meddle too little with business," Fenelon wrote to her in 1694; "your
mind is better calculated for it than you suppose.  You ought to direct
your whole endeavors to giving the king views tending to peace, and
especially to the relief of the people, to moderation, to equity, to
mistrust of harsh and violent measures, to horror for acts of arbitrary
authority, and finally to love of the Church, and to assiduity in seeking
good pastors for it."  Neither Fenelon nor Madame de Maintenon had seen
in the revocation of the edict of Nantes "an act of arbitrary authority,
or a harsh and violent measure."  She was not inclined towards
persecution, but she feared lest her moderation should be imputed to a
remnant of prejudice in favor of her former religion, "and this it is,"
she would say, "which makes me approve of things quite opposed to my
sentiments."  An egotistical and cowardly prudence, which caused people
to attribute to Madame de Maintenon, in the severities against the
Huguenots, a share which she had not voluntarily or entirely assumed.

Whatever the apparent reserve and modesty with which it was cloaked, the
real power of Madame de Maintenon over the king's mind peeped out more
and more into broad daylight.  She promoted it dexterously by her extreme
anxiety to please him, as well as by her natural and sincere attachment
to the children whom she had brought up, and who had a place near the
heart of Louis XIV.  Already the young Duke of Maine had been sent to the
army at the dauphin's side; the king was about to have him married
[August 29, 1692] to Mdlle. de Charolais; carefully seeking for his
natural children alliances amongst the princes of his blood, he had
recently given Mdlle. de Nantes, daughter of Madame de Montespan, to the
duke, grandson of the great Conde.  "For a long time past," says St.
Simon, "Madame de Maintenon, even more than the king, had been thinking
of marrying Mdlle. de Blois, Madame de Montespan's second daughter, to
the Duke of Chartres; he was the king's own and only nephew, and the
first moves towards this marriage were the more difficult in that
Monsieur was immensely attached to all that appertained to his greatness,
and Madame was of a nation which abhorred misalliances, and of a
character which gave no promise of ever making this marriage agreeable to
her."  The king considered himself sure of his brother; he had set his
favorites to work, and employed underhand intrigues.  "He sent for the
young Duke of Chartres, paid him attention, told him he wanted to have
him settled in life, that the war which was kindled on all sides put out
of his reach the princesses who might have suited him, that there were no
princesses of the blood of his own age, that he could not better testify
his affection towards him than by offering him his daughter whose two
sisters had married princes of the blood; but that, however eager he
might be for this marriage, he did not want to put any constraint upon
him, and would leave him full liberty in the matter.  This language,
addressed with the awful majesty so natural to the king to a prince who
was timid, and had not a word to say for himself, put him at his wits'
end."  He fell back upon the wishes of his father and mother.  "That is
very proper in you," replied the king; "but, as you consent, your father
and mother will make no objection;" and, turning to Monsieur, who was
present, "Is it not so, brother?" he asked.  Monsieur had promised; a
messenger was sent for Madame, who cast two furious glances at her
husband and her son, saying that, as they were quite willing, she had
nothing to say, made a curt obeisance, and went her way home.  Thither
the court thronged next day; the marriage was announced.  "Madame was
walking in the gallery with her favorite, Mdlle. de Chateau-Thiers,
taking long steps, handkerchief in hand, weeping unrestrainedly, speaking
somewhat loud,, gesticulating and making a good picture of Ceres after
the rape of her daughter Proserpine, seeking her in a frenzy, and
demanding her back from Jupiter.  Everybody saluted, and stood aside out
of respect.  Monsieur had taken refuge in lansquenet; never was anything
so shamefaced as his look or so disconcerted as his whole appearance, and
this first condition lasted more than a month with him.  The Duke of
Chartres came into the gallery, going up to his mother, as he did every
day, to kiss her hand.  At that moment, Madame gave him a box of the ear
so loud that it was heard some paces off, and given as it was before the
whole court, covered the poor prince with confusion, and overwhelmed the
countless spectators with prodigious astonishment."  That did not prevent
or hamper the marriage, which took place with great pomp at Versailles on
the 18th of February, 1692.  The king was, and continued to the last, the
absolute and dread master of all his family, to its remotest branches.

He lost through this obedience a great deal that is charming and sweet
in daily intercourse.  For him and for Madame de Maintenon the great and
inexhaustible attraction of the Duchess of Burgundy was her gayety and
unconstrained ease, tempered by the most delicate respect, which this
young princess, on coming as quite a child to France from the court of
Savoy, had tact enough to introduce, and always maintain, amidst the most
intimate familiarity.  "In public, demure, respectful with the king, and
on terms of timid propriety with Madame de Maintenon, whom she never
called anything but aunt, thus prettily blending rank and affection.
In private, chattering, frisking, fluttering around them, at one time
perched on the arm of one or the other's chair, at another playfully
sitting on their knee, she would throw herself upon their necks, embrace
them, kiss them, fondle them, pull them to pieces, chuck them under the
chin, tease them, rummage their tables, their papers, their letters,
reading them sometimes against their will, according as she saw that they
were in the humor to laugh at it, and occasionally speaking thereon.
Admitted to everything, even at the reception of couriers bringing the
most important news, going into the king at any hour, even at the time
the council was sitting, useful and also fatal to ministers themselves,
but always inclined to help, to excuse, to benefit, unless she were
violently set against anybody.  The king could not do without her; when,
rarely, she was absent from his supper in public, it was plainly shown by
a cloud of more than usual gravity and taciturnity over the king's whole
person; and so, when it happened that some ball in winter or some party
in summer made her break into the night, she arranged matters so well
that she was there to kiss the king the moment he was awake, and to amuse
him with an account of the affair."  [Memoires de St. Simon, t. x.
p. 186.]

