The Boys' Book of Rulers

At the siege of Demmin he had gone to reconnoitre, and held a spy-glass in hand, when he plunged half-leg deep in the marsh, in consequence of the breaking of the ice. The officer nearest to him prepared to come to his aid. Gustavus made a sign to him to remain tranquil, so as not to draw the attention of the enemy who, not less, directed his fire upon him. The king raised himself up in the midst of a shower of projectiles, and went to dry himself at the bivouac fire of the officer, who reproached him for having thus exposed his precious life. The king listened to the officer with kindness and acknowledged his imprudence, but added, “It is my nature not to believe well done except what I do myself; it is also necessary that I see everything by my own eyes.” Gustavus now advanced boldly into the heart of Germany, and met the forces of the Catholic League on the plains of Leipsic. As the Swedes drew up in line of battle, Gustavus rode from point to point, encouraging his soldiers, telling them “not to fire until they saw the white of the enemies’ eyes.”

Then the Swedish king rode to the centre of his line, halted, removed his cap with one hand and lowered his sword with the other. His example was followed by all near him. Gustavus then offered this brief prayer in a powerful voice, which enabled him to be heard by a large number of his army: —

“Good God, thou who holdest in thy hand victory and defeat, turn thy merciful face to us thy servants. We have come far, we have left our peaceful homes to combat in this country for liberty, for the truth, and for thy gospel. Glorify thy holy name in granting us victory.”

Then the Swedish king sent a trumpeter to challenge Tilly and his army. The battle ensued, in which Gustavus defeated Tilly, the victor on more than twenty battle-fields. The king of Sweden so shattered and scattered the Catholic army in this conflict, that for a while all Germany was open to him. Gustavus was now everywhere hailed by the down-trodden Protestants of Germany, whose worship he re-established, and whose churches he restored to them, as their saviour and deliverer. The very excess of their gratitude would sometimes make him afraid. Only three days before his death he said to his chaplain, “They make a god of me; God will punish me for this.”

The appearance of Gustavus at this time is thus described: “He was one ‘framed in the prodigality of nature.’ His look proclaimed the hero, and at the same time, the genuine child of the North. A head taller than men of the ordinary stature, yet all his limbs were perfectly proportioned.” Majesty and courage shone out from his clear gray eyes; while, at the same time, an air of mildness and bonhommie tempered the earnestness of his glance. He had the curved eagle nose of Cæsar, of Napoleon, of Wellington, of Napier, – the conqueror’s nose as we may call it. His skin was fair, his hair blonde, almost gold-colored, so that the Italians were wont to call him, Re d’oro or the Gold-king. In latter years he was somewhat inclined to corpulence, though not so much as to detract from the majesty of his appearance. This made it, however, not easy to find a horse which was equal to his weight.

Gustavus now carried his victorious arms to the banks of the Rhine, where there still stands, not far from Mayence, what is known as the Swedish column. On the banks of the Lech he again met Tilly, who would have barred the way. Some of the officers in the Swedish army counselled that the king should not meet Tilly, but should march to Bohemia.

The Lech was deep and rapid, and to cross it in the face of an enemy was very hazardous. In case of failure the entire Swedish army would be lost. But Gustavus exclaimed, “What! have we crossed the Baltic, the Oder, the Elbe, and the Rhine, to stop stupefied before this mere stream, the Lech? Remember that the undertakings the most difficult are often those which succeed best, because the adverse party regard them as impossible.”

Gustavus threw over the Lech a bridge under the crossfire of seventy-two pieces of cannon. The king stimulated his troops by his own example, making with his own hand more than sixty cannon discharges. The enemy did their utmost to destroy the works, and Tilly was undaunted in his exertions to encourage his men, until he was mortally wounded by a cannon-ball, and victory soon was on the side of the heroic Swedes.

This crossing of the Lech in the face of an enemy is esteemed the most signal military exploit of Gustavus. The emperor was now forced to recall Wallenstein to lead the hard-pressed Imperialists against this invincible Swedish king.

But with the battle of Lützen, where the Swedes encountered the Imperialists under Wallenstein, we come also to the lamentable but heroic death of Gustavus Adolphus. We cannot recount the further conflicts of the Thirty Years’ War.

