francaise_, which is as far as possible from being in the modern sense critical, inasmuch as, in the teeth of history, and in order to exalt the _Tiers etat_, it pretends an amicable coalition of Franks and Gauls, and not an irruption by the former. Mably (_Observations sur l'histoire de la France_) had a much greater influence than either of these writers, and a decidedly mischievous one, especially at the period of the Revolution. He, more than any one else, is responsible for the ignorant and childish extolling of Greek and Roman institutions, and the still more ignorant depreciation of the middle ages, which was for a time characteristic of French politicians. Montesquieu was, as we have said, followed by Anne Robert Jacques Turgot (1727-1781), whose writings are few in number, and not remarkable for style, but full of original thought. Turgot in his turn was followed by Condorcet (1743-1794), whose tendency is somewhat more sociological than directly historical. Towards the end of the period, too, a considerable number of philosophical histories were written, the usual object of which was, under cover of a kind of allegory, to satirize and attack the existing institutions and government of France. The most famous of these was the _Histoire des Indes_, nominally written by the Abbe Guillaume Thomas Francois Raynal (1713-1796), but really the joint work of many members of the Philosophe party, especially Diderot. Side by side with this really or nominally philosophical school of history there existed another and less ambitious school, which contented itself with the older and simpler view of the science. The Abbe Rene de Vertot (1655-1735) belongs almost as much to the 17th as to the 18th century; but his principal works, especially the famous _Histoire des Chevaliers de Malte_, date from the later period, as do also the _Revolutions romaines_. Vertot is above all things a literary historian, and the well-known "Mon siege est fait," whether true or not, certainly expresses his system. Of the same school, though far more comprehensive, was the laborious Charles Rollin (1661-1741), whose works in the original, or translated and continued in the case of the _Histoire romaine_ by Jean Baptiste Louis Crevier (1693-1765), were long the chief historical manuals of Europe. The president Charles Jean Francois Henault (1685-1770), and Louis Pierre Anquetil (1723-1806) were praiseworthy writers, the first of French history, the second of that and much else. In the same class, too, far superior as is his literary power, must be ranked the historical works of Voltaire, _Charles XII_., _Pierre le Grand_, &c. A very perfect example of the historian who is literary first of all is supplied by Claude Carloman de Rulhiere (1735-1791), whose _Revolution en Russie en 1762_ is one of the little masterpieces of history, while his larger and posthumous work on the last days of the Polish kingdom exhibits perhaps some of the defects of this class of historians.