Wnife mnn 'fe:^fe?*te^§jSS®^-foS; inti *> _ ?• >S *L/j I Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Getty Research Institute https://archive.org/details/parisoftoday01kauf PARIS OF TO-DAY VIEW ON THE BOULEVARD, SAINT MICHEL. PARIS OF TO-DAY TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH OF RICHARD KAUF.MANN BY MISS OLGA FLINCH ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY 104 & 106 Fourth Avenue Copyright, 1891, by CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY. All rights reserved. THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, RAHWAY, N. J. CONTENTS PAGE Preface, xiii PARIS OF TO-DAY. — Frame and Picture. I. The Two River-banks, i II. Chic de Vingtieme Siecle, - 14 III. Dancing in Paris, 20 IV. Modern Parisian Students, ... 33 V. Working Paris, 45 VI. Pasteur in his Laboratory, ... 56 THE PARIS STREET. VII. Caf£ and Street Life, 71 VIII. Cabs and Cabmen, 85 IX. Parisian Omnibuses, 94 X. The Newsmen, 102 XI. Parisian Peddlers, 113 XII. The Green Regiment, 124 XIII. Modern Reporters, 131 PARIS FROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE. XIV. Nurses and Children, 143 XV. The Parisian Cuisine, 153 XVI. The Water Supply, 166 XVII. Parisian Dinners, 173 XVIII. Soirees, 181 XIX. Funerals, 192 V VI CONTENTS. THEATRES. . page XX. Parisian Ticket Speculators, - - - 203 XXI. The Theatre Franqais “ Republic,” - - 212 XXII. The Diva of the Eighties, .... 218 XXIII. Rising Stars, 225 THE TRIUMPHS OF THE EXPOSITION. XXIV. The Era of Titanic Structures, - - - 239 XXV. Exotics at the Exposition, - - - 252 XXVI. The Little Javanese Girls, - 261 XXVII. Chips Here and There, .... 273 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE The Eiffel Tower at Night, ...... xiii The Parisiennes and the Blacks, ..... xvi Frame and Picture, xix Paris of To-day, i The Temptress holds her Net, 2 Street Lamps with Gas inscriptions, .... 3 “ Comme il faut,” from head to toe, .... 4 His Mustache must have the Turn and Twist required, 5 Walking home from Mass, ------- 6 Just home from Boarding-school, ----- 7 “ La Frileuse,” after Van Beers, 8 Book-hunters and Gossips on the Seine Quays, - - 9 Your Pocket-book may be a little Emptier, 10 Outside a Boulevard Caf£ (left bank), ... n “Darby and Joan” on a Sunday Stroll along the Seine, 12 The Latest Chic, - - - 14 They have put on the Seven-leagued Boots, - - 15 Madame had her Special Jour, 16 A “ V INGT1EME SIECLE” AFTERNOON RECEPTION, - - l8 At Ease, 19 Dancing in Paris, - - ----- 20 The “ Speranza ” Ballet at the Eden Theatre, - - 22 Champagne between the Dances, 23 “Madame always finds Gentlemen enough - 24 “ When she Hides Herself in her Wraps - 24 vii Vlll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE The Subscription “ Grand Bal,” 25 The Committee “Receives,” 26 A Scene at the Dramatic Artists’ Ball, ... 27 Aristocrats “ Far from the Madding Crowd,” - - 28 Street Dancing on the Day of the “ F£te Nationale,” 29 At the Jardin de Paris, 30 At “ Bullier,” 31 High Life at the “ Barri£re,” ..... 32 The Students’ Monome, 33 The Law Student, 36 The Medical Student, 37 “Just Room enough for a Piano . . . - - - 39 The Law “Etudiante,” 40 The Medical “Etudiante,” ...... 41 The Art “Etudiante,” 42 More Book-worms, 44 Edouard Pailleron, 49 Georges Ohnet, --------- 50 Octave Feuillet, 31 Emile Augier, 53 Pasteur (after a drawing of Alb. Edelfelt), - - 57 Pasteur (after a photograph taken in 1875), - - 6 r The Paris Street, 69 The Caf£, 71 On the Boulevard, 72 “The Caf£ is a Reserved Seat in the Street . . . - 74 A Popular Cafe, 78 The Cigar-stump Picker, 84 “In Paris the Normal Number is Two . . . - - 86 Messieurs les Coches de Fiacre, 87 The Cook sends for her Cab, 88 Une Station de Fiacres, 89 Monsieur le Cocher does not Drive for Everybody, - 90 A good Cigar while waiting, 91 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. ix PAGE An Evening Drive in the Bois de Boulogne, - - - 92 Od£on-Batignolles, 94 On the Top of an Omnibus (after a painting of H. Bacon), 95 The Madeline-Bastille Omnibus, 96 Close quarters inside an. Omnibus, - - - 97 The Omnibus Driver, 98 The Omnibus Conductor, 99 At the Omnibus Station in the Rain, .... 99 “ They come running from all directions . . . - 100 The Jovial Driver, 101 A Frenchman trying to sell “ La France,” - - - 102 Newsmen at an Omnibus Station, 104 The Evening Newspaper on the Boulevard, - - 105 First Edition, 107 Evening Papers on the Boulevard in times of Politi- cal Excitement, 109 Bill-Poster; Election Times, no The Chestnut Roaster, 113 A Trick or two to attract Attention, - - - 115 The Student and the “ Marchand d’Habits,” - - 117 The “Cast Clothes” Man at the Arri^res, - - 118 “A la Barque,” 119 Fine Potatoes by the Bushel, 120 The Chickweed Man, 121 The Shrimp and Fry Fish Woman, 122 Other “ Sparrows,” 123 Could tell a few, ........ 124 At the Barri£re, 125 Madame and her Rabbit, 126 Even the Clock-work Rabbit for B£b£, - 129 Allez ! - 130 The Reporter, 131 The “Grande Mondaine,” 134 The Reporter at the “ Grand Bal,” .... 135 X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE The Political Reporter, 137 Madame’s tale of Woes, 138 Taking Notes, 139 Paris from the Cradle to the Grave, - 141 Parisian Children, 143 Hung up on the Peg, 145 Madame shows off her Nurse, 147 Nurses at the Tuilleries Gardens, .... 149 The Little Soldier, 150 Nonnon brings in B£b£ at Dessert-time, - - - 15 1 Children at Play, 152 Enjoyment, 153 Cut up and labled on Marble Tables, - 157 The Bread-girl, - - 158 One of the Pavilions in the “ Halles Centrales,” - 159 “ Le Carreau des Halles,” ------ 161 “ Le Fort de la Halle,” 163 “ Une Dame de la Halle,” 164 The little “ Marmiton,” 164 “ At Table,” 165 Parisians of a more quiet Temperament, - - - 167 Watering the Champs-Elys£es, 170 A Wallace Fountain, ------- 172 “The ‘esprit’ yet reigns . . . - - - - 173 Private Theatricals — behind the scenes, - - - 177 The “ Rieuses,” - - - 179 L’entrSe, 181 Reception Day at a Minister’s, 183 The “Cotillon” King, 186 The Obligatory Supper, - 187 Where “tout Paris” goes, 189 A type, 191 In full Pomp, - 192 “ To please them,” 193 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xi PAGE The Mourners, 193 A “First-class” Hearse, 195 A Gigantic Wreath, 197 Praying for the Dead in the Crematory Chapel, - 198 In the House. Behind the Scenes, 201 Opposite the Vaudeville Theatre, .... 203 Theatre-hungry, 1 - - - 204 Society Lions selling Programs, 205 The Ticket Agent in the Saloon around the Corner, - 209 Monsieur must necessarily be “ au jour,” - - - 211 Outside the Theatre Francais, 212 Reichemberg, 213 Broissat, 214 The Green Room at the Theatre Francais, - - 215 “He may sit and yawn,” 217 Judic, 218 JUDIC AS “MLLE. NlTOUCHE,” 221 Judic’s Dressing-room at the Eden Theatre,. - - 223 Sitting in Judgment, 223 Aim£e Tessandier, 227 Jeanne Granier, 229 Madame Grisier-Montbazon, 232 Madame Simon-Girard, -------- 233 Gabrielle Rejarre, 234 Mlle. Muller, 233 The Triumphs of the Exposition, 237 In Front of the Trocad£ro, 239 President Carnot opens the Exposition, - - - 241 Crowds of Strangers by every Train, - - - 243 The Hungarian Belle with the Byzantine Head-gear, 245 A “ Grecian ” Beauty from Montmartre, - - - 246 The “Dulhulla,” in the Swedish Pavilion, - - - 247 Still they come, 250 Genuine, - 252 The Cairo Street, 253 xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE The Mexican Pavilion, 256 National Soldiers on Guard. (In the background, the Anghor-bar Tower), 259 The little Javanese Girls, - 261 Madame in a “ Pousse-Pousse,” 262 The Little Javanese Dancers on their way Home, - 264 The Kanak Village, 267 Aiouscha, 270 Baya, the fair Almee at the Morrocco Caf£, - - 271 Resting, 273 The “Fauteuil Roulant,” 275 Japanese Thuya, 150 years old, 278 A Turkish Woman bred born and in Batignolles, 279 The First Dolmen-builders, 281 The Samoyede Camp, - - 282 Egyptian Weavers, 283 An Anthenian Pottery, 284 The Eiffel Tower Illuminated, 287 The Tricolor-dressed Hebe at the Alsatian “Bras- serie,” 289 On the First Story of the Eiffel Tower, - - - 291 The Merry-go-Round, 293 The “ Fountaines Lumineuses, 295 PREFACE. W HEN, after the flood, N o a h ’'s descendants attempted to build the tower of Babel, Jehovah’s anger was aroused at their presumptuous w o r k. H e confounded their tongues and scattered them abroad over all the earth, and the tower was not built up. The millenniums that have passed have changed everything, and after the telescope has brought the heavens nearer to the earth, their correlation is seen to be very different. The God of Abraham and Isaac was a jealous God, visiting every in- iquity upon the people; the God of Pasteur and Addison has seen that the beings He created in His own image are in many things doing XIV PREFA CE. His work, and He now lets them have their own way. They have once more united what was scattered abroad. The electric telegraph reaches with the swiftness of thought from pole to pole. Through the telephone men speak to each other regardless of distance, and when Paris invites to a festival it is the Shah of Persia, the King of Senegambia, the Chinese Mandarin, and the Kanaka from the Sandwich Islands that, mounting the winged horse of steam, quickly obey the call. The whole earth is a universal workshop, one huge fair. And man, who likes to return to his original conceptions, has once more taken up the plan of the tower. But this time the work was not suspended ; it rises proudly upward, all the different nations gather under it, and the many different tongues unite in one hymn to its praise. For now the fruit was ripe. The tower stands there only as a symbol, as a mighty monument to the all-conquering power of labor. All the surroundings are in harmony. It was the tower that drew all nations like one company of wandering pilgrims ; everybody wanted to see the Babelmyth reproduced and realized in iron. But it was the environment that completed the task. Nobody came who did not in his own peculiar field discover new wonders, new paths to beat, new victories to win, and the com- pleted exhibition, this work for which so many had prophesied an early death, attained an unequaled triumph. Like the snow- ball, it grew in its onward course. All the splendor of bygone days counted as nothing compared to that of the festivals given in its honor, their fame reached all over the globe, and during the whole summer the world talked and dreamt of nothing but the earthly paradise on the Champ-de-Mars. Rich and poor were drawn within the magic circle. The laborer took his family and his lunch-basket and spent his Sunday on the green lawns ; the queens of fashion assembled their courts near its palatial monu- ments, the heart of humanity pulsated there. If the exhibition in itself was but a kirmess, which according to public opinion diminished the triumph, it was nevertheless an extraordinary one. The Parisian ladies may have looked at the blacks from Kampong and Congo-town with the same curiosity that they bestowed upon Monsieur Marseille’s boxers; the white donkeys in the Cairo street were perhaps only an Oriental edition of the merry- PREFACE. XV go-rounds from the fair at Neuilly, but the bayadere’s booth stood between the machinery hall and the Palais des Arts Lib6- raux, embracing under its vaults the history of a civilization ; the charlatans of the kirmess were continually overshadowed by the grandees of science, and in spite of the electric fountains the greatest charm was to follow, step by step, the mighty progress of civilization. And thus the curious and the earnest man, the frivolous and the industrious, the idler and the scholar, all came to admire the gigantic work around the great tower. When the cor- ner-stone was laid, no- body thought it would ever be completed. Through six years it was said day by day that the exhibition would never take place, that it would be ren- dered impossible by strikes, by pecuniary deficiency, or by wars, civil or foreign. Now that it stood there, it was the apotheosis of Paris. The visitors compared what they saw with what it might have been in their own country, and they understood that it was more than a mere accident, when the completed Babel Tower stood on the banks of the Seine. Yes, unfurl the flag of France from the Eiffel Tower. Let it wave there over the fleeting clouds as the victorious banner of peace, progress, and humanity. Let the swarming crowds from all the corners of the earth make their pil- grimage to the top of the tower and contemplate Paris lying at their feet. Let them carry away the impression of each spot in their memory. There is sunlight and splendor over this city. Joy makes her beautiful, the life-giving fountain of Science and Labor that wells up from her heart makes her great, and enables XVI PREFACE. her to bring forth wonder upon wonder. The author of the fol- lowing sketches has already given many a picture of this city, and drawn many a figure taken from the variegated crowds within its walls. He continues here his tale of the Paris and the Parisians of to-day, trying at the same time to describe the new features which the summer of ’89 and its work have added to the old, and he hopes that the unceasing interest given to every- thing that concerns Paris may once more make his book wel- come. Richard Kaufmann. XiX I cities, a castle, a church, and a court of justice, and she was, like most other cities, a collection of houses, built alongside of each other for the sake of their common local interest. But when she became of age, she went across the river and enlarged her domain. She settled down on the left bank, and built there a university and the high-schools that gradually were raised around it. They were the first lights that reached beyond the limits of the city. For centuries it was only here, where the sun of education illumined the banks of the Seine, that the student could obtain his certificate of the acquired knowledge and science that classified him as a civilized being. And when, later on, other powers than that of science advanced their claim, Paris had raised for them, on the opposite bank of the river, temples that gave her a right to be considered the Mecca of the modern era. The glory of the right bank was as resplen- dent as that of the left, although it was of another nature. A greater contrast than these two river-banks can hardly be imag- ined. The right is the city of Froufrou, the tempting metropo- Z 4 2 PARIS OF TO-DAY. lis of flickering frivolity and vanity. All that meets the eye is there to make life gayer, to change its rough places into a bed of roses. Everything shows a refined taste ; at each step luxury rises and envelops you, appealing to all your senses, as stimu- lating as wine. Paris is here the true “ Venus die siisze Teufelinn ” into whose arms it is so sweet to rush, and from whom it is so difficult to tear oneself away, that, when once enthralled by her, inevitably, one proves himself another Tannhauser. The temp- tress only holds her net, and like butterflies, blinded by the sun, the poor dizzy children of the world tumble into it. The mere aspect of the city leaves an impression of festivity. Boulevard follows upon boulevard and the long asphalt-covered side- walks, overshadowed by the trees, lie there smooth as a ball-room floor. The shops outbid each other in their shows, and on the broad, and always newly macad- amized drives, carriages come and go. The houses, with their gilded balconies, always look their best. Through the glass of the high mar- ble portal you can see the stair- case with its soft, luxurious car- pets, and at the end of each street, visible from. every point, is an Arc-de-Triomphe, an Eglise de la Madeleine, a Colonne de Ven- dome or de Juillet, some public monument that attracts the eye and fascinates it by its stately beauty. Parks and squares are to be seen everywhere with a profusion of flowers, as if there were a flower-fair all the year round. The chairs outside the cafe's in- vite one to rest and there is a continual parade of theatre-kiosks and street-lamps, with inscriptions in gas-flames that tell the stranger of the many pleasures that wish to bid him welcome on his arrival. The first time he walks along a Parisian boulevard, he invariably has a feeling of being led into a world where existence is more beautiful, joy more easily obtained, and trouble more THE TWO RIVER-BANICS. 