Chapter IV (2)

Connected with zoology, and, to a philosophic mind, inseparable from it, is botany: which, occupying a middle place between the animal and mineral world, indicates their relation to each other, and at different points touches the confines of both. It also throws great light on the functions of nutrition,[478] and on the laws of development; while, from the marked analogy between animals and vegetables, we have every reason to hope that its further progress, assisted by that of electricity, will prepare the way for a comprehensive theory of life, to which the resources of our knowledge are still unequal, but towards which the movements of modern science are manifestly tending. On these grounds, far more than for the sake of practical advantages, botany will always attract the attention of thinking men; who, neglecting views of immediate utility, look to large and ultimate results, and only value particular facts in so far as they facilitate the discovery of general truths. The first step in this noble study was taken towards the middle of the sixteenth century, when authors, instead of copying what previous writers had said, began to observe nature for themselves.[479] The next step was, to add experiment to observation: but it required another hundred years before this could be done with accuracy; because the microscope, which is essential to such inquiries, was only invented about 1620, and the labour of a whole generation was needed to make it available for minute investigations.[480] So soon, however, as this resource was sufficiently matured to be applied to plants, the march of botany became rapid, at least as far as details are concerned; for it was not until the eighteenth century that the facts were actually generalized. But, in the preliminary work of accumulating the facts, great energy was shown; and, for reasons stated in an earlier part of the Introduction, this, like other studies relating to the external world, advanced with peculiar speed during the reign of Charles II. The tracheæ of plants were discovered by Henshaw in 1661;[481] and their cellular tissue by Hooke in 1667.[482] These were considerable approaches towards establishing the analogy between plants and animals; and, within a few years, Grew effected still more of the same kind. He made such minute and extensive dissections, as to raise the anatomy of vegetables to a separate study, and prove that their organization is scarcely less complicated than that possessed by animals.[483] His first work was written in 1670;[484] and, in 1676, another Englishman, Millington, ascertained the existence of a distinction of sexes;[485] thus supplying further evidence of the harmony between the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and of the unity of idea which regulates their composition.

[478] The highest present generalizations of the laws of nutrition are
those by M. Chevreul; which are thus summed up by MM. Robin et
Verdeil, in their admirable work, _Chimie Anatomique_, vol. i. p.
203, Paris, 1853: 'En passant des plantes aux animaux, nous
voyons que plus l'organisation de ces derniers est compliquée,
plus les aliments dont ils se nourrissent sont complexes et
analogues par leurs principes immédiats aux principes des organes
qu'ils doivent entretenir.

'En définitive, on voit que les végétaux se nourrissent d'eau,
d'acide carbonique, d'autres gaz et de matières organiques à
l'état d'engrais, ou en d'autres termes altérées, c'est-à-dire
ramenées à l'état de principes plus simples, plus solubles. Au
contraire, les animaux plus élevés dans l'échelle organique ont
besoin de matières bien plus complexes quant aux principes
immédiats qui les composent, et plus variées dans leurs
propriétés.'

[479] Brunfels in 1530, and Fuchs in 1542, were the two first writers
who observed the vegetable kingdom for themselves, instead of
copying what the ancients had said. Compare _Whewell's Hist. of
the Sciences_, vol. iii. pp. 305, 306, with _Pulteney's Hist. of
Botany_, vol. i. p. 38.

[480] The microscope was exhibited in London, by Drebbel, about 1620;
and this appears to be the earliest unquestionable notice of its
use, though some writers assert that it was invented at the
beginning of the seventeenth century, or even in 1590. Compare
the different statements, in _Pouillet_, _Elémens de Physique_,
vol. ii. p. 357; _Humboldt's Cosmos_, vol. ii. pp. 699, 700;
_Sprengel_, _Hist. de la Médecine_, vol. iv. p. 337; _Winckler_,
_Gesch. der Botanik_, p. 136; _Quekett's Treatise on the
Microscope_, 1848, p. 2; _Cuvier_, _Hist. des Sciences_, part ii.
p. 470; _Hallam's Lit. of Europe_, vol. iii. p. 202; _Leslie's
Nat. Philos._ p. 52. On the subsequent improvement of the
microscope during the seventeenth century, see _Brewster's Life
of Newton_, vol. i. pp. 29, 242, 243.

