The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1

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

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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;[37] 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,[38] 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.[39] 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.[40] 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,[41] 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.
[42] - 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,[43] 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,[44] 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;[45] 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.[46] 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.[47] 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."[48] 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.[49] 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,[50] "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.[51] 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,"[52] 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,[53] 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."[54] 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,[55] 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."[56] 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."[57] 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.[58] 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;[59] 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.[60] 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,