__ 
 
 HERSELF AGAIN I 
 
 III , ii 
 
 GecrjoreAticrastus Salt, 1 
 
 6 111
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 -[' '/
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.

 
 YOU DIRTY" ROY! 
 
 Asoo.i
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN 
 
 1878-9. 
 
 GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA, 
 
 ArTHOR OF 'TWICE ROUND THE CLOCK,' 'AMERICA IN THE MIDST OF WAR/ 
 ' WILLIAM HOGARTH,' ' GASLIGHT AND DAYLIGHT," ETC. 
 
 ify Jfour ihtnttrcti Hlugtratioiuf 
 
 BY BEETALL, CHAM, PELCOQ, GREVIN, GILL, MARIE, MOEIN, DEROY, LALAXXE, 
 BEXOIST, LAFOSSE, MAES, ETC. 
 
 ^- TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 FIFTH EDITION. 
 
 REMINGTON AND CO., 
 
 5 AEUXDEL STKEET, STKAXD, W.C. 
 
 SCRIBNER AND WELFORD, NEW YORK. 
 
 1880. 
 
 [All rights reserved.]
 
 LONDON : 
 BRADBURY AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
 
 Stack 
 Annex 
 
 DC 
 
 ino 
 
 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 THE VISCOUNTESS COMBEKMEKE, 
 
 THE KIND FRIEND AND PATRONESS OF MY DEAIl MOTHER, 
 
 AXB WHO HAS KNOWN ME EVER SINCE I WAS A LITTLE CHILD, 
 
 MORE THAN FORTY YEARS AGO, 
 
 WITH FEELINGS OF GRATEFUL ESTEEM
 
 PEEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 A CONSIDERABLE edition of Paris Herself Again haying 
 "been exhausted within three weeks, I may be permitted 
 to address a few words of thanks to the public for their 
 prompt encouragement of a work, the letterpress of 
 which I tried to make as entertaining as I could ; while 
 my publishers, on their part, have spared no efforts to 
 render the book as pictorially attractive as possible. Thus 
 the objects which we mutually proposed to ourselves 
 have been secured ' all round.' The public have evi- 
 dently been pleased; else they would not have bought 
 up one edition of Paris Herself Again, and called for 
 another. ]\Iy booksellers, I take it, have equal reason to 
 be complacent ; since, if the second edition be swiftly 
 disposed of, they will be emboldened to issue a third, and 
 so on, till they get into the "stride" of M. Emile Zola, who 
 by this time, I should say, is in his fifty-fifth reprint 
 of the fascinating and polished Assommoir ; thus I am 
 satisfied to find that other people are not displeased with 
 my poor performance. I say that it is poor lamentably 
 poor ; for, my eight hundred pages or so nevertheless, 
 I feel (audaciously paraphrasing the illustrious philosopher) 
 that I have only been picking up pebbles on the sea-shore, 
 while the great ocean of Paris lay all undiscovered before
 
 viii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 me. I should like, had I the time and the means, to 
 chronicle the hours of the day and night in the vivacious 
 capital, after the manner which I pursued more than 
 twenty years ago, in a book called Twice Hound the Clock. 
 I should like to translate Dulaure; to bring Mercier's 
 Tableau de Paris down to the present day, or in a series 
 of semi-historical semi-social essays, to compare the Paris 
 of Madame de Sevigne* and Tallemant des Re*aux with the 
 Paris of Honore de Balzac and Eugene Sue. A great 
 deal in this direction has been done by the Brothers De 
 Goncourt, and by M. Maxime Ducamp ; but these eminent 
 publicists naturally write and think as Frenchmen do, and 
 (sometimes) as though there were no other metropolis 
 in the world save Paris ; whereas English readers, I 
 apprehend, would prefer an exhaustive picture of the 
 gay city as seen through spectacles, which in their time 
 have been turned on most of the cities in the civilised 
 world. But this is not to be, I am afraid. As it is, I 
 have done my best, and am very thankful for the reception 
 given to my (I hope) harmless production. 
 
 One word more. I have somebody else to thank besides 
 the public ; but, ere I express my gratitude, I must relate 
 a brief little epilogue. A horny-handed son of toil, engaged 
 in mining pursuits (or perhaps he was a brickmaker), in 
 the north of England, came home to dinner one day, and 
 found, to his indignation, that his wife had provided liver 
 and bacon for his mid-day meal, instead of tripe and 
 cowheel. During the lively altercation which followed the 
 admission of her error, the son of toil remarked that the
 
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. IX 
 
 sharer of his joys and woes was quietly removing the comb 
 which confined her flowing tresses. f Wat does thee du 
 that fur ? ' he asked, sternly. l Becos,' replied his spouse r 
 1 1 dunno want thee to drive t' coomb into ma skoull, 
 wan t' hammers me wi' t' poker." She was a philosopher, 
 and prepared for all things, even for an aggravated assault 
 with the poker. In a similar spirit, when this book left 
 the press, I, metaphorically speaking, flattened my beaver 
 over my eyes, buttoned my doublet up to the chin, folded 
 my arms, shut my eyes, clenched my teeth, and prepared 
 to be pelted by my old foes the critics. The writer of 
 a book cannot run away. He is in the pillory, and must 
 take all that is thrown at him, be it the fragrant rose, or 
 the merry addled egg, or the festive deceased kitten. For 
 many years since I have been lapidated more or less merci- 
 lessly by the critics. I have grown callous, case-hardened, 
 pachydermatous to censure. " For a consideration " I 
 would not much mind abusing one of my own books, even 
 as the Dey of Algiers, after Lord Exmouth had bombarded 
 half the city into a mass of ruins, offered to bombard the 
 other half, if the British Government would compensate 
 him for his trouble. To my astonishment, and eventually 
 to my delight, I found that nobody was pelting Paris Her- 
 self Ay ain. On the contrary, I found the kindest of notices 
 of the book in all the journals which came within my ken. 
 The Times, which was good enough to review a book 
 of mine, called A Journey Due North, published twenty 
 years ago, but which subsequently sank into stony silence 
 concerning my writings, gave a graceful notice to Paris
 
 X PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 Herself Again. So did the At/tcnccum. The Observer spoke 
 a great deal better of me and my productions than ever 
 I or they deserved; the Graphic gave me the cheeriest 
 and most genial of reviews; the Pall Mall Gazette was 
 loftily courteous, and grandly affable; and my ancient 
 and esteemed adversary, the Saturday Review, went out 
 of its way, so it seemed to me, to be appreciative and 
 complimentary. This I hold to be phenomenal. What 
 has become of my enemies ? Where are they ? Arc they 
 gone out of town? Will they, when they return, avail 
 themselves of the publication of a second edition of Paris 
 Herself Again, to gird at me in the old familiar strain ? 
 I hope that they will not do anything of the kind. Life 
 is not long enough for men of letters to abuse one another. 
 By the time that these sheets issue from, the press I shall 
 be on the Sea, on my way to a far distant country which I 
 have not gazed upon for sixteen years to the Great Re- 
 public which I first visited when she was in the Midst of 
 War, and which I hope to find in the full enjoyment of 
 Peace, and returning prosperity. Ere I depart I should 
 like to shake hands with everybody. I think that, for 
 myself, I can say, that there is not one human creature 
 living for whom I nourish one spark of unfriendly feel- 
 ing ; and it is a matter of great joy to me to find from the 
 welcome this book has received, not only from the public, 
 but from the reviewers, that, at least, I have not been 
 making enemies since my last work was published. . 
 
 G. A. S. 
 r, 1879.
 
 PBEFACE, 
 
 I WEXT to Paris at the end of the first week in July, last 
 year, intending to remain a fortnight in the French capital ; 
 and I returned from Paris to London on the twenty-third 
 of Xovember, on the eve of my birthday : when I was fifty 
 years of age. I mention these dates, and I have kept the 
 circumstance of my fiftieth birthday in mind, for a purpose 
 which I shall afterwards explain. I have rarely enjoyed 
 myself so thoroughly and so heartily; and I am sure that I 
 have not, these many years past, suffered so much physical 
 discomfort as I did during nearly five months' residence in 
 Paris. As to the discomfort, I am not, of course, speaking 
 of old times, when one was young and struggling and 
 desperately poor ; nor do I allude to such privations as 
 must be endured now and again when a man is travelling in 
 partially- civilised countries, or abiding in partially-civilised 
 cities, such as Constantinople; and I must frankly own that 
 no inconsiderable proportion of the lack of comfort which I 
 experienced in Paris was altogether of my own choosing. 
 There are many new, spacious, clean, and airy hotels in 
 Paris ; and I could have obtained, at no very extortionate 
 rates, comfortable and luxurious apartments at the Grand or 
 at the Louvre, at the Continental or at the Splendide, at the 
 Chatham or at the Lille et Albion. But in July 78 the 
 Paris Universal Exposition was at its flood. Thousands of
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 strangers from all parts of the world were arriving in the 
 capital every week ; and all the hotels in the fashionable 
 quarters, from the Hue de Eivoli to high up in the Champs 
 Elyse'es, and from the Eue de la Chausse'e d' Antin along the 
 Boulevards to the Madeleine, were thronged to repletion with 
 English people. ISTow it happened that I had at the time a 
 number of very good reasons for avoiding my countrymen. 
 As a rule, I find them when travelling on the Continent 
 intensely disagreeable. I know that I am; and surely 
 there is room in the world enough for us both. It is my 
 fortune, or my misfortune, to know intimately or slightly 
 a vast number of people in all ranks and conditions in life ; 
 and I had no wish to hear on the Boulevard des Capucines 
 the same interminable chatter on the Eastern Question 
 wither the Eastern Question! and the same club, ' society,' 
 and theatrical stories and scandals which I had been hearing 
 since the beginning of the London season in Pall Mall and 
 in Fleet Street or in Seven Dials and Brick Lane, Spital- 
 fields, if you like. I had no ambition to hear Codrus recite 
 his Theseid at the Grand Hotel, or to meet Smudge, A.E.A., 
 in the Eue de la Paix, and be scowled at by him because I 
 had written some unpalatable things about his picture of 
 'The Maniacal Sunday-School Teacher' in the Exhibition of 
 the Eoyal Academy. And, finally, I shrank from meeting 
 the people who, I felt sure, would ask me to dinner. There 
 are, I believe, a host of Britons so hospitable that their 
 chief occupation in life is to ask people to dinner. Through- 
 out the London season they lie in wait for guests ; and 
 when the season is at an end they rush over to Paris, and 
 roam up and down the English-frequented streets for the 
 sole purpose of making captives of their bow and spear, or
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 rather, of their knife and fork invites. I was in bad health 
 when I went to Paris. I cannot ever be in good health 
 again, and half at least of my days are spent in the acutest 
 physical pain ; and every dinner which I cannot have the 
 choosing of myself is so much bodily and mental torture, and 
 another nail in my coffin. And I abhor tables d'hote; hold- 
 ing, as I do, that it is abominable tyranny to be forced to 
 dine with people whom you certainly would not ask to 
 dine with you. The majority of English people whom you 
 meet at a foreign table d'hote are either sulky or silly. I 
 know that I am both, by turns; and I prefer to dine in 
 my own room or at a restaurant, where I can read as I eat 
 to the detriment of digestion ; quarrel with my food ; 
 scold my companion ; snarl at the waiter ; and feel Com- 
 fortable. ' The pursuit of happiness ' is one among the 
 inalienable Eights of Man enumerated in the American 
 Declaration of Independence. Comfort is, mundanely 
 speaking, happiness ; and we are entitled to travel towards 
 the bourne of felicity by whichever route we choose to take. 
 In this nice, sociable, and amiable frame of mind I gave 
 my compatriots in Paris the widest of berths, and sought 
 for a domicile in a neighbourhood thoroughly French. I 
 would have sought one ' over the water,' in the Eue de 
 Seine or the Eue St. Andre' des Arts ; but it was necessary 
 for business purposes that I should have my den close to 
 the Place de la Bourse, where there is an excellent branch 
 of the General Post Office, and close to a cab-stand. On 
 the ' Surrey side ' of the Seine it was extremely difficult, 
 during the Exhibition season, to procure cabs. Suddenly 
 I bethought me of a house called the Grand Hotel Beau- 
 sejour, on the Boulevard Poissonniere, where, between 1851
 
 I'HEFACE. 
 
 and 1862, I had frequently resided. It was more of a 
 maison meublee than an hotel. They could give you your 
 morning cafe au lait, and cook some ceufs sur le plat, or 
 even a cutlet at a pinch ; but the people of the house did 
 not care much about supplying set repasts, and rather pre- 
 ferred that you should take your second breakfast and your 
 dinner abroad. It was a very clean, cheerful, and well-kept 
 establishment, and in its management thoroughly French ; 
 although, curiously enough, the majority of the guests 
 were Germans. Close by, on the same Boulevard Poisson- 
 niere, was the Hotel St. Phar, a house almost exclusively 
 frequented by Belgians. I found the Beausejour in July 
 '78 as clean and bright, as cheerful and well kept, as it 
 had been between '54 and '62. Unfortunately, Madame 
 la Patronne to whom I hereby beg to convey the expres- 
 sion of my distinguished consideration, and for whose atten- 
 tion and civility I have really reason to be grateful 
 was suffering from that trap plein, or was the rather in 
 the full enjoyment of that plethora of guests which, dur- 
 ing the Exhibition time, made business highly profitable 
 to the hotel and lodging-house keepers, and Paris so very 
 unhabitable. The utmost amount of accommodation which 
 Madame could place at our disposal was a couple of little 
 rabbit-hutch-Eke rooms on the second floor, above the 
 entresol: one to serve as a salon, and the other, which 
 contained two little beds of Procrustean proportions, was 
 to do duty as a bedchamber. "We paid between four 
 and five guineas a week for these two little dens (which 
 were prettily decorated, but were quite destitute of ven- 
 tilation) ; and in them we were alternately stewed, 
 broiled, baked, and half frozen during a wet July, a
 
 torrid. August, a semi-tropical September, a chill October, 
 and a bitterly bleak November. There was a balcony to our 
 salon overlooking the Boulevard; and more than once in 
 these volumes the reader will come across doleful com- 
 plaints of the thundering sound of the omnibuses and chars- 
 a-banc, and the ceaseless roar of a multitude that seemed 
 never to go to bed. We breakfasted on most mornings at 
 the Cafe Yeron, at the corner of the Boulevard and the 
 Rue Vivienne ; and I shall not readily forget the constant 
 and thoughtful courtesy shown to me by M. Gosselin, the 
 esteemed proprietor of the cafe* in question. It was he 
 who acted as my cicerone when I visited the Halles Cen- 
 trales ; to him I was indebted for a great deal of varied 
 information 011 all kinds of things Parisian ; and whenever 
 my wife wanted anything in the way of millinery or dress 
 or ; fal-lals,' his wife was always ready to tell her where to 
 go, and how to procure the very best articles at the most 
 moderate prices. When I first entered his establishment 
 and ordered breakfast I was a total stranger to him ; but 
 after half a dozen visits we came to be looked upon as 
 regular clients, and the landlord became a genial and 
 considerate friend. And this I hold to be the way of the 
 French. At first sight they may strike you as being greedy 
 for money, even to the verge of rapacity ; but so soon as 
 they come to know you they turn out to be not only 
 obliging but really affectionate folks, who will do anything 
 for you. 
 
 You may ask, looking at the wretched existence which 
 we led in the two little cabins on the second floor above 
 the entresol, why we did not decamp and find lodgings else- 
 where. I will tell you why. I have already mentioned
 
 7CV1 
 
 that we came to Paris for a fortnight only. But towards 
 the close of every succeeding fortnight I used to receive a 
 telegram from some business Mends in Fleet Street, Lon- 
 don, E.C., to this effect, ' Letters all right. Should like 
 more. Pray stay another fortnight. Hope you're quite 
 comfortable.' I was most miserably uncomfortable ; but I 
 did not like to disoblige my business friends in Fleet Street, 
 so I stayed on, until the fortnight grew into more than 
 four months. We were always saying that we positively 
 must remove to some other hotel at the end of the week ; 
 T)ut we failed to move, nevertheless. I had an immensity 
 of work to do ; I hate packing ; very few of my English 
 Mends (to my joy) had found me out ; the landlady, the 
 landlord, their amiable daughter, and the secretary and 
 cashier, all overflowed with civility ; and so I stayed on, 
 stewing, simmering, broiling, baking, and semi-congealing, 
 according to the variations of a continually mutable tem- 
 perature. 
 
 I had come to Paris to write a few letters about the 
 Exhibition for a newspaper with which I have been closely 
 connected for more than one-and-twenty years, and the re- 
 presentative of which I have been in a great many distant 
 countries, and on many momentous occasions. When my 
 old and true friend Mr. Edward L. Lawson, one of the 
 proprietors of the Daily Telegraph, and chief editor of that 
 journal, dismissed me on my mission with the heartiest of 
 good wishes and a pocketful of money, his instructions 
 amounted in effect to this: 'Don't bother yourself too much 
 about the Exhibition. Go there when you feel inclined ; 
 but, for the rest, walk about and see things, and tell us all 
 about them.' These instructions, allowing myself a reason-
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 able margin, I endeavoured to follow; and the result is 
 Paris Herself Again. Some of my readers may think that 
 I have ' bothered ' myself about the Exhibition. I can only 
 say that I have done in 1878 that which I did in the Paris 
 Exhibition years 1855 and 1867. The last-named Con- 
 gress I described for the Daily Telegraph; the first for 
 another journal now defunct. I have not been able to 
 help being from time to time technical ; because I delight 
 in technics ; because I have a handicraft of my own, at 
 which I could still work and earn a livelihood did my 
 trade as a journalist fail me ; because I am always trying 
 to understand processes of manufacture; and because I 
 often find such things as soap and candles, chocolate and 
 pickles, upholstery and electro-plate, quite as interesting as 
 the habitations of mankind and the ways of men. It is 
 not my fault if I think Virtue's Cyclopcedia of the Useful 
 Arts, and Beckmann's History of Inventions, and Ure's 
 Dictionary to be as entertaining reading as the Arabian 
 Xiylits. "When Artemus Ward wrote to President Lin- 
 coln to ask him to attend one of his, Artemus's, lec- 
 tures, Mr. Lincoln replied that he had no doubt that 
 Mr. Ward's lectures would be eminently pleasing to 
 people who liked lectures, which he, the President, failed 
 to do. Thus the readers who like to read about technics 
 may be pleased with the technical portions of my book ; 
 while those who do not like technics may skip them 
 altogether. 
 
 One word in conclusion, to explain why I made public 
 so ostensibly uninteresting a fact that I was fifty last 
 November. I drew attention to the circumstance as a 
 justification of my presuming to write anything about
 
 Xviii PREFACE. 
 
 Paris, and to show that I was to some extent qualified to 
 write about it. I have known the French capital inti- 
 mately, for forty years. I was taken there to school in 
 August, 1839 ; and there at school I remained until the 
 French language had become as familiar to me as mine own. 
 I was in Paris during the revolution of 1848 ; during the 
 coup d'etat of 1851, when I nearly got shot; during the 
 Exhibition years of 1855 and 1867. I was in Paris on 
 the 4th of September 1870, when I nearly got murdered 
 as a ' Prussian spy ;' and, apart from the journalistic errands 
 which have taken me to Paris, I have lived for months 
 together, in all parts of the city, over and over again. So 
 that if I do not know something about Paris now I do 
 not say that I know much I shall not, I apprehend, ever 
 know anything touching the city which I have seen 
 ( knocked into a cocked hat ' over and over again barri- 
 caded, bombarded, beleaguered, dragooned, and all but 
 sacked, but which is now ' Paris Herself Again ' comelier, 
 richer, gayer, more fascinating than ever. And happier ? 
 Que sais-je ? That is no business of mine. I have enough 
 to do, myself, to try to be as little miserable as I can. 
 
 46, Mecklenburgh Square, 1V.C. 
 September, 1879.
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE CITY WITHOUT CABS 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OUT OF THE SEASON 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THAT DEAR OLD PALAIS ROYAL 22 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PARIS CUT TO PIECES 44 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SUNDAY IN PARIS 55 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ASTRAY IN THE EXHIBITION 69 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF THE GRAND OPERA 92 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MABILLE IN ALL ITS GLORY 110 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 TO AND FRO IN THE EXHIBITION 129
 
 XX CONTEXTS TO VOL. I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 FOREIGN VISITORS 146 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 FIGARO HERE, FIGARO THERE !' 161 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 LUNCHEON IN THE CHAMP DE MARS AND THE TROCADERO . . . . 181 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SIGHTS AND SCENES IN THE EXHIBITION 190 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE NICE OLD GENTLEMAN 206 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ON SUNDRY OLD WOMEN 221 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 GRAPHICS AND PLASTICS IN THE EXHIBITION 236 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 DINNER-TIME IN PARIS ... 260 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 IN THE HALLE3 CENTRALES 293 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 EXHIBITION ITEMS .311
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE CITY WITHOUT CABS. 
 
 Paris, Aug. 7. 
 
 ARRIVING at seven in the morning, hungry and weary, at the 
 Paris terminus of the Cnemin de Fer du Nord, we cooled our heels 
 during the ordinary and intolerable half-hour, and were driven by 
 superior order from one salle d'attente to another, until it pleased 
 the customs' officers to begin the usual farcical but irritating 
 examination of the passengers' luggage. This performance was 
 not by any means the less stupid because it was a farce and a 
 sham. There are very few things worth smuggling nowadays ; 
 smugglers are careful to put their contraband goods anywhere but 
 in the boxes and portmanteaus which they know will be opened ; 
 and, even if it were worth while to bribe the custom-house officers, 
 modern French douaniers are a singularly unb rib able race. They 
 are, in Paris at least, incorruptible, but sulky. As they do not receive 
 fees, they consider themselves to be absolved from the necessity 
 of being civil ; so that everything in the Salle des Bagages, at seven 
 A.M., goes as merrily as well, as the Inchcape Bell in a fog. 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 Dismissed from the unsatisfactory presence of a fiscal organisa- 
 tion with virtually nothing to do, and doing it most elaborately, 
 and emerging into the courtyard of the terminus, I found, to my 
 astonishment, that nearly the only vehicles in the vast area were 
 some half-dozen of those well-remembered square boxes on wheels, 
 with seats vis-a-vis, which seem to have started in life with the 
 intention of becoming omnibuses, but, thinking better of it, have 
 halted in a truncated condition. These ' shandrydans ' are drawn 
 by a pair of steeds, each seemingly reared for the purpose on old 
 coir-mats and broken Eau de Seltz s} r phons, and presenting in 
 their osteological development studies worthy the attention of a 
 Garngee, a Samuel Sidney, or a Walsh. The vehicles themselves 
 are, I believe, called ' paniers a salade,' from the energetic manner 
 in which, while in motion, they shake up the passengers' bones. 
 The patrons of these wretched carriages are, as a rule (according to 
 Parisian legends), either wealthy farmers from Normandy, who 
 have come up to the metropolis in quest of the graceless nephews 
 to whom they intend to leave their fortunes ; or harmless lunatics, 
 who are met at the station by the attendants of the asylums to 
 which they are to be consigned. The railway porters were about 
 to place my baggage on the roof of one of these rickety palanquins 
 on wheels, when I mildly observed that I should prefer a cab. 
 * Une voiture ! ' cried one of the porters, his mouth distending to 
 the broadest of grins, ' a Chaillot ; ' by Avhich colloquialism he 
 gave me to understand that I was demanding the Impossible. 
 Then both porters hastened to explain to me that since Monday 
 morning the Paris cabmen had been en greve ; that the strike 
 would probably become general ; that there was a deadly feud 
 between the Compagnie Generale des Voitures and their drivers ; 
 that the average number of visitors to the Exhibition had been dim- 
 inished by one-third in consequence of the lack of facilities for loco- 
 motion ; and that, altogether, il y avait du proprc, which was equiv- 
 alent to an intimation that things vehicular were in a pretty mess. 
 
 Although my astonishment had by this time become changed 
 into dismay, I did not wholly give up the battle as lost, or resign
 
 THE CITY WITHOUT CABS. 
 
 3 
 
 m3 r self unreservedly to the bone-bruising paniera salade. Exhibiting 
 small silver moneys as an earnest of future bounty, and speaking 
 the worst French at my command, I pointed to an empty four- 
 wheeled cab in the background, and insisted upon having it. In 
 vain it was represented to me that the driver had his blue flag up, 
 signifying that he was loue, or engaged. I continued to point, to in- 
 sist, and to jingle small coins. At length the pleasant conviction 
 may have burst on the porters that I was Ultimus Romanorum, 
 or the last of the Milords Anglais. One of them went in quest of 
 
 the distant cabman, who, after long parley and seemingly receiving 
 unimpeachable guarantees as to my British nationality, was induced 
 to listen to reason. His ' machine ' was an ancient cab, of the 
 construction formerly known as a ' Danie Blanche.' Its perfume 
 was not that of Araby the Blest, and it was drawn by two half- 
 starved white dobbins ; but I entered it with as much alacrity 
 as though it had been the golden coach of a High- Sheriff ; and I 
 thought the mile and a half an hour, which seemed to be the 
 utmost speed which the knock-kneed, shoulder-shotten Rosinantes 
 could attain, a very fair rate of progress indeed.
 
 4 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 At the other Paris railway stations, on the self-same Tuesday 
 morning, there were, I was given to understand, no cabs at all ; 
 and the passengers from the provinces were landed on the pave- 
 ment, where they were left sitting on their luggage, and lamenting, 
 like Lord Ullin in the ballad. I am bound to admit that the 
 solitary Automedon, in a glazed hat and a red waistcoat, who plied 
 at the Gare du Nord, did not take an excessive advantage of my 
 helplessness. This worthy son of Dioreus held his hand after 
 charging me not more than double the usual fare ; and he left the 
 amount of pourboire to my generosity. We parted mutually 
 satisfied. He called me ' Mon bourgeois,' and I called him ' Mon 
 brave/ I think that he must have been the father of a family. 
 ' Yes,' he replied, in answer to my inquiries, ' there was a strike, 
 and a devil of a one.' ' Tant pis pour la Compagnie, tant pis pour 
 le public, tant pis pour nous, et tant mieux pour le Mont de Piete.' 
 He was, it will be obvious, a philosopher, albeit one of the pessimist 
 kind. I should say, myself, that strikes are bad things all round 
 and for everybody, except the pawnbrokers and the publicans. 
 Just now the shops of the marchands de vins are crammed with 
 mutinous cabdrivers, and the consumption of schnick and petit bleu 
 is enormous. If the cab collapse continues the wives of the Jehus 
 on strike will soon be setting about making up bundles full of 
 Lares and Penates to be deposited in the kindly but strict custody 
 of ma tante. 
 
 It did not enter into my scheme of operations to visit the 
 Exhibition during the earlier days of my sojourn in the French 
 metropolis. * J'avais d'autres chats afouetter;' which in these days 
 of ' French puzzles ' in the World may be translated that I had 
 other fish to fry. I was anxious to see what Paris in its Repub- 
 lican and peaceful aspect was like before I explored the wondrous 
 regions of the Champs de Mars and the Trocadero. For it so 
 happens that, although I have once or twice passed rapidly through 
 the gay city on my way to far-distant countries since 1870, eight 
 long years have elapsed since I trod the boulevards of Paris as 
 a flaneur, since I halted before the kiosques to look at the
 
 THE CITY WITHOUT CABS. 
 
 5 
 
 ever-fresh and ever-spiteful political caricatures, since I sipped a 
 mazaqran or a Bavaroise at the Cafe de la Paix, the Grand, or the 
 Helder. I quitted Paris on a grim September night in 1870, when 
 ' the gentlemen of the pavement ' were in power, and the Siege was 
 about to begin. What changes have taken place since then ! 
 How much blood, how many tears, have been shed ! What treasure 
 wasted ! What hopes blasted ! What pride humbled ! What 
 clever combinations, calculations, forecasts, shattered and trampled 
 in the dust by a derisive Fate I I left Paris for Lyons that lowering 
 September night, left it a city fuU of the rumours of war and be- 
 leaguerment, full of rage and terror, full of doubt and dread ; and 
 I have come back 
 to a Paris which, 
 abating the squab- 
 ble between the cab- 
 men and their em- 
 ployers, seems to be 
 about the most smil- 
 ing, the most peace- 
 ful, and the most 
 prosperous city that 
 I have ever beheld. 
 Whether among the 
 political ashes still 
 live their wonted 
 fires, it is not my 
 purpose just now to 
 inquire. 
 
 Not wishing, 
 then, to see the Ex- 
 hibition yet a while, 
 I was prepared to witness with some equanimity the dire tribulation 
 of innumerable groups of English and American tourists, who 
 throughout the day, and along the great line of boulevards from 
 the Porte St. Denis to the Place de la Madeleine, were vainly
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 endeavouring to persuade the very few hackney-carriage drivers 
 who were on the stands, to take them to the Champ de Mars. 
 Only one-fifth of the vehicles ordinarily in circulation were out, it 
 is said, yesterday ; and the police inspectors, who generally show 
 so much alacrity in jotting down the little faults of the cabmen, 
 wandered about in a listless manner, with blank note-books and 
 unused pencils. The most irritating part of the affair was that 
 among the few broughams and victorias, which at first sight ap- 
 peared to be plying for hire, nearly every one proved on nearer 
 inspection to be displaying above the driver's seat the little blue 
 banner, signifying that the carnage was engaged. Not a ' Bonny 
 Blue Flag ' by any means. To the weary footed rather an ensign 
 of woe. Sometimes ' engaged' was rendered in the masculine, as 
 loue, and sometimes in the feminine, as louee ; but in nearly 
 every case the Arnaxelates when hailed shook his head, either 
 courteously, ironically, or defiantly. One gentleman, in a green 
 waistcoat and a hat covered with white oilskin, cursed me so 
 heartily and so copiously when I asked him to drive me from the 
 Rue Vivienne to the Rue de Labruyere, that I almost fancied that 
 he must be our famous ' Ben, the Hackney coachman bold,' come
 
 THE CITY WITHOUT CABS. 7 
 
 to life again, and metamorphosed into a vituperative Gaul. You 
 will remember the bold Ben of whom it is sung in the touching 
 ballad of * Tamaroo' : ' How he'd swear and how he'd drive, num- 
 ber Three Hundred and Sixty-five, with his high fol liddle, iddle, 
 high gee woa.' 
 
 The man with the verdant vest and the white hat swore at me, 
 but declined to drive me. I gave him as good as he had given ; 
 and then proceeded to toil along the broiling boulevard, remote, 
 unfriended, melanchoty, and slow, recalling in my mind a certain 
 morning seven-and-twenty years ago, when, as happened yesterday, 
 there were no cabs to be had for love or money in Paris. Stay ! 
 If you were a Republican Deputy, M. de Maupas, Prefect of Police, 
 had placed a limited number of private hackney carriages at the 
 disposal of the Representatives of the Extreme Left, who were 
 conveyed, free, gratis, and for nothing, to Mazas, to the Conci- 
 ergerie, or to La Roquette. That was on the 2d of December 1851. 
 In the Exhibition } r ear, 1867, things were bad enough in the cab 
 way, and there was a partial, but not a general strike. I don't 
 think, however, that I ever paid more than three times the proper 
 fare ; and not more than twice, on inquiring of a Jehu how much 
 I was to pay him, did the gentleman on the box raise his whip 
 and ' offer ' to strike me across the face. In the year last men- 
 tioned, M. Pietri, then Prefect of Police, caused it to be intimated 
 to the cockers that if they did not immediately resume work, and 
 keep civil tongues in their heads, their licenses would be for- 
 feited en masse, and their places supplied by gunners and drivers 
 from the artillery. 
 
 Such high-handed measures are perhaps impracticable under a 
 Republican regime, although M. Albert G-igot, the existing sedile, 
 is prepared, I hear, ' to act with energy should circumstances de- 
 mand it.' Circumstances, I should say, demand that something 
 should be done at once. The company and the cabmen are losing 
 as it is at least a thousand pounds a day in fares to the Exhibition 
 and back again, to say nothing of the ordinary courses ; and the 
 disgusted public are beginning to patronise all Icinds of abnormal
 
 8 
 
 PAEIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 vehicles wagonnettes, char-a-lancs, tcqrissu'res, vans, and carts of 
 every description, the drivers of which charge only seventy-five 
 centimes from the central boulevards to the Champ de Mars. 
 There is a railway to the Exhibition, hut the route is a roundabout 
 one, and an unconscionable time is occupied in getting over it. 
 To-morrow I shall go down to the banks of the Seine, and see 
 whether they are doing anything with the batcaux-mouclies the 
 tin)' steamboats which rendered such good service in 1867. Mean- 
 while the discontented coachmen are to meet in public conclave 
 on Thursday, by permission of the Prefect of Police, to discuss 
 matters with their masters. The first thing that the drivers have 
 to do is, I take it, to get on their boxes again. I am prepared to 
 be overcharged, but I Want a Cab. The next thing that the 
 authorities should do is to abolish the silly, vexatious, and utterly 
 impracticable flag system. We tried it in London, and the result 
 was disastrous and ridiculous failure. 
 
 AN INDEPENDENT CABMAN, BY CHAM. 
 
 < Drive me to the Hotel .' 
 
 * Not a bit of it. I only drive to hotels that give 
 me a commission.'
 
 CAFE CONCERT IN THE CHAMPS 1LYSKES. 
 
 II. 
 
 OUT OF THE SEASON. 
 
 Aug. 9. 
 
 EVERYBODY ' worth knowing ' is supposed to have left Paris ; 
 but there nevertheless remain in the fair city some two millions of 
 people who are decidedly worth observing and studying. With the 
 exceptions, indeed, that towards five in the afternoon no tilburies, 
 dogcarts, nor tandems are visible in front of the Jockey Club ; that 
 the Bois de Boulogne is for the moment quite shorn of its eques- 
 trian and charioteering glories ; that some of the theatres are 
 preparing to close their doors, while the box-offices of all are eas} r 
 of access, with the exception of the Grand Opera ; and that it is 
 not very difficult to obtain a cabinet at the Cafe' Anglais, at 
 Durand's, at the Maison Doree, and other favourite resorts of 
 the ' Gommeux' class,* the absence of ' everybody worth knowing,' 
 
 * This, comparatively speaking, halcyon state of things did not long 
 endure. The great restaurants began to be, towards the end of September, 
 inconveniently over-crowded, and the crush continued till the end of October.
 
 10 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 and the suspension until next November of * Le Higlilife du "SVest- 
 end,' which Anglo-maniacal Frenchmen are so fond of talking 
 about they are even beginning to speak of candidates for ' High- 
 life ' clubs being ' blackboules,' forgetting or unconscious that the 
 colloquial synonym for blackballing in English clubland is 'pilling' 
 is scarcely perceptible. The daily and nightly crowds 011 the 
 boulevards are as great as ever, and would be but little diminished 
 in density, I imagine, were there no Exhibition in progress ; the 
 diamonds blaze and the nicknacks glisten, in the innumerable 
 shop-windows in this City of Frivolity, just as they did when the 
 season was at its height ; the supply of variegated bonnets and 
 hats is yet so surprisingly abundant as to lead the unsophisticated 
 visitor to the conclusion that every Frenchwoman must have three 
 heads; the open-air concerts in the Champs Elysees and the 
 Orangerie of the Tuileries, the Hippodrome, the dancing saloons 
 
 CON'CERT OF THE ORAXGER1E IX THE TUILK1UKS GAUDKXc
 
 OUT OF THE SEASON*. 11 
 
 and Alcazars, the al-fresco cafes and brasseries, are continuously 
 thronged, quite irrespective of Exhibition patronage ; and, in 
 short, Paris to nie is what it has been any time these forty years, 
 a perpetual and kaleidoscopic Fair. 
 
 It is not so in London, where the denizens of the other 
 ' Ends,' which are populous and busy all the year round, impinge 
 only to an inconsiderable extent on the real 'West End; ' and 
 where, so soon as the genuine ' High Life ' withdraws itself for 
 its autumnal pleasuring on the Continent, in the provinces, or at 
 the watering-places, and is obsequiously attended thereto by its 
 servants, its factors, and its purveyors by all its belongings indeed, 
 save its cats, which are left in locked-up London houses to starve 
 a void in the region which high life inhabits is distinctly manifest 
 and felt. When fashionable London condescends to be * out of 
 town,' tens of thousands of minor satellites of fashion vanish at 
 the same time, and do not reappear until the sun of fashion once 
 more rises above the horizon. Paris, in its existing condition, 
 appears to be perfectly able to dispense with aristocratic patronage ; 
 it is only the exclusively patrician classes who are unable to dis- 
 pense with Paris, and who will eagerly return to their beloved 
 Boulevards, and their more beloved Bois, so soon as they have 
 exhausted the delights of Trouville and Dieppe, of Spa and of 
 Ostend ; and so soon as that Exhibition, which for political reasons 
 they dislike, is at an end. As for Hombourg and Wiesbaden, 
 Ems and Carlsbad, those villeggiature must not be mentioned to 
 French ears polite just now. The wounds of 1870 are no longer 
 green, but they are not yet cicatrised. The cruel gashes, materi- 
 ally, are healed for France seems to be busier and wealthier than 
 ever she was but, morally, the deep hurts are only skinned over ; 
 and by the Republican section of the press and the people the 
 German is as cordially hated, and the spoliation of Alsace and 
 Lorraine is as bitterly resented, as ever. 
 
 What elements of future turbulence and discord may be latent 
 beneath this smiling and brilliant surface, it would be as rash to 
 conjecture, as, indeed, it is humanly impossible to foretell ; but, to
 
 12 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 AT TROUVTLLE. 
 
 judge only from the external aspect of things, Paris at the present 
 moment spells peace and goodwill to all mankind. If the abhorred 
 German will only be prudent enough to dub himself, while resi- 
 dent in Paris, an Alsatian, a Swiss, or, better still, an Austrian, 
 he will not be molested ; and the newspapers are singularly free 
 from invectives against the Emperor William or Prince Bismarck. 
 A few a very few of the ' journaux serieux ' have followed, from 
 day to day, the imbroglio of the Eastern Question, and have yet
 
 OUT OF THE SEASON. 
 
 13 
 
 something cogent to say concerning the Treaty of Berlin and the 
 Anglo-Turkish Convention ; but, on the whole, the tribulations of 
 Turkey and the aggressive designs of Kussia seem to trouble the 
 Parisian public far less than do the recent sedition among the 
 white-aproned waitresses at the Duval restaurants and the still 
 existing strike of the cabmen. On one point, however, politicians 
 of all shades of opinion seem to 
 have made up their minds that 
 the word Cyprus is a capital one 
 on which to cut jokes, first, be- 
 cause there is a French opera called 
 La Reine de Chypre ; next, because 
 in French slang ' chiper ' means to 
 purloin ; and finally, because the 
 French have gotten into their heads 
 the extraordinary notion that the 
 English are inordinately fond of 
 ' Cyprus wine.' On this last topic 
 it is quite useless to reason with 
 them. As well might you attempt 
 to shake their faith in ' 1'Hospitalite 
 Ecossaise ' I should like to learn 
 the ideas of a Highland hotel-keeper as to Scotch hospitality or 
 to persuade them that Englishmen have abandoned the practice 
 of selling their wives, with ropes round their necks, in Smithfielcl, 
 as to represent to them that Cyprus wine, in its modern form at 
 least, is a mixture of fermented grape-juice flavoured with resin, 
 extremely unpleasant to the English taste, and an almost entire 
 stranger to the English market. The Parisians persist in speaking 
 of this beverage as ' ce vin cher aux Anglais.' Perhaps they think 
 that the capital of Cyprus is Oporto, or that Madeira is somewhere 
 near Paphos. While the * serious ' papers are talking of ' Sir 
 Wolseley,' and of the instructions transmitted to him by ' Lord 
 Layard ' to mount nothing but hundred-ton guns on the Cypriote 
 batteries, the caricaturists indulge in good-natured ' skits ' at Bri- 
 
 A DUVAL WAITRESS.
 
 14 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 tannia, always represented as a high-cheeked female in spectacles, 
 with a chronic grin, and very prominent front teeth, sitting on 
 a rock sipping le vin clier aux Anglais out of a ' patent tea-cup/ 
 while a hapless little Greek of Hellas wriggles impaled on one 
 of the prongs of her trident, or writhes crushed under her pon- 
 derous shield. One facetious print paraphrases the old Joe Miller 
 of the sanctimonious grocer who, having assured himself that his 
 apprentice has sloe-leaved the tea and sanded the sugar, bids him 
 come to prayers. ' Have you protected Cyprus ? ' asks Britannia 
 of our Premier. An answer in the affirmative is given. ' Do you 
 intend to protect Tenedos and Mitylene ? ' Again an affirmative 
 reply is made. ' Then come and hear some Litanies,' says the 
 lady who rules the waves. To the ordinary French mind the 
 liturgy of the Anglican Church is exclusively composed of litanies. 
 
 Finally, in M. Andre Gill's satirical journal La Lune Eoussc, and 
 with the title ' La Farce prime le Droit,' the British Lion is repre- 
 sented with the limbs of a Lifeguardsman, clad (trousers and all) 
 in blazing scarlet, and with a most portentous tail protruding
 
 OUT OF THE SEASON. 15 
 
 from beneath the short jacket. This leonine dragoon is indulging 
 in a triumphantly hearty swig from a bottle labelled ' Chypre,' to 
 the astonishment and disgust of a very thirsty -looking Russian 
 bear in the guise of a Cossack, who has nothing on the table 
 before him but an empty glass. 
 
 All this badinage, however, is essentially good-natured. One 
 reads no words of abuse against ' Perfidious Albion,' who ( French 
 commerce would destroy, and monopolise to herself the Empire of 
 the Seas.' I have scanned a dozen papers this morning without 
 finding any indignant protest against the Mediterranean being 
 turned into ' an English lake ; ' nor have I been able to meet with 
 any reference to the contingency of Lord Sandon's steam plough 
 interfering with the vested interests of France in the Holy Places. 
 All this strikes me with the greater force, inasmuch as I can re- 
 member how, in 1839 and 1840, France in general, and the Pari- 
 sians in particular, were in a white-hot fit of passion with England 
 touching Syria and the Holy Places. I can remember it, because 
 at the time I was a boy at a French college, and because the 
 favourite diversion during the play-hour of my schoolfellows was 
 to gird at me and revile me, to cuff and spit at me, because I was 
 a'rosbif,' a 'pomme-de-terre,' a 'goddam,' or Englishman. I 
 had bribed Marshal Grouchy with the guineas of William Pitt to 
 stay away from the field of Waterloo until Blucher had come up. 
 I had brought back the Bourbons, the Swiss Guard, the Jesuits, 
 and the billets cle confession. I had embittered the last years of 
 the life of the Emperor Napoleon by countenancing and applauding 
 the atrocious tyranny of Sir Hudson Lowe. But these were past 
 offences. In 1839 and 1840 I was accused of firing on a French 
 hospital at St. Jean d'Acre, of insulting the French flag at the 
 Pirseus, of stealing the crockeryware and breaking the chairs and 
 tables of a French Vice- Consul at Alexandretta, of inciting the 
 Grand Vizier to kick the first dragoman of the French Embassy at 
 Constantinople ; of stirring up strife against France in the islands 
 of the Pacific ; and finally and comprehensibly of being a perfidious 
 child of Albion, bent on destroying French commerce and mono-
 
 16 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN". 
 
 polising to myself the Empire of the Seas. That was Paris torn 
 by anxieties of impending war. The Paris of 1878 cares appa- 
 rently not one farthing about anj r kind of war whatsoever. Her 
 voice is all for Peace, and for Business, wholesale or retail, on a 
 strictly ready-money basis. I never knew this ingenious and per- 
 severing people to be hungrier than they are now after francs and 
 centimes. It is only Glory which seems to be at a discount. 
 They may have had enough of it, and to spare, eight years ago. 
 
 That which singularly contributes to the pacific aspect of Paris 
 at the present moment is the marked absence of soldiers from the 
 streets. Englishmen who are habitually resident here may not be 
 struck by the change which, from a military point of view, has 
 come over the French capital. To me, after virtually eight years' 
 absence, the transformation is simply marvellous. Until the col- 
 lapse of the Second Empire I had never known Paris but as a 
 tremendously martial city. You saw as many soldiers on the 
 
 THE BOULEVARD DBS ITALIEXS.
 
 OUT OF THE SEASON. 17 
 
 boulevards as you did at Berlin ; but tlie French warrior was more 
 conspicuous, more animated, and more picturesque than the Prus- 
 sian type of militarism. In Berlin you meet so many broad- 
 shouldered stunted privates, and so many gaunt, whiskered, and 
 tight-waisted officers in tunics, pickelhaubes, and red-striped trou- 
 sers (and all seemingly with pokers down their backs underneath 
 their tunics), that you begin to think after a while that these must 
 form the normal garb of the population, and that the few people 
 in civilian costume whom you come across are strangers like your- 
 self. But the Paris which I knew down to September 1870 was a 
 very masquerade of varied and brilliant uniforms. Only recall 
 those that you beheld in the course of a stroll under the arcades 
 of the Rue de Eivoli, between the Eue de Castiglione and the 
 Place du Palais Royal. Stately Cent Gardes, with their shining 
 casques, their towering plumes, their sky-blue tunics, their buck- 
 skins and their jackboots. Soldiers of the Guides, rivalling in 
 the tight fit of their jackets and overalls, and the abundance of 
 their embroidery, our horse artillerymen of the last generation. 
 Grenadiers, Voltigeurs, Chasseurs, Eclaireurs, Zouaves, Sapeurs, 
 Cantinieres of the Imperial Guard, Chasseurs de Vincennes, Chas- 
 seurs d'Afrique, Spahis, Turcos ubi sunt ? 
 
 What has become of all these parti-coloured warriors ? I might 
 just as well be inquisitive, perhaps, as to what has become of the 
 Imperial lacqueys at the Tuileries, gorgeous in green and gold 
 and hair-powder ; of the postillions and the piqueurs, the cooks and 
 the marmitons, of the Imperial household ; although I have little 
 doubt that, were an Empire or a Monarchy restored to-morrow, 
 all the old costumes would come to light again, and many of the 
 old servitors would be found ready to wear them. The footmen 
 and bargemen, the cooks and scullions, of Charles I. lay by, quietly 
 enough, during the Protectorate ; but they flocked to Whitehall, 
 eager for their old posts, and clamorous for arrears of wages, so 
 soon as Charles II. had come to his own again. So may it be 
 should the wheel of French Fortune ever again place a crown on a 
 French head ; but as regards the military, those soldiers of the
 
 18 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 Imperial Guard who were not killed in battle or who did not die 
 of fever and ague in the Prussian prison-camps, have long since, I 
 surmise, been absorbed into the ranks of the regular army, or, 
 their term of service having expired, have taken their discharge 
 and obtained employment ' dans le civil.' They may have become 
 cash-collectors for notaries, railway guards and porters, gardiens 
 at the Louvre or the Luxembourg, telegraph messengers, and 
 what not. In France there is always plenty of employment for 
 the old soldier. A few of the Cent Gardes have, I fancy, taken 
 service in the Garde Republicaine. At least I have noticed on 
 duty outside the theatres at night more than one austere Bepub- 
 lican warrior, of such a tremendous number of inches, so well set 
 up, and so bushily rnoustached, that I could not help fancying 
 that he had belonged in old times to the famous cohort of giants 
 in sky-blue tunics who used to stand, motionless as statues, on 
 the grand staircase of the Tuileries on gala-days. Exit grand 
 staircase, with many other pomps and vanities of the world Impe- 
 rial. The parti-coloured warriors have disappeared, and the few 
 soldiers seen in the streets are clad with almost quaker-like 
 sobriety. The officers only wear their epaulettes when on duty ; 
 and altogether there is a remarkable absence of military parade 
 and swagger, of the twisting of moustaches, the trailing of sabres, 
 and the clanking of spurs. These remarks apply, obviously, only 
 to the public thoroughfares of Paris, to the cafes and the public 
 gardens in which the military element was formerly so arrogantly 
 prominent. For the rest it is understood that France is in this 
 instant month of August 1878 in possession of an immense army 
 and reserve, splendidly armed, equipped, and organised, and sedu- 
 lously trained to grave and systematic work. What it is to do, and 
 when and where it is to do it, the public do not seem to be very 
 anxious to know. The army, in Paris at least, is sedulously kept 
 out of sight, and it is only Peace, for the moment, that we are 
 happily enabled to contemplate meek-eyed Peace. Her meekness 
 is modified to a slight extent just at present by the cabmen's 
 strike.
 
 19 
 
 AT THE TUILERIES UN COUP D'CEIL EN PASSANT. 
 
 The strike, controversially considered, continues ; but tourists 
 need murmur no more, for there are plenty of cabs to be had at 
 ordinary fares. A police-agent is always at your elbow at the time 
 of hiring and discharge, and is ' down ' on the driver if he attempts 
 an overcharge in a moment. But such drivers and such carriages ! 
 Younger sons of younger brothers, discharged unjust serving-men, 
 and ostlers tradefallen ; Auvergnat commissionnaires past the car- 
 rying of messages ; invalided croque-morts and gavroches grown 
 too old to play at marbles on the quays ; ragged varlets in blouses 
 white and blue, and many absolutely in their shirt-sleeves and the 
 shirts look as though they had been stolen from the red-nosed 
 innkeeper at Daventry ; all Falstaff's ragged regiment, in a word,
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 plus a horde of Callot's Bohemians, seein to have been pressed 
 into the service of the Compagnie Ge'ne'rale des Ventures, and to 
 
 have been promoted from tlie kennel to the coachbox. They are, 
 as a rule, civil enough ; and many of them have told me that they 
 are entirely opposed to the strike, and that they have no desire save 
 to earn an honest living, if the rates they are called upon to pay 
 were only calculated on a slightly less exorbitant scale ; but the 
 Company seem reluctant to intrust these improvised charioteers 
 with a better class of vehicles. No spruce landaus, no sparkling
 
 OUT OF THE SEASON. 
 
 21 
 
 victorias, no trim little brougham-cozies, have as yet reappeared, 
 and the vast majority of the vehicles in circulation are the most 
 ramshackle old ' cruelty vans ' that ever you saw out of the purlieus 
 of an Irish fair. As for the horses, the spectacle of the forlorn 
 bags of skin and bones tottering along on broken-kneed legs would 
 make Mr. Colarn cry. I have not seen a cab-horse to-day that a 
 Spaniard would give a dozen dollars for to be disembowelled in the 
 bull-ring. The greater number of the temporary cabbies are, 
 moreover, wholly unacquainted with the art of driving. They know 
 no more of the Rule of the Road than, in all probability, they 
 know of the Rule of Three. Like Leigh Hunt's pig, they * go up 
 all manner of streets ; ' and during the last thirty-six hours two 
 matters for astonishment and gratitude have constantly been pre- 
 sent to my mind : first, that I have not been run over ; and next, 
 that I have not, vicariously, run over anybody else.
 
 THE PALAIS ROYAL. 
 
 III. 
 
 THAT DEAR OLD PALAIS ROYAL. 
 
 Aug. 12. 
 
 WAS it not the Right Honourable John Wilson Croker who pro- 
 fessed not to know where Russell Square was ; and was it not 
 Theodore Hook, who, following the lofty Secretary of the Admiralty 
 at a humbly tuft-hunting distance, inquired whereabouts, on the 
 way to Bloomsbury the traveller changed horses ? I am very 
 much afraid that the Palais Royal, a region which for very many 
 reasons is dearer to me than any locality of which I am aware in 
 Paris, has been, these ten years since, slowly fading to the com- 
 plexion of the sere, the yellow leaf, socially speaking ; and that, 
 had I the honour of the acquaintance of M. le Vicomte Satin des 
 Gommeux of the Jockey Club, or M. le Ge'neral Roguet de la 
 Poguerie of the Cercle des Mirlitons, either of those gentlemen (on 
 his return from Biarritz or Trouville) might, if questioned con- 
 cerning that which was once the most fashionable, and which will 
 always be the most famous, resort in the metropolis, reply, with 
 a faintly perceptible moue of disdain on his patrician countenance : 
 ' Le Palais Royal ! Voulez-vous dire celui de Peldn ? Le Palais 
 Royal ! mais, mon cher, on n'y va plus.' 
 
 The irrevocable tendency of civilisation is to march from the
 
 THAT DEAR OLD PALAIS ROYAL. 
 
 23 
 
 VICOMTE SATIN DES GOMMEUX. 
 
 East to the West. We have heard that axiom before. The move- 
 ment is from sunrise to sunset ; so that when ' all earthly things
 
 24 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 GEKERAL ROGUET I>E LA POGUEKIE. 
 
 shall come to gloom,' and ' the sun himself shall die,' as the poet 
 Campbell gloomily sings, it will be in the remotest of Occidents 
 that Fashion will expire. The Palais Royal has only experienced 
 the application of a universal law. Fashionable civilisation 
 spreading westward, spreading to innumerable new boulevards,
 
 THAT DEAR OLD PALAIS ROYAL. 25 
 
 spreading to the Pare Monceaux, overrunning the Champs Elysees, 
 and threatening to overlap the Bois de Boulogne, has con- 
 temptuously pronounced the Palais Ro} r al to be situated, as things 
 go, dans un pays impossible. It is no longer a place to dine, 
 to promenade, to flirt, or even to conspire in : from a fashionable 
 point of view. It is too far away. It is, fashionably considered, 
 at Pekin. The great restaurateurs, Vefour excepted, have de- 
 serted the arcades of the Palais Royal for the western boulevards. 
 The cafes are, socially and intellectually, only the shadows of 
 their former selves; and finally the edifice has temporarily 
 perchance lost the slight political importance which under the 
 Second Empire it possessed. 
 
 The side of the vast quadrangle facing the Rue St. Honore is, 
 as most people know, a magnificent palace, erst the town residence 
 of the Dukes of Orleans. Thither did the profligate cynic Philippe 
 Egalite turn sad eyes as the death-tumbril bore him through a 
 hooting mob, past the old splendid home which he had once inha- 
 bited, to where the guillotine awaited him in the Place de la Revo- 
 lution now the Place of Concord. And in July 1830, from the 
 windows of that selfsame Palais Royal, did the son of Egalite look 
 wistfully, half fearfully, half hopefully, on another mob, yelling and 
 triumphant, which, after storming the Louvre and sacking the Tuile- 
 ries, came screeching the Marseillaise, roaring ' Vive la Charte ! ' 
 ' Vive laRepublique !' ' Vive Lafayette !' 'Vive Louis Philippe !' The 
 last cry won the day ; and Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, went 
 forth from the Palais Royal a Citizen King. Eighteen years after- 
 wards the mob came back to his house to turn it out of windows. At 
 home, beyond the sea, I have a number of thin folios, superbly bound 
 in crimson morocco, gilt and tooled, and with the inner sides lined 
 with blue watered silk. They are full of reports and collections of 
 statistics from the Ministers and Heads of Departments between 
 1825 and 1848 reports written in a fair, round, fat, clerkly hand 
 the hand of the employe who takes his time, who leisurely nibs 
 his pen and symmetrically rules his lines, who puts on a pair of 
 black-calico sleeves before he begins to work, and refreshes him-
 
 26 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 self between column and column of figures the ' nines ' and 
 
 * sixes' with prodigiously long tails with a pinch of snuff. Some 
 of these folios bear, emblazoned in gold, the crowned escutcheon 
 with the lilies of France. Others have only the initials ' L. P.' I 
 bought the lot, fifteen years ago, for a song, in a rag-shop at New 
 York ; and they have served very convenient!}' since as repositories 
 for newspaper cuttings. But how did they get out of the Tuileries 
 and the Palais Roj-al ? and how did they manage to cross the 
 Atlantic ? There is but one possible answer to the first inquiry. 
 The mob ! The volumes may have formed part of the rapine of 
 February 1848. Again in an old curiosity-shop, in the Chaussee 
 d'Antin, I picked up an exquisitely beautiful little vase of Sevres 
 porcelain, pdte tendre, In colour a rich azure, almost equalling 
 the renowned old bleu du Roi. One side of the vase bore the 
 initials, ' L. P. ;' on the other side was painted, in a cartouche, 
 a sweet little group of Cupids. I turned up the vase to find the 
 Sevres mark. I found something else : the words, to wit, stamped 
 in red letters, ' Chateau des Tuileries, 1835.' Unquestionable 
 
 * loot/ this : all cries of ' Mort aux voleurs ! ' during the escalade 
 of February M8 to the contrary, notwithstanding. The vase was 
 cracked right across, but had been very skilfully mended. I got 
 it, the thing being cntamc, cheap. In September 1870, the multi- 
 tude were in a patriotically honest mood, and forbore to plunder. 
 
 The palace of the Palais Royal had, however, enjoyed full 
 twenty years of tranquil splendour. Even before the reestablish- 
 ment of the Second Empire it had been the residence of old 
 Jerome Bonaparte, ex-King of Westphalia, the ' petit polisson ' of 
 Napoleon I., the consort en premieres noccs of the ill-used Miss 
 Paterson of Baltimore, and whom his Imperial nephew, not know- 
 ing very well what to do, made at last Governor of the Invalides. 
 The old gentleman was a Waterloo man, and had not behaved badly 
 in that fight. By the Parisians he was generall}', in virtue of an 
 atrociously twisted conundrum, called TOncle Tom,' since, it was 
 argued, Napoleon I. being ' le Grand Homme,' and Napoleon III. 
 ' le Petit Homme/ old Jerome must necessarily stand in the rela-
 
 THAT DEAR OLD PALAIS EOYAL. 
 
 27 
 
 tion of ' Uncle Tom ' or ' t'homme,' to the latter. His son Napoleon 
 Jerome, kept high state at the Palais Royal, gave good dinners 
 and bad cigars, and hatched vain intrigues there against his cousin 
 and benefactor, until the Empire tumbled to pieces like a pack of 
 cards cards marked by gamblers who had lost their cunning and 
 could no longer fa'ire sauter la coupe. Very dreary must be the 
 saloons of the palace now. Very dank and dismal must be the 
 empty stable and coachhouses in the courtyard facing the Galerie 
 d'Orleans. How many times have I watched ' Monseigneur's ' 
 barouches and landaus, with their satin-skinned horses, emerge, 
 spruce, natty, brilliant with sub-Imperial veneer and sub-Imperial 
 
 varnish, from those stables! Sometimes it was the whim of 
 Monseigneur to travel ' post ' to his country residence ; and on 
 those occasions there would be a full-dress parade in the court- 
 yard of a heavy berline de voyage, hung high on C springs, and 
 painted bright yellow. This equipage would be drawn by four fat 
 Picard horses, gris pommeles in hue, their manes plaited and tails 
 tied up with parti-coloured ribbons. Brave in ribbons, likewise, 
 were the glazed cocked-hats of the postillions, full-powdered their 
 tie-wigs, bright scarlet their waistcoats and the lappels of their 
 green jackets, dazzlingly white their buckskins, lustrous black 
 their jackboots, radiant the silver badges on their arms. Behind 
 the berline came fourgons, or closed vans, full perchance of deli- 
 cacies from Chevet's or Cuvillier's, or Potel and Chabot's, for pic- 
 nic purposes. On everything external blazed the sub-Imperial
 
 28 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 arms the reflection from the greater glory of Imperialism at the 
 Tuileries hard by. The guard turned out ; the drums rolled ; 
 gleaming arms were presented, as the berline de voyage rattled out 
 of the cour d'honneur of the Palais Royal. Ichabod ! I suppose 
 that a snuffy old concierge or two are deemed to be enough to keep 
 watch and ward, at present, over this ex-Royal, ex-Imperial habita- 
 tion. The ghost of the Napoleonic era is a very woebegone one, 
 and Bonapartism, for the moment, seems to exercise less influence 
 over the minds of the multitude than ever I can remember it to 
 have done. Still it must be admitted that the Second Empire, 
 while it lasted, did things very handsomely indeed. The pieces in 
 its repertoires were got up regardless of expense, and its pour- 
 boires were unstinted. ' Ce que Ton ne saurait nier,' quoth 
 General Fleury, when, at St. Petersburg, he learned the downfall 
 of his Imperial master, ' c'est que pendant dix-huit ans nous ncus 
 somnies diablenient amuses.' 
 
 Disestablished politically, ostracised by the fashionable world, 
 the Palais Royal might ostensibly run the risk of sinking to the 
 level of a tenth-rate neighbourhood. It is not only the great 
 eating-house and coffee-house keepers who have quitted it for the 
 boulevards. To a considerable extent it has even suffered aban- 
 donment at the hands of the cheap tailors, who have discovered 
 that a * coin de rue,' or corner of a populous street, is a necessity 
 in carrying on the business of a slop-shop palace on a large 
 scale ; and at the present day Albert Smith's Mr. Ledbury, with 
 his friend Jack Johnson, would find some difficulty in purchasing 
 for eleven francs a pair of the celebrated Palais Royal pantaloons, 
 the favourite pattern for which was lemon-colour striped with 
 black, or else a chess-board-looking check ; or for twenty francs 
 tke equally renowned Palais Royal swallow-tailed coat a festive 
 garment of a bright chocolate colour with a collar of green cotton 
 velvet, and gilt buttons, the die of which represented an English 
 ' sportsman ' on a very long-legged horse, pursuing a fox with 
 a tail like a turnspit's. I miss, too, those wonderful dressing- 
 gowns with monastic hoods, cheap at twenty-two francs ; and the
 
 THAT DEAR OLD PALAIS ROYAL. 29 
 
 * sportsman's ' complete rig-out for the shooting season, consisting 
 of a coat, waistcoat, and breeches of snuff-coloured holland, bound 
 with white tape and plenteous in pockets ; leather gaiters if they 
 were not haply of brown paper abounding in buttons and tags ; 
 and a gibecicre or game-bag with a covering of tasselled network, 
 to keep the flies from the pheasants, partridges, and rabbits which 
 the bold ' sportman ' was to shoot the whole complete for forty- 
 five francs. How often have I pictured to myself the effect of half 
 an hour's steady rain on the brown holland suit and brown leather 
 or paper leggings of that bold ' sportman ' ! There yet re- 
 main slop-shops in the Palais Royal ; but they are few in number, 
 and subdued in aspect. Their dummies look dusty, clammily 
 pallid, and generally dejected, from their obvious inability to cope 
 with the pretentious lay-figures of the ' coin de rue ' slop palaces : 
 the boys in Glengarry jackets, knickerbockers, purple hose, and 
 preposterously rouged faces ; the aristocratic coachmen with buff 
 greatcoats reaching down to their feet, white neckcloths, bushy 
 black whiskers, and gold-laced hats with monstrous cockades ; the 
 dashing Amazons with Tyrolese hats and golden hair, and coral- 
 handled whips, and who never forget to lift a corner of their 
 habits to a sufficient altitude to assure the spectator that they are 
 provided with under-garments of chamois leather, with black feet. 
 These artistic exuberances are beyond the present capacity of the 
 poor old Palais Royal. 
 
 It was thus not without a certain feeling of sadness that I sate 
 down in the sunshine outside the Cafe de la Rotonde, and, looking 
 across the vast quadrangle, and peering into the dim recesses of 
 the distant arcades, I tried to conjure up memories of the days 
 that shall return no more. So have I sate, hour after hour, out- 
 side Florian's at Venice, when the City was Enslaved, and when 
 there seemed to be nobody alive in St. Mark's Place beyond 
 myself, loafing over an ' arancio-selz ' and a ' Virginia ; ' a listless 
 waiter leaning against one of the columns of the Procuratie ; a 
 brace of prowling Austrian gendarmes ; a poor little fioraja, who 
 could find no customers for her pretty threehalfpenny bouquets,
 
 30 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX. 
 
 and had gone to sleep in sheer weariness on a step ; and the pigeons 
 that flock from the cupolas of the Basilica and the leads of the 
 Patriarch's Palace, at their stated hours, to be fed ; and, surveying 
 this scene of silence and decay, and desolation, I have asked 
 myself inwardly, passionately, Is this to go on for Ever ? Will the 
 uprising tocsin never sound ? Will these infernal Tedeschi never 
 go away ? They are gone. The city and the land are free ; and 
 the last time I sat at Florian's I was half stunned by the clamour 
 of the Italian people shouting ' Ewivas ! ' to Victor Emmanuel, 
 King of Italy, standing at one of the windows of his palace, with 
 Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria, on his right hand; with 
 Humbert, Prince Royal, and Margaret, the Pearl of Savoy, on his 
 left. The Palais Royal, built in deliberate imitation of the Piazza 
 San Marco, and presenting a really noble albeit imperfect copy, 
 just as our Covent Garden piazzas present a stunted and squalid 
 caricature, of an unapproachable model, must always bear a 
 pleasantly dim resemblance to its peerless Venetian original. Un- 
 fortunately the incurable mania of the French for the over-orna- 
 mentation of every monument of architecture which they possess 
 has led to the conversion of the immense area between the arcades 
 into a garden. It never was a handsome garden ; and at present 
 it is more than usually ill-kept, exhibiting only a gravelly walk, 
 with a few patches of gray-green herbage, and scraggy shrubs here 
 and there. Were the whole expanse smoothly paved, a Vltaliana, 
 in a simple but elegant pattern, in white and gray or white and pink 
 marble, and were the ugly newspaper kiosks, the toy and cake 
 stalls, and the supplementary booth fronting the Rotonde, all 
 of which impede the view to an exasperating extent, swept away, 
 the garden of the Palais Royal would assuredly be one of the most 
 magnificent spectacles in Europe, especially at night, since in the 
 basement of every one of its sections is a shop, or a cafe, scarcely 
 ever closing until after ten o'clock, and necessarily brilliantly 
 lighted with gas. The majority of the entresols and first floors are, 
 again, occupied by restaurants ; and the illumination of these bright 
 saloons enhances, to a wonderful degree, the nocturnal brilliance
 
 Ol'TSII>K A Bol'LI'.VARD C.vrfe.
 
 THAT DEAR OLD PALAIS ROYAL. 31 
 
 of the scene ; but it is aggravating to enjoy no full and sweeping 
 view of the arcades on either side, and of the radiant frontage of 
 the Galerie d'Orleans, at the extremity, parallel with the palace. 
 It is more aggravating to find no military band present at night 
 to discourse enlivening strains. The condition of the Palais Royal 
 does not, I suppose, concern the Ville de Paris. Its maintenance 
 may be the business of the State, or of the mysterious proprietors 
 ofimmeubles, who bought, for a trifling price, the National Domains 
 during the First Revolution, and who seem to have been living very 
 comfortably ever since on the interest accruing from their lucky 
 investments. I am quite ignorant as to whether the Orleans family 
 continue to hold any portion of the house-property in the Palais 
 Ro} 7 al, which was originally intended to form one continuous palatial 
 residence, but the arcades of which were speedily let out as shops, 
 restaurants, and gambling-houses by a Duke whose finances had 
 become embarrassed through his penchant for building. 
 
