On the twentieth of June, 1818, six months before the occurrence of the scene we have described in the preceding chapter, the greatest excitement was exhibited in a magnificent hotel in the Faubourg Saint-Honore. The principal entrance of this hotel, or the Faubourg, was occupied by a crowd of workmen, who were busy in arranging a multitude of flower vases, from the court-gate to the door of the hotel. Upholsterers and florists crowded the vestibule, the stairway, and the antechambers with their flowers and carpets. The interior of the rooms on the ground floor presented a scene of a different kind of disorder. A pell-mell--a crowd of men and women were tacking down and sowing rich and sumptuous stuffs on the floors. The rooms of the lower floor of the hotel opened on one of the gardens surrounding the _Champs-Elysees_ towards the Faubourg St. Honore. An immense ball-room was constructed in the garden. This ball-room was united to the house by richly dressed doors, cut into the windows, and, with the ground floor, formed one immense suite. The garden at this period of the year contributed in no small degree to the pleasures of the festival. The curtains at the doors of this hall could at any time be lifted up so as to permit access to this oasis of verdure. One might have thought a magic ring had transported to this corner of Paris, all the riches of the vegetation of southern climes, and might have, in imagination, strayed beneath the jasmin bowers, amid the roses and orange-groves of Italy, so delicious was the perfume which filled this garden. Its peculiar physiognomy and design, its form, manner, and even the statues, the majority of which were _chef-d'-oeuvres_ of Italian art, all proved some foreign taste had presided over its construction, and that this taste had been the passion of some elegant and distinguished man.