External grandeur and regal presence,[135] a profound belief in his divinely-appointed despotism, and in earlier years a capacity for work rare among his predecessors, the lord of France certainly possessed. "He had a grand mien," says St. Simon, "and looked a veritable king of the bees." Much has been made of Louis' incomparable grace and respectful courtesy to women; but the courtesy of a king who doffs his hat to every serving wench yet contrives a staircase to facilitate the debauching of his queen's maids-of-honour, and exacts of his mistresses and the ladies of his court submission to his will and pleasure, even under the most trying of physical disabilities, is at least wanting in consistency. The king's mental equipment was less than mediocre; he was barely able to read and write, was ignorant of the commonest facts of history, and fell into the grossest blunders in public. Like all small-minded men, Louis was jealous of superior merit and preferred mediocrity rather than genius in his ministers. Small wonder that his reign ended in shame and disaster. On the 6th of June 1662, the young king, notwithstanding much public misery consequent on two years of bad harvests, organised a magnificent carrousel (tilting) in the garden that fronted the Tuileries. Five companies of nobles, each led by the king or one of the princes, were arrayed in gorgeous costumes as Romans, Persians, Turks, Armenians and Savages. Louis, who of course led the Romans, was followed by a superb train of many squires, twenty-four pages, fifty horses each led by two grooms, and fifty footmen dressed as lictors, carrying gilded fasces. The royal princes headed similar processions. So great was the display of jewels that all the precious stones in the world seemed brought together; so richly were the costumes of the knights and the trappings of the horses embroidered with gold and silver that the cloth beneath could barely be seen. The king and the princes rode by with a prodigious quantity of diamonds and rubies glittering on their costumes and equipages; an immense amphitheatre afforded seats for a multitude of spectators, and in a smaller pavilion, richly gilded, sat the two queens of France, the queen of England, and the royal princesses. The first day was spent in tilting at Medusa heads and heads of Moors: the second at rings. Louis is said to have greatly distinguished himself by his skill. Maria Theresa, his young queen, distributed the prizes, and the garden was afterwards named the Place du Carrousel.