 Paris is to me a permanent and most wondrous problem gener- 
 alty ; but I do not know anything within its walls more perplexing 
 and more wonderful than the sight of the thousands of well-dressed 
 people who sit all day, and during a great portion of the night, 
 in and outside the boulevard cafes, smoking, drinking, playing at 
 cards and dominoes, and otherwise enjoying themselves. They 
 play piquet and drink ' grogs Americains ' weak rum-and-water, 
 hot, with sugar and lemon at eleven o'clock of the forenoon in 
 August ; they are playing dominoes and drinking ' bocks ' of frothy 
 beer, refreshing to the palate but apparently innocent of malt, at 
 six o'clock P.M. They are imbibing coffee and cognac at eight, 
 after dinner. They are consuming ices and sorbets at ten ; they 
 are sipping more American grogs at midnight ; and yet, to all 
 seeming, they have not ' turned a hair,' as the saying is, in the way 
 of inebriety. They are all as sober as judges ; and yet they have 
 been laughing and shaking in Rabelais' easy-chair for the last 
 thirteen hours. Who are they ? Whence do they come ? Where 
 are they going ? Where do they live ? They cannot be all shop- 
 keepers who have left their wives to manage the shop, since they
 
 32 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 frequently bring both the male and female branches of their 
 families to the cafe with them. They bring grandams of eighty, 
 who drink hot rum-punch. They bring little brats of seven, who 
 drink 'bocks ' and ask for the Vie Parisienne. Vogue la gate-re ! 
 But where is the galley, and who tugs at the labouring oar ? How 
 
 do they get the money to pay their score and give the garqon his 
 pourboire ? If I were to sit inside or outside a tavern from morn 
 till midnight, even if I drank nothing stronger than barley-water, 
 and smoked nothing more powerful than cigarettes of lavender, 
 those conversant with my affairs would very soon suggest my 
 incarceration at Colney Hatch or the expediency of the removal of 
 myself and my household to St. Pancras Workhouse. Again, I 
 frequently notice that, when some depraved vagabond in a tattered
 
 THAT DEAR OLD PALAIS ROYAL. 
 
 33 
 
 blouse is arraigned before the Cour d'Assises or the Police Correc- 
 tionnelle, the Public Prosecutor rarely omits to mention in the act 
 of accusation that the prisoner is an habitual haunter of estaminets 
 and brasseries. Why, it was the Public Prosecutor's twin brother, 
 or at least his cousin-german, that I saw at eleven in the forenoon 
 drinking hot rum-aud- water, and blocking his adversary at dominoes 
 with a double-five at the Cafe des Mille Constellations! The only 
 solution that I can possibly find for the problem is that the cafe 
 frequenters are a\lproprietaircsd > immenbles; that their grandfathers 
 purchased large slices of the National Domains at peppercorn prices 
 in the year 1792, and that they and all their families have been 
 living prosperously and hilariously on the dividends ever since. 
 
 They if there be indeed such a class of Parisians, deriving 
 their incomes from such a source do not seem to be much given 
 to patronising the poor old Palais Royal. It is too quiet for them. 
 The passing show is not exciting enough to interest the flaneur 
 class. In the daytime, sitting on your rush-bottomed chair outside 
 the Rotonde, you see few people beyond a succession of youthful 
 
 nurserymaids and elderly 'bonnes. The nurserymaids are occa- 
 sionally pretty ; and if they are not well-favoured, they make up 
 for the absence of good looks by a very fascinating coquettishness;
 
 34 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 but the ugliness of the elderly bonnes is fearful to look upon. 
 When you have seen an old Frenchwoman you have seen Mother 
 
 Redcap you have seen the Witch of Endor. These attendants 
 biing with them troops of sickly, monkey-faced children. The 
 French are a gallant, chivalrous, ingenious, and witty people, but 
 they are certainly not a good-looking race; and, as a rule, the dolls 
 in the toy-shops, though facially idiotic, are much prettier than the 
 little girls who nurse them. Children, moreover, of the upper classes 
 have ceased to resort to the Palais Royal to hold skipping com- 
 petitions or to form daylight quadrilles. The perambulators are 
 few and shabby. Some few soldiers are to be seen. Noblesse oblige ; 
 and these gallant sons of Mars have come to pay their homage 
 to the j'outhful nurserymaids. A ' Moudaine ' rarely shows her 
 painted countenance and elaborate toilette in the garden. Gaunt
 
 Is THE GARDEN OF THE PALAIS ROYAL. 
 
 1-34-
 
 THAT DEAR OLD PALAIS EOYAL. 
 
 85 
 
 pale-faced lads in blouses smoking 
 cigarettes of bad tobacco or sucking 
 pipes of blackened brier-root, slatternly workgirls in dresses of 
 cheap printed calico from Roubaix or St. Etienne and ' coiffees en 
 clieveux' the pretty and becomingwhite cap of the Parisian grisette 
 has, like the grisette herself, almost entirely disappeared are 
 ' trapesing ' up and down in couples, staring in all the shops, and 
 apparently in no hurry to go back to their work ; while now and 
 again, in a corner behind some angle of stonework, there broods, 
 huddled up on a chair, an old, old man, with a parchment face 
 furrowed into a thousand wrinkles, lack-lustre eyes, a weather- 
 beaten hat with the nap all gone and the brim drooping, a patched 
 brown surtout buttoned up to his throat and with the place of a
 
 36 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 button supplied here and there by a pin, deplorable trousers, inde- 
 scribable shoes, and one glove. Who is he ? Balzac must have 
 been aware of him fort}* years ago. He may be a contemporary of 
 the terrible ' Ferragus.' Was he a prefect under the Restoration, 
 a banker in the days of the Orleans d}Tiasty, a police spy under the 
 Second Empire, a croupier at one of the gaming-houses ? To me 
 he looks like an incarnation of the poor old Palais Royal itself run 
 to seed. 
 
 And yet they tell me the Palais Royal is gayer just now than it 
 has been during any period these eleven years past ; but so far as 
 the experience of my own eyes enables me to judge, it has only 
 been momentarily galvanised into a deadly-lively spasm of vitality 
 by the presence of the English and American visitors to the 
 Exhibition. From the minds of these worthy and unsophisticated 
 people you cannot eradicate the long since fixed idea that the Palais 
 Roj'al is still the centre of ' Life in Paris,' the pivot on which all 
 Gallic gaieties turn, the 'hub' of the Parisian universe, as Boston, 
 in the State of Massachusetts, is the 'hub of the universe,' gene- 
 
 rally speaking. You meet travelled Britons, cosmopolitan Britons, 
 on the Boulevards or in the Rue de la Paix ; you look for your 
 travelled American in the courtyard of the Grand Hotel, or under
 
 THAT DEAR OLD PALAIS ROYAL. 
 
 37 
 
 the arcades of the extravagantly magnificent Hotel Continental 
 in the Hue de Castiglione ; but the ' Innocents abroad,' be they 
 of British or of Transatlantic origin, float at once to the Palais 
 Royal. I have met to-day at least half a dozen Ritualist curates 
 they are among the most innocent and the foolishest creatures 
 that I know the Rev. Mr. Chadband from Stoke Newington, 
 and the Rev. Gypes Toloddle from De Beauvoir Town; the three 
 Miss Sowerbys of Leamington; Captain Swabber, R.N., and his 
 
 numerous family, of Palmerston Road, Southsea ; and little Mr. 
 Sam Gynger, M.R.C.S., from Barrow-in-Furness. Sam is rather 
 a gay dog when he has got the Channel safely between him and 
 Mrs. G. (who is serious), his Uni- 
 tarian aunts, and his Baptist grand- 
 mother ; and he informed me, with a 
 sly wink, that after handing over all 
 his patients, pro tern., to old Nob- 
 bier, the general practitioner, he had 
 come to Paiis ' for a bit of a spree.' 
 Ingenuous Samuel! as though the 
 Palais Royal were on the way to the
 
 38 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 Spree ! Equally numerous are the American Innocents. No 
 shrewd and somewhat cynical New Yorkers ; but few serene 
 and complacent-with-higher-culture Bostonians ; and fewer well- 
 bred, albeit somewhat haughty, South Carolinians and Vir- 
 ginians they have had losses, and so are bound to keep as 
 stiff an appearance as they can do you meet under the arcades. 
 But you meet highly-respectable people from Brattlebury, in 
 the State of Vermont, and Toledo, in the State of Ohio. 
 
 You meet Professor 
 Popcorn of the Home- 
 spun University, Prince- 
 ton, Delaware; you meet 
 Elder Prigarsin of the 
 Scandinavian Church of 
 Snickersnee, New Jer- 
 se y > 3 r tt meet Dr. Rufus 
 Clamchowder, erst Bri- 
 gadier-General of Volun- 
 teers (he fought valiantly 
 
 at Antietam), at present pharmaceutist (he has got a patent pill), 
 of Barkuin, Blisterum county, Michigan. I met Miss Desdemona 
 Wugg of Philadelphia, author of the alarming work entitled 
 Proof Positive ; or Shakespeare's plays written by a Woman, and 
 that Woman a Wugg ! Miss W. wore her celebrated brown- 
 holland dress, with the large mother-o'-pearl buttons, her broad- 
 brimmed beaver hat with the green veil, her tortoiseshell-rirnmed 
 spectacles, and her buff-leather gauntlets. Abating her spectacles, 
 she might be one of Cromwell's Ironsides. I was aware of her 
 form afar off, and fled from before her face, even from the Galerie 
 de Valois into the Galerie d'Orleans; for Miss Wugg is in the habit 
 of carrying a few copies of Proof Positive in her reticule, and there 
 would be wailing in France if she made me read that book. Ca 
 porte malheur. I began it once, and my tailor at once sent in his 
 account, with a demand for immediate payment. 
 What do all these excellent people want in the dear old Palais 
 
 \
 
 THAT DEAR OLD PALAIS KOYAL. 39 
 
 Royal? To change their English and American money into 
 napoleons and five-franc pieces ? Wiry, money-changers' shops 
 abound all over modern Paris ; to say nothing of the excellent 
 John Arthur and Co., of the Rue de Castiglione. To buy diamonds 
 and rubies at the few remaining first-class jewellers' shops? No; 
 they scarcely look like people who want expensive jewellery. To 
 dine at the cheap restaurants ? Possibly ; but then they are here 
 r.ll day long before lunch and long before dinner-time. They 
 want, I apprehend, to see ' Life in Paris ; ' but the life, dear sirs 
 and madams, is no longer here. The glory of the Palais Royal 
 has departed. The quick-eared, quicker-e} r ed Hebrews who keep 
 the very cheap jewelry shops, with the open fronts and ' Entree 
 Libre ' inscribed over the portals, might be very irate did they hear 
 me thus asperse the liveliness of the Palais Royal. I wonder who 
 bivys this glittering rubbish : the thin gilt lockets, with big staring 
 initials, enamelled in gaudy enamel, or set with false stones ; the 
 flimsy necklaces, the pancake-looking brooches, the clumsy brace- 
 lets, the sham-gold tiaras and belts, the multitudinous array of 
 ' charms ' for chatelaines a very microcosm of tinsel and pinch- 
 beck. Who buys them ? Why, inconsequent radoteur that I am, 
 I used to buy the tinselled and pinchbeck rubbish myself long years 
 ago, when I was young : 
 
 ' Ho, pretty page, with the dimpled chin, 
 
 That never has known the barber's shear, 
 
 All your aim is woman to win, 
 
 This is the way that boys begin, 
 
 Wait till you come to Forty Year.' 
 
 The girls were very pliant when I brought them home the thin 
 gilt lockets with the enamelled initials, the flimsy necklaces, and 
 clumsy bracelets, as presents. They smiled, and said things 
 pleasant to hear. Now, not all the gold of Ballarat, not all the 
 silver of Nevada laid at their feet, would win a smile, save one of 
 derision, from them. I hate girls, and boys too. I will go into 
 the Cafe d'Orle'ans, and have a glass of Eau de St. Galmier with 
 a cinder in it.
 
 40 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 But I can avail myself of a surer recipe for chasing away melan- 
 choly in the Palais Royal. Just as, when I feel hipped and dull at 
 home, I always turn to a little thin folio of the ' characaturas ' of 
 Lionardo da Vinci, engraved by Wenceslaus Hollar from the 
 originals in the Portland Museum, and find myself, ere five 
 minutes be past, shaking with laughter over Leonardo's incom- 
 parably droll portraits types of * odd-fish ' humanity three 
 hundred years old, but which at every turn you will find repeated 
 in London society so in the Palais lloyal, when ' the Something 
 Bitter ' surges up from the memories of the past, I seldom fail to 
 find a cheerful solace by repairing to the Galerie d' Orleans, and 
 surveying the contents of that ever-delightful terracotta pig-shop. 
 Do you know those pigs ? They are modelled b}* a skilful artist 
 named (I think) L. Desbords, who likewise excels in the repre- 
 S3ntation of monkeys, and is even a proficient of what may be 
 termed the Humorous Nude, in the shape of little statuettes of 
 ladies more or less in the costume of Hans Breitmann's Mermaid ; 
 but it is in the plastic delineation of porcine life and manners 
 that the genius of M. L. Desbords most brilliantly shines. He 
 seems to have based his studies first on a careful perusal of a 
 translation of Charles Lamb's Essay on Roast Piy ; then (to my 
 thinking) he has carefully considered the pig as demonstrated in 
 England by George Morland and in France by Decamps ; then he 
 has gone to nature to the pigsty ; and finally he has evolved 
 out of his own internal consciousness an anthropochoisine comedy, 
 preserving in piggy all his piggishness, yet investing him, your 
 rire, with certain human attributes. Thus you see the pig who 
 is ' tight,' and the pig who is suffering from a headache on the da}' 
 following his orgie ; the pig who is beating, or is being beaten by, his 
 wife ; and subtle stroke of true genius! the pig who is having a 
 few words with his mother-in-law. The only contemporary artist 
 who can be for an instant compared with this porcine Praxiteles of 
 the Palais lloyal is our own admirable Britain Riviere. Do you 
 know that consummate painter's picture of ' Circe ' the enchan- 
 tress gazing at the companions of Ulysses, changed by her magic
 
 THAT DEAR OLD PALAIS ROYAL. 
 
 41 
 
 arts (ant! her Royal Tullochgorum whisky) into swine ? Every 
 phase of human hoggishness developed by excess into an unmiti- 
 gated pigdom is there illustrated. Mr. Riviere and M. Desbords 
 have travelled to Circeland by parallel roads. In the shop where 
 these wondrous porcine terracottas are sold there is besides a 
 plentiful stock of miscellaneous plasticity, comprising many 
 genuine works of art ; but I care little for the Antinous or the 
 Callipygian Venus, the Dancing Fawn or the Huntress Diana, in 
 such merry company as that of M. Desbords. Est modus in rebus. 
 There is a time to laugh and a time to weep ; and when I am in 
 the Galerie d'Orleans my attention is absorbed by the pigs, and 
 by nothing else. 
 
 Was it not in this same gallery that there might have been 
 seen strolling on most afternoons, so late as the earl} r part of 
 the reign of Louis Philippe, an old, old man, who was nicknamed 
 by his few associates ' Yalois Collier ' ? The old man had been the 
 husband of the infamous Jeanne de St. Remy, ' Countess ' de la 
 Motte, who was wont to boast (with some show of truth, it would 
 seem) that she had a strain of the royal blood of the Valois in her 
 veins. This convict-countess was, you will remember, the prime 
 mover in that phenomenal swindle of the ' Affaire du Collier,' or 
 Diamond-Necklace business. They ran her in at last. She was 
 whipped and branded on both shoulders with the letter V (for 
 Vole-use), and locked up in the Salpetriere for life ; but she made her 
 escape (owing probably to court influence) from that penitentiary, 
 and made her way to that grand refuge for villany, London, where 
 she met a miserable death by jumping out of the window of a 
 Lambeth lodging-house, hotly pursued by the bailiffs who sought 
 to arrest her at the suit of a pettifogging attorne}'. I am writing 
 on this matter from memory, as I have by me neither Mr. Carlyle's 
 wonderful disquisition on the Diamond Necklace, nor Mr. Henry 
 Yizetelly's exhaustive examen on the same subject. One of the 
 queerest tragi-comic episodes extant, this Affaire du Collier. It 
 was one of the levers de ridcau of the tremendous drama of the 
 Revolution ; and to think of old La Motte, inconsolable widower of
 
 42 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 tins flagellated and stigmatised convict-countess, surviving the 
 eighteenth century, and crawling through the years of the nine- 
 teenth even into the ' thirties.' He enjoj'ed, it is said, in his 
 latter years a trifling pension from the Prefecture of Police. Pos- 
 sibly he did the Rue de Jerusalem some slight service in the way 
 of espionage. Well, Dr. Titus Gates died a pensioner of the 
 government of William III., and made a tolerably decent end 
 of it. Society can afford to pass a statute of limitations for the 
 benefit of any ancient rascals who have become historical and can 
 do no more harm. Within the memory of men still living, there 
 was a nonogenarian chieftain in one of the Sandwich islands, 
 whom whaling captains were glad to ' interview ' paying half a 
 dollar a head for the privilege on the score that the savage patri- 
 arch had been at the killing of Captain Cook ; and that at the 
 cannibal banquet which followed the murder, the Illustrious Navi- 
 gator's great toe had fallen to his (the patriarch's) share. Still I 
 don't think that any Indian government would pension off Nana 
 Sahib with fifty rupees per mensem, were the Butcher of Cawnpore 
 (they say he is alive, and doing very well as a commission agent in 
 the Cashmere-shawl trade) unearthed. A short shrift and sus. per 
 coll. in a pigskin rope must needs be the lot of that unutterable 
 miscreant, were he as old as Methuselah when captured. 
 
 But I must get away from the Galerie d'Orleans, and from the 
 Palais Royal too, for good and all. The place is too full of dis- 
 solving views. Why, on the site of this same Orleans passage, 
 were the notorious Galeries de Bois, the resort of all the painted 
 profligacy of the Directory, the Consulate, the First Empire, and 
 the Restoration ! In 1815, the Galeries de Bois were nicknamed, 
 owing to the extensive Muscovite patronage which they enjoyed, 
 ' Le Camp des Tartares.' But in the year of Invasion and Occu- 
 pation after Waterloo, when Beranger was writing ' Le Menetrier de 
 Meudon ' and ' La Complaiute de ces Demoiselles,' all Paris was a 
 hostile camp. Our Highlanders bivouacked in the Champs Erysees. 
 Lord Uxbridge's troopers picketed their horses in the Bois de Bou- 
 logne. The Russian head-quarters were in the Place Vendome.
 
 THAT DEAR OLD PALAIS ROYAL. 43 
 
 The Prussians held the heights of Montmartre. The Austrians 
 were in the Champ de Mars and the Carrousel. But all these alien 
 warriors came down to the Palais Royal, to stare at the jewellers' 
 shops and the painted ' demoiselles' of the Galeries de Bois ; to 
 lose their money at the gambling-houses, or be cheated out of it at 
 the restaurants. Waterloo was avenged at last by the gros batail- 
 lons of the bankers at roulette and trente ct qiiarante, and by the 
 sale to the invaders of many thousand bottles of rubbishing cham- 
 pagne at twelve francs the flask. 'Rouge gagne! ' 'Rouge perd! ' 
 * Via, Monsieur ! ' and ' Garcon, 1'addition ! ' were sweeter sounds to 
 the French ear than the dreadful ' Sauve qui peut ! ' of Mont St. 
 Jean.
 
 A STUDENT OF THE QUART1ER LAT1X. 
 
 IV. 
 
 PARIS CUT TO PIECES. 
 
 Aug. 14. 
 
 I HAVE not yet revisited the Qnartier Latin, the districts of the 
 Odeon and the Pantheon, or the long, stately, silent streets of the 
 Faubourg St. Germain : all situate on what has been termed the 
 ' Surrey side of the Seine.' When I cross the Pont Neuf, and 
 dive into that which was to me, many years ago, a familiar and a 
 beloved region, I shall have much cause, I fear, for disappointment 
 and regret. I read, for example, the other day, that the Rue de 
 la Harpe, that once teeming hive of students, grisettes, and 
 Polish refugees, had been entirely demolished; and I am prepared 
 to find even the Hue.de 1'Ecole de Medecine reduced to a phan- 
 tom of its former self. The Paris of Vautrin and the Pere Goriot 
 is fast becoming a legendary city; and as for the Paris of Eugene 
 Sue's RIysteries, it has been utterly swept away these many years.
 
 PARIS CUT TO PIECES. 
 
 45 
 
 A BOHEMIAN OF THE STUDIOS. 
 
 So long ago as the first week in December 1851 two nights after 
 the Coup d'Etat I supped in company with an English friend at 
 the veritable tjargotte of the 'Lapin Blanc,' in the Rue aux Feves,
 
 46 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 a house almost exclusively frequented by bandits and their female 
 companions ; and the ' Ogress ' who kept the establishment was 
 good enough to tell us, as she served us our ' Arlequin,' that 
 the Rue aux Feves had at last begun to ' smell too loud ' in the 
 nostrils of authority, and that it was forthwith to be pulled down, 
 in order to widen the approaches to the Palais de Justice. 
 
 Meanwhile the transformation of the city, which, with magical 
 rapidity, has taken place on what we may term the ' Middlesex 
 side,' is sufficient to amaze and perplex that most assiduous of 
 pedestrians, the 'oldest inhabitant,' to say nothing of the foreigner 
 who only makes periodical trips to Paris. Take, for instance, one 
 strip of the Boulevard, and one side only thereof, extending from 
 the Madeleine to the Cafe Anglais. Keep straight on, and there 
 will be no danger of your losing your way. You must reach in 
 time the Rue de Richelieu, the Rue Vivienne, the Rue Mont- 
 martre ; and I suppose that the route continues onward, although 
 intersected by many new boulevards, to the ultimate Place de la 
 Bastille. But, branch off to the right from that strip of which I 
 spoke, with the intent, say, of getting into the Rue Neuve St. 
 Augustin, the Rue Neuve des Petits-Champs how they would 
 stare if you entered a restaurant and asked for bouillabaisse ! or 
 the Rue St. Honore, and, before you are five minutes older, you 
 will find yourself wandering in the most 'feckless' manner among 
 the irreconcilable segments of a Paris which has been cut to pieces. 
 Some of the old side streets, it is true, remain. I come upon the 
 Rue Louis le Grand, the Rue du Port Mahon, the Rue de Gram- 
 mont, and the Rue St. Anne ; but those thoroughfares no longer 
 seem to lead direct to the goals at which they were wont to cul- 
 minate. Threading the well-remembered, narrow, full-flavoured 
 little thoroughfare, full of maisons garnies, fruiterers, and wine- 
 shops, you come suddenly on a great Babel of a brand-new street, 
 broad, lined with tall mansions and splendid shops, abounding 
 with palatial hotels and garish cafes, and blazing with gas, inter- 
 mingled with the well-nigh blinding, but far from agreeable, elec- 
 tric light.
 
 PARIS CUT TO PIECES. 
 
 47 
 
 THE PLACE DE LA BASTILLE. 
 
 I am accustomed, for a reason which I shall speedily have the 
 honour of practically explaining to 3-011, seldom to breakfast or 
 dine twice running at the same restaurant. I am making a list of 
 menus and a collection of bills; and a very remarkable body of 
 documentary evidence they will turn out to be, I fancy. Thus, I
 
 48 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 wished a couple of evenings since to dine at the Restaurant 
 Gaillon a veiy excellent and moderately-priced place of entertain- 
 ment, hard by the Fontaine Gaillon. Scores of times in old days 
 I have reached that familiar eating-house by the way either of the 
 Rue Louis le Grand or by the Rue de la Michodiere. On this 
 occasion I thought that I would take the Michodiere route ; but, 
 alas, it led me neither to Gaillon's Fountain nor to Gaillon's 
 Restaurant. It landed me on the brilliant but barren strand of a 
 new street, at the upper extremity of which I could discern the 
 colossal but meretricious facade of the New Opera House. Fairly 
 bewildered and cUsoriente, I was fain to ask my way. ' Suivez 
 toujours la Rue de la Michodiere ' was the direction of the obliging 
 citizen in a blouse to whom I addressed myself. But where was 
 the Rue de la Michodiere that part of it at least which was to 
 come ? I lighted upon it at last, in a painfully dislocated and 
 fragmentary condition, on the other side of the brand-new street, 
 but certainly two hundred and fifty yards from where I should 
 
 have expected to find it. I came upon the Fountain and the Res- 
 taurant Gaillon at last the last, fortunatel}', as good as ever, and 
 indeed altogether unaltered; for the proprietor, M. Grossetete,
 
 PARIS CUT TO PIECES. 49 
 
 had taken pains to affix to the centres of all the great mirrors in 
 his dining-saloons placards conveying his respectful compliments 
 to his ' nomb reuse et estimable clientele,' and containing the 
 pleasing announcement that he had resolved ' firmly to maintain 
 his ancient and accepted prices' during the whole of the Exhibi- 
 tion season. Abi tu etfac similiter, I would say to the proprietor 
 of the Restaurant du Grand Ecorcheur, who charged me this morn- 
 ing at breakfast three francs for two moderately-sized peaches, and 
 five francs for a bottle of vin de Grave, which I could have bought 
 in London for a couple of shillings. 
 
 Ere I enter on the great theme of Paris restaurants, their pro- 
 visions and their prices, I may just venture parenthetically to 
 note one circumstance typically illustrating the perfectly arbitrary 
 manner in which the tariff of articles of food is made to fluctuate. 
 The water just now in Paris is almost undrinkable. The Faculty 
 are unanimous in denouncing its unwholesomeness; and every- 
 body is diluting his vin ordinaire with a slightly aerated and very 
 palatable mineral water called the ' Eau de St. Galmier.' It is 
 almost as refreshing as Apollinaris ; and the Parisians are patro- 
 nising it to an enormous extent, not only from gastric but from 
 patriotic motives, St. Gahnier being a French source. I have 
 heard, it is true, of one over- scrupulous anti-German gentleman who 
 objected to drink St. Galmier on the ground that it came from the 
 ' Source Badois,' and that Baden is in Germany. His scruples 
 were, however, removed, first by exhibiting to him a bottle, from 
 the label of which it was made manifest that the name of the 
 spring was ' Badoit,' with a t instead of an s ; and next, by point- 
 ing out to him that if the water had been, indeed, of Teutonic 
 origin, ' Source ' happens to be a feminine noun, and the require- 
 ments of French grammar would have demanded the substitution 
 of ' Badoise ' for ' Badois.' I should say that St. Galmier would 
 yield a very fair profit if it were sold retail at fourpence a bottle 
 At the Duval restaurant they charge fifty centimes for this bever- 
 age ; at restaurants of the second class the price is seventy-five 
 centimes, and at those of the first class a franc. At the grand
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 hotels the charge for St. Galrnier is one franc fifty centimes. I 
 never had the audacity to stay at Claridge's ; but is there any 
 hotel in London the Expensive, I wonder, where they charge 
 eighteenpence for a bottle of soda-water ? 
 
 But let us return to Paris Cut to Pieces. That which remains 
 of the Michodiere puts me in mind but very faintly of old times. 
 There is yet at the boulevard corner of the street a ready-made- 
 clothes shop ; but it is a far less pretentious establishment than 
 the one on the same site, of which I remember the 'inauguration' 
 some four-and-twenty years ago, and which did business under the 
 imposing title of ' Le Prophete.' Whether the prophet in ques- 
 tion was Mohammed or John of Leyden, Francis Moore or Zadkiel, 
 was not stated ; but the entire concern was, nevertheless, con- 
 ducted on the loftiest and most ceremonious scale. Why the pre- 
 sence of a huissier-like personage of grave and 
 reverend aspect, clad in a full suit of black, with 
 a white cravat, and a steel chain round his neck, 
 should have been provided as necessarily auxiliary 
 to the cariying on the affairs of an emporium of 
 coats, vests, and pantaloons, I could never satis- 
 factorily determine ; nor could the sable-clad and 
 steel-chained functionary himself be considered in 
 the long-run as a success. The French public at 
 large do not like huissiers, they associate those 
 officials with the law ; and ere long an unpleasant 
 impression arose in the popular mind that the pro- 
 prietors of * Le Prophete ' were in difficulties, and that the solemn 
 individual with the steel chain was the man in possession. After 
 a time they prudently withdrew the man in chains, and I heard 
 that he subsequently transferred his services to the conductors of 
 a three-franc dinner, wine included, in the Passage des Indiges- 
 tions. Nothing disheartened, however, the * Prophete ' people 
 replaced their discredited Imissier by a stalwart negro, who 
 mounted guard at the boulevard entrance to the shop. In a green 
 tunic, with gilt buttons, buckskins, topboots, and a splendid gold-
 
 PARIS CUT TO PIECES. 51 
 
 lace band and cockade to his hat, he looked like one of the Imperial 
 grooms the grooms of the Emperor Soulouque, I mean. For a 
 time the Ethiop at the ' Prophete ' was amazingly popular, and 
 attracted large crowds to the slop-shop. ' Un beau noir,' the 
 grisettcs and bonnes used to say, gazing admiringly at this glorified 
 black man. His reign, however, was brief. He was eclipsed by a 
 yellow-faced Chinaman, with a pigtail and a purple petticoat, who 
 was retained by the proprietors of an adjoining tea-shop ; and the 
 sable groom, being afflicted, besides, with a weakness for 'le 
 Rhum des lies,' faded into the Infinities. 
 
 But, ah, ere I leave the Rue de la Michodiere, to stray hither 
 and thither through Paris Cut to Pieces, my mind recurs to one 
 modest little boutique, the disappearance of which awakens the very 
 pleasantest and the very saddest of memoirs. Whereabouts was 
 Madame Busque's? There are cabarets, billiard-rooms, blanckis- 
 sagcs de fin, milk and fruit-shops galore, in the Rue de la Micho- 
 diere of 1878 ; but I am unable to fix upon any one of these 
 establishments as standing on the premises erst tenanted by the 
 excellent old lady whose lot I have not ceased to lament. And 
 who, you will ask, was Madame B usque? She kept a cremerie in 
 the Michodiere. She sold butter and eggs, milk and cheese ; but 
 in her little back parlour and at her little round tableon which 
 at night-time not more than a single candle was ever permitted to 
 shine she provided dejeuners d la fourchette, and dinners, forti- 
 fying in quantity and delicious in quality. Well do I remember 
 the succulence of her potage croAte au pot, and especially her 
 matchless monies d la poulette. Her wine was sound, albeit of no 
 particular vintage. Her fromaye de Brie was superb. One did 
 not care for Roquefort, Camembert, or Pont 1'Eveque in those 
 days. We brought our own cigars, petits Bordeaux not unfre- 
 quently, and costing only a halfpenny, very smokable little weeds. 
 In 1854-5 we had not come to the complexion of Regalias Britani- 
 cas at a franc apiece. For my part, looking at the fact that it is 
 next door to the impossible to obtain cigars of even tolerable 
 quality in Paris, and not having the courage to smuggle genuine 
 
 E 2
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 havanas into the territory of the Republic, I would as lief smoke 
 pet its Bordeaux as anything else. Unfortunately that particular 
 
 MADAME BUSQUE, DKVQVTEST OF ROMAJOSTS.' 
 
 brand has come to be of simply indescribable vileness. The 
 monopoly of the Regie is one of the chief social curses of France ; 
 the lucifer match monopoly is another ; and since the Siege the 
 quality of both products has been growing steadily worse year after
 
 PARIS CUT TO PIECES. 53 
 
 year. The Parisians are accustomed to say bitterly that there 
 exists an infallible preventive against the breaking out of confla- 
 grations in France, namely, to thatch the houses with the govern- 
 ment tobacco, and try to set fire to them with the ' concession ' 
 alumettes. The first won't burn, and the second won't light. 
 
 But dear old Madame B usque. She was the worthiest of 
 womankind, the devoutest of Romanists ; but she cheerfully gave 
 credit to the heretics among her customers. She depended not on 
 the support of the outside world, being quite content with the 
 patronage of a private clientele composed mainly of young Ameri- 
 cans and Englishmen domiciled in Paris. The Americans taught 
 her to make sundry Transatlantic dishes ; and speedily Madame 
 Busque hung out her sign as the ' Specialite de Pumpkin Pies ' 
 and the ' Delices des Buckwheat Cakes.' I think even that she 
 knew what ' succotash ' was, and could have made ' gumbo soup ' 
 and ' clam chowder ' had the proper ingredients for those myste- 
 rious compounds been brought to her. I am very certain that she 
 could mix a ' cocktail,' even to the more recondite preparations of 
 the ' eye-opener,' ' moustache-twister,' ' morning glory,' and 
 ' corpse-reviver ' kind. The nights we used to have at Madame 
 Busque's ! Nearly all the Englishmen who went there in 1854-5 
 dramatists, journalists, poets, painters, and so forth are dead; 
 but often, when reading the American papers, I come across the 
 name of some distinguished Congressman or Physician, General 
 or Judge, in the Great Republic, who, in the old days, came night 
 after night to ply his knife and fork and quaff his cheap Mecloc, to 
 smoke his petit Bordeaux, and tell his tale and sing his song, 
 in the little back parlour behind the cremerie, I cannot find the 
 shop ; I cannot find the house ; but the memories of my own 
 countrymen who made part of the merry circle cluster round me 
 till my old feet, like the friar's in Romeo and Juliet, stumble at 
 graves. One of the mournfulest pilgrimages that I ever made in 
 my life was from Madame Busque's breakfast-table, in a bitter 
 January morning, through thickest snow, to the Cemetery of 
 Montmartre. But we must not indulge in such lugubrious re-
 
 54 
 
 PAEIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 membrances. Vive la bagatelle ! So I struggle through the 
 disjecta membra of Paris Cut to Pieces, until I settle down at 
 a little marhle table in front of one of the most dazzling cafes of 
 that new Avenue de 1' Opera which has opened up so splendid a 
 vista to the Place du Palais Royal, and has so completely ham- 
 strung, truncated, and spoiled the Rue de la Paix ; and blinking 
 like an owl in the radiance of the electric light, I plunge into the 
 wildest revelry of a cold ' soda-groseille/
 
 v. 
 
 SUNDAY IN PAEIS. 
 
 Sunday, Aug. 18. 
 
 AMONG other persons and things in Paris which, to my thinking, 
 seem to have deteriorated to have visibly degenerated since the 
 collapse of Imperialism, and the definite adoption of Republican 
 institutions, is the Washerwoman. Her prices are as extravagant 
 as of yore, with twenty per cent, added, ' in consequence of the 
 Exposition ; ' but she is no longer punctual in keeping the appoint- 
 ments which she makes to bring home your linen, and she is apt
 
 56 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 to lose the articles with which you have intrusted her : offering 
 you in lieu thereof textile fabrics of strange warp and woof and 
 cloudy hue, the property of persons whose personal acquaintance 
 you have not the honour to enjoy. Dudley Costello once wrote in 
 a magazine a story called La Camicia Rapita, in which he related, 
 with equal grace, humour, and delicacy, how a manage de cceur 
 between two persons moving in the select circles in society was 
 brought about through the gentleman finding among his linen the 
 innermost garment of a lady ; the lady on her part being equally 
 a victim of the laundress's blunder, and discovering to her horror 
 a masculine indusium in her basket. That is all very well ; but 
 I want my own linen, and not that of other folks. Sometimes the 
 French blanchisseuse loses, say, a white waistcoat altogether ; still 
 she_never omits to charge seventy centimes for it in her bill. ' But 
 where is my waistcoat ? ' you ask, in stern reproachfulness. ' I 
 know not,' she replies, with touching naivete ; ' all that I know is 
 that I washed it before I lost it.' So, it will be remembered, did 
 Othello kiss Desdemona before he killed her ; still the caress was 
 but a slight compensation to poor Mrs. O. 
 
 The modern Parisian laundress, although still an incomparable 
 ironer and ' getter-up,' has sadly fallen off as a blanchisseuse. 
 She burns holes in your linen with the eau de Javelle, or some 
 other abominable caustic solution which she uses ; and she either 
 starches your linen too much or not at all. She is no longer 
 pretty the demand, perhaps, for sujcts at the theatres of Cluny 
 and Belleville is, perhaps, too exigent ; and the juvenile apprentice 
 to soapsuds is contemptuously spoken of as 'un baquet,' a tub: 
 but it is of her unpunctuality that I chiefly complain. You may 
 well scribble ' a rendre incessamment ' at the foot of your bill. She 
 laughs, to all seeming, derisively at the injunction. The week slips 
 away. Saturday comes and goes. You look from your window, and 
 behold scores of elaborately-frilled skirts borne past you in ironical 
 triumph on poles, and you rage at the thought of your own destitu- 
 tion. Those jupcs are going home to their fair owners; but your 
 washerwoman cometh not. Fancy Mariana waiting desolate and
 
 SUNDAY IN PARIS. 
 
 57 
 
 forlorn in the Moated Grange for her 'things.' Or it may be that 
 Mariana's young man could not come to her for the reason that he 
 had been disappointed by his washerwoman. Where is that false 
 blanchisseuse ? Did she stay too late last night at the Folies 
 Bergere ? Has she gone off to the Fete Patronale at St. Germain- 
 en-Laye, at Choisy-le-Roi, or at Bourg-la-Reine ? Or, like the 
 
 heroine in L'Assommoir, has she come to fisticuffs with a sister 
 blanchisseuse at the public washhouse, and is consequently laid up 
 with a black eye ? 
 
 ' Pan, pan, pan ! Margot an lavoir, 
 Pan, pan, pan ! a coups tie biittoir ; 
 Pan, pan, pan ! va laver son coeur, 
 Pan, pan, pan ! tout noir cle douleur.' 
 
 AVhat have I to do with her affairs of the heart ? I wish that she 
 would bring home my washing. 
 
 There is thus much, however, to be said of Margot. She does 
 not wholly throw you over on the Seventh Day. No one knows
 
 58 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX. 
 
 better than she does that Sunday in Paris is a day of merry- 
 making and rejoicing, and that, as Artemus Ward put it, ' it is 
 difficult to be festive without a clean biled rag.' So she lets you 
 have something before noon on the Sabbath. It may be only a 
 tithe of the basketful to which you are entitled ; still it is some- 
 
 thing which will enable you to make a cleanly Sabbath appearance, 
 and you must be thankful for small mercies. Half a loaf is better 
 than no bread. In her heart of hearts Margot must admit that it 
 would be the height of cruelty, une Ictchete dcs Idchetes, to deprive 
 you even to the slightest extent of the means of enjoying that 
 holiday which she herself so dearly prizes. She has very proba- 
 bly been overwhelmed with work during the week, and has sat up 
 all Saturday night ironing and folding, so as to satisfy at least a
 
 II 
 
 ,.-,:; 
 
 MIL 
 
 A \VHIST-P.\KM 
 
 1.59.
 
 SUNDAY IN PARIS. 59 
 
 portion of the needs of her pratiques early on Sunday, and have 
 the rest of the day to herself. 
 
 This is not by any means the way in which we understand the 
 Sunday question in England ; nor can I more fitly preface the 
 brief observations which I am about to make on Sunday in Paris 
 than by pointing out that it is utterly and entirely hopeless to 
 expect the slightest assimilation or reconciliation of ideas between 
 French and English people touching their respective observance of 
 the Sabbath. A British Sunday is one thing, and a Continental 
 Sunday is another ; and you can no more hope to bring about a 
 likeness between the two than you can turn vinegar into oil or 
 black into white. I am not speaking on this matter from brief or 
 from imperfect experience. Forty years ago I used, as a school- 
 boy, to get my exeat, or ' day rule ' unless I was ' kept in ' for 
 high crimes and misdemeanours at ten o'clock on Sunday morn- 
 ing. My sister and I used to go to the English Episcopal church 
 in the Eue d'Aguesseau ; and after service we proceeded, under 
 the guardianship of kind French friends, thorough!}' to enjoy our- 
 selves. We took our walks on the Boulevards, in the Palais Royal, 
 or in the Garden of the Tuileries, peeping in at all the gay shops; 
 we were treated to breakfast at a restaurant and to ices at Tortoni's ; 
 in the afternoon we listened to the military band playing in the 
 Place Vendome ; at proper seasons of the year we went to the Fete 
 of St. Cloud, the fanfare at Vincennes, or to Versailles to see the 
 grandes eaux play; and in the evening, if we were not taken to 
 the theatre or the opera, we had that which to us children was a 
 gala-dinner at some friend's house. After dinner the ladies and 
 gentlemen sang secular songs and played 'minuets and rigadoons,' 
 or at least something for us to dance to ; while in a snug corner of 
 the salon the cure of the parish yes, that venerable and benevolent 
 ecclesiastic enjoyed his game of whist with M. le General des Trois 
 Sabres and the family notaire; and Madame de Vis-Brisee, who was 
 nearly eighty years of age, plied her spinning-wheel, and told us, in 
 the intervals between our romps, moving stories of the Great Revolu- 
 tion and the noble and beautiful heads that were cut off during the
 
 60 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 Heign of Terror. She used to wear a black-silk calash, and her 
 hair was as white and as silk}' as the flax she spun. She was a 
 peaceful cheerful old lady ; yei her father, her husband, her 
 brother, avaient tons passes par la the Guillotine. 
 
 Ana I to ascribe the hardened wickedness of my subsequent 
 career to this niy systematically dissolute and profligate conduct 
 in the matter of Sunday during my nonage ? Who knows ? I do 
 know that when we have to Hang a man and the hangman is 
 tolerably busy nowadays the condemned wretch is generally 
 very solicitous to inform the chaplain of course without the 
 slightest suggestion on the part of that reverend functionaiy 
 that his first steps in crime were due to his non-observance of 
 the Sabbath. Similarly the convict burglar at Pentonville told 
 Charles Dickens that his the convict's manifold deeds of house- 
 breaking were all directly prompted by his having witnessed the 
 ' Hoprerof Frar Diaverler' from the sixpenny galleiy at the Surrey. 
 There is no rule, however, without an exception ; and I remember 
 that the last murderer whom I saw strangled it was eleven years 
 since went to the scaffold crooning a Sunday-school hymn. The 
 gaol chaplain was ver} T scrupulous to explain this to me, pointing 
 out that in this particular prison they used Hymns Ancient and 
 Modern. Thus it is clear that this assassin, for one, had at some 
 time or another been an observer of the Sabbath in its British 
 sense. 
 
 As regards Sunday in Paris, as it was when my life began, so 
 it is now that I am a man ; and so, in all probability, it will be 
 when I grow old, and after I am dead. With some very slight 
 exceptions, to which I shall presently call attention, I fail to 
 observe any material difference between the Parisian Sunday as 
 it used to be kept in August 1838, and the Parisian Sunday as it is 
 kept in 1878. Here is the actual Sunday, as I see it from the 
 ground-floor saloon, open to the street, of the Cafe Ve*ron, at the 
 corner of the Rue Vivienne and the Boulevard. I am breakfast- 
 ing at an hour which, in England, forms rigorously a part of 
 church-time. The Cafe Veron is not a private club. It is a
 
 SUNDAY IN PARIS. 61 
 
 house of public entertainment ; and the proprietor thereof his 
 wife and daughter are officiating as dames de comptoir is, to all 
 intents and purposes, a licensed victualler. I may be content with 
 a modest flask of St. Galmier, or a cup of tea with my breakfast, 
 but my worthy host is quite ready to supply me hie et mine, with 
 any quantity of burgundy, champagne, or moselle of brandy, rum, 
 whiskey, or hollands that I may choose to order. As a matter of 
 fact, I can discern, on dozens of little tables inside and outside the 
 Cafe Veron, the ruddy glow of cognac in the carafons. At all the 
 churches there have been Matins this morning, and, indeed, the 
 youngest daughter of the proprietor, 
 radiant in her Sunday best, has 
 just come back from High Mass at 
 St. Eustache. She places her para- 
 sol and her gilt paroissien on one 
 of the little tables, and very con- 
 tentedly despatches her breakfast 
 coram publico, after which she re- 
 lieves her mamma at the receipt of 
 custom behind the comptoir. This 
 system of ' shifts ' and reliefs, this 
 ' turn and turn about ' of watches, 
 
 as on board ship, seems to go on continually without unduly 
 fatiguing anybody. The present Sunday may not be the youngest 
 daughter's ' Sunday afternoon out,' for the dearly beloved pro- 
 menade ; but it may be her ' Sunday evening out,' to go to the 
 play; while if one dame de comptoir is devout and attends Matins, 
 there is no reason why another shall not attend Vespers. At 
 the same time the Law does not require the cafes to be closed 
 because one section of the community goes to church and another 
 stays away. 
 
 Be it observed that, although there is no cafe or restaurant in 
 London in which I, as a stranger or pilgrim, can obtain exciseable 
 liquors during church-time, I am entitled to eat and drink as 
 much as ever I like of an exciseable or non-exciseable nature
 
 62 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 during church-time on Sunday, at the open window of the coffee- 
 room of a Pall-Mall club, from which I can even merrily note the 
 strictly bolted and barred-up public house on the opposite side of 
 the way. I am perfectly well aware that the closing of the public- 
 houses during church-time on Sundays prevents a great deal of 
 drunkenness ; but I cannot see why, if a man be hungry at half- 
 past eleven, or hungrier at half-past three or four or five, he 
 should not be allowed to enter an eating-house, and have his lunch 
 or his dinner, and his wine or beer at that repast. The dram- 
 drinker and the sot do not want anything to eat beyond an occa- 
 sional halfpennyworth of bread, or a red-herring, to their intoler- 
 able deal of gin and beer ; but for their few sakes the moderate 
 section of the community must needs go hungry and thirsty in 
 church-tune, unless they happen to be members of the clubs. 
 Mind, I have not the slightest wish to surrender my privilege of 
 looking out of the club-window on Sunday, and watching the 
 people who are not allowed, by Act of Parliament, to have any 
 exciseable refreshment during the prohibited hours. I am, I hope, 
 a consistent Liberal; but my only fear touching the possible 
 return to office some day or other of Mr. Gladstone is, that the 
 uncompromisingly virtuous statesman in question might, on the 
 old ridiculous ' sauce for the goose and sauce for the gander ' 
 ground, bring in a Bill for closing the Pall-Mall clubs during 
 church-time on Sunday. He would do it, sir, I hugely fear. 
 
 As for the traffic on the Boulevards during this present Sunday 
 in Paris, it is certainly at least four times greater, and naturally 
 so, since I first made acquaintance with this city. The population 
 has more than doubled. I think that Galignani for 1839 gives 
 800,000 as the number of souls in the Lutetia of Louis Philippe; 
 but the facilities of locomotion, and the number of holiday-makers 
 who enjoy a portion of their holiday on wheels, have increased 
 during the last generation in a much larger ratio. Dublin has 
 often been qualified as the ' most car-drivingest city in the world; ' 
 but the Paris of the existing epoch may certainly be defined as the 
 city par excellence for one-horse chaises or open victorias. The
 
 SUNDAY IN PAEIS. 63 
 
 suddenness and the completeness of the cessation of the cab- 
 strike were significant proofs of the imperative necessity for sup- 
 plying a popular demand. The poorer class of Parisians have 
 no need for coupes, and will dispense with fiacres ; but the open 
 chaises or victorias they must and will have. They are patronised 
 on Sunday to an amazing extent. When I was young the popular 
 vehicle was the cabriolet a yellow concern with a hood, and with 
 huge wheels, the driver sitting on a little bench on one side of his 
 fare. This was the same cabriolet which, from its propensity to 
 upset, Louis XVI. declared that, ' if he were Lieutenant of Police, 
 he would not permit to circulate in the streets of Paris ; ' still it 
 was a most roomy old vehicle, and under its capacious leathern 
 hood could be packed (by amicable arrangement with the driver) 
 well-nigh as many passengers as clamber into or hang on to those 
 wonderful shandrydans, drawn each by a meagre pony with a 
 streaming mane and tail, that you meet racing at a breakneck pace 
 along the dusty road between Naples and Torre del Greco. The 
 modern Parisian victoria is, from a police point of view, designed 
 to contain either two or four passengers ; but on Sundays there 
 seems no limit to the number of men, women, children, and dogs 
 that alwa3 r s by amicable arrangement with the cocker can be 
 packed between the two rickety wheels. The horse is not con- 
 sulted. He is bound to go till he drops, and he very often does drop. 
 In our metropolis, save when there is a funeral or a political 
 meeting in progress, you very rarely see working people riding 
 about in cabs ; but the tremendous affluence of the many-headed 
 into these conveyances is to me one of the most curious features of 
 a Sunday in Paris. There is for this, as for most other sublunary 
 things, a good and sufficing reason. The Parisian petty trades- 
 man very rarely keeps a chaise-cart. The costermonger rarely 
 possesses even the humblest of donkey-carts. Gigs are rare ; so 
 the Parisian shopkeeper or working man, when he wishes to give 
 his ' missis and the young uns ' a ride on Sundays, joins with a 
 number of his friends similarly disposed, and makes a bargain with 
 the driver of one or more victorias. Where they all drive to, I
 
 64 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 really have not the remotest idea. Perhaps it is from the Made- 
 leine to the Bastille, and from the Bastille to the Madeleine, and 
 back again : all day long. Assuredly there could not be found in 
 the whole civilised world a more diverting drive. To these in- 
 
 cessantty succeeding chariots 
 the Automedons of which are not, 
 as a rule, by any means so skilful 
 as he who conducted Achilles 
 must be added a legion of much 
 more powerful and much more 
 heavily-laden omnibuses than I 
 ever remember to have seen in 
 the Paris of the past.* The 
 ' knifeboard ' has become a recog- 
 nised institution, the ' bureaux 
 
 de correspond ance ' of the 'buses are perpetually thronged ; and in the 
 outskirts of the city tramway-cars follow each other so closely that 
 
 you fancy you are gaz- 
 ing on so many Ame- 
 rican railway-trains 
 which have become 
 accidentally disjoint- 
 ed. I do not think 
 that I shall be accused 
 of exaggeration in 
 saying that on the 
 Sabbath the vehicular 
 traffic on the inner 
 boulevards is dou- 
 bled. The huge railway vans and tkefourgons of mercantile houses 
 
 * The first Paris omnibus company was formed by a royal decree of 
 Louis XIV., in 1662. The vehicles were called caresses a cinq sous, and were 
 licensed to carry eight passengers each. The Duke de Koannes was the- 
 chairman of the company ; and among the shareholders was the Sieur Blaise 
 Pascal, author of the Provinciales and the Pensees.
 
 SUNDAY IN PARIS. 
 
 65 
 
 vehicles powerfully horsed, but recklessly driven are indeed 
 pleasantly conspicuous by their absence on Sunday ; but to the 
 interminable procession of omnibuses and cabs must be added the 
 abnormal Exhibition traffic ; the special vans and chars-a-bancs 
 and tapissieres, holding from thirty to fifty passengers, each bound 
 to the Champ de Mars, and an almost equally numerous cortege of 
 pleasure wagons going out of town to the village festivals round 
 about Paris. To remoter hamlets the railway- trains are all gaily 
 flying ; and endless relays of convois come and go between Paris 
 and Versailles, St. Germain, Enghien, St. Cloud, Bellevue, 
 Poissy, Auvers-sur-Oise, Kueil, Mantes, and even Fontainebleau. 
 I must hasten, albeit the task is not an encouraging one, to 
 disabuse the minds of my countrymen, whose experience of Paris 
 is only short and superficial, of the notion that Sabbath observance 
 is, from an English point of view, increasing in Paris, because less 
 manual labour is done in Paris on the Sabbath, and a great many 
 more shops and warehouses are closed on Sunday, than was formerly 
 the case. These phenomena have nothing, save in the rarest and 
 most isolated cases, to do with any change in the religious senti- 
 ments of the people. I am given to understand that Protestant 
 missionary work is going on in sundry districts of Paris, but the 
 results of these well-meant attempts at evangelisation can only be
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 THE PA VILLON HEXRI QUATKE AT ST. GERMAIN. 
 
 as a drop of water in the vast ocean of Parisian Sabbath desecration : 
 as we understand it to be desecrated. My coiffeur has in his 
 shaving saloon a neat little placard conveying the information that 
 his establishment will be ' ferme les dimanches et fetes apres une 
 heure de 1'aprks-rnidi.' But his polite assistant, when I went to 
 get shaved this morning, was busy over his own ambrosial locks 
 with a pair of curling-tongs ; and his young and buxom donsort 
 had her hair in papers. I don't think these symptoms looked like 
 church or chapel, or Sunday school, or a Mothers' Meeting by and 
 by. They looked much more like the maddening wine-cup or 
 coffee-cup and the w&zy dance later in the afternoon. There are 
 plenty of jewellers' and linendrapers' and tailors' shops shops 
 which it appears to me are quite needlessly kept open which do 
 not close their doors on Sunday here ; but on the other hand, 
 especially in the neighbourhood of the Rue de la Paix, the Rue 
 Scribe, the Chaussee d'Antin, and the Avenue de 1'Opera, there 
 :are large numbers of commercial establishments which are as 
 hermetically sealed as the banks and the public offices.
 
 SUNDAY IX PARIS. 67 
 
 But I should be a blockhead were I to assume, and a hypocrite 
 were I to maintain, that an increase in religious fervour as we 
 understand it is at the bottom of this partial abstinence from 
 Sunday labour. The smaller money-changers' shops are all wide 
 open; so are the toj'-shops, and the confectioners and pastiy- 
 cooks ; because foreigners want to change money, and French 
 people are in the habit of buying playthings and sugarplums for 
 their children on Sunday ; but in the majority of instances it is 
 not on that day that the public require to purchase velvets and 
 satins, Aubusson carpets, carved oak furniture, embossed paper 
 hangings, Madapolam calicoes, or the new ' Cestus of Aglae' 
 corsets. For lack of custom many of the great magasins close 
 their doors, and those which continue open do so more from 
 habit than from the expectation of selling anything. Do you for 
 one moment think that the male and female employes in these 
 closed establishments utilise their emancipation by going to 
 church, or sitting at home and reading good books, or staring 
 grimly at each other till they begin to yawn and nod, and at last 
 fall asleep from sheer weariness. They will the rather pour on 
 to the boulevards, to fill the cabs and the cafes, to chatter and' 
 gesticulate, to eat, drink, and be merry, to dance and drink, and 
 to go to the play at night. I was not consulted when this City 
 was built and the manners of the inhabitants were formed. 
 Whether the Parisians' mode of observing Sunday is harmless or 
 mischievous, it would be dangerous dogmatically to assert. I 
 only describe that which I see ; and this is Sunday in Paris as I 
 have seen and known it, man and boy, any time these forty years, 
 come the twenty-ninth day of August next. 
 
 I have not the slightest expectation of seeing such a Sunday 
 prevalent in London, or in any English town. I have not the 
 slightest wish to see such a Sunday prevailing anywhere in my 
 own country. Our observance of the Sabbath may be susceptible 
 of modification in a tolerant and liberal sense ; but there are two 
 good reasons why the ' Continental Sunday,' as typically presented 
 in Paris, is a thing to be deprecated in England. In the first
 
 68 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 place the decent classes among us are quiet people, with comfort- 
 able homes, from which we rarely stir 011 the Sabbath ; whereas 
 the Parisians, in a vast number of cases, have no homes at all that 
 can be called comfortable, and are an excessively noisy, restless, 
 and inconsequential race, who can only find happiness out of 
 doors. In the second and much more important place, we drink 
 the very strongest liquors that can be brewed or distilled ; the 
 classes among us who are not decent are in the habit of getting 
 mad drunk, and of fighting, after the manner of wild beasts, when 
 they have a chance of using their fists, their feet, or their teeth on 
 each other, or on the guardians of the law. Our places of licensed 
 victualling are merely ugly dens, where the largest number of 
 sots can get tipsy in the shortest space of time ; and Sunday in 
 London, with all the public-houses, all the theatres, all the music 
 halls, thrown unrestrictedly open from morning till night, would 
 exhibit the most horrible terrestrial inferno that eye ever beheld, 
 that the ear ever heard, or the heart ever sickened at. We are so 
 very strong, and stalwart, and earnest, and ' English,' in a word, 
 that we need in our diversions a number of restrictive checks and 
 kicking- straps, which the feebler and less pugnacious peoples of 
 the Continent do not require. The better observance of Sunday 
 may not succeed in London in making the mass of the people 
 more religious ; but it keeps them quiet and tolerably well- 
 behaved : and tolerable good behaviour is all that can be ex- 
 pected in a city of four millions of souls. That is about the 
 whole of my philosophy on the matter ; and I have seen a good 
 many curious Sundays in'a good many curious countries.
 
 A PERPLEXED SEASON-TICKET HOLDER (BY CHAM). 
 
 1 Why fifty centimes, when my season-ticket has the regulation 
 photograph ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, but only a hall-length ; so you pay for the other half.' 
 
 VI. 
 
 ASTEAY IN THE EXHIBITION. 
 
 Am 
 
 I MADE my first excursion to the Exhibition yesterday ; and, pur- 
 suant to a plan \vhich I had proposed to myself, I determined that 
 my first visit to the Champ de Mars should be conducted strictly 
 on the system, of pursuing absolutely no system at all. Thus I 
 did not provide myself with any of the thousand and one guides 
 and vade-mecums to the Exhibition, and panoramas and plans 
 thereof, which pullulate in every bookseller's shop and every kiosk 
 on the Boulevards. 'There will be time enough,' I said, 'for 
 guides and catalogues by and by. For the nonce let us go and 
 see all the fun of the fair.' And in the good old tunes of fairs 
 who wanted a mapped-out route of the whereabouts of Richard- 
 son's Show, of Wombwell's Menagerie, and of the Crown and 
 Anchor booth? Who wanted to be told where the Pig-faced 
 Lady, the Polish Dwarf, and the Irish Giant were to be met with? 
 You came upon these things of beaut}- not joys, unhappily, for
 
 70 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 ever accidentally, or you discovered them by an intuition. With 
 a good conscience, and a pound of best gingerbread nuts tied up 
 in a blue-cotton pocket-handkerchief, you made your way into the 
 fair ; and the deuce was in it if you were not made aware of some 
 of its fun even if the facetiousness took the form of a 'scratcher' 
 being applied to the small of your back before you were five 
 minutes older. Pray do not think that I am in the slightest 
 degree desirous to disparage or to speak with undue levity of the 
 Exposition Universelle of 1878. In process of time I shall have, 
 I hope, to consider it under a good many aspects, but yester- 
 day I elected to look upon it only as a great aggregate of shows. 
 Current coin, I may remark, is rigorously refused at the entrances 
 to the Exhibition Palace, but tickets of admission, price one franc, 
 are procurable at the debits de tabac and other places all over Paris, 
 as well as at the kiosks in front of the various portes d? entree. 
 The identity of season-ticket holders is assured by obliging them 
 to have their photographs affixed to their cards of admission a 
 regulation which Cham has amusingly satirised in various ways. 
 
 A SEASON-TICKET HOLDER IN A DIFFICULTY (BY CHAM). 
 
 ' Sir, I detect a pimple on your nose, winch isn't in your photograph. 
 You must-get rid of it before you can be allowed to pass.'
 
 ASTRAY IN THE EXHIBITION. 71 
 
 So soon as ever I entered the enormous labyrinth of glass cases 
 into which the Champ cle Mars has been converted, I purposely 
 and deliberately lost my way, confidently delivering myself up to 
 the nryriad chances of the imprcm. Have you never thus wilfully 
 lost your way in Venice, in Rome, in Seville a confident Mr. 
 Micawber, for something is sure to turn up ? Wander, and 
 double, and ' try back ' as you may, you are sure after a season 
 to find yourself in view of the cupolas of St. Mark, to stumble on 
 the Fountain of Trevi, or to be aware of the Tower of the Giralda. 
 Thus, in the Exhibition Palace yesterday, although I roamed 
 about for five mortal hours in different directions, and saw a great 
 many more hundreds of things than I can enumerate here, I came 
 full twenty times upon, or was distinctly aware of, two conspicuous 
 landmarks Gustave Dore's colossal Bacchanalian vase, and a 
 towering obelisk covered with gold leaf, an idea borrowed from 
 our Exhibition of 1862, and representing the amount of bullion 
 annually livre au commerce by an enterprising Parisian jeweller in 
 the form of settings to his wares. How many millions of francs 
 the gilt obelisk represented I duly read, but did not stay to note. 
 There will be time to be statistical anon ; nor does it matter, 
 perchance, much more than to know how many thousands of 
 buns, pork -pies, cups of tea, and bottles of ginger-beer were con- 
 sumed on the occasion of the last visit of the Ancient Order of 
 Foresters to the Crystal or the Alexandra Palace. We should 
 be careful ere we fall in love with mere figures. To me the 
 Tower of Babel is the wonder, and not the number of bricks that 
 may have been used in its construction. 
 
 I will, in the outset, candidly own that, although I have the 
 proud privilege to be a free-born Briton of the Victorian era, I 
 went about the Exhibition in the spirit of an ancient Athenian, 
 perpetually demanding some new thing; and quite as frankly 
 must I admit that, so far as rny first visit to the Exhibition went, 
 I was disappointed. ' It's the Old Sarpint, your Grace, with a 
 new coat of paint,' said the showman to the Duke of Wellington 
 when he refused to take the Hero's shilling, when preferred for a
 
 72 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 COLOSSAL BACCHANALIAN VASE, BY GVSTAVE DOKE. 
 
 view of the ' Cobra Corrugata or Coruscated Snake of the Yang- 
 tse-Kiang.' I saw the ' Old Sarpint,' with a new coat of paint and 
 a tremendous amount of gilding, innumerable times yesterday in
 
 ASTRAY IX THE EXHIBITION. 73 
 
 the Champ de Mars. Item : The diver. Do you not remember 
 him, in his Crusader's helmet, with the gig-lamp eyes his india- 
 rubber armour, his elephantine arms and feet, and his intolerable 
 tail ? Item : A lighthouse trophy a pyramid of lanterns, reflec- 
 tors, and refractors playing in the glare of the summer afternoon 
 the most astonishing prismatic tricks, and affording unbounded 
 opportunities for spectrum analysis. In the gigantic and gener- 
 ally well-arranged and well-lit picture-galleries, a multitude of 
 admirable pictures which you have seen before, or of which you 
 have engravings or photographs at home, mingled with a host of 
 paintings certainly new to you, but further acquaintance with 
 which, owing to their general mediocrity, you may not be am- 
 bitious to make. Some very magnificent works in Italian mosaic ; 
 a few execrably garish and tasteless French attempts in the same 
 line. The English porcelain and pottery superlatively good ; but 
 English ceramics can be seen to equal advantage in Regent Street, 
 South Audley Street and Bond Street. Glass, on the whole, 
 both English and foreign, wonderfully bright and tasteful ; the 
 exhibit of Messrs. Thomas Webb & Sons of Stourbridge show- 
 ing a brilliant progress in the beautiful and difficult process of 
 engraving on glass. I do not mean etching with acids, but the 
 actual incision by means of the copper wheel. Furniture, both 
 English and foreign, very splendid. France still keeps the lead 
 in Renaissance upholstery, especially of that kind to which tapes- 
 try, silk velvet, and other textile fabrics are accessory. Italy 
 witness the superb bookcase contributed by the Brothers Sonsogno, 
 the music publishers of Milan retains a conspicuous place for pro- 
 ficiency in the craft of inlaying ebony with ivory a craft which, 
 the colours employed being reversed, is virtually me/Zo-working in 
 wood. England continues to assert unapproachable preeminence 
 in the production of Gothic furniture of the purest'design and the 
 most thoroughly conscientious workmanship ; while the determi- 
 nation of the English manufacturers to ' keep moving ' in this im- 
 portant branch of art industry is pleasantly shown by the close 
 alliance which is springing up between the ebcnistc and the potter
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 ENGRAVED CLARET JUG, EXHIBITED BY MESSES. THOMAS WEBB AXD SONS. 
 
 a revival, indeed, of a very old association and leading to the 
 decoration of cabinets and tables with beautifully painted plaques 
 of earthenware. The application of this tasteful mode of embel- 
 lishment to pianofortes is likewise made manifest by a superb 
 example of a grand pianoforte in the French department, and to 
 which I may have occasion to recur. 
 
