, 1880-08-23

self supported these brutalities with
admirable GOODNESS, which was exem-
plified when some one brought him the
news that comet had appeared. 1.-The
comet does me honor" said the cardi-
nal. Brienne. on the same occasion,
went to see Mazarin, to whom he was
much attached. Brienne," said the
cardinal, in tones which seemed to seek
for consolation and sympathy, 81 am
dying" $50 l see, monseigneur," re-
piled Brienne. Anne Of Austria got a
similar and yet more brutal reply to
similar words addressed by her to de
would be more easy than pleasant to
give many examples of the strange
want of what we now call decency
which accompanied extravagant atten-
ton to pedantic forms of decorum.
In the splendor of his establishment
Louis XIV. was far from falling below
that of his father, or rather that Of
Richelieu, for in Louis Kills reign
the most striking and magnificent en-
tertainments were those given by the
great cardinal. Balls and comedies
we're given in rapid succession at Louis
XIV.'s court, but without any kind of
reference to the fitness of the occasion
When Anne of Austria was desperately
ill. only ten days before her death, the
king presided with great gayety at the
nuptials of Mile. d'ArtiSpy. The be-
trothal feast took place at the Palais
Royal, while the queen mother was ex-
piring at the Louvre. and thus, as Bar
riere says, "Oa melait les apprets, Ia
pompe ct Ia joie dune moce du1 angoisses
duue agonie." In Madame de Motte-
ville's Memoirs it is related that the
queen mother sent for the king and
pointed out the improperly of his con-
duct, not so much on her account as
on his own. She told him he should
reflect that the people might be irrita
ted against him If they saw him anus
ing himself at time when she was
hourly threatened with death. This
was not the only chagrin the poor queen
had. 1t was brought to her knowledge
that while she lay dying, the king and
his brother were already quarreling in
the next room over the distribution Of
her pearls and dismo onds. What the
queen thought of this is not recorded,
but she made excuses for her sons
heartless behavior in the other matter
by saying that allowances must be- made
for the impulsiveness of youth. The
king himself used to appear in the bal
let's which were given In court, and tor
which verses were written by Benser
ade--verses of kind which would not
now be tolerated upon any stage, al
though then they were spoken in a
brilliant theater to brilliant audience
by the greatest ladies and gentlemen of
the day..
In the early days of Louis XIII. s
reign, the parliament complained of the
gross extravaganza of making kitchen
apparatus in gold and silver. The cof-
fer's in which the kings spoons, forks
and knives we're kept, to avoid the
chance of their being poisoned, were
made of exquisitely engraved gold and
yet with all this there was an extraordi
nary squalor and parsimony. Madame
de MOtteville has recorded that the
queens maids of honor had no tables
provided for them at the palace. "After
the queens supper" she writes, we
ate up whatever she had left in q
scrambling fashion, using her napkin
and the remnants of her bread" When
in 1915, the second year of Louis
XIV.'s reign, the Polish ambassadors
came on a mission to court, his majesty
intended to give them grand banquet,
which was unfortunately marred by
something going wrong with the soup; ;
and when later on the guests went
away. they had to grope their way
through the darkness of rooms and
corridors, which the servants had neg
lected to light. On a later occasion, at
a bapque given to the Spanish ENJOYS
the dishes were rifed on their way to
table by the officers of the kings house
hold, so that when they were set before
the guests they were only half full.
Again, the complaint of parliament re-
ferred to about the reckless employ
ment of gold and silver was followed
by an edict, which was constantly dis
regarded, against having the floors of
houses and the bodies of chariots COW
cred with gliding, and while these
gilded chariots rolled through Paris,
no such thing as glass coach, that is,
a carriage with glass windows, had been
seen or thought of. Outside Paris,
communication between one place and
another was most difficult, and hotel
accommodation was so bad that Mad
anne de Sevigne. whe never she travelled
from place to place. had her bed carried
with her on pack-horse.
In Paris Itself, a person standing in
front of the palace and garden of the
Tuileries. and wishing to cross the
Seine, would have found no means of
doing SO but miserable wooden bridge,
and he would have found the streets
guarded by chains. The streets them
selves were SO dirty that no one thought
Of Sottira1r foot Il,