Page:The story of the French revolution (IA storyoffrenchrev00baxe).pdf/33

 not forget the Materialist-Atheists, central among whom was Baron d’Holbach, the anonymous author of the cele- brated System of Nature, a book which, though crude ac- cording to modern notions, did good work in its day — work which a treatise of more intrinsic philosophical value probably would not have achieved. It is noteworthy that most of the other prominent names among the pre- revolutionary writers, including Rousseau and Voltaire, are those of ardent deists. The name of Montesquieu (1689-1755), whose Esprit des Lois was a text-book of juridical philosophy for the Revolution, must also not be omitted from the list of its literary precursors.

All these men contributed their share in preparing the mental foundation for the great upheaval which followed. It is strange, however, that not one of them lived to see the practical issue of his labors. Rousseau, the most directly powerful of them, died eleven years before the taking of the Bastille, and Voltaire the same year. Diderot lived till 1784; D’Alembert died the previous year; Mirabeau, alone of all who had prepared the great crisis, lived to see its beginning. But even he succumbed in 1791, a year and a half before the actual fall of the monarchy. Few of these men saw more than a free- thinking aristocracy and literary class. Of the movement below they recked little, scarcely perhaps that there was such a movement. For although from the beginning of the century, notably throughout the reign of Louis XV.. there was ever and anon the consciousness of a change as imminent, and although twice, in 1734 and in 1771, the old system seemed on the point of breaking down in revo- lution, yet still it survived, and for aught men could tell, was destined to continue to survive many more such shocks. The throne, therefore, doubtless to many, seemed as secure, religion as popular, as ever, the same throne and the same religion which in a few years were destined to be involved in so mighty an overthrow.