The career mechanisms at the women’s courts in Versailles in the second half of the 18th century

The purpose of the article is to examine the career mechanisms at the royal court in Versailles mainly in the 60s and 70s of the 18th century in reference to the households (maisons) of Queen Marie Leszczyńska (d. 1768) and Dauphine Marie Josephe of Saxony (d. 1767). The structures and sustainability of these households went beyond the usual patterns as a result of accidental circumstances and ad hoc decisions taken by King Louis XV. The accumulation of problems and surprising circumstances forced him to take non-stereotypical actions. Reforms – even the smallest ones – revealed additionally the signs of crisis, which was systematically increasing at the entire court in Versailles. As a result, in the second half of the 18th century, the modernization of the court was also a sign of its serious crisis, and the careers of maisons’ officials were directed by new mechanisms that had previously not existed.