Byłoby lepiej dla tego człowieka, gdyby się nie narodził.

Parafrazując mojego ulubionego Króla Francji "Narcisse c'est moi!"

Louis XIV regarded himself as doing much more than merely governing his realm. In a very real sense he set the ideal toward which his subjects should strive and led them to higher things.18 He absorbed their wills in all public affairs and epitomized the life of the state. He symbolized and personified the state and its purposes, and was identified with it in this sense.

Such is the meaning of the various texts that are frequently quoted in support of the apocryphal "L'Etat c'est moi." "When the state is one's concern," Louis said, "one works for oneself. The good of the one gives rise to the glory of the other."19 Also, Bossuet: "All the state is in him; the will of the people is contained in his." Within the context of Louis's own thought and that of his age, these could only mean that Louis absorbed unto himself all leadership and public significance of the state and that he symbolized its existence, purposes, and higher meanings. They were never intended to mean that Louis was the entire state or that it was his