by the addition of Franche-Comté, Dunkirk, and half of Flanders,
worshipped by his courtiers as a demi-god, the court of France
conferred upon him, with imposing solemnities, the title of _Louis le
Grand_. In 1685, the Queen, Maria Theresa, breathed her last. Amiable,
unselfish, warm-hearted, from the time of her marriage she devoted
herself to the promotion of her husband’s happiness. His neglect caused
her to shed many tears. The king could not be insensible to her many
virtues, and perhaps remorse, mingled with the emotions which compelled
him to weep bitterly over her death, caused him to exclaim, as he
gazed upon the lifeless remains, “Kind and forbearing friend, this is
the first sorrow you have caused me throughout twenty years.” For ten
days the royal corpse lay in state at Versailles, and perpetual masses
were performed for the soul of the departed. On the day of the funeral,
the king, in the insane endeavor to obliterate from his mind all
thoughts of death and burial, ordered out the hounds, and plunged into
the excitement of the chase. His horse pitched the monarch over his
head into a ditch of stagnant water, dislocating one of his shoulders.
In 1685, also died Jean Baptiste Colbert, the king’s minister of
finance. As superintendent of buildings, arts, and manufactures, he had
enlarged the Tuileries and the Louvre, completed gorgeous Versailles,
reared the magnificent edifice of the Invalides, and founded the
Gobelins. As minister of finance, he had furnished the king with the
money he needed for his expensive wars and luxurious indulgence. Now
old, forgotten, exhausted by incessant labor, he was on his dying bed.
The heavy taxes he had imposed upon the people rendered him unpopular.
The curses and imprecations of a starving peasantry rose around his
dying couch. The king condescended in courtesy to send a messenger
inquiring after the condition of his minister, but the dying sufferer
turned away his face, saying, “I will not hear that man spoken of
again. If for God I had done what I have for him, I should have been
saved ten times over. What my fate now may be, I know not.”
And so worn out by toil, anxiety, and grief, he died. On the following
day, without any marks of honor, his remains were conveyed to the
church of St. Eustache.
Genoa had offended the king by giving assistance to the Algerines.
He seized, by a _lettre de cachet_, the Genoese ambassador, and
plunging him into one of the dungeons of the Bastile, sent a fleet of
fifty vessels to chastise those who had offended him, with terrible
severity. On the 19th of May, 1684, the ships entered the harbor of
Genoa, and immediately opened upon the city a terrific fire, so that
in a few hours, a large portion of those marble edifices, which had
given to the city the name of “Genoa the Superb,” were crumbled into
powder. The city was threatened with total destruction, and in terror
the authorities implored the clemency of the conqueror. Haughtily the
_Grand Monarque_ demanded that the doge of Genoa, and four of his
principal ministers, should repair to the palace of Versailles, and
humbly implore his pardon. Utterly powerless, the doge was compelled to
submit to these humiliating terms.
[Illustration: JEAN BAPTISTE COLBERT.]
On the 15th of May, 1685, Louis ordered his throne to be placed at the
end of the grand gallery, by the side of the “Salon of Peace.” The doge
entered with four senators Genoa had sent to accompany him. He was
dressed in red velvet, with a cap of the same. In order to preserve
all the dignity his misfortune allowed him, the doge remained covered
until he entered the presence of the king. The king allowed the princes
to remain covered during the audience. The doge discharged his sad
mission with a firmness that created astonishment. His bearing was more
impressive than his discourse. A few days after he attended the levee,
dined with the king, was shown the park and all the fountains, and
was present at a ball given in the grand apartment. Afterwards he had
his audience of leave-taking, and when one of the senators asked him
what surprised him most at Versailles, he replied with an air of more
chagrin than usual, “At seeing myself there.” The doge and senators
did not stay long in France. They saw in haste the wonders shown them,
and then returned to Genoa. Arrived at home, they talked over the
things they had seen. One senator spoke of the dazzling spectacles,
the vast apartments, the sumptuous ornaments; and said no mind was
powerful enough to carry away the remembrance of all the riches of
the palace, its paintings, its statues, its tapestry, its ceilings,
its gold, and its marble. The doge replied, there was more than its
exterior magnificence, and luxury of its interior; that the palace was
the whole French monarchy. You read the origin of the monarchy in the
chateau built by Louis XIII. The architects wished to pull it down; the
king replied, that, if it would not last, they must take it down, but
reconstruct it on its first plan. He wished the work of his father to
remain, to contrast with the edifice he was going to erect. One part
of the building only projects immensely in the long outline, that is
where the master dwells. The king walks alone in the first rank, the
courtiers follow, and support the train of the royal mantle. If you
mount by the grand staircase, you find a suite of immense _salons_,
covered with beautiful paintings. The Salon of Plenty, then Venus, then
Diana, then Mars, then Mercury, and then Apollo. Of what use are they?
