1. Manners of the Time—Court etiquette. Excessive fondness of the king for it, and his strict insistence on it. Quote from the numerous memoirs of the time, descriptions of the palace ceremonial (Madame de Sévigné, Saint Simon, etc.).
2. Amusements of the Court—Receptions and functions. Fêtes. Hunting. Theatricals. Card games and gambling.
3. Women of the Court—The Queen, La Grande Mademoiselle, Madame de la Vallière, Madame de Montespan, Madame de Maintenon, Madame de Sévigné and her circle. Dress of the time.
4. Social Morals—Distinction between the morals of the court and those of the common people. Growing popular dissatisfaction, and its later tragic consequences.
Books to Consult—Hassall: Louis XIV. and the Zenith of the French Monarchy. Voltaire: The Age of Louis XIV. Guizot: History of France (Vol. IV., particularly the last chapter).
A most interesting short paper might be prepared on the odd people of the time: Scarron; The Man in the Iron Mask; famous fortune-tellers. Show pictures of some of the court beauties, to illustrate the dress of the women of the period, and also a cut of Louis in his wig and high-heeled shoes, taken from any history of France.
III—PARIS UNDER LOUIS XIV
1. The City—Area and population as compared with those of to-day. Show maps of both periods. Colbert: story of his life and his remaking of Paris. The destruction of the old walls and the beginning of the boulevards. Lenôtre and his landscape-gardening (the garden of the Tuileries). Laying out of the Places Vendôme, des Victoires, du Carrousel.
2. Public Buildings—The architects Perrault and Mansart and their work. Description of buildings erected under Louis: the Invalides, Bibliothèques du Roi and Mazarin, Académie, Gobelins, Comédie Française, etc. Gates: St. Denis, St. Martin, etc. Quai d'Orsay.
3. Churches of the Day—Val-de-Grâce and the birth of Louis. St. Roch: its erection and later connection with French history. Nôtre Dame and its ceremonies. St. Denis and the royal tombs.