: 
HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
as we see now, if that of liberty and 
equality, they violate all treaties, 
invade all property, level all ranks, 
and give the kiss of fraternization to 
negroes. In short, in every thing, 
good or bad, they must be foremost; 
with this adjunctive and unfortu- 
nate circumstance, that any thing 
good in which they engage, is fre- 
quently by excess converted into 
evil. It has been remarked by 
their best historians, that in almost 
every stage of their history, they 
have been subject to moral and po- 
litical phrenzies.* 
This lively nation, deprived of 
all share in the public councils for 
a space of near two hundred years, 
and bending under the yoke of an 
arbitrary government, abandoned 
themselves to frivolity and dissipa- 
tion. Admirable exertions, indeed, 
were still made in thearts of peaceas 
well as war: but literary genius was 
for the most part prostituted tu adu- 
lation, and the military spirit taint- 
ed by an unlimited devotion to 
kings. The greatest heroes blush- 
ed not to profess that the great ob- 
ject of their valour, was the glory of 
the grand monarch: and their great- 
est reward, his countenance and 
smiles. A new train of thinking 
introduced a new and correspond- 
ing passion; the descendants of the 
Franks and Gauls, the most devoted 
to the church, the ladies and the 
king, running according to their 
manner from extreme to extreme, 
but still retaining their pretensions 
to be the first ofall nations, exchang- 
[3 
ed their religion, their gallantry, 
and their loyalty, for the coldness 
of scepticism, the rudeness of de- 
mocracy, and the boldness of liber- 
ty, perverted into extravagance of 
conception and design, and the ut- 
most licentiousness of conduct. 
It had become fashionable, in the 
early and long reign of Louis X1V. 
to patronize the studies of both li- 
terature and science. It occurred 
to his great minister Cardinal Riche- 
lieu, as a measure of good policy, 
to divert the busy and ardent ge- 
nius of his countrymen into that 
channel, from the affairs of state. 
Academies were instituted in France 
for the cultivation of the arts and 
sciences, nobly endowed with pecu- 
niary funds, and farther encourag- 
ed by literary honours. Nothing, 
at first, could exceed the obsequi- 
ous adulation of the academicians, 
who once had it in contemplation 
to hold out the reward of a golden 
medal to the best discourse or ora- 
tion on the question, ‘* By which of 
all his virtues his Majesty was dis- 
tinguished the most?” But this ob- 
sequiousness, it seems, was not in- 
consistent with vanity.¢ The self- 
conceit of this body, as well as of 
most of those who assumed the cha- 
racter of philosophers, was nourish- 
ed and heightened, and the number 
of philosophers daily encreased. 
Few could be statesmen, or hold 
the principal places under govern- 
ment; nor yet could very many 
rise to eminence by the pursuits of 
commerce: but all could be philo- 
* See Wraxall’s History of France, from the Accession of Henry III. to the 
Death of Lewis XLY. preceded by a view of the state of Europe, between the mid- 
dle and the close of the sixteenth century, 
valuable work. 
+ The discussion of this question was quashed by the King himself, 
See, particularly, the preface to that 
See ** The 
Fulogics, or Lives, of the French Academicians by D'Alembert.” 
[B] 2 
sophers. 
