History of Civilization in England, Vol. 2 of 3

454

A writer late in the seventeenth century says, with some simplicity, ‘the present king of France is reputed an encourager of choice and able men, in all faculties, who can attribute to his greatness.’ Aubrey's Letters, vol. ii. p. 624.

455

The Principia of Newton appeared in 1687; and Maupertuis, in 1732, ‘was the first astronomer of France who undertook a critical defence of the theory of gravitation.’ Grant's Hist. of Physical Astronomy, pp. 31, 43. In 1738, Voltaire writes, ‘La France est jusqu'à présent le seul pays où les théories de Newton en physique, et de Boerhaave en médecine, soient combattues. Nous n'avons pas encore de bons éléments de physique; nous avons pour toute astronomie le livre de Bion, qui n'est qu'un ramas informe de quelques mémoires de l'académie.’ Correspond. in Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. xlvii. p. 340. On the tardy reception of Newton's discoveries in France, compare Eloge de Lacaille, in Œuvres de Bailly, Paris, 1790, vol. i. pp. 175, 176. All this is the more remarkable, because several of the conclusions at which Newton had arrived were divulged before they were embodied in the Principia; and it appears from Brewster's Life of Newton (vol. i. pp. 25, 26, 290), that his speculations concerning gravity began in 1666, or perhaps in the autumn of 1665.

456

‘L'abbé Picard fut en société avec Auzout, l'inventeur du micromètre.’ Biog. Univ. vol. xxxiv. p. 253. See also Préface de l'Hist. de l'Acad. des Sciences, in Œuvres de Fontenelle, Paris, 1766, vol. x. p. 20.

457

The best account I have seen of the invention of the micrometer, is in Mr. Grant's recent work, History of Physical Astronomy, pp. 428, 450–453, where it is proved that Gascoigne invented it in 1639, or possibly a year or two earlier. Compare Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. iii. p. 52; who also ascribes it to Gascoigne, but erroneously dates it in 1640. Montucla (Hist. des Mathémat. vol. ii. pp. 570, 571) admits the priority of Gascoigne; but underrates his merit, being apparently unacquainted with the evidence which Mr. Grant subsequently adduced.

458

For a short account of this able man, see Lankester's Mem. of Ray, p. 17.

459

Notwithstanding the strong prejudice then existing against Englishmen, Butterfield was employed by ‘the king and all the princes.’ Lister's Account of Paris at the close of the Seventeenth Century, edited by Dr. Henning, p. 85. Fontenelle mentions ‘M. Hubin,’ as one of the most celebrated makers in Paris in 1687 (Eloge d'Amoltons, in Œuvres de Fontenelle, Paris, 1766, vol. v. p. 113); but has forgotten to state that he too was an Englishman. ‘Lutetiæ sedem posuerat ante aliquod tempus Anglus quidam nomine Hubinus, vir ingeniosus, atque hujusmodi machinationum peritus opifex et industrius. Hominem adii,’ &c. Huetii Commentarius de Rebus ad eum pertinentibus, p. 346. Thus, again, in regard to time-keepers, the vast superiority of the English makers, late in the reign of Louis XIV., was equally incontestable. Compare Biog. Univ. vol. xxiv. pp. 242, 243, with Brewster's Life of Newton, vol. ii. p. 262; and as to the middle of the reign of Louis XIV., see Eloge de Sebastien, in Œuvres de Fontenelle, vol. vi. pp. 332, 333.

460

‘Les manufactures étaient plutôt dirigées vers le brillant que vers l'utile. On s'efforça, par un arrêt du mois de mars 1700, d'extirper, ou du moins de réduire beaucoup les fabriques de bas au métier. Malgré cette fausse direction, les objets d'un luxe très-recherché faisaient des progrès bien lents. En 1687, après la mort de Colbert, la cour soldait encore l'industrie des barbares, et faisait fabriquer et broder ses plus beaux habits à Constantinople.’ Lemontey, Etablissement de Louis XIV, p. 364. Lacretelle (Dix-huitième Siècle, vol. ii. p. 5) says, that during the last thirty years of the reign of Louis XIV. ‘les manufactures tombaient.’

461

Cuvier (Biog. Univ. vol. xxxvii. p. 199) thus describes the condition of France only seven years after the death of Louis XIV.: ‘Nos forges étaient alors presque dans l'enfance; et nous ne faisions point d'acier: tout celui qu'exigeaient les différents métiers nous venait de l'étranger… Nous ne faisions point non plus alors de fer-blanc, et il ne nous venait que de l'Allemagne.’

