constitution, and he died the same year. The duke of Bourbon succeeded him as minister. He was in turn succeeded by Cardinal Fleury, who had been tutor to the king in childhood, and had won the love and confidence of his pupil. In Sept. 1725, the king was married to Maria Leszczynski, daughter of Stanislas, ex-king of Poland, a princess of little personal beauty, but of amiable disposition and most exemplary and pious life. The policy of Fleury was even more pacific than that of Orleans. He was so averse to war, that even when compelled to undertake it he carried it on without vigor and with most reluctant acquiescence in the necessary expenditures. He labored incessantly to preserve peace among his neighbors, and hostilities in Europe were repeatedly averted by his mediation. In 1733 Augustus II. of Poland died, and Stanislas, the father-in-law of Louis, claimed the vacant throne. His pretensions were supported by France, and those of Frederic Augustus of Saxony by Austria and Russia. This led to war (1733–5), in which the French armies won several victories; and though Stanislas failed to recover the kingdom of Poland, he acquired the duchy of Lorraine, which he ruled in an enlightened and beneficent manner till his death in 1766. The disputes relating to the Austrian succession, which followed the death of the emperor Charles VI. in 1740, involved France again in war, as Louis, who had some claims himself to the succession, maintained the claims of Charles Albert, elector of Bavaria, against those of Maria Theresa, who was supported by England. During the first year of this war the French armies were beaten and driven out of Bohemia and Bavaria, and the navy, which had been neglected by the parsimonious Fleury, suffered greatly from the English fleets. But the genius of Marshal Saxe restored the honor of the French arms in the victories of Fontenoy, Raucoux, and Laffeld, by which the Austrian Netherlands were almost entirely conquered (1745-7). The war ended by the peace of Aix la Chapelle, Oct. 18, 1748, and resulted in no gain to France but military fame, though the treaty gave her back Louisburg in America, which had been taken by the New Englanders in 1745. The aged Fleury died in 1743, and Louis, declaring that he meant henceforth to govern without a prime minister, and to command his troops in person, joined his army and shared in the dangers of Fontenoy. But this ebullition of energy soon passed away. For several years after his marriage he had shown a regard for chastity and decency unusual among the monarchs of Europe at that period; but about 1737 his profligate courtiers had systematically exerted themselves to corrupt his principles and his life. They ultimately succeeded, and Louis plunged into the grossest debauchery. Multitudes of ladies became suitors for the royal favor, and the highest nobles of France emulated each other in their endeavors to have the honor of pandering to the appetites of the mon

arch. The queen was wholly neglected, and the history of the government soon became intimately connected with the changes of the king's mistresses. The most noted of these were Châteauroux, Pompadour, and Du Barry. The debaucheries of the king culminated at length in the establishment at Versailles of the parc aux cerfs, or deer park, as it was facetiously called, a harem in which were kept for the pleasures of the king a number of young girls enticed or torn from their homes by the royal agents. They were changed in rapid succession, and Louis spent much of his time in teaching them to read and write, and in instructing them in religious matters. He was in the habit of praying with them, and after he became tired of their charms took pains to have them married, and gave them each a considerable dower. In 1756 disputes with England about the boundaries of the French and English territories in America resulted in the 7 years' war (1756-'63), in which France lost Quebec and Canada by the victory of Wolfe over Montcalm, Sept. 13-18, 1759, lost India by the victories of Clive, and lost her navy by the victories of Hawke and other English admirals. The French armies were beaten at Rossbach and at Minden; and at last, by the peace of Paris, Feb. 1763, France ceded to England Canada, Nova Scotia, all the rest of her possessions in North America east of the Mississippi, and the islands of Grenada, Dominica, and Tobago in the West Indies. She came out of the contest humiliated and disgraced, with her finances exhausted and her foreign commerce nearly destroyed. During the war an attempt by a fanatic named Damiens to assassinate the king revived for a time the popularity which Louis had lost by his misconduct; but the unfortunate issue of the contest and the ensuing distress tended much to alienate the people from the crown. Internally the kingdom was greatly disturbed by contests between the ecclesiastical and civil authorities, growing out of attempts on the part of the clergy to enforce the papal bull Unigenitus, which were resisted by the parliaments. The king was at length induced to banish the Jesuits, whose quarrel with the Jansenists had fomented these dissensions. The parliament of Provence having issued a decree depriving the pope of Avignon and the county of Venaissin, which had long belonged to the holy see, Louis seized those territories in 1768; in the same year Genoa ceded Corsica to France, though the French troops did not succeed in subduing the island till the following year. The rest of this reign was occupied by struggles between the king and the parliaments, in which the royal authority finally triumphed. Louis, however, did not long enjoy his triumph. A young girl with whom he had a transient amour communicated to him the small pox, which, together with a shameful malady from which he was already suffering, caused his death in a few days. His personal vices and his misgovernment had pre

