Part 20

Motley’s historic canvas is crowded with figures. The eye is at first drawn toward the personages, the military, ecclesiastical, and princely chiefs, William of Orange (who is Motley’s hero), Egmont, Alva, and Granvelle; but the eye does not rest on these alone. Surrounding them are the multitudes of aspiring, suffering people becoming more and more a preponderant force in the life of the nation, refusing to be disposed of in the lump, or driven about like a flock of sheep to be sheared or slaughtered at the whim of a monarch.

Here lies Motley’s sympathy. His indignation flames out when misery is brought upon thousands, by the caprice of kings or the selfishness of secular and ecclesiastical politicians. Note his sarcasm on the battle of Saint Quentin, a game in which ‘the players were kings and the people were stakes--not parties.’ Note his fine scorn of that type of government ‘which was administered exclusively for the benefit of the government.’ Note his loathing for that type of vanity which presumes to dictate how a man shall worship God. The temper in which Motley writes is admirably epitomized in the picture of Caraffa, as papal legate, making his entry into Paris, showering blessings upon the people, ‘while the friends who were nearest him were aware that nothing but gibes and sarcasms were falling from his lips.... It would no doubt have increased the hilarity of Caraffa ... could the idea have been suggested to his mind that the sentiments, or the welfare of the people throughout the great states ... could have any possible bearing upon the question of peace or war. The world was governed by other influences. The wiles of a cardinal--the arts of a concubine--the speculations of a soldier of fortune--the ill temper of a monk--the mutual venom of Italian houses--above all, the perpetual rivalry of the two great historical families who owned the greater part of Europe between them as their private property--such were the wheels on which rolled the destiny of Christendom. Compared to these, what were great moral and political ideas, the plans of statesmen, the hopes of nations? Time was to show.... Meanwhile a petty war for petty motives was to precede the great spectacle which was to prove to Europe that principles and peoples still existed, and that a phlegmatic nation of merchants and manufacturers could defy the powers of the universe, and risk all their blood and treasure, generation after generation, in a sacred cause.’[51]

The historian is a hard hitter. The enemies of liberty and their agents are not spared. Philip, Granvelle, Alva, and a score besides are characterized in withering terms. Of Philip, for example, Motley says: ‘It is curious to observe the minute reticulations of tyranny which he had begun already to spin about a whole people, while cold, venomous, and patient he watched his victims from the center of his web.’ The historian is fiery in denouncing the tortuous and Machiavellian politics of the Sixteenth Century. It was an age when honesty, plain speaking, and respect for a promise had nothing to do with the conduct of affairs of state. He who could lie most adroitly was the best man. Granvelle fills his letters with innuendoes against Egmont and Orange, all the while protesting that he would not have a hair of their heads injured. It is he, according to Motley, who puts into Philip’s mind the thoughts he is to think, almost in the words in which he is to utter them. Philip had his own strength, but he was slow to come to a conclusion. Granvelle knew how to clarify that muddy stream of ideas.

The preceding work shows the Dutch states in the beginning and progress of their struggle against the tyranny of Philip; the _United Netherlands_ shows Holland as a rising hope of Protestantism, as a nation to be reckoned with in the diplomacy of Europe.

The Spanish king is still writing letters, still concocting schemes for conquest, still enmeshing friends and enemies alike in a web of falsehood. He is drawn off for the moment from his mission in the Netherlands to extend his conquests elsewhere. These proposed conquests have exactly one object--to enable the spirit of despotism ‘to maintain the old mastery of mankind.’ ‘Countries and nations being regarded as private property to be inherited or bequeathed to a few favored individuals, ... it had now become right and proper for the Spanish monarch to annex Scotland, England, and France to the very considerable possessions which were already his own.’

