“The thought of England’s domineering over Scotland was what his generous soul could not endure. The indignities and oppression which Scotland lay under galled him to the heart, so that in his learned and elaborate discourses he exposed them with undaunted courage and pathetical eloquence. In that great event, the Union, he performed essential service. He got the act of security passed, which declared that the two crowns should not pass to the same head till Scotland was secured in her liberties civil and religious. Therefore Lord Godolphin was forced into the Union, to avoid a civil war after the queen’s demise. Although Mr Fletcher disapproved of some of the articles, and indeed of the whole frame of the Union, yet, as the act of security was his own work, he had all the merit of that important transaction.”
“The thought of England’s domineering over Scotland was what his generous soul could not endure. The indignities and oppression which Scotland lay under galled him to the heart, so that in his learned and elaborate discourses he exposed them with undaunted courage and pathetical eloquence. In that great event, the Union, he performed essential service. He got the act of security passed, which declared that the two crowns should not pass to the same head till Scotland was secured in her liberties civil and religious. Therefore Lord Godolphin was forced into the Union, to avoid a civil war after the queen’s demise. Although Mr Fletcher disapproved of some of the articles, and indeed of the whole frame of the Union, yet, as the act of security was his own work, he had all the merit of that important transaction.”
Soon after the passing of the Act of Union Fletcher retired from public life. Employing his abilities in another direction, he did a real, if homely, service to his country by introducing from Holland machinery for sifting grain. He died unmarried in London in September 1716.
Contemporaries speak very highly of Fletcher’s integrity, but he was also choleric and impetuous. Burnet describes him as “a Scotch gentleman of great parts and many virtues, but a most violent republican and extremely passionate.” In appearance he was “a low, thin man, of a brown complexion; full of fire; with a stern, sour look.” Fletcher was a fine scholar and a graceful writer, and both his writings and speeches afford bright glimpses of the manners and state of the country in his time. His chief works are:A Discourse of Government relating to Militias(1698);Two Discourses concerning the Affairs of Scotland(1698); andAn Account of a Conversation concerning a right regulation of Governments for the common good of Mankind(1704). In Two Discourses he suggests that the numerous vagrants who infested Scotland should be brought into compulsory and hereditary servitude; and inAn Account of a Conversationoccurs his well-known remark, “I knew a very wise man so much of Sir Christopher’s (Sir C. Musgrave) sentiment, that he believed if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation.”
The Political Works of Andrew Fletcherwere published in London in 1737. See D.S. Erskine, 11th earl of Buchan,Essay on the Lives of Fletcher of Saltoun and the Poet Thomson(1792); J.H. Burton,History of Scotland, vol. viii. (Edinburgh, 1905); and A. Lang,History of Scotland, vol. iv. (Edinburgh, 1907).
The Political Works of Andrew Fletcherwere published in London in 1737. See D.S. Erskine, 11th earl of Buchan,Essay on the Lives of Fletcher of Saltoun and the Poet Thomson(1792); J.H. Burton,History of Scotland, vol. viii. (Edinburgh, 1905); and A. Lang,History of Scotland, vol. iv. (Edinburgh, 1907).
