it is an unhappiness to be born. To be born, and to learn only, by every
tradition and example, that God's Universe is Belial's and a Lie; and
'the Supreme Quack' the hierarch of men! In which mournfulest faith,
nevertheless, do we not see whole generations (two, and sometimes even
three successively) live, what they call living; and vanish,--without
chance of reappearance?

In such a decadent age, or one fast verging that way, had our poor Louis
been born. Grant also that if the French Kingship had not, by course of
Nature, long to live, he of all men was the man to accelerate Nature.
The Blossom of French Royalty, cactus-like, has accordingly made an
astonishing progress. In those Metz days, it was still standing with all
its petals, though bedimmed by Orleans Regents and Roue Ministers and
Cardinals; but now, in 1774, we behold it bald, and the virtue nigh gone
out of it.

Disastrous indeed does it look with those same 'realised ideals,' one
and all! The Church, which in its palmy season, seven hundred years ago,
could make an Emperor wait barefoot, in penance-shift; three days, in
the snow, has for centuries seen itself decaying; reduced even to forget
old purposes and enmities, and join interest with the Kingship: on this
younger strength it would fain stay its decrepitude; and these two will
henceforth stand and fall together. Alas, the Sorbonne still sits there,
in its old mansion; but mumbles only jargon of dotage, and no longer
leads the consciences of men: not the Sorbonne; it is Encyclopedies,
Philosophie, and who knows what nameless innumerable multitude of
ready Writers, profane Singers, Romancers, Players, Disputators, and
Pamphleteers, that now form the Spiritual Guidance of the world. The
world's Practical Guidance too is lost, or has glided into the same
miscellaneous hands. Who is it that the King (Able-man, named also Roi,