, r ( fm 'if y^U[t:\u;, . The M \i;t hami ni i , ■ II. PARIS HERSELF AGAIN IN 1878-9. !AMr^ .££#.£< '. tv Tin- utn^T C\V WAP JWIC I ROUND THE CLOCK,"" A' TH,' 'GASLIGHT AND DAYLIGHT,' ETC . Bf THE MIDST OF JSfAR.i? EY BEKTALL, CHAM, FELCOQ, GREVIN, GILL, MARIE, MOBIN , DEROY, LALAXXE, BENOIST, LAFOSSE, MARS, ETC. IX TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. SECOND EDITION. REMINGTON AND CO., .5, AKUNDEL STREET, STRAND, W.C. SCRIBNEK AND WELFORD, NEW YORK. 1S79. [All rights rest LONDON : iADBCRY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. SRLfl URL M&'.Hsijs-fSl* CONTENTS OF VOL. II. THE GHOST OF THE GRISETTE CHAPTER III. UP AND DOWN IN THE EXHIBITION THROUGH THE PASSAGES CHAPTER I. PAGE 1 CHAPTER II. . . ll THE SEAMY SIDE OF PARIS LIFE 30 CHAPTER IV. . • 46 CHAPTER V. STILL THROUGH THE PASSAGES . G3 CHAPTER VI. AMERICA'S PLACE AT THE EXHIBITION 77 CHAPTER VII. EASILY PLEASED 84 CONTENTS OF VOL. II. CHAPTEB VIII. HKill HOLIDAY IN THE CITI PA OK US CHAPTEE IX. GRAND PRIZEMEN 107 CHAPTER X. MEDAJ LISTS . . 126 CHAPTER XI. THi: KXHR3ITION LOTTERY 152 CHAPTER XII. MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS 167 CHAPTER XIII. IN THE TEMI'LE 196 CHAPTER XIV. oesg! 218 CHAPTER XV. 238 CHAPTER XVI. IN Til 251 CONTENTS OF VOL. II. vii CHAPTER XVII. PAGE PARIS REVISITED — PALM SUNDAY ON THE BOULEVARDS .... 2(J1 CHAPTER XVIII. EASTER EGGS A>"D APRIL FISHES 273 CHAPTER XIX. THE GREAT HAH FAIR e 285 8 CHAPTER XX. AT THE 'ASSOMMOIR' 297 CHAPTER XXL GINGERBREAD FAIR ?. . 30s CHAPTER XXII. IN THE RUE DE LA PAIX 322 CHAPTER XXIII. THE LITTLE RED MAN 334 CHAPTER XXIV. O THE AVENUE DE L'OPERA 344 CHAPTER XXV CHAM 3J5 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. I. THE GHOST OF THE GMSETTE. Sept. 23. Ai.heit I may be the most unphilosopliic of mortals, I have still so much in common with Samuel Taylor Coleridge as not to be- lieve in Ghosts,— for the reason that I have seen so many of them. The number of dead people, for example, that I-meet every time I visit the Exhibition is amazing. I bow and raise my hat) to B VOL. II. 2 PARIS HEBSELF AGAIN. them ; and am mortified when they do not return my salutation. I run after them, and am in despair when I lose them in the crowd ever gathered round the Tiffany gold and silver ware, or M. Penon's blue velvet-hung bedroom, or the plaster casts in the Russian department. I meet them face to face; accost them cheer- fully; and essay even to clasp the hand of the dear old friend of days gone by, and am bewildered by the icy stare, the con- temptuous shrug of the shoulders, or the supercilious ' Monsieur, vous vous trompez ' with which my advances are met. Then, with a numbness at my heart, I remember that I followed the hearse of one dear old friend to Kensal Green ten years ago ; that another went down in the Captain ; that another fell at Inkerman. They are all very dead indeed ; and yet, by scores, their apparitions are walking and talking here in the Champ de Mars. Yet is there a reason bss psychological than physiological for the delusion under which I have laboured. There is a limit, I apprehend, to the number of facial types fashioned by the great modeller, Nature. When the series is exhausted, she begins to strike a new set of faces from the old dies. Have you never met Titus Oates in an omnibus, or Oliver Cromwell on board a steamboat ? Have you never had Frederick the Great — in modern evening dress, not in cocked hat and pigtail — for your next neighbour in the stalls of a theatre ? Have you never — on the Boulevard or in the Old Bailey, in a passing hansom, or a railway booking-office, or on the plat- form of a station past which an express-train has whirled you — met with Yourself, and turned away with aversion from the pitiful spectacle ? There are many more spectres in Paris besides the spectres who flit across my path in the Champ de Mars, or glide past me in the lietrospective Museum at the Troeadero. I rarely take a walk abroad without seeing a ghost. In the mild little gardiens In jxd.r in tunics and kepis, and with 'dumpy' little swords of the 'snickasnee' order by their sides, who saunter along the kerb- stone, condnually taking notes — about goodness knows what — in tlreir pocket-books, I seem to discern the phantoms of the broad- THE GHOST OF THE GRISETTE. O shouldered, fierce-moustached, truculent sergents de ville, with their cocked hats and their long rapiers, who were intensely hated by the dangerous classes, but were, nevertheless, salutarily feared, and did their work in a very efficient, if occasionally uncompromis- ing, manner. Many of these bygone policemen were Corsicans, stern 'Decembrists' — that is to say, true as steel to the House of Bonaparte, if to nobody else. The force likewise comprised a large contingent of Alsatians and Lorrainers, men of great physical stamina and great probit}-, but somewhat rude in speech and rough in manner. But they managed to control the vehicular traffic in the street; they contrived to keep Gavroche and Tortillard, Gugusse and Polyte, and the great army of voyous and polis'sons, in wholesome awe. The ranks of the existing police force — the municipal one, at least — is no longer recruited from Bonapartist Corsica, and the Alsatio-Lorrainers are wearing pickelhcmoes and carrying needle-guns in lieu of hqns and 'snickftsnees;' so the gardiens de lapaix have become a very miscellaneous body indeed, and to my mind are not improved as regards efficiency and strength. French acquaintances, indeed, tell me that the entire Prefecture de Police is in a state of disorganisation and demoralisation, and demands radical reform. ' But there is another ghost — an apparition for which I have been seeking as sedulously, but up to the present time as unsuc- cessfully, as I sought for the Nice Old Gentleman. "What has become of tht Parisian Grisette ? • Paris, we all know, is a city of ephemera ; but the grisette should not be considered as an evanes- cent personage — for La Fontaine, in some of the daintiest stanzas that French poet ever penned, sang her praises more than two hundred years ago ; and in my own Parisian adolescence I was habitually and pleasantly aware of the grisette. The good tempered, saucy, hard-working, harmless little body ! How fond she was of flowers ; how she stinted herself in her own scant rations to feed her much-prized cat ; how she went without sugar to her own coffee in order that the due lump might be thrust through the bars of the cage of her pet canary ! Few sorrows had she of her own, that B 2 4 TARIS HERSELF AGAIN. little grisette, when work was not slack, and she could get enough to eat. EUe se contentait depeu. Her coffee and plenty of milk — O, she must have plenty of milk ! — in the morning ; a hunk of bread, a hunch of grapes, a morsel of fromage dc Brie— the Stilton of the poor— for breakfast ; and for dinner the pot au feu — hut little more than so much hot water, flavoured with a little fat and some vegetables — and bread, with perhaps an apple or a pear. She was content with little. A pennyworth of fried potatoes from that well-remembered stall on the Pont Neuf— there are no stalls on the Pont Neuf now — or threehalfpenny-worth of ready-boiled spinach, strained and pressed so smooth that it looked in the fniirier's window like so much green paint, were quite a feast to her ; but on high days and holidays she regaled herself with some tiny kickshaws of charcuterie. Butcher's meat she scarcely ever tasted.^ If she had a little money left after the stride necessaire had been provided for, she regaled herself with roasted chestnuts, or with a slice of that incomparably greasy and toothsome galette which they used to sell at an open-fronted shop in the Place de l'Odeon — a galette which, without fear of contradiction, I contend to have been more succulent than the flimsier and higher-priced article sold at the ' Renommee de la Galette ' on the other side of the water. The grisette was as fond of gaieties as London boys are of the peculiar form of suet}' pudding with plums in it known as ' Spotted Corey.' Not ' Spotted Duff,' mind you ; that is quite another eidos of the pudding species. Amateurs consider it all the more delicious for a soupqon of pork-gravy, and the most ' lumping ' pennyworth of the dainty is to be obtained at a shop in Long Acre. The grisette took a tidy modicum of wine, largely diluted with water, at her breakfast and her dinner — a teetotal Frenchman or Frenchwoman would be regarded as next door to a lunatic ; but in those drfys very decent ordinaire, either of Bordeaux or Burgundy, was to be had, costing ten sous the litre — a quantity slightly under an imperial quart. At present a litre of the vilest petit bleu cannot be obtained at the marchands de tins for less than sixteen sous. THE GHOST OF THE GRISETTE. Formerly outside the octroi barriers quite drinkable wine was to be had for four sous the quart; and the halcyon time of cheapness is commemorated in a song beginning, ' Pour eviter la rage De la femme clout je snis l'epoux, Je trouve clans le vin a quat' sons L'esperance du veuvage. Venez, venez, sages et fous, Venez, venez, Loire; avec nous Le vin a quat' sous.' ♦ ! TAIUS HERSELF AGAIN. The song is sung no longer, and the guingettes where the wine at four sous used to be sold have been pulled down ; and the octroi barriers having been enlarged to give Paris more elbow-room, huge blocks of houses five stories high have been erected in the place of the humble but joyous little taverns where, on Sundays and fete-days, the grisettes and their sweethearts came to enjoy themselves, and to dance to such strains as those discoursed by the king of itinerant fiddlers, the Mcnetrier de Mention. Plea- sant little guingettes. You fancied that the bonny buxom hostess sitting behind the counter was ' Madame Gregoire ; ' that it was the ' Petit Homme Gris ' who had just ordp red another chojnne ; and that it was the ' Gros Eoger Bontemps ' who was playing at tonneaux in the garden with Lisette. Aye. it was the Empress- Queen of all grisettes, descended in right line from her whom La Fontaine limned. It was the unsur- passable Lisette of Beranger, who was yet extant some five-and- thirty ye?rs ago in Paris. It was then that Albert Smith, who had been a medical student in Paris, marked the grisette as pretty and pleasant, and noticed that her highest ambition in the way of dress Avas to possess half a dosren pair of white thread stockings of English manufacture. Some years were to elapse before Mr. Cobden and the Treaty of Commerce gave facilities to the grisette for gratifying her ambition in the direction just hinted at; but by that time there were very few grisettes left to covet stockings of white thread, Nottingham or Glasgow made ; and the grisettes' successors on the other side. of the Seine were apter to hanker after hose of pink or pearly-gray silk. The grisette never wore a bonnet ; nay, not even on Sundays. She had her own particular, peculiar, characteristic, picturesque, and becoming cap. Her manner of walking was matchlessly graceful and agile. The narrow streets of old Paris were, in those days, infamously paved. There was no foot pavement. The kennel was often in the centre of tiie street, and down it rolled a great black torrent of impu- rities fearsome to sight and smell. There was no gas when I first saw Lutetia, save in the Place de la Concorde, in the Palais THE GHOST OF THE GRISETTE. 7 Royal, and on the Boulevard des Italiens. The remainder of the streets were lit by means of reverberes — oil lamps suspended from ropes slung from house to house across the street. The manner in which the grisette would pick her wa}^ over the jagged stones, and the dexterity with which she would avoid soiling her neat shoes and stockings when venturing on the very brink of that crashing plashing kennel, were wondrous and de- lightful to view. She had an inimitable way, too, of whisking the end of her skirt over her arm as she trotted along, and she was similarly nimble in ascending and descending the steep, hideously dark, dilapidated, and dirty staircases of the old lodging-houses of the Quartier Latin. Were you ever taken to a certain tall dingy house in the Rue de l'Ecole de Medecine, to see the room in which Marat was stabbed to death in his bath ? I went there once ; but the room was in the occupation of a Polish exile, who had invented a machine for hatching chickens by electricit} r , and who would not permit us to enter his domicile. Perhaps it was full of eggs ; and possibly he cared no more about his apartment having been the deathplace of Marat than Mr. Toole in the farce cared about his second-floor back having been the birthplace of Podgers. But as I came, disappointed, down the dingy staircase, slippery, rickety, evil-smelling, there passed by me in the gloom an Apparition in white. It seemed to float upwards, and disappeared. With my head full of the terrible tragedy in which the modern Judith slew the Holofernes of the Terror, it was as though the Presentment of Charlotte Corday had just passed by ; but lo ! from the regions beneath came the hoarse voice of the concierge crying, ' Mademoi- selle Amanda, vous avez oublie votre clef;' and speedily there came tripping down a pretty little lass with blue eyes and brown hair, in a cocuiettish white cap, and a frock of printed calico. Who wears ' frocks,' or even 'gowns,' nowadays? The modern grisette wears, I suppose, a ' robe ' or a ' costume.' Mademoiselle Amanda was only a little grisette who lived in a garret au cinquUme in that terrible house of Marat. She was a waistcoat- maker, the communicative concierge — concierges were portieres in 8 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN'. those days— told us, and earned no less than one franc seventy- five centimes a day. ' C'est une brave fille qui se contente de pen," quoth the concierge. ^ Was she virtuous ? Well it may be that, in the important aspect in ' question, she was, as in other matters, content with a little. Albert Smith, who was on innocently intimate terms with the grisette, who had danced with her and treated her to marrons chavds and Here r the lozenges of a quilted petticoat, now glittering on the jewelled necklace which encircles Madame la Marquise's white throat, now making lustrous the precious shoe-buckles and the embroidered 12 PAEIS HERSELF AGAIN. clocks on the hose of Monsieur lc Marquis. For depend upon it these gallant folks, although they may be 'making believe' to be shepherds and shepherdesses, are all Marquises and Marchionesses at the very least — ayant droit au tabouret, or ,dignes de monter dans les carrosses du Roi — the ladies entitled to sit on lowly foot- stools in the royal presence, the gentlemen deemed worthy to ride in the royal carriages. The real Arcadia, I am apt to fancy, was not a very agreeable region. For all their crooks and their oaten pipes, riiillis may have been but a sulky wench, and Strephon but a savage lout. The Arcadian wardrobe did not go far beyond a sheepskin, the woolly side out in summer, and in during winter ; the food was coarse, the shelter was scanty, the manners were brutal, and the wolf, metaphorically as well as corporeally, was alwa} r s at the door. Not So in this glowing piece of Beauvais. Le Notre must have laid out that trim garden with the leafy alcove, in the recesses of which you discern a terminal figure of the god Pan, leering at the revellers with his wicked eye, and patronising the proceedings generally with a sardonic grin. Mansard must have built that grandiose chateau in the distance, with high-pitched roof and dormer windows. Observe that peacock on the terrace — how proudly he struts, unfolding the rainbow glories of his tail. See, there is an ancient servitor in blue and silver, bearing a silver salver piled high with choice fruit and crisp brioches. To him succeeds another lackey with a pannier full of flasks of rare wine. This is how they live in Arcadia, from M. Watteau and the Beau- vais tapestry-worker's point of view. It is all dancing and feasting and games of romp. There is no surcease of fiddling. There are no taxes to pay. Jacques Bonhomme in the field outside the park- gates — Jacques Bonhomme painfully gathering nettles that Nicole his wife may boil the weeds for soup, or picking up fir-cones and 1 beech-ma!?t to pound them and mingle them with the rye-flour of which his bread is made — Jacques Bonhomme pays the taxes. It is he who is eaten up alive by the Farmers- General, and is sent to the galleys for smuggling into his hut five sous' worth of salt THE SEAMY SIDE OF PARIS LIFE. 13 which lias not paid the gabeUe. The Arcadian revellers in the park do not trouble themselves about such miseres. To Monsieur Watteau and the tapestry-weaver's thinking, there are no such things as poverty and starvation, as t} T phus and the smallpox; while, as for death — well, what did the youthful duke who was dressing for a court ballet at Versailles say to the messenger who brought him news of his mother's death ? ' Madame ma mere,' returned the duke, calmly applying a rouged hare's foot to each cheek, while the coiffeur gave a last touch with his tongs to the curls of the ducal periwig, ' will not expire until after the conclu- sion of the ballet.' It was only given to dukes and marquises of the Watteau type to postpone grief, and to purchase deferred annuities of woe. The visitor to the Retrospective Museum of the Trocadero is watched most vigilantly by the policemen on duty, who begin to eye you very suspiciously if 3 r ou linger above a minute and a half before one of the glass cases ; and not under any circumstances are you allowed to retrace your footsteps in order to study more attentively some object the beauty of which may have exceptionally struck you. You are bound to go in at one door and to come out at another ; and, in point of fact, the public are driven pretty much rts though they were a pack of sheep through a gallery in which the precious contents of at least four South Kensington Museums seem to have been brought together. But suppose that we are in the receipt of fern-seed, and invisible. Suppose that our impunity from observation renders us recklessly indifferent to the rules and regulations which govern the palaces of Monsieur Krantz, and con- temptuously oblivious of the presence of surly gardlens and lynx- eyed police-agents. Suppose we nimbly rip that superb piece of Beauvais tapestry from its frame, and, turning the fabric round, survey its seamy side. I find that Prince Bismarck has been reading Lalla Rookh and become duly impressed with the dra- matic force of the episode of Mokanna, ' the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan.' How many English schoolgirls fifty years since used to sigh and tremble over the awsome couplet ! — 11 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN'. 'He raised his veil; the maid turned slowly round, Looked at him, shrieked, and sank upon the ground.' Mokanna had a death's head. But the German Chancellor might derive, perhaps, as much edification from the inspection of the seamy side of a piece of Beauvais tapestry. What squalid tags and loops and knots ; what ugly ribbed darns and patches ! What a coarse, dingy, sailcloth-looking backing to the grand fete cham- petre designed by Monsieur Watteau. Sailcloth ! It is just of the same texture with the blouse that Jacques Bonhomme wears when he is prowling about the fields and the woods grubbing up the weeds and the fir-cones and the beech-mast for food. The sale-marks andnumbers of a dozen auction-rooms are branded or marked on the seamy side of the tapestry. At a glance you perceive that the work has been subject to an extensive process of restoration, and that at least, a third of the lovely picture on the other side is a sham. Madame la Marquise's satin sacque and white neck fell into utter rottenness long ago. Her upper half is only one patch. So are the violet small-clothes and the crimson-silk hose, with embroidered clocks, of M. le Marquis ; Avhile the rainbow tints of the peacock's tail present, on the seamy side, a very Primrose Hill of cobbling. Don't talk to me of the reverse side of a medal. The under part of a sovereign is as comfortable to look upon as the obverse. Don't talk to me of the desillusions of ' behind the scenes ' at a playhouse. There are often to be found more truth, more honesty, and more naturalness in the coulisses than before the curtain. To cause the scales to fall from your eyes ; to convince you that ! La Vie Parisienne' is not merely a valley of Cashmere shawls powdered with diamond dust; that the foulest tares, as well as roses and violets, grow beneath the wayfarer's feet ; that all the houses are not Maisons Dorees ; that motley is not the only wear ; to fill the mind with solemn thoughts and the heart with a cold ache — go you and look at the real seamy side of the gay hangings. Inquire and study and reflect a little over the appalling amount of misery and destitution" which are coexistent with the luxury and profligacy and riot of life in Paris during the Exposition Universelle. THE SEAMY SIDE OF PARIS LIFE. 15 The Seamy Side ! I had a glance of it the other day on the Boulevard — a glance sudden, momentary, but as completely lucid and comprehensive as that afforded of a landscape by a flash of summer lightning on a moonless night. It was two o'clock in the afternoon, and raining heavily. I was standing on the kerb, just in front of the Cafe Riche,in that state of dolorous dubiety to which people are subject who continually carry an umbrella, and who never, save under the strongest compulsion, open it. An umbrella may be :t companion, a friend, a staff, a protector, a weapon, an adviser, an indicator, and when it rains the best use you can put your parapluie to is to hail the nearest cab or omnibus with it. But there were no cabs to be had that afternoon ; the Paris omnibuses do not stay in their wild career to take up stray passengers ; and I had begun to think that there was no alternative between putting up my ' Robinson,' as the French, in affectionate memory of Robinson Crusoe, term an umbrella — when there stopped right in front of me the smartest of smart broughams. A Peters, possibly, or a Laurie and Marner, to judge from the lightness of the wheels and easy Ill PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. balance of the springs. A Binder, perchance, to judge from the harmonious lines of the body, and the gentle concavity of the roof. Pair of coal-black steppers, exquisitely matched ; a viscount's coronet on the panels ; similar heraldic device in platinated bronze on the harness. Lamps perfect. Coach- man clean-shaven, curly -brimmed hat, white cravat, black frock, bottes mollcs with tops for which oxalic acid could do nothing more. Footman identical with coachman, only — mark the art of this — a shade younger and slimmer. In brief, a perfect equipage. Two persons inside. M. le Vicomte ; fawn-coloured ulster, varnished shoes with dove-coloured gaiters,lemon kid-gloves, spiky moustaches, a rose in his button-hole, and a cigarette. Second person a lady, but whethfr she was Madame la Vicomtesse or Mademoiselle Amenaide Sanspapa of the Bouffes Parisiens, I am not prepared to say ; suffice it to remark that she was beauteous, that her hair was of the hue of newly-stacked barley, that she was radiantly clad, that she was brave in diamonds, and that from the superb chariot there exhaled an odour of jockey club, frangipane, or opoponax— I am sure I don't know which, not being learned in any perfumes save that of the Vuelta cle Abajo, an odour very popular in the Island of Cuba, where the names of the principal perfumers are Cabana, Partagas, and Cavargas. Still the occupants of the smart brougham were evidently two very important personages indeed. Stay, there was a third : a snow-white little Maltese dog, with two sparkling black eyes and a crimson-satin bow at his chin, lie battled with his paws, and barked, as though the brougham and the coal-black steppers and the servants and the lady in the diamonds — tout le tr emblement, enfin — belonged to him. Who knows ? ' Perhaps they did. Hastily alighting from his carriage, perhaps to keep an appoint- ment with a friend at the Cafe Pdche, M. le Vicomte let fall from a number of documents which he held in one lemon-kid-gloved THE SEAMY SIDE OF PARIS LIFE. 17 hand something that looked like a letter in an envelope. It fell face downwards, in the smooth black mud of the gutter. Instan- taneously — I never saw anything quicker — a lean young man, with a white pock-marked face, a faded ragged blouse reaching scarcely below his waist, deplorable pantaloons, shoes like miniature coal- barges past service and rotting in a ship-breakers wharf, and a cap that looked like one of the late Daniel Lambert's gray woollen stockings with the top cut off, darted forward, went on his hands and knees, grovelled in the gutter, grappled with the paper, which was fast floating towards a sewer- grating, picked up the document, rose, and with a fawning mien, and a look in which cupidity and hope shone like a flame, wiped the paper with his ragged elbow, VOL. II. 18 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. and presented it to the gentleman. ' Ce n'est qu'une enveloppe, mon ami.' quoth M. le Viscomte airily; and without taking any more notice of the poor wretch, he tripped blithely into the Cafe Riche. It was only an envelope, absolutely without value now that it was soiled, that had fallen in the mud. I have heard a good deal of bad language in many dialects in my time, but I do hope that I shall never again hear curses so fearful as those which were uttered by the lean young man with the white pock-marked face. He had expected a reward. The envelope might have been full of thousand-franc notes, and here he was left with his treasure trove, hungry and with muddy hands. He shook his fist at the lady in the brougham — shook it so savagely that she pulled up the window in a hurry, to the great discomposure of the Maltese dog — and then the lean young man, changing his tone, began to murmur, ' Malheur, malheur ! pas merne une piece de cinquante centimes.' And then, it is wretched and shocking to relate, he began to whimper, and at last to blubber, as though he had been a child of four years old. A policeman came up and made him move on, with the usual admonition of ' Plus vite que ca ' — quicker than that — to hasten his gait ; and then I put up my umbrella, and, going on my way, saw him no more. Very possibly he was a loafer, an idle scamp, an incumbrance and a pest to society ; still to me he represented very suggestively indeed one squalid and lamentable scrap of the Seamy Side. The number of professional beggars in Paris is, to outward seeming, astonishingly small. You might think it somewhat of a phenomenal thing in London if, in the course of a walk from Hyde Park Corner to South Kensington in the daytime, or from Charing Cross to St. Paul's Churchyard in the evening, you were not accosted by at least half a dozen mendicants, male, female, or infantine ; but during the eleven weeks that I have spent in Paris I have not been asked half a dozen times for alms in the great thoroughfares. So much, then, must be cheerfully admitted in mitigation of the Seamy Side of Parisian life. It must, nevertheless, be borne in mind that the French laws against mendicity are very strict, and THE SEAMY SIDE OF PARIS LIFE. 19 that in Paris they are carried out with unfailing exactitude by the police. Our own Vagrant Law is, in some instances, even harsher than the French; for three months' hard labour in an English gaol is, in reality, tantamount to three months' penal servitude, with the additional infliction of a low scale of dietary ; whereas the French vagabond who is committed by the Police Correction- nelle to Mazas is put to but very light industrial and productive labour — the treadmill, the crank, and that infernal invention ' shot drill,' are wholly unknown in French prisons. With a portion of his earnings while in prison he is allowed to purchase limited supplies of food and wine of a quality superior to that of the pripon rations ; under certain circumstances he is permitted to smoke, nor during the hour of associated exercise is silence inflexibly enforced. The practical difference between the French and English sys- tems for the repression of mendicity appears to me to be this — that in Paris any beggar venturous enough to ply his calling in a much-frequented thoroughfare may reckon with tolerable certaint}* on being arrested before many hours are over and sent to a prison where he will be treated with mildness ; whereas in England the gaol is a place scrupulously clean, excellently well ventilated, but of unremitting jmysical degradation and torment, to which not one beggar or vagrant in twenty gets committed. Beggars are very ingenious scoundrels. As a rule, they can tell the metal of their customers at a glance. The majority of these are ladies, who are either too timid or too kind-hearted to give the ragged man who holds out his hand for alms in charge ; or else they are the Incurable and Incorrigible Infatuates of the male sex who cannot be induced to pin their faith to the creed of the Charity Organisa- tion Society, and who claim the right of exercising their private judgment and powers of discrimination to determine whether the ragged man or the tattered woman with a callow baby in her arms be an object worthy of charity or the reverse. Thus the vast majority of the London beggars do not get 'taken up ; ' and the knowledge of the virtual impunity which they enjoy makes them 20 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. in many cases insolent and even ruffianly in their importunity. Moreover, even if every lady and gentleman who was worried in the streets for alms was a subscribing member of the Charity Organisation Society, and was prepared to hand over every mendi- cant to the custody of the police, the carrying out of the stern intent is hampered by the fact that in London, and in the most frequented thoroughfares, you meet in the daytime with con- siderably more beggars than policemen. Our ' beat ' system assumes that the policeman shall be everywhere ; for practical purposes he is so continuously in perambulation as to be — I except Fleet Street, which is admirably patrolled — nowhere. The Chief Commissioner tells us that we are sure to find a policeman at every ' fixed point ; ' but the majority of Londoners know no more about the locality of the fixed points than they do of the Mountains of the Moon. In Paris there is a continuous cordon of gardiens de la paix skirting the cabstand side of the way from the Bastille to the Madeleine ; and the ' beat ' of each of these functionaries does not seem to exceed a dozen yards. Police-agents are well- nigh as numerous in the Rue de Pdvoli, in the new Boulevards, and in the Champs FJysees. Thus the beggar finds his most fertile field of operations hopelessly preoccupied by his natural enemy the policeman, and he gives up his trade, so far as the great thoroughfares are concerned, in sheer despair. Let not, however, the habitual absence of mendicants from the principal places of public resort in the French capital induce in your mind the belief that there are no beggars in Paris. There are, I have the best authority for believing, ma^ thousands of such bisonosos in the city of Paris ; and the weightiest evidence bearing on such a belief lies in the fact that at the season of the New Year the police tolerate, for the space of three days, the presence of professional beggars on the Boulevards. From sunrise on the 31st of December until sunset on the 2d of January, in swarms, in hordes, in legions, does Lazarus come forth. The Cour des Miracles or the Carrieres d'Ame'rique empty themselves into the fashionable streets. The cripple, the paralytic, THE SEAMY SIDE OF PARIS LIFE. 21 and the cul de jatte, the tattered woman with the baby, the bare- footed girl-child, the patriarch with the long beard, the beggar without arms, the beggar without legs — who, mounted on the back BLIND BEGGAR OF THE ANCIENT TVFE. of a brother vagabond, hugs him round the neck like Sindbad's Old Man of the Sea — the counterparts of all the fantastic creatures that Callot and Hogarth, Goya and Piranesi, have drawn, crawl, 22 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. or limp, or hobble, or drag themselves, or are wheeled about the asphalte pavement, and grunt or whimper supplications for charity at the portals of the fashionable shops and the grand hotels. The BLIND BEGGAR OF THE MODERN TYPE. Glorious Three Days of the Nouvel An are their carnival, their saturnalia, during which they must reap a rich harvest of coppers ; but on the 3d of January all is at an end. ' Adieu paniers ; ven- THE SEAMY SIDE OF PARIS LIFE. 23 danges son faites.' A few blind men and women, and a stout tall old lady with two wooden legs — were her lower limbs shot off, or bit off, or what, I wonder ? — are tolerated by the police on the Boule- ! ■ f? •! / A H *u'B f vards des Capucines and des Italiens ; but beyond these, all the beggars who have been holding high holiday are doomed to imme- diate disappearance. Even the blind men and the old lady with •21 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. the timber toes are not permitted to beg". They may accept, but must not ask for alms. What becomes of the vast bulk of the tribe of beggars during the remainder of the year is a Mystery of Paris to which I am very far from being able to offer a complete solution. There is, properly speaking, no Poor Law in France. The right of existence is not recognised by legislative enactment as it is with us. In England, theoretically, no man can starve, as eveiybody has a settlement, if he can only find out where it is, and is entitled to indoor or outdoor relief; but, through lack of capacity to interpret the Act of Parliament, he does very frequently starve and die. In France the pauper has the Assistance Publique, a semi-voluntary, semi-municipal fund, to look to. Much of the money gathered b} r the Assistance is derived from the tax called ' Le droit des pauvres/ which is levied on every performance at any one of the theatres, balls, concerts, and public entertainments in Paris ; and I believe that I am not wrong in stating, that one of the three functionaries, whose presence, solemn, white-cravated, sable-clad, behind a table so much puzzles the foreigner who passes through the entrance- wicket of a French theatre, is an employe of the Assistance Publique, detailed to check the receipts and ' see fair,' with a view to the poor getting their due and proper rights. Abstractedly it seems in the highest degree just and equitable that Vice and Folly and Luxury should pay a tithe of their takings to indigence and destitution ; but the theatrical managers and cafe-concert keepers declare that, between the Droit des Pauvres on the one hand, and the Droits (VAuteur on the other, they are driven to bankruptcy ; and that, to be strictly equitable, the Rights of the Poor tax should be likewise levied on the profits of the restaurants and cabarets, the milliners and dress-makers, the sellers of photo- graphs and trinkets. It is not, however, the professional mendicants, but the industrious poor, who are the principal recipients of the relief doled out by the Assistance Publique, on whose books, for example, thousands of families whose bread-winning members THE SEAMY SIDE OF PARIS LIFE. 25 are at the bagncs, or in New Caledonia for their participation in the madness of the Commune, are permanently inscribed. The majority of French ladies, again, of the upper and middle ranks in society have each and all of them leurs pauvres, their own special A PARISIAN - TOMBOLA. and particular poor, to whose necessities they sedulously minister. The clergy are in these cases frequent intermediaries and almoners, and during the fashionable season in Paris numerous balls and concerts are given, and bazaars and tombolas held, for the benefit 26 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. of Us pauvres honteux, as those necessitous persons are termed who are too shamefaced to own their wants and to make a public parade of their misery. Thus, under the Government of Louis Philippe a grand ball, patronised by the noblest and wealthiest members of the communhVv, used annually to be given in aid of les anciens pensionnaires de la Listc Civile. Marquises, Counts, Barons, Baillis, Vidames, and Chevaliers de St. Louis were among these benificiaires — virtually pauvres honteux. They were noble gentlemen and ladies, stricken in years, who had been deprived by emigration or confiscation of their all during the First Revolution. The dynasty of the Restoration had been unable to restore to their lawful owners domains which had been irretrievably alienated ; but certain pensions on the Civil List were conferred upon the poor old pauper aristocrats. With the Revolution of July 1830 these pensions ceased ; hence the annual ball. But to return to the beggars. I apprehend that they may be divided into three categories. The more athletic become rodeurs de barrier e — nocturnal scamps in tattered blouses, who haunt the external boulevards and prowl about the banlieue, furtively stealing provisions, fruit, and vegetables from the market-carts, which from midnight until dawn lumber through the octroi gates on their way to the Halles Centrales, or knocking down and robbing belated pedestrians who happen to be tipsy — and tipsy pedestrians are becoming terribly numerous in the streets of Paris. Another less dishonest and weaker-kneed class simply creep from morn till night and from night till morn about the bystreets, scrupulously shunning the boulevards, where they know that they would be at once pounced upon by the police, but creeping into courtyards, slinking to the foot of dark staircases, shambling to the entrances of porters' lodges, and begging in a subdued tone for a bit of bread. Often when I have been rummaging in an old book store, or among the rusty treasures of an old curiosity shop on the Quays, I have become aware of a Deplorable Presence in rags blocking up the doorway, and of a voice murmuring something about ' unmorceau de pain.' I have never heard a French dog bark at one of these THE SEAMY SIDE OF PARIS. 27 rniserables, nor have I known of more than two instances among very many of the shopkeepers harshly bidding the beggar begone. As a rule, the tradesman hardest at driving a bargain will open his till, slip a copper or two into the beggar's hand, and, looking at you apologetically, with a half smile and a half blush, will say, ' Better so than that he should steal.' With all their greed of gain, and their unconscionableness in fleecing foreigners, the French are as charitable to the poor as the Turks. And that is saying a great deal. A Turkish Pasha of the highest rank will get out of his carriage or off his horse in the muddiest street of Stamboul to give a beshlik to a blind man; and while you are having audience of some grandee at one of the Departments of State, a beggar will lift the curtain which veils the door, demand alms in the name of Allah, and have his claim allowed. ' In the name of Allah,' says the grandee, as he hands the piastre to the beggar. A French shopkeeper is certainty only very imperfectly acquainted with the Koran — if he have any acquaintance with that lying Evangel at all — still the equani- mous promptness with which he resigns himself almost as a matter of course to the* beggar reminds me forcibly of the Moslem. French mothers, moreover, seem habitually to teach their children to be charitable ; and over and over again have I seen, now a hand- somely-dressed lady, now a mob-capped woman of the poorest class, put money into her child's hand and bid it run after a ragged man and relieve him. You are obliged to run after the beggars, so swiftly do they flit past through fear of the police. And it is best, perhaps, to run after them, lest, being starving, they should run into the river, to find a goal on the cold dalles of the Morgue and a last bourn in the fosse commune. A lady whom I have known for many years told me the other day a story of a man who did not beg. She was out for a walk, alone, and looking into one of the magnificent shops of the Pas- sage des Princes. Turning to survey the next door repository of treasures — a jeweller's — she became aware of a tall lank man of about fifty years of age, with long gray hair streaming over the 28 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. collar of a patched and ragged coat fastened up to his chin — now by a button from which the cloth had rotted showing the disc of bone — now by a pin, now by a bit of thread passed through two holes. She was certain that he had no shirt : she looked up the frayed cuffs of his coat, she said, and saw his wrists and his arms, bare, yellow as old parchment, sharp-boned, and with inky veins. He was not shoeless ; but the half-disconnected upper leathers of his boots scraped the pavement. His hat looked as though it had been boiled in grease. Under one arm he had a tattered leathern portfolio, from which some papers peeped. This man, shuffling his feet on the stones, stood looking at the diamonds and rubies in the jeweller's shop : not with a gaze of fierce and desperate rapa- city, but with an abstracted expression, as though his eyes only were there while his thoughts were miles awa} T . Then he would shift the tattered leathern portfolio from one arm to the other, and then resume the survey of the diamonds and rubies. The lady of whom I speak has but a slender stock of colloquial French at her command ; but from her porte-monnaie she took a five-franc piece, touched the ragged man on the arm, placed the piece of money in his hand, and said, ' S'il vous plait, Monsieur.' He looked at her for only a moment, with a glance in which a kind of wild astonishment and incapacity even to express gratitude were mingled, and in an in- stant, and as though by magic, he was — gone. Whither ? Perhaps he was an impostor. Possibly he had ' made up ' for the part of a distressed poet, an indigent man of letters, a ruined speculator, a discharged employe, who for the hundredth time had been cooling his battered heels in the ministerial ante-chamber, with a volu- minous statement of his grievances in that tattered case of leather. Suspecting something of the sort, I carefully patrolled the Passage des Princes during several successive afternoons, but I never could catch sight of the ragged man Avith the gray locks and the hat which seemed to have been boiled in grease. I looked for him subsequently in the Passages des Panoramas and the Passage Jouffroy, in the Passage Choiseul and the Passage du Saumon, in the Palais Boyal and in the Place de la Bourse. But I have never met with him. THE SEAMY SIDE OF PARIS LIFE. 29 I am beginning to incline now to the belief that he was not an impostor, but only a man desperately poor and hungry. I am beginning to adopt the theory that, directly he got the money, he sped away, holding it in both his hands, so to speak, out of the Passage des Princes, down the Rue de Richelieu, across the Place du Palais Royal, and through the great courtyard of the Carrousel, across a bridge, down a narrow street, into a narrower impasse, up, five stories high, a dim staircase, and so into a garret with a shelving roof — a garret with nothing in it but a table with three legs, a broken chair, a sack full of shavings for a bed, and a gaunt woman with some pallid children. And then I fancy him crying, ' Une etrangere m'a donne cent sous — and now, my children, we will have bread, and charcuterie, and wine.' ' Et quatre sous de tabac, pour ce bon petit papa,' cries the shrillest and weakest voice among the pallid children, who are clapping their hands and pulling at their mother's skirts, and bidding her look upon la belle et bonne piece de cent sous. Yes, I fancy that he brought the money home before laying out so much as two sous for a loaf. There was something in exhibiting it there intact, round, shining. There was more in discussing what food should be bought — in- eluding, I will be bound, some cough-sirup for la pauvre petite Aclele, who was weak at the chest. There was more in having some ' change out ' when the garret had become a hall of feasting, and the starving creatures had partaken of food, and the pipe had been lit, and the fumes of the caporal were curling upwards in a manner soothing to the view, and the monnaie remaining out of the five francs could be counted with a leisurely and lordly air. And, upon my word, if the ragged man was indeed an impostor, I do not grudge him one halfpenny out of his dole. Are you quite certain that the last twenty thousand pounds which you made out of the Baratarian Loan or the Tierra del Fuego Railwa}' were gotten quite honestly ? AT THE EXHIBITION (BY CHAM). ' I wish to "buy this false hair.' ' Thank you, madam. Oblige me with your card to affix to it.' ' 0, no ! I'll give you the card of one of my friends.' III. UP AND DOWN IN THE EXHIBITION. Oct. 2. The official announcement that the final closing of the Exposition Universelle is to be deferred until the 20th of November has filled the French exhibitors with a well-nigh delirious joy, and is looked upon with feelings far removed from dissatisfaction by the general body of foreign contributors to the great bazaar. The ostensible motive for granting this enthusiastically-welcome delay is that it is only just and proper that the winners of prizes should be able to gain some pecuniary advantage from the prestige they have won as medallists or as possessors of diplomas ; but it is not the ' laureats ' alone who will benefit by the concession of the twenty days of grace. After the distribution of ]">rizes the indiscriminate sale by retail of articles exhibited in the Champ de Mars will, it is UP AND DOWN' IN THE EXHIBITION. 81 understood, be authorised, and purchasers will be permitted to take away their cmplcttes with them. Thus the culmination of the great show will resemble a fair more closely than ever. The glories of la Foire (vux Jambom and In Foire t' blotting-paper on which letters have been recently dried, or of ascertaining whether the guests have made away with any of the hotel bed-linen. When he finds the room occu- pied, he shambles away with a shame-faced Paul Pry expression of hoping that he doesn't intrude; and the next you see of" him is down-stairs in the bureau, where he is in the habit of jumping from tin floor on to a stool, thence on to a chair, and thence on to the desk of the caissier, where he peers cunningly at the open page of the ledger, to discover, I suppose, whether the customers have paid their hills. The little beast ! A week of the chambermaid- dragoon's work, with plenty of cold water and some stick for Bupper, would do him good, and teach him what a real dog's life 3, I fancy.* The chambermaid whom I fancy to have been a dragoon has only one fault, and that may not be all his own, perhaps. I go out to breakfast at noon, and between twelve and one p.m. my habitation should properly be 'fixed up' b} r Baptiste. But, alas ! how can Baptiste fix it up when, from twenty minutes past twelve to ten mintues past one, he and his colleagues Paul and Louis and Antoine have been unceasingly occupied in lugging up-stairs the baggage of travellers who have just arrived, and carry- ing down-stairs theimiJcdimen- ta of other travellers who are going away? These many weeks the hotel has been turning away from its portals, for lack of space, at least fifty foreigners a day. From all quarters of * This impertinently inquisitive animal was the delirium domi, neverthe- D 1 we were all foolishly fond of him. THROUGH THE PASSAGES. 49 the globe, and from all countries and cities on the face of it, PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. comes and snares them — a fate that occasionally happens to other creatures besides grives. Perhaps it is not naughtier to eat these small birds than to wear them stuffed, and with their wings out- spread, in a lady's bonnet. Bird hats and feather bonnets are all the rage in Paris at present : and there must be a terribly con- tinuous slaughter of feathered folks in Italy, in the West Indies, and in South America, to satisfy the needs of Vanity Fair. The prices at the Ristorante del Matto Forestiere are pheno- menally cheap. The proprietor has apparently forgotten the exist- ence of the Exhibition altogether ; or perhaps he has a regular clientele .' and his customers being mainly Italians and naturally frugal, informed him in the outset that if he raised his prices they would go and dine somewhere else. Next, however, to one of the Duval Bouillon-Bceuf establishments — I intend, as a matter of bounden duty, to dine there before I depart from Paris, but I have not yet succeeded in screwing my courage to the sticking-place — I should say that the Ristorante del Matto Forestiere was about the cheapest restaurant that a foreigner with cosmopolitan tastes could dine at in Paris. I do not say that it is the best. I do not con- tend that the minestra is superlatively good ; that the came di manzo is incomparable, or the arrosto perfection ; that the wine is unimpeachable, or the coffee unexceptionable. But the place is characteristic and genuine ; and that is something to find in the midst of a wilderness of French eating-houses, where con- vention ality has come to the complexion of the most wearisome monotony. VI. America's place at the exhibition. Oct. 15. Veteran critics of Universal Exhibitions will remember the dis- appointment felt in England owing to the comparatively meagre appearance made by the United States of America in Hyde Park 78 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN, in 1851. A large amount of space had been reserved for the pro- ductions of the Great Republic. She arrived very late, but not without some flourishing of trumpets :— a Federal ship of war having been detailed by the Navy Department for the conveyance to Europe of the exhibits of Columbia. When the cases were unpacked, and the Transatlantic contributions were displayed, it was found that they did not fill a third of the space prospectively allotted to them; and Americans themselves who were visiting London were fain, with comic ruefulness, to confess that 'the Show was a mighty poor one.' To British eyes the American Department appeared to present a minimum of indiarubber over- shoes, waterproof sheeting, and bottles full of corn cobs and 1 brandy peaches ' to an intolerable deal of starred-and-striped banners and pasteboard effigies of eagles with outspread wings. Cousin Jonathan, as is his wont, made the best of the failure; and, ever ingeniously ready to maintain the prestige of his country, pointed out what was virtually irrefutable — first, that America, was a young nation, and could not be expected to excel yet a while in art manufacture ; next, that she was deterred by physical cir- cumstances beyond her control from exhibiting in Sir Joseph Paxton's House of Glass her real and unsurpassable wonders — her Niagara and her Genessee Falls, her Mississippi and her Ohio, her boundless Prairies, her Rocky Mountains, and her Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. The plea was allowed as good-humouredly as it was advanced ; and the kindly hope was universal that America would do better next time. She did better, bravely better, in Paris in 1855. She did better, gloriously better, in London in 1862 ; in Paris in 1867 ; and at Vienna in 1873. She did better, triumphantly better, at her own Centennial Exhibition at Phila- delphia in 1876. Better and better still is the figure made by the United States in the Champ de Mars ; but it is my intent to notice her con- tributions only from one point of departure : that is, Art-Gold and Silver smith's work. It is a new point, comparatively speaking, with her, and that is why I wish to dwell upon it. I America's place at the exhibition. 79 should be travelling bej'ond the record which I have proposed to myself were I to say anything concerning American pianofortes, curriers' and saddlers' work, cutlery, pencil, pencil-case, and gold- pen making, drugs, preserved provisions, and machinery in general. In all these departments she manifests her usual inge- nuity and skill, combined with handiwork which shows signs of constant improvement ; but not one of these industries has any special connection with art, much less do any of them point to the formation of a national school of art-workmanship on the American Continent. Even the exhibits of the American Watch Company of Waltham, Massachusetts, remarkable as they are for symmetry of form and skilfulness of workmanship, only point to what can be done by large and well-organised capital in securing the services of competent workmen, be they of French, Swiss, German, English, or American nationality. Waltham, in fact, has only done that which Coventry did when the city of Godiva found that her ribbon trade was falling off. There are few trades which are so easily acclimatised as that of the watchmaker; and it would be a very good thing for Ramsgate and Margate, and the rest of our seaside watering-places, if they applied themselves to watchmaking during those winter months after the season which are spent in con- strained idleness and often in pinching poverty. It is a very dif- ferent matter when we come to such industries as art-pottery, art- furniture, and the craft of the goldsmith and silversmith. Such manufactures are difficult to establish, and their roots are slow to strike. A lengthy period must necessarily elapse before they acquire a prestige sufficient to command commercial success; and they require the services of an operative population specially trained and educated for the work to be done. In the department of ceramics a very bright future may be predicted for America — whether our own potters will appreciate the brightness of the pros- pect is quite another question — but hitherto the potters of New York and New Jersey have mainly confined themselves to the fabri- cation of white stone ware for domestic use. The first and grand step is, however, to make pots ; the adoption of painting and glaz- 80 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. ing processes will very soon follow ; and when our cousins do make their minds up seriously to practise ceramic decoration the}' will find ready to their hand a well-nigh inexhaustible museum of models and exemplars of indigenous origin in the antique potteiy of Central America and Mexico. The rich abundance of beauteous 'fancy' woods in the American forests should likewise eventually tend to the development of the manufacture of art furniture ; and in New York, I am given to understand, artistic cabinet-making of the very highest kind is visibly progressing; but for the manufacture to become general the American art- workman needs a, great deal more instruction than he has hitherto had the means •of acquiring in decorative modelling, carving, inlaying, and brass- finishing. Dealing, however, not with what may be, but with what is, I wish to call attention to the peculiar (and to my mind) the sur- prising excellence of the display in gold and silver smiths' ware made by Messrs. Tiffany & Co. of New York. The merits of these exhibits have been recognised by the International Jury, who, I am informed, have awarded to the head of the firm the Grand Prix, a high distinction, which carries with it the Cross of the Legion of Honour. But it is expedient that Americans as well as Englishmen should understand that the productions which have attracted so much'attention, and on which so high an honorary reward has been bestowed, ma} r be considered as marking the commencement of a wholly new era in American industry. ' You have stared at, wondered at, and occasionally laughed at,' the Americans seem to sa_y, ' our patent cow-milkers and clothes- wringers, our mangles and boot-cleaners, our ash-hoppers and kitcheners, our sewing and type-writing machines ; now, please to come and see what we can do in the way of art.' I need scarcely say that the house of Tiffany, as first-class silversmiths, is as well known as the Elkingtons are known in London, or Bir- mingham, or Paris. Fifteen } T ears since, when I was in New York, Tiffany's show-rooms for plate and jewelry were among the sights of the Empire citj-. Still I did not expect, when I visited America's place at the exhibition. 81 the Transatlantic department of the Paris Exhibition, anything in the way of gold or silver smith's ware be} T ond the conventionally rich and the ordinarily tasteful. The goldsmith's art, notwith- standing all that Christofle and Castellani have clone, has been to a great extent stationary since the first French Revolution, which for a season absolutely and completely obliterated the orfevre; and it was with difficulty that I could persuade myself that the most conspicuous signs of progress in the craft of Benvenuto Cellini and Maso Fineguerra had come from the United States. Yet such is the verdict of the sectional jury of the existing Exhibition, and such is the plain truth. Purely of American design and execution is Messrs. Tiffany's tea-service in oxidised silver and variously coloured gold, adorned with an exquisite pattern in relief, embody- ing the apologue of ' the Spider and the Fly.' I am shown, also, a teapot, in its way unique, and in which the silver has been oxidised to an inimitably delicate purple hue. Then I behold a service which is a very marvel of simple beauty in design and of skilfulness in the handiwork, presenting examples of applique in no less than six different metals, combined with the extremely difficult and rarely practised process of ' lamination.' The objects in this service are decorated with a cunning trailing pattern, in which" the ' Pilgrim's gourd ' is conspicuous. I notice, too, a vase of Japanese form, in which there are twenty-four varieties of metallic 'lamination.' Vases of repousse work, of the utmost elaboration of execution, point to the fact that the opus mallei has become thoroughly understood, and is being appreciatively prac- tised in the New York workrooms; and superb examples of silver chasing are apparent in a great silver swan, designed as a surtout de table, and in the elephant of the grand silver service manufac- tured, at a cost of 150,000 dollars, for a Nevada millionnaire. Of more peculiar interest to the English spectator will be the repro- duction in gold and gems of the collection of precious objects discovered in the Curium of the island of Cyprus by General di Cesnola. These art-treasures surpass anything that Castellani has rescued from the bed of the Tiber, or from the ruined villas VOL. I I. ,. 82 PARIS BERSELF AGAIN. of old Rome. They equal in richness and symmetry the rarest of Dr. Schliemann's discoveries in the Troad or at Mycenre ; they rival even the marvels of the famous Kertch Museum, in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg. The original collection of General di Cesnola is now in the possession of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York ; but too much praise cannot be bestowed on Messrs. Tiffany for the reproduction of these rare and curious ornaments. They are indeed triumphs of imitative goldsmith's art ; and General di Cesnola himself has, after a careful exami- nation, piece by piece, of the series of that which is probably the most ancient jewelry known, borne adequate testimony to the exact fidelity of the reproduction. ' Were it not for your name stamped upon those you have made,' writes the discoverer of the Curium of C^yprus to Messrs. Tiffany, 'I believe it would be almost impossible to decide which are the originals and which the copies.' There can be little doubt that our South Ken- sington Museum should possess these admirable reprod uctions ; but whether authority will empower South Kensington to dis- burse sufficient money to acquire a marvellously faithful replica of the Cypriote treasure is quite another matter. I lack the space to enlarge on the merits of the silver candelabra manufactured for Mr. James Gordon Bennett, to commemorate sundry yachting victories gained by that gentleman ; and I can only just mention the presence of the well-known electrotyped vase, executed in honour of the late William Cullen Bryant. Both these elaborate performances are exhibited as types of purely American design, and the first as a specimen of as purely American decoration ; the construction and enrichments being derived ex- clusively from studies of the costumes, weapons, implements, and trinkets of the North American Indians. This is as it should be ; and to me the pleasantest feature in the truly remarkable display made by Messrs, Tiffany is the assurance which I receive that the drawings and models for all these sumptuous works of art, that the repoussd work, the chasing, and the engraving, are all the production of American brains and American hands, which seem America's place at the exhibition. 83 as skilful in resuscitating the damascening and niello of the Cinque Cento as in imitating the most fanciful tracery of Persian work and the wonderful inlaying and applique of the old Japanese craftsmen. As regards design, the influence of Japan is neces- sarily and, for the time, beneficialby manifest in the Tiffany ex- hibits. There is scarcely any department of British art in which we have not learned valuable lessons from the Japanese ; and for the present it is eminently fitting that the American should study under the capable and inventive Orientals who have taught us so much in the way of decorative design, colour, and technical completeness. I repeat for the present. The art-workman must leam to walk before he runs. Just now it would seem as though a junk, laden with cunning examples of Japanese art- workmanship, wrecked ages ago on the coast of California, had been suddenly weighed up, and as though the priceless cargo had made its way to Prince's Street, New York City, to serve as models to the young students in the School of Design attached to Messrs. Tiffany's manufactory; but, as the years roll on, the glories of the plastic art of ancient Greece and medheval and Cinque Cento Italy must travel across the Atlantic ; and the Tiffanys of the future will be bound to show us that their de- signers and modellers, their chasers and repousse workers, know how to deal with the infinitely varied phases of the human figure, and with the almost equally infinite phases of drapery and decora- tion which lend not only body but soul to antique Eenaissance art. Japan is an excellent starting-point ; but the goal should be Greece and Rome. G 2 VII. EASILY PLEASED. Oct. 20. I am ready to admit that a person of nominally cheerful tempera- ment and of moderate desires may be Easily Pleased in London. The overgrown metropolis of the British Empire does not enjoy the repute of being a very gay city ; yet to my mind there is always something on view, or something going on within the postal radius, of a nature to interest and amuse those fortunate indi- viduals who have nothing to do save to stroll about the streets and amuse themselves. Had I any disposable leisure of my own, I should be glad, when in England, to serve as a guide and in- terpreter to blase people of the Sir Charles Coldstream type, and show them all kinds of places and things where and by which they might be easily pleased. Do you know the delightful model of the little gentleman in the tightly-fitting silk-pants and socks, and the exquisite shirt-front and faultless cuffs, at the hosier's shop in Regent's Street ? Have you taken note of his superb little whiskers and moustaches ? And the Imperial Lady in wax, and in the blue-satin corset, perpetually revolving at the staymaker's EASILY PLEASED. 85 nearly opposite ? And the young lady in the riding-habit and the gentleman in full hunting-costume at the merchant-tailor's ? And Mr. Cremer junior's dolls ? And the permanent wedding- breakfast at the French confectioner's in Oxford Street? And the painted indiarubber mutton-cutlets, lizards, turbots, lobsters, and death's-heads — all so many tobacco-pouches in disguise — at the German fancy warehouse near the Lyceum Theatre. And the tiny fountains and jets (Veau at the filter-shop hard by where Temple Bar formerly stood ? And the hundred-ton guns, and the frigate tossed on the waves of a clock-work ocean, at the Model Dockyard in Fleet Street? And Sir John Bennett's bell-banging giants in Cheapside ? And the newest exhibits of the Stereoscopic Com- pany, east and west ? And the armoury of miniature pots, pans, and kettles — I am delighted to find that the business is still car- ried on — at the corner of Bow Churchyard ? And the peripatetic picture-dealers who hang about Lothbury and Bartholomew Lane with gaudily-framed oil-paintings, for which they sometimes ask twenty pounds from old ladies who have come to the Bank to draw then dividends, and for which they are generally willing to take twenty shillings ? And that wonderful museum of dolls in the Waterloo Road ; and the Bluecoat boys at play, ' like troutlets in a pool,' behind the grating in Newgate Street ? And the solemn little Foundlings quietly disporting themselves — bo}"s on one side, girls on another — on their spacious grass-plots in Guilford Street ? "When I have been absent a long time from England I return to these scenes and creatures as to old familiar friends. I miss a well-remembered crossing-sweeper now and then ; but still the supply of sweepers who solicit ' A copper, yer honour ! ' seems to be kept up. One generation of blind men and then* dogs is suc- ceeded by another ; and it may be the great-grandson of the choice monkey with the cocked hat that diverted me in my youth, who now goes through the manual exercise, sweeps with a long broom the platform of his tripod, fires off a rifle, and, the performance being over, nestles, with an expression of resignation half comic, 80 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. half rueful, in his Italian master's bosom. There is no solution of continuity in these gratuitous spectacles. Punch never seems to grow older; and Karl and Hans and Ludwig, of the German 1 green-baize band,' look as young as though they had been re- juvenated by some beneficent Mephistophiles. They and the shops and the gratuitous street-sights — even to the laying down of the wood-pavement, and the laying bare of the entrails of the streets in the shape of gas and water-pipes and electric telegraph- wires — seem all specially provided for the benefit of those* who are willing to be Easily Pleased. This being granted, it must nevertheless be borne in mind that in London long distances have to be traversed before you can light on the spots where you can be Easily Pleased ; that our deplorable climate precludes us — notwithstanding the dictum of Charles II. — from strolling about the streets at least a hundred and fifty days in every year ; and that there are scores upon scores of London streets from which absolutely no kind of entertainment can be derived. Do you think that yon could be Easily Pleased in Wimpole Street ? Is there anything diverting in Portland Place '? What do you think of Bernard Street, Russell Square, as a theme for philosophic contemplation ? How about Golden Square ? Have you ever discovered the humours of Stamford Street, Blackfriars ? Did Burton Crescent ever yield you any pleasure ? Is the Alpha Road a very lively locality ? On the other hand, I contend that there is no street, passage, place, impasse, avenue, quay, cite, or boulevard within Paris where the cheerful observer who is content with little may not be Easily Pleased. The Place Ventadour — where, by the way, to the national shame, the noble Theatre des Italiens is being demolished, to give place tn the Credit Something or Another — is generally accounted to be the dullest locality in Paris. A porte-monnaie full of bank- notes lay there once, they say, for four-and-twenty hours without being discovered ; but I will undertake at any hour of the day to be as Easily Pleased in the Place Ventadour as on the Boulevard des Italiens. There is always something going on in the quietest EASILY TLEASED. 87 as in the busiest quarters to interest and to amuse the flaneur. And that is why the Parisian — he need not be a Frenchman ; he may be a loyal adopted son of Lutetia, like Gavarni's English- man, who had ' lived in Paris since the capture of Paris by the English ' — is the most accomplished yZoMeur in the world. Take the shop-signs in general, for instance, and the charcvr tiers' signs in particular. We have remarkably fine pork in England. An English sucking-pig is, in degree, as pretty as an oil-miniature by Meissonier. An English side of bacon is a noble spectacle ; but how wretchedly tame and ineffective is the etalage of an English pork-butcher's ! As for a London tripe-shop, it is really repulsive to look upon ; and it is only now and again, in a great ham-and-beef shop, say in the Hampstead Eoad or in Kentish Town, that a feeble attempt is made to produce an artistic ensemble by the piling up of pyramids of pork-pies, or the display of huge blue-and-white basins full of coagulated mock-turtle soup. As for artistic decoration of the counter or the shop-front, that is wholly absent, and the wooden semblance of a ham, rudely gilt, generally does duty as a sign. Now the Parisian charcutier's is, on the contrary, all sparkling neatness and symmetrical taste. The sign and the arabesques decorating the door-jambs, painted in oil and scrupulously defended by plate-glass panels, are frequently really excellent works of art. I have been told recently of the sad end of a most capable artist, who for many years had devoted himself to the decoration of the exteriors of pork- shops. He had under- gone a thorough academical training in the studio of a distin- guished French painter, and he had once competed, albeit unsuc- cessfully, for the Grand Prix de Rome. The subject given out on the occasion when the unfortunate deceased competed for the prize was ' Trimalcion's Banquet.' The poor painter made the necessary sketches, and was then securely locked up in his loge at the Ecole des Beaux Arts to paint his picture. The commis- sion, by whom it was subsequently examined, acknowledged that all the details of still life in the picture were admirably executed. Nothing could be more microscopically faithful to nature than the B8 PARIS HERSELF A.GAIN. I ^^Sn.rj r - ■ -i'y-W .: ,-■ Ms*- f1 '"" .?-'-' v crayfish and the red mullet, the boars' heads and the peacocks, the oysters and the wild ducks. Ah ovo usque ad malum, all the eatables were superbly imitated ; only the human personages were villanously drawn and vilely coloured, so the Examining Com- mission did not send the unlucky competitor to the Villa Medicis. The result was that he became a painter of nature morte. He vegetated long and miserably as a picture-dealer's hack, but EASILY PLEASED. 89 at length found more remunerative patronage among the pork- butchers. As a painter of charcuterie the unsuccessful competitor for the Grand Prix de Home obtained a kind of renown. His garlands of sausages, displayed against a sky of pure azure flecked with fleecy clouds, were enthusiastically spoken of in the Rue du Bac ; he had a prodigious success on the Boulevard de Strasbourg with a hure de sanglier — a boar's head austerely posed on a platter of old Faenza ware ; and the Faubourg St. Denis was in raptures with the exquisite finish of his terrines de foie gras and his andouilleites de Troyes. He was the Teniers of pigs' feet d la Sainte Mene- hould ; the Paul Potter of cowheel d la Biribi, the Rafaelle of snails with veal-stuffing, the Michael Angelo of jambons de Bay- onne. He excelled in Gorgonzola cheese. Few could touch him in Bologna mortadella. His bacon was magisterial, his truffled turkey truly grand. He earned a handsome livelihood by the exer- cise of porcine art ; but his friends remarked with sorrowful anx- iety that a settled gloom had taken possession of him. He grew more and more morose and desponding. A fortnight since — I tell the story as it was told to me — the poor fellow was found hanging from a cross-beam in his studio. He was quite dead. On his table was found a slip of paper containing these words : ' Let no man be accused of my death. I am determined to destroy myself, because these six months past / have failed miserably in savoury jelly. ,' Poor man ! It was hard enough to have missed the Grand Prix de Rome ; but to break down in the simulation of galantine was Fortune's unkindest cut of all. You may be as Easily Pleased in the humblest little Parisian bye-street, say off the Rue Dauphine, as when you are standing in front of the lordliest charcutier's in the Faubourg Montmartre. I can go farther, and say that, as a spectacle, Potel and Chalot do not take my breath away, and that even the superb Chevet does not astound ine over-much. I can see finer whole salmon at Groves's than the traditional fish which is apiece de resistance at Chevet's. Indeed a great part of Chevet's show consists in the 90 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. artistic ' make-up.' Take, for example, these festoons of bananas. Bananas are not reckoned of much account in Covent Garden Market. Consider that cunning bordering of oranges and cocoa- nuts to a saddle of not very appetising mutton pre-sale. I daresay that the oranges are a franc apiece, and that the most fanciful prices are charged for the cocoa-nuts, the ' coster's' price of which in London is fourpence each. But in that little bye- street off the Rue Dauphine I am Easily Pleased by more natural, and, to me, more picturesque, bits of life, animated and still. Every little greengrocer's shop, every tiny cremerie is a picture. What richness of colour, what velvety smoothness of texture, in that neatly-piled cone of ready-boiled spinach on its snowy cloth, and with the clean wooden spatula for serving out the wholesome toothsome vegetable ! Where can I buy cold boiled spinach in London ? And what a dirty hole is a London fried-fish shop ! They are frying away furiously in the little bye-street off the Rue Dauphine. Here is a famous friture of gudgeons ; in another snug corner potatoes leap, crackling, in their scalding bath of oil. Yonder, a mighty old dame, who might be the grandmother of the Gracchi, in a clean white bib and apron, is frying eels with the loftiest of airs. Next door to a cobbler working lustily away in his stall — few and far between are the cobblers' stalls left in Lon- don — is a triangular niche, which proudly announces itself, on a capitally painted sign, to be the ' Petite Renommee de la Galette.' A pretty girl, in a blue-duffel dress, a Avhite apron, and white-linen sleeves, is continually dispensing slabs of the greasy delicacy. Exiguous as is the niche, it has a background, and there I can dimly discern an oven, and the pretty girl's father baking galette i emingly for ever and ever. He has been baking it to my know- ledge these forty years past. To me it is always the same galette, always hot, always fresh, always young, like the royal countenance on the coinage and the postage-stamps. I will buy two sous'-worth of that galette, and devour it, sur place, even if I expire forthwith of indigestion. Ah, I have eaten the galette over and over again in the time that is dead and so EASILY TLEASED. 91 clear to me. Steeped in poverty to the lips, but Easily Pleased and passably content, what did you want when you were young, unracked by disease, unwrung by regrets, beyond the few penny- worths of sustenance that you could procure in the little bye-street ? You scarcely ever visited the fashionable side of the Seine. Mon- sieur Dusautoy, the tailor, might go to Hong Kong for you. Where was the Cafe Anglais ? What kind of people dined at the Maison Doree ? You scarcely knew. Assuredly you never cared. Yours the slumbers light, the early wander, the modest breakfast on what the crcmcrie, the greengrocer's, the fried-fish shop would yield ; the two sous'-worth of caporal tobacco, or the petit Bor- deaux cigar, which cost but a sou ; and then the serious business of the da}- — the business of doing nothing save sweeping with eager eyes over all the printed treasures of the bookstalls, all the graphic and ceramic marvels of the curiosity-shops from the Quai aux Fleurs to the Quai d'Orsay. W r as there any harm in having a small parcel containing fried potatoes in your coat-pocket while you were consulting an antique edition of Montaigne '? Was it high treason to munch a crust-and-butter and a hard-boiled egg while you scanned a rare Robert Strange, a precious Raphael Morghen '? Did you derogate from your social position by walking into the nearest cabaret and ordering a chopine ' I think not. I think so still, as I munch the pennyworth of galette — not without a kind of suffocating sensation in the throat. It must be immi- nent indigestion ; but what is it Sir John Falstaff says about his old friends who are dead ? The rotisscurs, all over Paris, seem equally capable of easily pleasing people. The Paris ' roaster ' is something more and something less than a London cookshop-keeper. As a rule, he does not have a restaurant attached to his establishment. He deals not in made dishes. He does not serve portions. He has untliing to do with vegetables or sweets. But he continues with- out intermission to roast poultry, game, and joints. His spits are never idle. Supposing that you, a modest rentier, or a pro- fessional man with no very extensive accommodation in your own 02 PAEIS HERSELF AGAIN. appartement, propose to entertain a few friends at dinner. The soup is always safe. Every Frenchwoman — and, for the matter of that, almost every Frenchman — can make soup. You can get as many oysters as you like at a franc and a half a dozen, at the tcaillage at the corner. Fish is not necessarily expected. The bouitti from the soup, garnished, makes an entree de riande de boucherie. The hors-d'oeuvres you buy at the cjiarcutier' 's ; the pdtissier sends you the sweets. But you still lack your roast. "Where are you to obtain your gigot cuit d jioint, your rosbif d VAnglaise, your dinde mix marrons, your brace of pheasants or partridges, your fat capon, or your spring chickens ? In your dilemma the rotisseur stands your friend. You order in the morning the joint, or the poultry, or game which you require, and at the appointed time your bonne calls for it, or the rotisseur'' s boy brings the viand to your abode, piping hot. I cannot help fancying that the roaster's functions might be made very easily adaptable to the requirements of civilisation in London. Innumerable families when the}' wish to give an extra- ordinary entertainment, have the dinner ' sent in from the pastry- cook's,' to the disorganisation of the entire household, and the secret wrath of the cook, who — good woman — could manage a small dinner very well, but is somewhat overweighted with a large one. Possibly she has no gas-stove, and her kitchen-range will not accommodate three roasts at a time. Under such circum- stances what a benefactor would the rotisseur be ! A sirloin of beef, a roast goose, a pair of fowls, a haunch of mutton, a brace of pheasants, a roast hare — the Magician of the Spit would furnish all these viands with promptitude and despatch, and the hostess would be rescued from the many embarrassments which environ the ' pastrycook's dinner ' including the sable-clad waiter with the large feet and the Berlin gloves, whose solemn presence and con- tinuous — albeit secretly indulged— thirst always vaguely remind you of those other sable-clad servitors who are associated with cake and wine, black gloves, scarves, and hat-bands. mil f»l , l 1 J; \ ;, \^U^ 1 YIII. HIGH HOLIDAY IN THE CITY. Oct. 24. The journals of Barcelona gave, a few days since, an account of a very remarkable fiesta which had taken place at Villareal, near Castellon, on the borders of Valencia ; a region which, from the amiable temper and affable manners of its inhabitants, has acquired the name of un paradlso habltado por demonios — a paradise in- habited by fiends. The Villareal festival was an eminently characteristic one. A bull was let loose in the streets, which were Jl 1 PARIS HERSELF A.GAIN. partially barricaded. Throughout the whole day 'the poor beast was chased, worried, and tortured by amateur toreros; women plunged scissors into its hide, the very children prodded it with forks, and at length, about sunset, the bull was brought into the plaza, where four streets converge; the wretched creature was tied down to beams placed across a great pile of dried esparto, and then the bull, amid the shouts of a sympathetic population, was slowhi roasted to death. This monstrous act of cWlty was perpe- trated on the 16th of this present month of October. Thus, there would have been plenty of time for any notable inhabitant of Yillareal de Castellon, anxious to ascertain from personal observa- tion how public festivities are organised in the capital of France, to have taken the train for Barcelona, and thence, either by the way of Gerona and Perpignan or by that of Marseilles and Lyons, to have come to Paris to participate in the ' Grandes Fetes de la Distribution des Recompenses,' a series of merrymakings which beoan on Saturday evening and continued without intermission throughout the whole of Sunday and Monday, and were supple- mented on Tuesday evening by a stupendous ball and illumination at Versailles. Failing the advent of the Alecdde or the Cura of Villareal, there is a multitude of Spaniards just now who are to be found at most hours of the day and night puffing their papelitos outside the Cafe de Madrid, and who might vouch for the fact that they order these things — that is to say fetes — much better in France. First let me briefly sum up what has been done in the way of public rejoicings. The State has, so far as the million is con- cerned, very wisely done scarcely anything at all, and has left the million to do everything for themselves. ' Hang out your banners on your outward walls ; bight up your girandoles and your Chinese lanterns ; sing whatever songs you please, and joy go with you.' Such has been practically the counsel given by authority to the public at large ; and the advice has been universally and enthusi- astically followed. Only from eighteen to twenty thousand spectators could be privileged to witness the somewhat tedious HIGH HOLIDAY IN THE CITY. 95 ceremony of the distribution of prizes in the Palais cle l'lndustrie. The real pageant was to be seen out of doors, and that pageant was provided by the population at large. Dr. Johnson said that he went to Ranelagh Gardens to look at ten thousand people, and to feel that ten thousand people were looking at him. With an analogous intent did the gentleman with the horns, hoofs, and tail, in Southey's ' Devil's Walk,' ' stand in Tottenham Court Eoad, either by choice or by whim ; And there he saw Brothers the Prophet, And Brothers the Prophet saw him.' Since Saturday night a million and a half of Parisians, and some scores of thou- sands of foreigners, have been nocking up and down the main thoroughfares of Paris staring at one another, and deriving, ap- parently, the most intense enjoyment from the spectacle. ' Ou irons-nous a present ? Nous avons ete un peu partout ' — ' Where shall we go now ? We have been almost everywhere ' — I heard a stout French husband say to his stouter wife, on Monday after- noon. 'Descendons encore le Boulevard des Italiens,' said the lady, seemingly not in the least tired ; and off they went to enjo}* a fresh lease of staring and be- ing" stared at. The pleasure of promenading never palls on the *J£* «r^i essentially out-of-door people. When they have stared at each other they stare into the shop- windows and newspaper kiosques; then they stare at the cabs and omnibuses ; and if a shower of rain comes on, they crowd into the passages or under the arcades of the Rue de Eivoli, and find new faces and tilings to stare at. Where is the use of paying an extravagant price to witness, in an over-heated and over-crowded theatre, a performance in a language with which you may be imperfectly acquainted, when you may witness one of the live- liest dramas ever performed on the stage of that great theatre 00 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. the "World, in the cool, open, spacious streets, for nothing at all ? Paris broke out in bunting on Saturday afternoon. From care- ful inquiry I ascertained in the Hue St. Denis that a tricolored flag of a gay but ' sleezy ' fabric could be purchased, pole, tassels, gilt spearhead, and all, for 3f. 50c. ; but there were more modest gonfalons in calico which could be obtained at a much cheaper rate. Tricolored cockades in silk were freely offered at fifty centimes apiece ; in cardboard they were quoted at two sous each. Miniature tricolored adornments for the headstalls of horses were to be had for a franc a dozen ; and a very nice Chinese lantern could be bought for ten sous. The humblest houses in the hum- blest streets displayed one or more of these cheerful and graceful decorations ; while in the principal thoroughfares the proprietors of the great shops and cafes had only to bring out their reserve stock of flags and banners which they had laid in for the National Fete of the 30th of June last. With one exception the nations were most impartially and liberally represented from an heraldic point of view on the boulevards. The Italian tricolor and the Cross of Savoy, the Austrian Sclmarz-gelt, the Russian flag with the double-headed eagle on the vast field of yellow, the American stars and stripes, and our own Union Jack, together with the Spanish tricolor, ' blood to the fingers' ends,' and a number of bizarre cognisances belonging to less known nationalities, flaunted and fluttered from thousands of windows. I even saw, at a per- fumer's on the Boulevard Montmartre, a very creditable imitation of the stateliest banner in the world — the Royal Standard of England. It is true that the designer had thrown in a leopard or two, and the Prince of "Wales's plumes and the Order of the Garter, and had thus caused some confusion among the quarter- ings ; nor, perhaps, was a superimposed escutcheon of Britannia riding on a lion, and looking like Danneker's Ariadne, who had suddenly bethought herself of donning a helmet and some light drapery in order not to be thought ' schkocking,' strictly in accord- ance Avith the proper laws of blazonry ; still the intent was excel- ''^ -'•/■fey/iNtS ..?v HIGH HOLIDAY IN THE CITY. 97 lent and the effect superb. Opinions were divided as to whether the perfumer's ensign was the banner of the Lord Ma3 r or of London or of his Royal Highness himself; but the majority held that it was the device of the Prince whose photograph is in every shop- window, whose effigy decorates ladies' neckties, boxes of gloves, cakes of soap and chocolate, and corners of pocket-handkerchiefs, and whose name is on every Parisian lip. We have two ex-Kings of Spain among us — Don Francisco de Assis, and Amadeo, Duke of Aosta ; we have a Prince of Denmark and a Prince of Holland ; but the Prince of Wales carries all before him in the way of popularity. Among other privileges conceded to the Parisians on occasions of high holiday such as the present is to play in the public thorough- fares on that detestable instrument, the French horn. It is only during the Carnival, on the evening of the Mi-Careme, and on fete days that the sound of this mournfullest of wind instruments is tolerated ; at other seasons — legal torture having been abolished in 1789 — the horn is rigorously prohibited by the police. But since Saturday the excruciatingly dismal wheezings and croakings of the 98 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. French horn have been audible all over Paris. Chiefly is it notice- able in the bye-streets ; for in the main thoroughfares the roar of the passing vehicles is so loud and so incessant that the lugubrious strains laboriously pumped out from this execrable shawm attract but little attention. In a bye-street ' le Monsieur qui sonne du cor ' has things all his own way, and can gratify to the full his desire, which is obviously to please himself by making as many of his neighbours wretched as he possibly can. He is not a pro- fessional musician. O, dear no ! He is only an amateur of human misery, an unconscious disciple of the gifted but anon}'- mous English misanthrope who wrote that fascinating book, the Art oj Ingeniously Tormenting. The ' Monsieur qui sonne du cor ' appears to me to live usually in an entresol. So soon as the police taboo on his abhorrent clarion is provisionally suspended, he throws his window wide open : and, leaning over the sill, pro- ceeds to discourse his terrific minstrelsy. I wonder whether Blondel the troubadour was a proficient on the French horn. If such were indeed the case, the misery of the captivity of the lion- hearted King must have been wofully aggravated by hearing ' O Richard, 6 mon roi ! Tout l'univers t'abandomie ; Dans ce monde il n'y a que moi Qui s'interesse en ta personne,' to the accompaniment of a French horn. I abide by the theory that the French horn-player is Timon of Paris. He has seen the hollowness, the ingratitude, the perfidy of the world ; and after giving a farewell and dismal banquet to his fair-weather friends in the salon known as the Grand Seize at the Cafe Anglais, and flinging the dishes — which contained nothing but hot water — at their heads, he has retired to an entresol in the Rue Je m'en-fiche- pas-mal, where, from year's end to year's end, he nourishes his hatred of mankind, occasionally solacing himself, when the police regulations permit him, by throwing open his window, and driving his neighbours frantic by his performances on the French horn. He is, as a rule, indifferent to the tune which he tortures. I have HIGH HOLIDAY IN THE CITY. 99 heard him within the last four days trying ' Madame Langlume,' the ' Sire de Framboisy,' the waltz from La Fille de Madame Angot, ' Quand j'etais roi ' from Orphee aux Enfers, the ' Chorus of Old Men' from Faust, the 'Wedding March/ the ' Chant du De'part,' and the ' Marseillaise ; ' and tlnVafternoon, passing down the Rue St. Anne, I heard Tinion of Paris, as usual, at the win- dow of his entresol, excoriating the graceful melody of ' God Bless the Prince of Wales.' This performance was, no doubt, highly complimentary to the Prince ; still I am glad that Mr. Brinle} r Richards was not passing at the moment in question. There might have been ' a Fite,' as Artemas Ward phrased it, between Tinion and Apemantus. It is nevertheless amusing to reflect that, even three j r ears since, one might as soon have expected to hear the ail" of ' God Bless the Prince of Wales ' as ' Hold the Fort ' or the ' Old Hundredth ' played at a Parisian window. Every day seems to add, to all appearance, to the friendly feeling with which the people of the city of Paris regard the heretofore perfldes Al- bionnais. Scores of English words are being imported, not into Academical, but into Boulevard French. Members of ' le high life ' tell their ' ghrooms ' to put ' le steppeur ' into ' le T-quart.' I heard a French gentleman recently substitute for the French verb' atteler, to harness, .the to me extraordinary term 'hicher.' ' Mais c'est de l'anglais,' he said to me, apparently surprised at my inability to understand what ' hicher ' meant. Suddenly I remembered that the Americans occasionally ' hitch,' instead of harnessing, or ' putting the horses to ' a carriage ; and I am not prepared to say that ' hitch ' is not the tersest and most compre- hensive term of the three. Some thousands of horses were ' hitched ' to carriages, open and closed, for the benefit of sightseers anxious to witness the illuminations. The omnibuses, moreover, were all crammed in- side and outside, the ladies scaling the knifeboard in the most gallant manner imaginable. Equally overladen with humanity were the enormous tapissiercs and chars-a-bancs, drawn by three horses abreast, which perform le service de V Exposition. These ir 2 100 PARIS HEBSELF AGAIX. prodigious caravans are of very ancient origin. These indeed were the Uhedce in use in Roman Gaul ; and you may see the vehicles accurately figured in Mr. Anthony Rich's Dictionary of Greek and Roman A ntiquities. These ponderous vehicles, owing much of their velocity to their own momentum, usually go ' pounding ' along at a terrible rate, pulling up for nobody, and occasionally running down and smashing the poor crazy little victorias. But on the night of the illuminations, omnibuses, tapissihres, and cltars-d-bancs were all bound to move at a snail's pace, if indeed they could move at all. The block from the Madeleine to the Chateau d'Eau was almost continuous, and persons who had hired carriages at famine prices were kept for three-quarters of an hour staring at the gas-devices architectonically defining the lines of the huge premises of the Credit Lyonnais, or half blinded by the electric light in the Avenue de 1' Opera; whereas, had they been on foot, they might have been borne gently in the midst of the best-tempered crowd in the world along the whole length of the Boulevards. It is a capital thing to take a carriage to see the streets of a great city illumi- nated, if you can only persuade your neighbours to stay at home, or to refrain from hiring carriages. So, I should imagine, a vast number of sightseers thought. As far as the pedestrians were concerned, there were a few ugly crushes and rushes, principally at such always perilous corners as those of the Bue Lafitte, the Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin, and especially the Bue du Faubourg Montmartre ; but, on the whole, all things went very smoothly, and I was not more than one hour and three-quarters getting over an amount of pavement space which, under normal conditions, I could have easily perambulated in twenty minutes. Certain of the crowd, not content with the tricolor rosettes, which the great majority wore, transformed themselves into itinerant illumi- nations, carrying lighted Chinese lanterns in their hands, sus- pending them to open umbrellas, and even wearing them on their simple heads. With all this, the behaviour of the crowd was, as a rule, simply perfect. Bad language, coarse ribaldry, and brutal horseplay were altogether absent ; and it was only towards HIGH HOLIDAY IN THE CITY. 101 AT THE PARIS FtTE, FROM THE ' JOURNAL AMUSANT ' midnight, when the crowd was thinning, that a few troops of gawky lads began to make themselves obnoxious by tramping along, waving coloured lanterns and yelping the ' Marseillaise.' They were only the younger brothers of the gawky lads whom I watched on the Boulevards in July, 1870, trooping along, and howling, at the top of their voices, ' A Berlin, a Berlin ! ' Poor gawky lads ! A more serious drawback to enjoyment was the in- cessant discharge from houses in the back streets, or by Gavroches on the pavement, of peiards, or squibs and crackers. On the occa- sion of every popular fete in Paris, horses are terrified and thrown down, and human life and limb endangered, by the reckless dis- 102 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. charge of these explosives, which rival in their noxious abundance the squibs and crackers of a 4th of July celebration in New York. It is quite time that the Paris police put the petards down. Some o( my readers will no doubt remember the ' aristocratic fete ' at poor old Cremorne Gardens ? The festival in question, organised by a noble lord of artistic tastes, must have taken place (how the time slips by !) nearly twenty years ago. Cremorne was then in its glory ; the gardens were exquisitely pretty ; the enter- tainments were varied, sparkling, and attractive ; and it occurred to the noble lord that it would be a very nice thing to charter Mr. Simpson's premises for a single evening, form a committee of ladies patronesses, and, by the maintenance of a rigid system of vouchers, exclude all but the crime de la crime of society from the bowers, the buffets, the marionette theatre, and the dancing- platform for that night only. The festival, harmless and even ingenious in its inception, duly took place. The Brahminical classes came, if not in their thousands, at least in their hundreds, to the Chelsea Casino. There was music ; there was dancing ; ' twenty thousand additional lamps ' shone upon fair women and brave men ; and all would have gone merry as a marriage bell, only, unfortunately, it poured cats and dogs throughout the evening ; and that which should have been an Almack's in the open air was converted into a Festival of Umbrellas and a Carnival of Goloshes. Fierce downfalls of rain, combined with a furious wind, spoiled a great many things in Paris on the day of the grand reception at Versailles : the flags and Chinese lanterns still left hanging along the boulevards, to wit; to say nothing" of the tempers of innumerable promenaders who were overtaken bj'the showers and could not get cabs. At Versailles the rain and the wind worked between them even more mischief ; and the foulest of foul weather did its best to spoil the magnificent fete given in the palace and gardens of Ver- sailles by the President of the French Republic and Madame la Marechale de MacMahon, Duchesse de Magenta, to the foreign princes and grandees sojourning in Paris and the elite of Parisian HIGH HOLIDAY IN THE CITY. 103 society. The gardens became one vast morass of mud ; the water was ankle-deep in the ill-paved Cour de Marbre ; large numbers of ladies had to walk a hundred yards from their carriages to the .^uJ^ staircase of entrance ; trains were trodden upon ; lace scarves were soaked ; silk stockings were splashed ; back hair came down limp and damp, and gentlemen's white cravats hung pendent with moisture. In the palace the crush was so great that hours were 104 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. consumed in arriving in the presence of the Marechale. Stout determined ladies who engaged in the struggle with confidence at the outset often had to abandon it long before they reached the goal. To crown the drawbacks of the evening, the means of exit were so ill-arranged that when the hour of departure arrived every- body experienced the greatest difficulty in getting awa}\ Ladies waited for long hours together on the staircases and in the vesti- bules, unable to reach their carriages ; while gentlemen sought HIGH HOLIDAY IN THE CITY. 105 despairingly for their greatcoats in the confusion that prevailed in the vestiaire. The cloak-room arrangements were imperfect ; the AT THE VERSAILLES FETE, FROM ' LA VIE PARISIENNE ' attendants had 'lost their heads;' Ulsters were handed to people who ought to have had Inverness capes, and the lawful owners of over- coats with Astracan collars could not obtain their property at all. 10(J PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. Apropos of this subject, one of the sallies of M. Paul de Cassagnac, during the debate in the Chamber on the motion for invalidating his election, was as humorous as it was hard-hitting. Some disparaging observations on the wasteful expenditure of money on the fetes given at Compiegne under the Empire having been made by one of his adversaries, M. Paul de Cassagnac at once fired up. ' At least,' he retorted, ' when the Emperor gave a ball, he did not confiscate the greatcoats of his guests, as you did the other night at Versailles.' ' Halloo ! why, you've got your greatcoat on ! So you didn't go to the Versailles fete.' DOUBLE-PRESSURE MACHINE FOR DISTRIBUTING THE AWARDS — THE ONLY WOUNDED ONES ARE THOSE WHO ARE NOT HIT. IX. GRAND PRIZEMEN. Oct. 26. I have often wondered when passing that very fashionable florist's shop close to the Grand Hotel des Capucines, who can be the pur- chasers of the enormous bouquets — * bowpots,' our grandmothers used to call them — which display their rainbow hues in the midst of envelopes of paper large enough, to all seeming, to serve as tablecloths for a party of four. No lady, I should say, of a stature shorter than that of the Nova-Scotian Giantess could carry one of those big bouquets. There are very few fashionable balls just at present ; as society in the noble faubourg is waiting for the pro- vincials and the ' Expositionards ' to go away before the real Paris season begins. Presidential receptions and ministerial dinners do not take place every night. For what purpose, then, are those tremendous bouquets at the florist's near the Grand Hotel in- tended ? I noticed that they grew bigger and bigger as the day for the Distribution of Prizes drew nearer, and I began to fancy that the prodigious assemblages of flowers would be presented — of course, by young ladies in white muslin (four young ladies to each bouquet) — to Madame la Marechale de MacMahon and her princely and illustrious guests on their arrival at the Palais de l'lndustrie. No, the big bouquets remained at the florists on the Boulevard des Capucines throughout the rejoicings of that da}-. 108 TAIUS HERSELF AGAIN. On the day following I went to the Exhibition ; and, entering by the. Porte Etapp, one of the first objects that met my eye was the biggest of all the big bouquets that the Paris florists could gather together glowing on the axle of an immense wheel in the French machinery department. I am not interested in machinery, and am quite ignorant of the attributes of the particular piece of mechanism in question. I only know that it is very large, that its odour is not at all pleasant, and that when in motion it makes a horrible noise, now reminding you of the lamentations of the late Air. Van Amburgh's tawny pupils under his corrective crowbar, and now suggestive of their howls of exultation in the supposititious case of Mr. Van Amburgh dropping his crowbar, and the lions and tigers being then in a position to fall upon and dine from off him. At all events, there was the machine, and there, casting sunshine in a shady place, was the big bouquet. There was something else. Beneath the prodigious posy was a broad plaque, on which were blazoned the magic words ' Grand Prix ! ' Very few and far between, however, are the machines and the glass cases gay with enormous triumphal bouquets, and flaunting the gleaming ensigns which notify that a Grand Prize has been awarded to the fortunate exhibitor. Multitudinous are the cx- jmsants deprived of the proud privilege of affixing to the forefront of their stalls the bright tablets, with ' Grand Prix ' or even * Medaille d'Or' inscribed thereon, and of celebrating their triumph by a sacrifice to Flora. In general, among the French exhibitors disappointment has not been met with cheerful or even with rue- ful resignation. There has been a good deal of clenching of fists, of bending of brows, and of muttering of maledictions both loud and deep over the official prize-list; and Cham, the caricaturist, with his usual humorous exaggeration, has aptly hinted at the frame of mind of a non-recipient of rewards, who administers a sounding kick to a peaceable individual who is looking at his >.vares. ' Puisque je n'ai pas de medaille, je ne veux plus qu'on regarde (bins ma vitrine !' — ' No medal, no more sightseeing!' cries the enraged exhibitor. It is embarrassing to enter into converse GRAND PRIZEMEN. 109 with these disappointed ones. They buttonhole you with terrible tenacity, and pour fearful tales of wrong into your ears. ' Imagine, my dear sir,' says Mon- v j sieur Philocome, of the Passage Postiche, perfumer, ' nothing for my Pommade Pompa- dour ; nothing for my Rose Dub any lips-im- prover ; nothing for my Paphian eyebrow- archer ; nothing for my Mitylenian hair- oil : while that animal, that butor, that impos- tor Coupechou of the Passage Grosradis gets two medals — two, my dear sir, a gold and a silver one — for his miserable Sempiternal Carrot ! It is an infamy ; it is a scandal ; c'est une pourriture /' The Sempiternal Carrot is, I am given to understand, a simulation in indiarubber of the vegetable in ques- tion, strongly impregnated with the juices of carrots, leeks, onions, and so forth. On the Sempiternal Carrot being steeped in hot water the flavour of julienne soup is, after a few minutes, im- parted to the heated fluid ; and the carrot can then be taken out, carefully dried, and put aside for future use in scecula sceculorum. A highly ingenious invention. The British public will rejoice to learn that a goodly number of recompenses of the highest kind have been awarded to our own countrymen. We have every reason to be proud of the show which we have made in the Trocadero and the Champ de Mars. And once again foreigners have generously admitted that we take the lead in calicoes and woollen fabrics, metallurgy, machinery, AT THE EXHIBITION (BY CHAM). ' As I've no medal, I'll not allow any one to look at my case ! ' 110 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. AT THE EXHIBITION AQUARIUM— AN ALARMING CONTINGENCY (BY CHAM). ' I know them well. If they don't get medals, they'll all drown themselves.' and machine tools, agricultural implements, ceramics, glass, bis- cuits, preserved provisions, whisky, and beer. Sir Joseph Whit- worth & Co. take a more splendid rank at Paris in 1878 than Iierr Krupp took in 1867. The Whitworth exhibit has gained no less than three Grand Prizes for machinery and metal working, with a gold medal in addition for artilleiy. Altogether no less than five Grand Prizes and twenty -two gold medals have been given to British exhibitors in the single section of mining and metallurgy, while in the section of 'fils et tissus de colon'' the Lancashire firm of Testal, Broadhurst, & Co. secure the Grand Prix, and six other houses receive gold medals for products in the same class. Further, a Grand Prix and four gold medals have been given for thread and linen fabrics, and nine gold medals for woollen cloths. The manufacturers of agricultural implements too, with Messrs. John Fowler & Co. at their head, have carried off a Grand Prix, and fourteen gold medals, besides which a Grand Prix and seven gold medals have fallen to the lot of exhibitors in the horticul- tural section. GRAND PRIZEMEN. Ill Equally gratifying is the recognition accorded to the manufac- turers of pottery and of glass. In ceramics Minton of course takes a Grand Prix. Due justice has thus been done to the superb works in ceramics exhibited by the renowned firm of Stoke-on- Trent. Another Grand Prix has been awarded to Messrs. Doulton for their admirable Lambeth faience ; while gold medals have been given to the historic houses of Copeland and of Wedgwood, to Brown, Westhead, & Co., and to the Worcester Porcelain Works — not because their productions are in any way inferior to those of Minton or of Doulton, but because there were no more Grand Prizes in this particular section to give away. There was one, however, to be bestowed in the section for glass, and this has been awarded to Messrs. Thomas Webb & Sons, of Stourbridge and London, for their varied and magnificent display, and notably for the unique specimens of engraving upon glass which formed so splendid a feature of their exhibit. This distinguished firm of artistic glass manufacturers unde- niably deserve to be placed in the forefront of the ' laureats ' of the Exhibition, since to them has been allotted the only Grand Prix in their peculiar department of production. English glass manufacturers have been, as a rule, regarded with extreme jealousy by French manufacturers and experts, who are justifiably desirous to uphold the prestige of their own Cristalleries de Baccarat, which are virtually a State institution, being conducted by M. Michaud on behalf of the French Government. Since, however, a Treaty of Commerce has been concluded between the two great civilising Powers of Europe, and the public mind in France is slowly but steadily becoming imbued with a conviction of the advantages of Free-trade, this jealousy has been gradually disappearing. As regards ceramics it has well-nigh entirely disappeared. French potters are beginning to acknowledge that neither Sevres nor any other private enterprise is endangered by the competition of Minton, of Wedgwood, or of Doulton ; and the honours conferred on Messrs. Thomas Webb & Sons go far in the direction of proving that justice and right feeling will be extended to other 112 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. branches of British manufacture. In many respects the Webb display must be held superior to that of Baccarat, which, all- beautiful as it is in artistic design, has a certain ' milkiness ' of hue and a deficiency of sharpness of cutting which suggest either want of skill in mixing the ' metal,' or coarseness in the moulds employed for the rough forms from which such glass, which cannot be blown, must originally be cast. The effect of Baccarat glass is, on the whole, too cold and pale. It lacks what diamond merchants call ' show ; ' and the brilliance of its ' water,' as com- pared with that of first-rate English glass, is as the brilliance of gas as compared with that of the electric light. All styles and periods are illustrated in the ornamental glass of Messrs. Webb. There are specimens in the Egyptian, the Assyrian, the Persian, the Indian, the Greek, the Italian, and the Celtic styles ; there is glass of Byzantine, of Gothic, of Renais- sance, and of Rococo design and decoration. In particular must artistic beauty and technical skill be recognised in the cameo- sculptured vases in the manner of the renowned Portland Vase which Josiali Wedgwood successfully imitated in ceramics, but which Messrs. Webb have been the first to produce in the genuine material of which the Portland Vase is composed — blue and white opaque and semi-translucent glass. These exquisite vases have, however, been purposely excluded by the jury from their con- sideration of this particular display, which has been judged on its true decorative and technical merits, quite apart from the unique characteristics of the cameo-sculptured vases. The most con- spicuous object is the Panathenaic glass vase, superbly engraved in high relief with a design adapted from the frieze of the Parthenon. Then there is a superb Benaissance vase, covered with engraved arabesques with classical subjects in the cartouches. This has been bought for 5000 francs, as one of the prizes in the Exhibition Lottery. A Perso-Gothic service, engraved with a quaintly mediaeval diaper, and a Gothic cup or tankard — what the French term a hanap — with a fantastically grotesque design engraved upon it, next call for attention ; and there is likewise a vase of Indian form, so ex- c GRAND PRIZEMEN'. 