XVII
MABILLON ET LA SOCIÉTÉ DE L'ABBAYE DE SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRÉS À LA FIN DU XVIIe SIECLE. Par Emmanuel de Broglie.[1]
In his Life of Mabillon, which appeared within a week of Marie-Thérèse Imperatrice, Prince Emmanuel de Broglie takes a handsome revenge on the French Benedictines who assailed his father. Whilst the duke explains the rising pride of Prussia and the reasons of the Maison du Roy for reserving their fire, his youngest son, overcoming difficulties which would disable any ordinary man, displays the obscure labours of the Champenois peasant who became the glory of the Congregation de St. Maur. The academic éloge has long developed the art of redeeming the monotony of praise with pinches of salutary censure. This, however, is not a criticism on the famous critic. There is no attempt to overdo, scarcely even to describe, his special merit as an investigator of the past, or to ascertain how far he contributed to progress, in matter and method, and how far it has left him behind. Mabillon is presented as the equal of men like Ducange and Baluze, whilst the most learned of the Dominicans and of the Jesuits, Quétif and Hardouin, are not taken into comparison, and the amiable weakness of biographers appears, if at all, in admiration of the monk, not of the scholar. The worth of the book consists in extracts from the archives of the abbey of St. Germain, now in the congenial custody of M. Léopold Delisle. Its defect is that this
- ↑ English Historical Review, vol. iii. 1888.
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