The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1

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

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[37]. The following is an example of the compulsory inactivity of
the nobles - a dinner of Queen Marie Leczinska at Fontainebleau: "I
was introduced into a superb hall where I found about a dozen
courtiers promenading about and a table set for as many persons, which
was nevertheless prepared for but one person. . . . The queen sat
own while the twelve courtiers took their positions in a semi-circle
ten steps from the table; I stood alongside of them imitating their
deferential silence. Her Majesty began to eat very fast, keeping her
eyes fixed on the plate. Finding one of the dishes to her taste she
returned to it, and then, running her eye around the circle, she said
"Monsieur de Lowenthal?" - On hearing this name a fine-looking man
advanced, bowing, and replied, "Madame?" - "I find that this ragout is
fricassé chicken."-- "I believe it is' Madame." - On making this
answer, in the gravest manner, the marshal, retiring backwards,
resumed his position, while the queen finished her dinner, never
uttering another word and going back to her room the same way as she
came." (Memoirs of Casanova.)

[38]. "Under Louis XVI, who arose at seven or eight o'clock, the
lever took place at half-past eleven unless hunting or ceremonies
required it earlier." There is the same ceremonial at eleven, again in
the evening on retiring, and also during the day, when he changes his
boots. (D'Hézecque, 161.)

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

[40]. "Marie Antoinette," by d'Arneth and Geffroy, II. 217.

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

[42]. The queen breakfasts in bed, and "there are ten or twelve
persons present at this first reception or entrée. . . " The grand
receptions taking place at the dressing hour. "This reception
comprises the princes of the blood, the captains of the guards and
most of the grand-officers." The same ceremony occurs with the chemise
as with the king's shirt. One winter day Mme. Campan offers the
chemise to the queen, when a lady of honor enters, removes her gloves
and takes the chemise in her hands. A movement at the door and the
Duchess of Orleans comes in, takes off her gloves, and receives the
chemise. Another movement and it is the Comtesse d'Artois whose
privilege it is to hand the chemise. Meanwhile the queen sits there
shivering with her arms crossed on her breast and muttering, "It is
dreadful, what importunity! " (Mme. Campan, II. 217; III. 309-316).

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

[44]. Count D'Hézecques, ibid., p. 7.

[45]. Duc de Lauzun, "Mémoires," 51. - Mme. de Genlis, "Mémoires,"
ch. XII.: "Our husbands, regularly on that day (Saturday) slept at
Versailles, to hunt the next day with the king."

[46]. The State dinner takes place every Sunday. - La nef is a
piece of plate at the center of the table containing between scented
cushions, the napkins used by the king. - The essai is the tasting of
each dish by the gentlemen servants and officers of the table before
the king partakes of it. And the same with the beverages. - It
requires four persons to serve the king with a glass of wine and
water.

[47]. When the ladies of the king's court, and especially the
princesses, pass before the king's bed they have to make an obeisance;
the palace officials salute the nef on passing that. - A priest or
sacristan does the same thing on passing before the altar.

[48]. De Luynes, IX, 75,79, 105. (August, 1748, October 1748).

[49]. The king is at Marly, and here is a list of the excursions he
is to make before going to Compiègne. (De Luynes, XIV, 163, May, 1755)
"Sunday, June 1st, to Choisy until Monday evening. - Tuesday, the
3rd to Trianon, until Wednesday. - Thursday, the 5th, return to
Trianon where he will remain until after supper on Saturday. -
Monday, the 9th, to Crécy, until Friday, 13th. - Return to Crécy the
16th, until the 21st. - St. July 1st to la Muette, the 2nd, to
Compiègne."

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

[51]. Marie Antoinette," by d'Arneth and Geffroy, II, 270 (October
18, 1774). II, 395 (November 15, 1775). II, 295 (February 20, 1775).
III, 25 (February 11, 1777). III, 119 (October 17, 1777). III, 409
(March 18, 1780).

[52]. Mme. Campan, I. 147.

[53]. Nicolardot, "Journal de Louis XVI," 129.

[54]. D'Hézecques ibid. 253. - Arthur Young, I. 215.

[55]. List of pensions paid to members of the royal family in 1771.
Duc d'Orléans, 150,000. Prince de Condé, 100,000. Comte de Clermont,
70,000. Duc de Bourbon, 60,000. Prince de Conti, 60,000. Comte de la
Marche, 60,000. Dowager-Countess de Conti, 50,000. Duc de Penthièvre,
50,000. Princess de Lamballe, 50,000. Duchess de Bourbon, 50,000.
(Archives Nationales. O1. 710, bis).

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

[57]. De Luynes, XVI. 57 (May, 1757). In the army of Westphalia the
Count d'Estrées, commander-in-chief; had twenty-seven secretaries, and
Grimm was the twenty-eighth. - When the Duc de Richelieu set out for
his government of Guyenne he was obliged to have relays of a hundred
horses along the entire road.

[58]. De Luynes, XVI. 186 (October, 1757).

[59]. De Goncourt, ibid., 73, 75.

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

[61]. St. Simon, XII. 457, and Dangeau, VI. 408. The Marshal de
Boufflers at the camp of Compiègne (September, 1698) had every night
and morning two tables for twenty and twenty-five persons, besides
extra tables; 72 cooks, 340 domestics, 400 dozens of napkins, 80
dozens of silver plates, 6 dozens of porcelain plates. Fourteen relays
of horses brought fruits and liquors daily from Paris; every day an
express brought fish, poultry and game from Ghent, Brussels, Dunkirk,
Dieppe and Calais. Fifty dozens bottles of wine were drunk on ordinary
days and eighty dozens during the visits of the king and the princes.

[62]. De Luynes, XIV. 149.

[63]. Abbé Georgel, "Mémoires," 216.

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

[65]. De Luynes, XV. 455, and XVI. 219 (1757). "The Marshal de
Belle-Isle contracted an indebtedness amounting to 1,200,000 livres,
one-quarter of it for building great piles of houses for his own
pleasure and the rest in the king's service. The king, to indemnify
him, gives him 400,000 livres on the salt revenue, and 80,000 livres
income on the company privileged to refine the precious metals."

[66]. Report of fixed incomes and expenditures, May 1st, 1789, p.
633. - These figures, it must be noted, must be doubled to have their
actual equivalent.

[67]. Mme. de Genlis, "Dict. des Etiquettes," I. 349.

[68]. Barbier, "Journal," III, 211 (December, 1750).

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

[70]. Mme. de Genlis, "Adèle et Théodore." III. 54.

[71]. Duc de Lévis, 68. The same thing is found, previous to the
late reform, in the English army. - Cf. Voltaire, "Entretiens entre A,
B, C," 15th entretien. "A regiment is not the reward for services but
rather for the sum which the parents of a young man advance in order
that he may go to the provinces for three months in the year and keep
open house."

[72]. Beugnot, I. 79.

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

[74]. Mme. de Genlis, "Mémoires," ch. 7.

[75]. Mme. d'Oberkirk, I. 15.

[76]. Mme. de Genlis, 26, ch. I. Mme. d'Oberkirk, I. 62.

[77]. De Lauzun, "Mémoires," 257.

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

[79]. Beugnot, I, 71. - Hippeau, "Le Gouvernement de Normandie,"
passim.

[80]. An occupation explained farther on, page 145. - TR.

[81]. Mme. de Genlis, " Mémoires," passim. "Dict. des Etiquettes,"
I. 348.

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

CHAPTER II. DRAWING ROOM LIFE.[1]

I.

Perfect only in France. - Reasons for this derived from the French
character. - Reasons derived from the tone of the court. - This life
becomes more and more agreeable and absorbing.

