IV.

Isolation of the Chiefs--Sentiments of subordinates --Provincial nobility--The Curates.

The fleeced flock is to discover finally what is done with its wool. "Sooner or later," says a parliament of 1764,[1421] "the people will learn that the remnants of our finances continue be wasted in donations which are frequently undeserved; in excessive and multiplied pensions for the same persons; in dowries and promises of dowry, and in useless offices and salaries." Sooner or later they will thrust back "these greedy hands which are always open and never full; that insatiable crowd which seems to be born only to seize all and possess nothing, and pitiless as it is shameless."--And when this day arrives the extortioners will find that they stand alone. For the characteristic of an aristocracy which cares only for itself is to live aloof in a closed circle. Having forgotten the public, it also neglects its subordinates; after being separated from the nation it separates itself from its own adherents. Like a group of staff-officers on furlough, it indulges in Sports without giving itself further concern about inferior officers; when the hour of battle comes nobody will march under its orders, and chieftains are sought elsewhere. Such is the isolation of the seigniors of the court and of the prelates among the lower grades of the nobility and the clergy; they appropriate to themselves too large a share, and give nothing, or almost nothing, to the people who are not of their society. For a century a steady murmur against them rising, and goes on expanding until it becomes an uproar, which the old and the new spirit, feudal ideas and philosophic ideas, threaten in unison. "I see," said the bailiff of Mirabeau,[1422] "that the nobility is demeaning itself and becoming a wreck. It is extended to all those children of bloodsuckers, the vagabonds of finance, introduced by La Pompadour, herself the spring of this foulness. One portion of it demeans itself in its servility to the court; the other portion is amalgamated with that quill-driving rabble who are converting the blood of the king's subjects into ink; another perishes stifled beneath vile robes, the ignoble atoms of cabinet-dust which an office drags up out of the mire;" and all, parvenus of the old or of the new stock, form a band called the court, 'The court!" exclaims D'Argenson. "The entire evil is found in this word, The court has become the senate of the nation; the least of the valets at Versailles is a senator; chambermaids take part in the government, if not to legislate, at least to impede laws and regulations; and by dint of hindrance there are no longer either laws, or rules, or law-makers. . . . Under Henry IV courtiers remained each one at home; they had not entered into ruinous expenditure to belong to the court; favors were not thus due to them as at the present day. . . The court is the sepulcher of the nation." Many noble officers, finding that high grades are only for courtiers, abandon the service, and betake themselves with their discontent to their estates. Others, who have not left their domains, brood there in discomfort, idleness, and ennui, their ambition embittered by their powerlessness. In 1789, says the Marquis de Ferrières, most of them "are so weary of the court and of the ministers, they are almost democrats." At least, "they want to withdraw the government from the ministerial oligarchy in whose hands it is concentrated;" there are no grand seigniors for deputies; they set them aside and "absolutely reject them, saying that they would traffic with the interests of the nobles;" they themselves, in their registers, insist that there be no more court nobility.

The same sentiments prevail among the lower clergy, and still more

## actively; for they are excluded from the high offices, not only as

inferiors, but also as commoner.[1423] Already, in 1766, the Marquis de Mirabeau writes: "It would be an insult to most of our pretentious ecclesiastics to offer them a curacy. Revenues and honors are for the abbés-commendatory, for tonsured beneficiaries not in orders, for the numerous chapters (of nobility)." On the contrary, "the true pastors of souls, the collaborators in the holy ministry, scarcely obtain a subsistence." The first class "drawn from the nobility and from the best of the bourgeoisie have pretensions only, without being of the true ministry. The other, only having duties to fulfill without expectations and almost without income. . . can be recruited only from the lowest ranks of civil society," while the parasites who despoil the laborers "affect to subjugate them and to degrade them more and more." "I pity," said Voltaire, "the lot of a country curate, obliged to contend for a sheaf of wheat with his unfortunate parishioner, to plead against him, to exact the tithe of peas and lentils, to waste his miserable existence in constant strife. . . . I pity still more the curate with a fixed allowance to whom monks, called gros decimateurs[1424] dare offer a salary of forty ducats, to go about during the year, two or three miles from his home, day and night, in sunshine and in rain, in the snow and in the ice, exercising the most trying and most disagreeable functions." Attempts are made for thirty years to secure their salaries and raise them a little; in case of their inadequacy the beneficiary, collator or tithe-owner of the parish is required to add to them until the curê obtains 500 livres (1768), then 700 livres (1785), the vicar 200 livres (1768), then 250 (1778), and finally 350 (1785). Strictly, at the prices at which things are, a man may support himself on that.[1425] But he must live among the destitute to whom he owes alms, and he cherishes at the bottom of his heart a secret bitterness towards the indolent Dives who, with full pockets, dispatches him, with empty pockets, on a mission of charity. At Saint-Pierre de Barjouville, in the Toulousain, the archbishop of Toulouse appropriates to himself one-half of the tithes and gives away eight livres a year in alms. At Bretx, the chapter of Isle Jourdain, which retains one-half of certain tithes and three-quarters of others, gives ten livres; at Croix Falgarde, the Benedictines, to whom a half of the tithes belong, give ten livres per annum.[1426] At Sainte-Croix de Bernay in Normandy,[1427] the non-resident abbé, who receives 57,000 livres gives 1,050 livres to the curate without a parsonage, whose parish contains 4,000 communicants. At Saint-Aubin-sur-Gaillon, the abbé, a gros décimateur, gives 350 livres to the vicar, who is obliged to go into the village and obtain contributions of flour, bread and apples. At Plessis Hébert, "the substitute deportuaire,[1428] not having enough to live on is obliged to get his meals in the houses of neighboring curates." In Artois, where the tithes are often seven and a half and eight per cent. on he product of the soil, a number of curates have a fixed rate and no parsonage; their church goes to ruin and the beneficiary gives nothing to the poor. "At Saint-Laurent, in Normandy, the curacy is worth not more than 400 livres, which the curate shares with an obitier,[1429] and there are 500 inhabitants, three quarters of whom receive alms." As the repairs on a parsonage or on a church are usually at the expense of a seignior or of a beneficiary often far off, and in debt or indifferent, it sometimes happens that the priest does not know where to lodge, or to say mass. "I arrived," says a curate of the Touraine, "in the month of June, 1788. . . . The parsonage would resemble a hideous cave were it not open to all the winds and the frosts. Below there are two rooms with stone floors, without doors or windows, and five feet high; a third room six feet high, paved with stone, serves as parlor, hall, kitchen, wash-house, bakery, and sink for the water of the court and garden. Above are three similar rooms, the whole cracking and tumbling in ruins, absolutely threatening to fail, without either doors and windows that hold." And, in 1790, the repairs are not yet made. See, by way of contrast, the luxury of the prelates possessing half a million income, the pomp of their palaces, the hunting equipment of M. de Dillon, bishop of Evreux, the confessionals lined with satin of M. de Barral, bishop of Troyes, and the innumerable culinary utensils in massive silver of M. de Rohan, bishop of Strasbourg.--Such is the lot of curates at the established rates, and there are "a great many" who do not get the established rates, withheld from them through the ill-will of the higher clergy; who, with their perquisites, get only from 400 to 500 livres, and who vainly ask for the meager pittance to which they are entitled by the late edict. "Should not such a request," says a curate, "be willingly granted by Messieurs of the upper clergy who suffer monks to enjoy from 5 to 6,000 livres income each person, whilst they see curates, who are at least as necessary, reduced to the lighter portion, as little for themselves as for their parish?"--And they yet gnaw on this slight pittance to pay the free gift. In this, as in the rest, the poor are charged to discharge the rich. In the diocese of Clermont, "the curates, even with the simple fixed rates, are subject to a tax of 60, 80, 100, 120 livres and even more; the vicars, who live only by the sweat of their brows, are taxed 22 livres." The prelates, on the contrary, pay but little, and "it is still a custom to present bishops on New-Year's day with a receipt for their taxes."[1430]--There is no escape for the curates. Save two or three small bishoprics of "lackeys," all the dignities of the church are reserved to the nobles; "to be a bishop nowadays," says one of them, "a man must be a gentleman." I regard them as sergeants who, like their fellows in the army, have lost all hope of becoming officers.--Hence there are some whose anger bursts its bounds: "We, unfortunate curates at fixed rates; we, commonly assigned to the largest parishes, like my own which, for two leagues in the woods, includes hamlets that would form another; we, whose lot makes even the stones and beams of our miserable dwellings cry aloud," we have to endure prelates "who would still, through their forest-keepers, prosecute a poor curate for cutting a stick in their forests, his sole support on his long journeys over the road." On their passing, the poor man "is obliged to jump close against a slope to protect himself from the feet and the spattering of the horses, as likewise from the wheels and, perhaps, the whip of an insolent coachman," and then, "begrimed with dirt, with his stick in one hand and his hat, such as it is, in the other, he must salute, humbly and quickly, through the door of the close, gilded carriage, the counterfeit hierophant who is snoring on the wool of the flock the poor curate is feeding, and of which he merely leaves him the dung and the grease." The whole letter is one long cry of rage; it is rancor of this stamp which is to fashion Joseph Lebons and Fouchés.--In this situation and with these sentiments it is evident that the lower clergy will treat its chiefs as the provincial nobility treated theirs.[1431] They will not select "for representatives those who swim in opulence and who have always regarded their sufferings with tranquility." The curates, on all sides "will confederate together" to send only curates to the States-General, and to exclude "not only canons, abbés, priors and other beneficiaries, but again the principal superiors, the heads of the hierarchy," that is to say, the bishops. In fact, in the States-General, out of three hundred clerical deputies we count two hundred and eight curates, and, like the provincial nobles, these bring along with them the distrust and the ill-will which they have so long entertained against their chiefs. Events are soon to prove this. If the first two orders are constrained to combine against the communes it is at the critical moment when the curates withdraw. If the institution of an upper chamber is rejected it is owing to the commonalty of the gentry (la plèbe des gentilshommes) being unwilling to allow the great families a prerogative which they have abused.

V. The King's Incompetence and Generosity.

The most privileged of all--Having monopolized all powers, he takes upon himself their functional activity--The burden of this task--He evades it or is incompetent--His conscience at ease--France is his property--How he abuses it--Royalty the center of abuses.