A picturesque episode of the attempt upon England was the Armada. To this enterprise Motley gives one of his best and most thrilling chapters. Equally fascinating is the account of the attempt upon France, the battle of Ivry (when the white plume of Henry of Navarre carried the hopes of all liberal-minded men), and the terrible siege of Paris which almost immediately followed. ‘Rarely have men at any epoch defended their fatherland against foreign oppression with more heroism than that which was manifested by the Parisians of 1590 in resisting religious toleration, and in obeying a foreign and priestly despotism.’

Perhaps there are not to be found in the historian’s works more striking passages than those in which are described the last days of Philip the Second. To Philip’s fortitude, in agony as poignant as any he had visited upon his miserable victims, the historian gives unstinted praise. The account, which rests upon documentary basis, presents an accumulation of horrors from which a Zola or a Flaubert might have learned a lesson. The king died with a clear conscience, having upon his soul the blood of uncounted numbers of human beings, and providing in his will that ‘thirty thousand masses should be said for his soul.’

‘It seems like mere railing to specify his crimes,’ says Motley. ‘The horrible monotony of his career stupefies the mind until it is ready to accept the principle of evil as the fundamental law of the land.’ Motley’s conclusion is that Philip the Second of Spain was Machiavelli’s greatest pupil.

What remains of the book after Philip’s death lacks neither literary interest nor historic value. But we have something akin to the feeling which comes over us when the chief character in a play dies before the last act; we question for a moment whether the interest will hold. That dominant and sinister personality leaves a void which the exploits of Prince Maurice hardly serve to fill. With these exploits, however, and a discussion of the causes leading to the Twelve Years’ Truce, Motley concluded the _History of the United Netherlands_.

In the last of his three great works, _John of Barneveld_, Motley gave full expression to his generous partisanship of all that seemed to him to stand for the spirit of liberty. With a contempt for the subtleties of theological speculation, the historian was by instinct ‘Remonstrant,’ that is, anti-Calvinistic, and found in Barneveld one of his heroes. He has painted a wonderful picture of the old advocate’s trial and death. Hounded daily by twenty-four judges, many of them his personal enemies, compelled to rely on his powerful memory in reviewing the events and explaining the acts of his forty-three years of public service, denied books, denied counsel, denied a knowledge in advance of the charges made against him, denied access to the notes of his examination as it proceeded, denied everything suggested by the words ‘law’ and ‘justice,’ Barneveld came out of the ordeal so triumphantly that the announcement of his sentence might well have moved him to say: ‘I am ready enough to die, but I cannot comprehend why I am to die.’

In characterization of men, in searching analysis of causes and motives, in brilliant description, and in manly eloquence, Motley’s _John of Barneveld_ equals its predecessors, while the note of passion is if anything intensified by the bitter experiences through which the historian had so recently passed.

* * * * *

A fitting postlude to Motley’s work as a whole may be found in the last sentence of the _United Netherlands_. It makes clear the motives other than scholarly and creative which led to the writing of these splendid narratives. Says the historian: ‘If by his labors a generous love has been fostered for that blessing, without which everything that this earth can afford is worthless,--freedom of thought, of speech, and of life,--his highest wish has been fulfilled.’

FOOTNOTES:

[46] O. W. Holmes.

[47] _Merry-Mount_ is more readable than its predecessor. Such characters as Sir Christopher Gardiner and his ‘cousin,’ Thomas Morton with his hawks and his classical quotations, Esther Ludlow and Maudsley, Walford the smith, Blaxton the hermit, together with the human grotesques Peter Cakebread, Bootefish, and Canary-Bird, repay one for the trouble he takes to make their acquaintance.

[48] For a defence of the part played by the Secretary of State in this affair see John Bigelow’s paper entitled ‘Mr. Seward and Mr. Motley,’ in the ‘International Review,’ July-August, 1878.

[49] John Jay: ‘Motley’s Appeal to History,’ in the ‘International Review’ for November-December, 1877.

[50] J. R. Green.

[51] _Dutch Republic_, i, 162.

XIV

_Francis Parkman_

REFERENCES:

=Edward Wheelwright=: ‘Memoir of Francis Parkman, LL.D.,’ _Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts_, vol. i, 1895.

