day. The state affected by him jarred upon his natural haughtiness,
and, boy as he was, it was impossible that he could contrast the
extreme magnificence of his mother’s minister with his own neglected
condition without feeling how insultingly the cardinal had profited by
his weakness and want of power. On one occasion at Compiègne, as the
cardinal was passing with a numerous suite along the terrace, the king
turned away, saying contemptuously, without any attempt to lower his
voice, “There is the Grand Turk going by.”
A few days afterwards, as he was traversing a passage in which he
perceived one of the cardinal’s household named Bois Fermé, he turned
to M. de Nyert, who was following him, and observed, “So the cardinal
is with mamma again, for I see Bois Fermé in the passage. Does he
always wait there?”
“Yes, sire,” replied Nyert; “but in addition to Bois Fermé there is
another gentleman upon the stairs and two in the corridor.”
“There is one at every stride, then,” said the young; king dryly.
But the boy-king was not the only one who found the arrogance of the
haughty cardinal unbearable. There had gradually sprung up a deadly
feud between the court and Mazarin on one side, and the Parliament on
the other.
The people of Paris were in sympathy with the Parliament; and nobles,
even of royal blood, out of enmity to Mazarin, joined the popular cause.
Thus commenced the famous civil war of the Fronde; for as the cardinal
contemptuously remarked, “The Parliament are like school-boys _fronding
in the Paris ditches_,” and the Parliament of Paris accepted the title,
and adopted the _Fronde_, or sling, as the emblem of their party. There
were riots in Paris, and affairs grew threatening. Mazarin and the
court party were alarmed and fled to St. Germain.
Thus there were two rival courts in France,—the one at St. Germain,
where all was want and destitution; the other at the Hotel de Ville in
Paris, where all was splendor, abundance, and festive enjoyment. The
court and Mazarin soon tired of the life at St. Germain, and the king;
sent a herald to the Parliament. The Parliament refused to receive
the herald, but sent a deputation to the king, and at last, after a
lengthy conference, a not very satisfactory compromise was agreed upon,
and on the 5th of April, 1650, the royal fugitives returned to Paris.
“Thus ended the first act of the most singular, bootless, and we are
almost tempted to add, burlesque war, which in all probability, Europe
ever witnessed. Through its whole duration society appeared to have
been smitten with some moral hallucination. Kings and cardinals slept
on mattresses; princesses and duchesses on straw; market-women embraced
princes; prelates governed armies; court-ladies led the mob, and the
mob in its turn ruled the city.”
On the 5th of September, 1651, the minority of the dauphin ceased, he
had now entered upon his fourteenth year, and, immature boy as he was,
he was declared to be the absolute monarch of France. On the seventh of
the month, the king held his bed of justice. The ceremony was attended
with all the pomp the wealth of the empire could furnish. The young
king left the Palais Royal attended by a numerous and splendid retinue.
Observed of all observers, “handsome as Adonis, august in majesty, the
pride and joy of humanity,” he sat his splendid steed; and when the
horse, frightened by the long and enthusiastically prolonged cries of,
“_Vive le Roi!_” reared and plunged with terror, Louis managed him with
a skill and address which called forth the admiration of all beholders.
After attending mass, the young king took his seat in the Parliament.
Here the boy of thirteen, covering his head while all the notabilities
of France stood before him with heads uncovered, repeated the following
words:—
“Gentlemen, I have attended my Parliament in order to inform you
that, according to the law of my kingdom, I shall myself assume its
government. I trust that by the goodness of God it will be with piety
and justice.”
The chancellor then made a long address, after which the oath of
allegiance was taken by all the civil and ecclesiastical notabilities.
The royal procession then returned to the gates of the Palais Royal.
Thus, a stripling, who had just completed his thirteenth year, was
accepted by the nobles and by the populace as the absolute and
untrammelled sovereign of France. “He held in his hands, virtually,
unrestrained by constitution or court, their liberties, their fortunes,
and their lives.” Two years later, in 1653, the coronation of the king
took place at Rheims. France at this time was at war with Spain, and,
immediately after the coronation, the king, then sixteen years of
age, set out from Rheims to place himself at the head of the army. He
went to Stenay, on the northeastern frontier of France. This ancient
city, protected by strong fortifications, was held by the Prince de
Condé. The royal troops were besieging it. There were marches and
counter-marches, battles and skirmishes. The young king displayed
intrepidity which secured for him the admiration of the soldiers.
