Behind them a crescendo of gongs, cymbals, and other diabolical Chinese instruments, announces the arrival of the dragons,--red and green beasts twenty metres long. In some way or other they are lighted from within, which by night gives them an incandescent appearance; above the heads of the crowds they twist and undulate like the sulphurescent serpents in a Buddhist hell. The entire scene reflected in the water--the outline of palace and pagoda with their multiple roofs--is emphasized by lines of red lights that shine brightly this moonless and cloudy night. When the big serpents have gone past, the Marble Bridge continues to pour at our feet a stream of humanity, although an irregular one, which moves tumultuously along with a formidable noise. It is the rest of our troops, the free soldiers following the procession with lanterns, also singing the "Marseillaise," or the "Sambre-et-Meuse," at the top of their lungs. Along with them are German soldiers arm-in-arm with them, increasing the volume of sound by adding their voices to the others, and singing with all their might the old French songs. * * * * * Midnight. The myriads of little red lanterns on the cornices of the old palace and pagodas have burned themselves out. Obscurity and the usual silence have come back to the lake and to the imperial woods. The Chinese princes have discreetly withdrawn, followed by their silk-robed attendants, and have been borne far away in their palanquins to their own dwellings in another part of the shadowy city. It is now time for the cotillon, after a ball that was necessarily short,--a ball that seemed an impossibility, for there were scarcely a dozen dancing women, even including a pretty little twelve-year-old girl and her governess, to five hundred dancing men. It took place in the beautiful gilt pagoda, converted for the night into a ball-room; the dancers occupied the centre of the great empty space beneath the downcast gaze of the big alabaster goddess in the golden robes, who was my companion of last summer in the solitude of this same palace, together with a certain yellow and white cat. Poor goddess! A bed of natural iris has been arranged for the evening at her feet, and the injured background of her altar draped in blue satin, against the magnificent folds of which her figure stands out in ideal whiteness; her golden dress, embroidered with sparkling stones, shows to great advantage.