The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1

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

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"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."[61]

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.[62] 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.[63] 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."[64] 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."[65] 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."[66] 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."[67] M. de Lamoignon being appointed Chancellor with a
salary of 100,000 livres, people at once declare that he will be
ruined;[68] "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,[69] 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."[70] 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."[71] 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.[72] 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.[73] At the
convent of Origny, near Saint-Quentin,[74] "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."[75] 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.[76] 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.[77] 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,[78] 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."[79] There is no residence where flocks of
fashionable people do not light down permanently to dine, to dance, to
hunt, to gossip, to unravel,[80] (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.[81] 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.[82] 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.

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Notes:

[1]. "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.

[2]. Mercier, "Tableau de Paris." IX. 3.

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

[4]. 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.

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

[6]. 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.)

[7]. 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.

[8]. Memoirs, I. 221. He was presented at court February 19, 1787.

[9]. 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.

[10]. 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.

[11]. 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.

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

[13]. Arcchives 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.

[14]. 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.

[15]. 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.

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

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

[18]. 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.

[19]. 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.

[20]. 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.

[21]. 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.

[22]. 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.

[23]. 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.

[24]. 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."

[25]. 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.)

[26]. Warroquier, ibid,(1789) vol. I., passim.

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

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

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

[30]. 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.)

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

[32]. 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."

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

[34]. "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.

[35]. 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.

[36]. "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.)