A NOTABLE NIGHT IN PARIS.

Evening Post, Volume L, Issue 48, 24 August 1895, Page 1 (Supplement)

A NOTABLE NIGHT IN PARIS.

The spirit of adventure and excitement that grows and feeds upon itself throughout the day of the Grand Prix, reaching its climax after the dinner-hour, and finding an outlet among the trees and Chinese lanterns of the Jardin de Paris, where " all Paris" may be seen, is thus described by Mr. Richard Harding Davis, in Harper's Magazine for June :— " Tou will see on that night, and only on that night, all of the most celebrated women of Paris racing with linked arms about the asphalt pavement which circles around the band-stand. It is for them their one night of freedom in public, when they are permitted to conduct themselves as do their less prosperous sisters, when instead of reclining in a victoria in the Bois, with eyes demurely fixed ahead of them, they can throw off restraint and mix with all the men of Paris, and show their diamonds, and romp and dance and chaff and laugh as they did when they were not so famous. The French swells, who are their escorts, have out down Chinese lanterns with their sticks, and stuok the candles inside of them on the top of their high hats with the burning tallow, and made living toroheß of themselves. So on they go, racing by — first, a youth in evening dress, dripping with candlegrease, and thon a beautiful girl in a dinner gown, with her silk and velvet opera cloak slipping from her shoulders — all singing to the mutio of the band, sweeping the people bofore them, or closing in a circle around some stately dignitary, and waltzing curiously past him to prevent his escape. Sometimes one party will storm the band-stand and seize the musicians' insruments, while another invades the stage of the little theatre, or overpowers the woman in charge of the shooting-gallery, or institutes a hurdle race over the iron tables and the wicker chairs. "Or you will see Ambassadors and men of title from the Jockey Club jostling cookney bookmakers and English lords to look at a little girl in a linen blouse and a flat straw hat, who is dancing in the same circle of shining shirt-fronts vis-a-vis to the most-talked-of young person in Paris, who wears diamonds in ropes, and who rode herself into notoriety by winning a steeplechase against a field of French officers. The first is a hired dancer, who will kick off some gentleman's hat when she wants it, and pass it round for money, and the other is the companion of princes, and has probably never been permitted to enter the Jardin de Paris before ; but they are both of the same class, and when the music stops for a moment they approach each other smiling, each on her guard against possible condescension or familiarity ; and the hired dancer, who is as famous in her way as the young girl with the ropes of diamonds is in hers, compliments madame on her dancing, and madame calls the other 'mademoiselle,' and says, ' How very warm it is !' aud the circle of men around them, who are leaning on each other's shoulders, and standing on tables and benches to look, smile delightedly at the speotacle. They consider it very chic, this combination. It is like a meeting between Mme. Bernhardt and Yvette Guilbert."