FLETCHER, GILES(c.1548-1611), English author, son of Richard Fletcher, vicar of Cranbrook, Kent, and father of the poets Phineas and Giles Fletcher, was born in 1548 or 1549. He was educated at Eton and at King’s College, Cambridge, taking his B.A. degree in 1569. He was a fellow of his college, and was made LL.D. in 1581. In 1580 he had married Joan Sheafe of Cranbrook. In that year he was commissary to Dr Bridgwater, chancellor of Ely, and in 1585 he sat in parliament for Winchelsea. He was employed on diplomatic service in Scotland, Germany and Holland, and in 1588 was sent to Russia to the court of the czar Theodore with instructions to conclude as alliance between England and Russia, to restore English trade, and to obtain better conditions for the English Russia Company. The factor of the company, Jerome Horsey, had already obtained large concessions through the favour of the protector, Boris Godunov, but when Dr Fletcher reached Moscow in 1588 he found that Godunov’s interest was alienated, and that the Russian government was contemplating an alliance with Spain. The envoy was badly lodged, and treated with obvious contempt, and was not allowed to forward letters to England, but the English victory over the Armada and his own indomitable patience secured among other advantages for English traders exclusive rights of trading on the Volga and their security from the infliction of torture. Fletcher’s treatment at Moscow was later made the subject of formal complaint by Queen Elizabeth. He returned to England in 1589 in company with Jerome Horsey, and in 1591 he publishedOf the Russe Commonwealth, Or Maner of Government by the Russe Emperour(commonly called The Emperour of Moskovia)with the manners and fashions of the people of that Countrey. In this comprehensive account of Russian geography, government, law, methods of warfare, church and manners, Fletcher, who states that he began to arrange his material during the return journey, doubtless received some assistance from the longer experience of his travelling companion, who also wrote a narrative of his travels, published inPurchas his Pilgrimes(1626). The Russia Company feared that the freedom of Fletcher’s criticisms would give offence to the Muscovite authorities, and accordingly damage their trade. The book was consequently suppressed, and was not reprinted in its entirety until 1856, when it was edited from a copy of the original edition for the Hakluyt Society, with an introduction by Mr Edward A. Bond.
Fletcher was appointed “Remembrancer” to the city of London, and an extraordinary master of requests in 1596, and became treasurer of St Paul’s in 1597. He contemplated a history of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and in a letter to Lord Burghley he suggested that it might be well to begin with an account from the Protestant side of the marriage of Henry VIII. and Ann Boleyn. But personal difficulties prevented the execution of this plan. He had become security to the exchequer for the debts of his brother, Richard Fletcher, bishop of London, who died in 1596, and was only then saved from imprisonment by the protection of the earl of Essex. He was actually in prison in 1601, when he addressed a somewhat ambiguous letter to Burghley from which it may be gathered that his prime offence had been an allusion to Essex’s disgrace as being the work of Sir Walter Raleigh. Fletcher was employed in 1610 to negotiate with Denmark on behalf of the “Eastland Merchants,” and he died next year, and was buried on the 11th of March in the parish of St Catherine Colman, London.
The Russe Commonwealthwas issued in an abridged form inHakluyt’s Principal Navigations, Voyages, &c. (vol. i. p. 473, ed. of 1598), a somewhat completer version inPurchas his Pilgrimes(pt. iii. ed. 1625), also asHistory of Russiain 1643 and 1657.Fletcher also wroteDe literis antiquae Britanniae(ed. by Phineas Fletcher, 1633), a treatise on “The Tartars,” printed inIsrael Redux(ed. by S(amuel) L(ee), 1677), to prove that they were the ten lost tribes of Israel, Latin poems published in various miscellanies, andLicia, or Poemes of Love in Honour of the admirable and singular vertues of his Lady, to the imitation of the best Latin Poets ... whereunto is added the Rising to the Crowne of Richard the third(1593). This series of love sonnets, followed by some other poems, was published anonymously. Most critics, with the notable exception of Alexander Dyce (Beaumont and Fletcher,Works, i. p. xvi., 1843) have accepted it as the work of Dr Giles Fletcher on the evidence afforded in the first of thePiscatory Ecloguesof his son Phineas, who represents his father (Thelgon), as having “raised his rime to sing of Richard’s climbing.”See E.A. Bond’s Introduction to the Hakluyt Society’s edition; also Dr A.B. Grosart’s prefatory matter toLicia(Fuller Worthies Library, Miscellanies, vol. iii., 1871), and to the works (1869) of Phineas Fletcher in the same series. Fletcher’s letters relative to the college dispute with the provost, Dr Roger Goad, are preserved in the Lansdowne MSS. (xxiii. art. 18 et seq.), and are translated in Grosart’s edition.
