The Ancient Regime Part 8

[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 pet.i.tion, 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 a.s.sociation if it be signed by several." Malesherbes, ibid..]

[Footnote 1436: Mme. Campan, "Memoires," I. p. 13.--Mme. du Hausset, "Memoires," 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, "Memoires," p. 135.]

[Footnote 1439: Mme. de Pompadour, writing to Marshal d'Estrees, 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 Felicie," p. 329. Narrative by Mme. de Puisieux, the mother-in-law of Marshal d'Estrees.]

[Footnote 1440: According to the ma.n.u.script register of Mme. de Pompadour's expenses, in the archives of the prefecture of Versailles, she had expended 36,327,268 livres. (Granier de Ca.s.sagnac, I. 91.)]

[Footnote 1441: D'Argenson, "Memoires," VI. 398 (April 24, 1751).--"M.

du Barry declared openly that he had consumed 18,000,000 belonging to the State." (Correspondence by Metra, 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, "Traite 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 fas.h.i.+onable entertainment, is the principle and summary of the habits of society under the ancient regime. 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 regime the court is the empty form, the surviving adornment of a military inst.i.tution, the causes of which have disappeared while the effects remain, custom surviving utility. Formerly, in the early times of feudalism, in the companions.h.i.+p and simplicity of the camp and the castle, the n.o.bles 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 const.i.tute the garrison of his lodgings, forming an armed escort for him, and a retinue of ever-ready swordsmen. Now as formerly they are equally a.s.siduous 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 subst.i.tuted 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 fetes 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 enrages," 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 guardians.h.i.+p, 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 facades, cornices and bal.u.s.trades, monumental stairways, seigniorial architecture, regularly s.p.a.ced and disposed, as in a procession, around the vast and grandiose palace where all this terminates. Here are the fixed abodes of the n.o.blest families; to the right of the palace are the hotels de Bourbon, d'Ecquervilly, de la Tremoille, de Conde, de Maurepas, de Bouillon, d'Eu, de Noailles, de Penthievre, de Livry, du Comte de la Marche, de Broglie, du Prince de Tingry, d'Orleans, de Chatillon, de Villerry, d'Harcourt, de Monaco; on the left are the pavilions d'Orleans, d'Harcourt, the hotels de Chevreuse, de Babelle, de l'Hopital, 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 Genevilliers, 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 s.h.i.+ne and buzz about Versailles, the center of all l.u.s.ter 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 suns.h.i.+ne. 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 ca.n.a.l, 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 amus.e.m.e.nts, 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 a.s.signed 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 acc.u.mulated ornaments, story above story, carry the majestic regularity of their lines and the overcharged ma.s.s of their decoration up to the sky. According to a bound ma.n.u.script 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 circ.u.mference, 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 Chateaubriand, "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 fourriere, 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'Orleans, 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 amba.s.sador, "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 unembarra.s.sed 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 hors.e.m.e.n 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 gla.s.s 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 n.o.bles 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-b.u.t.ton 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 pa.s.ses." 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 circ.u.mference, 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 ma.s.s 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 t.i.tles 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, a.s.sistants 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 princ.i.p.al 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 b.a.l.l.s, 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, Compiegne, 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, coa.r.s.e-jewelry haberdashers, jewellers, parchment-makers, dealers in tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, chicken-roasters, fish-dealers, purveyors of hay, straw and oats, hardware-sellers, saddlers, tailors, gingerbread and starch-dealers, fruiterers, dealers in gla.s.s 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, const.i.tuted 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 inst.i.tution, and the aristocracy, with nothing to do, devotes itself to filling up the king's drawing-room.

III. The King's a.s.sociates.

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 n.o.bles, and the other converting the n.o.bles into place-hunters.--Through the duties of the palace the highest n.o.bility 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 Bussuejouls, bishop of Senlis; the grand-master of France is the Prince de Conde; 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 Penthievre; the grand-master of ceremonies is the Marquis de Breze; 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'Orleans, and the Duc de Gesvres.[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 n.o.ble 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 t.i.tular n.o.bles, 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 t.i.tled 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 t.i.tle to pay their court.[2128] Such is the fixed body of recruits for the royal receptions; the distinctive trait of this regime is the conversion of its servants into guests, the drawing room being filled from the anteroom.