3 quickly thrown away than anywhere else, and the best of it all is that this feeling repeats itself day after day, year after year, as often as he walks there. The public of the boulevards may, when carefully studied, have many a weak point, but its outward appearance is without a blemish. Monsieur is comme il faut from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet. He would look upon it as a profana- tion if he ever made a step on the asphalt without first having pre- pared himself for it. His socks are embroidered in the color pre- scribed by the boulevard fashion, his shirt has the correct number of button-holes, and before ap- pearing in public he has carefully given to his mustache the turn and twist required. It is not a fashion that he may do without, if he does not care to be fashionable ; it is a ritual that he must submit to, if he does not want to be counted an apostate. And his manners cor- respond to his apparel. There are no rough corners in it, it is quite a rounded and stylish ensemble. The Parisian lady possesses a per- fume of dainty elegance that is hers alone, that no other woman can ever attain to perfection. r STREET LAMPS WITH GAS-INSCRIPTIONS. She may recline among the satin cushions of her carriage, adorned with laces and jewels, or she may, dressed in black, with her prayer-book in her hand, walk home from mass ; she may live in one of the palaces of the Faubourg, or in a milliner’s apartments ; she may have experi- enced much of the world and what it has to give, or come straight from a boarding-school with all the expectations of youth ; she may, dressed in a light spring gown, delight over the Grand-prix, or she may, when snow covers her beloved Bois de 4 PARIS OF TO-DAY. Boulogne, shiver in her fur cloak. Whosoever she is and whatso- ever is hid under the costume she wears, she is always charming, dainty, and picturesque. All these things make life attractive. Every possible comfort invites you at every turn. Any stranger that spends the first night upon his arrival somewhere near the boulevards will, when he walks out the next morning for the first time, find that all he could possibly wish for is at his beck and call. There are indi- viduals, — I have had the pleasure of meeting them,— who when “COMME IL FAUT” FROM HEAD TO TOE. their Chateaubriand with Chambertin is put before them at Champeaux’s, ask with an offended air for roast-beef, or pie and cheese. But blessed with a less barbarous taste, you need only go straight along to feel at every step the soft fairy-arms that carry you to the fulfillment of your desires, before you even know how to utter them in words. You may return from a ramble like this with your pocket-book a little emptier, but it is the way of the world that the best is not always so very cheap, and when, after a well-spent day, during which you have felt yourself a Parisian, have adopted his habits and have eaten your delightful little dinner in the boulevard-restaurant, you will, when the THE TWO RIVER-BANKS. 5 coffee and cognac are served and the blue smoke of your cigar envelopes you, feel that the day has been a particularly enjoy- able one. It is not to be denied that the right bank in the course of years has adopted a morality of a rather Babylonian character. It is not alone the city of the Champs-Elys6es but also that of Elysde- Montmartre, not alone the city of the Grand Opera but also that of the Opera balls, and if at these places it is chiefly the idol of pleasure that is worshiped, there is still much that might be con- demned from a point of strict morality. It is only too true that in this kaleidoscope of vari- egated life-pictures all that glit- ters is not gold. It is not alone the jeweler who has learned to perfection the art of imitation, and between Tortoni and the Arc de Triomphe there is much both of riches and nobility, of virtue and beauty that could not stand proof against a closer in- spection. But the imitation is so well done that the delusion is almost complete. The adven- turer resembles the aristocrat ; the swindler may be bankrupt the next day, the successful par- venu may have risen from the very bottom of society, but when they are able to invite tout Paris HIS mustache must have the turn to their palace on Place Males- AND TWIST required. herbes, all is in perfect form ; the reception as well as the guests. But let us pass over the bridges with their beautiful views of the green landscapes of the Banlieue, and the complete and sudden change of the picture is striking. Even the quay bears another stamp. Pomp and splendor are supplanted by a homelike cosiness. High-life aspirations have ceased, and on the stone walls of the quay are placed long boxes with second-hand 6 PARIS OF TO-DAY. the old trees and carry on the gossip of the neighborhood with the girls, who come to buy. Even during the busiest part of books ; the passer-by finds time to stop and look them over, and even to be engrossed in reading. The basket-women sit under WALKING HOME FROM MASS. THE TWO RIVER-BANKS. 7 the day there is always a certain atmosphere suggestive of the peace that will follow. And the more you advance the stronger JUST HOME FROM BOARDING-SCHOOL. this impression becomes. The tumultuous, feverish life has ceased ; the narrow, crooked lanes form themselves into a laby- 8 PARIS OF TO-DAY. rinth. Madame de Stael-Holstein’s gutter runs still through the middle of Rue du Bac, and the fathers after whom the Rue des Saints-P£res has its name would not be out of place if they took their daily walk on its pavement. Turning to the right you “ LA FRILEUSE,” AFTER VAN BEERS. enter the noble quietude of Faubourg St. Germain with its old palaces entre cour et jar din ; to the left, walking through the Quartier Latin you will reach the historical part of the city, where —nearest the mother-island in the Seine— the Sorbonne, the Col- 9 BOOK-HUNTERS AND GOSSIPS ON THE SEINE QUAYS. IO PARIS OF TO-DAY. lege de France, high schools upon high schools, libraries, labora- tories, and museums stand side by side. This quarter of the town is, compared with other parts, small indeed, and the place it fills in the life of Paris is not as important as it used to be. But a little of the dust from the old books and the light that issues from its temples of art and science is still floating over the town on this side of the river, and gives its peculiar stamp to it. There is no imitation, no varnish, no false pretensions. Even where the modern boulevard has forced its way through the old lanes, and its green trees and motley kiosks attract a crowd which, like that of the Italiens and Capucines, sit before the open caf£s and drink their absinthe — even here, the whole is more com- monplace. But behind this simplicity there is something genuine and healthy, bearing wit- ness of that self-respect which despises tinsel. Paris on the right bank is the metropolis trying to do her name honor. YOUR POCKET-BOOK MAY BE A LITTLE EMPTIER. Pans on the left bank feels herself at home. The boulevard type is hardly ever seen here, here are des beaux et vrais types , men who are not afraid of letting their individuality speak through their outward appearance. Wherever you go here — in the lec- ture-room, or in the old business offices, in the painter’s studio or in the work-shop, or if you follow the laborer, who when the week’s work is done takes his wife for a walk along the Seine, — everywhere you will meet people who have their indi- viduality because they all have an aim in life which they strive to attain. There is not much idleness anywhere in Paris. In the OUTSIDE A BOULEVARD CAF& (LEFT BANK). II 12 PARIS OF TO-DAY. hunt for pleasure or the fight for existence all energy must bo summoned in order to attain a place in the ranks. But the very air of Paris seems to give this energy and faculty for work. It is often, too often, made use of in a mad race for the millions, but on the left bank no temple for the golden calf has as yet “DARBY AND JOAN ” ON A SUNDAY STROLL ALONG THE SEINE. been raised. There are still people to be found here for whom the happiness of life means independence and duty fulfilled. The Seine itself is a curious river. She turns and twists so that you never quite know where to look for her. You may have been born and brought up on her banks and still be de- ceived by her, for when you expect to find her on your right hand, you suddenly see her on your left. And it is the same with the life led on her banks. The characteristics of the left bank may sometimes be found, like a peaceful and quiet oasis, amidst the tumult of life on the right, and the polish of the THE TWO RIVER-BANKS. 13 boulevard’s fashion reaches over the river in the form of this savoir-vivre that makes intercourse easier and more charming. Paris is the city of contrasts, but instead of clashing, they go hand in hand, trying to supply each other’s wants, so that the right and the left banks form a complete ensemble , where everybody can find what his heart desires. It is here that the secret of the charm of this city is to be found. It fascinates everybody, not because of this or that advantage, but because you may come to it with whatever demands you please, and it is able to gratify them all. II. Chic de Vingtieme Siecle. T HE character of Parisian high life and that of the boulevards, which repre- sent this life, is about to undergo a radi- cal change. As the century was slowly advancing toward the close of its day, the shadow of pessimism had lately grown darker and darker. The old words “ chic ,” “ pschut” and “ v lan" were changed to “ fin de siecle." People had seen everything, and tried everything; they no longer pretended to be better than they were, and even took a certain pride in showing themselves to be blasts and old. To be comme il faut, you had to acknowl- edge that you were morally “ used up,” and to testify to this fact by displaying a heavy, dragging weariness. Such was the law of fashion. But as the old century drew to its close a new era seemed to dawn with 1889. It has taken no more than a hun- dred years to efface the impressions of the Revolution, however great they may have been, and although the nineteenth century is not yet at an end, it has done its part. The sun of the twen- tieth century is rising above the horizon, and Paris, that never likes to be left behind, is no more fin de siecle ; everybody that feels himself of any importance is vingtieme siecle. It is some- thing entirely different, just the opposite of what they were before; but Paris has always been fond of going to extremes. At twenty the Parisians used to be as decrepit and blasts as old men; now they are, in spite of their white hair, all fire and flame, full of interest and enthusiasm. They used to shrug their shoul- 14 CHIC DE VINGTlkME SltCLE. 15 ders in weary pessimism at this world’s troubles and tribula- tions, now they rise to meet the future with quick, joyful steps, their hearts full of Tope, firmly believing in progress and in the new golden age that it will create. The young gentlemen who have changed from fin de si'ecle to vihgtieme siecle have suddenly thrown off the Janguidness that made them drag their feet along the asphalt, as if the strength sufficient to raise them had failed. They have put on the seven-leagued boots ; take the express for Samarkand, write their books of travels on the cars, give public lectures, build laboratories with the aim of finding out how to destroy bacilli, they dress in blue sailor suits and set out on political expeditions among the farmers and laborers. Or, if they are so wedded to the boulevards that they cannot leave, they saunter along with an air that cor- responds to the atmosphere of the time. They are always on the move ; the very embodiment of activity, they only find life worth living when it is a continual chain of surmounted difficulties. But the ladies more than anybody else have taken up the new cause eagerly ; the more prominent their position, the more energetic their endeavors to become vingt- ieme siecle. The social life of Paris had for some time been languishing, but Madame had at least kept her jour. If, during the week, she wished to be undisturbed by visitors, she had, in return, one day of the seven on which she was ready to receive all those who wanted to pay her their respects. The house was brushed up for the occasion, the servants were dressed as well as the social posi- tion of the family allowed, and immediately after lunch Madame took her seat in the salon near the fireplace. She sat there until dinner-time, asking, with an amiable smile, each new-comer to take his seat in the row of fauteuils, and, when those nearest to her took THEY HAVE PUT ON THE SEVEN-LEAGUED BOOTS. PARIS OF TO-DAY. 16 their departure, inviting the others to take the vacant place. As long as you had not yet attained a seat near her, you could only take a passive part in the conversation and show your intel- ligence by leaning forward with an air of the utmost interest in the conversation near the fireplace, even if you were so far away that the sound of the voices was but an indistinct murmur. When at last you were happy enough to be near your hostess, the reward for your patience was the most gracious inquiry for your health and that of your dear family. The conversation would then turn upon the opera, and if it was near five o’clock you might chance to be made happy by a cup of tea and a biscuit. MADAME HAD HER SPECIAL “JOUR.” But now Madame has her jour no more ; if she wants to be in the fashion she has at the utmost her “ hours.” On the bottom of her card, where her jour used to be stated, the engraver has added a restricting “ from five to seven,” and the concierge has received instructions to correspond. It is of no use to besiege the stair- case at any other time of the day; you are only admitted between five and seven. Even then you may be happy if you find the one you seek, for in one respect the Parisian lady has not yet learned to be vingtihne sihle; she has but a very dim con- ception of the fact that time does not usually change its course CHIC DE VINGTlkME SIECLE. 