"I am satisfied with the reason, although I am not yet quite
reconciled to the performance. Who were the actors?"

"You are now nearer the truth than you suspected. We have men of every
trade here, and, among the rest, we have actors enough to stock the
_Comédie Française_. If you remain long enough among us, you will see
some of the best farces of the best time played uncommonly well by our
fellow _détenus_. But in the interim--for our stage is permitted by
the municipality to open in the St Lazare only four times a month--a
piece of cruelty which we all regard as intolerable--our actors
refresh their faculties with all kinds of displays. You acknowledge
that the scene last night was well got up; and if you should see the
trial of some of our 'Grands Democrats,' be assured that your
admiration will not be attracted by showy vesture, blue lights, or the
harmonies of the old asthmatic organ in yonder gallery; our pattern
will be taken from the last scene of 'Il Don Giovanni.' You will have
no pasteboard figure suspended from the roof, and wafted upward in
starlight or moonlight. But if you wish to see the exhibition, I am
concerned to tell you that you must wait, for to-night all our
_artistes_ are busy. In what, do you conceive?"

I professed my inability to fathom "the infinite resources of the
native mind, where amusement was the question."

"Well then--not to keep you in suspense--we are to have a masquerade."

The fact was even so. France having grown tired of all things that had
been, grew tired of weeks, and Decades were the law of the land. The
year was divided into packs of ten days each, and she began the great
game of time by shuffling and cutting her cards anew. The change was