title: Pierre Laval

text: Abandoning natural science studies, Laval eventually turned to law and became in 1909 a "lawyer of the poor people", who was near syndicalists of the CGT. The years before the First World War were characterised by labour unrest, and Laval defended strikers, trade unionists and left-wing agitators against government attempts to prosecute them. At a trade union conference, Laval said:


title: Pierre Laval

text: The first case that led him to fame was the acquittal of Gustave Manhès, a revolutionary trade unionist who had been charged with possession of explosives and anarchist manuals.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Laval married Jeanne Claussat in 1909, the daughter of the Socialist politician Dr Joseph Claussat. Their only child, a daughter named Josée, was born in 1911. Josée married René de Chambrun, whose uncle, Nicholas Longworth III, married Alice Roosevelt, the daughter of US President Theodore Roosevelt. Although Laval's wife came from a political family, she never participated in politics. Laval was generally considered to be devoted to his family.


title: Pierre Laval

text: In 1911, he stood for the National Assembly in the Neuilly-Boulogne electoral district and caused the conservative candidate Édouard Nortier to win since Laval stood in the second round despite the Radical candidate, Alexandre Percin, doing so as well.


title: Pierre Laval

text: In April 1914, as fear of war swept the nation, the Socialists and Radicals geared up their electoral campaign in defence of peace. Their leaders were Jean Jaurès and Joseph Caillaux. The Bloc des Gauches ("Lefts Bloc") denounced the law passed in July 1913 that extended compulsory military service from two to three years.


title: Pierre Laval

text: In the 1914 legislative election, held three months before the outbreak of World War I, the trade unions sought Laval as the Socialist candidate for the Seine, the district comprising Paris and its suburbs. Laval was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in the second electoral district of Saint-Denis. At nearly 31, he was the youngest member of the Chamber.


title: Pierre Laval

text: The Radicals, with the support of Socialists, held the majority in the French Chamber of Deputies. Together, they hoped to avert war, but the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on 28 June 1914 and of Jaurès on 31 July 1914 shattered those hopes. Laval's brother, Jean, died in the first months of the war.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Laval was listed in the "Carnet B", a compilation of potentially subversive elements that might hinder mobilisation. In the name of national unity, Minister of the Interior Jean-Louis Malvy, despite pressure from chiefs of staff, refused to have anyone apprehended. Laval remained true to his pacifist convictions during the war. In December 1915, Jean Longuet, the grandson of Karl Marx, proposed to Socialist parliamentarians that they communicate with socialists of other states in the hope of pressing governments into a negotiated peace. Laval signed on, but the motion was defeated.


title: Pierre Laval

text: With France's resources geared for war, goods were scarce or overpriced. On 30 January 1917, in the National Assembly Laval called upon Supply Minister Édouard Herriot to deal with the inadequate coal supply in Paris. When Herriot said, "If I could, I would unload the barges myself", Laval retorted, "Do not add ridicule to ineptitude". Those words delighted the Assembly and attracted the attention of Georges Clemenceau but left the relationship between Laval and Herriot permanently strained.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Laval scorned the conduct of the war and the poor supply of troops in the field. When mutinies broke out after General Robert Nivelle's offensive of April 1917 at Chemin des Dames, he spoke in defence of the mutineers. When Marcel Cachin and Marius Moutet returned from St. Petersburg in June 1917 with the invitation to a socialist convention in Stockholm, Laval saw a chance for peace. In an address to the Assembly, he urged the chamber to allow a delegation to go: "Yes, Stockholm, in response to the call of the Russian Revolution... Yes, Stockholm, for peace... Yes, Stockholm the polar star." The request was denied.


title: Pierre Laval

text: The hope of peace in spring 1917 was overwhelmed by discovery of traitors, some real and some imagined, as with Malvy, who became a suspect because he had refused to arrest Frenchmen on the "Carnet B". Laval's "Stockholm, étoile polaire" speech had not been forgotten. Many of Laval's acquaintances, the publishers of the anarchist "Bonnet rouge" and other pacifists were arrested or interrogated. Though Laval frequented pacifist circles (it was said that he was acquainted with Leon Trotsky), the authorities did not pursue him. His status as a deputy, his caution and his friendships protected him. In November 1917, Clemenceau became Prime Minister and offered Laval a post in his government. Laval refused, as the Socialist Party refused to enter any government, but he questioned the wisdom of such a policy in a meeting of Socialist deputies.


title: Pierre Laval

text: In the 1919 elections the Socialists' record of pacifism, their opposition to Clemenceau and anxiety arising from the excesses of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia contributed to their defeat by the conservative National Bloc. Laval lost his seat in the Chamber of Deputies.


title: Pierre Laval

text: The General Confederation of Labour (Confédération Générale du Travail - CGT), with 2,400,000 members, launched a general strike in 1920, which petered out with thousands of workers being laid off. In response, the government sought to dissolve the CGT. Laval, with Joseph Paul-Boncour as chief counsel, defended the union's leaders and saved the union by appealing to Interior Minister Théodore Steeg and Commerce and Industry Minister Auguste Isaac.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Laval's relations with the Socialist Party drew to an end. The last years with the Socialist caucus, combined with the party's disciplinary policies, eroded Laval's attachment to the cause. With the Bolshevik victory in Russia, the party was changing. At the Congress of Tours in December 1920, the Socialists split into two ideological components: the French Communist Party (SFIC, later PC-SFIC), which was inspired by Moscow, and the more moderate French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO). Laval let his membership lapse and did not take sides as both factions battled over the legacy of Jean Jaurès.


title: Pierre Laval

text: In 1923, Aubervilliers, north of Paris, needed a mayor. As a former deputy of the constituency, Laval was an obvious candidate. To be eligible for election, Laval bought farmland, Les Bergeries. Few were aware of his defection from the Socialists. Laval was also asked by the local SFIO and Communists to head their lists. Laval chose to run under his own list of former Socialists whom he had convinced to leave the party and to work for him. The independent Socialist Party of sorts existed only in Aubervilliers. In a four-way race, Laval won in the second round. He served as mayor of Aubervilliers until just before his death.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Laval was seen as ""; a joke stated that he was so clever that he was born with a name that is spelled the same from left or from right. Laval won over those whom he had defeated by cultivating personal contacts. He developed a network among the humble and the well-to-do in Aubervilliers and with mayors of neighbouring towns. He was the only independent politician in the suburb and avoided entering the ideological war between socialists and communists.


title: Pierre Laval

text: In the 1924 legislative elections, the SFIO and the Radicals formed a national coalition, known as the Cartel des Gauches. Laval headed a list of independent socialists in the Seine. The Cartel won, and Laval regained a seat in the National Assembly. His first act was to bring back Joseph Caillaux, a former Prime Minister, Cabinet member and member of the National Assembly who had once been the star of the Radical Party. Clemenceau had had Caillaux arrested toward the end of the war for collusion with the enemy. Caillaux spent two years in prison and lost his civic rights. Laval successfully fought for Caillaux's pardon, and Caillaux became an influential patron.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Laval's reward for support of the Cartel was appointment as Minister of Public Works in the government of Paul Painlevé in April 1925, but six months later, the government collapsed. Laval from then on belonged to the club of former ministers from which new ministers were drawn. Between 1925 and 1926, Laval participated three more times in governments of Aristide Briand, once as under-secretary to the Prime Minister and twice as Minister of Justice ("garde des sceaux"). When he first became Minister of Justice, Laval abandoned his law practice to avoid a conflict of interest.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Laval's momentum was frozen after 1926 by a reshuffling of the Cartel majority orchestrated by the Radical-Socialist mayor and deputy of Lyon, Édouard Herriot. Founded in 1901, the Radical Party became the hinge faction of the Third Republic, and its support or defection often meant the survival or the collapse of governments. Through that latest swing, Laval was excluded from the government of France for four years. Author Gaston Jacquemin suggested that Laval chose not to partake in a Herriot government, which he judged to be incapable of handling the financial crisis. Although 1926 marked the definitive break between Laval and the left, he maintained friends on the left.


title: Pierre Laval

text: In 1927, Laval was elected Senator for the Seine, which withdrew him from and placed himself above the political battles for majorities in the Chamber of Deputies. He longed for a constitutional reform to strengthen the executive branch and to eliminate political instability, a major flaw of the Third Republic.


title: Pierre Laval

text: On 2 March 1930, Laval returned as Minister of Labour in the second André Tardieu government. Tardieu and Laval knew each other from the days of Clemenceau and had come to appreciate each other's qualities. Tardieu needed men he could trust since his previous government had collapsed a little over a week earlier because of the defection of Labour Minister Louis Loucheur. However, when the Radical Socialist Camille Chautemps failed to form a viable government, Tardieu was called back.


title: Pierre Laval

text: From 1927 to 1930, Laval began to accumulate a sizeable personal fortune. After the war, his wealth resulted in charges that he had used his political position to line his own pockets. "I have always thought", he wrote to the examining magistrate on 11 September 1945, "that a soundly based material independence, if not indispensable, gives those statesmen who possess it a much greater political independence". Until 1927, his principal source of income had been his fees as a lawyer and in that year, they totalled 113,350 francs, according to his income tax returns. Between August 1927 and June 1930, he undertook large-scale investments in various enterprises that totalled 51 million francs. Not all of that money was his own, but some came from a group of financiers that had the backing of an investment trust, the Union Syndicale et Financière, as well as two banks, the Comptoir Lyon Allemand and the Banque Nationale de Crédit.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Two of the investments that Laval and his backers acquired were provincial newspapers, "Le Moniteur du Puy-de-Dôme" and its associated printing works at Clermont-Ferrand, and the Lyon "Républicain". The circulation of the "Moniteur" had stood at 27,000 in 1926 before Laval took it over. By 1933, it had more than doubled, peaking at 58,250 but declining thereafter. Profits varied, but during the 17 years of his control, Laval earned some 39 million francs in income from the paper and the printing works combined. The renewed plant was valued at 50 million francs, which led the High Court expert in 1945 to say with some justification that it had been "an excellent deal for him".


