On the 6th of January, 1600, Henry IV. gave his ambassador, Brulart de Sillery, powers to conclude at Florence his marriage with Mary de’ Medici, daughter of Francis I. de’ Medici, grand duke of Tuscany, and Joan, archduchess of Austria and niece of the grand duke Ferdinand I. de’ Medici, who had often rendered Henry IV. pecuniary services dearly paid for. As early as the year 1592 there had been something said about this project of alliance; it was resumed and carried out on the 5th of October, 1600, at Florence, with lavish magnificence. Mary embarked at Leghorn on the 17th, with a fleet of seventeen galleys; that of which she was aboard, theGeneral, was all covered over with jewels, inside and out; she arrived at Marseilles on the 3d of November, and at Lyons on the 2nd of December, where she waited till the 9th for the king, who was detained by the war with Savoy. He entered her chamber in the middle of the night, booted and armed, and next day, in the cathedral church of St. John, re-celebrated his marriage, more rich in wealth than it was destined to be in happiness.
Henry IV. seemed to have attained in his public and in his domestic life the pinnacle of earthly fortune and ambition. He was, at one and the same time, Catholic king and the head of the Protestant polity in Europe, accepted by the Catholics as the best, the only possible, king for them in France. He was at peace with all Europe, except one petty prince, the duke of Savoy, Charles Emmanuel I., from whom he demanded back the Marquisate of Saluzzo or a territorial compensation in France itself on the French side of the Alps. After a short campaign, and thanks to Rosny’s ordnance, he obtained what he desired, and by a treaty of January 17, 1601, he added to French territory La Bresse, Le Bugey, the district of Gex and the citadel of Bourg, which still held out after the capture of the town. He was more and more dear to France, to which he had restored peace at home as well as abroad, and industrial, commercial, financial, monumental, and scientific prosperity, until lately unknown. Sully covered the country with roads, bridges, canals, buildings and works of public utility. The conspiracy of his old companion in arms, Gontaut de Biron, proved to him, however, that he was not at the end of his political dangers, and the letters he caused to be issued (September, 1603) for the return of the Jesuits did not save him from the attacks of religious fanaticism.
The queen’s coronation had been proclaimed on the 12th of May, 1610; she was to be crowned next day, the 13th, at St. Denis, and Sunday the 16th had been appointed for her to make her entry into Paris. On Friday, the 14th, the king had an idea of going to the Arsenal to see Sully, who was ill; we have the account of this visit and of the assassination given by Malherbe, at that time attached to the service of Henry IV., in a letter written on the 19th of May, from the reports of eye witnesses, and it is here reproduced, word for word:
“The king set out soon after dinner to go to the Arsenal. He deliberated a long while whether he should go out, and several times said to the queen, ‘My dear, shall I go or not?’ He even went out two or three times and then all on a sudden returned, and said to the queen, ‘My dear, shall I really go?’ and again he had doubts about going or remaining. At last he made up his mind to go, and having kissed the queen several times, bade her adieu. Amongst other things that were remarked he said to her, ‘I shall only go there and back; I shall be here again almost directly.’ When he got to the bottom of the steps where his carriage was waiting for him, M. de Praslin, his captain of the guard, would have attended him, but he said to him, ‘Get you gone; I want nobody; go about your business.’
“Thus, having about him only a few gentlemen and some footmen, he got into his carriage, took his place on the back seat, at the left hand side, and made M. d’Épernon sit at the right. Next to him, by the door, were M. de Montbazon and M. de la Force; and by the door on M. d’Épernon’s side were Marshal de Lavardin and M. de Créqui; on the front seat the marquis of Mirabeau and the first equerry. When he came to the Croix-du-Tiroir he was asked whither it was his pleasure to go; he gave orders to go toward St. Innocent. On arriving at Rue de la Ferronnerie, which is at the end of that of St. Honoré on the way to that of St. Denis, opposite the Salamandre he met a cart which obliged the king’s carriage to go nearer to the ironmonger’s shops, which are on the St. Innocent side, and even to proceed somewhat more slowly, without stopping, however, though somebody, who was in a hurry to get the gossip printed, has written to that effect. Here it was that an abominable assassin, who had posted himself against the nearest shop, which is that with theCœur couronné percé d’une flèche, darted upon the king and dealt him, one after the other, two blows with a knife in the left side, one, catching him between the arm-pit and the nipple, went upward without doing more than graze; the other catches him between the fifth and sixth ribs, and, taking a downward direction, cuts a large artery of those calledvenous. The king, by mishap, and as if to further tempt this monster, had his left hand on the shoulder of M. de Montbazon, and with the other was leaning on d’Épernon, to whom he was speaking. He uttered a low cry and made a few movements. M. de Montbazon having asked, ‘What is the matter, sir?’ he answered, ‘It is nothing,’ twice; but the second time so low that there was no making sure. These are the only words he spoke after he was wounded.
