CHAPTER XXXVIII.

DAWN OF THE AGE OF REVOLUTIONS.

SECTION I.-FRENCH LITERATURE AND THE AGE OF

REFORM (A. D. 1750-1792).

of French Writers.

ABOUT the middle of the eighteenth century the foundations of all Influence existing social, political and religious institutions were terribly shaken by a class of French writers-such as Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau and the Encyclopedists-who fearlessly attacked abuses in Church and State with unanswerable arguments and with the keenest wit and

sarcasm.

These ingenious French writers, while attacking all that was vulnerable and that should have been wiped out, also assailed much that was valuable and beneficent. This French literature opposed religious constitutions and ecclesiastical order, attacked the prevailing forms of government, and represented the conditions of men and forms of society in the character of antiquated abuses. While these writers first assailed real blemishes and faults, in religion and the Church, in politics and law, in civil regulations and social relations, they gradually undermined all the foundations of human society and spread general discontent among the masses.

Character

of Their Writings.

Effects

While these French writers sought to abolish all immunities, privileges of Their Writings. and class prerogatives, and to give due value to freedom and personal merit, they also weakened the force of old statutes and rights and the strength of authority. While they assailed superstitious prejudices and worn-out opinions, they also confused faith and conscience, destroyed the veneration and reverence for all religion, and propagated the idea that human happiness could exist only on the ruins of existing institutions.

Such was especially the case with the literary productions of Voltaire, Montesquieu and Rousseau, whose ingenious writings were read by all the learned class of Europe, because of the charm, of their beautiful language and powers of description. These great writers pursued different paths, but with similar results.

The Three

Great

French

Writers.

Voltaire.

Montes

quieu.

Rousseau.

His

Voltaire, who was born in 1694, was a versatile and ingenious author, who had acquired fame in all kinds of literature. He mercilessly assailed everything customary and long established, all prevailing opinions and existing institutions, without the least concern as to what should be substituted in their stead. In his dramatic and epic poems-such as Mohammed, The Henriad, The Maid of Orleans-and in satires and romances, in historical and philosophical works-such as Times of Louis XIV., History of Charles XII. of Sweden, Essay on the Customs and Genius of Nations-he presented his views and doubts, his thoughts and criticisms, his investigations and conclusions. His most violent assaults were hurled against religion and the Church, the priesthood and the popular belief. While destroying many prejudices, removing many superstitions and exhibiting ecclesiastical exclusiveness in its real character, Voltaire's writings broke down religious feeling in many a heart, sowed doubt and unbelief in many a mind, along with cold, worldly wisdom, and with it selfishness, representing self-love and self-interest as the highest motives of human actions. Voltaire's writings exerted the greatest influence over the popular mind of Europe long after his death in 1778.

Montesquieu, who was born in 1689, was a more earnest writer than Voltaire, and drew attention to the faults and absurdity of existing conditions and arrangements, for the purpose of improving and reorganizing them in accordance with the spirit of the age. In his Lettres Persannes, "Persian Letters," Montesquieu assailed the faith of the Church and the whole form and system of government in France with the same wanton scorn as did Voltaire; and in the same manner, by his wit and irony, he exposed the customs and the social position of his contemporaries to ridicule. In his ingenious treatise, On the Causes of the Greatness and the Decline of the Romans, Montesquieu endeavored to prove that patriotism and self-reliance made a nation great, but that' depotism brought about its destruction. Montesquieu's third great work, Esprit des Lois, “On the Spirit of Laws," represents the constitutional government of England as the one best adapted to mankind. His writings also exerted great influence long after his death in 1755.

Jean Jacques Rousseau, who was born at Geneva in 1712 and was the son of a watchmaker, combated existing conditions of society by an alluring description of a precisely-reverse condition of things. In his Confessions, in which he frankly acknowledged to the world the vicis'Confes- situdes, poverty and errors of his youth, he reached, by solving a prize question on the influence of the arts and sciences upon manners, the fundamental doctrine of his whole life and efforts-the principle that all the misery and all the crimes, all the discontent and unhappiness, of mankind are due to a high degree of civilization; and that only in a state

sions."

of nature, the savage state, in a condition full of innocence and simplicity, free from all the fetters imposed by civilization, education and custom, are human creatures happy and contented. The ignorant, untutored savage is therefore the happy and contented man. Civilization and culture-everything tending to raise man above the level of the brute-makes men unhappy and discontented, because it awakens desires and ambitions which cannot be gratified or realized. This principle forms the central point of all Rousseau's writings, which are characterized by sentiment and by attractive descriptions, thus making them readable.

