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A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 1
This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.
382 pages, Paperback
First published November 15, 2006
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About the author
François Guizot
2,128 books29 followersFrançois Pierre Guillaume Guizot was a French historian, orator, and statesman. Guizot was a dominant figure in French politics prior to the Revolution of 1848, a conservative liberal who opposed the attempt by King Charles X to usurp legislative power, and worked to sustain a constitutional monarchy following the July Revolution of 1830.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 29, 2020
I’ve listened to this volume for wo reasons: First, I’m always interested in all kind of history and certainly in that of a neighbour country. Second, this book was written by François Guizot, who is a moderate conservative liberal of the 19th century and I’m always interested in what past liberals had to say.
Unfortunately, the quality of the LibriVox audiobook isn’t always that good, so it’s impossible or difficult to always follow the narrative. This is the main reason why I only have a few short notes on this volume.
Guizot writes that from the 9th to 10th century feudalism in France acquired full force.
He writes that there was no liberty, equality or tranquillity in the 10-13th century as feudalism was perfected. Somewhere, Tocqueville maintains that in Europe there is slow progress since the 11th century. But these two statements are not necessarily in conflict as Guizot writes only about France that could have been an exception.
About “great” absolute monarchies, he argues that “men did, nevertheless, obtain some sort of equality and tranquillity. A shameful equality and a fatal tranquillity, no doubt; but such as peoples are sometimes contented with under the dominance of certain circumstances, or in the last gasp of their existence.”
I wonder what he means by that passage. As he was a constitutional monarchist, he maybe had some sympathies with absolute monarchy, I don’t know.
He calls Abelard, St. Anselm, St. Bernard and St. Norbert bright centres of movement and intellectual labour in the middle ages. And I’m so ignorant as to not know the work of any of them.
That was it already, I hope I will get more out of volume 2.
Unfortunately, the quality of the LibriVox audiobook isn’t always that good, so it’s impossible or difficult to always follow the narrative. This is the main reason why I only have a few short notes on this volume.
Guizot writes that from the 9th to 10th century feudalism in France acquired full force.
He writes that there was no liberty, equality or tranquillity in the 10-13th century as feudalism was perfected. Somewhere, Tocqueville maintains that in Europe there is slow progress since the 11th century. But these two statements are not necessarily in conflict as Guizot writes only about France that could have been an exception.
About “great” absolute monarchies, he argues that “men did, nevertheless, obtain some sort of equality and tranquillity. A shameful equality and a fatal tranquillity, no doubt; but such as peoples are sometimes contented with under the dominance of certain circumstances, or in the last gasp of their existence.”
I wonder what he means by that passage. As he was a constitutional monarchist, he maybe had some sympathies with absolute monarchy, I don’t know.
He calls Abelard, St. Anselm, St. Bernard and St. Norbert bright centres of movement and intellectual labour in the middle ages. And I’m so ignorant as to not know the work of any of them.
That was it already, I hope I will get more out of volume 2.
Displaying 1 of 1 review