By degrees--and perhaps helped by the champagne--the vast throng will
be observed, as the supreme moment approaches, to depart from its
habitually staid and calm demeanor, and finally to show some signs of
enthusiasm, though without growing in the least noisy and turbulent,
like that at Epsom on the Derby Day. Once in a year, however, I as the
French say, doesn't make a custom, and the Parisian crowd, to quote its
own expression, "croit que c'est arrive." The applause, in case the
winner is a French horse, comes from patriotic motives: if he happens
to be English it is given from a feeling of courtesy; and the crowd
having done its duty in either case, the famous "return," that has
often furnished a subject for the painter, begins. And a wondrous sight
it is. Up to six o'clock the innumerable carriages continue to defile
upon the several routes that lead to the city, forming a procession of
which the head touches the Place de la Concorde, whilst the extremity
still reaches to the tribunes of Longchamps. And when evening comes on,
and bets are settled, and heated brains seek to prolong the day's
excitement far into the night, such haunts as the Mabille grow so noisy
that the police is generally obliged to interfere.
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