He was in no want of patients, nor consequently of property. He did not keep the best house in the world: we lived with some little attention to economy. The usual bill of fare consisted of peas, beans, boiled apples or cheese. He considered this food as best suited to the human stomach; that is to say, as most amenable to the grinders, whence it was to encounter the process of digestion. Nevertheless, easy as was their passage, he was not for stopping the way with too much of them; and to be sure, he was in the right. But tho he cautioned the maid and me against repletion in respect of solids, it was made up by free permission to drink as much water as we liked. Far from prescribing us any limits in that direction, he would tell us sometimes: "Drink, my children: health consists in the pliability and moisture of the parts. Drink water by pailfuls: it is a universal dissolvent; water liquefies all the salts. Is the course of the blood a little sluggish? this grand principle sets it forward: too rapid? its career is checked." Our doctor was so orthodox on this head that the advanced in years, he drank nothing himself but water. He defined old age to be a natural consumption which dries us up and wastes us away: on this principle he deplored the ignorance of those who call wine "old men's milk." He maintained that wine wears them out and corrodes them; and pleaded with all the force of his eloquence against that liquor, fatal in common both to the young and old—that friend with a serpent in its bosom—that pleasure with a dagger under its girdle.

In spite of these fine arguments, at the end of a week a looseness ensued, with some twinges, which I was blasphemous enough to saddle on the universal dissolvent and the new-fangled diet. I stated my symptoms to my master, in the hope that he would relax the rigor of his regimen and qualify my meals with a little wine; but his hostility to that liquor was inflexible. "If you have not philosophy enough," said he, "for pure water, there are innocent infusions to strengthen the stomach against the nausea of aqueous quaffings. Sage, for example, has a very pretty flavor; and if you wish to heighten it into a debauch, it is only mixing rosemary, wild poppy, and other simples with it—but no compounds."

In vain did he crack off his water, and teach me the secret of composing delicious messes. I was so abstemious that, remarking my moderation, he said: "In good sooth, Gil Bias, I marvel not that you are no better than you are: you do not drink enough, my friend. Water taken in a small quantity serves only to separate the particles of bile and set them in action; but our practise is to drown them in a copious drench. Fear not, my good lad, lest a superabundance of liquid should either weaken or chill your stomach; far from thy better judgment be that silly fear of unadulterated drink. I will insure you against all consequences; and if my authority will not serve your turn, read Celsus. That oracle of the ancient makes an admirable panegyric on water; in short, he says in plain terms that those who plead an inconstant stomach in favor of wine, publish a libel on their own viscera, and make their constitution a pretense for their sensuality."

As it would have been ungenteel in me to run riot on my entrance into the career of practise, I affected thorough conviction; indeed, I thought there was something in it. I therefore went on drinking water on the authority of Celsus, or to speak in scientific terms, I began to drown the bile in copious drenches of that unadulterated liquor; and tho I felt myself more out of order from day to day, prejudice won the cause against experience. It is evident therefore that I was in the right road to the practise of physic. Yet I could not always be insensible to the qualms which increased in my frame, to that degree as to determine me on quitting Doctor Sangrado. But he invested me with a new office which changed my tone. "Hark you, my child," said he to me one day: "I am not one of those hard and ungrateful masters who leave their household to grow gray in service without a suitable reward. I am well pleased with you, I have a regard for you; and without waiting till you have served your time, I will make your fortune. Without more ado, I will initiate you in the healing art, of which I have for so many years been at the head. Other physicians make the science to consist of various unintelligible branches; but I will shorten the road for you, and dispense with the drudgery of studying natural philosophy, pharmacy, botany, and anatomy. Remember, my friend, that bleeding and drinking warm water are the two grand principles—the true secret of curing all the distempers incident to humanity. Yes, this marvelous secret which I reveal to you, and which Nature, beyond the reach of my colleagues, has failed in rescuing from my pen, is comprehended in these two articles; namely, bleeding and drenching. Here you have the sum total of my philosophy; you are thoroughly bottomed in medicine, and may raise yourself to the summit of fame on the shoulders of my long experience. You may enter into partnership at once, by keeping the books in the morning and going out to visit patients in the afternoon. While I dose the nobility and clergy, you shall labor in your vocation among the lower orders; and when you have felt your ground a little, I will get you admitted into our body. You are a philosopher, Gil Blas, tho you have never graduated; the common herd of them, tho they have graduated in due form and order, are likely to run out the length of their tether without knowing their right hand from their left."

I thanked the doctor for having so speedily enabled me to serve as his deputy; and by way of acknowledging his goodness, promised to follow his system to the end of my career, with a magnanimous indifference about the aphorisms of Hippocrates. But that engagement was not to be taken to the letter. This tender attachment to water went against the grain, and I had a scheme for drinking wine every day snugly among the patients. I left off wearing my own suit a second time, to take up one of my master's and look like an experienced practitioner. After which I brought my medical theories into play, leaving those it might concern to look to the event. I began on an alguazil in a pleurisy; he was condemned to be bled with the utmost rigor of the law, at the same time that the system was to be replenished copiously with water. Next I made a lodgment in the veins of a gouty pastry-cook, who roared like a lion by reason of gouty spasms. I stood on no more ceremony with his blood than with that of the alguazil, and laid no restriction on his taste for simple liquids. My prescriptions brought me in twelve rials: an incident so auspicious in my professional career, that I only wished for the plagues of Egypt on all the hale subjects of Valladolid....



II

AS AN ARCHBISHOP'S FAVORITE[33]

I had been after dinner to get together my baggage, and take my horse from the inn where I had put up; and afterward returned to supper at the archbishop's palace, where a neatly furnished room was got ready for me, and such a bed as was more likely to pamper than to mortify the flesh. The day following his Grace sent for me quite as soon as I was ready to go to him. It was to give me a homily to transcribe. He made a point of having it copied with all possible accuracy. It was done to please him; for I omitted neither accent, nor comma, nor the minutest tittle of all he had marked down. His satisfaction at observing this was heightened by its being unexpected. "Eternal Father!" exclaimed he in a holy rapture, when he had glanced his eye over all the folios of my copy, "was ever anything seen so correct? You are too good a transcriber not to have some little smattering of the grammarian. Now tell me with the freedom of a friend: in writing it over, have you been struck with nothing that grated upon your feelings? Some little careless idiom, or some word used in an improper sense?" "Oh, may it please your Grace," answered I with a modest air, "it is not for me, with my confined education and coarse taste, to aim at making critical remarks. And tho ever so well qualified, I am satisfied that your Grace's works would come out pure from the essay." The successor of the apostles smiled at my answer. He made no observation on it; but it was easy to see through all his piety that he was an arrant author at the bottom: there is something in that dye that not heaven itself can wash out.

[Footnote 33: From "Gil Blas."]

I seemed to have purchased the fee simple of his good graces by my flattery. Day after day did I get a step farther in his esteem; and Don Ferdinand, who came to see him very often, told me my footing was so firm that there could not be a doubt but my fortune was made. Of this my master himself gave me a proof some little time afterward; and the occasion was as follows: One evening in his closet he rehearsed before me, with appropriate emphasis and action, a homily which he was to deliver the next day in the cathedral. He did not content himself with asking me what I thought of it in the gross, but insisted on my telling him what passages struck me most. I had the good fortune to pick out those which were nearest to his own taste—his favorite commonplaces. Thus, as luck would have it, I passed in his estimation for a man who had a quick and natural relish of the real and less obvious beauties in a work. "This indeed," exclaimed he, "is what you may call having discernment and feeling in perfection! Well, well, my friend! it can not be said of you,

'Beatum in crasso jurares aere natum.'"

In a word, he was so highly pleased with me as to add in a tone of extraordinary emotion, "Never mind, Gil Bias! henceforward take no care about hereafter: I shall make it my business to place you among the favored children of my bounty. You have my best wishes; and to prove to you that you have them, I shall take you into my inmost confidence."

These words were no sooner out of his mouth than I fell at his Grace's feet, quite overwhelmed with gratitude. I embraced his elliptical legs with almost pagan idolatry, and considered myself as a man on the high-road to a very handsome fortune. "Yes, my child," resumed the archbishop, whose speech had been cut short by the rapidity of my prostration, "I mean to make you the receiver-general of all my inmost ruminations. Harken attentively to what I am going to say. I have a great pleasure in preaching. The Lord sheds a blessing on my homilies; they sink deep into the hearts of sinners; set up a glass in which vice sees its own image, and bring back many from the paths of error into the high-road of repentance. What a heavenly sight, when a miser, scared at the hideous picture of his avarice drawn by my eloquence, opens his coffers to the poor and needy, and dispenses the accumulated store with a liberal hand! The voluptuary, too, is snatched from the pleasures of the table; ambition flies at my command to the wholesome discipline of the monastic cell; while female frailty, tottering on the brink of ruin, with one ear open to the siren voice of the seducer and the other to my saintly correctives, is restored to domestic happiness and the approving smile of heaven, by the timely warnings of the pulpit.

