Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet—somehow these names lie contiguous in the mind; so stored away, perhaps, in the brain cells long ago, and thus forever associative.

Where is all that we know when it is not in play upon the plane of consciousness? Where is the music of a Rachmaninoff—while he sleeps? the reminiscent wealth of a Gladstone—while he plays with his great grandchild? the genius of an Edgar Allan Poe—while narcotic night silences the streets of Baltimore?

“Potentially down in subconsciousness,” says my glib psychologist. Eloquent answer! But where and what is subconsciousness?

Better is it silently to gaze wide-eyed, sincere, perplexed into the omnipresent I-do-not-know, than to squirrel gyrate in the old vicious circle, or to cob-web life-deep chaos with verbiage, subterfuge, and explanations that do not explain.

Blenheim, cumulatively at least, stands for the first and fatal blow that fortune dealt to her fair haired favorite Louis le Grand. The treaties of Utrecht (1713) and Rastadt (1714) were an appalling humiliation to the Grand Monarch who had imperiously dictated the conditions of Aix-la-Chapelle and Nimeguen.

“There are no longer any Pyrenees”, said Louis XIV., arbiter of Europe, as his grandson, a boy of seventeen, was raised to the throne as Philip V. of Spain. And then all Europe flew to arms and for thirteen years blood flowed and war dogs killed one another because that boy was on the throne and Louis’ witty words had razed the Pyrenees.

This war is known as the War of the Spanish Succession. A second Grand Alliance was formed; England, Holland, Sweden, Savoy, Austria fought against France. The famous English general, Marlborough, and Prince Eugene of Savoy, in the service of the Emperor, won the memorable battles, Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet.

The allies chose for the Spanish throne, the Archduke Charles, of Austria, the second son of the Emperor Leopold I.; but when after ten years’ fighting there was a vacancy in the imperial line and Archduke Charles suddenly became Emperor of Austria, the allies, fearing the preponderance of Austria in European affairs, withdrew their claim. Philip V. grandson of Louis XIV., was permitted to remain upon the throne of Spain.

The war ended disadvantageously for France. Philip V. was obliged to renounce his claims to the succession in France, so that France and Spain might never be under the same monarch; and thus by miracle-words the august Pyrenees were reinstated (of course they had been deeply disturbed and were, in consequence, duly grateful!); England obtained Gibraltar and the island Minorca; the Duke of Savoy was rewarded with the island Sicily, and Austria obtained Milan, Naples, Sardinia, and part of the Netherlands.

Thirteen years of bloodshed for the whim of an ambitious old man! And thousands fell on both sides, who if questioned, could not honestly have told why they were killing one another.

And the world is as fatuous as Southey’s old “Caspar”, and we of the awakening twentieth century are sorely perplexed “Peterkins”. Why must things like that be; and why do men speak of successful human slaughter as a “famous victory”; and why do martial music and blare of trumpet and drum and epaulettes and ribbons and medals and barbaric pomp in general—succeed in silencing the death groans and in hiding from view the bloody agonies and the demon horrors of the battlefield?

And the voice of the questioning child is lost in answerless fatuity. When will the world hear and honestly answer?

Louis XIV.

Louis le Grand, greatest of the Bourbons, lived too long. For seventy-two years (1643-1775) Louis was king and for, at least, fifty years his power was absolute.

Louis’ long reign had as contemporary English history the disastrous Civil War and the beheading of Charles I. (1649); the Cromwellian Protectorate (1653); the Restoration of the Stuarts (1660); the reign of the Merry Monarch, the misfortunes of James II., the revolution of 1688, the battle of the Boyne, and the final deposition and expulsion of James II.; the accession to the throne of England as King William III., of Louis’ most inveterate foe, William, Prince of Orange (1688); the death of King William III. (1702); the reign of Queen Anne, her death, and the beginning of the House of Hanover (1715).

On the continent the Thirty Years’ War was happily ended by the treaty of Westphalia (1648). Peter the Great ascended the throne of Russia (1682). In the great battle of Pultowa (1709) the power of Sweden was practically annihilated; the madly victorious career of Charles XII. of Sweden was stopped, and his successes together with the more solid attainments of his predecessor, Gustavus Adolphus, were rendered negative; Russia advanced over her prostrate foe to her place among the nations.

For forty years success, pleasure, honor, power, and glory beamed in full radiance upon Louis—both as man and monarch. Had he died even as late as 1702 when William, his great rival foe, died, Louis would have been, to all appearances, the most blessed of mortals and his reign the most glorious in the annals of France.

If Pompey the Great had died on his triumphal return from the Mithradatic war, his life would have been esteemed singularly happy and free from the reverses and misfortunes that are the ordinary lot of mortals. But Pompey lived to see all his blushing honors grow gray, as the admiring eyes that had once adoringly gazed upon Pompey the Great turned from him, the setting sun, to the dazzling effulgence of the rising orb, Caius Julius CÆsar. Pharsalia lay in that alienating gaze and assassination and bloody death.

The last years of Louis XIV. were burdened with many miseries. His fortitude and magnanimity under these crushing blows form, perhaps, his best claim to the title Great. The War of the Spanish Succession ended with the humiliating treaty of Utrecht. Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, Malplaquet had, in great measure, swept away all that the successful years had, with blood and treasure, attained. But it was in his domestic relations that the aged monarch was most sorely afflicted. The Dauphin died, and a few months later his second son, the Duke of Burgundy, Fenelon’s favorite pupil, died; Adelaide of Savoy, wife of the Duke of Burgundy, soon followed her husband to the grave; their two sons yet lived, and of these, the elder, a promising youth, died suddenly and there remained only a delicate infant—the future Louis XV.

Louis bore all these sorrows with fortitude and sublime resignation. In the same stoic or heroic attitude of mind he looked forward into the gathering darkness of death. There is something truly great in the man who can suffer cataclysmic misfortunes and deny to himself the relief of a cry of complaint.

Louis died calmly at Versailles, Sept. 1, 1715. His last words were to his little grandson, a frail boy of five years; sadly the dying monarch said, “My child, you are about to become a great king. Do not imitate me either in my taste for building or in my love of war. Endeavor on the contrary to live in peace with the neighboring nations. Render to God all that you owe to him and cause his name to be honored by your subjects. Strive also to relieve the burdens of your people which I myself have been unable to do.”

And with this futile advice carrying with it his own confession of failure Louis le Grand died. The king is dead—long live the king!