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SKETCHES OF FRENCH HISTORY.
FROM CuESAR TO CLOVIS.
Wherever Rome extended her
power she imposed her laws, her lan
guage and her learning. With ques
tion of religion she rarely meddled
unless they interfered with her ad
ministration.
In Gaul, the Roman rule soon
effected great changes. The coun
try was divided into provinces and
put under imperial Tax Collectors
and Governors. The city of Lyons
became its Capital, and the Em
perors frequently resided there and
made it the scene of magnificent
display and adornment. Fine pub
lic buildings were erected, a mint for
the coinage of money established,
splendid walls were built to protect
it from without, and theatres and
marble baths embellished it within.
Great roads were opened, and
schools were founded in the cities
and the rude nobility began to at
tend them. Manufactories were en
couraged, and the cloth made in
Gaul soon had a demand in all parts
of the Empire. Law courts were
established according to the Roman
rule, and the Latin language took
the place of the Celtic—except in
Brittany, where the original tongue
survives to this day, just as it does
in Wales and in parts of Ireland.
The Druids were suppressed be
cause they practiced human sac
rifices, and because they meddled
with State affairs. They were eter
nally hatching schemes to throw off
the Roman yoke and re-impose their
own. For many years after they
were prohibited by law from offer
ing up human beings on the altar,
they continued those ghastly cere
monies in secret.
Agriculture was encouraged.
Sheep took the place of wild hogs,
and cultivated fields gradually sup
planted unfenced pastures. In the
time of Cmsar the climate of Gaul
was very severe. The rigors of the
winter season had passed into a
proverb. The great rivers would
freeze over with ice so thick that
armies could cross without danger.
The vine and the olive were un
known. The climate was too cold for
them. But as the vast, dismal
woods were gradually cut away the
temperature grew milder. 3'he vine
and the olive were planted in the
Southern portions of the land and
pushed step by step all over it. The
result is that for many centuries the
wine of France has been famous
throughout the world, and her olives
form one of her most valuable crops.
Instead of being considered a dis
mal, chilly and dangerous climate,
France is now one of the sunniest
and healthiest of lands. So great
has been the change wrought by
the axe and the plow.
The Romans utilized the courage
of the Gauls by enlisting them in
her armies. The infantry thus ob
tained was good, but the cavalry was
unrivalled. In fact, Caesar owed
much of his success in all his wars,
especially his late ones, to the Gaulic
soldiers. After subduing them he
had treated them kindly and had
even admitted some of the noblest
of them into the Roman Senate.
This was one of grievances that the
aristocrats had against him, and for
which they murdered him.
Many of the Gauls had the Roman
franchise bestowed upon them and
many of their cities enjoyed special
privileges granted by the Emperors.
During these years of Roman su
premacy, the nobles of Gaul built
splendid castles along the Rhine and
Moselle and lived in great luxury.
They sent their young men to the
Roman schools, and the educational
course was not considered complete
till a visit had been made to Rome
and to the Emperor’s Court.
Thus things went, in the upper
world. With the actual laborers in
Gaul, life was not so pleasant. In
nearly all cases the man who fol
lowed the plow was a serf. He was
bound to the soil, and when the Es
tate was sold he went with it just as
the other plow tools did. N o school
opened its doors to him. No hope
of promotion invited his ambition.
Only in the army could a poor man,
born of the peasants, expect to hew
hid way to the front. And even in
the army it was extremely rare that
B peasant rose to distinction.
WOPLE’S PARTY PAPER. ATLANTA. GEORGIA. FRIDAY, MARCH 17. 1893.
Yet, to make his lot severer, taxes
were heavier on land and its pro
duce than on anything else, and the
Tax Collector had almost unlimited
power.
As illustrative of the times, we are
told by the Historians that Caesar
had liberated a slave named Licinius,
and had given him an office. He
was so useful to his Roman masters
that he was promoted and finally
became one of the Tax Collectors
under Caesar’s nephew, Augustus.
Licinius was a robber, and had been
so exceedingly cruel and greedy in
his exactions that when the Emperor
came into Gaul the people indignant
ly denounced Licinius. The Em
peror decided to punish the scoun
drel, but was led away from his pur
pose by a shrewd trick. Licinius
carried the Emperor to the vaults
where his plunder was stowed, and
said, “Behold the treasure I have
gathered for thee. I was afraid if
Gauls kept so much gold they would
use it against thee. I now deliver it
to thee.”