"These miraculous conversions, which happen almost every Sunday, ought of themselves to goad me on in the career of saving souls. Nevertheless, to conceal no part of my weakness from my monitor, there is another reward on which my heart is intent—a reward which the seraphic scrupulousness of my virtue to little purpose condemns as too carnal—a literary reputation for a sublime and elegant style. The honor of being handed down to posterity as a perfect pulpit orator has its irresistible attractions. My compositions are generally thought to be equally powerful and persuasive; but I could wish of all things to steer clear of the rock on which good authors split who are too long before the public, and to retire from professional life with my reputation in undiminished luster. To this end, my dear Gil Blas," continued the prelate, "there is one thing requisite from your zeal and friendship. Whenever it shall strike you that my pen begins to contract, as it were, the ossification of old age, whenever you see my genius in its climateric, do not fail to give me a hint. There is no trusting to one's self in such a case: pride and conceit were the original sin of man. The probe of criticism must be entrusted to an impartial stander-by, of fine talents and unshaken probity. Both those requisites center in you: you are my choice, and I give myself up to your direction."

"Heaven be praised, my lord," said I, "there is no need to trouble yourself with any such thoughts yet. Besides, an understanding of your Grace's mold and caliber will last out double the time of a common genius; or to speak with more certainty and truth, it will never be the worse for wear, if you live to the age of Methusaleh. I consider you as a second Cardinal Ximenes, whose powers, superior to decay, instead of flagging with years, seemed to derive new vigor from their approximation with the heavenly regions." "No flattery, my friend!" interrupted he. "I know myself to be in danger of failing all at once. At my age one begins to be sensible of infirmities, and those of the body communicate with the mind, I repeat it to you, Gil Bias, as soon as you shall be of opinion that my head is not so clear as usual, give me warning of it instantly. Do not be afraid of offending by frankness and sincerity: to put me in mind of my own frailty will be the strongest proof of your affection for me. Besides, your very interest is concerned in it; for if it should, by any spite of chance toward you, come to my ears that the people say in town, 'His Grace's sermons produce no longer their accustomed impression; it is time for him to abandon his pulpit to younger candidates'—I do assure you, most seriously and solemnly, you will lose not only my friendship, but the provision for life that I have promised you. Such will be the result of your silly tampering with truth."

Here my patron left off to wait for my answer, which was an echo of his speech, and a promise of obeying him in all things. From that moment there were no secrets from me; I became the prime favorite. All the household, except Melchior de la Ronda, looked at me with an eye of envy. It was curious to observe the manner in which the whole establishment, from the highest to the lowest, thought it necessary to demean themselves toward his Grace's confidential secretary; there was no meanness to which they would not stoop to curry favor with me: I could scarcely believe they were Spaniards. I left no stone unturned to be of service to them, without being taken in by their interested assiduities.



DUC DE SAINT-SIMON

Born in France in 1675, died in 1755; served in the army in the time of Louis XIV; member of the Council of Regency in the reign of Louis XV; ambassador to Spain to 1721; his "Memoirs," first published in twenty volumes it 1829-30; not to be confounded with the Count of Saint-Simon, the philosopher and socialist, the memoir writer being a duke.



I

THE DEATH OF THE DAUPHIN[34]

Monseigneur le Dauphin, ill and agitated by the most bitter grief, kept his chamber; but on Saturday morning of the 13th, being prest to go to Marly to avoid the horror of the noise where the Dauphine was lying dead, he set out for that place at seven o'clock in the morning. Shortly after arriving he heard mass in the chapel, and thence was carried in a chair to the window of one of his rooms. Madame de Maintenon came to see him there afterward. The anguish of the interview was speedily too much for her, and she went away. Early in the morning I went uninvited to see M. le Dauphin. He showed me that he perceived this with an air of gentleness and of affection which penetrated me. But I was terrified with his looks, constrained, fixt and with something wild about them; with the change of his looks and with the marks there, livid rather than red, that I observed in good number and large; marks observed by the others also.

[Footnote 34: From the "Memoirs on the Reign of Louis XIV and the Regency." Translated by Bayle St. John, traveler and Author, his "Village Life Egypt" appearing in 1852.]

The Dauphin was standing. In a few moments he was apprized that the King had awaked. The tears that he had restrained now rolled from his eyes; he turned round at the news, but said nothing, remaining stock still. His three attendants proposed to him once or twice that he should go to the King. He neither spoke nor stirred. I approached and made signs to him to go, then softly spoke to the same effect. Seeing that he still remained speechless and motionless, I made bold to take his arm, representing to him that sooner or later he must see the King, who expected him, and assuredly with the desire to see and embrace him. He cast upon me a look that pierced my soul and went away. I followed him some few steps and then withdrew to recover breath. I never saw him again. May I, by the mercy of God, see him eternally where God's goodness doubtless has placed him!

The Dauphin reached the chamber of the King, full just then of company. As soon as he appeared the King called him and embraced him tenderly again and again. These first moments, so touching, passed in words broken by sobs and tears. Shortly afterward the King, looking at the Dauphin, was terrified by the same things that had previously struck me with affright. Everybody around was so also, the doctors more than the others. The King ordered them to feel his pulse, that they found bad, so they said afterward; for the time they contented themselves with saying that it was not regular, and that the Dauphin would do wisely to go to bed. The King embraced him again, recommended him very tenderly to take care of himself, and ordered him to go to bed. He obeyed and rose no more!

It was now late in the morning. The King had passed a cruel night and had a bad headache; he saw at his dinner the few courtiers who presented themselves, and then after dinner went to the Dauphin. The fever had augmented, the pulse was worse than before. The King passed into the apartment of Madame de Maintenon, and the Dauphin was left with attendants and his doctors. He spent the day in prayers and holy reading.

On the morrow, Sunday, the uneasiness felt on account of the Dauphin augmented. He himself did not conceal his belief that he would never rise again, and that the plot Pondin had warned him of had been executed. He explained himself to this effect more than once and always with a disdain of earthly grandeur and an incomparable submission and love of God. It is impossible to describe the general consternation. On Monday the 15th the King was bled. The Dauphin was no better than before. The King and Madame de Maintenon saw him separately several times during the day, which was passed in prayers and reading.

On Tuesday, the 16th, the Dauphin was worse. He felt himself devoured by a consuming fire, which the external fever did not seem to justify, but the pulse was very extraordinary and exceedingly menacing. This was a deceptive day. The marks in the Dauphin's face extended all over the body. They were regarded as the marks of measles. Hope arose thereon, but the doctors and the most clear-sighted of the court could not forget that these same marks had shown themselves on the body of the Dauphine, a fact unknown out of her chamber until after death.

On Wednesday, the 17th, the malady considerably increased. I had news at all times of the Dauphin's state from Cheverney, an excellent apothecary of the King and of my family. He hid nothing from us. He had told us what he thought of the Dauphine's illness; he told us now what he thought of the Dauphin's. I no longer hoped therefore, or rather I hoped to the end against all hope.

On Wednesday the pains increased. They were like a devouring fire, but more violent than ever. Very late into the evening the Dauphin sent to the King for permission to receive the communion early the next morning and without display at the mass performed in his chamber. Nobody heard of this that evening; it was not known until the following morning. I was in extreme desolation. I scarcely saw the King once a day. I did nothing but go in quest of news several times a day, and to the house of M. de Chevreuse, where I was completely free. M. de Chevreuse—always calm, always sanguine—endeavored to prove to us by his medical reasonings that there was more reason to hope than to fear; but he did so with a tranquillity that roused my impatience. I returned home to pass a cruel night.

On Thursday morning, the 18th February, I learned that the Dauphin, who had waited for midnight with impatience, had heard mass immediately after the communion, had passed two hours in devout communication with God, and that his reason then became embarrassed. Madame de Saint-Simon told me afterward that he had received extreme unction; in fine that he had died at half-past eight.

These memoirs are not written to describe my private sentiments. But in reading them—if long after me they shall ever appear—my state and that of Madame de Saint-Simon will only too keenly be felt. I will content myself with saying that the first days after the Dauphin's death scarcely appeared to us more than moments; that I wished to quit all, to withdraw from the court and the world, and that I was only hindered by the wisdom, conduct and power over me of Madame de Saint-Simon, who yet had some trouble to subdue my sorrowful desire.



II

THE PUBLIC WATCHING THE KING AND MADAME[35]

The King wished to show the court all the maneuvers of war; the siege of Compiegne was therefore undertaken, according to due form, with lines, trenches, batteries, mines, etc. On Saturday, the 13th of September, the assault took place. To witness it, the King, Madame de Maintenon,[36] all the ladies of the court, and a number of gentlemen, stationed themselves upon an old rampart, from which the plain and all the disposition of the troops could be seen. I was in the half-circle very close to the King. It was the most beautiful sight that can be imagined to see all that army, and the prodigious number of spectators on horse and foot, and that game of attack and defense so cleverly conducted.

[Footnote 35: From the "Memoirs."]

