From The Fortnightly Review.

TWO CHAPTERS ON THE REIGN OF LOUIS

XIV.

CHAPTER I.

1661-1679.

which have scarcely died away, have difficulty in realizing the fascination it exercised upon contemporaries who witnessed its first setting up. Louis XIV.'s reign was the very triumph of commonplace greatness, of external magnificence THE reign of Louis XIV. was the cul- and success, such as the vulgar among minating epoch in the history of the mankind can best and most sincerely apFrench Monarchy. What the age of preciate. Had he been a great and proPericles was in the history of the Athe- found ruler, had he considered with unnian Democracy, what the age of the selfish meditation the real interests of Scipios was in the history of the Roman France, had he with wise insight disRepublic, that was the reign of Louis cerned and followed the remote lines of XIV. in the history of the old Monarchy progress along which the future of Euof France. The type of polity which that rope was destined to move, it is lamentMonarchy embodied, the principles of ably probable that he would have been government on which it reposed, or misunderstood in his lifetime and calumbrought into play, in this reign attain niated after his death. Louis XIV. was their supreme expression and development. Before Louis XIV., the French Monarchy has evidently not attained its full stature; it is thwarted and limited by other forces in the State. After him, though unresisted from without, it manifests symptoms of decay from within. It rapidly declines; and totally disappears seventy-seven years after his death.

exposed to no such misconception. His qualities were on the surface, visible and comprehensible to all; and although none of them were brilliant, he had several which have a peculiarly impressive effect when displayed in an exalted station. He was indefatigably industrious; worked on an average eight hours a day for fifty-four years; had great tenacity of But it is not only the most conspicuous will; that kind of solid judgment which reign in the history of France it is the comes of slowness of brain, and withal a most conspicuous reign in the history of most majestic port and great dignity of Monarchy in general. Of the very many manners. He had also as much kindlikings whom history mentions, who have ness of nature as the very great can be striven to exalt the monarchical princi- expected to have; his temper was under ple, none of them achieved a success re- severe control; and, in his earlier years motely comparable to his. His two great at least, he had a moral apprehensiveness predecessors in kingly ambition, Charles greater than the limitations of his intelV. and Philip II., remained far behind lect would have led one to expect. His him in this respect. They may have conduct towards Molière was throughout ruled over wider dominions, but they truly noble, and the more so that he never never attained the exceptional position intellectually appreciated Molière's real of power and prestige which he enjoyed greatness. But he must have had great for more than half a century. They never original fineness of tact, though it was in were obeyed so submissively at home, nor the end nearly extinguished by adulation so dreaded, and even respected, abroad. and incense. His court was an extraorFor Louis XIV. carried off that last re-dinary creation, and the greatest thing he ward of complete success, that he for a achieved. He made it the microcosm of time silenced even envy, and turned it all that was most brilliant and prominent into admiration. We who can examine in France. Every order of merit was inwith cold scrutiny the make and compo- vited there, and received courteous welsition of this Colossus of a French Mon- come. To no circumstance did he so archy; who can perceive how much the much owe his enduring popularity. By brass and clay in it exceeded the gold; its means he impressed into his service who know how it afterwards fell with that galaxy of great writers, the first and a resounding ruin, the last echoes of the last classic authors of France, whose

calm and serene lustre will forever illu- we are witnessing in the day which now mine the epoch of his existence. It may is. We need but recall the names of the even be admitted that his share in that writers and thinkers who arose during lustre was not so accidental and unde- Louis XIV.'s reign, and shed their semiserved as certain king-haters have sup-nal ideas broadcast upon the air, to realposed. That subtle critic, M. Ste. Beuve, ize how full a period it was, both of birth thinks he can trace a marked rise even in and decay; of the passing away of the Bossuet's style from the moment he be- old and the uprising of the new forms of come a courtier of Louis XIV. The thought. To mention only the greatest; king brought men together, placed them the following are among the chiefs in a position where they were induced who helped to transform the mental faband urged to bring their talents to a focus. ric of Europe in the age of Louis XIV.: His Court was alternately a high-bred - Descartes, Newton, Leibnitz, Locke, gala and a stately university. If we con- Boyle. Under these leaders, the first trast his life with those of his predeces- firm irreversible advance was made out sor and successor, with the dreary exist- of the dim twilight of theology into the ence of Louis XIII. and the crapulous clear dawn of positive and demonstrative life-long debauch of Louis XV., we be- science. Inferior to these founders of come sensible that the Fourteenth Louis modern knowledge, but holding a high was distinguished in no common degree; rank as contributors to the mental activand when we further reflect that much of ity of the age, were Pascal, Malebranche, his home and all of his foreign policy was Spinoza, and Bayle. The result of their precisely adapted to flatter, in its deepest efforts was such a stride forward as has self-love, the national spirit of France, it no parallel in the history of the human will not be quite impossible to under- mind. One of the most curious and sigstand the long-continued reverberation nificant proofs of it was the spontaneous of his fame. extinction of the belief in witchcraft among the cultivated classes of Europe, as our English historian of Rationalism has so judiciously pointed out. The superstition was not much attacked, and it was vigorously defended, yet it died a natural and quiet death from the changed moral climate of the world.

