coopers celebrated what they called a feast of Bacchus, waving their
hoops as they danced round the room in grotesque figures.

It was a busy day for her, that first day of her arrival on French soil.
From the dinner-table she went to the theatre; on quitting the theatre,
she was driven through the streets to see the illuminations, which made
every part of the city as bright as at midday, the great square in front
of the episcopal palace being converted into a complete garden of
fire-works; and at midnight she attended a ball which the governor of the
province, the Marechal de Contades, gave in her honor to all the principal
inhabitants of the city and district. Quitting Strasburg the next day,
after a grand reception of the clergy, the nobles, and the magistrates of
the province, she proceeded by easy stages through Nancy, Chalons, Rheims,
and Soissons, the whole population of every town through which she passed
collecting on the road to gaze on her beauty, the renown of which had
readied the least curious ears; and to receive marks of her affability,
reports of which were at least as widely spread, in the cheerful eagerness
with which she threw down the windows of her carriage, and the frank,
smiling recognition and genuine pleasure with which she replied to their
enthusiastic acclamations. It was long remembered that, when the students
of the college at Soissons presented her with a Latin address, she replied
to them in a sentence or two in the same language.

Soissons was her last resting-place before she was introduced to her new
family. On the afternoon of Monday, the 14th of May, she quit it for
Compiegne, which the king and all the court had reached in the course of
the morning. As she approached the town she was met by the minister, the
Duc de Choiseul, and he was the precursor of Louis himself, who,
accompanied by the dauphin and his daughters, and escorted by his gorgeous
company of the guards of the household,[6] had driven out to receive her.
She and all her train dismounted from their carriages. Her master of the
horse and her "knight of honor[7]" took her by the hand and conducted her
to the royal coach. She sunk on her knee in the performance of her
respectful homage; but Louis promptly raised her up, and, having embraced
her with a tenderness which gracefully combined royal dignity with
paternal affection, and having addressed her in a brief speech,[8] which
was specially acceptable to her, as containing