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(MUSIC) MOZART: String Quintet in E Flat Major

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What witty, intelligent faces.

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They are the successful dramatists
of 18th-century Paris,

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and their busts stand in the foyer
of the French National Theatre

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that theatre which for a hundred years

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did so much to promote
good sense and humanity.

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And here is the wittiest
and most intelligent of them all.

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In fact, at a certain level, one
of the most intelligent men that have ever lived,

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Voltaire.

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He's smiling...

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the smile of reason.

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You know, there's a character called Fontenelle
- a French philosopher -

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who, by living to be nearly a hundred,

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bridged the 17th and 18th centuries,

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the world of Newton and the world of Voltaire.

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He held a position known as Perpetual
Secretary at the Academy of Science.

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He told an interviewer that he had never run
and never lost his temper.

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The interviewer asked him
if he had ever laughed.

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He said, "No, I have never made ha-ha."

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But he smiled

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and so do all the other distinguished writers,
philosophers, dramatists and hostesses

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of the French 18th century.

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It seems to us shallow.

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We've got into deep water in the last 50 years.

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We feel that people
ought to be more passionate,

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more convinced
or, as the current jargon has it, more committed.

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The smile of reason may seem to betray

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a certain incomprehension
of the deeper human emotions,

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but it didn't preclude some strongly-held beliefs.

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Belief in natural law, belief in justice,

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belief in toleration.

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Not bad.

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The philosophers of the Enlightenment

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pushed European civilisation
some steps up the hill...

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..and in theory, at any rate,

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this gain was consolidated
throughout the 19th century.

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Up to the 1930s,
people were supposed not to burn witches

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and other members of minority groups,

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or extract confessions by torture,

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or pervert the course of justice,

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or go to prison for speaking the truth,

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except, of course, during wars.

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This we owe to the movement
known as the Enlightenment

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and above all, to Voltaire.

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Although the victory of reason and tolerance
was won in France

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it was initiated in England

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and the French philosophers
never concealed their debt

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to the country that, in a score of years,

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had produced Newton, Locke
and the Bloodless Revolution.

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When Voltaire visited England in the 1720s,

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it had enjoyed a quarter of a century
of very vigorous intellectual life,

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and although Swift, Pope and Addison

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might give and receive
some hard knocks in print,

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they weren't physically beaten up
by the hired gangs of offended noblemen,

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or sent to prison
for satirical references to the Establishment.

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Both these things happened to Voltaire,

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and as a result
he took refuge in England in 1726.

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It was the age of the great country houses,

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and in 1722 the most splendid of all

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had just been completed for Marlborough.

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There it is - Blenheim Palace.

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(MUSIC) HANDEL: Firework Music, Minuet II

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A superb setting, but not everybody's idea
of a pleasant country retreat.

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When Voltaire saw it, he exclaimed

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"What a great heap of stone,

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without charm or taste!"

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Well, it was built
as a monument to military glory,

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and the architect, Sir John Vanbrugh,
was a natural romantic

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a castle builder who didn't care a fig
for good taste and classical decorum.

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18th-century England
was the paradise of the amateur,

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by which I mean men rich enough
and grand enough to do whatever they liked,

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who, nevertheless, did things
that require a good deal of expertise.

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One of the things they chose to do

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was architecture.

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Wren began as a brilliant amateur

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and, although he made himself
into a professional,

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he retained the amateur's freedom of approach
to every problem,

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and two of his chief successors
were amateurs by any definition.

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Sir John Vanbrugh wrote plays,

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but he also designed
the vast and complicated structure of Blenheim.

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Lord Burlington was a connoisseur
and a collector and arbiter of taste.

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The sort of character nowadays much despised,

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but he built this small masterpiece
of domestic architecture - Chiswick.

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(MUSIC) MUDGE: Concerto in D Major

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One may wonder
how many professional architects today

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could handle these problems of design

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as expertly as Lord Burlington has done.

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These steps and colonnades
Look very imposing,

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but the building behind them is quite small,

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about the size of an old parsonage.

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In fact, Chiswick was not meant
for day-to-day existence,

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but for social occasions -

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conversation, intrigue,

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political gossip and a little music.

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Of course, it's only a miniature,

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a kind of glorified jewel box,

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and yet I don't feel
that it's at all pinched or constricted.

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In a way, these 18-century amateurs

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were the inheritors
of the Renaissance ideal of universal man

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and it's significant that the typical universal man
of the Renaissance, Alberti

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had also been an architect.

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If we may still consider architecture
to be a social art

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an art by which men may be, enabled
to lead a fuller life

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then perhaps the architect should touch life
at many points

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and not be too narrowly specialised.

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18th-century amateurism
ran through everything:

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chemistry, philosophy,
botany and natural history.

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It produced men
like the indefatigable Sir Joseph Banks,

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who refused to go
on Captain Cook's second voyage

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because he wasn't allowed
to have two horn players

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to make music for him during dinner.

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There was a freshness
and a freedom of mind in these men

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that is entirely lost in the rigidly-controlled
classifications of the professional.

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And they were independent,

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with all the advantages and disadvantages
to society that result from that condition.

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They wouldn't have fitted into
our modern Utopia.

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I recently heard a Professor of Sociology

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say on television,

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"What's not prohibited
must be made compulsory."

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Not a suggestion
that would have attracted those eminent visitors

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Voltaire and Rousseau

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who drew inspiration from our philosophy
and our institutions...

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..and our tolerance.

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But as usual, there was another side
to this shining medal,

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and of this we have an exceptionally vivid record
in the work of Hogarth.

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(MUSIC) In the days of my youth I could bill like a dove

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(MUSIC) Falala, la, la, lalarala, la-di

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(MUSIC) In the days of her youth
she could bill like a dove

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(MUSIC) Like a sparrow at all times was ready for love

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(MUSIC) Falalala, la-di, falalala, la-di

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(MUSIC) Falala, lalala, la-la-la-di

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(MUSIC) The life of all mortals in kissing should pass

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(MUSIC) Falala, la, la, lalarala, la-di

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(MUSIC) The life of all mortals in kissing should pass

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(MUSIC) Lip to lip while we're young

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(MUSIC) Then the lip to the glass

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(MUSIC) Falalala, la-di

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(MUSIC) Falalala, la-di

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(MUSIC) Falala, lalala, la-la-la-di (MUSIC)

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Drinking, wenching, stealing...

