All eyes were turned to Paris at that time. Many Sovereigns were living there—the Monarchs of Austria, Russia, Prussia, Holland, Bavaria, Wurtemburg, and France, and several independent Princes of Germany. They were accompanied by some of the most distinguished statesmen and diplomatists of the age; and military leaders were also present who enjoyed a European reputation for their achievements in the field. Events of transcendent importance were taking place in this capital; and the fate of a great and gallant nation, outlawed for a quarter of a century, and now reduced to submission, was being decided. Curiosity urged many to go to France, from all parts of Europe, at this historic juncture; the pleasures of society moved others, and duty took a still larger number there. “All the world’s in Paris,”[61] was indeed true, and crowds flocked to that city; while the discordant elements to be found there, and the strange medley of Frenchmen, Englishmen, and foreigners of almost every nationality, brought together and kept together, at such a time and at such a place, presented at once a scene that was both unique and remarkable.
Paris was gay and dissolute, and the Palais Royal might be called the centre of dissipation.
“Mingled together, and moving about the area of this oblong square block of buildings, might be seen, about seven o’clock p.m., a crowd of English, Russian, Prussian, Austrian, and other Officers of the Allied armies, together with countless foreigners from all parts of the world. Here, too, might have been seen the present King of Prussia” (the late Emperor William I. of Germany), “with his father and brother, the Dukes of Nassau, Baden, and a host of Continental Princes, who entered familiarly into the amusements of ordinary mortals, dining _incog._ at the most renowned restaurants, and flirting with painted female frailty.”[62]
The Palais Royal contained the principal, but by no means the only, gambling hell in Paris, and these constituted the “very fountains of immorality.” “There were tables for all classes; the workman might play with twenty sous, or the gentleman with ten thousand francs. The law did not prevent any class from indulging in a vice that assisted to fill the coffers of the municipality of Paris.”[63]