Paris, February 9, 1802.

Vive la danse! Vive la danse! seems now to prevail here universally over "Vive l'amour! Vive la bagatelle!" which was the rage in the time of LA FLEUR. I have already informed you that, in moments the most eventful, the inhabitants of this capital spent the greater part of their time in

DANCING.

However extraordinary the fact may appear, it is no less true. When the Prussians were at ChÂlons, the Austrians at Valenciennes, and Robespierre in the Convention, they danced. When the young conscripts were in momentary expectation of quitting their parents, their friends, and their mistresses to join the armies, they danced. Can we then wonder that, at the present hour, when the din of arms is no longer heard, and the toils of war are on the point of being succeeded by the mercantile speculations of peace, dancing should still be the favourite pursuit of the Parisians?

This is so much the case, that the walls of the metropolis are constantly covered by advertisements in various colours, blue, red, green, and yellow, announcing balls of different descriptions. The silence of streets the least frequented is interrupted by the shrill scraping of the itinerant fiddler; while by-corners, which might vie with Erebus itself in darkness, are lighted by transparencies, exhibiting, in large characters, the words "Bal de SociÉtÉ."—"Happy people!" says Sterne, "who can lay down all your cares together, and dance and sing and sport away the weights of grievance, which bow down the spirit of other nations to the earth!"

In summer, people dance here in rural gardens, or delightful bowers, or under marquees, or in temporary buildings, representing picturesque cottages, constructed within the limits of the capital: these establishments, which are rather of recent date, are open only in that gay season.

In winter, the upper classes assemble in magnificent apartments, where subscription-balls are given; and taste and luxury conspire to produce elegant entertainments.

However, it is not to the upper circles alone that this amusement is confined; it is here pursued, and with truer ardour too, by citizens of every class and description. An Englishman might probably be at a loss to conceive this truth; I shall therefore enumerate the different gradations of the scale from the report of an impartial eye-witness, partly corroborated by my own observation.

Tradesmen dance with their neighbours, at the residence of those who have the best apartments: and the expense of catgut, rosin, &c. is paid by the profits of the card-table.

Young clerks in office and others, go to public balls, where the cavalier pays thirty sous for admission; thither they escort milliners and mantua-makers of the elegant class, and, in general, the first-rate order of those engaging belles, known here by the generic name of grisettes.

Jewellers' apprentices, ladies' hair-dressers, journeymen tailors and upholsterers dance, at twenty sous a head, with sempstresses and ladies' maids.

Journeymen shoemakers, cabinet-makers, and workmen of other trades, not very laborious, assemble in guingettes, where they dance French country-dances at three sous a ticket, with grisettes of an inferior order.

Locksmiths, carpenters, and joiners dance at two sous a ticket, with women who constantly frequent the guinguettes, a species of dancing-girls, whom the tavern-keepers hire for the day, as they do the fiddlers.

Water-carriers, porters, and, in general, the Swiss and Auvergnats have their private balls, where they execute the dances peculiar to their country, with fruit-girls, stocking-menders, &c.

The porters of the corn-market form assemblies in their own neighbourhood; but the youngest only go thither, with a few bons vivans, whose profession it would be no easy matter to determine. Bucksome damsels, proof against every thing, keep them in countenance, either in drinking brandy or in fighting, and not unfrequently at the same bal de sociÉtÉ, all this goes on at the same time, and, as it were, in unison.

Those among the porters of the corn-market and charcoal carriers, who have a little manners, assemble on holidays, in public-houses of a more decent description, with good, plain-spoken market-women, and nosegay-girls. They drink unmixed liquor, and the conversation is somewhat more than free; but, in public, they get tipsy, and nothing farther!

Masons, paviours in wooden shoes, tipped with iron, and other hard-working men, in short, repair to guingettes, and make the very earth tremble with their heavy, but picturesque capers, forming groups worthy of the pencil of Teniers.

Lastly, one more link completes the chain of this nomenclature of caperers. Beggars, sturdy, or decrepit, dance, as well as their credulous betters: they not only dance, but drink to excess; and their orgies are more noisy, more prolonged, and even more expensive. The mendicant, who was apparently lame in the day, at night lays aside his crutch, and resumes his natural activity; the idle vagabond, who concealed one arm, now produces both; while the wretch whose wound excited both horror and pity, covers for a tune the large blister by which he makes a very comfortable living.