大学英语四六级考试阅读提高的练习（5）_大学英语阅读

大学英语四六级考试阅读提高的练习（5）

　　Absolute rulers have, as a rule, made etiquette more complicated rather than simpler. The purpose is not only to make the ruler seem almost godlike, but also to protect him from familiarity, for without some such protection his life, lived inevitably in the public eye, would be intolerable. The court of Louis XIV of France provided an excellent example of a very highly developed system of etiquette. Because the king and his family were considered to belong to France, they were almost continually on show among their courtiers . They woke, prayed, washed and dressed before crowds of courtiers. Even large crowds watched them eat their meals, and access to their palace was free to all their subjects.

　　Yet this public life was organized so carefully, with such a refinement of ceremonial, that the authority of the King and the respect in which he was held grew steadily throughout his lifetime. A crowd watched him dress, but only the Duke who was his first valet de chamber was allowed to hold out the right sleeve of his shirt, only the Prince who was his Grand Chamberlain could relieve him of his dressing gown, and only the Master of the Wardrobe might help him pull up his trousers. These were not familiarities, nor merely duties, but highly desired privileges. Napoleon recognized the value of ceremony to a ruler. When he became Emperor, he discarded the revolutionary custom of calling everyone citizen, restored much of the Court ceremonial that the Revolution had destroyed, and recalled members of the nobility to instruct his new court in the old formal manners.