READINGS IN A collection of extracts from the sources chosen with the BY JAMES HARVEY ROBINSON PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY AND CHARLES A. BEARD ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF POLITICS IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY VOLUME I THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: THE FRENCH COPYRIGHT, 1908 BY JAMES HARVEY ROBINSON AND CHARLES A. BEARD ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 819.3 The Athenæum Press PREFACE However carefully and judiciously a historical manual may be prepared, it is impossible in its brief, compact statements of the fundamental facts to give a lively sense of the reality of the events, conditions, and motives with which it deals. The student is only too likely to learn and repeat the words of the book as mere formulas which fail to stimulate real thought and interest. In order to meet this difficulty and give the text-book its proper background and atmosphere the student must be brought here and there within reach of the living springs of our knowledge and see the very words of those who, writing when the past was present, can carry us back to themselves and make their times our own. These two volumes have, accordingly, been prepared to accompany chapter by chapter and section by section our Development of Modern Europe. The task of selection involved more complications and difficulties than one who has not attempted it would suspect. We cannot claim in every case to have discovered the most pertinent and illuminating extract to meet a particular need; but we trust that all that we have included will prove to have some interest, and that a great deal is not only of first-rate importance but is also vivid and impressive. We have borrowed to some extent from the second volume of Robinson's Readings in European History, since we could not afford to omit a number of 348632 the documents which it gives. Indeed we felt that we could hardly hope to improve appreciably the chapters ⚫ relating to the French Revolution and Napoleon, and have embodied them in the present volume with but slight changes. The bibliographies in the appendix are merely introductory and make no claim to do more than start the student on the path to a really thorough study of the field. If, however, he familiarizes himself with even the more important of the books mentioned, he will have no trouble in steadily widening, by his own efforts, his knowledge of the authorities and sources relating to modern history. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY J. H. R. C. A. B. CONTENTS AND LIST OF CITATIONS PAGE Section 1. France before Louis XIV 1. Richelieu's account of the condition of France in 1624 Testament politique (Amsterdam, 1689), chap. i 2. Sir William Temple's account of France in 1671 A Survey of the Constitution and Interests of the Empire, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Holland, France, and Flanders, with their Section 2. Louis XIV (1643–1715) 3. Extracts from Bossuet's work on kingship . BOSSUET, Politique tirée des propres paroles de l'Écriture Sainte, Liv. iii, art. ii, prop. i, ii, iii (passim), and iv; Liv. iv, art. i, prop. i; Liv. v, art. iv, prop. i; Œuvres (ed. Lachat, 1864), XXIII, 533 4. Saint-Simon's portrait of Louis XIV Parallèle des trois premiers rois Bourbons [written in 1746]; Écrits 5. How Louis and his court were entertained at Chantilly. COLBERT, Mémoires sur les affaires de finances de France pour servir à l'histoire, in CLEMENT, Lettres, Instructions, et Mé- moires de Colbert, II, pt. i, 17 sqq. 8 II |