The amateur is very rare in French literature - as rare as he is common in our own.
When Louis XIV assumed the reins of government France suddenly and wonderfully came to her maturity; it was as if the whole nation had burst into splendid flower.
It is perhaps as difficult to write a good life as to live one.
Discretion is not the better part of biography.
It is probably always disastrous not to be a poet.
The stability and peace which seemed to be so firmly established by the brilliant monarchy of Francis I vanished with the terrible outbreak of the Wars of Religion.