Louis d'or

“ On the 11th March 1720 the use of the gold specie was forbidden, and a recoinage determined on. These regulations, however, were not carried out, and by July the louis d'or had risen to 60 livres (= 1963 7⁄17 livres to the mark of fine gold) , and the louis d'argent to 15 livres (= 130 10⁄11 livres to the mark of fine silver) . The same enhancement prevailed in the divisional coin, and the confusion endured till the end of 1720. In September the louis d'or had fallen to 45 livres (= 1472 8⁄11 livres to the mark of fine gold) , and the louis d'argent to 11 livres 5 sols. ”

“ Louis was a stupendous triumph of modern times in manufactures, in economic and liberal arts, in electricity, in history, in science, in architecture, in agriculture and forestry, in landscape gardening, in machinery, in archaeology, in education, in fine arts—in fact, along every line of practical work as well as in the sciences and arts—so woman's progress in every department was such as to gleam forth from even the superb and marvelous splendor everywhere reflected as worthy of her highest ambition and as suggestive of untold and signal possibilities for the future. ”

“ This medal is the work of fraternal collaboration by two artists whose citizenship Americans prize highly, Louis and Augustus Saint-Gaudens. The name indicates that they may have inherited some of the fine artistic sense which makes France pre-eminent in the exquisite art of the medallist.
On one side of the medal you will find the wise, benign, and spirited face of Franklin. On the other side literature, science, and philosophy attend, while history makes her record. The material of the medal is American gold, as was Franklin. ”

“ The wonderful blue eyes darkened with a sneer.
“You have a high conception of the King!”
“Yes,” smiled Luc proudly. “I know what real loyalty is—no courtier can teach me. I have walked among the dying, who eased their torments by murmuring the name of King Louis. I have beheld men spurred to great achievement by the thought of him; his name is a power that you perhaps cannot conceive of. I believe with thousands that he will, in the splendid ardour of his youth, lead France to greater glories that she has yet attained. Louis the Great will be overshadowed by Louis the Well Beloved!” ”

“ From here the boy merges into the man, and we must leave him. Strong of purpose, clear-headed and masterful, Louis the Fourteenth ruled as King of France for seventy-two years—the most powerful monarch in Christendom. Handsome in person, majestic in bearing, dignified, lavish, and proud; ruling France in one of the most splendid periods of its history—a period styled "the Augustan age" of France; flattered, feared, and absolutely obeyed, one would think, boys and girls, that so powerful a monarch must have been a happy man. ”

“ There is a stir among the attendants, and the King enters. He is assiduous in saluting her Majesty at her lever when Mademoiselle de Hautefort is present. Louis XIII. has inherited neither the rough though martial air of his father, nor the beauty of his Italian mother. His face is long, thin, and sallow; his hair dark and scanty. He is far from tall, and very slight, and an indescribable air of melancholy pervades his whole person. As Louis approaches her, Anne is placing a diamond pendant in her ear; her hands are exquisitely white and deliciously shaped, and she loves to display them. ”

“ I grant him, Louis, to have been one of the greatest men of this, or perhaps of any other age, mighty as a warrior, just, clearsighted, kind-hearted, and comprehensive as a politician, and perhaps as great in the noble and honest simplicity of his nature as in any other point of view. I grant him all and every thing that you could say in his favour. I grant every thing that his most enthusiastic admirers can assert; but God forbid that we should ever imitate the weakness of a great man's life. ”

“ It is true that in the reign of Louis XII., whose exchequer had been exhausted in the Italian expeditions, gold and silver had become so scarce in France, that the king was obliged to prohibit the manufacture of all sorts of large plate (grosserie) . But the discovery of America having brought with it an abundance of the precious metals, Louis XII. recalled his ordinance in 1510; and thenceforth the corporations of goldsmiths were seen to increase and prosper, as luxuriousness, diffused by the example of the great, descended to the lower ranks of society. ”

