Part 22

When a _country_ turns over we also call it a revolution, which is a big name for a big thing.

Our country had started with the two little settlements, or colonies, as they were called, of Jamestown and Plymouth. But it had grown and grown until there were now a number of settlements along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the people who had settled here were English, and the king of England ruled over them. The king asked all these people to send him money, which was called taxes. Now, the money collected from taxes was not, of course, for the king to put in his pocketbook to use as he liked. It was supposed to be spent on the people who were taxed, to be used for roads, schools, police, and such things that are for the good of all.

So these people along the coast who were paying money or taxes to the king far off across the water thought they ought to have a vote to say how this money should be spent and on what it should be spent. But they did not have a vote, and so they thought they ought not to have to pay taxes to the king away off in England.

One of the leading citizens of America at this time was a man named Benjamin Franklin. He was the son of a candlemaker, but from a poor boy who had once walked the streets of Philadelphia with a loaf of bread under each arm he had risen to a very honored position in the country. He had learned to be a printer and had started one of the first and best newspapers in the United States. He was a great thinker and had invented a stove and a lamp and had succeeded in getting electricity from the lightning in the clouds by flying a kite with a wire during a storm. He was one of the Wise Men of the West.

Franklin was sent over to England to try to get the king to change his mind about taxing the colonies or to bring about some sort of agreement with him. But King George was hardheaded, and Franklin was unable to stop the king from doing what he had made up his mind to do.

So the people in America, finding that talking did no good, started in to fight. They raised an army. Then they tried to find a good man to command the army. Such a leader must be honest and brave; he must have a good mind; he must love his country; and he must be a good fighter. So they looked around for a man who had all these qualities, and they found one. The man they picked was honest and brave, for when he was a boy, he had cut down a favorite tree of his father’s just to try a new hatchet he had been given. In those days to cut down a cherry-tree was a crime for which by law a man could be put to death. When this boy was asked by his angry father if he had done it he said, “I cannot tell a lie; I did.” Of course, now you know who it was--George Washington.

[Illustration: George Washington surveying Lord Fairfax’s farm.]

George learned to be a surveyor--that is, a man who measures land--and when only sixteen years old he was employed to survey the large farm of Lord Fairfax in Virginia; that showed he had a good mind. He then had been a soldier and had fought the Indians bravely and well; that showed that he loved his country and was a good fighter. So George Washington was chosen to lead the American army against the English.

The Americans did not at first think of starting a new country. They simply wanted the same rights that Englishmen in England had. But they soon found out that there was only one way to get those rights, and that was to start a new country independent of England. So a man named Thomas Jefferson wrote a paper which was called a Declaration of Independence--can you say it?--because it declared that the colonies were going to be independent of England. There were fifty-six Americans chosen by the people to sign it. Each one of the signers would have been put to death as a traitor to England if the United States had not won, and each signer knew it, yet he signed it nevertheless. But just signing this paper didn’t make England give up the colonies. Oh, no! King George’s armies tried to stop the colonies from getting away from the rule of England.

Washington had a very small army with which to fight the English army, and very little money with which to pay the soldiers or to supply them with food or clothes or powder and shot. One winter the soldiers nearly froze and starved to death, for they had little clothing and hardly any food but carrots, and it seemed as if the war could not go on unless they got help. Yet Washington kept up their spirits.

Benjamin Franklin was sent across the ocean, not to England this time of course, but to France to see if he couldn’t get some help from that country. France hated England because she had lost part of America, Canada, in the Seven Years’ War, but at first France would not help. She took little interest in the fight for Washington’s army had lost a number of battles against the English, and people don’t like to back a loser. But the year after the Declaration of Independence the American army beat the English badly at a place called Saratoga in New York State. Then the king of France became more interested, and then he sent help to the colonies to carry on the war. A young French nobleman named Lafayette hurried over from France and fought under General Washington and did so well that he has made a great name for himself.

England, seeing that things were going against her, now wanted to make peace with the Americans and give them the same rights that English citizens had, but it was then too late. At the beginning of the war the Americans would have agreed to this and been glad to agree, but now they would agree to nothing less than entire independence of England; and so the War went on, for England would not let the colonies go.

