Scripture—“If these things are done in the green tree, what will be done in a dry?” Six years afterwards Mazarin died, and thenceforth Louis had no prime minister; he became, in every sense of the word, the head of the government, the autocrat of France. A new era, that of abject submission to the monarch, and almost idolatrous worship of his person and greatness, commenced when the war of the Fronde was over. The slaves had had their Saturnalia, and they sank back—we may almost say rushed back—into a slavery more degrading than that from which they had for a moment emerged. There were no longer any Epernons, ruling their provinces as they pleased, and bearding the sovereign; the feudal pride was extinct. This would have been a happy circumstance for France, had the nobles, in losing their pride, preserved their dignity. But from one extreme they passed to the other. The power which they had lost, which was, in fact, but the power of doing mischief, they might have replaced by a power more honourable and durable, that which would have arisen from promoting the welfare and happiness of those whom they called their vassals. But their extensive domains were looked on only as mines, from which the last grain of gold was to be extracted, that they might squander it in the capital. It seemed as though it were impossible for them to exist out of the king’s presence; and when they were excluded from it, they lamented and whined in a manner which excites at once wonder and contempt. The consequences of this general prostration were slowly, but surely and fatally, unfolded.