arriage turned from the line, and
drove rapidly towards a distant wing of the Palace.

"Move up! move up!" shouted a dragoon. "Or are you for the soiree de
Madame?"

"Yes, yes!" said I, hastily, as I heard his question.

"Follow that carriage, then," said he, pointing with his sabre; and in
a moment we left the dense file, and followed the sounds of the retiring
wheels towards a dark corner of the Palace, where a single lamp over a
gate was the only light to guide us.

Never shall I forget the sense of relief I felt as I lay back in the
carriage, and listened to the hum and din of the vast crowd growing each
moment fainter. "Thank Heaven," said I, "it's no levee!" Scarce half
a dozen equipages stood around the door as we drove up, and a single
dragoon was the guard of honor.

"Whom shall I announce, sir?" said a huissier in black, whose manner was
as deferential as though my appearance bespoke an ambassador. I gave
my name, and followed him up a wide stair, where the deep velvet carpet
left no footfall audible. A large bronze candelabra, supporting a blaze
of waxlights, diffused a light like day on every side. The doors opened
before us as if by magic, and I found myself in an antechamber, where
the huissier, repeating my name to another in waiting, retired. Passing
through this, we entered a small drawing-room, in which sat two persons
engaged at a chess table, but who never looked up or noticed us as we
proceeded. At last the two wings of a wide folding door were thrown
open, and my name was announced in a low but audible voice.

The salon into which I now entered was a large and splendidly-furnished
apartment, whose light, tempered by a species of abat-jour, gave a
kind of soft mysterious effect to everything about, and made even the
figures, as they sat in little groups, appear something almost
dramatic in their character. The conversation, too, was maintained in
a half-subdued tone,--a gentle murmur of voices, that, mingling with
the swell of music in another and distant apartment, and the plash of a
small fountain in a vase of goldfish in the room itself, made a strange
but most pleasing assemblage of sounds. Even in the momentary glance
which, on entering, I threw around me, I perceived that no studied
etiquette or courtly stateliness prevailed. The guests were disposed in
every attitude of lounging ease and careless abandon; and it was plain
to see that all or nearly all about were intimates of the place.