diversions that people usually take during all the carnival
period--namely, comedy, fair, and ball. When the evening came,
detachments of Swiss were posted in the street and in the courtyard,
with many servants of Mme. la Chancelière, so that there was no
confusion at the gates or in the court, which was brightly lighted with
torches. . . . The ball-room was lighted by ten chandeliers and by
magnificent gilded candelabra. At one end, on raised seats, were the
musicians, hautboys and violins, in fancy dress with plumed caps. In
front of the velvet-covered benches for the courtiers were three
arm-chairs, one for Mme. la Duchesse de Bourgogne, and the others for
Monsieur and the Madame. Beyond the ball-room, across the landing of
the staircase, was another hall, brilliantly lighted, in which were
hautboys and violins, and this hall was for the masks, who came in such
numbers that the ball-room could not have contained them all.

". . . After remaining about an hour at the ball, Mme. la Chancelière
and the Comte de Pontchartrain conducted Mme. la Duchesse de Bourgogne
into another hall, filled with lights and mirrors, where a theater had
been erected to furnish the diversion of a comedy. Only about one
hundred people were allowed to enter the hall of comedy, and the
princes and princesses of the blood, being masked, took no rank there.
Mme. la Duchesse de Bourgogne and Madame had arm-chairs in the center
of the hall. The Duchesse de Bourgogne was surprised to see a splendid
theater, adorned with her arms and monogram. . . . As soon as the
princess was seated, Bari, the famous mountebank of Paris, came forward
and asked her protection against the doctors, and having extolled the
excellence of his remedies, and the marvels of his secrets, he offered
to the princess as a little diversion a comedy such as they sometimes
played at Paris. There was given then a little comedy which Mme. le
Chancelière had got M. Dancourt to write expressly for that fête. All