Diversions of the royal family and of the court.—Louis XV.—Louis XVI.
In short, what is the occupation of a well-qualified master of a house? He amuses himself and he amuses his guests; under his roof a new pleasure-party comes off daily. Let us enumerate those of a week. "Yesterday, Sunday," says the Duc de Luynes, "I met the king going to hunt on the plain of St. Denis, having slept at la Muette, where he intends to remain shooting to day and to-morrow, and to return here on Tuesday or Wednesday morning, to run down a stag the same day, Wednesday."2148Two months after this, "the king," again says M. de Luynes, "has been hunting every day of the past and of the present week, except to day and on Sundays, killing, since the beginning, 3,500 partridges." He is always on the road, or hunting, or passing from one residence to another, from Versailles to Fontainebleau, to Choisy, to Marly, to la Muette, to Compiègne, to Trianon, to Saint-Hubert, to Bellevue, to Rambouillet, and, generally, with his entire court.2149At Choisy, especially, and at Fontainebleau this company all lead a merry life. At Fontainebleau "Sunday and Friday, play; Monday and Wednesday, a concert in the queen's apartments; Tuesday and Thursday, the French comedians; and Saturday it is the Italians;" there is something for every day in the week. At Choisy, writes the Dauphine,2150"from one o'clock (in the afternoon) when we dine, to one o'clock at night we remain out. . . After dining we play until six o'clock, after which we go to the theater, which lasts until half-past nine o'clock, and next, to supper; after this, play again, until one, and sometimes half-past one, o'clock." At Versailles things are more moderate; there are but two theatrical entertainments and one ball a week; but every evening there is play and a reception in the king's apartment, in his daughters', in his mistress's, in his daughter-in-law's, besides hunts and three petty excursions a week. Records show that, in a certain year, Louis XV slept only fifty-two nights at Versailles, while the Austrian Ambassador well says that "his mode of living leaves him not an hour in the day for attention to important matters."—As to Louis XVI, we have seen that he reserves a few hours of the morning; but the machine is wound up, and go it must. How can he withdraw himself from his guests and not do the honors of his house? Here propriety and custom are tyrants and a third despotism must be added, still more absolute: the imperious vivacity of a lively young queen who cannot endure an hour's reading.—At Versailles, three theatrical entertainments and two balls a week, two grand suppers Tuesday and Thursday, and from time to time, the opera in Paris.2151At Fontainebleau, the theater three times a week, and on other days, play and suppers. During the following winter the queen gives a masked ball each week, in which "the contrivance of the costumes, the quadrilles arranged in ballets, and the daily rehearsals, take so much time as to consume the entire week." During the carnival of 1777 the queen, besides her own fêtes, attends the balls of the Palais-Royal and the masked balls of the opera; a little later, I find another ball at the abode of the Comtesse Diana de Polignac, which she attends with the whole royal family, except Mesdames, and which lasts from half-past eleven o'clock at night until eleven o'clock the next morning. Meanwhile, on ordinary days, there is the rage of faro; in her drawing room "there is no limit to the play; in one evening the Duc de Chartres loses 8,000 louis. It really resembles an Italian carnival; there is nothing lacking, neither masks nor the comedy of private life; they play, they laugh, they dance, they dine, they listen to music, they don costumes, they get up picnics (fêtes-champêtres), they indulge in gossip and gallantries." "The newest song,"2152says a cultivated, earnest lady of the bedchamber, "the current witticism and little scandalous stories, formed the sole subjects of conversation in the queen's circle of intimates."—As to the king, who is rather dull and who requires physical exercise, the chase is his most important occupation. Between 1755 and 1789,2153he himself, on recapitulating what he had accomplished, finds "104 boar-hunts, 134 stag-hunts, 266 of bucks, 33 with hounds, and 1,025 shootings," in all 1,562 hunting-days, averaging at least one hunt every three days; besides this there are a 149 excursions without hunts, and 223 promenades on horseback or in carriages. "During four months of the year he goes to Rambouillet twice a week and returns after having supped, that is to say, at three o'clock in the morning."2154This inveterate habit ends in becoming a mania, and even in something worse. "The nonchalance," writes Arthur Young, June 26, 1789, "and even stupidity of the court, is unparalleled; the moment demands the greatest decision, and yesterday, while it was actually a question whether he should be a doge of Venice or a king of France, the king went a hunting!" His journal reads like that of a gamekeeper's. On reading it at the most important dates one is amazed at its entries. He writes nothing on the days not devoted to hunting, which means that to him these days are of no account:
July 11, 1789, nothing; M. Necker leaves.
July 12th vespers and benediction; Messieurs de Montmorin, de Saint-Priest and de la Luzerne leave.
July 13th, nothing.
July 14th, nothing.
July 29th, nothing; M. Necker returns.....
August 4th, stag-hunt in the forest at Marly; took one; go and come on horseback.
August 13th, audience of the States in the gallery; Te Deum during the mass below; one stag taken in the hunt at Marly. . .
August 25th, complimentary audience of the States; high mass with the cordons bleus; M. Bailly sworn in; vespers and benediction; state dinner....
October 5th, shooting near Chatillon; killed 81 head; interrupted by events; go and come on horseback.
October 6th, leave for Paris at half-past twelve; visit the Hôtel-de-Ville; sup and rest at the Tuileries.
October 7th nothing; my aunts come and dine.
October 8th, nothing. . .
October 12th, nothing; the stag hunted at Port Royal.
