Luxury celebrated its return to Paris, after having had to secrete itself, so long from the blood-stained hands of the sans-culottes, in the most obscure corners of the deserted palaces of St. Germain.  Pleasure, which had fled away horrified from the guillotine and from the terrorists, dared once more to show its rose-wreathed brow and smiling countenance, and here and there make its cheerful festivities resound.

Men became glad, and dared to laugh again; they came out from the stillness of their homes, which anxiety had kept closed, to search for amusement, pleasure, and recreation; but no citizen dared to be select, none dared to assume aristocratic exclusiveness.  One had to be pleased with a dinner at a tavern; with a glass of ice-water in a cafe, or to take part in a public ball which was opened to every one who could pay his fee of admission; and especially in the evening the public rushed to the theatre with the same eagerness that was exhibited in the morning to reach the shops of the bakers and butchers, where each received his portion of meat or bread by producing a card signed by the circuit commissioners.  In front of these shops, as well as in front of the theatres, the pressure was so great that for hours it was necessary to fall into line, and sometimes go away dissatisfied; for the republic had yet retained the system of equality, so that the rich and the influential were not served any sooner than the poor and the unknown; there was only one exception:  only one condition received distinction before the baker’s shop and the theatre:  it was that of the mothers of the future, those women whose external appearance revealed that they would soon bring forth a future citizen, a new soldier for the republic, which had lost so many of its sons upon the scaffold and on the battle-field.

It was so long that one had been deprived of laughter and merriment, and had walked with sad countenance and grave solemnity through the days of blood and terror, that now every occasion for hilarity was received eagerly and thankfully, and every opportunity for mirth and amusement sought out.  The theatres were therefore filled every evening with an attentive, thankful audience; every jest of the actor, every part well performed, elicited enthusiastic approbation.  It is true no one yet dared act any other pieces than those which had reference to the revolution, and in some shape or other celebrated the republic, accusing and vilifying the royalists.  The pieces represented were—­“The Perfect Equality,” or else “Thee and Thou,” “The Last Trial of the Queen,” “Tarquin, or the Fall of the Monarchy,” “Marat’s Apotheosis,” and similar dramas, all infused with republicanism; still, men faint at heart and satiated with the republic, hastened notwithstanding to the theatre, to enjoy an hour of recreation and merriment.