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NOTABLE EVENTS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World,
in a Series of Short Studies

Compiled and Edited by

JOHN CLARK RIDPATH

Published by
The Christian Herald,
Louis Klopsch, Proprietor,
Bible House, New York.

1896

[Illustration]

PREFACE.

This little volume constitutes one number of the Christian Herald
Library series for 1896-97. The title indicates the scope and purpose
of the work. Of heavy reading the reader of to-day no doubt has a
sufficiency. Of light reading, that straw-and-chaff literature that
fills the air until the senses are confused with the whirlwind and
dust of it, he has a sufficiency also. Of that intermediate kind of
reading which is neither so heavy with erudition as to weigh us down
nor so light with the flying folly of prejudice as to make us
distracted with its dust, there is perhaps too little. The thoughtful
and improving passage for the unoccupied half hour of him who hurries
through these closing years of the century does not abound, but is
rather wanting in the intellectual provision of the age.

Let this volume serve to supply, in part at least, the want for brief
readings on important subjects. Herein a number of topics have been
chosen from the progress of the century and made the subjects of as
many brief studies that may be realized in a few minutes' reading and
remembered for long. Certainly there is no attempt to make these short
stories exhaustive, but only to make them hintful of larger readings
and more thoughtful and patient inquiry.

The Editor is fully aware of the very large circulation and wide
reading to which this little volume will soon be subjected. For this
reason he has taken proper pains to make the work of such merit as may
justly recommend it to the thoughtful as well as the transient and
unthoughtful reader. It cannot, we think, prove to be a wholly
profitless task to offer these different studies, gathered from the
highways and byways of the great century, to the thousands of good and
busy people into whose hands the volume will fall. To all such the
Editor hopes that it may carry a measure of profit as well as a
message of peace.

J.C.R.

CONTENTS.

[All articles not otherwise designated are by the Editor.]

CRISES IN CIVIL SOCIETY.
PAGE.

Brumaire--The Overthrow Of The French Directory, 9
How the Son of Equality Became King of France, 14
The Coup d'Etat of 1851, 19
The Chartist Agitation in England, 23
The Abolition of Human Bondage, 27
The Peril of Our Centennial Year, 35
The Double Fete in France and Germany, 40

GREAT BATTLES.

Trafalgar, 44
Campaign of Austerlitz, 50
"Friedland--1807", 55
Under the Russian Snows, 59
Waterloo, 63
Sebastopol, 71
Sadowa, 77
Capture of Mexico, 84
Vicksburg, 89
Gettysburg, 95
Spottsylvania, 104
Appomattox, 112
Sedan, by Victor Hugo, 118
Bazaine and Metz, 129

ASTRONOMICAL VISTAS.

The Century of the Asteroids, 136
The Story of Neptune, 146
Evolution of the Telescope, 156
The New Astronomy, 165
What the Worlds Are Made Of, 175

PROGRESS IN DISCOVERY AND INVENTION.

The First Steamboat and its Maker, 184
Telegraphing before Morse, 196
The New Light of Men, 205
The Telephone, 216
The Machine That Talks Back, 225
Evolution of the Dynamo, by Professor Joseph
P. Naylor, 235
The Unknown Ray and Entography, 244

STAGES IN BIOLOGICAL INQUIRY.

The New Inoculation, 256
Koch's Battle with the Invisible Enemy, 266
Achievements in Surgery, 276
GREAT RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS.
BY B.J. FERNIE, PH.D.

Defence on New Lines, 284
Evangelical Activity, 289
Bible Revision, 291
Bibles by the Million, 293
A Great Missionary Era, 296
Preaching to Heathen at Home, 299
Churches Drawing Together, 304
Organized Activities, 308
Humanitarian Work, 314
The Sunday School, 316
Pulpit and Press, 318

Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century.

Crises in Civil Society.

BRUMAIRE.

THE OVERTHROW OF THE FRENCH DIRECTORY.

The eighteenth century went out with the French Directory, and the
nineteenth came in with the Consulate. The coincidence of dates is not
exact by a year and a month and twenty-one days. But history does not
pay much attention to almanacs. In general our century arose with the
French Consulate. The Consulate was the most conspicuous political
fact of Europe in the year 1801; and the Consulate came in with
_Brumaire_.

