as he glides through palace corridors and quietly recites here and there a neat epigram; we are playing the shepherd on the lawn of the Little Trianon; lon, and the great preacher Bossuet, and his friend and pupil, Fénelon, who in his exile had dared to declare that "governments are made for the gov erned;" Madame de Sévigné had lived and written the matchless letters which are still the chief model of the epistolary style; Corneille had risen to become the patriarch of French poesy, to be followed by a greater poet in Racine, and by Molière, who so completely falsified Madame de Sévigné's prophecy that he would "pass away like coffee," and who was the most illustrious valet de chambre that ever handed a despot his waistcoat, or cracked jokes at the groaning board of a royal household; Pascal's "Thoughts" had stimulated reflection throughout civilized society, while Descartes had arisen to dispute the palm of philosophic discovery with Bacon and Locke; Rochefoucauld had written his incomparable "Maxims;" Malebranche, the "French Plato," had published his "Search after Truth;" and La Bruyère had given to the world his rapidly and nervously drawn "Characters." Of the arts, too, the latter part of the eighteenth century was the golden age in France. It had produced Poussin, Claude Lorraine, Lebrun, and Lesueur, in painting; Puget in sculpture, Mansard and Perrault in architecture, and Lulli in music. Perhaps no figure in that age stands in nobler attitude than that of Vauban, he who dared to tell the magnificent Louis that the Edict of Nantes must be restored, that religious toleration must be reëstablished, that the nobility must be taxed, and the court must be reformed; for which the king told him that he was crazy for popularity, and sent him persecuted and neglected to the grave. FIRST GENTLEMAN OF THE ROYAL CHAMBER, IN STATE DRESS. and we cannot, if we would, avert our gaze from the voluptuous Pompadour and the black-eyed Du Barri. From 1700, the year in which France saw one of her princes raised to the Spanish throne, to 1789, when France saw her own monarch assailed by revolution, the French court was the luminous centre of all that was splendid, elegant, and graceful, in Europe. This splendor was not all gross and sensuous, though grossness and sensuousness were from first to last but thinly concealed by the outward gilding. The court shone with intellect, with philosophy, with poesy, with science, as well as with the mere trappings of external ornament and manners the most polished and the most diligently cultivated. Just think how the later years of the preceding century had prepared the way for an era of literary taste and of intellectual inquiry, as well as of pageant and luxury. To say nothing of the host of writers of inferior rank, such as Balzac and Voiture, Lingendes and Bourdaloue, there were Masil This host of poets, philosophers, essayists, and painters, of boldly-speaking, eloquent bishops, and courageous patriots telling plain truths in an atmosphere where truth was a blight, undoubtedly shed a splendor of a higher sort on the French court of the eighteenth century. The exercise of wit and the discussion of great problems became fashionable. In the antechambers and saloons of Versailles there was much play of intellect as well as frivolity; and it is this feature which redeemed the court from a mere vapid and tinsel luxury. Every courtier aimed to be a poet; or, if the Muse failed him, he betook himself to social philosophy, and dallied with subjects really the most dangerous to his own caste. The brilliant circles which gathered around the regent, and the fifteenth and sixteenth Louis, as they feasted, and danced, and flirted, im agined themselves to be philosophic schools, with gorgeously-attired Socrateses and Aristotles, self-indulgent princes as the patrons, and palaces for the philosophers' porch. There was a period, indeed, in which the shadow of a hollow and hypocritical piety fell over the Bourbon court, and in which Versailles, from being the centre of gayety, intrigue, and gilded vice, was invaded by an almost cloistral gloom. This was in the early part of the century of which we write. Louis XIV. had waxed old and feeble and superstitious. He had forever discarded the fiery-tempered and imperious Montespan, and had secretly wedded the devout widow of Scarron. Never had any favorite achieved so complete an ascendency over Louis as did Madame de Maintenon. Her austere virtue is vindicated by the circumstance that she would be nothing less than the wedded wife of the old king. The transformation of Louis from the most scandalous and open immorality to the practice of the piety of an anchorite, the obstinate adherence to form of a schoolman, and the ecclesiastical despotism of a Franciscan, was one of the strangest in the history of royal caprice. The king's conversion, under the influence of Madame de Maintenon, gave the cue to the courtier and the parasite. Under that unacknowledged queen's reign, he only could hope for preferment and favor who regularly attended his mass, who wore a solemn and humble countenance, who eschewed gambling and gallantry-at least in publicand who devoted himself to an apparent if not sincere attention to the precepts of the bishops and the clergy. Madame de Maintenon was, no doubt, herself really devout. The result of her ascendency