Augustus received the stolen goods
and let the thief go his way unpun
ished. Os course, Licinius, ■when
the Emperor had returned to Rome,
went on robbing the helpless people
worse than ever.
Such instances as this prove the
abuses to which the Roman govern
ment was subject, and we can im
agine how the spirit of a brave peo
ple was worn away and broken by it.
There was more wealth in Gaul than
there had been, but the National
spirit had nothing around which it
could build a civilization which would
improve the entire people morally,
as well as materially. The Gaulish
Nobles erected splendid temples, but
they were dedicated to Paganism.
The Religion of the Druids had been
suppressed, but no better one had
been introduced. The minds of the
people, high and low, were left with
out a single great motive which
could elevate them to nobler things.
In the reign of Nero there was a
great rebellion m Gaul, and but for
the sudden discouragement of its
leader, the result might have been a
success.
Nero was the last of the twelve
Roman Emperors who are called
“the Caesars.” He was a terrible
monster in cruelty and lust, but
strange to say, had some accomplish
ments in the fine arts. Among other
things he was a musician.
A Gaulish Noble, named Vindex,
excited an insurrection against Nero.
He harangued the people and told
them of the Emperor’s crimes—how
he had violated all laws of decency,
and had even murdered his own
mother. He also derided him as a
“miserable fiddler.” Nero seemed
to care little for the accusation as to
his mother, but the indictment that
he was a “sorry fiddler” broke him
all up. He called a great meeting
of the people in Rome, made them a
speech, denied that he was a sorry
fiddler and played a tune or two to
prove that he could “tickle the cat
gut” with skill and ability. Being a
sorry fiddler myself, I can under
stand Nero’s feelings.
Vindex, however, was not to be
convinced by any amount of fiddling,
good or bad, and soon had his army
in the field. He suffered a defeat
from one of Nero’s generals and
committed suicide. If he had waited
ever so short a time, he would have
witnessed the downfall and the death
of Nero.
One of the Chieftains engaged in
this rebellion claimed to be a great
grandson of an illegitimate child of
Julius Caisar. His name was Sabinus.
After the defeat and death of Vin
dex he took refuge in the vaults of
his palace and caused a faithful slave
to burn down the house above, and
to spread the report that he was
dead. Only two servants knew the
secret and knew the way into the
vaults.
Even the wife of Sabinus sup
posed him dead till the faithful
slaves told her the facts. At night
she would visit her husband, stealing
away again as morning appeared.
Finally she remained both day and
and night, and thus the two lived
for nine long years. Several chil
dren were born to them in those
dark, underground vaults.
Then in an evil hour they set out
to Rome to ask pardon of the Em
peror—scarcely doubting that after
so many years the imperial wrath
would be cooled. Vespasian occu
pied the Roman throne at that time.
To his eternal shame, he rejected the
plea for mercy and ordered that
Sabinus should be put to death. His
heroic wife asked to share his fate.
“I have been more happy with him,”
said she, “under the ground out of
the light of day than thou hast been
in all the splendor of your Empire.”
The cruel monarch granted her re
quest, and the husband and wife
died together.
The Roman rule in Gaul existed
more than four hundred years.
During these years it was one of the
most valuable of the imperial pos
sessions. Many of the Roman Em
perors were born within its limits,
and it is a literal fact that more than
one of men who seized the Roman
sceptre and ruled over the Empire
were native Gauls.
In the year 407, there was a great
movement among the people beyond
the Rhine—the country we now call
Germany. The tribes called the
Franks invaded Gaul, swept away
the Roman power and established
over both the Roman and the Celt
the dominion of the sword. The
leader of these Germans was named
Clovis.
JEFFERSON’ INAUGURATION.
A True Story of the Simplicity With
Which It Was Attended.
