France, Vol. 1 of 8 (Classic Reprint)
Book Details
Author(s)M. Guizot
PublisherForgotten Books
ISBN / ASIN1330263391
ISBN-139781330263396
AvailabilityUsually ships in 1 to 4 weeks
Sales Rank99,999,999
MarketplaceUnited States 🇺🇸
Description
Excerpt from France, Vol. 1 of 8
Gentlemen,
You were given to understand that for some years past I have been doing myself the paternal pleasure of telling my grandchildren the History of France, and you ask if I have any intention of publishing these family studies of our country's grand life. I had no such idea at the outset; it was of my grandchildren, and of them alone, that I was thinking. What I had at heart was to make them really comprehend our history, and to interest them in it by doing justice to their understanding and, at the same time, to their imagination, by setting it before them clearly and, at the same time, to the life. Every history, and especially that of France, is one vast, long drama, in which events are linked together according to defined laws, and in which the actors play parts not ready made and learnt by heart, parts depending, in fact, not only upon the accidents of their birth but also upon their own ideas and their own will. There are, in the history of peoples, two sets of causes essentially different and, at the same time, closely connected; the natural causes which are set over the general course of events, and the unrestricted causes which are incidental. Men do not make the whole of history; it has laws of higher origin; but, in history, men are unrestricted agents who produce for it results and exercise over it an influence for which they are responsible. The fated causes and the unrestricted causes, the defined laws of events and the spontaneous actions of man's free agency - herein is the whole of history. And in the faithful reproduction of these two elements consist the truth and the moral of stories from it.
Never was I more struck with this twofold character of history than in my tales to my grandchildren.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
Gentlemen,
You were given to understand that for some years past I have been doing myself the paternal pleasure of telling my grandchildren the History of France, and you ask if I have any intention of publishing these family studies of our country's grand life. I had no such idea at the outset; it was of my grandchildren, and of them alone, that I was thinking. What I had at heart was to make them really comprehend our history, and to interest them in it by doing justice to their understanding and, at the same time, to their imagination, by setting it before them clearly and, at the same time, to the life. Every history, and especially that of France, is one vast, long drama, in which events are linked together according to defined laws, and in which the actors play parts not ready made and learnt by heart, parts depending, in fact, not only upon the accidents of their birth but also upon their own ideas and their own will. There are, in the history of peoples, two sets of causes essentially different and, at the same time, closely connected; the natural causes which are set over the general course of events, and the unrestricted causes which are incidental. Men do not make the whole of history; it has laws of higher origin; but, in history, men are unrestricted agents who produce for it results and exercise over it an influence for which they are responsible. The fated causes and the unrestricted causes, the defined laws of events and the spontaneous actions of man's free agency - herein is the whole of history. And in the faithful reproduction of these two elements consist the truth and the moral of stories from it.
Never was I more struck with this twofold character of history than in my tales to my grandchildren.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
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