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Updated: June 24, 2025
These young gentlemen of France, these roués who have come to meet Philippe at his little supper how different from the same beings under the rule of the Grand Monarque. Their coats are no longer dark in hue. Their silks and velvets have blossomed out, even as Paris has blossomed since the death of Louis the Grand.
D'Artagnan proposed to himself to take them by surprise in flagrante delicto of wandering life, and to judge by the first appearance if he could count on them as trusty companions. He arrived at Calais at half past four in the afternoon. The hostelry of "Le Grand Monarque" was situated in a little street parallel to the port without looking out upon the port itself.
At all times, indeed, and in all countries, an aristocracy has been capable of this sheer delight in its own splendor, wealth, good looks, and accumulated treasure; whether in the Venice that Petrarch visited; or in the Rome of the Renaissance popes; in the Versailles of the Grand Monarque; or in the Florence of to-day, which still at moments of festa reproduces in its midst all the costumes of the Cinque-cento.
The Grand Monarque is not in the habit of considering such trifles as hearts or inclinations in the bestowal of his royal wards; and although it is a sort of treason to say so, I would rather be back in England, or have Adele to myself, and be able to give her to some worthy man whom she might love, than to see her hand held out as a prize of the courtiers of Versailles.
In the effort she would extend the bounds of civilization, lay the ghost of Jacobinism, satisfy military and naval adventures, and unconsciously revert to the ideas and governmental methods of the age of le grand monarque. The French possessions beyond the seas had never shrunk to a smaller area than in the closing years of the late war with England.
It did not escape the minute observers of this scene, that he still held in his hand the bag which had contained the fatal pistol, and which was inscribed with the words, Au grand monarque, alluding to the sign, doubtless, of the gunsmith who sold the weapon, but singularly applicable to the high pretensions of the purchaser.
His keen political foresight was soon confirmed. It was in March, 1702, he died; in the May of the same year war was proclaimed, the combination of powers known as the Grand Alliance on the one side, Louis XIV, the Grand Monarque, on the other.
"But no dancer, Monsieur!" replied the ex-god Scamander, with a kind of half pirouette; "whereas the Grand Monarque was the finest dancer of his epoch." Madame Marotte had by this time supplied all her guests with tea and coffee, while Monsieur Philomène went round with the cakes and bread and butter.
The king will reach, his majority, the grandees of the kingdom approach the monarque by virtue of their birth; if to this privilege they unite that of being then at the head of affairs, there is reason to fear that they may surpass you in complaisance, in flattery, may represent you as a useless phantom, and establish themselves upon the ruin of you.
"I should be grieved to think," continued Duncan, speaking slowly, and using the simplest French of which he was the master, "to believe that none of this wise and brave nation understand the language that the 'Grand Monarque' uses when he talks to his children. His heart would be heavy did he believe his red warriors paid him so little respect!"
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