Chapter IV (1)

THE PROTECTIVE SPIRIT CARRIED BY LOUIS XIV. INTO LITERATURE. EXAMINATION
OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS ALLIANCE BETWEEN THE INTELLECTUAL CLASSES
AND THE GOVERNING CLASSES.

The reader will now be able to understand how it was that the protective system, and the notions of subordination connected with it, gained in France a strength unknown in England, and caused an essential divergence between the two countries. To complete the comparison, it seems necessary to examine how this same spirit influenced the purely intellectual history of France as well as its social and political history. For the ideas of dependence upon which the protective scheme is based, encouraged a belief that the subordination which existed in politics and in society ought also to exist in literature; and that the paternal, inquisitive, and centralizing system which regulated the material interests of the country, should likewise regulate the interests of its knowledge. When, therefore, the Fronde was finally overthrown, everything was prepared for that singular intellectual polity which, during fifty years characterised the reign of Louis XIV., and which was to French literature what feudalism was to French politics. In both cases, homage was paid by one party, and protection and favour accorded by the other. Every man of letters became a vassal of the French crown. Every book was written with a view to the royal favour; and to obtain the patronage of the king was considered the most decisive proof of intellectual eminence. The effects produced by this system will be examined in the present chapter. The apparent cause of the system was the personal character of Louis XIV.; but the real and overruling causes were those circumstances which I have already pointed out, and which established in the French mind associations that remained undisturbed until the eighteenth century. To invigorate those associations, and to carry them into every department of life, was the great aim of Louis XIV.; and in that he was completely successful. It is on this account that the history of his reign becomes highly instructive, because we see in it the most remarkable instance of despotism which has ever occurred; a despotism of the largest and most comprehensive kind; a despotism of fifty years over one of the most civilized people in Europe, who not only bore the yoke without repining, but submitted with cheerfulness, and even with gratitude, to him by whom it was imposed.[433]

[433] On the disgraceful subserviency of the most eminent men of
letters, see _Capefigue's Louis XIV._, vol. i. pp. 41, 42, 116;
and on the feeling of the people, Le Vassor, who wrote late in
the reign of Louis XIV., bitterly says, 'mais les Français,
accoutumés à l'esclavage, ne sentent plus la pesanteur de leurs
chaînes.' _Le Vassor_, _Hist. de Louis XIII_, vol. vi. p. 670.
Foreigners were equally amazed at the general, and still more, at
the willing servility. Lord Shaftesbury, in a letter dated
February 1704-5, passes a glowing eulogy upon liberty; but he
adds, that in France 'you will hardly find this argument
understood; for whatever flashes may now and then appear, I never
yet knew one single Frenchman a free man.' _Forster's Original
Letters of Locke, Sidney, and Shaftesbury_, 1830, p. 205. In the
same year, De Foe makes a similar remark in regard to the French
nobles, _Wilson's Life of De Foe_, vol. ii. p. 209; and, in 1699,
Addison writes from Blois a letter which strikingly illustrates
the degradation of the French. _Aikin's Life of Addison_, vol. i.
p. 80. Compare _Burnet's Own Time_, vol. iv. p. 365, on 'the
gross excess of flattery to which the French have run, beyond the
examples of former ages, in honour of their king.'

What makes this the more strange is, that the reign of Louis XIV. must be utterly condemned if it is tried even by the lowest standard of morals, of honour, or of interest. A coarse and unbridled profligacy, followed by the meanest and most grovelling superstition, characterized his private life, while in his public career he displayed an arrogance and a systematic perfidy which eventually roused the anger of all Europe, and brought upon France sharp and signal retribution. As to his domestic policy, he formed a strict alliance with the church; and although he resisted the authority of the Pope, he willingly left his subjects to be oppressed by the tyranny of the clergy.[434] To them he abandoned everything except the exercise of his own prerogative.[435] Led on by them, he, from the moment he assumed the Government, began to encroach upon those religious liberties of which Henry IV. had laid the foundation, and which down to this period had been preserved intact.[436] It was at the instigation of the clergy that he revoked the Edict of Nantes, by which the principle of toleration had for nearly a century been incorporated with the law of the land.[437] It was at their instigation that, just before this outrage upon the most sacred rights of his subjects, he, in order to terrify the Protestants into conversion, suddenly let loose upon them whole troops of dissolute soldiers, who were allowed to practise the most revolting cruelties. The frightful barbarities which followed are related by authentic writers;[438] and of the effect produced on the material interests of the nation, some idea may be formed from the fact, that these religious persecutions cost France half a million of her most industrious inhabitants, who fled to different parts, taking with them those habits of labour, and that knowledge and experience in their respective trades, which had hitherto been employed in enriching their own country.[439] These things are notorious, they are incontestable, and they lie on the surface of history. Yet, in the face of them there are still found men who hold up for admiration the age of Louis XIV. Although it is well known that in his reign every vestige of liberty was destroyed; that the people were weighed down by an insufferable taxation; that their children were torn from them by tens of thousands to swell the royal armies; that the resources of the country were squandered to an unprecedented extent; that a despotism of the worst kind was firmly established;--although all this is universally admitted, yet there are writers, even in our own day, who are so infatuated with the glories of literature, as to balance them against the most enormous crimes, and who will forgive every injury inflicted by a prince during whose life there were produced the Letters of Pascal, the orations of Bossuet, the Comedies of Molière, and the Tragedies of Racine.

[434] The terms of this compact between the crown and the church are
fairly stated by M. Ranke: 'Wir sehen, die beiden Gewalten
unterstützten einander. Der König ward von den Einwirkungen der
weltlichen, der Clerus von der unbedingten Autorität der
geistlichen Gewalt des Papstthums freigesprochen.' _Die Päpste_,
vol. iii. p. 168.

[435] This part of his character is skilfully drawn by Sismondi, _Hist.
des Français_, vol. xxv. p. 43.

