everywhere and always, it was THE KING who was the etiquette, art, and fashion of the day. His courtiers prostrated themselves at his feet like oriental slaves. To accompany him in his walks, to carry his cane or sword, to hold a taper during his toilet, to draw on his shoes, or even to stand and watch his robing, were honors to live and die for. Never sated with the most servile flattery, he complacently inhaled the incense due to a demi-god.

The Palace at Versailles, built at an expense of over eighty million dollars, was the creation of the king, and is a symbol of his own character. Vast, ambitious, but coldly monotonous in effect; magnificent in decoration; recklessly extravagant in the means by which its end was attained, and seeking to condense the brilliancy of the entire kingdom in itself,-it was the Mecca of every courtier. Stone and marble here became an endless series of compliment and homage to the royal person, and the acres of elaborate ceiling painted by Lebrun are a continued apotheosis, casting all Olympus at the royal feet.

The Garden, with its long straight avenues bordered by alternating trees and statues; its colossal fountains, where bronze or marble nymphs and tritons play with water brought at immense cost from afar; its grand cross-shaped canal; its terraces and orangeries; and its flowerbeds, arranged with stately regularity,-seem all an indefinite prolongation of an endless palace.

A Brilliant Court peopled this magnificent abode. Poorly educated himself,-being scarcely able to read or write, much less to spell, -Louis was munificent in his rewards to men of genius, while he appropriated their glory as his own. A throng of philosophers, statesmen, writers, scientists, poets, and painters clustered about the throne; and French thought, tastes, and language were so impressed upon foreign nations that all Europe took on a Parisian tinge. Here, too, were women of unusual wit and beauty, whose power was felt in every public act. Social deference and gallantry-led by the king, who, it is said, never passed a woman, even a chambermaid, without lifting his hat-gave them the political rights denied by law. They were the head and soul of all the endless intrigues of the time. Again, as in the days of chivalry, a woman's smile was the most coveted reward of valor; and political schemes were wrought out, not in the cabinet of a statesman, but in the salon of a lady. Conversation in this brilliant circle was made an art. "We argue and talk, night and day, morning and evening, without object, without end," wrote Madame de Sévigné, herself one of the most distinguished wits of the day. Letter-writing became a passion, and the graceful epistles of this century are a fit sequel to the spicy memoirs of the preceding one.

By common consent, the latter part of the 17th century is known in history as the age of Louis XIV.

SUMMARY.

The 17th was the century of Richelieu, Gustavus Adolphus, Louis XIV., Cromwell, the Stuarts, Milton, Corneille, Bacon, Newton, Galileo, Rubens, Rembrandt, and Murillo. It saw the assassination of Henry IV.; the Thirty-Years' War; the victories of Turenne and Condé; the Treaty of Westphalia; the long struggle between Louis XIV. and William of Orange; three great wars of the age of Louis XIV.; the revocation of the Edict of Nantes; the rise of Puritanism; the battles of Marston Moor and Naseby; the execution of Charles I.; the glories of the Protectorate; the restoration of the Stuarts; and the Revolution of 1688.

READING REFERENCES.

General Modern Histories named on p. 429, and the Special Histories of England, France, Germany, etc., on p. 417.-Macaulay's History of England (Chapter III., for Picture of Life in the Seventeenth Century).—Schiller's History of the Thirty Years' War.-Gardiner's Thirty-Years' War; and the Puritan Revolution; Hale's Fall of the Stuarts (Epochs of History Series).— Voltaire's Age of Louis XIV.-Bancroft's History of the United States (chapters relating to English statesmen and their views).-Taine's Ancient Régime.-Browning's Great Rebellion (Hand-book of History Series).—Hausser's Period of the Reformation (Thirty Years' War).Trench's Lectures on Gustavus Adolphus.-Cordery and Phillpott's King and Commonwealth.-Motley's John of Barneveld (Sully and Henry IV.).-Robson's Life of Richelieu.-Bulwer Lytton's Richelieu (drama).—James's Memoirs of Great Commanders (Condé and Turenne).—James's Life of Louis XIV.-Clement's Life of Colbert.-Mackay's Popular Delusions, art. The Mississippi Scheme, South Sea Bubble, etc.-Stephen's Lectures on French History.—Pardoe's Louis XIV.-Challice's Memories of French Palaces.-James's Heidelberg; Richelieu (fiction).—Rambaud's His tory of Russia from the Earliest Times.-Dunham's Histories of Poland; Spain and Portugal; and Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.- Walpole's Short History of the Kingdom of Ireland.

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

I. PETER THE GREAT OF RUSSIA, AND CHARLES XII. OF SWEDEN.

Russia was founded in the 9th century by the Norseman, Ruric. Christianity (Greek, p. 321) was introduced by his son's wife, Olga. This Slavic land, repeatedly overrun by Mongol hordes (p. 405), was finally conquered by Oktai. For over two centuries the House of Ruric paid tribute to the Khan of the Golden Horde. Iran the Great (1462-1505) threw off this Tartar yoke, and subdued Novgorod; while Ivan the Terrible (who first took the title of Czar, 1533-84) conquered Kazan, Astrakhan, and Siberia. Feodor, Ivan's son, was the last of the Ruric line (1598). After years of civil war, the crown fell (1613) to Michael Romanoff, ancestor of the present czar. Russia was now a powerful but barbarous empire, having only one seaport, Archangel, and without manufactures or a navy. Shut off by the Swedes from the Baltic and by the Turks from the Black Sea, it had little intercourse with the rest of Europe until the time of

Peter the Great.-From the age of ten, when he became joint king with his demented half-brother, this youthful czar was plotted against by his unscrupulous step-sister,

Geographical Questions.-Locate Azof; Copenhagen; Moscow; Pultowa; Frederickshall; Warsaw; Dettingen; Fontenoy; Raucoux; Lawfelt; Lowositz; Kolin; Rossbach; Leuthen; Zorndorf; Kunersdorf; Torgau; Leignitz; Hubertsburg; Potsdam; Berlin.

Point out Brandenburg; Livonia; Finland; Electorate of Saxony; Silesia ; Ingria. Locate Valmy; Jemmapos; Neerwinden; Lyons; Nice; Lodi; Parma; Pavia; Castiglione; Bassano; Arcole; Mantua; Mont Cenis; Simplon Pass; Marengo; Vienna; Hohenlinden; Ulm; Jena; Austerlitz; Eylau; Friedland; Tilsit; Talavera; Torres Vedras; Saragossa; Salamanca; Vittoria ; Madrid; Wagram ; Dresden; Borodino; Moscow; Leipsic; Ligny; Waterloo.

the regent Sophia. When seventeen years old, he grasped the scepter for himself (1689).1 At once he began to civilize and elevate his savage subjects. Having organized some troops after the European manner and built a small flotilla,

he sailed down the Don and captured Azof, the key of the Euxine, and Russia's first seaport on the south. He next

resolved to visit foreign countries and learn the secret of their progress.

Peter in Western Europe.-Leaving the government in the hands of an old noble, he accordingly went to Amster

1 The year of the devastation of the Palatinate by Louis XIV.; also that in which England secured a constitutional government under William III,