Shut up in Paris, held by the crowds, his heart is always with the hounds. Twenty times in 1790 we read in his journal of a stag-hunt occurring in this or that place; he regrets not being on hand. No privation is more intolerable to him; we encounter traces of his chagrin even in the formal protest he draws up before leaving for Varennes; transported to Paris, shut up in the Tuileries, "where, far from finding conveniences to which he is accustomed, he has not even enjoyed the advantages common to persons in easy circumstances," his crown to him having apparently lost its brightest jewel.
Other similar lives.—Princes and princesses.—Seigniors ofthe court.—Financiers and parvenus.—Ambassadors,ministers, governors, general officers.
As is the general so is his staff; the grandees imitate their monarch. Like some costly colossal effigy in marble, erected in the center of France, and of which reduced copies are scattered by thousands throughout the provinces, thus does royal life repeat itself, in minor proportions, even among the remotest gentry. The object is to make a parade and to receive; to make a figure and to pass away time in good society.—I find, first, around the court, about a dozen princely courts. Each prince or princess of the blood royal, like the king, has his house fitted up, paid for, in whole or in part, out of the treasury, its service divided into special departments, with gentlemen, pages, and ladies in waiting, in brief, fifty, one hundred, two hundred, and even five hundred appointments. There is a household of this kind for the queen, one for Madame Victoire, one for Madame Elisabeth, one for Monsieur, one for Madame, one for the Comte d'Artois, and one for the Comtesse d'Artois. There will be one for Madame Royale, one for the little Dauphin, one for the Duc de Normandie, all three children of the king, one for the Duc d'Angoulême, one for the Duc de Berry, both sons of the Comte d'Artois: children six or seven years of age receive and make a parade of themselves. On referring to a particular date, in 1771,2155I find still another for the Duc d'Orléans, one for the Duc de Bourbon, one for the Duchesse, one for the Prince de Condé, one for the Comte de Clermont, one for the Princess dowager de Conti, one for the Prince de Conti, one for the Comte de la Marche, one for the Duc de Penthièvre.—Each personage, besides his or her apartment under the king's roof has his or her chateau and palace with his or her own circle, the queen at Trianon and at Saint-Cloud, Mesdames at Bellevue, Monsieur at the Luxembourg and at Brunoy, the Comte d'Artois at Meudon and at Bagatelle, the Duc d'Orléans at the Palais Royal, at Monceaux, at Rancy and at Villers-Cotterets, the Prince de Conti at the Temple and at Ile-Adam, the Condés at the Palais-Bourbon and at Chantilly, the Duc de Penthièvre at Sceaux, Anet and Chateauvilain. I omit one-half of these residences. At the Palais-Royal those who are presented may come to the supper on opera days. At Chateauvilain all those who come to pay court are invited to dinner, the nobles at the duke's table and the rest at the table of his first gentleman. At the Temple one hundred and fifty guests attend the Monday suppers. Forty or fifty persons, said the Duchesse de Maine, constitute "a prince's private company."2156The princes' train is so inseparable from their persons that it follows them even into camp. "The Prince de Condé," says M. de Luynes, "sets out for the army to-morrow with a large suite: he has two hundred and twenty-five horses, and the Comte de la Marche one hundred. M. le duc d'Orléans leaves on Monday; he has three hundred and fifty horses for himself and suite."2157Below the rank of the king's relatives all the grandees who figure at the court figure as well in their own residences, at their hotels at Paris or at Versailles, also in their chateaux a few leagues away from Paris. On all sides, in the memoirs, we obtain a foreshortened view of some one of these seignorial existences. Such is that of the Duc de Gèvres, first gentleman of the bedchamber, governor of Paris, and of the Ile-de-France, possessing besides this the special governorships of Laon, Soissons, Noyon, Crespy and Valois, the captainry of Mousseaux, also a pension of 20,000 livres, a veritable man of the court, a sort of sample in high relief of the people of his class, and who, through his appointments, his airs, his luxury, his debts, the consideration he enjoys, his tastes, his occupations and his turn of mind presents to us an abridgment of the fashionable world.2158His memory for relationships and genealogies is surprising; he is an adept in the precious science of etiquette, and on these two grounds he is an oracle and much consulted. "He greatly increased the beauty of his house and gardens at Saint-Ouen. At the moment of his death," says the Duc de Luynes, "he had just added twenty-five arpents to it which he had begun to enclose with a covered terrace. . . . He had quite a large household of gentlemen, pages, and domestic of various kinds, and his expenditure was enormous. . . . He gave a grand dinner every day. . . . He gave special audiences almost daily. There was no one at the court, nor in the city, who did not pay his respects to him. The ministers, the royal princes themselves did so. He received company whilst still in bed. He wrote and dictated amidst a large assemblage. . . . His house at Paris and his apartment at Versailles were never empty from the time be arose till the time he retired." 2 or 300 households at Paris, at Versailles and in their environs, offer a similar spectacle. Never is there solitude. It is the custom in France, says Horace Walpole, to burn your candle down to its snuff in public. The mansion of the Duchesse de Gramont is besieged at day-break by the noblest seigniors and the noblest ladies. Five times a week, under the Duc de Choiseul's roof, the butler enters the drawing room at ten o'clock in the evening to bestow a glance on the immense crowded gallery and decide if he shall lay the cloth for fifty, sixty or eighty persons;2159with this example before them all the rich establishments soon glory in providing an open table for all comers. Naturally the parvenus, the financiers who have purchased or taken the name of an estate, all those traffickers and sons of traffickers who, since Law, associate with the nobility, imitate their ways. And I do not allude to the Bourets, the Beaujons, the St. Jameses and other financial wretches whose paraphernalia effaces that of the princes; but take a plain associé des fermes, M. d'Epinay, whose modest and refined wife refuses such excessive display.2160He had just completed his domestic arrangements, and was anxious that his wife should take a second maid; but she resisted; nevertheless, in this curtailed household.
