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54-594: At the king's lever , the premier gentilhomme de la chambre (First Gentleman of the Bedchamber ), controller of the Menus-Plaisirs, was invariably in attendance, to hear directly from the king what plans were to be set in motion; by long-standing convention, he was a duke; though he was not a professional, it was up to him to determine the appropriate designs. The duke in charge of the Menus et Plaisirs du Roy

108-548: A disorderly crowd of tradesmen touting for work or payment, and other petitioners, followed by a visit from a cousin. The second scene of William Hogarth 's A Rake's Progress shows a male equivalent in 1730s London. In the French engraving Le Lever after Freudenberg, of the 1780s, gentle social criticism is levelled at the lady of the court; that she slept without unlacing her stays, apparently, perhaps can be seen as artistic licence. Her maids dress her with deference, while

162-511: A few favourites, with the valets. These were less pressing moments to discuss projects with the King, who parcelled out his attention with strict regard for the current standing of those closest to him. With the entry of the King into the Grande Galerie , where the rest of the court awaited him, the petit lever was finished, and with the grand lever the day was properly begun, as

216-703: A monarch or leader, as he got up in the morning. It started out as a royal custom, but in British America it came to refer to a reception by the sovereign's representative, which continues to be a tradition in Canada with the New Year's levee ; in the United States a similar gathering was held by several presidents. In Einhard 's Life of Charlemagne , the author recounts the Emperor's practice, when he

270-835: A number of Commonwealth countries. The New Year's levee is still held on New Year's Day in Canada, by the Governor General of Canada , the lieutenant governors , the Canadian Armed Forces , and various municipalities across the country. By the 1760s, the custom was being copied by the colonial governors in British America , but was abandoned in the United States following the American Revolutionary War . Beginning in 1789, President George Washington and First Lady Martha Washington held weekly public gatherings and receptions at

324-409: A position he held until the king's death in 1774, was a noted connoisseur of objets d'art and the arts of life, though not, apparently, of paintings. The duc d'Aumont appointed the renowned gilt-bronze maker Pierre Gouthière doreur ordinaire of the Menus-Plaisirs in 1767 and appointed the architect Bellanger to the Menus-Plaisirs in the same year. For most of the reign of Louis XVI, the intendant of

378-816: A queue in the Throne Room before stepping forward when their names and ranks were called. Each then bowed to the king who was seated on a dais with male members of his family, officials of the Royal Household and senior officers behind him. Levée ceremonies were held by regal representatives of the British Empire, such as the Viceroy of India , the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland , governors general and state/provincial governors / lieutenant governors . The ceremonial event continues to be held in

432-553: The grande entrée , a privilege that could be purchased, subject to the king's approval, but which was restricted in Louis' time to the nobles. The King remained in bed, in his nightshirt and a short wig. The Grand Chamberlain of France or, in his absence, the Chief Gentleman of the Bedchamber presented holy water to the king from a vase that stood at the head of the bed and the king's morning clothes were laid out. First,

486-429: The première entrée , his process of dressing began. Louis preferred to dress himself "for he did almost everything himself, with address and grace", Saint-Simon remarked. The King was handed a dressing-gown, and a mirror was held for him, for he had no toilet table like ordinary gentlemen. Every other day the King shaved himself. Now, other privileged courtiers were admitted, a few at a time, at each stage, so that, as

540-540: The Austrian Netherlands , he was the son of a master gunsmith, in whose line of work engraving was a prominent technique. He spent his career in Paris. Long after his death the connoisseur Pierre-Jean Mariette wrote of him, "Nothing was done, in whatever genre that it might have been, unless it were in his manner, or where he had given designs for it." Through his engravings and those of his son, his style

594-557: The Grand Aumônier and the Marshal of France and the king's ministers and secretaries. A fifth entrée now admitted ladies for the first time, and a sixth entrée admitted, from a privileged position at a cramped backdoor, the king's children, legitimate and illegitimate indiscriminately — in scandalous fashion Saint-Simon thought — and their spouses. The crowd in the chambre du Roi can be estimated from Saint-Simon's remark of

