His mistake was to think that the title of king supplied all the endowments of nature or experience; he was no financier, no soldier, no administrator, yet he would everywhere and always remain supreme master; he had believed that it was he who governed with Colbert and Louvois; those two great ministers had scarcely been equal to the task imposed upon them by war and peace, by armies, buildments, and royal extravagance; their successors gave way thereunder and illusions vanished; the king's hand was powerless to sustain the weight of affairs becoming more and more disastrous; the gloom that pervaded the later years of Louis XIV.'s reign veiled from his people's eyes the splendor of that reign which had so long been brilliant and prosperous, though always lying heavy on the nation, even when they forgot their sufferings in the intoxication of glory and success.
It is the misfortune of men, even of the greatest, to fall short of their destiny.

Louis XIV.

had wanted to exceed his, and to bear a burden too heavy for human shoulders.

Arbiter, for a while, of the affairs of all Europe, ever absolute master in his own dominions, he bent at last beneath the load that was borne without flinching by princes less powerful, less fortunate, less adored, but sustained by the strong institutions of free countries.

William III.