“In a moment the carriage turned toward the Louvre. When he was at the steps where he had got into the carriage, which are those of the queen’s rooms, some wine was given him. Of course some one had already run forward to bear the news. Sieur de Cérisy, lieutenant of M. de Praslin’s company, having raised his head, he made a few movements with his eyes, then closed them immediately, without opening them again any more. He was carried up stairs by M. de Montbazon and Count de Curzon en Quercy and laid on the bed in his closet and at two o’clock carried to the bed in his chamber, where he was all the next day and Sunday. Somebody went and gave him holy water. I tell you nothing about the queen’s tears; all that must be imagined. As for the people of Paris, I think they never wept so much as on this occasion.”
On the king’s death—and at the imperious instance of the duke of Épernon, who at once introduced the queen, and said in open session, as he exhibited his sword, “It is as yet in the scabbard, but it will have to leap therefrom unless this moment there be granted to the queen a title which is her due according to the order of nature and of justice”—the Parliament forthwith declared Mary regent of the kingdom. Thanks to Sully’s firm administration, there were, after the ordinary annual expenses were paid, at that time in the vaults of the Bastile, or in securities easily realizable, forty-one million three hundred and forty-five thousand livres, and there was nothing to suggest that extraordinary and urgent expenses would cometo curtail this substantial reserve. The army was disbanded and reduced to from twelve to fifteen thousand men, French or Swiss. For a long time past no power in France had, at its accession, possessed so much material strength and so much moral authority.—Guizot.
Louis XIV. ruled everywhere, over his people, over his age, often over Europe; but nowhere did he reign so completely as over his court. Never were the wishes, the defects and the vices of a man so completely a law to other men as to the court of Louis XIV. during the whole period of his long life. When near to him, in the palace of Versailles, men lived and hoped and trembled; everywhere else in France, even at Paris, men vegetated. The existence of the great lords was concentrated in the court, about the person of the king. Scarcely could the most important duties bring them to absent themselves for any time. They returned quickly, with alacrity, with ardor; only poverty or a certain rustic pride kept gentlemen in their provinces. “The court does not make one happy,” says La Bruyère, “it prevents one from being so anywhere else.”
The principle of absolute power, firmly fixed in the young king’s mind, began to pervade his court from the time that he disgraced Fouquet and ceased to dissemble his affection for Mdlle. de La Vallière. She was young, charming and modest. Of all the king’s favorites she alone loved him sincerely. “What a pity he is a king!” she would say. Louis XIV. made her a duchess; but all she cared about was to see him and please him. When Madame de Montespan began to supplant her in the king’s favor, the grief of Madame de La Vallière was so great that she thought she should die of it. Then she turned to God, in penitence and despair; and, later on, it was at her side that Madame de Montespan, in her turn forced to quit the court, went to seek advice and pious consolation. “This soul will be a miracle of grace,” Bossuet had said.
Madame de Montespan was haughty, passionate, “with hair dressed in a thousand ringlets, a majestic beauty to show off to the ambassadors;” she openly paraded the favor she was in, accepting and angling for the graces the king was pleased to do her and hers, having the superintendence of the household of the queen, whom she insulted without disguise, to the extent of wounding the king himself: “Pray consider that she is your mistress,” he said one day to his favorite. The scandal was great; Bossuet attempted the task of stopping it. It was the time of the Jubilee; neither the king nor Madame de Montespan had lost all religious feeling; the wrath of God and the refusal of the sacraments had terrors for them still.
