The iron hand of Richelieu, the perfect address of Mazarin, were no longer necessary to silence it; the prudent moderation, the reserved frigidity, of Cardinal Fleury had sufficed for the purpose.

"The minister, victorious over the Parliament, had become the arbiter of Europe," said Frederick II., in his _History of my Time_.

The standard of intelligences and of wills had everywhere sunk down to the level of the government of France.

Unhappily, the day was coming when the thrones of Europe were about to be occupied by stronger and more expanded minds, whilst France was passing slowly from the hands of a more than octogenarian minister into those of a voluptuous monarch, governed by his courtiers and his favorites.

Frederick II., Maria Theresa, Lord Chatham, Catherine II., were about to appear upon the scene; the French had none to oppose them but Cardinal Fleury with one foot in the grave, and, after him, King Louis XV.