[481] See _Balfour's Botany_, p. 15. In Pulteney's _Progress of Botany
in England_, this beautiful discovery is, if I rightly remember,
not even alluded to; but it appears, from a letter written in
1672, that it was then becoming generally known, and had been
confirmed by Grew and Malpighi. _Ray's Correspond._ edit. 1848,
p. 98. Compare _Richard_, _Eléments de Botanique_, p. 46; where,
however, M. Richard erroneously supposes that Grew did not know
of the tracheæ till 1682.

[482] Compare _Cuvier_, _Hist. des Sciences_, part ii. p. 471, with
_Thomson's Vegetable Chemistry_, p. 950.

[483] Dr. Thomson (_Vegetable Chemistry_, p. 950) says: 'But the person
to whom we are indebted for the first attempt to ascertain the
structure of plants by dissection and microscopical observations,
was Dr. Nathaniel Grew.' The character of Grew's inquiries, as
'viewing the internal, as well as external parts of plants,' is
also noticed in _Ray's Correspond._ p. 188; and M. Winckler
(_Gesch. der Botanik_, p. 382) ascribes to him and Malpighi the
'neuen Aufschwung' taken by vegetable physiology late in the
seventeenth century. See also, on Grew, _Lindley's Botany_, vol.
i. p. 93; and _Third Report of Brit. Assoc._ p. 27.

[484] The first book of his Anatomy of Plants was laid before the Royal
Society in 1670, and printed in 1671. _Hallam's Lit. of Europe_,
vol. iii. p. 580; and _Thomson's Hist. of the Royal Society_, p.
44.

[485] 'The presence of sexual organs in plants was first shown in 1676,
by Sir Thomas Millington; and it was afterwards confirmed by
Grew, Malpighi, and Ray.' _Balfour's Botany_, p. 236. See also
_Pulteney's Progress of Botany_, vol. i. pp. 336, 337; and
_Lindley's Botany_, vol. ii. p. 217: and, as to Ray, who was
rather slow in admitting the discovery, see _Lankester's Mem. of
Ray_, p. 100. Before this, the sexual system of vegetables had
been empirically known to several of the ancients, but never
raised to a scientific truth. Compare _Richard_, _Eléments de
Botanique_, pp. 353, 427, 428, with _Matter_, _Hist. de l'Ecole
d'Alexandrie_, vol. ii. p. 9.

This is what was effected in England during the reign of Charles II.; and we now ask what was done in France, during the same period, under the munificent patronage of Louis XIV. The answer is, nothing; no discovery, no idea, which forms an epoch in this important department of natural science. The son of the celebrated Sir Thomas Brown visited Paris in the hope of making some additions to his knowledge of botany, which he thought he could not fail to do in a country where science was held in such honour, its professors so caressed by the court, and its researches so bountifully encouraged. To his surprise, he, in 1665, found in that great city no one capable of teaching his favourite pursuit, and even the public lectures on it miserably meagre and unsatisfactory.[486] Neither then, nor at a much later period, did the French possess a good popular treatise on botany: still less did they make any improvement in it. Indeed, so completely was the philosophy of the subject misunderstood, that Tournefort, the only French botanist of repute in the reign of Louis, actually rejected that discovery of the sexes of plants, which had been made before he began to write, and which afterwards became the corner-stone of the Linnæan system.[487] This showed his incapacity for those large views respecting the unity of the organic world, which alone give to botany a scientific value; and we find, accordingly, that he did nothing for the physiology of plants, and that his only merit was as a collector and classifier of them.[488] And even in his classification he was guided, not by a comprehensive comparison of their various parts, but by considerations drawn from the mere appearance of the flower:[489] thus depriving botany of its real grandeur, degrading it into an arrangement of beautiful objects, and supplying another instance of the way in which the Frenchmen of that generation impoverished what they sought to enrich, and dwarfed every topic, until they suited the intellect and pleased the eye of that ignorant and luxurious court, to whose favour they looked for reward, and whose applause it was the business of their life to gain.

