(Here Voiture, who was under obligations to his correspondent, Cardinal de La Valette, represents himself as having wept because the Cardinal was not there. According to Voiture's account he communicated his grief to all the company.) ... And I should have wept, and, in fact, we all should have mourned too long, had not the violins quickly played a saraband so gay that every one sprang up and danced as joyously as if there had been no mourning; and thus, jumping, dancing, whirling, pirouetting, and capering, we arrived at the house, where we found a table dressed as delicately as if the faëries had served it. And now, Monseigneur, I come to a part of the adventure which cannot be described! Truly, there are no colours nor any figures of rhetoric to represent the six kinds of luscious soups, all different, which were first placed before us before anything else was served. And among other things were twelve different kinds of meats, under the most unimaginable disguises, such as no one had ever heard of, and of which not one of us has learned the name to this day! As we were leaving the table the music of the violins called us quickly up the stairs, and when we reached the upper floor we found an audience-room turned into a ball-room, so well lighted that it seemed to us that the sun, which had entirely disappeared from earth, had gone around in some unknown way and climbed up there to shine upon us and to make it as bright as any daylight ever seen. There the dance began anew, and even more perfectly than when we had danced around the fountain; and more magnificent than all else, Monseigneur, is this, that _I danced there!_ Mlle. de Bourbon said that, truth to tell, I danced badly, but that doubtless I should make an excellent swordsman, because, at the end of every cadence, I straightened as if to fall back on guard. The fête ended in a display of fireworks, after which the company "took the road" for Paris by the light of twenty flambeaux, singing with all the strength of their lungs. When they reached the village of La Villette they caught up with the violinists, who had started for the city as soon as the dance was ended and before the party left the château. One of the gayest of the company insisted that the violinists should play, and that they should dance right there in the street of the village. It was between two and three o'clock in the morning and Voiture was tired out; he "blessed Heaven" when it was discovered that the violins had been left at La Barre. At last [Voiture wrote to the Cardinal] we reached Paris.... Impenetrable darkness wrapped the city, silence and solitude lay on every hand, the streets were deserted, and we saw no people, but now and then small animals, frightened by the glaring flames of our torches, fled before us, and we saw them hiding on the shadowy corners.