In spite of his great abilities, no monarch ever reaped a severer penalty for his misgovernment than did Louis.  Like Solomon, he lived long enough to see the bursting of all the bubbles which had floated before his intoxicated brain.  All his delusions were dispelled; he was oppressed with superstitious fears; he was weary of the very pleasures of which he once was fondest; he saw before him a gulf of national disasters; he was obliged to melt up the medallions which commemorated his victories, to furnish bread for starving soldiers; he lost the provinces he had seized; he saw the successive defeat of all his marshals and the annihilation of his veteran armies; he was deprived of his children and grandchildren by the most dreadful malady known to that generation; a feeble infant was the heir of his dominions; he saw nothing before him but national disgrace; he found no counsellors whom he could trust, no friends to whom he could pour out his sorrows; the infirmities of age oppressed his body; the agonies of remorse disturbed his soul; the fear of hell became the foundation of his religion, for he must have felt that he had a fearful reckoning with the King of kings.

Such was the man to whom the best days of Madame de Maintenon were devoted; and she shared his confidence to the last.  She did all she could to alleviate his sorrows, for a more miserable man than Louis XIV. during the last twenty years of his life never was seated on a throne.  Well might his wife exclaim, “Save those who occupy the highest places, I know of none more unhappy than those who envy them.”  This great woman attempted to make her husband a religious man, and succeeded so far as a rigid regard to formalities and technical observances can make a man religious.

It may be asked how this formal and proper woman was enabled to exert upon the King so great an influence; for she was the real ruler of the land.  No woman ever ruled with more absolute sway, from Queen Esther to Madame de Pompadour, than did the widow of the profane and crippled Scarron.  It cannot be doubted that she exerted this influence by mere moral and intellectual force,—­the power of physical beauty retreating before the superior radiance of wisdom and virtue.  La Valliere had wearied and Montespan had disgusted even a sensual king, with all their remarkable attractions; but Maintenon, by her prudence, her tact, her wisdom, and her friendship, retained the empire she had won,—­thus teaching the immortal lesson that nothing but respect constitutes a sure foundation for love, or can hold the heart of a selfish man amid the changes of life.  Whatever the promises made emphatic by passion, whatever the presents or favors given as tokens of everlasting ties, whatever the raptures consecrating the endearments of a plighted troth, whatever the admiration called out by the scintillations of genius, whatever the gratitude arising from benefits bestowed in sympathy, all will vanish in the heart of a man unless confirmed by qualities which extort esteem,—­the most impressive truth that can be presented to the mind of woman; her encouragement if good, her sentence to misery if bad, so far as her hopes centre around an earthly idol.