le deluge_." So lost to all sense of honour was
Louis, that he defiled his hands with bribes from tax-farmers who
ground the faces of the poor, and became a large shareholder in an
infamous syndicate of capitalists that bought up the corn of France in
order to export and then import it at enormous profit. This abominable
_Pacte de Famine_ created two artificial famines in France; its
authors battened on the misery of the people, and for any who lifted
their voices against it the Bastille yawned.

In 1768 the poor abused and neglected queen, Marie Leczinska died. The
court sank from bad to worse: void now of all dignity, all gaiety, all
wit and all elegance, it drifted to its doom. Six years passed, when
Louis was smitten by confluent small-pox and a few poor women were
left to perform the last offices on the mass of pestiferous corruption
that once was the fifteenth Louis of France.[154] None could be found
to embalm the corpse, and spirits of wine were poured into the coffin
which was carried to St. Denis without pomp and amid the
half-suppressed curses of the people. Before the breath had left the
body, a noise as of thunder was heard approaching the chamber of the
Dauphin and Marie Antoinette: it was the sound of the courtiers
hastening to grovel before the new king and queen. Warned that they
had now inherited the awful legacy of the French monarchy, they flung
themselves in tears on their knees, and exclaimed--"O God, guide and
protect us! We are too young to govern."

[Footnote 154: Some conception of the insanitary condition of the
court may be formed by the fact that fifty persons were struck down
there by this loathsome disease during the king's illness.]

The degradation of the monarchy during the reign is reflected in the
condition of the Louvre. Henry IV.'s great scheme, which Louis XIII.
had inherited and furthered, included a colossal equestrian statue,
which was to stand on a rocky pedestal in the centre of a new Place,
before the east front of the Louvre, but the regency revoked the
scheme, and for thirty years nothing was done. It had even been
proposed under the ministry of Cardinal Fleury to pull the whole
structure down and sell the site. The neglect of the palace during
these years is almost incredible. Perrault's fine facade was hidden by
the half-demolished walls of the Hotels de Longueville, de Villequier,
and de Bourbon. The east wing itself was unroofed on the quadrangle
side and covered wit