Turenne and Fabert fought the battles and gained the victories. Stenay
was soon taken, and the army of the Prince de Condé driven from all
its positions. “There is nothing so successful as success;” and the
young king, a hero and a conqueror, returned to Paris to enjoy the
congratulation of the populace, and to offer public thanksgiving in the
cathedral of Nôtre Dame. Though the king was nominally the absolute
ruler of France, still there was the influence of his mother, Anne of
Austria, which up to this time had exerted over him a great control;
but this was soon to end.
Henrietta Maria, the widowed queen of the unfortunate Charles I.,
was then residing at the French court. Her daughter Henrietta, as
grand-daughter of Henry IV. and daughter of Charles I., was entitled,
through the purity of her royal blood, to the highest consideration at
the court. When, then, at a ball given for these unfortunate guests,
the music summoned the dancers upon the floor, and the king, in total
disregard of his young and royal cousin, advanced, according to his
custom, to lead out the Duchesse de Mercœur, the queen was shocked at
so gross a breach of etiquette, and, rising hastily, she withdrew his
hand from that of the duchess, and said in a low voice, “You should
dance first, my son, with the princess of England.”
Louis replied sullenly, “I am not fond of little girls.”
[Illustration: ANNE OF AUSTRIA AND CARDINAL MAZARIN.]
Both Henrietta and her daughter overheard this discourteous remark.
The English queen hastened to Anne of Austria, and entreated her not
to attempt to constrain the wishes of his majesty. The position was
exceedingly awkward for all parties; but the proud spirit of Anne of
Austria was aroused. Resuming her maternal authority, she declared
that if her niece, the princess of England, remained a spectator at
the ball, her son should do the same. Thus constrained, the king very
ungraciously led out the English princess upon the floor. After the
departure of the guests, the mother and son had their first serious
quarrel. Severely Anne of Austria rebuked the king for his shameful
and uncourteous conduct. Louis faced his mother haughtily. “Madam, who
is lord of France, Louis the king or Anne of Austria? Too long,” he
said, “I have been guided by your leading strings. Henceforth, I will
be my own master; and do not you, madam, trouble yourself to criticise
or correct me. I am the king.” And this was no idle boast; for from
that tearful evening of the queen’s ball to the day of his death,
sixty-one years after, Louis of Bourbon, called The Great, ruled as
absolute lord over his kingdom of France; and the boy who could say so
defiantly, “Henceforth, I will be my own master,” was fully equal to
that other famous declaration of arrogant authority, made years after
in the full tide of his power, “_I am the state!_”
But Anne of Austria was not the only one destined to feel the imperious
will of the young sovereign. The Parliament of Paris refused to
register certain decrees of the king. Louis heard of it while preparing
to hunt in the woods of Vincennes. He leaped upon his horse, and
galloped to Paris. At half-past nine o’clock in the morning, the king
entered the Chamber of Deputies, in full hunting dress. He heard mass,
and, whip in hand, addressed the body: “Gentlemen of the Parliament, it
is my will that in future my edicts be _registered_, and not discussed.
Should the contrary occur, I shall return, and enforce obedience.”
The trumpet sounded, and the king and his courtiers galloped back to
the forest of Vincennes. The decrees were registered. Parliament had
ventured to try its strength against Cardinal Mazarin, but did not dare
to disobey its king.
The marriage of the king was a matter of much importance, and was much
talked of. The aspirants for his hand and the throne of France were
numberless. Maria Theresa, the daughter of the king of Spain, was very
beautiful. Spain and France were then engaged in petty and vexatious
hostilities, and a matrimonial alliance would secure friendship.
So negotiations were begun; and on the 10th of June, 1660, Louis,
then in the twenty-second year of his age, was joined in marriage,
at the Isle of Pheasants, to Maria Theresa, infanta of Spain. On the
26th of August, the king and his young bride made their public entry
into Paris. Triumphal arches spanned the thoroughfares, garlands of
flowers and hangings of tapestry covered the fronts of the houses,
and sweet-scented herbs strewed the pavements, upon which passed an
apparently interminable procession of carriages, horsemen, and footmen;
and in the midst of the clangor of trumpets, the boom of cannon, and
the shouts and acclamations of the multitude, came the chariot of the
young queen, who, radiant and sparkling with brilliant gems, beheld
from her lofty height all Paris striving to do her honor. By her side
rode the king. His garments, of velvet richly embroidered with gold,
and covered with jewels, had been prepared at an expense of over a
million of dollars. The gorgeousness of this gala day lived long in
the minds of the splendor-loving Parisians. For succeeding weeks and
months, the court luxuriated in one continued round of gayety. “There
was a sound of revelry by night” in the _salons_ of the Louvre and
the Tuileries, while lords and ladies trod the floors in the mazy
evolutions of the dance. And yet, to maintain all this state, all this
splendor, all this reckless extravagance, thousands of the peasantry
of France were compelled to live in mud hovels, to wear the coarsest
garb, to eat the plainest food, while their wives and daughters toiled
barefoot in the fields.
