Thirty Years' War when the young Louis, in the sixteenth year of his age,
was anointed king at Rheims. Although France had suffered terribly in that
awful struggle, she had probably suffered less than any of the combatants,
unless it be Sweden.

It happened by a remarkable coincidence that precisely at this moment, when
the condition of Europe was such that an aggressive policy on the part of
France could be only with difficulty resisted by her neighbors, the power
and prerogatives of the French crown attained an expansion and preeminence
which they had never enjoyed in the previous history of the country. The
schemes and hopes of Philip the Fair, of Louis XI, of Henry IV, and of
Richelieu had been realized at last; and their efforts to throw off the
insolent coercion of the great feudal lords had been crowned with complete
success. The monarchy could hardly have conjectured how strong it had
become but for the abortive resistance and hostility it met with in the
Fronde.

The flames of insurrection which had shot up, forked and menacing, fell
back underground, where they smouldered for four generations yet to come.
The kingly power soared, single and supreme, over its prostrate foes. Long
before Louis XIV had shown any aptitude or disposition for authority, he
was the object of adulation as cringing as was ever offered to a Roman
emperor. When he returned from his consecration at Rheims, the rector of
the University of Paris, at the head of his professorial staff, addressed
the young King in these words: "We are so dazzled by the new splendor which
surrounds your majesty that we are not ashamed to appear dumfounded at the
aspect of a light so brilliant and so extraordinary"; and at the foot of an
engraving at the same date he is in so many words called a demigod.

It is evident that ample materials had been prepared for what the vulgar