See Introd., lix

I. 29. Cf. what we hâve said of the German Diet in the note to p. 14, 11. 27 fï. ' It was, in fact, a diplomatie congress, not a parliament. Its members were simply the nominees of the various Governments, and were absolutely bound by their instructions.' {The Camb. Mod. Hist.^ x, p. 345.)

Page 22. 11. 9-10. See Introd., Ix.

Page 23. 11. 1-5. A new confirmation of Quinet's theory of the suprême efficacy of ' ideas ' in the movement of civilization.

II. 15-19. See Introd., Ivii and Iviii. 11. 25-29. See Introd., Ivi.

Page 24. 11. 7-9. A rather vague statement, like several others to be found among Quinet's wide generalizations. Charlemagne, who perhaps was born and certainly died at Aix-la-Chapelle, gave to this city the second rank in his Empire (after Rome), and made it the capital of his dominions north of the Alps.

11. 10-13. When the partition of the Empire of Charles the Great took place, after the Battle of Fontenay (841), and the Treaty of Verdun (843), between Charles, Louis, and Lothair, the three sons of Louis the Pious, Lothair retained the title of Emperor, and received in addition to the Italian territory of the Franks a long narrow kingdom, stretching from the Mediterranean up through the valleys of the Rhône and the Rhine to the North Sea. This kingdom was called Lotharingia, a name afterwards confined to the northern part of it on the left bank of the Rhine. When Lothair died, in 869, Charles and Louis fought for the possession of his dominions. By the Treaty of Mersen, Louis the German acquired most of Lotharingia, including the valleys of the Meuse and the Moselle, and the important towns of Utrecht, Aix-la- Chapelle, Metz, Strasburg, and Basel. From that time dates the existence of Germany with nearly the same western frontiers

NOTES. PAGES 20-25 ÏÇ^

as it preserved throughout the Middle Ages down to the time of the Thirty Years' War. Thèse frontiers the German patriots wished to restore to their country, regretting that the Treaty of Vienna in 1815 had but restored to them their boundary as in 1792.

11. 14-17. Richelieu, by aiding the German princes against Austria during the Thirty Years' War, acquired, at the Peace of Westphalia, as much of Alsace as belonged to Austria, and the three bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun. Louis XIV, having risen to the military supremacy of Europe, appropriated other places that had been united to Austrian Alsace in the past. He seized Strasburg in 1681.

11. 20-23. In 1793 Hoche and Pichegru defeated the Prussians and the Austrians, and conquered the Palatinate. In 1794-5 the whole course of the Rhine, from Basel to the sea, fell into the hands of the French. Some time before, Holland and Belgium had become republics on the model of France. What Louis XIV had failed to do, the gênerais of the First Republic had achieved in three years.

11. 30-34. i.e. Prussia, the owner of the Rhenish Province after 18 15.

Page 25. 1. 9. le génie de la France . . . The tutelarygenius of France, instead of guiding Europe to higher destinies, has struck her on the head and driven her mad.

11. 13-14. U Italie . . . trône de Charles-Quint. The Government of Louis-Philippe did not seize the opportunity of bringing Italy within its sphère of influence, when the Italian patriots and democrats, roused by the French Révolution of 1830, attempted both to free themselves from the Austrian domination and to wrest for themselves libéral institutions.

I. 16. Belgium, after separating from Holland, constituted herself as an independent kingdom and ofïered the crown to Leopold of Saxe-Cobourg (183 1), who was recognized by France and strengthened by her moral authority.

II. 17-30. The preceding partition of Poland, by the Treaty of Vienna (1814), had awarded the late Grand-Duchy of Warsaw to Russia, subject to its forming a constitutional kingdom subject to the Czar. The impulse of the French Révolution of 1830 induced the Pôles to revolt against the hated Russian rule and to fight for their independence. After temporary successes, however, they were finally crushed. Warsaw surrendered on the 8th September, 1831. Europe stood a silent witness to the agony of this valiant little people. La Fayette, in the Chamber of Deputies in Paris, in vain urged intervention in favour of Poland. After the last death throe was over, a marshal of

France, Sébastian!, the then Minister for Foreign Afïairs, shamelessly declared that ' Order reigned at Warsaw.'

I. 24. qui s'était remis sur son séant, ' that had gathered strength enough to raise itself, as it were, to a sitting posture.'

Page 26. 11. 4-10. When Greece, succoured by Europe, had succeeded in overthrowing the Turkish domination (Battle of Navarino, 1827), and after Président Capodistrias had been assassinated, the protecting Powers established a monarchy at Athens and gave the crown to Otho of Bavaria (1831). Quinet, as a member of the French scientifîc mission sent to Morea with the French army in 1829-30, witnessed the last phase of the struggle. The brilliant periods by which he conveys his feelings on the fate of Greece are an example of the rhetorical style into which he sometimes allowed himself to be carried by his enthusiasm, especially in his earlier works. Sonorous words, glow-ing metaphors, counted for more than accuracy of facts. The gênerai idea is just, but there is hardly one statement hère (especially in the sentence 11. 4-6) which corresponds to reality. The sculptures of Aegina were discovered in April, 181 1, by a company of four antiquarians (the Englishmen Cockerell and Foster, and the Germans Linckh and Haller), bought of the authorities of the island for less than one thousand francs, and sold in 1812 to the Crown-Prince of Bavaria for 120,000 marks. As the Greek insurrection did not bcgin till 1821, no fire-ship can hâve been hurled at them, and Quinet could not see this imaginary assault or any plank of that imaginary fire-ship. This remark does not impair the validity of the idea (which is one of Quinet's individual judgements), but shows the romantic bent of the author's mind and his readiness to resort to poetical or rhetorical modes of speech.

II. 17-18. Campo-Formio (Oct. 18, 1797) is the place which gave its name to the treaty forced by Bonaparte on the Austrians after his wonderful campaign in Italy. It was the dawn of Bonaparte's fortune as conqueror of Europe, and, in the'mind of the French, as champion of the revolutionary principes abroad. Quinet shared in this view and considered that the ultimate aim of the Révolution (although its immédiate conséquences might seem to hâve been disastrous) was to bring about a fédération of the European nations under the aegis of démocratie liberty.

