Out of the seclusion of his own feelings, he looked forth at the tapestried and damask-curtained palaces, the slow-moving double line of carriages, and the motley maskers that swarmed on foot, as if he were gazing through the iron lattice of a prison window.

So remote from the scene were his sympathies, that it affected him like a thin dream, through the dim, extravagant material of which he could discern more substantial objects, while too much under its control to start forth broad awake.

Just at that moment, too, there came another spectacle, making its way right through the masquerading throng.
It was, first and foremost, a full band of martial music, reverberating, in that narrow and confined though stately avenue, between the walls of the lofty palaces, and roaring upward to the sky with melody so powerful that it almost grew to discord.

Next came a body of cavalry and mounted gendarmes, with great display of military pomp.

They were escorting a long train of equipages, each and all of which shone as gorgeously as Cinderella's coach, with paint and gilding.