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Updated: May 21, 2025
Christina had been in Paris and had seen Louis Fourteenth dance as Alcibiades in Benserade's ballet, a sight to rejoice the gods of Olympus, who must certainly have laughed even louder at the bewigged King's mincing steps than they did at Vulcan's limp; for with many gifts, the Sun-King possessed no more sense of humour than Don Quixote, who stood on his head before Sancho as a proof that love was driving him mad.
Many have seen you who had more knowledge by which to judge your manifold virtues, many also who had more skill to draw you as you are, but never one, I am sure, who admired you more than I. Great was the French soldier under Louis the Sun-King, great too under Napoleon, but never was he greater than to-day. And so it is back to England and to home.
Some drink the bitter first, some the sweet. And you have drained the bitter to the lees. Therefore look up at the Sun-King boldly. He will not darken for you again.” “Where now?” asked Hermione, in all things looking to her husband. “To the Acropolis,” ordered Glaucon. “If the temple is desolate, the Rock is still holy. Let us give thanks to Athena.”
Seldom in the world's history has a reign, so splendid as that of the Sun-King, closed in such darkness and tragedy. The disastrous war of the Spanish Succession had drained France of her strength and her gold.
Nearly two centuries have gone since he closed his weary and disillusioned eyes on the world he had so long dominated; but to-day he shines in history in the galaxy of monarchs with a lustre almost as great as when he was hailed throughout the world as the "Sun-King," and in his pride exclaimed, "I am the State."
Calvert noted the ever recurring sun-disk, emblem of the Roi Soleil whose sun had set so ingloriously long before; through the Salle de la Guerre, from whose dome that same Sun-King, vanquished so easily by Death, hurled thunder-bolts of wrath before which Spain and Holland cowered in fear; until they at length came into the Galérie des Glaces, where their Majesties were to receive.
Napoleon's life at that time was one long deification. Louis XIV. himself, the Sun-King, had never received more flattery in prose and verse. All the official poets had tuned their lyres to sing his marriage, and the Moniteur was full of dithyrambs.
The women played a great part at the Court of Louis XIV, and those upon whom he turned his dark eyes were in the main as wax under the solar rays of the Sun-King. But Madame de Montespan had discovered the secret of reversing matters, so that in her hands it was the King who became as wax for her modelling. It is with this secret a page of the secret history of France that we are here concerned.
The Sun-King was gladdened by his daughter's industry. When night fell and the heavens were bright with countless lights, the lovers were wont, standing on the banks of the celestial stream, to waft across it sweet and tender messages, while each uttered a prayer for the speedy coming of the wondrous night.
With its awakening, Shokujo forsook her former occupations, nor did she any longer labor industriously at the loom, but laughed, and danced, and sang, and made merry from morn till night. The Sun-King was sorely grieved, for he had not foreseen so great a change.
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