London, Saturday, Septemb...
The Times, 1824-09-18T00:00:00

'The followilg despatch, alnnouncing the death of the King of FRANCE,( did not reach Londoni till past 8 o'clock yesterday nmerning ; and consequently appeared in only a small part of our impressiou: " CALAIS. SEPT. 16. "HALF-'AST VIVE O'CLOCK IN TIIE AFTERNOON. " We have just received the following telegraplhic despatch, announcing tbe iKing's death:- " The IKing (lied this morning at 4 oA'clock. King Charles X. immediately set out for St. Cloud with the Dauphin, the Dauphiness, and the Duchess of Berry. "The public have shown, during the King's illness, the most aff'ecting sorrow. Couriers are setting out at this mnomenit in all directions with this news." (Signed at Paris, &c.) Certain of our brethren, who, in their laudable eager- ness for the renown of " early andl exclusive" intelligence, hadl killedI his Majesty Louis XVIII. so long ago as last lfonday iiorning, will now be under the painful ne- cessiLy of inflicting a second dleath upon that MIonarch. Itistead of Monday, the i3th inst., the period fixe(d by those well-informed journals for the (lecease of his Most Christian Majesty, it appears, from an official statement, that he did not expire until four o'clock onThursday morn. ing, the IGtl6 inst.; at wbich hour, also, the Comte d'Aa- TOIs, by tbe title of Cllaitl.Es X., was proclaimeed. Thus, then, the evellt so often predicted-the death of Louis the XVIlIth of France-has at length become mat- ter of history. That Prince is actually dead. He and NAPOLEON arc alike removed from the world,which blazed with their adverse ptetensions-that world which was wrung with misery, and drencied with blood, for the sake of fixing one or other of them upoII a throne, from which, withii ten short years, they have now successively and irrevocably fallen. Yet, for all the millions of lives that were sacrificed, anid of treasures wasted, on accounlt of these two menl, how few of the individuals that survive them. would pay five pound(s, or travel a day's journey, to bring either of theia bach into existence. Such, alas ! in the eyte of a calm observer, is the vanity of rnost human agitations. No European Prince of the last two centuries undervvent more vicissitudes than Louts XiVII., nor endured them with more exemnplary equanimity. It is not too nmuch to say on his behalf, that there was no exhibition of meanness in his adversity, nior of insolence in lhis prosperous fortune. How much of this seeming superiority to fate may have sprung from a real grandeur of conceptioni-calculatinig pro- foundly, and dlespising thoroughly, the petty fluctuations to which human life is exposed; or how much from mere constitutional heedlessniess-iot troubling itself about any but immediate andl trivial objects-it might, perhaps, be no very difficult office to tletermine. Louis was unquestion - -ably more an Epicurean thani a Stoic. His indolent love of pleasuire served him as a substitute for the nobler contempt of suffl'ring; atnd the sc who speak of him as magnanlimous under misfortune, may be reminded that a man of sluggish sensibility buys the fame of being " mBagnanimous" at a smnall expense. Louis XVIII. was sometinmes called " Louis LE FAux." Of his royal predecessors few escaped without a satirical agnomen, indicative more, perhaps, of the national sentiment which applied it, than of the personal qualities wvhich it impiited. This epithet, however, seems to have been obtained by his late Most Chlristian Majesty from-a two classes of his subjects; one of which charged him with) the ioit-performanee of pledges given to them while they were cemnpanions of his exile; the other, with a gradual vio- lation of those which were embodied in the Charter, and which accompanied his restoration to the throne. Between these parties, opposite as they were, and irreconcile- able, the KiN-G had, to shape a course of policy which it was not easy to execute, but which, we imagine, was easier to Louis in proportion to his habits of indolence, to the coldness of the better affections in himn, and, at the sam-e time, to an absence of the acrimonious and vindictive passions. A Prince of a more fiery charac- ter would either have quarrelled with his friends when they reproached him with the breach of his promise, or have given way to the Royal appetite for omnipotence, by wholly refusing a charter to his subjects, or by seizing the first provocation afforded him, through treason or intem- perance, to everturn it. LouIs XVIII. did neither; his tsate was pleasure-not power. He maintained a good- humoured intercourse with the adherents whose most san- guine hopes he had disappointed. He rather permitted, than authorized or suggested, those nuimberless attacks by which the Charter has been all but destroyed. He dismissed those Ministers who h1ad the strongest claims upon his gratitude without hesitation or apparent sorrow; and others, whom he had grounds for disliking or suspect. ing, he treated vwith a show of confidence and esteem. That all this sat gracefuly upon the King of FRANCE, is acknowvledged by men of the most hostile parties; and is accounted for on ne other supposition than that his Ma- jesty cared for none of them. A Royal heart is well under- stood to be, in most instances, from the station, perbaps, of the owner, less susceptible of kindly predilections than that of a private citizen. But we fear there is rvidence in the life of' Louis that his heart was even more thanRoyal. The perfect composure with which he shook off Ix CASZES, and RiCHELIEu, and LA CHATRE-the insuperable testimony of his autograplh narration, recounting his escepe from the perils of the revolution, and the gay philosoply with wvhich he contemplated the failure of his nearest relatives in a si- msilar attempt'to his own-go far, we think, to settle the question as to the character and genius of LOuis XVIII.'s' dispositions. Upon the whole, he may ranik in history as a Prince who steered with more than or(dinary' temper through circumstances complicated and new ; and, as com- pared witb the average .of Bourbon Princes, he is entitled to a place in which few of the family can opproach him. Lt')XVJN(), ~sx'URD4, Y8BPTAlB9ER 18, 1824.