The folding doors were thrown open, and the dauphin, attended by his two sons, the eldest of whom was entitled Monsieur, and the youngest the Duke of Chartres, entered, and inquired of the king how he had passed the night. They were immediately followed by the Duke du Maine and the Count de Toulouse, sons of Madame de Montespan, and by the first lord of the bedchamber and the grand master of the robes. They were succeeded by the first valet of the wardrobe, and by several officers, each bearing a portion of the royal vestments. The two medical attendants of the king, the physician and surgeon, also entered at the same time.

The king, still remaining pillowed in his gorgeous bed, held out his hands, and his first valet de chambre poured upon them a few drops of spirits of wine, holding beneath them a basin of silver. The first lord of the bedchamber presented a vase of holy water, with which the king made the sign of the cross upon his brow and breast. His majesty then repeated a short prayer. A collection of wigs was presented to him. He selected the one which he wished to wear. As the king rose from his couch, the first lord of the bedchamber drew upon him his dressing-gown, which was always a richly embroidered and costly robe.

The king then sat down, and, holding out one sacred foot after the other, his valet, Bontems, drew on his stockings and his slippers of embroidered velvet. The monarch condescended to place upon his head, with his own hand, the wig which he had selected. Again the devout monarch crossed himself with holy water, and, emerging from the balustrade which inclosed the bed, seated himself in a large arm-chair. He was now prepared for what was called The First Entree.

The chief lord of the bedchamber, with a loud voice, announced The First Entree. A number of courtiers, who were peculiarly favored, were then admitted to the distinguished honor of seeing his majesty washed and shaved. The barber of the king removed his beard and gently washed his face with a sponge saturated with spirits of wine and water. The king himself wiped his face with a soft towel, while Bontems held the glass before him.

And now the master of the robes approached to dress the king. Those who had been present at what was called the petit lever retired. A new set of dignitaries, of higher name and note, crowded the anteroom to enjoy the signal honor of being present at the Grand Entree, that is, of witnessing the sublime ceremony of seeing shirt, trowsers, and frock placed upon his sacred majesty.

Three of the highest officers of the court stood at the door, attended by several valets and door-keepers of the cabinet. Admission to the Grand Entree was considered so great an honor that even princes sought it, and often in vain.

As each individual presented himself, his name was whispered to the first lord of the bedchamber, who repeated it to the king. When the monarch made no reply the visitor was admitted, and the duke walked back to his station near the fireplace, where he marshaled the new-comers to their several places in order to prevent their pressing too closely about his majesty. Princes and governors, marshals and peers, were alike subjected to this tedious and somewhat humiliating ceremony, from which three individuals alone were excepted, Racine, Boileau, and Mansard. On their arrival at the guarded door they simply scratched against the panel, when the usher threw open the folding door, and they stood in the presence of the monarch.



In the mean time, a valet of the wardrobe delivered to a gentleman of the chamber the socks and garters, which the gentleman presented to the monarch, and which socks his majesty deigned to draw on himself. Even with his own hand he clasped the garters with their diamond buckles. Etiquette did not allow the king to unclasp them at night. The head valet de chambre enjoyed the privilege of unclasping the garter of the right leg, while a more humble attendant performed the same office for the left leg.

A distinguished officer of the household presented the monarch with his haut de chausses (breeches), to which silk stockings were attached; the king drew them on; another gentleman put on his shoes; another gentleman buckled them. Two pages, richly dressed in crimson velvet embroidered with gold, removed the slippers which the king had laid aside.

And now came the royal breakfast. Two officers of the household entered, in picturesque attire, one bearing a loaf of bread on an enameled salver, and another a folded napkin between two enameled plates. The royal cup-bearer handed a golden vase, richly decorated, to one of the lords. He poured into it a small quantity of wine and water. Another lord tasted of it, to prove that it contained no poison. The vase was then carefully rinsed, and being again filled with the wine and water, was presented to the king on a gold salver.

His majesty drank. Then the dauphin, who was always present at these solemnities, handed his hat and gloves to the first lord in waiting, and presented the monarch with a napkin with which to wipe his lips. Breakfast was a very frugal repast. Having partaken of these slight refreshments, the king laid aside his dressing-gown. One of his lordly attendants then assisted him in removing his night-shirt by the left sleeve. It was Bontems's peculiar privilege to draw it off by the right sleeve.

The royal shirt, which had been carefully warmed, was then given to the first lord. He presented it to the dauphin, who approached and presented it to the king. Some one of the higher lords, previously designated for the honor, assisted the king in the arrangement of his shirt and breeches. A duke enjoyed the honor of putting on his inner waistcoat. Two valets presented the king with his sword, vest, and blue ribbon. A nobleman then stepped forward and buckled on the sword, assisted in putting on the vest, and placed over his shoulders a scarf bearing the cross of the Holy Ghost in diamonds, and the cross of St. Louis.

The king then drew on his under coat, with the assistance of the grand master of the robes, adjusted his cravat of rich lace, which was folded round his neck by a favorite courtier, and finally emptied into the pockets of the loose outer coat, which was presented to him for that purpose, the contents of those which he had worn the previous day. He then received two handkerchiefs of costly point from another attendant, by whom they were carried on an enameled saucer of oval shape called salve. His toilet once completed, Louis XIV. returned to the ruelle of his bed, where he knelt down upon two cushions already prepared for him, and said his prayers; all the bishops and cardinals entering within the balustrade in his suite, and reciting their devotional exercises in a suppressed voice.

The king, being thus dressed, retired from his chamber to his cabinet. He was followed, in solemn procession, by all those dignitaries of Church and State who had enjoyed the privilege of the Grand Entree. He then issued the orders of the day, after which all withdrew excepting some of his children, whom a royal decree had legitimatized and raised to the rank of princes, with their former tutors or governors.

In the mean time a crowd of courtiers were assembled in the great gallery of Versailles, to accompany the king to mass. The captain of the royal guard awaited orders at the door of the cabinet. At 12 o'clock the door was thrown open, and the king, followed by a splendid retinue, proceeded to the chapel.

The service was short. At one o'clock the king returned to his room, and dined sumptuously and alone. He was waited upon, at the table, by the first gentleman of the chamber. Sometimes the dauphin or other lords of highest rank were present, but they stood respectfully at a distance. No one was permitted to be seated in the royal presence. The brother of the king stood at times by the chair of his majesty, holding his napkin for him. Upon the king's twice requesting him to be seated, he was permitted to take a seat upon a stool, behind the king, still holding his napkin.

Upon rising from the table the king repaired to the grand saloon, where he tarried for a few moments, that persons of high distinction, who enjoyed the privilege of addressing him, might have an opportunity to do so. He then returned to his cabinet. The door was closed, and the king had a brief interview with his children, of whom he was very fond. He then repaired to the kennel of his dogs, of whom he was also fond, and amused himself, for a time, in feeding them and playing with them.

He now made some slight change in his dress. A small number of persons, of high rank, enjoyed the distinguished honor of being present in his chamber as the monarch, with all suitable stateliness of ceremony, exchanged one royal garment for another. The carriage awaited the king in the marble court. He descended by a private staircase. His craving for fresh air was such that he took a drive whatever the weather. Scarcely any degree of heat or cold, or floods of rain, could prevent him from his drive, or his stag-hunt, or his overlooking the workmen. Sometimes the ladies of his court rode out with him on picnic excursions to the forests of Fontainebleau or Marly.

