in peaceable
possession of the kingdom which was destined to receive from him,
together with stability and peace, a return of generous hope. All the
writers of mark in the reign of Henry IV. bear the same imprint; they all
yearn to get free from the chaos of those ideas and sentiments which the
sixteenth century left still bubbling up. In literature as well as in
the state, one and the same need of discipline and unity, one universal
thirst for order and peace was bringing together all the intellects and
all the forces which were but lately clashing against and hampering one
another; in literature, as well as in the state, the impulse, everywhere
great and effective, proceeded from the king, without pressure or effort.
"Make known to Monsieur de Geneve," said Henry IV. to one of the friends
of St. Francis de Sales, "that I desire of him a work to serve as a
manual for all persons of the court and the great world, without
excepting kings and princes, to fit them for living Christianly each
according to their condition. I want this manual to be accurate,
judicious, and such as any one can make use of." St. Francis de Sales
published, in 1608, the _Introduction to a Devout Life,_ a delightful and
charming manual of devotion, more stern and firm in spirit than in form,
a true Christian regimen softened by the tact of a delicate and acute
intellect, knowing the world and its ways. "The book has surpassed my
hope," said Henry IV. The style is as supple, the fancy as rich, as
Montaigne's; but scepticism has given place to Christianism; St. Francis
de Sales does not doubt, he believes; ingenious and moderate withal, he
escapes out of the controversies of the violent and the incertitudes of
the sceptics. The step is firm, the march is onward towards the
seventeenth century, towards the reign of order, rule, and method.

The vigorous language and the beautiful arrangement in the style of the
magistrates had already prepared the way for its advent. Descartes was
the first master of it and its great exponent.

[Illustration: Descartes at Amsterdam----316]

Never was any mind more independent in voluntary submission to an
inexorable logic. Rene Descartes, who was born at La Haye, near Tours,
in 1596, and died at Stockholm in 1650, escaped the influence of
Richelieu by the isolation to which he condemned himself, as well as by
the proud and somewhat uncouth independence of his character. Engaging
as a volunteer, at one an