462

‘Certainement la découverte de Pecquet ne brille pas moins dans l'histoire de notre art que la vérité démontrée pour la première fois par Harvey.’ Sprengel, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. iv. p. 208.

463

Henle (Anatomie Générale, vol. ii. p. 106) says, that the discovery was made in 1649; but the historians of medicine assign it to 1647. Sprengel, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. iv. pp. 207, 405; Renouard, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. ii. p. 173.

464

Biog. Univ. vol. xxxviii. pp. 123, 124.

465

Some of the great steps taken by Joubert are concisely stated in Broussais, Examen des Doctrines Médicales, vol. i. pp. 293, 294, vol. iii. p. 361. Compare Sprengel, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. iii. p. 210. Fernel, though enthusiastically praised by Patin, was probably hardly equal to Joubert. Lettres de Patin, vol. iii. pp. 59, 199, 648. At p. 106, Patin calls Fernel ‘le premier médecin de son temps, et peut-être le plus grand qui sera jamais.’

466

See a summary of them in Sprengel, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. iii. pp. 405, 406, vol. vii. pp. 14, 15. Sir Benjamin Brodie (Lectures on Surgery, p. 21) says, ‘Few greater benefits have been conferred on mankind than that for which we are indebted to Ambrose Parey – the application of a ligature to a bleeding artery.’

467

‘C'était là une vue très-ingénieuse et très-juste qu'Ambroise Paré donnait pour la première fois. C'était un commencement d'ostéologie comparée.’ Cuvier, Hist. des Sciences, part. ii. p. 42. To this I may add, that he is the first French writer on medical jurisprudence. See Paris and Fonblanque's Medical Jurisprudence, 1823, vol. i. p. xviii.

468

‘L'un des premiers auteurs à qui l'on doit des observations cadavériques sur les maladies, est le fameux Baillou.’ Broussais, Examen des Doctrines Médicales, vol. ii. p. 218. See also vol. iii. p. 362; and Renouard, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. ii. p. 89. The value of his services is recognized in a recent able work, Phillips on Scrofula, 1846, p. 16.

469

‘The most celebrated surgeon of the sixteenth century was Ambroise Paré… From the time of Paré until the commencement of the eighteenth century, surgery was but little cultivated in France. Mauriceau, Saviard, and Belloste, were the only French surgeons of note who could be contrasted with so many eminent men of other nations. During the eighteenth century, France produced two surgeons of extraordinary genius; these are Petit and Desault.’ Bowman's Surgery, in Encyclop. of Medical Sciences, 1847, 4to. pp. 829, 830.

470

It is unnecessary to adduce evidence respecting the services rendered by Sydenham, as they are universally admitted; but what, perhaps, is less generally known, is, that Glisson anticipated those important views concerning irritability, which were afterwards developed by Haller and Gorter. Compare Renouard, Hist. de le Médecine, vol. ii. p. 192; Elliotson's Human Physiol. p. 471; Bordas Demoulin, Cartésianisme, vol. i. p. 170; In Wagner's Physiol. 1841, p. 655, the theory is too exclusively ascribed to Haller.

471

Of this we have numerous complaints from foreigners who visited France. I will quote the testimony of one celebrated man. In 1699, Addison writes from Blois: ‘I made use of one of the physicians of this place, who are as cheap as our English farriers, and generally as ignorant.’ Aikin's Life of Addison, vol. i. p. 74.

472

Indeed, France was the last great country in Europe in which a chair of clinical medicine was established. See Renouard, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. ii. p. 312; and Bouillaud, Philos. Médicale, p. 114.

473

M. Bouillaud, in his account of the state of medicine in the seventeenth century, does not mention a single Frenchman during this period. See Bouillaud, Philosophie Médicale, pp. 13 seq. During many years of the power of Louis XIV., the French Academy only possessed one anatomist; and of him, few students of physiology have ever heard: ‘M. du Verney fut assez long-temps le seul anatomiste de l'académie, et ce ne fut qu'en 1684 qu'on lui joignit M. Mery.’ Eloge de Du Verney, in Œuvres de Fontenelle, vol. vi. p. 392.

474

Cuvier, Hist. des Sciences, part ii. pp. 64–73, 76–80.

475

After Belon, nothing was done in France for the natural history of animals until 1734, when there appeared the first volume of Reaumur's great work. See Swainson on the Study of Nat. Hist. pp. 24, 43.

