Voltaire and His Times. Authorized Transl (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: VOLTAIRE AND HIS TIMES. CHAPTER I. I.?The Abbe" Dangeau and his verbs?Boileau and his rhymes?Last look at the peace- fill lives of former times?The botanist Morin?Cassini?God everywhere?People dispensed with being amiable?The two Corneilles?Racine's domestic establishment ?The joys and the cares of that time?The belles-lettres?How and in what spirit they were loved. II.?Have we here, nevertheless, the proper idea of a man of letters This calm could only be listlessness?Men admirable; system false?Literature ought not to be only an art?The eighteenth century was right in principle, in assigning it a political and moral mission. III.?It was about to become no longer an end, but a means?The art, as an art, no longer exciting interest, the grand aim becomes influence?Those who do not seek it are compelled to exercise their share of it. IV.?Rollin?How he became a powerful agent?The son of a cutler and the son of a shoemaker?He was adopted as a man of opposition and a man of the movement?What pledges he had given as a Jansenist, as rector of the university, and professor?He became, unconsciously, a tribune. V.?His Ancicnt History?His Roman History?Success which nothing in these two works explains?Tediousness?Plagiarisms?Credulity?Little or no erudition?No local colouring?Messieurt les Athenient. VI.?It is heart speaking to heart?Inadequacy of this explanation?Vertot and d'Aguesseau promoters, like Racine, of the eighteenth century. VIL?The dead made to act the same part?Fe"nelon?What he was to become under infidel pens?His tloge by Maury and by La Harpe?How historical errors arise? How it came to be thought that Fe"nelon might be made a tool?Apotheoses?Tele- machus?What the eighteenth century saw in it?Was it really admired ? VIII.? The Duke of Burgund...