title: Pierre Laval

text: More than 150,000 textile workers were on strike, and violence was feared. As Minister of Public Works in 1925, Laval had ended the strike of mine workers. Tardieu hoped he could do the same as Minister of Labour. The conflict was settled without bloodshed. The Socialist politician Léon Blum, never one of Laval's allies, conceded that Laval's "intervention was skilful, opportune and decisive".


title: Pierre Laval

text: Social insurance had been on the agenda for ten years. It had passed the Chamber of Deputies but not the Senate, in 1928. Tardieu gave Laval until May Day to get the project through. The date was chosen to stifle the agitation of Labour Day. Laval's first effort went into clarifying the muddled collection of texts. He then consulted employer and labour organisations. Laval had to reconcile the divergent views of Chamber and Senate. "Had it not been for Laval's unwearying patience", Laval's associate Tissier wrote, "an agreement would never have been achieved".


title: Pierre Laval

text: In two months, Laval presented the Assembly a text that overcame its original failure. It met the financial constraints, reduced the control of the government and preserved the choice of doctors and their billing freedom. The Chamber and the Senate passed the law with an overwhelming majority.


title: Pierre Laval

text: When the bill had passed its final stages, Tardieu described his Minister of Labour as "displaying at every moment of the discussion as much tenacity as restraint and ingenuity".


title: Pierre Laval

text: Tardieu's government ultimately proved unable to weather the Oustric Affair. After the failure of the Oustric Bank, it appeared that members of the government had improper ties to it. The scandal involved Justice Minister Raoul Péret and Under-Secretaries Henri Falcoz and Eugène Lautier. Tardieu had not been involved, but on 4 December 1930, he lost his majority in the Senate. President Gaston Doumergue called on Louis Barthou to form a government, but Barthou failed to do so. Doumergue turned to Laval, who fared no better. The following month, the government that was formed by Théodore Steeg floundered.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Doumergue renewed his offer to Laval. On 27 January 1931, Laval successfully formed his first government.


title: Pierre Laval

text: In the words of its leader, Léon Blum, the Socialist opposition was amazed and disappointed that the ghost of Tardieu's government had reappeared within a few weeks of being defeated with Laval at its head "like a night bird surprised by the light". Laval's nomination as prime minister led to speculation that Tardieu, the new agriculture minister, held the real power in the government.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Although Laval thought highly of Tardieu and Briand and applied policies in line with theirs, however, Laval was not Tardieu's mouthpiece. Ministers who formed the Laval government were in great part those who had formed Tardieu's governments but that was a function of the composite majority thaf Laval could find at the National Assembly. Raymond Poincaré, Aristide Briand and Tardieu had offered ministerial posts to Herriot's Radicals but to no avail.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Besides Briand, André Maginot, Pierre-Étienne Flandin and Paul Reynaud, Laval brought in as his advisors, friends such as Maurice Foulon from Aubervilliers and Pierre Cathala. Laval had known Cathala in Bayonne, and Cathala had worked in Laval's Labour Ministry. Cathala began as Under-Secretary of the Interior and was appointed as Minister of the Interior in January 1932. Blaise Diagne of Senegal, the first African deputy, had been elected to the National Assembly at the same time as Laval in 1914. Laval invited Diagne to join his cabinet as Under-Secretary to the Colonies. Diagne was the first Black African appointed to a cabinet position in a French government. Laval also called on financial experts such as Jacques Rueff, Charles Rist and Adéodat Boissard. André François-Poncet was appointed as Laval's Under-Secretary and then as ambassador to Germany. Laval's government included an economist, Claude-Joseph Gignoux, when economists in government service were still rare.


title: Pierre Laval

text: France in 1931 was unaffected by the world economic crisis. Laval declared on embarking for the United States on 16 October 1931, "France remained healthy thanks to work and savings". Agriculture, small industry and protectionism were the bases of France's economy. With a conservative policy of contained wages and limited social services, France had accumulated the largest gold reserves in the world after the United States. France reaped the benefit of devaluation of the franc that had been orchestrated by Poincaré, which made French products competitive on the world market. In all of France, only 12,000 people were recorded as unemployed.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Laval and his cabinet considered the economy and gold reserves as means to diplomatic ends. Laval left to visit London; Berlin; and Washington, DC. He attended conferences on the world crisis, war reparations and debt, disarmament and the gold standard.


title: Pierre Laval

text: In 1931, Austria underwent a banking crisis when its largest bank, the Creditanstalt, was revealed to be nearly bankrupt. That threatened a worldwide financial crisis, and world leaders began negotiating the terms for an international loan to Austria's central government to sustain its financial system. However, Laval blocked the proposed package for nationalist reasons and demanded for France to receive a series of diplomatic concessions in exchange for its support, including renunciation of a prospective German-Austrian customs union. That proved to be fatal for the negotiations, which ultimately fell through. As a result, the Creditanstalt declared bankruptcy on 11 May 1931 and precipitated a crisis that quickly spread to other nations. Within four days, bank runs in Budapest, Hungary, were underway, and bank failures began spreading to Germany, Britain and elsewhere.


title: Pierre Laval

text: The Hoover Moratorium on 20 June 1931, a proposal made by US President Herbert Hoover to freeze all intergovernmental debt repayments for a one-year period, was according to the author and political advisor McGeorge Bundy "the most significant action taken by an American president for Europe since Woodrow Wilson's administration." The United States had enormous stakes in Germany since long-term German borrowers owed the US private sector more than $1.25 billion, and the short-term debt neared $1 billion. By comparison, the entire US national income in 1931 was only $54 billion. To put that into perspective, the authors Walter Lippmann and William O. Scroggs stated in "The United States in World Affairs, an Account of American Foreign Relations", that "the American stake in Germany's government and private obligations was equal to half that of all the rest of the world combined".


title: Pierre Laval

text: The proposed moratorium would also benefit Britain's investment in Germany's private sector by making more likely that those loans would be repaid while the public indebtedness was frozen. It was in Hoover's interest to offer aid to an ailing British economy in the light of the British debt to the United States. France, on the other hand, had a relatively small stake in Germany's private debt but a huge interest in German reparations, and payments to France would be compromised under the Hoover Moratorium.


title: Pierre Laval

text: The scheme was further complicated by ill timing; the perception of collusion by the Americans, British and Germans; and its breaching of the Young Plan. Such breach could be approved in France only by the National Assembly, and the survival of Laval's government rested on the legislature's approval of the moratorium. Seventeen days elapsed between the proposal and the vote of confidence in the legislature. That delay was blamed for the lack of success of the Hoover Moratorium although the US Congress did not approve it until December 1931.


title: Pierre Laval

text: In support of the Hoover Moratorium, Laval undertook a year of personal and direct diplomacy by which he traveled to London, Berlin and Washington. There were considerable domestic achievements to his name, but his international efforts were short on results. British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald and British Foreign Secretary Arthur Henderson were preoccupied by internal political divisions and the collapse of the pound sterling and so were unable to help. German Chancellor Heinrich Brüning and Foreign Minister Julius Curtius were eager for Franco-German reconciliation but were under siege on all sides. They faced a very weak economy, which made meeting the government payroll a weekly miracle. Private bankruptcies and constant layoffs had the Communists on a short fuse. At the other end of the political spectrum, the German Army spied on the Brüning cabinet and fed information to "Der Stahlhelm" and the National Socialists, which effectively froze any overtures towards France.


title: Pierre Laval

text: In the United States, the conference between Hoover and Laval was an exercise in mutual frustration. Hoover's plan for a reduced military had been rebuffed, albeit gently. A solution to the Danzig Corridor problem had been retracted. The concept of introducing a silver standard for countries that left the gold standard was viewed by Laval and François Albert-Buisson as a frivolous proposal. Hoover thought that it might have helped "Mexico, India, China and South America", but Laval dismissed the silver solution as an inflationary proposition and added that "it was cheaper to inflate paper."


title: Pierre Laval

text: Laval did not get a security pact without which the French would never consider disarmament, and he did not obtain an endorsement for the political moratorium. The promise to match any reduction of German reparations with a decrease of the French debt was not put in the communiqué. The joint statement declared the attachment of France and the United States to the gold standard.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Both governments also agreed that the Banque de France and the Federal Reserve would consult each other before transfers of gold. That was welcome news after the run on American gold in the preceding weeks. In light of the financial crisis, the leaders agreed to review the economic situation in Germany before the Hoover Moratorium had run its course.


title: Pierre Laval

text: There were meagre political results. The Hoover–Laval encounter, however, had other effects by making Laval more widely known and raising his standing in the United States and France. The American and French press were smitten. His optimism was such a contrast to his grim-sounding international contemporaries that in "Time" magazine named him as the 1931 Man of the Year, an honour that had never bestowed before on a Frenchman. Laval followed Mohandas K. Gandhi and preceded Franklin D. Roosevelt in receiving the honour.


title: Pierre Laval

text: The second Cartel des Gauches resigned after the 6 February 1934 crisis had involved anti-parliamentarist groups of far-right leagues, veterans organizations and the French Communist Party(PCF). Laval and Marshal Philippe Pétain had contacts with some conservative politicians among the groups involved. Laval became Minister of Colonies in the new conservative government of Gaston Doumergue. In October, Foreign Minister Louis Barthou was assassinated. Laval succeeded him and held that office until 1936.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Laval was then opposed to Germany, the "hereditary enemy" of France, and pursued anti-German alliances. He met with Mussolini in Rome, and both signed the Franco-Italian Agreement on 4 January 1935. It ceded parts of French Somaliland to Italy and allowed it a free hand in Abyssinia in exchange for support against any German aggression. Laval denied that he had given Mussolini a free hand in Abyssinia and even wrote to "Il Duce" on the subject. Also in January, Laval became the first member of a French Government to visit the Vatican since Napoleon; he was enthusiastically received by Pope Pius XI, and awarded with the Grand Cross of the Order of Pius IX. In April 1935, Laval persuaded Italy and Britain to join France in the Stresa Front against German ambitions in Austria. On 2 May 1935, he likewise signed the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Laval's primary aim before the Italo-Abyssinian War was to retain Italy as an anti-German power and to avoid driving it into Germany's hands by adopting a hostile attitude to an invasion of Abyssinia. According to the British historian Correlli Barnett, in Laval's view, "all that really mattered was Nazi Germany. His eyes were on the demilitarised zone of the Rhineland; his thoughts on the Locarno guarantees. To estrange Italy, one of the Locarno powers, over such a question as Abyssinia did not appeal to Laval's Auvergnat peasant mind".


