It may be easily supposed, that those vast movements in the intellect of France, which I have just traced, could not fail to produce a great change in the method of writing history. That bold spirit with which men were beginning to estimate the transactions of their own time, was sure to influence their opinions respecting those of a former age. In this, as in every branch of knowledge, the first innovation consisted in recognizing the necessity of doubting what had hitherto been believed; and this feeling, when once established, went on increasing, destroying at each step some of those monstrous absurdities by which, as we have seen, even the best histories were disfigured. The germs of the reform may be discerned in the fourteenth century, though the reform itself did not begin until late in the sixteenth century. During the seventeenth century, it advanced somewhat slowly; but in the eighteenth century it received a sudden accession of strength, and, in France in particular, it was hastened by that fearless and inquisitive spirit which characterized the age, and which, purging history of innumerable follies, raised its standard, and conferred on it a dignity hitherto unknown. The rise of historical scepticism, and the extent to which it spread, do indeed form such curious features in the annals of the European intellect, as to make it surprising that no one should have attempted to examine a movement to which a great department of modern literature owes its most valuable peculiarities. In the present chapter, I hope to supply this deficiency so far as France is concerned; and I shall endeavour to mark the different steps by which the progress was effected, in order that, by knowing the circumstances most favourable to the study of history, we may with the greater ease inquire into the probability of its future improvement.
There is, in reference to this subject, a preliminary consideration well worthy of notice. This is, that men seem always to have begun to doubt in matters of religion, before they ventured to do so in matters of history. It might have been expected that the reproaches, and, in a superstitious age, the dangers, to which heresy is exposed, would have intimidated inquirers, and would have induced them to prefer the safer path of directing their scepticism upon questions of literary speculation. Such, however, is by no means the course which the human mind has adopted. In an early stage of society, when the clergy had universal influence, a belief in the unpardonable criminality of religious error is so deeply rooted, that it engrosses the attention of all; it forces every one who thinks, to concentrate upon theology his reflections and his doubts, and it leaves no leisure for topics which are conceived to be of inferior importance.[807] Hence, during many centuries, the subtlest intellects of Europe exhausted their strength on the rights and dogmas of Christianity; and while upon these matters they often showed the greatest ability, they, upon other subjects, and especially upon history, displayed that infantine credulity, of which I have already given several examples.
But when, in the progress of society, its theological element begins to decay, the ardour with which religious disputes were once conducted becomes sensibly weakened. The most advanced intellects are the first to feel the growing indifference, and, therefore, they are also the first to scrutinize real events with that inquisitive eye which their predecessors had reserved for religious speculations. This is a great turning-point in the history of every civilized nation. From this moment theological heresies become less frequent,[808] and literary heresies become more common. From this moment the spirit of inquiry and of doubt fastens itself upon every department of knowledge, and begins that great career of conquest, in which by every succeeding discovery the power and dignity of man are increased, while at the same time most of his opinions are disturbed, and many of them are destroyed: until, in the march of this vast but noiseless revolution, the stream of tradition is, as it were, interrupted, the influence of ancient authority is subverted, and the human mind, waxing in strength, learns to rely upon its own resources, and to throw off incumbrances by which the freedom of its movements had long been impaired.
The application of these remarks to the history of France, will enable us to explain some interesting phenomena in the literature of that country. During the whole of the Middle Ages, and I may say till the end of the sixteenth century, France, though fertile in annalists and chroniclers, had not produced a single historian, because she had not produced a single man who presumed to doubt what was generally believed. Indeed, until the publication of Du Haillan's history of the kings of France, no one had even attempted a critical digest of the materials which were known to be extant. This work appeared in 1576;[809] and the author, at the conclusion of his labours, could not disguise the pride which he felt at having accomplished so great an undertaking. In his dedication to the king he says, ‘I am, sire, the first of all the French who have written the history of France, and, in a polite language, shown the grandeur and dignity of our kings; for before there was nothing but the old rubbish of chronicles which spoke of them.’ He adds in the preface: ‘Only I will say, without presumption and boasting, that I have done a thing which had not been done before, or seen by any of our nation, and have given to the history of France a dress it never appeared in before.’[810] Nor were these the idle boasts of an obscure man. His work went through numerous editions; was translated into Latin, and was reprinted in foreign countries. He himself was looked upon as one of the glories of the French nation, and was rewarded by the favour of the king, who conferred on him the office of secretary of finance.[811] From his work, we may, therefore, gain some notion of what was then the received standard of historical literature; and with this view, it is natural to inquire what the materials were which he chiefly employed. About sixty years earlier, an Italian named Paulus Emilius had published a gossiping compilation on the ‘Actions of the French.’[812] This book, which is full of extravagant fables, was taken by Du Haillan as the basis of his famous history of the kings of France; and from it he unhesitatingly copies those idle stories which Emilius loved to relate. This will give us some idea of the credulity of a writer, who was reckoned by his contemporaries to be, beyond all comparison, the greatest historian France had produced. But this is not all. Du Haillan, not content with borrowing from his predecessor everything that was most incredible, gratifies his passion for the marvellous by some circumstances of his own invention. He begins his history with a long account of a council which, he says, was held by the celebrated Pharamond, in order to determine whether the French should be governed by a monarchy or by an aristocracy. It is, indeed, doubtful if any such person as Pharamond ever existed; and it is certain that, if he did exist, all the materials had long perished from which an opinion could be formed respecting him.[813] But Du Haillan, regardless of these little difficulties, gives us the fullest information touching the great chieftain; and, as if determined to tax to the utmost the credulity of his readers, mentions, as members of the council of Pharamond, two persons, Charamond and Quadrek, whose very names are invented by the historian.[814]
