destiny, one might with an effort discover a Parisian now and again. But
they were few and far between.

They and their principal European guests made some feeble attempts to
vie with the Vienna of 1814-15 in elegance and taste if not in pomp and
splendor. But the general effect was marred by the element of the
_nouveaux-riches_ and _nouveaux-pauvres_ which was prominent, if not
predominant. A few of the great and would-be great ladies outbade one
another in the effort to renew the luxury and revive the grace of the
past. But the atmosphere was numbing, their exertions half-hearted, and
the smile of youth and beauty was cold like the sheen of winter ice.
The shadow of death hung over the institutions and survivals of the
various civilizations and epochs which were being dissolved in the
common melting-pot, and even the man in the street was conscious of its
chilling influence. Life in the capital grew agitated, fitful,
superficial, unsatisfying. Its gaiety was forced--something between a
challenge to the destroyer and a sad farewell to the past and present.
Men were instinctively aware that the morrow was fraught with bitter
surprises, and they deliberately adopted the maxim, "Let us eat and
drink, for to-morrow we die." None of these people bore on their
physiognomies the dignified impress of the olden time, barring a few
aristocratic figures from the Faubourg St.-Germain, who looked as though
they had only to don the perukes and the distinctive garb of the
eighteenth century to sit down to table with Voltaire and the Marquise
du Châtelet. Here and there, indeed, a coiffure, a toilet, the bearing,
the gait, or the peculiar grace with which a robe was worn reminded one
that this or that fair lady came of a family whose life-story in the
days of yore was one of the tributaries to the broad stream of European
history. But on closer acquaintanceship, especially at conversational
tournaments, one discovered that Nature, constant in her methods,