But a spectacle of another sort—that I could paint forty years hence as well as to-day, so strongly did it strike me—was that which from the summit of this rampart the King gave to all his army, and to the innumerable crowd of spectators of all kinds in the plain below. Madame de Maintenon faced the plain and the troops in her sedan-chair, alone, between its three windows drawn up; her porters having retired to a distance. On the left pole in front sat Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne; and on the same side, in a semicircle, standing, were Madame la Duchesse, Madame la Princesse de Conti, and all the ladies—and behind them again, many men. At the right window was the King, standing, and a little in the rear a semicircle of the most distinguished men of the court. The King was nearly always uncovered; and every now and then stooped to speak to Madame de Maintenon, and explain to her what she saw, and the reason of each movement.

[Footnote 36: At the period of which Saint-Simon here writes, Madame de Maintenon had acquired that ascendency over Louis XIV which resulted in her marriage to him. She had been born in a prison, and was three years the senior of the King. Her first husband was the poet Scarron, at whose death, after a marriage of nine years, she had found herself in poverty. She secured a pension from Anne of Austria, the mother of the King, but at the queen-mother's death the pension was discontinued. She was placed in charge of the King's natural son, to whom she became much devoted, and was advanced through the King's favor to various positions at court, receiving in 1678 the title of marquise. Five years later the queen of Louis XIV died, and Louis married Madame de Maintenon, whose influence over him in matters of church and state became thereafter very great. She was a patroness of art and literature, intensely orthodox in religion, and has been held largely responsible for the King's revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which occurred during the year of their marriage, tho she opposed the violent persecutions which followed.]

Each time that he did so she was obliging enough to open the window four or five inches, but never half-way; for I noticed particularly, and I admit that I was more attentive to this spectacle than to that of the troops. Sometimes she opened of her own accord to ask some question of him: but generally it was he who, without waiting for her, stooped down to instruct her of what was passing; and sometimes, if she did not notice him, he tapped at the glass to make her open it. He never spoke save to her, except when he gave a few brief orders, or just answered Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne, who wanted to make him speak, and with whom Madame de Maintenon carried on a conversation by signs, without opening the front window, through which the young princess screamed to her from time to time. I watched the countenance of every one carefully: all exprest surprize, tempered with prudence, and shame that was, as it were, ashamed of itself; every one behind the chair and in the semicircle watched this scene more than what was going on in the army. The King often put his hat on the top of the chair in order to get his head in to speak; and this continual exercise tired his loins very much. Monseigneur was on horseback in the plain with the young princes. It was about five o'clock in the afternoon, and the weather was as brilliant as could be desired.

Opposite the sedan-chair was an opening with some steps cut through the wall, and communicating with the plain below. It had been made for the purpose of fetching orders from the King, should they be necessary. The case happened. Crenan, who commanded, sent Conillac, an officer in one of the defending regiments, to ask for some instructions from the King. Conillac had been stationed at the foot of the rampart, where what was passing above could not be seen. He mounted the steps; and as soon as his head and shoulders were at the top, caught sight of the chair, the King, and all the assembled company. He was not prepared for such a scene; and it struck him with such astonishment that he stopt short, with mouth and eyes wide open—surprize painted upon every feature. I see him now as distinctly as I did then. The King, as well as the rest of the company, remarked the agitation of Conillac, and said to him with emotion, "Well, Conillac! come up." Conillac remained motionless, and the King continued, "Come up. What is the matter?" Conillac, thus addrest, finished his ascent, and came toward the King with slow and trembling steps, rolling his eyes from right to left like one deranged. Then he stammered something, but in a tone so low that it could not be heard. "What do you say?" cried the King. "Speak up." But Conillac was unable; and the King, finding he could get nothing out of him, told him to go away. He did not need to be told twice, but disappeared at once. As soon as he was gone, the King looking round said, "I don't know what is the matter with Conillac. He has lost his wits: he did not remember what he had to say to me." No one answered.

Toward the moment of the capitulation, Madame de Maintenon apparently asked permission to go away; for the King cried, "The chairmen of madame!" They came and took her away; in less than a quarter of an hour afterward the King retired also, and nearly everybody else. There was much interchange of glances, nudging with elbows, and then whisperings in the ear. Everybody was full of what had taken place on the ramparts between the King and Madame de Maintenon. Even the soldiers asked what meant that sedan-chair, and the King every moment stooping to put his head inside of it. It became necessary gently to silence these questions of the troops. What effect this sight had upon foreigners present, and what they said of it, may be imagined. All over Europe it was as much talked of as the camp of Compiegne itself, with all its pomp and prodigious splendor.



BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Born near Bordeaux in 1689, died in Paris in 1755; studied law and became a councilor in 1716; president of the Bordeaux Parliament; devoted himself to a study of literature and jurisprudence; published "Persian Letters" in 1721, which secured him an election to the Academy in 1728; traveled in Austria, Italy, Germany, Holland and England; published "Grandeur and Decadence of the Romans" in 1734, and "Spirit of the Laws" in 1748.[37]



I

OF THE CAUSES WHICH DESTROYED ROME[38]

While the sovereignty of Rome was confined to Italy, it was easy for the commonwealth to subsist: every soldier was at the same time a citizen; every Consul raised an army, and other citizens marched into the field under his successor: as their forces were not very numerous, such persons only were received among the troops as had possessions considerable enough to make them interested in the preservation of the city; the Senate kept a watchful eye over the conduct of the generals, and did not give them an opportunity of machinating anything to the prejudice of their country.

[Footnote 37: Montesquieu is declared by Mr. Saintsbury to deserve the title of "the greatest man of letters of the French eighteenth century." He places him above Voltaire because "of his far greater originality and depth of thought."]

[Footnote 38: From the "Grandeur and Decadence of the Romans," of which an English translation was issued as early as 1751.]

But after the legions had passed the Alps and crossed the sea, the soldiers whom the Romans had been obliged to leave during several campaigns in the countries they were subduing, lost insensibly that genius and turn of mind which characterized a Roman citizen; and the generals having armies and kingdoms at their disposal were sensible of their own strength, and would no longer obey.

The soldiers therefore began to acknowledge no superior but their general; to found their hopes on him only, and to view the city as from a great distance: they were no longer the soldiers of the republic, but of Sulla, of Marius, of Pompey, and of Caesar. The Romans could no longer tell whether the person who headed an army in a province was their general or their enemy.

So long as the people of Rome were corrupted by their tribunes only, on whom they could bestow nothing but their power, the Senate could easily defend themselves, because they acted consistently and with one regular tenor, whereas the common people were continually shifting from the extremes of fury to the extremes of cowardice; but when they were enabled to invest their favorites with a formidable exterior authority, the whole wisdom of the Senate was baffled, and the commonwealth was undone.

The reason why free states are not so permanent as other forms of government is because the misfortunes and successes which happen to them generally occasion the loss of liberty; whereas the successes and misfortunes of an arbitrary government contribute equally to the enslaving of the people. A wise republic ought not to run any hazard which may expose it to good or ill fortune; the only happiness the several individuals of it should aspire after is to give perpetuity to their state.

If the unbounded extent of the Roman empire proved the ruin of the republic, the vast compass of the city was no less fatal to it.

The Romans had subdued the whole universe by the assistance of the nations of Italy, on whom they had bestowed various privileges at different times. Most of those nations did not at first set any great value on the freedom of the city of Rome, and some chose rather to preserve their ancient usages; but when this privilege became that of universal sovereignty—when a man who was not a Roman citizen was considered as nothing, and with this title was everything—the people of Italy resolved either to be Romans or die: not being able to obtain this by cabals and entreaties, they had recourse to arms; and rising in all that part of Italy opposite to the Ionian sea, the rest of the allies were going to follow their example. Rome, being now forced to combat against those who were, if I may be allowed the figure, the hands with which they shackled the universe, was upon the brink of ruin; the Romans were going to be confined merely to their walls: they therefore granted this so much wished-for privilege to the allies who had not yet been wanting in fidelity; and they indulged it, by insensible degrees, to all other nations.

But now Rome was no longer that city the inhabitants of which had breathed one and the same spirit, the same love for liberty, the same hatred of tyranny; a city in which a jealousy of the power of the Senate and of the prerogatives of the great (ever accompanied with respect) was only a love of equality. The nations of Italy being made citizens of Rome, every city brought thither its genius, its particular interests, and its dependence on some mighty protector: Rome, being now rent and divided, no longer formed one entire body, and men were no longer citizens of it but in a kind of fictitious way; as there were no longer the same magistrates, the same walls, the same gods, the same temples, the same burying-places, Rome was no longer beheld with the same eyes; the citizens were no longer fired with the same love for their country, and the Roman sentiments were obliterated.

Cities and nations were now invited to Rome by the ambitious, to disconcert the suffrages, or influence them in their own favor; the public assemblies were so many conspiracies against the state, and a tumultuous crowd of seditious wretches was dignified with the title of Comitia. The authority of the people and their laws—nay, that people themselves—were no more than so many chimeras; and so universal was the anarchy of those times that it was not possible to determine whether the people had made a law or not.