[486] In July 1665 he writes from Paris to his father, 'The lecture of
plants here is only the naming of them, their degrees in heat and
cold, and sometimes their use in physick; scarce a word more than
may be seen in every herball.' _Browne's Works_, vol. i. p. 108.

[487] Cuvier mentioning the inferiority of Tournefort's views to those
of his predecessors, gives as an instance, 'puisqu'il a rejeté
les sexes des plantes.' _Hist. des Sciences_, part ii. p. 496.
Hence he held that the farina was ex-crementitious. _Pulteney's
Progress of Botany_, vol. i. p. 340.

[488] This is admitted even by his eulogist Duvau. _Biog. Univ._
vol. xlvi. p. 363.

[489] On the method of Tournefort, which was that of a corrollist,
compare _Richard_, _Eléments de Botanique_, p. 547; _Jussieu's
Botany_, edit. Wilson, 1849, p. 516; _Ray's Correspond._ pp. 381,
382; _Lankester's Mem. of Ray_, p. 49; _Winckler_, _Gesch. der
Botanik_, p. 142. Cuvier (_Hist. des Sciences_, part ii. p. 496),
with quiet irony, says of it, 'vous voyez, messieurs, que cette
méthode a le mérite d'une grande clarté; qu'elle est fondée sur
la forme de la fleur, et par conséquent sur des considérations
agréables à saisir.... Ce qui en fit le succès, c'est que
Tournefort joignit à son ouvrage une figure de fleur et de fruit
appartenant à chacun de ses genres.' Even in this, he appears to
have been careless, and is said to have described 'a great many
plants he never examined nor saw.' _Letter from Dr. Sherard_, in
_Nichols's Illustrations of the Eighteenth Century_, vol. i.
p. 356.

The truth is, that in these, as in all matters of real importance, in questions requiring independent thought, and in questions of practical utility, the age of Louis XIV. was an age of decay: it was an age of misery, of intolerance, and oppression; it was an age of bondage, of ignominy, of incompetence. This would long since have been universally admitted, if those who have written the history of that period had taken the trouble to study subjects without which no history can be understood; or, I should rather say, without which no history can exist. If this had been done, the reputation of Louis XIV. would at once have shrunk to its natural size. Even at the risk of exposing myself to the charge of unduly estimating my own labours, I cannot avoid saying, that the facts which I have just pointed out have never before been collected, but have remained isolated in the text-books and repertories of the sciences to which they belong. Yet without them it is impossible to study the age of Louis XIV. It is impossible to estimate the character of any period except by tracing its development; in other words, by measuring the extent of its knowledge. Therefore it is, that to write the history of a country without regard to its intellectual progress, is as if an astronomer should compose a planetary system without regard to the sun, by whose light alone the planets can be seen, and by whose attraction they are held in their course, and compelled to run in the path of their appointed orbits. For the great luminary, even as it shines in the heaven, is not a more noble or a more powerful object than is the intellect of man in this nether world. It is to the human intellect, and to that alone, that every country owes its knowledge. And what is it but the progress and diffusion of knowledge which has given us our arts, our sciences, our manufactures, our laws, our opinions, our manners, our comforts, our luxuries, our civilization; in short, everything that raises us above the savages, who by their ignorance are degraded to the level of the brutes with which they herd? Surely, then, the time has now arrived when they who undertake to write the history of a great nation should occupy themselves with those matters by which alone the destiny of men is regulated, and should abandon the petty and insignificant details by which we have too long been wearied; details respecting the lives of kings, the intrigues of ministers, the vices and the gossip of courts.

