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The most splendid fêtes were yet to come. On the 24th of January, the day after Alfonso and Anna's wedding, three tribunals were erected on the piazza, the one occupied by a group of heralds and trumpeters, the other loaded with precious bowls and dishes of gold and silver plate, the gifts of the magistrates of Milan and other cities to Signor Lodovico and his bride.
"Oh, M'sieur Antoine!" she replied, "it is about the good Aunt Hibba's birthday. Could you not ask her when is the day? and it should be a fête day, if we only knew it; there is not one that would not be glad to help make it beautiful." "Eh, my Marie, what is it then that you plan? The people in the country from which she comes have no fêtes.
This expedition was followed by a long truce between France and England; an event which was considered as the prelude to a good peace. In order to obtain from God this good, so necessary and so much desired, there were public fêtes at Paris, among others a solemn procession in which were carried all the holy relics of the city.
The dining-room at Poussette's was transformed for the occasion into a moderate sized concert hall, by the erection of a platform at one end by Antoine Archambault under Pauline's skilled directions, and by rows of planks crosswise over chairs, the people of the village joining forces with those at Poussette's, just as in towns others conspire together to hold fêtes and bazaars; but Ringfield stood afar off and would have nothing to say to it.
On Wednesday, the 25th of June, Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne had a son born to him. This event caused great joy to the King and the Court. The town shared their delight, and carried their enthusiasm almost to madness, by the excess of their demonstration and their fetes.
So, when war was interrupted, fetes began, as magnificent and as exciting as he knew how to make them: the days were passed in games and displays of horsemanship, the nights in dancing and gallantry; for the loveliest women of the Romagna and that is to say of the whole world had come hither to make a seraglio for the victor which might have been envied by the Sultan of Egypt or the Emperor of Constantinople.
France calls him a "dilapidateur," but when his power and incidentally the revenues of state, were laid out to produce a day of pleasure for king and court, his taste and ability showed such a fête as could scarce be surpassed even in those days of artistic fêtes champêtres. The great gardens were brought into use in all the beauty of flower and vine, of lawn and bosquet, of terrace and fountain.
Indeed, though Her Majesty never confessed it, I think she herself had discovered something at that very time not altogether to the credit of the Princesse de Conde, for she ceased going, from that period, to any of the fetes given at Chantilly.
So the poor Duchesse was taken quietly by a roundabout road to the old wet dock, where she was put on board, and after a slight detour, she arrived in approved nautical fashion, and disembarked at the foot of the Cannebiere "amidst a scene of indescribable enthusiasm," as the official descriptions would say. The only recollections I have of those Marseilles fetes are musical ones.
"And yet," said Louis XIV., "it was Colbert, however, that, notwithstanding his economy, had the arrangement of my fetes here at Fontainebleau; and I assure you, Monsieur Fouquet, that in now way has he checked the expenditure of money." Fouquet bowed, but did not reply. "Is it not your opinion too?" said the king.
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