Louis XIV. sought these exhibitions. He shone in them and attributed to them an importance which in his Mémoires he explains to his son. He believed them very efficacious for binding together the affections of the people, above all those of high rank, and the sovereign. The populace have always loved spectacles, and for the nobility, the more closely the King keeps it at Court, the more pains he must take to show that there is no aversion between sovereign and subject, but simply a question of reason and duty. Nothing serves better for this than carrousels and other diversions of the same nature: "This society of pleasure, which gives to the courtiers an honest familiarity with us, touches and charms them more than can be told."
The partakers in the "Tournament" of 1664 had in reality been very proud of the honour done them. They appeared covered with gold, silver, and jewelry, escorted by pages and gentlemen gallantly equipped. After them, defiled allegorical chariots, personages of fable, and strange animals, Molière as the god Pan, one of his comrades mounted upon an elephant, another upon a camel.
At the supper in the open air, which terminated the day, the royal table was served by the corps de ballet, who, dancing and whirling bore in the different dishes. The cavaliers of the tournament, with their helmets covered with feathers of various colours, and wearing the mantles of the course, stood erect behind the guests. Two hundred masks, bearing torches of white wax illumined this admirable living picture, worthy of the great poet who inspired it.
The next day was occupied in giving to the two hundred guests a lesson in natural philosophy, no longer symbolical and veiled, but clear and direct; it was perfectly comprehended and the spectators were convinced. The lesson was from Molière, who had written his Princesse d'Elide[160] in the design well formed of "celebrating" and "justifying" the loves of the King and La Vallière. The Récit de l'Aurore will be recalled which opens the piece.
Dans l'âge où l'on est amiable,
Rien n'est si beau que d'aimer.
It will also be recollected that the five acts which follow are only the development, full of insistence, of that invitation to the ladies of the Court not to merit the "name of cruel." After serious affairs, innocent pleasures followed, the most applauded of which was a piece of fireworks which embraced "the heavens, the earth, and the waters."
JEAN BAPTISTE POQUELIN MOLIÈRE
After the painting by Noël Coypel