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648-618: The Palais-Royal in the Capital. His numerous designs were for the most part engraved under his own supervision; a collection of them was published in Paris in 1711 by his son-in-law, Jacques Thuret , clockmaker to the king from 1694. There are three books, L'Œuvre de J. Berain , Ornements inventés par J. Berain and Œuvres de J. Berain contenant des ornements d'architecture . ` Désiré Guilmard in Les Maîtres ornemanistes , gives

702-580: The per angolo (oblique) perspective designs that were being tried in Italy by designers such as the Galli-Bibienas . In 1692 it was Bérain who worked with the Royal Family on the occasion of the marriage of Philippe d'Orléans to the kings illegitimate daughter Françoise-Marie de Bourbon, Mademoiselle de Blois . Bérain designed their jewelled wedding clothes and their private apartments at

756-772: The Hôtel des Menus-Plaisirs. The old Hôtel des Menus-Plaisirs is now the home of the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles . In Moscow, near the Kremlin's walls, between the Komendantskaïa Tower and the Troïtskaïa Tower, stands the Amusement Palace , built in 1652 for the father-in-law of Tsar Alexis , the boyar Ilya Miloslavsky , who lived in it for sixteen years. After his death, the structure

810-426: The King of France, to do as his father ( Henry II ) had done and uphold the practice of lever . Catherine describes that Henry II allowed his subjects, from nobles to household servants, to come in while he dressed. She states this pleased his subjects and improved their opinion of him. This practice was raised to a ceremonial custom at the court of King Louis XIV . In the court etiquette that Louis formalised,

864-531: The King was putting on his shoes and stockings, "everyone" — in Saint-Simon's view — was there. This was the entrée de la chambre , which included the king's readers and the director of the Menus Plaisirs , that part of the royal establishment in charge of all preparations for ceremonies, events and festivities, to the last detail of design and order. At the entrée de la chambre were admitted

918-474: The King's devotions, which followed: the King knelt at his bedside "where all the clergy present knelt, the cardinals without cushions, all the laity remaining standing". The King then passed into the cabinet where all those who possessed any court office attended him. He then announced what he expected to do that day and was left alone with those among his favourites of the royal children born illegitimately (whom he had publicly recognised and legitimated ) and

972-526: The Master of the Bedchamber and the First Servant, both high nobles, pulled the king's nightshirt over his head, one grasping each sleeve. The Grand Chamberlain presented the day shirt which, according to Saint-Simon, had been shaken out and sometimes changed, because the king perspired freely. This was a moment for any of those with the privilege of the grande entrée to have a swift private word with

1026-459: The Menus-Plaisirs du Roi was Papillon de la Ferté , whose journal (published in 1887) throws a great deal of light on the organization of court ceremony. Many designers were required at the Menus-Plaisirs. From the sixteenth century on, a main responsibility of court architects in Europe was the occasional design of lavish ephemeral settings for processional entries, for masques and ballets , for

1080-659: The Régence style that was a precursor of the Rococo . Bérain also designed for the theatre. By 1674 he had already begun designing costumes for Jean-Baptiste Lully 's Opéra , including costumes for dancers in the divertissements . For Lully's 1684 opera Amadis , a tale of chivalric romance, Bérain carried out research into the styles of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance , a historical approach to costume design that

1134-564: The architect in charge of the Bâtiments was Jules Hardouin-Mansart , but the wholly independent artistic force at the menus-plaisirs until his death in 1711 was Jean Bérain , whose brevet in 1674 covered his responsibilities "for all sorts of designs, perspectives, figures and costumes that it would be required to make for plays, ballets, chases at the ring, carousels ..." The purview of the Menus-Plaisirs did not normally extend to furniture, but among its expenses in 1692 were "the furniture and

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1188-724: The artistic force in the Royal office of the Menus-Plaisirs du Roi where all the designs originated for court spectacle, from fêtes to funerals, and many designs for furnishings not covered by the Bâtiments du Roi . The "Berainesque" style of light arabesques and playful grotesques was an essential element in the style Régence that led to the French Rocaille and European Rococo . Born in Saint-Mihiel , Meuse, in