"Brumaire" is one of the extraordinary names invented by the
French Revolutionists. The word, according to Carlyle, means
_Fogarious_--that is, Fog month. In the French Republican calendar,
devised by the astronomer Romme, in 1792, Brumaire began on the
twenty-second day of October and ended on the twentieth day of
November. It remained for Brumaire, and the eighteenth day of
Brumaire, of the year VIII, to extinguish the plural executive which
the French democrats had created under the name of a _Directory_, and
to substitute therefor the One Man that was coming.

The Directory was a Council of Five. It was a sort of five-headed
presidency; and each head was the head of a Jacobin. One of the heads
was called Barras. One was called Carnot. Another was called
Barthelemy. Another was Roger Ducos; another was the Abbe Sieyes. That
was the greatest head of them all. The heads were much mixed, though
the body was one. In such a body cross counsels were always uppermost,
and there was a want of decision and force in the government.

This condition of the Executive Department led to the deplorable
reverses which overtook the French armies during the absence of
General Bonaparte in Egypt. Thiers says that the Directorial Republic
exhibited at this time a scene of distressing confusion. He adds: "The
Directory gave up guillotining; it only transported. It ceased to
force people to take assignats upon pain of death; but it paid nobody.
Our soldiers, without arms and without bread, were beaten instead of
being victorious."

The ambition of Napoleon found in this situation a fitting
opportunity. The legislative branch of the government consisted of a
Senate, or Council of Ancients, and a Council of Five Hundred. The
latter constituted the popular branch. Of this body Lucien Bonaparte,
brother of the general, was president. Hardly had Napoleon arrived in
the capital on his return from Egypt when a conspiracy was formed by
him with Sieyes, Lucien and others of revolutionary disposition, to do
away by a _coup_ with the too democratic system, and to replace it
with a stronger and more centralized order. The Council of Ancients
was to be brought around by the influence of Sieyes. To Lucien
Bonaparte the more difficult task was assigned of controlling and
revolutionizing the Assembly. As for Napoleon, Sieyes procured for him
the command of the military forces of Paris; and by another decree the
sittings of the two legislative bodies were transferred to St. Cloud.

The eighteenth Brumaire of the Year VIII, corresponding to the ninth
of November, 1799, was fixed as the day for the revolution. By that
date soldiers to the number of 10,000 men had been collected in the
gardens of the Tuileries. There they were reviewed by General
Bonaparte and the leading officers of his command. He read to the
soldiers the decree which had just been issued under the authority of
the Council of the Ancients. This included the order for the removal
of the legislative body to St. Cloud, and for his own command. He was
entrusted with the execution of the order of the Council, and all of
the military forces in Paris were put at his disposal. In these hours
of the day there were all manner of preparation. That a conspiracy
existed was manifest to everybody. That General Bonaparte was reaching
for the supreme authority could hardly be doubted. His secretary thus
writes of him on the morning of the great day.

"I was with him a little before seven o'clock on the morning of the
eighteenth Brumaire, and, on my arrival, I found a great number of
generals and officers assembled. I entered Bonaparte's chamber, and
found him already up--a thing rather unusual with him. At this moment
he was as calm as on the approach of a battle. In a few moments Joseph
and Bernadotte arrived. I was surprised to see Bernadotte in plain
clothes, and I stepped up to him and said in a low voice: 'General,
everyone here except you and I is in uniform.' 'Why should I be in
uniform?' said he. Bonaparte, turning quickly to him, said: 'How is
this? You are not in uniform.' 'I never am on a morning when I am not
on duty,' replied Bernadotte. 'You will be on duty presently,' said
the general!"

