On his first coming to the Louvre he literally blazed.
He wore a suit of white satin velvet with a short cloak in the
Spanish fashion, the whole powdered over with diamonds to the
value of some ten thousand pounds. An enormous diamond clasped
the heron's plume in his hat; diamonds flashed in the hilt of his
sword; diamonds studded his very spurs, which were of beaten
gold; the highest orders of England, Spain, and France flamed on
his breast. On the occasion of his second visit he wore a suit of
purple satin, of intent so lightly sewn with pearls that as he
moved he shook them off like raindrops, and left them to lie
where they fell, as largesse for pages and the lesser fry of the
Court.
His equipages and retinue were of a kind to match his personal
effulgence. His coaches were lined with velvet and covered with
cloth of gold, and some seven hundred people made up his train.
There were musicians, watermen, grooms of the chamber, thirty
chief yeomen, a score of cooks, as many grooms, a dozen pages,
two dozen footmen, six outriders, and twenty gentlemen, each with
his own attendants, all arrayed as became the satellites of a
star of such great magnitude.
Buckingham succeeded in his ambition.
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