One privilege remains the most considerable of all, that of the king; for, in his staff of hereditary nobles he is the hereditary general. His office, indeed, is not a sinecure, like their rank; but it involves quite as grave disadvantages and worse temptations. Two things are pernicious to Man, the lack of occupation and the lack of restraint; neither inactivity nor omnipotence are in harmony with his nature. The absolute prince who is all-powerful, like the listless aristocracy with nothing to do, in the end become useless and mischievous.--In grasping all powers the king insensibly took upon himself all functions; an immense undertaking and one surpassing human strength. For it is the Monarchy, and not the Revolution, which endowed France with administrative centralization [1432]. Three functionaries, one above the other, manage all public business under the direction of the king's council; the comptroller-general at the center, the intendant in each generalship,[1433] the sub-delegate in each election, fixing, apportioning and levying taxes and the militia, laying out and building highways, employing the national police force, distributing succor, regulating cultivation, imposing their tutelage on the parishes, and treating municipal magistrates as valets. "A village," says Turgot,[1434] "is simply an assemblage of houses and huts, and of inhabitants equally passive. . . . Your Majesty is obliged to decide wholly by yourself or through your mandataries. . . . Each awaits your special instructions to contribute to the public good, to respect the rights of others, and even sometimes to exercise his own." Consequently, adds Necker, "the government of France is carried on in the bureaux. . . .The clerks, relishing their influence, never fail to persuade the minister that he cannot separate himself from command in a single detail." Bureaucratic at the center, arbitrariness, exceptions and favors everywhere, such is a summary of the system. "Sub-delegates, officers of elections, receivers and comptrollers of the vingtièmes, commissaires and collectors of the tailles, officers of the salt-tax, process-servers, voituriers-buralistes, overseers of the corvées, clerks of the excise, of the registry, and of dues reserved, all these men belonging to the tax-service. Each of these will, aided by his fiscal knowledge and petty authority, so overwhelm the ignorant and inexperienced tax payer that he does not recognize that he is being cheated." [1435] A rude species of centralization with no control over it, with no publicity, without uniformity, thus installs over the whole country an army of petty pashas who, as judges, decide causes in which they are themselves contestants, ruling by delegation, and, to sanction their theft or their insolence, always having on their lips the name of the king, who is obliged to let them do as they please.--In short, the machine, through its complexity, irregularity, and dimensions, escapes from his grasp. A Frederick II. who rises at four o'clock in the morning, a Napoleon who dictates half the night in his bath, and who works eighteen hours a day, would scarcely suffice for its needs. Such a régime cannot operate without constant strain, without indefatigable energy, without infallible discernment, without military rigidity, without superior genius; on these conditions alone can one convert twenty-five millions of men into automatons and substitute his own will, lucid throughout, coherent throughout and everywhere present, for the wills of those he abolishes. Louis XV lets "the good machine" work by itself, while he settles down into apathy. "They would have it so, they thought it all for the best,"[1436] is his manner of speaking when ministerial measures prove unsuccessful. "If I were a lieutenant of the police," he would say again, "I would prohibit cabs." In vain is he aware of the machine being dislocated, for he can do nothing and he causes nothing to be done. In the event of misfortune he has a private reserve, his purse apart. "The king," said Mme. de Pompadour, "would sign away a million without thinking of it, but he would scarcely bestow a hundred louis out of his own little treasury."--Louis XVI strives for some time to remove some of the wheels, to introduce better ones and to reduce the friction of the rest; but the pieces are too rusty, and too weighty. He cannot adjust them, or harmonize them and keep them in their places; his hand falls by his side wearied and powerless. He is content to practice economy himself; he records in his journal the mending of his watch, and leaves the State carriage in the hands of Calonne to be loaded with fresh abuses that it may revert back to the old rut from which it is to issue only by breaking down.

Undoubtedly the wrong they do, or which is done in their name, dissatisfies the kings and upsets them, but, at the bottom, their conscience is not disturbed. They may feel compassion for the people, but they do not feel guilty; they are its sovereigns and not its representatives. France, to them, is as a domain to its lord, and a lord is not deprived of honor in being prodigal and neglectful. He merely gambles away his own property, and nobody has a right to call him to account. Founded on feudal society, royalty is like an estate, an inheritance. It would be infidelity, almost treachery in a prince, in any event weak and base, should he allow any portion of the trust received by him intact from his ancestors for transmission to his children, to pass into the hands of his subjects. Not only according to medieval traditions is he proprietor-commandant of the French and of France, but again, according to the theory of the jurists, he is, like Caesar, the sole and perpetual representative of the nation, and, according to the theological doctrine, like David, the sacred and special delegate of God himself. It would be astonishing, if, with all these titles, he did not consider the public revenue as his personal revenue, and if, in many cases, he did not act accordingly. Our point of view, in this matter, is so essentially opposed to his, we can scarcely put ourselves in his place; but at that time his point of view was everybody's point of view. It seemed, then, as strange to meddle with the king's business as to meddle with that of a private person. Only at the end of the year 1788[1437] the famous salon of the Palais-Royal "with boldness and unimaginable folly, asserts that in a true monarchy the revenues of the State should not be at the sovereign's disposition; that he should be granted merely a sum sufficient to defray the expenses of his establishment, of his donations, and for favors to his servants as well as for his pleasures, while the surplus should be deposited in the royal treasury to be devoted only to purposes sanctioned by the National Assembly. To reduce the sovereign to a civil list, to seize nine-tenths of his income, to forbid him cash on demand, what an outrage! The surprise would be no greater if at the present day it were proposed to divide the income of each millionaire into two portions, the smallest to go for the owner's support, and the largest to be placed in the hands of a government to be expended in works of public utility. An old farmer-general, an intellectual and unprejudiced man, gravely attempts to justify the purchase of Saint-Cloud by calling it "a ring for the queen's finger." The ring cost, indeed, 7,700,000 francs, but "the king of France then had an income of 447,000,000. What could be said of any private individual who, with 477,000 livres income, should, for once in his life, give his wife diamonds worth 7,000 or 8,000 livres?"[1438] People would say that the gift is moderate, and that the husband is reasonable.

To properly understand the history of our kings, let the fundamental principle be always recognized that France is their land, a farm transmitted from father to son, at first small, then slowly enlarged, and, at last, prodigiously enlarged, because the proprietor, always alert, has found means to make favorable additions to it at the expense of his neighbors; at the end of eight hundred years it comprises about 27,000 square leagues of territory. His interests and his vanity harmonize, certainly, in several areas with public welfare; he is, all in all, not a poor administrator, and, since he has always expanded his territory, he has done better than many others. Moreover, around him, a number of expert individuals, old family councilors, withdrawn from business and devoted to the domain, with good heads an gray beards, respectfully remonstrate with him when he spends too freely; they often interest him in public improvements, in roads, canals, homes for the invalids, military schools, scientific institutions and charity workshops; in the control of trust-funds and foundations, in the tolerance of heretics, in the postponement of monastic vows to the age of twenty-one, in provincial assemblies, and in other reforms by which a feudal domain becomes transformed into a modern domain. Nevertheless, the country, feudal or modern, remains his property, which he can abuse as well as use; however, whoever uses with full sway ends by abusing with full license. If, in his ordinary conduct, personal motives do not prevail over public motives, he might be a saint like Louis IX, a stoic like Marcus Aurelius, while remaining a seignior, a man of the world like the people of his court, yet more badly brought up, worse surrounded, more solicited, more tempted and more blindfolded. At the very least he has, like them, his own vanity, his own tastes, his own relatives, his mistress, his wife, his friends, all intimate and influential solicitors who must first be satisfied, while the nation only comes after them.--The result is, that, for a hundred years, from 1672 to 1774, whenever he makes war it is through wounded pride, through family interest, through calculation of private advantages, or to gratify a woman. Louis XV maintains his wars yet worse than in undertaking them;"[1439] while Louis XVI, during the whole of his foreign policy, finds himself hemmed in by the marriage he has made.--At home the king lives like other nobles, but more grandly, because he is the greatest lord in France; I shall describe his court presently, and further on we shall see by what exactions this pomp is made possible. In the meantime let us note two or three details. According to authentic statements, Louis XV expended on Mme. de Pompadour thirty-six millions of livres, which is at least seventy-two millions nowadays[1440] According to d'Argenson,[1441] in 1751, he has 4,000 horses in his stable, and we are assured that his household alone, or his person, "cost this year 68,000,000," almost a quarter of the public revenue. Why be astonished if we look upon the sovereign in the manner of the day, that is to say, as a lord of the manor enjoying of his hereditary property? He constructs, he entertains, he gives festivals, he hunts, and he spends money according to his station. Moreover, being the master of his own funds, he gives to whomsoever he pleases, and all his selections are favors. Abbé de Vermond writes to Empress Maria Theresa[1442]

"Your Majesty knows better than myself, that, according to immemorial custom, three-fourths of the places honors and pensions are awarded not on account of services but out of favor and through influence. This favor was originally prompted by birth, alliance and fortune; the fact is that it nearly always is based on patronage and intrigue. This procedure is so well established, that is respected as a sort of justice even by those who suffer the most from it. A man of worth not able to dazzle by his court alliances, nor through a brilliant expenditure, would not dare to demand a regiment, however ancient and illustrious his services, or his birth. Twenty years ago, the sons of dukes and ministers, of people attached to the court, of the relations and protégés of mistresses, became colonels at the age of sixteen. M. de Choiseul caused loud complaints on extending this age to twenty-three years. But to compensate favoritism and absolutism he assigned to the pure grace of the king, or rather to that of his ministers, the appointment to the grades of lieutenant-colonel and major which, until that time, belonged of right to priority of services in the government; also the commands of provinces and of towns. You are aware that these places have been largely multiplied, and that they are bestowed through favor and credit, like the regiments. The cordon bleu and the cordon rouge are in the like position, and abbeys are still more constantly subject to the régime of influence. As to positions in the finances, I dare not allude to them. Appointments in the judiciary are the most conditioned by services rendered; and yet how much do not influence and recommendation affect the nomination of intendants, first presidents" and the others?