title: Pierre Laval

text: In June 1935, Laval became Prime Minister as well. In October 1935, Laval and British Foreign Minister Samuel Hoare proposed a "realpolitik" solution to the Abyssinia Crisis. After its leak to the media in December, the Hoare–Laval Pact was widely denounced as appeasement of Mussolini. Laval was forced to resign on 22 January 1936, and was driven completely out of ministerial politics. The victory of the Popular Front in the 1936 French legislative election meant that Laval was out of power, but he had a left-wing government to target in his media.


title: Pierre Laval

text: During the Phoney War, Laval was cautiously ambivalent towards the conflict. He was on record as saying in March 1940 that although the war could have been avoided by diplomatic means, it was now up to the government to prosecute it with the utmost vigour.


title: Pierre Laval

text: On 9 June 1940, the Germans were advancing on a front of more than long across the entire width of France. As far as General Maxime Weygand was concerned, "if the Germans crossed the Seine and the Marne, it was the end". Simultaneously, Marshal Philippe Pétain was increasing the pressure upon Prime Minister Paul Reynaud to call for an armistice. Meanwhile, Laval was in Châteldon. On 10 June, in view of the German advance, the government left Paris for Tours. Weygand had informed Reynaud that "the final rupture of our lines may take place at any time". Then, "our forces would continue to fight until their strength and resources were extinguished. But their disintegration would be no more than a matter of time". Weygand had avoided using the word "armistice", but it was on the minds of all of those who were involved and was opposed to by Reynaud.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Laval had meanwhile left Châteldon for Bordeaux, where his daughter nearly convinced him of the necessity of going to the United States. Instead, it was reported that he was sending "messengers and messengers" to Pétain.


title: Pierre Laval

text: As the Germans occupied Paris, Pétain was asked to form a new government. To everyone's surprise, he produced a list of his ministers, which was convincing proof that he had been expecting and had been prepared for the President's summons. When he was informed that he was to be appointed Minister of Justice, Laval's temper and ambitions became apparent as he ferociously demanded of Pétain, despite the objections of other men of government, to make him Minister of Foreign Affairs. Laval realised that only through that position could he effect a reversal of alliances and bring himself to favour with Nazi Germany, the military power that he viewed as the inevitable victor. However, Permanent Under-Secretary François Charles-Roux refused to serve under Laval. One consequence of those events was that Laval was later able to claim that he had not been part of the government that requested the armistice. His name did not appear in the chronicles of events until June, when he began to assume a more active role in criticising the government's decision to leave France for North Africa.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Although the final terms of the armistice were harsh, the French colonial empire was left untouched, the French Navy was maintained, and the French government was nominally allowed to administer the occupied and unoccupied zones if it obeyed German directives. The concept of "collaboration" had been written into the Armistice Convention before Laval joined the government. The French representatives who affixed their signatures to the text accepted the term:


title: Pierre Laval

text: By then, there was very little left of Laval the socialist. He now openly sympathized with National Socialism and was convinced that Germany would win the war. For that reason, Laval felt France needed to emulate the Third Reich and its totalitarian regime as much as possible. To that end, when he was included in the Cabinet as minister of state, Laval set about with the work for which he is remembered: dismantling the Third Republic and its democracy and taking up the fascist cause.


title: Pierre Laval

text: In October 1940, Laval understood collaboration more or less in the same sense as Pétain. For both, that meant giving up the least possible to get the most in return. Laval, in his role of go-between, was forced to be in constant touch with the German authorities, to shift ground, to be wily and to plan ahead. All of that under the circumstances drew more attention to him than to the Marshal and made him appear to many Frenchmen as "the agent of collaboration", and to others, he was "the Germans' man".


title: Pierre Laval

text: The meetings between Pétain and Adolf Hitler and between Laval and Hitler are often used as evidence of Vichy collaboration with the Nazis. In fact, Montoire (24–26 October 1940) was a disappointment to both sides. Hitler wanted France to declare war on Britain, and the French wanted improved relations with their conqueror. Neither happened, and virtually the only concession that the French obtained was the 'Berlin Protocol' of 16 November 1940, which provided for the release of certain categories of French prisoners-of-war.


title: Pierre Laval

text: In November 1940, Laval took a number of pro-German decisions of his own, without consulting with colleagues. The most notorious examples concerned turning the RTB Bor copper mines and the Belgian gold reserves over to German control. After the war, Laval's justification, apart from a denial that he acted unilaterally, was that Vichy was powerless to prevent the Germans from gaining something that they were clearly so eager to obtain.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Laval's actions were a factor in his dismissal on 13 December 1940. Pétain asked all of the ministers to sign a collective letter of resignation during a full cabinet meeting. Laval did so since he thought that it was a device to get rid of Labour Minister M. Belin. Laval was therefore stunned when Pétain announced, "the resignations of MM. Laval and Ripert are accepted". That evening, Laval was arrested and driven by the police to his home in Châteldon. The following day, Pétain announced his decision to remove Laval from the government. The reason was a fundamental incompatibility with Pétain. Laval's methods of working appeared slovenly to Petain's precise military mind, and Laval showed a marked lack of deference, as instanced by a habit of blowing cigarette smoke in Pétain's face. By doing so, he aroused Pétain's irritation and the anger of the entire cabinet.


title: Pierre Laval

text: On 27 August 1941, several top Vichyites, including Laval, attended a review of the Légion des Volontaires Français (LVF), a collaborationist militia. Paul Collette, a member of the Croix-de-Feu, shot Laval (and also Marcel Déat, another prominent collaborationist), during a troop revue and slightly wounded him, but Laval soon recovered from the injury.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Laval returned to power in April 1942. In a radio speech on 22 June 1942, Laval outlined his policy objectives by expressing his "desire to re-establish normal and trusting relations with Germany and Italy". He added he "wished for a German victory" because otherwise "Bolshevism [would] establish itself everywhere". Laval had been in power for a mere two months when he was faced with the decision of providing forced labour to Germany, which was short of skilled labour because it needed troop replacements on the Eastern Front. Unlike other occupied countries, France was technically protected by the armistice, and its workers could not be simply rounded up for transportation. In the occupied zone, the Germans used intimidation and the control of raw materials to create unemployment and thus create reasons for French labourers to volunteer to work in Germany. Laval received German demands to send more than 300,000 skilled labourers immediately to factories in Germany. Laval delayed by making a counteroffer of one worker in return for one French prisoners-of-war. The proposal was sent to Hitler, and a compromise was reached that one prisoner-of-war would be repatriated for every three workers arriving in Germany.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Laval's precise role in the deportation of Jews has been hotly debated by both his accusers and his defenders.The Germans never told the Vichy French authorities about the extermination camps; instead, the French were told that Jews were being deported as forced labour for the Axis war effort. When ordered to have all Jews in France rounded up to be transported to German-occupied Poland, Laval negotiated a compromise by allowing only Jews who were not French citizens to be forfeited to German control. It was estimated that by the end of the war, the Germans had killed 90% of the Jewish population in other occupied countries, but in France, 50% of the prewar French and foreign Jewish population, with perhaps 90% of the purely-French Jewish population still remaining alive. Laval went beyond the orders given to him by the Germans, as he included Jewish children under 16, whom the Germans had given him permission to spare, in the deportations. In his book "Churches and the Holocaust", Mordecai Paldiel claims that when the Protestant leader Marc Boegner visited Laval to remonstrate, Laval claimed that he had ordered children to be deported along with their parents because families should not be separated, and "children should remain with their parents". According to Paldiel, when Boegner argued that the children would almost certainly die, Laval replied that "not one [Jewish child] must remain in France". Sarah Fishman in a reliably-sourced book but lacking citations wrote that Laval also attempted to prevent Jewish children gaining visas to the United States that had arranged by the American Friends Service Committee and that Laval was committed less to expelling Jewish children from France than to making sure they reached Nazi camps.


title: Pierre Laval

text: More and more, the insoluble dilemma of collaboration faced Laval and his chief of staff, Jean Jardin. Laval had to maintain Vichy's authority to prevent Germany from installing a puppet government, which would be made up of French Nazis such as Jacques Doriot.


title: Pierre Laval

text: In 1943, Laval became the nominal leader of the newly-created Milice, but its operational leader was Secretary General Joseph Darnand.


title: Pierre Laval

text: When the Allied landings in French North Africa (Operation Torch) began, the Wehrmacht occupied the Zone libre. Hitler continued to ask whether the French government was prepared to fight at his side and required Vichy to declare war against Britain. Laval and Pétain agreed to maintain a firm refusal. During that time and the Normandy landings in 1944, Laval was in a struggle against ultracollaborationist ministers.


title: Pierre Laval

text: About two months later, he and some others were arrested by the Germans and transported to Belfort, where they arrived on 19 August 1944.


