viii.
p.

371.] "The cardinal," said he one day, "does just as he pleases, and I put up with it because of the good service he has rendered me, but I shall be master in my turn;" and he added, "the king my grandfather did great things, and left some to do; if God gives me grace to live twenty years longer, perhaps I may do as much or more." God was to grant Louis XIV.

more time and power than he asked for, but it was Henry IV.'s good fortune to maintain his greatness at the sword's point, without ever having leisure to become intoxicated with it.

Absolute power is in its nature so unwholesome and dangerous that the strongest mind cannot always withstand it.

It was Louis XIV.'s misfortune to be king for seventy-two years, and to reign fifty-six as sovereign master.
"Many people made up their minds," says the king in his _Memoires_ [t.