A very pleasant adventure happened at this review to Count Tesse, colonel of dragoons.  Two days previously M. de Lauzun, in the course of chit-chat, asked him how he intended to dress at the review; and persuaded him that, it being the custom, he must appear at the head of his troops in a grey hat, or that he would assuredly displease the King.  Tesse, grateful for this information, and ashamed of his ignorance, thanked M. de Lauzun, and sent off for a hat in all haste to Paris.  The King, as M. de Lauzun well knew, had an aversion to grey, and nobody had worn it for several years.  When, therefore, on the day of the review he saw Tesse in a hat of that colour, with a black feather, and a huge cockade dangling and flaunting above, he called to him, and asked him why he wore it.  Tesse replied that it was the privilege of the colonel-general to wear that day a grey hat.  “A grey hat,” replied the King; “where the devil did you learn that?”

“From M. de, Lauzun, Sire, for whom you created the charge,” said Tesse, all embarrassment.  On the instant, the good Lauzun vanished, bursting with laughter, and the King assured Tesse that M. de Lauzun had merely been joking with him.  I never saw a man so confounded as Tesse at this.  He remained with downcast eyes, looking at his hat, with a sadness and confusion that rendered the scene perfect.  He was obliged to treat the matter as a joke, but was for a long time much tormented about it, and much ashamed of it.

Nearly every day the Princes dined with Marechal de Boufflers, whose splendour and abundance knew no end.  Everybody who visited him, even the humblest, was served with liberality and attention.  All the villages and farms for four leagues round Compiegne were filled with people, French, and foreigners, yet there was no disorder.  The gentlemen and valets at the Marechal’s quarters were of themselves quite a world, each more polite than his neighbour, and all incessantly engaged from five o’clock in the morning until ten and eleven o’clock at night, doing the honours to various guests.  I return in spite of myself to the Marechal’s liberality; because, who ever saw it, cannot forget, or ever cease to be in a state of astonishment and admiration at its abundance and sumptuousness, or at the order, never deranged for a moment at a single point, that prevailed.

The King wished to show the Court all the manoeuvres of war; the siege of Compiegne was therefore undertaken, according to due form, with lines, trenches, batteries, mines, &c.  On Saturday, the 13th of September, the assault took place.  To witness it, the King, Madame de Maintenon, all the ladies of the Court, and a number of gentlemen, stationed themselves upon an old rampart, from which the plain and all the disposition of the troops could be seen.  I was in the half circle very close to the King.  It was the most beautiful sight that can be imagined, to see all that army, and the prodigious number of spectators on horse and foot, and that game of attack and defence so cleverly conducted.