Succession, and Louis, it is presumable, not thinking it prudent to overlook the great military talents of his nephew, appointed him to the command of the Army of Italy. But there, followed by the distrust of the King and hampered by the ignorant perverseness of his colleagues, Marsin and Le Feuillade, his foresight and sagacity were completely nullified. At length, wearied by the constant rejection of all his counsels, he was about to throw up his command in disgust when he received tidings of the advance of Prince Eugène. He proposed to Marsin that they should at once march against him. The Maréchal refused, and forbade any of his troops to stir. The enemy commenced the attack. Marsin was so seriously wounded at the commencement of the battle as to necessitate his removal from the field. La Feuillade ran hither and thither tearing his hair in a state of distraction, unable to give an order. Upon which the Duke took upon himself the sole command. "He did wonders," says Saint-Simon; "exposed himself to the heaviest fire with a sangfroid which saw all and distinguished all, which led him to every part of the ground where his presence was required to sustain and encourage-an example which animated both officers and soldiers. Wounded, at first slightly in the hip, afterwards dangerously in the wrist, he was still undaunted. Seeing the lines begin to waver he called the officers by name, animated the soldiers by his voice, and himself brought up the squadrons and battalions to the charge." Spite of all his efforts, however, thanks to the previous obstinacy of his colleagues, the day was lost; but the Duke's coolness and presence of mind stood him in equally good stead in conducting the retreat as in directing the battle. Ultimately, after enduring new annoyances and opposition at the hands of these incompetents, he was recalled to France. But not even royal jealousy could attach a reproach to his courage or conduct throughout the campaign. He was warmly welcomed and soon afterward sent to com.mand the army in Spain, with absolute authority. Here his arms were crowned with success, and his gentleness, justice, liberality, bravery, unintermitted vigilance and labor-which rested neither night nor day-and his splendid military talents made him adored by officers and men. In the meantime Louis was growing uneasy at this popularity, and not without a cause. Secret overtures had been made · to the Duke by some of the leading nobles of Spain to mount the throne of that country, to which overtures he had turned a somewhat willing ear. News of the design was carried to France and raised amongst his enemies a terrible storm against him. Several arrests were made among his agents; he himself was recalled, and amidst the din of cabals sank once more into his old life of idle, soulless debauchery-a sad reverse of that noble picture of heroic courage and noble genius which we saw but now upon the battlefields of Italy and Spain. But in the midst of his sensual Lethe there burst upon him a storm more fierce and terrible than all that had gone before. The strange death of the Dauphine, followed soon afterwards by that of the Dauphin himself, excited rumors of poison, and suspicion fell upon Orléans. These suspicions, artfully fomented by Madame de Maintenon and the Duc de Maine, were rendered probable by a mania which was upon him just then for experimental chemistry. At the funeral of the Prince so furious were the people against the Duke that fears were entertained for his life. The courtiers shunned him as a leper, the mob execrated him; all fell from him save Saint-Simon, and he stood alone in the Court a common target at which malice unceasingly shot its deadly arrows. No doubt, however, can now rest upon the mind of the historical student that these accusations were totally false and groundless. It does not come within the scope of so brief a paper as this to enter into the pros and cons of the subject, but as Saint-Simon justly remarks, and substantiates by reasons, the Duc de Maine was more interested in the death of the Dauphin than was the Duc d'Orléans. After a time the King of Spain expressed a desire to be reconciled to the Duke, and then a kind of family reconciliation was patched up. The consequence of which was that a twelvemonth previous to his death (August 1714) Louis made a will, leaving the regency, controlled by a council, to the Duc d'Orleans, and the guardianship of the infant heir to the throne, together with the command of the household troops, to the Duc de Maine. Louis is dying, and the salons of the coming Regent are filled with sycophants, fawners, flatterers. One day, however, comes the news that Louis has rallied; that day the salons of the now receding Regent are empty. But three days afterwards (1st of September, 1715,) Louis the Fourteenth has passed away and all the world is crowding pell-mell in hot and breathless haste back to the Regent, ready to lick his boots, make footstools of their bodies, or undergo any kind of degradation to win his august smiles. And these are the creatures of Maine and Maintenon, who a year or two before had shunned him as plague-spotten, and who did their best to bring him to the scaffold! And the mob, as usual, imitate their betters; they no longer howl and roar against, nor clamor for his life, nor insult his ears with horrible accusations and vile epithets, but raise their sweet voices instead in triumphant cheers and gratulations, singing "Vive notre régent! Il est si débonnaire La nuit et le jour." These also would lick his boots, nay clean the ground over which he walks with their tongues, carry him upon their shoulders, drag his carriage through the streets, or perform any other asses' work, to ingratiate themselves into his