ncient and true representative of the nation, and the body to
which it should have appealed. The Fronde rebellion was a failure,
because it did not consult constitutional forms, because it formed
unnatural alliances, and because it did not throw itself upon the
force of immortal principles, but sought to support itself by mere
physical strength rather than by moral power, which alone is the
secret and the glory of all great internal changes.

[Sidenote: Power of Mazarin.]

The return of Cardinal Mazarin to power, as the minister of
Louis XIV., was the era of his grandeur. His first care was to restore
the public finances; his second was to secure his personal
aggrandizement. He obtained all the power which Richelieu had enjoyed,
and reproved the king, and such a king as Louis XIV., as he would a
schoolboy. He enriched and elevated his relatives, married them into
the first families of France; and amassed a fortune of two hundred
millions of livres, the largest perhaps that any subject has secured
in modern times. He even aspired to the popedom; but this greatest of
all human dignities, he was not permitted to obtain. A fatal malady
seized him, and the physicians told him he had not two months to live.
Some days after, he was seen in his dressing-gown, among his pictures,
of which he was extravagantly fond, and exclaimed, "Must I quit all
these? Look at that Correggio, this Venus of Titian, this incomparable
deluge of Carracci. Farewell, dear pictures, that I have loved so
dearly, and that have cost me so much."

[Sidenote: Death of Mazarin.]

The minister lingered awhile, and amused his last hours with cards. He
expired in 1661; and no minister after him was intrusted with such
great power. He died unlamented, even by his sovereign, whose throne
he had preserved, and whose fortune he had repaired. He had great
talents of conversation, was witty, artful, and polite. He completed
the work which Richelieu began; and, at his death, his master was the
most absolute monarch that ever reigned in France.

* * * * *

REFERENCES.--Louis XIV. et son Siecle. Miss Pardoe's History
of Louis XIV. Voltaire's and James's Lives of Louis XIV.
Memoirs of Cardinal Richelieu. Memoirs of Mazarin. Memoires
de Mademoiselle de Montpensier. Memoires du Duc de Saint
Simon. Life of Cardinal de Retz, in which the Fronde war is
well traced. Memoir of the Duchess de Longueville.