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Updated: May 29, 2025
The Grand Chamberlain had charge of all the honors of the palace, the regular audiences, the oaths taken in the Emperor's study, the admissions, the levees and couchees, the festivities, receptions, theatrical performances, the music, the boxes of the Emperor and Empress at the different theatres, the Emperor's wardrobe, his library; he also looked after the ushers and valets de chambre.
"Often in my atrabiliar moods, when I read of pompous ceremonials, Frankfort Coronations, Royal Drawing-rooms, Levees, Couchees; and how the ushers and macers and pursuivants are all in waiting; how Duke this is presented by Archduke that, and Colonel A by General B, and innumerable Bishops, Admirals, and miscellaneous Functionaries, are advancing gallantly to the Anointed Presence; and I strive, in my remote privacy, to form a clear picture of that solemnity, on a sudden, as by some enchanter's wand, the shall I speak it? the Clothes fly off the whole dramatic corps; and Dukes, Grandees, Bishops, Generals, Anointed Presence itself, every mother's son of them, stand straddling there, not a shirt on them; and I know not whether to laugh or weep.
The principal duties of the chamberlains were to have charge of introductions to the Emperor, to give orders to the ushers and valets de chambre, to see that the orders about the receptions were carried out, and to attend upon the sovereign's levees and couchees. Either a chamberlain or one of the Emperor's aides-de-camp served as Master of the Wardrobe.
The levees and couchees of the sovereign were restored as in the time of the Bourbons; though under the monarchy they were real things, and a mere imitation under the Empire.
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