La Palatine, Duchess of Orleans, has left among her letters a description of her costume on a day of august ceremonies.  “The crowd was so great,” she wrote, “that we had to wait a quarter of an hour at the door of each salon before entering, and I was wearing a robe and an overskirt so intolerably heavy that I could scarcely stand erect.  My costume was of gold woven with black chenille flowers, and my jewels were pearls and diamonds.  Monsieur had on a coat of black velour embroidered with gold, and wore all his great diamonds.  The coat of my son was embroidered with gold and a variety of other colors and it was covered with gems.  The robe my daughter wore was made of green velour threaded with gold and garnished with rubies and diamonds.  In her hair was an ornament designed in brilliants and sprays of rubies.”

For these extraordinary functions the King and his entourage bedecked themselves with priceless ornaments.  When in 1714 the Sun King received the ambassador of Siam, he chose a habit of black and gold bordered with diamonds, valued at 12,500,000 livres, or about $2,500,000.  The weight was so great that he was compelled to change it soon after dinner.  Besides the jewelry he wore on his own person, the royal host loaned for this event a garniture of diamonds and pearls to the Duke of Maine and another garniture of colored stones to the Count of Toulouse.

When the King of France received foreign ambassadors, or celebrated, with pomp befitting his tastes, marriages and births in the royal family, the Court, weightily, stiffly, sumptuously appareled, thronged through the Hall of Mirrors—­the Grand Gallery—­in spectacular defile.

These brilliant tableaux, the most brilliant of all Europe, had their source in the King’s love of splendor and profusion.  It was to please him that his courtiers and favorites staked fortunes at the gaming tables, outran each other in devising costly dresses, contrived novel equipages and unique dwellings.  In his superb Court he found all the elements required to satisfy his pride, and glorify his reign.  The Sun King was the most profligate host in all history.  Determined to outdo the fabulous luxury of the feasts of Lucullus in early Roman times, and to outshine the storied splendor of Oriental princes, he entertained his Court and guests with lavish liberality, superbly indifferent to the cost of his boundless extravagance and considering not at all the day of reckoning that must come later for the Bourbon dynasty in France.  To glow with commanding brilliance, like the Sun, in the center of his royal firmament, to overwhelm his subjects with his grandeur, and to dazzle the eyes of other nations—­that was the ambition that Louis cherished and achieved.

CHAPTER VII

THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES