that have contributed
to produce it.

The despotism of Louis XIV., united with the gaiety of his Court, and
the gaudy ostentation of his character, had so humbled, and at the same
time so fascinated the mind of France, that the people appeared to have
lost all sense of their own dignity, in contemplating that of their
Grand Monarch; and the whole reign of Louis XV., remarkable only for
weakness and effeminacy, made no other alteration than that of spreading
a sort of lethargy over the nation, from which it showed no disposition
to rise.

The only signs which appeared to the spirit of Liberty during those
periods, are to be found in the writings of the French philosophers.
Montesquieu, President of the Parliament of Bordeaux, went as far as a
writer under a despotic government could well proceed; and being obliged
to divide himself between principle and prudence, his mind often appears
under a veil, and we ought to give him credit for more than he has
expressed.

Voltaire, who was both the flatterer and the satirist of despotism, took
another line. His forte lay in exposing and ridiculing the superstitions
which priest-craft, united with state-craft, had interwoven with
governments. It was not from the purity of his principles, or his love
of mankind (for satire and philanthropy are not naturally concordant),
but from his strong capacity of seeing folly in its true shape, and his
irresistible propensity to expose it, that he made those attacks. They
were, however, as formidable as if the motive had been virtuous; and he
merits the thanks rather than the esteem of mankind.

On the contrary, we find in the writings of Rousseau, and the Abbe
Raynal, a loveliness of sentiment in favour of liberty, that excites
respect, and elevates the human faculties; but having raised this
animation, they do not direct its operation, and leave the mind in love
with an object, without describing the means of possessing it.

The writings of Quesnay, Turgot, and the friends of those authors, are
of the serious kind; but they laboured under the same disadvantage with
Montesquieu; their writings abound with moral maxims of government, but
are rather directed to economise and reform the administration of the
government, than the government itself.

But all those writings and many others had their weight; and by the
different manner in which they treated the subject of government,
Montesquieu by his judgment and knowledge of laws, Voltair