as prolonged
only to gratify the ambition of Marlborough. The great general, in
consequence, lost popularity; and the Tories succeeded in securing a
peace, just as Louis was on the verge of ruin. Another campaign, had
the allies been united, would probably have enabled Marlborough to
penetrate to Paris. That was his aim; that was the aim of his party.
But the nation was weary of war, and at last made peace with Louis. By
the treaty of Utrecht, (1713,) Philip V. resumed the throne of Spain,
but was compelled to yield his rights to the crown of France in case
of the death of a sickly infant, the great-grandson of Louis XIV., who
was heir apparent to the throne; but, in other respects, the terms
were not more favorable than what Louis had offered in 1706, and very
inadequate to the expenses of the war. The allies should have yielded
to the overtures of Louis before, or should have persevered. But party
spirit, and division in the English cabinet and parliament, prevented
the consummation which the Whigs desired, and Louis was saved from
further humiliation and losses.

[Sidenote: Last Days of Louis.]

But his power was broken. He was no longer the autocrat of Europe, but
a miserable old man, who had lived to see irreparable calamities
indicted on his nation, and calamities in consequence of his ambition.
His latter years were melancholy. He survived his son and his
grandson. He saw himself an object of reproach, of ridicule, and of
compassion. He sought the religious consolation of his church, but was
the victim of miserable superstition, and a tool of the Jesuits. He
was ruled by his wife, the widow of the poet Scarron, whom his
children refused to honor. His last days were imbittered by
disappointments and mortifications, disasters in war, and domestic
afflictions. No man ever, for a while, enjoyed a prouder preeminence.
No man ever drank deeper of the bitter cup of disappointed ambition
and alienated affections. No man ever more fully realized the vanity
of this world. None of the courtiers, by whom he was surrounded, he
could trust, and all his experiences led to a disbelief in human
virtue. He saw, with shame, that his palaces, his wars, and his
pleasures, had consumed the resources of the nation, and had sowed the
seeds of a fearful revolution. He lost his spirits; his temper became
soured; mistrust and suspicion preyed upon his mind. His love of pomp
survived all his other weaknesses, and his court, to the last, w