In Germany, the orthodoxy of the emperors Ferdinand II. Ferdinand III. and Leopold, did not check the progress of heresy. After the despotism of-Ferdinand II. had disgusted the Germans and the North of Europe, we behold the imperial authority decline in the hands of Ferdinand III.; and Leopold, ruled for forty-seven years by his ministers, women, and confessors, the useless friend of the popes, supported himself only by the idea he inspired of his weakness. After Henry IV. who was assassinated in 1610, the seventeenth century presents us with but two kings of France, Louis XIII. and Louis XIV. Louis XIII. banished Mary de Medicis his mother, recalled her, and banished her once more; he insults her because he fears her: he does not esteem Rich-lieu whom he receives as minister and as master. The Protestants, always restless and menaced, take arms; Rochelle, their bulwark, capitulates after a long siege. Richlieu publishes an act of grace: he is too fearful of Rome and the children of Loyala, to crush as yet the followers of Calvin.³¹² He is more desirous of humbling the great; and terrifies them by the executions of Marillac, of Montmorency, and of Cinq-Mars; and, finishing by unworthy means what Henry IV. had not time to perfect, he established in the interior of France the monarchical power. His death, and that of Louis XIII. led to a stormy minority: the Fronde repulsed Mazarin; Mazarin wearied out the Fronde, and applied himself to ruling carelessly a frivolous people. What he most neglected was the education of the young king, that Louis XIV. who, from 1661 to 1716 reigned over the French, and for awhile gave law to Europe. The revocation of the edict of Nantes, in 1685, divides this long reign into two parts: good services, and triumphs, immortalize the first: hypocrisy, fanatacism, vain glory, and misfortunes, filled the latter with intrigues, proscriptions, and slow calamities. Yet, whatever may have been the misfortunes of Louis XIV. the most glorious recollections of French history under its third dynasty belong to his reign. The nation whose pride he cherished pardoned the excesses of his; and so many of those who surrounded him merited the appellation of just, that he has obtained it himself; other princes on the contrary reflect their personal greatness on that which surrounds them. But his imposing authority for a long time repressed the ambition of the popes; and the influence which they exerted over the latter period of his reign, has tended much more to injure France than to benefit the Roman Court.