favor. All alike, high and low; all sycophants and toadeaters, all ready enough to brave the weak and bow before the rod. Such has been man in all ages, and will be until the end of time. The Duke was magnanimous, and received even the bitterest of his late foes with grace and cordiality. "The Regent does not revenge the injuries of the Duc d'Orléans," he said nobly, and he kept his word. But nevertheless he resolved to be master of the situation, and would not submit to be merely the president of a council of regency, which could at any time, by a majority, nullify his personal power. He protested in Parliament that the will was not in conformity with the King's last words; that he was willing that his hands should be tied for evil, but not for good, and finished by declaring himself Regent with absolute authority. The declaration was ratified by the Parliament and approved by the people. He appropriated to himself the command of the household troops, and was henceforth master of France. The rule of the new government was to do everything that had been tabooed by the old, and vice versa. It accorded protection to the Jansenists, annulled all lettres de cachet, edicts, and sentences of exile against them and the disciples of PortRoyal, and confided all ecclesiastical affairs to Noailles, Fleury, D'Aguesseau and the Abbé Pucelle. Louis had confined within the narrowest possible limits the authority of Parliament, and interdicted the use of remonstrances; the Regent restored its privileges. In a moment of enthusiasm he said that he would govern only by its advice, and chose the greater number of his councillors from amongst its members. Nevertheless he did not keep his word in this respect. By entering into a close convention with George the First he abandoned the cause of the Stuarts, and sought peace for his war-ridden country. By the year 1718 he had reduced the debt by 400,000,000 livres. But so stupendous was the financial burden imposed upon the nation by the disastrous wars of the late reign that he could make no headway against it; in vain he cut down pensions, vigilantly overlooked the accounts of the revenue farmers; these things were but as bailing water out of the sea with an oystershell. It was just at this time, when national bankruptcy was staring him in the face, that his attention was attracted by John Law and his scheme of paper currency. Law, who had traversed Europe with his plan, and had met with nothing but discouragement, had nevertheless accumulated a large fortune by gambling, and had, in 1716, settled with his brother in Paris, where he had opened a private bank and issued large quantities of bank notes, which enjoyed perfect credit. As soon as his proposals were unfolded to the Regent he embraced them with the utmost ardor; he fancied that he had discovered the alchemist's secret, and an antidote against all the national embarrassments. Up started the Mississippi Scheme-to develop the resources of Louisiana and the country bordering upon the Mississippi : 200,000 shares at 500 livres each. The promoters farmed the taxes, coined the money, monopolized the trade of all the possessions of the French East India Company! So great was the demand for shares that 50,000 new ones were created for which there were 300,000 applicants; the dividend was 120 per cent. But Parliament refused to ratify the monetary edicts, forbade the interference of strangers in public affairs and all collusion between the royal treasury and the Scotchman's bank. Terrified by the hourly increasing mania for speculation, they appointed commissioners to seize upon Law and hang him. Orléans gave him an asylum in his own palace; deprived the Duc de Noailles of the administration of finance, exiled D'Aguesseau, deprived the Duc de Maine of the superintendency of the young King's education, reduced him and his brother, the Count de Toulouse, to the rank of peers, punished all others who had joined the Parliament in opposition to his darling scheme, and created the speculator comtroller-general of the finances of the king dom. The money madness was now at its height, multitudes of frenzied wretches craving for shares surrounded Law's house night and day; the population of Paris increased daily by thousands, until every kitchen, stable, and outhouse swarmed with newly-arrived provincials. Society was turned topsy turvy; lackeys revelled in the luxury of dukes; beggars yesterday rolled in wealth to-day; men of the old noblesse rushed trembling and eager to the capital, selling fiefs and manors which had belonged to their names for ages to the bourgeois, to buy shares in the monstrous lottery. The bourgeois sold their shops and houses to grasp those promissory bits of paper; workmen bartered their tools for them, and disdained work since money could be obtained so easily. A wild frenzy, a craving thirst, a ravening hunger for gold, seized upon all, mingling every class, beggar and bourgeois, noble and artisan, outcast and fine lady, youth and old age, roguery and respectability, in a wild saturnalian struggle for wealth. The crash came at last, and the poor wretches awoke from their fever dream to find all their earthly possessions reduced to scraps of worthless paper. Of course there were riots; when people discover that they have done something very idiotic they always fall into a rage and endeavor to make somebody else responsible for their own idiotcy; likewise, as a matter of course, they killed many innocent people and paraded the bodies before the Regent's palace in order to convince him that they had quite recovered their senses. "They are right," said Philippe to one of his councillors who was urging him to resort to harsh measures against the rioters. "They are very good to endure