le ciel, il ouvre la fenêtre et regarde les boulevards de Paris."[1] But it seemed to me as if there were more gens d'armes or policemen about than were actually required for peaceful joys. A Republican whom I met quite spoiled my sport by assuring me that most of the masks who played so merrily were paid to sport, by the police, so that there might be no complaint that the people were not joyful. How far this was true I will not decide, the masked men and women seemed extremely sincere in their gaiety, and if over and above this they were paid for it by the police, it was certainly very kind of the latter.[2] What might have indicated its influence was the language of the masked
- ↑
"When the good Lord in heaven is bored,
He opens the window and looks down
On a Parisian boulevard." - ↑ A curious book might be written on the subject of gaiety and dissipation created for purely political purposes. Introduced by Napoleon I., it was further developed by Louis Philippe, and carried to an extreme by Louis Napoleon, under whose rule the Bal Mabille and other haunts which had once been "fast" were kept going with hired lorettes and rehearsed can-cans until the whole affair became lugubrious. The carnivals in Italy until 1847, with many other festas, were almost entirely sustained to keep the people "ignorant and happy," that is, to prevent them from meddling with politics. The proof of this was seen in the fact that as soon as Italy was free, the Carnival and similar shows became at once extremely thin, according to the saying: perdidisti vinum, infusa aqua—that is, as the intoxicating wine of dissipation disappeared, it was replaced by the cold sober water of common-sense.—Translator.
