Note 835 — Chapter VI

Those who have studied the French memoirs of the seventeenth century, know how little can be found in them respecting the condition of the people; while the fullest private correspondence, such as the letters of Sévigné and De Maintenon, are equally unsatisfactory. The greater part of the evidence now extant has been collected by M. Monteil, in his valuable work, Histoire des divers Etats: but whoever will put all this together must admit, that we are better informed as to the condition of many savage tribes than we are concerning the lower classes of France during the reign of Louis XIV.