THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
restraint was at an end and bestiality would have its own way. Men and women, some of whom in the fury of the dance had torn their clothing from their shoulders, raved like crazed beings. The scene beggared description. The programme announced as the last dance a galop, called the “Hell Galop.” The orchestra played an especially furious measure, accompanied with the ringing of bells. In truth, the crowd whirling in the wildest reel of sensuality looked very much like a pandemonium rushing straight into the bottomless pit. While this galop was going on—it was about four o'clock in the morning—the rear of the big room filled itself with soldiers, who formed in line. Suddenly the music of the orchestra was drowned by a rattling roll of drums, and the infantry line, bayonets fixed but arms trailed, advanced slowly, step by step crowding the dancers and the onlookers out of the hall.
To drink the cup to the dregs, we went to one of the restaurants on the Boulevard near by to take some refreshments—“petit souper,” as it was called. The spectacle we beheld there surpassed all we had seen before. The most unbridled fancy could not imagine a picture more repulsive.
I had often tarried in the gallery of the Luxembourg in contemplation of Couture's great canvas, called “La decadance des Romains,” which so eloquently portrays the moral decline of a mighty people and a great civilization; but what we here saw before us lacked even the reminiscence of past greatness, which in Couture's picture is so impressive. It was moral decay even to putrescence in its most vulgar form, its most repulsive aspect, its most shameless display.
My friends and myself consoled ourselves with the reflection that we had seen the worst, an exceptional extreme, and that this could not possibly be representative of the whole French people; and to this thought we clung all the more read-
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