Parnassus to Pantheon

Among those present at Versailles on February 15, I7IO, when the duchesse de Bourgogne gave birth to the future Louis XV, was her premier maître d'hôtel, Evrard Titon du Tillet. Born in Paris in 1677 and educated there, his first and last loves were music and letters. His father, Secrétaire du Roi, Inspecteur General des Magasins d'Armes, destined him for a military career. Aged fifteen, he found himself at the head of a company named after him, of one hundred fusiliers. Notwithstanding, at the same time, he managed to read law, write a thesis, and qualify as Avocat au Parlement. Paternal pressure succeeded in keeping him in the army until he became dragoon captain, but the Peace of Ryswick made it possible for him to obtain his discharge. By 1697, at the age of twenty, he had entered the household of Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy, who the same year, through her marriage to the duc de Bourgogne, grandson of Louis XIV, became dauphine of France. Now, after thirteen happy years in her service, witnessing the birth of her son, her premier maître d'hôtel had every ordinary reason for rejoicing. But Du Tillet was not an ordinary intendant and for him this event had a signiflcance beyond its obvious one. Two years before, he himself had given birth to a brain-child whose eventual success or failure might well prove to be linked with that of the dauphine's son. The name of Du Tillet's off-spring was Le Parnasse Français.