where
Bolingbroke and Oxford were now at the head of affairs. Under Villars,
success returned to the French standards in Flanders.

Hence came in 1713 the peace of Utrecht, for the terms of which England
was mainly responsible. It was fair and just, but the English ministry
received scant justice for making it. The emperor refused at first to
accept it; but, when isolated, he agreed to its corollary, the peace of
Rastadt. Philip was secured on the throne of Spain.

Never was there a war or a peace in which so many natural expectations
were so completely reversed in the outcome. What Louis may have proposed
to himself after it was over, no one can say for he died the year after
the treaty of Utrecht.

_IV.--The Court of the Grand Monarque_

The brilliancy and magnificence of the court, as well as the reign of
Louis XIV., were such that the least details of his life seem
interesting to posterity, just as they excited the curiosity of every
court in Europe and of all his contemporaries. Such is the effect of a
great reputation. We care more to know what passed in the cabinet and
the court of an Augustus than for details of Attila's and Tamerlane's
conquests.

One of the most curious affairs in this connection is the mystery of the
Man with the Iron Mask, who was placed in the Ile Sainte-Marguerite just
after Mazarin's death, was removed to the Bastille in 1690, and died in
1703. His identity has never been revealed. That he was a person of very
great consideration is clear from the way in which he was treated; yet
no such person disappeared from public life. Those who knew the secret
carried it with them to their graves.

Once the man scratched a message on a silver plate, and flung it into
the river. A fisherman who picked it up brought it to the governor.
Asked if he had read the writing, he said, "No; he could not read
himself, and no one else had seen it." "It is lucky for you that you
cannot read," said the governor. And the man was detained till the truth
of his statement had been confirmed.

The king surpassed the whole court in the majestic beauty of his
countenance; the sound of his voice won the hearts which were awed by
his presence; his gait, appropriate to his person and his rank, would
have been absurd in anyone else. In those who spoke with him he inspired
an embarrassment which secretly flattered an agreeable consciousness of
his own superiority. That old officer who began to ask some favour of