The master does not inhabit them. But go on farther, pass through empty
galleries, you will at length find his apartments. All this suite of
magnificent _salons_, all these galleries, serve as an ante-chamber
only to the place in which he dwells. Mars and Apollo, gods formerly,
are nothing now but lackeys to the king of France.
In the year 1598, King Henry IV., feeling the need of the support of
the Protestants to protect his kingdom from the perils by which it was
surrounded, and having himself been educated a Protestant, had granted
to the Protestants the world-renowned edict of Nantes. By this edict,
Protestants were allowed liberty of conscience; were permitted, in
certain designated places, to hold public worship; were declared to be
eligible to offices of state, and in certain places, were allowed to
publish books. Louis XIV. was a Catholic, a bigoted Catholic; hoping
in some measure to atone for his sins, by his supreme devotion to the
interests of the church, and while assuring the Protestant powers
of Europe that he would continue to respect the edict of Nantes, he
commenced issuing a series of ordinances in direct opposition to that
contract. In 1680 he excluded Protestants from all public offices,
whatsoever. A Protestant could not be employed as a physician, lawyer,
apothecary, bookseller, printer, or even as a nurse.
[Illustration: REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES.]
In some parts of the kingdom, the Protestants composed nearly the
entire population. Here it was impossible to enforce the atrocious
decree. Riots and bloodshed followed. Affairs went from bad to worse,
and on the 18th of October, 1685, the king, yielding to the wishes
of his confessor and other high dignitaries of the Church, signed
the _Revocation of the Edict of Nantes_. In this act of revocation,
it was declared that, “the exercise of the Protestant worship should
nowhere be tolerated in the realm of France. All Protestant pastors
were ordered to leave the kingdom within fifteen days, under pain of
being sent to the galleys. Parents were forbidden to instruct their
children in the Protestant religion. Every child in the kingdom was
to be baptized and educated by a Catholic priest. All Protestants who
had left France, were ordered to return within four months, under
penalty of confiscation of their possessions. Any Protestant man
or woman who should attempt to emigrate, incurred the penalty of
imprisonment for life.”
This infamous ordinance caused an amount of misery which can never be
gauged, and inflicted upon the prosperity of France the most terrible
blow it had ever received. Only one year after the revocation, Marshal
Vauban wrote, “France has lost one hundred thousand inhabitants, sixty
millions of coined money, nine thousand sailors, twelve thousand
disciplined soldiers, six hundred officers, and her most flourishing
manufactures.”
The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was the great blot upon the reign
of Louis XIV. From that hour the fortunes of the _Grand Monarque_ began
manifestly to decline.
Louvois, minister of war, had for a long time been all-powerful at
court. Through his influence, the king had been induced to revoke the
Edict of Nantes, and to order the utter devastation of the Palatinate.
But that influence was upon the wane. The king had become weary of his
haughty assumptions, and the conflagration of the Palatinate had raised
a cry of indignation that even he could not fail to hear. Treves had
escaped the flames. Louvois solicited an order to burn it. The king
refused. Louvois insolently gave the order himself, and entering the
royal presence, exclaimed calmly, “Sire, I have commanded the burning
of Treves, in order that I might spare your Majesty the pain of issuing
such an edict.”
