glory and prestige of France embodied in himself. “I am the State,” he proudly declared—even if the state needed six-inch heels to look taller. As an absolute monarch, Louis dictated nearly every facet of French life according to his own rarefied vision of how it should be. Nothing escaped his attention, from the national religion to tree maintenance. He even mandated a twenty-five-step itinerary to be followed by visitors to the gardens of Versailles. It was all about Louis.
            Under him, there was no room for opposition. He and he alone decided what was good and what was right. “The subjugation of a monarch to the law of his people,” he said, “is the last calamity which can befall a gentleman of our rank.” Laws were initiated, aggressive wars pursued, and art and literature commissioned—all designed to make Louis look good. “My dominant passion is certainly love of glory,” he once admitted.
            For the royal emblem, Louis XIV adopted the sun because, as he explained in his Memoirs, “The unique quality of the brilliance which surrounds it, the light it communicates to other heavenly bodies which compose a kind of Court around it, the just and even allotment of its light among all the various tropics of the world, the good it does everywhere, endlessly producing on all sides life, joy, activity, its uninterrupted movement despite an always tranquil appearance, its constant and invariable path, from which it is never drawn or diverted, is assuredly the most beautiful and vivid image of a great monarch.”
            The “Sun King” put himself on dazzling display at Versailles, where in 1682 he permanently moved his court and the seat of government. The palace itself was designed to be a glittering reflection of its most regal inhabitant and everyone was welcome to come and observe him in his daily, unwavering routine. Onlookers were on hand every morning when the king arose, got dressed, and shaved. At meals, they could marvel at his dexterity with an egg as he clipped off the top with just one quick stroke of the spoon. A very privileged few even got to watch him as he sat perched on his other throne when nature called. “What price does even the most repulsive thing that comes from the king have in this country?” asked a shocked visitor from Italy after observing this unusual access.
            The writer Jean de La Bruyere described how Louis worshiped at Mass under the adoring gaze of his subjects: “The great of the nation meet each day at a certain time in a temple called church . . . they form a vast circle at the foot of the altar, standing with their backs to the priest and the holy mysteries, their faces lifted toward their king, who can be seen kneeling at a tribune . . . one cannot help noticing in his usage a sort of subordination; for the people seem to be adoring the prince, who is adoring God.”
            Louis XIV was a genius at making Versailles appear to be the pinnacle of prestige and honor for the thousands of nobles who lived there, with himself as the radiant center of it all. In this way the king utterly obliterated their ancient power by having them chase the artificial gold that he created and dangled before them. The once mighty aristocracy fought for the honor of cramped rooms, handing the king his shirt in the morning, holding a candle for him, or accompanying him on a hunt.
            Louis created hundreds of meaningless posts that the nobility were eager to snatch up at enormous costs, yet even he was surprised at how successful this venture became. “Who will buy them?” the king once asked his Minister of Finance, Desmarets, who wanted to create even more artificial offices. “Your Majesty ignores one of the finest prerogatives of the king of France,” Desmarets replied, “which is that when a King creates an office God instantly creates a fool to buy it.”
            A rigid and highly nuanced code of etiquette flourished at Versailles, designed to flatter the nobility into worshipful and grateful complacency. People were thrilled to be granted the privilege to sit in the king’s presence rather than stand, or to have him doff his hat at certain angles, which designated various levels of favor. “He substituted ideal rewards for real ones,” wrote the Duc de Saint-Simon, an avid court observer and participant, “and these operated through jealousy, the petty preferences he showed many times a day, and his artfulness in showing them.” One of the most coveted marks of favor was an invitation to the king’s more intimate residence at Marley. According to Saint-Simon, “it was a crime not to ask for Marley either always or often, although this did not mean they would obtain it.”
            While Louis operated using an elaborate code of flattery toward the nobility, he demanded it for himself as well. He was surrounded by a sea of sycophants as a result. “Soon after he became master, his ministers, his generals, his mistresses and his courtiers noticed that he had a weakness for, rather than a love of, glory,” Saint-Simon wrote. “They spoiled him with praise. Commendation and flattery pleased him to such a point that the most obvious compliments were received kindly and the most insidious were relished even more. It was the only way to approach him, and those who won his love knew it well and never tired of praising him. That is why his ministers were so powerful, for they had more opportunities to burn incense before him, attribute every success to him, and vow they had learned everything from him. The only way to please him was submissiveness, baseness, an air of admiring and crawling toadyism, and by giving the impression that he was the only source of wisdom.”
            And the ranks of the obsequious were legion. There was, for example, the subject who responded, when Louis asked for the time: “Whatever time Your Majesty desires.” Or his son, the Duc du Maine, who said to his father after a long military campaign, “Ah, Sire, I will never learn anything. My tutor grants me a holiday each time you win a victory.” Then there was the Superintendent of Buildings, the Duc d’Antin, who placed wedges under the statues at Versailles so the king would notice they were askew and d’Antin would get the chance to praise him for his keen perception.
            The aura of majesty was so intoxicating that basking in it took absurd forms. When Louis suffered from a fistula, a deep ulcer of the rectum that required surgery, the ailment became ultra-chic and those fortunate enough to share the operation du Roi were much envied. The surgery carried so much prestige, in fact, that men without fistulas begged and bribed doctors to perform the procedure on them anyway—an entirely new spin on the fine art of kissing ass.