The little supper of the regent, arranged in the private salle, whose decorations had been devised for the special purpose, was more entrancing than even the glitter of the mimic world of the Theatre Francais.  There extended down the center of the room, though filling but a small portion of its vast extent, the grand table provided for the banquet, a reach of snowy linen, broken at the upper end by the arm of an abbreviated cross.  At each end of this cross-arm stood magnificent candelabra, repeated at intervals along the greater extension of the board.  Noble epergnes, filled with the choicest plants, found their reflections in plates of glass cunningly inlaid here and there upon the surface of the table.  Vast mirrors, framed in wreaths of roses and surmounted by little laughing cupids, gleamed in the walls of the room, and in the faces of these mirrors were reflected the beams of the many-colored tapers, carried in brackets of engraved gold and silver and many-colored glasses.  The ceiling of the room was a soft mass of silken draperies, depending edgewise from above, thousands of yards of the most expensive fabrics of the world.  From these, as they were gently swayed by the breath of invisible fans, there floated delicious, languorous perfumes, intoxicating to the senses.  On any hand within the great room, removed at some distance from the table, were rich, luxurious couches and divans.

As one trod within the door of this temple of the senses, surely it must have seemed to him that he had come into another world, which at first glance might have appeared to be one of an unrighteous ease, an unprincipled enjoyment and an unmanly abandonment to embowered vice.  Yet here it was that Philippe of Orleans, ruler of France, spent those hours most dear to him.  If he gave thought to affairs of state during the day it was but that these affairs of state might give to him the means to indulge fancies of his own.  Alike shrewd and easy, alike haughty and sensuous, here it was that Philippe held his real court.

These young gentlemen of France, these roues who have come to meet Philippe at his little supper—­how different from the same beings under the rule of the Grand Monarque.  Their coats are no longer dark in hue.  Their silks and velvets have blossomed out, even as Paris has blossomed since the death of Louis the Grand.  Jabots of lace are shown in full abundance, and so far from the abolishment of jewels from their garb, rubies, sapphires, diamonds sparkle everywhere, from the clasp of the high ruffles of the neck to the buckles of the red-heeled shoes.  Powder sparkles on the head coverings of these new gallants of France.  They step daintily, yet not ungracefully, into this brilliantly-lighted room, these creatures, gracious and resplendent, sparkling, painted, ephemeral, not unsuited to the place and hour.