Historic Boys Part 21

Before this bold a.s.sertion of mastership the great parliament of Paris bent in pa.s.sive submission. The money was forthcoming, and in less than an hour the boy king and his n.o.bles were galloping back to Vincennes, and the royal hunt soon swept through the royal forest.

Thus, we see, nothing was permitted to stay the tide of pleasure. Even the battle-field and the siege were turned into spectacles, and, by day and night, the gay court rang with mirth and folly.

In the great s.p.a.ce between the Louvre and the Tuileries, since known as the Place de Carrousel, the summer sky of 1654 arched over a gorgeous pageant. Lists and galleries in the fashion of the tournaments of old, fluttering streamers, gleaming decorations, and rich hangings framed a picture that seemed to revive the chivalry of by-gone days. Midway down the lists, in the ladies' gallery, a richly-canopied _fauteuil_ or arm-chair, draped in crimson and gold, held the "queen of beauty," the fair-faced Olympia Mancini--the imperious young lady "whom the king delighted to honor." The trumpets of the heralds sounded, and into the lists, with pages and attendants, gallant in liveries of every hue, rode the gay young n.o.bles of the court, gleaming in brilliant costume and device, like knights of old, ready to join in the games of the mock tournament. But the centre of every game, the victor in all the feats of skill and strength, was the boy king, Louis of Bourbon, as in a picturesque suit of scarlet and gold he rode his splendid charger like a statue. And as the spectators noted the white and scarlet scarf that fell from the kingly shoulder in a great band, and the scarlet hat with snow-white plume, they saw, by looking at the fair young "queen of beauty," Olympia Mancini, in her drapery of scarlet damask and white, that King Louis wore her colors, and thus announced himself as her champion in the lists.

And Count Armand could see by the look of triumph and satisfaction in Olympia's pretty face, as she ruled queen of the revels, that already she felt herself not far from the pinnacle of her ambition, and saw herself in the now not distant future as Olympia, Queen of France!

But alas for girlish fancies! Louis, the king, was as fickle in his affections as he was unyielding in his mastership.

"Sire," said the Count de Guiche, as the next day a gay throng rode from the mock tournament to another great hunt in the forest of Vincennes, "why does not the fair Olympia ride with the hunt to-day?"

"Ah, the saucy Mazarinette," the king said, surlily, using the popular nickname given to the nieces of his minister, "she played me a pretty trick last night, and I will have none of her, I say"; and then he told the condoling count, who, however, was in the secret, how at the great ball after the tournament, the maiden, whose colors he had worn, had exchanged suits with his brother, the little "Monsieur," and so cleverly was the masquerading done, that he, the great King Louis, was surprised by the laughing Olympia, making sweet speeches to his own brother, thinking that he was talking to the mischievous maiden.

"My faith, sire," said the laughing count, "Monsieur makes a fair dame when he thus masquerades. Did he not well bear off the character of the Mancini?"

"Pah, all too well, the ugly little _garcon_," ruefully replied the king.

"But I gave him such a cuff for his game on me as he shall not soon forget. And as for her----"

"Well," said the young count, "what did you, sire, to the fair Olympia?"

"Fair, say you?" said the king, wrathfully; "she is aught but fair, say I, Armand--a black face and a black soul! What think you? She strutted forth with all the airs of the great Bayard or--of myself, and clapping hand to sword, she rescued Monsieur from my clutch, saying: 'I am a chevalier of France, and brook no ill usage of so fair a dame!'"

This was too much even for the young courtier, and he burst out a-laughing. But the king was sulky. For Louis of Bourbon, like many a less-t.i.tled lad, could enjoy any joke save one played upon himself, and the mischievous Olympia lived to regret her joking of a king. Once at odds with her, the king's fancies flew from one fair damsel to another, finally culminating when, in 1660, he married, for state reasons only, in the splendid palace on the Isle of Pheasants, reared specially for the occasion, the young Princess Maria Theresa, Infanta of Spain, and daughter of his uncle, King Philip the Fourth.

From here the boy merges into the man, and we must leave him. Strong of purpose, clear-headed and masterful, Louis the Fourteenth ruled as King of France for seventy-two years--the most powerful monarch in Christendom.

Handsome in person, majestic in bearing, dignified, lavish, and proud; ruling France in one of the most splendid periods of its history--a period styled "the Augustan age" of France; flattered, feared, and absolutely obeyed, one would think, boys and girls, that so powerful a monarch must have been a happy man. But he was not. He lived to see children and grandchildren die around him, to see the armies of France, which he had thought invincible, yield again and again to the superior generalship of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, and to regret with deep remorse the follies and extravagance of his early days. "My child," he said, in his last hours, to his great-grandson and heir, the little five-year-old Louis, "you are about to become a great king; do not imitate me either in my taste for building, or in my love of war. Endeavor, on the contrary, to live in peace with the neighboring nations; render to G.o.d all that you owe him, and cause his name to be honored by your subjects. Strive to relieve the burdens of your people, as I, alas! have failed to do."

It is for us to remember that kings and conquerors are often unable to achieve the grandest success of life,--the ruling of themselves,--and that flattery and fear are not the true indications of greatness or of glory.

No sadder instance of this in all history is to be found than in the life-story of this cold-hearted, successful, loveless, imperious, all-supreme, and yet friendless old man--one of the world's most powerful monarchs, Louis of Bourbon, Louis "the Great," Louis "the G.o.d-given,"

Louis the _Grande Monarque_, Louis the worn-out, unloving and unloved old man of magnificent Versailles.

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XI.

CHARLES OF SWEDEN: THE BOY CONQUEROR.

(_Known as King Charles the Twelfth of Sweden._)

[A.D. 1699.]

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In an old, old palace on the rocky height of the _Slottsbacke_, or Palace Hill, in the northern quarter of the beautiful city of Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, there lived, just two hundred years ago, a bright young prince. His father was a stern and daring warrior-king--a man who had been a fighter from his earliest boyhood; who at fourteen had been present in four pitched battles with the Danes; and who, while yet scarce twelve years old, had charged the Danish line at the head of his guards and shot down the stout Danish colonel, who could not resist the spry young warrior; his mother was a sweet-faced Danish princess, a loving and gentle lady, who scarce ever heard a kind word from her stern-faced husband, and whose whole life was bound up in her precious little prince.

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And this little Carolus, Karl, or Charles, dearly loved his tender mother.

From her he learned lessons of truth and n.o.bleness that even through all his stormy and wandering life never forsook him. Often while he had swung gently to and fro in his quaint, carved, and uncomfortable-looking cradle, had she crooned above him the old saga-songs that told of valor and dauntless courage and all the stern virtues that made up the heroes of those same old saga-songs. Many a time she had trotted the little fellow on her knee to the music of the ancient nursery rhyme that has a place in all lands and languages, from the steppes of Siberia to the homes of New York and San Francisco:

"Ride along, ride a c.o.c.k-horse, His mane is dapple-gray; Ride along, ride a c.o.c.k-horse, Little boy, ride away.

Where shall the little boy ride to?

To the king's court to woo"----

and so forth, and so forth, and so forth--in different phrases but with the same idea, as many and many a girl and boy can remember. And she had told him over and over again the saga-stories and fairy tales that every Scandinavian boy and girl, from prince to peasant, knows so well--of Frithiof and Ingeborg, and the good King Rene; and about the Stone Giant and his wife Guru; and how the Bishop's cattle were turned into mice; and about the dwarfs, and trolls, and nixies, and beautiful mermaids and stromkarls. And she told him also many a story of brave and daring deeds, of n.o.ble and knightly lives, and how his ancestors, from the great Gustavus, and, before, from the still greater Gustavus Vasa, had been kings of Sweden, and had made the name of that northern land a power in all the courts of Europe.

Little Prince Charles was as brave as he was gentle and jolly, and as hardy as he was brave. At five years old he killed his first fox; at seven he could manage his horse like a young centaur; and at twelve he had his first successful bear hunt. He was as obstinate as he was hardy; he steadily refused to learn Latin or French--the languages of the court--until he heard that the kings of Denmark and Poland understood them, and then he speedily mastered them.

His lady-mother's death, when he was scarce twelve years old, was a great sadness, and nearly caused his own death, but, recovering his health, he accompanied his father on hunting parties and military expeditions, and daily grew stronger and hardier than ever.

In April, 1697, when the Prince was not yet fifteen, King Charles the Eleventh, his stern-faced father, suddenly died, and the boy king succeeded to the throne as absolute lord of "Sweden and Finland, of Livonia, Carelia, Ingria, Wismar, Wibourg, the islands of Rugen and Oesel, of Pomerania, and the duchies of Bremen and Verdun,"--one of the finest possessions to which a young king ever succeeded, and representing what is now Sweden, Western Russia, and a large part of Northern Germany.

A certain amount of restraint is best for us all. As the just restraints of the law are best for men and women, so the proper restraints of home are best for boys and girls. A lad from whom all restraining influences are suddenly withdrawn--who can have his own way unmolested,--stands in the greatest danger of wrecking his life. The temptations of power have been the cause of very much of the world's sadness and misery. And this temptation came to this boy king of Sweden, called in his fifteenth year to supreme sway over a large realm of loyal subjects. Freed from the severity of his stern father's discipline, he found himself responsible to no one--absolutely his own master. And he did what too many of us, I fear, would have done, in his position--he determined to have a jolly good time, come what might; and he had it--in his way.

