Surrounding were the younger courtiers and ladies, who also were enjoying the affair.

There are few things which amuse young people as much as the sight of an elderly, dignified man making a clown of himself.
"Oh, Monsieur le Duc," cried Mademoiselle de Longueville, springing from the window-seat from which position she had been staring at the flambeaux below, "if you fought as badly as you play, you would never have gained the baton." "Mademoiselle, each has its time and place, the battle and the madrigal, Homer and Voiture, and besides, I never play when I fight;" and De Gramont continued his thrumming.
Just outside the pale of this merry circle the Duc de Beaufort leaned over the chair of Madame de Montbazon, and carried on a conversation in low tones.

The duchess exhibited at intervals a fine set of teeth.

In the old days when the literary salons of the Hotel de Rambouillet were at zenith, the Duchesse de Montbazon was known to be at once the handsomest and most ignorant woman in France.

But none denied that she possessed a natural wit or the ability successfully to intrigue; and many were the grand _sieurs_ who had knelt at her feet.