But Louis XIV's reign has better titles than the adulations of courtiers and the eulogies of wits and poets to the attention of posterity. It marks one of the most memorable epochs in the annals of mankind. It stretches across history like a great mountain-range, separating ancient France from the France of modern times. But the chief interest which the reign On the farther slope are Catholicism and of Louis XIV. offers to the student of feudalism in their various stages of splen- history has yet to be mentioned. It was dour and decay the France of crusade the great turning-point in the history of and chivalry, of St. Louis and Bayard. the French people. The triumph of the On the hither side are free-thought, in- Monarchical principle was so complete dustry, and centralization — the France under him, independence and self-reliance of Voltaire, Turgot, and Condorcet. were so effectually crushed, both in localWhen Louis came to the throne, the ities and individuals, that a permanent Thirty Years' War still wanted six years bent was given to the national mind of its end, and the heat of theological habit of looking to the Government for strife was at its intensest glow. When all action and initiative permanently eshe died, the religious temperature had tablished. Before the reign of Louis XIV. cooled nearly to freezing-point, and a new it was a question which might fairly be vegetation of science and positive inquiry considered undecided, whether the counwas overspreading the world. This try would be able or not, willing or not, amounts to saying that his reign covers to co-operate with its rulers in the work the greatest epoch of mental transition of the Government and the reform of through which the human mind has abuses. On more than one occasion such hitherto passed, excepting the transition co-operation did not seem entirely im

Germany was in a still worse condition, although from a less ignoble cause. She had been exposed to the whole fury of that most savage of all wars, and desolation unequalled since the days of Attila had visited her thriving towns, farms, and villages. It is a moderate computation which estimates her loss of human beings at three-quarters of the previous

possible or improbable. The admirable | empire of Spain had entered that phase wisdom and moderation shown by the of rapid and virulent decay which has Tiers-Etat in the States-General of 1614, scarcely a parallel in the history of civthe divers efforts of the Parliament of ilized nations; and which even the trials Paris to check extravagant expenditure, and horrors of the Thirty Years' War do the vigorous struggles of the provincial not suffice to explain. Spain was sucassemblies to preserve some relic of their cumbing to the clerical cancer of Jesuitlocal liberties, seemed to promise that ism and the Inquisition, from which she France would continue to advance under has never recovered. Her power and the leadership indeed of the Monarchy, prestige were at an end, and her voice yet still retaining in large measure the had lost nearly all weight in the councils bright, free, independent spirit of old of Europe. Gaul, the Gaul of Rabelais, Montaigne, and Joinville. After the reign of Louis XIV. such co-operation of the ruler and the ruled became impossible. The Government of France had become a machine depending upon the action of a single spring. Spontaneity in the population at large was extinct, and whatever there was to do must be done by the central authority. As long as the Government could population. The destruction of property correct abuses it was well; if it ceased to be equal to this task, they must go uncorrected. When at last the reform of secular and gigantic abuses presented itself with imperious urgency, the alternative before the Monarchy was either to carry the reform with a high hand or perish in the failure to do so. We know how signal the failure was, and could not help being, under the circumstances; and through having placed the Monarchy between these alternatives, it is no paradox to say that Louis XIV. was one of the most direct ancestors of the Great Revolution.

of all kinds was greater, especially under the head of horses and farm-stock. It has been reckoned that cows had disappeared to the extent of eighty-two per cent., goats at eighty-three per cent., and horses eighty-five per cent., while the race of sheep had entirely vanished. Two hundred years after the war Germany had not recovered from the losses she then sustained.*

Italy was the geographical expression she was destined to be down to the present generation.

