Excerpt from The French Court and Society, Vol. 1 of 2: Reign of Louis XVI. And First Empire "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Such was the text of the last Lenten sermon preached in 1774 before Louis XV. at Versailles. Truly, the mantle of a Bourdaloue, Flechier, or Massillon, had not falle on any of the court preachers of that day. Rarely, very rarely, was then heard the stirring pulpit eloquence which, during the former reign, and in the earlier years of that of Louis XV., so often awakened terror in the accusing conscience of the king, and thrilled with fear and trembling - passing though the emotion may have been - the fashionable assemblages of courtly sinners who thronged the gilded chapel of Versailles. The philosophy of the salons had invaded the pulpit. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."