The Russe Commonwealthwas issued in an abridged form inHakluyt’s Principal Navigations, Voyages, &c. (vol. i. p. 473, ed. of 1598), a somewhat completer version inPurchas his Pilgrimes(pt. iii. ed. 1625), also asHistory of Russiain 1643 and 1657.Fletcher also wroteDe literis antiquae Britanniae(ed. by Phineas Fletcher, 1633), a treatise on “The Tartars,” printed inIsrael Redux(ed. by S(amuel) L(ee), 1677), to prove that they were the ten lost tribes of Israel, Latin poems published in various miscellanies, andLicia, or Poemes of Love in Honour of the admirable and singular vertues of his Lady, to the imitation of the best Latin Poets ... whereunto is added the Rising to the Crowne of Richard the third(1593). This series of love sonnets, followed by some other poems, was published anonymously. Most critics, with the notable exception of Alexander Dyce (Beaumont and Fletcher,Works, i. p. xvi., 1843) have accepted it as the work of Dr Giles Fletcher on the evidence afforded in the first of thePiscatory Ecloguesof his son Phineas, who represents his father (Thelgon), as having “raised his rime to sing of Richard’s climbing.”
See E.A. Bond’s Introduction to the Hakluyt Society’s edition; also Dr A.B. Grosart’s prefatory matter toLicia(Fuller Worthies Library, Miscellanies, vol. iii., 1871), and to the works (1869) of Phineas Fletcher in the same series. Fletcher’s letters relative to the college dispute with the provost, Dr Roger Goad, are preserved in the Lansdowne MSS. (xxiii. art. 18 et seq.), and are translated in Grosart’s edition.
FLETCHER, GILES(c.1584-1623), English poet, younger son of the preceding, was born about 1584. Fuller in hisWorthies of Englandsays that he was a native of London, and was educated at Westminster school. From there he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. degree in 1606, and became a minor fellow of his college in 1608. He was reader in Greek grammar (1615) and in Greek language (1618). In 1603 he contributed a poem on the death of Queen Elizabeth toSorrow’s Joy. His great poem ofChrist’s Victoryappeared in 1610, and in 1612 he edited theRemainsof his cousin Nathaniel Pownall. It is not known in what year he was ordained, but his sermons at St Mary’s were famous. Fuller tells us that the prayer before the sermon was a continuous allegory. He left Cambridge about 1618, and soon after received, it is supposed from Francis Bacon, the rectory of Alderton, on the Suffolk coast, where “his clownish and low-parted parishioners ... valued not their pastor according to his worth; which disposed him to melancholy and hastened his dissolution.” (Fuller,Worthies of England, ed. 1811, vol. ii. p. 82). His last work,The Reward of the Faithful, appeared in the year of his death (1623).
The principal work by which Giles Fletcher is known isChrist’s Victorie and Triumph, in Heaven, in Earth, over and after Death(1610). An edition in 1640 contains seven full-page illustrative engravings by George Tate. It is in four cantos and is epic in design. The first canto, “Christ’s Victory in Heaven,” represents a dispute in heaven between Justice and Mercy, assuming the facts of Christ’s life on earth; the second, “Christ’s Victory on Earth,” deals with an allegorical account of the Temptation; the third, “Christ’s Triumph over Death,” treats of the Passion; and the fourth, “Christ’s Triumph after Death,” treating of the Resurrection and Ascension, concludes with an affectionate eulogy of his brother Phineas Fletcher (q.v.) as “Thyrsilis.” The metre is an eight-line stanza owing something to Spenser. The first five lines rhyme ababb, and the stanza concludes with a rhyming triplet, resuming the conceit which nearly every verse embodies. Giles Fletcher, like his brother Phineas, to whom he was deeply attached, was a close follower of Spenser. In his very best passages Giles Fletcher attains to a rich melody which charmed the ear of Milton, who did not hesitate to borrow very considerably from theChrist’s Victory and Triumphin hisParadise Regained. Fletcher lived in an age which regarded as models the poems of Marini and Gongora, and his conceits are sometimes grotesque in connexion with the sacredness of his subject. But when he is carried away by his theme and forgets to be ingenious, he attains great solemnity and harmony of style. His descriptions of the Lady of Vain Delight, in the second canto, and of Justice and of Mercy in the first, are worked out with much beauty of detail into separate pictures, in the manner of theFaerie Queene.
Giles Fletcher’s poem was edited (1868) for theFuller Worthies Library, and (1876) for theEarly English Poetsby Dr A.B. Grosart. It is also reprinted forThe Ancient and Modern Library of Theological Literature(1888), and in R. Cattermole’s and H. Stebbing’sSacred Classics(1834, &c.) vol. 20. In the library of King’s College, Cambridge, is a MS.Aegidii Fletcherii versio poetica Lamentationum Jeremiae.
