THE STYLES OF HENRY IV. AND LOUIS XIII. 2O/ 



spirit under Henry IV., was completed with increasing harshness under 

 Richelieu and Louis XIV. At the same time the counter-Reformation 

 put new life into the Roman Church, and, step by step, as she regained 

 her influence she, too, became increasingly centralised and absolute. 

 But the Renaissance and Reformation had established the rights of .the 

 human intellect, and the seventeenth century was pre-eminently the age 

 of reason. The movements in Church and State were successful 

 principally because they enlisted reason on their side. They culminated 

 both in their completeness and in their despotic character in the middle 

 of the reign of Louis XIV. 



Up to this point the history of France in politics, religion, literature 

 and arts is the history of the successful struggle of the central authority 

 to establish itself over all local or individual opposition, and this success 

 was obtained as much by the inclusion and adoption of the more 

 moderate opposing elements as by the destruction of the more extreme. 

 Not only did the administration tend to be centralised in the monarchy 

 but, the seat of government being more definitely fixed in Paris, and the 

 Court seldom moving outside the He de France, the capital assumed 

 an importance in national life not hitherto attained. The fashions and 

 opinions of Paris, as the social and intellectual centre of the nation, began 

 to exercise a decisive influence on thought and taste throughout France. 



Meanwhile France remained under the influence of the classical 

 studies which had now held sway for a century. Huguenot and Jesuit 

 education was alike founded on classical literature. Artists steeped them- 

 selves in ancient masterpieces. Architects read Vitruvius and measured 

 ancient monuments. Principles in art and literature continued to be 

 based on the study of classical models, and supported by appeal 

 to classical precedents. But affected, as it was, by the same 

 conditions as political and religious ideas, the classical influence 

 began to assume a new complexion. Another side of it came to 

 be emphasised. As individualism gave place to the social spirit, so 

 art and literature saw the complete fulfilment of the tendency already 

 observable in the sixteenth century to subordinate the part to the whole, 

 the beauty of decorative detail and individual features to that of 

 the total composition, complexity to unity. As in education Latin 

 thrust Greek into the background, so in art it was rather the Roman 

 qualities majesty, power, and law than the Hellenic of subtle 

 proportion and delicacy of detail which assumed prominence. Again 

 the joyous aestheticism and optimism of the Renaissance declined, and 

 artistic conception assumed something of the same ascetic complexion 

 as the contemporary theology and philosophy, while the increased 

 influence of the Protestants under Henry IV. enhanced the tendency 

 to austerity. Thus the classical spirit manifests itself chiefly in belief 

 in law and order and conformity to reasoned canons, in clear, logical 