The work of Gustavus Adolphus in Germany was continued by his able generals and allies, until at length the treaty, concluded at Westphalia in 1648, gave security and permanence to the work which the king of Sweden and his brave soldiers had in a large degree achieved before his death. A wound which Gustavus had received in his Polish wars, made the wearing of armor very painful to him, and upon the morning of the day upon which the battle of Lützen was fought, when his armor was brought to him, he declined to put it on, saying, “God is my armor.”

His death is thus described. Learning that the centre of the Swedish lines were wavering, Gustavus hastened thither. “Arriving at the wavering centre, he cried to his troops, ‘Follow me, my brave boys!’ and his horse at a bound bore him across the ditch. Only a few of his cavaliers followed him, their steeds not being equal to his. Owing to his impetuosity, perhaps also to his nearsightedness and the increasing fog, he did not perceive to what extent he was in advance, and became separated from the troops he was so bravely leading. An imperial corporal, noticing that the Swedes made way for an advancing cavalier, pointed him out to a musketeer, saying, he must be a personage of high rank, and urged him to fire on him. The musketeer took aim, his ball broke the left arm of the king, causing the bone to protrude, and the blood to run freely. ‘The king bleeds!’ cried the Swedes near him. ‘It is nothing; march forward my boys!’ responded the wounded hero, seeking to calm their disquietude by assuming a smiling countenance. But soon overcome by pain and loss of blood, he requested Duke Lauenburg, in French, to lead him out of the tumult without being observed, which was sought to be done by making a détour, so as to conceal the king’s withdrawal from his brave Smolanders he was leading to the charge. Scarcely had they made a few steps, when one of the imperial regiment of cuirassiers encountered them, preceded by Lieut. – Col. Falkenberg, who, recognizing the king, fired a pistol shot, hitting him in the back. ‘Brother,’ said he to Lauenburg, with a dying voice; ‘I have enough. Look to your own life.’ Falkenberg was immediately slain by the equerry of the duke of Lauenburg. At the same moment the king fell from his horse, struck by several more balls, and was dragged some distance by the stirrups. The duke of Lauenburg fled. Of the king’s two orderlies, one lay dead and the other wounded. Of his attendants, only a German page, named Leubelfing, remained by him. The king having fallen from his horse, the page jumped from his own, and offered it to the dying hero. The king stretched out his hands, but the young man had not strength sufficient to lift him from the ground. Meanwhile the imperial cuirassiers hastened forward, and demanded the name of the wounded officer. The loyal page would not reveal it, and received wounds from which he died soon after. But the dying Gustavus bravely answered, ‘I am the king of Sweden.’ Whereupon his cruel enemies shot a ball through his head, and thrust their swords through his bleeding body. His hat, blackened with the powder and pierced with the ball, is still to be seen in the arsenal at Vienna; his bloody buff coat as well. More is not known of the final agony, except that, when the tide of battle had a little ebbed, the body of the hero-king was found with the face to the ground, despoiled and stripped to the shirt, trodden under the hoofs of horses, trampled in the mire, and disfigured with all these wounds.”

Such was the end of the imposing and kingly bodily presence; but this was not the end of the accomplishment of that heroic soul. When the horse of the fallen Gustavus, with its empty saddle covered with blood, came running amongst the Swedish troops, they knew what had happened to their king. Duke Bernhard, riding through the ranks, exclaimed, “Swedes, Finlanders, and Germans! your defender, the defender of our liberty, is dead. Life is nothing to me if I do not draw bloody vengeance from this misfortune. Whoever wishes to prove he loved the king, has only to follow me to avenge his death.” The whole Swedish army, fired by a common enthusiasm nerved by desperation, advanced to the attack, and so valiantly did they fight, that their gallant charge completed the victory of Lützen. Thus died the “Gold-king of the North”; but his dying hours were gilded by the sunset glories of immortal fame, and the “Snow-king,” of Sweden, leaves a name as pure and glistening as the starry snow-flakes.

“Great men, far more than any Alps or coliseums, are the true world-wonders, which it concerns us to behold clearly, and imprint forever on our remembrance. Great men are the fire-pillars in this dark pilgrimage of mankind; they stand as heavenly signs, ever-living witnesses of what has been, – prophetic witnesses of what may still be; the revealed embodied possibilities of human nature, which greatness he who has never with his whole heart passionately loved and reverenced, is himself forever doomed to be little.”