=C. H. Farnham=: _A Life of Francis Parkman_, 1901.

=H. D. Sedgwick=: _Francis Parkman_, ‘American Men of Letters,’ 1904.

I

HIS LIFE

The Parkmans are descendants of Thomas Parkman of Sidmouth, Devon, whose son Elias settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1633. Francis Parkman was a son of the Reverend Francis Parkman, pastor for thirty-six years of the New North Church in Boston. Through his mother, Caroline (Hall) Parkman, he was related to the famous colonial minister, John Cotton. Two of his maternal ancestors used to preach to the Indians in their own tongue. Parkman’s deep interest in the ‘aborigines’ may have been ‘partly inherited from these Puritan ancestors.’ ‘It does not appear, however, that he ever learned their language, and it may be regarded as certain that he never preached to them.’

Born in Boston on September 16, 1823, Parkman prepared for college at Chauncy Hall School and was graduated at Harvard in 1844. During his college course he ‘showed symptoms of Injuns on the brain,’ as a classmate phrased it. In 1841 he began those vacation wanderings which gave him such an intimate acquaintance with the American wilderness. Before taking his degree he had planned a book on the conspiracy of Pontiac. The year after graduation he visited Detroit and other scenes of the historic drama, collected papers, and, wherever it was possible, ‘interviewed descendants of the actors.’

At his father’s instance Parkman then entered the Dane Law School at Cambridge and obtained his degree (1846), but took no steps to be admitted to the bar. He studied by himself history, Indian ethnology, and ‘models of English style.’ The passage in _Vassall Morton_ describing the influence of Thierry’s _Norman Conquest_ in directing the hero of the novel towards ethnological study, is thought to be autobiographical.

Having weakened his sight by immoderate reading, Parkman (in 1846) made a journey to the Northwest, ‘partly to cure his eyes and partly to study Indian life.’ He was accompanied by his friend Quincy Adams Shaw. For some weeks he lived in a village of Ogillallah Indians, sharing the tent of a chief and following the wanderings of the tribe in their search for enemies and buffalo. The hardships of the life ruined his health. His sight was made worse rather than better, and his first book, _The Oregon Trail_ (1849), describing these western experiences, had to be written from dictation.[52] It was followed by _The Conspiracy of Pontiac_ (1851), and that by _Vassall Morton_ (1856), an attempt at fiction. This ends the initial period of Parkman’s literary life.

In 1850 Parkman married Catharine, a daughter of Doctor Jacob Bigelow of Boston. She is said to have been a woman of a sweet and joyful disposition, having a keen sense of humor, and, above all, endowed with ‘the high courage requisite to tend unfalteringly the pain and suffering of the man she loved.’[53] It was a perfect union, but unhappily it was not to last long. Mrs. Parkman died in 1858.

The historian’s health steadily declined. For years together his chief study was to keep himself alive. As a part of this study he took up floriculture, and soon found himself absorbed in it for its own sake. He became famous for his roses and lilies, and was the recipient of prizes innumerable from horticultural societies.[54] Yet at no time did he lose sight of his main object, the history of France in North America. Little by little his store of materials accumulated. Even when he was at his worst physically, some progress was made. It might be only a step, but the step had not to be retraced.

As his strength returned he began to travel. To renew his acquaintance with the Indians he went to Fort Snelling in 1867. He was repeatedly in Paris consulting archives and doctors. He visited Canada in 1873 and explored over and over again the region between Quebec and Lake George.

The great historical series to which its author gave the title of _France and England in North America_ began to appear just at the close of the Civil War. The volumes in the order of their publication are: _The Pioneers of France in the New World_, 1865; _The Jesuits in North America_, 1867; _The Discovery of the Great West_, 1869;[55] _The Old Régime_, 1874; _Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV_, 1877; _Montcalm and Wolfe_, 1884; _A Half-Century of Conflict_, 1892.

