Père d'Orléans. Author of a French History of the Revolutions of England, in four volumes, published in 1694. He begins from the time of the Roman occupation, and writes, so far as regards the earlier periods, with great care and accuracy, and for the later periods with no more prejudice, certainly, than we might expect to find in a subject of Louis XIV, who had to defend his own king's ally, James II, against what he naturally deemed the injustice of rebellious subjects. For Swift, and indeed for all English readers of his day, the important part of the book was the history of the House of Stuart: and the passage to which Swift seems here to refer, occurs in the preface to that part of the History. He confesses that in regard to this, 'one of the most delicate parts of the history of our times,' he has been obliged to take a side. He is aware, he says, that there are those who think that an historian's business is only to tell facts, and leave his readers to form their own judgments. 'Cette régle est bonne,' he admits 'et ceux qui la suivent se mettent moins en danger que les autres de s'éloigner de la vérité'; but he goes on to say that there are occasions when this is not possible, and when the passionate prejudices of the other side, their calumnies, and their attacks upon divinely constituted authority, require the historian to take a side. Such was the time in which he wrote. The interpretation Swift places on the passage (if it be that to which he refers) is certainly strained: but the implied sneer shows how at this time Swift resented a book which contained a strong attack upon Whiggish principles.