Tuesday, July 19, 2022
So Much the Better
Daniel Roche, The People of Paris: An Essay in Popular Culture in the 18th Century, tr. Marie Evans (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), p. 201:
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Sébastien Mercier saw everywhere valets who could read and erected this into a positive act of faith in the illuminating virtues of books: 'These days, you see a waiting-maid in her back-room, a lackey in an anteroom reading pamphlets. People can read in almost all classes of society — so much the better. They should read still more. A Nation that can read carries within it a particular and happy strength which can defy or confound despotism . . .'.13
13. L.-S. Mercier, La Tableau de Paris, vol. 9, p. 334.