so many evils." So many evils! Yes, for monetary troubles were not the worst that devastated France at that moment. An awful plague had broken out in Marseilles, which, for virulence and horror, cannot be surpassed in history. Between the 15th of August and the 30th of September (1720) thousands died daily. Upon the promenades, beneath the trees, among the fountains, unburied bodies lay seething under the burning sun, the streets were choked up with dead, the graves, filled to repletion, burst under the intense heat and vomited back their horrors. Upon the Place de la Loge, fronting the Hôtel de Ville, more than fifteen hundred corpses were without sepulture, until the brave échevin, Chevalier Rose, whose heroism has immortalised his name, having discovered certain hollows and vaults in some old Roman towers, brought to the spot a body of forçats, and, himself superintending the horrible work, cleared away and buried the ghastly human débris. cast Let me now endeavor to conjure up before the reader's imagination a picture of French society as it was under the rule of the Regency. But before plunging into that ocean of iniquity, I will pause for a moment upon the one calm, peaceful spot, that out of the encircling raging sea rose like some tiny island, whose grassy flowerbespangled glades a single ray of sunshine, darting out of the cloud-covered heavens, illumined with a holy radiance, while all around was pitchy darkness and storm bellowings from the deep profound. That spot was the Louvre, the residence of the child king. Never before, perhaps, was youthful prince loved so enthusiastically by attendants and all who surrounded him. And this feeling was universal among the people; it was from this period that he won the title of " Well-beloved," which he held to the end, long after it had ceased to be anything but an ironical misnomer. Perhaps this sentiment had its origin in the striking contrast presented between that pure child-life and the awful depravity of the Court. His gouvernante was rigid devout Madame de Ventadour; his tutor the good pious Fleury, Bishop of Fréjus, from whom the boy could not endure to be separated for the briefest interval. The great preacher Massillon was his religious instructor. It was a mild, affectionate child, of soft and engaging manners, caring little for the rough games of his age, fond of horses, sheep, and above all, of a beautiful white Scotch dog, which had been given him by the English ambassador. He would listen for hours together with tearful eyes and trembling lips to the stories of saints and martyrs. Placing this picture side by side with that of the master of the parc aux cerfs, may we not exclaim in the words of Ophelia, "We know what we are, but we know not what we may be"? To the honor of Orléans be it said, that even he respected the purity of this young soul, which was deeply attached to him, and while in its presence put his baser nature out of sight. As soon as the young King attained his majority, the Regent freely and honestly delivered all power into his hands. When he read the Philippique' of La Grange Chancel he was unmoved by all its terrible accusations, until he came to the charge of attempting to poison the boy; that broke down his fortitude and he gave way to bitter tears. At Scéaux, formerly the residence of Colbert, from whose family it was purchased by the late king for the Duc de Maine, the Duchess held a court, of which the manners, customs and amusements were those of the last age. It was the one old world spot, which innovation and new modes had not yet invaded. The divertissements were conceived in the old classic, frigid style: mythological fêtes, grandes tableaux, such as Louis had had performed before La Vallière in the early days of their love. Here reigned music and poetry and the old ceremonious gallantry, that last lingering element of chivalry. In summer no one was permitted to retire to bed until sunrise, and the company paraded the park all night, talking love and poetry, exchanging sallies of wit or improvising fêtes upon the water. All was grand and stately, and those who had not virtue at least assumed it. Both the gravest and most spirituel of French society frequented this retreat, among others a young man named Arouet, then first mounting the Parnassian steep, a frequenter of all companies, a mocker of all. Thanks to Watteau and his school the beaux and belles of the first half of the eighteenth century are as familiar to our imaginations as the everyday frequenters of Pall Mall and Bond Street are to our eyes. Those pretty, coquettish, naïve, pink-and-white faces, with the rose-bud mouths so charmingly set off by the little black patches and the powdered, jewelentwisted hair; those tiny feet encased in satin; the slender ankle so liberally displayed by the quilted, hoop-expanded petticoat, the gracefully tucked dress of rich beflowered silk or damask; the beaux with their fine gentleman air, their powdered queue wigs, their full-skirted, velvet, goldembroidered coats, satin waistcoats and breeches, rolled silk stockings, high-heeled diamond-buckled shoes, and jewel-hilted rapiers-how different these to the ladies and gentlemen of the old Court! Then the abodes of this sublimated humanity : the gilded salons à la renaissance, carpeted with the luxurious productions of the looms of Persia and Turkey, hung with flowing silk and damask, lit by dazzling crystal lustres, their glories multiplied in the splendid mirrors of Venice, satin couches, gilded furniture, candelabras, clocks, flower-baskets of gold, or ivory, or ebony; Chinese knicknacks, china monsters, porcelain so exquisitely frail that a breath of wind might have shivered it. An infinite variety of moving costume gave life to the gorgeous picture. The officers of musketeers, in black velvet and silver brandebourgs; the chevaliers of the light horse, in pale blue and golden baguettes; the Swiss in scarlet; the abbés in black; the beaux and belles in every hue and form of dress that caprice and extravagance could suggest. Gentlemen under the régime of Louis passed the greater portion of their lives in the toils and hardships of camp life.