[436] Flasson supposes that the first persecuting laws were in 1679:
'Des l'année 1679 les concessions faites aux protestans avaient
été graduellement restreintes.' _Diplomatie Française_, vol. iv.
p. 92. But the fact is, that these laws began in 1662, the year
after the death of Mazarin. See _Sismondi_, _Hist. des Français_,
vol. xxv. p. 167; _Benoist_, _Edit. de Nantes_, vol. iii. pp.
460-462, 481. In 1667, a letter from Thynne to Lord Clarendon
(_Lister's Life of Clarendon_, vol. iii. p. 446) mentions 'the
horrid persecutions the reformed religion undergoes in France;'
and Locke, who travelled in France in 1675 and 1676, states in
his Journal (_King's Life of Locke_, vol. i. p. 110) that the
Protestants were losing 'every day some privilege or other.'

[437] An account of the revocation will be found in all the French
historians; but I do not remember that any of them have noticed
that there was a rumour of it in Paris twenty years before it
occurred. In March 1665 Patin writes, 'On dit que, pour miner les
huguenots, le roi veut supprimer les chambres de l'édit, et
abolir l'édit de Nantes.' _Lettres de Patin_, vol. iii. p. 516.

[438] Compare _Burnet's Own Time_, vol. iii. pp. 73-76, with _Siècle de
Louis XIV_, in _[OE]uvres de Voltaire_, vol. xx. pp. 377, 378.
Voltaire says that the Protestants who persisted in their
religion 'étaient livrés aux soldats, qui eurent toute licence,
excepté celle de tuer. Il y eut pourtant plusieurs personnes si
cruellement maltraitées qu'elles en moururent.' And Burnet, who
was in France in 1685, says, 'all men set their thoughts on work
to invent new methods of cruelty.' What some of those methods
were, I shall now relate; because the evidence, however painful
it may be, is necessary to enable us to understand the reign of
Louis XIV. It is necessary that the veil should be rent; and that
the squeamish delicacy which would hide such facts, should give
way before the obligation which the historian is under of holding
up to public opprobrium, and branding with public infamy, the
church by which the measures were instigated, the sovereign by
whom they were enforced, and the age in which they were
permitted.

The two original sources for our knowledge of these events are,
_Quick's Synodicon in Gallia_, 1692, folio; and _Benoist_,
_Histoire de l'Edit de Nantes_, 1695, 4to. From these works I
extract the following accounts of what happened in France in
1685. 'Afterwards they fall upon the persons of the Protestants;
and there was no wickedness, though never so horrid, which they
did not put in practice, that they might enforce them to change
their religion.... They bound them as criminals are when they be
put to the rack; and in that posture, putting a funnel into their
mouths, they poured wine down their throats till its fumes had
deprived them of their reason, and they had in that condition
made them consent to become Catholics. Some they stripped stark
naked, and after they had offered them a thousand indignities,
they stuck them with pins from head to foot; they cut them with
pen-knives, tear them by the noses with red-hot pincers, and
dragged them about the rooms till they promised to become Roman
Catholics, or that the doleful outcries of these poor tormented
creatures, calling upon God for mercy, constrained them to let
them go.... In some places they tied fathers and husbands to the
bed-posts, and ravished their wives and daughters before their
eyes.... From others they pluck off the nails of their hands and
toes, which must needs cause an intolerable pain. They burnt the
feet of others. They blew up men and women with bellows, till
they were ready to burst in pieces. If these horrid usages could
not prevail upon them to violate their consciences, and abandon
their religion, they did then imprison them in close and noisome
dungeons, in which they exercised all kinds of inhumanities upon
them.' _Quick's Synodicon_, vol. i. pp. cxxx. cxxxi. 'Cependant
les troupes exerçoient partout de cruautez inouies. Tout leur
étoit permis, pourveu qu'ils ne fissent pas mourir. Ils faisoient
danser quelquefois leurs hôtes, jusqu'à ce qu'ils tombassent en
défaillance. Ils bernoient les autres jusqu'à ce qu'ils n'en
pouvoient plus.... Il y en eut quelques-uns à qui on versa de
l'eau bouillante dans la bouche.... Il y en eut plusieurs à qui
on donna des coups de bâton sous les pieds, pour éprouver si ce
supplice est aussi cruel que les relations le publient. On
arrachoit à d'autres le poil de la barbe.... D'autres brûloient à
la chandelle le poil des bras et des jambes de leurs hôtes.
D'autres faisoient brûler de la poudre, si près du visage de ceux
qui leur resistoient, qu'elle leur grilloit toute la peau. Ils
mettoient à d'autres des charbons allumez dans les mains, et les
contraignoient de les tenir fermées, jusqu'à ce que les charbons
fussent éteints.... On brûla les pieds à plusieurs, tenant les
uns long-tems devant un grand feu; appliquant aux autres une
pelle ardente sous les pieds; liant les pieds des autres dans des
bottines pleines de graisse, qu'on faisoit fondre et chauffer peu
à peu devant un brasier ardent.' _Benoist_, _Hist. de l'Edit de
Nantes_, vol. v. pp. 887-889. One of the Protestants, named Ryau,
they 'lièrent fort étroitement; lui sevrèrent les doigts des
mains; lui fichèrent des épingles sous les ongles; lui firent
brûler de la poudre dans les oreilles; lui percèrent les cuisses
en plusieurs lieux, et versèrent du vinaigre et du sel dans ses
blessures. _Par ce tourment ils épuisèrent sa patience en deux
jours; et le forcèrent à changer de religion_,' p. 890. 'Ses
dragons étoient les mêmes en tous lieux. Ils battoient, ils
étourdissoient, ils brûloient en Bourgogne comme en Poitou, en
Champagne comme en Guyenne, en Normandie comme en Languedoc. Mais
ils n'avoient pour les femmes ni plus de respect, ni plus de
pitié que pour les hommes. Au contraire, ils abusoient de la
tendre pudeur qui est une des propriétez de leur sexe; et ils
s'en prevaloient pour leur faire de plus sensibles outrages. On
leur levoit quelquefois leurs juppes par dessus la tête, et on
leur jetoit des seaux d'eau sur le corps. Il y en eut plusieurs
que les soldats mirent en chemise, et qu'ils forcèrent de danser
avec eux dans cet état.... Deux filles de Calais, nommées le
Noble, furent mises toutes nuës sur le pavé, et furent ainsi
exposées à la mocquerie et aux outrages des passans.... Des
dragons ayant lié la dame de Vezençai à la quenouille de son lit,
lui crachoient dans la bouche quand elle l'ouvroit pour parler ou
pour soupirer.' pp. 891, 892. At p. 917 are other details, far
more horrible, respecting the treatment of women, and which
indignation rather than shame prevents me from transcribing.
Indeed, the shame can only light on the church and the government
under whose united authority such scandalous outrages could be
openly perpetrated, merely for the sake of compelling men to
change their religious opinions.

