One of the most agreeable of Voiture's letters (addressed to a cardinal)[58] contains an account of a trip that he had made into the country with the Demoiselles de Rambouillet and de Bourbon, chaperoned by "Madame the Princess," mother of the great Condé; Mlle. Paulet (the bit of driftwood) and several others were of the party.
We departed from Paris about six o'clock in the evening, [wrote Voiture], to go to La Barre,[59] where Mme. de Vigean was to give collation to Madame the Princess.... We arrived at La Barre and entered an audience-room in which there was nothing but a carpet of roses and of orange blossoms for us to walk upon. After having admired this magnificence, Madame the Princess wished to visit the promenade halls while we were waiting for supper. The sun was setting in a cloud of gold and azure, and there was only enough of it left to give a soft and misty light. The wind had gone down, it was cool and pleasant, and it seemed to us that earth and heaven had met to favour Mme. de Vigean's wish to feast the most beautiful Princess in the world.
Having passed a large parterre, and great gardens, all full of orange trees, we arrived at a wood which the sunlight had not entered in more than an hundred years, until it entered there (in the person of Madame). At the foot of an avenue so long that we could not fathom its vista with our eyes until we had reached the end of it, we found a fountain which threw out more water than was ever thrown by all the fountains of Tivoli put together. Around the fountain were ranged twenty-four violinists with their violins, and their music was hardly able to cover the music of the fountain. When we drew near them we discovered a niche in the palisado, and in the niche was a Diana eleven or twelve years old, more beautiful than any goddess of the forests of Greece or of Thessaly. She bore her arrows in her eyes, and all the rays of the halo of her brother surrounded her. In another niche was one of Diana's nymphs, beautiful and sweet enough to attend Diana. They who doubt fables said that the two visions were only Mlle. de Bourbon and la Pucelle Priande; and, to tell the truth, there was some ground for their belief, for even we who have always put faith in fables, we who knew that we were looking upon a supernatural vision, recognised a close resemblance. Every one was standing motionless and speechless, with admiration for all the objects so astonishing both to ear and to eye, when suddenly the goddess sprang from her niche and with grace that cannot be described, began a dance around the fountain which lasted some time, and in which every one joined.