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No more than today, I suppose,

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but rather more openly.

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All this coarse life

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is painted with great delicacy.

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And although Hogarth's compositions
are rather a muddle

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one can't deny that he had
a gift of narrative invention.

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In later life, he did a series of pictures
of an election

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that are easy to follow,
and a very convincing comment

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on the much-cracked-up democracy
of 18th-century England.

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Here's the polling booth,

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with imbeciles and moribunds
being persuaded to make their marks.

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And an old soldier

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loyally voting for the Establishment

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with his hook.

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And here's the successful candidate
like a fat, powdered capon,

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borne in triumph by his bruisers,

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who are still carrying on their private feuds.

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And I must confess that Hogarth
conquers my prejudice by this blind fiddler,

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a real stroke of imagination outside
the usual range of his moralising journalism.

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The truth is, I think, that 18th-century England

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in the aftermath of its middle-class revolution

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had created two societies
very remote from one another.

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One was the society
of modest country gentlemen -

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of which we have a perfect record
in the work of a painter called Devis -

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comically stiff and expressionless
in their cold, empty rooms.

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True, it developed into the world of Jane Austen,

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which was not lacking in critical intelligence,

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but was somewhat deficient in energy.

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The other was the urban society,
of which Hogarth has left us many records.

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Plenty of animal spirits,

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but not what we could call by any stretch
"civilisation".

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I hope you won't think it too facile
if I compare this print,

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called A Midnight Modern Conversation...

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..with a picture painted in the same decade
called A Reading From Moliere

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by the French artist de Troy.

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In this series I've tried to go beyond
the narrower meaning of the word "civilised",

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but all the same, it has its value

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and one can't deny
that this is a picture of civilised life.

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Even the furniture contrives to be both beautiful
and comfortable at the same time.

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And one reason is that

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whereas all the characters in Hogarth's
Midnight Conversation are male,

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five out of the seven figures
in the de Troy are women.

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In talking about the 12th and 13th centuries,

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I said how great an advance in civilisation
was achieved

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by a respect for feminine qualities...

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..and the same was true of 18th-century France.

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I think it absolutely essential to civilisation

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that the male and female principles
be kept in balance,

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and I've observed that where, at a party,
men and women hive off into separate groups,

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the level of civilisation declines.

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In 18th-century France,
the influence of women was benevolent

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and, on the whole, creative

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and it produced that curious institution
of the 18th century - the salon.

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Those small social gatherings
of intelligent men and women

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drawn from all over Europe,

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who met in the rooms of gifted hostesses
like Madame du Deffand

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were for 40 years
the centres of European civilisation.

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They were less poetical than the court of Urbino,

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but intellectually a good deal more alert.

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The ladies who presided over them
were neither very young nor very rich.

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Here's Madame Geoffrin, eating dinner
while her servant reads to her.

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We know exactly what they looked like,
because French artists of the time

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have portrayed them without flattery,

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but with a penetrating eye
for their subtlety of mind.

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How did these ladies do it?

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Not by beauty or physical charms.

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They did it by human sympathy,

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by making people feel at ease, by tact.

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The success of the Parisian salon
also depended on two accidental factors.

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The Court and government of France
were not situated in Paris

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but here, in Versailles.

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(MUSIC) Baroque trumpet and strings

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It was a separate world.

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Indeed, the courtiers of Versailles
always referred to it

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as "ce pays-ci" - "this country of ours".

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And to this day,
I enter this huge, unfriendly courtyard

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with mixed feelings - panic and fatigue,

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as if I were going into an alien world.

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But the remoteness of Versailles
had this good result:

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that Parisian society was free
from the stultifying rituals of Court procedure

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and the trivial day-to-day
preoccupations of politics.

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The other thing that made 18th-century salons
a source of enlightenment

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was that the French upper classes
were not destructively rich.

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They'd lost most of their money
in a financial crash

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brought about by a Scottish wizard
named David Law.

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As I have said several times
a margin of wealth is helpful to civilisation,

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but for some mysterious reason,
great wealth is destructive.

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I suppose that some discipline and economy
is as necessary in art as it is in life.

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Also, great display is heartless.

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The south front of Versailles is a masterpiece
of architectural design,

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but it doesn't touch us
like something loved and familiar.

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For example,

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look at Chardin
the greatest painter of mid-18th'-century France.

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No-one has ever had a surer taste
in colour and design.

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00:17:27,548 --> 00:17:30,500
Every area, every interval, every tone

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gives one the feeling of perfect rightness.

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Well, Chardin didn't depict the upper classes,

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still less the Court.

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He sometimes found his subjects
in the thrifty bourgeoisie

240
00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:43,470
- and what sweet people they are -

241
00:17:43,548 --> 00:17:46,538
sometimes among the working class,
where I think he was happiest

242
00:17:46,640 --> 00:17:50,710
because he loved the basic design
of pots and barrels.

243
00:17:51,828 --> 00:17:55,940
They are noble in a way
that a piece of Louis XV furniture couldn't be.

244
00:17:57,000 --> 00:18:00,509
Chardin's pictures show the qualities
immortalised in verse

245
00:18:00,588 --> 00:18:02,460
by La Fontaine and Moliere

246
00:18:02,548 --> 00:18:08,298
- good sense, a good heart, an approach to
human relationships both simple and delicate -

247
00:18:09,348 --> 00:18:12,940
and they show that these survived
into the mid-18th century

248
00:18:13,028 --> 00:18:16,538
and survive to this day among skilled workmen

249
00:18:16,640 --> 00:18:18,750
- what the French call "artisans" -

250
00:18:18,828 --> 00:18:22,098
who still maintain the character
of French civilisation.

