The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1

H >> Hippolyte A. Taine >> The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1

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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.[43] 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.[44] - 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."[45] 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.[46]

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."[47] 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[48] 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.
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Notes:

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

[2]. Lanfrey, "L'Eglise et les philosophes," passim.

[3]. 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.

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

[5]. 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.)

[6]. 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.

[7]. "La France ecclésiastique," 1788.

[8]. Grannier de Cassagnac, "Des causes de la Rèvolution
Française," III. 58.

[9]. Marmontel, "Mémoires," . II. book XIII. p. 221.

[10]. 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.

[11]. 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.)

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

[13]. 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.

[14]. "Marie Antoinette," by D'Arneth and Geffroy, II. 377.

[15]. 1 crown (écu) equals 6 livres under Louis XV. (SR.)

[16]. 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.

[17]. 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."

[18]. 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.

[19]. 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.

[20]. 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.

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

[22]. 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.

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

[24]. Those entitled to tithes in cereals.- TR.

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

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

[27]. 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.

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

[29]. One who performs masses for the dead at fixed epochs.- TR.

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

[31]. 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.

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

[33]. 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.)

[34]. 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.)

[35]. 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..

[36]. Mme. Campan, "Mémoires," I. p. 13. - Mme. du Hausset,
"Mémoires," p. 114.

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

[38]. Augeard, "Mémoires," p. 135.

[39]. 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.

[40]. 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.)

[41]. 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).

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

[43]. "Marie Antoinette," ibid.. vol. II. p. 377; vol. III. p. 391.

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

[45]. Marquis de Mirabeau, "Traité de la population," p. 81.

[46] 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.)

[47]. 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.

[48]. 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,[1] 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.[2] 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;[3]
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;[4] 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."[5] 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;[6] 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.[7] 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."[8] 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;[9] 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."[10] 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.