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