He and his brother-in-law, the wild young Duke of Holstein, turned the town upside down. They snapped cherry pits at the king's gray-bearded councillors, and smashed in the windows of the staid and scandalized burghers of Stockholm. They played ball with the table dishes, and broke all the benches in the palace chapel. They coursed hares through the council-chambers of the Parliament House, and ran furious races until they had ruined several fine horses. They beheaded sheep in the palace till the floors ran with blood, and then pelted the pa.s.sers-by with sheep's heads.

They spent the money in the royal treasury like water, and played so many heedless and ruthless boy-tricks that the period of these months of folly was known, long after, as the "Gottorp Fury," because the harum-scarum young brother-in-law, who was the ringleader in all these sc.r.a.pes, was Duke of Holstein-Gottorp.

But at last, even the people--serfs of this boy autocrat though they were--began to murmur, and when one Sunday morning three clergymen preached from the text: "Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child,"

the young sovereign remembered the counsels of his good mother and recalled the glories of his ancestors, saw how foolish and dangerous was all this reckless sport, turned over a new leaf, became thoughtful and care-taking, and began his career of conquest with the best victory of all--the conquest of himself!

But though he curbed his tendency to profitless and hurtful "skylarking,"

he had far too much of the Berserker blood of his ancestors--those rough old vikings who "despised mail and helmet and went into battle unharnessed"--to become altogether gentle in manners or occupation. He hated his fair skin, and sought in every way to tan and roughen it, and to harden himself by exposure and neglect of personal comfort. Many a night was pa.s.sed by the boy on the bare floor, and for three nights in the cold Swedish December he slept in the hay-loft of the palace stables, without undressing and with but a scanty covering.

So he grew to be a lad of seventeen, st.u.r.dy, strong, and hardy, and at the date of our story, in the year 1699, the greater part of his time was given up to military exercises and field sports, with but little attention to debates in council or to the cares of state.

Among his chief enjoyments were the sham fights on land and water. Many a hard-fought battle was waged between the boys and young men who made up his guards and crews, and who would be divided into two or more opposing parties, as the plan of battle required. This was rough and dangerous sport, and was attended often with really serious results. But the partic.i.p.ants were stout and st.u.r.dy Northern lads, used to hardships and trained to physical endurance. They thought no more of these encounters than do the boys of to-day of the crush of football and the hard hitting of the base-ball field, and blows were given and taken with equal good nature and unconcern.

One raw day in the early fall of 1699, st.u.r.dy young Arvid Horn, a stout, blue-eyed Stockholm boy, stripped to the waist, and with a gleam of fun in his eyes, stood upright in his little boat as it bobbed on the crest of the choppy Maelar waves. He hailed the king's yacht.

"Holo; in the boat there! Stand for your lives!" he shouted, and levelled his long squirt-gun full at the helmsman.

Swish! came the well-directed stream of water plump against the helmsman's face. Again and again it flew, until dripping and sore he dropped the tiller and dashed down the companion-way calling loudly for help.

Help came speedily, and as the crew of the king's yacht manned the rail and levelled at their single a.s.sailant the squirt-guns, which were the princ.i.p.al weapons of warfare used in these "make-believe" naval engagements, the fun grew fast and furious; but none had so sure an aim or so strong an arm to send an unerring and staggering stream as young Arvid Horn. One by one he drove them back, while as his boat drifted still nearer the yacht he made ready to spring to the forechains and board his prize. But even before he could steady himself for the jump, another tall and fair-haired Stockholm lad, darting out from the high cabin, rallied the defeated crew and bade them man the pumps at once.

A clumsy-looking fire-engine stood amidship, and the crew leaped to its pumps as directed, while the new-comer, catching up a line of hose, sprang to the rail and sent a powerful stream of water straight against the solitary rover.

"Repel boarders!" he cried, laughingly, and the sudden stream from the fire-engine's nozzle sent young Arvid Horn staggering back into his boat.

But he rallied quickly, and with well-charged squirt-gun attacked the new defender of the yacht. The big nozzle, however, was more than a match for the lesser squirt-gun, and the small boat speedily began to fill under the constant deluge of water from the engine.

"Yield thee, yield thee, Arvid Horn; yield thee to our unconquerable nozzle," came the summons from the yacht; "yield thee, or I will drown you out like a rat in a cheese-press!"