The Court itself was modelled entirely on the pattern of the superior Olympus of Versailles. "On ne croyait pas avoir changé de lieu quand on passait de Versailles à Lunéville," says Voltaire. There was splendour, display, lavishness, gilding everywhere--only in Lorraine there was an absolute absence of etiquette and restraint--"ce qui complétait le charme." At Lunéville the etiquette was of the slightest. From the other palaces it was wholly banished--"me voici dans un beau palais, avec la plus grande liberté (et pourtant chez un roi)--à la Cour sans être courtisan." "C'est un homme charmant que le roi Stanislas," Voltaire goes on, in another letter. And not without cause. For Stanislas had placed himself and all his household at the great writer's service. The king entertained a perfect army of Court dignitaries, who had scarcely anything to do for their salaries. He had his _gardes-du-corps_, resplendent in scarlet and silver, his _cadets-gentilhommes_, who were practically pages, half of them Lorrains, the remainder Poles, his regular pages, two of whom must always stand by him, when playing at _tric-trac_, never moving a muscle all the while. He had his pet dwarf "Bébé," decked out in military dress, with a diminutive toy-coach and two goats to carry him about, and a page in yellow and black always to wait upon him. This dwarf the king would for a joke occasionally have baked up in a pie. Upon the pie being opened Bébé would jump out, sword in hand, greatly frightening the ladies and performing on the dinner-table a sort of war-dance, which was his great accomplishment. Then he had his _musique_, headed by Anet, the particular friend of Lulli, and with Baptiste, another friend of Lulli, for "premier violon." The Lorrain court had always been noted for its concerts, its theatricals and its _sauteries_--that was at the time the fashionable name for balls. Adrienne Lecouvreur, Mademoiselle Clairon, Fleury, had all come out first on the Lorrain stage. Lunéville it was which invented the "Cotillon," which has become so popular all over the continent. Lunéville also was the birthplace of the aristocratic and graceful "Chapelet." And king Stanislas' orchestra enjoyed a European reputation. "Do you pay your musicians better than I do?" asked Louis Quinze of his father-in-law with a touch of jealousy. "No, my brother; but I pay them for what they do, you pay them for what they know." There was wit and fashion in abundance, and a galaxy of beauty--the royal-born Princesse de Roche-sur-Yon, the Princesse de Lützelburg, the fascinating Princesse de Talmonde, Stanislas' cousin, who subdued the heart of our young Pretender, the Countess of Leiningen, the Princesse de Craon, Madame de Mirepoix, Madame de Chimay, and others. But what of all things Stanislas prided himself upon most were his table and his kitchen. He was, as I have said, fond of gimcracks and he was a great eater, though he often concentrated all his eating upon one Gargantuan meal. The