Masquerades are the produce of a strange excess of fancy, an overheated imagination, set to work by a wild desire of amusement. My imagination was a tarnished mirror. It would not reflect, or only with a miserable dimness, the figures with which I did my best to people it. Let us not imagine evils which we do not feel, nor injure life by misrepresentations.

The Tuileries did not come into its own until the reign of Louis XIV (1643 – 1715), when he mounted the memorable spectacle Le Grand Dauphin. This outrageously theatrical event featured the king costumed as a Roman emperor complete with gold, silver, and diamonds while other members of the royal family were dressed as Persians, Indians, Turks, and so forth.

Fifteen thousand people watched the pageantry and the queen looked on from a rostrum in front of the Tuileries decorated with fleurs-de-lys. Le Vau, the architect of the Pavillon de Marsan, remodelled the palace of the Tuileries and the famous gardens were laid out by Andre Le Notre in the formal, balanced style he perfected. Their lay-out can still be appreciated today: the two outer terraces (along the Rue de Rivoli and the Seine) enclosed a symmetrical patter of parterres, fountains, pools, quincunxes, geometric paths and ramps. The gardens are well stocked with seventeenth century sculptures.

During Louis XIV’s minority, indeed until the crafty Italian cardinal died in 1661, the government was in the hands of Mazarin. While he was successful in matters of foreign policy, following the lines established by his late mentor Cardinal Richelieu, Mazarin blundered at home. This was the period of the near civil war known as the ‘Fronde’ when the great nobles and the Paris mob were equally turbulent.

It was Louis XIV’s memory of the Fronde which gave birth to Versailles. On the one hand, he moved his court there so as to be at a safe distance from the rabble of Paris; on the other, he made his father’s small chateau large enough to accommodate all the nobles of the kingdom, so that by having them near him he was able to keep them under control. However, what might be called the ‘Versailles system’ was not fully established until the later part of his reign, when the chateau grew to its present size.

In order to attract his nobles and dominate them, Louis exalted his kingship to a height unequalled by any other European monarch of recent centuries. He was Le Roi Soleil, the Sun around which the whole universe of French nobility revolved. To raise himself to these heights, he had, first and foremost, his own personality. Contrary to the popular myth, Louis was tall and of splendid physique. While he could not have been called handsome, there was a regal and mysterious air to his dark, slightly Oriental looks and small, half-closed, all-seeing eyes.

He had a tremendous dignity and his movements were extraordinarily graceful; he always knew how to say just the right thing. His splendid health and vitality fitted him well for the arduous duties and endless ceremonies of kingship, particularly as he had unlimited self-control and would spare himself no more than he spared others.

To enhance his own personal majesty, Louis built one of the most splendid palaces Europe has ever seen: he also raised court etiquette and ceremonial to fine art. This again provided a means of keeping his nobles harmlessly occupied. Dukes who in the past would have plotted rebellions now devoted all their energies to vying with one another as to who should have the privilege of holding the right-hand sleeve of the king’s shirt while he was dressing, or of removing his chaise-percee or commode.

The magic of Le Roi Soleil and his court, however, did not depend on majesty alone. Even the most devoted courtier might eventually have found this boring. Louis XIV was not only regal, but charming; though immensely majestic, he was never pompous. He was always dignified, yet he had a sense of humour. And while much of the time at Versaillies was spent in stately ceremonial, there was always a great deal of amusement.

There was the hunting and shooting – the king, like most Bourbons, was basically an outdoor man, devoted to field sports. There were the fetes and the long evenings of music, gambling and gossip. There were the amorous intrigues in which the king himself took part until, after the death of the queen, he became the strictly faithful husband of the pious and somewhat puritanical Madame de Maintenon, whom he married secretly. Under the latter’s influence he mended his morals and became more religious. Blessed is he who had regard for the weak; the LORD will protect him and preserve his life; he will bless him in the land and not surrender him to the desire of his foes.