CHAP.

manifestation of philosophy, of poetry, and of wit. People XXXIII. read and thought, as well as intrigued and chattered,

as the Letters of De Sévigné testify. But with the splendour and glory of his age, Louis the Fourteenth's intelligence seems to have set also. St. Simon describes the first publication of Father Damel's work, in 1713; the first book of history, he says, that the king or De Maintenon ever spoke of, much less read, and which the courtiers pretended to peruse. The point of the work was its effort to show that illegitimate princes could succeed as well as legitimate, and had, in fact, often succeeded to the throne.

This was indeed a serious preoccupation of Louis in his last years. By the death of intervening princes, and of the Duke of Berry, third grandson of the king, in May 1714, the sole heir or direct heir to the crown was a sickly child. The other descendants of Louis. had been so suddenly carried off that it was difficult to count with any confidence upon this child's life. Rumours of poison, too, were prevalent, such as naturally prevail where there is neither justice nor publicity. The presumptive heir, after the failure of the offspring of the king, was the Duke of Orleans. His life was dissolute; not more so than that of the generality of his cotemporaries, save that, instead of taking pains to conceal his sensual habits, he rather gloried in them. He was moreover of that new and libertine school in religion which had been produced by the opposite extreme of furious bigotry in high places. It being treason to be a Protestant, almost equally so to be a Jansenist, freethinkers avowed themselves Atheists altogether, and, not without some show of reason, deemed religion and its professors as the worst scourge and most stupid tyrants of the age. In such profession the Duke of Orleans was joined by his daughter, the Duchess of Berry, to the great horror of De Maintenon, and to the great advantage of the enemies and calumniators of the House of Orleans. The want of even

CHAP. XXXIII.

decent hypocrisy envenomed rather than disarmed the malice of the age, which accused the duke of xxxIII. incest with his daughter, the bond between them being merely the common scoffing of religion. Another charge against the duke was that of having caused the death of the dauphin and dauphiness, and of those who stood between him and the throne. The duke went straight to the king, challenged his calumniators to the proof, and demanded a trial. Louis hesitated, and on the remonstrance, it is believed, of his physician, declined to countenance the accusation.

The legitimate succession to the throne being likely to fall to a prince of such a character, emboldened the Duke du Maine, the son of Louis and Montespan, to play the part of Monmouth, and claim the royal inheritance. Short of sanctioning this supreme right, Louis had done everything for his illegitimate children. To induce the king to take this last step in their favour became their hourly and nightly aim. They had prepared all the means. The royal confessor, Le Tellier, lent his aid, of course, against the unbeliever Orleans. The chancellor, Pontchartrain, resigned about this time, perhaps from a wish not to be an accomplice of what was meditated. Voisin, a creature of Du Maine's, obtained his place. And in August 1714 the decree appeared legitimatising the offspring of the king by Madame de Montespan, and rendering them capable of succeeding to the throne on the failure of the direct male heir. The parliament recorded the edict, and registered it without a murmur. Strange to say, the personage who alone ventured an open doubt upon the worth and durability of the act was Louis himself. Regarding M. du Maine before several witnesses in his cabinet, Louis exclaimed, in a moment of despondency and ill-temper, "You would have it so. But know, however great I may I make you, and you may be in my lifetime, you are nothing after I am gone.

It will be

CHAP. for you to realize what I have done for you if you

XXXIII.

are able."

The infant prince, the Duke of Anjou, the future Louis the Fifteenth, still lived, however, and it was necessary to provide for his minority, even more than for his successor. If matters were allowed to take their course, the Duke of Orleans would be proclaimed regent at the death of the king, and wield his uncontrolled power. M. du Maine, therefore, supported by De Maintenon, pressed Louis to leave a testament, limiting the power of the future regent, if not replacing him. The king yielded rather to their importunities than to their arguments. He drew up the desired testament, limiting the power of the future regent, the Duke of Orleans, by a council, which was to share his authority, and to participate in his government. M. du Maine was to be one of this council, and was moreover to have the especial charge of the young monarch. This testament the king solemnly committed to the keeping of the chief magistrate of the parliament, who consigned it to an iron coffer or chest, imbedded in one of the walls of the palace. The king, in handing the packet to him, signed with seven seals, expressed his dissatisfaction with what he had done. It was an act of his absolute power, too likely to be disregarded at his death. So he told the judge, and added as an excuse, that he had been tormented, and found it better to purchase repose by granting what was asked of him. "There, take it; let what will come of it, I shall at least be no longer troubled on that head."*

