[509] Ibid. vol. xxiii. p. 127.
[510] Tennemann, Gesch. der Philos. vol. x. p. 322.
[511] Biog. Univ. vol. vi. p. 175.
[512] Brunet, Manuel du Libraire, vol. iv. p. 105, Paris 1843; and note in Lettres de Patin, vol. i. p. 421.
[513] Biog. Univ. vol. xxxiii. pp. 64, 71; Palissot, Mém. pour l'Hist. de Lit. vol. ii. pp. 239, 241.
[514] Polyeucte, which is probably his greatest work, appeared in 1640; Médée in 1635; The Cid in 1636; Horace and Cinna both in 1639. Biog. Univ. vol. ix. pp. 609–613.
[515] Voltaire (Siècle de Louis XIV, in Œuvres, vol. xx. pp. 319–322) reluctantly confesses the decline of the French intellect in the latter part of the reign of Louis; and Flassan (Diplomat. Franç. vol. iv. p. 400) calls it ‘remarquable.’ See also Barante, Littérature Française, p. 28; Sismondi, Hist. des Français, vol. xxvi. p. 217.
[516] Oppressed by defeats abroad, and by famine and misery at home, Louis was laid at the mercy of his enemies; and ‘was only saved by a party revolution in the English ministry.’ Arnold's Lectures on Modern History, p. 137. Compare Fragments sur l'Histoire, article xxiii. in Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. xxvii. p. 345, with De Tocqueville, Règne de Louis XV, vol. i. p. 86.
[517] For evidence of the depression and, indeed, utter exhaustion of France during the latter years of Louis XIV., compare Duclos, Mémoires, vol. i. pp. 11–18, with Marmontel, Hist. de la Régence, Paris, 1826, pp. 79–97. The Lettres inédites de Madame de Maintenon (vol. i. pp. 263, 284, 358, 389, 393, 408, 414, 422, 426, 447, 457, 463, vol. ii. pp. 19, 23, 33, 46, 56, and numerous other passages) fully confirm this, and, moreover, prove that in Paris, early in the eighteenth century, the resources, even of the wealthy classes, were beginning to fail; while both public and private credit were so shaken, that it was hardly possible to obtain money on any terms. In 1710, she, the wife of Louis XIV., complains of her inability to borrow 500 livres: ‘Tout mon crédit échoue souvent auprès de M. Desmaretz pour une somme de cinq cents livres.’ Ibid. vol. ii. p. 33. In 1709, she writes (vol. i. p. 447): ‘Le jeu devient insipide, parce qu'il n'y a presque plus d'argent.’ See also vol. ii. p. 112; and in February 1711 (p. 151): ‘Ce n'est pas l'abondance mais l'avarice qui fait jouer nos courtisans; on met le tout pour le tout pour avoir quelque argent, et les tables de lansquenet ont plus l'air d'un triste commerce que d'un divertissement.’
In regard to the people generally, the French writers supply us with little information, because in that age they were too much occupied with their great king and their showy literature, to pay attention to mere popular interests. But I have collected from other sources some information which I will now put together, and which I recommend to the notice of the next French author who undertakes to compose a history of Louis XIV.