EXTRAORDINARY BALL IN PARIS.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1930, 1 May 1880, Page 4

EXTRAORDINARY BALL IN PARIS.

The Paris correspondent of the “ Daily Telegraph ” sends the following : —Some few days ago a very handsomely illustrated card—a work of art in itself, due to the pencil of Olairin —was received by the personal friends of Mdlle. Sarah Bernhardt, reading thus : “ Monsieur Maurice Bernhardt prie Monsieur X. de la lui faire I’honneur de venir passer la soiree de la Mi-Careme chez so. mere.” The entertainment was given in celebration of the young host having completed the fifteenth year of his age. Fancy dress was supposed to be de rigueur, and there were, indeed, so few black coats that they in no way impaired the bright and picturesque aspect of the famous atelier which has been so often described. A model of artistic splendour, it needed little to adapt it to the requirements of a ball-room. The Japanese figures, the magnificent bronzes, the paintings, statues, and numberless works of cost from every part of the world, had only to bo heaped together in more than usual profusion, and the somewhat severe aspect of the architecture merely lightened with additional tapestries and banners. The dining-room, the walls covered with frescoes on golden ground, naturally did duty for the buffet, while an extra room, built out over the garden, and draped with Gobelins, served as a cool retreat from the heat of the ballroom. The host was dressed in the elegant Italian costume worn by his mother in “Le Passant,” while she herself, in a white satin dress, with a tall hat, appeared as the moat charming of “Pierrettes.” Some of the dresses weie fantastic enough—Mdlle.de Qcurnay, for instance, being made up as Puss in Boots, and Mdlle. Abtoind as a black “ Pierrot. ” The painters present were naturally most correct in their attire — Deraillo, for instance, wearing the undress uniform of an English Guardsman ; Jacquot a veritable Italian Mediaeval costume, and Bastien Lepage looking a Calabrian brigand to the life. But to enumerate the guests would bo to give a list of all the notabilities in Paris. To show the eclectic nature of the gathering, I need only mention that it included the famous Sergeant Hoff, whoso bust, by Mdlle. Bernhardt, is to be exhibited in the next Salon. Dancing was carried on with a reckless gaiety which found its excuse in the licence of Carnival time, and the view of the scene, as witnessed from the stair-case, which is the most conspicuous feature of the studio, leaves an impression which by those who enjoyed it will not easily be forgotten.