[439] M. Blanqui (_Hist. de l'Economie Politique_, vol. ii. p. 10) says,
that the revocation of the Edict of Nantes cost France 'cinq cent
mille de ses enfants les plus industrieux,' who carried into
other countries 'les habitudes d'ordre et de travail dont ils
étaient imbus.' See also _Siècle de Louis XIV_, chap. xxxvi., in
_[OE]uvres de Voltaire_, vol. xx. pp. 380, 381. Several of them
emigrated to North America. Compare _Godwin on Population_, pp.
388, 389, with _Benoist_, _l'Edit de Nantes_, vol. v. pp. 973,
974, and _Lyell's Second Visit to the United States_, edit. 1849,
vol. ii. p. 159. See also, on the effects of the Revocation,
_Lettres inédites de Voltaire_, vol. ii. p. 473.

This method of estimating the merits of a sovereign is, indeed, so rapidly dying away, that I shall not spend any words in refuting it. But it is connected with a more widely diffused error respecting the influence of royal patronage upon national literature. This is a delusion which men of letters have themselves been the first to propagate. From the language too many of them are in the habit of employing, we might be led to believe that there is some magical power in the smiles of a king which stimulates the intellect of the fortunate individual whose heart they are permitted to gladden. Nor must this be despised as one of those harmless prejudices that still linger round the person of the sovereign. It is not only founded on a misconception of the nature of things, but it is in its practical consequences very injurious. It is injurious to the independent spirit which literature should always possess; and it is injurious to princes themselves, because it strengthens that vanity of which they generally have too large a share. Indeed, if we consider the position they now occupy in the most civilized countries, we shall at once see the absurdity of an opinion which, in the present state of knowledge, is unfit to be held by educated men.

From the moment that there was finally abandoned the theological fiction of the divine right of kings, it necessarily followed that the respect felt for them should suffer a corresponding diminution.[440] The superstitious reverence with which they were formerly regarded is extinct, and at the present day we are no longer awed by that divinity with which their persons were once supposed to be hedged.[441] The standard, therefore, by which we should measure them is obvious. We should applaud their conduct in proportion as they contribute towards the happiness of the nation over which they are intrusted with power; but we ought to remember that, from the manner in which they are educated, and from the childish homage always paid to them, their information must be very inaccurate, and their prejudices very numerous.[442] On this account, so far from expecting that they should be judicious patrons of literature, or should in any way head their age, we ought to be satisfied if they do not obstinately oppose the spirit of their time, and if they do not attempt to stop the march of society. For, unless the sovereign, in spite of the intellectual disadvantages of his position, is a man of very enlarged mind, it must usually happen that he will reward, not those who are most able, but those who are most compliant; and that while he refuses his patronage to a profound and independent thinker, he will grant it to an author who cherishes ancient prejudices and defends ancient abuses. In this way, the practice of conferring on men of letters either honorary or pecuniary rewards, is agreeable, no doubt, to those who receive them; but has a manifest tendency to weaken the boldness and energy of their sentiments, and therefore to impair the value of their works. This might be made evident by publishing a list of those literary pensions which have been granted by European princes. If this were done, the mischief produced by these and similar rewards would be clearly seen. After a careful study of the history of literature, I think myself authorised to say, that for one instance in which a sovereign has recompensed a man who is before his age, there are at least twenty instances of his recompensing one who is behind his age. The result is, that in every country where royal patronage has been long and generally bestowed, the spirit of literature, instead of being progressive, has become reactionary. An alliance has been struck up between those who give and those who receive. By a system of bounties, there has been artificially engendered a greedy and necessitous class; who, eager for pensions, and offices, and titles, have made the pursuit of truth subordinate to the desire of gain, and have infused into their writings the prejudices of the court to which they cling. Hence it is, that the marks of favour have become the badge of servitude. Hence it is, that the acquisition of knowledge, by far the noblest of all occupations, an occupation which of all others raises the dignity of man, has been debased to the level of a common profession, where the chances of success are measured by the number of rewards, and where the highest honours are in the gift of whoever happens to be the minister or sovereign of the day.

[440] On the diminished respect for kings, caused by the abandonment of
divine right, see _Spencer's Social Statics_, pp. 423, 424; and
on the influence of the clergy in propagating the old doctrine,
see Allen's learned work on the _Royal Prerogative_, edit. 1849,
p. 156. See also some striking remarks by Locke, in _King's Life
of Locke_, vol ii. p. 90.

[441] 'Qu'est devenu, en effet, le droit divin, cette pensée, autrefois
acceptée par les masses, que les rois étaient les représentants
de Dieu sur la terre, que la racine de leur pouvoir était dans le
ciel? Elle s'est évanouie devant cette autre pensée, qu'aucun
nuage, aucun mysticisme n'obscurcit; devant cette pensée si
naturelle et brillant d'une clarté si nette et si vive, que la
souveraine puissance, sur la terre, appartient au peuple entier,
et non à une fraction, et moins encore à un seul homme.' _Rey_,
_Science Sociale_, vol. iii. p. 308. Compare _Manning on the Law
of Nations_, p. 101; _Laing's Sweden_, p. 408; _Laing's Denmark_,
p. 196; _Burke's Works_, vol. i. p. 391.