Bossuet had acted in vain, “like a pontiff of the earliest times, with a freedom worthy of the earliest ages and the earliest bishops of the Church,” says St. Simon. He saw the inutility of his efforts; henceforth prudence and courtly behavior put a seal upon his lips. It was the time of the great king’s omnipotence and highest splendor, the time when nobody withstood his wishes. The great Mademoiselle had just attempted to show her independence; tired of not being married, she had made up her mind to a love-match; she did not espouse Lauzun just then, the king broke off the marriage. “I will make you so great,” he said to Lauzun, “that you shall have no cause to regret what I am taking from you; meanwhile, I make you duke and peer and marshal of France.” “Sir,” broke in Lauzun insolently, “you have made so many dukes that it is no longer an honor to be one, and, as for the bâton of marshal of France, your Majesty can give it me when I have earned it by my services.” He was before long sent to Pignerol, where he passed ten years. There he met Fouquet and that mysterious personage called the Iron Mask, whose name has not yet been discovered to a certainty by means of all the most ingenious conjectures. It was only by settling all her property on the duke of Maine after herself that Mademoiselle purchased Lauzun’s release. The king had given his posts to the prince of Marcillac, son of La Rochefoucauld.
Louis XIV. entered benevolently into the affairs of a marshal of France; he paid his debts, and the marshal was hisdomestic; all the court had come to that; the duties which brought servants in proximity to the king’s person were eagerly sought after by the greatest lords. Bontemps, his chief valet, and Fagon, his physician, as well as his surgeon Maréchal, very excellent men too, were all-powerful amongst the courtiers. Louis XIV. possessed the art of making his slightest favors prized; to hold the candlestick at bed-time (au petit coucher), to appear in the trips to Marly, to play in the king’s own game, such was the ambition of the most distinguished; the possessors of grand historic castles, of fine houses at Paris, crowded together in attics at Versailles, too happy to obtain a lodging in the palace. The whole mind of the greatest personages, his favorites at the head, was set upon devising means of pleasing the king; Madame de Montespan had pictures painted in miniature of all the towns he had taken in Holland; they were made into a book which was worth four thousand pistoles, and of which Racine and Boileau wrote the text; people of tact, like M. de Langlée, paid court to the master through those whom he loved.
All the style of living at court was in accordance with the magnificence of the king and his courtiers; Colbert was beside himself at the sums the queen lavished on play. Madame de Montespan lost and won back four millions in one night at bassette; Mdlle. de Fontanges gave away twenty thousand crowns’ worth of New Year’s gifts. A new power, however, was beginning to appear on the horizon, with such modesty and backwardness that none could as yet discern it, least of all could the king. Madame de Montespan had looked out for some one to take care of and educate her children. She had thought of Madame Scarron; she considered her clever; she was so herself, “in that unique style which was peculiar to the Mortemarts,” said the duke of St. Simon; she was fond of conversation; Madame Scarron had a reputation for being rather a blue-stocking; this the king did not like; Madame de Montespan had her way; Madame Scarron took charge of the children secretly and in an isolated house. She was attentive, careful, sensible. The king was struck with her devotion to the children entrusted to her. “She can love,” he said; “it would be a pleasure to be loved by her.” This expression plainly indicated what was to happen; and Madame de Montespan saw herself supplanted by Madame Scarron. The widow of the deformed poet had bought the estate of Maintenon out of the king’s bounty. He made her take the title. The recollection of Scarron was displeasing to him.
The queen had died on the 30th of July, 1683, piously and gently as she had lived. “This is the first sorrow she ever caused me,” said the king, thus rendering homage, in his superb and unconscious egotism, to the patient virtue of the wife he had put to such cruel trials. Madame de Maintenon was agitated but resolute. “Madame de Montespan has plunged into the deepest devoutness,” she wrote, two months after the queen’s death: “It is quite time she edified us; as for me, I no longer think of retiring.” Her strong common-sense and her far-sighted ambition, far more than her virtue, had secured her against rocks ahead; henceforth she saw the goal, she was close upon it, she moved toward it with an even step. The date has never been ascertained exactly of the king’s private marriage with Madame de Maintenon. It took place probably eighteen months or two years after the queen’s death; the king was forty-seven, Madame de Maintenon fifty. “She had great remains of beauty, bright and sprightly eyes, an incomparable grace,” says St. Simon, who detested her, “an air of ease and yet of restraint and respect, a great deal of cleverness with a speech that was sweet, correct, in good terms and naturally eloquent and brief.”
Madame de La Vallière had held sway over the young andpassionate heart of the prince, Madame de Montespan over the court, Madame de Maintenon alone established her empire over the man and the king. Alone she had any part in affairs, a smaller part than has frequently been made out, but important, nevertheless, and sometimes decisive. Ministers went occasionally to do their work in her presence with the king, who would turn to her when the questions were embarrassing, and ask, “What does your Solidity think?” The opinions she gave were generally moderate and discreet. Whatever the apparent reserve and modesty with which it was cloaked, the real power of Madame de Maintenon over the king’s mind peeped out more and more into broad daylight. She promoted it dexterously by her extreme anxiety to please him as well as by her natural and sincere attachment to the children whom she had brought up and who had a place near the heart of Louis XIV.
