Explore "Ascanio" by Alexandre Dumas on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It was the day on which Colombe was to be presented to the queen.
The whole court was assembled in one of the state apartments at the Louvre. After hearing mass the court was to depart for Saint-Germain, and they were awaiting the coming of the king and queen to go to the chapel. Except a few ladies who were seated, everybody was moving about from place to place, laughing and talking. There was the rustle of silks and brocades, and the clash of swords; loving and defiant glances were exchanged, together with arrangements for future meetings, of amorous or deadly purport. It was a dazzling, bewildering scene of confusion and splendor; the costumes were superb, and cut in the latest style; among them, adding to the rich and interesting variety, were pages, dressed in the Italian or Spanish fashion, standing like statues, with arms akimbo, and swords at their sides. It was a picture overflowing with animation and magnificence, of which all that we could say would be but a very feeble and colorless description.