He began the building of the Bastille, that fortress which was then so necessary for the safety of Paris, where it was to be, four centuries later, the object of the wrath and earliest excesses on the part of the populace.

Charles the Wise, from whatever point of view he may be regarded, is, after Louis the Fat, Philip Augustus, St.Louis, and Philip the Handsome, the fifth of those kings who powerfully contributed to the settlement of France in Europe, and of the kingship in France.

He was not the greatest nor the best, but, perhaps, the most honestly able.

And at the same time he was a signal example of the shallowness and insufficiency of human abilities.

Charles V., on his death-bed, considered that "the affairs of his kingdom were in good case;" he had not even a suspicion of that chaos of war, anarchy, reverses and ruin into which they were about to fall, in the reign of his son, Charles VI.
END OF VOLUME II..