A Cultural History of the Modern Age

Volume 2, Baroque, Rococo and Enlightenment

Egon Friedell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138518148
• eBook ISBN: 9781351535748
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: History

This is the second volume of Friedell's monumental A Cultural History of the Modern Age. A key figure in the flowering of Viennese culture between the two world wars, this three volume work is considered his masterpiece. The centuries covered in this second volume mark the victory of the scientifi c mind: in nature-research, language-research, politics, economics, war, even morality, poetry, and religion. All systems of thought produced in this century, either begin with the scientifi c outlook as their foundation or regard it as their highest and fi nal goal.

Friedell claims three main streams pervade the eighteenth century: Enlightenment, Revolution, and Classicism. In ordinary use, by "Enlightenment" we mean an extreme rationalistic tendency of which preliminary stages were noted in the seventeenth century. Th e term "Classicism", is well understood.

Under the term "Revolution" Friedell includes all movements directed against what has been dominant and traditional. Th e aims of such movements were remodeling the state and society, banning all esthetic canons, and dethronement of reason by sentiment, all in the name of the "Return to Nature." Th e Enlightenment tendency might be seen as laying the ground for an age of revolution. Th is second volume continues Friedell's dramatic history of the driving forces of the twentieth century.

BOOK III : ENLIGHTENMENT AND REVOLUTION

From the Seven Years’ War to the Congress of Fienna

CHAPTER I
Common Sense and the Return to Nature

“It is useless for reason to complain that the world, is ruled by prejudice. If reason wants to rule, it must itself first turn itself into a prejudice.”

Taine

Cultural periods and geological periods

So far we have made use of the method of breaking up the course of cultural development into certain large divisions, which succeeded each other like scenes of a play or chapters of a novel: first Late Scholasticism, then Renaissance, then the Reformation, followed by the Baroque and finally the Rococo. This arrangement admittedly involves some inexactness, much that is faulty, arbitrary, or even distorted; but such simplification or adaptation of reality is the essence of all science, all art, and indeed of all human intellectual activity. Yet, necessary as it may be to make use of such subjective schemes, it is very important not to succumb to any delusions about their illegitimate character, nor to let the sense of their factual inaccuracy disappear from our consciousness, or at least from our subconsciousness. It would be a wholly one-sided notion that the Reformation merely replaced the Renaissance; for in both Humanism was one of the main driving forces, and the Italian High Renaissance coincides with the periods of Luther’s intensest activity. The case most favourable to the method was the age of the Baroque, which permitted without excessive violence a subdivision into Pre-Baroque or Counter-Reformation, pure Baroque or Grand Siècle, and late Baroque or Rococo; and it was even possible to take definite years as the lines of demarcation. If we wanted some comparison which would make clear the true relationship of the separate cultural periods among themselves, the best parallel would probably be the geological periods of the earth’s development: the three great ages, Primary or Palæozoic, Secondary or Mesozoic, and Tertiary or Cainozoic. In the first there were only fish and the lower forms of life; in the second, reptiles appeared; and in the third, birds and mammals. Of course fish still lived in the second period, and fish and reptiles in the third, just as they survive to the present day, but these forms do not, as it were, set the tone any longer; in each of the three periods one animal type dominates in numbers and variety, in “Antiquity” the fish, in the “Middle Ages” the reptiles, in the “Modern Age” the mammals. In similar fashion the individual periods are marked by a dominating type, even though the earlier ones live on by their side: thus in the country-side today there are countless numbers who are living in the Carolingian stage; the citizens of German provincial towns exemplify more or less the cultural condition of the Reformation, and many members of the teaching professions belong, in the scope and content of their intellectual field, to the age of Enlightenment. There are many species that have vanished entirely: for example, the Classical type has vanished as completely as the Saurians and, like them, now only yields information about itself through imprints and fossil remains of various sorts.

The three aggregate ideas

The period with which we are now to deal, from the Seven Years’ War to the Congress of Vienna, does not admit even this limited comparison with the geological periods. There are three main streams which pervade the age, labelled Enlightenment, Revolution, and Classicism. By the first, in accordance with ordinary use, we mean the extreme rationalistic tendency of which we have already noted the preliminary stages, and of which the most important representatives were Locke in England, Voltaire in France, and Wolff in Germany. The term “Classicism,” too, hardly admits of misunderstanding. “Revolution,” however, needs perhaps a little elucidation; under this common denominator we include all the movements which are directed against what has hitherto been dominant and traditional, whether in the sphere of politics, of art, or of standards of life. Their aims are the remodelling of the State and society, the banning of all æsthetic canons, the dethronement of reason by feeling, and all this is in the name of the “Return to Nature.” But for the possibility of ambiguities, the whole tendency might be called naturalistic or activist.

