Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 / A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History

by Unknown

Laporte, a valet who had long been on duty in the royal family, and had served a term in the Bastille for his fidelity, desired to read to the king, when he went to bed, something besides fairy tales; if his juvenile majesty went to sleep the reading would be lost; if not, something instructive would be retained in his memory. He read the history of France, and his charge was interested in it. Permission had been obtained of the preceptor, but Mazarin did not approve of the reading. One evening, to escape from the crowd, the cardinal passed through the room during the reading. Louis closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. He had already taken a strong aversion to the minister, like the greater portion of the people in general.

On one occasion he called the cardinal "the Grand Turk," and the remark was reported to his mother, who sent for him and scolded him severely for it. The queen-regent did not share the general dislike of the minister, for they were on the most intimate terms of friendship. It was not a matter of record, but it was believed by many, that Mazarin had been privately married to Anne of Austria. The minister had brought his relatives to Paris, where he was in a situation to advance their fortunes. One of his youngest nephews had been appointed an enfant d'honneur of the king, who did not confine his dislike to the minister, but extended it to his family. Two of these were designated to remain with his majesty when he went to bed, and Laporte had been instructed by the queen to give each of them a stand with two candles in it, as an emblem of office and a token of honor. The king had the selection, and he forbade Laporte to give it to the young Mazarin.

The minister was one of the most adroit and cunning diplomats of his time, or any time. He was an Italian by birth, and had been in the military and diplomatic service of the Pope, in which capacity he had been recognized as a man of transcendent abilities by Richelieu, who had retained him in France, where he became a naturalized Frenchman. He was the most obsequious of courtiers, and he made himself indispensable to the queen, who nominally wielded the executive power of the government. He filled one of the most difficult political positions imaginable, and did it with consummate skill, though he very nearly sacrificed himself to the indignation of the people and the nobility in the accomplishment of his purposes.

Richelieu had deprived the representatives of the people of many of their powers and liberties, and the Parliament had attempted to recover them under Mazarin. He caused their leaders to be arrested, which initiated the war of the Fronde, consisting more of a series of riots than of organized warfare. This disturbance compelled the court to retire to St. Germain, where Louis was born. The young king was conveyed there under the protection of the Royal Guard, which forms an exciting scene in the series of Dumas, Père, "Les Trois Mousquetaires." Though humiliated and banished, Mazarin triumphed in the end. He had the hardihood to arrest the Great Condé, who had made the rebellion a success at one time. The minister was driven from the seat of his power into exile; but diplomacy accomplished what soldiers could not, and after an absence of a year he returned, and established himself so securely that he held his office to the day of his death.

Under Mazarin's direction and skilful intriguing at home and abroad, the influence of France was largely increased beyond her own borders, and the way was paved for triumphs to be achieved after he had himself passed away. In the family, as it were, of such a statesman and such an intriguer, were passed the earliest years of the life of Louis XIV. As the skilful diplomat had overcome the people and the nobility, changing them from the bitterest foes to at least the semblance of friends, so the hatred of the young king was buried under his respect for the vast ability of the minister.

Louis was brought up in the midst of political storms and in the turmoil of civil war. Mazarin was avaricious, and carried his economical notions in household matters to a ridiculous extent, limiting the young king's wardrobe, furniture, garments for underwear and bed use, so that some of the latter did not half cover the limbs of the growing boy, and he was compelled to sleep on a bed covered with ragged sheets. He was a bright boy, and being a king, he realized that he was not supported in the style that became his exalted condition. He was inclined to military recreations and to athletic exercises. He came very early to an understanding of what was necessary to support his character as the ruler of a great nation, and as a boy he cultivated the graces of social life, and was always a gentleman. He was a good horseman, and delighted in this exercise.

The civil war had "hunted him from pillar to post," and it was not till he was a dozen years old that he was permanently settled down in Paris. All these events of his early life had left a powerful impression upon his mind. It was the custom for the children of honor and the king to exchange little presents among themselves. One of these gifts to the juvenile monarch was a golden cannon drawn by a flea, which seemed to indicate a knowledge of his tastes. Another present was a case of surgical instruments, containing all the implements, but weighing only a few grains; and doubtless it suggested the horrors of the battle-field. Another present was a miniature sword of agate, ornamented with gold and rubies. These were all given to him by the same young noble; in return for them Louis was willing to lend the giver the cross-bow of which he made use himself.

"Kings give what they lend, sire," interposed a governess; and then Louis presented it to him, wishing it was something more valuable; for his pocket-money evidently did not permit him to indulge in such expensive gifts as those he had received; but such as they were, he gave them with his whole heart. The recipient of the gift kept it, and regarded it as vastly more valuable than if it had been covered with gold and diamonds from another.

September 7, 1651, was a memorable day in the annals of France, and if it was not marked by the popular rejoicings which had greeted the birth of the king, it was because the people were worn out by the war of the Frondeurs. The grand master of ceremonies had notified the Parliament that Louis XIV. would take the "seat of justice," the place of the monarch in this body on solemn and important occasions, on that day, for the purpose of declaring his majority, and assuming the government. There was a great deal of simple fiction in the formalities, for his majesty was only a boy of fourteen, with far less education than is usually obtained by one of that age at the present time, and was incapable of ruling over a great nation.

There was even some fiction in regard to his age, for though he had entered his fourteenth year, he was hardly thirteen years old. If a boy of that age were transferred from his place in school to the presidency of the United States to-day, the cases would be parallel. The education of the juvenile king had been neglected, perhaps intentionally, by Mazarin for his cunning purposes, and though he had been instructed in all the forms and ceremonials of the court, he was deficient in his knowledge of the solid branches of learning, even for one in his sphere at that age. But the government, so far as he was concerned, was all a fiction. It was to be carried on in his name in the future as it had been in the name of his mother, the queen-regent, before, though neither of them was the actual ruler. Mazarin was more than "the power behind the throne;" he was practically the throne itself.