"Diana, duchess of Valentinois, to Henry, count of Brienne, greeting:
"These are to inform you that your sister Isabel de Brienne has contracted a clandestine marriage with Bernard, baron de Rohan; and that, inasmuch as this night an edict will be signed annulling all marriages of the sort, it is absolutely necessary to your own honour and to that of your sister that you should immediately proceed to find and bring her to Paris till the farther pleasure of the king be known. The Baron de Rohan having been arrested the moment that the marriage was celebrated, will be set at liberty immediately; but it is requisite that you should prevent all communication between him and your sister until it be authorized by his majesty."
The Lord of Masseran made no scruple of reading the contents and showing them to the Count de Meyrand, who marked them with a smile, and adding, "We must make quite sure of the youth, however," led the way from the apartments of the duchess.
CHAPTER XVI.
In the great hall of the Louvre, the princes, the nobles, and the ladies of France—all who had a right, from their rank and station, to be present at the great festivals of the court, and all who could by any means obtain an invitation from the king himself—were assembled before the hour of ten at night, on that occasion to which reference has been made in the last chapter. The monarch himself had not yet appeared; but one of those services which Henry principally required from his great officers was to entertain with affability and kindness those whom the etiquette of his court obliged him to keep waiting; and, on the night of which we speak, the famous Marquis de Vieilleville in fact, though not ostensibly, represented the king, and, aided by a number of other gentlemen and officers commissioned so to do, received the court, and endeavoured to make the time of expectation ere the sovereign's arrival pass lightly.
Everything had been done that could be done to give splendour to the apartments, and many of those ornaments and decorations which we attribute to the taste of modern days, but which, in fact, have but come back again in the constant revolutions of fashion, were displayed on this occasion to render the scene of royal festivity bright and exciting. Some of the rooms were blazing with light, and covered with every sort of ornament of gold and silver: rich draperies were hanging from the walls, banners waving over head, garlands festooning the cornices, and music floating on the air. In others, again, by some means, a green hue had been given to the light, and it had been shaded and kept down to a kind of soft twilight by flowers and green branches; while a cool wind found its way in through open casements and well-watered plants, and a stillness reigned upon the air only broken by the far-off sound of the music, the murmur of distant voices, and the sighing of the night air through the gardens.
We shall pause no more, however, on the decorations of that gay scene, inasmuch as so to do would be merely to give description without an object; for we have no reason to assign why the reader should bear any part thereof in mind. It is principally with the great hall we have to do, but more especially still with the people that were in it. Shortly after ten the king himself, with his queen, the famous Catharine de Medicis, several of his children—among whom were three destined to be kings, and two queens of mighty nations—entered the hall, and took his place towards the head of the room.
It was very customary in those times to give the balls of the court in open day; and, though it certainly would strike us as somewhat strange to see dancing take place except by candlelight—unless, indeed, it were upon the greensward, where the smiling look of Nature herself seems to justify and to call for that exuberant life which she first taught in the world's young days—yet then as gay and as merry dances as any that we now behold, took place in the painted saloons, under the somewhat too bright and searching eye of the sun. The whole of that morning, however, had been spent in either business or in festivities of another kind, and the present was one of those more rare occasions selected, as we have said, for a ball at night.
Shortly after the king entered the room, he spoke a few words to the young Count Duilly, then celebrated for his skill and grace in the dance, and he, making his way to the spot where the musicians were placed, communicated to them the orders of the king. What was called the Danse Royale was then played; and Henry himself, graceful and distinguished in every sport and exercise, opened the ball in person. Shortly after, another dance was played; and all who were, or believed themselves to be, the most skilful of the court, hastened to figure in the galliarde. Upon the execution of that marvellous performance, the galliarde, however, perhaps the less we say the better; for it is to be acknowledged that the various names of the wonderful steps danced—the desportes, capriolles, turns and returns, fleurettes, close and dispersed gamberottes, &c.—convey as little definite idea of what was really done to our own mind as they would to the minds of most of our readers. It was all very successful, no doubt; and there is much reason to believe, from the account which Monsieur de Vieilleville himself wrote on the occasion, that many a young lady's heart was pierced through and through by the graces of particular cavaliers.
The king himself took part in the dance, as we have said, but it was a dignified part; and, having set the example, he retired from it as speedily as possible. When he had done he looked round, as if searching for some face he had missed, and his eye soon fell upon the fair Duchess of Valentinois, whom he had not beheld before; for, to say the truth, she had just entered, taking advantage of the general movement round the galliarde to come in without attracting much attention. Her countenance bore an expression of such unusual gravity, that Henry himself, ere he resumed the place in the saloon where he usually stood on such occasions, paused and spoke to her; first playfully scolding Henrietta de la Mark for not having joined the dancers, and then asking the duchess, in a lower tone, if anything had gone amiss.