and Barons de Thunder-ten-Troenck; an Alsatian lady, on seeing at Frankfort the grotesque country squires of Westphalia, is struck with the contrast.[82] Those of France, even in distant provinces, have frequented the drawing-rooms of the commandant and intendant, and have encountered on their visits some of the ladies from Versailles; hence they always show some familiarity with superior manners and some knowledge of the changes of fashion and dress.”  The most barbarous will descend, with his hat in his hand, to the foot of his steps to escort his guests, thanking them for the honor they have done him.  The greatest rustic, when in a woman’s presence, dives down into the depths of his memory for some fragment of chivalric gallantry.  The poorest and most secluded furbishes up his coat of royal blue and his cross of St. Louis that he may, when the occasion offers, tender his respects to his neighbor, the grand seignior, or to the prince who is passing by.

Thus is the feudal staff wholly transformed, from the lowest to the highest grades.  Taking in at one glance its 30 or 40,000 palaces, mansions, manors and abbeys, what a brilliant and engaging scene France presents!  She is one vast drawing-room, and I detect only drawing room company.  Everywhere the rude chieftains once possessing authority have become the masters of households administering favors.  Their society is that in which, before fully admiring a great general, the question is asked, “is he amiable?” Undoubtedly they still wear swords, and are brave through pride and tradition, and they know how to die, especially in duels and according to form.  But worldly traits have hidden the ancient military groundwork; at the end of the eighteenth century their genius is to be wellbred and their employment consists in entertaining or in being entertained.

_______________________________________________________

______________

Notes: 

[1].  “Mémoires de Laporte” (1632).  “M. d’Epernon came to Bordeaux, where he found His Eminence very ill.  He visited him regularly every morning, having two hundred guards to accompany him to the door of his chamber.” — “Mémoires de Retz.”  “We came to the audience, M. de Beaufort and myself; with a corps of nobles which might number three hundred gentlemen; mm. the princes had with them nearly a thousand gentlemen.” — All the memoirs of the time show on every page that these escorts were necessary to make or repel sudden attacks.

[2].  Mercier, “Tableau de Paris.”  IX. 3.

[3].  Leroi, “Histoire de Versailles,” Il. 21. (70,000 fixed population and 10,000 floating population according to the registers of the mayoralty.)

[4].  Warroquier, “Etat de la France” (1789).  The list of persons presented at court between 1779 and 1789, contains 463 men and 414 women.  Vol.  II. p. 515.

[5].  People were run over almost every day in Paris by the fashionable vehicles, it being the habit of the great to ride very fast.