476

On this remarkable man, who was the first philosophic chemist Europe produced, and who, so early as 1630, anticipated some of the generalizations made a hundred and fifty years later by Lavoisier, see Liebig's Letters on Chemistry, pp. 46, 47; Thomson's Hist. of Chemistry, vol. ii. pp. 95, 96; Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 729; Cuvier, Progrès des Sciences, vol. i. p. 30.

477

Cuvier (Progrès des Sciences, vol. i. p. 30) says of Rey, ‘son écrit était tombé dans l'oubli le plus profond;’ and, in another work, the same great authority writes (Hist. des Sciences, part ii. p. 333): ‘Il y avait plus de quarante ans que Becker avait présenté sa nouvelle théorie, développée par Stahl; il y avait encore plus long-temps que les expériences de Boyle sur la chimie pneumatique avaient été publiées, et cependant, rien de tout cela n'entrait encore dans l'enseignement général de la chimie, du moins en France.’

478

The highest present generalizations of the laws of nutrition are those by M. Chevreul; which are thus summed up by MM. Robin et Verdeil, in their admirable work, Chimie Anatomique, vol. i. p. 203, Paris, 1853: ‘En passant des plantes aux animaux, nous voyons que plus l'organisation de ces derniers est compliquée, plus les aliments dont ils se nourrissent sont complexes et analogues par leurs principes immédiats aux principes des organes qu'ils doivent entretenir.

‘En définitive, on voit que les végétaux se nourrissent d'eau, d'acide carbonique, d'autres gaz et de matières organiques à l'état d'engrais, ou en d'autres termes altérées, c'est-à-dire ramenées à l'état de principes plus simples, plus solubles. Au contraire, les animaux plus élevés dans l'échelle organique ont besoin de matières bien plus complexes quant aux principes immédiats qui les composent, et plus variées dans leurs propriétés.’

479

Brunfels in 1530, and Fuchs in 1542, were the two first writers who observed the vegetable kingdom for themselves, instead of copying what the ancients had said. Compare Whewell's Hist. of the Sciences, vol. iii. pp. 305, 306, with Pulteney's Hist. of Botany, vol. i. p. 38.

480

The microscope was exhibited in London, by Drebbel, about 1620; and this appears to be the earliest unquestionable notice of its use, though some writers assert that it was invented at the beginning of the seventeenth century, or even in 1590. Compare the different statements, in Pouillet, Elémens de Physique, vol. ii. p. 357; Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii. pp. 699, 700; Sprengel, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. iv. p. 337; Winckler, Gesch. der Botanik, p. 136; Quekett's Treatise on the Microscope, 1848, p. 2; Cuvier, Hist. des Sciences, part ii. p. 470; Hallam's Lit. of Europe, vol. iii. p. 202; Leslie's Nat. Philos. p. 52. On the subsequent improvement of the microscope during the seventeenth century, see Brewster's Life of Newton, vol. i. pp. 29, 242, 243.

481

See Balfour's Botany, p. 15. In Pulteney's Progress of Botany in England, this beautiful discovery is, if I rightly remember, not even alluded to; but it appears, from a letter written in 1672, that it was then becoming generally known, and had been confirmed by Grew and Malpighi. Ray's Correspond. edit. 1848, p. 98. Compare Richard, Eléments de Botanique, p. 46; where, however, M. Richard erroneously supposes that Grew did not know of the tracheæ till 1682.

482

Compare Cuvier, Hist. des Sciences, part ii. p. 471, with Thomson's Vegetable Chemistry, p. 950.

483

Dr. Thomson (Vegetable Chemistry, p. 950) says: ‘But the person to whom we are indebted for the first attempt to ascertain the structure of plants by dissection and microscopical observations, was Dr. Nathaniel Grew.’ The character of Grew's inquiries, as ‘viewing the internal, as well as external parts of plants,’ is also noticed in Ray's Correspond. p. 188; and M. Winckler (Gesch. der Botanik, p. 382) ascribes to him and Malpighi the ‘neuen Aufschwung’ taken by vegetable physiology late in the seventeenth century. See also, on Grew, Lindley's Botany, vol. i. p. 93; and Third Report of Brit. Assoc. p. 27.

484

The first book of his Anatomy of Plants was laid before the Royal Society in 1670, and printed in 1671. Hallam's Lit. of Europe, vol. iii. p. 580; and Thomson's Hist. of the Royal Society, p. 44.

