One of the history books I was reading recently had a dicsusion of life in the imperial capitals in the 18th century. I came across this account from a social survey of Vienna in the 1780’s. It talks about the number of servants needed by a Count of the imperial court for his Viennese residence:

“The lady of the house needs for her service one or two chambermaids, a man servant, a washerwoman, two parlourmaids, an extra girl, a porter, a messenger and two general servants. The man of the house has a secretary, two valets de chambre, a lackey, huntsmen, messengers, footmen, two general servants. For the general service of the house there are a major domo, a waiter, two charwomen, two house-boys, and a porter or gate-keeper. In the kitchen there are a chef, confectioner, a pastry-cook, a roasts-cook, plus the usual crowd of kitchen boys, kitchen-porters, washers-up, scullery maids, etc. The stables are looked after by a master of the horses, a riding master, two coach-men, two postillions, two outriders, two grooms, four stable lads, etc.”

Thats at least 11 for the lady of the house, another 11 for the man of the house, 7 for “general service”, a minimum of 12 in the kitchen, and 14 in the stables. I assume there are more when you have children. So these people needed at least 55 servants to run their home.

I sincerly hope that people living in Vienna don’t need that many lackeys these days. I doubt even the like of Bill Gates has half as many servants in his house.