Such was the state of historical literature in France early in the reign of Henry III. A great change was, however, at hand. The remarkable intellectual progress made by the French towards the close of the sixteenth century was, as I have shown, preceded by that scepticism which appears to be its necessary precursor. The spirit of doubt, which had begun with religion, was communicated to literature. The impulse was immediately felt in every department of knowledge, and now it was that history first emerged from a debasement in which it had for centuries been sunk. On this subject a mere statement of dates may be of service to those persons who, from a dislike to general reasoning, would otherwise deny the connexion which I wish to establish. In 1588 was published the first sceptical book ever written in the French language.[815] In 1598, the French government, for the first time, ventured upon a great public act of religious toleration. In 1604, De Thou published that celebrated work, which is allowed by all critics to be the first great history composed by a Frenchman.[816] And at the very moment when these things were passing, another eminent Frenchman, the illustrious Sully,[817] was collecting the materials for his historical work, which, though hardly equal to that of De Thou, comes immediately after it in ability, in importance, and in reputation. Nor can we fail to remark, that both these great historians, who left all their predecessors immeasurably behind them, were the confidential ministers and intimate friends of Henry IV., the first king of France whose memory is stained by the imputation of heresy, and the first who dared to change his religion, not in consequence of any theological arguments, but on the broad and notorious ground of political expediency.[818]
But it was not merely over such eminent historians as these that the sceptical spirit displayed its influence. The movement was now becoming sufficiently active to leave its marks in the writings of far inferior men. There were two particulars in which the credulity of the earlier historians was very striking. These consisted in the uncritical manner in which, by blindly copying their predecessors, they confused the dates of different events; and in the readiness with which they believed the most improbable statements, upon imperfect evidence, and often upon no evidence at all. It is surely a singular proof of that intellectual progress which I am endeavouring to trace, that, within a very few years, both these sources of error were removed. In 1597, Serres was appointed historiographer of France; and, in the same year, he published his history of that country.[819] In this work, he insists upon the necessity of carefully recording the date of each event; and the example, which he first set, has, since his time, been generally followed.[820] The importance of this change will be willingly acknowledged by those who are aware of the confusion into which history has been thrown by the earlier writers having neglected, what now seems, so obvious a precaution. Scarcely had this innovation been established, when it was followed, in the same country, by another of still greater moment. This was the appearance, in 1621, of a history of France, by Scipio Dupleix; in which, for the first time, the evidence for historical facts was published with the facts themselves.[821] It is needless to insist upon the utility of a step which, more than any other, has taught historians to be industrious in collecting their authorities, and careful in scrutinizing them.[822] To this may be added, that Dupleix was also the first Frenchman who ventured to publish a system of philosophy in his own language.[823] It is true, that the system itself is intrinsically of little value;[824] but, at the time it appeared, it was an unprecedented, and, on that account, a profane attempt, to unfold the mysteries of philosophy in the vulgar speech; and, in this point of view, supplies evidence of the increasing diffusion of a spirit bolder and more inquisitive than any formerly known. It is not, therefore, surprising, that, almost at the same moment, there should be made, in the same country, the first systematic attempt at historical scepticism. The system of philosophy by Dupleix appeared in 1602; and in 1599, La Popelinière published at Paris what he calls the History of Histories, in which he criticizes historians themselves, and examines their works with that sceptical spirit, to which his own age was deeply indebted.[825] This able man was also the author of a Sketch of the New History of the French; containing a formal refutation of that fable, so dear to the early historians, according to which the monarchy of France was founded by Francus, who arrived in Gaul after the conclusion of the siege of Troy.[826]
It would be useless to collect all the instances in which this advancing spirit of scepticism now began to purge history of its falsehoods. I will only mention two or three more of those which have occurred in my reading. In 1614, De Rubis published at Lyons a work on the European monarchies; in which he not only attacks the long-established belief respecting the descent from Francus, but boldly asserts, that the Franks owe their name to their ancient liberties.[827] In 1620, Gomberville, in a dissertation on history, refutes many of those idle stories respecting the antiquity of the French, which had been universally received until his time.[828] And, in 1630, Berthault published at Paris the ‘French Floras,’ in which he completely upsets the old method; since he lays it down as a fundamental principle, that the origin of the French must only be sought for in those countries where they were found by the Romans.[829]
All these, and similar productions, were, however, entirely eclipsed by Mezeray's History of France; the first volume of which was published in 1643, and the last in 1651.[830] It is, perhaps, hardly fair to his predecessors, to call him the first general historian of France;[831] but there can be no doubt that his work is greatly superior to any that had yet been seen. The style of Mezeray is admirably clear and vigorous, rising, at times, to considerable eloquence. Besides this, he has two other merits much more important. These are, an indisposition to believe strange things, merely because they have hitherto been believed; and an inclination to take the side of the people, rather than that of their rulers.[832] Of these principles, the first was too common among the ablest Frenchmen of that time to excite much attention.[833] But the other principle enabled Mezeray to advance an important step before all his contemporaries. He was the first Frenchman who, in a great historical work, threw off that superstitious reverence for royalty which had long troubled the minds of his countrymen, and which, indeed, continued to haunt them for another century. As a necessary consequence, he was also the first who saw that a history, to be of real value, must be a history, not only of kings, but of nations. A steady perception of this principle led him to incorporate into his book matters which, before his time, no one cared to study. He communicates all the information he could collect respecting the taxes which the people had paid; the sufferings they had undergone from the gripping hands of their governors; their manners, their comforts, even the state of the towns which they inhabited; in a word, what affected the interests of the French people, as well as what affected the interests of the French monarchy.[834] These were the subjects which Mezeray preferred to insignificant details respecting the pomp of courts and the lives of kings. These were the large and comprehensive matters on which he loved to dwell, and on which he expatiated; not, indeed, with so much fulness as we could desire, but still with a spirit and an accuracy which entitles him to the honour of being the greatest historian France produced before the eighteenth century.
