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The Duke of Orléans’ “fêtes d’Adam”

Versailles, built by Louis XIV, became the glorious paradigm of all royal and princely residences in Europe. From early on, the French court, with its luxury and free morals, set the tone for a country which was entirely devoted to enjoyment and love.

In his memoirs, the Duke of Saint-Simon wrote the following about life at the Court of Versailles: “In his young days, Louis XIV was made for love like none of his subjects.” Louis needed only to drop his perfumed handkerchief at the feet of a beautiful woman; this signal was enough to put the woman so selected into a state of readiness for love. Here, no regard was paid to husbands. However, anyone who honoured the favour thus bestowed on his wife rose in rank and was rewarded with estates, pensions, or cash.

In each of his palaces and castles, the “Sun King” had an elaborate bed, which served him less as a place to sleep – either alone or with someone – than as a location in which to display his power. His nephew, Philippe d’Orléans (1674–1723), who was Regent until Louis XIV’s maturity, was quite different. He was not interested in the traditional, rigid lit de justice: the start of the 18^th century is marked by Philippe’s reaction to relative prudery at the old Sun King’s court. Philippe adored comfortable beds, which he called his “love nests”. Raised and trained in the art of depravity by the Abbé Dubois, who later became a Cardinal and Minister and was considered – even in those days – one of the most out-and-out roués. For him, love was nothing but a courtly, convenient catchword for unrestricted sexual intercourse, the faire l’amour which he practised in such a blatant, uninhibited way that his mother, Liselotte von der Pfalz, accused him in her coarse way of using women like a night-stool: