The
Queen-Regent had a convenient fashion of making nothing of her
promises. She did not think base burghers and lawyers human
creatures towards whom honour was necessary, and she naturally
expected the States-General to act our Long Parliament over again.
It seems that Kings of France come of age at fourteen; and on the day
that young Louis was thirteen he was declared to be major, and his
mother ceased to be Regent, though she managed everything just as
much as if she had still written Anne R. at the end of all the State
papers. The advantage to the Court was that no promises or
engagements made in his minority were considered to be binding. And
so the whole matter of the States-General went to the wall.
There was a magnificent ceremony at the Parliament House, the old
hall of the Augustins. The little King held a bed of justice, upon a
couch under a purple velvet canopy, with all his grandees round him.
I would not go to see it, I thought it a wicked shame to set up a
poor boy to break all the solemn pledges made in his name, and I knew
it was the downfall of Clement's hopes; but Meg went in her
Princess's suite, and I had her account of it, the King looking very
handsome with his long fair hair, and bowing right and left, with
such a dignity and grace that no one saw what a little bit of a
fellow he really was. Poor child! the best thing they could have
taught him would have been to worshipping and loving no one but
himself.
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