V. Royal distractions.

Diversions of the royal family and of the court.- Louis XV. — Louis
XVI.

In short, what is the occupation of a well-qualified master of a house?  He amuses himself and he amuses his guests; under his roof a new pleasure-party comes off daily.  Let us enumerate those of a week.  “Yesterday, Sunday,” says the Duc de Luynes, “I met the king going to hunt on the plain of St. Denis, having slept at la Muette, where he intends to remain shooting to day and to-morrow, and to return here on Tuesday or Wednesday morning, to run down a stag the same day, Wednesday."[48] Two months after this, “the king,” again says M. de Luynes, “has been hunting every day of the past and of the present week, except to day and on Sundays, killing, since the beginning, 3,500 partridges.”  He is always on the road, or hunting, or passing from one residence to another, from Versailles to Fontainebleau, to Choisy, to Marly, to la Muette, to Compiègne, to Trianon, to Saint-Hubert, to Bellevue, to Rambouillet, and, generally, with his entire court.[49] At Choisy, especially, and at Fontainebleau this company all lead a merry life.  At Fontainebleau “Sunday and Friday, play; Monday and Wednesday, a concert in the queen’s apartments; Tuesday and Thursday, the French comedians; and Saturday it is the Italians;” there is something for every day in the week.  At Choisy, writes the Dauphine,[50] “from one o’clock (in the afternoon) when we dine, to one o’clock at night we remain out. . .  After dining we play until six o’clock, after which we go to the theater, which lasts until half-past nine o’clock, and next, to supper; after this, play again, until one, and sometimes half-past one, o’clock.”  At Versailles things are more moderate; there are but two theatrical entertainments and one ball a week; but every evening there is play and a reception in the king’s apartment, in his daughters’, in his mistress’s, in his daughter-in-law’s, besides hunts and three petty excursions a week.  Records show that, in a certain year, Louis XV slept only fifty-two nights at Versailles, while the Austrian Ambassador well says that “his mode of living leaves him not an hour in the day for attention to important matters.” — As to Louis XVI, we have seen that he reserves a few hours of the morning; but the machine is wound up, and go it must.  How can he withdraw himself from his guests and not do the honors of his house?  Here propriety and custom are tyrants and a third despotism must be added, still more absolute:  the imperious vivacity of a lively young queen who cannot endure an hour’s reading. — At Versailles, three theatrical entertainments and two balls a week, two grand suppers Tuesday and Thursday, and from time to time, the opera in Paris.[51] At Fontainebleau, the theater three times a week, and on other days, play and suppers.  During the following winter the queen gives a masked ball each week, in which “the contrivance of the costumes, the quadrilles