But nowadays Plato is rather tiresome; and the "inimitable Homer" would have written a much better epic if he had lived in the reign of Louis the Great.

The important passage, however, in the poem is that in which the permanent power of nature to produce men of equal talent in every age is affirmed.
A former les esprits comme a former les corps La Nature en tout temps fait les mesmes efforts; Son etre est immuable, et cette force aisee Dont elle produit tout ne s'est point epuisee; .....

De cette mesme main les forces infinies Produisent en tout temps de semblables genies.
The "Age of Louis the Great" was a brief declaration of faith.

Perrault followed it up by a comprehensive work, his Comparison of the Ancients and the Moderns (Parallele des Anciens et des Modernes), which appeared in four parts during the following years (1688-1696).

Art, eloquence, poetry the sciences, and their practical applications are all discussed at length; and the discussion is thrown into the form of conversations between an enthusiastic champion of the modern age, who conducts the debate, and a devotee of antiquity, who finds it difficult not to admit the arguments of his opponent, yet obstinately persists in his own views.
Perrault bases his thesis on those general considerations which we have met incidentally in earlier writers, and which were now almost commonplaces among those who paid any attention to the matter.