Giles Fletcher’s poem was edited (1868) for theFuller Worthies Library, and (1876) for theEarly English Poetsby Dr A.B. Grosart. It is also reprinted forThe Ancient and Modern Library of Theological Literature(1888), and in R. Cattermole’s and H. Stebbing’sSacred Classics(1834, &c.) vol. 20. In the library of King’s College, Cambridge, is a MS.Aegidii Fletcherii versio poetica Lamentationum Jeremiae.
FLETCHER, JOHN WILLIAM(1729-1785), English divine, was born at Nyon in Switzerland on the 12th of September 1729, his original name beingde la Fléchière. He was educated at Geneva, but, preferring an army career to a clerical one, went to Lisbon and enlisted. An accident prevented his sailing with his regiment to Brazil, and after a visit to Flanders, where an uncle offered to secure a commission for him, he went to England, picked up the language, and in 1752 became tutor in a Shropshire family. Here he came under the influence of the new Methodist preachers, and in 1757 took orders, being ordained by the bishop of Bangor. He often preached with John Wesley and for him, and became known as a fervent supporter of the revival. Refusing the wealthy living of Dunham, he accepted the humble one of Madeley, where for twenty-five years (1760-1785) he lived and worked with unique devotion and zeal. Fletcher was one of the few parish clergy who understood Wesley and his work, yet he never wrote or said anything inconsistent with his own Anglican position. In theology he upheld the Arminian against the Calvinist position, but always with courtesy and fairness; his resignation on doctrinal grounds of the superintendency (1768-1771) of the countess of Huntingdon’s college at Trevecca left no unpleasantness. The outstanding feature of his life was a transparent simplicity and saintliness of spirit, and the testimony of his contemporaries to his godliness is unanimous. Wesley preached his funeral sermon from the words “Mark the perfect man.” Southey said that “no age ever provided a man of more fervent piety or more perfect charity, and no church ever possessed a more apostolic minister.” His fame was not confined to his own country, for it is said that Voltaire, when challenged to produce a character as perfect as that of Christ, at once mentioned Fletcher of Madeley. He died on the 14th of August 1785.
Complete editions of his works were published in 1803 and 1836. The chief of them, written against Calvinism, areFive Checks to Antinomianism,Scripture Scales to weigh the Gold of Gospel Truth, and thePortrait of St Paul. See lives by J. Wesley (1786); L. Tyerman (1882); F.W. Macdonald (1885); J. Maratt (1902); also C.J. Ryle,Christian Leaders of the 18th Century, pp. 384-423 (1869).
Complete editions of his works were published in 1803 and 1836. The chief of them, written against Calvinism, areFive Checks to Antinomianism,Scripture Scales to weigh the Gold of Gospel Truth, and thePortrait of St Paul. See lives by J. Wesley (1786); L. Tyerman (1882); F.W. Macdonald (1885); J. Maratt (1902); also C.J. Ryle,Christian Leaders of the 18th Century, pp. 384-423 (1869).