Authors enlarge very copiously on the divisions which proved the destruction of Rome; but their readers seldom discover those divisions to have been always necessary and inevitable. The grandeur of the republic was the only source of that calamity, and exasperated popular tumults into civil wars. Dissensions were not to be prevented; and those martial spirits which were so fierce and formidable abroad could not be habituated to any considerable moderation at home. Those who expect in a free state to see the people undaunted in war and pusillanimous in peace, are certainly desirous of impossibilities; and it may be advanced as a general rule that whenever a perfect calm is visible, in a state that calls itself a republic, the spirit of liberty no longer subsists.

Union, in a body politic, is a very equivocal term: true union is such a harmony as makes all the particular parts, as opposite as they may seem to us, concur to the general welfare of the society, in the same manner as discords in music contribute to the general melody of sound. Union may prevail in a state full of seeming commotions; or in other words, there may be a harmony from whence results prosperity, which alone is true peace; and may be considered in the same view as the various parts of this universe, which are eternally connected by the action of some and the reaction of others.

In a despotic state, indeed, which is every government where the power is immoderately exerted, a real division is perpetually kindled. The peasant, the soldier, the merchant, the magistrate, and the grandee, have no other conjunction than what arises from the ability of the one to oppress the other without resistance; and if at any time a union happens to be introduced, citizens are not then united, but dead bodies are laid in the grave contiguous to each other.

It must be acknowledged that the Roman laws were too weak to govern the republic; but experience has proved it to be an invariable fact that good laws, which raise the reputation and power of a small republic, become incommodious to it when once its grandeur is established, because it was their natural effect to make a great people but not to govern them.

The difference is very considerable between good laws and those which may be called convenient; between such laws as give a people dominion over others, and such as continue them in the possession of power when they have once acquired it.

There is at this time a republic in the world (the Canton of Berne), of which few persons have any knowledge, and which, by plans accomplished in silence and secrecy, is daily enlarging its power. And certain it is that if it ever rises to that height of grandeur for which it seems preordained by its wisdom, it must inevitably change its laws; and the necessary innovations will not be effected by any legislator, but must spring from corruption itself.

Rome was founded for grandeur, and her laws had an admirable tendency to bestow it; for which reason, in all the variations of her government, whether monarchy, aristocracy, or popular, she constantly engaged in enterprises which required conduct to accomplish them, and always succeeded. The experience of a day did not furnish her with more wisdom than all other nations, but she obtained it by a long succession of events. She sustained a small, a moderate, and an immense fortune with the same superiority, derived true welfare from the whole train of her prosperities, and refined every instance of calamity into beneficial instructions.

She lost her liberty because she completed her work too soon.



II

OF THE RELATION OF LAWS TO DIFFERENT HUMAN BEINGS[39]

Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations arising from the nature of things. In this sense all beings have their laws; the Deity His laws, the material world its laws, the intelligences superior to man their laws, the beasts their laws, man his laws.

[Footnote 39: From "The Spirit of Laws." The translation of Thomas Nugent was published in 1756.]

They who assert that a blind fatality produced the various effects we behold in this world talk very absurdly; for can anything be more unreasonable than to pretend that a blind fatality could be productive of intelligent beings?

There is, then, a primitive reason; and laws are the relations subsisting between it and different beings, and the relations of these to one another.

God is related to the universe, as Creator and Preserver; the laws by which He created all things are those by which He preserves them. He acts according to these rules, because He knows them; He knows them, because He made them; and He made them, because they are relative to His wisdom and power.

Since we observe that the world, tho formed by the motion of matter, and void of understanding, subsists through so long a succession of ages, its motions must certainly be directed by invariable laws; and could we imagine another world, it must also have constant rules, or it would inevitably perish.

Thus the creation, which seems an arbitrary net, supposes laws as invariable as those of the fatality of the atheists. It would be absurd to say that the Creator might govern the world without these rules, since without them it could not subsist.

These rules are a fixt and variable relation. In bodies moved, the motion is received, increased, diminished, lost, according to the relations of the quantity of matter and velocity; each diversity is uniformity, each change is constancy.

Particular intelligent beings may have laws of their own making, but they have some likewise which they never made. Before they were intelligent beings, they were possible; they had therefore possible relations, and consequently possible laws. Before laws were made, there were relations of possible justice. To say that there is nothing just or unjust but what is commanded or forbidden by positive laws is the same as saying that before the describing of a circle all the radii were not equal.

We must therefore acknowledge relations of justice antecedent to the positive law by which they are established: as for instance, that if human societies existed it would be right to conform to their laws; if there were intelligent beings that had received a benefit of another being, they ought to show their gratitude; if one intelligent being had created another intelligent being, the latter ought to continue in its original state of dependence; if one intelligent being injures another, it deserves a retaliation; and so on.

But the intelligent world is far from being so well governed as the physical. For tho the former has also its laws, which of their own nature are invariable, it does not conform to them so exactly as the physical world. This is because, on the one hand, particular intelligent beings are of a finite nature, and consequently liable to error; and on the other, their nature requires them to be free agents. Hence they do not steadily conform to their primitive laws; and even, those of their own instituting they frequently infringe.

Whether brutes be governed by the general laws of motion or by a particular movement we can not determine. Be that as it may, they have not a more intimate relation to God than the rest of the material world; and sensation is of no other use to them than in the relation they have either to other particular beings or to themselves.

By the allurements of pleasure they preserve the individual, and by the same allurements they preserve their species. They have natural laws, because they are united by sensation; positive laws they have none, because they are not connected by knowledge. And yet they do not invariably conform to their natural laws; these are better observed by vegetables, that have neither understanding nor sense.

Brutes are deprived of the high advantages which we have; but they have some which we have not. They have not our hopes, but they are without our fears; they are subject like us to death, but without knowing it; even most of them are more attentive than we to self-preservation, and do not make so bad a use of their passions.

Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies, governed by invariable laws. As an intelligent being, he incessantly transgresses the laws established by God, and changes those of his own instituting. He is left to his private direction, tho a limited being, and subject, like all finite intelligences, to ignorance and error; even his imperfect knowledge he loses; and as a sensible creature, he is hurried away by a thousand impetuous passions. Such a being might every instant forget his Creator; God has therefore reminded him of his duty by the laws of religion. Such a being is liable every moment to forget himself; philosophy has provided against this by the laws of morality. Formed to live in society, he might forget his fellow creatures; legislators have therefore by political and civil laws confined him to his duty.



FRANCOIS AROUET VOLTAIRE

Born in Paris in 1694, died in 1778; his original name Arouet; educated at the College of Louis-le-Grand; exiled because of his freedom of speech; twice imprisoned in the Bastille; resided in England in 1726-29; went to Prussia at the invitation of Frederick the Great in 1750, remaining three years, the friendship ending in bitter enmity; wrote in Prussia his "Le Siecle de Louis XIV"; settled at Geneva in 1756, and two years later at Ferney, where he lived until his death in 1778; visited Paris in 1778, being received with great honors; his works very numerous, one edition comprizing seventy-two volumes.



I

OF BACON'S GREATNESS[40]

Not long since the trite and frivolous question following was debated in a very polite and learned company, viz., Who was the greatest man, Caesar, Alexander, Tamerlane, Cromwell, etc.?

[Footnote 40: From the "Letters on England." Voltaire's visit to England followed immediately upon his release from imprisonment in the Bastille. During the two years he spent there, he acquired an intimate knowledge of English life, and came to know most of the eminent Englishmen of the time.

An English version of Voltaire's writings, in thirty-five volumes, was published in 1761-69, with notes by Smollett and others. The "Letters from England" seem to have first appeared in English in 1734.]

Somebody answered that Sir Isaac Newton excelled them all. The gentleman's assertion was very just; for if true greatness consists in having received from heaven a mighty genius, and in having employed it to enlighten our own mind and that of others, a man like Sir Isaac Newton, whose equal is hardly found in a thousand years, is the truly great man. And those politicians and conquerors (and all ages produce some) were generally so many illustrious wicked men. That man claims our respect who commands over the minds of the rest of the world by the force of truth, not those who enslave their fellow creatures; he who is acquainted with the universe, not they who deface it.

The most singular and the best of all his pieces is that which, at this time, is the most useless and the least read. I mean his "Novum Scientiarum Organum." This is the scaffold with which the new philosophy was raised; and when the edifice was built, part of it, at least the scaffold was no longer of service.

Lord Bacon was not yet acquainted with nature, but then he knew, and pointed out the several paths that lead to it. He had despised in his younger years the thing called philosophy in the universities, and did all that lay in his power to prevent those societies of men instituted to improve human reason from depraving it by their quiddities, their horrors of the vacuum, their substantial forms, and all those impertinent terms which not only ignorance had rendered venerable, but which had been made sacred by their being ridiculously blended with religion.

He is the father of experimental philosophy. It must, indeed, be confest that very surprizing secrets had been found out before his time—the sea compass, printing, engraving on copper plates, oil painting, looking-glasses; the art of restoring, in some measure, old men to their sight by spectacles; gunpowder, etc., had been discovered. A new world had been fought for, found, and conquered. Would not one suppose that these sublime discoveries had been made by the greatest philosophers, and in ages much more enlightened than the present? But it was far otherwise; all these great changes happened in the most stupid and barbarous times. Chance only gave birth to most of those inventions; and it is very probable that what is called chance contributed very much to the discovery of America; at least it has been always thought that Christopher Columbus undertook his voyage merely on the relation of a captain of a ship which a storm had driven as far westward as the Caribbean Island. Be this as it will, men had sailed round the world, and could destroy cities by an artificial thunder more dreadful than the real one; but, then, they were not acquainted with the circulation of the blood, the weight of the air, the laws of motions, light, the number of our planets, etc. And a man who maintained a thesis on Aristotle's "Categories," on the universals a parte rei, or such-like nonsense, was looked upon as a prodigy.

The most astonishing, the most useful inventions, are not those which reflect the greatest honor on the human mind. It is to a mechanical instinct, which is found in many men, and not to true philosophy that most arts owe their origin.

The discovery of fire, the art of making bread, of melting and preparing metals, of building houses, and the invention of the shuttle are infinitely more beneficial to mankind than printing or the sea compass; and yet these arts were invented by uncultivated, savage men.

What a prodigious use the Greeks and Romans made afterward of mechanics! Nevertheless, they believed that there were crystal heavens, that the stars were small lamps which sometimes fell into the sea, and one of their greatest philosophers, after long researches, found that the stars were so many flints which had been detached from the earth.

In a word, no one before Lord Bacon was acquainted with experimental philosophy, nor with the several physical experiments which have been made since his time. Scarce one of them but is hinted at in his work, and he himself had made several. He made a kind of pneumatic engine, by which he guessed the elasticity of the air. He approached on all sides, as it were, to the discovery of its weight, and had very near attained it, but some time after Torricelli seized upon this truth. In a little time experimental philosophy began to be cultivated on a sudden in most parts of Europe. It was a hidden treasure which Lord Bacon had some notion of, and which all the philosophers, encouraged by his promises, endeavored to dig up.

But that which surprized me most was to read in his work, in express terms, the new attraction, the invention of which is ascribed to Sir Isaac Newton.

We must search, says Lord Bacon, whether there may not be a kind of magnetic power which operates between the earth and heavy bodies, between the moon and the ocean, between the planets, etc. In another place he says, either heavy bodies must be carried toward the center of the earth, or must be reciprocally attracted by it; and in the latter case it is evident that the nearer bodies in their falling, draw toward the earth, the stronger they will attract one another. We must, says he, make an experiment to see whether the same clock will go faster on the top of a mountain or at the bottom of a mine; whether the strength of the weights decreases on the mountain and increases in the mine. It is probable that the earth has a true attractive power.

This forerunner in philosophy was also an elegant writer, a historian, and a wit.

His moral essays are greatly esteemed, but they were drawn up in the view of instructing rather than of pleasing; and, as they are not a satire upon mankind, like Rochefoucauld's "Maxims," nor written upon a skeptical plan, like Montaigne's "Essays," they are not so much read as those two ingenious authors.



II

ENGLAND'S REGARD FOR MEN OF LETTERS[41]

Neither the English nor any other people have foundations established in favor of the polite arts like those in France. There are universities in most countries, but it is in France only that we meet with so beneficial an encouragement for astronomy and all parts of the mathematics, for physic, for researches into antiquity, for painting, sculpture, and architecture. Louis XIV has immortalized his name by these several foundations, and this immortality did not cost him two hundred thousand livres a year.

[Footnote 41: From the "Letters on England."]

I must confess that one of the things I very much wonder at is that as the Parliament of Great Britain have promised a reward of L20,000 to any person who may discover the longitude, they should never have once thought to imitate Louis XIV in his munificence with regard to the arts and sciences.

Merit, indeed, meets in England with rewards of another kind, which redound more to the honor of the nation. The English have so great a veneration for exalted talents, that a man of merit in their country is always sure of making his fortune. Mr. Addison in France would have been elected a member of one of the academies, and, by the credit of some women, might have obtained a yearly pension of twelve hundred livres, or else might have been imprisoned in the Bastille, upon pretense that certain strokes in his tragedy of Cato had been discovered which glanced at the porter of some man in power. Mr. Addison was raised to the post of Secretary of State in England. Sir Isaac Newton was made Master of the Royal Mint. Mr. Congreve had a considerable employment. Mr. Prior was Plenipotentiary. Dr. Swift is Dean of St. Patrick's in Dublin, and is more revered in Ireland than the Primate himself. The religion which Mr. Pope professes[42] excludes him, indeed, from preferments of every kind, but then it did not prevent his gaining two hundred thousand livres by his excellent translation of Homer. I myself saw a long time in France the author of "Rhadamistus"[43] ready to perish for hunger. And the son of one of the greatest men our country ever gave birth to, and who was beginning to run the noble career which his father had set him, would have been reduced to the extremes of misery had he not been patronized by Monsieur Fagon.

[Footnote 42: Pope was a Catholic.]

[Footnote 43: "Rhadamiste et Zenobia," a tragedy by Crebillon (1711), who long suffered from neglect and want.]

But the circumstance which mostly encourages the arts in England is the great veneration which is paid them. The picture of the Prime Minister hangs over the chimney of his own closet, but I have seen that of Mr. Pope in twenty noblemen's houses. Sir Isaac Newton was revered in his lifetime, and had a due respect paid to him after his death,—the greatest men in the nation disputing who should have the honor of holding up his pall. Go into Westminster Abbey, and you will find that what raises the admiration of the spectator is not the mausoleums of the English kings, but the monuments which the gratitude of the nation has erected to perpetuate the memory of those illustrious men who contributed to its glory. We view their statues in that abbey in the same manner as those of Sophocles, Plato, and other immortal personages were viewed in Athens; and I am persuaded that the bare sight of those glorious monuments has fired more than one breast, and been the occasion of their becoming great men.

The English have even been reproached with paying too extravagant honors to mere merit, and censured for interring the celebrated actress Mrs. Oldfield[44] in Westminster Abbey, with almost the same pomp as Sir Isaac Newton. Some pretend that the English had paid her these great funeral honors purposely to make us more strongly sensible of the barbarity and injustice which they object to in us, for having buried Mademoiselle Le Couvreur ignominiously in the fields.

[Footnote 44: Anne, or "Nance" Oldfield was born in 1683, and died in 1730. Her death occurred in the year which followed the close of Voltaire's English visit. At her funeral, the body lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey. She had a natural son, who married Lady Mary Walpole, a natural daughter of Sir Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister.]

But be assured from me that the English were prompted by no other principle in burying Mrs. Oldfield in Westminster Abbey than their good sense. They are far from being so ridiculous as to brand with infamy an art which has immortalized a Euripides and a Sophocles; or to exclude from the body of their citizens a set of people whose business is to set off with the utmost grace of speech and action those pieces which the nation is proud of.

Under the reign of Charles I and in the beginning of the civil wars raised by a number of rigid fanatics, who at last were the victims to it, a great many pieces were published against theatrical and other shows, which were attacked with the greater virulence because that monarch and his queen, daughter to Henry I of France, were passionately fond of them.

One Mr. Prynne, a man of most furiously scrupulous principles, who would have thought himself damned had he worn a cassock instead of a short cloak, and have been glad to see one-half of mankind cut the other to pieces for the glory of God and the Propaganda Fide, took it into his head to write a most wretched satire against some pretty good comedies, which were exhibited very innocently every night before their majesties. He quoted the authority of the Rabbis, and some passages from St. Bonaventura, to prove that the "Oedipus" of Sophocles was the work of the evil spirit; that Terence was excommunicated ipso facto; and added that doubtless Brutus, who was a very severe Jansenist, assassinated Julius Caesar for no other reason but because he, who was Pontifex Maximus, presumed to write a tragedy the subject of which was "Oepidus." Lastly, he declared that all who frequented the theater were excommunicated, as they thereby renounced their baptism. This was casting the highest insult on the king and all the royal family; and as the English loved their prince at that time, they could not bear to hear a writer talk of excommunicating him, tho they themselves afterward cut his head off. Prynne was summoned to appear before the Star Chamber; his wonderful book, from which Father Lebrun stole his, was sentenced to be burned by the common hangman, and himself to lose his ears.[45] His trial is now extant.

[Footnote 45: William Prynne, lawyer, pamphleteer, and statesman, was born in 1600, and died in 1669. Prynne in 1648 was released from imprisonment by the Long Parliament and obtained a seat in the House of Commons where he took up the cause of the king. Later, in the Cromwellian period, he was arrested and again imprisoned, but was released in 1652, and, after the accession of Charles II, was made keeper of the records in the Tower.]

The Italians are far from attempting to cast a blemish on the opera, or to excommunicate Signor Senesino or Signora Cuzzoni. With regard to myself, I could presume to wish that the magistrates would suppress I know not what contemptible pieces written against the stage. For when the English and Italians hear that we brand with the greatest mark of infamy an art in which we excel; that we excommunicate persons who receive salaries from the king; that we condemn as impious a spectacle exhibited in convents and monasteries; that we dishonor sports in which Louis XIV and Louis XV performed as actors; that we give the title of the devil's works to pieces which are received by magistrates of the most severe character, and represented before a virtuous queen; when, I say, foreigners are told of this insolent conduct, this contempt for the royal authority, and this Gothic rusticity which some presume to call Christian severity, what idea must they entertain of our nation? And how will it be possible for them to conceive, either that our laws give a sanction to an art which is declared infamous, or that some persons dare to stamp with infamy an art which receives a sanction from the laws, is rewarded by kings, cultivated and encouraged by the greatest men, and admired by whole nations? And that Father Lebrun's impertinent libel against the stage is seen in a bookseller's shop, standing the very next to the immortal labors of Racine, of Corneille, of Moliere, etc.?



JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Born in Geneva in 1712, died near Paris in 1778; his father a mender of watches and teacher of dancing; lived from hand to mouth until he was thirty-eight; achieved his first literary reputation from a prize competition in 1749; published "Le Devin du Village" in 1752, "La Nouvelle Heloise" in 1761, "Le Contrat Social" in 1762, "Emile" in 1762; the latter work led to his exile from France for five years, during which he lived in Switzerland and England; his "Confessions" published after his death in 1782; was the father of five illegitimate children, each of whom he sent to a foundling asylum.



I

OF CHRIST AND SOCRATES

I will confess that the majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the Gospel hath its influence on my heart. Peruse the works of our philosophers with all their pomp of diction; how mean, how contemptible are they compared with the Scriptures! Is it possible that a book, at once so simple and sublime, should be merely the work of man? Is it possible that the sacred personage, whose history it contains, should be himself a mere man? Do we find that He assumed the tone of an enthusiast or ambitious sectary? What sweetness, what purity in His manner! What an affecting gracefulness in His delivery! What sublimity in His maxims! what profound wisdom in His discourses? What presence of mind, what subtlety, what truth in His replies! How great the command over His passions! Where is the man, where the philosopher, who could so live, and so die, without weakness, and without ostentation? When Plato described his imaginary good man loaded with all the shame of guilt, yet meriting the highest rewards of virtue, he describes exactly the character of Jesus Christ: the resemblance was so striking that all the Fathers perceived it.

What prepossession, what blindness must it be to compare the son of Sophronicus to the son of Mary! What an infinite disproportion there is between them! Socrates dying without pain or ignominy, easily supported his character to the last; and if his death, however easy, had not crowned his life, it might have been doubted whether Socrates, with all his wisdom, was anything more than a vain sophist. He invented, it is said, the theory of morals. Others, however, had before put them in practise; he had only to say, therefore, what they had done, and to reduce their examples to precepts. Aristides had been just before Socrates defined justice; Leonidas had given up his life for his country before Socrates declared patriotism to be a duty; the Spartans were a sober people before Socrates recommended sobriety; before he had even defined virtue Greece abounded in virtuous men.

But where could Jesus learn, among His competitors, that pure and sublime morality, of which He only hath given us both precept and example? The greatest wisdom was made known amongst the most bigoted fanaticism, and the simplicity of the most heroic virtues did honor to the vilest people on earth. The death of Socrates, peaceably philosophizing with his friends, appears the most agreeable that could be wished for; that of Jesus, expiring in the midst of agonizing pains, abused, insulted, and accused by a whole nation, is the most horrible that could be feared. Socrates, in receiving the cup of poison, blest, indeed, the weeping executioner who administered it; but Jesus, in the midst of excruciating torments, prayed for His merciless tormentors. Yes, if the life and death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a God. Shall we suppose the evangelic history a mere fiction? Indeed, my friend, it bears not the marks of fiction; on the contrary, the history of Socrates, which nobody presumes to doubt, is not so well attested as that of Jesus Christ. Such a supposition, in fact, only shifts the difficulty without obviating it: it is more inconceivable that a number of persons should agree to write such a history, than that one only should furnish the subject of it. The Jewish authors were incapable of the diction, and strangers to the morality contained in the Gospel, the marks of whose truth are so striking and inimitable that the inventor would be a more astonishing character than the hero.



II

OF THE MANAGEMENT OF CHILDREN[46]

I have thought that the most essential part in the education of children, and which is seldom regarded in the best families, is to make them sensible of their inability, weakness, and dependence, and, as my husband called it, the heavy yoke of that necessity which nature has imposed upon our species; and that, not only in order to show them how much is done to alleviate the burden of that yoke, but especially to instruct them betimes in what rank Providence has placed them, that they may not presume too far above themselves, or be ignorant of the reciprocal duties of humanity.

[Footnote 46: From the "New Heloise." The passage here given is from a letter supposed to have been written by a person who was visiting Heloise. One of the earliest English versions of the "New Heloise" appeared in 1784.]

Young people who from their cradle have been brought up in ease and effeminacy, who have been caressed by every one, indulged in all their caprices, and have been used to obtain easily everything they desired, enter upon the world with many impertinent prejudices; of which they are generally cured by frequent mortifications, affronts, and chagrin. Now, I would willingly spare my children this kind of education by giving them, at first, a just notion of things. I had indeed once resolved to indulge my eldest son in everything he wanted, from a persuasion that the first impulses of nature must be good and salutary; but I was not long in discovering that children, conceiving from such treatment that they have a right to be obeyed, depart from a state of nature almost as soon as born—contracting our vices from our example, and theirs by our indiscretion. I saw that if I indulged him in all his humors they would only increase by such indulgence; that it was necessary to stop at some point, and that contradiction would be but the more mortifying as he should be less accustomed to it; but, that it might be less painful to him, I began to use it upon him by degrees, and in order to prevent his tears and lamentations I made every denial irrevocable.

It is true, I contradict him as little as possible, and never without due consideration. Whatever is given or permitted him is done unconditionally and at the first instance; and in this we are indulgent enough; but he never gets anything by importunity, neither his tears nor entreaties being of any effect. Of this he is now so well convinced that he makes no use of them; he goes his way on the first word, and frets himself no more at seeing a box of sweetmeats taken away from him than at seeing a bird fly away which he would be glad to catch, there appearing to him the same impossibility of having the one as the other; and, so far from beating the chairs and tables, he dares not lift his hand against those who oppose him. In everything that displeases him he feels the weight of necessity, the effect of his own weakness.

The great cause of the ill humor of children is the care which is taken either to quiet or to aggravate them. They will sometimes cry for an hour for no other reason in the world than because they perceive we would not have them. So long as we take notice of their crying, so long have they a reason for continuing to cry; but they will soon give over of themselves when they see no notice is taken of them; for, old or young, nobody loves to throw away his trouble. This is exactly the case with my eldest boy, who was once the most peevish little bawler, stunning the whole house with his cries; whereas now you can hardly hear there is a child in the house. He cries, indeed, when he is in pain; but then it is the voice of nature, which should never be restrained; and he is again hushed as soon as ever the pain is over. For this reason I pay great attention to his tears, as I am certain he never sheds them for nothing; and hence I have gained the advantage of being certain when he is in pain and when not; when he is well and when sick; an advantage which is lost with those who cry out of mere humor and only in order to be appeased. I must confess, however, that this management is not to be expected from nurses and governesses; for as nothing is more tiresome than to hear a child cry, and as these good women think of nothing but the time present, they do not foresee that by quieting it to-day it will cry the more to-morrow. But, what is still worse, this indulgence produces an obstinacy which is of more consequence as the child grows up. The very cause that makes it a squaller at three years of age will make it stubborn and refractory at twelve, quarrelsome at twenty, imperious and insolent at thirty, and insupportable all its life.

In every indulgence granted to children they can easily see our desire to please them, and therefore they should be taught to suppose we have reason for refusing or complying with their requests. This is another advantage gained by making use of authority, rather than persuasion, on every necessary occasion. For, as it is impossible they can be always blind to our motives, it is natural for them to imagine that we have some reason for contradicting them, of which, they are ignorant. On the contrary, when we have once submitted to their judgment, they will pretend to judge of everything, and thus become cunning, deceitful, fruitful in shifts and chicanery, endeavoring to silence those who are weak enough to argue with them; for when one is obliged to give them an account of things above their comprehension, they attribute the most prudent conduct to caprice, because they are incapable of understanding it. In a word, the only way to render children docile and capable of reasoning is not to reason with them at all, but to convince them that it is above their childish capacities; for they will always suppose the argument in their favor unless you can give them good cause to think otherwise. They know very well that we are unwilling to displease them, when they are certain of our affection; and children are seldom mistaken in this particular: therefore, if I deny anything to my children, I never reason with them, I never tell them why I do so and so; but I endeavor, as much as possible, that they should find it out, and that even after the affair is over. By these means they are accustomed to think that I never deny them anything without a sufficient reason, tho they can not always see it.

