Page:Historyoffranc00yong.djvu/185

VIII.] POWER OF THE CROWN. i6i dominions. This had been a possession of the common- wealth of Genoa, but the people were now in revolt against their oppressive masters. The same year Louisiana was taken possession of by the King of Spain. Choiseul also seized on the pope's city of Avignon. 32. Death of the Dauphin, 1765. — Even peace could do little good to France, for the king lavished all the sums that could be wrung from the poor on his abominable amusements. The state of the country was every day growing worse and worse ; there were constant disputes with the Parliaments, while on the other hand the Par- liaments themselves pronounced many unjust and cruel sentences. The good Dauphin, always neglected and despised, died in 1765, leaving five children, three sons and two daughters. His eldest son Lewis, now Dauphin, was in 1770 married to Marie Antoinette, the youngest daughter of the Empress-Queen. He would fain have become acquainted with the provinces of the kingdom to which he was to succeed ; but the king showed the same jealousy of him as of his father, and as to the dangers that threatened the throne, Lewis disposed of them all by saying, "things would last his time." Mean- time the writings of Voltaire were changing men's minds as to all existing institutions; those of Rousseau were building up new theories of a return to the simplicity of nature, and those of Diderot, Helvetius, and the Ency- clopaedists, who were engaged on a grand cyclopaedia of arts and sciences, were opening new worlds of thought contrary to all the opinions that had as yet been held sacred. 33. Death of Lewis XV., 1774. — The purchase of Corsica and the marriage of the Dauphin were the last acts of the ministry of Choiseul. About the time of the marriage, Madame du Barri took the place which had been before held by Madame de Pompadour, and under her in- fluence the king became jealous of Choiseul and took in his place the Duke of Aiguillon, the Count of Maurepas, and Chancellor Maupeou. Choiseul was missed when the kingdom of Poland was dismembered by Russia, Austria, and Prussia, without so much as a word being said to her ancient allyju France. So low had Lewis XV, sunk that he could not even protest. He was sixty-four years of age, and feebly aware that his life had been a miserable mistake ; but it was too late, and he was too fast bound in the trammels of his own vices to change. On the loth M