pe, to convey to the august
mother and her child the blessing of the holy father. He also
presented the queen, for her babe, swaddling-clothes which had been
blessed by his holiness. These garments were exceedingly rich with
gold and silver embroidery. They were inclosed in a couple of chests
of red velvet, and elicited the admiration of the royal pair.

The France of that day was very different from that magnificent empire
which now stands in intellectual culture, arts, and arms, prominent
among the nations of the globe. The country was split up into hostile
factions, over which haughty nobles ruled. The roads in the rural
districts were almost impassable. Paris itself was a small and dirty
city, with scarcely any police regulations, and infested with robbers.
There were no lamps to light the city by night. The streets were
narrow, ill paved, and choked with mud and refuse. Immediately after
nightfall these dark and crooked thoroughfares were thronged with
robbers and assassins, whose depredations were of the most audacious
kind.

Socially, morally, and intellectually, France was at the lowest ebb.
The masses of the people were in a degraded condition of squalid
poverty and debasement. Still the king, by enormous taxation,
succeeded in wresting from his wretched subjects an income to meet the
expenses of his court, amounting to about four millions of our money.
But the outlays were so enormous that even this income was quite
unavailing, and innumerable measures of extortion were adopted to meet
the deficit.

The king was so much gratified by the birth of a dauphin that for a
time he became quite reconciled to his beautiful and haughty queen.
Two years after the birth of the dauphin, on the 21st of September,
1640, Anne gave birth to a second son, who took the title of Philip,
duke of Anjou. The queen and her two children resided in the
beautiful palace of Saint Germain-en-Laye, where the princes were
born.

A company of French Guards, commanded by Captain Montigni, protected
the castle. Madame de Lausac was the governess of the two children.
The title by which the king's brother was usually designated was
simply Monsieur. But for these children of the king, the crown, upon
the death of the monarch, would descend immediately to Monsieur, the
king's brother. The morals of the times were such that the king was
ever apprehensive that some harm might come to the children through
the intrigues of his brother. Monsieur