This was, in many respects, the most important change which had yet been effected in the manner of writing history. If the plan begun by Mezeray had been completed by his successors, we should possess materials, the absence of which no modern researches can possibly compensate. Some things, indeed, we should, in that case, have lost. We should know less than we now know of courts and of camps. We should have heard less of the peerless beauty of French queens, and of the dignified presence of French kings. We might even have missed some of the links of that evidence by which the genealogies of princes and nobles are ascertained, and the study of which delights the curiosity of antiquaries and heralds. But, on the other hand, we should have been able to examine the state of the French people during the latter half of the seventeenth century; while, as things now stand, our knowledge of them, in that most important period, is inferior in accuracy and in extent to the knowledge we possess of some of the most barbarous tribes of the earth.[835] If the example of Mezeray had been followed, with such additional resources as the progress of affairs would have supplied, we should not only have the means of minutely tracing the growth of a great and civilised nation, but we should have materials that would suggest or verify those original principles, the discovery of which constitutes the real use of history.
But this was not to be. Unhappily for the interests of knowledge, the march of French civilization was, at this period, suddenly checked. Soon after the middle of the seventeenth century, that lamentable change took place in France, which gave a new turn to the destinies of the nation. The reaction which the spirit of inquiry underwent, and the social and intellectual circumstances which, by bringing the Fronde to a premature close, prepared the way for Louis XIV., have been described in a former part of this volume, where I have attempted to indicate the general effects of the disastrous movement. It now remains for me to point out how this retrogressive tendency opposed obstacles to the improvement of historical literature, and prevented authors, not only from relating with honesty what was passing around them, but also from understanding events which had occurred before their time.
The most superficial students of French literature must be struck by the dearth of historians during that long period in which Louis XIV. held the reins of government.[836] To this, the personal peculiarities of the king greatly contributed. His education had been shamefully neglected; and as he never had the energy to repair its deficiencies, he all his life remained ignorant of many things with which even princes are usually familiar.[837] Of the course of past events he knew literally nothing, and he took no interest in any history except the history of his own exploits. Among a free people, this indifference on the part of the sovereign could never have produced injurious results; indeed, as we have already seen, the absence of royal patronage is, in a highly civilized country, the most favourable condition of literature. But at the accession of Louis XIV. the liberties of the French were still too young, and the habits of independent thought too recent, to enable them to bear up against that combination of the crown and the church, which was directed against them. The French, becoming every day more servile, at length sunk so low, that, by the end of the seventeenth century, they seemed to have lost even the wish of resistance. The king, meeting no opposition, endeavoured to exercise over the intellect of the country an authority equal to that with which he conducted its government.[838] In all the great questions of religion and of politics, the spirit of inquiry was stifled, and no man was allowed to express an opinion unfavourable to the existing state of things. As the king was willing to endow literature, he naturally thought that he had a right to its services. Authors, who were fed by his hand, were not to raise their voices against his policy. They received his wages, and they were bound to do the bidding of him who paid them. When Louis assumed the government, Mezeray was still living; though I need hardly say that his great work was published before this system of protection and patronage came into play. The treatment to which he, the great historian of France, was now subjected, was a specimen of the new arrangement. He received from the crown a pension of four thousand francs; but when he, in 1668, published an abridgment of his History,[839] it was intimated to him that some remarks upon the tendency of taxation were likely to cause offence in high quarters. As, however, it was soon found that Mezeray was too honest and too fearless to retract what he had written, it was determined to have recourse to intimidation, and half of his pension was taken from him.[840] But as this did not produce a proper effect, another order was issued, which deprived him of the remaining half; and thus early, in this bad reign, there was set an example of punishing a man for writing with honesty upon a subject in which, of all others, honesty is the first essential.[841]
Such conduct as this showed what historians were to expect from the government of Louis XIV. Several years later, the king took another opportunity of displaying the same spirit. Fénelon had been appointed preceptor to the grandson of Louis, whose early vices his firmness and judgment did much to repress.[842] But a single circumstance was thought sufficient to outweigh the immense service which Fénelon thus rendered to the royal family, and, if his pupil had come to the throne, would have rendered prospectively to the whole of France. His celebrated romance, Telemachus, was published in 1699, as it appears, without his consent.[843] The king suspected that, under the guise of a fiction, Fénelon intended to reflect on the conduct of government. It was in vain that the author denied so dangerous an imputation. The indignation of the king was not to be appeased. He banished Fénelon from the court; and would never again admit to his presence a man whom he suspected of even insinuating a criticism upon the measures adopted by the administration of the country.[844]
If the king could, on mere suspicion, thus treat a great writer, who had the rank of an archbishop and the reputation of a saint, it was not likely that he would deal more tenderly with inferior men. In 1681, the Abbé Primi, an Italian, then residing at Paris, was induced to write a history of Louis XIV. The king, delighted with the idea of perpetuating his own fame, conferred several rewards upon the author: and arrangements were made that the work should be composed in Italian, and immediately translated into French. But when the history appeared, there were found in it some circumstances which it was thought ought not to have been disclosed. On this account, Louis caused the book to be suppressed, the papers of the author to be seized, and the author himself to be thrown into the Bastille.[845]
Those, indeed, were dangerous times for independent men; times when no writer on politics or religion was safe, unless he followed the fashion of the day, and defended the opinions of the court and the church. The king, who had an insatiable thirst for what he called glory,[846] laboured to degrade contemporary historians into mere chroniclers of his own achievements. He ordered Racine and Boileau to write an account of his reign; he settled a pension upon them, and he promised to supply them with the necessary materials.[847] But even Racine and Boileau, poets though they were, knew that they would fail in satisfying his morbid vanity; they, therefore, received the pension, but omitted to compose the work for which the pension was conferred. So notorious was the unwillingness of able men to meddle with history, that it was thought advisable to beat up literary recruits from foreign countries. The case of the Abbé Primi has just been mentioned; he was an Italian, and only one year later a similar offer was made to an Englishman. In 1683, Burnet visited France, and was given to understand that he might receive a pension, and that he might even enjoy the honour of conversing with Louis himself, provided he would write a history of the royal affairs; such history, it was carefully added, being on the ‘side’ of the French king.[848]
