p, or rather,
preserved, in his recital, at the risk of rivaling the creations of a
romancist; these splendors whereby night seemed conquered and nature
corrected; together with every delight and luxury combined for the
satisfaction of all the senses, as well as of the mind, Fouquet did in
real truth offer to his sovereign in that enchanting retreat of which no
monarch could at that time boast of possessing an equal. We do not
intend to describe the grand banquet, at which all the royal guests were
present, nor the concerts, nor the fairy-like and magical
transformations and metamorphoses; it will be more than enough for our
purpose to depict the countenance which the king assumed, and which,
from being gay, soon wore a gloomy, constrained, and irritated
expression. He remembered his own residence, royal though it was, and
the mean and indifferent style of luxury which prevailed there, and
which comprised only that which was merely useful for the royal wants,
without being his own personal property. The large vases of the Louvre,
the old furniture and plate of Henry II., of Francis I., of Louis XI.,
were merely historical monuments of earlier days; they were nothing but
specimens of art, the relics of his predecessors; while with Fouquet,
the value of the article was as much in the workmanship as in the
article itself. Fouquet ate from a gold service, which artists in his
own employ had modeled and cast for himself alone. Fouquet drank wines
of which the king of France did not even know the name, and drank them
out of goblets each more precious than the whole royal cellar.

What, too, can be said of the apartments, the hangings, the pictures,
the servants and officers, of every description, of his household? What
can be said of the mode of service in which etiquette was replaced by
order; stiff formality by personal, unrestrained comfort; the happiness
and contentment of the guest became the supreme law of all who obeyed
the host. The perfect swarm of busily engaged persons moving about
noiselessly; the multitude of guests--who were, however, even less
numerous than the servants who waited on them--the myriads of
exquisitely prepared dishes, of gold and silver vases; the floods of
dazzling light, the masses of unknown flowers of which the hot-houses
had been despoiled, and which were redundant with all the luxuriance of
unequaled beauty; the perfect harmony of everything which surrounded
them, and which indeed was no mo