And yet, in spite of these ignoble tastes and pursuits, the King was by no means deficient in natural abilities.  He was much superior to even Louis XIV. in logical acumen and sprightly wit.  He was an agreeable companion, and could appreciate every variety of talents.  No man in his court perceived more clearly than he the tendency of the writings of philosophers which were then fermenting the germs of revolution.  “His sagacity kept him from believing in Voltaire, even when he succeeded in deceiving the King of Prussia.”  He was favorable to the Jesuits, though he banished them from the realm; perceiving and feeling that they were his true friends and the best supports of his absolute throne,—­and yet he banished them from his kingdom.  He was hostile too, in his heart, to the very philosophers whom he invited to his table, and knew that they sought to undermine his power.  He simply had not the moral energy to carry out the plans of that despotism to which he was devoted.  Sensuality ever robs a man of the advantages and gifts which reason gives, even though they may be bestowed to an extraordinary degree.  There is no more impotent slavery than that to which the most gifted intellects have been occasionally doomed.  Self-indulgence is sure to sap every element of moral strength, and to take away from genius itself all power, except to sharpen the stings of self-reproach.  “Louis XV. was not insensible to the dangers which menaced his throne, and would have despoiled the Parliament of the right of remonstrance; would have imposed on the Jansenists the yoke of Papal supremacy; would have burned the books of the philosophers, and have sent their authors to work out their system within the gloomy dungeons of the Bastille;” but he had not the courage, nor the moral strength, nor the power of will.  He was enslaved by his vices, and by those who pandered to them; and he could not act either the king or the man.  Seeing the dangers, but feeling his impotence, he affected levity, and exclaimed to his courtiers Apres nous le deluge,—­a prediction which only uncommon sagacity could have prompted.  Immersed however in unworthy pleasures, he gave himself not much concern for the future; and this career of self-abandonment continued to the last, even after satiety and ennui had deprived the appetites of the power to please.  His latter days were of course melancholy, and his miseries resulted as much from the perception of the evils to come as from the failure of the pleasures of sense.  A languor, from which he was with difficulty ever roused, oppressed his life.  Deaf, incapable of being amused, prematurely worn out with bodily infirmities, hated and despised by the whole nation, he dragged out his sixty-fourth year, and died of the small-pox, which he caught in one of his visits to the Pare aux Cerfs; and his loathsome remains were hastily hurried into a carriage, and deposited in the vaults of St. Denis.