Happy these, we may say; but to the rest that hover between two opinions, is it not trying?  He who would understand to what a pass Catholicism, and much else, had now got; and how the symbols of the Holiest have become gambling-dice of the Basest,—­must read the narrative of those things by Besenval, and Soulavie, and the other Court Newsmen of the time.  He will see the Versailles Galaxy all scattered asunder, grouped into new ever-shifting Constellations.  There are nods and sagacious glances; go-betweens, silk dowagers mysteriously gliding, with smiles for this constellation, sighs for that:  there is tremor, of hope or desperation, in several hearts.  There is the pale grinning Shadow of Death, ceremoniously ushered along by another grinning Shadow, of Etiquette:  at intervals the growl of Chapel Organs, like prayer by machinery; proclaiming, as in a kind of horrid diabolic horse-laughter, Vanity of vanities, all is Vanity!

Chapter 1.1.IV.

Louis the Unforgotten.

Poor Louis!  With these it is a hollow phantasmagory, where like mimes they mope and mowl, and utter false sounds for hire; but with thee it is frightful earnest.

Frightful to all men is Death; from of old named King of Terrors.  Our little compact home of an Existence, where we dwelt complaining, yet as in a home, is passing, in dark agonies, into an Unknown of Separation, Foreignness, unconditioned Possibility.  The Heathen Emperor asks of his soul:  Into what places art thou now departing?  The Catholic King must answer:  To the Judgment-bar of the Most High God!  Yes, it is a summing-up of Life; a final settling, and giving-in the ’account of the deeds done in the body:’  they are done now; and lie there unalterable, and do bear their fruits, long as Eternity shall last.

Louis xv. had always the kingliest abhorrence of Death.  Unlike that praying Duke of Orleans, Egalite’s grandfather,—­for indeed several of them had a touch of madness,—­who honesty believed that there was no Death!  He, if the Court Newsmen can be believed, started up once on a time, glowing with sulphurous contempt and indignation on his poor Secretary, who had stumbled on the words, feu roi d’Espagne (the late King of Spain):  “Feu roi, Monsieur?”—­“Monseigneur,” hastily answered the trembling but adroit man of business, “c’est une titre qu’ils prennent (’tis a title they take).” (Besenval, i. 199.) Louis, we say, was not so happy; but he did what he could.  He would not suffer Death to be spoken of; avoided the sight of churchyards, funereal monuments, and whatsoever could bring it to mind.  It is the resource of the Ostrich; who, hard hunted, sticks his foolish head in the ground, and would fain forget that his foolish unseeing body is not unseen too.  Or sometimes, with a spasmodic antagonism, significant of the same thing, and of more, he would go; or stopping his court carriages, would send into