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Secondworld

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.
make advances to him, struck with his sympathetic ability and his valor, and
hoping that he would end by becoming a Catholic, but patriotic wrath was
kindling in France against Philip II. and the Spaniards, those fomenters of civil
war in the mere interest of foreign ambition.
The League was split up into two parties, the Spanish League and the
French League. The committee of Sixteen labored incessantly for the
formation and triumph of the Spanish League; and its principal leaders wrote,
on the 2nd of September, 1591, a letter to Philip II., offering him the crown of
France and pledging their allegiance to him as his subjects: “We can positively
assure your Majesty,” they said, “that the wishes of all Catholics are to see
your Catholic Majesty holding the scepter of this kingdom and reigning over
us, even as we do throw ourselves right willingly into your arms as in to those
of our father, or at any rate establishing one of your posterity upon the
throne.” These ringleaders of the Spanish League had for their army the
blindly fanatical and demagogic populace of Paris, and were, further,
supported by 4,000 Spanish troops whom Philip II. had succeeded in getting
almost surreptitiously into Paris. They created a council of ten, the sixteenth
century’s committee of public safety; they proscribed the policists; they, on
the 15th of November, had the president, Brisson, and two councilors of the
Leaguer parliament arrested, hanged them to a beam and dragged the
corpses to the Place de Grève, where they strung them up to a gibbet with
inscriptions setting forth that they were heretics, traitors to the city and
enemies of the Catholic princes. Whilst the Spanish League was thus reigning
at Paris, the duke of Mayenne was at Laon, preparing to lead his army,
consisting partly of Spaniards, to the relief of Rouen, the siege of which Henry
IV. was commencing. Being summoned to Paris by messengers who
succeeded one another every hour, he arrived there on the 28th of November,
1591, with 2,000 French troops; he armed the guard of burgesses, seized and
hanged, in a ground-floor room of the Louvre, four of the chief leaders of the
Sixteen, suppressed their committee, reëstablished the parliament in full
authority and, finally, restored the security and preponderance of the French
League, whilst taking the reins once more into his own hands.
Whilst these two Leagues, the one Spanish and the other French, were
conspiring thus persistently, sometimes together and sometimes one against
the other, to promote personal ambition and interests, at the same time
national instinct, respect for traditional rights, weariness of civil war, and the
good sense which is born of long experience, were bringing France more and
more over to the cause and name of Henry IV. In all the provinces,
throughout all ranks of society, the population non-enrolled amongst the
factions were turning their eyes toward him as the only means of putting an
end to war at home and abroad, the only pledge of national unity, public
prosperity, and even freedom of trade, a hazy idea as yet, but even now
prevalent in the great ports of France and in Paris. Would Henry turn Catholic?
That was the question asked everywhere, amongst Protestants with anxiety,
but with keen desire and not without hope amongst the mass of the
population. The rumor ran that, on this point, negotiations were half opened
even in the midst of the League itself, even at the court of Spain, even at
Rome where Pope Clement VIII., a more moderate man than his predecessor,
Gregory XIV., “had no desire,” says Sully, “to foment the troubles of France,
and still less that the king of Spain should possibly become its undisputed
king, rightly judging that this would be laying open to him the road to the
monarchy of Christendom, and, consequently, reducing the Roman pontiffs to
the position, if it were his good pleasure, of his mere chaplains” [Œconomies
royales, t. ii. p. 106]. Such being the existing state of facts and minds, it was
impossible that Henry IV. should not ask himself roundly the same question
and feel that he had no time to lose in answering it.
In spite of the breadth and independence of his mind, Henry IV. was
sincerely puzzled. He was of those who, far from clinging to a single fact and
confining themselves to a single duty, take account of the complication of the
facts amidst which they live, and of the variety of the duties which the general
situation or their own imposes upon them. Born in the reformed faith, and on
the steps of the throne, he was struggling to defend his political rights whilst
keeping his religious creed; but his religious creed was not the fruit of very
mature or very deep conviction; it was a question of first claims and of honor
rather than a matter of conscience; and, on the other hand, the peace of
France, her prosperity, perhaps her territorial integrity, were dependent upon
the triumph of the political rights of the Béarnese. Even for his brethren in
creed his triumph was a benefit secured, for it was an end of persecution and
a first step toward liberty. There is no measuring accurately how far ambition,
personal interest, a king’s egotism had to do with Henry IV.’s abjuration of his
religion; none would deny that those human infirmities were present; but all
this does not prevent the conviction that patriotism was uppermost in Henry’s
soul, and that the idea of his duty as king toward France, a prey to all the
evils of civil and foreign war, was the determining motive of his resolution. It
cost him a great deal. On the 26th of April, 1593, he wrote to the grand duke
of Tuscany, Ferdinand de Medici, that he had decided to turn Catholic “two
months after that the duke of Mayenne should have come to an agreement
with him on just and suitable terms;” and, foreseeing the expense that would
be occasioned to him by “this great change in his affairs,” he felicitated
himself upon knowing that the grand duke was disposed to second his efforts
toward a levy of 4000 Swiss and advance a year’s pay for them. On the 28th
of April he begged the bishop of Chartres, Nicholas de Thou, to be one of the
Catholic prelates whose instructions he would be happy to receive on the 15th
of July, and he sent the same invitation to several other prelates. On the 16th
of May he declared to his council his resolve to become a convert. This news,
everywhere spread abroad, produced a lively burst of national and Bourbonic
feeling even where it was scarcely to be expected; at the states-general of the
League, especially in the chamber of the noblesse, many members protested
“that they would not treat with foreigners, or promote the election of a
woman, or give their suffrages to any one unknown to them, and at the
choice of his Catholic Majesty of Spain.” At Paris, a part of the clergy, the
incumbents of St. Eustache, St. Merri, and St. Sulpice, and even some of the
popular preachers, violent Leaguers but lately, and notably Guincestre, boldly
preached peace and submission to the king if he turned Catholic. The principal
of the French League, in matters of policy and negotiation, and Mayenne’s
adviser since 1589, Villeroi, declared “that he would not bide in a place where
the laws, the honor of the nation and the independence of the kingdom were
held so cheap;” and he left Paris on the 28th of June.

Four months after the conclusion of the treaty of Vervins, on the 13th of
September, 1598, Philip II. died at the Escurial, and on the 3rd of April, 1603,
a second great royal personage, Queen Elizabeth, disappeared from the
scene. She had been, as regards the Protestantism of Europe, what Philip II.
had been, as regards Catholicism, a powerful and able patron; but what Philip
II. did from fanatical conviction, Elizabeth did from patriotic feeling; she had
small faith in Calvinistic doctrines and no liking for Puritanic sects; the Catholic
Church, the power of the pope excepted, was more to her mind than the
Anglican Church, and her private preferences differed greatly from her public
practices. Thus at the beginning of the seventeenth century Henry IV. was the
only one remaining of the three great sovereigns who, during the sixteenth,
had disputed, as regarded religion and politics, the preponderance in Europe.
He had succeeded in all his kingly enterprises; he had become a Catholic in
France without ceasing to be the prop of the Protestants in Europe; he had
made peace with Spain without embroiling himself with England, Holland and
Lutheran Germany. He had shot up, as regarded ability and influence, in the
eyes of all Europe. It was just then that he gave the strongest proof of his
great judgment and political sagacity; he was not intoxicated with success; he
did not abuse his power; he did not aspire to distant conquests or brilliant
achievements; he concerned himself chiefly with the establishment of public
order in his kingdom and with his people’s prosperity. His well-known saying,
“I want all my peasantry to have a fowl in the pot every Sunday,” was a desire
worthy of Louis XII. Henry IV. had a sympathetic nature; his grandeur did not
lead him to forget the nameless multitudes whose fate depended upon his
government. He had, besides, the rich, productive, varied, inquiring mind of
one who took an interest not only in the welfare of the French peasantry, but
in the progress of the whole French community, progress agricultural,
industrial, commercial, scientific, and literary.