[Illustration: Madame de Maintenon and the Duchess of Burgundy.----27]

The dauphiness had died in 1690; the Duchess of Burgundy was, therefore,
almost from childhood queen of the court, and before long the idol of the
courtiers; it was around her that pleasures sprang up; it was for her
that the king gave the entertainments to which he had habituated
Versailles, not that for her sake or to take care of her health he would
ever consent to modify his habits or make the least change in his plans.
"Thank God, it is over!"  he exclaimed one day, after an accident to the
princess; "I shall no longer be thwarted in my trips, and in all I desire
to do, by the representations of physicians.  I shall come and go as I
fancy; and I shall be left in peace."  Even in his court, and amongst his
most devoted servants, this monstrous egotism astounded and scandalized
everybody.  "A silence in which you might have heard an ant move
succeeded this sally," says St. Simon, who relates the scene; "we looked
down; we hardly dared draw breath.  Everybody stood aghast.  To the very
builders-men and gardeners everybody was motionless.  This silence lasted
more than a quarter of an hour.  The king broke it, as he leaned against
a balustrade of the great basin, to speak about a carp.  Nobody made any
answer.  He afterwards addressed his remarks about these carp to some
builder's-men who did not keep up the conversation in the regular way; it
was but a question of carp with them.  Everything was at a low ebb, and
the king went away some little time after.  As soon as we dared look at
one another out of his sight, our eyes meeting told all."  There was no
venturing beyond looks.  Fenelon had said, with severe charity, "God will
have compassion upon a prince beset from his youth up by flatterers."

Flattery ran a risk of becoming hypocrisy.  On returning to a regular
life, the king was for imposing the same upon his whole court; the
instinct of order and regularity, smothered for a while in the heyday of
passion, had resumed all its sway over the naturally proper and steady
mind of Louis XIV.  His dignity and his authority were equally involved
in the cause of propriety and regularity at his court; he imposed this
yoke as well as all the others; there appeared to be entire obedience;
only some princes or princesses escaped it sometimes, getting about them
a few free-thinkers or boon-companions; good, honest folks showed
ingenuous joy; the virtuous and far-sighted were secretly uneasy at the
falsehood, and deplored the pressure put on so many consciences and so
many lives.  The king was sincere in his repentance for the past, many
persons in his court were as sincere as he; others, who were not,
affected, in order to please him, the externals of austerity; absolute
power oppressed all spirits, extorting from them that hypocritical
complaisance which is liable to engender; corruption was already brooding
beneath appearances of piety; the reign of Louis XV. was to see its
deplorable fruits displayed with a haste and a scandal which are to be
explained only by the oppression exercised in the last years of King
Louis XIV.

Madame de Maintenon was like the genius of this reaction towards
regularity, propriety, order; all the responsibility for it had been
thrown upon her; the good she did has disappeared beneath the evil she
allowed or encouraged; the regard lavished upon her by the king has
caused illusions as to the discreet care she was continually taking to
please him.  She was faithful to her friends, so long as they were in
favor with the king; if they had the misfortune to displease him, she,
at the very least, gave up seeing them; without courage or hardihood to
withstand the caprices and wishes of Louis XIV., she had gained and
preserved her empire by dint of dexterity and far-sighted suppleness
beneath the externals of dignity.

She never forgot her origin.  "I am not a grandee," she would say;
"I am a mushroom."  Her life, entirely devoted to the king, had become a
veritable slavery; she said as much to Mdlle. d'Aumale at St. Cyr.  "I
have to take for my prayers and for mass the time when everybody else is
still sleeping.  For, when once they begin coming into my room, at half
past seven, I haven't another moment to myself.  They come filing in, and
nobody goes out without being relieved by somebody higher.  At last comes
the king; then, of course, they all have to go out; he remains with me up
to mass.  I am, still in my night-cap.  The king comes back after mass;
then the Duchess of Burgundy with her ladies.  They remain whilst I dine.
I have to keep up the conversation, which flags every moment, and to
manage so as to harmonize minds and reconcile hearts which are as far as
possible asunder.  The circle is all round me, and I cannot ask for
anything to drink; I sometimes say to them (aside), 'It is a great honor,
but really I should prefer a footman.'  At last they all go away to
dinner.  I should be free during that time, if Monseigneur did not
generally choose it for coming to see me, for he often dines earlier in
order to go hunting.  He is very difficult to entertain, having very
little to say, and finding himself a bore, and running away from himself
continually; so I have to talk for two.  Immediately after the king has
dined, he comes into my room with all the royal family, princes and
princesses; then I must be prepared for the gayest of conversation, and
wear a smiling face amidst so much distressing news.  When this company
disperses, some lady has always something particular to say to me; the
Duchess of Burgundy also wants to have a chat.  The king returns from
hunting.  He comes to me.  The door is shut, and nobody else is admitted.
Then I have to share his secret troubles, which are no small number.
Arrives a minister; and the king sets himself to work.  If I am not
wanted at this consultation, which seldom happens, I withdraw to some
farther distance and write or pray.  I sup, whilst the king is still at
work.  I am restless, whether he is alone or not.  The king says to me,
'You are tired, Madame; go to bed.'  My women come.  But I feel that they
interfere with the king, who would chat with me, and does not like to
chat before them; or, perhaps, there are some ministers still there, whom
he is afraid they may overhear.  Wherefore I make haste to undress, so
much so that I often feel quite ill from it.  At last I am in bed.  The
king comes up and remains by my pillow until he goes to supper.  But a
quarter of an hour before supper, the dauphin and the Duke and Duchess of
Burgundy come in to me again.  At ten, everybody goes out.  At last I am
alone, but very often the fatigues of the day prevent me from sleeping."

