The fancy of Charney next ascended to the crowded saloons in which were assembled all that was illustrious or notorious of the capital. The toga and chlamyda were jumbled together with jackets, or frock-coats. High-heeled shoes, with rosettes, trod the same floors as jockey-boots, with spur on heel, nay, even with the caliga and cothurnus. Men of the law, the pen, the sword, moneyed men and moneyless, artists and ministers of state, all were confounded in this _olla podrida_ of the Directory. An actor stood hand in glove with an ex-bishop, a _ci-devant_ peer with a _ci-devant_ pauper; aristocracy and democracy were united like twin brothers; wealthy ignorance paraded itself arm in arm with starving erudition. Such was the regeneration of society, rallying round a common centre in masses, of which each felt itself still too feeble to stand alone. The marshalling of the crowd was deferred to some more convenient season; there would be a time for that hereafter! Such is the system of a play-ground, where all classes of a school mingle together under the impulse of a common thirst after amusement. As the boys grow older, the powerful influence of the spirit of social order insensibly estranges them from unbecoming companions, and high and low mechanically range themselves under their appointed banners. [Illustration: _A reverie._] With a silent smile did Charney contemplate this phantasmagoric display of piebald civilization. That which had once excited the bitter sneers of the man of the world, now served to divert him, as the memento of the wasted years spent by his native country in shallow, theoretic experiments, exposing it to the contempt of Europe. At times, brilliant orchestras appeared to strike into animating and joyous measures; and lo! the opening of the ball! Charney fancied he could recognise the favourite airs of former days, but more impressive than at their first hearing. The glittering radiance of the lustres, their prismatic reflection in the numerous mirrors, the soft and perfumed atmosphere of a ball-room—the aroma of a banquet—the mirth of the guests—the wild hilarity of the waltzers, who rustled against him in the mazy round—the light and frivolous topics which excited their merriment, all tended to stimulate him to a degree of joyousness such as the reality of the dream had never succeeded in producing.