1. 24. A few years before the Révolution of July, a French army of 100,000 men, under the Duke of Angoulême, had entered Spain at the behest of the Holy Alliance to restore Ferdinand VII to his despotic power. After the victory of the French, a terrible revenge had been wreaked by the king upon the Spanish friends

of liberty. For thèse reasons the French name was hated in Spain by those who might hâve joined France in a policy of résistance to the system of Metternich.

11. 30, 31. See sup., note to p. 6, 1. 26. The Government of July is helplessly struggling against an insuperable contradiction. Abroad it cringes to the Holy Alliance and hopes to gain récognition by the cowardly surrender of the glorious traditions of the Révolution. At home it is compelled, in order to continue, to defer in some measure to the popular wishes. In this manner, the repeal of the right of hereditary succession to the peerage was vvrenched by the Libérais from the unwilling Government, and thereby one link of the July monarchy with the crowns of Europe was shattered.

Page 27. 11. 19-26. Quinet, in this paragraph, strikingly describes the intricacies of the political situation in Europe. What he says applies especially to Germany, and illustrâtes the diflfîculty which then met the political observer — and which he, Quinet, had fairly overcome — of making a just estimate of the respective forces of liberty and of nationalism, The peoples entertained vague desires of liberty, which were not strong enough to urge them to energetic action. Inasmuch as they thus inclined towards freedom, they were friendly to France — or rather to what France had stood for during the Révolution. The cabinets professed their détermination to enforce absolute authority ; yet they made a show of concession to popular demands by granting the nominal guarantee of would-be constitutions.

1. 33. Quinet foresees, with a wonderful power of poHtical foresight, that nationalism in Germany will ultimately triumph over liberty.

Page 28. 1. 2. Recueillez-vous, cower still more closely by your own hearths, that is within yournarrow, selfîsh préoccupations.

1. 14. obsédée^ etymological meaning (L. obsidere, to besiege) : circled in on ail sides.

Page 29. 1. 32. on aurait pardonné à moins. The States of Europe would hâve forgiven the aggressions of the Napoleonic times without requiring from France such a degree of selfdesertion.

Page 30. 1. 13. il fallait à l'avenir. Avenir is personifîed : the Future (or Fate) needed a whole génération which she could smelt in her crucible. That génération is that which sufïered from the ' mal du siècle ' and to which Quinet was endeavouring to point out a noble moral and social idéal. See Introd., xiii.

Page 31. 11. 7-9. One of the striking images which impart to

Quinet's style a vivid and picturesque quality. His images hâve a peculiar suggestiveness and concreteness which are truly poetical. Indeed they hâve much likeness to V. Hugo's images.

I. 32. On a beau la pousser dans la rue. The sensé of this metaphor is explained by the word misère (1. 35) : in vain do they (the foreign Powers) try to reduce her to the condition of a houseless wretch. The Holy Alliance, by frightening the Government of July into disowning the traditions of the great Révolution, make France a nation without an idéal, vvithout a rallying centre, homeless {la pousse dans la rue).

Page 32. 11. 20-22. An allusion to the well-known philosophical movement in the eighteenth century, which was one of the proximate causes of the Révolution.

II. 34-36. La force calme et fière . . . je l'admets. They (the Government) did not choose to fîght and conquer, and to préserve in victory the self-possessed and dignifàed modération which France had Hved to learn. We are to understand : The best policy (which Quinet had advocated in ch. i) was to recover forcibly the left bank of the Rhine, improving the opportunity of the Belgian, Italian, andPolish insurrections, and seeking the sympathies of theGerman Libérais. Leaving this aside for the sake of argument, the Government had then the duty to resort to the alternative policy of resolute liberalism and bold démocratie reform at home.

Page 33. 11. 15-17. A beautiful and expressive image. Let France retrench herself within the battlemented fortress of démocratie and republican Hberty, and, after having victoriously resisted there the attack of constitutional Europe, sally forth and conquer the world again by her mère moral force, by the sheer persuasive and enticing power of her idéal.

1. 24. Quinet does not dare yet to utter the word * republic'.

1. 37. zm nouveau changement de la loi organique,' a new change of government.'

Page 34. 1. 18. la fortune du pays est hors de cause, 'nothing is to be feared for the future destiny of the country.'

Page 35. 1. 5. c'est la guerre pour elle: in two ways — ist, the présent peace in Europe, obtained by the abandonment of the friends of liberty, is already overcast by lowering clouds of war (cf. what Quinet has said, in ch. ii, of the danger of German unity) ; 2nd, the surrender by France of her social initiative abroad means dissatisfaction at home, and will bring about civil discords in which the remaining prérogatives of the Crown will one by one be wrenched away.

11. 12-27. A powerful Imaginative rendering of this truth of political philosophy : the most painful unrest a country may expérience is the feeling of insecurity which précèdes some great change in its political or social institutions.

I. 34. cette royauté qui naît d'un régicide. Louis-Philippe was a descendant of a brother of Louis XIV, and the son of Philippe d'Orléans, surnamed Philippe-Egalité at the time of the Révolution, who had sided with the popular party, been elected to the Convention, and had given his vote for the exécution of Louis XVL Quinet shows hère his power of building up symbols and of drawing poetical and dramatic eflFects from his sensé of the mystery that surrounds the world, and from his belief in the awful dominion of a moral force.

Page 36. 11. 11- 14. Hère is expressed the meaning of the symbol. The son of the régicide ascending the throne of the beheaded king, this is indeed a sign of réconciliation of the new order with the old, this shows how completely the French of to-day hâve abjured their revolutionary error, and révérence now what they had of late overthrown. The bitter irony of the whole passage is very effective.

II. 16 and 25-33. A striking application of Quinet's doctrine of historical évolution and of the necessary interdependence of human générations.

Page 37. 11. 1-3. Hère again is an example of how Quinet brings his philosophy of history to bear on the interprétation of the présent events or of the signs of the times. His belief that no European war is possible on grounds of political theory, even if France déclares itself a republic, is based on the principles of historical évolution.

Page 38. 1. 10. The ' judgement of God ' in the Middle Ages consisted in a duel in the lists : the victor was believed to hâve won by the will of God.

1. 21. nous, hommes . . . sans nom, i.e. the ' bourgeoisie,' that had taken the place of the aristocracy of the ' ancien régime ' and profited by the overthrow of its privilèges. Quinet foresees how unstable its position is, if it does not grant a fair share of power to the masses.

