cause it is intimately connected with the subject now before us. The fact of the French intellect having, during the eighteenth century, passed through two totally distinct epochs, can be proved by every description of evidence; but it is impossible to ascertain the precise time when one epoch succeeded the other. All that we can do is, to compare the different indications which the history of that age presents, and arrive at an approximation which may guide future inquirers. It would perhaps be more prudent to avoid making any particular statement; but as the employment of dates seems necessary to bring such matters clearly before the mind, I will, by way of provisional hypothesis, fix on the year 1750, as the period when those agitations of society which caused the French Revolution entered into their second and political stage.

3

That this was about the period when the great movement, hitherto directed against the church, began to be turned against the state, is an inference which many circumstances seem to warrant. We know on the best authority, that towards the year 1750, the French began their celebrated inquiries respecting political economy, and that in their attempt to raise it to a science, they were led to perceive the immense injury which the interference of government had produced on the material interests of the country. Hence a conviction arose that, even in regard to the accumulation of wealth, the authority possessed by the rulers of France was mischievous, since it enabled them, under the notion of protecting commerce, to trouble the freedom of individual action, and to prevent trade from running into those profitable channels which traders are best able to select for themselves. Scarcely had a knowledge of this important truth been nunfterkenntniss, an sich gleich gewiss ist, so ist doch die Art der Gewissheit in beiden verschieden." Logik, Einleitung, sec. 9, in Kant's Werke, vol. i. p. 399. On the opinions of the ancients respecting certainty, compare Matter, Hist. de l'Ecole d'Alexandrie, vol. i. p. 195, with Ritter's Hist. of Ancient Philos. vol. ii. p. 46, vol. iii. pp. 74, 426, 427, 484, 614.

3.66 "Vers 1750, deux hommes de génie, observateurs judicieux et profonds, conduits par une force d'attention très-soutenue à une logique rigoureuse, animés d'un noble amour pour la patrie et pour l'humanité, M. Quesnay et M. de Gournay, s'occupèrent avec suite de savoir si la nature des choses n'indiquerait pas une science de l'économie politique, et quels seraient les principes de cette science." Additions aux Euvres de Turgot, vol. iii. p. 310. M. Blanqui (Hist. de l'Economie Politique, vol. ii. p. 78) also says, 66 vers l'année 1750;" and Voltaire (Dict. Philos. article Blé, in Euvres, vol. xxxvii. p. 384) says, vers l'an 1750, la nation, rassasiée de vers, de tragédies, de comédies, d'opéra, de romans, d'histoires romanesques,d e réflexions morales plus romanesques encore, et de disputes théologiques sur la grace et sur les convulsions, se mit enfin à raisonner sur les blés."

The revolutionary tendency of this economical movement is noticed in Alison's Europe, vol. i. pp. 184, 185; where, however, its commencement is erroneously assigned to "about the year 1761." See also, on the hostility this caused against government, Mem. de Campan, vol. i. pp. 7-8; Mem. of Mallet du Pan, vol. i. p. 32 ; and Barruel, Hist. du Jacobinisme, vol. i. p. 193, vol. ii. p. 152.

diffused, when its consequences were quickly seen in the national literature, and in the habits of national thought. The sudden increase in France of works relating to finance and to other questions of government, is, indeed, one of the most remarkable features of that age. With such rapidity did the movement spread, that we are told that, soon after 1755, the economists effected a schism between the nation and the government; and Voltaire, writing in 1759, complains that the charms of lighter literature were entirely neglected amidst the general zeal for these new studies. It is not necessary to follow the subsequent history of this great change; nor need I trace the influence exercised shortly before the Revolution by the later economists, and particularly by Turgot, the most eminent of their leaders." It is enough to say, that within about twenty years after the movement was first clearly seen, the taste for economical and financial inquiries became so common, that it penetrated those parts of society where habits of thought are not very frequent; since we find that, even in fashionable life, the conversation no longer turned upon new poems and new plays, but upon political questions, and subjects immediately connected with them. Indeed, when Necker, in 1781, published his celebrated Report on the

