LECTURE I.

AGE OF LOUIS FOURTEENTH.

GREAT DIFFICULTY IN JUDGING OF THAT AGE IN THE PRESENT STATE OF PUBLIC OPINION.- ITS CHARACTERISTICS: 1ST. THE STUDY OF ANTIQUITY; 2D. RELIGION, JANSENISM, PORT ROYAL, QUIETISM, TRIUMPHS OF JESUITISM; 3D. THE MONARCHY OF LOUIS XIV. - PERSONAL CHARACTER OF THE KING. DID HE RECEIVE FROM HIS AGE MORE THAN HE GAVE IT? ST. SIMON'S OPINION. SOURCE OF LOUIS XIV.'S POWER. HE IS TRULY GREAT IN ADVERSITY.-FRENCH ACADEMY.-HOTEL

RAMBOUILLET.

VOLTAIRE ranks this among the great epochs of human history. "The thinker," he says, "and, what is still more rare, the man of taste will recognize but four periods of the world's history in which the arts were brought to perfection, and which, serving as epochs of the greatness of the human mind, furnish examples for posterity. The four happy periods are, that of Pericles in Greece; that of Augustus in Rome; that of the Medici in Italy; and that of Louis XIV. in France."

He inclines to give the preference to the latter, both as having accomplished more in certain directions than all the other three together; and as having exerted

a more extensive influence on the human mind; an influence not confined to France, but felt throughout Europe.

Although Voltaire has so lauded this age, yet his history gives us but little information concerning it. If all our knowledge of this period had come from his brilliant, but very superficial recitals, we should be compelled to ask with surprise, wherein its glory consisted. His works could give no satisfactory answer; for, nothing can be less philosophical than this history written by a philosopher.

To understand the productions of any period you must understand the age itself, and especially the influences which contributed to form the very genius that produced its principal works.

Yet it is not easy to revive the scenes and spirit of a bygone age. And this is particularly true of the period we are now to consider. It is not that historical documents and memoirs are wanting, to show us how men lived and thought in the great age; but that we of the nineteenth century have passed into a world so unlike that of the seventeenth, and that there has been so complete a change, in the moral, political, social, religious, and intellectual life of France, and even of Europe, within one hundred and fifty years. I do not mean to say that the seventeenth century did not produce the eighteenth, and that, the nineteenth; but that the development has not been regular and normal. A crisis has intervened; we have passed through the glorious revolution of '89; now proscribed, even in France. That revolution completely separates us from the seventeenth century. So thoroughly did it revolutionize sentiments, as well as institutions, that, in judging the people of that day, even we who inhabit the same country, are like men of another race.

For seventy-five years, France and the other States of Europe have been laboring to detach the Present from the influence of the Past; and with such success, that the history of the world has now commenced anew. General ideas are no longer the same. What was before this epoch an axiom that no one would dream of disputing, is now but timidly defended by an imperceptible minority. In politics, the sovereignty of the king has given place to the sovereignty of the people; in religion, absolute submission to the priests has given place to indifference or mocking incredulity; in place of the patriarchal manners of the good old times, we have now ideas of liberty and independence, which are as often perverted as rightly used. If it be true that literature is a faithful mirror of its age, and that it is indispensable, in order to appreciate it, to live, to some extent, the life of the writers who have left us the monuments of their genius, then it is very difficult to comprehend entirely the authors of the seventeenth century; for it certainly is impossible to live their life, or breathe the same air with them. We are, then, always liable to do them injustice by investing them with our own ideas, and by not taking into account certain things which, however strange to us, were natural in their circumstances. To cite an example: when we read the history of Racine, of Boileau, of Bossuet, and other authors of the great age, we are shocked at their servility to the king. Louis XIV. may have been a great man, but these authors were, at least, as great in their

* This and similar remarks on the political condition of France were true when the author wrote them in 1850; they are not true today, but may be again to-morrow. TR.

sphere as he in his; and we are pained to see them. throwing themselves voluntarily at the feet of the king, whom they intoxicated with their flatteries. Now we should not wish to excuse these flatteries; yet we may explain them when we see that which passes before our own eyes. Would the authors of our day claim to be more independent than Racine and Boileau? In the seventeenth century there was no reading public to recompense authors; and they were, therefore, compelled to depend on the pension of Louis, and to give him incense in exchange for his gold. In our day authors look no longer to the government, but to the public; which is the true sovereign. And it surely admits of a doubt, whether those who daily write for the public, preserve their independence, and never servilely pander to its passions, nor conform to its vicious tastes. idol is changed, but perhaps there is no less incense offered.

The

By the revolution France broke all ties with the past, in order to launch into an unknown future. For sixty years, having lost her way, she has been walking in a labyrinth, of which she cannot yet perceive the issue. Talk not to her of the past, for she has decidedly broken from it; she has no longer an absolute monarchy or an established religion. The eighteenth century has taught her to hate the priests and nobles who were leagued against her. Let her march resolutely forward, you say. Yes, but it is just what she does not dare to do; she seems, as it were, afraid of herself; she has no sooner passed the boundaries of the middle ages to seek new paths, than she suddenly awakens to find herself all bruised, with her feet bathed in blood; frightful recollections of terror and the sway of demagogues oppress her, like a night-mare, paralyzing all freedom of action.