France. A great kingdom of Europe, bounded on the north by the Netherlands, on the east by Germany, the Swiss cantons, and Savoy, on the south by the Mediterranean Sea and the Pyrenees, and on the west by the ocean.

According to a world scale map by M. Cassini, France from east to west measures 220 leagues, and from north to south, from Dunkirk to Spain, 230 leagues. Taking it diagonally, from the most remote coast of Brittany to Nice, on the coast of Provence, it measures 250 leagues, from the border of Spain south of Bayonne to the frontiers of Germany near the Netherlands 210 leagues more or less. Thus, taking 220 leagues as the average, France measures 400 square leagues [ sic ]. According to this same map these leagues are 25 to the degree.

Over this expanse the air is pure and healthy under a sky that almost everywhere is temperate. The ocean bathes France on one side, the Mediterranean on the other. France has high mountains and beautiful rivers. Its fertile and delightful countryside abounds in salt, grain, vegetables, fruit, wine, etc.; iron, lead, and copper mines, etc. In France there are 18 archbishoprics, 112 bishoprics, 14,777 convents, 12,400 priories, 1,356 religious abbeys, 240 houses of the Order of Malta, etc.

There are also 13 parlements , 12 generalities, [1] or, if one prefers, 36 provincial governments, and 25 universities, which are not all famous. According to the Academy of Sciences, France is situated between the 13th and 26th degree longitude and the 42nd and 51st degree latitude.

According to a man of genius, [2] the history of this kingdom shows the power of the kings of France rising, dying twice, being reborn twice, languishing for centuries but slowly gathering strength, increasing, and ascending to its highest point. Its history resembles those rivers that lose their waters or disappear underground and then reappear swollen with the water of tributaries, sweeping away all obstacles in their course.

Until the time of Philip Augustus the people were slaves in France. Lords were tyrants until Louis XI, who was a tyrant himself and worked only to increase royal power. François I gave an impetus to commerce, navigation, letters, and arts, which all perished with him. Henri the Great, the father and conqueror of his subjects, was assassinated in their midst just when he was bringing them happiness. Cardinal Richelieu was concerned with humbling the House of Hapsburg, the Calvinists, and the nobles. Cardinal Mazarin only thought of maintaining his position with skill and cunning.

Thus, for nine hundred years the French remained without industry, in disorder and ignorance. This is why they participated neither in the great discoveries nor in the beautiful inventions of other peoples. Printing, gunpowder, mirrors, telescopes, compasses, the circulation of the blood, the pneumatic machine, the true system of the universe are not their discoveries.

They were participating in tournaments while the Portuguese and Spaniards were discovering and conquering the new world to the east and west of the known world. Finally, in the middle of the last century things changed. Arts, sciences, commerce, navigation, the navy made their appearance under Colbert with the splendor that so astonished Europe. The French nation can be moved to anything—a changeable nation that murmurs most easily, obeys most readily, and most rapidly forgets its ills.

I shall dispense here with the details of the present state of the kingdom. Everyone knows its actual and relative strength, the nature of its government, the religion of the country, the power of the monarch, his revenues, his resources, and his dominions. One is equally aware of the fact that the enormous riches of France, which perhaps amount to 1,000 millions in gold and silver at the present rate (the gold mark valued at 680 livres and the silver mark at 50 livres), are unfortunately distributed in a way that was true for Rome at the time of the fall of the Republic. One also knows that the capital is the state, so to speak, that all ends in this pit, in this center of power; that the provinces are being depopulated, that the peasant crushed by his poverty is afraid of giving birth to hapless wretches. It is true that a century ago (1666) Louis XIV, perceiving this inveterate ill, thought to foster the propagation of the species by promising rewards to those who would produce ten children, that is by rewarding prodigies. It would have been better to seek the causes of the ills and to apply real remedies. Neither the causes nor the remedies are difficult to find. See Taxes ( Impôt ), Tolerance ( Tolérance ).

Notes

1. The parlements were courts of justice. By the eighteenth century there were thirteen parlements in France, of which the Parlement of Paris had the most extensive jurisdiction. It registered royal edicts and carried out justice according to the "custom of Paris" over an area that included almost one-half of France. The members of the various parlements belonged to the Noblesse de Robe . The generalities were originally the financial divisions under the direction of the treasures of France. They later came under the jurisdiction of the intendant and became essentially synonymous with the intendance . Of all the administrative divisions of the ancien régime , this was the most important.]

2. [Voltaire.]