She was at that time seventy.  She was often ailing; but the Duchess of
Burgundy was still very young, and the burden of the most private matters
of court diplomacy fell entirely upon Madame de Maintenon.  "The Princess
des Ursins is about to return to Spain," she said; "if I do not take her
in hand, if I do not repair by my attentions the coldness of the Duchess
of Burgundy, the indifference of the king and the curtness of the other
princes, she will go away displeased with our court, and it is expedient
that she should praise it, and speak well of it in Spain."

It was, in fact, through Madame de Maintenon and her correspondence with
the Princess des Ursins, that the private business between the two courts
of France and Spain was often carried on.  At Madrid, far more than at
Versailles, the influence of women was all-powerful.  The queen ruled her
husband, who was honest and courageous, but without wit or daring; and
the Princess des Ursins ruled the queen, as intelligent and as amiable as
her sister the Duchess of Burgundy, but more ambitious and more haughty.
Louis XIV. had several times conceived some misgiving of the _camarera
major's_ influence over his grandson; she had been disgraced, and then
recalled; she had finally established her sway by her fidelity, ability,
dexterity, and indomitable courage.  She served France habitually, Spain
and her own influence in Spain always; she had been charming, with an air
of nobility, grace, elegance, and majesty all together, and accustomed to
the highest society and the most delicate intrigues, during her sojourn
at Rome and Madrid; she was full of foresight and calculation, but
impassioned, ambitious, implacable, pushing to extremes her amity as well
as her hatred, faithful to her master and mistress in their most cruel
trials, and then hampering and retarding peace for the sake of securing
for herself a principality in the Low Countries.  Without having risen
from the ranks, like Madame de Maintenon, she had reached a less high and
less safe elevation; she had been more absolutely and more daringly
supreme during the time of her power, and at last she fell with the
rudest shock, without any support from Madame de Maintenon.  The
pretensions of Madame des Ursins during the negotiations had offended
France; "this was the stone of stumbling between the two supreme
directresses," says St. Simon; after this attempt at sovereignty, there
was no longer the same accord between Madame de Maintenon and Madame des
Ursins, but this latter had reached in Spain a point at which she more
easily supposed that she could dispense with it.  The Queen of Spain had
died at the age of twenty-six, in 1714; did the princess for a moment
conceive the hope of marrying Philip V. in spite of the disproportion in
rank and age?  Nobody knows; she had already been reigning as sovereign
mistress for some months, when she received from the king this stunning
command: "Look me out a wife."  She obeyed; she looked out.  Alberoni, an
Italian priest, brought into Spain by the Duke of Vendome, drew her
attention to the Princess of Parma, Elizabeth Farnese.  The principality
was small, the princess young; Alberoni laid stress upon her sweetness
and modesty.  "Nothing will be more easy," he said, "than for you to
fashion her to Spanish gravity, by keeping her retired; in the capacity
of her _camarera major,_ intrusted with her education, you will easily be
able to acquire complete sway over her mind."  The Princess des Ursins
believed him, and settled the marriage.  "Cardonne has surrendered at
last, Madame," she wrote on the 20th of September, 1714, to Madame de
Maintenon; "there is nothing left in Catalonia that is not reduced.  The
new queen, at her coming into this kingdom, is very fortunate to find no
more war there.  She whom we have lost would have been beside herself
with delight at enjoying peace after having experienced such cruel
sufferings of all kinds.  The longer I live, the more I see that we are
never so near a reverse of Fortune as when she is favorable, or so near
receiving favors as when she is maltreating us.  For that reason, Madame,
if one were wise, one would take her inconstancy graciously."

The time had come for Madame des Ursins to make definitive trial of
Fortune's inconstancy.  She had gone to meet the new queen, in full dress
and with her ornaments; Elizabeth received her coldly; they were left
alone; the queen reproached the princess with negligence in her costume
Madame des Ursins, strangely surprised, would have apologized, "but, all
at once there was the queen at offensive words, and screaming, summoning,
demanding officers, guards, and imperiously ordering Madame des Ursins
out of her presence.  She would have spoken; but the queen, with
redoubled rage and threats, began to scream out for the removal of this
mad woman from her presence and her apartments; she had her put out by
the shoulders, and on the instant into a carriage with one of her women,
to be taken at once to St. Jean-de-Luz.  It was seven o'clock at night,
the day but one before Christmas, the ground all covered with ice and
snow; Madame des Ursins had no time to change gown or head-dress, to take
any measures against the cold, to get any money, or any anything else at
all."  Thus she was conducted almost without a mouthful of food to the
frontier of France.  She hoped for aid from the king of Spain; but none
came; it got known that the queen had been abetted in everything and
beforehand by Philip V.  On arriving at St. Jean-de-Luz, she wrote to the
king and to Madame de Maintenon: "Can you possibly conceive, Madame, the
situation in which I find myself?  Treated in the face of all Europe,
with more contempt by the Queen of Spain than if I were the lowest of
wretches?  They want to persuade me that the king acted in concert with a
princess who had me treated with such cruelty.  I shall await his orders
at St. Jean-de-Luz, where I am in a small house close by the sea.  I see
it often stormy and sometimes calm; a picture of courts.  I shall have no
difficulty in agreeing with you that it is of no use looking for
stability but in God.  Certainly it cannot be found in the human heart,
for who was ever more sure than I was of the heart of the King of Spain?"

