The Palace of Versailles and Habits of the Nobles
By: Jordan Fearn
Tags: Life, Royalty, Culture, History, Habits

The Palace of Versailles and Habits of the Nobles

A grand palace built as a distraction

The Palace of Versailles was reconstructed multiple times. This is a painting by Pierre Patel of the Palace during its first construction. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Louis the XIV, also known as ‘the Sun King,’ was born on the 5th of September 1638 and died on the 1st of September 1715. He had the longest reign of any European monarch in history, a record he holds even today. However, when he did ascend to the throne completely after the regency of his Chief Minister ended, he found that the king didn’t have as much power as he’d have liked.

The Kingdom of France was decentralised, with the real power lying in the hands of the nobles who had no qualms with revolting against their king. Instead of using force against them Louis the XIV used shrewd politicking to deter them away. This is how the Palace of Versailles came to be. Louis the XIV paid for plays and musicians, built large gardens and held regular hunts, all to keep the nobles entertained.

Converted from a hunting lodge to a Palace in the 1660s, through to the 1670s, the opulent Palace was a mixture of Louis the XIVs hate of Paris and need to control his nobles. He built and publicised it as the centre of the kingdom, everyone who wasn’t at the palace was a nobody. When his nobles finally joined him at Versailles he made sure they were so preoccupied with their appearances and partying that he was able to re-take control of France.

In doing so, he created a strict culture that revolved around himself and his schedule as well as a routine of hedonism, and this resulted in some… strange behaviours.

Louis the XIV of France aged 58, embodying late seventeenth-century French masculinity. Source: Wikimedia Commons

The king awakes

The entirety of Versailles was filled with nobles and the most important men and women in the entirety of France. The most favoured of that group had the esteemed privilege of watching the King rise from his bed, eat his morning soup, and defecate. This was an incredibly prestigious reward and something nobles fought to be a part of. It is thought that approximately one-hundred people would gather in the king’s chamber to watch his routine.

If you were truly the cream of the crop in the king’s eyes you got to dress him, and tend to his… toiletry needs. The importance of this ceremony goes beyond feeding the king’s ego. It meant that the nobles were fighting amongst each other for something desirable, he had created a club that was only valued because of its exclusivity, and he controlled its members.

When he left his bedroom in the morning the ladies and gentlemen of the court would line the hallway outside his room. The king is said to have often chosen people to talk to in the hallway to give each noble a chance to prove their wits and merit to the king who valued quick thinking. Altogether 3,000 people lived at Versailles, though many of those were servants and other low-borns.

One of the Kings Chambers at the Palace of Versailles. Source: Wikimedia Commons

It is also said that Louis the XIV lived on a strict schedule, Louis de Rouroy, the Duke of Saint-Simon, and one of the main sources for what happened at Versailles, famously wrote:

“With an almanach and a watch, one could, from 300 leagues away, say with accuracy what he was doing.”— Duke of Saint-Simon

Fashion was the priority

Fashion reached its most excessive peak under the reign of Louis the XVI, the great-great-grandson of the Sun King, and the ruler eventually brought down by the French revolution. Although the Sun King was no miser when it came to spending money, he usually kept it within the bounds of what was reasonable (for the nobility at least), until it came to wars that was.

While the men at Versailles used money, power, and the favour of the king to fight for the all-important top spot on the social ladder, the women used beauty, fashion, and their wit to stand out. The queen was the driving force behind this, if the queen wore a dress of a certain style or fabric the younger women of the court would follow, no matter the cost. If the queen wore a pearly necklace that cost enough to feed a peasant family for ten years then everyone had to get one. If the queen spent a fortune to weave her hair so that it supported a model ship?

Ladies of the court often placed large objects on their hair. This satirical picture is from the late 18th century. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Well… then everyone had too. This very trend bankrupted not only the poorer nobles but Louis the XVI himself. It was so bad that he had to ask Marie Antoinette — his wife — to spend less, not a good look for a king. It should be pointed out though that Marie-Antoinette is legendary for her frivolity and spending even today, the phrase ‘let them eat cake’ is attributed to her, she reportedly said it when peasants complained of having nothing to eat.

This was compounded by the fact that she used flour to make her hair stay in the shape of a ship, all during times of famine and plight across France. It comes as little surprise that she was hated by the peasantry and was singled out for the guillotine.

Debauchery and then some

The Sun King was also notorious for his sexual appetite. He kept an official mistress and many unofficial ones as well, he had a total of eighteen children that we know of and kept at least eight mistresses across his reign, though he almost definitely had more.

This isn’t so surprising in of itself. Louis the XIV was the most powerful man in the country, the fact that he was desirable comes as no surprise, and considering he hated his wife — Maria Theresa of Spain — it would be more incredible if he didn’t have many affairs. The amazing bit is how open it was and how accepted it became.

Many of the nobles living at Versailles followed suit, the whole palace was cheating on one another in a great orgy. All this was occurring while Louis the XIV, the Sun King, postured himself as being chosen by the God of the Roman Catholic church — which sees sex as an expression of love to one’s partner and condemns adultery as a sin. Of course, there were still a few that clung to their faith strictly.

However, if all the nobles were as pious as they postured then there must have been plenty of love to go around. When I say it was an orgy I mean it quite literally. One incident saw an orgy involving high nobility happen right outside the window of a twelve-year-old Louis the XV — the grandson of Louis the XVI.