The French, like true artists, always regarded war as one of the fine arts.
 Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (1906). copy citation

add
Author Henry Adams
Source The Education of Henry Adams
Topic war art
Date 1906
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2044/2044-h/2044-h.htm

Context

“Standing on the curb of the Boulevard, one could see as much as though one stood by the side of the Emperor or in command of an army corps. The effect was lurid. The public seemed to look on the war, as it had looked on the wars of Louis XIV and Francis I, as a branch of decorative art. The French, like true artists, always regarded war as one of the fine arts. Louis XIV practiced it; Napoleon I perfected it; and Napoleon III had till then pursued it in the same spirit with singular success. In Paris, in July, 1870, the war was brought out like an opera of Meyerbeer.” source