U. 25-27. An impressive, weird image, meant to point out the contradictory position of the bourgeoisie. They fîrst struck ofï the Head of the People (the old monarchy), and then of late they hâve picked up that Head again (the monarchy of July), and they hold it in their hands (keep the new monarchy under their own control). But how loosé their hold 1 How fragile the

new order ! The only means of salvation is to call the democracy to the rescue.

Page 39. 1. 19. un peuple ne vaut rien à faire le stoïcien. It suits a people ill to play the stoic, to resist its own impulses, to try to curb its historical genius.

Page 40. (Chapter heading.) The fourth chapter was written in 1830 and publishedin the Revue des Deux Mondes inNov., 1831. After warning France of the danger presented to her by a united Germany, and sending forth a passionate appeal to France's better self, Quinet is now about to undertake the patient and needful task of interpreting for his countr>'men New Germany in the making, and of correcting the obsolète information contained in Mme de Stacl's DeVAUemagney which was still considered as an authority and enjoyed great favour.

11. 4-5. soit . . . soit ... An elliptic phrase for: whatever the cause may be, whether it is the far-reaching réverbération of the Révolution, or the secret sympathy that unités men's minds across State-boundaries . . .

1. 17. sous Imrs fantômes. In the abstract, barely intelligible features of the German philosophical Systems one may discover a correspondence to the succession of concrète passions, struggles, political experiments, &c., of the French Révolution. This chapter oflFers a striking, almost bewildering, example of Quinet's daring generalizations. One might fînd fault with the inaccuracy of some détails : this would not be dealing fairly with the historical seer and prophet. The ordinary rules of criticism do not apply to him. One may say of him in praise, — what could not but be said in blâme of a mcre investigator, — that his insight transcends facts. He describes hère the great current of thought that agitated ail Europe at the end of the eighteenth century and at the beginning of the nineteenth, the powerful influx of idealism and of active energy that produced in France the rise of political théories, the Révolution, and the Empire, — in Germany, the rise of the dynamic philosophy, the storm-and-stress literature, and the revival of patriotism. Guided by the principle of évolution and the belief in the universality of moral forces, Quinet clearly made out the spiritual character of the Révolution (at the same time as Carlyle and Michelet) and the close connexion of the various phases of the history of thought and of the history of events in Europe at that time.

1. 22. It would be juster to say that the enthusiasm of Kant for Dutyequalled the enthusiasm of the ' Constituante' for Right. There was the same zeal at the core of the Kantian and of the French idealism, but the object of that zeal was widely diflFerent.

Quinet's broad statement, omitting this important qualification, remains therefore rather vague. By recognizmg Duty as the arbiter of man's mind, Kant established a Unk between the individual and mankind in the past ; he imposed an awful constraint upon individual passions and set a superior law to the mdividual reason. The French philosophy, however gênerons, was bkely to misguide its followers in poUtical practice, and, m fact, was partly responsible for the anarchy of the Révolution. Ihe Kantian philosophy, on the other hand, made for the régénération of the Prussian State by means of graduai and organic reforms. Quinet was not the man to overlook this, since he had felt the need of correcting the principes of the French Révolution by borrowings from the doctrines of Herder and of Kant. But he chose hère to set into relief the community of enthusiastic ideahsm in the disciples of Rousseau and in Kant.

1. 29. la Montagne. The most radical party in the Convention, so called because its members sat on the upper benches of the House. Robespierre became their leader. It was they that proclaimedtheRepubHc (Sept. 22, 1792), that saved the countryfrom foreign invasion by the boldness of their plan of campaign, that crushed the conspiracies of the aristocrats and the insurrection ot the Vendée, and that founded many fruitful institutions w-hich France has preserved to this day. Their intelligence and boldness in action, their uncompromising spirit, their fierce en ergy, their belief that they were the sole depositories of absolute Truth and Right, enabled them to save France in a most critical emergency, but, at the same time, made them resort to frightful means ot repression against their poUtical enemies, or simply those who were guilty of ' modérantisme ' and dissentient opinions.

Page 41. H. 3-6. fit r apothéose de la volonté humaine . . . dotnpta la nature elle-même. Fichte, a disciple of Kant, not only proclaimed the moral sensé {die praktische Vernunft) to be the most noble faculty of man, but he transferred Kant's doctrine from the sphère of thought into the sphère of action. Moral insight illumines and urges on the Will, which is, in man, an émanation of the omnipotent, all-creative divine Power. Nature or matter, that is the outside world and the mère sentient hfe, constitutes an inferior élément, which can for some time hamper the upsoaring of the Will, but will be overwhelmed at last. ' This earth ot ours with ail its splendours which in your childish ignorance you fancied yourselves to be in need of . . . is nothing buta faint reflex of your own endless and for ever progressing existence. You mav boldlv oppose your infinitude to the vast universe and say : How should I fear thy might, which afïects only what is hko

thee and never reaches into my sphère ? ' {Appellation an dos Publikum gegen die Anklage des Atheismus.)

Page 42. 1. 8. Schelling borrowed from the Alexandrian or Neo-Platonic school, of which Plotinus was the chief, the theory of the êica-Tao-ir, or faculty for the choscn few, at certain times, to free themselves from the shacklcs of the fîesh, to commune with God, and hâve a ghmpsc of total truth. Coleridge, in England, under the same influences, professed the same doctrine.

1. 15. ScheUing impro\'ed upon Fichte's ideaUsm by raising Nature to the dignity of spiritual existence. Nature is but the antithcsis or necessary counterpart of the Spirit : it is the non- Ego, through which the Ego is limited to relative being, in contradistinction to the absolutc spirituahty of God. The non-Ego, howevcr, sharcs in the essence of the Ego, with the only restriction that it is devoid of consciousness. Conscious and unconscious Nature find their unity in God. Unconscious Nature is constantly evolving towards a higher existence and ascending nearer to the Spirit. ' The system of Nature is at the same timc the System of our Spirit. Nature is visible Spirit ; Spirit is invisible Nature ' {Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur). SchcHing's System therefore combines the mysticism of the East (the doctrine of €K(TTa(Tii) with the pantheism of the North (the indwelling of God in Nature).

