CHAPTER IV

Page 41.

1. 23. Calas, Jean, a Frenchman remembered as the unhappy victim of fanaticism and injustice. He was falsely accused of having killed his son in 1761. There was no reason for doubting that the young man had committed suicide, but popular rumour accused the father of having murdered him because he had contemplated conversion to Catholicism. In spite of a brilliant defence the

Page 41.

' parlement ' of Toulouse condemned him to death by eight votes to six. His widow escaped to Switzerland, where she was fortunate enough to enlist Voltaire's interest. He brought the whole aifair before the public and in his Sitr la Tolerance proved that Calas had fallen a victim to religious hatred and popular fanaticism. The Parlement de Paris held a revision of the trial in 1765 and declared Calas innocent. Louis xv. gave 30,000 francs to the bereaved family.

1. 23. Lally, better known as Lally Tollendal (1702-1766), was a French general. He distinguished himself first at Fontenoy in 1745, and in 1756 was sent to India as commander of the French forces. In 1760 he was besieged for ten months at Pondicherry by greatly superior British forces and had to capitulate in 1761. He was conveyed to England as a prisoner of war. Hearing that in his absence he had been accused of treachery and cowardice in India, he obtained leave from the English Government to proceed to Paris to vindicate his character. He was thrown into the Bastille and kept there two years before his trial. He was then condemned to death and executed in 1766. His son, supported by Voltaire, procured a royal decree in 1778, declaring the condemnation unjust and restoring all the forfeited honours.

1. 26. supplice de la roue. This form of punishment consisted in binding the condemned man to a wheel and breaking his legs and arms.

The word roué was first applied to the debauched comrades of the Duke of Orleans, Regent to Louis xiv., with the meaning of ' worthy of the supplice de la roueJ

Page 42.

1. 21. cbambre étoilée, Star Chamber, a tribunal which met in the old Council Chamber of the Palace at Westminster, and it is said to have received its name from the roof of that apartment being decorated with gilt stars, or because in it starres or Jewish bonds were kept. Its civil jurisdiction comprised controversies between English and foreign merchants, testamentary causes, and other disputes. As a criminal court it could inflict any punishment short of death, and dealt with matters of forgery, perjury, riots, frauds, libels, conspiracy, and all ofi"ences against the State. In 1641 it was abolished at the same time as the equally unpopular Court of High Commission.

Page 43.

1.3. la vie du roi d'Angleterre. In 1786 a madwoman, Margaret Nicholson, tried to stab George in. In 1794 a bullet was fired by an unknown hand through his carriage window. Hatfield's attemjit was made in 1800 in Drmy Lane Theatre.

1. 13. Damien, at the instigation of the Jesuits, made an attempt to assassinate Louis xv. in 1757. He was seized before he could carry out his intentions, and three months later condemned to have his right hand bui'ned ofl". He was finally quartered after having undergone terrible tortures. The pieces of his body were publicly burned, his house demolished, and his family permanently banished from France.

Page 44.

1. 24. M. Erskine. Thomas, Lord Erskine, was born in 1750. After serving in the Navy and then in the Army, he was called to the Bar. In 1781 he obtained the acquittal of Lord George Gordon, and was made a K.C. in 1783. His defence of Hatfield in 1800 is a powerful indictment of the theory which then prevailed that nothing can excuse an attack on royalty. He became Lord Chancellor in 1807 and died in 1823.

Page 47.

1. 31. une quarantaine de quinze jours, a fortnight's quarantine. Quarantine, originally a period of forty days, is a forced abstinence from communication with the shore, which ships are compelled to undergo when they are last from some port where certain diseases held to be infectious are or have been raging. History declares quarantine regiilations for maritime intercourse to date back to the Venetians in 1127, but the practice must have existed long before then on land frontiers.

Page 48.