On the 6th of January, 1600, Henry IV. gave his ambassador, Brulart de
Sillery, powers to conclude at Florence his marriage with Mary de’ Medici,
daughter of Francis I. de’ Medici, grand duke of Tuscany, and Joan,
archduchess of Austria and niece of the grand duke Ferdinand I. de’ Medici,
who had often rendered Henry IV. pecuniary services dearly paid for. As early
as the year 1592 there had been something said about this project of alliance;
it was resumed and carried out on the 5th of October, 1600, at Florence, with
lavish magnificence. Mary embarked at Leghorn on the 17th, with a fleet of
seventeen galleys; that of which she was aboard, the General, was all covered
over with jewels, inside and out; she arrived at Marseilles on the 3d of
November, and at Lyons on the 2nd of December, where she waited till the
9th for the king, who was detained by the war with Savoy. He entered her
chamber in the middle of the night, booted and armed, and next day, in the
cathedral church of St. John, re-celebrated his marriage, more rich in wealth
than it was destined to be in happiness.
Henry IV. seemed to have attained in his public and in his domestic life the
pinnacle of earthly fortune and ambition. He was, at one and the same time,
Catholic king and the head of the Protestant polity in Europe, accepted by the
Catholics as the best, the only possible, king for them in France. He was at
peace with all Europe, except one petty prince, the duke of Savoy, Charles
Emmanuel I., from whom he demanded back the Marquisate of Saluzzo or a
territorial compensation in France itself on the French side of the Alps. After a
short campaign, and thanks to Rosny’s ordnance, he obtained what he
desired, and by a treaty of January 17, 1601, he added to French territory La
Bresse, Le Bugey, the district of Gex and the citadel of Bourg, which still held
out after the capture of the town. He was more and more dear to France, to
which he had restored peace at home as well as abroad, and industrial,
commercial, financial, monumental, and scientific prosperity, until lately
unknown. Sully covered the country with roads, bridges, canals, buildings and
works of public utility. The conspiracy of his old companion in arms, Gontaut
de Biron, proved to him, however, that he was not at the end of his political
dangers, and the letters he caused to be issued (September, 1603) for the
return of the Jesuits did not save him from the attacks of religious fanaticism.
The queen’s coronation had been proclaimed on the 12th of May, 1610;
she was to be crowned next day, the 13th, at St. Denis, and Sunday the 16th
had been appointed for her to make her entry into Paris. On Friday, the 14th,
the king had an idea of going to the Arsenal to see Sully, who was ill; we have
the account of this visit and of the assassination given by Malherbe, at that
time attached to the service of Henry IV., in a letter written on the 19th of
May, from the reports of eye witnesses, and it is here reproduced, word for
word:
“The king set out soon after dinner to go to the Arsenal. He deliberated a
long while whether he should go out, and several times said to the queen, ‘My
dear, shall I go or not?’ He even went out two or three times and then all on a
sudden returned, and said to the queen, ‘My dear, shall I really go?’ and again
he had doubts about going or remaining. At last he made up his mind to go,
and having kissed the queen several times, bade her adieu. Amongst other
things that were remarked he said to her, ‘I shall only go there and back; I
shall be here again almost directly.’ When he got to the bottom of the steps
where his carriage was waiting for him, M. de Praslin, his captain of the
guard, would have attended him, but he said to him, ‘Get you gone; I want
nobody; go about your business.’
“Thus, having about him only a few gentlemen and some footmen, he got
into his carriage, took his place on the back seat, at the left hand side, and
made M. d’Épernon sit at the right. Next to him, by the door, were M. de
Montbazon and M. de la Force; and by the door on M. d’Épernon’s side were
Marshal de Lavardin and M. de Créqui; on the front seat the marquis of
Mirabeau and the first equerry. When he came to the Croix-du-Tiroir he was
asked whither it was his pleasure to go; he gave orders to go toward St.
Innocent. On arriving at Rue de la Ferronnerie, which is at the end of that of
St. Honoré on the way to that of St. Denis, opposite the Salamandre he met a
cart which obliged the king’s carriage to go nearer to the ironmonger’s shops,
which are on the St. Innocent side, and even to proceed somewhat more
slowly, without stopping, however, though somebody, who was in a hurry to
get the gossip printed, has written to that effect. Here it was that an
abominable assassin, who had posted himself against the nearest shop, which
is that with the Cœur couronné percé d’une flèche, darted upon the king and
dealt him, one after the other, two blows with a knife in the left side, one,
catching him between the arm-pit and the nipple, went upward without doing
more than graze; the other catches him between the fifth and sixth ribs, and,
taking a downward direction, cuts a large artery of those called venous. The
king, by mishap, and as if to further tempt this monster, had his left hand on
the shoulder of M. de Montbazon, and with the other was leaning on
d’Épernon, to whom he was speaking. He uttered a low cry and made a few
movements. M. de Montbazon having asked, ‘What is the matter, sir?’ he
answered, ‘It is nothing,’ twice; but the second time so low that there was no
making sure. These are the only words he spoke after he was wounded.
“In a moment the carriage turned toward the Louvre. When he was at the
steps where he had got into the carriage, which are those of the queen’s
rooms, some wine was given him. Of course some one had already run
forward to bear the news. Sieur de Cérisy, lieutenant of M. de Praslin’s
company, having raised his head, he made a few movements with his eyes,
then closed them immediately, without opening them again any more. He was
carried up stairs by M. de Montbazon and Count de Curzon en Quercy and laid
on the bed in his closet and at two o’clock carried to the bed in his chamber,
where he was all the next day and Sunday. Somebody went and gave him
holy water. I tell you nothing about the queen’s tears; all that must be
imagined. As for the people of Paris, I think they never wept so much as on
this occasion.”
On the king’s death—and at the imperious instance of the duke of Épernon,
who at once introduced the queen, and said in open session, as he exhibited
his sword, “It is as yet in the scabbard, but it will have to leap therefrom
unless this moment there be granted to the queen a title which is her due
according to the order of nature and of justice”—the Parliament forthwith
declared Mary regent of the kingdom. Thanks to Sully’s firm administration,
there were, after the ordinary annual expenses were paid, at that time in the
vaults of the Bastile, or in securities easily realizable, forty-one million three
hundred and forty-five thousand livres, and there was nothing to suggest that
extraordinary and urgent expenses would come to curtail this substantial
reserve. The army was disbanded and reduced to from twelve to fifteen
thousand men, French or Swiss. For a long time past no power in France had,
at its accession, possessed so much material strength and so much moral
authority.—Guizot.

VII.—THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV.

