To give James a right royal reception, Leopold spared neither pains nor money. He always made a point of going to meet his guest--to Batelemont, to Houdemont, or to Gondrecourt. To enable the Court to enter with proper spirit into all the magnificence prepared, we read in the official despatches, that in April, 1713, on the occasion of James's first visit, the Duke directed that two quarters' salaries, in arrear since 1711, should be paid to the officers of his household. D'Audriffet makes merry over this. But in France things were no better. The Court of Versailles, we know, was always behindhand in its payments to Queen Mary. Mrs Strickland makes this a matter of reproach to Desmarets, as if purely the result of his negligence. But the Court had not got the money. In 1715 we have D'Audriffet himself sending in his little account, which shows five years' salary to be owing, in addition to 24,800 livres of disbursements, the whole debt amounting to 84,800 livres. Even more brilliant than the _fêtes_ given at Lunéville, were those to which James was invited at the Château of Commercy, the seat of the Prince de Vaudémont. Vaudémont was rich and generous. He had occupied high positions in the army and the administrative services both of Austria and of Spain. He was a man pre-eminently prudent in council. Our William III. had discovered that, and had frequently sought his opinion, more particularly while the Treaty of Ryswick was under consideration. To James the Prince became a most valuable friend and confidant--more especially at that critical juncture when the Pretender's great aim was to get away unobserved form Lorraine. In his splendid castle of Commercy, set off by magnificent cent gardens and sheets of water throwing Versailles into the shade, the "Damoiseau" of Commercy gave _fêtes_ the description of which baffled Court chroniclers of the period, and after which, in the words of the "Gazette de Hollande," James found himself constrained to go back to Bar in self-defence, "_pour s'y delasser, pour ainsi dire, de la fatigue des plaisirs continuels_." There was such a _fête_ in June, 1713, arranged on a peculiarly lordly scale, in which a chorus of _Pèlerins de Saint Jacques_ were brought in--appropriately hailing from "L'Isle de Cythère," and provided with passports from the goddess Venus--whose special object seems to be to say pretty things to James:-- "Vous gagnez tous les coeurs, tout le monde gémit De voir un Roy d'une bonté si rare, Et brillant de l'éclat de toutes les vertus Loin des Etats qui lui sont dûs Mais nous verrons un jour cette triple couronne Qu'ont porté si longtems vos Illustres Ayeux, Sur votre chef tomber des Cieux. Le mérite, le sang, les Loix, tout vous la donne; Laissez le soin de soûtenir ces droits Au Dieu qui dans ses mains porte les coeurs des Rois."