Note 70 — Chapter V

The Duke of Wellington occupied the Hôtel de la Regnière. “It was in this hotel that his Grace gave a splendid ball, on the occasion of the marriage of the Duc de Berri, which, from the circumstance of all the guests coming fresh from the grand couvert at the Tuileries in their splendid court dresses, together with the illuminations of the hotel and gardens in honour of the event, produced an effect of brilliancy and magnificence to which description can do no possible justice.... It was curious to see in this congress of beauty and fashion, to which so many countries lent some of their lovely representatives, the belles of Berlin, Petersburg, Rome, London, Paris, Edinburgh, and Dublin, all assembled under the same roof; Bonapartist generals waltzing in close embrace with pretty royalistes enragées, and revolutionary senators linked in a chaîne-entière with ultra partners, formed the best illustration of the ‘Holy Alliance’ that could possibly be given.”—Lady Morgan’s France in 1816, vol. ii. p. 81.