Etiquette to the nth degree

Spectator, The, Aug 18, 2001 by Hensher, Philip

SAINT-SIMON AND THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV

by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie Chicago, 22.50, pp. 448 ISBN 0226473201

Philip Hensher

If you wanted to sit down at the court of Louis XIV at Versailles, you had to look to see who was in the room first. Duchesses could sit on a stool in the presence of the King or the sons and daughters of France. If there was only a grandson of France present, they were permitted to sit in a chair with a back. Their husbands, however, could only take a stool, although in the presence of a prince of the blood, i.e., one of the more distant relations of the King - an armchair was allowed. The princes of the blood stood in the presence of the King, stood, then took an armchair for the Dauphin, sat on a chair with a back with the grandsons of France, and were only allowed an armchair when no one but other princes of the blood and inferiors were in the room.

These strict rules and hierarchies extended, in theory, to many other areas of life at court. Madame, duchesse d'Orleans, born the Princesse Palatine, explains in a letter that `grandsons of France salute queens, sit in their presence, and ride in their carriages. Princes of the blood may do none of these things.' How much time you could spend with the King, whether you could eat with him, how long your wife's train of mourning could be, how you behaved at the communion rail, whether you could wear velvet or have red seat-covers in your coach, and, finally, when you died, how many mourners could follow your coffin were all prescribed by your status, which was prescribed by your birth. And within each category there was a theoretically strict order of precedence, fiercely and often violently contested.

All this absolutely bizarre and extraordinary behaviour is catalogued in fabulous detail by the Memoirs of the Due de SaintSimon. They are the greatest and most endlessly fascinating of all memoirs, even in abbreviated version. (Lucy Norton's three-volume translation and reduction to a mere 2,000 pages, available from Prion, is probably all most sane people will want. Only a real obsessive will be tempted by the gargantuan 8-volume Coirault edition in Pleiade). The Memoirs chronicle the period between 1691, when Saint-Simon was 16 years old, to the end of the Regency in 1723, after which Saint-Simon lost what favour he had at court and retired to the country. They are an unparalleled glimpse into an almost incomprehensible world, written by a man who believed with every cell of his body in the importance of rank, distinction and a propriety of behaviour which can only strike us as arbitrary to the last degree.

To call Saint-Simon a snob hardly suggests the scale of his concern for social distinctions. He wrote the Memoirs in retirement for a single purpose, to demonstrate that Louis XIV, by over-riding the established dignity of rank and precedent, had destroyed the status of the French monarchy. Absurd as much of SaintSimon's strictures appear, it must be admitted that he was absolutely consistent. The King's attempt to make a high place in the hierarchy for his bastards, such as the Duc du Maine, struck Saint-Simon as an absolute blasphemy against the natural order of things; the Duc de Luxembourg's struggles to raise his status among the dukes of France from 18th to second (lavishly- chronicled) seem comparable to someone trying to change the weather. That was quite simply how things were: to try to alter any of it to establish a new category of Grandsons of France or even Great-grandsons of France would bring down catastrophe. Hence Saint-Simon's conclusion, a correct one, although reached for what may strike us as all the wrong reasons, that the French monarchy was heading towards dissolution fast.

The huge pleasure of the Memoirs, it must be admitted, lies in the fact that although the rules of behaviour were laid down in extraordinarily rigid detail, the court was full of rogues who had no intention of sticking to them. Although the pretexts for the quarrels seem very slender, there is no denying the enjoyment when someone rudely oversteps the mark. The splendid story of the attempts of one of Mme de Maintenon's cronies, the ghastly Princesse d'Harcourt, to obtain a higher status for herself at an audience with the little Duchesse de Bourgogne, arouses all Saint-Simon's ire, and our sneaking admiration:

The ladies arrived early on the scene from various directions before the doors were thrown open. The most punctual of the duchesses were nearest the threshold and entered first. The Princesse d'Harcourt and the other Lorraines followed. The Duchesse de Rohan took the highest stool on the right. A moment later, when all the duchesses were seated and the late-comers, titled and untitled, were still arriving, for the ladies attended in great numbers, the Princesse d'Harcourt crept up behind her and told her to move across to the left side. Much amazed, the Duchesse de Rohan replied that she was perfectly comfortable where she was. Thereupon the princess, a tall, powerful woman, without more ado placed her two arms at the duchess's waist, twisted her round by force, and sat herself down in her place.