Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/567

 The Eve of the French Revolution 427 enemies in India (see 677), had brought France down to the verge of bankruptcy. The taxes were already so heavy as to arouse universal complaint, and yet the government was running behind seventy millions of dollars a year. The king's personal conduct was scandalous, and he allowed his courtiers to meddle COURT SCENE AT VERSAILLES The king is surrounded by princes of the royal family and the greatest nobles of France while he dresses and is shaved upon rising in the morning (the levee). Similar ceremonies were performed when the king went to bed at night (the couchee). The bed, hung with rich tapestries, is behind the railing. The door at the left leads into a small room called the Bull's Eye Room (salon de I'CEH-de-bceuf) from the round window above the door where the ambassadors and other dignitaries waited to be admitted, and while waiting often planned and plotted how to win the king's favor. Louis XVI's bedroom at Versailles is still preserved, in much of its old- time splendor; for the palace is now a museum in public affairs and plunder the royal treasury for themselves and their favorites. When at last he was carried off by smallpox everyone hailed, with hopes of better times, the accession of his grandson and successor, Louis XVI. 743. Character of Louis XVI. The new king was but twenty years old, poorly educated, indolent, unsociable, and very fond of