f the rights
of the people in antagonism to this aristocratic privilege, said, at
St. Helena,

[Footnote AA: Abbott's French Revolution, as viewed in the Light of
Republican Institutions.]

"Our Revolution was a national convulsion as irresistible in its
effects as an eruption of Vesuvius. When the mysterious fusion which
takes place in the entrails of the earth is at such a crisis that an
explosion follows, the eruption bursts forth. The unperceived workings
of the discontent of the people follow exactly the same course. In
France, the sufferings of the people, the moral combinations which
produce a revolution, had arrived at maturity, and the explosion took
place."[AB]

[Footnote AB: Napoleon at St. Helena, p. 374]

Such was the condition in which unhappy France was left by Louis XIV.,
after a reign of seventy years. He was now seventy-seven years of age.
Madame de Maintenon, two years his senior, was entering her eightieth
year. With unwearied devotion she watched at the bedside of that
selfish husband whose pride would never allow him to acknowledge her
publicly as his wife.

Feeling that his end was drawing near, the king summoned the Duke of
Orleans to his bedside, and informed him minutely of the measures he
wished to have adopted after his death. The duke listened
respectfully, but paid no more regard to the wishes of the now
powerless and dying king than to the wailing of the wind. The king had
penetration enough to see that his day was over. He sank back upon his
pillow in despair.

On the 26th of August several prominent members of his court were
invited to the dying chamber of the king. His voice was almost gone.
He beckoned them to gather near around his bed. Then, in feeble tones,
tremulous with emotion, the pitiable old man, conscious of his summons
to the tribunal of God, said,

"Gentlemen, I ask your pardon for the bad example I have set you. I
thank you for your fidelity to me, and beg you to be equally faithful
to my grandson. Farewell, gentlemen. Forgive me. I hope you will
sometimes think of me when I am gone."

"By many a death-bed I have been,
By many a sinner's parting scene,
But never aught like this."

It was, indeed, a spectacle mournfully sublime. The dying chamber was
one of the most magnificent apartments in the palace of Versailles.
The royal couch, massive in its architecture, richly curtained in its
embroidered upholstery of satin and gold, pre