ance. "Whoever," says
La Bruyere, "considers that the king's countenance is the courtier's
supreme felicity, that he passes his life looking on it and within sight
of it, will comprehend to some extent how to see God constitutes the
glory and happiness of the saints." There were at this time prodigies of
voluntary assiduity and subjection. The Duc de Fronsac, every morning
at seven o'clock, in winter and in summer, stationed himself, at his
father's command, at the foot of the small stairway leading to the
chapel, solely to shake hands with Mme. de Maintenon on her leaving for
St. Cyr.[2131] "Pardon me, Madame," writes the Duc de Richelieu to her,
"the great liberty I take in presuming to send you the letter which
I have written to the king, begging him on my knees that he will
occasionally allow me to pay my court to him at Ruel, for I would rather
die than pass two months without seeing him." The true courtier follows
the prince as a shadow follows its body; such, under Louis XIV, was the
Duc de la Rochefoucauld, the master of the hounds. "He never missed the
king's rising or retiring, both changes of dress every day, the hunts
and the promenades, likewise every day, for ten years in succession,
never sleeping away from the place where the king rested, and yet on a
footing to demand leave, but not to stay away all night, for he had not
slept out of Paris once in forty years, but to go and dine away from the
court, and not be present on the promenade."--If; later, and under less
exacting masters, and in the general laxity of the eighteenth century,
this discipline is relaxed, the institution nevertheless subsists;[2132]
in default of obedience, tradition, interest and amour-propre suffice
for the people of the court. To approach the king, to be a domestic in
his household, an usher, a cloak-bearer, a valet, is a privilege that
is purchased, even in 1789, for thirty, forty, and a hundred thousand
livres; so much greater the reason why it is a privilege to form a
part of his society, the most honorable, the most useful, and the most
coveted of all.--In the first place, it is a proof of noble birth. A
man, to follow the king in the chase, and a woman, to be presented to
the queen, must previously satisfy the genealogist, and by authentic
documents, that his or her nobility goes back to the year 1400.--In the
next place, it ensures good fortune. This drawing room is the only
place within reach of royal favors; accordingly, u