r dansant was a
frequent feature of the entertainment. No one was afraid of being
mistaken for a financier anobli; the only one admitted on a footing of
intimacy bore the simple name of Hope.

Nevertheless, it must not be thought that the entertainments, even at
the three embassies, partook of anything like the splendour so
noticeable during the second empire. The refreshments elsewhere partook
of a simple character; ices and cake, and lukewarm but by no means
strong tea, formed the staple of them. Of course there were exceptions,
such as, for instance, at the above-named houses, and at Mrs. Tudor's,
Mrs. Locke's, and at Countess Lamoyloff's; but the era of flowing rivers
of champagne, snacks that were like banquets, and banquets that were not
unlike orgies, had not as yet dawned. And, worse than all, in a great
many salons the era of mahogany and Utrecht velvet was in full swing,
while the era of white-and-gold walls, which were frequently neither
white nor gold, was dying a very lingering death.

The Hotel Castellane was a welcome exception to this, and politics were
rigorously tabooed, the reading of long-winded poems was interdicted.
Politicians were simply reminded that the adjacent Elysee-Bourbon, or
even the Hotel Pontalba, might still contain sufficiently lively ghosts
to discuss such all-important matters with them;[12] poets who fancied
they had something to say worth hearing, were invited to have it said
for them from behind the footlights by rival companies of amateurs, each
of which in many respects need not have feared comparison with the
professional one of the Comedie-Francaise. Amateur theatricals were,
therefore, the principal feature of the entertainments at the Hotel
Castellane; but there were "off nights" to the full as brilliant as the
others. There was neither acting nor dancing on such occasions, the
latter amusement being rarely indulged in, except at the grand balls
which often followed one another in rapid succession.

[Footnote 12: The Elysee-Bourbon, which was the official
residence of Louis-Napoleon during his presidency of the second
republic, was almost untenanted during the reign of
Louis-Philippe.

The Hotel Pontalba was partly built on the site of the former
mansion of M. de Morfontaine, a staunch royalist, who,
curiously enough, had married the daughter of Le Peletier de
Saint-Fargeau, the member of the Conven