[Footnote: i.e., on their birth-days.] They are carried into an
apartment with a priest, who says daily the office of their church; a
governess, nurse, and under-servants, who have their allowance
according to the custom of great men's houses, so many pounds of
flesh, fruit, bread, and the like, with such a quantity of drink, and
so much a year in money. Until their daughters marry, they never stir
so much as down stairs, nor marry for any consideration under their
own quality, which to prevent, if their fortunes will not procure
husbands, they make them nuns. They are very magnificent in houses,
furniture, pictures of the best, jewels, plate, and clothes; most
noble in presents, entertainments, and in their equipage; and when
they visit, it is with great state and attendance. When they travel,
they are the most jolly persons in the world, dealing their provisions
of all sorts to every person they meet when they are eating.
One thing I had like to have forgotten to tell you. In the palace
there never lies but one person in the King's apartment, who is a
nobleman, to wait the King's commands; the rest are lodged in
apartments at further distance, which makes the King's side most
pleasant, because it is most airy and sweet. The King and Queen eat
together twice a week in public with their children, the rest
privately, and asunder. They eat often, with flesh to their breakfast,
which is generally, to persons of quality, a partridge and bacon, or
capon, or some such thing, ever roasted, much chocolate, and
sweetmeats, and new-laid eggs, drinking water either cold with snow,
or lemonade, or some such thing.
Pages:
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202