“Yet, upon a bright spring day, or soft summer evening, when Louis, disposed for one of those long promenades he was accustomed to take sometimes twice a day, descended to the gardens from the grand terrace of the palace, followed by his numerous court, the coup d’œil from a distance must have been charmingly effective. And, when enlivened by sauntering, chatting, flirting, laughing groups of picturesquely dressed ladies and gentlemen of the court,—a numerous retinue of lackeys following, no less resplendent in dress than their masters,—the admirable fitness of the gardens and grounds of Versailles for the purpose which Louis, no doubt, had in his mind when the designs were approved, must have been very striking. In the centre of this throng of feathers and swords, satins and laces, flashing jewels, fans and masks, solemnly paced the magnificent Louis, with the air of lord of the universe, monarch of all he surveyed, and of all who surveyed him; for his courtiers lived only in the light of his countenance. Yet the countenance of this god was grandly cold, serene, and unchangeable, as that of any of the marble deities that presided over his fountains. It was no mean advantage to him that nature had kindly exalted him, at least, three inches above almost every other man of his court. The French were not generally a fine race of men; but the dress of the period—the high heels, the wig, the lofty plume, and the looped-up, broad-brimmed hat—gave to the grandees an appearance of height, which, as a rule, they had not. And above them all towered their king, like Jupiter, in Olympus, in the midst of the inferior gods, or as the sun, with lesser lights revolving around him, and shining only in the refulgence of his rays.
“Red-heeled boots, slashed doublets, and flowing wigs, cordeliers of pearls, Moorish fans, masques, patches and paint, monumental head-dresses, and the thousand other items indispensable to the toilets of the lords and ladies of the Louis XIV. period, have a charmingly picturesque effect, seen through the long vista of two centuries, and heightened by the glamour of la grande politesse, et la grande galanterie of the Grand Monarque and his court. Life seems to have been with them, one long fancy-dress ball, a never-ending carnival, a perpetual whirl, an endless succession of fêtes and carousals.”
Louis XIV. now found nearly all Europe in arms against him. He sent twenty thousand men, under Marshal Turenne, to encounter the forces of the emperor of Germany; and forty thousand, under the Prince de Condé, to assail William, prince of Orange. In his defence of the frontiers of the Rhine, Turenne acquired a reputation which has made his name famous in military annals. With twenty thousand men, he defeated and dispersed the Imperial army of seventy thousand; and it adds not a little to his celebrity, that, following his own judgment, he achieved the victory in direct opposition to the orders from the minister of war. A merciless warrior, he allowed no consideration of humanity to interfere with his military operations. He laid in ashes the beautiful country of the Palatinate, embracing, on both sides of the Rhine, about sixteen hundred square miles, and having a population of over three hundred thousand souls, in order that the armies of his enemies might be deprived of sustenance; while the wail of widows and orphans rose over the smouldering ruins of their dwellings, over the bleak and barren fields.
DEATH OF TURENNE.
On the 27th of June, 1675, a cannon ball struck Turenne, and closed, in an instant, his earthly career. Few men have ever lived who have caused such wide-spread misery. For two years the war continued, with sometimes varying success, but with unvarying blood and misery. At last, on the 14th of August, 1678, peace, the peace of Nimegeun, was made. Louis XIV. dictated the terms.
Now, at the height of his grandeur, having enlarged his dominions by the addition of Franche-Comté, Dunkirk, and half of Flanders, worshipped by his courtiers as a demi-god, the court of France conferred upon him, with imposing solemnities, the title of Louis le Grand. In 1685, the Queen, Maria Theresa, breathed her last. Amiable, unselfish, warm-hearted, from the time of her marriage she devoted herself to the promotion of her husband’s happiness. His neglect caused her to shed many tears. The king could not be insensible to her many virtues, and perhaps remorse, mingled with the emotions which compelled him to weep bitterly over her death, caused him to exclaim, as he gazed upon the lifeless remains, “Kind and forbearing friend, this is the first sorrow you have caused me throughout twenty years.” For ten days the royal corpse lay in state at Versailles, and perpetual masses were performed for the soul of the departed. On the day of the funeral, the king, in the insane endeavor to obliterate from his mind all thoughts of death and burial, ordered out the hounds, and plunged into the excitement of the chase. His horse pitched the monarch over his head into a ditch of stagnant water, dislocating one of his shoulders.
In 1685, also died Jean Baptiste Colbert, the king’s minister of finance. As superintendent of buildings, arts, and manufactures, he had enlarged the Tuileries and the Louvre, completed gorgeous Versailles, reared the magnificent edifice of the Invalides, and founded the Gobelins. As minister of finance, he had furnished the king with the money he needed for his expensive wars and luxurious indulgence. Now old, forgotten, exhausted by incessant labor, he was on his dying bed. The heavy taxes he had imposed upon the people rendered him unpopular. The curses and imprecations of a starving peasantry rose around his dying couch. The king condescended in courtesy to send a messenger inquiring after the condition of his minister, but the dying sufferer turned away his face, saying, “I will not hear that man spoken of again. If for God I had done what I have for him, I should have been saved ten times over. What my fate now may be, I know not.”
And so worn out by toil, anxiety, and grief, he died. On the following day, without any marks of honor, his remains were conveyed to the church of St. Eustache.
Genoa had offended the king by giving assistance to the Algerines. He seized, by a lettre de cachet, the Genoese ambassador, and plunging him into one of the dungeons of the Bastile, sent a fleet of fifty vessels to chastise those who had offended him, with terrible severity. On the 19th of May, 1684, the ships entered the harbor of Genoa, and immediately opened upon the city a terrific fire, so that in a few hours, a large portion of those marble edifices, which had given to the city the name of “Genoa the Superb,” were crumbled into powder. The city was threatened with total destruction, and in terror the authorities implored the clemency of the conqueror. Haughtily the Grand Monarque demanded that the doge of Genoa, and four of his principal ministers, should repair to the palace of Versailles, and humbly implore his pardon. Utterly powerless, the doge was compelled to submit to these humiliating terms.