last reign taxed the ingenuity of the
regent to its utmost. Then it was that John Law, the Scotchman,
presented his great financial scheme of making unlimited wealth out of
paper, which was just what the regent needed. The collapse came
quickly, in 1720, bringing ruin to thousands, and leaving the country
in more desperate need than before.

When declared of age, in 1723, a marriage was arranged for Louis with
Marie Leczinska, daughter of the exiled Polish King Stanislas. Europe
at this time was agitated over the succession to the throne of Austria,
as the empire was now called. The Salic Law excluded female heirs, and
the emperor, Charles VI., had died in 1718, leaving only a daughter,
Maria Theresa, one year old. But a pragmatic sanction, once more
invoked, seems to have covered the necessities of the situation by
providing that the succession in the absence of a male heir might
descend to a female, and so there was a young and beautiful empress on
the throne at Vienna, who was going to make a great deal of history for
Europe; and who would open her brilliant reign by a valiant fight for
possession of Silesia, which the young king of Prussia intended to
seize as an addition to his own new kingdom. This young King Frederick
was also making history very fast, and after a stormy career was going
to convert his Kingdom into a Power, and to be the one sovereign of his
age whom the world would call _Great_! But at this particular period
of his youth, Frederick and his nobility, still blinded by the
splendors of the reign of Louis XIV., were mere servile imitators of
the court at Versailles, and the culture and the civilization for which
they hungered were French--only French; and for Frederick, an intimate
companionship with Voltaire was his supreme desire. But a closer view
of the witty, cynical Frenchman wrought a wonderful change. The finely
pointed shafts of ridicule when aimed at himself were not so
entertaining. And his guest, no longer _persona grata_, was escorted
over the frontier to France.

A nearer view of Versailles at this time might also have disenchanted
these worshippers at the shrine of French civilization. A king
absolutely indifferent to conditions in his kingdom, immersed in
debasing pleasures, while Madame de Pompadour actually ruled the
state--this is not the worst they would have seen! Destitute of shame,
of pity, of patriotism, and of human affection, what did it mean to the
king that