Will Durant - The Age of Louis XIV

BY WILL DURANT

The Story of Philosophy

Transition

The Pleasure of Philosophy

Adventures in Genius

BY WILL AND ARIEL DURANT

THE STORY OF CIVILIZATION

1. Our Oriental Heritage

2. The Life of Greece

3. Caesar and Christ

4. The Age of Faith

5. The Renaissance

6. The Reformation

7. The Age of Reason Begins

8. The Age of Louis XIV

9. The Age of Voltaire

10. Rousseau and Revolution

11. The Age of Napoleon

The Lessons of History

Interpretation of Life

A Dual Autobiography

COPYRIGHT 1963 BY WILL AND ARIEL DURANT

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INCLUDING THE RIGHT OF REPRODUCTION

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PUBLISHED BY SIMON AND SCHUSTER

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TO OUR BELOVED
GRANDDAUGHTER
MONICA

T HIS volume is Part VIII in a history whose beginning has been forgotten, and whose end we shall never reach. The subject is civilizazation, which we define as social order promoting cultural creation; therefore it includes government, economy (agriculture, industry, commerce, finance), morality, manners, religion, art, literature, music, science, and philosophy. The aim is integral historyto cover all phases of a peoples activity in one perspective and one unified narrative; that aim has been very imperfectly achieved. The scene is Europe. The time is from the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) to the death of Louis XIV, whose reign (16431715) dominated and named the age.

The pervading theme is the Great Debate between faith and reason. Faith was on the throne in this period, but reason was finding new voices in Hobbes, Locke, Newton, Bayle, Fontenelle, and Spinoza; this Classical Age was throughout what it called itself at its close, the Age of Reason. Almost a third of the book is devoted to the Intellectual Adventure out of superstition, obscurantism, and intolerance to scholarship, science, philosophy. An attempt is made to report the discussion fairly, despite the authors evident prejudice; hence the extended and sympathetic treatment of such able defenders of the faith as Pascal, Bossuet, Fnelon, Berkeley, Malebranche, and Leibniz. Our children will live a new chapter in this conflict of ideals, where every victory must be repeatedly rewon.

We hope to present Part IX, The Age of Voltaire, in 1965, and Part X, Rousseau and Revolution, in 1968. Some difficulties have arisen, partly from the wealth of material offered by the eighteenth century, all demanding study and space. Meanwhile we shall rely on the Great Powers not to destroy our subject before it destroys us.

May, 1963

WILL AND ARIEL DURANT

One of the associated publishers with whom we began this word business in 1926 has passed away; we shall never forget his bright spirit. The other is still our friend, always enthusiastic, generous, and forgiving, a publisher who remains a poet.

We trust that it will not be interpreted as a lively sense of future favors if we take thiswhich could be our lastchance to express our gratitude to the many critics who have won us an audience for these volumes. Without their help we should have been voices moaning in the wilderness.

We owe a substantial debt to our daughter Ethel for her devoted transformation of our not quite legible second draft into an almost perfect typescript, with wise emendations. And to our sisters and brotherSarah, Flora, Mary, and Harry Kaufmanfor their patient classification of some forty thousand notes under some twelve thousand headings. To Mrs. Anne Roberts of the Los Angeles Public Library, and Miss Dagny Williams of the Hollywood Regional Library, for their precious aid in securing rare books from all over America; these volumes could never have been written without our magnificent, open-handed libraries. And to Mrs. Vera Schneider, of the editorial staff of Simon and Schuster, for such scholarly editing of this and the preceding volume as probably few manuscripts have ever received.

Albert Gurard, The Life and Death of an Ideal, p. 18.

1. Dates of birth or death have usually been omitted from the narrative, where they tend to be forgotten or lost; they will be found always available in the Index.

2. The value of coins in any age is subject to so many influences and variations that no reliable system can be set up for equating them with current currencies. The livre in this period sank in value to the level of a franc. Voltaire reported this would make a shilling equal to $2.50. From such comparisons we derive the following hazardous and loose equivalents:

crown, $12.50

ducat, $12.50

cu, $8.00

florin, $12.50

franc, $2.50

guinea, $52.50

guilder, $10.50

gulden, $10.50

livre, $2.50

louis dor, $50.00

mark, $30.00

penny, $.21

pound, $50.00

reale, $.50

ruble, $10.00

scudo, $1.16

shilling, $2.50

sou, $.15

thaler, $8.00

3. The location of works of art, when not indicated in the text, will usually be found in the Notes. In allocating such works the name of the city will imply its leading gallery, as follows:

AmsterdamRijksmuseum

BerlinStaatsmuseum

BolognaAccademia di Belle Arti

BrusselsMuseum

BudapestMuseum of Fine Arts

CasselMuseum

ChantillyMuse Cond

ChatsworthDuke of Devonshire Collection

ChicagoArt Institute

CincinnatiArt Institute

ClevelandMuseum of Art

DetroitInstitute of Art

DresdenGemlde-Galerie

DulwichCollege Gallery

EdinburghNational Gallery

FerraraGalleria Estense

FrankfurtStdelsches Kunstinstitut

GenevaMuse dArt et dHistoire

HaarlemFrans Hals Museum

The HagueMauritshuis

Kansas CityNelson Gallery

LeningradHermitage

LisbonNational Museum

LondonNational Gallery

MadridPrado

MilanBrera

MinneapolisInstitute of Arts

MunichHaus der Kunst

NaplesMuseo Nazionale

New YorkMetropolitan Museum of Art

NurembergGermanisches Nationalmuseum

PhiladelphiaJohnson Collection

RouenMuse Municipale

St. LouisArt Museum

San DiegoFine Arts Gallery

San FranciscoDe Young Museum

San Marino, Calif.Henry E. Huntington Art Gallery

Sarasota, Fla.Ringling Museum of Art

SevilleArt Museum

StockholmNational Museum

ViennaKunsthistorisches Museum

WashingtonNational Gallery

4. Reduced type has occasionally been used to indicate passages of only remote or special interest, or exceptionally dull.