251
00:18:23,160 --> 00:18:27,150
The salons where the brightest intellects
of France were assembled

252
00:18:27,240 --> 00:18:31,348
were more luxurious, but still not overwhelming.

253
00:18:32,400 --> 00:18:35,470
The furniture was in a style
that may seem to us rather extravagant,

254
00:18:35,548 --> 00:18:37,460
but the rooms were of a normal size.

255
00:18:37,548 --> 00:18:41,618
People could feel that they had
some human relationship with one another.

256
00:18:41,720 --> 00:18:46,660
After the Law crash, many of the French
upper classes couldn't afford houses in Paris

257
00:18:46,750 --> 00:18:48,538
and lived in apartments.

258
00:18:48,640 --> 00:18:51,548
Comfort and elegance
took the place of grandeur.

259
00:18:51,640 --> 00:18:53,588
(MUSIC) MOZART: Piano Quartet in G Minor

260
00:19:44,200 --> 00:19:47,950
We have a complete record of how people lived
in mid-18th-century France,

261
00:19:48,028 --> 00:19:50,490
because there were innumerable minor artists

262
00:19:50,588 --> 00:19:53,420
who were content
to record the contemporary scene,

263
00:19:53,509 --> 00:19:55,220
instead of expressing themselves.

264
00:19:56,269 --> 00:20:00,460
Here's part of a series modestly known as
The Monument Of Costume

265
00:20:00,548 --> 00:20:03,818
small masterpieces of design and execution.

266
00:20:03,920 --> 00:20:07,068
The ladies have come to see their friend
who is about to have a baby.

267
00:20:07,160 --> 00:20:10,269
"Don't be afraid, dear friend," they say.

268
00:20:11,348 --> 00:20:15,578
In this painting by Boucher,
a lady is dressing by the fire,

269
00:20:15,680 --> 00:20:18,670
her maid asking her what she is going to wear.

270
00:20:19,960 --> 00:20:24,269
And here, also by Boucher,
is the family sitting by the window

271
00:20:24,348 --> 00:20:27,538
having their morning coffee,
or more likely chocolate,

272
00:20:27,640 --> 00:20:29,670
the little girl showing off her toys.

273
00:20:32,308 --> 00:20:35,778
Well, nobody but a sourpuss or a hypocrite

274
00:20:35,880 --> 00:20:38,630
would deny that this is an agreeable way of life.

275
00:20:39,960 --> 00:20:42,588
Why do so many of us
instinctively react against it?

276
00:20:43,640 --> 00:20:46,230
Because we think it based on exploitation?

277
00:20:46,308 --> 00:20:48,740
Well, do we really think that far?

278
00:20:49,788 --> 00:20:52,940
If so, it's like being sorry for animals
and not being a vegetarian.

279
00:20:53,028 --> 00:20:56,420
Our whole society is based
on different sorts of exploitation.

280
00:20:57,480 --> 00:21:01,348
Or is it because we believe
that this kind of life was shallow and trivial?

281
00:21:02,400 --> 00:21:04,190
Well, that simply isn't true.

282
00:21:04,269 --> 00:21:06,338
The men who enjoyed it were no fools.

283
00:21:06,440 --> 00:21:10,950
Talleyrand said that only those
who experienced the life of 18th-century France

284
00:21:11,028 --> 00:21:14,900
had known the "douceur de vivre"
- the sweetness of living -

285
00:21:15,000 --> 00:21:20,019
and Talleyrand was certainly one of the most
intelligent men who have ever taken up politics.

286
00:21:20,108 --> 00:21:23,538
The people who frequented the salons
of 18th-century France

287
00:21:23,640 --> 00:21:26,230
were not merely a group
of fashionable good-timers.

288
00:21:27,269 --> 00:21:31,380
They were the outstanding philosophers
and scientists of the time.

289
00:21:31,480 --> 00:21:35,788
They wanted to publish
their very revolutionary views on religion.

290
00:21:36,828 --> 00:21:41,500
They wanted to curtail the power of a lazy king
and an irresponsible government.

291
00:21:42,548 --> 00:21:44,220
They wanted to change society.

292
00:21:45,269 --> 00:21:48,420
In the end, they got rather more of a change
than they'd bargained for.

293
00:21:48,509 --> 00:21:53,180
The men who met each other in the salons
of Madame du Deffand and Madame Geoffrin

294
00:21:53,269 --> 00:21:55,700
were engaged in a great work - here it is.

295
00:21:56,750 --> 00:22:01,460
An Encyclopaedia, or Dictionnaire Raisonné
Des Sciences, Des Arts, Et Des Métiers.

296
00:22:02,509 --> 00:22:06,130
It was intended to advance mankind
by conquering ignorance.

297
00:22:07,200 --> 00:22:10,108
It was a gigantic enterprise, as you can see.

298
00:22:11,160 --> 00:22:14,548
Eventually - this is only a small part of it -
there were 24 folio volumes

299
00:22:14,640 --> 00:22:17,470
and, of course, it involved
a great many contributors,

300
00:22:17,548 --> 00:22:20,538
but the dynamo of the whole undertaking

301
00:22:20,640 --> 00:22:21,950
was Diderot.

302
00:22:22,028 --> 00:22:27,259
There he is, in a picture by van Loo - smiling
the smile of reason - which enraged him.

303
00:22:27,348 --> 00:22:29,730
He said he'd been made to look
like an old cocotte

304
00:22:29,828 --> 00:22:31,700
who was still trying to be agreeable.

305
00:22:31,788 --> 00:22:34,578
He was a many-sided man, very intelligent

306
00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:39,750
- a novelist, a philosopher, even an art critic,
the great supporter of Chardin -

307
00:22:39,828 --> 00:22:44,460
and in the Encyclopaedia he wrote articles
on everything, from Aristotle to artificial flowers.