Louis was furious; and springing up, with flashing eyes, forgetful
of all the restraints of etiquette, he seized the tongs from the
fireplace, and would have broken the head of his minister, had not
Madame de Maintenon rushed between them. The king despatched a
messenger to countermand the order, and declared that if but a single
house were burned, the head of the minister should be the forfeit.
Treves was saved.
On one occasion, when Louis XIV. went to examine the progress of the
building of the Trianon, accompanied by Louvois, he remarked that a
particular window was out of proportion, and did not harmonize with the
rest; but the minister, jealous of his dignity as controller of the
royal works, would not admit the objection, but maintained that it was
similar to the others.
The king desired Le Notre to declare his opinion as to the size of the
disputed window. Le Notre, fearful of offending either the monarch or
his minister, endeavored to give an evasive answer. Upon which, Louis
commanded him to measure it carefully, and he was reluctantly compelled
to obey. The result of the trial proved that the king was right, the
window was too small; and the monarch had no sooner ascertained the
fact, than he turned angrily to his minister, exclaiming, “M. Louvois,
I am weary of your obstinacy. It is fortunate that I myself have
superintended the work of building, or the façade would have been
ruined.”
As this scene had taken place not only in the presence of the workmen,
but of all the courtiers who followed the king upon his promenade,
Louvois was stung to the quick; and on entering his own house, he
exclaimed furiously, “I am lost if I do not find some occupation for a
man who can interest himself in such trifles. There is nothing but a
war which can divert him from his building, and war he shall have. I
will soon make him abandon his trowel.”
He kept his word: and Europe was once more plunged into a general war,
because a window had been made a few inches too narrow, and a king had
convicted a minister of error.
In 1691, the French were besieging Mons. The haughty minister,
unintimidated even by the menace of the tongs, ventured to countermand
an order which the king had issued. The lowering brow of the monarch
convinced him that his ministerial reign was soon to close. The health
of the minister began rapidly to fail. A few subsequent interviews
with the king satisfied him that his disgrace and ruin were decided
upon; and about the middle of June, meeting the monarch in his
council-chamber, although he was unusually complaisant, Louvois so
thoroughly understood him, that he retired to his residence in utter
despair. He ordered that his son, the Marquis de Barbesieux, might be
requested to follow him to his chamber. In five minutes the summons was
obeyed, but it was too late; for when the marquis entered the room, his
father had already expired. Louvois had judged rightly, for the king
had already drawn up the _lettre de cachet_ which was to consign him to
the _oubliettes_ of the Bastile.
“Civil war was now also desolating unhappy France. The Protestants,
bereft of their children, robbed of their property, driven from their
homes, dragged to the gallows, plunged into dungeons, broken upon the
wheel, hanged upon scaffolds, rose in several places in insurrectionary
bands; and the man who was thus crushing beneath the iron heel of his
armies the quivering hearts of the Palatinate, and who was drenching
his own realms with tears and blood, was clothed in purple, and
faring sumptuously, and reclining upon the silken sofas of Marly and
Versailles.”
On the 1st of November, 1700, Charles II. of Spain died, having no
heirs. Urged by the Pope, he left the throne to the children of the
dauphin of France. As the duke de Bourgoyne was direct heir to the
throne of France, the dauphin’s second son, the duke d’Anjou, was
proclaimed king of Spain, under the title of Philip V. On the 14th of
the month, Louis XIV. summoned the Spanish ambassador to an audience at
Versailles. The king presented his grandson to the minister, saying,
“This, sir, is the duke d’Anjou, whom you may salute as your king.”
Then, contrary to his custom, he ordered the folding doors of his
cabinet to be thrown back, and the crowd of courtiers assembled in the
grand gallery poured into the apartment.
The Spanish ambassador dropped upon his knee before the young prince
with expressions of profound homage; while the king, embracing the neck
of his grandson with his left arm, and pointing to him with his right
hand, presented him to the assembled court, exclaiming, “Gentlemen,
this is the king of Spain. His birth calls him to the crown. The late
king has recognized his right by his will. All the nation desires his
succession, and has entreated it at my hands. It is the will of heaven,
to which I conform with satisfaction.”