Necker, entering on his duties, finds twenty-eight millions in pensions paid from the royal treasury, and, at his fall, there is an outflow of money showered by millions on the people of the court. Even during his term of office the king allows himself to make the fortunes of his wife's friends of both sexes; the Countess de Polignac obtains 400,000 francs to pay her debts, 100,000 francs dowry for her daughter, and, besides, for herself, the promise of an estate of 35,000 livres income, and, for her lover, the Count de Vaudreil, a pension of 30,000 livres; the Princess de Lamballe obtains 100,000 crowns per annum, as much for the post of superintendent of the queen's household, which is revived on her behalf, as for a position for her brother.[1443] The king is reproached for his parsimony; why should he be sparing of his purse? Started on a course not his own, he gives, buys, builds, and exchanges; he assists those belonging to his own society, doing everything in a style becoming to a grand seignior, that is to say, throwing money away by handfuls. One instance enables us to judge of this: in order to assist the bankrupt Guéménée family, he purchases of them three estates for about 12,500,000 livres, which they had just purchased for 4,000,000; moreover, in exchange for two domains in Brittany, which produce 33,758 livres income, he makes over to them the principality of Dombes which produces nearly 70,000 livres income.[1444]--When we come to read the Red Book further on we shall find 700,000 livres of pensions for the Polignac family, most of them revertible from one member to another, and nearly 2,000,000 of annual benefits to the Noailles family.--The king has forgotten that his favors are mortal blows, "the courtier who obtains 6,000 livres pension, receiving the taille of six villages."[1445] Each largess of the monarch, considering the state of the taxes, is based on the privation of the peasants, the sovereign, through his clerks, taking bread from the poor to give coaches to the rich.--The center of the government, in short, is the center of the evil; all the wrongs and all the miseries start from it as from the center of pain and inflammation; here it is that the public abscess comes to the head, and here will it break.[1446]

VI. Latent Disorganization in France.

Such is the just and fatal effect of privileges turned to selfish purposes instead of being exercised for the advantage of others. To him who utters the word, "Sire or Seignior" stands for the protector who feeds, the ancient who leads."[1447] With such a title and for this purpose too much cannot be granted to him, for there is no more difficult or more exalted post. But he must fulfill its duties; otherwise in the day of peril he will be left to himself. Already, and long before the day arrives, his flock is no longer his own; if it marches onward it is through routine; it is simply a multitude of persons, but no longer an organized body. Whilst in Germany and in England the feudal régime, retained or transformed, still composes a living society, in France[1448] its mechanical framework encloses only so many human particles. We still find the material order, but we no longer find the moral order of things. A lingering, deep-seated revolution has destroyed the close hierarchical union of recognized supremacies and of voluntary deference. It is like an army in which the attitudes of chiefs and subordinates have disappeared; grades are indicated by uniforms only, but they have no hold on consciences. All that constitutes a well-founded army, the legitimate ascendancy of officers, the justified trust of soldiers, the daily interchange of mutual obligations, the conviction of each being useful to all, and that the chiefs are the most useful all, is missing. How could it be otherwise in an army whose staff-officers have no other occupation but to dine out, to display their epaulettes and to receive double pay? Long before the final crash France is in a state of dissolution, and she is in a state of dissolution because the privileged classes had forgotten their characters as public men.

*****

NOTES:

[Footnote 1401: "Rapport de l'agence du clergé," from 1775 to 1780, pp. 31-34.--Ibid. from 1780 to 1785, p. 237.]

[Footnote 1402: Lanfrey, "L'Eglise et les philosophes," passim.]

[Footnote 1403: Boiteau, "Etat de la France en 1789," pp. 205, 207.--D'Argenson "Mémoires," May 5, 1752, September 3, 22, 25, 1753; October 17, 1753, and October 26, 1775.--Prudhomme, "Résumé général des cahiers des Etats-Généraux," 1789, (Registers of the Clergy).--"Histoire des églises du désert," par Charles Coquerel, I. 151 and those following.]

[Footnote 1404: De Ségur, "Mémoires," vol. I. pp. 16, 41.--De Bouillé, "Mémoires," p. 54.--Mme. Campan, "Mémoires," V. I. p. 237, proofs in detail.]

[Footnote 1405: Somewhat like the socialist societies including the welfare states where a caste of public pensionaries, functionaries, civil servants and politicians weigh like a heavy burden on those who actually do the work.. (SR.)]

[Footnote 1406: An antechamber in the palace of Versailles in which there was a round or bull's-eye window, where courtiers assembled to await the opening of the door into the king's apartment.--TR.]

[Footnote 1407: "La France ecclésiastique," 1788.]

[Footnote 1408: Grannier de Cassagnac, "Des causes de la Rèvolution Française," III. 58.]

[Footnote 1409: Marmontel, "Mémoires," . II. book XIII. p. 221.]

[Footnote 1410: Boiteau, "Etat de la France en 1789," pp. 55, 248.--D'Argenson, "Considérations sur le gouvermement de la France," p. 177. De Luynes, "Journal," XIII. 226, XIV. 287, XIII. 33, 158, 162, 118, 233, 237, XV. 268, XVI. 304.--The government of Ham is worth 11,250 livres, that of Auxerre 12,000, that of Briançon 12,000, that of the islands of Ste. Marguerite 16,000, that of Schelestadt 15,000, that of Brisach from 15 to 16,000, that of Gravelines 18,000.--The ordinance of 1776 had reduced these various places as follows: (Warroquier, II, 467). 18 general governments to 60,000 livres, 21 to 30,000; 114 special governments; 25 to 12,000 livres, 25 to 10,000 and 64 to 8,000; 176 lieutenants and commandants of towns, places, etc., of which 35 were reduced to 16,600 and 141 from 2,000 to 6,000.--The ordinance of 1788 established, besides these, 17 commands in chief with from 20,000 to 30,000 livres fixed salary and from 4,000 to 6,000 a month for residence, and commands of a secondary grade.]

[Footnote 1411: Somewhat like a minister of culture in one of our western Welfare Social democracies, and which secures the support for the ruling class of a horde of "artists" of all sorts. (SR.)]

[Footnote 1412: Archives nationales, H, 944, April 25, and September 20, 1780. Letters and Memoirs of Furgole, advocate at Toulouse.]

[Footnote 1413: Archives nationales, O1, 738 (Reports made to the bureau-general of the king's household, March, 1780, by M. Mesnard de Chousy). Augeard, "Mémoires," 97.--Mme. Campan, "Mémoires," I. 291.--D'Argenson, "Mémoires," February 10, December 9, 1751,--"Essai sur les capitaineries royales et autres" (1789), p. 80.--Warroquier, "Etat de la France en 1789," I. 266.]

[Footnote 1414: "Marie Antoinette," by D'Arneth and Geffroy, II. 377.]

[Footnote 1415: 1 crown (écu) equals 6 livres under Louis XV. (SR.)]

[Footnote 1416: Mme. Campan, "Mémoires," I. 296, 298, 300, 301; III. 78.--Hippeau, "Le Gouvernement de Normandie," IV. 171 (Letter from Paris, December 13, 1780).--D'Argenson, "Mémoires," September 5, 1755.--Bachaumont, January 19, 1758.--"Mémoire sur l'imposition territoriale," by M. de Calonne (1787), p. 54.]

[Footnote 1417: D'Argenson, "Mémoires," December 9, 1751. "The expense to courtiers of two new and magnificent coats, each for two fête days, ordered by the king, completely ruins them."]

[Footnote 1418: De Luynes, "Journal," XIV. pp. 147-295, XV. 36, 119.--D'Argenson, "Mémoires," April 8, 1752, March 30 and July 28, 1753, July 2, 1735, June 23, 1756.--Hippeau, ibid.. IV. p. 153 (Letter of May 15, 1780).--Necker, "De l'Administration des Finances," II. pp. 265, 269, 270, 271, 228.--Augeard, "Mémoires," p 249.]

[Footnote 1419: Nicolardot, "Journal de Louis XVI.," p. 228. Appropriations in the Red Book of 1774 to 1789: 227,985,716 livres, of which 80,000,000 are in acquisitions and gifts to the royal family.--Among others there are 14,600,000 to the Comte d'Artois and 14,450,000 to Monsieur.--7,726,253 are given to the Queen for Saint-Cloud.--8,70,000 for the acquisition of Ile-Adam.]

[Footnote 1420: Cf. "Compte général des revenus et dépenses fixes au 1er Mai, 1789" (Imprimerie royale, 1789, in 4to). Estate of Ile-Dieu, acquired in 1783 of the Duc de Mortemart, 1,000,000; estate of Viviers, acquired of the Prince de Soubise in 1784, 1,500,000.--Estates of St. Priest and of St. Etienne, acquired in 1787 of M. Gilbert des Voisins, 1,335,935.--The forests of Camors and of Floranges, acquired of the Duc de Liancourt in 1785, 1,200,000.--The county of Montgommery, acquired of M. Clement de Basville in 1785, 3,306,604.]

[Footnote 1421: "Le President des Brosses," by Foisset. (Remonstrances to the king by the Parliament of Dijon, Jan. 19, 1764).]

[Footnote 1422: Lucas de Montigny, "Mémoires de Mirabeau." Letter of the bailiff, May 26, 1781.--D'Argenson, "Mémoires," VI. 156, 157, 160, 76; VI. p. 320.--Marshal Marmont, "Mémoires," I. 9.--De Ferrières, "Mémoires," preface. See, on the difficulty in succeeding, the Memoirs of Dumourier. Châteaubriand's father is likewise one of the discontented, "a political frondeur, and very inimical to the court." (I. 206).--Records of the States-General of 1789, a general summary by Prud'homme, II. passim.]

[Footnote 1423: "Ephémérides du citoyen," II. 202, 203.--Voltaire, "Dictionnaire philosophique," article "Curé de Campagne."--Abbé Guettée, "Histoire de l'Eglise de France," XII. 130.]

[Footnote 1424: Those entitled to tithes in cereals.--TR.]

[Footnote 1425: A curate's salary at the present day (1875) is, at the minimum, 900 francs with a house and perquisites.]

[Footnote 1426: Théron de Montaugé, "L'Agriculture les classes rurale, dans le pays Toulousain," p. 86.]

[Footnote 1427: Périn, "la Jeunesse de Robespierre," grievances of the rural parishes of Artois, p. 320.--Boivin-Champeaux, ibid.. pp. 65, 68.--Hippeau, ibid.. VI. p. 79, et VII. 177.--Letter of M. Sergent, curate of Vallers, January 27, 1790. (Archives nationales, DXIX. portfolio 24.) Letter of M. Briscard, curate of Beaumont-la-Roger, diocese of Evreux, December 19, 1789. (ibid.. DXIX. portfolio 6.) "Tableau moral du clergé de France" (1789), p. 2.]

[Footnote 1428: He who has the right of receiving the first year's income of a parish church after a vacancy caused by death.--TR.]

[Footnote 1429: One who performs masses for the dead at fixed epochs.--TR.]

[Footnote 1430: Grievances on the additional burdens which the Third-Estate have to support, by Gautier de Bianzat (1788), p 237.]

