Louis XIV and La Grande Mademoiselle, 1652-1693 — John Shaqi
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
Mademoiselle did not know how to provide for these guests and the most
important were lodged with the bailiff. The Duchess of Sully and her
sister, the Marquise of Laval, came together for a prolonged sojourn and
performed the office of shuttle between the cellar in which the Grande
Mademoiselle held her court and "the new bed of the city of
Saint-Fargeau." Ladies of quality arriving at this time lodged where
they could with small regard to comfort, and this condition lasted until
the chateau was put in order. Every one suffered but nobody complained.
There was a certain elegance in this haughty fashion of ignoring
comfort, the importance of which in our own days seems in comparison
rather bourgeois, in the worst sense of the word.
Gradually all was arranged. The chateau was restored, the apartments
enlarged.[4] The overgrowth of the approaches gave place to a terrace
from which to the surprise of all a charming view was discovered. The
Saint-Fargeau of the Capets and of the first Valois, "a place so wild,"
says Mademoiselle, "that when I arrived, only herbs fit for soup were to
be found," became a beautiful residence, hospitable and animated.
The mistress of the place loved open air and movement, as did all the
French nobility before an absolute monarchy, in the interest of order
and peace, had trained them to rest tranquilly in the salons of
Versailles. Muscular decadence commenced with the French at the epoch
when it became the fashion to pass the days in silk stockings and
practising bows, under punishment of being excluded from all society.
Violent exercises were abandoned or made more gentle.[5] Attention was
paid only to what gave majestic grace to the body in harmony with the
Versailles "Galerie of Mirrors."
The bourgeoisie were eager to imitate the people of quality, and the
higher classes paid for their fine manners or their attempts at fine
manners with the headaches and nervous disorders of the eighteenth
century. The taste for sport has only reappeared in France during our
own times. We are now witnessing its resurrection.
This taste, however, was still lively immediately after the Fronde, and
Mademoiselle abandoned herself to it with passion. She ordered from
England a pack of hounds and hunters. She possessed many equipages. With
a game of marl before the chateau, indoor games for rainy days, violins
from the Tuileries to play for dancing, it would be difficult to find a
court more brisk, more constantly in joyous movement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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