FRANCE. 359 



better answer the purposes of his greatness : by the latter he embroil- 

 ed himself with all his neighbours, and wantonly rendered Germany 

 a dismal scene of devastation. By his impolitic and unjust revoca- 

 tion of the edict of Nantes in the year 1685, and his persecutions of 

 the protestants, he obliged them to take shelter in England, Hollandj 

 and different parts of Germany, where they established the silk manu- 

 facture, to the great prejudice of their own country. He was so 

 blinded by flattery, that he arrogated to himself the divine honours 

 paid to the pagan emperors of Rome. He made and broke treaties 

 for his own conveniency, and at last raised against himself a con- 

 federacy of almost all the other princes of Europe ; at the head of 

 which was king William III. of England. He was so well served, 

 that he made head for some years against this alliance ; but having 

 provoked the English by his repeated infidelities, their arms under 

 the duke of Marlborough, and the Austrians under the prince Eugene, 

 rendered the latter part of his life as miserable as the beginning of it 

 had been splendid. His reign, from the year 1702 to 1712, was one 

 continued series of defeats and calamities ; and he had the mortifica- 

 tion of seeing those places taken from him, which, in the former part 

 of his reign, were acquired at the expense of many thousand lives. 

 Just as he was reduced, old as he was, to the desperate resolution of 

 collecting his people, and dying at their head, he was saved, by the 

 English tory ministry deserting the cause, withdrawing from their 

 allies, and concluding the peace of Utrecht in 1713. He survived his 

 deliverance but two years; andf in his last hours, displayed a great- 

 ness of mind worthy of his elevated situation : " Why do you weep V 

 said he to his domestics ; " did you think me immortal ?" He died on. 

 the first of September, 1715, and was succeeded by his great grand- 

 son, Lewis XV. 



The partiality of Lewis XIV. to his natural children might have 

 involved France in a civil war, had not the regency been seized upon 

 by the duke of Orleans, a man of sense and spirit, and the next legiti- 

 mate prince of the blood ; who having embroiled himself with Spain, 

 the king was declared of age in 1722, and the regent, on the 5th of 

 December, 1723, was carried off by an apoplexy. 



Among the first acts of the government of Lewis XV. was his 

 nominating his preceptor, afterwards cardinal Fleury, to be his first 

 minister. Though his system was entirely pacific, yet the situation 

 of affairs in Europe, upon the death of the king of Poland in 1734, 

 more than once embroiled him with the house of Austria. The in- 

 tention of the French king was to replace his father-in-law, Stanis- 

 laus, on the throne of Poland. In this he failed, through the inter- 

 position of the Russians and Austrians ; but Stanislaus enjoyed the 

 title of king, and the revenues of Lorraine, during the remainder of 

 his life. The connexion between France and Spain forced the for- 

 mer to become principals in a war against Great Britain, which was 

 terminated by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. 



In the year 1757, Francis Damien, an unhappy wretch, whose sul- 

 len mind, naturally unsettled, was inflamed by the disputes between 

 the king and his parliament relative to religion, embraced the des- 

 perate resolution of attempting the life of his sovereign. In the 

 dusk of the evening, as the king prepared to enter his coach, he was 

 suddenly wounded, though slightly, with a penknife, between the 

 fourth and fifth ribs, in the presence of his son, and in the midst of 

 his guards. The daring assassin had mingled with the crowd of 