113 quisitely delicate in its engraved tracery, that, to my mind, it ought to be called the ' Cobweb ' Yase. ENGRAVED 1 LABET JTJG IN THE SIC STYLE. >o» y^lits*;- ENGRAVED EWER OE INDIAN FORM. Of useful objects of a high artistic character, such as claret and water jugs, the firm make a veiy interesting display, alike in the Classic, Itenaissance, Gothic, and Rococo styles, one handsome example of the former being decorated with a delicately-engraved equestrian procession from the Parthenon frieze. Equally elegant are the magnum claret jugs designed by Mr. D. Pearce, and either overspread with a rich tracery of trellised flowers and foliage inter- VOL. II. I 114 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. ENGRAVED MAGNUM CLARET JUG. ENGRAVED WATER JUG, ITALIAN STYLE. spersed with birds and insects, or ornamented with classical groups enclosed in a floral framework of graceful design. In a far bolder style is a jewel-handled jug deeply engraved with eagles and inter- lacing oak-branches encompassing a central shield designed to con- tain a crest. Add to the foregoing a remarkable and substantially unique specimen of boldly-perforated glass, in the ' water service,' and some triumphs of under-cutting in dishes, salt-cellars, sugar- basins, and the like, so lustrous in their sheen that they look like half a dozen Koh-i-noors welded together; gigantic 'hair-twist' and Queen Anne chandeliers; towering candelabra of cut glass; and a perfectly unique vase in what, for want of a better definition, must be technically qualified as ' iridescent-polychromatic-crackle,' but which, I believe, from the pattern of its decoration, will be more GRAND PRIZEMEN. 11; BOLDLY ENGRAVED CLARET JUG. tersely christened the ' Scarabseus' Vase ;* and some slight idea will be formed of the merits of the display made by Messrs. Thomas Webb & Sons, which in its way must be considered as various, * This patenteS Scarabaeus glass, which Messrs. Thomas Webb & Sons are now manufacturing in various forms, is om' of the few novel things deserving the attention of collectors of taste. The latter, by the way, Avill be glad to know that the engraved Parthenon vase, and several of the more i 2 116 r.UUS IIKRSELF AGAIN', RICHLY ENGRAVED DOUBLE MAGNUM CLARET JUG. DEEPLY-CUT SUGAR VASE AND COVER. as beauteous, and as honourable to English skill and enterprise as the productions of the Elkingtons in orfecrerie, and of Minton and others in pottery. The bronzed glass of Messrs. Webb is also exceedingly fine, and they exhibit likewise a multitude of charming little to} r s and table ornaments in glass, which an inexperienced observer might imagine to be articles de Paris, but which are nevertheless, like the more important and superb examples of sculptured cameo, intaglio, and engraved glass, exclusively due to the talent and ingenuity of British workmen and executants. I beautiful unsold objects belonging to Messrs. Webb's Paris exhibit, are to be seen at Messrs. Thomas Goode & Son's in South Audley Street, and that Mr. W. Mortlock of St. James's Street, likewise has an assortment of Messrs, Webb's artistic "lass. GRAND PRIZEMEN. 117 hold this to be a most important point, artistically and nationally considered. I admire and respect the French art-workman in his own atelier ; but in the studio and the workshop of the British manufacturer I want to see the British designer and craftsman reigning supreme, and holding their own against all comers. This they do at Stourbridge, where a host of native talent numbers among its more conspicuous representatives such notable artists as Messrs. Pearce, Northwood, Kny, Woodhall, and O'Fallon, the latter as fami- liar with the masterpieces of Phidias and Praxiteles as with the Book of Kells and the remotest examples of Attic ornamentation extant. The splendid distinction of a Grand Prix, the only one awarded to exhibitors of furniture in the British section, has also been con- ferred on Messrs. Jackson & Graham, a firm which for years past have taken the lead in England in the production of artistic furniture of the very highest class; such, for instance, as the beautiful objects manufactured by them for Mr. Alfred Morrison from Owen Jones's designs. The whole of Messrs. Jackson & Graham's Paris exhibit is of a nature to sustain the high reputation of the house, which counts among the honours it has secured at former Industrial Exhibitions numerous gold medals and grand diplomas, together with the Cross of the Legion of Honour and the Order of Franz- Josef conferred upon its leading representatives. The master- pieces of the firm at the present Exhibition are a couple of cabinets, both of them in eboiry, skilfully relieved with other woods, and exquisitely inlaid with ivory. The more ornate of these productions is the so-called Juno Cabinet, which in the symmetry of its design — displaying great originality without being in anywise eccentric — the elaborateness of its ornamentation, and the astonishing deli- cacy and skilfulness of its technical execution surpasses, as an ex- ample of artistic cabinet-making, the most brilliant achievements of the Italian and Flemish Renaissance and Sixteenth-century rhnu.ites. The principal panel of this admirable specimen of art- workmanship is occupied by the head of Juno, sedate and queenly- looking ; and in a shield on the pediment above is the traditional peacock. Heads of Venus and Minerva decorate the panels on the 118 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX. right and left; the intermediate spaces being occupied with repre- sentations of the Earth and the Ocean, flanked by narrow panels inlaid with semblances of peacocks' feathers ; other emblems, such as the golden apple, the olive, rose, and myrtle, filling the lower panels of the cabinet. The whole of these decorations are daintily inlaid with box and other fancy woods, ivory and mother- of-pearl, besides which, exquisitely delicate inlays of ivory enter largely into the ornamentation of all the mouldings. The second cabinet, designed by Mr. A. Lormier, in the style of the Italian Renaissance, is a work of equal beauty, marked by the same elaboration of detail and marvellous finish of execu- tion. It is of figured ebony, thuya, box, and ivory, with palmwood panels, the whole being skilfully disposed to produce a harmoni- ous blending of contrasting colours ; and the delicate inlays and exquisite engravings relieving, and, as it were, illuminating, the complete work. Another interesting object in Messrs. Jackson & Graham's display is an escritoire of sandal and other woods, varied by inlays and mouldings of ivory, in the light and graceful style of the French Renaissance, a charming piece of furniture which Mrs. Brassey has shown her taste by acquiring. The same lady is also said to be the purchaser of Mr. Lormier's exquisitely finished inlaid boxwood cabinet, with mantelpiece and chimney ornaments en suite, comprised in Messrs. Jackson & Graham's exhibit, which also includes a Chippendale vitrine for displaying objects of vertu, and a cabinet and bonheur du jour, inlaid with ivory and various coloured woods, but chief!}' remarkable for their panels of rare old Japanese niello and lacquer work. Graceful and elegant as the decorative furniture in the French section un- questionably is, it excels neither as regards perfection of taste, nor delicacy and skilfulness of workmanship, the half-dozen notable objects which form the strength of Messrs. Jackson & Graham's artistic display. The unique Grand Prix, given in the French as in the English furniture department, has not fallen to the lot of M. Penon, the exhibitor of the sumptuously appointed chambre d GRAND PRIZEMEN. 119 eoucher d'unc grande dame, upon which I remarked rather fully in one of my early letters, but to the famous house of Fourdinois, whose more chaste and more severely artistic exhibition has very properly secured the exceptional award. Amongst its principal features are two pairs of elaborately carved doors, one of them designed for a library, and of various dark woods, being in the Greek style, with medallions of Apollo and Minerva in the centre panels, and a graceful reclining figure personifying Study in the pediment. The other doors are also of the classic type, but are far richer as regards colour as well as more monumental in character, being intended indeed for the entrance to a gallery. They are of polished walnut, with the heavy framework JEWEL CABINET AND ESCRITOIRE, EXHIBITED BY M. FOURDINOIS. of the doorway in richly-carved oak, relieved with mouldings of antique red marble, and are decorated with marqueterie, bronze 120 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. panels containing groups symbolical of the Arts and enamel medallions on a large scale, superbly executed by M. Hippolyte Rousselle. M. Fourdinois likewise exhibits a Renaissance table in pale oak, supported by gracefully designed caryatides ; a gilt Louis Seize console, with the legs linked together with richly- carved garlands of flowers ; a fine oak bookcase, inlaid with brass and steel and decorated with enamels ; a superb Renaissance and a Louis Seize cabinet; also some magnificent lampadaires and tor- cheres; and a perfect little gem of artistic furniture in the form of a jewel cabinet and escritoire in satin-wood, lavishly enriched with carved and inlaid silver- work and delicate enamel miniatures, and with detached columns of bronze and lapis laz- uli, supporting daintily- carved ivory statuettes. On several occasions I have cursorily alluded to the excellence of the dis- play made by Messrs. Doulton of the Lambeth Potteries; but hitherto I have lacked the time to examine their exhibits in detail. I find, now, the most conspicuous objects among them are, first the coloured stoneware, generic-ally known as ' Doulton ware,' in which warmth of hue and bril- liance of glaze give life and harmony to a nor- mally sombre material. Panels and plaques of terra-cotta, with borders of ' Doulton ware,' intended for the decoration of walls, also columns of the same ware, together with balusters for GRAND PRIZEMEN. 121 staircases and balconies, likewise attract attention. It is worth while reminding foreign amateurs of pottery that Messrs. Doulton's house, although established at the beginning of the present century, confined themselves, until about twenty 3 r ears ago, mainly to the production of earthenware of a strictly utilitarian character — pipes and pots for domestic and manufacturing purposes. By degrees the fabrication of articles in fine clay was added ; and eventu- ally the energies of the firm were devoted to terra-cotta, and to the making of the characteristic metallic blue ware. The skilfullest of modellers and draughtsmen from the neighbouring Lambeth School of Art — it is only necessary in this connec- tion to mention the name of Mr. Tinworth — were secured to design and ornament the new ware ; and, as time progressed, man}' original processes, both in colouring, glaz- ing, firing, and general manipulation, enhanced the "beauty and singu- larity of the articles. .Jewelling, ' applique,' ' cloisonne,' 'champ-leve,' ' enamelling,' ' incision,' were all pressed into the service of decorating < arthenwarej thechoicest classical and mediaeval forms were chosen, the richest decorations of the early and later Renaissance were adopted: the triumphant result being a ware thoroughly sui generis, combining the very finest qualities of the old Italian faenza and the Teutonic gres 122 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. Flamand, while preserving a distinctly original British cha- racter. The ornamentation of 'Doulton ware' — accomplished substantially by hand— takes place immediately after the object leaves the potter's wheel, and is effected by incrusting the surface with a raised decora- tive pattern ; or else by indenting the required design, or by engrav- ing the surface with incised lines in the ' sgraffito ' manner ; and EXAMPLES OF DOULTON WARE AND LAMBETH FAIENCE. further, by painting the patterns thus produced in various colours. When the ornamentation is completed, the object is exposed to the fierce white heat of a furnace for several days ; and salt being thrown in, the delicate transparent glazing, for which the ware is noted, results. Ewers and tazze, vases and plateaux of ' Doulton ware ' are now eagerly prized by French amateurs of ceramics, and are rapidly superseding the modern reproductions of Palissy ware, of which, a few years ago, the French were so immoderately fond. Almost GRAND PRIZEMEN. 123 an equally interesting feature of Messrs. Doulton's exhibit is the many beautiful examples of their so-called Lambeth faience, a species of revived majolica, among which are some grand plaques, painted with birds, flowers, and landscapes — one of these being no less than five feet in diameter. The recompenses awarded to Messrs. Doulton comprise the Grand Prix for architectural terra- cotta and for ' Doulton ware '■ — that is, the brown and blue-beaded or jewelled pottery ; a gold medal for the Lambeth faience and gres Flamand ware ; another gold medal for simple stone ware employed in chemical manufactories ; and four additional medals for plumbago fire-clay ware and domestic stone ware. Two of these last-named rewards are of silver, one of them going to that talented artist, Mr. George Tinworth, the gifted art-adviser of the Lambeth firm. From ornamental glass, artistic furniture, and ceramic master- pieces to such ostensibly humble things as biscuits may appear to be a very undignified descent ; but International Exhibition juries are very catholic bodies indeed, and, while distributing Grands Prix and Gold Medals among the Webbs, the Tiffanys, the Elking- tons, the Doultons, and the Jackson & Grahams, they hold by the doctrine that those who minister to the comforts as well as those whose products conduce to the elegance of domestic life are en- titled to a fair share in the splendid distinctions which it is in their power to confer. The only Grand Prix in the Alimentary Department which goes to England has been awarded to Messrs. Huntley & Palmers, biscuit manufacturers, whose indefatigable Continental agent, Mr. Joseph Leete, has spared no pains to make the display of the renowned Reading firm attractive and complete. Although Huntley & Palmers' manufactory in its origin, some fifty years ago, was of a very modest character, to-day it is a town in itself, like Salt aire in Yorkshire, and Le Creusot in France, and employs about 3000 hands. Every year the ' great biscuit town' on the Kennet sends forth many thousands of tons of biscuits of every form and flavour, and cakes of all descriptions. I lack the space to enumerate even a tithe of the 124 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. astonishingly varied assortment of biscuits exhibited by Huntley & Palmers in their handsome kiosque in the Champ de Mars, and shrink from the peril of losing myself in the wilderness of 'Abernethys,' 'Alberts,' 'Argyles,' 'Bijous,' 'Brightons,' 'Button Nuts,' ' Citrons,' ' Combinations,' ' Cracknels,' ' Diets,' ' Diges- tives,' ' Dovers,' ' Excursions,' ' Festals,' ' Fijis,' ' Gems,' ' Ice Creams and Waifers,' ' Joujous,' ' Knobbles,' ' Lemons,' ' Lornes,' 4 Macaroons,' ' Maries,' ' Mediums,' ' Meat Wafers,' ' Orientals,' 'Osbornes,' 'Pearls,' 'Picnics,' 'Princes,' 'Queens,' ' Raspberries, ' 'Savoys,' 'Sponge Rusks,' 'Stars,' 'Sodas,' 'Travellers,' 'Unions,' ' Vanillas,' ' Walnuts,' ' Wafers,' and ' Yachts ; ' but specimens of all these, and a few score more, in tins, square and round, long and short, thick and thin, or arranged in fanciful patterns, present a most appetising appearance in the Reading kiosque, around which a biscuit scramble goes on every afternoon, when, thanks to the gallantry of the young gentleman in charge of these attractive deli- cacies, the youngest and the prettiest of the fair sex invariably emerge victorious. I am not inclined to think that the jury, in awarding the Grand Prix to this remarkable alimentary display, were over-influenced by the appearance under a glass case of a colossal and superb bride-cake. The symmetrical form and the sumptuous decoration of the gateau de noccs may have made a due impression on them ; but the more unprejudiced and experienced among the real experts must have been led to acknowledge the superlative excellence of Huntley & Palmers' biscuits from con- siderations based on the simple fact that the French, eminent and even illustrious as they are as pastrycooks and confectioners, are incompetent to make biscuits that will keep. French bis- cuits are sweet, showy, and succulent; but, after a day or two, e'en est fini avec eux. Thej T lose their gloss, their flavour, and their crispness, and become limp, sour, dry, and tasteless. The English biscuit, scrupulously prepared and as scrupulously packed, will defy time and climate. That is why scarcely a ship sails from England without a consignment of Reading biscuits in its hold ; and this is why you will find Huntley & Palmers' biscuits, GRAND PRIZEMEN. 125 just as you will find Elkington's spoons and forks, and Allsopp's 2)ale ale — the great firm of Burton-on-Trent are not exhibitors, but their beer is to be found at any buffet in the parks of the Troca- dero and the Champ de Mars — the whole world over, not only in the great centres of civilisation, but in the remotest and most barbarous regions. Biscuits and chocolate are about the most portable articles of sustenance that a traveller in strange lands can cany with him ; and many a wanderer in distant climes may have been able to stave off starvation by means of a tin of Huntley & Palmers' 'Sponge Busks,' 'Diets,' ' Abernethys,' or 'Yachts.' The French have come frankly to acknowledge our preeminence as biscuit manufacturers. It is the machinery, some say, that enables les Anglais to excel in this particular branch of production. It is the purity of the flour, the delicacy of the manipulation, the richness of the sugar. It is le Libre Echange, for no doubt Free- trade has realty had something to do with the prodigious develop- ment of our biscuit trade. 'No gold medal, me 1' ' No ; copper-coloured exhibitors only get copper medals.' X. GOLD MEDALLISTS. Oct. 30. ' Ah, je n'ai pas de medaille ! ' yells an exasperated French exhi- bitor, in Cham's latest cartoon in the Charivari. The exasperated exhibitor is a pianoforte manufacturer ; and, on the principle of a man being privileged to do what he likes with his own, he is executing a concerto of the most violent description on the instru- ment on which a grudging international jury have declined to confer a recompense. 'No medal, eh?' screams the exhibitor. Whack ! go three octaves at one blow of his infuriate fist. ' Pas de medaille ! ' Bang ! The heel of the exhibitor's boot has de- stroyed another half-score of fiats and sharps. The pedals have already come to grief. May not a man do what he likes with his own ? The famous Bulwerian query, ' What will he do with it ? ' applies, however, to a vast number of articles in the Exhibition in GOLD MEDALLISTS. 127 addition to objects which have failed to gain a prize. I notice among the gifts made by spirited exposants to swell the list of prizes in the Exhibition lottery an enormous glass jar full of calcined magnesia. "What on earth will the fortunate winner of that particular prize in the gigantic raffle do with his treasure ? You may have too much of a good thing — even of calcined mag- nesia. Then there is the very phenomenal bouquet in the French section. This wondrous monster posy purports to be composed of flowers and foliage in an infinite variet} r of form and colour ; but it is in reality made entirely from feathers. Those who have seen the astonishingly beautiful feather tapestry of the Mexicans, in which perfect pictures are made from the plumes of humming- birds, may not think the French Exhibition bouquet such a phe- nomenal production after all ; and my own memory recalls two more bouquets which, to my mind, are far more curious and inter- esting than the one at which the flaneurs in the Champ de Mars will be privileged for a few more days to gape. There is, in Messrs. Elkington's show-rooms in Newhall Street, Birmingham, a bouquet presented by Miss Elkington to the Princess of Wales, on the occasion of her Koyal Highness's visit to the Midland metro- polis — a bouquet of real flowers, the leaves and petals of which have been indued by means of four distinct processes of electro- metallurgy with a coating of as many different metals — gold, silver, copper, and iron. I am not quite sure that there is not a fifth metal in the shape of aluminium. A smaller but even more inter- esting bunch of flowers is preserved under a glass case in the drawing-room of a very great lady indeed in London. It is more than a quarter of a century old, and is entirely gilt. It is worth a double and a triple coating of gold, for it was presented to the great lady by Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington and Prince of Waterloo. To return, however, to the medal question, which is disturbing the mental equilibrium not merely of Cham's typical manufacturer of musical instruments, but of thousands of his fellow-exhibitors in all the various classes of the great international congress of art 1'28 PARIS UKt&EIA? AGAIX. and industry. ■ Fortunately, however, my business is not with the discontented ones who have failed to gain gold medals, hut with their jubilant successful competitors, the merits of whose dis- plays have been conspicuously recognised by the awards of the international jury. In alluding, as I am about to do, to the more interesting of these exhibits in the British section on which the distinction of a Gold Medal has been conferred, it would be unpardonable on my part if I failed to render full justice to the brilliant and tasteful display made by Messrs. Osier & Co. of Birmingham and London, who have gained the Gold Medal for glass, seeing that the name of Osier is inseparably connected with the history of International Exhibitions. Osier's great Crystal Fountain stood in the centre of the transept of the Palace of Glass in Hyde Park in 1851 ; and the house has ever since maintained its fame as manufacturers, not only of every variety of table and ornamental glass, but of works of a monu- mental character — what the French call grosses pieces. There may be those among my readers who can remember '51 in Hyde Park. Osier's fountain was a favourite try sting- place then, just as Gustave Dore's vase is in the Paris Exhibition now. ' Meet me at the Crystal Fountain at a quarter to four,' you used to say to the adored one of your heart. She smiled and blushed consent ; and she was true to her rendezvous, judiciously bringing her youngest sister, aged nine, with her. It was the adored one of your heart who broke it by marrying Captain Prosser, late of the Bombay Fencibles. You met her the other day looking at Barbedienne's bronzes in the Exhibition. She is the mother of eight, and a grandmother — ha, ha ! — a grandmother ! She remarked that } r ou had grown stout. You managed to get that heart which she broke mended ; but now and again you feel the brass rivets which keep the cracked organ together pressing against your ribs. Stout^ indeed ! You watched her breakfasting at the Kestaurant Cate- lain, and she ate ' biftek aux pommes ' enough for two — she who could with difficult}' be persuaded in '51 to partake of so much as a Bath bun at Farrance's. GOLD MEDALLISTS. 129 The Due de St. Simon was wont to ascribe the wars in which the latter years of the reign of Louis XIV. were passed to the jealously excited among the sovereigns of Europe by the then unsurpassed Gallerie des Glaces at Versailles ; but it is to be hoped that no Power, civilised, semi-civilised, or barbarous, will be impelled to defy us to mortal combat because Messrs. Osier, after having challenged all possible rivalry with the Crystal Foun- tain in 1851, have maintained equal supremacy in every succeeding Exhibition, and in 1878 come forward with a colossal sideboard, a splendid crystal throne, and some of the largest and most superb crystal chandeliers ever produced. The sideboard is of Gothic design ; and, with the exceptions of the mouldings of the arches, which are of gold, and the top of the buffet and the base, which are of ebony, is wholly composed of glass — glass in sheets, glass in blocks, in panels, in pilasters, in brackets — huge wedges and quoins and crockets and finials of crystal, thicker than the inex- perienced observer could imagine to have ever been cast and hewn and cut and polished from so ostensibly fragile a material, but which look, nevertheless, as hard as adamant, and which have the sheen and the prismatic hues of diamonds of the purest water. The cushion of the throne — fittest, perhaps, to serve as the judg- ment-seat of some Eastern potentate — is of crimson velvet. The arms, legs, and back are all of pure and radiant crystal. I defer- entially venture to express the opinion that if this crystal throne could be acquired by the Indian Government, and if Lord Lytton were only to send a photograph of this dazzling piece of furniture to Shere Ali, with an intimation that it should be his if he would only promise to be a good Ameer, and have nothing more to do with those wicked Russians, the morose ruler of Afghanistan would straightway promise to abandon all his intrigues, to forswear his Muscovite alliances, and to welcome a British embassy with a powerful escort three times a week.* Deem not the remedy which * Since this was written, Shere Ali has joined the majority, and Yakooh Khan has abdicated ; still we might succeed in attaching the new sovereign of Afghanistan; whoever he may he, firmly to us by the present of a crystal throne. vol. ir. K 130 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. I have suggested a ridiculous one. A dinner at Ve'ry's in the Palais Royal, in July 1815, timeously organised by the Duke of Welling- ton, was sufficient to dissuade Blucher from blowing up the Bridge of Jena. ' I must and will blow it up,' grumbled old ' Marshal Vorwarts' over his bisque soup. But when he got to his parfait au cafe and his third bottle of Moet and Chandon, and was preparing to light his meerschaum, he seized the Duke's hand, and cried, ' Never was there such a dinner; I will not blow up the Bridge of Jena.' "While the exhibit of Messrs. Osier is distinguished for the vast size and rare quality of the magisterial lustres, equal excellence is shown in a varied assortment of smaller chandeliers and girandoles of artistic metal work in combination with crystal glass. These last- named articles are especially worth attention. We have already done some surprisingly good things in brazen and bronze-gilt chandeliers : the only drawback to which, as articles of decoration, is that they are somewhat heavy in appearance, and have too much of a strictly ecclesiastical, or at least mediaeval, look ; but in the new combi- nation introduced by Messrs. Osier the impressive grandeur of artistically-worked brass or gilt bronze is combined with the ele- gance and the lightness of the crystal surroundings. Early English still holds its place in the public favour at home as a style of decoration eminently suitable to our wants and wishes; and Messrs. Osier have produced an article, the design of which must fully satisfy the aesthetic tastes of the admirers of Pugin, of Gilbert Scott, and of Street ; while at the same time it ministers equally to the enjoyment of those who love the elegant richness of the Italian, and especially of the Venetian, Renaissance. Ample illus- trations are also given in the Osier display of table-lamps and candelabra and flower- vases of great variety and elegance of design ; and it is well for the credit of our glass manufacturers that such an historic firm as Messrs. Osier's should have shown their thorough capacity to produce not only the monumental articles — the grosses pieces, the contemplation of which astonishes and delights the spectator, but which only Emperors and Kings, or GOLD MEDALLISTS. 131 Sultans and Rajahs, could purchase — but likewise smaller and more portable objects in glass, exquisitely pure in material, perfect in artistic design, graceful alike in form and ornamentation, and pecuniarily within the means of those who wish to decorate their houses handsomely, but without ruining themselves. I am told that when the late Ibrahim Pasha (whom Wright, the low comedian, always persisted in calling 'Abraham Parker'), visited Birmingham in 1845, he went over Messrs. Osier's works, -and expressed a strong desire to purchase a colossal candelabrum. Xext day a full-sized drawing of the obj ect required, upwards of twelve feet high, was submitted to his Egyptian Highness. On the follow- ing day an order was given for a pair of candelabra, each sustaining a cluster of lights; and Messrs. Osier were left to devise the means for carrying out an order involving the production of masses of glass far exceeding in size anything before manufactured. The great work, however, was finished ; and when it was completed, they were seen by Prince Albert, by the Duke of Wellington, and by Sir Robert Peel. The Prince Consort, indeed, was so pleased that he ordered a pair of candelabra of somewhat smaller size as a (birthday present for her Majesty the Queen. These are now at Balmoral. On the arrival of Ibrahim Pasha's candelabra in Egypt, the magnificence of the pieces created so great an impression that commissions were sent to Messrs. Osier for a second and a third pair; one pair being destined for the tomb of the Prophet at Medina. In the palaces of the Sultan at Constantinople there are also many superb specimens of Osier's main d'oeuvrc. When her Majesty Queen Victoria visited Birmingham in 1858 to open Aston Hall, a magnificent specimen of Tudor architecture, Messrs. Osier produced a service of glass in the Tudor st} r le for the royal luncheon; and her Majesty was so struck with the artistic beauty of the service that she then and there expressed a wish to carry away the glass from which she had been drinking. Her Majesty subsequently ordered more than one set as presents to the loyal children on their marriage ; viz. one for the Crown Princess of Prussia (Princess Royal of England), and another for the K 2 132 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. lamented Princess Alice of Hesse Darmstadt. There are chande- liers and lustres of Messrs. Osier's handiwork in the ballroom and supper-room at Buckingham Palace, in the Waterloo Galleiy at Windsor Castle, in the Reception-room and the Egyptian Hall at the Mansion House, and in the Council Chamber and the new Library at Guildhall; besides services of table-glass for the Queen's table at Buckingham Palace, and at other royal resi- dences. I have ahead}' mentioned that the Royal Worcester Porcelain Works have received the Gold Medal for their highly-interesting ceramic display. It could scarcely have been otherwise, since the mere enamels exhibited merit this distinction independently of the jewelled porcelain on which the establishment prides itself, the delicately-ornamented ivory ware, the graceful adaptations from the Japanese, the attractive table ser- vices in the old Worcester style, and the collection of vases, Venetian bottles, plaques, and plateau in a new highly- vitrified faience, wherein combina- tions of blue, white, and gold, are PERFORATED AND GILT VASE AND COVER IN IVORY FORCELAIN. PERFORATED AND GILT VASE IN THK JAPANESE STYLE. GOLD MEDALLISTS. 133 introduced with a superb effect. Varied as the collection altogether is, many of the more recent productions indicate in a de- cided manner the art-influence of Japan ; still it is not so much the spirit of slavish imitation that is apparent as the judicious adaptation of the more graceful forms and higher styles of ornamentation in vogue among the aesthetic and skilful Orientals, from whom Europe and America are alike deriving lessons in decorative art. Mr. E. W. Binns, the director of the Worcester Porcelain Works, wisely indifferent to all crazes and fevers of fashion, has discrimi- natingly applied the truths which the Japanese models teach, with a result that is much to be commended. Among the examples exhibited there are services as well as isolated pieces in which flowers and birds, treated after the Japanese fashion, are intermingled with butterflies and similar ob- jects in gold and bronze relief, se- curing by this means a rich and solid effect very far superior to that of ordinary gilding. Theper- forated flower- vases and jardi- nieres, decorated RENAISSANCE VASE. J A RDimERE WITH PERFORATED I'AXELSIN THE JAPANESE STYLE. 134 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. with gold and bronze of different shades, while retaining some of their Oriental qnnintness, are certainly not devoid of grace; and the same ma}- be said of the blue pilgrim-shaped vase with its Japanese figures and gold and bronze ornamentation, and of the flower-vases of novel form painted in brilliant blue and white. One Worcester novelty is the imitation of the Namako glazed ware, which lends itself effectively to decorative purposes from the richness of the tones of its judiciously -blended colours. PILGRIM-BOTTLE-SHArED VASE IX BLUE AND GOLD. JAPANESE VASE IN BLUE AND WHITE. Unquestionably the most important objects displayed by the famous Worcester establishment are the pair of large vases in the Renaissance style, ornamented with delicately-modelled bas-reliefs in richly-framed compartments on their sides. The subjects on the one vase comprise the mediaeval potter working at his wheel and the modeller applying the finishing touches to the statuette of some saint, while represented on the other are the painter engaged on the decoration of a vase and the furnace-man intent upon his anxious task. Admirably moulded heads of celebrated artists of GOLD MEDALLISTS. 135 LARGE RENAISSANCE VASE — SUBJECT, THE POTTER. the period of the Renaissance, who lent the aid of their great talents towards the production of the ceramic masterpieces of the epoch, form the handles of this fine pair of vases, which certainly sustain the ancient reputation of the Royal Worcester Works. The marked progress made of recent years by a Staffordshire firm, whose productions I have already referred to in terms of com- mendation, has, I am glad to say, been acknowledged by the award 13G rARIS HERSELF AGAIN. of a Gold Medal. Messrs. Brown-Westhead, Moore, & Co. of Cauldon Vhxco, exhibit decorative porcelain and pottery of a high order in great variety, including elegantly-designed vases painted with subjects by Landgraff, Legere, and other notable artists, well- iXi-ii«v VASES AXD FLOWER-HOLDERS, EXHIBITED BY MESSRS. BROWN-WESTHEAD AND CO. modelled representations of animals, graceful and grotesque flower- holders, dragon lamps, colossal candelabra, and brackets of much originality of form, many of these productions being distinguished, I may observe, by great boldness and breadth of design. The firm GOLD MEDALLISTS. 137 CROUP OF BENGAL TTGEKS. likewise display numerous table- and toilet-services, more or less remarkable for their S} T mmetiy and chasteness of decoration. Pro- minent among the animal groups is a pair of Bengal tigers, modelled after Nature and reproducing with fidelity the form and markings of the jungle lord. Representations of animal life form indeed quite "ill' is IN PORCELAIN, EXHIBITED RY MESSRS. BROWN-WESTHEAD AND CO. 138 TAltlS HERSELF AGAIN. a feature of Messrs. Brown-Westhead & Co.'s productions ; for independently of their introduction as prominent accessories to a variety of ornamental objects, several of the dessert services are decorated with designs from La Fontaine's fables, hunting subjects, and the like, and many of the vases are painted with figures and heads of animals. A proof of how the prosperity of one branch of manufacture conduces to the advantage of another which is altogether dissimilar is to be found in the way in which the existing craze for the posses- sion and display of ceramic rarities has influenced the production of high-class decorative furniture. People do not pay fabulous sums for rare Sevres and Dresden, ancient majolica and old Chelsea, blue Nankin and veritable Palissy ware, or compete for the chefs-cVccuvrc of our modern potters, in order to hide them away in cupboards and closets; and they are, I trust, beginning to realise the inartistic stupidity of suspending against their walls articles never intended to be displayed in this fashion. Hence the impulse given to that manufacture of cabinets and buffets expressly intended for the exposition of these and similar art-treasures. It is requisite that the shrine should be worthy of the saint, and the cabinet or buffet is therefore planned to rival in symmetry of form and appropriate- ness of decoration the ceramic gems which it is designed to display. On the other hand, the beauties of a masterpiece of this kind can only be properly appreciated when it is duly bedecked and garnished. No class indulges more lavishly in objects of this description than the wealthy manufacturers of the North of England, who evidently need not go far to gratify any taste they may have for decorative furniture of the highest class, since the ateliers of Manchester can supply all that they desire. The buffet and the cabinet shown by Mr. James Lamb of John Dalton Street, Manchester, and which have secured for their exhibitor the award of a Gold Medal, will bear the keenest inspection as to workman- ship and the sharpest criticism as to design. The plan of the buffet has evidently been inspired by a reminiscence of the Middle Ages, when this article consisted mainly of sundry shelves for the GOLD MEDALLISTS. 139 reception of the household tankards and platters ; when people dis- played in their dining-halls all the treasures that were not stowed away under lock and key in huge iron-banded oaken chests with elaborately shaped hinges ; and when an accurate idea of the status and wealth of Sir Thomas of Erpingham, or Baron Walter of the Grange, could be gathered from a glance at his sideboard. Status as well as wealth, because the number of superposed shelves was fixed in strict accordance with the rank of their owner, though it is probable that such regulations shared the general fate of all sump- tuary laws, which, being continually renewed, always began with a ' whereas,' to the effect that the enactment last passed on the same subject had been disregarded by his Majesty's lieges. Dame Alicia Fitzwalter, in the fifteenth century, thought no more, it may be, of trimming her kirtle with a prohibited fur, or wearing souliers d la poulaine a span beyond the prescribed length, than did Lady Betty Featherhead in the eighteenth of decking herself with smuggled Mechlin cap and pinners, or sipping out of eggshell china tea that had never paid the State a farthing of duty. While retaining a decided reminiscence of the old English style, the buffet is boldly and avowedly intended to be Victorian, being neither precisely mediaeval nor like any modern version of medievalism, but claiming to be distinctly individual. Embodying firmness and solidity without heaviness, its most distinguishing feature is the luxuriance of its mouldings, carved as these are with a variety of patterns, imparting an air of great rich- ness, without impairing the effect of the straight lines and general square style of treatment. The material is old brown English oak irom Sherwood Forest, relieved with mouldings and bands of ebony, and panels of carved walnut. The oak — which was growing when ' Shawes were sheene and leaves, were large and longe,' and Robin Hood found ' Itt merrye walkyng in the fayre forrest To heare the small birde's song " — has acquired, with time, a very full-striped brown tint — the ' leopard-skin figure ' so highly prized by connoisseurs — the rich mellow effect of which is enhanced by a background of green 1-40 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. velvet, warm enough in tone to help the colour of the wood. The lower portion of the buffet is fitted with the usual quota of drawers, cupboards, collarettes, &c, all duly framed, panelled, moulded, and carved secundum artcm ; whilst above are shelves, spaces, and divisions for the reception and display of various decorative objects — Cellini salvers, mediaeval hanaps, Bohemian beakers, Venetian goblets, Queen Anne flagons, peg-tankards, gold and silver plate, Palissy dishes, Dresden statuettes, Oriental vases, Satsuma jars, china punchbowls, pilgrim-bottles, Gres de Flandres, old Nankin, Crown Worcester, or whatever else the owner may be the fortunate possessor of. There are, moreover, some ingeniously contrived niches with glass doors, for the preservation of objects of special value -or exceptional fragility, from the onslaughts of the feather-broom or the perils of the duster ; and in the centre of the buffet is a mirror, with a gilt frame and inlaid border of ebony and boxwood, flanked on either side by walnut panels skilfully carved with well- designed figures of Bacchus and Ceres, the twin patrons of the so-called good things of this life. Chasteness of design and perfect finish of execution are the leading characteristics of the cabinet of ebony, enriched with margins of Coromandel wood and strings and borderings of inlaid silver, which forms another exhibit of Mr. James Lamb. The columns, balustrades, mouldings, and panels of carved ebony conduce materially to the ornamentation of this stately piece of furniture, although its most effective decorative feature is unques- tionably the inlaid silver work, the flowing patterns of which are exceedingly refined and graceful. The cabinet having been ex- pressly planned for the reception and displa}' of orfcvrerie, gems, enamels, and the like costly rarities, its unusually minute mouldings and delicate ornamentation are in perfect keeping with this design. In the upper part is a large central mirror in a frame of ebony, relieved with ornaments of oxidised silver ; the panels, of pale- blue satin-damask on either side, containing small convex mirrors, framed in repousse silver, and serving as sconces. Carved bas- reliefs of Beauty and Knowledge, typified by female figures, adorn Carved Cedab-wood Boi doir in the Qceen Anni: Style .; Sf.lis. 11. ..,' GOLD MEDALLISTS. 141 the two end compartments of the lower portion of the cabinet, which has a landscape at its summit, flanked by female figures repre- senting Morning and Evening. Both buffet and cabinet are accompanied by chairs of corresponding woods, which, while par- taking of the principal external characteristics of the more import- ant articles of furniture, have been designed with a view to comfort as well as to effect. Ere I leave the section of artistic furniture and its decorative surroundings, I have a few words to say respecting the very interesting exhibition of the old established firm of Messrs. Trollope & Sons — founded exactly a century ago — who deservedly have been awarded the Gold Medal. Their exhibition com- prises, first of all, a charming carved cedar-wood boudoir ; next a handsomely decorated vestibule, with part of a staircase ; and thirdly, a fine, though small, collection of artistic furniture. The boudoir which belongs to ' the teacup times of hoop and hood, when paint and patch were worn,' — an epoch which, so far as our domes- tic surroundings are concerned, we seem exceedingly anxious to recall, — is undeniably the most attractive feature of the display. Pope's matchlessly graceful poem of The Rape of the Lock has avowedly inspired the leading embellishments of the apartment, the details of which have been adapted with admirable taste from existing ornamental examples of the period. The larger panels are occupied by paintings representing scenes from the poem, prin- cipally the toilet of the fair Belinda and the party at ombre, with the incident of the ravished lock, when ' The forfex' meeting-points the sacred hair dissever From the fair head for ever, and for ever.' The apotheosis of the lock and its sidereal transformations are appropriately enough reserved for the adornment of the arched ceiling, which is constructed of portable plaster. An important feature of this perfect little apartment is its ornamental chimney- piece of rosso-antico marble, harmonising admirably with the warm tone of the wood-work, with its sculptured caryatides and delicately carved wreaths of fruit and flowers forming the framework of a 142 TARIS HERSELF AGAIN. niche which contains a bust of Pope, copied from his monument in Westminster Abbey. The vestibule exhibited by Messrs. Trollope & Sons is princi- pally remarkable for its examples of the twin processes of Xylo- iechnigraphy and 'Sgraffito, which of late years have been largely CARVED MIRROR-FRAME IN THE RENAISSANCE STYLE. employed by the firm. In the former the lighter hinds of wood are indelibly stained with ornamental designs either in black or colours, and in imitation of inlaid work or the reverse, several of the panels to which this process has been applied being treated very effectively with arabesques and festoons of flowers and fruit. The second process — taking its name from the Italian 'sgraffito, GOLD MEDALLISTS. 143 ' scratched ' — is applied exclusively to plaster-work, which is here shown etched over with various patterns, after the fashion prevalent in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with admir- able decorative effect. Among the furniture displayed by Messrs. Trollope are a handsome mirror-frame carved in lime-tree wood in the Renaissance style, a beautiful little polished satin-wood cabinet of a fashion prevalent in England towards the end of the last century, with an armchair in painted satin-wood of rather later date ; and two bold and well-executed tripods in iron, plated with nickel, supporting amphora in the showy onyx of Mexico or Algeria. The single jeweller in the British section whose display of precious wares has been rewarded with a Gold Medal is Mr. John Brogden of Henrietta Street, Covent Garden ; and not only has he received the Gold Medal, but the Cross of the Legion of Honour has likewise been conferred upon him. The leading articles in Mr. Brogden's exhibit are a Pompeian bracelet, decorated with delicately-tinted birds and flowers on a black ground ; a massive gold armlet of Greek design, with an antique gem set in the middle ; a bracelet of Etruscan design, incrusted with antique gems ; and an onyx cameo, surrounded by precious stones, and in that Celtic style in which Mr. O 'Fallon has designed so many beautiful articles for the engraved glass in Messrs. Webb's exhibit, and which is rapidly growing in public favour. The monument to be erected b} r her Majesty the Queen to the memory of the late Sir Thomas Biddulph is to take the form of a Celtic cross ; and it is high time that Celtic ornamentation, boldly yet delicately fanciful as it is, should be studied by our jewellers and our decorative artists in general. There is, at the same time, great catholicity in the stjdes of which Mr. John Brogden exhibits specimens. Thus I find an exquisitely tasteful cross of sapphires and pearls, taken from Quintin Matsys' ' Salvator Mundi,' in the National Gallery. This beautiful object has been purchased by H.R.H. Prince Leopold. I find also a Venetian cross from the house of Marco Polo ; a Pompeian lamp, to be used as a vinaigrette ; a bracelet of Assyrian design from a cylinder in the 144 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX. British Museum ; an Etruscan bracelet ; an Etruscan scarabffius, to be worn as a ring ; and a number of pins, earrings, pendants, and lockets in the Greek, the Byzantine, and the old Russian styles. A pendent ornament for a watcb.ch.ain, in the form of the cylinder, with handles, used by the Assyrian kings to sign state documents, is peculiarly quaint and characteristic ; and there is superb goldsmith's work in the rose-water flagon ornamented with the subject of the ' Council of Juno,' in gold rilievo : the attributes of Jupiter and Juno forming a Pompeian scroll-work border to the subject, while in the centre of the handle is encrusted a mag- nificent engraved carbuncle. There is likewise a superb ebony casket, ornamented with lapis-lazuli, carbuncles, garnets, and j)laques of dark-blue enamel and grisaille, depicting incidents in the history of the Marquises of Worcester and the ducal house of Beaufort generally. The Great Marquis, who shares with the Frenchman Denis Papin — but not by any means with the crazy hydraulic engineer Salomon de Caux — the honour of the invention of the steam-engine, is obviously and conspicuously represented in this casket, the handles of which are enriched with richly-chased statuettes in silver-gilt, and which is surmounted by a trophy of the arms of the present Marquis of Worcester, to whom this splen- did testimonial was presented by the magistrates of the county of Monmouth. I cannot quit Mr. John Brogden's sumptuous display of jewelry and orfevrerie without glancing at a wedding brooch of antique Roman design, which, could Chaucer's Prioress revisit this mortal scene, would surely have fascinated the delicate lady, who spoke French after the school of Stratfard-atte-Bowe, seeing that French of Paris was to her unknown. The lady in the Canter- bury Tales wore a brooch bearing the inscription 'Amor,' or'Roma,' read it which way you like ; and such brooches may be seen at this day in the jewellers' shops in the Via Condotti at Rome ; but Mr. Brogden's Roman brooch is more elaborately and more significantly inscribed. It bears the legend : UBI TU CAIU3 IBI EGO CAIA. GOLD MEDALLISTS. 145 There would have been no harm in the Prioress wearing a brooch with such a legend. She might have had a brother or an uncle whose name was Caius. On the other hand, the pretty trinket is just such a one as HeloYse might have presented to Abelard. In the immediate vicinity of Mr. John Brogden's rich and rare display is the admirably artistic exhibit of Messrs. Leuchars & Son, of Piccadilly and the Rue de la Paix, who have gained the only Gold Medal in the British department given to their specialty, which comprises dressing-cases, jewel-cases, despatch-boxes, writing-desks, and all kinds of useful and ornamental maro- quinerie. Their leading exhibit is a gentleman's dressing-case in shagreen, mitred with gold — a most superb article; a lady's dress- ing-case of Coroinandel wood, inlaid with delicate brass scroll work, the toilet appliances being in highly-chased silver; a number of dressing-bags with silver-gilt fittings, the tops of the bottles being of solid gold, set with turquoises ; an assortment of articles decorated in the Japanese style ; and some exquisite etuis, or ' ladies' companions,' in gold likewise, in the prevalent Japanese style. One of Messrs. Leuchars' exhibits, a magnificent luncheon basket, with fittings of solid silver, has been purchased by the Lottery Commissioners, for a prize in the great Exhibition raffle ; while another article, yet more conspicuous and elegant, is a claret jug, of silver-gilt, in the form of a crouching dragon, the beak serving as the spout and the curved tail as a handle. Several tablets of fancy notepaper, with illuminated monograms in every variety of style, and which Messrs. Leuchars were the first to introduce, also ornament the glass case of the firm, who are equally well-known in Piccadilly and the Ptue de la Paix. Certain of my readers will of course remember, and will even have been wearers of, the old beaver hat, remarkable alike for its weight, its warmth, its costliness, and its flufhness of texture. Specimens of it linger, I believe, in a quasi-fossil condition in remote agricultural districts, where they have been handed down as heirlooms, and in theatrical wardrobes, whence they are trans- ferred from time to time to the head of the actor who plays the 146 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. part oi' Paul Pry and similar characters. Moreover, certain noble- men ami gentlemen of sporting proclivities, who adhere pertina- ciously to the fashions of their youth, may still be seen wearing this antiquated headgear in the paddock at Doncaster and on the lawn at Goodwood. As a rule, however, the beaver hat is little else than a tradition with the existing generation, whose obliga- tions are mainly due to the well-known Piccadilly firm of Lincoln, Bennett, & Co., for having relieved their heads from this weighty GOLD MEDALLISTS. 147 load. To the firm in question, established as far hack as the year of the Treat}- of Tilsit, we owe the introduction of the perfected silk hat, which is so much lighter and cheaper than its flocculent predecessor. One of the earliest hats of velvet-piled silk, the pre- cursor of the velvet-napped silk now in general use, was made for the late Lord Lyndhurst, who is said to have been the first English nobleman to adopt the silk hat. Originally the material on which the silk was fixed was of stuff or felt ; but after a time these were supplanted by the perforated willow body, giving rise to the well- known ' gossamer hat.' The famous Piccadilly firm, however, were the first to have recourse to muslin and cambric — securing thereby the much-desired lightness — as well as to a chemical composition technically known as ' coodle ' for proofing in lieu of the customary size, glue, resin, pitch, oil, and naphtha, the presence of which was apt to become unpleasantl}' obvious when the warmth of the head made itself felt. The display of gloss} r hats, with every variety of tasteful lining, in Messrs. Lincoln, Bennett, & Co.'s elegantly arranged case is supplemented by military helmets and felt hats of superb finish, constructed on what is known as the firm's ' pull over ' system, whereby fine quality is combined with great durability, a circumstance which those bent upon lengthened journeyings will do well to bear in mind. Properly enough, Messrs. Lincoln, Bennett, & Co. have had the Gold Medal awarded to them for the excellent quality and splendid finish of the silk and felt hats which they exhibit. Attractive beyond measure to the scientific fraternity of star- gazers are the exhibits of Mr. John Henry Dallmeyer of Blooms- bury Street. Galileo would have submitted to the binning of his Dialogues on condition of being allowed a peep through the eight- fdoi astronomical telescope, mounted on a new form of equatorial stand, the special features of which are stability, suitability for service in any latitude, and convenience for use with or without the spectroscope. E pwr si muove — the motions and clamping in right ascensions and declination, as well as the reading of the declination circle, being effected by the observer at the eye-end of 148 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. the telescope. Smaller astronomical telescopes, transit instruments and spectroscopes, together with terrestrial telescopes, naval, mili- tary, tourist, and reconnoitring glasses — though what, alas, is the use of the latter when generals persistently refuse to reconnoitre ? — are also shown. Here, too, are microscopes for scientific eyes, fitted with object-glasses of the highest powers, and hoth dry and immersion lenses for revealing all the hidden beauties of what to the naked eye look like tiny specks of dried stick or fibre, or weed or jelly, but which become transformed into glowing peacock's plumes, miniature sections of Aladdin's palace, cunningly put together puzzles in ivory, ebony, and mother-of-pearl, sheets of woven sunbeams, variegated velvet carpets, and strips of the richest and most fanciful point-lace. Photographic apparatus is represented by cameras and special appliances for portraits, landscapes, and copying purposes, and there is a new double- combination objective for the magic lantern, ' specially con- structed for the exhibition of diagrams for science, lectures, &c.' Formerly the magic lantern was content to amuse, but now it very property aspires to instruct. In place of scenes from the Holy Land and missionary life in the Fiji Islands, John Gilpin's ride and Mother Hubbard, the comic Irishman and his recalcitrant pig, and that triumph of mechanical skill, the water- mill, with the revolving wheel, we have all kinds of complicated and scientific effects, which, even from a juvenile point of view, can scarcely be regarded as dull. For my own part I am ready to rejoice over the fact that Mr. Dallmej-er's valuable and interesting exhibits have obtained full recognition in the shape of a Gold Medal in two separate classes, and that he has received the further distinction of the Cross of the Legion of Honour. Being, even in the broad daylight, a dreamer of dreams and a seer of visions, when I halted the other day in the Rue des Nations, in front of the Queen Anne house erected by Mr. W. H. Lascelles of Bunhill Row, from the designs of Mr. R. Norman Shaw, R.A., I half expected to see the dignified shade of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison step out on the balcony, to gaze ««''"!'"