Under such circumstances as these, it is no wonder that history, so far as its great essentials are concerned, should have rapidly declined during the power of Louis XIV. It became, as some think, more elegant; but it certainly became more feeble. The language in which it was composed was worked with great care, the periods neatly arranged, the epithets soft and harmonious. For that was a polite and obsequious age, full of reverence, of duty, and of admiration. In history, as it was then written, every king was a hero, and every bishop was a saint. All unpleasant truths were suppressed; nothing harsh or unkind was to be told. These docile and submissive sentiments being expressed in an easy and flowing style, gave to history that air of refinement, that gentle, unobtrusive gait, which made it popular with the classes that it flattered. But even so, while its form was polished, its life was extinct. All its independence was gone, all its honesty, all its boldness. The noblest and the most difficult department of knowledge, the study of the movements of the human race, was abandoned to every timid and creeping intellect that cared to cultivate it. There was Boulainvilliers, and Daniel, and Maimburg, and Varillas, and Vertot, and numerous others, who in the reign of Louis XIV. were believed to be historians; but whose histories have scarcely any merit, except that of enabling us to appreciate the period in which such productions were admired, and the system of which they were the representatives.
To give a complete view of the decline of historical literature in France, from the time of Mezeray until early in the eighteenth century, would require a summary of every history which was written; for all of them were pervaded by the same spirit. But, as this would occupy much too large a space, it will probably be thought sufficient if I confine myself to such illustrations as will bring the tendency of the age most clearly before the reader; and for this purpose, I will notice the works of two historians I have not yet mentioned; one of whom was celebrated as an antiquary, the other as a theologian. Both possessed considerable learning, and one was a man of undoubted genius; their works are, therefore, worth attention, as symptoms of the state of the French intellect late in the seventeenth century. The name of the antiquary was Audigier; the name of the theologian was Bossuet: and from them we may learn something respecting the way in which, during the reign of Louis XIV., it was usual to contemplate the transactions of past ages.
The celebrated work of Audigier, on the Origin of the French, was published at Paris in 1676.[849] It would be unjust to deny that the author was a man of great and careful reading. But his credulity, his prejudices, his reverence for antiquity, and his dutiful admiration for everything established by the church and the court, warped his judgment to an extent which, in our time, seems incredible; and, as there are probably few persons in England who have read his once famous book, I will give an outline of its leading views.
In this great history we are told, that 3464 years after the creation of the world, and 590 years before the birth of Christ, was the exact period at which Sigovese, nephew to the king of the Celts, was first sent into Germany.[850] Those who accompanied him were necessarily travellers; and as, in the German language, wandeln means to go, we have here the origin of the Vandals.[851] But the antiquity of the Vandals is far surpassed by that of the French. Jupiter, Pluto, and Neptune, who are sometimes supposed to be gods, were in reality kings of Gaul.[852] And, if we look back a little further, it becomes certain that Gallus, the founder of Gaul, was no other than Noah himself; for in those days the same man frequently had two names.[853] As to the subsequent history of the French, it was fully equal to the dignity of their origin. Alexander the Great, even in all the pride of his victories, never dared to attack the Scythians, who were a colony sent from France.[854] It is from these great occupiers of France that there have proceeded all the gods of Europe, all the fine arts, and all the sciences.[855] The English themselves are merely a colony of the French, as must be evident to whoever considers the similarity of the words Angles and Anjou;[856] and to this fortunate descent the natives of the British islands are indebted for such bravery and politeness as they still possess.[857] Several other points are cleared up by this great critic with equal faculty. The Salian Franks were so called from the rapidity of their flight;[858] the Bretons were evidently Saxons;[859] and even the Scotch, about whose independence so much has been said, were vassals to the kings of France.[860] Indeed, it is impossible to exaggerate the dignity of the crown of France; it is difficult even to conceive its splendour. Some have supposed that the emperors are superior to the kings of France, but this is the mistake of ignorant men; for an emperor means a mere military ruler, while the title of king includes all the functions of supreme power.[861] To put the question, therefore, on its real footing, the great king Louis XIV. is an emperor, as have been all his predecessors, the illustrious rulers of France, for fifteen centuries.[862] And it is an undoubted fact, that Antichrist, about whom so much anxiety is felt, will never be allowed to appear in the world until the French empire has been destroyed. This, says Audigier, it would be idle to deny; for it is asserted by many of the saints, and it is distinctly foreshadowed by St. Paul, in his second epistle to the Thessalonians.[863]
Strange as all this appears, there was nothing in it to revolt the enlightened age of Louis XIV. Indeed, the French, dazzled by the brilliancy of their prince, must have felt great interest in learning how superior he was to all other potentates, and how he had not only been preceded by a long line of emperors, but was in fact an emperor himself. They must have been struck with awe at the information communicated by Audigier respecting the arrival of Antichrist, and the connexion between that important event and the fate of the French monarchy. They must have listened with pious wonder to the illustration of these matters from the writings of the fathers, and from the epistle to the Thessalonians. All this they would easily receive; because to worship the king, and venerate the church, were the two cardinal maxims of that age. To obey, and to believe, were the fundamental ideas of a period, in which the fine arts did for a time flourish,—in which the perception of beauty, though too fastidious, was undoubtedly keen,—in which taste and the imagination, in its lower departments, were zealously cultivated,—but in which, on the other hand, originality and independence of thought were extinguished, the greatest and the largest topics were forbidden to be discussed, the sciences were almost deserted, reforms and innovations were hated, new opinions were despised, and their authors punished, until at length, the exuberance of genius being tamed into sterility, the national intellect was reduced to that dull and monotonous level which characterizes the last twenty years of the reign of Louis XIV.
