CHAPTER THREE: Louis XIV Knows Weeds

continued from 8/13/2005

Nature strides in confidently in the eighteenth century. Not a return to the life of the hunter-gatherer, but as an ideal, brought about certainly in part by the decline of organized religion. As one who enjoys hiking up a mountain, I was brought up short the first time I realized that throughout most of history mountains were merely a pain in the neck or a good place to hide from something or someone.

It was not until the eighteenth century that one began hearing frequent, rhapsodic references to mountains. "Pregnant with religion and poetry," the English poet Thomas Gray said about a mountain he'd visited in 1739. Many Europeans with the time and the money were now hiking and visiting natural settings throughout Europe. A few were traveling abroad.

Of course some, like the Marquis de Sade, thought the only thing nature did was to make life miserable for humankind. If asked, the peasants who worked in the fields all day for wealthy landowners would probably have agreed with de Sade. But in spite of the few detractors two certifiable giants of the eighteenth century pushed nature to new heights and insured its importance. One was Rousseau and the other was Goethe.

The ideas of Jean Jacques Rousseau were often misunderstood, then and now. In basic terms he wanted to create a better society. His two most famous works are Emile and The Social Contract. The former is concerned with utopian education and the latter on a utopian society. Justice replaced instinct and man acquired a sense of morality, according to Rousseau, when he left a state-of-nature. He couldn't go back. While there had been certain advantages in nature, there were far more advantages outside of it. What was important was to strive toward that ideal. Rousseau believed the model society needed a credo that all its members could agree upon. All well and good; however, Rousseau went on to say that those that did not agree should be banished. His ideas were regularly interpreted by various individuals and groups to support their own purposes and ambitions.

The idea of the "noble savage" also became popular during this time. The supposed virtues of people like the Tahitians, the Chinese, and the American Indian--as well as the American colonist--were espoused throughout Europe. Many of the intellectuals believed these cultures lived in harmony with nature, unlike the Europeans. Others said Christian morality only resulted in crime and unhappiness.

While most of the supporters of these "natural" societies had not visited places like Tahiti, they could readily see what was happening in Europe. By the mid-1700s the Industrial Revolution was underway, at least in England. Those that had lost their land through the enclosure movement were crowding into the cities seeking any kind of work and living in incredible filth, squalor, and exploitation. That an idealized state of nature was attractive to so many people is not surprising.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, among his many achievements, was also an accomplished botanist, who had compiled numerous drawings of different plants. He believed all living things ( including plants ) were evolving to a more complex state; the important thing was not to interfere with this adaptation. While Goethe's ideas did not have a mass appeal, his beliefs became an important part of the intellectual ferment of the eighteenth century.

Rousseau, Goethe, and others placed nature, and its varied definitions, in the center of European thought. As Christianity lost much of its influence in a number of countries, it also saw its monopoly on Truth slipping away. Nature, encouraged by a number of sincere and highly articulate individuals, moved in quickly in an attempt to align truth with nature, making them inseparable.



In order to locate some of the ideas that blossomed in the eighteenth century, which in due course had an impact on our weed, we need to slip back into the previous century. As already mentioned, the seventeenth century was about a lot of things, but it was without a doubt the story of one person in particular: Louis XIV of France, the "Sun King."

Louis XIV became king in 1643. L'etat c'est moi, I am the state became the mantra of Louis' reign. He increased the power and the glory of the absolute monarchy to new heights, and French culture became the standard by which the rest of Europe measured itself. For perhaps forty or fifty years France was the most powerful military force in Europe. Louis also turned his father's hunting lodge, Versailles, into the spirit of the organized, authoritarian society, making it today one of the most popular--and crowded--tourist attractions in the world.

The Baroque style is a term used by art historians to denote a particular form that first developed in Italy near the end of the sixteenth century, but soon expanded to the rest of Europe and took on different shapes. Overall it tended to be a style that emphasized the ornate and elaborate, be it in architecture, in sculpture or in painting. In France it became known as "Baroque classicism," an expression of the king's absolutism. "Classical" is attached to Baroque during the reign of Louis XIV because of the comparison sometimes drawn between Louis' reign and classical antiquity in general. No one would ever accuse the "Sun King" of having a small ego.

The Louvre in Paris, one of the most famous museums in the world, exemplifies Louis' mindset. Work was begun on the unfinished building at the beginning of the king's reign. Before long it became obvious the building was to have an overall look of imperial Rome. The Louvre would be massive, austere, and radiating power, but it would also contain the Baroque style of curved walls, high domes and detailed carvings.

The place that puts its stamp on the age, however, was Versailles, that amazing monument to supreme human narcissism. It would eventually lead to a general weariness among Europeans, the near bankruptcy of France, and finally revolution a century later, carrying all of Europe along with it. But what a run while it lasted. Versailles was also where landscape design, gardens, and the search for weeds took a new path.
to be continued....

