36

Such conduct as this, showed what historians were to expect from the government of Louis XIV. Several years later, the king took another opportunity of displaying the same spirit. Fénélon had been appointed preceptor to the grandson of Louis, whose early vices his firmness and judgment did much to repress. But a single circumstance was thought sufficient to outweigh the immense service which Fénélon thus rendered to the royal family, and, if his pupil had come to the throne, would have rendered prospectively to the whole of France. His celebrated romance, Telemachus, was published in 1699, as it appears, without his consent.37 The king suspected that, under the guise of a fiction, Fénélon intended to reflect on the conduct of government. It was in vain that the author denied so dangerous an imputation. The indignation of the king was not to be appeased. He banished Fénélon from the court; and would never again admit to his presence a man, whom he suspected of even insinuating a criticism upon the measures adopted by the administration of the country.38

If the king could, on mere suspicion, thus treat a great writer, who had the rank of an archbishop and the reputation of a saint, it was not likely that he would deal more tenderly with inferior men. In 1681, the Abbé Primi, an Italian, then residing at Paris, was induced to write a history of Louis XIV. The king, delighted with the idea of perpetuating his own fame, conferred several rewards upon the author; and arrangements were made that the work should be composed in Italian, and immediately translated into French. But when the history appeared, there were found in it some circumstances which it was thought ought not to have been disclosed. On this account, Louis caused the book to be suppressed, the papers of the author to be seized, and the author himself to be thrown into the Bastille.39

eray's History; that is, an edition from which the honest remarks were expunged, See Le Long, Bibliothèque Historique, vol. ii. p. 53, vol. iv. p. 381; and Brunet, Manuel du Libraire, vol. iii. p. 383, Paris, 1843. Hampden, who knew Mezeray, has recorded an interesting interview he had with him in Paris, when the great historian lamented the loss of the liberties of France. See Calamy's Life of Himself, vol. i. pp. 392, 393.

36

Sismondi, Hist. des Français, vol. xxvi. pp. 240, 241.

37 "Par l'infidélité d'un domestique chargé de transcrire le manuscrit." Biog. Univ. vol. xiv. p. 289; and see Peignot, Dict. des Livres condamnés, vol. i. pp. 134, 135. It was suppressed in France, and appeared in Holland in the same year, 1699. Lettres de Sevigné, vol. vi. pp. 434, 435 note.

38 "Louis XIV prit le Télémaque pour une personnalité. . . Comme il (Fénélon) avait déplu au roi, il mourut dans l'exil." Lerminier, Philos. du Droit, vol. ii. pp. 219, 220; and see Siècle de Louis XIV, chap. xxxii., in EŒuvres de Voltaire, vol. xx. p. 307.

39 These circumstances are related in a letter from Lord Preston, dated Paris, 22 July, 1682, and printed in Dalrymple's Memoirs, pp. 141, 142, appendix to vol. i.

Those, indeed, were dangerous times for independent men; times when no writer on politics or religion was safe, unless he followed the fashion of the day, and defended the opinions of the court and the church. The king, who had an insatiable thirst for what he called glory," laboured to degrade contemporary historians into mere chroniclers of his own achievements. He ordered Racine and Boileau to write an account of his reign; he settled a pension upon them, and he promised to supply them with the necessary materials." But even Racine and Boileau, poets though they were, knew that they would fail in satisfying his morbid vanity; they, therefore, received the pension, but omitted to compose the work for which the pension was conferred. So notorious was the unwillingness of able men to meddle with history, that it was thought advisable to beat up literary recruits from foreign countries. The case of the Abbé Primi has just been mentioned; he was an Italian, and only one year later a similar offer was made to an Englishman. In 1683, Burnet visited France, and was given to understand that he might receive a pension, and that he might even enjoy the honour of conversing with Louis himself, provided he would write a history of the royal affairs; such history, it was carefully added, being on the "side" of the French king.+2

42

Under such circumstances as these, it is no wonder that history, so far as its great essentials are concerned, should have rapidly declined during the power of Louis XIV. It became, as some think, more elegant; but it certainly became more feeble. The language in which it was composed was worked with great care, the periods neatly arranged, the epithets soft and harmonious. For that was a polite and obsequious age, full of reverence, of duty, and of admiration. In history, as it was then written, every king was a hero, and every bishop was a saint. All unpleasant truths were suppressed; nothing harsh or unkind was to be told. These docile and submissive senti

The account given by M. Peignot (Livres condamnés, vol. ii. pp. 52, 53) is incomplete, he being evidently ignorant of the existence of Lord Preston's letter.

