Current:

Leader (1850-1860), 13th September 1856, Edition 2 of 2, Page 19, THE JEWISH STATION. History of the Jewis...

Page 19
Page 19
19 of 24

On this page

  • Text (2)
  • Transcript

    • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

      Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

      The Religious Wars Of France. Gfwerresde...

      truth may not be spoken in coffee-houses , or published , except in volumes ; but a book has an advantage over a newspaper , and is difficult to suppress . We cannot send MM . de Montalembert or De Toequeville to Cayenne ; we must even allow M . Michelet to -write criticisms that blister the Church , and to deny the vandalism imputed to the Reformation . Chronology is one of the few things exempt from a government prosecution . The annalists of the ^ Crozier have made large use of an argument very effective in our times . The Huguenot spirit , they-say , was jealous of art , insensible to beauty ; it mutilated the cathedrals , defaced the cartoons , discouraged the sculptor . But

      it did not . One of its earliest institutes prohibited the breaking of idols and crosses ; for , its austere moralists added , " We have idols In our hearts ; let us destroy them" Who was it that offered to be shot , provided he might first hammer to pieces an exquisite marble image ? One of Conde ' s own soldiers . "Who were they that smote into fragments every object of art that could be discovered in the Palatinate ? The troops of Louis the Four - teenth . The Reformation , observes M . Despbix , may have been a -war against art ; but the three artists of the period , Jean Gouj on , Bernard de Palissy , and Goudiniel , were Calvinists nevertheless !

      Moreover , as M . Michelet characteristically suggests , men are worth more than statues . It would have been better to mutilate an Apollo than to murder Coligny ; there are crimes against nature -worse than crimes against Art , worse than a Puritan blow at a Grotesque , or even a profanation of the Venus of Milo . But when Rohrbacher , who writes in PastpTals—Catholic , not Arcadian—attributes all the crimes of the epoch to the Huguenots , whom he compares to " a sect of stranglers , " wbat is the use of quoting the i nfamous argument of Gabriel Naude in favour of public massacres , the assassination of Coligny hy a Guise , and of the Guise princes by Henry III ., ox the names of Clement , Ch & tel , or Ravaillac , or the murder of Eseovedo , or the reward of Gerard — the stigma of Philip II ., or the fate of D'Ancre , Wallenstein , or Monaldesehi ? M . Michelet has a wiser method . He paints the portraits of Coligny and of Montnaorency— -Brantome's—who never failed to say his

      prayers in . the morning ; but , while he muttered jaternosters , kept saying , "Go , seize such a one ; hang tiiis fellow on a tree ; run tJtem through pikes , presently , or , stay , shoot them before my face ; cut to pieces all those scoundrels who have been raising a cry against the king ; burn this village ; < 2 ome , let me have a , good fire for a mile or two . " " This most Christian nobleman , " accordingto Brantome ' confession , was a Jeffreys in the service of the Church . vThen a male prisoner was brought before him he was -accustomed to say , " You are a Huguenot , my friend ; I recommend you to M . Bahelot "—a shoemaker turned hangman . Any young and beautiful woman he handed over to his servants , from whom she suffered a punishment which the count found much amusem ^ t in describing at dinner to his familiars . When Brantome testifies to the acts of his " good friends , " and Montluc to his own , what has M . de Falloux to say ? The truth is , that the history of the French Beligious Wax-s has been as lnuch falsified as the history of the French Revolution , which is our reason for saying that a new history is essential . Another class of error is associated with another class of apology . The Church , adopting the ideas of 1789 and

      1 S 39 , has found it convenient , at times , to flatter this Revolutionists , by finding them a Huguenot ancestry . What were the innovators reviled "b y Bossuet as demagogues but an order of incorrigible aristocrats ? TVhat were the followers of Coligny but traitors—historical accomplices of the Coburgs and the Pitts , inviting English armies into France , and only suppressed by a committee of public safety , composed of the Guises , the League , Richelieu , and LouisXIV . ? These frivolous suggestions have duped many a writer led away by the love of parallel and analogy . It is forgotten that French Protestantism did not recruit itself from the ranks of the nobility . Its first maityr was a shoemaker , the second a silk-winder . The heretics burnt in Paris were generally artizans . The list for 1534 begins and ends with a shoemaker ; it docs not include the name of one ' gentleman ! ' The list for 1562 is entirely made up of workmen and petty shopkeepers . As De Capcfigue admits , Catherine de Medicis knew how , with her troops of beautiful girls , to conquer the reli"ious zeal of her aristocracy : " she could soften a heart of bronze by the touch of a rose . "