CHAPTER THREE: Louis XIV Knows Weeds

continued from 7/29/05

And they think we're burning witches when we're only burning weeds.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton 1874-1936

Plants have tiny mouths. This was not an uncommon belief among many Europeans in the eighteenth century. Loose soil, according to some people, made it easier for the plants to eat the dirt. Jethro Tull, an Englishman who invented the seed drill and horse drawn hoes in the early eighteenth century, believed soil that was powdery or flaky would supply all the nutrients a plant required.

The eighteenth century in Europe never had the flamboyance or excitement of the seventeenth or nineteenth century--at least that's what I thought as a student. In the seventeenth century witches were being burned, the Turks threatened Vienna, Protestants and Catholics were slaughtering one another, and those Four Musketeers were foiling the nefarious plots of Cardinal Richelieu. The nineteenth century was about revolution, Percy Bysshe Shelly giving his life for the liberation of Greece from the evil Turks, and Beethoven composing a symphony in praise of Napoleon, before the little general turned out to be just another despot.

The eighteenth century, however, was not dull and stogy. It was known as the age of enlightenment and reason, but it was definitely not devoid of passion and ideals. The century set in motion many of the ideas and the foundations that are part of our lives today, not only in the West but also throughout the world--for better and perhaps for worse.

New discoveries occurred in steady succession. A Swedish doctor, Carl Linneaus, arranged plants into 24 categories and systematized them in elaborate detail, a Frenchman created a 44-volume Natural History, possibly the most widely read scientific work of the century. Tull's invention allowed the sowing of seeds in uniform rows, which now permitted weeding between the rows of seedlings during their growth. Yields improved dramatically. The selective breeding of livestock started in the early 1700s, and the methodical attempt to study and control pests was spreading throughout Europe.

Two other changes at the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth century had a profound effect on agriculture and the lives of people. The first was the enclosure movement in England, which had started in the late seventeenth century. Hedges were now encircling more and more farmland. Before, land had been largely communal; everyone could graze their animals and raise crops on community land. But as new crops, new methods of breeding, and new cultivation techniques developed pressure grew to enclose the land, in order to improve both the yield and the quality, and insure better management. While the farming system was undoubtedly revolutionized, many people lost their land, became dispossessed, and had to find work in the cities.

With the spreading enclosure of land and the rising power of the landowners, the Norfolk Four-Course System was established. Throughout the Middle Ages and up to the late seventeenth century, fields lay fallow every three years; farmers slaughtered their farm animals in the fall because they had no forage crops to feed them in the winter. The Norfolk system changed all this.

The fallow year disappeared and fodder crops, such as cornstalks, hay, and straw, were fed to the animals. This produced a lot of manure and urine, enriching the soil and ultimately increasing the harvests. It was not long before these new methods and techniques spread to the rest of Europe.

But it was one grand change that would put its stamp firmly on the West in the eighteenth century. This change was secularization. Religion, up until this time, had been central to European civilization; it permeated everything. Religion ceased to have the same influence in the eighteenth century. Not that religious life and thought disappeared, but it receded to the margins.

The wars and upheaval that dominated the seventeenth century lessened in the eighteenth. This relative peace gave people--at least the wealthy and the educated--the opportunity to pursue scientific endeavors, consider new ideas, and travel. Other societies were discovered that were as "advanced" as Europe. Perhaps Christianity did not have the market on religious truth; doubt was cast on many of the old assumptions. The Christian doctrine of man's "unworthiness" was--if not discarded completely--locked away in the closet, as the citizens of Europe and the colonists in America embarked on new frontiers, both literally and figuratively.

In the eighteenth century the French salon established itself as one of the most influential institutions in Europe. It was also a place where women exerted considerable influence over the politics and the culture of the period. In addition to being places of intrigue and secret rendezvous, the salon was also where a few brilliant minds could meet others with the same brilliance. What kept these salons from becoming repositories of pompous hot air, according to Sir Kenneth Clark, was that the French upper classes were not "oppressively" rich.

A degree of wealth is needed for a civilization to progress Clark believed, but he thought massive wealth was harmful to most civilizations. He suggested that perhaps "splendor is dehumanizing," and we humans need some sense of limitation. One can agree or disagree with Clark's musings, but I can't help but think of our own "masters" of the universe in the 90s and the pathetic corporate criminals currently being led off in handcuffs. Will any new ideas result from all of these excesses? I think there are reasons to have serious doubts at this point in our history.

On Thomas Jefferson's tomb is inscribed the following: Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia. Nothing is written about his being the third president of the United States. But the inscription does say a great deal about Jefferson's ardent belief in clearly defined human rights (while not forgetting the institution of slavery ), that the state has no business in proselytizing religious views, and an educated citizenry is necessary for a democratic society to succeed. Jefferson was very much a man of the Enlightenment and of reason.
to be continued....