[442] In this, as in all instances, the language of respect long
survives the feeling to which the language owed its origin. Lord
Brougham (_Political Philosophy_, vol. i. p. 42, Lond. 1849)
observes, that 'all their titles are derived from a divine
original--all refer to them as representing the Deity on earth.
They are called "_Grace_," "_Majesty_." They are termed "_The
Lord's anointed_," "_The Vicegerent of God upon earth_;" with
many other names which are either nonsensical or blasphemous, but
which are outdone in absurdity by the kings of the East.' True
enough: but if Lord Brougham had written thus three centuries
ago, he would have had his ears cut off for his pains.

This tendency forms of itself a decisive objection to the views of those who wish to entrust the executive government with the means of rewarding literary men. But there is also another objection, in some respects still more serious. Every nation which is allowed to pursue its course uncontrolled, will easily satisfy the wants of its own intellect, and will produce such a literature as is best suited to its actual condition. And it is evidently for the interest of all classes that the production shall not be greater than the want; that the supply shall not exceed the demand. It is, moreover, necessary to the well-being of society that a healthy proportion should be kept up between the intellectual classes and the practical classes. It is necessary that there should be a certain ratio between those who are most inclined to think, and those who are most inclined to act. If we were all authors, our material interests would suffer; if we were all men of business, our mental pleasures would be abridged. In the first case, we should be famished philosophers; in the other case, we should be wealthy fools. Now, it is obvious that, according to the commonest principles of human action the relative numbers of these two classes will be adjusted, without effort, by the natural, or, as we call it, the spontaneous movement of society. But if a government takes upon itself to pension literary men, it disturbs this movement; it troubles the harmony of things. This is the unavoidable result of that spirit of interference, or, as it is termed, protection, by which every country has been greatly injured. If, for instance, a fund were set apart by the state for rewarding butchers and tailors, it is certain that the number of those useful men would be needlessly augmented. If another fund is appropriated for the literary classes, it is as certain that men of letters will increase more rapidly than the exigencies of the country require. In both cases, an artificial stimulus will produce an unhealthy action. Surely, food and clothes are as necessary for the body as literature is for the mind. Why, then, should we call upon government to encourage those who write our books, any more than to encourage those who kill our mutton and mend our garments? The truth is, that the intellectual march of society is, in this respect, exactly analogous to its physical march. In some instances a forced supply may, indeed, create an unnatural want. But this is an artificial state of things, which indicates a diseased action. In a healthy condition, it is not the supply which causes the want, but it is the want which gives rise to the supply. To suppose, therefore, that an increase of authors would necessarily be followed by a diffusion of knowledge, is as if we were to suppose that an increase of butchers must be followed by a diffusion of food. This is not the way in which things are ordered. Men must have appetite before they will eat; they must have money before they can buy; they must be inquisitive before they will read. The two great principles which move the world are, the love of wealth and the love of knowledge. These two principles respectively represent and govern the two most important classes into which every civilized country is divided. What a government gives to one of these classes, it must take from the other. What it gives to literature, it must take from wealth. This can never be done to any great extent, without entailing the most ruinous consequences. For, the natural proportions of society being destroyed, society itself will be thrown into confusion. While men of letters are protected, men of industry will be depressed. The lower classes can count for little in the eyes of those to whom literature is the first consideration. The idea of the liberty of the people will be discouraged; their persons will be oppressed; their labour will be taxed. The arts necessary to life will be despised, in order that those which embellish life may be favoured. The many will be ruined, that the few may be pleased. While every thing is splendid above, all will be rotten below. Fine pictures, noble palaces, touching dramas--these may for a time be produced in profusion, but it will be at the cost of the heart and strength of the nation. Even the class for whom the sacrifice has been made, will soon decay. Poets may continue to sing the praises of the prince who has bought them with his gold. It is, however, certain that men who begin by losing their independence, will end by losing their energy. Their intellect must be robust indeed, if it does not wither in the sickly atmosphere of a court. Their attention being concentrated on their master, they insensibly contract those habits of servility which are suited to their position; and, as the range of their sympathies is diminished, the use and action of their genius become impaired. To them submission is a custom, and servitude a pleasure. In their hands, literature soon loses its boldness, tradition is appealed to as the ground of truth, and the spirit of inquiry is extinguished. Then it is, that there comes one of those sad moments in which, no outlet being left for public opinion, the minds of men are unable to find a vent; their discontents, having no voice, slowly rankle into a deadly hatred; their passions accumulate in silence, until at length, losing all patience, they are goaded into one of those terrible revolutions, by which they humble the pride of their rulers, and carry retribution even into the heart of the palace.

The truth of this picture is well known to those who have studied the history of Louis XIV., and the connection between it and the French Revolution. That prince adopted, during his long reign, the mischievous practice of rewarding literary men with large sums of money, and of conferring on them numerous marks of personal favour. As this was done for more than half a century; and as the wealth which he thus unscrupulously employed was of course taken from his other subjects, we can find no better illustration of the results which such patronage is likely to produce. He, indeed, has the merit of organizing into a system that protection of literature which some are so anxious to restore. What the effect of this was upon the general interests of knowledge, we shall presently see. But its effect upon authors themselves should be particularly attended to by those men of letters who, with little regard to their own dignity, are constantly reproaching the English government for neglecting the profession of which they themselves are members. In no age have literary men been awarded with such profuseness as in the reign of Louis XIV.; and in no age have they been so mean-spirited, so servile, so utterly unfit to fulfil their great vocation as the apostles of knowledge and the missionaries of truth. The history of the most celebrated authors of that time proves that, notwithstanding their acquirements, and the power of their minds, they were unable to resist the surrounding corruption. To gain the favour of the king, they sacrificed that independent spirit which should have been dearer to them than life. They gave away the inheritance of genius; they sold their birthright for a mess of pottage. What happened then, would under the same circumstances happen now. A few eminent thinkers may be able for a certain time to resist the pressure of their age. But, looking at mankind generally, society can have no hold on any class except through the medium of their interests. It behoves, therefore, every people to take heed, that the interests of literary men are on their side rather than on the side of their rulers. For, literature is the representative of intellect, which is progressive; government is the representative of order, which is stationary. As long as these two great powers are separate, they will correct and react upon each other, and the people may hold the balance. If, however, these powers coalesce, if the government can corrupt the intellect, and if the intellect will yield to the government, the inevitable result must be, despotism in politics, and servility in literature. This was the history of France under Louis XIV.: and this, we may rest assured, will be the history of every country that shall be tempted to follow so attractive but so fatal an example.