"The officers, women and valets, amounted to sixteen. . . . When M. d'Epinay gets up his valet enters on his duties. Two lackeys stand by awaiting his orders. The first secretary enters for the purpose of giving an account of the letters received by him and which he has to open; but he is interrupted two hundred times in this business by all sorts of people imaginable. Now it is a horse-jockey with the finest horses to sell. . . . Again some saucy girl who calls to bawl out a piece of music, and on whose behalf some influence has been exerted to get her into the opera, after giving her a few lessons in good taste and teaching her what is proper in French music. This young lady has been made to wait to ascertain if I am still at home. . . . I get up and go out. Two lackeys open the folding doors to let me make it through this eye of a needle, while two servants bawl out in the ante-chamber, 'Madame, gentlemen, Madame!' All form a line, the gentlemen consisting of dealers in fabrics, in instruments, jewellers, hawkers, lackeys, shoeblacks, creditors, in short everything imaginable that is most ridiculous and annoying. The clock strikes twelve or one before this toilet matter is over, and the secretary, who, doubtless, knows by experience the impossibility of rendering a detailed statement of his business, hands to his master a small memorandum informing him what he must say in the assembly of fermiers."
Indolence, disorder, debts, ceremony, the tone and ways of the patron, all seems a parody of the real thing. We are beholding the last stages of aristocracy. And yet the court of M. d'Epinay is a miniature resemblance of that of the king.
So much more essential is it that the ambassadors, ministers and general officers who represent the king should display themselves in a grandiose manner. No circumstance rendered the ancient régime so brilliant and more oppressive; in this, as in all the rest, Louis XIV is the principal originator of evil as of good. The policy which fashioned the court prescribed ostentation.
"A display of dress, table, equipages, buildings and play was made purposely to please; these afforded opportunities for entering into conversation with him. The contagion had spread from the court into the provinces and to the armies, where people of any position were esteemed only in proportion to their table and magnificence."2161
During the year passed by the Marshal de Belle-Isle at Frankfort, on account of the election of Charles VI, he expended 750,000 livres in journeys, transportations, festivals and dinners, in constructing a kitchen and dining-hall, and besides all this, 150,000 livres in snuff-boxes, watches and other presents; by order of Cardinal Fleury, so economical, he had in his kitchens one hundred and one officials.2162At Vienna, in 1772, the ambassador, the Prince de Rohan, had two carriages costing together 40,000 livres, forty horses, seven noble pages, six gentlemen, five secretaries, ten musicians, twelve footmen, and four grooms whose gorgeous liveries each cost 4,000 livres, and the rest in proportion.2163We are familiar with the profusion, the good taste, the exquisite dinners, and the admirable ceremonial display of the Cardinal de Bernis in Rome. "He was called the king of Rome, and indeed he was such through his magnificence and in the consideration he enjoyed. . . . His table afforded an idea of what is possible. . . In festivities, ceremonies and illuminations he was always beyond comparison." He himself remarked, smiling, "I keep a French inn on the cross-roads of Europe."2164Accordingly their salaries and indemnities are two or three times more ample than at the present day. "The king gives 50,000 crowns to the great embassies. The Duc de Duras received even 200,000 livres per annum for that of Madrid, also, besides this, 100,000 crowns gratuity, 50,000 livres for secret service; and he had the loan of furniture and effects valued at 400,000 and 500,000 livres, of which he kept one-half."2165The outlays and salaries of the ministers are similar. In 1789, the Chancellor gets 120,080 livres salary and the Keeper of the Seals 135,000. "M. de Villedeuil, as Secretary of State, was to have had 180,670 livres, but as he represented that this sum would not cover his expenses, his salary was raised to 226,000 livres, everything included."2166Moreover, the rule is, that on retiring from office the king awards them a pension of 20,000 livres and gives a dowry of 200,000 livres to their daughters. This is not excessive considering the way they live. "They are obliged to maintain such state in their households, for they cannot enrich themselves by their places. All keep open table at Paris three days in the week, and at Fontainebleau every day."2167M. de Lamoignon being appointed Chancellor with a salary of 100,000 livres, people at once declare that he will be ruined;2168"for he has taken all the officials of M. d'Aguesseau's kitchen, whose table alone cost 80,000 livres. The banquet he gave at Versailles to the first council held by him cost 6,000 livres, and he must always have seats at table, at Versailles and at Paris, for twenty persons." At Chambord,2169Marshal de Saxe always has two tables, one for sixty, and the other for eighty persons; also four hundred horses in his stables, a civil list of more than 100,000 crowns, a regiment of Uhlans for his guard, and a theater costing over 600,000 livres, while the life he leads, or which is maintained around him, resembles one of Rubens's bacchanalian scenes. As to the special and general provincial governors we have seen that, when they reside on the spot, they fulfill no other duty than to entertain; alongside of them the intendant, who alone attends to business, likewise receives, and magnificently, especially for the country of a States-General. Commandants, lieutenants-general, the envoys of the central government throughout, are equally induced by habit and propriety, as well as by their own lack of occupation, to maintain a drawing-room; they bring along with them the elegance and hospitality of Versailles. If the wife follows them she becomes weary and "vegetates in the midst of about fifty companions, talking nothing but commonplace, knitting or playing lotto, and sitting three hours at the dinner table." But "all the military men, all the neighboring gentry and all the ladies in the town," eagerly crowd to her balls and delight in commending "her grace, her politeness, her equality."2170These sumptuous habits prevail even among people of secondary position. By virtue of established usage colonels and captains entertain their subordinates and thus expend "much beyond their salaries."2171This is one of the reasons why regiments are reserved for the sons of the best families, and companies in them for wealthy gentlemen. The vast royal tree, expanding so luxuriantly at Versailles, sends forth its offshoots to overrun France by thousands, and to bloom everywhere, as at Versailles, in bouquets of finery and of drawing room sociability.