The Cardinal Mazarin was old and dying. For eighteen years he had
been virtually monarch of France. Avaricious and penurious to the
last degree, he had amassed enormous wealth. Cursed by the peasantry
whom he had ground to the earth, hated by the king whom he had tried
to rule, despised by the court which he had attempted to humble, on
the 9th of March, 1661, at his Chateau Mazarin, the cardinal breathed
his last. From that moment until the day of his death, Louis XIV.
sat all-powerful upon his throne. And when the president of the
Ecclesiastical Assembly inquired of the king to whom he must hereafter
address himself on questions of public business, the emphatic and
laconic response was, “_To myself_.”
M. Fouquet, the Minister of the Treasury, was rolling in ill-gotten
wealth. His palace of Vaux le Vicomte, upon which he had expended
fifteen millions of francs, eclipsed in splendor the royal palaces of
the Tuileries and Fontainebleau. The king disliked him. He knew he was
robbing the treasury, and it was more than his self-love could endure,
that a subject should live in state surpassing that of his sovereign.
Fouquet most imprudently invited the king and all the court to a fête
at the chateau. No step could have been more ill-advised; for the
king was little likely to forget, as he looked upon the splendors of
Vaux le Vicomte, by which St. Germain and Fontainebleau were utterly
eclipsed, that its owner had derived all his wealth from the public
coffers; and at a time, too, when he was himself in need of the funds
here lavished with such reckless profusion. Every one in France, who
bore a distinguished name, was bidden to the princely festival, which
was destined to be commemorated by La Fontaine and by Benserade, by
Pelisson and by Molière. Fouquet met the king at the gates of the
chateau, and conducted him to the park. Here, notwithstanding all he
had heard of the splendors of Vaux le Vicomte, the king was unprepared
for the scene of magnificence which burst upon his view. The play
of the fountains, the beauty of the park, and the splendor of the
chateau were long remembered by the guests at this princely festival.
But to Louis XIV. it was gall and wormwood; and when he took leave
of his obsequious host, he remarked bitterly: “I shall never again,
sir, venture to invite you to visit me. You would find yourself
inconvenienced.”
[Illustration: LOUIS XIV. TAKING LEAVE OF FOUQUET.]
Fouquet felt the keen rebuke, and turned pale. The king and his
courtiers returned to Paris, but in the mind of Louis XIV. there loomed
up distant visions of the palaces of Versailles and the great hydraulic
machine at Marly. On the 8th of January, 1666, Anne of Austria died.
It was a gloomy winter’s night when the remains of her who had been
both queen and regent of France were borne to their last resting-place
in the vaults of St. Denis. In his previous campaigns, Louis had taken
Flanders in three months, and Franche-Comté in three weeks. Alarmed
by these rapid conquests, Holland, Switzerland, and England entered
into an alliance to resist further encroachments, should they be
attempted. That such a feeble state as Holland should think of limiting
his conquests, aroused the anger of the _Grand Monarque_. Armies were
mustered, munitions of war got together, and ships prepared; and on the
12th of June, 1672, at the head of an army of one hundred and thirty
thousand men, Louis crossed the Rhine, and made his triumphal entry
into the city of Utrecht. Then, indeed, Holland trembled; Amsterdam
trembled; Louis was at the gates. But, rising in the frenzy of despair,
they pierced the dikes, which alone protected the country from the
sea. In rushed the flood, and Amsterdam rose like a mighty fortress in
the midst of the waves, surrounded by ships of war, which found depth
to float where ships never floated before. Thus suddenly Louis XIV.
found himself checked in his proud career. Chagrined at seeing his
conquest at an end, he left his army under the command of Turenne, and
returned to his palaces in France.