To clear up the relationship of these three main currents we must have recourse to another geological parallel. Geology distinguishes “ stratified” and “mass” formations: in the former we find various rocks arranged in superimposed layers like the storeys of a house, the second is a block in which all kinds of rocks are mingled together. In our period the three main ideas were not arranged one on top of the other like sedimentary rocks, with the stratum of the Enlightenment coming first, then that of Revolution, and last that of Classicism, in the same way as sandstone, slate, and lime succeed one another on a mountain. Rather we have what the petrographer would call “sills” and “dikes,” for the whole age was permeated with all three tendencies. At most we might say that the strongest and widest-spreading phase of the Enlightenment was from the middle of the century till about 1770; that in the next quarter-century, from 1770 to 1795, it gave place to the Revolutionary current; and that in the last two decades, down to 1815, Classicism finally prevailed. Or, to keep to the metaphor: one type of rock predominates in each part of the mountain range, but all three are found in all parts of it. Right at the beginning of the period each one of the three movements appears with decisive and definitive activity. The Encyclopédie, the pioneer of the French Enlightenment, began to appear soon after the middle of the century; Rousseau’s Contrat social, the code of the French Revolution, was published one year before the end of the Seven Years’ War, Winckelmann’s art-history, the Bible of Classicism, a year after the Peace; and all three movements only reached their climax towards the end of the period, Enlightenment in Kant, Revolution in Napoleon, Classicism in Goethe.

In political history the epochal event of the French Revolution marks a clear gulf which more or less cuts the period into two discrete sections. For the moment we shall not pass beyond this boundary, except in our account of scientific studies, in which, to avoid later repetition, we shall extend our account to the end of the century.

The first world-war

The Seven Years’ War had a double significance for Europe: first, by giving Frederick the Great the opportunity to display his genius in its most brilliant form, it gave the world a spectacle such as it had not seen for centuries; secondly, it was the first world-war in the modern sense, being fought simultaneously in the four quarters of the world and having colonies as its true war-aim. The quarrel appeared to hinge on a few strips of Prussian territory; actually the stakes were immeasurably rich and extensive areas in the East and in America. Canada was conquered at Ross-bach, though none but British statesmen finally realized the interconnexion.

The mind that devised the Seven Years’ War was that of the Austrian minister Count Kaunitz, who pursued against Prussia an encircling policy similar to that of Edward VII against Germany a hundred and fifty years later. At first he had recommended the definite renunciation of Silesia, but later he felt his life-work to be the “abaissement” of Prussia and diplomatic preparation therefor; his scheme, which he called the “great idea” and prosecuted with unrelaxing vigour, was the union of Austria, Russia, and France against Frederick the Great. Several years spent as ambassador at the Court of Versailles had made such a Gallomaniac of him that he pretended to be capable only of a halting German. To withstand this threatened encircling by the great powers Frederick concluded the Westminster Convention with England, in which both powers bound themselves to prevent, with their united forces, the invasion of German territory by foreign troops. This purely defensive alliance then led to the Franco-Austrian Treaty of Alliance, which for France, who could only lose by it, was an unprecedented piece of folly, explicable only by the chaotic condition of the government.

In the non-European theatre the chief rivals were England and France, the latter of whom was joined by Spain in virtue of the Bourbon Family Compact. England was almost everywhere victorious. By the Treaty of Paris, France ceded to Britain Canada and the eastern half of Louisiana and (since the western half fell to Spain) was completely driven out of America. She also lost the Senegal region, though she recovered it twenty years later under the Treaty of Versailles. In East India the status quo was restored, but, since France surrendered all right to establish military settlements, this virtually implied the sole supremacy of Britain. Broadly speaking, Britain proved a selfish, unreliable, even a treacherous ally to Prussia, and both George II and George III were personally hostile to Frederick. William Pitt, the great imperialist statesman, to whom Britain owed all her successes in the war, was the only whole-hearted supporter of Prussia, and that out of an enlightened self-interest; later he was overthrown by the anti-Prussian Lord Bute. Russia’s attitude throughout the war was decided by the personal feelings of her rulers: Elizabeth hated Frederick, who had called her a “crowned harlot,” whereupon she incontinently plunged into the war; Peter III on the contrary was a fervid admirer of his and became his ally; Catherine II neither hated nor respected him and thus remained neutral. Sweden, too, in hopes of regaining lost ground, joined the coalition, but remained inactive. The states of the Empire also declared against Frederick, but gathered so feeble an army that they did the coalition more harm than good; Saxony, with hypocritical assurances of neutrality, watched for the moment to spring, but was conquered by Frederick immediately on the outbreak of hostilities and thereafter, during the whole war, treated as Prussian territory. Maria Theresa (in this war at least) pursued only anti-German aims: if the encircling powers had been victorious, East Prussia would have become Russian, Pomerania Swedish. Belgium, which the Empress would gladly have bartered, would have become French, simply in order that Silesia might again become Austrian: that is, half-Slav.

