abode; regretfully, since, far from being one who had come back from the other world, he seemed rather possessed by the demon of the future. If ever he went out it was, owllike, at night, in his sorry gray cloak."*"Hardly was he king before he assumed the pilgrim's dress, the cloak of thick gray cloth, and travelling gaiters, and he retained it to the day of his death. Encamping rather than dwelling in the vast Hôtel des Tournelles, ever restless, his brain ever at work, 'refining day and night on men's thoughts,' no one would have taken him for the heir in the house of his fathers." The judgment of Michelet upon him is severe and unfavorable. This writer has diligently consulted the contemporary historians Chastellain, Lisieux, Commines, and others. But Commines, who was the king's most intimate friend, is much less severe, and in some respects laudatory. That Louis was not the wholly diabolical tyrant which novelists have delighted in representing him to be, has, we think, been proved by Duclos.§ According to him, Louis was liberal and friendly towards the "plebeian" classes, although suspicious and treacherous against the nobles. He would sometimes go from house to house to dine and sup with the citizens, and would invite to his own table any tradesman or foreigner from whom he could gain useful knowledge. He would inquire into their affairs, interpose in their marriages, and be godfather to their children. He was fond of jokes, and would take a smart repartee in good part. He was a lover and protector of learning, and compared an ignorant man who has a library to a man who sees not the load he has on his back. But with all this desire for knowledge he had always some astrologers in his pay, and believed in their power to foretell events. This, however, was the error of the age. He did many acts of charity to the poor, but withal he was a cruel prince towards those who sought *"Il avait plutôt l'air d'une âme en peine, qui à regret hantait le vieux logis; à regret, loin d'être un revenant, il semblait bien plutôt possédé du démon de l'avenir. S'il sortit des Tournelles, c'etait la soir, en hibon, dans sa triste cape grise."-1. xiii., c. 1. † "Personne ne l'eût pris pour l'héritier dans la maison de ses pères."—Ibid. See his summary of the character of Louis XI., book vi., c. 12. St. ii., pp. 350-9. to thwart his schemes; and he was a bad son. There is difference of opinion as to his political wisdom. He certainly was adroit at extricating himself from difficulties, but not so at preventing them. He made a great oversight on his accession to the throne in turning out all the old ministers of his father. It made them his enemies and brought on the war for the public good. He ran needless risk at Peronne, and he overlooked the desirable match with Anne of Brittany for his son to run after Mary of Burgundy. He was very fond of the dauphin, and treated him with too great indulgence. The results of his reign have been thus summed up by Duclos. He kept up necessary armies, fortified or rebuilt towns, settled manufactures, made rivers navigable, built edifices, and gained his enemies by money, to spare the blood of his subjects. He gained more conquests by his policy than other kings do by arms. He enlarged the kingdom by adding to it the county of Roussillon, the two Burgundies, Artois, Picardy, Provence, Anjou, and Maine. He reduced the house of Armagnac, divided that of Foix, humbled the great men, restrained their outrages, and concluded with making a glorious peace, leaving at his death an army of sixty thousand men in good condition; a train of artillery complete, and all the strong places fortified and furnished with provisions."* To this we may add that, in an age which produced rulers like Charles the Bold, Pius II., Edward IV., Ferdinand and Isabella, Matthias Corvinus, Sforza, Cosmo de' Medici, George Podiebrad, Scanderbeg, Ivan III., Casimir IV., Sten Sture, and Mahomet II., Louis was able to hold his ground against the best of them. In contemporary history the name of Louis XI. stands out prominently. All the neighboring potentates feared him, and he left France to his son and successor Charles VIII., the most powerful nation in western Europe. The encouragement he gave to learning bore fruit in the next generation, with Rabelais and the wits, poets and historians of the court of Francis I., who was mainly indebted to him for the means of carrying on his great contest with Charles V. * Vol. ii., p. 360. 1 ART. IV.-1. Stimulants and Narcotics, their mutual relations, with special researches on the action of Alcohol, Ether, and Chloroform, on the Vital Organism. By FRANCIS E. ANSTIE, M. D., M. R. C. P. London. 2. Twelve Years in China. The People, the Rebels, and the Mandarins. By a BRITISH RESIDENT. With Illustrations. Edinburgh. 3. The Opium Trade. By NATHAN ALLEN, M. D. Lowell. 