The merits of this extraordinary series were recognized at once as many and varied. It is a question to which of three types of reader the books most appealed,--the scholar, who is bound to read critically whether he will or no, the utilitarian in search of facts chiefly, or the mere lover of literature. Each found what he was seeking in these narratives, and each paid homage to the author in his own way.

As is often true of historians far less notable than he, Parkman was the recipient of academic honors, and was made a member of numerous historical societies. The mere catalogue of these distinctions fills a page of printed text. His membership of the Massachusetts Historical Society and his degree of LL. D. from Harvard College (1889) will serve as illustrations. Parkman was influential in helping to found the Archæological Institute of America. He was one of the founders of the St. Botolph Club in Boston, and its president during the first six years of its existence.

The history of France and England in North America was completed the year before he died. Had time and strength been allowed him, he would have recast the material in the form of a continuous narrative. There might have been a gain in the new arrangement, as on the other hand there might have been a loss.

Parkman died at his home at Jamaica Plain, near Boston, on November 8, 1893.

II

PARKMAN’S CHARACTER

Parkman had prodigious will power and unequalled pertinacity. No barrier to the accomplishment of his object was allowed to stand in the way. He was beset by the demons of ill health, and their number was legion. Unable to rout them by impetuous onslaught, he tired them out, thinning their ranks, one by one. He was infinitely patient, full of devices for outwitting the enemy. Beaten again and again, he stubbornly renewed the fight. Threatened with blindness, he set himself to avoid it, and did. Threatened with insanity, he declined to become insane.

Nothing could be more admirable than the spirit in which he faced daily torment. He was that extraordinary being, a cheerful stoic. Four times in his life it was a question whether he would live or die. Parkman admitted that once, had he been seeking merely his comfort, he would have elected to die. That must have been the time when, in response to his physician’s encouraging remark that he had a strong constitution, Parkman said: ‘I’m afraid I have.’ In ordinary conditions of ill health he was bright, cheery, philosophical, but when he suffered most he was silent. At no time was he capable of complaining.

Parkman loved to face the hard facts of life and was apt to admire others in the degree in which they showed a like spirit. He had a sovereign contempt for everything not manly and robust. He contradicted with amusing emphasis the statement in some biographical notice that he was ‘feeble.’ By his philosophy the militant attitude toward life was the true one. He believed in war as a moral force; it made for character both in the man and in the nation. ‘The severest disappointment of his life was his inability to enter the army during our civil war.’

He was wholly free from certain narrow traits which are too apt to be engendered in a life devoted to books and authorship. Manly, open-hearted, unspoiled, he neither craved honors nor despised them. It has been remarked that while he was gratified by the recognition accorded his work in high places, he was equally pleased with a letter from ‘a live boy’ who wrote to tell him how much he had enjoyed reading about Pontiac and La Salle. He himself kept to the last a certain boyish frankness of mind and heart. The year before he died he wrote to the secretary of the class of ’44: ‘Please give my kind regrets and remembrances to the fellows.’

There have been not a few attractive personalities in the history of American letters. Parkman was one of the most attractive among them.

III

THE WRITER

The style is clear and luminous. Short sentences abound, giving the effect of rapidity. The mind of the reader never halts because of an obscure term or some intricacy of structure. Neither is the page spotted with long words ending in _tion_, and which coming in groups, as they do in Bancroft, are like grit in the teeth. Parkman did not attain the exquisite grace and composure which characterize Irving’s prose, but he came nearer to it than did Prescott. The historian of Ferdinand and Isabella had a self-conscious style. Agreeable as it is, it reveals a man always on guard as he writes. In his most eloquent passages Prescott is formal, precise, even stiff.

Parkman’s style is wholly engaging. There is a captivating manner about it, the result of his immense enthusiasm for his theme. Infinitely laborious in the preparation, sceptical in use of authorities, temperate in judgment, when, however, it comes to telling the story, he allows his genius for narration a free rein, and the style, though losing none of its dignity, is eager and almost impetuous. The historian speaks as an eye-witness of all he describes.

