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17. "And here, too, is a Guide to Paris, an English one, which you can read. Study it well, so that when you come back from England, if you should then have an opportunity to travel about Paris to see its wonders, you will have all the chief places made historically familiar to you. In this world, men must provide knowledge before it is wanted, just as our countrymen in New England get in their winter's fuel one season to serve them the next."

18. So saying, this homely sage and household Plato showed his humble guest to the door, and, standing in the hall, pointed out to him the one which opened into his allotted apartment.

old man.

Definitions.-I. 1. Sāģe, a wise man; one of gravity and wisdom. 2. Sa'pient, knowing, discerning. Cärk, worry, trouble. 4. Ăn te di lu'vian, before the flood; hence, pertaining to a very Pre'sçi ençe, foresight. 6. Bon jour, good-morning. Monsieur (mo sēer'), sir or mister. 16. Rěs ti tu'tion, the act of making good any loss or injury. This word differs from reparation, inasmuch as the latter relates to moral injury, while restitution is used only of deprivation of property. II. 1. Ar'ro gançe, pride, conceit. 2. Pe cu'ni a ry, relating to money. 4. Trĭv ́ial, of little importance. It is used of that which has no real force by reason of the commonplace character of the thing. It differs from trifling, for a trifling remark reed not exercise our care, because it is not worth listening to.

NOTES.-I. Pont Neuf, a bridge crossing the Seine at the lower end of the Island, erected at the close of the sixteenth century.

2. Poor Richard's Almanac, a yearly publication written by Dr. Franklin, first issued in 1732. The popularity of this almanac for twentyfive years was due to the collection of wise and quaint speeches attributed to "Poor Richard."

3. Plato, a Greek philosopher; born B. C. 429, died B. C. 348.

Benjamin Franklin was sent to France as Minister by the American Colonies in 1776. He remained several years at the French court, and aided in the negotiations which secured independence for the United States.

61. CHARACTER OF LOUIS THE FOURTEENTH.

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY (1800-1859) was born in England. After graduating from Cambridge University, he was admitted to the bar in 1826. A year previously he began to contribute to the Edinburgh Review, and his introduction to the world through his writings gained him wealth, renown, and a title of nobility. He entered Parliament when thirty years of age, where his eloquence for many years was the wonder of all who heard him. His best works are a History of England, the Lays of Ancient Rome, and Miscellanies, including his best speeches and the papers contributed to the Edinburgh Review. Macaulay's style is brilliant, and is noted for its splendid imagery. During his career he was the autocrat of his special field of letters.

1. CONCERNING Louis the Fourteenth1 himself, the world seems at last to have formed a correct judgment. He was not a great general; he was not a great statesman; but he was, in one sense of the words, a great king. Never was there so consummate a master of what our James the First2 would have called king-craft,-of all those arts which most advantageously display the merits of a prince, and most completely hide his defects.

2. Though his internal administration was bad,—though the military triumphs which gave splendor to the early part of his reign were not achieved by himself,-though his later years were crowded with defeats and humiliations,—though he was so ignorant that he scarcely understood the Latin of his mass-book, he succeeded in passing himself off on his people as a being above humanity.

3. And this is the more extraordinary, because he did not. seclude himself from the public gaze like those Oriental despots whose faces are never seen, and whose very names it is a crime to pronounce lightly. It has been said that no man is a hero to his valet; and all the world saw as much of Louis the Fourteenth as his valet could see. He walked about his gardens with a train of two hundred courtiers at his heels. All Versailles3 came to see him dine and

and sup.

Yet, though he constantly exposed himself to the public gaze in situations in which it is scarcely possible for any man to preserve much personal dignity, he to the last impressed those who surrounded him with the deepest awe and reverence.

4

4. The contemporaries of Louis thought him tall. Voltaire, who might have seen him, and who had lived with some of the most distinguished members of his court, speaks repeatedly of his majestic stature. Yet it is as certain as any fact can be that he was rather below than above the middle size.

