And now for ladies. Whom do you see that looks distinguished? Scarce one whom you would take positively for a lady, I venture to presume. These two, with the velvet pelisses and small satin bonnets, are rather the most genteel-looking people in the garden. I set them down for ladies of rank, in the first walk I ever took here; and two who have just passed us, with the curly lap-dog, I was equally sure were persons of not very dainty morality. It is precisely _au contraire_. The velvet pelisses are gamblers from Frascati's, and the two with the lap-dog are the Countess N. and her unmarried daughter--two of the most exclusive specimens of Parisian society. It is very odd--but if you see a remarkably modest-looking woman in Paris, you may be sure, as the periphrasis goes, that "she is no better than she should be." Everything gets _travestied_ in this artificial society. The general ambition seems to be, to appear that which one is not. White-haired men cultivate their sparse mustaches, and dark-haired men shave. Deformed men are successful in gallantry, where handsome men despair. Ugly women dress and dance, while beauties mope and are deserted. Modesty looks brazen, and vice looks timid; and so all through the calendar. Life in Paris is as pretty a series of astonishment, as an _ennuyé_ could desire.
But there goes the palace-bell--five o'clock! The sun is just disappearing behind the dome of the "Invalides," and the crowd begins to thin. Look at the atmosphere of the gardens. How deliciously the twilight mist softens everything. Statues, people, trees, and the long perspectives down the alleys, all mellowed into the shadowy indistinctness of fairy-land. The throng is pressing out at the gates, and the guard, with his bayonet presented, forbids all re-entrance, for the gardens are cleared at sundown. The carriages are driving up and dashing away, and if you stand a moment you will see the most vulgar-looking people you have met in your promenade, waited for by _chasseurs_, and departing with indications of rank in their equipages, which nature has very positively denied to their persons. And now all the world dines and dines well. The "_chef_" stands with his gold repeater in his hand, waiting for the moment to decide the fate of the first dish; the _garçons_ at the restaurants have donned their white aprons, and laid the silver forks upon the napkins; the pretty women are seated on their thrones in the saloons, and the interesting hour is here. Where shall we dine? We will walk toward the Palais Royal, and talk of it as we go along.