annum.  The privilege of the royal princes and princesses “to send to the bureau for fish on fast days when not residing regularly at the court,” amounts in 1778 to 175,116 livres.  On reading in the Almanach the titles of these officials we see a Gargantua’s feast spread out before us.  The formal hierarchy of the kitchens, so many grand officials of the table, — the butlers, comptrollers and comptroller-pupils, the clerks and gentlemen of the pantry, the cup-bearers and carvers, the officers and equerries of the kitchen, the chiefs, assistants and head-cooks, the ordinary scullions, turnspits and cellarers, the common gardeners and salad gardeners, laundry servants, pastry-cooks, plate-changers, table-setters, crockery-keepers, and broach-bearers, the butler of the table of the head-butler, — an entire procession of broad-braided backs and imposing round bellies, with grave countenances, which, with order and conviction, exercise their functions before the saucepans and around the buffets.

One step more and we enter the sanctuary, the king’s apartment.  Two principal dignitaries preside over this, and each has under him about a hundred subordinates.  On one side is the grand chamberlain with his first gentlemen of the bedchamber, the pages of the bedchamber, their governors and instructors, the ushers of the antechamber, with the four first valets-de-chambre in ordinary, sixteen special valets serving in turn, his regular and special cloak-bearers, his barbers, upholsterers, watch-menders, waiters and porters; on the other hand is the grand-master of the wardrobe, with the masters of the wardrobe and the valets of the wardrobe regular and special, the ordinary trunk-carriers, mail-bearers, tailors, laundry servants, starchers, and common waiters, with the gentlemen, officers and secretaries in ordinary of the cabinet, in all 198 persons for domestic service, like 50 many domestic utensils for every personal want, or as sumptuous pieces of furniture for the decoration of the apartment.  Some of them fetch the mall and the balls, others hold the mantle and cane, others comb the king’s hair and dry him off after a bath, others drive the mules which transport his bed, others watch his pet greyhounds in his room, others fold, put on and tie his cravat, and others fetch and carry off his easy chair.[20] Some there are whose sole business it is to fill a corner which must not be left empty.  Certainly, with respect to ease of deportment and appearance these are the most conspicuous of all; being so close to the master they are under obligation to appear well; in such proximity their bearing must not create a discord. — Such is the king’s household, and I have only described one of his residences; he has a dozen of them besides Versailles, great and small, Marly, the two Trianons, la Muette, Meudon, Choisy, Saint-Hubert, Saint-Germain, Fontainebleau, Compiègne, Saint-Cloud, Rambouillet,[21] without counting the Louvre, the Tuileries and Chambord, with their parks