      Pictures of this character abound , indeed , in the narrative recited by M . Michelet . There are infinite contrasts—the scenes of a gay decameron , and the scenes of the blackest tragedy ; the exquisite levities cf Diana of Poitiers , and the murders of Tournai ; the blue and gold salons of Anet , and the cells of the Inquisition , Goujon ' s marblo Grace , and the form of the burning martyr ; the marriage of Navarre , and the slaughter of Paris . Sometimes the light is that in which benutiful faces grow pale at Fontainebleau , sometimes that which tints the corn in the field . Indeed , M . Michelet resumes his master-work—the History of Francein the Sixteenth Century at the court of Diana , tue WJinton of the Rhone , whose beauty , attested by many a medallion and statue , he describes with diffuse elaboration . She had a delicate nose , a broad forehead , with the hair rolled away on both sides , large , wandering blue eyes , and she know liow to cherish her beauty .

      A sort of myth grew around her ; the false chivalry of the times was easily attracted to adore this goddess , who possessed the art of blushing like a girl , or of returning the gaze of an artist , lilce a model , as she pleased . Says M . Michelet , " when wo look on her portrait at Cluny , its coldness startles us . " But at Anet she smiled as Armida . Her beauty , nevertheless , did not suffice for the personal government ; of Henry II . When she could not engage him in romance she engaged him in architecture ; when she could not interest him into architecture , she seduced Irim into war . According to M . Michelet , who is , however , an historian that needs to bo followed by a critic , ler influence decided the king in 1555 to make war . France , he says , was then the sport of caprice , ruled without policy ot resolution . Two treaties , of the most contradictory nature , were made in direct succession—a treatyfor a war against the emperor in 15 S 5 , nopcotiatcd by theGuiscs . a treaty

      lor peace with , tne emperor in 1556 , negotiated by tho Constable . What were the influences working on these two occasions ? " That which , as I behove , determined tho king , in the first instance , upon war , was a court intnguo that threatened the royalty of Diana , find tended to involve Henry 11 . in tho anxieties of a new position . " In fact , Henry liad grown tired of

      that fidelity upon , which so many poets— -the p riests of divinity chancels—expatiated . A little masquerade at St . Germain , a bevy of young girls , some of them princesses , dressed as sibyls and graces , and a Scottish beauty , named Fleming , were instructed by the queen to perform a drama cf fascination before him , and the trick succeeded so far , that Diana had the best proofs of a rival being in the field . " No time was to be lost in distracting Henry II . by a war . " Such is M . Michelet ' s interpretation . We may take it as incautious , and as resting upon insufficient testimony , but there can be no doubt as to the general reality and value of his historical researches . They draw -to light much that had been obscured and confused by partial or conflicting narratives . _ In several instances the niost overpowering evidence is cited to establish the main argument— -the justification of the book , —that the history of the Religious Wars of France has been converted , in the hands of ecclesiastical writers or their apologists , into a libel and a caricature .

      Sepi?Bmbeb, 13, 1856 J .T H E L E A B E ...

      Sepi ? bmbeb , 13 , 1856 J . T H E L E A B E B . 883

      The Jewish Station. History Of The Jewis...

