men who made up his party in the evening, by the apparent knowledge he had of what was going on in the literary world at Paris. He received every week a precis of every new book that was published in that Capital, made for him by one of his attendants.

"On hearing of his death," fays Brotier,

cc a

great Monarch exclaimed, "Louis was a man "of uprightness and integrity. I have known "him by a long epiftolary correfpondence which "we kept up together."

Louis had, however, the weakness of giving to his Minifters only a part of his confidence: he fet fpies upon them; and the Count de Broglio, brother of the Marshall of that name, was at the head of his fecret and private Cabinet, which not unfrequently counteracted the plans of his public and acknowledged Adminiftration.

LOUIS, DAUPHIN,

SON TO LOUIS THE FIFTEENTH.

THIS French Germanicus was educated by the virtuous and intelligent Marshal de Muy, and answered completely the pains that his excellent

Governor

Governor took for his education. "A Dauphin," faid this Prince, "fhould be a mere cypher in the "Government of France, whilft a King of that "Country fhould endeavour to do every thing."

When Louis the Fifteenth prefented the Dauphin, then a very young man, to the Prince of Conti, he said, "Well, coufin, what do you think "of my fon?"-" Sire," replied he, "Il lui "manque feulement un air du College :-All that ❝ he wants, Sire, is to have been brought up at a "public feminary; he wants that freedom and "openness of manner, that poffeffion of himself,

which the frequentation of young men of his cc own age alone can give him *."

He used to say, "That a Sovereign should "avoid war, without appearing to be afraid of it;

66

carry it on with fpirit, without loving it; be "the first to brave that danger that other perfons "were incurring; fhed his own blood with "courage, and spare that of his fubjects."

To induce the Dauphin to afk for a greater allowance than his father granted him, fome of

The French Writer who tells this anecdote obferves, "That all the French Princes who have diftin"guished themselves were educated at a public feminary, as the great Prince of Condé and his Brother at the "College Royal, and the late Prince of Conti at that of

66

Harcourt."

९. 3

Q3

the

the perfons about his Court told him, that the Dauphin, the only fon of Louis the Fourteenth, had a larger income than himself. "Indeed," faid he, "I fhould be very happy to have my "penfion increased, were it not raised upon my "father's fubjects."

"Ignorance," faid he, "is the greatest mif"fortune that can happen to a Prince. It is but feldom that a King forms, in cool blood, a de"fign to enflave his people. Humanity oppofes "it, and his own intereft deters him from it. "Ignorance alone prevails upon him to attempt Ignorance then is the fource of all his

< it.

"miferies."

"A Prince," continued he, "holds his exift"ence in the political world by his authority

only. Not to be perfectly acquainted with its ce origin, its extent, and its bounds, or to know "them but fuperficially, is neither to know the "nature nor the properties of his existence."

The names of the children of the Royal Family of France were used to be infcribed in the parish register of Verfailles; the Dauphin took his children one day with him to the Church of that Town, and, opening the register before them, thus addreffed them: "Obferve, my good chil"dren, your names following, in regular order, "the names of the pooreft and of the loweft of

"my

»

my father's fubjects. Religion and Nature "know no diftinction: Virtue alone makes the

difference between one person and another; and perhaps he whofe name you precede in this book may appear greater in the eyes of "God, than you may appear in thofe of man* kind."

The Dauphin, with his usual paternal folicitude, caufed a book to be written for the use of his eldeft fon, the late unfortunate King of France (a book now become useless) fur le droit public de France.

LOUIS THE SIXTEENTH.

THE fituation of this excellent Prince is thus emphatically described by that great Politician, Frederic, the laft King of Pruffia, in one of his letters to Voltaire;

« June 18, 1776.

"I HAVE lately learned that the King of France has difplaced fome of his Minifters. 1 am not aftonished at it. I look upon Louis "the

24

"the Sixteenth as a young lamb in the midst of "wolves. He will be in great luck if he gets "out of their claws. A perfon who should chance "to have been in the habits of Government "would be at prefent much puzzled in France; "watched and furrounded with artifices of "every kind, he would be forced to be guilty "of mistakes. How much more likely then is "it, that a young Prince, without experience, "fhould be hurried along by the torrent of in"trigue and cabal.

"Those perfons who have talked of the French "Government to you, have doubtlefs, my dear "Voltaire, exaggerated many things. I have "had an opportunity of getting at the true state "of the revenues and of the debts of that king"dom. Its debts are enormous, its resources "exhaufted, and its taxes multiplied beyond "bounds. The only method to diminish in time

the load of thefe debts, would be to put its expences within certain limits, and to retrench every fuperfluity. But, alas! this I fear will "never be done; for, instead of saying, I have "fuch an income, and I can afford to fpend fo "much of it, we are but too apt to say, I must "have fo much money, find out expedients to "procure it for me.

"Thofe