The reputation of Louis XIV. originated in the gratitude of men of letters; but it is now supported by a popular notion that the celebrated literature of his age is mainly to be ascribed to his fostering care. If, however, we examine this opinion, we shall find that, like many of the traditions of which history is full, it is entirely devoid of truth. We shall find two leading circumstances, which will prove that the literary splendour of his reign was not the result of his efforts, but was the work of that great generation which preceded him; and that the intellect of France, so far from being benefited by his munificence, was hampered by his protection.

I. The first circumstance is, that the immense impulse which, during the administrations of Richelieu and of Mazarin, had been given to the highest branches of knowledge, was suddenly stopped. In 1661 Louis XIV. assumed the government;[443] and from that moment until his death, in 1715, the history of France, so far as great discoveries are concerned, is a blank in the annals of Europe. If, putting aside all preconceived notions respecting the supposed glory of that age, we examine the matter fairly, it will be seen that in every department there was a manifest dearth of original thinkers. There was much that was elegant, much that was attractive. The senses of men were soothed and flattered by the creations of art, by paintings, by palaces, by poems; but scarcely any thing of moment was added to the sum of human knowledge. If we take the mathematics, and those mixed sciences to which they are applicable, it will be universally admitted that their most successful cultivators in France during the seventeenth century were Descartes, Pascal, Fermat, Gassendi, and Mersenne. But, so far from Louis XIV. having any share in the honour due to them, these eminent men were engaged in their investigations while the king was still in his cradle, and completed them before he assumed the government, and therefore before his system of protection came into play. Descartes died in 1650,[444] when the king was twelve years old. Pascal, whose name, like that of Descartes, is commonly associated with the age of Louis XIV., had gained an European reputation while Louis, occupied in the nursery with his toys, was not aware that any such man existed. His treatise on conic sections was written in 1639;[445] his decisive experiments on the weight of air were made in 1648;[446] and his researches on the cycloid, the last great inquiry he ever undertook, were in 1658,[447] when Louis, still under the tutelage of Mazarin, had no sort of authority. Fermat was one of the most profound thinkers of the seventeenth century, particularly as a geometrician, in which respect he was second only to Descartes.[448] The most important steps he took are those concerning the geometry of infinites, applied to the ordinates and tangents of curves; which, however, he completed in or before 1636.[449] As to Gassendi and Mersenne, it is enough to say that Gassendi died in 1655,[450] six years before Louis was at the head of affairs; while Mersenne died in 1648,[451] when the great king was ten years old.

[443] 'La première période du gouvernement de Louis XIV commence donc en
1661.' _Capefigue's Louis XIV._, vol. i. p. 4.

[444] _Biog. Univ._ vol. xi. p. 157.

[445] In _Biog. Univ._ vol. xxxiii. p. 50, he is said to have composed
it 'à l'âge de seize ans;' and at p. 46, to have been born
in 1623.

[446] _Leslie's Natural Philosophy_, p. 201; _Bordas Demoulin_, _Le
Cartésianisme_, vol. i. p. 310. Sir John Herschel (_Disc. on Nat.
Philos._ pp. 229, 230) calls this 'one of the first, if not the
very first,' crucial instance recorded in physics; and he thinks
that it 'tended, more powerfully than any thing which had
previously been done in science, to confirm in the minds of men
that disposition to experimental verification which had scarcely
yet taken full and secure root.' In this point of view, the
addition it actually made to knowledge is the smallest part of
its merit.

[447] Montucla (_Hist. des Mathématiques_, vol. ii. p. 61) says, 'vers
1658;' and at p. 65, 'il se mit, vers le commencement de 1658, à
considérer plus profondément les propriétés de cette courbe.'

[448] Montucla (_Hist. des Mathémat._ vol. ii. p. 136) enthusiastically
declares that 'si Descartes eût manqué à l'esprit humain, Fermat
l'eût remplacé en géométrie.' Simson, the celebrated restorer of
Greek geometry, said that Fermat was the only modern who
understood porisms. See _Trail's Account of Simson_, 1812, 4to.
pp. 18, 41. On the connexion between his views and the subsequent
discovery of the differential calculus, see _Brewster's Life of
Newton_, vol. ii. pp. 7, 8; and compare _Comte_, _Philosophie
Positive_, vol. i. pp. 228, 229, 726, 727.

[449] See extracts from two letters written by Fermat to Roberval, in
1636, in _Montucla_, _Hist. des Mathématiques_, vol. ii. pp. 136,
137; respecting which there is no notice in the meagre article on
Fermat, in _Hutton's Mathematical Dictionary_, vol. i. p. 510,
4to. 1815. It is a disgrace to English mathematicians that this
unsatisfactory work of Hutton's should still remain the best they
have produced on the history of their own science. The same
disregard of dates is shown in the hasty remarks on Fermat by
Playfair. See _Playfair's Dissertation on the Progress of
Mathematical Science_, _Encyclop. Brit._ vol. i. p. 440, 7th
edition.

[450] _Hutton's Mathemat. Dict._ vol. i. p. 572.