1242-556: The essential furniture of the royal palaces, which were the province of the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne . An exception is instructive: the design of the jewel cabinet made as a wedding present for the wedding of the Dauphin Louis to Marie-Antoinette was considered part of the design of the festivities as a whole; thus in the Menus-Plaisirs, the design was entrusted by the duc d'Aumont to Belanger in 1769, well in advance of

1296-462: The frequency of the lever and coucher decreased, much to the dismay of their courtiers. When the court of Charles II of England adopted the custom, first noted as an English usage in 1672, it was called a levée . In the 18th century, as the fashionable dinner hour was incrementally moved later into the afternoon, the morning reception of the British monarch, attended only by gentlemen,

1350-414: The king proceeded to daily Mass, sharing brief words as he progressed and even receiving some petitions. It was of these occasions that the King habitually remarked, in refusing a favour asked for some noble, "We never see him", meaning that he did not spend enough time at Versailles, where Louis wanted to keep the nobility penned up, to prevent them interesting themselves in politics. Among the aristocracy,

1404-474: The king's chamber and office) in the Menus-Plaisirs (a post he retained until his death), in succession to Henri de Gissey , whose pupil he is believed to have been. From 1677 onward he had workrooms and an apartment in the Galeries du Louvre near to those of André Charles Boulle , for whom he made many designs for furniture. After the death of Charles Le Brun Berain was commissioned to compose and supervise

1458-419: The king, which would have been carefully rehearsed beforehand to express a request as deferentially as possible while also being as brief as possible. The King was given a missal and the gentlemen retired into the adjoining chambre du conseil (the "council chamber") while there was a brief private prayer for the King. When the King had them recalled, now accompanied by those who had the lesser privilege of

1512-545: The levee was in every respect but one: I saw one ambassador after another enter with his suite; the Judges of the Supreme Court; the majority of the members of both Houses of Congress; and intermingled with these, the plainest farmers, storekeepers, and mechanics, with their primitive wives and simple daughters. Some looked merry; some looked busy; but none bashful. I believe there were three thousand persons present. There

1566-479: The levée could also become a crowded and social occasion, especially for women, who liked to put off the donning of their uncomfortable formal clothes, and whose hair and perhaps make-up needed prolonged attention. There is a famous depiction of the levée of an 18th-century Viennese lady of the court in Richard Strauss 's later opera Der Rosenkavalier , where she has her hair dressed while surrounded by

1620-401: The neo-classical architect-designer Michel-Ange Challe in 1764 marked a turning point: through his designs for the Menus-Plaisirs, neoclassicism was introduced at the French court. In addition to these extraordinary expenses, which interest the historian of taste, the journal of the last Intendant of the Menus-Plaisirs, Denis-Pierre-Jean Papillon de la Ferté (1727-1794) describes as well

1674-496: The official arts under Louis XIV. The Cabinet du Roi provided the commemorative engravings, which are often our only record, and sold them. The functions of design and commemoration overlapped, needless to say. The position was extremely influential: both Jean Bérain and his son , and later Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier , the genius of the extreme rococo , followed by the Slodtz brothers, one after another, 1750-64. The appointment of

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1728-591: The opening moves of the French Revolution were played out. A provisionally fitted-out space was arranged in the building to seat the Assembly of Notables in 1787, and again in 1788. Then, to accommodate the press of representatives of the three estates, in the Estates-General, a grander but still temporary Salle des États designed by Pierre-Adrien Pâris was set up in one of the two courtyards of

1782-722: The ordinary expenses, for the Menus-Plaisirs dispensed the salaries of the Premiers Gentilshommes de la Chambre , the Grand Maître de la Garde-Robe , the king's doctor, the médecin de la Chambre , the personnel of the Menus-Plaisirs and the king's musicians. Ordinary expenses entailed the constant renewal of the King's wardrobe and that of the Dauphin, religious ceremonies of all kinds, the king's carriages, small royal gifts like snuffboxes, tents and pavilions for outdoor events. The Menus-Plaisirs were not in charge of

