The ladies scrutinized each other's
magnificent and costly toilets, jesting and exchanging amorous glances
with the gentlemen displaying orders and diamond crosses.
A movement suddenly arose in the rooms, the crowd divided and
respectfully withdrew to the sides, and through the rows of smiling,
humbly bowing courtiers passed the Princess Elizabeth, followed by her
chamberlain Woronzow, her private secretary Alexis Razumovsky, and
her physician Lestocq, in the splendor of her beauty and grace, all
kindness, all smiles. She was to-day wonderfully charming in her
gold-spangled lace dress, which flowed like a breath over her
under-dress of heavy white satin. Her widely-bared, full and luxuriant
shoulders were partially covered by a costly lace mantelet, the present
of the French queen, and her long, floating ringlets were surmounted by
a wreath of white roses such as only Parisian artistic skill could offer
in such perfect imitation of nature. Thus enveloped as it were in a veil
of white mist and floating vapors, Elizabeth's beauty appeared only the
more full and voluptuous. She looked like a purple rose standing
out from a cloud of fluttering snow-flakes, wonderfully charming,
wonderfully seductive.
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