court, and not be present on the promenade."--If; later, and under less exacting masters, and in the general laxity of the eighteenth century, this discipline is relaxed, the institution nevertheless subsists;[2132] in default of obedience, tradition, interest and amour-propre suffice for the people of the court. To approach the king, to be a domestic in his household, an usher, a cloak-bearer, a valet, is a privilege that is purchased, even in 1789, for thirty, forty, and a hundred thousand livres; so much greater the reason why it is a privilege to form a part of his society, the most honorable, the most useful, and the most coveted of all.--In the first place, it is a proof of noble birth. A man, to follow the king in the chase, and a woman, to be presented to the queen, must previously satisfy the genealogist, and by authentic documents, that his or her nobility goes back to the year 1400.--In the next place, it ensures good fortune. This drawing room is the only place within reach of royal favors; accordingly, up to 1789, the great families never stir away from Versailles, and day and night they lie in ambush. The valet of the Marshal de Noaillles says to him one night on closing his curtains, "At what hour will Monseigneur be awakened?" "At ten o'clock, if no one dies during the night."[2133] Old courtiers are still found who, "at the age of eighty, have passed forty-five on their feet in the antechambers of the king, of the princes, and of the ministers. . . "You have only three things to do," says one of them to a debutant, "speak well of everybody, ask for every vacancy, and sit down when you can."