552 



LOUIS XIV. 



sadors on matters of state. The splendour of the 

 French court, the boldness displayed in the cabinet 

 and the field, tin- fame of the nation in arms and arts, 

 introduced tin- French language into the courts of 

 Europe, and from the peace of Nimeguen, in 1678, 

 it gradually supplanted Latin, as the omcial language 

 of states. But Colbert was the chief source of the 

 greatness of Louis and France. That ordering, 

 creating, and sagacious spirit originated the great 

 standing armies of Louis, and imposed this burden 

 on all the governments of Europe; at the same time, 

 he maintained 100 ships of the line, and encouraged 

 manufactures, navigation, and commerce ; and the 

 first French settlement in the East Indies was found- 

 ed at Pondicherry. Colbert developed the aston- 

 ishing resources of France, in population, natural 

 riches, and national spirit. But, after his death, in 

 1683, Louvois and Louis plucked the fruit, while 

 they felled the tree. The pride of the king, and the 

 vanity of the nation, seconded the ambition of the 

 despotic minister of war. Notwithstanding all this 

 oppression, disaffection never found c rallying point 

 of resistance. Such gratification did the nation 

 experience in the splendour of a cruel and prodigal 

 reign ! Five wars, the revocation of the edict of 

 Nantes (which Benjamin Constant has well termed 

 rerreur de Louis XIV., et le crime de son conseil), 

 the building of Versailles, the hatred of the nations, 

 the battle of La Hogue, and the deep policy of 

 William III. of England, overthrew the power of 

 Louis in the Spanish war of succession. Favourable 

 circumstances, the opinion of the age, and the con- 

 sciousness of strength on the part of a people not yet 

 corrupted, were all that preserved from downfall the 

 tottering throne of the failing king. Death rapidly 

 snatched away those who stood nearest him; first his 

 only son, then his grandson, with his grandson's wife 

 and eldest son, the hopes of France. The court 

 intrigues, satiety, devotion, and the religious predo- 

 minance of Maintenon, together with the influence 

 of his confessor, La Chaise, and his far worse succes- 

 sor, Tellier, from 1709, made the heart of the aged 

 king indifferent to the state of his dominions. 

 The proud Louis, who imagined himself competent 

 to every thing, who, after the death of his great 

 minister, selected young men, whom he could guide 

 at pleasure, was, at last, so led astray by his confes- 

 sor, Tellier, that he caused the constitution Unigeni- 

 tus, drawn up according to Tellier's plan, by three 

 Jesuits, to be issued as a bull, in 1713, by pope Cle- 

 ment XI., who was equally deceived, thus giving the 

 Jesuit party the triumph over their opponents, and, 

 at the same time, producing commotions, which con- 

 tinued for forty years to agitate the church and state. 

 Louis manifested, however, a strength of mind and 

 firmness in death, as well as in the misfortunes which, 

 in his last years, shook his throne and house; for 

 Heinsius, Eugene and Marlborough humbled the 

 pride of France before the Spanish throne was secu- 

 red to the second grandson of Louis, by the death 

 of Joseph I. and the victory of Villars at Demain. 

 He submitted to all conditions, unless they were dis- 

 honourable, but such he rejected with scorn. When 

 Philip was finally established on the throne at Madrid, 

 the partition wall of the Pyrenees was not destroyed, 

 as Louis had hoped, when he said to his grandson, on 

 his departure, II n'y a plus de Pyrenees; and France 

 was burdened with a debt of 2,500,000,000 livres. 

 The plan of attaching Spain to France, in order to 

 counteract the connexion of Britain and Holland 

 (which threatened the French commerce, navigation, 

 and colonies), exhausted France, and laid the founda- 

 tion of that revolution which was not to terminate 

 till a century after the death of Louis XIV. Grou- 

 velle says, therefore, of him, with justice " We may 



allow him good qualities, but not virtue. The mis- 

 "ortunes of succeeding reigns were, in part, his work, 

 and he has hardly influenced posterity, except for its 

 ruin."' The same judgment is passed by madame de 

 Stael, in her Reflections on the French Revolution. 

