“No more brilliant spectacle than this masked ball could be imagined. Among other salons and galleries, thrown open, was the enormous perspective of the “Grande Galerie des Glaces”, lighted up on that occasion with no less than four thousand wax candles, reflected and repeated by all the mirrors, so that the effect was almost dazzling. The grand suite of salons was thronged with masques, in every conceivable costume. There was not a single room deserted. Every place was animated with music, voices, brilliant colours, flashing jewels, the hilarity of extemporized comedy, and all the sprited incidents of a cleverly sustained masquerade.”

—Sheridan Le Fanu (1814–1873), “The Room in the Dragon Volant,” from his collection of supernatural tales, In a Glass Darkly.