Upon returning from the drive, the king again changed his dress and repaired to his cabinet. He then proceeded to the apartments of Madame de Maintenon, where he remained conversing with her, or reading, and sometimes transacting business with his minister, until ten o'clock. The hour for supper had now arrived. The house-steward, with his badge of office in hand, gave the information to the captain of the guard. He, entering the royal presence from the antechamber, announced the fact to the king, and opened wide the door. After the delay of a quarter of an hour, which etiquette required, his majesty advanced to the supper-room. During the quarter of an hour which had elapsed, the officers of the household had made preparations for the royal repast by tasting the bread and the salt, and by testing the plates, the fork, the spoon, the knife, and the tooth-pick of the king, so as to be assured that no poison could be thus conveyed.

As the king, preceded by the house-steward and two ushers with flambeaux, entered the supper-room, he found there awaiting him the princes and princesses of France, with a numerous assemblage of courtiers, gentlemen, and ladies. The king, having taken his seat, requested the others to be seated also. Six noblemen immediately stationed themselves at each end of the table, to wait upon the king. Each one, as he presented a dish to the king, first tasted of it himself. When the king wished for a drink, his cup-bearer exclaimed aloud, "Drink for the king." Two of the principal officers, making a profound obeisance, approached his majesty, one bearing an enameled cup and two decanters upon a salver. The other poured out the wine, tasted it, and presented the goblet to the king. With another low salutation, the two officers replaced the decanters upon the sideboard.

The repast being finished, the king rose, and, preceded by two guards and an usher, and followed by all the company, proceeded to the bedchamber. He there bowed adieu to the company, and, entering the cabinet, took a seat in a large arm-chair. The members of the royal family were introduced. His brother, Monsieur, was permitted to take an arm-chair. All the rest remained standing except the princesses, who were indulged with stools. After an hour or so of such converse as these stately forms would admit, the king, about midnight, went again to feed his dogs. He then retired to his chamber, with great pomp said his prayers, and was undressed and put to bed with ceremonies similar to those with which he had been dressed in the morning.

Such was the ordinary routine of the life of the king at Versailles. Its dreary monotony was broken by occasional fetes, balls, and theatric shows. Madame de Maintenon testifies to the almost insupportable tedium of such a life. "If you could only," she exclaims, "form an idea of what it is!"

Magnificent apartments were prepared for Madame de Maintenon at Versailles, opposite the suite of rooms occupied by the king. Similar arrangements were made for her in all the royal palaces. Royalty alone could occupy arm-chairs in the presence of the sovereign. In each of her apartments there were two such, one for the king and the other for herself. The king often transacted business with his minister, Louvois, in her room. She had sufficient tact never to express an opinion, or to take a part in the conversation except when appealed to.

Madame de Maintenon was exceedingly anxious that the king should publicly recognize her as his wife. It is said that the king, tormented by the embarrassments which the secret marriage had brought upon him, seriously contemplated this. His minister, Louvois, remonstrated even passionately against such a recognition. At the close of a painful interview upon this subject, he threw himself upon his knees before his majesty, and, presenting to him the hilt of a small sword which the minister usually wore, exclaimed,

"Take my life, sire, that I may not become the witness of a disgrace which will dishonor your majesty in the eyes of all Europe."

Others of the most influential members of the court joined in the opposition, and so strenuously that the king commanded Madame de Maintenon never again to allude to the subject.

Premature old age was fast advancing upon the king, though he had as yet attained only his forty-ninth year. He was tortured by the gout. He was also attacked by a very painful and dangerous internal malady. His sufferings were dreadful. It became necessary for him to submit to a perilous surgical operation. The king met the crisis with much heroism. Four persons only, including Madame de Maintenon, were present during the operation. Indeed, the greatest precautions had been adopted to keep the fact that an operation was to be performed a profound secret. During the operation the king uttered not a groan. It was successful. In gratitude he conferred upon the skillful operator who had relieved him from anguish and saved his life an estate valued at more than fifty thousand crowns.

Weary of every thing else, the king now sought to find some little interest in building. The renowned architect, Mansard, whose genius still embellishes our most beautiful edifices, was commissioned to erect a pavilion on the grounds of Versailles in imitation of an Italian villa. Thus rose, within a year, the Grand Trianon, which subsequently became so celebrated as the favorite rural residence of Maria Antoinette.



Most men who, with vast wealth, attempt to build a mansion which shall eclipse that of all their neighbors, and which shall be perfect in all the appliances of comfort and luxury, find themselves, in the end, bitterly disappointed. This was pre-eminently the case with Louis XIV. The palace of Versailles, still unfinished, had already cost him countless millions. But it did not please the king. It had cold and cheerless grandeur, but no attractions as a home. The king looked with weary eyes upon the mountain pile of marble which had risen at his bidding, and found it about as uncongenial for a home as would be the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Disgusted with the etiquette which enslaved him, satiated with sensual indulgence, and having exhausted all the fountains of worldly pleasure, with waning powers of body and of mind, it is not possible that any thing could have satisfied the world-weary king.

He had other palaces. None suited him. The Tuileries and the Louvre were in the heart of the noisy city. The banqueting hall at St. Germain overlooked the sepulchre of St. Denis, where the grave-worm held its banquet. Fontainebleau was at too great a distance from the capital. To reach it required a carriage drive of four or five hours. Vincennes, notwithstanding the grandeur of the antique, time-worn castle, was gloomy in its surroundings, inconvenient in its internal arrangements—a prison rather than a palace.

About nine miles from Paris, upon the left bank of the Seine, there reposed the silent village of Marly. The king selected that as the spot upon which he would rear a snug "hermitage" to which he could retire "from noise and tumult far." The passion for building is a fearful passion, which often involves its victim in ruin. The plans of the king expanded under his eye. The little hermitage became a spacious palace, where a court could be entertained with all the appliances of regal elegance.

But dark and stormy days were rapidly gathering around the path of the king. He became involved in war with Germany. The complicated reasons can scarcely be unraveled. The king sent his son, the dauphin, at the head of one hundred thousand men, to invade Holland. Situated upon both sides of the Rhine there was a territory called the Palatinate. It embraced one thousand five hundred and ninety square miles, being not quite so large as the State of Delaware. It contained an intelligent, industrious, and prosperous population of a little over three hundred thousand. The beautiful city of Manheim was the capital of the province.

Though the dauphin was nominally at the head of the invading army, that the glory of its victories might redound to his name, the ablest of the French generals were associated with him, and they, in reality, took the direction of affairs. One city after another speedily fell into the hands of the French. The king mercilessly resolved, and without any justification whatever, to convert the whole province into a desert. An order was issued by the king that every city, village, castle, and hut should be laid in ashes.

It was midwinter—the month of February, 1689. There were many beautiful cities in the province, such as Manheim, Philipsbourg, Franckendal, Spire, Treves, Worms, and Oppendeim. There were more than fifty feudal castles in the territory, the ancestral homes of noble families. The citizens had but short warning. Houses, furniture, food, all were consumed. The flames rose to heaven, calling upon God for vengeance. Smouldering ruins every where met the eye. Men, women, and children wandered starving through the fields.

Nearly all Europe soon became banded against this haughty monarch, and he found it necessary to raise an army of four hundred thousand men to meet the exigencies.

Intoxicated by the pride of past success, he thought that he should be able to force upon England a Roman Catholic king, and the Roman Catholic faith, and thus expel heresy from England, as he dreamed that he had expelled it from France. He equipped a fleet, and manned it with twenty thousand soldiers, to force upon the British people King James II., whom they had indignantly discarded.

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 galleys, plunged into dungeons, broken upon the wheel, hanged upon scaffolds, rose in several places in the most desperate insurrectionary bands. And the man who was thus crushing beneath the 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. It is not strange that Faith, with uplifted hands and gushing eyes, should have exclaimed, "O Lord, how long!"