FLETCHER, PHINEAS(1582-1650), English poet, elder son of Dr Giles Fletcher, and brother of Giles the younger, noticed above, was born at Cranbrook, Kent, and was baptized on the 8th of April 1582. He was admitted a scholar of Eton, and in 1600 entered King’s College, Cambridge. He graduated B.A. in 1604, and M.A. in 1608, and was one of the contributors toSorrow’s Joy(1603). His pastoral drama,Sicelides or Piscatory(pr. 1631) was written (1614) for performance before James I., but only produced after the king’s departure at King’s College. He had been ordained priest and before 1611 became a fellow of his college, but he left Cambridge before 1616, apparently because certain emoluments were refused him. He became chaplain to Sir Henry Willoughby, who presented him in 1621 to the rectory of Hilgay, Norfolk, where he married and spent the rest of his life. In 1627 he publishedLocustae, vel Pietas Jesuitica.The Locusts or Apollyonists, two parallel poems in Latin and English furiously attacking the Jesuits. Dr Grosart saw in this work one of the sources of Milton’s conception of Satan. Next year appeared an erotic poem,Brittains Ida, with Edmund Spenser’s name on the title-page. It is certainly not by Spenser, and is printed by Dr Grosart with the works of Phineas Fletcher.Sicelides, a play acted at King’s College in 1614, was printed in 1631. In 1632 appeared two theological prose treatises,The Way to BlessednessandJoy in Tribulation, and in 1633 hismagnum opus, The Purple Island. The book was dedicated to his friend Edward Benlowes, and included hisPiscatorie Eclogs and other Poetical Miscellanies. He died in 1650, his will being proved by his widow on the 13th of December of that year.The Purple Island, or the Isle of Man, is a poem in twelve cantos describing in cumbrous allegory the physiological structure of the human body and the mind of man. The intellectual qualities are personified, while the veins are rivers, the bones the mountains of the island, the whole analogy being worked out with great ingenuity. The manner of Spenser is preserved throughout, but Fletcher never lost sight of his moralaim to lose himself in digressions like those of theFaerie Queene. What he gains in unity of design, however, he more than loses in human interest and action. The chief charm of the poem lies in its descriptions of rural scenery. ThePiscatory Ecloguesare pastorals the characters of which are represented as fisher boys on the banks of the Cam, and are interesting for the light they cast on the biography of the poet himself (Thyrsil) and his father (Thelgon). The poetry of Phineas Fletcher has not the sublimity sometimes reached by his brother Giles. The mannerisms are more pronounced and the conceits more far-fetched, but the verse is fluent, and lacks neither colour nor music.
A complete edition of his works (4 vols.) was privately printed by Dr A.B. Grosart (Fuller Worthies Library, 1869).
A complete edition of his works (4 vols.) was privately printed by Dr A.B. Grosart (Fuller Worthies Library, 1869).
FLEURANGES, ROBERT (III.) DE LA MARCK,Seigneur de(1491-1537), marshal of France and historian, was the son of Robert II. de la Marck; duke of Bouillon, seigneur of Sedan and Fleuranges, whose uncle was the celebrated William de la Marck, “The Wild Boar of the Ardennes.” A fondness for military exercises displayed itself in his earliest years, and at the age of ten he was sent to the court of Louis XII., and placed in charge of the count of Angoulême, afterwards King Francis I. In his twentieth year he married a niece of the cardinal d’Amboise, but after three months he quitted his home to join the French army in the Milanese. With a handful of troops he threw himself into Verona, then besieged by the Venetians; but the siege was protracted, and being impatient for more active service, he rejoined the army. He then took part in the relief of Mirandola, besieged by the troops of Pope Julius II., and in other actions of the campaign. In 1512 the French being driven from Italy, Fleuranges was sent into Flanders to levy a body of 10,000 men, in command of which, under his father, he returned to Italy in 1513, seized Alessandria, and vigorously assailed Novara. But the French were defeated, and Fleuranges narrowly escaped with his life, having received more than forty wounds. He was rescued by his father and sent to Vercellae, and thence to Lyons. Returning to Italy with Francis I. in 1515, he distinguished himself in various affairs, and especially at Marignano, where he had a horse shot under him, and contributed so powerfully to the victory of the French that the king knighted him with his own hand. He next took Cremona, and was there called home by the news of his father’s illness. In 1519 he was sent into Germany on the difficult errand of inducing the electors to give their votes in favour of Francis I.; but in this he failed. The war in Italy being rekindled, Fleuranges accompanied the king thither, fought at Pavia (1525), and was taken prisoner with his royal master. The emperor, irritated by the defection of his father, Robert II. de la Marck, sent him into confinement in Flanders, where he remained for some years. During this imprisonment he was created marshal of France. He employed his enforced leisure in writing hisHistoire des choses mémorables advenues du règne de Louis XII et de François I, depuis 1499 jusqu’en l’an 1521. In this work he designates himselfJeune Adventureux. Within a small compass he gives many curious and interesting details of the time, writing only of what he had seen, and in a very simple but vivid style. The book was first published in 1735, by Abbé Lambert, who added historical and critical notes; and it has been reprinted in several collections. The last occasion on which Fleuranges was engaged in active service was at the defence of Péronne, besieged by the count of Nassau in 1536. In the following year he heard of his father’s death, and set out from Amboise for his estate of La Marck; but he was seized with illness at Longjumeau, and died there in December 1537.
