Chapter 35

Chapter XXXV:
Fontainebleau.

For four days, every kind of enchantment brought together in the
magnificent gardens of Fontainebleau had converted this spot into a place
of the most perfect enjoyment. M. Colbert seemed gifted with ubiquity.
In the morning there were the accounts of the previous night's expenses
to settle; during the day, programmes, essays, enrolments, payments. M.
Colbert had amassed four millions of francs, and dispersed them with
sleepless economy. He was horrified at the expenses which mythology
involved; not a wood nymph, nor a dryad, that cost less than a hundred
francs a day! The dress alone amounted to three hundred francs. The
expense of powder and sulphur for fireworks amounted, every night, to a
hundred thousand francs. In addition to these, the illuminations on the
borders of the sheet of water cost thirty thousand francs every evening.
The _fetes_ had been magnificent; and Colbert could not restrain his
delight. From time to time, he noticed Madame and the king setting forth
on hunting expeditions, or preparing for the reception of different
fantastic personages, solemn ceremonials, which had been extemporized a
fortnight before, and in which Madame's sparkling wit and the king's
magnificence were equally well displayed.

For Madame, the heroine of the _fete_, replied to the addresses of the
deputations from unknown races - Garamanths, Scythians, Hyperboreans,
Caucasians, and Patagonians, who seemed to issue from the ground for the
purpose of approaching her with their congratulations; and upon every
representative of these races the king bestowed a diamond, or some other
article of value. Then the deputies, in verses more or less amusing,
compared the king to the sun, Madame to Phoebe, the sun's sister, and the
queen and Monsieur were no more spoken of than if the king had married
Henrietta of England, and not Maria Theresa of Austria. The happy pair,
hand in hand, imperceptibly pressing each other's fingers, drank in deep
draughts the sweet beverage of adulation, by which the attractions of
youth, beauty, power and love are enhanced. Every one at Fontainebleau
was amazed at the extent of the influence which Madame had so rapidly
acquired over the king, and whispered among themselves that Madame was,
in point of fact, the true queen; and in effect, the king himself
proclaimed its truth by his every thought, word, and look. He formed his
wishes, he drew his inspirations from Madame's eyes, and his delight was
unbounded when Madame deigned to smile upon him. And was Madame, on her
side, intoxicated with the power she wielded, as she beheld every one at
her feet? This was a question she herself could hardly answer; but what
she did know was, that she could frame no wish, and