pared the way for the overthrow of the monarchy, which carried with it to destruction his innocent successor. Louis XV. was himself fully aware of the perilous state of the kingdom, and his only anxiety in his latter years was that the tottering fabric should last as long as he did. His lusts and extravagances and his needless and costly wars had exhausted the treasury and increased the burden of debt and taxation; and as all the taxes and imposts pressed entirely upon the citizens and peasants, while the wealthy nobles and the clergy were exempt, the middle classes were heavily burdened, especially as the government did not collect the revenues itself, but sold them to the extortionate and unscrupulous farmers-general. In spite, however, of the national distress and the general confusion of affairs, a great intellectual movement was apparent in France during this reign, and the third estate, as the middle classes were called, gradually acquired by its wealth and intelligence a considerable degree of social and political influence. A spirit of boldness, mingled with levity in thought and intellectual speculation, was strikingly manifested in conversation and literature. Every thing was doubted, every thing attacked, and the shameless corruption which pervaded both church and state provoked a criticism whose searching inquiry spared neither religion nor social order nor the political organization of the country. The sceptical tendency of the times manifested itself in great writers like Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, D'Alembert, Condillac, and Helvetius, and in works like the great Dictionnaire encyclopédique, which produced an immense agitation in the public mind. The excesses of the court and of the clergy, exposed and satirized by the wits and authors, debased the monarchy and the church in the eyes of the people, and brought about an intellectual revolution which was the precursor and the cause of the political revolution which took place in the succeeding reign. LOUIS XVI., grandson and successor of the preceding, born at Versailles, Aug. 23, 1754, guillotined at Paris, Jan. 21, 1793. He was the third son of the dauphin Louis and of Maria Josepha, daughter of Frederic Augustus, king of Poland and elector of Saxony. Before his accession he bore the title of duke of Berry. He had a vigorous physical constitution, and his features were not without dignity; but he had none of the grace of manner which had marked his immediate predecessors on the throne. He was awkward, reserved, taciturn, and without decision of character. In confidential intercourse alone he spoke with sense and intelligence, but in public his diffidence prevented him from doing justice to himself. He was industrious, quick of comprehension, and had an extraordinary memory, which unhappily had been stored by his instructors with little else than useless knowledge. He was intentionally kept from acquaintance with affairs of state, though while dauphin he read much and wrote somewhat on historical matters, and was familiar

