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!" 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,2208 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."2209—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."2210 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,2211 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.2212 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 reign2213 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.2214 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.2215 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."2216 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."2217 "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."2218 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. "2219 "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."2220 "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."2221 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.2222 The Marshal de Soubise, entertaining the king one day at dinner and over night, in his country house, expends 200,000 livres.2223 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.2224—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!"2225 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.