Historic Boys: Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times

by Elbridge S. Brooks

The angry quarrel of the Fronde raged high for full five months after this midnight reception in the king's bedchamber, but at last came the eventful day which was to fulfil the boy's oft-repeated wish—the day of his majority. For, according to a law of the realm, a king of France could be declared of age at thirteen; and young Louis of Bourbon, naturally a high-spirited lad, had been made even more proud and imperious by his surroundings and education. He chafed under the restraints of the regency, and hailed with delight the day that should set him free.

It was the seventh of August, 1651. Through the echoing streets of Paris wound a glittering cavalcade, gay with streaming banners and a wealth of gorgeous color. With trumpeters in blue velvet and heralds in complete armor, with princes and nobles and high officials mounted on horses gleaming in housings of silver and gold, with horse-guards and foot-guards, pages and attendants, in brilliant uniforms and liveries, rode young King Louis, "Louis the God-given," as his subjects called him, to hold his "Bed of Justice," and proclaim himself absolute king of France. He was a noble-looking young fellow, and he rode his splendid Barbary horse dressed so magnificently that he looked almost "like a golden statue." What wonder that the enthusiastic and loyal Aubery is carried away by his admiration of this kingly boy. "Handsome as Adonis," writes the chronicler. "August in majesty, the pride and joy of humanity, the king looked so tall and majestic that his age would have been thought to be eighteen."

And so through the same mob that five months before had howled around the palace of the imprisoned king, young Louis of Bourbon, rode on to the Palace of Justice while the streets echoed to the loyal shouts of "Vive le roi!" The glittering procession swept into the great hall of the palace and gathered around the throne. And a singular throne it was. On a broad dais, topped with a canopy of crimson and gold, five great cushions were arranged. This was the young king's "Bed of Justice," as it was called. Seating himself upon one cushion, "extending his arms and legs upon three others and using the fifth to lean against," this boy of thirteen, with his plumed and jewelled cap on his head, while every one else remained uncovered, said, in a clear and steady voice: "Messieurs: I have summoned my Parliament to inform its members that, in accordance with the laws of my realm, it is my intention henceforth to assume the government of my kingdom." Then princes and lords, from little "Monsieur," the ten-year-old brother of the king, to the gray old Marshals of France, bent the knee in allegiance, and back to the Palais Royal with his glittering procession, and amid the jubilant shouts of the people, rode the boy king of France, Louis of Bourbon, "King Louis Quatorze."

But alas for the ups and downs of life! This long-wished-for day of freedom did not bring to young Louis the absolute obedience he expected. The struggles of the Fronde still continued, and before the spring of the next year this same haughty young monarch who, in that gorgeous August pageant, had glittered like a "golden statue," found himself with his court, fugitives from Paris, and crowded into stuffy little rooms or uncomfortable old castles, fearful of capture, while not far away the cannons of the two great generals, Turenne and Condé thundered at each other across the Loire, in all the fury of civil war. Something of a bully by nature, for all his blood and kingliness, young Louis seems to have taken a special delight, during these months of wandering, in tormenting his equally high-spirited brother, the little "Monsieur"; and there flashes across the years a very "realistic" picture of a narrow room in the old chateau of Corbeil, in which, upon a narrow bed, two angry boys are rolling and pulling and scratching in a bitter "pillow-fight," brought on by some piece of boyish tyranny on the elder brother's part. And these two boys are not the "frondeurs" of the Paris streets, but the highest dignitaries, of France—her king and her royal prince. There is but little difference in the make-up of a boy, you see, whether he be prince or pauper.

But even intrigue and quarrel may wear themselves out. Court and people alike wearied of the foolish and ineffectual strivings of the Fronde, and so it came about that in the fall of 1652, after a year of exile, the gates of Paris opened to the king, while the unpopular Mazarin, so long the object of public hatred, the man who had been exiled and outlawed, hunted and hounded for years, now returned to Paris as the chief adviser of the boy-king, with shouts of welcome filling the streets that for so many years had resounded with the cry of "Down with Mazarin!"

And now the gay court of King Louis Fourteenth blazed forth in all the brilliancy of pomp and pleasure. The boy, himself, as courageous in the trenches and on the battle-field as he was royal and imperious in his audience-chamber, became the hero and idol of the people. Life at his court was very joyous and delightful to the crowd of gay, fun-loving, and unthinking young courtiers who thronged around this powerful young king of fifteen; and not the least brilliant and lively in the royal train were Olympia Mancini and the young Count of Guiche, both proud of their prominence as favorites of the king.

One pleasant afternoon in the early autumn of 1653, a glittering company filled the little theatre of the Hotel de Petit Bourbon, near to the Louvre. The curtain parted, and, now soft and sweet, now fast and furious, the music rose and fell, as the company of amateurs—young nobles and demoiselles of the court—danced, declaimed, and sang through all the mirth and action of one of the lively plays of that period written for the king by Monsieur Benserade.

In one of the numbers of the ballet, Mars and Venus stood at the wings awaiting their cue and watching the graceful dancing of a nimble dryad who, beset by a cruel satyr, changed speedily into the tuneful Apollo, vanquished the surprised satyr, and then sang to the accompaniment of his own lute the high-sounding praises of the great and glorious "King Louis Quatorze."

And Mars said to Venus: "Our noble brother Immortal sings divinely; does he not, Olympia?—or thinks he does," he added, in a whisper.

"Hush, Count Armand," Venus replied, holding up a warning finger. "Your last words are barely short of treason."