Having thus put an end to the importunities on the subject of his successor, the king gave his chief attention to the Unigenitus bull, and laboured as zealously and as hard with his confessor, Le Tellier, in overcoming Jansenist opposition to it, as he had ever done with Louvois in the great object of conquering Europe.

*Memoirs of Berwick and St. Simon.

Still, certain events recalled the declining monarch to what had been the policy of his reign. Queen Anne expired on the 1st of August, 1714, and with her breath evaporated the scheme of Bolingbroke in favour of the Pretender. This great peacemaker with France came to Paris, but Louis did not see him, and Lord Stair soon came over as ambassador from the English king, George the First, who did not shrink from reminding Louis rather rudely of any neglect in the observance of the stipulations of the treaty. Some works were thrown up at Mardyke, which the English jealousy construed into a desire to remedy or obviate the destruction of the port of Dunkirk. Lord Stair remonstrated with such energy that Louis felt compelled to observe, "that he had always been master in his own dominions, and at times even in those of others, and that his lordship would do well not to remind a King of France of those past times."

The year 1715 was marked by a sensible diminution of the king's health, which was manifest to all the world. In August he was confined to the palace by a pain in the thigh. It was considered to be sciatica ; but the limb in a few days displayed black spots, and the presence of gangrene was discovered. Everyone then, the king included, thought but of the future. Madame de Maintenon and the Duc du Maine made him sign a codicil to the royal testament, giving to the latter full command over the guards, the palace, and the royal household, after the king's death. It appointed the Maréchal de Villeroi, under the Duc du Maine, guardian of the dauphin. Louis, on his part, whilst thus obsequious to his worldly friends and intimates, was severe upon his ghostly ones. He told the Cardinals of Rohan and Bussy, who watched his bedside, that all that he had done in ecclesiastical affairs was by the advice of churchmen, with whom he left all the responsibility. And so far was he from being the personal

CHAP.

XXXIII.

CHAP. enemy of the Jansenists, he was willing to receive the XXXIII. Cardinal de Noailles forthwith. The priests, however,

took care that the liberal churchman should not approach the dying monarch. All the princes and princesses, by the king's order, came successively to bid him farewell. His words to his great-grandson and successor were to avoid his "tastes for building and for war, and live at peace with his neighbour." To the Duke of Orleans he bade prepare Vincennes for the young king; in this, and in his injunction to many to obey the Duke of Orleans as regent, he seemed to contradict the spirit of his testament, or at least of its codicil. He preserved his natural calm, and asked the servants why they wept. Had they believed him immortal ?

The most surprising circumstance of the end of Louis was perhaps the frequent, and at last final absence of Madame de Maintenon, who left for St. Cyr. Louis summoned her on the 30th of August, and she came but to depart at five o'clock, and return no more. Her conduct is explained, not excused, by her fear of the Duke of Orleans, whom she had injured with the king, taking part with the illegitimate princes against him. The king lived for more than twenty-four hours later, expiring on the morning of the 1st of September, 1715. He had lived seventy-seven years, and reigned seventy-two. It is impossible to contemplate history without fancying, one need not say believing, that certain experiments have been made from time to time of different forms of religion or of government, in order to prove and ascertain the probable results or comparative excellences of the different forms. One cannot avoid, for example, studying the first eight centuries of our era without coming to the conclusion that Christianity, as then taught and developed, was in the east, and amongst eastern races, a failure. That in the west it has proved not only a divine truth, but an immense social and political success, is equally manifest. That religious despotism,