with geographical and chronological details He had a fondness for mechanical pursuits, learned the trade of a locksmith, and took much interest in the mechanical part of printing. He printed himself, in 1766, 35 copies of Maximes morales et politiques tirées de Télémaque, which he had collected from Fénélon's romance; and he made also a translation of some portions of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," which was pub-, lished under the name of Le Clerc de Sept Chênes, who was his reader. On May 16, 1770, he was married to Marie Antoinette, archduchess of Austria; and on May 10, 1774, he became king by the death of his grandfather Louis XV. He appointed the aged count of Maurepas his minister of state, and Turgot minister of finance. Sartine, Malesherbes, and the counts of Vergennes and of Saint Germain were also made members of the cabinet. Various reforms were introduced, chiefly through the exertions of Turgot, and the most offensive feudal services and imposts were abolished in spite of a strong opposition on the part of the courtiers, the nobility, and the higher orders of the clergy. The people were conciliated by the recall of the parliaments, Nov. 12, 1774. The king set the example of economy and retrenchment by reducing his household expenses and the number of his guards. An edict declaring the internal trade in grain free, and the occurrence of a partial famine at the same time, produced serious riots, in the suppression of which several hundreds were killed by the military. The king on this occasion, though at first irresolute, showed at length both vigor and prudence, and the disturbances were quieted by the amnesty of May 17, 1775. In the following year the opposition to reform, supported by the queen, succeeded in effecting the withdrawal of Turgot from the cabinet; and after various changes, the finances were at length intrusted to the celebrated Necker, from whose skill and talent the highest expectations were entertained. When the war of the American revolution broke out, and the agents of the United States, Franklin and Deane, arrived in Paris to solicit aid for the struggling colonies, Louis, though sympathizing with the Americans, was averse to embarking in war on their account; but his pacific inclinations were at length overcome by the urgency of his ministers and of the queen, and by the enthusiasm of the court and people, and on Feb. 6, 1778, he concluded the treaty of alliance with the United States, which in a few months resulted in the declaration of hostilities between France and Great Britain. The war cost France about 1,400,000,000 livres; and beside the irreparable deficit it produced in the already disordered finances, it tended greatly to weaken the monarchy by diffusing republican and revolutionary ideas. Necker became by his attempts at reform so obnoxious to the court and the aristocracy that he was obliged to resign in 1781. He was succeeded by Calonne, whose extravagance was unbounded. The queen and the court gave themselves up to gayety and profusion,

with the exception of the king, whose tastes were simple and moderate, and who refused himself expensive indulgences which he granted to the queen and the princes of the blood. In 1785 a swindling trick by which, in the name of the queen used without her knowledge, a jeweller of Paris was defrauded of a diamond necklace of immense value, created much excitement, threw great scandal on the queen and court, and disgraced the throne in popular estimation. At length the king was persuaded to convene the assembly of the notables or principal nobility of the kingdom, in order to devise some means for raising money, the deficit in the finances having reached the sum of 140,000,000 livres. The notables met in Feb. 1787, but rejected the proposal of a universal taxation which should embrace both the nobles and the clergy, upon which Calonne resigned. His successor, Loménie de Brienne, was not more successful in grappling with the difficulties which beset the state, and was compelled to resign at a time when the scarcity of money had become so great that all cash payments were suspended and a state bankruptcy appeared inevitable. Necker, who was exceedingly popular, was recalled to the ministry in 1788; and the states-general, which had not met since 1614, were summoned, and assembled at Versailles, May 5, 1789. An order of the king fixed the number of noble and ecclesiastical members at 300 each, and that of the third estate or citizens at 600. A quarrel broke out between the three estates at their first sitting, and after a contest of some weeks the third estate declared itself (June 17) a national assembly, and was joined by portions of the other estates. The assembly began immediately a series of financial reforms which excited the greatest enthusiasm throughout France. Necker prepared a plan of a constitution for a limited monarchy like that of England; but the nobility persuaded the king to consent to violent measures, and on June 20 the hall of the assembly was closed by military force. The members, however, met in an adjoining tennis court and unanimously took an oath never to separate until the constitution of the kingdom and the regeneration of the public order were established on a solid basis. On June 23 a royal sitting was held, and Louis from the throne made a speech to the assembly, and proposed various important reforms and the establishment of constitutional rights, securing the liberties and privileges of the people. His concessions were received with coldness, and after the termination of the sitting he dissolved the assembly. The third estate, however, refused to be dissolved; and one of its most prominent members, Mirabeau, replied to the official who summoned them to obey the king: "Tell your master that we sit here by the power of the people, and that we are only to be driven out by the bayonet." The king yielded to this resolute resistance, the assembly remained in session, and the nobility and clergy, who had yielded to the mandate of dissolution, now returned and took their seats at the request of the