[Footnote 1431: Hippeau, ibid. VI. 164. (Letter of the Curate of Marolles and of thirteen others,. Letter of the bishop of Evreux, March 20, 1789. Letter of the abbé d'Osmond, April 2, 1789).--Archives nationales, manuscript documents (proces-verbeaux) of the States-General, V. 148. pp. 245-47. Registers of the curates of Toulouse, t. 150, p. 282, in the representations of the Dijon chapter.]

[Footnote 1432: De Toqueville, book II. This capital truth as been established by M. de Tocqueville with superior discernment.]

[Footnote 1433: A term indicating a certain division of the kingdom of France to facilitate the collection of taxes. Each generalship was subdivided into elections, in which there was a tribunal called the bureau of finances. (TR.)]

[Footnote 1434: Remonstrances of Malesherbes; Registers by Turgot and Necker to the king, (Laboulaye, "De l'administration française sous Louis XVI, Revue des cours littéraires, IV. 423, 759, 814.)]

[Footnote 1435: Financiers have been known to tell citizens: "The ferme ( revenue-agency) ought to be able to grant you favors, you ought to be forced to come and ask for them.--He who pays never knows what he owes. The fermier is sovereign legislator in matters relating to his personal interest. Every petition, in which the interests of a province, or those of the whole nation are concerned, is regarded as penal foolhardiness if it is signed by a person in his private capacity, and as illicit association if it be signed by several." Malesherbes, ibid..]

[Footnote 1436: Mme. Campan, "Mémoires," I. p. 13.--Mme. du Hausset, "Mémoires," p. 114.]

[Footnote 1437: "Gustave III. et la cour de France," by Geffroy. II. 474. ("Archives de Dresde," French Correspondence, November 20, 1788.)]

[Footnote 1438: Augeard, "Mémoires," p. 135.]

[Footnote 1439: Mme. de Pompadour, writing to Marshal d'Estrées, in the army, about the campaign operations, and tracing for him a sort of plan, had marked on the paper with mouches (face-patches), the different places which she advised him to attack or defend." Mme. de Genlis, "Souvenirs de Félicie," p. 329. Narrative by Mme. de Puisieux, the mother-in-law of Marshal d'Estrées.]

[Footnote 1440: According to the manuscript register of Mme. de Pompadour's expenses, in the archives of the préfecture of Versailles, she had expended 36,327,268 livres. (Granier de Cassagnac, I. 91.)]

[Footnote 1441: D'Argenson, "Mémoires," VI. 398 (April 24, 1751).--"M. du Barry declared openly that he had consumed 18,000,000 belonging to the State." (Correspondence by Métra, I. 27).]

[Footnote 1442: "Marie Antoinette," by d'Arneth and Geffroy, vol. II. p. 168 (June 5, 1774).]

[Footnote 1443: "Marie Antoinette," ibid.. vol. II. p. 377; vol. III. p. 391.]

[Footnote 1444: Archives nationales, H, 1456, Memoir for M. Bouret de Vezelay, syndic for the creditors.]

[Footnote 1445: Marquis de Mirabeau, "Traité de la population," p. 81.]

[Footnote 1446: Today, our so-called popular democracies have become completely irresponsible since the elected, who have full access to the coffers of the nation, present and future, and who, through alternation and short duration of tenure, are encouraged to become irresponsible, will use large amounts to be favorably exposed in the media and to avoid any kind of mudslinging. They seem to govern their countries according to the devise: "After me the deluge." (SR.)]

[Footnote 1447: Lord, in Old Saxon, signifies "he who provides food;" seignior, in the Latin of the middle ages, signifies "the ancient," the head or chief of the flock.]

[Footnote 1448: Around 1780. (SR.)]

BOOK SECOND. MORALS AND CHARACTERS.

## CHAPTER I. MORAL PRINCIPLES UNDER THE ANCIENT REGIME.

The Court and a life of pomp and parade.

A military staff on furlough for a century and more, around a commander-in-chief who gives fashionable entertainment, is the principle and summary of the habits of society under the ancient régime. Hence, if we seek to comprehend them we must first study them at their center and their source, that is to say, in the court itself. Like the whole ancient régime the court is the empty form, the surviving adornment of a military institution, the causes of which have disappeared while the effects remain, custom surviving utility. Formerly, in the early times of feudalism, in the companionship and simplicity of the camp and the castle, the nobles served the king with their own hands. One providing for his house, another bringing a dish to his table, another disrobing him at night, and another looking after his falcons and horses. Still later, under Richelieu and during the Fronde,[2101] amid the sudden attacks and the rude exigencies of constant danger they constitute the garrison of his lodgings, forming an armed escort for him, and a retinue of ever-ready swordsmen. Now as formerly they are equally assiduous around his person, wearing their swords, awaiting a word, and eager to his bidding, while those of highest rank seemingly perform domestic service in his household. Pompous parade, however, has been substituted for efficient service; they are elegant adornments only and no longer useful tools; they act along with the king who is himself an actor, their persons serving as royal decoration.

I. Versailles.

The Physical aspect and the moral character of Versailles.

It must be admitted that the decoration is successful, and, that since the fêtes of the Italian Renaissance, more magnificent displays have not been seen. Let us follow the file of carriages which, from Paris to Versailles, rolls steadily along like a river. Certain horses called "des enragés," fed in a particular way, go and come in three hours.[2102] One feels, at the first glance, as if he were in a city of a particular stamp, suddenly erected and at one stroke, like a prize-medal for a special purpose, of which only one is made, its form being a thing apart, as well as its origin and use. In vain is it one of the largest cities of the kingdom, with its population of 80,000 souls;[2103] it is filled, peopled, and occupied by the life of a single man; it is simply a royal residence, arranged entirely to provide for the wants, the pleasures, the service, the guardianship, the society, the display of a king. Here and there, in corners and around it, are inns, stalls, taverns, hovels for laborers and for drudges, for dilapidated soldiers and accessory menials. These tenements necessarily exist, since technicians are essential to the most magnificent apotheosis. The rest, however, consists of sumptuous hotels and edifices, sculptured façades, cornices and balustrades, monumental stairways, seigniorial architecture, regularly spaced and disposed, as in a procession, around the vast and grandiose palace where all this terminates. Here are the fixed abodes of the noblest families; to the right of the palace are the hôtels de Bourbon, d'Ecquervilly, de la Trémoille, de Condé, de Maurepas, de Bouillon, d'Eu, de Noailles, de Penthièvre, de Livry, du Comte de la Marche, de Broglie, du Prince de Tingry, d'Orléans, de Chatillon, de Villerry, d'Harcourt, de Monaco; on the left are the pavilions d'Orléans, d'Harcourt, the hôtels de Chevreuse, de Babelle, de l'Hôpital, d'Antin, de Dangeau, de Pontchartrain--no end to their enumeration. Add to these those of Paris, all those which, ten leagues around. At Sceaux, at Génevilliers, at Brunoy, at Ile-Adam, at Rancy, at Saint-Ouen, at Colombes, at Saint-Germain, at Marly, at Bellevue, in countless places, they form a crown of architectural flowers, from which daily issue as many gilded wasps to shine and buzz about Versailles, the center of all luster and affluence. About a hundred of these are "presented each year, men and women, which makes about 2 or 3,000 in all;[2104] this forms the king's society, the ladies who courtesy before him, and the seigniors who accompany him in his carriage; their hotels are near by, or within reach, ready to fill his drawing room or his antechamber at all hours.

A drawing room like this calls for proportionate dependencies; the hotels and buildings at Versailles devoted to the private service of the king and his attendants count by hundreds. No human existence since that of the Caesars has so spread itself out in the sunshine. In the Rue des Reservoirs we have the old hotel and the new one of the governor of Versailles, the hotel of the tutor to the children of the Comte d'Artois, the ward-robe of the crown, the building for the dressing-rooms and green-rooms of the actors who perform at the palace, with the stables belonging to Monsieur.--In the Rue des Bon-Enfants are the hotel of the keeper of the wardrobe, the lodgings for the fountain-men, the hotel of the officers of the Comtesse de Provence. In the Rue de la Pompe, the hotel of the grand-provost, the Duke of Orleans's stables, the hotel of the Comte d'Artois's guardsmen, the queen's stables, the pavilion des Sources.--In the Rue Satory the Comtesse d'Artois's stables, Monsieur's English garden, the king's ice-houses, the riding-hall of the king's light-horse-guards, the garden belonging to the hotel of the treasurers of the buildings.--Judge of other streets by these four. One cannot take a hundred steps without encountering some accessory of the palace: the hotel of the staff of the body-guard, the hotel of the staff of light-horse-guards, the immense hotel of the body-guard itself, the hotel of the gendarmes of the guard, the hotel of the grand wolf-huntsman, of the grand falconer, of the grand huntsman, of the grand-master, of the commandant of the canal, of the comptroller-general, of the superintendent of the buildings, and of the chancellor; buildings devoted to falconry, and the vol de cabinet, to boar-hunting, to the grand kennel, to the dauphin kennel, to the kennel for untrained dogs, to the court carriages, to shops and storehouses connected with amusements, to the great stable and the little stables, to other stables in the Rue de Limoges, in the Rue Royale, and in the Avenue Saint-Cloud; to the king's vegetable garden, comprising twenty-nine gardens and four terraces; to the great dwelling occupied by 2,000 persons, with other tenements called "Louises" in which the king assigned temporary or permanent lodgings,--words on paper render no physical impression of the physical enormity.--At the present day nothing remains of this old Versailles, mutilated and appropriated to other uses, but fragments, which, nevertheless, one should go and see. Observe those three avenues meeting in the great square. Two hundred and forty feet broad and twenty-four hundred long, and not too large for the gathering crowds, the display, the blinding velocity of the escorts in full speed and of the carriages running "at death's door."[2105] Observe the two stables facing the chateau with their railings one hundred and ninety-two feet long. In 1682 they cost three millions, that is to say, fifteen millions to day. They are so ample and beautiful that, even under Louis XIV himself, they sometimes served as a cavalcade circus for the princes, sometimes as a theater, and sometimes as a ball-room. Then let the eye follow the development of the gigantic semi-circular square which, from railing to railing and from court to court, ascends and slowly decreases, at first between the hotels of the ministers and then between the two colossal wings, terminating in the ostentatious frame of the marble court where pilasters, statues, pediments, and multiplied and accumulated ornaments, story above story, carry the majestic regularity of their lines and the overcharged mass of their decoration up to the sky. According to a bound manuscript bearing the arms of Mansart, the palace cost 153 million, that is to say, about 750 million francs of to day;[2106] when a king aims at imposing display this is the cost of his lodging. Now turn the eye to the other side, towards the gardens, and this self-display becomes the more impressive. The parterres and the park are, again, a drawing room in the open air. There is nothing natural of nature here; she is put in order and rectified wholly with a view to society; this is no place to be alone and to relax oneself, but a place for promenades and the exchange of polite salutations. Those formal groves are walls and hangings; those shaven yews are vases and lyres. The parterres are flowering carpets. In those straight, rectilinear avenues the king, with his cane in his hand, groups around him his entire retinue. Sixty ladies in brocade dresses, expanding into skirts measuring twenty-four feet in circumference, easily find room on the steps of the staircases.[2107] Those verdant cabinets afford shade for a princely collation. Under that circular portico, all the seigniors enjoying the privilege of entering it witness together the play of a new jet d'eau. Their counterparts greet them even in the marble and bronze figures which people the paths and basins, in the dignified face of an Apollo, in the theatrical air of a Jupiter, in the worldly ease or studied nonchalance of a Diana or a Venus. The stamp of the court, deepened through the joint efforts of society for a century, is so strong that it is graven on each detail as on the whole, and on material objects as on matters of the intellect.