The singular complication of the royal family, with the various mothers and the various children, some of which children were recognized by royal decree as princes, and some of whom were not, filled the palaces with bickerings, envyings, and discontent in every form. The unhappy dauphiness, who had long been immersed in the profoundest gloom, at last found a welcome retreat in the grave. Neither her husband nor the king shed a single tear over her remains, which were hurried to the vaults of St. Denis.



CHAPTER XI.

INTRIGUES AND WARS.

1690-1711

Exhaustion of the treasury.—The royal plate sacrificed.—Assumptions of Louvois.—Disgrace, sickness, and death of Louvois.—Louis suspicious of Madame de Maintenon.—Letters.—Court life.—The dauphin.—His sons.—Graces of the Duchess of Burgoyne.—Misery of the people.—Extravagance of the court.—Brilliant assembly.—Death of Charles II.—The Duke of Anjou proclaimed King of Spain.—Anecdote of the princes.—Preparations for the coronation.—Exultation of Louis XIV.—Final meeting of the royal family.—Last interview between Madame de Montespan and the king.—Penance of Madame de Montespan.—Her death.—Heartless conduct of the king.—His health failing.—Quarrel with Philip.—He is stricken with apoplexy.—Death of the king's brother.—The king dispels his gloom.—The Princess des Ursins.—Civil war.—Insurrection of the Protestants.—Enthusiasm of the Camisards.—Cruelty of the persecutors.—Distress in France.—The dauphin taken sick.—Death and burial of the dauphin.

The treasury of the king was empty. Extravagant building, a voluptuous court, and all the enormous expenses of civil and foreign wars, had quite exhausted the finances of the realm. It became necessary to call upon the cities for contributions. New offices were invented, which were imposed upon the wealthy citizens, and for which they were compelled to pay large sums. Even the massive silver plate and furniture, which had attracted the admiration of all visitors to Versailles, were sent to the Mint and coined. Most of the value of these articles of ornament consisted of the skill with which the materials had been wrought into forms of beauty. In melting them down, all this was sacrificed, and nothing remained but the mere value of the metal. Large as were the sums attained by these means, they were but trifling compared with the necessities of the state.

Louvois, the minister of Louis, had for a long time held the reins of government. It was through his influence that the king had been instigated to revoke the Edict of Nantes, to order the dragonnades, and to authorize those atrocities of persecution which must ever expose the name of Louis XIV. to the execrations of humanity. It was Louvois who, from merely contemptible caprice, plunged France into war with Germany. It was through his persuasions that the king was induced to order the utter devastation of the Palatinate.

But the influence of Louvois was now on the wane. The jealous king became weary of his increasingly haughty assumptions. The conflagration of the Palatinate raised a cry of indignation which the king could not but hear. The city of Treves had escaped the flames. Louvois solicited an order to burn it. The king refused to give his consent. Louvois insolently gave the order himself. He then informed the king that he had done so that he might spare the conscience of the king the pain of issuing such an edict.



Louis was furious. In his rage he forgot all the restraints of etiquette. He seized from the fireplace the tongs, and would have broken the head of the minister had not Madame de Maintenon rushed between them. The king ordered a messenger immediately to be dispatched to countermand the order. He declared that if a single house were burned, the head of the minister should be the forfeit. The city was saved.

In 1691 the French army was besieging Mons. The king visited the works. 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. He became emaciate, languid, and deeply depressed. A few subsequent interviews with the king satisfied him that his disgrace and ruin were decided upon. Indeed, the king had already drawn up the lettre de cachet which was to consign him to the Bastile. About the middle of June, 1691, Louvois met the king in his council chamber, and, though the monarch was unusually complaisant, Louvois so thoroughly understood him that he retired to his residence in utter despair. Scarcely had he entered his apartment ere he dropped dead upon the floor. Whether his death were caused by apoplexy, or by poison administered by his own hand or that of others, can never be known. The king forbade all investigation of the case.

Immediately after the death of Louvois, the king began to devote himself to business with an energy which he had never before manifested. Madame de Maintenon made some farther efforts to induce him to proclaim their marriage, but she soon perceived that nothing would induce him to change his resolution, and she accepted the situation. Louis now yielded more than ever to her influence; but he was always apprehensive that she might be engaged in some secret intrigue, and kept a vigilant watch over her. In letters to a friend, she gives some account of her splendid misery.

"The king is perpetually on guard over me. I see no one. He never leaves my room. I am compelled to rise at five in the morning in order to write to you. I experience more than ever that there is no compensation for the loss of liberty."

Again she writes, in reference to the weary routine of court life: "The princesses who have not attended the hunt will come in, followed by their cabal, and wait the return of the king in my apartment in order to go to dinner. The hunters will come in a crowd, and will relate the whole history of their day's sport, without sparing us a single detail. They will then go to dinner. Madame de Dangeau will challenge me, with a yawn, to a game of backgammon. Such is the way in which people live at court."

It will be remembered that the king and queen had an only son, the dauphin. He was a man of ignoble character and of feeble mind. Still, as heir to the throne, he was, next to the king, the most important personage in the realm. The dauphin had three sons, who were in the direct line of succession to the crown. These were Louis, duke of Burgoyne, Philip, duke of Anjou, and Charles, duke of Berri.

The eldest, the Duke of Burgoyne, who, of course, next to the dauphin, was heir to the throne, was thirteen years of age. The king selected for his wife Adelaide, the daughter of the Duke of Savoy, a remarkably graceful, beautiful, and intelligent child of eleven years. The pretty little girl was brought to France to spend a few months in the court previous to her marriage, which was to take place as soon as she should attain her twelfth year. She came in great splendor, with her retinue, her court, and her ladies of honor. Both the king and Madame de Maintenon were charmed with the princess. Sumptuous apartments were assigned her in the palace of Versailles. Madame de Maintenon wrote to the Duchess of Savoy,

"The king is enchanted with her. He expatiates on her deportment, her grace, her courtesy, her reserve, and her modesty. She has all the graces of girlhood, with the perfections of a more mature age. Her temper appears as perfect as her figure promises one day to become. She only requires to speak to display the extent of her intellect. I can not resist thanking your royal highness for giving us a child who, according to all appearance, will be the delight of the court, and the glory of the century."

The king resolved that the festivities at the marriage of these two children should be the most splendid which France had ever witnessed. He announced the intention of appearing himself, upon the occasion, in the most sumptuous apparel which the taste and art of the times could furnish. This intimation was sufficient for the courtiers. Preparations were made for such a display of folly and extravagance as even alarmed the king. All ordinary richness of dress, of satin, and velvet, and embroidery of gold, was discarded for fabrics of unprecedented costliness, for bouquets of diamonds, and wreaths of the most precious gems.

"I can not understand," exclaimed the king, "how husbands are mad enough to suffer themselves to be ruined by the folly of their wives."

The marriage took place between the bride of twelve years and the bridegroom of fourteen at six o'clock in the evening of the 7th of December, 1697. The ceremony was performed in the chapel of the palace at Versailles. The ensuing festivals exceeded in magnificence all that Versailles had previously witnessed. But there was no rejoicing among the people. They listened, some silently, some sullenly, some murmuringly, to the chiming bells and the booming cannon. The elements of discontent and wrath were slowly beginning to collect for bursting forth one hundred years later, in that most sublime of moral tempests, the French Revolution.

The grand avenue to Versailles day after day was crowded with gorgeous equipages. At night it blazed with illuminations. The highest ingenuity was taxed to devise new scenes of splendor and amusement, which followed each other in rapid succession. Three days after the marriage, the king gave a special assembly which was to eclipse all the rest. All the ladies were directed to appear in dresses of black velvet, that the precious gems, which were almost literally to cover those dresses, might sparkle more brilliantly. The great gallery of Versailles was illuminated by four thousand wax-lights. The young bride wore upon her apron alone jewels estimated at a sum equal to fifty thousand dollars.