Prelates, seigniors and minor provincial nobles.—The feudalaristocracy transformed into a drawing room group.
Following this pattern, and as well through the effect of temperature, we see, even in remote provinces, all aristocratic branches having a flourishing social life. Lacking other employment, the nobles exchange visits, and the chief function of a prominent seignior is to do the honors of his house creditably. This applies as well to ecclesiastics as to laymen. The one hundred and thirty-one bishops and archbishops, the seven hundred abbés-commendatory, are all men of the world; they behave well, are rich, and are not austere, while their episcopal palace or abbey is for them a country-house, which they repair or embellish with a view to the time they pass in it, and to the company they welcome to it.2172At Clairvaux, Dom Rocourt, very affable with men and still more gallant with the ladies, never drives out except with four horses, and with a mounted groom ahead; his monks do him the honors of a Monseigneur, and he maintains a veritable court. The chartreuse of Val Saint-Pierre is a sumptuous palace in the center of an immense domain, and the father-procurator, Dom Effinger, passes his days in entertaining his guests.2173At the convent of Origny, near Saint-Quentin,2174"the abbess has her domestics and her carriage and horses, and receives men on visits, who dine in her apartments." The princess Christine, abbess of Remiremont, with her lady canonesses, are almost always traveling; and yet "they enjoy themselves in the abbey," entertaining there a good many people "in the private apartments of the princess, and in the strangers' rooms."2175The twenty-five noble chapters of women, and the nineteen noble chapters of men, are as many permanent drawing-rooms and gathering places incessantly resorted to by the fine society which a slight ecclesiastical barrier scarcely divides from the great world from which it is recruited. At the chapter of Alix, near Lyons, the canonesses wear hoopskirts into the choir, "dressed as in the world outside," except that their black silk robes and their mantles are lined with ermine.2176At the chapter of Ottmarsheim in Alsace, "our week was passed in promenading, in visiting the traces of Roman roads, in laughing a good deal, and even in dancing, for there were many people visiting the abbey, and especially talking over dresses." Near Sarrebuis, the canonesses of Loutre dine with the officers and are anything but prudish.2177Numbers of convents serve as agreeable and respectable asylums for widowed ladies, for young women whose husbands are in the army, and for young ladies of rank, while the superior, generally some noble damsel, wields, with ease and dexterity, the scepter of this pretty feminine world. But nowhere is the pomp of hospitality or the concourse greater, than in the episcopal palaces. I have described the situation of the bishops; with their opulence, possessors of the like feudal rights, heirs and successors to the ancient sovereigns of the territory, and besides all this, men of the world and frequenters of Versailles, why should they not keep a court? A Cicé, archbishop of Bordeaux, a Dillon, archbishop of Narbonne, a Brienne, archbishop of Toulouse, a Castellane, bishop of Mende and seignior-suzerain of the whole of Gévaudan, an archbishop of Cambrai, duke of Cambray, seignior-suzerain of the whole of Cambrésis, and president by birth of the provincial States-General, are nearly all princes; why not parade themselves like princes? Hence, they build, hunt and have their clients and guests, a lever, an antechamber, ushers, officers, a free table, a complete household, equipages, and, oftener still, debts, the finishing touch of a grand seignior. In the almost regal palace which the Rohans, hereditary bishops of Strasbourg and cardinals from uncle to nephew, erected for themselves at Saverne,2178there are 700 beds, 180 horses, 14 butlers, and 25 valets. "The whole province assembles there;" the cardinal lodges as many as two hundred guests at a time, without counting the valets; at all times there are found under his roof "from twenty to thirty ladies the most agreeable of the province, and this number is often increased by those of the court and from Paris. . . . The entire company sup together at nine o'clock in the evening, which always looks like a fête," and the cardinal himself is its chief ornament. Splendidly dressed, fine-looking, gallant, exquisitely polite, the slightest smile is a grace. "His face, always beaming, inspired confidence; he had the true physiognomy of a man expressly designed for pompous display."
