... Each in its nest of gauze and gilt thread, of tissue and taffin, swathed in silver and satin, in velvet and white fur sugared with diamonds, each face painted, each brow plucked, hair hidden by sparkling hair of raw silk, the well-born of France sat in waxlight and flowers like half a hundred candied sweets in a basket. Last at the last table, soggy gristle next the sugar plums, sat Thady Boy Ballagh. (...) A weed in the fairest orchard of France, Thady Boy had been placed, with a malice both deadly and deliberate, next to the curled and painted, the earringed, the chypre-strewn young person of Louis, first Prince of Condé. ...