On the 1st of November, 1700, Charles II., the half crazed King of Spain, died, leaving no heir. The pope, Innocent XII., bribed by Louis XIV., sent a nuncio to the dying king, enjoining upon him to transmit his crown to the children of the Dauphin of France, as the legitimate heirs to the monarchy. As the Duke of Burgoyne was the direct heir to the throne of France, the second son of the dauphin, the Duke of Anjou, still a mere boy, was proclaimed King of Spain, with the title of Philip V.

On the 14th of the month the Spanish embassador was summoned to an audience with Louis XIV. at Versailles. The king presented his grandson to the minister, saying, "This, sir, is the Duke of Anjou, whom you may salute as your king."

A large crowd of courtiers was soon assembled. The Spanish minister threw himself upon his knees before the boy with expressions of profound homage. There was a scene of great excitement. The king, embracing with his left arm the neck of the young prince, pointed to him with his right hand, and said to those present,

"Gentlemen, this is the King of Spain. His birth calls him to the crown.[X] 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."

[Footnote X: The claim of the young prince was founded upon the fact that his grandmother, Maria Theresa, was the eldest daughter of Philip IV. of Spain. She had, however, upon her marriage, renounced all claim to the succession. Her younger sister, Margarita, had married the Emperor Leopold of Austria without this renunciation. The emperor claimed the crown for her daughter, who had married the Elector of Bavaria. Hence the war of The Spanish Succession.]

The Duke of Anjou was quite delighted in finding himself thus liberated from all the restraints of tutors and governors, and of being, in his boyhood, elevated to the dignity of a crowned king. As soon as these stately forms of etiquette were concluded, and he was alone with his brothers, he kicked up his heels and snapped his fingers, exclaiming with delight,

"So I am King of Spain. You, Burgoyne, will be King of France. And you, my poor Berri, are the only one who must live and die a subject."

The little prince replied, perhaps upon the principle that "the grapes were sour," perhaps because he had observed how little real happiness regal state had brought to his grandfather,

"That fact will not grieve me. I shall have less trouble and more pleasure than either of you. I shall enjoy the right of hunting both in France and Spain, and can follow a wolf from Paris to Madrid."

Preparations were immediately made for the departure of the boy-king to take possession of his Spanish throne and crown. The pomp-loving French king had decided to invest the occasion with great splendor. He regarded it as a signal stroke of policy, and a great victory on his part, that he had been enabled, notwithstanding the remonstrances of other nations, to place a French Bourbon prince upon the throne of Spain, thus virtually uniting the two nations. He thought he had thus extended the domain of France to the Straits of Gibraltar. "Henceforth," exclaimed Louis XIV., exultingly, "there are no more Pyrenees."

To his grandson, the new king, he said, "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."

There was a final meeting of the royal family to take leave of the young monarch as he was departing for his realm. All the young nobility of France, with a numerous military escort, were to compose his brilliant retinue. The Duchess du Maine, the legitimatized daughter of Madame de Montespan, and thus the half brother of the dauphin, persuaded the dauphin to invite her mother to the palace on this occasion. Here occurred the last interview between the heartless king and his discarded favorite.

As the king made the tour of the room, he found himself opposite Madame de Montespan. She was greatly overcome by her emotions, and, pale and trembling, was near fainting. The king coldly and searchingly, for a moment, fixed his eye upon her, and then said, calmly,

"Madame, I congratulate you. You are still as handsome and attractive as ever. I hope that you are also happy."

The marchioness replied, "At this moment, sire, I am very happy, since I have the honor of presenting my respectful homage to your majesty."

The king, with his studied grace of courtesy, kissed her hand, and continued his progress around the circle. The monarch and his perhaps equally guilty victim never met again. She lived twenty-two years after her expulsion from the palace. They were twenty-two years of joylessness. Her confessor, who seems to have been a man of sincere piety, refused her absolution until she had written to her husband, the Marquis de Montespan, whom she had abandoned for the guilty love of the king, affirming her heartfelt repentance, imploring his forgiveness, and entreating him either to receive her back, or to order her to any place of residence which he should think proper. The indignant marquis replied that he would neither admit her to his house, nor prescribe for her any future rules of conduct, nor suffer her name ever again to be mentioned in his presence.

The reverend father compelled her, in atonement for her sins, to sit at a frugal table; to consecrate her vast wealth to objects of benevolence; to wear haircloth next her skin, and around her waist a girdle with sharp points, which lacerated her body at every movement. She was also daily employed in making garments of the coarsest materials with her own hands for the sick in the hospitals, and for the poor in their squalid homes.

The guilty marchioness was dreadfully afraid of death. Every night a careful guard of women watched her bedside. In a thunder-storm she would take an infant in her lap, that the child's innocence might be her protection. In the night of the 26th of May, 1707, she was attacked in her bed by very distressing suffocation. One of her sons, the Marquis of Antin, was immediately sent for. He found his mother insensible. Seizing a casket which contained her jewels, he demanded of an attendant the key. It was suspended around the neck of his dying mother, where she ever wore it. The young man went to the bedside, tore away the lace which veiled his mother's bosom, seized the key, unlocked the casket, emptied its contents into his pockets, descended to his carriage, and hurried away with the treasure, leaving his mother to die without a relative to close her eyes. An hour after she breathed her last.

The king was informed of the death of Madame de Montespan just as he was setting out on a shooting excursion. "Ah! indeed," he said, "and so the marchioness is dead. I should have thought that she would have lasted longer. Are you ready, M. de la Rochefoucald? I have no doubt that after this last shower the scent will lie well for the dogs. Come, let us be off at once."

We have slightly anticipated the chronological sequence of events in this narrative of the death of Madame de Montespan, which took place in the year 1707. James II. of England died in exile at St. Germain in September, 1701. The Prince of Orange then occupied the British throne with the title of William III. He formed what was called the "Grand Alliance" against the encroachments of France. For several years the war of the "Spanish Succession" raged with almost unprecedented fury throughout all Europe.



The king's health was now failing, and troubles in rapid succession came crowding upon him. His armies encountered terrible defeats. The king had thus far lived on friendly terms with his only brother Philip, duke of Orleans, the playmate of his childhood, and the submissive subject of maturer years. They were now both soured by misfortune. In a chance meeting at Marly they fell into a violent altercation respecting the conduct of one of the sons of the duke. It was their first quarrel since childhood. The duke was so excited by the event that he hastened to his palace at St. Cloud with flushed cheeks and trembling nerves, where he was stricken down by apoplexy. A courier was immediately dispatched to the king. He hastened to the bedside of his brother, and found him insensible.

Philip was two years younger than Louis. To see him die was a louder appeal to the conscience of the king than the view of St. Denis from the terrace at St. Germain. Death was, to this monarch, truly the king of terrors. He could not endure the spectacle of his brother's dying convulsions. Burying his face in his hands, he wept and sobbed bitterly. It was a midnight scene, or rather it was the sombre hour of three o'clock in the morning.

At 8 o'clock in the morning the king took his carriage and returned to Marly, and repaired immediately to the apartment of Madame de Maintenon. At 11 o'clock his physician arrived with the intelligence that the duke was dead. Again the king was overcome with emotion, and wept almost convulsively; but, soon recovering himself, he apparently resolved to make every effort to throw off these painful thoughts.

Notwithstanding the remonstrances of Madame de Maintenon, he persisted in his determination to dine, as usual, with the ladies of the court. Much to the astonishment of the ladies, he was heard, in his own room, singing an air from a recent opera which was far from funereal in its character.