The king did not reply at all, and Madame de Maintenon but coldly,
begging the princess, however, to go to Versailles.  There she passed but
a short time, and received notice to leave the kingdom.  With great
difficulty she obtained an asylum at Rome, where she lived seven years
longer, preserving all her health, strength, mind, and easy grace until
she died, in 1722, at more than eighty-four years of age, in obscurity
and sadness, notwithstanding her opulence, but avenged of her Spanish
foes, Cardinals della Giudice and Alberoni, whom she met again at Rome,
disgraced and fugitive like herself.  "I do not know where I may die,"
she wrote to Madame de Maintenon, at that time in retirement at St. Cyr.
Both had survived their power; the Princess des Ursins had not long since
wanted to secure for herself a dominion; Madame de Maintenon, more
far-sighted and more modest, had aspired to no more than repose in the
convent which she had founded and endowed.  Discreet in her retirement as
well as in her life, she had not left to chance the selection of a place
where she might die.

[Illustration: Death of Madame de Maintenon.----34]




CHAPTER L----LOUIS XIV.  AND DEATH.  1711-1715.

"One has no more luck at our age," Louis XIV. had said to his old friend
Marshal Villars, returning from his most disastrous campaign.  It was a
bitter reflection upon  himself which had put these words into the king's
mouth.  After the most brilliant, the most continually and invariably
triumphant of reigns, he began to see Fortune slipping away  from him,
and the grievous consequences of his errors successively overwhelming the
state.  "God is punishing me; I have richly deserved it," he said to
Marshal Villars, who was  on the point of setting out for the battle of
Denain.  The  aged king, dispirited and beaten, could not set down to men
his misfortunes and his reverses; the hand of God Himself was raised
against his house.  Death was knocking double knocks all round him.  The
grand-dauphin had for some days past been ill of small-pox.  The king had
gone to be with him at Meudon, forbidding the court to come near the
castle.  The small court of Monseigneur were huddled together in the
lofts.  The king was amused with delusive hopes; his chief physician,
Fagon, would answer for the invalid.  The  king continued to hold his
councils as usual, and the deputation of market-women (_dames de la
Halle_), come from Paris  to have news of Monseigneur, went away,
declaring that they would go and sing a Te Deum, as he was nearly well.
"It is not time yet, my good women," said Monseigneur, who had given them
a reception.  That very evening he was dead,  without there having been
time to send for his confessor in ordinary.  "The parish priest of
Meudon, who used to look in every evening before he went home, had found
all the doors open, the valets distracted, Fagon heaping remedy upon
remedy without waiting for them to take effect.  He entered the room, and
hurrying to Monseigneur's bedside, took his hand and spoke to him of God.
The poor prince was fully conscious, but almost speechless.  He repeated
distinctly a few words, others inarticulately, smote his breast, pressed
the priest's hand, appeared to have the most excellent sentiments, and
received absolution with an air of contrition and wistfulness."
[Memoires de St. Simon, ix.]  Meanwhile word had been sent to the king,
who arrived quite distracted.  The Princess of Conti, his daughter, who
was deeply attached to Monseigneur, repulsed him gently: "You must think
only of yourself now, Sir," she said.  The king let himself sink down
upon a sofa, asking news of all that came out of the room, without any
one's daring to give him an answer.  Madame de Maintenon, who had hurried
to the king, and was agitated without being affected, tried to get him
away; she did not succeed, however, until Monseigneur had breathed his
last.  He passed along to his carriage between two rows of officers and
valets, all kneeling, and conjuring him to have pity upon them who had
lost all and were like to starve.

[Illustration: The King leaving the Death-bed of Monseigneur----36]

