Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from A Popular History of France, From the Earliest Times, Vol. 4 of 4
It has been said in this History that Louis XIV. had the fortune to find himself at the culminating point of absolute monarchy, and to profit by the labors of his predecessors, reaping a portion of their glory; he had likewise the honor of enriching himself with the labors of his contemporaries, and attracting to himself a share of their lustre; the honor, be it said, not the fortune, for he managed to remain the centre of intellectual movement as well as of the court, of literature and art as well as affairs of state. Only the abrupt and solitary genius of Pascal or the prankish and ingenuous geniality of La Fontaine held aloof from king and court; Racine and Moliere, Bossuet and Fenelon, La Bruyere and Boileau lived frequently in the circle of Louis XIV., and enjoyed in different degrees his favor; M. de la Rochefoucauld and Madame de Sevigne were of the court; Lebrun, Rigaud, Mignard, painted for the king; Perrault and Mansard constructed the Louvre and Versailles; the learned of all countries considered it an honor to correspond with the new academies founded in France. Louis XIV. was even less a man of letters or an artist than an administrator or a soldier: but literature and art, as well as the superintendents and the generals, found in him the King. The puissant unity of the reign is everywhere the same. The king and the nation are in harmony.
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