17 to suit her convenience. If she has gone shopping early in the afternoon and been detained at her milliner's or dressmaker’s, it not infrequently happens that when at last she starts for home she discovers to her horror that it is nearly seven o’clock. Some ladies consider it the best form to shorten the season. A Parisian lady of any self-respect never receives all the year round, even if she were so fond of town that she stayed there summer and winter. But she used to feel it her duty to open her salon near Christmas-time or at least with the new year. Now that she is vingtibme sihle , the order of the day is between Easter and Whitsuntide. Really it is more than long enough to make a slave of oneself. But even this has its compensation ; if the hours are few which Madame sacrifices to her friends, they are at least luxurious. In our vingti'eme si'ecle it is not sufficient to offer a smile and a biscuit. The reign of the tea-pot has ceased ; the people of the vingtihne sihle do not live on air, they have good appetites and the table is in keeping therewith. The guests are offered bouillon, p die de foie gras, different kinds of meat, even cold roast-beef, and an abundance of wine is poured out from the chased silver pitchers. There is more light, too, than there used to be, and the lamps, that are beginning to play an important part in the salons, are arranged with great effect. It is only in America that they use gas in their “ parlors ” ; a Parisian lady knows how to value the cosy light of a lamp. Fancy and fashion have created a thousand new forms, and you will see lamps peep out from the wall-draperies, or elevated on a high column in the large hall that is now indispensable in a modern apartment, shedding its light from under an immense lace shade. The invi- tations are more informal than before. A ball invitation from a fashionable house is simply “ Monsieur et Madame seront chez enxf then the date and hour, and in a corner is added, “ on dansera." The hours from five to seven are sometimes taken up with music, sometimes with monologues, as at the house of Mine, de Chambrun, who encourages modern amateur performances ; but some are still more vingti'eme sihle. Since the society for “ l' Education physique ” has found so many followers among the prominent families of Paris, the performances of physical skill have become a salon sport of the highest fashion. At the “ hours ” there is a secure feeling of being entre soi, and nobody i8 VINGTifeME SlfeCLE " AFTERNOON RECEPTION. CHIC DE VI NG Til? ME SIECLE. 19 is afraid of following his inclination. We have lived to see that a salon may be transformed into a diminutive circus, where the amateur lady-clown, and acrobats of high social standing, may give their performances. Nobody knows where they will draw the line. \ These hours never are a burden, in spite of the preparations they require and the varied entertainment that is given. How- ever splendid and magnificent they may be, they last but a short time, between Easter and Whitsuntide, 12 hours a year ! The remaining 8748 are given to the activity that proves to the world that Madame is vingtieme siecle. The qualities required for this epi- thet have not yet been enume- rated. This much seems to be clearly understood, that the com- mencement must be made by ad- vancing more and more upon the road that leads to masculineness, and this has shown itself in many ways of late years, not the least in the matter of dress. The ladies have in this respect made quite an important step by accepting, as an indispensable addition to their costume, the heavy, gold-headed, bamboo cane, without which they never enter a salon or a theatre if they pretend to be at all fashionable. But these out- ward attributes do not seem to satisfy them ; their mind, too, must do its best to add to the glory and victory of this ambition. Madame has her cafe in the correct boulevard style, where she can do her correspondence, give her orders, and receive during that time of the year when she does not do it in her home. She is about to get a club, where sports and games are intro- duced, and heaven knows what she will still do before this curious vingtieme silcle has reached its close ! Dancing in Paris. T erpsichore has always held her court in Paris. It is true that in this art the city cannot boast of many leaders of Parisian birth and education, as is the case with dramatic art. The stars have almost without exception come from abroad, but to make up for this, Paris has always shown herself a true patron of the art. A man of fashion cannot give a more striking proof of his prominent social position than by being a regular frequenter of the Grand Optra’s ballet-green-room. It is allowable to spend the greater part of an opera evening on a sofa in the ante- room of the box, chatting away time, but when the orchestra announces the ballet the solemn moment has arrived when all come to the front of their boxes, where they sit quietly and attentively. This interest is not alone given to the splen- dor of the scenery, — the Paris Op6ra surpasses in this respect all others,— they are not insensible to this nor to the charm of the dancers, but they know how to value and judge the correctness of an attitude, the elegance of a step, and the harmony of an ensemble. When the fortunate one who has attained the reputa- 30 DANCING IN PARIS. 21 tion of being the star of the ballet reaches a high position com- paratively easily and can see whatever she may desire of earthly goods laid at her feet, she has attained all this by means of the many possibilities united in one person and the development given them by a superior school. The audience that is accustomed to the very best does not let anything escape its criticism. Close to the Opera is the Eden Theatre, the stage of which is especi- ally consecrated to the cult of the ballet. All that other coun- tries have possessed of talent In the art has been imported by it, and there received a finishing polish. Italy and Spain have sent their loveliest dancing girls to charm the Parisians by their grace, and a Laus and a Carmencita attract the crowds that sac- rifice their gold on the altar of Terpsichore. As amateurs in the art, however, the Parisians do well. There was a time, when society, with its pessimistic notions, seemed to look down upon dancing, and when the gentlemen of twenty felt the weight of their years so heavy upon their senile shoulders that they could not swing themselves in a lively dance. Even in the lower classes the influence was felt, and it looked for some time as if the tones of the waltz would die out. Since then everybody has become vingtihne siecle. Paris dances once more as joyously as ever, even if the details of the arrangement have changed with the time. As long as the Republic felt itself young, and obliged to keep its expenses within certain limits, the forms of a social gathering were such that most people felt it in their power to entertain. Even during the exhibition of ’78 it was still the rule that “ where there is a will there is a way”; the salon and dining-room furni- ture was moved out into the kitchen, the bedroom was turned into a cloak-room ; a salmi of ducks was served for supper, the guests took turns at playing on the piano for dancing, and no- body made fun of the modesty of the arrangement. Now every- thing is different; to take part at all in social life, it has become necessary to use money pretty freely. The days of the “ great ball ” have come. This ball is given in a private hotel built in the style of the old national castles. Thousands of invitations are sent out, there is a monster band on each story, and the expenses of the supper alone are hardly under 100,000 frcs. This "great ball” is the aim attained by a few, but toward snvT-iiW 22 DANCING IN PARIS. 23 which everybody is striving, the beau-monde, and the demi- monde, the rich and the middle classes, each according to its means — or beyond. The banker’s wife that cannot arrange her ball so that the boulevard papers give a full account of it the next day feels her cup of misery complete. And there is no woman of the middle classes who does not feel it her duty to offer her guests champagne between the dances. Unhappily, at the very time when the demands of society grew so large the means seemed to fail more than ever. After the fruitful years of commercial buoyancy came the lean years of stagnation, and Paris became, if not poor, at least as poor as it is pos- sible for it to be. When the Parisians have felt in- clined to renounce the joys of the dance, it may have been that pessi- mism was only the pretext used to hide the fact that Madame was obliged to close her salon because it was too ex- pensive to maintain. The same crav- ing for splendor and magnificence is still there — it increases day by day — and the number of those capable of giv- ing a great ball in good style, with the appendage of hotel, supper, cotillon, etc., being very small, there is nothing left for the rest of Paris of the vingt- champagne between the ii me siecle but to invent other means to attain the same results. This has not been difficult ; the modern plan of subscription balls has been found practicable, in letting the many carry the burden that was too heavy for one to bear. The great private hotels stand unused, but the doors of the caravansary open evening after evening to admit the thousands and thousands going to the subscription balls. As soon as the young people commence feeling a craving for a dance, or as soon as the respective mammas think their daughters old enough to be married, the different families that are acquainted join together for the purpose. They try, if possible, to get some lady in the party, of good social standing, to preside over the festival, and in 24 PARIS OF TO-DAY. her name they invite everybody within the circle of their ac- quaintance. ff the number of guests be not sufficient the com- mittee does not pay much atten- tion to the life or antecedents of the gentlemen that send in their cards. This may sometimes have its drawbacks. Pranzini and Ma- rie Regnault, for instance, met each other for the first time at a subscription ball in Hotel Conti- nental. But this is exceptional; Madame always finds — if she thinks it best for her daughter’s or her own sake — gentlemen enough, of her immediate ac- quaintance, to protect her from any danger. ‘MADAME ALWAYS FINDS GENTLE- MEN ENOUGH. . . At these balls Mademoiselle gets here a chance, that she would other- wise hardly have, of showing herself to advantage in the proper way, and many a young star, risen for the first time at a festival like this, may — when she hides herself in her wraps with a little sigh at the dying tones of the waltz — secretly hope that her beauty has not shone in vain. With the popularity of these balls as an example, it was natural that the sub- scription balls on a large scale, the great charity balls, should grow in number. Their names aredegion, the placards announcing them fill the streets of the fashionable quarter, and their success is almost miraculous. They have WHEN SHE HIDES HERSELF IN HER WRAPS. ...” TUB SUBSCRIPTION “ ORAND BAL. 25 2 6 PARIS OF TO-DAY. been known to bring in a profit of 100,000 francs. These balls, that used to exhibit a great deal of party spirit, now comprise all classes of society. This has enabled the direc- tors to add many new attractions to their programme. The charity-balls have outgrown the commonplace hotels and stepped into much more fashionable quarters. Le bal des artistes drama- tiques — a festival to which the presence of the actresses as host- esses has proved a new power of attraction not alone to the gilded youth of Paris, but also to the Parisian ladies of all social standings, — is not the only one to which the Grand Op 6 ra has THE COMMITTEE “RECEIVES.” shown its hospitality. It has even been seen that the exclusive military club, for the sake of charity, has opened its doors to civilians. The committees have become more and more select, and when— counting among their members the most prominent society ladies of Paris and the highest functionaries of the gov- ernment — -they receive, standing on the escalier d'honneur of the Grand Opera, few have withstood their curiosity or inclination, but have paid their 20 francs for a ticket and accepted the invi- tation. If the society is a little mixed one can always withdraw from the crowd and in an aristocratic party look at it from a box ; it is a sight well worth seeing. a? 28 PARIS OP TO-DAY. Terpsichore has also found many worshipers among the lower classes. At the festivals of the people the dancing is the most necessary part of the programme. Only think of what they do on the anniversary of the Republic. On the 14th of July, 1790, all the inhabitants of the city moved their dinner-tables out in front of their houses so that all through the streets there was one long line of white-covered tables at which the different families