Louis XIV. cannot be numbered among the monsters of the human race who have worn the purple of royalty. His chief and worst vice was egotism, which was born with him, which was cultivated by all the influences of his education, and by all the circumstances of his position. This absorbing egotism made him insensible to the miseries he inflicted, and cherished in his soul the notion that France was created for him alone. His mistresses, his friends, his wives, his children, his court, and the whole nation, were viewed only as the instruments of his pride and pleasure. All his crimes and blunders proceeded from his extraordinary selfishness. If we could look on him without this moral taint, which corrupted and disgraced him, we should see an indulgent father and a generous friend. He attended zealously to the duties of his station, and sought not to shake off his responsibilities. He loved pleasure, but, in its pursuit, he did not forget the affairs of the realm. He rewarded literature, and appreciated merit. He honored the institutions of religion, and, in his latter days, was devoted to its duties, so far as he understood them. He has been foolishly panegyrized, and as foolishly censured. Still his reign was baneful, on the whole, especially to the interests of enlightened Christianity and to popular liberty. He was a bigoted Catholic, and sought to erect, on the ruins of states and empires, an absolute and universal throne. He failed; and instead of bequeathing to his successors the power which he enjoyed, he left them vast debts, a distracted empire, and a discontented people. He bequeathed to France the revolution which hurled her monarch from his throne, but which was overruled for her ultimate good.
REFERENCES.--Louis XIV. et son Siècle. Voltaire's and Miss Pardoe's Histories of the Reign of Louis XIV. James's Life of Louis XIV. Mémoires du Duc de St. Simon. The Abbé Millot's History. D'Anquetil's Louis XIV., sa Cour, et le Régent. Sismondi's History of France. Crowe's and Rankin's Histories of France. Lord Mahon's War of the Spanish Succession. Temple's Memoirs. Coxe's Life of Marlborough. Memoirs of Madame de Maintenon. Madame de Sévigné's Letters. Russell's Modern Europe. The late history by Miss Pardoe is one of the most interesting ever written. It may have too much gossip for what is called the "dignity of history;" but that fault, if fault it be, has been made by Macaulay also, and has been condemned, not unfrequently, by those most incapable of appreciating philosophical history.