bowing to M. H----, he
left.

"Well," said the chief of the political police, when he was alone, "the
bargain I have made is not a rare one. Informers always have scruples at
first, especially when they are men of rank;--when those of the man of
whom the agent speaks are dissipated, or when by his wants and vices he
is forced to draw directly on our chest, his shame will pass away, and
his name will be enrolled on the list of our spies like those of M. X.,
the Baron de W----, the Advocate V----, the Ex-consul R----, and the
Countess of Fu. This man is, then, taken in three words, what we call a
SPY IN SOCIETY."

IV.--THE AMBASSADRESS.

On the twentieth of June, 1818, six months before the occurrence of the
scene we have described in the preceding chapter, the greatest
excitement was exhibited in a magnificent hotel in the Faubourg
Saint-Honore. The principal entrance of this hotel, or the Faubourg, was
occupied by a crowd of workmen, who were busy in arranging a multitude
of flower vases, from the court-gate to the door of the hotel.
Upholsterers and florists crowded the vestibule, the stairway, and the
antechambers with their flowers and carpets. The interior of the rooms
on the ground floor presented a scene of a different kind of disorder. A
pell-mell--a crowd of men and women were tacking down and sowing rich
and sumptuous stuffs on the floors. The rooms of the lower floor of the
hotel opened on one of the gardens surrounding the _Champs-Elysees_
towards the Faubourg St. Honore. An immense ball-room was constructed in
the garden. This ball-room was united to the house by richly dressed
doors, cut into the windows, and, with the ground floor, formed one
immense suite. The garden at this period of the year contributed in no
small degree to the pleasures of the festival. The curtains at the doors
of this hall could at any time be lifted up so as to permit access to
this oasis of verdure. One might have thought a magic ring had
transported to this corner of Paris, all the riches of the vegetation of
southern climes, and might have, in imagination, strayed beneath the
jasmin bowers, amid the roses and orange-groves of Italy, so delicious
was the perfume which filled this garden. Its peculiar physiognomy and
design, its form, manner, and even the statues, the majority of which
were _chef-d'-oeuvres_ of Italian art, all proved some foreign taste
had presided over its construction, and that this taste had been the
pa