Henry V., who reigned from 1024 until 1125, over the Germanic-Roman or Holy Roman Empire, were of the Salic or Franconian house.

See GERMANY: A. D. 973-1122.

FRANKALMOIGN.

See FEUDAL TENURES.

FRANKFORT, Treaty of. See FRANCE: A. D. 1871 (JANUARY-MAY).

FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN, Origin of.

See ALEMANNI: A. D. 496-504.

FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN: A. D. 1287. Declared an imperial city.

See CITIES, IMPERIAL AND FREE, OF GERMANY.

FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN: A. D. 1525. Formal establishment of the Reformed Religion.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1522-1525.

FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN: A. D. 1744. The "Union" formed by Frederick the Great.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1743-1744.

FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN: A. D. 1759. Surprised by the French.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1759 (APRIL-AUGUST).

FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN: A. D. 1801-1803. One of six free cities which survived the Peace of Luneville.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803.

FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN: A. D. 1806. Loss of municipal freedom. Transfer, as a grand duchy, to the ancient Elector of Mayence.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1805-1806.

FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN: A. D. 1810. Erected into a grand duchy by Napoleon.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1810 (FEBRUARY-DECEMBER).

FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN: A. D. 1810-1815. Loss and recovery of autonomy as a "free city."

See CITIES, IMPERIAL AND FREE, OF GERMANY; and VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.

FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN: A. D. 1848-1849. Meeting of the German National Assembly. Its work, its failure, and its end. Riotous outbreak in the city.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1848 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER) and 1848-1850.

FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN: A. D. 1866. Absorption by Prussia.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1866.

—————FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN: End—————

FRANKLIN, Benjamin, and the early American Press.

See PRINTING: A. D. 1704-1729.

FRANKLIN, Benjamin: His plan of Union in 1754.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1754.

FRANKLIN, Benjamin: Colonial representative in England. Return to America.

See PENNSYLVANIA: A.D. 1757-1762; and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765-1768, 1766, 1775 (JANUARY-MARCH), and (APRIL-JUNE).

FRANKLIN, Benjamin: Signing of the Declaration of Independence.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (JULY).

FRANKLIN, Benjamin: Mission to France:

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1778, 1778 (FEBRUARY), 1782 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER).

FRANKLIN, Benjamin: Framing of the Federal Constitution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787.

FRANKLIN, The ephemeral state of.

See TENNESSEE: A. D. 1785; and 1785-1796.

FRANKLIN, Tennessee, Battles at and near.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (FEBRUARY-APRIL: TENNESSEE), and 1864 (NOVEMBER: TENNESSEE).

FRANKLIN, OR FRANKLEYN, The.

"'There is scarce a small village,' says Sir John Fortescue [15th century] 'in which you may not find a knight, an esquire, or some substantial householder (paterfamilias) commonly called a frankleyn, possessed of considerable estate; besides others who are called freeholders, and many yeomen of estate sufficient to make a substantial jury.' … By a frankleyn in this place we are to understand what we call a country squire, like the frankleyn of Chaucer; for the word esquire in Fortescue's time was only used in its limited sense, for the sons of peers and knights, or such as had obtained the title by creation or some other legal means."

H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 8, part 3, with note (volume 3).

FRANKPLEDGE.

An old English law required all men to combine in associations of ten, and to become standing sureties for one another, —which was called "frankpledge."

W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 5, section 41.

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FRANKS: Origin and earliest history.

"It is well known that the name of 'Frank' is not to be found in the long list of German tribes preserved to us in the 'Germania' of Tacitus. Little or nothing is heard of them before the reign of Gordian III. In A. D. 240 Aurelian, then a tribune of the sixth legion stationed on the Rhine, encountered a body of marauding Franks near Mayence and drove them back into their marshes. The word 'Francia' is also found at a still earlier date, in the old Roman chart called the 'Charta Peutingeria,' and occupies on the map the right bank of the Rhine from opposite Coblentz to the sea. The origin of the Franks has been the subject of frequent debate, to which French patriotism has occasionally lent some asperity. … At the present day, however, historians of every nation, including the French, are unanimous in considering the Franks as a powerful confederacy of German tribes, who in the time of Tacitus inhabited the north-western parts of Germany bordering on the Rhine. And this theory is so well supported by many scattered notices, slight in themselves, but powerful when combined, that we can only wonder that it should ever have been called in question. Nor was this aggregation of tribes under the new name of Franks a singular instance; the same took place in the case of the Alemanni and Saxons. … The etymology of the name adopted by the new confederacy is also uncertain. The conjecture which has most probability in its favour is that adopted long ago by Gibbon, and confirmed in recent times by the authority of Grimm, which connects it with the German word Frank (free). … Tacitus speaks of nearly all the tribes, whose various appellations were afterwards merged in that of Frank, as living in the neighbourhood of the Rhine. Of these the principal were the Sicambri (the chief people of the old Iscævonian tribe), who, as there is reason to believe, were identical with the Salian Franks. The confederation further comprised the Bructeri, the Chamavi, Ansibarii, Tubantes, Marsi, and Chasuarii, of whom the five last had formerly belonged to the celebrated Cheruscan league, which, under the hero Arminius, destroyed three Roman legions in the Teutoburgian Forest. The strongest evidence of the identity of these tribes with the Franks, is the fact that, long after their settlement in Gaul, the distinctive names of the original people were still occasionally used as synonymous with that of the confederation. … The Franks advanced upon Gaul from two different directions, and under the different names of Salians, and Ripuarians, the former of whom we have reason to connect more particularly with the Sicambrian tribe. The origin of the words Salian and Ripuarian, which are first used respectively by Ammianus Marcellinus and Jornandes, is very obscure, and has served to exercise the ingenuity of ethnographers. There are, however, no sufficient grounds for a decided opinion. At the same time it is by no means improbable that the river Yssel, Isala or Sal (for it has borne all these appellations), may have given its name to that portion of the Franks who lived along its course. With still greater probability may the name Ripuarii, or Riparii, be derived from 'Ripa,' a term used by the Romans to signify the Rhine. These dwellers on 'the Bank' were those that remained in their ancient settlements while their Salian kinsmen were advancing into the heart of Gaul."

W. C. Perry, The Franks, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, book 3, chapters 9 and 11.

T. Smith, Arminius, part 2, chapter 3.

FRANKS: A. D. 253. First appearance in the Roman world.