 \Vhat is called the age of Louis XIV., as compared 

 with Pericles, Augustas, and the Medici, was a result 

 of the impulse which circumstances communicated to 

 lit- national genius. Louis, who was not himself 

 possessed of a great comprehensive mind, and who 

 was much and laboriously occupied on trifles, patron- 

 zed genius only as a necessary instrument for his 

 purposes. At Colbert's suggestion, lie founded the 

 academy of sciences and that of inscriptions; he 

 'mproved the French academy, encouraged able 

 writers to raise his reputation and the French lan- 

 guage above the hatred of nations, and the sphere 

 of its influence was wider than that of his armies. 

 His nation gave laws to Europe, in matters of taste. 

 The tone of French society was a model for the Ger- 

 man courts, and corrupted the spirit of the nobility, 

 while it destroyed morals. It is not, however, to be 

 Forgotten, that the expulsion of the Huguenots from 

 France also promoted the diffusion of the French 

 language and manners. The great art of pleasing 

 was the soul of all the other arts in France ; it even 

 opened to science itself the avenue to the circles of 

 the polished classes. Pascal, who wrote with vigour 

 and delicacy, the sublime Bossuet, and Fenelon, 

 splendid in his humility, the great Corneille, who 

 boldly took his flight above the surrounding barbar- 

 ism, the unique Moliere, the inimitable Fontaine, and 

 the calm thinker and spirited satirist, Boileau, the 

 friend of the classical Racine, kindled the blaze of 

 light and philosophy in France. " Their electrical 

 shock roused," as John von Muller, expresses him- 

 self, " the north from the monotonous studies of its 

 universities." The fine arts were not neglected. 

 Of Lebrun's epoch of art under Louis XIV., we are 

 reminded by thirty-four paintings by this master in 

 the museum of the Louvre. The Flemish school, 

 particularly Teniers, did not please the king. Le- 

 sueur, Poussinand Mignard were the ornaments of the 

 French school. Girardon was distinguished among 

 the sculptors. Lenotre laid out the splendid gardens 

 of Versailles; Perrault built the colonnade of the Lou- 

 vre, Hardouin Mansard the dome of the invalids. 

 Lulli was the creator of French music. A large pro- 

 portion of the great monuments of France, which ex- 

 cite the astonishment of the traveller, had their origin 

 in the reign of Louis. He constructed the wonderful 

 harbours, shipyards and fortifications at Brest, Roche- 

 fort, L'Orient, Havre, Dunkirk, Cette and Toulon. 

 At his bidding, the canal of Languedoc united the 

 Mediterranean with the ocean. 



See Voltaire's Siecle de Louis XIV., the duke de St 

 Simon's (Euvres completes pour servir d VHistoire des 

 Cours de Louis XIV., de la Regence et de Louis 

 XV.; and the Memoires de Dangeau, as well those 

 published by madame de Genlis, as those publish- 

 ed by Lemoncey (Paris, 1818), in his Essai stir 

 r Etablissement monarchique de Louis XIV., the 

 (Euvres de Louis XIV. (vol. i. vi., Paris, 1800), 

 published by the diplomatist Grouvelle and the 

 count Grimoard, and the Considerations sur Louis 

 XIV., by Grouvelle, contained in this selection, 

 which, although too favourable, are an excellent 

 introduction to the history of this monarch. The 

 Instructions pour le Dauphin, of 1661 1668, com- 

 prised in that work, are supposed to have been taken 

 down by Pelisson, from the mouth of the king. But 

 Louis himself did not practise his precepts. Thus 

 he warns the dauphin to beware of the influence of 

 favourites, and still more of the love of the female 

 sex. which tends to divert the mind from business. 