485

‘The presence of sexual organs in plants was first shown in 1676, by Sir Thomas Millington; and it was afterwards confirmed by Grew, Malpighi, and Ray.’ Balfour's Botany, p. 236. See also Pulteney's Progress of Botany, vol. i. pp. 336, 337; and Lindley's Botany, vol. ii. p. 217: and, as to Ray, who was rather slow in admitting the discovery, see Lankester's Mem. of Ray, p. 100. Before this, the sexual system of vegetables had been empirically known to several of the ancients, but never raised to a scientific truth. Compare Richard, Eléments de Botanique, pp. 353, 427, 428, with Matter, Hist. de l'Ecole d'Alexandrie, vol. ii. p. 9.

486

In July 1665 he writes from Paris to his father, ‘The lecture of plants here is only the naming of them, their degrees in heat and cold, and sometimes their use in physick; scarce a word more than may be seen in every herball.’ Browne's Works, vol. i. p. 108.

487

Cuvier mentioning the inferiority of Tournefort's views to those of his predecessors, gives as an instance, ‘puisqu'il a rejeté les sexes des plantes.’ Hist. des Sciences, part ii. p. 496. Hence he held that the farina was ex-crementitious. Pulteney's Progress of Botany, vol. i. p. 340.

488

This is admitted even by his eulogist Duvau. Biog. Univ. vol. xlvi. p. 363.

489

On the method of Tournefort, which was that of a corrollist, compare Richard, Eléments de Botanique, p. 547; Jussieu's Botany, edit. Wilson, 1849, p. 516; Ray's Correspond. pp. 381, 382; Lankester's Mem. of Ray, p. 49; Winckler, Gesch. der Botanik, p. 142. Cuvier (Hist. des Sciences, part ii. p. 496), with quiet irony, says of it, ‘vous voyez, messieurs, que cette méthode a le mérite d'une grande clarté; qu'elle est fondée sur la forme de la fleur, et par conséquent sur des considérations agréables à saisir… Ce qui en fit le succès, c'est que Tournefort joignit à son ouvrage une figure de fleur et de fruit appartenant à chacun de ses genres.’ Even in this, he appears to have been careless, and is said to have described ‘a great many plants he never examined nor saw.’ Letter from Dr. Sherard, in Nichols's Illustrations of the Eighteenth Century, vol. i. p. 356.

490

Biog. Univ. vol. v. pp. 236, 358.

491

Ibid. xxvii. p. 351.

492

Ibid. xv. p. 35.

493

Ibid. xxiii. p. 496.

494

Ibid. xxix. p. 17.

495

Ibid. xxix. p. 19.

496

‘His best pictures were painted from about 1640 to 1660; he died in 1682.’ Wornum's Epochs of Painting, Lond. 1847. p. 399. Voltaire (Siècle de Louis XIV, in Œuvres, vol. xix. p. 205) says that he died in 1678.

497

Biog. Univ. vol. xxiv. p. 327; Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, vol. ii. pp. 454, 455.

498

Biog. Univ. vol. xxxv. p. 579. Poussin was Barry's ‘favourite’ painter. Letter from Barry, in Burke's Correspond. vol. i. p. 88. Compare Otter's Life of Clarke, vol. ii. p. 55. Sir Joshua Reynolds (Works, vol. i. pp. 97, 351, 376) appears to have preferred him to any of the French school; and in the report presented to Napoleon by the Institute, he is the only French painter mentioned by the side of the Greek and Italian artists. Dacier, Rapport Historique, p. 23.

499

Biog. Univ. vol. xxxiii. p. 411; Siècle de Louis XIV, in Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. xix. p. 158.

500

Biog. Univ. vol. xxvi. p. 503.

501

Ibid. vol. iv. p. 593.

502

Ibid. vol. xxxvi. p. 300. Respecting him, see Lady Morgan's France, vol. ii. pp. 30, 31.

503

M. Capefigue (Louis XIV, vol. ii. p. 79) says, ‘Lulli mourut en 1689;’ but 1687 is the date assigned in Biog. Univ. vol. xxv. p. 425; in Chalmer's Biog. Dict. vol. xx. p. 483; in Rose's Biog. Dict. vol. ix. p. 350; and in Monteil, Divers Etats, vol. vii p. 63. In Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. xix. p. 200, he is called ‘le père de la vraie musique en France.’ He was admired by Louis XIV. Lettres de Sévigné, vol. ii. pp. 162, 163.

