Levee (ceremony)

The levee (from the French word lever, meaning "getting up" or "rising")[1] was traditionally a daily moment of intimacy and accessibility to a monarch or leader, as he got up in the morning.

It started out as a royal custom, but in British America it came to refer to a reception by the sovereign's representative, which continues to be a tradition in Canada with the New Year's levee; in the United States a similar gathering was held by several presidents.

Louis's grandson, King Philip V of Spain, and his queen typically spent all morning in bed, as reported by Saint-Simon, to avoid the pestering by ministers and courtiers that began with the lever.

The successors of Louis XIV were not as passionate about the monarch's daily routine and, over time, the frequency of the lever and coucher decreased, much to the dismay of their courtiers.

In the 18th century, as the fashionable dinner hour was incrementally moved later into the afternoon,[8] the morning reception of the British monarch, attended only by gentlemen, was shifted back towards noon.

These took the form of a formal reception at St James's Palace at which officials, diplomats, and military officers of all three armed services, were presented individually to the sovereign.

[11] English writer Harriet Martineau, after witnessing a White House levee during the second term of Andrew Jackson's presidency, remarked on how egalitarian the levee was in every respect but one:I saw one ambassador after another enter with his suite; the Judges of the Supreme Court; the majority of the members of both Houses of Congress; and intermingled with these, the plainest farmers, storekeepers, and mechanics, with their primitive wives and simple daughters.

Wherever the king had actually slept, he was discovered sleeping in the close-curtained state bed standing in its alcove, which was separated from the rest of the chambre du roi by a gilded balustrade.

This was the entrée de la chambre, which included the king's readers and the director of the Menus Plaisirs, that part of the royal establishment in charge of all preparations for ceremonies, events and festivities, to the last detail of design and order.

It was of these occasions that the King habitually remarked, in refusing a favour asked for some noble, "We never see him", meaning that he did not spend enough time at Versailles, where Louis wanted to keep the nobility penned up, to prevent them interesting themselves in politics.

Among the aristocracy, the levée could also become a crowded and social occasion, especially for women, who liked to put off the donning of their uncomfortable formal clothes, and whose hair and perhaps make-up needed prolonged attention.

There is a famous depiction of the levée of an 18th-century Viennese lady of the court in Richard Strauss's later opera Der Rosenkavalier, where she has her hair dressed while surrounded by a disorderly crowd of tradesmen touting for work or payment, and other petitioners, followed by a visit from a cousin.

In the French engraving Le Lever after Freudenberg, of the 1780s, gentle social criticism is levelled at the lady of the court; that she slept without unlacing her stays, apparently, perhaps can be seen as artistic licence.