. The
tailors, shoemakers, tobacconists, publicans, grocers and hosiers met in
squads upon corners to talk it over; all the gentlemen obtained loans,
and, as evidence of how liberal they meant to be, commenced by giving
away whatever old effects they had.

A _cabinet_ or small saloon of the most expensive restaurant in Paris
was pleasantly adorned for the first reunion of the Confederate exiles.

The ancient seven-starred flag, entwined with the new battle-flag, hung
in festoons at the head of the room, and directly beneath was the
portrait of President Davis. A crayon drawing of the C. S. N. V.
Florida, from the portfolio of the amateur Mr. Simp, was arched by two
crossed cutlasses, hired for the occasion; and upon an enormous iced
cake, in the centre of the table, stood a barefooted soldier, with his
back against a pine tree, defying both a Yankee and a negro.

At eleven o'clock P.M. the scrupulously dressed attendants heard a buzz
and a hurried tramp upon the stairs. They repaired at once to their
respective places, and after a pause the Southern Colony and convoy made
their appearance upon the threshold. With the exception of Pisgah and
Hugenot, all were clothed in the relics of their poverty, but their
hairs were curled, and they wore some recovered articles of jewelry.
They had thus the guise of a colony of barbers coming up from the gold
diggings, full of nuggets and old clothes.

By previous arrangement, the chair was taken by Andy Plade, supported by
two young ladies, and, after saying a welcome to the guests in elegant
French, he made a significant gesture to the chief waiter. The most
luscious Ostend oysters were at once introduced; they lifted them with
bright silver _fourchettes_ from plates of Sevres porcelain, and each
guest touched his lips afterward with a glass of refined _vermeuth_.
Three descriptions of soup came successively, an amber _Julien_, in
which the microscope would have been baffled to detect one vegetable
fibre, yet it bore all the flavors of the garden; a tureen of _potage a
la Bisque_, in which the rarest and tiniest shell-fish had dissolved
themselves; and at the last a _tortue_, small in quantity, but so
delicious that murmurs of "_encore_" were made.

Morsels of _viande_, so alternated that the appetite was prolonged--each
dish seeming a better variation of the preceding--were helped toward
digestion by the finest vintages of Burgundy; and the luscious _pates de
foie gras_--for w