During the seventeenth century, the French Government was the strongest in Europe, and it was a despotic government.  During the eighteenth century, French thought was the most active and potent in Europe, and it was unboundedly free thought.  Louis XIV. did not, as is sometimes supposed, adopt as his principles the propagation of absolutism; his aim was the strength and greatness of France, and to this end he fought and planned—­just as William of Orange fought and planned, not against despotism, but against France.  France presented herself at that age as the most redoubtable, skilful, and imposing Power in Europe.

Yet, after the death of Louis XIV., the government immediately degenerated.  This was inevitable.  No system of government can be maintained without institutions, and a despot dislikes institutions.  The rule of Louis XIV. was great, powerful, and brilliant, but it had no roots.  The decrepit remains of it were in the eighteenth century brought face to face with a society in which free examination and free speculation had been carried to lengths never imagined before.  Freedom of thought once came to grips with absolute power.

Of the stupendous consequence of that collision it is not for me to speak here; I have reached the end.  But let me, before concluding, dwell upon the gravest and most instructive part that is revealed to us by this grand spectacle of civilisation.  It is the danger, the insurmountable evil of absolute power in any form—­whether in a form of a despot like Louis XIV. or in that of the untrammelled human spirit that prevailed at the Revolution.  Each human power has in itself a natural vice, a principle of weakness, to which there has to be assigned a limit.  It is only by general liberty of all rights, interests and opinions that each power can be restrained within its legitimate bounds, and intellectual freedom enabled to exist genuinely and to the advantage of the whole community.

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HENRY HALLAM

View of the State of Europe During the Middle Ages

Henry Hallam, the English historian, was born on July 9, 1777, at Windsor, his father being Canon of Windsor, and Dean of Bristol.  Educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, he was called to the English bar, but devoted himself to the study and writing of history.  He received an appointment in the Civil Service, which, with his private means, placed him in comfortable leisure for his wide researches.  His son, Arthur Henry, who died at the age of 22, is the subject of Tennyson’s “In Memoriam.”  Hallam died on January 21, 1859, and was buried at Clevedon, Somersetshire.  The “View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages,” commonly known as Hallam’s “Middle Ages,” was published by the author in 1818.  Hallam was already well known among the literary men of the day, but this was his first important work.  It is a study of the period from the appearance of Clovis, the creator of the dominion of the Franks, to the close of the Middle Ages, the arbitrary dividing line being drawn at the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII. of France.

I.—­France