But that monarch, though more governed by motives of ambition than by those of justice or moderation, was still more actuated by the suggestions of vanity.

He contented himself with insulting and domineering over all the princes and free states of Europe; and he thereby provoked their resentment, without subduing their power.

While every one who approached his person, and behaved with submission to his authority, was treated with the highest politeness, all the neighboring potentates had successively felt the effects of his haughty, imperious disposition.

And by indulging his poets, orators, and courtiers in their flatteries, and in their prognostications of universal empire, he conveyed faster, than by the prospect of his power alone, the apprehension of general conquest and subjection.
{1685.} The French greatness never, during his whole reign, inspired Charles with any apprehensions; and Clifford, it is said, one of his most favored ministers, went so far as to affirm, that it were better for the king to be viceroy under a great and generous monarch, than a slave to five hundred of his own insolent subjects.

The ambition, therefore, and uncontrolled power of Lewis were no diminution of Charles's happiness; and in other respects his condition seemed at present more eligible than it had ever been since his restoration.