The Boys' Book of Rulers

The Cardinal Mazarin was old and dying. For eighteen years he had been virtually monarch of France. Avaricious and penurious to the last degree, he had amassed enormous wealth. Cursed by the peasantry whom he had ground to the earth, hated by the king whom he had tried to rule, despised by the court which he had attempted to humble, on the 9th of March, 1661, at his Chateau Mazarin, the cardinal breathed his last. From that moment until the day of his death, Louis XIV. sat all-powerful upon his throne. And when the president of the Ecclesiastical Assembly inquired of the king to whom he must hereafter address himself on questions of public business, the emphatic and laconic response was, “To myself.”

M. Fouquet, the Minister of the Treasury, was rolling in ill-gotten wealth. His palace of Vaux le Vicomte, upon which he had expended fifteen millions of francs, eclipsed in splendor the royal palaces of the Tuileries and Fontainebleau. The king disliked him. He knew he was robbing the treasury, and it was more than his self-love could endure, that a subject should live in state surpassing that of his sovereign. Fouquet most imprudently invited the king and all the court to a fête at the chateau. No step could have been more ill-advised; for the king was little likely to forget, as he looked upon the splendors of Vaux le Vicomte, by which St. Germain and Fontainebleau were utterly eclipsed, that its owner had derived all his wealth from the public coffers; and at a time, too, when he was himself in need of the funds here lavished with such reckless profusion. Every one in France, who bore a distinguished name, was bidden to the princely festival, which was destined to be commemorated by La Fontaine and by Benserade, by Pelisson and by Molière. Fouquet met the king at the gates of the chateau, and conducted him to the park. Here, notwithstanding all he had heard of the splendors of Vaux le Vicomte, the king was unprepared for the scene of magnificence which burst upon his view. The play of the fountains, the beauty of the park, and the splendor of the chateau were long remembered by the guests at this princely festival. But to Louis XIV. it was gall and wormwood; and when he took leave of his obsequious host, he remarked bitterly: “I shall never again, sir, venture to invite you to visit me. You would find yourself inconvenienced.”

Fouquet felt the keen rebuke, and turned pale. The king and his courtiers returned to Paris, but in the mind of Louis XIV. there loomed up distant visions of the palaces of Versailles and the great hydraulic machine at Marly. On the 8th of January, 1666, Anne of Austria died. It was a gloomy winter’s night when the remains of her who had been both queen and regent of France were borne to their last resting-place in the vaults of St. Denis. In his previous campaigns, Louis had taken Flanders in three months, and Franche-Comté in three weeks. Alarmed by these rapid conquests, Holland, Switzerland, and England entered into an alliance to resist further encroachments, should they be attempted. That such a feeble state as Holland should think of limiting his conquests, aroused the anger of the Grand Monarque. Armies were mustered, munitions of war got together, and ships prepared; and on the 12th of June, 1672, at the head of an army of one hundred and thirty thousand men, Louis crossed the Rhine, and made his triumphal entry into the city of Utrecht. Then, indeed, Holland trembled; Amsterdam trembled; Louis was at the gates. But, rising in the frenzy of despair, they pierced the dikes, which alone protected the country from the sea. In rushed the flood, and Amsterdam rose like a mighty fortress in the midst of the waves, surrounded by ships of war, which found depth to float where ships never floated before. Thus suddenly Louis XIV. found himself checked in his proud career. Chagrined at seeing his conquest at an end, he left his army under the command of Turenne, and returned to his palaces in France.

Louis XIV. had never recovered from the mortification he had experienced at the fête at Vaux. He resolved to rear a palace so magnificent that no subject, whatever might be his resources, could approach it; so magnificent that, like the pyramids of Egypt, it should be a lasting monument of the splendor of his reign. In 1664, Louis selected Versailles as the site for this stupendous pile of marble, which, reared at a cost of thousands of lives, and two hundred millions of money, decorated by the genius of Le Notre, of Mansard, and Le Brun, twenty-five years after its commencement, was ready to receive its royal occupants; and, resting proudly upon its foundations, presented to admiring Europe the noblest monument of the reign of Louis XIV. The splendors of the fêtes which attended the completion of this palace transformed it into a scene of enchantment, and filled all Europe with wonder.

