Page:EB1911 - Volume 20.djvu/795

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
  
PAPINIAN—PAPPENHEIM
739

of the opposition remained no less hostile than before, and in March 1837 the governor was authorized to reject the demand for constitutional reform and to apply public funds in his control to the purposes of government. In June a warning proclamation by the governor was answered by a series of violent speeches by Papineau, who in August was deprived of his commission in the militia.

Papineau had formerly professed a deep reverence for British institutions, and he had acquired a theoretical knowledge of the constitution, but he did not possess the qualities of a statesman, and consequently in his determination to apply the strict letter of the constitution he overlooked those elements and compensating forces and powers which through custom and usage had been incorporated in British institutions, and had given them permanence. In his earlier career he had voiced the aspirations of a section of the people at a time when it appeared to them that their national existence was threatened. In the course of time party strife became more bitter; real issues were lost sight of; and Papineau, falling in with the views of one O’Callaghan, who distrusted everything British, became an annexationist. Realizing that his cause was not advanced by persuasive eloquence, he adopted a threatening attitude which caused men of sober judgment to waver in their allegiance. These men he denounced as traitors; but a band of youthful enthusiasts encouraged their leader in his revolutionary course. The bishop of Montreal and of Quebec, and a large number of the citizens, protested, but nothing less than bloodshed would satisfy the misguided patriots. On the 23rd of October 1837 a meeting of delegates from the six counties of Lower Canada was held at St Charles, at which resistance to the government by force of arms was decided upon, and in which Papineau took part. In November preparations were made for a general stampede at Montreal, and on the 7th of the month Papineau’s house was sacked and a fight took place between the “constitutionals” and the “sons of liberty.” Towards the middle of November Colonel Gore was commanded to effect the arrest of Papineau and his principal adherents on a charge of high treason. A few hundred armed men had assembled at Saint Denis to resist the troops, and early on the morning of the 22nd of November hostilities commenced, which were maintained for several hours and resulted in many casualties. On the eve of the fray Papineau sought safety in flight, followed by the leading spirits of the movement. On the 1st of December 1837 a proclamation was issued, declaring Papineau a rebel, and placing a price upon his head. He had found shelter in the United States, where he remained in safety throughout the whole period of the fighting. The rebellion broke out afresh in the autumn of 1838, but it was soon repressed. Those taken in open rebellion were deported by Lord Durham to save them from the scaffold; and although 90 were condemned to death only 12 were executed.

Attempts have been made to transfer the responsibility for the act of violence to O’Callaghan and other prominent leaders in the revolt; but Papineau’s own words, “The patriots of this city would have avenged the massacre but they were so poor and so badly organized that they were not fit to meet the regular troops,” prove that he did not discountenance recourse to arms. Writing of the events of 1837 in the year 1848 he said: “The smallest success at Montreal or Toronto would have induced the American government, in spite of its president, to support the movement.” It would thus seem that he was intriguing to bring about intervention by the United States with a view to annexation; and as the independence of the French Canadian race, which he professed to desire, could not have been achieved under the constitution of the American republic, it is inconsistent to regard his services to his fellow-countrymen as those of a true patriot. Papineau, in pursuing towards the end a policy of blind passion, overlooked real grievances, and prevented remedial action. After the rebellion relief was accorded because the obstacle was removed, and it is evident that a broad-minded statesman, or a skilful diplomat, would have accomplished more for French Canada than the fiery eloquence and dubious methods of a leader who plunged his followers into the throes of war, and deserted them at the supreme moment. From 1839 till 1847 Papineau lived in Paris. In the latter year an amnesty was granted to those who had participated in the rebellion in Canada; and, although in June 1838 Lord Durham had issued a proclamation threatening Papineau with death if he returned to Canada, he was now admitted to the benefit of the amnesty. On his return to Canada, when the two provinces were now united, he became a member of the lower house and continued to take part in public life, demanding “the independence of Canada, for the Canadians need never expect justice from England, and to submit to her would be an eternal disgrace.” He unsuccessfully agitated for the re-division of upper and lower Canada, and in 1854 retired into private life. He died at Montebello, in the province of Quebec, on the 24th of September 1871.

See L. O. David, Les Deux Papineau; Fennings Taylor, Louis Joseph Papineau (Montreal, 1865); Alfred De Celles, Papineau-Cartier (Toronto, 1906); H. J. Morgan, Sketches of Celebrated Canadians (Quebec, 1862); Rose’s Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography Annual Register, 1836–1837; Sir Spencer Walpole, History of England (5 vols., London, 1878–1886), vol. iii.  (A. G. D.) 


PAPINIAN (Aemilius Papinianus), Roman jurist, was magister libellorum and afterwards praetorian prefect under Septimius Severus. He was an intimate friend of the emperor, whom he accompanied to Britain, and before his death Severus specially commended his two sons to his charge. Papinian tried to keep peace between the brothers, but with no better result than to excite the hatred of Caracalla, to which he fell a victim in the general slaughter of Geta’s friends which followed the fratricide of A.D. 212. The details are variously related, and have undergone legendary embellishment, but the murder of Papinian, which took place under Caracalla’s own eyes, was one of the most disgraceful crimes of that tyrant. Little more is known about Papinian. He was perhaps a Syrian by birth, for he is said to have been a kinsman of Severus’s second wife, JuHa Domna; that he studied law with Severus under Scaevola is asserted in an interpolated passage in Spartian (Caracal, c. 8). Papinian’s place and work as a jurist are discussed under Roman Law.


PAPPENHEIM, GOTTFRIED HEINRICH, Count of (1594–1632), imperial field marshal in the Thirty Years' War, was born on the 29th of May 1594 at the little town of Pappenheim on the Altmühl, now in Bavaria, the seat of a free lordship of the empire from which the ancient family to which he belonged derived its name.[1] He was educated at Altdorf and at Tübingen, and subsequently travelled in southern and central Europe, mastering the various languages, and seeking knightly adventures. His stay in these countries led him eventually to adopt the Roman Catholic faith (1614), to which he devoted the rest of his life. At the outbreak of the great war he abandoned the legal and diplomatic career on which he had embarked, and in his zeal for the faith took service in Poland and afterwards under the Catholic League. He soon became a lieutenant-colonel, and displayed brilliant courage at the battle of the White Hill near Prague (Nov. 8, 1620), where he was left for dead on the field. In the following year he fought against Mansfeld in western

  1. The family of Pappenheim is of great antiquity. In the 12th century they were known as the "marshals of Kalatin (Kalden); in the 13th they first appear as counts and marshals of Pappenheim, their right to the hereditary marshalship of the empire being confirmed to them by the emperor Louis IV. in 1334. After the Golden Bull of 1355 they held both marshalship and castle of Pappenheim as fiefs of the Saxon electorate. In the 17th century the family was represented by several lines: those of Pappenheim (which held the margraviate of Stühlingen till 1635), Treutlingen and Aletzheim, and the older branches (dating from the 13th and 14th centuries) of the marshals of Biberach and of Rechberg-Wertingen-Hohenreichen. Gottfried Heinrich, who belonged to the Treutlingen branch, was the only one of this ancient and widely ramified family to attain great distinction, though many other members of it played a strenuous, if subordinate, part in the history of Germany. The family, mediatized under Bavaria in 1806, survives now only in the descendants of the Aletzheim branch.