ich, whether true or false, were aids to a correct diagnosis of
the situation.

A dancing mania broke out during the armistice, which was not confined
to the French capital. In Berlin, Rome, London, it aroused the
indignation of those whose sympathy with the spiritual life of their
respective nations was still a living force. It would seem, however, to
be the natural reaction produced by a tremendous national calamity,
under which the mainspring of the collective mind temporarily gives way
and the psychical equilibrium is upset. Disillusion, despondency, and
contempt for the passions that lately stirred them drive the people to
seek relief in the distractions of pleasures, among which dancing is
perhaps one of the mildest. It was so in Paris at the close of the long
period of stress which ended with the rise of Napoleon. Dancing then
went on uninterruptedly despite national calamities and private
hardships. "Luxury," said Victor Hugo, "is a necessity of great states
and great civilizations, but there are moments when it must not be
exhibited to the masses." There was never a conjuncture when the danger
of such an exhibition was greater or more imminent than during the
armistice on the Continent--for it was the period of incubation
preceding the outbreak of the most malignant social disease to which
civilized communities are subject.

The festivities and amusements in the higher circles of Paris recall the
glowing descriptions of the fret and fever of existence in the Austrian
capital during the historic Vienna Congress a hundred years ago. Dancing
became epidemic and shameless. In some salons the forms it took were
repellent. One of my friends, the Marquis X., invited to a dance at the
house of a plutocrat, was so shocked by what he saw there that he left
almost at once in disgust. Madame Machin, the favorite teacher of the
choreographic art, gave lessons in the new modes of dancing, and her fee
was three hundred francs a lesson. In a few weeks she netted, it is
said, over one hundred thousand francs.

The Prince de Ligne said of the Vienna Congress: "Le Congres danse mais
il ne marche pas." The French press uttered similar criticisms of the
Paris Conference, when its delegates were leisurely picking up
information about the countries whose affairs they were forgathered to
settle. The following paragraph from a Paris journal--one of many
such--describes a characteristic scene:

The domestic staff at the Hotel M