ng on
his own. Thuanus deals with contemporary events.]

From the latter years of Louis XIV. till the third quarter of the
eighteenth century was all but closed, France had a government at once
so weak and wicked, so much below the culture of the people it
oppressed, that the better minds of the nation turned away in disgust
from their domestic ignominy, and sought consolation in contemplating
foreign virtue wherever they thought it was to be found; in short,
they became cosmopolitan. The country which has since been the
birthplace of Chauvinism, put away national pride almost with passion.
But this was not all. The country whose king was called the Eldest Son
of the Church, and with which untold pains had been taken to keep it
orthodox, had lapsed into such an abhorrence of the Church and of
orthodoxy that anything seemed preferable to them in its eyes.

Thus, as if by enchantment, the old barriers disappeared, both
national and religious. Man and his fortunes, in all climes and all
ages, became topics of intense interest, especially when they tended
to degrade by contrast the detested condition of things at home. This
was the weak side of historical speculation in France: it was
essentially polemical; prompted less by genuine interest in the past
than by strong hatred of the present. Of this perturbation note must
be taken. But it is none the less true that the disengagement of
French thought from the narrow limits of nation and creed produced, as
it were in a moment, a lofty conception of history such as subsequent
ages may equal, but can hardly surpass.

The influence of French thought was European, and nowhere more
beneficial than in England. In other countries it was too despotic,
and produced in Germany, at least, Lessing's memorable reaction. But
the robust national and political life of England reduced it to a
welcome flavouring of our insular temperament. The Scotch, who had a
traditional connection with France, were the first importers of the
new views. Hume, who had practically grown in the same soil as
Voltaire, was only three years behind him in the historic field. The
_Age of Louis XIV._ was published in 1751, and the first volume of the
_History of England_ in 1754. Hume was no disciple of Voltaire; he
simply wrote under the stimulus of the same order of ideas. Robertson,
who shortly followed him, no doubt drew direct inspiration from
Voltaire, and his weightiest achievement, the View of the State of