s fair to Dubos to say that he had been in a
manner provoked by the arguments of the Count de Boulainvilliers.
According to this latter, the Frankish conquest had resulted in the
establishment of a dominant caste, which alone had full enfranchisement,
and which was lineally, or at least titularly, represented by the French
aristocracy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These reckless
and baseless hypotheses would not require notice, were it not important
to show how long it was before the idea of rigid enquiry into
documentary facts on the one hand, and philosophical application of
general laws on the other, were observed in historical writing.

[Sidenote: Voltaire.]

Montesquieu himself will come in for mention under the head of
philosophers, but Voltaire's ubiquity will be maintained in this
chapter. His strictly historical work was indeed considerable, even if
what is perhaps the most remarkable of it, the _Essai sur les Moeurs_
(which may be described as a treatise, with instances, on the philosophy
of history, as applied to modern times), be excluded. Besides smaller
works, the histories of Charles XII. and Peter the Great, the _Age of
Louis XIV._, the _Age of Louis XV._, and the _Annals of the Empire_,
belong to the class of which we are now treating. Of these there is no
doubt that the _Siecle de Louis Quatorze_, 1752, is the best, though the
slighter sketches of Charles, 1731, and Peter, 1759, are not undeserving
of the position they have long held as little masterpieces. Voltaire,
however, was not altogether well qualified for a historian; indeed, he
had but few qualifications for the work, except his mastery of a clear,
light, and lively style. He had no real conception, such as Montesquieu
had, of the philosophy of history, or of the operation of general
causes. His reading, though extensive, was desultory and uncritical, and
he constantly fell into the most grotesque blunders. His prejudices were
very strong, and he is more responsible than any other single person for
the absurd and ignorant disdain of the middle ages, which, so long as it
lasted, made comprehension of modern history and society simply
impossible, because the origins of both were wilfully ignored. These
various drawbacks had perhaps less influence on the _Siecle de Louis
Quatorze_ than on any other of his historical works, and it is
accordingly the best. He was well acquainted with the subject, he was
much interested in it, it tou