"When in the year 253 the different generals of Rome were once more fighting each other for the imperial dignity, and the Rhine-legions marched to Italy to fight out the cause of their emperor Valerianus against … Aemilianus of the Danube-army, this seems to have been the signal for the Germans pushing forward, especially towards the lower Rhine. These Germans were the Franks, who appear here for the first time, perhaps new opponents only in name; for, although the identification of them, already to be met with in later antiquity, with tribes formerly named on the lower Rhine—partly, the Chamavi settled beside the Bructeri, partly the Sugambri formerly mentioned subject to the Romans—is uncertain and at least inadequate, there is here greater probability than in the case of the Alamanni that the Germans hitherto dependent on Rome, on the right bank of the Rhine, and the Germanic tribes previously dislodged from the Rhine, took at that time—under the collective name of the 'Free'—the offensive in concert against the Romans."

T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 8, chapter 4.

FRANKS: A. D. 277. Repulse from Gaul, by Probus.

See GAUL: A. D. 277.

FRANKS: A. D. 279. Escape from Pontus.

See SYRACUSE: A. D. 279.

FRANKS: A. D. 295-297. In Britain.

See BRITAIN: A. D. 288-297.

FRANKS: A. D. 306. Defeat by Constantine.

Constantine the Great, A. D. 306, fought and defeated the Salian Franks in a great battle and "carried off a large number of captives to Treves, the chief residence of the emperor, and a rival of Rome itself in the splendour of its public buildings. It was in the circus of this city, and in the presence of Constantine, that the notorious 'Ludi Francici' were celebrated; at which several thousand Franks, including their kings Regaisus and Ascaricus, were compelled to fight with wild beasts, to the inexpressible delight of the Christian spectators."

W. C. Perry, The Franks, chapter 2.

FRANKS: A. D. 355. Settlement in Toxandria.

See GAUL: A. D. 355-361; also, TOXANDRIA.

FRANKS: 5th-10th Centuries. Barbarities of the conquest of Gaul. State of society under the rule of the conquerors. Evolution of Feudalism.

See GAUL: 5TH-8TH, and 5TH-10TH CENTURIES.

FRANKS: A. D. 406-409. Defense of Roman Gaul.

See GAUL: A. D. 406-409.

FRANKS: A. D. 410-420. The Franks join in the attack on Gaul.

After vainly opposing the entrance of Vandals, Burgundians and Sueves into Gaul, A. D. 406, "the Franks, the valiant and faithful allies of the Roman republic, were soon [about A. D. 410-420] tempted to imitate the invaders whom they had so bravely resisted. Treves, the capital of Gaul, was pillaged by their lawless bands; and the humble colony which they so long maintained in the district of Toxandria, in Brabant, insensibly multiplied along the banks of the Meuse and Scheldt, till their independent power filled the whole extent of the Second, or Lower, Germany. … The ruin of the opulent provinces of Gaul may be dated from the establishment of these barbarians, whose alliance was dangerous and oppressive, and who were capriciously impelled, by interest or passion, to violate the public peace."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 31.

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"They [the Franks] resisted the great invasion of the Vandals in the time of Stilicho, but did not scruple to take part in the subsequent ravages. Among the confusions of that disastrous period, indeed, it is not improbable that they seized the cities of Spires, Strasburg, Amiens, Arras, Therouane and Tournai, and by their assaults on Trèves compelled the removal of the præfectural government to Arles. Chroniclers who flourished two centuries later refer to the year 418 large and permanent conquests in Gaul by a visionary king called Pharamund, from whom the French monarchy is usually dated. But history seeks in vain for any authentic marks of his performances."

P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, book 3, chapter 11, section 5.

FRANKS: A. D. 448-456. Origin of the Merovingian dynasty.

The royal dynasty of the kingdom of the Franks as founded by Clovis is called the Merovingian. "It is thought that the kings of the different Frankish people were all of the same family, of which the primitive ancestor was Meroveus (Meer-wig, warrior of the sea). After him those princes were called Merovingians (Meer-wings); they were distinguished by their long hair, which they never cut. A Meroveus, grandfather of Clovis, reigned, it is said, over the Franks between 448 and 456; but only his name remains, in some antient historians, and we know absolutely nothing more either of his family, his power, or of the tribe which obeyed him: so that we see no reason why his descendants had taken his name. … The Franks appear in history for the first time in the year 241. Some great captain only could, at this period, unite twenty different people in a new confederation; this chief was, apparently, the Meroveus, whose name appeared for such a long time as a title of glory for his descendants, although tradition has not preserved any trace of his victories."

J. C. L. S. de Sismondi, The French under the Merovingians, chapter 3.

FRANKS: A. D. 451. At the battle of Châlons.

See HUNS: A. D. 451.

FRANKS: A. D. 481-511. The kingdom of Clovis.

"The Salian Franks had … associated a Roman or a Romanized Gaul, Aegidius, with their native chief in the leadership of the tribe. But, in the year 481, the native leadership passed into the hands of a chief who would not endure a Roman colleague, or the narrow limits within which, in the general turmoil of the world, his tribe was cramped. He is known to history by the name of Clovis, or Chlodvig, which through many transformations, became the later Ludwig and Louis. Clovis soon made himself feared as the most ambitious, the most unscrupulous, and the most energetic of the new Teutonic founders of states. Ten years after the fall of the Western empire [which was in 476], seven years before the rise of the Gothic kingdom of Theoderic, Clovis challenged the Roman patrician, Syagrius of Soissons, who had succeeded to Aegidius, defeated him in a pitched field, at Nogent, near Soissons (486), and finally crushed Latin rivalry in northern Gaul. Ten years later (496), in another famous battle, Tolbiac (Zülpich), near Cologne, he also crushed Teutonic rivalry, and established his supremacy over the kindred Alamanni of the Upper Rhine. Then he turned himself with bitter hostility against the Gothic power in Gaul. The Franks hated the Goths, as the ruder and fiercer of the same stock hate those who are a degree above them in the arts of peace, and are supposed to be below them in courage and the pursuits of war. There was another cause of antipathy. The Goths were zealous Arians; and Clovis, under the influence of his wife Clotildis, the niece of the Burgundian Gundobad, and in consequence, it is said, of a vow made in battle at Tolbiac, had received Catholic baptism from St. Remigius of Rheims.

See CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 496-800.

