The objection to the day of the French fetes is cleared by another argument.  But what would be the character of a week-day fair, or fete, in Kensington Gardens?  The intuitive answer will make the moral observer regret that man should so often place the interdict on his own happiness, and then peevishly repine at his uncheery lot.

Night, with her poetic glooms, only served to heighten the lustre of the fairy fete; and as I receded through the wood, the little shoal of light gleamed and twinkled through “branches overgrown,” and the distant sounds began to fall into solitary silence—­even saddening to meditation—­so fast do the dying glories of festive mirth sink into melancholy—­till at once, with the last gleam and echo, I found myself in a pleasant little glade on the brow of the hill.  The day had been unusually hot—­all was hushed stillness.  But the darkening clouds were fast gathering into black masses:—­

  The rapid lightning flames along the sky. 
  What terrible event does this portend?

The stifling heat of the atmosphere was, however, soon changed by slight gusts of wind; the leaves trembled; and a few heavy drops of rain fell as harbingers of the coming storm; the pattering ceased; an impressive pause succeeded—­broken by the deepening roar of thunder.

The threatening storm hastened my return to the focus of the carnival.  The partial sprinkling had already caused many of the dancers to withdraw to the cafes, and to the most sheltered parts of the park.  The lightning became more and more vivid; and, at length, the thousands who had lingered in these groups of gaiety, were fairly routed by pelting rain; and the park, with a few lamps flickering out, and decorative finery drenched with rain, presented a miserable contrast with the festivities of the previous hour.  The crowd streamed through the park-gate into the village, where hundreds of competitors shouted “Paris, Paris;” and their swarms of diligences, cabriolets, and curtained carts, were soon freighted.  One of these charioteers engaged to convey me to Paris for half a franc, in a large, covered cart, with oil-skin curtains to protect the passengers in front.  To my surprise I found the vehicle pre-occupied by twelve or fourteen well-dressed persons—­male and female, who appeared to forget their inconvenient situation in sallies of laughter, which sometimes bordered on boisterous mirth.  The storm increased; lamps gleamed and flitted across the road; many of the horses plunged with their heavy loads, and swept along the line in resistless confusion; for nothing can be less characteristic of timidity than French driving.

On reaching Paris, the streets resembled so many torrents, and in most places were not fordable, notwithstanding scores of persons, with the alacrity of mushrooms after rain, had placed themselves at the narrowest parts of the streams, with raised planks, or temporary bridges for crossing.  Our load was landed under the arcade of the Hotel de Ville; but the driver, in the genuine spirit of a London hackney-coachman, did not forget to turn the “ill-wind” to his own account, by importuning me for a double fare.