e of the sovereign.

The ballet, save as regarded the dying condition of the ducal host, was
executed under the happiest auspices. The King, to whom the proposed
marriage of the two children was agreeable under every aspect, was in
one of his most condescending and complacent moods; while Marie de
Medicis, whose affection for all her offspring amounted to passion, was
radiant with delight as she remembered that by the will of the Duke all
his property and estates devolved upon the young Prince, even should his
betrothed bride[375] not live to become his wife.[376]

On the following day the affiancing, of which this entertainment had
been the prelude, took place with great solemnity. The most costly
presents were exchanged, not only by the betrothed children, but also by
their royal and noble relatives. This ceremony, owing to the failing
health of the Duke, was also performed at the Hotel Montpensier, and was
succeeded by amusements of every description; among which those prepared
for the occasion at the Arsenal by Sully afforded the most marked
gratification to their Majesties. The minister had caused a spacious
theatre to be constructed, in which the Italian actors who had been
summoned to France by the Queen gave their representations. This pit or
_salle de spectacle_ was, as he himself informs us, arranged
amphitheatrically, while above were galleries divided into separate
boxes, each approached by a different staircase and entered by a
different door. Two of these galleries were reserved entirely for the
ladies who were admitted to the performance, and no man, upon any
pretext whatever, was permitted to enter them; an arrangement which
appears to be strikingly at variance with the lax morality of the time.
So resolved, nevertheless, was Sully to enforce this restriction, that
he adds with a gravity curious enough upon such a subject: "This was one
of my regulations which I would not suffer to be violated, and of which
I did not consider it beneath me personally to compel the
observance." [377]

To impress, moreover, upon his readers the strength of this
determination, he relates an anecdote of which we cannot resist the
transcription:

"One day," he says, "when a very fine ballet was represented in this
hall, I perceived a man leading a lady by the hand, with whom he was
about to enter the women's gallery. He was a foreigner, and I moreover
easily recognized by his sallow complexion to what country he belonged.