[451] _Ibid._ vol. ii. p. 46.

These were the men who flourished in France just before the system of Louis XIV. came into operation. Shortly after their death the patronage of the king began to tell upon the national intellect; and during the next fifty years no addition of importance was made to either branch of the mathematics, or, with the single exception of acoustics,[452] to any of the sciences to which the mathematics are applied.[453] The further the seventeenth century advanced, the more evident did the decline become, and the more clearly can we trace the connexion between the waning powers of the French, and that protective spirit which enfeebled the energies it wished to strengthen. Louis had heard that astronomy is a noble study; he was therefore anxious, by encouraging its cultivation in France, to add to the glories of his own name.[454] With this view, he rewarded its professors with unexampled profusion; he built the splendid Observatory of Paris; he invited to his court the most eminent foreign astronomers, Cassini from Italy, Römer from Denmark, Huygens from Holland. But, as to native ability, France did not produce a single man who made even one of those various discoveries which mark the epochs of astronomical science. In other countries vast progress was made; and Newton in particular, by his immense generalizations, reformed nearly every branch of physics, and remodelled astronomy by carrying the laws of gravitation to the extremity of the solar system. On the other hand, France had fallen into such a torpor, that these wonderful discoveries, which changed the face of knowledge, were entirely neglected, there being no instance of any French astronomer adopting them until 1732, that is, forty-five years after they had been published by their immortal author.[455] Even in matters of detail, the most valuable improvement made by French astronomers during the power of Louis XIV. was not original. They laid claim to the invention of the micrometer; an admirable resource, which, as they supposed, was first contrived by Picard and Auzout.[456] The truth, however, is, that here again they were anticipated by the activity of a freer and less protected people; since the micrometer was invented by Gascoigne in or just before 1639, when the English monarch, so far from having leisure to patronize science, was about to embark in that struggle which, ten years later, cost him his crown and his life.[457]

[452] Of which Sauveur may be considered the creator. Compare _Eloge de
Sauveur_, in _[OE]uvres de Fontenelle_, Paris, 1766, vol. v. p.
435, with _Whewell's Hist. of the Induc. Sciences_, vol. ii. p.
334; _Comte_, _Philos. Pos._ vol. ii. pp. 627, 628.

[453] In the report presented to Napoleon by the French Institute, it is
said of the reign of Louis XIV., 'les sciences exactes et les
sciences physiques peu cultivées en France dans un siècle qui
paroissoit ne trouver de charmes que dans la littérature.'
_Dacier_, _Rapport Historique_, p. 24. Or, as Lacretelle
expresses it (_Dix-huitième Siècle_, vol. ii. p. 10), 'La France,
après avoir fourni Descartes et Pascal, eut pendant quelque temps
à envier aux nations étrangères la gloire de produire des génies
créateurs dans les sciences.'

[454] A writer late in the seventeenth century says, with some
simplicity, 'the present king of France is reputed an encourager
of choice and able men, in all faculties, who can attribute to
his greatness.' _Aubrey's Letters_, vol. ii. p. 624.

[455] The _Principia_ of Newton appeared in 1687; and Maupertuis, in
1732, 'was the first astronomer of France who undertook a
critical defence of the theory of gravitation.' _Grant's Hist. of
Physical Astronomy_, pp. 31, 43. In 1738, Voltaire writes, 'La
France est jusqu'à présent le seul pays où les théories de Newton
en physique, et de Boerhaave en médecine, soient combattues. Nous
n'avons pas encore de bons éléments de physique; nous avons pour
toute astronomie le livre de Bion, qui n'est qu'un ramas informe
de quelques mémoires de l'académie.' _Correspond._ in _[OE]uvres
de Voltaire_, vol. xlvii. p. 340. On the tardy reception of
Newton's discoveries in France, compare _Eloge de Lacaille_, in
_[OE]uvres de Bailly_, Paris, 1790, vol. i. pp. 175, 176. All
this is the more remarkable, because several of the conclusions
at which Newton had arrived were divulged before they were
embodied in the _Principia_; and it appears from _Brewster's Life
of Newton_ (vol. i. pp. 25, 26, 290), that his speculations
concerning gravity began in 1666, or perhaps in the autumn of
1665.

[456] 'L'abbé Picard fut en société avec Auzout, l'inventeur du
micromètre.' _Biog. Univ._ vol. xxxiv. p. 253. See also _Préface
de l'Hist. de l'Acad. des Sciences_, in _[OE]uvres de
Fontenelle_, Paris, 1766, vol. x. p. 20.

[457] The best account I have seen of the invention of the micrometer,
is in Mr. Grant's recent work, _History of Physical Astronomy_,
pp. 428, 450-453, where it is proved that Gascoigne invented it
in 1639, or possibly a year or two earlier. Compare _Humboldt's
Cosmos_, vol. iii. p. 52; who also ascribes it to Gascoigne, but
erroneously dates it in 1640. Montucla (_Hist. des Mathémat._
vol. ii. pp. 570, 571) admits the priority of Gascoigne; but
underrates his merit, being apparently unacquainted with the
evidence which Mr. Grant subsequently adduced.

The absence in France, during this period, not only of great discoveries, but also of mere practical ingenuity, is certainly very striking. In investigations requiring minute accuracy, the necessary tools, if at all complicated, were made by foreigners, the native workmen being too unskilled to construct them; and Dr. Lister, who was a very competent judge,[458] and who was in Paris at the end of the seventeenth century, supplies evidence that the best mathematical instruments sold in that city were made, not by a Frenchman, but by Butterfield, an Englishman residing there.[459] Nor did they succeed better in matters of immediate and obvious utility. The improvements effected in manufactures were few and insignificant, and were calculated, not for the comfort of the people, but for the luxury of the idle classes.[460] What was really valuable was neglected; no great invention was made; and by the end of the reign of Louis XIV. scarcely anything had been done in machinery, or in those other contrivances which, by economising national labour, increase national wealth.[461]

[458] For a short account of this able man, see _Lankester's Mem. of
Ray_, p. 17.