The English had been beaten by the Yankees, as they called them in the North, at a place called Saratoga. So then they sent their general, Lord Cornwallis, to the south of our country to see if he could beat the people there. General Greene was put in command of the Southern American soldiers. Lord Cornwallis tried to fight Greene, but Greene led Cornwallis a merry chase round the country until he was all tired out and finally went into a little place called Yorktown in Virginia. Here Cornwallis and his army were caught fast so that they could not get out. On one side was the American army, and on the water side were the French war-ships that had been sent over to help. So Cornwallis had to surrender.

King George then said, “Let us have peace”; and in 1783 the war was ended by a treaty of peace, eight years after it had started, and the colonies were independent of England. This was called the Revolutionary War, and after it was over our country was called the United States.

There were just thirteen of these original colonies that joined as partners in this Union. That is why there are just thirteen stripes in our flag. Some people think thirteen is an unlucky number; but our flag with its thirteen stripes still waves over the land, and it has brought us good luck; don’t you think so?

Washington was made the first President, and so he is called the Father of His Country; the First in War, the First in Peace, and the First in the Hearts of his Countrymen.

[Illustration]

72

Upside Down (header upside down)

Measles and Mumps are very catching.

So are Revolutions.

Just a little later than the Revolution of the thirteen colonies, the people in France had a Revolution, too. They saw how successful the Americans had been in their fight against the king of England, and so they rebelled against their own king and queen in France. This was called the French Revolution.

The reason the French people rebelled against their king was because they had very little, and the king and his royal family and nobles seemed to have everything. Both the Americans and the French rebelled against paying taxes. With the Americans, however, it was a matter of principle more than anything else. Their taxes were not very large, but they thought them unjust. The French taxes, however, not only were unjust but they took almost everything away from the people.

I have already told you how bad things were under Louis XIV, and they got worse until the people could stand it no longer.

At this time the king of France was Louis XVI, and his queen was named Marie Antoinette. Although the people were so poor they had hardly anything to eat except a very coarse and bad-tasting kind of bread called black bread; they were compelled to pay the king and the nobles money so that they could live in fine style and have “parties”; and they had to do all sorts of work for them for nothing or next to nothing. If any one complained he was put in a great prison in Paris called the Bastille and left there to die. In spite of the fact that all the people were so terribly poor, the king and the queen and their friends lived in luxury and extravagance with everything in the world they wanted, all paid for by the poor people.

Neither the king nor his wife was really wicked. They were simply young and thoughtless. They meant well, but like a great many well-meaning people they lacked common sense and did not know how others lived. They didn’t seem to understand that people _could_ be poor, for they had so much themselves. Marie Antoinette was told that her subjects had no bread to eat. “Then why don’t they eat cake?” she is said to have asked.

To right the wrongs of the people, a body of many of the best men from all France gathered together and, calling themselves the National Assembly, tried to work out some plan to do away with all the injustice the people had been suffering. They wanted to make every one free and equal and give everybody a “say” in the government.

But the poor had become so furiously mad at the way they had been treated by the rich that they would stand things no longer and a wild and angry mob of them attacked the old prison of the Bastille. They battered down the walls and freed the prisoners and killed the guards of the Bastille simply because they were servants of the king. Then they cut off the heads of the guards and stuck them on poles and, carrying them aloft, paraded through the streets of Paris. There were only about half a dozen prisoners in the old jail, so that freeing them didn’t matter much, but this attack was to show that the people would no longer allow the king to imprison them.

The Bastille was stormed on July 14, 1789. This is the beginning of what is called the French Revolution, and this day is celebrated in France in almost the same way that our Fourth of July is, for it is the French Declaration of Independence against kings.

Lafayette, who was now back in France, the same Lafayette who had helped the Americans fight their king, sent the key of the Bastille over to George Washington as a souvenir that his own country had now overthrown its king and declared its independence.

The king and queen were living in the beautiful palace at Versailles, the palace that Louis XIV had built. All the king’s nobles, when they heard what was taking place in Paris, became frightened and, deserting their king and queen, took to their heels and left the country. They knew pretty well what was going to happen, and they didn’t wait to see.

