. But, as we
shall see, he had been anticipated by Hakewill, whose work was unknown
to Rigault.]

The general atmosphere in France, in the reign of Louis XIV., was
propitious to the cause of the Moderns. Men felt that it was a great
age, comparable to the age of Augustus, and few would have preferred
to have lived at any other time. Their literary artists, Corneille, and
then Racine and Moliere, appealed so strongly to their taste that they
could not assign to them any rank but the first. They were impatient
of the claims to unattainable excellence advanced for the Greeks and
Romans. "The ancients," said Moliere, "are the ancients, we are the
people of to-day." This might be the motto of Descartes, and it probably
expressed a very general feeling.

It was in 1687 that Charles Perrault--who is better remembered for his
collection of fairy-tales than for the leading role which he played in
this controversy--published his poem on "The Age of Louis the Great."
The enlightenment of the present age surpasses that of antiquity,--this
is the theme.

La docte Antiquite dans toute sa duree
A l'egal de nos jours ne fut point eclairee.

Perrault adopts a more polite attitude to "la belle antiquite" than
Saint Sorlin, but his criticism is more insidious. Greek and Roman men
of genius, he suggests, were all very well in their own times, and might
be considered divine by our ancestors. But nowadays Plato is rather
tiresome; and the "inimitable Homer" would have written a much better
epic if he had lived in the reign of Louis the Great. The important
passage, however, in the poem is that in which the permanent power of
nature to produce men of equal talent in every age is affirmed.

A former les esprits comme a former les corps
La Nature en tout temps fait les mesmes efforts;
Son etre est immuable, et cette force aisee
Dont elle produit tout ne s'est point epuisee;
..... De cette mesme main les forces infinies
Produisent en tout temps de semblables genies.

The "Age of Louis the Great" was a brief declaration of faith. Perrault
followed it up by a comprehensive work, his Comparison of the Ancients
and the Moderns (Parallele des Anciens et des Modernes), which appeared
in four parts during the following years (1688-1696). Art, eloquence,
poetry the sciences, and their practical applications are all discussed
at length; and the discussion is thrown into the form of conversations
between an enthusiast