1.28.1a presse des matelots. Impressment was the mode formerly resorted to for manning the British navy. It had not only the sanction of custom but the force of law. It may be traced back in English legislation from the days of Edward i. The pressgang, an armed party of reliable men commanded by officers, proceeded to such houses in seaport towns as were supposed to be the resort of the seafaring population, laid violent hands on all eligible men, and conveyed them by force to the ships of war

Page 48.

in the harbour. By 1835 the system became obsolete, and from then the navy was manned by voluntary service. Nevertheless, the laws sanctioning impressment have never been repealed.

Page 50.

11. 16-18. M. Pitt . . . pour quarante mille livres. On the 14th of December 1796 Fox unsuccessfully moved a vote of censure on Pitt's government for gTanting money to the Emperor of Germany and the Prince of Conde without the consent of Parliament. The present passage would seem to refer to some similar occasion when Pitt took the responsibility of paying money out of the Exchequer and only receiving authority afterwards.

1. 9. à une nouvelle élection. In 1783 Pitt's position seemed hopeless. There was a majority of more than a hundred against him in the Commons. Pitt fought his battle with a skill and resolution never surpassed in parliamentary history, and soon unequivocal signs api^eared that the country was with him. Addresses in his favour poured in from the leading corporations. The majorities against him grew steadily smaller. In 1784 the long-deferred blow was struck. Parliament was dissolved and an election ensued, which swept away one hundred and sixty members of the opposition, made Pitt one of the most powerful ministers in all English history, and paved the way for a ministry which lasted for twenty years.

1. 19. Cornouailles. Cornwall now contains one parliamentary borough — Falmouth and Penryn — and six county divisions. Prior to 1832 it retm-ned forty members. The eldest son of the reigning sovereign is Duke of Cornwall.

Page 56.

1. 29. Burke, Edmund, the celebrated orator and philosophic politician, was born at Dublin in 1729. He proceeded in 1750 to London to keep his terms at the Middle Temple. From 1750 to 1760 he spent most of his time on literary work. In 1765 he became private secretary to the Marquis of Rockingham, and was returned to Parliament in the same year. His eloquence at once gained him a high position in the House. The Eockingham administration lasted only a year, and he held no office till the downfall of

Page 56.

the North ministry in 1782. The best of Burke's writings belong to the period 1770-1782. His first great pamphlet was Observations on the Present State of the Nation. In 1770 followed a pamphlet On the Cause of the Present Discontents. Three great writings on the American struggle are perhaps the finest of his many efforts. In 1788 he opened the trial of Warren Hastings by the celebrated speech which will always rank among the masterpieces of English oratory. In 1790 he appeared as the champion of the old state of things in Europe by the publication of his famous Reflections on the French Revolution. In less than a year it reached its eleventh edition. It was read all over Europe, and tended powerfully to encourage its rulers in a strenuous resistance to the Revolution. He died in 1797.

Page 60.

Note. Cowper, William 1 1731-1800). His greatest work was The Task, published in 1 785, from which these Lines are quoted by Madame de Staël. The story goes that his friend and neighbour, Lady Austen, playfully commanded Cowper to ■write a poem for her on any subject, ' this sofa, for instance,' and that it is to this request that we owe Cowper's finest work. Lady Austen has also the credit of having told him the story of John Gilpin, which he reproduced in the immortal ballad the next morning. In his waning years he wrote two very beautiful poems, the lines, ' Addressed to my Mother's Picture ' and those entitled, ' My Mary.'

Page 61.

1. 23. Sir Walter Scott, the greatest of Scottish men of letters, and probably the best beloved author who ever lived, was born in 1771. As a poet his fame rests on the Lay of the Last Minstrel (1802), Marmion (1808), the Lady of the Lake (1810), and the Lord of the Isles (1811). But it was as a writer of romance that Scott has obtained the immortality he deserved. His Waverley Novels were written from 1814 to 1830. He died in 1832. As a writer it Ib a truism to say that since Shakespeare there has never been a genius so creative or so human, so rich in humour, poetry, and sympathy, so fertile in the production of new and real characters, as the genius of Scott. His influence on literature is immense. The Eomantic movement in France owed nearly as much to him

Page 61.

as to Shakespeare. His novels have been translated into almost every civilised tongue, and he has had imitators in all languages.

Page 62.