 Louis XIV. ruled everywhere, over his people, over his age, often over
Europe; but nowhere did he reign so completely as over his court. Never were
the wishes, the defects and the vices of a man so completely a law to other
men as to the court of Louis XIV. during the whole period of his long life.
When near to him, in the palace of Versailles, men lived and hoped and
trembled; everywhere else in France, even at Paris, men vegetated. The
existence of the great lords was concentrated in the court, about the person
of the king. Scarcely could the most important duties bring them to absent
themselves for any time. They returned quickly, with alacrity, with ardor; only
poverty or a certain rustic pride kept gentlemen in their provinces. “The court
does not make one happy,” says La Bruyère, “it prevents one from being so
anywhere else.”
The principle of absolute power, firmly fixed in the young king’s mind,
began to pervade his court from the time that he disgraced Fouquet and
ceased to dissemble his affection for Mdlle. de La Vallière. She was young,
charming and modest. Of all the king’s favorites she alone loved him sincerely.
“What a pity he is a king!” she would say. Louis XIV. made her a duchess; but
all she cared about was to see him and please him. When Madame de
Montespan began to supplant her in the king’s favor, the grief of Madame de
La Vallière was so great that she thought she should die of it. Then she
turned to God, in penitence and despair; and, later on, it was at her side that
Madame de Montespan, in her turn forced to quit the court, went to seek
advice and pious consolation. “This soul will be a miracle of grace,” Bossuet
had said.
Madame de Montespan was haughty, passionate, “with hair dressed in a
thousand ringlets, a majestic beauty to show off to the ambassadors;” she
openly paraded the favor she was in, accepting and angling for the graces the
king was pleased to do her and hers, having the superintendence of the
household of the queen, whom she insulted without disguise, to the extent of
wounding the king himself: “Pray consider that she is your mistress,” he said
one day to his favorite. The scandal was great; Bossuet attempted the task of
stopping it. It was the time of the Jubilee; neither the king nor Madame de
Montespan had lost all religious feeling; the wrath of God and the refusal of
the sacraments had terrors for them still.
Bossuet had acted in vain, “like a pontiff of the earliest times, with a
freedom worthy of the earliest ages and the earliest bishops of the Church,”
says St. Simon. He saw the inutility of his efforts; henceforth prudence and
courtly behavior put a seal upon his lips. It was the time of the great king’s
omnipotence and highest splendor, the time when nobody withstood his
wishes. The great Mademoiselle had just attempted to show her
independence; tired of not being married, she had made up her mind to a
love-match; she did not espouse Lauzun just then, the king broke off the
marriage. “I will make you so great,” he said to Lauzun, “that you shall have
no cause to regret what I am taking from you; meanwhile, I make you duke
and peer and marshal of France.” “Sir,” broke in Lauzun insolently, “you have
made so many dukes that it is no longer an honor to be one, and, as for the
bâton of marshal of France, your Majesty can give it me when I have earned
it by my services.” He was before long sent to Pignerol, where he passed ten
years. There he met Fouquet and that mysterious personage called the Iron
Mask, whose name has not yet been discovered to a certainty by means of all
the most ingenious conjectures. It was only by settling all her property on the
duke of Maine after herself that Mademoiselle purchased Lauzun’s release.
The king had given his posts to the prince of Marcillac, son of La
Rochefoucauld.
Louis XIV. entered benevolently into the affairs of a marshal of France; he
paid his debts, and the marshal was his domestic; all the court had come to
that; the duties which brought servants in proximity to the king’s person were
eagerly sought after by the greatest lords. Bontemps, his chief valet, and
Fagon, his physician, as well as his surgeon Maréchal, very excellent men too,
were all-powerful amongst the courtiers. Louis XIV. possessed the art of
making his slightest favors prized; to hold the candlestick at bed-time (au
petit coucher), to appear in the trips to Marly, to play in the king’s own game,
such was the ambition of the most distinguished; the possessors of grand
historic castles, of fine houses at Paris, crowded together in attics at
Versailles, too happy to obtain a lodging in the palace. The whole mind of the
greatest personages, his favorites at the head, was set upon devising means
of pleasing the king; Madame de Montespan had pictures painted in miniature
of all the towns he had taken in Holland; they were made into a book which
was worth four thousand pistoles, and of which Racine and Boileau wrote the
text; people of tact, like M. de Langlée, paid court to the master through
those whom he loved.
All the style of living at court was in accordance with the magnificence of
the king and his courtiers; Colbert was beside himself at the sums the queen
lavished on play. Madame de Montespan lost and won back four millions in
one night at bassette; Mdlle. de Fontanges gave away twenty thousand
crowns’ worth of New Year’s gifts. A new power, however, was beginning to
appear on the horizon, with such modesty and backwardness that none could
as yet discern it, least of all could the king. Madame de Montespan had looked
out for some one to take care of and educate her children. She had thought
of Madame Scarron; she considered her clever; she was so herself, “in that
unique style which was peculiar to the Mortemarts,” said the duke of St.
Simon; she was fond of conversation; Madame Scarron had a reputation for
being rather a blue-stocking; this the king did not like; Madame de Montespan
had her way; Madame Scarron took charge of the children secretly and in an
isolated house. She was attentive, careful, sensible. The king was struck with
her devotion to the children entrusted to her. “She can love,” he said; “it
would be a pleasure to be loved by her.” This expression plainly indicated
what was to happen; and Madame de Montespan saw herself supplanted by
Madame Scarron. The widow of the deformed poet had bought the estate of
Maintenon out of the king’s bounty. He made her take the title. The
recollection of Scarron was displeasing to him.
The queen had died on the 30th of July, 1683, piously and gently as she
had lived. “This is the first sorrow she ever caused me,” said the king, thus
rendering homage, in his superb and unconscious egotism, to the patient
virtue of the wife he had put to such cruel trials. Madame de Maintenon was
agitated but resolute. “Madame de Montespan has plunged into the deepest
devoutness,” she wrote, two months after the queen’s death: “It is quite time
she edified us; as for me, I no longer think of retiring.” Her strong common-
sense and her far-sighted ambition, far more than her virtue, had secured her
against rocks ahead; henceforth she saw the goal, she was close upon it, she
moved toward it with an even step. The date has never been ascertained
exactly of the king’s private marriage with Madame de Maintenon. It took
place probably eighteen months or two years after the queen’s death; the
king was forty-seven, Madame de Maintenon fifty. “She had great remains of
beauty, bright and sprightly eyes, an incomparable grace,” says St. Simon,
who detested her, “an air of ease and yet of restraint and respect, a great
deal of cleverness with a speech that was sweet, correct, in good terms and
naturally eloquent and brief.”
Madame de La Vallière had held sway over the young and passionate heart
of the prince, Madame de Montespan over the court, Madame de Maintenon
alone established her empire over the man and the king. Alone she had any
part in affairs, a smaller part than has frequently been made out, but
important, nevertheless, and sometimes decisive. Ministers went occasionally
to do their work in her presence with the king, who would turn to her when
the questions were embarrassing, and ask, “What does your Solidity think?”
The opinions she gave were generally moderate and discreet. Whatever the
apparent reserve and modesty with which it was cloaked, the real power of
Madame de Maintenon over the king’s mind peeped out more and more into
broad daylight. She promoted it dexterously by her extreme anxiety to please
him as well as by her natural and sincere attachment to the children whom
she had brought up and who had a place near the heart of Louis XIV.
The chief ornament of the Court of Versailles was the duchess of Burgundy.
For the king and for Madame de Maintenon, the great and inexhaustible
attraction of this young lady was her gaiety and unconstrained ease,
tempered by the most delicate respect, which, on coming as quite a child to
France from the court of Savoy, she had tact enough to introduce and always
maintain amidst the most intimate familiarity. “In public, demure, respectful
with the king, and on terms of timid propriety with Madame de Maintenon,
whom she never called anything but aunt, thus prettily blending rank and
affection. In private, chattering, frisking, fluttering around them, at one time
perched on the arm of one or the other’s chairs, at another playfully sitting on
their knee, she would throw herself upon their necks, embrace them, kiss
them, fondle them, pull them to pieces, chuck them under the chin, tease
them, rummage their tables, their papers, their letters, reading them
sometimes against their will, according as she saw that they were in the
humor to laugh at it, and occasionally speaking thereon. Admitted to
everything, even at the reception of couriers bringing the most important
news, going in to the king at any hour, even at the time the council was
sitting, useful and also fatal to ministers themselves, but always inclined to
help, to excuse, to benefit, unless she were violently set against any body.
The king could not do without her; when, rarely, she was absent from his
supper in public, it was plainly shown by a cloud of more than usual gravity
and taciturnity over the king’s whole person; and so, when it happened that
some ball in winter or some party in summer made her break into the night,
she arranged matters so well that she was there to kiss the king the moment
he was awake and to amuse him with an account of the affair” [Mémoires de
St. Simon].
The dauphiness had died in 1690; the duchess of Burgundy was, therefore,
almost from childhood queen of the court, and before long the idol of the
courtiers; it was around her that pleasure sprang up; it was for her that the
king gave the entertainments to which he had habituated Versailles, not that
for her sake or to take care of her health he would ever consent to modify his
habits or make the least change in his plans. “Thank God, it is over,” he
exclaimed one day, after an accident to the princess; “I shall no longer be
thwarted in my trips, and in all I desire to do, by the representations of
physicians. I shall come and go as I fancy; and I shall be left in peace.” Even
in his court and amongst his most devoted servants, this monstrous egotism
astounded and scandalized everybody.
Flattery, at Versailles, ran a risk of becoming hypocrisy. On returning to a
regular life, the king was for imposing the same upon his whole court; the
instinct of order and regularity, smothered for a while in the hey-day of
passion, had resumed all its sway over the naturally proper and steady mind
of Louis XIV. His dignity and his authority were equally involved in the cause
of propriety and regularity at his court; he imposed this yoke as well as all the
others; there appeared to be entire obedience; only some princes or
princesses escaped it sometimes, getting about them a few free-thinkers or
boon-companions; good, honest folks showed ingenuous joy; the virtuous and
far-sighted were secretly uneasy at the falsehood and deplored the pressure
put on so many consciences and so many lives. The king was sincere in his
repentance for the past, many persons in his court were as sincere as he;
others, who were not, affected, in order to please him, the externals of
austerity; absolute power oppressed all spirits, extorting from them that
hypocritical complaisance which it is liable to engender; corruption was
already brooding beneath appearances of piety; the reign of Louis XV. was to
see its deplorable fruits displayed with a haste and a scandal which are to be
explained only by the oppression exercised in the last years of King Louis XIV.
Madame de Maintenon was like the genius of this reaction toward
regularity, propriety, order; all the responsibility for it has been thrown upon
her; the good she did has disappeared beneath the evil she allowed or
encouraged; the regard lavished upon her by the king has caused illusions as
to the discreet care she was continually taking to please him. She was faithful
to her friends, so long as they were in favor with the king; if they had the
misfortune to displease him, she, at the very least, gave up seeing them;
without courage or hardihood to withstand the caprices and wishes of Louis
XIV., she had gained and preserved her empire by dint of dexterity and far-
sighted suppleness beneath the externals of dignity.
It was through Madame de Maintenon and her correspondence with the
princess des Ursins that the private business between the two courts of
France and Spain was often carried on. At Madrid far more than at Versailles,
the influence of women was all powerful. The queen ruled her husband, who
was honest and courageous, but without wit or daring; and the princess des
Ursins ruled the queen, as intelligent and as amiable as her sister the duchess
of Burgundy, but more ambitious and more haughty. Louis XIV. had several
times conceived some misgiving of the camarera major’s influence over his
grandson; she had been disgraced and then recalled; she had finally
established her sway by her fidelity, ability, dexterity, and indomitable
courage. She served France habitually, Spain and her own influence in Spain
always; she had been charming, with an air of nobility, grace, elegance and
majesty all together, and accustomed to the highest society and the most
delicate intrigues, during her sojourn at Rome and Madrid; she was full of
foresight and calculation, but impassioned, ambitious, implacable, pushing to
extremes her amity as well as her hatred, faithful to her master and mistress
in their most cruel trials, and then hampering and retarding peace for the
sake of securing for herself a principality in the Low Countries.
But the time came for Madame des Ursins to make definitive trial of
fortune’s inconstancy. After having enjoyed unlimited power and influence,
with great difficulty she obtained an asylum at Rome, where she lived seven
years longer, preserving all her health, strength, mind and easy grace until
she died, in 1722, at more than eighty-four years of age, in obscurity and
sadness, notwithstanding her opulence, but avenged of her Spanish foes,
Cardinals della Giudice and Alberoni, whom she met again at Rome, disgraced
and fugitive like herself. “I do not know where I may die,” she wrote to
Madame de Maintenon, at that time in retirement at St. Cyr. Both had
survived their power; the princess des Ursins had not long since wanted to
secure for herself a dominion; Madame de Maintenon, more far-sighted and
more modest, had aspired to no more than repose in the convent which she
had founded and endowed. Discreet in her retirement as well as in her life,
she had not left to chance the selection of a place where she might die.
“One has no more luck at our age,” Louis XIV. had said to his old friend,
Marshal Villars, returning from his most disastrous campaign. It was a bitter
reflection upon himself which had put these words into the king’s mouth. After
the most brilliant, the most continually and invariably triumphant of reigns, he
began to see fortune slipping away from him and the grievous consequences
of his errors successively overwhelming the state. “God is punishing me, I
have richly deserved it,” he said to Marshal Villars, who was on the point of
setting out for the battle of Denain. The aged king, dispirited and beaten,
could not set down to men his misfortunes and reverses; the hand of God
himself was raised against his house; death was knocking double knocks all
round him. The grand-dauphin had for some days past been ill of small-pox;
he died in April, 1711; the duchess of Burgundy was carried off by an attack
of malignant fever in February, 1712; her husband followed her within a week,
and their eldest child, the duke of Brittany, about a month afterward.
 There was universal and sincere mourning in France and in Europe. The
most sinister rumors circulated darkly; a base intrigue caused the duke of
Orleans to be accused; people called to mind his taste for chemistry and even
magic, his flagrant impiety, his scandalous debauchery; beside himself with
grief and anger, he demanded of the king to be sent to the Bastile; the king
refused curtly, coldly, not unmoved in his secret heart by the perfidious
insinuations which made their way even to him, but too just and too sensible
to entertain a hateful lie, which, nevertheless, lay heavy on the duke of
Orleans to the end of his days.
Darkly, but to more effect, the same rumors were renewed before long.
The duke of Berry died at the age of twenty-seven, on the 4th of May, 1714,
of a disease which presented the same features as the scarlet fever (rougeole
pourpréc), to which his brother and sister-in-law had succumbed. The king
was old and sad; the state of his kingdom preyed upon his mind; he was
surrounded by influences hostile to his nephew, whom he himself called “a
vaunter of crimes.” A child who was not five years old remained sole heir to
the throne. Madame de Maintenon, as sad as the king, “naturally mistrustful,
addicted to jealousies, susceptibilities, suspicions, aversions, spites, and
woman’s wiles” [Lettres de Fénelon au duc de Chevreuse], being, moreover,
sincerely attached to the king’s natural children, was constantly active on their
behalf. On the 19th of July, 1714, the king announced to the premier
president and the attorney-general of the parliament of Paris that it was his
pleasure to grant to the duke of Maine and to the count of Toulouse, for
themselves and their descendants, the rank of princes of the blood, in its full
extent, and that he desired that the deed should be enregistered in the
parliament. Soon after, still under the same influence, he made a will which
was kept a profound secret, and which he sent to be deposited in the strong-
room (greffe) of the parliament, committing the guardianship of the future
king to the duke of Maine, and placing him, as well as his brother, on the
council of regency, with close restrictions as to the duke of Orleans, who
would be naturally called to the government of the kingdom during the
minority. The will was darkly talked about; the effect of the elevation of
bastards to the rank of princes of the blood had been terrible. “There was no
longer any son of France; the Spanish branch had renounced; the duke of
Orleans had been carefully placed in such a position as not to dare say a word
or show the least dissatisfaction; his only son was a child; neither the duke (of
Berry), his brothers, nor the prince of Conti, were of an age, or of standing, in
the king’s eyes, to make the least trouble in the world about it. The bombshell
dropped all at once when nobody could have expected it, and everybody fell
on his stomach, as is done when a shell drops; everybody was gloomy and
almost wild; the king himself appeared as if exhausted by so great an effort of
will and power.” He had only just signed his will, when he met, at Madame de
Maintenon’s, the ex-queen of England. “I have made my will, Madame,” said
he; “I have purchased repose; I know the impotence and uselessness of it;
we can do all we please as long as we are here; after we are gone, we can do
less than private persons; we have only to look at what became of my
father’s, and immediately after his death too, and of those of so many other
kings. I am quite aware of that; but, in spite of all that it was desired; and so,
Madame, you see it has been done; come of it what may, at any rate I shall
not be worried about it any more.” It was the old man yielding to the
entreaties and intrigues of the domestic circle; the judgment of the king
remained steady and true, without illusions and without prejudices.
Death was coming, however, after a reign which had been so long, and had
occupied so much room in the world, that it caused mistakes as to the very
age of the king. He was seventy-seven, he continued to work with his
ministers; the order so long and so firmly established was not disturbed by
illness any more than it had been by the reverses and sorrows of late. He said
to Madame de Maintenon once, “What consoles me for leaving you, is that it
will not be long before we meet again.” She made no reply. “What will become
of you?” he added: “you have nothing.” “Do not think of me,” said she: “I am
nobody; think only of God.” He said farewell to her; she still remained a little
while in his room, and went out when he was no longer conscious. She had
given away here and there the few movables that belonged to her, and now
took the road to St. Cyr. On the steps she met Marshal Villeroy: “Good bye,
marshal,” she said curtly and covered up her face in her coifs. He it was who
sent her news of the king to the last moment. The duke of Orleans, on
becoming regent, went to see her and took her the patent (brevet) for a
pension of sixty thousand livres, “which her disinterestedness had made
necessary for her,” said the preamble. It was paid her up to the last day of her
life. History makes no further mention of her name; she never left St. Cyr.
Thither the czar Peter the Great, when he visited Paris and France, went to
see her; she was confined to her bed; he sat a little while beside her. “What is
your malady?” he asked her through his interpreter. “A great age,” answered
Madame de Maintenon, smiling. He looked at her a moment in silence; then,
closing the curtains, he went out abruptly. The memory he would have called
up had vanished. The woman on whom the great king had, for thirty years,
heaped confidence and affection was old, forgotten, dying; she expired at St.
Cyr on the 15th of April, 1719, at the age of eighty-three.
 She had left the king to die alone. He was in the agonies; the prayers in
extremity were being repeated around him; the ceremonial recalled him to
consciousness. He joined his voice with the voices of those present, repeating
the prayers with them. Already the court was hurrying to the duke of Orleans;
some of the more confident had repaired to the duke of Maine’s; the king’s
servants were left almost alone around his bed; the tones of the dying man
were distinctly heard above the great number of priests. He several times
repeated: “Nunc et in hora mortis.” Then he said quite loud: “O my God, come
thou to help me, haste thee to succor me.” Those were his last words. He
expired on Sunday, the 1st of September, 1715, at eight a. m. Next day he
would have been seventy-seven years of age, and he had reigned seventy-two
of them.
In spite of his faults and his numerous and culpable errors, Louis XIV. had
lived and died like a king. The slow and grievous agony of olden France was
about to begin.