Louis XIV. had never recovered from the mortification he had
experienced at the fête at Vaux. He resolved to rear a palace so
magnificent that no subject, whatever might be his resources, could
approach it; so magnificent that, like the pyramids of Egypt, it should
be a lasting monument of the splendor of his reign. In 1664, Louis
selected Versailles as the site for this stupendous pile of marble,
which, reared at a cost of thousands of lives, and two hundred millions
of money, decorated by the genius of Le Notre, of Mansard, and Le Brun,
twenty-five years after its commencement, was ready to receive its
royal occupants; and, resting proudly upon its foundations, presented
to admiring Europe the noblest monument of the reign of Louis XIV. The
splendors of the fêtes which attended the completion of this palace
transformed it into a scene of enchantment, and filled all Europe with
wonder.
The most magnificent room in the palace, the Gallerie des Glaces,
called the Grand Gallery of Louis XIV., is two hundred and forty-two
feet long, thirty-five feet broad, and forty-three feet high. Germany,
Holland, Spain, Rome even, bend the knee in the twenty-seven paintings
which ornament this grand gallery. But to whom do they bow? Is it to
France? No; it is to Louis XIV.
“Louis XIV. and his palace not only afforded conversation for Europe,
but their fame penetrated the remote corners of Asia. The emperor
of Siam sent him an embassy. Three o’pras, high dignitaries of the
empire, eight mandarins, and a crowd of servitors landed at Brest,
charged with magnificent presents and a letter from the emperor.
Arrived at Versailles, they were fêted with unheard-of splendor. The
day of their public audience, the fountains played in the gardens;
flowers were strewn in the paths; the sumptuous Gobelin carpets were
paraded, as well as the richest works of the goldsmith. The _cortège_
of ambassadors was received with the most refined forms of etiquette,
and led through apartments filled with the court, glittering in
diamonds and embroidery, and at length reached the end of the grand
gallery, where Louis XIV., clad in a costume that cost twelve millions,
stood on a throne of silver placed on an estrade elevated nine steps
above the floor, and covered with Gobelin carpets and costly vases.
There the Siamese prostrated themselves three times, with hands
clasped, before the Majesty of the West, and then lifted their eyes to
him.”
Louis spent millions on Versailles, millions on his pleasures, millions
on his pomps, millions in his wars; he lavished gold on his favorites,
his generals, and his lackeys. And all ended in national bankruptcy.
Let us, then, in imagination look upon the grand _gallerie_ of Louis
XIV. during one of those gorgeous fêtes which attracted the attention
of all Europe. Before us is the grand _salon_, with its glittering
candelabra and thousand brilliant lights, reflected in prismatic rays
from the costly mirrors which line the walls. Under foot, a pavement
of variegated marble, shining and polished as a floor of glass; and
overhead the gorgeous frescoes of Le Brun, setting forth in glowing
colors the great achievements of the _Grand Monarque_. The highest
nobility of the realm, the _grande noblesse_ of France, throng this
splendid gallery.
The costly costumes of the cavaliers and the gorgeous robes of the
_Grande Dames_, the waving plumes and flashing jewels, all conspire
to render the scene of marvellous magnificence. And now, as the
impatient throng turn their gaze in the direction of the Salon of
War, in expectation of the approach of royalty, the folding-doors are
thrown back, and the stentorian voice of the usher resounds throughout
the gallery: “His Majesty the King!” and upon the threshold, in a
costume resplendent with sparkling gems, stands Louis XIV., the _Grand
Monarque_. As a _parterre_ of blooming flowers bends low before a
rushing gust of wind, so bow these titled lords and ladies before his
piercing glance; while Louis, full conscious of his kingly majesty,
walks slowly, and with measured step, all down the long and glittering
lines, pausing ever and anon to address those whose rank entitles them
to this inestimable boon.
“It was not only on festive occasions that Versailles wore an air of
grand gala. It was its habitual aspect. At Vaux, nature had contributed
quite as much as art, to the marvellous beauty of the scene. At
Versailles, she had done nothing, and Louis’ pleasure was the greater,
in that he considered it the unrivalled creation of his own genius.
