as
most rigid in its wearisome formalities. But the pageantry of
Versailles was a poor antidote to the sorrows which bowed his head to
the ground, except on those great public occasions when his pride
triumphed over his grief. Every day, in his last years, something
occurred to wound his vanity, and alienate him from all the world but
Madame de Maintenon, the only being whom he fully trusted, and who did
not deceive him. Indeed, the humiliated monarch was an object of pity
as well as of reproach, and his death was a relief to himself, as well
as to his family. He died in 1715, two years after the peace of
Utrecht, not much regretted by the nation.

[Sidenote: His Character.]

Louis XIV. cannot be numbered among the monsters of the human race who
have worn the purple of royalty. His chief and worst vice was egotism,
which was born with him, which was cultivated by all the influences of
his education, and by all the circumstances of his position. This
absorbing egotism made him insensible to the miseries he inflicted,
and cherished in his soul the notion that France was created for him
alone. His mistresses, his friends, his wives, his children, his
court, and the whole nation, were viewed only as the instruments of
his pride and pleasure. All his crimes and blunders proceeded from his
extraordinary selfishness. If we could look on him without this moral
taint, which corrupted and disgraced him, we should see an indulgent
father and a generous friend. He attended zealously to the duties of
his station, and sought not to shake off his responsibilities. He
loved pleasure, but, in its pursuit, he did not forget the affairs of
the realm. He rewarded literature, and appreciated merit. He honored
the institutions of religion, and, in his latter days, was devoted to
its duties, so far as he understood them. He has been foolishly
panegyrized, and as foolishly censured. Still his reign was baneful,
on the whole, especially to the interests of enlightened Christianity
and to popular liberty. He was a bigoted Catholic, and sought to
erect, on the ruins of states and empires, an absolute and universal
throne. He failed; and instead of bequeathing to his successors the
power which he enjoyed, he left them vast debts, a distracted empire,
and a discontented people. He bequeathed to France the revolution
which hurled her monarch from his throne, but which was overruled for
her ultimate good.

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