over the court was to make Versailles nearly as sombre early in the eighteenth century as were Windsor and St. James's under the protectorate of Cromwell in the middle of the seventeenth. Fêtes ceased to be given in that beautiful park; the royal theatre within the palace, that theatre which is now given over to the eloquence and wrangling of the deputies of the Third Republic, was silent and deserted; the noise of laughter was almost un games of cards-such as ombre and hookey-were played on the long evenings in the royal apartments; nor did Madame de Maintenon approve by her presence of even these mild recreations. Music even was tabooed; it was only upon extraordinary occasions, which seemed to warrant the permission of so mundane a frivolity, that other strains than those in celebration of pious rites were heard, where once the most thrilling melodies had stirred the already heated blood of royal and noble revelers. Louis XIV. lived till 1715; he had not seen a ballet since "The Triumph of Love," which was danced before him in 1681. He, who had been so ardent an admirer of the drama, who had attended the performance of Molière's free and rollicking comedies night after night for years, leading the applause with his own royal hands and feet, was doomed to confine himself to sacred plays illustrating Biblical stories, which he affected to enjoy rather for their pious lessons than for their dramatic interest. Meanwhile the courtiers yawned and lounged, and waited rather impatiently for better days. Yet even at this period, when Versailles was QUEEN'S LADY OF THE PALACE. known to the palace apartments; the existence | deepest in its gloom, the etiquette of the court, well claim to have been a not unimportant "part" | rigid routine which hedged about the poor old monof the society of that time, give us a curious picture of the ceremony which environed Louis in his old age, and which, while he was bound down to the most exacting religious servitude, took from him the relief he might otherwise have had in liberty of movement and action. "At eight o'clock," says Saint-Simon, "the first valet de chambre on duty, who had slept in the king's chamber, went to wake him. The first physician and the first surgeon then entered the room and consulted as to the state of his health. At a quarter-past eight the grand-chamberlain, or in his absence the first gentleman of the chamber, was called, as were also the grandes entrées, that is to say, the persons who occupied the highest posts at the court and in the royal household. The first gentleman or the grand-chamberlain opened the curtains and presented to the king, still in bed, the holy-water and a book of prayer; and then all the persons present withdrew into the next room. The king, having been aided in rising by his valet, and having hastily made his ablutions, recalled the grandchamberlain or first gentleman, who handed him his dressing-gown. The door was then opened and admittance given to those who had been waiting outside. The king did nearly everything for himself with rapidity and grace; he put on his stockings, combed, washed, and dressed himself, without any toilet-table in front of him-nothing but a lookingglass. As soon as he was dressed, he said his prayers by his bedside, the ecclesiastics who were present (including the cardinals) knelt down, the laymen remained standing, and the captain of the guard, his drawn sword in his hand, leaned against the balustrades of the bed. His prayers said, the king passed into his cabinet, where those whose functions gave them the right of entry were awaiting him. There he gave his orders for the day. That done, all persons in attendance withdrew, and the king, remaining alone with his children, their governess, and a few privileged courtiers, received the intendants of his palaces, gardens, and other 'pleasures.' arch in a bondage of etiquette. No courtier could address him without first giving notice to the captain of the guard that he intended to do so-unless, indeed, his majesty went from the chapel to the council-chamber, when any member of the court might address him. On great official occasions, the ceremonies which were gone through were painfully numerous and precise; while at each hour and incident of the day there was a specified groove in which the king must go. His supper over, he was constrained to pass into his chamber and stand with his back against the bed-railing, talking to the gentlemen and ladies of the court. Then he went into his private cabinet, where he remained shut up for a certain period with the members of his family; at a certain hour he went to feed his dogs, returning to bid his sons and grandsons good-night, and to retire with what must often have been the vexatious aid of his chamberlains, bedchamber gentlemen, and valets. He must have frequently heaved a great sigh of relief when at last he found himself alone with the "valet on duty," and could forget the irksome penalties of kingship in sleep. Happy, comparatively, must have been those days when the austerity of Madame de Maintenon so far unbent as to permit the court a holiday from masses and orisons at the Grand Trianon; for there the strict rules of etiquette were relaxed, and a court-dame might speak to the king without fear of a reproof from the grand-chamberlain. The death of the Grand Monarque was hailed with joy