The great day came at last. The students of our atelier were perfectly satisfied with their handiwork, and the massier made all happy by ordering a retreat to the Café des Deux Magots, where success to the goddess was drunk in steaming "grog Américain." Then Bellona began her perilous journey across Paris to Montmartre and the Moulin Rouge.
This was not an easy task, as she was fifteen feet high; signs and lamp- posts suffered, and sleepy cab-horses danced as their terrified gaze beheld the giant goddess with her uplifted sword. Crowds watched the progress of Bellona on the Avenue de l'Opéra, drawn by half a hundred students yelling the national hymn. The pull up the steep slope of Montmartre was heavy, but in less than two hours from the start at the Ecole the goddess was safely housed in the depths of the Moulin Rouge, there to await her triumphs of the night.
Bishop, besides doing his share in the preparation of the figure, had the equally serious task of devising a costume for his own use at the ball. It was not until the very last day that he made his final decision,—to go as a Roman orator. Our supply of linen was meagre, but our only two clean bed-sheets and a few towels were sufficient, and two kind American ladies who were studying music and who lived near the old church of St. Sulpice did the fitting of a toga. The soles of a pair of slippers from which Bishop cut the tops served as sandals, and some studio properties in the way of Oriental bracelets completed his costume. I was transformed into an Apache Indian by a generous rubbing into my skin of burnt sienna and cadmium, which I was weeks in getting rid of; a blanket and some chicken-feathers finished my array. Our friend Cameron, next door, went in his Scotch kilts. After supper we entered the Boul' Mich' and proceeded to the Café de la Source, where the students of the Atelier Gérôme were to rendezvous.
The Boul' was a spectacle that night. Time had rolled back the curtain of centuries; ancient cemeteries had yielded up their dead; and living ghosts of the ages packed all the gay cafés. History from the time of Adam had sent forth its traditions, and Eves rubbed elbows with ballet- girls. There was never a jollier night in the history of the Quartier Latin.