Meanwhile the National Assembly drew up what was called a Declaration of the Rights of Man, which was something like our Declaration of Independence. It said that all men were born free and equal, that the people should make the laws and the laws should be the same for all.

Soon after the Declaration of Rights had been made, the mad mob from Paris, ragged and wild-looking, carrying sticks and stones, and crying, “Bread, bread!” marched out the ten miles to Versailles, where Louis and Marie Antoinette were still living. Up the beautiful grand staircase of the palace they rushed. The few guards remaining round the king were unable to hold them back. They captured the king and queen and took them prisoners to Paris. There they kept Louis and Marie Antoinette prisoners for several years. Once the king and queen tried to escape in disguise but were caught before they could get out of the country and brought back.

Then it was that the National Assembly drew up a Constitution--a set of rules by which the country should be justly governed. This the king agreed to and signed.

[Illustration: French revolution crowd and guillotine.]

But that still wasn’t enough. The people wanted no king at all to rule over them. So about a year later they started a real republic like our own, and the king was sentenced to death. A Frenchman had invented a kind of machine with a big knife for chopping off heads. This was called the guillotine, and it was used instead of an ax, for it was quicker and surer. So the king was taken to the guillotine, and his head was cut off.

But the people did not settle down quiet and contented when they had got rid of their king. They were afraid that those who were in favor of kings might start another kingdom. The people chose red, white, and blue as their colors and the “Marseillaise” as their national song; and everywhere they marched they carried the tricolor, as they called the three-colored flag, and as they marched they sang the “Marseillaise.”

Then began what is called the Reign of Terror, and this is a tale of blood. A man named Robespierre and two of his friends were leaders in this Reign of Terror. Any one whom the people suspected of being in favor of kings they caught and beheaded. The queen was one of the first to have her head cut off. If any one even whispered, “there’s a man, or there’s a woman, or there’s a child who is in favor of kings,” that man, woman, or child would be rushed to the guillotine. If any one simply hated another and wished to get rid of him, all he had to do was to point him out as in favor of kings, and off he would be taken to the guillotine. No one was sure of his life for a day. He never knew what moment some personal enemy might accuse him. Hundreds, then thousands, of suspected people were beheaded, and a special sewer had to be built to carry off the blood. But the guillotine, fast as it was, was too slow for the Terrorists. It could cut off but one head at a time, and so prisoners were lined up and shot down with cannons.

People seemed to have gone wild, crazy, mad! They insulted Christ and the Christian religion. They put a pretty woman called the Goddess of Reason on the altar of the beautiful Church of Notre Dame and worshiped her instead of the Lord. They pulled down statues and pictures of Christ and the Virgin Mary. In their places they put statues and pictures of their own leaders. The guillotine was put up in place of the cross. They did away with Sundays. They made a week ten days long, and every tenth day they made a holiday instead of Sunday. They stopped counting time from Christ’s birth, because they didn’t want anything that had to do with Christ, and they began to call the year when the republic was started in 1792 the year 1.

But Robespierre wished to rule alone, and he plotted against his two friends. One of these he had beheaded, and the other was killed in his bath-tub by a girl named Charlotte Corday, who was in a rage at what he had done. So Robespierre was left alone. At last the people, in fear of this man who was such a monstrous and inhuman tyrant, rose up against him. When he found that he too, was to be put to death, he tried to commit suicide, but, before he could do so he was caught and taken to the guillotine, where he went to the same death to which he had sent countless others, and the Reign of Terror was ended. It was a pity that he hadn’t a thousand lives with which to pay for the thousands of lives he had taken away.

[Illustration]

73

A Little Giant

At last the Revolution was stopped.

It was stopped by a young soldier only about twenty years old and sixty inches tall.

The Government was holding a meeting in the palace while a mad mob in the streets outside were trying to attack the palace. A young soldier had been given a few men and told to keep the mob away. The young soldier pointed cannons down each street that led to the palace, and no one dared to show himself. This young soldier was named Napoleon Bonaparte. He made such a fine record that people wanted to know who he was and where he came from.