!!! if ''.'IK "'"!!' " _ ^ss^Sr^^^ — — — HUH ' » — ^= ^ - -^^~ ~ The Queen Anne House in the Rue dbs Nation. 1 :. II. 149. Exhibited by Mr. IT. i:. Lascelli . GOLD MEDALLISTS. 149 with majestic disapproval at an equally shadowy figure with a staggering gait, a cocked hat considerably on one side, and a Steinkirk cravat very much awry, who ought to have arrived an hour ago, hut who prefers drinking in Fleet Street taverns to con- sulting with his grave collaborateur as to the best subject for the next essa} r in the Spectator. In like manner, when peeping through the bay-window, I thought to behold the elegant phantom of Mr. Secretary St. John, listening, with an amused air, to a visionary clergyman with a strongly marked saturnine face — who is lecturing him, with a slight Irish accent, on the enormity of indulging too freely in champagne and burgundy, and who, it is rumoured, is to be made a bishop for his scathing political satires. Failing this, I at least hoped to catch a glimpse of the diminutive shade of Mr. Alexander Pope, gliding through the portal on a visit to the some- what shaky spectre of Mr. William Wycherley. But no such visions as these were vouchsafed me. It was Belinda, who gazed with tearful eyes from the balcon}- at the retreating figure of Sir Plume, twirling his clouded cane as he sallied forth in quest of the ravished lock. It was Lord Ogleby and Sir Harry Wildair, who paused in front of the bay-window to watch Beatrice Esmond handed into her chair b} T her cousin Henry, and to discuss the approaching union of Colonel Fainwell and Saccharissa between two pinches of impalpable snuff. It was Sir Roger de Coverley and Mr. Isaac Bickerstaff, who had called to inquire after the health of Captain Tobias Shandy, lately returned from Flanders, and who were met at the door of the house by the captain's ser- vant Trim. For the house itself is only a ghost — albeit a very well-con- structed and substantial one — of a bygbhe age, and the only phan- toms that can haunt it are the immortal creations of fiction. It is the ghost of an old English town house of the first years of the eighteenth century, with its red brickwork — showing the alternate courses of ' headers ' and ' stretchers ' of the ' English bond ' — its white stone balcony, fluted pilasters, elaborately moulded panel- lings, and ornate cornices ; but instead of being built of the old- 150 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. fashioned bricks, it is entirely constructed of cubes of Mr. Lascelles' patented red cement, which are truer, harder, and quite impervious to wet, and to which he has succeeded in imparting the cheerful red tone characteristic of the epoch. This interesting house, which lias ohtained for Mr. Lascelles the Gold Medal, in conjunction with the more highly-prized distinction of the Cross of the Legion of Honour, has been presented by him to the French Government, and is to be reerected at the close of the Exhibition in the con- templated Industrial Museum in the Tuileries Gardens. At present it is placed at the disposal of the British Commissioners, and serves as a haven of rest to jurymen exhausted by their arduous Labours. Mr. Lascelles has also erected some workmen's cottages in an open area of the Park, near the Quai d'Orsay, the floors, roofs, and walls of which are built of patent concrete slabs, screwed on to a wooden framework, without a brick, tile, lath, or floor-board being employed in their construction, so that they can readily be taken down and sent any distance for reerection. The prospect of being able to fold, up his eligible double-fronted family residence like an Arab tent, and silently steal away to his favourite watering-place, there to rebuild it in defiance of lodging-house harpies, must be a tempting one to Paterfamilias, though ground landlords might object to the generalisation of such a custom, These concrete slabs and tiles have also been used in the stable built for the Prince of Wales from the designs of Mr. Gilbert Pw Redgrave. Another example of constructive ingenuity is presented in Mr. Lascelles' bent-wood conservatory, built upon a principle which prevents its moving and cracking the glass, and illustrating a suc- jful attempt to obtain a maximum of strength with a minimum of material; the doorways being constructed to act as buttresses, and the whole structure being bound together by bent bars and lattice girders. A new method of glazing is likewise shown by the adoption of which glass structures can be erected without skilled labour, paint, or putty in a very short time. Each sheet of glass is turned up at one edge, turned down at the other, and GOLD MEDALLISTS. 151 hooked at the top something like a common roof tile, and can be put up and taken down with facility. Mr. Lascelles' conservatory has been purchased, I hear, by Sir Richard Wallace, who intends reelecting it upon his Norfolk estate. BEHT-WOOD CONSERVATORY, EXHIBITED J;Y MR. W. U. LASCELLES. XI. THE EXHIBITION LOTTERY. Nov. 2. The Great Lottery of the Exhibition bids fair to become a very considerable nuisance in- Paris. You cannot enter a debit cle tabac to buy a cigar or a postage-stamp -without being pestered to purchase lottery-tickets. Fortunately, I am not a direct taxpayer in France ; or, in addition to my other woes, I should be impor- tuned by the local rate-collector to invest in this omnipresent lottery. The Minister of Finance has issued circulars to all the jn rcepteurs, or tax-gatherers, ordering them to exercise their influ- ence over their contribwibles to induce them to take tickets in the audacious raffle which the Exhibition Commissioners have so ill- THE EXHIBITION LOTTERY. 153 advisedly sanctioned to the discredit of a noble, magnificent, and successful enterprise. I am glad to notice that the French press are almost unanimous in blaming a scheme which is fast attaining the proportions of a scandal. A raffle for a gold watch or a silver teapot (the Catholic- lotteries in Ireland sometimes offer a horse and gig as a prize), or a Derby » sweep ' at a club or on the course, may do no very great harm, now and again ; but as to the folly and immorality of a National Lotteiy there can be, I apprehend, no manner of doubt. The Banco dl Lotto has kept Italy poor these many } T ears past ; and the same may be said of Spain ; while the Royal Havana Lotteiy — which is drawn once a month, and the first prize in which is 100,000 dollars, or 20,000t. — not only keeps the Island of Cuba in a constant state of ferment, but extends its maleficent influence to the United States. Perhaps I should speak of the Havana Lottery in the past tense. Changes of all kinds may have taken place in the island during the insurrection ; but I remember very well fifteen years ago how all the cafes and public promenades of the Pearl of the Antilles used to be infested by ragged men and boys hawking halves, quarters, eights, and even sixteenths of lottery tickets. I need scarcely say that it is one thing to preach against the im- morality of lotteries, and another to practise abstention from that very fascinating form of gaming : thus I do not hesitate to avow that in 18G3 I went shares with a friend in the purchase of an ' entcro,' a whole ticket. It cost us an ' onza,' or doubloon, other- wise three pounds ten shillings sterling. My friend was going to England ; I was returning to the States; and he left me the cus- todian of the precious chance. How many sleepless nights did I pass before the day of drawing arrived ! At length the list of prizes was published in the New York Herald. It was the num- ber 1G,303 that won the 20,000/. prize. Our ticket was 1G,305 ! Only two removes from felicity ! Ten millions of tickets at a franc apiece for this prodigious Paris raffle have already been issued; and the emission of two i;,i PARIS HERSELF AGAIN, fli'LLETS p o U . n - NOT 10 BE CAUGHT A SJXOND TIME (BY CHAJl). ' What, don't you take any tickets in the Lottery ? ' ' Never a second time. Marriage is a lottery, and I have gained a mother-in-law !' move millions is talked of, which would bring the sum 'sub- scribed' by the public for the Encouragement of Industry and the Fine Arts up to nearly half a million pounds sterling. There are to be no money prizes ; but I hear of one thousand two hundred and seventy-seven gros lots, headed by a service of plate worth I housand pounds sterling, and a parure of diamonds of almost equal value, and ending with five hundred kilogrammes of car- bonate of soda, estimated at being worth a thousand francs, or forty pounds. What is the favourite of Fortune to do with a ton of carbonate of soda? He might sell it; but prices might rule Low in the market for chemicals when he brought his intoler- able mass of soda into it, and the forty pounds' estimate might sink to a contumelious offer of a ten-pound note ' for the lot.' But, fortunately, there is a saving clause for the benefit of certain poten- tial prize-winners; and If the 'miserable' to whom the mass of carbonate falls should happen to belong to this category he can have the full money value in place of his prize, otherwise untold THE EXHIBITION LOTTERY. 155 woes ma}' light on the head of the unfortunate mortal who wins the ton of carbonate. French innkeepers have an unpleasant habit of making grievous charges for warehousing goods left in their custody. A traveller leaves a trunk at an hotel by mistake, and, on returning, say, in a year's time, to the same caravanserai, a demand for so many francs for taking care of the property is made upon him. Suppose the Lottery Commissioners should take a leaf out of the book of the hotelkeepers. Suppose the deplorable winner of the carbonate of soda to have gone to Australia just after purchasing his ticket, and to have forgotten all about it until, passing through Paris five years afterwards, he was suddenly confronted by an employe of the Commissioners, who peremptorily bade him take away his ton of carbonate of soda, and pay the sum of fifteen hundred and ninety-eight francs five centimes for storing the stuff in the cellars of the Palais de l'lndustrie ! Still, carbonate of soda is not by any means the most embar- rassing among the heterogeneous articles which the ' lucky ' spe- culators in the Universal Exhibition Lottery may secure. The list of lots is incongruous enough to recall the miscellaneous articles of property which the bill-discounters of the past, described in the novels of Charles Lever and Theodore Hook, used to offer to their clients as part value for the amount of a promissory note. ' Half cash, and the rest in logwood-loaded port or fiery sherry, in pictures "after" Titian, flint muskets from the Tower, ivory frigates, camels' bridles and bits, and keyboards for pianofortes.' Who has not heard of the ' discount dennet,' a kind of gig which a Dublin usurer was continually forcing his victims to accept as a substitute for cash, buying the vehicle back for a trifling sum through a third party, and then palming it off on a fresh dupe'? This ingenious Trapbois was likewise the proprietor of a real log of Spanish mahogany, which had been the temporary property of innumerable subalterns of improvident habits. Thus, in the Paris Lottery, prizes of plate, jewelry, painting, statuary, ceramics, bronzes, crystals, organs, pianofortes, and carved cabinets are mingled with carbonate of soda, cranes, lighthouse reflectors, soap, L56 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. chocolate, corsets, citrate of magnesia, pickles, dolls, Indian corn, sardines, wire rope, tarpaulin, microscopes, and blacking. What do you think, moreover, of -a voucher for a dinner for twenty persons at a well-known Palais Royal restaurant, a barrel of coal-tar, a model of the Place Venddme Column in chocolate, a series of photographs representing fossil human skulls discovered in the department of the Sarthe, an electrical hairbrush, and a collection of pamphlets published by the Society for Discountenancing the Abuse oi' Tobacco ? The society in question, by the way, has just presented a me- morial to M. Albert Gigot, Prefect of Police, pointing out that the Paris cab-drivers persist in smoking while on duty, in defiance of the disciplinary regulations forbidding the practice in question. The fumes emitted from the pipes and cigars of the cabbies are, it seems, particularly offensive to ladies. This reminds me of an anecdote related of the late excellent Queen of Holland. Her Majesty was taking a solitary stroll in the Wood at Loo one sum- mer's evening, when she became aware of a sentinel who was indulging in a few forbidden whiffs inside his box. The poor fellow, with no end of courts-martial before his eyes, threw awa} r his pipe, and, in broken accents, piteously begged the Queen not to denounce him to the authorities. ' Don't be afraid,' answered the kindly sovereign ; ' and here is a ducat for you to buy some good tobacco. I wonder you can smoke such nasty- smelling stuff.' If the Parisian Jehus would only smoke a tolerably-decent pn paration of the Indian weed, the ladies might be more tolerant of their infringement of the cab-laws, One anecdote may be reckoned upon, as a rule, to suggest another. The stoiy about the Queen of Holland reminds me of ild< if Frederick the Great, who, wandering in disguise through the camp one bitterly cold winter's night, tried to tempt a sentry into the commission of the illicit act of smoking. ' It's forbidden,' replied the soldier doggedly. 'But I'll give you permission,' persisted Frederick. ' You give me permission ! ' cried the grena- dier disdainfully ; ' who are you, I should like to know ? ' ' I am THE EXHIBITION LOTTERY. 157 the king.' ' The king he hanged ! ' exclaimed the incorruptible sentinel; 'what would my captain say?' The great Fritz was immensely pleased to learn how strictly discipline was preserved among his troops ; and I fancy that it was not long before that incorruptible sentinel was promoted to be a sergeant. Perhaps he was wise in his generation, and had known very well to whom he was speaking. There is a way of flattering the great, even while appearing to be rude to them. Did not Mr. Pye get his poet-laureateship through anathematising the wig of George III. to his Majesty's face ? It is decided that the jewellers and goldsmiths from whom the grand prizes in diamonds and plate have been purchased for the Exhibition Lottery will give the winners cash for their gros lots, less, bien entendu, a reasonable discount. In St. Petersburg, when the artistes of the Italian Opera sing at a concert at the Winter Palace they receive no remuneration for then* services, but his Imperial Majesty the Czar sends them a honorarium in jewelry. The prima donna assoluta may get a riviere in brilliants ; the primo tenore may be favoured with the gift of a diamond snuff-box. It is not, however, necessary that the artistes should reverently preserve the necklaces and snuff-boxes as souvenirs of the Imperial appreciation of their talents. They are at liberty to take the glittering trinkets to the Treasury at the Hermitage, where they will receive rouble-notes to the estimated value of their presents, with ' five-and-twenty per cent, off.' A similar system, equally graceful and business-like as it is, will be pursued in the forth- coming Exhibition Lottery. Those who, failing to win diamond necklaces, rub}' and emerald bracelets, or pearl aigrettes, are yet fortunate enough to be the holders of tickets entitling them to Barbedicnne or Susse bronzes, Christofle enamels, Sevres vases, or Gobelins tapestry, will at once be able to get the worth, or nearly the worth, of their prizes in money ; and in particular the winners of oil paintings, water-colour drawings, and terra-cottas will have little difficulty, I should say, in disposing of the gifts which Fortune may send them ; but very different will be the case, I 1 58 PARIS BERSELF AGAIN. with those who win some of the extraordinarily heterogeneous is which have either been purchased by the Commissioners for the Lottery, or have been presented thereto by manufacturers ami tradesmen anxious to manifest their munificence and to adver- tise their wares at one and the same time. A LUCKY PRIZE-WINKER (BY CHAJl). • Sir, you have gained a prize entitling you to have twelve teeth drawn without any charge' There will he a surprising number of white elephants won in this raffle, each suggesting the momentous question, ' What will they do with it ? ' For example, from Mr. Wills' s conservatory the C< »mmissi( >ners have purchased, in addition to a number of tropical plant-, four palm-trees. If Mr. Jamrach or Mr. Frank Buckland won an elephant in a Littery, either of these gentlemen would at once know what to do with the quadruped; and only fancy [Mr. Buckland's delight if he won a live gorilla, or a crocodile from line, wan-anted to have eaten four deported Communards ; but who, ' barring ' Sir William Hooker, would know what to do with a quartette of palm-trees ? They are not even date-bearing palms, the winner might purchase a cask of sugar, preserve the stony THE EXHIBITION LOTTERY. 159 fruit, and set up in business as a grocer. If lie were indeed ad- dicted to horticultural pursuits, and wished to keep his palms, he would have to build a hothouse for their reception. Among the remaining prizes which are to be exhibited shortly at the Palais de l'lndustrie there is a multitude of pianos, organs, harmoniums, furniture, carpets, scent-fountains, sewing-machines, shawls, robes, mantles, bonnets, lace, gloves, cradles, baby-linen, wine, spirits and liqueurs, books, clocks, watches, toys, engravings, per- fumery, and underclothing for ladies and gentlemen. What is a prize-winning bachelor to do with a baby-jumper, a child's cot, or complete layette / What would a demure spinster say when she learnedthatshehadwon a cavalry sabre, a cocked hat richlytrimmed with gold lace — both of these articles are in the prize-list — or a complete hunting costume, scarlet coat, top boots, buckskins, and all '? What will be the sensation of a gentleman residing in a garret an cinqulcme, who hates music, and who discovers to his horror that he has won an organ ? True the vast majority of the things bought to be raffled for are French pictures, bronzes, and pottery, and articles de Paris ; in purchases of rich materials for ladies' dresses, the Commissioners have been forestalled by Peter Pobinson of Oxford-street. The authorities, in their selection of lottery prizes, have not paid much attention to that essential corol- lary of Free-trade, Pieciprocity. The English exhibitors have been in particular left out in the cold by them, and even the English winners of Grand Prizes have been neglected. From the magnifi- cent exhibit of glass of Messrs. Thomas Webb and Sons of Stour- bridge a variety of secondary objects have certainly been selected, but only a single one of their incomparable engraved vases has been bought. Once more, then, the world is to be favoured with a performance of the admired comedy called Blind Chance, preceded by a brief ' lever de rideau,' mathematically demonstrating that, come what may, so many millions of ticket-holders must lose, and followed by Disappointment, a farce. Wealthy and adventurous speculators. who have bought tickets by the thousand at a time, may find them- L60 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. A STOUT OLD LADY GALNS A BICYCLE. selves left out in the cold, while the 125,000 francs' worth of plate may fall to the lot of a schoolboy or a concierge. Chance is blind. A gamester once at Hombourg placed a pile of gold on every num- A LI. TNI) MAX GAIN'S AN "I BRA-GLASS. A BALD MAN G UttTS A TOE TOISE-SUKI.L COMB. YvtS *£***£ ' ' Madame, you have been so fortunate as tc ;ain a pair of fisherman's Louts.' THE EXHIBITION LOTTERY. 1G1 AX OLD SOLDIER WITH WOODEN LEGS GAINS A PAIR OF CAVALRY BOOTS. A SUBJECT OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE GAIN'S A DEFERRED ANNUITY IN TURKISH STOCK. A NEGRO GAINS A SPECIFIC FOR PRESERVING THE WHITENESS OF THE COMPLEXION. A LOVED OF THE BOTTLE CAINS A CASE OF SODA- WATER. VOL. II. ' Why, my dear, I never knew you had a baby !' f What, didn't you hear tliut I gained one sU thi Lottery 1 ' 162 PAB1S HERSELF AGAIN, , 1 i ~C^ ' Lnw may be a lottery ; but with an advocate like you, the honest man hasn't the shadow of a chance.' ber save one of the thirty-six numbers on the roulette-board. Nor did lie fail to insure in ' zero.' The wheel turned ; the ball re- volved, and the winning number was the very one which the player had left uncovered. He repeated the same operation three times, with the same result ; then he covered the fortunate number, leav- ing ' zero ' uncovered. ' Zero ' turned up ; and the gamester, by this time totally ruined, went out into the highly picturesque park of the Kursaal and hanged himself. Chance is blind. On the • veiling of the 15th of August 1815, Napoleon I., on his way on board the Northumberland to St. Helena, sate down to play ' vingt- et-un ' with his suite. In the course of three hours he won stakes equivalent to 250,000/. sterling. Of course lie did not claim his winnings ; and he might as well have played ' for love.' It hap- pened to be his birthday, and everybody congratulated the ex- Emperor on his luck. His luck ! Poor broken, bankrupt, ban- ished man ! Fortune the Fickle has, no doubt, surprises quite as startling as any of the wildest of her pranks that are on record for those of her votaries who have speculated in the Universal Paris Iv.ibition Lottery, which has about as much to do with the THE EXHIBITION LOTTERY. 163 Exhibition as the old Frankfort Lottery — in which the ' gros lot ' sometimes consisted of a castle and a vineyard on the Rhine, with a title of Count — had to do with the Germanic Confederation. The Act of Parliament by which lotteries were very wisely abolished in England was framed by statesmen old enough to remember the widespread misery and demoralisation caused by lotteries in the concluding years of the last century and the first years of the present one. Lotteries were the means of sowing the seeds of fraud and corruption among all classes of the population. Hanging on to the periodical Governmental gambling schemes were a crew of knavish scoundrels called lottery insurers, who for a certain sum proposed to secure every ticket-holder against loss. These sham insurance offices were multiplied to a wonderful extent as the time for drawing the prizes approached. The in- surers had handsome offices in the heart of the City of London, Avhere clerks sat at the receipt of custom all day long ; while a regular house to house visitation was made in districts inhabited by the middle and working classes by touts or agents of the insurers, whose mission it was to cajole foolish people to become adventurers. From the scarlet-covered memorandum-books in which they entered the particulars of their swindling transactions, these touts were known as 'morocco men,' a term which has escaped the attention of the compiler of the most recent Slang- Dictionary, and which, without explanation, might sorely puzzle a modern reader who came across a ' morocco man ' in a newspaper of the Georgian era. Rendered intrepid by success, the insurers started lottery- wheels on their own account; and these, which constructively were about as free from suspicion as the roulette- wheels and ' E. 0.' tables on the racecourses, were nicknamed ' Little Goes,' a term which still survives in the innocent form of a college examination. Thus a gambling fever was kept up in some measure all the year round among all ranks ol the com- munity, working incalculable mischief. Insurance was applied to every kind of bets. Wagers were laid and 'insured ' to the extenl of 130,000*. on the sex of the Chevalier d'Eon ; card and -lice KM PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. gambling at the clubs ruined hundreds of noblemen and gentle- men in the course of every year; and ladies of the highest rank did not hesitate to hold faro hanks at their own houses, until Lord Chief Justice Kenyon, in indignant despair at these enormities, declared in court that if any of the Duchesses and Countesses who kepi faro hanks were brought before him he would consign them to the tender mercies of the pillory and the cart's-tail. The age, it must be admitted, was a gambling one; but mankind are in- vcteiatelv addicted to gaming, in some form or another; and the •enormities' which so shocked Lord Kenyon might be repeated to-morrow, were the sanction of the State given to public and systematic play. In the year 1800 it was calculated that, of one hundred thou- sand families resident in the metropolis, there were on an average two servants kept in each house, and that one servant with another insured annually to the extent of twenty-five shillings in the Eng- lish, and the same sum in the Irish, lottery ; the aggregate amount thus lost by the wage-earning class alone being half a million -iii ling. The amount of the 'insurances' effected by the masters and mistresses of households was not estimated. In 1795 it was calculated that there were in London one thousand lottery agents and clerks, and seven thousand five hundred ' morocco men,' to say nothing of ' bludgeon men,' who were hired by the Association of lottery-office-keepers meeting regularly in committee at a tavern mar Oxford Market twice or thrice a week during the drawing of the lottery. The business of the bludgeon men was to hustle and maltreat people who came to see the lottery drawn, and to rob them of their tickets if they had any; and it was found that, not- \\ ithstanding repeated warnings, the owners of chances — the men generally, the women almost invariably — brought their tickets with them. To such a fearful extent had the lottery mania spread that it was proposed to insert in a Bill relative to friendly societies thru before Parliament a clause to expel from any such society or benefit-club any member who could be proved to have effected an insurance in the lottery. THE EXHIBITION LOTTERY. 165 It may be useful to refresh the public memory on these mat- ters, obsolete as they are, since it is only a quarter of a century ago that London and the chief provincial towns positively swarmed with betting-offices connected with horseracing and conducted with unblushing publicity. Through the efforts of Sir Alexander Cockburn these public pests and nuisances were put down, but not before much mischief had been wrought to the morals of the people. It would be perfectly idle to contend that gambling on horseracing exhibits an} r symptoms of decline, or that gambling in the stock-market, at some of the clubs, and in billiard-rooms is not scandalously prevalent. It is in the nature of things, and of an advanced stage of civilisation, that it should be so. The spirit of gambling is a disease, assuming a multiplicity of aspects. Abrogate it in one form, and it starts up in another. We cannot hope to extirpate it utterly, any more than we can hope wholly to extirpate disease from the human frame ; but we can limit the area of its ravages. Gambling on horseraces and in stocks and shares are maladies mainly confined to the ruder sex ; but a lottery mania affects everybody — man, woman, and child — alike. It is the 1 'lague ; but it is possible, by the quarantine and the sanitary cordons of repressive legislation, to stamp out the lottery pestilence.* * In the drawing of the Paris Exhibitio 1 Lottery, Fortune favoured the eleventh series, allotting to it no fewer than 131 gros lots; while next in order came the first scries, which carried off 128 prizes. The most unlucky was the ninth, with 7!) prizes only ; the seventh, with 83, being almost as had. The series nearest to the average, the only one to hear out mathematical calcula- tions, was the fifth series, with 107 prizes. In the daily drawings the two extremes were 44 prizes, which fell to the first series on the fourth day, and If to the eighth series on the second day. Holders of the ninth series thought something was wrong with the wheel — that it was not equally weighted, which is not unlikely, as all the lucky series were together ; and it was the same with the unlucky ones, as if one part of the wheel had a tendency to he lowermost. Persons in choosing their tickets avoided those containing two numerals of the .-.ime value, whereas the list of the winning numbers showed how mistaken was the idea; for eight out of ten contained identical numerals, and in four eases out of ten the numerals were together, whilst one winning number in twenty contained the three same numerals side ly side. In one case live Hit; PARIS HERSELF A.GAIN. ■ iphers came out— no 1090 ; anil in anotheT tour, with two ones — 100010. Per- haps the strangest freak of Fortune happened with prizes 189 and 190, both of them landaus, both of the value of 160Z., and whirl, fell successively to 517,805 and 597,805 of the same series, a difference of one numeral only. All kinds of fables were current for a time respecting Aubiiol, the working currier, who won the gros lot. Of course he was passionately besought by all his relatives, near or distant, and by the majority of Ins friends and ac- quaintances, to give or to lend them money. The journeyman currier was moreover affectionately requested to adopt nephews and nieces by the score, and importuned by legions of inventive geniuses of the 'promoter' class to embark a portion oi his capital in enterprises warranted to make him and themselves wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. The lucky currier, how- ever, showed himself to be a very sensible fellow, if there be any truth in the statement that he had a circular printed in the following terms : ' Sir, — Were I to accede to all the demands made upon my purse, I should have to go back to work on Monday. I salute you — ArumoL.' A long time after the drawing was over, the number of prizes that remained unclaimed amounted to many thousands. Some of the ' white elephants ' did not turn out so unprofitable as was anticipated. The winner of the condemned ton of carbonate of soda, for instance, sold it for 40/., and the gentleman from Ken- tucky who won the agricultural steam-engine promptly obtained 80/. for it. ■<-.■■ '■', :*' ■■•::' r- - i -■, ■ ' \ "•: ' ' Monsieur, I have gained the Grand Prize in the Lottery.' k Indeed I Then 1 suppose we must part !' 4 Just so, unless you like to enter my service.' A PROSPECTIVE HAPPY DESPATCH — EMBARRASSMENT OF A JUROR (BY CHAM.) ' The Japanese wants to know if lie has got a medal ! Quick ! Say " Yes," before it is too late ! ' XII. MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS. Nov. 4. I have read a story of a mysterious traveller, a Frenchman, who was continually circumnavigating the globe in all kinds of craft, from ocean steamers to Arab dhows, from Australian clippers to Chinese junks, and who was always able to produce from his own private stores the materials for a first-rate dinner, sufficient in quantity not only for himself, but for the rest of the cabin-passengers, or, in default of such companions, for the officers of the ship. Nothing- delighted this strange circumnavigator so much as a long voyage in stormy weather, when the ship had been driven out of her course, and when the stock of fresh provisions was thoroughly exhausted. Proportionate to the grumbling of the passengers at a daily menu of salt pork and mouldy biscuit was his elation ; and when the last fowl had been killed, and the last egg had been 168 TAR1S HERSELF AGAIN. beaten up, in lieu of milk in the tea, lie would rub his hands, and retire to the galley to confer with the cook. That same day at dinner the cabin table would groan with ' all the delicacies of the 9< ason '—fish, fowl, butchers' meat, and game, soups and curries, the greenest of vegetables, the sweetest of fruit-pies, and the most savoury of soups. The mysterious circumnavigator, who con- sistently declined to receive any remuneration for the dainties which he so bountifully dispensed, ultimately undertook a voyage to the North Pole. The ship in which he sailed was not heard of for many years. At length an exploring expedition discovered the mining vessel embedded between two icebergs. All hands had perished long since from the cold. The corse of the luckless French circumnavigator was found in his cabin, a sheet of paper on the table before him, and a pen full of frozen ink in one stiffened baud. The paper contained the touching statement that the writer bade a calm and cheerful farewell to the world ; that he died happ} r , since he had been enabled, from fifteen } T ears' continuous personal experience, to prove that the Preserved Provisions of Messrs. Aubergine, Potaufeu, Entrecote & Co., of the Rue du Faubourg St. Denis, Paris — of which firm he had the honour to be the trusted representative in foreign parts — could be warranted to withstand the rigour of any climate and the lapse of any reasonable amount of time. The enthusiastic circumnavigator in question might with propriety have been selected by such a firm as Messrs. Crosse & Blackwell, of Soho Square, London, to proclaim to the re- motest nations the excellence of their own products ; only it happens that the house — thanks to the exertions of the ubi- quitous Mr. Joseph Leete, of whom I have already spoken — is by this time thoroughly well known the whole world over. It is, nevertheless, extremely satisfactory to find that Crosse & BlackwelTs merits have been duly recognised by the jury in the Alimentary Department of the Exposition Universelle, who have awarded to them no less than three distinctions : a Gold Medal for preserved meats, soups, and fish ; another Gold Medal for their MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS. 169 vinegar, sauces, pickles, condiments, jellies, and marmalades; and, finally, a bronze medal for preserved fruits. The last conces- sion, even, is a remarkable one, as the French confiseurs, or ' cara- melistes,' as they used to term themselves, have been accustomed from time immemorial to declare that no nation but the French could preserve ' fruits au jus ' at all. Tours and Nancy in the Fast and "West, and Avignon and Montelimar in the South, are the head-quarters of fruit-preserving in France ; but it is something to find even a bronze medal conferred on the English confections. The French are again justifiably proud of their preserved provi- sions, or Conserves Alimentaires. In preserved asparagus, toma- toes, and beans, the}' are perhaps unsurpassed ; and in farinaceous and leguminous materials for soups, such as crecy, tapioca, semo- lina, and julienne, the house of Groult Jeune has earned a world- wide reputation. Such houses as Crosse & Blackwell, however beat the French altogether in the preparation of concrete and sub- stantial soups — soups which in a few minutes after the} r are taken from the tin are ready for consumption, and which constitute in many cases a dinner in themselves. After a long day's ride in a savage countiy a basin of crecy or tapioca soup will not go far towards recruiting exhausted nature; but the case is very different when you are able to comfort the inner man with real or mock turtle, gravy, mulligatawny, giblet, mutton broth, hare, ox-tail, game, oyster, venison, ox-cheek, hotchpot, beef tea, or chicken broth. Yorkshire pies, Oxford brawn, spiced tongues, curried rab- bit, curried fowl — let not the excellent East Indian sptcialite of Mr. Halford, erst chef to a Viceroy of India, be passed without mention — and a whole army of varieties of preserved fish and veget- ables form only one section of the Crosse & Blackwell exhibit to which has been accorded that which is collectively the highest recompense which airy exhibitor whatsoever could obtain. The sauces — a thoroughly English product, at which foreign cooks were formerly accustomed to sneer, but of which they are now beginning largely to avail themselves — form another important department in 170 PARIS HEESELP AGAIN. this remarkable alimentary exhibit. The jury must have been astounded when they found themselves confronted by Lea & Perrins' Worcestershire and Charles Cocks' Heading Sauce ; by the Royal Table, the John Bull, the Beefsteak, the Piquante, the Tomato, the Regent, the Maintenon, the Wellington, the City of London, the Osborne, the Coratch, the Gloucester, the Harvey, the India Soy, the Chutnee,the Union, the Windsor, and the Universal ( 'amp. What, after this surprising display, becomes of Voltaire's sarcasm against England, ' Fifty religions, and only one sauce ? ' It happens that the one only sauce mentioned by Voltaire, melted butter to wit, is not exhibited by Messrs. Crosse & Blackwell, save perhaps as an accompaniment to some preparation of boiled chicken. I am perfectly well aware that our fecundity in made sauces is sometimes quoted by Frenchmen as a proof of our incapacity to make sauces for ourselves in our own private kitchens ; but I would wish to point out that uo less than four distinct sauces in Messrs. Crosse & Blackwell's handsome pavilion are prepared from the recipes left by an eminent French cook, who was for many years domiciled in England, and who rendered inestimable alimentary service in 1855-6 to our soldiers in the Crimea. I find in the Exposition the 'Belish,' the ' Sultana,' the ' Sauce ' proper, and the ' Moutarde Aromatique ' of the late lamented Alexis Soyer. While recognising to the full the merits of Messrs. Crosse & Blackwell's many sauces, let me say a word in favour of the beau- tifully artistic vases in which certain of these sauces are contained, and which are either tasteful examples of Oriental porcelain or genuine blue-and-white Wedgwood ware from Etruria itself. The equity and right feeling of the international jury are visible in the award of a Gold Medal to Messrs. J. S. Fry & Sons of Bristol and London for their chocolate and cocoas, the jury basing their award on the perfection of manufacture shown in the products, the skilful selection of the raw material, and the use of highly-improved machinery. That such a recompense should be given to an English firm in France, the country par excellence of chocolate manufacturers, is pleasantly significant. The house MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS. 171 of Fry & Sons took medals at the Paris Exhibitions of 1855 and 1867; and the fresh and splendid distinction of a Gold Medal now given proves that the French have had at once the generosity and the common sense to acknowledge the good qualities of the British manufacture, alike of ' Chocolat de sante,' ' Chocolat a la vanille,' and ' Caracas cocoa.' ' Homoeopathic cocoa,' ' Cocoa extract,' and ' Milk cocoa ' are forms of the preparation of the cocoa with which our neighbours have only very recently become familiarised ; but the wares of Messrs. Fry & Sons will certainly gain increased acceptance among a 2>eople who are not only pro- digious chocolate-eaters, but are also very partial to chocolate as a beverage. Coffee, lamentably adulterated during these latter days with chicory, is the staple beverage at every French cafe, and in the majority of French families. The Spaniards, on the other hand, are inveterate swallowers of chocolate in the liquid, but rarely consume it in the concrete form. I wish that Messrs. Fry's excellent ' Cocoa extract,' which possesses the full flavour and pure aroma of the choicest cocoa with merely the superfluous oil extracted, could find its way in more extensive quantities to the Iberian peninsula. Spanish chocolate is very delicious, when you can get nothing else for breakfast ; but it is decidedly bilious, and the glass of water swallowed after it tends rather to aggravate than to diminish the bilious symptoms. Yet the consumption of the article throughout the dominions of Don Alphonso is simply enormous. I have seen in the great pottery works of the Marquis de Pickman — an Englishman long domiciled in Spain, and ennobled by the ex-King Amadeo — at the Cartuja, near Seville, rooms stacked to a height of thirty feet with little white pots for holding the chocolate so dear to the popular palate. These pots are made at the Catuja literally by the million ; but, notwithstanding the universal consumption of chocolate, the article is not good in quality. It is unskilfully manufactured, the sugar combined with it is ill-refined, and the incorporation of the sugar with the chocolate is imperfect. A course of Fry's 'Cocoa extract,' 'Homoeopathic cocoa,' or ' Chocolat de sante' 172 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. would, I am convinced, do the Spaniards a great deal of good, Dot only from a sanitary, but from apolitical, point of view. Their too oleaginous chocolate is decidedly unwholesome, and biliousness encourages, not only liver-complaints, but pronunciamientos. There is n popular farinaceous substance exhibited in the American section of the Exposition Universelle — where it has gained the only Gold Medal given in its class — which has been slowly and steadily extending its reputation be3 T ond the boundaries of the United States, until a demand for it has sprung up through- out (Ireat Britain and all over the continent of Europe. I allude to the Duryeas Maizena, manufactured by the Glen Cove Company of Xew York, U.S.A., which produces upwards of 60,0001b. weight of this food, prepared from American maize, every working day. Y^ears ago the Messrs. Duryeas noted that Glen Cove possessed certain natural advantages, of which the chief was a lake that could be made a source of water-power, and the} 7 determined on establishing their Maizena factory on this spot. The undertaking throve, and the works gradually developed until they covered a space of eight acres, and became equal to the daily task imposed upon them of turning out the enormous quantity of Maizena of which I have just spoken. Simultaneously quite a town was formed around the factory by the dwellings of the workmen in the employ of the firm. But during the Civil War the drain of men for military duty was such — one of the partners at Glen Cove raised a regiment of Zouaves known by his name — that the factory became short-handed';' whereupon the owners set their wits to wmk, and contrived with true Yankee ingenuity — the ingenuity which, when driven to search for a substitute, never rests till it has devised something better than the original — to supersede hand- labour by machinery ; and they succeeded so effectually that one workman now executes the task for which ten were formerly n quired. To the merits of Maizena the highest culinary oracles have borne testimony. In France, the Baron Brisse, the apostle of the haute cuisine bourgeoise, strongly commended it ; and at a banquet MOKE GOLD MEDALLISTS. 173 served at the Exhibition of 1867 by Gousset, chef cle louche to the Princess Mathilde, a special chef attended to produce and distribute a maizena-pudding, which was extolled as possessing a lightness and a flavour that had been hitherto unattainable. The agreeable and the nutritive appear to be happily combined in this product of the Zea Mays, the grain of which is known to contain a larger amount of fatty matter than that of any other cereal; and Maizena is in a fair way of being regarded as one of those sub- stances which no well-ordered kitchen should be without. We have a wonderful variety of farina- ceous foods, more or less nourish- ing, of British preparation ; and Maizena enjoys its fair share of public patronage among us ; but on the continent of Europe the American product finds universal acceptance, and is used, I am told, in nearly every hospital in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Russia. The French, in their commercial dealings with us, are daily showing their increasing appreciation of the main spring of Free- trade, Reciprocity. If they bought nothing from us in return for all the silks, wine, sugar, butter, and eggs that we take from them, we should have a right to grumble ; but this is very far from being the case. Putting aside such well-known articles of merchandise as cutlery, calico, and hosiery, which the French are in the habit of importing largely, and confining myself to alimentary substances alone, I find that our neighbours are considerable consumers of British products. We all know that they are rapidly becoming a nation of beer-drinkers, and that they should become so, in a strictly moderate sense, is, to my mind, a con- summation very much to be wished. I do not desire to see them consuming our heavy stouts and porters, as the climate of France 171 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. is too light and elastic for such ponderous beverages; but pale ale in moderation can do them no kind of harm. Bavarian beer, for political reasons, they resolutely refuse to drink; and similar causes render them averse from partaking of the once beloved beverage of Strasbourg. Their own beer, from Nancy and other parts ^ the Mast of France, is very bad ; and I hold that Burton- on- Trent has a very bright future be- fore it, and, so far as supplying the French market is concerned, might eventually beat Vienna — great as has been the name of Dreher — out of the field. ' Cerevisia de Palyaly,' as the Spaniards call Bass's pale ale, is making great way in all the towns of Andalusia, and all the first-rate cafes in Paris sell Allsopp, either bottled or on draught ; while the Gold Medal conferred at the present Ex- hibition on Messrs. Bindley & Co., of Burton-on-Trent, for the purity, delicacy of flavour, aroma, and brilliancy of their India ales, pale, mild, and strong, shows that the French — Avho never will and never can become brewers on a large scale — are pre- pared still further to welcome the friendly competition of Burton beer. This is another point, I take it, in favour of the Treaty of Commerce and Free-trade. The first bottle of Allsopp that I ever saw in Paris was in 1855, at the Buffet Americain, a short- lived refreshment bar, opened — under the auspices of the versatile M. de Yillemessant, I believe — at the corner of the Passage Jouf- froy ; but I remember that fifteen years before, and in the days of Protection, at Cuvillier's, in the Rue de la Paix, a quart bottle of Hodgson's East India pale ale cost five francs. Even so to-day, at a St. Petersburg restaurant, a pint bottle of Guinness's Dublin stout cannot be had under a rouble, or three shillings sterling. I see that the firm of Ervan, Lucas Bols, the great Batavian tg liquor-makers, who exhibit a pile of drinkables formidable MOKE GOLD MEDALLISTS. 175 enough to set the whole United Kingdom Alliance shuddering, and to bring melancholy to the mind of Mr. John B. Gough, have actually had a couple of Gold Medals awarded to them, one for liqueurs and one for s})iritcux. The firm have a branch establish- ment in the French capital, where it is understood that they do a considerable trade. A tremendous quantity of liqueurs, to say nothing of absinthe and vermouth, is, to all appearance, consumed by the eminently temperate French people. They must take them, I should say, medicinally, as cordials for that complaint which Albert Smith's old-lacl} r patient used to call ' spiders at the heart,' and for which Albert's invariable and gratefully received pre- scription was gin coloured pink, with cardamons. If the merits of the Batavian strong drinks have been amply recognised, 'justice to Ireland' has certainly been meted out by those members of the international jury who were charged with adjudicating upon British spirits, for no less than three Gold Medals have been awarded to exhibitors of Irish whisky, including Dunville & Co. of Belfast, Kinahan & Co. of Dublin, and the C< >rk Distilleries Company. Ireland may be proud of this recogni- tion of one of its staple products ; for foreigners are commonly so prejudiced in favour of the spirits the}' produce themselves, as to be utterly oblivious to the merits of rival alcohols. The experts, I hear, were unanimous, however, in their commendations of the purity of the Irish whiskies, and the triple award was the result. Among the Parisians the historic ' L.L.' or Lord-Lieutenant whisky of the famous house of Kinahan & Co. lias, of recent years, been gradually coming into favour. Hot whisky- and- water has to a great extent superseded rum-and-water, which the frequenters of the Parisian cafes, so soon as ever the chilliness of October had set in, began to drink with serious assiduity, from eleven in the morning until midnight, without apparently doing themselves the slightest harm. It is true that they put about a teaspoonful and a half f Mr. Burnand among the jurors to arrive at an idea of the relative MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS. 177 qualities of the Chinese exhibits by corporal experiments on the Chinese employes in the section. The pig-tailed connoisseurs in samshu delivered their opinion by pantomimic gestures, and the international experts framed their verdict accordingly. Thus, when a sample of spirits was submitted to a Celestial, and he made, while imbibing it, a hideous grimace, the sample was classed as 'zero.' If, on the other hand, the Chinaman's countenance assumed a dubious expression, the spirit was allowed the benefit of the doubt, and was voted worthy of ' Honourable Mention,' which, I may parenthetically remark, a disappointed French exhibitor lately denned to me as a distinction just a little worse than having - ■ I ■ :! with you ; don't stand in front of my shop.' ' Tali ! go and hide your head in a bag, old bronze medal.* your ears boxed, and just a little better than being kicked down- stairs. When, however, the eyes of the heathen Chinee glistened, and he licked his lips, the samshu was at once set down for a Bronze Medal ; and finally, if he broke out in exclamations of delight, and passed his hand approvingly over the region of the stomach, a Silver Medal was accorded to the fortunate liqueur. VOL. II. 178 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. There was no need to experiment in similar fashion with the Irish whiskies on exhibit, for Royalty itself did not disdain to 'taste' one of these. In the early days of the Exhibition, when the Prince and Princess of Wales, in company with the Crown Prince of Denmark, were on their way to the carriage annexe, something detained them temporarily in front of Messrs. Dun- ville's stall. The day being raw and cold, the representative of the great Belfast firm profited by this circumstance to respect- fully ask the Prince if he would be pleased to taste the old V.R. His Royal Highness was nothing loth ; and after he had taken a ' nip,' the Danish Crown Prince was induced to follow his example. And then the most graceful, the most charming, and the most womanly of princesses ever united to an heir apparent to the British Crown smilingly asked her husband and her brother how they liked what they had been tasting, and both agreed in pro- nouncing it to be excellent. Messrs. Dunville, who have a stock of whisky sufficient to float an ocean steamer, claim, I believe, to be the largest holders of this spirit in the world. Prominent among the inlze-winners in the alimentary depart- ment of the British section, the importance of which it would be mischievous to undervalue, are the firm of Messrs. J. & J. Colman, to whom two Gold Medals have been awarded, one for mustard and another for starch. In the course of my tours through the restaurants of Paris I have more than once had occasion to com- plain of the shortcomings of the French-made mustard, nor are the French themselves backward in confessing that the native condiment leaves much to be desired. They strive to conceal its deficiencies by adding to it aromatic substances, or the flavour of olives, anchovies, and shalot, and in some cases the mustard-seed is preliminarily steeped in the lees of wine. The chief fault of French mustard is that it is deficient in pungenc}-, falling very far short of Column's excellent preparation in this respect ; and as the French are growing day by day to be more and more a nation of beef-eaters, lack of strength in their mustard is a drawback winch they cannot continue to overlook. I read the other day an MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS. 179 amusing advertisement of a new mustard, with some fantastic name, which was guaranteed ' d'attaquer les narines les plus recalcitrantes' — to titillate the most obstinate nostrils ; hut I have sniffed energetically at that mustard, and it has not made me sneeze. The utility of a really pure and powerful mustard, again, is not wholly culinary. The condiment has very powerful medi- cinal virtues ; and if you are afflicted with rheumatism, with a cold at the chest, or with bronchitis, and stand in need of a mustard- plaster, you certainly do not want the mustard to be flavoured with anchovy or tarragon vinegar. Ever since the exhibition opened the fabrication of Column's mustard, which is in full operation in the Machinery Department, has been a source of unflagging interest to the French visitors, who have watched with breathless curiosity the accomplishment of the various processes, from the screening and pounding of the seed to the final packing of the mustard in tins ready to form a condiment for those 'biftecks bien saignants' — those half-crude lumps of flesh — to which the French think that we are incurably addicted, but of which they themselves are inordinately fond. I confess that I watched myself the pounding process with some- thing like childish interest. The seed for Colman's mustard is crushed by means of a series of heavy cylinders — of what their technical name may be I have not the remotest idea — which in slow alternation came up and down like unto the legs of some enormous animal performing an eternal goose-step. ' Melancholy - mad elephants,' Charles Dickens, hi Hard Times, called some engine of the kind which he saw in Lancashire. But where had I seen the melancholy-mad elephants before ? Not at Preston nor Blackburn. Not at Huddersfield nor Leeds. Far away did my memory take me, sixteen years back. Far away from Colman's mustard factory, through the Southern Atlantic, round the storm- tormented Hatteras, along the sandy coast of Florida, and thus, threading the shiny Antilles, across the blue Gulf to Vera Cruz, and so through the Tierra Caliente and the deserts of sand and cactus, up the gloomy Cambus, and through the fearsome cartons k 2 180 TARIS HERSELF AGAIN. to the great city of Tenostitlan. And then, miles away from the shadow of Popocatapetl and Istclasiwatl, ' the vii'gin in white reclining,' far away through savage mountain-gorges to the silver mines of Real del Monte in Mexico ; and there, at the mouth of each shaft, from Pachuca to the Falls of Regla, used I, day by day and night by night, to watch the melancholy-mad elephants — colossal cylinders of timber shod with iron, which might have crushed Colman and all his mustard into the Impalpabilities in five minutes — plodding up and down, up and down, pounding the silver ore under their tremendous toes. It was a rebellious ore ; but the huge pedals crushed out the precious stuff at last — got it out by slow and unwearying persistence, as the pith is picked out of a reed, or as misery crushes the heart out of a man. But my mind came very swiftly back from Mexico to contemplate a surging crowd of vivacious Gauls who were struggling for some packets of mustard which were being gratuitously distributed in front of Messrs. J. & J. Colman' s show-case. They are quite as eager when there is a biscuit scramble at Huntley and Palmers'kiosque; and they nearly suffocate while thronging round the obliging gen- tleman at the per- fumery fountain in the French section, who, it is said, scents 20,000 pocket handkerchiefs a day for nothing. One person, abusing this generosity, tendered four moiichoirs for gratuitous odoriferous treatment. 