man to whom he spoke. He
repeated several times, "Nunc et in hora mortis", then said, "Oh, my God,
come to my aid: hasten to succour me."

These were his last words. All the night he was without consciousness
and in a long agony, which finished on Sunday, the 1st September, 1715,
at a quarter past eight in the morning, three days before he had
accomplished his seventy-seventh year, and in the seventy-second of his
reign. He had survived all his sons and grandsons, except the King of
Spain. Europe never saw so long a reign or France a King so old.

CHAPTER LXXIII

I shall pass over the stormy period of Louis XIV.'s minority. At twenty-
three years of age he entered the great world as King, under the most
favourable auspices. His ministers were the most skilful in all Europe;
his generals the best; his Court was filled with illustrious and clever
men, formed during the troubles which had followed the death of Louis
XIII.

Louis XIV. was made for a brilliant Court. In the midst of other men,
his figure, his courage, his grace, his beauty, his grand mien, even the
tone of his voice and the majestic and natural charm of all his person,
distinguished him till his death as the King Bee, and showed that if he
had only been born a simple private gentlemen, he would equally have
excelled in fetes, pleasures, and gallantry, and would have had the
greatest success in love. The intrigues and adventures which early in
life he had been engaged in--when the Comtesse de Soissons lodged at the
Tuileries, as superintendent of the Queen's household, and was the centre
figure of the Court group--had exercised an unfortunate influence upon
him: he received those impressions with which he could never after
successfully struggle. From this time, intellect, education, nobility of
sentiment, and high principle, in others, became objects of suspicion to
him, and soon of hatred. The more he advanced in years the more this
sentiment was confirmed in him. He wished to reign by himself. His
jealousy on this point unceasingly became weakness. He reigned, indeed,
in little things; the great he could never reach: even in the former,
too, he was often governed. The superior ability of his early ministers
and his early generals soon wearied him. He liked nobody to be in any
way superior to him. Thus he chose his ministers, not for their
knowledge, but for their ignorance; not for their capacity, but for their
want of it. He lik