seventy-six years,--which technically began when he was four years old,
on the death of his father Louis XIII., in 1643, when the kingdom was
governed by his mother, Anne of Austria, as regent, and by Cardinal
Mazarin as prime minister. During the minority of the King the
humiliation of the nobles continued. Protestantism was only tolerated,
and the country distracted rather than impoverished by the civil war of
the Fronde, with its intrigues and ever-shifting parties,--a giddy maze,
which nobody now cares to unravel; a sort of dance of death, in which
figured cardinals, princes, nobles, bishops, judges, and generals,--when
"Bacchus, Momus, and Moloch" alternately usurped dominion. Those
eighteen years of strife, folly, absurdity, and changing fortunes, when
Mazarin was twice compelled to quit the kingdom he governed; when the
queen-regent was forced also twice to fly from her capital; when
Cardinal De Retz disgraced his exalted post as Archbishop of Paris by
the vilest intrigues; when Condé and Conti obscured the lustre of their
military laurels; when alternately the parliaments made war on the
crown, and the seditious nobles ignobly yielded their functions merely
to register royal decrees,--these contests, rivalries, cabals, and
follies, ending however in the more solid foundations of absolute royal
authority, are not to be here discussed, especially as nobody can thread
that political labyrinth; and we begin, therefore, not with the
technical reign of the great King, but with his actual government,
which took place on the death of Mazarin, when he was twenty-two.
It is said that when that able ruler passed away so reluctantly from his
pictures and his government, the ministers asked of the young
King,--thus far only known for his pleasures,--to whom they should now
bring their portfolios, "To me," he replied; and from that moment he
became the State, and his will the law of the land.
I have already alluded to the talents and capacities of Louis for
governing, and the great aid he derived from the labors of Richelieu and
the moral sentiments of his age respecting royalty and religion; so I
will not dwell on personal defects or virtues, but proceed to show the
way in which he executed the task devolved upon him,--in other words,
present a brief history of his government, for which he was so well
fitted by native talents, fortunate circumstances, and established
ideas. I will only say, that never did a monarch enter upon his career
with such ample and magnificent opportunities for being a benefactor of
his people and of civilization. In his hands were placed all the powers
of good and evil; and so far as government can make a nation great,
Louis had the means and opportunities beyond those of any monarch in
modern times. He had armies and generals and accumulated treasures; and
all implicitly served him. His ministers and his generals were equally
able and supple, and he was at peace with all the world. Parliaments,
nobles, and Huguenots were alike submissive and reverential. He had
inherited the experience of Sully, of Richelieu, and of Mazarin. His
kingdom was protected by great natural boundaries,--the North Sea, the
ocean, the Mediterranean, the Pyrenees, the Alps, and the mountains
which overlook the Rhine. By nothing was he fettered but by the decrees
of everlasting righteousness. To his praise be it said, he inaugurated
his government by selecting Colbert as one of his prime ministers,--the
ablest man of his kingdom. It was this honest and astute servant of
royalty who ferreted out the peculations of Fouquet, whom Louis did not
hesitate to disgrace and punish. The great powers of Fouquet were
gradually bestowed on the merchant's son of Rheims.
Colbert was a plebeian and a Protestant,--cold, severe, reserved,
awkward, abrupt, and ostentatiously humble, but of inflexible integrity
and unrivalled sagacity and forethought; more able as a financier and
political economist than any man of his century. It was something for a
young, proud, and pleasure-seeking monarch to see and reward the talents
of such a man; and Colbert had the tact and wisdom to make his young
master believe that all the measures which he pursued originated in the
royal brain. His great merit as a minister consisted in developing the
industrial resources of France and providing the King with money.
