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. "A silence in which you might have heard an ant move
succeeded this sally," says St. Simon, who relates the scene; "we looked
down; we hardly dared draw breath. Everybody stood aghast. To the very
builders-men and gardeners everybody was motionless. This silence lasted
more than a quarter of an hour. The king broke it, as he leaned against
a balustrade of the great basin, to speak about a carp. Nobody made any
answer. He afterwards addressed his remarks about these carp to some
builder's-men who did not keep up the conversation in the regular way; it
was but a question of carp with them. Everything was at a low ebb, and
the king went away some little time after. As soon as we dared look at
one another out of his sight, our eyes meeting told all." There was no
venturing beyond looks. Fenelon had said, with severe charity, "God will
have compassion upon a prince beset from his youth up by flatterers."

Flattery 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 heyday 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