CHAPTER VI .-- BERLIN CARROUSEL, AND VOLTAIRE VISIBLE THERE.
Readers have heard of the PLACE DU CARROUSEL at Paris; and know probably that Louis XIV.

held world-famous Carrousel there (A.D.

1662); and, in general, that Carrousel has something to do with Tourneying, or the Shadow of Tourneying.

It is, in fact, a kind of superb be-tailored running at the ring, instead of be-blacksmithed running at one another.
A Second milder Edition of those Tournament sports, and dangerous trials of strength and dexterity, which were so grand a business in the Old iron Ages.

Of which, in the form of Carrousel or otherwise, down almost to the present day, there have been examples, among puissant Lords;--though now it is felt to have become extremely hollow; perhaps incapable of fully entertaining anybody, except children and their nurses on a high occasion.
A century ago, before the volcanic explosion of so many things which it has since become wearisome to think of in this earnest world, the Tournament, emblem of an Age of Chivalry, which was gone: but had not yet declared itself to be quite gone, and even to be turned topsy-turvy, had still substance as a mummery,--not enough, I should say, to spend much money upon.