These two elements formed all that there was of opposition till the first mutterings of definite revolution were heard, though of course the importance of the thinkers was out of all proportion to that of the lawyer-parliaments. The accession of the once Dauphin, now Louis XVI, to the throne, was hailed by the philosophers, especially as his calling Turgot to reform the finances was justly considered a sign of his sincerity. But his attempts in this direction were frustrated by the Court oligarchy; and as a result the discontent of the respectable bourgeois opposition became a rallying-point for the elements of the actual revolution; for though it meant nothing but intelligent conservatism, it formed a screen behind which the true revolutionary forces could gather for the attack on privilege.
It is necessary to say something about the literature and art of France before the Revolution, because that country is the especial exponent, particularly in art, of the degradation which indicated the rottenness of society.
As in England, literature was formal 131 and stilted, and produced little except worthlessly clever essays and still more worthless verses that have no claim to be called poetry. The French verse-makers, however, aimed at something higher than the English, and produced works which depend on pomp and style for any claim to attention they may have, and for the rest are unreal and lifeless. Amidst them all one name stands forward as representing some reality—Moliére, to wit. But the life and genuineness of his comedies serves to show the corruption of the times as clearly as the dead classicalism of Racine: for he, the one man of genius of the time, was driven into the expression of mere cynicism. In one remarkable passage of his works he shows a sympathy for the ballad-poetry of the people, which, when noticed at all in England at the same period, and even much later, received a kind of indulgent patronage rather than admiration. At the same time, as there was a sham tragedy current at this period, so also there Was a sham love of simplicity. The ladies and