Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Reviews, Essays and Other Writings, Vol. 2 of 2
That another prepossession should prevail among early French historical writers was only natural. The monarchy was the visible expression of French nationality. French writers were no more partisan in constitutional matters than English writers were; but as in the 18th and 19th centuries English writers were diligently seeking a justification for the desirable constitutional innovations of the 17th century by exaggerating the constitutional self-govern ment of earlier ages, so Frenchmen were often naturally inclined to magnify the r6le of the royal power which had made France united at home and feared abroad. Yet a different bias was shewn in the l6th and 17th centuries, and was not unfelt till the revolution changed both the course of events and the modes of regarding them. The Huguenots were the natural partisans of constitutional rights, but the struggles between the Leaguers and Henri III and Henri IV enlisted the ultra-catholics upon the side of those who questioned the right of the king to rule without the sanction of popular support, or perhaps popular election. The assumption of power by Louis XIV finally reunited the ideas of despotism in Church and State.
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