5.4.1. CELEBRATIONS

GIANT FÊTES HAVE THE USUAL GOAL: DESTROY INVESTABLE INCOME WHILE BUTTRESSING AUTHORITY.

A parade recalls the show given for the mariage of Louis XIII and Anne of Austria in 1614 and is even more grandiose:

Festivité en honneur des mariages royaux, anonymous 17th  century / zoom

     Le cortège triumphant à Paris pour le double marriage entre l'Espagne et la  France / zoom

Louis IV's show marks the start of his reign without a Prime Minister and the birth of an heir (in 1662). The bleachers in front of the Tuileries palace seat 15,000 spectators and one of the prizes is a jewel-filled box with his portrait on the cover.

The site is still called "la place du Carrousel."

Le Grand Carrousel donné par Louis XIV aux Tuileries, 5 et 6 juin 1662 by Henri Gissey, 1662 / zoom 

He is the star.

Maurice Leloir in Le Roy Soleil, 1931

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Fetes move to Versailles:

• 1662: six days of festivity for 600 guests, with jewels as lottery prizes, openly dedicated to Louis' the queen and queen mother, but secretly to Louise de la Vallière. The next page says more about her.

Les plaisirs de l'île enchantée, third day / zoom

Video of First Day, with the majestic music of Jean-Baptiste Lully, court composer.

 

• 1668: Officially to celebrate a peace treaty giving France sites on its northern border and unofficially for the Marquise de Montespan, the cost of welcoming 3000 guests was a third of Versailles's annual budget (of 1668).

Versailles publication / zoom

Description: here.

• 1674: to mark the reconquest of Franche-Comté, giant fireworks inaugurate the Grand Canal.

 

                  Zoom

• A 19th-century evocation

Fête de nuit à Versailles by Gaston la Touche, FB Château de Versailles / zoom

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Fireworks literally send revenues up in smoke. Subjects participate by watching from afar.

Zoom

Then transforming Versailles 
replaces the titanic celebrations. 

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Next,

5.4.2. 

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