The excitement and confusion at Versailles were tremendous.  From the
moment that small-pox was declared, the princes had not been admitted to
Meudon.  The Duchess of Burgundy alone had occasionally seen the king.
All were living in confident expectation of a speedy convalescence; the
news of the death came upon them like a thunderclap.  All the courtiers
thronged together at once, the women half dressed, the men anxious and
concerned, some to conceal their extreme sorrow, others their joy,
according as they were mixed up in the different cabals of the court.
"It was all, however, nothing but a transparent veil," says St.  Simon,
"which did not prevent good eyes from observing and discerning all the
features.  The two princes and the two princesses, seated beside them,
taking care of them, were most exposed to view.  The Duke of Burgundy
wept, from feeling and in good faith, with an air of gentleness, tears of
nature, of piety, and of patience.  The Duke of Berry, in quite as good
faith, shed abundance, but tears, so to speak, of blood, so great
appeared to be their bitterness; he gave forth not sobs, but shrieks,
howls.  The Duchess of Berry (daughter of the Duke of Orleans) was beside
herself.  The bitterest despair was depicted on her face.  She saw her
sister-in-law, who was so hateful to her, all at once raised to that
title, that rank of dauphiness, which were about to place so great a
distance between them.  Her frenzy of grief was not from affection, but
from interest; she would wrench herself from it to sustain her husband,
to embrace him, to console him, then she would become absorbed in herself
again with a torrent of tears, which helped her to stifle her shrieks.
The Duke of Orleans wept in his own corner, actually sobbing, a thing
which, had I not seen it, I should never have believed," adds St.  Simon,
who detested Monseigneur, and had as great a dread of his reigning as the
Duke of Orleans had.  "Madame, re-dressed in full dress, in the middle of
the night, arrived regularly howling, not quite knowing why either one or
the other; inundating them all with her tears as she embraced them, and
making the castle resound with a renewal of shrieks, when the king's
carriages were announced, on his return to Marly."  The Duchess of
Burgundy was awaiting him on the road.  She stepped down and went to the
carriage window.  "What are you about, Madame?" exclaimed Madame de
Maintenon; "do not come near us, we are infectious."  The king did not
embrace her, and she went back to the palace, but only to be at Marly
next morning before the king was awake.

The king's tears were as short as they had been abundant.  He lost a son
who was fifty years old, the most submissive and most respectful creature
in the world, ever in awe of him and obedient to him, gentle and
good-natured, a proper man amid all his indolence and stupidity, brave
and even brilliant at head of an army.  In 1688, in front of Philipsburg,
the soldiers had given him the name of "Louis the Bold."  He was full of
spirits and always ready, "revelling in the trenches," says Vauban.  The
Duke of Montausier, his boyhood's strict governor, had written to him,
"Monseigneur, I do not make you my compliments on the capture of
Philipsburg; you had a fine army, shells, cannon, and Vauban.  I do not
make them to you either on your bravery; it is an hereditary virtue in
your house; but I congratulate you on being open-handed, humane,
generous, and appreciative of the services of those who do well; that is
what I make you my compliments upon."  "Did not I tell you so?" proudly
exclaimed the Chevalier de Grignan, formerly attached (as menin) to the
person of Monseigneur, on hearing his master's exploits lauded; "for my
part, I am not surprised."  Racine had exaggerated the virtues of
Monseigneur in the charming verses of the prologue of Esther:

"Thou givest him a son, an ever ready aid,
Apt or to woo or fight, obey or be obeyed;
A son who, like his sire, drags victory in his train,
Yet boasts but one desire, that father's heart to gain;
A son, who to his will submits with loving air,
Who brings upon his foes perpetual despair.
As the swift spirit flies, stern Equity's envoy,
So, when the king says, 'Go,' down rusheth he in joy,
With vengeful thunderbolt red ruin doth complete,
Then tranquilly returns to lay it at his feet."

In 1690 and in 1691 he had gained distinction as well as in 1688.  "The
dauphin has begun as others would think it an honor to leave off," the
Prince of Orange had said, "and, for my part, I should consider that I
had worthily capped anything great I may have done in war if, under
similar circumstances, I had made so fine a march."  Whether it were
owing to indolence or court cabal, Monseigneur had no more commands;
he had no taste for politics, and always sat in silence at the council,
to which the king had formally admitted him at thirty years of age,
"instructing him," says the Marquis of Sourches, "with so much vigor and
affection, that Monseigneur could not help falling at his feet to testify
his respect and gratitude."  Twice, at grave conjunctures, the
grand-dauphin allowed his voice to be heard; in 1685, to offer a timid
opposition to the Edict of Nantes, and, in 1700, to urge very vigorously
the acceptance of the King of Spain's will.  "I should be enchanted," he
cried, as if with a prophetic instinct of his own destiny, "to be able to
say all my life, 'The king my father, and the king my SON.'"  Heavy in
body as well as mind, living on terms of familiarity with a petty court,
probably married to Mdlle. Choin, who had been for a long time installed
in his establishment at Meudon, Monseigneur, often embarrassed and made
uncomfortable by the austere virtue of the Duke of Burgundy, and finding
more attraction in the Duke of Berry's frank geniality, had surrendered
himself, without intending it, to the plots which were woven about him.
"His eldest son behaved to him rather as a courtier than as a son,
gliding over the coldness shown him with a respect and a gentleness
which, together, would have won over any father less a victim to
intrigue.  The Duchess of Burgundy, in spite of her address and her
winning grace, shared her husband's disfavor."  The Duchess of Berry had
counted upon this to establish her sway in a reign which the king's great
age seemed to render imminent; already, it was said, the chief amusement
at Monseigneur's was to examine engravings of the coronation ceremony,
when death carried him off suddenly on the 14th of April, 1711, to the
consternation of the lower orders, who loved him because of his
reputation for geniality.  The severity of the new dauphin caused some
little dread.

"Here is a prince who will succeed me before long," said the king on
presenting his grandson to the assembly of the clergy; "by his virtue and
piety he will render the church still more flourishing, and the kingdom
more happy."  That was the hope of all good men.  Fenelon, in his exile
in Cambrai, and the Dukes of Beauvilliers and Chevreuse, at court, began
to feel themselves all at once transported to the heights with the prince
whom they had educated, and who had constantly remained faithful to them.
The delicate foresight and prudent sagacity of Fenelon had a long while
ago sought to prepare his pupil for the part which he was about to play.
It was piety alone that had been able to triumph over the dangerous
tendencies of a violent and impassioned temperament.  Fenelon, who had
felt this, saw also the danger of devoutness carried too far.  "Religion
does not consist in a scrupulous observance of petty formalities," he
wrote to the Duke of Burgundy; "it consists, for everybody, in the
virtues proper to one's condition.  A great prince ought not to serve
God in the same way as a hermit or a simple individual."