To Napoleon the crisis was an epoch of fate. The first thing was to be
the resignation of Sieyes, Barras and Ducos, which--coming suddenly on
the appointed morning--broke up the Directory. Bonaparte then put out
his hand as commander of the troops. Too late the Republicans of the
Council of Five Hundred felt the earthquake swelling under their feet.
Napoleon appeared at the bar of the Assembly, and attempted a rambling
and incoherent justification for what was going on. A motion was made
to outlaw him; but the soldiers rushed in, and the refractory members
were seized and expelled. A few who were in the revolution remained,
and to the number of fifty voted a decree making Sieyes, Bonaparte and
Ducos provisional _Consuls_, thus conferring on them the supreme
executive power of the State. By nightfall the business was
accomplished, and the man of Ajaccio slept in the palace of the
Tuileries. He had said to his secretary, Bourriene, on that morning,
"We shall sleep to-night in the Tuileries--or in prison."

The new order was immediately made organic. There could be no question
when Three Consuls were appointed and Bonaparte one of the number,
which of the three would be _First_ Consul. He would be that himself;
the other two might be the ciphers which should make his unit 100. The
new system was defined as the "Provisionary Consulate;" but this form
was only transitional. The managers of the _coup_ went rapidly forward
to make it permanent. The Constitution of the Year III gave place
quickly to the Constitution of the Year VIII, which provided for an
executive government, under the name of the CONSULATE. Nominally the
Consulate was to be an executive committee of three, but really an
executive committee of _one_--with two associates. The three men
chosen were Napoleon Bonaparte, Jean Jacques Cambaceres and Charles
Francois Lebrun. On Christmas day, 1799, Napoleon was made FIRST
CONSUL; and that signified the beginning of a new order, destined to
endure for sixteen and a half years, and to end at Waterloo. The old
century was dying and the new was ready to arise out of its ashes.

HOW THE SON OF EQUALITY BECAME KING OF FRANCE.

The French Revolution spared not anything that stood in its way. The
royal houses were in its way, and they went down before the blast.
Thus did the House of Bourbon, and thus did also the House of Orleans.
The latter branch, however, sought by its living representatives to
compromise with the storm. The Orleans princes have always had a touch
of liberalism to which the members of the Bourbon branch were
strangers.

At the outbreak of the Revolution, Louis Philippe Joseph, Duke of
Orleans, fraternized with the popular party, threw away his princely
title and named himself Philippe Egalite; that is, as we should say,
Mr. _Equality_ Philip. In this character he participated in the
National Assembly until he fell under distrust, and in despite of his
defence and protestations--in spite of the fact that he had voted for
the death of his cousin the king--was seized, condemned and
guillotined.

This Equality Philip left as his representative in the world a son who
was twenty years old when his father was executed. The son was that
Louis Philippe who, under his surname of _Roi Citoyen_, or "Citizen
King," was destined after extraordinary vicissitudes to hold the
sceptre of France for eighteen years. Young Louis Philippe was a
soldier in the republican armies. That might well have saved him from
persecution; but his princely blood could not be excused. He was by
birth the Duke of Valois, and by succession the Duke of Chartres. As
a boy, eight years of age, he had received for his governess the
celebrated Madame de Genlis, who remained faithful to him in all his
misfortunes. At eighteen he became a dragoon in the Vendome Regiment,
and in 1792 he fought valiantly under Kellermann and Dumouriez at
Valmy and Jemappes. Then followed the treason, or defection, of
Dumouriez; but young Louis remained with the army for two years
longer, when, being proscribed, he went into exile, finding refuge
with other suspected officers and many refugees in Switzerland.

Thither Dumouriez himself had gone. Of the flight of young Louis,
Carlyle says: "Brave young Egalite reaches Switzerland and the Genlis
Cottage; with a strong crabstick in his hand, a strong heart in his
body: his Princedom is now reduced to _that_ Egalite the father sat
playing whist, in his Palais Egalite, at Paris, on the sixth day of
this same month of April, when a catchpole entered. Citoyen Egalite is
wanted at the Convention Committee!" What the committee wanted with
Equality Philip and what they did with him has been stated above.

Consider then that the Napoleonic era has at last set in blood.
Consider that the Restoration, with the reigns of Louis XVIII. and
Charles X., has gone by. Consider that the "Three Days of July,"
1830, have witnessed a bloodless revolution in Paris, in which the
House of Bourbon was finally overthrown and blown away. On the second
of August, Charles X. gave over the hopeless struggle and abdicated in
favor of his son. But the Chamber of Deputies and the people of France
had now wearied of Bourbonism in _all_ of its forms, and the nation
was determined to have a king of its own choosing.

