References.—Macaulay's, Hume's, Hallam's, and Lingard's Histories of England. Mackintosh's Causes of the Revolution of 1688. Fox's History of the Reign of James—a beautiful fragment. Burnet's History of his Own Times. Neal's History of the Puritans. Life and Times of Richard Baxter. Southey's Life of Bunyan. Memoir of George Fox, by Marsh. Life of William Penn. Chapters on religion, science, and the condition of the people, in the Pictorial History of England. Russell's Modern Europe. Woolrych's Life of Judge Jeffreys.[(Back to Contents)]
CHAPTER XVI.
LOUIS XIV.
We turn now from English affairs to contemplate the reign of Louis XIV. Louis XIV.—a man who filled a very large space in the history of Europe during the seventeenth century. Indeed, his reign forms an epoch of itself, not so much from any impulse he gave to liberty or civilization, but because, for more than half a century, he was the central mover of European politics. His reign commemorates the triumph in France, of despotic principles, the complete suppression of popular interests, and almost the absorption of national interests in his own personal aggrandizement. It commemorates the ascendency of fashion, and the great refinement of material life. The camp and the court of Louis XIV. ingulphed all that is interesting in the history of France during the greater part of the seventeenth century. He reigned seventy-two years, and, in his various wars, a million of men are supposed to have fallen victims to his vain-glorious ambition. His palaces consumed the treasures which his wars spared. He was viewed as a sun of glory and power, in the light of which all other lights were dim. Philosophers, poets, prelates, generals, and statesmen, during his reign, were regarded only as his satellites. He was the central orb around which every other light revolved, and to contribute to his glory all were supposed to be born. He was, most emphatically, the state. He was France. A man, therefore, who, in the eye of contemporaries, was so grand, so rich, so powerful, and so absolute, claims a special notice. It is the province of history to record great influences, whether they come from the people, from great popular ideas, from literature and science, or from a single man. The lives of individuals are comparatively insignificant in the history of the United States; but the lives of such men as Cæsar, Cromwell, and Napoleon, furnish very great subjects for the pen of the philosophical historian, since great controlling influences emanated from them, rather than from the people whom they ruled.
Louis XIV. was not a great general, like Henry IV., nor a great statesman, like William III., nor a philosopher, like Frederic the Great, nor a universal genius, like Napoleon; but his reign filled the eyes of contemporaries, and circumstances combined to make him the absolute master of a great empire. Moreover, he had sufficient talent and ambition to make use of fortunate opportunities, and of the His Power and Resources. resources of his kingdom, for his own aggrandizement. But France, nevertheless, was sacrificed. The French Revolution was as much the effect of his vanity and egotism, as his own power was the fruit of the policy of Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin. By their labors in the cause of absolutism, he came in possession of armies and treasures. But armies and treasures were expended in objects of vain ambition, for the gratification of selfish pleasures, for expensive pageants, and for gorgeous palaces. These finally embarrassed the nation, and ground it down to the earth by the load of taxation, and maddened it by the prospect of ruin, by the poverty and degradation of the people, and, at the same time, by the extravagance and insolence of an overbearing aristocracy. The aristocracy formed the glory and pride of the throne and both nobles and the throne fell, and great was the fall thereof.
Our notice of Louis XIV. begins, not with his birth, but at the time when he resolved to be his own prime minister, on the death of Cardinal Mazarin, (1661.)
Louis XIV. was then twenty-three years of age—frank, beautiful, imperious, and ambitious. His education had been neglected, but his pride and selfishness had been stimulated. During his minority, he had been straitened for money by the avaricious cardinal; but avaricious for his youthful master, since, at his death, besides his private fortune, which amounted to two hundred millions of livres, he left fifteen millions of livres, not specified in his will, which, of course, the king seized, and thus became the richest monarch of Europe. He was married, shortly before the death of Mazarin, to the Infanta Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV., King of Spain. But, long before his marriage, he had become attached to Mary de Mancini, niece of Mazarin, who returned his love with passionate ardor. She afterwards married Prince Colonna, a Roman noble, and lived a most abandoned life.
The enormous wealth left by Cardinal Mazarin was, doubtless, one motive which induced Louis XIV., though only a young man of twenty-three, to be his own prime minister. Henceforth, to his death, all his ministers made their regular reports to him, and none were permitted to go beyond the limits which he prescribed to them.