The Frank king threw his sword into the scale against the Arian cause, and became the champion and hope of the Catholic population all over Gaul. Clovis was victorious. He crippled the Burgundian kingdom (500), which was finally destroyed by his sons (534). In a battle near Poitiers, he broke the power of the West Goths in Gaul; he drove them out of Aquitaine, leaving them but a narrow slip of coast, to seek their last settlement and resting-place in Spain; and, when he died, he was recognized by all the world, by Theoderic, by the Eastern emperor, who honoured him with the title of the consulship, as the master of Gaul. Nor was his a temporary conquest. The kingdom of the West Goths and the Burgundians had become the kingdom of the Franks. The invaders had at length arrived who were to remain. It was decided that the Franks, and not the Goths, were to direct the future destinies of Gaul and Germany, and that the Catholic faith, and not Arianism, was to be the religion of these great realms."

R. W. Church, Beginning of the Middle Ages, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: W. C. Perry, The Franks, chapter 2.

J. C. L. S. de Sismondi, The French under the Merovingians, translated by Bellingham, chapters 4-5.

See, also, GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 507-509.

FRANKS: A. D. 481-768. Supremacy in Germany, before Charlemagne.

See GERMANY: A. D. 481-768.

FRANKS: A. D. 496. Conversion to Christianity.

See above: A. D. 481-511; also, ALEMANNI: A. D. 496-504.

FRANKS: A. D. 496-504. Overthrow of the Alemanni.

See ALEMANNI: A. D. 496-504; also, SUEVI: A. D. 460-500.

FRANKS: A. D. 511-752. The house of Clovis. Ascendancy of the Austrasian Mayors of the Palace.

On the death of Clovis, his dominion, or, speaking more strictly, the kingly office in his dominion, was divided among his four sons, who were lads, then, ranging in age from twelve to eighteen. The eldest reigned in Metz, the second at Orleans, the third in Paris, and the youngest at Soissons. These princes extended the conquests of their father, subduing the Thuringians (A. D. 515-528), overthrowing the kingdom of the Burgundians (A. D. 523-534), diminishing the possessions of the Visigoths in Gaul (A. D. 531-532), acquiring Provence from the Ostrogoths of Italy and securing from the Emperor Justinian a clear Roman-imperial title to the whole of Gaul. The last survivor of the four brother-kings, Clotaire I., reunited the whole Frank empire under his own sceptre, and on his death, A. D. 561, it was again divided among his four sons. Six years later, on the death of the elder, it was redivided among the three survivors. Neustria fell to Chilperic, whose capital was at Soissons, Austrasia to Sigebert, who reigned at Metz, and Burgundia to Guntram, who had his seat of government at Orleans. Each of the kings took additionally a third of Aquitaine, and Provence was shared between Sigebert and Guntram. "It was agreed on this occasion that Paris, which was rising into great importance, should be held in common by all, but visited by none of the three kings without the consent of the others." The reign of these three brothers and their sons, from 561 to 613, was one long revolting tragedy of civil war, murder, lust, and treachery, made horribly interesting by the rival careers of the evil Fredegunda and the great unfortunate Brunhilda, queens of Neustria and Austrasia, respectively. {1400} In 613 a second Clotaire surviving his royal kin, united the Frank monarchy once more under a single crown. But power was fast slipping from the hands of the feeble creature who wore the crown, and passing to that one of his ministers who succeeded in making himself the representative of royalty—namely, the Mayor of the Palace. There was a little stir of energy in his son, Dagobert, but from generation to generation, after him, the Merovingian kings sank lower into that character which gave them the name of the fainéant kings ("rois fainéans")—the slothful or lazy kings—while the mayors of the palace ruled vigorously in their name and tumbled them, at last, from the throne. "While the Merovingian race in its decline is notorious in history as having produced an unexampled number of imbecile monarchs, the family which was destined to supplant them was no less wonderfully prolific in warriors and statesmen of the highest class. It is not often that great endowments are transmitted even from father to sou, but the line from which Charlemagne sprang presents to our admiring gaze an almost uninterrupted succession of five remarkable men, within little more than a single century. Of these the first three held the mayoralty of Austrasia [Pepin of Landen, Pepin of Heristal, and Carl, or Charles Martel, the Hammer]; and it was they who prevented the permanent establishment of absolute power on the Roman model, and secured to the German population of Austrasia an abiding victory over that amalgam of degraded Romans and corrupted Gauls which threatened to leaven the European world. To them, under Providence, we owe it that the centre of Europe is at this day German, and not Gallo-Latin." Pepin of Heristal, Mayor in Austrasia, broke the power of a rival Neustrian family in a decisive battle fought near the village of Testri, A. D. 687, and gathered the reins of the three kingdoms (Burgundy included) into his own hands. His still more vigorous son, Charles Martel, won the same ascendancy for himself afresh, after a struggle which was signalized by three sanguinary battles, at Amblève (A. D. 716), at Vinci, near Cambrai (717) and at Soissons (718). When firm in power at home, he turned his arms against the Frisians and the Bavarians, whom he subdued, and against the obstinate Saxons, whose country he harried six times without bringing them to submission. His great exploit in war, however, was the repulse of the invading Arabs and Moors, on the memorable battle-field of Tours (A. D.732), where the wave of Mahommedan invasion was rolled back in western Europe, never to advance beyond the Pyrenees again. Karl died in 741, leaving three sons, among whom his power was, in the Frank fashion, divided. But one of them resigned, in a few years, his sovereignty, to become a monk; another was deposed, and the third, Pepin, surnamed "The Little," or "The Short," became supreme. He contented himself, as his father, his grandfather, and his great grandfather had done, with the title of Mayor of the Palace, until 752, when, with the approval of the Pope and by the act of a great assembly of leudes and bishops at Soissons, he was lifted on the shield and crowned and anointed king of the Franks, while the last of the Merovingians was shorn of his long royal locks and placed in a monastery. The friendliness of the Pope in this matter was the result and the cementation of an alliance which bore important fruits. As the champion of the church, Pepin made war on the Lombards and conquered for the Papacy the first of its temporal dominions in Italy. In his own realm, he completed the expulsion of the Moors from Septimania, crushed an obstinate revolt in Aquitaine, and gave a firm footing to the two thrones which, when he died in 768, he left to his sons, Carl and Carloman, and which became in a few years the single throne of one vast empire, under Carl—Carl the Great— Charlemagne.