monarch. During these proceedings great excitement prevailed among the people of Paris. A national guard was formed, embracing nearly all the citizens capable of bearing arms, with Lafayette for commander, and the government of the city became a democratic municipality with Bailly for mayor. The irresolute king, whose intentions were good while his weakness led him into fatal vacillations and tergiversations, was now persuaded to dismiss Necker and banish him from the kingdom, and to surround Paris with a powerful army commanded by Marshal Broglie. Paris, exasperated at these reactionary measures, rose in insurrection and stormed the Bastile on July 14. The king was startled and dismayed, and meditated flight beyond the frontier, though he did not yet fully appreciate the dangers of his position. "It is an insurrection," he said to the duke de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt on the night after the taking of the Bastile. "No, sire, it is a revolution." The next morning Louis, who had a horror of bloodshed, and would not use the force at his command, made his appearance in the national assembly, which he addressed for the first time by this title. He came without his guards, accompanied only by his two brothers. "Gentlemen," he said, "I am come to consult you on the most important affairs; the frightful disorders of the capital call for immediate attention. It is in these moments of alarm that the chief of the nation comes, without guards, to deliberate with his faithful deputies upon the means of restoring tranquillity. I know that the most unjust reports have been for some time in circulation as to my intentions; that even your personal freedom has been represented as being in danger. I should think my character might be a sufficient guaranty against such calumnies. As my only answer, I now come alone into the midst of you; I declare myself for ever united with the nation; and relying on the fidelity of the national assembly, I have given orders to remove the troops from Versailles and Paris; and I invite you to make my dispositions known to the capital." This speech for a while restored popular confidence in the king, though at the time of its utterance he had with his usual infirmity of purpose already signed the order for the army to advance upon Paris. On July 17, accompanied by the national assembly, the king visited Paris, and was conducted through a mob of 100,000 armed men to the Hôtel de Ville, where he showed himself to the people, wearing on his breast the popular badge, the tricolor, which had recently been adopted as the revolutionary emblem. He was then reconducted to Versailles amid the strongest demonstrations of popular attachment. On the day of the king's entry into Paris the princes of the blood, except Monsieur, and the chiefs of the aristocratical faction fled from the kingdom. They were followed by large numbers of the nobles and by the ministry, whom the assembly had impeached. At the same time Necker was recalled, conducted

to Paris in triumph, and reinstated in his office. From this period the revolution went rapidly onward. An imprudent outburst of loyal enthusiasm among the officers of the troops stationed at Versailles produced a sudden commotion in Paris, and a furious mob marched (Oct. 5) from that city to Versailles, where they took possession of the royal palace, and after comnitting great outrages compelled the king, queen, and royal family, who had narrowly escaped massacre, to return with them to Paris, where they were permitted to occupy the Tuileries, which was strictly guarded to prevent their escape. These events completed the first era of the revolution, in which, during the 5 months that had elapsed since the meeting of the states-general, an absolute monarchy had been converted into a turbulent democracy, the property of the church confiscated, the feudal privileges of the nobles and the immunities of great corporations abolished, the principle of universal equality recognized, all authority admitted to flow from the people, and the right of insurrection recognized as a sacred duty. Louis remained a virtual prisoner in the Tuileries till the following year. On July 14, 1790, he took part in the imposing ceremony of the confederation in the Champ de Mars, where in presence of half a million of spectators he swore to be faithful to the constitution which the national assembly was then preparing. After this, however, his situation grew constantly worse. Necker, unequal to the difficulties of his post, retired to Switzerland. Mirabeau, who had been won over, partly by bribery, to the side of the king, died, and with him fell the last hope of the monarchy. The king, to test the degree of restraint to which he was subject, endeavored in April, 1791, to pay a visit to his palace of St. Cloud, but his departure from the Tuileries was prevented by the mob. He now determined to make his escape from this disgraceful thraldom, and from the violence, insult, and danger to which he was continually exposed in Paris, and, calling around him at some place on the frontiers such subjects as were yet loyal, make a stand against the tyranny of the assembly and the mob. In concert with the marquis de Bouillé, an able and resolute general, who commanded a body of loyal troops in Lorraine, a plan was at length formed for the flight of the whole royal family to Montmédy on the northern frontier, about 200 miles from Paris. It was put in execution June 20, and failed of success chiefly through the obstinacy and want of common sense of the king himself, who could not be persuaded to make use of common carriages, but had a peculiar coach built for his own use, which attracted attention, and who beside did not on his journey take care to keep himself concealed from observation. He was recognized by the assistant postmaster Drouet at Ste. Menehould, stopped by the national guards at Varennes, 150 miles from Paris, and brought back to the capital a prisoner, accompanied by the stern Pétion, and by Barnave, who now be