The chief ornament of the Court of Versailles was the duchess of Burgundy. For the king and for Madame de Maintenon, the great and inexhaustible attraction of this young lady was her gaiety and unconstrained ease, tempered by the most delicate respect, which, on coming as quite a child to France from the court of Savoy, she had tact enough to introduce and always maintain amidst the most intimate familiarity. “In public, demure, respectful with the king, and on terms of timid propriety with Madame de Maintenon, whom she never called anything butaunt, thus prettily blending rank and affection. In private, chattering, frisking, fluttering around them, at one time perched on the arm of one or the other’s chairs, at another playfully sitting on their knee, she would throw herself upon their necks, embrace them, kiss them, fondle them, pull them to pieces, chuck them under the chin, tease them, rummage their tables, their papers, their letters, reading them sometimes against their will, according as she saw that they were in the humor to laugh at it, and occasionally speaking thereon. Admitted to everything, even at the reception of couriers bringing the most important news, going in to the king at any hour, even at the time the council was sitting, useful and also fatal to ministers themselves, but always inclined to help, to excuse, to benefit, unless she were violently set against any body. The king could not do without her; when, rarely, she was absent from his supper in public, it was plainly shown by a cloud of more than usual gravity and taciturnity over the king’s whole person; and so, when it happened that some ball in winter or some party in summer made her break into the night, she arranged matters so well that she was there to kiss the king the moment he was awake and to amuse him with an account of the affair” [Mémoires de St. Simon].
The dauphiness had died in 1690; the duchess of Burgundy was, therefore, almost from childhood queen of the court, and before long the idol of the courtiers; it was around her that pleasure sprang up; it was for her that the king gave the entertainments to which he had habituated Versailles, not that for her sake or to take care of her health he would ever consent to modify his habits or make the least change in his plans. “Thank God, it is over,” he exclaimed one day, after an accident to the princess; “I shall no longer be thwarted in my trips, and in all I desire to do, by the representations of physicians. I shall come and go as I fancy; and I shall be left in peace.” Even in his court and amongst his most devoted servants, this monstrous egotism astounded and scandalized everybody.
Flattery, at Versailles, ran a risk of becoming hypocrisy. On returning to a regular life, the king was for imposing the same upon his whole court; the instinct of order and regularity, smothered for a while in the hey-day of passion, had resumed all its sway over the naturally proper and steady mind of Louis XIV. His dignity and his authority were equally involved in the cause of propriety and regularity at his court; he imposed this yoke as well as all the others; there appeared to be entire obedience; only some princes or princesses escaped it sometimes, getting about them a few free-thinkers or boon-companions; good, honest folks showed ingenuous joy; the virtuous and far-sighted were secretly uneasy at the falsehood and deplored the pressure put on so many consciences and so many lives. The king was sincere in his repentance for the past, many persons in his court were as sincere as he; others, who were not, affected, in order to please him, the externals of austerity; absolute power oppressed all spirits, extorting from them that hypocritical complaisance which it is liable to engender; corruption was already brooding beneath appearances of piety; the reign of Louis XV. was to see its deplorable fruits displayed with a haste and a scandal which are to be explained only by the oppression exercised in the last years of King Louis XIV.
Madame de Maintenon was like the genius of this reaction toward regularity, propriety, order; all the responsibility for it has been thrown upon her; the good she did has disappeared beneath the evil she allowed or encouraged; the regard lavished upon her by the king has caused illusions as to the discreet care she was continually taking to please him. She was faithful to her friends, so long as they were in favor with the king; if they had the misfortune to displease him, she, at the very least, gave up seeing them; without courage or hardihood to withstand the caprices and wishes of Louis XIV., she had gained and preserved her empire by dint of dexterity and far-sighted suppleness beneath the externals of dignity.
