第49章 LETTER 7(4)

When Louis the Fourteenth took the administration of affairs into his own hands,about the year one thousand six hundred and sixty,he was in the prime of his age,and had,what princes seldom have,the advantages of youth and those of experience together.Their education is generally bad;for which reason royal birth,that gives a right to the throne among other people,gave all absolute exclusion from it among the Mamalukes.His was,in all respects,except one,as bad as that of other princes.He jested sometimes on his own ignorance;and there were other defects in his character,owing to his education,which he did not see.But Mazarin had initiated him betimes in the mysteries of his policy.He had seen a great part of those foundations laid,on which he was to raise the fabric of his future grandeur:and as Mazarin finished the work that Richelieu began,he had the lessons of one,and the examples of both,to instruct him.He had acquired habits of secrecy and method,in business;of reserve,discretion,decency,and dignity,in behaviour.If he was not the greatest king,he was the best actor of majesty at least,that ever filled a throne.He by no means wanted that courage which is commonly called bravery,though the want of it was imputed to him in the midst of his greatest triumphs:nor that other courage,less ostentatious and more rarely found,calm,steady,persevering resolution;which seems to arise less from the temper of the body,and is therefore called courage of the mind.He had them both most certainly,and I could produce unquestionable anecdotes in proof.He was,in one word,much superior to any prince with whom he had to do,when he began to govern,He was surrounded with great captains bred in former wars,and with great ministers bred in the same school as himself.They who had worked under Mazarin worked on the same plan under him;and as they had the advantages of genius and experience over most of the ministers of other countries,so they had another advantage over those who were equal or superior to them:the advantage of serving a master whose absolute power was established;and the advantage of a situation wherein they might exert their whole capacity without contradiction;over that,for instance,wherein your lordship's great grandfather was placed,at the same time,in England,and John de Wit in Holland.Among these ministers,Colbert must be mentioned particularly upon this occasion;because it was he who improved the wealth and consequently the power of France extremely,by the order he put into the finances,and by the encouragement he gave to trade and manufactures.The soil,the climate,the situation of France,the ingenuity,the industry,the vivacity of her inhabitants are such;she has so little want of the product of other countries,and other countries have so many real or imaginary wants to be supplied by her;that when she is not at war with all her neighbors,when her domestic quiet is preserved and any tolerable administration of government prevails,she must grow rich at the expense of those who trade,and even of those who do not often a trade,with her.

Her baubles,her modes,the follies and extravagances of her luxury,cost England,about the time we are speaking of,little less than eight hundred thousand pounds sterling a year,and other nations in their proportions.

Colbert made the most of all these advantageous circumstances,and whilst he filled the national spunge,he taught his successors how to squeeze it;a secret that he repented having discovered,they say,when he saw the immense sums that were necessary to supply the growing magnificence of his master.

This was the character of Louis the Fourteenth,and this was the state of his kingdom at the beginning of the present period.If his power was great his pretensions were still greater.He had renounced,and the Infanta with his consent had renounced,all right to the succession of Spain,in the strongest terms that the precautions of the councils of Madrid could contrive.No matter;he consented to these renunciations,but your lordship will and by the letters of Mazarin,and by other memorials.that he acted on the contrary principle,from the first,which he avowed soon afterwards.Such a power,and such pretensions,should have given,one would think,an immediate alarm to the rest of Europe.

Philip the Fourth was broken and decayed,like the monarchy he governed.

One of his sons died,as I remember,during the negotiations that preceded the year one thousand six hundred and sixty:and the survivor,who was Charles the Second,rather languished,than lived,from the cradle to the grave.