BY LEOPOLD RANKE, AUTHOR OF A HISTORY OF THE POPES IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVEN- TRANSLATED BY M. A. GARVEY. PUBLIC NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 329 & 331 PEARL STREET, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 1853. As a German I venture to say a word upon the History of France. Great peoples and states have a double characterone national, and the other belonging to the destinies of the world. Their history, in a similar manner, presents a twofold aspect. So far as it forms an essential feature in the development of humanity generally, or records a pervailing influence exercised upon that development, it awakens a curiosity which extends far beyond the limits of nationality; it attracts the attention and becomes an object of study even to those who are not natives of the lands whose story is narrated. Perhaps the difference between the Greek authors who have treated on the history of ancient Rome in its flourishing period, and the Romans themselves, consists in the fact that the Greeks have regarded the subject as it affected the whole world, while the Romans have looked at it nationally. The object is the same: the writers differ in the positions from which they view it, but together they inform posCerity, 29x28 Among modern nations none has exercised a more |