h of these ladies costs 2,000 francs a year, and so on with other
things." "Mme. de Tallard made 115,000 livres income out of her place
of governess to the children of France, because her salary was increased
35,000 livres for each child." The Duc de Penthievre, as grand admiral,
received an anchorage due on all vessels "entering the ports and rivers
of France," which produced annually 91,484 francs. Mme. de Lamballe,
superintendent of the queen's household, inscribed for 6,000 francs,
gets 50,000.[1414] The Duc de Gevres gets 50,000 crowns[1415] by one
show of fireworks out of the fragments and scaffolding which belong
to him by virtue of his office.[1416]--Grand officers of the
palace, governors of royal establishments, captains of captaincies,
chamberlains, equerries, gentlemen in waiting, gentlemen in ordinary,
pages, governors, almoners, chaplains, ladies of honor, ladies of the
bedchamber, ladies in waiting on the King, the Queen, on Monsieur, on
Madame, on the Comte D'Artois, on the Comtesse D'Artois, on Mesdames, on
Madame Royale, on Madame Elisabeth, in each princely establishment and
elsewhere, hundreds of places provided with salaries and accessories are
without any service to perform, or simply answer a decorative purpose.
"Mme. de Laborde has just been appointed keeper of the queen's bed, with
12,000 francs pension out of the king's privy purse; nothing is known
of the duties of this position, as there has been no place of this kind
since Anne of Austria." The eldest son of M. de Machault is appointed
intendant of the classes. "This is one of the employments called
complimentary: it is worth 18,000 livres income to sign one's name twice
a year." And likewise with the post of secretary-general of the Swiss
guards, worth 30,000 livres a year and assigned to the Abbe Barthelemy;
and the same with the post of secretary-general of the dragoons, worth
20,000 livres a year, held in turn by Gentil Bernard and by Laujon, two
small pocket poets.?--It would be simpler to give the money without the
place. There is, indeed, no end to them. On reading various memoirs
day after day it seems as if the treasury was open to plunder. The
courtiers, unremitting in their attentions to the king, force him to
sympathize with their troubles. They are his intimates, the guests of
his drawing-room; men of the same stamp as himself, his natural clients,
the only ones with whom he can converse, and whom it is necessary
to make contented