 On the whole, the rapidest of surve} r s of the departments 
 devoted to decorative furniture induces the conviction that the
 
 ASTRAY IN THE EXHIBITION. 75 
 
 rage for the Japanese style has, in France at least, reached its 
 climax. The carpet manufacturers have largely, and it would 
 seem abidingly, profited by the innumerable hints as to brilliant 
 harmonies of colour and elegant naivete of design which Japan is 
 ever ready to furnish; but the French are, in matters of art, 
 essentially a classically plastic people a few short-lived aberra- 
 tions to the contrary notwithstanding. The basis of their design 
 is ' the round,' because roundness gives the light and shade which 
 are to be found in Nature. The basis of Japanese and, to a very 
 great extent, of Gothic decoration is ' the flat ; ' and flatness not 
 only excludes the due apportionment of light and shade, but, as a 
 rule, militates against the due observance of the canons of per- 
 spective ; and, as poor Haydon, the father of all our schools of 
 design, pointed out long ago, the fundamental reason of the 
 superiority of French art- workmen over our own countrymen lies 
 in the fact that the Frenchman learns geometry first, to model the 
 human figure next, and finally to practise ornamental design, even 
 if he be intended for a pattern draughtsman only of Lyons shawls 
 and Mulhouse patterns ; whereas the English student is taught 
 ornamental design first, and to draw the human figure afterwards. 
 It must be admitted that a large number of admirable specimens 
 of sculpture from English chisels are to be found in the Champ de 
 Mars, and to these I shall ere long endeavour to do justice ; but 
 our lamentable national backwardness in the plastic arts of the 
 secondary and tertiary grades is exposed by the almost total 
 absence of works in bronze by undoubtedly British artists. The 
 firm of Elkington of Birmingham have done as much as it is 
 possible for any English firm to do in bronze and in electro-silver 
 working of an artistically plastic kind ; but their chief modellers 
 and sculptors are not Englishmen, but Frenchmen. The Elking- 
 tons did as grandly with their ' Milton Shield ' in repousse in 1867 
 as they have done in 1878 with their ' Pilgrim's Shield ; ' but it is 
 positively deplorable to remark that, in the course of eleven years, 
 no English art manufacturers of note have followed the example 
 they have set in reproductions from the antique, or in the execu-
 
 76 ' PAEIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 tion of original designs on a thoroughly classical model in bronze 
 or marble. Let me not be misunderstood. A plenitude of eccle- 
 siastical brasswork from English and Scottish hands adorns the 
 Exhibition, where, moreover, signs are not lacking of our sur- 
 passing preeminence as gasfitters, as lamp manufacturers, as bed- 
 stead makers, and as workers in metals generally; but in the 
 secondary and tertiary stages of bronze or silver industry I failed 
 to see any clockcases, any statuettes, any vases, any bibelots, or 
 ' gimcracks ' even, of British design and production, and of marked 
 artistic merit ; while of bronze sculpture of the first class, such 
 sculpture as issues from the ateliers of Barbedienne and of a score 
 more French houses as renowned, there is in our section an almost 
 total absence. This is a wretched thing to think of, especially when 
 it is remembered that we are still eager to lavish thousands on the 
 acquisition of blue and white earthenware pots and pans more or 
 less from Nankin, and that the silly and tasteless mania for hanging 
 painted plates often vile in design and garishly coloured on our 
 inward walls is rapidly converting the boudoirs of English ladies 
 into the similitude of sculleries. I never find myself alone in one 
 of these crockery-hung rooms without wishing that the Act of 
 Parliament against wilful damage could be suspended, in order that 
 I might make play, for a quarter of an hour, with the bright poker. 
 It has always been my ambition to keep my eyes open, and to 
 describe as graphically as lies in my power the things which I see ; 
 but at present I refrain from attempting to give even a superficial 
 description of what Minton has to show in the Paris Exhibition. 
 You who dwell in London have but to go to Goode's in South 
 Audley Street, who by the way has acquired the entire Minton 
 display, to Mortlock's, to Sharpus's, to Phillips's, to Gardner's at 
 Charing Cross, and to assume that the most superb specimens of 
 china and earthenware to be seen in the great metropolitan show- 
 rooms have been selected as types of the Minton collection in the 
 Champ de Mars. The reward of the firm is, that their name is 
 now habitually coupled by educated French critics with that of 
 Sevres. "With regard to the Elkingtons, the case is somewhat
 
 ASTRAY IX THE EXHIBITION 7 ^ 
 
 77 
 
 different. They have competitors of tremendous power and 
 prestige in France. They are goldsmiths, silversmiths, enamellers, 
 bronze-workers, and electro-platers. They must stand their ground 
 against a whole host of art-work firms, of whom Barbedienne, 
 Christofle, and Froment- 
 Meurice are only the 
 most conspicuous repre- 
 sentatives. The Bir- 
 mingham house may be, 
 indeed, Briareus-handed, 
 but its rivals are a hun- 
 dred giants, each with 
 a hundred hands. The 
 leading artistic perform- 
 ances exhibited by the 
 Elkingtons are virtually 
 unique ; many of them 
 cannot be reproduced, 
 like works in pottery ; 
 and they can be seen by 
 but a limited portion of 
 the English public at 
 home. This is especially 
 the case with the won- 
 drously beautiful Re- 
 naissance mirror, de- 
 signed by M. A. W. 
 Willms, of which the 
 architectural and deco- 
 rative portions are com- 
 posed of oxidised silver, 
 
 and of bronze incrusted with gold and silver, the fond being of 
 steel damascened with variously tinted gold, forming rinceaux em- 
 bellished with figures of birds and insects. It may just be men- 
 tioned that, until the other day, so to speak, damascening was, so 
 
 SILVER FLOWER-VASE, BY FROMENT-MEL'RICE.
 
 73 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 far as its practice in Europe was concerned, a wholly obsolete and 
 well-nigh lost art. Take, again, the exquisite vase of damascened 
 steel, another work of M. Willms, the body of which is covered 
 with intricate patterns of peacocks and lyre birds, woven as it were 
 into the fabric in fine threads of gold, and of which the portions 
 in silver are elaborately chased. A plaque in repousse steel, de- 
 
 PLAQUE, ' LOVE BROUGHT TO REASOX,' BY A. W. WILLMS 
 
 signed and mainly executed by the same artist, presents us with 
 a transcript of Prudhon's picture ' Love brought to Reason.' 
 Cupid, captive and weaponless, is fruit! essly striving to burst the 
 bonds by which he is fastened to a terminal bust of the sage Minerva
 
 ASTRAY IX THE EXHIBITION. 7t> 
 
 possibly intended to mark the boundary line between Love and 
 Reason whilst a maiden sits by and mocks his struggles. ' Rira 
 bien qui lira le dernier, Mademoiselle ;' for a pair of cooing doves 
 overhead indicates that the blind god's reign is not yet over. 
 Around the border of the plaque four cupids, with emblems of 
 love in their hands, are sailing through the air. Separating them 
 are trophies of antique arms richly damascened in gold. 
 
 I have alluded to the ' Pilgrim's Shield,' a noble work of art in 
 repousse', by M. Morel-Ladeuil, and the most important object in 
 the Elkington display. As in the ' Milton Shield,' the most 
 striking episodes in Paradise Lost were dramatically rendered, so 
 in the ' Pilgrim's Shield ' the central idea in Bunyan's immortal 
 allegory is dwelt upon in a manner equally grandiose and pictur- 
 esque. The inspired tinker of Elstow only appears in what may 
 be termed the 'middle distance,' and in a subsidiary position as a 
 * dreamer of dreams/ All around him are evolved the wonderful 
 conceptions of his imagination, but the eye of the spectator goes 
 at once, as it did to our First Parents in their state of innocence 
 in the Milton composition, straight to the pivot on which the 
 ' Pilgrim's Shield ' turns. On a principal lunette which fills the 
 middle of the design is represented the combat, between Apollyon 
 and Christian, in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. This central 
 medallion is executed in such high relief as well nigh to present 
 the appearance of rondebossc, or of being what we term ' undercut ' 
 almost entirely awa}' from the ground ; and a glance at the back 
 of the shield will show how patiently laborious has been the opus 
 mallei in pushing the metal upwards with repeated taps of the 
 hammer. Some of the parts are, on the other hand, in the lowest 
 possible relief, not extending beyond the faintest appearance of 
 embossing; and these exquisite gradations in surface show the 
 perfect masteiy which M. Morel-Ladeuil has attained over one of 
 the most beautiful and the most difficult of crafts. The fight a 
 entrance in the Valley of the Shadow is represented with astonish- 
 ing force and verve, and the corrugated muscles of the demoniacal 
 warrior contrast very skilfully with the thoroughly human comeli-
 
 80 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 THE PILGRIM S SHIELP, BY MORE1-LADEUIL. 
 
 ness and symmetry of Christian. The execution, again, of the 
 texture of the Pilgrim's armour, in contradistinction to the light 
 and airy drapery pendent from it, is a triumph of manual skill and
 
 ASTEAY IN THE EXHIBITION. 81 
 
 dexterity. Below the central composition is the figure of Bunyan, 
 a volume of the Scriptures on his knees, and rapt, seemingly, in 
 an ecstatic trance. On either side are bas-reliefs representing the 
 lowermost depths of the Valley of the Shadow a gruesome pit 
 full of hobgoblins and sprites, such as Callot revelled in portray- 
 ing; but from this dire Tartarus we are led by graceful decorative 
 scroll-work to the two upper bas-reliefs, wherein are depicted all 
 the joys of the Celestial City angels and seraphs and cherubs, 
 bright with ' harping symphonies.' Interposed between the rilievi 
 are emblematic cartouches of Faith, Hope, and Charity, respec- 
 tively symbolised by a cross, an anchor, and a heart the virtues 
 by means of which the Pilgrim has been enabled to overcome 
 Apollyon and reach at last his desired goal ; while at the base of 
 the shield are the trappings of the Pilgrim's calling the slouched 
 hat, the wallet, the scallop-shells, and the sandalled shoon. Looked 
 at not only in its powerful ensemble, but in the astonishing 
 minuteness and grace of its details, this latest work of M. Morel- 
 Ladeuil may be regarded as at once the most ambitious and the 
 most successful that he has executed for Messrs. Elkington. 
 
 The salon of Messrs. Elkington contains another sumptuous 
 example in repousse from the hammer of M. Morel-Ladeuil, the 
 'Pompeian Lady at her Toilette,' of which it is sufficient to say that 
 it reminds the spectator of a picture by Alma-Tadema translated 
 into high relief by the opus mallei. To M. Morel-Ladeuil is also due 
 the Renaissance silver ewer with the genii of Day and Night in its 
 side panels and its symbolical birds ofdawn and twilight; as w T ell 
 as the pair of rose-water dishes by which the ewer is accompanied, 
 and wherein the months of the year are typified by graceful female 
 figures, and the seasons by groups of children with flowers and 
 fruits. Messrs. Elkington show in cloisonne enamel a number of 
 splendid specimens of trumpet-shaped flower-vases, plateaux, tazze, 
 incense-burners, and standishes ; while among the orfevrerie are 
 conspicuous dessert services of the pattern made for the Prince of 
 Wales's Pavilion, ' Old English,' in silver-gilt; and some remark- 
 ably fascinating tete-a-tete tea-services of modified Japanese design,
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 and in which the plateau takes 
 the shape of an outspread fan. 
 I may hint that I have not 
 purchased the Helicon Vase, 
 or the Renaissance Mirror, or 
 the Pilgrim's Shield as yet. 
 My treasure-ship long over- 
 due is not yet come home. 
 
 In the way of ships, I ap- 
 prehend that an ironclad 
 squadron would be required to 
 convey the whole of M. Bar- 
 bedienne's show of art bronzes 
 to England, should Royalty 
 evince a desire to inspect that 
 wonderful collection en masse. 
 I may in perfect candour ob- 
 serve that, owing to m} r rigor- 
 ously carried out system of not 
 having a system, I am utterly 
 ignorant of the whereabouts 
 of M. Barbedienne's particular 
 'installation' in the Champ 
 de Mars. It is, without doubt, 
 a truly magnificent one, but I 
 have not yet come across it. 
 Granting, as I do, that I 
 have not yet seen the Bar- 
 
 bedienne bronzes in the Exhibition, what business, it may be 
 asked, have I to talk about these bronzes at all ? I can explain 
 matters in a moment. I happen to live next door to M. Barbe- 
 dienne's warehouse, on the Boulevard Poissonniere. I am happy 
 to state that, following the commendable French custom, he takes 
 down his shutters very early in the morning, and that he does not 
 put them up until past ten at night. Thus I have several inter- 
 
 RENAISSANCE SILVER EWER, BY 
 M. MOREL-LADEU1L.
 
 ASTRAY IN THE EXHIBITION. 83 
 
 Yiews, every day and every evening, with the contents of his huge 
 shop-windows ; and, as he makes a change in his etalage almost 
 every other day, I think that by this time I know the major portion 
 of the contents of his stock-in-trade by heart. I have got, to a 
 certain extent, his bronzes on the brain. They are my delight 
 before breakfast ; they are my consolation after a bad and dear 
 dinner. He has got a noble reproduction of Michael Angelo's in- 
 comparable sitting figure in Roman costume, from the tomb of the 
 Medici in Florence. He has got a smaller replica of that figure 
 surmounting a clock in a chalcedony case, with two bronze-gilt 
 candelabra, formant garniture. What punishment, I wonder, does 
 the French Criminal Code assign to the offence of running away 
 in the broad daylight with a bronze clock and candelabra ? He 
 has got a Crouching Venus and a Bather that make me half 
 delirious to look upon. He has got a Spanish matador in pale 
 bronze, whose embroidered jacket and overalls are well-nigh 
 miracles of chiselled dexterity and refinement. He has got a 
 Bull that makes me dream of the Toro Farnese, and fancy 
 that I am going to a bovine paradise, and that Paul Potter and 
 Old "Ward and Thomas Sidney Cooper, R.A., are of the company. 
 Less need to discourse of his fauns and his satyrs, his nymphs 
 and his hamadryads, his saints and cherubs, his cowled Trappists 
 and vestal virgins, and his grand Louis Quinze chasseur on 
 liorseback, with the hunting-horn wound round his noble body 
 the Marquis de Carabas in early youth and cheap at 1250 
 francs, that is if I read correctly the cabalistic characters in- 
 scribed on the little green ticket affixed to the huntsman's wrist. 
 In addition to this varied statuesque display, there are classic 
 vases and tripods of bold and graceful form, Renaissance ewers 
 and candelabra of elaborate ornamentation, and plaques and 
 caskets in cloisonne enamel of great beauty and splendour. For 
 the rest, I purchased the whole of M. Barbedienne's stock at least 
 ten days ago. To get them home I shall have to charter a vessel 
 something like the Cleopatra ; but there is no hurry, since the 
 necessary cheques have not yet arrived, and M. Barbedienne might
 
 84 
 
 PAEIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 BRONZE TRIPOD, EXHIBITED BY M. BARBEDIEXXE. 
 
 be chary of dealing with a customer who would offer to buy the 
 Koh-i-noor, if, instead of being a tawdry bit of glittering charcoal, 
 it were a model of plastic beauty and grace.
 
 ASTRAY IN THE EXHIBITION. 85 
 
 I fancy, nevertheless, that there is a model of a ship in the 
 Exhibition which would cany across the narrow seas and the wide 
 ocean to boot all the art-bronzes which the ateliers of the Barbe- 
 diennes and their compeers could fabricate ; and cany them, with 
 a plentiful supply of water, coals, and provisions, and a thousand 
 human beings into the bargain, as easily as though they were 
 bandboxes full of feathers. 
 
 Erring to and fro in the park of the Champ de Mars, I was over- 
 taken by a sudden and heavy shower we have had tropical heat, ag- 
 gravated and not relieved by, on an average, two tremendous down- 
 pours a day for the last fortnight and took refuge in the Maritime 
 Exhibition, which is installed in a series of sheds on the bank of the 
 Seine, to the left of the Pont d'lena, going towards the Trocadero. 
 The Maritime Exhibition is very strongly impregnated with the 
 odour of pitch and tar ; and I even imagined that I could detect 
 the perfume of bilgewater. The impression, however, may have 
 been due to the scent of several hundreds of streaming and steaming 
 umbrellas. Altogether the place had a ' Yo-heave-ho ' character. 
 It reminded you equally of a ropewalk, a shipchandler's, and the 
 corridor of a gaol in which oakum-picking forms the staple of con- 
 vict labour. Here Marseilles, Brest, Lorient, Rochefort, Nantes, 
 Havre, Cherbourg, Dunkirk, Bordeaux, and Cette had amassed 
 samples of their nautical products and manufactures. Hemp and 
 jute, sailcloth and tarpaulin, anchors and harpoons, cables and 
 bolts and stanchions, sea-going slops, bags of biscuit, barrels of 
 rum, creels of salt fish, waterproof boots, glazed hats, oars and 
 rudders, boathooks and marlinspikes all spoke of the sea, and of 
 those w r ho go down in ships thereto. But at the extremity of the 
 sheds devoted to the French Maritime Exhibition I found a 
 gallery full of English exhibits ; and there, among a very charac- 
 teristic assortment of models of yachts, paddle-wheel steamers, 
 gun-boats, life-boats, steam-launches, and canoes, I found a stately 
 model of the new ocean steamship Gallia, belonging to the Cunard 
 Royal Mail Steamship Company. The Gallia, which has been 
 built by Messrs. James & George Thomson of Clydebank, Durn-
 
 86 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 bartonshire, is to go into commission in January next, and is the 
 youngest but equally powerful sister of that wonderful ocean fleet of 
 steamships which comprises the Abyssinia, the Batavia, the Hecla, 
 the Russia, the Samaria, the Malta, and twenty-six others, besides 
 a Channel fleet of thirteen vessels. I have an incurable weakness, 
 dating from my earliest youth, for models of ships ; and I well 
 remember how, as a little boy, I used to stand open-mouthed 
 before the counterfeit presentment in ivory of a British three- 
 decker which adorned the window of a grocer's shop in Major 
 Foubert's Passage, Regent Street, London. How often have I 
 peered through the stern windows of the three-decker into the 
 principal cabin, in the full and firm belief that I could descry the 
 Captain, with the First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Midshipman. 
 Easy, and a burnboat woman, reading the Articles of War and 
 drinking * sweethearts and wives' in hot grog. With scarcely less 
 interest did I survey this superbly constructed and nicely-scaled 
 image of the Cunard steamship Gallia the model alone cost twelve 
 hundred pounds, they say with its highly -polished brass fittings, 
 its snowy deck, its faultless rigging, its shining hull, and the tiny 
 windows of its deck cabins. What would I have given to see one 
 of the doors of the little deck cabins open, and the well-remem- 
 bered form of Captain Lott or Captain Cook make its appearance ! 
 Everything in the model looked as snug and shipshape and care- 
 fully disposed as a Cunard steamer herself. The sight of the model 
 took me back full sixteen years, when, on a stormy November 
 afternoon, at Queenstown, in Ireland, I boarded the Cunard steam- 
 ship, Arabia, bound for Boston, U.S.A.* 
 
 I may as well own that when I went astray in the Exhibition, 
 among a maze of tall glass cases, full of broadcloths, friezes, 
 twills, serges, and so forth, from Lancashire and Yorkshire, I did 
 not feel, from a textile point of view, very much interested. 
 
 * I am pleased to record that the Gallia has fully equalled the expectations 
 formed of her. She accomplished upwards of sixteen knots per hour on her 
 trial trip, and sailed under favourable auspices on her first voyage to New- 
 York on April 5, 1879.
 
 ASTRAY IN THE EXHIBITION. 87 
 
 Whole acres of space seemed to be given up to the products of 
 Leeds, Halifax, and Huddersfield ; and the woollen goods were 
 ranged horizontally, vertically, and diagonally, with mathematical 
 precision ; but I do not want fifty thousand pairs of trousers or 
 twenty-five thousand coats. With a light heart and a thin pair 
 of pantaloons I have managed to go through the world during a 
 great many years ; and looking at the amazing wealth of woollen 
 goods of which Leeds, Huddersfield, and Halifax have made so 
 well-organised a display, I felt for a moment inclined to cry, with 
 Socrates, in the Athenian market-place, * How many things are 
 there here that I do not want ! ' Things in the Agora have altered, 
 and not for the better, since the days of the philosopher just 
 quoted. When I was last in the poor little market-place of the 
 metropolis of Hellas, I beheld scarcely anything exposed for sale 
 beyond leeks, water-melons, boxes of wax-matches, sugar-candy, 
 red-kid slippers, and birch-brooms things all very nice in them- 
 selves, but scarcely adequate to the sustentation of life. 
 
 The woollen- fabrics department was, however, to me not less 
 a haven of delight, owing to the circumstance that the avenues 
 between the interminable blocks of glass cases were almost entirely 
 deserted, that the floor had been newly sprinkled with water, that 
 the entire region was as cool as it was tranquil, and that the air 
 was laden with a peculiar and by no means oppressive fragrance 
 of newly woven and dressed cloths, such as comes to you in 
 whiffs from the Manchester warehouses in shady City lanes, or 
 from the shops of the wholesale drapers in Vigo Street, Regent 
 street, who supply the West-end tailors with coatings and trouser- 
 stuffs. It was a fearfully sultry day, but a tour in the cloth- 
 weaving districts relieved me to a delightful extent ; and after that 
 I went to look at a fire-engine, which, for all the blazing scarlet 
 with which it was painted, made me feel quite cool and refreshed. 
 I had not been long in this contented state when, to my misfor- 
 tune, I found myself astray in a district all full of pickles and 
 sauces. It was dreadful looking at the altitude of the mercury 
 in the thermometer to be confronted by these serried battalions
 
 88 PAHIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 of bottles full of piccallilly, gherkins, onions, chillis, capsicums, 
 mango chutnee, Nepaul pepper, curry-powder, and sauces of the 
 utmost pungency. The spectacle filled the mind -with red-hot 
 visions of mtillagatawny soup, anchovy-toast, bashawed lobster, 
 and devilled bones ; nor did I much better my position when, 
 beating a retreat from this torrid zone of culinary zests, I came on 
 a culinary concentrated land replete with preserved soups and made 
 dishes. These, however, did not look quite so hot as the pickle- 
 bottles ; and moreover they contributed to strengthen a persuasion 
 which had been growing in my mind for the last forty minutes 
 past, that the time was approaching when it would be expedient 
 to see about getting some lunch. 
 
 This pleasant conviction was still further fortified by an acci- 
 dental detour which opened up to me dim but delicious vistas of 
 glass cases piled high with bottles which, on nearer inspection, 
 proved to be ' exhibits ' of pale ale from Burton-on-Trent, of Dun- 
 ville's ' V.R.' and Kinahan's L.L. whiskies, of dry sherries, of 
 mountain ports, of East India Madeiras, of all kinds of those 
 wines, spirits, and liqueurs which are so very pleasant to drink in 
 combination with Apollinaris, Seltzer, potass, or St. Galmier 
 water, and the consumption of which tends so much to the en- 
 hancement of her Majesty's revenue and the fees of the medical 
 profession. As a rule, however, I am constrained to deprecate the 
 display of fermented beverages in a public exhibition, especially 
 when the show is held in very hot weather. The sight of all these 
 drinkables weakens the steadfastness of your adhesion to Sir Wil- 
 frid Lawson and the pump, and begets in your heart an unholy 
 hankering for the possession of a corkscrew. Observe this curious 
 fact : In temperate countries fountains are frequent and beautiful 
 in form, so beautiful that you thirst for nothing but water. In 
 the first Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, in 1851, no alcoholic 
 beverages were procurable ; but, en revanche, there was Osier's 
 Crystal Fountain. As a rule, drunken countries are destitute of 
 fountains ; and that is why I should be sorry to see the humble 
 halfpenny ice and sarsaparilla barrows banished from the streets
 
 ASTRAY IN THE EXHIBITION. 89 
 
 of London. They look cool and inviting and temperate. A 
 * coffee-palace,' excellent as the intention of its founders may be, 
 does not look cool ; but, so far as my ocular experience goes, it 
 looks hot and uncomfortable. Even the big decanter of lemonade, 
 with the abnormally-sized lemon on the top, on the shop-counter of 
 a cheap Italian confectioner in Leather Lane, appears to me mutely 
 eloquent. It seems to be whispering, ' Come and have a penn'orth 
 of Me ! I am much more refreshing, and I will do you much less 
 harm than beer or gin will.' 
 
 If we could make Temperance handsome and picturesque, as 
 it is made in France, in Spain and Italy, and the East, and if we 
 could only banish from the Temperance teacher's mind the prepos- 
 terous and impertinent desire to mix the Mosaic Scriptures and 
 the Psalms with abstinence from liquors which destroy the coats 
 of our stomachs, we might make temperance popular in a sur- 
 prisingly short space of time. As it is, while we benevolently 
 invite the working man to regale himself with ' half a pint of 
 coffee and a slice,' we attempt to choke him with a tract. The 
 working man objects to be choked, and goes next door to the gin- 
 shop, which, to his imperfectly instructed mind, is handsome, and 
 liberal, and free. If Tottenham Court Eoad and Whitechapel High 
 Street were boulevards, and if the working man could sit at a little 
 table outside the tavern and drink his beer and smoke his pipe, 
 and watch the great panorama of life rolling by, his wife and 
 children by his side which is the condition of his brother in the 
 blouse in this vast city he would not get drunk quite so fre- 
 quently at the gin-shop bar. But the boulevard and the table 
 outside it would be ' un-English,' I suppose ; and the bare sugges- 
 tion of such an innovation would frighten the Middlesex magis- 
 trates into fits. We are a very extraordinary people. Foreigners 
 are continually learning from us ; and in reality we have a num- 
 ber of really noble and useful things to teach ; but we obstinately 
 refuse to learn anything from foreigners except their vices. Those 
 we import, duty free, by the shipload. On foreign virtues we 
 place the prohibitory tax of our social prejudices.
 
 90 PARIS HEESELF AGAIN. 
 
 All tliis, you may urge, has nothing to do with the Paris Ex- 
 hibition in its glass-case aspect, in its 'Congress of Art and 
 Industry ' sense. That may be ; but it has a great deal to do with 
 the Paris Exhibition in its humane aspect, and in its civilised 
 sense. I mean to expatiate, all in good time, on the textile 
 fabrics, the dolls and fans and milliners' gear ; on the waterproof 
 sheets, the cocoa-nut matting, the Kidderminster and Aubusson 
 carpets, the lighthouses and fire-engines, the pictures and statues, 
 the mosaics and carvings and stained glass, the upholstery and 
 tapestry and damask curtains, the cutlery and glass and earthen- 
 ware, the surgical instruments and the machinery in motion, the 
 carriages and harness, the samples of stationery and book-binding, 
 the bronzes and enamels, the feathers and artificial flowers, the 
 shawls and laces, the boots and gloves, the weapons and walking- 
 sticks, the portmanteaus and dressing-bags. I have seen all these 
 things as good, and even better in 1851, in 1855, in 1862, in 
 1867. I can see as good, without being called upon to pay a 
 franc for the privilege of inspection, by walking any day down 
 Regent Street or the Strand, down Broadway at New York, or 
 through the Kitai-Gorod at Moscow, or the Gostinnoi-Dvor at St. 
 Petersburg, or the Bezestan at Stamboul, or the Kiirntherstrasse 
 at Vienna, or the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele at Milan. The 
 Paris Exhibition is substantially only an immense aggregate of 
 shop-windows full of the very best of everything the best that 
 money and ingenuity, taste, emulation, and the desire of gain, can 
 furnish. I doubt very much whether it will teach any lessons 
 worth learning save, perhaps, here and there in the machinery 
 department to anybody, since almost every specimen of art in- 
 dustry here collected can be seen in the public places and the 
 showrooms of London and New York ; but it is as a social display 
 that to my mind the ' Congress of Humanity ' of the Champ 
 de Mars and the Trocadero is worth studying, and studying 
 most sedulously. Nine-tenths of the visitors will, in my opinion, 
 acquire a vast deal more practical and beneficial instruction from 
 the survey of the city of Paris and its people than by the inspec-
 
 ASTRAY IN THE EXHIBITION. 
 
 91 
 
 tion of the Paris Exhibition, of which the contents have been. 
 . amplified to such an inordinate degree as to become, after a time, 
 wearisome. But, physical fatigue apart and that can be alle- 
 viated by sitting outside a cafe, and imbibing a ' bock ' or a 
 ' mazagran,' as your inclination may lead you thereto you do not 
 grow weary of perambulating the streets of Paris the Astonishing, 
 and conversing with the more astonishing Parisians, differing as. 
 they do from us as widely as mercury differs from lead, yet 
 separated as they are from us only by a distance which is accom- 
 plished in ten hours, and which should be accomplished in seven. 
 Man and boy, I have been familiar with the city and the people 
 since the eighth year of the reign of Louis Philippe, collapsed and 
 deceased. I have been present at three of its Revolutions and at 
 four of its Expositions ; still Paris after the Peace is to me, 
 in many respects, a new and strange city, deeply interesting, and 
 from the contemplation of which I hope to learn some useful 
 lessons. That was why I went astray yesterday. I wished to 
 obtain what is called ' a general idea of things.' Anon I shall 
 begin to particularise. 
 
 PIECES OF AX INLAID DESSERT SERVICE, EXHIBITED BY MESSRS. ELKXN'GTOX.
 
 THE PARIS OPERA: CORRIDOR LEADING TO THE BOXES OF THE GRAND TIER. 
 
 VII. 
 
 BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF THE GRAND OPERA. 
 
 Aug. 22. 
 
 SURELY in the whole modern lyrical repertory there is no more 
 charming opera than M. Gounod's Faust. It is full of delicious 
 melodies. The story is infinitely romantic, the denouement inex- 
 pressibly pathetic. The terrific epopcea possesses as every true 
 tragedy should have a comic element in the cynical humours of 
 Mephisto, and the Ephesian Matron-like readiness of the old 
 woman to console herself for the loss of her husband. Gretchen 
 is, next to Amina, the most fascinating of lyrical heroines ; and, 
 although Faust is a fool, and a rascal to boot, you cannot help 
 feeling a sneaking kind of admiration for him when he has a 
 comely presence, a handsome costume, and a sweet tenor voice. 
 Still, these only revolve like satellites round the terrific planet of 
 evil, Mephistophiles. You must needs loathe him and shudder 
 
 at his infernal wiles ; but what a fine first-rate Devil he is ! ' 
 
 him, I wish he'd won ! ' cried Lord Thurlow, when he came to the
 
 BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF THE GRAND OPERA. 93 
 
 end of Paradise Lost. Mephisto in Faust docs win, so far as his 
 dealings with the Doctor are concerned; yet he is checkmated at last. 
 But how is it that, notwithstanding its picturesque libretto, 
 its plaintive ' There was a King of Thule,' its fascinating Waltz, 
 its quaint Chorus of Old Men, and its resonant March, I have held 
 these many years past the masterpiece of M. Gounod in the live- 
 liest detestation, and that, as a rule, I would much rather listen to 
 the dreariest bore of my acquaintance than witness the perform- 
 ance of Faust. The reason is a very simple one. Fifteen years 
 ago I abode for a season at, say, No. 99 West Fourteenth-street, 
 in the city of New York. On one side of my habitation resided an 
 estimable family, the proud possessors of a Steinway's grand 
 pianoforte. On the other side lived an equally estimable family, 
 who were the happy owners of a Chickering grand ; and over the 
 way was another family, rejoicing in the possession of an Erard. 
 These households all abounded in young ladies with slim waists 
 and ' cataract ' curls, and they were all accomplished pianistes. The 
 time was summer ; the weather was tropically hot ; the windows 
 were always kept open ; and from early morn until far into the 
 night I was fain to listen to the Steinway, the Chickering, or the 
 Erard discoursing This 
 
 ' Lum turn, ti tiddledy urn turn ; 
 Lum turn, ti tiddlety urn. turn, 
 Lum turn, ti tiddlety urn. turn ; 
 La la la la la la la la la la La !' 
 
 Everybody with an 'ear' can tell what I mean. Was it not 
 Rossini, who, affecting to forget the name of Sir Henry Bishop, 
 always spoke of him as ' Monsieur Lara-ta-taratara-tataratatara- 
 tee,' humming the air of ' Home, sweet home.' 
 
 I had to bear this torture for many weeks. I fled to Philadel- 
 phia, but only to hear the Italian organists grinding forth ' Lum 
 turn, te tiddlety um turn.' I went down to the Army of the 
 Potomac to find a Massachusetts regiment marching and counter- 
 marching to the same terrible tune. I came back to New York to 
 find that the ' extension parlour' of my residence had been engaged
 
 94 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 by a middle-aged bachelor of musical tastes, \vlio had brought an 
 upright Broadwood, and in the intervals of speculating in gold 
 in Wall Street was perpetually pounding, not the abhorred ' Lum 
 turn,' but the equally formidable 
 
 ' La ree ta titti, la ree ta titti ; 
 La ree ta titti ta tee ta tittytee.' 
 
 "Woe is me, Alhama ! It was the Waltz. I was possessed. I 
 eloped to Havana, in the island of Cuba. I sought tranquillity in 
 the Spanish Main and quietude in Mexico ; but wherever I went, 
 from the cactus-covered plains of Orizaba to the forest glades of 
 Tchapultepec from the tierra caliente of Jalapa to the Falls of 
 Regla the Waltz and the March, now brayed by a French military 
 band, now strummed on the cracked guitar of an arricro, pursued 
 me always. And thus it was that I learned to loathe the opera of 
 Faust, and to regard M. Gounod as my bitterest enemy. 
 
 With the old Chickering and Steinway grievances rankling in 
 my mind, you will not be surprised to hear that, when recently I 
 was oifered a seat in a box at the new Grand Opera, and I found 
 that Faust was on the qffiche, I preferred all kinds of excuses to 
 avoid the entertainment. The repertory of M. Halanzier, Director 
 of the Academic Nationale de Musique, appears to consist almost 
 exclusively of Faust, Hamlet, LePropkctc, and LaJuive.* I should 
 have been delighted to pass an evening with the Prince of Denmark, 
 with John of Leyden and his mother, or with the unfortunate 
 young lady who was wont to be boiled in a caldron of oil at the 
 end of the fourth act, but is now, I believe, reprieved at the last 
 moment. However, against the Waltz, the March, and the Chorus 
 of Old Men I stoutly rebelled. I pleaded the excessive heat and a 
 tendency to cerebral congestion. But the box into which I was to 
 be inducted happened, I was informed, to be the very coolest in 
 the whole house. There would be plenty of fresh air, my kind 
 inviters told me ; and the box had even an antechamber attached to 
 
 * When this was written, M. Halanzier had not yet produced M. Gounod's 
 Polyeucte.
 
 BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF THE GRAND OPERA. 
 
 95 
 
 it, where tea was served. That over-persuaded me. In the ante- 
 room there would probably be a divan ; and on that divan I thought 
 that in a corner, in the dark, and with cotton in my ears, I might 
 contrive to slumber out the Waltz, the March, and the Chorus of 
 Old Men, while Youth and Beauty enjoyed themselves in the 
 
 THE PARIS GRAND OPERA. 
 
 fiv ant- scenes. Av ant-scenes, indeed ! I little knew what kind of 
 box I was destined to occupy. 
 
 The friend who was to present me to the lady who was the 
 abonnee of this remarkable box (she pa} r s at the rate of five-and- 
 twenty thousand francs a year for it) came somewhat late to fetch 
 me ; but when we arrived at M. Garnier's colossal pile he insisted 
 that, before we entered our loge, I should inspect the famous stair- 
 case and the more famous foyer. ' Avez-vous vu 1'escalier ? ' has
 
 96 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 become as common a question to be addressed to a foreigner newly 
 arrived in Paris as the ' A-t-il lu le livre ? ' of the French Cardinal 
 who was so ardent an admirer of Rabelais. It chanced that I had 
 never seen the staircase, nay, nor the foyer, nor the auditorium, 
 nor, indeed, any portion of the new Grand Opera save the external 
 facade thereof, the last of which is associated in my mind with a 
 somewhat curious circumstance. Just eight years ago I was 
 staying at the Grand Hotel, in a room overlooking the Place de 
 1'Opera; and on the morrow of the Revolution of the 4th of Sep- 
 tember, 1870. I was lying grievously sick in bed. From the angle 
 of the apartment in which my bed was placed I had a capital view 
 of the fa9ade of the Opera ; and with peculiar curiosity did I watch 
 the proceedings of a journeyman painter in a blouse, who, perched 
 on a tall scaffolding, was occupied in erasing from the inscription 
 ' Academic Imperiale de Musique ' the adjective ' Imperiale,' and 
 substituting for it the word ' Nationale.' He took such pains over 
 his work that I got an opera-glass to peer at him the more narrowly. 
 The labour to him was manifestly one of love. He licked his lips, 
 so to speak, over the upstrokes and the downstrokes ; and his 
 whole Republican soul seemed to pour forth when he came to the 
 great round 0. Instinctively as I ascended the perron a week 
 since did I glance upwards at the inscription ; and in the flaming 
 gaslight ' Nationale ' seemed to me to have a newer coarser sheen 
 than the rest of the legend. There had been a wound, and this 
 was the scar. Ah, if all the other hurts of France could cicatrise 
 so quickly as this has done ! 
 
 Of the exterior of M. Garnier's monumental playhouse I am not 
 as I have more than once hinted, an enthusiastic admirer. It is 
 overloaded with ornament, and it is singularly deficient in tasteful 
 columniation. A theatre is primarily and essentially a temple, 
 and a temple should have an abundance of colonnades. The 
 noblest model that could, to my mind, be chosen for a national 
 theatre is the Madeleine, which, as it stands, fails to remind you, 
 either in its exterior or its interior, in the slightest degree, of a 
 church. It was not, to be sure, intended for one. Against the
 
 BEHIND THE CUKTAIN OF THE GRAND OPERA. 
 
 97 
 
 staircase of the Opera, structurally, not one word, however, can he 
 said. It presents the finest arrangement in curvilinear perspective 
 that I have ever seen ; and illuminated a giorno by hundreds of 
 
 LA LOGGIA OF THE PARIS OFERA. 
 
 bright yet soft lights offers a spectacle of well-nigh unrivalled 
 magnificence. To the sumptuous paintings by M. Paul Baudry, on 
 the walls and ceilings, a double interest attaches : first, that of
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 their really surpassing excellence in drawing and colour; and next, 
 in the fact that they are examples in a style of art in which not 
 one solitary English painter is proficient. When old Covent Garden 
 
 THE GRAND STAIRCASI 
 
 Theatre was redecorated for the purpose of being turned into the 
 Royal Italian Opera, the management were fain to send to Italy for 
 a plafond which, painted on paper and cut into gores, was after-
 
 1.99-
 
 BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF THE GRAND OPERA. 99 
 
 wards pasted to the opera-house roof. This was in 1847. More 
 than thirty years have elapsed, and we are still if we wish to essay 
 anj'thmg more ambitious than the angularty mediaeval or some 
 feeble Renaissance mouldings and scroll-work in carton pierrc, 
 picked out with colours and gilding at the mercy of the foreign 
 decorator, just as our silversmiths are at the mercy of the foreign 
 modeller. M. Paul Baudry has produced, in the staircase and the 
 foyer of the Academic Nationale de Musique, a work which is the 
 wonder of the whole art world. In or out of our Royal Academy, 
 we have not a single painter sufficiently acquainted with the 
 geometrical canons of foreshortening and concave perspective to 
 paint a ceiling. Those canons are clearly and explicitly laid down 
 in scores of books published in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuries; but those books find no English students. We console 
 ourselves for our impotence b} r repeating Pope's pert sneer about 
 the sprawling saints of Verrio and Laguerre, and by preparing to 
 scrub out Sir James Thornhill's paintings from the dome of St. 
 Paul's. We choose, in our complacent ignorance, to forget that 
 the grandest achievement of pictorial art in the whole world is the 
 painted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. 
 
 The enormous foyer, or crush-room, reminded me very forcibly, 
 in the huge masses of gilt scroll-work forming the frames of the 
 paintings, of the Hall of the Ambassadors in the Royal Palace at 
 Madrid. The ornamentation is so heavily flaniboyante, and so 
 overladen with gilding, as to approach the rococo, or to suggest to 
 the spectator that the model mainly followed has been the interior 
 of one of those churches built by the Jesuit architects of the begin- 
 ning of the seventeenth century, and which are all ablaze with carv- 
 ing and gilding, verde antique and lapis-lazuli. The first act of 
 Faust was just over when we entered the foyer, and the immense 
 hall was filled by a crowd of whom I hope it is not disrespectful 
 to say that its aspect very closely resembled that of a mob. Full 
 dress for gentlemen is not, I am aware, insisted upon at any time 
 ven in the fauleuils d'orchestre of the French Opera, and there 
 are many parts of the house in which the ladies may wear bonnets ; 
 
 H 2
 
 100 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 still I certainly never remember to have seen in the crash-room 
 of the old house in the Rue Lepelletier a multitude comprising: 
 ladies in dresses of alpaca, nankeen, and printed gingham, with 
 the commonest trimmings, and in felt hats of the cheapest kind, 
 As for the gentlemen, they were dressed 'anyhow:' in frocks and 
 in cut-away coats, in waistcoats much too long, and in trousers 
 much too short. They wore low-crowned straw hats, 'Jim Crows/ 
 wideawakes, ' biltycocks,' anything you please. Gloves were con- 
 spicuous by their absence. Red and blue cotton pocket-handker- 
 chiefs, white-spotted, were freely sported, and shoes were worn 
 low, thick-soled, with strings. These formed certainly sixty 
 per cent, of the native costumes. I was moreover privileged to= 
 gaze upon a numerous contingent of my own beloved fellow- 
 countiyrnen, who, with the manly independence and sans-gcne 
 which so charmingly distinguish them when travelling abroad, 
 did honour to M. Halanzier's management, M. Gamier' s building, 
 and M. Baudry's paintings by appearing in ' tourists' suits ' of 
 lightly-hued blanketing, ' in this style fifty-two shillings and six- 
 pence.' The wideawake was the prevailing head-gear of these bold 
 Britons ; and in several cases artistic finish was given to the general 
 make-up by the assumption of the celebrated courier's bag slung by 
 a strap over the right shoulder. What is that bag supposed to con- 
 tain ? A ' Paris Guide,' a briarwood pipe, a pocket-pistol containing 
 some of the celebrated 'cocked-hat' whisky, and a box of blue pills, 
 Pray do not entertain the notion that the audience at the 
 Opera was miscellaneous and ill-dressed because France is daily 
 becoming to all seeming more and more soundly Republican, 
 because Democracy is in the ascendant, or because the admission 
 to the Opera is cheap. On the contrary, the last is very costly, 
 and unless you feel inclined to get up at seven in the morning 
 and form part of the queue on the Place de I'Op&a, on the chance 
 of securing a place at the bureau de location, you will not obtain 
 a seat in any part of M. Halanzier's house for less than five-and- 
 twenty francs. In many cases the marchands de billets will 
 make you pay a great deal more. It is all the fault of the
 
 BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF THE GRAND OPERA. 
 
 101 
 
 Exhibition. The fashionable world of Paris is still away at the 
 watering-places, or that portion of it which has returned to the 
 capital is sitting in its lordly mansions, holding, as it does, the 
 Exhibition and all its works in lofty anti-Republican disdain. 
 The Parisian tradespeople are too busily employed in making 
 money, and are too consistently frugal to waste that money in 
 paying extravagant prices for opera-tickets ; and the mob in the 
 
 ENTRANCE TO THE AMPHITHEATRE AND STALLS. 
 
 foyer is mainly made up of foreigners and of provincials, who have 
 never seen the * Grrrrand Opera ' before, and will probably never 
 see it again. They have determined to ' see the elephant,' and do 
 not mind, for once in a way, how much the sight of the prodigious 
 quadruped costs them. ' I know that I'm charging you too much,' 
 once remarked to me a highly intelligent courier, whom I engaged 
 to traverse the Russian Empire from St. Petersburg to Odessa ;
 
 102 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX. 
 
 ' but what does it matter ? you'll never come lack again.'' That is 
 where it is. The receipts at the Academic Nationale de Musique 
 average just now eight hundred pounds a night ; but every evening 
 there is a fresh audience of foreigners and provincials. They will, 
 in the majority of cases, never come back again. That is wh} r M. 
 Halanzier's repertoire consists of Faust, Hamlet, Le Prophete, and 
 La Juive, varied by La Juive, Le Prophete, Hamlet, and Faust. 
 
 ARTISTE'S DRESSING-ROOM, PARIS OPERA. 
 
 "When the people who are in the habit of 'coming back again ' do 
 arrive, the prudent Director will give them something new by M. 
 Gounod or M. Ambroise Thomas. On the evening on which I 
 visited the Opera, the part of Faust was sustained by a gentleman 
 whose services in London would certainly have been deemed over- 
 paid at six pounds a week. The lady who played Marguerite was 
 an artiste, and was possibly a laureate of the Conservatoire ; but
 
 BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF THE GEAND OPERA. 103 
 
 her age was mature, and her name wholly unknown to European 
 fame. Tenor and soprano were quite good enough for an audience 
 of which the bulk would ' never come back again.' 
 
 I had been promised that the box was to be the coolest in the 
 house. It was. Through corridor after corridor, and up stair- 
 case after staircase, was I conducted, until I began to imagine 
 that our loge must be on a level with the topmost tier. Error. 
 We had not yet attained the level of the stage. Suddenly we 
 were confronted by a portly and venerable dame in printed calico, 
 
 a kind of superior ouvreuse. ' Madame d'E 's box ? ' ' Par- 
 
 faitement. La loge de Madame d'E est sur la scene.' Upon 
 
 iny word, the box in which I was to have a seat was behind the 
 curtain. A door was passed, and I stood cautiously on one side 
 to avoid being crushed by the Town-hall of Leipsic on painted 
 canvas and a wooden frame, which was bearing rapidly down on 
 me, steered by three burly men with beards and short blouses. 
 Gare ! I had a narrow escape of being overwhelmed by the 
 Cascades of Terni. Trying to avoid contact with one of the walls 
 of Elsinore, I stumbled over the steps of the throne of an Indian 
 emperor ; and bringing myself up suddenly, I have the mis- 
 chance to tread on the toes of a pompier with a brass helmet and 
 a red sash. I beg the fireman's pardon ; whereupon he replies, 
 civilly enough, ' II n'y a pas de quoi ; ' and propels me anaicabty 
 against three young ladies in silk tights and satin shoes, and 
 floral wreaths, and well, I cannot recall to mind that they had 
 much else on, who salute me with a saucy but friendly grin. 
 ' Take care ! there yawns an open trap. Take heed of the "floats" 
 and grooves. Don't run your head against that gas batten/ Thus 
 my friend who is conducting me through the labyrinth. 
 
 "Well, I have picked my way behind the scenes of a good many 
 theatres in my time, even behind those of the Paris Grand Opera 
 not here, but in the old house in the Rue Lepelletier. The year 
 was 1855 ; the occasion, the state visit to the Opera of Queen 
 Victoria, the Prince Consort, and the Emperor Napoleon III. By 
 great good fortune I gained admission to the coulisses on that
 
 104 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX. 
 
 A POMPIER AT THE PARIS OPERA. 
 
 memorable night, and I remember the fun which the juvenile 
 members of the corps de ballet made between the acts of the two 
 towering Cent Guards who, motionless as statues, stood sentry 
 on either side of the proscenium. So soon as the curtain was 
 down, an impudent little minx of a rat cTopera ran across to one 
 of these mailed giants ; examined him from crested helm to 
 spurred jack-boot ; tapped with one little rosy finger nail the 
 steel of his cuirass, and cried to one of her companions in the 
 cantonade, ' Tiens ! c'est vivant ! ' It's alive ! A corrupt epoch. 
 ' Et pourtant,' philosophically remarked General Fleury in St. 
 Petersburg, in September 1870, when he learned that the corrupt 
 epoch had collapsed, ' il est certain que pendant dix-huit ans nous 
 nous sommes diablenient amuses.' 
 
 The coolest box in the house was, in truth, delightfully airy 
 and spacious, containing as it did fautcuils for ten persons. It 
 was richly furnished with mirrors and velvet hangings ; but its 
 chief peculiarity and its chief charm were in the circumstance that 
 it was the pit or ground-tier box of one of eight, four of which are
 
 BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF THE GRAND OPERA. 
 
 105 
 
 on either side of the proscenium, and are literally apertures in 
 the structure thereof, forming an inner frame to the curtain. 
 These exceptional logcs are painted a deep plain crimson to dis- 
 tinguish them from the richly carved "and gilt fronts of the 
 private boxes in the body of the house. When the curtain is 
 down they are wholly invisible to the audience ; and the occu- 
 pants of the dark crimson niches enjoy the much-coveted privi- 
 
 
 lege of lounging behind the scenes, and even of penetrating into 
 that Bower of Choregraphic Bliss, the Foyer de la Danse, so 
 graphically described in those edifying novels of the Imperial 
 epoch, Un Debut a V Opera and Monsieur de St. Bertrand. "SYhat 
 the technical designation of these boxes behind the curtain may 
 be, I do not know. I have an idea that many j T ears ago a 
 noted operatic prima donna, Madame Dolores Xau, told me that 
 they were called Ics loges de V Administration ; that one was 
 occupied b} T the manager, another by the Minister of Fine Arts, 
 another by the Prefect, of Police, and so forth; and that in 
 the old days, under the Restoration, one of the crimson boxes 
 was always set apart for the use of the gentilhommcs de la 
 chambre, charged with the control of the Royal theatres, and
 
 106 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX. 
 
 one of the last of whom, M. Sosthene de la Rochefoucauld, found 
 the ballet-dancers' skirts all too short. I do not know what M. 
 Sosthene de la Rouchefoucauld would think of the skirts of the 
 present day. 
 
 I sate through Faust, and endured the March, the "SYaltz, and 
 
 THE FOYER DE LA DAXSE. 
 
 the Choiiis of Old Men as patiently as I might. The only draw- 
 back to the advantage of being actually on the stage was the well- 
 nigh blinding glare from the rampe or footlights ; but this was 
 obviated by means of large Japanese fans, thoughtfully placed by
 
 BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF THE GRAND OPERA. 
 
 107 
 
 our distinguished hostess at the disposal of her guests. The 
 Mephistopheles was exceptionally an excellent artist and singer, 
 with a first-rate voice ; and Valentine, the soldier, was likewise in 
 every way satisfactory. The chorus-singers the ladies ' running r 
 stout and with looks of immaculate virtue, as it is the charac- 
 teristic of lady chorus- singers to look the whole world over 
 sang in admirable time and tune ; and, as for the orchestra, all 
 I can say of that multitude of musicians is that they seemed 
 to play as with one fiddle, one violoncello, and one trombone. It 
 was the perfection of musical mechanism. The front of the 
 house, seen from our darkened nook, was astonishingly brilliant, 
 
 the gay toilettes of the ladies in the avant-sclnes looking like one 
 immense bank of rare flowers blooming above the ebony pedestal
 
 108 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 of the pit, which, contrasted against the glare of the footlights, 
 was simply one dark mass of human heads. Above, the several 
 tiers of boxes were so radiant with brand-new gilding and so 
 bespangled with lustres that, as a short-sighted spectator, I could 
 only liken the vista to that of a huge screen of cloth of gold 
 powdered with diamonds. 
 
 But it was when the curtain had descended, and we were shut 
 out from this glittering expanse, that I. could most intensely enjoy 
 nryself ; first, by watching from the box the ordering of the stage 
 and setting of the scenes ; and next, by diving in and out of the 
 coulisses, and peering into all kinds of curious corners. The 
 much-talked-of Foyer de la Danse did not interest me much. It 
 is a sumptuous apartment, overpowered by painting, carving, and 
 gilding, but intensely garish and meretricious. About a score of 
 remarkably plain-looking coryphees, in attitudes the reverse of 
 restrained, were sprawling about the divans ; and half a score of 
 young gommcux, or dandies, and corpulent old men of wicked 
 mien, in high white cravats, were chattering to or glozing over 
 
 ^T TV 
 
 THE 1>OCTOR OF THE OPERA TROUPE.
 
 BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF THE GRAND OPERA. 109 
 
 the danscuses. A throng of comparses, rats cV opera, and ' extras/ 
 as we term them, were clustered like so many painted peris outside 
 the portals of the Paradisiacal foyer, into which, I presume, they are 
 not privileged to enter unless their salary exceeds a certain num- 
 ber of francs a month. The shoes of many of these poor girls left 
 much to he desired. The heel of one satin slipper had been darned, 
 I am certain, at least seven times, and the hose of many of the poor 
 things were full of ' Jacob's ladders.' Not to be too particular, 
 the majority of the 'extras' looked as though they were half- 
 starved. Red egg, fromage de Brie, threehalfpenny-worth of fried 
 potatoes, and a bit of garlic sausage now and then such, I appre- 
 hend, would be the ordinary m en u of an operatic ' extra ; ' meagre, 
 sickly, ill-favoured, often old, but dancing and posing with won- 
 derfully mechanical skill and aplomb. Thus it is not all gold 
 that glitters, even in M. Garnier's auriferous playhouse.
 
 TIME AT WORK (BY BERTALL). 
 
 VIII. 
 
 MAB1LLE IN ALL ITS GLORY. 
 
 Aug. 23. 
 
 THE elements of Glory comprised in the festivities of the Bal 
 Mabille do not perhaps amount to much ; still, such as they are, 
 it may not be out of place to enumerate them here for the benefit 
 of the post-nati. For this is an age of Change. Time, the great 
 auctioneer, is indefatigably busy in his rostrum ; and, well nigh 
 without surcease, his ivory hammer, symmetrically turned from a 
 dead man's bone, comes in sharp contact with the ledge of his 
 pulpit, as he cries, ' Going, going, gone ! ' I have seen the dissi- 
 pation of my time, and its most typical emblems seem to me 
 mainly to have disappeared without the world in general being one 
 whit the less wicked. The phenomena of mutability impress me 
 very forcibly in this city just now. Paris, assuredly, is regene- 
 rated ; yet I fail to see that the New Birth is, ethically considered, 
 in any way superior to the old one. All the booths in Vanity Fair 
 sadly knocked about by vicissitudes of siege and civil war have
 
 MABLLLE IX ALL ITS GLORY. 
 
 Ill 
 
 been re-plastered and re-painted, gilt, swept, and garnished ; but 
 it would be rash hastily to assume that the spirits that inhabit the 
 restored edifice are in any way cleanlier .than those which abode in 
 it of old. 
 
 When I was young we used to sing a schoolboy jingle touching 
 on the delights in which we hoped to participate when we were 
 free from the loathed control of repetitcurs and the abhorred super- 
 vision of pions the English public school knows nothing happily 
 of the pion : the usher who teaches nothing, but who officiates
 
 112 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 merely as a bully, a 
 spy, and a delator over 
 
 fthe boys in the play- 
 ground and the pro- 
 menade-andwhenwe 
 
 ; /*= -mm***i~Ji& EN should emerge ' Me " 
 
 with prize books and 
 laurel crowns, from 
 the classes of Rhetoric 
 and Philosophy, to 
 commence our studies 
 for the baccalaureat, to 
 
 take a ' logement independant ' in the Rue de 1'ficole de Medecine, 
 or to go to the dogs, as our parents, our temperaments, or the 
 Fates ordained. Thus ran the doggrel : 
 
 ' Messieurs les dtiidiants 
 
 S'en vont & la Chaumiere, 
 Pour flanser le Cancan 
 Et le Robert Macaire.' 
 
 "NVe A'earned for the Chaumiere as Mr. Teui^son's consumptive 
 patient yearned for ' the palms and temples of the South.' We 
 had not the slightest idea of what might be the choregraphic cha- 
 racter of the ' Cancan ' or the ' Robert Macaire; ' but we were filled 
 with a hazy notion that these jigs must be of a wildly Eleusinian 
 character, and that the Chaumiere must be a place of delirious 
 reveliy. I have been given to understand that the most fondly 
 cherished daydream of those of the young gentlemen of our Uni- 
 versities who do not devote themselves to the study of Greek 
 accents or Patristic Theology is to enjoy the privilege of going 
 behind the scenes at the Alhambra ; and I do not remember a 
 more passionately nurtured aspiration among my French school- 
 fellows than that of being free to screw an eyeglass into the angles 
 of their optic muscles without the risk of being denounced to the 
 authorities by a pion, and of being entitled to visit the Chaumiere 
 without let or hindrance. The Chaumiere, I take it, has been
 
 MABILLE IN ALL ITS GLORY. 
 
 113 
 
 abolished many year's 
 since. There is no 
 longer such a dance as 
 the Robert Macaire 
 although the robber of 
 TAuberge des Adrets' 
 and his craven accom- 
 plice Bertrand are 
 still, thanks to the 
 dramatic genius oi 
 Frederic Lemaitre and 
 the artistic perception 
 of the caricaturist 
 
 Daumier, breathing and living personages in French literature ; 
 and the ' Cancan ' as a characteristic pas, more or less of the 
 ' Dusty Bob and Black Sal ' order, flourishes to quite as great 
 an extent on the English as on the French side of the Channel. 
 What has become of the Closerie des Lilas, the Chateau des 
 Fleurs, the Prado, the Salle Valentino, and other cognate haunts 
 
 THE 'GRAND ECART," AT THE CLOSERIE DES LILAS. 
 
 of terpsicliorean revelry, I shall perhaps make it my business 
 on a subsequent occasion to inquire. I heard, however, recently 
 that the Jardin Mabille was doing a tremendous business, and 
 that the Cancan was flourishing every night in its rankest exube- 
 rance in the Armida's Garden of the Champs filysees. Armida's 
 Garden ? No ! I beg pardon of the Italian poet's graceful shade.
 
 114 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 Say, rather, Proserpine's Garden, where nothing healthful grew ; 
 but only foul weeds, scentless flowers of gaudy hue, and poisonous 
 plants. At all events we made up a party to visit Mabille. I 
 put on a pair of square-toed shoes, and the most moral-looking 
 hat I could find, so as to warn off any Fifines or Cascadettes 
 who might seek to tempt me to join in the mazy dance did 
 not the Heathen Man of old stop his ears against the Wantons 
 of the Sea? and the lady of our party donned no less than 
 three veils, one over the other : the uppermost a stout awning of 
 blue silk, the effect of which was certainly to prevent any one at 
 Mabille from seeing her countenance ; while, on the other hand, 
 the three veils so effectually excluded the external atmosphere 
 as to impel her eventually to raise the triple barrier, gasping 
 in the throes of semi-suffocation, and impetuously to demand 
 iced lemonade or death. They charge you one franc twenty-five 
 centimes say a shilling for a glass of lemonade at Mabille. 
 The beverage, in London, would certainly be thought dear at 
 sixpence. 
 
 The Thursday on which I visited Mabille was the Festival of 
 the Assumption, a holiday which, next to the Toussaint, is, I will 
 not say the most strictly, but, at all events, the most generally 
 observed, of the few jours feries which have survived the scepticism 
 of repeated Revolution. The male portion of the French people 
 have, as a rule, broken with Catholicism ; but they have not wholly 
 lost their sympathy with the picturesque ; and one of the prettiest 
 of the customs connected with the Festival of the Assumption 
 remains in the practice of a universal exchange of flowers. Enor- 
 mous bouquets of the costliest treasures of the garden are given 
 and received by the wealthiest; while the poorest workwoman 
 receives a little nosegay from the Gugusse or Dodolphe whom she 
 favours, and in return pins a rose or geranium in his buttonhole. 
 This love for flowers, combined with an unfailing tenderness for the 
 smaller animals horses they ill-treat abominably are the pleasant- 
 est characteristics observable among the modem French. Other- 
 wise they seem to be growing a very matter-of-fact people. Their
 
 MABILLE IN ALL ITS GLORY. 115 
 
 dreams of military glory have indeed received so complete and so 
 crushing an awakening into humiliation at the hands of the Ger- 
 mans they have been so unceremoniously made aware that there 
 is a nation more militant and more powerful in European councils 
 than they are that they seem to have resolved to live, in the future, 
 substantially for themselves, and to devote their entire energies to 
 the acquisition of francs and centimes. M. Gambetta put the mat- 
 ter-of-fact and selfish view of the matter very aptly the other day 
 when he told the commercial travellers that France wanted and 
 was determined to maintain Republican institutions for herself; 
 but that she had no ambition to proselytise, and did not care one 
 doit what form of government other countries choose to adopt. 
 Republicanism to France means material prosperity; it means 
 Vargent comptant. The aspiration of the Jack Tar in the story 
 was to have ' all the baccy in the world,' and then ' more baccy.' 
 The ambition of the existing French bourgeoisie does not appear 
 to go beyond the possession of the most attractive shops in the 
 world, and then another shop the Exposition Universelle. 
 
 The shopkeeping spirit did not fail to make itself evident even so 
 early as the Eve of the Assumption, when the price of bouquets at 
 the florists' on the boulevards rose full twenty per cent, and the 
 smallest pots of flowers commanded famine prices in the Marche 
 de la Madeleine. I do not unreservedly censure this incessant, 
 carking, toilsome determination to make hay while the sun shines ; 
 but what should we say in England to our baker if he charged us 
 sixpence for a penny bun on Good Friday ; or to our dairyman if he 
 insisted on having ninepence aquartforthe bestmilk on Shrove Tues- 
 day and Ash Wednesday ? If Paris were a small town, imperfectly 
 supplied with the necessaries of life, it would be easy to under- 
 stand how an unusual influx of strangers, and the presence of so 
 abnormal an attraction as an Exhibition, might lead temporarily 
 to a very considerable aggravation of piices. One does not object 
 to pay a guinea a night for a bed at a watering-place at regatta 
 time, or to disburse ten pounds for a stuffy two-pair back at 
 Doncaster during the race-week. One knows that the accommoda- 
 
 i 2
 
 116 
 
 PAKIS HEESELF AGAIN. 
 
 THE FLOWER-MARKET OF THE MADELEINE. 
 
 tion is limited, that the duration of regattas and race-meetings is 
 short, and that the unprofitable dulness of country life is long ; 
 that, in a word, the occasion is fleeting, and that the natives are 
 entitled to make the most of their opportunity ; but I fail to per- 
 ceive the force of a similar excuse for shameless extortion in an
 
 MABILLE IN ALL ITS GLORY. 117 
 
 enormous metropolis where all the necessaries of life are at first 
 hand as cheap as, and many of them are a great deal cheaper than, 
 ordinarily they are. On this instant day in August I can buy at 
 the shop of &fndtiere, in a back street, a big, juicy, well-flavoured 
 peach for a penny ; but in a second-class restaurant I should be 
 charged a shilling for that self-same peach, and at the Maison 
 Lucullus or the Cafe Sardanapale, were I to ask in French, with 
 an English accent, for some dessert, the peach, with perhaps a 
 couple of apricots and a dozen of sour little grapes superadded, 
 would be charged five francs in the bill. The principle on which 
 the Parisian tradespeople seem to be acting is this: 'We are doing 
 better business, and we are getting more customers for our wares, 
 than we have done for years ; therefore let us overcharge our cus- 
 tomers, and let large profits and quick returns be our motto.' 
 
 This may be very remunerative while the occasion lasts ; but 
 I cannot help fancying that it is very bad political economy. 
 More than one of the great boulevard hotels have done themselves 
 irreparable harm by demanding virtually prohibitory prices for 
 rooms from old customers. The old customers have found cheaper 
 lodgings elsewhere ; and when the Exhibition is at an end, and 
 Paris reverts to its normal condition of a struggling Republican 
 city, with a native population of the most frugal and economical 
 habits, the old customers will not return to the grand boulevard 
 hotels from which they have been contumeliously repulsed. Every 
 morning, and evening too, I fancy that there leave Paris per 
 Calais and Boulogne, or by the Havre and Dieppe route, scores of 
 English families who have been so closely skinned, so' carefully 
 shorn by the Paris hotel-landlords, restaurateurs, and shopkeepers 
 that their sensations, could they be made comprehensively articu- 
 late, might be summed up in a paraphrase of Mr. Burnand's 
 memorable exclamation when he had concluded his examination of 
 the more recondite pictures at the Grosvenor Gallery: 'Joy, joy! 
 Our task is over; and never again with you, Robin! ' To wave 
 one's hand in token of farewell is one thing ; to shake one's fist is 
 another ; and I am afraid that there has been a good deal of fist-
 
 118 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 shaking lately among MM. les Anglais ere the last note was 
 satisfied and the ultimate addition settled. 
 
 These observations will apply with redoubled force to the 
 Jardin Mabille. Upon my word, I never knew such a den of im- 
 pudent extortion in my life, and that life has not been short nor 
 devoid of experience. In the palmiest days of old Vauxhall the 
 maximum price of admission was five shillings. In the Exhibi- 
 tion year, 1851, the entree to the dear old pleasaunce why did 
 they disestablish it, and cover its site with ugly houses ? was 
 half-a-crown. But what a mass of varied entertainment was pre- 
 sented to you for that sum ! A really excellent vocal and instru- 
 mental concert I will say nothing of the comic songs and the 
 conundrums of the lamented Mr. Sharpe and the regretted Mr. 
 Sam Cowell a splendid panorama painted by Danson or by 
 Telbin, a first-rate ballet, acrobatic performances, a capital circus, 
 Mademoiselle Follejambe on the slack rope, Bounding Brothers, 
 India-rubber Youths, the ' drawing-room entertainment ' of Pro- 
 fessor Kickhiskids, frequent balloon ascents from the Waterloo 
 Ground, ' fifty thousand additional lamps,' a grand display of fire- 
 works, and the unapproachable and unsurpassable Hermit. All 
 these and many more delights now, alas, for ever fled ! you 
 enjoyed for your two-and-sixpence. The plaster statues in the 
 Italian walk alone were worth the money. The illuminated trans- 
 parency representing the late Mr. Simpson, M.C., with his peren- 
 nial bow, his cocked hat, his opera tights and pumps, would have 
 been cheap at a crown. The tariff of refreshments was, I will 
 admit, stiff; yet it must be remembered that in the crypt behind 
 the orchestra you could obtain a brown mug full of excellent stout 
 for sixpence ; that a dish of cold meat only cost a shilling ; and 
 that the shilling glass of brandy-and-water contained at least half a 
 quartern of fortifying spirit. This tariff, be it borne in mind, pre- 
 vailed in the Great Exhibition year 1851. 
 
 Now let us turn to the Champs filysees. They have the im- 
 pudence to charge you five francs for the privilege of passing the 
 turnstiles of the Jardin Mabille; and what do you get in exchange
 
 MABILLE IN ALL ITS GLORY. 
 
 119 
 
 for your cent sous ? Absolutely nothing save the license to walk 
 round and round a pebbled expanse surrounding a dancing plat- 
 form, certainly not so elegant as that of the defunct Cremorne. 
 Or you may vary your promenade by strolling through two or 
 three formal alleys, or peeping into a big ballroom used for 
 dancing purposes in wet weather ; or, being fatigued, you may sit 
 down at one of the little conventional cafe tables, on one of the 
 conventional iron chairs, and there you will be at once pounced 
 upon, first by an unwholesome-looking waiter with a pallid face 
 and scrubby black whiskers, as unlike one of the sleek and civil 
 fffircons of the Boulevards as a captain of a penny steamer is unlike 
 a captain in the Royal Navy a waiter who brings you chickory- 
 loaded coffee, fiery brand}', eau-de-Seltz impregnated with par- 
 ticles of lead from its syphon tap, or beer which seems to have 
 been brewed from Spanish liquorice, quassia, and wormwood, 
 instead of malt and hops. These refreshments are dispensed at 
 rates which would be thought inordinate at Bignon's or at the
 
 120 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 Cafe Ariglais; and the waiter's ideas as to the pourboircs which 
 he should receive are of the most grandiose order. You grow 
 tired of sitting at the table, and of being re-pounced upon by the 
 rapacious waiter so soon as he perceives that your glass is empty. 
 A distant crackling sound invites you to a rifle-range ; but you 
 soon become weary of watching people firing at and continually 
 missing a running deer of painted tin. Happy for you if you 
 make one of a party. Under these circumstances you can laugh 
 and talk, and wonder that people can be found night after night 
 silly enough to pay four shillings for the privilege of inspecting this 
 barren sham ; but should you be alone your life will be made bur- 
 densome to you by the incessant importunities of the ten thou- 
 sand Daughters of the Horseleech all, so far as their plastered 
 faces go, so many whited sepulchres. Poor creatures ! They do 
 not even go so far as to raddle themselves. Rouge is apparently 
 too deai- ; but they lay on the white lead, the arsenic, the pulver- 
 ised chalk whatever the stuff may be a quarter of an inch thick; 
 and then with voices hoarse as those of night cabmen with expo- 
 sure to the night air and continuous ' consommations,' they pester 
 you to treat them. I shrink from believing that they drink a 
 tithe of the beverages with which they are continually regaled by 
 fresh relays of ' pignoufs ' the Parisian 'pignouf ' is the London
 
 MAB1LLE IN ALL ITS GLORY. 
 
 121 
 
 * 'Any ' but surmise that they receive a commission from the 
 Administration on the refreshments which they are the cause of 
 ordering. 
 