took their meals and drank “ a la majeste des peuples, h la liberty & la France .” In the same way the municipalities of each district, when the great day comes, raise a stand for the band on each corner, and everybody dances to its music, so that they form, as it were, a chain reaching from corner to corner all through the streets, and, when the midnight bell tolls, this great city is one huge ball-room, where the people dance to the honor of Liberty and the Republic. DANCING IN PARIS. t 9 The dancing-place is always the center of attraction at the fairs, and there is no picnic on the banks of the Seine where the hand-organs do not strike up a dance, while at a popular wed- ding the dance is as necessary as the excursion to the Bois de Boulogne after the ceremony. Every restaurant, even in the poorest suburbs, has its salon pour noces and its ball-room, and the evenings are few during which they stand empty. But apart from this, Paris has her public ball-rooms. No city in the world has as many ; their number reaches as high as three hundred. The Jardin de Paris, in the Champs-Elys6es, has in the course of time STREET DANCING ON THE DAY OF THE “ F&TE NATIONALS. ” changed its character and offered new amusements. Besides the concerts there are fetes foraines , dioramas, puppet-shows, and rope-dancers ; the dancing is limited to performances given by professionals. Many of the stars of the ballet have commenced their career in the Jardin de Paris and have given it an atmo- sphere of ephemeral splendor and success. But the real temple of Terpsichore is still the Bullier, the former Closerie des Lilas, the well-known dancing-place of the students, near the Boule- vard St. Michel on the left bank of the river. Mimi Pinson is no more queen there; Mimi Pinson is dead. L'ttudiante, with the 3 ° PARIS OF TO-DAY. one dress and the one bonnet, with her industry and warm heart, is dead too ; those that have taken her place have more dresses and less heart. The students have given up their exclusiveness, and the clerk that they used to look down upon is now their vis- ti-vis. The students are still in majority, however; they feel at home there, and the bal Bullier sometimes shines in all the splen- AT THE JARDIN DE PARIS. dor of its old days, brought back by the overflowing joy of their youth. On the right bank, near the Place de la Republique, is Tivoli Vauxhall, that bears a close resemblance to the Bullier; the guests are not quite the same, for the real student hardly ever crosses the Seine, but the character of the place is the same, in- asmuch as a certain morality is always maintained. There are, DANCING IN PARIS. 31 however, places only tolerated by the police because they are the merest traps in which to catch the criminals. Their cau- tiousness succumbs easiest to their true Parisian craving for a dance, and half of the wretches that are caught have been taken in the ball-rooms. Among the three hundred there are others only known in their own quarter, and where the guests remind one of Mimi Pinson by their hard labor and the freshness and joy with which pleasures are received when once in a while they offer themselves. High up on the peak of Montmartre, near the Galette- mill, lies the Bal des Brouillards. The guests are striving young artists and girls from the laun- dries, all richer in youth and love than in money. Hunger and thirst take each other by the hand, but what an ecstasy of joy, what a sublime hope and confi- dence in the future. Perhaps, de- spite the names, it is no path of roses that brings the young joiners from the Faubourg St. Antoine workshops to the Casino des Fleurs or the Bal des Rosilres, in the Rue de Charenton, but they are ready to enjoy themselves so much more after their hard work. And at the Musette balls of the people from Auvergne, this is still more the case. When they have sawed wood, carried water, sold coals, or polished floors all through the day, they come to- gether in the evening and dance as they used to, to the sound of the bagpipes, among their mountains in Auvergne. In the same way the Alsatians have their bal du grand Turc on the Boulevard Barbfes, where their national costume is often seen. So in all corners of Paris, there are places like these fMdUtj )l ft ' OUADRIUf L' m 3 2 PARIS OF TO-DAY. where the regular patrons are a class of people belonging to the same professions or to the same sphere in life ; everybody can enter, but as a rule they preserve their own special char- HIGH LIFE AT THE “ BARRIERE. ” acter. When the time of the “ great ball ” comes, the music from these places mingles with that of the Faubourgs and the great hotels, and the waltz-music once more floats over Paris so that the whole atmosphere seems to vibrate with the sound. a while the people living on the Boulevard St. Michel would see them pass by in Indian file, — or as they called it, le monome , — on their way to Mine. Moreaux’s, where they tried to strengthen themselves for the new series of lectures with a chinois & Veau de vie. Once in a while even these very lectures would attract some attention, and carriages stood in a row in the little narrow streets while the ladies who had left their cosy boudoirs were listening to some philosophical speaker then in vogue. But in spite of this the student still lived in obscurity. The exhibi- tion in ’78 brought with it many changes in the appearance of the city, and this seemed to give a mortal wound to the origi- nality of the Latin Quarter. In order to make room for the 33 34 PARIS OF TO-DAY. Boulevard St. Germain, the chief thoroughfare from the Bastille to the Tuileries, from Vincennes to Versailles, it was necessary to destroy thousands of little human nests around which industry and love were hovering, and the students were scattered abroad like so many homeless, frightened birds. Their old vie de boheme did not seem in harmony with the new boulevard life. Their long Merovingian hair, short jackets, and wide trousers were all out of keeping with their new surroundings, and they were obliged to submit to the black coat, the high hat, and the golden bamboo cane. When they parted with their flowing locks they gave up their last romantic notions, to become as correct and sober as the time in which they lived. The student became fin de sifole like everybody else, and, like everybody else, was obliged to go through the purgatory of pessimism before he reached the light of vingti'eme siecle. This seems for him to have dawned with the Association G£nerale des Etudiants. A riot between the students and some arrogant citizens ended in being of a political char- acter, and some of the radical papers attacked, the students and called them the sons of the rotten bourgeoisie. To avenge the insult, they arranged a meeting in the only place well known to all, the ball-room of the Bullier. After having decided upon the matter in hand, it was proposed to consider the advantages of a corporation of the students. A committee was appointed for the purpose of working out the plan, and they soon laid down the by-laws of V association gtndrale. The aim of this association was not alone to create a feeling of unity among the students, and to facilitate their intercourse, but to improve also their studies, and especially prevent them from growing one-sided in their pursuit of special studies, and enlarge the horizon of their intellect through the intercourse with those that had different gifts and interests from their own. While they possessed the usual hopefulness of youth, they did not have the necessary amount of money to realize their air-castles. They had to com- mence with almost nothing. A contribution enabled them to hire a very small apartment, in the rear of a house in the Rue des Ecoles, but the only signs of the so-much-wished-for library and reading-room were a dozen books and a few papers sent them gratuitously by the editors. A woman, who came to sweep and dust, was the only servant. It had been hard enough for the com- MODERN PARISIAN STUDENTS. 35 mittee to have to buy her a broom and a duster ; the smallest ex- pense was at the time enough to alarm each and all of the mem- bers. One day the duster disappeared, and there was a universal excitement. Its wielder’s position was no longer secure ; the first opportunity was taken to send away such a spendthrift. The students do not seem to have been very comfortable even then. Different items in the protocol indicate the state of affairs of that period. One complains of having found all the doors wide open, and nobody there to look after the place. Another is out- raged at having found the gas extinguished immediately after din- ner, when he came with the intention of studying, and a third calls attention to the fact that he has been obliged to put it out in the morning, after it had evidently been burning all night. But there were a number of energetic people in the association that never tired of working for its success. No stone was left unturned ; French celebrities sent in their names in order to be entered as honorary members ; publishers and authors sent books. Victor Hugo had been asked to give some of his ; “ I will give you one,” he answered, “ but I will write a dedication in it, which will com- pensate for all the others,” and he sent them “ Ltgcnde des Sitcles” and wrote in it “ From Victor Hugo to the students of Paris.” The professors were a little reserved at first, fearing that the students would be apt to attract attention by their youthful eag- erness and turbulence. Some well-arranged festivities in honor of the great departed, pilgrimages to their graves, and well-con- ducted meetings helped to overthrow their prejudices. After a while Pasteur, Renan, and even the president of the University, Gerard, presided over the ceremonies, and a few years later the difficulties of this early period were absolutely conquered. The association counts at the present time over three thou- sand members, among whom are many of the professors, and it disposes of a revenue of several thousand francs a year, while its quarters are much better. After having occupied for some time the one story in the rear they rented all the stories and finally the first floor of the neighboring house, where the library and reading-room were arranged. In one of these houses there is a caft on the ground-floor, where the students have a right to some of the rooms, and on festive occasions to all of them, while a restaurant in the other house gives them the advantages of a 36 PARIS OF TO-DAY. table-d'hdte. They have not yet reached the ideal of comfort, but they have done as much as their means allowed them, and the place is well situated, within a few steps of La Sorbonne and College de France, in the very center of the Latin Quarter, which now extends beyond the Boulevard St. Michel. Consid- ering the judicious way in which they have acted, they may rea- sonably hope soon to be able to build their own quarters. Good common-sense seems to be the true criterion of the Parisian student, much more so than his black velvet “ Tam O’Shanter,” the border of which has a different color for each faculty. The association be- came at first almost an annex of the University. There was lecture upon lecture partly given by the members, partly by the professors, who were continually asked to further enlarge and explain the Uni- versity lectures ; there were debates, and attempts were made by the students to pre- pare each other for the exami- nations ; in short, there was such an atmosphere of earnest- ness, that the professors at last stepped in to remind them of their youth, and advise them not to lay too much claim to the oratorical powers of their teachers, as they were already well taxed, and finally to ask them to put a limit to their own lec- tures, considering that there were still quite a number of pro- fessors in France. This was all complied with. The meetings became of a more sociable order ; music and amateur theatricals THE LAW STUDENT. MODERN PARISIAN STUDENTS. 37 were introduced. Not being endowed with very good voices, the students attached more importance to instrumental music, and have a well-conducted band, some of the members of which are very talented. Dramatic art is in a flourishing state. They are connected with the Conservatory, and can count upon the pupils for their cast. As playwrights they were not successful ; only a short time ago, Xanroff taught his colleagues to choose their subjects from their own life and sphere, and the new efforts 38 PARIS OF TO-DAY. show so much talent that they may probably give rise to a French academical literature. All this makes their life very different from what it used to be. In the old days it was not profitable for one’s sleep to live on the Boulevard St. Michel or thereabout. If you went to bed before midnight, you were sure to be awakened at that time by all sorts of unearthly noises ; there was hardly an evening when these sons of Minerva did not walk in procession through the streets. Now it is different, and in spite of the new life that pulsates there, the Latin Quarter is one of the most quiet in Paris. Even the well-known “ Beu- glant ” haunts are dying out. They used to witness the joys of the old college life, and at the vocal concerts given there, the strongest accompaniment would be the noise produced by the combined uses of canes, heels, screams, and occasionally the pro- longed howls of cats and dogs. Often the singer would stop con- vulsed with laughter, and the musicians would, in spite of the des- perate efforts with which the leader was swinging his baton, laugh till the instruments fell out of their hands. The police could do nothing to repress the merriment, and nothing short of a riot could make a policeman interfere with the liberty of these sanctuaries. Now peace has descended upon them. The “Chalet” oppo- site the Bullier has disappeared, and its successor, Folies-Cluny, is of another character. It is a hall of small proportions, the ceiling supported by a row of columns, at the end of which is a small stage, where there is just room enough for a piano to accompany the divine singers. When the owner, Pere Adolphe, has served the demanded Mazagrans and “bocks,” he sometimes throws aside his napkin to go up on the stage. For twelve sous you can drink, smoke, and listen to fragments of operas and operettas. There are more laborers and tradesmen to be seen here than students, and in the brasserie a femme the latter are very few now ; /’ Atudiante was there dethroned by a more modern Hebe. Her sun has set now, since new stars have risen in the Latin heavens. They are very different from that of Mimi Pinson, and strictly vingtieme siecle ; it is no more Uttudiante that shares the student’s pleasures, it is V ttudiante who studies in good earnest. She has made her entry comparatively late in Paris. France is not the cradle of woman’s emancipation, and MODERN PARISIAN STUDENTS. 