ays at hand, either
sharpening tools, or cleaning the anvil, or pasting maps; and the king
employed him to fix the lens of the telescope so as to suit his
majesty's eye; and there, in an arm-chair at the end of the telescope,
sat the king, for hours together, spying at the people who thronged the
palace courts, or who went to and fro in the avenue.

While his majesty was thus pursuing all this child's play in private,
his people were starving by thousands, and preparing by millions to
rebel; the government was deep in debt, the ministers perplexed, and the
wisest of them in despair, because they never could get his majesty to
speak or act, even so far as to say in council which of two different
opinions he liked the best. He would sit by, hearing consultations on
the most important and pressing affairs, and after all leave his
ministers unable to act, because he would not utter so much as "Yes" or
"No." He had no will, and nothing could be done without it. What a
pity, for suffering France, and for the mild Louis himself and all his
family, that he was not a huntsman or a mechanic instead of a king!

The little Duke of Normandy knew nothing of all this, and saw very
little of his father in any way. What did he see his mother doing? The
formality of the court was such that he saw less of his mother than
almost any child in the kingdom of its parents; but the sort of life the
queen led was as follows.

She had been married, as we know, at fifteen, when she was not only
inexperienced, but very ignorant. Her mother, the Empress of Austria,
was so busy governing her empire, that she could pay little attention to
the education of her children. She gave them governesses; but these
governesses indulged their pupils, doing their lessons for them,--
tracing their writing in pencil,--casting up their sums,--whispering to
them how to spell,--doing the outline of their drawings first, and
touching them up at last. The consequence was, that when this young
girl entered France, a bride, at fifteen years of age, she knew next to
nothing, and though she took some pains, she never learned to spell well
in French, or to write grammatically, even after she declared that she
had forgotten her native language--German. She was very clever,
notwithstanding. She had a strong, firm, and decided mind. Her
ignorance, however, was an irreparable evil,--especially her ignorance
of men and common life. She had no means of repairing this