Similar circumstances have led other aristocracies in Europe to
nearly similar ways and habits. There also the monarchy has given
birth to the court and the court to a refined society. But the
development of this rare plant has been only partial. The soil was
unfavorable and the seed was not of the right sort. In Spain, the king
stands shrouded in etiquette like a mummy in its wrappings, while a
too rigid pride, incapable of yielding to the amenities of the worldly
order of things, ends in a sentiment of morbidity and in insane
display.[2] In Italy, under petty despotic sovereigns, and most of
them strangers, the constant state of danger and of hereditary
distrust, after having tied all tongues, turns all hearts towards the
secret delights of love and towards the mute gratification of the fine
arts. In Germany and in England, a cold temperament, dull and
rebellious to culture, keeps man, up to the close of the last century,
within the Germanic habits of solitude, inebriety and brutality. In
France, on the contrary, all things combine to make the social
sentiment flourish; in this the national genius harmonizes with the
political regime, the plant appearing to be selected for the soil
beforehand.

The Frenchman loves company through instinct, and the reason is
that he does well and easily whatever society calls upon him to do. He
has not the false shame which renders his northern neighbors awkward,
nor the powerful passions which absorb his neighbors of the south.
Talking is no effort to him, having none of the natural timidity which
begets constraint, and with no constant preoccupation to overcome. He
accordingly converses at his ease, ever on the alert, and conversation
affords him extreme pleasure. For the happiness which he requires is
of a peculiar kind: delicate, light, rapid, incessantly renewed and
varied, in which his intellect, his vanity, all his emotional and
sympathetic faculties find nourishment; and this quality of happiness
is provided for him only in society and in conversation. Sensitive as
he is, personal attention, consideration, cordiality, delicate
flattery, constitute his natal atmosphere, outside which he breathes
with difficulty. He would suffer almost as much in being impolite as
in encountering impoliteness in others. For his instincts of
kindliness and vanity there is an exquisite charm in the habit of
being amiable, and this is all the greater because it proves
contagious. When we afford pleasure to others there is a desire to
please us, and what we bestow in deference is returned in attentions.
In company of this kind one can talk, for to talk is to amuse another
in being oneself amused, a Frenchman finding no pleasure equal to
it.[3] Lively and sinuous, conversation to him is like the flying of a
bird; he wings his way from idea to idea, alert, excited by the
inspiration of others, darting forward, wheeling round and
unexpectedly returning, now up, now down, now skimming the ground, now
aloft on the peaks, without sinking into quagmires, or getting
entangled in the briers, and claiming nothing of the thousands of
objects he slightly grazes but the diversity and the gaiety of their
aspects.

Thus endowed, and thus disposed, he is made for a régime which, for
ten hours a day, brings men together; natural feeling in accord with
the social order of things renders the drawing room perfect. The king,
at the head of all, sets the example. Louis XIV had every
qualification for the master of a household: a taste for pomp and
hospitality, condescension accompanied with dignity, the art of
playing on the self-esteem of others and of maintaining his own
position, chivalrous gallantry, tact, and even charms of intellectual
expression. "His address was perfect;[4] whether it was necessary to
jest, or he was in a playful humor, or deigned to tell a story, it was
ever with infinite grace, and a noble refined air which I have found
only in him." "Never was man so naturally polite,[5] nor of such
circumspect politeness, so powerful by degrees, nor who better
discriminated age, worth, and rank, both in his replies and in his
deportment. . . . His salutations, more or less marked, but always
slight, were of incomparable grace and majesty. . . . He was admirable
in the different acknowledgments of salutes at the head of the army
and at reviews. . . . But especially toward women , there was nothing
like it. . . . Never did he pass the most insignificant woman without
taking off his hat to her; and I mean chambermaids whom he knew to be
such. . . Never did he chance to say anything disobliging to anybody.
. . . Never before company anything mistimed or venturesome, but even
to the smallest gesture, his walk, his bearing, his features, all were
proper, respectful, noble, grand, majestic, and thoroughly natural."