308
00:22:45,509 --> 00:22:49,380
The aims of the Encyclopaedia
seem harmless enough to us,

309
00:22:49,480 --> 00:22:53,019
but, you know, authoritarian governments
don't like dictionaries.

310
00:22:53,108 --> 00:22:58,048
They live by lies
and by bamboozling abstractions,

311
00:22:58,160 --> 00:23:01,390
and they can't afford
to have words accurately defined.

312
00:23:02,440 --> 00:23:04,390
The Encyclopaedia was twice suppressed,

313
00:23:04,480 --> 00:23:09,338
and by its ultimate triumph,
the polite reunions in these elegant salons

314
00:23:09,440 --> 00:23:12,308
became precursors of revolutionary politics.

315
00:23:13,440 --> 00:23:15,348
They were also precursors of science.

316
00:23:15,440 --> 00:23:19,868
The illustrated supplement of the Encyclopaedia
is full of pictures of technical processes.

317
00:23:19,960 --> 00:23:21,950
Here is one of the plates, for example,

318
00:23:22,028 --> 00:23:27,420
showing the...polishing of wood.

319
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:30,950
And then another.

320
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:34,190
All the beginning, the beginning here,

321
00:23:34,269 --> 00:23:38,500
shows the making of silk for the tapestry,

322
00:23:38,588 --> 00:23:42,368
and this is the actual...dyeing of the wool

323
00:23:42,480 --> 00:23:44,858
for the Gobelin tapestries.

324
00:23:47,348 --> 00:23:48,740
And throughout the book,

325
00:23:48,828 --> 00:23:53,950
there are extremely interesting examples
of the techniques of the day.

326
00:23:57,308 --> 00:24:01,338
In the mid-18th century,
science was fashionable and romantic

327
00:24:01,440 --> 00:24:04,348
as one can see
from this picture by Wright of Derby.

328
00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:09,710
The Experiment With The Air Pump
brings us to the new age of scientific invention.

329
00:24:09,788 --> 00:24:14,220
The natural philosopher,
with his long hair and dedicated stare,

330
00:24:14,308 --> 00:24:15,940
perhaps a trifle theatrical,

331
00:24:16,028 --> 00:24:18,660
but the other characters
are awfully well observed.

332
00:24:19,720 --> 00:24:23,150
The little girls who can't bear to witness
the death of the poor pigeon,

333
00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:27,348
the sensible middle-aged man who tells them
that such sacrifices must be made

334
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:28,750
in the interests of science

335
00:24:28,828 --> 00:24:30,420
and the thoughtful man on the right

336
00:24:30,509 --> 00:24:32,740
who is wondering if this kind of experiment

337
00:24:32,828 --> 00:24:34,980
is really going to do mankind much good.

338
00:24:36,028 --> 00:24:37,980
They are all taking it quite seriously,

339
00:24:38,068 --> 00:24:42,618
but nonetheless, science was
to some extent, an after-dinner occupation,

340
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:45,019
like playing the piano in the next century.

341
00:24:45,108 --> 00:24:50,740
Even Voltaire, who spent a vast amount of time
on weighing molten metal and cutting up worms,

342
00:24:50,828 --> 00:24:52,778
was only a dilettante.

343
00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:56,950
He lacked the patient realism
of the experimenter,

344
00:24:57,028 --> 00:25:01,058
and perhaps such tenacity exists only in a milieu

345
00:25:01,160 --> 00:25:03,588
where quick-wittedness is less highly valued.

346
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:06,509
In the 18th century, it emerged in a country

347
00:25:06,588 --> 00:25:11,180
where civilisation
still had the energy of newness - Scotland.

348
00:25:13,400 --> 00:25:15,108
(MUSIC) Will ye go to Sheriffmuir

349
00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:17,108
(MUSIC) Bold John o'Innisture

350
00:25:17,200 --> 00:25:19,430
(MUSIC) There to see the noble Mar

351
00:25:19,509 --> 00:25:21,338
(MUSIC) And his Highland laddies

352
00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:23,308
(MUSIC) A' the true men o'the North

353
00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:25,150
(MUSIC) Angus, Huntly and Seaforth

354
00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:27,028
(MUSIC) Scouring on to cross the Forth

355
00:25:27,108 --> 00:25:29,298
(MUSIC) Wi' their white cockadies

356
00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:33,108
(MUSIC) There you'll see the banners flare

357
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:34,950
(MUSIC) There you'll hear the bagpipes' rair

358
00:25:35,028 --> 00:25:36,578
(MUSIC) And the trumpet's deadly blare

359
00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:38,750
(MUSIC) Wi' the cannon's rattle

360
00:25:38,828 --> 00:25:40,660
(MUSIC) There you'll see the bold McCraws'

361
00:25:40,750 --> 00:25:42,618
(MUSIC) Camerons' and Clanranald's raws

362
00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:44,670
(MUSIC) All the clans wi' loud huzzas

363
00:25:44,750 --> 00:25:46,500
(MUSIC) Rushing to the battle

364
00:25:48,588 --> 00:25:51,500
The Scottish character - and I'm a Scot myself-

365
00:25:51,588 --> 00:25:56,098
shows an extraordinary combination
of realism and reckless sentiment.

366
00:25:57,200 --> 00:26:00,818
The sentiment has passed into popular legend
and the Scots are proud of it,

367
00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:02,058
and no wonder.

368
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:04,720
Where but in Edinburgh
does a romantic landscape

369
00:26:04,788 --> 00:26:06,618
come right into the centre of the town?

370
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:09,548
But it's the realism that counts

371
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:14,990
and that made 18th-century Scotland
- a poor, remote, semi-barbarous country -

372
00:26:15,068 --> 00:26:17,019
a force in European civilisation.

373
00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:20,548
Let me name some 18th-century Scots.

374
00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:25,990
In the world of ideas and science: Adam Smith
David Hume, Joseph Black and James Watt.

375
00:26:26,068 --> 00:26:31,900
It's a matter of historical fact that these
were the men who, soon after the year 1760,

376
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:36,509
changed the whole current
of European thought and life.