* The gentleman of the Regency awoke at noon in his bed of down, partook of chocolate and a light collation, after which he arose, and placing himself in the hands of four or five valets commenced his toilet. One assistant curled his peruke, a second handed him his silk stockings and shoes, a third his gold embroidered coat and vest, a fourth his slender rapier, a fifth his perfumed ruffles and handkerchief. Then came the visiting hour, which brought fops * Seventeen thousand nobility perished in the wars of his reign. 43 to admire themselves in his mirrors, to talk of their conquests, of Court scandal and of last night's revel; the toilet over, all proceeded to Court or otherwise whiled away time until the longed-for hour of supper came, from which at dawn their carriages carried home their senseless winebesotted bodies. The lives of the ladies were similar. They also rose at noon with heads aching from the last night's excesses; performed their toilets in a charming boudoir hung round with rose-colored silk, in which they received their gallants; femmes de chambre dressed their hair, clasped their white arms and necks with pearls and jewels; at their feet black boys, whose dusky skins contrasted so admirably with the pearly texture of their own, held Chinese fans of exquisite workmanship, while they arranged their patches in the mirrors, chatting of operas, gallantry, petits soupers the universal theme-their beautiful lips too frequently polluted by coarse and disgusting bon mots. And these creatures were often mere girls, in the very first flush of youth and beauty! Turn we now to "the master of the revels," the Regent himself. Saint-Simon, that immortal painter of the men of manners of that age, thus pictures Philippe d'Orléans; the date of the portrait is 1715, just previous to the King's death: "M. le Duc d'Orléans was not above the mid. dle height, very stout without being fat, his air and carriage easy and very distinguished, his face full, agreeable, and very high colored, his hair black, his peruke of the same hue. Although he danced badly, there was in his countenance, in his gestures, in his manners, an infinite grace which adorned his commonest actions. He was gentle, free, and easy of access. His voice was agreeable and his speech was wonderfully clear and fluent. In conversation he was equally at home whether the subject was passing events or the most abstract sciences, whether it was politics, finance, war, the court, arts, or mechanics. His knowledge of history and biography was enormous, his memory prodigious, whether for facts, names, or dates." His model was Henry the Fourth, whom he imitated both in his virtues and vices; and the flattery to which he was alone susceptible was to be likened in features, manners, and achievements to that great king. In this lies the key-note of much of his character. Theoretically he loved a free government, and was ever praising the English constitution. He was not ambitious of regal power, for the Spanish affair was the suggestion of others, and the idea was quickly abandoned. His ambition, says Saint-Simon, "was to command while war lasted, and at other times to seek pleasure, without constraint to himself or to others." In his impiety he was ostentatious to affectation; for his most outrageous debauches he would select fasts and holy days. He paraded his contempt for sacred things. One Christmas he attended midnight mass with the King at Versailles. He was observed to be devoutly intent upon a book which all believed to be a missal. The next day a lady expressed to him the pleasure she had felt at seeing him thus devout. "You are very simple, madam," he replied, "it was Rabelais, which I had taken with me as a protection against ennui." The beauty of the chapel, the splendor of the spectacle, and the nobleness of the music, undoubtedly the finest that could be heard in Europe, were sufficient guarantees against ennui. He was notoriously false and insincere. He loved to set everybody by the ears, and thus lead them on to the betrayal of one another's secrets. This created for him more enemies than any other of his vices. He was alike incapable of hate and love. The only person who ever exercised any real power over his mind was Dubois, and his power from first to last was absolute. Unlike the late king, he was never in any way ruled by his mistresses, nor was he ever known, even in the most helpless moment of intoxication, to betray to them a state secret. "He was born ennuyé," says Saint-Simon; "he was so accustomed to live out of himself that he could not endure to re-enter." He could exist only in the movement and whirlwind of stirring events; he must be at the head of an army, or busied in preparations for a campaign, or in the noise and excitement of a debauch. Without bustle, tumult, some sort of excess, time hung insupportably heavy upon his hands. And yet his tastes and accomplishments were numerous and brilliant. He delighted in experimental chemistry, in distilling perfumes; he was an admirable painter, as well as a connoisseur, and had collected works of art which both in number and value equalled those of the King himself. He was a passionate lover of music, and had composed more than one opera of no mean merit. "Never," to again quote Saint-Simon, "was man born with talents so numerous and so varied, |