up their minds," says the king in his _Memoires_
[t. ii. p. 392], "that my assiduity in work was but a heat which would
soon cool; but time showed them what to think of it, for they saw me
constantly going on in the same way, wishing to be informed of all that
took place, listening to the prayers and complaints of my meanest
subjects, knowing the number of my troops and the condition of my
fortresses, treating directly with foreign ministers, receiving
despatches, making in person part of the replies and giving my
secretaries the substance of the others, regulating the receipts and
expenditures of my kingdom, having reports made to myself in person
by those who were in important offices, keeping my affairs secret,
distributing graces according to my own choice, reserving to myself alone
all my authority, and confining those who served me to a modest position
very far from the elevation of premier ministers."

The young king, from the first, regulated his life and his time: "I laid
it down as a law to myself," he says in his _Instructions au Dauphin,_
"to work regularly twice a day. I cannot tell you what fruit I reaped
immediately after this resolution. I felt myself rising as it were both
in mind and courage; I found myself quite another being; I discovered in
myself what I had no idea of, and I joyfully reproached myself for having
been so long ignorant of it. Then it dawned upon me that I was king, and
was born to be."

A taste for order and regularity was natural to Louis XIV., and he soon
made it apparent in his councils. "Under Cardinal Mazarin, there was
literally nothing but disorder and confusion; he had the council held
whilst he was being shaved and dressed, without ever giving anybody a
seat, not even the chancellor or Marshal Villeroy, and he was often
chattering with his linnet and his monkey all the time he was being
talked to about business. After Mazarin's death the king's council
assumed a more decent form. The king alone was seated, all the others
remained standing, the chancellor leaned against the bedrail, and M. de
Lionne upon the edge of the chimney-piece. He who was making a report
placed himself opposite the king, and, if he had to write, sat down on a
stool which was at the end of the table where there was a writing-desk
and paper." [_Histoire de France,_ by Le P. Daniel, t. xvi. p. 89.] "
I will settle this matter with your Majesty's ministers," said the
Portuguese ambassador one