377
00:26:36,588 --> 00:26:40,858
Joseph Black and James Watt discovered
that heat and, in particular, steam,

378
00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:42,990
could be a source of power.

379
00:26:43,068 --> 00:26:45,818
Well, I needn't describe
how that has changed the world!

380
00:26:45,920 --> 00:26:50,390
In The Wealth Of Nations, Adam Smith
invented the study of political economy

381
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:54,180
and created a social science
that lasted up to the time of Karl Marx.

382
00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:57,470
In his Treatise On Human Nature

383
00:26:57,548 --> 00:26:59,019
Hume succeeded in proving

384
00:26:59,108 --> 00:27:03,140
that experience and reason
have no necessary connection with one another,

385
00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:05,910
that there's no such thing as a rational belief.

386
00:27:06,960 --> 00:27:11,630
Hume, as he himself said
was of an open, social and cheerful humour,

387
00:27:11,720 --> 00:27:14,788
and he was much beloved by the ladies
in the Paris salons.

388
00:27:15,828 --> 00:27:18,259
I suppose they'd never read that small book

389
00:27:18,348 --> 00:27:21,460
which has made all philosophers feel uneasy
till the present day.

390
00:27:22,509 --> 00:27:28,380
All these great Scots lived
in the grim, narrow tenements

391
00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:30,150
of the Old Town of Edinburgh,

392
00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:31,868
piled on the hill behind the castle.

393
00:27:32,920 --> 00:27:37,028
But even in their lifetime
the great Scottish architects, the brothers Adam,

394
00:27:37,108 --> 00:27:41,019
had produced one of the finest pieces
of town planning in Europe,

395
00:27:41,108 --> 00:27:43,058
the New Town of Edinburgh.

396
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:12,470
In addition, they exploited

397
00:28:12,548 --> 00:28:14,538
- I think one may almost say invented -

398
00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:18,108
the strict, pure classicism
that was to influence architecture

399
00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:19,548
all over Europe.

400
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:23,990
In fact, another Scot named Cameron
took it to Russia, with tremendous effect.

401
00:28:24,068 --> 00:28:27,818
And then
a Scot having popularised' neoclassicism,

402
00:28:27,920 --> 00:28:31,390
Sir Walter Scott popularised
the Gothic Middle Ages

403
00:28:31,480 --> 00:28:35,098
and furnished the imagination
of the romantically-minded for a century.

404
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:38,190
Not bad for a poor, underpopulated country.

405
00:28:39,588 --> 00:28:42,818
Through the practical genius
of the Scots and English,

406
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:47,068
those technical diagrams
in the Encyclopaedia became a reality

407
00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:52,390
and before the political revolutions
of America and France had taken effect

408
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:57,950
a far deeper and more durable transformation
was already underway,

409
00:28:58,028 --> 00:29:00,380
what we call the Industrial Revolution.

410
00:29:01,269 --> 00:29:04,058
Wright of Derby,
whose imagination had been stirred

411
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:07,778
by the scientific exercises of the intellectuals,

412
00:29:07,880 --> 00:29:11,660
was also moved
by their first commercial application

413
00:29:11,750 --> 00:29:14,900
and he painted this picture
of Arkwright's mill at Cromford.

414
00:29:15,960 --> 00:29:19,190
He's felt the romance of industrialism

415
00:29:19,269 --> 00:29:23,048
as it begins to usurp the power
of the old regime.

416
00:29:24,788 --> 00:29:28,490
If, on the practical side, we had to visit Scotland,

417
00:29:28,588 --> 00:29:31,220
on the moral side we must return to France.

418
00:29:32,269 --> 00:29:34,900
Not to Paris, but to the borders of Switzerland

419
00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:37,670
because it was there

420
00:29:37,750 --> 00:29:39,460
a mile or two from the French frontier

421
00:29:39,548 --> 00:29:41,098
that Voltaire made his home.

422
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:44,068
After several bad experiences,

423
00:29:44,160 --> 00:29:46,068
he'd become suspicious of authority

424
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:49,588
and he liked to live in a place
where he could easily slip over the border.

425
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:52,548
He didn't suffer from his exile.

426
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:54,788
He'd made a lot of money by speculation,

427
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:56,019
and his last bolthole

428
00:29:56,108 --> 00:30:00,900
the Chäteau of Ferney, is, as you see,
a large, agreeable country house.

429
00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:03,348
Voltaire built the wings at either end.

430
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:07,108
He also planted this alleyway of beeches

431
00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:09,190
for a cool promenade on a hot day.

432
00:30:10,240 --> 00:30:13,190
When he was visited
by the self-important ladies of Geneva,

433
00:30:13,269 --> 00:30:17,220
he would receive them seated on a bench
at the far end, down there behind me.

434
00:30:17,308 --> 00:30:21,818
It amused him to see how they struggled
to prevent their towering, powdered wigs

435
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:23,910
from getting entangled in the branches.

436
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:26,150
Well, it's grown up a good deal since then.

437
00:30:53,108 --> 00:30:56,259
It was in this room
that he thought up devastating witticisms

438
00:30:56,348 --> 00:30:58,298
with which to destroy his enemies.

439
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:01,630
He may even have done so in this very chair,

440
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:05,990
one of a set with the covers worked by his niece,
Madame Denis.

441
00:31:10,068 --> 00:31:13,180
I wish I could convey the quality of his wit to you,

442
00:31:13,269 --> 00:31:17,900
but Voltaire is one of those writers
whose virtue is inseparable from his style,

443
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:20,630
and true style is untranslatable.

444
00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:22,190
He himself said

445
00:31:22,269 --> 00:31:25,460
"One word in the wrong place
will ruin the most beautiful thought."

446
00:31:26,509 --> 00:31:29,298
Still more would it ruin the wit and irony,

447
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:31,308
which were his peculiar gifts.

448
00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:34,588
To the end of his life he couldn't resist a joke,

449
00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:38,670
but on one subject he was completely serious -
justice.