'Mais il est done un "pick- MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS. 181 pocket," ce maraudeur-la,' murmured the obliging gentleman, out of all patience. While mentioning the fact of a Gold Medal having been awarded to the firm of Orlando Jones & Co., starch manufacturers, at Battersea, I wish to point out that Mr. Orlando Jones is himself the inventor of the i:>rocess of making the Patent Pace Starch, or ' Amidon de Eiz,' which bears his name. The invention in question dates from the year 1840, since which period the firm have received no less than nine medals of honour at various Inter- national Exhibitions, the reasons given by the juries for these awards being the invention of the process, the excellence of manufacture, and the extended use of the product. Some of my readers will, no doubt, remember the time — which, thanks to Free-trade and Inter-oceanic Navigation, we are scarcely likely to see again — when bread was at famine prices, and mob orators made a grand point by hotly denouncing the waste of good wheaten flour used for starching the cravats of the aristocracy and powdering the heads of their flunkeys. By employing rice for the manufacture of starch, Mr. Orlando Jones not only wiped out this reproach, but succeeded in producing a material which loses none of "its stiffness in clamp weather, a thing impossible with starch made from wheat. How grateful Queen Elizabeth's maids of honour and tire-women would have been for such a boon when that irascible Sovereign's voluminous ruffs drooped under the influence of our tearful climate ; and how proud Brummell's valet would have felt could he but have adjusted the Beau's indispen- sable white cravat without a daily heap of failures ! All discoveries in relation to starch have not proved equally happy ones. Does not worthy Master Stubbes, in his Anatomic of Abuses, denounce it as a direct invention of the Evil One, and relate a terrible tale of a pretty young Dutchwoman who could not pleat her imperfectly stiffened ruff to her satisfaction, and whose appeal for aid to the Infernal Powers was answered in person by a very dark but comely gallant ? He pleated the ruff to perfection, but he fitted it so tightly round the poor woman's neck that she 182 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. then and there died. And did not Mrs. Mary Turner, procuress and poisoner, who helped to murder that self-seeking intriguer, Sir Thomas Overbury, at the instigation of his bosom-friend Lord Somerset, make her last public appearance at Tyburn or Tower Hill, I forget which, in one of those famous yellow starched ruffs, the getting up of which was one of her more reputable sources of income ? Thenceforward and for ever, yellow starch became an abomination ; whereas a continuously increasing popularity seems to attend the pure white material which Mr. Orlando Jones obtains from the Oryza sativa. While M. Jablochkoff and Mr. Edison, and I know not how many more inventors and patentees of the electric light, are con- verting night into day, and causing the eyes of the weaksighted to blink, even like unto those of the melancholy and moping owl while sitting in an ivy-bush, and while you hear on all sides that gas will speedily become a thing of the past — it will last our time, and longer, I fancy — I may just direct one glance at the very handsome and interesting display of Price's Patent Candle Com- pany, enshrined beneath its crystal dome appropriately supported by inter-arching palm-tree columns. I am tolerably well acquainted with the history of candles ; and, so far as France is concerned, I can remember when there were only two kinds of candles to be had in Paris — I am speaking of from thirty to forty years ago — ' la bougie,' the wax candle, which was superlatively good, but very dear ; and ' la chandelle,' commonly so called, which was only an exaggerated rushlight with very feeble powers of illumination. The French continue to make excellent bougies, and within recent years they have been manufacturing a variety of candles made from other substances than wax ; but I claim for my own country- men that they have taught the French to make successively not only the old ' mould ' candles, but the more modern ' composites,' — which were first introduced in 1840, on the occasion of her Majesty's marriage, by Messrs. Edward Price & Co., the founders of the present firm, — and the still more modern 'paraffin.' But the French have not improved on our candles, and our maim- MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS. 133 facturers indisputably continue to keep the lead. Price's patent candles have taken Gold Medals this quarter of a century past at Exhibitions in London, Paris, Moscow, Philadelphia, Dublin, Brussels, Lyons, Amsterdam, and Vienna — at the last-named two of the highest medals that could be awarded — and the Company is once more in the forefront at the Paris Exhibition. The award of the Gold Medal is especially merited by the exhibits of the ' Palmitine ' ornamental candles — pahnitine is a mixture of paraffin and stearine, the combination producing all the brilliancy without the drawbacks of unmingled paraffin, which has a tendency to give off smoke in burning and to bend in a warm atmosphere, besides being equally transparent with the finest sperm candles. The raw material, whence the stearine is obtained, is that strange-looking orange-coloured butter known as palm-oil, some 7000 tons of which are annually consumed by the firm. ' Quashee ma boo, the slave trade is no more ! ' exclaim Messrs. Smith in Rejected Addresses ; and this result is stated by competent authorities to be due quite as much to the impetus given to the stearine manufacture as to the efforts of British cruisers on the Benin coast. King Boriabungalaboo finds it more profitable to employ his sable subjects in planting palm-trees than to sell them right off to Captain Ammadab P. Dowsetter, of the Saucy Sarah schooner, through the intermediary of Don Pacheco Sanchez. It is to the stearine that the Palmitine candles owe then hardness, their slowness of combustion and brilliancy of illuminating power being due to the paraffin ; the net result, in commercial phraseology, being a light as soft as, and more lasting than, that of a wax candle, at a price but little over that paid, some years back, for the common tallow mould. Among the thirty-two qualities of candles, moulded into twice as many different shapes and sizes, which Price's Patent Candle Company produce, the most notable are the 'Primrose' and ' National ' wax, the ' Belmontines,' the ' Composites,' the ' Sher- wood' and 'Belmont' sperms, the ' snuffles s dips/ and the carriage lamp candles of Ceylon wax. Then there are the patent ' night- 184 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. lights/ which under the name of either 'Price's,' 'Albert's,' or • Child's, ' have been known these many years past all the world over. To these have now to be added a new variety which the Company are producing from stearine obtained from the coker- nut-tree — one of the palm family — a material remarkable for its whiteness of flame and utter freedom from smoke, for which reason it was selected as fuel for the sledging parties in the last Arctic expedition. Of the Company's household and toilette soaps, in- cluding the famous glycerine which they introduced some twenty years back, it is unnecessary to speak. "When George IV. landed at the hamlet on the Irish coast subse- quently dignified with the name of Kingstown, it is related that one enthusiastically loyal Paddy thrust himself forward, and un- ceremoniously grasped the hand of the First Gentleman in Europe. Then, gazing respectfully at the grimy paw that had thus been honoured by ac- tual contact with Ptoyalty, the de- lighted tatterde- malion exclaim- ed ' Soap nor water shall niver touch this hand tillmedjdn'day.' The Bashaw of Brighton, whose devotion to the duties of the toilette has been recorded by Mr. Greville, some- time Clerk of the Closet, shud- dered at the idea of this prospective penance ; but those around him, better acquainted A PIECE OF ADVICE (BY CHAM). ' Don't look at the exhibits of soap as though you saw the article for the first time.' MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS. 185 with the idiosyncrasies of his Majesty's Irish subjects in those days, merely smiled at the notion of the slightest inconvenience bein« en- tailed thereby. For at that epoch 'the Great Unwashed' was by no means apopular misnomer when applied to the bulk of the inhabitants on either side of St. George's Channel. If that soap-renouncing Irishman could only be present in the flesh — it would be useless in the spirit — in the Palace of the Champ de Mars, he would be sorely tempted to recant his hasty abjuration in the presence of the saponaceous display of Messrs. Hodgson & Simpson of the Calder Soap-works, Wakefield, comprising countless cubes of soap in piles, including the familiar 'yellow,' the 'white curd,' and the ' brown,' all with then* distinct ' grain' — a sign, say the initiated in such matters, of perfect saponification. Surmounting these pillars are pyramids of what is styled ' Queen's Mottled Soap,' while around the edge of the case are tablets of toilette soaps such as honey, glycerine, and old brown Windsor, which used originally to be curd soap darkened with age, but, in these express days, has its umbrian hue imparted by the aid of caramel. For the benefit of those who follow the sage Napoleonic axiom, and confine the lavation of their befouled linen to the domestic circle, Messrs. Hodgson & Simpson exhibit an array of large crystals of soda of unusual size and form. The Wakefield firm, in fact, combine all departments, from the production of fancy soaps to the making of black ash or ball soda. Soda manufacture has undergone a great change since kelp and barilla were the sole sources of its supply, and Orkney lairds were wont to pay an annual visit to Edinburgh, and ruffle it with the best society of the Modem Athens, on the proceeds of the product of the strip of foreshore bordering their hereditary patches of rock and moor- land. When Nicolas Leblanc of Issoudun responded to the appeal of the French Government, on the cutting off of all the accustomed sources of supply whence soda was derived during the revolutionary epoch, and showed that it could be made from common salt, he laid the foundation of an industry which has since flourished in England to an enormous extent, and of which the 186 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. Cakler "Works are amongst the largest exemplars. Soap and soda are here successfully combined — not mechanically, but chemically — in what is styled the ' Queen's Condensed Soap,' a powder done up in packets, and replacing soda crystals in the laundry with the ad- vantage of being less destructive to garments. A gold medal has been awarded to Messrs. Hodgson & Simpson, whose works near "Wakefield cover some eight acres of ground. Cheap soap being a specialty of their business, cheap carriage is also an essential requisite ; and their factory borders a canal affording water-carriage to Liverpool on the west, and to Goole, Hull, and London on the east ; so that cargoes of tallow and resin, the essential materials of fine soap — of which the firm is one of the largest consumers in the United Kingdom — can be brought direct to the boiling coppers from Eussia, Australia, and America, with only a single transhipment. A couple of Silver Medals — one for mustard, and the other for that excellent domestic preparation which most of us have, at one time or another, materially benefited by, namely, ' Robinson's Patent Groats,' have been awarded to Messrs. Keen, Robinson, & Co. The house is of great antiquity, the Keens having started in business as ' blue and mustard makers' at Garlick Hill, their present head-quarters, as far back as 1742, the year of the downfall of Sir Robert "Walpole's administration, after its one-and-twenty years' tenure of office. In 1764, at the time Lord Byron's grand- father, Foul- Weather Jack as he was called, was circumnavigating the globe, the Robinsons were seeking to acclimatise in England the use of that grain which Dr. Johnson had contemptuously pro- nounced to be fitted only for Scotchmen and horses. The union of these two old-established firms took place in 1862, having been pictorially foreshadowed seven years previously in a Punch cartoon entitled 'The Prevailing Epidemic,' and representing the Fleet Street sage, with his head muffled in flannel, taking a mustard foot-bath and a basin of hot gruel, and exclaiming ' Ah, you may laugh, my boy; but it is no joke being funny with the influenza.' In Shakespeare's day families had no Keens to crush mustard- MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS. 187 seed for them, but accomplished this operation themselves by the aid of a pestle and mortar ; and the mustard that Gruinio proffered to Katherine, and which Petruchio opined was too hot for that choleric lady, was prepared in this fashion. Messrs. Keen's firm were the first to manufacture mustard on a large scale and to employ machinery for the purpose ; and long before Adulteration Acts were dreamt of they counselled the use of pure mustard, without an)- addition of farina — mustard that was 'hot i' th' mouth,' as genuine mustard should be; although ex- perience has proved that when there is not a quick sale or a quick consumption after mixing, compound mustards of the best quality are preferable, the addition of farina improving the mustard, like gold for coining is improved b} r the alloy, by retaining the volatile oil, and by checking the natural tendency which mustard has, in common with all vegetable products, to decay. With Messrs. Keen only the best and hottest seed finds favour ; and it is for this reason that their mustard is in such general request, not merely in all our colonies, but also in the United States, and is being- preferred even by our French neighbours, whose mustard, as I have already remarked, is utterly lacking in this much-desired pungency. Robinson's patent groats are known in every English household; and that distinguished authority on gruel, Miss Mary Hooper, will, I am sure, be pleased to hear that their merits have been properly recognised at the Paris Exhibition. There is a glass case belonging to a Gold Medallist which it would be decidedly unjust to pass without mention ere the Exposi- tion Universelle comes to the end of its wondrous career. I allude to one containing the sporting guns and rifles manufactured by Messrs. James Purdey & Sons of Oxford Street, London. Most of the fowling-pieces and rifles, complete in workmanship and exquisite in finish, exhibited by Messrs. Purdey, who are gun-makers to the Queen and the Prince of Wales, have been purchased by Royal and noble personages, including the Prince de Croy, who has secured no less than five of these fine weapons, the Prince Imperial of Austria, Prince Mavrocordato, Prince Boris-Czetwertynski, the 188 TARIS HERSELF AGAIN. Duke de Castries, Baron Albert do Rothschild, M. Patrice de MacMahon, and last, though not least, Prince Arthur of Saxe Coburg Gotha. One side of the Purdey glass case is decorated with photographs of sporting trophies of the game shot on various excursions in Europe by the Prince of Wales, the Emperor of Russia, and the late King of Itary. There is also the reproduc- tion of a trophy of African antelopes, shot bj' two adventurous English sportsmen, J. L. Garden, Esq., and Captain Garden. The well-known and indeed leading specialty of the Purdey guns is extreme lightness, obtained without any sacrifice of strength. Another is the new sj'stem introduced by Messrs. Purdey of boring for ' small charges,' so that longer range and better results may be attained than can be procured by the old system of heavy guns with large charges. The light guns are altogether free from ' kick' or recoil. The extra Purdey exhibit consists of four guns, elaborately chased in the champ-leve style, two of which have been embellished by the talented artist Aristido Barri, who was arrested at Vienna as a Communist, but was subsequently released, and is now occu- pied in executing a champ-leve for the Emperor of Austria. There is likewise a pan of very handsome guns, with stocks of orna- mental maple, having the appearance of tortoiseshell, and the steel portions of which are exquisitely inlaid with gold. A pair of beautiful guns for ladies' use must also claim a word. The stocks of these guns are ebonised, and the weapons themselves are of extreme lightness; still I am told that a distinguished pigeon- shot at a recent Monaco competition succeeded in killing with one of them fifteen out of eighteen birds at twenty-eight yards' rise. The crack shots of Hurlingham and Shepherd's Bush are in the habit of favouring with their presence the competitions organised by the brothers Dennetier, in the diminished strip of territory belonging to Prince Charles of Monaco, to the sore dis- comfiture of their Continental rivals. On these occasions the death-dealing barrels of Mr. Dudley Ward, Sir R. Musgrave, Earl de Grey, and Captain Vansittart give plenty of employ- MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS. 189 ment to Nelly, the famous bitch upon whom devolves the onerous task of retrieving the slaughtered pigeons, which frequently average six hundred per diem. Especially interesting in the Purdey exhibit is an extremely ingenious mechanical gun, which, by means of an arrangement of screws, can be twisted and turned into any shape, V V 4y aj A CRACK SHOT. 100 TARIR HERSELF AGAIN. and fixed there for measurements to be taken from it, so that the gun to be manufactured can be suited to ' the mount' of any particular sportsman who is in the habit of shooting from the right or left eye, or from the right or the left shoulder, respectively. I am informed that no less than 7000L in money- prizes alone, exclusive of cups, have been won by noblemen and gentlemen using Purdey guns at Hurlingham and the Gun Club last year. Having dwelt upon the exhibit of Messrs. Purdey & Sons, and chronicled the fact of those famous gunsmiths having secured a Gold Medal, fairness induces me to refer to a neighbouring glass case, in which are displayed a variety of sporting guns and rifles, manufactured by Mr. Stephen Grant of St. James's Street, to whom a Gold Medal has likewise been awarded, on the score of the mingled strength, excellence, and beauty of workmanship shown in his fowling-pieces. Among the collections of firearms displayed at the Exhibition are many admirable examples of Continental and American skill ; still, judges possessed of the requisite technical knowledge, who have gone carefully through the whole of the exhibits, do not hesitate to place the weapons of our English gunsmiths in the foremost rank, both as regards their strength and their finish. Even the best French and Belgian guns fail, they say, to impress the sportsman with the same idea of strength and perfect beauty of action as a thoroughly well-made English fowling-piece. The former are altogether more toy-like ; and it is a noticeable fact that the great majority of French, German, and Belgian sportsmen, and more parti- cularly those who are adepts at pigeon-shooting, invariably use guns of English origin, manufactured by such experienced gun- MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS. 191 smiths as Mr. Stephen Grant and the more notable of his con- freres. I am told, indeed, that the vast majority of the prizes which have recently fallen to competitors at shooting-matches, both in England and on the Continent, have been gained by gentlemen who have used either Grant or Purdey guns. Captain Aubrey Patton, who on two consecutive occasions carried off the Grand Prix, worth 1000£., at the Monaco ' tournament of doves,' shot with a Grant breechloader ; and Mr. David Hope- Johnstone, who a few years since secured the magnificent piece of plate presented by Mr. James Gordon Bennett to be shot for at the ground of the Cercle des Patineurs in the Bois de Boulogne, is likewise a client of Mr. Stephen Grant's, who coimts, moreover, the Prince of "Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh among his aristocratic patrons. Some five years since, making a tour among the manufactures of the Midlands and the North of England, I came to Birmingham, and studied, as narrowly as within my powers of observation lay, the remarkable processes — I think there are nineteen in all — employed in the fabrication of steel pens. It was the works of Messrs. Joseph Gillott that, as a total stranger, I visited, first because Gillott steel pens are admitted to be the best that are made, and next because the name and trade-mark of ' Joseph Gillott ' are known the whole world over. I am glad to see that the celebrated Birmingham firm have had justice done to them in the Champ de Mars, and have received a Gold, Medal. The Gillott show-case displays, in its central compartments, a pen- holder and a ' magnum-bonum ' pen of such gigantic dimensions that the implement might be best suited to the use of the Private Secretary to the Sovereign of Brobdingnag. The lateral com- partments display trophies with mouldings and central bosses formed of steel pens and holders of various forms and sizes, and of every shade of metallic tint ; while beneath are glass vases filled with thousands of loose ' nibs ' and ' barrel ' pens. I notice, also, that a portion of the case practically illustrates the various pro- cesses of pen-making, beginning with the first plain strip of metal, and showing it in successive stages of punching, cutting, stamp- 192 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. ing, piercing, pointing, nibbing, hardening, annealing, polishing, Lettering, and so forth, until it is turned out a pure and perfect pen, ready to join its comrades in a cardboard box inscribed with the well-known signature of ' Joseph Gillott,' and to make the ■ Tour du Monde.' What, I wonder, will become of all these thousands of ' magnum bonums,' hard and soft nibs, 'commercial' and fine-pointed pens, and lithographic ' crowquills ' ? They will be dispersed, I suppose ; they will be scattered far and wide ; they will find their way to all sorts of out-of-the-way regions. Tens of thousands of love-letters, begging-letters, and lawyers' letters, bills and invoices, poems and novels, five-act tragedies and milk-scores, leading articles. and schoolboys' exercises, will be written with these pens. And yet, vast as is the part which steel pens have played in the civilisation of the world, they are, com- paratively speaking, things only of the day before yesterday. When I first went to school in Paris, forty years ago, it was one of the highest crimes and misdemeanours that a boy could commit to be found in possession of a ' plume de fer.' The steel pen was* inflexibly banished as an abominable thing from our scholastic precincts ; and four years afterwards, when I went to school in England, I found that steel pens were only sullenly tolerated by my preceptor, and that the nearest road to his favour was to ask him for a quill pen. If, in addition to writing with a quill, you could mend one, you became at once a Model Boy. Nous avons change tout cela ; yet the quill continues to a certain extent to hold its own in England. At the great clubs a dozen quill pens are certainly used for every steel nib asked for. Quills have not been entirely banished either from Governmentoffices, courts of justice, or from mercantile counting-houses; so that as long as the use of a Gil- lott is not made compulsory, and as long as it is not made a penal offence to sleep on a feather-bed, the geese will continue, at other seasons besides Michaelmas and Christmas, to have a bad time of it. The number of quill-pen users is, however, restricted. It is a population which is diminishing, and which will die out ; while the numbers of steel-pen consumers must increase to a proportion- MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS. 193 ate extent with the consumers of letter-paper, envelopes, and postage stamps — that is to say, to the Illimitable. Wandering recently, at hazard, through the instructive and inge- nious, but, to the non-bucolic mind, slightly wearisome agricultural machinery annexe of the British section, I came upon the black red, and gold arcade, inwrought with the rose, shamrock, and thistle in the spandrels of its arches, of Messrs. J. J. Thomas & Co., of the Paddington Wire-works, Edgware Road, who have been awarded a Gold Medal for the excellence of their productions. A vast number of articles within this structure show that wire is not only capable of being made to assume a pro- tean variety of shapes, but is susceptible of the most artistic handling. The floriculturist can- not fail to be struck by the rosaries and rose-temples, rivals to Celia's arbour, and in eveiy way worthy of the Queen of Flowers; garden arches, display- ing a regular series of architectural studies ; wire porches and win- dow-shades ; arcades and verandahs; elabo- rate wire and iron gar- den seats, chairs, and tables (fixed and fold- jardiniere, exhibited by j. j. thomas and co. V"[.. II. 104 I'AKIS HERSELF AGAIN. ing) ; multi-patterned wire-borderings for flower-beds — all artisti- cally designed and beautifully finished ; espalier-fencing, for train- ing fruit-trees ; together with wall-trellises, wire-fencing, netting for enclosures, gates, hurdles, seed-guards, and many other articles ot' a similar character. For those who do their gardening indoors there are flower-stands, tastefully enamelled, in all colours, with hanging baskets, flower epergnes, and jardinieres of alike hand- some appearance, elaborate in construction and chastely tinted and gilt, and fit to figure in the best-appointed boudoir or drawing- room. Pheasantries, aviaries, and birdcages form a special feature in Messrs. Thomas's display. Here are aviaries of gilt and brass wire that are perfect ornithological palaces, comprising central cages in conjunction with four supplementary ones, that may be used in combination, separated from one another at pleasure, or according as the inhabitants of this mini- ature Cloud Cuckoo Town are communistic-ally inclined or the reverse. Stained- glass corners, with gilt eagles at the angles, and gilt orna- ments at the summit, en- hance the appearance of these compact and perfect aviaries, which are especially adapted for the drawing-room, owing to their being fitted with figured-glass plates on their richly-enamelled base, to prevent the seeds and husks from being scattered about by the feathered occupants. Here, too, are birdcages of daintily-inlaid wood and gilt wire— which even Sterne's starling would hardly have wanted to escape from— square, round, octagonal, and pagoda shaped; with cages for larks and for linnets, breeding-cages, squirrel and white- mice cages, folding and portable cages that pack as flat as a Gibus IUOEE GOLD MEDALLISTS. 195 hat, as v,-ell as cages green "with paint and cages gray from galvan- ism ; in short, cages enough to hold all the birds in Great St. Andrew Street, and man}' more besides. The objects already enumerated form but a tithe of the dis- play. Life is said to hang on a thread; and Messrs. Thomas seem to have imposed upon themselves the task of showing how much our every-day existence is dependent upon wire by exhi- biting window-blinds both for ornament and for protection, fire- guards and fenders, bottle-bins and racks, sieves, children's cots, dish-covers, toasting-forks, cinder-sifters, egg-whisks, salad-strain- ers, tree-guards, baskets, bird, rat, mouse, eel, and lobster traps, and innumerable other things — all composed of this ductile material. \£F'JMErVIE ' I find all your preparations dreadfully dear.' ' But remember, madam, we gained the only medal. u 2 THE SQUARE DU TEMPLE. XIII. IX THE TEMPLE. X( iv. There was in the annual Exhibition proper of Paintings known as Le Salon, held at the Palais de l'lndustrie during the summer months, a picture which to me was full of the deepest interest, but which failed to attract a tithe of the attention it deserved. The truth is, that the wondrous Galeries des Beaux Arts in the Champ de Mars had, like Aaron's rod, swallowed up all other contemporary displays of paintings and statuary; and in the tremendous panorama of the Exposition Univers'elle the modest gallery in the Champs Elysees was, comparatively speaking, for- gotten. At the close of the Salon the work of art of which I speak was removed to a picture-dealer's shop on the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle ; and day after day I used to go and cogitate over it by the half hour together. It was a canvas of considerable dimen- sions, containing many figures, and it was full of good composition, drawing, and colour. It was offered for sale at a very moderate price — a hundred and twenty pounds, if I remember aright. I did not purchase the work, because there was then, as there is still, IN THE TEMPLE. 197 an unaccountable delay in the arrival, at my domicile in Paris, of the necessary cheques available for investment in works of art ; but I frankly confess that had I bought it I should not have been influenced by any considerations of an artistic nature. I valued the picture only as an eloquently realistic illustration of one of the most dramatic, the most moving, and most mysterious episodes in the history of modern France. This picture told the story of the arrest of Georges Cadoudal, the famous Chouan conspirator against the life of the First Napoleon. Georges was accustomed stoutly to disclaim the imputation of being a common assassin ; still he did not conceal his intention to fall upon the First Consul the first time he met him in public ; disarm his escort with the assistance of a band of brother Chouans, and slay him. Bonaparte, he reasoned, had been condemned to death by the verdict of all respectable people ; and somebody must be bold enough to become the executioner of the tyrant. "With this idee fixe in his mind, the resolute Chouan came over from England, where he had long lived in exile, and where, to all seeming, he was very well known and very much liked, even in aristocratic English society, and hid himself in Paris, where he soon became the centre of a gang of some sixt}^ or seventy desperate plotters against the government. Both M. Lanfrey and M, Michelet plainly declare that the Consular Government were perfectly well aware of the presence of Georges and his confederates in the capital, and that the police allowed the plot to ripen un- disturbed, in the hope of getting hold of conspirators of more exalted rank than the Vendean farmer, Georges Cadoudal, and his more or less obscure followers. They thought that Monseigneur the Comte d'Artois might be eventually decoyed to Paris, and captured to his destruction. • Their benevolent expectations in this respect being frustrated, the Minister of Police deemed it time to cast his drag-nets and make a haul of the Bourbonist agents, who were known by his scouts and his spies to be in Paris. The Chouans were laid hold of by the score ; but Georges, during many weeks, successfully eluded the pursuit of the gendarmes and 108 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. the mouchards. He was nevertheless so persistently followed, so closely tracked from hiding-place to hiding-place, that he could hear, as it were, the barking of the police-pack at his heels, and almost feel their hot breath stirring his hair. He had no refuge at last but a hackney cabriolet — a two-wheeled vehicle with a huge leathern hood ; and in this cab, driven by a trusty friend, he positively lived for the best part of a week, driving about the streets all day, and hiding at night in some timber-yard or quay- side shed, where food and forage had been brought by friends, so as to give horse and man a little refreshment and rest. But one afternoon, in a frequented thoroughfare, the friendly cabdriver was imprudent enough to alight, and enter a cabaret to obtain a drink of wine. This simple act was in itself a breach of the existing cab regulations. Two passing police-agents took notice of it ; and one of them, looking into the carriage, in which the driver had resumed his seat, to warn him that he would be summoned, recognised with astonishment and delight in the second occupant of the cabriolet the countenance of the man of whom he had been so long in quest — Georges Cadoudal. ' A moi !' he cried to his companion, seizing Georges by the collar, and striving to drag him to the pavement. Georges was not a man of half measures. He at once drew a pistol, fired, and blew the mouchard's brains out ; then, seizing the reins and lashing the horse, he made a desperate effort to drive away ; but the second mouchard had seized the horse's head ; a crowd collected ; the patrol arrived from the nearest guardhouse ; the Chouan leader Was overcome and handcuffed ; twenty minutes afterwards he was in a cachot at the Depot of the Prefecture ; and ere sunset he was safe and sound in the Temple, only to leave that gloom}' donjon for the prisoner's dock at the Palais de Justice, only to leave it eventually for the Place de Greve, where, with eleven other real or fancied conspirators against the life of the First Consul, he was guillotined. He left a poor old father to bewail him; and at the Piestoration the elder Cadoudal was ennobled in memory of his son's devotion to the. cause of Royalty. It so happened that the IN THE TEMPLE. I99 poor mouchard, who had his brains blown out by Georges, left, not only a father, but a wife and children also, to be sorry for him. The moment chosen for illustration by the painter is when Georges, leaping up in the cabriolet, discharges his pistol point- blank at the police-agent's head. The street-life of the time, the uncouth costumes of the early years of the century— men with ' curly-brimmed ' hats, buckskin or stocking-net pantaloons, drab coats, voluminous neckcloths, variegated garters of the ' Sixteen- String Jack ' pattern, striped stockings, and top-boots ; women with poke-bonnets, gauze scarves, and closely-fitting gowns, with waists close under the armpits— are depicted with strictly historic accuracy. But the interest centres in that struggle in the cab the herculean frame, the desperate features, of Georges with his death-dealing pistol, the death-shriek of the mouchard. Ever as I gazed upon this powerful work did I see in my mind's eye, in the background, the very donjon of the Temple— the dreary fast- ness in which Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette endured the lone agony which ended in their murder— the Temple where the bestial cobbler, Simon, was permitted by the Commune de Paris to torture to death's door the poor little captive, Louis XVII. The Princess, who was afterwards Duchess of Angouleme, was the last Royal prisoner immured in the Temple ; and in 1811 Napoleon had the donjon razed to the ground. The King of Rome had just been born; and the proud and exultant father somewhat too senti- mentally observed that in demolishing the Temple he wished to throw into oblivion all memory of a place in which a Eoyal child had suffered so much dire anguish. He might have added that it was convenient to obliterate the reminiscences of a State prison associated not only with the martyrdom of the Eoyal Family of France, not only with the captivity of Georges and his fellow Chouans, but also with the possible torture and murder of Pichegru, and the still unexplained death of the gallant Captain Wright. 'I will go and see the site of the abominable prison- house,' I said to myself yesterday. 'Paris is Herself Again; and in all Lutetia there is no spot more Parisian than the Temple.' 200 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. So I sped on wheels, to the corner of the Rue des Filles-du- Calvaire; and, alighting, found myself at the top of the Boulevard du Temple, once popularly known as the Boulevard du Crime, from the abundance throughout its length of fifth-rate theatres whore melodramas of a peculiarly sanguinary nature were per- formed. One of the favourite diversions of juvenile Bohemia thirty years ago was to patronise the pit of some theatre on the Boulevard du Crime, and pelt the unscrupulous assassin or the bloodthirsty tyrant of the melodrama in vogue with roasted chest- nuts. All that has been changed. In the neighbourhood of the Boulevard du Crime there are at present half a dozen new and handsome theatres ; the tremendous barracks, capable of housing eight thousand men, on the Place du Chateau d'Eau, are in them- selves a significant reminder that these are days when order must be preserved, and when marrons chauds may not any longer be flung with impunity at unscrupulous bravi or bloodthirsty tyrants behind the footlights ; while the tottering blackened old tene- ments of the boulevard itself have been replaced by stately man- sions in the Haussmannesque style of architecture — mansions full of pretensions, but totally devoid of picturesque character. It must be admitted, in candour, that the old picturesque tenements were narrow and dirty, whereas the Haussmannesque edifices are spacious and clean. This consideration consoled me for the dis- appearance of the five-storied hovel numbered 42 on the Boulevard du Temple, from the window of the topmost garret of which hovel, on the 12th July 1835, the Corsican Fieschi discharged his infernal machine at King Louis Philippe — missing the king, but succeeding in killing and wounding a vast number of persons. Among the slain was the brave Marshal Mortier, who had passed unscathed through twenty campaigns, to be murdered at last bj r this miscreant. The engineer was, to a certain extent, hoist bj r his own diabolical petard ; since some of the old musket-barrels forming the machine burst from overcharging, and Fieschi was horribly wounded about the head and face. I remember as a child, in that same year '35, to have gazed with much awe and IN THE TEMPLE. 201 wonderment at a little wax model of the bloodthirsty Corsican's face, with his villanous jaw bandaged, exhibited in the window of Messrs. Lechertier-Barbe, the artists' colourmen, in the Regent's Quadrant. The spectacle was such an attractive one that an emulative perfumer over the way forthwith exposed to public view a model in wax, under a glass case, of Madame Vestris's foot. Fieschi and his accomplices, More} r and Pepin, were duly guillo- tined, not on the Place de Greve, but at the top of the Paie d'Enfer — recently renamed Denfert — the immediate predecessor as a Golgotha of the Place de la Ptoquette. As for Number 42 Boulevard du Temple, it is at present as spruce and coquettish a house as you could wish to look upon. As spruce and comely, as new and shining, is the second-hand clothes and furniture mart, known as the ' Marche du Temple.' Napoleon I. contemptuously abandoned the dismantled site of the State prison to the old-clothes men ; and for upwards of half a century a space containing some fourteen thousand square feet was occupied by a labyrinth of wooden baraques or huts, in which the dirtiest, the noisiest, and the most extortionate of Hag Fairs went on from early morning till sunset. When I told a French friend last evening that I had been to the Temple, he replied deprecatingly, 'A quoi bon? It is finished. It is no longer worth seeing. C'est propre ; et on n'y fait plus des farces.' Yes, I will own that the existing Market of the Temple is as clean as a new pin, and that not the slightest attempt to coerce you into buying anything is made by the merchants doing business there ; still, to me, the bustling scene was extremely animated, curious, and amusing. Napoleon III. and M. Haussmann were fain to deprive the Temple of its picturesque attributes, dirt, disorder, and dishonesty included, just as they were fain to metamorphose the dark and brawling old Marche des Innocents into the present magnificent Halles Centrales. To form an idea of the existing Temple you have only to imagine that you are in the new Smith- field Meat Market, but that the butchers' stalls have been replaced by a multitude of cosy little cabins, some glazed on all sides, dis- 502 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. playjngthe wares which the dealers have to sell ; while others are open stalls, heaped high or hung all round with garments which A MARCHANDE BE CHIFFONS. can he turned over and bargained for at will. This multitude of cabins is roofed in under one lofty dome of iron and glass. The main avenue, stretching at a right angle from the Rue du Temple, IN THE TEMPLE. 203 is grandly spacious, and there are several cross corridors of con- venient breadth ; but between many of the blocks of cabins there is only just room for two persons to pass at a time, and you have to run the drollest of gauntlets between the shopkeepers, nine- tenths of whom seem to be women. Only once before in my life have I heard such a shrill chatter- ing of feminine tongues, and that was on the morning of Sunday, the 4th of September 1870, when, under suspicion of being a Prussian spy, I was the occupant of a dungeon at the Depot of the Prefecture of Police. I was ' a la disposition de M. le Prefet,' who had just time, at the kind instance of his Excellency Lord Lyons, to release me when the Revolution broke out, and M. le Prefet had to fly for his life. These are facts which lead me to the inference that there are strange ups and downs in this world, and that man occasionally takes stranger liberties with his fellow- creatures. My cell had a window too high up in the wall for me to peep through the bars ; but a good-natured turnkey told me that the window overlooked an immense stone hall, which was the female side of the prison. More than a hundred of ' pauvres creatures,' as the good-natured turnkey told me, were in this hall, and all of them, so far as the experience of my ears went, were chattering at the top of their voices. It was as though one lived next door to a colossal aviary full of parrots, macaws, and mag- pies, with a few crows and ravens thrown in to represent the elder branch of the sisterhood. A closely analogous tintamarre was that audible yesterday, in the Marche du Temple. ' Madame desire- t-elle mi vetement ? ' ' Monsieur cherche-t-il un pardessus ? ' Did I want a pair of boots, better than new ; pantaloons, of the highest novelty ; a corset, six corsets, six dozen corsets, of fashionable elaboration? Would I look at this pink-satin robe, trimmed with black lace ? It was worn only a fortnight ago — this was said con- fidentially, and almost in a whisper — by the Duchesse de Poule- mouille, at the Versailles fete. Regard this exquisite toilette de visite of mauve silk, trimmed with gold beads and embroidery. It formed part — again a shortly confidential communication and a 20-1 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. semi-whisper — it formed a part of the defroque of Mademoiselle Fichesoncamp of the Bouffes Parisiens. It chanced that I wanted nothing at all just then ; but I was content to run the gauntlet of the stallkeepers for full three- quarters of an hour, recalling the humours of Cranbourne Alley in the old days, when irrepressible shopkeepers entreated you to give a look, only one look, at that ' sweet little duck of a blue bonnet,' or ' the beautifullest thing in real Leghorn as ever was seen.' Bonnets, I am glad to record, not secondhand but new, were plentiful in the Temple yesterday, and were quoted at extremely moderate prices. A bonnet brave in ribbons was offered to me for five francs fifty ; another, with a whole bandbox full of arti- ficial flowers upon it, I could have secured for eight twenty-five ; and another chapeau, decorated with a bird, apparently a tomtit, with outstretched wings, could be had for the ridiculously small sum of eleven francs. And all new bonnets, in the most fashion- able style, mind you. Eleven francs for a bonnet ; and Mesdames Pauline Millefleurs and Zulma Chapeauchic, of the Boulevard des Capucines and the Rue de la Paix, won't look at me — in the way of a bonnet — under sixty francs. ' They would have sold you that eight-franc bonnet in the Temple for five,' said my cynical French friend in the evening. It was only a ' decrochez-moi-ca.' Now a ' decrochez-moi-ca ' is a very cheap and ' loud ' bonnet, hung on a peg in the interior of a cabin in the Temple, for the special purpose of dazzling the eyes of some feminine customer of the servant-girl or the ' Jenny l'Ouvriere' class. When the young lady in question sees and is fascinated by this bonnet, she points with her forefinger to it, and the marchandc at once construes this movement into a direction to 'decrocher' or remove the desiderated headdress from its peg. Thus a ' decrochez-moi-ca ' has become quite a proverbial locution for a Temple bonnet. To translate it as ' Take it off the peg, please,' would be very feeble and colour- less ; and I am of opinion that the closest colloquial English equi- valent for ' decrochez-moi-ca ' would be ' Let's have a squint at it.'* * At the time when this particular passage respecting the ' decrochez-moi- IN THE TEMPLE. 205 Altogether the Marche du Temple, as reconstructed and re- organised under the Second Empire, differs very widely indeed from the dingy Babel so forcibly described b} r Eugene Sue in the Mysteries of Paris — a romance which, notwithstanding all its ethical faidts and its melodramatic monstrosities, presents a won- derfully observant and accurate picture of the condition of the working classes in Paris thirty years ago. Eugene Sue, as a student of manners and as a word-painter, could be as pene- tratingly powerful as the extant M. Emile Zola ; but he did not choose to be chronically and deliberately revolting, as it seems the set purpose and the delight of the author of L'Assommoir to be. It was to the Temple, you will remember, that, in the Mys- teries, Eodolphe, Grand Duke of Gerolstein, disguised as a simple workman in a blouse, went, accompanied b}* Eigolette the grisette, to purchase a few chattels wherewith to furnish the attic which he had just hired from Madame Pipelet, that never-to-be-forgotten concierge of the house in the Rue du Temple wherein so many fearful mysteries were enacted, and the landlord of which was the virtuous M. Bras-Rouge. At the period referred to by the novelist, the secondhand furniture department of the Temple bore a close resemblance to the London Road and the streets in the immediate neighbourhood of the Elephant and Castle. In the old days of imprisonment for debt, the secondhand furniture brokers of this district used to boast of their ability to ' furnish out and out' a detenu, to whom a room in the Queen's Bench Prison had r;i' appealed in the Daily Telegraph, I received a querulous, ami by no means complimentary, letter — of course, it wa3 an anonymous one; abusive people nerally cowards — telling me that ' everybody knew ' that such articles as were called in the Temple ' decrochez-moi^as' were known in the second- hand-clothes world of London as e reach-me-downs.' A paragraph to tin- same effect, hut not abusive, subsequently appeared in the World. 1 decline to tamper with the integrity of my text, for the reasons, that I lived in Holywell- t, seven-and-twenty years ago, at the sign of the 'Old Dog,' a famous tavern long since demolished ; that I was on terms of close intimacy with all the old-clothes men of the locality; that 1 have a tolerably good memorj ; and that I never heard of a 'reach-me-down.' 206 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. jusi been assigned, with all the necessary articles of furniture, bed and bed-linen, crockery, knives, forks, and spoons, and batterie de cuisine : — all in the brief space of five-and-twenty minutes, and at the moderate rental of ten shillings a week. I have little doubt that, for an additional five shillings, the captive's comforts might have been enhanced and his intellectual wants ministered to by :\ compact picture-gallery and a select library of instructive and entertaining books. Were the Marche du Temple to find its resources taxed under circumstances akin to the foregoing, it would show itself, I am well assured, fully equal to the occasion. The dealers would put ' une jeune personne dans ses meubles' in less than half an hour. As it is, a complete layette may be procured in the Temple in ten minutes. Do you want furs ? The skins of 50,000 cats and rabbits at once leap from their pegs— as the swords of French chivalry should have leaped from their scabbards to defend Marie Antoinette — crying (the furs, not the swords), ' We are real sable; we are all beaver, chinchilla, minx, silver fox, whatever you like to believe.' Do you need jackets, mantles, 'visites,' waterproofs, they are all to be had here by the thousand. There are dozens of alleys full of hats and caps. There are scores more in which only boots and shoes are vended ; and let it be understood that a very laro-e proportion of the merchandise sold in the renovated Marche du Temple is quite new. It is only an enormous slop-shop — the Minories, Shoreditch, Tottenham Court Koad, and High Holboni all rolled into one, and gathered under one huge vault of glass and iron. The most interesting portion of this immense bazaar was, I need scarcely say, the old-clothes department. There there was much that might have interested the philosophic mind of the immortal cogitator of the University of AVeissnichtwo ; there lay loose, or hung listlessly, a world of fripperies, suggestive of one of the keenest of Beranger's lyrics, 'Vieux habits, vieux galons !' Room for the Gallican Church ! I come upon a stall heaped high with ecclesiastical old clothes — ' palls and mitres, gold and gew- IN THE TEMPLE. 207 gaws, fetched from Aaron's wardrobe, or the flamens' vestry ' — as Milton disdainfully qualifies the clerical vestments which Laud was striving to introduce into the Church. There is a once sumptuous cope, stiff with gold embroidery, of which I saw the twin brother only yesterday in one of the great ecclesiological warehouses in the Rue St. Sulpice. But that cope was brand new, and its sheen was dazzling to look upon. The gold in the vestment in the Marche du Temple is tarnished to griminess. Its edges are wofully frayed. The white-silk lining is as dingy as the lining of a pall in the stock of a cheap undertaker. Yet, rubbed up and patched and cobbled a little, it may serve the purpose of some impecunious cure de campagne, whose marguilliers are not wealthy enough to do much for the fabric of the church which the good priest serves. His reverence may look as fine as fivepence in that chape next Easter-day. Albs and rochets, tunicles and berettas, stoles and dalmatics, soutanes and rabats, shovel-hats and skull-caps — all are mingled here in picturesque confusion. Stay, here is at once the grandest and the most dilapidated suit in the whole array of sacerdotal old clothes. A swallow-tailed-coat, once scarlet in hue, the shoulders adorned with two bouncing- epaulettes, and a plenitude of gold embroidery about the cuffs and collars and pockets ; an equally gorgeous waistcoat ; a positively astounding bandouliere of crimson velvet and golden brocade, silk stockings, and small-clothes of the finest kerseymere ; and, finally, a cocked hat of which a Marshal of France or the late Mr. Toole of the India House might have been proud. Stay, there must to these be added a dainty rapier with a gilt hilt and a big gold tassel. Now what can epaulettes and bandoliers, a small-sword and a cocked hat, have to do with ecclesiastical vestments ? I have heard of the Church Militant ; but I knew not that its members arrayed themselves in such a pugnacious-looking panoply as this. But, pondering a moment, I see it all. Here we have evidently the cast-off carapace of a Suisse — the beadle of some fashionable church. How grand he looked on the occasion of an aristocratic marriage ! How imposingly solemn 208 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. was his mien when an aristocratic funeral took place ! The huissier of the Administration desPompes Fun&bres looked, for. all his sable garb, the silver buckles on his shoes, and the steel chain of office round his neck, the merest of plebeians by the side of the sumptuous Suisse. The Marche de la Madeleine had surrendered its choicest flowers to compose the bouquet which garnished his button-hole. His white- kid gloves — he was a large man, and ' took' nines — fitted him like a second skin. How sonorous was the rever- beration of his golden-tipped staff on the marble pavement as he preceded the bridal cortege or the funeral train, from the great west door to the chan- cel ! His whiskers alone, in their blackness and their bushiness, were a sight to see. A few more inches, a little more hirsuteness, and he might have been a drum-major. He was content to remain a beadle. But, ah, the vanity of things mundane ! Gold- laced coats and cocked hats will not last for ever ; and a Suisse out of elbows is clearly a most unseemly personage. So the fabriciens have bought him, it is to be hoped, a new suit; and his abandoned finery has come — whither ? Into ' the portion of weeds and outworn faces, 'into the Slough of Shabby Despond of a secondhand clothes booth in the Temple. Why have I never seen a British beadle's cocked hat in Dudley-street, Seven Dials ? Parish beadles, it is true, are almost an extinct race ; still the Bank of England and many of the City Companies are yet justifiably proud of the beadles they main- tain. IN THE TEMPLE. 