Colbert was the father of French commerce, and the creator of the French
navy. He saw that Flanders was enriched by industry, and England and
Holland made powerful by a navy, while Spain and Portugal languished and
declined with all their mines of gold and silver. So he built ships of
war, and made harbors for them, gave charters to East and West India
Companies, planted colonies in India and America, decreed tariffs to
protect infant manufactures, gave bounties to all kinds of artisans,
encouraged manufacturing industry, and declared war on the whole brood
of aristocratic peculators that absorbed the revenues of the kingdom. He
established a better system of accounts, compelled all officers to
reside at their posts, and reduced the percentage of the collection of
the public money. In thirteen years he increased the navy from thirty
ships to two hundred and seventy-three, one hundred of which were ships
of the line. He prepared a new code of maritime law for the government
of the navy, which called out universal admiration. He dug the canal of
Languedoc, which united the Mediterranean with the Atlantic Ocean. He
instituted the Academies of Sciences, of Inscriptions, of Belles
Lettres, of Painting, of Sculpture, of Architecture; and founded the
School of Oriental languages, the Observatory, and the School of Law. He
gave pensions to Corneille, Racine, Molière, and other men of genius. He
rewarded artists and invited scholars to France; he repaired roads,
built bridges, and directed the attention of the middle classes to the
accumulation of capital. "He recognized the connection of works of
industry with the development of genius. He saw the influence of science
in the production of riches; of taste on industry; and the fine arts on
manual labor." For all these enlightened measures the King had the
credit and the glory; and it certainly redounds to his sagacity that he
accepted such wise suggestions, although he mistook them for his own. So
to the eyes of Europe Louis at once loomed up as an enlightened monarch;
and it would be difficult to rob him of this glory. He indorsed the
economical reforms of his great minister, and rewarded merit in all
departments, which he was not slow to see. The world extolled this
enlightened and fortunate young prince, and saw in him a second Solomon,
both for wisdom and magnificence.
Another great genius ably assisted Louis as soon as he turned his
attention to war,--the usual employment of ambitious kings,--and this
was Le Tellier, Marquis of Louvois, the great war minister, who laid out
the campaigns and directed the movements of such generals as Condé,
Turenne, and Luxembourg. And here again it redounds to the sagacity of
Louis that he should select a man for so great a post whom he never
personally loved, and who in his gusts of passion would almost insult
his master. Louvois is acknowledged to have been the ablest war minister
that France ever had.
Louis reigned peaceably and prosperously for six years before the
ambition of being a conqueror and a hero seized him. At twenty-eight he
burned to play the part of Alexander. Thenceforth the history of his
reign chiefly pertains to his gigantic wars,--some defensive, but mostly
offensive, aggressive, and unprovoked.
In regard to these various wars, which plunged Europe in mourning and
rage for nearly fifty years, Louis is generally censured by historians.
They were wars of ambition, like those of Alexander and Frederic II.,
until Europe combined against him and compelled him to act on the
defensive. The limits of this lecture necessarily prevent me from
describing these wars; I can only allude to the most important of them,
and then only to show results.
His first great war was simply outrageous, and was an insult to all
Europe, and a violation of all international law. In 1667, with an
immense army, he undertook the conquest of Flanders, with no better
excuse than Frederic II. had for the invasion of Silesia,--because he
wanted an increase of territory. Flanders had done nothing to warrant
this outrage, was unprepared for war, and was a weak state, but rich and
populous, with fine harbors, and flourishing manufactures. With nearly
fifty thousand men, under Condé, Turenne, and Luxembourg, and other
generals of note, aided by Louvois, who provided military stores of
every kind, and all under the eye of the King himself, full of ideas of
glory, the issue of the conflict was not doubtful. In fact, there was no
serious defence. It was hopeless from the first. Louis had only to take
possession of cities and fortresses which were at his mercy. The
frontier towns were mostly without fortifications, so that it took only
about two or three days to conquer any city. The campaign was more a
court progress than a series of battles. It was a sort of holiday sport
for courtiers, like a royal hunt. The conquest of all Flanders might
have been the work of a single campaign, for no city offered a stubborn
resistance; but the war was prolonged for another year, that Louis might
more easily take possession of Franche-Comté,--a poor province, but
fertile in soil, well peopled, one hundred and twenty miles in length
and sixty in breadth. In less than three weeks this province was added
to France. "Louis," said the Spanish council in derision, "might have
sent his _valet de chambre_ to have taken possession of the country in
his name, and saved himself the trouble of going in person."
This successful raid seems to have contented the King for the time,
since Holland made signs of resistance, and a league was forming against
him, embracing England, Holland, and Sweden.
The courtiers and flatterers of Louis XIV. called this unheroic seizure
"glory." And it doubtless added to the dominion of France, inflamed the
people with military ambition, and caused the pride of birth for the
first time to yield to military talent and military rank. A marshal
became a greater personage than a duke, although a marshal was generally
taken from the higher nobility.
Louis paid no apparent penalty for this crime, any more than prosperous
wickedness at first usually receives. "His eyes stood out with fatness."
To idolatrous courtiers "he had more than heart could wish." But the
penalty was to come: law cannot be violated with impunity.
The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1668 followed, which made Louis the most
prominent figure in Europe. He was then twenty-nine years of age, in the
pride of strength, devoted equally to pleasure and ambition. It was then
that he was the lover of the Duchesse de La Vallière, who was soon to be
supplanted by the imperious Montespan. Louis remained at peace for four
years, but all the while he was preparing for another war, aimed against
Holland, which had offended him because resolved to resist him.
Vaster preparations were made for this war than that against Flanders,
five years before. The storm broke out in 1672, when this little state
saw itself invaded by one hundred and thirty thousand men, led by the
King in person, accompanied by his principal marshals, his war-minister
Louvois, and Vauban, to whom was intrusted the direction of siege
operations,--an engineer who changed the system of fortifications. This
was the most magnificent army that Europe had ever seen since the
Crusades, and much was expected of it. Against Condé, Turenne,
Luxembourg, and Vauban, all under the eye of the King, with a powerful
train of artillery, and immense sums of money to bribe the commanders of
garrisons, Holland had only to oppose twenty-five thousand soldiers,
under a sickly young man of twenty-two, William, Prince of Orange.
Of course Holland was unable to resist such an overwhelming tide of
enemies, such vast and disproportionate forces. City after city and
fortress after fortress was compelled to surrender to the generals of
the French King. "They were taken almost as soon as they were invested."
All the strongholds on the Rhine and Issel fell. The Prince of Orange
could not even take the field. Louis crossed the Rhine without
difficulty, when the waters were low, with only four or five hundred
horsemen to dispute his passage. This famous passage was the subject of
ridiculous panegyrics by both painters and poets. It was generally
regarded as a prodigious feat, especially by the people of Paris, as if
it were another passage of the Granicus.
Then rapidly fell Arnheim, Nimeguen, Utrecht, and other cities. The
wealthy families of Amsterdam prepared to embark in their ships for the
East Indies. Nothing remained to complete the conquest of Holland but
the surrender of Amsterdam, which still held out. Holland was in
despair, and sent ambassadors to the camp of Louis, headed by Grotius,
to implore his mercy. He received them, after protracted delays, with
blended insolence and arrogance, and demanded, as the conditions of
his mercy, that the States should give up all their fortified
cities, pay twenty millions of francs, and establish the Catholic
religion,--conditions which would have reduced the Hollanders to
absolute slavery, morally and politically. From an inspiration of
blended patriotism and despair, the Dutch opened their dykes, overflowed
the whole country in possession of the enemy, and thus made Amsterdam
impregnable,--especially as they were still masters of the sea, and had
just dispersed, in a brilliant naval battle under De Ruyter, the
combined fleets of France and England.
