"True philosophy was not known till that time; and it is but justice to say, that commencing from the last year of Cardinal Richelieu, and proceeding to those which immediately succeeded the death of Louis XIV. there came to pass in our arts, in our minds, in our manners, as well as in our government, a general revolution, which ought to serve as an eternal mark of the true glory of our country."
— Arouet, François-Marie [known as Voltaire] (1694-1778)
Work Title
Date
1751
Metaphor
"True philosophy was not known till that time; and it is but justice to say, that commencing from the last year of Cardinal Richelieu, and proceeding to those which immediately succeeded the death of Louis XIV. there came to pass in our arts, in our minds, in our manners, as well as in our government, a general revolution, which ought to serve as an eternal mark of the true glory of our country."
Metaphor in Context
The fourth age is that which is named the Age of Louis XIV. and is, perhaps, the one of the four that approaches the nearest to perfection. Enriched with the discoveries of the three former, it excelled, in certain things the three others put together. None of the arts, it must be confessed, were carried farther than under the Medici's, the Augustus's, and the Alexanders'; but the human understanding became much more enlightened. True philosophy was not known till that time; and it is but justice to say, that commencing from the last year of Cardinal Richelieu, and proceeding to those which immediately succeeded the death of Louis XIV. there came to pass in our arts, in our minds, in our manners, as well as in our government, a general revolution, which ought to serve as an eternal mark of the true glory of our country. This happy influence not even confine itself to France; it extended also to England, and excited an emulation which that profound and ingenious nation then stood in need of; it inspired a taste in Germany, and introduced the sciences into Russia; it even re-animated Italy, which had begun to languish, and all Europe is indebted for its politeness and its social spirit, to the Court of Louis XIV.
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Categories
Provenance
Reading Dan Edelstein, The Enlightenment: A Genealogy(Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 105.
Citation
Text from The Age of Louis XIV, ed. R. Griffith (London: Printed for Fielding and Walker, 1779). <Link to Google Books>
Date of Entry
12/23/2011
