Note 340 — Chapter II

This is not a mere popular opinion, but rests upon a large amount of evidence, supplied by competent and impartial observers. Addison, who was a lenient as well as an able judge, and who had lived much among the French, calls them ‘the vainest nation in the world.’ Letter to Bishop Hough, in Aikin's Life of Addison, vol. i. p. 90. Napoleon says, ‘vanity is the ruling principle of the French.’ Alison's Hist. of Europe, vol. vi. p. 25. Dumont (Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, p. 111) declares, that ‘le trait le plus dominant dans le caractère français, c'est l'amour propre;’ and Ségur (Souvenirs, vol. i. pp. 73, 74), ‘car en France l'amour propre, ou, si on le veut, la vanité, est de toutes les passions la plus irritable.’ It is moreover stated, that phrenological observations prove that the French are vainer than the English. Combe's Elements of Phrenology, 6th edit. Edinb. 1845, p. 90; and a partial recognition of the same fact in Broussais, Cours de Phrénologie, p. 297. For other instances of writers who have noticed the vanity of the French, see Tocqueville, l'Ancien Régime, p. 148; Barante, Lit. Franç. au XVIIIe. Siècle, p. 80; Mém. de Brissot, vol. i. p. 272; Mézéray, Hist. de France, vol. ii. p. 933; Lemontey, Etablissement Monarchique, p. 418; Voltaire, Lettres inédites, vol. ii. p. 282; Tocqueville, Règne de Louis XV, vol. ii. p. 358; De Staël sur la Révolution, vol. i. p. 260, vol. ii. p. 258.