horrors of civil conflict; barricades had been erected in the streets; alternate victory and defeat had by turns elevated and depressed the rival faction. Turenne and Condé had displayed their consummate talents in miniature warfare within sight of Nôtre Dame. Never had the monarchy been depressed to a greater pitch of weakness than during the reign of Louis XIII. and the minority of Louis XIV. But from the time the latter sovereign ascended the throne, order seemed to arise out of chaos. The ascendency of a great mind made itself felt in every department. Civil war ceased; the rival faction disappeared; even the bitterness of religious hatred seemed for a time to be stilled by the influence of patriotic feeling. The energies of France, drawn forth during the agonies of civil conflict, were turned to public objects and the career of national aggrandizement, as those of England had been after the conclusion of the Great Rebellion, by the firm hand and magnanimous mind of Cromwell. From a pitiable state of anarchy, France at once appeared on the theater of Europe, great, powerful, and united. It is no common capacity which can thus seize the helm and right the ship when it is reeling most violently, and the fury of contending elements has all but torn it in pieces. It is the highest proof of political capacity to discern the bent of the public mind, when most violently excited, and, by falling in with the prevailing desire of the majority, to convert the desolating vehemence of socialconflict into the steady passion for national advancement. Napoleon did this with the political aspirations of the eighteenth, Louis XIV. with the religious fervor of the seventeenth century.

It was because his character and turn of mind coincided with the national desires at the moment of his as

cending the throne, that this great monarch was enabled to achieve this marvelous transformation.

5. Which arose

from his turn

of mind coin

ciding with the spirit of

the age.

If Napoleon was the incarnation of the Revolution, with not less truth it may be said that Louis XIV. was the incarnation of the monarchy. The feudal spirit, modified, but

not destroyed, by the changes of time, appeared to be concentrated, with its highest luster, in his person. He was still the head of the Franks-the luster of the historic families yet surrounded his throne; but he was the head of the Franks only —that is, of a hundred thousand conquering warriors. Twenty millions of conquered Gauls were neither regarded nor considered in his administration, except in so far as they augmented the national strength, or added to the national resources. But this distinction was then neither perceived nor regarded. Worn out with civil dissension, torn to pieces by religious passions, the fervent minds and restless ambition of the French longed for a national field for exertion-an arena in which social dissensions might be forgotten. Louis XIV. gave them this field-he opened this arena.

6.

His virtues and vices

were alike those of his people.

He ascended the throne at the time when this desire had become so strong and general as in a manner to concentrate on its objects the national will. His character, equally in all its parts, was adapted to the general want. He took the lead alike in the greatness and the foibles of his subjects. Were they ambitious? so was he were they desirous of renown? so was he: were they set on national aggrandizement? so was he were they desirous of protection to industry? so was he were they prone to gallantry? so was he. His figure stately, and countenance majestic; his manner lofty and commanding; his conversation dignified, but enlightened; his spirit ardent, but patriotic-qualified him to take the lead and preserve his ascendency among a proud body of ancient nobles, whom the disasters of preceding reigns, and the astute policy of Cardinal Richelieu, had driven into the ante-chambers of Paris, but who preserved in their ideas and habits the pride and recollections of the conquerors who followed the banners of Clovis. And the great body of the people, proud of their sovereign, proud of his victories, proud of his magnificence, proud of his fame, proud of his national spirit, proud of the literary glory which environed his throne, in secret proud of his gallantries,

joyfully followed their nobles in the brilliant career which his ambition opened, and submitted with as much docility to his government as they had once ranged themselves round the banners of their respective chiefs on the day of battle.

7.

His governsentially feu

ment was es

dal and monarchical.

