llac, which is remarkable for vividness
and adaptation to the ordinary comprehension. Unlike the style of Locke
himself, Condillac's style is not in the least slovenly, but polished
and lucid, excellently suited to such a public as that of the eighteenth
century, which was at once intelligent enough to understand, and
educated enough to demand, finish of manner in discussing abstract
points.

After Condillac the history of philosophy in France during the rest of
the period is of no great interest to literature. He himself was
continued and represented chiefly by Destutt de Tracy. The reaction
against the extreme idealist and materialist constructions of Locke
respectively, which had been brought about in England by Reid and
Stewart, acquired in the last years of the eighteenth century, and the
beginning of the nineteenth, a considerable following in France. Its
chiefs were Maine de Biran, Royer Collard (who also obtained reputation
as an orator and parliamentary politician), and Jouffroy. They belong,
however, rather to the history of philosophy than to that of literature.

[Sidenote: Joseph de Maistre.]

After this long list of writers who advocated, more or less openly,
revolution in matters political and religious, but especially in the
latter, two authors who with Chateaubriand, but in a definitely
philosophical manner, set the example of reaction, and who to a great
extent indicated the lines which it was to follow, must be mentioned.
These are Joseph de Maistre, and Louis de Bonald. Joseph, Count de
Maistre, was born at Chambery, in 1753, of a noble Savoyard family,
which is said to have come originally from Languedoc. His father held
important employments in the duchy, and Joseph himself entered its civil
service. When, after the French Revolution, Savoy was invaded, and in a
short time annexed, he returned to Lausanne, and there wrote
_Considerations sur la France_, his first work of importance. For some
years he was employed at Turin in the administration of such of his
continental dominions as were left to the King of Sardinia; and then,
after the practical annexation of Piedmont, he held a similar employ in
the island of Sardinia itself. At the beginning of the present century,
he was sent to St. Petersburg to plead the cause of his master. Here he
remained till after the overthrow of Napoleon, and wrote, though he did
not publish, most of his books. In 1816 he returned to Turin, and died a
few years after