LOUIS XIV. OF FRANCE

1638-1715 A.D

“To do what one pleases with impunity,That is to be King.” – Sallust.

THE reign of Louis XIV., whether regarded politically, socially, or morally, was undoubtedly the most striking which France has ever known. The splendor of his court, the successes of his armies, and the illustrious names that embellished the century over which he ruled, drew the attention of all Europe to the person of the monarch who, every inch a king, assumed the authority and power of regality as well as its mere visible attributes. All Europe looked to France, all France to Paris, all Paris to Versailles, all Versailles to Louis XIV.

The centre of all attraction, he, like the eagle, embraced the whole glory of the orb upon which he gazed; and seated firmly upon the throne of France, ruling by the “right divine,” he ushered in the golden age of literature, himself the theme and gaze and wonder of a dazzled world.

The morning of the 5th of September, 1638, dawned bright and clear. In the forest of St. Germain, the birds sang merrily in the trees, and the timid deer sought shelter in the deepest shade, all unconscious that ere the setting of the sun a royal prince would look upon it for the first time.

The park and palace were filled with an eager and excited throng; earls, princes, dukes, and bishops anxiously awaited the announcement that an heir was born to the crown of France. In the grand salon of Henry IV., King Louis XIII., the Duke d’Orleans, the bishops of Lisieux, Meaux, and Beauvais, impatiently awaited the long-expected tidings. And now the folding-doors are thrown back, and the king is greeted with the welcome intelligence that he is the father of a dauphin. Tenderly he takes the child, and stepping upon the balcony, exhibits him to the crowd, exclaiming joyfully, “A son, gentlemen! a son!” and park and palace re-echo with the shouts of “Vive le Roi!” “Vive le Dauphin!”

Thus this baby prince, when first he saw the light, was greeted by the homage of a court – an homage which, during a life of seventy-seven years, he ever exacted and received, until as Louis XIV., the Grand Monarque, in obedience to Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords, he laid aside his sceptre and his crown, and slept with his fathers in the royal vaults of St. Denis. The birth of the dauphin afforded Louis XIII. such delight that for a time he threw aside his melancholy manner; but his health, never robust, failed rapidly, and on the 20th of April, 1643, feeling that his end could not be far distant, he declared the regency of the queen, and desired the christening of the dauphin. It accordingly took place on the following day with much pomp in the chapel at St. Germain. The king desired he should be called Louis, and after the ceremony, when the little prince was carried to his bedside in order to ascertain if his wishes had been fulfilled, he demanded, “What is your name, my child?” And the little dauphin replied promptly, “I am Louis XIV.”

“Not yet, my son, not yet!” said the dying king; “but I pray to God that it may soon be so.”

From this time his health failed rapidly, and on the 14th of May, 1643, he expired, having reigned thirty-three years.

The little dauphin early displayed that haughtiness and self-will which were to be the ruling principles of his life. His education had been grossly neglected, and through this came many of his after faults; and though he excelled in every punctilio of court etiquette, and was the very essence of politeness, yet in other things he was far behind the other youths of his age. This was exactly as Cardinal Mazarin intended that it should be, that by thus dwarfing the intellect of the king, he might the longer grasp the reins of government. The wily cardinal fully understood the character of the young prince with whom he had to deal, and upon one occasion, when some one remonstrated with him concerning the course he had adopted toward the king, he replied, “Ah, you do not know His Majesty! he has the stuff in him to make four kings and an honest man.”

The hatred and dislike of Louis for the cardinal increased day by day. The state affected by him jarred upon his natural haughtiness, and, boy as he was, it was impossible that he could contrast the extreme magnificence of his mother’s minister with his own neglected condition without feeling how insultingly the cardinal had profited by his weakness and want of power. On one occasion at Compiègne, as the cardinal was passing with a numerous suite along the terrace, the king turned away, saying contemptuously, without any attempt to lower his voice, “There is the Grand Turk going by.”