alike by the court and by the people. "The death of the most odious tyrant," says the Duke de Richelieu, "could not have excited greater pleasure. His departure was looked upon as a divine favor." The old gayety and splendor of the court sprang into new life as the pleasure-loving Regent Orleans took up the reins of power. It was like the revival of festivity which occurred in England when the restoration of the merry Charles dissipated the Puritanic gloom of the Protectorate. The court of Louis was, however, snubbed by OrThese were not by any means the only laws of leans, who gathered around him a court of his own at the Palais Royal. There, in the palace which had been erected for Richelieu, revels began every evening which lasted through the night. There were music, gaming, dancing, and drinking, and the regent led the orgies in person. Much to the delight of his courtiers, he refused to adopt the rigid laws of etiquette which still survived at Versailles. But the reign of the regent was brief, and at last, to the relief of the grand seigneurs and noble dames whose very being was absorbed in the ambition to see Versailles once more aglow with royal magnificence, themselves in its centre and basking in its sunshine, the young king, Louis XV., assumed the authority to which his birth entitled him. Addison, in one of the papers in the Guardian, gives us a hint or two, in his matchless style, of some of the luxuries and ornaments of royalty in the early part of the eighteenth century. "I could not believe it was in the power of art," he says, "to furnish out such a multitude of noble scenes as I met with in Paris; or that so many delightful prospects could lie within the compass of a man's imagination. There is everything done that can be expected from a prince who removes mountains, turns the course of rivers, raises woods in a day's time, and plants a village or town on such a particular spot of ground, only for the bettering of a view." The gentle English essayist visits Versailles and Fontainebleau, and is amazed at the wonderful devices to render those abodes charming and luxurious. Then he catches a glimpse of the court on the one hand, and of the French poor on the other. "One can scarce conceive the pomp," he says, "that appears in everything about the king; but, at the same time, it makes half his subjects go barefoot. The people are, however, the happiest in the world. There is nothing to be met with but mirth and poverty. Every one sings, laughs, and starves. . . . One would almost fancy one's self to be in the enchanted palaces of a romance," he goes on in another paper; "one meets with so many heroes, and finds something so like scenes of magic in the gardens, statues, and water-works." A picture of the court which surrounded the youthful, handsome, and amiable Louis the WellBeloved would show it to include an immense establishment, containing hundreds of people of every rank and condition, each having his proper precedence, place, and duties. The nobility who were attached to the court were grandees who had certain LOUIS XV., AS A CHILD, BEING WHEELED ABOUT THE GARDENS OF THE TUILERIES. offices, honorary or otherwise, about the person of the sovereign, and were not admitted to the charmed circle merely because they were noble. Indeed, the great mass of the French nobility, which, at the accession of Louis XV., reached the number of six hundred thousand, never penetrated the halls where the monarch held his ceremonies and revels. The court nobility were essentially a caste by themselves, arrogant, rich, and elegant, who looked down upon the shabby-genteel nobility who swarmed in the provinces with haughty disdain. The select few never visited their rural properties, being content to receive the ample incomes collected thence by their intendants. Their great hotels in town were veritable palaces, not less richly frescoed, gilded, and wainscoted, than Versailles itself. These hotels were spacious enough to accommodate a large household of servants, and the great nobles emulated the king in the costliness and pomp of their feasts. They rolled to and from Versailles in carriages of most elaborate structure and decoration, with lackeys and running footmen, who were "brilliant in gold-lace and epaulets, with their long gilt-headed canes." It was this high nobility whom Louis XIV. subjected to that "gilded captivity" which preceded its decadence and utter extinction as a political power in the land. They swallowed up all the offices and emoluments in the royal gift; they got their sons ness, but no acquaintance with the necessary sciences; plenty of courage to fight, but no ability to command." The court nobles would have starved before they would have set themselves to any useful work; but the most humble offices about the king were regarded as honorable. The Abbé Coyer said, 'In order to be something, the nobility is plunged in nothingness." A glance at the various corps of officials and servants who formed the court of Louis XV. will give some idea of the cost which this establishment must have been to France. There were the nobility who held the higher places of chamberlains, marshals, aides, high stewards, gentlemen of the bedchamber, almoners, and so on; and then there were the servants holding no other rank than the (to them) proud one of "belonging to the court." "It was," says |