The most magnificent room in the palace, the Gallerie des Glaces, called the Grand Gallery of Louis XIV., is two hundred and forty-two feet long, thirty-five feet broad, and forty-three feet high. Germany, Holland, Spain, Rome even, bend the knee in the twenty-seven paintings which ornament this grand gallery. But to whom do they bow? Is it to France? No; it is to Louis XIV.

“Louis XIV. and his palace not only afforded conversation for Europe, but their fame penetrated the remote corners of Asia. The emperor of Siam sent him an embassy. Three o’pras, high dignitaries of the empire, eight mandarins, and a crowd of servitors landed at Brest, charged with magnificent presents and a letter from the emperor. Arrived at Versailles, they were fêted with unheard-of splendor. The day of their public audience, the fountains played in the gardens; flowers were strewn in the paths; the sumptuous Gobelin carpets were paraded, as well as the richest works of the goldsmith. The cortège of ambassadors was received with the most refined forms of etiquette, and led through apartments filled with the court, glittering in diamonds and embroidery, and at length reached the end of the grand gallery, where Louis XIV., clad in a costume that cost twelve millions, stood on a throne of silver placed on an estrade elevated nine steps above the floor, and covered with Gobelin carpets and costly vases. There the Siamese prostrated themselves three times, with hands clasped, before the Majesty of the West, and then lifted their eyes to him.”

Louis spent millions on Versailles, millions on his pleasures, millions on his pomps, millions in his wars; he lavished gold on his favorites, his generals, and his lackeys. And all ended in national bankruptcy.

Let us, then, in imagination look upon the grand gallerie of Louis XIV. during one of those gorgeous fêtes which attracted the attention of all Europe. Before us is the grand salon, with its glittering candelabra and thousand brilliant lights, reflected in prismatic rays from the costly mirrors which line the walls. Under foot, a pavement of variegated marble, shining and polished as a floor of glass; and overhead the gorgeous frescoes of Le Brun, setting forth in glowing colors the great achievements of the Grand Monarque. The highest nobility of the realm, the grande noblesse of France, throng this splendid gallery.

The costly costumes of the cavaliers and the gorgeous robes of the Grande Dames, the waving plumes and flashing jewels, all conspire to render the scene of marvellous magnificence. And now, as the impatient throng turn their gaze in the direction of the Salon of War, in expectation of the approach of royalty, the folding-doors are thrown back, and the stentorian voice of the usher resounds throughout the gallery: “His Majesty the King!” and upon the threshold, in a costume resplendent with sparkling gems, stands Louis XIV., the Grand Monarque. As a parterre of blooming flowers bends low before a rushing gust of wind, so bow these titled lords and ladies before his piercing glance; while Louis, full conscious of his kingly majesty, walks slowly, and with measured step, all down the long and glittering lines, pausing ever and anon to address those whose rank entitles them to this inestimable boon.

“It was not only on festive occasions that Versailles wore an air of grand gala. It was its habitual aspect. At Vaux, nature had contributed quite as much as art, to the marvellous beauty of the scene. At Versailles, she had done nothing, and Louis’ pleasure was the greater, in that he considered it the unrivalled creation of his own genius. Versailles, with its palace, its gardens, its fountains, its statues, and water-works, Trianon, and appendages, was a work of art to gaze upon with wonder. Let us ascend; for, in whatever place you may be, it is necessary to mount, to reach this palace; at whatever point you may stand to look at it, you see its roofs, apparently touching the clouds. It crowns the hill like a diadem. If you come from Paris, it rises above the town, which lies prostrate at the feet of its majesty; if you approach from the park, it lifts itself above the gigantic trees, above the terraces which pile themselves up towards it, above the jets of water which surround it; the groves seem to support it upon their tall heads, and the whole forest serves as its footstool. Let us ascend, for the doors are open; people are going and coming. The ladies smile, the mirrors reflect them, the chandeliers light them, the ceilings throw their golden coloring upon them. The courtiers stare in the midst of the riches of this magnificent dwelling; but, amid all this stir, all these surprises, all these wonders, only one man is calm, – this man Louis XIV.

