----LOUIS XIV.

AND HOME ADMINISTRATION.
It is King Louis XIV.'s distinction and heavy, burden in the eyes of history that it is, impossible to tell of anything in his reign without constantly recurring to himself.

He had two ministers of the higher order, Colbert and Louvois; several of good capacity, such as Seignelay and Torcy; others incompetent, like Chamillard; he remained as much master of the administrators of the first rank as if they had been insignificant clerks; the home government of France, from 1661 to 1715, is summed up in the king's relations with his ministers.
"I resolved from the first not to have any premier minister," says Louis XIV.

in his Memoires, "and not to leave to another the functions of king whilst I had nothing but the title.

But, on the contrary, I made up my mind to share the execution of my orders amongst several persons, in order to concentrate their authority in my own alone.