What I most should recommend is the period before the accession of Henry IV.

of France to the throne, then the events after his death till the end of the minority of Louis XIV.; after that period, though interesting, matters have a character which is more personal, and therefore less applicable to the present times.

Still even that period may be studied with some profit to get knowledge of mankind.

_Intrigues_ and _favouritism_ were the chief features of that period, and Madame de Maintenon's immense influence was very nearly the cause of the destruction of France.

What I very particularly recommend to you is to study in the Memoirs of the great and good Sully[12] the last years of the reign of Henry IV.