“He feels as much at ease in this palace as in a vestment made for him; and, contemplating the work to which his pride gave birth, he exclaims, in the fulness of his satisfaction, ‘Versailles is myself!’

“Yet, upon a bright spring day, or soft summer evening, when Louis, disposed for one of those long promenades he was accustomed to take sometimes twice a day, descended to the gardens from the grand terrace of the palace, followed by his numerous court, the coup d’œil from a distance must have been charmingly effective. And, when enlivened by sauntering, chatting, flirting, laughing groups of picturesquely dressed ladies and gentlemen of the court, – a numerous retinue of lackeys following, no less resplendent in dress than their masters, – the admirable fitness of the gardens and grounds of Versailles for the purpose which Louis, no doubt, had in his mind when the designs were approved, must have been very striking. In the centre of this throng of feathers and swords, satins and laces, flashing jewels, fans and masks, solemnly paced the magnificent Louis, with the air of lord of the universe, monarch of all he surveyed, and of all who surveyed him; for his courtiers lived only in the light of his countenance. Yet the countenance of this god was grandly cold, serene, and unchangeable, as that of any of the marble deities that presided over his fountains. It was no mean advantage to him that nature had kindly exalted him, at least, three inches above almost every other man of his court. The French were not generally a fine race of men; but the dress of the period – the high heels, the wig, the lofty plume, and the looped-up, broad-brimmed hat – gave to the grandees an appearance of height, which, as a rule, they had not. And above them all towered their king, like Jupiter, in Olympus, in the midst of the inferior gods, or as the sun, with lesser lights revolving around him, and shining only in the refulgence of his rays.

“Red-heeled boots, slashed doublets, and flowing wigs, cordeliers of pearls, Moorish fans, masques, patches and paint, monumental head-dresses, and the thousand other items indispensable to the toilets of the lords and ladies of the Louis XIV. period, have a charmingly picturesque effect, seen through the long vista of two centuries, and heightened by the glamour of la grande politesse, et la grande galanterie of the Grand Monarque and his court. Life seems to have been with them, one long fancy-dress ball, a never-ending carnival, a perpetual whirl, an endless succession of fêtes and carousals.”

Louis XIV. now found nearly all Europe in arms against him. He sent twenty thousand men, under Marshal Turenne, to encounter the forces of the emperor of Germany; and forty thousand, under the Prince de Condé, to assail William, prince of Orange. In his defence of the frontiers of the Rhine, Turenne acquired a reputation which has made his name famous in military annals. With twenty thousand men, he defeated and dispersed the Imperial army of seventy thousand; and it adds not a little to his celebrity, that, following his own judgment, he achieved the victory in direct opposition to the orders from the minister of war. A merciless warrior, he allowed no consideration of humanity to interfere with his military operations. He laid in ashes the beautiful country of the Palatinate, embracing, on both sides of the Rhine, about sixteen hundred square miles, and having a population of over three hundred thousand souls, in order that the armies of his enemies might be deprived of sustenance; while the wail of widows and orphans rose over the smouldering ruins of their dwellings, over the bleak and barren fields.

On the 27th of June, 1675, a cannon ball struck Turenne, and closed, in an instant, his earthly career. Few men have ever lived who have caused such wide-spread misery. For two years the war continued, with sometimes varying success, but with unvarying blood and misery. At last, on the 14th of August, 1678, peace, the peace of Nimegeun, was made. Louis XIV. dictated the terms.

Now, at the height of his grandeur, having enlarged his dominions by the addition of Franche-Comté, Dunkirk, and half of Flanders, worshipped by his courtiers as a demi-god, the court of France conferred upon him, with imposing solemnities, the title of Louis le Grand. In 1685, the Queen, Maria Theresa, breathed her last. Amiable, unselfish, warm-hearted, from the time of her marriage she devoted herself to the promotion of her husband’s happiness. His neglect caused her to shed many tears. The king could not be insensible to her many virtues, and perhaps remorse, mingled with the emotions which compelled him to weep bitterly over her death, caused him to exclaim, as he gazed upon the lifeless remains, “Kind and forbearing friend, this is the first sorrow you have caused me throughout twenty years.” For ten days the royal corpse lay in state at Versailles, and perpetual masses were performed for the soul of the departed. On the day of the funeral, the king, in the insane endeavor to obliterate from his mind all thoughts of death and burial, ordered out the hounds, and plunged into the excitement of the chase. His horse pitched the monarch over his head into a ditch of stagnant water, dislocating one of his shoulders.