 It is quite idle to ignore the existence of the French Daughter 
 of the Horseleech, or whatever her newest-fangled name may be ; 
 since her toilette, her antics, and her perpetual endeavours to 
 extort money from strangers preferentially from foreigners 
 furnish three-fourths of the graphic and literary contents of such 
 periodicals as the Journal Amusant, the Petit Journal pour Rire, 
 and the Vie Parisienne, and supply a never-failing stock of highl} r - 
 spiced but fatiguingly reiterated anecdotes to the Figaro, the 
 Gaulois, the Voltaire, and the Paris-Journal. Those admired 
 artists, MM. GreVin, Stop, and Jules Pelcoq, are never tired of 
 depicting the fails et gcstes of the Tille de Platre.' Their 
 
 AT THE BAL DE L'OPKRA (BY CHASl). 
 
 ' Does she talk well ?' 
 
 ' Not at all bad about the rent she owes !' 
 
 witticisms all turn on the same pivot : the poor thing's chronic 
 want of money. Treat her to a cerise d I'eau de vie, and she
 
 122 
 
 PAEIS HEESELF AGAIN. 
 
 begins to talk of the sum which she owes to her milkwoman. 
 Offer her a 'grog au vin de Chypre* Cyprus wine grog and she 
 becomes deeply confidential as to the three ' termes ' in which she 
 is in debt to her * proprietaire.' Go to Mabille and you will see 
 the impecunious being in the flesh, but ordinarily minus those 
 charms which the imaginative artist has lent her, and plus that 
 horribly asthmatic or bronchitic voice. She is Marguerite Gau- 
 thier if you will M. Alexandre Dumas's Marguerite, whom he so 
 coolly plagiarised from Honore de Balzac's Coralie ; but what a 
 lack-lustre Dame aux Came'lias ! "What a woebegone Traviata ! I 
 suppose that the Princesses of the Dubious World are away just 
 at present at the watering-places in Switzerland, in Italy, or 
 preparing for their winter campaign at Nice. It is certain that 
 they are patronising neither Mabille, nor the Bois, nor any other 
 place of fashionable resort in Paris. 
 
 The last time I was at the Jardin Mabille was eleven years 
 ago, in' August 1867. The crowd on that occasion was as dense as 
 that which thronged the gardens on this instant Thursday, but 
 what a difference in the appearance of the company ! The most 
 sumptuous costumes that Worth could furnish, the costliest 
 bonnets that Lucy Hocquet could build Valenciennes lace, poult 
 de sole, cashmeres and diamonds the grandest dandies from the 
 clubs, millionaires from Brazil, from Mexico, from California ; 
 English Peers and Members of Parliament, Senators, Deputies, 
 diplomatists, bankers, notaries, adventurers all the Coras, the 
 Theodoras, the Delphines, the Faustines, the Messalines, if you 
 will, of this sparkling profligate city. For hundreds of yards outside 
 the garden the roadway was choked by splendid private equipages. 
 Grooms and commissionaires ran hither and thither; sergents de 
 rille shouted in strident tones as M. le Marquis de Poule MouiUe'e 
 drove off in his tilbury to play baccarat at the club ; or as the sly 
 little coupe of his Excellence Eugene Rougeon drew up to convey 
 his Excellency and Sarah la Sournoise she who extracted half a 
 million from the Eujaxrian Envoy to supper in a cabinet at 
 the Maison Sardanapale. Inside the Jardin Mabille how many
 
 AT THK JAIIDIN MABIU.F. UKDKR THK SECOXO KMPIKI:.
 
 MABILLE IN ALL ITS GLORY. 
 
 123 
 
 IX A CABINET PARTICULIER AT THE JIAISON SAEDANAPALE. 
 
 brindisis, how much smoking of cigarettes, and flashing of gems, 
 and changing of bright louis and crisp notes of the Bank of France ! 
 Swish! goes a bottle of champagne over Faustine's dress of poult 
 de soie. So much the better for Worth. So much the worse for 
 the banker's account of the Eujaxrian Envoy, who ultimately 
 turned out to be a swindler from Tenedos, and got into trouble for 
 cheating at Chemin-de-fer. Crac ! The Valenciennes lace shawl 
 of Diane la Drolesse is torn all to pieces by the clumsy foot of a 
 Brazilian diamond farmer. Gaily sings Maffio Orsini: 
 ' II segreto per esser felice 
 So, per prova 1' insegno agl' amice.'
 
 124 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX. 
 
 Everybody applauds, everybody drinks, everybody is happj". Maffio 
 Orsini fills up his cup again, tossing the waiter a napoleon, and 
 
 continues : 
 
 ' Scherzo e bevo e elerido gl' insani 
 Che si dan del future pensier' 
 
 Stop ! it is time to shut up the garden and bid the revellers go 
 home. Else the festivities might come to an unpleasant finale, 
 either by the appearance at the end of a gas-lit alley of Donna 
 Lucrezia Borgia and her cowled monks, or worse by that of
 
 MABILLE IN ALL ITS GLORY. 
 
 125 
 
 the Fiirst Von Bismarck, smoking a Brobdingnagian cigar, and 
 attended by a guard of broad-shouldered, straw-moustached men, 
 with needleguns and pickelhaube hehnets. 
 
 Where are you, the Princesses, now ? Married and settled ; 
 emigrated ; in the hospital ; at St. Lazare, or dead ? It is only 
 the poor relations, the trade-fallen washerwomen, or the discharged 
 
 chambermaids of Cora, and Faustine, and Theodora of Diane la 
 Drolesse and Sara la Sournoise, made up in pitiable imitation of 
 their mistresses, that I seem to see at Mabille this Thursday night. 
 Many of the toilettes are elegantly and tastefully cut and adjusted ;
 
 126 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 */. 
 
 but where are the moires, the gros de Naples, the poults de sole, the 
 velvets and satins, the cashmeres and lace shawls, the brocades and 
 
 the jewels, the feathers and the 
 flowers of price ? A poor lot of 
 painted women, ranging between 
 sixteen and sixty 3 r ears of age, 
 paraded the circumference of the 
 dancing platform with wondrously 
 watchful eyes, despite their jaded 
 and wearied mien. 
 
 The dancing is a mere hollow 
 imposture. Nineteen-twentieths 
 of the poor women who come to 
 Mabille would as soon think of 
 
 disporting themselves on the dancing platform as of earning an 
 honest livelihood. But to keep up the delusion that Mabille is 
 
 f
 
 MABILLE IN ALL ITS GLORY. 
 
 127 
 
 
 the favourite home of Terpsichore, the Administration hire a few 
 couples of semi-professional dancers, tenth-rate coryphees from the 
 smaller theatres, habitues of the saloons, or hairdressers' appren- 
 tices of an acrobatic turn of mind. These posture masters and 
 mistresses fling their limbs about to the music of a tolerable band 
 at stated intervals during the evening. At no period did I notice 
 more than five sets of posture-makers going .through their unin- 
 teresting gambadoes. They danced in isolated groups, and each 
 group was surrounded by a serried circle of gobemouche spectators, 
 whose presence thus entirely destroyed the availability of the plat- 
 form for general dancing purposes. The attitudes indulged in by 
 the hired fandango-dan- 
 cers were grotesque and 
 uncouth enough ; but they 
 in no way sinned against 
 decency : unless studied 
 vulgarity can be consid- 
 ered an indelicate exhi- 
 bition. On the whole I 
 am inclined to think that 
 the entertainment for 
 which we had paid five 
 francs a head would have 
 
 been dear at fifty centimes, or fourpence-halfpenny. There was 
 plenty of gas, to be sure, but that and the Whited Sepulchres I 
 can see on the boulevards any night for nothing. The most 
 irritating thing connected with the entire Mockery, Delusion, and 
 Snare is the moral certainty established in the paying but helpless 
 spectator's mind that by far the greater portion of the patrons of 
 the Jardin Mabille do not pay five francs if they pay anything at 
 all for admission. The Whited Sepulchres are presumably on 
 the free list, and the men-folk (apart from a multitude of middle - 
 class Englishmen and Germans) are mostly composed of poor little 
 pale-faced whipper-snappers in billycock hats, cols casscs, and 
 slop-shop clothes, to any one of whom, to all seeming, it would
 
 128 
 
 PAKIS HERSELF AGAIN*. 
 
 have been an act of charity to give a couple of francs to get some 
 supper withal. If they paid five francs a head to enjoy the frantic 
 delights of this Mabille grown mouldy, I am prepared to renounce 
 my nationality, and to become a Dutchman to-morrow. It is 
 -Nunky,' the foreigner, who pays for all.
 
 SILVER AND IVORY CANDELABRA, EXECUTED BY M. FROMENT-MEURICE FOR THE 
 DUKE D'AUMALE. 
 
 TO AND FRO IN THE EXHIBITION. 
 
 Aug. 26. 
 
 THAT he had preserved ' order in disorder,' and, to a certain 
 extent, by disorderly means, was the proudest boast of Citizen 
 Caussidiere, Prefect of Police under the Republic of 1848. I am 
 endeavouring to be as paradoxical, although I may not hope to be 
 so successful, as the energetic but eccentric functionary just 
 mentioned, by periodically inspecting the contents of the Exposi-
 
 130 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 tion Universelle in strict accordance with the system of having no 
 system at all. As a means of ingress to the colossal parallelogram 
 of the Champ de Mars, I certainly prefer the Porte Rapp to the 
 Fortes de la Seine, de Tourville, de Grenelle, Desaix, and 
 Dupleix, for the reason that the first-named gate is the central one 
 as you drive to the Exhibition from the Champs Ely sees, and 
 that, entering by the Porte Rapp, you fall at once in medias res, 
 and you can branch off to the right or left among the products of 
 France, or make straight for the two principal porticoes leading to- 
 the Galleries of the Fine Arts, or forge far ahead, crossing the 
 intersecting Rue des Nations, towards the Sections Etrangeres r 
 the Park, Catelain's Restaurant Francais undeniably the best in 
 the Exhibition the Bridge of Jena, and the Palace of the Troca- 
 dero, without incurring the risk of losing yourself too early in the 
 labyrinths of glass cases. I say too early ; since it is a matter of 
 necessity that you should utterly lose your way before your visit to- 
 the Exhibition is over. I am not prepared to say that the laby- 
 rinthine walk is not the best perambulation of the "Wandering 
 Wood, and the most agreeable navigation of the Unknown Sea, 
 without a compass and without a chart, the most instructive, after 
 all. Columbus lost his way, and saw Land at last. He thought it 
 was part of the Indies ; but it turned out to be the Antilles. The 
 Spanish poet, the Marquis de Santillane, lost his way, ' por tierra 
 fragosa,' between Santa Maria and Calataveuo, and discovered the 
 most fascinating little cowherd ever described in a poem as 
 fascinating : 
 
 ' En un verde praclo de rosas y flores, 
 
 Guardando ganado con otros pastores, 
 
 La vi tan fermosa que a pena creera 
 
 Que fuese Yaquera de la Finijosa.' 
 
 "Who knows but that, strolling aimlessly through the interminable 
 avenues and cross avenues of this City of Shops, I may come, un- 
 expectedly, on the Vaquera de la Finijosa ? If I do, I will offer 
 her the peacock dress with the train as long as Guicciardini's His- 
 tory ; or the bonnet made of humming-birds' wings and butterflies
 
 TO AND FRO IN THE EXHIBITION. 131 
 
 (the last artificial, the first only too real, I am sorry to say) ; or the 
 point d'Alenqon fan; or the rock-crystal smelling-bottle studded with 
 grey pearls and pink diamonds ; or some other nice little inexpen- 
 sive trifle from the glass cases devoted to the display of Pomps from 
 the Rue de la Chaussee d' Antin or Vanities from the Rue de la Paix. 
 Wandering to and fro in that section of the French Furniture 
 Department which is devoted to ' Tapisserie et Decoration,' and 
 I will own growing somewhat dazed, even to the verge of satiety, 
 by the exuberance of carving and gilding, inlaying, incrustation, 
 and veneering, visible in the compartments full of state bedsteads, 
 consoles, canapes, causeuses, and giiendons, I came upon a very 
 remarkable decorative performance occupying one of the angles 
 of a transverse corridor of the Avenue Rapp, in the shape of the 
 ' Installation de Fantaisie ' exhibited by the firm of Henry Penon, 
 of the Rue Abbatucci, Paris. The imaginative upholsterer is a 
 rarity ; and the house of Penon, emboldened, it would seem, by 
 the medals for ' Good Taste' and ' Progress' which they received 
 at the Vienna Exhibition of 1873, have, in 1878, literally thrown 
 the reins on the back of their Pegasus. The 'Installation de 
 Fantaisie ' is supposed to be that of the bedchamber of a ' graude 
 dame de par le rnonde,' or of a ' belle petite :/ whichever you 
 choose. She may be Ninon de 1'Enclos or Emma Lady Hamil- 
 ton, the Empress Theodora or Montaigne's ' Signora Livia 
 the lady with the calzoni embroidered with pearls, whose iden- 
 tity so sorely puzzled the commentators until the appearance 
 of the Earl of Orford's wonderful book on the ' Meretrici ' of 
 Venice for the ameiiblement of the grande dame belongs to DO 
 particular period save one of the most sumptuous luxury and the 
 most expensive taste. The lady's couch has a counterpane of sky- 
 blue brocaded satin, turned up with pale pink. The pillows are 
 of holland lawn, triply edged with richest lace. The bedstead 
 itself is a mass of elaborate carving and gilding. The ruelle of the 
 bed is screened by a magnificent piece of tapestry, designed and 
 woven in the workshops of M. Penon. A tripod-table of oxidised 
 silver stands by the bedside. The carpet is of triple velvet-pile.
 
 132 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 A portal veiled by hangings of damask leads to the adjoining 
 breakfast-room. A Renaissance easel supports the richly-framed 
 picture of a lovely child in pastel such a pastel as Greuze might 
 have executed in his best days. Cabinets, fauteuils, and foot- 
 stools, of superb material and workmanship, and an infinity of 
 costly nicknacks scattered about, fill up this enchanting ' instal- 
 lation,' to which, to my mind, there only lack two things a copy 
 of !M. Octave Feuillet's Journal dune Femme, bound in crimson 
 morocco and gold, and on the tripod table of oxidised silver, a 
 parcel-gilt plateau sustaining a pate de foie gras, a pint bottle of 
 Yeuve Clicquot, and a carafon of curacoa, en cas de unit in case 
 the great lady should wake up in the middle of the night hungry, 
 or disposed to read herself to sleep again. I should have mentioned 
 that the ceiling is adorned by ' una copiosa quantita d'amoretti,' 
 such as the old Italian Cardinal commissioned Albano to paint for 
 him. But the chief charm of this Abode of the Graces consists in 
 the Frame, the softly-surging mass of draperies which serve as a 
 surrounding to the entire apartment draperies composed of a 
 deep sea-green plush velvet, giving very bright high lights, and 
 with heavy bullion fringes and tassels, the last culminating in one 
 large gland of chenille, which is pendent from the ceiling after the 
 manner of a chandelier. The scheme of colour, it will be seen, is 
 wonderfully subtle. The effect is as though, turning from the 
 frame of dark green drapery, with its beamy lights and reflections, 
 you were gazing at a warmly lit boudoir. It is a selenegraph 
 combined with an ejfet de lampe. 
 
 Contrast with this surpassingly rich dream of Sybaritic splen- 
 dour a curious quaint little ' installation,' got up far away in the 
 English section by two meritorious English decorators, belong- 
 ing to the gentler sex. The section of a poky little English 
 room is shown, furnished in the angular and uncomfortable style 
 pertaining to the end of the last or the beginning of the present 
 century a style of which I thought that we were well rid, but for 
 the revival of which there seems to be at present a partial craze. 
 These rickety, ' skimping,' spider-legged chairs, tables, corner
 
 TO AND FEO IN THE EXHIBITION. 133 
 
 cupboards and ' whatnots ; ' these sofas, too narrow for purposes of 
 flirtation, and too short to put your feet up, are all very well in 
 the delightful pictures of Mr. George Leslie, R.A., and Mr. G. H. 
 Boughton. In actual oak, walnut, mahogany, or rosewood, I 
 object very strongly to them ; and if the lady-decorators will study 
 even the rudiments of the History of Decoration, they will find that 
 this kind of furniture belongs to a period when a succession of long 
 and cruel wars had virtually shut us out from the Continent, and 
 had left us a people almost entirely ignorant of the art of design, and 
 wholly destitute of taste. The carpet in the lady-decorators' model 
 room is a significant illustration of our deplorable condition at the 
 period which the apartment is supposed to illustrate. It is a carpet 
 substantially without a pattern, and there is a good reason for the 
 absence of pattern. In the age in question we did not know how to 
 draw carpet patterns, and we could import no pattern-draughtsmen 
 from abroad. The two ladies may be complimented on the scru- 
 pulous fidelity with which they have reproduced a number of poverty- 
 stricken and weak-kneed little models; but the value of their work is 
 diminished by the extravagant prices which they have affixed to the 
 examples of upholstery exhibited. Sedulous rummaging among the 
 brokers' shops round Lincoln's Inn and behind the Waterloo Road 
 would buy for so many shillings what these ladies have charged so 
 many pounds for. On the whole, this little exhibition of a state of 
 domesticity to which it is to be hoped we shall not return is inter- 
 esting in the sense that the novels of Anne of Swansea, and the 
 fashion-plates of the Belle Assemble e for the year 1802, are interesting. 
 There could scarcely, I apprehend, be a more pregnant proof of 
 that which I am endeavouring to advance the inexpediency of 
 reverting to ugly and tasteless forms, and of attempting to revive 
 that which had much better be left slumbering in its obscure grave 
 than the actual and triumphant display made in ceramics by 
 the firm of Minton of Stoke-upon-Trent, and in metallurgy by 
 Elkington of Birmingham and London. It is necessary, now and 
 again, to be a little ' Podsnappish ' or ' Chauvinesque ' to assert 
 one's nationality in despite of the disparaging taunts of foreigners.
 
 134 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 In the way of artistic furniture and carpets we can hold our own 
 without fear of rivalry ; and that which Mr. Gilbert Redgrave, 
 Mr. Henry (of the Royal Tapestry Manufactory, Windsor), Mr. T. 
 W. Hay, and Messrs. Gillow the last as general furnishers and 
 decorators have done in the Prince of Wales's pavilion ma}^ com- 
 
 CUIMNEYPIECE IN THE DINING-ROOM OF THE PRINCE OF WALES's PAVILION. 
 
 pete with any 'installation,' fantastical or otherwise, which the Four- 
 dinois or the Penons of Paris can design and manufacture. But 
 what am I to do when the Frenchman throws, not only Sevres, but 
 a score of French porcelain and pottery manufacturers, in my teeth,
 
 TO AND FRO IN THE EXHIBITION. 135 
 
 and not only Barbedienne, but a score more producers of artistic 
 bronzes ? Well, I can, I hope, victoriously point to the ceramic 
 productions of Staffordshire, of Worcestershire, and of Lambeth, 
 and to the artistic metal-working of the great Birmingham house, 
 not only as examples of what we can do in those departments of 
 technical industry, but as illustrations of astonishing and con- 
 tinuous progress and improvement in that which, so far as we are 
 nationally concerned, must be considered a new point of departure. 
 Abstractedly, there is nothing new under the sun ; but substan- 
 tially, the designs and the processes of Minton in earthenware 
 and of the Elkingtons in metals, are new and original. Every 
 year our potters introduce fresh glazes, fresh tints, fresh schemes 
 of design, fresh modes of working. Every year the Elkingtons 
 come forward with some unfamiliar method of production and 
 manipulation now in repousse, now in cloisonne or cliampleve 
 enamelling, now in damascening, now in the chasing and orna- 
 mentation of gold and silver ware, and now in the application of 
 the inexhaustible secrets of the science of electro-metallurgy. 
 
 There is one object in the French section of the Palace of the 
 Champ de Mars which certainly deserves inspection, since it is 
 undeniably a raritj', literally unique ; and when it reaches its des- 
 tined home at Rome it will be invisible to the great body of Euro- 
 pean sightseers. This is the ' CEuvre Pie,' or Monumental Library 
 of the Immaculate Conception, manufactured by Messrs. Chris- 
 tofle & Co. of the Eue de Bondy, and originally designed as an 
 offering to the deceased Pope Pius IX. It has been more than 
 three years in preparation, and will now, I suppose, be consigned 
 to the pontifical keeping of Pope Leo XIII. The history of this 
 Bibliotheque Monumentale is an edifying one. So long since as 
 the year 1860 the Abbe' Sue, director of the Seminary of St. Sul- 
 pice, conceived the idea of forming a collection of translations in 
 all known languages of the Bulla Ineffabilis, in which Pio Nono 
 formulated and proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Concep- 
 tion. By dint of pious zeal and indefatigable perseverance he suc- 
 ceeded in getting together no less than a hundred and ten volumes,
 
 136 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX. 
 
 enriched with miniatures and illuminations on vellum of the rarest 
 beauty. This phenomenal trophy was presented in 1867 to the 
 late Pope, who, in graciously accepting it, informed the Abbe Sue 
 that he considered the collection as too exceptionally interesting 
 to be absorbed among the innumerable treasures of the Vatican 
 Library, and that he intended to place the hundred and ten manu- 
 script tomes in a magnificent bookcase in the centre of the Salle 
 de rimmaculee Conception in the Pontifical Palace a grand hall 
 adorned with paintings symbolical of the dogma, and the floor of 
 which was a mosaic pavement of the time of Augustus, discovered 
 at Ostia. But the Abbe Sue respectfully insisted that France 
 should have the honour of supplying the bookcase as well as the 
 books. Messrs. Christofle prepared the necessary designs and 
 undertook to manufacture the work, which had so far advanced 
 towards completion in February 1877, that it was taken to Rome 
 to be exhibited to the late Pontiff, and was then brought back to 
 France for completion. 
 
 Imagine an imposing structure of sideboard shape, supported 
 on thirty-two carved legs, carrying an avant-corps forming a crystal 
 shrine, in which the hundred and ten volumes, open at their most 
 attractive pages, are displayed. Above this is a frieze richly 
 painted with figures, and above this, again, a dome surmounted 
 by a statue of the Virgin. The table-legs are of amaranth wood, 
 richly incrusted with fillets of ebony, and with capitals and bases 
 of bronze gilt. There is a lower frieze, forming, as it were, the 
 middle of the work, and made up by a series of escutcheons in 
 cloisonne enamel, commemorating the names of the pious indi- 
 viduals, families, painters, and Pilgrimage-Communities which 
 have the most liberally subscribed towards the execution of the 
 work. The escutcheons are connected by branches of eglantine, 
 with enamelled flowers of pinky white, recalling the Eglantine of 
 Lourdes, and interspersed among them are a number of superb 
 mosaics, the gift of Pius IX., executed in the ateliers of the 
 Vatican, and representing various scenes in the Holy Land, and 
 the churches of Santa Maria in Trastevere and Santa Maria Mag-
 
 TO AND FRO IN THE EXHIBITION. 137 
 
 giore, the most ancient and the largest churches in Rome dedi- 
 cated to the worship of the Madonna. The angles of the inferior frieze 
 are embellished with panels in Sevres porcelain of the hue termed 
 ' Celadon,' with figures in relief, executed by that ' pate-sur-pate * 
 process, of which Mr. Solon-Miles is making such notable use in 
 England for the account of Messrs. Minton. These plaques, em- 
 blematising the four quarters of the globe, were given by Madame 
 la Marechale de MacMahon. The superior frieze contains twenty - 
 two medallions, on a ground of precious woods in Limousin 
 enamel. These represent divers sacred and historical subjects. 
 There are likewise effigies of Bezaleel, mosaic goldsmith of the 
 Tabernacle, and St. Eloi, patron of the orfevres of France : while 
 to the right and the left of these last-named medallions are profile 
 portraits in caniaieu of the founders of and actual partners in the 
 firm by which this remarkable ceuvre has been produced Messrs. 
 Charles and Paul Christofle, Ernest de Ribes, and Henri Bouilhet. 
 Returning to the literary portion of this astonishing macedoine 
 of decoration, I find that among the ancient languages into which 
 the Bull has been translated are Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Chal- 
 dee, Assyrian, Babylonian, Phoenician (!), Persepolitan (! !), San- 
 scrit, Chinese, Hieratic and Demotic Egyptian, Coptic, Berber, 
 Etruscan (!), Celtic, Gothic, Runic, Mexican, Yucatanese, and 
 Peruvian. Among modern European dialects I find TjTolese, 
 Bergarnoso, and the ' Minga ' of the Milanese ; Calabrese, Grseco- 
 Albanian, and the patois of the Yalle d'Aosta ; Catalan, Balearic, 
 and the ' Aldjarna ' or Spanish of Andalusia written in Arabic 
 characters ; Basque Gallego, Negroid-Portuguese, Breton,Walloon, 
 Auvergnat, Ruthenian Tcheck, Croatian, Bosnian, the native local 
 dialects of the Dutch provinces, Welsh, Gaelic, and Irish-Erse. I 
 should like Professor Max Miiller, assisted by the good fathers of 
 the Armenian convent of San Lazzaro at Venice, who sell you for 
 half a ducat their typographical masterpiece of the Prayers of 
 St. Narses in thirty-six languages, to pass a few days in examining 
 the contents of the wonderful library for which Messrs. Christofle, 
 with the assistance of well-nigh a score of collaborateurs, have
 
 138 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 provided so sumptuous a receptacle. As a monument of artistic 
 ingenuity and technical skill the whole work calls for the highest 
 praise. As an example of nobilit} 7 , or grandeur, or taste, the per- 
 formance did not impress me in the slightest degree. While the 
 lines of the construction are poor, the entire structure is over- 
 loaded with florid ornamentation ; and the eye seeks in vain for 
 xepose in the midst of all this carving and gilding, all these cameos 
 and camaieus and pdte-sur-pdte panels. 
 
 In decorative bronze sculpture, as I have already observed, the 
 ^French are well-nigh unapproachable. In marble statuary they 
 liold their own very nobly, although they are closely pressed by 
 the Italians ; but in ecclesiastical decoration, and even in deco- 
 rative architecture, I can but think that France, through her 
 addictedness to florid colour and excessive ornamentation, is very 
 seriously retrograding. That the paintings executed by M. Paul 
 Baudry at the New Grand Opera are truly magnificent, and that 
 the proportions of that edifice are very grandiose, must at once be 
 obvious ; but I was born either too early or too late to appreciate 
 the beauty of the Opera House fafade. It seems to me a mere- 
 tricious mass, the whole effect of which, notwithstanding all the 
 costliness of the materials of which it is composed, and all the con- 
 summate plastic skill which has been lavished on its adornment, is 
 not (to my mind) more attractive than the display at M. Siraudiii's 
 sweetstuff shop on the Rue de la Paix. And I am positively sure 
 that I have never beheld anything more architecturally hideous 
 than the exterior of the Exhibition Palace in the Trocadero, or the 
 fafadeofthe Champ de Mars Palace, with its row of gigantic and 
 clumsy figures looking towards the terrace and the Bridge of Jena. 
 The two towering portals which give entrance to the local exhibits 
 of La Ville de Paris and the Gallerie des Beaux- Arts are equally 
 disastrous examples of a deteriorated taste in the way of meagre 
 and poverty-stricken design, bolstered up by excess of carving, 
 gilding, and adornment of every degree of garishness. It is very 
 irritating to observe this, and to contrast it with the exquisite 
 refinement and taste which the French modeller and art-workman
 
 TO AND FRO IN THE EXHIBITION. 
 
 139 
 
 bestows on the conception and execution of the most trifling bibelot 
 a mirror, a washstand, a lady's cMtelaine, a pen-tray, or a 
 paper-weight. Abating the dis- 
 plays of Sevres, Beauvais, and 
 the Gobelins, the carpets, the 
 marble statuary, and Gustave 
 Dore's vase, there is very little 
 on a large scale in the French 
 department of the Exhibition 
 which can be called elegant. 
 The little things are supremely 
 tasteful and beautiful. They 
 seem to have gone to work more 
 earnestly and more thought- 
 fully in the illustration of the 
 products of Lilliput than in 
 those of Brobdingnag ; and 
 after all the author of the 
 Tableau de Paris may have 
 been hitting the right nail on 
 the head in saying that ' French- 
 men are always serious in little 
 things, and always frivolous in 
 great ones.' 
 
 Messrs. Christofle's ' Biblio- 
 theque Monunientale ' extorts 
 commendation for the surnp- 
 tuousness of its materials and 
 
 the marvellous excellence of the main d'ceuvrc. It is altogether an 
 exceptional production; and, looking at it, we may, for the nonce, put 
 the canons of fine taste in our pocket ; but the examples of exclu- 
 sively ecclesiastical decoration which I have seen in the French 
 saloons of the Exhibition are to me absolutely hateful. There was 
 an art-critic once who said that, although he considered Michael 
 Angelo to be the greatest artist that ever lived, he hated his memory 
 
 GOLD AXD ENAMEL CHATELAINE EXHIBITED 
 BY M. FOUQUET.
 
 140 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 because his example bad been tbe means of producing the detest- 
 able Bernini. Unless I am much mistaken, the name of the art- 
 critic in question was Adolphe Thiers. Bernini, nevertheless, had his 
 admirers ; among them Sir Christopher Wren, who went over to Paris 
 whither Bernini had been summoned by Louis XIV. expressly 
 to confer with him ; but he complained that the ' crafty Italian ' 
 would not allow him to study the drawings which he had made for the 
 works at Versailles and the Louvre. But imagine the disciples of 
 the disciples of Bernini not as an architect, but as a sculptor and 
 decorator. Imagine the preposterous attitudes, the tempest-tor- 
 mented draperies of Bernini's figures, imitated by tenth-rate model- 
 lers. Imagine altars and shrines and statues all smeared with 
 gaudy colours, plastered with gold leaf, and set off with crimson 
 velvet, wax candles, and Valenciennes lace, and you have the main 
 features of modern French church-decoration. When they try to 
 be Gothic with the Renaissance in their hands and paganism in 
 their hearts the attempt is even more intolerable. It becomes 
 like Inigo Jones's classic portico to old St. Paul's. 
 
 I shall not be, as a rule, accused of a disposition to over-com- 
 pliment my own countrymen as practitioners in the plastic depart- 
 ments of art-industry ; but I can sincerely say that niy eye and 
 my feelings in general experienced infinite solace and relief in 
 turning from the gaudy ecclesiastical frippery of the French church- 
 furniture to a quiet, simple, but dignified display of metal sent by 
 the firm of J. W. Singer & Son of Frome, Somersetshire. They 
 have produced a superb example of a church-lectern in ornamental 
 brass-work, and exhibit besides some very admirable specimens 
 of bronze and enamel, and of repousse in raised metal. That an 
 establishment capable of turning out work of this high character 
 should flourish in a comparatively secluded provincial town says 
 much in favour of the founder of the firm, who, I am told, educates 
 every workman he employs in his craft. Among the examples 
 in repousse is a rosewater-dish of skilfully combined brass and 
 copper, with compartments in silver, containing groups symbolical 
 of the elements, and a bold central silver medallion. In the
 
 TO AND FRO IN THE EXHIBITION. 
 
 141 
 
 EOSEWATER-DISH, ' THE ELEMENTS ' (BV SINGER AND SON). 
 
 ornamental border the elements are typified anew by heads of Pluto, 
 Mercury, Vulcan, and Neptune. The firm also exhibit a pair of 
 dishes with centres, representing Music and the Plastic Arts, in 
 which the figures are not only most skilfully modelled, but grouped 
 with infinite grace. The gem, however, of the Singer atelier is a 
 large, elaborate, and admirably executed rosewater-dish, with a 
 finely-designed central group, composed of guardian spirits hovering 
 around a graceful kneeling nymph, apparently designed to repre- 
 sent Innocence. The six compartments of the interlacing ara- 
 besque border are occupied by bassi rilievi, which are of silver like 
 the centre, and typify youthful and maternal love, and various 
 Christian virtues. Taken as a whole, the work is of the highest
 
 142 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 excellence. In most of the Singer productions gravity and repose 
 are the leading characteristics ; and I am glad to notice these 
 features strongly manifested, together with beauty in design and 
 excellence of workmanship, in at least a dozen more British dis- 
 plays of metal-work, chiefly for church uses. If I do not give 
 the manufacturers' names it is for the reason that I do not carry 
 a Grey's Memoria Technica in my head ; and that part of my sys- 
 tem of viewing the Exhibition in a non-sytematic manner is to be 
 totally unprovided with either catalogue, notebook, or pencil. 
 Those impedimenta prejudice one so ; which was the reviewer's 
 plea for never reading the books which he criticised. 
 
 I may mention that, besides their monumental Bibliotheque 
 of the Immaculate Conception, the Messrs. Christofle exhibit a 
 superb assemblage of orferrerie and bronzes d'art. To this well- 
 known house the introduction into France of the art of electro- 
 plating is due. At first it was thought that the discovery 
 would deal a crushing blow to the goldsmiths' craft, and that 
 laboured excellence would be sacrificed to cheap and swift pro- 
 duction. But when the elder Christofle had vulgarised, so to say r 
 the use of plated articles, and had secured a permanent income from 
 the sale of such every-day matters as spoons and forks, soup-ladles 
 and dish-covers, he seriously turned his attention to the orfevrerie 
 d'art. His first production of this kind was the table-service com- 
 missioned by the Emperor Napoleon III., and at which in 1855 
 various sculptors of repute worked with feverish emulation under 
 the direction of Gilbert. Elieu ! fugaces. Nothing remains of the 
 deftly chiselled masses of glittering metal which used to grace the 
 Imperial banquets, nor of the elaborate surtout de table executed 
 for the City of Paris by MM. Christofle jun. & Bouilhet, and dis- 
 played at the Exhibition of 1867. The one disappeared in the 
 ruins of the Tuileries, the other amidst the flames which consumed 
 the Hotel de Ville. Thus passeth away the glory of the goldsmith. 
 How much of the gold and silver work of the Roman Empire and the 
 Middle Ages underwent a similar smelting ? What became of the 
 plate that furnished Nero's Golden House and the dish Domitian
 
 TO AND FRO IX THE EXHIBITION. 1 
 
 had made for the monster turbot ? Where are the throne of Alexis- 
 Coninenus and the shrine of St. Sophia ? What remains of the 
 magnificent carvings and castings of the Mexicans and Peruvians ? 
 It is only once in a thousand years that a Schliemann disinters- 
 such treasures. 
 
 The two services mentioned, though of high artistic value, were- 
 only electro-plated ; but in the present Exhibition Messrs. Christofle 
 display a surtout de table in solid silver, enriched by parcel gilding,- 
 executed for the Duke of Santonia, one of the wealthiest grandees- 
 of Spain. Several ' eminent hands ' have combined to produce the 
 various pieces composing it. In the centre-piece Mercie's Ainphi- 
 trite towers in a triumphant attitude above two seated figures- 
 typifying the peche fluriale so dear to the Parisian gudgeon- 
 catcher and the peche maritime. The bouts de table are Hiolle's 
 Triton and Nereid, seated on pedestals enriched with dolphins,, 
 shells, and seaweed, and balancing vases which, it must be con- 
 fessed, look disproportionately heavy for the arms of their supporters^ 
 The Seasons, modelled by Gautherin, form the candelabra ; and 
 the two jardinieres support reclining figures of Europe, Asia, Africa^ 
 and America by Lafrance, figures marked by a certain grace volup- 
 tueuse extremely French, and slightly suggestive of being somewhat 
 overcome by their festive surroundings, and therefore perhaps not 
 altogether out of place at a banquet. Despite this the general 
 aspect of the surtout is solemnly decorous, and contrasts forcibly with 
 another in the Louis Seize style by Carrier Belleuse, enriched with 
 sprightly and animated groups of children, bacchantes, and fauns^ 
 
 To Messrs. Christofle also belongs the credit of having first 
 sought to reproduce in France that Japanese style of ornament which 
 has exercised so marked an influence in all branches of decorative 
 art during the last ten years. It has not only made itself evident in 
 ceramic ware, glass, furniture, textile fabrics, and wall -papers^ but 
 even in sculpture, as witness the pair of graceful torcheres of oxy- 
 dised bronze, modelled by Guillemin, and representing female figures 
 in the quaintly flowered flowing garments of the ladies of Yeddo- 
 and Yokohama. But the high-priest of this new cultus in the
 
 144 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX. 
 
 SERELD, WITH VASE, BELONGING TO THE SURTOUT DE TABLE MANUFACTURED 
 FOR THE DUKE OF SAXTONIA. 
 
 ateliers of Messrs. Christofle is Reiber, the designer of the monu- 
 mental Bibliotheqne, whose adaptations of the art of the far East
 
 A CORXI:R or THE CHRISTOILE EXHIBITION- ix THK CHAMP in: MAILS. I. 145.
 
 TORCIliRE, IN THE JAPANESE STVLE, 
 VOL. I. 
 
 145 
 
 are imbued with the 
 spiritof the last century 
 chinoiseries of Bou- 
 cher, yet who, while 
 seeking to give alike 
 to enamels and metals 
 toneswhich harmonise, 
 has aimed at embody- 
 ing in the colours of 
 the former, and in the 
 different shades of 
 bronze enriched with 
 gold and silver, the 
 quintessence of that 
 intense and varied 
 decoration which per- 
 vades most forms of Ja- 
 panese art. Among the 
 miscellaneous objects 
 in bronze, enamel, and 
 niello exhibited by the 
 firm, are vases ena- 
 melled by Tard, after 
 his own designs, the 
 curious and patiently 
 executed cloisonne 
 equalling the best Chi- 
 nese work, bronze 
 cups, lamps, fantasti- 
 cally enriched jardi- 
 nieres, salvers,coffrets, 
 clocks, and two marvel- 
 lously decorated up- 
 right comer cabinets, 
 executed by Guignard.
 
 A FOREIGN VISITOR IN A DIFFICULT (BY CHAM). 
 
 The Manchoo-Tartar's orders for dinner being interpreted to the waiter 
 at the College de France. 
 
 X. 
 
 FOREIGN VISITORS. 
 
 Aug. 
 
 MEMORABLE from a thousand points of view, the Paris Exhibition 
 of 1878 may perhaps have a claim to special remembrance on the 
 score of the tremendous amount of patronage bestowed upon it by 
 the democracy of the world at large. Crowned heads, it must 
 be admitted, have been few and far between in the metropolis 
 of France since last May. The Piince of Wales, by his early 
 attendance, by the cordial sympathy which he showed in the 
 well-being of the enterprise in general, and the sedulous interest 
 which he took in the efficiency of the British department of the 
 Exhibition in particular, set a splendid example, which has gained 
 for him golden opinions among the French people, and which 
 might have been worthily followed by other Koyal personages. 
 Still Royalty to say nothing of Imperialism has in a great
 
 FOREIGN VISITORS. 147 
 
 measure kept aloof from the Champ de Mars and the Trocadero ; 
 or, if it have slipped in and out of the Exhibition at all, has 
 inspected the wonders thereof incognito and en cachette. It was 
 not thus in '67, when stories were told of the Five Kings who 
 supped together in a cabinet particulier at Durand's, and, at the 
 conclusion of the banquet, discovered that not one of their majesties 
 had money enough about him to pay for his supper. History has 
 a tendency to repeat itself ; and a similar deficiency of ready cash 
 prevailed, you will remember, according to the author of Candide, 
 at a certain supper which took place during the Carnival of Venice. 
 Things were not thus when, on a sultry July night, eleven years 
 ago, I joined the special Imperial train which went down to Toulon 
 to fetch the Sultan Abdul Aziz. Things were not thus when I 
 saw King William of Prussia, now Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, 
 received at the foot of the grand staircase of the Tuileries by the 
 Emperor Napoleon III. There ran a rumour through the spec- 
 tators of the august ceremony that the Prussian King, turning to 
 an aide-de-camp, had whispered to him that he remembered having 
 come to the Tuileries as a stripling Hohenzollern Prince in the 
 year 1814, and as a guest of the Most Christian King Louis XVIII. 
 Nor were things thus when (always in '67) in the dingy Assize 
 Court at the Palace of Justice, I beheld a sallow, hawk-faced, 
 ferret-eyed tatterdemalion named Berezowski arraigned for the 
 attempted assassination of Alexander II., Czar of All the Russias, 
 in the Bois de Boulogne. 
 
 What grand folks we had to deal with in the Exhibition year 
 1867, to be sure ! And that never-to-be-forgotten pageant of the 
 distribution of prizes in the Champs Elysees. Paraphrasing Heine, 
 it might be said that Hereditary Princes and Grand Dukes well- 
 nigh stuck to the soles of your shoes as you walked. The air was 
 ambrosial with Csesarisni. The great diamond aigrette in the fez 
 of the Padishah of Eoum shone like a sun in the midst of a glit- 
 tering firmament of stars and crosses and embroidered uniforms. 
 Ringing and strident was the voice of Caesar as, in measured sen- 
 tences, he dwelt on the success of the Exhibition, and on the 
 
 L 2
 
 148 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 grandeur and prosperity of France. Then, descending from his 
 throne, with Caliph and King and Princes around him, he made 
 the tour of the enormous hall. It was as well that he was on foot. 
 Had he ridden, like the Roman, in the chariot, triumphant usage 
 would have required the presence of a slave behind him, to remind 
 the Conqueror that he was Mortal. The slave was there, all 
 ready. He was a Cabinet courier from Brest. In hottest haste 
 he had sped to Paris, bearing despatches which had come from 
 Vera Cruz to Havana, from Cuba to St. Thomas, and thence to 
 France. They brought the news that the hapless Maximilian, the 
 phantom Mexican Emperor, had been shot to death at Queretaro. 
 They travelled, although men saw not the portent then, on the 
 wings of Nemesis the Nemesis which is defeat, the Nemesis 
 which is disgrace, the Nemesis which is the hacking off the spurs 
 from the heels, and the kicking of the banner down the steps of 
 St. George's Chapel ; the Nemesis that rips away the velvet and 
 gold embroidery of the throne, and shows us a crazy skeleton of 
 bare deal boards and a few tenpenny nails ; the Nemesis which is 
 To-morrow.* 
 
 These eyes will not see such sights again. There is an hotel 
 in the pleasant city of Frankfort-on-the-Main, which used to be 
 renowned for having always at least one Crowned Head staying 
 under its hospitable roof. Arriving there once, I laughingly asked 
 the landlord what he could give me in the way of Royalties. He 
 replied as jocosely that he was very sorry, but that he was then 
 out of Crowned Heads, and that the utmost he could offer me in 
 the way of exalted rank was the Prince of Tour and Taxis. Simi- 
 larly, I don't think they could give you so much as the smallest of 
 small Kings just now at the Hotel Bristol. As for Don Francisco, 
 late of Spain, his ex-Majesty is completely ' played out ; ' and the 
 poor ' bogus ' King of Araucania and Patagonia died lately in the 
 
 * ' Ah, Domain c'est la grande chose : 
 
 De quoi Demain sera-t-il fait ? 
 L'liomme aujourcl'lmi seme la cause, 
 
 Demain fait mftrir 1'eflfet.' VICTOR HUGO.
 
 FOREIGN VISITORS. 149 
 
 most embarrassed circumstances, I am sorry to hear. Whether 
 the King of Bonny has been among us, I have not yet learnt ; but 
 his Majesty of the Low Countries has, I hear, taken his departure. 
 I am bound to add that, out of political circles, in which the pre- 
 sence in Paris during the continuance of the Exhibition of a goodly 
 contingent of Princes seems to be thought desirable as a kind of 
 recognition and acceptation of the Republic, the Parisians do not 
 seem to care ten centimes about the absence of Imperial and 
 Royal grandees from the capital. The other afternoon, when 
 strolling in the Champs Elysees, I became aware of a most clash- 
 ing equipage tearing along the road from the Place de la Concorde 
 towards the Rond Point. It was an open caliche, hung very low. 
 Siibstitute runners for the wheels, and it would have been a sledge. 
 But I knew the superb turn-out well the three priceless horses 
 abreast, two of them steppers of the Ukraine, the last a magnifi- 
 cent alczan ; the coachman a full-bearded Slav, in a black- velvet 
 caftan, with sleeves of sky-blue silk. He drove without a whip, 
 and with the reins held square in his wide outstretched hands. 
 Very ' down the road,' very * fit ' and complete this model troika. 
 A Frenchman standing by asked me if I knew who was the middle- 
 aged gentleman with blonde whiskers just tinged with gray, in 
 civilian garb, and with a hat as shiny as Lord Hardwicke's, sitting 
 behind the driver in the caftan with the sky-blue sleeves. Yes ; 
 I knew that whiskered gentleman by sight, I replied. It was the 
 Grand Duke Constantine of Russia. ' Connais pas,' quoth the 
 Frenchman standing by ; 'I thought it was one of the advertise- 
 ments of the Hippodrome. Une fameuse reclame, allez, ces trois 
 chcvaux de front.' The spirited proprietors of the Hippodrome 
 are in the habit of sending all kinds of cavalcades Postil- 
 ions de Longjumeau, Mexican gucrrillcros, Moorish cavaliers, 
 Spanish picadores, and what not about the streets of Paris 
 in the daytime, in order to proclaim the attractions of their 
 establishment. But only fancy his Imperial Highness the Grand 
 Duke Constantine of Russia being mistaken for a puff of a 
 circus !
 
 150 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 His Imperial Highness is about the most distinguished 
 foreigner that we can boast of in Paris just now. There are, it 
 is true, the Arab chiefs tremendous sheikhs and emirs in their 
 own country, no doubt who continue to stalk about the boule- 
 vards, with crosses of the Legion of Honour attached to the breasts 
 of their snowy burnouses ; but they attract but little attention, 
 and are of small account with the people first, because their 
 expenses are paid by the Government, and they do not spend any 
 money of their own ; and next, because the Parisian has grown to 
 be somewhat sceptical with regard to the picturesque Child of the 
 Desert. ' On peut voir ce Bedouins-la tous les jours dans les bou- 
 tiques de la Rue de Rivoli,' says the Parisian, who is apt to con- 
 fuse the lordly sheikh or the gallant emir, with a pedigree as long 
 as Abd-el-Kader's, with the astute Levantine of mixed nationality 
 who assumes an Oriental garb and sets up a shop for the sale of 
 Oriental bric-a-brac. The number of sham Turks roving about 
 Paris at the present moment is prodigious. You can tell the real 
 Turk at a glance. His fez is never of a bright hue the glaring 
 scarlet fezzes used to be made at Strasbourg, and, since the war,, 
 have been manufactured at Mulhouse and there is a semi-clerical 
 look about his angle-breasted, low-collared black surtout. 
 
 The sham Turk is a much more pretentious individual. One 
 corpulent old personage, with a stubbly gray beard, a white-muslin 
 turban like an exaggerated turnip, a dingy cashmere -shawl sash, 
 baggy blue galligaskins, white stockings, Blucher boots, and a 
 battered umbrella of a dull red hue, I seem to have been aware of 
 for years. I do not know whether he keeps a shop anywhere, or, 
 indeed, whether he sells or does anything ; but I meet him con- 
 tinually, prowling about with a stale and absent air, as though he 
 were looking for somebody or something, but had forgotten what 
 it was. I have made inquiries about him. He was not always a 
 Turk, they tell me. Many years ago he was a distressed Pole. 
 Then he became a Hungarian refugee, in a threadbare Honved 
 uniform. Again a change came o'er the spirit of his costume, 
 and he appeared as a Moldavo-Wallachian in a sheepskin pelisse
 
 FOREIGN VISITORS. 151 
 
 and a fur porringer on his head, like the Lord Mayor of London's 
 sword-bearer. Once more this Protean being was metamorphosed 
 into a Suliote, with ' a snowy camise and a shaggy capote ; ' and in 
 1871-2 he underwent another brief incarnation as the counterpart 
 of the ' Ami Fritz ' of MM. Erckmann-Chatrian. In this guise he 
 was supposed to be a native of Alsace-Lorraine, who had ' opted ' 
 to become a French subject. From the condition of an ' optician' 
 he reverted to his premieres amours, and turned Turk again. A 
 mysterious old gentleman ; but nobody minds him. It is one of 
 the chief charms of this city that so long as you pay your way and 
 refrain from meddling with politics, nobody does mind you. You 
 may do whatever you please and wear whatever tomfool costume you 
 like to assume. Do you remember the fantastically-attired ' Car- 
 nevale ' ? Do you remember M. le Marquis de Bobino, with his 
 tail-coat of light-pink silk ? Did you ever hear of M. Edme' Cham- 
 pion, 'le Petit Manteau Bleu,' the man with the little blue cape ? 
 I would undertake to walk from the Bastille to the Madeleine to- 
 morrow with a cocked-hat and a pig-tail or a Roman helmet on my 
 head, in a toga, a Spanish mantle, or the full-dress of an Albanian 
 palikar or an Italian brigand ; and, albeit a few people might stare 
 at me, I should neither be mobbed, molested, nor insulted. 
 
 It is not so in London. The eccentric gentleman from Wales 
 who occasionally pays a visit to our metropolis, and walks about 
 the principal thoroughfares in a tightly-fitting suit of grass-green 
 cloth, adorned with the tails of foxes and squirrels, has occasion- 
 ally, I am given to understand, a hard time of it with the boys. 
 In Paris a few gamins might cry out, ' Qu'il est drole ! ' while the 
 ladies, always ready to recognise the picturesque, might exclaim, 
 ' II est vrahnent pas nial comme cela.' But nobody would ven- 
 ture to -hurt his feelings by ribald comments, much less to jostle 
 or cast mud or stones at him. We should be the most cosmopo- 
 litan, but we are in reality the most intolerant and narrowly-pre- 
 judiced people in the world. I will ask any middle-aged gentle- 
 man whether he has the moral and physical courage to walk any 
 fine summer's morning from Charing Cross to the Temple in a
 
 152 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN*. 
 
 THE CHINESE COMMISSIONERS SO ARRANGE THEMSELVES AS NOT TO LOSE ONE 
 ANOTHER IN THE STREETS OF PARIS. 
 
 pair of white trou- 
 sers; and I pity that 
 farmer or grazier 
 who was bold enough 
 to appear in St. 
 Paul's Churchyard 
 in top-boots and lea- 
 thers and a red waist- 
 coat. The boys would 
 be ' down ' upon him 
 at once. 
 
 Meanwhile, Paris 
 presents at the pre- 
 sent time the most 
 astounding melange 
 of varied costumes 
 
 A CHINAMAN IN PARIS LEADING HOME HIS DINNER. 
 
 and nationalities that it is possible to conceive. John Chinaman, 
 in the brightest of embroidered caftans and petticoats, and with the 
 longest of pigtails, which Parisian caricaturists are always turning
 
 FOREIGN VISITORS. 
 
 153 
 
 BY JOVE, THE CHINAMAN HAS LET ONE OF HIS HAIKS FALL INTO HIS SOUP! ' 
 
 ' WHAT A LOVELY SOUVENIR, IF ONE ONLY HAD A PAIR OF SCISSORS ! '
 
 154 
 
 PAEIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 \ V 
 
 ' I BEG YOUR PARDON, BUT WHAT IS THE PRICE OF THIS LITTLE VASE ? ' 
 
 'WILL IT RING, MAMMA, IF I PULL?
 
 FOREIGN VISITORS. 
 
 155 
 
 to profitable account, pervades the Exhibition, \vith his up-turned 
 black-currant eyes and his eternal simper. As you see him on the 
 tea-tray and the willow-pattern plate, you see him in the flesh. 
 Men may come and men may go, but he smirks on for ever. In 
 the Exhibition and on the boulevards the foreigners in Paris are 
 
 mingled in inextricable tumult, and to listen to the confusion of 
 tongues Babel seems to have come again ; still, in the way of resi- 
 dence and habitual resort, each people appears to have its favourite 
 quarter. The Spaniards and Italians the former in high combs 
 and mantillas, and frequently in the Andalusian pork-pie hat and 
 the Asturian capa, the latter distinguishable only from their 
 kindred of the Latin races by their dark flashing eyes and their 
 superabundant gesticulation are especially fond of thronging the 
 cafes between the Rue Richelieu and the Rue Vivienne. The 
 Belgians haunt the Boulevard Montmartre. They are a frugal 
 race, and the restaurants stretching towards the Porte St. Denis 
 are comparatively cheap. The Germans take up an immense 
 amount of room, make a most tremendous noise, and seein to be 
 spending a vast amount of money on both sides of the boulevard 
 from the Rue le Pelletier to the Avenue de 1' Opera.
 
 156 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 UXE FAM1LLE ANGLAISE (fiV BERTALL). 
 
 As for the English, they are un pen partout. A few mornings 
 since I paid a visit to Mr. Thomas Cook, in his very pleasant 
 quarters in the Rue cle la Faisanderie one of the fourteen houses 
 which he has fitted up in Paris for boarding and lodging the shoals 
 of tourists who travel under his wing. There is no need to specify 
 the remarkably cheap scale of charges made for bed and board. I 
 merely went to look at the accommodation, and I found it capital. 
 Scrupulous cleanliness, solid and sober comfort, a substantial Eng- 
 lish breakfast, and a plentiful meat and tea and coffee supper, or 
 ' high tea,' as the Americans call that substantial meal. I saw 
 the kitchens and the bedrooms, the parlours and the refectories ; 
 and, to my mind, everything was excellently provided and admir-
 
 FOREIGN VISITORS. 157 
 
 ably arranged. The fourteen boarding-houses, it is almost needless 
 to say, are constantly thronged. 
 
 Mr. Cook senior is an old friend of mine. I think that I first 
 met him in Venice in 1866, and since then I have been ' personally' 
 aware of him and his tourists all over the Continent. It used to 
 be the fashion to sneer at and disparage 'Cook's Tourists,' and the 
 late Charles Lever (as Cornelius O'Dowd, in Blackwood) once 
 went out of his way to libel, in a very cruel and uncalled-for way, 
 the harmless travellers who were trotted over Europe under the 
 auspices of the 'personal conductor.' Mr. Cook has got over all 
 that long ago, and can afford to smile at his detractors, and to for- 
 give the shade of Charles Lever, who, abating a few old-fashioned 
 prejudices, was one of the kindest-hearted creatures that ever 
 breathed. 
 
 I went over two or three of the handsome suburban villas tem- 
 porarily tenanted by the ' Cookists ; ' and the name of the proprietor 
 of one of these mansions struck me with a pleasant surprise. It 
 was Madame St. Leon, who, as Mademoiselle CERITO, was one of 
 the most fascinating dancers that ever adorned the grand era of the 
 Terpsichorean stage. Nearly forty years ago Thomas Ingoldsby, 
 describing the memorable Tamburini and Coletti emeute at Her 
 Majesty's Theatre, wrote (I am quoting from memory, mind) 
 
 ' Mademoiselle Cherrytoes 
 Shook to her very toes : 
 She couldn't hop on, so hopped off on her merry toes.' 
 
 The delightful ' Cherrytoes ' the only ballerina whom the austere 
 consort of the Czar Nicholas of Russia could tolerate is still 
 extant, hale, prosperous, and vivacious. Very blithely did she 
 come to terms with Mr. Cook. 'You are an Englishman,' she 
 said, ' and I love England and the English.' It is good to think 
 of these former Reines de la Danse enjoying a green old age. The 
 exquisitely graceful Duvernay, world-famous as the dancer of the 
 ' Cachuca,' lives still in England, the land of her adoption, a 
 wealthy and most charitable Lady Bountiful, beloved by all her
 
 158 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 neighbours ; and only a few days before I left London I met at a 
 garden-party a very sprightly lady, Madame la Comtesse Gilbert 
 des Voisins, whom more than forty years before I had known as 
 Marie Taglioni. 
 
 To the affluent classes among my own countrymen, the Rue 
 de Rivoli seems almost entirely to belong say from the Hotel du 
 Louvre as far as the Rue Castiglione ; but at the new and 
 astonishingly magnificent Hotel Continental they have to battle 
 for supremacy with the Americans, who have likewise somewhat 
 the best of the international fray at the Hotel Splendide, and at 
 the surpassingly-grandiose Cafe Restaurant de Paris, in the Avenue 
 de 1'Opera. At the last-named and overwhelmingly-sumptuous 
 place of entertainment I candidly confess that I have not yet had 
 courage to dine. I have peeped in once or twice ; but the sheen of 
 the plate glass, the radiance of the gilding, the crimson velvet and 
 the rosewood, the glitter of the plate, and the snowy whiteness of 
 the damask have terrified me ; and I have had, as yet, but a Pisgah 
 view of that Palestine soup for which they charge, I suppose, five 
 francs a portion. I will go there on the day when I purchase 
 Messrs. Webb's engraved glass claret-jug, price four hundred and 
 fifty pounds, or M. Fourdinois' inlaid Florentine cabinet ; and I 
 am awaiting, ere I bring these transactions to a close, the arrival 
 of the necessary cheques. 
 
 ' Faites flamber Finances.' The colossal Continental Hotel 
 occupies part of the site of the Ministry of Finances petroleuniisecl 
 by the Commune ; but there are other brand-new edifices rising 
 in the immediate vicinity of the burnt-out Government offices, 
 which structures puzzle me more and more as to what has become 
 of the western side of the Rue Castiglione. On the opposite side 
 the offices of Messrs. John Arthur & Co., English bankers, 
 stand safe and sound enough ; but over the way I miss at least 
 half a dozen once favourite hotels and restaurants. The huge 
 Continental Hotel has swallowed them all up. Thus, too, the 
 enormous dry-goods store, the Magasins du Louvre, has encroached 
 on the hotel of that name until scarcely anything of the original
 
 FOREIGN VISITORS. 
 
 159 
 
 THE LOUVRE, FROM THE RUE DE RIVOLJ. 
 
 caravanserai has been left. There is a maximum of mag asms, and 
 a minimum of inns ; and eventually, the hotel, I hear, will be 
 wholly disestablished, and liiiendrapery, hosiery, and haberdashery 
 will reign supreme in the vast saloons where they used to charge
 
 160 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 such very high prices for such very indifferent luncheons and 
 dinners. I shall scarcely regret the passing away of the Hotel du 
 Louvre, of which I remember well the erection, to say nothing of 
 the notorious orgie of champagne and equivocal company by which 
 its ' inauguration ' was celebrated. Those were the early days of 
 the Empire ; and people then were not over-particular concerning 
 les biensecences. The vast dimensions of its principal apartments, 
 the splendour of the decorations and furniture of the entire estab- 
 lishment, and in particular the covered courtyard, then entirely a 
 novelty in France, made the Hotel du Louvre in its youth a rarity 
 and a phenomenon. It was twice as dear, moreover, as any other 
 existing hotel, except the Bristol and the Hotel des Princes ; and 
 that circumstance likewise conduced to its popularity. But it was 
 never a pleasant hotel. From the rooms in the front one had only 
 a view of the guard and barrack rooms of the Louvre, with some 
 grim and stony effigies of marshals and generals of the first 
 Empire ; and the rooms in the rear were, notwithstanding their 
 handsome fittings, so gloomy as to be so many Caves of Despair. 
 Still the passing away of an hotel once so famous may justly claim 
 the few words which I have bestowed on it. Its erection marked 
 the dawn of the Imperial epoch, as the Grand Hotel marked its 
 culmination, and the Hotel Splendide the beginning of its decline. 
 And now, Csesarism having definitely and irretrievably collapsed 
 so they tell me, at least this bewilderingly vast and gorgeous 
 Hotel Continental has risen, with magical rapidity, from the red- 
 hot ashes of the Commune. Is Paris destined to be the witness 
 of yet more phenomenal revolutions and still more marvellous- 
 hotels ?
 
 THE SALLE DES DEPECHES OF THE FIGARO OFFICE. 
 
 ' FIGARO HERE, FIGARO THERE ! ' 
 
 Aug. 31. 
 
 THE Eue Drouot, like the Eue Lafitte and tlie Eue Lepelletier, 
 continues, in despite of the Haussrnanisation of the Second Empire 
 and the Duvalisatioii of the Third Republic, to maintain its 
 character as an essentially French and eminently Parisian street. 
 Strange tricks have been played with most of the thoroughfares in 
 its neighbourhood ; still the Eue Drouot has hitherto triumphantly 
 defied all the attempts of an iconoclastic municipality to cut it to 
 pieces. The unfortunate Eue de la Chaussee d'Antin no longer 
 knows itself, so mercilessly has it been new boulevarded in its 
 northern portion : and there is something I have not yet been 
 able to discover with precision what it is the matter with the 
 present topography of the Eue Taitbout, as compared with its 
 former lines ; but it is as easy as ever to travel in the Eue Drouot, 
 and to my thinking this thoroughfare is, with the exception of the 
 new 'installation' of the Figaro newspaper, delightfully unchanged. 
 May its immutability be perpetual !
 
 162 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 After breakfast I mean the dejeuner d la fourchette, not the 
 British tea, eggs, bacon, and toast hour say about two in the 
 afternoon, is the time to travel in the Rue Drouot. It is not a 
 very quiet place, being normally, perhaps, as bustling as Cran- 
 bourn-street, Leicester-square, which in its artistic aspect it very 
 much resembles ; still it is free from the incessant and deafening 
 roar of the main boulevards. One likes to hear the ' city's busy 
 huin ; ' and towns as tranquil, say, as Cordova or Toledo in Spain r 
 or Ghent or Bruges in Belgium, are apt, after a tune, to induce a 
 fit of the meagrirns. "When people are really alive it is incumbent 
 upon them now and again to exhibit signs of their vitality ; but 
 the Boulevards which stretch from the Madeleine to the Bastille 
 are more than alive : they seem to be hysterical, delirious, or in a 
 permanent crisis of some great agony which constrains them to 
 make a terrific disturbance. The exceeding fierceness of those 
 who were wont to come out of the Tombs of Old has been accounted 
 for by the supposition that when they emerged from their caverns 
 in the morning they were likewise exceeding hungry ; and uncer- 
 tainty as to where they were to get any breakfast may have had 
 much to do with their habit of shrieking and running amuck. A 
 like fierceness characterises the dogs of Eyoub in the Golden Horn, 
 Constantinople, at early morn. The homeless curs of the other 
 districts of Staniboul and of Pera know very well when the butchers' 
 and bakers' shops will open, and when the time for flinging them 
 stale crusts or scraps of offal will arrive ; but at Eyoub there is 
 nothing but a mosque, a quantity of tombstones, and a few mud 
 hovels inhabited by people who habitually have not enough bread 
 for themselves ; and this gives the dogs of the district an excep- 
 tionally wolfish aspect, and hyena-like temper. I cannot help 
 fancjung that garrotters remember, that the vast majority of those 
 criminals are hulking young fellows, between nineteen and twenty- 
 three, endowed with a powerful physique, rude health, and tre- 
 mendous appetites are not in the habit of obtaining their break- 
 fasts regularly. Consequently they come out of the slums of 
 Seven Dials and Whitechapel, ' exceeding fierce.' Consider how
 
 FIGARO HERE, FIGARO THERE ! 163 
 
 lamb-like is their demeanour in chapel at Pentonville or Millbank. 
 They have a pleasant prescience that when the worthy chaplain 
 has done his office the panikin full of nice hot gruel and the 
 welcome hunk of break will be waiting for them. 
 
 Meanwhile the Boulevards bawl and bellow, not only at early 
 morn the disturbance, as from sad matutinal experience I know 
 full well, begins at five A.M. but until high noon, and throughout 
 the afternoon, and deep into the night. ' A cette heure,' writes to 
 me a wise French friend, ' les femelles conimencent a hurler.' 
 Those mad shrieks borne on the night-wind are inexpressibly 
 suggestive to the mind. Fini de rire. The time for hilarity is 
 over, that for ululation has begun. Who can be screaming, what 
 about, and where, are matters that do not concern you. You happen 
 to live in a Haymarket an old-fashioned Haymarket, not the pre- 
 sent regenerated thoroughfare some six miles long. The yell 
 iiia}^ mean murder. It may be a sudden spasm of remorse, or the 
 despairing cry of the intended suicide ; or it may merely be Lalie 
 and Phrosyne exchanging a piercingly boisterous good-night with 
 Gugusse and Polyte. But you hear the shriek all the same, even 
 as in London the deep stillness of the night-season in the very 
 quietest of neighbourhoods is broken by the piercing treble of the 
 locomotive whistle at the distant terminus. 
 
 From sunrise to midnight you hear also, on the Boulevards, 
 the well-nigh incessant cracking of whips a sound extremely dis- 
 tressing to nervous ears, taking your mind back, as it does, to the 
 dark days of negro slaveiy, and inducing the suspicion that the 
 ferocious Legree, indefinitely multiplied, is operating upon Uncle 
 Tom at the corner of every street. Fortunately the whips are only 
 those of the omnibus- and cab-drivers. I wish that they would not 
 agitate their thongs quite so frequently or so violently. I do not 
 think that the French are designedly cruel to their horses, save in 
 so far as they drive the poor half-starved ' screws,' in an incon- 
 ceivably blundering and careless manner ; but they seek to stimu- 
 late the sorry jades by a startling reverberation, which they produce 
 by throwing out the lashes of their whips laterally : somewhat as a 
 
 M 2
 
 164 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 Mexican ' greaser ' throws out liis lasso. Now when a whip is thus 
 cracked by a Jehu as skilful as the Postilion cle Longjumeau the 
 horse is duly incited to action, and no harm is done to anybody ; 
 but when a horde of untutored and undisciplined charioteers come 
 lumbering, clattering, plunging, or crawling six abreast on the 
 Boulevard Poissonniere, flourishing their whips and flinging out 
 the thongs thereof in all directions, and you happen to be riding 
 in a victoria in the midst of the ruck, the chances are about equal 
 as to your own driver hitting some passing passenger over the 
 bridge of the nose, or of a playful cabby, either to the right or the 
 left of you, cutting out your eye as he lurches past. 
 
 To such perils you are scarcely exposed in the sober Rue 
 Drouot. The traffic is never long congested ; and, indeed, at some 
 periods so trifling is the press of locomotion that the pedestrian 
 can enjoy one of the most dearly -prized privileges of a Frenchman 
 that of walking on a hot afternoon in the centre of the roadway, 
 and with his hat off. The practice dates from the time when side- 
 walks were unknown in the small streets of Paris, and peaceable 
 people walked at large (just keeping clear of the great black gutter) 
 to avoid disputes about the wall. There may be those who regret 
 the ruisseau. There were, forty years ago, bare-legged industrials 
 who earned a livelihood by carrying ladies safely across the swollen 
 kennel after a shower of rain. For a lady the fee was ten centimes, 
 for a child or a pet poodle five : but the open kennel did not dis- 
 appear without many sighs on the part of conservatism. "Were 
 there not those who wept for Nero, and for Old Smithfield ? 
 