504

Biog. Univ. vol. xxxvi. p. 42. Voltaire (Œuvres, vol. xix. p. 162) says, ‘personne n'a jamais égalé Quinault;’ and Mr. Hallam (Lit. of Europe, vol. iii. p. 507), ‘the unrivalled poet of French music.’ See also Lettres de Dudeffand à Walpole, vol. ii. p. 432.

505

When Louis XV. ascended the throne, painting in France was in the lowest state of degradation. Lady Morgan's France, vol. ii. p. 31. Lacretelle (Dix-huitième Siècle, vol. ii. p. 11) says ‘Les beaux arts dégénérèrent plus sensiblement que les lettres pendant la seconde partie du siècle de Louis XIV… Il est certain que les vingt-cinq dernières années du règne de Louis XIV n'offrirent que des productions très-inférieures,’ &c. Thus too Barrington (Observations on the Statutes, p. 377), ‘It is very remarkable that the French school hath not produced any very capital painters since the expensive establishment by Louis XIV. of the academies at Rome and Paris.’

506

Biog. Univ. vol. xxxvi. pp. 499, 502; Hallam's Lit. vol. iii. p. 493.

507

Biog. Univ. vol. xxix. pp. 306, 308.

508

Rose's Biog. Dict. vol. iv. p. 376; and Biog. Univ. vol. v. pp. 7, 8, where it is said that ‘ses meilleures satires’ were those published in 1666.

509

Ibid. vol. xxiii. p. 127.

510

Tennemann, Gesch. der Philos. vol. x. p. 322.

511

Biog. Univ. vol. vi. p. 175.

512

Brunet, Manuel du Libraire, vol. iv. p. 105, Paris 1843; and note in Lettres de Patin, vol. i. p. 421.

513

Biog. Univ. vol. xxxiii. pp. 64, 71; Palissot, Mém. pour l'Hist. de Lit. vol. ii. pp. 239, 241.

514

Polyeucte, which is probably his greatest work, appeared in 1640; Médée in 1635; The Cid in 1636; Horace and Cinna both in 1639. Biog. Univ. vol. ix. pp. 609–613.

515

Voltaire (Siècle de Louis XIV, in Œuvres, vol. xx. pp. 319–322) reluctantly confesses the decline of the French intellect in the latter part of the reign of Louis; and Flassan (Diplomat. Franç. vol. iv. p. 400) calls it ‘remarquable.’ See also Barante, Littérature Française, p. 28; Sismondi, Hist. des Français, vol. xxvi. p. 217.

516

Oppressed by defeats abroad, and by famine and misery at home, Louis was laid at the mercy of his enemies; and ‘was only saved by a party revolution in the English ministry.’ Arnold's Lectures on Modern History, p. 137. Compare Fragments sur l'Histoire, article xxiii. in Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. xxvii. p. 345, with De Tocqueville, Règne de Louis XV, vol. i. p. 86.

517

For evidence of the depression and, indeed, utter exhaustion of France during the latter years of Louis XIV., compare Duclos, Mémoires, vol. i. pp. 11–18, with Marmontel, Hist. de la Régence, Paris, 1826, pp. 79–97. The Lettres inédites de Madame de Maintenon (vol. i. pp. 263, 284, 358, 389, 393, 408, 414, 422, 426, 447, 457, 463, vol. ii. pp. 19, 23, 33, 46, 56, and numerous other passages) fully confirm this, and, moreover, prove that in Paris, early in the eighteenth century, the resources, even of the wealthy classes, were beginning to fail; while both public and private credit were so shaken, that it was hardly possible to obtain money on any terms. In 1710, she, the wife of Louis XIV., complains of her inability to borrow 500 livres: ‘Tout mon crédit échoue souvent auprès de M. Desmaretz pour une somme de cinq cents livres.’ Ibid. vol. ii. p. 33. In 1709, she writes (vol. i. p. 447): ‘Le jeu devient insipide, parce qu'il n'y a presque plus d'argent.’ See also vol. ii. p. 112; and in February 1711 (p. 151): ‘Ce n'est pas l'abondance mais l'avarice qui fait jouer nos courtisans; on met le tout pour le tout pour avoir quelque argent, et les tables de lansquenet ont plus l'air d'un triste commerce que d'un divertissement.’

In regard to the people generally, the French writers supply us with little information, because in that age they were too much occupied with their great king and their showy literature, to pay attention to mere popular interests. But I have collected from other sources some information which I will now put together, and which I recommend to the notice of the next French author who undertakes to compose a history of Louis XIV.