Salutes are not fired at Paris, except on the birth-day of the king, which renders a sojourn here almost insupportable. I suppose this wonderful spectacle does not amuse the inhabitants, since they only give it once a year; and if it does not, why do they have it even on the king’s birth-day? I asked this question of a man whom one calls a friend here, one Mr. Lefort, my neighbor at my unfurnished lodgings, who answered, “I do not understand you.” This answer is made to me every day. One would imagine I spoke to them in Chinese. Being deprived of these “_feux de joie_,” which delight us at Pekin, each evening I go to spend a few hours at the Opera, which is a theatre where they pay public screamers salaries of fifty thousand francs per annum. When a young man frightens his family by his cries, they shut him up in a place they call “the Conservatory,” where a professor of screaming gives him lessons for twenty-four moons. The pupil then enters the Opera, and acts a part before fifty copper instruments, which make a thousand times more noise than he does himself. You can well comprehend that a good Chinaman, habituated from infancy to the soft melody of the “Hymn to Aurora,” does not feel inclined to have his ears bored twice by these public screamers at the Opera; so I was about to make my adieu to the theatre the first evening, but having learned that, with a contradiction peculiarly French, they performed other pieces, in which not a word was said, I continued my visits. I was delighted with this spectacle, which they call the “_ballet_.” Nothing is so admirable at Paris as this performance; so that when seeing it one does not even regret Pekin. Figure to yourself fifty women, with Chinese feet, dancing “_à ravir_” without uttering a word. I have taken a box for all the “_ballets_.” There is a _danseuse_ among them called Alexandrine, and surnamed _Figuranté_. I suppose on account of her fine figure. She has splendid black hair, which flows down in torrents to her feet; and those feet so small that, in her perpetual whirlpool of _pirouettes_ and _entrechats_, they disappear from the sight. For ten nights, would you believe it, I have watched this “_danseuse_” with particular attention, forgetting the high mission with which I was entrusted, and the forty revolutions of twelve moons which rest upon my head. One evening the door of my box opened and a man entered, bowing profoundly, and with much respect, said, “Light of the Celestial Empire, Star of Tien, I have a favor to ask.” I made him the universal sign which means, “Speak.” He did speak. “I am a decorator of the Opera,” said he, “and am at this moment putting the finishing touches to a Chinese Kiosque for the new _ballet_ of “China Opened, or the Loves of Mademoiselle Flambeau, of Pekin;” may I request you to come, during the interval of the acts, and give a glance at my work, and suggest any improvement that may strike you?”