On the same principle it is that I never suffer my children to join in the conversation of grown people, or foolishly imagine themselves on an equality with them, because they are permitted to prattle. I would have them give a short and modest answer when they are spoken to, but never to speak of their own head, or ask impertinent questions of persons so much older than themselves, to whom they ought to show more respect....

What can a child think of himself when he sees a circle of sensible people listening to, admiring, and waiting impatiently for his wit, and breaking out in raptures at every impertinent expression? Such false applause is enough to turn the head of a grown person; judge, then, what effect it must have upon that of a child. It is with the prattle of children as with the prediction in the almanac. It would be strange if, amidst such a number of idle words, chance did not now and then jumble some of them into sense. Imagine the effect which such flattering exclamations must have on a simple mother, already too much flattered by her own heart. Think not, however, that I am proof against this error because I expose it. No, I see the fault, and yet am guilty of it. But, if I sometimes admire the repartees of my son, I do it at least in secret. He will not learn to become a vain prater by hearing me applaud him, nor will flatterers have the pleasure, in making me repeat them, of laughing at my weakness.



MADAME DE STAEL

Born in Paris, 1763, died there in 1817; daughter of Necker, the Minister of Finance, and Susanne Courchod, the sweetheart of Gibbon; married to the Baron of Stael-Holstein, the Swedish ambassador to France, in 1786; lived in Germany in 1803-04; traveled in Italy in 1805; published "Corinne" in 1807; returned to Germany in 1808; and finished "De l'Allemagne," the first edition of which was destroyed, probably at the instigation of Napoleon, who became her bitter enemy; exiled from France by Napoleon in 1812-14.



OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE[47]

General Bonaparte made himself as conspicuous by his character and his intellect as by his victories; and the imagination of the French began to be touched by him [1797]. His proclamations to the Cisalpine and Ligurian republics were talked of.... A tone of moderation and of dignity pervaded his style, which contrasted with the revolutionary harshness of the civil rulers of France. The warrior spoke in those days like a lawgiver, while the lawgivers exprest themselves with soldier-like violence. General Bonaparte had not executed in his army the decrees against the emigres. It was said that he loved his wife, whose character is full of sweetness; it was asserted that he felt the beauties of Ossian; it was a pleasure to attribute to him all the generous qualities that form a noble background for extraordinary abilities....

[Footnote 47: From "Considerations on the French Revolution." This work was not published until 1818, three years after the exile of Napoleon to St. Helena. An English translation appeared in 1819.]

Such at least was my own mood when I saw him for the first time in Paris. I could find no words with which to reply to him when he came to me to tell me that he had tried to visit my father at Coppet, and that he was sorry to have passed through Switzerland without seeing him. But when I had somewhat recovered from the agitation of admiration, it was followed by a feeling of very marked fear. Bonaparte then had no power: he was thought even to be more or less in danger from the vague suspiciousness of the Directory; so that the fear he inspired was caused only by the singular effect of his personality upon almost every one who had intercourse with him. I had seen men worthy of high respect; I had also seen ferocious men: there was nothing in the impression Bonaparte produced upon me which could remind me of men of either type. I soon perceived, on the different occasions when I met him during his stay in Paris, that his character could not be defined by the words we are accustomed to make use of: he was neither kindly nor violent, neither gentle nor cruel, after the fashion of other men. Such a being, so unlike others, could neither excite nor feel sympathy: he was more or less than man. His bearing, his mind, his language have the marks of a foreigner's nature—an advantage the more in subjugating Frenchmen....

Far from being reassured by seeing Bonaparte often, he always intimidated me more and more. I felt vaguely that no emotional feeling could influence him. He regards a human creature as a fact or a thing, but not as an existence like his own. He feels no more hate than love. For him there is no one but himself: all other creatures are mere ciphers. The force of his will consists in the imperturbable calculations of his egotism: he is an able chess-player whose opponent is all humankind, whom he intends to checkmate. His success is due as much to the qualities he lacks as to the talents he possesses. Neither pity, nor sympathy, nor religion, nor attachment to any idea whatsoever would have power to turn him from his path. He has the same devotion to his own interests that a good man has to virtue: if the object were noble, his persistency would be admirable.

Every time that I heard him talk I was struck by his superiority; it was of a kind, however, that had no relation to that of men instructed and cultivated by study, or by society, such as England and France possess examples of. But his conversation indicated that quick perception of circumstances the hunter has in pursuing his prey. Sometimes he related the political and military events of his life in a very interesting manner; he had even, in narratives that admitted gaiety, a touch of Italian imagination. Nothing, however, could conquer my invincible alienation from what I perceived in him. I saw in his soul a cold and cutting sword, which froze while wounding; I saw in his mind a profound irony, from which nothing fine or noble could escape not even his own glory: for he despised the nation whose suffrages he desired; and no spark of enthusiasm mingled with his craving to astonish the human race....

His face, thin and pale at that time, was very agreeable: since then he has gained flesh—which does not become him; for one needs to believe such a man to be tormented by his own character, at all to tolerate the sufferings this character causes others. As his stature is short, and yet his waist very long, he appeared to much greater advantage on horseback than on foot; in all ways it is war, and war only, he is fitted for. His manner in society is constrained without being timid; it is disdainful when he is on his guard, and vulgar when he is at ease; his air of disdain suits him best, and so he is not sparing in the use of it. He took pleasure already in the part of embarrassing people by saying disagreeable things: an art which he has since made a system of, as of all other methods of subjugating men by degrading them.



VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND

Born in France in 1768, died in 1848; entered the French army in 1786; traveled in America in 1791-92; emigrated to England, where in 1797 he published his "Essai Historique, Politique et Moral"; returned to France in 1800; converted to the Catholic faith through the death of his mother; published in 1802 "The Genius of Christianity"; made secretary of legation in Rome by Napoleon in 1803, and later minister to the republic of Valais, but resigned in 1804 after the execution of the Duke of Enghien; supported the Bourbons in 1814; made a peer of France in 1815; ambassador to England in 1822; Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1823; published his "Memoirs" in 1849-50.



IN AN AMERICAN FOREST[48]

When, in my journeys among the Indian tribes of Canada, I left European dwellings, and found myself, for the first time, alone in the midst of an ocean of forests, having, so to speak, all nature prostrate at my feet, a strange change took place within me. In the kind of delirium which seized me, I followed no road; I went from tree to tree, now to the right, now to the left, saying to myself, "Here there are no more roads to follow, no more towns, no more narrow houses, no more presidents, republics, or kings—above all, no more laws, and no more men." Men! Yes, some good savages, who cared nothing for me, nor I for them; who, like me, wandered freely wherever their fancy led them, eating when they felt inclined, sleeping when and where they pleased. And, in order to see if I were really established in my original rights, I gave myself up to a thousand acts of eccentricity, which enraged the tall Dutchman who was my guide, and who, in his heart, thought I was mad.

[Footnote 48: From the "Essay on Revolutions." While in America, Chateaubriand visited Canada, traveling inland through the United States from Niagara to Florida. He arrived home in Paris at the time of the execution of Louis XVI. His "Essay on Revolutions" was published five years later.]

Escaped from the tyrannous yoke of society, I understood then the charms of that independence of nature which far surpasses all the pleasures of which civilized man can form any idea. I understood why not one savage has become a European, and why many Europeans have become savages; why the sublime "Discourse on the Inequality of Rank" is so little understood by the most part of our philosophers. It is incredible how small and diminished the nations and their most boasted institutions appeared in my eyes; it seemed to me as if I saw the kingdoms of the earth through an inverted spy-glass, or rather that, being myself grown and elevated, I looked down on the rest of my degenerate race with the eye of a giant.

You who wish to write about men, go into the deserts, become for a moment the child of nature, and then—and then only—take up the pen.

Among the innumerable enjoyments of this journey one especially made a vivid impression on my mind.

I was going then to see the famous cataract of Niagara, and I had taken my way through the Indian tribes who inhabit the deserts to the west of the American plantations. My guides were—the sun, a pocket-compass, and the Dutchman of whom I have spoken: the latter understood perfectly five dialects of the Huron language. Our train consisted of two horses, which we let loose in the forests at night, after fastening a bell to their necks. I was at first a little afraid of losing them, but my guide reassured me by pointing out that, by a wonderful instinct, these good animals never wandered out of sight of our fire.

One evening, when, as we calculated that we were only about eight or nine leagues from the cataract, we were preparing to dismount before sunset, in order to build our hut and light our watch-fire after the Indian fashion, we perceived in the wood the fires of some savages who were encamped a little lower down on the shores of the same stream as we were. We went to them. The Dutchman having by my orders asked their permission for us to pass the night with them, which was granted immediately, we set to work with our hosts. After having cut down some branches, planted some stakes, torn off some bark to cover our palace, and performed some other public offices, each of us attended to his own affairs. I brought my saddle, which served me well for a pillow all through my travels; the guide rubbed down the horses; and as to his night accommodation, since he was not so particular as I am, he generally made use of the dry trunk of a tree. Work being done, we seated ourselves in a circle, with our legs crossed like tailors, around the immense fire, to roast our heads of maize, and to prepare supper. I had still a flask of brandy, which served to enliven our savages not a little. They found out that they had some bear hams, and we began a royal feast.

