The history of France is emphatically a religious history. Every student must be struck with it. To understand even the history of its court, one must get at least an outline of what is meant by Jansenism and Molinism, and Ultramontanism, and the whole tissue of isms which they have created. No historian gives us an exemption from this amount of polemical information. The school of Michelet is as forward as that of de Maistre, in claiming a "religious mission" for France among the nations; and de Stael and Chateaubriand are impressed with the same idea. Her _publicists_, as well as her statesmen, have been always, in their own way, theologians; and, from Louis IX. to Louis XVI., the spirit of theology was, in some form or other, the spirit of every reign. Not only the Mazarins, but the Pompadours also, have made religion part of their craft; and religion became so entirely political under Louis XV., that irreligion was easily made political in its stead. In the court of France, in fact, theology has been the common trade; the trade of Condé and of Guise, of Huguenot and Papist, of Jansenist and Jesuit, of philosopher and poet, of harlots, and almost of lap-dogs. Even Robespierre must legislate upon the "consoling principle of an _Etre Suprême_," and Napoleon elevates himself into "the eldest son of the church." "A peculiar characteristic of this monarchy," says de Maistre, "is that it possesses a certain theocratic element, special to itself, which has given it fourteen centuries of duration." This element has given its colour to reigns and revolutions alike; and if one admit the necessity of religion to the perpetuity of a state, it deserves our attention, in the light of whatever contending parties have advanced upon the subject.