The Last Years of the Ancien Régime.
The decay of the old society was accompanied in France by a decay of the ideas which were inseparably associated with it, and which, long kept alive by authoritative sanctions, had exacted, not always without violence, the reverence of men. As the State had usurped the control of every department of action, so the Roman Catholic Church had usurped the control of every department of thought. Resting serenely upon authority and dogma, it had dictated and circumscribed the knowledge of its subjects, had directed their intellectual interests, and had aimed at supplying not only a religion to govern their conduct, but also a complete theory to govern their lives. Against this monopoly, and the conceptions on which it was established, the best minds of the eighteenth century rose in revolt, and their revolt was celebrated by an outbreak of active and intrepid thought. Beginning in the mysterious domain of physical science, with great discoveries in astronomy, chemistry, physics, geology and mathematics, the new spirit of enquiry spread like a flame to illumine other topics. Its votaries, rejecting ancient tradition and immemorial habit, turned with sudden enthusiasm to observation and analysis, and built up for themselves step by step new systems of knowledge, based, not on what their teachers taught them, but on positive facts which they had ascertained and tested for themselves. The vivid curiosity thus aroused woke in them distrust of all preconceived notions, banished the reverent awe which had restrained earlier generations, and broke down the old barriers of belief.
Before long the passion for investigation passed beyond the limits of physical science, and ranging far afield, entered the domain of theology, of economics, of politics and social laws. In all fields alike there appeared the same disposition to repudiate opinions previously held, to examine afresh, under no restrictions, the principles which lay at the root of religion and government, the general laws which regulated human institutions, the origin of existing conceptions of society and property, of justice and right. Tradition was dethroned, and reason was set up in its seat, as the only test by which opinions could be determined, without regard to the subordinate place which reason fills in the conduct of men. The classical spirit, with its finish, its artificiality, its limitations, already dominant in France, set its stamp upon the new philosophy, and afforded the vehicle for conveying it to the world. In successive generations of polished intercourse, the French language had acquired extreme nicety and clearness of expression; it was admirably fitted for criticism, analysis, argument, definition; and it thus rendered the new ideas at once popular and lucid. A passion for philosophical discussion took hold of the educated world, and carried them past the facts which they ought to have noticed, to theories which seemed more distant and consequently more profound. All alike began to speculate, to generalise, to enquire into the meaning of many things, the current interpretation of which they had determined no longer to accept; while the necessity, from which all Frenchmen suffer, of never being dull, encouraged superficiality in the new search for truth, and checked the close study of history, which alone could have avoided error.
As the secrets of the universe unfolded, and as men learned how clear and simple were the laws of physical nature, they determined that there must be other laws of nature, equally clear and simple, to explain society and politics; and finding this theory lamentably contradicted by the confusion of institutions and abuses round them, they began to assail those institutions and abuses with the audacity which science gives. Law and religion in their actual forms were so corrupt that the shocked imagination of these dreamers fell back upon ideals of natural religion and natural law. Far aloof themselves from actual politics, untrained by that wisdom of many voices which free political discussion bestows, dissatisfied with their own political customs, but disdaining to study thoroughly the political customs of others and the origin of all, they proceeded to formulate, by the aid of pure reason, theories which would satisfy their newly roused emotions, and fit in with some apparently more simple and scientific formula of life. All those for whom politics in practice were a sealed book, took refuge in these politics of the imagination, and the political world in France found itself presently divided into two camps, one consisting of those who governed, the other of those who discoursed, the latter perpetually establishing principles, which the former perpetually broke. A society devoted to letters and to conversation embraced and disseminated the speculative literature of the age, and thus the great literary men of the eighteenth century became in France what politicians sometimes strive to be in happier lands, the fountains of political inspiration, and the real leaders of public thought.