"The prince thinks too much and acts too little," he said to the Duke of
Chevreuse; "his most solid occupations are confined to vague applications
of his mind and barren resolutions; he must see society, study it, mix in
it, without becoming a slave to it, learn to express himself forcibly,
and acquire a gentle authority.  If he do not feel the need of possessing
firmness and nerve, he will not make any real progress; it is time for
him to be a man.  The life of the region in which he lives is a life of
effeminacy, indolence, timidity, and amusement.  He will never be so true
a servant to the king and to Monseigneur as when he makes them see that
they have in him a man matured, full of application, firm, impressed with
their true interests, and fitted to aid them by the wisdom of his
counsels and the vigor of his conduct.  Let him be more and more little
in the hands of God, but let him become great in the eyes of men; it is
his duty to make virtue, combined with authority, loved, feared, and
respected."

Court-perfidy dogged the Duke of Burgundy to the very head of the army
over which the king had set him; Fenelon, always correctly informed, had
often warned him of it.  The duke wrote to him, in 1708, on the occasion
of his dissensions with VendOme: "It is true that I have experienced a
trial within the last fortnight, and I am far from having taken it as I
ought, allowing myself to give way to an oppression of the heart caused
by the blackenings, the contradictions, and the pains of irresolution,
and the fear of doing something untoward in a matter of extreme
importance to the State.  As for what you say to me about my indecision,
it is true that I myself reproach myself for it, and I pray God every day
to give me, together with wisdom and prudence, strength and courage to
carry out what I believe to be my duty."  He had no more commands, in
spite of his entreaties to obtain, in 1709, permission to march against
the enemy.  "If money is short, I will go without any train," he said;
"I will live like a simple officer; I will eat, if need be, the bread of
a common soldier, and none will complain of lacking superfluities when I
have scarcely necessaries."  It was at the very time when the Archbishop
of Cambrai was urgent for peace to be made at any price.  "The people no
longer live like human beings," he said, in a memorial sent to the Duke
of Beauvilliers; "there is no counting any longer on their patience, they
are reduced to such outrageous trials.  As they have nothing more to
hope, they have nothing more to fear.  The king has no right to risk
France in order to save Spain; he received his kingdom from God, not that
he should expose it to invasion by the enemy, as if it were a thing with
which he can do anything he pleases, but that he should rule it as a
father, and transmit it as a precious heirloom to his posterity."  He
demanded at the same time the convocation of the assembly of notables.

It was this kingdom, harassed on all sides by its enemies, bleeding,
exhausted, but stronger, nevertheless, and more bravely faithful than was
made out by Fenelon, that the new dauphin found himself suddenly called
upon to govern by the death of Monseigneur, and by the unexpected
confidence testified in him before long by the king.  "The prince should
try more than ever to appear open, winning, accessible, and sociable,"
wrote Fenelon; "he must undeceive the public about the scruples imputed
to him; keep his strictness to himself, and not set the court
apprehending a severe reform of which society is not capable, and which
would have to be introduced imperceptibly, even if it were possible.  He
cannot be too careful to please the king, avoid giving him the slightest
umbrage, make him feel a dependence founded on confidence and affection,
relieve him in his work, and speak to him with a gentle and respectful
force which will grow by little and little.  He should say no more than
can be borne; it requires to have the heart prepared for the utterance
of painful truths which are not wont to be heard.  For the rest, no
puerilities or pettinesses in the practice of devotion; government is
learned better from studying men than from studying books."

The young dauphin was wise enough to profit by these sage and able
counsels.  "Seconded to his heart's content by his adroit young wife,
herself in complete possession of the king's private ear and of the heart
of Madame de Maintenon, he redoubled his attentions to the latter, who,
in her transport at finding a dauphin on whom she might rely securely
instead of one who did not like her, put herself in his hands, and, by
that very act, put the king in his hands.  The first fortnight made
perceptible to all at Marly this extraordinary change in the king, who
was so reserved towards his legitimate children, so very much the king
with them.  Breathing more freely after so great a step had been made,
the dauphin showed a bold front to society, which he dreaded during the
lifetime of Monseigneur, because, great as he was, he was often the
victim of its best received jests.  The king having come round to him;
the insolent cabal having been dispersed by the death of a father, almost
an enemy, whose place he took; society in a state of respect, attention,
alacrity; the most prominent personages with an air of slavishness; the
gay and frivolous, no insignificant portion of a large court, at his feet
through his wife,--it was observed that this timid, shy,
self-concentrated prince, this precise (piece of) virtue, this (bit of)
misplaced learning, this gawky man, a stranger in his own house,
constrained in everything,--it was observed, I say, that he was showing
himself by degrees, unfolding himself little by little, presenting
himself to society in moderation, and that he was unembarrassed,
majestic, gay, and agreeable in it.  A style of conversation, easy but
instructive, and happily and aptly directed, charmed the sensible
courtier and made the rest wonder.  There was all at once an opening of
eyes, and ears, and hearts.  There was a taste of the consolation, which
was so necessary and so longed for, of seeing one's future master so well
fitted to be from his capacity and from the use that he showed he could
make of it."

