‘The most particular feature of the Gey-Müller ball was not so much its profusion, its elegance, its exquisite supper, as a fall--not the fall of an empire, to which people are pretty well used by now--but the fall of the handsome Madame Pereyra, the daughter of Baron Arnstein. She was waltzing with Prince Dietrichstein. Carried away by the rapidity of that Russian waltz, which is like a whirlwind, and getting caught in the folds of her dress, she fell with her partner, and both rolled amidst the crowd. You may imagine their confusion. Truly, princes with the name of Maurice seem to be pursued by a kind of fatality. At the imperial _carrousel_ you saw Maurice Lichtenstein flung into the middle of the arena with his horse, and now there is this other Maurice who gyrates on his back instead of turning round on his legs. However, there is no accounting for taste.’ ‘Don’t joke about it, dear baron, for you are unwittingly stoning me. A similar adventure happened to me in the Salon des Étrangers at Paris. Fortunately, my pretty partner was masked, which saved her the trouble of blushing. I, moreover, owed to this fall the overhearing of a conversation which, at that period, had all the interest of a scene from a drama. ‘It was during the first years of the Consulate. The best society of Europe flocked to Paris. France, probably anxious to get as much joy out of life as she could after the bloody scenes of the Revolution, seemed to do everything to forget. The rooms at Frascati were the resort, or rather the temple, of pleasure. In one part of the building people of every rank and of both sexes came to risk, under the disguise of a domino, the fruits of twenty years’ work, or the product of more ingenious speculations. In another spot, screened by a slight surface of cardboard and a silk wrap, the most piquant, political, or amorous intrigues went on. Further on, quadrilles, in which figured Vestris, Bigottini, and Millière, displayed all their grace and suppleness. I was waltzing with Madame R----. The crowd surrounding us was immense. Getting caught in the folds of her domino, my partner stumbles, falls, and bears me down with her. We were immediately on our legs again, but, somewhat excited by the accident, Madame R---- asked me to take her outside the room. Fortunately for us, we ran against the Marquis de l’Ivry, who had us taken to his own apartments higher up. The purer air and some stimulant soon got the better of the discomfort of Madame R----. We were just getting ready to go down to the ball-room again when we heard a lively conversation in the adjacent apartment. Beaumarchais has said that in order to hear, you must make up your mind to listen. Persuaded that it was nothing but a ball intrigue, we got nearer to the partition, and through its very thin substance we distinguished two female voices. We were about to draw back disappointed, when the name of Bonaparte struck our ear. That name,