4 ideas
On 17 August 1661 the finance superintendent Nicolas Fouquet entertained the young Louis XIV at his new château of Vaux-le-Vicomte with a display of splendour that outshone the king's own houses. Three weeks later, on 5 September, d'Artagnan arrested him at Nantes; he spent the rest of his life in prison.
Louis turned proximity into finely ranked privileges: the successive entrées to his lever and coucher, the right to hold the candlestick at bedtime, invitations to Marly, and the blue justaucorps à brevet coat. Each honour cost the crown almost nothing to grant, yet courtiers competed intensely for it. Its value came from scarcity and from being visible to rivals, so the king could reward and rank a whole nobility without spending treasury money.
The king noticed who was absent, and he let it be known that favour went only to those he saw. Of an absent noble he would say 'He is a man I never see.' This pulled nobles away from their provincial power bases and into costly residence at court, where they were watched and indebted. The daily ritual therefore controlled nobles by occupying them, without any need to coerce them directly.
The court held the nobility because it was open, accessible and attractive, not because it confined them. It was the single place where offices, army commands, pensions, marriages and bishoprics were distributed, and where the king himself could be approached. Nobles came of their own accord because concentrating patronage in one visible centre made attendance rational. Loyalty was bought through dependence on a monopoly of opportunity, not extracted by force.