"D'ailleurs la nation s'étoit accoutumée à se séparer toujours de plus en plus de son gouvernement, en raison même de ce que ses écrivains avoient commencé à aborder les études politiques. C'étoit l'époque où la secte des économistes se donnoit le plus de mouvement, depuis que le marquis de Mirabeau avoit publié, en 1755, son Ami des Hommes." Sismondi, Hist. des Franç. vol. xxix. p. 269. Compare Tocqueville, Règne de Louis XV, vol. ii. p. 58. In this same year, 1755, Goldsmith was in Paris, and was so struck by the progress of insubordination, that he foretold the freedom of the people; though I need hardly say that he was not a man to understand the movement of the economists. Prior's Life of Goldsmith, vol. i. pp. 198, 199; Forster's Life of Goldsmith, vol. i. p. 66.

In February, 1759, he writes to Madame du Boccage: "Il me paraît que les graces et le bon goût sont bannis de France, et ont cédé la place à la métaphysique embrouillée, à la politique des cerveaux creux, à des discussions énormes sur les finances, sur le commerce, sur la population, qui ne mettront jamais dans l'état ni un écu, ni un homme de plus." Euvres de Voltaire, vol. lx. p. 485. In 1763 (vol. lxiii. p. 204): "Adieu nos beaux arts, si les choses continuent comme elles sont. La rage des remontrances et des projets sur les finances a saisi la nation." Many of the ablest men being thus drawn off from mere literary pursuits, there began, about twenty years before the Revolution, a marked deterioration in style, particularly among prose writers. Compare Lettres de Dudeffand à Walpole, vol. ii. p. 358, vol. iii. pp. 163, 299; Mém. de Genlis, vol. ii. p. 374, vol. v. p. 123, vol. viii. pp. 180, 275; Mercier sur Rousseau, vol. ii. p. 151.

Georgel, who hated Turgot, says of him: "son cabinet et ses bureaux se transformèrent en ateliers où les économistes forgeoient leur système et leurs spéculations." Mém. de Georgel, vol. i. p. 406: see also Blanqui, Hist. de l'Econ. Politique, vol. ii. pp. 96-112; Condorcet, Vie de Turgot, pp. 32-35; Twiss, Progress of Political Econ. pp. 142 seq.

Sismondi, under the year 1774, notices "les écrits innombrables que chaque jour voyoit éclore sur la politique, et qui avoient désormais remplacé dans l'intérêt des salons ces nouveautés littéraires, ces vers, ces anecdotes galantes, dont peu d'années auparavant le public étoit uniquement occupé." Hist. des Français, vol. xxix. p. 495; and a similar remark in Schlosser's Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 126.

Finances of France, the eagerness to obtain it was beyond all bounds; six thousand copies were sold the first day; and the demand still increasing, two presses were kept constantly at work in order to satisfy the universal curiosity. And what makes the democratic tendency of all this the more obvious is, that Necker was at that time one of the servants of the crown; so that his work, looking at its general spirit, has been truly called an appeal to the people against the king by one of the ministers of the king himself 10

This evidence of the remarkable change, which, in or about 1750, the French mind underwent, and which formed what I term the second epoch of the eighteenth century, might be easily strengthened by a wider survey of the literature of that time. Immediately after the middle of the century, Rousseau published those eloquent works, which exercised immense influence, and in which the rise of the new epoch is very observable; for this most powerful writer abstained from those attacks on Christianity,"1 which unhappily had been too frequent, and exerted himself almost exclusively against the civil and political abuses of the existing society.12 To trace the effects which this wonderful, but in some instances misguided, man produced on the mind of his own and of the succeeding generation, would occupy too large a share of this Introduction; though the inquiry is full of interest, and is one which it were to be wished some competent historian would undertake. 13 Inasmuch, however, as the philosophy

See the account written in Feb. 1781, in Grimm, Corr. Lit. vol. xi. 260, where it is said of Necker's Compte Rendu, "La sensation qu'a faite cet ouvrage est, je crois, sans exemple; il s'en est débité plus de six mille exemplaires le jour même qu'il a paru, et depuis, le travail continuel de deux imprimeries n'a pu suffire encore aux demandes multipliées de la capitale, des provinces, et des pays étrangers." Ségur (Souvenirs, vol. i. p. 138) mentions, that Necker's work was" dans la poche de tous les abbes, et sur la toilette de toutes les dames." The daughter of Necker, Madame de Staël, says of her father's work, Administration des Finances, "on en vendit quatre-vingt mille exemplaires." De Staël sur la Révolution, vol. i. p. 111.