 The existing drainage of the City of Paris is, I am given to 
 understand, a colossal monument of sanitary engineering, and in 
 a scientific sense perfect. I know that MM. Victor Hugo and Max- 
 ime du Camp have written eloquently and exhaustively enough 
 about the sewers ; still I cannot help fancying that the practice 
 of deodorisation continues to leave something to be desired. The 
 odour of the back streets of Paris in warm weather is, even in the 
 most fashionable districts, the reverse of agreeable. No charge, 
 however, of this nature need be adduced against the Rue Drouot,
 
 FIGARO HERE, FIGARO THERE ! 
 
 165 
 
 CROSSING A PARIS KENNEL, FBCM AN OLD ENGRAVING. 
 
 which is, comparatively speaking, a very ancient thoroughfare, 
 and in which, when you are travelling in it, you find so many 
 interesting sights to engage your attention that you are indif- 
 ferent to the odours of the place. Unless I am grievously mis- 
 taken, the Kitai-gorod at Moscow is not a very sweet-smelling 
 locality ; certain quarters of Constantinople are redolent of a 
 decidedly villanous perfume ; the Calle cle los Sierpes at Seville 
 has a rather ' loud ' aroma ; and the back streets of Venice would
 
 166 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 be all the better for a little diluted carbolic acid. But such 
 trifles are scarcely worth noticing. M. Louis Yeuillot found 
 nothing but ambrosial gales in the reeking lanes of Papal Rome ; 
 and how should we stand as archffiologists, antiquaries, art-critics, 
 and ' curio '-collectors, if we were all so many Mr. Edwin Chad- 
 wicks, C.B. ? 
 
 The curiosities of the Rue Drouot are, first the Hotel Drouot 
 itself; next the ' Installation,' or offices of the Figaro newspaper ; 
 and finally the bnc-d-brac shops. Let us take the Figaro. Re- 
 specting the politics of this remarkable daily journal certainty 
 the most conspicuous specimen of the daily press published on the 
 Continent, but, on the whole, about as unlike an English news- 
 paper as a Parisian restaurant is unlike the Freemason's Tavern 
 I am not called upon to say anything. The Figaro may be, 
 for aught I know, Legitimist, Clerical, Bonapartist, Orleanist, 
 Conservative, or Ultra-Radical, Republican and Socialist; its 
 politics may be, as Mr. Bob Sawyer confessed on that memorable 
 wet evening at Birmingham, ' a kind of plaid ; ' or, as the Ameri- 
 cans say, 'a little mixed;' or, finally, the Figaro may have no 
 politics at all. It did not occur to me to ask the courteous Secre- 
 taire cle la Redaction, who received me under the peristyle of the 
 Hotel du Figaro, what his convictions as to public affairs might 
 be ; nor did he make any inquiries as to my personal opinions on 
 the Eastern Question. We met on common and remarkably 
 pleasant ground, when an equally courteous gentleman to whom 
 he introduced me conveyed to me an invitation to breakfast and 
 the offer of a box at the Grand Opera. I had, however, a great 
 deal to see at the Figaro before I could devote myself to pleasure. 
 I have seen many curious newspaper-offices before now ; but a 
 more peculiarly characteristic * installation ' than that of the 
 Figaro I have never beheld. All comparisons with establishments 
 of the same kind in my own country I banish, of course, at once 
 from my mind. The secrets of my own prison-house in Peter- 
 borough Court, Fleet Street, I would not dare to reveal the 
 ' Society ' journals, it would seem, know more about them than I
 
 167 
 
 do ; but I have been permitted to peep behind the scenes of the 
 New York Herald, of the Levant Herald in the Grande Rue de 
 Pera, of the Neue Frcie Presse at Vienna, of the Epoca at Madrid, 
 and of the Journal de St. Petersbourg. Each and every one of 
 these offices presented a distinct and tj-pical cachet, yet all pos- 
 sessed certain features in common ; but the Figaro is confessedly 
 wholly and entirely sui generis as a newspaper-office. It is all 
 very handsome, but it is reniarkabl}' business-like. The barber's 
 razor is beautifully polished and sumptuously mounted ; but the 
 tousor himself is as sharp as that celebrated manufacturer men- 
 tioned in David Coppcrficld Mr. Brooks of Sheffield. Everything 
 that can possibly please the eye and tickle the fancy of the dbonne' 
 is liberally provided at the bureaux of this essentially ' smart ' 
 publication ; but there is another Eye, invisible to some, but 
 firmly fixed in the very centre of the facade of the building an 
 Eye beneath which might be inscribed our own highly-esteemed 
 Bell's Life motto, ' Nunquam dormio ' an Eye which, with the 
 constancy of the needle to the pole, is directed to the Main 
 Chance. Long ago it was said of the Frenchman that 'ne rnalin 
 il inventa le vaudeville : ' the proprietary body of the Figaro born 
 wide awake has invented the art of holding an unprecedented 
 number of thousands of abonnes with that glittering Eye. 
 
 I visited the offices of the Figaro in the first instance as a bold 
 stranger. I had heard that its Salle des Depeches was open to 
 the public day and night ; so, as one of the public, I proceeded to 
 the Rue Drouot to participate in a wholly gratuitous entertain- 
 ment. There are so very few places in Paris, apart from the 
 public museums and picture-galleries, which can be seen for 
 nothing ; and with regard to the establishments above the portals 
 of which ' entree libre ' is written, I might counsel you to bear 
 in mind the wise maxim which bids us to beware of the Greeks, 
 and of the gifts which they give. To be admitted ostensibly free, 
 gratis, and for nothing to a Champs Elysees concert, to be gener- 
 ously allowed to listen to bad instrumental music and worse sing- 
 ing, and to be called upon to pay three francs fifty centimes for a
 
 168 PARIS HEESELF AGAIN. 
 
 glass of sour beer, a cup of chicoried coffee, or some brandy which 
 makes you sick, may be humorous from the proprietor's point of 
 view, but is scarcely a comic transaction so far as you are con- 
 cerned. I rejoice, however, to remark that ' la consommation * 
 was not obligatory in the Salle des Depeches in the Rue Drouot. 
 No waiter importuned me to give my orders, nor did anybody ask 
 ine to buy anything ; although there were a good many articles on 
 the walls which I might have made an offer for, such as pictures 
 and water-colour drawings senthere for sale. Telegraphic despatches 
 from all parts of the world are here duly displayed ; and you niay 
 learn the latest news from Bosnia and Herzegovina, from China 
 and Peru, from Capel Court and from Crini Tartary. The fluctua- 
 tions of native and foreign bonds and shares can be studied, and 
 the latest state of the odds on horseraces ascertained ; but the 
 Salle des Depeches through which, it is calculated, some twenty- 
 five thousand persons pass in the course of every twenty -four 
 hours serves other purposes than the foregoing. The room is a 
 kind of bazaar for works of art, and a great advertising-hall, in 
 which highly remunerative prices are obtained for wall-space. 
 
 To the Parisian, born a flaneur and a ' mooner,' this eleemo- 
 synary lounging-place must be a source, of constantly-renewed 
 delight. So much to stare at, and nothing to pay ! Telegrams 
 and despatches from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Capel Court and 
 Crini Tartarj r , are mingled with glowing polychromatic advertise 
 ments of the renowned Chocolat Patapouff, the Eacahout des 
 Kabyles, the Petits Saucissons des Abrutis, the Eau de Vie des 
 Cuistres, the Magazins du Mauvais Marche, the Maison de Blanc 
 de la Grande Croquemitaine, Ninon de 1'Enclos Tooth-Powder, 
 Eobert Macaire's Moral Cough-Lozenges, Joan of Arc's Aromatic 
 Sticking-Plaster, and Curius Dentatus's Rhinoceros Horn False 
 Teeth. If there be anything odd or out of the way floating about 
 Paris it is picked up by the Figaro, and exhibited in the Salle 
 des Depeches. Recently there was shown a specimen of the 
 wretched ration of forage allowed by the Compagnie Ge'nerale des 
 Voitures to their overworked cattle. I should not be surprised to
 
 FIGARO HERE, FIGAEO THERE ! 169 
 
 see Peter the Great's will ; or the sabre which was ' the happiest 
 day ' in the life of M. Joseph Prudhoinine ; or Robespierre's skull 
 when he was a young man ; or the skin of the young woman dis- 
 sected by Thomas Diafoirus, all displayed in the Salle cles Depeches 
 of the Figaro. The astute proprietary of that journal are no losers 
 by their liberality. The Salle was formerly a wine-shop. The 
 Figaro bought out the marchand de vins at a very hea\y figure ; 
 but the revenue accruing from the advertisements is already 
 beginning to yield a very large profit ; the institution itself 
 feebly imitated by another journal or two enhances the prestige 
 and the popularity of the Figaro ; and who shall say but that, in 
 many instances, the apparently unprofitable flaneur comes from 
 the Salle des Depeches metamorphosed into that being so dear to 
 the proprietorial heart, a full-fledged abound a yearly subscriber 
 to the astute journal with the glittering Eye. 
 
 I had never, so far as I know, seen the abonne in the flesh, 
 and under gregarious conditions ; so having posted some letters 
 a post-office letter-box and a telegraph-office are among the facili- 
 ties offered to the public in the Salle des Depeches of the Figaro 
 I entered the offices of the journal itself, and asked to be allowed 
 to have a peep at some abonnvs, if there happened to be any on 
 the premises. There were plenty. A kind of gentleman-usher of 
 mature age, who looked so grave and reverend that he might have 
 been Gil Bias' father who, you will remember, became an cscu- 
 dero in his declining years, his wife adopting the vocation of a 
 duena conducted me up a large and softly-carpeted staircase, and 
 thence into a spacious antechamber, the walls hung with antique 
 tapestry, Venetian mirrors, and trophies of antique weapons, and 
 plentifully furnished with fauteuils and divans. The prevailing 
 style of the decorations was Hispano-Moresque ; and this indeed 
 is the key-note of the scheme in architecture and embellish- 
 ment of the Figaro offices, the faade of which, looking on the 
 Rue Drouot, is adorned by a bronze statue of the immortal barber 
 himself, looking as elegantly impudent and as amusingly knavish 
 as he does in the finest French comedy and the finest Italian opera
 
 170 
 
 PAEIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 that the declining yews of the wicked 
 worn-out eighteenth century can boast 
 of. The sculptor of this bronze effigy 
 of the tonsor of the Plaza San Toinas 
 at Seville* gained the prize in an ani- 
 mated competition among some of the 
 first plastic artists in France ; and 
 terra-cotta models of the Figaros which 
 did not win the prize, albeit some of 
 the figures are of rare merit, are dis- 
 played on brackets in the antecham- 
 ber. 
 
 The polite gentleman who was my 
 cicerone next led me to a gallery, or 
 loggia, running round a quadrangular 
 covered courtyard, answering precisely 
 to the patio of a house at Seville : only 
 in the centre, instead of a fountain, 
 there was a monumental bust in mar- 
 ble of Beaumarchais, and round three 
 of the sides there were handsomely 
 carved oaken screens, pierced with 
 pigeon-holes, through which money 
 and papers were being continually 
 passed. I could look down on three 
 ranges of spruce clerks sitting behind the usual big ledgers, while 
 on the other side of the screens there was a throng of all soils and 
 
 * There is still a barber's shop on the Plaza San Tomas, which you are 
 gravely assured by the Sevillalios is the identical shaving establishment erst 
 patronised by Beaumarchais, and where the idea of writing his comedies first 
 occurred to him. It is quite the ' thing ' for a tourist to get shaved in this 
 .shop. A young gentleman strums softly on the guitar while the customer is 
 being lathered and scraped ; and you pay about four times more for the opera- 
 tion than you would do at an ordinary barber's. But 'the Priest lives by the 
 Altar/ and you must need make your oblation when you are a pilgrim at a 
 .shrine. 
 
 BROKZE STATUE
 
 FIGARO HERE, FIGARO THERE ! 
 
 171 
 
 conditions of people busily engaged 
 in paying cash and receiving docu- 
 ments. ' Ah !' I thought, ' these are 
 the advertisers. An estimable race. 
 Blessed be the advertisers ! ' Not at 
 all. I was quite in error. The His- 
 pano-Moresquejpafa'o was the 'Bureau 
 des Abonnenients ' of the Figaro; 
 and the multitude on whom I was 
 looking down were the abonnes ' in 
 the flesh' whom I had been seeking 
 for the quarterly, half-yearly, or 
 annual subscribers to the mostpopu- 
 lar j ournal in France. The maj ority 
 of English journals publish the terms 
 on which the}' can be subscribed for; 
 and an Englishman resident, say, in 
 Italy or the interior of France, usually 
 subscribes for some London paper 
 or another. Of course we have all 
 heard in England of the c Subscriber 
 from the First ' and pretty airs he 
 gives himself sometimes in his correspondence on the strength 
 of his seniority in subscription. He is the twin-brother of the 
 ' Constant Reader,' and I am even inclined to think that he is at 
 least the cousin-german of ' Paterfamilias,' that he knows the real 
 name of ' Vindex,' and that he most probably has a bowing acquaint- 
 ance with the ' Oldest Inhabitant.' 
 
 But there is no mystery about the French dbonne. He is a 
 palpable entity, frequently wearing spectacles and carrying an 
 umbrella. Monsieur Joseph Prudhomme, for example, must have 
 been born an dbonne. Journals of different shades of opinion 
 present equally, of course, varied aspects of the dbonne, from the 
 clean-shaven, sleek-faced, sable-clad gentleman who subscribes to 
 the. Univers, to the stout bourgeois in the light overcoat who has 
 
 BUST OF BEAUMARCHAIS.
 
 172 
 
 PAEIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 taken in the Constitutionnel ever since the days of Louis Philippe, 
 and the elderly and austere personage, with the ribbon of the 
 Legion and a tortoiseshell snuffbox, who pins his faith to the 
 Journal dcs Dcbats, and thinks M. John Lenioinne the greatest 
 publicist in France. Then there is the Republican advocate with 
 the closely-trimmed black whiskers, who swears bj r
 
 FIGARO HERE, FIGARO THERE ! 
 
 173 
 
 Franqaise ; the retired major of dragoons, with his fierce mous- 
 tache and bushy beard; or the ex-Prefect, nnder the Second 
 Empire, of the Department of the Haute Gruyere or the Brie
 
 174 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 Inferieure rather a shabby and trade-fallen ex- official jtist now 
 who would sooner give up his demi-tasse and petit rerre after 
 dinner than abandon his dbonnement to the Pays. Of a subscriber 
 to the Marseillaise I cannot form any very definite idea ; but I 
 vaguely imagine him to be a mild personage, with dove-coloured 
 hair and whiskers, who wears mittens when it is cold and goloshes 
 when it rains. It is usually your mild and meek people who are 
 most pleased with the ferocious in journalism. I did happen to 
 have an interview with both the chief editor and the manager of
 
 FIGARO HERE, FIGARO THERE ! 17& 
 
 this same formidable Marseillaise some nine years ago. It was at 
 the trial before the High Court of Justice at Tours of Prince Pierre 
 Bonaparte for the murder of Victor Noir. The redacteur en chef 
 and the gcrant of the Marseillaise had been summoned as wit- 
 nesses for the prosecution ; and as they both happened to be 
 undergoing sentences of imprisonment in Ste. Pelagic for press 
 offences, they had been brought from Paris in custody, and were 
 conducted into court under escort of a couple of gendarmes apiece. 
 The editor was Henri Rochefort, Vicomte de LuQay a tall, pale, 
 nervous gentleman in full evening dress, and not looking the least 
 like a fire-eater. The name of the manager I forget ; but a more 
 affable and polite personage I never gazed upon. He was con- 
 tinually smiling and bowing all round ; and his eyes quite beamed 
 through his spectacles at the president, the jury, the pro- 
 curator-general, the counsel for the defence, the journalists, the 
 public, and especially the august prisoner. He, the affable 
 manager, subsequently got shot when the troops from Versailles 
 entered Paris after the Commune ; and he died, I was told, 
 heroically. 
 
 It is necessary to remark that, although the French newspaper 
 subscriber may differ in particulars from his congener, he is 
 identical with him in generals. He is an abonne first and a 
 citizen afterwards. He has a fearful temper. There is no end to 
 his complaints. He will not be trifled with : mind that. He 
 knows his rights, and insists on having them. Let there not be 
 the slightest mistake about that. He may be arrogant, exigent, 
 and captious ; but it is worth while, on the proprietor's part, to 
 conciliate and to defer to him, since the abonne is the very back- 
 bone and mainstay of the circulation of a French newspaper. 
 Sometimes, when he takes offence, he is implacable. Then he 
 becomes a dcsabonne ; and there is wailing for him as for a lamb 
 that has strayed from the fold. 
 
 The Figaro contains on most days of the week a number of 
 advertisements printed in very small type, and in the most 
 abbreviated form that is practicable. Some of these are trade
 
 176 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX. 
 
 announcements ; others are of the nature of those classed as 
 ' personal ' in the Neiv York Herald. Thus I read in the Figaro 
 of Monday : ' Prince Authentique. Epous. dem. ou veuve.' This 
 means that a gentleman hearing the title of Prince, and as to the 
 authenticity of whose rank there cannot he the slightest douht, is 
 willing to enter into a matrimonial alliance with a spinster or a 
 widow-lady who would like to be a Princess. Sometimes to these 
 curiously candid offers is appended the reminder ' Serieux,' which 
 reminds me of an addendum I once read in the Herald from a lady 
 who wished to marry ' an elderly and affluent widower, slightly 
 afflicted with the gout.' ' Gentlemen who wish to make fun need 
 not apply,' concluded the fair incognita. The advertisements to 
 which I have referred in the Figaro are styled c petites annonces,' 
 and are received and paid for ' over the counter ' in the Rue Drouot ; 
 hut the great mass of trade notices come through the Cornpagnie 
 Generate des Annonces, a body who are farmers-general of adver- 
 tisements in all the great newspapers of Paris. The advertiser 
 consequently rarely makes his presence felt at the Figaro offices : 
 his place is supplied by the loud-voiced and determined-visaged 
 abonne. 
 
 Ere I quit the antechamber leading to the loggia overlooking 
 the covered courtyard, I must bestow a glance on the numbers 
 of curious people waiting patiently in hopes (I presume) of seeing 
 the editor or the manager of the journal. There is a Zouave. 
 "What on earth can he want ? There is a widow in deep mourn- 
 ing, with three little children. There are a brace of jovial priests 
 in black soutanes and shovel hats, who, as they lounge on one of 
 the divans, whisper to each other so confidentially and exchange 
 such hilarious chuckles that I fancy one priest must be relating to 
 the other such a ' Bonne Histoire ' as that suggested in the well- 
 known picture. Or, it may be, these estimable ecclesiastics are 
 conversing about the Orphelinat at Auteuil, in which M. Saint- 
 Genest, the military rcdacteur of the Figaro, has taken so laud- 
 able an interest, and in aid of the funds of which excellent insti- 
 tution the readers of the Figaro subscribed in the course of a few
 
 FIGARO HERE, FIGARO THERE! 177 
 
 days a sum of something like 300,000f. The fact is all the more 
 worth mentioning, when it is remembered that the French, al- 
 though bountiful in private almsgiving, have hitherto been slow 
 in responding to appeals for public subscriptions. That wonder- 
 ful system of ours of ' voluntary contributions ' is virtually in its 
 infancy among our neighbours, simply for the reason that they 
 have hitherto been accustomed to look, in times of pressure, to 
 the State, and to the State alone. The development which 
 M. Saint- Genest has been the means of giving to private munifi- 
 cence among his countiymen will mark, it is to be hoped, a new 
 point of departure in the history of charity in France. The results 
 of this subscription to the Figaro have been a large increase in 
 its circulation, and in its prestige among a class who formerly were 
 not accustomed to hold a veiy light-mannered and loose-tongued 
 newspaper in much esteem. Scarcely a day passes without some 
 anecdote being published in the Figaro, which, were it printed in 
 an English journal, would probably attract the earnest attention 
 of Mr. Collette of the Society for the Suppression of Vice ; yet I 
 am given to understand that M. de Yillemessant's vivacious print 
 finds at present extensive favour among the provincial clergy. 
 
 I could very well understand why a chasseur in a plumed 
 cocked hat, and holding a note in pink envelope in one of his- 
 buckskin-gloved hands, should have been cooling his heels in the 
 antechamber. Madame la Marquise de Grande-Gornme had some 
 request, no doubt, to make to the Redaction. There was an old 
 gentleman, again, in a black skull-cap, very comfortably bestowed 
 in a comer, where he was sleeping the sleep of the just. Sleep 
 on, harmless chucklehead ; I have met you before, the whole 
 world over. In theatres, in omnibuses, on board steamboats, 
 at church, there is always the Man who Goes to Sleep. He is the 
 lineal descendant of Eutychus. He is the living and snoring type 
 of the obese Roman senator who indulged in forty winks while 
 Messrs. Brutus, Cassius, Casca, & Co. were stabbing Csar to 
 death at the base of Pompey's statue. While I glanced (not un- 
 sympathisingly) on the slumbering veteran it is so nice to be
 
 178 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 A CLERICAL 
 
 asleep and to forget the world and otlier worries ! a Turk carne 
 in the regular modern Turk, the 'bottle of Bordeaux' Ottoman 
 his closely-buttoned black surtout representing the body of the 
 bottle, and his fez the red-sealed cork thereof. His appearance 
 there puzzled me but little. A miscellaneous gathering of hu- 
 manity is scarcely complete without a Turk. There is always a 
 Turk. There was one, Mr. Carlyle tells us, at the storming of 
 the Bastille, and I should not be astonished to meet one at a 
 Quakers' meeting. 
 
 I could not refrain from asking my courteous guide whether 
 the Redaction were troubled by any mad folks who came that way.
 
 FIGARO HERE, FIGARO THERE ! 179 
 
 * Yes/ he remarked, ' the average was about half a lunatic in tha 
 course of every twenty-four hours.' The Archangel Gabriel gene- 
 rally calls on Monda} r s ; Wednesday is the day for the gentleman 
 in a straw hat with a blue ribbon, who has discovered the Per- 
 petual Motion ; and he is usually succeeded on Fridays by a 
 humpbacked individual in an olive-green cloak, who has ascer- 
 tained, to his own complete and triumphant satisfaction, the 
 feasibilit}'- of aerial navigation. The great-great-grandson of the 
 Man with the Iron Mask only calls occasionally to ask for the 
 address of the son of the Dauphin, Louis XVII. ; and since the 
 collapse of the Comte de Chambord's candidature nothing has been 
 heard of the lady who declares she is Joan of Arc, and that she 
 was burned, but got over it by means of electro-galvanism and 
 the Eau de Lourdes. 
 
 My hosts would not suffer me to go away without showing me 
 the ' composing-rooms ' of the Figaro, -of which I need only remark 
 that they closely resembled some other composing-rooms with 
 which I have been acquainted in the course of the last quarter of a 
 century in the neighbourhood of the Strand and Fleet Street ; and 
 then, with great fear and trembling, I peeped into some apart- 
 ments where a number of gentlemen were sitting at large long 
 tables, thickly scattered with newspapers and other documents. 
 The gentlemen were busily employed in writing. They were the 
 Cyclops forging the bolts of Jove. These were the clianibres 
 ardcntes de la Redaction. For aught I could tell, I had been 
 gazing momentarily on the profound ' J. Mystere/ the inscrutable 
 * Ignotus,' the enigmatical 'Deux A veugles,' the recondite 'Masque 
 de Fer,' the ineffable ' Diplomate,' and the unapproachable 'Mon- 
 sieur de 1'Orchestre,' of this cunningly contrived and extremely 
 clever paper. 
 
 I was requested, in departing, to look on a portrait of his 
 Royal Highness the Prince of Wales ; an excellent likeness, su- 
 perbly framed, in the Hispano-Moresque patio. In the tapestry- 
 hung chamber took place the famous nocturnal concert and banquet 
 concerning which so many absurd stories have been told. The
 
 180 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN'. 
 
 Prince simply wished to see the steam-printing machinery of the 
 Figaro, and that machinery was not to be seen in full action until 
 long past midnight. Similarly, in our own metropolis, princes 
 and potentates occasionally turn up, in the small hours of the 
 night, at the great newspaper offices, to watch the ' Hoe ' and the 
 ' Walter ' presses in ' full blast.' The Redaction of the Figaro, like 
 true Frenchmen as they are, thought that they would combine 
 a little festivity with the technical processes which the Prince 
 was to inspect ; so they got up a compact concert, in which some 
 of the first artistes of the Parisian theatres were only too glad to- 
 cooperate, although they had been hard at work until midnight. 
 The musical entertainment was followed by a supper, and his- 
 Royal Highness went away thoroughly delighted with the graceful 
 hospitality which had been offered him. A precisely similar fes- 
 tival was got up, and with parallel success, a few nights since in 
 honour of the two Russian Grand Dukes now in Paris. 
 
 I went away from this very convivial newspaper-office most 
 pleasantly impressed with all that I had seen ; but when I had 
 crossed to the other side of the Rue Drouot to take a final survey 
 of the Hispano-Moresque facade and the bronze statue of Figaro, 
 there flashed more wakefully than ever from above the figure of 
 the Barber that Eye at the existence of which, as an integral part 
 of the Figaro ' installation,' I have more than once hinted. The 
 Eye had a surprising amount of Speculation in it ; and ever and 
 anon 'its lids seemed to be contracted to the narrowest dimen- 
 sions, and to assume the semblance of a Wink. Its glances 
 were articulate, and seemed to murmur confidentially, ' We are 
 perfectly well aware of what we are about in this establishment, 
 and in your next visit to our Salle des Depeches you should ask to 
 see our celebrated weasel. If he happens to be asleep, 3-011 may 
 shave his e}*ebrows arcc plaisir.'
 
 PREPARATION'S FOR LUNCHEON AT AN EXHIBITION RESTAURANT. 
 
 LUNCHEON IN THE CHAMP DE MARS AND THE TROCADERO. 
 
 Sept. 5. 
 
 THE plan of the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1867 did not ill 
 resemble that of a system of concentric oval dishes. The plan of 
 the Universal Exhibition of 1878 is, so far as the Champ cle Mars 
 is concerned, simply an immense parallelogram, intersected at 
 right angles by innumerable avenues between blocks of glass cases 
 full of the most ingenious and the most highly -finished specimens 
 imaginable of everything that can contribute to the convenience, 
 the comfort, and the luxurious enjoyment of life. There is obvi- 
 ously no limit to the productive powers of humanity, if there be an 
 adequate supply of raw material, of capital, and of mechanical or 
 of manual labour ; but there does, so it appears to me, occur from 
 time to time a visible halt and surcease in human inventiveness. 
 Such temporary stoppage of the inventive faculty seems to be the 
 most prominent characteristic of the enormous Bazaar at the foot
 
 182 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 of the Bridge of Jena. The ' roaring looms of Time ' make as 
 thunderous a clatter as ever; but it is the old, old tissue that is 
 being woven. There is a maximum of gregariousness and a mini- 
 mum of isolation among the exhibitors. You look in vain in these 
 interminable corridors of shop-windows for such naive specimens 
 of individual ingenuity and labour as were delightfully manifest in 
 our World's Fair in Hyde Park seven-and-twenty years ago 
 models of Tintern Abbey or Rochester Castle in cork ; Pharaoh 
 and all his Host Engulfed in the Red Sea, burnt with a red-hot 
 poker on a deal board, by a clergyman in the vale of Taunton ; 
 Comical Creatures from "Wiirteniberg ; Gulliver and the Lilliputians, 
 in wax ; Susanna and the Elders, in Berlin wool, by a Lady Twent}'- 
 five Years Bedridden ; or a Model in Ivory of the Old Temeraire, 
 by Two Congenital Idiots. These were unpretending ' Exhibits r 
 enough ; but they spoke of the craft and patience of individual 
 Man. In more recent Expositions, and notably in the gigantic 
 Bazaar which I am at present painfully exploring, individual man, 
 save in a very few instances, disappears, and is replaced by great 
 Companies and great Finns solicitous of orders, and eager to sell 
 their wares. 
 
 The principal impression conveyed to my mind by what I have 
 hitherto seen is that there is too much of everything in the Champ 
 de Mars and the Trocadero, and that the illustration of every 
 department of cosmopolitan industry has been distended to weari- 
 some proportions. I may be mistaken, but I fancy that I have 
 descried on some thousands of faces, not only French but foreign, 
 among the visitors to the Exhibition, a listless, fagged and be- 
 wildered expression ; and, so far as I am personally concerned, I 
 know very well that I am not mistaken in the diagnosis of my own 
 sensations after say a three hours' wandering to and fro among 
 the glass cases, namely, that if a little lunch were not speedily 
 administered to repair the exhausted human tissues there would 
 be some danger of somebody going melancholy mad. My brothers 
 and sisters, I entreat you to refrain from cant in this matter. 
 Let us, for once in our lives, abstain from being humbugs. Yes ;
 
 LUNCHEON IX THE CHAMP DE MARS AND THE TROCADERO. 183 
 
 we are very fond of picture-galleries and vestibules full of beautiful 
 marble statues. The late M. Fortuny was a truly great painter. 
 So was poor Henri Regnault. So are the still happily extant 
 MM. Gerome and Meissonier. Gustavo Dore"s Bacchanalian 
 Vase deserves to be reexamined and readmired again and again. 
 The ceramics, the bronzes, the crystal chandeliers, the tapestry, 
 the clocks and watches, are all monstrous fine. But three hours' 
 contemplation of such objects, to say nothing of the flying glances 
 which we have cast while hurrying through the cases full of boots 
 and shoes, riding-habits, combs and brushes, and ladies and gen- 
 tlemen's underclothing, are apt to induce a state of mind far 
 exceeding dejection, and trenching indeed on downright exaspera- 
 tion. I will put the case plainly. Are you prepared, on a very 
 warm day, to walk, with a lady on your arm, from the Ox- 
 ford Circus, down Regent Street, Waterloo Place, Charing Cross, 
 the Strand, Fleet Street, Ludgate Hill, Cheapside, Cornhill, Fen- 
 church Street, AVhitechapel High Street, and so on to Mile End 
 and Bow, looking in at every shop-window on each side of the way 
 as you go ? If you are not equal to such a pilgrimage on foot, 
 3'ou should engage afauteuil roulant or Bath-chair so soon as ever 
 you have passed the Porte Rapp and find j'ourself within the pre- 
 cincts of the Paris Exhibition. In London you will find on your 
 way, for luncheon purposes, such restaurants as the Burlington, 
 the Cafe Royal, the St. James's, the Criterion, the Pall Mall, 
 Verrey's, Simpson's, the Gaiety, the London, the Ludgate, Pur- 
 cell's, Birch's, and, taking a slight detour, the Ship and Turtle. 
 Let us see what M. Krantz, the Commissary- General of the Exhi- 
 bition, has done to further the bodily refreshment of his sorely 
 fatigued pilgrims. 
 
 In the Champ de Mars, at the left angle of the Palace, by the 
 side of the statue of Charlemagne, there is the 'Buffet Francois,' 
 a very indifferent refreshment place, where cold viands are served 
 at from one to two francs the plate, and a 'bock,' or glass of 
 light and frothy beer, is charged thirty-five centimes, or nearly 
 double the price that a glass of Allsopp or of Bui-ton ale costs
 
 184 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 with us. The ' bock ' is certainly unintoxicating, but it is in- 
 ordinately dear. At the opposite angle is an Anglo-American bar, 
 where the beer is even dearer. For fifty centimes a hunk of bread, 
 
 AT T1IE ANGLO-AMERICAN BAR. 
 
 with a very little morsel of meat lying perdue in it, can here be 
 procured; but a slice of tough, badly-cured, and worse-cooked ham 
 costs one franc fifty. At the Hungarian ' Csarda,' in the ' Alice 
 du Pare,' on the right lateral of the Palace, if you come early 
 enough, you may get some ' National Hungarian dishes ' in the 
 shape of ' Zutyas,' Porkoll, and smoked beef all very dear and 
 very bad. Here vin (lore, or wine with bits of gold leaf floating 
 about in it, and sold at the rate of a franc the half bottle, and Tokay 
 the inevitable Toka}-, of course, from the cellars of the late 
 Prince Esterhazy is charged two francs a glass. In the evening 
 the Magyar Pavilion offers the attraction of an orchestral per- 
 formance, from some minstrels who call themselves ' Tsiganes,' 
 but who look far less like Hungarian gipsies than disguised 
 members of one of our old familiar ' green-baize bands ' from
 
 LUNCHEON IN THE CHAMP DE MARS AND THE TROCADERO. 185 
 
 Margate or Brighton. At the neighbouring Russian Pavilion they 
 sell Muscovite cigarettes, 'Kouniys/ and a horrible beverage 
 called ' Kluttwa,' which pretends to be lemonade, but more nearly 
 
 resembles Friedrichshalle water flavoured with carbolic acid. 
 Higher up is the ' Pavilion Hollandais,' where a number of dumpy 
 young women with faces like kidney-potatoes, and who are dressed 
 in ' Frisian costume,' including a liberal display of bright-coloured 
 stockings, dispense the ' schubac/ the curagao, and the bitters, and 
 other Batavian liqueurs of Mynheer Lucas Bols of Amsterdam. 
 This is merely a place for dram- drinking, but there is another
 
 186 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 Dutch buffet at which the appetite can be appeased in the angle 
 of the Palace near to the Porte Dupleix. 
 
 Opposite the ficole Militaire is the Restaurant Gangloif, which 
 prides itself on selling only Alsatian beer. The hill of fare and the 
 prices of the dishes are about the same as those of the Bouillon 
 Duval ; and ordinary wine, just drinkable, can be had for one 
 franc fifty a bottle. Then comes the monster establishment of the 
 Bouillon Duval itself always crowded, always stifling hot, always 
 steaming with miscellaneous odours, and where the closely-packed 
 guests lunch and dine amphitheatrically to an infernal tintamarre of 
 knives and forks, plates and dishes. The attendants are cleanly- 
 looking females of all ages, in white caps, bibs, and aprons, and 
 blue serge dresses, putting 3-011 in mind of Sisters of Charity who 
 have cut off the volants of their snowy headdresses. You may 
 get a plate of meat at from twenty-five to seventy-five centimes, 
 one of vegetables at from twenty to forty; wine such 'petit bleu ' ! 
 is merely one franc ten centimes tha bottle, while beer is thirty 
 centimes the ' bock.' Everything is very cheap, but not necessarily 
 nast}', and on the whole it is somewhat rough. The company is 
 mixed, and occasionally villanous ; and although I should advise 
 all young gentlemen anxious to ' see life ' to explore the interior of 
 the Bouillon Duval, I should certainly not counsel them to take 
 ladies with them. Near the Porte de Tourville is another buffet, 
 a so-called ' International ' one, but really French, where the ' bock ' 
 attains the abnormal rate of forty-five centimes. Opposite this 
 establishment is the ' Restaurant Universel,' charging a fixed 
 price breakfast four francs, dinner six francs. The repast is 
 mediocre, but, when compared with the refection furnished at 
 other restaurants, not altogether to be disdained. 
 
 A more aristocratic restaurant, with ' service a la carte,' dishes 
 at from two to four francs each, ordinary wine at two francs fifty a 
 bottle, and Allsopp at fifty centimes the ' bock' Allsopp is the pre- 
 vailing beer at all the better-class establishments will be found, 
 under the name of ' Catelain,' in the park, close to the Bridge of Jena; 
 and to the left of this is the Belgian restaurant, rather an indifferent
 
 LUNCHEOX IX THE CHAMP DE MARS AND THE TROCADERO. 187 
 
 establishment on the whole. Castel's restaurant a la carte is near 
 the Porte de Grenelle, facing the railway station ; and in an entirely 
 opposite direction, on the Quai d'Orsay, and in the heart of the 
 French Agricultural Section, is Fanta's Cafe, where you can lunch 
 or dine, at the regulation fixed price, to the entertaining strains of 
 the Eakocsy march from another band of g}*psy musicians. In the 
 Trocadero section of the park, Catelain has a second restaurant, at 
 which boulevard prices 
 are charged ; and facing 
 the grand cascade is a 
 somewhat pretentious 
 Spanish restaurant, 
 which announces its 
 readiness to dispense 
 such Iberian beverages 
 as ' Pigna,' ' Monti- 
 carlo,' 'Fresa,' ' Cidra- 
 do,' and ' Ponche a la 
 Romana.' I do not re- 
 member to have quaffed 
 such liquors in the Pen- 
 insula. Here, too, you 
 may obtain cocido a 
 Li Espanola ' Huevos 
 
 IN THE Sl'AMSII RESTAURANT (BY LAFOSSE). 
 
 ' What dish have you got there 1 ' 
 ' I really can't say castanets with tomato 
 sauce, I fancy.' 
 
 fritos con jam on ' an 
 glicb, ham and eggs 
 ' Bacalao a la Vizcaina ; 
 ' Chuleta s a la Parillas ; ' 
 
 ' Ensalada de pimientas ; ' ' Salpicon de Vich ' Don Quixote's 
 favourite supper; ' Aceitunas Sevillanas' which are simply pickled 
 olives; and ' Arroz a la Yalenciana 'which is rice with grease, 
 and is sold for three francs a plate full. Spain is already remark- 
 able for the very worst cookery to be found in all Europe. She 
 possesses only three tolerable dishes 'gallo con arroz,' which is 
 virtually the Moorish fowl and pilaf, the ' puchero,' and the ' olla ;'
 
 188 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 but these really national plats are not to be found at the Restaur- 
 ant Espagnol. Finally, there is a pseudo- Tunisian cafe in the 
 Trocadero, at which, until lately, a poor little girl in a fez cap and 
 baggy trousers sang songs and danced sarabands at night for the 
 
 .amusement of the guests, until M. Krantz suppressed her per- 
 formances as inimical to morality, and banished the disconsolate 
 Bayadere to her native Belleville. 
 
 Underneath the Spanish restaurant, and facing the grand cas- 
 cade of the Trocadero, is the handsome installation of the 
 ' Bodega,' where, ever since last May, the ' degustation ' the 
 classical French equivalent for the Yankee ' liquoring up ' of the 
 finest French and Spanish vintages has been going on almost 
 incessantly. It is a favourable feature with regard to the Bodega 
 that it dispenses its wines at prices which contrast advantageously 
 with the prices charged at all the Exhibition restaurants. The 
 great success achieved by the parent Bodega establishment at 
 Manchester has led, from time to time, to the formation of 
 branches in London, Liverpool, Brighton, Glasgow, Birmingham,
 
 LUNCHEON IN THE CHAMP DE MARS AND THE TROCADERO. 189 
 
 and Portsmouth, and lias induced Messrs. Lavery & Co. to open 
 a Paris branch on a grand scale under the arcades at the corner 
 of the Rue Castiglione and the Rue de Rivoli, which has been* 
 doing a famous business throughout the summer. 
 
 On the whole, a lady and gentleman may lunch with tolerable- 
 comfort within the precincts of the Exhibition for about six francs- 
 a head. When I have dined there I will recount my further ex- 
 periences ; but I shrink somehow from the ordeal. Perhaps after 
 another week I may make the momentous plunge. But, alas, what 
 a deplorable difference there is between the Republican commis- 
 sariat of M. Krantz in '78 and the Imperialist commissariat of 
 M. Le Play in '67 ! Ah, days when we used to christen the 
 exterior zone of the old Exhibition ' Grub-street ' ! Ah, ah, days 
 of Spiers & Pond, and Bertram & Roberts, ye will return no more ! 
 Paris is regenerated ; and one of the greatest difficulties to be 
 encountered in Paris just now, both in and out of the Exhibition, 
 is to get a decent dinner. 
 
 fit,
 
 MAJOLICA JARDINIERE IN THE MINTON COURT. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 SIGHTS AND SCENES IX THE EXHIBITION. 
 
 Sept. 13. 
 
 AFTER all, there is thus much to admire, to wonder at, and to 
 philosophise over in a Universal Exhibition, in the fact that each 
 of these shows is, after its kind, unique ; and that the thing in its 
 complete entirety can never be seen again. Its component pails 
 ma} T be, and, in all probability, will be, brought together again, 
 since one half the world is never tired of shopkeeping, the other 
 half of shopping, or, at least, of staring into shop-windows and 
 thinking what it would buy if it only had the money. And, in 
 truth, a modern Exposition is abstractedly only a manner of kalei-
 
 SIGHTS AND SCENES IN THE EXHIBITION. 191 
 
 doscope. You have seen all the bits of coloured glass over and 
 over again ; but you know that, by means of a cylinder with a tin 
 disc with a peephole in its centre at one end, and a lens of ground 
 glass at the other, and an oblong piece of glass that has been 
 smoked, a shake of the hand is sufficient to produce an infinite 
 repetition of geometric and polychromatic patterns. So is it with 
 Exhibitions. The components steam-hammers, carding-mills, 
 sewing-machines, pictures, marble statues, big guns, dolls, colos- 
 sal looking-glasses, pickle-bottles, carved bedsteads, embroidered 
 petticoats, china vases, iron safes, anchors, and toothpicks are 
 always at hand. Once in a decade, or oftener if the Exhibition 
 craze be taken the whole world round, the powers that be issue an 
 edict ordering some Imperial, Royal, or Republican Commission ; 
 and an architect is retained to design some new ornamental cylin- 
 der usually an extremely hideous one for the kaleidoscopic dis- 
 pla}-. The manufacturers and the shopkeepers have an enhanced 
 supply of particoloured vitreous fragments forthcoming; and on a 
 given day Authority gives the cylinder a shake, to the accompani- 
 ment of a nourish of trumpets and a discharge of artillery, and 
 millions press to the peephole, and, surveying the new geometrical 
 pattern, ejaculate O O Oh ! just as they do at a public 
 garden when the final pyrotechnic bouquet begins to unfold its 
 glories. But there will be more Exhibitions and more fireworks in 
 daj's to come. 
 
 It is inexpedient, perhaps, to be enthusiastic about anything ; 
 but in no direction is enthusiasm of the gushing kind so much to 
 be deprecated as in the case of International Exhibitions as ' Con- 
 gresses of Industry' and ' Festivals of Peace.' The World's Fail- 
 in Hyde Park in 1851 was immediately followed by a Revolution 
 in France ; the Paris Exhibition of 1855 was held in the very 
 midst of a devastating war between three of the Great European 
 Powers ; two years and a half after the Exposition Universelle of 
 1867 disturbed as it was in its actual course by the Mexican 
 catastrophe and the Luxembourg squabble came Worth and 
 Sedan ; and, as for 1878, all that we can say as yet is that we
 
 192 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 should be very thankful that Western Europe has escaped the 
 horrors of war by which the East has been devastated, and that we 
 have not the slightest idea of what is to come next. Since the com- 
 mencement of the era of Peace, twentj'-seven years ago, the world 
 has witnessed International Exhibitions notwithstanding no 
 less than ten horrible wars in Turkey, the Crimea, India, China, 
 Italy, America, Germany, and France, to say nothing of interne- 
 cine wars in Spain and Mexico, and hostilities with savage tribes 
 all over the earth. So pay your franc at a d&it de tabac ; sur- 
 render your ticket at the Porte Rapp ; take your fill of the sights 
 and scenes of the Trocadero and the Champ de Mars; but forbear 
 to yield to the pleasing hallucination that International Exhibi- 
 tions have anything to do with politics. If people want to go to 
 war they will set to cutting one another's throats at apparently the 
 most inappropriate seasons at dinner time, or during the Long 
 Vacation, during church-time, or on Sunday, or on the Derby- 
 day. Cain, when his blood is up, will not stay his hand because 
 Abel is just finishing a beautiful model of Mesopotamia in carved 
 cork. 
 
 In that section of the Exposition Universelle where British 
 pottery makes so opulent and interesting a display, wheresoever one 
 turns there is reason for congratulation. We may not be, it is 
 true, originating anything of- so marked a nature as the famous 
 last-century jasper ware of Josiah Wedgwood, for which Flaxman 
 furnished the designs. It is not, perhaps, often in many centuries 
 that such a step in ceramic art is accomplished as that which 
 made the fame of Flaxman and the fortune of the Wedgwoods. 
 Still, it must be remembered that the potter's art in the first four 
 decades of this century exhibited much more of the symptoms of 
 decline than of advance ; that the Worcester manufactory in par- 
 ticular faded into almost nothingness, and that, but for the con- 
 tinued excellence of the Spode ware the basis of the existing 
 ware of the Copelands, and the white statuary figures of the same 
 house not only France, but Bavaria, Austria, and Italy, which 
 have never lost the way of making majolica, surpassed us as art-
 
 SIGHTS AND SCENES IN THE EXHIBITION. 193 
 
 potters. The first step towards the recovery of our old position as 
 potters was undoubtedly the production by Minton of encaustic 
 tiles ; but this resuscitation of a very ancient art was, without 
 doubt, indirectly due to the influence of the late Sir Charles Barry 
 and of the elder Pugin. Coloured tesserae arranged in a classically 
 geometrical pattern were used by the first-named architect more 
 than forty years ago for the pavement of the atrium of that Reform 
 Club which is now in the course of decorative restoration by his 
 son, Mr. Edward Barry, R.A. Then came the building of the 
 new Houses of Parliament, and the erection, all over the country, 
 of a vast number of churches and more or less ecclesiastical struc- 
 tures of mediaeval design. These necessitated the employment, on 
 the most extensive scale, of painted tiles ' Dutch ' tiles, as from 
 old associations it was customary contemptuously to call them, and 
 which had long been relegated to the meanest uses. Enamelled 
 tiles opened the door for encaustic, and in these the Mintons 
 attained a deserved preeminence as designers and executants. 
 Tiles, both enamelled and encaustic, are so beautiful to look 
 upon, so durable, and so cleanly, that it is not to be wondered at 
 that their use should have been adapted to almost every scheme 
 of domestic decoration. They will harmonise with any style ; 
 they are susceptible of the most varied embellishment by means 
 of relievo ; they form the leading feature in decorative chimney- 
 pieces, and can be combined as dados with mural painting of the 
 highest order. Painted tiles too can be used for the adornment 
 of ceilings with curved surfaces witness the remarkable plafond 
 of the Bibliotheque Nationale in the Eue Richelieu, executed 
 about a dozen years since by Messrs. Copeland ; and an immense 
 development may be expected in this department of the potter's 
 industry when English house-builders have the common sense to 
 substitute, as the people of Lisbon do, ornamental tile-work for the 
 present dingy brick-fronts of their dwellings. From how many 
 visitations of dust and soot to say nothing of eye-weariness and 
 mind- weariness should not we be relieved by the introduction of 
 so beneficent an innovation, which could not fail to make the out-
 
 194 PAEIS HEESELF AGAIN. 
 
 sides of our habitations bright and tasteful, and which every shower 
 of rain would effectually cleanse ! 
 
 Here, then, to my thinking, do we stand, substantially, in the 
 matter of pottery. Nothing of any great importance has been 
 actually invented by us during the last hundred years, with the 
 exception of Wedgwood's jasper, and the late Alderman Cope- 
 land's white statuary ; but we have revived many ancient and 
 well-nigh extinct wares, and we have borrowed from our neigh- 
 bours numerous beautiful processes, and adapted them so skil- 
 fully as to make them virtually our own. The incised and 
 applique ware of the Messrs. Doulton rivals the best old grcs 
 Flamand ; we have completely mastered the most exquisite form 
 of cameo working in china, in the pdte-sur-pdte process ; we are 
 successfully imitating the very finest majolica and Delia Robbia, 
 and we could as successfully imitate Palissy ware, but for the in- 
 grained prejudice which exists among the English public against 
 plates and dishes decorated in high relief with the effigies of toads 
 and lizards, whelks, rock limpets, and snails. When we do get 
 hold of a piece of real Palissy we hang it on a wall, as high up 
 as we can, in order that our fastidious eyes may not be offended 
 by the sight of a number of creeping and slimy creatures wriggling 
 over the surface of things from which people are supposed to have 
 eaten and drunk. For the rest, so spirited have been our manu- 
 facturers and so skilful our chemists that we possess every kind of 
 paste known in pottery, from ' egg-shell ' to stone ware, and in the 
 way of colour we have acquired nearly all the tints in the world- 
 famed ' Palette de Sevres.' We lack only one or two nuances of 
 the tint known as ' Celadon.' The great State porcelain manu- 
 factory of France has two or three blues which are not in our 
 palette, but we do not want them. Their own ' bleu du Roi' is 
 not perfect ; and we have British blues which they cannot surpass. 
 
 In monumental porcelain, Sevres, it should be as frankly as 
 cheerfully admitted, beats us hollow. We could produce, it may 
 be, vases fifteen feet high, decorated with elaborately painted 
 pictures of the Apotheosis of Psyche or the Battle of Arbela ; but
 
 SIGHTS AND SCENES IN THE EXHIBITION. 
 
 195 
 
 SEVRES PORCELAIN VASE. 
 
 who would purchase those elaborate works of art when they were 
 completed ? The fabrique de Sevres is supported by the French 
 
 o 2
 
 196 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 Government, and is one of the national glories of France. The 
 prodigious pieces produced at Sevres are designed for the embel- 
 lishment of the national Palaces, or to serve as presents to foreign 
 Sovereigns. Our potteries are private undertakings, of which the 
 proprietors are bound to satisfy the inclinations of individual 
 customers. The manufacturers have been doing their best these 
 five-and-twenty years past to elevate the taste of their customers by 
 providing them with better models and patterns ; still, they cannot 
 be expected to sacrifice themselves unreservedly, on the altar of 
 public spirit, by fabricating grosses pieces which the general public 
 would decline to purchase. When an English gentleman furnishes 
 his house, and thinks that a pair or so of very large vases would 
 look well in his drawing-room, his mind's eye instinctively turns 
 towards China or Japan. Setting aside Satsuma or ' Grand Man- 
 darin,' a big Oriental vase of tolerable handsomeness will not cost 
 him a tithe of what he would have to pay for a trophy of similar 
 dimensions from Sevres. If English potters threw themselves into 
 the rash speculation of producing huge vases elaborately embel- 
 lished with paintings the expense would be absolutely ruinous. 
 We have as yet no national school of china-painting, and if a first- 
 rate English artist in oil or water colours say, Mr. Poynter or 
 Sir John Gilbert could be persuaded to master the mysteries of 
 painting pictures which have to be ' fired,' he would probably 
 expect a thousand guineas for the Apotheosis of Psyche or the 
 Battle of Arbela. Now at Sevres the outlay on the artistic main- 
 d'oeuvre is by no means the costliest part of the process of produc- 
 ing a vase of gigantic size. There are very few porcelain painters, 
 including even those of la premiere force at Tours, who receive more 
 than ten guineas a week ; and Ps}*che's Apotheosis or Alexander's 
 victory would not occupy a skilful French practitioner more than 
 a month or six weeks. The English customer, meanwhile having 
 satisfied his ambition by the purchase of some very big Oriental 
 vases, does not, as a rule, wish to buy anything larger from the 
 English potter than a trio of Minton's macaws, to hang in his 
 windows, or some jardinieres for flowers, or the celebrated bull-
 
 SIGHTS AND SCENES IN THE EXHIBITION. 197 
 
 dog, or the admired Dutch pug, or, at the most, the graceful life- 
 size faun in coloured earthenware. His taste after that sets un- 
 mistakably in the direction of small pottery ' pilgrim-bottles,' 
 bowls, standishes, and similar bibelots, and especially of teacups 
 and saucers. The display of these last-named wares in the Eng- 
 lish Pottery Department is literally amazing, both in abundance 
 and variety. This multitudinous ' tea-tackle,' as old Cobbett used 
 irreverently to term the appurtenances of that table which, next 
 to the Hymeneal altar, is the most fondly cherished of all articles 
 of furniture in the female British heart, points unmistakably to 
 that which is really our forte in these periodical displays of skill 
 and industry. 
 
 Although I have several times alluded to the Minton ceramic dis- 
 play in the Palace of the Champ de Mars, the mention I have made 
 of it has only been vaguely incidental. So much praise, however, 
 has been bestowed, not merely by native, but by continental judges, 
 on the ware of the world-famous firm of Stoke-upon-Trent, that a 
 slightly more detailed notice of some of the principal features of 
 this magnificent assemblage of art-pottery may be acceptable. 
 The court devoted to it was designed by the distinguished archi- 
 tect, Mr. E. Norman Shaw, B.A. Between two of the porches of 
 entrance stands a large majolica jardiniere, and within another 
 entrance a smaller jardiniere of Henri Deux ware. One side of 
 the ulterior of the court is devoted to a rich display of Minton's 
 tiles for wall and hearth decoration. The most conspicuous exhi- 
 bits in the interior are undeniably the superbly beautiful specimens 
 of the curious and delicate ceramic process known aspdte surpdte, 
 executed by the gifted French artist M. Solon-Miles, who was 
 formerly engaged at the State porcelain manufactory at Sevres, 
 but is now permanently domiciled on English soil. The specialty 
 of M. Solon-Miles' work consists in the decoration being painted, 
 or rather modelled, in relief, with clay in a liquid state, on the 
 object to be embellished, which is also in the unbaked stage. 
 Thus the name given to the process is technically correct. It is 
 really ' paste upon paste.' The very greatest care is necessary
 
 198 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 in manipulation ; and, the colours being opaque, the hand of a 
 true artist is needed to fix the various gradations of light and 
 shade. Among the principal examples of pate sur pate are an 
 
 ETRUSCAN VASE, CUPID THE ORATOR. 
 
 Etruscan vase, modelled from the original in the Museum at 
 Naples the subject, ' Cupid the Orator ' on an olive-green 
 ground, understood to be the grandest work which M. Solon-Miles 
 has yet produced ; two vases with bas reliefs of amormi on a cela- 
 don ground, the style Louis Quatorze ; some vases in the form 
 of pilgrim's bottles, the groups on which represent Cupid being 
 instructed by a nymph, and Venus in the guise of a cliiffoniere 
 picking up young loves with her crochet ; also a couple of arabesque
 
 SIGHTS AND SCENES IN THE EXHIBITION. 
 
 199 
 
 vases decorated with graceful 
 bas-reliefs, and exhibiting a 
 clever combination of various 
 coloured clays, and a bas-relief 
 ornamented pink vase of a hue 
 which the Sevres manufactory 
 has not yet sought to introduce. 
 There are, moreover, a pair of vases, 
 of large dimensions, with cupids 
 clustered around their stems, and 
 encircled above by a ring of cupi- 
 doiis in pate sur pate engaged in 
 demolishing chains of iron, and 
 replacing them by chains of roses, 
 also several delicate dessert plates, 
 and a charming presse- papier, 
 with a young maiden consigning 
 her billets doux to the winds, and 
 having this sage inscription on its 
 reverse : 
 
 ' Grains les curieux, 
 Ne jette rien. 
 Garder est bien ; 
 Briiler est mieux.' 
 
 Passing to other ex- 
 hibits in porcelain, much 
 and admiring interest has 
 been taken in the ' Prome- 
 theus Vases ' in turquoise ; 
 the handsome vases with 
 cupids by Boullemier, after 
 Angelica Kauffniann ; * the 
 dessert plates of lleuduroi, PRESSE-PAPIER ix PATE SUR PATE. 
 
 * This charming pair of vases has since been purchased by her Majesty, 
 and other notable specimens from the Minton exhibit have been sold by 
 
 VASE WITH RING OF CUPIDS.
 
 200 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN, 
 
 FLOWER AXD LKCESSE VASE IN HENRI 
 DEUX WARE. 
 
 painted with, subjects from 
 Moliere's plays; a Rose Du- 
 barri vase, and plates of gros 
 bleu, in the old Sevres style, 
 painted with subjects after 
 Boucher. There are, more- 
 over, perforated trays, with 
 paintings after Teniers, some 
 exquisitely enamelled vases in 
 the Japanese cloisonne manner, 
 and several fine reproductions 
 in under-glaze majolica of cele- 
 brated portraits by Sir Joshua 
 RejTiolds. The skilful repro- 
 ductions of the Piron or Henri 
 Deux ware are well worthy of 
 notice, as are also the faiences 
 in the Indian and Persian 
 style, and a colossal vase, up- 
 held by cupids, graduating ap- 
 parently for athletes, in tur- 
 quoise and gold Persian ware, 
 of rare refinement and finish. 
 
 Messrs. Tliomas Goocle & Sons to the Prince of Wales, the Grand Duke Con- 
 stantine of Eussia, Prince Demidoff, the Duke of Aosta, the Duke of West- 
 minster, Baron Rothschild, Lord Northbrook, and other distinguished collec- 
 tors. The objects of every -day utility comprised in the Minton display, hut 
 exhibited apart in a supplementary case, were of the same excellence as 
 the purely ornamental productions. Conspicuous among them was the Edin- 
 burgh dessert-service in turquoise and gold, with paintings of cupids and 
 emblematical devices by Boullemier; one of the most beautiful and highly 
 finished services of modern times, designed by Mr. Goode, principally from 
 the famous old Sevres gros bleu sendee at Windsor Castle. Also porcelain 
 tea and dessert services, with raised gold and silver fruits and leaves in the 
 old Vienna style, similar to the service selected by the Cesarewitch during 
 Mr. Goode's recent visit to St. Petersburg ; and a remarkably cheap dinner- 
 service termed the ' Gustave Dore,' in which chickens principally are repre- 
 sented in a rich blue colour.
 
 SIGHTS AND SCENES IN THE EXHIBITION. 
 
 201 
 
 COLOSSAL VASE IX TURQUOISE AND GOLD PERSIAN WARE. 
 
 One of the brightest gems in the Minton display, however, is the 
 grand vase, upwards of five feet high, painted by Mr. Mussil, with 
 orchids and tropical plants, exhibiting great breadth of handling
 
 202 
 
 PAEIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 PAIR OP PILGRIM-BOTTLE-SHAPED VASES. 
 
 and a fine eye for colour, and presenting a rich luminous effect. 
 Other vases of even larger dimensions, with subjects by the same 
 artist on an Indian red ground, equally claim our admiration. 
 
 Before closing this necessarily imperfect notice I must be allowed 
 a few last words were there not published the ' more last words ' 
 of Mr. Baxter ? touching a process in ceramics in the Minton 
 exhibit which appears to me as novel as it is interesting. I 
 mean the process of etching upon china, which has been most 
 successfully carried out by Mr. William Goode, a member of the 
 firm in South Audley Street, to whom the whole sumptuous ex- 
 hibit of Minton in the Champ de Mars belongs. Mr. Goode, 
 whose cultivated taste in all that pertains to ceramics is well 
 known, is likewise an accomplished artist, and after having exe- 
 cuted a number of exquisitely elaborate pen drawings after Jean 
 Baptiste Le Prince, the favourite pupil of Boucher, he bethought 
 himself that these pen drawings on porcelain looked so remarkably 
 like etchings, that he might as well try whether china might not 
 be substantially as well as imitatively etched. So he took an 
 earthenware plaque, covered it with a coating of black varnish, just
 
 SIGHTS AND SCENES IN THE EXHIBITION. 203 
 
 as a copper plate is coated with etching ground, and with a sharp 
 steel point drew his design through the varnish, laying bare in the 
 parts touched the surface of the plaque. Then he poured fluoric 
 acid over the plate, just as though he were etching on a sheet of 
 glass. The acid ate into the parts left bare ; and when a suffi- 
 cient depth of 'bite' had been obtained, the varnish was washed 
 off, a little pigment or gold was rubbed in with the hand, and the 
 plaque was sent to the kiln to be re -fired. Understand that the 
 etching is executed over the glaze, a circumstance which consider- 
 ably increases the difficulty of the process ; but the etching once 
 made is, with the gold or colouring matter rubbed into its lines, 
 imperishable. One of the most delicately artistic of Mr. William 
 Goode's etchings on china is a cattle subject after Karl du Jardin. 
 Messrs. Copeland & Sons of Stoke-upon-Trent, and New 
 Bond Street, London, exhibit a small, but choice and compact, 
 ceramic collection. I should be blind, indeed, were I insensible 
 to the merit of this charming gathering of porcelain, comprising 
 as it does a series of beautiful plaques in blue monochrome of well- 
 known gems of English landscape scenery; a number of vases of 
 Japanese character, most elegant in form, and enriched by dragon 
 handles solidly gilt ; four tasteful paintings of the Seasons, on an 
 earthenware ground ; a delicious plaque of a Spanish boy, after 
 Murillo ; and a number of graceful and refined statuettes, includ- 
 ing the famous ' Sleep of Sorrow and Dream of Joy,' in the snowy- 
 white ware for the production of which Messrs. Copeland have 
 been so long and so deservedly celebrated. These, with a number 
 of delicate tazze, jardinieres, and vases, and a charming dejeuner 
 set in 'jewelled' porcelain the ground being enriched by minute 
 gems representing rubies, pearls, emeralds, and turquoises, set in 
 subtly-fanciful patterns make up a cabinet of ceramic specimens 
 unpretendingly but most adequately chronicling the development 
 of the art-potter's skill during more than a century in England. 
 In the variety, delicacy, and quaintness of teapots, cups and 
 saucers, milk-jugs and sugar-basins, Messrs. Copeland offer to 
 the reflective mind a whole history in miniature of tea-drinking in
 
 204 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 England. We pass from Queen Anne, ' who sometimes counsel 
 took, and sometimes tea ' pronounce ' tay ' and Lady Masham, 
 to Hervey the Handsome, and the beautiful Molly Lepell. Mrs. 
 Delany might have filled that cup for Swift. Dr. Johnson might 
 Johnson-like have quaffed his souchong from that saucer, pail 
 of the most dearly-prized tea-sets possessed by Mrs. Thrale, at 
 Streatham. Surely that teapot must have belonged to Hannah 
 More. No ; it was Madame d'Arblay's, a birthday gift from her 
 genial papa, the Harmonious Doctor, in the happy days when she 
 was Fanny Bumey, ere she accepted the dignified office of lacing 
 the grim Queen Charlotte's staj's and being bullied by Madam 
 Schwellenburg. I am sure that milk-jug was a special pet with 
 Lady Blessington. Or perhaps that sugar-basin found favour in 
 the eyes of the divine Sarah, Countess of Jersey. Ah me, per- 
 haps ! The original models of those quaint tea and coffee services 
 have been perchance long since shattered and ground into dust, 
 even as the wise and good and beautiful to whom they once 
 belonged. The poor potsherds are hidden under some obscure 
 Monte Testaccio, not to be disentombed, not to be re-integrated, 
 on this side the Gulf ; but the magic wand, the swift wheel, the 
 cunning hand, the deft pencil, the quickening furnace of the potter, 
 make all these quaint and pretty forms live again. 
 
 Past and Present are also nobly illustrated in the wares of 
 Josiah Wedgwood & Sons of Etruria, Staffordshire. The clarum 
 et venerabile nomen of the founder of the great house has lost 
 nothing of its strength; but the firm wisely moves with the 
 times, and every grade of taste in art-pottery can be gratified by 
 an inspection of the Wedgwood ware. There are great vases and 
 pieces montees of glowing hues, plateaux superbly painted with 
 fruit and flowers and figure subjects ; there are sumptuous panels 
 in relief, illustrating the Seven Ages and the Canterbury Pilgrim - 
 age ; there is, at least, one plaque painted by the lamented and 
 inimitable Lessore ; but the chief chann of the Wedgwood col- 
 lection still lies in the wondrously graceful and purely classical 
 bassi-relievi on blue, chocolate, and white grounds, on which the
 
 SIGHTS AND SCENES IN THE EXHIBITION. 205 
 
 influence of the graphic puissance and unerring taste of John 
 Flaxrnan are still triumphantly manifest. 
 
 The Worcester Porcelain Works continue in the progressive 
 path on which they entered some years ago, under the able guid- 
 ance of their accomplished director Mr. K. W. Binns. Great 
 taste is especially apparent in the numerous adaptations from the 
 Japanese noticeable in their collection, the moderately quaint and 
 the beautiful being often combined with rare judgment and success, 
 and the distinctive warm ivory tone imparting to many of their 
 productions a refined and charming effect. The enamels which 
 the house display are of the highest order ; and their table ser- 
 vices in the old Worcester style prove that while the manufacture 
 has in nowise deteriorated, the forms adopted have become far 
 more artistic and graceful. 
 
 Another firm of British potters, whose manufacture shows a 
 very decided advance and calls for praise, both for artistic beauty 
 of design and excellence of workmanship, are Messrs. Brown- 
 Westhead, Moore, & Co., of Cauldon Place, Staffordshire. They 
 are producers at first hand of some remarkably well-executed vases 
 and plaques, displaying rare beauty of form and brilliance of colour, 
 and of a variety of quaintly-designed flower-holders, in which birds 
 and animals are felicitously introduced, as well as of dinner, des- 
 sert, and toilet sendees, graceful in form and exhibiting much 
 refinement in their ornamentation.
 
 'THE FAT ELDEKLY FRENCHMAN HAS A WICKED EYE. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 THE NICE OLD GENTLEMAN. 
 
 Sept. 7. 
 
 NOT more persistently did the distracted Demeter seek for her 
 daughter, home off to a grisly Gretna Green in Pluto's rnail- 
 phaeton with the coal-hlack steeds ; not more patiently did the 
 meek Monsieur Jacques await the return of his Sicilian bride 
 ever murmuring to himself, in poverty and starvation, ' She vill 
 come, she vill come ' than have I, these five weeks past, in Paris, 
 awaited the advent of the Nice Old Gentleman. I am very fond 
 of him, whether as a tall, stately, somewhat solemn patriarch,
 
 THE NICE OLD GENTLEMAN. 
 
