A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year Part 31

[Sidenote: Hawaiian Islands recognized]

In the distant South Seas, the Hawaiian Islands were recognized as an independent kingdom by the Powers on the condition that free access be given to white missionaries and the teachings of Christianity.

[Sidenote: Oriental problems]

[Sidenote: Egypt's status defined]

In regard to the affairs of the Orient, the Powers found agreement more difficult. France gave continued support to the pretensions of Mehemet Ali of Egypt against Turkey. The French scheme to antic.i.p.ate Russia's designs on Constantinople by a dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of Mehemet Ali at Constantinople found little favor with the Powers. The Russian statesmen understood the true weakness of Turkey, and were willing to bide their time. Metternich and Lord Palmerston clung to the belief that the Ottoman Empire could still be reconstructed. Thus Lord Palmerston said at this time: "All that we hear about the decay of the Turkish Empire, and its being a dead body, or a sapless trunk, and so forth, is pure and unadulterated nonsense." Metternich affected to look upon Mehemet Ali as a mere rebel. At last, on July 15, the negotiators of Great Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia, without waiting for France, concluded a treaty at London. Egypt was offered to Mehemet Ali in perpetuity with southern Syria for his lifetime. If this offer was not accepted within ten days, Egypt alone was to be ceded; if, after twenty days, this alternative were not accepted, joint action was to be taken against Mehemet Ali.

[Sidenote: France slighted]

[Sidenote: French pretensions on the Rhine]

[Sidenote: Becker's Rhine song]

[Sidenote: Musset's defiance]

The exclusion of France from the concert of Europe aroused a storm of anger at Paris. Guizot, the French Amba.s.sador at London, expostulated with Lord Palmerston. Thiers, then at the head of affairs in France, issued orders for an increase of the strength of army and navy. The long-delayed fortifications at Paris were begun. Military spirit was so awakened in France that the familiar cry was raised to avenge Waterloo and recover the Rhine. The Germans fiercely resented this threat of invasion, prompted largely by French exasperation over the turn which Egyptian affairs had taken. Even the Rhenish provinces, which owed so much to France, shared in this national feeling. It was at this time that Becker, himself a man from the Rhine, wrote the lines which in later years became one of Germany's most famous war songs:

"Sie sollen ihn nicht haben Den freien deutschen Rhein."

Alfred de Musset answered this with his defiant verses:

"Nous avons eu votre Rhin Allemand,"

[Sidenote: Napoleonic memories]

[Sidenote: Louis Napoleon's second fiasco]

Under the stress of this new military ardor in France, agitation was revived for the return of Napoleon Bonaparte's remains from St. Helena to France. The consent of the British Government having been obtained, a decree to this effect was pa.s.sed by the French Chambers. Other events helped to fan to fresh life the smouldering flames of Napoleonic imperialism. Thus the death of Lucien Bonaparte, Napoleon's eldest brother, and of Marshal MacDonald, hero of Wagram, recalled a host of Napoleonic memories. On August 6, Prince Louis Napoleon deemed the time ripe for another Napoleonic rising. Crossing over from England with General Moltenon and fifty followers he attempted to incite an insurrection at Vimereux near Boulogne. He hoped to re-enact the events after Elba. Once more his plans ended in a fiasco. "Bonaparte or not, I see in you only a conspirator," exclaimed Colonel Puygelier. The conspirators fled back to their boat and capsized. Louis Napoleon was taken and sentenced to life imprisonment within the fortress of Ham. As a sop to popular feeling, King Louis Philippe permitted the bronze statue of the Great Napoleon to be replaced on the column of the Grande Armee in Paris.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WAs.h.i.+NGTON IRVING AND HIS FRIENDS Painted by Daniel Huntington

1 Henry T Tackerman 2 Oliver Wendell Holmes 3 William Gilmore Simms 4 Fitz Greene Halleck 5 Nathaniel Hawthorne 6 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 7 Nathaniel Parker Willis 8 William H Prescott 9 Was.h.i.+ngton Irving 10 James K Paulding 11 Ralph Waldo Emerson 12 William Cullen Bryant 13 John P Kennedy 14 J Fenimore Cooper 15 George Bancroft]

[Sidenote: Prince Consort Albert]

[Sidenote: First attempt to a.s.sa.s.sinate Victoria]

In England, great popular rejoicings had been occasioned by the marriage of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg. A bill was pa.s.sed appointing the Prince Consort regent of England in case of the Queen's death. The royal couple were well matched. The credit of having brought about this marriage was chiefly due to Lord Melbourne. The tactful conduct of Prince Albert after the marriage fully justified his choice. Yet Prince Albert was never popular in England. Parliament cut down his proposed income from the Crown by nearly one half. The lower cla.s.ses were prejudiced against him as a foreigner, while the n.o.bility and army turned against him when they found that he preferred the society of men eminent for their intellectual attainments to that of dukes and marquises. On June 10, an insane pot-boy named Oxford attempted to a.s.sa.s.sinate the Queen and the Prince Consort with a pistol. The would-be a.s.sa.s.sin was confined in an asylum. On November 21, Queen Victoria gave birth to her eldest child, Augusta, who subsequently became Empress of Germany.

[Sidenote: First Charter pet.i.tion]

[Sidenote: Jack Frost's revolt]

Other English events of domestic importance were the pa.s.sage of the vaccination act, the introduction of screw propellers in the British navy, and the State trial of the three leaders of the Chartist movement of the previous year. A monster pet.i.tion subscribed by 1,280,000 signatures on a great cylinder was rolled into Parliament. In it were embodied new demands for a bill of rights, or the "People's Charter," comprising universal suffrage, including that of woman, secret ballots, payment of Parliamentary representatives, and the like. The denial of this pet.i.tion provoked a popular uprising under the leaders.h.i.+p of Jack Frost at Newport, which had to be suppressed by the military. After a sensational trial, the leaders were condemned to deportation.

[Sidenote: Death of Beau Brummel]

Echoes of the English Regency were re-awakened by the death of "Beau"

Brummel, a dandy after the manner of the French exquisites. It was a boast of this leader of fas.h.i.+on that he spoiled twenty-five cravats before one was tied to his liking. The Prince Regent in his dress imitated Brummel.

The offended beau retaliated one day, when some of his friends saluted the Prince on Rotten Row, by asking, "Who is your fat friend?" Leigh Hunt improved upon this in his "Examiner" by describing the Prince as "a corpulent Adonis of fifty." For this Hunt was sentenced to imprisonment for two years and fined 500. After George IV. became king, Brummel fell into disfavor and had to leave London. Years later, the bankrupt beau, who had been cheated out of a snuff-box by Prince George, presented the King with another in token of submission. In the words of Thackeray, "the King took the snuff, and ordered his horses, and drove on, and had not the grace to notice his old companion--favorite, rival, enemy, superior." Poor Beau Brummel died in extreme poverty. Some of the striking episodes of the beau's career were dramatized in a play, which has kept alive the memory of this lesser light of modern English society.

[Sidenote: Death of Paganini]

[Sidenote: Foremost violin virtuoso]

[Sidenote: Genius and charlatan]

[Sidenote: Paganini's compositions]

