If he was made to wait for anything while dressing, it was always with patience.  He was exact to the hours that he gave for all his day, with a precision clear and brief in his orders.  If in the bad weather of winter, when he could not go out, he went to Madame de Maintenon’s a quarter of an hour earlier than he had arranged (which seldom happened), and the captain of the guards was not on duty, he did not fail afterwards to say that it was his own fault for anticipating the hour, not that of the captain of the guards for being absent.  Thus, with this regularity which he never deviated from, he was served with the utmost exactitude.

He treated his valets well, above all those of the household.  It was amongst them that he felt most at ease, and that he unbosomed himself the most familiarly, especially to the chiefs.  Their friendship and their aversion have often had grand results.  They were unceasingly in a position to render good and bad offices:  thus they recalled those powerful enfranchised slaves of the Roman emperors, to whom the senate and the great people paid court and basely truckled.  These valets during Louis XIV.’s reign were not less courted.  The ministers, even the most powerful, openly studied their caprices; 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.