VIII.—FRENCH LITERATURE.
For volume and merit taken together the product of these eight centuries
of literature excels that of any European nation, though for individual works of
the supremest excellence, they may perhaps be asked in vain. No French
writer is lifted by the suffrages of other nations—the only criterion when
sufficient time has elapsed—to the level of Homer, of Shakspere, or of Dante,
who reign alone. Of those of the authors of France who are indeed of the
thirty, but attain not to the first three, Rabelais and Molière alone unite the
general suffrage, and this fact roughly but surely points to the real excellence
of the literature which these men are chosen to represent. It is great in all
ways, but it is greatest on the lighter side. The house of mirth is more suited
to it than the house of mourning. To the latter, indeed, the language of the
unknown marvel who told Roland’s death, of him who gave utterance to
Camilla’s wrath and despair, and of the living poet who sings how the
mountain wind makes mad the lover who can not forget, has amply made
good its title of entrance. But for one Frenchman who can write admirably in
this strain, there are a hundred who can tell the most admirable story,
formulate the most pregnant reflection, point the acutest jest. There is thus
no really great epic in French, few great tragedies, and those imperfect and in
a faulty kind, little prose like Milton’s, or like Jeremy Taylor’s, little verse
(though more than is generally thought) like Shelley’s, or like Spenser’s. But
there are the most delightful short tales, both in prose and in verse, that the
world has ever seen, the most polished jewelry of reflection that has ever
been wrought, songs of incomparable grace, comedies that must make men
laugh as long as they are laughing animals, and above all, such a body of
narrative fiction, old and new, prose and verse, as no other nation can show
for art and for originality, for grace of workmanship in him who fashions, and
for certainty of delight to him who reads.—Encyclopædia Britannica.
[To be continued.]

