on their breasts, announced them to be persons of
distinction. The long sofas and chairs, as if they had only just come
out--or rather, as if they had just come up from the country to come
out--had arranged themselves so very formally, and altogether behaved
so very awkwardly, that it was almost impossible for the company
assembled to appear as much at their ease as, from their position,
education, and manners, they really were; and accordingly, biassed by
the furniture, they kept moving, and bowing, and courtesying, and
_sotto-voce_ talking, until they got into a parallelogram, in the
centre of which stood, distinguished by a broad ribbon, and by a mild,
thoughtful, benevolent countenance, Prince Louis Napoleon, whose
gentle and gentleman-like bearing to every person who approached him
entitled him to that monarchical homage in which the majority
evidently delighted, but which it was alike his policy as well as his
inclination--at all events to appear--to suppress; and accordingly the
parallelogram, which, generally speaking, was at the point of
congelation, sometimes and of its own accord froze into the formality
of a court, and then all of a sudden appeared to recollect that the
Prince was the President, and that the whole party had assembled to
enjoy _liberte_, _fraternite_, and _egalite_. As I was observing the
various phases that one after another presented themselves to view,
the principal officer of the household came up to me, and in a quiet
and appropriate tone of voice, requested me to do two things; one of
which appeared to me to be rather easy, and the other--or rather to do
both--extremely difficult. By an inclination of his forehead he
pointed to two ladies of rank, whose names he mentioned to me, but
with whom I was perfectly unacquainted, seated on the sofas at
different points of the parallelogram. 'When dinner is announced you
will be so good,' he said, 'as to offer your arm to ---- ' (the one)
'and to seat yourself next to ---- ' (the other.) Of course I silently
bowed assent; but while the officer who had spoken to me was giving
similar instructions to other gentlemen, I own I felt a little
nervous, lest, during the polite scramble in which I was about to
engage, like the dog in the fable, grasping at the shadow of the
second lady, I might lose the substance of the first, or _vice versa_.
However, when the doors were thrown open, I very quickly, with a
profound reverence, obtained my prize, and at on