prices; and the Princes of the blood,
nay, the bastards,--not to mention people of lower grade, did the same.
The majority were accordingly insolent enough; and if you could not avoid
their insolence, you were forced to put up with it.

The King loved air and exercise very much, as long as he could make use
of them. He had excelled in dancing, and at tennis and mall. On
horseback he was admirable, even at a late age. He liked to see
everything done with grace and address. To acquit yourself well or ill
before him was a merit or a fault. He said that with things not
necessary it was best not to meddle, unless they were done well. He was
very fond of shooting, and there was not a better or more graceful shot
than he. He had always, in his cabinet seven or eight pointer bitches,
and was fond of feeding them, to make himself known to them. He was very
fond, too, of stag hunting; but in a caleche, since he broke his arm,
while hunting at Fontainebleau, immediately after the death of the Queen.
He rode alone in a species of "box," drawn by four little horses--with
five or six relays, and drove himself with an address and accuracy
unknown to the best coachmen. His postilions were children from ten to
fifteen years of age, and he directed them.

He liked splendour, magnificence, and profusion in everything: you
pleased him if you shone through the brilliancy of your houses, your
clothes, your table, your equipages. Thus a taste for extravagance and
luxury was disseminated through all classes of society; causing infinite
harm, and leading to general confusion of rank and to ruin.

As for the King himself, nobody ever approached his magnificence. His
buildings, who could number them? At the same time, who was there who
did not deplore the pride, the caprice, the bad taste seen in them? He
built nothing useful or ornamental in Paris, except the Pont Royal, and
that simply by necessity; so that despite its incomparable extent, Paris
is inferior to many cities of Europe. Saint-Germain, a lovely spot, with
a marvellous view, rich forest, terraces, gardens, and water he abandoned
for Versailles; the dullest and most ungrateful of all places, without
prospect, without wood, without water, without soil; for the ground is
all shifting sand or swamp, the air accordingly bad.

But he liked to subjugate nature by art and treasure.

He built at Versailles, on, on, without any general design, the beautiful
and the ugly, the vast and the m