Defunct Sun King

Louis XIV--C. S. Forester--Dodd, Mead ($4).

Every day for over half a century, Louis XIV, every inch a king, played slave to. etiquette. Epitome of the day's procedure was his royal arising, witnessed daily by some 300 fawning souls. Only the Family could observe his semi-divinity lying in bed, but the next order of noblemen was admitted to see him dip his hand in holy water, climb out of bed, and don his dressing gown. The third order then entered to see the king shave and put on his wig. And last came the final rabble of cardinals, marshals, courtiers, to observe the rest of the ceremony: royal breeches and hose, royal shirt by way of the First Valet of the Wardrobe, to the Grand Master of the Wardrobe, to the Dauphin, to the King. "At this crucial moment, while the nightshirt was off and the day-shirt not yet on, one little concession was made to the King's privacy. Two valets held up the King's dressing gown as a screen. . . ."

To this passionate devotion for meticulous ceremony Biographer Forester attributes Louis le Grand's two great failures. Excellently planned, the military campaign against William of Orange, and the diplomatic war for the Spanish succession, were both on the verge of sensational success, when Louis stopped to evolve an elaborate finish, instead of clinching matters offhand.

The palaces at Versailles are reminiscent of glittering splendor and jewelled magnificence during the Sun King's reign. But Mr. Forester points out that the palaces were drafty and uncomfortable; the magnificence fatuous, futile, and unjustly extracted from a suffering people.