At length, to relieve the pause, Mordecai expressed something of a hope
that the royal family slept in peace, for that one night at least.

"I really cannot tell," briskly said the fair narrator. "But I know that
the ladies of the court did not. As the king retired, and we remained in
the opera boxes to amuse ourselves a little with the display, we heard,
to our astonishment, a proposal that the tables should be cleared away,
and the ladies invited to a dance upon the spot. The proposal was
instantly followed by the officers climbing into the boxes, and by our
tearing up our pocket-handkerchiefs to make them cockades. We descended,
and danced loyally till daybreak."

"With nothing less than field-officers, I hope?" said a superb cavalier,
with a superb smile.

"I hope so too," laughed the lady; "though really I can answer for
nothing but that the cotillon was excessively gay--that our partners, if
not the best dancers upon earth--I always honour the _garde du
corps_,"--and she bowed to the captain; "were the most obliged persons
possible."

"Ah, but roturiers, madame!" said a stiff old duke, with a scorn worthy
of ten generations of ribands of St Louis.

"True; it was most melancholy, when one comes to reflect upon it," said
the lady, with an elevation of her alabaster shoulders to the very tips
of her ears. "But on that evening roturiers were in demand--popularity
was every thing; the _bourgeoisie_ of Versailles were polished by their
friction against the _garde du corps_. And I am sure, that if the same
experiment, distressing as it might be, were tried in every opera salon