A great fete and water-masque had been arranged by Catherine to take
place on the Cher, with a banquet to follow in the Long Gallery in
honor of her arrival at Chenonceaux.
When twilight had fallen, torches were ignited and myriads of lights
blazed forth from the boats on the river and from the windows of the
chateau. Music and song went forth into the night, and all was as gay
and lovely as a Venetian night's entertainment. The hunting-horns
echoed through the wooded banks, and through the arches above which
the chateau was built passed great highly colored barges, including a
fleet of gondolas to remind the queen-mother of her Italian days--the
ancestors perhaps of the solitary gondola which to-day floats idly by
the river-bank just before the grand entrance to the chateau. From
parterre and balustrade, and from the clipt yews of the ornamental
garden, fairy lamps burned forth and dwindled away into dim infinity,
as the long lines of soft light gradually lost themselves in the
forest. It was a grand affair and idyllic in its unworldliness ...
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