title: Pierre Laval

text: In view of the speed of the Allied advance, what was left of the Vichy government was moved on 7 September 1944 from Belfort to the Sigmaringen enclave in Germany. Pétain took residence at the Hohenzollern castle in Sigmaringen. At first, Laval also resided in that castle. In January 1945 Laval was assigned to the Stauffenberg castle in Wilflingen, 12 km outside the Sigmaringen enclave. By April 1945, US General George S. Patton's army approached Sigmaringen and so the Vichy ministers were forced to seek their own refuge. Laval received permission to enter Spain and was flown to Barcelona by a Luftwaffe plane. However, 90 days later, Charles de Gaulle pressured Spain to expel Laval. The same Luftwaffe plane that had flown him to Spain then flew him to the American-occupied zone of Austria. The American authorities immediately arrested Laval and his wife and turned them over to the Free French. They were flown to Paris to be imprisoned at Fresnes Prison. Madame Laval was later released, but Pierre Laval remained in prison to be tried for treason.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Prior to his arrest, Laval had planned to move to Sintra, Portugal, where a house had been leased for him.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Two trials were to be held. Although it had its faults, the Pétain trial permitted the presentation and examination of a vast amount of pertinent material. Scholars including Robert Paxton and Geoffrey Warner believe that Laval's trial demonstrated the inadequacies of the judicial system and the poisonous political atmosphere of that purge-trial era. During his imprisonment pending the verdict of his treason trial, Laval wrote his only book, the posthumously-published "Diary" (1948). His daughter, Josée de Chambrun, smuggled it out of the prison page by page.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Laval firmly believed that he would be able to convince his fellow countrymen that he had been acting in their best interests all along. "Father-in-law wants a big trial which will illuminate everything", René de Chambrun told Laval's lawyers: "If he is given time to prepare his defence, if he is allowed to speak, to call witnesses and to obtain from abroad the information and documents which he needs, he will confound his accusers". "Do you want me to tell you the setup?" Laval asked one of his lawyers on 4 August. "There will be no pre-trial hearings and no trial. I will be condemned – and got rid of – before the elections".


title: Pierre Laval

text: Laval's trial began at 1:30 pm on Thursday, 4 October 1945. He was charged with plotting against the security of the State and intelligence (collaboration) with the enemy. He had three defence lawyers (Jaques Baraduc, Albert Naud and Yves-Frédéric Jaffré). None of his lawyers had met him before. He dealt mostly with Jaffré, who sat with him, talked, listened and took down notes that he wanted to dictate. Baraduc, who quickly became convinced of Laval's innocence, kept contact with the Chambruns and at first shared their conviction that Laval would be acquitted or at most would receive a sentence of temporary exile. Naud, who had been a member of the Resistance, believed Laval to be guilty and urged him to plead that he had made grave errors but had acted under constraint. Laval would not listen to him and was convinced that he was innocent and could prove it. "He acted", said Naud, "as if his career, not his life, was at stake".


title: Pierre Laval

text: All three of his lawyers declined to be in court to hear the reading of the formal charges: "We fear that the haste which has been employed to open the hearings is inspired, not by judicial preoccupations, but motivated by political considerations". In lieu of attending the hearing, they sent letters stating the shortcomings and asked to be discharged as counsel. The court carried on without them. The president of the court, Pierre Mongibeaux, announced that the trial had to be completed before the general election scheduled for 21 October. Mongibeaux and Mornet, the public prosecutor, were unable to control constant hostile outbursts from the jury. They occurred as heated exchanges between Mongibeaux and Laval became louder and louder. On the third day, Laval's three lawyers were with him as the President of the Bar Association had advised them to resume their duties.


title: Pierre Laval

text: After the adjournment, Mongibeaux announced that the part of the interrogation dealing with the charge of plotting against the security of the state was concluded. To the charge of collaboration, Laval replied, "Monsieur le Président, the insulting way in which you questioned me earlier and the demonstrations in which some members of the jury indulged show me that I may be the victim of a judicial crime. I do not want to be an accomplice; I prefer to remain silent". Mongibeaux called the first of the prosecution witnesses, but they had not expected to testify so soon, and none was present. Mongibeaux adjourned the hearing for the second time so that the witnesses could be located. When the court reassembled half an hour later, Laval was no longer in his place.


title: Pierre Laval

text: Although Pierre-Henri Teitgen, the Minister of Justice in Charles de Gaulle's cabinet, personally appealed to Laval's lawyers to have him attend the hearings, he declined to do so. Teitgen freely confirmed the conduct of Mongibeaux and Mornet and professed that he was unable to do anything to curb them. A sentence of death was handed down in Laval's absence. His lawyers were refused a retrial.


title: Pierre Laval

text: The execution was fixed for the morning of 15 October at Fresnes Prison. Laval attempted to commit suicide before the sentence could be carried out by taking poison from a vial stitched inside the lining of his jacket. He did not intend, he explained in a suicide note, that French soldiers should become accomplices in a "judicial crime". The poison, however, was so old that it was ineffective and so repeated stomach-pumpings revived Laval. Laval requested for his lawyers to witness his execution. He was shot and shouted, "Vive la France!". "It is not the French way to try a man without letting him speak," Laval's wife declared to an English newspaper, "That's the way he always fought against – the German way."


title: Pierre Laval

text: His corpse was initially buried in an unmarked grave in the Thiais cemetery until it was buried in the Chambrun family mausoleum at the Montparnasse Cemetery in November 1945.


title: Pierre Laval

text: His daughter, Josée Laval, wrote a letter to Winston Churchill in 1948 and suggested that the firing squad who killed her father "wore British uniforms". The letter was published in the June 1949 issue of "Human Events", an American conservative newspaper.


title: Pierre Laval

text: The High Court, which functioned until 1949, judged 108 cases and pronounced eight death penalties, including one for an elderly Pétain, whose appeal failed. Only three of the death penalties were carried out: those of Laval; Fernand de Brinon, Vichy's Ambassador in Paris to the German authorities; and Joseph Darnand, the head of the Milice.


title: Fleshlight

text: The Fleshlight is a brand of artificial vagina, oral, or anal sex toy. It is a masturbatory aid, which is used by inserting the penis into its opening.


title: Fleshlight

text: The Fleshlight was designed by Steve Shubin, who was granted a patent in July 1998 for his invention, as a "device for discreet sperm collection" and it is marketed by Interactive Life Forms. It is named for the flesh-like material used in its inner sleeve, as well as the plastic case that houses the sleeve, which is fashioned to look like an oversized flashlight. The inner sleeve is available with a vulva, anus or mouth orifice, in colors representing a variety of skin tones as well as see-through, and 48 different internal textures. Alongside their classic collection, Fleshlight also introduced the 'Freak' and 'Alien' collections, which modelled Fleshlight's on fantasy or sci-fi style designs that shied away from the conventional pornographic models traditionally used. In 2019 the Quickshot Launch was released.


title: Fleshlight

text: The Fleshlight Girls brand consists of masturbation sleeves molded from the bodies of pornographic actresses. A device called the Fleshjack is a spinoff marketed to gay men. The Fleshjack Boys brand consists of masturbation sleeves and dildos molded from the bodies of gay pornographic actors. In 2017, Fleshlight collaborated with Dutch sex-tech manufacturer KIIROO to develop Fleshlight Launch, an interactive device that was able to move a Fleshlight sleeve, whilst also syncing with adult entertainment or corresponding female toys.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: Loyalists were colonists in the Thirteen Colonies who remained loyal to the British Crown during the American Revolutionary War, often referred to as Tories, Royalists or King's Men at the time. They were opposed by the Patriots, who supported the revolution, and called them "persons inimical to the liberties of America."


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: Prominent Loyalists repeatedly assured the British government that many thousands of them would spring to arms and fight for the crown. The British government acted in expectation of that, especially in the southern campaigns in 1780–81. Britain was able to effectively protect the people only in areas where they had military control, and in return, the number of military Loyalists was significantly lower than what had been expected. Due to the conflicting political views, loyalists were often under suspicion of those in the British military, who did not know whom they could fully trust in such a conflicted situation; they were often looked down upon.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: Patriots watched suspected Loyalists very closely and would not tolerate any organized Loyalist opposition. Many outspoken or militarily active Loyalists were forced to flee, especially to their stronghold of New York City. William Franklin, the royal governor of New Jersey and son of Patriot leader Benjamin Franklin, became the leader of the Loyalists after his release from a Patriot prison in 1778. He worked to build Loyalist military units to fight in the war. Woodrow Wilson wrote that "there had been no less than twenty-five thousand loyalists enlisted in the British service during the five years of the fighting. At one time (1779) they had actually outnumbered the whole of the continental muster under the personal command of Washington."


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: When their cause was defeated, about 15 percent of the Loyalists (65,000–70,000 people) fled to other parts of the British Empire; especially to Britain itself, or to British North America (now Canada). The southern Loyalists moved mostly to Florida, which had remained loyal to the Crown, and to British Caribbean possessions. Northern Loyalists largely migrated to Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. They called themselves United Empire Loyalists. Most were compensated with Canadian land or British cash distributed through formal claims procedures. Loyalists who left the US received over £3 million or about 37% of their losses from the British government. Loyalists who stayed in the US were generally able to retain their property and become American citizens. Many Loyalists eventually returned to the US after the war and discriminatory laws had been repealed. Historians have estimated that between 15 and 20% of the 2,000,000 whites in the colonies in 1775 were Loyalists (300,000–400,000).


