L'ancien régime

'•Vous savez si j'aime la Révolution: pour qui la voit de près c'est l'insurrection des mulets et des chevaux contre les hommes sous la conduite de "singes qui ont des larynx de perroquets."*

The Révolution, from the very ôrst, was for him simply the unchaining of mediocriry and ferocity. This foregone conclusion he continued to demonstrate for twenty years. Thus, with ail his efforts at writing history scienufically and at pressing * Lettre à M, A, De Boislisle, 26 juillet, 1874.

INTRODUCTION Vil

a whole arsenal of documents into the service of truth (and few historians hâve been more industrious), he lias after ail failed of achieving the serene objectivity of the idéal historian. The Origines are distinctly Taine's Révolution, the Révolution of a painfully disenchanted latter-day Frenchman.

The opening volume, L'Ancien Régi7ne, is, however, least vulnérable to thèse objections. This period of absolutism, in which centralization had crowded out ail personal initiative, and in which individualism was systematically repressed, ïs so largely crystallized into definite forms, that it lends itself peculiarly to Taine's géométrie and logical treatment, and stands out under his brilliant pictorial strokes with unparalleled clearness of outline, yet thoroughly living at the same time, glowing with color, elaborately detailed even though not quite complète, and on the whole essentially true. With his remarkable faculty for simplification, Taine has "seized the most significant features of the time, and with his no less remarkable pictorial instinct he has grouped them ail in the limits of a single canvas, with such consummate skill that every détail is typical and significant in itself and at the same time fits perfectly into the whole. One would turn in vain elsewhere for anything comparable to it as a striking and brilliant picture of life under the old régime, as a condensed philosophy of French history, as a masterly sketch of the composition and growth of that public opinion which was to subvert the old dynasties, traditions, politics, and religion of Europe, and to usher in the totally new order of things under which the European of today, as the heritor of the French Révolution, is now living.

No more valuable work could be put into the hands of the American student, either as a stimulant to the appréciation of those virtues of brilliant, lucid and logical thought and style, which are so distinctive of the French intellect at its best, or as an admirable and instructive introduction to the study of French history or of French literature.

In the hope that the book may prove useful in the more

Vlll INTRODUCTION

advanced stage of school work or early in the collège course in French, a vocabulaiy has been added.

I take this opportunity to thank my esteemed colleague, Mr. Otto Patzer, for a number of proof corrections.

W. F. GIESE.

University of Wisconsin.

Madison, Jan. 31, 1906.

Note. — In order to reduce Taine's large octavo volume to the modest compass of a text-book. it has been necessary to abridge it by about one-half. The rétention of the logical substructure of the whole work by compression or by élimination of his superabundant illustra tive material commended itself as the best course, rather than the rétention intact of merery two or three of the five books. The teacher or the leisurely reader will therefore find it worth while to turn to the original for much interesting material in addition to what is hère given.