[459] Notwithstanding the strong prejudice then existing against
Englishmen, Butterfield was employed by 'the king and all the
princes.' _Lister's Account of Paris at the close of the
Seventeenth Century, edited by Dr. Henning_, p. 85. Fontenelle
mentions 'M. Hubin,' as one of the most celebrated makers in
Paris in 1687 (_Eloge d'Amoltons_, in _[OE]uvres de Fontenelle_,
Paris, 1766, vol. v. p. 113); but has forgotten to state that he
too was an Englishman. 'Lutetiæ sedem posuerat ante aliquod
tempus _Anglus quidam nomine Hubinus_, vir ingeniosus, atque
hujusmodi machinationum peritus opifex et industrius. Hominem
adii,' &c. _Huetii Commentarius de Rebus ad eum pertinentibus_,
p. 346. Thus, again, in regard to time-keepers, the vast
superiority of the English makers, late in the reign of Louis
XIV., was equally incontestable. Compare _Biog. Univ._ vol. xxiv.
pp. 242, 243, with _Brewster's Life of Newton_, vol. ii. p. 262;
and as to the middle of the reign of Louis XIV., see _Eloge de
Sebastien_, in _[OE]uvres de Fontenelle_, vol. vi. pp. 332, 333.

[460] 'Les manufactures étaient plutôt dirigées vers le brillant que
vers l'utile. On s'efforça, par un arrêt du mois de mars 1700,
d'extirper, ou du moins de réduire beaucoup les fabriques de bas
au métier. Malgré cette fausse direction, les objets d'un luxe
très-recherché faisaient des progrès bien lents. En 1687, après
la mort de Colbert, la cour soldait encore l'industrie des
barbares, et faisait fabriquer et broder ses plus beaux habits à
Constantinople.' _Lemontey_, _Etablissement de Louis XIV_, p.
364. Lacretelle (_Dix-huitième Siècle_, vol. ii. p. 5) says, that
during the last thirty years of the reign of Louis XIV. 'les
manufactures tombaient.'

[461] Cuvier (_Biog. Univ._ vol. xxxvii. p. 199) thus describes the
condition of France only seven years after the death of Louis
XIV.: 'Nos forges étaient alors presque dans l'enfance; et nous
ne faisions point d'acier: tout celui qu'exigeaient les
différents métiers nous venait de l'étranger.... Nous ne
faisions point non plus alors de fer-blanc, et il ne nous venait
que de l'Allemagne.'

While such was the state, not only of mathematical and astronomical science, but also of mechanical and inventive arts, corresponding symptoms of declining power were seen in other departments. In physiology, in anatomy and in medicine, we look in vain for any men equal to those by whom France had once been honoured. The greatest discovery of this kind ever made by a Frenchman, was that of the receptacle of the chyle; a discovery which, in the opinion of a high authority, is not inferior to that of the circulation of the blood by Harvey.[462] This important step in our knowledge is constantly assigned to the age of Louis XIV., as if it were one of the results of his gracious bounty; but it would be difficult to tell what Louis had to do with it, since the discovery was made by Pecquet in 1647,[463] when the great king was nine years old. After Pecquet, the most eminent of the French anatomists in the seventeenth century was Riolan; and his name we also find among the illustrious men who adorned the reign of Louis XIV. But the principal works of Riolan were written before Louis XIV. was born; his last work was published in 1652; and he himself died in 1657.[464] Then there came a pause, and, during three generations, the French did nothing for these great subjects: they wrote no work upon them which is now read, they made no discoveries, and they seemed to have lost all heart, until that revival of knowledge, which, as we shall presently see, took place in France about the middle of the eighteenth century. In the practical parts of medicine, in its speculative parts, and in the arts connected with surgery, the same law prevails. The French, in these, as in other matters, had formerly produced men of great eminence, who had won for themselves an European reputation, and whose works are still remembered. Thus, only to mention two or three instances, they had a long line of illustrious physicians, among whom Fernel and Joubert were the earliest;[465] they had, in surgery, Ambroise Paré, who not only introduced important practical improvements,[466] but who has the still rarer merit of being one of the founders of comparative osteology;[467] and they had Baillou, who late in the sixteenth and early in the seventeenth century, advanced pathology, by connecting it with the study of morbid anatomy.[468] Under Louis XIV. all this was changed. Under him, surgery was neglected, though in other countries its progress was rapid.[469] The English, by the middle of the seventeenth century, had taken considerable steps in medicine: its therapeutical branch being reformed chiefly by Sydenham, its physiological branch by Glisson.[470] But the age of Louis XIV. cannot boast of a single medical writer who can be compared to these; not even one whose name is now known as having made any specific addition to our knowledge. In Paris, the practice of medicine was notoriously inferior to that in the capitals of Germany, Italy, and England; while in the French provinces, the ignorance, even of the best physicians, was scandalous.[471] Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that, during the whole of this long period, the French in these matters effected comparatively nothing; they made no contributions to clinical literature,[472] and scarcely any to therapeutics, to pathology, to physiology, or to anatomy.[473]

[462] 'Certainement la découverte de Pecquet ne brille pas moins dans
l'histoire de notre art que la vérité démontrée pour la première
fois par Harvey.' _Sprengel_, _Hist. de la Médecine_, vol. iv. p.
208.

[463] Henle (_Anatomie Générale_, vol. ii. p. 106) says, that the
discovery was made in 1649; but the historians of medicine assign
it to 1647. _Sprengel_, _Hist. de la Médecine_, vol. iv. pp. 207,
405; _Renouard_, _Hist. de la Médecine_, vol. ii. p. 173.

[464] _Biog. Univ._ vol. xxxviii. pp. 123, 124.