450
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:44,630
Many people in his lifetime, and since,
have compared him to a monkey,

451
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:47,990
but when it came to fighting injustice,
he was a bulldog!

452
00:31:48,068 --> 00:31:49,740
He never let go.

453
00:31:49,828 --> 00:31:51,259
He pestered all his friends,

454
00:31:51,348 --> 00:31:53,538
he wrote an unending stream of pamphlets

455
00:31:53,640 --> 00:31:56,470
and finally he had some of the victims -

456
00:31:56,548 --> 00:31:59,180
like these members
of a Protestant family named Calas,

457
00:31:59,269 --> 00:32:01,298
who had been cruelly persecuted in Bordeaux -

458
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:03,190
living at his expense at Ferney.

459
00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:08,788
Gradually, the world ceased to think of him
as an impudent libertine,

460
00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:11,750
but as a patriarch and sage,

461
00:32:11,828 --> 00:32:16,740
and by 1778,
he at last felt it safe to return to Paris.

462
00:32:16,828 --> 00:32:18,140
He was 84.

463
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:24,868
No victorious general, no lone flyer
has ever been given such a reception.

464
00:32:24,960 --> 00:32:28,990
He was hailed as the universal man
and the friend of mankind.

465
00:32:29,068 --> 00:32:32,140
People of all classes crowded round his house,

466
00:32:32,240 --> 00:32:33,630
drew his carriage,

467
00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:35,028
mobbed him wherever he went.

468
00:32:35,108 --> 00:32:39,338
Finally, his bust was crowned
on the stage of the Théatre Français.

469
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:43,390
Naturally, it killed him, but he died triumphant.

470
00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:56,710
The remarkable thing about
the frivolous 18th century was its seriousness.

471
00:32:56,788 --> 00:33:00,380
It was, in many ways,
the heir to Renaissance humanism

472
00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:02,858
but there was a vital difference.

473
00:33:03,920 --> 00:33:08,068
The Renaissance had taken place
within the framework of the Christian church.

474
00:33:08,160 --> 00:33:10,950
A few humanists had shown signs of scepticism,

475
00:33:11,028 --> 00:33:14,618
but no-one had expressed doubts
about the Christian religion as a whole.

476
00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:20,950
People had the comfortable moral freedom
that goes with an unquestioned faith.

477
00:33:22,108 --> 00:33:23,980
But by the middle of the 18th century,

478
00:33:24,068 --> 00:33:28,298
serious-minded men could see
that the Church had become a tied house

479
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:31,028
tied to property and status

480
00:33:31,108 --> 00:33:35,298
and defending its interests
by repressions and injustice.

481
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:39,190
No-one felt this more strongly than Voltaire.

482
00:33:39,269 --> 00:33:41,858
"Écrasez l'infame." "Crush the vermin."

483
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:45,990
It dominated his later life
and he bequeathed it to his followers.

484
00:33:46,068 --> 00:33:50,298
I remember HG Wells
who was a kind of 20th-century' Voltaire,

485
00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:52,750
saying that he daren't drive a car in France

486
00:33:52,828 --> 00:33:56,140
because the temptation to run over a priest
would be too strong for him.

487
00:33:57,348 --> 00:34:00,660
All the same
Voltaire remained a kind' of believer.

488
00:34:00,750 --> 00:34:02,940
He even built a chapel at Ferney.

489
00:34:03,028 --> 00:34:07,460
Over the door he had inscribed the words:
"Deo erexit Voltaire."

490
00:34:07,548 --> 00:34:11,250
"Voltaire" in larger letters.
It was an affair solely between him and God.

491
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:17,389
However, several of the contributors
to the Encyclopaedia were total materialists.

492
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:21,949
And so, the late 18th century
was faced with the troublesome task

493
00:34:22,030 --> 00:34:23,980
of constructing a new morality

494
00:34:24,070 --> 00:34:26,860
without revelation or Christian sanctions.

495
00:34:28,230 --> 00:34:30,610
This morality was built on two foundations.

496
00:34:30,710 --> 00:34:33,268
One of them was the doctrine of natural law.

497
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:36,150
The other, the stoic morality
of ancient republican Rome.

498
00:34:37,190 --> 00:34:43,900
Republican virtue inspired
the most gifted painter of his day, David.

499
00:34:44,960 --> 00:34:46,789
In the Lives of Plutarch

500
00:34:46,880 --> 00:34:51,190
people read about those grim,
puritanical heroes of the Roman republic,

501
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:55,670
who sacrificed themselves and their, families
in the interests of the State

502
00:34:55,760 --> 00:35:00,389
and they took these monsters
as models for a new political order.

503
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:04,070
Here's David's first great revolutionary picture,

504
00:35:04,150 --> 00:35:06,099
The Oath Of The Horatii.

505
00:35:07,590 --> 00:35:10,219
It was painted in 1785,
and it created an effect

506
00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:14,750
which those of us who remember
the first appearance of Picasso's Guernica

507
00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:17,349
may be able faintly to imagine.

508
00:35:19,030 --> 00:35:24,300
The Oath Of The Horatii
is the supreme picture of revolutionary action,

509
00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:26,860
not only in its subject, but in its treatment.

510
00:35:28,070 --> 00:35:33,340
Gone are all the melting outlines
and pools of sensuous shadow of a Fragonard,

511
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:38,789
and in their place
are these firmly-outlined expressions of will.

512
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:43,460
The unified, totalitarian gesture of the brothers,

513
00:35:43,550 --> 00:35:46,820
like the kinetic image of a rotating wheel,

514
00:35:46,920 --> 00:35:49,110
has an almost hypnotic quality.

515
00:35:50,360 --> 00:35:53,550
Even the architecture is a conscious revolt

516
00:35:53,630 --> 00:35:56,500
against the refined, ornamental style of the time.

517
00:35:56,590 --> 00:36:02,059
These Tuscan columns assert
the superior virtue of the plain man.

