on the increase, though now they can with difficulty be credited. If the
evidence of eyewitnesses did not agree in every particular with the
accounts given in the public papers of this masquerade, they might be
regarded as the ravings of some diseased brain, and not as the notice of
a fact which really occurred.

"The Masquerade of the Cholera" appeared, we say, in the square of Notre
Dame, just as Morinval's carriage gained the quay, after disengaging
itself from the death-wagon.

[37] It is well-known that at the time of the cholera, such placards were
numerous in Paris, and were alternately attributed to opposite parties.
Among others, to the priests, many of the bishops having published
mandatory letters, or stated openly in the churches of their diocese,
that the Almighty had sent the cholera as a punishment to France for
having driven away its lawful sovereign, and assimilated the Catholic to
other forms of worship.

[38] It is notorious, that at this unhappy period several persons were
massacred, under a false accusation of poisoning the fountains, etc.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE CHOLERA MASQUERADE.[39]

A stream of people, who preceded the masquerade, made a sudden irruption
through the arch into the square, uttering loud cheers as they advanced.
Children were also there, blowing horns, whilst some hooted and others
hissed.

The quarryman, Ciboule, and their band, attracted by this new spectacle,
rushed tumultuously towards the arch. Instead of the two eating-houses,
which now (1845) stand on either side of the Rue d'Arcole, there was then
only one, situated to the left of the vaulted passage, and much
celebrated amongst the joyous community of students, for the excellence
both of its cookery and its wines. At the first blare of the trumpets,
sounded by the outriders in livery who preceded the masquerade, the
windows of the great room of the eating-house were thrown open, and
several waiters, with their napkins under their arms, leaned forward,
impatient to witness the arrival of the singular guests they were
expecting.

At length, the grotesque procession made its appearance in the thick of
an immense uproar. The train comprised a chariot, escorted by men and
women on horseback, clad in rich and elegant fancy dresses. Most of these
maskers belonged to the middle and easy classes of society. The report
had spread that masquerade was in preparation, for the purpose of daring
the cholera, and, by this joy