In no instance can we find a better example of this reactionary movement, than in the case of Bossuet, bishop of Meaux. The success, and indeed the mere existence, of his work on Universal History, becomes, from this point of view, highly instructive. Considered by itself, the book is a painful exhibition of a great genius cramped by a superstitious age. But considered in reference to the time in which it appeared, it is invaluable as a symptom of the French intellect; since it proves, that towards the end of the seventeenth century, one of the most eminent men, in one of the first countries of Europe, could willingly submit to a prostration of judgment, and could display a blind credulity, of which, in our day, even the feeblest minds would be ashamed; and that this, so far from causing scandal, or bringing a rebuke on the head of the author, was received with universal and unqualified applause. Bossuet was a great orator, a consummate dialectician, and an accomplished master of those vague sublimities by which most men are easily affected. All these qualities he, a few years later, employed in the production of what is probably the most formidable work ever directed against Protestantism.[864] But when he, leaving these matters, entered the vast field of history, he could think of no better way of treating his new subject, than by following the arbitrary rules peculiar to his own profession.[865] His work is an audacious attempt to degrade history to a mere handmaid of theology.[866] As if, on such matters, doubt were synonymous with crime, he, without the slightest hesitation, takes everything for granted which the church had been accustomed to believe. This enables him to speak with perfect confidence respecting events which are lost in the remotest antiquity. He knows the exact number of years which have elapsed since the moment when Cain murdered his brother; when the deluge overwhelmed the world; and when Abraham was summoned to his mission.[867] The dates of these, and similar occurrences, he fixes with a precision, which might almost make us believe that they had taken place in his own time, if not under his own eyes.[868] It is true, that the Hebrew books on which he willingly relied, supply no evidence of the slightest value concerning the chronology even of their own people; while the information they contain respecting other countries is notoriously meagre and unsatisfactory.[869] But so narrow were the views of Bossuet upon history, that with all this he, in his own opinion, had no concern. The text of the Vulgate declared, that these things had happened at a particular time; and a number of holy men, calling themselves the council of the church, had, in the middle of the sixteenth century, pronounced the Vulgate to be authentic, and had taken upon themselves to place it above all other versions.[870] This theological opinion was accepted by Bossuet as an historical law; and thus the decision of a handful of cardinals and bishops, in a superstitious and uncritical age, is the sole authority for that early chronology, the precision of which is, to an uninformed reader, a matter of great admiration.[871]
In the same way, because Bossuet had been taught that the Jews are the chosen people of God, he, under the title of Universal History, almost confines his attention to them, and treats this obstinate and ignorant race as if they formed the pivot upon which the affairs of the universe had been made to turn.[872] His idea of an universal history excludes those nations who were the first to reach civilization, and to some of whom the Hebrews owed the scanty knowledge which they subsequently acquired.[873] He says little of the Persians, and less of the Egyptians; nor does he even mention that far greater people between the Indus and the Ganges, whose philosophy formed one of the elements of the school of Alexandria, whose subtle speculations anticipated all the efforts of European metaphysics, and whose sublime inquiries, conducted in their own exquisite language, date from a period when the Jews, stained with every variety of crime, were a plundering and vagabond tribe, wandering on the face of the earth, raising their hand against every man and every man raising his hand against them.