The three crises of the Seven Years’ War

Frederick’s plan, simple as it was brilliant, was the “blow at the heart” of Austria before Russia and France were prepared or even decided. With this object he moved into Saxony, defeating the Austrian army which had been hurried thither for its defence, at Lobositz; as a result this land was lost to Austria and became for Frederick a permanent base of enormous value. In the spring of the next year he advanced against the Austrians up to the environs of Prague, where, after the Prussian infantry had already begun to waver, the vigour of the cavalry and the heroic death of Schwerin brought about a decisive victory. The summer involved Frederick in three disasters. He was imprudent enough to attack Daun in an almost impregnable position near Kolin and, retreating with fearful loss, had to evacuate Bohemia, so that the entire initial plan was checkmated, with exceedingly serious consequences. The English were defeated at Hastenbeck by the French, who thereupon occupied Hanover and joined forces with the Imperial army. And, lastly, the Russians were victorious at Grossjägersdorf. Thus the concentric crushing of Frederick, which was the aim of the coalition, was on the point of realization, and the war was at its first crisis. But Frederick did not despair; he threw himself with extraordinary energy, caution, and rapidity against each one of his enemies separately, the French at Rossbach, the Austrians at Leuthen, and the Russians at Zorndorf. These magnificent successes, it is true, were followed by his defeat at Hochkirch by Laudon and Daun, but he quickly recovered. In the fourth year of the war came the second crisis, as a result of the complete exhaustion which threatened him: the battle of Kunersdorf against the Russians and the Austrians, which at first seemed almost won, ended in defeat, and at Maxen General Finck surrendered with thirteen thousand men. A second time Frederick succeeded in recovering his position by his startling success over Laudon at Liegnitz and over Daun at Torgau. In 1761, however, owing to the resignation of Pitt, he was flung into the third and most perilous crisis, from which he was rescued by the death of the Tsaritsa Elizabeth. A further defeat of Austria at Burkersdorf, the conclusion of peace between England and France, and the threatening attitude of Turkey finally drove Maria Theresa to the Peace of Hubertusburg, in which her only gain was the acquisition of the Prussian electoral vote in favour of her son.

The Frederician power

Frederick’s success in maintaining his position through all this defensive struggle cannot be adequately explained by his amazing strategic and organizing abilities; the only explanation is a mystical one, and lies in the profound fear of all mediocrity in the presence of genius, with the consequent shirking of final risks, and in the power of genius to force reality to its own will and to mould it after its own image. What we call achievements are fundamentally, and especially in the case of the creative genius, nothing more than a projection of personality realized in the external world, individual qualities transformed into actualities. Genius strides through the world like some mysterious fate, the emanation of a superhuman anonymous force — of which it itself not seldom stands in awe, for such was the feeling of Goethe and Nietzsche, of Michelangelo and Beethoven, at one and another climax of their lives. That, too, is always the attitude of a people to its heroes; the last of these legendary figures that Europe has experienced was Bismarck. What we call power — power over men and things, peoples and continents — has its source here: the eighteenth century never knew Prussia, always Frederick, as a great power, just as at the turn of the century there was no French, but only a Napoleonic, supremacy. In the same way a true instinct of history has called the Roman Empire Cæsarian and the Greek world-culture Alexandrian.

Like almost all great historical personages, Frederick stands on the bridge between two ages, marking the conclusion of the one, the rise of the other; he joins the absolutism and the artistic impulse of the Rococo with the liberalism and naturalism of the Enlightenment. His direct influence in this way, however, was only on the French Enlightenment; the German, of which Berlin became the centre, benefited only indirectly through the all-pervading intellectual awakening which had streamed from his personality. The qualities of French culture which particularly attracted him were just those that were least German, its playful humour, void of profundity, but also of heaviness; its cool and bright scepticism, with faith in nothing but itself, its penetrating wit, for which it had to pay the penalty in the loss of real creative ability. We can well believe that the choice was not hard between Voltaire and Nicolai, between Diderot and Ramler, and that he had no understanding in his old age for such wholly new phenomena as Götz or Die Räuber, or even the Critique of Pure Reason; but it is curious that he never felt any contact with Lessing, with whom he had so much in common. At bottom Lessing’s achievement, in his own field, was similar to Frederick’s. He fought on different fronts with vigour and originality, won for himself a victorious position, and in the end raised the realm in which he ruled to be one of the great powers of Europe.

Philanthropy of words

It would be a great mistake to think that during the French Enlightenment there was any conscious struggle against the aristocracy and the monarchy; on the contrary, the almost universal object of attack was the Church. Possibly a well-trained and politically experienced mind could have caught a glimpse of a general revolution even in this form of the opposition, but the French nobility of the time had no conception of national life and the motive forces of history. Above all they had no notion of money: the strongest power of modern civilization was unknown to them. In an age when religious and political disputes were soon to be replaced by economic, they were not only incompetent on all such questions, but literally uneducated. All they knew was that money was necessary; otherwise how could one spend it? Money was necessary, but to them the necessary was the obvious; money was like air, just as essential for life, but just as easy to acquire and hence just as valueless.

Until the last decades before the Revolution there was, superficially, the most beautiful harmony between government and people. On the accession of Louis XVI the cheers for the King lasted uninterruptedly from six in the morning until sunset; at the birth of the Dauphin strangers embraced each other in the stre...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copy Right Page
• Content Page
• Introduction to the Transaction Edition
• BOOK II Baroque and Rococo
• BOOK III Enlightenment and Revolution
• Index