Vive la Reine!

On the eve of a dinner for Louis XIV, according to Mme. de Sevigne, the grand chef de cuisine at the Chateau Chantilly killed himself rather than face the Sun King without enough fish for his piece de resistance. Fortunately, no such tragedy marred last week's visit of Britain's Queen Elizabeth to France, although one great cake prepared in her honor collapsed from the heat before she got to it and had to be hurriedly propped up. No one's life was held forfeit, and the first visit of a reigning British queen since Victoria was such a success (except for a royal umbrella lost at Orly Airport) that even the Communist newspapers who had scoffed at first were reduced to sweeping deep editorial curtsies.

Under the continuously watchful eyes of some 4,000 metropolitan policemen, 1,700 special security troops and 36 squadrons of the Garde Republicaine in shining new casques, the matronly young Queen planted a tree, pushed buttons, laid a wreath, accepted gifts, saw sights, made pretty speeches, was dined and wined, received curtsies from some 3,400 ladies of France. In more private moments, she slept in Napoleon's bed, bathed in Empress Eugenie's bathtub, sat in an armchair used by Louis XV, and (according to the calculations of Frenchmen experienced in such calculations) found time to spend just 1 1/2 hours out of the three-day visit alone with her husband.

Everywhere the Queen and Prince Philip went, Parisian crowds gathered to gape and cheer. Outside the opera the welcoming hordes pressed so close that the mounted guards had to drive them back with drawn swords. At a huge reception in the Louvre many of the 2,000-odd distinguished guests vied with each other for vantage points on the pedestals of world-famed works of art as museum guards shook their heads in despair. "I expected Marcus Aurelius to topple over on me at any moment," said one grande dame nervously. As the party broke up, even the footmen and wine stewards toasted the great occasion in surplus wines and spirits.

In fair return for the lavish displays of foods, fireworks and fineries laid out in her honor at every turn, Elizabeth dazzled her hosts with her own rarest jewels, including an emerald tiara intertwined with diamonds formerly owned by the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, wife of the Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia, and the famed 26-carat pink diamond from the mines of Tanganyika that was a wedding gift to Elizabeth. Beneath her glittering tiaras, the Queen's smile was invariably radiant. But perhaps the diplomatic device by which Elizabeth most thoroughly endeared herself to the exquisitely gowned ladies of Paris was to accept their curtsies in gowns some of which, according to catty French experts, were at least a couple of years behind the fashion.

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