Her Majesty Queen Caroline gave a masked ball, at which the Emperor and Empress were present, which was one of the most brilliant I have ever attended.

The opera of la Vestale was then new, and very much the fashion; it represented a quadrille of priests and vestals who entered to the sound of delicious music on the flute and harp, and in addition to this there were magicians, a Swiss marriage, Tyrolian betrothals, etc.  All the costumes were wonderfully handsome and true to nature; and there had been arranged in the apartments at the palace a supply of costumes which enabled the dancers to change four or five times during the night, and which had the effect of renewing the ball as many times.

As I was dressing the Emperor for this ball, he said to me, “Constant, you must go with me in disguise.  Take whatever costume you like, disguise yourself so that you cannot possibly be recognized, and I will give you instructions.”  I hastened to do as his Majesty ordered, donned a Swiss costume which suited me very well, and thus equipped awaited his Majesty’s orders.

He had a plan for mystifying several great personages, and two or three ladies whom the Emperor designated to me with such minute details that it was impossible to mistake them, and told me some singular things in regard to them, which were not generally known, and were well calculated to embarrass them terribly.  As I was starting, the Emperor called me back, saying, “Above all, Constant, take care to make no mistake, and do not confound Madame de M——­ with her sister; they have almost exactly the same costume, but Madame de M—–­ is larger than she, so take care.”  On my arrival at the ball, I sought and easily found the persons whom his Majesty had designated, and the replies which they made afforded him much amusement when I narrated them as he was retiring.

There was at this time a third marriage at the court, that of the Prince de Neuchatel and the Princess of Bavaria, which was celebrated in the chapel of the Tuileries by Cardinal Fesch.

A traveler just returned from the Isle of France presented to the Empress a female monkey of the orang-outang species; and her Majesty gave orders that the animal should be placed in the menagerie at Malmaison.  This baboon was extremely gentle and docile, and its master had given it an excellent education.  It was wonderful to see her, when any one approached the chair on which she was seated, take a decent position, draw over her legs and thighs the fronts of a long redingote, and, when she rose to make a bow, hold the redingote carefully in front of her, acting, in fact, exactly as would a young girl who had been well reared.  She ate at the table with a knife and fork more properly than many children who are thought to be carefully trained, and liked, while eating, to cover her face with her napkin, and then uncover it with a cry of joy.  Turnips were her favorite food; and, when a lady of the palace showed her one, she began to run, caper, and cut somersaults, forgetting entirely the lessons of modesty and decency her professor had taught her.  The Empress was much amused at seeing the baboon lose her dignity so completely under the influence of this lady.