Posted on 08/12/2018 5:03:55 PM PDT by SamAdams76
From the moment the Sun King arose from his sumptuous gold bed, aligned with the rising sun at the centerpiece of his beloved Versailles, the château was alive with activity.
The life of every courtier, minister, lovely lady, doctor, and cook was finely tuned to the rituals of the King, his dressing, shaving, dining, meetings, and evening comedie, dancing or appartement when the halls were flooded with light and the courtiers played billiards, gambled, and ate sweets.
Living under a pretense of usefulness to Louis XIV and the government of France, the courtiers were largely a source of amusement to the King, whose favors and beneficence were vital to their well-being. “L’etat c’est moi,” said Louis with solemn conviction, and Versailles was a convincing illustration.
Louis XIV’s taste for massive architecture, yawning vistas, and spacious gardens was reflected in the realm of gastronomy, for his appetite was equally huge. “He had never known hunger,” reported the Duc de Saint-Simon, who lived in Versailles for 20 years, but “I heard him say several times that his appetite was whetted with the first spoonfuls of soup, and he ate so prodigiously, so substantially, and so equably morning and evening that one never tired of watching him.”
The King arose at about 8 or 9 A.M. and, after attending mass and meeting with some ministers, sat down for the first feast. At 2 P.M. a procession of dishes arrived and was served in his bedroom, where he sat gazing out on the gardens and the public, who wandered freely through the grounds and many of the chambers.
“I have often seen him,” said Mme. Maintenon, his second wife, “eat four plates of soup, a whole pheasant, a partridge, a large plate of salad, mutton au jus or a l’ail, two big slices of ham, a whole plateful of pastry, and, besides these, fruit and hard-boiled eggs.” She further commented that if she were to consume half this amount she would be dead in a week. The King devoured oysters by the dozen, supplied by his own private park, overseen by a man named Hyacinth Ox. He ate all sorts of fish, despite the fact it was transported over great distances and was not always in a state we would relish today. For a fresh supply of citrus, he maintained a grove of over 1,000 rare orange trees, planted in silver tubs.
“Everything (the King) ate,” recalled Saint-Simon, “was at least twice as highly spiced and pungent as is customary. Fagon (the doctor) was against sweets and spices and when he saw the King eat them he made very amusing faces. Yet he dared not say anything except from time to time to Livry and Benoist (the cooks) who replied it was their job to feed the King and his job to purge him.” Indeed, the King suffered from dyspepsia and later from gout. Others at court succumbed to gastric ulcers and frequent dyspepsia; they, unlike the King, also gorged on pastries, preserved fruits, cider, and lemonade between the lavish meals.
The King supped at 10 P.M., occasionally in public. On such occasions hordes drove from Paris, past peasants who during the famine of 1705-1708 lay dying by the road with only weeds and tree bark to eat, to file before the King and behold the spectacle of his feast. The courtiers competed for the honor of serving him, which entitled them to eat the leftovers but demanded that they sample each dish before it entered the King’s mouth.
For the second time in a day, there were boundless quantities of soup, meats, fish, salad, ripe fruit, and the inevitable hard-boiled eggs. Some 61 dishes-8 courses with 8 choices each—were prepared and passed before the King, from which he selected about 20. To the long, often fruitless hours of preparation must be added time spent bringing the meals to Versailles. In those days the château had no kitchens (or bathrooms): the food was prepared outside the château in the village and carried to the King, by which point it was all cold and either served that way or reheated on special burners. One can well imagine the resentment of the servants in the dead of winter, or of the hungry peasants who smelled the gastronomic delights as they passed by, and marvel that such an order was possible and would persist for decades to come.
Day after day Mme. Maintenon sat with the King, dressed in his habitual brown robes and undercoat studded with precious gems, as he waded through his gargantuan meals, hardly uttering a word. “It seemed,” she later remarked, “as if he had limited himself to a fixed number of words in his lifetime and was afraid of exceeding the limit.”