It is precisely these higher considerations which furnish the key to the history of the reign of Louis XIV. In that time, as in all others, the misery of the people and the degradation of the country followed the decline of the national intellect; while this last was, in its turn, the result of the protective spirit--that mischievous spirit which weakens whatever it touches. If in the long course and compass of history there is one thing more clear than another, it is, that whenever a government undertakes to protect intellectual pursuits, it will almost always protect them in the wrong place, and reward the wrong men. Nor is it surprising that this should be the case. What can kings and ministers know about those immense branches of knowledge, to cultivate which with success is often the business of an entire life? How can they, constantly occupied with their lofty pursuits, have leisure for such inferior matters? Is it to be supposed that such acquirements will be found among statesmen, who are always engaged in the most weighty concerns; sometimes writing despatches, sometimes making speeches, sometimes organising a party in the parliament, sometimes baffling an intrigue in the privy-chamber? Or if the sovereign should graciously bestow his patronage according to his own judgment, are we to expect that mere philosophy and science should be familiar to high and mighty princes, who have their own peculiar and arduous studies, and who have to learn the mysteries of heraldry, the nature and dignities of rank, the comparative value of the different orders, decorations, and titles, the laws of precedence, the prerogatives of noble birth, the names and powers of ribbons, stars, and garters, the various modes of conferring an honour or installing into an office, the adjustment of ceremonies, the subtleties of etiquette, and all those other courtly accomplishments necessary to the exalted functions which they perform?

The mere statement of such questions proves the absurdity of the principle which they involve. For, unless we believe that kings are omniscient as well as immaculate, it is evident that in the bestowal of rewards they must be guided either by personal caprice or by the testimony of competent judges. And since no one is a competent judge of scientific excellence unless he is himself scientific, we are driven to this monstrous alternative, that the rewards of intellectual labour must be conferred injudiciously, or else that they must be given according to the verdict of that very class by whom they are received. In the first case, the reward will be ridiculous; in the latter case, it will be disgraceful. In the former case, weak men will be benefited by wealth which is taken from industry to be lavished on idleness. But in the latter case, those men of real genius, those great and illustrious thinkers, who are the masters and teachers of the human race, are to be tricked out with trumpery titles; and after scrambling in miserable rivalry for the sordid favours of a court, they are then to be turned into beggars of the state, who not only clamour for their share of the spoil, but even regulate the proportions into which the shares are to be divided.

Under such a system, the natural results are, first, the impoverishment and servility of genius: then the decay of knowledge; then the decline of the country. Three times in the history of the world has this experiment been tried. In the ages of Augustus, of Leo X., and of Louis XIV., the same method was adopted, and the same result ensued. In each of these ages, there was much apparent splendour, immediately succeeded by sudden ruin. In each instance, the brilliancy survived the independence; and in each instance, the national spirit sank under that pernicious alliance between government and literature, by virtue of which the political classes become very powerful, and the intellectual classes very weak, simply because they who dispense the patronage will, of course, receive the homage; and if, on the one hand, government is always ready to reward literature, so on the other hand, will literature be always ready to succumb to government.

Of these three ages, that of Louis XIV. was incomparably the worst; and nothing but the amazing energy of the French people could have enabled them to rally, as they afterwards did, from the effects of so enfeebling a system. But though they rallied, the effort cost them dear. The struggle, as we shall presently see, lasted two generations, and was only ended by that frightful Revolution which formed its natural climax. What the real history of that struggle was, I shall endeavour to ascertain towards the conclusion of this volume. Without, however, anticipating the course of affairs, we will now proceed to what I have already mentioned as the second great characteristic of the reign of Louis XIV.

