Quotation from: A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 3

Written by: Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot


But side by side with these powerful symptoms of a new regimen appeared
also the vices of which that regimen contained the germ, and those of the
man himself who was laboring to found it. Feudal society, perceiving
itself to be threatened, at one time attacked Louis XI. with passion, at
another entered into violent disputes against him; and Louis, in order to
struggle with it, employed all the practices, at one time crafty and at
another violent, that belong to absolute power. Craft usually
predominated in his proceedings, violence being often too perilous
for him to risk it; he did not consider himself in a condition to say
brazen-facedly, "Might before right;" but he disregarded right in the
case of his adversaries, and he did not deny himself any artifice, any
lie, any baseness, however specious, in order to trick them or ruin them
secretly, when he did not feel himself in a position to crush them at a
blow. "The end justifies the means"--that was his maxim; and the end,
in his case, was sometimes a great and legitimate political object,
nothing less than the dominant interest of France, but far more often his
own personal interest, something necessary to his own success or his own
gratification. No loftiness, no greatness of soul, was natural to him;
and the more experience of life he had, the more he became selfish and
devoid of moral sense and of sympathy with other men, whether rivals,
tools, or subjects. All found out before long, not only how little
account he made of them, but also what cruel pleasure he sometimes took
in making them conscious of his disdain and his power. He was
"familiar," but not by no means "vulgar;" he was in conversation able and
agreeable, with a mixture, however, of petulance and indiscretion, even
when he was meditating some perfidy; and "there is much need," he used to
say, "that my tongue should sometimes serve me; it has hurt me often
enough." The most puerile superstitions, as well as those most akin to a
blind piety, found their way into his mind. When he received any bad
news, he would cast aside forever the dress he was wearing when the news
came; and of death he had a dread which was carried to the extent of
pusillanimity and ridiculousness. "Whilst he was every day," says M. de
Barante, "becoming more suspicious, more absolute, more terrible to his
children, to the princes of the blood, to his old servants, and to his
wisest counsellors, there was one man who, without any fear of his wrath,
treated him with brutal rudeness. This was James Cattier, his doctor.
When the king would sometimes complain of it before certain confidential
servants, 'I know very well,' Cattier would say, that some fine morning
you'll send me where you've sent so many others; but, 'sdeath, you'll not
live a week after!'" Then the king would coax him, overwhelm him with
caresses, raise his salary to ten thousand crowns a month, make him a
present of rich lordships; and he ended by making him premier president
of the Court of Exchequer. All churches and all sanctuaries of any small
celebrity were recipients of his oblations, and it was not the salvation
of his soul, but life and health, that he asked for in return. One day
there was being repeated, on his account and in his presence, an orison
to St. Eutropius, who was implored to grant health to the soul and health
to the body. "The latter will be enough," said the king; "it is not
right to bother the saint for too many things at once." He showed great
devotion for images which had received benediction, and often had one of
them sewn upon his hat. Hawkers used to come and bring them to him; and
one day he gave a hundred and sixty livres to a pedler who had in his
pack one that had received benediction at Aix-la-Chapelle.

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