Undoubtedly the intelligence of this complimentary entertainment was received with pleasure by Louis the Sixteenth and his beautiful Antoinette. Little did these unfortunate sovereigns surmise that those of their own subjects who participated in the festivities of that night, would return to France so imbued with republican principles as to lend their aid in overturning the throne;—that throne whose foundation had already been undermined by the crimes and vices of the two preceding monarchs. Few were the years that intervened between the emancipation of America, and that tremendous period when the brilliant court of Versailles was swept away by the hands of an infuriated people; its “princes and lords” either flying into exile or perishing on the scaffold. And, idolized as they had been at the commencement of their eventful reign, the son of St. Louis and the daughter of the Cæsars were relentlessly consigned to a dreary captivity terminated by a bloody death. “How short, how gay, how bright the smile That cheered their morning ray; How dark, how cold, how loud the storm That raging closed their day!” The dauphin, whose birth was thus honored in the far-off land which his royal father was assisting in her contest for liberty, died, happily for himself, in early childhood; thus, escaping the miseries that were heaped upon the unfortunate boy who succeeded him. The West Point balls seem to have peculiar charms for strangers, particularly if these strangers are young ladies, and it is a pleasure to the residents of the place to see them enjoy the novelty of the scene. The fair visiters are always delighted with the decorations of the room, with the chivalric gallantry of the officers and cadets, and still more with the circumstance of all their partners being in uniform. To those who are not “to the manner born,” there is something very dazzling in the shine of a military costume.