In 1685, also died Jean Baptiste Colbert, the king’s minister of finance. As superintendent of buildings, arts, and manufactures, he had enlarged the Tuileries and the Louvre, completed gorgeous Versailles, reared the magnificent edifice of the Invalides, and founded the Gobelins. As minister of finance, he had furnished the king with the money he needed for his expensive wars and luxurious indulgence. Now old, forgotten, exhausted by incessant labor, he was on his dying bed. The heavy taxes he had imposed upon the people rendered him unpopular. The curses and imprecations of a starving peasantry rose around his dying couch. The king condescended in courtesy to send a messenger inquiring after the condition of his minister, but the dying sufferer turned away his face, saying, “I will not hear that man spoken of again. If for God I had done what I have for him, I should have been saved ten times over. What my fate now may be, I know not.”

And so worn out by toil, anxiety, and grief, he died. On the following day, without any marks of honor, his remains were conveyed to the church of St. Eustache.

Genoa had offended the king by giving assistance to the Algerines. He seized, by a lettre de cachet, the Genoese ambassador, and plunging him into one of the dungeons of the Bastile, sent a fleet of fifty vessels to chastise those who had offended him, with terrible severity. On the 19th of May, 1684, the ships entered the harbor of Genoa, and immediately opened upon the city a terrific fire, so that in a few hours, a large portion of those marble edifices, which had given to the city the name of “Genoa the Superb,” were crumbled into powder. The city was threatened with total destruction, and in terror the authorities implored the clemency of the conqueror. Haughtily the Grand Monarque demanded that the doge of Genoa, and four of his principal ministers, should repair to the palace of Versailles, and humbly implore his pardon. Utterly powerless, the doge was compelled to submit to these humiliating terms.

On the 15th of May, 1685, Louis ordered his throne to be placed at the end of the grand gallery, by the side of the “Salon of Peace.” The doge entered with four senators Genoa had sent to accompany him. He was dressed in red velvet, with a cap of the same. In order to preserve all the dignity his misfortune allowed him, the doge remained covered until he entered the presence of the king. The king allowed the princes to remain covered during the audience. The doge discharged his sad mission with a firmness that created astonishment. His bearing was more impressive than his discourse. A few days after he attended the levee, dined with the king, was shown the park and all the fountains, and was present at a ball given in the grand apartment. Afterwards he had his audience of leave-taking, and when one of the senators asked him what surprised him most at Versailles, he replied with an air of more chagrin than usual, “At seeing myself there.” The doge and senators did not stay long in France. They saw in haste the wonders shown them, and then returned to Genoa. Arrived at home, they talked over the things they had seen. One senator spoke of the dazzling spectacles, the vast apartments, the sumptuous ornaments; and said no mind was powerful enough to carry away the remembrance of all the riches of the palace, its paintings, its statues, its tapestry, its ceilings, its gold, and its marble. The doge replied, there was more than its exterior magnificence, and luxury of its interior; that the palace was the whole French monarchy. You read the origin of the monarchy in the chateau built by Louis XIII. The architects wished to pull it down; the king replied, that, if it would not last, they must take it down, but reconstruct it on its first plan. He wished the work of his father to remain, to contrast with the edifice he was going to erect. One part of the building only projects immensely in the long outline, that is where the master dwells. The king walks alone in the first rank, the courtiers follow, and support the train of the royal mantle. If you mount by the grand staircase, you find a suite of immense salons, covered with beautiful paintings. The Salon of Plenty, then Venus, then Diana, then Mars, then Mercury, and then Apollo. Of what use are they? The master does not inhabit them. But go on farther, pass through empty galleries, you will at length find his apartments. All this suite of magnificent salons, all these galleries, serve as an ante-chamber only to the place in which he dwells. Mars and Apollo, gods formerly, are nothing now but lackeys to the king of France.

