"
The Prince said one day to the Prefect:--
"Decidedly, you do not love hunting."
"But I might love it, my lord, if I had such an outfit."
"That's because you don't know anything about it, my dear
Puymaigre; when I was in England, hunting all alone in the marshes
with my dog Belle, I enjoyed it much more than here."
The Prefect thus concludes his description of life at Chantilly:--
"Dinner was at six o'clock in the magnificent gallery where the
souvenirs of the great Conde were displayed in all their pomp, and
the eyes fell on fine pictures of the battles of Rocroy, Senef,
Fribourg, and Nordlingen, inspiring some regret for the life led
by the heir of so much glory. After dinner society comedy was
played on a very pretty stage, where the luxury of costumes was
very great and the mise-en-scene carefully attended to; and this
did not make the actors any better, although the little plays were
tolerable. But Madame de Feucheres wishing to play Alzire and to
take the principal part, which she doled out with sad monotony,
without change of intonation from the first line to the last, and
with a strongly pronounced English accent, it was utterly
ridiculous, and Voltaire would have flown into a fine passion had
he seen one of his chefs-d'oeuvres mangled in that way. Who could
have told that this poor Prince, who, if he had neither the
virtues nor the dignity proper to his rank, was nevertheless a
very good fellow, would perish in 1830, in such a tragic manner?"
Charles X.
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