Louis XIV and La Grande Mademoiselle, 1652-1693Barine, Arvède
History
Louis XIV and La Grande Mademoiselle, 1652-1693
Barine, Arvède
Louis XIV, King of France, 1638-1715; Montpensier, Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orléans, duchesse de, 1627-1693
This suite was composed of ladies and maids of honour, gentlemen, pages,
domestics of all orders and of both sexes, footmen and valets of valets.
The King even brought his nurse with him. On the other hand, the
nobility were better disciplined than in the times of Mazarin and Anne
of Austria, and no one had dared to remain behind. The departure was
from Saint-Germain, April 28. Pellison wrote the next day to his friend
Mlle. de Scudery: "It is impossible to tell you how numerous the Court
is; it is much larger than at Saint-Germain or Paris. Every one has
followed."[220]
The quantity of luggage gave to this crowd the appearance of a wandering
nomadic tribe. All the personages of high rank took with them complete
sets of furniture. Louis XIV. had on this journey "a chamber of crimson
damask," for ordinary use, and another "very magnificent" where greater
accommodation would be had. The bed of the last was "of green velvet
embroidered with gold, immensely large, which could of itself fill
several small rooms." There were also entire suites of needful furniture
when the King lodged at his ease, and the same for the Queen, beautiful
Gobelin tapestries and a quantity of silver plaques,[221] chandeliers of
silver, and other pieces.
The commissary department carried a monster cooking apparatus and
necessary utensils to supply, morning and evening, several large tables
with food served on plated dishes. When all was unpacked, their
Majesties were "almost as at the Tuileries."
Monsieur could not do without pretty things nor infinite variation of
toilet; he was much encumbered on a journey. Mademoiselle, demanding
little, had nevertheless her rank to maintain, and her "campaign
chamber" was imposing. On one journey, she was obliged to lodge ten days
in a peasant's hut where the ceilings were so low that it was necessary
to increase the height of the room by digging out the ground which
formed the floor, in order to erect the canopy of her bed. Those of the
courtiers obliged, from their rank as chiefs of _Commandments_, to keep
open table led with them a staff of domestics and enough material for an
itinerant inn. Others wished to make themselves conspicuous by the
fineness of their equipage. That of Lauzun had been much admired at his
departure from Paris. "He passed through the St. Honore," wrote
Mademoiselle, who had come across him by chance; "he was very splendid
and magnificent." The most modest carried at least a camp-bed, under
pain of sleeping upon mother earth during the entire trip.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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