child. Among the men of the seventeenth century, he was the man
of the fifteenth century or of a still darker period, delighted
to behold an Auto da fe, and ready to volunteer on a Crusade.

The evils produced by a bad government and a bad religion, seemed
to have attained their greatest height during the last years of
the seventeenth century. While the kingdom was in this deplorable
state, the King, Charles, second of the name, was hastening to an
early grave. His days had been few and evil. He had been
unfortunate in all his wars, in every part of his internal
administration, and in all his domestic relations. His first
wife, whom he tenderly loved, died very young. His second wife
exercised great influence over him, but seems to have been
regarded by him rather with fear than with love. He was
childless; and his constitution was so completely shattered that,
at little more than thirty years of age, he had given up all
hopes of posterity. His mind was even more distempered than his
body. He was sometimes sunk in listless melancholy, and
sometimes harassed by the wildest and most extravagant fancies.
He was not, however, wholly destitute of the feelings which
became his station. His sufferings were aggravated by the thought
that his own dissolution might not improbably be followed by the
dissolution of his empire.

Several princes laid claim to the succession. The King's eldest
sister had married Lewis the Fourteenth. The Dauphin would,
therefore, in the common course of inheritance, have succeeded to
the crown. But the Infanta had, at the time of her espousals,
solemnly renounced, in her own name, and in that of her
posterity, all claim to the succession. This renunciation had