During these first years, the nobility was not yet encouraged to leave all, to come to live under the shadow of the throne. Those having provincial charges "obtained with difficulty leave of absence."[152] Those lacking money to appear with fitting magnificence had little aid to expect from royalty; the shower of gold did not begin to fall until later, and Louis XIV. even passed for being close-fisted.
"Besides his natural temperament," said Condé, "which is not given to lavishness, he is held back by M. Colbert, who is still less given to spending, particularly when he is not persuaded of the advantage of the affair for which money must be scattered."[153] It is well known that Colbert did not love waste; but he did know how to be liberal, even for expenses of luxury. No one was more convinced of the advantage of display for a sovereign, and he spared neither pains nor state pennies in making the grand festivals with which his master entertained the Court and city, unrivalled in Europe. And they were unparalleled, especially in the early years when tastes, like everything else, were young. Even the faults, by which perhaps the tastes were benefited, were youthful.
What is called impulse with the very young man takes the name of vice with the mature, and, whatever may be said, the one is much uglier than the other.
Louis XIV. was only twenty-three when he fell in love with Mlle. de La Vallière, and the festivities which he offered in her honour expressed this freshness. There were exquisite fairy scenes with the light decorations of flowers and leaves. The most famous, on account of Molière's partial authorship, was called the Plaisirs de l'Ile enchantée, which was given at Versailles in May, 1664. It lasted three days, and was prolonged three days more, in spite of the great number of invitations and the difficulties occasioned by the immense crowd. The Court, says a "Relation,"[154] arrived the fifth of May, and the King entertained till the fourteenth six hundred guests, beside a quantity of people needed for the dance and comedy, and of artisans of all sorts from Paris, so numerous that it appeared a small army.
All now known of Versailles must be forgotten if we wish to picture it in 1664. Versailles was then a small village surrounded on three sides by fields and marshes.[155] The fourth side was occupied by a château which would have been spacious for a private person, but which meant little for a court; a few dependencies; the beginning of a garden planted by Le Nôtre. That was all.
GENERAL VIEW OF THE CHÂTEAU OF VERSAILLES
From the engraving by Israel Silvestre, 1664