tune and fo have that verdict modded by]
be thought a great man during his 1ie-
the' Judgment of posterity is a variation of the oid ule by which a great man is generale lseovored fo be 0 afler is death and to Rave been mainly without honour during bs days. Louie 2A was the model of a great Sing in'all'that. concerned the externals of Kingshtp, and yet in the mal, the close of a Tong and" eventful feign showed -he_ a] Inisied "complete excellence. The "Grand Monarque lid all the necessary equipment, Tne physique. and good intellect; he was a than "who was. determined to rule and Seceeded in guiding France through one of the'most brilliant periods of her history] though this was somewhat dimmed by. the ato'ot the country's fortunes by the time he nine to lay down the crown.
It was a remarkable time in the history of Europe when the small boy of five years old! came to the French throne, Louis XIII had married Anne of Austria in 1615, but for over twenty years the marriage remained without issue, This_was a sad hindrance to. the polloies of Richelieu, for Gaston of Orleans} the baby prince's uncle and heir to the] throne was a determined opponent of} the veardinal and a continual threat to] his. schemes, "It is no wonder then, that] when the Queen presented Louis' XIII with a son the event was regarded as a triumph as important as anything gained by diplomacy or the feat of arms. From May 14, 1643, and during the following sixteen years, until he was aged twenty-one, govern ment' was in the hands of the Queen Mother fand her minister Mazarin, and both of them vere hard put to it to maintain the authority fof the Crown and the integrity of French territory. There were the domestic troubles} of the ronde, und the final stages Thirty Years War, Mazarin was hated as the foreigner he was, the Queen Mother was in tle better case, and the childhood of the} King weakened the Courts Twice It nad to flee from Ps when a rumour was current that again it had raught rately in flight It was necessary, to] admit the populace into the palace to see the {young king in bed, and see for themselves that he had not fled. It was. humiliations] stich a8 these which did a great deal in the formation of the King's character, and, by] the time he was of age, he had formed the} Intention of ruling as well as reigning. 1 is fan interesting feature of the King's character that though this determination was strong! within him, he appears to have done nothing! when the attainment of his majority gavel him an opportunity, but felt obliged to walt for another two years until Mazarin died. It was hard for the young man to throw off the shackles which hed been bound on him in his childhood, and the delay in taking action on coming of age is not to be attributed so much to pusillanimity as a desire to feel out his own strength before taking action. What would have happened had the death of Mazarin not afforded him the opportunity] which he then had must always remain a matter of speculation. Mazarin might have remained in power a few years more, but there is nothing in Louis's character to] suggest that he would not sooner or later] have taken the bull by the horns and dismissed his foreign and very unpopular] minister."
Louis was strongly attached to one of Mazarin's nieces, however: indeed he wanted to marry her, but the peace of the Pyrenees was of more importance {o Mazarin than the advancement of his family by such means fand the young king was foreed to abandon his matrimonial intentions in that direction and espouse the Infanta Maria Theresa, to cement a new friendship with Spain In consideration of a substantial dowry and the forgoing of French claims to the Spanish! Crown and any part of its territories. The dowry was never paid,—international bargains were no more sacred in those days than they appear to be in these—and Louis refused to abide by his side of the bargain, so that all he was left with was a wife, who though she bore him several ehildven had no particular community of interest with him, 0 much so that she lost whatever small influence she had in the Court to the success sion of royal mistresses with whom Louis spent his idle hours.
Not that he was very Idle. On the death of Mazarin, everyone wondered who would] be the King's First Minister, for no one for moment Believed that a King of France could possibly reign "without one, Louis) announced he would "be his own First Minister, and from this resolution he never "swerved. The government he built up was thoroughly personal one, with himself at its head, and the ministers under him very soon learned that the King was in control, Fouquet the Finance Minister had accumulated a great fortune and acquired enormous power, almost too much for a subject, but this lasted only for a time, and when Louis was eventually forced to' conspire against him, he was overthrown and condemned to perpetual Imprisonment. Colbert who had made sure of, the king's favour by revealing! the hiding place of some of Mazarin's hidden wealth,—how these princes of the Church could "accumulate worldly riches—Lionne, who served the King's diplomacy, _and Louvols, his War Minister, very soon learned that the young King "was standing no nonsense, and as tie acquired? self-confidence hhis Intolerance of the Independence of his ministers increased. Final decision was, he Insisted, his and he intended to retain it." All this came as somewhat of a shock to the Court and indeed to the country at large, but hat the King was able enough to sustain the burden he had taken up, as evidenced by the manner in which he supported Colbert in the schemes for the financial, commercial, indus~ (rial and naval reorganization—particulariy the latter when 'France was most military minded—showed the great interest he took Im them and that devotion to duty which marked his reign. He had built up a system of personal government, and no matter what other qualities he may' have lacked, despite his gaiety and interest in sport, he never turned away from the laborious and punctual] performance of his duties. It was all very annoying to his Ministers' who looked back fon the" spacious times of Mazarin and Richelieu, and doubtless sighed for the "good old days," forgetting that the only difference was. that whereas now the King was supreme Control, a Mfinister had me usurped the same functions in the very near past.
Richelieu in the previous reign, and Mazarin in the Grand Monarque's _had resorted more to diplomacy than to war for the furtherance of France's interests. The same policy would, it seemed, be followed by the young King when he assumed control, but bare five years after Mazarin's death, indeed in 1667, there began that long series of wars which' Jasted with very little relief Fight up to the end of the reign, in 1718, Louis had no particular military skill, but was 18 mass of egotistic ambition and vanity. took no part in military operations except at Several seiges, but for eleven years. his generals and their' armies emphasised the 'Supremacy of the French on European battle-elds. Then came the real turning point in the history of his reign and the fortunes of 'France abroad. Louis imbued with the new! religious zeal' inspired most probably by Madame de Maintenon, had been diminishing! the rights of the Huguenots, and by 1685 Louis summoned up enough courage to revoke the Edict of Nantes, Not only did the country lose many thousands of her best citizens, a loss which might not have been! overwhelming, but it led to the destruction of Protestant alliances in Europe which in the past had been her main diplomatic support. Then came the English revolution] of 1688 and from an ally, no matter how precarious her support might have been in the past, England was transformed into France's "most. determined enemy, a state from which it took a great deal of recovery.
The war with the Grand Alliance brought! territorial losses to France. A diplomatic victory in Spain secured inheritance of the Spanish Crown for Philip, his grandson, but the war of 1700, leading to the Treaty off Utrecht allowed the French prince to hold on to his Crown, but foreed France to make territorial concessions.
Louis in his seventy-two years reign had! taken France to the heights of triumph.. Ho had faced his country's reverses with a nobler and more national spirit than he had welcomed its successes, but he left his country much worse off than when he commenced to rule it, She was. burdened with debt; Colbert's: reforms were ruined, the king's regime itself was postponed; his heirs failed him by death and when he died Louis XV, the Duke of Burgundy's son came to the throne. "His predecessor had failed. Had he remained his Ministers as those before him had done, had he listened to their advice, and given them, more responsibility than they had, who knows but that he may have emerged from his reign the great mon his contemporaries believed, him to be? But it was not his fate to do s0. He reigned and he ruled, and left Franco no better for having done so, and, who knows, perhaps, after all, he did sow the seeds of the revolution which marked the end of the century of which he saw the beginning.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.