W. C. Perry, The Franks, chapters 3-6.

ALSO IN: P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, chapters 12-15.

J. C. L. S. de Sismondi, The French under the Merovingians, chapters 6-13.

See, also, AUSTRASIA AND NEUSTRIA, and MAYOR OF THE PALACE.

FRANKS: A. D. 528. Conquest of Thuringia.

See THURINGIANS, THE.

FRANKS: A. D. 539-553. Invasion of Italy. Formal relinquishment of Gaul to them.

During the Gothic war in Italy,—when Belisarius was reconquering the cradle of the Roman Empire for the Eastern Empire which still called itself Roman, although its seat was at Constantinople,—both sides solicited the help of the Franks. Theudebert, who reigned at Metz, promised his aid to both, and kept his word. "He advanced [A. D. 539, with 100,000 men] toward Pavia, where the Greeks and Goths were met, about to encounter, and, with an unexpected impartiality, attacked the astonished Goths, whom he drove to Ravenna, and then, while the Greeks were yet rejoicing over his performance, fell upon them with merciless fury, and dispersed them through Tuscany." Theudebert now became fired with an ambition to conquer all Italy; but his savage army destroyed everything in its path so recklessly, and pursued so unbridled a course, that famine and pestilence soon compelled a retreat and only one-third of its original number recrossed the Alps. Notwithstanding, this treachery, the emperor Justinian renewed his offers of alliance with the Franks (A.D. 540), and "pledged to them, as the price of their fidelity to his cause, besides the usual subsidies, the relinquishment of every lingering claim, real or pretended, which the empire might assert to the sovereignty of the Gauls. The Franks accepted the terms, and 'from that time,' say the Byzantine authorities, 'the German chiefs presided at the games of the circus, and struck money no longer, as usual, with the effigy of the emperors, but with their own image and superscription. Theudebert, who was the principal agent of these transactions, if he ratified the provisions of the treaty, did not fulfill them in person, but satisfied himself with sending a few tributaries to the aid of his ally. But his first example proved to be more powerful than his later, and large swarms of Germans took advantage of the troubles in Italy to overrun the country and plunder and slay at will. For twelve years, under various leaders, but chiefly under two brothers of the Alemans, Lutherr and Bukhelin, they continued to harass the unhappy object of all barbaric resentments, till the sword of Narses finally exterminated them [A. D. 553]."

P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, book 3, chapter 12.

ALSO IN: E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 41.

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FRANKS: A. D. 547. Subjugation of Bavarians and Alemanni.

See BAVARIA: A. D. 547.

FRANKS: A. D. 768-814. Charlemagne, Emperor of the Romans.

As a crowned dynasty, the Carlovingians or Carolingians or Carlings begin their history with Pepin the Short. As an established sovereign house, they find their founder in 'King Pepin's father, the great palace mayor, Carl, or Charles Martel, if not in his grandfather, Pepin Heristal. But the imperial splendor of the house came to it from the second of its kings, whom the French call 'Charlemagne,' but whom English readers ought to know as Charles the Great. The French form of the name has been always tending to represent 'Charlemagne' as a king of France, and modern historians object to it for that reason. "France, as it was to be and as we know it, had not come into existence in his [Charlemagne's] days. What was to be the France of history was then but one province of the Frank kingdom, and one with which Charles was personally least connected. … Charles, king of the Franks, was, above all things, a German. … It is entirely to mistake his place and his work to consider him in the light of a specially 'French' king, a predecessor of the kings who reigned at Paris and brought glory upon France. … Charles did nothing to make modern France. The Frank power on which he rose to the empire was in those days still mainly German; and his characteristic work was to lay the foundations of modern and civilized Germany, and, indirectly, of the new commonwealth of nations, which was to arise in the West of Europe."

R. W. Church, The Beginnings of the Middle Ages, chapter 7.

"At the death of King Pippin the kingdom of the Franks was divided into two parts, or rather … the government over the kingdom was divided, for some large parts of the territory seem to have been in the hands of the two brothers together. The fact is, that we know next to nothing about this division, and hardly more about the joint reign of the brothers. The only thing really clear is, that they did not get along very well together, that Karl was distinctly the more active and capable of the two, and that after four years the younger brother, Karlmann, died, leaving two sons. Here was a chance for the old miseries of division to begin again; but fortunately the Franks seem by this time to have had enough of that, and to have seen that their greatest hope for the future lay in a united government. The widow and children of Karlmann went to the court of the Lombard king Desiderius and were cared for by him. The whole Frankish people acknowledged Charlemagne as their king. Of course he was not yet called Charlemagne, but simply Karl, and he was yet to show himself worthy of the addition 'Magnus.' … The settlement of Saxony went on, with occasional military episodes, by the slower, but more certain, processes of education and religious conversion. It appears to us to be anything but wise to force a religion upon a people at the point of the sword; but the singular fact is, that in two generations there was no more truly devout Christian people, according to the standards of the time, than just these same Saxons. A little more than a hundred years from the time when Charlemagne had thrashed the nation into unwilling acceptance of Frankish control, the crown of the Empire he founded was set upon the head of a Saxon prince. The progress in friendly relations between the two peoples is seen in the second of the great ordinances by which Saxon affairs were regulated. This edict, called the 'Capitulum Saxonicum,' was published after a great diet at Aachen, in 797, at which, we are told, there came together not only Franks, but also Saxon leaders from all parts of their country, who gave their approval to the new legislation. The general drift of these new laws is in the direction of moderation. … The object of this legislation was, now that the armed resistance seemed to be broken, to give the Saxons a government which should be as nearly as possible like that of the Franks. The absolute respect and subjection to the Christian Church is here, as it was formerly, kept always in sight. The churches and monasteries are still to be the centres from which every effort at civilization is to go out. There can be no doubt that the real agency in this whole process was the organized Church. The fruit of the great alliance between Frankish kingdom and Roman papacy was beginning to be seen. The papacy was ready to sanction any act of her ally for the fair promise of winning the great territory of North Germany to its spiritual allegiance. The most solid result of the campaigns of Charlemagne was the founding of the great bishoprics of Minden, Paderborn, Verden, Bremen, Osnabrück, and Halberstadt. … About these bishoprics, as, on the whole, the safest places, men came to settle. Roads were built to connect them; markets sprang up in their neighborhood; and thus gradually, during a development of centuries, great cities grew up, which came to be the homes of powerful and wealthy traders, and gave shape to the whole politics of the North. Saxony was become a part of the Frankish Empire, and all the more thoroughly so, because there was no royal or ducal line there which had to be kept in place."

