[94] The English “country dance” was a corruption in name of the French contredanse.
[95] “The ground on which this palace stood,” observes Croker, “shelved down from the Strand, where the principal entrance was to the river. The principal floor and state rooms were probably on the level with the entrance on the Strand side, but must have been a story above the ground on the river side; and this story was probably the vaulted apartments which Bassompierre mentions. It seems odd that he should think the vaulting a peculiarity worth mentioning, as the ground floor of the Tuileries and the Louvre, in which he passed most of his life, were vaulted; but vaulted domestic apartments were probably then, as now [1819], extremely rare; and the singular and magnificent effect of vaulted rooms, furnished for the purpose, must have struck a person of Bassompierre’s taste.”
[96] A newsletter preserved in the British Museum, which has been published by Isaac Disraeli, in his Curiosities of Literature, gives the following account of this fête:
“Last Sunday, at night, the duke’s grace entertained their majesties and the French ambassador at York House with great feasting and show, when all things came down in clouds, among which one rare device was a representation of the French King and the two Queens [Anne of Austria and the Queen-Mother], with their chieftest attendants; and so to the life, that the Queen’s majesty could name them: it was four o’clock in the morning before they parted, and then the King and Queen, together with the French ambassador, lodged there. Some estimate this entertainment at five or six thousand pounds.”
Sir Philip Gibbs, in his admirable biography of Buckingham, says that this “rare device,” was a political allegory, arranged by the duke himself, with the assistance of his master of the ceremonies, Balthazar Gerbier. “It represented Maria de’ Medici, the Queen-Mother, enthroned in the midst of Neptune’s court upon the sea dividing England and France, and welcoming Frederick and Elizabeth of the Palatinate, with her three daughters and their husbands, the Kings of Spain and England and the Prince of Piedmont. It was Buckingham’s new ideal of foreign policy. France as the ally of England, the Elector Palatine restored to his throne, and peace with Spain. Buckingham’s ideal, alas! was no more substantial than the pasteboard and tinsel and flowing draperies of his actors, and, like the masque, a mockery.”
[97] Although Bassompierre could have been no very good judge of the excellence of an English play, it is to be regretted that he does not tell us what it was. Very probably, it was one of Shakespeare’s, as his patron Montgomery was Lord Chamberlain, in whose department the selection of the plays to be performed before their Majesties lay.
[98] Thomas Howard, Viscount Andover, second son of Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk. The title of Earl of Berkshire had been revived in his favour in February, 1626.
[99] English horses were much prized on the Continent, and Bassompierre had been presented with quite a number. Carlisle had given him six, Holland three, and Goring two, and very possibly he may have received others which he does not mention. Unfortunately, as we shall see, few, if any, of these poor animals survived to reach the shores of France.
[100] As Carlisle was a convivial soul, it is not improbable that Lady Exeter’s hospitality may have been responsible for this mishap.
[101] See page 489 supra.