827 



WREN, SIR CHRISTOPHER. 



WREN, SIR CHRISTOPHER. 



828 



Mien during the action, the chief command devolved upon Marshal 

 Wrcde. During the retreat he was frequently seen in the rear of the 

 French army, assisting Marshal Ney in covering the fugitive legions. 

 In that terrible retreat Wrede's corps was one of the most severely 

 visited; "the lean wreck of his cavalry was dismounted, and scarcely 

 a single Bavarian horse passed out of the Russian snows." Wrede 

 was destined soon to find himself once more opposed to the general 

 under whom he thus served and suffered, and once more allied to the 

 army in fighting against which his chief honours had been gained. 

 On the 8th of October 1813, the treaty of Keid, by which Bavaria dis- 

 engaged herself from the Confederation of the Rhine, having been 

 signed, Marshal Wrede, with the appointment of commander-in-chief, 

 marched into Franconia, at the head of a strong Austro-Bavarian 

 force. 



After twenty years' uninterrupted service in France, Italy, Germany, 

 and Russia, Wrede now for the first time saw himself placed in the 

 independent command of a separate army. His instructions were to 

 throw himself across the route of Napoleon, then in full retreat 

 after his discomfiture at the battle of Leipsic. This was the chief 

 incident in his career ; it is one of the most memorable and instruc- 

 tive in the career of Napoleon. The Austro-Bavarian army consisted 

 of five divisions of infantry and two divisions of cavalry, the number 

 of troops amounting to 56,000, with 160 guns. With this army, on 

 the 30th of October 1813, he posted himself in the forest of Hanau, 

 drawing his troops right across the main road ; thereby blocking up 

 the passage for the army of Napoleon, and shutting them out of the 

 French territory near at hand. The army of Napoleon did not exceed 

 80,000, when it came up to the Main after the fearful slaughter at 

 Leipsic ; of these 30,000 were stragglers ; so that to clear his way the 

 French emperor could not rely upon more than 50,000 combatants. 

 His artillery, from 800 pieces had been reduced to 200 guns. The 

 battle of Hanau, in which Marshal Wrede had the honour to measure 

 swords with Napoleon himself, continued for several hours, during 

 which, notwithstanding the desperate efforts of Victor and Macdonald 

 they were unable to force their way through the narrow opening 

 between the forest and the banks of the Kinzig. At length Napo- 

 leon ordered the artillery of the Guard, under Drouot, and the 

 cavalry of the Guard, led by Nansouti, to force a passage. This 

 manoeuvre proved successful, the allies fled towards the river, leaving 

 the road to Frankfurt open to the French. Wrede withdrew the 

 shattered remains of his army behind the Kinzig, under the protection 

 of the cannon of Hanau. The army of Napoleon passed on. The town 

 of Hanau was taken by Marmont on the 31st of October, and retaken 

 by Wrede the following day. But this time, whilst pursuing the 

 Italian rearguard towards the Kinzig he was wounded severely, and 

 obliged to relinquish his command. The loss of the allies at the 

 battle of Hanau amounted to 10,000 men; that of the French to 

 7000. 



As soon as the campaign of 1814 had opened, Marshal Wrede, 

 though scarcely convalescent, resumed the command of the Bavarian 

 corps, and entered France between Basel and Strasbourg, pouring his 

 battalions into the adjacent districts of Lorraine and Franche-Comte". 

 In the campaign of 1814, comprising fourteen pitched battles fought 

 by Napoleon in person, in the space of two months, Marshal 

 Wrede was continually in action. At the battle of La Rothiere, 

 February 1, 1814, Marshal Wrede drove the French out of the village 

 of La Gibeiie, and then carried Chaumesnil and Morvilliers. The 

 next day, encountering Marmont, who was defiling with his corps 

 over the bridge of Lesmont, he defeated him with great loss. On the 

 14th of February he marched upon Troyes, the capital of Champagne, 

 and there fixed his head-quarters. On the 27th, ho defeated Marshal 

 Oudinot at Bar-sur-Aube. By his impetuous assault and storming 

 of the bridge over the Barse, he greatly contributed to the victory of 

 La Guillotiere. Finally he took part at the battle of Arcis-sur-Aube 

 on the 21st of March 1814 ; and he was one of the most eager advo- 

 cates of the immediate advance upon Paris. 



After the evacuation of France, Marshal Wrede was raised to the 

 rank of prince, receiving in addition the estate of Ellingen in Fran- 

 conia, from his own sovereign, besides many marks of distinction 

 from various other quarters. The prince was one of the diplomatists 

 selected to mfet at the congress of Vienna, where he gave proofs of 

 singular ability. When the escape of Napoleon, in February 1815, 

 revived the war for a few months, Wrede penetrated into Lorraine at 

 the head of the Bavarian army, crossed the Sarre on the 23rd of June, 

 and took military occupation of several of the midland departments 

 of France. Subsequently, hia sovereign entrusted him with several 

 missions of the highest importance, and on the 1st of October 1822 

 created him generalissimo of the Bavarian armies. When disturbances 

 began to spread through the Rhenish Bavaria in 1832, he was de- 

 spatched with ample powers to the seat of the insurrection, as chief 

 commissioner; where his conciliatory measures pacified tho inhabi- 

 tants without recourse being had to violence. 



Marshal Wrede died at his estate of Ellingen, on the 12th of Decem- 

 ber 1838, aged seventy-one. His son, CHARLES THEODORE WREDE, 

 the inheritor of his title and domains, born on the 8th of January 

 1797, is generally considered as one of the most earnest defenders of 

 constitutional liberty in his native land. 