II. The King's Household.

Its officials and expenses.--His military family, his stable, kennel, chapel, attendants, table, chamber, wardrobe, outhouses, furniture, journeys.

The foregoing is but the framework; before 1789 it was completely filled up. "You have seen nothing," says Châteaubriand, "if you have not seen the pomp of Versailles, even after the disbanding of the king's household; Louis XIV was always there."[2108] It is a swarm of liveries, uniforms, costumes and equipages as brilliant and as varied as in a picture. I should be glad to have lived eight days in this society. It was made expressly to be painted, being specially designed for the pleasure of the eye, like an operatic scene. But how can we of to day imagine people for whom life was wholly operatic? At that time a grandee was obliged to live in great state; his retinue and his trappings formed a part of his personality; he fails in doing himself justice if these are not as ample and as splendid as he can make them; he would be as much mortified at any blank in his household as we with a hole in our coats. Should he make any curtailment he would decline in reputation; on Louis XVI undertaking reforms the court says that he acts like a bourgeois. When a prince or princess becomes of age a household is formed for them; when a prince marries, a household is formed for his wife; and by a household it must be understood that it is a pompous display of fifteen or twenty distinct services: stables, a hunting-train, a chapel, a surgery, the bedchamber and the wardrobe, a chamber for accounts, a table, pantry, kitchen, and wine-cellars, a fruitery, a fourrière, a common kitchen, a cabinet, a council;[2109] she would feel that she was not a princess without all this. There are 274 appointments in the household of the Duc d'Orléans, 210 in that of Mesdames, 68 in that of Madame Elisabeth, 239 in that of the Comtesse d'Artois, 256 in that of the Comtesse de Provence, and 496 in that of the Queen. When the formation of a household for Madame Royale, one month old, is necessary, "the queen," writes the Austrian ambassador, "desires to suppress a baneful indolence, a useless affluence of attendants, and every practice tending to give birth to sentiments of pride. In spite of the said retrenchment the household of the young princess is to consist of nearly eighty persons destined to the sole service of her Royal Highness."[2110] The civil household of Monsieur comprises 420 appointments, his military household, 179; that of the Comte d'Artois 237 and his civil household 456.--Three-fourths of them are for display; with their embroideries and laces, their unembarrassed and polite expression, their attentive and discreet air, their easy way of saluting, walking and smiling, they appear well in an antechamber, placed in lines, or scattered in groups in a gallery; I should have liked to contemplate even the stable and kitchen array, the figures filling up the background of the picture. By these stars of inferior magnitude we may judge of the splendor of the royal sun.

The king must have guards, infantry, cavalry, body-guards, French guardsmen, Swiss guardsmen, Cent Suisses, light-horse guards, gendarmes of the guard, gate-guardsmen, in all, 9,050 men,[2111] costing annually 7,681,000 livres. Four companies of the French guard, and two of the Swiss guard, parade every day in the court of the ministers between the two railings, and when the king issues in his carriage to go to Paris or Fontainebleau the spectacle is magnificent. Four trumpeters in front and four behind, the Swiss guards on one side and the French guards on the other, form a line as far as it can reach.[2112] The Cent Suisses march ahead of the horsemen in the costume of the sixteenth century, wearing the halberd, ruff, plumed hat, and the ample parti-colored striped doublet; alongside of these are the provost-guard with scarlet facings and gold frogs, and companies of yeomanry bristling with gold and silver. The officers of the various corps, the trumpeters and the musicians, covered with gold and silver lace, are dazzling to look at; the kettledrum suspended at the saddle-bow, overcharged with painted and gilded ornaments, is a curiosity for a glass case; the Negro cymbal-player of the French guards resembles the sultan of a fairy-tale. Behind the carriage and alongside of it trot the body-guards, with sword and carbine, wearing red breeches, high black boots, and a blue coat sewn with white embroidery, all of them unquestionable gentlemen; there were twelve hundred of these selected among the nobles and according to size; among them are the guards de la manche, still more intimate, who at church and on ceremonial occasions, in white doublets starred with silver and gold spangles, holding their damascene partisans in their hands, always remain standing and turned towards the king "so as to see his person from all sides." Thus is his protection ensured. Being a gentleman the king is a cavalier, and he must have a suitable stable,[2113] 1,857 horses, 217 vehicles, 1,458 men whom he clothes, the liveries costing 540,000 francs a year; besides these there were 20 tutors and sub-tutors, almoners, professors, cooks, and valets to govern, educate and serve the pages; and again about thirty physicians, apothecaries, nurses for the sick, intendants, treasurers, workmen, and licensed and paid merchants for the accessories of the service; in all more than 1,500 men. Horses to the amount of 250,000 francs are purchased yearly, and there are stock-stables in Limousin and in Normandy to draw on for supplies. 287 horses are exercised daily in the two riding-halls; there are 443 saddle-horses in the small stable, 437 in the large one, and these are not sufficient for the "vivacity of the service." The whole cost 4,600,000 livres in 1775, which sum reaches 6,200,000 livres in 1787.[2114] Still another spectacle should be seen with one's own eyes,--the pages,[2115] the grooms, the laced pupils, the silver-button pupils, the boys of the little livery in silk, the instrumentalists and the mounted messengers of the stable. The use of the horse is a feudal art; no luxury is more natural to a man of quality. Think of the stables at Chantilly, which are palaces. To convey an idea of a well-educated and genteel man he was then called an accomplished cavalier;" in fact his importance was fully manifest only when he was in the saddle, on a blood-horse like himself.--Another genteel taste, an effect of the preceding, is the chase. It costs the king from 1,100,000 to 1,200,000 livres a year, and requires 280 horses besides those of the two stables. A more varied or more complete equipment could not be imagined: a pack of hounds for the boar, another for the wolf another for the roe-buck, a cast (of hawks) for the crow, a cast for the magpie, a cast for merlins, a cast for hares, a cast for the fields. In 1783, 179,194 livres are expended for feeding horses, and 53,412 livres for feeding dogs.[2116] The entire territory, ten leagues around Paris, is a game-preserve; "not a gun could be fired there;[2117] accordingly the plains are seen covered with partridges accustomed to man, quietly picking up the grain and never stirring as he passes." Add to this the princes' captaincies, extending as far as Villers-Cotterets and Orleans; these form an almost continuous circle around Paris, thirty leagues in circumference, where game, protected, replaced and multiplied, swarms for the pleasure of the king. The park of Versailles alone forms an enclosure of more than ten leagues. The forest of Rambouillet embraces 25,000 arpents (30,000 acres). Herds of seventy-five and eighty stags are encountered around Fontainebleau. No true hunter could read the minute-book of the chase without feeling an impulse of envy. The wolf-hounds run twice a week, and they take forty wolves a year. Between 1743 and 1744 Louis XV runs down 6,400 stags. Louis XVI writes, August 30th, 1781: "Killed 460 head to day." In 1780 he brings down 20,534 head; in 1781, 20,291; in fourteen years, 189,251 head, besides 1,254 stags, while boars and bucks are proportionate; and it must be noted that this is all done by his own hand, since his parks approach his houses.--Such, in fine, is the character of a "well-appointed household," that is to say, provided with its dependencies and services. Everything is within reach; it is a complete world in itself and self-sufficient. One exalted being attaches to and gathers around it, with universal foresight and minuteness of detail, every appurtenance it employs or can possibly employ.--Thus, each prince, each princess has a professional surgery and a chapel;[2118] it would not answer for the almoner who says mass or the doctor who looks after their health to be obtained outside. So much stronger is the reason that the king should have ministrants of this stamp; his chapel embraces seventy-five almoners, chaplains, confessors, masters of the oratory, clerks, announcers, carpet-bearers, choristers, copyists, and composers of sacred music; his faculty is composed of forty-eight physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, oculists, operators, bone-setters, distillers, chiropodists and spagyrists (a species of alchemists). We must still note his department of profane music, consisting of one hundred and twenty-eight vocalists, dancers, instrumentalists, directors and superintendents; his library corps of forty-three keepers, readers, interpreters, engravers, medallists, geographers, binders and printers; the staff of ceremonial display, sixty-two heralds, sword-bearers, ushers and musicians; the staff of housekeepers, consisting of sixty-eight marshals, guides and commissaries. I omit other services in haste to reach the most important,--that of the table; a fine house and good housekeeping being known by the table.

There are three sections of the table service;[2119] the first for the king and his younger children; the second, called the little ordinary, for the table of the grand-master, the grand-chamberlain and the princes and princesses living with the king; the third, called the great ordinary, for the grand-master's second table, that of the butlers of the king's household, the almoners, the gentlemen in waiting, and that of the valets-de-chambre, in all three hundred and eighty-three officers of the table and one hundred and three waiters, at an expense of 2,177,771 livres; besides this there are 389,173 livres appropriated to the table of Madame Elisabeth, and 1,093,547 livres for that of Mesdames, the total being 3,660,491 livres for the table. The wine-merchant furnished wine to the amount of 300,000 francs per annum, and the purveyor game, meat and fish at a cost of 1,000,000 livres. Only to fetch water from Ville-d'Avray, and to convey servants, waiters and provisions, required fifty horses hired at the rate of 70,591 francs per annum. The privilege of the royal princes and princesses "to send to the bureau for fish on fast days when not residing regularly at the court," amounts in 1778 to 175,116 livres. On reading in the Almanach the titles of these officials we see a Gargantua's feast spread out before us. The formal hierarchy of the kitchens, so many grand officials of the table,--the butlers, comptrollers and comptroller-pupils, the clerks and gentlemen of the pantry, the cup-bearers and carvers, the officers and equerries of the kitchen, the chiefs, assistants and head-cooks, the ordinary scullions, turnspits and cellarers, the common gardeners and salad gardeners, laundry servants, pastry-cooks, plate-changers, table-setters, crockery-keepers, and broach-bearers, the butler of the table of the head-butler,--an entire procession of broad-braided backs and imposing round bellies, with grave countenances, which, with order and conviction, exercise their functions before the saucepans and around the buffets.