The career of another striking figure of the Nineteenth Century was ended by the death of Paganini, the most remarkable of violin virtuosi. The son of a poor shopkeeper, with little musical knowledge, but of some proficiency on the mandolin, Paganini received an indifferent early schooling in music. After the boy had come under the tutelage of Costa, the orchestral leader of Genoa, his progress on the violin was rapid. At the age of eight he composed a violin sonata. Soon he surpa.s.sed his instructors. At sixteen he ran away from his father, after a concert at Lucca, and made a tour of his own through Italy. Already he was addicted to gambling and other forms of dissipation. At Leghorn he had to sell his violin to pay a gambling debt. A Frenchman, M. Levron, lent him his own Guarnero violin. When he heard him play on it he was so charmed that he made him a present of the instrument. Paganini kept the Guarnero throughout the rest of his life. It was the turning-point of his career. After two years of incessant practice, Paganini appeared in public again at Lucca, where he aroused unbounded enthusiasm by his novel performances on the G string. For the next twenty years he travelled and played throughout Italy, vanquis.h.i.+ng all rivals. His superst.i.tious countrymen believed him to be in league with the Evil One, an impression which Paganini loved to confirm by dark utterances and eccentricities of dress. Not until 1828 did he leave his own country to gather foreign laurels. His first appearance at Vienna was an unprecedented triumph. The Emperor appointed him court violinist and the city of Vienna presented him with a gold medal. From there he made a triumphal tour through Europe, appearing in Berlin, Paris and London. He was acknowledged the most wonderful violinist that had ever been heard. He soon ama.s.sed a colossal fortune. Withal, Paganini was almost as much a charlatan as he was an original genius. He liked to impress his audiences by fantastic eccentricities and by mere tricks of legerdemain, such as dropping and catching his instrument, or breaking one string after another to finish his concert on one alone. Other tricks of virtuosity, such as tuning up the A string by a semi-tone, left hand pizzicato, or his double thirds, were executed with such stupendous technique that they held connoisseurs and amateurs spellbound. His individuality, in fact, was so abnormal that it rendered him unfit to play with others in quartets or other chamber music. As a man he had all the worst faults of a genius. The vast sums of money which he acc.u.mulated were gambled away. His whole life was disgraced by unbridled sensuality coupled with sordid avarice. This explains in a measure Paganini's inferior rank as a composer. Famous are his variations on the tune "G.o.d Save the King," his "Studies," his twenty variations on "Il Carnevale di Venezia," and the concert allegro "Perpetual Motion." The celebrated twenty-four violin capricci, written early in Paganini's career, have been rendered familiar by their transcriptions to the pianoforte by Schumann and Liszt. Paganini died from the results of dissipation. He left his famous Guarnero fiddle to his birthplace, Genoa.

[Sidenote: Frederick William IV. King of Prussia]

In Germany, King Frederick William III. of Prussia died in his sixty-sixth year. He was succeeded by Frederick William IV. The pending dispute between the Prussian Government and the Vatican, arising out of the refusal of the Rhenish priests to sanction marriages between Catholics and Protestants, found a temporary adjustment by the new king's concessions to the clergy.

[Sidenote: Religious discussions]

[Sidenote: Chinese naval brigade]

[Sidenote: Capture of Chusan]

In England, too, church questions temporarily rose uppermost during debates in Parliament over the proposed government a.s.sistance to schools in which the Douay Bible, or Roman Catholic version of the Scriptures, was used. On account of these Parliamentary debates, and the attempted reform of Irish registration by which more Roman Catholic voters were to be admitted, a loud anti-Popery cry was raised by the English Tories. Once more the House of Peers rejected a bill for removing the political disabilities of the Jews, after its pa.s.sage through the Commons by a handsome majority of 113 yeas. The attention of Englishmen at this time was diverted to questions of foreign policy. The British expedition against China had arrived at the mouth of the Canton River in June. A naval blockade was established in Chinese waters. The Chinese retaliated by offering a reward for every Englishman taken, and a prize of $20,000 for the destruction of a British man-of-war. Sir Gordon Bremer sent an expedition against the Island of Chusan. The Chinese officials refused to surrender until after the city of Tinghai had been all but demolished by the English guns. Tinghai was made a British base of supplies, but proved a very unhealthy place. The Chinese capture of an English subject, Vincent Stanton, was followed by a British expedition into the Canton River. The barrier forts, after a heavy bombardment, were taken by storm. Stanton was released. The British fleet made demonstrations at Amay, Ningpo, and in the Gulf of Pechili. Emperor Taouk-w.a.n.g sent for troops from the interior. Mandarin Lin, who had entered into negotiations with the British, was degraded and was succeeded by Viceroy Keshen of Peiho. Keshen received Lord Palmerston's formal demands upon China and forwarded them to Pekin. By dilatory tactics he succeeded in gaining a breathing s.p.a.ce.

