It was the good fortune of France to be governed at this period by Cardinal Fleury, a man of no distinction for talents, yet possessing a plain, practical understanding, habitual prudence, and personal honesty. But his most important qualification was a remarkable absence of the passion for disturbing the world, which seems to have made him an exception to all Frenchmen since the days of Julius Cæsar. Fleury loved peace, and was so far an illustrious anomaly in French nature. Something of this singular contradiction to his countrymen may have arisen from his being eighty years old, from his habits as an ecclesiastic, and from his being fully acquainted with the fact, that France had not the power to go to war. The result of this policy was not merely tranquillising to Europe, but fortunate for France. Her task was to recover from the wasteful wars of Louis XIV., from the general corruption of the Regency, from the financial follies of the Mississippi scheme, and from the weak and rapacious ministry of the Duke of Bourbon. The administration of Cardinal Fleury met all her evils, and met them with patience, and thus with success. France has been always the great disturber of Europe, and will be so whenever she has the power to disturb; but the old Cardinal, conscious of her helplessness, applied himself to restrain her ambition, and taught her that the indulgence of vanity was no compensation for defeat, and that war was folly, at least until success was possible. Under this rational course of government, the public mind was turned to intellectual advancement and national industry. Paris, instead of being the centre of European profligacy, rapidly became the centre of European science. A succession of extraordinary men threw light upon every kingdom of nature and knowledge. The Continent actually basked in the beams of France; her language became universal, her literature the general model, her taste the leader of European refinement, her manners the standard of fashion to the world; and, at the accession of the unfortunate Louis XVI., Paris, the court, and the people, possessed an acknowledged supremacy over the opinions, the habits, and the accomplishments of Europe, to which no kingdom of the modern world has ever exhibited a parallel.