This brilliancy continued by so many geniuses of the first order, from Corneille to Voltaire, from Bossuet to Rousseau, from Fenelon to Bernardin Saint Pierre, had accustomed the people to look on this side.

The focus of the ideas of the world shed thence its brilliancy.

The moral authority of the human mind was no longer at Rome.
The stir, light, direction, were from Paris; the European mind was French.

There was, and there always will be, in the French genius something more potent than its potency, more luminous than its splendour; and that is its warmth, its penetrating power of communicating the attraction which it has, and which it inspires to Europe.
The genius of the Spain of Charles V.is high and adventurous, that of Germany is profound and severe, that of England skilful and proud, that of France is attractive,--it is in that it has its force.

Easily seduced itself, it easily seduces other people.