of France. This peculiarity could not fail to detract
from their permanent interest, even if it did not (as it too often did)
make the authors less careful to give a correct account of their subject
than to make it serve their purpose.

[Sidenote: Rollin.]

The first regular historian who deserves mention is Charles Rollin, who
perhaps had a longer and wider monopoly of a certain kind of historical
instruction than any other author. He was born at Paris in January,
1661, of the middle class, and, after studying at the College du
Plessis, he became Professor at the College de France, and, in 1694,
Rector of the University; a post in which he distinguished himself by
introducing many useful and much-needed reforms. He was a Jansenist, but
was not much inconvenienced in consequence. Rollin's book (that is to
say the only one by which he is remembered) is his extensive _Histoire
Ancienne_, 1730-1738, the work of his advanced years, which was the
standard treatise on the subject for nearly a century, and was
translated into most languages. Although showing no particular
historical grasp, written with no power of style, and not universally
accurate, it deserves such praise as may be due to a work of great
practical utility requiring much industrious labour, and not imitated
from or much assisted by any previous book. The _Histoire Romaine_,
which followed it, was of little worth, but Rollin's _Traite des Etudes_
was a very useful book in its time.

[Sidenote: Dubos.]

[Sidenote: Boulainvilliers.]

Two historians, who hardly deserve the name, are usually ranked together
in this part of French history, partly because they represent almost the
last of the fabulous school of history-writers, partly because their
disputes (for they were of opposite factions) have had the honour to be
noticed by Montesquieu. These were Dubos and Boulainvilliers. The Abbe
Dubos was a writer of some merit on a great variety of subjects; his
_Reflexions sur la Poesie et la Peinture_ being of value. His chief
historical work is entitled _Histoire Critique de l'Etablissement de la
Monarchie Francaise dans les Gaules_, in which, with a paradoxical
patriotism, which has found some echoes among living historians, he
maintained that the Frankish invasion of Gaul was the consequence of an
amicable invitation, that the Gauls were in no sense conquered, and that
all conclusions based on the supposition of such a conquest were
therefore erroneous. It i