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| | CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: France |
 | | To repeat a saying of Ferdinand Brunetière, the eighteenth century was the least Christian and least French century in the history of France. |
 | | Politically, the tradition strife between France and the House of Austria ended, about the middle of the eighteenth century, with the famous Renversement des Alliances (see Choiseul, Etienne-François, Duc de; Fleury, Andre-Hercule de). |
 | | This century is filled with that struggle between France and England which may be called the second Hundred Years War, during which England had for an ally Frederick II, King of Prussia, a country which was then rapidly rising in importance. |
| www.newadvent.org /cathen/06166a.htm (14216 words) |
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