confidence in the honour and integrity of others. When these errors took
place, they seem to have arisen from an over-refined system of policy, which
induced Louis to assume the appearance of undoubting confidence in those whom it
was his object to overreach; for, in his general conduct, he was as jealous and
suspicious as any tyrant who ever breathed.
    Two other points may be noticed, to complete the sketch of this formidable
character, by which he rose among the rude chivalrous sovereigns of the period
to the rank of a keeper among wild beasts, who, by superior wisdom and policy,
by distribution of food, and some discipline by blows, comes finally to
predominate over those, who, if unsubjected by his arts, would by main strength
have torn him to pieces.
    The first of these attributes was Louis's excessive superstition, a plague
with which Heaven often afflicts those who refuse to listen to the dictates of
religion. The remorse arising from his evil actions Louis never endeavoured to
appease by any relaxation in his Machiavellian stratagems, but laboured, in
vain, to soothe and silence that painful feeling by superstitious observances,
severe penance, and profuse gifts to the ecclesiastics. The second property,
with which the first is sometimes found strangely united, was a disposition to
low pleasures and obscure debauchery. The wisest, or at least the most crafty
Sovereign of his time, he was fond of low life, and, being himself a man of wit,
enjoyed the jests and repartees of social conversation more than could have been
expected from other points of his character. He even mingled in the comic
adventures of obscure intrigue, with a freedom little consistent with the
habitual and guarded jealousy of his character, and he was so fond of this
species of humble gallantry, that he caused a number of its gay and licentious
anecdotes to be enrolled in a collection well known to book-collectors, in whose
eyes (and the work is unfit for any other) the right edition is very precious.5
    By means of this monarch's powerful and prudent, though most unamiable
character, it pleased Heaven, who works by the tempest as well as by the soft
small rain, to restore to the great French nation the benefits of civil
government, which, at the time of his accession, they had nearly lost.
    Ere he had succeeded to the crown, Louis had given evidence of his vices
rather than of his talents. His first wife, Margaret of Scotland, was »done to
death by slanderous tongues« in her husband's Court, where, but for the
encouragement of Louis