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Updated: June 16, 2025
They had, therefore, entirely failed to recognise the historical value of old creeds and institutions, and had tried to remodel society 'without the binding forces which hold society together. Hence, too, the philosophes came to despise history; and D'Alembert is said to have wished that all record of past events could be blotted out.
The isolated texts from Scripture which are usually referred to clearly indicate wands of a different sort, if we except Hosea iv. 12, the passage used as motto by the author of 'Lettres qui decouvrent l'illusion des Philosophes sur la Baguette' . This text is translated in our Bible, 'My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them!
Nor was it only in France that these effects were visible; the prestige of French literature and French manners carried the teaching of the Philosophes all over Europe; great princes and ministers Frederick in Prussia, Catherine in Russia, Pombal in Portugal eagerly joined the swelling current; enlightenment was abroad in the world.
"I want to know...." Thinking it over, later on, while I walked slowly away from the Boulevard des Philosophes, I asked myself critically, what precisely was it that she wanted to know? What I had heard of her history was enough to give me a clue. In the educational establishment for girls where Miss Haldin finished her studies she was looked upon rather unfavourably.
We did not meet four people altogether, and the way seemed interminable, because my companion's natural anxiety had communicated itself sympathetically to me. At last we turned into the Boulevard des Philosophes, more wide, more empty, more dead the very desolation of slumbering respectability. At the sight of the two lighted windows, very conspicuous from afar, I had the mental vision of Mrs.
Luckily he had his American blood and practical education to restrain him, or he might have been as foolish as Brissot and as rabid as Marat. As it was, he could not help perceiving in his calmer moments that this new path to the glorious future which the philosophes were pointing out to their countrymen, had been for many years in America the well-worn high road of the nation.
The instinct which impels friends and servants to fly from sinking fortunes is a well-established fact in human natural history; but Fouquet's hold upon his followers was extraordinary: it resisted the shock of ruin. They risked court-favor, purse, and person, to help him. Gourville, before he thought of his own safety, carried a hundred thousand livres to Madame Fouquet, to be used in defending the Surintendant, or in bribing a judge or a jailer. The rest of his property he divided, intrusting one half to a devout friend, the other to a sinful beauty, Ninon de l'Enclos, and fled the country. The "professor" absorbed all that was left in his hands; Ninon returned her trust intact. This little incident was made much use of at a later day by the Philosophes, and Voltaire worked it up into "Le Dépositaire." From the Bastille, Pellisson addressed to the King three papers in defence of his chief: "masterpieces of prose, worthy of Cicero," Voltaire says, "ce que l'éloquence a produit de plus beau." And Sainte-Beuve thinks that Louis must have yielded to them, if he had heard them spoken, instead of reading them in his closet. The faithful La Fontaine fearlessly sang the sorrows of his patron, and accustomed "chacun
The changes in England had been, for the most part, accomplished in a tinkering, unspeculative, hole-and-corner spirit; those in France were the result of the widest appeal to first principles, of an attempt, at any rate, to solve the fundamental problems of society, of a noble and comprehensive conception of the duties and destiny of man. This was the achievement of the Philosophes.
Our daily relations were interrupted at this period for something like a fortnight. I had to absent myself unexpectedly from Geneva. On my return I lost no time in directing my steps up the Boulevard des Philosophes. Through the open door of the drawing-room I was annoyed to hear a visitor holding forth steadily in an unctuous deep voice. Mrs. Haldin's armchair by the window stood empty.
There is, therefore, no reason to doubt that these men were honest, when they said that they were combating, not in their own cause merely, but in that of humanity; and that the Church was combating in her own cause, and that of her power and privilege. The Church replied that she, too, was combating for humanity; for its moral and eternal well-being. But that is just what the philosophes denied.
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