ABSTRACT
It was during the latter years of the life of Louis the Fifteenth, and during the reign of Mad. du Barré, that Ormond was at Paris. 105 The court of Versailles was at this time in all its splendour, if not in all its glory. At le souper du roi Ormond beheld, in all the magnificence of dress and jewels, the nobility, wealth, fashion, and beauty of France. Well might the brilliancy dazzle the eyes of a youth fresh from Ireland, when it amazed even old ambassadors, accustomed to the ordinary grandeur of courts. When he recovered from his first astonishment, when his eyes were a little better used to the light, and he looked round and considered all these magnificently decorated personages, assembled for the purpose of standing at a certain distance to see one man eat his supper, it did appear to him an extraordinary spectacle; and the very great solemnity and devotion of the assistants, so unsuited to the French countenance, inclined him to smile. It was well for him, however, that he kept his Irish risible muscles in order, and that no courtier could guess his thoughts - a smile would have lost him his reputation. Nothing in the world appeared to Frenchmen formerly of more importance than their court etiquette, though there were some who began about this time to suspect that the court order of things might not be co-existent with the order of nature - though there were some philosophers and statesmen who began to be aware that the daily routine of the courtier’s etiquette was not as necessary as the motions of the sun, moon, and planets. Nor could it have been / possible to convince half at least of the crowd, who assisted at the king’s supper this night, that all the French national eagerness about the health, the looks, the words, of le roi, all the attachment, le dévouement, professed habitually - perhaps felt habitually - for the reigning monarch, whoever or whatever he might be, by whatever name - notre bon roi, or simply notre roi de France - should in a few years pass away, and be no more seen.
