erial physiognomy of the later Caesars at the
period of the fall of things and races,--the mildness of Antoninus, with
the vast obesity of Vitellius;--this was precisely the man.

X.

This young prince had been educated in complete solitude at the court of
Louis XV. The atmosphere which had infected the age had not touched his
heir. Whilst Louis XV. had changed his court into a place of ill-fame,
his grandson, educated in a corner of the palace of Meudon by pious and
enlightened masters, grew up in respect for his rank, in awe of the
throne, and in a real love for the people whom he was one day to be
called upon to govern. The soul of Fenelon seemed to have traversed two
generations of kings in the palace where he had brought up the Duke of
Burgundy, in order to inspire the education of his descendant. What was
nearest the crowned vice upon the throne was perhaps the most pure of
any thing in France. If the age had not been as dissolute as the king,
it would have directed his love in that direction. He had reached that
point of corruption in which purity appears ridiculous, and modesty was
treated with contempt.

Married at twenty years of age to a daughter of Maria Theresa of
Austria, the young prince had continued until his accession to the
throne in his life of domestic retirement, study, and isolation. Europe
was slumbering in a disgraceful peace. War, that exercise of princes,
could not thus form him by contact with men and the custom of command.
Fields of battle, which are the theatre of great actors of his stamp,
had not brought him under the observation of his people. No _prestige_,
except the circumstance of birth, clung to him. His sole popularity was
derived from the disgust inspired by his grandfather. He occasionally
had the esteem of his people, but never their favour. Upright and
well-informed, he called to him sterling honesty and clear intelligence
in the person of Turgot. But with the philosophic sentiment of the
necessity of reforms, the prince had not the feeling of a reformer; he
had neither the genius nor the boldness; nor had his ministers more than
himself. They raised all questions without settling any, accumulated
storms, without giving them any impulse, and the tempests were doomed to
be eventually directed against themselves. From M. de Maurepas to M.
Turgot, from M. Turgot to M. de Calonne, from M. de Calonne to M.
Necker, from M. Necker to M. de Malesherbes, he floated from an honest
m