They
sing, they dance, and come forward in turn to recite petty verses
composed for the occasion consisting of so many well-turned
compliments.[68] - At Chantilly "the young and charming Duchesse de
Bourbon, attired as a voluptuous Naiad, guides the Comte du Nord, in a
gilded gondola, across the grand canal to the island of Love;" the
Prince de Conti, in his part, serves as pilot to the Grand Duchesse;
other seigniors and ladies "each in allegorical guise," form the
escort,[69] and on these limpid waters, in this new garden of
Alcinous, the smiling and gallant retinue seems a fairy scene in
Tasso. - At Vaudreuil, the ladies, advised that they are to be
carried off to seraglios, attire themselves as vestals, while the
high-priest welcomes them with pretty couplets into his temple in the
park; meanwhile over three hundred Turks arrive who force the
enclosure to the sound of music, and bear away the ladies in
palanquins along the illuminated gardens. At the little Trianon, the
park is arranged as a fair, and the ladies of the court are the
saleswomen, "the queen keeping a caf?," while, here and there, are
processions and theatricals; this festival costs, it is said, 100,000
livres, and a repetition of it is designed at Choisy attended with a
larger outlay.
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