E. Emerton, Introduction to the Study of the Middle Ages, chapter 13.

Between 768 and 800 Charlemagne extinguished the Lombard kingdom and made himself master of Italy, as the ally and patron of the Pope, bearing the old Roman title of Patrician; he crossed the Pyrenees, drove the Saracens southward to the Ebro, and added a "Spanish March" to his empire (see SPAIN: A. D. 778); he broke the obstinate turbulence of the Saxons, in a series of bloody campaigns which (see SAXONS: A. D. 772-804) consumed a generation; he extirpated the troublesome Avars, still entrenched along the Danube, and he held with an always firm hand the whole dominion that came to him by inheritance from his father. "He had won his victories with Frankish arms, and he had taken possession of the conquered countries in the name of the Frankish people. Every step which he had taken had been with the advice and consent of the nation assembled in the great meetings of the springtime, and his public documents carefully express the share of the nation in his great achievements. Saxony, Bavaria, Lombardy, Aquitaine, the Spanish Mark, all these great countries, lying outside the territory of Frankland proper, had been made a part of its possession by the might of his arm and the wisdom of his counsel. But when this had all been done, the question arose, by what right he should hold all this power, and secure it so that it should not fall apart as soon as he should be gone. {1402} As king of the Franks it was impossible that he should not seem to the conquered peoples, however mild and beneficent his rule might be, a foreign prince; and though he might be able to force them to follow his banner in war, and submit to his judgment in peace, there was still wanting the one common interest which should bind all these peoples, strangers to the Franks and to each other, into one united nation. About the year 800 this problem seems to have been very much before the mind of Charlemagne. If we look at the boundaries of his kingdom, reaching from the Eider in the north to the Ebro and the Garigliano in the south, and from the ocean in the west to the Elbe and the Enns in the east, we shall say as the people of his own time did, 'this power is Imperial.' That word may mean little to us, but in fact it has often in history been used to describe just the kind of power which Charlemagne in the year 800 really had. … The idea of empire includes under this one term, kingdoms, duchies, or whatever powers might be in existence; all, however, subject to some one higher force, which they feel to be necessary for their support. … But where was the model upon which Charlemagne might build his new empire? Surely nowhere but in that great Roman Empire whose western representative had been finally allowed to disappear by Odoacer the Herulian in the year 476. … After Odoacer the Eastern Empire, with its capital at Constantinople, still lived on, and claimed for itself all the rights which had belonged to both parts. That Eastern Empire was still alive at the time of Charlemagne. We have met with it once or twice in our study of the Franks. Even Clovis had been tickled with the present of the title of Consul, sent him by the Eastern Emperor; and from time to time, as the Franks had meddled with the affairs of Italy, they had been reminded that Italy was in name still a part of the Imperial lands. … But now, when Charlemagne himself was thinking of taking the title of Emperor, he found himself forced to meet squarely the question, whether there could be two independent Christian Emperors at the same time. … On Christmas Day, in the year 800, Charlemagne was at Rome. He had gone thither at the request of the Pope Leo, who had been accused of dreadful crimes by his enemies in the city, and had been for a time deprived of his office. Charlemagne had acted as judge in the case, and had decided in favor of Leo. According to good Teutonic custom, the pope had purified himself of his charges by a tremendous oath on the Holy Trinity, and had again assumed the duties of the papacy. The Christmas service was held in great state at St. Peter's. While Charlemagne was kneeling in prayer at the grave of the Apostle, the pope suddenly approached him, and, in the presence of all the people, placed upon his head a golden crown. As he did so, the people cried out with one voice, 'Long life and victory to Charles Augustus, the mighty Emperor, the Peace-bringer, crowned by God!' Einhard, who ought to have known, assures us that Charles was totally surprised by the coronation, and often said afterward that if he had known of the plan he would not have gone into the church, even upon so high a festival. It is altogether probable that the king had not meant to be crowned at just that moment and in just that way; but that he had never thought of such a possibility seems utterly incredible. By this act Charlemagne was presented to the world as the successor of the ancient Roman Emperors of the West, and so far as power was concerned, he was that. But he was more. His power rested, not upon any inherited ideas, but upon two great facts: first, he was the head of the Germanic Race; and second, he was the temporal head of the Christian Church. The new empire which he founded rested on these two foundations."

E. Emerton, Introduction to the Study of the Middle Ages, chapter 14.

The great empire which Charles labored, during all the remainder of his life, to organize in this Roman imperial character, was vast in its extent. "As an organized mass of provinces, regularly governed by imperial officers, it seems to have been nearly bounded, in Germany, by the Elbe, the Saale, the Bohemian mountains, and a line drawn from thence crossing the Danube above Vienna, and prolonged to the Gulf of Istria. Part of Dalmatia was comprised in the duchy of Friuli. In Italy the empire extended not much beyond the modern frontier of Naples, if we exclude, as was the fact, the duchy of Benevento from anything more than a titular subjection. The Spanish boundary … was the Ebro."

H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 1, part 1.

"The centre of his realm was the Rhine; his capitals Aachen [or Aix-la-Chapelle] and Engilenheim [or Ingelheim]; his army Frankish; his sympathies as they are shewn in the gathering of the old hero-lays, the composition of a German grammar, … were all for the race from which he sprang. … There were in his Empire, as in his own mind, two elements; those two from the union and mutual action and reaction of which modern civilization has arisen. These vast domains, reaching from the Ebro to the Carpathian mountains, from the Eyder to the Liris, were all the conquests of the Frankish sword, and were still governed almost exclusively by viceroys and officers of Frankish blood. But the conception of the Empire, that which made it a State and not a mere mass of subject tribes, … was inherited from an older and a grander system, was not Teutonic but Roman—Roman in its ordered rule, in its uniformity and precision, in its endeavour to subject the individual to the system—Roman in its effort to realize a certain limited and human perfection, whose very completeness shall exclude the hope of further progress." With the death of Charles in 814 the territorial disruption of his great empire began. "The returning wave of anarchy and barbarism swept up violent as ever, yet it could not wholly obliterate the past: the Empire, maimed and shattered though it was, had struck its roots too deep to be overthrown by force." The Teutonic part and the Romanized or Latinized part of the empire were broken in two, never to unite again; but, in another century, it was on the German and not the Gallo-Latin side of the line of its disruption that the imperial ideas and the imperial titles of Charlemagne came to life again, and his Teutonic Roman Empire—the "Holy Roman Empire," as it came to be called—was resurrected by Otto the Great, and established for eight centuries and a half of enduring influence in the politics of the world.

