COURT GAIETIES.
[Fuca! OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.] February 18, 1863.
THE great Emperor Charles V. used to say, " The French look foolish and are wise; the Spaniards are foolish and look wise ; the Portuguese look foolish, and so they are." Whether the dis- tinction was apposite or not I must refrain from deciding ; but this much 1 will say, that, if we were to judge of the French nation by the French court, the French might be said to be what Charles V. thought they looked.
It really borders on the incredible how much the Court festivi-
ties have been talked of in Paris last week. In the semi-fashion- able and semi-official salons the buzz of conversation was, and still is, almost exclusively of fancy balls, and suppers, and mas- querades, and fantastic dresses. Were Dangeau to revive, how many fine things he would have to chronicle about the stupendous fancy or masked balls given in succession, first by M. Drouyn de Lhuys, then by the Emperor, then by Princess de Metternich, and finally by Madame Waleska ! Nothing comes amiss to a hungry stomach, and it being one of the maladies of mankind to be greedy in the extreme of anything that refers to the Bests and deeds of mortal divinities, a table to starve at must not be placed before the famishing public.
Let us, therefore, put at once on record that the masked ball
given of late at the Tuileries was splendid. In the fact of the Emperor and Imperial Prince wearing the Venetian mantle, there is enough already to awaken the imagination of the reader ; but picture to yourself the Empress of the French attired as a doge's wife was when there was such a thing as a doge ! Poor Venice, whose sole comfort for not forming part of that Italy which was to be free from the Alps to the Adriatic, is that her history has supplied the Empress with a fancy costume ! Not less appropriate was the selection made by Princess Mathilde, who, being bitterly opposed to the Pope, wore, nevertheless, the costume of the celebrated Mathilde of the middle ages, who was at that time the benefactress of the Sovereign Pontiff! Why Alphonse de Roths- child was disguised in the character of a bird of Paradise and Salomon de Rothschild in the character of a blue bird, is a mystery as yet unravelled. After supper, Countess de Castiglione was seen crossing the rooms with a negro—the Duke de Choiseul—who carried the train of her gown and held in his hand a parasol of pink satin embroidered with silver. This, perhaps, gave rise to the supposition that the handsome countess personified M. Flaubert's heroine, the Carthaginian Salammbo ; but history should not be falsified in such important matters. The truth is, that Madame de Castiglione wore the costume of a Roman matron : the long purple robe, the black tunic fastened on the shoulder and leaving the arm quite bare, the diadem shining on a profusion of hair, and the sandals covering a part, only a part of the foot—from which I would be tempted to infer that, in the adoption of such a toilet, she had no other _political aim than to exhibit as much as possible of her beauty to the admiring gaze of those present. The attention of all thinking men has been duly, yet inadequately, invited to the remarkable circumstance that from four bee-hives, covered with foliage and drawn by shepherds to the centre of the Salle des Marichaux, young winged girls emerged, at a signal given by Strauss, and, with the humming of bees, per- formed a ballet, the orchestra playing the waltz of the butterflies ; but that this ballet had been composed by Merante (of the opera) and rehearsed the day before at the Tuileries, is another striking circumstances with which posterity has a right to be made acquainted. The banqueting-room had been, of course, decorated with a studied display of splendour. Centre-pieces of finely-wrought gold and silver glittered through a mass of flowers and palm-trees. An artist has been ordered to draw this decoration as well as the bee-hives, so that coming generations may be favoured with the undying image of the wonders worked by the Empire.
They are costly, no doubt ; but what of that ! The civil list of the Emperor is more than double the civil list of Louis Philippe. France pays the bill.
Napoleon is reported to have enjoyed himself very much. Le roi s'amuse. Why not? Count Bacciochi, I trust, will not give me the lie, if I venture to say that Napoleon is, after all, a man of pleasure. No beardless habitué du Bal Bfabile is more fond of dancing ; no youth of twenty can boast of dancing the Landers with more heartiness than that stern statesman who is on the wrong side of fifty. When people suppose him to be buried in deep meditation and busy remodelling the world, he thinks perhaps of a pretty actress, Miss So-and-so, and inwardly digests the drol- leries of some vaudeville like 2ialututu. It is but fair to own that he knows how to act the gallant to a lady ; and I am sure that, on the occasion of the recent marriage of Earl Cowley's daughter with Lord Royston, at the British Embassy, there was no fault to be found with his courtesy.
In this review of the official diversions of the carnival, the ball given by Princess de Metternich is entitled to a full share of admiration. The ball-rooms had been constructed for the occasion. There was on each panel a magnificent looking-glass, richly orna- mented with rare flowers, in which was reflected all the moving happiness of the hour. At the farther end, a sort of buen retiro had been erected in the shape of a canopy consisting of a golden treillage. There the Emperor and the Empress were received. Of those belonging to the stern sex, all of them more or less con- nected with the 2nd of December, suffice it to say that the most noticeable was a certain marquis, who stalked about in the character of a vampire, with a bat on his head. The ladies claim to be mentioned less cursorily. The Empress represented Juno, and her gown was, consequently, spotted all over with the hundred eyes of Argus, which suggested to a saucy jester of the " faubourg St. Germain " the idea that this was probably meant to express the importance so unmistake- ably imparted to police spies by the Imperial system. Princess de Metternich was a violet, strictly copied from Granville's drawing. Princess Murat was a snow storm. Madame de Kersakoff was a river, the bed of which was worked in her dress, with a due amount of rushes, shells, and fishes. Madame Waleska was a pack of cards, iu which the same saucy jester sees a delicate allusion to the following ugly adventure.
