"From these apartments we were conducted up to a ballroom, decorated in a light, elegant style of painting. The ground was a pale blue, paneled with a small gold bead, and in the interior filled with dropping festoons of flowers in their natural colors. Below the surface the ground was of rose-pink, with drapery festooned in blue. These decorations were heightened by eighty-five mirrors, decked with rose-pink silk ribbons and artificial flowers; and in the intermediate spaces were thirty-four branches with wax-lights, ornamented in a similar manner. On the same floor were four drawing-rooms, with sideboards of refreshments, decorated and lighted in the same style and taste as the ballroom. "The ball was opened by the knights and their ladies, and the dances continued till ten o'clock, when the windows were thrown open, and a magnificent bouquet of rockets began the fire-works. These were planned by Captain Montressor, the chief-engineer, and consisted of twenty different exhibitions, displayed under his directions with the happiest success and in the highest style of beauty. Toward the conclusion the interior part of the triumphal arch was illuminated amid an uninterrupted flight of rockets and bursting balloons. The military trophies on each side assumed a variety of transparent colors. The shell and flaming heart on the wings sent forth Chinese fountains, succeeded by fire-works. Fame appeared at the top, spangled with stars, and from her trumpet blowing the following device in letters of light: '_Les lauriers sont immortels_.' A _sauteur_ of rockets bursting from the pediment concluded the _feu d' artifice_. "At twelve supper was announced, and large folding-doors, hitherto artfully concealed, being suddenly thrown open, discovered a magnificent saloon of two hundred and ten feet by forty, and twenty-two in height, with three alcoves on each side, which served for sideboards. The ceiling was the segment of a circle, and the sides were painted of a light straw-color, with vine-leaves and festoon-flowers, some in a bright and some in a darkish green. Fifty-six large pier-glasses, ornamented with green silk, artificial flowers, and ribbons; a hundred branches with three lights in each, trimmed in the same manner as the mirrors; eighteen lusters, each with twenty-four lights, suspended from the ceiling, and ornamented as the branches; three hundred wax-tapers disposed along the supper-tables; four hundred and thirty covers; twelve hundred dishes; twenty-four black slaves, in Oriental dresses, with silver collars and bracelets, ranged in two lines and bending to the ground as the general and admiral approached the saloon--all these, forming together the most brilliant assemblage of gay objects, and appearing at once as we entered by an easy ascent, exhibited a _coup d'oeil_ beyond description magnificent.