n
uniforms which would have graced a fete.

Colonels, and even simple captains, kept open table; but the Marechal de
Boufflers outstripped everybody by his expenditure, by his magnificence,
and his good taste. Never was seen a spectacle so transcendent--so
dazzling--and (it must be said) so terrifying. At all hours, day or
night, the Marechal's table was open to every comer--whether officer,
courtier, or spectator. All were welcomed and invited, with the utmost
civility and attention, to partake of the good things provided. There
was every kind of hot and cold liquors; everything which can be the most
widely and the most splendidly comprehended under the term refreshment:
French and foreign wines, and the rarest liqueurs in the utmost
abundance. Measures were so well taken that quantities of game and
venison arrived from all sides; and the seas of Normandy, of Holland, of
England, of Brittany, even the Mediterranean, furnished all they
contained--the most unheard-of, extraordinary, and most exquisite--at a
given day and hour with inimitable order, and by a prodigious number of
horsemen and little express carriages. Even the water was fetched from
Sainte Reine, from the Seine, and from sources the most esteemed; and it
is impossible to imagine anything of any kind which was not at once ready
for the obscurest as for the most distinguished visitor, the guest most
expected, and the guest not expected at all. Wooden houses and
magnificent tents stretched all around, in number sufficient to form a
camp of themselves, and were furnished in the most superb manner, like
the houses in Paris. Kitchens and rooms for every purpose were there,
and the whole was marked by an order and cleanliness that excited
surprise and admiration. The King, wishing that the magnificence of this
camp should be seen by the ambassadors, invited them there, and prepared
lodgings for them. But the ambassadors claimed a silly distinction,
which the King would not grant, and they refused his invitation. This
distinction I call silly because it brings no advantage with it of any
kind. I am ignorant of its origin, but this is what it consists in.
When, as upon such an occasion as this, lodgings are allotted to the
Court, the quartermaster writes in chalk, "for Monsieur Such-a-one," upon
those intended for Princes of the blood, cardinals, and foreign princes;
but for none other. The King would not allow the "for" to be written
upon the lodgings of the ambas