And all this gigantic fabric had passed away in an instant--at one stroke of a broken table knife sharpened on a carriage wheel.
Most pitiful was the condition of France on the day after, and for years after, the murder of the King.

Not only was the kingdom for the time being effaced from the roll of nations, so far as external relations were concerned, but it almost ceased to be a kingdom.

The ancient monarchy of Hugh Capet, of Saint-Louis, of Henry of France and Navarre, was transformed into a turbulent, self-seeking, quarrelsome, pillaging, pilfering democracy of grandees.

The Queen-Regent was tossed hither and thither at the sport of the winds and waves which shifted every hour in that tempestuous court.
No man pretended to think of the State.

Every man thought only of himself.