Gassendi, an exponent of materialism, and the master

of Molière.

Saint-Simon, an ambitious and dissatisfied nobleman, has left us in his Mémoires vivid descriptions of the Court and of the manners of the aristocracy.

1. 8. Bourdaloue, after having achieved, as preacher to the Court, a success only second to Bossuet's, retired to a convent in later llfe, and devoted himself to charitable works and the interests of the poor.

1. 9. Descartes, like the school-men, made philosophy the handmaid of religion 5 but his philosophy was no longer a reflex of theology, it was a bold attempt to justify religions belief by reason ; it opened the way to more independent and more thorough uses of reason.

1. 23. Aricie, a character in Racine's Phèdre ; Jume, of his Britannicus,

2l8 FRANCE ET ALLEMAGNE

Page 136. 11. 28-9. Chimène^ the heroine of CornelUe's Cid ; Pauline, of his Polyeucte.

Page 140. 1. 6. Signs of the zodiac : Léo, Aries, Capricornus, and Sagittarius.

1. 21. That is : Mme de Staël owes much both to Rousseau and to Goethe.

1. 24. Sir VV. Scott translated Gotz von Berlichingen at the outset of his career.

1. 33. Manzoni (1785-1873), the founder of the romantic school of literature in Italy. Goethe had great admiration for him. He evinced his powers in the drama, in the novel, and in poctry.

1. 34. I". Rùckert (1788-1866) made his mark chiefly as a translator of oriental poetry and as a writer of poems conceived in the spirit of the oriental masters [OstJïche Roseti, Morgenlandische Sagen und Gedichte, &c.).

H. Heine, cxiled from Germany, spent a great part of his life in Paris, where he died.

1. 36. Œhlenschlager, the greatest of Danish poets (1779- 1850), struggled against the old didactic school and freed the poetry of his country from the influence of German romanticism. His name is especially associated with the revival of interest in Scandinavian romance.

1. 37. Mickiewicz, Pohsh poet and patriot, spent a great part of his life in Paris, where he was appointed to the chair of Slavonic literature in the Collège de France. He was a great poet, whose work was chiefly influenced by the German romantic school, and he revived the old taies and legends of his country.

Béranger (1780-1857), author of songs, now on gay, now on pathetic, now on patriotic thèmes, and ail remarkable for the genuineness of their inspiration and the finish of their form, popular far beyond the boundaries of his own country.

Page 141. 11. 5-6. The salons of Mme de Tencin and of Mme du Defïant were différent from the ordinary salons, so numerous in the cighteenth century, as they were frequented by the ' philosophers," and many of the doctrines which later exerted a great influence on the progress of the French Révolution were discussed there.

Page 146. 11. 6- 1 o. Quinet, one of the abettors of the renaissance of idealism, is intent upon bringing into relief ail the manifestations of the Mind : heroism, transcendentalism, rehgion. His doctrine is singularly akin to that of his English contcmporary, Carlyle.

Page 147. 1. 1 1. According to the legend, Pygmalion, grandson

of Agenor, King of Cyprus, fell in love with an ivory statue he had made. Aphrodite granted life to the image, and Pygmalion married the miraculously-born maiden (Ovid, Metam, x. 243 seq.). 1. 20. With deeper insight than Carlyle, Quinet saw how industrialism and science could further the life of the Mind by freeing man from the shackles of Matter. In this he agreed with Fichte. In Carlyle's views there is a one-sidedness which can be accounted for by his exclusive Puritanical training and conséquent feigned contempt for material wealth.

Page 148. 1. i. La Fontaine, ' Le Chartier embourbé,' Fables, vi. xviii. 27.

Page 149. (Chapter heading.) On the circumstances in which this poem was composed, see Introd., Ixiii.

1. 9. La Marseillaise de la Paix, by Lamartine, to which this poem of Quinet is a counterpart, had celebrated universal peace in answer to Becker's war-call. Without one angry word, the great French poet had replied to the incensed German patriot in a generous outflow of humanitarian idealism. The brotherhood of ail nations was his creed : —

Je suis concitoyen de toute âme qui pense : La vérité, c'est mon pays !

As he could not overlook the restless agitation of Germany or deny that there were causes of friction between the two countries on either bank of the Rhine, he pointed to the East as an outlet for the pent-up énergies of the European peoples, and urged them to the peaceful occupation of the désert lands watered by the Nile.

Allons, comme Joseph, comme ses onze frères. Vers les limons du Nil que labourait Apis.

1. II. Lamartine's utopian lyricism, Quinet thought, would be interpreted by the scomful Germans as the wail of fright.

Page 150. 1. 21. A somewhat obscure image: Mankind is likened to a mighty river closed in between its banks and running îts assigned course. If it overflowed its needful barriers, spread through the limitless plain, and was absorbed by the grass (that is, if the necessary division of humanity into nations was cancelled), it would mean death for mankind (moral death, at any rate ; for mankind, the giant, would then hâve lost ail insight into higher truth).

1. 30. We recognize hère Quinet's favourite doctrine, that each national unit brings its contribution to the progress of çivilization.

Page 151. 1. 6. Has man (the finite being) already reached the highest goal, the Identification with God, the spiritual expansion into the infinité ? Does he no longer need to struggle toward a superior, divine nature ?

1. i8. An allusion to the rivalry of Russia {r aigle blanc) and England {le léopard) in Asia.