Louis would now have need of all his courage. In measure as his mind became "elevated," shame for his gross ignorance overcame him. "When reason," says he, "commences to become solid, one feels a cutting and just chagrin in finding oneself ignorant of what all others know." The practical utility of his neglected studies was realised by him. Not to know history with his "trade" was a difficulty felt every instant. Not to be capable of deciphering alone a Latin letter when Rome and the Empire wrote their dispatches only in Latin, was an insupportable slavery to others. Never to have read anything upon the "art of war" when the ambition was aroused to become an expert in this art and to acquire glory through it, "was to put brakes on one's own wheels." The young King's education must be remade; the only difficulty was the finding sufficient leisure. He would not allow himself to be hindered by other difficulties, of which the principal one was the danger of hazarding the newly acquired authority by returning to the schoolroom. Louis XIV. braved public opinion with remarkable courage. This is one of the finest periods of his life. He proved himself truly great by his sentiment of professional duty, and by his empire over himself, the day upon which he dared to say to himself as the bourgeois gentleman of Moliere was forced to say, knowing well the ridicule to which he was exposed: "I wish ... to be able to reason among intelligent people." In order to do him full justice, it is necessary to remember the foolish effect at that date produced by a scholar of twenty-three.[91] Classes were then finished at fifteen or sixteen, and the memory of them was inseparably connected with birch rods, without whose aid there was no teaching in the seventeenth century. When it was known that the King was again taking Latin lessons from his ancient preceptor, and that he passed hours in writing themes, the courtiers might easily have had it upon the end of their tongues to demand as Mme. Jourdain of M. Jourdain: "Are you at your age going to college to be whipped?" He did not console himself with the illusion that his rank would save him from such railleries. He confesses _a propos_ of history, which he wished to study again, how keenly sensitive he was to the thought of what might be said. "One single scruple embarrassed me, which was, that I had a certain shame, considering my position in the world, of redescending into an occupation to which I should earlier have devoted myself." Everything had yielded to the desire "not to be deprived of the knowledge that every worthy man should have."