[Sidenote: Burmese expedition]

[Sidenote: Sikhs restive]

[Sidenote: Fall of Kelat]

[Sidenote: Todd leaves Herat]

In India, the British occupation of Kabul continued. New trouble broke out in Burma where the British Resident was expelled from Ava. An expedition had to be sent against Burma. The death of Runjit Singh led to a series of revolutions which shook the Sikh dominion to its foundations. The successive deaths of Runjit Singh's son and grandson, who had succeeded him as Maharajas, led to a general belief that they had been murdered by the Prime Minister, Dhian Singh. All the chief Sirdars rose against Dhian. The Sikh army of Khalsak, numbering 7,000 soldiers, became a menace for Hindustan. In July, the British garrison of Kelat in Beluchistan was overpowered by the natives. Lord Auckland had to prepare another expedition to restore English prestige in that quarter. Kelat was retaken by the British in November. New complications arose at Herat. This had long been the bone of contention between Great Britain and Russia in Central Asia.

British ascendency over Herat had been gained by large financial subsidies, which had been spent in frustrating the designs of the Persians and Russians in that quarter. Major d'Arcy Todd, the English envoy at Herat, incensed by King Kamram's continued dealings with Russia, withheld the further payment of the British subsidies, unless British troops were admitted to Herat. The situation became so acute that Major Todd on his own authority threw up his post and left Herat. It was a severe setback for British influence in Central Asia. Lord Auckland in exasperation dismissed his erstwhile amba.s.sador from political employ. Todd found a soldier's death on the field of Ferozeshahar. The continued rebellion of the Sarawacks in Borneo gave the British an opportunity for interference there.

Sir James Brooke, at the head of a British expedition, helped the Sultan of Borneo in quelling the rising.

[Sidenote: Turkish-Egyptian War]

[Sidenote: Mehemet Ali brought to terms]

The operations of the international coalition against Mehemet Ali of Egypt had now begun. Though the Viceroy's soldiers lay on Turkish soil without a foe before them, and France stood at his back, Mehemet Ali found himself checkmated. While Russia undertook to keep Ibrahim's army out of Constantinople, all French support was neutralized by Germany's mobilization on the Rhine. A naval squadron, composed of British and Austrian wars.h.i.+ps, was free to land the Turkish forces in Syria. On October 10, Commodore Napier bombarded Beyrout. The Syrians were armed against their Egyptian oppressors. On November 3, the British and Austrian fleets captured Acre. Ibrahim, with the remains of his army, fell back toward the Egyptian frontier. When the British fleet arrived before Alexandria, Mehemet Ali made haste to come to terms. In contravention of the ultimatum of the Powers, he was allowed to retain his hereditary dominion over Egypt upon relinquishment of Syria, and of the Turkish fleet, which had been betrayed into his hands. Sir Charles Napier in later years, while speaking of his part in this expedition in Parliament, said: "I was ashamed for my country and for myself."

[Sidenote: Fall of Thiers' Ministry]

[Sidenote: Oriental affairs readjusted]

The humiliating position forced upon France caused the downfall of the Ministry of Thiers. Marshal Soult was placed at the head of affairs. Guizot was recalled from his emba.s.sy at London to take the portfolio of Foreign Affairs. He succeeded in restoring France to her former place in the concert of Europe. The French Government joined with the other powers in the restoration of the ancient rule of the Ottoman Empire by which all foreign wars.h.i.+ps were excluded from the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles.

Russia thereby virtually conceded the abrogation of her treaty of Unkiar Skelessi. On the other hand, Sebastopol and the Russian a.r.s.enals of the Euxine were thus safeguarded against any maritime attack except by Turkey.