In the present divided state of France, with anti-Semitism raging and disaffection rife in all quarters, even a pacific academical reception approaches the verbal war waged in the arena of politics conducted with leisure and urbanity. The ceremonial is imposing and of a supreme dulness. If you have a centre seat, the wise thing to do is to go early and amuse yourself by watching the arrivals; or manage to arrive at the last moment, and you will have the best seat of all, in the very middle of the hall, literally at the feet of the Immortals. If you know all Paris, you will enjoy yourself, for you will see and be seen of all Paris, and the dresses are usually worth looking at. After that you have the mild excitement of watching the Immortals enter, to your surprise not in academical raiment, but in ordinary coats, wearing the air of ordinary men. Only the godfathers of the newly elected, the perpetual secretary, the chancellor, always the latest member, and the gentleman deputed to receive the new Immortal wear the sword and palm-embroidered coat. There are no arm-chairs, but wooden benches ill adapted to the ease of age. The classical hall is about as squalid and uncomfortable a vestibule of posterity as one could wish to see, and is so ill-ventilated that, when it is full, as it always is, to excess, the spectators are frequently threatened with apoplexy or syncope. Whenever I get away sound and alive from beneath the celebrated cupola, I always feel that I have escaped unharmed from actual peril.