in the museums, or else in fantastic garments which especially set off the beauty of their feminine wearers.  Mesdames de Contades, de Murat, and Place had adopted Eastern dress.  Madame Thiers wore a rich moyen age costume; Madame de Plaisance headed a whole quadrille of hunters and huntresses.  The Comtesse Duhesme another, in which both gentlemen and ladies wore the charming costumes brought into fashion by Giraud’s picture, La Permission de Dix Heures.  The beautiful Madame Liadieres shone in a quadrille of light cavalry men of the time of Louis XV, and shepherdesses dressed a la Pompadour.  The foreigners and members of the diplomatic body of both sexes were for the most part in dresses taken from their own national history.  Among the artists, Eugene Sue, Henriquel-Dupont, Tony Johannot, and Louis Boulanger had chosen the style of Louis XIII.  Eugene Delacroix wore a Moorish dress, Horace Vernet an Arab costume.  Winterhalter represented a Florentine of the fourteenth century, while Amaury Duval, Jadin, Eugene Lamy, Gudin, Raffet, &c., &c., were all got up with the most studied correctness.  When we went into supper the band of my brother Aumale’s regiment, the 17th Light Infantry, transformed into a posse of Arab musicians, stationed on the staircase, played a whole series of Algerian airs, which the good fellows had learnt at Mouzala and Medeah, in the olive woods, or under the blaze of the sun and the heat of the Arab fire.  The guests took their seats round a table on which was the famous centrepiece, executed after Chenavard’s design, by Barye, Pradier, Klagman, Moine, my sister Marie, and by Ary Scheffer and Paul Delaroche as well, who laid aside their painters’ brushes for the nonce, and wielded the sculptor’s point.  It was an admirable piece of work, worthy of Benvenuto Cellini, broken up, alas! cast to the four winds of heaven, and lost to France, after the revolution of February.

This fete was the fete of that winter.  One of those unique and original entertainments the memory of which lingers with one for long.  But there were others besides.

The King gave a series of concerts and large and small dances every winter.  At these last only a very restricted number of guests assembled, chosen exclusively among the diplomatic body, the foreigners chancing to pass through Paris, and young dancing people, especially those young ladies who ranked high for elegance and beauty.  People used to crowd, at these small dances, to watch the Princess de Ligne dancing the mazurka with her incomparable Polish grace; just as at the big balls, which were rather crushes, there would be a crowd, more curious than admiring, to watch the steps and capers of the Prince de Craon, the last remaining exponent of that pretentious school of dancing of which Trenis had been the leader, under the Directoire.  These large crowded balls used to be a great bore, especially to us, who had to take it in turn to do the honours to the very end of the evening.  Yet