. Versailles and the court under Louis XIV. de Soissons; in the Ruede la Pompe, the hotels de Noailles, de Toulouse, de Livry,du Plessis, and de Duras; in the Avenue de St. Cloud, thehotels de Gesvres, de Guise, dEstrees, and de are but three streets out of many. The days of castle-life and cabals in the provinces were over. The local domi-nation of the great lords was done. Their resources wereswallowed up by the increasing luxury of the court, and eachyear they became more and more dependent on the royalbounty. From the windows of his magnificent Galerie desGlaces, the Gran
. Versailles and the court under Louis XIV. de Soissons; in the Ruede la Pompe, the hotels de Noailles, de Toulouse, de Livry,du Plessis, and de Duras; in the Avenue de St. Cloud, thehotels de Gesvres, de Guise, dEstrees, and de are but three streets out of many. The days of castle-life and cabals in the provinces were over. The local domi-nation of the great lords was done. Their resources wereswallowed up by the increasing luxury of the court, and eachyear they became more and more dependent on the royalbounty. From the windows of his magnificent Galerie desGlaces, the Grand Monarch saw a horizon that was his ownwork; but within that gallery of Versailles he saw daily,what was vastly more important, the French nobility athis feet. He looked to right and to left, says Saint-Simon, not only upon rising and upon going to bed, but at hismeals, in passing through his apartments, or his gardens ofVersailles, where alone the courtiers were allowed to followhim. He saw and noticed everybody; not one escaped him, 118. The Meaning of Versailles not even those who hoped to remain unnoticed. He markedwell all absentees from court, found out the reason of theirabsence, and never lost an opportunity of acting toward themas the occasion might seem to justify. With some of thecourtiers, the most distinguished, it was a demerit not tomake the court their ordinary abode; with others it was afault to come but rarely; for those who never or scarcelyever came it was certain disgrace. When their names werementioned in any way, I do not know them, the king wouldreply haughtily. Those who presented themselves but sel-dom were thus characterized: They are people I never see/These decrees were irrevocable/1 Versailles, therefore, was a policy and a system of govern-ment. Versailles was more than a palace: it was a world. 1 Saint-Simon, II, p. 364. II9 X THE FETES OF VERSAILLES THE grand fetes of Versailles took place between1663 and 1674, before Versailles became the seat
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