209 Close to the church, as sumptuarily represented in the Marche du Temple, the stage raises somewhat saucily its head. Priests and players are not yet Mends in France. The clergy have not yet forgotten or forgiven Le Tartuffe. The players have neither forgotten nor forgiven the clergy for their refusal, during the First Restoration, to give Christian burial to the remains of a once popular actress.* Happily in the secondhand clothes galleries of the Temple the motley costumes of the greenroom elbow, amicably enough, the bygone wardrobes of the sacristie. Did you ever drive down the Toledo at Naples at Carnival time ? All the fan- tastic gear that Callot ever imagined seems to have been brought to light in the masquerade warehouses of the Toledo. The com- plete accoutrements of scarlet fiends, horns, hoofs, tails, and all ; harlequins' dresses, pierrots' dresses, are hung out, like banners •on the outward walls, while hideous masks grin and leer at you * Mademoiselle Raucour or de Raucour, who had long retired from the •stage, died in January, 1815, without receiving the absolution necessary to remove the excommunication normally lying on players. Her remains were •conveyed, for the celebration of the usual rites preceding interment, to the Church of St. Roch in the Rue St. Honore. The funeral procession comprised n large number of carriages, and was followed by an immense concourse of persons. On the arrival of the cortege at St. Roch the gates were found to be Hocked, and the bearers of the bier were peremptorily refused admittance. A igreat tumult arose, and ultimately the doors were forced open ; but no priest "made his appearance. The crowd and the riot increasing, a messenger was ■^ent to the Tuileries to implore the king, Louis XVIII ., to interfere by ordering the recalcitrant clergy to perform the required rites ; but his Majesty declined to interfere in a matter which, in the Royal opinion, pertained exclusively to the spiritual jurisdiction. With commendable promptitude the actors and actresses of the principal theatres of Paris, headed by the company of the Com&lie Franchise, addressed a communication to the Archbishop of Paris, stating that if the corpse of Mademoiselle Raucour did not at once receive Christian interment they would forthwith renounce the Roman ( latholic religion and become Protestants. This ultimatum frightened the priests. Under the advice of Royalty they gave way ; a funeral Mass was sung over the coffin ; and poor Mademoiselle Raucour was buried in consecrated ground in the presence of some thirty thousand people, who shouted, ' A ba.s lea calottes ! i. bas les calottes ! ' VOL. II. P 210 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. in the windows and from the door-jambs. Abating the masks — I believe that it is a matter of sheer impossibility to turn a second- hand pantomime mask to any profitable use, save on Guy Fawkes'- da}', when it finds its final cause in the bonfire concluding the festivities — the theatrical booths in the Temple remind one closely of the Neapolitan Toledo. There is the ' make-up ' of Dr. Dul- camara — portentous jabot, top-boots, scarlet coat, voluminous wig, and all. But, woe is me, how dishevelled and unpowdered is the peruke ! Behold the embroidered doublet and lumts-de-chausscs; of Monsieur Jourdain, the ' Bourgeois Gentilhomme.' Admire the dressing-gown and nightcap of the Malade Imaginaire ; and yonder straight-cut justaucorps and cloak, black once raven, but now rusty in hue — they must have belonged to Thomas Diafoirus. But in vain do you search for the patched coat, the battered white hat, the prodigious cravat, the bludgeon, and the snuff-box of Robert Macaire. The performance of L'Aubcrge des Adrets is still, I believe, prohibited in France ; and rightly so, for the simple reason that the execrable villain, once so admirably impersonated by the late Frederic Lemaitre, is so replete with humour, and has withal so many heroic qualities, that in the end the audience are brought to the point of admiring him. Precisely the same reason places the play of Jack Sheppard virtually in the Index Expur- gatorius. On the other hand, Mephistophiles is rife in the Temple. Go- where you will among the theatrical booths, you may reckon with tolerable certainty on meeting with the red doublet and hose, the short cloak, and the cap with the cock's feather in it, of the ' Esprit qui nie toujours.' Faust, as an opera or as a drama, is very popular in the provinces in France, and there is a constant demand for Mephistophiles costumes. As for the pierrot and harlequin dresses in the Temple, their name is simply legion ; and the same may be said of the coloured satin ' trunks ' — generally pink or sky-blue — and the silk fleshings which, as personal adorn- ments of ladies who frequent masquerades and who do not wear dominos, have superseded the pretty and scarcely indecorous A 'PAETIE CAEEEE' AT -\ BOULEVAED RESTAURANT, IX THE TEMPLE. 211 DEBABDEURS AT THE BAL DE L'OPERA (BY CHAM). costume of the debardeur, a costume which may be said to have expired with its tasteful illustrator, the incomparable Gavarni. These audacious garments tell their own story, but I may hint that when a maillot suit of fleshings is padded, it is technically known as a ' confortable.' The Carnival is coming; the masked balls at the Opera and other Parisian theatres will speedily set in; and ere many weeks are over a vast number of young persons who ought to know better will be capering about in the pink and sky-blue satin ' trunks ' and tights long after the hour when they should be in bed. The restaurateurs of the Boulevards will be doing a roaring trade ; and the jeuncsse doree of the period will squander, in rather dull and monotonous dissipation, large sums of their own, or of other people's money. At present the mas- querading trumpery on the secondhand clothes stalls of the Temple looks grim. Pierrot's white sleeves are smirched with claret stains', or dinted with holes burnt by smouldering cigars fallen from unsteady fingers. The rubbish wants brightening up. It needs the flaring gas to make it look passably attractive. In the day- light it looks simply horrible. Flni de rire, Scaramouch. But the p 2 212 TARIS HERSELF AGAIX. Carnival is coming; and Scaramouch, like Paris, will soon be him- self again. Who buy all these play-acting paraphernalia, I wonder? Very small and indigent country managers. The wares are evidently intended for further dramatic use ; for the costumes are generally perfect, and you can trace the complete ' make-up ' of the ' pere noble,' the ' amoureux,' the 'ingenue,' and the 'premier' and ' second comique.' A youth who wished at once to begin his career as a ' heavy ' or a ' light ' tragedian, a ' walking gentleman ' or a ' low comedian ' — a lady anxious to launch into the ' singing cham- bermaid ' or the ' breeches parts ' line of business — could at once procure all that he or she required in the Temple. It is the Vinegar Yard, the Marquis Court of Paris ; but meanwhile Made- moiselle Mimi Pinson of the Bouffes, or Madame Ehodope Casse- majoue of the ' Theatre du High Life,' is paying from fifteen hundred to two thousand francs — to say nothing of her diamonds — for each of the dresses which she orders from her costumiere. Those radiant robes may have been designed by Marcelin or Grevin, by ' Stop ' or Pelcoq — the Alfred Thompsons of the French theatres — the robes are beautiful, they are ravishing ; they and IN THE TEMPLE. 213 their much-dizened wearers will be photographed by Nadar or by Reutlinger ; the gommeux and the petits creves in the stalls will A ' PETIT CREVE. applaud ; the femmcs honnHcs in the boxes will be envious of the dazzling dresses — and their wearers ; but the Laws of the Ephe- 214 TARIS HERSELF AGAIN. meral are inexorable. ' Froufrou ' and ' Niniche,' ' Dora ' and ' Cora,' to this complexion you must come at last — to the com- plexion of the old-clothes pegs ; to the booth of a revendeusc a la toilette in the Marche du Temple. Ere I bid farewell to this remarkable Exhibition of Old Clothes, I may remark that the assortment of comic trousers is quite sur- prising in its abundance and its variety. Never before did I set eyes on such an assemblage of facetious pantaloons. Of course, you know the type of the comic trouser. The garment should be, in colour and pattern, what the French paradoxically term ' impos- sible ' — that is to say, preposterously and fantastically outre and extravagant. Inconceivably absurd plaids, never-before-heard-of stripes or spots, should preferably form the pattern ; pea-green, rose-pink, glaring yellow, deep orange, sky-blue, are the colours most adapted to the comic trouser, which should always be too high in the waist and too short in the leg. It may be rendered additionally and indeed irresistibly comic by the introduction of a patch — a large patch of a darker or a lighter colour than that of the original fabric. The patch, moreover, should not be worn in IN THE TEMPLE. 215 front. Such a comic trouser is good for three rounds of applause on the first appearance of the comedian on the stage. Experto crede. I have seen the comic trousers of Vernet and Bouffe, of Grassot and Ravel, of Harley and Keeley, of Wright and Oxberry and Wrench. Very indifferent vaudevilles have ere now been ' pulled through,' and have at last bloomed into triumphant successes, mainly through the artistic drollery of the comedian's breeches. Those which I mark in the Temple are generally brand new. A renowned comic actor does not like to part with his trousers. It is not with them as with official uniforms and clerical vestments, which when they grow shabby degrade the wearers. The comic trouser, like vintage wines, acquire character with age. They may be patched and re- patched, and the raggeder they grow the more risible they may "become. As for the nether garments in the Temple, which are new, they seem to me to be ' reproductions ' — copies from some models of comic trousers which had gained celebrity at the Varietes or the Palais Royal. Their purchasers, perchance, are the gentle- men who sing comic songs at the cafes chantants and the Alcazars of Paris and the provinces. Thus while I linger in this Bezesteen of wearing-apparel there •comes up before me a vision of the past. I may be standing on the very place of the Chapter House of the Templars of old, who held here their grandest state, till, like their brethren in England, ' they decayed through pride.' Beneath my very feet the blood of Pichegru may have been shed. Where rises that iron staircase leading to the galleries which surround the old-clothes mart may have risen the donj on' s winding- stair down which Louis, Antoinette, Elizabeth of France, stepped to then- death. The phantoms of •Georges Cadoudal and Mehee de la Touche, of Simon the bestial cobbler and the poor little captive king, of Captain Wright and Sir- Sydney Smith (that gallant sailor lay long a prisoner in the Temple, and escaped from it in a wonderfully clever and audacious manner), are all around me ; but it is not these historic dead that my fancy conjures up. My vision is only of a pair of trousers bought in the Temple five-and-twenty years ago. It was in the early days of the 210 TARIS HERSELF AGAIN. Second Empire. We were a band of young English and American brothers domiciled in Paris ; — very fond of talking about the pic- tures which Ave intended to paint, and the novels and plays which we intended to write, and much fonder of amusing ourselves — with material enjoj'inents when we had any money, with strolling and idling and gossiping when we had none. It so fell out that one of our number was favoured, some time during the winter season of 1854, with an invitation to a grand ball to be given b} r the Prefect of the Seine at the Hotel de Ville. Evening dress was de rigueur. A ' claw-hammer coat ' and dress waistcoat our friend possessed, but the requisite black pantaloons of fashionable society were lacking. "What was to be done ? We had all of us the lightest of hearts ; but there was not the thinnest pair of sable trousers available among us. So we made a friendly little subscription among our- selves, and our brother was enabled to trudge (fraternally escorted by two judicious brethren, lest he should stray into billiard-play- ing cafes or spend his peculiwm on rare and ragged editions of the classics on the way) to the Marche du Temple, where, for the sum of twelve francs, he purchased a pair of the blackest and! shiniest black trousers that I ever beheld. He went to the ball at the Hotel de Ville. He danced, he supped, a little too copiously IN THE TEMPLE. 217 perchance ; at all events, a friend who accompanied him on one of his visits to the buffet gently reminded him that he had suffered some warm punch to trickle over one of the knees of his black dress pantaloons. Promptly our friend produced his handkerchief to remove the unseemly spot of punch. He rubbed and rubbed, but the spot did not disappear. It grew larger, and became at last a brilliant red. In the midst of an ocean of shiny black there was disclosed to his alarmed eyes an island of the pattern and hue of the Eoyal Stuart tartan. He was wearing a pair of plaid trousers that had been dyed black. Ah, faithless Temple ! These trousers were un plat de ton metier. But the vision fades away. It leaves me between a smile and a tear, for in the dim distance I seem to see the white headstones of a graveyard. ^ * Location phases ?ou« iaintES _■:, ■Hi il^r*7WrN THE LAST DAYS OF THE EXHIBITION. XIV. GOING ! GOING ! Nov. 10. ' Going ! Going ! ' Far more eloquently and impressively than •ever the late Mr. George Bobins was accustomed to expatiate, ivory hammer in hand, on the superlative merits of some property which he was instructed to sell, is the auctioneer's formula, although the words themselves may not he uttered, in every corridor of the vast Bazaar of the Champ de Mars. ' Going! Going! ' seem to me to be written on all the objects which during many weeks have been landmarks to me in the World's Fair. The Crown diamonds of France are already gone ; and the stately pavilion, round which crowds used to gather to feast their eyes upon the glittering glories of the ' Regent,' the ' ceuf de pigeon,' and the ' escargot,' r==s •>•-; ;i IB 1 :|rr»- v >:?£^lR5<, "& Wi GOING ! GOING ! 219 DIAMOND AND PEARL BROOCH AND ENAMELLED BRACELETS, EXHIEITED BY M. FROMENT-MEURICE. is completely dis- mantled. The jew- elry, indeed, from the entire French department is ra- pidly disappear- ing ; but the dia- monds and rubies, the pearls and em- eralds, will speedi- ly reappear in the shop-windows of the Boulevards, the Hue de la Paix, the Palais Ptoyal, and in par- ticular in that as- tonishing bijou- tier's close to the Hotel Scribe, whose glittering display it is diffi- cult to pass at night without an uneasy impression flitting across THE FRENCH CROWN DIAMONDS (BY CHAM). 1 My daughter, I forbid your looking at the Regent. He was a most immoral man.' 220 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX. your mind that in a previous state of existence — ages ago per- chance — your profession was burglary. In your present happily law-abiding and Commandment-keeping condition you would never, of course, think of breaking into a jeweller's shop and filling your pockets with precious things which do not belong to you ; but in the previous state of existence — ages ago — you were possibly not unacquainted with the use of the 'jemmy' and the picklock as utensils employed in forming a cheap collection of gems. In the Exhibition itself I hear that on the whole but few robberies have been committed. A very large staff of sergents de ville and police-agents in plain clothes have constantly patrolled the build- ing, while the British department has been efficiently watched over by Inspector Giles. "We have had, to be sure, no Koh-i-noor, as we had in Hyde Park in 1851, to tempt the feloniously-minded ; and indeed of gems and precious stones generally we make scarcely any show in the Champ de Mars ; still there is an amazing amount of potential ' loot ' in the way of gold and silver in the GOING ! GOING ! 221 pavilion of the Elkingtons ; while an equally attractive display of precious wares is made by Mr. John Brogden of Henrietta-street, Co vent Garden. I recently asked the question, ' What will they do with it ? * May I be suffered to-day to put a further query, ' What will be done with them ? ' By ' them ' I mean the pavilions and the kiosques and the myriad of glass cases in which are enshrined the treasures of the Exposition Universelle. I am much more inter- ested in the study of the destination than in that of the origin of things ; and I am incurably inquisitive as to what becomes of the old scenes, dresses, decorations, and properties when the play is over, and, with its highly animated puppets, has passed away from the world's stage. I can proudly say that I know what became of the basket-work elephants constructed at old Covent Garden Theatre for the spectacle of the Cataract of the Gaiu/es ; that I have been enabled to trace the vicissitudes of the coronation robes of George IV., from their sale by auction, in July 1830, to their present resting-place at Madame Tussaud's ; and that I followed with mournful affection the migrations of the stalactite grotto, erected by Alexis Soyer in the grounds of his Symposium in 1851, from Gore House to Vauxhall — where the grotto became the Hermit's Cave — and from Vauxhall to Cremorne. In one notable instance, nevertheless, I have been utterly baffled and desoricnte'. For many years did I follow the fluctuating fortunes of the in- genious automaton known as Vaucanson's duck. In lands north, south, east, and west have I met with that duck, exhibited now for a rouble, now for a dollar, now for a franc, and now for sixpence a head. The mechanical bird came out in great force at the Paris Exhibition of 1867. Vaucanson's duck was then nearly a hundred years old, but rumour ran that it had been furnished with a fresh beak and web feet, and an entirely new gizzard, in honour of the Exposition. It was not shown precisely in the Palace of the Champ de Mars, but was to be seen for the remarkably small charge of twenty-five centimes at a modest little baraquc in the Avenue Suffren. It turned up again, in conjunction with a wax- 222 PARIS HERSELF AC ATX. work show and a spotted girl, at Nancy, in Lorraine, in July 1870 ; and after that period I am sorry to say that I lost all trace of Vaucanson's duck. The bird fell, I fear, on evil days. Was it fated, I wonder, to be ' looted' by Hans Picklehaube of the Pome- ranian Landwehr; and did that warrior, after an ineffectual attempt to wring its neck and roast it, discover that it was, after all, a kind of clock in feathers, and so, with his national fondness for hor- logeric, pop it into his knapsack, and take it home to Pommern, where, perchance, it is yet quacking ? So this is my apology for speculating as to what will eventually be- come of the glass cases, the kiosques, the chalets, and the pavilions, which line the corridors and vestibules, or are scattered over the park of the Exposition, and above all, what will become of that agglomera- tion of bizarre edifices known as the Eue des Nations. The cloud- v\3> IN THE RUE DES NATIONS (BY CHAM). As all the nations of the world occupy the same street, a great reduction in the postal rate may be looked for. capped towers of the Palace of the Trocadero, its towering cupola and curvilinear arcades, are not, it would seem, destined to dis- solve, and, like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a wrack Tiie Oriental BAZi» w; is the Tbocad^ro. GOING ! GOING ! 223- behind. The Trocaclero building is to remain. I am sorry for it, although its Retrospective Museum — the contents of which must be speedily packed up and returned to their owners — is one of the most wonderful collections of antiquities and works of bygone art that I have ever seen. Although the grounds surrounding it are laid out with exquisite taste, although the fountains on the terrace are superb in then* cascades, and their jets cVeau, and although astonishing ingenuity has been shown in utilising the Bridge of Jena as an approach, I can but regard the structure of the palace as extremely ugly, and its style of architecture — if any style it have — as both paltry and meretricious. Napoleon I. intended to build a palace as magnificent as the Tuileries on the selfsame site, as a habitation for the King of Rome ; but the Alliambra- like edifice — I mean the Alhambra in Leicester Square, not the one at Granada — which is to cover en permanence the crest of the eminence miscalled the Trocaclero — which in reality is a narrow channel between the island of San Luis and the Bay of Cadiz — will make but a very undignified vis-d-vis to the noble pile of the Ecole Militaire in the Champ de Mars. That very perfect little architectural and decorative ' installation,' the house erected by Messrs. Gillow for the Prince of Wales, can, it seems, be easily taken to pieces ; the Old English house of Messrs. Collinson & Lock, and the adjoining Queen Anne house erected by Mr. W. H. Lascelles, can be removed without much difficulty ; while the Russian isba, which is very picturesque to look at, but is composed of that certainly not expensive material, pitch pine, will serve very well after its demolition for firewood, if for no other purpose. All these ornate and characteristic erections will speedily have 1 to clear out ; ' and it will be the same with the Turkish Mosque, the Algerian Palace, the Persian Pavilion, the Chinese Pagoda, the Japanese Farm, with its fountain, so much resorted to by thirsty fair ones ; and also with the bustling Oriental Bazaar, where pro- vincials perpetually chaffer with Turcs des Batignolles for gimmick souvenirs of the departing Exhibition. In the British section there are many outward and visible signs of things being not only going, 22 l PARIS IIKRSELF AGAIN. THE JAPANESE FOUNTAIN. Tjut gone. Empty glass cases are numerous; and packing-cases and sawdust, canvas and straw, and the sound of hammers, are every- where. It will be no child's play to remove all the heavy machinery, the Armstrong guns, the ponderous bells, the huge Hungarian tun, the gigantic Creusot hammer, or the colossal head of the bronze statue of Liberty, which is to be set up as a lighthouse at the entrance of New York Harbour, and the internal organism of which the curious are incessantly inspecting. Workmen have already commenced dismantling the Mouchot apparatus, which collected the rays of the sun in a huge inverted funnel, and heated a boiler with them, reminding one of certain proceedings of the Laputan philosopher whom Gulliver found engaged in extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, and prudently bottling them up for future use. GOING ! GOING ! 225 THE COLOSSAL HEAD OF LIBERTY. Now that November has arrived, and there is no longer any sun to speak of, the apparatus finds its occupation gone, and is pre- paring to pack up. From this same lack of sunshine the Kabyle shoemakers are eager to strike their tent in the Trocadero, and emigrate to warmer climes. A similar feeling possesses all the rest of the Orientals ; and the mild Hindoos will, I am sure, willingly abandon shawl-weaving in the Galerie du Travail of the Palace, and forego all the blessings of our boasted civilisation, to return to their much-vaunted valley of Cashmere. Returning, however, to the kiosques and the glass cases, the VOL. II. Q 22G rARIS HERSELF AGAIN. INTEKIOR OF THE COLOSSAL HEAD OF LIBERTY. pavilions and the chalets, and the myriads of bizarre trophies scattered over the palace and the park, one would like to know what is to become of the marvellous stalactite grotto built up of seemingly hundreds of thousands of wine-bottles in the Spanish section. What too is to become of the huge trophies of spirit-casks and liqueur- bottles in the Dutch department, and which I incidentally alluded to as monumentally reminding one of the late Mynheer van Dunk ? I strongly suspect, from what I hear, that all these strong drinks will remain and be consumed in the French capital, and that not a single cask of spirit or a single bottle of liqueur will find its way back to Amsterdam. I can quite understand the 1;m Ca hmere Shawl Weavers in the Galeeie du Travail. II. 225. GOING ! GOING ! 227 patronage bestowed by the French on such liqueurs as their own chartreuse and on the Batavian preparations of anisette, mara- schino, curacoa, eau de vie de Dantzig. But then what Frenchman drinks ' Puries ' or ' Maag Bitter,' and, in particular, who drinks schiedam in France ? In England a few physicians allow their patients to drink a little diluted hollands ; but the public at large ersons, I should say — in the Champ de Mars and the Troca- dero yesterday ; and in many of the cross avenues of the Exhibition building itself, such as the galleries devoted to glass, furniture, jewelry, bronzes, ceramics, feminine apparel, and the rich materials pertaining thereto, circulation, owing to the density of the crowd, was almost impossible. There were a fair share of well-dressed people, including cohorts of young ladies escorted by vigilant 234 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. mammas ; but the bulk of the visitors seemed to me to be provin- cials — small country tradesmen, farmers, and downright peasants in blouses, clouted shoes, and broadbrimmed or ' coach- wheel* hats, the majority of them being accompanied by their female belongings. There were likewise many working men from remote districts, whose travelling expenses had been paid out of the pro- ceeds of that ' National ' Lottery which is now in the twelfth million GOING ! GOING ! 235 of its emission of shares. I noticed, also, a considerable sprinkling of village cures and primary schoolmasters — you can always tell the primary schoolmaster by the fidelity with which he follows at the skirts of the soutane of his parish priest, and the obsequious manner in which he smiles and rubs his hands whenever Monsieur le Cure addresses him. In particular may you be certain that his profession is the educational one if there happen to be any children in the party who have come up from a neighbouring-village to see the Exhibition. The moutards and the moutardes keep as sedulously aloof from the dreaded maitre d'ecole as the dogs in any room which Edwin Landseer entered used to come instinctively to the great painter, lay their muzzles in his hand, and look at him with kind eyes, as though they would have said, ' How do you do, Sir Edwin ? You know all about us ; and we have nothing to fear from you.' Immense as was the gathering, the entire effect of the spectacle of Saturday was certainly dispiriting. The cold may have had something to do with this ; and the tables at the outdoor cafes, were almost entirely deserted. There were but comparatively few breakfasters at the Restaurant Catelain, where, in August and September, I have so often sought in vain for a seat; the Restau- rante Beige was doing very badly indeed ; and some of the smaller buffets had shut up shop altogether. The mass of the spectators yesterday clearly did not belong to the class who are content to pay four francs for a lump of half-raw flesh denominated beef, but which might just as well be called buffalo or zebra, and from three to ten francs a bottle for wine, in which progressive augmentation in price did not by any means cause enhancement in quality to be perceptible. The provincials who came to the Champ de Mars yesterday either breakfasted ' on the cheap' at Duval's, or brought their own lunch with them in parcels and baskets, and consumed it in the grounds, some seating themselves in the commodious basket chairs, others clustering round the pedestal of some statue or under the lee of some kiosque, and no policemen making them afraid. Numbers of poor folk were eating and drinking, quite un- 23G TARIS HERSELF AGAIN. interrupted, in the Vestibule d'Honneur. The French authorities are singularly tender and humane to les petites gens, to poor peace- able people whom our own Dogberries are so fond of harrying to and fro, and of compelling to ' move on.' It is only when you have a broadcloth coat on your back, and some five-franc pieces in your pocket, that the French police seem to take a positive delight in teasing and worrying you. ' Going ! Going ! ' The melancholy monition pursues me every- where. Taken for all in all, the World's Fair, astonishingly and triumphantly successful as it has been from an artistic, an indus- trial, and an educational point of view, has been, from its very vastness and the bewildering multiplicity and variety of its con- tents, wearisome, and to me intensely so. Some of my readers anay opine that I must be a dullard to have become wearied and bored by this astounding display of art and industry. Ah ! you who have made but a holiday trip to Paris, you who have ' done ' the Exhibition, and the sights of the Gay City to boot, in the GOING ! GOING ! 237 course of a four or five days' scamper, may have found the Expo- sition Universelle charming, delightful — perfection, in short. Woe is me ! I have had fourteen weeks of it. From the rising of the sun to the setting thereof, and from the advent of the moon till far into the night, the Exhibition, active or passive, audible or inarticulate, visible or invisible, has pursued, haunted, and afflicted me. My mind has become a kind of chaos, in which catalogues, descriptions of processess, photographs of exhibits, restaurateurs' bills, lottery tickets, lists of Grand Prizemen and Gold Medallists, cabmen's numbers, and shopkeepers' cards, all more or less con- nected with the Exhibition, are mingled in inextricable confusion ; yet now that it is Going — irrevocably Going, Going — I feel heartily sorry, as for the departure of an old familiar friend — he bored you terribly sometimes, but still you loved him — whom you will never set eyes on again on this side the grave. CAB HORSES EMBRACING OX THE EXHIBITION BEING CLOSED (BY CHAM). XV. GONE ! Nov. 11. A traveller is no more eiititledto boast of his immunity from seasickness than a horse has a right to be proud of having been born of a piebald hue. Nature furnishes a certain quota of piebald horses and of people who are not seasick ; and I am lucky enough to belong to the last-named category. I need say no more on this head, beyond hinting that I can enjoy eggs and bacon for breakfast in mid- Atlantic in November, and that I have gone as far in a stiff gale as the American delicacy of pork and beans. I remember once, on board the Cunard steamship Arabia, to have asked an assistant steward for some of the last-named luxury. ' It's done, sir,' replied the steward, who was of Milesian descent. Yes, I told him gently, I should like the pork and beans to be well done. *■ Shure it's through,' urged the steward. I was not proficient in Transatlantic parlance, and bade him bring the dish through the gone ! 239 saloon. ' I mane that it's played out,' persisted the steward, in a oivil rage with my stupidity, ' that it's finished, that it's clane •Gone! ' He should have said at first that the pork and heans were gone, and then my Anglo-Saxon mind would have mastered his meaning. Done. Through. Finished. Gone. So much must be mourn- fully recorded of the famous Exposition Universelle of 1878. The sky on Sunday afternoon, the Last Day of the World's Fair, was leaden in its gloominess. By a quarter-past four in the interior of the building it was nearly dark. Fitful gusts of wind swept through the open portals of the main avenues, stirring into momen- tary activity the drooping banners of the different nationalities. The great body of the crowd was congregated in the avenues ; in the transverse corridors only a few stragglers were to be seen, taking a last lingering look at some especially popular exhibit. Incurable gobemouelies enjoyed a final stare at the Dore Vase, the model of the Chateau de Pierrefonds, the statue of the Equilibrist, and that extraordinary upholsterer's trophy in the French depart- ment which comprises Corinthian columns composed of carpeting, with hassocks for capitals, and hearthrug pedestals, a pediment of doormats, a cornice of stair-carpets, and an architrave of oilskin. In -the long vista of the French textile fabrics a solitary chaise roulante was dimly visible. Who was the occupant of the last Bath chair of the Exhibition of 1878 ? The phantom of Marius, prepared to meditate over the ruins of an industrial Carthage ? Xot at all. It was a very old lady in black velvet and lace, an ancient dame bent double, and — as you saw, as the chairman slowly dragged the vehicle forward — with a face the myriad wrinkles in which might have excited the imitative envy of a Balthazar Denner. Had this old lady been a spectator of the Exhibition of the year 1809, opened by his Imperial Majesty Napoleon I. ? Why not? At the Cafe Veron you may see on most mornings, complacently taking her coffee and cognac, and reading either the Unicers or the Gazette de France — she is a Legitimist of the Legitimists and a Clerical of the Clericals — a cheery old lady, who is eighty-four 240 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX. years of age. She is a dame as charitable as she is noble, and gives away, they tell me, a thousand pounds a year to the poor. She rarely goes into the country; she patronises no watering-place during the summer-heats. Her delight is in Paris; and she roams about, all day long, shopping. She has sons and grandsons in the army ; and when she meets any non-commissioned officers or sol- diers belonjnne to the regiments in which her descendants serve, those Braves are swiftly bidden to enter the nearest cafe, there to regale themselves at her expense. I have said that she is an in- veterate shopper ; but I should also have mentioned that, ere she makes a purchase, she always asks the shopkeeper if he be a Eepublican. Woe be, financially speaking, to the commergant who has the courage of his opinions, and avows his democratic procli- vities to the Legitimist Lady Bountiful ! She will buy of him five sous' worth of pins, or half a franc's worth of notepaper, and pass on. But fortunate is the tradesman who owns the soft impeach- ment of Bonapartism, of Orleanism, or especially of an attachment for Henry Cinq. At once he secures a most profitable customer. At a quarter to five, in the Exhibition building, the police on duty began to shout ' Sortez, sortez, s'il vous plait.' The police voice is a hoarse, lugubrious, raven-like croak, the dissonant notes of which might be advantageously studied by Sir George Bowyer, since they bear out the worthy baronet's theory as to the influence of climate on the human voice. The Parisian police under the llepublic are nearly all Northerners. Circumstances — the chilling- wind among them — lent additional cacophony to the strident invi- tation to depart on Sunday. Do you remember to have heard in the Cemetery of Pere la Chaise the unsympathetic and nerve- jarring voice of the gardicn with the owl-like visage, who, in the same ton nasillard, drew your attention to the monument erected to Abelard and Heloise, to the ' Tombeau de Marchangy, l'Avocat- General qui a fait condamner les Quatre Sergents de la Eochelle/ and to the grave of 'Le Depute Baudin, tue sur une barricade a la suite des emeutes du Coup d'Etat ' ? He would have recited — could he have spoken English — Tom Ingoldsby's ' Vulgar Little GONE ! 241 Boy/ and Tom Hood's 'Bridge of Sighs,' in precisely the same key, and with precisely the same intonation. ' Sortez, s'il vous plait.' There was at least a tinge of polite- ness in the admonition ; whereas, when Artemus Ward gave his first entertainment, his programme was found to conclude with the postscript, ' If the audience do not go at the conclusion of the per- formance, they will be turned out.' But hush ! hark ! A deep sound strikes like a rising knell. Far away — I do believe it is in the Chinese section — a body of French workmen have struck up the ' Marseillaise.' According to Cham, the caricaturist in the Charivari, the Mandarin-looking gentleman in the Chinese sec- tion had his pigtail curled into half a dozen concentric circles in honour of the closing day. What could that dignified personage in the mauve-silk petticoat and fawn-coloured clogs, and Avith the cqfc- au-lait-coloured countenance, have thought of Bouget de ITsle's war-chant. But there is yet more music in the November air in the Palace of the Champ de Mars. The strains of an anthem gloriously familiar to English ears echo from the British section, where a brass band, specially smuggled in for the occasion, are playing ' God save the Queen.' Our American cousins did not follow suit with ' Hail Columbia ' or ' Yankee Doodle.' They cele- brated the termination of their own share in the Exhibition a week ago, by sounding ' at full blast ' all the steam whistles in their machinery section. The French auditors of this appalling noise fled in affright, stopping their ears ; but the Americans were in ecstasies with the piercing shrillness of each successive whistle. ' That's the kind of shriek, sir,' remarked a gentleman from Hart- ford, Connecticut, to his neighbour and fellow-countryman, ' that the Lawyer gives when the Devil gets hold of him.' The gentleman from Hartford's compatriot observed that a few hotel gongs might have materially aided the demonstration. Our National Anthem, nevertheless, ' fetched ' the French por- tion of the multitude to an enthusiastic extent. An impression became current that ' les Anglais ' were celebrating the close of the Exhibition in some characteristically national manner ; haply by VOL. II. K 242 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN'. eating ' rosbif ' and drinking ' porter-beer,' possibly by dancing ' ornpipes ' and ' gigues.' At all events, the many-heaSed struggled manfully to reach the section whence the sounds of ' God save the Queen ' proceeded ; but they were kept back with gentle firmness by the police, one stout brigadier confidentially informing M. Joseph Prudhomme, who was excitedly anxious to know what ' les Anglais ' were doing, that the Prince of Wales had, just before his Royal Highness quitted Paris, concluded a special treaty with the French Government, authorising the English exhibitors to keep their department open until six o'clock in the afternoon of Novem- ber the Tenth, and that they were not to be interfered with in their revels. ' Car, vo} r ez-vous,' added the confidential brigadier, ' le Prince de Galles c'est l'ami de la France ; et nous lui devons quelque chose.' M. Joseph Prudhomme went away perfectly satis- fied ; and, for my part, I think that it should be equally satisfac- gone ! 243 tory to all and sundry to know that ninety-nine Frenchmen out of a hundred are of the same opinion with the worth}' brigadier on Sunday, and that the last embers of enmity between us and a gallant and intelligent people, whom we fought tooth and nail, off and on, for eight hundred years, but who are now our fast friends, have been stamped out. Eighty thousand countrymen of M. Joseph Prudhomme, and perhaps twenty thousand foreigners, slowly drifted out of the Champ de Mars and the Trocadero, to engage in a final struggle for cab, omnibus, or tapissiere ; and by a few minutes after five Universal Darkness .had covered all. What next ? Le Roi est mort '. Vive le Roi ! The Monarch who, since May last, has reigned in the World's Fair has expired ; but another sovereign was instantaneously enthroned. Paris is Herself again ; and I, for one, rejoice greatly at the advent of the new dynasty. I love Paris very dearly, and have so cherished it during many years ; but the Paris which I have known, and in which I have groaned and grumbled during fourteen feverish weeks, has not been by any means my Lutetia Parisiorum. I am there- fore pleased to find that although it was only yesterday that the Exhibition closed, the streets to-day present a multiplicity of symp- toms of Paris being Herself again. The boulevards are already assuming their wonted aspect ; and many well-known characters who have been identified for years with these animated thorough- fares, are returning to their customary haunts. The Franks, the Huns, the Visigoths, and the Vandals have reigned long enough ; and it is quite time that the Gauls should resume their sway. The Parisian is a Gaulois pur sang ; but during the Exhibi- tion his national characteristics have been hidden well-nigh to the point of obliteration by the more or less barbarous peoples who have flocked to the metropolis of France to satiate their eyes and to squander their money. The mad costly carnival is over, and there is beginning the customary and continuous festival of La Vie Parisienne — a life of pleasure and shows, all of which are cheap and many of which are gratuitous. The cabmen, for a wonder, are absolutely asking to be hired. k 2 244 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX. A ' MABCHAND DE CHIEKS ' OF THE BOULEVARDS. Hold up your hand or your umbrella opposite a cab-rank, and a dozen whips will be at once held up in response to your signal. The sudden politeness too of the Paris Jehus is positively embar- rassing. I am glad to note that the shandrydan victorias, into which I have seen as many as five persons crammed — the vehicles in question are constructed to hold two passengers — exclusive of a GONE ! 245 baby and a poodle, are rapidly disappearing, and are being replaced by the smart comfortable little coupes — vastly superior to the ma- jority of English hired broughams — which were in- troduced in Paris in 1851, and have since been copied and improved upon in Madrid and in Milan. Now these little coupes will hold two people and no more, and their inexpansive- ness rendered them all but use- less during the summer months, A COURTEOUS CABMAN (liY CIIAJl). ' Monsieur, you appear to have a cold. Allow me when the object of to get you something for it at the chemist's.' 246 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX. the Paris cabman, like that of a Margate fly-driver, was to get as many people into his carriage with, as many separate augmentations of fare as lie possibly could. The reign of the enormous tapissieres and chars-d-bancs is likewise at an end ; and few — now that it is no longer a matter of convenience to reach the Exhibition for the moderate fare of seventy-five centimes — will regret the disappearance of the unwieldy caravans in ques- tion. I was actually enabled at noon this morning to cross the boulevard from the Grand Cafe to the Rue Neuve St. Augustin without feeling in mortal dread of being crushed by a tayissiere, run into by a cab, run over by the T-cart or the phaeton of a member of the Jockey Club, brayed beneath the wheels of an advertising van — we had to put the last-named nuisances down by GONE ! 247 Act of Parliament more than twenty years ago — smashed by one of the fomrgons of the Grands Magasins du Louvre, or utterly annihilated beneath the wheels of one of the monstrous vehicles of the Compagnie Generate des Omnibus. Yes, Paris is Herself again. Even last night I found out that gratifying fact when I dined at the restaurant I had fixed upon in perfect comfort. During the last three months the nightly and dolorous question which I have addressed to myself has been less •Where shall I dine? 'than 'Shall I be able to dine anywhere at all?' c_ I have sat down, metaphorically speaking, before the restaurant of the MaisonDoree, even as a military commander in the old days of war- fare used to ' sit down ' before a besieged city. I nave progressive- AT A restaurant after the exhibition (by cham). ly advanced my parallels, and have captured ravelin and counterscarp, fosse and bastion, so to speak, to the extent of extracting a promise from the head-waiter to look after my interests ; but over and over again have I failed to storm the citadel of the Maison Doree in the way of obtaining a table whereat to despatch my frugal meal. As for the Cafe Anglais, if you asked in August or September ' s'il y avait de la place,' you were met with a deprecatory shrug and an apologetic outstretching of the hands on the waiter's part. At the Cafe Riche, your inquiries ' Waiter, what have I to pay ? ' ' Just whatever you please, sir.' 248 PARIS 1IEUSELF AGAIN. as to whether there were room extracted 'only a derisive grin on the part of the maitre d'hotel. You must be toque, 'daft,' stark staring mad, to think for a moment that there could he airy room at the Cafe Riche. In despair, after being turned away impransus from the doors of half a dozen restaurants, I drove one evening over the water to Magny's clean, comfortable, and well-served res- taurant in the Rue Mazet, off the Rue Dauphine. ' Je vous ferai diner,' quoth M. Magny, rubbing his hands. I dined very well indeed ; and the next evening, with a light heart — 0, vanity of age untoward ! — I drove over again to the Rue Mazet. Alas I M. Magny's restaurant was full from the rez de chaussee to the garrets, which had been converted, for the nonce, into so many cabinets ixirti cullers. I used to dine very often at another excellent restaurant, in the Place de la Fontaine Gaillon ; and I eulogistically mentioned M. Grossetete, the proprietor thereof, as a single-minded res- taurateur, who had announced to his numerous clientele that it was his intention not to raise his prices during the Exhibition. Infatuated I ! I am afraid that the publicity which, all innocently, I gave to M. Grossetete's intentions must have attracted crowds of English visitors to the Restaurant Gaillon. In any case, the GONE ! 249 place grows more crowded and more British every night. II n'y avait plus moyen. At length, after waiting forty minutes for a barbue aux fines licrbes, I sorrowfully told M. Grossetete that I must seek a dinner somewhere else . ' You abandon us ! You desert us ! ' cried M. Grossetete, affected almost to tears ; ' Mais, Monsieur, e'est navrant : e'est ecceurant.' I told him that I did not intend to abandon him ; but that I would come and see him again — when the Exhibition was over. I will go, now that the Exhibition is over, and that Paris is Herself again. I have recently come across several types of the flaneur, that thoroughly characteristic Parisian, who has seemingly been com- pelled during these fearful months of excitement to hide himself in remote holes and corners, say in the Rue St. Louis au Marais, or in the Rue St. Andre des Arts, and I am positively in hopes of meet- ing ere long the Nice Old Gentleman. The petit rentier no longer finds his place at Duval's usurped by a hungry family from Brives- la-Gaillarde or Arcis-sur-Aube ; and the mysterious tribe of people who frequent the cafes, apparently for the sole purpose of going to sleep over their bavaroise au chocolat, have reappeared, and have THE DESOLATE CAFE AND THE DEJECTED WAITER (BY CHAM). •250 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. now an ample opportunity to indulge their somnolent propensities. A week ago, not the Fat Boy in Pickwick, not even the Seven Sleepers, could have snatched forty winks at any time of the da} r or night in any Parisian cafe. The traffic has been lightened, the crowds lessened, the tumult quelled, the madness calmed down ; and even in matters theatrical Paris is becoming Herself again. It is possible to obtain afauteuil (Vorchestre at a first-class theatre without having to make one of the queue in front of the bureau de location, to find, after two or three hours' waiting, that all the seats in the house are booked for a fortnight to come, or being compelled to purchase a ticket at an agence des theatres, at an advance of five hundred per cent, on the normal price. If this halcyon state of things continues, I shall, before I leave Paris, positively go to the play. THE MARTYRS OF THE EXHIBITION. XVI. IN THE BOIS. Nov. 14. Full nine weeks did I pass in Paris, while the World's Fair was at its wildest, without even thinking of taking a carriage-drive in the Bois de Boulogne. There were plenty of amply- sufficing reasons for my not indulging in a to me once-familiar pleasure. In the first place, my circle of acquaintances, during the period of which I speak, did not comprise any of those fortunate beings col- loquially known as ' carriage-people.' I had, indeed, no acquaint- ances at all worth speaking of, beyond the barber, the hotel-clerk, the chambermaid who had been a dragoon, Eugene, a waiter at the Grand Cafe, and the washerwoman. And she was my bitterest enemy. I might have found plenty of friends. Nobody cut me ; but I cut everybody whom I could possibly avoid, in order that I might the better attend to some business I had then in hand. To stud}' the street-life of a great city and to move in polite society are not compatible pursuits, and, for the nonce, I gave polite society the go-by. In the next place, had I wished to take a quiet drive now and again in the Bois, I should have been disappointed ; for between mid- August and mid-October there were no voitures de grande remise to be hired at any of the livery stables. I shrank from making an appearance at the Cascade or the Avenue de l'lm- 252 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. peratrice in a one-horse shandrydan from the boulevard cab-ranks ; and the non-arrival of the necessary cheques precluded me from going to Binder's, and saying to that eminent coachmaker, ' Let me have something of your newest and most elegant in the way of a phaeton or a victoria — quelque chose de joli dans les trois mille fntius comptant.' As it chanced, there came to Paris, during the last days of the Fair, a friend who was fortunate enough to secure, by the week, at Meurice's, a very comely barouche and pair. It was the only available turn-out, they said, left in Paris, except one which had been hired by the Minister from Madagascar to convey his Excellency to the fete at Versailles. Nor barouche nor Minis- ter ever came back ; and the hapless diplomatist and his Secretary of Legation are, it is supposed, still wandering up and clown in search of their greatcoats, while the coachman from Meurice's is waiting for his fare in the midst of the Plain of Satory. So I had my drive in the Bois after all. A very fine afternoon in the first week of November. It was the close of that exceptional surcease from climatic asperity known as St. Martin's Summer. The Americans have their ' Indian Summer,' a respite from winter almost as sunshiny and as mellow as TEte de St. Martin,' who, by the way, fulfils in France the functions attributed to St. Michael, in being the patron saint of geese. In the old livres d'images of Epinal, St. Martin is always represented with a nimbus of geese round his head; and on his fete roast goose makes its appearance at the tables of the French hounjeoisie as regularly as it does with us at Michaelmas. Another knock-down blow to the tradition that Queen Elizabeth was dining on hot roast goose when the news of the destruction of the Spanish Armada was brought to her. L'Ete de St. Martin made the Bois look very lovely indeed. Ascending the Champs Elysees, and crossing the Place de l'Etoile, I found the coquettish little houses built a VAnglaise in the Avenue de l'lmperatrice wearing their most smiling aspect ; and the eight thousand trees and shrubs which the massifs of the Avenue are said to contain showed in the afternoon sunshine but very few signs of the sere, the yellow leaf. Far off in the blue distance IX THE BOIS. 253 THE CHAMPS ELY^EES. loomed the fortress of Mont Valerien and the hills of St. Cloud, of Bellevue, and of Meudon. Entering the Bois by the Porte Dauphine, we followed the Route du Lac to the Lower Lake, with its pine-clad hanks and its two pretty little eyots ; and then we drove to the upper lake, with its splendid cascade. Then the Eond de la Source, the Butte Mortemart, and the Mare d'Auteuil, were all visited in due course. The Pre Catelan looked as hand- some as ever ; and at length we reached the Hippodrome of Long- champ, with its racecourse, its windmill, and its gray old tour a pignon, the last-remaining vestige of the once-famous Abbey of Longchamp, founded in the middle of the thirteenth century by Isabella of France, sister of St. Louis, and which endured until the great revolutionary cataclysm of 1789. Xever was there a more aristocratic, or, if the chronique scan- daleuse is to be believed, a naughtier nunnery than that of Long- champ. It was Rabelais' Abbey of Thelema, with additions and emendations, and ' Pay ce que vouldras ' might have been written over the conventual gates. The excellent St. Vincent de Paul was in a terrible way about the ' goings-on ' among these exceptionally '25i l'AUIS 1IKKSKLF AGAIN. vivacious nuns, and in a letter to Cardinal Mazarin indignantly denounced the irregularities which had become habitual in the establishment. The Archbishop of Paris remonstrated with the naughty nuns; but they snapped their fingers metaphorically in the archiepiscopal lace, and continued their fandangos. But they were eventually punished for their peccadillos. The pious world ceased in disgust to make pilgrimages to the tomb of Ste. Isabelle de Longchamp, and to deposit rich offerings on her shrine. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the convent had grown comparatively poor, when, in 1727, a renowned opera- singer, Made- moiselle le Maure, having taken the veil at Longchamp, the happy thought occurred to the abbess of giving concerts of sacred music on the three last days of Lent. These concerts were a pro- digious success. The Parisian world, fashionable and frivolous as well as devout, flocked, as fast as their coaches-and-six could carry them, to hear the Longchamp oratorios ; and these concerts remained in vogue for nearly fifty years. It came at last to the ears of another Archbishop of Paris, Monsigneur Christophe de Beaumont — a prelate celebrated for his enmity to theatrical enter- tainments, and his quarrel with Jean Jacques Rousseau — that the attractions of the choir at the Abbey of Longchamp were enhanced by the voices of a number of artistes from the opera who had not taken the veil. So the church was closed to the public. There was an end of the cause, but the effect remained. Out of the fashionable pilgrimages grew the world-famous Promenade de Longchamp, which began in the Champs Elysees, and wound its course right athwart the Bois de Boulogne to the gates of the Abbey itself. It was found that the setting-in of the spring fashions might be fitly made to coincide with the eve of Easter ; and every year during three days in Passion- week there was an incessant cavalcade of princes, nobles, bankers, fermiers- gdniraux, strangers of distinction, and the ladies then known as ruincuses, to Longchamp. It became not a Ladies' Mile, but a Ladies' League. The equipages of the grandest dames of the Court of Versailles locked wheels with the chariots of La Duthe IN THE BOIS. 255 and La Guimard ; and the legends whisper that the ruincascs made, as a rule, a much more splendid appearance than the grandes dames did. The Duchess of Valentinois was not, however, to be put down by ' ces creatures.' In the spring of 1780 her Grace appeared at the promenade de Longchamp in a carriage of which the panels were composed of superbly-painted Sevres porcelain. This china coach was drawn by six mottle-gray horses, with harness of crimson silk embroidered with silver. A famous ruineuse, La Morphise, an actress ' protected ' b} r Louis XV., and whose son, by her Royal protector, Beaufranchet, Comte d'Oyat, was after- wards present as chief of the staff of the Army of Paris at the execution of Louis XVI., and positively gave the command for the drums to beat when his unhappy grand-nephew by blood attempted to address the spectators — La Morphise, I say, endeavoured to outshine the Duchess of the porcelain coach. She was unable to procure any china panels from the Royal manufactory at Sevres, but she had the sides and back of her carriage made of the finest marqueterie in brass work and tortoiseshell. Her horses were black, with harness of crimson velvet and gold. The equipage would have been a success, had not the coachman of the Swedish Minister run the pole of his chariot through one of the panels of the tortoiseshell coach. The fiasco was complete ; the crowd began to jeer, and the discomfited Morphise drove home lamenting. I had plenty of time to recall this, as well as many other remi- niscences of the Bois de Boulogne, since we had made the slight mistake of going thither at two o'clock in the afternoon, at least an hour and a half too early. The time for the fashionable promenade was, at the beginning of the month, from half-past three to five p.m. There was scarcely anybody on wheels or on horseback in the Bois when we arrived : thus the aspect of the place, for all the mild beauty of St. Martin's summer, was decidedly the reverse of hilarious. A slight halt for refreshment being suggested, I proposed that we should partake of a picturesque and innocent beverage — new milk, to wit, at the well-known farm close to the Pre Catelan. We duly entered the somewhat tame 250 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX. and frigid imitation of a farmhouse, which has a most melancholy little cafe attached to it, and in the yard of which a dejected horse walks round and round in a seem- ingly ceaseless cir- cuit. You have, at first, not the slight- est idea as to why he should be so very peripatetic ; but soon you are taken into an outhouse, and there you perceive that the quadruped in the farmyard is working a wheel which works a machine for grinding horse-chestnuts or chopping mangold-wurzel and carrots. After that we were taken to see the cows. Here the conventional etiquette is to quote at least one verse from Pierre Dupont's lyric of ' Les Bceufs : ' ' J'ai deux grands bceufs dans mon etable, Deux grands bceufs blancs taches de roux ; Le timon est en bois d'erable, , L'aiguillon en tranche de houx.' There were a few big oxen in the enormous cowshed of the Ferme du Pre Catelan — a cowshed on which that eminent agri- cultural reformer, Hercules, might have advantageously bestowed a "lance after making the stables of King Augeas neat and tidy ; but there were, in addition, about a hundred poverty-stricken little Alderneys. Some of these were being milked by bearded men in blouses and with bare feet. This did not look by any means picturesque, and failed to conjure up memories of the charming old English lyric about the lass ' that carried the milking-pail.' A paved aisle ran between the vaccine ranks, and at intervals in this gangway were little tables, at which sate, on three-legged stools, M. Joseph Prudhomme, rentier, of the Marais ; M. Casson- nade, of Noisy-le-Sec, e'picier; and M. Choufieury, Mayor of Chateau- IN THE BOIS. 257 Pignouf, Department of the Ganache Superieure ; with any number of feminine and juvenile Pructhommes, Choufleurys, and Casson- nades, all drinking new milk with a sorrowful but determined expression of countenance. I always endeavour in my wanderings to ' see the Elephant,' and at Rome to do as the Romans do ; so, regardless of consequences, I ordered new milk for four ; but the lady of our party beginning at this conjuncture to ' feel bad ' — the odour of the Catelan cowhouse may have had something to do with it — we prudently withdrew to the cafe. The milk was peculiar in flavour, but scarcely nice. That was not the name for it. In the cafe we found some coffee, which tasted worse than the milk, and some cognac, which tasted worse than either. The microscopic nature of the change out of a five-franc piece, tendered in payment for these delicacies, excited, however, our admiration ; and it was something, after all, to be reminded, in the very outskirts of Paris, of that dear old Dutch deception, the ' clean ' village of Broek. So farewell, Arcadia, which I have generally found to be a very expensive country. When we got back to the Bois we found it, not certainly in all its glory, but fairly well patronised by the equipages of the fash- ionable world. The French aristocracy seemed rather to shine by its absence than otherwise. The Duchesses and Marchionesses had perhaps not yet returned from Biarritz or Vichy, or from their chateaux ; but there was a very considerable sprinkling indeed in handsome equipages of la haute finance, of foreign diplomacy, and especially of the haut commerce. The wealthy tradesman — the enriched chocolate, cognac, pickles, sago, cooking-stove, corset, pills, perfumery, confectionery manufacturer, or wiiat not — seems to be coming very rapidly to the front just now, and to be making as conspicuous an appearance in society under the Republic as his congeners did under the Monarchy of Louis Philippe. The Second Empire was the time of triumph in the Bois, as everywhere else, of splendid adventurers of both sexes, and of every possible descrip- tion ; and I am bound to confess that, ten years ago, the aspect of the Bois de Boulogne was far more stylish than it is at present. 258 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. There was a tremen- dous amount of extra- vagance ; still luxury did not often reach the ' Benoiton ' point of ostentatious vulgarity. The cattle seen in the Bois in 18G7-8 were, as a rule, superb. Very rarely now do you see in it a horse worth so much as a hundred- pound note. There have been no good horses in Paris, they tell you, since the siege. The driving, too, seems to have wofully deteriorated ; a fact which, I consider, is not at all to be wondered at. Poor Napoleon III. , whatever may have been his shortcomings, certainly knew the ' points ' of a horse, as Mr. Samuel Sidney or as ' Stonehenge ' knows them. Caesar defunct was an eminently ' horsey ' sovereign, and his stud-grooms were Englishmen. The if «\\ 111 1 ,' 1 A k h • !©(lj : '■> FROM ' LA VIE PARISIENXK.' IN THE BOIS. 259 wealthiest and ' liorsiest ' of foreign grandees nocked to the bril- liant Court of the Tuileries, and the niineuscs of ten years since — they were called cocottes then — vied in the splendour of their ^W> \ equipages with the great ladies of the Empire and the foreign Ambassadresses, just as, a century ago, La Morphise vied with the Duchesse of Yalentinois. All that is ' played out.' The Duthes and Guimards and Morphises of the Second Empire seem all but entirely to have disappeared. They may be keeping bureaux de tabae, or opening box-doors at the playhouse, or wait- ing in white aprons at the Bouillon-Duval, for aught I know ; and in the Bois de Boulogne I failed to count more than a dozen caVeches or victorias, occupied by unmistakably yellow-haired en- chantresses. There was one on horseback in the Avenue de Suresnes ; but she was stout, and forty. O, ' stylishness ' of the Bois, what has become of thee ? On the other hand, there was .in abundance of exquisitely-neat little private broughams and coupes, with quiet-looking ladies and gentlemen inside ; a number of very badly appointed and worse driven dog-carts and T-carts, two or three mail-phaetons, a solitary tandem, and any number of right- 8 2 2G0 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. down fiacres and shandrydans, full of honest folk from the provinces, enjoying themselves to all appear- ance mightily. It were better — much better so. True the quality of the cattle in the Bois de Boulogne improved ; but a little stylishness may be perhaps dispensed with when the owners of the most stylish equi- pages are reckless adventurers, mushroom millionnaires, or the young ladies with tresses of con- vertible hues who were wont to be called ruineuses, and who in successive generations, from the time of Lais and Phryne downwards, have ruined a surprising number of silly people. And now farewell, Bois ; and farewell, Paris, too, for a time ; for my boat is on the shore and my bark is on the sea ; that is to say, I have got a through ticket to London, and I have an appointment to-morrow at noon at Charing Cross. XVII. TARIS REVISITED — PALM SUNDAY ON THE BOULEVARDS. April 7, 1879. ' Voila, patron ! ' In these words of cheerful deference was I addressed, soon after my arrival in Paris yesterday morning, by the red-waistcoated and oilskin-covered-hatted driver of hackney- carriage No. Five Thousand and odd, stationed on the Boulevard des Italiens. Cocker Five Thousand and odd absolutely wanted a fare, and condescended to make courteous proclamation of the cir- cumstance. Bear in mind that he hailed me as ' patron ' ! Under normal circumstances the Parisian cabby declines to apply to his fore a more dignified designation than that of ' mon bourgeois,' and too frequently during the Exhibition orgy of extortion ' mon bourgeois ' became ' Ohe ! la-bas ! ' I have been called likewise ' chnmeau,' ' animal,' ' and ' requin ; ' and one Jehu, with whom I had a slight difficulty arising from his demanding four francs fifty centimes for driving me from the Porte Iiapp to the Luxembourg, was good enough to express his opinion that I was ' un exposant de peaux d'hippopotame ' — an exhibitor of hippopotamus hides. 202 rARIS HERSELF AGAIN. There was some mother-wit in the abuse, and I forgave it. But no cabman vilifies the wandering tourist now. The hackney carriages are many, and the fares are few. The times have changed, and Paris is herself again. Aha ! The proud Auto- medon of the asphalte defers to me as his ' patron,' does he ! I mean to be as haughty as he was between mid-July and mid- October last year. I shall tolerate no overcharges, and wink at no sin of omission in the delivery of a ticket on his part. In fact, like Mr. Pepys, when he put on his suit with the gold buttons, I intend in the future to ' go like myself,' to patronise only coupes with unbroken windows and untattered cushions, and to ride only behind cattle that are not spavined, windgalled, and shoulder- shotten. It is slightly difficult to find such irreproachable animals on the Parisian cab-ranks ; still, I have a fortnight before me, and the stud to select from is large. Yesterday was Palm Sunday — ' le Dimanche des Rameaux ' — and I had no sooner emerged from the Northern Terminus into the interminable Rue de Lafayette, the Upper Wigmore Street of Lutetia, ere I became aware that the first da}' of Holy AVeek had begun. The streets were all agreen with branches of box-tree — the "Western substitute for palms. By this time millions of ' fais- ceaux ' of the ' buis benit,' blessed yesterday in the churches, have been hung up over the chimneypieces or thrust behind the frames of pictures and looking-glasses, not to be disturbed until the eve of another Palm Sunday. A pretty custom. We are too much in a hurry, perhaps, in England, when Christmas week is over, to sweep the holly and mistletoe into the dustbin ; but if paterfami- lias pleads for a little extension of time for the crisp green leaves and sparkling berries, the careful housewife sternly pronounces the ominous word ' dust ' ! We are the slaves, in smoky London, of the dust and ' the blacks.' Here there is little dust worth speak- ing of; and there are no ' blacks ' at all. Thus the Parisians will be enabled to indulge to the fullest in their passion for perpetuat- ing the verdant memories of Palm Sunday. Prodigious quantities of leafy box arrived at the Halles Cen- PALM SUNDAY ON THE BOULEVARDS. 263 trales by dawn on Sunday, and by seven in the morning had been dispersed through every quarter of Paris. The grisette trotted by, with her long slim loaf — her provision of bread for the day — held, not ungracefully, sceptre-wise in one hand ; her little can of milk pendent from one finger ; in the other hand her morsel of frontage de Brie, wrapped up in paper ; and, secure under her arm, her bunch of ' rameaux.' She would not much mind going without her breakfast, poor thing ; but those fasces of green stuff she must have. So do you see crowds of working-men's wives and children trooping onwards, all laden with branches of bids. Birnam Wood seems coming to Dunsinane. Impromptu marchandes de rameaux establish themselves at all the street-corners, while the regular greengroceries seem to be doing almost as good a business in ' buis ' as in cauliflowers and cabbages. They tell me that the French workman is, in the majority of cases, a confirmed sceptic, and this statement would appear to be to some extent confirmed by the vast number of freethinking half-penny and penny news- papers and periodicals which are Voltairian, and something more than Voltairian, in their views ; but, all sceptic as he may be, the x Parisian proletarian does not, to all appearance, entertain the slightest objection to his wife and children purchasing box-branches on Palm Sunda}', and decorating the family m a nsarde therewith. One reason for this may be that in matters social the proletarian in question is a very staunch Conservative. He abhors innovation, and likes to do as his fathers did before him. He may sneer at the observances of the Dimanche des Rameaux as ' un tas de betises ; ' yet, I fane}-, he would rate Marie Jeanne his wife, and Nanette and Louison his daughters, if the traditional branches of buis, duly blessed by the cure, whom he professes to hate so much, were not to make their accustomed appearance over the chimney or behind the portrait of M. Gambetta on Monday in Passion- week. The portrait of M. Leon Gambetta, lithographed, photo- graphed, graved on steel, or cut on wood, is everywhere in Paris just now. He is enjoying, pictorially, an Admiral Keppul, a Mar- quis of Granby-like apotheosis. Republican France is continually 204 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN* drinking toasts to Libert}', Equality, and Fraternity at the sign of the Gambetta's Head. What was it that the Tory old lady was heard to mutter one day as she passed a tavern, the sign of which displayed a flaring effigy of Jack Wilkes crowned with the Cap of Liberty ? ' He swings,' remarked the Tory old lady, ' everywhere but where he should.' There may be in Eepublican France not a few politicians who hold the same opinion with regard to the omnipresent portrait of the President of the Chamber of Deputies as was held by the elderly gentlewoman of Church and State proclivities touching the head of Jack Wilkes. What the newest of the brand-new journals, which are well-nigh incessantly sprouting up, thinks about the First Statesman in France — the statesman whom M. Thiers dubbed ' un fou furieux ' — is problematical. The new journal of which I speak is called Gallia. It is not a penny paper — O dear, no ! It is sold at the patrician sum of fifty centimes, and comprises only four pages of very widely- displayed type, mainly devoted to a puff of a new ' Album de l'Expo- sition.' But on the front page is gummed a cloudy little photo- graph representing the exterior of a humble grocer's shop in a provincial town. The door-jambs are embellished with counter- feit presentments of sugarloaves. In the windows appear pickles, haricots, lentils, cakes of chocolate, vermicelli, olives, and other ' denrees coloniales.' Over the shop-front appears a capacious placard inscribed ' Bazar Genois : Gambetta Jeune et Cie. ; ' and beneath the spectator reads, ' Sucre du Havre, Nantes, et Bor- deaux, 1 fir. le k.,' meaning one franc the kilogramme. This curious picture the accompanying letterpress informs the reader represents ' La Maison de Gambetta a Cahors ; ' and the unpre- tending grocery is otherwise pompously styled ' Le Nid de l'Aigle ' — The Eagle's Nest. Is all this good-natured banter, or honest admiration for a man who from such small beginnings has risen so high ; or is it so much black and bitter envy, malice, and uncharitableness ? That would be difficult to determine. I never knew political satire of the pictorial kind to be so savagely sjriteful PALM SUNDAY ON THE BOULEVARDS. 265 — ~~~~ ~~ ~ LE XID DE L'AIGLE AT CAHOES. as it is in France just now ; and the Cahors grocery photograph may be deemed a master-stroke by politicians who hate M. Gam- betta. It does not matter much, perhaps, after all. Garibaldi used to make candles, once upon a time', at Staten Island, New York ; and Hofer, the Tell of the Tyrol, kept a public-house. When a millionnaire chocolate manufacturer was taunted in full Chamber by a Bonapartist Deputy with having formerly been a country grocer, on the very smallest of scales, he replied that such was certainly the fact; and that the father of the honourable gentleman had been a customer of his, and had forgotten to settle his small account for Reunion coffee and Jamaica rum. Meanwhile, the pleasure-loving Parisians have been spending Palm Sunday in their own characteristic fashion. I fancy that the churches of London were all most decorously well attended yesterday, and that the last week in Lent left nothing to be desired in the way of devout observance. Otherwise, if you in England were afflicted with such remarkably disagreeable weather as we 2G6 I>ARIS HERSELF AGAIN. suffered yesterday, I fancy, again, that your Palm Sunday must have heen socially an intensely dull and dreary one. It was other- wise here. The barometer, meteorologically, went down ; but the spirits of this most mercurial population went up. They made a day of it, miserable as it was. The devout spent the season in their own way. There were matin and vesper sermons by friars of great oratorical eminence at Notre Dame. The fires of Lacordaire and Hya- cinthe yet live, it is asserted, in the ashes of the French pulpit ; and in the religious journals you read of nascent Massillons and coming Bourdaloues, of Flechiers hitherto unknown to fame, and even of anew Bossuet hourly expected from orthodox Provence, and who between this and Easter maybe expected to recall the thunders of the Eagle of Meaux. Religious concerts at the Sainte Chapelle are greatly in vogue ; and the Lenten congrega- tions at St. Germain l'Auxerrois, St. Etienne du Mont, and especi- ally at Notre Dame des Yictoires are crowded. The ' offices ' at the PALM SUNDAY ON THE BOULEVARDS. 267 Madeleine are frequent and superb, and of some of these ere Easter Eve arrives I shall endeavour to take note. In fact, devotional, orthodox, ' practising ' Paris presents just at present a most edify- ing spectacle. Society fait la morte. No balls, no assemblies, no grand dinners. Half mourn- ing is the only wear, and ' maigre ' osten- sibly the only cheer. Foreigners, being barbarians, may of course eat what they like ; but it will not be at all m aura is ton, should you happen to ^ be dining at Bignon's or Durand's on Maundy Thursday or Good Friday, to abstain from ordering any plat cle viande. You can, to be sure, get on tolerably well, gastronomically speaking, without partaking of either butcher's meat or poultry. Here is, for example, a Good Friday menu, highly recommended in the most reclusive circles of the Faubourg St. Germain, and composed with- out the aid either of milk, butter, or eggs, all being things pro- hibited in his Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop's Lenten Pas- toral. Potage bouillabaisse ; flounders sauce a I'huile, salmi of wild duck, lobster a V Americaine, roast teal, buisson of crawfish, croute of mushrooms, par/ait glace au cafe. Yes, I think that it might be found possible to support existence on such a Good Friday diet as the one just formulated. But how about the sarcellcs and the canards sauvages ! you may ask. Are salmi of wild duck, are roast teal, 'meagre' fare? Surely they are. They are aquatic birds, they feed on fish, they have a slight fishy flavour, and in the Lenten menu they are not accounted flesh. This remarkable dis- 268 TARIS HERSELF AGAIN. covery was made by a celebrated gastronome of the seventeenth century, Monsieur de Tartuft'e. And the Paris which is not devout? Well, that Paris was singing on Palm Sunday — was singing its accustomed refrain, 1 Let us eat, drink, and he merry, for to-morrow may come Cata- clysm.' ' It must he admitted, Monsieur,' quoth to me, yesterday, the sententious and courteous maitre dliotel at the Grand Cafe — I can't help thinking that he must have been an Auditeurde la Colli- des Comptcs under the Second Empire—' that our coffers are no longer gorged, as was the case during the Exposition, with the gold of the stranger, and that foreigners no longer dispute with fierceness for the possession of the treasures of art and industry in our commercial establishments. But, Monsieur, il y a toujours le Paris qui suffit a faire marcher Paris— the Paris which is the adequate patron of its own productions, and which continues to enjoy with never-failing zest the permanent phenomena of its daily life. Paris, at the present moment, is even more inimitably metro- politan than was the case during the fever of the Exposition ; for during those months of clamours (bruyantc) prosperity the true Parisian, terrified (effarouehc) by abnormal prices and the scarcity of fish, emigrated, or hid his head in silence and obscurity, until more tranquil times should come. Monsieur, they have arrived. The carte dti jour, Monsieur, comprises—' and then he slid off into the recital of his catalogue of eatables. It was not he, but the equally courteous Eugene, the head-waiter, who, when I was bidding him farewell last November, opined that I was going to get some money out of my ' mines de houille la-bas,' and that I should speedily return to Paris to spend it. It is a firm article of belief among the Parisian shop and restaurant keeping class that no foreigner ever thinks of leaving Paris until he is brought down to his last hundred-franc note. But who on earth could have told Eugene, or how came that obliging servitor to think, that I was a coal-owner la-has ? Ld-bas may mean Durham or Dalmatia, Pon- typridd or Pennsylvania. It is the ' There ' of the O'Mulligan. It is the Frenchman's Ewigkeit. PALM SUNDAY ON THE BOULEVARDS. 269 There were races yesterday in the Bois de Boulogne. I glanced at the prophesied list of winners — the ' Gagnants de Bobert Mil- ton' — in the Figaro, but M. Bobert Milton's straight tips failed to ;. ,///,/. liMlMl ' , ,i(I- interest me. A horse-race in France is, as a rule, a depressing- spectacle. I have never returned from one save in a most dejected state ; and even Chantilly— on a wet Sunday— has moved me well- nigh to tears. There was a bitter wind blowing yesterday ; the 270 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. rain came down from half-hour to half-hour in brief but uncomfort- able ' splurges ; ' and altogether I did not see my way towards be- coming, even for a portion of the afternoon, a patron of the turf. So it occurred to me that I would visit the Louvre. I averted my eyes — with a definite intent and purpose in so doing — as, driving down the Rue de Rivoli, the blackened ruined screen of the Tuileries loomed in view. A rivederla ! But in the great court of the Carrousel, and in the Square du Louvre, with its gilt rail- ings and almost preternaturally verdant turf, all looked spick-and- span new, bright, handsome, and coquettish. A melodious voice seemed to be making some such proclamation as this : ' Ladies and gentlemen, in other portions of Paris disturbances have occa- sionally broken out ; but these smiling facades, these stately gal- leries, are sacred to the Muses, and no Revolutions can, under any possible circumstances, be permitted here.' Really ! Why, the vast pile is built on abed of concrete covering revolt and massacre unutterable. I fell into the ranks of a dense, but most orderly throng, who were scaling the grand staircase of the Museum. I found the due contingent of civil and attentive guardians, in their traditional cocked hats ; but I was pleased to see that under a Republican regime the sovereign people were no longer deprived of their sticks and umbrellas at the door. What Frenchman in his senses would ever dream of -poking at a picture with his parctpluie, or of digging holes in a terra-cotta with the ferrule of his walking- cane ? To sack the Tuileries now and again, to burn down the library of the Louvre bodily, to f aire jiamher Finances — Eli! that is quite another matter. But the volcano is not in eruption just now, the lava and the scoria, under the concrete are for the moment quiescent ; and on Palm Sunday afternoon the incomparably magnificent art-galleries of the Louvre were thronged hy a vast multitude of Frenchmen who knew how to behave themselves, and did so most scrupulously. It was a ' People's Day,' but the attendance was by no means exclusively democratic. I counted in the courtyard no less than twenty-seven handsome private equipages, and a much larger num- TALM SUNDAY ON THE BOULEVARDS. 271 ber of hackney-carriages retained by the hour by pleasure-seekers. Many of these were possibly foreign tourists ; still I noticed a fail- sprinkling of grave elderly gentlemen, wearing the ribbon of the Legion of Honour, of cadets of St. Cyr, and of students of the Ecole Polytechnique. There were scarcely any fashionably-dressed ladies. They probably were at church ; while the mondaines were at the races, or driving in the Bois. Not a gandm, not a petit creve, not a gommeux, was to be seen. On the other hand, the affluence was tremendous of petites bourgeoises, of good folk of the shop- keeping class, of clerk and assistant-like young men, and of down- right working men and women — the former in shiny blue blouses, the latter in decent white caps. I say that the blouses were shiny, because Palm Sunday is a traditional day among the working classes for the assumption of a new blouse, which is normally of blue or white calico, highly glazed, and to my mind is a very becoming garment. When he is at work the artisan wears a white blouse ; and hundreds of blouses blanches, were going up and down ladders, mixing mortar, laying bricks, or plying their plasterers' brushes in Paris yesterday. My neighbour, M. Barbe- dienne, of art-bronzes fame, never opens his establishment on the Sabbath, but he had a whole army of blouses blanches employed on Palm Sunday in ' doing up ' his extensive frontage. 272 TAKIS HERSELF AGAIN. A much larger number, indeed, of the shops on the Boulevards, in the Rue de la Paix, and in the Avenue de V Opera were closed yesterday than is ordinarily the case ; but I scarcely think that the crowds of young men and women thus temporarily liberated from then- toils at the counter and the desk contributed in any material degree to swell the congregations at St. Germain l'Auxerrois or St. Etienne du Mont. I shrewdly suspect that vast numbers of them went to the Louvre, and so, subsequently, to dinner at an ' Etablissement de Bouillon Duval,' and afterwards to a brasserie, and ultimately to a cafe concert or to the play. It is no doubt a very dreadful thing, this ' Continental Sunday,' about which we hear in England such doleful jeremiads, but there is no getting over one fact — that the crowd in the galleries of the Louvre was a quiet crowd, a well-behaved crowd, and a crowd that seemed thoroughly to enjoy itself. "When in the Salon Carre I saw a whole working-class household, nursegirl — carrying the baby — and all, pass with rapt and eager looks from the ' Nozze di Cana ' of Paolo Veronese to the Soult Murillo, and thence to the ' Belle Jardiniere ' of Rafaelle, before which they stood as it were fasci- nated by a vision of grace and loveliness, I could not help thinking that there were features in the ' Continental Sunday ' which might, on consideration, be condoned. % ;0 '&m XVIII. EASTER EGGS AND APRIL FISHES. April 9. It might surprise you to hear that this instant Wednesday is, so far as Paris is concerned, the Eve of the Deluge. The forecast in which I am emboldened to indulge should be taken, not in a meteorological, but in a metaphorical, sense. It has done so many things in the way of weather since Sunda}' morning last, and fog has succeeded brief snatches of sunshine, while piercing east winds have followed drenching downpours of rain — all in the course of each recurring twenty-four hours — that it would be perilous to predict what kind of fresh atmospheric phenomenon to-morrow may bring forth. To-da} r may be the eve of a snowstorm or of a flood, of a sirocco or of an earthquake. The month is April ; and we should be prepared for all things. But the Deluge on the occurrence of which to-morrow I am able, with tolerable con- fidence, to reckon, has no kind of reference to the voyage of the good ship Noah's Ark. Paris is simply expectant of a Deluge of juvenile humanity, and the Parisian shopkeepers are rubbing 274 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. their hands at the thought of their establishments being inun- dated b} r streams of little boys and girls, almost frantically eager for toys and sweetmeats to be bestowed upon them. The Easter holidays, scholastically speaking, are very brief in Paris. The great colleges only grant three days' vacation to their students ; private schools for bo} r s give four days' surcease from lessons ; the pensionnats de demoiselles are a little more lenient to their pupils ; but the authorities of the conventual schools refuse to re- gard Holy Thursday and Good Friday as holidays — they are, on the contrary, clays of mortification and seclusion from secular recre- ation. Holy Saturday is a day of preparation for the coming fes- tival, and the real holiday is Easter-day, next Sunday. Then, and not until then — to the think- ing of the orthodox, should one commence de faire ses Pdqucs, to eat, drink, and be merry ; and, under a strictly orthodox regime, festivity would be carried right through Easter-week. The existing generation is, however, heterodox, and in a chronic state of hurry. With a vast mass of the population of Paris the Easter Holidays have already begun, and by Easter Tuesday those holidays will have ended. The majority of the schools will throw open their portals to-morrow afternoon, and the Deluge of small Parisians of both sexes will be tremendous. The 'movement,' as the commercial journals put it, in the toy and sweetstuff trade has thus been prodigious; but con- current with the need of providing for the reopiirements of the children who are coming home from school is the large amount of business done in the two characteristic specialties of the season — April Fishes and Easter Eggs. The Polsson d'Avril in the form of a pretty trifle sent' as a half-complimentary half- EASTER EGGS AND APRIL FISHES. 275 bantering present, is all but wholly unknown in England out of the domains of mediaeval folk-lore. Idiotic or malicious practical jokes are yet perpetrated among the uneducated classes on the 1st of April; and ' 0, you April Fool! ' is an expression which is not yet entirely divested of purport or significance ; but in good society to ' make an April Fool ' of airy one would be con- sidered an anachronism as gross as it would be to attempt the revival of the Berners Street Hoax. The ' Poisson d'Avril ' has long since lost its coarseness in Paris, in the direction of 'fooling' or 'hoaxing' people ; but it has assumed a tangible form as a half ' Baptiste, "why do you not answer the bell ? ' ' Because to-day is the first of April, and I thought madam wanted to make a fool of me.' valentine, half ftrcnne. It may be sent anonymously ; whereas the Easter Egg and the New Year's gift are personal gifts. The ' Poisson d'Avril ' may be in bonbons, in chocolate, in porcelain, in lace, in tcrre cuite, in diamonds, or in cardboard; but it is imperatively necessary either that its outward shape should be T 2 276 rAKIS HERSELF AGAIN. that of a fish, or that it should be plentifully adorned with piscine emblems. These dolls, in the manufacture of which the Parisians are so surprisingly proficient, lend themselves at once to the pur- poses of adaptation for the April Fish whim. A miniature 'mulier formosa ' is so contrived as to terminate with a fish's tail stuffed with comfits, without exciting the ridicule of the recipient ; and troubadours playing on guitars, and with cods' head and shoulders, have been especial favourites in the April Fish market this season. The ' Fille de Madame Angot,' carrying a basket full of sprats, has also been much in vogue ; while confiseurs of more clas- sical leanings have brought out radiant presentments of Arion on his dolphin, and Pomitian's turbot, splen- didly got up in chocolate, mother - o' - pearl, blanched almonds, tmdmarrons glaces. I note also a youth, unrobed, with wings, sitting in the bright vermilion jaws of a kind of sea-dragon, equally resembling a diminutive sbark and a colossal flying- fish. The youth is playing on a barp, and to all ap- pearance is very happy. Can this group have any reference to the story of Jonah and the whale ? Take him for all in all, the ' Poisson d'Avril ' may be accepted as the light and mercurial precursor of the more serious and sub- stantial '(Euf de Paques,'in the dazzling splendours of which the modest fish soon becomes blended, and is ultimately absorbed. An Easter Egg of the very highest class is not, I would have you EASTER EGGS AND APRIL FISHES. 277 to understand, by any means a joke. When the Second Empire was at the heyday of its luxurious folly and its sumptuous corrup- tion there were Easter Eggs that cost 50,000, or 25,000, or 10,000 francs apiece. I remember to have heard of one presented by a Viscount and Chamberlain of the Imperial Court to an actress, say at the theatre of ' les Depravations Parisiennes,' which ex- teriorly was only a coffer of ovoid form, covered with blue velvet powdered with hearts transfixed by arrows in gold embroideiy, but which, opening, disclosed a charming victoria of Binder's building, a pair of perfectly matched piebald ponies, and a Bengal tiger — a groom I mean — in faultless tunic, tops, and buckskins. The ponies and the groom were alive, the victoria was fit for im- mediate use, and Mademoiselle Pasgrandchose drove her piebald pair that very afternoon at the Promenade de Longchamp. The brilliance of her appearance was heightened by the contents of another egg, the yolk of which was composed of pearls and diamonds, the gift of Baron Boguet de la Poguerie, banker and Mexican loanmonger — he fell with Mires on the field of honour — while further attractiveness was lent to Mademoiselle Pasgrand- chose's intelligent countenance by an expression of inward con- tentment due to her having received yet a third egg — a modest egg — an egg no bigger than the normal product of the hen, but which on being cracked was found to enshrine five notes of the Bank of France for a thousand francs each, prettily folded, cocked- hat fashion, and tied up with pink ribbon. Ah, halcyon time ! And what a carnival the rogues and the roguesses had ' sub Julio ; nel tempo dei falsi e bugiardi ! ' Keener eyes than mine espied gem-adorned Easter Eggs in the great jewellers' shops of fashionable Paris this morning; but my quest was for the picturesque eggs, the toy eggs, the artistic eggs, and in particular the downright and outrageously comical eggs. In every one of these departments my researches were amply re- warded by results. I may just hint once for all that not in any single instance, in the scores of toy and confectionery shops into the windows of which I peered, did I find the slightest emblematic PAKIS HERSELF AGAIN. association of the Easter Egg with the memories of the Paschal Season. The Parisians borrowed these quaint things from the Russians, who attach to them a deeply religious significance ; but the lively Gaul, in naturalising his ' (Eufs de Paques ' on the boulevards, at once eliminated from them the slightest elements of superstition. They were to him only so many bagatelles, on the confection of which much taste and skill might be lavished, and which might be vended at a highly remunerative price. We need not be too shocked with the liveliness of the Gaul in EASTER EGGS AND APRIL FISHES. 279 dissociating Easter Eggs from Eastertide thoughts. It needs the erudition of all our Folk-Lore Societies, all our contributors to Notes and Queries, all our Thorns and Baring- Goulds, to keep our OAvn English memories green touching the meaning of many of our own emblems and observances. Hot cross-buns explain themselves to the meanest comprehension. But how about the bean in the Twelfth-cake ? How about goose at Michaelmas (which has no more to do with Queen Elizabeth and the defeat of the Spanish Armada than with Queen Anne and the battle of Blenheim) ? How about Santa Clans, who comes down the chimney on New Year's-eve, and fills the shoes of the good children with toys and goodies, and the shoes of the naughty ones with birch-broom ? How about HalloAve'en '? Does one Scot in ten thousand know the real meaning of Hallowe'en ? Does any- body know it, save perhaps the lineal descendant of the last Druid, if such a man there be ? The world is growing very old; and the Sphinx, by times, is puzzled to find a solution for her own riddles. It was such a very long time ago that she propounded them. We must take the Easter Eggs for what they are worth, from two francs fifty upwards. Some archaeologists maintain that the gift- egg has nothing whatever to do with Easter, and that it is only a survival of the Homan sport ula, or little basket full of eggs, poultry, and other provisions, which the Roman patricians used to give away to their clients. In process of time the present in kind was commuted for a small money payment, whence the veiy ancient French proverb — I find it quoted by a Norman judge in one of the Year Books of Edward I. — ' Vous voulez et l'ceuf et la maille ' — You want the egg and the halfpenny too. Julian the apostate, distributing sportulce full of eggs at the Palais des Thermes, would make an interesting and attractive historical picture. The Maison Boissier on the Boulevard des Italiens, the Maison Brie, the Maison Giroux on the Boulevard des Capucines, and the Maison Siraudin in the Rue de la Paix, to say nothing of the great toy-shop of ' Les Enfants Sages' in the Passage Jouffroj'-, do not trouble themselves, I warrant you, about the conflict between 280 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. M, ~4oU<*r/nc — REMAINS OF THE PALAIS DES THEEMES. Pagan and Christian symbolism, about the Folk-Lore Society, or about Julian the Apostate. ' Etes-vous drole ? ' asked the proprietor of a cafe concert in the Champs Elysees of a youthful lady candi- date for an engagement. The fair aspirant replied that she was young and good-looking ; that she had a tolerable voice, plenty of EASTER EGGS AND APRIL FISHES. 281 long-tailed dresses, and a sufficiency of sham jewelry. ' That has nothing whatever to do with it,' persisted the practical proprietor. 'Etes-vous drole?' The young lady ventured to express the opinion that she had been found very droll indeed. ' Voila mon affaire,' cried the delighted proprietor, and he engaged the droll chanteuse at once. Excruciating drollery is conspicuous this year among the Easter Eggs. All the humours of the poultry-yard have been requisitioned. The proudly strutting and normally exasperated turkey-cock, the pugnacious bantam, the preter- naturally wise-looking owl, all the pigeon-tribe — ruffs, pouters, and almond tumblers — the grave and inoffensive goose, yea, even those storks and adjutant birds which Mr. Stacy Marks knows so well how to paint, have been pressed into the egg service. The Rev. J. G. Wood has seemingly been specially commissioned to teach the French shopkeepers the art 2S2 TALIS IIEUSELF AGAIN. of making birds'-nests. Now who can refrain from laughter at the spectacle of an owl playing on the flageolet, of a Dorking and a Cochin China in his plumed pantaloons and with spectacles on nose laboriously executing a duet for piano and violoncello, or of the lordly turkey-cock propelling a perambulator full of chickens just emerging from their shells ? The Maison Boissier, on its side, is great in peacocks ; but these are less ' droll ' than artistically grace- ful, and, to my think- ing, somewhat weird and mysterious. The egg is represented by the body of Juno's bird, with plumage of the most dazzling blue, and stuffed inside with sweetmeats. The tail — a real tail, mind — is gloriously displayed ; but the head is that of a young lady of the highest style of w T ax- doll beauty, crowned with a coiffure of the loveliest auburn tresses, arranged with an art that Truefitt might envy and that Isidore could not surpass. But why a head as fair as Phryne's on the body of a peacock ? Mystery. Why has the Old Serpent in Rafaelle's picture of the Temptation of Eve got the head of a beautiful woman in an Oriental turban ? Mystery again. These peacocks, which should be peahens, at the Maison Boissier began at last to frighten me. I came to look upon them as the sisters of the Stymphalides — birds gay of plumage, but ravenous of appetite and false of heart — birds that would fasten their talons in your quivering flesh and drive their sharp beaks right through EASTER EGGS AND APRIL FISHES. 283 your porte-monnaie and your cheque-book into your heart, and eat you up, body and bones, as the cassowary on the plains of Tim- buctoo ate up the missionary, hymn-book and all. The}' only wanted sixty francs for one of these beauteous but ominous Easter- egg birds ; but their Siren-like heads and iridescent tails filled me with a vague mistrust, and I would have none of them. The terra-cotta eggs, on the other hand, were really most delightfully artistic productions, skilfully modelled, and decorated with charming bas-reliefs. There were eggs in faience, or orna- mental pottery, too, painted with all manner of quaint devices ; and Easter Eggs of this kind may be said to be not only orna- mental but useful. A piece of tastefully-painted pottery is a thing of beauty and a joy for ever. Precisely the same remark will apply to the Easter Eggs in brilliantly-coloured and cunningly- worked ciystal, shown at ]*)r. Salviati's depot of ornamental Vene- tian glass, in the Paie de la Paix. Dr. Salviati — who certainly should have been commissioned to make Cinderella's glass slipper, had that chaussure been of ' verre ' instead of ' vair,' as Perrault really meant it to be — has ingeniously availed himself of the occa- sion of Eastertide to show the Parisians that glass eggs may be made of the most symmetrical form, and decorated with the very finest taste. I did not see any eggs in Byzantine mosaic in the Doctor's collection ; but what he has done in moulded and cut glass he could surely accomplish in vitreous tesserce. Passing from the genuinely artistic Easter Eggs, we enter a very large and important domain, in which the egg, although it forms the mainspring of the scheme, is substantially subordinate to another most conspicuous article de Paris, the Doll. Thousands of poupe'es have suddenly been converted into variations of Mr. Millais' fascinating picture of 'New-laid Eggs.' Numbers of other well-known pictures have likewise been prettily parodied from the egg point of view. Mignon regrets the land of the citron and the myrtle no more. She holds a basket full of eggs, and is as happy as the bees in May. Greuze's disconsolate damsel has thrown away her 'cruche cassee,' and, drying her tears, is full of smiles 284 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. over a large egg. Gretchen sings the Spinning- Wheel song, or nulls her Passion-flower to pieces, snugly ensconced in the centre of an egg. Dolls dressed as the 'Hanlon-Lee's' — those wondrous c< mtortionists — perform astounding feats of acrobatic agilit}' on the surface of an egg. They reminded me of the late Baron Nathan executing his inimitable pas seul among the eggs and the cups and saucers at RosherviUe. Dear Rosherville ! Charming abode of shrimps, chalk, and roses. The egg-eluding Baron has long since joined the Immortals ; and I shall spend no more happy days at Rosherville. It is, nevertheless, tolerably pleasant here, among the eggs and the dolls. They are more edifying than the Parlia- mentary Debates. They are more amusing than Societ}\ They do not expect to be amused. They amuse you. Wheaten and oaten straw, artificial flowers and particoloured ribbons, play a very prominent part in the adornment of the eggs, which themselves are sometimes dyed in various colours or gilt. Going down to the great toy-shops of the Paie Vivienne, the Pure St. Honore, and especially the 'Enfants Sages' in the Passage Jouffroy, I found the Easter Egg losing its luxurious, losing its decorative, but retaining a recreative, and asserting a practical, character. What do you think of an egg containing a complete batterie de cuisine, pots and pans, foum&an e'eonomique, and all? An egg holdinga complete rnobilier for a doll, chairs, tables, sofas, cabinets, looking-glasses, bed and bedding, likewise attracted much attention in ' Aux Enfants Sages,' as did also an egg which served as a receptacle for a complete parlour photographic apparatus ; an egg full of gymnastic appliances; and an egg which, on being opened, disclosed a baby doll in her cradle. I did not see any eggs that were full of books, or slates, or maps, or pretty little tiny educa- tional kickshaws of that sort ; indeed, I scarcely think that Easter Eggs of that nature would be highly popular among the joyous components of the Deluge of Boys and Girls, who will speedily overrun the Boulevards and the passages of Paris, and, till Easter- tide be over, carry all before them. AT THE FOIEE AUX JAMBONS (BY CHAM). * You see, old timber-toes, you're not the only one who has lost his shanks.' XIX. THE GREAT HAM FAIE. Good Friday. I have seen the great Eastertide Ham Fair on the Boulevard Richard Lenoir, hard by the Bastille Column; still, like Mr. Toole in the burlesque, 'I am not happy.' There was a plenitude of brawn, hams, ' tub ' pork, sausages, and continental substitutes for Bath chaps, on the Boulevard Richard Lenoir; but what is a fan without the Bearded Lady, Mr. Chopps the Dwarf, and the Spotted Girl ? and on Thursday where were they ? Chopps, indeed, I had set eyes on in the flesh so recently as last Monday afternoon. It was on the Boulevard du Temple, and in the rez- de-chaussee of an unfinished house there had been installed, until such time as the plaster should dry, a penny show, of which a dwarf was the leading attraction. The canvas partition, screen- ing off the arcana of the show from the street, was but an exiguous k 28G TARIS HERSELF AGAIN. one, and from the victoria in which I was riding I could descry quite plainly Chopps's eligible two-storied residence, and the right hand and arm of Chopps himself, vehemently ringing his hell for that hot water for shaving which apparently is never brought him. At least, to my personal knowledge, he has been ringing that bell at fairs all over Europe for the last forty years, without any hot water making its appearance. "When I saw the little, lean, withered hand and arm protruding from the topmost casement of the eligible residence, and thought of the poor little stunted man- ikin crouched inside his box, with his chin between his knees, I said to myself exultingly, ' He is moving up. He is accomplish- ing the journey from the Madeleine to the Bastille by easy stages. He will reach the Chateau d'Eau to-morrow, and on Thursday he will be at the Foire aux Jambons.' Not in the least. Thursday came and went, but there was no Mr. Chopps the Dwarf. The absence of the Bearded Lady I could better account for. Her pro- prietor may be the self-same exemplary gentleman who owns the Alsatian Giantess. Now this gentleman happens to be a ' bien pensant,' a ' pratiquant,' a clericalist, and he has resolutely refused to allow his colossal pensionnaire to appear in public during Pas- sion-week. ' Apres Paques, a la bonne heure ; pendant la Semaine Sainte, jamais de la vie ! ' Such has been the decision of this right-thinking impresario, to whom it is rumoured the Univers and the Gazette de France are not indisposed to favour the get- ting-up of a testimonial. Maybe he owns La Femme a Barbe as well as the Geante Alsacienne, and that both prodigies are sitting secluded at home, eating salt fish and reading good books until ' Paques ' comes. But where was the Spotted Girl ? In September 1870, when panic was reigning in the south of France, and the irruption of the Germans into the smiling plains of the Midi was hourly expected, the terrified nomads, who are permanently on the tramp in France in the showman interests, were driven by stress of politics to form a kind of camp on the outskirts of Lyons, through which city I was passing on my road to Pome. The encamp- THE GREAT HAM FAIR. 287 ment of nomads was about the oddest spectacle that I had ever gazed upon out of the etched 'Habits and Beggars' of Jacques Callot. All the giants and giantesses, the femmes a barbe, the hommes-poissons, the dwarfs, the wild men of the woods who devour live fowls coram popuh; the learned pigs, the dancing bears, the educated wolves, the choregraphic dogs and monkeys — all the acrobats and mountebanks, the saltimbanques and pail- lasses in the country, seemed gathered together under canvas, or in their vans, in a great field close to La Croix Eousse. It was the strangest of fairs, for there was no concourse of sight-seers to patronise the prodigies. The big drum was silent, no cymbals clanged, and no cries of 'Walk up ! ' were audible. Lyons, in truth, was in no mood for merrymaking. The Republic, Democratic and Social, had got, for the moment, the upper hand. The Red Flag was waving over the city ; the tocsin was ringing lustily ; and platforms, covered with scarlet baize, were erected in the principal streets for the enrolment of volunteers. Drunken francs-tireurs were swaggering about, armed to the teeth, and inclined to arrest everybody who had a decent coat on his back as a Prussian spy ; and Respectability sat apart, looking very nervous as it read that Rentes were down to 41, and with the ends of its white cravat pendant and extremely limp. I passed most of my time in the fair where there were no fairings; I strolled from prodigy to pro- digy, the sole patron of the shows; and I became the unique interlocutor of no less than three Spotted Girls. "Where are those maculated damsels now ? At the Foire aux Jambons not one was to be seen. I had seen it announced in the Voltaire, the Revolution Frangaise, the Rappel, and other popular journals, that the Great Ham Fair would begin ' irrevocablement ' on Monday. Hundreds of baroques or sheds had, according to these veracious prints, been already erected ; the arrivals of porcine delicacies were enormous ; the ' installation ' was superb, and the ' affluence ' of spectators immense. So on Morula}', after breakfast, I hired a victoria by the hour, and bade the cocker drive me to the fair. He was a 288 PABIS HERSELF AGAIN. stout wide man, with a permanent, albeit somewhat lethargic, smile on his pale fat countenance. I was very particular in telling him that it was the ' Foire aux Jambons ' which I wished to visit. 