382 TWENTY-SEVENTH EVENING.

THE COST OF A WAR.

“You may remember, Oswald,” said Mr. B. to hie
son, “that I gave you some time ago a notion of tne
price of a victory to the poor souls engaged in it.

“JT shall not soon forget it, I assure you, sir,” rece
plied Oswald. .

Hather. Very well. I mean now to give you some
idea of the cost of a war to the people among whom it
is carried on. This may serve to abate something of
the admiration with which historians are apt to inspire
us for great warriors and conquerors. You have
heard, I doubt not, of Louis the Fourteenth, King of
lrance P

Os. O yes!

Hf, He was entitled by his subjects Louis le Grand,
and was compared by them to the Alexanders and
Ceesars of antiquity ; and with some justice as to the
extent of his power, and the use he made of it. He
was the most potent prince of his time; commanded
mighty and victorious armies, and enlarged the limits
of his hereditary dominions. Louis was not natu-
rally a hard-hearted man; but having been taught
from his cradle that everything ought to give way to
the interests of his glory, and that this glory consisted
in domineering over his neighbours, and making con-
quests, he grew to be insensible to all the miseries
brought on his own and other people in pursuit of
what he thought this noble design. Moreover, he
was plunged in dissolute pleasures, and the delights
of pomp and splendour from his youth; and he was
ever surrounded by a tribe of abject flatterers, who
made him believe that he had a full right in all cases
to do as he pleased. Conquest abroad and pleasure at
home were therefore the chief business of his life.

»* One evening, his minister, Louvois, came to him

and said, “ Sire, it is absolutely necessary to mak» a
desert of the Palatinate.”