That day was the beginning of a long period of gaiety for the pleasure-loving city. No ruler could have suited the people of Brussels better than Charles of Lorraine. The annals of his time are full of merrymaking, the accounts of which enable us, perhaps better than graver histories do, to understand the Court of the Austrian Netherlands in the long reign of Maria Theresa. In February, 1752, we find the Duke giving a 'Venetian Fête' in the palace of the Duc d'Arenberg, at which all the gay people in Brussels were present. There were four quadrilles, the first consisting of eight ladies and gentlemen dressed as gardeners, the second of pilgrims, the third and fourth of peasants and sailors. A masked supper followed the dancing, and at midnight all the company, still in their masks, drove in open carriages through the streets. The coachmen were masked, as were the grooms who rode beside each carriage with torches, and so were the musicians who played before and after them on their way to the Théâtre de la Monnaie, where they danced and feasted and gambled till morning. Charles of Lorraine lived generally at the château of Tervueren, where he spent large sums on stocking the woods and lakes with game and fish. 'What I must put in my park at Tervueren,' he notes in his private diary--'8 roe bucks, 150 hares, 100 pheasants, 4 wood cocks, 6 grey hens, 10 Guinea fowls, 50 partridges, 20 red partridges, 100 wild ducks. Of fish--600 tortoises, 300 crabs, 200 trout, 100 sturgeons.' Every day he jotted down in his diary all his doings, all his petty cash payments, what the members of his Court did, and even the names of their mistresses. The Duc d'Arenberg gives jewels to La Nogentelle, a danseuse at the Monnaie. The Dutch Minister is ruining himself for La Cintray, another dancer; and the English Minister has lost his head over Mademoiselle Durancy. The Prince de Ligne and M. Androuins spent much time and money in company with the sisters Eugénie and Angélique d'Hannetaire. M. d'Hannetaire, the father of these young women, had begun life as a comedian in Brussels, and was now manager of the Monnaie. He had three daughters, who went in the _demi-monde_ by the name of the Three Graces, and used their father's house as a place of assignation for gentlemen of quality. D'Hannetaire is said to have been luckier than most managers, and to have made a large fortune, much of it by the faro-table in the foyer of his theatre, where at that time heavy gambling went on every night.