[A] The words in this type call attention to “Readings” to follow.

 COMMERCIAL LAW.

By EDWARD C. REYNOLDS, Esq.

II.—NOTES AND BILLS.

Although unpleasant papers to have outstanding with one’s name attached
to them, at all events when that indicates, by its position, personal liability, yet
a knowledge of their leading characteristics is so convenient in a time of a
necessity which forces us, or some with whom we may have mercantile
engagements, to have recourse to them, that we think best to insert proper
forms here.

Note.
$200. Portland, Me., October 1, 1883.
Thirty days after date I promise to pay to John Ray
(“or order” or “or bearer”) two hundred dollars.
Value received. John J. Roe.

Draft, or Bill of Exchange.

$200. Portland, Me., October 1, 1883.
At thirty days’ sight (or thirty days after date), pay to
the order of John Ray two hundred dollars—value
received—and charge same to account of
To John Roe, Boston, Mass. Richard Roe.

If John Roe accepts of the conditions of the bill he will write his name
across its face together with the date on which it is done, prefixing same with
the word “accepted.”
 In the outline analysis given below our readers will readily discover all the
essential elements of a contract, which is of course the foundation principle of
commercial paper.
ANALYSIS.

Place—Portland, Maine.
Date—October 1, 1883.
Time—Thirty days.
Note—Promise to pay,
Subject matter: $200.
Bill—Order to pay,
Consideration—“Value received.”
John Roe, maker.
note.
John Ray, payee.
Parties: Drawer, Richard Roe.
bill. Drawee, John Roe.
Payee, John Ray.