A few days afterwards, as he was traversing a passage in which he perceived one of the cardinal’s household named Bois Fermé, he turned to M. de Nyert, who was following him, and observed, “So the cardinal is with mamma again, for I see Bois Fermé in the passage. Does he always wait there?”

“Yes, sire,” replied Nyert; “but in addition to Bois Fermé there is another gentleman upon the stairs and two in the corridor.”

“There is one at every stride, then,” said the young; king dryly.

But the boy-king was not the only one who found the arrogance of the haughty cardinal unbearable. There had gradually sprung up a deadly feud between the court and Mazarin on one side, and the Parliament on the other.

The people of Paris were in sympathy with the Parliament; and nobles, even of royal blood, out of enmity to Mazarin, joined the popular cause.

Thus commenced the famous civil war of the Fronde; for as the cardinal contemptuously remarked, “The Parliament are like school-boys fronding in the Paris ditches,” and the Parliament of Paris accepted the title, and adopted the Fronde, or sling, as the emblem of their party. There were riots in Paris, and affairs grew threatening. Mazarin and the court party were alarmed and fled to St. Germain.

Thus there were two rival courts in France, – the one at St. Germain, where all was want and destitution; the other at the Hotel de Ville in Paris, where all was splendor, abundance, and festive enjoyment. The court and Mazarin soon tired of the life at St. Germain, and the king; sent a herald to the Parliament. The Parliament refused to receive the herald, but sent a deputation to the king, and at last, after a lengthy conference, a not very satisfactory compromise was agreed upon, and on the 5th of April, 1650, the royal fugitives returned to Paris.

“Thus ended the first act of the most singular, bootless, and we are almost tempted to add, burlesque war, which in all probability, Europe ever witnessed. Through its whole duration society appeared to have been smitten with some moral hallucination. Kings and cardinals slept on mattresses; princesses and duchesses on straw; market-women embraced princes; prelates governed armies; court-ladies led the mob, and the mob in its turn ruled the city.”

On the 5th of September, 1651, the minority of the dauphin ceased, he had now entered upon his fourteenth year, and, immature boy as he was, he was declared to be the absolute monarch of France. On the seventh of the month, the king held his bed of justice. The ceremony was attended with all the pomp the wealth of the empire could furnish. The young king left the Palais Royal attended by a numerous and splendid retinue. Observed of all observers, “handsome as Adonis, august in majesty, the pride and joy of humanity,” he sat his splendid steed; and when the horse, frightened by the long and enthusiastically prolonged cries of, “Vive le Roi!” reared and plunged with terror, Louis managed him with a skill and address which called forth the admiration of all beholders. After attending mass, the young king took his seat in the Parliament. Here the boy of thirteen, covering his head while all the notabilities of France stood before him with heads uncovered, repeated the following words: —

“Gentlemen, I have attended my Parliament in order to inform you that, according to the law of my kingdom, I shall myself assume its government. I trust that by the goodness of God it will be with piety and justice.”

The chancellor then made a long address, after which the oath of allegiance was taken by all the civil and ecclesiastical notabilities. The royal procession then returned to the gates of the Palais Royal. Thus, a stripling, who had just completed his thirteenth year, was accepted by the nobles and by the populace as the absolute and untrammelled sovereign of France. “He held in his hands, virtually, unrestrained by constitution or court, their liberties, their fortunes, and their lives.” Two years later, in 1653, the coronation of the king took place at Rheims. France at this time was at war with Spain, and, immediately after the coronation, the king, then sixteen years of age, set out from Rheims to place himself at the head of the army. He went to Stenay, on the northeastern frontier of France. This ancient city, protected by strong fortifications, was held by the Prince de Condé. The royal troops were besieging it. There were marches and counter-marches, battles and skirmishes. The young king displayed intrepidity which secured for him the admiration of the soldiers. Turenne and Fabert fought the battles and gained the victories. Stenay was soon taken, and the army of the Prince de Condé driven from all its positions. “There is nothing so successful as success;” and the young king, a hero and a conqueror, returned to Paris to enjoy the congratulation of the populace, and to offer public thanksgiving in the cathedral of Nôtre Dame. Though the king was nominally the absolute ruler of France, still there was the influence of his mother, Anne of Austria, which up to this time had exerted over him a great control; but this was soon to end.