It was through Madame de Maintenon and her correspondence with the princess des Ursins that the private business between the two courts of France and Spain was often carried on. At Madrid far more than at Versailles, the influence of women was all powerful. The queen ruled her husband, who was honest and courageous, but without wit or daring; and the princess des Ursins ruled the queen, as intelligent and as amiable as her sister the duchess of Burgundy, but more ambitious and more haughty. Louis XIV. had several times conceived some misgiving of the camarera major’s influence over his grandson; she had been disgraced and then recalled; she had finally established her sway by her fidelity, ability, dexterity, and indomitable courage. She served France habitually, Spain and her own influence in Spain always; she had been charming, with an air of nobility, grace, elegance and majesty all together, and accustomed to the highest society and the most delicate intrigues, during her sojourn at Rome and Madrid; she was full of foresight and calculation, but impassioned, ambitious, implacable, pushing to extremes her amity as well as her hatred, faithful to her master and mistress in their most cruel trials, and then hampering and retarding peace for the sake of securing for herself a principality in the Low Countries.
But the time came for Madame des Ursins to make definitive trial of fortune’s inconstancy. After having enjoyed unlimited power and influence, with great difficulty she obtained an asylum at Rome, where she lived seven years longer, preserving all her health, strength, mind and easy grace until she died, in 1722, at more than eighty-four years of age, in obscurity and sadness, notwithstanding her opulence, but avenged of her Spanish foes, Cardinals della Giudice and Alberoni, whom she met again at Rome, disgraced and fugitive like herself. “I do not know where I may die,” she wrote to Madame de Maintenon, at that time in retirement at St. Cyr. Both had survived their power; the princess des Ursins had not long since wanted to secure for herself a dominion; Madame de Maintenon, more far-sighted and more modest, had aspired to no more than repose in the convent which she had founded and endowed. Discreet in her retirement as well as in her life, she had not left to chance the selection of a place where she might die.
“One has no more luck at our age,” Louis XIV. had said to his old friend, Marshal Villars, returning from his most disastrous campaign. It was a bitter reflection upon himself whichhad put these words into the king’s mouth. After the most brilliant, the most continually and invariably triumphant of reigns, he began to see fortune slipping away from him and the grievous consequences of his errors successively overwhelming the state. “God is punishing me, I have richly deserved it,” he said to Marshal Villars, who was on the point of setting out for the battle of Denain. The aged king, dispirited and beaten, could not set down to men his misfortunes and reverses; the hand of God himself was raised against his house; death was knocking double knocks all round him. The grand-dauphin had for some days past been ill of small-pox; he died in April, 1711; the duchess of Burgundy was carried off by an attack of malignant fever in February, 1712; her husband followed her within a week, and their eldest child, the duke of Brittany, about a month afterward.
There was universal and sincere mourning in France and in Europe. The most sinister rumors circulated darkly; a base intrigue caused the duke of Orleans to be accused; people called to mind his taste for chemistry and even magic, his flagrant impiety, his scandalous debauchery; beside himself with grief and anger, he demanded of the king to be sent to the Bastile; the king refused curtly, coldly, not unmoved in his secret heart by the perfidious insinuations which made their way even to him, but too just and too sensible to entertain a hateful lie, which, nevertheless, lay heavy on the duke of Orleans to the end of his days.
Darkly, but to more effect, the same rumors were renewed before long. The duke of Berry died at the age of twenty-seven, on the 4th of May, 1714, of a disease which presented the same features as the scarlet fever (rougeole pourpréc), to which his brother and sister-in-law had succumbed. The king was old and sad; the state of his kingdom preyed upon his mind; he was surrounded by influences hostile to his nephew, whom he himself called “a vaunter of crimes.” A child who was not five years old remained sole heir to the throne. Madame de Maintenon, as sad as the king, “naturally mistrustful, addicted to jealousies, susceptibilities, suspicions, aversions, spites, and woman’s wiles” [Lettres de Fénelon au duc de Chevreuse], being, moreover, sincerely attached to the king’s natural children, was constantly active on their behalf. On the 19th of July, 1714, the king announced to the premier president and the attorney-general of the parliament of Paris that it was his pleasure to grant to the duke of Maine and to the count of Toulouse, for themselves and their descendants, the rank of princes of the blood, in its full extent, and that he desired that the deed should be enregistered in the parliament. Soon after, still under the same influence, he made a will which was kept a profound secret, and which he sent to be deposited in the strong-room (greffe) of the parliament, committing the guardianship of the future king to the duke of Maine, and placing him, as well as his brother, on the council of regency, with close restrictions as to the duke of Orleans, who would be naturally called to the government of the kingdom during the minority. The will was darkly talked about; the effect of the elevation of bastards to the rank of princes of the blood had been terrible. “There was no longer any son of France; the Spanish branch had renounced; the duke of Orleans had been carefully placed in such a position as not to dare say a word or show the least dissatisfaction; his only son was a child; neither the duke (of Berry), his brothers, nor the prince of Conti, were of an age, or of standing, in the king’s eyes, to make the least trouble in the world about it. The bombshell dropped all at once when nobody could have expected it, and everybody fell on his stomach, as is done when a shell drops; everybody was gloomy and almost wild; the king himself appeared as if exhausted by so great an effort of will and power.” He had only just signed his will, when he met, at Madame de Maintenon’s, the ex-queen of England. “I have made my will, Madame,” said he; “I have purchased repose; I know the impotence and uselessness of it; we can do all we please as long as we are here; after we are gone, we can do less than private persons; we have only to look at what became of my father’s, and immediately after his death too, and of those of so many other kings. I am quite aware of that; but, in spite of all that it was desired; and so, Madame, you see it has been done; come of it what may, at any rate I shall not be worried about it any more.” It was the old man yielding to the entreaties and intrigues of the domestic circle; the judgment of the king remained steady and true, without illusions and without prejudices.