39 never will be its promised land. In the better classes, a woman is not expected to support herself; she lives to love, to bring up her children, and take care of her home. On the other hand, Paris, always susceptible to new ideas, could not help assisting the movement. The young girls who had a taste for studies “just room enough for a piano. . . .” which they could not pursue in their own country came to Paris, where the high schools were known to be liberal. When the universities of Russia were closed to women for political reasons more than seventy came to Paris in the course of one year. Others would come from across the Channel, and still others from 40 PARIS OF TO-DAY. the other side of the ocean, especially from South America. Even Turkish lady-students were seen in the lecture-rooms of /’ Ecole de mtdecine. When Charcot had bid the first French woman-doctor, Mile. Schultze, welcome in the ranks of the pro- fession, the passion for stud- ies attacked the fair sex of France. There are now many hundred female stu- dents registered regularly at the Parisian high schools. They generally visit l' Ecole de mtdecine , but also the Sor- bonne, and since Mile. Pope- lin came into possession of her diploma from the law school and claimed to be reg- istered with the practising lawyers, l' Ecole de droit has also been added to the list. There is, moreover, an end- less number of young girls coming from all parts of the world to devote themselves to art studies which require as much time and earnest J labor as the sciences do. t The students treat these new colleagues differently from I'ttudiante of old days. The Russian students had a way of their own : five or six of them generally took a small apartment together. One room was bed-room for the men, the other for the girls, and the third common dining- room and study. Even the most conscientious concierge made no objections where the party was Russian ; they were under- stood to be different from Parisians, and not susceptible to the enticements of Cupid, at least not during their college life. For THE LAW “ &TUDIANTE. MODERN PARISIAN STUDENTS. 4 * students with less Siberian blood in their veins this arrangement could not be thought of. The companionship of their new col- leagues seems to give the students a better opinion of women. It teaches them respect, and respect is the first step on the road to virtue. Much fun has been made of the old-fashioned, sensi- ble students of the day; but it is misplaced. They had been born at a critical moment of French life, when the country was broken up by war, when there was confusion in all ideas and PARIS OF TO-DAY. doctrines, and when everybody doubted everything. They may not have the great passions of the past generations, but they have a virtue not to be despised, and they are earnest in their work. All their teachers confirm this, and they have a realiza- tion of the necessity of labor. The new Sorbonne has risen to prove it. The Sorbonne had been the pride of France through great periods of its history; but during the last part of the Empire it MODERN PARISIAN STUDENTS. 43 had lost some of its power. The attention of the public was captivated by frivolities and in the first days of the Republic by the severe fight for existence. After the war the lectures were taken up again, but did not exercise the same influence as before. While the schools of law and medicine had their registered students and prepared them for their professions, “ La faculty des lettres et des sciences ” had only a disconnected audience, of which the professors did not even know a single person by name. The seeds of knowledge were sowed by the wayside, and it was a mere chance if one happened to fall in good ground. Professors and students stood in no personal relation to each other, and to enter the University as a teacher it was sufficient to have graduated from some high school. This is still partly the case, but it has become a custom that those who choose this career give a proof of their abilities by taking their doctor’s degree. The earnestness of the students of to-day showed itself once more. Those attending the schools, drawn by the wish to generalize their knowledge, followed the students belonging to the faculty, and soon felt themselves attached to La Sorbonne. A new set of prominent professors have simultaneously appeared, and with them the old glory has returned. There are those among the profes- sors who remember the time when eight students were the regular number registered at the philosophical faculty of Paris; there are now twelve hundred. It is in a measure a com- plete revolution. It has not only been necessary to increase the number of professors, but also to establish, beside the public lectures, several classes that have contributed to bring teacher and pupil in a nearer relationship to each other. Libra- ries, reading-rooms, and laboratories have been founded. The old building became too small in every way ; at first there were provisional annexes rented ; but their day has passed, and with the new Sorbonne Paris has inaugurated a new Latin Quarter, worthy of the world’s metropolis. At the festivities given to celebrate this event, the Parisian students armed themselves for the battle of work. They do not want to bury themselves in their books, but will on the other hand not disgrace the worthy Latin Quarter by any unseemly gayety. The young people of to-day, those who will be the ilite of the nation, and who will in 44 PARIS OF TO-DAY. time understand how to prevent or to lead a social revolution, must needs fortify themselves early with a clear understanding and a serene calmness. The way in which the French students have asserted their rights and reminded Paris of their existence, indicates that they are fully conscious of this. MOKE BOOK-WORMS. V. Working Paris. O CTOBER has come. With the tribunal and lawyers, the last marauders, the serious Paris' has returned to its home. Colleges and lycdes have reopened their doors to the studious youths after a sum- mer vacation of two months. These captive birds are followed by the free worshipers of art and science ; the lecture-rooms are once more crowded with large audiences, the studios begin to fill, artists have come back from woods and fields loaded with sketches, but full of longing for this peculiar excit- ing atmosphere that alone can collect the scattered impres- sions and give them harmony and life. Even the literary world seeks the city ; the peace of the country homes has given rest to the brain, but Paris only can excite the imagination and bring forth the ideas. The whole staff of workers comes back, and the October aspect of the city bears the impress of it. The nobility are as yet engaged in the pleasures of the hunt at their chateaux, and the long train of their slaves and imitators hide in some remote corner, because it is not fashionable to come back so early. Only the season of industry has commenced, and does for a time make Paris appear not perhaps the tout Paris of the great days, but that which nevertheless forms the flower of it. The Janus-face of Paris in these quiet autumnal weeks does not have the coquettish smile and contagious laughter of the face belonging to the mondaine luxury and pleasure life, but neither does it have its false varnish. It has the coolness but also the clear beauty of October, and the less we see of it, the greater the reason to guard the impression. For, if Paris be the place 45 46 PARIS OF TO-DAY. where people amuse themselves more than anywhere else, there is on the other hand no place where as much earnest and perse- vering work is done as here. The exciting competition, which with every minute forces the faculties and the energy to intensi- fied efforts in order not to be left behind by one’s numerous rivals, is of course the great incitement to industry. It is not for their pleasure that the business men, year "in year out, sum- mer and winter, stand in their shops to wait for customers often until midnight without giving themselves any leisure. They are obliged to do it, if they do not want to submit to the inevitable fate of being killed by the great magazins de nouveantts. When the laborer rises at five o’clock to walk four miles to a place hoping to find work, and sees the foreman make the sign he knows only too well, that forces him to walk hour after hour until at last he gets an opportunity to work like a galley-slave for the remainder of the day, it is all because he has at home a wife and children who would starve if he did not bring them the few sous he can earn by his toil. It is very often the same thing with these actors en vedette in Parisian life, whose positions are looked upon with such envious eyes without a thought given to what it has cost to attain them, and what it costs day by day to maintain them. Talent can in Paris reach higher than in almost any other place, but only when it goes hand in hand with a temperament that can withstand all and a stalwart energy. Sardou sat year after year in a garret without a fire, and spent day and night writing continuations to first acts of Scribe’s comedies, in this way to compare his work to the masters and learn. Albert Wolff stood in the streets half- starved before Alexandre Dumas made him his secretary ; Zola was paid a few francs to spend New Year’s day going from door to door leaving visiting-cards for people, and has gone from paper to paper with his manuscripts to be shown away at each place. A short time ago, one of the best-known chroniqueurs , Albert Mortier, the Monsieur de l' orchestre of the Figaro , died at the age of forty-odd years. His life was representative of many thousand others. He came to Paris an awkward Dutchman, who had run away from the grocery-store where his parents had put him. Even the cheapest small papers had at first laughed at his attempts, but he had persevered until he got a firm footing, WORKING PARIS. 47 and even then he continued to toil. For thirteen years he wrote daily his Soiree Parisienne. At last he became rich and was able to realize the dreams of his youth. On the river banks near Bougival, this Paradise for Parisians, he built a villa. The Dutch Jew-boy became the representative of the Paris esprit par excellence , and the first stars of dramatic art disputed each other the honor of being applauded on the stage of the little theatre in his park. He was an envied man. To be able to live in this way and with so little trouble ! He only wrote a comedy once in a while, and for the rest merely that little chronique every day in the Figaro ! It could be read so easily, it must be written easily too, people thought. Yes, it was done so easily that it killed this robust Dutchman at the age when life only begins for most people ; for it was nothing but his work that did kill him. It was these thirteen years during which brain and nerves had never been at rest, when he had to invent some- thing new every day, not with unlimited use of his imagination or choice of subject, but with a forced variation of a theme that was perpetually the same. For five thousand days, five thou- sand articles one after another about the narrow life before the footlights and in the greenroom, and continually with un- wearied freshness and immutable wit — for woe unto him if it fell off, his whole career could be spoiled by the indisposition of an hour. Such was this easy work, a Sisyphus labor that looks like a dolce far niente. And such it is, not only in this case, but in thousands of these dazzling social successes that shine and tempt, and can only be reached by a way of fire, and whose splendor can only be maintained by a burning process of brain, heart, and nerves, endured by only a very few as long as thirteen years. Even where one is not forced to make a virtue of necessity, there is found much industry in Paris. The stimulus of the local conditions is so powerful that it has filled the very air of the city with a work-inspiring element, the influence of which asserts itself even where there is no longer a reason for competitive strife. People are under an enchantment that is stronger than their natural inclination to idleness. All through his life every Parisian has dreamed of the glorious moment when he can shake the work-dust off himself and live in retirement on his money 48 PARIS OF TO-DAY. and peacefully cultivate his little garden in the banlieue. Yet the cafe proprietor, a millionaire, stands there daily with his napkin over his arm, waiting on every guest who calls him; and the grocer, who owns half of the street in which he lives, con- tinues to sell lettuce for two sous in a shop without fresh air and light ; and the tailor who might drive four-in-hand in the Bois de Boulogne, runs from one end of town to the other to try the clothes on his customers. If any one asks them why they do it the answer is always the same, they would like to stop, but they cannot, it is stronger than their own nature. Every day they determine that the hour of rest has come^and every day the Paris air adds fuel to the fire of their inclination for work, until at last the toil kills them. It is the same in all classes of society, with the unknown people of every-day life and with the dite. Pailleron, for instance, is a millionaire ; he lives on one of the most fashionable quays in a large, luxurious, and artistically arranged house of his own. But when he writes his plays, — and, as a rule, he has hardly finished one before he commences another, — he runs away from all this splendor and shuts him- self up in a garret which he has hired of the chemist Dumas, in a quiet street on the left bank in a still more quiet house. His own rooms seem too beautiful for him to work in, the luxury disturbs him ; but up there in his empty garret, where he has only a table, a chair, and a little square window through which he can see the blue sky, he feels all the energy of his twenty years return, and he works as he used to when he was only a clerk in a lawyer’s office with a salary of thirty francs a month, and when, to add to his meager income, he actually wrote the little poem for the dentist, which he afterward put in “ Le monde ok Ion s' ennuie." In his own house he cannot possibly escape all sociability, and when he works he must be so undisturbed, that he even sends his wife and daughter, whom he adores, out into the country. But in his garret he does not exist for the world ; the concierge has received his orders and assures everybody that he has not seen the author at all that day. At nine o’clock Pailleron sits down at his desk. He carries his lunch with him and does not stir from the place till five in the afternoon. Litera- ture, he writes to a friend, will eventually be a horror to him, the WORKING PARIS. 