Sunday Dispatch

The Empress Eugenie's Private Balls

The Paris correspondent of the Boston Evening Gazette writes:

The Empress gives every winter a series of balls, which are called "private balls," although the propriety of the designation is anything but apparent to those who know that the number of guests is usually six hundred. There cannot be anything like exclusiveness in a ball of six hundred people anywhere, and least of all in a city like Paris, where society is more promiscuous than in any capital of Europe. I have known a pretty laundress go to the balls of the Tuileries, for, as you may imagine, when tickets are issued for twenty-three hundred people, who get their cards through friends of friends of their friends' friends, it is impossible to winnow wheat from chaff and cockle. The ceremonial of these private balls is somewhat after this rule: The Empress stands in the first drawing-room, surrounded by her household. Each guest is announced to her by her grand chamberlain. The Emperor stands in the next drawing-room, where each guest is announced to him by his grand chamberlain. The guests then move to another drawing-room, where they range themselves around the room with their backs turned to the walls. By nine o'clock the company has filled the rooms and the imperial hostess and host walk around the third drawing-room and make gracious speeches to all the guests they recognise. Dancing comes next, supper is served at half-past eleven, and the ball breaks up at one or half-past one. The Empress wore at the last ball a white gauze dress, trimmed with a deep lace of flowers; flowers were wreathed in her hair and kept in place by a diamond comb. A state ball has likewise been given at the Tuileries, at which twenty-three hundred persons were present, and which was kept up until four o'clock, A. M., although the imperial party and court circle retired at one o'clock. The Empress wore here a white dress trimmed with garlands of marine plants, whose green tufts completely circled the skirt. Her head-dress and necklace were of green enamelled gold ivy-leaves, each leaf surrounded by diamonds.