Such is the model, and, nearly or remotely, it is imitated up to
the end of the ancient régime. If it undergoes any change, it is only
to become more sociable. In the eighteenth century, except on great
ceremonial occasions, it is seen descending step by step from its
pedestal. It no longer imposes "that stillness around it which lets
one hear a fly walk." "Sire," said the Marshal de Richelieu, who had
seen three reigns, addressing Louis XVI, "under Louis XIV no one dared
utter a word; under Louis XV people whispered; under your Majesty they
talk aloud." If authority is a loser, society is the gainer;
etiquette, insensibly relaxed, allows the introduction of ease and
cheerfulness. Henceforth the great, less concerned in overawing than
in pleasing, cast off stateliness like an uncomfortable and ridiculous
garment, "seeking respect less than applause. It no longer suffices to
be affable; one has to appear amiable at any cost with one's inferiors
as with one's equals."[6] The French princes, says again a
contemporary lady, "are dying with fear of being deficient in
favors."[7] Even around the throne "the style is free and playful."
The grave and disciplined court of Louis XIV became at the end of the
century, under the smiles of the youthful queen, the most seductive
and gayest of drawing-rooms. Through this universal relaxation, a
worldly existence gets to be perfect. "He who has not lived before
1789," says Talleyrand at a later period, "knows nothing of the charm
of living." It was too great; no other way of living was appreciated;
it engrossed man wholly. When society becomes so attractive, people
live for it alone.

II. SOCIAL LIFE HAS PRIORITY.

Subordination of it to other interests and duties. - Indifference
to public affairs. - They are merely a subject of jest. - Neglect of
private affairs. - Disorder in the household and abuse of money.

There is neither leisure nor taste for other matters, even for
things which are of most concern to man, such as public affairs, the
household, and the family. - With respect to the first, I have
already stated that people abstain from them, and are indifferent; the
administration of things, whether local or general, is out of their
hands and no longer interests them. They only allude to it in jest;
events of the most serious consequence form the subject of witticisms.
After the edict of the Abbé Terray, which half ruined the state
creditors, a spectator, too much crowded in the theater, cried out,
"Ah, how unfortunate that our good Abbé Terray is not here to cut us
down one-half I" Everybody laughs and applauds. All Paris the
following day, is consoled for public ruin by repeating the phrase. -
Alliances, battles, taxation, treaties, ministries, coups d'état, the
entire history of the country, is put into epigrams and songs. One
day,[8] in an assembly of young people belonging to the court, one of
them, as the current witticism was passing around, raised his hands in
delight and exclaimed, "How can one help being pleased with great
events, even with disturbances, when they provide us with such amusing
witticisms!" Thereupon the sarcasms circulate, and every disaster in
France is turned into nonsense. A song on the battle of Hochstaedt was
pronounced poor, and some one in this connection said "I am sorry that
battle was lost - the song is so worthless."[9] - Even when
eliminating from this trait all that belongs to the sway of impulse
and the license of paradox, there remains the stamp of an age in which
the State is almost nothing and society almost everything. We may on
this principle divine what order of talent was required in the
ministers. M. Necker, having given a magnificent supper with serious
and comic opera, "finds that this festivity is worth more to him in
credit, favor, and stability than all his financial schemes put
together. . . . His last arrangement concerning the vingtième was only
talked about for one day, while everybody is still talking about his
fête; at Paris, as well as in Versailles, its attractions are dwelt on
in detail, people emphatically declaring that Monsieur and Mme. Necker
are a grace to society."[10] Good society devoted to pleasure imposes
on those in office the obligation of providing pleasures for it. It
might also say, in a half-serious, half-ironical tone, with Voltaire,
"that the gods created kings only to give fêtes every day, provided
they varied; that life is too short to make any other use of it; that
lawsuits, intrigues, warfare, and the quarrels of priests, which
consume human life, are absurd and horrible things; that man is born
only to enjoy himself;" and that among the essential things we must
put the "superfluous" in the first rank.