The Chamber set about the work of selecting a new ruler for France. At
this juncture, Thiers and Mignet again asserted their strength and
influence by nominating for the throne Louis Philippe, Duke of
Orleans, representative of what is known as the Younger Branch of the
Bourbon dynasty. The prince himself was not loath to present himself
at the crisis, and to offer his services to the nation. In so doing,
he was favored greatly by his character and antecedents. At the first,
the Chamber voted to place him at the head of the kingdom with the
title of _Lieutenant-General_. The prince accepted his election, met
the Chamber of Deputies and members of the Provisional Government at
the Hotel de Ville, and there solemnly pledged himself to the most
liberal principles of administration. His accession to power in his
military relations was hailed with great delight by the Parisians, who
waved the tri-color flag before him as he came, and shouted to their
heart's content.

At this stage of the revolution the representatives of the overthrown
House and of the Old Royalty sought assiduously to obtain from Louis
Philippe a recognition of the young Count de Chambord, under the title
of Henry V. But the Duke of Orleans was too wily a politician to be
caught in such a snare. He at first suppressed that part of the letter
of abdication signed by Charles and Angouleme in which reference was
made to the succession of the Duke of Berry's son; but a knowledge of
that clause was presently disseminated in the city, and the tumult
broke out anew.

Then it was that a great mob, rolling out of Paris in the direction of
the Hotel Rambouillet, gave the signal of flight to Charles and those
who had adhered to the toppling fortunes of his house. The Chamber of
Deputies proceeded quickly to undo the despotic acts of the late king,
and then elected Louis Philippe king, not of _France_, but of the
_French_. The new sovereign received 219 out of 252 votes in the
Deputies. His elevation to power was one of the most striking examples
of personal vicissitudes which has ever been afforded by the princes
and rulers of modern times.

THE COUP D'ETAT OF 1851.

With the overthrow of Louis Philippe in 1848, what is known as the
Second Republic, was established in France. On the tenth of December,
in that year, a president was elected in the American manner for a
term of four years. To the astonishment of the whole world, the man so
elected was Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, who had since the downfall of
Napoleon been prisoner, exile and adventurer by turns. In the course
of President Louis Napoleon's administration, matters came to such a
pass between him and the National Assembly that one or the other must
go to the wall.

In the early winter of 1851, a crisis came on which broke in a
marvelous manner in the event called the Coup d'Etat. The President
made up his mind to conquer the Assembly by force. He planned what is
known in modern history by pre-eminence the stroke. He, and those whom
he trusted, made their arrangements secretly, silently, that the
"stroke" should fall on the night of the second of December. On that
evening the President held a gay reception in the palace of the
Elysee, and after his guests had retired, the scheme was perfected for
immediate execution.

During the night seventy-eight of the leading members of the
Opposition were seized at their own houses and taken to prison. The
representatives of the people were hurried through the streets, and
suddenly immured where their voices could be no longer heard. At the
same time a strong force of soldiers was stationed near the Tuileries.
The offices of the liberal newspapers were seized and closed, and the
Government printing presses were employed all night in printing the
proclamation with which the walls of the city were covered before
morning. With the coming of daylight, Paris awoke and read:

1. The National Assembly is dissolved;

2. Universal suffrage is re-established;

3. The Elective Colleges are summoned to meet on December 21;

4. Paris is in a state of siege.

By the side of this proclamation was posted the President's address to
the people. He proposed the election of a president for ten years. He
referred the army to the neglect which it had received at the hands of
former governments, and promised that the soldiery of France should
rewin its ancient renown.

As soon as those members of the Assembly who had not been arrested
could realize the thing which was done, they ran together and
attempted to stay the tide of revolution by passing a vote deposing
the President from office. But the effort was futile. A republican
insurrection, under the leadership of Victor Hugo and a few other
distinguished Liberals, broke out in the city. But there was in the
nature of the case no concert of action, no resources behind the
insurrection, and no military leadership. General Canrobert,
Commandant of the Guards, soon put down the revolt in blood. Order was
speedily restored throughout Paris, and the victory of the President
was complete. It only remained to submit his usurpation to the
judgment of the people, and the decision in that case could, under
existing conditions, hardly be a matter of doubt.