The king had ordered ministers to go and do their work at the prince's.
The latter conversed modestly and discreetly with the men he thought
capable of enlightening him; the Duke of St. Simon had this honor, which
he owed to the friendship of the Duke of Beauvilliers, and of which he
showed himself sensible in his Memoires.  Fenelon was still at Cambrai,
"which all at once turned out to be the only road from all the different
parts of Flanders.  The archbishop had such and so eager a court there,
that for all his delight he was pained by it, from apprehension of the
noise it would make, and the bad effect he feared it might have on the
king's mind."  He, however, kept writing to the dauphin, sending him
plans of government prepared long before; some wise, bold, liberal,
worthy of a mind that was broad and without prejudices; others chimerical
and impossible of application.  The prince examined them with care.
"He had comprehended what it is to leave God for God's sake, and had set
about applying himself almost entirely to things which might make him
acquainted with government, having a sort of foretaste already of
reigning, and being more and more the hope of the nation, which was at
last beginning to appreciate him."

God had in former times given France a St. Louis.  He did not deem her
worthy of possessing such an ornament a second time.  The comfort and
hope which were just appearing in the midst of so many troubles vanished
suddenly like lightning; the dauphiness fell ill on the 5th of February;
she had a burning fever, and suffered from violent pains in the head; it
was believed to be scarlet-fever (rougeole), with whispers, at the same
time, of ugly symptoms; the malady went on increasing; the dauphin was
attacked in his turn; sacraments were mentioned; the princess, taken by
surprise, hesitated without daring to speak.  Her Jesuit confessor,
Father La Rue, himself proposed to go and fetch another priest.  A
_Recollet_ (Raptionist) was brought; when he arrived she was dying.  A
few hours later she expired, at the age of twenty-six, on the 12th of
February, 1712.  "With her there was a total eclipse of joys, pleasures,
amusements even, and every sort of grace; darkness covered the whole face
of the court; she was the soul of it all, she filled it all, she pervaded
all the interior of it."  The king loved her as much as he was capable of
loving; she amused him and charmed him in the sombre moments of his life;
he, like the dauphin, had always been ignorant of the giddiness of which
she had been guilty; Madame de Maintenon, who knew of them, and who held
them as a rod over her, was only concerned to keep them secret; all the
court, with the exception of a few perfidious intriguers, made common
cause to serve her and please her.  "Regularly ugly, pendent cheeks,
forehead too prominent, a nose that said nothing; of eyes the most
speaking and most beautiful in the world; a carriage of the head gallant,
majestic, graceful, and a look the same; smile the most expressive, waist
long, rounded, slight, supple; the gait of a goddess on the clouds; her
youthful, vivacious, energetic gayety, carried all before it, and her
nymph-like agility wafted her everywhere, like a whirlwind that fills
many places at once, and gives to them movement and life.  If the court
existed after her it was but to languish away."  [Memoires de St. Simon,
xi.]  There was only one blow more fatal for death to deal; and there was
not long to wait for it.

"I have prayed, and I will pray," writes F6nelon.  "God knows whether the
prince is for one instant forgotten.  I fancy I see him in the state in
which St. Augustin depicts himself: 'My heart is obscured by grief.  All
that I see reflects for me but the image of death.  All that was sweet to
me, when I could share it with her whom I loved, becomes a torment to me
since I lost her.  My eyes seek for her everywhere and find her nowhere.
When she was alive, wherever I might be without her, everything said to
me, You are going to see her.  Nothing says so now.  I find no solace but
in my tears.  I cannot bear the weight of my wounded and bleeding heart,
and yet I know not where to rest it.  I am wretched; for so it is when
the heart is set on the love of things that pass away.'"  "The days of
this affliction were soon shortened," says St. Simon; "from the first
moment I saw him, I was scared at his fixed, haggard look, with a
something of ferocity, at the change in his countenance and the livid
marks I noticed upon it.  He was waiting at Marly for the king to awake;
they came to tell him he could go in; he turned without speaking a word,
without replying to his gentlemen (_menins_) who pressed him to go; I
went up to him, taking the liberty of giving him a gentle push; he gave
me a look, that pierced right to the heart, and went away.  I never
looked on him again.  Please God in His mercy I may look on him forever
there where his goodness, no doubt, has placed him!"

It was a desperate but a short struggle.  Disease and grief were
victorious over the most sublime courage.  "It was the spectacle of a man
beside himself, who was forcing himself to keep the surface smooth, and
who succumbed in the attempt."  The dauphin took to his bed on the 14th
of February; he believed himself to be poisoned, and said, from the
first, that he should never recover.  His piety alone, through the most
prodigious efforts, still kept up; he spoke no more, save to God,
continually lifting up his soul to him in fervent aspirations.  "What
tender, but tranquil views!  What lively motions towards thanksgiving for
being preserved from the sceptre and the account that must be rendered
thereof!  What submission, and how complete!  What ardent love of God!
What a magnificent idea of infinite mercy!  What pious and humble awe!
What invincible patience!  What sweetness!  What constant kindness
towards all that approached him!  What pure charity which urged him
forward to God!  France at length succumbed beneath this last
chastisement; God gave her a glimpse of a prince whom she did not
deserve.  Earth was not worthy of him; he was already ripe for a blessed
eternity!"