Few historians have dwelt with
sufficient emphasis upon one very
important feature of the revolution
wrought in 1800 by the downfall of
the Federalists and the triumph of
the Democracy under Thomas Jef
ferson. They have dwelt often and
with much elaboration of detail upon
the purely political character of the
charge, upon the reversal of the
Federalists’ dogmas that the central
government was the creature solely
of the masses, and not of the States,
that the Government, to survive fac
tion and anarchy, should stretch its
powers and enlarge its sphere of
operations to the utmost limit of a
very latitudinanan construction of
the constitution, and, in short, that
the citizen must do nothing for him
self that the Government can do for
him. But they have overlooked the
radical nature of the social revolu
tion effected, and which Mr. Jeffer
son lost no time in emphasizing, com
mencing with the simplicity of the
ceremonies of his inauguration and
continuing through his term and the
terms of most of his successors. He
struck at once at what he considered
the root of a sinister evil and real
danger, which consisted in the reten
tion of many of the forms as well
as much of the substance of mon
archy.
ROYAL FORMS AND CEREMONIES.
“When on my return from Europe
I joined the Government in March,
1796, in New York,” he subsequently
wrote, “I was much astonished in
deed at the mimicry I found estab
lished of royal forms and ceremonies,
and more alarmed at the unexpected
phenomenon by the monarchical sen
timents I heard expressed and openly
maintained in every company, and
among others by the high members
of the Government, executive and
judiciary (Gen. Washington alone ex
cepted), and by a great part of the
Legislature, save only some mem
bers who had been of the old Con
gress and a very few of recent in
troduction.”
Indeed, so far did his convictions
move him that he remonstrated with
Washington himself at the exhibition
of so much court formality and cere
monial display, not only on the occa
sion of his first inauguration, but at
his levees and fetes. For this fault
he held Gen. Knox and Col. Hum
phreys, who arranged the pro
gramme, responsible, the first of
whom he called “a man of parade,”
and the latter one who had “resided
at foreign courts.” His protest had
the effect of inducing Washington to
suggest a modification of this osten
tatious exhibition at his second inau
guration, the submission by him of a
number of questions to Vice-Presi
dent Adams in regard to the proper
course for a President of the United
States to pursue in order to avoid
license on the one hand and austerity
on the other, and the explanation
from Washington also that the cere
monies at his first inauguration had
been arranged for him and that he
had insisted Upon several modifica
tions of the original programme.
But owing to a division of sentiment
in the Cabinet, where Jefferson and
Hamilton strangely appeared on the
same side, there was no important
charge made at the second inaugura
tion, and the precedents established
were followed by Mr. Adams.
JEFFERSON DENOUNCES THE MON-
ARCHICAL PARTY.
It was in 1796 that Mr. Jefferson
wrote his celebrated Mazzie letter,
which provoked a storm of rancor
ous criticism from the Federalist
press and politicians.
“The aspect of politics,” said he,
“has wonderfully changed since you
left us. In place of that noble love
of liberty and republican govern
ment which carried us triumphantly
through the war, an Anglican, mon
archical, aristoeratical party has
sprung up, whose avowed object is
to draw over us the substance as
they have already done the forms of
the British Government. The main
body of our citizens, however, re
main true to their republican prin
ciples; the whole landed interest is
republican, and go is the mass of
talents. Against us are the Execu
tive, the Judiciary, two of three
branches of the Legislature, all the
officers of the Government, all who
want to be officers, all timid men
who prefer the calm of despotism to
the boistrous sea of liberty, British
merchants and Americans trading on
British capital, speculators and
holders in the banks and public
funds, a contrivance invented for the
purpose of corruption and for as
similating us in all things to the rot
ten as well as to the sound parts of
the British model. It would give
you a fever were I to name to you
the apostates who have gone over to
these heresies, men who were Sam
sons in the field or Solomons in the
council, but "who have had their
heads shorn by the harlot England.
In short we are likely to preserve
the liberty we have obtained only by
unremitting labors and perils. But
we shall preserve it.”
There was an additional reason for
the revolution Jefferson wrought.
The downfall of the French Republic
left us without a friend in Europe.
He realized the importance of hus
banding our resources and concen
trating them upon the development
and strengthening of our own coun
try. He wished to avoid every
needless waste of money for display,
alike by the Government and the
people, believing that extravagance
would, corrupt both. It was with
this view that the number of offices
was reduced, and that Gallatin par
ticularly cut down expenditures to
the minimum. It became at once a
government for the people and by
the people. It was a transfer of
power from the silk stocking to the
woolen hose, which Jefferson himself
wore, and from the gaudily decked
aristocrat, with his braid and buckles,
to the unwigged and unpowdered
Democracy.