In his poetical and epistolary romance, Nouvelle Heloise, Rousseau contrasts the pleasures of a sentimental life of nature with the perverted relations of actual existence and the restraints and requirements of society. In his Emile he endeavored to establish a rational system of education, based on nature and parental affection, thus expiating the sin which he himself had been guilty of in allowing his own children to be taken to the foundling hospital. In this work is found The Confession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar-in which Rousseau taught and recommended a religion of the heart and feelings in opposition to the prevailing doctrine of the Church-which resulted in his banishment and persecution.

In his Contrat Social, Rousseau advocated the equal rights of all men, and represented a perfect democracy with popular legislative assemblies as the most desirable of all governments. His language in his works expresses his deep inward feeling, and reaches the heart because it comes from the heart.

Rousseau's writings had an incalculable influence; and every spot trodden by his foot, or where he had dwelt as a persecuted fugitive, was gazed upon reverently by the rising generation. He awakened a feeling for nature, for simplicity and for the domestic affections; but he also aroused a passionate desire for the lauded state of primitive liberty and equality, which could be realized only by the overthrow of existing institutions and conditions. He died in 1778.

Voltaire, Montesquieu and Rousseau produced so great an influence upon the opinions of all Europe for the simple reason that the fashion for everything then proceeded from Paris. The higher classes of Europe spoke only the French language and read only the French literature, and the writings of the three greatest French writers of the time excited universal attention by their agreeable form and their ingenious descriptions.

His "Nouvelle

Heloise" "Emile."

and His

His

"Contrat

Social."

Influence

of His Writings.

French

Language

and Literature

Supreme.

Rulers

and

Such sovereigns as Frederick the Great of Prussia, Gustavus III. of Sweden, Charles III. of Spain and Catharine II. of Russia, as well as the great statesmen of all European nations and many influential in- Writers.

French

The

French Encyclo

dividuals, were in personal or epistolary correspondence with Voltaire and many of his contemporaries who held his opinions.

Among these contemporaries the most famous were the mathematician and philosopher D'Alembert and the wanton poet Diderot. These two pedists. writers founded the French Encyclopedia, a clear, large-minded and unprejudiced summary of all human science, but hostile to all lofty efforts. From this work these two men and their coadjutors were called Encyclopedists.

Their Ascendency.

Destruct

of Their

The time was favorable to the ascendency of that brilliant galaxy of French philosophers who sought to supersede all previous writings by their Encyclopedia. Besides D'Alembert and Diderot, Condillac, Helvetius, Condorcet and Baron d'Holbach were the principal Encyclopedists. Baron d'Holbach's house was regarded as the headquarters of the atheistical philosophy.

The Encyclopedists contradicted the system of Descartes, who asive Effect sumed the soul of man as the starting-point in all investigations, Writings. reasoned from a physical basis, and considered thought, sentiment and worship as mere phenomena of matter. Their speculations might have caused as little harm as those of the mediæval Schoolmen had they not been recommended by the clear and popular style in which they were written, or had they been opposed by anything better than the empty pretense of a state-religion, which served mainly as the cloak of the worst of despotisms. Not satisfied with assailing tyranny and priestcraft, the Encyclopedists also attacked the moral foundations on which the very existence of human society depends; so that everything appeared tottering on the brink of chaos, and revolt against authority soon proceeded from speculation to action, as we shall presently observe.

Paris as

Center of

The French philosophical literature was eagerly read and admired in Europe's the higher circles of Europe; while it also became the fashion for the Culture. well-born youth of the various countries of Europe to spend some of their time in Paris to complete their education, so that no man of consequence could reckon upon consideration or regard unless he had been admitted into the intellectual circles of the French capital. All the monarchs and statesmen of Europe sought the favor and friendship of the French literati and philosophers.

The Effete

Monarch

Most of the governments in Western and Central Europe had actually outlived their vital power. Spain had been enslaved by the Inquisition ies of ever since the suppression of the Cortes more than two centuries before. Europe. France, which had no meeting of the States-General since 1614, had

become a mere autocracy, against which the parliaments of the various provinces made but a feeble and formal protest. Holland was distracted by the struggle between the Orange and republican factions. The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation was stifled by unmean