"For some time past I have feared that a fatality hung over the dauphin,"
Fenelon had written at the first news of his illness; "I have at the
bottom of my heart a lurking apprehension that God is not yet appeased
towards France.  For a long while He has been striking, as the prophet
says, and His anger is not yet worn out.  God has taken from us all our
hope for the Church and for the State."

Fenelon and his friends had expected too much and hoped for too much;
they relied upon the dauphin to accomplish a work above human strength;
he might have checked the evil, retarded for a while the march of events,
but France carried simultaneously in her womb germs of decay and hopes of
progress, both as yet concealed and confused, but too potent and too
intimately connected with the very sources of her history and her
existence for the hand of the most virtuous and most capable of princes
to have the power of plucking them out or keeping them down.

There was universal and sincere mourning in France and in Europe.  The
death of the little Duke of Brittany, which took place a few days after
that of his parents, completed the consternation into which the court was
thrown.  The most sinister rumors circulated darkly; a base intrigue
caused the Duke of Orleans to be accused; people called to mind his taste
for chemistry and even magic, his flagrant impiety, his scandalous
debauchery; beside himself with grief and anger, he demanded of the king
to be sent to the Bastille; the king refused curtly, coldly, not unmoved
in his secret heart by the perfidious insinuations which made their way
even to him, but too just and too sensible to entertain a hateful lie,
which, nevertheless, lay heavy on the Duke of Orleans to the end of his
days.

[Illustration: Louis XIV. in Old Age----47]

Darkly, but to more effect, the same rumors were renewed before long.
The Duke of Berry died at the age of twenty-seven on the 4th of May,
1714, of a disease which presented the same features as the scarlet fever
(_rougeole vourpree_) to which his brother and sister-in-law had
succumbed.  The king was old and sad; the state of his kingdom preyed
upon his mind; he was surrounded by influences hostile to his nephew,
whom he himself called "a vaunter of crimes."  A child who was not five
years old remained sole heir to the throne.  Madame de Maintenon, as sad
as the king, "naturally mistrustful, addicted to jealousies,
susceptibilities, suspicions, aversions, spites, and woman's wiles "
[_Lettres de Fenelon au duc de Chevreuse_], being, moreover, sincerely
attached to the king's natural children, was constantly active on their
behalf.  On the 19th of July, 1714, the king announced to the premier
president and the attorney-general of the Parliament of Paris that it was
his pleasure to grant to the Duke of Maine and to the Count of Toulouse,
for themselves and their descendants, the rank of princes of the blood,
in its full extent, and that he desired that the deeds should be
enregistered in the Parliament.  Soon after, still under the same
influence, he made a will which was kept a profound secret, and which
he sent to be deposited in the strong-room (_greffe_) of the Parliament,
committing the guardianship of the future king to the Duke of Maine, and
placing him, as well his brother, on the council of regency, with close
restrictions as to the Duke of Orleans, who would he naturally called to
the government of the kingdom during the minority.  The will was darkly
talked about; the effect of the elevation of bastards to the rank of
princes of the blood had been terrible.  "There was no longer any son of
France; the Spanish branch had renounced; the Duke of Orleans had been
carefully placed in such a position as not to dare say a word or show the
least dissatisfaction; his only son was a child; neither the Duke (of
Berry), his brothers, nor the Prince of Conti, were of an age or of
standing, in the king's eyes, to make the least trouble in the world
about it.  The bombshell dropped all at once when nobody could have
expected it, and everybody fell on his stomach as is done when a shell
drops; everybody was gloomy and almost wild; the king himself appeared as
if exhausted by so great an effort of will and power.  He had only just
signed his will, when he met, at Madame de Maintenon's, the Ex-Queen of
England.  "I have made my will, Madame," said he.  "I have purchased
repose; I know the impotence and uselessness of it; we can do all we
please as long as we are here; after we are gone, we can do less than
private persons; we have only to look at what became of my father's, and
immediately after his death too, and of those of so many other kings.
I am quite aware of that; but, in spite of all that, it was desired; and
so, Madame, you see it has been done; come of it what may, at any rate I
shall not be worried about it any more."  It was the old man yielding to
the entreaties and intrigues of his domestic circle; the judgment of the
king remained steady and true, without illusions and without prejudices.

Death was coming, however, after a reign which had been so long and had
occupied so much room in the world that it caused mistakes as to the very
age of the king.  He was seventy-seven; he continued to work with his
ministers; the order so long and so firmly established was, not disturbed
by illness any more than it had been by the reverses and sorrows of late;
meanwhile the appetite was diminishing, the thinness went on increasing,
a sore on the leg appeared, the king suffered a great deal.  On the 24th
of August he dined in bed, surrounded as usual by his courtiers; he had a
difficulty in swallowing; for the first time, publicity was burdensome to
him; he could not get on, and said to those who were there that he begged
them to withdraw.  Meanwhile the drums and hautboys still went on playing
beneath his window, and the twenty-four violins at his dinner.  In the
evening, he was so ill that he asked for the sacraments.  There had been
wrung from him a codicil which made the will still worse.  He,
nevertheless, received the Duke of Orleans, to whom he commended the
young king.  On the 26th he called to his bedside all those of the court
who had the entry.  "Gentlemen," he said to them, "I ask your pardon for
the bad example I have set you.  I have to thank you much for the way in