In the month of May of this same year, 1701, the Duke of Anjou, the young King of Spain, who was uneasily seated upon his beleaguered throne, entered into a matrimonial alliance with Maria Louisa of Savoy, younger sister of Adelaide, the duchess of Burgoyne. She was of fairy-like stature, but singularly graceful and beautiful, with the finest complexion, and eyes of dazzling brilliance. Her mental endowments were also equal to her physical charms. Louis XIV., ever anxious to retain the control over the court of Spain, appointed the Princess des Ursins to be the companion and adviser of the young queen. This lady was alike remarkable for her intelligence, her sagacity, her tact, and her thorough acquaintance with high and courtly breeding. The young King of Spain was perfectly enamored of his lovely bride. She held the entire control over him. The worldly-wise and experienced Princess des Ursins guided, in obedience to the dictates of Louis XIV., almost every thought and volition of the young queen. Thus the monarch at Marly ruled the court at Madrid.

While foreign war was introducing bankruptcy to the treasury of France, civil war was also desolating the kingdom. The sufferings of the Protestants equaled any thing which had been witnessed in the days of pagan persecution. The most ferocious of all these men, who were breathing out threatenings and slaughter, was the Abbe de Chayla. This wretch had captured a party of Protestants, and, with them, two young ladies from families of distinction. They were all brutally thrust into a dungeon, and were fettered in a way which caused extreme anguish, and crushed some of their bones. It was the 24th of July, 1702. At ten o'clock in the evening, a party of about fifty resolute Protestants, thoroughly armed, and chanting a psalm, broke into the palace of the infamous ecclesiastic, released the prisoners from the dungeon vaults, seized the abbe, and, after compelling him to look upon the mangled bodies and broken bones of his victims, put him to death by a dagger-stroke from each one of his assailants. The torch was then applied, and the palace laid in ashes.

Hence commenced the terrible civil war called The War of the Camisards. The Protestants were poor, dispersed, without arms, and without leaders. Despair nerved them. They fled to rocks, to the swamps, the forests. In their unutterable anguish they were led to frenzies of enthusiasm. They believed that God chose their leaders, and inspired them to action. Thus roused and impelled, they set at defiance an army of twenty thousand men sent against them.

The terrible war lasted two years. Fiends could not have perpetrated greater cruelties than were perpetrated by the troops of the king. It is one of the mysteries of divine providence that one man should have been permitted to create such wide-spread and unutterable woe. Louis XIV. wished to exterminate Protestantism from his realms. Millions were made wretched to an intensity which no pen can describe. Louis XIV. wished to place his grandson, without any legal title, upon the throne of Spain. In consequence, Europe was deluged in blood. Cities were sacked and burned. Provinces were devastated. Hundreds of thousands perished in the blood of the battle-field. The book of final judgment alone can tell how many widows and orphans went weeping to their graves.

The Pope Clement IX. fulminated a bull against the Camisards, and promised the absolute remission of sins to those engaged in their extermination. Protestant England and Holland sent words of cheer to their fellow-religionists. We can not enter into the details of this conflict. The result was that the king found it impossible to exterminate the Protestants, or to blot out their faith. A policy of semi-tolerance was gradually introduced, though in various parts of the kingdom the persecuting spirit remained for several years unbroken. The king, chagrined by the failure of his plans, would not allow the word Protestant or Huguenot to be pronounced in his presence.

The distress in France was dreadful. A winter of unprecedented severity had even frozen the impetuous waters of the Rhone. Provisions commanded famine prices. The fields were barren, the store-houses exhausted, the merchant ships were captured by the enemy, and the army, humiliated by frequent defeats, was perishing with hunger. The people became desperate. The king was ignominiously lampooned and placarded. He dared not appear in public, for starving crowds gathered around his carriage clamoring for bread. Even the king and the nobility sent their plate to the Mint. The exhaustion of the realm had become so complete that the haggard features of want seemed to be staring in even at the windows of the palace. Madame de Maintenon practiced so much self-denial as to eat only oaten bread.

In April of 1711 the dauphin was taken sick with apparently an attack of fever. It proved to be malignant smallpox. After a brief sickness, which terrified and dispersed the court, he died, almost alone, in a burning fever, with a frightfully swollen face, and in delirium. Even the king could not visit the dying chamber of his son. He fainted upon his sofa when he heard that the dauphin was in his last agonies.

The terror-stricken courtiers fled from the palace of Meudon, where the loathsome remains of the heir to the throne of France awaited burial. The corpse was hurried into a plain coffin, which was not even covered by the royal pall. Not a single mourning coach followed the only legitimate son of Louis XIV. to the grave. He had two sisters, the Princess of Conti and the Duchess of Bourbon Conde. Neither of them ventured to join the funeral procession of their only brother. He had three sons, Louis, Philip, and Charles. Philip was king of Spain. Louis and Charles were at home. But they kept at a safe distance, as did the king his father, from the meagre funeral procession which bore, with indecent haste, the remains of the prince to the vaults of St. Denis.



CHAPTER XII.

THE LAST DAYS OF LOUIS XIV.

1712-1715

The Duke of Burgoyne.—His character.—The dauphiness poisoned by means of snuff.—Anguish of the king.—Death.—The dauphin taken ill.—Death of the dauphin.—Death of the child-dauphin.—The Duke of Orleans.—He is suspected as the poisoner.—A quarrel and its result.—Death of the Duke de Berri.—Anguish of the Duke of Orleans.—Feelings of the king.—The regency.—Intrigues and plots.—Louis harassed.—The Duke of Orleans removes to St. Cloud.—Policy.—Wretchedness of the king.—The Duchess de Berri.—Plottings.—The council of regency.—The last testament of the king.—Unsatisfactory.—Sickness of the king.—The last review.—Struggles against death.—Affects youthfulness.—Summons a band.—Scene in the death-chamber.—The last offices of the Church.—The king resigned.—Remorse of the king.—Energy of fanaticism.—Deplorable condition of France.—Testimony of Thomas Jefferson.—Napoleon.—Devotion of Madame de Maintenon.—Last messages.—Melancholy spectacle.—The young heir to the throne.—Dying advice.—The king blesses the dauphin.—Dying confession.—Scenes of suffering.—Last words.—The death of the king.—Louis XV. proclaimed.—Ignominious burial of Louis XIV.—Louis XV.—Louis XVI.—The Revolution.

Upon the death of the king's son, the Duke of Burgoyne assumed the title of Dauphin, which his father had previously borne, and became direct heir to the crown. He was a retiring, formal man, very much devoted to study, and somewhat pedantic. He was also religiously inclined. In his study, where he passed most of his time, he divided his hours between works of devotion and books of science. His sudden advent to the direct heirship to the French throne surrounded him with courtiers and flatterers. The palace at Meudon, where he generally resided, was now crowded with noble guests.

He became affable, frequently showed himself in public, entered into amusements, and was soon regarded as a general favorite. Taught by Madame de Maintenon, he succeeded, by his marked respect for the king and his submission to his slightest wishes, in gaining the good will of the homage-loving monarch. The years had rolled rapidly along, and the young dauphin was thirty years of age. He had three children, and, being irreproachable in his domestic relations, was developing a very noble character. The dauphiness had attained her twenty-seventh year. She was an extremely beautiful and fascinating woman.

