es Romanticism (A.D. 1775)_, 347
KARL HILLEBRAND

_Pestalozzi's Method of Education (A.D. 1775)_, 364
GEORGE RIPLEY

_Universal Chronology (A.D. 1716-1775)_, 379
JOHN RUDD

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME XIII

PAGE

_The charge of the British at Quebec (page 248)_,
Painting by R. Caton Woodville. Frontispiece

_The British officer reads the decree of exile of the Acadian
Neutrals, in the village church_, 184
Painting by Frank Dicksee.

AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE

TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF

THE GREAT EVENTS

(FROM VOLTAIRE TO WASHINGTON)

CHARLES F. HORNE

During the eighteenth century a remarkable change swept over Europe. The
dominant spirit of the time ceased to be artistic as in the Renaissance,
or religious as in the Reformation, or military as during the savage
civil wars that had followed. The central figure of the world was no
longer a king, nor a priest, nor a general. Instead, the man on whom all
eyes were fixed, who towered above his fellows, was a mere author,
possessed of no claim to notice but his pen. This was the age of the
arisen intellect.

The rule of Louis XIV, both in its splendor and its wastefulness, its
strength and its oppression, its genius and its pride, had well prepared
the way for what should follow. Not only had French culture extended
over Europe, but the French language had grown everywhere to be the
tongue of polite society, of the educated classes. It had supplanted
Latin as the means of communication between foreign courts. Moreover,
the most all-pervading and obtrusive of French monarchs was succeeded by
the most retiring, the one most ready of all to let the world take what
course it would. Louis XV chanced to reign during this entire period,
from 1715 to 1774, and that is equivalent to saying that France, which
had become the chief state of Europe, was ungoverned, was only robbed
and bullied for the support of a profligate court. So long as citizens
paid taxes, they might think--and say--wellnigh what they pleased.

The elder Louis had realized something of the error of his own career
and had left as his last advice to his successor, to abstain from war.
We are told that the obedient legatee accepted the caution as his motto,