5. He had, it seems, a way of holding himself, a way of walking, a way of swelling his chest and rearing his head which deceived the eyes of the multitude. Eighty years after his death the royal cemetery was violated by the revolutionists; his coffin was opened; his body was dragged out; and it appeared that the prince, whose majestic figure had been so long and loudly extolled, was in truth a little man.

6. His person and his government have had the same fate. He had the art of making both appear grand and august, in spite of the clearest evidence that both were below the ordinary standard. Death and time have exposed both the deceptions. The body of the great king has been measured more justly than it was measured by the courtiers who were afraid to look above his shoe-tie. His public character has been scrutinized by men free from the hopes and fears of Boileau and Molière. 5 In the grave, the most majestic of princes is only five feet eight. In history, the hero and the politician dwindles into a vain and feeble tyrant.

7. He left to his infant successor a famished and miserable people, a beaten and humbled army, provinces turned into deserts by misgovernment and persecution, factions dividing the court, a schism raging in the church, an immense debt, an empty treasury, immeasurable palaces, an innumerable household, inestimable jewels and furniture. All the sap and

nutriment of the state seemed to have been drawn to feed one bloated and unwholesome excrescence. The nation was withered. The court was morbidly flourishing.

8. Yet it does not appear that the associations which attached the people to the monarchy had lost strength during his reign. He had neglected or sacrificed their dearest interests, but he had struck their imaginations. The very

things which ought to have made him most unpopular, the prodigies of luxury and magnificence with which his person was surrounded, while beyond the inclosure of his parks nothing was to be seen but starvation and despair, seemed to increase the attachment which his subjects felt for him.

Definitions.—1. €ŏn ́sum māte, complete, perfect. 2. Ad minis tra'tion, government. 6. Serū’ti nīze, to search minutely, to examine closely. 7. Schism, separation by reason of difference of opinion. Ex erĕs'çençe, any thing growing unnaturally.

NOTES.-I. Louis XIV. (1638–1715), (The Grand), whose long reign was one of the most remarkable in French history. 2. James I. of England (1566-1625), who prided himself greatly on his wisdom and knowledge of the motives that actuate men. 3. The French kings held their courts at Versailles, a city distant eight miles from Paris. 4. Voltaire (1694-1778), a French writer of plays, poetry, and history. He wrote an account of the reign of Louis XIV. 5. Boileau (1636– 1711) and Molière (1622–1673), were noted French authors.

62. THE PETRIFIED FERN.

Mrs. MARY L. BOLLES BRANCH (1840-18-) was born in Connecticut. Mrs. Branch has written much for the newspapers and periodicals—principally short stories and poems for young people. This selection and The Little Yellow Bee are her best-known poems.

1. IN a valley, centuries ago,

Grew a little fern-leaf, green and slender,
Veining delicate and fibers tender,

Waving, when the wind crept down so low;
Rushes tall, and moss, and grass grew round it,
Playful sunbeams darted in and found it,
Drops of dew stole in by night, and crowned it,
But no foot of man e'er trod that way:
Earth was young and keeping holiday.

2. Monster fishes swam the silent main,

Stately forests waved their giant branches, Mountains hurled their snowy avalanches, Mammoth creatures stalked across the plain; Nature reveled in grand mysteries,

But the little fern was not of these,

Did not number with the hills and trees,
Only grew and waved its sweet, wild way:
No one came to note it, day by day.

3. Earth, one time, put on a frolic mood,

Heaved the rocks, and changed the mighty motion
Of the deep, strong currents of the ocean,
Moved the plain, and shook the haughty wood,
Crushed the little fern in soft, moist clay,
Covered it, and hid it safe away:

Oh, the long, long centuries since that day!
Oh, the agony! Oh, life's bitter cost,
Since that useless little fern was lost!

4. Useless? Lost? There came a thoughtful man,
Searching Nature's secrets, far and deep:
From a fissure in a rocky steep

He withdrew a stone, o'er which there ran
Fairy pencilings, a quaint design,
Veinings, leafage, fibers clear and fine,
And the fern's life lay in every line!
So, I think, God hides some souls away,
Sweetly to surprise us the last day.

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