When our first invitation to the ball of the Élysées came I was most anxious to see what it would be like. Is it not strange that the cards of invitation are the same used in the Empire. "_La Présidence de la République Française_" stands instead of "_La Maison de l'Empereur_." I have the two before me, the old and the new, and they are exactly alike, color, paper, and engraving! The Diplomatic Corps has a separate entrance at the Élysées. We were met and conducted by a master of ceremonies to the room where the President and Madame Faure were standing. M. Faure is called _un Président décoratif_. He is tall, handsome, and has what you might call princely manners. The privileged ones passed before them and shook hands, quite _à l'Américaine_. I was named by M, Crozier and got from M. Faure an extra squeeze by way of emphasizing that I was a new-comer. We then passed into the _salon_ where our colleagues were assembled, and did not move from there until the presidential pair came in at eleven o'clock. At these balls there are a great many--too many--people invited. I have been told that there are six thousand invitations sent out. To one gentleman is assigned the duty to stay in the first _salon_ and pass in review the toilets of the promiscuous guests and judge if they are suitable. When he sees a lady (?) in a high woolen dress with thick and soiled boots in which she has probably walked to the ball, he politely tells her that there must be some mistake about her invitation, and she walks meekly back to her _comptoir_. When M, and Madame Faure had finished receiving, they came into the room where the diplomats were; and the President, giving his arm to the lady highest in rank (the _protocole_ arranged the other couples) we marched through the crowd of gazers-on, through the ballroom, where some youths and maidens were whirling in the dance, through the palm-filled winter garden, where the people were crowded around a buffet, and through all the _salons_ until we reached the last one, quite at the end of the palace, where a sumptuous buffet awaited us. At one o'clock we returned home. It amused me to see old Waldteufel still wielding his _bâton_ and playing his waltzes as of old. I wanted to speak to him, but, being in the procession, I could not stop. Yesterday I had a visit from Adelina Patti. I had not seen her for a long time. It seemed only the other day that I had written a letter condoling with her on the death of Nicolini, her second husband. This time she was accompanied by her third husband, Baron Cederstrom, a very fine-looking Swede whose family we knew well in Sweden. The _diva_ looked wonderfully young, and handsomer than ever. When they came into the _salon_ together one could not have remarked very much difference in their ages, though he is many years younger than she is.