Such likewise is the attitude and occupation of the principal lay seigniors, at home, in summer, when a love of the charms of fine weather brings them back to their estates. For example, Harcourt in Normandy and Brienne in Champagne are two chateaux the best frequented. "Persons of distinction resort to it from Paris, eminent men of letters, while the nobility of the canton pay there an assiduous court."2179There is no residence where flocks of fashionable people do not light down permanently to dine, to dance, to hunt, to gossip, to unravel,2180(parfiler) to play comedy. We can trace these birds from cage to cage; they remain a week, a month, three months, displaying their plumage and their prattle. From Paris to Ile-Adam, to Villers-Cotterets, to Frétoy, to Planchette, to Soissons, to Rheims, to Grisolles, to Sillery, to Braine, to Balincourt, to Vaudreuil, the Comte and Comtesse de Genlis thus bear about their leisure, their wit, their gaiety, at the domiciles of friends whom, in their turn, they entertain at Genlis. A glance at the exteriors of these mansions suffices to show that it was the chief duty in these days to be hospitable, as it was a prime necessity to be in society.2181Their luxury, indeed, differs from ours. With the exception of a few princely establishments it is not great in the matter of country furniture; a display of this description is left to the financiers. "But it is prodigious in all things which can minister to the enjoyment of others, in horses, carriages, and in an open table, in accommodations given even to people not belonging to the house, in boxes at the play which are lent to friends, and lastly, in servants, much more numerous than nowadays." Through this mutual and constant attention the most rustic nobles lose the rust still encrusting their brethren in Germany or in England. We find in France few Squire Western and Barons de Thunder-ten-Troenck; an Alsatian lady, on seeing at Frankfort the grotesque country squires of Westphalia, is struck with the contrast.2182Those of France, even in distant provinces, have frequented the drawing-rooms of the commandant and intendant, and have encountered on their visits some of the ladies from Versailles; hence they always show some familiarity with superior manners and some knowledge of the changes of fashion and dress." The most barbarous will descend, with his hat in his hand, to the foot of his steps to escort his guests, thanking them for the honor they have done him. The greatest rustic, when in a woman's presence, dives down into the depths of his memory for some fragment of chivalric gallantry. The poorest and most secluded furbishes up his coat of royal blue and his cross of St. Louis that he may, when the occasion offers, tender his respects to his neighbor, the grand seignior, or to the prince who is passing by.
Thus is the feudal staff wholly transformed, from the lowest to the highest grades. Taking in at one glance its 30 or 40,000 palaces, mansions, manors and abbeys, what a brilliant and engaging scene France presents! She is one vast drawing-room, and I detect only drawing room company. Everywhere the rude chieftains once possessing authority have become the masters of households administering favors. Their society is that in which, before fully admiring a great general, the question is asked, "is he amiable?" Undoubtedly they still wear swords, and are brave through pride and tradition, and they know how to die, especially in duels and according to form. But worldly traits have hidden the ancient military groundwork; at the end of the eighteenth century their genius is to be wellbred and their employment consists in entertaining or in being entertained.
2101 (return)[ "Mémoires de Laporte" (1632). "M. d'Epernon came to Bordeaux, where he found His Eminence very ill. He visited him regularly every morning, having two hundred guards to accompany him to the door of his chamber."—"Mémoires de Retz." "We came to the audience, M. de Beaufort and myself; with a corps of nobles which might number three hundred gentlemen; MM. the princes had with them nearly a thousand gentlemen."—All the memoirs of the time show on every page that these escorts were necessary to make or repel sudden attacks.]
2102 (return)[ Mercier, "Tableau de Paris." IX. 3.]
2103 (return)[ Leroi, "Histoire de Versailles," Il. 21. (70,000 fixed population and 10,000 floating population according to the registers of the mayoralty.)]
2104 (return)[ Warroquier, "Etat de la France" (1789). The list of persons presented at court between 1779 and 1789, contains 463 men and 414 women. Vol. II. p. 515.]
2105 (return)[ People were run over almost every day in Paris by the fashionable vehicles, it being the habit of the great to ride very fast.]
2106 (return)[ 153,222,827 livres, 10 sous, 3 deniers. ( "Souvenirs d'un page de la cour de Louis XVI.," by the Count d'Hézecques, p. 142.)—In 1690, before the chapel and the theater were constructed, it had already cost 100,000,000, (St. Simon, XII. 514. Memoirs of Marinier, clerk of the king's buildings.)]
2107 (return)[ Museum of Engravings, National Library. "Histoire de France par estampes," passim, and particularly the plans and views of Versailles, by Aveline; also, "the drawing of a collation given by M. le Prince in the Labyrinth of Chantilly," Aug. 29, 1687.]
2108 (return)[ Memoirs, I. 221. He was presented at court February 19, 1787.]
2109 (return)[ For these details cf. Warroquier, vol. I. passim.—Archives imperiales, O1, 710 bis, the king's household, expenditure of 1771.—D'Argenson, February 25, 1752.—In 1772 three millions are expended on the installation of the Count d'Artois. A suite of rooms for Mme. Adelaide cost 800,000 livres.]
2110 (return)[ Marie Antoinette, "Correspondance secréte," by d'Arneth and Geffroy, III.192. Letter of Mercy, January 25, 1779.—Warroquier, in 1789, mentions only fifteen places in the house-hold of Madame Royale. This, along with other indications, shows the inadequacy of official statements.]
2111 (return)[ The number ascertainable after the reductions of 1775 and 1776, and before those of 1787. See Warroquier, vol. I.—Necker, "Administration des Finances," II. 119.]
2112 (return)[ "La Maison du Roi en 1786," colored engravings in the Museum of Engravings.]