1. 31. Hegel's dialectics originate in the most abstract transcendentalism and end in an apology for Prussian despotism. His System places the Idea at the root of ail reality. Life is to him a continuai self-unfolding of the infinité ; it is comprised in the cternal circlc of unity, diflFercnUation, and return to unity (or, as Hegel expresses it, of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis). The finite is the infinité on its way from mère identity to organic complexity. The State, among other realities, unceasingly progresses from the rudest barbarism to absolute perfection, clearly conceived by God and dimly viewed by man. The Idea of the State identifies itself with absolute freedom : but freedom for Hegel means, not individual independence, but rather universal responsibility. Moreover, ail are not equally capable of conceiving the principles and contriving the political expédients that are to lead the community towards a higher plane of social existence : the people, in contradistinction to the Government, are ' that part of the State which does not know its own will.' It follows, I, that the interests of individuals must be subordinated to the interests of the wholc ; 2, that the rulers (the king and the aristocracy) are the best judges of the means of furthering the prospcrity and progress of the State. Thus Hegelianism

threw the glamour of transcendentaUsm over the existing Prussian Government, raised Prussian administration to the height et infinité ^^•isdom, and gave the support of profound metaphysics and strongly knit logic to the Holy Alliance.

P\GE 43 1. 18. Joseph de Maistre, in his book Du Pape (1819), establishedon theoretical grounds the right of the Pope to absolute sovereipnty, and maintained that the necessary conséquence of it was his mfalltbilitv. This was the first appearance of the dogma of infallibihty which was to be decreed a constitutive part of Catholic beUef by the Œcumenical Council at the Vatican m 1870 The Count de Maistre was also the theorist of absolute monarchy, after the Révolution, when, put of weanness, the minds of many people leaned towards a strong government that wou d at least be able to enforce order. His Constderamns sur la France, partly influenced by Burke's Reflecttons, vindicate the force of tradition, organic growth, préjudice and précèdent, as aeainst a priori reasoning and revolutionar>' methods ; tùey attribute a mysterious and holy character to existing constitutions and invest established governments with divine authonty. J. de Maistre may be considered as an intermediate hnk between

Burke and Hegel. . .

11 -20-31. The founder of F éclectisme was Victor Cousin. After the downfall of the Empire, in the confusion which then prevaUed in the province of philosophical thought as well as in poUtical opinions, the need was felt of correcting the doctrines which had guided the French mind since the time of the Encyciopaedists. A reaction had set in against empincism and matenahsm 5 a longing for the idealistic asserted itself on ail sides. V. Cousin satisfied this intellectual want by expounding to eager audiences in his courses at La Sorbonne the Systems of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. From 1815 to 1830, his arraying of German metaphvsics in the drapery of briUiant and passionate éloquence was hailed by the youth of the university and by the educated ehte almost as a new reUgion. Quinet deemed himself exceptionaUy fortunate to be introduced to the great man, to be allowed to submit his first productions to his cnticism and to b^ favoured with his advice for his future career. This adminng attitude did not last long. Although Cousin's officiai position steadily gamed in brilliance after the Révolution of J uly, -although he was made CounciUor of State, Peer of France, Mmister of Pubhc Instruction,-he gradually lost the respect and esteem of themost générons and intelligent men. His philosophy was not original : its chief merit was the glowing style in which it was dressed. The artificiality of his eclecticism also became more and more

apparent ; for, to give a show of novelty to his doctrine, Cousin had tried to conciliate German metaphysics with the substance of the great Systems of ail times, thus producing a medley, tinged with a prédominant colouring of Platonic spiritualism, not devoid indeed of nobleness, but utterly unfit to cope with the intellectual needs of his day. He proved an exceptionally gifted professor of philosophy — but no philosopher. Therc is no better proof, perhaps, that Quinet was endowed with true philosophical genius, than that, so early as 1830, aged only 27, he saw through the shallowness and characterlessness of Cousin's eclecticism. He points out luminously hère two capital defects of the System. It was not a product of the environment, a natural growth of the moral, social, and pohtical circumstances, from which a system destined to live and play a part in the national existence must neccssarily be derived (pp. 44 and 45). On the othcr hand, this System ignored so important an event as the French Révolution, and was so utterly detached from the actual trendof French history that its promoters and followers were struck with a strange and shameful powerlessness when the Révolution of 1830 opened anew the path of liberty (p. 45). It was partly in reaction against eclecticism that Quinet set to himself the task of founding a System of political philosophy, which took inspiration from German thought, but remained true to the French genius and to the uncfïaceable traditions of récent French history.

Page 44, 1. i. un dénombrement d'idées, 'a mustev'ingoi ideas.' 1. 9. transiger avec, ' to compromise with.' 1. 22. ces conquêtes philosophiques que nous fîmes sur notismêmes. To give up the promises of the Révolution and of the Empire (which Quinet then considered as the direct heir of the Révolution) and to restrict one's self to philosophizing and abstract reasoning, this was self-abandonment, the silencing of the genius of France, a conquest over self. Yet, as long as the actual emptiness of that philosophizing was not realized, thcre lay an intellectual pleasure in the dclusion, which secmed a compensation for the loss of material greatness (after the downfall of the Empire, the calamity mentioned 1. 25).

Page 45. 1. 19. le théorème de Locke. Locke's empiricism and political philosophy were the origin of ail the Systems which applled rational déduction or scientifîc inference to the problems of society and government, and must be therefore considered as the source of the French theory of Right. Only, in the case of a J.-J. Rousseau, a Diderot, a Mably, a Condorcet, this doctrine is cnlivencd by sympathy with ail suffcring and indignation against

ail abuses, quickened by enthusiasm, and transformed into an appeal to immédiate revolutionary action (11. 20-24). '"- ^^-

1. 25. combien . . . répugnait au cœur du pays, how averse the country was, at bottom, to that phllosophy.

I. 30. As a true disciple of the Révolution— and, properly speaking, as a true modem thinker — Quinet dénies to a system of thought that remains indiffèrent to social and political questions the name of philosophy.

II. 33. elle faisait assez bon marché iP elle-même pour . . . , ' it was so little self-respecting as to . . .'

11. 34-35. la première chance . . . à sa roue, an allusion to the eagerness with which Cousin seized the honours, places, and émoluments offered him by the Government of July, thus cutting himself ofï from ail right of criticism, and declaring himself the liege-man of a régime that stopped short of liberty.

