COURT OF LOUIS XTV. 243 



and particularly one Mistress Cambell, whose maxim is 

 said to be : — 



" She that with pure tobacco will not prime 

 Her nose, can be no lady of the time." 



It was the grandees of the French Court who " set 

 the fashion " of snuff, with all its luxurious additions 

 of scents and expensive boxes. It became common in 

 the Court of Louis le Grand, although that monarch 

 had a decided antipathy to tobacco in any form.* He 

 endeavoured to discourage the use of snuff, and his 

 valets-de-chambre were obliged to renounce it when 

 they were appointed to their office. One of these gen- 

 tlemen, the Due d'Harcourt, was supposed to have died 

 of apoplexy in consequence of having, in order to please 

 the king, totally discontinued the habit which he had 

 before indulged to excess. Other grandees were less 

 accommodating: thus we are told that Marechal d'Hux- 

 elles used to cover his cravat and dress with it. The 

 Royal Physician, Monsieur Fagon, is reported to have 

 devoted his best energies to a public oration of a very 

 violent kind against snuff, which unfortunately failed 

 to convince his auditory, as the excited lecturer in his 



* Louis was ungrateful iu his dislike, if tobacco enabled his soldiers to 

 support themselves in their arduous campaigns as described by Le Sieur 

 Baillard, in his Discours du Tabac, 166S, who says: — "Ce que a ete 

 verifie dans le vieux et le nouveau monde, par l'experience de plusieurs 

 soldats, qui sans boire, et sans manger, et sans prendre autre chose qu'une 

 demi-once de tabac en vingt-quatre heures, soutenoient toutes les fatigues 

 de la guerre ceux-cy pendant trois ou quatre jours, et ceux-la menie une 

 semaine entiere." 



r 2 