Death was coming, however, after a reign which had been so long, and had occupied so much room in the world, that it caused mistakes as to the very age of the king. He was seventy-seven, he continued to work with his ministers; the order so long and so firmly established was not disturbed by illness any more than it had been by the reverses and sorrows of late. He said to Madame de Maintenon once, “What consoles me for leaving you, is that it will not be long before we meet again.” She made no reply. “What will become of you?” he added: “you have nothing.” “Do not think of me,” said she: “I am nobody; think only of God.” He said farewell to her; she still remained a little while in his room, and went out when he was no longer conscious. She had given away here and there the few movables that belonged to her, and now took the road to St. Cyr. On the steps she met Marshal Villeroy: “Good bye, marshal,” she said curtly and covered up her face in her coifs. He it was who sent her news of the king to the last moment. The duke of Orleans, on becoming regent, went to see her and took her the patent (brevet) for a pension of sixty thousand livres, “which her disinterestedness had made necessary for her,” said the preamble. It was paid her up to the last day of her life. History makes no further mention of her name; she never left St. Cyr. Thither the czar Peter the Great, when he visited Paris and France, went to see her; she was confined to her bed; he sat a little while beside her. “What is your malady?” he asked her through his interpreter. “A great age,” answered Madame de Maintenon, smiling. He looked at her a moment in silence; then, closing the curtains, he went out abruptly. The memory he would have called up had vanished. The woman on whom the great king had, for thirty years, heaped confidence and affection was old, forgotten, dying; she expired at St. Cyr on the 15th of April, 1719, at the age of eighty-three.
She had left the king to die alone. He was in the agonies; the prayers in extremity were being repeated around him; the ceremonial recalled him to consciousness. He joined his voice with the voices of those present, repeating the prayers with them. Already the court was hurrying to the duke of Orleans; some of the more confident had repaired to the duke of Maine’s; the king’s servants were left almost alone around his bed; the tones of the dying man were distinctly heard above the great number of priests. He several times repeated: “Nunc et in hora mortis.” Then he said quite loud: “O my God, come thou to help me, haste thee to succor me.” Those were his last words. He expired on Sunday, the 1st of September, 1715, at eight a. m. Next day he would have been seventy-seven years of age, and he had reigned seventy-two of them.
In spite of his faults and his numerous and culpable errors, Louis XIV. had lived and died like a king. The slow and grievous agony of olden France was about to begin.
For volume and merit taken together the product of these eight centuries of literature excels that of any European nation, though for individual works of the supremest excellence, they may perhaps be asked in vain. No French writer is lifted by the suffrages of other nations—the only criterion when sufficient time has elapsed—to the level of Homer, of Shakspere, or ofDante, who reign alone. Of those of the authors of France who are indeed of the thirty, but attain not to the first three, Rabelais and Molière alone unite the general suffrage, and this fact roughly but surely points to the real excellence of the literature which these men are chosen to represent. It is great in all ways, but it is greatest on the lighter side. The house of mirth is more suited to it than the house of mourning. To the latter, indeed, the language of the unknown marvel who told Roland’s death, of him who gave utterance to Camilla’s wrath and despair, and of the living poet who sings how the mountain wind makes mad the lover who can not forget, has amply made good its title of entrance. But for one Frenchman who can write admirably in this strain, there are a hundred who can tell the most admirable story, formulate the most pregnant reflection, point the acutest jest. There is thus no really great epic in French, few great tragedies, and those imperfect and in a faulty kind, little prose like Milton’s, or like Jeremy Taylor’s, little verse (though more than is generally thought) like Shelley’s, or like Spenser’s. But there are the most delightful short tales, both in prose and in verse, that the world has ever seen, the most polished jewelry of reflection that has ever been wrought, songs of incomparable grace, comedies that must make men laugh as long as they are laughing animals, and above all, such a body of narrative fiction, old and new, prose and verse, as no other nation can show for art and for originality, for grace of workmanship in him who fashions, and for certainty of delight to him who reads.—Encyclopædia Britannica.