After acceptance of the bill by John Roe, the drawee, he is placed in the
same position, as regards it, that John J. Roe is in, as regards the note, that
is, each becomes primarily liable for its payment.
Now, in actual business, notes and bills similar to those here given become
important factors as a medium of exchange, being recognized as such by
virtue of their negotiability, and proving acceptable as such when the parties
thereto are of unquestioned financial ability.
What is the ear-mark of negotiability?
A note or bill payable to John Ray, “simply this and nothing more,” is not
negotiable, but payable to a certain person, with no power to transfer the
same, at least not to make it negotiable. To make it a negotiable instrument
we should place after John Ray’s name the words (as found included in
parenthesis in forms given), either “or bearer” or “or order.” This done, the
note or bill would be of transferable quality, or negotiable, that is, would be
payable to John Ray, or to him who should by chance gain its possession, if
the words used be “or bearer:” if “or order” then payable to John Ray or to
any holder, providing John Ray had so ordered it paid, by indorsement. Thus it
is clearly evident that these evidences of debt, which is really the significance
of commercial paper, answer the requirements, in a restricted sense, of
money, and serve as the consideration for settlement in a great many of the
transactions involving sale and exchange, incident to business enterprises. We
must utter here a word of caution in regard to receiving negotiable paper;
which is, not to accept of it after maturity, since notes and bills are
presumably paid at the time when they become due, and one taking them
after that time, must remember he takes them subject to this possibility, or
possible existing equities between or among the original parties.
Negotiability, the outgrowth of indorsement, makes it necessary to give
some explanation regarding the character of an indorser, or what his position
and liabilities are.
An indorser is one who writes his name on the back of a note or bill, either
for the purpose of transfer, or of assuming liability thereon, and frequently for
both.
We shall mention three kinds of indorsement. Special indorsement,
indorsement in blank, and, as applicable to both, indorsement without
assuming liability, or without recourse. And first, if John Ray, payee named in
bill or note, delivers possession of the same to John Smith, at the same time
writing on the back of it, “Pay to John Smith or order, John Ray,” he thereby
transfers by special indorsement. After transfer made in this manner, John
Smith, or any one to whom he may give the power by indorsement, may
collect of the original promisor, i. e., the maker of note or acceptor of bill, the
amount due by clear evidence of the paper itself. Not only does this
indorsement secure transfer of ownership, but also creates liability, for John
Ray by it, without the addition of a restricting or denying clause (which we
shall refer to later), agrees to personally attend to the payment, if the parties
primarily liable fail to do so.
Again, an indorsement in blank is the simple writing of the name, in this
instance, John Ray’s, by him of course, on the back of the note or bill, which,
there being deducible from such indorsement no special directions, would
make it payable to any one into whose possession it might come. Either of
these indorsements accomplishes a transfer, and at the same time attaches to
John Ray the liability of an indorser. Now, if John Ray sought to avoid such
liability, he would write over his signature, “Without recourse to me.” This
would secure transfer simply. An indorsement made by one not mentioned in
the note or bill would be for additional security of payee, and would generally
be in blank, placing the indorser in same responsibilities as assumed by John
Ray in the two instances above mentioned and grouped. So much for the
parties, which we now leave to consider briefly the time element, which is the
hope of the payee, the specter, ever the cause of unpleasant forebodings to
the promisor.
In computing time it should be remembered that the words of the note or
bill are to be strictly followed; as, when it reads a certain number of months,
then the time is to be computed in months; for example, omitting days of
grace, a note bearing date July 1st, on two months’ time, will be due
September 1st. To say that two months are equivalent to sixty days, and then
add sixty days to July 1st, we shall have our note due August 30th, which
would be erroneous. The same would be true of the reverse of the proposition
stated; that is, if time be stated days, it would as certainly lead to error, to
compute by months.
When does the time commence to run? If a note, from its date; if a bill,
from its date, if it read payable a certain length of time “from date;” but if it
reads, as for instance, “at thirty days’ sight,” then it commences on the date
of its acceptance by the drawee.
Days of grace, the use of which has sprung from custom into full fledged
law in the course of time, must not be forgotten.
Notes and bills, unless in the body thereof it is expressly stated to the
contrary, have, added to the time for which they are written, three days,
known as days of grace; so that a note given for one month, and dated July
1st, would not fall due August 1st, but August 4th.
Originally these days were intended to inure to the benefit of the maker of
the note, but such is not the practice or law now; and that period of three
days constitutes a part of the time for which all interests and discounts are
computed, the same as the time expressly mentioned. This is one of the
characteristics of bills and notes, which commercial students and business
apprentices are more apt to carelessly forget than any other in the category.
We have thus far omitted mention of bank checks, a very important
business medium. The element of time thrown aside, and the most that we
have said regarding notes and bills, may be applied to checks, which in reality
are bills or drafts payable at sight without grace.
In case of non-acceptance of a bill when presented, or non-payment of the
same, or of note, when due, that the drawer in the first instance and
indorsers, if any, in the latter may be holden to its payment, resort is
ordinarily had to “protest,” which signifies that acceptance or payment having
been legally demanded of parties primarily liable, and refused, notice is given
the other parties to the paper, of such refusal, by a notary public, who
attaches a certificate to the bill or note, stating fact of such demand and
refusal.
This may be avoided in the case of indorsers by their “waiving demand and
notice” at the time of indorsement.
In writing commercial paper remember:
That the three days of grace allowed are not included in the time written;
That, unless otherwise specified, tender of payment must be made at
payee’s place of business;
That interest is not collectible, unless specified, until after maturity;
That the amount written and in figures should be the same;
That commercial paper without a date falls due never.

Interest.
A common and very acceptable definition of interest is, “a compensation
paid for the use of money.” Like other transactions this may be subject to
contract agreement, to an extent however, varying in the different states. In
most of the states the ability of parties to contract in the matter of interest
rates, has been placed under some restraint; that is, most of the states have
adopted a “legal rate,” declaring thereby what amount of money shall be paid
for the use of money. The reason why the states have assumed to dictate to
parties the conditions of their interest contracts is to relieve the borrowers of
the hardship of excessive rates, which, sometimes by reason of pecuniary
embarrassments they would be, and are, notwithstanding inhibitions on
statute books, forced to pay; and further to have a recognized standard rate
for contracts where there is no agreement, which last is a very salutary
provision.
Upon what is interest payable? It is payable on loans, secured or
unsecured, as per individual contracts, secured as loans on mortgage security;
unsecured, represented partly by notes. Again, running accounts between
merchants are adjusted on the basis of an interest account, he paying interest
against whom the balance is found; simple indebtedness, past due, creates a
legitimate interest claim; sales of merchandise, from time of sale, if no credits
are given, if there are credits then from time of their expiration; also debts on
which court judgment has been secured.
 Time notes, as has been already observed, do not begin to draw interest
until maturity, unless it be especially mentioned; demand notes not until after
demand.
Interest when exacted in excess of legal rates becomes usury, which, as
already hinted, is, in the states generally, a statutory offence.
We indicate here some of the statute provisions in relation to this matter,
viz: “Permissible by agreement subjects the lender to a penalty of from three
to six times the amount of usury taken; subject simply to have excess
recovered; to lose the whole interest; an avoidance of whole contract;
forfeiture of the whole debt,” etc.
These provisions are of little avail really, for they are continually in conflict
with the law of supply and demand; and the ingenuity of man settles this
conflict in individual cases by cunningly conceived and evasive conditions.
Where partial payments have been made, interest may be computed in the
following manner, which has received the sanction of recognized authority:
“Compute interest due on principal sum to the time when a payment, either
alone or in conjunction with preceding payments, with interest cast on them,
shall equal or exceed interest due on the principal. Deduct this sum, and upon
the balance cast interest as before, until a payment or payments equal the
interest due; then deduct again, and so on.”
 SUNDAY READINGS.

