FRENCH PROSE OF THE XVII CENTURY SELECTED AND EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY F. M. WARREN PROFESSOR IN YALE UNIVERSITY D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO PREFACE. THE authors who appear in these selections are Descartes, Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, Bossuet and La Bruyère. Descartes is represented by the first four chapters of the Discours de la méthode - the text after Victor Cousin's edition of Descartes' works (Œuvres, Paris, 1824-1826, 11 vols., 8vo); Pascal by the first, fourth and thirteenth of his Lettres provinciales-the text being with slight variations the text of the edition of 1659, the last published during Pascal's life (see Prosper Faugère: les Provinciales, Paris, 1886-1895, 2 vols., 8vo; variants to the text),—and by selections from the Pensées, after the edition of Ernest Havet (third edition, Paris, 1880, 2 vols., 8vo); La Rochefoucauld by selections from the Maximes after D. L. Gilbert's edition in the series of "Les Grands Écrivains (Paris, 1868, vol. I, 8vo); Bossuet by the funeral orations on Madame and the Prince de Condé (text after Albert Cahen's Oraisons funèbres, Paris, 1884, 12mo); and La Bruyère by extracts from his Caractères after Gustave Servois' edition in "Les Grands Écrivains" series (Paris, 1865, vols. I-II, 8vo). These editions have also furnished the main body of the notes. Other aids which should be mentioned are the school editions of Descartes' Discours de la méthode by H. Joly, Pascal's Provinciales (the three given here) by F. Brunetière, Bossuet's Oraisons funèbres by A. Gazier and La Bruyère's Caractères by G. Servois and A. Rébelliau, iii |