al costume being of the most splendid description,
his horses and equipages costly and gorgeous, and his numerous train of
attendants habited in a livery of extreme richness.

On the 16th of the month the Spanish Duke had his first audience of the
young King, at which were assembled the Princes of the Blood, all the
high nobility of France, and the Cardinals de Sourdis and de Gondy.[149]
The two latter dignitaries endeavoured to excuse themselves, on the
pretext that their rank as Princes of the Church would not permit them
to seat themselves below the Princes of the Blood; but this pretension
on their part was considered so monstrous, even by the Regent herself,
that, anxious as she was to secure their attendance in order to render
the ceremony more imposing to the Spanish envoy, she did not venture to
support them in their arrogant assumption of equality with the first
subjects of the Crown; and she accordingly informed them in reply that
upon the present occasion there would be no regard paid to precedence,
but that each individual who was entitled to attend the audience would
be at liberty to seat himself as he saw fit.

Thus assured, the two prelates, attired in their rich robes of
violet-coloured velvet, entered the hall; and were about to take their
places near the royal dais, when the Princes of the Blood, led by M. de
Conde, hastily passed them, and ranged themselves in a line on the right
hand of the King. The Cardinals then proceeded to adopt a similar
position beside the Queen-Regent, but they were immediately displaced by
the Dowager Princess of Conde, her daughter-in-law, and Madame de
Conti; and upon finding themselves thus excluded from the immediate
neighbourhood of the sovereign, they withdrew in great displeasure, no
effort being made to detain them.

Nor was this the only altercation which took place before the
commencement of the ceremony; and the one which we are about to relate
is so characteristic of the manners of that age among the great, that it
must not be omitted. The Duc de Nevers had taken his place upon the
bench appropriated to the Princes of the Blood, immediately below M. de
Soissons, who, being engaged in conversation with his brother, the
Prince de Conti, did not remark the intrusion. M. de Conde, however, who
was seated above his two uncles, at once discovered the enormity of
which the Duke had been guilty, and he forthwith commenced pushing the
Prince de Conti so violently that h