See his own book in theNouvelle Collection des mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de France(edited by J.F. Michaud and J.J.F. Poujoulat, series i. vol. v. Paris, 1836 seq.).
See his own book in theNouvelle Collection des mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de France(edited by J.F. Michaud and J.J.F. Poujoulat, series i. vol. v. Paris, 1836 seq.).
FLEUR-DE-LIS(Fr. “lily flower”), an heraldic device, very widespread in the armorial bearings of all countries, but more particularly associated with the royal house of France. The conventional fleur-de-lis, as Littré says, represents very imperfectly three flowers of the white lily (Lilium) joined together, the central one erect, and each of the other two curving outwards. The fleur-de-lis is a common device in ancient decoration, notably in India and in Egypt, where it was the symbol of life and resurrection, the attribute of the god Horus. It is common also in Etruscan bronzes. It is uncertain whether the conventional fleur-de-lis was originally meant to represent the lily or white iris—the flower-de-luce of Shakespeare—or an arrow-head, a spear-head, an amulet fastened on date-palms to ward off the evil eye, &c. In Roman and early Gothic architecture the fleur-de-lis is a frequent sculptured ornament. As early as 1120 three fleurs-de-lis were sculptured on the capitals of the Chapelle Saint-Aignan at Paris. The fleur-de-lis was first definitely connected with the French monarchy in anordonnanceof Louis le Jeune (c.1147), and was first figured on a seal of Philip Augustus in 1180. The use of the fleur-de-lis in heraldry dates from the 12th century, soon after which period it became a very common charge in France, England and Germany, where every gentleman of coat-armour desired to adorn his shield with a loan from the shield of France, which was at firstd’azur, semé de fleurs de lis d’or. In February 1376 Charles V. of France reduced the number of fleurs-de-lis to three—in honour of the Trinity—and the kings of France thereafter bored’azur, à trois fleurs de lis d’or. Tradition soon attributed the origin of the fleur-de-lis to Clovis, the founder of the Frankish monarchy, and explained that it represented the lily given to him by an angel at his baptism. Probably there was as much foundation for this legend as for the more rationalistic explanation of William Newton (Display of Heraldry, p. 145), that the fleur-de-lis was the figure of a reed or flag in blossom, used instead of a sceptre at the proclamation of the Frankish kings. Whatever be the true origin of the fleur-de-lis as a conventional decoration, it is demonstrably far older than the Frankish monarchy, and history does not record the reason of its adoption by the royal house of France, from which it passed into common use as an heraldic charge in most European countries. An order of the Lily, with a fleur-de-lis for badge, was established in the Roman states by Pope Paul III. in 1546; its members were pledged to defend the patrimony of St Peter against the enemies of the church. Another order of the Lily was founded by Louis XVIII. in 1816, in memory of the silver fleurs-de-lis which the comte d’Artois had given to the troops in 1814 as decorations; it was abolished by the revolution of 1830.
FLEURUS,a village of Belgium, in the province of Hennegau, 5 m. N.E. of Charleroi, famous as the scene of several battles. The first of these was fought on August 19/29, 1622, between the forces of Count Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick and the Spaniards under Cordovas, the latter being defeated. The second is described below, and the third and fourth, incidents of Jourdan’s campaign of 1794, underFrench Revolutionary Wars. The ground immediately north-east of Fleurus forms the battlefield of Ligny (June 16, 1815), for which seeWaterloo Campaign.