It was this memorable resistance to vastly superior forces, and
readiness to make any sacrifices, which gave immortal fame to William of
Orange, and imperishable glory also to the little state over which he
ruled. What a spectacle!--a feeble mercantile state, without powerful
allies, bracing itself up to a life-and-death struggle with the
mightiest potentate of Europe. I know no parallel to it in the history
of modern times. Our fathers in the Revolutionary war could retreat to
forests and mountains; but Holland had neither mountains nor forests.
There was no escape from political ruin but by the inundation of fertile
fields, the destruction to an unprecedented degree of private property,
and the decimation of the male part of the population. Nor did the noble
defenders dream of victory; they only hoped to make a temporary stand.
William knew he would be beaten in every battle; his courage was moral
rather than physical. He lost no ground by defeat, while Louis lost
ground by victory, since it required a large part of his army to guard
the prisoners and garrison the fortresses he had taken.
Some military writers say that Louis should have persevered until he had
taken Amsterdam. As well might Napoleon have remained in Russia after
the conflagration of Moscow. In May, Louis entered Holland; in July, all
Europe was in confederacy against him, through the negotiations of the
Prince of Orange. Louis hastened to quit the army when no more
conquests could be made in a country overflowed with water, leaving
Turenne and Luxembourg to finish the war in Franche-Comté. The able
generals of the French king were obliged to evacuate Holland. That
little state, by an act of supreme self-sacrifice, saved itself when all
seemed lost. I do not read of any military mistakes on the part of the
generals of Louis. They were baffled by an unforeseen inundation; and
when they were compelled to evacuate the flooded country, the Dutch
quietly closed their dykes and pumped the water out again into their
canals by their windmills, and again restored fertility to their fields;
and by the time Louis was prepared for fresh invasions, a combination
existed against him so formidable that he found it politic to make
peace. The campaigns of Turenne on the Rhine were indeed successful; but
he was killed in an insignificant battle, from a chance cannonball,
while the Prince of Condé retired forever from military service after
the bloody battle of Senif. On the whole, the French were victorious in
the terrible battles which followed the evacuation of Holland, and Louis
dictated peace to Europe apparently in the midst of victories at
Nimeguen, in 1678, after six years of brilliant fighting on both sides.
At the peace of Nimeguen Louis was in the zenith of his glory, as
Napoleon was after the peace of Tilsit. He was justly regarded as the
mightiest monarch of his age, the greatest king that France had ever
seen. All Europe stood in awe of him; and with awe was blended
admiration, for his resources were unimpaired, his generals had greatly
distinguished themselves, and he had added important provinces to his
kingdom, which was also enriched by the internal reforms of Colbert, and
made additionally powerful by commerce and a great navy, which had
gained brilliant victories over the Dutch and Spanish fleets. Duquesne
showed himself to be almost as great a genius in naval warfare as De
Ruyter, who was killed off Aosta in 1676. In those happy and prosperous
days the Hotel de Ville conferred upon Louis the title of "Great," which
posterity never acknowledged. "Titles," says Voltaire, "are never
regarded by posterity. The simple name of a man who has performed noble
actions impresses on us more respect than all the epithets that can be
invented."
After the peace of Nimeguen, in 1678, the King reigned in greater
splendor than before. There were no limits to his arrogance and his
extravagance. He was a modern Nebuchadnezzar. He claimed to be the
state. _L'état, c'est moi!_ was his proud exclamation. He would bear no
contradiction and no opposition. The absorbing sentiment of his soul
seems to have been that France belonged to him, that it had been given
to him as an inheritance, to manage as he pleased for his private
gratification. "Self-aggrandizement," he wrote, "is the noblest
occupation of kings." Most writers affirm that personal aggrandizement
became the law of his life, and that he now began to lose sight of the
higher interests and happiness of his people, and to reign not for them
but for himself. He became a man of resentments, of caprices, of
undisguised selfishness; he became pompous and haughty and self-willed.
