old France into the clearest light. He has in an eminent degree the
great and thoroughly French quality of telling us what we want to know.
His impartiality rivals his lucidity, while his thoroughness is such
that it is hard gleaning the old fields after him.

Hardly less is my indebtedness to the late M. Aime Cherest, whose
unfinished work, "La Chute de l'ancien regime," gives the most
interesting and philosophical narrative of the later political events
preceding the meeting of the Estates General. To the great names of de
Tocqueville and of Taine I can but render a passing homage. The former
may be said to have opened the modern mind to the proper method of
studying the eighteenth century in France, the latter is, perhaps, the
most brilliant of writers on the subject; and no one has recently
written, or will soon write, about the time when the Revolution was
approaching without using the books of both of them. And I must not
forget the works of the Vicomte de Broc, of M. Boiteau, and of M.
Rambaud, to which I have sometimes turned for suggestion or
confirmation.

Passing to another branch of the subject, I gladly acknowledge my debt
to the Right Honorable John Morley. Differing from him in opinion almost
wherever it is possible to have an opinion, I have yet found him
thoroughly fair and accurate in matters of fact. His books on Voltaire,
Rousseau, and the Encyclopaedists, taken together, form the most
satisfactory history of French philosophy in the eighteenth century with
which I am acquainted.

Of the writers of monographs, and of the biographers, I will not speak
here in detail, although some of their books have been of very great
service to me. Such are those of M. Bailly, M. de Lavergne, M. Horn, M.