The dresses of these knights had been exactly modelled on those of the reign of François I., i.e. of the period when ‘chivalry,’ after a last short blaze, was extinguished for ever. Like their fair dames, the knights were divided into four quadrilles, each being marked by the colour adopted by the corresponding feminine quadrille. The dress was composed of a velvet doublet, tight at the waist, with puffed sleeves, and lappets lined with satin. The front of the doublet was fastened with buttons and laces of gold; below this came the close-fitting hose and trunks, with yellow boots reaching to the calves, and provided with gilt spurs. The hands were cased in gloves of a similar colour, embroidered with gold, and ending in gauntlets; while on their heads they wore large hats turned up in front, with the plume of feathers drooping from the side and fastened with a diamond buckle. The swords were suspended from baldricks encrusted with precious stones. Each fair one had presented her knight with an ample band of stuff embroidered in silk and gold. The scarf was tied in a bow at the side of the sword-hand. The knights bestrode Hungarian horses of the rarest beauty, and remarkable for their quickness of movement and their perfect training. Their sleek coats, black as ebony, were almost entirely hidden beneath their rich caparisons. Each knight carried a long lance ‘in rest’ on his knee. Four-and-twenty pages with banners displayed preceded them, while in their wake came an equal number of squires, dressed Spanish fashion, their bucklers inscribed with emblems and mottoes.
The pages and squires drew up in line on each side of the arena. The four-and-twenty knights, two abreast, rode up first to the stand of the sovereigns, and lowered their lances in sign of salutation and obedience before the queens and empresses; the latter graciously responded with a wave of their hands. Retracing their steps, the knights direct their horses to the other stand, and offer similar homage to their ladies, who, however, rise in response, and thus give the spectators an opportunity of judging the beauty of their features, the elegance of their figures, and the richness of their dresses. After riding twice round the arena, all the paladins retire, awaiting a new signal.
The heralds soon sound a joyous blast, which is answered by the musicians in the orchestras. The lists are open, and the different games intended to show the skill and strength of the competitors begin. Six knights, followed by their pages and squires, appear. They begin with the pas de lance (tilting at the ring); the horses are put to the gallop, and each knight, rapidly borne along, removes at the point of his lance one of the rings suspended before the imperial stand. Each quadrille repeats the same movement three times, until the rings have mostly disappeared, and the dexterity of the competitors has been put to a severe test. At the end of this first exercise the lances with the rings carried by each upon them are handed to the squires, and the second game begins. Each champion, armed with a short dart, flings it with consummate skill at the Saracens’ heads, and without slackening his pace picks from the ground, by means of a second curved javelin, the dart he has just flung. After that, drawing their swords, and bent on the necks of their cattle, the knights gallop towards their motionless adversaries, and strike them, endeavouring, however, to cut them down altogether.
Half-a-dozen different games followed, and the whole was wound up by a cleverly simulated combat between the knights—so cleverly simulated that the Prince de Lichtenstein bit the dust, and was carried away unconscious. It was an accident which, but for the cries from the ladies’ stand, would have passed unnoticed, for though the knights endeavoured, as in the jousts of old, to dismount their rivals, certain regulations strictly limiting the bounds of attack and defence had been fixed, and the moment there was the faintest sign of their being exceeded by this or that combatant, the heralds-of-arms interfered, suspended the offender, and a new knight took his place.
The shrieks of the belles d’amour were altogether spontaneous, for they did not imitate their ancestresses, who in the tourneys of old encouraged their champions by their cries to do battle for their renown to the last; the modern dames and damsels confined themselves to the bestowal of expressive looks and sweet smiles. Perhaps these contained as much encouragement as the more noisy demonstrations of approval, although the Prince de Ligne, to judge from his remarks, would have fain seen the fair ones revert to the ancient customs, ‘What delights me above all in these revivals of chivalric practices is the image of valour and skill inspired by love,’ he said. ‘Unquestionably, our ancestors understood the love-passion better than we do. They introduced it into everything—into their games and into their combats. The love-passion in those days must have been a grand and noble feeling; it was the twin-sister of glory. With us, love is only a matter of pleasure. Instead of making it, as of old, an incentive to the dangers of war or to the splendid perils of the lists, our poets and novelists have relegated it to a cottage. But “love in a cottage,” as has been aptly said, “soon becomes a cottage without love.” The modern taste for tournaments,’ he went on, ‘is no new thing. I did not see the jousts organised by the great Catherine at St. Petersburg in the first years of her reign, but I have often been told the particulars. Their most remarkable feature was the active participation of women. They competed as well as the men. The celebrated Marshal Münnich[70] was principal umpire. The favourite, Gregory Orloff, and his brother Alexis were at the heads of the quadrilles. The first prize for skill and grace was won by the handsome Comtesse Bouturlin, the daughter of the great Chancellor Woronzoff. When handing it to her, the old marshal decided that she should distribute the rest of the wreaths to the dames and knights. It really seemed as if Catherine had exhausted all kinds of pleasure and splendour, but there is, after all, something left.’