'L-a F-o-i-r-e a-u-x J-a-m-b-o-n-s,' he repeated after me with me- chanical precision. ' Allons, Coco ! ' — Coco was seemingly the name of his horse,— and away we rumbled. The great line of boulevards was unusually quiet ; and after we had passed the ever-bustling Boulevard Montmartre, the tranquillity of the main artery of Paris life was to me almost depressing. We did not pass anybody who THE GREAT HAM FAIR. 289 looked as though he was going to the fair ; but, on the other hand, we met no less than four funerals coining westward. There does not seem to exist in France any kind of public feeling against what we stigmatise in England as ' undertaking extravagance,' or in favour of ' economy in Funerals.' The Paris- ians appear to be perfectly well satisfied with their existing mor- tuary arrangements. The 'police of death' is, in particular, admirably managed. ' Les vingt-quatre heures ' is the limit inex- orably fixed for delay in consigning our dear brother departed to the tomb ; and within those twenty-four hours the mortal coil of our brother, be he a Senator or a chijfbnnier, must be put under ground. The administration of the Pompes Funebres, or National Undertaking Establishment, gives, to all appearance, equal satis- faction to the public at large. That which is known in English undertaking parlance as the ' party ' may be interred as cheaply or as expensively as his relatives desire. There are funerals as low as 12f. 50c, including a corner in the Fosse Commune. But the executors may spend 10,000f. on an enterrement cle premiere classe if they like ; but, the transaction being strictly a cash one, it is rarely that any very exceptional outlay in funeral pomps and vanities is indulged in. In England a fashionable undertaker never thinks of sending in his bill until the expiration of a twelvemonth, while we are prone, sometimes very un- justly, to grumble at the charges of the ready - money undertakers. Grumbling among our neighbours in this respect would be gratuitous, since the Pompes Funebres have a tariff of charges for accessories as exhaustive as the price-lists of the Cooperative Stores. On the whole, a French funeral, however gloomily grand it may be, scarcely merits the sneering qualification given to English burials by Charles Dickens — that of ' a masquerade dipped in ink.' There is not much hypocrisy about the French ceremonial. If the family VOL. II. u 290 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. COACHMAN OF THE POMPES FUXEBRES. ^f the deceased be a secularly-minded one, the body is not taken to church at all, but goes ' right away ' to the cemetery. Moreover the friends of the departed not specially invited to attend as jaourners make it a point of honour to follow the hearse on foot to the cemetery. For example, I passed on Monday one very grand cortege. The bier, drawn by four horses, was heaped high with wreaths of THE GREAT HAM FAIR. 291 camellias, white geraniums, and the exquisite pale violets of the season. The surname of the departed began, apparently, with a 'P,' since scrolls and badges of black velvet, worked in silver with the initial ' P,' appeared on the bier, on the horsecloths, and on the hammercloths of the mourning-coaches, fifteen in number. At least a score of private carriages followed. The attendance on foot was small. The next funeral was that, seemingly, of a French Protestant, as an ecclesiastic, in the simple, austere, but dignified habit of a Calvinist pastor, walked, open Bible in hand, immedi- ately after the hearse. A single mourning-coach, full of the tear- ful wistful faces of children, preceded the hearse — concluisait le deull, to use the technical term. Friends followed in hired coupes, in victorias, and, in the case of one party, in an omnibus. A third funeral was that apparently of some well-to-do and highly esteemed member of the working classes. ' Foreman in a pianoforte manu- factory,' the stout cocher remarked over his shoulder. How did he know ? But there is a strange freemasonry among the driving fraternity. A wink or the movement of the finger from the driver of the passing hearse may have sufficed thoroughly to enlighten my cocher as to the social status of the deceased. One mourning- •coach led the procession; one private carriage, possibly that of the •dead man's ' patron ; ' but behind the corbillard walked six abreast, and in good military order, at least five hundred men, women, and ■children, all decently dressed, all wearing some sign of mourning, but otherwise with a cheerful every-day, and not by any means hypocritical, guise. Some of the women had little baskets on their arms, containing, probably, flowers for the grave ; possibly lunch. Perhaps both. Why not? It was, to my mind, a very sensible and comfortable way of doing things. The men walked shoulder to shoulder ; tile women, deftly holding up their skirts, trudged steadily over the muddy stones. They were going to see the last of ' le camarade,' 'le brave homme.' Some comrade with the gift of speech would make a neat oration over the open tomb ; and then there would be a general adjournment to the neighbour- ing cabarets, and the ' litre a seize ' — the quart of wine at eight- U 2 202 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. pence — together with the 'petit Bordeaux,' or one-sou cigar, would be in general demand. The French workman is in his way as great a stickler for etiquette as the loftiest dowager of the Faubourg St. Germain. At marriages and funerals the pipe is tabooed, and cigars must be smoked. But I did not find any Foire aux Jambons on reaching the Boulevard Richard Lenoir. * C'est pour jeudi,' the pale fat coachman tranquilly observed. Evidently he had been well aware of that fact all along, but had not thought fit to lose the chance of a few hours' hiring ; but that the grin on his countenance was evi- dently a chronic one, like that of Victor Hugo's ' Homme qui rit/ I should have deemed that he was mocking me. As it was, I sulkily bade him drive me back to habitable Paris again. The Voltaire and the other popular prints had evidently misled me, or had been themselves misled, and there would be no Great Ham Fair until Thursday. So acutely, indeed, did I feel the deception of which I had been the victim that yesterday, when I again undertook a pilgrimage to the Boulevard Richard Lenoir — Richard was, by the way, a distinguished cotton-spinner under the First Empire, and did a great deal for Napoleon after the return from Elba — I was reluctant to believe; until I was actually in the middle of the fair, that any Foire aux Jambons would be held at all. It began, it must be confessed, but poorly. Rag Fair was but a squalid prelude to an exhibition of pig-meat ; yet there com- menced, at the Chateau d'Eau, and continued for at least five hundred j^ards, one of the most astonishing heterogeneous open- air markets that I have ever beheld. There were a few stalls, and perhaps half a dozen booths ; but in the great majority of cases the objects on sale were laid out on the bare earth of the Boulevard esplanade. Locks, keys, bolts, bars, fireirons, kitchen utensils, chains, dog-collars, nails, screws, hooks, workmen's tools of every conceivable form and in every imaginable stage of rust and dilapidation, shop-counters and fittings, apothecaries' jars and nests of ' dummy ' drawers for drugs, ragged carpets, lace curtains and rolls of matting, pottery and glass, umbrellas and sticks, THE GREAT HAM FAHl. 293 cheap prints and photographs, candlesticks and chimney orna- ments, oil-paintings — yes, paintings in oil ; hut such pictures and such frames ! — all these were displayed in groups and heaps, in single or in serried rows, on either side the esplanade, which was crowded by a multitude of working people, bonnes, children > grisettes, female cooks and housekeepers to petits rentiers, and 294 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. peasants from the outlying villages, in true villageois sabots, striped nightcaps, and bonnets blancs. There were a few seminarists, and a considerable number of private soldiers. Everything on sale seemed to have been cracked, battered, and broken, re-mended and re-smashed half a dozen times ; and the merchants who sat, or rather squatted, at the receipt of custom, seemed to have been in early life either the rank and file of Falstaff 's ragged regiment, or the vivandieres and female camp-followers attached to that historical corps. I never saw such a Bezesteen of rusty and mouldy rattletraps. The squalor of the scene was only relieved by a sprinkling of stalls devoted to the sale of bright-coloured lollipops and of ginger- bread — solid wedges of pain d'epice, thickly studded with almonds. No gilt gingerbread kings and queens, however, no cock-a-doodle- doos in pantaloons. No Bearded Lady, no Mr. Chopps the Dwarf, no Spotted Girl. At length, when I was beginning to fear that the line of rags and rusty rubbish would stretch to the crack of doom, the real Foire aux Jambons began. There were really hundreds of baraques or huts — rude constructions of timber covered with tarpaulin — lining each side of the esplanade ; but the spectacle was at first sight depressing. The French are doubtless very excellent curers of ham and bacon, but they do not cure their swine's meat a good colour. I missed the golden crimson and white of English "Wiltshire, and the rich contrasts of Devonshire ' streaky.' The pickled or ' tub ' pork may have been wholesome and palatable, but in texture it was coarse, and in hue an ashen gray. The sausages, too, were very disappointing to an eye accustomed to our plump Cambridges, to our ruddy polonies, and especially to our comely and shining ' chicken-and-hams.' The only stout French sausage is the ' petite saucisse a Tail.' The rest of the species are, as a rule, wizened attenuated things, dull in colour, looking very hard and dry, and rendered additionally inelegant by the dis- coloured salty rime which has oozed through their skins. The hams were much more agreeable to look upon. 'Jambons d'Yorck * were freely offered by dealers coming — so the etiquette above their /7TS^^ wtC tSC An Alsatian Baraque at the Great Ham Fair. II. 2 05 . THE GREAT HAM FAIR. 295 stalls proclaimed, from the Departments of the Meuse and the Ain, which are certainly not in Yorkshire ; hut in one instance some really fine-looking hams were announced as a ' provenance clirecte du Yorkshire — produits de MM. Hope et Cie. et Bingley et Cie.' This unimpeachahly English exhibit was proudly sur- mounted by an ensign emblazoned with the Royal Amis of Eng- land. There was one imposing baroque at the entrance of the fair exclusively devoted to the sale of hams, ' sides,' ' chaps,' and sausages, made from the flesh of horses, mules, and asses. I was repeatedly invited to 'taste and try' by generous dealers who were continually shaving off slices from their wares to tempt the palates of potential customers ; but I could not screw my courage to the sticking-place of tasting donkey-sausage or horse-ham. And yet Bologna sausage is avowedly made from ass's flesh, and is undeni- ably good eating. It is quite possible that I have eaten, in my time, in the course of many journeys, and under many disguises, a whole squadron of troop horses, saddles, bridles, shoes, and all ; yet I could not yesterday persuade myself to accept the invitation of ' goutez done' I will try to accept it next time. That is always the plea of the prejudiced. The Alsatians and the Lorrainers were, it is almost needless to say, in great force. Many of the marchandes wore the pictur- esque costumes of their districts ; and what with the inscription of ' Die aller Beste ' above the baraques, and the guttural hum of Teutonic talk, I should not have been surprised to have met ' l'Ami Fritz ' with ' Madame Therese ' on his arm, or to have found myself en plein comite of all the characters so graphically incarnated by MM. Erckmann-Chatrian. There was a large con- tingent of salt pork from Cincinnati, Chicago, and Philadelphia, and the booths set apart for Transatlantic produce were gaily deco- rated with the American flag. There were no sausages — that I could see, at least — under the protection of the Stars and Stripes. The Pyrenean section of the Fair was certainly the most pictur- esque portion of the display. Numbers of the dealers wore the costumes of the factors of the Basque Provinces ; and if he who 296 TARIS HERSELF AGAIN. drives fat oxen should himself be fat, it was, assuredly, appropriate that pig-jobbers and pork-factors from Bayonne and San Juan de liuz, from La Hendaye, and even from Pamplona, should wear, as they did yesterday, hats of the ' porkpie ' fashion. The small Bayonne hams were in prime condition, and as richly brown in hue as the back of a Stradivarius fiddle. A slice of Bayonne ham with some garbanzos, or, better still, the Mexican frijoles or black-skinned beans, or even, at a pinch, with some chick-peas, is a dish for an Alcalde Mayor. There were some Venta de Car- denas hams quoted at the Foire aux Jambons yesterday. I looked around in vain for Sancho Panca and his wallet, but the faithful squire was no more present than were the Bearded Lady, Mr. Chopps the Dwarf, and the Spotted Girl. Perhaps there will be some other fairs in or near Paris ere Eastertide is over, where the real shows and the real prodigies will make their appearance. ' Your hams are not so good as last year's.' 1 Excuse me, they all come from the same pig.' XX. AT THE 'ASSOMMOIR.' Easier Sunday. That Deluge of Schoolboys and School- girls of which I recently ventured to anti- cipate the advent has come ; but the inundation has not been by any means of an overwhelming nature. It is a windy Deluge, a half-frozen Deluge. The 'small infantry' are marching about with blue noses and chattering teeth ; and their papas and mammas, for all their woollen cache-nez and their fur-lined mantles, are shivering. A treacherously bright sun is shining, but in the shade it is as cold as an old-fashioned Christ- mas. The Bulletin de VObservatoire is good enough to inform us that the barome- trical pressure in the Mediterranean re- mains very feeble, and that a fresh fall 298 TARIS HERSELF AGAIN. of eight minutes is telegraphed from Sicily. Northern winds continue to predominate in Western Europe ; and in Denmark a ' centre ' is in course of depression, whence we ma} r expect a series of north-west gales in the Channel. Frosts have been fre- quent in the North and the centre of France. Snow has fallen on three successive days in Paris. So has hail. On this actual Easter-day a kind of frozen dust seems to he blowing about the boulevards. It sparkles beautifully in the sunshine, but it peppers your face painfully, as though it were dust-shot. The cafes are tolerably full outside, but the customers are drink- ing ' grogs americains,' ' ponches au ouiski,' and ' vins chauds/ The waiters are offering to place hot-water cans, instead of petits bancs, under the feet of the ladies ; and the ancient dame at the corner of the Passage Yerdeau, who, so long ago as last Sunday, seemed to have resolutely adopted the sale of violets, has aban- doned her spring novelties, and once more makes a wintry appear- ance as a vendor of roasted chestnuts. It is too cold to roam about the boulevards, to court tooth- ache, faceache, and earache. It is too cold to go to the races. It is far too cold to undertake a pilgrimage to the great Gingerbread Fair, at the Barriere du Trone — although I am informed that the Bearded Lady, Mr. Chopps the Dwarf, and the Spotted Girl have been seen in the flesh in the Avenue de Yincennes, and I shall be thus bound in honour to visit the Foire aux Pain d'Epices before it closes. Meanwhile I cannot do better, perhaps, than kindle a fresh log on the hearth, wrap myself up in an extra rail- way rug or two, and sit down to narrate some curious dramatic experiences which I underwent last night at the Theatre de l'Am- bigu Comique. At the theatre in question they have been playing these three months and more a dramatical version of M. Emile Zola's strictly moral and inexpressibly revolting novel of L'Assom- moir, now in its fifty-fourth or fifty-sixth edition — I forget which. The hundredth representation of L'Assommoir took place on Good Friday, when — the better the day the better the deed — the management of the Ambigu generously threw open its doors, and AT THE ' ASSOMMOIK.' 299 gave a gratuitous performance to the public. The entertainment was, I hear, numerously and brilliantly attended. I own that when I arrived in Paris I had not the remotest wish or intention of going to see MM. Gastineau and Busnach's version of M. £mile Zola's sickening story. I read the Assom- moir twice over, and every word of it, two years ago, at Nice ; and consigning it, with La Fllle Elisa and other productions of a similar type, to a certain pigeon-hole in my memory, I troubled nry head no more about it. Life is not long enough to discuss M. Zola's crudities from the point of view of Art. But it happened that on Thursday, the day of my visit to the Great Ham Fair, the existence of the Assommoir was recalled in a quite accidental and sufficiently singular manner to my mind. During the early por- tion of the afternoon we had, on the Boulevard Richard Lenoir, a spell of that treacherous sunshine of which I spoke just now. The dingy sausages, the pallid bacon, the cloudy hams, were all glorified in the flood of golden light. So, in the Riviera di Levante, on a winter's morning, does all nature wear a gloriously bright appearance. The sky is cobalt, the distant hills are ultra- marine ; the feathery palms wave proudly, or glint in sparkling sheen like the great peacock-fans that were borne processionally before the Pope on St. Peter's-day ; the olive and orange groves are so many centres of glowing splendour. But anon a per- verse twist in the elements brings the mistral upon you. In an instant the sea turns to a muddy indigo, and the sky to a dirty drab. The feathery palms become so many ragged worn-out mops. Can those inky cliffs be the Maritime Alps ? Can those ashen gra} r dusty patches be groves of olives and oranges ? Anon rain raindrops, as big as franc-pieces, come pattering down ; and then the driving rain-storm descends in one great, crashing, blinding, vertical sheet, sparing nothing, and strewing the Riviera with ruthlessly wrenched-off tree-branches and the bodies of dead birds. We had a thoroughly Levantine rain-storm at the Great Ham Fair on Thursday. The torrent struck the ground with such 300 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. violence as once more to verify the old geometrical axiom of the angle of reflection being equal to the angle of incidence ; and the rain, after soaking through us downwards, splashed up again into our eyes. The sausage and bacon folks made haste to cover up their commodities with tarpaulins, ensconced themselves in pen- dent fragments thereof, and became invisible. The whole fair, as if by magic, disappeared. It was a Pompeii ingulfed by water instead of lava and scoriae. As for the crowd of spectators, they did as the Pompeians of old did — they ran for it. Waterproofs were not of much avail, and umbrellas were in vain. I struck out at hazard for the nearest buildings. I was repulsed from several •portes-cocliercs, already overcrowded with dripping fugitives ; but at length, when I was beginning to contemplate seriously the con- tingency of being carried away bodily by the flood into the Canal St. Martin, I brought up safely in the anchorage of an enormous brasserie. What its sign or title may have been I have not the slightest idea. Suppose I call it the Brasserie Free and Easy. It was certainly as spacious as a second-rate London music-hall ; but, with the exception of a few big mirrors, it was almost entirely destitute of decoration, the walls and fittings being stained of a monotonous oak colour. There were scores of plain japanned iron tables, with wooden stools, rush-bottomed, scattered about. The bar, or comptoir, was of inordinate length, and covered with ill- polished pewter. This and the wall behind were garnished with bottles of all sorts and sizes, containing, I suppose, a variety of liquors ; since, although the establishment called itself a brasserie, and ' bocks ' of a tawny-coloured and dully creaming beer were being plentifully consumed, the place was manifestly a dramshop — pctits verves of brandy, rum, cassis, and other preparations of the ' schnick ' kind being in continuous demand. Nothing to eat that I could see was supplied ; and no wine was being drunk. Behind the counter sat a stout square old lady, with no per- ceptible neck. She was in dingy black ; but she wore massive gold bracelets ; and on her pudgy, and not very clean, hands glit- tered a number of rings. I think that she must have been AT THE ' ASSOMMOIR.' 301 asthmatic. I imagine that she was plethoric. At all events, she toiled not, neither did she spin. She did nothing but sit there, gasping and wheezing, and surveying with two lack-lustre eyes, intimately resembling a brace of bullets, the scene before her. She was flanked on either side bj^ a dame de comptoir — one long, lean, middle-aged, and sour-looking ; the other youthful, fleshy, and saucy. The first seemed to have reached the acetous, the other had attained only the vinous, stage of fermentation. It was the acetous lady who kept the books and scolded the waiters ; the vinous damsel only dispensed the sugar and joked with the cus- tomers. The waiters were of both sexes, and about the strangest types of either that I have beheld for a long time. Rarely, as regards the first, have I gazed upon such an assemblage of raw- boned young men, with red heads and lantern jaws. Each gwrgon carried in front of his dirty apron a well-worn leathern pouch for receiving money and giving change. Cash on delivery was appa- rently the rule strictly observed at the Brasserie Free and Easy ; and for the first time in my life, at a French house of public enter- tainment, I was asked to pay for my consommation before I had consumed it. I daresay that the waiter did not like my looks. I feel certain that the majority of the general company present did not relish them any more than those of the half score strangers who, like myself, had been driven by stress of weather to take refuge in the Brasserie Free and Easy. To a much greater extent did our advent appear to be distaste- ful to the female attendants. It is from the mien and behaviour of these young ladies that I have deduced the title which I have ventured to attach to the brasserie. I have called the ladies young. That is a j xicon cle parlcr, and there is no harm in paying a compliment even to Mother Shipton, were you to meet her hobbling about Kentish Town way ; but, in strict reality, please to imagine at this curious tavern half a score of strapping tawny- haired women, clad in flaring travesties of the costumes of the peasantry in Alsace-Lorraine. They, too, carried money-bags at their waists. They had nothing to do with the dispensation of 302 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. ' bocks.' Serving beer they left disdainfully to the garcons, and attended themselves only to the dram-drinking department. When, for example, a gentleman called for a petit verve — the swallowing of raw spirits was the rule — a strapping woman, bearing a bottle and two glasses, strode to the customer's table, gave him his dram, and then comfortably drew a rush-bottomed stool to the table, filled herself a glass from the bottle, and entered into friendly con- versation with the habitue. I suppose that she drank at his expense. In the course of half an hour which I passed under the hospitable roof of the Brasserie Free and Easy I watched one tawny-haired lady toss off no less than four petits verves. Of how many, I wondered, could she partake in the course of the eighteen hours during which the Brasserie remains open ? I have nothing to say derogatoiy to the lady's manners or morals. ' Liquoring up ' with a pratique may be the custom in Alsace-Lorraine, if the lady came from either. I only note the occurrence as an odd one. But as I mused and mused on the scene presented to my eyes, •even an odder series of impressions took possession of my mind. I had never seen all these people before, but where had I read about them ? I have forgotten to mention that behind the bar- counter, in addition to the fat old lady who wheezed and her two assistants, there was a pale dissipated young fellow, in a justau- corps of black velveteen, and a flaring silk kerchief carelessly knotted round his neck. He was munching, with a stale and accustomed air, a toothpick ; yet he seemed to be in some kind of authority in the place. He was the fils de la maison, the landlady's son, perchance ; yet he might have been a billiard- marker out of emplo} T , or a petit calicot trade-fallen. Most as- suredly, so far as appearances went, he might have been a journeyman hatter by the name of Lantier. After this things began to assume the semblance of a dream. That brawny yellow- bearded fellow, in his tucked-up shirt-sleeves and his long black leather apron : who could he have been but the virtuous black- smith Goujet, otherwise ' Gueule d'Or ' ? The little white-headed purple-faced man, in rusty black, with the enormous red and AT THE ' ASSOMMOIR.' 303 white-spotted pocket-handkerchief? "Without a doubt that must have been the bibulous M. Bazouges, ' Consolateur des Dames,' and employe of the Pompes Funebres. Monsieur and Madame Lorilleux were sitting at a remote table apart, glowering over a ' bock,' and whispering calumny of their neighbours. ' Bee-Sale ' and ' Mes Bottes ' were already three parts intoxicated ; and as for the wretched Coupeau and the more wretched Gervaise, not one GERVAISE AXD COUPEAU AT THE ASSO3IM01R. 304 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. but fifty types of those victims of alcohol seemed to me to be present. Steady, soddened, almost silent tippling was in the ascendant here. All the old gaiety of the French character seemed flown. ' Bibi la Grillade ' sang no songs ; the Pere Colombe had no jokes to crack ; ' la Grande Virginie,' looking with wrathful eyes at her old enemy Gervaise, forgot to be coquettish ; and even the jovial Madame Boche, albeit stout and thirsty as ever, had lost her gaiety. I looked round in vain for the appearance of the Great Still with its worm that never dies, but which has been the means of the death of so many hundreds of thousands of people. Other- wise, and upon my word, I should have taken the Brasserie Free and Easy for the veritable and original ' Assommoir' itself. I was glad to get out of the place, which smelt sickly, and, besides, gave one the horrors. I had not recognised the type of M. Poisson, the sergent de ville, at any of the tables ; but I found him, in full municipal uniform, on the boulevard, with his impassible ' stone-wall ' face, attentively watching all who went in and all who came out. Very possibly Monsieur Poisson and other of his brother municipals are frequently called upon to pay pro- fessional visits to the Brasserie Free and Easy. It was scarcely four in the afternoon when I left its hospitable shelter, and the topers were then quiet enough. By ten or eleven at night the company, I should say, are apt to get somewhat lively. I found the cab which I had engaged long since by the hour, but which Monsieur Poisson and his colleagues would not permit to penetrate into the precincts of the fair, at a wine -shop close to the Chateau d'Eau. While I was getting wet through the driver had managed to lunch comfortably, and had then ensconced himself in the interior of the vehicle, and had gone as comfortably to sleep. A wise cabman. I bade this sage drive me home ; but halt by the way at the bureau de location of the Ambigu Comique. ' Yes,' I said to myself, 'I would see the Assommoir on the stage.' Everything was let for that evening, and Friday was ' spectacle gratuit ; ' but I managed to secure two fauteuils de balcon for Saturday, which were sold to me at what I consider to be the AT THE ' ASSOMMOIR.' 305 unconscionable price of nine francs each. I call it unconscionable, since the dramatic status of the Ambigu is certainly not above that of a third-rate theatre in London. The price of places at all the Paris theatres appears, however, to a stranger to be excessive ; and the managers plead that the}' are compelled to charge highly for admission to their houses — first, because a manager, like other human beings, has only three skins, and in the case of a Parisian manager one skin is claimed by the dramatist as droits d'auteur, while another is mercilessly stripped off by the Administration de Bienfaisance as droits despauvres. Ten per cent, of the gross re- ceipts to the author, and ten per cent, to the poor — how much of the net profits is left, it is piteously asked, for the manager ? Concerning the Assommoir, as a drama, it is not necessary that in this place I should say much ; first, because the piece on the occasion of its production was exhaustively criticised in the French papers ; next, because a good deal of that which I witnessed on the stage of the Ambigu I had already seen — or fancied that I had seen — at the Brasserie Free and Easy ; and, finally, because I find it currently reported in the French press that an English version of the Assommoir is to be forthwith produced at a London theatre.* It would be thus certainly premature, and perhaps unfair, to dis- cuss the chances of this remarkable picture of manners finding any kind of acceptation — much more success — on the English stage. It is a problem which only the event can prove. There is another reason, too, why I am unable to analyse the Assommoir conscien- tiously as a play. I sat out seven of the I know not how many tableaux of which the drama is composed : the squalid garret scene, with the abandonment of Gervaise by Lantier, the lavoir or laundry scene, with the abominable fight between Gervaise and Virginie — an unconscious parody of the Homeric battle-royal of Molly Sea- grim and her foes in the churchyard, in Tom Jones ; the Boulevard de la Chapelle scene, with the eloquent apostrophe in favour of temperance delivered to a knot of drunken workmen by the virtuous * At the Princess's, where, with considerable modifications, it has made its appearance under the title of Drink. vol. n. x 30G PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. blacksmith, ' Gueule d'Or ; ' the restaurant garden-scene, with the double-wedding feast of Gervaise and Coupeau and Virgime and Poisson ; the street scene, with the fall of Coupeau from the house- THE FALL OF COUPEAU FROM THE HOUSE-ROOF. roof; the grand dinner scene on Gervaise's saint's- day, with the humours of < Mes Bottes ' and Madame Boche, and the Mephisto- AT THE ' ASSOMMOIR.' 307 philic reappearance of Lantier ; and the scene of the Brasserie Free and Easy — I mean of the Assommoir itself, minus the free- and-easy females with the tawny hair, who took nips of raw spirits with the customers. But having seen these seven tableaux, I began to feel weary. I felt a great ' exposition of sleep ' coming on. I felt faint, as though I wanted oysters, or chops, or something. The sordid characters on the stage had been eating and drinking and smoking and gabbling for three mortal hours and a half. Everybody had changed his or her shabby garments three or four times over. It was a masquerade of rags — a carnaval de haillons ; a combination of the Descente de la Courtille and Petticoat Lane. I daresay that it was all very realistic ; but so is Seven Dials on a Saturday night. Seven times had the curtain descended. Did not mad Nat Lee once write a tragedy in twent} r -two acts ? ' Enough ! ' I cried at last. ' Assez comme ca de s'encanailler.' I was told that there was a beautiful scene coming of a padded room at a hospital, where the alcoholised Coupeau, in the saltatory stage of delirium tremens, dances himself to death. I had read all about that ; and I should prefer the ballet of the Tarantula to Coupeau's alcoholic jig. I thought that I would not wait for the discovery of the remains of Gervaise in the hole under the staircase, and ' quite green ; ' so I went to bed, and dreamed that, in the thirtieth tableau or so of MM. Gastineau and Busnach's drama, ' Sir Lawson Wilfred, Ba- ronet Anglais,' assisted by ' l'Eveque Colenso de Cantorberi ' and ' the Pieverend Jonbigoffe, Pasteur Americain,' had induced Coupeau and Gervaise to take the pledge ; prosecuted the villanous Lantier to conviction for obtaining hats under false pretences ; assisted ' Bibi la Grillade ' and ' Mes Bottes ' to emigrate to Queensland ; enlisted the youthful Nana in the Band of Hope, and obtained a permanent situation for the sable-clad Bazouges as a Totally- Abstaining Mute in the employ of the Temperance Funerals Com- pany. x 2 LE C'APHARNAHUM OV L'OX KIT. XXI. GINGERBREAD FAIR. April 16. I should have very much liked Professor Henry Morley to have been present with me at the Foire au Pain d'Epices — the great Gingerbread Fair — which was opened in the presence of an enor- mous concourse of sightseers on Easter Monday, and which will enjoy an existence of three whole weeks. The learned author of GINGERBREAD FADR. 309 the Annals of Bartholomew Fair might have discovered many points of contact, in the way of humours and characteristics, between the existing gingerbread festival at the Barriere du Trone and the extinct saturnalia of Old Smithneld. One cannot carry all the scenes and characters in Ben Jonson's wonderful comedy verbatim ct literatim in one's head ; else might I institute a toler- A MAKCHANDE DE GATEAUX oil) PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. ably close parallel between the phenomena and the personages so powerfully portrayed in Bartholomew Fair and the prodigies and people visible among the booths at the rond point of the Barrier and in the Cours de Yincennes. Certain I am, however, that Lanthorn Leatherhead was at the Foire aii Pain d'Epices with his puppets; that Dame Ursula, if she were not selling roast pig and bottled ale, was dispensing galette piping hot ; and that the Pari- sian Fail' was as full of gaping rustics, cynical cockneys, ' roving blades,' and downright sharpers and cut-purses, as was the 'Bartlemy ' of old. The French friend with whom I took counsel prior to visiting the affair advised me to go thither in a strictly buttoned-up con- dition. Fairs and racecourses he declared • fourmillaient de pick- pockets ; ' but he was good enough to add, by way of rider, that the great majority of ' ces messieurs' were English thieves. The French have a curious habit of fathering their little weaknesses in the way of vice and immorality upon us. In the not-to-be-for- gotten play of L'Assommoir at the Ambigu — I have the taste of it in my mouth still — one of the topers at the colossal dram-shop incidentally mentions that in a ' gin-palasse ' in the Strand, London, he has seen a ' colivire ' — presuuiabl}- a coalheaver — swallow twelve glasses of brandy in succession. Now the traditional custom of the British ' coaley ' is, I apprehend, after consuming as many pints of beer as he can conveniently carry until the delivery of the next wagon-load, to ' top-up with a drop of short.' Twelve suc- cessive ' drops of short ' would be considered as an unpardonable breach of coal-heaving etiquette. Again, there has been for some months in prison, awaiting the result of a protracted criminal ' instruction,' a horrible woman, to whom has been given the nick- name of the ' Ogresse des Lilas.' This woman was in the habit of lying in wait for young mothers who had infants in their arms. The ogress would enter into conversation with the mothers, and on some cunning pretence or another obtain possession of the infants, with whom she incontinently disappeared. What did she do with them ? I see it gravely stated in a Parisian paper of this GINGERBREAD FAIR. 311 morning that the Ogresse des Lilas had entered into a formal con- tract to supply an ' Agence Anglaise ' with so many babies a year. The ' English Agency ' was, according to this well-informed autho- rity, engaged in the ' substitution ' business, the ' Law of Primo- geniture existing in England rendering it imperatively necessary that patrician families should be provided coute que coute with a due number of heirs male. When Lucina was unpropitious, sub- stitution remedied the shortcoming.' This is almost as ingenious as Mr. Gilbert's fantastic notion of the pauper's baby, ' substi- tuting ' himself for the millionnaire baby by a judicious change of cradles. There are, however, two persons in Ben Jonson's drama who certainly were not to be found at the Foire au Pain d'Epices. These were Justice Overdo and Eabbi Zeal-o'-the-Land Busy. It is a strange commentary on the radical difference between French and English manners to find an English dramatist in the reign of James I. denouncing the ' enormities ' of a popular metropolitan fan- in almost exactly the same terms that magistrates and clergy- men nowadays employ to denounce not only any attempts to revive our few suburban fairs, but likewise the provincial ' mops, roasts, and statties.' Yet Bartlemy, so fiercely anathematised by Ji> uce Overdo and Rabbi Busy more than two hundred and fifty years ago, lingered until the seventh or eighth year of the reign of Queen Victoria ; and, although Greenwich Fair has been defini- tively abolished, I find the veteran Earl of Shaftesbury, so recently as last Monday, solemnly reproving the people who preferred ' roaming up and down Greenwich Hill ' to patronising Industrial Exhibitions. The truth would seem to be that from time imme- morial the English people have been passionately fond of outdoor amusements ; while their pastors and masters have been as passion- ately persistent in their endeavours to deprive them — always on the highly sustainable plea of decorum and morality — of any out- door amusements whatsoever. Precisely the contrary rule has, in all times, and under all governments, prevailed in France. Outdoor games, shows, and 312 TARIS HERSELF AGAIN. merrymakings have always been systematically sanctioned and encouraged by authority ; and under the Restoration, when a feeble effort was made by the Government to suppress the popular suburban balls, the attempt was met by the furious and famous diatribe of Paul-Louis Courier — assuredly no Radical writer — against the law which proposed 'd'empecher les paysans de danser le Dimanche,' and the prohibitory legislation was abandoned. I may just conclude this section of my subject by remarking that among m} r readers there may be some who may remember the fair in Hyde Park on the occasion of the coronation of her Majesty Queen Victoria, in June 1838. The Poire au Pain d'Epices is quite as big and as crowded a fair as was the Victorian festival ; but what an outburst of indignation might not we expect from Respectability were it proposed to celebrate the forty-first anni- versary of her Majesty's coronation by a fair in Hyde Park, or on Primrose Hill, or even in Epping Forest ! London is the most eisantic school in the world ; but we cannot afford, somehow, to provide a real playground for ' Our Boys.' We want them to be ' something ological,' as Mrs. Gradgrind put it. We do not recognise the expediency of their playing the fool sometimes. Yet Solaques, and the multifarious trifles known as articles de Paris. They inundate us with clarets, cham- pagnes, and brandy; but, on the other hand, we are commercially • down on them' with cataracts of plain and fancy biscuits, pickles, sauces, condiments, and even with preserved fruits, jams, and jellies. They are eating our chocolate, and particularly our cocoa. They are burning our candles, our night-lights, and our oils and spirits for lamps; we send them enormous quantities of starch and mustard, farinaceous food, soap, and other accessories of the toilette. They have now come to the complexion of swallowing English pills. s A Troublesome Ctfstoker. II. 349- THE AVENUE DE i/oPERA. 349 As for beverages, ' les boissons anglaises ' have become frankly accepted articles of consumption. The quantity of English beer drunk by the Parisians is simply prodigious. Bottled stout is in steadily-increasing demand ; but the consumption of porter is largely exceeded by that of the pale ales of Burton-on-Trent. Messrs. Allsopp & Sons, who were the first firm to consign pale ales to France, have seen their continental business increase almost tenfold since the Exhibition of 1867. They have now immense depots of pale ale in bottle at Vaugirard ; another warehouse at Batignolles for consignments to the provinces; and a further store- house in the Avenue MacMahon, close to the Barriere de l'Etoile. There js scarcely a cafe in the Boulevards that does not hang out Allsopp^s ensign ; whereas, I can remember in my youth that a pint bottle of ' Hodgson's East India Ale ' at the Cafe de la Made- leine — the only establishment where the beverage was sold — cost four francs. At present, at many of the fixed-price restaurants, you are allowed to exchange the bottle of wine to which you are entitled for a quart bottle of English bitter beer ; and vast num- bers of Frenchmen prefer what they facetiously term ' le Champagne Anglais ' to that very dubious vintage, restaurant vin ordinaire. Thus, it is not only in the Avenue de 1' Opera that you are repeatedly struck \>y signs and tokens of the close intercourse which, within the last few years, has sprung up between two nations who used to hate each other — or to believe that they hated each other — so bitterly and to avoid each other so niorosely not so many years ago. When I am dining at the Grand Cafe at the corner of the Kite Scribe, I never fail to derive amusement from the contemplation, through one of the immense plate-glass windows of the cafe, of the brilliantly gas-illumined ensign of a hosiery 'and drapery establishment on the Boulevard opposite — 'Old England/ Thus runs the brilliant gas devic*?. I scarcely think that my own countrymen and countrywomen resort there in overwhelming numbers. I fancy that the most numerous and the most remune- rative patrons of ' Old England ' are the Parisians who wish to purchase English productions. I daresay that the enterprising / 350 TARIS HERSELF AGAIN. hatter at the corner of the Avenue de 1' Opera and the Rue de la Paix, who proudly announces himself as ' le chapelier du Derby et du High Life,' has as many French as English clients. I see every evening numbers of French as well as English gentlemen pressing round the kiosque of the civil and intelligent English- women by the Cafe de la Paix, where you can obtain all kinds of English newspapers and periodicals. Throughout Paris, indeed, a general impression seems to have gained ground that England is not ten thousand miles off, and that its inhabitants are not a savage and sulky people, who are in the habit of selling their wives 'au Smitfield,' and of committing suicide en masse so soon as the month of November comes round. This impression is, to all appearance, exceptionally strong in the Avenue de l'Opera. Where could there be a more significant proof of the commercial and social entente cordiale which has been established between the Briton and the Gaul than the re- cently-opened Cooperative Stores, which are conspicuous among the glories of the Avenue — ' The London and Foreign Coopera- tive Society,' whose English ' siege social ' is in the Haymarket, London ? You almost feel inclined to rub your eyes with aston- ishment at reading that announcement. The Cooperative dis- play in the Avenue slightly reminds you of Mr. Whiteley's in- terminable procession of shops in Westbourne Grove, with this important exception, nevertheless, that the ' dry goods ' element is absent. For dry goods — articles of feminine costume and adorn- ment on a gigantic scale — you must go either to the 'Bon Marche' or to^the 'Grands Magasins du Louvre.' At the last-named emporium the purchaser of linendrapery, silkmercery, or haber- dashery, beyond a certainiimount, is presented i^y-dessus le marche with a balloon. You shall hardly pass down a frequented thorough- fare in Paris — notably during, the afternoon — without meeting children of all ages, bonnes, grown-up ladies, elderly gentlenvri decores, even, gravely holding the strings which prevent the - captive spheres of diaphanous caoutchouc from sailing away in tl ambient air. They all bear the word 'Louvre' printed upon them THE AVENUE DE L 0PEKA. 351 in big letters. To such commercial uses must all things come at last. It is the Advertisement, not Time, which in the end is edax rerum : ' Le pauvre en sa cabane, oil le chaume le couvre, Est sujet a ses lois, Et la garde qui veille aux barrieres clu Louvre N'en defend pas nos rois.' So sang one of the noblest of French poets. In the modern time the ' garde qui veille aux barrieres du Louvre ' is symbolised by the solemn Jivissier who guards the threshold of ' les Grands Magasins.' * Eatables and drinkables are the staple* and stock in the co- operative shops in the Avenue, the line of which threatens to stretch to -the crack of doom. Groceries of all kinds ; wines, spirits, and liqueurs ; hams, saiteages, and preserved provisions ; ">eer and aerated waters; fish, poultry, and game; cheese and mcon ; pickles and preserves ; biscuits and macaroni ; legions of things of British and French provenance mingle here in amicable competition. Could such a gathering be possible if we went back 352 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. to the old lines of Protection, and voted treaties of commerce to be mischievous innovations ? Yes ; they would he just possible, but with one important reservation. In the city of St. Petersburg, and on the Nevskoi Prospekt, there used to be, three-and-twenty years ago, a wonderful store-house of British commodities callecl the ' Anglisky Magasin.' I do not know if the place be yet existent, since the last time that I was in Prussia I was too much occupied with politics and the possibilities of getting down to Odessa, through snow-blocked roads, to trouble myself much about the inner manners of Petropolis. But the old ' Anglisky Magasin' was a most curious place. You could get almost every- thing that was British there — except the Edinburgh Eevieio, which, for what reason I know not, was under the ban of the censorship. Still, Dent's chronometers, Macintosh's patent knife- cleaners, patent medicines, Worcester sauce, bottled ales and stout, Stilton cheese, anchovy sauce, Beading biscuits, York hams, Wiltshire bacon, Welsh flannel, and, in fact, all the accessories to that which we call ' comfort,' were procurable at a moment's notice at the ' Anglisky Magasin.' All this looked ostensibly like co- operation and free trade. But what was the reservation of which I spoke? Simply this, that everything of non-Russian origin was so abominably overweighted with custom duties as to be virtually unpurchasable by all save the wealthy classes. If you did not mind giving a rouble for a bottle of Guinness's Dublin stout, you might lay in as many dozen as you chose ; otherwise you were fain to be content with quas or with Moscow piva. Taking the Avenue de 1' Opera as a whole — palatial shops, enormous restaurant^ and cafes, electric lamps and all — and comparing it with the adjacent and much-loved Bue de la Paix, I should qualify the last-named thoroughfare as a French street specially designed for the delight of English people, while the Avenue de 1' Opera is to most intents and purposes a street full of British things, meant to attract the admiration and patronage of French people. Cosmopolitan customers, of course, frequent the magnificent Cafe Restaurant Foy— kept by the historic Bignon THE AVENUE DE l'oPERA. 353 — and the Cafe Restaurant de Paris, which may be described as a phoenix risen from the ashes of the old Cafe de Paris, hard by Tortoni's in the Boulevard ; but the shops, as shops, seem com- A PICKKR-UP OF CIGAR-ENDS IN THE AVENUE DE L'OPERA. mendably ambitious to persuade Frenchmen to buy English goods. The British 'linoleum' invites Parisian notice and support. A grand-' British art-gallery' offers to the inspection of Parisian VOL. If. 354 TARIS HERSELF AGAIN. amateurs a brilliant collection of pictures by the best known painters of the United Kingdom. Nor is America backward in announcing her adhesion to the cosmopolitan principles which seem dominant in the Avenue de l'Opera. The New York Herald has here its Paris offices ; and the famous New York jeweller and goldsmith, Tiffany, has established himself in the Avenue to maintain the high repute which he won in gaining the Grand Prix in the Universal Exhibition. In fine, perhaps the most comprehensive thing to say about a thoroughfare to which I am now bidding farewell, and which these eyes may never look upon again, is that the Avenue de l'Opera is less a characteristically Parisian street than a permanent universal exposition of art, industry, and alimentary substances. Only one little anil suffi- ciently curious circumstance remains to remind the observer that he is in Paris, and that the basis of the whole show is essentially French. Many of the houses are yet unfinished, or, at all events, the plaster of the ceilings and walls is not sufficiently dry to allow of the different flats being occupied by eligible tenants. Pending the completion of the process of desiccation, pending the arrival of more marchandes de modes, tailors, and curiosity dealers, many of the rez-dc-cliaussecs are occupied by a rabble rout of marchanis forains — pedlars of sham jewelry and glittering rub- bish generally, cheap Jacks, and nostrum vendors — mountebanks and jugglers even. Late at night I have had a vague suspicion of the presence of Mr. Chopps the Dwarf; and in this peerless Avenue there have been current dark and distant rumours of an incarnation, at twenty-five centimes admission per head, of the Bearded Lady and the Spotted Girl. THE FRENCHMAN IN LONDON (BY CHAM). ' Vot you have for dinner ? — Chops, steaks, and kidneys. Anyting else ?- Kidneys, chops, and steaks. Vot besides ? — Steaks, kidneys, and chops.' XXV. CHAM. Sept. 10. There are few qualities of the human mind concerning which so many definitions have been laboriously attempted or audaciously hazarded as the quality of wit. That onry a small number of these definitions, if any, have proved satisfactory to the inquiring mind may be due to the circumstance that writers on the subject have rarely been able to agree among themselves as to what combinations of faculties constitute the thing called wit. In- numerable wiseacres have essayed to dogmatise upon the subject; but they have merely succeeded in proving to demonstration that they themselves were the reverse of witty. Thus, the ponderous Burnet » esteemed wit to be 'a talent very fit to be employed, in 856 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. the search for truth, and very capable of assisting to discern and embrace it ; ' whereas, with pedantic affectation, Dr. Young is good enough to tell us that ' what may silence wisdom will but provoke wit, whose ambition is to say most where least is to be said.' On the other hand, Southey, who had a considerable spice of humour in his composition, but was wholly devoid of wit, loftily observes that ' some people seem to be born with a head in which the thin partition which divides great wit from folly is wanting.' This dictum is, in the first place, a sorry plagiarism ; and, in the next place, the ' great wit ' which, long before Southey 's time, was said to be nearly allied to madness, was not epigrammatic or sarcastic wit, but natural enr^Wments strengthened by extensive erudition. The ingeniously analytic essays of Barrow and of South to define wit are well known ; Dryden indulged in a judicious generalisation when he de- clared that Avit was the happy result of thought or product of imagination — the 'or' opens a door for the admission of the jj mother-wit ' of the Irish peasant ; but old Zimmermann may by some be thought to have hit the blot more closely than any other critic, when he said that ' wit to be well denned must be defined b} r wit itself : then 'twill be worth listening to.' There'is little to add to this quiet rebuke of the dogmatists and the phrase-makers. Those only are capable of defining wit who are actively or passively witty themselves. "We are a sufficiently humorous people, and in the persons of Shakespeare and Swift, we have produced the greatest wits that the world ever saw ; but our literature is otherwise as deficient in wit as that of France is replete with it. From the time of Hogarth downwards we have m bounded with caricaturists and graphic delineators of social follies and frivolities : but, apart from a very few of the political sketches of 'H.B.,' either dry 1 humour or downright fun, and not wit, has been the leading characteristic of English comic draughtmanship. Thus, albeit our roll of facetious and grotesque artists is a bright one, it would be difficult to find therein the name of one who could be quoted as a compeer to a remarkable CHAM. 357 French pictorial satirist who has just passed away, the indefati- gable maker of sly graphic jokes, the embodiment of arro- epigrammatic raillery — the world-famous ' Cham.' By the death of Garrick the wisest and best of his friends said -mournfully that the 'gaiety of nations was eclipsed.' Nations, their gaiety and their sorrows, are not so easily to be eclipsed nowadays, yet it may without exaggeration be said that the periodical press of Paris has suffered a sore bereavement through the death of Cham ; and that, looking at the emulators whom he has left behind him, the bereavement seems, for the moment, irreparable. Seldom has there been an artist whose career was so leii£ 'hened, who filled such a conspicuous place in the graphic history of his epoch, and whose record is so brief and simple, as that of * Chain. He was the son of a gentleman of ancient family, the Comte de Noe, who was made a Peer of France by Louis Philippe ; and his pseudonym of ' Cham ' had obvious reference to the French equivalent of ' Ham the son of Noah.' HeVas born in Paris in 1819, and was educated at the Polytechnic School. To the careful geometrical training which he received in that admirable seminary may be ascribed the mathematical surety and decision of outline which lend symmetry to his hastiest sketches. • < ; An analogous directness and lucidity mark the work of a much greater artist and even more subtle wit than Cham, the famous Paul Chevalier, called ' Gavarni,' who began > life as a civil engineer. Young M. de Noe seemed to have no taste for engineering either civil or military. Graduating at thti Poly- technic, he entered the studio of Paul De4aroche ; but, although he was possibly highly popular as a wag and a farceur _ixj! the atelier, his mission was clearly not to follow, pictorially, in the footsteps of his erudite and austere master. His ambition, indeed, never apparently went higher than to watch with sharp pen and sharper pencil the ways of men, and ' mock himself of them.' For a period he was a pupil of Charlet, who from time to time indulged in the exuberance of the caricaturist, but whose 358 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. real vocation was a much more serious one. Charlet, Hippolyte Bellange, and Ilaffet were the three ' Vieux de la Vieille ' in draughtsmanship who looked upon Horace Vernet as their Field- Marshal, and who joined with him in resuscitating and keeping alive the Napoleonic legend. It was of the raw conscript, the , laughing vivandure, and the chuhhy enfant tie troupe that Charlet most sedulously took care. From such a master Cham had little to learn. His political sjanpathies were not very strongly marked; but he was certainly never an ultra-Bona- partist. In two instances only did his opinions on public affairs . seem to be of any pronounced order. He had a comical dislike A of England, land always represented Britannia as a self - 1 _ and ^hypocritical personage,"? usually in spectacles, and w.Jj very prominent front teeth; and he was never tired of jesting at Socialists and Communists. He made his debut about the year 1842 in the columns of the Illustration with a series of extrava- gant drolleries called ' The Adventures of the Baron de Crac ' — a kind of French Munchausen; he soon became a contributor to tiie Charivari and the multitudinous comic publications of M. Charles Philipon; and since the period named his inex- haustible pencil rarely failed to make itself prominent in the „ pages of 'French satirical journalism. He made a considerable number of watercolour drawings in a bold and dashing style, and at one time it was the fashion in Paris to possess a fan painted by Cham ; but, from the beginning to the end of his artistic career, which comprised a period of thirty-seven years, he was par excellence simply and solely the delineator of almost inimitably pungent and brilliant pictorial epigrams. e • Ittwas his lot to live in, , and to survive a generation of great draughtsmen and great wits. None of them could be jealous of him, and of none was he jealous. e He saw the declining years of the great satirist Grandville, a fervent political partisan, a prac- tical limner of political caricatures, but who was likewise a man profoundly versed in the canons of his art, and who drifted finally into dreamy phantasies, among which his reason at length became CHAM. 359 overcast. Grandville had linear aberrations, as Turner in Ills declining age had chromatic ones. Again, contemporary with Cham was the admirable Daumier, the stern Republican, the unsparing lampooner of Louis Philippe, and who really had no inconsiderable share of the sceva indignatio of Swift. Daumier had the courage of his opinions. He was continually being prosecuted b} r the Government of July ; and some of his finest works were produced in the prison-lodgings of Ste. Pelagie. At no period of his life did M. de Noe seem anxious to enjoy the uncomfortable glory of the martyr. He laughed at all political parties in France as they successively grasped the reins of power ; and Vie vas often very hard on foreign Powers, England, Ger- man) , and Russia especially ; but his bantering vignettes were rarely of a nature to attract the angry attention of the Procureur- General. Yet another and a more formidable contemporary had Cham in the person of Gavarni. The two men did not in the slightest degree interfere with one another. The wit of the illustrious author of ' Les Enfants Terribles,' c Les Fourberies de .Femme,' and ' Les Lorettes ' was polished, graceful, and refined ; but it was as keen as a Toledo blade. It was as pene- trating. It was, in short, philosophical. It was the wit of