aken place. Frederic, who had sympathized with their bitter
mockery, at last perceived the tendency of their writings; that men
who assailed obedience to divine laws would not long respect the
institutions and governments which mankind had recognized. He
perceived, too, the natural union of absolutism in the church with
absolutism in the state, and came to the rescue of the great,
unchanged, unchangeable, and ever-consistent advocates of despotism.
The frivolous Choiseul, the extravagant Pompadour, and the debauched
Sardanapalus of his age, did not perceive the truth which the King of
Prussia recognized in his latter days. Nor would it have availed any
thing, if they had been gifted with the clear insight of Frederic the
Great. The stream, on whose curious banks the great and the noble of
France had been amusing themselves, soon swelled into an overwhelming
torrent. That devastating torrent was the French Revolution, whose
awful swell was first perceived during the latter years of Louis XV.
He himself caught glimpses of the future; but, with the egotism of a
Bourbon, he remarked "that the throne would last during his time."
Soon after this heartless speech was made, he was stricken with the
small-pox, and died 1774, after a long and inglorious reign. He was
deserted in his last hours, and his disgusting and loathsome remains
were huddled into their last abode by the workmen of his palace.

Before the reign of Louis XVI. can be described, it is necessary to
glance at the career of Frederic the Great, and the condition of the
various European states, at a period contemporary with the Seven
Years' War--the great war of the eighteenth century, before the
breaking out of the French Revolution.

* * * * *

REFERENCES.--For a general view of the reign of Louis XV.,
see the histories of Lacretelle, Voltaire, and Crowe. The
scheme of Law is best explained in Smyth's Lectures, and
Anderson's History of Commerce. The struggles between the
king and the Parliament of Paris are tolerably described in
the History of Adolphus. For a view of the Jansenist
Controversy, see Du Pin's Ecclesiastical History, Ranke's
History of the Popes, Pascal's Provincial Letters, and
Stephens's article in the Edinburgh Review, on the Port
Royalists. The fall of the Jesuits has been admirably
treated by Quinet. James has written a good sketch of the
lives of Fle