PREFATORY NOTE
Foreign opinions of France at the present day naturally vary according to the more or less conspicuous benevolence which inspires them. At the same time it has struck me that, taking them all round, they really do not rest upon any solid basis of appreciation, and I believe that this may be attributed to the fact that hardly any one has taken the trouble to look to the details of our contemporary history for the origin of those political or social phenomena which he professes to analyse.
Our history, especially since the death of Napoleon I., appears at first sight to be split into periods perfectly distinct from each other ; historians have yielded to the irresistible temptation of studying them apart, and thus the underlying metaphysical thread which unites them has become less and less visible.