The dauphiness was fond of snuff. On the 3d of February, 1712, the Duke de Noailles, a true friend, presented her with a box of Spanish snuff, with which she was delighted. She left the box upon the table in her boudoir. It was there for a couple of days, she frequently indulging in the luxury of a pinch. On the 5th she was attacked with sudden sickness, accompanied by shivering fits, burning fever, and intense pain in the head. The attack was so sudden and extraordinary that all the attendants thought of poison, though none ventured to give utterance to the surmise. For four days she grew worse, with frequent seasons of delirium. The dauphin was almost frantic. The king sat in anguish, hour after hour, at her bedside.

No remedies were of any avail. Her sufferings were so great that the dauphin could not remain in her dying chamber to witness her agony. She was greatly surprised when informed that she must die. All the offices of the Church were attended to. She received the rite of extreme unction, and, in the wildness of delirium, lost all recognition of those who were around her. The king, bowed down with anguish, was with difficulty prevailed upon to retire. He had but reached the door of the palace when she expired.

The king was now a world-weary, heart-stricken old man, who had numbered more than his threescore years and ten. He seemed crushed with grief, and his eyes were flooded with tears as he returned, with Madame de Maintenon, to Marly. The apartment which the dauphin paced in agony was immediately above the dying chamber. As soon as the death-struggle was over, he was induced to retire to Marly, that he might be spared the anguish of witnessing the preparations for the funeral.

As the dauphin entered the chamber of the king, the monarch was startled in witnessing the change which had taken place in his appearance. His face was flushed with fever; his eyes were dilated and inflamed, and livid stains covered his face. It was manifest that the same disease, whatever it was, which had stricken down the dauphiness, had also attacked the dauphin. The malady made rapid progress. In the intensity of his anguish, the sufferer declared his entrails were on fire. Conscious that his dying hour had come, he, on the night of the 17th, partook of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and almost immediately expired.

The dreadful tidings were conveyed to the king as he sat in the apartment of Madame de Maintenon, with the younger brother of the dauphin, Charles, the duke de Berri, by his side. The king, anticipating the announcement, sat with his head bent down upon his breast, and clasping almost convulsively the hand of the prince who sat at his feet. Throwing his arms around the neck of the Duke de Berri, the king exclaimed, in accents of despair, "Alas! my son, you alone are now left to me."

The Duke of Burgoyne had buried three children. There were two then living. The eldest, the Duke of Bretagne, was five years of age. The youngest, the Duke of Anjou, had just attained his second year. By the death of the Duke of Burgoyne, his eldest child became the dauphin and the immediate heir to the crown. The next day both of these children were taken sick, evidently with the same malady, whether of natural disease or the effect of poison, which had proved so fatal to their parents. The eldest immediately died. The same funeral car conveyed the remains of the father, the mother, and the child to the gloomy vaults of St. Denis.

The youngest child, the Duke of Anjou, by the most careful nursing recovered to ascend the throne with the title of Louis XV., and to present to the world, in his character, one of the most infamous kings who had ever worn an earthly crown.

We have previously mentioned the death of the king's only brother, Philip, duke of Orleans. He left a son, the Duke of Chartres. Upon the death of the Duke of Orleans his son inherited the title and the estate of his father. He was an exceedingly dissolute man. Should all the legitimate descendants of the king die, he would be heir to the throne. With the exception of Philip, who was King of Spain, and thus precluded from inheriting the throne of France, all were now dead except the infant Duke of Anjou. The death of that child would place the crown upon the brow of Philip, duke of Orleans.

As it was evident that all these victims had died of poison, suspicion was so directed against the Duke of Orleans that the accusation was often hooted at him in the streets. There is, however, no convincing evidence that he was guilty. One of the daughters of the Duke of Orleans had married the Duke de Berri. She was as wicked as she was beautiful, and scarcely condescended to disguise her profligacy. The duke intercepted some letters which proved her guilty intimacy with an officer of her household. A violent quarrel took place in the royal presence. The husband kicked his wife with his heavy boot, and the king lifted his cane to strike the duke.

A sort of reconciliation was effected. The duchess, who, beyond all doubt, was a guilty woman, professed to be satisfied with the apologies which her husband made. Soon after they went on a wolf-hunt in the forest of Marly. Both appeared in high spirits. The run was long. Heated by the race and thirsty, the duke asked the duchess if she had any thing with her with which he could quench his thirst. She drew from the pocket of her carriage a small bottle, which contained, she said, an exquisite cordial with which she was always provided in case of over-fatigue. The duke drained it, and returned the empty bottle to the duchess. As she took it she said, with a smile, "I am very glad to have met you so opportunely."

Thus they parted. In a few hours the duke was a corpse. It was so manifestly for the interest of the dissolute and unprincipled Duke of Orleans that the princes which stood between him and the throne should be removed, that all these cases of poisoning were attributed to him. Indeed, one of the motives which might have influenced his daughter, the Duchess de Berri, to poison her husband, whom she loathed, may have been the hope of seeing her father upon the throne. When the funeral procession passed near the Palais Royal, the residence of the duke, the tumult was so great that it was feared that the palace might be sacked.

The anguish of the duke, thus clamorously assailed with the crime of the most atrocious series of assassinations, was great. A friend, the Marquis de Canillac, calling upon him one day, found him prostrate upon the floor of his apartment in utter despair. He knew that he was suspected by his uncle the king, and by the court as well as by the populace. At last he went boldly to the king, and demanded that he should be arrested, sent to the Bastile, and put upon trial. The king sternly, and without any manifestation of sympathy, refused, saying that such a scandal should not, with his consent, be made any more public than it already was. The king also recoiled from the idea of having a prince of the blood royal tried for murder.

As it was known that the king could not live long, and a babe of but two years was to be his successor—a feeble babe, who had already narrowly escaped death by poison, the question of the regency, during the minority of this babe, and of heirship to the throne in case the babe should die, became a matter of vast moment. The court was filled with intrigues and plots. The Duke of Orleans had his numerous partisans, men of opulence and rank. He was but a nephew of the king—son of the king's brother.

On the other hand was the Duke du Maine, an acknowledged son of the king—the legitimated son of Madame de Montespan. But no royal decree, no act of Parliament could obliterate the stain of his birth. He had many and powerful supporters, who, by his accession to power, would be placed in all the offices of honor and emolument. Madame de Maintenon, in herself a host, was one of the most devoted of his friends. She had been his tutor. She had ever loved him ardently. He had also pledged her, in case of his success, that she should be recognized as Queen of France.

The monarch was harassed and bewildered by these contending factions. The populace took sides. The Duke of Orleans could not leave his palace without being exposed to the hootings of the rabble. He withdrew from his city residence, the Palais Royal, to the splendid palace of St. Cloud. He was accompanied by a magnificent train of nobles, and, being a man of almost boundless wealth, he established his court here in regal splendor.

There was no proof that the Duke of Orleans was implicated in the poisonings. The king was unwilling to receive evidence that his brother's son could be guilty of such a crime. Being superstitiously a religionist, the king recoiled from the attempt to place upon the throne a son of Madame de Montespan, who was the acknowledged wife of another man. He therefore favored the claims of the Duke of Orleans, and sent him word at St. Cloud that he recognized his innocence of the crime of which public rumor accused him.

It is, however, very evident that this was a measure of policy and not of sincere conviction. He entered into no friendly relations with the duke, and kept him at a respectful distance. The disastrous war of the Spanish Succession was now closed, through the curious complications of state policy. Philip VI. retained his throne, but France was exhausted and impoverished. The king often sat for hours, with his head leaning upon his hand, in a state of profound listlessness and melancholy. Famine was ravaging the land. A wail of woe came from millions whom his wars and extravagance had reduced to starvation.

The Duchess de Berri, the unblushing profligate, the undoubted murderess, was, as the daughter of the king's brother, the only legitimate princess left to preside over the royal court. She was fascinating in person and manners, with scarcely a redeeming virtue to atone for her undisguised vices.