[To be continued.]
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John J. Roe.
Draft, or Bill of Exchange.$200.Portland, Me., October 1, 1883.At thirty days’ sight (or thirty days after date), pay to the order of John Ray two hundred dollars—value received—and charge same to account ofToJohn Roe, Boston, Mass.Richard Roe.
Draft, or Bill of Exchange.
$200.
Portland, Me., October 1, 1883.
At thirty days’ sight (or thirty days after date), pay to the order of John Ray two hundred dollars—value received—and charge same to account of
ToJohn Roe, Boston, Mass.
Richard Roe.
If John Roe accepts of the conditions of the bill he will write his name across its face together with the date on which it is done, prefixing same with the word “accepted.”
In the outline analysis given below our readers will readily discover all the essential elements of a contract, which is of course the foundation principle of commercial paper.
ANALYSIS.
After acceptance of the bill by John Roe, the drawee, he is placed in the same position, as regards it, that John J. Roe is in, as regards the note, that is, each becomes primarily liable for its payment.
Now, in actual business, notes and bills similar to those here given become important factors as a medium of exchange, being recognized as such by virtue of their negotiability, and proving acceptable as such when the parties thereto are of unquestioned financial ability.
What is the ear-mark of negotiability?
A note or bill payable to John Ray, “simply this and nothing more,” is not negotiable, but payable to a certain person, with no power to transfer the same, at least not to make it negotiable. To make it a negotiable instrument we should place after John Ray’s name the words (as found included in parenthesis in forms given), either “or bearer” or “or order.” This done, the note or bill would be of transferable quality, or negotiable, that is, would be payable to John Ray, or to him who should by chance gain its possession, if the words used be “or bearer:” if “or order” then payable to John Ray or to any holder, providing John Ray had so ordered it paid, by indorsement. Thus it is clearly evident that these evidences of debt, which is really the significance of commercial paper, answer the requirements, in a restricted sense, of money, and serve as the consideration for settlement in a great many of the transactions involving sale and exchange, incident to business enterprises. We must utter here a word of caution in regard to receiving negotiable paper; which is, not to accept of it after maturity, since notes and bills are presumably paid at the time when they become due, and one taking them after that time, must remember he takes them subject to this possibility, or possible existing equities between or among the original parties.
Negotiability, the outgrowth of indorsement, makes it necessary to give some explanation regarding the character of an indorser, or what his position and liabilities are.
An indorser is one who writes his name on the back of a note or bill, either for the purpose of transfer, or of assuming liability thereon, and frequently for both.
We shall mention three kinds of indorsement. Special indorsement, indorsement in blank, and, as applicable to both, indorsement without assuming liability, or without recourse. And first, if John Ray, payee named in bill or note, delivers possession of the same to John Smith, at the same time writing on the back of it, “Pay to John Smith or order, John Ray,” he thereby transfers by special indorsement. After transfer made in this manner, John Smith, or any one to whom he may give the power by indorsement, may collect of the original promisor,i. e., the maker of note or acceptor of bill, the amount due by clear evidence of the paper itself. Not only does this indorsement secure transfer of ownership, but also creates liability, for John Ray by it, without the addition of a restricting or denying clause (which we shall refer to later), agrees to personally attend to the payment, if the parties primarily liable fail to do so.
Again, an indorsement in blank is the simple writing of the name, in this instance, John Ray’s, by him of course, on the back of the note or bill, which, there being deducible from such indorsement no special directions, would make it payable to any one into whose possession it might come. Either of these indorsements accomplishes a transfer, and at the same time attaches to John Ray the liability of an indorser. Now, if John Ray sought to avoid such liability, he would write over his signature, “Without recourse to me.” This would secure transfer simply. An indorsement made by one not mentioned in the note or bill would be for additional security of payee, and would generally be in blank, placing the indorser in same responsibilities as assumed by John Ray in the two instances above mentioned and grouped. So much for the parties, which we now leave to consider briefly the time element, which is the hope of the payee, the specter, ever the cause of unpleasant forebodings to the promisor.
