[1673]…The king does what he can to demonstrate that he is not at all dominated by his ministers, and no prince was ever less dominated….in any given day there are few events about which he is not well-informed, and there are few persons whose names and habits he does not know. He has a discerning eye, he knows intimate things about everyone, and once he has seen a man or heard him talked about, he always remembers him.

In addition, his life is very regulated. He always gets up at eight o’clock, stays in his council meeting from ten to half past noon, when he always goes to Mass with the queen and his family….At one in the afternoon after hearing Mass, he visits his favorites until two, the hour when he always dines with the queen in public. In the course of the afternoon he goes hunting or promenading, or holds another council meeting. From dusk until ten o’clock he converses with the ladies, gambles, or goes to a play or to balls. At eleven o’clock, after supper, he goes down again to his favorites’ apartment. He always sleeps with the queen. Thus he has divided up the hours of the day and night among business, pleasure, devotions, and duties, in such a way that courtiers can always tell you what he is doing and where to go to pay him court.

1673:          The king does what he can to demostrate that he is not at all dominated by his ministers, and no prince was ever less dominated….In any given day there are few events about which he is not well-informed, and there are few persons whose names and habits he does not know…. In public he is full of gravity and very different from the times when he is on his own… he adoptes a different expression as if he were going to appear on stage. In short, he knows well how to play the king. In addition, he has destroyed the chieftains and their factions and abolished the practice of patronage. The least positions at court and in the kingdom are now at his disposal. There are no intermediaries. If you want something, you have to go directly to him and not anybody else….He is always doing something — reviewing the troops, parading the soldiers, building fortifications, moving earth. He encourages navigation and keeps friends and enemies all over Europe in constant motion. He has a strong constitution and good health, and his health and good fortune seem to compete with each other, keeping the whole world out of breath.

[1674]     Speaking of Versailles, the palace seemed to me to be inferior to many others in Paris, and yet it is of unprecedented size….The gardens and the fountains are marvelous…. For the aqueducts alone he [the designer Le Notre] has had more than seven million [livres] worth of lead [pipes] put underground. There is no mine in the world as valuable as Versailles. The cost of bringing the water for the basins is worse. Windmills have been built, but to supply just a small jet of water on the expanse in front of the king’s apartment, it takes a hundred and fifty horses to pump the water.

[1676]… I wish you could see the king. He has the manner of a great dissimulator and the eyes of a fox. He never speaks of public business except with ministers in council. If he speaks a few words to the courtiers, it is about nothing more than their respective positions or professions; but everything he says, even the most frivolous things, make it seem as if an oracle were speaking. At meals and whenever he is required to chat, he speaks gravely and clearly; when he opens his mouth, all the courtiers around him lower their heads and press in as close as they can to hear him. The passion of the courtiers for being noticed by the king is incredible. When the king deigns to glance toward one of them, the person noticed believes his fortune is made and tells the others, “The king looked at me.” You can bet that the king is a rogue. He rewards so many people with just a look!

[1679]     At court they want only humble persons who have no secret intentions. The princes of Savoy and Lorraine and other princes from the great houses, who were dangerous to the crown because of their factions and because of the civil wars [The Fronde] they fomented, have now been reduced to living like simple, unhappy knights…. I am amazed the way marriages are arranged. Everyone wants money. They often cheat one another, and consequently it is no surprise that separations are so numerous. I tell you, there is no country more turbulent than this one. Since they are of a sanguine temperment, every household is in revolution; there is not a single house, property, family, or honor that is permanent. You get up in th emorning without knowing who you will be that evening; everything is in the hands of Providence…. The great nobility are subject to even more upheaval, for whether they are in the country, at court, or in the army, they inevitably ruin themselves with their expeditures…. to hear the most distinguished Frenchmen talk, no one considers any family to be respectable except the king’s and his own…. All the court posts are venal, even those in the army. Indeed, the French bankrupt themselves with their desire to obtain them. If they happen to take a round of musket fire, they lose both their life and the money that the post is worth; thus their sons end up in the poorhouse. Ambition is the greatest passion of the French. The duke of Chaulnes told me that the [financial] embarrassment everyone faces as a result of the cost of acquiring offices is the reason the women remain faithful, in order to enjoy the advantages attached to these posts…. I have noticed that the king follows certain rules in all of this. As for the seigneurs [nobles] who stay in the provinces, they live in obscurity.

[1680]     [The Dauphine, wife of Louis XIV’s eldest son,] love Fontainebleau, but she has a great aversion for Versailles. There is constant construction work going on there, and as a result of the great displacements of soil, the air is bad. In addition, the waters, which  are putrid, infest the air so completely that in th emonth of August everyone fell sick…. Still, the king insists on living there. No one dares talk of leaving the place because he loves it as his handiwork. The very landscape is unpleasant. there is nothing but sand and smelly swamps….I heard Monsieur say that the king had spenta hundred million francs up to 1680, and not even a tenth of it is completed. Just to maintain the gardens, fountains, a grand canal with ships and all kinds of boats, and numerous personnel, he spends a million per year; and if Versailles were abandoned for only two years, not a trace of it would be left.

[1680]   The whole court was astonished at the preference shown for [Madame de] Maintenon, an unknown person, widow of the poet Scarron, born in America, for whom the post of governess of the natural children of the king appeared to the height of good fortune. Before too much time had elapsed, Madame de Rochefort was considering it an honor to treat her as a companion, since the king was spending most of his time at Madame de Maintenon’s side, at the expense of his visits to madame de Montespan and Mademoiselle de Fontanges. No one knew what to think, for she was old. Some regarded her as the king’s confidante, others as an intermediary, others as an able person whom the king was using to write his memoirs….