. Versailles and the court under Louis XIV. rity, when Mazarin ruled and amassed riches; whenthe French nobility reared and pranced and kicked over thetraces; when civil war raged; when the Grande Mademoiselleturned the cannon of the Bastille against the royal troops;and when he, the king, abandoned and neglected, was fishedout of a basin in the garden of the Palais Royal, and wasbundled by night out of Paris to sleep on straw at St. Ger-main. In those hard years he had torn sheets on his bed,and hardly a whole coat on his back, but he learned valuablelessons, lessons which were of much more s
. Versailles and the court under Louis XIV. rity, when Mazarin ruled and amassed riches; whenthe French nobility reared and pranced and kicked over thetraces; when civil war raged; when the Grande Mademoiselleturned the cannon of the Bastille against the royal troops;and when he, the king, abandoned and neglected, was fishedout of a basin in the garden of the Palais Royal, and wasbundled by night out of Paris to sleep on straw at St. Ger-main. In those hard years he had torn sheets on his bed,and hardly a whole coat on his back, but he learned valuablelessons, lessons which were of much more service to him thanthe smattering of Latin he got from La Porte. At twenty-three he took the reins in his own hands, resolved to rule aswell as reign, resolved to make himself great and glorious,resolved to raise France to a proud preeminence, resolvedto be obeyed. It does not come within the limits of this bookto discuss his foreign and colonial policy, or his wars andconquests. Let us consider now how he fashioned himselffor kingship. 188. ■ His Personal Appearance and Character Nature and fortune had joined hands to aid him in hiswork. Nature had favored his person; fortune had placedriim on the French throne at a time when men hoped for allthings from monarchy, and when they believed in the divineright of kings. If that belief had not been in the heartsof both subjects and sovereign, Louis could never have be-come the king he was. He took himself in hand; he cal-culated everything; he left nothing to chance; he kept hiskingship as close to him as his skin; until at last, throughpractice, he played his role to perfection, without apparenteffort. He became the great exemplar of majesty. Evento his slightest gesture, his walk, his deportment, his coun-tenance, all was circumspect, becoming, noble, grand, majes-tic, imposing, and yet quite natural. * Desiring to securefor France supremacy in arms, he wished not less to securefor her supremacy in manners. To be the exemplar of
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