II. The second intellectual characteristic of the reign of Louis XIV. is, in importance, hardly inferior to the first. We have already seen that the national intellect, stunted by the protection of the court, was so diverted from the noblest branches of knowledge, that in none of them did it produce anything worthy of being recorded. As a natural consequence, the minds of men, driven from the higher departments, took refuge in the lower, and concentrated themselves upon those inferior subjects, where the discovery of truth is not the main object, but where beauty of form and expression are the things chiefly pursued. Thus, the first consequence of the patronage of Louis XIV. was, to diminish the field for genius, and to sacrifice science to art. The second consequence was, that, even in art itself, there was soon seen a marked decay. For a short time, the stimulus produced its effect; but was followed by that collapse which is its natural result. So essentially vicious is the whole system of patronage and reward, that after the death of those writers and artists, whose works form the only redeeming point in the reign of Louis, there was found no one capable of even imitating their excellences. The poets, dramatists, painters, musicians, sculptors, architects, were, with hardly an exception, not only born, but educated under that freer policy, which existed before his time. When they began their labours, they benefited by a munificence which encouraged the activity of their genius. But in a few years, that generation having died off, the hollowness of the whole system was clearly exposed. More than a quarter of a century before the death of Louis XIV., most of these eminent men had ceased to live; and then it was seen to how miserable a plight the country was reduced under the boasted patronage of the great king. At the moment when Louis XIV. died, there was scarcely a writer or an artist in France who enjoyed an European reputation. This is a circumstance well worth our notice. If we compare the different classes of literature, we shall find that sacred oratory, being the least influenced by the king, was able the longest to bear up against his system. Massillon belongs partly to the subsequent reign; but even of the other great divines, Bossuet and Bourdaloue both lived to 1704,[490] Mascaron to 1703,[491] and Flechier to 1710.[492] As, however, the king, particularly in his latter years, was very fearful of meddling with the church, it is in profane matters that we can best trace the workings of his policy, because it is there that his interference was most active. With a view to this, the simplest plan will be, to look, in the first place, into the history of the fine arts; and after ascertaining who the greatest artists were, observe the year in which they died, remembering that the government of Louis XIV. began in 1661, and ended in 1715.

[490] _Biog. Univ._ vol. v. pp. 236, 358.

[491] _Ibid._ xxvii. p. 351.

[492] _Ibid._ xv. p. 35.

If, now, we examine this period of fifty-four years, we shall be struck by the remarkable fact, that everything which is celebrated was effected in the first half of it; while more than twenty years before its close, the most eminent masters all died without leaving any successors. The six greatest painters in the reign of Louis XIV. were Poussin, Lesueur, Claude Lorraine, Le Brun, and the two Mignards. Of these, Le Brun died in 1690;[493] the elder Mignard in 1668;[494] the younger in 1695;[495] Claude Lorraine in 1682;[496] Lesueur in 1655;[497] and Poussin, perhaps the most distinguished of all the French school, died in 1665.[498] The two greatest architects were, Claude Perrault and Francis Mansart; but Perrault died in 1688;[499] Mansart in 1666;[500] and Blondel, the next in fame, died in 1686.[501] The greatest of all the sculptors was Puget, who died in 1694.[502] Lulli, the founder of French music, died in 1687.[503] Quinault, the greatest poet of French music, died in 1688.[504] Under these eminent men, the fine arts, in the reign of Louis XIV., reached their zenith; and during the last thirty years of his life, their decline was portentously rapid. This was the case, not only in architecture and music, but even in painting, which, being more subservient than they are to personal vanity, is more likely to flourish under a rich and despotic government. The genius, however, of painters fell so low, that long before the death of Louis XIV., France ceased to possess one of any merit; and when his successor came to the throne, this beautiful art was, in that great country, almost extinct.[505]

[493] _Ibid._ xxiii. p. 496.

[494] _Ibid._ xxix. p. 17.

[495] _Ibid._ xxix. p. 19.

[496] 'His best pictures were painted from about 1640 to 1660; he died
in 1682.' _Wornum's Epochs of Painting_, Lond. 1847. p. 399.
Voltaire (_Siècle de Louis XIV_, in _[OE]uvres_, vol. xix. p.
205) says that he died in 1678.

[497] _Biog. Univ._ vol. xxiv. p. 327; _Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds_,
vol. ii. pp. 454, 455.

[498] _Biog. Univ._ vol. xxxv. p. 579. Poussin was Barry's 'favourite'
painter. _Letter from Barry_, in _Burke's Correspond._ vol. i. p.
88. Compare _Otter's Life of Clarke_, vol. ii. p. 55. Sir Joshua
Reynolds (_Works_, vol. i. pp. 97, 351, 376) appears to have
preferred him to any of the French school; and in the report
presented to Napoleon by the Institute, he is the only French
painter mentioned by the side of the Greek and Italian artists.
_Dacier_, _Rapport Historique_, p. 23.

[499] _Biog. Univ._ vol. xxxiii. p. 411; _Siècle de Louis XIV_, in
_[OE]uvres de Voltaire_, vol. xix. p. 158.

