The Rise of the Nation-State in Europe: Absolutism, Enlightenment and Revolution, 1603-1815

276 Pages·2017·11.45 MB·English

by  Jack L. Schwartzwald

The Rise of the
Nation-State in Europe
ALSOBYJACKL. SCHWARTZWALD
ANDFROMMCFARLAND
The Collapse and Recovery of Europe,
AD 476–1648(2016)
The Ancient Near East, Greece and Rome:
A Brief History(2014)
Nine Lives of Israel: A Nation’s History
through the Lives of Its Foremost Leaders(2012)
The Rise of the
Nation-State in Europe
Absolutism, Enlightenment
and Revolution, 1603–1815
J L. S
ACK CHWARTZWALD
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina
ISBN (print) 978-1-4766-6547-4
ISBN (ebook) 978-1-4766-2929-2
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUINGDATAAREAVAILABLE
BRITISHLIBRARYCATALOGUINGDATAAREAVAILABLE
© 2017 Jack L. Schwartzwald. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Front cover image of Emperor Napoleon I and His Staff on Horseback,
Horace Vernet, ca. 1815–1850, French oil painting © 2017 Shutterstock
Printed in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
Infondmemoryofmyfather,
Joseph Schwartzwald
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Table of Contents
Preface 1
Section I
Monarchy Absolute
Europe in the Age of Louis XIV
5
Section II
Monarchy Enlightened
Europe in the Age of the Enlightenment
64
Section III
Monarchy Overthrown
Europe in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Eras
129
Chapter Notes 231
Bibliography 250
Index 255
vii
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Preface
The Treaty of Westphalia, ending the devastation of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648),
marked the emergence of the nation- state as the dominant entity in European politics.1In
so doing, it ended an epoch begun more than a millennium earlier with the collapse of the
Roman system of “universal empire.” Rome’s fall in the 5th centuryADobliged the peoples
of Europe to seek protection locally within an evolving feudal system. At the dawn of the
9th century AD, the Frankish titan, Charlemagne, transiently restored a tenuous and super-
ficial universality to the West. By the memorable Treaty of Verdun (AD 843), his warring
grandsons destroyed it again, and it is here that the “history of Germany and of France as
separate nations begins… .”2
We may view the 800 years intervening between the treaties of Verdun and Westphalia
as a prolonged period of gestation during which kings slowly gained the upper hand over
feudal lords, but were constrained from gaining the upper hand over one another by
alliances of the weaker against the stronger, until it was finally determined that the nation-
state, and not a political or religious empire, should be the definite successor organization
to fallen Rome. But the nation- state was as yet in its swaddling clothes, with no fixed deter-
mination as to how it should be ruled.
The present volume charts the maturation of the nation- state from its infancy as a vir-
tual dynastic possession through its modern incarnation as the embodiment of the sover-
eign popular will. The text is organized into three sections. Section I, Monarchy Absolute,
chronicles an endeavor on the part of Europe’s ruling princes to reduce their respective
nation- states to the status of personal dominions. The experiment—most successful in
Bourbon France, an abject failure in Stuart England—witnesses the king as ruler by “divine
right,” theoretically wielding power absolutely and arbitrarily over a commonweal of obe-
dient subjects. The church and aristocracy—formerly a source of limitation on the royal
authority—are now the crown’s tame (and largely ornamental) supporters, retaining the
social privileges of a bygone feudal era at the expense of the toiling class though the feudal
obligations owed in return have long since lapsed.
In Section II, Monarchy Enlightened, the burdens imposed upon society by this jux-
taposition of privilege and servitude beget a new political philosophy, which asserts that
government should be a contract between ruler and ruled, obliging the former to govern
in the latter’s interest. The fashionable monarch now rules absolutely in order that he or
she might rule benevolently as guarantor of the nation- state’s safety and prosperity.3 That
the system remains dynastic, based on the aspirations of rulersrather than of peoples, may
be gleaned from the era’s final act—the partitioning to extinction of hapless Poland by
Enlightened Despotism’s most celebrated progeny, Frederick the Great of Prussia, Catherine
the Great of Russia and Joseph II of Austria.
1