1836-403: The presidential mansion that were called levees. Designed to give the public access to the president and to project a dignified public image of the presidency, they were continued by John and Abigail Adams , but not by Thomas Jefferson . English writer Harriet Martineau , after witnessing a White House levee during the second term of Andrew Jackson 's presidency, remarked on how egalitarian

1890-468: The reign—who alone had slept in the bedchamber. The chief physician, the chief surgeon and Louis' childhood nurse, as long as she lived, all entered at the same time, and the nurse kissed him. The night chamberpot was removed. Then the curtains of the bed were drawn once again and, at a quarter past eight, the Grand Chamberlain was called, bringing with him the nobles who had the privilege of

1944-454: The royal residences. After Lully's death in 1687, he created designs for the earliest opéra-ballets , Pascal Colasse 's Les saisons (1695) and André Campra 's L'Europe galante (1697). In his set designs Bérain continued using highly symmetrical single-point perspective, following in the footsteps of his Italian predecessors Giacomo Torelli and Vigarani, as well as Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi and Giovanni Burnacini . He never employed

1998-405: The set of extremely elaborate conventions was divided into the grand lever , attended by the full court in the gallery outside the king's bedchamber, and the petit lever that transpired in degrees in the king's chamber, where only a very select group might serve the king as he rose and dressed. In fact, the king had often risen early and put in some hours hunting before returning to bed for

2052-439: The silversmiths' work for the apartments of the King". Within the Menus-Plaisirs, a hierarchical structure prevailed, with an Intendant supervising the whole and a Dessinateur de la Chambre et du Cabinet du Roi in charge of the orderly production of designs. The Cabinet du Roi —in the seventeenth-century sense of cabinet as collection of works of art and curiosities—was organized by Colbert , who gave formal structure to all

2106-424: The start of the lever . Louis's grandson, King Philip V of Spain , and his queen typically spent all morning in bed, as reported by Saint-Simon, to avoid the pestering by ministers and courtiers that began with the lever. The king's retiring ceremony proceeded in reverse order and was known as the coucher . The successors of Louis XIV were not as passionate about the monarch's daily routine and, over time,

2160-422: The structures that supported fireworks and illuminations on nights of grand fêtes for dynastic marriages and births, or to design the catafalque for a state funeral. Architects like Leonardo , Giulio Romano and Inigo Jones were engaged in projects that were of great moment in expressing the prestige of the court, but which have left little behind, except designs and some commemorative engravings, produced under

2214-480: The supervision of the Cabinet du Roi. The architect Charles-Nicolas Cochin worked for several years for the Menus-Plaisirs du Roi, 1735–51, making detailed renderings for the engravers of architectural designs by the Slodtz brothers . and François-Joseph Bélanger began his career in 1767 working at the Menus-Plaisirs, both designing ephemeral decorations for court entertainments. In the later reign of Louis XIV ,

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2268-543: The wallclock under the hangings of her lit à la polonaise appears to read noon. In Sofia Coppola 's Marie Antoinette , the levée of the French queen during the reigns of Louis XV and XVI is represented. Notes Bibliography Further reading Jean B%C3%A9rain the Elder Jean Berain the Elder (1640 – 24 January 1711) was a draughtsman and designer, painter and engraver of ornament,

2322-544: The wedding. It was delivered on 1 May 1770. The music required for these entertainments was also a concern of the Menus-Plaisirs du Roi. Beginning in 1762 the music section was established on a large site extending north from the rue Bergère and west of the rue du Faubourg Poissonnière . The facilities included what had previously been the theatre of the Opéra-Comique at the Saint-Laurent Fair . The site

2376-518: The whole of the exterior decoration of the king's ships. His first designs for royal interiors date from the years 1682–1684. He was inventive and industrious, and, beginning with interiors at the Hôtel de Mailly (1687–88) assimilated and adapted Raphaelesque grotesque ornament to the taste of the time. He provided arabesque designs for the manufacture of Beauvais tapestry . At Meudon for Louis, le Grand Dauphin , whose favourite designer he remained. Berain's decors, beginning in 1699, initiated

