The Prince de Ligne said of the Vienna Congress:  “Le Congres danse mais il ne marche pas.”  The French press uttered similar criticisms of the Paris Conference, when its delegates were leisurely picking up information about the countries whose affairs they were forgathered to settle.  The following paragraph from a Paris journal—­one of many such—­describes a characteristic scene: 

The domestic staff at the Hotel Majestic, the headquarters of the British Delegation at the Peace Conference, held a very successful dance on Monday evening, attended by many members of the British Mission and Staff.  The ballroom was a medley of plenipotentiaries and chambermaids, generals and orderlies, Foreign Office attaches and waitresses.  All the latest forms of dancing were to be seen, including the jazz and the hesitation waltz, and, according to the opinion of experts, the dancing reached an unusually high standard of excellence.  Major Lloyd George, one of the Prime Minister’s sons, was among the dancers.  Mr. G.H.  Roberts, the Food Controller, made a very happy little speech to the hotel staff.[18]

The following extract is also worth quoting: 

A packed house applauded ‘Hullo, Paris!’ from the rise of the curtain to the finale at the new Palace Theater (in the rue Mogador), Paris, last night....  President Wilson, Mr. A.J.  Balfour, and Lord Derby all remained until the fall of the curtain at 12.15 ... and ... were given cordial cheers from the dispersing audience as they passed through the line of Municipal Guards, who presented arms as the distinguished visitors made their way to their motor-cars.[19]

Juxtaposed with the grief, discontent, and physical hardships prevailing among large sections of the population which had provided most of the holocausts for the Moloch of War, the ostentatious gaiety of the prosperous few might well seem a challenge.  And so it was construed by the sullen lack-alls who prowled about the streets of Paris and told one another that their turn would come soon.

When the masses stare at the wealthy with the eyes one so often noticed during the eventful days of the armistice one may safely conclude, in the words of Victor Hugo, that “it is not thoughts that are harbored by those brains; it is events.”

By the laboring classes the round of festivities, the theatrical representations, the various negro and other foreign dances, and the less-refined pleasures of the world’s blithest capital were watched with ill-concealed resentment.  One often witnessed long lines of motor-cars driving up to a theater, fashionable restaurant, or concert-hall, through the opening portals of which could be caught a glimpse of the dazzling illumination within, while, a few yards farther off, queues of anemic men and women were waiting to be admitted to the shop where milk or eggs or fuel could be had at the relatively low prices fixed by the state.  The scraps of conversation that reached one’s ears were far from reassuring.