Darkly, but to more effect, the same rumors were renewed before long. The duke of Berry died at the age of twenty-seven, on the 4th of May, 1714, of a disease which presented the same features as the scarlet fever (rougeole pourpréc), to which his brother and sister-in-law had succumbed. The king was old and sad; the state of his kingdom preyed upon his mind; he was surrounded by influences hostile to his nephew, whom he himself called “a vaunter of crimes.” A child who was not five years old remained sole heir to the throne. Madame de Maintenon, as sad as the king, “naturally mistrustful, addicted to jealousies, susceptibilities, suspicions, aversions, spites, and woman’s wiles” [Lettres de Fénelon au duc de Chevreuse], being, moreover, sincerely attached to the king’s natural children, was constantly active on their behalf. On the 19th of July, 1714, the king announced to the premier president and the attorney-general of the parliament of Paris that it was his pleasure to grant to the duke of Maine and to the count of Toulouse, for themselves and their descendants, the rank of princes of the blood, in its full extent, and that he desired that the deed should be enregistered in the parliament. Soon after, still under the same influence, he made a will which was kept a profound secret, and which he sent to be deposited in the strong-room (greffe) of the parliament, committing the guardianship of the future king to the duke of Maine, and placing him, as well as his brother, on the council of regency, with close restrictions as to the duke of Orleans, who would be naturally called to the government of the kingdom during the minority. The will was darkly talked about; the effect of the elevation of bastards to the rank of princes of the blood had been terrible. “There was no longer any son of France; the Spanish branch had renounced; the duke of Orleans had been carefully placed in such a position as not to dare say a word or show the least dissatisfaction; his only son was a child; neither the duke (of Berry), his brothers, nor the prince of Conti, were of an age, or of standing, in the king’s eyes, to make the least trouble in the world about it. The bombshell dropped all at once when nobody could have expected it, and everybody fell on his stomach, as is done when a shell drops; everybody was gloomy and almost wild; the king himself appeared as if exhausted by so great an effort of will and power.” He had only just signed his will, when he met, at Madame de Maintenon’s, the ex-queen of England. “I have made my will, Madame,” said he; “I have purchased repose; I know the impotence and uselessness of it; we can do all we please as long as we are here; after we are gone, we can do less than private persons; we have only to look at what became of my father’s, and immediately after his death too, and of those of so many other kings. I am quite aware of that; but, in spite of all that it was desired; and so, Madame, you see it has been done; come of it what may, at any rate I shall not be worried about it any more.” It was the old man yielding to the entreaties and intrigues of the domestic circle; the judgment of the king remained steady and true, without illusions and without prejudices.
Death was coming, however, after a reign which had been so long, and had occupied so much room in the world, that it caused mistakes as to the very age of the king. He was seventy-seven, he continued to work with his ministers; the order so long and so firmly established was not disturbed by illness any more than it had been by the reverses and sorrows of late. He said to Madame de Maintenon once, “What consoles me for leaving you, is that it will not be long before we meet again.” She made no reply. “What will become of you?” he added: “you have nothing.” “Do not think of me,” said she: “I am nobody; think only of God.” He said farewell to her; she still remained a little while in his room, and went out when he was no longer conscious. She had given away here and there the few movables that belonged to her, and now took the road to St. Cyr. On the steps she met Marshal Villeroy: “Good bye, marshal,” she said curtly and covered up her face in her coifs. He it was who sent her news of the king to the last moment. The duke of Orleans, on becoming regent, went to see her and took her the patent (brevet) for a pension of sixty thousand livres, “which her disinterestedness had made necessary for her,” said the preamble. It was paid her up to the last day of her life. History makes no further mention of her name; she never left St. Cyr. Thither the czar Peter the Great, when he visited Paris and France, went to see her; she was confined to her bed; he sat a little while beside her. “What is your malady?” he asked her through his interpreter. “A great age,” answered Madame de Maintenon, smiling. He looked at her a moment in silence; then, closing the curtains, he went out abruptly. The memory he would have called up had vanished. The woman on whom the great king had, for thirty years, heaped confidence and affection was old, forgotten, dying; she expired at St. Cyr on the 15th of April, 1719, at the age of eighty-three.
She had left the king to die alone. He was in the agonies; the prayers in extremity were being repeated around him; the ceremonial recalled him to consciousness. He joined his voice with the voices of those present, repeating the prayers with them. Already the court was hurrying to the duke of Orleans; some of the more confident had repaired to the duke of Maine’s; the king’s servants were left almost alone around his bed; the tones of the dying man were distinctly heard above the great number of priests. He several times repeated: “Nunc et in hora mortis.” Then he said quite loud: “O my God, come thou to help me, haste thee to succor me.” Those were his last words. He expired on Sunday, the 1st of September, 1715, at eight a. m. Next day he would have been seventy-seven years of age, and he had reigned seventy-two of them.
In spite of his faults and his numerous and culpable errors, Louis XIV. had lived and died like a king. The slow and grievous agony of olden France was about to begin.
VIII.—FRENCH LITERATURE.
For volume and merit taken together the product of these eight centuries of literature excels that of any European nation, though for individual works of the supremest excellence, they may perhaps be asked in vain. No French writer is lifted by the suffrages of other nations—the only criterion when sufficient time has elapsed—to the level of Homer, of Shakspere, or of Dante, who reign alone. Of those of the authors of France who are indeed of the thirty, but attain not to the first three, Rabelais and Molière alone unite the general suffrage, and this fact roughly but surely points to the real excellence of the literature which these men are chosen to represent. It is great in all ways, but it is greatest on the lighter side. The house of mirth is more suited to it than the house of mourning. To the latter, indeed, the language of the unknown marvel who told Roland’s death, of him who gave utterance to Camilla’s wrath and despair, and of the living poet who sings how the mountain wind makes mad the lover who can not forget, has amply made good its title of entrance. But for one Frenchman who can write admirably in this strain, there are a hundred who can tell the most admirable story, formulate the most pregnant reflection, point the acutest jest. There is thus no really great epic in French, few great tragedies, and those imperfect and in a faulty kind, little prose like Milton’s, or like Jeremy Taylor’s, little verse (though more than is generally thought) like Shelley’s, or like Spenser’s. But there are the most delightful short tales, both in prose and in verse, that the world has ever seen, the most polished jewelry of reflection that has ever been wrought, songs of incomparable grace, comedies that must make men laugh as long as they are laughing animals, and above all, such a body of narrative fiction, old and new, prose and verse, as no other nation can show for art and for originality, for grace of workmanship in him who fashions, and for certainty of delight to him who reads.—Encyclopædia Britannica.
[To be continued.]
[A] The words in this type call attention to “Readings” to follow.