Whatever finery he wore, the King always ate with his fingers, and Saint-Simon marveled at his ability to eat chicken stew without spilling a drop. Individual forks had come into use only a century before in Italy and most European countries had not yet adopted them. Individual knives and spoons were now often supplied, whereas before the 16th century a communal spoon sufficed and one might bring one’s own knife. Louis resisted the fork, however, forbidding the Duke of Burgundy and his brothers from using it at his court, although they had been taught to do so.
When Louis XIV died in 1715 and the customary autopsy was performed, all were stunned at the size of his stomach and intestines, which was twice that of a normal man’s. It was discovered, too, that his enormous gut contained an enormous tapeworm.
This, however, was not responsible for his voracious appetite. If anything, tapeworms can cause a loss of appetite. Who knows what might have transpired had the King ever been hungry.
One of our modern fallacies is that only homosexual men care about their appearance. The great emperors, warlords, explorers, scientists, revolutionaries, and duellists of the past were dandy dressers by our standards. Some men competed in taste and expenditure, while others took a stand on high-minded simplicity.
I wish everyone (starting with my kids) would adopt some standards, instead of looking like derelicts. It’s counter-entropic!
Nobody disagrees about dressing clean. Dressing in a clean-cut manner is one thing. But we were talking about dandies and homos. There’s a reason real men don’t dress that way anymore
What goes up must come down.
There could be an interesting sequel to this article.
Dandies and homos aren’t always the same group. In some contexts, dandies are the great womanizers. Why should women throw themselves away on slobs? Well, now they do, with those revolting rappers, but in the past, a lot of loose women looked for a man who made an effort on his appearance.
Every corner was a latrine. Eeew.
Thanks fieldmarshaldj. Nice collection, I just finished an Atkins frozen meal. :^)
Surely he ate his desert with a fork.
In 2011, the Heritage Foundation produced a report on US Poverty using the annual US Census Report on Poverty as a source. The quick quote from this is "The typical “poor” American lives in an air-conditioned house or apartment and has cable TV, a car, multiple color TVs, a DVD player, and a VCR among other conveniences." A significant mention in this report is that "Some 96 percent of poor parents report their children were never hungry at any time in the prior year." Now this gives us a very bare and basic basis to compare abilities but even subtracting technologies for comparable abilities is instructive!
Louis XIV had choices in food far beyond any of his subjects but even a poverty-level American has an incredibly larger and more healthy selection on a 24-hour basis! Louis XIV had choices in travel by coach (shake, rattle & roll) or by horseback which means travel times in days. Public transportation by bus or rail would put Louis in ecstasy (private car please) let alone the private automobile for hundreds of miles per day! Entertainment is a SIGNIFICANTLY BIG difference! Louis XIV had court musicians and royal composers but even with these there was a limited repertoire available. A subscription to any of the streaming music apps has more music than Louis XVI heard in his entire lifetime, EVEN IF YOU LIMIT IT TO MUSIC COMPOSED BEFORE AND DURING HIS LIFETIME! Add to this that a modern American can listen & fall asleep to an orchestra or a pop band without them even being in the room!
Endless more can be added on vaccinations and other health issues as well as easy access to information and history. In all regards except for public adulation and the ability of an absolute monarch to 'dispose' of deplorables, the impoverished American hsa it all over this Sun King, Louis XVI!
For modern dentistry alone, and a fast food hamburger, King Louis XIV would happily trade places with any one of us!
You don’t miss what you never knew. Example; we all used to drive around to new locations often using maps or asking for directions. GPS guidance? What was that? Now the doggone phone with map and voice commands highlights our every turn. I mean it’s great but we survived just fine prior to that invention.
For an interesting perspective on what life in pre-Revolution France might have been like (rich and poor alike), I recommend the French TV series “Nicolas le Floch”, available on MHZ Networks.
If you were his official, would you really risk painting him fat?
That’s because the king dictated that his portraits would make him look good; as all kings of the time did. It’s good to be the king.
Yeah, eat and dine, but you wonder about the poor bast*rd who emptied his chamber pot.
Everything I ever learned about foppish dress I learned from Adam and the Ants.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
