nine o'clock in the evening;
and as the theater of the palace of the Tuileries was now completed, on
the Sunday following his Majesty's return the Griselda of M. Paer was
presented in this magnificent hall. Their Majesties' boxes were situated
in front of the curtain, opposite each other, and presented a charming
picture, with their hangings of crimson silk draped above, and forming a
background to broad, movable mirrors, which reflected at will the
audience or the play. The Emperor, still impressed with the
recollections of the theaters of Italy, criticised unsparingly that of
the Tuileries, saying that it was inconvenient, badly planned, and much
too large for a palace theater; but notwithstanding all these criticisms,
when the day of inauguration came, and the Emperor was convinced of the
very great ingenuity M. Fontaine had shown in distributing the boxes so
as to make the splendid toilets appear to the utmost advantage, he
appeared well satisfied, and charged the Duke of Frioul to present to M.
Fontaine the congratulations he so well deserved.

A week after we saw the reverse of the medal. On that day Cinna was
presented, and a comedy, the name of which I have forgotten. It was such
extremely cold weather that we were obliged to leave the theater
immediately after the tragedy, in consequence of which the Emperor
exhausted himself in invectives against the hall, which according to him
was good for nothing but to be burnt. M. Fontaine [Born at Pontoise,
1762; erected the arch of the Carrousel; died 1853] was summoned, and
promised to do everything in his power to remedy the inconveniences
pointed out to him; and in fact, by means of new furnaces placed under
the theater, with pipes through the ceiling, and steps placed under the
benches of the second tier of boxes, in a week the hall was made warm and
comfortable.

For several weeks the Emperor occupied himself almost exclusively with
buildings and improvements. The arch of triumph of the Place du
Carrousel, from which the scaffolding had been removed in order to allow
the Imperial Guard to pass beneath it on their return from Prussia, first
attracted his Majesty's attention. This monument was then almost
completed, with the exception of a few bas-reliefs which were still to be
put in position. The Emperor took a critical view of it from one of the
palace windows, and said, after knitting his brows two or three times,
that this mass resembled much more a pavilion t