We may also date from the reign of Louis XIV. the final extinction of many of the old feudal rights which were at war with morality. Horrible as it may seem, there were parts of France where the custom allowed the seigneur to debauch the daughter of his vassal without obstacle or penalty. In some provinces it is said to have been customary for the seigneur to enjoy the first night of every girl married within his manor. In others, the peculiar authority of the seigneur over the serfs who were attached to the glebe was held to endow him with the right of using the bodies of their wives and daughters as he saw fit. No written custom justified these monstrous privileges, but frequent allusions to them in the old French writers show that in certain parts they were sanctioned by usage. Louis XIV. made it his especial business to break down the privileges of the nobility, and it was no doubt to the general police regulations he made for the government of the kingdom at large that the extinction of these rights was mainly due. With the Regency the scene changes. The Duke of Orleans had long been one of the most depraved men in France. So long as Louis XIV. lived he had perforce observed a certain outward decorum; but the death of the monarch, and the duke's high-handed seizure of the regency, enabled him to give free scope to his propensities. He resided in the Palais Royal, and gave suppers there almost every evening to a select circle of roués and fast women, among whom Madame de Parabère long held the place of honor. The company not unfrequently varied the entertainment by the performance of charades and tableaux, among which the judgment of Paris was a favorite of the regent. The conversation of the guests was so gross as to shock all but the initiated, and when they separated they were generally all intoxicated.[197]