empty illusion, yet one of those words which has ruled the world, since it is an expression of that vanity which has its roots in the deepest recesses of the soul.  Glory is the highest aspiration of egotism, and Louis was an incarnation of egotism, like Napoleon after him.  They both represented the master passions of the people to whom they appealed.  “Never,” says St. Simon, “has any one governed with a better grace, or, by the manner of bestowing, more enhanced the value of his favors.  Never has any one sold at so high a price his words, nay his very smiles and glances.”  And then, “so imposing and majestic was his air that those who addressed him must first accustom themselves to his appearance, not to be overawed.  No one ever knew better, how to maintain a certain manner which made him appear great.”  Yet it is said that his stature was small.  No one knew better than he how to impress upon his courtiers the idea that kings are of a different blood from other men.  He even knew how to invest vice and immorality with an air of elegance, and was capable of generous sentiments and actions.  He on one occasion sold a gold service of plate for four hundred thousand francs, to purchase bread for starving troops.  If haughty, exacting, punctilious, he was not cold.  Even his rigid etiquette and dignified reserve were the dictates of statecraft, as well as of natural inclination.  He seemed to feel that he was playing a great part, with the eyes of the world upon him; so that he was an actor as Napoleon was, but a more consistent one, because in his egotism he never forgot himself, not even among his mistresses.  As grand monarque, the arbiter of all fortunes, the central sun of all glory, was he always figuring before the eyes of men.  He never relaxed his habits of ceremony and ostentation, nor his vigilance as an administrator, nor his iron will, nor his thirst for power; so that he ruled as he wished until he died, in spite of the reverses of his sad old age, and without losing the respect of his subjects, oppressed as they were with taxes and humiliated by national disasters.

Such were some of the traits which made Louis XIV. a great sovereign, if not a great man.  He was not only supported by the people who were dazzled by his magnificence, and by the great men who adorned his court, but he was aided by fortunate circumstances and great national ideas.  He was heir of the powers of Richelieu and the treasures of Mazarin.  Those two cardinals, who claimed equal rank with independent princes, higher than that of the old nobility, pursued essentially the same policy, although this policy was the fruit of Richelieu’s genius; and this policy was the concentration of all authority in the hands of the king.  Louis XIII. was the feeblest of the Bourbons, but he made his throne the first in Europe.  Richelieu was a great benefactor to the cause of law, order, and industry, despotic as was his policy and hateful his character.  When