umbling-block of governments and the most powerful
lever of revolutionaries. The chief of the peace armies resided in
sumptuous hotels, furnished luxuriously in dubious taste, flooded after
sundown with dazzling light, and filled by day with the buzz of idle
chatter, the shuffling of feet, the banging of doors, and the ringing of
bells. Music and dancing enlivened the inmates when their day's toil was
over and time had to be killed. Thus, within, one could find anxious
deliberation and warm debate; without, noisy revel and vulgar brawl.
"Fate's a fiddler; life's a dance."

To few of those visitors did Paris seem what it really was--a nest of
golden dreams, a mist of memories, a seed-plot of hopes, a storehouse of
time's menaces.

THE PARIS CONFERENCE AND THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA

There were no solemn pageants, no impressive ceremonies, such as those
that rejoiced the hearts of the Viennese in 1814-15 until the triumphal
march of the Allied troops.

The Vienna of Congress days was transformed into a paradise of delights
by a brilliant court which pushed hospitality to the point of
lavishness. In the burg alone were two emperors, two empresses, four
kings, one queen, two crown-princes, two archduchesses, and three
princes. Every day the Emperor's table cost fifty thousand gulden--every
Congress day cost him ten times that sum. Galaxies of Europe's eminent
personages flocked to the Austrian capital, taking with them their
ministers, secretaries, favorites, and "confidential agents." So eager
were these world-reformers to enjoy themselves that the court did not go
into mourning for Queen Marie Caroline of Naples, the last of Marie
Theresa's daughters. Her death was not even announced officially lest it
should trouble the festivities of the jovial peace-makers!

The Paris of the Conference, on the other hand, was democratic, with a
strong infusion of plutocracy. It attempted no such brilliant display as
that which flattered the senses or fired the imagination of the
Viennese. In 1919 mankind was simpler in its tastes and perhaps less
esthetic. It is certain that the froth of contemporary frivolity had
lost its sparkling whiteness and was grown turbid. In Vienna, balls,
banquets, theatricals, military reviews, followed one another in dizzy
succession and enabled politicians and adventurers to carry on their
intrigues and machinations unnoticed by all except the secret police.
And, as the Congress marked the close of one