This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902 Excerpt: ...of the individual looked for fulfillment to the will and favor of the sovereign. Mid the increasing misery of his subjects, Louis, for his sole glorification, surrounded himself with a luxury such as was never before witnessed. In one single year, the court festivities cost 2,000,000 francs. When the king ascended his ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902 Excerpt: ...of the individual looked for fulfillment to the will and favor of the sovereign. Mid the increasing misery of his subjects, Louis, for his sole glorification, surrounded himself with a luxury such as was never before witnessed. In one single year, the court festivities cost 2,000,000 francs. When the king ascended his throne to receive foreign ambassadors, he wore robes of incalculable value, the diamonds alone costing more than 16,000,000 francs. His table, the liveries of his servants, the foreign plants that decorated his apartments, were all objects of his reckless prodigality. A journey that he undertook to Versailles cost 1,200,000 francs. Of course the great sought to win his favor by endeavoring to vie with him in splendor. A fete given in his honor by the Great Conde at Chantilly (1671) cost more than 1,000,000 francs. But these grandees had not, like Louis, the coffers of the exchequer at their unlimited disposal, and so came to ruin. They helped themselves as best the-could--paid their creditors little or nothing, and begged the king for gifts and pensions at the cost of the poor taxpayers. They even had recourse to marriage with the daughters of rich bourgeois, who paid down their money willingly to see their grandchildren decorated with the lustre of high rank. But this afforded help only to a few; the nobility, as a whole, was irremediably impoverished. Vol. XIII.--13 This luxury festered a general dissoluteness of morals, for which the king himself set the example. Such as would play the Cat- by the assumption of a severer virtue were regarded as a sort of opposition. The courtiers bent the knee, not only to Madame de Montespan, but also to Madame Dufresnoy, an apothecary's daughter, whom Louvois honored with his love. Montespan was glor...
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