 207 
 
 with a black-silk skull-cap to veil his baldness, and a statuesque 
 countenance reminding you of Chateaubriand ; or as a sprightly, 
 thousand-wrinkled, but always vivacious little ancient, in a frock- 
 coat tightly buttoned over his chest, and altogether, physically, 
 not at all unlike the late Monsieur Thiers. I have a feeling for 
 the Nice Old Gentleman beyond that of mere liking. I respect 
 him. Of his political opinions I am happily ignorant. He may 
 be, for aught I can tell, an ardent Royalist, who in his youth was 
 one of the Gardes du Carps of Charles X. ; who yet reveres the
 
 208 
 
 PAEIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 memory of Polignac and Peyronnet ; who never misses that annual 
 expiatory mass in the Church of the Eue St. Honore for the repose 
 of the souls of the Royal Martyrs of '93 ; who has but one flag 
 the white banner with the golden lilies and whose heart is at 
 Frohsdorf with Henri Cinq. Perhaps he is a Bonapartist not 
 necessarily a military one in his boyhood one of Queen Hortense's 
 perchance, who has not ceased to cherish, and through
 
 THE NICE OLD GENTLEMAN. 209 
 
 good and evil report to declare, his belief in the Napoleonic 
 legend ; who gives a rare price to a florist for a violet to be worn 
 in his buttonhole on the 5th of May, and in default of a real one 
 would wear an artificial violet on the 15th of August; who carries 
 a little medallion of the Prince Imperial at his watch-chain ; and 
 who, when he hears dead Caesar despitefully spoken of, murmurs 
 between his teeth, ' Myrmidons! When the Emperor had crosses 
 and prefectures to give away vous avez leche ses bottes ! ' Or perhaps 
 he is one of the grands bourgeois of the days of Orleanist ascendancy 
 one who has known Jacques Lamtte, Casimir, Perier, Armand 
 Bertin ; upright, austere, conscientious the stuff of which French 
 free-traders, political economists, constitutional lawyers, are made 
 in France. And who shall say that the Nice Old Gentleman may 
 not be a sincere Republican of the old school not a Gavroche 
 Republican, not a self-seeking one, alternately a Terrorist and a 
 Trimmer as the wind of interest veers round not a Destructive 
 Ideologue who has done everything for the Communards save 
 fight for and go to New Caledonia for them but a steady single- 
 minded Democrat after the manner of Foy and Manuel after 
 the manner of Jacques Arago and Odilon Barrot, of Armand 
 Carrel and Dupont de 1'Eure. Or he may have nothing to do 
 with politics at all, like a certain Nice Old Gentleman whom 
 I knew in my youth, and who had lived in Paris through all 
 the sanguinary frenzy of the Convention and the Reign of Terror. 
 I used to implore him to tell me stories about Robespierre and 
 Collot d'Herbois about the Jacobins and the Furies of the Guil- 
 lotine ; but he would make answer, ' Mon enfant, I troubled myself 
 very little about such matters. Pendant ce temps la je m'occupais 
 de la conchologie.' Human heads were falling all around him ; 
 blood was flowing like water ; but that Nice Old Gentleman in 
 the midst of these horrors ceased not from the placid study of 
 molluscs and Crustacea. 
 
 I repeat that I sought for and waited for him right through 
 the month of August and a part of September. He will come, I 
 thought, hoping almost against hope. I was certain that I should
 
 210 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX. 
 
 'A STEADY SINGLE-MINCED DEMOCRAT.' 
 
 recognise him direct!}' he crossed my path. There are not many 
 physical types of him, and they are all indelibly photographed in 
 my mind. He is never a stout old gentleman. The fat elderly 
 Frenchman has a Wicked Eye, and when he passes the portals of 
 Brebant's or the Maison Doree, the waiter, lounging outside, smiles 
 knowingly, and with a wink whispers behind his hand to the buxom 
 j-oung ecaillcre, seiupiternally opening her Ostendes and her Ma- 
 rennes. The ouvreuscs at the Gaite and the Bouffes are aware of
 
 THE NICE OLD GENTLEMAN. 
 
 211 
 
 the Stout Old Gentleman, and would not be surprised to hear that 
 he was naughty. I saw him myself the other night, in the ballet- 
 girls' greenroom at the Opera, leering at the 'pornographic' paint- 
 ings as M. Taine calls them with which that apartment is em- 
 bellished, and whispering lazzi of, I am afraid, anything but an 
 edifying nature to the ruddled and plastered divinities of the dance. 
 My Nice Old Gentleman would not be seen at such a place. While 
 the painted bayaderes of the ballet are capering, he would be read- 
 ing the Union or the Heine des Deux Mondcs at the Cabinet de
 
 212 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 Lecture to which he is abonne. He rarely goes to the play unless, 
 indeed, it be to the pit of the Theatre Francais on a Moliere night. 
 
 THE PARTERRE, A SKETCH BY EAUMIER. 
 
 He has never been to a masked ball at the Opera never, at least, 
 since the Academic de Musique was in the Rue de Richelieu, on 
 the now open area of the Place Louvois. It was there that the 
 Duke of Berry was assassinated. Probably the Nice Old Gentle- 
 man does not even know where Mabille is; and were you to talk 
 to him of Frascati's, part of the premises of which once famous 
 tripot is now occupied by a dancing casino, he might exclaim, 
 ' What ! Is that notorious gaming-house still in existence ? ' 
 
 The Nice Old Gentleman still plays his game of tric-trac and 
 piquet; but for some years past it has been in the strictest privacy 
 that he lias taken his hand at cards. The old Palais Royal cafes,
 
 THE NICE OLD GEN'TLEMAX. 
 
 213 
 
 THE PLACE LOUVCI5. 
 
 which he was wont to frequent the cafes in which no smoking" 
 was allowed, and where the waiters were Old Gentlemen nearly as 
 nice as their customers have been pulled down or converted to 
 baser uses ; and as regards the boulevards, it has been utterly in 
 vain that I have wandered from staring cafe to staring cafe, 
 from the Porte St. Martin to the Madeleine, perpetually spying 
 for the Nice Old Gentleman, but, alas, always failing to find him. 
 I waited for him daj r after day at the Exhibition ; but he did not 
 come. Surely, I thought, the Nice Old Gentleman will turn up 
 in that Wonderful Retrospective Museum in the Palace of the 
 Trocadero. But he was not there, any more than he was at the
 
 214 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 ._ 
 
 
 THE POUTE ST. MAET1X. 
 
 Palais cles Thernies, at the Gallery of the Luxembourg, or at the 
 Musee Campana at the Louvre. Instead of meeting the Nice Old 
 Gentleman, I found the galleries of antiquities, the cabinets of art 
 treasures, in the possession of Monsieur and Madame Pochet and 
 family, including a great-grandmother, a baby, and an attached
 
 THE NICE OLD GENTLEMAN. 215 
 
 female domestic in a mob-cap, from Carpentras or Brives-la- 
 Gaillarcle ; of Hermann Knockelbein, Kauffmann, Stettin, Pome- 
 rania ; of Berseker Bjornotyaga of Copenhagen, of the Flamingo 
 Fribbles family of Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.A.; of Dom Pasteo de Sa 
 of Rio Janeiro, Brazil ; and of our own 'Any from Cambenvell. 
 
 Then it was that the painful persuasion began to dawn upon 
 me that the Nice Old Gentleman had been altogether driven away 
 from Paris by the Exhibition, and the hordes of foreigners and 
 provincials attracted to the metropolis of France by a Fair, to which 
 that of Nijni Novgorod is but as a baby. What should he do, 
 that Nice Old Gentleman of mine, in these overcrowded cafes and 
 restaurants, in these endless Champ de Mars corridors over- 
 brimming with innumerable vanities, on these boulevards made 
 almost impassable, both by night and by day, by surging masses of 
 humanity ? The Reign of Terror has been succeeded by a Reign of 
 Triviality. La Commune cst morte : Vice le Car naval! But these 
 carnavalesque proceedings, with the necessaries of life at famine 
 prices, and comfort and tranquillity absolutely impossible of 
 attainment, are certainty not calculated to suit a Nice Old Gentle- 
 man, whose means are probably as limited as his tastes are quiet 
 and his appetites are moderate ; who may be a retired employe, a 
 petit rentier, or an officer en retraite. To the elderly Frenchman 
 with a small fixed income the accidental fracture of a pane of 
 glass, or the equally accidental selection of an expensive dish from 
 the bill of fare at an eating-house, may be a most momentous 
 matter, entailing a curtailment during a whole month of the little 
 comforts to which the owner of a light purse m&y have been accus- 
 tomed ; but to live in Paris as visitors to Paris live at the present 
 time is to pass }'our days in one continued round of feverish and 
 costly excitement. You are always, involuntarily and uncon- 
 sciously, breaking the largest squares of plate-glass, and ordering 
 dishes be} r ond your means. You order a couple of kidneys d Id 
 Parisicnne. Surely, j r ou think, they cannot charge much for so 
 simple a dish. But the waiter at the boulevard restaurant serves 
 you up, with a grin, two little shrivelled scraps of the renal
 
 216 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 anatomy of some animal, swimming in grease, and decorated with 
 two little dabs of warm and soppy greenstuff, which 3-011 are given 
 to understand are pointes cVasperges asparagus tips. For this 
 you may have to pay six or eight francs. Would such menu suit 
 the Nice Old Gentleman ? ' Depend upon it,' I have said to 1113-- 
 self time and again, ' he is dining, modestly and quietty, far awa3', 
 at some out-of-the-way restaurant, at a fixed price, or where the 
 normal^ modest bill of fare has not been augmented in conse- 
 quence of the Exposition,' or at some transpontine table d'hote to 
 which 3 r ou can dbonner yourself by the week, month, or quarter. 
 
 I used to know many such tables dilute when I was 3'oung ; 
 and veiy good some of them were. The published advertisement 
 of one of these establishments I remember well, as being pecu- 
 liarly attractive to a youth in good health and with a hearty appe- 
 tite. ' Une nourriture simple mais fortifiante.' I fortified myself 
 for a whole month running. You paid in advance for 3 T our cachets, 
 and I kept the sealed cards in a drawer ; and I used to take them 
 out and turn them over sometimes, murmuring, ' Still eleven, still 
 seven, still five dinners to the good.' Courage ! The publisher 
 will accept the threervolume novel. The manager will take the 
 high-flown drama or the screaming farce. Courage ! Yonder, on 
 the staircase, is the footfall of the postman, bringing the regis- 
 tered letter. One had need of a good many mental clappings on 
 the back and admonitions to be courageous when the number of 
 cachets had diminished to two. Did 3 r ou ever try starvation in 
 Paris ? I have suffered a good many twinges of that malady^ in a 
 good many places in m3 r time ; but for an experience of the pangs 
 of hunger in its acutest and most agonising form let me commend 
 you to a morning walk, when you are young and strong, hungry 
 and penniless, on the Boulevard des Italiens in the middle of 
 February. You have Argus e3'es what say I ? a thousand eyes 
 all round 3 T ou watching for the friend who will lend 3-011 five 
 francs ; but often that friend does not turn up, an3' more than 1113' 
 Nice Old Gentleman turned up for many weeks. 
 
 I thought one afternoon, about a fortnight since, that I had
 
 THE NICE OLD GENTLEMAN. 
 
 217 
 
 discovered him. I had crossed the Pont des Tuileries for a ramble 
 among the book and print stalls and curiosity shops of the Quai 
 Malaguais and the Quai Voltaire, and I had besides on my mind 
 a commission from a friend in England, who is new-furnishing a 
 house, and had asked me to look out for an eighteenth-century 
 eight-day clock for him. How is it that the handsomest and 
 oldest eight-clay clocks of English make are to be found in Russian 
 churches and in the front-parlour-like tomb houses of the Turkish 
 Sultans in Stamboul ? What have the Selims and Mahmouds got 
 to do with Pinchbeck or Barwise ? I strolled along, skimming all
 
 218 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN 1 . 
 
 the bookstalls, turning over all the portfolios of prints, and peep- 
 ing into all the old Iric-d-brac shops on my way, until I reached 
 the Palace of the Institute. Everything, after the turmoil of the 
 Exhibition and the roar of the Boulevards, seemed delightfully 
 quiet. Here Art was hi repose, yonder it was at fever-heat, I 
 found the cupola of the College of the Four Nations standing 
 where it did, the cast-iron lions from the Creuzot factory they 
 were cast just seventy years ago still placidly spirting the jets of
 
 THE NICE OLD GENTLEMAN. 
 
 219 
 
 water from their jaws, and all things looking as they were wont 
 to look in this amiably archaeological part of Paris, save that the 
 poorer class of printsellers who were wont to display their mer- 
 chandise in umbrellas, or on rude wooden screens placed against 
 the walls under the gray portico of the Institute, had been 
 banished from those learned precincts. I was sorrj- for this, for 
 I hold open-air print- stalls in much love ; and under this same 
 portico of the Institute I have bought, in days gone by, and for a 
 mere song, many a chalcographic rarity a Kobert Strange, 
 ragged, but genuine ; a William Blake, yellow, but veritable.
 
 220 
 
 PAEIS HERSELF AGAIN'. 
 
 Suddenly a door was opened in the corps de logis of the 
 Mazarin Library, and there came forth on to the quay a tall old 
 gentleman, meagre, scco de carnes y enjuto de rostro, like Don 
 Quixote, clean-shaven, gray-haired, blue-spectacled. He wore a 
 long surtout of olive-green, a white neckcloth with a very large 
 bow, a broad-brimmed hat, and the ribbon of the Legion of Honour. 
 ' Eureka ! ' I cried mentally, ' here is the Nice Old Gentleman at 
 last. A philosopher, a savant, evidently. Perhaps one of the 
 Mazarin librarians. Perhaps a conchologist. Perhaps, even, an 
 Academician.' I looked upon the Old Gentleman with loving eyes. 
 He was so very Nice. I hoped that he would at once cross the 
 road, and in a moment be deep among the bookstalls and the old 
 coins. I half made up my mind to salute him to introduce 
 myself to him, and to propound questions to him touching on the 
 Transit of Venus he did not look unastronomical the Romance 
 of the Rose, the langue d'oil and the langue d'oc, the Fanners - 
 General edition of the Contes de la Fontaine, and the Fossil Man 
 of Abbeville. But the Old Gentleman in the white cravat and the 
 broad-brimmed hat hailed a passing victoria, and as he stepped 
 into the vehicle I heard him say to the driver this, ' Cocher, vite, 
 a la Bourse.' What ! the Bourse, the brawling, jangling mart of 
 raoney-niongering, the uproarious hysterical Temple of Mammon! 
 And I had mentally bowed down before this worldling, this poten- 
 tial agent de change, this possible stockjobber ! He was old, and 
 comely to look upon ; but he was assuredly not my Nice Old 
 Gentleman.
 
 1. 222.
 
 AN OLE WOMAN OF THE PROVINCES. 
 
 XV. 
 
 ON SUNDRY OLD WOMEN. 
 
 Sept. 10. 
 
 I HOLD the Parisian Old Woman to be the most remarkable indi- 
 vidual of her sex and age to be found in the whole world. I have 
 read of some savage tribe who, when the weather is unfavourable 
 to hunting or fishing, and food is consequently scarce, suddenly 
 bethink themselves that the time is propitious for a sacrifice to 
 their favourite fetish ; while concurrent^, by an inscrutable but 
 unerring law of selection, it is always the oldest and feeblest 
 woman of the tribe who is made a subject for the promotion of the 
 euthanasia, by being hung up by the heels, killed, cooked, and, if
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN". 
 
 she be sufficiently tender, eaten. There could, again, be no more 
 convincing proof of the high rank attained by the French in the 
 scale of civilisation than the important part played by the Old 
 Woman in the scheme of society. We are too much in the habit, 
 in England, of disparaging our grandmother while she is alive ; 
 nor in any case, perhaps, is the English Old Woman of much social 
 account, unless she have plenty of money. Then we toady her, 
 and the secretaries of charitable institutions inundate her with 
 printed forms of testamentary bequest. Otherwise the Anglo- 
 Saxon Old Woman has few chances of gaining consideration unless, 
 in a London back garret, she starts, with the stock-in-trade of a 
 greasy pack of cards and a black cat, as a fortune-teller, in which 
 case she runs the risk of being ' rounded on ' by a female detective 
 in the shape of a policeman's wife, and arraigned before the nearest 
 magistrate ; or, when, being resident in a very remote and very 
 ignorant village, it is assumed, because she is old, ugly, rheumatic, 
 and has a habit of muttering to herself, that she is a witch under 
 which circumstances she is certainly looked upon as a personage 
 of much importance, but, at the same time, incurs the constant 
 peril of being hooted and pelted by the children or ducked in the 
 horsepond. 
 
 I am afraid, on the whole, that the usual goal of the British 
 Old Woman is the workhouse, where, if she be promoted to fill 
 the office of nurse to paupers as old and more infirm than herself, 
 she occasionally distinguishes herself by administering to a patient 
 a dose of carbolic acid in mistake for a cough-mixture. The 
 Italians, for their part, take but little interest in ' ima vechiarclla / 
 while in Spain ' la vieja ' either takes, as a matter of course, to the 
 trade of mendicancy did you ever see Goya's terrible etching of 
 the old hag asking alms from her own richly-clad daughter, who 
 passes her by disdainfully, unrecognising her ? ' Dios la perdona. 
 Y era su madre,' says the legend to the picture or, if ' la vieja ' 
 have any pecuniary means, she is only spoken of as ' buena para 
 vestir imagenes ' fit only to dress dolls of madonnas and saints. 
 
 Not thus do the French treat their old women. ' La grand'mere'
 
 A CLEVER MATCHMAKER. 
 
 I. 223.
 
 ON SUNDRY OLD WOMEN. 223 
 
 is an object of sympathy, of respect, and often of veneration. She 
 is the head of that occult but supremely powerful organisation, la 
 famillc. A Frenchman, even if he be forty years of age, may not 
 marry until after he has addressed to his parents three ' somma- 
 tions respectueuses,' citing them to show cause, if any, against the 
 match ; but no French girl would dare to contract a matrimonial 
 alliance without the approbation, not only of her immediate parents, 
 but also of her grandmother or grandmothers, supposing those 
 ancestors to be alive ; and ' la grand'mere ' seems to live to a pro- 
 digious age. She is in general much more of a matchmaker than 
 the parents of the young couple, and she is generally very popular 
 with them after marriage, seeing that she possesses the inestimable 
 advantage of being too old to be anybody's mother-in-law. I freely 
 grant that the enviable position which I have sketched is the lot 
 only of a limited number of French old women. They outlive fre- 
 quently kith and kin, friends, hope, pleasure, utterly, and sink 
 into a condition of the wretchedest poverty ; yet still does the 
 French Old "Woman continue the struggle ; still does she decline 
 to throw up the sponge ; and still, even in her most debilitated 
 condition, has she definite place, ascertained influence, and some 
 power, and constitutes a cogwheel iji the complicated machine of 
 French society. Were there a Poor Law in France, she would think 
 a great many times before retiring to the seclusion of ' the 'Ouse.' 
 In the provinces the Old Woman is frequently charming her 
 sixty, seventy, or eighty years to the contrary notwithstanding. 
 Her cap and apron are so white and so trim, her complexion is so 
 freshly fair and pink, her garrulity is so gracefully genial, that you 
 forget all her wrinkles and grizzled locks ; and you need do no 
 great violence to your imagination in assuming her to be pretty. 
 But in Paris, it must be candidly admitted, the Old Woman is, as 
 a rule, frightfully ugly, and her manners are the reverse of agree- 
 able. There is a malady which has been left untouched by the 
 poet Gray, in that cheerful description of ' the painful Family of 
 Death more hideous than their Queen,' which makes most middle- 
 aged people shudder while they read the penultimate stanza of the
 
 224 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX. 
 
 ' Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.' There is a disease 
 more awful in its symptoms than any that racks the joints, that 
 fires the veins, or that in the deep vitals rages. The ailment in 
 question is a chronic attack of francs and centimes on the brain, 
 and it is one to which the French Old Woman seems to be pecu- 
 liarly liable. 
 
 The other day, curiosity-hunting among the shops on the 
 ' Surrey side of the Seine,' through which the broad artery of the 
 new Boulevard St. Germain has been pierced, I entered, feeling 
 fatigued, a little cabaret borgne, at the extremity of a cul de sac 
 one of the few blind alleys left in Paris by that continuous and 
 beneficent process of Haussmannisatioii which has not been in the 
 least affected -by the collapse of the Empire. Faute (fun moine 
 Vabbaye ne chome pas; and M. Alphand is continuing as vigor- 
 ously that which M. Hausmann commenced. But it was a very 
 darksome, greasj^, malodorous wineshop indeed, in which, for 
 want of a better in the neighbourhood, I found myself. A gentle- 
 man who dealt apparently in charcoal, and carried a considerable 
 quantity of his commodity about with him on his face and hands ; 
 another gentleman in a jacket and a black-silk cap the distin- 
 guishing and most sinister headgear of the grown-up gavroche 
 who had seemingly enjoyed but a bad night's rest, if he had been 
 to bed at all on the preceding evening ; a lady and gentleman from 
 Auvergne getting uncommonly jovial over their litre of petit bleu; 
 and two honest working men breakfasting on bread and grapes and 
 a chopine of thin wine apiece made up the company before the 
 zinc-covered bar, behind which sat enthroned a stout lady with a 
 kerchief of crimson cotton twisted round her head, and tied in a 
 sharp-pointed bow in front. Her husband, who was waiter, bar- 
 man, cellarman, cook, and what not, was an individual of dejected 
 mien. The only paper taken in, so far as I could see, was a 
 ragged copy of the Pays. Stay, there was the ' Almanach du Petit 
 Caporal ' on a shelf among the bottles, and on one of the walls a 
 faded engraving of the Empress Marie Louise nursing the baby 
 King of Rome. A Bonapartist cabaret, I am afraid.
 
 OX SUNDRY OLD WOMEN. 
 
 225 
 
 A GENTLEMAN" IX A JACKET AND BLACK-SILK CAP. 
 
 The dejected husband was a civil-spoken fellow enough, but 
 incurably despondent. Everything he said was very quiet, terrible- 
 ment tranquille. It was quiet enough certainly at the bottom of 
 the blind alley ; but, as I had been residing for more than two
 
 'A LADY AND GENTLEMAN FEOM AUVERGXE.' 
 
 months in the courtyard of the Tower of Babel, I failed, in this 
 respect, to recognise the cogency of his statement. The tunes, 
 too, he continued, were very hard diallcmcnt diirs. Now, I was 
 quite prepared to agree with him on the score of the times being 
 hard ones, so far as a foreigner was concerned who paid four 
 guineas a week for the privilege of sleeping in a rabbit : hutcli, and 
 who -was proportionately fleeced always in consequence of the
 
 ON SUNDRY OLD WOMEN, 
 
 227 
 
 Exhibition for every article of meat and drink which he con- 
 sumed ; but I could not help hinting to him that the Parisian 
 shopkeepers on the other side of the water must have found the 
 times since May last to have been very fine times indeed. The de- 
 jected man sighed and shrugged his shoulders. ' Ah ! si monsieur 
 savait ! ' he murmured resignedly. ' And the eleven thousand nine 
 hundred and forty-eight francs still submerged and lost,' croaked 
 a voice behind me. I turned and found that there had been ad- 
 joined to our party an old woman, originally tall, but bent nearly
 
 228 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 double by infirmity, who was clad in a bedgown of some dark 
 printed stuff. She had something else with her ; to wit, the half 
 of an enormous pumpkin the ruddiest of pumpkins, and which 
 in its cavernous depths, full of pulp and seeds, would have fur- 
 nished a capital study for a painter of still life, but the propriety 
 of the appearance of which at that particular conjuncture, and in 
 association with the old lady in the bedgown, I failed to perceive. 
 ' Et les Chemins de Fer Pontificaux baissent toujours/ croaked 
 the old woman. ' Onze mille neuf cents quarante-huit francs. 
 C'est une abomination.' What had I to do with the fall in the 
 price of shares in the Roman railways ? The dejected individual 
 strove to pacify her ; but she was not to be comforted, and con- 
 tinued croaking and crooning now to me, and now more con- 
 ndentialh T , so it seemed, to the pumpkin. ' Onze mille francs 
 onze mille francs ; et le gros lot du tirage est de deux cent mille'. 
 She went on mumbling about the Roman railways, the Mexican 
 Loan, and the next Lotteiy of the Obligations de la Ville de Paris, 
 until the stout lady came from behind the bar, and saying, ' Tiens, 
 maman ; en voila assez. Veux-tu bien aller te coucher ? ' pushed 
 her amicably awaj T , pumpkin and all, up a dark staircase. 
 
 As the ruddy esculent and her poor old slippered legs dis- 
 appeared in the darkness, I glanced at the husband and wife and 
 tapped my forehead. Yes, they replied, she was nn pen toqnce 
 just a little cracked ! ' Une fameuse meiiagere, allez' perhaps 
 she was about to cut up the pumpkin for soup ' mais elle avait 
 la manie des tirages.' She had gone partially distraught upon 
 lotteries ; and these lotteries I cannot help regarding as one of the 
 chief social curses of France. The facilities offered to the poor 
 for gambling in the public funds and on the Stock Exchange are 
 nearly as great a nuisance and as great an evil. Although the 
 Legislature has ceased to sanction periodical State lotteries, almost 
 every loan which is issued has a lottery connected with it, and 
 prizes of 100,000, 50,000 francs, and smaller sums are drawn at 
 each successive redemption of a batch of shares. Certainly the most 
 persistent supporter of these raffles is the Parisian Old Woman.
 
 L\ C'ONC'IKRdK. 
 
 I. 229.
 
 OX SUNDRY OLD WOMEX. 229 
 
 On the ensuing 5th of November, while surreptitious squibs and 
 crackers are exploding in innumerable back gardens in England, 
 the vivacious Gaul will be drawing, at the Palais de 1'Industrie, 
 one of the periodical lotteries of the Obligations de la Ville de 
 Paris. A certain series of bonds in the last Municipal Loan will 
 be redeemed, and a certain number of prizes will be drawn, the 
 cjros lot being one hundred thousand francs. There are two 
 second prizes of fifty thousand francs each, and an abundance of 
 twenty and ten franc prizes. Thus on the morrow any thrifty 
 old concierge, cocotte, cliiffonniere, or loueuse de chaises, who has 
 scraped up enough to buy a twenty-five franc obligation de la Ville 
 de Paris, may find herself the winner of four thousand pounds 
 sterling in hard cash, or of four hundred pounds or, in far greater 
 probability, of just nothing at all. Fortune, to my mind, is not 
 half so blind as she is maliciously capricious and unjustly per- 
 verse. She appears to delight in giving more than they previously 
 possessed to people who have already got a great deal, and in 
 leaving her poorer votaries poorer, by the price of their gambling 
 stakes, than she found them. I was acquainted many years ago 
 with a Spaniard who was twice within a single figure of winning 
 the hundred thousand dollar prize in the Royal Havana Lottery. 
 On the first occasion his next-door and fortunate neighbour was a 
 Philadelphia:! millionnaire. On the next the grand-prize winner 
 was Queen Isabella of Spain. The notorious injustice of Fortune 
 will not hinder at all the thrifty old women in France who hold 
 chances in the Municipal lottery from dreaming that their own 
 particular ticket has come out of the prize-wheel ; and in the 
 long-run perhaps there is as much happiness in dreaming that 
 you are wealthy as in being actually rich. 
 
 In Paris there is positively a Journal des Tirages a weekly 
 periodical devoted exclusively to lottery news, to the advertisement 
 of new projects, and to the publication of the prize-lists. That all 
 these ventures are conducted on principles of the strictest integrity 
 there is not the slightest reason to doubt, and indeed the police 
 keep a very sharp look-out for schemes which bear a suspicious
 
 230 
 
 PAEIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 resemblance to swindles ; still the frequent recurrence of lotteries 
 keeps alive a constant and uneasy feeling of cupidity and avidity. 
 The wheel of fortune is for ever in the minds of the poor. Avarice 
 is the vice of age, and the Old Woman is incessantly dreaming of 
 lucky numbers. Who knows ? She may be portiere, a cldffonnicrc , 
 
 a sweeper of the streets to-day ; but to-morrow she may win the 
 gros lot. Her day's earnings may not exceed a franc ; to-morrow 
 she may be the possessor of a hundred thousand. So she hoards 
 and hoards and hoards, always hoping to win the big prize, and
 
 ON SUNDRY OLD WOMEN. 
 
 231 
 
 sometimes going crazy because she fails to get it. To this add 
 the easiness with which anybody in Paris, Jack or Jill, as well as 
 
 INTERIOR OF THE PARIS BOURSE. 
 
 the millionnaire, may trot up the steps of the Bourse, mingle in 
 the serried crowd which struggles and howls in that Temple of
 
 232 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 Mammon, and with a few francs' capital gamble in stocks and 
 shares to his or her heart's content. Into the charmed circle 
 protected by iron railings the arena in which the bankers and 
 the agents de change throw up their arms, and fling about 
 scraps of paper, and shriek from ten to five like folks dis- 
 
 CARICATURE OF THE BOURSE, BY ROBIDA, 
 
 tracted the poorer classes are not privileged to enter ; but r 
 through intermediaries ready to hand, they can gamble with far 
 greater ease on the steps and in the aisles of the Bourse than 
 they can bet on a racecourse. The closing prices of stocks and 
 shares are chalked up, at sunset, outside a hundred money-changers' 
 shops round about the Bourse, on the Boulevards, and in the Palais 
 Royal ; and the Old Woman may often be recognised as the most 
 attentive student of a schedule which to the vast majority of 
 Englishwomen would be as so many cabalistic characters scrawled 
 on a blackboard, and as inscrutable as an algebraical equation 
 or a problem from Euclid. The English Old Woman does not
 
 233 
 
 LA. BOURSE I>ES DAMES. 
 
 speculate on tlie Stock Exchange, and, unless she happens to- 
 reside at Doncaster or at Newmarket, she does not bet on horse- 
 races. She is rarely even a subscriber to the Art Union, although 
 the rector of her parish is possibly a patron of that excellent 
 institution. The French Old Woman is a confirmed and desperate 
 gamester ; but, on the other hand, she is phenomenally frugal, 
 and she does not drink gin.
 
 234 PAEIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 I have read in rny time some scores of pamphlets and speeches 
 -written or delivered by noble statesmen and political economists 
 on that virtue of thrift in which the working classes in England 
 .are so notoriously and so deplorably deficient. Thrift is indeed 
 one of the very brightest of the flowers which adorn the politico- 
 -economical parterre. Were we thrifty as a nation there would be no 
 indigence, no pauperism, no deaths from destitution. The public - 
 houses and the pawnbrokers might both shut up shop. There 
 would be no crime. ' Ah ! le grand peut-etre.' Unfortunately, 
 metaphorically although not botanically, there is no rose without 
 A thorn. Cupidity, rapacity, and francs and centimes on the 
 brain are the thorns which cluster most thickly about the stalk 
 -of the shining French virtue of thrift, and which make the French 
 Old Woman an extremely unlovely and repulsive personage. 
 Thrift is almost to as great an extent the leading characteristic 
 of the shopkeeping classes ; but with them it is not associated 
 with parsimony. The Parisian loutiquicr is no niggard, no 
 miserly curmudgeon, like the cultivateur of the provinces. The 
 shopkeeper and his wife are, on the contrary, genial, free-handed, 
 self-indulgent people, within certain recognised limits. They 
 .are fond of cheap amusements. They prefer the feasts which 
 -do not cost much : and it is a principle never departed from 
 that the expenses of their menus jtlaisirs must not in any way 
 interfere with the sum of the profits which they think they 
 ought to derive from their trade. 
 
 Strict adherence to this principle makes Paris shopkeepers 
 about the most grasping and overreaching tradespeople that I have 
 ever met with in the course of a tolerably extensive perambulation 
 of the civilised world. The principle of realising so much benefice, 
 by whatever means the profit is to be effected, has another and 
 very unpleasant result. It leads to very inferior articles being sold 
 for very extortionate prices, and to no department of trade will this 
 remark apply more closely than to the article of gloves. You may 
 give five and six francs a pair in Paris, and in the most fashion- 
 Able shops in Paiis, for gloves with two buttons, and from eight to
 
 ON SUNDRY OLD WOMEN. 235 
 
 twelve francs for ladies' gloves with from three to six buttons. In 
 Piccadilly or in Regent Street about the same prices might be 
 -charged ; but the difference is simply this, that in London at a 
 well-known shop you always obtain for a first-rate price a first-rate 
 article. In Paris you pay the high price, and you very often get 
 in return nothing but a rubbishing article which splits up the back 
 so soon as you draw it on. As for the three-franc-fifty gloves 
 which are sold in the Passages, which are wretchedly cut, which 
 are of miserably unsound skins, which are made without gussets, 
 and which are often soiled, I should advise you to have nothing to 
 do with them. You may buy better in Tottenham Court Road for 
 eighteenpence. From the last three-franc-fifty gloves I ventured 
 upon a pair at five francs seventy-five having turned out a 
 lamentable failure the left thumb came off bodily ere I had got 
 the digits well ' home.' This is rendered all the more exasperat- 
 ing by the remembrance that about the best gloves in Europe are 
 made at Grenoble, and that the very best of the Grenoble gloves 
 are sent to England simply because the English customer will not 
 pay a large price for an inferior article. But the foreign visitor to 
 Paris is completely at the mercy of the shopkeeper, and is fain to 
 take upon trust any article which the shopkeeper desires to sell 
 him, and at whatever rate he chooses to ask for it. The boutiquier 
 on his side is so remarkably frugal, so exemplarily thrift}', that he 
 forgets to be honest.
 
 XVI. 
 
 GRAPHICS AND PLASTICS IX THE EXHIBITION. 
 
 Sept. 12. 
 
 HAD I devoted every one of the letters written from this city to 
 an examination of the works of art in painting and statuary in 
 the Galerie des Beaux Arts in the Palace of the Champ de Mars, 
 and had I given to each work of real excellence its due ineed of 
 criticism and approbation, it is veiy probable that by this time I 
 should barely have exhausted a survey of the schools of France, 
 Great Britain, Italy, and Germany, and that I should have been 
 constrained to leave the artists of Austria, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, 
 Russia, and the United States without any notice at all. The 
 Meissoniers of the works of which admirable master there is an 
 astonishingly varied and brilliant display, from his grandest to 
 his tiniest productions would have demanded at least a couple 
 of letters; and since the dead as well as the living among French 
 painters are abundantly represented at the Exhibition, I shouldhave 
 found myself filling page after page with enthusiastic comments 
 on the genius and capacity of Ingres and Eugene Delacroix, of 
 Decamps and Diaz, of Cabanel and Bouguereau, Bonnat and 
 Gerome, De Neuville and Frere. I should have required more and 
 more space for Herr Makart's magnificent picture, in the Austro- 
 Hungarian section, of the ' Entry of Charles V. into Antwerp ; ' 
 certainly the finest work in the historico-romantic style ever
 
 
 
 jypt'ii ...:." ip
 
 GRAPHICS AND PLASTICS IN THE EXHIBITION. 237 
 
 painted since Tony Robert-Fleury's Siege of Corinth,' and a 
 replica of which should, to nay thinking, be forthwith secured by 
 the British Government, in order that copies in monochrome 
 might be made of the painting and distributed among the Schools 
 of Art throughout the United Kingdom, were it only to teach 
 the students the principles of drawing and draping the human 
 figure, and of arranging vast masses in well-balanced and har- 
 monious composition. Photography could not do justice to this 
 superb painting. The groups would be blurred, and the nicely 
 graduated tones of light and shade would be killed in the 
 camera; but a monochrome might be advantageously photo- 
 graphed, or still more efficiently lithographed, say on four large 
 sheets, which could be imperceptibly joined together.* 
 
 The famous Spanish painter Fortuny, prematurely snatched 
 away just as he was beginning to realise the fruits of his bright 
 genius, would also have claimed extended notice. A few years ago, 
 when I was at Seville, I could have purchased a very spirited sketch 
 in oil by Fortuny it represented some muleteers drinking in a 
 posada, I think for twenty duros, or four pounds sterling ; but 
 there is a microscopic sketch by the master at the Exhibition, a 
 sketch enshrined in an immense frame of ebony and gold repousstf, 
 for which the owner has disdainfully refused 25,000 francs. ' II 
 y aura encore du Meissonier,' remarks the owner not illogically, 
 ' puisqu'il vit encore ; mais du Fortuny il n'y en aura plus, 
 puisqu'il est inort.' The renowned French master yet lives, a 
 prosperous gentleman, and fresh things of beauty and grace may 
 be expected from his easel ; but the poor young Sevillano was 
 killed 'by the cruel Roman fever, and the hand which worked so 
 cunningly moulders in the tomb. Thus holders of Fortmrys are 
 firm ; and they can afford to defy even the forgers. The Spanish 
 master's gems are, like Meissonier's paintings, so exquisitely 
 delicate in finish that the copyist who could imitate a Fortuny or 
 
 * Since I wrote the above, a splendid etching by Adrien Lalouze has been 
 published of Makart's great work. It may be seen at 134, New Bond-street, 
 close to the Grosvenor Gallery.
 
 238 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 a Meissonier so as to deceive the eye of an expert must be as an 
 executant well-nigh the compeer of the master simulated. 
 
 The ' Spanish Marriage ' is generally admitted to be Fortuny's 
 masterpiece ; yet I look upon the painting of the ' Academicians 
 of St. Luke ' in the Champ de Mars as little, if at all, inferior to 
 the ' Manage Espagnol.' When I first saw the former work I had 
 no catalogue with me ; and although I could not fail to admire 
 the skilfulness of the workmanship and the brilliance and harmony 
 of the colour, I confess that of the story told I could make but- 
 little, if anything at all. The scene depicted is a superb saloon 
 in some continental palace, embellished with the most pompous- 
 redundancy of eighteenth-century rococo. In the centre of the 
 smooth gesso floor stand a group of old gentlemen, wigged y 
 powdered, brocaded-coated, silk-stockinged, who, in admirably 
 imagined attitudes, and with varied expressions of countenance, 
 are criticising what ? Upon my word, for full two minutes I 
 could not make out what the old gentlemen were inspecting so 
 critically. At length, littered about the floor, or hanging over the 
 back of a magnificent faiiteuil, I descried a pair of high-heeled 
 slippers, an embroidered sacqiic, and divers other articles of a 
 lady's wearing-apparel. From these my eyes travelled upwards 
 until they met the lady herself, who, utterly guileless of garments, 
 was posing on the marble slab of a sumptuously carved and gilt 
 table. The lady's attitude closely resembled that of the Venere 
 Callipygia in the Museum at Naples. Of course I was very much 
 shocked ; but it behoved me to do something else besides being 
 shocked. The old gentlemen were evidently not shocked. Who 
 were they ? I took them at first for a group of impudent lacqueys, 
 and the unrobed lady for some saucy Abigail who was winning a 
 wager of the Godiva kind ; but, just as I was drifting into a con- 
 dition of hopeless perplexity, a friend came up and unravelled the 
 mystery. M. Fortuity's picture, according to his showing, re- 
 presented a group of members of the Academy of St. Luke at 
 Rome ; and they were ' posing ' the female model for the benefit of 
 the students of the Life School. I was quite content with this
 
 GRAPHICS AND PLASTICS IX THE EXHIBITION. 239^ 
 
 explanation, and never cared to seek for any other. There may 
 be half a dozen more interpretations of Fortuity's meaning, but 
 this -was enough for me. 
 
 In fact, in the case of Fortuny you care very little for the matter 
 of the picture. It is the manner which interests, astonishes, and 
 delights you. This manner, all surprisingly dexterous and pleas- 
 ing as it is, cannot, however, be pronounced perfect. Fortuny, 
 wondrously brilliant as he is as a colourist, is curiously monotonous 
 in his texture. Wood, marble, plants and flowers, silk, satin, wool, 
 velvet, and tapestry work, and, finally, human flesh, all seem to have; 
 the same ' grain,' so to speak, the same hard glossy metallic lustre. 
 The audacious facility of his composition and the positivism of 
 his colouring frequently lead also to the production of con- 
 fusion in the spectator's mind. You fail to seize at once on the 
 main features in the drama going on before you. The figures^ 
 do not detach themselves with sufficient sharpness from the acces- 
 sories. In the ' St. Luke ' picture I had some ocular difficulty in 
 isolating the undraped damsel from an amber-satin curtain and a 
 rosso antico column. You look upon what you think to be an 
 admirably painted cactus-leaf. It turns out to be the sea-green 
 silk train of a lady's dress. You admire an ostensible claret-bottle. 
 It is in reality a human leg clothed in a black-silk stocking. 
 Surely that must be a bouquet of rare flowers. No ; it is a cardinal's 
 hat, thrown carelessly on a silver salver close to a plate full of fruit. 
 Herein I am speaking of course of Fortuny 's work generally, and not 
 of this particular Academical performance. Surpassingly glowing 
 and harmonious too as is the colour, the scheme of its arrangement 
 is somewhat and too palpably an artificial one ; and in the hands of 
 Fortimy's disciples the artifice becomes a transparent trick. One 
 might almost adapt the diction of the cookery-book to the formula 
 of a recipe for serving up a plat d la Fortnny. Take a plaque of 
 niother-o'-pearl ; scatter about it indiscriminately a few strawber- 
 ries, some black Hauibro' grapes, a bit of malachite, a morsel of 
 lapis-lazuli, a few leaves of beaten gold, a sprig of coral, a stick of 
 black sealing-wax, a lobster's claw (well boiled bien entendii), some
 
 240 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 skeiiis of particoloured floss silk, and a pocket mirror broken up 
 small. A few crystal drops from the drawing-room lustres, and 
 some prismatic glass beads from Murano, will do the mixture 
 no harm. Garnish with ferns and serve hot. Voilti votre Fortuny 
 at the first blush, at least ; but were this all that you could 
 enjoy from the contemplation of his work, the feast would be, 
 at the best, but a Barmecide one. As you study him more and 
 more intently, his marvellous subtlety and delicacy, his well-nigh 
 unapproached deftness as an executant, and his deeply poetic feel- 
 ing come gloriously to the front. I look upon him as a land of 
 Gerard Douw turned Andaluz a "Wilkie who has set up his easel 
 in the Alhambra. The ' Village Festival ' is, to me, the ' Spanish 
 Marriage ' writ sumptuous and picturesque. 
 
 One could not help being struck, in the French Fine Art De- 
 partment of the Exhibition, by the paucity of any reference, plastic 
 or graphic, to Napoleon I. The entire Napoleonic Legend is, in 
 truth, at a very sad discount just now in France ; and I am afraid 
 that even in the homes of the peasantry there is but little left of 
 the feelings once entertained for the Emperor and King so ex- 
 quisitely touched upon in Beranger's ' Souvenirs du Peuple : ' 
 
 ' On paiiera de sa gloire, 
 
 Sous le chaume, bien long-temps ; 
 L 'humble toit, clans cinquante ans, 
 Ne connaitra plus d'autre histoire. 
 La viendront les villageois, 
 
 Dire alors a quelque vieille : 
 " Par des re" cits d'autrefois, 
 
 Mere, abregez notre veille." 
 
 " Bien"dit-on qu'il nous ait nui, 
 
 Le peuple encore le revere, 
 
 Oui ! le revere. 
 
 Parlez nous de lui, grand'mere, 
 Parlez nous de lui." ' 
 
 I am afraid that Beranger, all staunch Republican as he had 
 always been, was about the last of the Bonapartists sentiment- 
 ally considered (of course I am not speaking of the political
 
 GRAPHICS AND PLASTICS IN THE EXHIBITION. 241 
 
 adventurers, to whom Imperialism is a trade and a speculation) ; 
 and I am equally afraid that, in the minds of the French 
 peasantry of the existing epoch, Bazeilles and Sedan, the requisi- 
 tions of the Prussians, and the scarcely less odious exactions of the 
 French francs-tircurs, have quite extinguished the touching memo- 
 ries of the man of Marengoand Austerlitz. Beitasitmay, Csesarism 
 is ' quoted very low ' just now, not only in the political, but in the 
 literary and artistic, market. Politically I am indifferent to the 
 fact. Artistically, or rather archaeologically, I selfishly rejoice 
 that mementoes of the great man are to be picked up in the 
 Paris of to-day very cheaply indeed. I nourish a cultus for 
 Napoleon I. I enshrine him in my relic-collecting heart of 
 hearts, not because I am ignorant of the fact of his having 
 been, in many respects, an unconscionable scoundrel a for- 
 sworn, lying, murderous, selfish, tyrannous man ; but because I 
 cannot help admiring the sub -lieutenant of the artillery regiment 
 of La Fere, who, by his own unaided pluck, daring, decision, 
 mental acuteness, and strength of will, contrived to become 
 Emperor of the French, King of Italy, mediator of Switzerland, 
 and Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine. Perhaps, take 
 him for all in all, he was not a greater villain than Julius Csesar, 
 than Alexander, or than Oliver Cromwell ; and there are some 
 who maintain Oliver to have been ' the greatest prince that ever 
 ruled in England ; ' while others hold with Lord Clarendon that 
 the Protector of the Commonwealth, who, uncrowned as he was, 
 died to all intents and purposes a despotic monarch, was only 
 a ' bold bad man.' Who is good ? Was Napoleon, d la longue, 
 quite so disreputable a character as George IV. ? He was 
 assuredly not so great a scamp as Charles II. He did not sell 
 his country for an annual pension from a foreign state. He did 
 not make dukes of a multifarious progeny of byblows, and saddle 
 his subjects with the permanent cost of the young gentlemen's 
 maintenance. He was as great a captain as Marlborough ; but he 
 was not quite so perjured, so impudent, so rapacious, and so mean 
 as John Churchill. So I bow clown one must have a fetish
 
 242 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 before the memory of Napoleon, and assiduously collect all that I 
 can get together of painted and graven, carved and written work 
 connected with him. 
 
 The French painters and sculptors have, as abody, nothing to say, 
 as things political go, to Marengo and Austerlitz, to Jena and Fried- 
 land. They sulkily acquiesced in the reedification of the Vendouie 
 Column, less because they gloried in the Napoleonic victories than 
 because they disliked Courbet, ' audacious pencil-man ' one might 
 call him, paraphrasing Mr. Cartyle's qualification of Tom Paine 
 who for }*ears had been snapping his fingers in the face of French 
 academical art, and who had a prominent finger in flinging down 
 the Vendome Column into the dirt. Raffet and Bellange, Carl 
 and Horace Yernet, the great Tambour-Majors of the Napoleonic 
 epic, are no more ; and M. de Neuville, who, after Philippoteaux, 
 is the most favourite exponent of modern French militarism, 
 restricts his s3Tnpathies to wounded Zouaves and exhausted 
 Turcos, to carousing francs-tireurs and fantassins of regiments de 
 marclie, bent double beneath their inordinate packs, trudging, 
 rifle on shoulder, and their red trousers tucked up to the knee, 
 along rnudd} 7 i-oads or through ensanguined snows. Innumerable 
 episodes of the Franco-German war of 1870-1 stream from the 
 studios of contemporary French painters (many of whom, it must 
 be remembered, took, like poor dead Henri Regnault, an active and 
 heroic part in the struggle). Solferino and Magenta, Balaclava 
 and the Malakoff, are reckoned of as little account as Pharsalia or 
 Marathon ; and if the military artists do, now and again, conde- 
 scend to go a little further back than Le Bourget or Reichshoften, 
 it is to dwell on the Republican glories of Jemappes or Fleurus, to 
 extol the prowess of Hoche, or to show us the corpse of Marceau, 
 lying on its bed of death and glory, and surrounded, not only by 
 weeping Frenchmen, but by deeply moved and sorrowfully reveren- 
 tial Austrian officers. As for the petit cliapcau and the redingote 
 grise, the grand reviews which the Petit Caporal used to hold 
 in the Carrousel, the heroic disasters of the retreat from Russia, 
 the crowning glories and disasters of Quatre Bras and Mont
 
 GRAPHICS AND PLASTICS IN THE EXHIBITION. 243 
 
 St. Jean all these once-famous fasti are now but so man^y 
 old wives' tales, despised, neglected, and all but forgotten. I 
 should like to write a book on the successive influence of politics 
 on French art. It might be made very interesting; but, if justice 
 were done to the subject, the work would be too long. For the 
 rest, it would be difficult to name one single human thing in 
 France which has not been influenced by politics. I read lately a 
 notice of a book entitled Le Parfait Charcutier (the Complete 
 Porkbutcher and Tripe-shopkeeper's Companion), in which the 
 author considered the feasibility of adapting the charcuterie of 
 the ancien regime to the principles of 1789 ! 
 
 Meanwhile, strange to relate, the Italians have, as painters 
 and sculptors, been faithful to the memory of * Napoleon il 
 Grande* 1 The} 1 - were the first, after his coronation as King of 
 Italy at Milan, to give him the appellation. They have not yet 
 revoked the grandiose diploma. He betrayed and cozened them, 
 as he did most people. He promised them an United Italy, and 
 gave them instead a curtailed Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, 
 governed by a puppet viceroy, and a kingdom of Naples ruled by 
 his swashbuckling satellite, Murat, the ex-postilion, who had 
 modesty enough (or it may have been fanfaronade) to keep his 
 post-boy's whip under a glass case in one of his royal palaces. 
 ' Je suis venu de la,' Joachim was wont to say, pointing to the 
 whip. Finally, Napoleon broke, like a thief in the night, into the 
 Quirinal ; kidnapped the Pope ; stole the triple diadem from its 
 shelf, and put it, with the keys of St. Peter, into his pocket. It was 
 the most audacious act of burglary that histoiy had ever recorded. 
 He annexed the States of the Church to France ; the Roman Cam- 
 pagna became the department of the Tiber ; and Perugia was 
 the chef lieu of the department of Thrasymene. He tyrannised 
 over the Italians generally, and squandered their best young 
 blood without stint in his German and Russian campaigns. Y^t 
 he wrought an immensity of material good in the Italian penin- 
 sula : built roads, bridges, hospitals, and aqueducts ; established 
 schools and pawnbroking establishments thus demolishing petty 
 
 E 2
 
 244 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 usury ; and notably, he very sternly put a stop to the horrible 
 manufacture of sopra/i*. He had his reward. Nations are only too 
 placable. The misdeeds of the First Napoleon were soon for- 
 gotten by the Italians. They remembered the good which he had 
 done, and the glory which his name that of a simple Corsican. 
 gentleman had brought their country. They mourned his exile 
 and his death with genuine sorrow ; and in the Cinque Mar/gio, 
 Alessandro Manzoni has stricken a sublimer chord than has beeii 
 touched even by Beranger and Victor Hugo. During his lifetime 
 Antonio Canova made the classic lineaments of Napoleon imperish- 
 ably famous in marble. I ma} 7 ask fairly, without fear of contra- 
 diction, whether, with the exception of Napoleon, there is a single 
 historical personage of modern times whose form could be plas- 
 tically presented undraped? What should we say to a naked 
 Brougham, a naked William Pitt imagine their noses ! an un- 
 draped Peel, a disrobed Gladstone, a Beaconsfield ' mid nodings 
 on ' ? Napoleon I. in Canova's statue, now one of the most highly- 
 prized treasures possessed by the Duke of Wellington at Apsley 
 House, bears, with triumphant success, the crucial test of the 
 nude. You forget that he was a little man not only little, but 
 actually ' stumpy ' you forget all the spiteful libels of Michelet 
 about his having had no eyebrows, and his hair being normally of 
 a sandy-brown, but darkened by pomatum. You see only the 
 classic hero, as classic as the Antinous, as classic as the Apollo 
 Belvedere, as classic as the Discobolos, and heroic enough to hold, 
 as Canova's statue holds, the effigy of Victory in his conquering 
 right hand. 
 
 The fidelity with which the Italians have adhered to that Napo- 
 leonic legend for the time being so scornfully discredited in France 
 is significantly shown in the noble picture by Professor Didioni of 
 Milan, entitled 'Per Ragioni di Stato' (For Reasons of State). The 
 scene is one of the most gorgeous of the saloons in the palace of 
 the Tuileries. Everywhere, on carpets and hangings, on couches 
 and chairbacks, on panels and picture-frames, occurs the cogniz- 
 ance of the Emperor and King the crowned 'NV wreathed with
 
 GRAPHICS AND PLASTICS, IN THE EXHIBITION. 245 
 
 laurels. The time is in the year '10 ; and Caesar is at the height 
 of his grandeur and prosperity. He has reared his brazen column 
 in the Vendoine square. He is building his Arch of Triumph 
 hard by the Barrier of the Etoile. He has held his congress of 
 crowned satellites at Erfurt ; and Talma has travelled thither, at 
 the imperial bidding, to play before ' a pit-full of kings.' During 
 this same congress, at a grand state banquet, the blood of a German 
 Vice-Chamberlain runs cold in his veins (so the Vice-Chamber- 
 lain sa}-s) when he hears this upstart Caesar, this Jupiter Scapin, 
 begin a story thus : ' When I was a sub-lieutenant in the regi- 
 ment of La Fere.' The insolent ! Professor Didioni gives us a 
 wonderful portrait of Napoleon in the ' Ragioni di Stato.' It is 
 only a back view ; but the squarely-moulded head, the somewhat 
 rounded shoulders, the swallow-tailed uniform coat of the Chas- 
 seurs of the Guard, the broad red ribbon of the Legion, the 
 shapely lower limbs clad in kerseymere smalls and white silk hose, 
 all these are inunistakably Napoleonic. But why is his Majesty 
 the Emperor and King shuffling out of the room with a gait very 
 much resembling that of a convicted pickpocket shambling out of 
 the dock at the Old Bailey, when Mr. Montagu Williams has done 
 his best, and the chief warder of Coldbath Fields his worst (by 
 proving previous convictions), for him, and the judge has given 
 the dread doom of eighteen months' hard labour ? Why is there 
 a guilty, mortified I cannot without a paradox say shamefaced, 
 but still a thoroughly humiliated expression in the very back of 
 his Majesty? The reason is miserably obvious. It has just been 
 his painful duty to inform the wife of his bosom the wife of his 
 struggling and poverty-stricken youth that, ' per ragioni di stato,' 
 he intends to turn her out of doors, to wrench asunder the bonds 
 which the Church has tied, and to wed another woman. Appro- 
 priately enough, the man who has just made such an avowal 
 sneaks off, like a caitiff-culprit as he is, in the background. In 
 the foreground, stretched, agonising, cploree, despairing, in a 
 magnificent fauteuil of velvet and gold, is poor Josephine. Well 
 might she swoon ; but her long-pent-up anguish finds relief in a
 
 246 PAEIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 passion of tears. The lady of honour who tends her imperial mis- 
 tress, momentarily turns her head towards the retreating figure of 
 the Emperor, and eyes him with a look of concentrated wrath and 
 scorn. One hand holds a handkerchief, with which she would fain 
 dry Josephine's tears ; but the other hand is vengefully clenched. 
 I fancy that this high-mettled dame d']ionneur would 'go for ' the 
 recreant Cresar an she dared. I fancy that her own husband, say 
 M. le Marechal Georget, Due de Dandin, would pass rather an 
 uncomfortable quarter of an hour were he to hint to Madame la 
 Marechale the expediency of a divorce and a separate maintenance 
 ' per ragioni di stato.' ' I'll reasons of State you ! ' I think I hear 
 Madame la Marechale exclaim as she seizes the handle of the 
 silver coffeepot. But poor Josephine was never a woman of any 
 spirit. She lacked muscle of mind. She was a Creole, and had 
 all the Creole mollesse. Her attitude in the picture is one only 
 of dolorous submission. , 
 
 The execution of Professor Diclioni's picture is superb. The 
 colour is as glowing and the handling as dexterous as can be 
 found in any example of the Fortuny or Madrazo school ; but he 
 has not been betrayed into any of those chromatic tours de force 
 which so closely trench upon trickery. The costumes of the 
 Empress and her suivante are scrupulous!}' faithful to the fashions 
 of the epoch delineated. The heavy trains of satin and brocade, 
 the Marie de' Medicis ruff, the long gloves with eight buttons, the 
 jewelled stomachers and necklaces, are all unimpeachably ' style 
 Premier Empire.' As regards the furniture and accessories, one 
 might be puzzled to tell whence an Italian, resident in the capital 
 of Lombardy, had acquired so curiously accurate a knowledge of 
 the upholstery and decorations characteristic of the First Empire, 
 were it not remembered that the ro}-al palace at Milan still boasts 
 the furniture and the embellishments which it possessed seventy 
 years ago, when it was the residence of Eugene Beauhamais, 
 viceroy of Italy. I take this picture of Professor Didioni to be an 
 example of the very highest form of historical genre such genre as 
 was so capably illustrated by our own lamented Augustus Egg, and,
 
 GRAPHICS AND PLASTICS IN THE EXHIBITION. 2-47 
 
 in the earlier stages of liis career, by the more recently to be 
 deplored Edward Matthew Ward, R.A. It will be remembered 
 that the divorce of Napoleon and Josephine furnished Mr. Ward, 
 some sixteen years ago, with the subject for a very effective picture 
 the effect being one of lamplight ; and I may mention that, in 
 my own drawing-room at home, I have hanging two powerful pen- 
 and-ink sketches, by my lamented friend, of the retreating figure 
 of Napoleon back views as in the Didioni picture and suggesting 
 the same guilty sneaking gait. These sketches were made for the 
 picture of ' The last Meeting of Napoleon I. and Queen Charlotte 
 of Prussia at Tilsit.' It is certain that poor E. M. Ward never 
 saw the ' Eagioni di Stato,' yet by a curious coincidence the atti- 
 tude of his swooning Prussian queen closely resembles that of the 
 despairing Josephine. 
 
 The place taken by Russia in the Fine Arts Department of the 
 Exhibition was, both graphically and plastically, a very prominent 
 one. Do you remember the colossal composition of M. Sienie- 
 radski, ' Les Torches Yivantes de Neron' (Nero's Living Illumi- 
 nations) ? This astounding work may have been suggested to 
 M. Siemeradski by reading M. Ernest Kenan's Apotres. Nero 
 was assuredly the most sensational theatrical manager of his age. 
 In getting up melodramas with ' unprecedented spectacular effects ' 
 he was unrivalled. Blase with his scenes in the circus, in which 
 the wretched Christians were only torn to pieces by wild beasts, 
 the imperial Ducrow conceived the idea of a grand nocturnal fete 
 a kind of infernal Yauxhall or diabolical Cremorne, with so many 
 hundred additional Galileans as precursors of the ' twenty thou- 
 sand additional lamps ' of the old ' royal property.' So he lighted up 
 the long esplanade of the Golden House with a perfectly new and 
 original series of ' Torches Vivantes.' A detachment of Christians 
 among whom there may have been some criminals whom it was 
 deemed expedient to execute in a decorative manner : between the 
 lamp-post and the Gemonian Steps there was not much to choose : 
 were neatly smeared from head to foot with pitch. Bands of tow, 
 equally well tarred, were wound round their limbs, so that they
 
 248 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX. 
 
 might catch fire all the more quickly ; and they were then, at given 
 intervals, hoisted up to iron standards of highly ornamental design, 
 and connected one with the other by festoons of flowers. What 
 jokes the Roman workmen must have cracked mercurial children 
 of the sunny South ! as they coated the luckless Galileans with 
 pitch and tar, and dahhed lumps of resin-indued tow over them, 
 and so garrotted and triced them up to the ornamental standards ! 
 Tailing and feathering in the Northern States of America, or 
 tarring and cottoning in the South (the last a freak frequently 
 played with Abolitionists prior to the Great Civil War), could have 
 been as nothing, looked upon as a frolic, compared with the racy 
 humours of the Golden House. The night of festivity being 
 come, and the Palatine Court assembled, on a signal being given 
 the human torches were all at once kindled. What horrid yells, 
 what fearful groans, what piteous appeals for mercy, must have 
 come from those poor roasting bodies up there, among the fes- 
 toons of flowers ! It was part of the inscrutable wisdom of Provi- 
 dence not to permit the Devil then and there to make his appear- 
 ance and carry away the Emperor Nero to hell ; nay, many centuries 
 afterwards, the Living Torches of the Maison Doree were allowed 
 to serve several generations of Grand Inquisitors in Spain, Por- 
 tugal, Rome, Goa, and other places with models and exemplars 
 for that brilliantly orthodox entertainment, truly spectacular in its 
 mise en scene, the auto dafe. 
 
 M. Sierneradski has done his best with his horribly suggestive 
 subject. Nero's Golden House, imposing in its architecture, 
 occupies two-thirds of the canvas, and staircases and galleries are 
 thronged with the elite of Roman society ; members of consular 
 families, senators, aidiles, knights, and Vestal Virgins, mingled with 
 gladiators, mountebanks, dancing girls, merctriccs, and slaves the 
 last only too happy that it was not their turn this time to be tarred 
 and towed, and hung up as aerial bonfires. The Emperor Nero was, I 
 have no doubt, immensely pleased with the performance. I wonder 
 what the great Roman ladies and the Vestal Virgins thought of 
 it. Well, the ladies of the court of Louis Quinze went to see the
 
 GRAPHICS AND PLASTICS IN THE EXHIBITION. 249 
 
 wretched Damiens suffer, in the Place de Greve, tortures quite 
 as atrocious as those inflicted on the Galileans on the Palatine Hill. 
 The miserable monomaniac who had feebly pushed a penknife 
 against one of the ribs of the Most Christian King had, what with 
 the question ordinaire and the question extraordinaire what with 
 the boots, the thumbikins, and the picket, been tormented half to 
 death or ever he came to the scaffold. When they got him there, 
 Sanson and his men tore his flesh repeatedly with iron pincers, 
 and poured melted lead, pitch, sulphur, and what not into the 
 gaping wounds. Then he was tied hands and feet to the tails of 
 four horses, which were beaten and spurred in contrary directions, 
 with the intent of tearing his body in four quarters. That won- 
 derful machine, Heaven-built, called the human frame an appa- 
 ratus which so soon as we begin to understand something of its 
 mechanism we proceed to abuse proved, however, in Damien's 
 case, much tougher than the sentencing judges and the performing 
 executioners had imagined. The wretch would not come to pieces 
 without much sawing at his sinews and jagging at his articulations 
 by Sanson and his aides. Meanwhile the four horses were fiercely 
 slashed by the whips of the assistants to make them pull the 
 stronger. ' O, les pauv' zevaux ! ' (O, the poor horses !) squealed, 
 in the lisping court-jargon of the time, the great ladies from Ver- 
 sailles. They had been diverting themselves with this hellish 
 butchery, as though it had been an opera or a ballet. Some of 
 them brought pantins or puppets, the limbs of which were set in 
 motion by means of a string, to the show in the Place de Greve. 
 
 Well, if 'slaughter' be 'God's daughter,' as the mild Words- 
 worth, 'booing his pottery'* at Grasmere, crudely, yet perhaps 
 truly, put the matter, cruelty would certainly appear to be 
 humanity's foster-sister. We are all abominably cruel, in words 
 or in deeds, at some period or another. 'Get age est sans pitie,' 
 
 * An old lady who was a neighbour of the Bard told an inquisitive 
 American tourist that Wordsworth -was ' no bad sort of a mon,' except when 
 he went 'trottin' aboot the grass, booin' his pottery' reciting his poetry, I 
 conclude.
 
 250 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 the good La Fontaine wrote, of children. Our young ones pore 
 over the pretty pictures of animals in Little Folks or Chatterbox, 
 and then they go and worry the kitten, or make the life of the dog 
 a torment to him. Schoolboys will resort to butchers' slaughter- 
 houses as to a place of entertainment, and club their pence to fee 
 the slaughterer to kill a bullock. I saw one killed five-and-thirty 
 years ago at Slater's, at Knightsbridge. It was a grand sight ; 
 but I am sure that I could not bear to see any creature deliberately 
 killed now. Yet Spanish ladies will smilingly sit out a bullfight, 
 the sight of which makes many strong Englishmen physically 
 sick ; and English ladies see no harm in assisting at a 'tournament 
 of doves' in other words, the wanton massacre of flocks of harm- 
 less pigeons. If } T OU, of malice aforethought, "were to shoot at a 
 pigeon in the streets of Moscow or St. Petersburg, the mob would 
 fall upon you or stone you ; and in 1855-6, when Constantinople 
 was full of British officers proceeding to or returning from the 
 Crimea, the Turks were Avith difficulty restrained from 'going for' 
 the smart young subalterns who amused themselves by roaming 
 about with revolvers at night, and 'potting' the homeless harm- 
 less dogs of Pera and Galata. Yet Russians and Turks can be, 
 on occasion, as cruel as other folk.* 
 
 Returning to the Russian Fine Art Department, I notice an 
 exceptionally 'cruel' work of Muscovite art in a picture represent- 
 ing what at first sight seemed to be a masquerade, or rather a bal 
 pare et travesti, since, although the assistants, male and female, 
 were clad in the most extravagant fancy costumes, they wore no 
 masks. In particular were you struck by the number of dwarfs of 
 
 * ' We all do it.' Here we have Sir Bartle Frere prating about Cetewayo's 
 army as a ' frightfully efficient man-slaying machine,' while every Jingo is 
 ready, in verse or prose, to qualify the Zulus as ' murderous savages ; ' and lo, 
 in an illustrated paper, the other day, I saw an engraving of a knot of gallant 
 officers of a Highland regiment shooting with their revolvers at the seagulls 
 from the deck of a transport at sea. This engaging picture was called ' Prac- 
 tising for the Zulus.' Amiable incident ! So many Zulus must be killed, of 
 course, for every one of our men assegaied at Isandula ; but what had the sea- 
 gulls done that they were to be ruthlessly slaughtered ?
 
 32 S 
 
 i!
 
 GRAPHICS AND PLASTICS IX THE EXHIBITION. 251 
 
 both sexes, hideously deformed, and bedizened in dresses the 
 grotesque splendour of which made their deformity only the more 
 repulsive. There was a strong contingent, too, of zebra-striped 
 buffoons and zanies Triboulets and Rigolettos of Petropolis. 
 There were dancers too in grand court-dress, blazing with jewels 
 and gold embroidery ; but they had all an odd, coarse, pinchbeck 
 patrician look, as though they were in reality princes of the stable 
 and princesses of the scullery. The kitchen, indeed, played a 
 conspicuous part in the festival. This rabble rout of jesters and 
 glorified lacqueys and chambermaids advanced mopping and mow- 
 ing, grimacing and posturing, and brandishing aloft pots, pans, 
 gridirons, soup-ladles, pokers, shovels, and tongs, witli which they 
 simulated one of those derisive symphonies known in Germany as 
 ' katzenmusik,' in France as a 'charivari,' and in England as 'rough 
 music.' Such ' music ' is being played at the procession of the 
 ' Skimmington ' in Hogarth's illustrations to Hudibras. Its latest 
 form of expression in London was the 'marrow-bones and cleavers' 
 concerts, now nearly obsolete, of the butchers on the occasion of 
 a wedding between the sons and daughters of their craft. In the 
 last century the blue-jerkined gentry did not confine their caco- 
 phonic attentions to the marriages of members of their own calling. 
 No fashionable wedding in the parishes of St. George's, Hanover 
 Square, and St. James's, Piccadilly, was complete without the 
 marrow-bones and cleavers, which in process of time became 
 engines of intimidation and extortion. The law had at last to 
 interfere to abrogate the butchers' insolent demands for backsliisli. 
 But why this horrible concourse of discordant sounds in the 
 Russian picture ? Well, there are a bride and bridegroom to 
 be saluted. 'Benedick, the married man,' sitting on a couch 
 of honour under a canopy of state, is a poor miserable dwarf, 
 with a j'ellow, wrinkled, half baboon-like face, fraught with an 
 expression of unutterable woe. His teeth are chattering; his 
 nose and his finger-tips are blue. Beatrix, his spouse, likewise 
 a pigmy, pitiable to look upon, is in no better case than her lord. 
 She crouches and shivers by his side. Observe that the wretched-
 
 252 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 looking bride and bridegroom are sumptuously clad, although 
 their apparel is of the thinnest possible materials. Their robes 
 are of almost transparent silk and gauze ; whereas their enter- 
 tainers the jesters and zanies, the princes of the stable and 
 the princesses of the scullery, have a plenitude of comfortable fur- 
 lined vestments. Presently you begin to ask yourselves why these 
 glowingly coloured groups their faces seem to have been illumined 
 by copious potations of vodka, hot tea, and punch should be con- 
 trasted with a background of the palest and most diaphanous tints. 
 The columns and archways, the balustrades and vases, the enriched 
 ceiling, the couch of honour, and the canopy, of state, belong un- 
 mistakably to a palace. But it seems, to all physical appearance, to 
 be a palace of crystal. Error. Consider that faint greenish tinge 
 which overspreads the whole background, and the nuptial couch and 
 canopy to boot. It is a Palace of Ice ! That is why the bride and 
 bridegroom are gibbering and shivering on their haut j)fts. The 
 poor little wretches are half frozen. It has been the whim, the 
 caprice, the good pleasure, in fine, of her Imperial Majesty the 
 Czarina of All the Puissias Anne or Elizabeth, I forget which to 
 marry her favourite homuncitlus to her female pigmy in ordinary. 
 All the dwarfs and dwarfesses, all the fous and the folks of the 
 great court Boyards, have been bidden to the festival ; and, to add 
 excruciating humour to the frolic, her Majesty's architect and her 
 Majesty's upholsterer and decorator, aided by any number of obe- 
 dient slaves, have built, on the frozen bosom of a lake in the 
 grounds of the Imperial residence, a Glacial Palace. 
 