"Thus the stately court of Anne of Austria, the punctilious circle of Maria Theresa, and the elegant society of the Duchess of Burgoyne were—at the very period of his life when Louis XIV., at length disenchanted of the greatness, and disgusted with the vices of the world, was seeking to purify his heart and to exalt his thoughts that they might become more meet for heaven—superseded by the orgies of a wanton, who, with unabashed brow and unshrinking eye, carried her intrigues into the very saloons of Marly."[Y]

[Footnote Y: Louis XIV. and the Court of France, vol. ii., p. 588.]

Madame de Maintenon resorted to every measure she could devise to induce the king to appoint her favorite pupil, the Duke du Maine, regent during the minority of the infant Duke of Anjou. The king was greatly harassed. Old, infirm, world-weary, heart-stricken, and pulled in opposite directions, by powers so strong, he knew not what to do. At last he adopted a sort of compromise, which gave satisfaction to neither party.

The king appointed a council of regency, of which the Duke of Orleans was president. But the Duke du Maine was a member of the council, and was also intrusted with the guardianship and education of the young heir to the throne. This will was carefully concealed in a cavity opened in the wall of a tower of the state apartment. The iron door of this closet was protected by three keys, one of which was held by the president of the chambers, one by the attorney general, and one by the public registrar.

A royal edict forbade the closet to be opened until after the death of the king, and then only in the presence of the assembled Parliament, the princes, and the peers. The document had been extorted from the king. It was not in accordance with his wishes. Indeed, it satisfied no one. As he placed the papers in the hands of the president of the chambers, he said to him, gloomily,

"Here is my will. The experience of my predecessors has taught me that it may not be respected. But I have been tormented to frame it. I have been allowed neither peace nor rest until I complied. Take it away. Whatever may happen to it, I hope that I shall now be left in quiet."[Z]

[Footnote Z: Memoires de St. Simon.]

The advanced age of the king and his many infirmities rendered even a slight indisposition alarming. On the evening of the 3d of May, 1715, the king, having supped with the Duchess de Berri, retired to bed early, complaining of weariness and exhaustion. The rumor spread rapidly that the king was dangerously sick. The foreign embassadors promptly dispatched the news to their several courts.

The jealous king, who kept himself minutely informed of every thing which transpired, was very indignant in view of this apparent eagerness to hurry him to the tomb. To prove, not only to the court, but to all Europe, that he was still every inch a king, he ordered a magnificent review of the royal troops at Marly. The trumpet of preparation was blown loudly. Many came, not only from different parts of the kingdom, but from the other states of Europe, to witness the spectacle. It took place on the 20th of June, 1715. As the troops, in their gorgeous uniforms, defiled before the terrace of Marly, quite a spruce-looking man, surrounded by obsequious attendants, emerged from the principal entrance of the palace, descended the marble steps and mounted his horse. It was the poor old king. Inspired by vanity, which even dying convulsions could not quell, he had rouged his pale and haggard cheeks, wigged his thin locks, padded his skeleton limbs, and dressed himself in the almost juvenile costume of earlier years. Sustained by artificial stimulants, this poor old man kept his tottering seat upon his saddle for four long hours. He then, having proved that he was still young and vigorous, returned to his chamber. The wig was thrown aside, the pads removed, the paint washed off, and the infirm septuagenarian sought rest from his exhaustion upon the royal couch.

Day after day the king grew more feeble, with the usual alternations of nervous strength and debility, but with no abatement of his chronic gloom. The struggles which he endured to conceal the approaches of decay did but accelerate that decay. He was restless, and again lethargic. Dropsical symptoms appeared in his discolored feet and swollen ankles. Still he insisted every day upon seeing his ministers, and exhibited himself padded, and rouged, and costumed in the highest style of art. He even affected, in his gait and gesture, the elasticity of youth. In his restlessness, the king repaired, with his court, from Marly to Versailles.

Here the king was again taken seriously sick with an attack of fever. With unabated resolution, he continued his struggles against the approaches of the angel of death. While the fevered blood was throbbing in his veins, he declared that he was but slightly indisposed, and summoned a musical band to his presence, with orders that the musicians should perform only the most animating and cheerful melodies.

But the fever and other alarming symptoms increased so rapidly that scarcely had the band been assembled when the court physicians became apprehensive that the king's dissolution was immediately to take place. The king's confessor and the Cardinal de Rohan were promptly summoned to attend to the last services of the Catholic Church for the dying. There was a scene of confusion in the palace. The confessor, Le Tellier, communicated to the king the intelligence that he was probably near his end. While he was receiving the confession of the royal penitent, the cardinal was hurrying to the chapel to get the viaticum for administering the communion, and the holy oil for the rite of extreme unction.

It was customary that the pyx, as the box was called in which the host was kept, should be conveyed to the bedside of expiring royalty in formal procession. The cardinal, in his robes of office, led the way. Several attendants of the royal household followed, bearing torches. Then came Madame de Maintenon. They all gathered in the magnificent chamber, and around the massive, sumptuous couch of the monarch. The cardinal, after speaking a few words in reference to the solemnity of a dying hour, administered the sacrament and the holy oils. The king listened reverently and in silence, and then sank back upon his pillow, apparently resigned to die.

To the surprise of all, he revived. Patiently he bore his sufferings, which at times were severe. His legs began to swell badly and painfully. Mortification took place. He was informed that the amputation of the leg was necessary to save him from speedy death.

"Will the operation prolong my life?" inquired the king.

"Yes, sire," the surgeon replied; "certainly for some days, perhaps for several weeks."

"If that be all," said the king, "it is not worth the suffering. God's will be done."

The king could not conceal the anguish with which he was agitated in view of his wicked life. He fully believed in the religion of the New Testament, and that after death came the judgment. He tried to believe that the priest had power to grant him absolution from his sins. How far he succeeded in this no one can know.

Openly he expressed his anguish in view of the profligacy of his youth, and wept bitterly in the retrospect of those excesses. We know not what compunctions of conscience visited him as he reflected upon the misery he had caused by the persecution of the Protestants. But he had been urged to this by his highest ecclesiastics, and even by the holy father himself.

It would not be strange, under these circumstances, if a man of his superstitious and fanatical spirit should, even in a dying hour, reflect with some complacency upon these crimes, believing that thus he had been doing God service. It is this which gives to papal fanaticism its terrible and demoniac energy. The sincere papist believes "heresy" to be poison for the soul infinitely more dreadful than any poison for the body. Such poison must be banished from the world at whatever cost of suffering. Many an ecclesiastic has gone from his closet of prayer to kindle the flames which consumed his victim. The more sincere the papist is in his belief, the more mercilessly will he swing the scourge and fire the fagot.

Loudly, however, he deplored the madness of his ambition which had involved Europe in such desolating wars. Bitterly he expressed his regret that he left France in a state of such exhaustion, impoverished, burdened with taxation, and hopelessly crushed by debt.

The condition of the realm was indeed deplorable. A boy of five years of age was to inherit the throne. A man so profligate that he was infamous even in a court which rivaled Sodom in its corruption was to be invested with the regency of the kingdom—a man who was accused, by the general voice of the nation, of having poisoned those who stood between him and the throne. That man's sister, an unblushing wanton, who had poisoned her own husband, presided over the festivities of the palace. The nobles, abandoned to sensual indulgence, were diligent and ingenious only in their endeavors to wrench money from the poor. The masses of the people were wretched beyond description, and almost beyond imagination in our land of liberty and competence. The execrations of the starving millions were rising in a long wail around the throne.