In the year 1598, King Henry IV., feeling the need of the support of the Protestants to protect his kingdom from the perils by which it was surrounded, and having himself been educated a Protestant, had granted to the Protestants the world-renowned edict of Nantes. By this edict, Protestants were allowed liberty of conscience; were permitted, in certain designated places, to hold public worship; were declared to be eligible to offices of state, and in certain places, were allowed to publish books. Louis XIV. was a Catholic, a bigoted Catholic; hoping in some measure to atone for his sins, by his supreme devotion to the interests of the church, and while assuring the Protestant powers of Europe that he would continue to respect the edict of Nantes, he commenced issuing a series of ordinances in direct opposition to that contract. In 1680 he excluded Protestants from all public offices, whatsoever. A Protestant could not be employed as a physician, lawyer, apothecary, bookseller, printer, or even as a nurse.

In some parts of the kingdom, the Protestants composed nearly the entire population. Here it was impossible to enforce the atrocious decree. Riots and bloodshed followed. Affairs went from bad to worse, and on the 18th of October, 1685, the king, yielding to the wishes of his confessor and other high dignitaries of the Church, signed the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In this act of revocation, it was declared that, “the exercise of the Protestant worship should nowhere be tolerated in the realm of France. All Protestant pastors were ordered to leave the kingdom within fifteen days, under pain of being sent to the galleys. Parents were forbidden to instruct their children in the Protestant religion. Every child in the kingdom was to be baptized and educated by a Catholic priest. All Protestants who had left France, were ordered to return within four months, under penalty of confiscation of their possessions. Any Protestant man or woman who should attempt to emigrate, incurred the penalty of imprisonment for life.”

This infamous ordinance caused an amount of misery which can never be gauged, and inflicted upon the prosperity of France the most terrible blow it had ever received. Only one year after the revocation, Marshal Vauban wrote, “France has lost one hundred thousand inhabitants, sixty millions of coined money, nine thousand sailors, twelve thousand disciplined soldiers, six hundred officers, and her most flourishing manufactures.”

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was the great blot upon the reign of Louis XIV. From that hour the fortunes of the Grand Monarque began manifestly to decline.

Louvois, minister of war, had for a long time been all-powerful at court. Through his influence, the king had been induced to revoke the Edict of Nantes, and to order the utter devastation of the Palatinate. But that influence was upon the wane. The king had become weary of his haughty assumptions, and the conflagration of the Palatinate had raised a cry of indignation that even he could not fail to hear. Treves had escaped the flames. Louvois solicited an order to burn it. The king refused. Louvois insolently gave the order himself, and entering the royal presence, exclaimed calmly, “Sire, I have commanded the burning of Treves, in order that I might spare your Majesty the pain of issuing such an edict.”

Louis was furious; and springing up, with flashing eyes, forgetful of all the restraints of etiquette, he seized the tongs from the fireplace, and would have broken the head of his minister, had not Madame de Maintenon rushed between them. The king despatched a messenger to countermand the order, and declared that if but a single house were burned, the head of the minister should be the forfeit. Treves was saved.

On one occasion, when Louis XIV. went to examine the progress of the building of the Trianon, accompanied by Louvois, he remarked that a particular window was out of proportion, and did not harmonize with the rest; but the minister, jealous of his dignity as controller of the royal works, would not admit the objection, but maintained that it was similar to the others.

The king desired Le Notre to declare his opinion as to the size of the disputed window. Le Notre, fearful of offending either the monarch or his minister, endeavored to give an evasive answer. Upon which, Louis commanded him to measure it carefully, and he was reluctantly compelled to obey. The result of the trial proved that the king was right, the window was too small; and the monarch had no sooner ascertained the fact, than he turned angrily to his minister, exclaiming, “M. Louvois, I am weary of your obstinacy. It is fortunate that I myself have superintended the work of building, or the façade would have been ruined.”

As this scene had taken place not only in the presence of the workmen, but of all the courtiers who followed the king upon his promenade, Louvois was stung to the quick; and on entering his own house, he exclaimed furiously, “I am lost if I do not find some occupation for a man who can interest himself in such trifles. There is nothing but a war which can divert him from his building, and war he shall have. I will soon make him abandon his trowel.”