G. W. Kitchin
Published: 2018-03-23
Total Pages: 564
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Excerpt from A History of France, Vol. 2: A. D. 1453-1624 Lastly there comes a very different time. The foreign wars are over; cunning is pitted against daring: the age is weary of life, yet full of the fear of death: the first traces of introspection appear, and men shrink back from themselves. Questionings as to the moral bearing of things, as to the political bases of life, precede, in France at least, all enquiry into the deeper problems of religion. Assassinations stain the page of history; men live in daily dread of poison; the Dance of Death is painted on the wall; the arts of corruption are found to be all-powerful; the truth blenches before the lie. The question, so often asked a little later, How shall a Prince rule over his people? First finds a tentative answer in the life of Louis XI, as we read it in the pages of Philip of Commines. He, and a few years later, a very different man, the Florentine Macchiavelli, set themselves to find the solution of this great problem, which is the first to emerge among the elements of modern national life. In substance the two men bring out the same answer. The old world is dying: none but the nimble and the unscrupulous can walk in high places without falling. The Italian draws a more precise picture than that which we can gather from the diffuse pages of the franco-burgundian chronicler: the Florentine has also this great advantage over his predecessor. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.