"We turn rather sadly away from Pre Catalan and the Cafe Cascade. We
glide adown the flower-bordered path and out from the clusters of Chinese
lanterns, and leave the twinkling groves to their music and merry-making.
Yonder behind us, like a sentinel, rises Mont Valerien. Before us glimmer
the lamps of uncountable coaches, as our own, veering toward the city,
the moon just topping the tower of St. Jacques de la Boucherie and
silver-plating the bronze figures upon the Arch of Stars.

"We enter the Port Maillot. We turn into the Avenue du Bois. Presently we
shall sweep with the rest through the Champs Elysees and on to the ocean of
the infinite, the heart of the mystery we call Life, nowhere so condensed,
so palpable, so appealing. Roll the screen away! The shades of Clovis and
Genevieve may be seen hand-in-hand with the shades of Martel and Pepin,
taking the round of the ghost-walk between St. Denis and St. Germain, now
le Balafre and again Navarre, now the assassins of the Ligue and now the
assassins of the Terror, to keep them company. Nor yet quite all on murder
bent, some on pleasure; the Knights and Ladies of the Cloth of Gold and the
hosts of the Renaissance: Cyrano de Bergerac and Francois Villon leading
the ragamuffin procession; the jades of the Fronde, Longueville, Chevreuse
and fair-haired Anne of Austria; and Ninon, too, and Manon; and the
never-to-be-forgotten Four, 'one for all and all for one;' Cagliostro and
Monte Cristo; on the side, Rabelais taking notes and laughing under his
cowl. Catherine de Medici and Robespierre slinking away, poor, guilty
things, into the pale twilight of the Dawn!

"Names! Names! Only names? I am not just so sure about that. In any event,
what a roll call! We are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little
life is rounded by a sleep; the selfsame sleep which these, our living dead
men and women in steel armor and gauzy muslins, in silken hose and sock and
buskin, epaulettes and top boots, brocades and buff facings, have endured