2113 (return)[ Archives nationales, O1, 738. Report by M. Tessier (1780), on the large and small stables. The queen's stables comprise 75 vehicles and 330 horses. These are the veritable figures taken from secret manuscript reports, showing the inadequacy of official statements. The Versailles Almanach of 1775, for instance, states that there were only 335 men in the stables while we see that in reality the number was four or five times as many.—"Previous to all the reforms, says a witness, I believe that the number of the king's horses amounted to 3,000." (D'Hézecques, "Souvenirs d'un page de Louis XVI.," p. 121.]
2114 (return)[ La Maison du Roi justifiée par un soldat citoyen," (1786) according to Statements published by the government.—"La future maison du roi" (1790). "The two stables cost in 1786, the larger one 4,207,606 livres, and the smaller 3,509,402 livres, a total of 7,717,058 livres, of which 486,546 were for the purchase of horses.]
2115 (return)[ On my arrival at Versailles (1786), there were 150 pages, not including those of the princes of the blood who lived at Paris. A page's coat cost 1,500 livres, (crimson velvet embroidered with gold on all the seams, and a hat with feather and Spanish point lace.)" D'Hézecques, ibid., 112.]
2116 (return)[ Archives nationales, O1, 778. Memorandum on the hunting-train between 1760 and 1792 and especially the report of 1786.]
2117 (return)[ Mercier, "Tableau de Paris," vol. I. p. 11; vol. V. p. 62.—D'Hézecques, ibid. 253.—"Journal de Louis XVI," published by Nicolardot, passim.]
2118 (return)[ Warroquier, vol. I. passim. Household of the Queen: for the chapel 22 persons, the faculty 6. That of Monsieur, the chapel 22, the faculty 21. That of Madame, the chapel 20, the faculty 9. That of the Comte d'Artois, the chapel 20, the faculty 28. That of the Comtesse d'Artois, the chapel 19, the faculty 17. That of the Duc d'Orléans, the chapel 6, the faculty 19.]
2119 (return)[ Archives national, O1, Report by M. Mesnard de Choisy, (March, 1780).—They cause a reform (August 17, 1780).—"La Maison du roi justifiée" (1789), p. 24. In 1788 the expenses of the table are reduced to 2,870,999 livres, of which 600,000 livres are appropriated to Mesdames for their table.]
2120 (return)[ D'Hézecques, ibid.. 212. Under Louis XVI. there were two chair-carriers to the king, who came every morning, in velvet coats and with swords by their sides, to inspect and empty the object of their functions; this post was worth to each one 20,000 livres per annum.]
2121 (return)[ In 1787, Louis XVI. either demolishes or orders to be sold, Madrid, la Muette and Choisy; his acquisitions, however, Saint-Cloud, Ile-Adam and Rambouillet, greatly surpassing his reforms.]
2122 (return)[ Necker; "Compte-rendu," II. 452.—Archives nationales, 01, 738. p.62 and 64, O1 2805, O1 736.—"La Maison du roi Justifiée" (1789). Constructions in 1775, 3,924,400, in 1786, 4,000,000, in 1788, 3,077,000 livres.—Furniture in 1788, 1,700,000 livres.]
2123 (return)[ Here are some of the casual expenses. (Archives nationales, O1, 2805). On the birth of the Duc de Bourgogne in 1751, 604,477 livres. For the Dauphin's marriage in 1770, 1,267,770 livres. For the marriage of the Comte d'Artois in 1773, 2,016,221 livres. For the coronation in 1775, 835,862 livre,. For plays, concerts and balls in 1778, 481,744 livres, and in 1779, 382,986 livres.]
2124 (return)[ Warroquier, vol. I. ibid.,—"Marie Antoinette," by d'Arneth and Geffroy. Letter of Mercy, Sept. 16, 1773. "The multitude of people of various occupations following the king on his travels resembles the progress of an army."]
2125 (return)[ The civil households of the king, queen, and Mme. Elisabeth, of Mesdames, and Mme. Royale, 25,700,000.—To the king's brothers and sisters-in-law, 8,040,000.—The king's military household, 7,681,000, (Necker, "Compte-rendu," II. 119). From 1774 to 1788 the expenditure on the households of the king and his family varies from 32 to 36 millions, not including the military household, ("La Maison du roi justiftiée"). In 1789 the households of the king, queen, Dauphin, royal children and of Mesdames, cost 25 millions.—Those of Monsieur and Madame, 3,656,000; those of the Count and Countess d'Artois, 3,656,000; those of the Dukes de Berri and d'Angoulême, 700,000; salaries continued to persons formerly in the princes' service, 228,000. The total is 33,240,000.—To this must be added the king's military household and two millions in the princes' appanages. (A general account of fixed incomes and expenditure on the first of May, 1789, rendered by the minister of finances to the committee on finances of the National Assembly.)]
2126 (return)[ Warroquier, ibid,(1789) vol. I., passim.]
2127 (return)[ An expression of the Comte d'Artois on introducing the officers of his household to his wife.]
2128 (return)[ The number of light-horsemen and of gendarmes was reduced in 1775 and in 1776; both bodies were suppressed in 1787.]
2129 (return)[ The President of the 5th French Republic founded by General de Gaulle is even today the source of numerous appointments of great importance. (SR.)]
2130 (return)[ Saint-Simon, "Mémoires," XVI. 456. This need of being always surrounded continues up to the last moment; in 1791, the queen exclaimed bitterly, speaking of the nobility, "when any proceeding of ours displeases them they are sulky; no one comes to my table; the king retires alone; we have to suffer for our misfortunes." (Mme. Campan, II. 177.)]