Among the pioneers of the new doctrines two men stand out conspicuously in each half of the century,—Montesquieu and Voltaire in the first half, Diderot and Rousseau in the second. Montesquieu, the earliest of the philosophers, was a polished and eminent lawyer, well versed in history, serious, acute, a profound student of human institutions, and the master of a terse and pointed style. His writings, generally speaking, were no mere flights of pert fancy, but the result of systematised and careful thought, weighty, luminous, moderate in tone, and scientifically sane. It was Montesquieu, who, in his Lettres Persanes, initiated the philosophic movement, and unmasked the batteries of criticism and satire, which for two generations were to play so effectively upon the foundations of the old monarchy in France. It was Montesquieu, who, twenty seven years later, when he produced the great work of his life, the Esprit des Lois, analysed with clear and wide sagacity the laws which regulate human governments and customs, and thus destroyed the mysterious prestige which had never till then been stripped from the ancient institutions of France. It was Montesquieu, who first exposed those institutions to a ruthless analysis which they could not stand. But the slow and careful method, which was Montesquieu's distinction, was less popular with his successors. It involved too much trouble. It ran the risk, except in a master's hands, of being dull. The classical spirit, the French temperament, the love of amusement combined to guide criticism into an easier groove, and the philosophic movement, without altogether deserting the studious atmosphere of facts, adopted a more becoming garment in the exquisite raillery of Voltaire.
Voltaire's life extended long past the middle of the century, and its closing years were the years of its greatest triumphs. But he yet belongs to the generation of Montesquieu rather than to that of Rousseau. Under him, the tone of the new movement altered. It became lighter, and bolder too. Its reserve vanished. Its intrepidity increased. It entered every field. It illumined every subject. In verse, in prose, in history, in drama, in romance, Voltaire assailed traditions, beliefs, abuses, exposing mercilessly their shortcomings and shifts, laughing aloud over their absurdities, denying the pretensions which they boasted, denouncing the iniquities to which they led. Voltaire's rare and versatile wit, his light touch, his unabashed scepticism, his brilliant common-sense, appealed irresistibly to the minds of his countrymen. He made the philosophic movement popular. He identified it with many errors, and with the gravest faults of taste. But with it all he taught men to despise many follies and to impeach many wrongs.
It was Voltaire who gave to the literary movement that decisive tone of irreligion, which it so long retained. The Church stood in the van of the opponents whom the philosophers had to encounter, and to attack the Church, her practice and her creeds, was to Voltaire an intellectual delight. More than any other institution the Church in France represented the spirit of tradition, of authority, of submission to formulas, of reverence for the past. As such, she was certain to view with alarm the new spirit of independent enquiry. Of all forms of political power, the political power of the Church was the most unpopular. She stepped in to support with mysterious sanctions the civil institutions which many felt were unjust. As the censor of the Press, she represented the Government at the very point where the Government and the philosophers came into conflict. Of all the supports of the old order, she was in many ways the most open to attack. Consequently, the philosophic movement from the first brought its forces to bear upon the Church, and Voltaire led the onslaught with the irreverent vivacity of his nature, and the rich splendour of his information and literary resource.
In the middle of the eighteenth century, however, the conduct of the philosophic movement passed to a large extent into younger hands. In 1751, the first volume of the celebrated Encyclopaedia concentrated public attention on a group of writers of no common range and understanding, all inspired with the new spirit, and combined to carry it into every field of economic, political, and social action. The Encyclopaedists numbered among them many distinguished men. On the roll of their contributors we find the names of Turgot, Rousseau, Buffon, Marmontel. D'Alembert, the accomplished mathematician, brought to the work his trained abilities, his admirable style, and the wisdom acquired by a student during a life spent in frugality and independence. But the greatest of the staff, the most original in genius, the most reckless in expression, and the most intense and imaginative in thought, was the brilliant, perverse, impetuous Diderot, with his extraordinary, magnetic conversation, his indomitable perseverance, his genuine consciousness of his own shortcomings, his ardent desire for the improvement of mankind. It is significant that nearly all the prominent members of the Enyclopaedic party had been brought up as pupils of the Jesuits, and unquestionably, as a party, they associated themselves with a pronounced attack upon the chief tenets of the Catholic Church. But it is difficult and not very profitable to attempt to assign definite names of obloquy to the varieties of disbelief within their ranks, and it is a grave mistake to regard that aspect of their writings as the most characteristic or important. What gave to the enterprise its force and success was the fact that it travelled far beyond the barren conflicts of theology, and brought the new ideas, the new habit of enquiry and analysis, the new fearlessness of social comment, and the new humanitarian zeal, to investigating political and economic phenomena, to preparing the way for practical reform. The glory of the Encyclopaedists lies not in their contempt for things holy, but in their hatred of things unjust, in their denunciation of the trade in slaves, of the inequalities of taxation, of the corruption of justice, of the wastefulness of wars, in their dreams of social progress, in their sympathy with the rising empire of industry, which was beginning to transform the world.