Arithmetic, science, history, economy, politics, the stage, morals, poetry, all served as the vehicle of modern philosophy; it ran in all the veins of the times; it had enlisted every genius, it spoke every language.  Chance or Providence had decided that this period, which elsewhere was almost barren, should be the age of France.  From the end of the reign of Louis XIV. to the commencement of the reign of Louis XVI., nature had been prodigal of men to France.  This brilliancy continued by so many geniuses of the first order, from Corneille to Voltaire, from Bossuet to Rousseau, from Fenelon to Bernardin Saint Pierre, had accustomed the people to look on this side.  The focus of the ideas of the world shed thence its brilliancy.  The moral authority of the human mind was no longer at Rome.  The stir, light, direction, were from Paris; the European mind was French.  There was, and there always will be, in the French genius something more potent than its potency, more luminous than its splendour; and that is its warmth, its penetrating power of communicating the attraction which it has, and which it inspires to Europe.

The genius of the Spain of Charles V. is high and adventurous, that of Germany is profound and severe, that of England skilful and proud, that of France is attractive,—­it is in that it has its force.  Easily seduced itself, it easily seduces other people.  The other great individualities of the world of have only their genius.  France for a second genius has its heart, and is prodigal in its thoughts, in its writings, as well as in its national acts.  When Providence wills that one desire shall fire the world, it is first kindled in a Frenchman’s soul.  This communicative quality of the character of this race—­this French attraction, as yet unaltered by the ambition of conquest,—­was then the precursory mark of the age.  It seems that a providential instinct turned all the attraction of Europe towards this point, as if motion and light could only emanate thence.  The only real echoing point of the Continent was Paris.  There the smallest things made great noise, literature was the vehicle of French influence; there intellectual monarchy had its books, its theatre, its writings even before it had its heroes.

Conquering by its intelligence, its printing-presses were its army.

IX.

The parties who divided the country after the death of Mirabeau were thus distributed; out of the Assembly, the Court, and the Jacobins; in the Assembly the right side and the left side, and between these two extreme parties—­the one fanatic by its innovations, the other fanatic from its resistance,—­there was an intermediate party, consisting of the men of substance and peace belonging to both these parties.  Their views moderate, and wavering between revolution and conservatism, desired that the one should conquer without violence, and the other concede without vindictiveness.  These were the philosophers of the Revolution,—­but it was not the hour for philosophy, it was the hour of victory; the two ideas required champions, not judges; they crushed men in their encounter.  Let us enumerate the principal chiefs of the contending parties, and make them known before we bring them into action.