England. There arose a tacit freemasonry between the higher classes. M. Texte points out that the French appreciation of English literature was at its strongest during the wars. The eighteenth-century wars did not imply the profound antipathy of the religious wars of the past or the revolutionary wars to come. The 'patriotic idea,' says M. Texte, had become feeble. A person of quality often thought himself a gentleman first and a Frenchman or an Englishman afterwards. War to the enlightened aristocrat meant not an internecine struggle, but a game to be played in a sportsmanlike spirit. The English officers did not say at Fontenoy, 'Gentlemen of the French Guard, fire first,' but that was the spirit in which they might, or ought to, have acted. The 'cosmopolitan spirit,' in short, was the product of the innumerable causes which were bringing nations into closer intercourse at their higher levels; and the literary go-betweens were useful 'masters of the ceremonies' to bring together people anxious for an introduction. What, then, was Rousseau's special share in the process? Had not Voltaire already opened his countrymen's eyes? This gives the important distinction. Voltaire's special achievement was
