d fifty horses for
himself and suite."[2157] Below the rank of the king's relatives all the
grandees who figure at the court figure as well in their own residences,
at their hotels at Paris or at Versailles, also in their chateaux a
few leagues away from Paris. On all sides, in the memoirs, we obtain a
foreshortened view of some one of these seignorial existences. Such is
that of the Duc de Gevres, first gentleman of the bedchamber, governor
of Paris, and of the Ile-de-France, possessing besides this the special
governorships of Laon, Soissons, Noyon, Crespy and Valois, the captainry
of Mousseaux, also a pension of 20,000 livres, a veritable man of the
court, a sort of sample in high relief of the people of his class, and
who, through his appointments, his airs, his luxury, his debts, the
consideration he enjoys, his tastes, his occupations and his turn of
mind presents to us an abridgment of the fashionable world.[2158] His
memory for relationships and genealogies is surprising; he is an adept
in the precious science of etiquette, and on these two grounds he is an
oracle and much consulted. "He greatly increased the beauty of his house
and gardens at Saint-Ouen. At the moment of his death," says the Duc de
Luynes, "he had just added twenty-five arpents to it which he had begun
to enclose with a covered terrace. . . . He had quite a large household
of gentlemen, pages, and domestic of various kinds, and his expenditure
was enormous. . . . He gave a grand dinner every day. . . . He gave
special audiences almost daily. There was no one at the court, nor in
the city, who did not pay his respects to him. The ministers, the royal
princes themselves did so. He received company whilst still in bed. He
wrote and dictated amidst a large assemblage. . . . His house at Paris
and his apartment at Versailles were never empty from the time be arose
till the time he retired." 2 or 300 households at Paris, at Versailles
and in their environs, offer a similar spectacle. Never is there
solitude. It is the custom in France, says Horace Walpole, to burn
your candle down to its snuff in public. The mansion of the Duchesse
de Gramont is besieged at day-break by the noblest seigniors and the
noblest ladies. Five times a week, under the Duc de Choiseul's roof, the
butler enters the drawing room at ten o'clock in the evening to bestow
a glance on the immense crowded gallery and decide if he shall lay the
cloth for fifty, sixty or eighty persons;[