Memoirs of Louis XIV and His Court and of the Regency — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,495 pages of information about Memoirs of Louis XIV and His Court and of the Regency — Complete.

Memoirs of Louis XIV and His Court and of the Regency — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,495 pages of information about Memoirs of Louis XIV and His Court and of the Regency — Complete.
were allowed to grow there would no longer be any resource.  Madame de Maintenon grew angry, and all he obtained for his zeal was her anger.  She said that only the personal enemies of Fagon could find fault with his opinion upon the King’s health, concerning which the capacity, the application, the experience of the chief physician could not be deceived.  The best of it is that Marechal, who had formerly operated upon Fagon for stone, had been appointed chief surgeon by him, and they had always lived on the best of terms.  Marechal, annoyed as he related to me, could do nothing more, and began from that time to lament the death of his master.  Fagon was in fact the first physician in Europe, but for a long time his health had not permitted him to maintain his experience; and the high point of authority to which his capacity and his favour had carried him, had at last spoiled him.  He would not hear reason, or submit to reply, and continued to treat the King as he had treated him in early years; and killed him by his obstinacy.

The gout of which the King had had long attacks, induced Fagon to swaddle him, so to say, every evening in a heap of feather pillows, which made him sweat all night to such an extent that it was necessary in the morning to rub him down and change his linen before the grand chamberlain and the first gentleman of the chamber could enter.  For many years he had drunk nothing but Burgundy wine, half mixed with water, and so old that it was used up instead of the best champagne which he had used all his life.  He would pleasantly say sometimes that foreign lords who were anxious to taste the wine he used, were often mightily deceived.  At no time had he ever drunk pure wine, or made use in any way of spirits, or even tea, coffee, or chocolate.  Upon rising, instead of a little bread and wine and water, he had taken for a long time two glasses of sage and veronica; often between his meals, and always on going to bed, glasses of water with a little orange-flower water in them, and always iced.  Even on the days when he had medicine he drank this, and always also at his meals, between which he never ate anything except some cinnamon lozenges that he put into his pocket at his dessert, with a good many cracknels for the bitches he kept in his cabinet.

As during the last year of his life the King became more and more costive, Fagon made him eat at the commencement of his repasts many iced fruits, that is to say, mulberries, melons, and figs rotten from ripeness; and at his dessert many other fruits, finishing with a surprising quantity of sweetmeats.  All the year round he ate at supper a prodigious quantity of salad.  His soups, several of which he partook of morning and evening, were full of gravy, and were of exceeding strength, and everything that was served to him was full of spice, to double the usual extent, and very strong also.  This regimen and the sweetmeats together Fagon did not like, and sometimes while seeing

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Memoirs of Louis XIV and His Court and of the Regency — Complete from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.