When he enters the more modern period, he allows himself to be governed by the same theological prejudices. So contracted is his view, that he considers the whole history of the church as the history of providential interference; and he takes no notice of the manner in which, contrary to the original scheme, it has been affected by foreign events.[874] Thus, for example, the most important fact relating to the early changes in Christianity, is the extent to which its doctrines have been influenced by the African form of the Platonic philosophy.[875] But this, Bossuet never mentions; nor does he even hint that any such thing had occurred. It suited his views to look upon the church as a perpetual miracle, and he therefore omits the most important event in its early history.[876] To descend a little later: every one acquainted with the progress of civilization will allow, that no small share of it is due to those gleams of light, which, in the midst of surrounding darkness, shot from the great centres of Cordova and Bagdad. These, however, were the work of Mohammedanism; and as Bossuet had been taught that Mohammedanism is a pestilential heresy, he could not bring himself to believe that Christian nations had derived anything from so corrupt a source. The consequence is, that he says nothing of that great religion, the noise of which has filled the world;[877] and having occasion to mention its founder, he treats him with scorn, as an impudent impostor, whose pretensions it is hardly fitting to notice.[878] The great apostle, who diffused among millions of idolaters the sublime verity of one God, is spoken of by Bossuet with supreme contempt; because Bossuet, with the true spirit of his profession, could see nothing to admire in those whose opinions differed from his own.[879] But when he has occasion to mention some obscure member of that class to which he himself belonged, then it is that he scatters his praises with boundless profusion. In his scheme of universal history, Mohammed is not worthy to play a part. He is passed by; but the truly great man, the man to whom the human race is really indebted, is—Martin, bishop of Tours. He it is, says Bossuet, whose unrivalled actions filled the universe with his fame, both during his lifetime and after his death.[880] It is true, that not one educated man in fifty has ever heard the name of Martin, bishop of Tours. But Martin performed miracles, and the church had made him a saint; his claims, therefore, to the attention of historians must be far superior to the claims of one who, like Mohammed, was without these advantages. Thus it is that, in the opinion of the only eminent writer on history during the power of Louis XIV., the greatest man Asia has ever produced, and one of the greatest the world has ever seen, is considered in every way inferior to a mean and ignorant monk, whose most important achievement was the erection of a monastery, and who spent the best part of his life in useless solitude, trembling before the superstitious fancies of his weak and ignoble nature.[881]
Such was the narrow spirit with which the great facts of history were contemplated by a writer, who, when he was confined to his own department, displayed the most towering genius. This contracted view was the inevitable consequence of his attempt to explain the complicated movements of the human race by principles which he had generalized from his own inferior studies.[882] Nor need any one be offended, that, from a scientific point of view, I assign to the pursuits of Bossuet a rank lower than that in which they are sometimes placed. It is certain that religious dogmas do, in many cases, influence the affairs of men. But it is equally certain, that as civilization advances, such influence decreases, and that even when the power of those dogmas was at its height, there were many other motives by which the actions of mankind were also governed. And since the study of history is the study of the aggregate of these motives, it is evident that history must be superior to theology; just as the whole is superior to a part. A neglect of this simple consideration has, with a few eminent exceptions, led all ecclesiastical authors into serious errors. It has induced in them a disposition to disregard the immense variety of external events, and to suppose that the course of affairs is regulated by some principles which theology alone can detect. This, indeed, is only the result of a general law of the mind, by which those who have any favourite profession, are apt to exaggerate its capacity; to explain events by its maxims, and as it were, to refract through its medium the occurrences of life.[883] Among theologians, however, such prejudices are more dangerous than in any other profession, because among them alone are they fortified by that bold assumption of supernatural authority on which many of the clergy willingly rely.
These professional prejudices, when supported by theological dogmas, in a reign like that of Louis XIV.,[884] are sufficient to account for the peculiarities which mark the historical work of Bossuet. Besides this, in his case, the general tendency was aggravated by personal characteristics. His mind was remarkable for a haughtiness, which we find constantly breaking out into a general contempt for mankind.[885] At the same time his amazing eloquence, and the effects which it never failed to produce, seemed to justify the overweening confidence that he felt in his own powers. There is, indeed, in some of his greatest efforts, so much of the fire and majesty of genius, that we are reminded of those lofty and burning words with which the prophets of antiquity thrilled their hearers. Bossuet, thus standing, as he supposed, on an eminence which raised him above the ordinary weaknesses of men, loved to taunt them with their follies, and to deride every aspiration of their genius. Every thing like intellectual boldness seemed to gall his own superiority.[886] It was this boundless arrogance with which he was filled, which gives to his works some of their most marked peculiarities. It was this, that made him strain every nerve to abase and vilify those prodigious resources of the human understanding, which are often despised by men who are ignorant of them; but which in reality are so great, that no one has yet arisen able to scan them in the whole of their gigantic dimensions. It was this same contempt for the human intellect, that made him deny its capacity to work out for itself the epochs through which it has passed; and, consequently, made him recur to the dogma of supernatural interference. It was this, again, that, in those magnificent orations which are among the greatest wonders of modern art, caused him to exhaust the language of eulogy, not upon intellectual eminence, but upon mere military achievements, upon great conquerors, those pests and destroyers of men, who pass their lives in discovering new ways of slaying their enemies, and in devising new means of aggravating the miseries of the world. And, to descend still lower, it was this same contempt for the dearest interests of mankind, which made him look with reverence upon a king, who considered all those interests as nothing; but who had the merit of enslaving the mind of France, and of increasing the power of that body of men, among whom Bossuet himself was the most distinguished.
In the absence of sufficient evidence respecting the general state of the French at the end of the seventeenth century, it is impossible to ascertain to what extent such notions as these had penetrated the popular mind. But, looking at the manner in which government had broken the spirit of the country, I should be inclined to suppose that the opinions of Bossuet were very acceptable to his own generation. This, however, is a question rather of curiosity than of importance; for only a few years later there appeared the first symptoms of that unprecedented movement, which not merely destroyed the political institutions of France, but effected a greater and more permanent revolution in every department of the national intellect. At the death of Louis XIV., in literature, as well as in politics, in religion, and in morals, everything was ripe for reaction. The materials still existing are so ample, that it would be possible to trace with considerable minuteness the steps of this great process; but it will, I think, be more agreeable to the general scheme of this Introduction, if I pass over some of the intermediate links, and confine myself to those salient instances in which the spirit of the age is most strikingly portrayed.
