Reign of Louis XIV.—Regency of Anne of Austria—Inauspicious circumstances under which she assumed the regency—George de Casselny—The count de Montresor—The marquis de Fontrailles—Marshal de Rantzau—The count de Rieux—Bernard Guyard—Broussel, governor of the Bastile—The duchess of Montpensier orders the cannon of the Bastile to be fired on the king’s army—Conclusion of the war of the Fronde—Surrender of the Bastile—Despotism of Louis XIV.—Slavishness of the nobles—John Herauld Gourville—The count de Guiche—Nicholas Fouquet—Paul Pellisson-Fontainier—Charles St. Evremond—Simon Morin—The Marquis de Vardes—Count Bussy Rabutin—Saci le Maistre—The duke of Lauzun—Marquis of Cavoie—The chevalier de Rohan—A nameless prisoner—Charles D’Assoucy—Miscellaneous prisoners. The regency of Anne of Austria commenced under auspices which were not of the most favourable kind. For a long series of years she had been persecuted by a tyrant minister, and discredited and humiliated, in every possible manner, by an unfeeling husband. It would be a tedious task to enumerate all the slights and injuries to which she was exposed; a specimen may suffice. To avoid the disgrace of being sent back to Spain, she had been compelled to confess before the Council a fault which she everywhere else disavowed, and of which it is improbable that she was guilty; on her bringing Louis XIV. into the world, she had suffered a stinging insult from her consort, who had pertinaciously refused to give her the embrace which was customary on such occasions—an insult which affected her so deeply that her life was endangered; when he was on the brink of the grave, and she earnestly sought to remove his prejudices against her, he coldly replied to Chavigni, who was pleading her cause, “In my situation I must forgive, but I am not obliged to believe her;” and, in settling the regency, he would fain have excluded from it the object of his hatred, but, that being impracticable, he took care to shackle her authority in such a way as would have left her scarcely more than the mere title of regent. Her having been childless for twenty-two years, and been treated in child-bed with such marked aversion by him, were also circumstances which were well calculated to throw dangerous doubts on the legitimacy of the infant sovereign. Yet Anne of Austria triumphed over all this, procured the setting aside of her deceased husband’s arrangements, obtained unlimited power, and for five years governed France without opposition, and with a considerable enhancement of its military fame. It was not till the troubles of the Fronde broke out that she encountered unpopularity and resistance.