Thomas Jefferson, subsequently President of the United States, who, not many years after this, was the American embassador at Paris, wrote, in 1785, to Mrs. Trist, of Philadelphia,

"Of twenty millions of people supposed to be in France, I am of the opinion that there are nineteen millions more wretched, more accursed in every circumstance of human existence than the most conspicuously wretched individual of the whole United States."

Even the Duke of Orleans, the appointed regent, said, "If I were a subject I would certainly revolt. The people are good-natured fools to suffer so long."

These sufferings and these corruptions were the origin and cause of the French Revolution.[AA] Napoleon, the great advocate of the rights of the people in antagonism to this aristocratic privilege, said, at St. Helena,

[Footnote AA: Abbott's French Revolution, as viewed in the Light of Republican Institutions.]

"Our Revolution was a national convulsion as irresistible in its effects as an eruption of Vesuvius. When the mysterious fusion which takes place in the entrails of the earth is at such a crisis that an explosion follows, the eruption bursts forth. The unperceived workings of the discontent of the people follow exactly the same course. In France, the sufferings of the people, the moral combinations which produce a revolution, had arrived at maturity, and the explosion took place."[AB]

[Footnote AB: Napoleon at St. Helena, p. 374]

Such was the condition in which unhappy France was left by Louis XIV., after a reign of seventy years. He was now seventy-seven years of age. Madame de Maintenon, two years his senior, was entering her eightieth year. With unwearied devotion she watched at the bedside of that selfish husband whose pride would never allow him to acknowledge her publicly as his wife.

Feeling that his end was drawing near, the king summoned the Duke of Orleans to his bedside, and informed him minutely of the measures he wished to have adopted after his death. The duke listened respectfully, but paid no more regard to the wishes of the now powerless and dying king than to the wailing of the wind. The king had penetration enough to see that his day was over. He sank back upon his pillow in despair.

On the 26th of August several prominent members of his court were invited to the dying chamber of the king. His voice was almost gone. He beckoned them to gather near around his bed. Then, in feeble tones, tremulous with emotion, the pitiable old man, conscious of his summons to the tribunal of God, said,

"Gentlemen, I ask your pardon for the bad example I have set you. I thank you for your fidelity to me, and beg you to be equally faithful to my grandson. Farewell, gentlemen. Forgive me. I hope you will sometimes think of me when I am gone."

"By many a death-bed I have been, By many a sinner's parting scene, But never aught like this."

It was, indeed, a spectacle mournfully sublime. The dying chamber was one of the most magnificent apartments in the palace of Versailles. The royal couch, massive in its architecture, richly curtained in its embroidered upholstery of satin and gold, presented a bed whose pillowed luxury exhibited haggard death in the strongest possible contrast.

Upon this gorgeous bed the gray-haired king reclined, wrinkled and wan, and with a countenance which bore the traces both of physical suffering and of keen remorse. The velvet hangings of the bed were looped back with heavy tassels of gold. A group of nobles in gorgeous court costumes were kneeling around the bed. Dispersed over the vast apartment were other groups of courtiers and ladies, in picturesque attitudes of real or affected grief. The gilded cornices, the richly-painted ceilings, the soft carpet, yielding to the pressure of the foot, the lavish display of the most costly and luxurious furniture, all conspired to render the dimmed eye, and wasted cheek, and palsied frame of the dying more impressive.

At a gesture from the king nearly all retired. For a few moments there was unbroken silence. The king then requested his great grandchild, who was to be his successor, to be brought to him. A cushion was placed by the side of the bed, and the half-frightened child, clinging to the hand of his governess, kneeled upon it. Louis XIV. gazed for a few moments with almost pitying tenderness upon the infant prince, and then said,

"My child, you are about to become a great king. Do not imitate me either in my taste for building or in my love of war. Live in peace with the nations. Render to God all that you owe him. Teach your subjects to honor His name. Strive to relieve the burdens of your people, in which I have been so unfortunate as to fail. Never forget the gratitude you owe to the Duchess de Ventadour."[AC]

[Footnote AC: The Duchess de Ventadour, by the most careful nursing, to which she entirely devoted herself, had rescued the infant Duke of Anjou from the effect of the poison to which his father, mother, and brother had fallen victims.]

"Madame," said the king, addressing Madame de Ventadour, "permit me to embrace the prince."

The dauphin was placed upon the bed. The king encircled him in his arms, pressed him fondly to his breast, and said, in a voice broken by emotion,

"I bless you, my dear child, with all my heart." He then raised his eyes to heaven, and uttered a short prayer for God's blessing upon the boy.

The next day, after another night of languor and suffering, the restless, conscience-stricken king again summoned the dignitaries of the court to his bedside, and said to them, in the presence of Madame de Maintenon and of his confessor, who had mainly instigated him in the persecution of the Protestants,

"Gentlemen, I die in the faith and obedience of the Church. I know nothing of the dogmas by which it is divided. I have followed the advice which I have received, and have done only what I was desired to do. If I have erred, my guides alone must answer before God, whom I call upon to witness this assertion."

The succeeding night the king was restless and greatly agitated. He could not sleep, and seemed to pass the whole night in agonizing prayer. In the morning he said to Madame de Maintenon,

"At this moment I only regret yourself. I have not made you happy. But I have ever felt for you all the regard and affection which you deserved. My only consolation in leaving you exists in the hope that we shall, ere long, meet again in eternity."

Hours of agony, bodily and mental, were still allotted to the king. His limbs were badly swollen. Upon one of them mortification was rapidly advancing. He was often delirious, with but brief intervals of consciousness. The service for the dying was performed. The ceremony seemed slightly to arouse him from his lethargy. His voice was heard occasionally blending with the prayers of the ecclesiastics as he repeated several times,

"Now, in the hour of death, O my God, come to my aid."

These were his last words. He sank back insensible upon his pillow. A few hours of painful breathing passed away, and at eight o'clock in the morning of the 1st of September, 1715, he expired, in the seventy-seventh year of his age and the seventy-second of his reign. It was the longest reign in the annals of France. Had he been governed through this period by enlightened Christian principle, how many millions might have been made happy whom his crimes doomed to life-long woe!

An immense concourse was assembled in the court-yard at Versailles, anticipating the announcement of his death. The moment he breathed his last sigh, the captain of the body-guard approached the great balcony, threw open the massive windows, and, looking down upon the multitude below, raised his truncheon above his head, broke it in the centre, threw the fragments down into the court-yard, and cried sadly, "The king is dead!"

Then, instantly seizing another staff from the hands of an attendant, he waved it joyfully above his head, and shouted triumphantly, "Long live the king, Louis XV.!" A huzza burst from the lips of the assembled thousands almost loud enough to pierce the ear of the king, now palsied in death.



There were few to mourn the departed monarch. As his remains were hurried to the vaults of St. Denis, those vaults which he had so much dreaded, the populace shouted execrations and pelted his coffin with mud. Not the slightest regard was paid to his will. The Duke of Orleans assumed the regency with absolute power. His reign was execrable, followed by the still more infamous reign of Louis XV. Then came the Revolution, as the sceptre of utterly despotic sway passed into the hands of the feeble Louis XVI. The storm, which had been gathering for ages, burst with fury which appalled the world. A more tremendous event has not occurred in the history of our race. The story has too often been told by those who were in sympathy with the kings and the nobles. The time will come when the people's side of the story will be received, and the terrible drama will be better understood.

THE END.



TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

1. Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors, and to ensure consistent spelling and punctuation in this etext; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the original book.

2. The chapter summaries in this text were originally published as banners in the page headers, and have been moved to beginning of the chapter for the reader's convenience.

3. Typesetting for italics was very inconsistent in this book; no attempt has been made to regularize the use of italics.

THE END