J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, chapter 5.

{1403}

"Gibbon has remarked, that of all the heroes to whom the title of 'The Great' has been given, Charlemagne alone has retained it as a permanent addition to his name. The reason may perhaps be, that in no other man were ever united, in so large a measure, and in such perfect harmony, the qualities which, in their combination, constitute the heroic character, such as energy, or the love of action; ambition, or the love of power; curiosity, or the love of knowledge; and sensibility, or the love of pleasure—not, indeed, the love of forbidden, of unhallowed, or of enervating pleasure, but the keen relish for those blameless delights by which the burdened mind and jaded spirits recruit and renovate their powers. … For the charms of social intercourse, the play of a buoyant fancy, the exhilaration of honest mirth, and even the refreshment of athletic exercises, require for their perfect enjoyment that robust and absolute health of body and of mind which none but the noblest natures possess, and in the possession of which Charlemagne exceeded all other men. His lofty stature, his open countenance, his large and brilliant eyes, and the dome-like structure of his head, imparted, as we learn from Eginhard, to all his attitudes the dignity which becomes a king, relieved by the graceful activity of a practiced warrior. … Whether he was engaged in a frolic or a chase— composed verses or listened to homilies—fought or negotiated—cast down thrones or built them up—studied, conversed, or legislated, it seemed as if he, and he alone, were the one wakeful and really living agent in the midst of an inert, visionary, and somnolent generation. The rank held by Charlemagne among great commanders was achieved far more by this strange and almost superhuman activity than by any pre-eminent proficiency in the art or science of war. He was seldom engaged in any general action, and never undertook any considerable siege, excepting that of Pavia, which, in fact, was little more than a protracted blockade. But, during forty-six years of almost unintermitted warfare, he swept over the whole surface of Europe, from the Ebro to the Oder, from Bretagne to Hungary, from Denmark to Capua, with such a velocity of movement, and such a decision of purpose, that no power, civilized or barbarous, ever provoked his resentment without rapidly sinking beneath his prompt and irresistible blows. And though it be true, as Gibbon has observed, that he seldom, if ever, encountered in the field a really formidable antagonist, it is not less true that, but for his military skill, animated by his sleepless energy, the countless assailants by whom he was encompassed must rapidly have become too formidable for resistance. For to Charlemagne is due the introduction into modern warfare of the art by which a general compensates for the numerical inferiority of his own forces to that of his antagonists—the art of moving detached bodies of men along remote but converging lines with such mutual concert as to throw their united forces at the same moment on any meditated point of attack. Neither the Alpine marches of Hannibal nor those of Napoleon were combined with greater foresight, or executed with greater precision, than the simultaneous passages of Charlemagne and Count Bernard across the same mountain ranges, and their ultimate union in the vicinity of their Lombard enemies."

Sir J. Stephen, Lectures on the History of France, lecture 3.

ALSO IN: E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 49.

See, also, GERMANY: A. D. 800.

FRANKS: A. D. 814-962. Dissolution of the Carolingian Empire.

Charlemagne, at his death, was succeeded by his son Ludwig, or Louis the Pious—the single survivor of three sons among whom he had intended that his great empire should be shared. Mild in temper, conscientious in character, Louis reigned with success for sixteen years, and then lost all power of control, through the turbulence of his family and the disorders of his times. He "tried in vain to satisfy his sons (Lothar, Lewis, and Charles) by dividing and redividing: they rebelled; he was deposed, and forced by the bishops to do penance, again restored, but without power, a tool in the hands of contending factions. On his death the sons flew to arms, and the first of the dynastic quarrels of modern Europe was fought out on the field of Fontenay. In the partition treaty of Verdun [A. D. 843] which followed, the Teutonic principle of equal division among heirs triumphed over the Roman one of the transmission of an indivisible Empire: the practical sovereignty of all three brothers was admitted in their respective territories, a barren precedence only reserved to Lothar, with the imperial title which he, as the eldest, already enjoyed. A more important result was the separation of the Gaulish and German nationalities. … Modern Germany proclaims the era of A. D. 843 the beginning of her national existence and celebrated its thousandth anniversary [in 1843]. To Charles the Bald was given Francia Occidentalis; that is to say, Neustria and Aquitaine; to Lothar, who as Emperor must possess the two capitals, Rome and Aachen, a long and narrow kingdom stretching from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, and including the northern half of Italy; Lewis (surnamed, from his kingdom, the German) received all east of the Rhine, Franks, Saxons, Bavarians, Austria, Carinthia, with possible supremacies over Czechs and Moravians beyond. Throughout these regions German was spoken; through Charles's kingdom a corrupt tongue, equally removed from Latin and from modern French. Lothar's, being mixed and having no national basis, was the weakest of the three, and soon dissolved into the separate sovereignties of Italy, Burgundy and Lotharingia, or, as we call it, Lorraine. On the tangled history of the period that follows it is not possible to do more than touch. After passing from one branch of the Carolingian line to another, the imperial sceptre was at last possessed and disgraced by Charles the Fat, who united all the dominions of his great-grandfather. This unworthy heir could not avail himself of recovered territory to strengthen or defend the expiring monarchy. He was driven out of Italy in A. D. 887 and his death in 888 has been usually taken as the date of the extinction of the Carolingian Empire of the West. … From all sides the torrent of barbarism which Charles the Great had stemmed was rushing down upon his empire. … Under such strokes the already loosened fabric swiftly dissolved. No one thought of common defence or wide organization: the strong built castles, the weak became their bondsmen, or took shelter under the cowl: the governor—count, abbot, or bishop—tightened his grasp, turned a delegated into an independent, a personal into a territorial authority, and hardly owned a distant and feeble suzerain. … In Germany, the greatness of the evil worked at last its cure.

