There were tribunes with blinds prepared for the ambassadors and Protestant ministers.  There was another more magnificent for M. le Duc d’Orleans and M. le Duc de Chartres, whom he took there.  There were places for the ladies, and as M. le Duc d’Orleans entered by the monastery, and his tribune was within, it was open to all comers, so that outside and inside were filled with refreshments of all kinds, which officers distributed in profusion.  This disorder continued all day, on account of the large number of tables that were served without and within for the subordinate people of the fete and all who liked to thrust themselves in.  The chief gentlemen of the chamber of M. le Duc d’Orleans, and his chief officers did the business of the ceremony; placed distinguished people in their seats, received them, conducted them, and other of his officers paid similar attentions to less considerable people, while, all the watch and all the police were occupied in looking after the arrival and departure of the carriages in proper and regular order.

During the consecration, which was but little decent as far as the consecrated and the spectators were concerned, above all when leaving the building, M. le Duc d’Orleans evinced his satisfaction at finding so many considerable people present, and then went away to Asnieres to dine with Madame Parabere—­very glad that a ceremony was over upon which he had bestowed only indirect attention, from the commencement to the end.  All the prelates, the distinguished Abbes, and a considerable number of the laity, were invited during the consecration by the chief officers of M. le Duc d’Orleans to dine at the Palais Royal.  The same officers did the honours of the feast, which was served with the most splendid abundance and delicacy.  There were two services of thirty covers each, in a large room of the grand suite of apartments, filled with the most considerable people of Paris, and several other tables equally well served in adjoining rooms for people less distinguished.  M. le Duc d’Orleans gave to the new Archbishop a diamond of great price to serve him as ring.

All this day was given up to that sort of triumph which draws down neither the approbation of man nor the blessing of God.  I saw nothing of it all, however, and M. le Duc d’Orleans and I never spoke of it.

The Comte de Horn had been in Paris for the last two months, leading an obscure life of gaming and debauchery.  He was a man of two-and-twenty, tall and well made, of that ancient and grand family of Horn, known in the eleventh century among the little dynasties of the Low Countries, and afterwards by a long series of illustrious generations.  The Comte de Horn in question had been made captain in the Austrian army, less on account of his youth than because he was such an ill-behaved dog, causing vast trouble to his mother and brother.  They heard so much of the disorderly life he was leading in Paris, that they sent there a confidential gentleman with money to pay his debts, to try and persuade him to return, and failing in this, to implore the authority of the Regent (to whom, through Madame, the Horns were related), in order to compel him to do so.  As ill-luck would have it, this gentleman arrived the day after the Comte had committed the crime I am about to relate.