t
and conceals it; I do it and do not conceal it." Thus speaks pride, and
once that cuirass has been buckled on, it glitters with the refulgent
light of day.

It is said that Damocles saw a sword suspended over his head. Thus
libertines seem to have something over their heads which says: "Go on,
but remember, I hang not by a thread." Those masked carriages that are
seen during Carnival are the faithful images of their life. A dilapidated
open wagon, flaming torches lighting up painted faces; some laugh, some
sing. Among them you see what appear to be women; they are in fact what
once were women, with human semblance. They are caressed and insulted; no
one knows who they are or what their names. They float and stagger under
the flaming torches in an intoxication that thinks of nothing, and over
which, it is said, a pitying God watches.

But if the first impression be astonishment, the second is horror, and
the third pity. There is evident so much force, or rather such an abuse
of force, that often the noblest characters and the strongest
constitutions are ruined. The life appears hardy and dangerous to these;
they would make prodigies of themselves; bound to debauchery as Mazeppa
to his horse, they gallop, making Centaurs of themselves and seeing
neither the bloody trail that the shreds of their flesh leave, nor the
eyes of the wolves that gleam in hungry pursuit, nor the desert, nor the
vultures.

Launched into that life by the circumstances that I have recounted, I
must now describe what I saw there.

Before I had a close view of one of those famous gatherings called
theatrical masked balls, I had heard the debauchery of the Regency spoken
of, and a reference to the time when a queen of France appeared disguised
as a violet-seller. I found there flower-merchants disguised as
vivandieres. I expected to find libertinism there, but in fact I found
none at all. One sees only the scum of libertinism, some blows, and
drunken women lying in deathlike stupor on broken bottles.

Ere I saw debauchery at table I had heard of the suppers of Heliogabolus
and of the philosophy of Greece, which made the pleasures of the senses a
kind of natural religion. I expected to find oblivion or something like
joy; I found there the worst thing in the world: ennui trying to live,
and some Englishmen who said: "I do this or that, and so I amuse myself.
I have spent so many sovereigns, and have procured so much pleasure." And
thus they wear