49 theater a terror, a piece of white paper make his head feel dizzy, and the smell of ink sicken him. It is this indefatigable industry through long years, this finding for each speech and each brilliant fancy the most fin- ished form of expression, this enormous diligence in the com- EDOUARD PAILLERON. position of the merest trifles, that makes his works masterpieces. Pailleron is, however, by no means an exception ; almost all his colleagues of Parisian celebrities work as he does. It is as if the author’s need and energy for work increased with every step forward. Zola rises at seven o’clock in the morning, sits down PARIS OF TO-DAY. s« at his desk immediately ; at half-past one he interrupts his work to take lunch ; at three he commences again and continues until eight. It is as regular as a clockwork. Even after dinner he does sometimes take it up again if he has anything especial on hand. It is in this way that through many years he has been able to write, besides his two voluminous novels a year, a daily article for the newspaper Semaphore in Marseilles, a weekly chronique or criticism to a Parisian paper, and a long essay every month to a Russian magazine. Even those who do not, as Zola, feel themselves to have a great literary mission to which the sacrifice of one’s life comes quite naturally, even these lead an existence of the very same order. Georges Ohnet’s Maitre de Forges has in the course of two years reached over two hundred editions, and at the same time Serge Panine and Comtesse Sarah reached almost fifty. An ordinary Parisian edition is two thousand copies. It is then over a million books that Ohnet has sent out into the world with these three novels. Even if he had only received the lowest price, fifty centimes a copy, they would have brought him half a million francs ; and in their dram- atized forms Serge Panine and the Ironmaster have brought him still more. One would think that he might with good conscience take a little rest after all these laurels and money ; but the Paris air does not allow this. He is like Zola — at his desk at seven, and only leaves it during the few hours he gives to his family. His father was an architect, his mother still owns several houses in the banlieue. All the time left him from his novels and dramas, he gives to the management of these houses, and he is said to GEORGES OHNET. WORKING PARIS. 5 1 have talents in this direction that rival his literary gifts. His only diversion apart from these patriarchal pleasures is to hunt rabbits on a little property that he has hired near Rouen. His OCTAVE FEUILLET. private life is quiet, and he is, in spite of the great popularity of his books, slightly connected with the lion-hunting Paris. 52 PARIS OF TO-DAY. Alexandre Dumas, on the statement of a stranger that he spent most of his evenings in the theatre, declared that he went there once a year to see how his own pieces were played. “ And those written by others ? ” the foreigner asked. — “ I don’t see them at all,” answered Dumas. “ I think I am of more use writ- ing plays than looking at those others have written ; and one cannot find time for both.” This seems to be the motto of all French literary celebrities. They are not society .people, al- though of course acquainted with the mondaine world since they are able to picture it so excellently, but they look at it like mere spectators once in a while when it is absolutely necessary, and only seek it for the sake of studying it. The more quiet and retired from the world they can be, the more contented they are. Octave Feuillet, whose novels would lead us to think him a soci- ety man par excellence , living in the salons of the aristocracy, is for ever shunning the society of men. While he still spent the greater part of the year in the country at Saint Lo, and only came to Paris for a few winter months, he nearly ruined himself with his mania for renting all the houses around him so that he might be sure of never being troubled by seeing neighbors. Since he has come to Paris he has fortunately arranged himself so that his inclination for solitude can be satisfied in a cheaper way. He has found near the Luxembourg Palace a little quiet home almost hidden among the houses that surround it. The large, somber rooms connected with each other by dark corri- dors have tinted glass windows preventing all view of the outer world. When he leaves the house it is only to go to some' quiet nook in the Palace garden. And in this home, to which no sound of the buzzing Parisian life can reach, he lives*among his art col- lections so to speak, alone with his wife and his books. They only see a few friends in their home, and hardly ever go out. Emile Augier answered once, when he was asked for some auto- biographical notes : “ I was born in 1820 ; since then nothing has happened to me.” His life was that of his plays ; he had such a horror of being discussed as to his own personality that when his completed works were published, he could not even bring himself to writing a preface for them. * Octave Feuillet died (while this book was in the press) on the 29th of December, 1890, at the age of seventy-eight. — [Amer. Ed. Working pa rig. S3 Now the young people: I lived once on a time, for the space of a year, on the Avenue de Villiers, in one of the large houses arranged for studios, in company of a dozen young artists, some of whom had already made a name and others who were about to make one. EMILE AUGIER. At sunrise the whole house was up; during the summer months the fencing-master came at six in the morning, and they worked for an hour with him to start a good circulation of the blood and get the necessary amount of exercise. The rest of the day they 54 PARIS OF TO-DAY. sat at the easel until the daylight gave out, or until dinner-time between -seven and eight in the evening. The concierge made their lunch and brought it up; the models lunched in his lodge, so that the whole thing might be done in half an hour and the work taken up again. They had one day appointed each week to receive calls, but at other times no visitor was admitted, if spe- cial order had not been given to let him in. The concierge was an old soldier who for seven years had been the attendant of General Changarnier, and he would rather have taken the in- truders by the neck and thrown them downstairs than allow “ his gentlemen ” to be disturbed. At dinner-time they generally went out to take dinner together in some cafe on the left bank, to take a walk and to meet their former colleagues over there in the old industrious quarter, that they always regretted having left. There — they reasoned in spite of their hard work — there had always been more strength in the work than in the fashion- able quarter where they now lived, and where there was an atmosphere of gold and rastaquoueres. In this they exaggerated slightly; gold came truly to most of them, especially to those that were rising men, but they were not much troubled by les rastaquoueres ; they received indeed invitations all the time, but always invented pretexts enough to excuse themselves. The whole house had a holy horror of soirees, and it was seldom that the concierge could not go to bed before midnight fully convinced that all “his gentlemen” were asleep. But not only authors and artists work in this way; on the left bank the same industry is to be found in almost every house. The Latin Quarter has disappeared ; those who describe Paris, ian life weep over it as the poets weep over the old-fashioned stages, abolished by the railroads. Both parties may well com- plain. With the Boheme life, the Boheme idleness has disap- peared, and the Parisian student of to-day is a less romantic person than he was in Murger’s time, but he is, on the other hand, a man who can work. Take the student of medicine for instance : he must be at the hospital before eight in the morn- ing; the rush for seats is so great that he would find the doors closed later. He stays there until after eleven, then he has to hurry home and swallow his lunch in order to be in the auditory at twelve. Most frequently the lectures last till five or six. WORKING PARIS. 55 After dinner he may find time for a little chat with his col- leagues at the cctft, but at half-past eight he is called to work again by les conferences, the examinations of the hospital interns and the prosectors. If he wants to study by himself, he must do at nights. There are on the left bank five thousand students of medicine who spend their day in this way, and in other branches there are three times as many young men on whom work and industry have the same claims. There are, finally, the numerous staff of professors and teachers to whom the Paris out- side of the study and lecture-room is an unknown world. It is this quiet, industrious part of Parisian life that we must never forget. It is this the poet had in mind when he baptized this city the head and heart of humanity. In the coat of arms of this ship, swayed to and fro in a continual tempest without ever perishing, the device of immortality is written. It has a right to stand there as long as Paris is not only the large, noisy “ Cara- vansary” of the world but also the indefatigable working-home of art and intellect. VI. Pasteur in his Laboratory. N EAREST I'ile de la Citt, the island in the Seine where the cradle of Paris stood, lies on the left bank, forming a little square bordered on one side by 1' Imtitut, the house of the Immor- tals, and on the other side by the Pantheon, the building conse- crated to tontes les gloires de la France, the Paris where the city’s spring of eternal youth has its quiet and hidden source. On ground that may not be a hundredth part of this immense city stand the College de France and Sorbonne, the library of Sainte Genevieve, l’Ecole de M6decine, l’Ecole de Droit, l’Ecole Poly- technique, l’Ecole des Beaux Arts, the normal school and Sainte Barbe ; the lycdes, Saint Louis, Louis le Grand, and Henri IV., and among these are several high schools for science and art, an endless number of laboratories, cliniques, collections, and mu- seums. Almost every quarter of Paris has its own peculiar stamp, but none has one as characteristic and different from all others as this one. The stranger arriving there without knowing the place would think himself transported to another city and another time. The modern style has disappeared and with it the noise. There are no splendid edifices, no shops, no asphalt, and no boule- vard trees. The grass grows high in the gardens and the ivy climbs up the decayed walls. One feels like walking quietly, not to disturb the peace of these old houses. It is as if they breathed out an atmosphere filled with deferential, solemn earnestness. And this impression is not deceiving. Each of these houses is a temple of human progress. The glory of Paris finds a focus in each of them. But there is one in which the rays are concen- trated with an intensified force even for these surroundings. It is this one we will visit. It stands in the very heart of the Quar- ter, hidden behind the walls of the normal school in the Rue d’Ulm, the most quiet of quiet streets over here. The building 56 PASTEUR IN HIS LABORATORY. 57 is very small, only one story, with five or six windows ; it looks like a gardener’s lodge at the entrance to an old chateau, and it is in this very place that the work is being done which is perhaps the greatest witnessed in our time, at least that which has ripened the best fruits. It is here that Pasteur has his laboratory. The PASTEUR (AFTER A DRAWING OF ALB. EDELFELT). whole series of his discoveries is attached to this place. He has worked there for a long time, and his laboratory has been even plainer looking than it is now. In 1857, when, at the age of thirty, he attained what for a young man is so exceptional a dis- tinction, — a professorship at the normal school, — it was less the 58 PARIS OF TO-DAY. position itself that made the removal from the province to Paris so full of promise to him, but more the prospect of having his own laboratory. This had been his dream from his earliest years. When he was still studying chemistry under Dumas at the normal school he had received permission to spend his Sun- days experimenting with Dumas’s assistant, Barruel. When he went to bed on Saturday evenings, he counted the hours left before he could hasten to the laboratory. They were seldom many. There is still kept a retort, with sixty grams phosphorus, that he had extracted from bones on an experimenting day which lasted from four in the morning till nine at night. When in the laboratory, he forgot sleep, hunger, and even more than that. After having concluded his studies, and received a position as teacher of chemistry at the Academy of Stras- burg, he became engaged to the rector’s daughter, — his present wife ; but as much as he loved her, on his wedding day they still were obliged to seek him in the laboratory to remind him that this was the day he was to be married. He was already then on the track in which he later made so much progress. He had commenced to study the process of fermentation, and had asked himself where the reason lay for the change that death creates in all organic matter, when no human hand intrenches upon it, where the explanation was to be found of the disappearance of the corpse or faded plant, of the fact that the dough left alone raises and ferments itself, that the milk curdles and the blood coagulates. And he had come to the conclusion that at every fermentation process, in the case of corruption as well as in all other cases, it was microscopic plants or organic microbes that were at work. But where had these infinitesimally small things come from ? had they formed themselves? or were they indebted for their life to other