Page 46. 1. i. une religion se tuer de sa main. The Catholic Church, by siding with the ancien régime during the Révolution, signed her own death-sentencc. Quinet rightly ascribes the decay of the Church ever since that time to her constant opposition to the struggle for liberty.

1. 5. une apostasie récente. The abandonment by Cousin and his school of the cause of Hberty was actual apostasy, inasmuch as the nobleness and generosity of their idealism (cf. 11. ii-ij» and 11. 20-25) had given their eager young followers the hope that they would stand by the Libérais. Idealism, for Quinet, could not mean anything but dévotion to political freedom and to social justice.

Page 47. Chap. V, published in La Revue des Deux Mondes in June, 1832.

Page 48. 1. 14. rien . . , ne la fit sortir de su sérénité. In this we see clearly through the misunderstanding which prevented Quinet from appreciating Goethe as a great. German and friend of liberty. Cf. Introd., Iv. As a proof of Quinet's one-sidedness of appréciation, one may adduce the following conversation of Goethe with Professer Luden in 1813. ' Do not beHeve, I pray you,' said the poet, ' that I am indiffèrent to the great ideas of freedom, nationality, country. No ! ... I hâve often felt a bitter grief in thinking of the German people, which is so noble individually and so wretched as a whole . . . I am comforted by the thought of Germany's future ; I cHng to this belief as firmly as you . . . To us individuals, meanwhile, it is given, — to everyone according to his talents, his incHnations, his position, — to increase, to strengthcn, and to spread national culture. Not only

downward, but, above ail, upward ; in order that, in this respect at least, Germany may be ahead of other nations, and that the national spirit, instead of being stiiied and discouraged, may be kept alive and hopeful, and ready to rise in ail its might when the day of glory dawns.' {Goethes Gesprache, éd. W. von Biedermann, III, 103 fï., quoted by Prof essor K. Francke in A History of German Literature as determined by Social Forces.)

Page 49. 1. 8. ce surnom de Mirabeau. This is a slight inaccuracy. 'Mirabeau ' was no surname, but a title. The full name of the great orator was Gabriel Honoré Riquetti, comte de Mirabeau.

Page 50. 11. 6-9. A great and profound thought which could be concclved only by a man who had, like Quinet, understood the principles of évolution and of the solidarity of nations. The Révolution and Faust both proclaimed that mankind had reached the âge of high aspirations and was seeking, under its own responsibility, the path to truth and to happiness.

1. 28. Cet homme est Schiller. One might hâve expected herc a brief mention of Schiller's mental development from Die R'àuber to IVilhelm Tell, from the spirit of revolt to the spirit of reconciliation. Yet the essential contrast between the exubérance and flowof energy in Schiller's works and the sentimental or méditative quality of Goethe's is strongly pointed out.

1. 34. La critique des frères Schlegel. August Wilhelm and Friedrich von Schlegel, in their lectures, courses, magazine articles, and books, showed great breadth of culture, a refîned taste, and a rcmarkable style, but were merely concerned with art and literature disconnected from the progress of man. Criticism thus conceived seemed to Quinet a luxurious superfluity. Cf. his own conception of criticism, as one élément of the history of civilizationand part of the philosophyof évolution, in Chap. XVI infra. See also note to p. 70, 1. 32.

Page 51. 1. 9. Barberousse. Cf. note to p. 20, 1. i.

1. 19. Tieck, le sylphe espiègle. In LudwigTieck'sgenius there is a curions mixture of sentiment and irony. He is delicately sensitive to the poetry of mediaeval legends, and, while yielding to their picturesque or dreamlike suggestiveness, he turns them into caricatures of modem life. Ilis Puss-in-Boots (in the Volksmnrchen) is a farcical satire of the stage of his own day. His Red Riding-Hood (in the Romantische Dichtungen) ratiocinâtes like an cnlightened female philosophe. Yet his importance in the history of German romanticism as the interpréter of the Middle Ages is great, and the bcauty of his fantasies undeniable. There is to be found in his writings, from the l'olksmarchen (1797)

to Phantasus (1802), ' abundant évidence of an extraordinary power of conjuring up at least the outward show, the stage scenery, as it were, of an âge at one with itself, swayed by common religious émotions, assured of the reality of an unseen, yet everpresent and all-pervading, spiritual existence. ' (See Francke, op.

cit., pp. 453-4-) . , . , . A

11. 35-36. ce iirmamentinconnu .. .de Jean-Paul Richter. An ever-present consciousness of being surrounded by living mysteries, a Schellingian belief in the identity of matter and spirit, a rapturous feeling of oneness with the soûl of the universe, impart to the Works of Jean-Paul a spiritualistic character, which wraps in mystic hues even his humorous figures like Quintus Fixlein and Dr. Katzenberger.' (See Francke, op. cit., 402 fif.)

Page 52. 1. 18. The victories of Leipzig and Waterloo reversed the balance of power in Europe and made the supremacy pass from France to the German Confédération. 1. 23. sur le chantier, ' on the stocks.'

Page 53. 11. 2-3. se mêler en rien . . . dans les batailles. To the mind of Goethe and of the classics, there was something ignoble and inartistic in the turmoil of battles and in the frantic outburst of racial hatred which accompanied the rising for national libération. They were not indiffèrent to the freedom of their country, but they looked forward, beyond the period of tumult, to the days of peaceful endeavour. Their aloofness was construed into lack of patriotism.

Page 54. II. 13-16. The return to Germanie antiquities and to German mediaeval history, which played so great a part in the rejuvenation, fîrst of German Uterature, then of German patriotism, was initiated by Klopstock. Not only did this poet undertake to express German piety in a stately epic, which should no longer dépend on foreign imitation, but, in his Odes and Dra?>ias, he revived the memories of the past, and exalted the national feeling. Although his style is antiquated and marred by stifîness and pomposity, it must not be forgotten that he was the forerunner of the romanticists and of those who, like the brothers Grimm, either applied to mediaeval life the methods of scientific inquiry, or popularized the folk-lore of old times. Jacob Grimm (1785-1863), the greater scholar of the two brothers, is well known as the creator of historical grammar, the founder of the science of Teutonic mythology, the prime mover in the colossal undertaking of a national dictionary. Wilhelm Grimm (1786- 1859), the greater writer, embodied in his delightful Kinder- und Hausmdrchen the utilizable éléments of the old legends.

