The advice of De Luynes was not needed when he implored his Majesty to observe the greatest circumspection until the important design was carried out, for, naturally timid and suspicious, Louis was already an adept in dissimulation; and the idea instantly occurred to him that should Concini or Leonora once have cause to apprehend that he meditated their destruction, his own life would pay the forfeit.

"And now, Lester," Vantine went on, his eyes shining more and more, "if my supposition is correctif the Grand Louis was content with the counterpart of this cabinet for the long gallery at Versailles, who do you suppose owned the original?" I saw what he was driving at.

Louis, Duke of Orleans, was a natural claimant to the regency; but Anne de Beaujeu, immediately and without consulting anybody, took up the position which had been intrusted to her by her father, and the fact was accepted without ceasing to be questioned.

Louis being the oldest of the children obtained odd jobs with the various settlers, among them being Governor Reid of Florida who lived in South Jacksonville.

Louis was nineteen; he was handsome, after a refined and gentle style which spoke of moral worth without telling of great physical strength; he had delicate and chiselled features, a brilliant complexion, and light hair, abundant and glossy, which, through his grandmother Isabel, he inherited from the family of the Counts of Hainault.

Cincinnati and St. Louis, each with one hundred and sixty thousand, were still the largest cities of the West, and St. Louis was the largest city in any slave state.

Louis was now seventy-four,an old man whose delusions were dispelled, and to whom successive misfortunes had brought grief and shame.

Louis was a devout Catholic in spite of his sins, and was true to the interests of the Pope.

Louis was all approval and encouragement, without declaring his own intention.

At the same time it offers considerable accommodation to the Government by enabling it to obtain more conveniently than it now can the necessary supplies of cast and wrought iron for all the Indians south of the Tennessee, and for those also to whom St. Louis is a convenient deposit, and will benefit such of our own citizens likewise as shall be within its reach.

The St. Louis is at present the largest; but the St. Charles, which is being rebuilt, was, and will again be, the hotel pride of New Orleans.[U]

Glory is the highest aspiration of egotism, and Louis was an incarnation of egotism, like Napoleon after him.

In the matter of religious liberty, St. Louis is a striking example of the vagaries which may be fallen into, under the sway of public feeling, by the most equitable of minds and the most scrupulous of consciences.

Louis was equally their blinded tool.

"Altogether, St. Louis is a growing place, and the West has a large hand and a strong grasp.

The crusades had certainly, in their origin, been the spontaneous and universal impulse of Christian Europe towards an object lofty, disinterested, and worthy of the devotion of men; and St. Louis was, without any doubt, the most lofty, disinterested, and heroic representative of this grand Christian movement.

Louis, who had been worsted in a combat where both he and Charles bore a part, was not behindhand in his hatred.

But Louis of Bavaria was a tottering emperor, excommunicated by the pope, and with a formidable competitor in Frederick of Austria.

"Ses garçons de chambre reçoivent cent louis [a louis was twenty-four francs, so that the hundred made 2100 francs out of her 6000] par mois pour la dépense du jeu de S.A.R.; et soit qu'elle perde ou qu'elle gagne, on ne revoit rien de cette somme.

But Louis, as one of his historians has aptly remarked, was never so thoroughly a King as when he was called upon to punish, a fact of which Richelieu was so well aware that he did not hesitate to affect the deepest commiseration for the unhappy Duke, and even to urge some of the principal nobles of the Court to intercede in his behalf.

[120] Louis, Cardinal de Gonzaga, was the last member of the Novellare branch of the illustrious Italian house of Gonzaga, Dukes of Mantua, and was canonized in 1621 under the title of St. Louis de Gonzaga.

Louis truly was, as his favourite had so insolently asserted, a mere puppet in their hands; and the consequence of this undignified neglect was fatal to the intellectual progress of the young sovereign.

Duke Louis of Orleans, having thus become heir to the throne, did not care to go and run risks at a distance.

Though unprepared at present to furnish soldiers, Louis was munificent in other respects.

Louis and his wife were both devout supporters of orthodoxy,that is, the received doctrines of the Church,partly from conservative tendencies, and partly from the connection of established religious institutions with absolutism in government.