This brilliant and truthful portrait lacks one feature which was the merit of the Constable de Luynes:  he saw coming, and he anticipated, a long way off and to little purpose, but heartily enough, the government of France by a supreme kingship, whilst paying respect, as long as he lived, to religious liberty, and showing himself favorable to intellectual and literary liberty, though he was opposed to political and national liberty.  That was the government which, after him, was practised with a high hand and rendered triumphant by Cardinal Richelieu to the honor, if not the happiness, of France.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.——­LOUIS XIII., CARDINAL RICHELIEU, AND THE COURT. (1622-1642.)

The characteristic of Louis XIV.’s reign is the uncontested empire of the sovereign over the nation, the authority of the court throughout the country.  All intellectual movement proceeded from the court or radiated about it; the whole government, whether for war or peace, was concentrated in its hands.  Conde, Turenne, Catinat, Luxembourg, Villars, Vendome belonged, as well as Louvois or Colbert, to the court; from the court went the governors and administrators of provinces; there was no longer any greatness existing outside of the court; there were no longer any petty private courts.  As for the state, the king was it.

For ages past, France had enjoyed the rare good fortune of seeing her throne successively occupied by Charlemagne and Charles V., by St. Louis and Louis XI., by Louis XII., Francis I. and Henry IV., great conquerors or wise administrators, heroic saints or profound politicians, brilliant knights or models of patriot-kings.  Such sovereigns had not only governed, but also impressed the imagination of the people; it was to them that the weak, oppressed by the great feudal lords, had little by little learned to apply for support and assistance; since the reign of Francis I., especially, in the midst of the religious struggles which had caused division amongst the noblesse and were threatening to create a state within the state, the personal position of the grandees, and that of their petty private courts, had been constantly diminishing in importance; the wise policy, the bold and prudent courage of Henry IV., and his patriotic foresight had pacified hatred and stayed civil wars; he had caused his people to feel the pleasure and pride of being governed by a man of a superior order.  Cardinal Richelieu, more stern than Henry IV., set his face steadily against all the influences of the great lords; he broke them down one after another; he persistently elevated the royal authority; it was the hand of Richelieu which made the court and paved the way for the reign of Louis XIV.  The Fronde was but a paltry interlude and a sanguinary game between parties.  At Richelieu’s death, pure monarchy was founded.

[Illustration:  RICHELIEU——­180]