518
00:36:02,150 --> 00:36:07,090
Two years later, David painted
an even more grimly Plutarchian picture,

519
00:36:07,190 --> 00:36:11,619
The Lictors Bringing Back To The House,
Of Brutus The Bodies Of His Two Sons

520
00:36:11,710 --> 00:36:14,340
whom he had condemned to death
for treachery.

521
00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:17,510
One of those incidents in Roman history
that don't appeal to us,

522
00:36:17,590 --> 00:36:22,139
but which was horribly acceptable
to French feeling on the eve of the Revolution.

523
00:36:23,190 --> 00:36:28,460
One sees how completely the douceur de vivre
had lost its hold on the European imagination,

524
00:36:28,550 --> 00:36:30,059
even before 1789.

525
00:36:31,110 --> 00:36:35,659
In fact, the new morality
had already guided a revolution outside Europe.

526
00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:39,989
Once more
we must leave the ancient focus of civilisation

527
00:36:40,070 --> 00:36:43,659
and travel to the edge of the civilised world -
America

528
00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:49,190
for it was in this virgin soil,
and not in the compost heap of Europe,

529
00:36:49,280 --> 00:36:52,670
that the aims of the Encyclopaedia
were first realised.

530
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:56,750
In the 18th century,
no white man, except hunters,

531
00:36:56,840 --> 00:36:59,219
had penetrated beyond that range of hills.

532
00:37:00,590 --> 00:37:02,539
(MUSIC) Drums beat rhythmically

533
00:37:31,590 --> 00:37:34,179
But here, on the border territory of the Indian,

534
00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:36,230
the trapper and the buffalo,

535
00:37:36,320 --> 00:37:39,389
a young Virginian lawyer
elected to build his home in the 1760s.

536
00:37:40,440 --> 00:37:42,349
His name was Thomas Jefferson

537
00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:45,829
and he called his house Monticello -
the "little mountain".

538
00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:50,829
It must have been an extraordinary apparition
in that wild landscape.

539
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:13,670
Jefferson made it up out of the book
of the great Renaissance architect Palladio,

540
00:38:13,760 --> 00:38:16,710
of which he is said to have owned
the only copy in America.

541
00:38:16,800 --> 00:38:21,710
But of course, he had to invent a great deal of it
himself, and he was highly inventive.

542
00:38:21,800 --> 00:38:27,110
The interior of the house
betrays the obstinate ingenuity of a creative man

543
00:38:27,190 --> 00:38:30,539
who is determined
to work out everything for himself.

544
00:38:32,030 --> 00:38:34,018
This is his idea for a bed

545
00:38:34,110 --> 00:38:37,460
placed between two rooms in the wall,

546
00:38:37,550 --> 00:38:39,179
so that he could get out either side,

547
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:41,550
either into his study or his sitting room.

548
00:38:42,630 --> 00:38:46,460
And to dress, he went up this little circular stair
to the room above.

549
00:38:46,550 --> 00:38:49,820
And this was his own design for spectacles,

550
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:52,070
in a little box the size of a patch box.

551
00:38:53,110 --> 00:38:55,219
They look a little small, but in fact they're...

552
00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:56,909
You can read by them perfectly well,

553
00:38:57,000 --> 00:38:59,829
and with them I can read
his own edition of Vitruvius...

554
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:05,670
..the classical architect
who inspired so much of his building.

555
00:39:11,440 --> 00:39:12,750
It's placed on a table,

556
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:15,300
a revolving table which he designed himself,

557
00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:16,949
which works very well,

558
00:39:17,030 --> 00:39:18,500
and a revolving chair.

559
00:39:19,550 --> 00:39:21,849
Everything, everything in the room he designed.

560
00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:24,670
The drapes, the mouldings - every single thing,

561
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:31,429
and it all has a kind of simple,
homespun, independent air,

562
00:39:31,510 --> 00:39:33,739
which is the stamp of Jefferson.

563
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:39,268
He was the typical universal man
of the 18th century.

564
00:39:39,360 --> 00:39:42,190
Linguist, scientist, agriculturalist,

565
00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:44,949
educator, town planner and architect.

566
00:39:45,030 --> 00:39:50,619
Almost a reincarnation of Leon Battista Alberti
the universal man of the Renaissance

567
00:39:50,710 --> 00:39:53,010
even down to a love of music...

568
00:39:53,110 --> 00:39:56,860
and the management of horses
and a certain crankiness -

569
00:39:56,960 --> 00:40:02,150
what, in a lesser man, could have been called
a touch of self-righteousness.

570
00:40:03,480 --> 00:40:06,039
What a wilful, independent head.

571
00:40:08,590 --> 00:40:11,380
Of course
Jefferson wasn't as good an architect as Alberti,

572
00:40:11,480 --> 00:40:14,268
but then
he was also President of the United States

573
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:17,110
and as an architect he was by no means bad.

574
00:40:17,190 --> 00:40:21,980
Monticello was the beginning
of that simple, almost rustic classicism

575
00:40:22,070 --> 00:40:24,780
that stretches right up
the eastern seaboard of America

576
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:26,150
right up to Massachusetts,

577
00:40:26,230 --> 00:40:28,460
and lasted for a hundred years,

578
00:40:28,550 --> 00:40:32,500
producing a body of simple,
civilised, domestic architecture

579
00:40:32,590 --> 00:40:34,539
equal to any in the world.

580
00:40:34,630 --> 00:40:40,500
And it reflects the grave self-assurance
of the founders of the American Republic.

581
00:40:41,550 --> 00:40:43,980
Jefferson is buried in the grounds of Monticello.

582
00:40:45,150 --> 00:40:47,179
He left instructions for his tomb.

583
00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:52,110
On it were to be inscribed
the following sentences, and not a word more.

584
00:40:52,190 --> 00:40:55,460
"Here was buried Thomas Jefferson

585
00:40:55,550 --> 00:40:58,340
author of
the Declaration Of American Independence,

586
00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:02,190
of the Statute Of Virginia
For Religious Freedom,

587
00:41:02,280 --> 00:41:04,989
and father of the University of Virginia."