Napoleon had been born on a little island called Corsica in the Mediterranean Sea. He was born just in time to be a Frenchman, for the island of Corsica had belonged to Italy and had only just been given to France a few weeks before he was born. As soon as he was old enough, he was sent off to a military school in France. There his French schoolmates looked upon him as a foreigner and didn’t have much to do with him. But Napoleon made high marks in arithmetic, and he loved hard problems. Once he shut himself up in his room to work over a hard problem, and there he stayed for three days and nights until he had found the answer.

Napoleon showed by the way he put an end to the French Revolution that he was going to be a fine soldier, and so when he was only twenty-six years old he was made a general.

Now, at this time all the other countries of Europe had kings. France had caught the fever of revolution from the Americans all the way across the ocean and had got rid of her kings. The kings of these other countries were afraid their people might catch the fever of revolution, too. So all of these other countries became enemies of France because France had put an end to her kings.

Napoleon was sent off to fight Italy. He had to cross the Alps, which Hannibal in the Punic Wars had crossed long before. But Hannibal had no heavy cannons when he crossed; it seemed impossible for Napoleon’s army to cross with cannons. Napoleon asked his engineers, the men who were supposed to know about such things, if it could be done. They said they thought it was impossible.

“Impossible,” Napoleon angrily replied, “is a word found only in the dictionary of fools.” Then he shouted:

“There shall be no Alps!” and went ahead and crossed them. His army won in Italy, and when he returned to France he was greeted by the people as a conquering hero. But the men who were then governing France were afraid of him. They feared he might try to make himself king because he was so popular with the people. Napoleon, however, asked to be sent to conquer Egypt because he had an idea he could get the better of the English there. He thought he might then cut England off from India, the new country that they had won in the reign of James I. England had lost America, but she didn’t want to lose India.

The French Government was very glad to get rid of Napoleon, and so they sent him off to Egypt as he asked. He quickly conquered Egypt as Julius Cæsar had done, but there was no Cleopatra to upset his plans. While he was conquering Egypt, his fleet, which was waiting for him at the mouth of the Nile, was caught and destroyed by the English fleet under a great admiral, if not the greatest that ever lived. His name was Lord Nelson.

Napoleon had no way to take his army back to France. So he left his army in Egypt under command of another. He himself, however, managed to find a ship to take him back home. When he reached France he found that the men who were supposed to be governing were quarreling among themselves, and, seeing his chance, he had himself made one of three men chosen to rule France. He was called first consul; and there were supposed to be two assistant consuls, but the assistants were little more than clerks to do Napoleon’s bidding. It was only a very short time before he was next made first consul for life. Then, not long after that, he became emperor of France and also king of Italy.

The other countries of Europe began to fear that Napoleon would conquer them, too, and make them also a part of France. So all the other countries joined together to beat him. Napoleon planned to conquer England first, and he got ready a fleet to cross over to England. But his fleet was caught off Spain near a point called Trafalgar by the same English admiral, Lord Nelson, who had beaten him in Egypt. Before this battle, Nelson said to his sailors, “England expects that every man will do his duty,” and they did it. Napoleon’s fleet was utterly destroyed, though Nelson himself was killed.

Napoleon then gave up the idea of conquering England, and he turned his attention in the opposite direction. He had beaten Spain and Prussia and Austria. Almost all Europe either belonged to him or had to do what he said. Then he attacked Russia. It was a great mistake he made, for Russia was far off, and it was wintertime and very cold. Still, he managed to reach Moscow way off in the center of Russia with his army. But the Russians burned the city and destroyed all the food, so that Napoleon had nothing with which to feed his army. It was terribly cold; there were deep snows; and, in retreating, his army suffered enormous losses. Napoleon himself soon made a bee-line to Paris leaving his army to get back the best way they could. Men and horses died of cold and hunger by the thousands. Napoleon reached Paris, but his fortune had turned. All of Europe was getting ready to put an end to the tyrant, and it was not long after this that he was hemmed in and beaten by his enemies.