tried one day, flattery of the national spirit, another; there was no regard paid to the general interests of the country, to its dignity, or to its honour; in a word, their government was profoundly selfish and immoral, a stranger to all public doctrine or views; but, at bottom, and in the practical administration of affairs, very intelligent and liberal. Such was the character of the Cabal, of the ministry of the earl of Danby, and of the entire English government, from 1667 to 1679. Notwithstanding its immorality, notwithstanding its contempt of the principles and the true interests of the country, this government was less odious and less unpopular than the ministry of Clarendon had been: and why? because it was much better adapted to the times, and because it better understood the sentiments of the people, even in mocking them. It was not antiquated and foreign to them, like that of Clarendon; and though it did the country much more harm, the country found it more agreeable. Nevertheless, there came a moment when corruption, servility, and contempt or rights and public honour were pushed to such a point that the people could no longer remain resigned. There was a general rising against the government of the profligates. A national and patriotic party had formed itself in the bosom of the House of Commons. The king decided upon calling its chiefs to the council. Then came to the direction of affairs lord Essex, the son of him who had commanded the first parliamentary armies during the civil war, lord Russell, and a man who, without having any of their virtues, was far superior to them in political ability, lord Shaftesbury. Brought thus to the management of affairs, the national party showed itself incompetent; it knew not how to possess itself of the moral force of the country; it knew not how to treat the interests either of the king, the court, or of any of those with whom it had to do. It gave to no one, neither to the people nor to the king, any great notion of its ability and energy. After remaining a short time in power, it failed. The virtue of its chiefs, their generous courage, the nobleness of their deaths, have exalted them in history, and have justly placed them in the highest rank; but their political capacity did not answer to their virtue, and they knew not how to wield the power which could not corrupt them, nor to secure the triumph of the cause for the sake of which they knew how to die.

This attempt having failed, you perceive the condition of the English restoration; it had, after a manner, and like the revolution, tried all parties and all ministries, the legal ministry, the corrupted ministry, and the national ministry; but none had succeeded. The country and the court found themselves in much the same situation as that of England in 1653, at the end of the revolutionary tempest. Recourse was had to the same expedient; what Cromwell had done for the good of the revolution, Charles II. did for the good of his crown: he entered the career of absolute power.

James II. succeeded his brother. Then a second question was added to that of absolute power; namely, the question of religion. James II. desired to bring about the triumph of popery as well as that of despotism. Here, then, as at the beginning of the revolution, we have a religious and a political warfare, both directed against the government. It has often been asked, what would have happened had William III. never existed, or had he not come with his Hollanders to put an end to the quarrel which had arisen between James II. and the English nation? I firmly believe that the same event would have been accomplished. England, except a very small party, had rallied, at this epoch, against James, and, under one form or another, it would have accomplished the revolution of 1688. But this crisis was produced by other and higher causes than the internal state of England. It was European as well as English. It is here that the English revolution connects itself by facts themselves, and independently of the influence which its example may have had, with the general course of European civilization.

All

While this struggle, which I have sketched in outline, this struggle of absolute power against civil and religious liberty, was taking place in England, a struggle of the same kind was going on upon the continent, very different, indeed, as regards the actors, forms, and theatre, but at bottom the same, and originated by the same cause. The pure monarchy of Louis XIV. endeavoured to become an universal monarchy; at least it gave reason for the fear that such was the case; and in fact, Europe did fear that it was. A league was made in Europe, between various political parties, in order to resist this attempt, and the chief of this league was the chief of the party in favour of civil and religious liberty upon the continent,

William, prince of Orange. The protestant republic of Holland, with William at its head, undertook to resist the pure monarchy represented and conducted by Louis XIV. It was not civil and religious liberty in the interior of the states, but their external independence which was apparently the question. Louis XIV. and his adversaries did not magine that, in fact, they were contesting between them the question which was being contested in England. This struggle went on, not between parties, but between states; it proceeded by war and diplomacy, not by political movements and by revolutions. But, at bottom, one and the same quesion was at issue.

When, therefore, James II. resumed in England the contest between absolute power and liberty, this contest occurred just in the midst of the general struggle which was going on in Europe between Louis XIV. and the prince of Orange, the representatives, severally, of the two great systems at war upon the banks of the Scheldt, as well as on those of the Thames. The league was so powerful against Louis XIV. that, openly, or in a hidden but very real manner, sovereigns were seen to enter it, who were assuredly very far from being interested in favour of civil and religious liberty. The emperor of Germany and pope Innocent XI. supported William III. against Louis XIV. William passed into England, less in order to serve the internal interests of the country than to draw it completely into the struggle against Louis XIV. He took this new kingdom as a new power of which he was in want, and of which his opponent had, up to that time, made use against him. While Charles II. and James II. reigned, England belonged to Louis XIV.; he had directed its external relations, and had constantly opposed it to Holland. England was now snatched from the party of pure and universal monarchy, in order to become the instrument and strongest support of the party of religious liberty. This is the European aspect of the revolution of 1688; it was thus that it occupied a place in the total result of the events of Europe, independently of the part which it played by means of its example, and the influence which it exercised upon minds in the following century.

Thus you see that, as I told you in the beginning, the true meaning and essential character of this revolution was

the attempt to abolish absolute power in temporal as well as spiritual things. This act discovers itself in all the phases of the revolution-in its first period up to the restoration, in the second up to the crisis of 1688—and whether we consider it in its internal development or in its relations with Europe in general.

It now remains for us to study the same great event upon the continent, the struggle of pure monarchy and free inquiry, or, at least, its causes and approaches. This will be the subject of our next lecture

FOURTEENTH LECTURE.

Object of the lecture-Difference and likeness between the progress of civi lization in England and on the Continent-Preponderance of France in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries-In the seventeenth century by reason of the French government-In the eighteenth by reason of the country itself—Of the government of Louis XIV.-Of his wars-Of his diplomacy-Of his administration-Of his legislation— Causes of his rapid decline-Of France in the eighteenth centuryEssential characteristics of the philosophical revolution-Conclusion of the course.

In my last lecture I endeavoured to determine the true character and political meaning of the English revolution. We have seen that it was the first shock of the two great facts to which all the civilization of primitive Europe reduced itself in the course of the sixteenth century, namely, pure monarchy, on one hand, and free inquiry on the other; those two powers came to strife for the first time in England. Attempts have been made to infer from this fact the existence of a radical difference between the social state of England and that of the continent; some have pretended that no comparison was possible between countries of destinies so different; they have affirmed that the English people had existed in a kind of moral isolation analogous to its material situation.

It is true that there had been an important difference between English civilization, and the civilization of the continental states, —a difference which we are bound to calculate. You have already, in the course of my lectures, been enabled to catch a glimpse of it. The development of the different principles and elements of society occurred in England simul