This explains Parkman’s popularity in large degree. Fascinating as the subject is, the manner adds a hundred fold. He who reads Bancroft gets a deal of information, for which he pays a round price. He who reads Parkman gets facts, eloquence, philosophy, besides no end of adventure, and for all this he pays literally nothing.

IV

EARLY WORK

_OREGON TRAIL_, _CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC_, _VASSALL MORTON_

_The Oregon Trail_ ranks high among books which, though sometimes written for quite another purpose, are read chiefly for entertainment. Such was _Two Years before the Mast_, such was _The Bible in Spain_, that skilful work of a most accomplished poseur.

In addition to its value as literature, _The Oregon Trail_ is a trustworthy account of a no longer existent state of society. It is a document. The range of experience was narrow, and the adventures few, but so far as it goes the record is perfect; and when read in connection with his historical work, the book becomes a commentary on Parkman’s method. Here is shown how he got that knowledge of Indian life and character which distinguishes his work from that of other historical writers who touch the same field. The knowledge was utilized at once in his next work.

_The Conspiracy of Pontiac_ is the sort of book people praise by saying that it is as readable as a novel. The comparison is unfortunate. So many novels are disciplinary rather than amusing. One wishes it were possible to say of them that they are as readable as history.

Nevertheless it is quite true that the virtues supposed to inhere chiefly in a work of fiction are conspicuous in this the first of Parkman’s historical studies. _The Conspiracy of Pontiac_ is a story, filled with incident and abounding in illustrations of courage, craft, endurance, stubbornness, self-sacrifice, despair, triumph. The plain truth shames invention. Pontiac lives in these pages describing his towering ambition. So do the other actors,--Rogers, Gladwyn, Campbell, Catharine the Ojibwa girl. The supernumeraries are strikingly picturesque,--Canadian settlers, trappers, coureurs des bois, priests, half-breeds, and Indians, the motley denizens of frontier and wilderness. A forest drama played by actors like these is bound to be absorbing were it only as a spectacle.

One fact becomes apparent on taking up this book. History as Parkman writes it is both dramatic and graphical, filled with action and movement, filled with color, form, and beauty. With such an eye for effect it is impossible for him to be dull. Open the volume at random and the wealth of the author’s observations seems to have been showered on that page. But the next page is like it, and also the next.

The vivacity of youth explains much in this narrative. Parkman was but twenty-six when he wrote _The Conspiracy of Pontiac_. Being young, he was not afraid to be eloquent, to revel in descriptions of sunrise and sunset, tempests, the coming of spring, the brilliant hues of autumn foliage, the soft haze of Indian summer. His chapters are richly enamelled with these glowing pieces of rhetoric. He is no less brilliant in his martial scenes; the accounts of the Battle of Bloody Bridge and of Bouquet’s fight in the forest are extraordinarily well done.

The historian is severe on writers who have idealized the Indian. Here is one of Parkman’s own characterizations: ‘The stern, unchanging features of his mind excite our admiration from their very immutability; and we look with deep interest on the fate of this irreclaimable son of the wilderness, the child who will not be weaned from the breast of his rugged mother. And our interest increases when we discern in the unhappy wanderer, mingled among his vices, the germs of heroic virtues,--a hand bountiful to bestow, as it is rapacious to seize, and, even in extremest famine, imparting its last morsel to a fellow sufferer; a heart which, strong in friendship as in hate, thinks it not too much to lay down life for its chosen comrade; a soul true to its own idea of honor, and burning with an unquenchable thirst for greatness and renown.’ Neither poet nor novelist really needs to embroider such an account of the Red Man.

This successful historic monograph was followed by an unsuccessful novel, written, it is thought, for recreation. Without being an autobiography, _Vassall Morton_ abounds in autobiographical passages. Its failure was not of the kind that proves inability ever to master the art of fiction. The loss to American letters however would have been incalculable had Parkman’s genius for historical narrative been sacrificed in any degree to novel writing. And this might have happened had _Vassall Morton_ been a success.

V

_FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN NORTH AMERICA_