To his grandson he added, “Be a good Spaniard, but never forget that
you were born a Frenchman. Carefully maintain the union of the two
nations. Thus only can you render them both happy.”
Preparations were immediately made for the departure of the boy-king to
take possession of the Spanish throne. The _Grand Monarque_ regarded
it as a signal stroke of policy, and a great victory on his part, that
notwithstanding the remonstrances of other nations, he had placed a
French Bourbon prince upon the throne of Spain. He saw the domain of
France extending far southward to the Straits of Gibraltar.
“Henceforth,” exclaimed Louis XIV., exultingly, “there are no more
Pyrenees!”
Louis XIV. reigned everywhere,—over his people, over his age, often
over Europe,—but nowhere did he reign so completely as over his
court. Never were the wishes, the defects, and the vices of a man so
completely a law to other men, as at the court of Louis XIV. during
the whole period of his long life. When near to him in the palace at
Versailles, men lived, hoped, trembled, everywhere else in France, even
at Paris, men vegetated. The existence of the nobles was concentrated
in the court about the person of the king; and so abject was their
submission, that Louis XIV. looked on all sides for a great lord, and
found about him only courtiers.
When the king learned that certain of the nobility affected to despise
the plebian genius of the great dramatist, Molière, he invited the
comedian to his table; and when at the _grande entrée_ the nobles
thronged the apartment, he turned to them haughtily, exclaiming,
“Gentlemen of the court, you see me breakfasting with Molière, whom my
nobles do not consider worthy of their notice.” It was enough. From
that moment the great dramatist found all the nobility of France at his
feet.
Never did man give with better grace than Louis XIV., or augment so
much in this way the price of his benefits. Never did man sell to
better profit his words, even his smiles,—nay, his looks.
Never did disobliging words escape him; and if he had to blame, to
reprimand, or correct, which was very rare, it was nearly always with
goodness, never with anger or severity. Never was man so naturally
polite, or of a politeness so measured, so graduated, so adapted,
to person, time, and place. Towards women his politeness was without
parallel. Never did he pass the humblest petticoat without raising
his hat. For ladies he took his hat off completely, but to a greater
or less extent; for titled people half off, holding it in his hand,
or against his ear, some instants. He took it off for the princes of
the blood as for the ladies. If he accosted ladies, he did not cover
himself until he had quitted them. His reverences, more or less marked,
but always light, were incomparable for their grace and manner. As,
after the battle of Seneff, fought Aug. 11, 1674, against William of
Orange, Monsieur le Prince, le Grand Condé, was walking slowly, from
the effects of gout, up the grand staircase at Versailles, he exclaimed
to the king, who awaited him upon the landing above, “Sire, I crave
your majesty’s pardon, if I keep you waiting;” to which Louis replied,
“Do not hurry, my cousin; no one could move more quickly who was so
loaded with laurels as you are.” It was the language of the court;
and again, when in May, 1706, Marshal Villeroi returned worsted at
the battle of Ramillies, in his encounter with Marlborough and Prince
Eugene, the _Grand Monarque_ gave utterance to one of those delicate
remarks he knew so well how to make, and which sounded almost like
a compliment: “Ah, Monsieur le Marshal,” exclaimed the king, when
he presented himself at Versailles, “at our age one is no longer
fortunate.”
“The king loved air and exercise very much, as long as he could make
use of them. He had excelled at dancing, at tennis, and at mall.
On horseback he was admirable, even at a late age. He liked to see
everything done with grace and address. To acquit yourself well or ill
before him was a merit or a fault. He was very fond of shooting, and
there was not a better or more graceful shot than he. He was very fond,
also, of stag-hunting, but in a _caléche_, since he broke his arm while
hunting at Fontainebleau, immediately after the death of the Queen.
He rode alone in a species of “box,” drawn by four little horses,
and drove himself with an accuracy and address unknown to the best
coachmen. He liked splendor, magnificence, and profusion in everything;
you pleased him if you shone through the brilliancy of your houses,
your clothes, your table, and your equipages. As for the king himself,
nobody ever approached his magnificence.”
