Note 210-3 — Chapter I

In this way Voltaire, Siècle de Louis XIV., ch. 30, excuses for instance the extravagant (?) buildings at Versailles; and in a very similar way Catharine II. expressed herself in speaking to the Prince de Ligne: Mémoires et Mélanges par le Prince de Ligne, 1827, II, 358. v. Schröder even thinks that the Prince might consume as much and even more than "the entire capital" of the country amounted to; only, he would have him "let it get quickly among the people again." He is also in favor of the utmost splendor in dress, provided the public see to it that nothing was worn in the country which was not made in the country. (Fürstl. Schatz- u. Rentkammer, 47, 172.) Similarly even Botero, Della Ragion di Stato VII, 85; VIII, 191; and recently v. Struensee, Abhandlungen I, 190. The principle of Polycrates in Herodotus is nearly to the same effect. Compare, per contra, Ferguson, Hist. of Civil Society, V, 5.