 "NVe used to read this story in schoolbook collections of anec- 
 dotes ever so many years ago ; and I confess that, even as a boy, 
 I regarded the tale only as a lying wonder. But if the painter a 
 Professor of the Imperial Acadern}" of St. Petersburg of the picture 
 in the Exposition is to be trusted, this barbarous act of cruelty was 
 really committed. I never learned what became of the wantonly 
 toitured man-and-wife dwarfs. Perhaps they died of frost-bite. 
 People did not trouble themselves much about the possibility of 
 such contingencies at the Russian Court, and in the middle of the
 
 GRAPHICS AND PLASTICS IN THE EXHIBITION. 253 
 
 eighteenth century. Nor, in the last quarter of the nineteenth, 
 does the Academical Professor who has produced this undeniably 
 clever work seem to look upon the palace of ice in any other light 
 than as an intensely comic episode of Eussian life and manners. 
 He might try his hand with advantage on the equally characteristic 
 and even more dramatic tableau of the knouting of Madame Lapou- 
 khin, who, after she had been scourged, was branded on the forehead 
 and had her nostrils torn asunder always in accordance with the 
 good- will and pleasure of her Imperial Majesty the Czarina of All 
 the Russias. Well ; it was the fault rather of the century than of 
 the Czarina. At the very eve of the great French Revolution did 
 not an English nobleman witness, in the courtyard of a prison in 
 Paris, the whipping and branding with the letter 'V voleuse of 
 the luckless Countess de la Motte, the heroine of the Diamond 
 Necklace swindle ? 
 
 I have not yet noticed, in English accounts of the Russian 
 contributions to art at the Exposition, any mention of the curious 
 plastic exhibit of Professor Le Vittoux of Warsaw. It seems to 
 have occurred to this gentleman (presumably of French extraction) 
 that provincial schools of art, especially in Russia, are sometimes 
 very badly off for life-models female models in particular. In 
 some governments of Russia the ' fair ' sex are only fail- by cour- 
 tesy ; in many cases they are indeed stunted in stature, and in face 
 and form extremely ugry. In other provinces, where the women of 
 the humbler classes are comelier, the priests are averse from allow- 
 ing their catechumens to sit as models. So Professor Le Vittoux 
 picked out the likeliest young Polish damsel he could light upon, 
 and for a handsome consideration, doubtless persuaded her to 
 allow herself to be cast from top to toe in plaster- of-Paris. The 
 operation was performed in a single 'coulage' or casting; but how the 
 .young lady was cut or sawn or scooped out of her whited sepulchre is 
 not explained. The strangely successful result was apparent, how- 
 ever, in a special cabinet of the Russian section, into which ladies 
 were not invited to enter, but which, as they did enter it, to criticise 
 its contents with much apparent curiosity and interest at all hours
 
 254 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX. 
 
 of the day, I may be permitted, I hope without offence, briefly to 
 dwell upon. Indeed, it would be squeamishness of the most hypo- 
 critical kind to pass bj- in silence a display of which the definite 
 object was to further the cause of art-education. 
 
 You saw, then, in a room into which the light had been cau- 
 tiously admitted, two representations, life-size, in plaster of the 
 Polish life-model. Both were recumbent one on the face, the 
 other on the back. The naturalness of the plaster reduplication 
 of the human form was simply wonderful ; but by the process of 
 casting, one perhaps inevitable, albeit unanticipated, effect had been 
 produced. The sudden contact of the wet plaster with the skin had 
 produced in the poor girl what is called ' chair de poule ' or ' goose- 
 flesh,' and had covered the skin with a corrugation of innumerable 
 follicles. This was unjust to the fair Varsorienne, since it stigma- 
 tised her with a coarseness of skin which probably in reality she did 
 not possess. The form was very symmetrical ; the face quiet and 
 kindly looking, but too irregular in feature to be considered pretty. 
 I looked at the hands in which every wrinkle of the epidermis 
 was reproduced with microscopic exactitude narrowly. On the 
 first finger of the left hand were the innumerable punctures made 
 by the needle in passing through work from right to left ; and 
 on the second finger of the right hand was the unmistakable 
 depression of the phalange made by the rim of the thimble. Not 
 a peasant-girl, evidently, this Venus of Warsaw the hands were 
 too small for that but a milliner-girl, or some other kind of 
 sempstress. The feet were horrible. The atrocious bottines of 
 modern civilisation had wrought their usual wreckage of Nature's 
 handiwork; and the outcome were two wrinkled and contorted 
 lumps of callosity. If a selection of life-models who had never 
 worn shoes or stockings and let me whisper that the ligature 
 which is the cognizance of the Most Noble Order which was not 
 founded by Edward III. in honour of the Countess of Salisbury 
 does quite as much harm, artistic all y speaking, to the female 
 leg as is done to the foot by the boot or the high-heeled shoe 
 could be obtained, Professor Le Vittoux's well-meant experi-
 
 GRAPHICS AND PLASTICS IN THE EXHIBITION. 255 
 
 ment might bear good fruit ; and schools of art might be enabled 
 by the aid of these plaster-casts to dispense to a very considerable 
 extent with life-models. Unfortunately the Professor has yet 
 another foe to contend with in the shape of the bust-strangling 
 corset. If the Venus of Medicis had worn stays, she would never, 
 I warrant, have enchanted the world. 
 
 Although there is an astoundingly abundant display of sculp- 
 ture in the Exposition Universelle, and although a large number 
 of the works exhibited are extremely graceful, there are not many 
 of really surpassing excellence works that at once become famous, 
 and take their place instanter in the cosmopolitan Walhalla, as 
 Oanova's ' Graces,' as Thorwaldsen's ' Venus ' and ' Night and 
 Morning,' as Danneker's ' Ariadne,' as Kiss's ' Amazon,' and as 
 Gibson's ' Tinted Venus ' did. I miss even from the Palace of the 
 Champ de Mars any very striking example of such intense and 
 pathetic reflection as was manifest in the never-to-be-forgotten 
 ' Reading Girl' in our Exhibition of 1862, or as was shown in the 
 * Napoleon at St. Helena' in the Paris Exposition of 1867. You 
 remember that wondrous composition : the Captive Conqueror, 
 enveloped in a loose dressing-gown, leaning back, weakened by an 
 agonising disease, in his armchair ; his cheeks hollowed, his fea- 
 tures sharpened, his eyes sunken, his hands worn almost to skin 
 and bone, and outstretched on his knees a map of the World. 
 Recent Italian sculpture seems equally indifferent to the exam- 
 ples offered \>y antiquity, by the soft Paganism of Canova, or by 
 the severer Atticism of Thorwaldsen and Gibson. The graceful 
 tours deforce of Rafaelle Monti, of 'Veiled Slave' celebrit} r , still 
 find plenty of imitators among his countrymen, and marvellously 
 skilful simulations of diaphanous drapery, of lace and net work in 
 marble, may be found in the Italian section ; but on the whole 
 the sculptors of the Peninsula seem to have banded themselves 
 together in four distinct groups, producers first of the simple nude 
 very symmetrical, very soft, very pleasing, and altogether free 
 from the ' fleshliness ' of Pradier, but deficient in nerve and force ; 
 next of groups and single figures of young children, graceful,
 
 256 PARIS HEESELF AGAIN. 
 
 innocent, and charming; thirdly, of compositions of a stupidly 
 frivolous and ineretri'cious kind, cocottes, Fan/an Benoitons, debar - 
 deurs, and the like, in modern ' fancy ' costumes, wholly unfit for 
 treatment in marble, and all of which are, to me, simply abhorrent; 
 and, lastly, groups of a downright comic character, such as ' I was 
 First, Sir,' and the * Dirty Boy,' concerning which I shall have 
 something to say presently. 
 
 In the English Fine Art section Mr. Frederick Leighton's 
 noble bronze statue of the ' Athlete struggling with a Python ' has 
 attracted during the Exhibition the most attentive observation. 
 "When the ' Athlete' was first exhibited at Burlington House I was 
 purposely reticent in the critical remarks which I was called upon 
 to make on it ; purposely so, because a great work in sculpture 
 belongs not to any particular country or school, but to the world 
 at large ; and because I wished to hear what experienced foreign 
 critics would have to say respecting the adventurous plastic effort 
 of the most accomplished and most versatile of English artists. 
 Not one foreign lover of art out of fifty thousand has the oppor- 
 tunity perhaps of seeing a painting by Millais or by Edwin Land- 
 seer, and the vast majority of the foreigners who have seen the 
 pictures of such British masters as those whom I have named, 
 these six months past, in Paris, will, in all probability, never look 
 upon them again ; while engravings, however skilful, from their 
 pictures can give but a very faint idea of the genius and skill dis- 
 played in the original works. A celebrated statue goes, on the 
 other hand, the round of the whole world. Not only may the 
 marble mason execute an indefinite number of replicas of the 
 original, but it may also be multiplied ad infinitum and in every 
 variety of form, in terra-cotta, in papier-mache, in earthenware, in 
 plaster ay, and even in chocolate or in soap. Painting is vir- 
 tually local. Sculpture is universal ; and a cast of the ' Venus de* 
 Medicis,' bought for 3s. 6(7. in Leather Lane, is, to all the intents 
 and purposes of corporeal beaut}', as enchanting as the ' Venus de' 
 Medicis ' in the Tribune at Florence. This is why I waited to 
 hear w r hat the foreign critics had to say about the ' Athlete ' of Mr.
 
 GRAPHICS AND PLASTICS IN THE EXHIBITION. 257 
 
 Frederick Leigliton. I ain glad, to find that the superb work is 
 well-nigh unanimously applauded ; that the anatomical accuracy 
 of the modelling, the harmony of the lines, and the general balance 
 of the composition, are cheerfully recognised by those most quali- 
 fied to judge. The only remark in disparagement of a work of 
 which, and of its author, England should be proud, is the perhaps 
 hypercritical objection that it is not only substantially but spiri- 
 tually of bronze. Neither the Athlete nor the Python was ever of 
 flesh and blood, the hypercritics say. Man and reptile alike lack 
 vitality. 
 
 That which is by far the most fascinating, and has been the 
 most popular, work of sculpture in the Exhibition is ' LaBaigneuse,' 
 a full-length figure, in marble, by Professor Tabacchi of Milan. 
 The statue, which is about a third less than life size, is that of a 
 young girl, certainly not more than seventeen years of age, attired 
 in a closely-fitting bathing dress, who, her arms extended diagon- 
 ally above her head, and the tips of the fingers of each pretty hand 
 lightly touching each other, is preparing to take a ' header ' into a 
 supposititious pool of water at her feet. It is to be hoped that the 
 amateur who has been fortunate enough to become the possessor 
 of this charming Bather will place a marble basin, encircling a sheet 
 of plate glass, at the foot of the statue, so as to give a complete re- 
 flection of the figure, which real water, if shallow, could not present. 
 The bathing-dress leaves the arms and lower limbs bare, and dis- 
 plays the exquisite modelling of the muscles modelling at once 
 perfect from a symmetrical and from a rigidly anatomical point of 
 view. The girl's face, her head bent slightly downwards towards 
 her plunge-bath, is deliciously naive and artless, yet not devoid of 
 a slight expression of girlish sauciness. It is Thomson's Musidora, 
 but Musidora before she has left Madam Soberside's Finishing 
 Academy Musidora who has not yet lost her appetite for bread- 
 and-butter and almond-rock Musidora before the swains have 
 begun to sigh after her. And this lends to the work its greatest 
 charm. The girl, for all that every line of her rounded form can 
 be traced, is abstractedly as decorous as a youthful Quakeress in a
 
 258 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 drab-silk dress, a brown silk shawl, and a coalscuttle bonnet. She 
 is nearly as scantily clad as the Simple Truth, the Gymna Aletheia 
 herself; but she is as beautiful and as pure. Still I confess that 
 the statue of a pretty school girl about to take a ' header ' is not a 
 work of High Art. That Professor Tabacchi is capable of efforts 
 of a much higher order than are shown in ' La Baigneuse,' is 
 sufficiently manifested in his noble statue of ' Hypatia,' a full- 
 length nude figure of the unfortunate lady-lecturer at the Uni- 
 versity of Alexandria, chained to a post. The luckless advocate of 
 the Higher Education of Women was, so the legends say, scraped 
 to death with oyster-shells ; but Professor Tabacchi has wisely 
 represented Hypatia before, and not after the infliction of the 
 scarifying operation in question. 
 
 But what am I to say of Sigor Giovanni Focardi's uncompro- 
 misingly comic statue of the urchin whose face is being lathered, 
 much against his will, by his exasperated grandmother, and to 
 which the legend, ' O, you Dirty Boy ! ' is attached ? ' Est-il sale ! ' 
 as the French call the uncleanly youth, has been surrounded every- 
 day by groups of people from all parts of the world, roaring with 
 laughter at Signor Giovanni Focardi's irresistibly droll perform- 
 ance ; for most of us have had grandmothers, and more of us 
 have violently objected to having our faces washed when we were 
 3 r oung. But now that long years separate us from those agonies 
 of soap and water and rough towels, those fearful tortures when 
 the ruthless huckaback was applied behind the ears Hypatia 
 under the oyster-shells could not have endured a worse martyrdom 
 we can afford to laugh over the plastic commemoration of our 
 bygone misery. The group of the ' Dirty Boy ' which has set so 
 many hundreds of thousand folks, gentle and simple, screaming 
 with merriment in Paris is, however, only a model in plaster of the 
 original work, which is a group in marble, commissioned from the 
 sculptor by the very old firm of English soap-makers they date 
 from 1789 Messrs. A. & F. Pears of London. They have been 
 Prize Medallists at Exhibitions in all parts of the world, from the 
 year 1851 downwards, and have, I hear, again won a prize medal
 
 GRAPHICS AND PLASTICS IN THE EXHIBITION. 259 
 
 at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1878. The marble of the 
 ' Dirt}- Boy ' is not yet complete, but so soon as it leaves Signor 
 Focardi's studio it is to be permanently exhibited at the London 
 establishment of Messrs. Pears. The copyright of the work goes 
 of course with the statue, and the 'Dirty Boy' will probably 
 henceforth be the legally-protected trade-mark for the wares pro- 
 duced by Messrs. A. & F. Pears. The ' Dirty Boy' will supersede, 
 I suppose, the highly humorous dual picture of the little blacka- 
 moor who is being put into a bath preparatory to being thoroughly 
 well washed with ' Pears's transparent soap ' a toilet article used 
 as extensively on the Continent as in England, and which is the 
 invention of the house in Great Russell Street. The highest of 
 authorities on the skin, Professor Erasmus Wilson, has warmly 
 testified to the virtues of Pears's Transparent Soap, as ' one of the 
 most agreeable and refreshing balms for the skin ' an opinion 
 which I, in common with every one who has made use of the soap, 
 readily indorse ; but besides this the little blackamoor in the bath 
 must, pictoiially considered, be regarded as a very important wit- 
 ness in the case. After a short course of the Transparent Soap 
 he emerges from his tub as white as wool, all but his face, which 
 has not been washed. Now, precisely a different result is visible 
 in Signer Focardi's ' Dirty Boy.' His arms and hands have been 
 satisfactorily cleansed, but it is on his much-begrimed countenance 
 that his indefatigable but em-aged grandparent is finally operating. 
 She looks as though she could scrub twenty little blackamoors 
 white in five minutes ; but, O, what dreadful anguish former gene- 
 rations of ' Dirty Boys ' must have endured before Messrs. Pears 
 discovered the refreshing and balmy virtues of Transparent Soap !
 
 m 
 
 XVII. 
 
 DINNER-TIME IN PARIS. 
 
 Sept. 16. 
 
 THE late Mr. Nathaniel Parker Willis, in his PcnciUinys l>y tlie 
 Way a book of travels which, to nay thinking, is entitled to hold 
 a place between Mrs. Trollope's book on America and the Diary 
 of an Invalid wrote a vivacious description of a fair young Vien- 
 nese lady who was his opposite neighbour during his stay in the 
 Kaiserstadt, and with whom he confessed that he would have fallen 
 madly in love had it not been for the insatiable appetite with 
 which she was afflicted. A narrow street and an open window 
 made Mr. Willis an involuntary participant in the secrets of the
 
 DINNEE-TIME IN PARIS. 261 
 
 menage over the way ; and it was impossible for him to shut his 
 e} r es to the fact that the blue-eyed and flaxen-haired frdulcin ate 
 four substantial meals a day, to say nothing of an after-supper 
 butterbrod or so and a seidel of beer or two before retiring to rest. 
 Now, Mr. Willis's own countrymen, the Americans, are not by 
 any means accounted contemptible trenchermen. At least three, 
 and often four, copious repasts, into which meat, hot or cold, 
 enters largely, form the staple of your board at a first-class Ameri- 
 can hotel ; and, as though with a view towards preparing you for 
 the ordeal of overfeeding which you are bound to go through in the 
 States, you are offered every day on board the Cunard steamship 
 which conveys you from Queen stown to Boston or New York a 
 tremendous breakfast, a hearty lunch, a prodigious dinner, a sub- 
 stantial tea, and any pretty little tiny kickshaws in the way of 
 grilled bones and "Welsh rarebits that William Steward may like to 
 have dished up for you before bedtime. When poor Nathaniel 
 Parker Willis wrote his pleasant book some forty years ago, the 
 table d'hote of the Astor House, New York is there any Astor 
 House now ? was held to be the most splendidly provided among 
 all the hotels of the American Continent. The ' Penciller by the 
 W^ay ' was an habitue of the Astor House ; yet he professed to be 
 shocked by the spectacle of a young lady in Vienna who got com- 
 fortably through her four meals a day, and looked all the prettier 
 for her yourmandise. 
 
 To subdue a tendency towards prejudice, and to avoid taking 
 one-sided views of things, are among my most constant aspirations. 
 It is quite possible that on a variety of topics I am unconsciously 
 the bitterest of partisans ; but at least I try my hardest to be im- 
 partial. Here have I now been, for many weeks, a Stranger and a 
 Pilgrim in Paris, under circumstances almost totally different from 
 any that I can remember to have been formerly subjected to in this 
 metropolis. I have seen, designedly, scarcely anything of my own 
 countrymen ; I have lived almost altogether in the open air I am 
 writing this letter in a balcony ; I have breakfasted and dined at a 
 restaurant every day, and rarely twice at the same place ; and I
 
 262 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 arn continually asking myself whether I am right or wrong in the 
 persuasion, which every day has been growing stronger within me, 
 that the modern Parisians devote a great deal too much time 
 every day to eating and drinking, and that, while the people seem 
 to crowd the public eating-houses to a greater extent than ever, 
 the Art of Cookery is slowly but surely deteriorating and degene- 
 rating among them. In the last respect I am glad to find my 
 opinion shared by so high an authority as M. Abraham Dreyfus, 
 who, in a remarkable article on Cooks and Cookery in the XlXme 
 Sicde, points out that it is every day becoming more difficult to 
 secure the services of really accomplished cooks, for the reason 
 that first-rate chefs can always command much larger salaries in 
 London, in Berlin, in Vienna, in St. Petersburg, in Xew York, 
 and in San Francisco, than they can obtain in Paris ; and that at 
 the slightest reprimand which they receive from their patrons they 
 threaten to ' rendre le tablier ' which is the technical term for 
 resigning. Again, the first-rate chefs plead that when they enter 
 the service of a restaurateur whose customers are many and 
 hungry the finest efforts of their art are, through the gluttony of 
 the guests, ill understood, if understood at all. A not dissimilar 
 complaint has been heard ere now from the chef of a London club. 
 ' A quoi &on,' he has pleaded, ' is it for me to rack my invention to 
 put eight fresh entrees in every day's menu, when out of an average 
 of a hundred diners in the coffee-room seventy-five dine off a 
 plain fish and the joint?' For a French cook to be misunderstood 
 is the most unpardonable outrage that can be inflicted on him. 
 ' Je lui ai compost,' said the great Careme bitterly of our George 
 IV., ' une longe de veau en surprise. II 1'a mangee ; mais il n'a 
 pas su la comprendre.' So the disgusted cook ' composed ' a last 
 sauce, which he called ' La Derniere Pensee de Careme,' and retired 
 from the Royal service. Had he remained at Carlton House a 
 catastrophe as lugubrious as that of Vatel might have happened. 
 
 It is lamentable to learn, on the authority of M. Abraham 
 Dreyfus, the opinion of a culinary artist, who, next to MM. Jules 
 Gouffe and Urbain Dubois, is universally acknowledged to be the
 
 DINNER-TIME IN PARIS. 
 
 263 
 
 first chef in Europe, that the only remedy for the evils under which 
 gastronomic France is suffering is the establishment of a Conser- 
 vatoire Culinaire, or National School of Cookery. Imagine the 
 
 Parisians, the nation of cooks par excellence, coming down to the 
 complexion of South Kensington ! Meanwhile, it is my intention 
 to_/take stock' the expression is less metaphorical than technical
 
 264 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 of the existing condition of Public Cookery in Paris, premising 
 that I am criticising that cookery quite apart from the menu of 
 the clubs, of diplomac} T , or that ' haute cuisine bourgeoise ' which 
 you enjoy in French private houses, and of all of which I have 
 seen in my time as much as most people. I shall be willing, 
 again, to make due allowances for the exceptional pressure on 
 all places of public entertainment in Paris caused by the Exhibi- 
 tion a disturbing element which has enhanced the price and 
 lowered the standard of excellence in every appliance of civilisation 
 in this vast city. I need scarcely say that my acquaintance with 
 the metropolis of France is not of the day before yesterday. It 
 dates, indeed, from the midst of the reign of Louis Philippe, when 
 Beauvillier's and Hardy's had ceased, it is true, to exist, but when 
 the chief and surpassingly excellent restaurants in Paris were 
 the Trois Freres Provencaux, Very's, Vefour's, D'Ouix (the Cafe 
 Corazza) all in the Palais Royal; the Cafe de Paris, the Rocher 
 de Cancale ; the renowned restaurant in the Rue Neuve des Petits- 
 Champs, where Thackeray ate the bouillabaisse, and called for 'the 
 Chambertin with yellow seal' Philippe's in the Rue Montorgeuil, 
 and the Cafe' Anglais. About the year '36, there was published a 
 remarkable article on French gastronomy in the Quarterly Review, 
 which, if I had it by me, would remind me of at least a dozen more 
 equally good, albeit not quite so famous, Parisian restaurants of 
 the last generation ; but those which I have mentioned enjoyed at 
 the time of which I speak the highest prestige. As for Durand's, 
 the Restaurant de la Madeleine, now one of the most fashionable 
 and most expensive restaurants in Paris, I remember it in 1839 
 as an admirably provided eating-house, to which a very near and 
 dear relative of mine used to take her three children to dinner on 
 their ' days out' from school, because the Restaurant de la ^Made- 
 leine was so cheap ! They charged me sixteen francs for a roast 
 pheasant it was produced, it must be admitted, for a moment, en 
 evidence as a piece montee at Durand's this very September. 
 
 Among the places I have named, the Trois Freres, Very's, the 
 Rocher de Cancale, Philippe's, and the Cafe de Paris exist no
 
 DINNER-TIME IN PARIS. 265 
 
 longer.* Since I have been sojourning in Paris I have dined or 
 breakfasted at the following old and new places of popular resort : 
 (1) The Cafe Anglais ; (2) the Maison Doree ; (3) Bignon's (the 
 Cafe de Foy) ; (4) the Cafe Riche; (5) the ' Grand ' Cafe ; (6) the 
 Restaurant Rougeniont ; (7) Yachett's (Brebant's) ; (8) the Cafe 
 Yeron, corner of the Boulevard and the Rue Yivienne ; (9) 
 ' London House,' a succursal of the same well-known establish- 
 ment at Nice; (10) the Restaurant Bonnefoy ; (11) Yefour's; (12) 
 the Restaurant d'Ouix, now the Cafe Corazza ; (13) the Taverne 
 Anglaise, in the Place Boieldieu ; (14) the Restaurant Rousse, by 
 the side of the Ope'ra Coruique; (15) Gaillon's; (16) Yoisin's; (17) 
 Yian's ; (18) Laurent's, in the Avenue Marigny, Champs Elysees; 
 (19) Lucas's Taverne Anglais ; (20) the Cafe' de la Paix ; (21) 
 a Restaurant Italien, close to the Passage des Panoramas ; (22) 
 Magny's, in the Rue Mazet, off the Rue Dauphin, ' over the 
 water/ nearly in a line with the Pont Neuf ; (23) the ' Taverne 
 Britannique,' in the Rue Richelieu; and (24) a 'fixed price' dinner 
 in the Palais Royal, to whose exact whereabouts and whose precise 
 name I decline to allude. In my memory it will be indelibly 
 fixed as the ' Diner Burnand,' because, when I emerged from the 
 Trophonian caverns in which that dinner was served, I exclaimed, 
 with the celebrated art critic of the Grosvenor Gallery, 'Joy, joyf 
 but never again with you, Robin.' 
 
 The Cafe Anglais still, to my thinking, maintains its place as 
 the very best for dining purposes in Paris. You will dine well if 
 3'ou order any one of the dishes specified in the bill of fare ; but you 
 will dine much better (if you know enough about French cookery to- 
 dismiss the carte du jour entirely from consideration) by ordering a 
 dinner altogether ' out of your own head.' They will cook every- 
 thing for you that is in season. Everything that should be hot 
 will be ' piping ' hot at very many pretentious places they give 
 you that abominable thing, tepid soup ; the fish is always fresh, 
 and the cleanliness of everything is simply perfect. The prices 
 
 * That is to say, so far as the Boulevards are concerned. There is a new 
 and splendid Cafe de Paris in the Avenue de 1'Opera.
 
 266 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 are confessedly high, but they cannot be called extortionate. A 
 very modest little dinner at the Cafe Anglais for two people of 
 long experience, but moderate appetites and limited means, con- 
 sisted of a dozen of Marennes oysters, of goodly size and delicious 
 flavour; no fish (I hold fish to be a surplusage when you have 
 had more than three oysters) ; a Crecy soup ; a perdrix anx 
 clioux a tiny partridge braised with cabbage, carrots, and small 
 sausages ; some gruycre cheese, a salade a la romaine, and a 
 bottle of the excellent Bordeaux wine called Pontet Canet. The 
 partridge and cabbage cost ten francs, and the dish was dear at the 
 price ; but the Pontet Canet,* which cost eight francs, was worth 
 the money, and more, for it was so much purple velvet to the 
 palate ; and it had a flavour which reminded you at once of the 
 odour of violets and the taste of raspberries. This dinner stay, 
 it included a demi-tasse of coffee and an undeniably authentic 
 Havana cigar, the last an almost unattainable luxury in Paris t 
 
 * I have been told, and impertinently told, in print by some person wholly 
 unknown to me, but who addresses me as ' George,' that the Cafe Anglais has 
 no specialty for Bordeaux, but that it has one for Burgundy. I am accustomed 
 to write about the things that I know, and not about things that I do not know ; 
 .and I have known nothing of the wines of Burgundy these twenty years 
 past. Still, we will see what a competent authority, M. Auguste Luchet, says 
 upon the subject : ' The wealth of this cellar (the Caf'6 Anglais) consists in 
 Bordeaux wines. M. Delhomme, the proprietor, is a Bordelais, who, not caring 
 for the growths of Burgundy, does not admit that any one else can care for 
 them. He keeps Burgundy in his cellar, but only for form, and, so to say, 
 .against his will.' Paris-Guide : Les Grandes Cuisines et les Grandes Caves, 
 p. 1550. I may add that M. Delhomme is still the proprietor of the Cafe 
 Anglais. M. Auguste Luchet, who was both a Republican and a gourmet, was 
 named Governor of the Palace of Fontainebleau after the Revolution of 1848, 
 when he was accused by the anti-Republican newspapers of having fried and 
 eaten the historic carp that Francis I. fed with breadcrumbs, and to which the 
 Duchess d'Etampes threw golden rings. 
 
 f The sale of cigars at the Cafe Anglais is a speculation on the part of the 
 waiters, who import the tobacco themselves from Havana, and share the profits. 
 A garfon who is fortunate enough to be accepted as a member of the staff of 
 the Cafe Anglais rarely quits it (' bar ' death or other casualties), save to go 
 into business on his own account.
 
 STCDYING THE CARTE.
 
 DINNER-TIME IN PARIS. 
 
 267 
 
 cost twenty-eight francs and some centimes : with the waiter's fee, 
 thirty francs ; sa}- twelve shillings a head. Now there is good vin 
 ordinaire to be had at the Cafe Anglais for three francs I am 
 
 THE CELLARMAX. 
 
 not quite sure that it is not two francs fifty a hottle, and the 
 average price of an entree is three francs and a half; thus you may 
 set down our oysters, our pcrdrlx anx clioux, and our Pontet
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX. 
 
 Canet as so much reckless extravagance ; but please to remember 
 that a Frenchman, or even an Englishman, who had set his heart 
 on having ' a regular tip-top French dinner,' even if he had sup- 
 pressed the preliminary bivalves, would have thought his repast 
 incomplete without a dish of fish, a ruti say a Chateaubriand or 
 an entrecote a la Bordelalse ; a sweet say a parfait au cafe or a 
 souffle de chocolat ; and some fruit. 
 
 The Frenchman would assuredly have taken a tiny glass of fine 
 
 champagne cognac, chartreuse, 
 or some other liqueur, with his 
 demi-tasse ; and the English- 
 man would, in all probability, 
 have wound up with at least 
 half a bottle of Pommery Sec 
 or Heidsieck's Dry Monopole. 
 As for the French, it is with 
 the extremest rarity that, save 
 at Carnival time, or at a rcpas 
 de noces, they ever touch cham- 
 pagne, which is often alluded to 
 contemptuously, as ' le vin des 
 cocottes,' and more frequently 
 1 le vin des Allemands.' They 
 
 are content to make it in order to sell it to the foreigner. Thus 
 such a complete dinner as that which I have specified, at the Cafe 
 Anglais, would cost at least twenty-five francs a head. Our own 
 was incomplete, but to us sufficing. For the rest, a gentleman 
 dining by himself would pay almost as much for a ' complete * 
 dinner as when he had a companion ; and, as a rule, a party of six 
 or eight will be called upon to expend less in proportion per head 
 than would be disbursed by a party of three or four. An English 
 exhibitor told me that, with seven friends, he had enjoyed a really 
 sumptuous banquet in a private cabinet at the Cafe Anglais, and 
 that the bill only amounted to twenty-two francs a head. And I 
 fancy that they must have had plenty of champagne. Of course
 
 DINNER-TIME IX PAEIS. 
 
 269 
 
 you may ruin yourself at the Anglais if you like, and that with 
 great promptitude and despatch. There are Lafittes and Margaux, 
 there are (so I am told) 
 Chambertins and Eoma- 
 nees, which are thought 
 cheap at from thirty to 
 fifty francs a bottle, and 
 which are in extensive de- 
 mand among the Ameri- 
 can clients of the house. 
 I dined, indeed, the other 
 evening with some old 
 friends from New York at 
 the Eestaurant Rouge - 
 inont, and we had Ma- 
 deira of 1824 with the 
 
 oysters. A pheasant was produced^with his wings and tail spread, 
 and with a kind of gold and jewelled aureole round his head ; and 
 I did not ask to look at the bill. Had the dinner been a moderate 
 one I might, for the purpose of comparison, have taken that liberty. 
 I may finally remark, touching the Cafe Anglais, that as a 
 rule the service is irreproachable. The waiters are civil, quiet, 
 and suggestive, and two or three of them speak English. The 
 knives, forks, and spoons are all silver ; yet, strange to say, the 
 proprietor of this excellent establishment has not yet awakened to 
 a sense of the expediency of providing his guests either with fish 
 knives and forks, or with salt-spoons. The drawbacks to this very 
 admirable house are, normally, in the sinallness of the rooms, the 
 low ceilings of which render them in summer nearly as hot as the 
 pionibi of Venice ; and, abnormally, in the tremendous crowds of 
 visitors brought by the Exhibition, and the clatter and tapage 
 made by some of the foreign guests, whose nationality I will not 
 particularise, at whose guttural gabble the English simply stare 
 with stupefied amazement, while the few French gentlemen whom 
 the guttural gabblers have not driven away sit silent in corners
 
 270 
 
 PAEIS HERSELF AGAIX. 
 
 glowering with rage at the Invaders. They are as objectionable in 
 Peace as in War. This is especially the case on Sundays, when a 
 
 A PARISIAN" MAiTEE I/HOTEL. 
 
 Frenchman, having in all likelihood been to the races, is very fond 
 of enjoying a good dinner. Unless he be one of a party, or has 
 secured a cabinet particullcr in advance, he will have consider- 
 able difficulty in making headway against this alien cohort, who
 
 DINNER-TIME IN PARIS. 
 
 271 
 
 A PARIS RESTAURATEUR. 
 
 men, women, and children come six or eight strong, and virtually 
 monopolise the public rooms. They are all gifted with enormous 
 appetites, and they have an unquenchable thirst for champagne ; 
 so that I imagine that the Parisian restaurateurs console them-
 
 272 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN*. 
 
 selves for the nuisance inflicted upon them by these turbulent (and 
 upon occasion insolent) customers by making out the very biggest 
 
 bills imaginable against them 
 casting up the highest possible 
 ' additions,' and leaving it to the 
 waiter to demonstrate that the 
 total is both accurate and mode- 
 rate. Especially do they ' have ' 
 them in the way of fruit. Des- 
 sert, generally consisting at this 
 time of the year of grapes, peaches, 
 and pears, is very costly indeed 
 at the first-rate restaurants. 
 
 The frugal Frenchman orders 
 what fruit he desires ' une 
 peche,' 'une poire,' or ' du raisin.' The improvident foreigner 
 calls hoarsely for ' tes vruits.' They bring him fruit with a venge- 
 ance a whole plateau heaped high with the gifts of Pomona. 
 
 * Most boys,' sagely remarked Dr. Johnson, in the celebrated case 
 of the alleged cause of Swift's deafness in a youthful surfeit of 
 fruit, 'will eat as much as they can get.' But this foreigner's 
 voracity is the restaurateur's opportunity. He watches the fruit 
 disappear, and rubs his hands in mute joy. D j you remember the 
 story of the old Duke of Norfolk the Prince Regent's Duke of 
 Norfolk and the cucumber ? His Grace, who was wont to dress 
 very shabbily, and who thought twice before washing himself, 
 strolled late one evening into the coffee-room of the Old Hum- 
 mums, in Covent Garden, and ordered dinner and a cucumber. It 
 was the middle of winter. The waiter he was a new one mis- 
 trusting the looks of the guest, went to confer with the landlord. 
 
 * There's that shabby old fellow,' he said, ' has ordered a cow- 
 cumber, and you know, sir, that they're half a guinea a piece in 
 the market.' The landlord peeped round the corner of his little 
 private hatch ; recognised his customer ; rubbed his hands, and 
 said, softly smiling, to his servitor, ' A cucumber, John ? A
 
 DINNER-TIME IN PARIS. 273 
 
 cucumber ? Yes, John ; give him six.' Cucumber is not a 
 primeur in Paris at present ; yet I am astonished at the want of 
 energy among the Parisian restaurateurs, which has rendered 
 them blind to the advantages of importing West India pine-apples. 
 A fine ' nubbly ' pine, such as is dispensed on a London coster- 
 monger's barrow for a penny a slice, would be worth at least 
 twenty francs in its entirety, or two francs a portion, at a boulevard 
 restaurant. 
 
 "\Venceslas Steinbock, the wayward husband in Balzac's 
 Cousine Bette, is ' taken by his sentiments ' by one of his wife's 
 relatives, just as he is about entering a forty- sous restaurant in 
 the Palais Royal. He is, without much difficulty, persuaded to 
 listen to the voice of reason and the pleadings of affection ; and is 
 ultimately led home, in a thorough state of penitence, to enjoy a 
 succulent family dinner at the mansion of his mother-in-law, 
 Madame la Baronne Hulot. In all this behold jet another proof 
 of the profound philosophy of Honore de Balzac. It is precisely 
 at the moment when a man is fumbling in his pocket for the 
 necessary two francs not without some sorrowful uncertainty as 
 to whether he is also in possession of the necessaiy coppers for 
 the (jargon, for his coffee and his petit verre after dinner it is 
 just when he is gazing upwards on the illuminated ground-glass 
 panel above the portal of the cheap restaurant kept by Gargottier 
 aine, or Boustifaillej^we, but is not quite sure as to whether the 
 legend in crimson letters on the glass is ' Dejeuners a f. 1 25 ; 
 diners a f . 2,' or ' Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch' entrate,' that he 
 is most liable to be successfully assailed by the sentimental side of 
 his mental organisation, and to yield, after a decent simulation of 
 reluctance (we try to humbug ourselves just as frequently as we 
 try to humbug other people), to an invitation to go and dine some- 
 where else. Not undesignedly have I quoted the Inferno with 
 reference to the forty-sous restaurants. Does not the immortal 
 Florentine tell us that there is no greater anguish than the remem- 
 brance, in misery, of the days when we were happy ? One of the 
 VOL. i. T
 
 274 PAEIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 direst characteristics of the one-and-eightpenny repast is its being 
 the caricature, the parody, the grotesque but effete phantom of a 
 good dinner. Cardinal Mezzofanti remarked contemptuously (and 
 quite unjustly) of modern Greek that it resembled the language of 
 Plato and Demosthenes about as much as a monkey does a man. 
 Thus in the number of its component parts the banquet provided 
 by Gargottier aine or Boustifaille jeune corresponds to the lordliest 
 dinner that you could order at Bignon's or Durand's. For your 
 forty sous you shall have hors d'oeuvres, a potage, fish, an entree, 
 a roast, a vegetable, a sweet, salad, cheese, and dessert. But 
 there the resemblance to the good dinner comes to an end. You 
 are in a Shadowy Land, where ' all things wear an aspect not their 
 own.' Somehow a fishy flavour gets into the bruised peach or the 
 sleepy pear of the dessert ; and it must have \>eenfromage de Brie 
 that you tasted just now in the chocolate cream. My own opinion 
 is that it is ' the gravy that does it ; ' and that the foundation of 
 that gravy is something beyond mortal ken. The fish induces 
 you to think that there are finny denizens of the deep as yet undis- 
 covered by Mr. Frank Buckland ; and as for the meat well, what 
 was it that the wicked Count Cenci gave his daughters to eat ? 
 ' the fevered flesh of buffaloes,' or some such unholy viands ? I 
 have partaken of many strange meals; but there is a je nc sais 
 quoi about some of the dishes at the cheap Paris restaurants 
 altogether beyond my powers of definition or analysis. 
 
 I am not quite certain whether, to be strictly accurate, I ought 
 not to speak of the forty-sous restaurants in the past tense. I am 
 inclined to suspect that, since the commencement of the Exhibi- 
 tion, Gargottier aine has raised the price of his breakfasts to one 
 franc seventy-five, and of his dinners to two francs fifty centimes ; 
 while a friend tells me that Boustifaille jeune has taken an even more 
 heroic step. He has pasted slips of paper over his list of prices on 
 the ground-glass panel ; and when he has once got you into his lair 
 he has you altogether at his mercy. On the other hand, the 
 remarkable repast to which I have attached the name of ' Le Diner 
 Burnand' is quite candid in its proclamation of tariff. Three
 
 DINNER-TIME IN PARIS. 275 
 
 francs for breakfast ; five francs for dinner, including an ice and 
 a bottle of Burgundy or Bordeaux ; the wine, ' susceptible of being 
 replaced,' at the discretion of the guest, by half a bottle of a 
 superior vintage. I have hinted that I tried the ' Diner Burnand.' 
 It was, not excepting a ' Court' night at the hall of one of our civic 
 companies, the most wire-drawn dinner to which I ever sat down ; 
 and jet there were no speeches, no glees, no songs. There was 
 a little money- taker's box on the landing of the staircase leading 
 from the Galerie de Yalois to the saloons of the ' Diner Burnand,' 
 and an elegantly-attired lady gave me, in exchange for my five 
 francs, a large octagonal metal ticket with ' Un Diner ' stamped 
 upon it. That was enough to make you uncomfortable to begin 
 with. Who likes to be badged and ticketed, and to be sent 
 a-wandering through strange rooms with ' Good for One Dinner ' 
 branded, so to speak, on his back ? 
 
 The Administration, having got hold of your money, has no 
 further personal interest in you. You are an incumbrance ; and 
 the Administration may be looking on peevishly while you are 
 consuming your five francs' worth of victuals. * You just gnaw it 
 out,' said an American friend to me. The elegantly-dressed lady 
 who took the money was very stiff, and scarcely acknowledged the 
 lowly salute which I made her. Had she been a dame de comptoir 
 in a restaurant a la carte she would have been all bows and smiles 
 both at the entrance and the departure of a guest. But, the 
 Administration, having encashed my five francs, could no longer 
 nourish any hopes concerning their customer. On the other hand, 
 while the elegantly-attired lady was icily haughty, her cat, a huge 
 creature, sitting majestically by the side of the till a fat cat, with 
 a tail as big as a fox's brush, and an Elizabethan ruff of feathery 
 fur regarded me from her amber eyes with a look, as it seemed to 
 me, of comic commiseration. That grimalkin was evidently aware 
 of le fond dcs choses. She had seen so many people coming up, 
 so many going down, those fateful stairs. She was as the Clerk 
 of the Arraigns at a Culinary Court of Oyer and Terminer, and 
 may have been wishing me a good deliverance. 
 
 T 2
 
 276 
 
 TAEJS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 The oldest waiters in Paris had seemingly been ' laid on ' to 
 attend on the guests at the ' Diner Burnand.' But that these 
 ancient senators possessed, to all appearance, the proper comple- 
 ment of amis and legs, 
 they might have been so 
 many vieux grognards from 
 the Hotel des Invalides, in 
 civilian garb, with their 
 moustaches shaved off, 
 and their medals stowed 
 away in their trousers- 
 pockets. I was waited upon 
 by a vicux dc la vieillc, a 
 veteran of the first line, 
 who might so old did he 
 look have been at Ma- 
 rengo when the historic 
 X poulet was nrst fri 6 ^ in 
 
 oil, owing to Napoleon's 
 
 cook being for the moment short of butter, Marengo ! He 
 looked old enough to have been the inventor of that Sauce 
 Robert, the oldest of'all known sauces for pork-chops, and which 
 Mr. Dallas has ascertained to be a sauce of English origin, and 
 to have been known to the gourmets of Chaucer's time. I hasten 
 to admit that this patriarch waited upon us with much zeal 
 and assiduity, and was particularly anxious to explain to us the 
 extent of our rights and privileges in the matter of dinner. ' You 
 are entitled to yet another hors cVceuvre' he gently remarked, 
 when I contented myself with a single sardine ; ' be not afraid ; 
 you may have butter and olives, radishes or sausage.' He was 
 quite scandalised when one of the ladies of our party declined the 
 ice which he proffered her. 'Pas de glace! ' he exclaimed; 'rnais 
 vous avez droit a une glace.' Similarly he exhibited signs of the 
 deepest dejection when we refused to have anything to do with the 
 salad, which was as soft and clammy as cold boiled turnip-tops,
 
 DINNER-TIME IX PARIS. 27 1 
 
 and was dressed apparently with asafoetida and verjuice ; and he 
 was affected almost to tears when, unable to endure the lengthiness 
 of the Diner Burnand any longer, we rose to depart without par- 
 taking of any dessert. Vous partez,' he murmured ; ' yet there 
 remains a choice of four fruits. You are entitled to a peach or a 
 pear, an apple or a grape. There are even figs.' I say again 
 that he was a most fatherly waiter; but, alas, he was semi- 
 paralytic, and in spilling soup and sauce over the pantaloons of 
 the public I have rarely seen his equal. He hobbled to and fro as 
 quickly as his poor old feet would permit him ; but apparently the 
 kitchen was a very long way off, or the guests were too numerous, 
 or he was too tired and so was fain to take a brief nap now and 
 then between the courses. In any case, when he went away he did 
 not come back for a painfully prolonged period. We sat down at 
 half-past seven, and it was a quarter to nine when we fled from 
 the Diner Burnand, leaving even then the dessert untastecl. Had 
 we grappled with the fruits I might have been sitting there now, 
 perchance, ' stiff as a broomstick,' like the man in the German 
 student's song. 
 
 Against the good faith of the Directors of the Diner Burnand I 
 have nothing whatever to say. They adhere literally to the letter 
 of their engagement. Everything that was in the bond written 
 in white paint on a black board at the entrance to the restaurant 
 was conscientiously provided . Hors d'oeitvres, soup, fish, entree, 
 roast, vegetables, sweet, salad, ice, cheese, and dessert were all 
 there ; but they were all (to my taste) extremely nasty. Every- 
 thing was equivocal, stale, and soddened. It was Nobody's 
 faidt, of course ; nobody's but the trop plein of this overwhelm- 
 ing Exhibition. The rooms, already overheated by myriads of 
 gas-burners, were crowded to suffocation ; and the noise made by 
 the guests was almost deafening. They vociferated among them- 
 selves ; they shouted to the waiters, who were always bringing 
 the wrong dishes ; and then the waiters shouted to one another. 
 There were numerous families of provincials little removed from 
 peasants, so it seemed by their costume and in each large group
 
 278 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN, 
 
 there was generally a newly-married couple. Scenes of the live- 
 liest altercation between bride and bridegroom were not unfrequent; 
 and in some cases the elder folks had brought small children 
 with them. Of course these brats overate themselves ; and then, 
 ' feeling bad,' they began to yelp, and had to be taken out of the 
 stifling oven of a place. How glad I was when the experience 
 abating the dessert was at an end, and I descended the staircase 
 of the Diner Bumand ! Suddenly there recurred to me that well- 
 known passage in Artemas Ward, Ids Book, in which the two 
 Mormon ladies informed the Immortal Showman that it had been 
 revealed to them that they might enter his booth without paying. 
 ' Mebbe,' replied Artemas; 'but it has been revealed to me tJiat 
 you can pay without goin' in.' Would that I had been content to 
 depose my five francs at the money-taker's box of the Diner Bur- 
 nand without accepting in return the brazen symbol of wearisome 
 servitude ! As I passed the elegantly-attired lady, I noticed that 
 she wholly failed to return my parting bow. I own that I was 
 heavy at heart ; and my salutation may have been a gruesome 
 one. But the cat was aware of me ; and, from those eyes of 
 amber which had already gleamed on me, there seemed to radiate, 
 no longer facetious sympathy, but fiendish exultation. Where had 
 I seen that cat before ? Somewhere, I fancy, in the county of 
 Cheshire. 
 
 One word as a moral and an apology. Everybody, it is to be 
 hoped, is not so ill-conditioned, so hard to please, or so dyspeptic, 
 as I may seem to be. I may have dined too often and too well ; 
 and, satiated with the masterpieces of the finest cuisines in civilisa- 
 tion, I may be yearning for my premieres amours for the 
 ' mutton-chop with a curly tail,' and the 'potato like a ball of flour ' 
 I cannot help it. I cannot help having ' seen the Show ' both 
 before and behind the scenes thereof, since the days when I tasted 
 of the mets of Soyer and Francatelli, of Yidal and Roco-Yido, of 
 Delmonico, and of the incomparable chef of the Brevoort House, 
 New York, who always knew when his Excellency Lord Lyons 
 was staying in the hotel from the exceptional tastefulness of the
 
 DINNER-TIME IN PARIS. 279 
 
 dinners selected from his bill of fare by the occupant of the suite 
 of apartments on the first floor of the hotel. ' Milor Lyon he 
 arrive,' the chef would remark to his roasting cook. ' Jevois la la 
 main dn maitre.' To vast numbers of very worthy people the 
 Diner Burnand may, I have not the slightest doubt, appear a very 
 good dinner indeed ; just as new St. Pancras Church, N.W., may 
 seem a very sumptuous edifice to those who have not seen the 
 Parthenon. The provincials at the Diner Burnand seemed in 
 particular to relish their entertainment immensely. They enjoyed 
 all their rights, and claimed more. They demanded more sauce. 
 They swooped down on all the liors (Vocuvrcs. They asked for 
 twice salad. They could not be made to understand that they 
 were only entitled to choose two from the four fruits. 
 
 There was a party of English people close to us, comprising a 
 clergyman in a beard and a wideawake-hat, a bride and bridegroom, 
 a benignant old maid, and two brawny little boys in turn-over collars, 
 whose delighted appreciation of the copious bill of fare was really 
 comfortable and pleasant to view. The reverend gentleman in 
 the wideawake pointed out that there was a choice between Bur- 
 gundy and Bordeaux ; and when they exchanged whole bottles of 
 petit bleu for half-bottles of a darker and more astringent liquid, 
 he sipped the stuff the like of which may have been giving some- 
 body else fearful qualms as though it had been Chainbertin or 
 Clos Yougeot. The party were thoroughly happy. ' Only fancy,' 
 said the benignant old maid, ' ices and peaches, and macaroons 
 with cream, too.' They will go back to their peaceful English 
 homes and talk, many a time and oft, over the cold mutton 
 and the rice-pudding, of the grand dinner they had in the Palais 
 Royal ' Eight courses eight distinct courses,' the benignant 
 spinster was never tired of repeating. What a pickthank, what a 
 trouble-feast, what an ingrate, what a malevolent libeller, that 
 simple party of English people might have thought me had I 
 approached their table and, umntroduced and uninvited, imparted 
 to them my opinion an opinion to which I still steadfastly hold 
 that the pretentious, greasy, sloppy, soddened, mawkish meal
 
 280 PAEIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 was only the old two-franc dinner of Gargottier aine or Boustifaille 
 jeune promoted always in consequence of the Exhibition into a 
 five-franc one. 
 
 Let me add, ere I quit the subject of the Palais Royal restaurants, 
 that you may dine tolerably well, but very expensively, at Vefour's. 
 If you order your dinner in the morning, and secure a cabinet, a 
 really superior dinner, including wine, should not cost more 
 than twenty francs a head. But beware, if you are dining down- 
 stairs at Vefour's, of ordering such a dish as a dcmi-selle dc 
 mouton pre-sale, if you see it on the carte dujour. 'It is a delusion 
 and a snare ; and I fell into the snare myself a fortnight ago. I 
 ordered the mutton. The waiter brought us three or four little 
 cutlets of more than half-raw meat, weighing certainly less than 
 nine ounces in all, and nine francs were charged for it. My me- 
 mory must be failing me, else I should have remembered that in 
 the spring of 1867 I fell into a similar springe, by ordering at this 
 same Vefour's a dish of flageolets, or young haricot-beans. The 
 flageolets were, it seemed, a primeur, or ' spring novelty,' in the 
 way of vegetables, and I had to pay ten francs for a single portion 
 of them. At the Cafe Corazza,* once a first-rate house, the cookery 
 has fallen off, the waiting is dilatory, but the prices are moderate. 
 At the restaurant of the Golerie d' Orleans you may breakfast ex- 
 cellently well, and but for the pressure of the Exhibition com- 
 fortably. These are all restaurants a la carte. 
 
 With the lower class of ' fixed price ' houses the inferior Gar- 
 gottiers and Boustifailles that absolutely pullulate in the two great 
 galleries I should seriously advise you to have nothing whatever 
 to do, unless you wish to pay an early visit to the pharmaceutical 
 establishment of Mr. Roberts, English chemist, of the Rue de la 
 Paix. As a rule, too, I would implore you likewise, if you value 
 
 * Formerly known and famed as the Restaurant d'Ouix. I knew old M. 
 d'Ouix nearly thirty years ago in London. He had been offider de louche to 
 Charles X., and in habit d la Franfaise and his sword by his side had waited 
 on that monarch at table. But poor old D'Ouix fell upon evil days ; sold his 
 restaurant ; came to England, and was doing very badly when I knew him.
 
 DINNER-TIME IN PARIS. 281 
 
 your health and your peace of mind, to abstain from all salmon, 
 from all sauces known as mayonnaise, rcmoulade, Jinancicrc, Bear- 
 naise, or Bordclaisc, in any but first-class restaurants. In second- 
 class ones these sauces are not made with good butter, and they 
 all mean indigestion and bilious attacks. Especially should you 
 beware of the preparations of shell-fish known as monies a la 
 mariniire and monies a la ponlette. Mussels are at all times 
 perilous things to eat ; but you may partake of them with a 
 tolerable certitude that they are fresh at Durand's or at the Maison 
 Doree. At other houses you run the risk of being to use the 
 common English locution ' musselled ' to an alarming extent by 
 stale and carelessly cleaned fish. The same remark will apply to 
 the enormous lanr/onstcs or crayfish, and to the appetising little 
 ccrcvisses or crawfish, of which en bnisson, boiled hot with a butter 
 sauce, the French are so immoderately fond. By the way, not 
 being a scientific naturalist, I am not prepared to say that the big 
 langouste is not, a crawfish, and the little ecrevisse a crayfish. Mr. 
 Frank Buckland or Mr. Henry Lee will perhaps set me right on 
 this point. 
 
 At the majority of restaurants always in consequence of the 
 Exhibition, I suppose I have found the fish to have much more of 
 an ' ancient and fishlike flavour ' than is desirable. At the Cafe 
 Anglais and at the Restaurant Gaillon, however, I have invariably 
 found the fish to be as fresh to use the proverbial expression 
 ' as paint.' At most of the remaining restaurants, including even 
 the grandest, it is frequently more than equivocal. It is but scant 
 consolation for the habitual staleness of a most wholesome and 
 delicious article of food that papers like the Figaro, the Gaulois, 
 and the Voltaire, revel day after day in extremely funny but, under 
 the circumstances, exasperating stories about stale fish. Here is 
 one : A customer at a boulevard restaurant complains, in distinctly 
 audible tones, that his mackerel is absolutely uneatable. ' S-sssh ! ' 
 whispers the waiter, discreetly putting his finger to his lips. ' It 
 isn't the mackerel. Pas le moins du nionde. It's the salmon of 
 the gentleman opposite!' Another story is of a guest who com-
 
 *02 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 plains on Wednesday that his turbot is not so good as that of 
 which he partook on the preceding Sunday. ' That's very odd,' 
 remarks the complacent garqon. ' Really, I can't make it out; for 
 it^ happens to be a slice of the very same turbot which was served 
 to Monsieur on Sunday.' This is only a clever paraphrase of the very 
 old French Joe Miller about Jocrisse and the salmon. ' I saw this 
 morning,' said Jocrisse (the French tomfool), * the finest salmon 
 at Chevet's that I ever beheld in my life. I shall save up my 
 pocket-money till I am able to buy it.' 
 
 DURING THE EXHIBITION (BY CIIAJf). 
 
 ' What ! Two francs for an egg which isn't even fresh ? ' 
 * Monsieur forgets the chicken is included ! ' 
 
 Peace and quiet and a sparseness of guests are to me among 
 the essential components of a good dinner. One need not be such 
 a gastronomic solitary as Handel the composer, who, having 
 ordered dinner for three at a tavern, and being asked by the waiter 
 when the rest of the company were coming, tranquilly replied, ' I 
 am de gompany ; ' still I have an objection to sitting down to 
 dinner with a hundred and fifty or two hundred people whom I do
 
 DINNER-TIME IN PALIS. 
 
 283 
 
 not know, and whom I have not the slightest desire to know, 
 Avhich may be done here any day at the crowded tables d'hote 
 of the Grand, the Louvre, or the new Hotel Continental ; and 
 
 THE TAELE I) HoTE OF THE GRAND LOTEL. 
 
 even more strongly do I object to being compelled to eat my meat 
 to the music of the band of the Grenadier Guards discoursing a 
 selection from La Fille de Madame Angot, or to the clatter of 
 innumerable knives, forks, spoons, and plates, and the vocifera- 
 tions in a dozen languages of a horde of hungry people from all 
 parts of the globe. There are no musical eating-houses in Paris, 
 like our Holborn Restaurant ; but the absence of harmony is com- 
 pensated by the hideous discord which reigns around you while 
 you are dining. The noise is almost as grievous in the cabinets 
 partlculiers as in the public rooms, since in the former poky little 
 cupboards the atmosphere towards evening is usually so stifling 
 that you are fain to open the window, and then you are confronted 
 by the incessant strident roar of the boulevards. Next to the 
 excellent quality of the wines at Voisin's, in the Hue St. Honore',
 
 284 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 is the blessing of the comparative quietude of the street in which 
 the house is situated ; but the first-rate houses the Anglais, the 
 Riche, the Maison Doree, Bignon's, Durand's are all not only on 
 the boulevard, but at the corner of boulevard streets ; so that the 
 bellowing catches you on all sides, without surcease or respite. 
 The uproar prevailing in the Paris restaurants just now always 
 in consequence of the Exhibition has become positively appalling. 
 The vacarme of one house is only equalled by the charivari of the 
 next ; and you have simply a choice, so to speak, between marrow- 
 bones and cleavers on the Boulevard des Capucines and frying-pans 
 and tongs on the Boulevard des Italiens. 
 
 As regards breakfast, you have, it is true, a chance of relief. 
 Take a victoria and hie straight away to the Champs filysees, and 
 there you will be able to lunch peacefully and well, Laurent's, 
 for example, in the Avenue Marigny, is, in the morning, a beauti- 
 fully quiet house. It is close to the Cirque d'fite ; but at the 
 historic arena once known as Franconi's, no morning performances 
 like those which take place at the Hippodrome are given. You 
 hear no sounds more disturbing than the plashing of a fountain in 
 the pretty garden surrounding the restaurant, and, now and again, 
 a rippling of silvery laughter from the children on their liobb}'- 
 horses at some distant merry-go-round. Laurent's itself is a trim 
 little villa, gaily painted in the Pompeian style. It lias a soupgon 
 of the House of Pansa, or of that of the Tragic Poet ; but I hasten 
 to say that there is one Pompeian house which the Restaurant 
 Marigny does not resemble the Hotel Diomed, for instance, 
 dearest and dirtiest of alberghi, maintained for the purpose of 
 fleecing the foresticri who visit the disentombed city. Abutting 
 on the facade of Lament's there is quite a Bower of Bliss, open on 
 two sides to the garden, and on a third to the interior of the restau- 
 rant ; and in this arbour you may regale yourself with an absence 
 of noise and confusion eminently soothing to nerves that have 
 been shattered by that brabbling brawling Paris beyond the Place 
 de la Concorde yonder. 
 
 We were served in the Bower of Bliss by an admirably civil
 
 DINNER-TIME IN PARIS. 
 
 285 
 
 ml intelligent, waiter, whose only fault was that, knowing a little 
 English, he was slightly too anxious to increase his knowledge of 
 that tongue hy propounding questions after the manner of the 
 beneficent but somewhat irritating Ollendorff. As an atonement 
 for this trifling fault, he caused to be brewed for us a pot of the 
 very best tea that I have tasted since I have been in Paris. How 
 is it that French people cannot make tea ? Their tea warehouses 
 are sumptuous to look upon, magnificently decorated, and crowded 
 with rare porcelain raid bronzes from China and Japan. I know
 
 286 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN*. 
 
 one tea-shop in the Rue Yivienne where there are no less than 
 seven slim-waisted young ladies behind the counter; still you 
 cannot swallow bronze griffins or porcelain vases ; and demoiselles 
 de magasin, although delicious to the sight, are possibly difficult 
 of digestion. When it comes to actual tea-drinking, you find 
 yourself presented with a weak and well-nigh colourless infusion 
 of you know not what mawkish and insipid herb. Assuredly it 
 does not remind you of any Pekoe, Souchong, or Hyson with which 
 you are acquainted. It must, however, be borne in mind that the 
 French, as a nation, are still quite infants in the art of tea- 
 drinking. I can well remember when it was the custom in good 
 society in Paris to offer you &peiit reive of ' Rlmm de la Jamaique ' 
 with your cup of tea the clown in the pantomime did no more 
 when he ' in his tea took brand}*, but took a drop too much ; ' and 
 one of the first dramatic pieces that I ever saw performed at a 
 French theatre it was just after the production of the inimitable 
 Ma Femme et mon Paraplme was a satire upon the then 
 newly-introduced fashion of tea-drinking. It was a rollicking 
 vaudeville called Le The cliez Madame Gibou. The pail of 
 Madame Gibou, an old portirre there were no concierges in those 
 days was played by that admirable comedian Vernet ; and the 
 fun which he made out of the process of brewing some tea for the 
 entertainment of some friends in the porter's lodge might have made 
 the great Joey Grimaldi himself jealous. All kinds of strange 
 ingredients were put into the teapot some bouillon from the pot 
 au feu, pepper, mustard, an onion, a glass of cassis ; and finally 
 the abominable broth was stirred up with a bout de chandelle a 
 tallow-candle end ! I am afraid that the French have not im- 
 proved to any marked extent as tea-brewers since the time when 
 this diverting farce set all Paris screaming with laughter. Do- 
 they boil their tea '? Do they import the superior qualities of the 
 article, or is it they grudge the necessary qua7itum of tea to- 
 the pot? In the matter of tea they seem to have been stationary^ 
 The herb has always been looked upon as an exotic, and it remains 
 one. Not one French working man or working woman in a.
 
 DINNER-TIME IN PARIS. 287 
 
 thousand lias ever, I apprehend, so much as tasted tea, which, 
 indeed, is looked upon by the poor as a kind of tisane or diet 
 drink, to be taken only during sickness. 
 
 "We came away from the quiet breakfast at Laurent's en- 
 chanted with the beauty of the garden, the quietude of the Bower 
 of Bliss, the succulence of the fare, and the moderate charge 
 which was made for it. It was quite a model bill in the way of 
 cheapness. Only seventy-five centimes for a pear. ' You come, 
 evening, dine,' quoth the Ollendorffian waiter as with many smiles 
 he swept up his pourboire. 'You come, evening, dinner in the 
 garden. In the garden you dine under the trees green. Over the 
 green trees of the garden during the dinner of evening comes the 
 illumination of the gas. Now I give you the hat and the umbrella. 
 Have you his umbrella ? [Lesson XIV.] Frangois, where is the 
 umbrella of the English gentleman ? Stay, I have the Cashmere 
 shawl [it was only a Paisley one] of the English lady. [Lesson 
 XV.] Good-bye ; you come dine.' Good-bye, Ollendorff. "We 
 made haste to get away, fearing lest in his ardour for linguistic 
 improvement he should become still more Ollendorffian, and, 
 asking us if we had the green boots of the Spanish captain, inform 
 us that he himself possessed the pink ship of the Armenian 
 muleteer. 
 
 So we strolled through the pretty garden, and by the mur- 
 muring fountain, and out into the always merry but tranquil 
 Elysian Fields. Pleasant fields, lightly haunted by the apparitions 
 of little children. There were many little manikins and toddle- 
 kins and belies in the flesh gambolling under the trees that day. 
 The sun shone very brightly. There were goat-chaises, and even 
 goat cliars-a-bancs, about. The ' Thdatre de GuignoF had attracted 
 a large audience of small folks ; the sweetstuff stalls were doing a 
 prosperous trade ; and there were distant symptoms of a hare and 
 tabor and of a dancing dog. But everything was quiet and sub- 
 dued. The Champs filysees are bordered by some of the hand- 
 somest private houses in Paris ; and on week-days, by some 
 curious tacit agreement among the classes, so it would seem, the
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 place is the playground of the rich. On Sundays the mob conies, 
 and the Champs filysees roar. This afternoon the children, with 
 their lonncs, had things all to themselves, and the showmen were 
 as polite and affable as Mr. Cremer junior's young men, who go 
 out conjuring to juvenile parties. I was quite surprised at the 
 elegant attire and aristocratic mien of the little demoiselles of from 
 eight, who patronised the wooden steeds of the merry-go-rounds. 
 Silk stockings, embroidered slippers with high heels, gants Jourin 
 with three buttons, laced skirts, plumed and flowered hats of the 
 newest mode, were common among these small ladies of fashion. 
 There were a few bourgeois children in pinafores and blue-linen
 
 DINNER-TIME IN PARIS. 289 
 
 trousers ; but they kept themselves aloof slirinkingly, and refrained 
 from engaging hobby-horses when the cavalcade was a patrician 
 one. I noticed one leader of fashion, aged about nine, who had a 
 scent-bottle and a fan. She managed her fiery steed, notwith- 
 standing these trifling encumbrances, with so much skill and 
 dexterity ; she pointed her small lance with so much adroitness 
 when she passed the pendant circles for a French merry-go -round 
 includes the game of skill of ' running at the ring ; ' she indulged 
 in so many charming mmauderies ; she gave herself, in a word 
 the little minx ! so many airs, that I fancied she must be cousin- 
 german to the tiny aristocrat of seven, who, when asked to hold 
 one handle of a skipping-rope in the Pare Monceaux, replied, with 
 a toss of her head, ' I only play with children who are dressed in 
 velvet.' The skipping-rope party were dressed in cotton. I was 
 glad, however, to see when this superb young damsel descended 
 from her charger that her stirrup was held by a muffin-faced boy 
 in knickerbockers. They were velvet knickerbockers, mind you ; 
 and the edging to his cuffs and collars was of Brussels lace. I 
 was still more glad to see la Princesse Toto and M. le Marquis de 
 Petit Sale go off amicably to the nearest sweetstuff-stall to partake 
 of barley-sugar; but I was pained subsequently to observe both of 
 them engaged in a very fierce up-and-down fight over a penny- 
 worth of gingerbread. The way in which M. le Marquis pummelled 
 the Princess said little for the gallantry of juvenile Frenchmen; 
 and the manner in which her Highness tugged at the hay-coloured 
 ringlets of the muffin-faced Marquis was, to say the least, unlady- 
 like. Perhaps children are pretty much the same all the world 
 over. Qiien dites vous ! 
 