[465] Some of the great steps taken by Joubert are concisely stated in
_Broussais_, _Examen des Doctrines Médicales_, vol. i. pp. 293,
294, vol. iii. p. 361. Compare _Sprengel_, _Hist. de la
Médecine_, vol. iii. p. 210. Fernel, though enthusiastically
praised by Patin, was probably hardly equal to Joubert. _Lettres
de Patin_, vol. iii. pp. 59, 199, 648. At p. 106, Patin calls
Fernel 'le premier médecin de son temps, et peut-être le plus
grand qui sera jamais.'

[466] See a summary of them in _Sprengel_, _Hist. de la Médecine_, vol.
iii. pp. 405, 406, vol. vii. pp. 14, 15. Sir Benjamin Brodie
(_Lectures on Surgery_, p. 21) says, 'Few greater benefits have
been conferred on mankind than that for which we are indebted to
Ambrose Parey--the application of a ligature to a bleeding
artery.'

[467] 'C'était là une vue très-ingénieuse et très-juste qu'Ambroise Paré
donnait pour la première fois. C'était un commencement
d'ostéologie comparée.' _Cuvier_, _Hist. des Sciences_, part. ii.
p. 42. To this I may add, that he is the first French writer on
medical jurisprudence. See _Paris and Fonblanque's Medical
Jurisprudence_, 1823, vol. i. p. xviii.

[468] 'L'un des premiers auteurs à qui l'on doit des observations
cadavériques sur les maladies, est le fameux Baillou.'
_Broussais_, _Examen des Doctrines Médicales_, vol. ii. p. 218.
See also vol. iii. p. 362; and _Renouard_, _Hist. de la
Médecine_, vol. ii. p. 89. The value of his services is
recognized in a recent able work, _Phillips on Scrofula_, 1846,
p. 16.

[469] 'The most celebrated surgeon of the sixteenth century was Ambroise
Paré.... From the time of Paré until the commencement of the
eighteenth century, surgery was but little cultivated in France.
Mauriceau, Saviard, and Belloste, were the only French surgeons
of note who could be contrasted with so many eminent men of other
nations. During the eighteenth century, France produced two
surgeons of extraordinary genius; these are Petit and Desault.'
_Bowman's Surgery_, in _Encyclop. of Medical Sciences_, 1847,
4to. pp. 829, 830.

[470] It is unnecessary to adduce evidence respecting the services
rendered by Sydenham, as they are universally admitted; but what,
perhaps, is less generally known, is, that Glisson anticipated
those important views concerning irritability, which were
afterwards developed by Haller and Gorter. Compare _Renouard_,
_Hist. de le Médecine_, vol. ii. p. 192; _Elliotson's Human
Physiol_. p. 471; _Bordas Demoulin_, _Cartésianisme_, vol. i. p.
170; In _Wagner's Physiol._ 1841, p. 655, the theory is too
exclusively ascribed to Haller.

[471] Of this we have numerous complaints from foreigners who visited
France. I will quote the testimony of one celebrated man. In
1699, Addison writes from Blois: 'I made use of one of the
physicians of this place, who are as cheap as our English
farriers, and generally as ignorant.' _Aikin's Life of Addison_,
vol. i. p. 74.

[472] Indeed, France was the last great country in Europe in which a
chair of clinical medicine was established. See _Renouard_,
_Hist. de la Médecine_, vol. ii. p. 312; and _Bouillaud_,
_Philos. Médicale_, p. 114.

[473] M. Bouillaud, in his account of the state of medicine in the
seventeenth century, does not mention a single Frenchman during
this period. See _Bouillaud_, _Philosophie Médicale_, pp. 13 seq.
During many years of the power of Louis XIV., the French Academy
only possessed one anatomist; and of him, few students of
physiology have ever heard: 'M. du Verney fut assez long-temps le
seul anatomiste de l'académie, et ce ne fut qu'en 1684 qu'on lui
joignit M. Mery.' _Eloge de Du Verney_, in _[OE]uvres de
Fontenelle_, vol. vi. p. 392.

In what are called the natural sciences, we also find the French now brought to a stand. In zoology, they had formerly possessed remarkable men, among whom Belon and Rondelet were the most conspicuous:[474] but, under Louis XIV., they did not produce one original observer in this great field of inquiry.[475] In chemistry, again, Rey had, in the reign of Louis XIII., struck out views of such vast importance, that he anticipated some of those generalizations which formed the glory of the French intellect in the eighteenth century.[476] During the corrupt and frivolous age of Louis XIV., all this was forgotten; the labours of Rey were neglected; and so complete was the indifference, that even the celebrated experiments of Boyle remained unknown in France for more than forty years after they were published.[477]

[474] _Cuvier_, _Hist. des Sciences_, part ii. pp. 64-73, 76-80.

[475] After Belon, nothing was done in France for the natural history of
animals until 1734, when there appeared the first volume of
Reaumur's great work. See _Swainson on the Study of Nat. Hist._
pp. 24, 43.

[476] On this remarkable man, who was the first philosophic chemist
Europe produced, and who, so early as 1630, anticipated some of
the generalizations made a hundred and fifty years later by
Lavoisier, see _Liebig's Letters on Chemistry_, pp. 46, 47;
_Thomson's Hist. of Chemistry_, vol. ii. pp. 95, 96; _Humboldt's
Cosmos_, vol. ii. p. 729; _Cuvier_, _Progrès des Sciences_,
vol. i. p. 30.

[477] Cuvier (_Progrès des Sciences_, vol. i. p. 30) says of Rey, 'son
écrit était tombé dans l'oubli le plus profond;' and, in another
work, the same great authority writes (_Hist. des Sciences_, part
ii. p. 333): 'Il y avait plus de quarante ans que Becker avait
présenté sa nouvelle théorie, développée par Stahl; il y avait
encore plus long-temps que les expériences de Boyle sur la chimie
pneumatique avaient été publiées, et cependant, rien de tout cela
n'entrait encore dans l'enseignement général de la chimie, du
moins en France.'