The Sun.
London, England, 1832-08-14 00:00:00

LOUIS THE FOURTEENTH.

Never was there so consummate a master of
what our James the First would have called
kingcraft—of all those arts which most advan-
tageously display the merits of a Prince, and
most completely hide his defects. Though his in-
ternal administration was bad—though the mili-
tary triumphs which gave splendour to the early
part of his reign were not achieved by himself—
though his later years were crowded with defeats
and humiliations—though he was so ignorant
that he scarcely understood the Latin of his
mass-book—though he fell under the control of
a cunning Jesuit and of a more cunning old
woman—he succeeded in passing himself off on
his people as a being above humanity. And this
is the more extraordinary, because he did not
seclude himself from the public gaze like those
Oriental despots, whose faces are never seen,
and whose very names it is a crime to pro-
nounce lightly. It has been said that no man is
a hero to his valet; and all the world saw as
much of Louis the Fourteenth as his valet could
see. Five hundred people assembled to see hint
shave and put on his breeches in the morning.
He then kneeled down at the side of his bed,
and said his prayer, while the whole assembly
awaited the end in solemn silence—the eccle-
siastics on their knees, and the laymen with
their hats before their faces. He walked about
his gardens with a train of two hundred cour•
tiers at his heels. All Versailles came to see
him dine and sup. He was put to bed at night
in the midst of a crowd as great as that which
had met to see him rise in the morning. He
took his very emetics in state, and vomited ma-
jestically in the presence of all the grandes and
petites entrees. Yet though he constantly ex-
posed himself to the public gaze in situations in
which it is scarcely possible tot any man to pre-
serve much personal dignity, be to the last im-
pressed those who surrounded him with the
deepest awe and reverence. The illusion which
he produced on his worshippers can be compared
only to those illusions to which lovers are pro-
verbially subject during the season of court-
ship. It was an illusion which affected even
the senses. The contemporaries of Louis
thought him tall. Voltaire, who might have seen
him, and who had lived with some of the most
distinguished members of his court, speaks re-
peatedly of his majestic stature. Yet it is as
certain as any fact can be, that he was rather
below than above the middle size. He had, it
seems, a way of holding himself, a way of walk-
ing, a way of swelling his chest and rearing his
head, which deceived the eyes of the multitude.
Eighty years after his death, the royal cemetery
was violated by the revolutionists ; his coffin was
opened ; his body was dragged out ; and it ap-
peared that the Prince, whose majestic figure
had been so long and loudly extolled, was in
truth a little man. That fine expression of Ju-
venal is singularly applicable, both in its literal
and in its metaphorical sense, to Louis the
Fourteenth.

' More sofa fatctur
Quantula dint hominurn corpuacula.'
His person and his government have had the
same fate. He had the art of making both ap-
pear grand and august, in spite of the clearest
evidence that both were below the ordinary
standard. Death and time have exposed both
the deceptions. The body of the great king has
been measured more justly than it was measured
by the courtiers who were afraid to look above
his shoe-tie. His public character has been
scrutinized by men free from the hopes and fears
of Boileau and Moliere. In the grave, the most
majestic of princes is only five feet eight. I u
history, the hero and the politician dwindle into
a vain aed feeble tyrant,—the slave of priests and
women,—little in war,—little in government,—
little in every thing but the Art of simula.ing
greatneau,edinkre Review.