While the prince was talking the four-and-twenty knights, this time actively assisted by their pages and squires, executed several difficult evolutions, attesting their skill and perfect horsemanship, and the whole was wound up by a kind of equine set-dance, in which the quadrupeds disputed the palm with their riders. Then the knights made the round of the arena, saluted the sovereigns and their own dames, and disappeared in the same order as they had come.
The sovereigns themselves intimated by rising that the entertainment was at an end, while the knights made their appearance in the stand allotted to their dames, escorting them to the huge rooms of the palace set apart for the ball and the supper. These rooms were filled with flowers, and decorated with exquisite taste; a flood of light as brilliant as the orb of day showed the women in all their resplendent beauty; they and their champions became the centre of general admiration, the sovereigns having resumed the incognito, some of them, by the aid of dominos, disappearing altogether in the crowd.
In the principal room there was a chief table with its service entirely of gold. It stood on a kind of platform a few feet from the ground, and was reserved exclusively for the royal guests of the Congress. To its left there was another table almost equally magnificent, set apart for the princes, the archdukes, the chiefs of reigning houses, and the ministers of the great Powers. To the right there was a third table of forty-eight covers for the actors of the tournament. Around the room and in the adjoining ones smaller tables were spread, at which the guests took their seats without distinction of rank. The perfume of the baskets of flowers, the glitter of the ornaments worn, the brilliancy of the diamonds, mingling with the colours of the floral decorations, and constituting, as it were, ever so many shifting rainbows, the sheen of the golden fruit-baskets—in short, the whole presented the most magnificent sight hitherto witnessed anywhere. The magic of that picture transported the spectator to one of the fairy scenes created by a poetic imagination. During the collation minstrels sang, to the accompaniment of their harps, lays to the beauty of the dames and to the valour of their knights.
At the royal board the Empress of Austria was seated between the Kings of Prussia and Denmark. Emperor Francis had by his side respectively the Empress Elizabeth and the Grande-Duchesse d’Oldenbourg. A little further on was the charming Marie, Duchesse de Weimar, and by her side the Prince Guillaume de Prusse [the future Wilhelm I. King of Prussia and German Emperor]. The ‘immense’ King of Würtemberg looks, as usual, pre-occupied. The table, in front of him, has been cut away to accommodate his portly person. A glance at him causes one to speculate upon the potentiality of nature in stretching the human skin. King Frederick of Denmark supplies an instance to the contrary; but his intellect, his never-failing animation, his tact and the rest of his admirable qualities, which would have transformed an ordinary individual into a remarkable man, have made of this monarch a being worshipped by everybody. Excellent Maximilian of Bavaria shows on his open face the genuine expression of satisfaction and kindness.
At the table occupied by the paladins, Mme. Edmond de Périgord is seated by the young Comte de Trauttmansdorff, her knight. As remarkable for her beauty as for her tasteful dress, she captivates everybody by the charm of her remarks, both animated and clever. The other feminine glories of the tournament vie with each other in keeping the conversational ball rolling. After the banquet a move was made to the ball-room. More than three thousand invitations had been issued. All that Vienna contained in the shape of illustrious personages, whether in virtue of their birth, rank, or functions were there forgathered. No memory could recall so many names celebrated in this or that respect. No pen could adequately describe all those statesmen to whom Europe had confided the interests of her destiny. Here, the Comte de Loevenhielm, M. de Bernstorff, and the Prince d’Hardemberg[71] calmly discussing the claim submitted to the Congress by the deposed King Gustavus-Adolphus—a claim supported by Admiral Sir Sidney Smith with more perseverance than success. There, M. de Humboldt, the Duc de Dalberg, the Baron de Wessemberg, familiarly debating the problems connected with Saxony and Poland. Further on, the Commandeur Alvaro Ruffo and M. de Palmella speculating upon the fate reserved for Italy. Still further on, M. de Metternich and M. de Nesselrode in lively conversation with Lord Castlereagh, and, to judge from the seriousness of their faces, not commenting on the joke just perpetrated by the Englishman [Irishman?] in connection with the temporary transformation of the Garter into a tiara. While the fate of Naples, Sweden, and Poland is apparently hanging in the balance, waltzing and dancing are going on, without the least concern about all these questions. The quadrilles had been arranged beforehand. In the centre of the principal ball-room, the quadrilles of the ‘forty-eight’ notable figures formed the chief attraction. The sun had appeared on the horizon before the last guests left the Burg.