HOW VENUS SUPPED AND THEREAFTER WAS MIGHTILY AMUSED BY THE CURIOUS
PRANKS OF HER ENTOURAGE
She was quite delighted with Tannhäuser, and, of course, he sat next
her at supper.
The terrace, made beautiful with a thousand vain and fantastical
devices, and set with a hundred tables and four hundred couches,
presented a truly splendid appearance. In the middle was a huge bronze
fountain with three basins. From the first rose a many-breasted dragon,
and four little Loves mounted upon swans, and each Love was furnished
with a bow and arrow. Two of them that faced the monster seemed to
recoil in fear, two that were behind made bold enough to aim their
shafts at him. From the verge of the second sprang a circle of slim
golden columns that supported silver doves, with tails and wings spread
out. The third, held by a group of grotesquely attenuated satyrs, was
centred with a thin pipe hung with masks and roses, and capped with
children's heads.
From the mouths of the dragon and the Loves, from the swans' eyes, from
the breasts of the doves, from the satyrs' horns and lips, from the
masks at many points, and from the childrens' curls, the water played
profusely, cutting strange arabesques and subtle figures.
The terrace was lit entirely by candles. There were four thousand of
them, not numbering those upon the tables. The candlesticks were of
a countless variety, and smiled with moulded cochônneries. Some were
twenty feet high, and bore single candles that flared like fragrant
torches over the feast, and guttered till the wax stood round the
tops in tall lances. Some, hung with dainty petticoats of shining
lustres, had a whole bevy of tapers upon them, devised in circles, in
pyramids, in squares, in cuneiforms, in single lines regimentally and
in crescents.
Then on quaint pedestals and Terminal Gods and gracious pilasters of
every sort, were shell-like vases of excessive fruits and flowers that
hung about and burst over the edges and could never be restrained. The
orange-trees and myrtles, looped with vermilion sashes, stood in frail
porcelain pots, and the rose-trees were wound and twisted with superb
invention over trellis and standard. Upon one side of the terrace, a
long gilded stage for the comedians was curtained off with Pagonian
tapestries, and in front of it the music-stands were placed. The tables
arranged between the fountain and the flight of steps to the sixth
terrace were all circular, covered with white damask, and strewn with
irises, roses, kingcups, colombines, daffodils, carnations and lilies;
and the couches, high with soft cushions and spread with more stuffs
than could be named, had fans thrown upon them, and little amorous
surprise packets.
Beyond the escalier stretched the gardens, which were designed so
elaborately and with so much splendour that the architect of the Fêtes
d'Armailhacq could have found in them no matter for cavil, and the
still lakes strewn with profuse barges full of gay flowers and wax
marionettes, the alleys of tall trees, the arcades and cascades, the
pavilions, the grottoes, and the garden-gods--all took a strange tinge
of revelry from the glare of the light that fell upon them from the
feast.
The frockless Venus and Tannhäuser, with Priapusa and Claude and Clair,
and Farcy, the chief comedian, sat at the same table. Tannhäuser,
who had doffed his travelling suit, wore long black silk stockings,
a pair of pretty garters, a very elegant ruffled shirt, slippers
and a wonderful dressing-gown. Claude and Clair wore nothing at
all, delicious privilege of immaturity, and Farcy was in ordinary
evening clothes. As for the rest of the company, it boasted some very
noticeable dresses, and whole tables of quite delightful coiffures.
There were spotted veils that seemed to stain the skin with some
exquisite and august disease, fans with eye-slits in them through which
their bearers peeped and peered; fans painted with postures and covered
with the sonnets of Sporion and the short stories of Scaramouche, and
fans of big living moths stuck upon mounts of silver sticks. There were
masks of green velvet that make the face look trebly powdered; masks
of the heads of birds, of apes, of serpents, of dolphins, of men and
women, of little embryons and of cats; masks like the faces of gods;
masks of coloured glass, and masks of thin talc and of india-rubber.
There were wigs of black and scarlet wools, of peacocks' feathers, of
gold and silver threads, of swansdown, of the tendrils of the vine,
and of human hairs; huge collars of stiff muslin rising high above
the head; whole dresses of ostrich feathers curling inwards; tunics
of panthers' skins that looked beautiful over pink tights; capotes of
crimson satin trimmed with the wings of owls; sleeves cut into the
shapes of apocryphal animals; drawers flounced down to the ankles, and
flecked with tiny, red roses; stockings clocked with fêtes galantes,
and curious designs, and petticoats cut like artificial flowers. Some
of the women had put on delightful little moustaches dyed in purples
and bright greens, twisted and waxed with absolute skill; and some wore
great white beards after the manner of Saint Wilgeforte. Then Dorat had
painted extraordinary grotesques and vignettes over their bodies, here
and there. Upon a cheek, an old man scratching his horned head; upon a
forehead, an old woman teased by an impudent amor; upon a shoulder, an
amorous singerie; round a breast, a circlet of satyrs; about a wrist, a
wreath of pale, unconscious babes; upon an elbow, a bouquet of spring
flowers; across a back, some surprising scenes of adventure; at the
corners of a mouth, tiny red spots; and upon a neck, a flight of birds,
a caged parrot, a branch of fruit, a butterfly, a spider, a drunken
dwarf, or, simply, some initials. But most wonderful of all were the
black silhouettes painted upon the legs, and which showed through a
white silk stocking like a sumptuous bruise.
The supper provided by the ingenious Rambouillet was quite beyond
parallel. Never had he created a more exquisite menu. The _consommé
impromptu_ alone would have been sufficient to establish the immortal
reputation of any chef. What, then, can I say of the _Dorade bouillie
sauce maréchale_, the _ragoût aux langues de carpes_, the _ramereaux
à la charnière_, the _ciboulette de gibier à l'espagnole_, the _paté
de cuisses d'oie aux pois de Monsalvie_, the _queues d'agneau au clair
de lune_, the _artichauts à la Grecque_, the _charlotte de pommes à
la Lucy Waters_, the _bombes à la marée_, and the _glaces aux rayons
d'or_? A veritable tour de cuisine that surpassed even the famous
little suppers given by the Marquis de Réchale at Passy, and which the
Abbé Mirliton pronounced "impeccable, and too good to be eaten."
Ah! Pierre Antoine Berquin de Rambouillet; you are worthy of your
divine mistress!
Mere hunger quickly gave place to those finer instincts of the pure
gourmet, and the strange wines, cooled in buckets of snow, unloosed
all the décolleté spirits of astonishing conversation and atrocious
laughter.