Hard to imagine just how many people were employed serving a King.

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From: The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6), by Hippolyte A. Taine

Such is the king's household, and I have only described one of his residences; he has a dozen of them besides Versailles, great and small, Marly, the two Trianons, la Muette, Meudon, Choisy, Saint-Hubert, Saint-Germain, Fontainebleau, Compiègne, Saint-Cloud, Rambouillet, without counting the Louvre, the Tuileries and Chambord, with their parks and hunting-grounds, their governors, inspectors, comptrollers, concierges, fountain tenders, gardeners, sweepers, scrubbers, mole-catchers, wood-rangers, mounted and foot-guards, in all more than a thousand persons.

Naturally he entertains, plans and builds, and, in this way expends 3 or 4 millions per annum. Naturally, also, he repairs and renews his furniture; in 1778, which is an average year, this costs him 1,936,853 livres. Naturally, also, he takes his guests along with him and defrays their expenses, they and their attendants; at Choisy, in 1780, there are sixteen tables with 345 seats besides the distributions; at Saint-Cloud, in 1785, there are twenty-six tables; "an excursion to Marly of twenty-one days is a matter of 120,000 livres extra expense;" the excursion to Fontainebleau has cost as much as 400,000 and 500,000 livres. His removals, on the average, cost half a million and more per annum.

—To complete our idea of this immense paraphernalia it must be borne in mind that the artisans and merchants belonging to these various official bodies are obliged; through the privileges they enjoy, to follow the court "on its journeys that it may be provided on the spot with apothecaries, armorers, gunsmiths, sellers of silken and woollen hosiery, butchers, bakers, embroiderers, publicans, cobblers, belt-makers, candle-makers, hatters, pork-dealers, surgeons, shoemakers, curriers, cooks, pinkers, gilders and engravers, spur-makers, sweetmeat-dealers, furbishers, old-clothes brokers, glove-perfumers, watchmakers, booksellers, linen-drapers, wholesale and retail wine-dealers, carpenters, coarse-jewelry haberdashers, jewellers, parchment-makers, dealers in trimmings, chicken-roasters, fish-dealers, purveyors of hay, straw and oats, hardware-sellers, saddlers, tailors, gingerbread and starch-dealers, fruiterers, dealers in glass and in violins." One might call it an oriental court which, to be set in motion, moves an entire world: "when it is to move one must, if one wants to travel anywhere, take the post in well in advance." The total is near 4,000 persons for the king's civil household, 9,000 to 10,000 for his military household, at least 2,000 for those of his relatives, in all 15,000 individuals, at a cost of between forty and fifty million livres, which would be equal to double the amount to day, and which, at that time, constituted one-tenth of the public revenue.