[131] The Rue Poulletier marks the line of the old channel between the islands.
[132] So named from the wooden seat, or couche de bois, covered with rich stuff embroidered with fleur-de-lys, on which the king sat when he attended a meeting of the Parlement.
[133] One of the schemes of Francis I. to raise money had been to offer the benches to the highest bidders, and under the law of 1604 the office of councillor became a hereditary property on payment to the court of one-sixtieth of its value. Moreover, the Parlement was but a local body, one among several others in the provinces.
[134] The added indignity of the whip is an invention of Voltaire.
[135] Louis used, however, to stilt his low stature by means of thick pads in his boots.
[136] Taine, basing his calculation on a MS. bound with the monogram of Mansard, estimated the cost of Versailles in modern equivalent at about 750,000,000 francs (£30,000,000 sterling.)
[137] The writer, whose youth was passed among the descendants of the Huguenot silk-weavers of Spitalfields, has indelible memories of their sterling character and admirable industry.
[138] Marshal Luxembourg was dubbed the Tapissier de Notre Dame (the upholsterer of Notre Dame), from the number of captured flags he sent to the cathedral.
[139] In a previous campaign the king had taken his queen and two mistresses with him in one coach. The peasants used to amuse themselves by coming to see the “three queens.”
[140] When the Duke of Orleans was about to start for Spain, the king asked whom he had chosen to accompany him. Orleans mentioned, among others, Fontpertius. “What, nephew!” exclaimed Louis, “a Jansenist!” “So far from being a Jansenist,” replied Orleans, “he doesn’t even believe in God.” “Oh, if that is so,” said the king, “I see no reason why he should not go.”