1. 27. In contradistinction to Mozart, who was stîll under the influence of the Italian style, Weber took the subjects of his opéras from genuine Germanie sources, and wove into them impressive, often weird, mélodies, which bore a distinctly national imprint. His Freischi/tz, his Euryanthe, his Oberon, borrow their materials from the legends and the mythology of mediaeval Germany, and draw their inspiration from the heart of the people. Besides his opéras, he put to music patriotic songs from Kôrner's Works. — Spohr has many characteristics in common with Weber, and may be considered, with him, as the founder of the romantic opéra, of which the lyric drama of Richard Wagner was the direct outcome. The titles of his chicf opéras are significant : Faust (1813), Der Berggeisl (1825), Des Heilands letzte Stunden (1835).

Page 55. 1. 3. Cornélius, the promoter of a revival of Gcrman art in the first half of the ninetccnth century, fîrst made himself known by his designs from Faust. He soon specialized in fresco-painting, in which he tricd to emulatc not only the Italian masters, but also the early German sacrcd décorative art. His paintings, noticeable for their faint and rather monotonous colouring, ofïer a characteristic atténuation in the contour of the nude figures, and decidedly Gothic forms for the draperies. Notwithstanding thèse peculiarities there is always in his works a grandeur and nobleness of conception. He was called to iMunich by the Crown Prince of Bavaria, afterwards Louis I, and cntrusted with many considérable works, especially the décoration of the Ludwigskirche (fresco of the Last Judgement), of the Glyptothek, and of the Pinakothck. He afterwards went to Berlin, where Frederick William IV commissioned him to decorate the Campo Santo, or Royal Mausoleum, forming one of the wings of the new cathcdral. He was an ardent patriot, as is evidenced by his motto : ' Deutschland ùber ailes.' His leadership was acknowledged by a numerous school of young painters, and he made Munich a centre of art that attracted the gaze of ail the world.

1. 22. Nuremberg was made famous in the fourteenth century by the wood-engravers Wohlgemuth and Albert Diirer.

1. 24. Holbein, the famous German painter of the sixteenth century, who crossed over to England and painted there the portraits of noble mon and women, now to be seen chiefly at Windsor Castle.

1. 26. Clorinda was the amazon of the Saracens in Tasso's Gerusalemme libcraia, who donned helmet and armour to fîght in the ranks of the hcathcn warriors.

Page 56. 1. 5. ai quittant l'arbre des fées, 'in stepping forth

from under the tree of the fairies,' as Joan of Arc set off on her warlike mission from under the tree where the Saints had appeared to her in a vision.

1. 12. Friedrich Ludwig Jahn was converted by the patriotic uprising of 18 13-14 from a teacher and a philologist into a soldier in the Prussian army. Cf. p. 122, 1. 6.

I. 13. Bardite. Littré does not give this word. It stands for barde and was manufactured by Quinet from bardit, or the warUke song extemporized by old Germanie bards on the battlefield.

1. 18. The Battles of Liitzen and Bautzen (1813), fought by Napoléon against Prussia and Russia, after the disastrous retreat from Moscow, with an army of youths eighteen years old, were still victories for the Emperor of the French, but gained at such cost that they foretold impending rmn.

1. 20. hymne is masculine in the sensé of ' poem,' ' national song' ; it is féminine in Church language, in the sensé of ' sacred song '.

1. 34. Theodor Kôrner, the author of flaming patriotic songs, collected after his death under the title Leier und Schtcert, enUsted in Lùtzow's corps to fight for the Uberation of Germany. On the 25th of August, 1813, a Httle before Lûtzow had given the order to attack the French, he had completed and written down in his pocket notebook his last song, Das Scbwertlied. He was killed in an ensuing skirmish.

I. 36. Uhland's songs and ballads, though written during the darkest years of the history of Germany (the years 1805-16 were the most prolific of his poetical career), are instinct -with a spirit of repose, of gentle patriotism, of pastoral joy, of tender dévotion and respect for the German Middle Ages.

Page 57. 1. 21. Rudolphl, Emperor of Germany from 1273 to 1291, was famous as the founder of the greatness of the House of Hapsburg.

II. 29-36. During the Restoration and the July Monarchy, the Libéral opposition, whether republicâns or pardsans of a popular monarchy, rallied round the memor}- of the Emperor, who, in the light of the then circumstances, appeared as the defender of the principles of the French Révolution. The 2oth of March, 18 15, was the day when Napoléon triumphantly entered Paris on his return from Elba. The enthusiastic people picked up newly blown violets and stuck them in their hats and button-holes in sign of joy.

Page 58. 11. 1-6. An example of the eflFective allegorical style of Quinet, ail the historical allusions in this striking sentence

2o6 FRANCE ET ALLEMAGNE

being used only to intimate the attachment of the German nationalists to the bygone times.

1. 7. The carbonari were secret societies with a revolutionary tendency that played a great part in Italian history during the first three décades of the nineteenth century.

(Chapter heading.) Gorres (i 776-1 848) first made himself known as a fierce Libéral and abettor of the French Révolution. Born in the Rhineland (at Coblcntz), he wished his native province to be united to France. The conquests of Napoléon changed his love into hatred. Yet nothing could satisfy hùn but German greatness associated with political liberty. He therefore engaged in an unsparing campaign for the unification of Germany by means of libéral reform. His Rhenish Mercury (founded in 18 14) became 80 obtrusive to the Holy Alliance that he was exiled from Germany and had to flee to Switzerland (18 19). His patriotism was characterized by loyalty to the German literary antiquities, as well as by a bold progressive spirit. His German Folk-lore (1807) extolled national taies and legends. His conversion to Schelling's philosophy attracted him towards Eastern mysticism, and he wrote A History of Asiatic Myths (18 10). He finally entered the Church of Rome. Having received permission to return to Germany, he ended his days at Munich.

Page 61. 1. 11. /'ûm3^, 'alb,' a part of the sacerdotal vestments of the Catholic priest when officiating.

Page 62. 1. 30. Oken, the great naturalist of the transcendental school (1779-185 1). His lectures as professor of the médical sciences at Jena and his published works bear on natural philosophy, gênerai natural history, comparative anatomy, and the physiology of man, animais, and plants. His theory of analogy is an application to the natural sciences of Schelling's principle of the identity of matter and spirit.