There is, indeed, something extraordinary in the change which, in France, one generation was able to effect in the method of writing history. The best way, perhaps, to form an idea of this, will be to compare the works of Voltaire with those of Bossuet; because these great authors were probably the most able, and were certainly the most influential, Frenchmen during the period they respectively represented. The first great improvement which we find in Voltaire, as compared with Bossuet, is an increased perception of the dignity of the human intellect. In addition to the circumstances already noticed, we must remember that the reading of Bossuet lay in a direction which prevented him from feeling this. He had not studied those branches of knowledge where great things have been achieved; but he was very conversant with the writings of the saints and fathers, whose speculations are by no means calculated to give us a high opinion of the resources of their own understanding. Thus accustomed to contemplate the workings of the mind in what is, on the whole, the most puerile literature Europe has ever produced, the contempt which Bossuet felt for mankind went on increasing; until it reached that inordinate degree which, in his later works, is painfully conspicuous. But Voltaire, who paid no attention to such things as these, passed his long life in the constant accumulation of real and available knowledge. His mind was essentially modern. Despising unsupported authority, and heedless of tradition, he devoted himself to subjects in which the triumph of the human reason is too apparent to be mistaken. The more his knowledge advanced, the more he admired those vast powers by which the knowledge had been created. Hence his admiration for the intellect of man, so far from diminishing, grew with his growth; and, just in the same proportion, there was strengthened his love of humanity, and his dislike to the prejudices which had long obscured its history. That this, in the march of his mind, was the course it actually followed, will be evident to any one who considers the different spirit of his works, in reference to the different periods of life in which they were produced.
The first historical work of Voltaire was a life of Charles XII., in 1728.[887] At this time his knowledge was still scanty, and he was still influenced by the servile traditions of the preceding generation. It is not, therefore, wonderful, that he should express the greatest respect for Charles, who, among the admirers of military fame, will always preserve a certain reputation; though his only merits are, that he ravaged many countries and killed many men. But we find little sympathy with his unfortunate subjects, the accumulations of whose industry supported the royal armies;[888] nor is there much pity for those nations who were oppressed by this great robber in the immense line of his conquests from Sweden to Turkey. Indeed, the admiration of Voltaire for Charles is unbounded. He calls him the most extraordinary man the world had ever seen;[889] he declares him to be a prince full of honour;[890] and while he scarcely blames his infamous murder of Patkul,[891] he relates with evident emotion how the royal lunatic, at the head of forty servants, resisted an entire army.[892] In the same way, he says, that after the battle of Narva, all the attempts of Charles were unable to prevent medals from being struck at Stockholm in celebration of that event;[893] although Voltaire well knew that a man of such extravagant vanity must have been pleased by so durable a homage, and although it is quite certain that if he had not been pleased, the medals would never have been struck: for who would venture, without an object, to offend, in his own capital, one of the most arbitrary and revengeful of princes?
So far, it might appear that little had been gained in the method of writing history.[894] But, even thus early, we find one vast improvement. In Voltaire's Life of Charles XII., faulty as it is, there are none of those assumptions of supernatural interference in which Bossuet delighted, and which were natural to the reign of Louis XIV. The absence of this marks the first great stage in the French school of history in the eighteenth century; and we find the same peculiarity in all the subsequent historians, none of whom recurred to a method, which, though suitable for the purposes of theologians, is fatal to all independent inquiries, since it not only prescribes the course the inquirer is bound to take, but actually sets up a limit beyond which he is forbidden to proceed.
That Voltaire should have infringed upon this ancient method only thirteen years after the death of Louis XIV., and that he should have done this in a popular work, abounding with such dangerous adventures as are always found to tempt the mind to an opposite course, is a step of no common merit, and becomes still more worthy of remark, if taken in connexion with another fact of considerable interest. This is, that the life of Charles XII. represents the first epoch, not only in the eighteenth century, but also in the intellect of Voltaire himself.[895] After it was published, this great man turned awhile from history, and directed his attention to some of the noblest subjects: to mathematics, to physics, to jurisprudence, to the discoveries of Newton, and to the speculations of Locke. In these things he perceived those capabilities of the human mind, which his own country had formerly witnessed, but of which during the authority of Louis XIV. the memory had been almost lost. Then it was that, with extended knowledge and sharpened intellect, he returned to the great field of history.[896] The manner in which he now treated his old subject, showed the change that had come over him. In 1752, appeared his celebrated work on Louis XIV.,[897] the very title of which is suggestive of the process through which his mind had passed. His former history was an account of a king; this is an account of an age. To the production of his youth he gave the title of a History of Charles XII.; this he called the Age of Louis XIV. Before, he had detailed the peculiarities of a prince; now, he considered the movements of a people. Indeed, in the introduction to the work, he announces his intention to describe, ‘not the actions of a single man, but the character of men.’[898] Nor, in this point of view, is the execution inferior to the design. While he is contented with giving a summary of military achievements, on which Bossuet hung with delight, he enters at great length into those really important matters which, before his time, found no place in the history of France. He has one chapter on commerce and internal government;[899] another chapter on finances;[900] another on the history of science;[901] and three chapters on the progress of the fine arts.[902] And though Voltaire did not attach much value to theological disputes, still he knew that they have often played a great part in the affairs of men; he therefore gives several distinct chapters to a relation of ecclesiastical matters during the reign of Louis.[903] It is hardly necessary to observe the immense superiority which a scheme like this possessed, not only over the narrow views of Bossuet, but even over his own earlier history. Still it cannot be denied, that we find in it prejudices from which it was difficult for a Frenchman, educated in the reign of Louis XIV., to be entirely free. Not only does Voltaire dwell at needless length upon those amusements and debaucheries of Louis, with which history can have little concern, but he displays an evident disposition to favour the king himself, and to protect his name from the infamy with which it ought to be covered.[904]
But the next work of Voltaire showed that this was a mere personal feeling, and did not affect his general views as to the part which the acts of princes ought to occupy in history. Four years after the appearance of the Age of Louis XIV., he published his important treatise on the Morals, Manners, and Character of Nations.[905] This is not only one of the greatest books which appeared during the eighteenth century, but it still remains the best on the subject to which it refers. The mere reading it displays is immense;[906] what, however, is far more admirable, is the skill with which the author connects the various facts, and makes them illustrate each other, sometimes by a single remark, sometimes only by the order and position in which they are placed. Indeed, considered solely as a work of art, it would be difficult to praise it too highly; while, as a symptom of the times, it is important to observe, that it contains no traces of that adulation of royalty which characterized Voltaire in the period of his youth, and which is found in all the best writers during the power of Louis XIV. In the whole of this long and important work, the great historian takes little notice of the intrigues of courts, or of the changes of ministers, or of the fate of kings; but he endeavours to discover and develop the different epochs through which Man has successively passed. ‘I wish,’ he says, ‘to write a history, not of wars, but of society; and to ascertain how men lived in the interior of their families, and what were the arts which they commonly cultivated.’[907] For, he adds, ‘my object is the history of the human mind, and not a mere detail of petty facts; nor am I concerned with the history of great lords, who made war upon French kings; but I want to know what were the steps by which men passed from barbarism to civilization.’[908]
It was in this way that Voltaire taught historians to concentrate their attention on matters of real importance, and to neglect those idle details with which history had formerly been filled. But what proves this to be a movement arising as much from the spirit of the age as from the individual author, is, that we find precisely the same tendency in the works of Montesquieu and Turgot, who were certainly the two most eminent of the contemporaries of Voltaire; and both of whom followed a method similar to his, in so far as, omitting descriptions of kings, courts, and battles, they confined themselves to points which illustrate the character of mankind, and the general march of civilization. And such was the popularity of this change in the old routine, that its influence was felt by other historians of inferior, but still of considerable, ability. In 1755, Mallet[909] published his interesting, and, at the time it was written, most valuable work, on the history of Denmark;[910] in which he professes himself a pupil of the new school. ‘For why,’ he says, ‘should history be only a recital of battles, sieges, intrigues, and negotiations? And why should it contain merely a heap of petty facts and dates, rather than a great picture of the opinions, customs, and even inclinations of a people?’[911] Thus too, in 1765, Mably published the first part of his celebrated work on the history of France;[912] in the preface to which, he complains that historians ‘have neglected the origin of laws and customs, in favour of sieges and battles.’[913] In the same spirit, Velly and Villaret, in their voluminous history of France, express regret that historians should usually relate what happens to the sovereign, in preference to what happens to the people, and should omit the manners and characteristics of a nation, in order to study the acts of a single man.[914] Duclos, again, announces that his history is not of war, nor of politics, but of men and manners:[915] while, strange to say, even the courtly Hénault declares that his object was to describe laws and manners, which he calls the soul of history, or rather history itself.[916]
Thus it was, that historians began to shift, as it were, the scene of their labours, and to study subjects connected with those popular interests, on which the great writers under Louis XIV. disdained to waste a thought. I need hardly observe, how agreeable such views were to the general spirit of the eighteenth century, and how well they harmonized with the temper of men who were striving to lay aside their former prejudices, and despise what had once been universally admired. All this was but part of that vast movement, which prepared the way for the Revolution, by unsettling ancient opinions, by encouraging a certain mobility and restlessness of mind, and, above all, by the disrespect it showed for those powerful individuals, hitherto regarded as gods rather than as men, but who now, for the first time, were neglected by the greatest and most popular historians, who passed over even their prominent actions, in order to dwell upon the welfare of nations, and the interests of the people at large.
To return, however, to what was actually effected by Voltaire, there is no doubt that, in his case, this tendency of the time was strengthened by a natural comprehensiveness of mind, which predisposed him to large views, and made him dissatisfied with that narrow range to which history had been hitherto confined.[917] Whatever may be thought of the other qualities of Voltaire, it must be allowed that, in his intellect, everything was on a great scale.[918] Always prepared for thought, and always ready to generalize, he was averse to the study of individual actions, unless they could be made available for the establishment of some broad and permanent principle. Hence his habit of looking at history with a view to the stages through which the country had passed, rather than with a view to the character of the men by whom the country had been governed. The same tendency appears in his lighter works; and it has been well observed,[919] that, even in his dramas, he endeavours to portray, not so much the passions of individuals, as the spirit of epochs. In Mahomet, his subject is a great religion; in Alzire, the conquest of America; in Brutus, the formation of the Roman power; in the Death of Cæsar, the rise of the empire upon the ruins of that power.[920]