2131 (return)[ Duc de Lévis, "Souvenirs et Portraits," 29.—Mme. de Maintenon, "Correspondance."]
2132 (return)[ M. de V—who was promised a king's lieutenancy or command, yields it to one of Mme. de Pompadour's protégés, obtaining in lieu of it the part of the exempt in "Tartuffe," played by the seigniors before the king in the small cabinet. (Mme. de Hausset, 168). "M. de V,—thanked Madame as if she had made him a duke."]
2133 (return)[ "Paris, Versailles et les provinces au dix-huitième siècle," II. 160, 168.—Mercier, "Tableau de Paris," IV. 150.—De Ségur, "Mémoires," I. 16.]
2134 (return)[ "Marie Antoinette," by D'Arneth and Geffroy, II. 27, 255, 281. "—Gustave III." by Geffroy, November, 1786, bulletin of Mme. de Staël.—D'Hézecques, ibid.. 231.—Archives nationales, 01, 736, a letter by M. Amelot, September 23, 1780.—De Luynes, XV. 260, 367; XVI. 163 ladies, of which 42 are in service, appear and courtesy to the king. 160 men and more than 100 ladies pay their respects to the Dauphin and Dauphine.]
2135 (return)[ Cochin. Engravings of a masked ball, of a dress ball, of the king and queen at play, of the interior of the theater (1745). Customes of Moreau (1777). Mme. de Genlis, "Dictionaire des etiquettes," the article parure.]
2136 (return)[ "The difference between the tone and language of the court and the town was about as perceptible as that between Paris and the provinces." (De Tilly, "Mémoires," I. 153.)]
2137 (return)[ The following is an example of the compulsory inactivity of the nobles—a dinner of Queen Marie Leczinska at Fontainebleau: "I was introduced into a superb hall where I found about a dozen courtiers promenading about and a table set for as many persons, which was nevertheless prepared for but one person. . . . The queen sat own while the twelve courtiers took their positions in a semi-circle ten steps from the table; I stood alongside of them imitating their deferential silence. Her Majesty began to eat very fast, keeping her eyes fixed on the plate. Finding one of the dishes to her taste she returned to it, and then, running her eye around the circle, she said "Monsieur de Lowenthal?"—On hearing this name a fine-looking man advanced, bowing, and replied, "Madame?"—"I find that this ragout is fricassé chicken."—"I believe it is' Madame."—On making this answer, in the gravest manner, the marshal, retiring backwards, resumed his position, while the queen finished her dinner, never uttering another word and going back to her room the same way as she came." (Memoirs of Casanova.)]
2138 (return)[ "Under Louis XVI, who arose at seven or eight o'clock, the lever took place at half-past eleven unless hunting or ceremonies required it earlier." There is the same ceremonial at eleven, again in the evening on retiring, and also during the day, when he changes his boots. (D'Hézecque, 161.)]
2139 (return)[ Warroquier, I. 94. Compare corresponding detail under Louis XVI in Saint-Simon XIII. 88.]
2140 (return)[ "Marie Antoinette," by d'Arneth and Geffroy, II. 217.]
2141 (return)[ In all changes of the coat the left arm of the king is appropriated by the wardrobe and the right arm to the "chambre."]
2142 (return)[ The queen breakfasts in bed, and "there are ten or twelve persons present at this first reception or entrée. . . " The grand receptions taking place at the dressing hour. "This reception comprises the princes of the blood, the captains of the guards and most of the grand-officers." The same ceremony occurs with the chemise as with the king's shirt. One winter day Mme. Campan offers the chemise to the queen, when a lady of honor enters, removes her gloves and takes the chemise in her hands. A movement at the door and the Duchess of Orleans comes in, takes off her gloves, and receives the chemise. Another movement and it is the Comtesse d'Artois whose privilege it is to hand the chemise. Meanwhile the queen sits there shivering with her arms crossed on her breast and muttering, "It is dreadful, what importunity!" (Mme. Campan, II. 217; III. 309-316).]
2143 (return)[ "Marie Antoinette," by d'Arneth and Geffroy, II. 223 (August 15, 1774).]
2144 (return)[ Count D'Hézecques, ibid., p. 7.]
2145 (return)[ Duc de Lauzun, "Mémoires," 51.—Mme. de Genlis, "Mémoires," ch. XII.: "Our husbands, regularly on that day (Saturday) slept at Versailles, to hunt the next day with the king."]
2146 (return)[ The State dinner takes place every Sunday.—La nef is a piece of plate at the center of the table containing between scented cushions, the napkins used by the king.—The essai is the tasting of each dish by the gentlemen servants and officers of the table before the king partakes of it. And the same with the beverages.—It requires four persons to serve the king with a glass of wine and water.]
2147 (return)[ When the ladies of the king's court, and especially the princesses, pass before the king's bed they have to make an obeisance; the palace officials salute the nef on passing that.—A priest or sacristan does the same thing on passing before the altar.]
2148 (return)[ De Luynes, IX, 75,79, 105. (August, 1748, October 1748).]
2149 (return)[ The king is at Marly, and here is a list of the excursions he is to make before going to Compiègne. (De Luynes, XIV, 163, May, 1755) "Sunday, June 1st, to Choisy until Monday evening.—Tuesday, the 3rd to Trianon, until Wednesday.—Thursday, the 5th, return to Trianon where he will remain until after supper on Saturday.—Monday, the 9th, to Crécy, until Friday, 13th.—Return to Crécy the 16th, until the 21st.—St. July 1st to la Muette, the 2nd, to Compiègne."]
