royalists understood them, and these were the Jesuits whom the court had exiled.  Not even Frederic the Great, when he patronized Voltaire, was aware what an insidious foe was domiciled in his palace, with all his sycophancy of rank, with all his courtly flattering.  In like manner, when the grand seigneurs and noble dames of that aristocratic age wept over the sorrows of the “New Heloise,” or craved that imaginary state of untutored innocence which Rousseau so morbidly described, or admired those brilliant generalizations of laws which Montesquieu had penned, or laughed at the envenomed ironies of Voltaire, or quoted the atheistic doctrines of D’Alembert and Diderot, or enthusiastically discussed the economical theories of Dr. Quesnay and old Marquis Mirabeau,—­that stern father of him who, both in his intellectual power and moral deformity, was alike the exponent and the product of the French Revolution,—­when the blinded court extolled and diffused the writings of these new apostles of human rights, they little dreamed that they would be still more admired among the people, and bring forth the Brissots, the Condoreets, the Marats, the Dantons, the Robespierres, of the next generation.  I would not say that their influence was wholly bad, for in their attacks on the religion and institutions of their country they subverted monstrous usurpations.  But whatever was their ultimate influence, they were doubtless among the most efficient agents in overturning the throne; they were, in reality, the secret enemies of those by whom they were patronized and honored.  “They cannot, indeed, claim the merit of being the first in France who opened the eyes of the nation; for Fenelon had taught even to Louis XIV., in his immortal ‘Telemaque,’ the duties of a king; Racine, in his ‘Germanicus,’ had shown the accursed nature of irresponsible despotism; Moliere, in his ‘Tartuffe,’ had exposed the vices of priestly hypocrisy; Pascal, in his ‘Provincial Letters,’ had revealed the wretched sophistries of the Jesuits; Bayle even, in his ‘Critical Dictionary,’ had furnished materials for future sceptics.”

But the hostilities of all these men were united in Voltaire, who in nearly two hundred volumes, and with a fecundity of genius perfectly amazing and unparalleled, in poetry, in history, in criticism,—­yet without striking originality or profound speculations,—­astonished and delighted his generation.  This great and popular writer clothed his attacks on ecclesiastical power, and upon Christianity itself, in the most artistic and attractive language,—­clear, simple, logical, without pedantry or ostentation,—­and enlivened it with brilliant sarcasms, appealing to popular prejudices, and never soaring beyond popular appreciation.  Never did a man have such popularity; never did a famous writer leave so little to posterity which posterity can value.