her own circle, the queen at Trianon and at Saint-Cloud,
Mesdames at Bellevue, Monsieur at the Luxembourg and
at Brunoy, the Comte d’Artois at Meudon and at
Bagatelle, the Duc d’Orléans at the Palais Royal,
at Monceaux, at Rancy and at Villers-Cotterets, the
Prince de Conti at the Temple and at Ile-Adam, the
Condés at the Palais-Bourbon and at Chantilly, the
Duc de Penthièvre at Sceaux, Anet and Chateauvilain.
I omit one-half of these residences. At the
Palais-Royal those who are presented may come to the
supper on opera days. At Chateauvilain all those
who come to pay court are invited to dinner, the nobles
at the duke’s table and the rest at the table
of his first gentleman. At the Temple one hundred
and fifty guests attend the Monday suppers. Forty
or fifty persons, said the Duchesse de Maine, constitute
“a prince’s private company."[56] The
princes’ train is so inseparable from their persons
that it follows them even into camp. “The
Prince de Condé,” says M. de Luynes, “sets
out for the army to-morrow with a large suite:
he has two hundred and twenty-five horses, and the
Comte de la Marche one hundred. M. le duc d’Orléans
leaves on Monday; he has three hundred and fifty horses
for himself and suite."[57] Below the rank of the
king’s relatives all the grandees who figure
at the court figure as well in their own residences,
at their hotels at Paris or at Versailles, also in
their chateaux a few leagues away from Paris.
On all sides, in the memoirs, we obtain a foreshortened
view of some one of these seignorial existences.
Such is that of the Duc de Gèvres, first gentleman
of the bedchamber, governor of Paris, and of the Ile-de-France,
possessing besides this the special governorships of
Laon, Soissons, Noyon, Crespy and Valois, the captainry
of Mousseaux, also a pension of 20,000 livres, a veritable
man of the court, a sort of sample in high relief
of the people of his class, and who, through his appointments,
his airs, his luxury, his debts, the consideration
he enjoys, his tastes, his occupations and his turn
of mind presents to us an abridgment of the fashionable
world.[58] His memory for relationships and genealogies
is surprising; he is an adept in the precious science
of etiquette, and on these two grounds he is an oracle
and much consulted. “He greatly increased
the beauty of his house and gardens at Saint-Ouen.
At the moment of his death,” says the Duc de
Luynes, “he had just added twenty-five arpents
to it which he had begun to enclose with a covered
terrace. . . . He had quite a large household
of gentlemen, pages, and domestic of various kinds,
and his expenditure was enormous. . . . He
gave a grand dinner every day. . . . He gave
special audiences almost daily. There was no
one at the court, nor in the city, who did not pay
his respects to him. The ministers, the royal
princes themselves did so. He received company
whilst still in bed. He wrote and dictated amidst
a large assemblage. . . . His house at Paris