[1404 moved to end of FRANKS.] {1405}

When the male line of the eastern branch of the Carolingians had ended in Lewis (surnamed the Child), son of Arnulf [A. D. 911], the chieftains chose and the people accepted Conrad the Franconian, and after him Henry the Saxon duke, both representing the female line of Charles. Henry laid the foundations of a firm monarchy, driving back the Magyars and Wends, recovering Lotharingia, founding towns to be centres of orderly life and strongholds against Hungarian irruptions. He had meant to claim at Rome his kingdom's rights, rights which Conrad's weakness had at least asserted by the demand of tribute; but death overtook him, and the plan was left to be fulfilled by Otto his son."

J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, chapter 6.

"The division of 888 was really the beginning of the modern states and the modern divisions of Europe. The Carolingian Empire was broken up into four separate kingdoms: the Western Kingdom, answering roughly to France, the Eastern Kingdom or Germany, Italy, and Burgundy. Of these, the three first remain as the greatest nations of the Continent: Burgundy, by that name, has vanished; but its place as a European power is occupied, far more worthily than by any King or Cæsar, by the noble confederation of Switzerland."

E. A. Freeman, The Franks and the Gauls. (Historical Essays, 1st series, number 7.)

ALSO IN: E. F. Henderson, Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages, book 2, numbers 3.

P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, chapter 18.

R. W. Church, The Beginning of the Middle Ages, chapter 8.

F. Guizot, History of Civilization, lecture 24.

Sir F. Palgrave, History of Normandy and France, volumes 1-2.

See, also, GERMANY: A. D. 843-962; and FRANCE: A. D. 843, and after.

FRANKS: A. D. 843-962. Kingdom of the East Franks.

See GERMANY: A. D. 843-962.

—————End: FRANKS —————

[Image: Central Europe (page 1404)]

CENTRAL EUROPE AT THE PEACE OF VERDUN 843 A. D.

CENTRAL EUROPE 888 A. D.

—————————————————

FRATRES MINORES.

See MENDICANT ORDERS.

FRATRICELLI, The.

See BEGUINES, ETC.

FRAZIER'S FARM, OR GLENDALE, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JUNE-JULY: VIRGINIA).

FREDERICIA, Battle of (1849).

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (DENMARK): A. D. 1848-1862.

FREDERICIA, Siege of (1864).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1861-1866.

FREDERICK I. (called Barbarossa), Emperor, A. D. 1155-1190; King of Germany, 1152-1190; King of Italy, 1155-1190.

Frederick I., King of Denmark and Norway, 1523-1533.

Frederick I., King of Prussia, 1701-1713;

Frederick III., Elector of Brandenburg, 1688-1713.

Frederick I., Elector of Brandenburg, 1417-1440.

Frederick II., Emperor, 1220-1250; King of Germany, 1212-1250.

See ITALY: A. D. 1183-1250; and GERMANY: A. D. 1138-1268.

Frederick II., King of Denmark and Norway, 1558-1588.

Frederick II., King of Naples, 1496-1503.

Frederick II. (called The Great), King of Prussia, 1740-1786.

Frederick II., King of Sicily, 1295-1337.

Frederick II., Elector of Brandenburg, 1440-1470.

Frederick III., Emperor, and King of Germany, 1440-1493.

Frederick III., German Emperor and King of Prussia, 1888, March-June.

Frederick III., King of Denmark and Norway, 1648-1670.

Frederick III., King of Sicily, 1355-1377.

Frederick IV., King of Denmark and Norway, 1609-1730.

Frederick V., King of Denmark and Norway, 1746-1766.

Frederick V., Elector of the Palatinate (and King-elect of Bohemia), and the Thirty Years' War.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1618-1620, 1620, 1621-1623, 1631-1632, and 1648.

Frederick VI., King of Denmark and Norway, 1808-1814; King of Denmark, 1814-1839.

Frederick VII., King of Denmark, 1848-1863.

Frederick Augustus I., Elector of Saxony, 1694-1733; King of Poland, 1697-1704 (deposed), and 1709-1733.

Frederick Augustus II., Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, 1733-1763.

Frederick Henry, Stadtholder of the United Provinces, 1625-1647.

Frederick William (called The Great Elector), Elector of Brandenburg, 1640-1688.

Frederick William I., King of Prussia, 1713-1740.

Frederick William II., King of Prussia, 1786-1797.

Frederick William III., King of Prussia, 1797-1840.

Frederick William IV., King of Prussia, 1840-1861.

—————FREDERICK: End—————

FREDERICKSBURG, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D.1862 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER: VIRGINIA).

FREDERICKSBURG: Sedgwick's demonstration against.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (APRIL-MAY: VIRGINIA).

—————FREDERICKSBURG: End—————

FREDERICKSHALL. Siege by the Swedes. Death of Charles XII. (1718).

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1707-1718.

FREDERICKSHAMM, Peace of (1809).

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1807-1810.

FREDLINGEN, Battle of (1703).

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702-1704.

FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1843.

FREE CITIES.

See CITIES, IMPERIAL AND FREE, OF GERMANY; also, ITALY: A. D. 1056-1152, and after.

FREE COMPANIES, The.

See ITALY: A. D. 1343-1393; and FRANCE: A. D. 1360-1380.

FREE LANCES.

See LANCES, FREE.

FREE MASONS.