germs? and from whence then did these germs come ? This was the great, never-ceasing question of a spontaneous appearance of organic matter, which he had taken up. Just when his suspicion of an entirely new solution of this problem, that would destroy all former theories, began to dawn, he was called from the scientific faculty of Lille, where he had worked for some time, to the capital. He was as delighted as a child ; all the hindrances, that had prevented him from finishing the work he was engaged upon, in this provincial town, disap- PASTEUR IN HIS LABORATORY. S9 peared at his removal to Paris. He had there at his disposal everything he needed ; and when they gave him, with his profes- sorship, an independent laboratory, he was sure that his investi- gations would end in the result he hoped to attain. The minis- ter’s answer to his petition was, however, not what he had expected it to be. There was, said the letter, no article in the budget that allowed them to assign him the fifteen hundred francs a year which he had requested for experimenting expenses. While he stood with this document in his hand, very despondent, Dumas and Biot, his former teachers, now his colleagues, came to see him. They procured privately the modest sum he needed, the little building beside the Normal school was hired, and the laboratory established there in spite of the minister. Since then over a quarter of a century has passed ; Science has a larger place in the French budget and Pasteur’s position is also differ- ent. The state gives him now a yearly income by which he and his work are freed from every material need. The Paris munici- pal council grants him as much room as he needs for his experi- ments ; it has put at his disposal the whole garden of the old Rollin college, and has there built luxurious quarters for all the animals on which he experiments. The laboratory building is his property and has been richly provided with all that might facili- tate and promote his work, but the house is still the same into which he moved so long a time ago. He has not been able to make up his mind to leaive it. It has become precious to him ; his whole life is within these walls. And what a work this life encircles, what victories have been won in this old house ! the most wonderful of all the wonderful tales of science that our century is so rich in has taken place there. As soon as Pasteur had his laboratory he took up the problem that was solved there. When Dumas and Biot heard that he was trying to find the origin of microscopic matter, they shook their heads in doubt ; they thought it as useless as it was daring to venture upon this, and all his other colleagues shared their opinion. But Pasteur remembered that the same had been said to Columbus when he set sail ; but he had nevertheless found America. He was not discouraged and he too discovered a world. The idea about the spontaneous genesis had been firmly believed in since Aristotle’s assertion that every dry body made moist 6o PARIS OF TO-DAY. would beget animals, and since Virgil’s hypothesis that the bees had come into existence by the decayed entrails of a bull. Even at the time of Louis XIV. there had not been much progress made in this line. The alchemistic physician, Van Helmont, gave in all earnestness his famous receipt for getting a nest full of mice. It was only necessary to close the opening of a vessel filled with wheat with a piece of soiled linen; the ferment of the linen, added to the exhalations from the corn, would, after a lapse of twenty-one days, cause the transformation of the wheat into mice. The Italian Redi was the first to investigate the question more carefully. He proved that the worms in decayed meat do not arise from nothing, but are the larvae of fly-eggs ; if a piece of gauze is put around the wheat before exposing it to the air, so that the flies cannot settle on it, there are consequently no eggs put in it, and no worms will arise. But just at the time when the investigations had proceeded this far, the microscope was discovered, and with it the thousands of organic beings that had not been known before. In the face of this swarm the party of spontaneous genesis triumphed. They admitted that they might have been wrong about the mice and worms, but the existence of these microscopical beings could only be explained by their theory. The great quantity in which they were found in every dead or decayed vegetable, or animal body, would be impossible if they did not have a spontaneous origin. A short time after Pasteur had arranged his laboratory, and commenced his studies with burning eagerness, the problem was more dis- cussed than ever. Pouchet had asserted before the Academy of Science that he had traced with success the microscopical being that came into existence without any germs. His opponents — he said — maintained that these germs were to be found in the air and that they were thereby carried everywhere. But this hypothesis would drop when he could prove the existence of these beings in the artificial air by which he had replaced the atmosphere. He did this by filling a little bottle with boiling water, closed hermetically, and put it, the cork downward, in a vessel containing quicksilver. When the water had cooled off he removed the cork under the quicksilver, and introduced pure oxygen, with a few seeds of hay, taken out of a stove that had for a long while been heated to over a hundred degrees centi- 6l 6a PARIS OF TO-DAY. grade. Eight days afterwards this hay was covered with mold. “ Where did this come from ? ” asked Pouchet triumphantly ; it could not come from the oxygen, which was chemically pure ; neither from the water, as every organic germ dies under the boiling process ; neither from the hay, as the germs would not in this case have been able to withstand the temperature reached by the heating. He was sure of his case and boldly challenged anybody to prove the contrary. This was in 1864. Pasteur had made experiment upon experiment, and had at last succeeded so well that he could appear in public and take up the gauntlet. “ I shall allow my- self to show you how the mice appeared,” he said, in one of a series of lectures that were given at the Sorbonne, and created a great sensation. He admitted that Pouchet’s experiment was very clever, but it was after all a repetition of Helmont’s vessel and linen. He had certainly removed the organic germs from the water and hay, but he had not removed the dust from the quicksilver, and it was this very dust that caused the error and overthrew the whole system. To make these dust atoms come into view Pasteur first produced complete darkness in the room and then sent a ray of light through this darkness. Thousands of little dust atoms were then seen dancing and whirling in this ray. He explained how this dust fell down and settled upon the quicksilver, as well as upon all other objects; since this had been taken out of the mine thousands and thousands of dust atoms had fallen upon it, and it was not possible to touch it without bringing them from the surface into the mass of the silver. He took a little glass bar, put it into the silver, let the light fall upon it, and showed how all the atoms came that way and settled between the glass and the quicksilver. He proved the sponta- neous genesis to be a chimera. The quickest decaying fluids, such as milk, etc., might be kept for months and years if micro- scopic germs could be prevented from entering into the vessels in which they were preserved. This was the first great triumph of Pasteur’s laboratory, but it was by no means the end he had tried to reach. With the intuition of genius he had found a way that began at this point, and with the indefatigableness of genius he followed it up step by step. When he had come to a clear understanding of the life principle in this world of minute PASTEUR IN HIS LA BOR A TORY. 63 particles he returned to his fermentation process, of which these particles formed the soul. He proved how wine diseases were to be traced to them, and he found at the same time the means to cure these diseases. When Dumas requested him to study the plague that since 1849 had plunged the south of France into despair by its destruc- tion of the silk-worm crop, he went, without ever having had a silk-worm in his hand before, to Allais, one of the centers of this industry, and after five years of patient and persevering investi- gations he triumphed over this disease, which in one year had cost France a loss of more than a hundred million francs. The result was indeed reached by superhuman efforts ; he had forced the use of the microscope to a high degree, and had in so many ways exposed his health that he, immediately after his return to the laboratory in the Rue d’Ulm, had a paralytic stroke. For a week he was at death’s door, but a spirit that has a mission like his, does not succumb to the body before its work is finished; he was restored to health again, but the lameness did not leave him entirely, and, although eighteen years have passed since then, his walk is like that of a wounded man. But he smiles at it, — he can work, and that is all he asks for; and what fruits has his work not borne during these eighteen years ! They include the last period of the history of his laboratory, that in which he has dis- covered the whole atom world, brought it to submission and changed it into vaccines against contagious diseases. He com- menced by examining the carbuncle, and, after having proved the existence of the microbe in the diseased blood, he isolated it and cultivated it in a fluid suitable for the purpose. He showed how this microbe, in the course of a few hours, produced myriads of bacteria. A small drop of this first crop, put into another ves- sel, shows the same fruitfulness. There can be made ten or twenty crops in this way, and when a little of the last is injected under the skin of a rabbit or sheep, the animal dies a few days after with all the symptoms of the disease. This was conse- quently a poisonous disease brought about by a microbe ; a great scientific step had been taken, but this was not enough for Pasteur. He went on to show how the bacteria when cultivated under certain circumstances loses a part, great or small, accord- ing to the wishes of the operator, of its fearful qualities. The 6 4 PARIS OF TO-DAY. same inoculation that used to kill a sheep is now hardly enough to kill a guinea-pig, and the great success attained is that this sheep, under whose skin the weakened bacteria has been injected, might now, without harm, be inoculated with the poisonous blood that formerly would have killed it. It is vaccinated. He has discovered microbe upon microbe and vaccine upon vaccine, but he does not as yet feel as if he had reached the end. When visiting the laboratory in the Rue d’Ulm you first enter a corridor, where you are generally asked to wait a moment until Pasteur has been informed of the call and has time to end the experiment on which he is engaged. This is just the place to give you a good comprehension of how far-reaching his studies are, and how many announcements of scientific victories may yet come from this place. Near one wall stands a table with piles of little bottles that are carefully packed away in boxes. They are the triumphs already won that stand on parade ; the bottles contain vaccines that are sent to veterinary surgeons all over the world, and which, yearly, protect millions and millions of the most important domestic animals against disease to which they formerly succumbed. On the shelves on the other wall, where Pasteur keeps the arranged and classified resumes of all his experiments, stand promises of the future that rivet the attention and are the most imposing feature of the place. Here you not only find the names of all the epidemics that visit the animal kingdom, but side by side with them the human diseases are marked with a little green card. There is hardly a contagious disease not represented on the labels, and it is under the over- whelming impression of the work they tell of that you enter the laboratory. This is large and light, but primitively simple, with- out the least outward sign of being the work-place of a king of science. The furniture consists of some rush-seat chairs and the long, unpainted deal tables on which retorts, graduating glasses, spirit-lamps, and microscopes stand in apparent disorder among open books and yellow “ copy-paper” filled with notes. Pasteur is here assisted by his two most important co-oper- ators, one of his nephews and a younger scientific man, Dr. Roux, who followed the Cholera expedition to Africa and has already made himself known by several important independent discoveries. In company with them he spends the day at the PASTEUR IN HIS LABORATORY. 