Edward Bruce Hamley

“ A finer subject could not offer itself to a Frenchman than the long reign in which France, seeming, at a bound, to emerge from a base condition of manners, of public morals, of government, and of policy, stood forth resplendent in letters, arts, arms, statecraft, and social refinement. ”

“ While he was in Prussia, 'The Age of Louis XIV.' had been published. It was probably fortunate that he was absent from France when giving it the last touches. "I have finished the work," he says, "expressly to make for myself a way to the esteem of good people. The matter is so delicate that I believe I could not have dealt with it except from a distance. History demands such freedom of truth that an historiographer of France can only write when out of France." ”

“ Nothing but the name remains of those who have led battalions and squadrons. The human race gains nothing by these pitched battles. But the great men I have mentioned have prepared pure and durable pleasures for posterity. ”