The second battle was fought on the 1st of July 1690 between 45,000 French under François-Henri de Montgomery-Bouteville, duke of Luxemburg, and 37,000 allied Dutch, Spaniards and Imperialists under George Frederick, prince of Waldeck. The latter had formed up his army between Heppignies and St Amand in what was then considered an ideal position; a double barrier of marshy brooks was in front, each flank rested on a village, and the space between, open upland, fitted his army exactly. But Luxemburg, riding up with his advanced guard from Velaine, decided, after a cursory survey of the ground, toattack the front and both flanks of the Allies’ position at once—a decision which few, if any, generals then living would have dared to make, and which of itself places Luxemburg in the same rank as a tactician as his old friend and commander Condé. The left wing of cavalry was to move under cover of woods, houses and hollows to gain Wangenies, where it was to connect with the frontal attack of the French centre from Fleurus and to envelop Waldeck’s right. Luxemburg himself with the right wing of cavalry and some infantry and artillery made a wide sweep round the enemy’s left by way of Ligny and Les Trois Burettes, concealed by the high-standing corn. At 8 o’clock the frontal attack began by a vigorous artillery engagement, in which the French, though greatly outnumbered in guns, held their own, and three hours later Waldeck, whose attention had been absorbed by events on the front, found a long line of the enemy already formed up in his rear. He at once brought his second line back to oppose them, but while he was doing so the French leader filled up the gap between himself and the frontal assailants by posting infantry around Wagnelée, and also guns on the neighbouring hill whence their fire enfiladed both halves of the enemy’s army up to the limit of their ranging power. At 1P.M.Luxemburg ordered a general attack of his whole line. He himself scattered the cavalry opposed to him and hustled the Dutch infantry into St Amand, where they were promptly surrounded. The left and centre of the French army were less fortunate, and in their first charge lost their leader, Lieutenant-General Jean Christophe, comte de Gournay, one of the best cavalry officers in the service. But Waldeck, hoping to profit by this momentary success, sent a portion of his right wing towards St Amand, where it merely shared the fate of his left, and the day was decided. Only a quarter of the cavalry and 14 battalions of infantry (English and Dutch) remained intact, and Waldeck could do no more, but with these he emulated the last stand of the Spaniards at Rocroi fifty years before. A great square was formed of the infantry, and a handful of cavalry joined them—the French cavalry, eager to avenge Gournay, had swept away the rest. Then slowly and in perfect order, they retired into the broken ground above Mellet, where they were in safety. The French slept on the battlefield, and then returned to camp with their trophies and 8000 prisoners. They had lost some 2500 killed, amongst them Gournay and Berbier du Metz, the chief of artillery, the Allies twice as many, as well as 48 guns, and Luxemburg was able to send 150 colours and standards to decorate Notre-Dame. But the victory was not followed up, for Louis XIV. ordered Luxemburg to keep in line with other French armies which were carrying on more or less desultory wars of manœuvre on the Meuse and Moselle.
FLEURY[Abraham Joseph Bénard] (1750-1822), French actor, was born at Chartres on the 26th of October 1750, and began his stage apprenticeship at Nancy, where his father was at the head of a company of actors attached to the court of King Stanislaus. After four years in the provinces, he came to Paris in 1778, and almost immediately was madesociétaireat the Comédie Française, although the public was slow to recognize him as the greatest comedian of his time. In 1793 Fleury, like the rest of his fellow-players, was arrested in consequence of the presentation of Laya’sL’Ami des lois, and, when liberated, appeared at various theatres until, in 1799, he rejoined the rehabilitated Comédie Française. After forty years of service he retired in 1818, and died on the 3rd of March 1822. He was notoriously illiterate, and it is probable that the interestingMémoire de Fleuryowes more to its author, Lafitte, than to the subject whose “notes and papers” it is said to contain.