“ He is a gambler, who has won millions, [86] and with them has built a gaming palace on the plan of the ‘salons’ at Paris, but with a truly Asiatic splendour almost surpassing that of royalty. Everything is in the now revived taste of the time of Louis the Fourteenth; decorated with tasteless excrescences, excess of gilding, confused mixture of stucco painting, &c.,—a turn of fashion very consistent in a country where the nobility grows more and more like that of the time of Louis the Fourteenth. ”

“ These things win me more than Italy’s hundred galleries of priceless art treasures, because I can understand the one and am not competent to appreciate the other. In the turnpikes, the railways, the depots, and the new boulevards of uniform houses in Florence and other cities here, I see the genius of Louis Napoleon, or rather, I see the works of that statesman imitated. But Louis has taken care that in France there shall be a foundation for these improvements—money. He has always the wherewithal to back up his projects; they strengthen France and never weaken her. ”

“ On one occasion Louis gave a grand entertainment in the magnificent banqueting-room of the palace. Seventy-five thousand dollars were expended in loading the tables with every luxury. After the feast the gaming tables were spread. Gold and silver ornaments, jewels and precious stones, glittered on every side. For these treasures thus profusely spread, the courtiers of both sexes gambled without incurring any risk. ”

“ Louis, but is now made a knight of Napoleon’s Republican Order, the Legion of Honour, for bowing gracefully to Her Imperial Majesty the Empress. As he is a man of real honour, this favour is not quite in its place; but I am convinced that should one day an opportunity present itself, he will not miss it, but prove that he has never been misplaced. ”

“ I do believe that if King Louis, being what he was, a man after God's own heart, had come, not with the sword, but preaching the truth by his life, he had done more for the cause that he had at heart. ”

“ The impulse has been given, and from that moment the walls of Paris display as many bills of theatrical and musical entertainments as if the Germans were not at the gates. I go to nearly all, and, to my great regret, hear a great many actors and actresses who have received favours and honours at the hand of Louis-Napoléon vie with one another in casting obloquy upon him and his reign. ”

“ But as Louis turned upon him a countenance which, albeit not beautiful, denoted energy and decision of character, and expressed at once goodness and good-nature, and high moral and intellectual superiority, the youth, whose instincts were strong, felt that he was in the presence of a man who was worthy of reigning. ”

“ In art and in literature, the great period, which is usually called by the king’s name, had in some respects passed its zenith when he began to reign. But France was unquestionably the first state in Europe both in arms and arts, and within France the authority of the king was practically undisputed. The nation, proud of its pre-eminence and weary of civil war, saw in the king its true representative and the guarantee of its unity and success. Louis was singularly well fitted by his physical and intellectual gifts for the rôle of Grand Monarque and he played it to perfection. ”

“ Commerce had so expanded that it was said that for every merchant seen in Paris in former times there were, in his reign, fifty. Louis introduced the cultivation of maize and the mulberry into France, and so rigid was his justice that poultry ran about the open fields without risk. It was the accrued wealth of his reign, and the love inspired by “Louis, father of his people,” [100] that supported the magnificence, the luxury and the extravagance of Francis I., the patron of the Italian Renaissance. ”

“ Nor did he in the least appeal to the great public; for his plays have as yet not proved acceptable to them. Saint Louis is a beautiful poem, not a tragedy after all, but a triumph, for no hero may see the fruits of his labor, and if a temporary failure seems for a moment to cloud the sky, it is only temporary. This is the message of Saint Louis. The good monarch who, "dying at the foot of the mountain, sees Jerusalem only through the eyes of his army," is a figure of hope. ”

“ He is young, victorious, wise, valiant, and dignified,—as benevolent and just as he is powerful. He governs his desires as well as his subjects; he unites labor and pleasure; always busy, never at fault, seeing all, hearing all. To such a prince Heaven can refuse nothing. If Louis commands, these Termini shall walk from their places, these trees shall speak better than the oaks of Dodona. Come forth, then, all of you! Louis commands it. ”

