he crowd.

The Emperor was completely exasperated; he had seen enough, and we left
the ball.

The next morning when he saw the Empress, he remarked, "Well, you did not
go to the opera ball, after all!"--"Oh, yes, indeed I did."--"Nonsense!"
--"I assure you that I went. And you, my dear, what did you do all the
evening?"--"I worked."--"Why, that is very singular; for I saw at the
ball last night a domino who had exactly your foot and boots. I took him
for you, and consequently addressed him." The Emperor laughed heartily
on learning that he had been thus duped; the Empress, just as she left
for the ball, had changed her costume, not thinking the first
sufficiently elegant.

The carnival was extremely brilliant this year, and there were in Paris
all kinds of masquerades. The most amusing were those in which the
theory advocated by the famous Doctor Gall [Franz Joseph Gall, founder
of the system of phrenology. Born in Baden, 1758; died in Paris, 1825]
was illustrated. I saw a troop passing the Place du Carrousel, composed
of clowns, harlequins, fishwives, etc., all rubbing their skulls, and
making expressive grimaces; while a clown bore several skulls of
different sizes, painted red, blue, or green, with these inscriptions:
Skull of a robber, skull of an assassin, skull of a bankrupt, etc.; and a
masked figure, representing Doctor Gall, was seated on an ass, his head
turned to the animal's tail, and receiving from the hands of a woman who
followed him, and was also seated on an ass, heads covered with wigs made
of long grass.

Her Majesty Queen Caroline gave a masked ball, at which the Emperor and
Empress were present, which was one of the most brilliant I have ever
attended.

The opera of la Vestale was then new, and very much the fashion; it
represented a quadrille of priests and vestals who entered to the sound
of delicious music on the flute and harp, and in addition to this there
were magicians, a Swiss marriage, Tyrolian betrothals, etc. All the
costumes were wonderfully handsome and true to nature; and there had been
arranged in the apartments at the palace a supply of costumes which
enabled the dancers to change four or five times during the night, and
which had the effect of renewing the ball as many times.

As I was dressing the Emperor for this ball, he said to me, "Constant,
you must go with me in disguise. Take whatever costume you like,
disguise yourself so that you cannot possibly be recognized, and I