588
00:41:11,150 --> 00:41:14,018
Well, the establishment of religious freedom

589
00:41:14,110 --> 00:41:17,500
that earned him so much hatred and abuse
in his own day,

590
00:41:17,590 --> 00:41:19,500
we now take for granted.

591
00:41:19,590 --> 00:41:22,820
But the University of Virginia is still a surprise.

592
00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:26,429
It was all designed by Jefferson
and it's full of his character.

593
00:41:26,510 --> 00:41:29,420
He called it an "academical village".

594
00:41:29,510 --> 00:41:32,980
There are ten pavilions for ten professors,

595
00:41:33,070 --> 00:41:37,380
and between them, behind this colonnade
the rooms of the students

596
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:40,550
all within reach, and yet all individual,

597
00:41:40,630 --> 00:41:43,460
the ideal of corporate humanism.

598
00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:47,309
And then, outside the courtyard

599
00:41:47,400 --> 00:41:50,869
are small gardens that show his love of privacy.

600
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:55,070
Those serpentine walls
were Jefferson's speciality.

601
00:41:55,150 --> 00:41:57,018
Nobody knows where he got them from.

602
00:41:57,110 --> 00:42:01,340
Needless to say, they had a practical
as well as an aesthetic intention.

603
00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:07,260
The great courtyard
was round three sides of a rectangle.

604
00:42:07,360 --> 00:42:11,710
The fourth side you saw over the mountains
to Indian territory.

605
00:42:16,550 --> 00:42:19,780
How confidently, in their semi-wild domain,

606
00:42:19,880 --> 00:42:23,789
the founding fathers of America
assumed the mantle of Republican virtue

607
00:42:23,880 --> 00:42:27,150
and put into practice the notions
of the French Enlightenment.

608
00:42:28,190 --> 00:42:31,460
They even called on the great sculptor
of the Enlightenment, Houdon

609
00:42:31,550 --> 00:42:34,340
to commemorate
their victorious General Washington.

610
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:39,150
And here's the result
standing in the Capitol at Richmond, Virginia.

611
00:42:42,030 --> 00:42:46,780
This programme began with Houdon's statue
of Voltaire, smiling the smile of reason.

612
00:42:48,190 --> 00:42:50,489
It could end
with Houdon's statue of Washington.

613
00:42:51,550 --> 00:42:53,539
No more smiles.

614
00:42:53,630 --> 00:42:57,139
Houdon saw his subject
as that favourite Roman Republican hero,

615
00:42:57,230 --> 00:42:59,179
the decent country gentleman

616
00:42:59,280 --> 00:43:02,820
called away from his farm
to defend his neighbour's liberties.

617
00:43:03,880 --> 00:43:05,829
(MUSIC) HEWITT: The Battle Of Trenton

618
00:43:50,630 --> 00:43:53,340
In fact, the War of Independence
lasted six years,

619
00:43:53,440 --> 00:43:56,710
and at the end of it
the British totally withdrew their forces

620
00:43:56,800 --> 00:43:58,750
and the new republic was born.

621
00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:02,989
Washington retired to his farm at Mount Vernon.

622
00:44:04,440 --> 00:44:06,429
The ideas of the French Enlightenment

623
00:44:06,510 --> 00:44:09,070
influenced the founders
of the American Constitution

624
00:44:09,150 --> 00:44:12,380
and, in return
the success of the American rebellion

625
00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:16,179
played a part in inspiring the French
to overthrow their monarchy.

626
00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:18,110
After the storming of the Bastille,

627
00:44:18,190 --> 00:44:22,820
Lafayette sent the key of that infamous prison
as a present to Washington.

628
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:26,150
Washington hung it in the hall at Mount Vernon,

629
00:44:26,230 --> 00:44:28,179
and there it has stayed ever since.

630
00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:34,110
By this date, Washington had little time to spend
at his home farm on the banks of the Potomac.

631
00:44:34,190 --> 00:44:37,500
He had been elected
first President of the United States.

632
00:44:37,590 --> 00:44:39,539
(MUSIC) HEWITT: The Battle Of Trenton

633
00:44:50,070 --> 00:44:52,340
His monument dominates the new capital city

634
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:54,389
which was named after him.

635
00:44:55,590 --> 00:44:58,579
Facing it across the Tidal Basin of the Potomac

636
00:44:58,670 --> 00:45:00,460
is the monument to Jefferson

637
00:45:00,550 --> 00:45:02,260
who became the third President.

638
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:05,389
(MUSIC) IVES: Variations On America -
My Country 'Tis Of Thee

639
00:45:08,670 --> 00:45:10,940
Not only the Palladian architecture,

640
00:45:11,030 --> 00:45:13,780
but the music has crossed the Atlantic.

641
00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:17,389
God Save The King
has become My Country 'Tis Of Thee.

642
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:47,429
On the inner walls are quotations
from Jefferson's writings.

643
00:45:47,510 --> 00:45:50,260
First the familiar, noble, indestructible words

644
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:53,150
of the Declaration Of Independence.

645
00:45:53,230 --> 00:45:58,300
"We hold these truths to be self-evident:
that all men are created equal..."

646
00:46:12,150 --> 00:46:14,139
Self-evident truths.

647
00:46:14,230 --> 00:46:16,980
That's the voice of 18th-century Enlightenment.

648
00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:21,989
But on the opposite wall
are less familiar words by Jefferson

649
00:46:22,070 --> 00:46:24,018
that still give us pause today.

650
00:46:25,710 --> 00:46:28,860
"I tremble for my country when I reflect

651
00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:30,309
that God is just..."

652
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:52,389
A peaceful-looking scene,
a great ideal made visible.

653
00:46:53,670 --> 00:46:56,130
But beyond it, what problems!

654
00:46:57,190 --> 00:46:59,460
Almost insoluble

655
00:46:59,550 --> 00:47:02,940
or at least not soluble by the smile of reason.

656
00:47:08,960 --> 00:47:10,909
(MUSIC) IVES: Variations On America