“ He intrigues with her own servants and the number of his illegitimate children is said to be as many as his years. She asked General Murat to present me and recommend me to Fouche, which he did with great politeness; and the Minister assured me that he should be glad to see me at his hotel, which I much doubt. The last words Madame Louis said to me, in showing me a princely crown, richly set with diamonds, and given her by her brother-in-law, Napoleon, were, “Alas! grandeur is not always happiness, nor the most elevated the most fortunate lot.”
LETTER XVII.
PARIS, August, 1805. ”

“ One incident from his life provides us with a fact of great interest to a glass student. Upon the occasion of the repulse of the Bretons by the inhabitants of the French city of St. Lô, Louis presented to the cathedral of that town, as an expression of his approval of the bravery of its citizens, a fine set of stained glass windows. As an event in political statecraft it is most significant: he did not ennoble or enrich certain leaders, but gave the entire fighting populace a royal gift. ”

“ She sought to make of Louis XV. an artist-king; and it must be said to her praise that she ever strove to rouse him from his habitual indolence and lassitude by leading his inclinations into healthy channels. But, unfortunately, Louis XV., unlike his predecessor, could never understand that great monuments often make the glory of kings.
The petits soupers of Versailles would occasionally shed a ray of sunshine, or rather lamp light, over Louis the Fifteenth's habitual ennui. After supper, chansons, sallies, and repartee, would be the order of the night. ”

“ Louis XV. was enchanted with the young Dauphiness; all his conversation was about her graces, her vivacity, and the aptness of her repartees. She was yet more successful with the royal family when they beheld her shorn of the splendour of the diamonds with which she had been adorned during the first days of her marriage. When clothed in a light dress of gauze or taffety she was compared to the Venus dei Medici, and the Atalanta of the Marly Gardens. Poets sang her charms; painters attempted to copy her features. ”

“ Louis is one of the most renowned. Although flourishing in a century which produced personages like Frederick, Emperor of Germany, and our first great Edward, who far excelled him in genius and prowess—as wise rulers in peace and mighty chiefs in war—his saintliness, his patience in affliction, his respect for justice and the rights of his neighbours, entitle him to a high place among the men of the age which could boast of so many royal heroes. ”

“ As Francis, and Charles, and Leo, and Julius, and Lorenzo had assigned science, and poetry, and painting, and architecture, and sculpture, as their appropriate provinces, to those great master spirits of Italy, to whom they forbade the culture of political philosophy, so Louis, when he interdicted to the gigantic intellects of his times and country all intervention in the affairs of the commonwealth, summoned them to the conquest of all the other realms of thought in which they might acquire renown, either for him, for France, or themselves. ”

“ She tried on all the ornaments, and then, after awhile, when she had admired them to her heart's content, she took up the silk-covered package, and curiously unwrapped it. When she saw what it contained, however, her face grew radiant with delight, and—
"Ah!" she exclaimed to herself, "King Louis's gifts are indeed princely, and this one is the most royal of all!"
For King Louis had been entirely right in thinking nothing would please the Lady Anne [105] quite so much as a piece of fine illumination. ”

“ Louis was saying, "five years ago to-night, I lost the best of fathers in the frightful accident of the Versailles road. Being possessed of considerable wealth, my father might have lived in comfort and idleness; but he deprived himself of all luxury, working for his daily bread, slowly accumulating riches by his parsimony and augmenting them year by year by his abnegation. ”

“ They huddled the King’s body into a postchaise; and in this deplorable equipage, with an escort of about forty men, Louis the Well-beloved was carried, in the dead of night, from Versailles to Saint-Denis, and then thrown into the tomb of the kings of France!
If any man is curious, and can get permission, he may mount to the roofs of the palace, and see where Louis XVI. used royally to amuse himself, by gazing upon the doings of all the townspeople below with a telescope. ”