him word that the king could take towns in winter, but
could not make orange trees bear removal from their hothouses." The
nature and the consciences of the Protestants were all that withstood
Louis XIV. and Louvois. On the 16th of July, 1691, death suddenly
removed the minister, fallen in royal favor, detested and dreaded in
France, universally hated in Europe, leaving, however, the king, France,
and Europe with the feeling that a great power had fallen, a great deal
of merit disappeared. "I doubt not," wrote Louis XIV. to Marshal
Boufflers, "that, as you are very zealous for my service, you will be
sorry for the death of a man who served me well." "Louvois," said the
Marquis of La Fare, "should never have been born, or should have lived
longer." The public feeling was expressed in an anonymous epitaph:

"Here lieth he who to his will
Bent every one, knew everything
Louvois, beloved by no one,
still Leaves everybody sorrowing."

The king felt his loss, but did not regret the minister whose tyranny and
violence were beginning to be oppressive to him. He felt himself to be
more than ever master in the presence of the young or inexperienced men
to whom he henceforth intrusted his affairs. Louvois' son, Barbezieux,
had the reversion of the war department; Pontchartrain, who had been
comptroller of finance ever since the retirement of Lepelletier, had been
appointed to the navy in 1690, at the death of Seignelay. "M. de
Pontchartrain had begged the king not to give him the navy," says Dangeau
ingenuously, "because he knew nothing at all about it; but the king's
will was absolute that he should take it. He now has all that M. de
Colbert had, except the buildments." What mattered the inexperience of
ministers? The king thought that he alone sufficed for all.

God had left it to time to undeceive the all-powerful monarch; he alone
held out amidst the ruins; after the fathers the sons were falling around
him; Seignelay had followed Colbert to the tomb; Louvois was dead after
Michael Le Tellier; Barbezieux died in his turn in 1701. "This secretary
of state had naturally good wits, lively and ready conception, and great
mastery of details in which his father had trained him early," writes the
Marquis of Argenson. He had been spoiled in youth by everybody but his
father. He was obliged to put himself at the mercy of his officials, but
he always kept up his position over them, for the son of M. de Louvois,
their c