came a defender of the throne. On the morning after his return a decree of the national assembly provisionally suspended him from his functions as king, and a strict guard was placed over him and the royal family. In September the new constitution was submitted to him for acceptance, his freedom being previously restored to him. After several days' examination he sent this message to the assembly, Sept. 13: "I accept the constitution; I engage to maintain it alike against civil discord and foreign aggression, and to enforce its execution to the utmost of my power. On the following day he repaired in person to the assembly to declare his acceptance, and on Sept. 29 he attended the closing session of the assembly and delivered a speech in which he said: "Tell your constituents that the king will always be their first and best friend; that he has need of their affection; that he knows no enjoyment but in them and with them; that the hope of contributing to their happiness will sustain his courage, as the satisfaction of having done so will constitute his reward." For a brief period after this Louis had a certain degree of peace and even of popularity; but his vetoes upon the decrees against the emigrant royalists and the priests who would not swear to support the constitution, and his veto of the decree for the defence of Paris against the Austrians and Prussians, caused such irritation that on June 20, 1792, a terrible mob marched from the suburbs to the Tuileries, took possession of the palace, and seizing the king sought by menaces and insults to make him withdraw his vetoes. He refused with great dignity and firmness, and after several hours of stoical endurance he was rescued by the arrival of the mayor with the national guard. The invasion of France by the Prussians and Austrians, and the insolent manifesto of the duke of Brunswick, their com mander, again roused the Parisians to fury; and on Aug. 10 they rose in insurrection, stormed the Tuileries, and massacred the Swiss guards, who had made a gallant defence. Louis with his family sought refuge in the hall of the national assembly, where they passed 16 hours in a narrow closet. The assembly, meantime, passed an act to suspend the royal authority, to place the king and his family under control, to give the dauphin a tutor, and to assemble a national convention. The Temple, an ancient fortress in Paris erected by the knights templars, was assigned as the prison for the royal family. The national convention assembled, and on Sept. 20 proclaimed France a republic. In December they brought the king to trial on various charges, the substance of which was that he had conspired with the emigrants and the foreigners to overthrow the constitution and restore the ancient order of things. charges were supported by documents which had been found in an iron safe concealed in a wall of the Tuileries. Louis, assisted by 3 advocates, Tronchet, Desèze, and Malesherbes, was brought before the convention on Dec.

These

LOUIS XVII. (FRANCE)