In accordance with the President's proclamation, a popular election
was held throughout France, on the twentieth and twenty-first of
December, at which the Coup d'Etat was signally vindicated. Louis
Napoleon was triumphantly elected President, for a period of ten
years. Out of eight millions of votes, fewer than one million were
cast against him. He immediately entered upon office, backed by this
tremendous majority, and became Dictator of France. In January of
1852, sharp on the heels of the revolution which he had effected, he
promulgated a new constitution. The instrument was based upon that of
1789, and possessed but few clauses to which any right-minded lover
of free institutions could object. On the twenty-eighth of March,
Napoleon resigned the dictatorship, which he had held since the Coup
d'Etat, and resumed the office of President of the Republic.

It was not long, however, until the _After That_ began to appear.
Already in the summer and autumn of 1852 it became evident that the
_Empire_ was to be re-established. In the season of the vintage the
President made a tour of the country, and was received with cries of
_Vive L'Empereur_! In his addresses, particularly in that which he
delivered at Bordeaux, the sentiment of Empire was cautiously offered
to the people. The consummation was soon reached. On the seventh of
November, 1852, a vote was passed by the French Senate for the
re-establishment of the imperial order, and for the submission of the
proposed measure to a popular vote.

The event showed conclusively that the French nation, as then
constituted, was Bonapartist to the core. Louis Napoleon was almost
unanimously elected to the imperial dignity. Of the eight millions of
suffrages of France, only a few scattering thousands were recorded in
the negative. Thus, in a blaze of glory that might well have satisfied
the ambition of the First Bonaparte, did he, who, only twelve years
before at Boulogne, had tried most ridiculously to excite a paltry
rebellion by the display of a pet-eagle to his followers, mount the
Imperial throne of France with the title of Napoleon III.

THE CHARTIST AGITATION IN ENGLAND.

One of the most important political movements of the present century
was the Chartist agitation in Great Britain. This agitation began in
1838. It was an effort of the under man in England to gain his rights.
In the retrospect, it seems to us astonishing that such rights as
those that were then claimed by the common people of England should
ever have been denied to the citizens of any free country. The period
covered by the excitement was about ten years in duration, and during
that period great and salutary reforms were effected, but they were
not thorough, and to this day the under man in Great Britain is mocked
with the _semblance_ of political liberty, the _substance_ of which he
does not enjoy; the same is true in America.

The name _Chartist_ arose from an article called the "People's
Charter," which was prepared by the famous Daniel O'Connell. The
document contained six propositions, follows:

(1) We demand Universal Suffrage--by which was meant rather Manhood
Suffrage than what is now known as universal suffrage, meaning the
ballot in the hands of both sexes. This the Chartists did not demand.

(2) We demand an Annual Parliament--by which was meant the election of
a new House of Commons each year by the people.

(3) We demand the right to Vote by Ballot--by which was meant the
right of the people to employ a _secret_ ballot at the elections
instead of the method _viva voce_.

(4) We demand the abolition of the Property Qualification now
requisite as a condition of eligibility to Membership in the House of
Commons.

(5) We demand that the Members of Parliament shall be paid a salary
for their services.

(6) We demand the Division of the Country into Equal Electoral
Districts--by which was meant an equality of _population_, as against
mere territorial extent.

To the reader of to-day it must appear a matter of astonishment that
the representatives of the working classes of Great Britain should
have been called upon, at a time within the memory of men still
living, to advance and advocate political principles so self-evident
and common-sense as those declared in the Charter, and his wonder must
be raised to amazement when he is told that the whole governing power
of Great Britain, the King, the Ministry, the House of Lords, the
House of Commons, the Tories as a party, the Whigs as a party,
and--all party divisions aside--the great Middle Class of Englishmen
set themselves in horrified antagonism to the Charter and its
advocates, as though the former were the most incendiary document in
the world and the latter a rabble of radicals gathered from the
purlieus of the French Revolution.

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