[500] _Biog. Univ._ vol. xxvi. p. 503.

[501] _Ibid._ vol. iv. p. 593.

[502] _Ibid._ vol. xxxvi. p. 300. Respecting him, see _Lady Morgan's
France_, vol. ii. pp. 30, 31.

[503] M. Capefigue (_Louis XIV_, vol. ii. p. 79) says, 'Lulli mourut en
1689;' but 1687 is the date assigned in _Biog. Univ._ vol. xxv.
p. 425; in _Chalmer's Biog. Dict._ vol. xx. p. 483; in _Rose's
Biog. Dict._ vol. ix. p. 350; and in _Monteil_, _Divers Etats_,
vol. vii p. 63. In _[OE]uvres de Voltaire_, vol. xix. p. 200, he
is called 'le père de la vraie musique en France.' He was admired
by Louis XIV. _Lettres de Sévigné_, vol. ii. pp. 162, 163.

[504] _Biog. Univ._ vol. xxxvi. p. 42. Voltaire (_[OE]uvres_, vol. xix.
p. 162) says, 'personne n'a jamais égalé Quinault;' and Mr.
Hallam (_Lit. of Europe_, vol. iii. p. 507), 'the unrivalled poet
of French music.' See also _Lettres de Dudeffand à Walpole_, vol.
ii. p. 432.

[505] When Louis XV. ascended the throne, painting in France was in the
lowest state of degradation. _Lady Morgan's France_, vol. ii. p.
31. Lacretelle (_Dix-huitième Siècle_, vol. ii. p. 11) says 'Les
beaux arts dégénérèrent plus sensiblement que les lettres pendant
la seconde partie du siècle de Louis XIV.... Il est certain que
les vingt-cinq dernières années du règne de Louis XIV n'offrirent
que des productions très-inférieures,' &c. Thus too Barrington
(_Observations on the Statutes_, p. 377), 'It is very remarkable
that the French school hath not produced any very capital
painters since the expensive establishment by Louis XIV. of the
academies at Rome and Paris.'

These are startling facts; not matters of opinion, which may be disputed, but stubborn dates, supported by irrefragable testimony. And if we examine in the same manner the literature of the age of Louis XIV., we shall arrive at similar conclusions. If we ascertain the dates of those masterpieces which adorn his reign, we shall find that during the last five-and-twenty years of his life, when his patronage had been the longest in operation, it was entirely barren of results; in other words, that when the French had been most habituated to his protection, they were least able to effect great things. Louis XIV. died in 1715. Racine produced _Phedre_ in 1677; _Andromaque_ in 1667; _Athelie_ in 1691.[506] Molière published the _Misanthrope_ in 1666; _Tartuffe_ in 1667; the _Avare_ in 1668.[507] The _Lutrin_ of Boileau was written in 1674; his best Satires in 1666.[508] The last Fables of La Fontaine appeared in 1678, and his last Tales in 1671.[509] The _Inquiry respecting Truth_, by Malebranche, was published in 1674;[510] the _Caractères_ of La Bruyère in 1687;[511] the Maximes of Rochefoucauld in 1665.[512] The _Provincial Letters_ of Pascal were written 1656, and he himself died in 1662.[513] As to Corneille, his great Tragedies were composed, some while Louis was still a boy, and the others before the king was born.[514] Such were the dates of the masterpieces of the age of Louis XIV. The authors of these immortal works all ceased to write, and nearly all ceased to live, before the close of the seventeenth century; and we may fairly ask the admirers of Louis XIV. who those men were that succeeded them. Where have their names been registered? Where are their works to be found? Who is there that now reads the books of those obscure hirelings, who for so many years thronged the court of the great king? Who has heard anything of Campistron, La Chapelle, Genest, Ducerceau, Dancourt, Danchet, Vergier, Catrou, Chaulieu, Legendre, Valincour, Lamotte, and the other ignoble compilers, who long remained the brightest ornaments of France? Was this, then, the consequence of the royal bounty? Was this the fruit of the royal patronage? If the system of reward and protection is really advantageous to literature and to art, how is it that it should have produced the meanest results when it had been the longest in operation? If the favour of kings is, as their flatterers tell us, of such importance, how comes it that the more the favour was displayed, the more the effects were contemptible?

