may probably associate them with his own Vauxhall; but the resemblance
is very slight. At one of these entertainments in France, there is much
less attempted, but considerably more effected, than in England; and all
this is accomplished by that happy knack which the French possess of
making much of a little. Of what did this fête consist--a few hundred
lamps--a few score of fidlers, and about as much decoration as an
English showman would waste on the exterior of his exhibition, or
assemble within a few square yards. There were no long illuminated
vistas, or temples and saloons red hot with oil and gas--but a few
slender materials, so scattered and intermixed with the natural beauties
of the park, as to fascinate, and not fatigue the eye and ear. Even the
pell-mell frolics of St. Cloud were better idealities of enjoyment, than
the splendid promenade of Vauxhall, in the days of its olden celebrity;
for diamonds and feathers are often mere masquerade finery in such
scenes--so distant are the heads and hearts of their wearers.[6]

[6] We are not permitted to allude to the fête of St. Cloud as a
scene of _pastoral_ amusement, or of the primitive simplicity
which is associated with that epithet. The French are not a
pastoral people, although they are not less so than the English;
neither are the suburbs of a metropolis rural life. They are too
near the pride of human art for pastoral pleasures, and no
aristocracy is more infested with little tyrants than the
neighbourhood of great cities, the oppressors being too timid to
trust themselves far out of the verge of public haunts, in the
midst of which they would be equally suspicious.

Amusements are at all times among the best indications of
national character; a truth which the ancients seem to have
exaggerated into their maxim _in vino veritas_. Here the