He was horrified at the expenses which mythology involved; not a wood nymph, nor a dryad, that cost less than a hundred francs a day! The dress alone amounted to three hundred francs.
The expense of powder and sulphur for fireworks amounted, every night, to a hundred thousand francs.

In addition to these, the illuminations on the borders of the sheet of water cost thirty thousand francs every evening.

The _fetes_ had been magnificent; and Colbert could not restrain his delight.

From time to time, he noticed Madame and the king setting forth on hunting expeditions, or preparing for the reception of different fantastic personages, solemn ceremonials, which had been extemporized a fortnight before, and in which Madame's sparkling wit and the king's magnificence were equally well displayed.
For Madame, the heroine of the _fete_, replied to the addresses of the deputations from unknown races--Garamanths, Scythians, Hyperboreans, Caucasians, and Patagonians, who seemed to issue from the ground for the purpose of approaching her with their congratulations; and upon every representative of these races the king bestowed a diamond, or some other article of value.

Then the deputies, in verses more or less amusing, compared the king to the sun, Madame to Phoebe, the sun's sister, and the queen and Monsieur were no more spoken of than if the king had married Henrietta of England, and not Maria Theresa of Austria.