FRANCE. 351 



honour to the age of Lewis XIV- They have none at present to 

 compare with them in the more noble kind of painting : but M. 

 Greuse, for portraits and conversation pieces, never perhaps was 

 excelled. 



Sculpture is in general better understood in France than in most 

 other countries of Europe. Their engravings on copper-plates have 

 been universally and justly celebrated ; but such a liberal patronage 

 has been afforded to English artists, that they are now thought to 

 excel their ingenious neighbours, and have rivalled them also in the 

 manufacture of paper proper for such impressions. Their treatises 

 on ship-building and engineering stand unrivalled ; but in the prac- 

 tice of Both they are outdone by the English. No genius has hitherto 

 equalled Vauban in the theory or practice of fortification. The French. 

 were long our superiors in architecture ; though we now are their 

 equals in this art. 



Universities, public colleges, and academies. ...Before the 

 revolution, there were in France twenty-eight universities or public 

 colleges, as follow : Aix, Angers, Aries, Avignon, Besancon, Bour- 

 cleaux, Bourges, Caen, Cahors, Dol, Douay, La Fleche, Montauban, 

 Montpelier, Nantes, Orange, Orleans, Paris, Perpignan, Poitiers, 

 Pont-a-Mousson, Richlieu, Rheims, Soissons, Strasburg, Toulouse, 

 Tournon, and Valence. Among these, the Sorbonne at Paris was 

 the most celebrated. 



The following literary establishments were supported out of the 

 national treasury : the French Academy, Academy of Belles Lettres, 

 Academy of Sciences, Royal Society of Medicine, King's Library, 

 Observatory, and the Free School of Design. Under the republic, 

 primary, central, and special schools have been established ; a pri- 

 mary school for each canton ; a central school for each department ; 

 and special schools for the higher sciences, such as astronomy, and 

 for those arts which require a particular education for the public 

 service, such as medicine and surgery. Education in these establish- 

 ments is at the public expence, but the scholars are maintained by 

 their parents or friends. 



An academy called the National Institute has likewise been found- 

 ed, the installation of which took place in the hall of the former 

 Academy of Sciences, in the palace of the National Museum, for- 

 merly the Louvre. It is composed of a hundred and forty-four mem- 

 bers ; among the first of whom were found the names of La Lande, 

 La Place, Fourcroy, Reynel, Marmontel, Volney, Berthollet, Bittaube, 

 •Sec. This national academy holds a public meeting on the 15th ot" 

 every month ; its conferences point out and promote the progress o£ 

 the arts and sciences ; but it has no authority whatever over the 

 schools. 



Language. ...The French language is chiefly composed of words 

 radically Latin, with many German derivatives introduced by the 

 Franks. It is now rather on the decay : its corner-stones, fixed under 

 Lewis XIV, are, as it were, loosened ; and, in the present mode of 

 writing and expressing themselves, the modern French too often dis- 

 regard that purity of expression which alone can render a language 

 classical and permanent. One of the wisest measures of Lewis XIV, 

 was his encouragement of every proposal that tended to the purity 

 and perfection of the French language. He succeeded so far as to 

 render it the most universal of all the living tongues ; a circumstance 