Versailles, with its palace, its gardens, its fountains, its statues,
and water-works, Trianon, and appendages, was a work of art to gaze
upon with wonder. Let us ascend; for, in whatever place you may be,
it is necessary to mount, to reach this palace; at whatever point you
may stand to look at it, you see its roofs, apparently touching the
clouds. It crowns the hill like a diadem. If you come from Paris, it
rises above the town, which lies prostrate at the feet of its majesty;
if you approach from the park, it lifts itself above the gigantic
trees, above the terraces which pile themselves up towards it, above
the jets of water which surround it; the groves seem to support it upon
their tall heads, and the whole forest serves as its footstool. Let
us ascend, for the doors are open; people are going and coming. The
ladies smile, the mirrors reflect them, the chandeliers light them, the
ceilings throw their golden coloring upon them. The courtiers stare in
the midst of the riches of this magnificent dwelling; but, amid all
this stir, all these surprises, all these wonders, only one man is
calm,—this man Louis XIV.
“He feels as much at ease in this palace as in a vestment made for him;
and, contemplating the work to which his pride gave birth, he exclaims,
in the fulness of his satisfaction, ‘Versailles is myself!’
“Yet, upon a bright spring day, or soft summer evening, when Louis,
disposed for one of those long promenades he was accustomed to take
sometimes twice a day, descended to the gardens from the grand terrace
of the palace, followed by his numerous court, the _coup d’œil_ from
a distance must have been charmingly effective. And, when enlivened
by sauntering, chatting, flirting, laughing groups of picturesquely
dressed ladies and gentlemen of the court,—a numerous retinue of
lackeys following, no less resplendent in dress than their masters,—the
admirable fitness of the gardens and grounds of Versailles for the
purpose which Louis, no doubt, had in his mind when the designs were
approved, must have been very striking. In the centre of this throng
of feathers and swords, satins and laces, flashing jewels, fans and
masks, solemnly paced the magnificent Louis, with the air of lord of
the universe, monarch of all he surveyed, and of all who surveyed him;
for his courtiers lived only in the light of his countenance. Yet the
countenance of this god was grandly cold, serene, and unchangeable, as
that of any of the marble deities that presided over his fountains.
It was no mean advantage to him that nature had kindly exalted him,
at least, three inches above almost every other man of his court. The
French were not generally a fine race of men; but the dress of the
period—the high heels, the wig, the lofty plume, and the looped-up,
broad-brimmed hat—gave to the _grandees_ an appearance of height,
which, as a rule, they had not. And above them all towered their king,
like Jupiter, in Olympus, in the midst of the inferior gods, or as the
sun, with lesser lights revolving around him, and shining only in the
refulgence of his rays.
“Red-heeled boots, slashed doublets, and flowing wigs, cordeliers
of pearls, Moorish fans, masques, patches and paint, monumental
head-dresses, and the thousand other items indispensable to the toilets
of the lords and ladies of the Louis XIV. period, have a charmingly
picturesque effect, seen through the long vista of two centuries,
and heightened by the glamour of _la grande politesse, et la grande
galanterie_ of the _Grand Monarque_ and his court. Life seems to have
been with them, one long fancy-dress ball, a never-ending carnival, a
perpetual whirl, an endless succession of fêtes and carousals.”
Louis XIV. now found nearly all Europe in arms against him. He sent
twenty thousand men, under Marshal Turenne, to encounter the forces of
the emperor of Germany; and forty thousand, under the Prince de Condé,
to assail William, prince of Orange. In his defence of the frontiers
of the Rhine, Turenne acquired a reputation which has made his name
famous in military annals. With twenty thousand men, he defeated and
dispersed the Imperial army of seventy thousand; and it adds not a
little to his celebrity, that, following his own judgment, he achieved
the victory in direct opposition to the orders from the minister of
war. A merciless warrior, he allowed no consideration of humanity to
interfere with his military operations. He laid in ashes the beautiful
country of the Palatinate, embracing, on both sides of the Rhine,
about sixteen hundred square miles, and having a population of over
three hundred thousand souls, in order that the armies of his enemies
might be deprived of sustenance; while the wail of widows and orphans
rose over the smouldering ruins of their dwellings, over the bleak and
barren fields.
[Illustration: DEATH OF TURENNE.]
On the 27th of June, 1675, a cannon ball struck Turenne, and closed,
in an instant, his earthly career. Few men have ever lived who have
caused such wide-spread misery. For two years the war continued, with
sometimes varying success, but with unvarying blood and misery. At
last, on the 14th of August, 1678, peace, the peace of Nimegeun, was
made. Louis XIV. dictated the terms.