It was the peculiarity of the government of Louis XIV., arising from this fortuitous, but to him fortunate combination of circumstances, that it united the distinctions of rank, family attachments, and ancient ideas of feudal times, with the vigor and efficiency of monarchical government, and the luster and brilliancy of literary glory. Such a combination could not, in the nature of things, last long; it must soon work out its own destruction. In truth, it was sensibly weakened during the course of the latter part of the half century that he sat upon the throne. But while it endured, it produced a most formidable union; it engendered an extraordinary and hitherto unprecedented phalanx of talent. The feudal ideas still lingering in the hearts of the nation produced subordination; the national spirit, excited by the genius of the sovereign, induced unanimity; the development of talent, elicited by his discernment, conferred power; the literary celebrity, encouraged by his mu nificence, diffused fame. The peculiar character of Louis, in which great talent was united with great pride, and unbounded ambition with heroic magnanimity, qualified him to turn to the best account this singular combination of circumstances, and to unite in France, for a brief period, the lofty aspirations and dignified manners of chivalry, with the energy of rising talent and the luster of literary renown.

the gave

8. Unity and cen

tralization

were his great

Louis XIV. was essentially monarchical. That was the secret of his success: it was because he first powers of unity to the monarchy that he rendered France so brilliant and powerful. All his objects. changes and they were many-from the dress of soldiers to the instructions to embassadors, were characterized by the same spirit. He first introduced a uniform in the army. Before his time, the soldiers merely wore a banderole over their

steel breast-plates and ordinary dresses. That was a great and symptomatic improvement: it at once induced an esprit de corps and a sense of responsibility. He first made the troops march with a measured step, and caused large bodies of men to move with the precision of a single company. The artillery and engineer service, under his auspices, made astonishing progress. His discerning eye selected the genius of Vauban, which invented, as it were, the modern system of fortification, and well-nigh brought it to its greatest elevation -and raised to the highest command that of Turenne, which carried the military art to the most consummate perfection. Skillfully turning the martial and enterprising genius of the Franks into the career of conquest, he multiplied tenfold their power, by conferring on them the inestimable advantages of skilled discipline and unity of action. He gathered the feudal array around his banner; he roused the ancient barons from their chateaux, the old retainers from their villages. But he arranged them in disciplined battalions of regular troops, who received the pay and obeyed the orders of government, and never left their banners. His regular army was all enrolled by voluntary enlistment, and served for pay. The militia alone was raised by conscription. When he summoned the military forces of France to undertake the conquest of the Low Countries, he appeared at the head of a hundred and twenty thousand men, all regular and disciplined troops, with a hundred pieces of cannon. Modern Europe had never seen such an array. It was irresistible, and speedily brought the monarch to the gates of Amsterdam.

9.

His efforts to give unity to thought.

he

gave

The same unity which the genius of Louis and his minis ters communicated to the military power of France, also to its naval forces and internal strength. To such a pitch of greatness did he raise the marine of the monarchy, that it all but outnumbered that of England; and the battle of La Hogue, in 1692, alone determined, as Trafalgar did a century after, to which of these rival powers the dominion of the seas was to belong. His Ordi

nances of the Marine, promulgated in 1781, form the best code of maritime law yet known, and one which is still referred to, like the Code Napoleon, as a ruling authority in all commercial states.

men.

He introduced astonishing reforms into the proceedings of the courts of law, and to his efforts the great perfection of the French law, as it now appears in the admirable works of Pothier, is in a great degree to be ascribed. He reduced the government of the interior to that regular and methodical system of governors of provinces, mayors of cities, and other subordinate authorities, all receiving their instructions from the Tuileries, which, under no subsequent change of government, imperial or royal, has been abandoned, and which has, in every succeeding age, formed the main source of its strength. He concentrated around the monarchy the rays of genius from all parts of the country, and threw around its head a luster of literary renown, which, more even than the exploits of his armies, dazzled and fascinated the minds of He arrayed the scholars, philosophers, and poets of his dominions like soldiers and sailors; almost all the academies of France, which have since become so famous, were of his institution he sought to give discipline to thought, as he had done to his fleets and armies, and rewarded distinction in literary efforts not less than warlike achievement. No monarch ever knew better the magical influence of intellectual strength on general opinion, or felt more strongly the expedience of enlisting it on the side of authority. Not less than Hildebrand or Napoleon, he aimed at drawing, not over his own country alone, but the whole of Europe, the meshes of regulated and centralized thought; and more durably than either he attained his object. The religious persecution, which constitutes the great blot on his reign, and caused its brilliant career to close in mourning, was the result of the same desire. He longed to give the same unity to the Church which he had done to the army, navy, and civil strength of the monarchy. He saw no reason why the Huguenots should not, at the royal command, face about like one of Turenne's battalions.