10 The expression of the Baron de Montyon: see Adolphus's History of George III. vol. iv. p. 290; and on the revolutionary tendency of Necker's financial works, Soulavie, Règne de Louis XVI, vol. ii. pp. xxxvii. xxxviii., vol. iv. pp. 18, 143. Necker published a justification of his book, "malgré la défense du roi." Du Mesnil, Mém. sur Lebrun, p. 108.

"So far as I remember, there is not a single instance in any of his works; and those who assail him on this ground should adduce the passages on which they rely, instead of bringing vague general charges. Compare Life of Rousseau, in Brougham's Men of Letters, vol. i. p. 189; Stäudlin, Gesch. der theolog. Wissenschaften, vol. ii. p. 442; Mercier sur Rousseau, 1791, vol. i. pp. 27-32, vol. ii. pp. 279, 280.

12 4

Rousseau, qui déjà en 1753 avoit touché aux bases mêmes de la société humaine, dans son Discours sur l'origine de l'inégalité parmi les hommes." Sismondi, vol. xxix. p. 270. Schlosser (Hist. of the Eighteenth Century, vol. i. p. 138) notices "the entirely new system of absolute democracy which was brought forward by J. J. Rousseau" see also p. 289, and Soulavie, Règne de Louis XVI, vol. v. p. 208. 13 Napoleon said to Stanislas Girardin respecting Rousseau, sans lui la France n'auroit pas eu de révolution." Holland's Foreign Reminiscences, Lond. 1850, p. 261. This is certainly an exaggeration; but the influence of Rousseau was, during

of Rousseau was itself only a single phase of a far larger movement, I shall at present pass over the individual, in order to consider the general spirit of an age in which he played a vast, but still a subsidiary part.

The formation of a new epoch in France, about the year 1750, may be further illustrated by three circumstances of considerable interest, all pointing in the same direction. The first circumstance is, that not a single great French writer attacked the political institutions of the country before the middle of the century; while after that period the attacks of the ablest men were incessant. The second circumstance is, that the only eminent Frenchmen, who continued to assail the clergy, and yet refused to interfere in politics, were those who, like Voltaire, had already reached an advanced age, and had, therofore, drawn their ideas from the preceding generation, in which the church had been the sole object of hostility. The third circumstance, which is even more striking than the other two, is, that almost at the same moment there was seen a change in the policy of the government; since, singularly enough, the ministers of the crown displayed, for the first time, an open enmity against the church, just as the intellect of the country was preparing for its decisive onslaught on the government itself. Of these three propositions, the first two will probably be admitted by every student of French literature at all events, if they are false, they are so exact and peremptory, that it will be easy to refute them by giving examples to the contrary. But the third proposition, being more general, is less susceptible of a negative, and will therefore require the support of that special evidence which I will now adduce.

