in the phrase “noblesse oblige.” In this sense of a person of culture, character and good manners the word “gentleman” has supplied a gap in more than one foreign language.
The evolution of this meaning of “gentleman” reflects very accurately that of English society; and there are not wanting signs that the process of evolution, in the one as in the other, is not complete. The indefinableness of the word mirrors the indefinite character of “society” in England; and the use by “the masses” of “gentleman” as a mere synonym for “man” has spread pari passu with the growth of democracy. It is a protest against implied inferiority, and is cherished as the modern French bourgeois cherishes his right of duelling with swords, under the ancien régime a prerogative of the noblesse. Nor is there much justification for the denunciation by purists of the “vulgarization” and “abuse” of the “grand old name of gentleman.” Its strict meaning has now fallen completely obsolete. Its current meaning varies with every class of society that uses it. But it always implies some sort of excellency of manners or morals. It may by courtesy be over-loosely applied by one common man to another; but the common man would understand the reproach conveyed in “You’re no gentleman.”
Authorities.—Selden, Titles of Honor (London, 1672); William Harrison, Description of England, ed. G. F. J. Furnivall for the New Shakspere Soc. (London, 1877–1878); Sir George Sitwell, “The English Gentleman,” in the Ancestor, No. 1 (Westminster, April 1902); Peacham’s Compleat Gentleman (1634), with an introduction by G. S. Gordon (Oxford, 1906); A. Smythe-Palmer, D.D., The Ideal of a Gentleman, or a Mirror for Gentlefolk: A Portrayal in Literature from the Earliest Times (London, 1908), a very exhaustive collection of extracts from authors so wide apart as Ptah-hotep (3300 B.C.) and William Watson, arranged under headings: “The Historical Idea of a Gentleman,” “The Herald’s Gentleman,” “The Poet’s Gentleman,” &c. (W. A. P.)
GENTZ, FRIEDRICH VON (1764–1832), German publicist and
statesman, was born at Breslau on the 2nd of May 1764. His
father was an official, his mother an Ancillon, distantly
related to the Prussian minister of that name. On his father’s
transference to Berlin, as director of the mint, the boy was sent
to the Joachimsthal gymnasium there; his brilliant talents,
however, did not develop until later, when at the university of
Königsberg he fell under the influence of Kant. But though
his intellect was sharpened and his zeal for learning quickened by
the great thinker’s influence, Kant’s “categorical imperative”
did not prevent him from yielding to the taste for wine, women
and high play which pursued him through life. When in 1785 he
returned to Berlin, he received the appointment of secret secretary
to the royal Generaldirectorium, his talents soon gaining him
promotion to the rank of councillor for war (Kriegsrath). During
an illness, which kept him virtuous by confining him to his room,
he studied French and English, gaining a mastery of these
languages which, at that time exceedingly rare, opened up for
him opportunities for a diplomatic career.
His interest in public affairs was, however, first aroused by the outbreak of the French Revolution. Like most quick-witted young men, he greeted this at first with enthusiasm; but its subsequent developments cooled his ardour and he was converted to more conservative counsels by Burke’s Essay on the French Revolution, a translation of which into German (1794) was his first literary venture. This was followed, next year, by translations of works on the Revolution by Mallet du Pan and Mounier, and at this time he also founded and edited a monthly journal, the Neue deutsche Monatsschrift, in which for five years he wrote, mainly on historical and political questions, maintaining the principles of British constitutionalism against those of revolutionary France. The knowledge he displayed of the principles and practice of finance was especially remarkable. In 1797, at the instance of English statesmen, he published a translation of a history of French finance by François d’Ivernois (1757–1842), an eminent Genevese exile naturalized and knighted in England, extracts from which he had previously given in his journal. His literary output at this time, all inspired by a moderate Liberalism, was astounding, and included an essay on the results of the discovery of America, and another, written in French, on the English financial system (Essai sur l’état de l’administration des finances de la Grande-Bretagne, London, 1800). Especially noteworthy, however, was the Denkschrift or Missive addressed by him to King Frederick William III. on his accession (1797), in which, inter alia, he urged upon the king the necessity for granting freedom to the press and to commerce. For a Prussian official to venture to give uncalled-for advice to his sovereign was a breach of propriety not calculated to increase his chances of favour; but it gave Gentz a conspicuous position in the public eye, which his brilliant talents and literary style enabled him to maintain. Moreover, he was from the first aware of the probable developments of the Revolution and of the consequences to Prussia of the weakness and vacillations of her policy. Opposition to France was the inspiring principle of the Historisches Journal founded by him in 1799–1800, which once more held up English institutions as the model, and became in Germany the mouthpiece of British policy towards the revolutionary aggressions of the French republic. In 1801 he ceased the publication of the Journal, because he disliked the regularity of journalism, and issued instead, under the title Beiträge zur Geschichte, &c., a series of essays on contemporary politics. The first of these was Über den Ursprung und Charakter des Krieges gegen die französische Revolution (1801), by many regarded as Gentz’s masterpiece; another important brochure, Von dem politischen Zustande von Europa vor und nach der Revolution, a criticism of Hauterive’s De l’état de la France à la fin de l’an VIII, appeared the same year.
This activity gained him recognition abroad and gifts of money from the British and Austrian governments; but it made his position as an official in Berlin impossible, for the Prussian government had no mind to abandon its attitude of cautious neutrality. Private affairs also combined to urge Gentz to leave the Prussian service; for, mainly through his own fault, a separation with his wife was arranged. In May 1802, accordingly, he took leave of his wife and left with his friend Adam Müller for Vienna. In Berlin he had been intimate with the Austrian ambassador, Count Stadion, whose good offices procured him an introduction to the emperor Francis. The immediate result was the title of imperial councillor, with a yearly salary of 4000 gulden (December 6th, 1802); but it was not till 1809 that he was actively employed. Before returning to Berlin to make arrangements for transferring himself finally to Vienna, Gentz paid a visit to London, where he made the acquaintance of Pitt and Granville, who were so impressed with his talents that, in addition to large money presents, he was guaranteed an annual pension by the British government in recognition of the value of the services of his pen against Bonaparte. From this time forward he was engaged in a ceaseless polemic against every fresh advance of the Napoleonic power and pretensions; with matchless sarcasm he lashed “the nerveless policy of the courts, which suffer indignity with resignation”; he denounced the recognition of Napoleon’s imperial title, and drew up a manifesto of Louis XVIII. against it. The formation of the coalition and the outbreak of war for a while raised his hopes, in spite of his lively distrust of the competence of Austrian ministers; but the hopes were speedily dashed by Austerlitz and its results. Gentz used his enforced leisure to write a brilliant essay on “The relations between England and Spain before the outbreak of war between the two powers” (Leipzig, 1806); and shortly afterwards appeared Fragmente aus der neuesten Geschichte des politischen Gleichgewichts in Europa (translated s.t. Fragments on the Balance of Power in Europe, London, 1806). This latter, the last of Gentz’s works as an independent publicist, was a masterly exposé of the actual political situation, and at the same time prophetic in its suggestions as to how this should be retrieved: “Through Germany Europe has perished, through Germany it must rise again.” He realized that the dominance of France could only be broken by the union of Austria and Prussia, acting in concert with Great Britain. He watched with interest the Prussian military preparations, and, at the invitation of Count Haugwitz, he went at the outset of the campaign to the Prussian headquarters at Erfurt, where he drafted the king’s proclamation and his letter to Napoleon. The writer was known, and it was in
