Marcel Brion resurrects in his book the golden age of Vienna - the “happy city”, which in that era indulged in exquisite pleasures. Here music sounded incessantly, excellent performances were given, fairs, festivities, processions, and performances by traveling magicians and acrobats were organized. Life passed in a dizzying waltz, as if in a dream; the Viennese seemed to live to dance and die, suffocating from the dance. But this book was written not only about the joys of Viennese life. Here is a detailed account of the behind-the-scenes history of Austria from Joseph II to Metternich, the emergence of the bourgeois class and the “kingdom of Mr. Biedermeier,” who dreams of a pink and gilded world, but whose dream is interrupted by the revolution of 1848, which marked the end of a brilliant era. Marcel Brion, member of the French Academy, author of novels and short stories, a great connoisseur of art and music, author of many books.