2430-422: Was a creature of habit and the inflexible routine that tired or irritated his heirs served him well. Wherever the king had actually slept, he was discovered sleeping in the close-curtained state bed standing in its alcove, which was separated from the rest of the chambre du roi by a gilded balustrade. He was woken at eight o'clock by his head valet de chambre — Alexandre Bontemps held this post for most of

2484-546: Was added in 1811. Under the French Second Empire a different theatre with the name Théâtre des Menus-Plaisirs was constructed at 14 Boulevard de Strasbourg in Paris. Under Louis XV a structure was erected in the town of Versailles to house the multiple activities of the Menus-Plaisirs. It still stands, at 22, avenue de Paris, now rendered famous as the site of the Estates-General of 1789 , at which

2538-856: Was an important court official, quite separate from the Surintendant des Bâtiments du Roi , who was an architect or aristocrat in charge of all building operations undertaken by the Crown. The dukes in charge might leave the design process entirely to the professional intendant in charge, whose right-hand man was the dessinateur du cabinet et de la chambre du Roy ; so did two dukes with military careers, Louis-François-Armand du Plessis, duc de Richelieu (1696-1788), appointed premier gentilhomme in 1744 and Emmanuel-Félicité, duc de Durfort-Duras (1715–89), made premier gentilhomme (and pair de France ) in 1757. But Louis-Marie-Augustin, duc d'Aumont (1709–82), appointed premier gentilhomme de la chambre in 1723,

2592-423: Was dressing and putting on his shoes, to invite his friends to come in and, in case of a dispute brought to his attention, "he would order the disputants to be brought in there and then, hear the case as if he were sitting in tribunal and pronounce a judgement." By the second half of the sixteenth century, it had become a formal event, requiring invitation. In 1563 Catherine de' Medici wrote in advice to her son,

2646-460: Was enlarged and converted into a site for spectacles and concerts, taking its new name, and served to house members of the imperial family: here the future Peter the Great received his elementary education. Lev%C3%A9e (ceremony)#Louis XIV's lever The levee (from the French word lever , meaning "getting up" or "rising") was traditionally a daily moment of intimacy and accessibility to

2700-630: Was highly influential beyond the court and Paris, notably in the Low Countries, Germany and London. His close friendship with Nicodemus Tessin the Younger ensured that Berain's own nuance in the Louis XIV style was transmitted to court circles in Sweden . Berain was established in Paris by 1663. On 28 December 1674 he was appointed dessinateur de la Chambre et du cabinet du Roi (designer of

2754-512: Was one deficiency,—one drawback, as I felt at the time. There were no persons of colour ... Every man of colour who is a citizen of the United States has a right to as free an admission as any other man; and it would be a dignity added to the White House if such were seen there. Abraham Lincoln held a levee on New Year's Eve 1862. The ceremony at Versailles has been described in detail by Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon . Louis XIV

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2808-464: Was shifted back towards noon. The practice of holding court levées was continued by the British monarchy until 1939. These took the form of a formal reception at St James's Palace at which officials, diplomats, and military officers of all three armed services, were presented individually to the sovereign. A form of civil uniform known as Levée dress was worn by those entitled to it, or else naval or military uniform, or court dress . Participants formed

2862-706: Was soon expanded until it reached the rue Richer on the north. In 1784 Papillon de la Ferté organized the École Royale de Musique, which was housed in buildings on this site on the rue Bergère, and in 1793 the Institut National de Musique, responsible for training instrumentalists of the National Guard bands , was also located here. The two institutions were merged into the Conservatoire de Musique in August 1795. A new Conservatory Concert Hall

2916-556: Was unusual for the time. Besides costume designs for Lully's tragédies en musique , Bérain designed the costumes for Lully's ballets Le triomphe de l'amour (1681) and Le temple de la paix (1685). In 1680 he additionally took over Carlo Vigarani 's work as the designer of the Opéra's stage machinery and scenery, and until 1707 he was in charge of staging all lyric works produced at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris as well as at

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