ONE:But it was not till the end of July that Lord Clarendon obtained the extraordinary powers which he demanded for putting down rebellion. These were conveyed in an Act to empower the Lord-Lieutenant to apprehend and detain till the 1st day of March, 1849, such persons as he should "suspect" of conspiring against her Majesty's person or Government. On the 27th of July a despatch from Dublin appeared in the late editions of some of the London morning papers, stating that the railway station at Thurles had been burned; that for several miles along the lines the rails had been torn up; that dreadful fighting had been going on in Clonmel; that the people were armed in masses; that the troops were over-powered; that some refused to act; that the insurrection had also broken out in Kilkenny,[568] Waterford, and Cork, and all through the South. This was pure invention. No such events had occurred. In order to avoid arrest, the leaders fled from Dublin, and the clubs were completely dispersed. Mr. Smith O'Brien started on the 22nd by the night mail for Wexford. From Enniscorthy he crossed the mountains to the county Carlow; at Graiguemanagh he visited the parish priest, who offered him no encouragement, but gave him to understand that, in the opinion of the priests, those who attempted to raise a rebellion in the county were insane. He passed on to the towns of Carlow and Kilkenny, where he harangued the people and called upon them to rise. He arrived at Carrick-on-Suir on the 24th, and thence he went to Cashel. Leaders had been arrestednamely, Duffy, Martin, Williams, O'Doherty, Meagher, and Doheny. The Act, which received the Royal Assent on the 29th of July, was conveyed by express to Dublin, and immediately the Lord-Lieutenant issued a proclamation ordering the suppression of the conspiracy, which should have been done six months before. In pursuance of this proclamation, the principal cities were occupied by the military. Cannon were planted at the ends of the streets, and all but those who had certificates of loyalty were deprived of their arms. The police entered the offices of the Nation and Felon, seized all the copies of those papers, and scattered the types. Twelve counties were proclaimed, and a number of young men arrested having commissions and uniforms for the "Irish Army of Liberation."The elections were now carried on with all the fire and zeal of the two parties. The Tories boasted of their successful efforts to stem the tide of expenditure for the war, to staunch the flow of blood, and restore all the blessings of peace. The Whigs, on the contrary, made the most of their opposition to the Treaty of Commerce, which they represented as designed to sacrifice our trade to the insane regard now shown to the French. To show their interest in trade, they wore locks of wool in their hats; and the Tories, to show their attachment to the Restoration and the Crown, wore green twigs of oak. Never was shown more completely the want of logical reason in the populace, for whilst they were declaring their zeal for the Protestant succession, and whilst burning in effigy on the 18th of NovemberQueen Bess's daythe Pope, the Devil, and the Pretender, they sent up a powerful majority of the men who were secretly growing more and more favourable to the Pretender's return. Never, indeed, had the chances of his restoration appeared so great. General Stanhope, on the close of the elections, told the Hanoverian minister that the majority was against them, and that if things continued ever so short a time on the present footing, the Elector would not come to the Crown unless he came with an army.
THREE:The Bastille surrendered almost immediately after the governor had been seized with despair. The French Guard began to cannonade the fortress; the captain of the Swiss, who might undoubtedly have held out much longer, saw that no rescue came, and that prolonged resistance would only lead in the end to sanguinary vengeance, he therefore hoisted a white flag. The captain of the Swiss demanded to be allowed to capitulate, and to march out with the honours of war; but the furious mob cried out, "No capitulation! no quarter! The rascals have fired upon the People!" The Swiss captain then said that they would lay down their arms, on condition that their lives should be spared. Then the gates of the old prison were thrown open, and the furious and triumphant mob burst in. The news of the fall of the Bastille came as a thunder-clap. The king, who had not been so confident, was gone to bed. The Duke de Liancourt, Grand Master of the Wardrobe, by virtue of his office went to his bedside, awoke him, and told him the amazing fact. "What!" exclaimed Louis, "is it, then, really a revolt?" "Say, rather, sire," replied the Duke, "a revolution!"[See larger version]
"Father is gone!On the 15th of April Buonaparte quitted Paris, for the last time as a permanent abode; on the 16th he was at Mainz, and on the 25th at Erfurt. Before quitting Paris he had appointed Maria Louisa regent in his absence. This he deemed a stroke of policy likely to conciliate the Emperor of Austria. But the Empress's power was merely nominal. She could appear at the Council board, but it was only as the instrument of the Emperor; he carried all active power along with him, and ruled France from his camp. He had still upwards of fifty thousand troops in the garrisons of Prussia, commanded by Eugene, the Viceroy of Italy; and he advanced at the head of three hundred thousand men. Eugene Beauharnais had been compelled necessarily to evacuate Dantzic, Berlin, and Dresden as the Russians and Prussians advanced, and to retreat upon the Elbe. In the month of May Bernadotte, according to concert, crossed over to Stralsund with thirty-five thousand men, and awaited the reinforcements of Russians and Germans which were to raise his division to eighty thousand men, with which he was to co-operate with the Allies, and protect Hamburg. The Allies, under Tetterborn, Czernicheff, and Winzengerode, spread along both sides of the Elbe, the Germans rising enthusiastically wherever they came. Hamburg, Lübeck, and other towns threw open their gates to them. The French general, Morand, endeavouring to quell the rising of the people of Lüneburg, was surprised by the Russians, and his detachment of four thousand men was cut to pieces, or taken prisoners. Eugene marched from Magdeburg to surprise Berlin, but was met at M?ckern, defeated, and driven back to Magdeburg. Such was the success of the Allies, and the exulting support of the people, that even Denmark and Saxony began to contemplate going over to the Allies. Blucher entered Dresden on the 27th of March, driving Davoust before him, who blew up an arch of the fine bridge to cover his retreat. The Emperor of Russia and King of Prussia entered the city soon afterwards, and were received by the inhabitants with acclamations. On the 28th of April died the old Russian general, Kutusoff, at Bautzen, and was succeeded by General Wittgenstein.Whilst these contentions were going on, Wren had entered fairly on his profession of architect. He built the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford, begun in 1663, and completed in 1669; and the fine library of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the beautiful square, Neville's Court, to the same college. He also built the chapels of Pembroke and Emmanuel Colleges, in the same university. In the erection of these, he suffered, from the conceit and conflicting opinions of parties concerned, a foretaste of the squabbles and contradictions which rendered the whole period of the building of St. Paul's miserable. In 1665 he found leisure to visit Paris, and study the magnificent palaces and churches with which Louis XIV. was embellishing his capital. There he got a glimpse of the design for the Louvre, which Bernini, the architect, showed him, but only for a moment; and he was in communication with Mansard, Le Vau, and Le Pautre.
