by Anne Doridou-Heim
Paris, Aufrère, chess-board maker, Rue Planche Mibrai, c. 1770-1780, cavagnole set in its wooden box, complete with 14 cards with colored engraved decoration, green silk bag with ivory dome, 68 hollow wooden playing pieces and ivory stylus. Paris, Drouot, December 19, 2012. Pierre Bergé & Associés auction house. Mr. Forgeot Sold for €8,000
When France was a kingdom, people in high places played games—not only for fun, but also by royal decree. Louis XIV made games a meticulous ritual, having learned that to govern one must first provide amusements. In his Mémoires pour l'instruction du dauphin (Memoirs for the Instruction of the Dauphin), he explained the need to establish "this society of pleasures, which gives the people of the court an honest familiarity with the [sovereign], and touches and charms them ineffably"... The weekly rhythm permanently established in the 1690s dictated "apartment" evenings—featuring concerts, games and dancing—alternating with events devoted to the theater: a smooth-running set-up, with the Sun King as puppet-master, that subsequently continued to the end of the Ancien Régime.
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