The Gazette

MASQUERADE AT PARIS.

From a Paris paper.

FOR more than a month there had been given masked Balls at the hotel de Richelieu, in Paris, and in this gay scene of debauchery, Parisian youth of both sexes, had spent the night in folly and extravagance. They were chiefly composed of kept women and actresses, but at the same time many women of character were drawn by curiosity to partake, under the concealment of a domino, in the festive scene. Here all the intrigues and scandal of the day, the adventures of the boudoir were recounted, and, in short these balls were the central point of all the meretricious luxury of Paris. The police, however, did not entirely enter into the spirit of the scene, but on the contrary, on the 18th inst. at 3 o'clock in the morning, a body of 200 troops accompanied by a justice of the peace, entered the ball room, and put the whole corps into confusion. Capuchins, Nuns, Sultans, and Pierrot, fled in all directions; some attempted to scale the walls of the garden, some leaped out of the windows, some sunk into the cellar, but about a dozen young men and women, who could not render a satisfactory account of themselves, were put in fiacres and conveyed to the central bureaus. Among these was a young, beautiful and elegant woman, who, having been drawn to the place by curiosity, was ashamed to tell her name; but in this disagreeable predicament, being recognized, the magistrate made an apology to her for the embarrassment. All the gay circles of Paris resound with the discoveries made upon this occasion.