Page 65. 1. 13. la Bell eau bois dormant, '^Ûig SAttTplin^'Qtznty ' of the fairy taie.

1. 27. It is not surprising that Quinet thus blended into one influence the voice of Ossian (and that of Scott and Byron, p. 66) with the voice of the great German poets of the end of the eighteenth century. As far as an inspiration from foreign, and especially Germanie, countries served to further the revival of letters known as the French Romanticism, England and Germany represented the same modes of feeling and of imagination to the minds of Mme de Staël, Chateaubriand, Lamartine, and of Quinet himself.

Page 66. 1. 4. See Introd., xlvi.

Page 67. 1. 3. German mysticism (the transcendentalism of Fichte and Schelling), by satisfying the spiritual and emotional wants of the people with religious philosophies dissociated from dogmatic religion, accomplished the same resuit as the scepticism of Voltaire and of the Encyclopaedists in France : i.e. destroyed the naïve, unreasoning belief in traditional creeds, and temporarily unsettled the basis of morals.

1. 23. The term ' nihilism ' hardly applies to Hegers philosophy of religion. Yet he contributed still more potently than Fichte and SchelUng to bring about a décline of faith by subordinating reUgion to philosophy, and by representing every creed, Christianity included, as a step in the effort of the spirit towards acquiring the consciousness of itself, or reaching absolute knowledge.

1. 32. A judgement on Goethe, which can be understood only if one bears in mind the romantic bias of Quinet and his admiration for a sentimental, Imaginative, and dreaming Germany. As Goethe, in his later years, had passed severe judgement on the exubérance of the romantic school and expressed his préférence for temperate and thoughtful beauty, Quinet resents this abandonment and sees in it a sign of the change from the old sentimental, wondering, believing, gentle, and patriarchal character of Germany to hard and dry pragmatism, materialism, and national ambition. Cf. below, p. 74, 1. 14.

Page 68. 1. 18. Quinet, on hisown account, professed a form of mystical idealism, very much akin to that of Carlyle, but he earnestly believed that religion, a purifîed religion, that should combine the clearness of reason with the fervour of faith, was necessary for the people. See Introd., xxxvii.

Page 69. 1. 21. Goethe's optimistic pantheism, worshipping the divine in the myths and belief s of old, as wellasinnature, inhistory, and in the efforts of man towards right thinking and righteous action, welcomed ail religions and condemned the exclusive, ardent attachment to any.

Page 70. 1. 20. The Leonora of the famous fantastic ballad of Bùrger, translated by Sir Walter Scott, and which had an influence on Coleridge when he naturalized fantastic poetry in England.

I. 31. August Wilhelm Schlegel, in h.h Lectures on Dramatic Literature and Art (1809) and his Lectures on Belles-Lettres and Art (1801-4), evinced the same cosmopolitan spirit in literary criticism as Herder in history. — Friedrich Schlegel gained famé especially by his Sanscrit studies {Sprache und Weisheit der Indter, 1808). The two brothers hâve materially contributed in making

Germany, in the nineteenth century, the meeting-ground of the best in ail civilization, the sensorium commtme of the world. But Quinet overlooks the fact that August Wilhelm, notwithstanding the catholicity of his tastes and pursuits, devoted himself to spreading the love of Germany's glorious past and did much towards fostering the rising national spirit.

Page 71. 1. 21. Cf. note to p. 51, 1. 19.

Page 72. 1. 6. Voss, the author of the idyllic poem Luise, and the translator of Homer, played a part as a theorist and controversialist in the disputes of his day concerning the archaeological and mythological sciences. In his Mythologische Briefe (1794) he attacked the ideas of Heyne, and in his AntisymboUk (1824) those of Creutzer. --<

1. 1 5. Creutzer, the author of Die Symbolik und Mythologie der aJlen T'olker, besonders der Griechen (18 10), was a friend of Quinet, during the latter's stay at Heidelberg. See Introd., xlviii.

Page 73. 1. 34. Baader (1765-1841), a philosopher and a theologian, studied under Werner (cf. p. 71, 1. 16), and was deeply influenced by the mystic Jacob Bôhme. He was a violent opponent of Kant, whose notion of duty, independent of religious belief, he considered a hateful doctrine. He was attracted, on the contrary, by Schelling's philosophy 5 yet his unbounded surrender to mystical ecstasy, in later years, and his conséquent denunciation of ail philosophy in a ' Letter to the Czar of Russia ', alienated Schelling from him. He was a Roman Catholic and lived at Munich, like Gôrres on his return from exile.

Page 74. 1. 26. The décline of belief in the majority of German minds brought about a ravivai of pietism in the minority. Quinet himself painfully experienced to what length the harsh rigidness and intolérance of this sect could be carried. See Introd., li.

Page 75. 1. 21. An allusion to the promises of libéral reform made after 18 15, which had not been kept. For, hateful as the French domination had been to the national spirit of Germany, the French doctrine of rights had nevertheless awakened in the people aspirations for liberty which they expected to be satisfied by the formation of one Germanie fatherland, under some form of popular government. As long as the princes had needed the co-operation of theirpeoples to overwhelm Napoleon's power,'they had humoured thèse aspirations ; but, when the hour of danger was over, former engagements were forgotten. The rulers of Nassau, Weimar, Bavaria, Baden, and Wurtemberg (the countries which had been most deeply penetrated by the Frenchjdeas)

granted constitutions, but even in thèse countries absolutism was only in a slight degree modified. In Austria the methods of Metternich were as despotic and harsh as could be tolerated in a modem community. Although William III of Prussia could not act upon quite so antiquated a system as Francis I, he resisted popular aspirations. Every opportunity was seized by the various Governments to repress the free movement of ideas. The Carlsbad decrees (issued by a conférence of Ministers at Carlsbad in 18 19) placed the universities under police supervision. A central commission of inquiry was also appointed in order to hunt out secret societies. Patriots like Arndt, Jahn, and Gôrres were impeached for high treason (1819). A decree of the Fédéral Diet in 1835 P^t ^^ interdict upon the cntire literary production of Heine and of the other members of ' Young Germany.' Seven distinguished professors were expelled from Gôttingen University (among them the brothers Grimm, Dahlmann, and Gervinus) because they had protested against an open violation of constitutional right committed by the King of Hanover (Ernest Augustus, who, when succeeding William IV of England on the throne of Hanover in 1837, abolished the constitution which his predecessor had sanctioned). It is only after the French Révolution of 1848 that the demand for libéral reform became powerful enough to compel the rulers to accept an attempt at unification and libéral government by means of an elected Parhament. But when this Parhament met at Frankfort the inexpérience of political life of the deputies caused them to waste their efforts in useless talk and to do no effective work. Prussia and Bismarck were soon to step in and to make unity take the precedence of hberty.

