veyance of English constitutional ideas to
the thinking classes of France.

An even greater influence than Montesquieu was Voltaire. He exercised
an irresistible fascination on the intellectual class by the unrivalled
lucidity and logic of his powerful yet witty prose. He carried common
sense to the point of genius, threw the glamour of intellect over the
materialism of his century, and always seized his pen most eagerly when
a question of humanity and liberalism was at stake. He had weak sides,
was materialistic in living as {17} in thinking, and had nothing of the
martyr in his composition; yet, after his fashion, he battled against
obscurantism with all the zeal of a reformer. He was, in fact, the
successor of Calvin. But since Calvin's day Protestantism had been
almost extirpated in France, so that the gradual growth of the spirit
of enquiry, still proceeding below the surface, had brought it to a
point beyond Protestantism. It was atheism that Voltaire stood for,
and with the vast majority of the people of France from that day to
this the alternative lay between rigid Catholicism on one hand and
rigid atheism on the other. The innumerable shades of transition
between these extremes, in which English and German Protestantism
opened a pioneer track, remained a sealed book for them. In his
_Letters on the English_, published in 1734, Voltaire dwells less on
constitutional than on religious questions. Liberty of conscience is
what he struggles for, and he discerns not only that it is more prudent
to attack the Church than the State but that it is more essential;
religion is at the root of the monarchical system even if the 18th
century ruler is apt to forget it. And the Church gives Voltaire ample
opportunity for attack. The bishops and court abbes are often enough
{18} sceptics and libertines, though every once in a while they turn
and deal a furious blow to maintain the prestige and discipline of
their ancient corporation. And when, for a few blasphemous words, they
send a boy like the Chevalier de La Barre to the scaffold, to be
mutilated and killed, Voltaire's voice rings out with the full
reverberation of outraged humanity and civilization: _Ecrasez
l'infame_! He believed that the Revolution, which he like so many others
foresaw, would begin by an attack on the priests. It was the natural
error of a thinker, a man of letters, concerned more with ideas than
facts, with theology than economics.

Abov