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.  ‘Monsieur,’ I said to him, ’you will be good enough to look for another door; for I do not think that with your skin you can hope to pass for a lady.’  ‘My lord,’ replied he in very bad French, ’when you ascertain who I am, you will not, I can assure you, refuse to have the politeness of permitting me to enter with these fair and lovely ladies, however dark I may be.  My name is Pimentello; I am well received by his Majesty, and have frequently the honour of playing with him.’  This was true, and too true.  This foreigner, of whom I had frequently heard, had won immense sums from the King.  ’How, ventre de ma vie! I exclaimed, affecting extreme anger; ’you are then, I perceive, that great glutton of a Portuguese who daily wins the money of the King. Pardieu, you are by no means welcome here, as I neither affect nor will receive such guests.’  He was about to reply, but I thrust him back, saying at the same time, ’Go, go; find another entrance, for your jargon will fail to make any impression upon me.’  The King having subsequently inquired of him if he had not thought the ballet magnificent and admirably executed, Pimentello replied that he was anxious to have witnessed it, but that he had been encountered at the door by his finance minister, who had met him with a negative and shut him out; an adventure which so much amused the monarch that he not only laughed heartily himself, but made the whole Court participators in his amusement.” [378]