la Duchesse de Bourgogne, learning that Mme. la Chanceliere
wished to give her a ball, received the proposition with much joy.
Although there were but eight days in which to prepare for it, Mme. la
Chanceliere resolved to give the princess in one evening all the
diversions that people usually take during all the carnival
period--namely, comedy, fair, and ball. When the evening came,
detachments of Swiss were posted in the street and in the courtyard,
with many servants of Mme. la Chanceliere, so that there was no
confusion at the gates or in the court, which was brightly lighted with
torches. . . . The ball-room was lighted by ten chandeliers and by
magnificent gilded candelabra. At one end, on raised seats, were the
musicians, hautboys and violins, in fancy dress with plumed caps. In
front of the velvet-covered benches for the courtiers were three
arm-chairs, one for Mme. la Duchesse de Bourgogne, and the others for
Monsieur and the Madame. Beyond the ball-room, across the landing of
the staircase, was another hall, brilliantly lighted, in which were
hautboys and violins, and this hall was for the masks, who came in such
numbers that the ball-room could not have contained them all.
". . . After remaining about an hour at the ball, Mme. la Chanceliere
and the Comte de Pontchartrain conducted Mme. la Duchesse de Bourgogne
into another hall, filled with lights and mirrors, where a theater had
been erected to furnish the diversion of a comedy.
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