The great French writers having by the middle of the eighteenth century succeeded in sapping the foundations of the the latter half of the eighteenth century, most extraordinary. In 1765, Hume writes from Paris: "It is impossible to express or imagine the enthusiasm of this nation in his favour; . . . no person ever so much engaged their attention as Rousseau. Voltaire and every body else are quite eclipsed by him." Burton's Life of Hume, vol. ii. p. 299. A letter written in 1754 (in Grimm, Correspond. vol. i. p. 122) says that his Dijon Discourse "fit une espèce de révolution à Paris." The circulation of his works was unprecedented; and when La Nouvelle Héloïse appeared, "les libraires ne pouvaient suffire aux demandes de toutes les classes. On louait l'ouvrage à tant par jour, ou par heure. Quand il parut, on exigeait douze sous par volume, en n'accordant que soixante minutes pour le lire." Musset Pathay, Vie de Rousseau, vol. ii. p. 361. For further evidence of the effect produced by his works, see Lerminier, Philos. du Droit, vol. ii. p. 251; Mém. de Roland, vol. i. p. 196, vol. ii. pp. 337, 359; Mém. de Genlis, vol. v. p. 193, vol. vi. p. 14; Alison's Europe, vol. i. p. 170, vol. iii. p. 369, vol. iv. p. 376; Mém. de Morellet, vol. i. p. 116; Longchamp, Mem. sur Voltaire, vol. ii. p. 50; Life of Romilly, vol. i. p. 267; Mem. of Mallet du Pan, vol. i. p. 127; Burke's Works, vol. i. p. 482; Cassagnac, Causes de la Rev. vol. iii. p. 549; Lamartine, Hist. des Girondins, vol. ii. p. 38, vol. iv. p. 93, vol. viii. p. 125; Wahrheit und Dichtung, in Göthe's Werke, Stuttgart, 1837, vol. ii. part ii. pp. 83, 104; Grimm, Correspond. Lit. vol. xii. p. 222; De Staël, Consid. sur la Rév. vol. ii. p. 371.

church, it was natural that the government should step in and plunder an establishment which the course of events had weakened. This, which took place in France under Louis XV., was similar to what occurred in England under Henry VIII.; for in both cases a remarkable intellectual movement, directed against the clergy, preceded and facilitated the attacks made on them by the crown. It was in 1749 that the French government took the first decisive step against the church. And what proves the hitherto backward state of the country in such matters is, that this consisted of an edict against mortmain, a simple contrivance for weakening the ecclesiastical power, which we in England had adopted long before. Machault, who had recently been raised to the office of controller-general, has the glory of being the originator of this new policy. In August, 1749,14 he issued that celebrated edict which forbade the formation of any religious establishment without the consent of the crown, duly expressed in letters-patent, and registered in parliament; effective precautions, which, says the great historian of France, show that Machault "considered not only the increase, but even the existence of these ecclesiastical properties, as a mischief to the kingdom."15

This was an extraordinary step on the part of the French government; but what followed showed that it was only the beginning of a much larger design. 16 Machault, so far from being discountenanced, was, the year after he had issued this edict, intrusted with the seals in addition to the controllership ;17 for, as Lacretelle observes, the court "thought the time had now come to tax the property of the clergy." During the forty years which elapsed between this period and the beginning of the revolution, the same anti-ecclesiastical policy prevailed. Among the successors of Machault, the only three of much ability were Choiseul, Necker, and Turgot, all of whom were stren

14 Sismondi (xxix. p. 20), Lacretelle (XVIII Siècle, vol. ii. p. 110), and Tocqueville (Règne de Louis XV, vol. ii. p. 103), give the date 1749; so that 1747, in Biog. Univ. vol. xxvi. p. 46, is apparently a misprint.

Ys "Laissant voir dans toute cette loi, qui est assez longue, qu'il regardoit nonseulement l'accroissement, mais l'existence de ces propriétés ecclésiastiques, comme un mal pour le royaume." Sismondi, Hist. des Franç. vol. xxix. p. 21. This, I suppose, is the edict mentioned by Turgot, who wished to push the principle still further. Euvres de Turgot, vol. iii. pp. 254, 255; a bold and striking passage.

16 Mably mentions the excitement caused by this proceeding of Machault, Observations sur l'Histoire de France, vol. ii. p. 415: "On attaqua alors, dans plusieurs écrits, les immunités du clergé." On the dislike felt by the clergy against the minister, see Ségur, Souvenirs, vol. i. p. 35; Soulavie, Règne de Louis XVI, vol. i. pp. 283, 310, vol. ii. p. 146.

17 In 1750, Machault obtint les sceaux en conservant le contrôle-général.” Biog. Univ. vol. xxvi. p. 46.

18 66

Croyait surtout que le temps était venu d'imposer les biens du clergé." Lacretelle, XVIII Siècle, vol. ii. p. 107. Nearly the same words are used in Biog. Univ. vol. xxvi. p. 46.