      THE JEWISH STATION . History of the Jewish Nation , after the Destruction of Jerusalem under Titus . By the Rev . Alfred EdeTsheim , Ph . D . Old Aberdeen . Edinburgh : Constable and Co . ; London : Hamilton , Adams , and Co . Dr . Edersheim has laboured amongst a host of modern writers to gather the stray notices and information scattered through their commentaries , and to-weave them into a continuous and regular narrative . The voluminous work of Dr . Jost , of Frankfort , served for the foundation ; Dr . Gratz lent partial aid from , his uncompleted work , whilst the short but comprehensive essay of Selig Cassel in Jiti & cKs Encjjclojpcedia suggested hints , and gave an , occasional colouring to the history . The researches of Prideaux , Selden , and especially Lightfoot , on the manners and customs of the Hebrews , besides those of numerous other writers , principally German , have been consulted

      to fill tip the general outline with vivid and pictorial illustrations . The work of Dr . Edersheim , however , is not a compilation . He avails himself of the services of others , but does not blindly adopt them . He challenges their statements when his superior information leads him to suspect their accuracy , nor does he allow his own style to be disfigured by the violent partizan feeling he sometimes meets with in the authors he consults . Tjie spirit in which he criticizes the Jews nationally and individually is tempered with great liberality , and bears out his own admission , that " nothing is more repugnant to the spirit of the Gospel , or more certain to carry with it the most serious consequences ( as history has clearly shown ) , than any systematic attempt to legislate for other men ' s consciences on questions of practice . " _ The period over which the present volume extends is particularly fertile in historic matter . Commencing with a retrospective sketch of tee Jewish people from the time of the Babylonian captivity , Dr . Edersheiim follows

      his dispersed countrymen ( for we believe he is a Christianized Jew ) into every quarter of the globe whither persecution , drove them . He then returns with the returning tribes to Judaea , and traces out their history down to the grand final war of liberation under the impostor Bar Cochab , which was ruthlessly quelled by the generals of the unwarlike Hadrian . It is impossible not to "be struck with the ¦ wonderful tenacity with which the Hebrews of every period clung to their customs and nationality . They were dispersed into Europe , Asia , and Africa , from Italy to China , and from Ethiopia to Thrace ; yet we find tlie persecuted race still reading- the law , and looking forward to the restoration of their liberties and their country . In some kingdoms their superior knowledge gave them great influence , and they rose to princely offices ; in others where they took refuge , kings became proselytes , whilst in China many of the children of Abraham became mandarins . Yet their hearts still yearned for the land of the nativity of their forefathers—for the land of the hilly and beautiful Palestine .

      History , it has been observed , consists of little more than a narration of injustice leading to invasion , and oppression leading to insurrection . It would be , therefore , superfluous to recount the bloody items that make up the grand sum of persecution so often threatening annihilation to the Hebrew race . The reader is familiar with the siege , the seizure , and the destruction of Jerusalem , the queen of cities , under Titus . There is something so horrible and so repulsive in the accessories of the picture , that humanity may well desire to draw a veil across the exhibition . With the destruction of Jerusalem , however , the spirit of the people , though broken , was not extinguished , and instances of revolt constantly recurred to prove the inextinguishable nature of that hope which had burned so brightly in the deepest darkness of persecution . This gives the historian the opportunity of portraying the heroism of individual Christian cities and personsa heroism that has never been surpassed in any cause . The martyrdom of the llabbi Akiba is suggestively related , as well as that of tho Rabbi Chananja ben Teradion .

      jl hese dark features of history are relieved by the light tlrrown upon the powers and zeal of the Sanhedrim and Synagogue , their noble st and for independence , their devotion to their creed and theircountry , and the constant efforts they made to collect together the wrocka of their nationality when it had at last been shattered to pieces against the micrhtv legions of Home . The most interesting portions of the work , however , are those which depict the social condition of the inhabitants and the progress of the arts and sciences in Palestine . Tlicse are very full and illustrative , and we learn from them much of the life and manners , agriculture and commerce , character and views of tlic Hebrews .

      The ancient Jews , it is well known , lived in constant fear of invasion from their neighbours , either the Egyptians , the Arabians , or the Syrians . This necessitated them not only to multiply the number of their cities to protect their nocks andherds , and the fruits of the ground , but also to fortify them well , which was done by thick walls , gates covored with iron , and watch-towers . A town was not computed large or small according to tho census , but by the number of students of tho law it contained . If there were less than ten , it was reckoned a small town . The sanitary regulations , in moat cases , wore excellent . Cemeteries , tan-pits , and similar places which , might on-

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 13, 1856, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_13091856/page/19/