TRUE STORY OF HIS INAUGURATION.
At the time of Mr. Jefferson’s ac
cession an English tailor was travel
ling in this country, named Davis,
who had letters to Burr, from whom
he borrowed money. While here he
wrote to England, describing what
he saw and much that he did not see.
In the latter category was the inau
guration of Jefferson. He was not
even in Washington at the time, but
desiring to make his letters home in
teresting, and being something of an
expert in lying, he gave an account
of the ceremonies, in which he rep
resented the President-elect as riding
“on horseback to the Capitol, with
out a single guard or even servant in
his train, dismounted without assist
ance and hitched the bridle of his
horse to the palisades.”
Randall, in his “Life of Jefferson,”
adopts this myth, but the weight of
evidence is against it. In the first
place, Mr. Jefferson, as Vice-Presi
dent, lived at Conrad’s boarding
house, on the avenue, not two blocks
from the Capitol, and he would
hardly have mounted his horse to
ride that distance. Then, Edward
Thornton, who was in charge of the
British Legation at "Washington, on
sending Jefferson’s inaugural address
to Lord Grenville, then Foreign Sec
retary under Pitt, accompanied it
with an account of the inauguration,
in which he says Jefferson “came
from his Own lodging to the Capitol
on foot, in his ordinary dress, escort
ed by a body of militia artillery
from the neighboring State, and ac
companied by the Secretaries of the
Navy and the Treasury and a num
ber of his friends in the House of
Representatives.”
This is probably the more accurate
account, though plausibility Was im
parted to the Davis story by the fact
that Jefferson, during his admistra
tion, habitually rode horseback. “He
makes it a point,” says one of his
Federalist critics, “when he has oc
casion to visit the capitol to meet
the representatives of the nation on
public business, to go on a single
•horsQ, which he leads into a shed
and hitches to a peg.”
That Mr. Jefferson did go to the
extreme of simplicity in every respect
is certainly true, but he did so for
the reasons given above—to empha
size his hostility, and the hostility of
the party he represented, to all mon
archical influences, and as an example
to his subordinates in the Govern
ment and to the people themselves.
It was for these reasons also that he
abolished the custom of delivering
“the King’s speech” to Congress in
person, and adopted the plan of
sending a written message, which
requires no “address” in return, and
it was for these reasons, too, that he
received the British Minister in a
plain, well-worn suit, with hose of
Virginia yarn and a pair of slippers
run down at the heel. The Minister,
who was arrayed in his Court dress
of scarlet and gold, subsequently said
it was “a studied insult” to him and
his country, but Jefferson was set
ting what he deemed a necessary ex
ample for his own country and not
imitating the example of another.
It seems, however, that the sim
plicity of the inauguration did not
abate the enthusiasm of the people,
nor did it impair the excellence of
the most remarkable inaugural ever
delivered by any man in any country.
THE CAPITAL IN JEFFERSON’S TIME.
Washington was then a small town.
It contained only 4,000 inhabitants.
The public buildings consisted of the
White House, the State House and
Treasury Department flanking it on
each side, one wing of the Capitol
building adjoining a slatternly, in
complete structure where the House
assembled, a post office, a jail—all of
which were subsequently burned by
the British. There were also three
churches and two taverns. Between
Pennsylvania avenue and the river
was an almost unbroken forest.
North of the avenue were straggling
residences, and stores containing
shoes, dry goods and groceries, un
der one roof. But the noble ave
nues along which now rise those
splendid structures and the pretty
parks now made attractive by beau
tiful shrubbery and imposing monu
ments had all been surveyed under
the direction of Washington. The
country roads were wretched, and
even the thoroughfare to Georgetown
had not been improved.
The scene of Jefferson taking the
oath was striking and dramatic. It
occurred in the Senate chamber,
which was the only part of the Capi
tol lit for occupation.
