r
the centre of the table is considered quite sufficient, except on
occasions of extra magnificence and importance.

The official balls at the Elysee, of which two or three are usually
given every winter, are very informal in character. The American
traveler who wishes to attend must send in his or her name through the
medium of the American minister. The invitation-lists are divided into
as many sections as there are balls to be given, so as to avoid
over-crowding in the comparatively small salons of the Elysee. Madame
MacMahon and the marshal receive their guests in a small reception-room,
which is the first of the suite of apartments on the first floor, all of
which are thrown open to the public on such occasions. They receive in a
perfectly simple and informal manner. Each guest on entering bows to the
host and hostess without any form of presentation, and is then at
liberty to wander about at will. The apartments thrown open comprise the
state suites on the first and second floors, numbering some twenty or
thirty rooms in all. A temporary gallery is erected to serve as a
supper-room, and there refreshments are served all through the evening,
there being no set hour for supper, as with us. The profusion of flowers
and lights, the crowd of powdered footmen in the white and scarlet
liveries of the marshal, the delightful music and splendid toilettes,
combine to make these balls very elegant and attractive, though far less
so than were the official fetes given under the Empire, when the superb
apartments of the Hotel de Ville and of the Tuileries formed the grand
ball-rooms for the hospitalities of the government. The Elysee is much
too small to accommodate the crowds that usually rush to these
festivals. The heat and crush are excessive, and it is recorded that
after the great ball last year wisps of costly laces, shreds of
Chantilly, rags of old point, scraps of point de Bruxelles strewed the
grand staircase from top to bottom. The crowd, owing to the division of
the invitation-lists of which I have spoken, is less dense this year,
but still great enough to render a ball at the Elysee anything but a
comfortable form of enjoyment.

There is one feature about Parisian entertainments, whether public or
private, which is apt to strike a stranger very unpleasantly; and that
is the card-playing--nay, to put it accurately, the actual
gambling--which forms one of the amusements of the evening. It is not
pleasant to behold