Old age had crept fast upon Louis XIV. For seventy-two years he had
proudly sat upon the throne of his ancestors; but the time was near
at hand when he must lay aside his sceptre and his crown. Still the
more deeply he became conscious of his physical weakness, the more
determined and extraordinary were his efforts to preserve intact the
interests of the state.
Richard, in his war-tent on the bloody field of Bosworth, never
contemplated a train of more appalling shadows than those evoked by the
memory of Louis XIV., as he sat, supported by cushions and pillowed
upon velvet, in his sumptuous apartment. Maria Theresa, the Queen;
the grand-dauphin; his son, the duke de Bourgoyne; and last of all,
the duke de Berri, the sole prop to that throne which must soon be
empty, dead, all dead, save a frail infant,—such were the thoughts that
crowded upon his last reveries; and well might the poor old man in his
solitary moments bend down that proud head which had no longer strength
to bear a crown, and laying aside the arrogance of those years in which
he had assumed the bearing of a demi-god, confess to his own heart that
he was but human.
On the third of May, 1715, the king rose at an early hour, to witness
an eclipse of the sun. Strange coincidence that he, who had taken for
his emblem a rising sun, should witness the eclipse of that brilliant
orb, while he himself was sinking toward the grave. In the evening he
retired early, complaining of extreme fatigue. The advanced age of the
king and his many infirmities rendered even a slight indisposition
alarming. The report spread rapidly that the king was dangerously
sick. The foreign ambassadors promptly despatched the news to their
respective courts,—a circumstance which soon reached the ears of the
monarch, who, indignant at such indecent precipitancy, and to prove,
not only to the court, but to all Europe, that he was still every inch
a king, commanded that preparations should forthwith be commenced for
a grand review of the household troops at Marly. On the twentieth of
June this magnificent exhibition took place, when for the last time
the troops of gendarmes and light-horse, in their splendid uniforms,
defiled before the terrace of Marly; which they had no sooner done,
than the monarch appeared at the principal entrance of the palace,
habited in the costume of his earlier years; and, descending the marble
steps, mounted his horse, and for four long hours sat proudly in his
saddle, under the eyes of those foreign envoys who had announced his
approaching death to their sovereigns. It was the expiring effort of
his pride. During the whole of the last year of his life, it had been
the study of Louis XIV. to deceive himself, and, above all, to deceive
others, as to the extent of the physical debility induced by his great
age. He rose at a late hour, in order to curtail the fatigues of the
day; received his ministers, and even dined, in his bed; and once,
having prevailed upon himself to leave it, passed several hours in
succession in his cushioned chair. In vain his physician urged upon
him the necessity of exercise, in order to counteract his tendency
to revery and somnolency; the swollen state of his feet and ankles
rendered it impossible for him to rise from his chair without severe
pain, and he never attempted to do so until all his attendants had
left the room, lest they should perceive the state of weakness to
which he was reduced. Great, therefore, had been the effort we have
described, when the monarch had for a time conquered the man, and where
pride had supplied the place of strength. The only exercise which
he ultimately consented to take was in the magnificent gardens of
Versailles, where he was wheeled through the stately avenues, which he
had himself planted, in a bath-chair; a prey to pain, which was visibly
depicted upon his countenance, but which he supported with cold and
silent dignity, too haughty to complain. The king grew daily worse.
The disease was mortal, and he felt he was beyond the power of human
aid. Bitterly Louis XIV. upon his death-bed expiated the faults and
excesses of his past life. He wept over the profligacy of his youth,
deplored the madness of his ambition, by which he had brought mourning
into every corner of his kingdom. On the twenty-sixth of August, the
king commanded all the great dignitaries and officers of the household
to meet in his apartment, and addressed them in a firm voice, saying,
“Gentlemen, I die in the faith and obedience of the Church. I desire
your pardon for the bad example which I have set you. I have greatly to
thank you for the manner in which you have served me, and request from
you the same zeal and the same fidelity toward the dauphin. Farewell,
gentlemen; I feel that this parting has affected not only myself, but
you also. Forgive me. I trust that you will sometimes think of me when
I am gone.”