CHAPTER V

Louis XIV and His Court

24.

Louis XIV

Louis XIV was made for a brilliant court. In the midst of other men his figure, his courage, his grace, his beauty, his grand bearing, even the tone of his voice and the majestic and natural charm of all his person, distinguished him till his death, and showed that if he had only been born a simple private gentleman, he would equally have excelled in fêtes, pleasures, and gallantry. . . .

But Louis XIV reigned in little things; the great he could never reach; even in the former, too, he was often governed. The superior ability of his early ministers and his early generals soon wearied him. He liked nobody to be in any way superior to him. Thus he chose his ministers, not for their knowledge, but for their ignorance; not for their capacity, but for their want of it. He liked to form them, as he said; liked to teach them even the most trifling things. It was the same with his generals. He took credit to himself for instructing them; wished it to be thought that from his cabinet he commanded and directed all his armies. Naturally fond of trifles, he unceasingly occupied himself with the most petty details of his troops, his household, his mansions; would even instruct his cooks, who received, like novices, lessons they had known by heart for years. This vanity, this unmeasured and unreasonable love of admiration, was his ruin. His ministers, his generals, his courtiers, soon perceived his weakness. They praised him with emulation and spoiled him.

He was exceedingly jealous of the attention paid him. Not only did he notice the presence of the most distinguished courtiers, but those of inferior degree also. He looked to the right and to the left, not only upon rising but upon going to bed, at his meals, in passing through his apartments, or his gardens of Versailles, where alone the courtiers were allowed to follow him; he saw and noticed everybody; not one escaped him, not even those who hoped to remain unnoticed. He marked well all absentees from the court, found out the reason of their absence, and never lost an opportunity of acting toward them as the occasion might seem to justify. With some of the courtiers (the most distinguished), it was a demerit not to make the court their ordinary abode; with others it was a fault to come but rarely; for those who never or scarcely ever came it was certain disgrace. When their names were in any way mentioned, "I do not know them," the king would reply haughtily. . . .

Louis XIV took great pains to be well informed of all that passed everywhere; in the public places, in the private houses, in society and familiar intercourse. His spies and tell-tales were very numerous. He had them of all kinds: many who were ignorant that their information reached him; others who knew it; others who wrote to him direct, sending their letters through channels he indicated; and all these letters were seen by him alone, and always before everything else. There were other spies who sometimes spoke to him secretly in his cabinet, entering by the back stairs. These unknown means ruined a great number of people of all classes, who never could discover the cause; often ruined them very unjustly; for the king, once prejudiced, never altered his opinion, or so rarely that nothing was more rare. He had, too, another fault, very dangerous for others and often for himself, since it deprived him of good subjects. He had an excellent memory; and if he saw a man who, twenty years before, perhaps, had in some manner offended him, he did not forget the man, though he might forget the offense. This was enough, however, to exclude the person from all favor. The entreaties of a minister, of a general, of his confessor even, could not move the king. He would not yield.

The most cruel means by which the king was informed of what was passing — for many years before anybody knew it — was that of opening letters. The promptness and dexterity with which they were opened passes understanding. He saw extracts from all the letters in which there were passages that the chiefs of the post office, and then the minister who governed it, thought ought to go before him; entire letters, too, were sent to him, when their contents seemed to justify the sending. Thus the chiefs of the post, nay, the principal clerks, were in a position to suppose what they pleased and against whom they pleased. A word of contempt against the king or the government, a joke, a detached phrase, was enough. It is incredible how many people, justly or unjustly, were more or less ruined, always without resource, without trial, and without knowing why. The secret was impenetrable; for nothing ever cost the king less than profound silence and dissimulation. . . .

Never did man give with better grace than Louis XIV, or augmented so much, in this way, the price of his benefits. Never did man sell to better profit his words, even his smiles, nay, his looks. Never did disobliging words escape him; and, if he had to blame, to reprimand, or correct, which was very rare, it was nearly always with mildness, never with anger or severity. Never was man so naturally polite, or of a politeness so measured, so graduated, so adapted to person, time, and place. Toward women his politeness was without parallel. Never did he pass the humblest petticoat without raising his hat; even to chambermaids that he knew to be such, as often happened at Marly. For ladies he took his hat off completely, but to a greater or less extent; for titled people half off, holding it in his hand or against his ear for a moment. For the nobility he contented himself by putting his hand to his hat. He took it off for the princes of the blood, as for the ladies. If he accosted ladies, he did not cover himself until he had quitted them. All this was out of doors, for in the house he was never covered. His reverences were incomparable for their grace and manner; even his mode of half raising himself at supper for each lady who arrived at table. Though at last this fatigued him, yet he never ceased it; the ladies who were to sit down, however, took care not to enter after supper had commenced.

¹ , translated by Bayle St. John. 3 vols. London, 1883. Bickers and Son.

² Saint-Simon, , vol. ii, pp. 357–358, 364–368.