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: Families were often divided during the American Revolution, and many felt themselves to be both American and British, still owing a loyalty to the mother country. Maryland lawyer Daniel Dulaney the Younger opposed taxation without representation but would not break his oath to the King or take up arms against him. He wrote: "There may be a time when redress may not be obtained. Till then, I shall recommend a legal, orderly, and prudent resentment". Most Americans hoped for a peaceful reconciliation but were forced to choose sides by the Patriots who took control nearly everywhere in the Thirteen Colonies in 1775–76.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: Yale historian Leonard Woods Larabee has identified eight characteristics of the Loyalists that made them essentially conservative and loyal to the King and to Britain:


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: In the opening months of the Revolutionary War, the Patriots laid siege to Boston, where most of the British forces were stationed. Elsewhere there were few British troops and the Patriots seized control of all levels of government, as well as supplies of arms and gunpowder. Vocal Loyalists recruited people to their side, often with the encouragement and assistance of royal governors. In the South Carolina back country, Loyalist recruitment outstripped that of Patriots. A brief siege at Ninety Six, South Carolina in the fall of 1775 was followed by a rapid rise in Patriot recruiting. In what became known as the Snow Campaign, partisan militia arrested or drove out most of the back country Loyalist leadership. North Carolina back country Scots and former Regulators joined forces in early 1776, but they were broken as a force at the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: By July 4, 1776, the Patriots had gained control of virtually all territory in the Thirteen Colonies and expelled all royal officials. No one who openly proclaimed their loyalty to the Crown was allowed to remain, so Loyalists fled or kept quiet. Some of those who remained later gave aid to invading British armies or joined uniformed Loyalist regiments.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: The British were forced out of Boston by March 17, 1776. They regrouped at Halifax and attacked New York in August, defeating George Washington's army at Long Island and capturing New York City and its vicinity, and they occupied the mouth of the Hudson River until 1783. British forces seized control of other cities, including Philadelphia (1777), Savannah, Georgia (1778–83), and Charleston, South Carolina (1780–82). But 90% of the colonial population lived outside the cities, with the effective result that Congress represented 80 to 90 percent of the population. The British removed their governors from colonies where the Patriots were in control, but Loyalist civilian government was re-established in coastal Georgia from 1779 to 1782, despite the presence of Patriot forces in the northern part of Georgia. Essentially, the British were only able to maintain power in areas where they had a strong military presence.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: Historian Robert Calhoon wrote in 2000, concerning the proportion of Loyalists to Patriots in the Thirteen Colonies:


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: Before Calhoon's work, estimates of the Loyalist share of the population were somewhat higher, at about one-third, but these estimates are now rejected as too high by most scholars. In 1968 historian Paul H. Smith estimated there were about 400,000 Loyalists, or 16% of the white population of 2.25 million in 1780.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: Historian Robert Middlekauff summarized scholarly research on the nature of Loyalist support as follows:


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: The largest number of loyalists were found in the middle colonies: many tenant farmers of New York supported the king, for example, as did many of the Dutch in the colony and in New Jersey. The Germans in Pennsylvania tried to stay out of the Revolution, just as many Quakers did, and when that failed, clung to the familiar connection rather than embrace the new. Highland Scots in the Carolinas, a fair number of Anglican clergy and their parishioners in Connecticut and New York, a few Presbyterians in the southern colonies, and a large number of the Iroquois stayed loyal to the king.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: After the British military capture of New York City and Long Island it became the British military and political base of operations in North America from 1776 to 1783, prompting revolutionaries to flee and resulting in a large concentration of Loyalists, many of whom were refugees from other states.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: According to Calhoon, Loyalists tended to be older and wealthier, but there were also many Loyalists of humble means. Many active Church of England members became Loyalists. Some recent arrivals from Britain, especially those from Scotland, had a high Loyalist proportion. Loyalists in the southern colonies were suppressed by the local Patriots, who controlled local and state government. Many people—including former Regulators in North Carolina — refused to join the rebellion, as they had earlier protested against corruption by local authorities who later became Revolutionary leaders. The oppression by the local Whigs during the Regulation led to many of the residents of backcountry North Carolina sitting out the Revolution or siding with the Loyalists.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: In areas under Patriot control, Loyalists were subject to confiscation of property, and outspoken supporters of the king were threatened with public humiliation such as tarring and feathering, or physical attack. It is not known how many Loyalist civilians were harassed by the Patriots, but the treatment was a warning to other Loyalists not to take up arms. In September 1775, William Drayton and Loyalist leader Colonel Thomas Fletchall signed a treaty of neutrality in the interior community of Ninety Six, South Carolina. For actively aiding the British army when it occupied Philadelphia, two residents of the city were tried for treason, convicted, and executed by returning Patriot forces.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: As a result of the looming crisis in 1775, the Royal Governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, issued a proclamation that promised freedom to indentured servants and slaves who were able to bear arms and join his Loyalist Ethiopian Regiment. Many of the slaves in the South joined the Loyalists with intentions of gaining freedom and escaping the South. About 800 did so; some helped rout the Virginia militia at the Battle of Kemp's Landing and fought in the Battle of Great Bridge on the Elizabeth River, wearing the motto "Liberty to Slaves", but this time they were defeated. The remains of their regiment were then involved in the evacuation of Norfolk, after which they served in the Chesapeake area. Eventually the camp that they had set up there suffered an outbreak of smallpox and other diseases. This took a heavy toll, putting many of them out of action for some time. The survivors joined other Loyalist units and continued to serve throughout the war. African-Americans were often the first to come forward to volunteer and a total of 12,000 African Americans served with the British from 1775 to 1783. This forced the Patriots to also offer freedom to those who would serve in the Continental Army, with thousands of Black Patriots serving in the Continental Army.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: Americans who gained their freedom by fighting for the British became known as Black Loyalists. The British honored the pledge of freedom in New York City through the efforts of General Guy Carleton, who recorded the names of African Americans who had supported the British in a document called the Book of Negroes, which granted freedom to slaves who had escaped and assisted the British. About 4,000 Black Loyalists went to the British colonies of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, where they were promised land grants. They founded communities across the two provinces, many of which still exist today. Over 2,500 settled in Birchtown, Nova Scotia, instantly making it the largest free black community in North America. However, the long period of waiting time to be officially given land grants that were given to them and the prejudices of white Loyalists in nearby Shelburne who regularly harassed the settlement in events such as the Shelburne Riots in 1784, made life very difficult for the community. In 1791 the Sierra Leone Company offered to transport dissatisfied black Loyalists to the nascent colony of Sierra Leone in West Africa, with the promise of better land and more equality. About 1,200 left Nova Scotia for Sierra Leone, where they named the capital Freetown. After 1787 they became Sierra Leone's ruling elite during the colonial era and their descendants, the Sierra Leone Creoles, are the cultural elites of the nation. About 400 to 1,000 free blacks who joined the British side in the Revolution went to London and joined the free black community of about 10,000 there.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: While men were out fighting for the Crown, women served at home protecting their land and property. At the end of the war, many loyalist men left America for the shelter of England, leaving their wives and daughters to protect their land The main punishment for Loyalist families was the expropriation of property, but married women were protected under "feme covert", which meant that they had no political identity and their legal rights were absorbed by their husbands. This created an awkward dilemma for the confiscation committees: confiscating the land of such a woman would punish her for her husband's actions. In many cases, the women did not get a choice on if they were labeled a loyalist or a patriot; the label was dependent on their husband's political association. However, some women showed their loyalty to the crown by continually purchasing British goods, writing it down, and showing resistance to the Patriots. Grace Growden Galloway recorded the experience in her diary. Her writings show the difficulties that her family faced during the revolution. Galloway's property was seized by the Rebels and she spent the rest of her life fighting to regain it. It was returned to her heirs in 1783, after she and her husband had died.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: Patriot allowed women to become involved in politics in a larger scale than the loyalist. Some women involved in political activity include Catharine Macaulay (a loyalist) and Mercy Otis Warren who were both writers during this time. Both women maintained a 20-year friendship although they wrote about different sides of the war. Macaulay wrote from a loyalist British perspective whereas Warren wrote about her support for the American Revolution. Macaulay's work include "History of England" and Warren wrote "History of the Rise", "Progress", and "Termination of the American Revolution." Although both women's works were unpopular, during this time, it pushed them to learn from social critique.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: Rebel agents were active in Quebec (which was then frequently called "Canada", the name of the earlier French province) in the months leading to the outbreak of active hostilities. John Brown, an agent of the Boston Committee of Correspondence, worked with Canadian merchant Thomas Walker and other rebel sympathisers during the winter of 1774–1775 to convince inhabitants to support the actions of the First Continental Congress. However, many of Quebec's inhabitants remained neutral, resisting service to either the British or the Americans.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: Although some Canadians took up arms in support of the rebellion, the majority remained loyal to the King. French Canadians had been satisfied by the British government's Quebec Act of 1774, which offered religious and linguistic toleration; in general, they did not sympathize with a rebellion that they saw as being led by Protestants from New England, who were their commercial rivals and hereditary enemies. Most of the English-speaking settlers had arrived following the British conquest of Canada in 1759–1760, and were unlikely to support separation from Britain. The older British colonies, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia (including what is now New Brunswick) also remained loyal and contributed military forces in support of the Crown.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: In late 1775 the Continental Army sent a force into Quebec, led by General Richard Montgomery and Colonel Benedict Arnold, with the goal of convincing the residents of Quebec to join the Revolution. Although only a minority of Canadians openly expressed loyalty to King George, about 1,500 militia fought for the King in the Siege of Fort St. Jean. In the region south of Montreal that was occupied by the Continentals, some inhabitants supported the rebellion and raised two regiments to join the Patriot forces.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: In Nova Scotia, there were many Yankee settlers originally from New England, and they generally supported the principles of the revolution. The allegiance toward the rebellion waned as American privateers raided Nova Scotia communities throughout the war. As well, the Nova Scotia government used the law to convict people for sedition and treason for supporting the rebel cause. There was also the influence of an influx of recent immigration from the British isles, and they remained neutral during the war, and the influx was greatest in Halifax. Britain in any case built up powerful forces at the naval base of Halifax after the failure of Jonathan Eddy to capture Fort Cumberland in 1776. Although the Continentals captured Montreal in November 1775, they were turned back a month later at Quebec City by a combination of the British military under Governor Guy Carleton, the difficult terrain and weather, and an indifferent local response. The Continental forces would be driven from Quebec in 1776, after the breakup of ice on the St. Lawrence River and the arrival of British transports in May and June. There would be no further serious attempt to challenge British control of present-day Canada until the War of 1812.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: In 1777, 1,500 Loyalist militia took part in the Saratoga campaign in New York, and surrendered with General Burgoyne after the Battles of Saratoga in October. For the rest of the war, Quebec acted as a base for raiding expeditions, conducted primarily by Loyalists and Indians, against frontier communities.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: The Loyalists rarely attempted any political organization. They were often passive unless regular British army units were in the area. The British, however, assumed a highly activist Loyalist community was ready to mobilize and planned much of their strategy around raising Loyalist regiments. The British provincial line, consisting of Americans enlisted on a regular army status, enrolled 19,000 Loyalists (50 units and 312 companies). The maximum strength of the Loyalist provincial line was 9,700 in December 1780. In all about 19,000 at one time or another were soldiers or militia in British forces. Loyalists from South Carolina fought for the British in the Battle of Camden. The British forces at the Battle of Monck's Corner and the Battle of Lenud's Ferry consisted entirely of Loyalists with the exception of the commanding officer (Banastre Tarleton). Both white and black Loyalists fought for the British at the Battle of Kemp's Landing in Virginia.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: Estimates for how many Loyalists emigrated after the war differ. Historian Maya Jasanoff calculated 60,000 in total went to British North America, including about 50,000 whites, however Philip Ranlet estimates that only 20,000 adult white Loyalists went to Canada, while Wallace Brown cites about 80,000 Loyalists in total permanently left the United States.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: According to Jasanoff, the majority of these Loyalists – 36,000 – went to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, while about 6,600 went to Quebec and 2,000 to Prince Edward Island. About 5,090 white Loyalists went to Florida, bringing along their slaves who numbered about 8,285 (421 whites and 2,561 blacks returned to the States from Florida). When Florida was returned to Spain, however, very few Loyalists remained there. Approximately 6,000 whites went to Jamaica and other Caribbean islands, notably the Bahamas, and about 13,000 went to Britain (including 5,000 free blacks). The total is 60–62,000 whites.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: A precise figure cannot be known because the records were incomplete and inaccurate, and small numbers continued to leave after 1783. The 50,000 or so white departures represented about 10% of the Loyalists (at 20-25% of the white population). Loyalists (especially soldiers and former officials) could choose evacuation. Loyalists whose roots were not yet deeply embedded in the United States were more likely to leave; older people who had familial bonds and had acquired friends, property, and a degree of social respectability were more likely to remain in the US. The vast majority of the half-million white Loyalists, about 20-25% of the total number of whites, remained in the US. Starting in the mid–1780s a small percentage of those who had left returned to the United States. The exiles amounted to about 2% of the total US population of 3 million at the end of the war in 1783.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: After 1783 some former Loyalists, especially Germans from Pennsylvania, emigrated to Canada to take advantage of the British government's offer of free land. Many departed the fledgling United States because they faced continuing hostility. In another migration-motivated mainly by economic rather than political reasons- more than 20,000 and perhaps as many as 30,000 "Late Loyalists" arrived in Ontario in the 1790s attracted by Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe's policy of land and low taxes, one-fifth those in the US and swearing an oath of allegiance to the King.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: The 36,000 or so who went to Nova Scotia were not well received by the 17,000 Nova Scotians, who were mostly descendants of New Englanders settled there before the Revolution. "They [the Loyalists]", Colonel Thomas Dundas wrote in 1786, "have experienced every possible injury from the old inhabitants of Nova Scotia, who are even more disaffected towards the British Government than any of the new States ever were. This makes me much doubt their remaining long dependent." In response, the colony of New Brunswick, until 1784 part of Nova Scotia, was created for the 14,000 who had settled in those parts. Of the 46,000 who went to Canada, 10,000 went to Quebec, especially what is now modern-day Ontario, the rest to Nova Scotia and PEI.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: Realizing the importance of some type of consideration, on November 9, 1789, Lord Dorchester, the governor of Quebec, declared that it was his wish to "put the mark of Honour upon the Families who had adhered to the Unity of the Empire." As a result of Dorchester's statement, the printed militia rolls carried the notation:


