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t,--by Henry IV. to Gabrielle d'Estrees. When the Council came together, the King told them, that hitherto he had permitted the late Cardinal to direct the affairs of State, but that in future he should take the duty upon himself,--the gentlemen present would aid him with their advice, if he should see fit to ask for it. It was a "neat little speech," and very much to the point: Louis XIV. had the talent of making neat little speeches. But the Surintendant, who presided in the Council, did not believe him. A prince, he thought, two-and-twenty years of age, fond of show and of pleasure, of moderate capacity, and with no education, might undertake for a while the cares of government, but, when the novelty wore off, would tire of the labor. And then, whose pretensions to shoulder the burden were so well founded as Fouquet's? He was almost a king, and had the political patronage of a president. The revenue of the nation passed through his hands. _Fermiers_ and _traitants_, those who farmed the taxes and those who gathered them for a consideration, obeyed his nod and laid their offerings at his feet. A judicious mixture of presents and promises had given him the control of judges enough in the different Parliaments to fortify his views of the public business by legal decisions. In his own Parliament he was supreme. Clever agents, stationed in important places, both at home and abroad, watched over his interests, and kept him informed of all that transpired, by faithful couriers. But he misunderstood his position, and was mistaken in his King. Louis XIV. had, indeed, little talent and less education. He could never learn Latin, at that time as much a part of a gentleman's training as French is now with us; but he had what for want of a more distinctive word we may call character,--that well-proportioned mixture of sense, energy, and self-reliance which obtains for its possessor more success in life, and more respect from those about him, than brilliant mental endowments. It was the moral side of his nature which was deficient. He was selfish, envious, and cruel; and he had not that noble hatred of the crooked, the mean, and the dishonorable which becomes a gentleman. Mazarin once said,--"There is stuff enough in him to make four kings and one worthy man." Divide this favorable opinion by four, and the result will be an approximation to the value of Louis XIV. as a monarch and a man. There was a king in him,--a determination to
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