official position.

As it is extremely doubtful that the fame of the "Bal de Sceaux"
should ever have extended beyond the borders of the Department of the
Seine, it will be necessary to give some account of this weekly
festivity, which at that time was important enough to threaten to
become an institution. The environs of the little town of Sceaux enjoy
a reputation due to the scenery, which is considered enchanting.
Perhaps it is quite ordinary, and owes its fame only to the stupidity
of the Paris townsfolk, who, emerging from the stony abyss in which
they are buried, would find something to admire in the flats of La
Beauce. However, as the poetic shades of Aulnay, the hillsides of
Antony, and the valley of the Bieve are peopled with artists who have
traveled far, by foreigners who are very hard to please, and by a
great many pretty women not devoid of taste, it is to be supposed that
the Parisians are right. But Sceaux possesses another attraction not
less powerful to the Parisian. In the midst of a garden whence there
are delightful views, stands a large rotunda open on all sides, with a
light, spreading roof supported on elegant pillars. This rural
baldachino shelters a dancing-floor. The most stuck-up landowners of
the neighborhood rarely fail to make an excursion thither once or
twice during the season, arriving at this rustic palace of Terpsichore
either in dashing parties on horseback, or in the light and elegant
carriages which powder the philosophical pedestrian with dust. The
hope of meeting some women of fashion, and of being seen by them--and
the hope, less often disappointed, of seeing young peasant girls, as
wily as judges--crowds the ballroom at Sceaux with numerous swarms of
lawyers' clerks, of the disciples of Aesculapius, and other youths
whose complexions are kept pale and moist by the damp atmosphere of
Paris back-shops. And a good many bourgeois marriages have had their