assembly."

As in many half amateur affairs the preparations took more time than
was expected. At the first date set, all was not in readiness and the
performance was postponed until February 17th. This entailed serious
loss upon the provision merchants and they received compensation for
the spoiled birds and other perishable edibles.[4]

The gala-day opened with a tournament at which Adolph of Cleves again
sported as Knight of the Swan to the applause of the onlookers. After
the jousting, the guests adjourned to the banqueting hall, where fancy
had indeed, run riot, to make ready for their admiring eyes and their
sagacious palates. _Entremets_ is the term applied to the elaborate
set pieces and side-shows provided to entertain the feasters between
courses, and these were on an unprecedented scale.

Three tables stood prepared respectively for the duke and his suite,
for the Count of Charolais, his cousins, and their comrades, and for
the knights and ladies. The first table was decorated with marvellous
constructions, among which was a cruciform church whose mimic clock
tower was capacious enough to hold a whole chorus of singers. The
enormous pie in which twenty-eight musicians were discovered when the
crust was cut may have been the original of that pasty whose opening
revealed four-and-twenty blackbirds in a similar plight. Wild animals
wandered gravely at a machinist's will through deep forests, but in
the midst of the counterfeit brutes there was at least one live lion,
for Gilles le Cat[5] received twenty shillings from the duke for the
chain and locks he made to hold the savage beast fast "on the day of
the said banquet."