crifice to the
prejudices of her new country the magnificent hair which had excited so
much astonishment on her arrival; but, in conformity with the taste of
the French Court, instead of suffering it, as she had previously done,
to flow loosely over her shoulders, or to display its luxuriant braids
like a succession of glossy diadems around her head, she caused it to be
closely cut, and arranged in stiff rows of thickly-powdered curls.

Hitherto, since the accession of Henri IV, the French Court had been
one of the least splendid in Europe; if, indeed, it could in reality
have been said to exist at all--a circumstance to which many causes had
conduced. During his separation from Marguerite, and before his second
marriage, Henry had cared little for the mere display of royalty. His
previous poverty had accustomed him to many privations as a sovereign,
which he had sought to compensate by self-indulgence as a man; and thus
he made a home in the houses of the most wealthy of his courtiers, such
as Zamet, Gondy, and other dissipated and convenient sycophants, with
whom he could fling off the trammels of rank, and indulge in the
ruinously high play or other still more objectionable amusements to
which he was addicted. On the arrival of the Tuscan Princess, however,
all was changed; and, as though he sought to compensate to her by
splendour and display for the mortifications which awaited her private
life, the King began forthwith to revive the traditional magnificence of
the Court.

Two days after their arrival at the Louvre, Henry conducted his Queen to
the royal palaces of Fontainebleau and St. Germain; and on the 18th of
the month, their Majesties, attended by the whole of their respective
households, and accompanied by all the princes and great nobles then
resident in the capital, partook of a superb banquet at the Arsenal,
given by Sully in honour of his appointment as Grand-Master of the
Artillery. At this festival the minister, casting aside the gravity of
his functions and the dignity of his rank, and even forgetful, as it
would appear, of the respect which he owed to his new sovereign, not
satisfied with pressing upon his guests the costly viands that had been
prepared for them, no sooner perceived that the Italian ladies of her
Majesty's suite were greatly attracted by the wine of Arbois, of which
they were partaking freely, quite unconscious of its potency, than he
caused the decanters containing the water that t