The feast wore merrily through the small hours until the cold blue dawn began to pale the lights in the ceiling. Strangely beautiful was this color effect, as the blue stole downward through the thick yellow glamour of the hall, quickening the merry-makers with a new and uncanny light, putting them out of place, and warning them thence. But still the ball went rolling on.
Though the floor was slippery with wine and dangerous from broken glass, dancing and the cutting of capers proceeded without abatement. The favorite danse du ventre and songs and speeches filled the night to the end of the ball, and then the big orchestra, with a great flourish, played the "Victor's March." This was the signal for the final procession. The vast concourse of students and artists poured forth into the cool, sweet morning air, and the bal was at an end.
Paris was asleep, that early April morning, save for the street-sweepers and the milkmaids and the concierges. But the Place Blanche was very much awake. The morning air was new wine in stale veins, and it banished fatigue.
"En cavalcade! en cavalcade!" was the cry; and in cavalcade it was. A great procession of all the costumers was formed, to march ensemble across Paris to the Quartier Latin. Even the proud Bellona was dragged along in the rear, towering as high as the lower wings of the now motionless red windmill. She seemed to partake in the revelry, for she swayed and staggered in an alarming fashion as she plunged recklessly down the steeps of Montmartre.
The deserted Rue Blanche re-echoed the wild yells and songs of the revellers and the rattling of the string of cabs in the rear. The rows of heaped ash-cans that lined the way were overturned one after another, and the oaths and threatening brooms of the outraged concierges went for nothing. Even the poor diligent rag- and bone-pickers were not spared; their filled sacks, carrying the result of their whole night's hunt, were taken from them and emptied. A string of carts heavily laden with stone was captured near the Rue Lafayette, the drivers deposed, and the big horses sent plunging through Paris, driven by Roman charioteers, and making more noise than a company of artillery.