According to this, we can easily foresee that they will be as
little concerned with their private affairs as with public affairs.
Housekeeping, the management of property, domestic economy, are in
their eyes vulgar, insipid in the highest degree, and only suited to
an intendant or a butler. Of what use are such persons if we must have
such cares? Life is no longer a festival if one has to provide the
ways and means. Comforts, luxuries, the agreeable must flow naturally
and greet our lips of their own accord. As a matter of course and
without his intervention, a man belonging to this world should find
gold always in his pocket, a handsome coat on his toilet table,
powdered valets in his antechamber, a gilded coach at his door, a fine
dinner on his table, so that he may reserve all his attention to be
expended in favors on the guests in his drawing-room. Such a mode of
living is not to be maintained without waste, and the domestics, left
to themselves, make the most of it. What matter is it, so long as they
perform their duties? Moreover, everybody must live, and it is
pleasant to have contented and obsequious faces around one. - Hence
the first houses in the kingdom are given up to pillage. Louis XV, on
a hunting expedition one day, accompanied by the Duc de Choiseul,[11]
inquired of him how much he thought the carriage in which they were
seated had cost. M. de Choiseul replied that he should consider
himself fortunate to get one like it for 5,000 or 6,000 francs; but,
"His Majesty paying for it as a king, and not always paying cash,
might have paid 8,000 francs for it." - "You are wide of the mark,"
rejoined the king, "for this vehicle, as you see it, cost me 30,000
francs. . . . The robberies in my household are enormous, but it is
impossible to put a stop to them." - So the great help themselves as
well as the little, either in money, or in kind, or in services. There
are in the king's household fifty-four horses for the grand equerry,
thirty-eight of them being for Mme. de Brionne, the administratrix of
the office of the stables during her son's minority; there are two
hundred and fifteen grooms on duty, and about as many horses kept at
the king's expense for various other persons, entire strangers to the
department.[12] What a nest of parasites on this one branch of the
royal tree! Elsewhere I find Madame Elisabeth, so moderate, consuming
fish amounting to 30,000 francs per annum; meat and game to 70,000
francs; candles to 60,000 francs; Mesdames burn white and yellow
candles to the amount of 215,068 francs; the light for the queen comes
to 157,109 francs. The street at Versailles is still shown, formerly
lined with stalls, to which the king's valets resorted to nourish
Versailles by the sale of his dessert. There is no article from which
the domestic insects do not manage to scrape and glean something. The
king is supposed to drink orgeat and lemonade to the value of 2,190
francs. "The grand broth, day and night," which Mme. Royale, aged six
years, sometimes drinks, costs 5,201 francs per annum. Towards the end
of the preceding reign[13] the femmes-de-chambre enumerate in the
Dauphine's outlay "four pairs of shoes per week; three ells of ribbon
per diem, to tie her dressing-gown; two ells of taffeta per diem, to
cover the basket in which she keeps her gloves and fan." A few years
earlier the king paid 200,000 francs for coffee, lemonade, chocolate,
barley-water, and water-ices; several persons were inscribed on the
list for ten or twelve cups a day, while it was estimated that the
coffee, milk and bread each morning for each lady of the bed-chamber
cost 2,000 francs per annum.[14] We can readily understand how, in
households thus managed, the purveyors are willing to wait. They wait
so well that often under Louis XV they refuse to provide and "hide
themselves." Even the delay is so regular that, at last; they are
obliged to pay them five per cent. interest on their advances; at this
rate, in 1778, after all Turgot's economic reforms, the king still
owes nearly 800,000 livres to his wine merchant, and nearly three
millions and a half to his purveyor.[15] The same disorder exists in
the houses which surround the throne. "Mme. de Guéménée owes 60,000
