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 CHAPTER XV

THE MASKED BALL

That night much noise and confusion reigned outside the Grand Opera House. Torches flared, linkmen shouted, horses plunged, backed, and clattered; oaths flew here and there, whips were plied, carriage-wheels grated, coachmen swore, and, at short intervals, tall figures of the Black Musketeers were called in to keep order, a duty they fulfilled in a summary manner, with little forbearance to the public, dealing kicks, cuffs, and such remonstrances freely around, and clearing a space, wherever space was required, by dropping the butts of their heavy weapons on the feet of the recoiling crowd. With such powerful assistance, coach after coach deposited its load at the grand entrance, around which were congregated valets and lackeys wearing the liveries of the noblest families in France.

Beautiful and gorgeous were the dresses thus emerging for an instant under the red glare of torchlight, to disappear through the folding-doors within. Shimmering the satin, and sparkling with jewels, the loveliest women of the capital passed in review for three paces before the populace, little loth, perhaps, to submit their toilets to the scientific criticism of a Parisian crowd, a criticism that reached, however, no higher than the chin, for every one of those fair French faces was hidden in a black mask. Their gallants, on the contrary, came unprovided with these defences, and the male bird, indeed, though without question the uglier animal, was on the present occasion equal in brilliancy of plumage to his mate.

It is, however, with the interior that we have to do;