22. The Countess Auguste de Juigne, NEE Durfort de Civrac (Jeanne
d'Albret).
Among the pages were the Duke de Maille, who carried the banner of
France, and Count Maxence de Damas.
Eugene Lamy, at the age of eighty-seven, exhibited in 1887 a charming
water-color, of which the subject was "A Ball under Henry III." He has
the same talent, the same brightness, the same freshness of coloring as
when, fifty-eight years before, he painted the water colors of the Mary
Stuart ball. The Duke de Nemours, one of the last survivors of the
guests of this ball, could recount its splendors. Even in the time of
the old regime no more elegant ball was ever seen. If such a fete had
been given in our time, the detailed accounts of it would fill the
papers; but under the Restoration the press was very sober in the
matter of "society news," and the dazzling ball of 1829 was hardly
mentioned. On the morrow, the Journal des Debats said:--
"PARIS, 2d of March.
"The ball given at the Pavilion Marsan, in the apartments of the
Children of France, was honored by the presence of the King, M. the
Dauphin and Madame the Dauphiness. Mgr. the Duke of Orleans and his
family arrived at eight o'clock.
"Tomorrow there will be a play at the Court Theatre; the actors of the
opera will play La Muette de Portici."
Beside the persons who figure in the album of M. Eugene Lamy many
others were to be noted. Let us mention the Countess Hemi de Biron, the
Marchionness Oudinot, the Countess de Noailles, who represented
Margaret of Savoy, Claude Duchess of Lorraine, the Princess de Conde,
the Princess of Ferrara; the Count A. de Damas, as Lanoue Bras-de-Fer;
Monsieur de San Giacomo, as Francois de' Medici; the Countess de
Montault, as Countess de Coligny; the Marchioness de Montcalm, as the
Duchess de Bouillon; the flower of the English aristocracy,--Lady
Aldborough, Lady Rendlesham, Lady Cambermere, Lady Vernon, Lord
Ramlagh, Captain Drummond, Lord Forwich, Lord Abayne, Miss Caulfuld,
Miss Thelusson, Miss Baring, Miss Acton, and, lastly, the Counts de
Cosse de Biron, and de Brissac, representing the three marshals of
France whose names they bore.
In donning the costume of the unfortunate queen whose sorrows could
only be compared to those of Marie Antoinette, the Duchess of Berry
proved how free her mind was from all gloomy presentiments, forgetting
that the family of the Bourbons had already had its Charles I., and not
foreseeing that it was soon to have its James II., the amiable Princess
hardly suspected that in the course of next year, she would be an exile
in Scotland in the castle of Mary Stuart.