Two causes maintain this affluence, one the feudal form still preserved, and the other the new centralization just introduced; one placing the royal service in the hands of the nobles, and the other converting the nobles into place-hunters.—Through the duties of the palace the highest nobility live with the king, residing under his roof; the grand-almoner is M. de Montmorency-Laval, bishop of Metz; the first almoner is M. de BussuÉjouls, bishop of Senlis; the grand-master of France is the Prince de CondÉ; the first royal butier is the Comte d'Escars; the second is the Marquis de Montdragon; the master of the pantry is the Duke de Brissac; the chief cup-bearer is the Marquis de Vemeuil; the chief carver is the Marquis de la Chesnaye; the first gentlemen of the bedchamber are the Ducs de Richelieu, de Durfort, de Villequier, and de Fleury; the grand-master of the wardrobe is the Duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt; the masters of the wardrobe are the Comte de Boisgelin and the Marquis de Chauvelin. The captain of the falconry is the Chevalier du Forget; the captain of the boar-hunt is the Marquis d'Ecquevilly; the superintendent of edifices is the Comte d'Angevillier; the grand-equerry is the Prince de Lambesc; the master of the hounds is the Duc de PenthiÈvre; the grand-master of ceremonies is the Marquis de BrÈze; the grand-master of the household is the Marquis de la Suze; the captains of the guards are the Ducs d'Agen, de Villery, de Brissac, d'Aguillon, and de Biron, the Princes de Poix, de Luxembourg and de Soubise. The provost of the hotel is the Marquis de Tourzel; the governors of the residences and captains of the chase are the Duc de Noailles, Marquis de Champcenetz, Baron de Champlost, Duc de Coigny, Comte de Modena, Comte de Montmorin, Duc de Laval, Comte de Brienne, Duc d'OrlÉans, and the Duc de GÈsvres.2126 All these seigniors are the king's necessary intimates, his permanent and generally hereditary guests, dwelling under his roof; in close and daily intercourse with him, for they are "his folks" (gens)2127 and perform domestic service about his person. Add to these their equals, as noble and nearly as numerous, dwelling with the queen, with Mesdames, with Mme. Elisabeth, with the Comte and Comtesse de Provence and the Comte and Comtesse d'Artois.—And these are only the heads of the service; if; below them in rank and office, I count the titular nobles, I find, among others, 68 almoners or chaplains, 170 gentlemen of the bedchamber or in waiting, 117 gentlemen of the stable or of the hunting-train, 148 pages, 114 titled ladies in waiting, besides all the officers, even to the lowest of the military household, without counting 1,400 ordinary guards who, verified by the genealogist, are admitted by virtue of their title to pay their court.2128 Such is the fixed body of recruits for the royal receptions; the distinctive trait of this rÉgime is the conversion of its servants into guests, the drawing room being filled from the anteroom.

Not that the drawing room needs all that to be filled. Being the source of all preferment and of every favor, it is natural that it should overflow2129. It is the same in our leveling society (in 1875), where the drawing room of an insignificant deputy, a mediocre journalist, or a fashionable woman, is full of courtiers under the name of friends and visitors. Moreover, here, to be present is an obligation; it might be called a continuation of ancient feudal homage; the staff of nobles is maintained as the retinue of its born general. In the language of the day, it is called "paying one's duty to the king." Absence, in the sovereign's eyes, would be a sign of independence as well as of indifference, while submission as well as regular attention is his due. In this respect we must study the institution from the beginning. The eyes of Louis XIV go their rounds at every moment, "on arising or retiring, on passing into his apartments, in his gardens,. . . nobody escapes, even those who hoped they were not seen; it was a demerit with some, and the most distinguished, not to make the court their ordinary sojourn, to others to come to it but seldom, and certain disgrace to those who never, or nearly never, came."2130 Henceforth, the main thing, for the first personages in the kingdom, men and women, ecclesiastics and laymen, the grand affair, the first duty in life, the true occupation, is to be at all hours and in every place under the king's eye, within reach of his voice and of his glance. "Whoever," says La BruyÈre, "considers that the king's countenance is the courtier's supreme felicity, that he passes his life looking on it and within sight of it, will comprehend to some extent how to see God constitutes the glory and happiness of the saints." There were at this time prodigies of voluntary assiduity and subjection. The Duc de Fronsac, every morning at seven o'clock, in winter and in summer, stationed himself, at his father's command, at the foot of the small stairway leading to the chapel, solely to shake hands with Mme. de Maintenon on her leaving for St. Cyr.2131 "Pardon me, Madame," writes the Duc de Richelieu to her, "the great liberty I take in presuming to send you the letter which I have written to the king, begging him on my knees that he will occasionally allow me to pay my court to him at Ruel, for I would rather die than pass two months without seeing him." The true courtier follows the prince as a shadow follows its body; such, under Louis XIV, was the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, the master of the hounds. "He never missed the king's rising or retiring, both changes of dress every day, the hunts and the promenades, likewise every day, for ten years in succession, never sleeping away from the place where the king rested, and yet on a footing to demand leave, but not to stay away all night, for he had not slept out of Paris once in forty years, but to go and dine away from the court, and not be present on the promenade."—If; later, and under less exacting masters, and in the general laxity of the eighteenth century, this discipline is relaxed, the institution nevertheless subsists;2132 in default of obedience, tradition, interest and amour-propre suffice for the people of the court. To approach the king, to be a domestic in his household, an usher, a cloak-bearer, a valet, is a privilege that is purchased, even in 1789, for thirty, forty, and a hundred thousand livres; so much greater the reason why it is a privilege to form a part of his society, the most honorable, the most useful, and the most coveted of all.—In the first place, it is a proof of noble birth. A man, to follow the king in the chase, and a woman, to be presented to the queen, must previously satisfy the genealogist, and by authentic documents, that his or her nobility goes back to the year 1400.—In the next place, it ensures good fortune. This drawing room is the only place within reach of royal favors; accordingly, up to 1789, the great families never stir away from Versailles, and day and night they lie in ambush. The valet of the Marshal de Noaillles says to him one night on closing his curtains,