[506] _Biog. Univ._ vol. xxxvi. pp. 499, 502; _Hallam's Lit._ vol. iii.
p. 493.

[507] _Biog. Univ._ vol. xxix. pp. 306, 308.

[508] _Rose's Biog. Dict._ vol. iv. p. 376; and _Biog. Univ._ vol. v.
pp. 7, 8, where it is said that 'ses meilleures satires' were
those published in 1666.

[509] _Ibid._ vol. xxiii. p. 127.

[510] _Tennemann_, _Gesch. der Philos._ vol. x. p. 322.

[511] _Biog. Univ._ vol. vi. p. 175.

[512] _Brunet_, _Manuel du Libraire_, vol. iv. p. 105, Paris 1843; and
note in _Lettres de Patin_, vol. i. p. 421.

[513] _Biog. Univ._ vol. xxxiii. pp. 64, 71; _Palissot_, _Mém. pour
l'Hist. de Lit._ vol. ii. pp. 239, 241.

[514] _Polyeucte_, which is probably his greatest work, appeared in
1640; _Médée_ in 1635; _The Cid_ in 1636; _Horace and Cinna_ both
in 1639. _Biog. Univ._ vol. ix. pp. 609-613.

Nor was this almost inconceivable penury compensated by superiority in any other department. The simple fact is that Louis XIV. survived the entire intellect of the French nation, except that small part of it which grew up in opposition to his principles, and afterwards shook the throne of his successor.[515] Several years before his death, and when his protective system had been in full force for nearly half a century, there was not to be found in the whole of France a statesman who could develop the resources of the country, or a general who could defend it against its enemies. Both in the civil service and in the military service, every thing had fallen into disorder. At home there was nothing but confusion; abroad there was nothing but disaster. The spirit of France succumbed, and was laid prostrate. The men of letters, pensioned and decorated by the court, had degenerated into a fawning and hypocritical race, who, to meet the wishes of their masters, opposed all improvement, and exerted themselves in support of every old abuse. The end of all this was, a corruption, a servility, and a loss of power more complete than has ever been witnessed in any of the great countries of Europe. There was no popular liberty; there were no great men; there was no science; there was no literature; there were no arts. Within, there was a discontented people, a rapacious government, and a beggared exchequer. Without, there were foreign armies, which pressed upon all the frontiers, and which nothing but their mutual jealousies, and a change in the English cabinet, prevented from dismembering the monarchy of France.[516]

[515] Voltaire (_Siècle de Louis XIV_, in _[OE]uvres_, vol. xx. pp.
319-322) reluctantly confesses the decline of the French
intellect in the latter part of the reign of Louis; and Flassan
(_Diplomat. Franç._ vol. iv. p. 400) calls it 'remarquable.' See
also _Barante_, _Littérature Française_, p. 28; _Sismondi_,
_Hist. des Français_, vol. xxvi. p. 217.

[516] Oppressed by defeats abroad, and by famine and misery at home,
Louis was laid at the mercy of his enemies; and 'was only saved by
a party revolution in the English ministry.' _Arnold's Lectures
on Modern History_, p. 137. Compare _Fragments sur l'Histoire_,
article xxiii. in _[OE]uvres de Voltaire_, vol. xxvii. p. 345,
with _De Tocqueville_, _Règne de Louis XV_, vol. i. p. 86.

Such was the forlorn position of that noble country towards the close of the reign of Louis XIV.[517] The misfortunes which embittered the declining years of the king were, indeed, so serious, that they could not fail to excite our sympathy, if we did not know that they were the result of his own turbulent ambition, of his insufferable arrogance, but, above all, of a grasping and restless vanity, which, making him eager to concentrate on his single person all the glory of France, gave rise to that insidious policy, which, with gifts, with honours, and with honied words, began by gaining the admiration of the intellectual classes, then made them courtly and time-serving, and ended by destroying all their boldness, stifling every effort of original thought, and thus postponing for an indefinite period the progress of national civilization.

