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Chapter III
How Venus supped and thereafter was mightily amused
by the curious pranks of her entourage
She was quite delighted with Tannhäuser, and,
of course, he sat next her at supper.
The terrace, made beautiful with a thousand
vain and fantastical devices, and set with a hundred tables and
four hundred couches, presented a truly splendid appearance. In
the middle was a huge bronze fountain with three basins. From the
first rose a many-breasted dragon and four little Loves mounted
upon swans, and each Love was furnished with a bow and arrow. Two
of them that faced the monster seemed to recoil in fear, two that
were behind made bold enough to aim their shafts at him. From the
verge of the second sprang a circle of slim golden columns that
supported silver doves with tails and wings spread out. The third,
held by a group of grotesquely attenuated satyrs, was centred with
a thin pipe hung with masks and roses, and capped with children’s
heads.
From the mouths of the dragon and the Loves,
from the swans’ eyes, from the breasts of the doves, from the
satyrs’ horns and lips, from the masks at many points, and
from the children’s curls, the water played profusely, cutting
strange arabesques and subtle figures.
The terrace was lit entirely by candles.
There were four thousand of them, not numbering those upon the tables.
The candlesticks were of a countless variety, and smiled with moulded
cochonneries. Some were twenty feet high, and bore single candles
that flared like fragrant torches over the feast, and guttered till
the wax stood round the tops in tall lances. Some, hung with dainty
petticoats of shining lustres, had a whole bevy of tapers upon them
devised in circles, in pyramids, in squares, in cuneiforms, in single
lines regimentally and in crescents.
Then, on quaint pedestals and Terminal
Gods and gracious pilasters of every sort, were shell-like vases
of excessive fruits and flowers that hung about and burst over the
edges and could never be restrained. The orange-trees and myrtles,
looped with vermilion sashes, stood in frail porcelain pots, and
the rose-trees were wound and twisted with superb invention over
trellis and standard. Upon one side of the terrace a long gilded
stage for the comedians was curtained off with Pagonian tapestries,
and in front of it the music-stands were placed. The tables arranged
between the fountain and the flight of steps to the sixth terrace
were all circular, covered with white damask, and strewn with irises,
roses, kingcups, colombines, daffodils, carnations and lilies; and
the couches, high with soft cushions and spread with more stuffs
than could be named, had fans thrown upon them, and little amorous
surprise packets.
Beyond the escalier stretched the gardens,
which were designed so elaborately and with so much splendour that
the architect of the Fêtes d’Armailhacq could have found
in them no matter for cavil, and the still lakes strewn with profuse
barges full of gay flowers and wax marionettes, the alleys of tall
trees, the arcades and cascades, the pavilions, the grottoes and
the garden-gods—all took a strange tinge of revelry from the
glare of the light that fell upon them from the feast.
The frockless Venus and Tannhäuser,
with Priapusa and Claude and Clair, and Farcy, the chief comedian,
sat at the same table. Tannhäuser, who had doffed his travelling
suit, wore long black silk stockings, a pair of pretty garters,
a very elegant ruffled shirt, slippers and a wonderful dressing
gown. Claude and Clair wore nothing at all, delicious privilege
of immaturity, and Farcy was in ordinary evening clothes. As for
the rest of the company, it boasted some very noticeable dresses,
and whole tables of quite delightful coiffures. There were spotted
veils that seemed to stain the skin with some exquisite and august
disease, fans with eye-slits in them, through which their bearers
peeped and peered; fans painted with figures and covered with the
sonnets of Sporion and the short stories of Scaramouche; and fans
of big, living moths stuck upon mounts of silver sticks. There were
masks of green velvet that make the face look trebly powdered; masks
of the heads of birds, of apes, of serpents, of dolphins, of men
and women, of little embryons and of cats; masks like the faces
of gods; masks of coloured glass, and masks of thin talc and of
india-rubber. There were wigs of black and scarlet wools, of peacocks’
feathers, of gold and silver threads, of swansdown, of the tendrils
of the vine, and of human hairs; huge collars of stiff muslin rising
high above the head; whole dresses of ostrich feathers curling inwards;
tunics of panthers’ skins that looked beautiful over pink tights;
capotes of crimson satin trimmed with the wings of owls; sleeves
cut into the shapes of apocryphal animals; drawers flounced down
to the ankles, and flecked with tiny, red roses; stockings clocked
with fêtes galantes, and curious designs; and petticoats cut
like artificial flowers. Some of the women had put on delightful
little moustaches dyed in purples and bright greens, twisted and
waxed with absolute skill; and some wore great white beards, after
the manner of Saint Wilgeforte. Then Dorat had painted extraordinary
grotesques and vignettes over their bodies, here and there. Upon
a cheek, an old man scratching his horned head; upon a forehead,
an old woman teased by an impudent amor; upon a shoulder, an amorous
singerie; round a breast, a circlet of satyrs; about a wrist, a
wreath of pale, unconscious babes; upon an elbow, a bouquet of spring
flowers; across a back, some surprising scenes of adventure; at
the corners of a mouth, tiny red spots; and upon a neck, a flight
of birds, a caged parrot, a branch of fruit, a butterfly, a spider,
a drunken dwarf, or, simply, some initials. But most wonderful of
all were the black silhouettes painted upon the legs, and which
showed through a white silk stocking like a sumptuous bruise.
The supper provided by the ingenious Rambouillet
was quite beyond parallel. Never had he created a more exquisite
menu. The consommé impromptu alone would have been sufficient
to establish the immortal reputation of any chef. What, then, can
I say of the Dorade bouillie sauce maréchale, the ragoût
aux langues de carpes, the ramereaux à la charnière,
the ciboulette de gibier à l’espagnole, the pâté
de cuisses d’oie aux pois de Monsalvie, the queues d’agneau
au clair de lune, the artichauts à la Grecque, the charlotte
de pommes à la Lucy Waters, the bombes à la marée,
and the glaces aux rayons d’or? A veritable tour de cuisine
that surpassed even the famous little suppers given by the Marquis
de Réchale at Passy, and which the Abbé Mirliton pronounced
“impeccable, and too good to be eaten.”
Ah! Pierre Antoine Berquin de Rambouillet,
you are worthy of your divine mistress!
Mere hunger quickly gave place to those
finer instincts of the pure gourmet, and the strange wines, cooled
in buckets of snow, unloosed all the décolleté spirits
of astonishing conversation and atrocious laughter.
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