Spending a Penny
centre this morning) that I read somewhere that there was a marked lack of toilets in Louis XIV palace. Once home I
searched among my books but could not find my source, however I found this blog on the subject which begins.......
"There were hardly any toilets at Versailles and with a court counting several thousand people it turned out to be more
than a little problem. The servants, the commoners who came to look at their monarch even the aristocrats would
occasionally relieve themselves in corners and courtyards though this was not as often as has later been implied. Visitors - including Horace Walpole - complained about the awful smell that hung over everything; even the gardens were not free for
the hideous odour. Thanks to the many reports of ambassadors and foreign visitors the splendid palace became known as
one of the filthiest in the world - not exactly what had been expected. The problem became so acute that Louis XIV put a
new rule in place according to which the hallways were to be cleansed for faeces (if there was any) and dirt once every week. Also, many of the King's beloved orange trees were put into vases inside the palace in an attempt to mask the smells."
thisisversaillesmadame.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/the-lack-of-toilets.html
and my blog on Versailles here
meanderingthroughtime.weebly.com/history-blog/louis-xiv-at-versailles