ABSTRACT
In English liberty, tolerance, science, and philosophy, the Enlightenment, as a distinct movement, was born. But it was in France that it attained its maturity as a popular, radical, and missionary movement. The evolution of the liberal party in France was largely the infiltration of English ideas into the thought of that country. Among the great instruments for diffusing a taste for reading and an interest in ideas, as well as for storing materials for the learned, must be reckoned public libraries. The foundation of the first of these has been described in a previous volume. During the period of the Enlightenment the public libraries kept by state and university were enlarged and rendered more useful to an increasing number of scholars. As the best work of reference of its kind then in existence, it found its way into many private libraries.
