Note 225-5 — Chapter II

Hume, History of England, ch. 49, Append. Similarly among all nations which have still preserved much of the medieval. Thus the duke of Alba, about the end of the last century, had not a single commodious hall in his immense palace, but 400 rooms for his servants, since at least all his old servants, and even their widows and families, continued to live with him. In Madrid alone, he paid £1,000 a month wages to his servants; and the son of the duke, Medina-Celi, £4,000 per annum. (Townsend, II, 155, 158.) In many palaces in Moscow, previous to 1812, there were 1,000 and more servants, unskillful, clad for the most part as peasants, badly fed, and with so little to do that perhaps one had no service to perform but to fetch drinking water at noon, and another in the evening. Even poor noblemen kept 20 and 30 servants, (v. Haxthausen, Studien, I, 59.) Forster, Werke, VII, 347, explains Polish luxury in servants, by the poorness of the servants there: a good German maid could do more than three Polish servants. Thus, in Jamaica, it was customary to exempt from the slave-tax persons who kept fewer than 7 negroes. (B. Edwards, History of the W. Indies, I, 229.) Compare Livy, XXXIX, 11. The luxury of using torch-bearers instead of candelabra lasted until Louis XIV.'s time. (Rocquefort, Hist. de la Vie privée des Français, III, 171.) Compare W. Scott, Legend of Montrose, ch. 4.