What did Louis XIV drink when he woke up? Herbal tea. Sage tea, most likely.
Not wine. Not champagne. Not whatever vintage Burgundy you were imagining for the man who built the most extravagant palace in the world.
He drank medicinal herbal tea every morning at his bedside — for his gout — before submitting to one of the strangest morning routines in the history of European monarchy.
I’ve lived in Versailles for over a decade. I’ve stood in that bedchamber. This detail — a king with aching joints reaching for a herbal infusion before the most theatrical wake-up call in history — is one of my favorites. It makes him real in a way the gold leaf doesn’t.
Here’s what actually happened, and how we know.
Why Herbal Tea?
It Was Entirely Medical.
Tea arrived in France in 1636 — twenty-two years before it reached England. Cardinal Mazarin, the most powerful man in France during Louis XIV’s childhood, drank it for his gout. When Louis developed the same condition, plus vertigo, he followed his mentor’s prescription. By 1665 he was a regular tea drinker, having also been told that the Chinese and Japanese never suffered from heart problems.
The most powerful man in the world was sipping herbal tea every morning for the same reason your grandmother keeps chamomile by the kettle.
Gout is a form of arthritis caused by a buildup of uric acid — the direct result of eating too much rich food. Red meat, organ meats, wine, shellfish. Louis XIV famously ate four plates of soup at a single meal, plus a pheasant, a partridge, ham, and mutton. Gout was inevitable. The disease was so common among the aristocracy they called it “the disease of kings.”
Louis XIV’s list of ailments was, frankly, impressive — along with gout, he had vertigo, recurring fevers, and an anal abscess so severe that surgeons had to invent a new procedure to treat it. His physician Guy-Crescent Fagon managed the royal health obsessively, eventually prescribing old Burgundy wine as a dietary tonic from 1693. For the full picture of how Louis’s health shaped his daily schedule, my day-in-the-life guide goes into it properly.
The sage tea was morning medicine. The wine came later.
But How Do We Actually Know This?
What did Louis XIV drink in the morning has become one of those viral trivia questions where everyone’s confident and most people are wrong.
The best primary source for daily life at Versailles is the Duke of Saint-Simon — a courtier who spent decades at the palace and wrote obsessive, extraordinarily detailed memoirs covering 1691 to 1723. He recorded everything: who was allowed into the king’s bedchamber, in what order, what happened step by step. He wasn’t interested in breakfast beverages specifically, but his lever ceremony accounts are meticulous.
The other key witness is Madame de Sévigné, who wrote thousands of gossipy letters chronicling court life — including the tea obsession at Versailles. She noted that the Princesse de Tarente drank twelve cups of tea a day, and one nobleman reportedly drank forty cups every morning. The court was evangelical about it. Louis’s use of tea for gout and vertigo appears in her letters as unremarkable fact — just what people did at the time.
The specific detail of sage tea at the bedside comes from culinary and medical history sources drawing on court records. The herb is the thinnest part of the sourcing — what’s well-attested is herbal tea, medicinal, from 1665 onward, first thing in the morning.
The Full Morning Scene
Louis XIV did not shuffle to the kitchen alone. There was no kitchen. There was a ceremony.
At 8:30am, the First Valet of the Bedchamber entered and drew back the bed curtains. This triggered the lever — a choreographed political ritual where nobles were admitted to the royal bedchamber in waves of privilege. Doctors first, then princes of the blood, then an expanding crowd until around 100 people stood watching the king wash, dress, and eat his breakfast. Every morning. His entire reign.
The herbal tea was waiting at the bedside before any of them arrived. It was the one private moment in the whole production.
After the lever, Louis processed toward the royal chapel — past the Hall of Mirrors, completed in 1684, designed to dazzle precisely this kind of daily audience. The Siamese ambassador had gifted him a gold teapot for brewing his tea. It wasn’t decorative. It was used. Every morning, in front of everyone.
If you want to understand how Louis XIV turned every single object and ritual at Versailles into a political statement, my Louis XIV and Versailles article covers it properly.
What He Drank After That
Chocolate and coffee appeared later in the morning. Wine arrived with meals. Champagne daily, doctor’s orders. His physician’s 1693 prescription for old Burgundy as a health tonic spread the fashion through the entire court — suddenly everyone needed Burgundy for medical reasons.
And citrus — Louis XIV was so obsessed with oranges that he built an entire architectural monument just to house his orange trees. The man had opinions about beverages.
But at 8:30am, at the bedside, before the curtains opened and the nobles filed in? Herbal tea. For the gout. Same as Mazarin before him.
FAQs
What did Louis XIV eat for breakfast?
His early morning drink was herbal tea or broth. A small, light breakfast — possibly including chocolate or coffee — came later in the morning after the lever ceremony. The serious eating happened at lunch and the 10pm Grand Couvert dinner.
Did Louis XIV drink wine every day?
Yes. Wine came with meals, and his physician eventually prescribed old Burgundy wine as a health tonic from 1693. He was also given a daily dose of champagne by his doctors. Wine was everywhere at Versailles — but it wasn’t what he woke up to.
What was the lever ceremony at Versailles?
The lever was Louis XIV’s ritualized morning wake-up, designed as a political performance. Courtiers were admitted to the royal bedchamber in waves of privilege — from the king’s doctors and closest servants to a crowd of around 100 nobles who watched him dress, eat breakfast, and prepare for the day. It was a masterclass in controlling the aristocracy through flattery and access.
What did people drink at the Palace of Versailles?
The court had access to all the fashionable drinks of the era — tea, coffee, chocolate, wine, and champagne. Tea arrived in France in 1636, coffee in 1669. Chocolate was a luxury import. Wine was ubiquitous. What you drank — and which vessel it arrived in — was a statement of status.
How do historians know what Louis XIV drank?
From a combination of sources: the Duke of Saint-Simon’s detailed courtier memoirs, the letters of Madame de Sévigné, Dangeau’s day-by-day court journal, royal physicians’ records (including Fagon’s), food history texts like Gastronomy of France, and the Palace of Versailles’s own historical documentation. No single source gives us a complete picture — historians piece it together from multiple contemporaneous and near-contemporaneous accounts.
Want to See Where It Happened?
The bedchamber where Louis XIV performed his lever ceremony — and where that gold teapot would have been on display — still exists at the Palace of Versailles. Standing in it, knowing this backstory, is a completely different experience from just wandering through.
My tips: book your tickets early (this guide covers every ticket type, what’s worth paying for, and how to actually get in without losing your mind), arrive at opening, and use the free official Versailles app instead of paying for a tour.
If you want to go deeper — the history, the hidden rooms, the dark stories — I offer a Versailles Concierge Call, a one-on-one planning session where we map your visit around your interests.
And if you want more of the unexpectedly wonderful details of this place, my 9 fascinating facts about Versailles is a good next read.
The tea, the gout, the 100 witnesses at breakfast. This place never gets old.
