The difference between the development in France and England is due
primarily to the recognition in England of the fact that no country can
long remain prosperous or safe in which the people are not gradually
extending their power, enlarging their privileges, and, so to say,
incorporating themselves with the functions of the state. France, on the
other hand, suffered far more from the spirit of protection, which is so
dangerous, and yet so plausible, that it forms the most serious obstacle
with which advancing civilisation has to contend.

The great rebellion in England was a war of classes as well as of
factions; on the one side the yeomanry and traders, on the other the
nobles and the clergy. The corresponding war of the Fronde in France was
not a class war at all; it was purely political, and in no way social.
At bottom the English rebellion was democratic; the leaders of the
Fronde were aristocrats, without any democratic leanings.

Thus in France the protective spirit maintained its ascendancy
intensified. Literature and science, allied to and patronised by
government, suffered demoralisation, and the age of Louis XIV. was one
of intellectual decay. After the death of Louis XIV. the French
discovered England and English literature. Our island, regarded hitherto
as barbarous, was visited by nearly every Frenchman of note for the two
succeeding generations. Voltaire, in particular, assimilated and
disseminated English doctrines.

The consequent development of the liberal spirit brought literature into
collision with the government. Inquiry was opposed to the interests of
both nobles and clergy. Nearly every great man of letters in France was
a victim of persecution. It might be said that the government
deliberately made a personal enemy of every man of intellect in the