CHAPTER V
THE USHER OF THE BLACK ROD
For the courtiers of Louis le Grand there was no such
thing as hunger or thirst, want of appetite, heat, cold,
lassitude, depression, or fatigue. If he chose they should
accompany him on long journeys, in crowded carriages, over
bad roads, they were expected, nevertheless, to appear fresh,
well-dressed, exuberant in spirits, inclined to eat or content
to starve, unconscious of sun and wind; above all, ready to
agree with his Majesty upon every subject at a moment's
notice. Ladies enjoyed in this respect no advantage over
gentlemen. Though a fair amazon had been hunting the
stag all day, she would be required to appear just the same
in grand Court toilet at night; to take her place at lansquenet;
to be present at the royal concerts, twenty fiddles
playing a heavy opera of Cavalli right through; or, perhaps,
only to assist in lining the great gallery, which the king
traversed on his way to supper. Everything must yield to
the lightest whim of royalty, and no more characteristic
reply was ever made to the arbitrary descendant of St. Louis
than that of the eccentric Cardinal Bonzi, to whom the king
complained one day at dinner that he had no teeth.
"Teeth, sire!" replied the astute churchman, showing,
while he spoke, a strong, even well-polished row of his own.
"Why, who has any teeth?"
His Majesty, however, like mortals of inferior rank, did not touch on the accomplishment of his seventy-seventh year without sustaining many of the complaints and inconveniences of old age. For some time past not only had his teeth failed, but his digestion, despite of the regimen of iced