livres to her shoe-maker, 16,000 livres to her paper-hanger, and the
rest in proportion." Another lady, whom the Marquis de Mirabeau sees
with hired horses, replies at his look of astonishment, "It is not
because there are not seventy horses in our stables, but none of them
are able to walk to day."[16] Mme. de Montmorin, on ascertaining that
her husband's debts are greater than his property, thinks she can save
her dowry of 200,000 livres, but is informed that she had given
security for a tailor's bill, which, "incredible and ridiculous to
say, amounts to the sum of 180,000 livres."[17] "One of the decided
manias of these days," says Mme. d'Oberkirk, "is to be ruined in
everything and by everything." "The two brothers Villemer build
country cottages at from 500,000 to 600,000 livres; one of them keeps
forty horses to ride occasionally in the Bois de Boulogne on
horseback."[18] In one night M. de Chenonceaux, son of M. et Mme.
Dupin, loses at play 700,000 livres. "M. de Chenonceaux and M. de
Francueil ran through seven or eight millions at this epoch. "[19]
"The Duc de Lauzun, at the age of twenty-six, after having run through
the capital of 100,000 crowns revenue, is prosecuted by his creditors
for nearly two millions of indebtedness."[20] "M. le Prince de Conti
lacks bread and wood, although with an income of 600,000 livres," for
the reason that "he buys and builds wildly on all sides."[21] Where
would be the pleasure if these people were reasonable? What kind of a
seignior is he who studies the price of things? And how can the
exquisite be reached if one grudges money? Money, accordingly, must
flow and flow on until it is exhausted, first by the innumerable
secret or tolerated bleedings through domestic abuses, and next in
broad streams of the master's own prodigality, through structures,
furniture, toilets, hospitality, gallantry, and pleasures. The Comte
d'Artois, that he may give the queen a fête, demolishes, rebuilds,
arranges, and furnishes Bagatelle from top to bottom, employing nine
hundred workmen, day and night, and, as there is no time to go any
distance for lime, plaster, and cut stone, he sends patrols of the
Swiss guards on the highways to seize, pay for, and immediately bring
in all carts thus loaded.[22] The Marshal de Soubise, entertaining the
king one day at dinner and over night, in his country house, expends
200,000 livres.[23] Mme. de Matignon makes a contract to be furnished
every day with a new head-dress at 24,000 livres per annum. Cardinal
de Rohan has an alb bordered with point lace, which is valued at more
than 100,000 livres, while his kitchen utensils are of massive
silver.[24] - Nothing is more natural, considering their ideas of
money; hoarded and piled up, instead of being a fertilizing stream, it
is a useless marsh exhaling bad odors. The queen, having presented the
Dauphin with a carriage whose silver-gilt trappings are decked with
rubies and sapphires, naively exclaims, "Has not the king added
200,000 livres to my treasury? That is no reason for keeping
them!"[25] They would rather throw it out of the window. Which was
actually done by the Marshal de Richelieu with a purse he had given to
his grandson, and which the lad, not knowing how to use, brought back
intact. Money, on this occasion, was at least of service to the
passing street-sweeper that picked it up. But had there been no
passer-by to pick it up, it would have been thrown into the river. One
day Mme. de B - , being with the Prince de Conti, hinted that she
would like a miniature of her canary bird set in a ring. The Prince
offers to have it made. His offer is accepted, but on condition that
the miniature be set plain and without jewels. Accordingly the
miniature is placed in a simple rim of gold. But, to cover over the
painting, a large diamond, made very thin, serves as a glass. Mme. de
B - , having returned the diamond, "M. le Prince de Conti had it
ground to powder which he used to dry the ink of the note he wrote to
Mme. de B - on the subject." This pinch of powder cost 4 or 5,000
livres, but we may divine the turn and tone of the note. The extreme
of profusion must accompany the height of gallantry, the man of the
world being so much the more important according to his contempt for
money.