forms of sublimity and beauty, in cities where Galileo could not have unveiled the science of the heavens, nor Luther laid open the book of life. Under Louis XIV., in like manner (the celebrated patron of every muse), Boileau, and Poussin, and Bossuet, and other illustrious men, divines, and artists, and poets could find emoluments and distinctions; but Fénélon had to be removed to a distance and to disguise the effusions of his patriotism and wisdom.

In our own country, in like manner, the immortal Locke, under James II., was a student persecuted and silent; the world received no benefit from the labours of his thoughts. But the lapse of a few years and the renewal of a free form of government saw him cherished and admired; saw him give to mankind his Treatise on Government, his Reasonableness of Christianity, his Essay on Toleration, his Essay on the Human Mind, and contribute more, perhaps, than any individual who can be mentioned, to the best interests of his fellow-creatures, by contributing to remove obscurity from the mind, servility from the heart, and dogmatism from the understanding.

I need not continue this subject further. The arts that adorn, and the literature that charms the polished leisure of society, may flourish under a Louis as they did under an Augustus, but not so the higher pursuits of the human understanding. It is freedom alone which can conduct the genius of mankind to that sublimer perception of truth, to which the Almighty Master sometimes admits (as in his wisdom he sees best) the aspiring, though bounded faculties of his creatures.

LECTURE III.

LOUIS XV.

The two following Lectures were originally delivered after the Lectures on the American War, and were the conclusion of the second Course. The character of the Regent is adverted to in the twenty-seventh Lecture of the same Course.

1811.

Ir is impossible for us, who live at this period, not to turn to the reign of Louis XV. with an interest that those who lived before us can never have experienced. To them it must have appeared (in this island at least) little more than the history of private and public profligacy, of an ambitious and licentious court, of a debauched king, and of his unprincipled mistresses; a scene,

that by the virtuous and the good, under our own free government, would be only surveyed for a moment, and that with scorn and horror; of which the image would be banished from the memory, as a sort of pollution to the thoughts.

We approach it, now, with sentiments not of less repugnance, but of more curiosity, and indeed with a sort of awful anxiety. Most of us have seen, we all of us feel, (our children, to many a distant age, are destined to feel,) the effects of the most tremendous Revolution that Europe has ever known, since the decline of the Roman empire. Even in the reign of Louis XIV. we can now discern, as we read, the coming of this great event. What signs may we not expect to see in the long reign of his immediate successor, Louis XV.? Ignorant as men are, at the time, of the bearings and consequences not only of what they see passing around them, but often of what they are doing themselves,—it is still competent for us, after the event is known, to trace out the causes with which it appears to have been connected through many a distant year; and if men are ever, by any reading and meditation, to be improved in the great scale of their public relations, if they are ever to be formed, some into statesmen, others into intelligent citizens, it is not a little by retrospects like these.

After what I have now said of the interest that belongs to this period, you will be disappointed to hear from me that there is no very good account of the reign to which I can refer you. It has not yet been written as a portion of French history. It is indeed the misery of all those who have to read French history, to find on all occasions a crowd of memoirs offered to them, with and without names, instead of any regular history, delivered to the world by any author of reputation. But the history of Louis XV. probably appeared at the time to be only the history of his mistresses and their favourites. To have given any account of their proceedings, that would have been worthy of the name of history, might not at the moment have been very prudent. Perhaps no writer adequate to the task could have been found; and every thinking man in France, after the reign of Louis XV., amid the confusion and pressure of the events that succeeded it, was little at leisure to begin a history of the times that were past. Du Clos deserts us about the period at which we are now arrived. A few words about Cardinal Fleury, and a good account of the Seven Years' War, more particularly of the concern the French took in it, comprises the remainder of his work. We are therefore left to look out for some other guide, and I do not conceive that any can be found who would properly satisfy a French scholar;

but, perhaps, English students like yourselves may be more easily satisfied. Certain reasons exist why you may be. For instance, the great subjects of the reign, to which you will turn with interest, may be considered in a general manner; and therefore you may be satisfied when a native of the country may not-the foreign politics of the reign form the first subject of inquiry.

Now, these may be found in the histories of other countries, and are of the usual stamp; the politics of craft and ambition. They therefore may be estimated in a general manner. Next, you will observe, that the domestic politics, though of the most important nature, can also be estimated in a general manner. What were they?

1st, The disputes between the court and the parliaments; those of a financial and those of an ecclesiastical nature.

2nd, The effect, in the mean time, which the writings of different eminent authors were producing upon the public mind,-the progress of the new opinions.

These, together, constitute the great subject of domestic interest during the reign of Louis. And they, too, can be best comprehended by looking at them, as it were, from a distance, and throwing them, if possible, into large masses.

The detail, therefore, on the whole, I venture to conclude, though naturally sought for by French scholars, need not be required by those of this country.