One step more and we enter the sanctuary, the king's apartment. Two principal dignitaries preside over this, and each has under him about a hundred subordinates. On one side is the grand chamberlain with his first gentlemen of the bedchamber, the pages of the bedchamber, their governors and instructors, the ushers of the antechamber, with the four first valets-de-chambre in ordinary, sixteen special valets serving in turn, his regular and special cloak-bearers, his barbers, upholsterers, watch-menders, waiters and porters; on the other hand is the grand-master of the wardrobe, with the masters of the wardrobe and the valets of the wardrobe regular and special, the ordinary trunk-carriers, mail-bearers, tailors, laundry servants, starchers, and common waiters, with the gentlemen, officers and secretaries in ordinary of the cabinet, in all 198 persons for domestic service, like 50 many domestic utensils for every personal want, or as sumptuous pieces of furniture for the decoration of the apartment. Some of them fetch the mall and the balls, others hold the mantle and cane, others comb the king's hair and dry him off after a bath, others drive the mules which transport his bed, others watch his pet greyhounds in his room, others fold, put on and tie his cravat, and others fetch and carry off his easy chair.[2120] Some there are whose sole business it is to fill a corner which must not be left empty. Certainly, with respect to ease of deportment and appearance these are the most conspicuous of all; being so close to the master they are under obligation to appear well; in such proximity their bearing must not create a discord.--Such is the king's household, and I have only described one of his residences; he has a dozen of them besides Versailles, great and small, Marly, the two Trianons, la Muette, Meudon, Choisy, Saint-Hubert, Saint-Germain, Fontainebleau, Compiègne, Saint-Cloud, Rambouillet,[2121] without counting the Louvre, the Tuileries and Chambord, with their parks and hunting-grounds, their governors, inspectors, comptrollers, concierges, fountain tenders, gardeners, sweepers, scrubbers, mole-catchers, wood-rangers, mounted and foot-guards, in all more than a thousand persons. Naturally he entertains, plans and builds, and, in this way expends 3 or 4 millions per annum.[2122] Naturally, also, he repairs and renews his furniture; in 1778, which is an average year, this costs him 1,936,853 livres. Naturally, also, he takes his guests along with him and defrays their expenses, they and their attendants; at Choisy, in 1780, there are sixteen tables with 345 seats besides the distributions; at Saint-Cloud, in 1785, there are twenty-six tables; "an excursion to Marly of twenty-one days is a matter of 120,000 livres extra expense;" the excursion to Fontainebleau has cost as much as 400,000 and 500,000 livres. His removals, on the average, cost half a million and more per annum.[2123]--To complete our idea of this immense paraphernalia it must be borne in mind that the artisans and merchants belonging to these various official bodies are obliged; through the privileges they enjoy, to follow the court "on its journeys that it may be provided on the spot with apothecaries, armorers, gunsmiths, sellers of silken and woollen hosiery, butchers, bakers, embroiderers, publicans, cobblers, belt-makers, candle-makers, hatters, pork-dealers, surgeons, shoemakers, curriers, cooks, pinkers, gilders and engravers, spur-makers, sweetmeat-dealers, furbishers, old-clothes brokers, glove-perfumers, watchmakers, booksellers, linen-drapers, wholesale and retail wine-dealers, carpenters, coarse-jewelry haberdashers, jewellers, parchment-makers, dealers in trimmings, chicken-roasters, fish-dealers, purveyors of hay, straw and oats, hardware-sellers, saddlers, tailors, gingerbread and starch-dealers, fruiterers, dealers in glass and in violins."[2124] One might call it an oriental court which, to be set in motion, moves an entire world: "when it is to move one must, if one wants to travel anywhere, take the post in well in advance." The total is near 4,000 persons for the king's civil household, 9,000 to 10,000 for his military household, at least 2,000 for those of his relatives, in all 15,000 individuals, at a cost of between forty and fifty million livres, which would be equal to double the amount to day, and which, at that time, constituted one-tenth of the public revenue.[2125] We have here the central figure of the monarchical show. However grand and costly it may be, it is only proportionate to its purpose, since the court is a public institution, and the aristocracy, with nothing to do, devotes itself to filling up the king's drawing-room.

III. The King's Associates.

The society of the king.--Officers of the household. --Invited guests.

Two causes maintain this affluence, one the feudal form still preserved, and the other the new centralization just introduced; one placing the royal service in the hands of the nobles, and the other converting the nobles into place-hunters.--Through the duties of the palace the highest nobility live with the king, residing under his roof; the grand-almoner is M. de Montmorency-Laval, bishop of Metz; the first almoner is M. de Bussuéjouls, bishop of Senlis; the grand-master of France is the Prince de Condé; the first royal butier is the Comte d'Escars; the second is the Marquis de Montdragon; the master of the pantry is the Duke de Brissac; the chief cup-bearer is the Marquis de Vemeuil; the chief carver is the Marquis de la Chesnaye; the first gentlemen of the bedchamber are the Ducs de Richelieu, de Durfort, de Villequier, and de Fleury; the grand-master of the wardrobe is the Duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt; the masters of the wardrobe are the Comte de Boisgelin and the Marquis de Chauvelin. The captain of the falconry is the Chevalier du Forget; the captain of the boar-hunt is the Marquis d'Ecquevilly; the superintendent of edifices is the Comte d'Angevillier; the grand-equerry is the Prince de Lambesc; the master of the hounds is the Duc de Penthièvre; the grand-master of ceremonies is the Marquis de Brèze; the grand-master of the household is the Marquis de la Suze; the captains of the guards are the Ducs d'Agen, de Villery, de Brissac, d'Aguillon, and de Biron, the Princes de Poix, de Luxembourg and de Soubise. The provost of the hotel is the Marquis de Tourzel; the governors of the residences and captains of the chase are the Duc de Noailles, Marquis de Champcenetz, Baron de Champlost, Duc de Coigny, Comte de Modena, Comte de Montmorin, Duc de Laval, Comte de Brienne, Duc d'Orléans, and the Duc de Gèsvres.[2126] All these seigniors are the king's necessary intimates, his permanent and generally hereditary guests, dwelling under his roof; in close and daily intercourse with him, for they are "his folks" (gens)[2127] and perform domestic service about his person. Add to these their equals, as noble and nearly as numerous, dwelling with the queen, with Mesdames, with Mme. Elisabeth, with the Comte and Comtesse de Provence and the Comte and Comtesse d'Artois.--And these are only the heads of the service; if; below them in rank and office, I count the titular nobles, I find, among others, 68 almoners or chaplains, 170 gentlemen of the bedchamber or in waiting, 117 gentlemen of the stable or of the hunting-train, 148 pages, 114 titled ladies in waiting, besides all the officers, even to the lowest of the military household, without counting 1,400 ordinary guards who, verified by the genealogist, are admitted by virtue of their title to pay their court.[2128] Such is the fixed body of recruits for the royal receptions; the distinctive trait of this régime is the conversion of its servants into guests, the drawing room being filled from the anteroom.

Not that the drawing room needs all that to be filled. Being the source of all preferment and of every favor, it is natural that it should overflow[2129]. It is the same in our leveling society (in 1875), where the drawing room of an insignificant deputy, a mediocre journalist, or a fashionable woman, is full of courtiers under the name of friends and visitors. Moreover, here, to be present is an obligation; it might be called a continuation of ancient feudal homage; the staff of nobles is maintained as the retinue of its born general. In the language of the day, it is called "paying one's duty to the king." Absence, in the sovereign's eyes, would be a sign of independence as well as of indifference, while submission as well as regular attention is his due. In this respect we must study the institution from the beginning. The eyes of Louis XIV go their rounds at every moment, "on arising or retiring, on passing into his apartments, in his gardens,. . . nobody escapes, even those who hoped they were not seen; it was a demerit with some, and the most distinguished, not to make the court their ordinary sojourn, to others to come to it but seldom, and certain disgrace to those who never, or nearly never, came."[2130] Henceforth, the main thing, for the first personages in the kingdom, men and women, ecclesiastics and laymen, the grand affair, the first duty in life, the true occupation, is to be at all hours and in every place under the king's eye, within reach of his voice and of his glance. "Whoever," says La Bruyère, "considers that the king's countenance is the courtier's supreme felicity, that he passes his life looking on it and within sight of it, will comprehend to some extent how to see God constitutes the glory and happiness of the saints." There were at this time prodigies of voluntary assiduity and subjection. The Duc de Fronsac, every morning at seven o'clock, in winter and in summer, stationed himself, at his father's command, at the foot of the small stairway leading to the chapel, solely to shake hands with Mme. de Maintenon on her leaving for St. Cyr.[2131] "Pardon me, Madame," writes the Duc de Richelieu to her, "the great liberty I take in presuming to send you the letter which I have written to the king, begging him on my knees that he will occasionally allow me to pay my court to him at Ruel, for I would rather die than pass two months without seeing him." The true courtier follows the prince as a shadow follows its body; such, under Louis XIV, was the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, the master of the hounds. "He never missed the king's rising or retiring, both changes of dress every day, the hunts and the promenades, likewise every day, for ten years in succession, never sleeping away from the place where the king rested, and yet on a footing to demand leave, but not to stay away all night, for he had not slept out of Paris once in forty years, but to go and dine away from the court, and not be present on the promenade."--If; later, and under less exacting masters, and in the general laxity of the eighteenth century, this discipline is relaxed, the institution nevertheless subsists;[2132] in default of obedience, tradition, interest and amour-propre suffice for the people of the court. To approach the king, to be a domestic in his household, an usher, a cloak-bearer, a valet, is a privilege that is purchased, even in 1789, for thirty, forty, and a hundred thousand livres; so much greater the reason why it is a privilege to form a part of his society, the most honorable, the most useful, and the most coveted of all.--In the first place, it is a proof of noble birth. A man, to follow the king in the chase, and a woman, to be presented to the queen, must previously satisfy the genealogist, and by authentic documents, that his or her nobility goes back to the year 1400.--In the next place, it ensures good fortune. This drawing room is the only place within reach of royal favors; accordingly, up to 1789, the great families never stir away from Versailles, and day and night they lie in ambush. The valet of the Marshal de Noaillles says to him one night on closing his curtains,

"At what hour will Monseigneur be awakened?" "At ten o'clock, if no one dies during the night."[2133]

Old courtiers are still found who, "at the age of eighty, have passed forty-five on their feet in the antechambers of the king, of the princes, and of the ministers. . .