Between Aaron Burr, who had
just been sworn in as Vice-President,
and Chief Justice John Marshall, who
had then filled his office but six
months, stood Jefferson, tall, raw
boned, somewhat uncouth and awk
ward in appearance and movement,
V’ith a freckled face, wiry red hair, a
tritie gray and neglected, and features
strong, expressive and slightly touch
ed with cynicism. But this was the
founder of what was destined to be a
great and historic party. He pos
sessed a gift for the formulation of
fundamental principles never equalled
among the sons of men, and he ex
pressed them with a clearness and
simplicity never surpassed in any
language.
Mr. Adams had rudely left the city
before the ceremonies, and Madison
did not reach Washington for some
weeks later.
THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
It was under these conditions and
with these surroundings that Mr.
Jefferson delivered that inaugural
whose phrases have found place in
every subsequent platform of his
party, in almost every speech from
the stump, and have been repeated
over and over at almost every fire
side. Here are some of his words:
“Equal and exact justice to all men,
of whatever state or persuasion, re
ligious or political; peace, commerce,
and honest friendship with all nations,
entangling alliance with none; the
support of the State Governments in
all their rights as the most compe
tent administrations for our domestic
concerns and the surest bulwarks
against anti-Republican tendencies;
the preservation of the General Gov
ernment in its whole Constitutional
vigor, as the sheet anchor of our
peace at home and our safety abroad ;
a jealous care of the rights of elec
tion by the people—a mild and safe
corrective of abuses which are lopped
by the sword of revolution where
peaceable remedies are unprovided;
absolute acquiescence in the decisions
of the majority—the vital principle
of Republics, from which there is no
appeal but to force, the vital princi
ple and immediate parent of despot
ism ; a well-disciplined militia—our
best reliance in peace and for the
first moments of war, till regulars
may relieve them ; the supremacy of
the civil over the military authority;
economy in the public expense, that
labor may be lightly burdened; the
honest payment of our debts and
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saored preservation of the public
faith; encouragement of agriculture
and of commerce as its handmaid;
the diffusion of information, and the
arraignment of all abuses at the bar
of public reason; freedom of relig
ion, freedom of the press and free
dom of the protection of the habeas
corpus and trial by juries impartially
selected—these painciplea rorm the
bright constellation which has gone
before us and guided otyr steps
through an age of revolution and
reformation. The wisdom of our
sages and the blood of our heroes
have been devoted to their attain
ment ; they should be the creed of
our political faith, the text of Civic
instruction, the touchstone by which
to try the services of those we
and should we wahder from them in
moments of error or alarm, let us
hasten to retrace our steps ami to re
gain the road which alone leads to
peace, liberty and safety.”
HELEN KELLAR.
She Can Talk Now—How She Knows
What is Said to Rer.
Boston Globe,
Helen Kellar, the remarkably .child
who, although born blind and deaf
and dumb, has accomplished so much
that is beautiful and inspiring, num
bers among her friends many persons
of royal station in European courts
who never saw her. One of these is
the Queen of Greece, who learned of
Helen through Michael Anagnos, the
Director of the Institution for the
Blind, when he visited Greece some
time ago. The interest which the
Queen took in Helen was so intense
that she exacted from Mr. Anagnos
a promise that he would let her read
every letter that Helen wrote to him
while he was at the Greek capital)
and when he was about to return to
this country she induced him to per
mit her to retain several of the let
ters that she had read, which are
treasured very highly at the court.
The Queen expressed on more than
one occasion her surprise that Helen,
who is not yet in her teens, should
have so remarkable a command of
the purest English, and hinted that
the child might have had some as
sistance in the preparation of her
wonderful letters. But Mr. Anagnos
disposed of that thought by inform
ing her Majesty that there was no
person connected with the institution
who could write English so faultlessly
pure and sweet as Helen wrote, since
the little girl never had had an op
portunity to form acquaintance with
any but the loftiest models of the
language.
Helen has learned to articulate,
and can speak as freely and fully as
any unafflicted person. When she
wishes to hold a long conversation
with anybody dear to her, she places
one finger across the lips of the
speaker and another on the throat at
the larynx. In this way she under
stands every word that is uttered as
rapidly as could be understood by a
person with good eyesight and hear
ing.
Obssrvance.
Jeannette: Aren’t you going to
church this morning, Maude?
Maude (reading novel) : No, dear,
I feel that I am too anxious to go,
and one should not yield to selfish
desires during Lent, you know.—
Chicago News.
5
