Lewis acted, as the English ministers might have guessed that he
would act. With scarcely the show of hesitation, he broke through
all the obligations of the Partition Treaty, and accepted for his
grandson the splendid legacy of Charles. The new sovereign
hastened to take possession of his dominions. The whole Court of
France accompanied him to Sceaux. His brothers escorted him to
that frontier which, as they weakly imagined, was to be a
frontier no longer. "The Pyrenees," said Lewis, "have ceased to
exist." Those very Pyrenees, a few years later, were the theatre
of a war between the heir of Lewis and the prince whom France was
now sending to govern Spain.

If Charles had ransacked Europe to find a successor whose moral
and intellectual character resembled his own, he could not have
chosen better. Philip was not so sickly as his predecessor, but
he was quite as weak, as indolent, and as superstitious; he very
soon became quite as hypochondriacal and eccentric; and he was
even more uxorious. He was indeed a husband of ten thousand. His
first object, when he became King of Spain, was to procure a
wife. From the day of his marriage to the day of her death, his
first object was to have her near him, and to do what she wished.
As soon as his wife died, his first object was to procure
another. Another was found, as unlike the former as possible. But
she was a wife; and Philip was content. Neither by day nor by
night, neither in sickness nor in health, neither in time of
business nor in time of relaxation, did he ever suffer her to be
absent from him for half an hour. His mind was naturally feeble;
and he had received an enfeebling education. He had been brought
up amidst the dull magnificence of Versailles. His grandfather