I left the diplomatist-poet conversing with his friends, and went back to the dancing rooms. Music and female beauty are more attractive metal than disabled generals playing at cards; and encountering in my way an _attaché_ to the American legation, I inquired about one or two faces that interested me, and collecting information enough to pass through the courtesies of a dance, I found a partner and gave myself up, like the rest, to amusement.
Supper was served at two, and a more splendid affair could not be conceived. A long and magnificent hall on the other side of the _Salle du Tróne_ was set with tables, covered with everything that France could afford, in the royal services of gold and silver, and in the greatest profusion. There was room enough for all the immense assemblage, and when the queen was seated with her daughters and ladies of honor, the company sat down and all was as quiet and well regulated as a dinner party of four.
After supper the dancing was resumed, and the queen remained till three o'clock. At her departure the band played _cotillons_ or waltzes with figures, in which the Duke of Orleans displayed the grace for which he is celebrated, and at four, quite exhausted with fatigue and heat, I went with a friend or two into the long glass verandah, built by Napoleon as a promenade for the Empress Maria Louisa during her illness, where tea, coffee, and ices were served to those who wished them after supper. It was an interesting place enough, and had my eyes and limbs ached less, I should have liked to walk up and down, and muse a little upon its recollections, but swallowing my tea as hastily as possible, I was but too happy to make my escape and get home to bed.
CHOLERA--UNIVERSAL TERROR--FLIGHT OF THE INHABITANTS--CASES WITHIN THE WALLS OF THE PALACE--DIFFICULTY OF ESCAPE--DESERTED STREETS--CASES NOT REPORTED--DRYNESS OF THE ATMOSPHERE-- PREVENTIVES RECOMMENDED--PUBLIC BATHS, ETC.
_Cholera! Cholera!_ It is now the only topic. There is no other interest--no other dread--no other occupation, for Paris. The invitations for parties are _at last_ recalled--the theatres are _at last_ shut or languishing--the fearless are beginning to be afraid--people walk the streets with camphor bags and vinaigrettes at their nostrils--there is a universal terror in all classes, and a general flight of all who can afford to get away. I never saw a people so engrossed with one single and constant thought. The waiter brought my breakfast this morning with a pale face, and an apprehensive question, whether I was quite well. I sent to my boot-maker yesterday, and he was dead. I called on a friend, a Hanoverian, one of those broad-chested, florid, immortal-looking men, of whose health for fifty years, violence apart, one is absolutely certain, and he was at death's door with the cholera. Poor fellow! He had fought all through the revolution in Greece; he had slept in rain and cold, under the open sky, many a night, through a ten years' pursuit of the profession of a soldier of fortune, living one of the most remarkable lives, hitherto, of which I ever heard, and to be taken down here in the midst of ease and pleasure, reduced to a shadow with so vulgar and unwarlike a disease as this, was quite too much for his philosophy. He had been ill three days when I found him. He was emaciated to a skeleton in that short time, weak and helpless, and, though he is not a man to exaggerate suffering, he said he never had conceived such intense agony as he had endured. He assured me, that if he recovered, and should ever be attacked with it again, he would blow out his brains at the first symptom. Nothing but his iron constitution protracted the disorder. Most people who are attacked die in from three to twenty-four hours.