pieces rising and falling on the ten or twelve tables, the bank-notes of one hundred, five hundred, and a thousand francs, unfolded and heaped up; the full dress of the men, the jewels of the women, the evident prodigality of all these people, one felt the gaming-house vibrating with a frenzy other than that of loss and gain. One breathed in the fever of luxury, the excess and abuse of pleasure. On nights like this gold seems to have no longer any value, so fast is it won and lost on these tables, so wildly is it spent in the hotels, restaurants, and villas which crowd around the Casino like the houses of a watering-place around the spring. The beauty of women is here too tempting and accessible, pleasure is too abundant, the climate too soft, comfort is too easy. The paradise of brutal refinement installed here on this flower-clad rock is hostile to calm enjoyment and to cool reflection. The giddiness which it imparts to the passing guest has its crisis of intensity, and this night was one of them. It had something of the Kermess about it, and of Babylonian furore. Nor did it lack even the _Mene_, _Tekel_, _Upharsin_ of the Biblical feast, for the despatches posted on one of the columns in the vestibule recounted the bloody episode of a strike that had broken out since the previous day in the mining district of the North. The telegram told of the firing of the troops, of workmen killed, and of an engineer murdered for revenge. But who pictured in concrete images the details of this tragic despatch? Who in this crowd, more and more athirst for pleasure, realized its revolutionary menace? The gold and silver coins continued to roll, the bank-notes to unfold and quiver, the _croupiers_ to cry "_Faites vos jeux_" and "_Rien ne va plus_," the balls to spin around the wheels, the cards to fall on the green cloth, the rakes to grasp the money of the poor unfortunates, and each one to follow his mania for gambling or for luxury, his fancy for snobbery and vanity, or the caprice of his _ennui_. For how many different fancies this strange palace, with its doors like those of the Alhambra, served as the theatre. On this night of feverish excitement it was lending one of its divans to the preparatives for a most fantastic adventure, the mere announcement of which recalls the advertisements of the _Opéra Comique_, the music of our great-grandmothers, and the forgotten name of Cimarosa--a secret marriage.