4. The Opium Habit, with suggestions as to its remedy. New York. 1868. FEW are aware of the magnitude of the evil of opium eating, or of the extent to which it is carried, not merely in China, which is, par excellence, the opium-consuming country, but in Europe, Asia and on this continent. Opium, pure and simple, or in the form of laudanum or morphine, is consumed in the United States habitually by thousands of persons. The number of confirmed opium eaters in this country is not less, judging from the testimony of druggists in all parts of the land, as well as from other sources, than from eighty to one hundred thousand. The classes who are the chief consumers are professional and literary men, persons suffering from protracted nervous disorders, women obliged by their necessities to work beyond their strength, and, in brief, all whose business, or vices make special demands upon the nervous system. Maimed and shattered survivors from a hundred battle-fields, diseased and disabled soldiers released from hostile prisons, grieved and hopeless wives and mothers made wretched by the slaughter of those who were dearest to them, have also resorted to opium for relief. It is probable, therefore, that the number of consumers has been underrated. But in treating the subject, the physician or statistician labors under the disadvantage of the want of proper and sufficient statistics. The habit of taking opium is frequently, perhaps mostly, practised in secret, and ordinarily it is not until it has produced some fearful effects upon the system that the physician is called in. As opium, laudanum and morphine are prescribed for a variety of complaints, the reports of druggists as to the quantity sold must be taken with an allowance. Thus it will be seen that until some plan shall be organized whereby the statistics of opium eating shall be ascertained, no certain statement can be made respecting the number of consumers in this country. Dr. Nathan Allen, of Massachusetts, who devoted great attention to the subject, twenty years ago, estimated the number of persons who habitually consumed opium in China at four millions. But since he wrote, the Chinese government has been compelled by England to throw open its ports and legalize the traffic in the pernicious drug, so that the number of consumers in that country has indefinitely increased. There has been an increase of them in India and Turkey, and, in fact, throughout Asia, but no reliable statistics can be procured beyond such as may be made out from the quantity of land under cultivation of the poppy, and the number of chests exported. The opium-producing countries are Turkey and India. Most of that used for medicinal purposes in Europe and America is imported from the former country, but the latter produces the greatest quantity. It has been estimated that more than one hundred thousand acres of the richest plains of central India are occupied in the production of the poppy, giving employment to many thousands of men, women and children. The plant is also extensively cultivated in Malna, a province of Western India about four hundred miles from Bombay, which is its principal market. From the official report of the chief articles of trade exported from that city (with the exception of cotton) the capital invested in the opium traffic is greater than that invested in any other article. Some idea of the quantity sold may be formed from the statement of the returns furnished to the Indian government. The value of the opium exported from Bombay in 1850-1 was £2,304,060; in 1853-4 it amounted to £2,748,135; in 1860-1 it ran up to £6,609,599, and decreased in 1863-4 to £5,348,158. The total value of the exports of all articles of commerce in those years was respectively £6,760,464; £8,138,542; £17,564,881; £38,568, 725.* The value of the opium exported from Calcutta during the same years respectively was £3,155,075; £3,688,963; £3,575,114; £5,207,236; and the total value of all articles exported was, respectively, £10,273,857; £10,571,217; £13,654,509; £19,328,766. The immense increase in the exports during 1863 was owing to the demand for cotton, in consequence of the cessation of the supply from our southern states, owing to the war. Formerly the price paid to the cultivator of opium was about 240 rupees ($120) a chest, and the government revenue from opium amounted to oneseventh of the total income of the Indian empire. Of this, about £1,000,000 in round numbers was produced by the duties levied in Bombay, and £3,000,000 by the monthly sale of opium in Calcutta: in all £4,000,000.† This will account for the haste with which England entered into a war with China when the government of that country scized the opium in the Canton merchants' storehouses, and prohibited its further prohibited its further importation. Prior to 1855 the average production of the drug in Bengal was 36,000 chests, and the average price of each chest was 1050 rupees. But in that year the government removed certain restrictions on the cultivation of the poppy. Any one was thereupon allowed to raise it to any extent he pleased, though he was bound to sell it at a fixed price, settled beforehand, and never altered, to the opium agent. The profit on this price is so great that the peasants will cultivate it wherever it will grow. The result of this government measure was an increase of production which raised the sales to about 50,000 chests. The price of the article fell. The chests which formerly brought 1050 rupees now sold for 600, and the difference in quantity no longer compensates for the difference in price. For the successful cultivation of the poppy, a mild climate, rich soil, plentiful irrigation, and diligent husbandry are ab art. * McCulloch, Dictionary of Commerce, art. "Bombay." 1869. + Cyclopedia of Commerce and Commercial Navigation, by J. Smith Honans, India." |