Indeed, the books of the time will give one a strong idea how general was this Louis-worship. I have just been looking at one which was written by an honest Jesuit and protégé of Père la Chaise, who dedicates it to the august Infants of France, which does, indeed, go almost as far in print. He calls our famous monarch "Louis le Grand: 1, l'invincible; 2, le sage; 3, le conquérant; 4, la merveille de son siècle; 5, la terreur de ses ennemis; 6, l'amour de ses peuples; 7, l'arbitre de la paix et de la guerre; 8, l'admiration de l'univers; 9, et digne d'en être le maître; 10, le modèle d'un héros achevè; 11, digne de l'immortalité, et de la vénération de tous les siècles!"
A pretty Jesuit declaration, truly, and a good, honest judgment upon the great king! In 30 years more: 1. The invincible had been beaten a vast number of times. 2. The sage was the puppet of an artful old woman, who was the puppet of more artful priests. 3. The conqueror had quite forgotten his early knack of conquering. 5. The terror of his enemies (for 4, the marvel of his age, we pretermit, it being a loose term, that may apply to any person or thing) was now terrified by his enemies in turn. 6. The love of his people was as heartily detested by them as scarcely any other monarch, not even his great-grandson, has been, before or since. 7. The arbiter of peace and war was fain to send superb ambassadors to kick their heels in Dutch shopkeepers' antechambers. 8. Is again a general term. 9. The man fit to be master of the universe was scarcely master of his own kingdom. 10. The finished hero was all but finished, in a very commonplace and vulgar way. And, 11, the man worthy of immortality was just at the point of death, without a friend to soothe or deplore him; only withered old Maintenon to utter prayers at his bedside, and croaking Jesuit to prepare him, with heavens knows what wretched tricks and mummeries, for his appearance in that Great Republic that lies on the other side of the grave. In the course of his fourscore splendid miserable years, he never had but one friend, and he ruined and left her. Poor La Vallière, what a sad tale is yours!...
While La Vallière's heart is breaking, the model of a finished hero is yawning; as, on such paltry occasions, a finished hero should. Let her heart break: a plague upon her tears and repentance; what right has she to repent? Away with her to her convent! She goes, and the finished hero never sheds a tear. What a noble pitch of stoicism to have reached! Our Louis was so great, that the little woes of mean people were beyond him; his friends died, his mistresses left him; his children, one by one, were cut off before his eyes, and great Louis is not moved in the slightest degree! As how, indeed, should a god be moved?...
Out of the window the king's august head was one day thrust, when old Condé was painfully toiling up the steps of the court below. "Don't hurry yourself, my cousin," cries Magnanimity; "one who has to carry so many laurels can not walk fast." At which all the courtiers, lackeys, mistresses, chamberlains, Jesuits, and scullions, clasp their hands and burst into tears. Men are affected by the tale to this very day. For a century and three-quarters have not all the books that speak of Versailles, or Louis Quatorze, told the story?
"Don't hurry yourself, my cousin!" O admirable king and Christian! what a pitch of condescension is here, that the greatest king of all the world should go for to say anything so kind, and really tell a tottering old gentleman, worn out with gout, age, and wounds, not to walk too fast!
What a proper fund of slavishness is there in the composition of mankind, that histories like these, should be found to interest and awe them. Till the world's end, most likely, this story will have its place in the history-books, and unborn generations will read it, and tenderly be moved by it.
I am sure that Magnanimity went to bed that night, pleased and happy, intimately convinced that he had done an action of sublime virtue, and had easy slumbers and sweet dreams--especially if he had taken a light supper, and not too vehemently attacked his "en cas de nuit." ...
The king his successor has not left, at Versailles, half so much occasion for moralizing; perhaps the neigbhboring Parc aux Cerfs would afford better illustrations of his reign. The life of his great grandsire, the Grand Llama of France, seems to have frightened Louis the well-beloved; who understood that loneliness is one of the necessary conditions of divinity, and, being of a jovial, companionable turn, aspired not beyond manhood.
Only in the matter of ladies did he surpass his predecessor, as Solomon did David. War he eschewed, as his grandfather bade him; and his simple taste found little in this world to enjoy beyond the mulling of chocolate and the frying of pancakes. Look, here is the room called Laboratoire du Roi, where, with his own hands, he made his mistress's breakfast; here is the little door through which, from her apartments in the upper story, the chaste Du Barri came stealing down to the arms of the weary, feeble, gloomy old man.
But of women he was tired long since, and even pancake-frying had palled upon him. What had he to do, after forty years of reign; after having exhausted everything? Every pleasure that Dubois could invent for his hot youth, or cunning Lebel could minister to his old age, was flat and stale; used up to the very dregs; every shilling in the national purse had been squeezed out, by Pompadour and Du Barri and such brilliant ministers of state. He had found out the vanity of pleasure, as his ancestor had discovered the vanity of glory: indeed, it was high time that he should die. And die he did; and round his tomb, as round that of his grandfather before him, the starving people sang a dreadful chorus of curses, which were the only epitaphs for good or for evil that were raised to his memory....