SELECTED BY THE REV. J. H. VINCENT, D.D.

FROM GOULBURN’S “THOUGHTS ON PERSONAL

RELIGION.”
[March 2.]
There is no interruption in the world, however futile and apparently
perverse, which we may not address ourselves to meet with a spirit of
patience and condescension borrowed from our Master; and to have made a
step in advance in conforming to the mind of Christ will be quite as great a
gain (probably a far greater) than if we had been engaged in our pursuit. For,
after all, we may be too intent upon our business, or rather intent in a wrong
way. The radical fault of our nature, be it remembered, is self-will; and we
little suspect how largely self-will and self-pleasing may be at the bottom of
plans and pursuits, which still have God’s glory and the furtherance of his
service for their professed end.
Reader, the path which we have indicated is the path not of sanctity only,
but of peace also. We shall never serve God with a quiet mind, unless we
more or less tread in this path. It is a miserable thing to be the sport and prey
of interruptions; it wastes the energies of the human spirit, and excites
fretfulness, and so leads us into temptation, as it is written, “Fret not thyself,
else thou shalt be moved to do evil.” But suppose the mind to be well
grounded in the truth that God’s foresight and fore-arrangement embrace all
which seems to us an interruption—that in this interruption lies awaiting us a
good work in which it is part of his eternal counsel that we should walk, or a
good frame of mind which he wishes us to cultivate; then we are forearmed
against surprises and contradictions; we have formed an alchemy which
converts each unforeseen and untoward occurrence into gold; and the balm of
peace distills upon our heart, even though we be disappointed of the end
which we had proposed to ourselves. For which is better, safer, sweeter—to
walk in the works which God hath before ordained, or to walk in the way of
our own hearts and in the sight of our eyes?
 Ah, reader! let us seek to grasp the true notion of Providence, for in it
there is peace and deep repose of soul. Life has often been compared to a
drama. Now, in a good drama there is one plot, variously evolved by incidents
of different kinds, which until the last act present entanglement and
confusion. Vice has its temporary triumphs, virtue its temporary depressions.
What of that? You know it will come right in the end. You know there is an
organizing mind which unfolds the story, and that the poet will certainly bring
the whole to a climax by the ultimate indication of righteousness and the
doing of poetical justice upon malefactors. To this end every shifting of the
scene, every movement of the actors, every by-plot and underplot is made to
contribute. Wheel within wheel is working together toward this result. Well,
life is God’s great drama. It was thought out and composed in the Eternal
Mind before the mountains were brought forth, or even the earth and the
world were made. In time God made a theater for it, called the earth; and
now the great drama is being acted thereon. It is on a gigantic scale—this
drama. The scenes are shifting every hour. One set of characters drops off the
stage, and new ones come on to play much the same part as the first, only in
new dresses. There seem to be entanglements, perplexities, interruptions,
confusions, contradictions without end; but you may be sure there is one
ruling thought, one master design, to which all these are subordinate. Every
incident, every character, however apparently adverse, contributes to work
out that ruling thought. Think you that the Divine Dramatist will leave
anything out of the scope of his plot? Nay, the circumference of that plot
embraces within its vast sweep every incident which time ever brought to
birth.
Thou knowest that the mind which organized this drama is Wisdom. Thou
knowest more; thou knowest that it is Love. Then of its ending grandly,
wisely, nobly, lovingly, infinitely well for them who love God, there can be no
doubt. But remember you are an actor in it; not a puppet worked by wires,
but an actor. It is yours to study the plot as it unfolds itself, to throw yourself
into it intelligently, warmly, zealously. Be sure to learn your part well, and to
recite it manfully. Be not clamorous for another or more dignified character
than that which is allotted you—be it your sole aim to conspire with the
Author, and to subserve his grand and wise conception.
Thus shall you cease from your own wisdom. Thus shall you find peace in
submitting yourself to the wisdom which is of God, and thus, finally, shall he
pronounce you a good and faithful servant, and summon you to enter into the
joy of your Lord.
 [March 9.]
Now here comes out another point of holy policy in the combat with
temptations. It is wise, especially when they are at their height, never to look
them full in the face. To consider their suggestions, to debate with them, to
fight it out with them inch by inch in a listed field, is, generally speaking, a
sure way to fail. Turn the mind to Christ at the first assault, and keep it fixed
there with pertinacity, until this tyranny be overpast. Consider him, if thou
wilt, after the picture here presented to us. Think of him as one who walked
amidst temptations without ever being submerged by them, as of one who by
his grace can enable his followers to do the same. Think of him as calm,
serene, firm, majestic, amidst the most furious agitations and turbulences of
nature, and as one who can endue thy heart with a similar steadfastness.
Think of him as interceding for his Church on the Mount of Glory, as watching
them while they toil in rowing against the adverse influences which beset
them round about upon the sea of life, as descending on the wings of love to
their relief. Think of him as standing close by thee in thy immediate
neighborhood, with a hand outstretched for thy support as soon as ever thou
lookest toward him. Remember that it is not you who are to conquer, but he
who is to conquer in you; and accordingly, “even as the eyes of servants wait
upon the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of the maiden upon the hand
of her mistress, even so let your eyes wait upon him, until he have mercy
upon you.” No man ever fell in this attitude of expectant faith; he falls
because he allows himself to look at the temptation, to be fascinated by its
attractiveness, or terrified by its strength. One of the greatest sermons in our
language is on the expulsive power of a new affection, and the principle laid
down in that sermon admits of application to the circumstances of which we
are speaking. There can be, of course, no temptation without a certain
correspondence of the inner man with the immediate occasion of the trial.
Now, do you desire to weaken this correspondence, to cut it off and make it
cease? Fill the mind and heart with another affection, and let it be the
affection for Christ crucified. Thus will the energies of the soul, which will not
suffice for two strong actions at the same time, be drawn off into another
quarter; and beside, the great enemy, seeing that his assaults only provoke
you to a continuous exercise of faith, will soon lay down his arms, and you
shall know experimentally the truth of those words, “Above all, taking the
shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the
wicked one.” There can be no doubt that this counsel of looking only upon
Christ in the hour of temptation will be most needed (if our conscience and
mind be spared us to the end), in the critical hour when flesh and heart are
failing, and when Satan for the last time is permitted to assault our faith. We
can well imagine that in that hour doubts will be busily instilled of Christ’s love
and power, suggestions of our own unfaithfulness to him in times past and
questions as to whether he will now receive us. The soul will then possibly be
scared by terrors, as the disciples in the boat were scared with the thoughts
of a phantom, and will tremble in apprehension of being thrust out from the
frail bark of the body into the darkness, uncertainty, insecurity of the new and
untried element. If such should be the experience of any one who reads these
pages, let him take with him this one counsel of safety, to look only to Christ,
and to perish, if he perishes, at his feet; let us refuse to look in any other
quarter, let us steadily turn away our eyes from the doubts, the painful
recollection, the alarming anticipations which the enemy is instilling. We are
not proposing to be saved on the ground of any righteousness in ourselves, or
in any other way than by free grace, as undone sinners; then let these words
be the motto of the tempest-tossed soul: “My soul hangeth upon thee; thy
right hand hath upholden me;” ay, and let it be the motto now, in hours when
lesser trials assault us. Let us make proof even now of the invincibility of the
shield of faith, that we may bring it forth in that hour with greater confidence
in its power to shield us. And the hand of an infinite love shall uphold us in
the last, as it has done in previous ordeals, and the prayer shall be answered,
which we have offered so often over the grave of departed friends:
“Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not thy merciful ears
to our prayer; but spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and
merciful Savior, thou most worthy Judge eternal, suffer us not, at our last
hour, for any pains of death to fall from thee.” “My flesh and my heart faileth;
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” “O thou of little
faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”

