Was this Louis XIV, then, a really great man? Not when tried by tests that go far and reach deep. As one has said: “His claim to renown lies more in the diligent and tireless ambition with which he improved favoring circumstances than in the creation of great results out of small means by force of personal genius and energy. It is also a limiting factor in our estimate of Louis that he exercised no care to husband the resources of his country, and sacrificed to thirst for personal display the chances of future prosperity. This imposing and brilliant reign left France exhausted and harboring within herself the germs of violent revolution.” In the latter part of his reign the coalition against him under Marlborough and Prince Eugene proved eminently successful, and much of his ill-gotten acquisitions had to be disgorged. Moreover, his reign was also a failure in that, for the sake of slight and temporary gains on the continent of Europe, he threw away the opportunity to forestall in Asia and America the progress of England, so soon to pass France in the race for world supremacy, and left his kingdom, at the close of his reign, exhausted and crippled, in no condition to enter upon the decisive stage of the great conflict whose approach he did not foresee. Before his burial the eyes of Frenchmen had begun to be open to the shadowy side of his reign; the glamour and the glory could no longer hide the tyranny and the shame, and very few mourned at the death of the magnificent despot. He was far from great also in his private life; for that was, for a long time, one of unblushing licentiousness. Different mistresses were made successively, and in part simultaneously, the rivals of his dishonored queen, Maria Theresa of Spain, who died in 1683. No less than ten children were born to him out of wedlock, and publicly acknowledged. After the death of his queen he did somewhat better, being privately married to Madame de Maintenon, as already noted.