WREN, SIR CHRISTOPHER, born at East Knoylo, Wilts, Octo- 



ber 20, 1632, was of good family, being the son of Dr. Christopher 

 Wren, chaplain in ordinary to Charles L, and dean of Windsor ; and 

 nephew to Dr. Matthew Wren, successively bishop of Hereford, Nor- 

 wich, and Ely ; and from the former of these he seems to have inherited 

 a taste for scientific and literary studies, that of architecture included. 

 That he was initiated into architecture by parental example is highly 

 probable, since he was not educated professionally to the practice of it, 

 but applied himself to it only theoretically, and might never have dis- 

 tinguished himself in it if peculiar circumstances had not led to the 

 exercise of his talents. 



Though in his childhood of weak bodily constitution, Wren was of 

 most precocious mind, and that too as youthful genius most rarely 

 displays itself not in poetic fancy and feeling, but in the abstruser 

 paths of science and philosophy. In fact it almost partakes of the 

 marvellous when we are told that at the age of thirteen he invented 

 an astronomical instrument, a pneumatic engine, and another instru- 

 ment of use in gnomonics. These inventions probably served no other 

 end than that of causing him to be regarded as a prodigy ; and the 

 fame thus acquired no doubt helped to procure for him at Oxford, 

 where he was entered as gentleman commoner at Wadham College in 

 his fourteenth year, the notice of Dr. Wilkins and Seth Wood, Savilian 

 professor of astronomy. A philosopher and mathematician of the age 

 of sixteen was a phenomenon ; and even before then he had been dis- 

 tinguished by his proficiency in anatomy, and had been employed by 

 Sir Charles Scarborough as his demonstrating assistant. While at 

 Oxford he associated with Hooke (whom he assisted in his ' Micro- 

 graphia') and other scientific men, whose meetings laid the foundation, 

 of the future Royal Society. In 1653 he was elected a Fellow of All 

 Souls' College, Oxford. 



By the time he was twenty-four he was known to the learned of 

 Europe by his various theories, inventions, and improvements. In 

 August 1657, he was appointed to the professor's chair of astronomy 

 at Gresham College, London, and three years after to that of the 

 Savilian professor at Oxford, when he resigned the Gresham chair. On 

 the establishment of the Royal Society soon after the Restoration, 

 Wren contributed not a little to the reputation of that body. Thus 

 far therefore he had attained to high eminence among his contempo- 

 raries, but it was such that he might have remained known only to a 

 few, whereas at present his celebrity as an architect has swallowed up 

 all his other titles to distinction. At that time bis architectural 

 genius had hardly dawned, and it was probably chiefly owing to his 

 general reputation for scientific skill that he was appointed by 

 Charles II., in 1661, assistant to Sir John Denhain, the surveyor- 

 general, and was commissioned in 1663 to survey and report upon 

 St. Paul's Cathedral, with a view to its restoration, or rather the entire 

 rebuilding of the body of the fabric so as to reconcile it with the 

 Corinthian colonnade added to it by Jones. This scheme met with 

 considerable opposition both from the clergy and the citizens, there 

 being strong prejudices amongst the latter against destroying the old 

 edifice ; at least earnest wishes that the tower should be still preserved. 

 Dissensions and prptracted discussions, and delay of course, were the 

 consequences, and nothing was done. But if this undertaking seemed 

 likely to be postponed indefinitely, if not to fall to the ground alto- 

 gether, Wren had in the meantime been employed on some other 

 buildings the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford (1664-9), and the Library 

 and Neville's Court, at Trinity College, Cambridge. In the same 

 interval, and during the discussions on the subject of St. Paul's, he 

 visited Paris (1665), where the works of the Louvre were then in 

 progress, and he had begun to draw up some observations on tho 

 state of architecture in that capital, but he unfortunately never pub- 

 lished or completed them. 



At the beginning of the following year he returned hopie, but found 

 matters neither settled nor likely to be settled in regard to St. Paul's. 

 At length the events and accidents by which architectural under- 

 takings are so greatly controlled, put an end to all discussion and all 

 perplexity as to retaining any part of the old fabric. Political events 

 had frustrated Jones's plans for the Palace of Whitehall ; an event of 

 a different nature, most calamitous in itself at the time, happened 

 opportunely for Wren, since the ' Great Fire ' of London not only 

 decided that St. Paul's should be entirely rebuilt as one consistent 

 whole, entirely of his own idea, but also opened an extensive field for 

 his talents in various other metropolitan buildings. One immediate 

 labour arising from the conflagration was to make a survey of the 

 whole of the ruins, and a plan for laying out the devastated space in a 

 regular and commodious manner, with wide streets and piazzas at 

 intervals. Yet BO far was this plan from being adopted, that it was 

 lost sight of altogether in rebuilding the city : the new streets rose up 

 in that dense and intricate maze of narrow lanes which are now but 

 slowly disappeai-ing before modern improvements; and worst of all, 

 instead of tho line of spacious quays along the Thames, which Wren 

 proposed, the river was entirely shut out from view by wharfs and 

 warehouses in such manner as to render any scheme for improvement 

 to any extent in regard to its banks a matter of extreme difficulty. It 

 is not indeed to be wondered at that amidst such a scene of confusion, 

 and under the pressure of immediate necessity, the citizens should 

 have paid no regard to schemes of architectural magnificence ; still it 

 is to be regretted that they did not adopt some general plan, pro- 

 viding for commodiousness in the first instance, and for embellish- 



