him were practising daily. The spectacle of a gloomy and intolerant bigotry, enforced by a sanctimonious old king, by the widow of Scarron, and by the fanatics who had charge of what the pair believed to be their consciences, had brought religion itself into discredit, and infidelity was not only common but matter of boast in the highest Parisian society.
Unapproachable in profligacy and irreligion—facile princeps—was the Duke of Orleans, the king's nephew, and the destined Regent. Accordingly, when Louis vanished from the scene, such a change took place at Court as is only to be seen in a pantomime, when the gloomy cavern of some fell enchanter, with its dismal incantations and supernatural tenants, suddenly becomes a palace of glory, inhabited by gauze-clad nymphs, with harlequin and columbine figuring in the foreground. Vice, says Burke, loses half its evil by losing all its grossness. At the Court of the Regent it underwent no such diminution, and in this respect the change of rulers was much for the worse. The early part of Louis's reign had been by no means remarkable for morality, but it had always been distinguished by decorum. Perhaps the best and most enduring result of that reign was the amelioration in manners which it diffused far beyond the boundaries of France. The flowing courtesy, the refined address, the consideration for others, which Sterne, in the next century, found alike in peasant, shopkeeper, and noble, had their source in the splendid Court where the stately and gracious king was for so long the glass of fashion. The gilded youth of the time ceased to haunt taverns, ceased to brawl in the streets and fight duels, and vied with each other in deference to women. It was