The family consisted of two women, with infants at their breasts, and three warriors; two of them might be from forty to forty-five years of age, altho they appeared much older, and the third was a young man.

The conversation soon became general; that is to say, on my side it consisted of broken words and many gestures—an expressive language, which these nations understand remarkably well, and that I had learned among them. The young man alone preserved an obstinate silence; he kept his eyes constantly fixt on me. In spite of the black, red, and blue stripes, cut ears, and the pearl hanging from his nose, with which he was disfigured, it was easy to see the nobility and sensibility which animated his countenance. How well I knew he was inclined not to love me! It seemed to me as if he were reading in his heart the history of all the wrongs which Europeans have inflicted on his native country. The two children, quite naked, were asleep at our feet before the fire; the women took them quietly into their arms and put them to bed among the skins, with a mother's tenderness so delightful to witness in these so-called savages: the conversation died away by degrees, and each fell asleep in the place where he was.

I alone could not close my eyes, hearing on all sides the deep breathing of my hosts. I raised my head, and, supporting myself on my elbow, watched by the red light of the expiring fire the Indians stretched around me and plunged in sleep. I confess that I could hardly refrain from tears. Brave youth, how your peaceful sleep affects me! You, who seemed so sensible of the woes of your native land, you were too great, too high-minded to mistrust the foreigner! Europeans, what a lesson for you! These same savages whom we have pursued with fire and sword, to whom our avarice would not leave a spadeful of earth to cover their corpses in all this world, formerly their vast patrimony—these same savages receiving their enemy into their hospitable hut, sharing with him their miserable meal, and, their couch undisturbed by remorse, sleeping close to him the calm sleep of the innocent. These virtues are as much above the virtues of conventional life as the soul of tho man in his natural state is above that of the man in society.

It was moonlight. Feverish with thinking, I got up and seated myself at a little distance on a root which ran along the edge of the streamlet: it was one of those American nights which the pencil of man can never represent, and the remembrance of which I have a hundred times recalled with delight.

The moon was at the highest point of the heavens; here and there at wide, clear intervals twinkled a thousand stars. Sometimes the moon rested on a group of clouds which looked like the summit of high mountains crowned with snow: little by little these clouds grew longer, and rolled out into transparent and waving zones of white satin, or transformed themselves into light flakes of froth, into innumerable wandering flocks in the blue plains of the firmament. Another time the arch of heaven seemed changed into a shore on which one could discover horizontal rows, parallel lines such as are made by the regular ebb and flow of the sea; a gust of wind tore this veil again, and everywhere appeared in the sky great banks of dazzlingly white down, so soft to the eye that one seemed to feel their softness and elasticity. The scene on the earth was not less delightful: the silvery and velvety light of the moon floated silently over the top of the forests, and at intervals went down among the trees, casting rays of light even through the deepest shadows. The narrow brook which flowed at my feet, burying itself from time to time among the thickets of oak-, willow-, and sugar-trees, and reappearing a little farther off in the glades, all sparkling with the constellations of the night, seemed like a ribbon of azure silk spotted with diamond stars and striped with black bands. On the other side of the river, in a wide, natural meadow, the moonlight rested quietly on the pastures, where it was spread out like a sheet. Some birch-trees scattered here and there over the savannas, sometimes blending, according to the caprice of the winds, with the background, seemed to surround themselves with a pale gauze—sometimes rising up again from their chalky foundations, hidden in the darkness, formed, as it were, islands of floating shadows on an immovable sea of light. Near all was silence and repose, except the falling of the leaves, the rough passing of a sudden wind, the rare and interrupted whooping of the gray owl; but in the distance at intervals one heard the solemn rolling of the cataract of Niagara, which in the calm of the night echoed from desert to desert and died away in solitary forests.

The grandeur, the astonishing melancholy of this picture can not be exprest in human language: the most beautiful nights in Europe can give no idea of it. In the midst of our cultivated fields the imagination vainly seeks to expand itself; everywhere it meets with the dwellings of man; but in these desert countries the soul delights in penetrating and losing itself in these eternal forests; it loves to wander by the light of the moon on the borders of immense lakes, to hover over the roaring gulf of terrible cataracts, to fall with the masses of water, and, so to speak, mix and blend itself with a sublime and savage nature. These enjoyments are too keen; such is our weakness that exquisite pleasures become griefs, as if nature feared that we should forget that we are men. Absorbed in my existence, or rather drawn quite out of myself, having neither feeling nor distinct thought, but an indescribable I know not what, which was like that happiness which they say we shall enjoy in the other life, I was all at once recalled to this. I felt unwell, and perceived that I must not linger. I returned to our encampment, where, lying down by the savages, I soon fell into a deep sleep.



FRANCOIS GUIZOT

Born in France in 1787, died in 1874; became a professor of literature in 1812, and later of modern history at the Sorbonne; published his "History of Civilization" in 1828-1830; elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1830; Minister of the Interior, 1830; Ambassador to England, in 1840; returning, entered the Cabinet where he remained until 1848, being at one time Prime Minister; after 1848 went into retirement and published books frequently until his death.



SHAKESPEARE AS AN EXAMPLE OF CIVILIZATION[49]

Voltaire was the first person in France who spoke of Shakespeare's genius;[50] and altho he spoke of him merely as a barbarian genius, the French public were of opinion that Voltaire had said too much in his favor. Indeed, they thought it nothing less than profanation to apply the words "genius" and "glory" to dramas which they considered as crude as they were coarse.

[Footnote 49: From "Shakespeare and His Times."]

[Footnote 50: Voltaire's references to Shakespeare were made in his "Letters on England." From them dates the beginning of French interest in the English poet.]

At the present day all controversy regarding Shakespeare's genius and glory has come to an end. No one ventures any longer to dispute them; but a greater question has arisen—namely, whether Shakespeare's dramatic system is not far superior to that of Voltaire. This question I do not presume to decide. I merely say that it is now open for discussion. We have been led to it by the onward progress of ideas. I shall endeavor to point out the causes which have brought it about; but at present I insist merely upon the fact itself, and deduce from it one simple consequence, that literary criticism has changed its ground, and can no longer remain restricted to the limits within which it was formerly confined.

Literature does not escape from the revolutions of the human mind; it is compelled to follow it in its course, to transport itself beneath the horizon under which it is conveyed, to gain elevation and extension with the ideas which occupy its notice, and to consider the questions which it discusses under the new aspects and novel circumstances in which they are placed by the new state of thought and of society....

When we embrace human destiny in all its aspects, and human nature in all the conditions of man upon earth, we enter into possession of an exhaustless treasure. It is the peculiar advantage of such a system that it escapes, by its extent, from the dominion of any particular genius. We may discover its principles in Shakespeare's works; but he was not fully acquainted with them, nor did he always respect them. He should serve as an example, not as a model. Some men, even of superior talent, have attempted to write plays according to Shakespeare's taste, without perceiving that they were deficient in one important qualification for the task; and that was to write as he did, to write them for our age just as Shakespeare's plays were written for the age in which he lived. This is an enterprise the difficulties of which have, hitherto, perhaps, been maturely considered by no one.

We have seen how much art and effort were employed by Shakespeare to surmount those which are inherent in his system. They are still greater in our times, and would unveil themselves much more completely to the spirit of criticism which now accompanies the boldest essays of genius. It is not only with spectators of more fastidious taste and of more idle and inattentive imagination that the poet would have to do who should venture to follow in Shakespeare's footsteps. He would be called upon to give movement to personages embarrassed in much more complicated interests, preoccupied with much more various feelings, and subject to less simple habits of mind and to less decided tendencies. Neither science, nor reflection, nor the scruples of conscience, nor the uncertainties of thought frequently encumber Shakespeare's heroes; doubt is of little use among them, and the violence of their passions speedily transfers their belief to the side of the desires, or sets their actions above their belief. Hamlet alone presents the confused spectacle of a mind formed by the enlightenment of society in conflict with a position contrary to its laws; and he needs a supernatural apparition to determine him to act, and a fortuitous event to accomplish his project. If incessantly placed in an analogous position, the personages of a tragedy conceived at the present day according to the romantic system would offer us the same picture of indecision. Ideas now crowd and intersect each other in the mind of man, duties multiply in his conscience and obstacles and bonds around his life. Instead of those electric brains, prompt to communicate the spark which they have received; instead of those ardent and simple-minded men, whose projects like Macbeth's "will to hand"—the world now presents to the poet minds like Hamlet's, deep in the observation of those inward conflicts which our classical system has derived from a state of society more advanced than that of the time in which Shakespeare lived. So many feelings, interests, and ideas, the necessary consequences of modern civilization, might become even in their simplest form of expression a troublesome burden, which it would be difficult to carry through the rapid evolutions and bold advances of the romantic system.