Barrier has decidedly the advantage. While
there is as much noise and confusion as would
satisfy the most medical and musical of
students, there is scarcely any quarrelling,
and, perhaps, no fighting whatever. This is
easily accounted for. The swaggering and
ostentatiously defiant demeanour so popular
in London— and, moreover, that verbal
raillery which meets with such a ready
exchange there among all classes are entirely
unknown in Paris. This is, of course, a
severe annoyance to the fast Englishman, to
whom habit is so dear, and leads him to
believe that the French have no sense of
humour.

Having made these useful observations, the
wise visitor will now leave reflection for after
the ball; lounging for the Champs Elysées;
and ennui for that distinguished London
society in which he doubtless moves; and
plunge at once in medias res— that is to say,
into either "Grado's" or the "Mille Colonnes"
— prepared to be natural and good-humoured,
though Baker Street should frown, and
Bloomsbury shed tears of most respectable
despair.

Suppose him to choose the "Mille Colonnes."
He will see before him a large hotel, with a
dancing-room on the first floor; windows
everywhere brilliantly lighted up, through
which he will see the dancers vigorously at
work, though it is scarcely seven o'clock.
Some very pretty costumes may be observed
on the large stone balcony overlooking the
garden— cooling themselves after the last
quadrille, and exchanging perhaps some
eccentric-comedy-dialogue with their friends
below.

The visitor, if he be an arrant philosophic,
a true, observant, metaphysical vagabond—
which is of course to be desired— will not be
surprised if, while making these observations,
he finds himself forcibly seized by two men,
whose blouses and moustaches give them the
appearance of butchers about to enter a
dragoon regiment; nor will he be seriously
alarmed when he finds his feet firmly planted
upon a little wooden bench;— although it
must be confessed that under the
circumstances it is excusable if one's thoughts wander
towards the Inquisition; and not altogether
imbecile to apprehend some diabolical
species of torture. The fact is, however, that
instead of suffering the punishment of the
boot, you find your own pair superbly polished;
and that the application of the "screw" is
extremely mild; extracting from you nothing
beyond a few sous to the shoeblack.

This polishing process is one that it would
be a signal breach of Barrier decorum to omit,
even though the visitor be equipped in the
most spotless of patent leathers, to black
which is suggestive only of painting the lily,
or somebody who shall be nameless.

The philosopher in question, unless he be
too rapt in contemplation of his faultless
feet, will now see before him a couple of wide
staircases, extending on either side, and
united by the first-floor landing, where,
guarded by sergents de ville— who guard
everything, down to pewter spoons— he
arrives at last at the entrance to the ball-
room.

Here, the first objects that a dull person
expects to see, and the last that the
philosopher dreams of beholding, are the "Mille
Colonnes," which is the playful name
plagiarised from a famous café, and given to
some thirty iron pillars supporting the ceiling,
and dividing the promenade at the sides from
the dancing-ground in the middle of the room.
Across this important boundary are placed
narrow tables devoted to refreshment, and
above these, countless candelabra branch
forth from the "Mille [in this instance, French
for thirty] Colonnes." The tables are occupied
by various articles belonging to the dancers
— their bonnets, mantles, mammas and papas,
&c.; the two first-mentiond articles being piled
up promiscuously in the midst of bowls of
wine, rich with slices of lemon, of which the
latter are partaking. There is a greater
proportion, too, of children in arms, than one
usually observes at balls in London society;
and these infants seem to enjoy themselves as
much as the grown-up people, to judge by the
wine which they drink, and the noise which
they diffuse.

Regarding the dancers themselves, it must
be confessed that the men are of extremely
plebeian appearance, and present as great a
contrast to the female portion as can well be.
The latter, though seldom handsome in face,
and never so in attire, are nearly always
graceful and attractive. If nature has seldom
gifted them with actual beauty, it has been
most bountiful in its bestowal of the neatest
of figures, the smallest of feet and hands, and
a good taste that does more for the toilet
than all the milliners of Bond Street and the
Boulevards. Fancy costumes, too, of a kind
not very costly, but always pretty and effective,
are very numerous on fête days and
extra occasions; and many of these would do
no discredit to the Opera ball itself. One
would scarcely believe that these young girls,
with their little airs and graces, their ease
and self-possession, are nearly all gaining their
own livelihood by the work of their own
pretty little fingers. Some are employed by
the milliners and artificial flower-makers;
some of the best class, perhaps, assist behind
counters; and a very large number are merely
laundresses, with a sprinkling of professors
of the higher branches of clear-starching:—
all are industrious, all independent, and all
poor.

Except in rare cases, these young girls are
accompanied to the ball by their parents or
relatives, to whom, after dancing, they
immediately demand to be restored. As may be
supposed, an introduction is quite unnecessary
as a preliminary to obtaining a partner; but
it must not, therefore, be supposed that a