ARISTOCRATS
LOUIS XV, by G. P. Gooch; Longmans, English price 25/-. R. GOOCH is old and wise as well as learned. He has fortified his sanity by prolonged contemplation of the 18th century, and now presents the fourth of a series of quiet, well informed, persuasive books illuminating this period. In his view there is very little to be said for Louis XV either. as man or as ruler, but this is far from being a book about a worthless subject. It breathes understanding of 18th century life. Admittedly, the peasants, representing the vast majority of Frenchmen, hover in the background, though one feels that, if pressed, Dr. Gooch could write knowledgably about them, too. In this volume, however, he is concerned with the rulers, the educated men, the leaders of Church and State on whom rested the responsibilities for political decisions. His verdict is plainly that they failed to rise to the responsibilities which the accidents of birth and fate had cast upon them. The old régime died away rather than was killed. The opposition was intellectual and moral, and its main challenge lay in a new view of man, a faith in human wisdom and an optimism which rejected the slackness and pessimism of the 18th century aristocracy. It was a faith not in rulers-‘God who has made you king," Louis XIV had told his grandson, "will provide all the wisdom you require so long as your intentions are good"-but in the capacity of ordinary unaristocratic human beings to solve social as well as scientific problems by the use of that reason with which all men are endowed. Intelligent men probed more and more deeply into the utility of laws, customs, institutions and thrust forward a new criterion of their worth, namely, the degree to which they promoted human happiness. The
old political system failed to meet the tide of criticism. The hearts of its defenders grew faint and in the political battle the citadel was virtually undefended. There is great scholarship and wisdom in this volume, even if there is not much that is startlingly new, either in fact or in interpretation. Its (Continued on next page)
BOOKS (continued from previous page)
calmness and preoccupation with longterm and unfashionable values is a re-
freshment.
F. L. W.
Wood
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 914, 15 February 1957, Page 13
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381ARISTOCRATS New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 914, 15 February 1957, Page 13
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