Sainte
Marie aux Mines belonged to the Prince Palatine of Birkenfeld. This
Prince offered us his castle of Reif Auvilliers, an uncommonly beautiful
residence, which he had inherited from the Comtesse de Ribaupierre, his
wife.

This lady's father was just dead, and as, in accordance with German
etiquette, the Count's funeral obsequies could not take place for a
month, in the presence of all his relatives and friends, who came from a
great distance, the corpse, embalmed and placed in a leaden coffin, lay
in state under a canopy in the mortuary chapel.

Our equerries, seeing that the King's chamber looked on to the mortuary
chapel, took upon themselves to blow out all the candles, and for the
time being stowed away the corpse in a cupboard.

We knew nothing about this; and as the castle contained splendid rooms,
the ladies amused themselves by dancing and music to make them forget the
boredom of their journey.

The King looked in upon us every now and then, saying, in a low voice,
"Ah! if you only knew what I know!"

And then he would go off, laughing in his sleeve. We did not get to know
about this corpse until five or six days afterwards, when we were a long
way off, and the discovery greatly shocked us.

The day we left Sainte Marie aux Mines, a little German sovereign came to
present his homage to the King. It was the Prince de Mont-Beliard, of
Wurtemberg, whom I had previously met in Paris, on the occasion of his
marriage with Marechal de Chatillon's charming daughter. The luxurious
splendour of Saint Germain and Versailles had certainly not yet succeeded
in turning the heads of these German sovereigns. This particular one
wore a large buff doublet with big copper-gilt buttons. His cravat was
without either ribbons or lace. His rather short hair was roughly combed
over his forehead; he carried no sword, and instead of gold buckles or
clasps, he had little bows of red leather on his black velvet shoes. His
coach, entirely black, was still of old-fashioned make; that is to say,
studded with quantities of gilt nails. Wearing mourning for the Empress,
his six horses were richly, caparisoned, his four lackeys wearing yellow
liveries faced with red. An escort of twenty guardsmen, dressed
similarly, was in attendance; they seemed to be well mounted, and were
handsome fellows.

A second carriage of prodigious size followed the ducal conveyance; in
this were twelve ladies and gentlemen, who got out and made th