Essays on Enlightenment
Catherine the Great and Other Studies. By G. P. Gooch. (Long- mans. 21s.)
,,,MR. GoocH is one of the most considerable of modern historians. when compared with his more massive volumes of research and scholarship, his monumental analyses of the currents and cross- currents of European statesmanship, this latest work seems little More than a divertissement. In so far as it has a theme it is that of eighteenth-century enlightenment, the age of the Aufkliirung, of, healthy contempt for the past mingled with immoderate compla- cency over the future. The theme is studied from many angles and illustrated by diverse examples. Mr. Gooch tosses before the reader Portraits, anecdotes and profound reflections with a freedom which is almost haphazard. It is a technique which in a lesser historian could prove irritating. But Mr. Gooch is discarding from strength; behind every observation and every judgement there lies the weight of exemplary scholarship. For the historian of stature every work Must be to some degree the fruit of a lifetime and rarely can Mr. Gooch's learning have been better employed than when, apparently casual, he wanders among the byways of this vastly complex century.
The first and most important of these essays is, in a sense, a work or duty. With Frederick the Great and Maria Theresa already behind
he completes his hat-trick of Enlightened Despots with the empress Catherine. Perhaps more vividly than any comparable figure Catherine the Great exemplifies the schizophrenia which must bedevil the autocrat who wishes to govern liberally yet will not surrender one whit' of personal power. Once she devised her own epitaph:
In 1744 she went to Russia to marry Peter III. Eighteen years of tedium and solitude caused her to read many books. When she came to the throne she wished to do good and strove to introduce happiness, freedom and prosperity. lhe proof of her sincerity lies in her patronage of Voltaire,. Diderot and the culture of the West, her personal labours for the reform of the law and her great practical schemes to raise the peasant at least
little above starvation level. Yet this same ruler deposed her husband and honoured his murderers, treated her son with brutal contempt, ruthlessly suppressed the Cossack revolt and, with the coming of the French Revolution, abandoned reform with a readi- ness which disillusioned the more consistently liberal-minded of her Servants. Ultimately she believed with the Cameralists that benevo- lent autocracy was the only acceptable form of government; but the and of benevolence desirable was to be judged solely by the despot add, even though it might be lacking, the principle of autocracy was sacrosanct. Mr. Gooch has not attempted a complete or chronological history of Catherine's reign; instead, by a series of snapshots—Catherine and her lovers—Catherine and Voltaire—he skilfully builds up a true and sharply vivid' portrait. To his second essay—a study of four French salons—his informal and episodic approach is still more suited. Here is Parisian society at its most brilliant, the last proud nourish of the Ander: Regime. In the temples of the great salon- 'napes there was little room for husbands and even love took second Place to wit and wisdom. realisation of man. Brilliantly and destructively sceptical, yet believing passionately in the future, how could he look .on the prodigies and romantic legends of the past as more than nursery tales to be sifted and discarded? Certain prejudices dogged his work; for him the Jews and Jesuits could do no right, the Chinese little wrong. But in the main Voltaire's historical approach was balanced and ruthlessly just. History to him was a sure beacon by which the eighteenth-century idealist could plot his progress: Eliminate the study of history and we may see more St. Bartholo- mew massacres in France and new Croinwells in England.
It was a warning and a portent: an example from the past, a pointer to the future. The development of the Voltairean method and its impact on eighteenth-century France is immeasurably important for any proper understanding of what was to follow; to this under- standing Mr. Gooch provides a most noteworthy and readable
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