the Church of France was in a bad position to repel the violent attacks
made upon her from without.[Footnote: Rambaud, ii. 40. For a Catholic
account of the Jansenist quarrel, see Carne, _La monarchie francaise
au 18me siecle_, 407.]

For a time of trial had come to the Catholic Church, and the Church of
France, although hardly aware of its danger, was placed in the forefront
of battle. It was against her that the most persistent and violent
assault of the Philosophers was directed. Before considering the
doctrines of those men, who differed among themselves very widely on
many points, it is well to ask what was the cause of the great
excitement which their doctrines created. Men as great have existed in
other centuries, and have exercised an enormous influence on the human
mind.

But that influence has generally been gradual; percolating slowly,
through the minds of scholars and thinkers, to men of action and the
people. The intellectual movement of the eighteenth century in France
was rapid. It was the nature of the opposition which they encountered
which drew popular attention to the attacks of the Philosophers.



CHAPTER IV.

THE CHURCH AND HER ADVERSARIES.


The new birth of learning in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had
been followed by the strengthening and centralization of government,