The large expenses of Versailles and of Marly are often alluded to, while the unfortunate peasants, who fled across the frontier after every military spectacle offered to the "ladies," are forgotten. Louis XIV. was incapable of keeping accounts; that is his sole excuse. It is strange, however, that a man so methodical, having a mind so steady, so well regulated, had never been able to comprehend that figures are figures, and that no one is able to make two crowns out of one. Colbert never succeeded in controlling the waste of his master, even in cases when the added profusion in no way increased the pleasure, and appears to us as a mere barbarous lavishness.
It is known that in the seventeenth century the repasts were abundant. Those of Louis XIV. were excessively so. In 1664, the King, having invited the Pope's legate to dine with him tête-à-tête, those in attendance counted the dishes; there were eighty, not including thirty-eight for dessert. This was certainly excessive, and Colbert had said in the Memorial of 1660, "I declare to your Majesty ... that a useless meal, costing a thousand crowns, gives me an incredible pain."
But the lavishness of fifteen years later was far greater. On January 16, 1680, the King married Mlle. de Blois, his daughter by La Vallière, to Prince Louis-Armand de Conti, nephew of the great Condé. "The wedding festival was royal," wrote Bussy-Rabutin; "there were seven hundred dishes on a single table, served in five courses, that is to say, one hundred and forty dishes to each course." Mme. de Sévigné points the moral. "The young husband was ill the entire night. It would be a temptation to say 'Well deserved!'"
If, from the incensed and suffering people, the attention is turned towards the Court, the difference between without and within is perhaps as clearly marked, although more difficult to define. Without, there is splendour, adulations given and received; within, a profound moral misery; with some, debauch and poverty; with others, discouragement and bitterness. Mme. de Sévigné, in a letter of 1680, has unconsciously painted, in six lines, the state of degradation to which the King had systematically reduced the nobility of France, lined up, as it were, to catch purses thrown to them January 12: "The King is enormously liberal in truth; it is not needful to despair; one may not be a valet, but in making one's court, something may fall upon one's head. What is certain is that far from him [the King], all seems valueless; formerly it was otherwise."
If souls were debased under Louis, he must be held in large part responsible. The same can be said in regard to the deterioration of manners and morals. France, before the time of Louis XIV., was accustomed enough to both mistresses and bastards, but not to the prerogatives of second wives conferred on the first, nor the legitimatising of adulteries which encouraged his subjects to consider no longer seriously either law or morality. The example of the master ended in deadening consciences already somewhat feeble, and husbands might be seen encouraging their wives, the mothers of their daughters, to imitate La Vallière and de Montespan.
LOUISE DE LA VALLIÈRE, IN THE GARB OF THE ORDER OF THE CARMELITES.
After the painting by D. Plaats
Louis had been in some degree punished for having played sultan. Polygamy cannot exist without some discomfort, in a land in which women have any position. Few men, even upon the stage, have had so many quarrels with their mistresses, quarrels often violent, humiliating, as well as painful, as this majestic monarch, before whom the universe trembled. Royalty does not exist before a jealous mistress, and Louis XIV. was faithful only to one, Mme. de Maintenon.
The young King had been spoiled by Louise de La Vallière, who was gentleness itself, and whom love inclined to pardon all. None of the other mistresses really loved Louis, except perhaps Marie Mancini. Louis did not really please women; it was only the King for whose favour they disputed.