CHAPTER LXXIV

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 goodness, never, except on one occasion (the admonition of Courtenvaux, related in its place), 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.  Towards women his politeness was without parallel.  Never did he pass the humblest petticoat without raising his hat; even to chamber-maids, 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 some instants, more or less marked.  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, more or less marked, but always light, 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.

If he was made to wait for anything while dressing, it was always with patience.  He was exact to the hours that he gave for all his day, with a precision clear and brief in his orders.  If in the bad weather of winter, when he could not go out, he went to Madame de Maintenon’s a quarter of an hour earlier than he had arranged (which seldom happened), and the captain of the guards was not on duty, he did not fail afterwards to say that it was his own fault for anticipating the hour, not that of the captain of the guards for being absent.  Thus, with this regularity which he never deviated from, he was served with the utmost exactitude.

He treated his valets well, above all those of the household.  It was amongst them that he felt most at ease, and that he unbosomed himself the most familiarly, especially to the chiefs.  Their friendship and their aversion have often had grand results.  They were unceasingly in a position to render good and bad offices:  thus they recalled those powerful enfranchised slaves of the Roman emperors, to whom the senate and the great people paid court and basely truckled.  These valets during Louis XIV.’s reign were not less courted.  The ministers, even the most powerful, openly studied their caprices; and the Princes of the blood, nay, the bastards,—­not to mention people of lower grade, did the same.  The majority were accordingly insolent enough; and if you could not avoid their insolence, you were forced to put up with it.