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: Those Loyalists who have adhered to the Unity of the Empire, and joined the Royal Standard before the Treaty of Separation in the year 1783, and all their Children and their Descendants by either sex, are to be distinguished by the following Capitals, affixed to their names: U.E. Alluding to their great principle The Unity of the Empire.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: The post-nominals "U.E." are rarely seen today, but the influence of the Loyalists on the evolution of Canada remains. Their ties to Britain and/or their antipathy to the United States provided the strength needed to keep Canada independent and distinct in North America. The Loyalists' basic distrust of republicanism and "mob rule" influenced Canada's gradual path to independence. The new British North American provinces of Upper Canada (the forerunner of Ontario) and New Brunswick were founded as places of refuge for the United Empire Loyalists.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: In an interesting historical twist Peter Matthews, a son of Loyalists, participated in the Upper Canada Rebellion which sought relief from oligarchic British colonial government and pursued American-style Republicanism. He was arrested, tried and executed in Toronto, and later became heralded as a patriot to the movement which led to Canadian self governance.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: The wealthiest and most prominent Loyalist exiles went to Great Britain to rebuild their careers; many received pensions. Many Southern Loyalists, taking along their slaves, went to the West Indies, particularly to the Abaco Islands in the Bahamas.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: Certain Loyalists who fled the United States brought their slaves with them to Canada (mostly to areas that later became Ontario and New Brunswick) where slavery was legal. An imperial law in 1790 assured prospective immigrants to Canada that their slaves would remain their property. However, a law enacted by eminent British lieutenant general and founder of modern Toronto John Graves Simcoe in 1793 entitled the Act Against Slavery tried to suppress slavery in Upper Canada by halting the sale of slaves to the United States, and by freeing slaves upon their escape from the latter into Canada. Simcoe desired to demonstrate the merits of loyalism and abolitionism in Upper Canada in contrast to the nascent republicanism and prominence of slavery in the United States, and, according to historian Stanley R. Mealing:


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: However the actual law was a compromise. According to historian Afua Cooper, Simcoe's law required children in slavery to be freed when they reached age 25 and:


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: Thousands of Iroquois and other Native Americans were expelled from New York and other states and resettled in Canada. The descendants of one such group of Iroquois, led by Joseph Brant (Thayendenegea), settled at Six Nations of the Grand River, the largest First Nations reserve in Canada. (The remainder, under the leadership of Cornplanter (John Abeel) and members of his family, stayed in New York.) A group of African-American Loyalists settled in Nova Scotia but emigrated again for Sierra Leone after facing discrimination there.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: Many of the Loyalists were forced to abandon substantial properties to America restoration of or compensation for these lost properties was a major issue during the negotiation of the Jay Treaty in 1794. The British Government eventually settled several thousand claims for more than 3.5 million Pounds Sterling, an enormous sum of money worth at that time.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: The great majority of Loyalists never left the United States; they stayed on and were allowed to be citizens of the new country. Some became nationally prominent leaders, including Samuel Seabury, who was the first Bishop of the Episcopal Church, and Tench Coxe. There was a small, but significant trickle of returnees who found life in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick too difficult. Perhaps 10% of the refugees to New Brunswick returned to the States as did an unknown number from Nova Scotia. Some Massachusetts Tories settled in the Maine District. Nevertheless, the vast majority never returned. Captain Benjamin Hallowell, who as Mandamus Councilor in Massachusetts served as the direct representative of the Crown, was considered by the insurgents as one of the most hated men in the Colony, but as a token of compensation when he returned from England in 1796, his son was allowed to regain the family house.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: Alexander Hamilton enlisted the help of the Tories (ex-Loyalists) in New York in 1782–85 to forge an alliance with moderate Whigs to wrest the State from the power of the Clinton faction. Moderate Whigs in other States who had not been in favor of separation from Britain but preferred a negotiated settlement which would have maintained ties to the Mother Country mobilized to block radicals. Most States had rescinded anti-Tory laws by 1787, although the accusation of being a Tory was heard for another generation. Several hundred who had left for Florida returned to Georgia in 1783–84. South Carolina which had seen a bitter bloody internal civil war in 1780-82 adopted a policy of reconciliation that proved more moderate than any other state. About 4500 white Loyalists left when the war ended, but the majority remained behind. The state government successfully and quickly reincorporated the vast majority. During the war, pardons were offered to Loyalists who switched sides and joined the Patriot forces. Others were required to pay a 10% fine of the value of the property. The legislature named 232 Loyalists liable for the confiscation of their property, but most appealed and were forgiven. In Connecticut much to the disgust of the Radical Whigs the moderate Whigs were advertising in New York newspapers in 1782-83 that Tories who would make no trouble would be welcome on the grounds that their skills and money would help the State's economy. The Moderates prevailed. All anti-Tory laws were repealed in early 1783 except for the law relating to confiscated Tory estates: "... the problem of the loyalists after 1783 was resolved in their favor after the War of Independence ended." In 1787 the last of any discriminatory laws were rescinded.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: The departure of so many royal officials, rich merchants and landed gentry destroyed the hierarchical networks that had dominated most of the colonies. A major result was that a Patriot/Whig elite supplanted royal officials and affluent Tories. In New York, the departure of key members of the De Lancey, De Peyster, Walton and Cruger families undercut the interlocking families that largely owned and controlled the Hudson Valley. Likewise in Pennsylvania, the departure of powerful families—Penn, Allen, Chew, Shippen—destroyed the cohesion of the old upper class there. Massachusetts passed an act banishing forty-six Boston merchants in 1778, including members of some of Boston's wealthiest families. The departure of families such as the Ervings, Winslows, Clarks, and Lloyds deprived Massachusetts of men who had hitherto been leaders of networks of family and clients. The bases of the men who replaced them were much different. One rich Patriot in Boston noted in 1779 that "fellows who would have cleaned my shoes five years ago, have amassed fortunes and are riding in chariots." New men became rich merchants but they shared a spirit of republican equality that replaced the former elitism.


title: Loyalist (American Revolution)

text: The Patriot reliance on Catholic France for military, financial and diplomatic aid led to a sharp drop in anti-Catholic rhetoric. Indeed, the king replaced the pope as the demon Patriots had to fight against. Anti-Catholicism remained strong among Loyalists, some of whom went to Canada after the war most remained in the new nation. By the 1780s, Catholics were extended legal toleration in all of the New England states that previously had been so hostile. "In the midst of war and crisis, New Englanders gave up not only their allegiance to Britain but one of their most dearly held prejudices."


title: Bahamut

text: Bahamut, or Bahamoot ( ; ), is a monster that lies deep below, underpinning the support structure that holds up the earth, according to Zakariya al-Qazwini.


title: Bahamut

text: In this conception of the world, the earth is shouldered by an angel, who stands on a slab of gemstone, which is supported by the cosmic beast (ox) sometimes called Kuyutha'(/Kuyuthan)/Kiyuban/Kibuthan (most likely from a corruption or misrendering of Hebrew לִוְיָתָן "Leviathan"). Bahamut carries this bull on its back, and is suspended in water for its own stability.


title: Bahamut

text: Balhūt is a variant name found in some cosmographies. In the earliest sources, the name is Lutīyā, with Balhūt given as a byname and Bahamūt as a nickname.


title: Bahamut

text: "Bahamūt" is the spelling given in al-Qazwini (d. 1283)'s cosmography. "Bahamoot" is Edward Lane's transcribed spelling. "Balhūt" is the alternate spelling given in Yaqut al-Hamawi (d. 1229)'s geographic work and copies of Ibn al-Wardi (d. 1348)'s work.


title: Bahamut

text: The name is thought to derive from the biblical Behemoth. It has thus been translated as "Behemot" (German for "Behemoth") by Ethé. However, the original biblical Behemoth never appeared as a fish. A reshaping of its nature must have occurred in Arab storytelling, some time in the pre-islamic period. One proposed scenario is that a pair of beasts from the Bible were confused with each other; the behemoth mis-assigned to the fish, and the aquatic leviathan to the bull.


title: Bahamut

text: Bahamut, according to Lane's abstract of a particular Islamic work on cosmography, is a giant fish acting as one of the layers that supports the earth. It is so immense "[all] the seas of the world, placed in one of the fish's nostrils, would be like a mustard seed laid in the desert." Above the fish stands a bull called Kuyootà, on the bull, a "ruby" rock, on the rock an angel to shoulder the earth. Below the Bahamut (Leviathan) is the colossus serpentine Falak.


title: Bahamut

text: Lane's primary Islamic source for his summary is unclear, as Lane merely refers to it ly as "the work of one of the writers above quoted".


title: Bahamut

text: There can occur certain discrepancies in Western translations, even when there are no textual differences in the Arabic. The creature, named Bahamut or Balhut in these sources, can be described as a fish or whale according to translation, since the original Arabic word "hūt" (حوت) can mean either. Also, the gem comprising the slab beneath the angel's feet, in Arabic "yāqūt" () is of ambiguous meaning, and can be rendered as "ruby", or variously otherwise.


title: Bahamut

text: Al-Damiri (d. 1405) on authority of Wahb ibn Munabbih was one of Lane's sources, possibly the source of his main summary. His description of "Bahmût" (French translation) matches Lane's summary down to certain key details. However, there seems to be discrepancies in using "a heap of sand" (instead of "mustard") in the size analogy.


title: Bahamut

text: Al-Qazwini (d. 1283)'s cosmography "The Wonders of Creation" on the contrary agrees with Lane on these points. However, it disagrees somewhat with Lane's description regarding what lies below the fish: water, air, then a region of darkness, and with respect to the bull's appendages. It should be cautioned that Qazwini's cosmography is known to exist in a variety of different manuscripts.


title: Bahamut

text: Both cosmographies provide the story as words spoken by Wahb ibn Munabbih, so the descriptions should be similar at the core. In fact, Al-Damiri's version is considered to be mere redactions of Qazwini printed onto its margins.


title: Bahamut

text: Ibn al-Wardi (d. 1348) ("Kharīdat al-ʿAjā'ib", "The Pearl of Wonders") is another source used by Lane, to give variant readings. Its chapter that includes the cosmography has been deemed a copy of Yaqut al-Hamawi (d. 1229)'s "Mu'jam al-Buldan", with similar wording, with some rearrangements, and very slight amounts of discrepant information.


title: Bahamut

text: Yakut and al-Wardi both say there is a layer of sandhill between the bull and the fish. They also describe what lies under the fish somewhat differently.


title: Bahamut

text: These texts connect the cosmic fish and bull with phenomena of nature, namely the waxing and ebbing of tides, maintenance of the sea-level, and earthquakes. The account which only connects concerns the bull states that its breathing causes the waxing and ebbing of the tides. And since the fish and the bull drink the water running off the earth into the sea, they counteract the tap-off causing sea-level to rise. But the beasts will eventually become engorged, when they will become agitated, or, it marks the advent of Judgment Day (Ibn al-Wardi, Yaqut).


title: Bahamut

text: There are two "Qiṣaṣ al-anbīyāʾ" ("Lives of the Prophets"), one by al-Tha'labi, known otherwise for his "Tafsir al-Thalabi", the other by Muḥammad al-Kisāʾī which are considered the oldest authorities containing similar cosmographical descriptions concerning the big fish and bull. In al-Tha'labi's text is an on the whale having several names, as follows: "God created a large fish (nūn) which is a huge whale whose name (ism) is Lutīyā, by-name (kunyah) Balhūt, and nickname (laqab) Bahamūt".


title: Bahamut

text: Yakut also gives the account that Iblis almost incited the whale Balhūt into causing a quake, but God distracted it by sending gnats to its eyes. Or alternatively, God had sent a sword-like fish that bedazzled and captivated the giant fish. This account is also found in al-Tha'labi's "Qiṣaṣ al-anbīyāʾ", but in that version God forces the whale (Lutīyā) into submission by sending a creature that invaded through its nose and reached its brain; it also claims to be an anecdote on authority of Kaʿb al-Aḥbār (d. 650s A.D.), a convert considered the earliest informant of Jewish-Muslim tradition to Arab writers.


title: Bahamut

text: Although this is an instance of an Arabic tale that ascribes the origins of earthquakes to the cosmic whale/fish supporting the earth, more familiar beliefs in medieval Arab associate the earthquake with the bull, or with Mount Qaf.


title: Bahamut

text: Jorge Luis Borges has drawn parallels between Bahamut and the mythical Japanese fish "Jinshin-Uwo", although the correct term is .


title: Bahamut

text: Japanese folklorist has explained that the traditional belief in the earthquake-causing bull is heavily concentrated in Arab regions (Saharan Africa, Arabian Peninsula, Pakistan, Malay), whereas the motif of "World-Fish's movement causes earthquake" is found mostly in parts of Indochina, China, and throughout Japan.


title: Bahamut

text: According to Jorge Luis Borges's work, the "Book of Imaginary Beings" (1957), Bahamut is "altered and magnified" from Behemoth and described as so immense that a human cannot bear its sight.


title: Bahamut

text: Borges placed Bahamut as the identity of the unnamed giant fish which Isa (Jesus) witnessed in the story of the 496th night of "One Thousand and One Nights" (Burton's edition). This giant fish supports a bull, the bull a rock, and the rock an angel, exactly as in the traditional Perso-Arabic medieval model of the world. Borges appropriated the description of the Bahamut from Edward Lane's "Arabian Society in the Middle Ages".


title: Gentry

text: Gentry (from Old French "genterie", from "gentil", "high-born, noble") are "well-born, genteel and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past.


title: Gentry

text: "Gentry", in its widest connotation, refers to people of good social position connected to landed estates (see manorialism), upper levels of the clergy, and "gentle" families of long descent who in some cases never obtained the official right to bear a coat of arms. The gentry largely consisted of landowners who could live entirely from rental income, or at least had a country estate; some were gentleman farmers. In the United Kingdom, the term "gentry" refers to the landed gentry: the majority of the land-owning social class who typically had a coat of arms, but did not have a peerage. The adjective "patrician" ("of or like a person of high social rank") describes in comparison other analogous traditional social elite strata based in cities, such as free cities of Italy (Venice and Genoa), and the free imperial cities of Germany, Switzerland, and the Hanseatic League.


title: Gentry

text: The term "gentry" by itself, so Peter Coss argues, is a construct that historians have applied loosely to rather different societies. Any particular model may not fit a specific society, yet a single definition nevertheless remains desirable.


title: Gentry

text: The Indo-Europeans who settled Europe, Central and Western Asia and the Indian subcontinent conceived their societies to be ordered (not divided) in a tripartite fashion, the three parts being castes. Castes came to be further divided, perhaps as a result of greater specialisation.


title: Gentry

text: The "classic" formulation of the caste system as largely described by Georges Dumézil was that of a priestly or religiously occupied caste, a warrior caste, and a worker caste. Dumézil divided the Proto-Indo-Europeans into three categories: sovereignty, military, and productivity (see Trifunctional hypothesis). He further subdivided sovereignty into two distinct and complementary sub-parts. One part was formal, juridical, and priestly, but rooted in this world. The other was powerful, unpredictable, and also priestly, but rooted in the "other", the supernatural and spiritual world. The second main division was connected with the use of force, the military, and war. Finally, there was a third group, ruled by the other two, whose role was productivity: herding, farming, and crafts.


title: Gentry

text: This system of caste roles can be seen in the castes which flourished on the Indian subcontinent and amongst the Italic peoples.


title: Gentry

text: Emperor Constantine convoked the First Council of Nicaea in 325 whose Nicene Creed included belief in "one holy catholic and apostolic Church". Emperor Theodosius I made Nicene Christianity the state church of the Roman Empire with the Edict of Thessalonica of 380.


title: Gentry

text: After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, there emerged no single powerful secular government in the West, but there was a central ecclesiastical power in Rome, the Catholic Church. In this power vacuum, the Church rose to become the dominant power in the West.


