commonwealth are discussed with infinite subtlety, contrasted, and illustrated from the vicissitudes of Florence up to the year 1494. To these may be added a series of short essays, entitled Discorsi politici, composed during Guicciardini’s Spanish legation. It is only after a careful perusal of these minor works that the student of history may claim to have comprehended Guicciardini, and may feel that he brings with him to the consideration of the Storia d’ Italia the requisite knowledge of the author’s private thoughts and jealously guarded opinions. Indeed, it may be confidently affirmed that those who desire to gain an insight into the true principles and feelings of the men who made and wrote history in the 16th century will find it here far more than in the work designed for publication by the writer. Taken in combination with Machiavelli’s treatises, the Opere inedite furnish a comprehensive body of Italian political philosophy anterior to the date of Fra Paolo Sarpi. (J. A. S.)
See Rosini’s edition of the Storia d’ Italia (10 vols., Pisa, 1819), and the Opere inedite, in 10 vols., published at Florence, 1857. A complete and initial edition of Guicciardini’s works is now in preparation in the hands of Alessandro Gherardi of the Florence archives. Among the many studies on Guicciardini we may mention Agostino Rossi’s Francesco Guicciardini e il governo Fiorentino (2 vols., Bologna, 1896), based on many new documents; F. de Sanctis’s essay “L’Uomo del Guicciardini,” in his Nuovi Saggi critici (Naples, 1879), and many passages in Professor P. Villari’s Machiavelli (Eng. trans., 1892); E. Benoist’s Guichardin, historien et homme d’état italien an XVI e siècle (Paris, 1862), and C. Gioda’s Francesco Guicciardini e le sue opere inedite (Bologna, 1880) are not without value, but the authors had not had access to many important documents since published. See also Geoffrey’s article “Une Autobiographie de Guichardin d’après ses œuvres inédites,” in the Revue des deux mondes (1st of February 1874).
GUICHARD, KARL GOTTLIEB (1724–1775), soldier and
military writer, known as Quintus Icilius, was born at Magdeburg
in 1724, of a family of French refugees. He was educated
for the Church, and at Leiden actually preached a sermon as a
candidate for the pastorate. But he abandoned theology for
more secular studies, especially that of ancient history, in which
his learning attracted the notice of the prince of Orange, who
promised him a vacant professorship at Utrecht. On his arrival,
however, he found that another scholar had been elected by the
local authorities, and he thereupon sought and obtained a
commission in the Dutch army. He made the campaigns of
1747–48 in the Low Countries. In the peace which followed,
his combined military and classical training turned his thoughts
in the direction of ancient military history. His notes on this
subject grew into a treatise, and in 1754 he went over to England
in order to consult various libraries. In 1757 his Mémoires
militaires sur les Grecs et les Romains appeared at the Hague, and
when Carlyle wrote his Frederick the Great it had reached its
fifth edition. Coming back, with English introductions, to the
Continent, he sought service with Ferdinand of Brunswick, who
sent him on to Frederick the Great, whom he joined in January
1758 at Breslau. The king was very favourably impressed with
Guichard and his works, and he remained for nearly 18 months
in the royal suite. His Prussian official name of Quintus Icilius
was the outcome of a friendly dispute with the king (see Nikolai,
Anekdoten, vi. 129-145; Carlyle, Frederick the Great, viii.
113-114). Frederick in discussing the battle of Pharsalia spoke
of a centurion Quintus Caecilius as Q. Icilius. Guichard ventured
to correct him, whereupon the king said, “You shall be Quintus
Icilius,” and as Major Quintus Icilius he was forthwith gazetted
to the command of a free battalion. This corps he commanded
throughout the later stages of the Seven Years’ War, his battalion,
as time went on, becoming a regiment of three battalions, and
Quintus himself recruited seven more battalions of the same
kind of troops. His command was almost always with the
king’s own army in these campaigns, but for a short time it
fought in the western theatre under Prince Henry. When not
on the march he was always at the royal headquarters, and it
was he who brought about the famous interview between the
king and Gellert (see Carlyle, Frederick the Great, ix. 109;
Gellert, Briefwechsel mit Demoiselle Lucius, ed. Ebert, Leipzig,
1823, pp. 629-631) on the subject of national German literature.
