Identifier: versaillescourtu00farm (find matches)
Title: Versailles and the court under Louis XIV
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors: Farmer, James Eugene, 1867-1915
Subjects: Versailles (France) -- Description France -- Court and courtiers
Publisher: New York, The Century co.
Contributing Library: Wellesley College Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Wellesley College Library

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s gilded balustrade covered with red velvet,he sat and knelt, the cynosure of every eye. Whoever,says La Bruyere, considers that the kings countenance isthe courtiers supreme felicity, that he passes his life looking^on it and within sight of it, will comprehend to some extenthow to see God constitutes the glory and happiness of thesaints. Yet the glittering throng that filled this stately edi-fice, gazing not at the altar, but at the royal tribune, heardplain language. Bourdaloue preached here his famous ser-mon on hypocrisy, and Pere Soanen spoke his mind on luxuryand vice with such severity that Louis called the sermon atrumpet-blast from heaven. Above all, they had Massillon,to whom the king made this remark: My father, I haveheard other preachers and have been well pleased with them,but when I hear you I am much dissatisfied with myself. 1 On the 5th of June, 1710, the Cardinal de Noailles, Arch-bishop of Paris, blessed the new chapel of Versailles, and onxDussieux, II, p. no. 56
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Interior of the Chapel The Chapel the 7th of June the king and the Duchesse de Bourgognemade their devotions there for the first time. In this fourthand final chapel, which he had been ten years in building, theGrand Monarch heard mass during the remaining five yearsof his life.1 1 The principal preachers who de-livered sermons before the king inthe old chapel of Versailles wereBourdaloue (1684, 1686, 1689, 1691,1693, 1697) ; Soanen of the Oratory(1686, 1688, 1695), an orator ofrare eloquence and great severity;Gaillard, a Jesuit (1688, 1690,1698) ; Massillon, the great oratorof the end of the reign, whopreached for the first time at court on the 1st of November,1699; Maure (1700); Bonneau(1701); Lombard (1703). In thenew chapel: Quinquet (1711) ;Canappeville (1712) ; Eon (1713) ;Poncet de la Riviere (1715), whowas the last preacher heard byLouis XIV. Bossuet preached be-fore the king from 1662 to 1669 atthe Louvre and at St. Germain, butnever at Versailles. 57 XIIITHE GRAND COMMUN TH

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