"You have only three things to do," says one of them to a debutant, "speak well of everybody, ask for every vacancy, and sit down when you can."

Hence, the king always has a crowd around him. The Comtesse du Barry says, on presenting her niece at court, the first of August, 1773, "the crowd is so great at a presentation, one can scarcely get through the antechambers."[2134] In December, 1774, at Fontainebleau, when the queen plays at her own table every evening, "the apartment, though vast, is never empty. . . . The crowd is so great that one can talk only to the two or three persons with whom one is playing." The fourteen apartments, at the receptions of ambassadors are full to overflowing with seigniors and richly dressed women. On the first of January, 1775, the queen "counted over two hundred ladies presented to her to pay their court." In 1780, at Choisy, a table for thirty persons is spread every day for the king, another with thirty places for the seigniors, another with forty places for the officers of the guard and the equerries, and one with fifty for the officers of the bedchamber. According to my estimate, the king, on getting up and on retiring, on his walks, on his hunts, at play, has always around him at least forty or fifty seigniors and generally a hundred, with as many ladies, besides his attendants on duty. At Fontainebleau, in 1756, although "there were neither fêtes nor ballets this year, one hundred and six ladies were counted." When the king holds a "grand apartement," when play or dancing takes place in the gallery of mirrors, four or five hundred guests, the elect of the nobles and of the fashion, range themselves on the benches or gather around the card and cavanole tables.[2135] This is a spectacle to be seen, not by the imagination, or through imperfect records, but with our own eyes and on the spot, to comprehend the spirit, the effect and the triumph of monarchical culture. In an elegantly furnished house, the drawing room is the principal room; and never was one more dazzling than this. Suspended from the sculptured ceiling peopled with sporting cupids, descend, by garlands of flowers and foliage, blazing chandeliers, whose splendor is enhanced by the tail mirrors; the light streams down in floods on gilding, diamonds, and beaming, arch physiognomies, on fine busts, and on the capacious, sparkling and garlanded dresses. The skirts of the ladies ranged in a circle, or in tiers on the benches, "form a rich espalier covered with pearls, gold, silver, jewels, spangles, flowers and fruits, with their artificial blossoms, gooseberries, cherries, and strawberries," a gigantic animated bouquet of which the eye can scarcely support the brilliancy. There are no black coats, as nowadays, to disturb the harmony. With the hair powdered and dressed, with buckles and knots, with cravats and ruffles of lace, in silk coats and vests of the hues of fallen leaves, or of a delicate rose tint, or of celestial blue, embellished with gold braid and embroidery, the men are as elegant as the women. Men and women, each is a selection; they all are of the accomplished class, gifted with every grace which good blood, education, fortune, leisure and custom can bestow; they are perfect of their kind. There is no toilet, no carriage of the head, no tone of the voice, no expression in language which is not a masterpiece of worldly culture, the distilled quintessence of all that is exquisitely elaborated by social art. Polished as the high society of Paris may be, it does not approach this;[2136] compared with the court, it seems provincial. It is said that a hundred thousand roses are required to make an ounce of the unique perfume used by Persian kings; such is this drawing-room, the frail vial of crystal and gold containing the substance of a human vegetation. To fill it, a great aristocracy had to be transplanted to a hot-house and become sterile in fruit and flowers, and then, in the royal alembic, its pure sap is concentrated into a few drops of aroma. The price is excessive, but only at this price can the most delicate perfumes be manufactured.

IV. Everyday Life In Court.

The king's occupations.--Rising in the morning, mass, dinner, walks, hunting, supper, play, evening receptions. --He is always on parade and in company.

An operation of this kind absorbs him who undertakes it as well as those who undergo it. A nobility for useful purposes is not transformed with impunity into a nobility for ornament;[2137] one falls himself into the ostentation which is substituted for action. The king has a court which he is compelled to maintain. So much the worse if it absorbs all his time, his intellect, his soul, the most valuable portion of his active forces and the forces of the State. To be the master of a house is not an easy task, especially when five hundred persons are to be entertained; one must necessarily pass one's life in public and all the time being on exhibition. Strictly speaking it is the life of an actor who is on the stage the entire day. To support this load, and work besides, required the temperament of Louis XIV, the vigor of his body, the extraordinary firmness of his nerves, the strength of his digestion, and the regularity of his habits; his successors who come after him grow weary or stagger under the same load. But they cannot throw it off; an incessant, daily performance is inseparable from their position and it is imposed on them like a heavy, gilded, ceremonial coat. The king is expected to keep the entire aristocracy busy, consequently to make a display of himself, to pay back with his own person, at all hours, even the most private, even on getting out of bed, and even in his bed. In the morning, at the hour named by himself beforehand,[2138] the head valet awakens him; five series of persons enter in turn to perform their duty, and, "although very large, there are days when the waiting-rooms can hardly contain the crowd of courtiers."--The first admittance is "l'entrée familière," consisting of the children of France, the princes and princesses of the blood, and, besides these, the chief physician, the chief surgeon and other serviceable persons.[2139] Next, comes the "grande entrée;' which comprises the grand-chamberlain, the grand-master and master of the wardrobe, the first gentlemen of the bedchamber, the Ducs d'Orleans and de Penthièvre, some other highly favored seigniors, the ladies of honor and in waiting of the queen, Mesdames and other princesses, without enumerating barbers tailors and various descriptions of valets. Meanwhile spirits of wine are poured on the king's hands from a service of plate, and he is then handed the basin of holy water; he crosses himself and repeats a prayer. Then he gets out of bed before all these people and puts on his slippers. The grand-chamberlain and the first gentleman hand him his dressing-gown; he puts this on and seats himself in the chair in which he is to put on his clothes. At this moment the door opens and a third group enters, which is the "entrée des brevets;" the seigniors who compose this enjoy, in addition, the precious privilege of assisting at the "petite coucher," while, at the same moment there enters a detachment of attendants, consisting of the physicians and surgeons in ordinary, the intendants of the amusements, readers and others, and among the latter those who preside over physical requirements; the publicity of a royal life is so great that none of its functions can be exercised without witnesses. At the moment of the approach of the officers of the wardrobe to dress him the first gentleman, notified by an usher, advances to read to the king the names of the grandees who are waiting at the door: this is the fourth entry called "la chambre," and larger than those preceding it; for, not to mention the cloak-bearers, gun-bearers, rug-bearers and other valets it comprises most of the superior officials, the grand-almoner, the almoners on duty, the chaplain, the master of the oratory, the captain and major of the body-guard, the colonel-general and major of the French guards, the colonel of the king's regiment, the captain of the Cent Suisses, the grand-huntsman, the grand wolf-huntsman, the grand-provost, the grand-master and master of ceremonies, the first butler, the grand-master of the pantry, the foreign ambassadors, the ministers and secretaries of state, the marshals of France and most of the seigniors and prelates of distinction. Ushers place the ranks in order and, if necessary, impose silence. Meanwhile the king washes his hands and begins his toilet. Two pages remove his slippers; the grand-master of the wardrobe draws off his night-shirt by the right arm, and the first valet of the wardrobe by the left arm, and both of them hand it to an officer of the wardrobe, whilst a valet of the wardrobe fetches the shirt wrapped up in white taffeta. Things have now reached the solemn point, the culmination of the ceremony; the fifth entry has been introduced, and, in a few moments, after the king has put his shirt on, all that is left of those who are known, with other house hold officers waiting in the gallery, complete the influx. There is quite a formality in regard to this shirt. The honor of handing it is reserved to the sons and grandsons of France; in default of these to the princes of the blood or those legitimized; in their default to the grand-chamberlain or to the first gentleman of the bedchamber;--the latter case, it must be observed, being very rare, the princes being obliged to be present at the king's lever, as were the princesses at that of the queen.[2140] At last the shirt is presented and a valet carries off the old one; the first valet of the wardrobe and the first valet-de-chambre hold the fresh one, each by a right and left arm respectively,[2141] while two other valets, during this operation, extend his dressing-gown in front of him to serve as a screen. The shirt is now on his back and the toilet commences. A valet-de-chambre supports a mirror before the king while two others on the two sides light it up, if occasion requires, with flambeaux. Valets of the wardrobe fetch the rest of the attire; the grand-master of the wardrobe puts the vest on and the doublet, attaches the blue ribbon, and clasps his sword around him; then a valet assigned to the cravats brings several of these in a basket, while the master of the wardrobe arranges around the king's neck that which the king selects. After this a valet assigned to the handkerchiefs brings three of these on a silver salver, while the grand-master of the wardrobe offers the salver to the king, who chooses one. Finally the master of the wardrobe hands to the king his hat, his gloves and his cane. The king then steps to the side of the bed, kneels on a cushion and says his prayers, whilst an almoner in a low voice recites the orison Quoesumus, deus omnipotens. This done, the king announces the order of the day, and passes with the leading persons of his court into his cabinet, where he sometimes gives audience. Meanwhile the rest of the company await him in the gallery in order to accompany him to mass when he comes out.