In computing time it should be remembered that the words of the note or bill are to be strictly followed; as, when it reads a certain number of months, then the time is to be computed in months; for example, omitting days of grace, a note bearing date July 1st, on two months’ time, will be due September 1st. To say that two months are equivalent to sixty days, and then add sixty days to July 1st, we shall have our note due August 30th, which would be erroneous. The same would be true of the reverse of the proposition stated; that is, if time be stated days, it would as certainly lead to error, to compute by months.
When does the time commence to run? If a note, from its date; if a bill, from its date, if it read payable a certain length of time “from date;” but if it reads, as for instance, “at thirty days’ sight,” then it commences on the date of its acceptance by the drawee.
Days of grace, the use of which has sprung from custom into full fledged law in the course of time, must not be forgotten.
Notes and bills, unless in the body thereof it is expressly stated to the contrary, have, added to the time for which they are written, three days, known as days of grace; so that a note given for one month, and dated July 1st, would not fall due August 1st, but August 4th.
Originally these days were intended to inure to the benefit of the maker of the note, but such is not the practice or law now; and that period of three days constitutes a part of the time for which all interests and discounts are computed, the same as the time expressly mentioned. This is one of the characteristics of bills and notes, which commercial students and business apprentices are more apt to carelessly forget than any other in the category.
We have thus far omitted mention of bank checks, a very important business medium. The element of time thrown aside, and the most that we have said regarding notes and bills, may be applied to checks, which in reality are bills or drafts payable at sight without grace.
In case of non-acceptance of a bill when presented, or non-payment of the same, or of note, when due, that the drawer in the first instance and indorsers, if any, in the latter may be holden to its payment, resort is ordinarily had to “protest,” which signifies that acceptance or payment having been legally demanded of parties primarily liable, and refused, notice is given the other parties to the paper, of such refusal, by a notary public, who attaches a certificate to the bill or note, stating fact of such demand and refusal.
This may be avoided in the case of indorsers by their “waiving demand and notice” at the time of indorsement.
In writing commercial paper remember:
That the three days of grace allowed are not included in the time written;
That, unless otherwise specified, tender of payment must be made at payee’s place of business;
That interest is not collectible, unless specified, until after maturity;
That the amount written and in figures should be the same;
That commercial paper without a date falls due never.
A common and very acceptable definition of interest is, “a compensation paid for the use of money.” Like other transactions this may be subject to contract agreement, to an extent however, varying in the different states. In most of the states the ability of parties to contract in the matter of interest rates, has been placed under some restraint; that is, most of the states have adopted a “legal rate,” declaring thereby what amount of money shall be paid for the use of money. The reason why the states have assumed to dictate to parties the conditions of their interest contracts is to relieve the borrowers of the hardship of excessive rates, which, sometimes by reason of pecuniary embarrassments they would be, and are, notwithstanding inhibitions on statute books, forced to pay; and further to have a recognized standard rate for contracts where there is no agreement, which last is a very salutary provision.
Upon what is interest payable? It is payable on loans, secured or unsecured, as per individual contracts, secured as loans on mortgage security; unsecured, represented partly by notes. Again, running accounts between merchants are adjusted on the basis of an interest account, he paying interest against whom the balance is found; simple indebtedness, past due, creates a legitimate interest claim; sales of merchandise, from time of sale, if no credits are given, if there are credits then from time of their expiration; also debts on which court judgment has been secured.
Time notes, as has been already observed, do not begin to draw interest until maturity, unless it be especially mentioned; demand notes not until after demand.
Interest when exacted in excess of legal rates becomes usury, which, as already hinted, is, in the states generally, a statutory offence.
We indicate here some of the statute provisions in relation to this matter, viz: “Permissible by agreement subjects the lender to a penalty of from three to six times the amount of usury taken; subject simply to have excess recovered; to lose the whole interest; an avoidance of whole contract; forfeiture of the whole debt,” etc.
These provisions are of little avail really, for they are continually in conflict with the law of supply and demand; and the ingenuity of man settles this conflict in individual cases by cunningly conceived and evasive conditions.
Where partial payments have been made, interest may be computed in the following manner, which has received the sanction of recognized authority: “Compute interest due on principal sum to the time when a payment, either alone or in conjunction with preceding payments, with interest cast on them, shall equal or exceed interest due on the principal. Deduct this sum, and upon the balance cast interest as before, until a payment or payments equal the interest due; then deduct again, and so on.”