country. We can only wonder, not that the revolution came, but that it
was still so long delayed; but ingrained prejudices prevented the crown
from being the first object of attack. The hostility of the men of
letters was directed first against the Church and Christianity.
Religious scepticism and political emancipation did not advance hand in
hand; much that was worst in the actual revolution was due to the fact
that the latter lagged behind.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries some progress had been made
in the principles of writing history. Like everything else, history
suffered from the rule of Louis XIV. Again the advance was inaugurated
by Voltaire. His principle is to concentrate on important movements, not
on idle details. This was not characteristic of the individual author
only, but of the spirit of the age. It is equally present in the works
of Montesquieu and Turgot. The defects of Montesquieu are chiefly due to
the fact that his materials were intractable, because science had not
yet reduced them to order by generalising the laws of their phenomena.
In the second half of the eighteenth century the intellectual movement
began to be turned directly against the state. Economical and financial
inquiries began to absorb popular attention. Rousseau headed the
political movement, whereas the government in its financial straits
turned against the clergy, whose position was already undermined, and
against whom Voltaire continued to direct his batteries.

The suppression of the Jesuits meant a revival of Jansenism. Jansenism
is Calvinistic, and Calvinism is democratic; but the real concentration
of French minds was on material questions. The foundations of religious
beliefs had been undermined, and hence arose the painful prevalence of
atheism. The period was one of progress in the study of material laws in
every field. The national intellect had taken a new bent, and it was one