Thither were drawn the French nobility, who, if shorn of all political
power, were now exempted from disagreeable taxes and exalted as
essential parts of a magnificent social pageant. The king must have
noblemen as _valets-de-chambre_, as masters of the wardrobe or of
the chase or of the revels. Only a nobleman was fit to comb the royal
hair or to dry off the king after a bath. The nobles became, like so
many chandeliers, mere decorations for the palace. Thus, about
Versailles gathered the court of France, and the leaders of fashion met
those of brains.
[Sidenote: "The Age of Louis XIV"]
It was a time when French manners, dress, speech, art, literature, and
science were adopted as the models and property of civilized Europe.
Corneille (1606-1684), the father of the French stage; Moliere (1622-
1673), the greatest of French dramatists; Racine (1639-1699), the
polished, formal playwright; Madame de Sevigne (1626-1696), the
brilliant and witty authoress of memoirs; La Fontaine (1621-1695), the
popular rhymer of whimsical fables and teller of scandalous tales; and
many another graced the court of Versailles and tasted the royal
bounty.
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