s other persons, entire
strangers to the department.[2212] What a nest of parasites on this
one branch of the royal tree! Elsewhere I find Madame Elisabeth, so
moderate, consuming fish amounting to 30,000 francs per annum; meat and
game to 70,000 francs; candles to 60,000 francs; Mesdames burn white and
yellow candles to the amount of 215,068 francs; the light for the
queen comes to 157,109 francs. The street at Versailles is still shown,
formerly lined with stalls, to which the king's valets resorted to
nourish Versailles by the sale of his dessert. There is no article from
which the domestic insects do not manage to scrape and glean something.
The king is supposed to drink orgeat and lemonade to the value of 2,190
francs. "The grand broth, day and night," which Mme. Royale, aged six
years, sometimes drinks, costs 5,201 francs per annum. Towards the end
of the preceding reign[2213] the femmes-de-chambre enumerate in the
Dauphine's outlay "four pairs of shoes per week; three ells of ribbon
per diem, to tie her dressing-gown; two ells of taffeta per diem, to
cover the basket in which she keeps her gloves and fan." A few years
earlier the king paid 200,000 francs for coffee, lemonade, chocolate,
barley-water, and water-ices; several persons were inscribed on the list
for ten or twelve cups a day, while it was estimated that the coffee,
milk and bread each morning for each lady of the bed-chamber cost 2,000
francs per annum.[2214] We can readily understand how, in households
thus managed, the purveyors are willing to wait. They wait so well that
often under Louis XV they refuse to provide and "hide themselves." Even
the delay is so regular that, at last; they are obliged to pay them five
per cent. interest on their advances; at this rate, in 1778, after all
Turgot's economic reforms, the king still owes nearly 800,000 livres
to his wine merchant, and nearly three millions and a half to his
purveyor.[2215] The same disorder exists in the houses which surround
the throne. "Mme. de Guemenee owes 60,000 livres to her shoe-maker,
16,000 livres to her paper-hanger, and the rest in proportion." Another
lady, whom the Marquis de Mirabeau sees with hired horses, replies
at his look of astonishment, "It is not because there are not seventy
horses in our stables, but none of them are able to walk to day."[2216]
Mme. de Montmorin, on ascertaining that her husband's debts are greater
than his property, thinks she can save her dowry of 20