40 An able writer has well called him "glorieux plutôt qu'appréciateur de la vraie gloire." Flassan, Histoire de la Diplomatie Française, vol. iv. p. 399.

"Vous

41 In 1677, Madame de Sevigné writes from Paris respecting the king: savez bien qu'il a donné deux mille écus de pension à Racine et à Despréaux, en leur commandant de travailler à son histoire, dont il aura soin de donner des Mémoires." Lettres de Sevigné, vol. iii. p. 362. Compare Eloge de Valincourt, in Euvres de Fontenelle, vol. vi. p. 383; and Hughes's Letters, edit. 1773, vol. ii. pp. 74, 75.

42 Burnet relates this with delightful simplicity: "Others more probably thought that the king, hearing I was a writer of history, had a mind to engage me to write on his side. I was told a pension would be offered me. But I made no steps towards it; for though I was offered an audience of the king, I excused it, since I could not have the honour to be presented to that king by the minister of England." Burnet's Own Time, vol. ii. p. 385.

ments being expressed in an easy and flowing style, gave to history that air of refinement, that gentle, unobtrusive gait, which made it popular with the classes that it flattered. But even so, while its form was polished, its life was extinct. All its independence was gone, all its honesty, all its boldness. The noblest and the most difficult department of knowledge, the study of the movements of the human race, was abandoned to every timid and creeping intellect that cared to cultivate it. There were Boulainvilliers, and Daniel, and Maimbourg, and Varillas, and Vertot, and numerous others, who in the reign of Louis XIV. were believed to be historians; but whose histories have scarcely any merit, except that of enabling us to appreciate the period in which such productions were admired, and the system of which they were the representatives.

To give a complete view of the decline of historical literature in France, from the time of Mezeray until early in the eighteenth century, would require a summary of every history which was written; for all of them were pervaded by the same spirit. But, as this would occupy much too large a space, it will probably be thought sufficient if I confine myself to such illustrations as will bring the tendency of the age most clearly before the reader; and for this purpose, I will notice the works of two historians I have not yet mentioned; one of whom was celebrated as an antiquary, the other as a theologian. Both possessed considerable learning, and one was a man of undoubted genius; their works are, therefore, worth attention, as symptoms of the state of the French intellect late in the seventeenth century. The name of the antiquary was Audigier; the name of the theologian was Bossuet: and from them we may learn something respecting the way in which, during the reign of Louis XIV., it was usual to contemplate the transactions of past ages.

The celebrated work of Audigier, on the Origin of the French, was published at Paris in 1676.43 It would be unjust to deny that the author was a man of great and careful reading. But his credulity, his prejudices, his reverence for antiquity, and his dutiful admiration for every thing established by the church and the court, warped his judgment to an extent which, in our time, seems incredible; and, as there are probably few persons in England who have read his once famous book, I will give an outline of its leading views.

43

During many years it enjoyed great reputation; and there is no history written In that period respecting which Le Long gives so many details. See his Bibliothèque Historique de la France, vol. ii. pp. 13, 14. Compare La Bibliothèque de Leber, vol. ii. p. 110, Paris, 1839.

45

In this great history we are told, that 3464 years after the creation of the world, and 590 years before the birth of Christ, was the exact period at which Sigovese, nephew to the king of the Celts, was first sent into Germany." Those who accompanied him were necessarily travellers; and as, in the German language, wandeln means to go, we have here the origin of the Vandals. But the antiquity of the Vandals is far surpassed by that of the French. Jupiter, Pluto, and Neptune, who are sometimes supposed to be gods, were in reality kings of Gaul." And, if we look back a little further, it becomes certain that Gallus, the founder of Gaul, was no other than Noah himself; for in those days the same man frequently had two names.17 As to the subsequent history of the French, it was fully equal to the dignity of their origin. Alexander the Great, even in all the pride of his victories, never dared to attack the Scythians, who were a colony sent from France. It is from these great occupiers of France that there have proceeded all the gods of Europe, all the fine arts, and all the sciences.1 The English themselves are merely a colony of the French, as must be evident to whoever considers the similarity of the words Angles and Anjou ;5o and to this fortunate descent the natives of the British islands are indebted for such bravery and politeness as they still possess. Several other points are cleared up by this great critic with equal facility. The Salian Franks were so called from the rapidity of their flight ;52 the Bretons were evidently Saxons;53 and even the Scotch, about whose independence so much has been said, were vassals to the kings of France.54 Indeed, it is impossible to exaggerate the dignity of the crown of

48

4 Audigier, L'Origine des François, Paris, 1676, vol. i. p. 5. See also p. 45, where he congratulates himself on being the first to clear up the history of Sigovese.

