Page:The reign of George VI - 1763.djvu/213

 lished his sentiments with the utmost freedom on all subjects. The King, who had a sublime notion of morals and religion, ordered a vast number of the best English books to be translated into French, and printed at the Louvre: these spread with the other publications over all France, opened the eyes of the more sensible, and even awakened some of the ignorant, to a sense of the absurdities of popery: the Abbé de Mansiere, particularly, by his Majesty's directions, composed a most elaborate dissertation to prove, that monasteries, and nunneries, were pernicious to the state: the King seemed an enemy to no part of religion, but that which was prejudicial to the civil state of the kingdom.

This noble freedom, which the French had so long lost, gave rise to a thousand useful and excellent treaties, both in morals and politics: all other arts were