It occurred at Mademoiselle Barucci's, an Italian heroine. A luck more constant than usually falls to the lot of a gambler, a card picked out which was not like those used in the house, and many other untoward circumstances having drawn the attention of M. de Grammont Caderousse—the same whom a recent duel made so sadly conspicuous—to the practices of a Spaniard, whose name (Garcia) is no longer a secret, an explanation ensued, which, right or wrong, led the persons present to regard as a cheat not only the man called at once to account, but also another well known in the musical world. Accordingly, they were both stripped of their clothes, and even their boots were searched. Bank-notes having been found under the lining of their coats, nay, under their garters, and put in a safe place, one of the accused is reported to have said boldly, " Gentlemen, supposing we robbed you, you have just robbed us. So, we go quits." The mistress of the house, in order to avoid un éclat, volunteered to indemnify the losers, and threw on the gaming-table a neck-lace of the value of 80,000f. But nothing would do. " Gentlemen," said one of the bystanders, " people are in quest of a king for the Grecs ; here we have two." By the bye, what can possibly be the reason why the fashion has prevailed in France of styling a cheat me Grec 7 We are told that, towards the close of the reign of Louis XIV., a knight of Greek origin, named Apoulos, who went to Court, was caught in the very act of cheating at play and condemned to the galleys. Hence the appellation of Grec most unjustly pinned on any gamester bent on reversing, come what may, the adverse de- crees of fate. But to return. The very evening of the day on which the adventure took place, M. de Grammont Caderousse, being at M. de Persigny's, happened to tell all about it, in pre- sence of a grim personage, who remarked, as soon as the narration was over, that the narrator ought to have at once reported the whole to the police. " Pas si bete !" exclaimed M. de Grammont Caderousse, who did not know his interlocutor, " the police would have seized our stakes." The grim personage was M. Boitelle, the Prefect of Police himself. In justice to M. Colzado, the manager of the Italian Opera, it must be stated that, in a public letter of his, the reports circulated about him on this occasion are denounced most emphatically as calumnies. A judicial inquiry having been instituted, he is eager
for the result, which, he declares, will clear him completely. A strong protest has also been raised by the other party concerned. The sifting of the matter will soon show what the rumours now afloat are worth.
Whilst the French statesmen were revelling, the French students were thinking of Poland. The cause of Poland has always been exceedingly popular in France. Under the reign of Louis Philippe, when the news reached Paris that, once more, the doom of the Poles was sealed, the Parisians actually went into mourning. I myself remember having seen on that occasion all the students wearing a crape hat-band. It would be difficult to overrate the disastrous influence which the famous sentence uttered from the tribune by General Sebastiani, his minister, L'ordre regne a Var- sovie, had over the fate of Louis Philippe. The last manifestation of the students in favour of Poland testifies the indomitable persist- ence of that feeling. Is it with a view to gratify it in some way or other, that the Emperor, in his reply to the address of the legis- lative body, said, " France must be strong and calm at home, in order to be always prepared to exercise her legitimate influence in favour of justice and progress ? " Some are pleased to put on these words a hopeful construction. Others are less sanguine, and point bitterly to the oracular obscurity of the Imperial speech, obsery ing, besides, that there is no laying stress on the self-contradictory utterances of a man who, but the other day, bade us admire the unrestricted liberty enjoyed by the English, and who now comes forward to say that "on all points of the globe, the truth is obscured by many conflicting passions."
However this may be, a dashing attempt of some sort must, before long, be made ; for the expedition to Mexico does not pay, and the terrible effect produced by the discussion of the Address is far from dying out.
It is a characteristic symptom that the milk-and-water opposi- tion of M. Emile 011ivier has failed to meet the approbation of the Liberal party at large. M. Emile 011ivier is too much of a diplomatist, and he will do well to ponder over the import of this taunt, which is threateningly growing popular, " The five have dwindled to four and a half." The petition presented to the Senate by Al. Alfred Darimon, supplicating them to decide, as far as re- gards the right of discussion, the precise meaning of the Constitu- tion, is a skilful device. But the rising man in the Opposition is decidedly M. Picard. His witty, sharp, straightforward eloquence is just what is wanted, and what is relished. As to M. Jules Favre, the great veteran orator, his services are most valuable, most valued, too ; and many are those among the republicans who feel thankful to him for having honestly and manfully ex- pressed a desire that none should be allowed to have a vote who cannot read and write. The orthodox writers call him a broacher of a scandalous heresy, and are quite right. The maintenance of the Empire requires that the business of universal suffrage should be carried out in the dark. The following is a good saying The emblem of a Government confessedly unable to bear the light and outface the sun, should not be an eagle, but an owl."
A FREEMAN.
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