394 Readings in European History De Tocqueville, State of Society in France before the Revolution. A very remarkable philosophical account of the character and policy of the French government. This should be studied with the utmost care by all students of the period. A new edition of the French original, with introduction and notes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1904. Taine, The Ancient Regime. A brilliant work. The chapters on the society, literature, and philosophy of the period are the best ; those on the economic conditions are disappointing. RoCQUAIN, The Revolutionary Spirit before the Revolution, 1 894. A condensation, omitting the valuable notes of the original French edition. A suggestive account of the various disturbances preceding the disorders of the Revolution itself. Morley, John, Voltaire, a brilliant essay; Rousseau, 2 vols.; Diderot and the Encyclopedists, 2 vols. ; Critical Miscellanies, 3 vols., containing essays on Turgot and other important persons of the period. Mr. Mor- ley's writings are noteworthy not only for their scholarship and distin- guished style but also for the fundamental sympathy between his views and many of those of the eighteenth-century philosophers. Sorel, Montesquieu. A useful little biography. Say, Leon, Turgot. Very valuable review of Turgot's work. Sources in Voltaire's writings (e.g. The Philosophical Dictionary), Montes- English. quieu's Spirit of Laws (in the Bohn Library), Rousseau's Social Con- tract and Emile are readily procured in English. Stephens, W. W., Life and Writings of Turgot. Contains extracts from the preambles to Turgot's decrees. Young, Arthur, Travels in France (Bohn Library). See above, P- 373- Campan, Madame de, Memoirs. See below, p. 400. Translations and Reprints, Vol. VI, No. I, in which Professor Whit- comb gives some interesting extracts from the writings of the philoso- phers; the same, Vol. V, No. 2, Protest of the Cour des Aides of iyyj. A very extraordinary indictment of the Ancien Regime presented to the king by his magistrates during Turgot's administration. No single document on the Ancien Regime is better worth careful study. C. Materials Gomel, Les Causes financieres de la revolution francaise, 2 vols. In for advanced S pi te f t h e title of this work, it is really the best general account of the
- y ' antecedents of the Revolution ; clear, fair-minded, and accurate.
Sorel, V Europe et la revolution francaise. Vol. I of this monu- mental work is a brilliant account of the spirit of the Ancien Regime in France and Europe at large.