Henrietta Maria, the widowed queen of the unfortunate Charles I., was then residing at the French court. Her daughter Henrietta, as grand-daughter of Henry IV. and daughter of Charles I., was entitled, through the purity of her royal blood, to the highest consideration at the court. When, then, at a ball given for these unfortunate guests, the music summoned the dancers upon the floor, and the king, in total disregard of his young and royal cousin, advanced, according to his custom, to lead out the Duchesse de Mercœur, the queen was shocked at so gross a breach of etiquette, and, rising hastily, she withdrew his hand from that of the duchess, and said in a low voice, “You should dance first, my son, with the princess of England.”

Louis replied sullenly, “I am not fond of little girls.”

Both Henrietta and her daughter overheard this discourteous remark. The English queen hastened to Anne of Austria, and entreated her not to attempt to constrain the wishes of his majesty. The position was exceedingly awkward for all parties; but the proud spirit of Anne of Austria was aroused. Resuming her maternal authority, she declared that if her niece, the princess of England, remained a spectator at the ball, her son should do the same. Thus constrained, the king very ungraciously led out the English princess upon the floor. After the departure of the guests, the mother and son had their first serious quarrel. Severely Anne of Austria rebuked the king for his shameful and uncourteous conduct. Louis faced his mother haughtily. “Madam, who is lord of France, Louis the king or Anne of Austria? Too long,” he said, “I have been guided by your leading strings. Henceforth, I will be my own master; and do not you, madam, trouble yourself to criticise or correct me. I am the king.” And this was no idle boast; for from that tearful evening of the queen’s ball to the day of his death, sixty-one years after, Louis of Bourbon, called The Great, ruled as absolute lord over his kingdom of France; and the boy who could say so defiantly, “Henceforth, I will be my own master,” was fully equal to that other famous declaration of arrogant authority, made years after in the full tide of his power, “I am the state!”

But Anne of Austria was not the only one destined to feel the imperious will of the young sovereign. The Parliament of Paris refused to register certain decrees of the king. Louis heard of it while preparing to hunt in the woods of Vincennes. He leaped upon his horse, and galloped to Paris. At half-past nine o’clock in the morning, the king entered the Chamber of Deputies, in full hunting dress. He heard mass, and, whip in hand, addressed the body: “Gentlemen of the Parliament, it is my will that in future my edicts be registered, and not discussed. Should the contrary occur, I shall return, and enforce obedience.”

The trumpet sounded, and the king and his courtiers galloped back to the forest of Vincennes. The decrees were registered. Parliament had ventured to try its strength against Cardinal Mazarin, but did not dare to disobey its king.

The marriage of the king was a matter of much importance, and was much talked of. The aspirants for his hand and the throne of France were numberless. Maria Theresa, the daughter of the king of Spain, was very beautiful. Spain and France were then engaged in petty and vexatious hostilities, and a matrimonial alliance would secure friendship.

So negotiations were begun; and on the 10th of June, 1660, Louis, then in the twenty-second year of his age, was joined in marriage, at the Isle of Pheasants, to Maria Theresa, infanta of Spain. On the 26th of August, the king and his young bride made their public entry into Paris. Triumphal arches spanned the thoroughfares, garlands of flowers and hangings of tapestry covered the fronts of the houses, and sweet-scented herbs strewed the pavements, upon which passed an apparently interminable procession of carriages, horsemen, and footmen; and in the midst of the clangor of trumpets, the boom of cannon, and the shouts and acclamations of the multitude, came the chariot of the young queen, who, radiant and sparkling with brilliant gems, beheld from her lofty height all Paris striving to do her honor. By her side rode the king. His garments, of velvet richly embroidered with gold, and covered with jewels, had been prepared at an expense of over a million of dollars. The gorgeousness of this gala day lived long in the minds of the splendor-loving Parisians. For succeeding weeks and months, the court luxuriated in one continued round of gayety. “There was a sound of revelry by night” in the salons of the Louvre and the Tuileries, while lords and ladies trod the floors in the mazy evolutions of the dance. And yet, to maintain all this state, all this splendor, all this reckless extravagance, thousands of the peasantry of France were compelled to live in mud hovels, to wear the coarsest garb, to eat the plainest food, while their wives and daughters toiled barefoot in the fields.