She was quite delighted with Fanfreluche, and, of course, he sat next
her at supper.
The terrace, made beautiful with a thousand vain and fantastical
things, 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
centered 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 cochonneries. 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.
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 Helen and Fanfreluche, with Mrs. Marsuple and Claude
and Clair, and Farcy, the chief comedian, sat at the same table.
Fanfreluche, 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; 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, fans with
eye-slits in them, through which the bearers peeped and peered; fans
painted with figures and covered with the sonnets of Sporion and the
short stories of Scaramouch; 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 hair; 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 fetes 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.
[Illustration: "The Fruit Bearers"]
The supper provided by the ingenious Rambouillet was quite beyond
parallel. Never had he created a more exquisite menu. The _consomme
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 decollete spirits of astonishing conversation and atrocious
laughter.
As the courses advanced, the conversation grew bustling and more
personal. Pulex and Cyril, and Marisca and Cathelin, opened a fire of
raillery, and a thousand amatory follies of the day were discussed.
From harsh and shrill and clamant, the voices grew blurred and
inarticulate. Bad sentences were helped out by worse gestures, and
at one table Scabius expressed himself like the famous old knight in
the first part of the "Soldier's Fortune" of Otway. Bassalissa and
Lysistrata tried to pronounce each other's names, and became very
affectionate in the attempt; and Tala, the tragedian, robed in roomy
purple, and wearing plume and buskin, rose to his feet, and, with
swaying gestures, began to recite one of his favourite parts. He got
no further than the first line, but repeated it again and again, with
fresh accents and intonations each time, and was only silenced by the
approach of the asparagus that was being served by satyrs dressed in
white.