FLEURY, ANDRÉ HERCULE DE(1653-1743), French cardinal and statesman, was born at Lodève (Hérault) on the 22nd of June 1653, the son of a collector of taxes. Educated by the Jesuits in Paris, he entered the priesthood, and became in 1679, through the influence of Cardinal Bonzi, almoner to Maria Theresa, queen of Louis XIV., and in 1698 bishop of Fréjus. Seventeen years of a country bishopric determined him to seek a position at court. He became tutor to the king’s great-grandson and heir, and in spite of an apparent lack of ambition, he acquired over the child’s mind an influence which proved to be indestructible. On the death of the regent Orleans in 1723 Fleury, although already seventy years of age, deferred his own supremacy by suggesting the appointment of Louis Henri, duke of Bourbon, as first minister. Fleury was present at all interviews between Louis XV. and his first minister, and on Bourbon’s attempt to break through this rule Fleury retired from court. Louis made Bourbon recall the tutor, who on the 11th of July 1726 took affairs into his own hands, and secured the exile from court of Bourbon and of his mistress Madame de Prie. He refused the title of first minister, but his elevation to the cardinalate in that year secured his precedence over the other ministers. He was naturally frugal and prudent, and carried these qualities into the administration, with the result that in 1738-1739 there was a surplus of 15,000,000 livres instead of the usual deficit. In 1726 he fixed the standard of the currency and secured the credit of the government by the regular payment thenceforward of the interest on the debt. By exacting forced labour from the peasants he gave France admirable roads, though at the cost of rousing angry discontent. During the seventeen years of his orderly government the country found time to recuperate its forces after the exhaustion caused by the extravagances of Louis XIV. and of the regent, and the general prosperityrapidlyincreased. Internal peace was only seriously disturbed by the severities which Fleury saw fit to exercise against the Jansenists. He imprisoned priests who refused to accept the bullUnigenitus, and he met the opposition of the parlement of Paris by exiling forty of its members.
In foreign affairs his chief preoccupation was the maintenance of peace, which was shared by Sir Robert Walpole, and therefore led to a continuance of the good understanding between France and England. It was only with reluctance that he supported the ambitious projects of Elizabeth Farnese, queen of Spain, in Italy by guaranteeing in 1729 the succession of Don Carlos to the duchies of Parma and Tuscany. Fleury had economized in the army and navy, as elsewhere, and when in 1733 war was forced upon him he was hardly prepared. He was compelled by public opinion to support the claims of Louis XV.’s father-in-law Stanislaus Leszczynski, ex-king of Poland, to the Polish crown on the death of Frederick Augustus I., against the Russo-Austrian candidate; but the despatch of a French expedition of 1500 men to Danzig only served to humiliate France. Fleury was driven by Chauvelin to more energetic measures; he concluded a close alliance with the Spanish Bourbons and sent two armies against the Austrians. Military successes on theRhine and in Italy secured the favourable terms of the treaty of Vienna (1735-1738). France had joined with the other powers in guaranteeing the succession of Maria Theresa under the Pragmatic sanction, but on the death of Charles VI. in 1740 Fleury by a diplomatic quibble found an excuse for repudiating his engagements, when he found the party of war supreme in the king’s counsels. After the disasters of the Bohemian campaign he wrote in confidence a humble letter to the Austrian general Königsegg, who immediately published it. Fleury disavowed his own letter, and died a few days after the French evacuation of Prague on the 29th of January 1743. He had enriched the royal library by many valuable oriental MSS., and was a member of the French Academy, of the Academy of Science, and the Academy of Inscriptions.
Bibliography.—F.J. Bataille,Éloge historique de M. le Cardinal A. H. de Fleury(Strassburg, 1737); C. Frey de Neuville,Oraison funèbre de S.E. Mgr. le Cardinal A. H. Fleury(Paris, 1743); P. Vicaire,Oraison funèbre du Cardinal A. H. de Fleury(Caen, 1743); M. van Hoey,Lettres et négotiations pour servir à l’histoire de la vie du Cardinal de Fleury(London, 1743);Leben des Cardinals A. H. Fleury(Freiburg, 1743); F. Morénas,Parallèle du ministère du Cardinal Richelieu et du Cardinal de Fleury(Avignon, 1743);Nachrichten von dem Leben und der Verwaltung des Cardinals Fleury(Hamburg, 1744).
Bibliography.—F.J. Bataille,Éloge historique de M. le Cardinal A. H. de Fleury(Strassburg, 1737); C. Frey de Neuville,Oraison funèbre de S.E. Mgr. le Cardinal A. H. Fleury(Paris, 1743); P. Vicaire,Oraison funèbre du Cardinal A. H. de Fleury(Caen, 1743); M. van Hoey,Lettres et négotiations pour servir à l’histoire de la vie du Cardinal de Fleury(London, 1743);Leben des Cardinals A. H. Fleury(Freiburg, 1743); F. Morénas,Parallèle du ministère du Cardinal Richelieu et du Cardinal de Fleury(Avignon, 1743);Nachrichten von dem Leben und der Verwaltung des Cardinals Fleury(Hamburg, 1744).