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His open disposition, and being used to finding 

 perfect honesty and sincerity among those he consorted 

 with, prevented that dread of being taken in which 

 haunts most English travellers abroad. Sweetness of 

 address is still usual in all classes in France. It was then 

 universal, and in the society to which Carl's talents made 

 him welcome, this grace of word and manner was 

 refined and polished to the highest degree. Cardinal 

 Fleury administered the government of Louis XV. at 

 that time, and the court was still decent and decorous, 

 if less stately than under Louis XIV. Madame de 

 Pompadour's reign did not begin till after the cardinal's 

 death in 1743, and this was 1738. The courtly grace 

 was undiminished, though manners were more easy. 

 France had not yet sunk to its later corruption ; it 

 had, besides, the increased lustre of learning. 'The 

 encyclopaedists professed to know everything, to explain 

 everything, and to teach everything,' and they indeed 

 cleared the head of Europe of a great deal of ignorance. 1 

 It was the age of dictionaries and encyclopaedias, 

 Jussieu himself had a scheme for an encyclopaedia. 

 Catalogues being in fashion, the French admired Lin- 

 naeus as a compiler of catalogues. They admired his 



1 ' There is this stamp upon every stroke of eighteenth-century 

 work : the habit of regarding things as wholes, bearing on life as a 

 whole. Their thirst for knowledge is a practical, organic, working 

 thing ; their minds grasp a subject all round, to turn it to a useful 

 end. The encyclopaedic spirit animates all ; with a genius for clear- 

 ness, comprehension, and arrangement. It was for the most part 

 somewhat premature, often impatient, at times shallow.' FREDEIUG 

 HARRISON. 



