"The object has been the history of the human intellect, and not the detail of facts nearly always distorted: it was not intended, for instance, to inquire of what family the lord of Puiset, or the lord of Montlhéri, might be, who made war on the kings of France, but to trace the gradual advances from the barbarous rusticity of those days to the polish of ours.
.......
"In what a flourishing condition would Europe be without the continual wars which trouble it for very trifling interests, and often for petty caprices! To what a degree of perfection might agriculture have attained, and how widely might manufactures have spread comfort and ease throughout communities, if such astonishing numbers of useless men and women had not been buried in cloisters! A new humanity has tempered the scourge of war, softening its horrors, and still continuing to save nations from that destruction which appeared so imminently to menace them. It is indeed very deplorable to see such a multitude of soldiers maintained by all princes; but this evil produces good. The people do not now mix in the wars which their masters wage; the citizens of besieged towns often pass from one domination to another without loss of life to a single inhabitant; they are only the prize of him who has most soldiers, cannon, and money."
In all this the reader may perhaps discern a spirit which, at least in humanity and liberality, was in advance of his own time, and possibly of ours.
