Count de Vogüé was the showman, and the servant assisting him was no less a person than the Austrian Ambassador himself, Prince Metternich. As the stage was small, it could not contain more than two couples at a time, so they were brought on in pairs. First came Antony, and Cleopatra (the latter Marquise de Gallifet, beautiful as a dream) drank mechanically (having been wound up by the servant) an enormous pearl, and Antony (Prince Murat) looked on wonderingly and admiringly. Madame de Bourgogne and Count Grammont were a Chinese chop-sticking couple. When wound up, their chop-sticks went everywhere except into their mouths. The Marquise de Chasselouplobat and the Marquis de Caux were shepherd and shepherdess, with the usual rakes, baskets, ribbons, etc. I was a mechanical doll sent from America (the latest invention) for the Exposition. I was dressed as a Tyrolienne with a red skirt, a black bodice, and a hat with a ridiculous feather sticking out from the back of it, which Prince Metternich said I _must_ have. While the others were on the stage Princess Metternich wrapped a lot of silk paper around me and tied it with bows of wide ribbon, thus covering me completely, head and all. I was carried in and placed on a turning pedestal. The showman explained the wonderful mechanism of this doll, unique of its kind, and capable of imitating the human voice to such a degree that no one could hear any difference. When he had finished talking (I thought, as I stood there, motionless and stifling under my paper covering, he never would stop) he tore off the paper and called his assistant to wind me up. I had so far been very successful in keeping my countenance; but I assure you, when I saw Prince Metternich's get-up, my efforts to keep myself from bursting out laughing almost amounted to genius. He had said he wished his costume to be a surprise. Well! The surprise almost made the mechanical doll a failure, and had not Count de Vogüé quickly turned the pedestal around I don't know how I should have saved myself from disaster. Prince Metternich was dressed as a servant. He had a velvetine coat, red vest, knickerbockers, white stockings, and servant's low shoes, and he wore a huge black beard and a black wig. He had made his eyebrows so bushy that they looked like mustaches; but his nose had preoccupied him more than anything else--I don't know much time he had spent in making it. First, he made it hooked and then changed it to _retroussé_, then again back to hooked, which he thought suited his style best. He commenced it when the first scene was being acted, and had just got it at the right angle when it was time for him to go on the stage. The result of his afternoon's labors must have been most gratifying, for he was a stupendous success. He wound me up and I began singing; but everything went wrong. I sang snatches of well-known songs, cadences, trills, arpeggios, all _pêle- mêle_, until my exhibitors were in despair.