11 and 26, and made a dignified and forcible defence, but was found guilty by a unanimous vote, Jan. 15, 1793. After stormy debates between the Girondists and Jacobins, he was condemned on the 17th by a majority of 5 votes, and guillotined on the 21st.-See De Tocqueville, Coup d'œil sur le règne de Louis XVI. (Paris, 1850). LOUIS XVII., dauphin and titular king of France, son of the preceding, born at Versailles, March 27, 1785, died in the Temple at Paris, June 8, 1795. He was the third child of Louis and of Marie Antoinette. His first title was duke of Normandy, and he became dauphin by the death of his elder brother Louis Joseph, June 4, 1789. He was carefully educated under the supervision of his father, and at the outbreak of the revolution was a beautiful, lively, and intelligent child, but remarkably impatient and unmanageable. He was imprisoned in the Temple with the rest of the royal family, Aug. 13, 1792. After the execution of his father, Jan. 21, 1793, he was proclaimed king by his uncle, the count of Provence, who was then a refugee in Germany, and was recognized as king by most of the courts of Europe, by the Vendean chiefs, and by the insurgents in the south of France. These demonstrations, together with several unsuccessful attempts by the royalists to rescue him from prison, irritated and alarmed the revolutionary government; and on July 3, at 10 o'clock at night, the boy was forcibly torn from his mother's arms, and, frantic with terror, was carried screaming to another part of the prison. Here he was consigned to the care of a shoemaker named Antoine Simon, a violent Jacobin of rough manners and brutal temper, who treated him with systematic cruelty, apparently with the design of getting rid of him without committing palpable murder. The young prince was shut up in a cell and left there alone day and night, without employment or amusement, or any opportunity for exercise or to breathe fresh air. A vessel of water, seldom replenished, was given him for drink, and some coarse food was occasionally thrown in at the half opened door. He was allowed no means of washing himself, his bed was not made for 6 months, and for more than a year his clothes, his shirt, and his shoes were not changed. By prolonged inactivity his limbs became rigid, and his mind, through terror, grief, and monotony, became imbecile, and at length deranged. Something that he had said in reply to questions having been perverted to the injury of his mother, he resolved thenceforth to be silent, and for a long period neither threats nor blows nor coaxings could induce him to speak. When not sleeping he sat quietly in his chair, without uttering a sound or shedding a tear, or shrinking from the rats with which his dungeon swarmed. The reign of terror at last ended, and in July, 1794, the brutal Simon perished by the guillo. tine, together with Robespierre, Couthon, and Saint Just. Louis was placed under the care of more merciful keepers, but he was still kept in solitary confinement, and not allowed to see

his sister, who was imprisoned in an adjoining apartment. At length, in May, 1795, a physician was allowed to see him, who pronounced him dying of scrofula. He died at 2 P. M. in the arms of Lasne, one of his keepers, and the next day, June 9, his body was identified and certified to by 4 members of the committee of public safety and by more than 20 of the officials of the Temple. A post-mortem examination was made the same day by 4 distinguished physicians. On the following day the remains were buried in the cemetery of Ste. Marguerite, and every trace of the grave carefully obliterated. Several pretenders claiming to be Louis XVII. have appeared; among them, in France, Hervagant, a tailor's son, who died in 1812 in prison, and Bruneau, a shoemaker, who was sent to prison in 1802; and in America, the Rev. Eleazar Williams, a half-breed Indian, who died in 1859.See Beauchesne, Louis XVII., sa vie, son agonie, sa mort (Paris, 1852; English translation by William Hazlitt, London and New York, 1853).

LOUIS XVIII. (LOUIS STANISLAS XAVIER), king of France, born at Versailles, Nov. 17, 1755, died in Paris, Sept. 16, 1824. The 4th son of the dauphin of Louis XV. and of Maria Josepha of Saxony, he received at his birth the title of count of Provence, and on the accession of his brother Louis XVI. to the throne, that of Monsieur. He was superior to his brothers in abilities, but inferior in character, especially to the king, and during the reign of the latter spent a large part of his time in philosophical and literary studies, and in petty, often not harmless intrigues against the king, the queen, and his younger brother the count of Artois. A theoretical conservative, he opposed the liberal measures of Maurepas, the reforms of Turgot, and the financial experiments of Necker, but afterward took an important part in the acts of the assembly of notables, contributed to the fall of Calonne, sided with the parliaments, and thus gained much popularity. On the outbreak of the revolution he lived in comparative retirement, and was unobserved during the tumults of Oct. 5 and 6, 1789, but in the following year was accused of complicity in the alleged conspiracy of the marquis of Favras against the revolution. He made a public defence and was acquitted with acclamations, while Favras suffered the punishment of death without naming any of his associates. In June, 1791, Monsieur finally fled from the capital, and succeeded in escaping beyond the frontier. The court being now kept under surveillance by the people, he took up his abode in Coblentz on the Rhine, declared his brother to be a captive, and, gathering around him the so called France extérieure, formed a kind of camp court, protesting against the revolutionary measures of the French national assembly. The unhappy issue of the first campaign against France, however, soon compelled him to quit the vicinity of that country. Having assumed the title of regent for Louis XVII. after the execution of Louis XVI., he lived successively at various places