We palliate his self-exaggeration and pride, on account of the
disgraceful flatteries he received on every hand. Never was a man more
extravagantly lauded, even by the learned. But had he been half as great
as his courtiers made him think, he would not have been so intoxicated;
Caesar or Charlemagne would not thus have lost his intellectual balance.
The strongest argument to prove that he was not inherently great, but
made apparently so by fortunate circumstances, is his self-deception.
In his arrogance and presumption, like Napoleon after the peace of
Tilsit, he now sets aside the rights of other nations, heaps galling
insults on independent potentates, and assumes the most arrogant tone in
all his relations with his neighbors or subjects. He makes conquests in
the midst of peace. He cites the princes of Europe before his councils.
He deprives the Elector Palatine and the Elector of Treves of some of
their most valuable seigniories. He begins to persecute the
Protestants. He seizes Luxembourg and the principality which belonged to
it. He humbles the republic of Genoa, and compels the Doge to come to
Versailles to implore his clemency. He treats with haughty insolence the
Pope himself, and sends an ambassador to his court on purpose to insult
him. He even insists on giving an Elector to Cologne.
And the same inflated pride and vanity which led Louis to trample on the
rights of other nations, led him into unbounded extravagance in
palace-building. Versailles arose,--at a cost, some affirm, of a
thousand millions of livres,--unrivalled for magnificence since the fall
of the Caesars. In this vast palace did he live, more after the fashion
of an Oriental than an Occidental monarch, having enriched and furnished
it with the wonders of the world, surrounded with princes, marshals,
nobles, judges, bishops, ambassadors, poets, artists, philosophers, and
scholars, all of whom rendered to him perpetual incense. Never was such
a grand court seen before on this earth: it was one of the great
features of the seventeenth century. There was nothing censurable in
collecting all the most distinguished and illustrious people of France
around him: they must have formed a superb society, from which the proud
monarch could learn much to his enlightenment. But he made them all
obsequious courtiers, exacted from all an idolatrous homage, and
subjected them to wearisome ceremonials. He took away their intellectual
independence; he banished Racine because the poet presumed to write a
political tract. He made it difficult to get access to his person; he
degraded the highest nobles by menial offices, and insulted the nation
by the exaltation of abandoned women, who squandered the revenues of the
state in their pleasures and follies, so that this grand court, alike
gay and servile, intellectual and demoralized, became the scene of
perpetual revels, scandals, and intrigues.
It was at this period that Louis abandoned himself to those adulterous
pleasures which have ever disgraced the Bourbons. Yet scarcely a single
woman by whom he was for a while enslaved retained her influence, but a
succession of mistresses arose, blazed, triumphed, and fell. Mancini,
the niece of Mazarin, was forsaken without the decency of the slightest
word of consolation. La Vallière, the only woman who probably ever loved
him with sincerity and devotion, had but a brief reign, and was doomed
to lead a dreary life of thirty-six years in penitence and neglect in a
Carmelite convent. Madame de Montespan retained her ascendency longer
for she had talents as well as physical beauty; she was the most
prodigal and imperious of all the women that ever triumphed over the
weakness of man. She reigned when Louis was in all the pride of manhood
and at the summit of his greatness and fame,--accompanying him in his
military expeditions, presiding at his fetes, receiving the incense of
nobles, the channel of court favor, the dispenser of honors but not of
offices; for amid all the slaveries to which women subjected the
proudest man on earth by the force of physical charms, he never gave to
them his sceptre. It was not till Madame de Maintenon supplanted this
beautiful and brilliant woman in the affections of the King, and until
he was a victim of superstitious fears, and had met with great reverses,
that state secrets were intrusted to a female friend,--for Madame de
Maintenon was never a mistress in the sense that Montespan was.
During this brilliant period of ten years from the peace of Nimeguen, in
1678, to the great uprising of the nations to humble him, in 1688,
Versailles and other palaces were completed, works of art adorned the
capital, and immortal works of genius made his reign illustrious.