went onand it did a world of good which never became manifest.

But, the comfort was, that all the company at the grand hotel of

Monseigneur were perfectly dressed. If the Day of Judgment had

only been ascertained to be a dress day, everybody there would

have been eternally correct. Such frizzling and powdering and

sticking up of hair, such delicate complexions artificially preserved

and mended, such gallant swords to look at, and such delicate

honour to the sense of smell, would surely keep anything going,

for ever and ever. The exquisite gentlemen of the finest breeding

wore little pendent trinkets that chinked as they languidly moved;

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these golden fetters rang like precious little bells; and what with

that ringing, and with the rustle of silk and brocade and fine linen,

there was a flutter in the air that fanned Saint Antoine and his

devouring hunger far away.

Dress was the one unfailing talisman and charm used for

keeping all things in their places. Everybody was dressed for a

Fancy Ball that was never to leave off. From the Palace of the

Tuileries, through Monseigneur and the whole Court, through the

Chambers, the Tribunals of Justice, and all society (except the

scarecrows), the Fancy Ball descended to the Common

Executioner: who, in pursuance of the charm, was required to

officiate “frizzled, powdered, in a gold-laced coat, pumps, and

white silk stockings.” At the gallows and the wheelthe axe was a

rarityMonsieur Paris, as it was the episcopal mode among his

brother Professors of the provinces, Monsieur Orleans, and the

rest, to call him, presided in this dainty dress. And who among the

company at Monseigneur’s reception in that seventeen hundred

and eightieth year of Our Lord, could possibly doubt, that a system

rooted in a frizzled hangman, powdered, gold-laced, pumped, and

white-silk stockinged, would see the very stars out!

Monseigneur having eased his four men of their burdens and

taken his chocolate, caused the doors of the Holiest of Holiests to

be thrown open, and issued forth. Then, what submission, what

cringing and fawning, what servility, what abject humiliation! As

to bowing down in body and spirit, nothing in that way was left for

Heavenwhich may have been one among other reasons why the

worshippers of Monseigneur never troubled it.

Bestowing a word of promise here and a smile there, a whisper

on one happy slave and wave of the hand on another,

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Monseigneur affably passed through his rooms to the remote

region of the Circumference of Truth. There, Monseigneur turned,

and came back again, and so in due course of time got himself shut

up in his sanctuary by the chocolate sprites, and was seen no

more.

The show being over, the flutter in the air became quite a little

storm, and the precious little bells went ringing downstairs. There

was soon but one person left of all the crowd, and he, with his hat

under his arm and his snuff-box in his hand, slowly passed among