England, since the death of the great Elizabeth, had been withdrawn from EuNothing but special conditions in the ropean politics. First, through the incapolitics both of Europe and of France, pacity and perverseness of her Stuart can explain this singular importance and kings. Secondly, through the dark cloud prominence of Louis XIV.'s reign. And of the Civil War, behind which she lay we find that both France and Europe hidden from the gaze and even comprewere indeed in an exceptional position hension of Continental statesmen. Just when he ascended the throne. The Con- recently, indeed, that cloud had been tinent of Europe, from one end to the rent asunder, and revealed the astonishother, was still bleeding and prostrate ing spectacle of the great Cromwell from the effects of the Thirty Years' War seated on the throne of the Plantagenets when the young Louis, in the sixteenth and Tudors, and wielding their sceptre year of his age, was anointed king at Rheims. Although France had suffered terribly in that awful struggle, she had probably suffered less than any of the combatants, unless it be Sweden.

The great and so recently all-powerful

with a power and dignity to which the mightiest of them had never attained.

"Bilder aus der Deutschen Vergangenheit," von Gustav Freytag, vol. iii. ch. vi. Herr Freytag gives abundant evidence of the moderation of these astonish

ing estimates.

But the great Protector died in 1659, two | sisted by her neighbours, that the power years before Louis took the reins of gov- and prerogatives of the French Crown ernment into his own hands. attained an expansion and pre-eminence Sweden, under the capricious Christina, which they had never enjoyed in the and her successor Charles X., seemed previous history of the country. The fully occupied with her immediate neigh-schemes and hopes of Philip the Fair, of bours, Poland and Denmark. She also Louis XI., of Henry IV., and of Richehad suffered some changes in her domes-lieu had been realized at last; and their tic policy, which considerably reduced her capacity for foreign intervention and influence.

efforts to throw off the insolent coercion of the great feudal lords had been crowned with complete success. The The small but heroic republic of Hol- Monarchy could hardly have conjectured land was doubtless stronger and more how strong it had become, but for the illustrious than at any former period. abortive resistance and hostility it met But her strength was confined to one ele- with in the Fronde. The minority of a ment; peace, commerce, and coloniza-king in France had been from time imtion were the objects of her policy; and memorial a signal for the nobles to take she seemed to be threatened by no possi- the field in avowed enmity to the princible enemy but her jealous rival for mari-ple of national unity and centralization time supremacy, Great Britain.

Such were the apparent guarantees of future peace, in the exhaustion or domestic preoccupation of the various European countries. The gates of the Temple of Janus could be shut, it would seem, with the profit and consent of all. No; there was one power in a position to open them. That was France.

represented by the Monarchy. "The king is a minor, let us be major," was a current saying of the nobles. Never before had they had so fair a prospect of success; for never before had they had the alliance of the magistrates and civilians, of the Parliament, and other sovereign courts, who were indeed the chief civil servants of the Administration. The part played by France in the latter These long-docile instruments of the period of the war had been truly grand Crown, which had indeed created them and noble. Taking up the interrupted expressly as a counterpoise to feudal viowork of the great Gustavus, she gave the lence, were on this occasion the leaders finishing blow to the three great ene- in the resistance to the scandalous incamies of humanity and progress - Austria, pacity (to say the least) of the Regent Spain, and the Church; and her diplo- and her minister, Mazarin, a great dimacy in the Cabinet had admirably se- plomatist but an incompetent adminiscured her triumphs in the field. The trator. The mob of Paris, rendered futreaties of Munster and of the Pyrenees rious by capricious taxation, and the placed her in the highest position of mor- unwonted dearness of food and necessaal prestige. She gained largely in terri- ries, rose in insurrection, and was led by tory; but her sacrifices had been great, one of the ablest demagogues on record, and her gains were obtained at the ex- the Cardinal de Retz. Princes of the pense of the hated Spaniard and Aus- blood and the most powerful nobles trian. The leadership of the Continent joined the movement; the two greatest devolved upon her. The peace of West-generals in France or in the world, Condé ern and Central Europe was in her keep-and Turenne, offered it their swords. ing. Painful as was the condition of her The Government, represented by Ann of overtaxed rural population, she was in Austria, was perhaps the feeblest ever relative opulence, as compared with her called upon to meet such a crisis. Yet exhausted neighbours. The place vaca-so strong was the Monarchical principle, ted by the Empire and Spain, of general that nobles, bourgeoisie, and populace, tyrant and browbeater of Europe, was all combined, were unable to make peropen to her to fill if her young King were so minded. The world had not long to wait before it was made fully aware of his intentions. But this is not all.

It happened by a remarkable coincidence that precisely at this moment, when the condition of Europe was such that an aggressive policy on the part of France could be only with difficulty re

manent head against it. Indeed, the event clearly proved that nothing but the Monarchy was able to govern France, imperfect as its government might be. The nobles, in this their last effort to restore feudal anarchy, had shown themselves once more fierce, greedy, and blind, without a single political quality in them. And the men of the Robe were but little better; they were contending for their