[March 16.]
Never lower your principles to the world’s standard. Never let sin, however
popular it may be, have any sanction or countenance from you, even by a
smile. The manly confession of Christ, when his cause is unpopular, is made
by himself the condition of his confessing us before men. If people find out
that we are earnestly religious, as they soon will, if the light is shining, let us
make them heartily welcome to the intelligence, and allow them to talk and
criticise as much as they please. And then, again, in order that the lights may
shine without obstruction, in order that it may easily transpire what we are,
we must be simple, and study simplicity. This is by no means so easy as it at
first sight appears; for in this highly artificial and pretentious age all society is
overlaid with numerous affectations. Detest affectation, as the contrary of
truth, and as hypocrisy on a small scale; and allow yourself freely to be seen
by those around you in your true colors. There is an affectation of indifference
to all things, and of a lack of general sensibility, which is becoming very
prevalent in this age, and which is the sworn foe to all simplicity of character.
The persons who labor under this moral disorder pretend to have lost their
freshness of interest in every thing; for them, as they would have it believed,
there is no surprise and no enthusiasm. Without assuming that they are really
the unimpressionable creatures which they would make themselves out to be,
we may warn them that the wilful dissembling of a generous emotion is the
way to suppress it. As Christians, we must eschew untruth in every form; we
must labor to seem just what we are, neither better nor worse. To be true to
God and to the thought of his presence all day long, and to let self occupy as
little as possible of our thoughts; to care much for his approval, and
comparatively little for the impression we are making on others; to feed the
inward light with oil, and then freely to allow it to shine; this is the great
secret of edification. May he indoctrinate us into it, and dispose and enable us
to illustrate it in our practice.

[March 23.]
See now, tempted soul, whether this consideration, applied to your own
case, may not somewhat lighten thy burden. You are beset by distractions in
prayer and meditation. Well, distractions are no sin; nay, if struggled against
patiently and cheerfully, they shall be a jewel in thy crown. Did you go
through with the religious exercise as well as you could, not willingly
harboring the distraction or consenting to it? In this case the prayer was quite
as acceptable as if it had been accompanied with those high-flown feelings of
fervor and sensible delight which God sometimes gives and sometimes, for
our better discipline and humiliation, withholds. Nay, may we not say, that it
was much more acceptable? Do not the Scriptures give us reason to think that
prayer, persevering amidst difficulties and humiliations, prayer clinging close
to Christ, despite his rebuffs, is more acceptable than the prayer which has its
way smooth before it, and whose wings are filled by the favoring gale? What
else are we to learn from the acceptance of Bartimæus’s petition, who cried
so much the more when the multitude rebuked him that he should hold his
peace? What else from the commendation and recompense of the Syro-
Phœnician’s faith? Wouldst thou know the avenue to the Savior’s heart, when
thou art driven from his footstool by manifold discouragements, by deadness,
numbness, insensibility—and he himself seems to cover himself with a cloud,
so that thy prayer may not pass through? Confess thyself a dog, and plead for
such crumbs as are the dog’s allowed and recognized portion. Call to mind the
many times when thou hast turned a deaf ear to Christ’s expostulations with
thee through thy conscience. Reflect that thou hast deserved nothing but
repulses, and to have thy drafts upon him dishonored; and yet cling to his
sacred feet, while thou sinkest low before him, resolving not to let him go
except he bless thee; and this act of humility and perseverance shall make thy
lame and halting prayer far more acceptable to the Divine Majesty than if it
sailed to heaven with all the fluency of conscious inspiration, like Balaam’s
prophecy of old, which was prefaced, unhappy soul, by the assertion of his
gifts.

[March 30.]
The remedy, and under God’s grace the only remedy, whether in solitude or
in company, is to “watch”—to “guard,” as far as in us lies, “the first springs of
thought and will.” Let us pray and strive for the habit of challenging our
sentiments, and making them give up their passport; eyeing them wistfully
when they apply for admittance, and seeking to unmask those which have a
questionable appearance.…
It will be found that all the more grievous falls of the tempted soul come
from this—that the keeping of the heart has been neglected, that the evil has
not been nipped in the bud. We have allowed matters to advance to a
question of conduct—“shall I say this, or not say it?” “Do this, or not do it?”
Whereas the stand should be made higher up and the ground disputed in the
inner man. As if the mere restraint upon outward conduct, without the
homage of the heart to God’s law, could avail us aught, or be anything else
than an offensive hypocrisy in the eyes of the Heart-searcher! As if Balaam’s
refraining from the malediction of the lips, while his heart was going after his
covetousness, could be acceptable to the Almighty! Balaam, being an inspired
and divinely-commissioned man, dared not disobey; for he knew too well
what would be the result of such an abuse of his supernatural gifts. But we, if,
like Balaam, we have allowed to evil a free range over our hearts, are sure to
disobey when it comes to a question of conduct, not being restrained by the
fear of miraculous punishment, which alone held him back. There is therefore
no safety for us except in taking our stand at the avenues of the will, and
rejecting at once every questionable impulse. And this, it is obvious, can not
be done without watchfulness and self-recollection—without a continual
bearing in mind where, and what we are, and that we have a treasure in our
keeping, of which our foes seek to rob us. Endeavor to make your heart a
little sanctuary, in which you may continually realize the presence of God, and
from which unhallowed thoughts, and even vain thoughts must carefully be
excluded.
 READINGS IN ART.

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE.[B]
We do not know just when this term Gothic was first applied to the kind of
architecture it is used to designate. It was probably intended to indicate
something rude or barbaric in its features, but not that the Goths themselves
invented or practiced it. That uncultured, warlike race knew little or nothing of
architecture; but when, in the twelfth century, there arose in the north
countries of Europe a new style of the art, those in the east and south,
meaning to charge it with want of refinement, called it Gothic. There is not
now the slightest reproach in the term, but rather the contrary. It won high,
and for a time almost universal appreciation among all lovers of art. If, as
compared with what went before, it is in a sense rude and wild, these very
qualities command respect and admiration. It became the favorite architecture
of the fourteenth century, reaching its highest state of development about the
first of the fifteenth.
We can but imperfectly note the changes that took place in this style
during its prevalence in England and other countries, for it had nearly the
same phases in many lands, though not quite simultaneously. Changes were
constantly made, both in language and architecture, that were not radical or
destructive. As the change from the rude Anglo-Saxon forms of speech to the
polished periods of Addison did not destroy the language, neither did the
progress and improvement of this style of architecture change its identity.
Its characteristic features were maintained throughout. Some or all of
these, “boldness, naturalness, grotesqueness and redundancy,” are evident in
every stage, quite enough to vindicate its claim to be Gothic. Many years
before the Roman emperors had introduced into Europe something like a
universal architecture. The buildings of every Roman colony bore a strong
resemblance to those of every other colony and of the metropolis. They were,
in general, heavy in appearance, simple in structure, and had all their arches
semi-circular.