On 22nd January 1761 Quintus was ordered to sack the castle
of Hubertusburg (a task which Major-General Saldern had point-blank
refused to undertake, from motives of conscience), and
carried out his task, it is said, to his own very considerable
profit. The place cannot have been seriously injured, as it was
soon afterwards the meeting-place of the diplomatists whose
work ended in the peace of Hubertusburg, but the king never
ceased to banter Quintus on his supposed depredations. The
very day of Frederick’s triumphant return from the war saw the
disbanding of most of the free battalions, including that of
Quintus, but the major to the end of his life remained with the
king. He was made lieutenant-colonel in 1765, and in 1773,
in recognition of his work Mémoires critiques et historiques sur
plusieurs points d’antiquités militaires, dealing mainly with
Caesar’s campaigns in Spain (Berlin, 1773), was promoted colonel.
He died at Potsdam, 1775.
GUICHEN, LUC URBAIN DE BOUËXIC, Comte de (1712–1790),
French admiral, entered the navy in 1730 as “garde de la
Marine,” the first rank in the corps of royal officers. His promotion
was not rapid. It was not till 1748 that he became
“lieutenant de vaisseau,” which was, however, a somewhat
higher rank than the lieutenant in the British navy, since it
carried with it the right to command a frigate. He was “capitaine
de vaisseau,” or post captain, in 1756. But his reputation
must have been good, for he was made chevalier de Saint Louis
in 1748. In 1775 he was appointed to the frigate “Terpsichore,”
attached to the training squadron, in which the duc de Chartres,
afterwards notorious as the duc d’Orléans and as Philippe
Égalité, was entered as volunteer. In the next year he was
promoted chef d’escadre, or rear-admiral. When France had
become the ally of the Americans in the War of Independence, he
hoisted his flag in the Channel fleet, and was present at the battle
of Ushant on the 27th of July 1779. In March of the following
year he was sent to the West Indies with a strong squadron
and was there opposed to Sir George Rodney. In the first meeting
between them on the 17th of April to leeward of Martinique,
Guichen escaped disaster only through the clumsy manner in
which Sir George’s orders were executed by his captains. Seeing
that he had to deal with a formidable opponent, Guichen acted
with extreme caution, and by keeping the weather gauge afforded
the British admiral no chance of bringing him to close action.
When the hurricane months approached (July to September)
he left the West Indies, and his squadron, being in a bad state
from want of repairs, returned home, reaching Brest in September.
Throughout all this campaign Guichen had shown himself very
skilful in handling a fleet, and if he had not gained any marked
success, he had prevented the British admiral from doing any
harm to the French islands in the Antilles. In December 1781
the comte de Guichen was chosen to command the force which
was entrusted with the duty of carrying stores and reinforcements
to the West Indies. On the 12th Admiral Kempenfelt,
who had been sent out by the British Government with an
unduly weak force to intercept him, sighted the French admiral
in the Bay of Biscay through a temporary clearance in a fog,
at a moment when Guichen’s warships were to leeward of the
convoy, and attacked the transports at once. The French
admiral could not prevent his enemy from capturing twenty of
the transports, and driving the others into a panic-stricken
flight. They returned to port, and the mission entrusted to
Guichen was entirely defeated. He therefore returned to port
also. He had no opportunity to gain any counterbalancing
success during the short remainder of the war, but he was present
at the final relief of Gibraltar by Lord Howe. His death occurred
on the 13th of January 1790. The comte de Guichen was, by
the testimony of his contemporaries, a most accomplished
and high-minded gentleman. It is probable that he had more
scientific knowledge than any of his English contemporaries
and opponents. But as a commander in war he was notable
chiefly for his skill in directing the orderly movements of a
fleet, and seems to have been satisfied with formal operations,
which were possibly elegant but could lead to no substantial
result. He had none of the combative instincts of his countryman
Suffren, or of the average British admiral.