2150 (return)[ "Marie Antoinette," by d'Arneth and Geffroy, I. 19 (July 12, 1770). I. 265 (January 23, 1771). I. III. (October 18, 1770).]
2151 (return)[ Marie Antoinette," by d'Arneth and Geffroy, II, 270 (October 18, 1774). II, 395 (November 15, 1775). II, 295 (February 20, 1775). III, 25 (February 11, 1777). III, 119 (October 17, 1777). III, 409 (March 18, 1780).]
2152 (return)[ Mme. Campan, I. 147.]
2153 (return)[ Nicolardot, "Journal de Louis XVI," 129.]
2154 (return)[ D'Hézecques ibid. 253.—Arthur Young, I. 215.]
2155 (return)[ List of pensions paid to members of the royal family in 1771. Duc d'Orléans, 150,000. Prince de Condé, 100,000. Comte de Clermont, 70,000. Duc de Bourbon, 60,000. Prince de Conti, 60,000. Comte de la Marche, 60,000. Dowager-Countess de Conti, 50,000. Duc de Penthièvre, 50,000. Princess de Lamballe, 50,000. Duchess de Bourbon, 50,000. (Archives Nationales. O1. 710, bis).]
2156 (return)[ Beugnot, I. 77. Mme. de Genlis, "Mémoires," ch. XVII. De Goncourt, "La Femme au dix-huitième siècle," 52.—Champfort, "Caractères et Anecdotes."]
2157 (return)[ De Luynes, XVI. 57 (May, 1757). In the army of Westphalia the Count d'Estrées, commander-in-chief; had twenty-seven secretaries, and Grimm was the twenty-eighth.—When the Duc de Richelieu set out for his government of Guyenne he was obliged to have relays of a hundred horses along the entire road.]
2158 (return)[ De Luynes, XVI. 186 (October, 1757).]
2159 (return)[ De Goncourt, ibid., 73, 75.]
2160 (return)[ Mme. d'Epinay, "Mémoires." Ed. Boiteau, I. 306 (1751).]
2161 (return)[ St. Simon, XII. 457, and Dangeau, VI. 408. The Marshal de Boufflers at the camp of Compiègne (September, 1698) had every night and morning two tables for twenty and twenty-five persons, besides extra tables; 72 cooks, 340 domestics, 400 dozens of napkins, 80 dozens of silver plates, 6 dozens of porcelain plates. Fourteen relays of horses brought fruits and liquors daily from Paris; every day an express brought fish, poultry and game from Ghent, Brussels, Dunkirk, Dieppe and Calais. Fifty dozens bottles of wine were drunk on ordinary days and eighty dozens during the visits of the king and the princes.]
2162 (return)[ De Luynes, XIV. 149.]
2163 (return)[ Abbé Georgel, "Mémoires," 216.]
2164 (return)[ Sainte-Beuve, "Causeries du lundi," VIII. 63, the texts of two witnesses, MM. de Genlis and Roland.]
2165 (return)[ De Luynes, XV. 455, and XVI. 219 (1757). "The Marshal de Belle-Isle contracted an indebtedness amounting to 1,200,000 livres, one-quarter of it for building great piles of houses for his own pleasure and the rest in the king's service. The king, to indemnify him, gives him 400,000 livres on the salt revenue, and 80,000 livres income on the company privileged to refine the precious metals."]
2166 (return)[ Report of fixed incomes and expenditures, May 1st, 1789, p. 633.—These figures, it must be noted, must be doubled to have their actual equivalent.]
2167 (return)[ Mme. de Genlis, "Dict. des Etiquettes," I. 349.]
2168 (return)[ Barbier, "Journal," III, 211 (December, 1750).]
2169 (return)[ Aubertin, "L'Esprit public au dix-huitième siècle," 255.]
2170 (return)[ Mme. de Genlis, "Adèle et Théodore." III. 54.]
2171 (return)[ Duc de Lévis, 68. The same thing is found, previous to the late reform, in the English army.—Cf. Voltaire, "Entretiens entre A, B, C," 15th entretien. "A regiment is not the reward for services but rather for the sum which the parents of a young man advance in order that he may go to the provinces for three months in the year and keep open house."]
2172 (return)[ Beugnot, I. 79.]
2173 (return)[ Merlin de Thionville, "Vie et correspondances." Account of his visit to the chartreuse of Val St. Pierre in Thierarche.]
2174 (return)[ Mme. de Genlis, "Mémoires," ch. 7.]
2175 (return)[ Mme. d'Oberkirk, I. 15.]
2176 (return)[ Mme. de Genlis, 26, ch. I. Mme. d'Oberkirk, I. 62.]
2177 (return)[ De Lauzun, "Mémoires," 257.]
2178 (return)[ Marquis de Valfons, "Mémoires," 60.—De Lévis, 156.—Mme. d'Oberkirk, I, 127, II, 360.]
2179 (return)[ Beugnot, I, 71.—Hippeau, "Le Gouvernement de Normandie," passim.]
2180 (return)[ An occupation explained farther on, page 145.—TR.]
2181 (return)[ Mme. de Genlis, "Mémoires," passim. "Dict. des Etiquettes," I. 348.]
2182 (return)[ Mme. d'Oberkirk, I. 395.—The Baron and Baroness de Sotenville in Molière are people well brought up although provincial and pedantic.]