Page 77. 1. 25. Heine's Buch der Lieder contains exquisite productions of unique lyrical quality, which are too often marred by occasional outbreaks of irony or sarcasm. ' However sweet a chord is struck at the beginning, a dissonance creeps in, to end in a crashing discord, and the outraged reader starts like one who should suddenly see Romeo and Juhet fall to grimacing and squeaking like Punch and Judy.' {Encycl. Brit.) I. 30. An allusion to passages of the Reisebilder.

Page 81. 11. 1-8. We detect hère one of the intellectual processes of the romantic and idealistic type of mind which Quinet represents. Various facts pointed to a new achievement of civilization — the cosmopolitan spirit — which Goethe had anticipated and which he wanted to further by the institution of a Weltliteratur. Quinet seizes upon those few signs, overlooks the contradictory indications, and boldly leaps forward to the absolute idea which is implied in the incipient change. The only

admission of earthly contingencies which he is willing to make is : * demain est un siècle.' In this manner Quinet plays the part of a seer and a prophet. He foresees the distant future, he is an inspired guide in the road of idealism : but, when he indulges in such moods (more fréquent at the beginning of his career), his oracles hâve hardly any practical quality or any value for immédiate application. Fateful dates — 1840, 1866, 1870 — wereto utter forth too significant déniais, the force of which, indeed, Quinet was not slow in recognizing.

Page 82. 1. 33. An allusion to Cousin and his school. (See sî</>., note to p. 43,11. 30-31.)

Page 83. 1. 4. Candide, the famous novel of Voltaire (1759), '^^ which he carped at religions and philosophical optimism.

I. II. A well-known passage of Corinne, one of the two great novels of Mme de Staël.

II. 14-33. This paragraph stands as a statement of the reasons which induced Quinet to write a book on Germany, partly in order to correct the judgements of Mme de Staël. See Introd., xlix.

Page 85. 1. 16. Atalanta's race has been made too familiarby the poem of Mr. Swinburnc to need an explanation hère.

Page 86. 1. 4. Helvetius, a fricnd of Montesquieu and of Voltaire, and a conspicuous figure of society and literary circles in the P"rance of Louis XV, wrote the famous book De V Esprit (1758), owing to which he deserves to beconsidered as one of the founders of the rationalistic and materialistic school which was to produce L Encyclopédie.

Marmontel, one of the Encyclopaedists and a collaborator of Diderot and D'Alembert, composed also, at the request of Mme de Pompadour, a séries of Contes Moraux, remarkablc for their perfection of style and for lively descriptions of French life under Louis XV.

1. 5. La régence is the period (1715-23) between the death of Louis XIV and the majority of Louis XV, during which France was ruled by Philippe d'Orléans as Régent. It was the most licentious décade in the unprincipled and immoral eighteenth century.

1. 10. Le baron d'Holbach, one of the Encyclopaedists, devoted himself more assiduously than Marmontel, Diderot, and others to attacking religion. His most famous work is Le Système de la Nature, 1 770.

1. 20. Ninon de Lenclos (t 1706), after having led in her youth the life of a courtesan, became in her later years, through her

wît and charm of manners, the leader of Parisîan society. Her salon was frequented by the flower of the nobility and by the greatest literary men.

Page 88. 1. i. The whole paragraph refers to August Wilhelm Schlegel.

Page 90. Chapter XII mightseem a répétition of Chapter VIII were it not that it was written two years later, and that, in the interval (1835), a remarkable ofEspring of the anti-reUgious interprétation of Hegel's philosophy had come to light, DasLeben Jesu of Dr. Strauss.

Page 91. 1. 36. Hegel died in 183 1.

Page 92. 1. 30. la roulette de Pascal^ the term by which Pascal designated his theory of the cycloid. Quinet opposes hère the mathematical method, characteristic of the logical French mind, to the cloudy lucubrations of German transcendentalism.

Page 93. 1. 18. The Life of Jésus, by Dr. Strauss, took up a position singularly more destructive to Christianity than that of the Socinians and the Unitarians, since it presented Christ as a myth in which the imagination of the Hebrews had embodied the Messianic prophecies. Quinet, a believer in the personality of Christ, and in his God-inspired holiness, if not in his Godhead, indignantly refuted Dr. Strauss's argument in his Exajnen de la Vie de Jésus du Dr. Strauss (1838).

Page 94. 1. 34. The ashes of Voltaire had been removed to the Panthéon during the Révolution.

Page 95. 1. 7. la forêt Hercynienne. The vvoody Hercynian Mountains form the frontier between Bavaria, Saxony, and Prussian Silesia on one side and Bohemia on the other. They include the Bohemian Forest, the Erzgebirge, and the Sudetes. The allegory which foUows means that sentimental, poetical, melodious Germany had been smothered by the spirit of scepticism.

1. 30. Saint-Simon (1760-1825), one of the founders of French Socialism, published late in his life (in L'Industrie, 1817) a scheme of social reform, which was an attempt to conciliate the religious feelings of old with the new conditions created by capitalism and industry. He devised a state of society in which the leadership would be assumed by the captains of industry, by those who, with the aid of science, are able to provide for the material needs of mankind, but in which the rulers would seek the gênerai interest only and be guided by the Christian spirit of self-sacrifice and love. Saint-Simonism may be characterized as

an application of the idealistic forces to the attainment of material happiness.

1. 23. Welches (' die Wdschen '), a name given by the Germans to the Latin races.

1. 34. ' Young Germany ' — the followers of Heine and Borne, who tricd to rouse their country to agltate for libéral reform after the French Révolution of 1830, and failed.

Page 96. 1. 2. Le Huron, a character of Voltaire's taie Vingénu, which, like Candide and Micromégas^ bas a philosophical import, and is replète with satirical sallies and sharp strictures on the religion, politics, and social features of French society in the eighteenth ccntury.