"The fall of the Knights Templars has been connected with the origin of the Freemasons, and the idea has prevailed that the only secret purpose of the latter was the reestablishment of the suppressed order. Jacques de Molai, while a prisoner in Paris, is said to have created four new lodges, and the day after his execution, eight knights, disguised as masons, are said to have gone to gather up the ashes of their late Grand Master. To conceal their designs, the new Templars assumed the symbols of the trade, but took, it is said, the name of Francs 'Maçons' to distinguish themselves from ordinary craftsmen, and also in memory of the general appellation given to them in Palestine. Even the allegories of Freemasonry, and the ceremonies of its initiations, have been explained by a reference to the history of the persecutions of the Templars. The Abbé Barruel says, that 'every thing—the signs, the language, the names of grand master, of knight, of temple—all, in a word, betray the Freemasons as descendants of the proscribed knights.' Lessing, in Germany, gave some authority to this opinion, by asserting positively that 'the lodges of the Templars were in the very highest repute in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and that out of such a lodge, which had been constantly kept up in London, was established the society of Freemasons, in the seventeenth century, by Sir Christopher Wren.' {1406} Lessing is of opinion that the name Mason has nothing to do with the English meaning of the word, but comes from Massonney, a 'lodge' of the Knights Templars. This idea may have caused the Freemasons to amalgamate the external ritual of the Templars with their own, and to found the higher French degrees which have given colour to the very hypothesis which gave rise to their introduction. But the whole story appears to be most improbable, and only rests upon the slight foundation of fancied or accidental analogies. Attempts have also been made to show that the Freemasons are only a continuation of the fraternities of architects which are supposed to have originated at the time of the building of Solomon's Temple. The Egyptian priests are supposed to have taught those who were initiated a secret and sacred system of architecture; this is said to have been transmitted to the Dionysiac architects, of whom the first historical traces are to be found in Asia Minor, where they were organized into a secret fraternity. … It is, however; a mere matter of speculation whether the Jewish and Dionysiac architects were closely connected, but there is some analogy between the latter and the Roman guilds, which Numa is said to have first introduced, and which were probably the prototypes of the later associations of masons which flourished until the end of the Roman Empire. The hordes of barbarians which then ruthlessly swept away whatever bore the semblance of luxury and elegance, did not spare the noblest specimens of art, and it was only when they became converted to Christianity, that the guilds were re-established. During the Lombard rule they became numerous in Italy. … As their numbers increased, Lombardy no longer sufficed for the exercise of their art, and they travelled into all the countries where Christianity, only recently established, required religious buildings. … These associations, however, became nearly crushed by the power of the monastic institutions, so that in the early part of the Middle Ages the words artist and priest became nearly synonymous; but in the twelfth century they emancipated themselves, and sprang into new life. The names of the authors of the great architectural creations of this period are almost all unknown; for these were not the work of individuals, but of fraternities. … In England guilds of masons are said to have existed in the year 926, but this tradition is not supported by history; in Scotland similar associations were established towards the end of the fifteenth century. The Abbé Grandidier regards Freemasonry as nothing more than a servile imitation of the ancient and useful fraternity of true masons established during the building of the Cathedral of Strasburg, one of the masterpieces of Gothic architecture, and which caused the fame of its builders to spread throughout Europe. In many towns similar fraternities were established. … The origin of the Freemasons of the present day is not to be attributed to these fraternities, but to the Rosicrucians [see ROSICRUCIANS] who first appeared at the beginning of the seventeenth century."

A. P. Marras, Secret Fraternities of the Middle Ages, chapters 7-8.

ALSO IN: J. G. Findel, History of Freemasonry.

C. W. Heckethorn, Secret Societies of all Ages and Countries, book 8 (volume 1).

FREE-SOIL PARTY, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1848.

FREE SPIRIT, Brethren and Sisters of the.

See BEGUINES.

FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (ENGLAND): A. D. 1836-1839; 1842; 1845-1846; and 1846-1879.

FREEDMEN OF THE SOUTH.

The emancipated slaves of the United States of America.

FREEDMEN'S BUREAU, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865-1866.

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS: A. D. 1695. Expiration of the Censorship law in England.

See PRINTING: A. D. 1695.

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS: A. D. 1734. Zenger's trial at New York. Vindication of the rights of the colonial Press.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1720-1734.

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS: A. D. 1755. Liberty attained in Massachusetts.

See PRINTING: A. D. 1535-1709.

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS: A. D. 1762-1764. Prosecution of John Wilkes.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1762-1764.

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS: A. D. 1771. Last contest of the British Parliament with the Press.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1771.

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS: A. D. 1817. The trials of William Hone.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1816-1820.

—————FREEDOM OF THE PRESS: End—————

FREEHOLD.

See FEUDAL TENURES.

FREEMAN'S FARM, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1777 (JULY-OCTOBER).

FREGELLÆ.

Fregellæ, a Latin colony, founded by the Romans, B. C. 329, in the Volscian territory, on the Liris, revolted in B. C. 125. and was totally destroyed. A Roman colony, named Fabrateria, was founded near the site.

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 1, chapter 17.

FREIBURG (in the Breisgau).

Freiburg became a free city in 1120, but lost its freedom a century later, and passed, in 1368, under the domination of the Hapsburgs.

FREIBURG: A. D. 1638. Capture by Duke Bernhard.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.

FREIBURG: A. D. 1644. Siege and capture by the Imperialists. Attempted recovery by Condé and Turenne. The three days battle.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1643-1644.

FREIBURG: A. D. 1677. Taken by the French.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1674-1678.

FREIBURG: A. D. 1679. Retained by France.

See NIMEGUEN, THE PEACE OF.

FREIBURG: A. D. 1697. Restored to Germany.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1697.

FREIBURG: A. D. 1713-1714. Taken and given up by the French.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

FREIBURG: A. D. 1744-1748. Taken by the French and restored to Germany.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1744-1745; and AIX-LA-CHAPELLE: THE CONGRESS.

—————FREIBURG: End—————

FREJUS, Origin of.

See FORUM JULII.

FREMONT, General John C., The conquest of California.

See CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1846-1847.

Defeat in Presidential election.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1856.

Command in the west. Proclamation of Freedom. Removal.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JULY-SEPTEMBER: MISSOURI), and (AUGUST-OCTOBER: MISSOURI).

Command in West Virginia.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862. (MAY-JUNE: VIRGINIA).

{1407}

FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR.

The four intercolonial wars of the 17th and 18th centuries, in America, commonly known, respectively, as "King William's War," "Queen Anne's War," "King George's War," and the French and Indian War, were all of them conflicts with the French and Indians of Canada, or New France; but the last of the series (coincident with the "Seven Years War" in Europe) became especially characterized in the colonies by that designation. Its causes and chief events are to be found related under the following headings:

CANADA: A.D. 1750-1753, 1755, 1756, 1756-1757, 1758, 1759, 1760; NOVA SCOTIA: A. D.1749-1755, 1755; OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754, 1754, 1755; CAPE BRETON ISLAND: A. D. 1758-1760; also, for an account of the accompanying Cherokee War, SOUTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1759-1761.

FRENCH FURY, The.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1581-1584.

FRENCH SPOLIATION CLAIMS.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1800.

FRENCHTOWN (now Monroe, Mich.), Battle at.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812-1813.

HARRISON'S NORTHWESTERN CAMPAIGN.

FRENTANIANS, The.

See SABINES.

FRIARS. "Carmelite Friars," "White Friars."

See CARMELITE FRIARS.

Austin Friars;

See AUSTIN CANONS.

"Preaching Friars," "Begging Friars," "Minor Friars," "Black Friars," "Grey Friars."

See MENDICANT ORDERS.

FRIEDLAND, Battle of.