[517] For evidence of the depression and, indeed, utter exhaustion of
France during the latter years of Louis XIV., compare _Duclos_,
_Mémoires_, vol. i. pp. 11-18, with _Marmontel_, _Hist. de la
Régence_, Paris, 1826, pp. 79-97. The _Lettres inédites de Madame
de Maintenon_ (vol. i. pp. 263, 284, 358, 389, 393, 408, 414,
422, 426, 447, 457, 463, vol. ii. pp. 19, 23, 33, 46, 56, and
numerous other passages) fully confirm this, and, moreover, prove
that in Paris, early in the eighteenth century, the resources,
even of the wealthy classes, were beginning to fail; while both
public and private credit were so shaken, that it was hardly
possible to obtain money on any terms. In 1710, she, the wife of
Louis XIV., complains of her inability to borrow 500 livres:
'Tout mon crédit échoue souvent auprès de M. Desmaretz pour une
somme de cinq cents livres.' _Ibid._ vol. ii. p. 33. In 1709, she
writes (vol. i. p. 447): 'Le jeu devient insipide, parce qu'il
n'y a presque plus d'argent.' See also vol. ii. p. 112; and in
February 1711 (p. 151): 'Ce n'est pas l'abondance mais l'avarice
qui fait jouer nos courtisans; on met le tout pour le tout pour
avoir quelque argent, et les tables de lansquenet ont plus l'air
d'un triste commerce que d'un divertissement.'

In regard to the people generally, the French writers supply us
with little information, because in that age they were too much
occupied with their great king and their showy literature, to pay
attention to mere popular interests. But I have collected from
other sources some information which I will now put together, and
which I recommend to the notice of the next French author who
undertakes to compose a history of Louis XIV.

Locke, who was travelling in France in 1676 and 1677, writes in
his journal, 'The rent of land in France fallen one-half in these
few years, by reason of the poverty of the people.' _King's Life
of Locke_, vol. i. p. 139. About the same time, Sir William
Temple says (_Works_, vol. ii. p. 268), 'The French peasantry are
wholly dispirited by labour and want.' In 1691, another observer,
proceeding from Calais, writes, 'From hence, travelling to Paris,
there was opportunity enough to observe what a prodigious state
of poverty the ambition and absoluteness of a tyrant can reduce
an opulent and fertile country to. There were visible all the
marks and signs of a growing misfortune; all the dismal
indications of an overwhelming calamity. The fields were
uncultivated, the villages unpeopled, the houses dropping to
decay.' _Burton's Diary_, note by Rutt, vol. iv. p. 79. In a
tract published in 1689, the author says (_Somers Tracts_, vol.
x. p. 264), 'I have known in France poor people sell their beds,
and lie upon straw; sell their pots, kettles, and all their
necessary household goods, to content the unmerciful collectors
of the king's taxes.' Dr. Lister, who visited Paris in 1698,
says, 'Such is the vast multitude of poor wretches in all parts
of this city, that whether a person is in a carriage or on foot,
in the street, or even in a shop, he is alike unable to transact
business, on account of the importunities of mendicants.'
_Lister's Account of Paris_, p. 46. Compare a _Letter from
Prior_, in _Ellis's Letters of Literary Men_, p. 213. In 1708,
Addison, who, from personal observation, was well acquainted with
France, writes: 'We think here as you do in the country, that
France is on her last legs.' _Aikin's Life of Addison_, vol. i.
p. 233. Finally, in 1718--that is, three years after the death of
Louis--Lady Mary Montagu gives the following account of the
result of his reign, in a letter to Lady Rich, dated Paris, 10th
October, 1718: 'I think nothing so terrible as objects of misery,
except one had the god-like attribute of being able to redress
them; and all the country villages of France show nothing else.
While the post-horses are changed, the whole town comes out to
beg, with such miserable starved faces, and thin, tattered
clothes, they need no other eloquence to persuade one of the
wretchedness of their condition.' _Works of Lady Mary Wortley
Montague_, vol. iii. p. 74, edit. 1803.