d been
committed against its dignity by the violent introduction of a stranger
into the heart of its political constitution. We see him ever aloof and
ever isolated, like a foreign hostile body hovering over a surface which
repels its contact. The strong hand itself of the monarch, who was.
his friend and protector, could not support him against the antipathies
of the nation which had once resolved to withhold from him all its
sympathy. The voice of national hatred was all powerful, and was ready
to forego even private interest, its certain gains; his alms even were
shunned, like the fruit of an accursed tree. Like pestilential vapor,
the infamy of universal reprobation hung over him. In his case
gratitude believed itself absolved from its duties; his adherents
shunned him; his friends were dumb in his behalf. So terribly did the
people avenge the insulted majesty of their nobles and their nation on
the greatest monarch of the earth.

History has repeated this memorable example only once, in Cardinal
Mazarin; but the instance differed according to the spirit of the two
periods and nations. The highest power could not protect either from
derision; but if France found vent for its indignation in laughing at
its pantaloon, the Netherlands hurried from scorn to rebellion. The
former, after a long bondage under the vigorous administration of
Richelieu, saw itself placed suddenly in unwonted liberty; the latter
had passed from ancient hereditary freedom into strange and unusual
servitude; it was as natural that the Fronde should end again in
subjection as that the Belgian troubles should issue in republican
independence. The revolt of the Parisians was the offspring of poverty;
unbridled, but not bold, arrogant, but without energy, base and
plebeian, like the source from which it sprang. The murmur of the
Netherlands was the proud and powerful voice of wealth. Licentiousness
and hunger inspired the former; revenge, life, property, and religion
were the animating motives of the latter. Rapacity was Mazarin's spring
of action; Granvella's lust of power. The former was humane and mild;
the latter harsh, imperious, cruel. The French minister sought in the
favor of his queen an asylum from the hatred of the magnates and the
fury of the people; the Netherlandish minister provoked the hatred of a
whole nation in order to please one man. Against Mazarin were only a
few factions and the mob they could arm; an entire and united nation