We might find, as the French readers may find, and as they require us to find, memoirs of mistresses and favourites; of Madame de Pompadour, of La Comtesse Dubarri, or even of the Duc de Choiseul, the minister. But we should perceive that it was to little purpose we had occupied our time and run the chance of debasing our minds by accompanying such personages through their disgusting scenes of court intrigue or impudent profligacy.

It is known beforehand that it is by such means that states and empires, whatever be their apparent strength, may be brought to destruction; and, when this is known, what is there else to know? The more minute transactions of these disgraceful scenes we need not dwell on.

Again, we should find it very difficult to go through all the particulars of the struggle between the crown and the parliaments, even were they anywhere presented to our view. But I know not that they are. There is a work by Voltaire on the subject of the parliaments, but it is little to our present purpose; stops short and huddles up the subject, where we might have wished it to proceed fully and methodically; is rather a history

of them from the earliest epoch than a history of them during this important period; and it has been considered as a partial representation, as a sacrifice to the court, made by this distinguished author, the better to dispose the court to favour, or to tolerate his own designs against Christianity.

In like manner, it would not be very easy to read the detail of the financial history of these times, though its general importance is easily understood. It seems enough for us to comprehend, as we can readily do, that the court would not be economical; would neither be virtuous at home, nor abstain from wars abroad; that the clergy and nobility would not pay their shares to the general contribution; and that, therefore, different comptrollers-general, who were to find supplies for the general expense, had only the same impossibilities to perform, and lamentations to utter.

If then the detail of these subjects be not entirely necessary, you may be more reconciled to the apparently inadequate information which can be offered to you, even on such a subject as the reign of Louis XV.; a reign which I have announced, and must continue to announce, to you, as the prelude to the French Revolution.

But I spoke of general information that might be offered to you; what then is it?

Though no writer, as I have already observed, has made a regular history of this period, something has been done.

In the first place, a sort of history of Louis XV. has been.written by Voltaire. The foreign politics of the reign may be collected from this work, and an idea of the principal events.

The same may be done from the short account supplied by D'Anquetil, in his late History (of fifteen octavo volumes), which, as a short general history of France, drawn up at the instigation of Buonaparte, I have already taken occasion to recommend.

But, finally, and on the whole, the work on which I depend, both for the internal and external concerns of this reign, is the work of Lacretelle. I have already mentioned it. It is intended by him as an introduction to his estimate (his Précis) of the French Revolution. It embraces a view of the foreign politics of the reign, and of the more domestic transactions; the disputes between the court and parliaments, and, lastly, an account of the different authors, and writings, that influenced the subsequent fortunes of the French monarchy.

Here then we have, as I conceive, what we want. Lacretelle is considered as having drawn up his account from such books as are in the hands of men of letters in France, and from such

other sources of conversation and inquiry as are to us in this country inaccessible. The author may be thought, and I believe is thought, by those French scholars who are conversant with these times, to have passed over the transactions of them, with a sort of general, and sometimes even superficial elegance, which he interrupts not by any occasional display of very minute research. But I must here recall to your mind what I have just said. He may still present an English reader with an account that, for the reasons I have mentioned, will be sufficiently detailed and profound; nay, more, one that is only the fitter for our perusal, from being of a general nature. I do not think the matter of these volumes of Lacretelle well arranged, and it will easily be perceived that due deference is paid to the political views of the present ruler of France, Buonaparte; that the author's hatred also to England is unceasing: but in a literary point of view he is always a pleasing, and often a very beautiful writer; and with the exceptions I have mentioned, may be welcomed not only as a guide, but, on the whole, as a sufficient guide.

Since I wrote this paragraph, I have observed that M. de Staël speaks favourably of this author, of Lacretelle.

We will now advert a little more particularly to the reign before us. Louis XV. reigned a considerable part of the last century, from 1715 to 1774, almost as long as he lived. In 1715 began the regency of the Duke of Orleans, who died in 1723. A short period of about two years and a-half comprehends the administration of the Duke of Bourbon, or rather of his mistress, la Marquise de Prie. Fleury then appears on the stage, and dies in 1743. He was, therefore, minister of France for seventeen years. On his death, the king (Louis XV.) undertook to be his own prime minister; an unpromising experiment for a country at any time. In this instance the result was only, that the king's mistress, Me. de Chateauroux, became the ruler of France, and soon after Me. de Pompadour, another mistress, whose reign was prolonged from 1745 to 1763. Different courtiers and prelates were seen to hold the first offices of the state during this apparent premiership of the monarch. The ladies seem to have chosen or tolerated Cardinal Tençin, Argençon, Orsy, Mauripaux, and Amelot, who, with the Dukes Noailles and Richelieu, succeeded to Fleury.

Afterwards, we have Argençon and Machault, and then come the most celebrated of the ministers or favourites of Me. de Pompadour, the Abbé de Bernis and the Duc de Choiseul. The last is the most distinguished minister after Fleury. He continued in favour from 1758, not only to 1763, when M. de Pom