In society it is the time for universal gaiety and freedom. Parties, fancy balls, and private masques, are given, and kept up till morning. The etiquette is something more free, and gallantry is indulged and followed with the privileges, almost, of a Saturnalia. One of the gayest things I have seen was a fancy ball, given by a man of some fashion, in the beginning of the season. Most of the _distingués_ of Paris were there; and it was, perhaps, as fair a specimen of the elegant gaiety of the French capital, as occurred during the carnival. The rooms were full by ten. Everybody was in costume, and the ladies in dresses of unusual and costly splendor. At a _bal costumé_ there are no masks, of course, and dancing, waltzing, and galopading followed each other in the ordinary succession, but with all the heightened effect and additional spirit of a magnificent spectacle. It was really beautiful. There were officers from all the English regiments, in their fine showy uniforms; and French officers who had brought dresses from their far-off campaigns; Turks, Egyptians, Mussulmans, and Algerine rovers--every country that had been touched by French soldiers, represented in its richest costume and by men of the finest appearance. There was a colonel of the English Madras cavalry, in the uniform of his corps--one mass of blue and silver, the most splendidly dressed man I ever saw; and another Englishman, who is said to be the successor of Lord Byron in the graces of the gay and lovely Countess Guiccioli, was dressed as a Greek; and between the exquisite taste and richness of his costume, and his really excessive personal beauty, he made no ordinary sensation. The loveliest woman there was a young baroness, whose dancing, figure, and face, so resembled a celebrated Philadelphia belle, that I was constantly expecting her musical French voice to break into English. She was dressed as an eastern dancing-girl, and floated about with the lightness and grace of a fairy. Her motion intoxicated the eye completely. I have seen her since at the Tuileries, where, in a waltz with the handsome Duke of Orleans, she was the single object of admiration for the whole court. She is a small, lightly-framed creature, with very little feet, and a face of more brilliancy than regular beauty, but all airiness and spirit. A very lovely, indolent-looking English girl, with large sleepy eyes, was dressed as a Circassian slave, with chains from her ankles to her waist. She was a beautiful part of the spectacle, but too passive to interest one. There were sylphs and nuns, broom-girls and Italian peasants, and a great many in rich Polonaise dresses. It was unlike any other fancy ball I ever saw, in the variety and novelty of the characters represented, and the costliness with which they were dressed. You can have no idea of the splendor of a waltz in such a glittering assemblage. It was about time for an early breakfast when the ball was over.