title: Gentry

text: In essence, the earliest vision of Christendom was a vision of a Christian theocracy, a government founded upon and upholding Christian values, whose institutions are spread through and over with Christian doctrine. The Catholic Church's peak of authority over all European Christians and their common endeavours of the Christian community—for example, the Crusades, the fight against the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula and against the Ottomans in the Balkans—helped to develop a sense of communal identity against the obstacle of Europe's deep political divisions.


title: Gentry

text: The classical heritage flourished throughout the Middle Ages in both the Byzantine Greek East and Latin West. In Plato's ideal state there are three major classes (producers, auxiliaries and guardians), which was representative of the idea of the "tripartite soul", which is expressive of three functions or capacities of the human soul: "appetites" (or "passions"), "the spirited element" and "reason" the part that must guide the soul to truth. Will Durant made a convincing case that certain prominent features of Plato's ideal community were discernible in the organization, dogma and effectiveness of "the" Medieval Church in Europe:


title: Gentry

text: For a thousand years Europe was ruled by an order of guardians considerably like that which was visioned by our philosopher. During the Middle Ages it was customary to classify the population of Christendom into laboratores (workers), bellatores (soldiers), and oratores (clergy). The last group, though small in number, monopolized the instruments and opportunities of culture, and ruled with almost unlimited sway half of the most powerful continent on the globe. The clergy, like Plato's guardians, were placed in authority ... by their talent as shown in ecclesiastical studies and administration, by their disposition to a life of meditation and simplicity, and ... by the influence of their relatives with the powers of state and church. In the latter half of the period in which they ruled [800 CE onwards], the clergy were as free from family cares as even Plato could desire [for such guardians] ... [Clerical] Celibacy was part of the psychological structure of the power of the clergy; for on the one hand they were unimpeded by the narrowing egoism of the family, and on the other their apparent superiority to the call of the flesh added to the awe in which lay sinners held them. ...


title: Gentry

text: Gaetano Mosca wrote on the same subject matter in his book The Ruling Class concerning the Medieval Church and its structure that


title: Gentry

text: Beyond the fact that Clerical celibacy functioned as a spiritual discipline it also was guarantor of the independence of the Church.


title: Gentry

text: the Catholic Church has always aspired to a preponderant share in political power, it has never been able to monopolize it entirely, because of two traits, chiefly, that are basic in its structure. Celibacy has generally been required of the clergy and of monks. Therefore no real dynasties of abbots and bishops have ever been able to establish themselves. ... Secondly, in spite of numerous examples to the contrary supplied by the warlike Middle Ages, the ecclesiastical calling has by its very nature never been strictly compatible with the bearing of arms. The precept that exhorts the Church to abhor bloodshed has never dropped completely out of sight, and in relatively tranquil and orderly times it has always been very much to the fore.


title: Gentry

text: The fundamental social structure in Europe in the Middle Ages was between the ecclesiastical hierarchy, nobles i.e. the tenants in chivalry (counts, barons, knights, esquires, franklins) and the ignobles, the villeins, citizens, and burgesses. The division of society into classes of nobles and ignobles, in the smaller regions of medieval Europe was inexact. After the Protestant Reformation, social intermingling between the noble class and the hereditary clerical upper class became a feature in the monarchies of Nordic countries.


title: Gentry

text: The gentility is primarily formed on the bases of the medieval societies' two higher estates of the realm, nobility and clergy, both exempted from taxation. Subsequent "gentle" families of long descent who never obtained official rights to bear a coat of arms were also admitted to the rural upper-class society: the gentry.


title: Gentry

text: At the top of the pyramid were the princes and estates of the king or emperor, or with the clergy, the bishops and the pope.


title: Gentry

text: The feudal system was, for the people of the Middle Ages and early modern period, fitted into a God-given order. The nobility and the third estate were born into their class, and change in social position was slow. Wealth had little influence on what estate one belonged to. The exception was the Medieval Church, which was the only institution where competent men (and women) of merit could reach, in one lifetime, the highest positions in society.


title: Gentry

text: The first estate comprised the entire clergy, traditionally divided into "higher" and "lower" clergy. Although there was no formal demarcation between the two categories, the upper clergy were, effectively, clerical nobility, from the families of the second estate or as in the case of Cardinal Wolsey, from more humble backgrounds.


title: Gentry

text: The second estate was the nobility. Being wealthy or influential did not automatically make one a noble, and not all nobles were wealthy and influential (aristocratic families have lost their fortunes in various ways, and the concept of the "poor nobleman" is almost as old as nobility itself). Countries without a feudal tradition did not have a nobility as such.


title: Gentry

text: Historically in some cultures, members of an upper class often did not have to work for a living, as they were supported by earned or inherited investments (often real estate), although members of the upper class may have had less actual money than merchants. Upper-class status commonly derived from the social position of one's family and not from one's own achievements or wealth. Much of the population that comprised the upper class consisted of aristocrats, ruling families, titled people, and religious hierarchs. These people were usually born into their status, and historically, there was not much movement across class boundaries. This is to say that it was much harder for an individual to move up in class simply because of the structure of society.


title: Gentry

text: In many countries, the term "upper class" was intimately associated with hereditary land ownership and titles. Political power was often in the hands of the landowners in many pre-industrial societies (which was one of the causes of the French Revolution), despite there being no legal barriers to land ownership for other social classes. Power began to shift from upper-class landed families to the general population in the early modern age, leading to marital alliances between the two groups, providing the foundation for the modern upper classes in the West. Upper-class landowners in Europe were often also members of the titled nobility, though not necessarily: the prevalence of titles of nobility varied widely from country to country. Some upper classes were almost entirely untitled, for example, the Szlachta of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.


title: Gentry

text: Before the Age of Absolutism, institutions, such as the church, legislatures, or social elites, restrained monarchical power. Absolutism was characterized by the ending of feudal partitioning, consolidation of power with the monarch, rise of state, rise of professional standing armies, professional bureaucracies, the codification of state laws, and the rise of ideologies that justify the absolutist monarchy. Hence, Absolutism was made possible by new innovations and characterized as a phenomenon of Early Modern Europe, rather than that of the Middle Ages, where the clergy and nobility counterbalanced as a result of mutual rivalry.


title: Gentry

text: From the middle of the 1860s the privileged position of Baltic Germans in the Russian Empire began to waver. Already during the reign of Nicholas I (1825–55), who was under pressure from Russian nationalists, some sporadic steps had been taken towards the russification of the provinces. Later, the Baltic Germans faced fierce attacks from the Russian nationalist press, which accused the Baltic aristocracy of separatism, and advocated closer linguistic and administrative integration with Russia.


title: Gentry

text: Social division was based on the dominance of the Baltic Germans which formed the upper classes while the majority of indigenous population, called "Undeutsch", composed the peasantry. In the Imperial census of 1897, 98,573 Germans (7.58% of total population) lived in the Governorate of Livonia, 51,017 (7.57%) in the Governorate of Curonia, and 16,037 (3.89%) in the Governorate of Estonia. The social changes faced by the emancipation, both social and national, of the Estonians and Latvians where not taken seriously by the Baltic German gentry. The provisional government of Russia after 1917 revolution gave the Estonians and Latvians self-governance which meant the end of the Baltic German era in Baltics.


title: Gentry

text: The Lithuanian gentry consisted mainly of Lithuanians, but due to strong ties to Poland, had been culturally Polonized. After the Union of Lublin in 1569, they became less distinguishable from Polish "szlachta", although preserved Lithuanian national awareness.


title: Gentry

text: In Hungary during the late 19th and early 20th century gentry (sometimes spelled as "dzsentri") were nobility without land who often sought employment as civil servants, army officers, or went into politics.


title: Gentry

text: In the history of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, "gentry" is often used in English to describe the Polish landed gentry (, from "ziemia", "land"). They were the lesser members of the nobility (the "szlachta"), contrasting with the much smaller but more powerful group of "magnate" families (sing. "magnat", plural "magnaci" in Polish), the Magnates of Poland and Lithuania. Compared to the situation in England and some other parts of Europe, these two parts of the overall "nobility" to a large extent operated as different classes, and were often in conflict. After the Partitions of Poland, at least in the stereotypes of 19th-century nationalist lore, the magnates often made themselves at home in the capitals and courts of the partitioning powers, while the gentry remained on their estates, keeping the national culture alive.


title: Gentry

text: From the 15th century, only the "szlachta", and a few patrician bughers from some cities, were allowed to own rural estates of any size, as part of the very extensive szlachta privileges. These restrictions were reduced or removed after the Partitions of Poland, and commoner landowners began to emerge. By the 19th century, there were at least 60,000 "szlachta" families, most rather poor, and many no longer owning land. By then the "gentry" included many non-noble landowners.


title: Gentry

text: In Sweden, there was not outright serfdom. Hence, the gentry was a class of well-off citizens that had grown from the wealthier or more powerful members of the peasantry. The two historically legally privileged classes in Sweden were the Swedish nobility "(Adeln)", a rather small group numerically, and the clergy, which were part of the so-called "frälse" (a classification defined by tax exemptions and representation in the diet).


title: Gentry

text: At the head of the Swedish clergy stood the Archbishop of Uppsala since 1164. The clergy encompassed almost all the educated men of the day and furthermore was strengthened by considerable wealth, and thus it came naturally to play a significant political role. Until the Reformation, the clergy was the first estate but was relegated to the secular estate in the Protestant North Europe.


title: Gentry

text: In the Middle Ages, celibacy in the Catholic Church had been a natural barrier to the formation of an hereditary priestly class. After compulsory celibacy was abolished in Sweden during the Reformation, the formation of a hereditary priestly class became possible, whereby wealth and clerical positions were frequently inheritable. Hence the bishops and the vicars, who formed the clerical upper class, would frequently have manors similar to those of other country gentry. Hence continued the medieval Church legacy of the intermingling between noble class and clerical upper class and the intermarriage as the distinctive element in several Nordic countries after the Reformation.