"At what hour will Monseigneur be awakened?" "At ten o'clock, if no one dies during the night."2133

Old courtiers are still found who, "at the age of eighty, have passed forty-five on their feet in the antechambers of the king, of the princes, and of the ministers. . .

"You have only three things to do," says one of them to a debutant, "speak well of everybody, ask for every vacancy, and sit down when you can."

Hence, the king always has a crowd around him. The Comtesse du Barry says, on presenting her niece at court, the first of August, 1773, "the crowd is so great at a presentation, one can scarcely get through the antechambers."2134 In December, 1774, at Fontainebleau, when the queen plays at her own table every evening, "the apartment, though vast, is never empty. . . . The crowd is so great that one can talk only to the two or three persons with whom one is playing." The fourteen apartments, at the receptions of ambassadors are full to overflowing with seigniors and richly dressed women. On the first of January, 1775, the queen "counted over two hundred ladies presented to her to pay their court." In 1780, at Choisy, a table for thirty persons is spread every day for the king, another with thirty places for the seigniors, another with forty places for the officers of the guard and the equerries, and one with fifty for the officers of the bedchamber. According to my estimate, the king, on getting up and on retiring, on his walks, on his hunts, at play, has always around him at least forty or fifty seigniors and generally a hundred, with as many ladies, besides his attendants on duty. At Fontainebleau, in 1756, although "there were neither fÊtes nor ballets this year, one hundred and six ladies were counted." When the king holds a "grand apartement," when play or dancing takes place in the gallery of mirrors, four or five hundred guests, the elect of the nobles and of the fashion, range themselves on the benches or gather around the card and cavanole tables.2135 This is a spectacle to be seen, not by the imagination, or through imperfect records, but with our own eyes and on the spot, to comprehend the spirit, the effect and the triumph of monarchical culture. In an elegantly furnished house, the drawing room is the principal room; and never was one more dazzling than this. Suspended from the sculptured ceiling peopled with sporting cupids, descend, by garlands of flowers and foliage, blazing chandeliers, whose splendor is enhanced by the tail mirrors; the light streams down in floods on gilding, diamonds, and beaming, arch physiognomies, on fine busts, and on the capacious, sparkling and garlanded dresses. The skirts of the ladies ranged in a circle, or in tiers on the benches, "form a rich espalier covered with pearls, gold, silver, jewels, spangles, flowers and fruits, with their artificial blossoms, gooseberries, cherries, and strawberries," a gigantic animated bouquet of which the eye can scarcely support the brilliancy. There are no black coats, as nowadays, to disturb the harmony. With the hair powdered and dressed, with buckles and knots, with cravats and ruffles of lace, in silk coats and vests of the hues of fallen leaves, or of a delicate rose tint, or of celestial blue, embellished with gold braid and embroidery, the men are as elegant as the women. Men and women, each is a selection; they all are of the accomplished class, gifted with every grace which good blood, education, fortune, leisure and custom can bestow; they are perfect of their kind. There is no toilet, no carriage of the head, no tone of the voice, no expression in language which is not a masterpiece of worldly culture, the distilled quintessence of all that is exquisitely elaborated by social art. Polished as the high society of Paris may be, it does not approach this;2136 compared with the court, it seems provincial. It is said that a hundred thousand roses are required to make an ounce of the unique perfume used by Persian kings; such is this drawing-room, the frail vial of crystal and gold containing the substance of a human vegetation. To fill it, a great aristocracy had to be transplanted to a hot-house and become sterile in fruit and flowers, and then, in the royal alembic, its pure sap is concentrated into a few drops of aroma. The price is excessive, but only at this price can the most delicate perfumes be manufactured.