always
lying heavy on the nation, even when they forgot their sufferings in the
intoxication of glory and success.

It is the misfortune of men, even of the greatest, to fall short of their
destiny. Louis XIV. had wanted to exceed his, and to bear a burden too
heavy for human shoulders. Arbiter, for a while, of the affairs of all
Europe, ever absolute master in his own dominions, he bent at last
beneath the load that was borne without flinching by princes less
powerful, less fortunate, less adored, but sustained by the strong
institutions of free countries. William III. had not to serve him a
Conde, a Turenne, a Colbert, a Louvois; he had governed from afar his own
country, and he had always remained a foreigner in the kingdom which had
called him to the throne; but, despite the dislikes, the bitternesses,
the fierce contests of parties, he had strengthened the foundations of
parliamentary government in England, and maintained freedom in Holland,
whilst the ancient monarchy of France, which reached under Louis XIV.
the pinnacle of glory and power, was slowly but surely going down to
perdition beneath the internal and secret malady of absolute power,
without limit and without restraint.

CHAPTER XLVII.----LOUIS XIV. AND RELIGION.

Independently of simple submission to the Catholic church, there were
three great tendencies which divided serious minds amongst them during
the reign of Louis XIV.; three noble passions held possession of pious
souls; liberty, faith, and love were, respectively, the groundwork as
well as the banner of Protestantism, Jansenism, and Quietism. It was in
the name of the fundamental and innate liberty of the soul, its personal
responsibility and its direct relations with God, that the Reformation
had sprung up and reached growth in France, even more than in Germany and
in England. M. de St. Cyran, the head and founder of Jansenism,
abandoned the human soul unreservedly to the supreme will of God; his
faith soared triumphant over flesh and blood, and his disciples,
disdaining the joys and the ties of earth, lived only for eternity.
Madame Guyon and Fenelon, less ardent and less austere, discovered in the
tender mysticism of pure love that secret of God's which is sought by all
pious souls; in the name of divine love, the Quietists renounced all will
of their own, just as the Jansenists in the name of faith.

Jansenism is dead after having for a long while brooded in the depths of
the