45 Audigier, vol. i. p. 7. Other antiquaries have adopted the same preposterous etymology. See a note in Kemble's Saxons in England, vol. i. p. 41.

66

46 Or le plus ancien Jupiter, le plus ancien Neptune, et le plus ancien Pluton, sont ceux de Gaule; ils la divisèrent les premiers en Celtique, Aquitaine et Belgique, et obtinrent chacun une de ces parties en partage. Jupiter, qu'on fait régner au ciel, eut la Celtique. . . . . Neptune, qu'on fait régner sur les eaux, et sur les mers, eut l'Aquitaine, qui n'est appellée de la sorte qu'à cause de l'abondance de ses eaux, et de la situation sur l'océan." Audigier, L'Origine des Français, vol. i. pp. 223, 224.

47 See his argument, vol. i. pp. 216, 217, beginning, "le nom de Noé, que portèrent les Galates, est Gallus ;" and compare vol. ii. p. 109, where he expresses surprise that so little should have been done by previous writers towards establishing this obvious origin of the French.

48 Audigier, vol. i. pp. 196, 197, 255, 256.

49" Voilà donc les anciennes divinitez d'Europe, originaires de Gaule, aussi bien que les beaux arts et les hautes sciences." Audigier, vol. i. p. 234.

50 Ibid. vol. i. pp. 73, 74. He sums up, "c'en est assez pour relever l'Anjou, à qui cette gloire appartient légitimement."

61 Vol. i. pp. 265, 266.

53 Vol. ii. pp. 179, 180.

52 Vol. i. p. 149.

4 Vol. ii. p. 269.

France; it is difficult even to conceive its splendour. Some have supposed that the emperors are superior to the kings of France, but this is the mistake of ignorant men; for an emperor means a mere military ruler, while the title of king includes all the functions of supreme power.55 To put the question, therefore, on its real footing, the great king Louis XIV. is an emperor, as have been all his predecessors, the illustrious rulers of France, for fifteen centuries.56 And it is an undoubted fact, that Antichrist, about whom so much anxiety is felt, will never be allowed to appear in the world until the French empire has been destroyed. This, says Audigier, it would be idle to deny; for it is asserted by many of the saints, and it is distinctly foreshadowed by St. Paul, in his second epistle to the Thessalonians.57

Strange as all this appears, there was nothing in it to revolt the enlightened age of Louis XIV. Indeed, the French, dazzled by the brilliancy of their prince, must have felt great interest in learning how superior he was to all other potentates, and how he had not only been preceded by a long line of emperors, but was in fact an emperor himself. They must have been struck with awe at the information communicated by Audigier respecting the arrival of Antichrist, and the connexion between that important event and the fate of the French monarchy. They must have listened with pious wonder to the illustration of these matters from the writings of the fathers, and from the epistle to the Thessalonians. All this they would easily receive; because to worship the king, and venerate the church, were the two cardinal maxims of that age. To obey, and to believe, were the fundamental ideas of a period, in which the fine arts did for a time flourish,-in which the perception of beauty, though too fastidious, was undoubtedly keen,-in which taste and the imagination, in its lower departments, were zealously cultivated, but in which, on the other hand, originality and independence of thought were extinguished, the greatest and the largest topics were forbidden to be discussed, the sciences were almost deserted, reforms and innovations were hated, new opinions were despised, and their authors punished, until at length, the exuberance of genius being tamed into sterility, the national intellect was reduced to that dull and monotonous level which characterizes the last twenty years of the reign of Louis XIV.

55 Vol. ii. p. 124.

se Vol. ii. pp. 451-454.

57 "A quoy nous pourrions ioindre un autre monument fort authentique, c'est le résultat de certains pères, et de certains docteurs de l'église, qui tiennent que l'Antechrist ne viendra point au monde, qu'après la discection, c'est-à-dire après la dissipation de nostre empire. Leur fondement est dans la seconde épistre de saint Paul aux Thessaloniciens." Audigier, vol. ii. p. 462.