Such is the lever, a piece in five acts.--Nothing could be contrived better calculated to fill up the void of an aristocratic life; a hundred or thereabouts of notable seigniors dispose of a couple of hours in coming, in waiting, in entering, in defiling, in taking positions, in standing on their feet, in maintaining an air of respect and of ease suitable to a superior class of walking gentlemen, while those best qualified are about to do the same thing over in the queen's apartment.[2142]--The king, however, as an indirect consequence, suffers the same torture and the same inaction as he imposes. He also is playing a part; all his steps and all his gestures have been determined beforehand; he has been obliged to arrange his physiognomy and his voice, never to depart from an affable and dignified air, to award judiciously his glances and his nods, to keep silent or to speak only of the chase, and to suppress his own thoughts, if he has any. One cannot indulge in reverie, meditate or be absent-minded when one is before the footlights; the part must have due attention. Besides, in a drawing room there is only drawing room conversation, and the master's thoughts, instead of being directed in a profitable channel, must be scattered about like the holy water of the court. All hours of his day are passed in a similar manner, except three or four during the morning, during which he is at the council or in his private room; it must be noted, too, that on the days after his hunts, on returning home from Rambouillet at three o'clock in the morning, he must sleep the few hours he has left to him. The ambassador Mercy,[2143] nevertheless, a man of close application, seems to think it sufficient; he, at least, thinks that "Louis XVI is a man of order, losing no time in useless things;" his predecessor, indeed, worked much less, scarcely an hour a day. Three-quarters of his time is thus given up to show. The same retinue surrounds him when he puts on his boots, when he takes them off; when he changes his clothes to mount his horse, when he returns home to dress for the evening, and when he goes to his room at night to retire. "Every evening for six years, says a page,[2144] either myself or one of my comrades has seen Louis XVI get into bed in public," with the ceremonial just described. "It was not omitted ten times to my knowledge, and then accidentally or through indisposition." The attendance is yet more numerous when he dines and takes supper; for, besides men there are women present, duchesses seated on the folding-chairs, also others standing around the table. It is needless to state that in the evening when he plays, or gives a ball, or a concert, the crowd rushes in and overflows. When he hunts, besides the ladies on horses and in vehicles, besides officers of the hunt, of the guards, the equerry, the cloak-bearer, gun-bearer, surgeon, bone-setter, lunch-bearer and I know not how many others, all the gentlemen who accompany him are his permanent guests. And do not imagine that this suite is a small one;[2145] the day M. de Châteaubriand is presented there are four fresh additions, and "with the utmost punctuality" all the young men of high rank join the king's retinue two or three times a week. Not only the eight or ten scenes which compose each of these days, but again the short intervals between the scenes are besieged and carried. People watch for him, walk by his side and speak with him on his way from his cabinet to the chapel, between his apartment and his carriage, between his carriage and his apartment, between his cabinet and his dining room. And still more, his life behind the scenes belongs to the public. If he is indisposed and broth is brought to him, if he is ill and medicine is handed to him, "a servant immediately summons the 'grande entrée.'" Verily, the king resembles an oak stifled by the innumerable creepers which, from top to bottom, cling to its trunk. Under a régime of this stamp there is a want of air; some opening has to be found; Louis XV availed himself of the chase and of suppers; Louis XVI of the chase and of lock-making. And I have not mentioned the infinite detail of etiquette, the extraordinary ceremonial of the state dinner, the fifteen, twenty and thirty beings busy around the king's plates and glasses, the sacramental utterances of the occasion, the procession of the retinue, the arrival of "la nef" "l'essai des plats," all as if in a Byzantine or Chinese court.[2146] On Sundays the entire public, the public in general, is admitted, and this is called the "grand couvert," as complex and as solemn as a high mass. Accordingly to eat, to drink, to get up, to go to bed, is to a descendant of Louis XIV, to officiate.[2147] Frederick II, on hearing an explanation of this etiquette, declared that if he were king of France his first edict would be to appoint another king to hold court in his place. In effect, if there are idlers to salute there must be an idler to be saluted. Only one way was possible by which the monarch could have been set free, and that was to have recast and transformed the French nobles, according to the Prussian system, into a hard-working regiment of serviceable functionaries. But, so long as the court remains what it is, that is to say, a pompous parade and a drawing room decoration, the king himself must likewise remain a showy decoration, of little or no use.

V. Royal Distractions.

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."[2148] Two 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.[2149] At 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.[2151] At 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,"[2152] says 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,[2153] he 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."[2154] This 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.

VI. Upper Class Distractions.

Other similar lives.--Princes and princesses.--Seigniors of the 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,[2155] I 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."[2156] The 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."[2157] Below 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.[2158] His 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;[2159] with 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.[2160] He 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.[2162] At 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.[2163] We 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."[2164] Accordingly 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."[2165] The 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."[2166] Moreover, 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."[2167] M. 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,[2169] Marshal 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."[2170] These 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."[2171] This 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.

VII. Provincial Nobility.

Prelates, seigniors and minor provincial nobles.--The feudal aristocracy 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.[2172] At 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.[2173] At 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."[2175] The 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.[2176] At 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.[2177] Numbers 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,[2178] there 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."[2179] There 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.[2181] Their 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.[2182] Those 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.

*****

NOTES:

[Footnote 2101: "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.]

[Footnote 2102: Mercier, "Tableau de Paris." IX. 3.]

[Footnote 2103: Leroi, "Histoire de Versailles," Il. 21. (70,000 fixed population and 10,000 floating population according to the registers of the mayoralty.)]

[Footnote 2104: 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.]

[Footnote 2105: People were run over almost every day in Paris by the fashionable vehicles, it being the habit of the great to ride very fast.]

[Footnote 2106: 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.)]

[Footnote 2107: 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.]

[Footnote 2108: Memoirs, I. 221. He was presented at court February 19, 1787.]

[Footnote 2109: 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.]

[Footnote 2110: 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.]

[Footnote 2111: 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.]

[Footnote 2112: "La Maison du Roi en 1786," colored engravings in the Museum of Engravings.]

[Footnote 2113: 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.]

[Footnote 2114: 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.]

[Footnote 2115: 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.]

[Footnote 2116: Archives nationales, O1, 778. Memorandum on the hunting-train between 1760 and 1792 and especially the report of 1786.]

[Footnote 2117: Mercier, "Tableau de Paris," vol. I. p. 11; vol. V. p. 62.--D'Hézecques, ibid. 253.--"Journal de Louis XVI," published by Nicolardot, passim.]

[Footnote 2118: 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.]

[Footnote 2119: 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.]

[Footnote 2120: 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.]

[Footnote 2121: 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.]

[Footnote 2122: 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.]

[Footnote 2123: 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.]

[Footnote 2124: 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."]

[Footnote 2125: 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.)]

[Footnote 2126: Warroquier, ibid,(1789) vol. I., passim.]

[Footnote 2127: An expression of the Comte d'Artois on introducing the officers of his household to his wife.]

[Footnote 2128: The number of light-horsemen and of gendarmes was reduced in 1775 and in 1776; both bodies were suppressed in 1787.]

[Footnote 2129: The President of the 5th French Republic founded by General de Gaulle is even today the source of numerous appointments of great importance. (SR.)]

[Footnote 2130: 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.)]

[Footnote 2131: Duc de Lévis, "Souvenirs et Portraits," 29.--Mme. de Maintenon, "Correspondance."]

[Footnote 2132: 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."]

[Footnote 2133: "Paris, Versailles et les provinces au dix-huitième siècle," II. 160, 168.--Mercier, "Tableau de Paris," IV. 150.--De Ségur, "Mémoires," I. 16.]

[Footnote 2134: "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.]

[Footnote 2135: 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.]

[Footnote 2136: "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.)]

[Footnote 2137: 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.)]

[Footnote 2138: "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.)]

[Footnote 2139: Warroquier, I. 94. Compare corresponding detail under Louis XVI in Saint-Simon XIII. 88.]

[Footnote 2140: "Marie Antoinette," by d'Arneth and Geffroy, II. 217.]

[Footnote 2141: In all changes of the coat the left arm of the king is appropriated by the wardrobe and the right arm to the "chambre."]

[Footnote 2142: 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).]

[Footnote 2143: "Marie Antoinette," by d'Arneth and Geffroy, II. 223 (August 15, 1774).]

[Footnote 2144: Count D'Hézecques, ibid., p. 7.]

[Footnote 2145: 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."]

[Footnote 2146: 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.]

[Footnote 2147: 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.]

[Footnote 2148: De Luynes, IX, 75,79, 105. (August, 1748, October 1748).]

[Footnote 2149: 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."]

[Footnote 2150: "Marie Antoinette," by d'Arneth and Geffroy, I. 19 (July 12, 1770). I. 265 (January 23, 1771). I. III. (October 18, 1770).]

[Footnote 2151: 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).]

[Footnote 2152: Mme. Campan, I. 147.]

[Footnote 2153: Nicolardot, "Journal de Louis XVI," 129.]

[Footnote 2154: D'Hézecques ibid. 253.--Arthur Young, I. 215.]

[Footnote 2155: 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).]

[Footnote 2156: Beugnot, I. 77. Mme. de Genlis, "Mémoires," ch. XVII. De Goncourt, "La Femme au dix-huitième siècle," 52.--Champfort, "Caractères et Anecdotes."]

[Footnote 2157: 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.]

[Footnote 2158: De Luynes, XVI. 186 (October, 1757).]

[Footnote 2159: De Goncourt, ibid., 73, 75.]

[Footnote 2160: Mme. d'Epinay, "Mémoires." Ed. Boiteau, I. 306 (1751).]

[Footnote 2161: 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.]

[Footnote 2162: De Luynes, XIV. 149.]

[Footnote 2163: Abbé Georgel, "Mémoires," 216.]

[Footnote 2164: Sainte-Beuve, "Causeries du lundi," VIII. 63, the texts of two witnesses, MM. de Genlis and Roland.]

[Footnote 2165: 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."]

[Footnote 2166: 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.]

[Footnote 2167: Mme. de Genlis, "Dict. des Etiquettes," I. 349.]

[Footnote 2168: Barbier, "Journal," III, 211 (December, 1750).]

[Footnote 2169: Aubertin, "L'Esprit public au dix-huitième siècle," 255.]

[Footnote 2170: Mme. de Genlis, "Adèle et Théodore." III. 54.]

[Footnote 2171: 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."]

[Footnote 2172: Beugnot, I. 79.]

[Footnote 2173: Merlin de Thionville, "Vie et correspondances." Account of his visit to the chartreuse of Val St. Pierre in Thierarche.]

[Footnote 2174: Mme. de Genlis, "Mémoires," ch. 7.]

[Footnote 2175: Mme. d'Oberkirk, I. 15.]

[Footnote 2176: Mme. de Genlis, 26, ch. I. Mme. d'Oberkirk, I. 62.]

[Footnote 2177: De Lauzun, "Mémoires," 257.]

[Footnote 2178: Marquis de Valfons, "Mémoires," 60.--De Lévis, 156.--Mme. d'Oberkirk, I, 127, II, 360.]

[Footnote 2179: Beugnot, I, 71.--Hippeau, "Le Gouvernement de Normandie," passim.]

[Footnote 2180: An occupation explained farther on, page 145.--TR.]

[Footnote 2181: Mme. de Genlis, "Mémoires," passim. "Dict. des Etiquettes," I. 348.]

[Footnote 2182: Mme. d'Oberkirk, I. 395.--The Baron and Baroness de Sotenville in Molière are people well brought up although provincial and pedantic.]

## CHAPTER II. DRAWING ROOM LIFE.[2201]