LECTURES ON EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION. BY M. GUIZOT, LATE MINISTER FOR PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. TRANSLATED BY PRISCILLA MARIA BECKWITH. LONDON: JOHN MACRONE, ST. JAMES'S SQUARE. MDCCCXXXVII. 393. PREFACE BY THE EDITOR. M. GUIZOT undertook to trace the progress of European Civilization, from the fall of the Roman Empire, and the invasion of the Barbarians, to our own time. He has successively brought under observation the principal elements of modern society;-the Feudal Aristocracy, the Church, the Communes, and Royalty. He has described their successive, or parallel development, and the metamorphoses they underwent during a long course of ages. He has investigated what influence each of these elements had, in producing the great events which have changed the condition of the world-such as the Crusades, the religious revolution of the sixteenth century, and the revolution in England iv EDITOR'S PREFACE. in the seventeenth. He has described with extraordinary care, the secret fusion, the mental transformation, which, dissolving by degrees all the elements of the middle ages, so long at war amongst themselves, at length divided modern societies into two great powers, the people and the government. The picture he draws of the reign of Louis XIV., and his long conflict with William III.:-that of the state of France during the eighteenth century, wherein he shows that France has always been the centre, the focus, of European civilization has been especially admired. It is impossible in a few words to do justice to the merit of these Lectures-but the public have already recognised their value, by the ardour with which they flocked to hear them, and the approbation they testified during their delivery. PREFACE BY THE TRANSLATOR. IN undertaking a translation of M. Guizot's Lectures on European Civilization, I have been actuated by the desire to render accessible to the English public, a work abounding in new and grand ideas, and calculated from its general and extended views, to be useful to a very numerous class of readers. In the prosecution of my task, I have endeavoured to present faithfully the opinions of the Author, and even to convey an idea of his style of composition;-how far successfully, the public will decide. This is not the time or place to enter into any discussion respecting either the literary productions of M. Guizot, or his political career;-but b |