The function of kings consists principally in leaving good sense to act, which always acts naturally without any trouble.

All that is most necessary in this kind of work is at the same time agreeable; for it is, in a word, my son, to keep an open eye over all the world, to be continually learning news from all the provinces and all nations, the secrets of all courts, the temper and the foible of all foreign princes and ministers, to be informed about an infinite number of things of which we are supposed to be ignorant, to see in our own circle that which is most carefully hidden from us, to discover the most distant views of our own courtiers and their most darkly cherished interests which come to us through contrary interests, and, in fact, I know not what other pleasure we would not give up for this, even if it were curiosity alone that caused us to feel it." [_Memoires de Louis XIV.,_ t.ii.

p.

428.] At twenty-two years of age, no more than during the rest of his life, was Louis XIV.

disposed to sacrifice business to pleasure, but he did not sacrifice pleasure to business.