TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

No mere translator can hope to preserve the style of his original, and herein M. de Maulde is bound to suffer more than most writers. There is no one to whom Buffon’s phrase, Le style est l’homme même, may be more justly applied. His work is absolutely himself; it derives from his original personality and his wide and sure learning an historical value and a literary charm almost unique. He is a wit with the curiosity and patience of the scholar, and a scholar with the temperament of the artist. The sparkle and humour of his conversation are crystallised in his letters, the charming expression of a large and generous nature.

Trained at the École des Chartes, M. de Maulde held for a few years an appointment in the prefectoral administration. But his tastes drew him rather to history than to politics. In 1886 he founded the Société d’Histoire diplomatique, of which he has been the life and soul, and which owes its success mainly to his activity and enthusiasm. He is the founder also of the Congrès internationaux d’histoire, of which the first was held at the Hague in the summer of 1898, when official delegates from all the great countries of the world met amicably to discuss international relations in the cold light of scientific history. For many years he has been a member of our Royal Society.

But it is above all as a student of the Renaissance that M. de Maulde takes high rank among contemporary scholars. He has made a close study of that great movement, in regard both to the internal politics of France and the origins of modern diplomacy, and to the general march of ideas and the evolution of manners. The results of his studies are embodied in a remarkable series of works, the earliest being a book entitled Les Origines de la Révolution française au commencement du xviᵉ siècle—a brilliant picture of French Society at that critical epoch. This was succeeded by the first part, in three volumes, of an Histoire de Louis XII., and this by the three volumes entitled La diplomatie au temps de Machiavel. Other works in the same series are two volumes on Jeanne de France, duchesse d’Orléans and Louise de Savoie et François Iᵉʳ. In all these M. de Maulde shows the profound erudition and the just critical sense to be expected in an historian of the school of Fustel des Coulanges, together with a literary grace and a lightness of touch with which the scientific historian is too rarely endowed. His brief experience of official politics seems to have left him with an urbane scepticism, a benevolent irony, which serve only to set off his radical enthusiasm for great ideas and for the great conceptions of art. At bottom an idealist, he has interpreted with insight and humour the aesthetic and spiritualist revolution of the Renaissance, nowhere more characteristically than in the present volume.

With M. de Maulde’s consent the greater part of his footnotes are omitted—mainly references to authorities unknown or inaccessible to the English reader, and useless without the complete bibliography omitted by desire of the French publishers, MM. Perrin et Cie. A few notes are added within brackets: for these and for the Index the translator is responsible.

The translator is under great obligations to the Baronne Louise Dupont-Delporte, who, at M. de Maulde’s request, has compared the proofs of this book with the original text, and to whose watchfulness and friendly care heartiest acknowledgments are due. The same task of collation was undertaken by Mr. David Frew, whose frank, tonic, kindly criticism has been of the highest value. Thanks are also tendered to all who in various ways and with constant kindness have given their assistance in the course of this work, among whom M. de Maulde himself has laid the translator under a large debt of gratitude.

August, 1900.