Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The History of France, From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Vol. 1: Illustrated With Portraits of All the Kings and Rulers of France From Pharamond to Louis Napoleon
IT is not without reason, says Rollin, that History has always been considered as the light of ages, the depository of events, the flithful evidence of truth, the shame of prudence and good counsel, and the rule of conduct and manners. Confined without it to the bounds of the age and country wherein we live, and shut up Within the narrow circle of such branches of knowledge as are peen liar to us, and the limits of our own private re?ections, we continue In a kind of infancy which leaves us strangers to the rest of the world, and profoundly ignorant of all that has preceded or even now surrounds us. What is the small number of years that make up the longest life, or what the extent of country which we are able to progress or travel over, but an imperceptible point in comparison of the vast regions of the universe, and the long series Of ages, which have succeeded one another since the creation of the world? And yet all we are capable of knowing must be limited to this imperceptible point, unless we call in the study of History to our assistance, which opens to us every age and every country-ukeeps up a correspondence betwixt us and the great men Of antiquity - sets all their actions, all their achievements, virtues, and faults before our eyes - and by the prudent re?ections it either Presents, or gives us an opportunity of making, soon teaches us to be wise before our time, and in a manner far superior to all the lessons of the greatest masters. It is History Which fixes the seal of immortality upon actions truly great, and Sets a mark of infamy on vices which no after age can ever obliterate. It is by History that mistaken merit and oppressed Virtue appeal to the incorruptible tribunal of posterity, which renders them the justice their own age has sometimes refused2 preface.
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