 So I went on strolling, strolling through the beloved place, 
 every pace of which to me was classic, and well-remembered, and 
 some of it quietly sorrowful ground. And, as I wandered, the 
 Elysian Fields became peopled to me with innumerable troops of 
 small infantry but with the little children who are dead. Hand 
 in hand with one who these thirty years past has been in the 
 grave, I recalled myself, a small boy, in the days of ' skeleton '
 
 290 
 
 PAKIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 suits and frills not those of knickerbockers wandering in and 
 wondering at these delightful Elysian Fields, ever full, to me, of 
 fresh enchantments. What frenzied gambling for macaroons 
 used to go on at the bagatelle-boards ! "What a conquering hero 
 seemed the boy who propelled the ball into the luckiest hole, or 
 who struck the brazen bell, at the tinkling of which a little plas- 
 ter statuette of Napoleon the Great would rise as by magic from 
 a silent tomb of gingerbread and lollipops ! The boy, generally 
 a lanky youth en quatrieme, had won the grand prix usually 
 a watch and chain of the purest tin lacquered yellow, or a flowery 
 vase, warranted Sevres, and worth about one franc fifty. We 
 followed that proud prize-winner. We made much of him. We 
 humbled ourselves before him. We extolled him to the skies 
 when he treated us to coco a deliriously exciting beverage, com- 
 posed of Spanish liquorice and sassafras dispensed in tin cups 
 by a man who carried the coco reservoir, a sort of Chinese pagoda, 
 adorned with red-cotton velvet and tricoloured flags, strapped to 
 his back. Yes ; these are the Elysian Fields. There, behind the 
 
 canvas wall of the The'atre de Guignol, I smoked my first cigar. 
 It was very long and of a light-brown colour, and it cost a sou
 
 THE MARCHAND DE Coco. 
 
 I. 290.
 
 DINNER-TIME IN PARIS. 291 
 
 one halfpenny sterling. The excruciating agonies of nausea which 
 I suffered after half-a-dozen whiffs of that never-to-be-forgotten 
 combination of cabbage-leaf and brown paper should properly have 
 cured me for ever and a day of any desire to indulge in the per- 
 nicious habit of smoking. But it failed to have that effect. 
 There are people, I presume, who are fated to consume tobacco ; 
 and they must needs commence its consumption at some time or 
 another. 
 
 Not far from the scene of my first dealings with nicotine, I 
 found the well-remembered Cirque d'te, now a very grand 
 building indeed, but in my time a humble barn of circular form. 
 The Brothers Franconi were then flourishing twin emperors of 
 the hippie ring. The famous Auriol, whose daughter married our 
 much-regretted Flexmore, was clown at Franconi's. The grandest of 
 hippodramatic spectacles, generally treating of the martial episodes 
 of the Napoleonic epoch, used to be performed there. The Cirque 
 had a Napoleon of its own, second only to our Gomersal, a Blucher 
 whom Cartlich might have studied with advantage ; a Murat who 
 was nearly as dashing, but not so elegant, as Ducrow. Moscow 
 and the Passage of the Beresina ; La Corogne (meaning Corunna), 
 and the Defeat of General Lord John Moore ; the Campaign of 
 Egypt and the Battle of the Pyramids ; Austerlitz, or the Dog oj 
 the Regiment; Marcngo, or the Two Vivandieres these were 
 the kind of pieces which they gave us at Franconi's in the brave 
 days of old. Had I been dramatic censor under the Government 
 of King Louis Philippe, I scarcely think that I would have licensed 
 these hippodramatic apotheoses of the deeds of the Consulate and 
 the Empire. They kept alive a very fascinating legend, a very 
 dangerous cultus, among the masses. Psha ! Louis Philippe's 
 Ministers not only authorised, but conceived, organised, and tri- 
 umphantly carried out a ' hippodramatic spectacle ' fifty times 
 more perilous to Orleanism than the plays at Franconi's. 
 
 As I stroll through the Fields, calling up old days, old scenes, 
 old kindred and playmates long since dead, the temperature of the 
 sunny September afternoon seems suddenly to grow bleak and
 
 292 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 chill and raw. It is November. As for myself, I have shrunk to 
 very small proportions indeed ; I have left the solid earth, and am 
 astride on the conveniently strong bough of a leafless tree. The 
 Champs Elysees, from the Arch of Triumph to the Place de la 
 Concorde, are thronged by an innumerable multitude of people 
 black, silent, waiting for Something. The roadway is kept clear 
 by serried lines of infantry and cavalry. Presently there is heard 
 the distant thunder of drums ; then come the distant wailing and 
 soughing of a sea of martial music. Then, in the brumous dis- 
 tance, the head of a great procession begins to sway, glittering. 
 It sweeps through the Arc de 1'Etoile his arch. The white road- 
 way is gradually overspread, absorbed by a prodigious and splendid 
 train, and at length the Something for which all have been waiting 
 looms in sight. All eyes are fixed on a huge funereal car, a lofty 
 bier, a towering catafalque, the car drawn by steeds caparisoned 
 from head to foot in black velvet, silver embroidered. But the 
 pall over the bier is of purple velvet, powdered with golden bees ; 
 and beneath the catafalque, patent to all eyes, is a coffin, on the 
 lid of which is a Little Cocked Hat and a Sword. It is the sword 
 of Austerlitz. They have brought back the ashes of Napoleon the 
 Great, Emperor and King, from the Atlantic rock to bury him 
 under the golden dome of the Invalides, on the banks of the Seine, 
 among the French people whom he loved so well. A very danger- 
 ous hippo dramatic spectacle, indeed ! On the day of the perform- 
 ance Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of the Illustrious 
 Dead, was securely locked up in the prison of the Palace of the 
 Luxembourg awaiting his trial for his madcap escapade at Bou- 
 logne. Twelve years afterwards he was Napoleon III., Emperor 
 of the French.
 
 XVIII. 
 
 IN THE HALLE S CENTEALES. 
 
 Sept. 21. 
 
 SPLENDID weather overhead and crisp dryness under foot. A sky 
 of cloudless blue, and sunshine of pale gold. The air clear and 
 bracing. It is eight o'clock in the morning, and I am bound for 
 the Halles Centrales. The Parisians of all classes (save the 
 vicious) are extremely early risers, and an astonishing amount of 
 business is transacted before breakfast ; still, the streets at eight 
 A.M. are not destitute of signs that the working day is still in its 
 first j^outh. M. Barbedienne, my next door neighbour, has just 
 taken his shutters down ; but his windows are not yet ' dressed ' 
 that, I believe, is the correct shop-walking term and his nymphs 
 and bathers in bronze are still enveloped in green-gauze veils, 
 suggestive of the verdant calzoni which the prudish Boniba, King 
 of Naples, forced the ballerine at the San Carlo to assume. As 
 I pass the door of Brebant's restaurant, likewise known as 
 Vachette's, I behold a curious spectacle. At least a hundred
 
 294 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 forlorn-looking creatures, men and women, young and old, and 
 mere children, are standing en queue two and two against the 
 wall which skirts the kitchens of the great restaurant. Eight 
 o'clock in the morning is the time when M. Brebant gives away 
 soup, made from all sorts of yesterday's leavings, to the poor ; 
 and his poverty-stricken guests may either sup their pottage on 
 the spot or take it home with them in the cans or the pipkins 
 which they have brought. But very few members of the ragged 
 regiment who form the ' tail ' are, I am told, can-and-pipkin- 
 bringers. The majorit}- drink their soup standing from a common 
 porringer. They are outcasts, gens sans avcu, miserables who 
 have no homes at all. The compassion extended to them should 
 perhaps be of a modified kind. There are poor wretches who 
 cannot work ; these may be lazy rascals who will not work. Still 
 they may be pitied, even as we pity the ' casuals ' in Mr. Luke 
 Fildes' picture. We must punish idleness and profligacy ; but 
 we may not pass sentence of death on the idle and the profligate. 
 Starvation is equivalent to sus : per coll : 
 
 Down the Rue Montmartre, always noisy, always crowded, 
 always business-like and bustling, and thoroughly French. ' Ici 
 on ne parle pas Anglais,' they might write up here. I pass with 
 temporary disdain the secondary March e de St. Joseph : although 
 I descry through its portals some admirable effects of light and 
 shade and colour in the picturesquely grouped masses of fish, 
 flesh, fowl, vegetables, and fruit. But I am bound on a grander 
 expedition, and the Marche St. Joseph must wait. Then I pass 
 a shop which I am told is that of the largest game- dealer in Paris. 
 I may not stop, since I shall behold presently a wondrous assem- 
 blage of gibier, large and small. As I approach the Church of 
 St. Eustache symptoms of the neighbourhood of a great market 
 make themselves more and more apparent. The pavement becomes 
 greasy and slippery with the tattered leaves of cabbages ; porters 
 laden with sacks hurry by you ; you are jostled by menagcres 
 carrying enormous market-baskets ; and all at once you see a 
 cascade of lemons tumbling bodily into the vaults of the old
 
 IN THE HALLES CENTRALES. 
 
 295 
 
 Gothic-Renaissance Church of St. Eustache. Since the abolition 
 of intramural interments, the church-vaults have been utilised as 
 warehouses for fruit ; while in the thickness of the walls, so it 
 seems, of the edifice itself there have been constructed a guard- 
 house, a pastrycook's shop, and a cabaret. This mingling of the 
 sacred and the profane gives a quaintly mediaeval touch to the 
 scene. Did not a pie-shop and a puppet-show impinge on one of 
 the very chapels of Old St. Paul's ? 
 
 Rounding the corner of the fine old fane, I came upon the 
 perfectly modern series of edifices known as the Halles Centrales, 
 and which are constructed, with the exception of a low skirting
 
 296 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 wall of brown stone from the Yosges, entirely of iron and glass. 
 To be briefly technical, once for all, I may remark that the 
 building (which was opened for business in 1858) covers an 
 immense parallelogram comprising six pavilions, separated t by 
 six spacious covered avenues, one of them extending from the 
 central boulevard to the Rue Pierre Lescot, while the two other 
 avenues, which cross the first one at right angles, run from the 
 Rue de Rambuteau to the Rue Berger. The pavilions or ' blocks,' 
 as Anglo-Saxon architects would less elegantly call them are 
 devoted respectively to the sale of meat wholesale and retail, game, 
 poultry, eggs, fruit, vegetables, butter, cheese, culinary utensils 
 and crockeryware, sea and freshwater fish, and 'jewelry.' Yes, 
 there is a section a very small one, it must be admitted affected 
 to the sale of 'bijouterie.' I shall touch on the 'jewel ' depart- 
 ment in the Halles Centrales last. Under the enormous structure 
 are ranges of subterraneans, where the operations of manipulating 
 butter, counting eggs, plucking and trussing poultry and game, 
 are carried on by gaslight. In 1870, just before the siege, millions 
 of kilogrammes of potatoes were stowed away in these vaults, but 
 their presence there was during many weeks unaccountably over- 
 looked. AVhen drowsy authority, feeling hungry at last, woke up, 
 it was found that the great mass of the potatoes had rotted, and 
 was totally unfit for food. 
 
 Potatoes are not the only tilings that have decayed hereabouts. 
 Close by is the site of the old Marche des Innocents, which, until 
 the advent of the Second Empire, fulfilled the purposes at present 
 filled by the Halles Centrales. The Innocents forms now a hand- 
 some 'square,' in the centre of which rises the magnificent Renais- 
 sance fountain built and decorated by Pierre Lescot and Jean 
 Goujon. The edifice is contemporary with the defunct Tuileries, 
 and within recent years has been judiciously and tastefully restored. 
 On the occasion of the formal opening of the markets in '58 the 
 fountain ran with red wine for three-quarters of an hour, just as 
 our conduit in Chepe used to do in b}*gone times. There was, 
 however, a substantial railing round the fountain of the Innocents ;
 
 IN THE HALLES CENTRALES. 
 
 297 
 
 THE FOUNTAIN* OF THE INNOCENT^ 
 
 and the police took care that only the Forts dc la Halle and their 
 lady-friends were permitted to swill the surging Macon. But I 
 spoke of things which have decayed there some millions of human 
 bones, to wit. During six centuries the vast expanse was the 
 Cemetery of the Innocents, but it was surrounded by covered
 
 *ytf PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 arcades, beneath the pavement of which the remains of Royal and 
 wealthy persons were interred. These arcades became fashionable 
 walks. In process of time, sellers of toys and sweetmeats came to 
 vend their wares there. The place grew into a bazaar, and the 
 bazaar ultimately into a market. Towards the latter end of the 
 eighteenth century the municipality, laudably anxious to enlarge 
 the market, came to an understanding with the ecclesiastical 
 authorities to remove the human bones which, by the million, 
 were crumbling in the Cimetiere des Innocents. The removal 
 took place at night by torchlight, the relics of mortality being 
 placed in covered wagons, escorted by troops of priests and monks 
 chanting the Office for the Dead. The market-space was thus con- 
 siderably increased, but little Avas done to improve it structurally. 
 I remember the Marche des Innocents very well indeed in Louis 
 Philippe's time, as a kind of forest of colossal canvas umbrellas 
 outspread, and with the handles firmly fixed in the earth. Beneath 
 these Brobdingnagian parapluies the ladies who dealt in fruit and 
 vegetables did business. The old arcades had been replaced by 
 modern galleries somewhat resembling the ' bulk shops ' you see 
 in old prints of Fleet Market and Butchers' How, near Temple Bar 
 and which had been erected in 1813 by Napoleon I. That 
 ruler had formed a grandiose scheme for remodelling the Halles ; 
 but the plan was destined to be postponed until the reign of 
 Napoleon III., whose architects possessed the inestimable advan- 
 tage of living in an epoch signalised by the wonderful structural 
 invention of Joseph Paxton. It can scarcely be denied that the 
 distribution not the material of Mr. Horace Jones's stately dead- 
 meat and poultry markets in Smithfield may have been to some 
 extent suggested by the ordonnance of the Halles Centrales ; but 
 it is altogether undeniable that the influence of the originator of 
 the Crystal Palace is visible in every iron truss and girder and 
 column, and in every pane of glass, in the Halles. 
 
 So much for technicalities. I have not the slightest intention 
 of making the round of the pavilions seriatim with you, or of 
 describing in anything like detail the contents and the appearance
 
 IN THE HALLES CENTRALES. 299 
 
 A PORTION OF THE OLD HALLES. 
 
 of an emporium of food in comparison with which St. George's 
 Market at Liverpool is a mere baby, and which can only be ap- 
 proached and that at a vast distance by the market at Philadel- 
 phia. Full}- to describe the Halles Centrales would be, indeed, a 
 task impossible of achievement, in this place at least, and in such 
 restricted space as is at my command. The Halles Centrales form 
 an Exposition Universelle of victuals. It is Grandgousier's larder. 
 It is the Tom Tiddler's Ground of things eatable. It is the 
 grandest ' Grub Street ' in Europe. Take and roll into one New 
 Smithfield, Farringdon, Covent Garden, Billingsgate, Leadenhall, 
 and the Borough ; throw in the New Cut, Lambeth Marsh, and 
 High Street, Camden Town, on a Saturday night, and the pro- 
 portions of the Halles Centrales would not yet be reached. You 
 might build an equally magnificent market in the very centre of 
 London, My Lord Duke of Bedford ; you might earn for yourself 
 fame as splendid and as enduring as that of Herodes Atticus, 
 could your Grace be only brought to recognise the fact that struc- 
 turally the paltry little collection of hovels called Covent Garden
 
 300 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN*. 
 
 Market is a reproach to our civilisation and a scandal to us as a 
 nation. 
 
 The picturesque is not altogether absent from the Halles Cen- 
 trales, all modern though they he. Entering the market from the 
 Place St. Eustache, I found myself in the midst of a very wilder- 
 ness of pumpkins, which the small cultivatciirs from the villages 
 around Paris are permitted to sell in the open air from break of 
 day to nine A.M. After that hour the ' pumpkineers ' are rigidly 
 moved on by the police. They are ridiculously cheap, a very fine 
 pumpkin being obtainable for a franc, and seem to be used ex- 
 clusively for soup-making among the petite bourgeoisie and b}' the 
 working classes. I have never yet met with potage cle pot iron in 
 the bill of fare of any restaurant : nor do the French cooks appear 
 to have any idea of pumpkin in the form of custard or of a pie. 
 Among the pumpkin dealers and their customers circulated 
 numbers of itinerant soup-sellers the soup being ' & 1'oignon,' a 
 racy, toothsome, and nourishing pottage, but too inelegant to find 
 a place in the menus of the Cafe Anglais or the Maison Doree. 
 Beyond the soupe a Voignon, and a slice of bread now and then, 
 with, perhaps, an occasional visit to a neighbouring marchand de 
 rins, the market people did not seem to require any refreshment. 
 They had all had their morning coffee at six A.M., and about eleven 
 they would breakfast seriously. Every Frenchman breakfasts 
 seriously when he has any money. It is a ceremony which must 
 be gone through al ovo usque ad malum from the omelet to the 
 apple or the pear or the grapes of the dessert. The poorest cab- 
 man has his two plats and his dessert. The consumption of fruit 
 is thus much larger than it is with us ; and the same, in degree, 
 may be said of vegetables. A Frenchman does not hold himself 
 as in duty bound to eat at least a pound of potatoes every day. We 
 do. But no day passes without the Frenchman partaking at one 
 meal, and generally at two, of pulse or green vegetables in his soup, 
 as a plat or as salad. "When we eat salad we generally eschew the 
 mild and wholesome oil, and drench our green meat with bad 
 vinegar, to the ruin of the flavour of the salad and the injury of
 
 IX THE HALLES CEXTRALES. 301 
 
 the coats of our stomachs. The variety of salad alone sold in the 
 Halles Centrales is simply amazing. Of tomatoes, likewise, there 
 is a splendid display. We are beginning at home slowly to recog- 
 nise the culinary virtue of the ' love apple,' with its salutary sub- 
 acid properties. Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz has made ' chops and 
 tomato sauce ' immortal ; but within recent years English people 
 have found out that tomatoes are very good and very wholesome, 
 fried, stewed, baked, stuffed, and au gratin. Tomato soup is one 
 of the finest of purees ; and raw tomatoes sliced, with oil and 
 vinegar, d I'Amcricaine, is a most succulent breakfast dish. In 
 France every dish d la Portugaisc.is garnished with tomatoes, and 
 ' Portuguese ' eggs are as delicious as ' Portuguese ' fowl and 
 ' Portuguese ' cutlets ; but the Parisian cooks have a bad habit of 
 mingling shredded onion with tomato salad. The tomato has a 
 distinct and independent flavour of its own, which needs neither 
 enhancement nor diminution. What would yon think of asparagus 
 and onions ? I question, even, whether mint with green peas be 
 not a barbarism. Among the vegetables in the Halles Centrales 
 not usually found in England, save, perhaps, in the Central 
 Avenue of Covent Garden, where you can obtain everything that 
 grows if you can afford to pay the price asked for it, I note 
 ' aubergines ' the American name for which is, I believe, ' egg 
 plant,' but the English appellation of which has escaped me ; I 
 saw it the other day in an Anglo-French dictionary, but it was not 
 a familiar name, and it fled from iny mind the black radish, as 
 big as a large carrot, very pungent, and very good eating with 
 bread and cheese ; ' salsifis ' and ' cardons.' 
 
 As for ' strange meats,' I observed with admiration in the game 
 department a huge wild-boar, fresh killed, and which the dealer told 
 me had been shot in the Ardennes. The last wild boar I met in a 
 continental market was in that behind the Pantheon at Rome. 
 He came from the Pontine marshes, but he was only a poor little 
 fellow compared with the formidable ctper in the Halles. Venison, 
 too, was abundant. It is expensive ; but the French are very fond 
 of it. In London venison, with the exception of the haunch, is
 
 302 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 cheaper than butcher's meat. I have seen neck of venison offered 
 at sixpence-halfpenny a pound. The common people won't eat it. 
 We are a wonderful people. Frogs by the score, frogs by the 
 hundred, ready skinned and trussed and spitted, were plentiful 
 in the Halle. I ate some once at a dinner in London of the 
 Acclimatisation Society. They were en fricasse with a white 
 sauce ; but so far as flavour went they presented no definite pur- 
 port or signification to my palate. An obliging French friend, a 
 confirmed frog-eater, tells me that the diminutive creature who 
 once a-wooing went, contrary to the advice of his mamma, with 
 his Holey Poley, Gammon, and Spinach, and who was an imme- 
 diate factor in the discovery of galvanism, is truly delicious fried, 
 with parsley. My friend bought three dozen this morning for the 
 family breakfast. He told the dealer that he would send his chef 
 to fetch them by and by, jokingly telling her not to eat them all in 
 the mean time. * Y a pas de danger,' quoth Madame la Grenouil- 
 liere. 'Jamais de la vie je ne mangerais de cette volaille-la. 
 Peuh ! une pourriture, allez ! ' So you see that the prejudice 
 against frog-eating is not confined to England. Snail-soup, how- 
 ever, I have heard of as recommended by English physicians for 
 consumptive patients ; but in France the colimagon, or rather the 
 cscargot, is habitually eaten, stewed, with a stuffing of fines herbes. 
 There used many years ago to be, near the top of the Rue St. 
 Honore, where the district of the Halles begins, a restaurant b} r 
 the sign of Les Cent Mille Escargots. Horrid reminiscence ! 
 And yet we eat periwinkles. I am glad to know that we do not 
 cat squirrels ; and I was heartily sorry to see a brace of those 
 beautiful and harmless little nutcrackers exposed for sale this 
 morning in the game department. Well, we eat ' the merry brown 
 hare ' and the inoffensive, albeit idiotic, .rabbit. As for the thou- 
 sands of quails and larks to be found in this part of the Halles, 
 and which are brought, they tell me, from North Africa, it would 
 be better, perhaps, to sa} r nothing of a sentimental nature. Those 
 small fowl are such very nice eating. 
 
 But touching that ' Jewelry ' department in the Halles
 
 IX THE HALLES CENTEALES. 303 
 
 Centrales of which I spoke anon. My conductor, the most 
 obliging of Frenchmen, amicably insisted that the ' Section de la 
 Bijouterie ' should be the very last visited in our survey of the 
 Great Central Market of Paris. ' C'est tres drole a voir,' quoth 
 he. As a rule, I do not care about staring at gems. I do like to 
 ponder over the sovereigns and napoleons, the doubloons and 
 ducats, the dollars and roubles, in the windows of the money- 
 changers' shops in the Palais Royal, because I have had a good 
 deal of gold and silver dross in my time ; and it is better to have 
 loved and lost than never to have loved at all. But I shall never 
 possess any diamonds ; and I prefer a dozen of oysters Marennes 
 are the best to all the pearls at Mellerio's, in the Rue de laPaix. 
 Stick a piece of foil paper at the back of a piece of glass symmetri- 
 cally cut into facets, and you may at once provide j-ourself with a 
 ruby or an emerald. Let others pine for coral. I can make a 
 very fair imitation of the ruddy polype with gum tragacanth and 
 vermilion. What is coral, after all, but so much cartilaginous 
 matter combined with carbonate and phosphate of lime ? On the 
 whole, to most of the gewgaws in which some people take so much 
 delight, there may be applied the scathing remarks on gay wearing- 
 apparel in Swift's ' Letter to a Very Young Married Lady : ' * In 
 your own heart,' writes the Dean, ' I would wish you to be an utter 
 contenmer of all distinctions which a finer petticoat can give you ; 
 because it neither makes you richer, handsomer, younger, better- 
 natured, more virtuous, nor wiser than if it hung upon a peg.' 
 The profound philosophy of Swift might in this instance, perhaps, 
 be supplemented by the apologue of the fox that had lost his tail. 
 It was a cousin of his who found the grapes so sour. 
 
 ' Jewelry in the Halles,' thought I, as we hastened through 
 the interesting but somewhat overpoweringly odorous Cheese De- 
 partment, in which the lordl}' Camembert, the unpretending but 
 delicious Brie, the milky Bondon, the porous Gruyere, the leather- 
 skinned Port-de-Salut the last 9k frontage pratiquant, or orthodox 
 cheese, stamped with pious emblems contend for preeminence 
 with the mighty Roquefort lefromage qui marclic, as the French
 
 304 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 significantly call it from its tendency to spontaneous locomotion 
 when kept too long. In England Roquefort has nearly killed our 
 own Stilton ; but the victor has a formidable rival in the Italian 
 Gorgonzola, a cheese almost unknown in France. ' Jewelry in 
 the Halles,' I repeated. ' Of what kind could those baubles be ? 
 Cheap brooches and earrings for the daughter of Madame Angot, 
 silver crosses for the Dames de la Halle ? ' I asked my conductor. 
 He laughed and told me that I should see the brooches and ear- 
 rings presently. So we passed from the cheeses to the corridors 
 allotted to fresh and sea water fish, where all kinds of finny food 
 were being sold, as in our own Billingsgate, by auction. The same 
 means are adopted in disposing of nearly the whole of the produce 
 brought to the Halles ; but in a few instances, eggs and butter for 
 example, the rente a la criee is superseded by the rente d V amiable 
 an amicable arrangement between vendor and purchaser. The 
 auction sales are veiy well managed ; a tramwaj* running along the 
 length of the stalls carrying a platform which supports the 
 auctioneer's rostrum, the auctioneer, and the crieur, the man who 
 does the bawling part of the business. The seller holds his 
 tongue ; but brings down his hammer at the final bid, and then 
 enters the sale in the ledger before him. Among the fish I 
 descried two or three noble sturgeon. These are 2>oissons de repre- 
 sentation or ' show-fish,' and are generally purchased by the pro- 
 prietors of 'so much a head ' restaurants to decorate their deran- 
 tnrcs, in company with the biggest asparagus, ihelmgestlanfjoiistcs 
 I use the French word because I cannot yet make out whether a 
 langouste is a crayfish and an ecreiissc a crawfish, or vice versa 
 some piscatorial authorities tell me one thing, and some another 
 and the most blushing tomatoes in or out of season. The sight 
 of these dainties, artistically displayed in the glass cases which 
 flank the restaurateur's door, dazzles the e}'es of the Parisian in 
 quest of a dinner at ' so much a head,' but who has not quite made 
 up his mind as to the particular establishment which he shall 
 patronise. The royal sturgeon or the colossal asparagus van- 
 quishes him in the end ; and he ascends the fatal stairs, and feeds.
 
 IN THE HALLES CENTRALES. 
 
 305 
 
 Chevet's in the Palais Royal, close to the Gal^rie d' Orleans, used 
 to be famous, in days of yore, for its * show fish ; ' but since the 
 restaurateurs a tant par tete adopted this obviously attractive 
 means of advertising their wares, Chevet the Fortnum and Mason 
 of Paris, as Potel and Chabor are its Morel relinquished the dis- 
 play of ' sensational ' provisions. It was Bilboquet in the farce who 
 used to say, some forty years since, that he had seen that morning
 
 806 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 a wonderfully fine salmon at Chevet's, and that he intended to 
 save up his pocket-money until he was able to purchase the 
 splendid fish. 
 
 Here is the 'jewelry ' at last. We pass between a double line 
 of stalls heaped high with the most astonishing array of cooked 
 food that I have ever set eyes upon. Fish, flesh, fowl, veget- 
 ables, fruit, pastry, confectionery, and cheese are all represented 
 here, ready cooked, but cold, and arranged, not on plates or dishes, 
 but on quarter-sheets of old newspapers. Imagine one pile, con- 
 sisting of the leg of a partridge, the remnants of an omelette, the 
 tail of a fried sole, two ribs of a jugged hare, a spoonful of haricot 
 beans, a scrap of filet, a cut pear, a handful of salad, a slice of 
 tomato, and a dab of jelly. It is the microcosm of a good dinner, 
 abating the soup. The pile constitutes a portion, and is to be 
 bought for five sous, or twopence-halfpenny. There are portions 
 as low as two sous ; indeed the scale of prices is most elastic in 
 ascending and descending. There are piles here to suit all 
 pockets. Are your funds at a very low ebb, indeed ? On that 
 scrap of a back number of the Figaro you will find a hard-boiled 
 egg, the gizzard of a fowl, two pickled gherkins, and a macaroon. 
 A breakfast for a Prince, if his Highness be impecunious. Are 
 you somewhat in cash? Behold outspread on a trenchant leading 
 article from the Eepublique Frangaise, a whole veal chop, a golden 
 store of cold fried potatoes, an artichoke, d la barigoule, a sump- 
 tuous piece of Roquefort, some barbe de capucin salad, and the 
 remains of a Charlotte russe. A luncheon for a King, if his 
 Majesty's civil list be a restricted one. But there are loftier 
 luxuries to be had. Behold an entire fowl. See at least the 
 moiety of a Chateaubriand aux champignons. Yonder are the 
 magnificent relics of a demie-selle de pre sale, the remains of a sole 
 d la Normande, the ruins of a buisson d'ecrevisses, half a dozen 
 smelts, the backbone of a pheasant, and, upon my word, some 
 truffles ; yes, positively, truffles. It is true that they are mingled 
 with bits of cheese and beetroot, with a dash of meringue d la 
 reme, and a suspicion of sauce Robert. All this is gathered
 
 IN THE HALLE S CE NTH ALES. 
 
 307 
 
 together on a front page of the Pays. A dinner for an Emperor, 
 when Imperialism is at a discount, and Csesar does not find it 
 convenient to dine at the Cafe' Eiche or the Maison Doree. 
 
 And yet it is precisely from establishments of the kind just 
 namedthatthehete- 
 rogeneous portions 
 come. An errone- 
 ous idea has long 
 prevailed that the 
 cheap eating-house 
 keepers in the 
 Palais Royal are 
 dealers in craiiibe 
 recocta, and that 
 their larders are 
 largely supplied 
 from the ' leavings ' 
 of the great Boule- 
 vard restaurants, 
 which are hashed 
 up again for the 
 benefit of the one- 
 franc seventy-five 
 and the forty-sous 
 customers. Nothing 
 whatever of the kind 
 is the case. The 
 cheap restaurateurs 
 may purchase meat 
 of the second cate- 
 gory, lean instead 
 of plump poultry, 
 game that is a little too far gone to suit aristocratic palates 
 the French epicure abhors game when it is ' high,' and fish 
 which is not quite in its vernal prime of freshness ; and, as regards 
 
 x 2 
 
 A GRAPESELLER AT THE HALLES.
 
 308 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX. 
 
 A CONNOISSEUR OF BUTTER AT THE HALLES. 
 
 butter especially, there is certainly a difference between the quality 
 of the article used in the first-rate cuisines and that employed in 
 the second- and third-rate ones ; but for the rest, dear and cheap 
 restaurant proprietors go mainly to the same market. It is the 
 same portion of fried potatoes for which you pay five sous at an 
 ctablissement de bouillon, and for which one franc seventy-five cen- 
 times are extorted from you at the Cafe Lucullus or the Restaurant 
 des Grands Gommeux. The cheap eating-houses have few 'leavings' 
 to dispose of. Their guests are generally too hungry to leave any- 
 thing on their plates; and, if aught, indeed, remains, it is devoured
 
 IN THE HALLES CENTRALES. 309 
 
 by the scullions and gate-sauces, or is manipulated by the chef, who 
 should be an adept in the ' art d'accommoder les restes.' The 
 fragments which form the 'jewelry ' of the Halles Centrales are 
 brought down in big baskets, between seven and eight every morn- 
 ing, by the garcons of the great Boulevard restaurants, or by the 
 larbins from the hotelsof theMinistersandtheforeignAmbassadors. 
 If there have been overnight a dinner at the Ministry of the Interior 
 or at the Baratarian Embassy, the show of 'jewelry' in the morn- 
 ing will be superb. Whole turkeys and capons, all but entire 
 hams and hures de sanglier scarcely impinged upon, pieces montees, 
 the majestic vestiges of a poulet a la Marengo or a saumon d la 
 Chambord, will decorate the deal boards of the stalls in the Halles. 
 Out of the fashionable season the supply comes principally from the 
 leading restaurants, where the ' leavings ' are the perquisites of the 
 garcons. Whether the proprietors levy any tolls on the proceeds 
 accruing from the sale of this astonishing omnium gatherum, this 
 macedoine, this pot-pourri, this salmagundi, this galimatias of 
 edible odds and ends, I do not know ; but, so far as my inquiries 
 have extended, I incline to the belief that the fragments become the 
 property of the garcons, in frank-almoign, and go to swell the 
 aggregate sum in the tronc or money-box vase on the restaurant 
 counter into which all the fees received by the waiters are cast, to 
 be divided at the end of every month in equitably proportionate 
 shares among all the servants of the establishment : from the lofty 
 premier garcon, who will be a maitre d'hotel soon, and who may 
 become a patron some of these days, to the lowliest marmiton in 
 the regions below. 
 
 The 'jewelry' is not sold by auction. The sales are always 'a 
 1'amiable ; ' and there are some dealers who have yearly contracts 
 for the ' leavings ' of a particular restaurant. So soon as the mer- 
 chandise has been received at the Halle the dealers nearly always 
 women proceed to arrange it for sale ; and this arrangement is, 
 to all intents and purposes, an art. The marchande de bijouterie 
 has a twofold object in view. First, she wishes to make a very little 
 seem like a great deal ; and, next, she is desirous to make the por-
 
 310 PAKIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 tions look as attractive to the eye as possible. Some marchandes, 
 fortunate enough to possess the sentiment of artistic beauty, make 
 up their own portions ; others engage the services of a metteur en 
 ceuvre or a donneur de coup d'ceil the great jewellers of the Rue 
 de la Paix can only do as much to give the portions the requisite 
 infusion of the picturesque in the way of composition and colour. 
 These metteurs en ceuvre are a kind of professors of culinary peripa- 
 tetics, flitting from stall to stall, and giving here and there a dash 
 of green, in the shape of some spinach or a chou de Bruxelles, or a 
 touch of red in the way of a carrot or a tomato, to a portion the 
 hues of which seem too monotonous in tone. A high light is 
 needed there. Quick ! the fat of a mutton-chop, the white of an 
 egg, or a morsel of blancmange supplies the deficiency. Is not 
 yonder heap somewhat feeble and unsubstantial in appearance ? 
 Swiftly the donneur de coup d'ceil, by the artful introduction of the 
 deep crimson of beetroot, the Vandyck brown of an entre-cote, or 
 the mellow tawniness of the crust of a raised pie, imparts strength 
 and richness to the whole; and the etalage of 'jewelry' is complete. 
 The purchasers are the Quiet Poor, the people who are ashamed 
 to beg, and who, but for the merciful cheapness of these toothsome 
 scraps, would not taste meat from month's end to month's end. 
 To watch the decent but wretchedly-clad people, men, women, 
 and children, critically examining this 'jewelry' for the indi- 
 gent jewelry to be worn inside instead of outside the stomach 
 to watch them slowly passing from stall to stall and turning over 
 the coppers in their hands before they made their final choice ; to 
 watch them at last going off with their newspaper-enwrapped 
 parcels, and with just a gleam of tranquil satisfaction in their wan 
 pinched faces, was more than curious, more than interesting. It 
 was inexpressibly pathetic. Could I persuade a member of the 
 Charity Organisation Society to accompany me to the jewelry 
 department in the Halles Centrales between eight and nine o'clock 
 in the morning, I will wager that in less than five minutes I would 
 get twice that number of francs out of him to treat the poor decent 
 thinly-clad folks to portions withal.
 
 XIX. 
 
 EXHIBITION ITEMS. 
 
 Sept. 21. 
 
 HAPPY the scribe and I am lie who is not called upon to 
 describe the Exposition Universelle in a systematic manner, and 
 who has nothing whatever to do with the wrongs of the exhibitors 
 and the high-handed doings of M. Krantz, Commissary- General 
 and Grande Bete Noire of the Trocadero and the Champ de Mars. 
 * The ferocious Engineer ' is the mildest qualification which the
 
 312 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 majority of the Paris newspapers can find for the energetic Com- 
 missary-General ; and at least twice a week a flaming leading 
 article appears in some organ of .public opinion, demanding the 
 instant dismissal from office of a functionary whose most grievous 
 offence appears to be that he cannot please everybody. A similar 
 incapacity, it will be remembered, was the misfortune of a certain 
 old gentleman in remote antiquity who had a donkey. At this 
 present moment an avalanche of abuse is descending on the 
 devoted head of the Commissary- General because the distribution 
 of prizes is to be delayed until the 21st of October, ten days 
 before the close of the Exhibition itself, and because M. Krantz 
 obstinately refuses to publish beforehand a complete list of tli3 
 medals and diplomas to be awarded by the juries. There are, it 
 is said, 10,000 awards, and some 2000 persons jurymen, officials, 
 copj'ists, and so forth are necessarily in the secret of who is to 
 have anything and who nothing; but, on the other hand, there are 
 52,000 exhibitors, who angrily deprecate the leaking out of partial 
 revelations, and call for the publication of a full, true, and par- 
 ticular list of the recompenses which are to be given. All that 
 M. Krantz has hitherto condescended to -do is to hang up, in the 
 Vestibule d'Honneur, a very handsome drawing, on tinted paper, 
 in sepia heightened with Chinese white, which drawing is the 
 model of the diploma to be conferred on meritorious exhibitors. 
 It is a beautiful work of art ; but as yet it is not more highly 
 appreciated by the exposants than a bride-cake in a confectioner's 
 shop-window would be, when you knew that somebody was going 
 to be married, but when you were totally unaware whether there 
 was any intention of asking you to the wedding breakfast. 
 
 The rage of the exhibitors at the postponement of the tableau 
 of rewards has at least one highly diverting aspect. The following 
 is in substance their plea. ' You deprive us,' they say to M. 
 Krantz, ' of the means of selling our goods. You are spoiling our 
 market. If we get gold medals there will be an immediate and 
 extensive demand for our wares ; and orders will flow in pro- 
 portionately if we receive silver or bronze medals, or even honour-
 
 EXHIBITION ITEMS. 313 
 
 able mentions ; whereas, if we have to wait until the 21st of 
 October for our deserts to be recognised, the commercial travellers 
 of the great foreign firms will have left Paris. We shall have lost 
 a month's prestige among wealthy visitors, willing to buy, but 
 preferring to wait until they can make their purchases from medal- 
 lists'or ' laureats,' as these ambitious tradesfolk term themselves 
 ' and after the 21st we shall have little more to do than to pack 
 up, with the deplorable consciousness that our medals of 1878 are, 
 in a business sense, of no more use to us than our analogous 
 decorations of 1855, of 1862, of 1867, and of 1873.' I have heard 
 that one ingenious fabricant, say of ^Esthetic Soap or Sympa- 
 thetic Corsets, exasperated at the official delay, which is keeping 
 his exalted merits in the shade, placed in his case of exhibits a 
 placard bearing the inscription, in Liliputian and Brobdingnagian 
 characters respectively, ' Esperance d'obtenir la Medaille d'Or.' 
 ' Medaille d'Or' was in portentous capitals ; 'Esperance d'obtenir' 
 in microscopic letters. But one of M. Krantz's alguazils was very 
 soon ' down ' on the inventive fabricant, and he was sternly 
 admonished to remove the obnoxious sign and nourish his hopes 
 in secret. He declares, however, that justice shall eventually be 
 done to the ^Esthetic Soap or the Sympathetic Corset; and that, 
 following the example of Piron the satirist, who desired that there 
 should be graven on his tombstone the epitaph, 
 ' Ci-git Piron, qui ne fut rien, 
 Pas meme Academician,' 
 
 he will style himself should the unintelligent jury of his class 
 dare pass him over, ' X., non-metlaille de 1'Exposition Universelle 
 de 1878.' 
 
 But the exhibitors and M. Krantz may be left to fight out 
 their little difficulties among themselves as best they may. Their 
 polemics concern me not. I am one of the public. I have 
 nothing to exhibit. I buy my ticket at a debit dc tabac ; and I 
 am bound to acknowledge that the Show in the Champ de Mars is 
 a capital franc's worth. You should not take too much of it at a 
 time, because the multiplicity of things to see is apt to superinduce
 
 314 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 headache ; but * doing' your Exhibition gently and tranquilly, and 
 mildly but firmly declining to be S} T stematic, will become eventually 
 a pleasure instead of a pain, a pastime instead of a burden. With 
 regard to the part which Great Britain plays in the Show this 
 much may be taken for granted, that we are always sure of being 
 able to exhibit two things in well-nigh unapproachable perfection, 
 the economy of strength and the accessories of comfort. Sir 
 Walter Scott, when Matthew Boulton, James Watt's partner, 
 quoted, in reply to some casual observation, an old saying, to 
 the effect that ' in every quarter of the globe you were certain 
 to find a Scot, a rat, and a Newcastle grindstone,' suggested 
 that he might have added, ' and a Brummagem button.' ' We 
 make something else besides buttons at Birmingham,' quietly 
 replied Boulton ; ' we make Strength.' The 
 retort was but the paraphrase of what he 
 had told Prince Potemkin when that Mus- 
 covite magnifico, visiting the works at Soho, 
 
 ENAMELLED JARDINIERE, EXHIBITED BY M. SERVANT
 
 EXHIBITION ITEMS. 
 
 315 
 
 superciliously asked what was sold there. ' What all the world 
 wants Power,' returned the senior partner in the firm. The un- 
 diminished power of English 
 mechanic genius has gone on 
 increasing, now as then, in an 
 astonishing ratio ; but not less 
 surprising has been the de- 
 velopment of our ingenuity in 
 ministering to the comforts and 
 conveniences of life. It stands 
 to reason that power is a very 
 fine thing to possess ; but that 
 is no reason why Hercules should 
 not wear boots that fit him pro- 
 perly ; why he should not have 
 a due supply of clean linen and 
 fleecy hosiery in lieu of that 
 abominably uncomfortable shirt 
 of Nessus ; and why he should 
 not enjoy a tidily furnished 
 dwelling, with plenty of easy- 
 chairs and sofas to rest his 
 limbs, a well-planned carpet to 
 rest his feet upon, and snug 
 curtains to his windows to keep 
 the wind out. 
 
 All these are elements of com- 
 fort, and for the lack of them not 
 
 all the art bronzes, the Murano chandeliers, the Sevres vases, the 
 ormolu clocks, the Buhl tables, the cloisonne and champ-leve 
 enamels, the oxidised silver statuettes, and the peacock's feather- 
 trimmed robes of continental civilisation can compensate. Thus, 
 while the national conceit of the Briton may be somewhat humili- 
 ated when he is forced to confess how much superior to him are 
 the French, the Italians, and the Germans as historical painters, 
 
 BRONZE STATUETTE, EXHIBITED BY 
 M. HOTTOT.
 
 316 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 as sculptors, and as modellers, liis heart may swell with honest 
 and legitimate pride when he gazes upon a multiplicity of objects 
 due to the inventiveness of the Anglo-Saxon, and which only 
 Anglo-Saxon hands and machiner} 1 - can make to perfection. Who 
 invented oilcloth and Kamptulicon ? To what nation do we owe 
 railway rugs and waterproof clothing ? Is the sewing-machine a 
 French invention or an Anglo-Saxon that is to say, an American 
 one developed from the sixty years' old crude notion of an ingenious 
 German ? The French hanter us on our wastefulness of fuel in 
 our kitchens, and they point, to some extent justifiably, to their 
 compact and frugal charcoal-stove, which is in reality only a very 
 old Roman device, which, in its most primitive form, survives in 
 the Spanish brasero and the Oriental manghal ; but we invented 
 the gas-stove, which cooks fifty things which the poele d charbon 
 cannot touch ; and, besides, you cannot roast a sirloin of beef or a 
 saddle of mutton over a charcoal-stove. Charcoal will not, with- 
 out difficulty, keep your boiler and your oven at a proper heat. 
 The French are, save in so far as regards a fowl, or at most a 
 turkey, the wretchedest of roasters. If they have to deal even 
 with so small a matter as a leg of mutton, they send the meat 
 up to table burnt black outside and blood-raw inside, and then, 
 because they do not know how to roast, they circulate a pre- 
 posterous myth about the English liking their meat saignant or 
 sanguinolent. Why is this ? They cannot roast properly, for the 
 reason that when the operation of roasting requires any machinery 
 larger than that of the Dutch oven in which we toast chops, 
 kidneys, and bacon, they are thrown back well-nigh on the barbar- 
 ism of the spit and turnspit-dogs. Their middle-class houses 
 know nothing of the completeness of comfort afforded by a well- 
 fitted kitchen range, which, properly constructed, and with a cook 
 who knows how to arrange her fire, need not be by any means 
 extravagant in the way of fuel. It strikes me that a thoroughly 
 well-appointed kitchen is one of the most important components in 
 the entity which we call comfort ; and for all the lustrous sham of 
 a French battcrie de cuisine, for all the elaborate array of stock-
 
 EXHIBITION ITEMS. 317 
 
 pots, casseroles d liaison, and bain-marie pans, French kitchen 
 furniture is left wofully behind when compared with such culinary 
 machinery as is supplied by our Benhams, our Adams, and our 
 Browns and Greens. 
 
 The reason, I apprehend, why so many thousands of Frenchpeople 
 breakfast and dine at public eating-houses is that their own small, 
 pokey, and ill- ventilated kitchens are destitute of the appliances 
 which are seldom lacking even in the kitchens of an English middle- 
 class-house of very moderate pretensions. I may be met, in all this, 
 I am quite aware, by the embarrassing rejoinder that, with all our 
 excellent culinary apparatus, we do not know how to cook. I will 
 traverse one count in the potential in- 
 dictment by asserting that we are the 
 best roasters in Europe. I will go 
 further, and declare that we can broil 
 excellently well. Since I have been 
 a stranger and a pilgrim in Paris this 
 last outing, I have breakfasted or dined 
 at twenty-seven different restaurants 
 of the first and second rate order. 
 My experience of the lower grades will 
 be published after my decease ; but I 
 deliberately maintain that no cotelette 
 
 de mouton, nature, for which I have paid two francs and a half at 
 Bignon's, at the Cafe Eiche, at the Maison Doree, at Durand's, or at 
 the Cafe Anglais I suppose that one cannot go in the way of eating- 
 houses higher than this has approached within a very long dis- 
 tance the mutton-chop with a curly tail which I can obtain for nine- 
 pence sterling at the Cheshire Cheese or the Cock in Fleet Street. 
 Of course, I do not expect filets de sole d la Orly or pouletsautd d la 
 Portugaise at the Cheshire Cheese or the Cock. I merely take 
 plat for plat, meat for meat, and broiling for broiling ; and I insist 
 the more strongly on the chop, as the modern Parisian gourmets 
 profess to disparage the most approved made dishes in their cuisine, 
 and sicken you with panegyrics of the blood-raw 'chunks' of wasted
 
 818 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 flesh and the skinny little morsels of tough meat and gristle cling- 
 ing to a scrag-bone, ill-bred, ill-kept, ill-killed, ill-cooked, ill-served, 
 and extravagantly charged for, which they naively term ' nature.' 
 
 The service of their dinner-tables is quite as much open to 
 animadversion. Look into scores of glass cases in the Exhibition, 
 and you will see what we are able to do and have done for years 
 in the way of table cutlery, and electroplate, and glass. The 
 best French dinner-tables are but very poorly provided in these 
 respects; and you cannot fail to be struck with the meagre appear- 
 ance of a Parisian table, even of the highest class, if you glance at 
 one of the first-page engravings in Jules Gouffe's magnificent work 
 on cookery. I grant that the French Department of the Exhi- 
 bition contains some most sumptuous examples of salt-cellars in 
 gold, silver, and electro, and some of these are really marvels of 
 modelling and chasing. I own again the great gastronomic con- 
 venience of the tiny machine called the moulin a poivre, which 
 contains wh ole pepper, which you grind as you want it, over your 
 plate. The freshly-ground pepper is most delightfully aromatic ; 
 but its spiciness fails to console me for the almost total absence 
 from French restaurants of a salt-spoon. Some of the higher-class 
 houses have begun to use English mustard, but in the majority of 
 places of public entertainment the sinapistic condiment is simply 
 vile. Moutarde de Maille, when the pot is kept scrupulously 
 corked, is very succulent; but it is expensive, and you rarely obtain 
 the real Dijon preparation at a restaurant. For patriotic reasons 
 the French repudiate the wholesome, albeit not very puissant, 
 German Senf ; and the common French mustard, acrid but not 
 pungent, is as nasty as the common French salt, which is a dirty 
 gray in hue and tastes of stale periwinkles. I should speak, how- 
 ever, of this detestable salt in the past tense. Of the salt now 
 in use no complaint can be made, save that it is not quite crystal- 
 lised enough. The gray salt with the periwinkle flavour went out 
 why, I cannot tell with Louis Philippe. 
 
 I have said so much about dinner-table appliances that I may 
 be perhaps permitted to say a few words about a singularly inge-
 
 EXHIBITION ITEMS. 319 
 
 nious and convenient dinner-table in the English furniture depart- 
 ment of the Exhibition. This article is in the display of Messrs. 
 Johnstone, Jeanes, & Co. of New Bond Street, London. The col- 
 lection comprises a very superb cabinet of satinwood, inlaid with 
 ebony, tulip, and other rare woods in most intricate and fanci- 
 ful patterns, a noble sideboard and chimneypiece of carved oak, 
 and many other articles of decorative furniture of equal excellence ; 
 but the tp&iaUtffoi which Messrs. Johnstone, Jeanes, & Co. are 
 entitled to the greatest commendation is the patent circular expand- 
 ing dining-table, which, by an arrangement of mechanism equally 
 ingenious and simple, is made, with almost magical rapidit} r , to 
 contract or enlarge its circumference. It will dine four people, or 
 it will dine eight, or ten, or sixteen, or twenty. It is the bed of 
 Procrustes, but with a difference. The table is aggravated or 
 diminished to suit the guests, who, on their part, do not suffer 
 painful excision or more painful dislocation of their limbs to suit 
 the table. The production of a homogeneous plane in a circle, of 
 which the diameter can be widened or narrowed by a mere turn of 
 the hand, is based on simple mathematical principles. Certain 
 segments of the circle have to be taken out or fitted in, as the 
 dining-table requires to be made larger or smaller. The whole 
 table, indeed, is a * puzzle,' of which the different parts fit into 
 each other with unerring exactitude. Still it is a puzzle so plain 
 in its mechanism that it could be mastered with ease after a few 
 hours' practice by an intelligent butler or handy parlourmaid. 
 Circular dining-tables are just now much more fashionable than 
 the old long ' telescopic ' tables. The round table, it is argued, is 
 much more sociable King Arthur and his Knights found that out 
 long ago than the solemn banqueting-table, with its upper and 
 lower end. The servants have less trouble in attending to the 
 guests when the table is a round one ; and in a country house, 
 where the company is sometimes very restricted and sometimes 
 very numerous, the advantages of such an accommodating piece of 
 furniture as Messrs. Johnstone & Jeanes's circular expanding 
 dining-table will at once be manifest.
 
 320 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 In this same furniture department Messrs. H. & J. Cooper of 
 Great Pulteney Street have an artistically arranged display, the 
 effect of which is much enhanced by the judiciously selected tones 
 of the rich velvet-pile curtains and hangings that form at once the 
 frame and background to their exhibit. The post of honour is 
 accorded to a solid rosewood cabinet of novel conception and fine 
 workmanship, which, although partially based upon the decorative 
 style of the sixteenth century, before the advent of the florid Italian 
 Renaissance, displays decided originality of treatment as regards 
 design, and is especially remarkable for the harmonious richness 
 of its ensemble. The aim of Mr. H. J. Cooper, the designer of 
 this graceful piece of furniture, has apparently been twofold 
 firstly, to achieve what he defines as a ' harmonious composition in 
 tones of red,' embracing alike the constructive and decorative fea- 
 tures ; and secondly, to subordinate the paintings on the panels to 
 the general structure, in order that they may appear as integral 
 portions of the cabinet instead of mere adjuncts to it as is often 
 the case with the ornamentation of modern decorative furniture and 
 thereby preserve that sense of unity which should pervade a piece 
 of high-class furniture the same as any other work of art. 
 
 The framework of the cabinet is of solid rosewood relieved with 
 elegant brass mountings, and the panels are painted in oil with 
 scenes and characters from Tennyson's Princess, by Mr. Lewis 
 Day, to whom the decorative details of the structure are also due. 
 The upper panels are devoted to the leading members of that 
 strange university which has ' prudes for proctors, dowagers for 
 deans, and sweet girl-graduates.' There is the Princess herself, 
 with the twin tame leopards crouched beside her throne; the 
 falcon-eyed Lady Psyche at her satinwood desk and her babe 
 slumbering by her knee ; Melissa, book in hand, smoothing the 
 petted peacock and scattering shafts of gentle satire ; and the faded 
 form, haughty lineaments, and falsely-brown autumnal tresses of 
 Lady Blanche ' a tiger cat in act to spring.' The lower panels 
 contain a couple of groups, one of the Princess bending in grief 
 over the stricken lover, the other illustrating the final injunction,
 
 EXHIBITION ITEMS. 
 
 321 
 
 * Lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me.' The leading tones 
 of these paintings are in excellent keeping with the deep ruby tint 
 of the wood-work of the cabinet, and a singularly rich and vivid 
 chromatic result is arrived at without the slightest approach to 
 garishness. 
 
 Another rosewood cabinet, differing materially from that of 
 Messrs. Cooper, being highly ornate in its general design and 
 
 diversified in its manifold details, is exhibited by a Manchester 
 firm, Messrs. Henry Ogden & Son of Deansgate. This structure, 
 in which a certain Oriental tendency is apparent, recalls the deco-
 
 322 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN*. 
 
 rative furniture in vogue during the Queen Anne period, but displays 
 more freedom of design as well as considerable ingenuity in its 
 adaptation to modern requirements. Its graceful proportions and 
 finished workmanship, combined with the artistic feeling of its 
 decorative details, entitle it to rank among the finer examples of 
 artistic furniture in the British section. Rich as it is in orna- 
 mentation, not merely as regards carving, but metallic and ceramic 
 accessories, the judicious choice of a dark material for the ground- 
 work of the structure conduces far more to a subdued general effect 
 than might have been anticipated. In addition to their cabinet, 
 Messrs. Ogden exhibit a pianoforte in satin-wood, inlaid with maho- 
 gany and various delicately-tinted woods, in which a markedimprove- 
 ment upon the recognised inelegance of form of the ' grand' is appa- 
 rent. As regards the plan of the instrument, this necessarily fol- 
 lows the conventional shape ; but the elevation is treated in semi- 
 architectural fashion and in the pseudo-classic style with complete 
 success. A kind of frieze runs round the upper portion, and 
 moulded panels, inlaid with cupids, wreaths, musical emblems, 
 and the like, ornament the sides, while the body of the instrument 
 rests on light elegantly-shaped tapering legs. The difficulties to 
 be overcome were considerable, but the result is a very graceful 
 piece of furniture. 
 
 Bewildered jurymen puzzling over a number of objects all ex- 
 hibited by the same firm, and inwardly debating whether the merits 
 of one half of the collection are not more than counterbalanced by 
 the glaring imperfections in the other half must have been favour- 
 ably struck by the simple and tasteful display of Messrs. Hen- 
 derson & Co. of Durham, who have contented themselves with 
 showingmerely a couple of specimens of their artistic carpets. Both 
 of these productions, wrought in good materials into substantial 
 and enduring fabrics, are equally admirable as regards design and 
 arrangement of colour, and are, indeed, textile gems in their way. 
 The more refined of the two is an Axrninster carpet, woven 
 in one of the firm's, patent looms, and notable for the combined 
 cliasteness and elegance of its design. The pattern is a simple one
 
 EXHIBITION ITEMS. 323 
 
 on a neutral-blue ground, the treatment being architectonic and in 
 the mediaeval style, so that the carpet is especially adapted to har- 
 monise with furniture of the Early English character now much 
 in vogue. The other carpet is a "Wilton, minutely intricate in 
 pattern and remarkable for the rich harmony of its brilliant tones, 
 in both of which distinguishing features the direct and beneficial 
 influence of Oriental art is traceable. A Silver Medal has, I hear, 
 been awarded to Messrs. Henderson & Co. for their modest, but 
 highly satisfactory, exhibit. 
 
 There is yet another cabinet in the British furniture depart- 
 ment to which I desire to call attention, deserving as it is of the 
 minutest examination, for it is unquestionably one of the most 
 beautiful examples of artistic ebenisterie that it has ever been my 
 lot to inspect. I allude to the Louis Seize cabinet exhibited by 
 Messrs. Mellier Son of Margaret Street, sumptuously enriched 
 with foliage, mouldings, and tracery in brass, with its large central 
 panel representing Minerva rewarding the Arts and Sciences. The 
 design belongs precisely to that transition period say between 
 1770 and 1780 when the conventional Greece-Roman classicism, 
 of Carle Yanloo and Raphael Mengs, so fiercely assailed by Dide- 
 rot, was declining, and when the star of David's classicism 
 chaste, austere, but still conventional, was slowly rising. Mr. 
 Mellier's cabinet is one which might not have been like enough 
 to the style of Boucher or of Fragonard to please Madame Du 
 Barry, but it would have assuredly delighted Marie Antoinette and 
 the Princesse de Lamballe. It is in marqiieterie of the rarest 
 woods marqueterle of the famous style, hitherto deemed unap- 
 proachable, of Luneville. The sitting figure of the sapient god- 
 dess, the little amoretti who symbolise the Arts and Sciences, 
 their emblems and attributes, the elaborate architectui'al details, 
 the sunlit sky, the Orb of Day himself with his coruscating rays, 
 the distant mountains, the sylvan middle distance, the foreground 
 full of flowers and leaves, form one grand mosaic composed of an 
 infinite number of shreds of differently coloured wood, inlaid with 
 the most exquisite patience, cunning, and taste. It is an ceui'r'e
 
 324 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN'. 
 
 d la scie, a work wrought with the minutest handsaws imaginable, 
 and joined together with more than Chinese more than Japanese 
 deftness and accuracy. Substantially, it is a mosaic in wood ; 
 still, looked at even through a powerful magnifying- glass, its effect 
 is that of a most carefully executed painting in oil. Vast numbers 
 of spectators have possibly already expressed their wonder and 
 delight at this astonishing specimen of cabinet-work ; but the 
 critic who will most thoroughly appreciate Mr. Mellier's work, and 
 whose suffrages he is perchance most anxious to gain, must be 
 the skilled artificer in ebenisterie. Only the practical aii- work- 
 man can tell what an immensity of pains has been bestowed on 
 any fiftieth part of an inch in this picture ; how weeks may have 
 been given to Pallas's helmet, and months to the folds of her 
 drapery ; how incessant has been the task of insertion and reinser- 
 tion, and how desperate have been the difficulties occurring in 
 obtaining a particular shade of wood, were it only for the 
 mouldings in a cornice or the warm lights on a tuft of foliage. 
 Exquisite designs of a geometrically decorative and floral cha- 
 racter have been produced in wood marqueterie in France, in 
 Italy, and in the Low Countries ; but Mr. Mellier's panel may 
 be looked upon as a well-nigh unique example of a figure- 
 subject of the highest class in a most delicate and intractable 
 material. 
 
 If you would see in the rough some of the very rarest and most 
 beautifully tinted of the woods required for the production of mar- 
 queterie on an elaborate scale, you should go to Brazil. I went to 
 Brazil in the Exhibition before my visit terminated, and after 
 a mild surfeit of odorous timber, chocolate, nuts, spices, arrow- 
 root, manioc, cassava, araca, maize, and preserved cocoanut, I 
 thought that I would have a look at those colonial dependencies of 
 the kingdom of Portugal of which the interesting Brazilian Empire 
 once formed a part. But I had much difficulty in finding Tlores 
 in the Azores,' to say nothing of Goa in the East Indies. I had 
 heard that colonial Portugal was to be found in the south-east 
 corner of the building of the Champ de Mars, hard by the cole
 
 EXHIBITION ITEMS. 325 
 
 Militaire. Now, in wandering about 'Paris Cut to Pieces,' I 
 start by one invariable compass the Big Balloon, the captive 
 monster, to make ascents in which is the delight of the existence 
 of the fascinating Mademoiselle Sarah Bernhardt. Whenever I 
 see the Big Balloon in mid-air I know that the monster must be 
 over the defunct central pavilion of the burnt-out Tuileries, and 
 shape my course accordingly. When the balloon is ' down' I lose 
 my way. In wandering through the exhibition I have two com- 
 passes Gustave Dore's vase and Signer Tabacchi's ' Bather,' the 
 gracefullest mind, I do not say the grandest statue that the 
 world has seen since Hiram Power's 'Greek Slave' was first 
 revealed to us in '51. But this afternoon I could discern neither 
 of my compasses, and found myself wholly at sea. Gustave Dore's 
 vase had seemingly taken unto itself wings and flown away ; and 
 as for Signer Tabacchi's 'Bather,' that chaste nymph she wears 
 a most decorous bathing costume of the ' combined pattern' had 
 apparently taken so determined a ' header' into that briny ocean 
 into which she is incessantly threatening to plunge as to be invi- 
 sible to all eyes save those of Schiller's ' Diver.' 
 
 As to where the south-east corner of the Exhibition Palace 
 was, I knew no more about it than did probably the Man in the 
 Moon when he prematurely descended on this sublunary sphere 
 and inquired the way to Norwich. Emboldened, however, by the 
 example of the Vir Lund, I asked my way of a sergent de ville. 
 This functionary was probably the Man in the South who had 
 burnt his mouth by eating cold plum-porridge ; for he told me 
 very crustily that he had nothing to do with the Eastern section. 
 'But where,' I persisted, 'are the Portuguese dependencies?' 
 ' Sapristi ! ' he replied, ' en Portugal.' But I had just come out 
 of Portugal, and I could find no dependencies there. Could he 
 tell me geographically where the South-East was ? At this the 
 sergent de ville lost all patience, sternly bidding me ' passer mon 
 chemin,' and 'plus vite que 9a' he added. The existing race of 
 sergents de ville in Paris are distinguished neither for their polite- 
 ness nor for their intelligence. I met one the other da} 7 who
 
 826 
 
 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 could not tell me the way to the world-famous restaurant of the 
 Moulin Eouge in the Champs filysees. Perhaps he thought that 
 I was a Red Republican, and meant mischief. 
 
 At length a friendly trundler of a Bath-chair the} 7 are very 
 civil and patient fellows, these pushers of fauteuils roulantt, 
 although their endurance seems to be sorely tried by the crossness 
 and captiousness of the old ladies who seem to be their principal 
 patronesses came to my assistance, and good-naturedly informed 
 
 me that Colonial 
 Portugal was in 
 the Quartier de la 
 Degustation. But 
 I was not yet out of 
 the wood. I lost my 
 way in the Dutch 
 ' dependencies. My 
 progress was blocked 
 by the tremendously 
 towering trophy of 
 casks, kegs, pun- 
 cheons, jars, and bot- 
 tles, representing, 
 in a really grandiose 
 architectural mass, 
 
 the exhibit of the great liqueur house of Wynand Fockink of Amster- 
 dam. Cura9oa and scheidam, maraschino and schnapps, kummel, 
 kirschwasser, and orange-boom one would have thought that this 
 colossal pyramid of strong drink was a monument erected to the 
 memory of the late Mynheer Van Dunk. After various other delays 
 I eventually reached the Portuguese dependencies, and over against 
 the pavilion in the park of the Champs de Mars, guarded by two 
 most ferocious effigies of Indian Sepoj-s in the Portuguese service, 
 I found a very pretty little rustic kiosk, devoted to the exhibition 
 of the Madeira wines of Messrs. Cossart Gordon & Co. of Madeira 
 and London, a firm of veiy ancient standing, having been estab-
 
 - EXHIBITION ITEMS. 327 
 
 lished as shippers in the wine-growing island ever since the year 
 1746. 
 
 Are you fond of Madeira ? Have you, travelling in the United 
 States before the Civil War broke out, ever been regaled with the 
 famous vintages known as ' Governor Fish,' ' Sunnyside,' and 
 ' Smoked Charleston' ? Did you ever taste the Madeira at the Fish- 
 mongers', at the Goldsmiths', at the Clothworkers' ? If such be 
 your experience and your inclination of taste, the ' degustation ' in 
 progress at the rustic kiosk of Messrs. Cossart Gordon & Co. 
 would be in the highest degree interesting. In the year 1813 
 this house shipped something like three millions of quarts of 
 Madeira, of which no less than 464,816 quarts went in a single 
 shipment to the East Indies. Everybody has heard of the disasters 
 caused in Madeira between 1852 and 1860 by the disease of the 
 vine known as the Oidium Tuckeri ; but it is not nearly so 
 generally known that Cossart Gordon & Co. were enabled, owing 
 to the enormous stocks which they held, to continue during the 
 eight years of barrenness their shipments to all countries. At 
 present it would seem that there is an abundance of good wine in 
 Madeira, both young and old ; and, as if to verify this fact, every one 
 of the score and a half of samples of Madeira exposed by Cossart 
 Gordon & Co. are exhibited, not in bottles, but in five-and-twenty- 
 gallon casks. In the island of Madeira new vines are being planted 
 almost every day, and from the older vines maturing the vintage 
 becomes richer every year ; besides which it is confidently, and on 
 the best authority, maintained that the wines of the present day 
 are fully equal, and often superior, in body and flavour to those 
 exported before the outbreak of the ' oidiurn' malady. This must be 
 good news for the admirers of ' Rainwater* and ' Old Particular,' 
 
 o 
 
 of 'Branco secco' and 'Pale Reserve,' of ' Old dry Sercial' and 
 'Choice rich Bual,' of 'Sao Martinho' and / Crown Malmsey.' 
 There is enough of the last historic vintage left to drown any 
 number of Dukes of Clarence. 
 
 .Our French neighbours are very partial to what they term 
 ' Vin de Madere,' which is in general request at the Paris cafes
 
 228 
 
 PAEIS HERSELF AGAIN. 
 
 and pastrycooks as the ' vin de dames,' it being almost the only 
 stimulant that a French lady allows herself. Nearly the whole of the 
 
 Madeira consumed in France comes, however, from Cette, where 
 many thousand pipes of so-called Madere are annually manufac- 
 tured out of a full-bodied southern wine by sweetening, colouring,
 
 EXHIBITION ITEMS. 329 
 
 and fortifying it, and subjecting it to natural or artificial heat. 
 In order that the French people may judge for themselves how 
 great the difference is between genuine Madeira and the imitation 
 wine of Cette, Messrs. Cossart Gordon & Co. have liberally dis- 
 pensed their wines to some thousands of visitors to their rustic 
 kiosk since the Exhibition has been opened. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFR1ARS.