5 5 great work-table in the center of the room, upon which the light falls from both windows. When he is called to board meetings or to the Academy, he puts aside his velvet skull-cap, and his nephew helps him to put on his black coat with the grand cross of the Legion of Honor; but at all other times he stands, in spite of his sixty-odd years, from morning till night, in his blouse, bent over the glasses with the microbe poison, experimenting eagerly and passionately, without considering what he exposes himself to, any more than when he was stricken with lameness in Allais. He certainly does not give you the impression of an old man when you see him standing here. There is something about this vigorous, thick-set figure of hardly average height, with the large gray head and the strong neck set on broad shoulders, that seems able to defy any strain. The eye is gentle, with a serious expression, as if half-veiled by the thoughts crowding into his head ; but suddenly there will come a gleam of light in them, and at the same time an almost fierce, masterful, commanding ex- pression passes over the mouth betraying the searcher accus- tomed to bring worlds to subjection. It is easy to see that it is not only indefatigable study that has brought him his success, but also an unconquerable will and a courage that recognizes no danger. He has shown this courage on many occasions. His son-in-law, Valley-Radot, whose book, Histoire d'un Savant , tells the history of Pasteur’s discoveries, relates one instance : A vttdrinaire, who had two mad dogs, sent for Pasteur ; one of them, an enormous bull-dog, was howling and foaming in the last stages of the disease. They put into the cage an iron bar, which he threw himself over, and that could hardly be wrenched out of his mouth. Then one of the rabbits brought by Pasteur was taken to the cage, and its ear put in between the bars, but, in spite of all they did to irritate the dog, he threw himself back in the cage and would not bite. Pasteur, however, would, at any cost, have the foam inoculated into one of his rabbits. Two men then put a rope around the dog’s neck ; he was pulled up to the side of the cage, bound and kept immovable, while Pasteur, at hardly one-half inch’s distance, bent down over him and with a glass tube took some of the foam to experiment with. Valley- Radot says that in this vtttrinaire s cellar, at the sight of this 66 PARIS OF TO-DAY. terrible tite-h-tite , Pasteur seemed to him greater than ever. This is one single instance that has been recorded, but how many times may Pasteur have been similarly situated with the hundreds of mad dogs he has had in his laboratory! And what does he not expose himself to day by day? In the little dark closet, beside the work-room, there is heaped up virus enough to kill the whole of Paris. This is his holiest of holies. Here he cultivates his microbes ; in little bottles, tapering to a point as fine as a needle, in yellow, golden, and light brown fluids, are kept all sorts and grades of them in the permanent boiling heat neces- sary for their thriving. Carefully as if he caressed them Pasteur shows bottle after bottle to his visitors, and explains from which animal the bacteria has been taken and for which it is destined. He does not need to look at the labels, he knows their history by heart. It is seldom that he does not take a personal part in every particular experiment. Even these are not without dan- ger, however carefully they are carried on. In the operating rooms beside the laboratory, the animal that is to be experi- mented upon is, after having been chloroformed, stretched out on a wooden pallet, standing so that it is free on all sides like an operating table. The microbe poison is, especially in a case of hydrophobia, injected under the cranium, where it takes effect more directly and rapidly than elsewhere. With a quick cut, the skin of the forehead is turned up, the operator bores a little round hole with a gimlet and takes out the little bone splinter, then a drop of one of the yellow fluids is injected with a diminutive “ squirt ” and the inoculation is done. The bone splinter is replaced, the skin sewed together, and the animal put aside to give room for another on the table. When it awakens it is as well and lively as before it was chloroformed, and experiences temporarily no inconven- ience from the operation. All the cries raised by soft-hearted animal protectors against the laboratory in the Rue d'Ulm, are caused by narrow-mindedness and by ignorance of what is really being done there. The disease being in the animal’s blood, Pas- teur can predict the hour, minute, and nature of the symptoms that will show themselves. The cellar under the house, and a labyrinth of little inclosed yards around it, are filled with hundreds of microbe-ingrafted PASTEUR IN HIS LABORATORY. <>7 animals of all kinds. Rabbits and guinea-pigs are there in great- est numbers ; but, from the little white mice up to the monkey, almost the whole animal kingdom is represented in Pasteur’s menagerie. Horses, sheep, and pigs, have their own stables built in zinc, and with a series of gas-pipes along the walls, so that fire can be put to the whole structure, and the microbes be burnt up as soon as the experiments are finished. With the dogs Pas- teur had the greatest difficulty. At all places where he used to board them the neighbors raised a scream of terror at the danger- ous proximity, and over the disturbance of their sleep, caused by the howls of the mad animals. Now he has, at last, had a yard arranged for them near the laboratory, behind a vacant school, where nobody lives near enough to hear the noise, and which is so fenced in with railings and gates that it would be impossible for the prisoners to escape. Every animal upon which experi- ments are held, has its separate cage, on which a card-board label states when and with which microbe matter, and how many times it has been inoculated, the symptoms of the disease exhibited, and, in short, its biography since it entered the service of science. Every morning Pasteur goes the rounds of his menagerie, and looks at his “ witnesses,” as he calls them. Manyjaf the dogs and monkeys know him and come to the side of the cage to be caressed by him. It is as if they knew that he only seeks the welfare of their race, as if they understood that when he risks their life for the sake of science, he risks his own at the same time. Pasteur seemed greatest to Valley-Radot, when face to face with the mad dog, inhaling the froth from its mouth. To me he seems even greater, where his courage may not be so apparent, at his daily occupation with the microbe poison in his laboratory, under the walks in these cellars and yards, where danger lurks at every step and where he passes it smilingly, without even think- ing of it. His life here, during a quarter of a century, in the old quiet house behind the walls of the Normal School, has added a page to the history of modern Paris, on which it is more than ever written in letters of golden flame that this city is the head and heart of humanity. 6 9 *; v VII. Cftfi£ and Street Life. i. T HE Paris boulevard is a street of a very peculiar nature. It is not only the business, the crowds, or the mottled coloring of the metropolis that makes it what it is. London has as much life of this kind and perhaps more, but what a difference between these two cities ! In London the street is merely a link of commu- nication between two points, the one you leave and the one you are bound for ; to reach this last in the shortest and easiest way is your first and only thought as soon as you step outside the door. To linger in the street for the mere pleasure of being there is not to be thought of. Every- where there are busy people hurrying on with long steps and elbowing their way through the crowd. The carriages rattle along, the drivers whip the horses, and the thousand voices of this noise unite in one single cry — Forward! forward! You see nothing, perceive nothing, but feel only the throng behind you. You feel as though it would fall over you, bury you, and close over you if you stopped. You join the restless hurry, walk and walk, and do not get rid of the fever or breathe freely again until you have reached your destination. In Paris, however, it is altogether different. Even where the traffic and hurry are greatest, there is nothing breathless about 71 72 PARIS OP TO-DAY. it ; people are, of course, busy here and there, but one hardly notices them among the many who are not ; among those who sit ON THE BOULEVARD. outside the cafds, stand in the doorways or in groups on the side- walk, or saunter slowly along. You feel as if you were on pleasure CAP A AND STREET LIFE . 73 bent, stopping to look where there is anything to look at, opening your eyes wide and filling your mind with impressions. You have, perhaps, gone out for an hour or so to do something, but before you know it the day has passed, and when you return you dis- cover that the object of the walk has been forgotten. The street life has been so entertaining and amusing that you could not tear yourself away, so you have let it take entire possession of the mind. You have not for a moment felt yourself on a highway where it was necessary to walk on. It has been like a garden where you felt at home and consequently stayed. This is what the Paris street really is. Home is to the Parisian a place where he works; rest and recreation after the work is found outside of the home in the midst of the turmoil and crowd, where it is at its highest, and where excitement makes the blood circulate quicker and act upon the impressible imagination. One seeks the boulevard : it is the great rendezvous where the whole population flocks together to satisfy its great craving for sociability ; where people meet with the wish of being together, and associate with the amiable courtesy and easy approach that is a consequence of the consciousness of being mutually entertain- ing. The street life here becomes in this way unusually varie- gated, and has this light, pleasant tone, this joyous brightness, this repose in motion, this harmony in colors wherein lies the charm that makes the Parisian boulevard so different from all other streets. II. The cafes form its main feature. They lie side by side, in countless number, along the thoroughfare between the Bastille and the Place de la Concorde. In the less frequented and less fashionable quarter, between the Chateau d’Eau and the Column of Liberty, the boulevard is not so filled with them ; but from the Rue Rougemont to the Church of the Madeleine they crowd each other so that at some places there are only a few feet between them. Their number would be too great if they served only as refreshment places. Not a tenth of them could subsist, even if the Parisians were given to drink more than any other people in the world. This they are by no means, and yet one and all of the cafe proprietors grow rich within a few years. The reason is that they offer their guests other things besides drinks. 74 “THE CAF& IS A RESERVED CAF& AND STREET LIFE. 75 The cafe is a reserved seat in the street, a sort of comfortable sofa-corner in the great common parlor, and it is on this that its success rests. The furniture is plain, for a city like Paris, almost poor ; little comfortable corners, suitable for a party, are not there ; every spot is used ; the tables stand so near together that there is only just room for one person to pass. There is not much done for the entertainment of the guests, either. It is only in the out-of-the-way streets that the cafts have their billiard- rooms ; and the supply of papers is also very deficient. They have five or six Parisian papers in single copies, none from the prov- inces or foreign countries. Everything is expensive, an ordi- nary drink costing fifty centimes without regard to what it is, so that in all these respects the Parisian cafes cannot be compared to those of other large cities. They have one great advantage, the multicolored picture of public life in front of them. They are always open in front and the room extends into the street, the tables occupying half the width of the sidewalk — the largest cafes may have up to fifty tables outside, and these are really the most important, while the rooms inside are looked upon as a sort of appendix. When it rains the awning is put out so that the guests may imagine it to be dry weather. Even the cold does not drive them away from their seat on the sidewalk, save on a few exceptional days. Through ten months the cafe is in its summer dress and the winter costume is not very severe, even during the two remaining ones. The chairs are left on the side- walks, and the windows left open on mild days. The Parisians are not susceptible to cold, where their beloved boulevards are in question. It is only during the early morning hours that the cafe stands half empty, with a public of querulous waiters and Baedecker-studying travelers. At dejeuner a la fourchette , the guests begin to crowd in. As a rule there is also a restaurant, and the distance to their homes being too great, the business men take their lunch there. It costs them, of course, between three and four francs at the least, and they spend an hour or two over their meal, but neither time nor money is lost. They meet people with whom they have business connection, information is asked and given, and some- times the most important business is done at the table. Quick, active, and resolute as people are here, sure of what they want, 76 v PARIS OF TO-DAY. and accustomed to asking for it without beating around the bush, they do not feel the need of sitting in an office chair to talk the matter over and over before it is decided upon. A question, an answer — voilh, c est entendu ; the waiter brings pen and paper and the contract is made before the next course is served. The cafe is a business place as well as a restaurant, but that does not prevent it from being unsurpassed in this last quality. Le chef de cuisine, this imposing fellow-citizen, with the large, white apron, the short hanger, and the white cap, is a man who understands his business. He may sometimes feel indis- posed when he prepares the dinner, but it does not matter, for the guests are not critical ; they only come once in a while, have no independent opinion, and find everything excellent when the place has a good name. At the dfeuner ct la fourchette, he is obliged to have all his wits about him ; he is working for guests who know how to judge his piquant sauce. The cafe would be matchless even if the chef was its only strong point. But apart from him it has the absinthe time, which is still more unique. The chairs are in constant use between noon and midnight, but during the absinthe time there is not a vacant seat to be found. This “time ” is not known outside Paris. When the Parisian has finished his business, toward evening, he inserts, between his business troubles and the troubles that may possibly await him at home, a short leisure, during which all that existence may possess of a disagreeable and worrying quality is thrown away. He buys his evening paper in the kiosk, goes to his cafe, takes his accustomed seat, gives his order, and then for an hour or so his whole being is penetrated by a quiet sense of great comfort, dimly conscious of but one feeling — namely, that life is, after all, a wonderful and pleasant thing. The absinthe bock, or the thimbleful of Madeira, or whatever he may be drinking, is only a false pretext, a tribute he pays for his seat, something like the two sous he gives the woman in the Parc Monceau or Champs-Elysees for his chair. And the paper ! It might tell him that the earth would fall down the next day on the sun and be devoured by the flames, his thoughts would not be able to grasp the meaning of the words before the absinthe time was over. His soul melts into one with the life of his great beloved city, and this is for him perfect com- CAP A AND STREET LIFE. 77 fort, and he has the quiet peace, the infinite satisfaction, that a man experiences when he lives the life he loves. Dinner comes. The carriages, which the cafe guests have been watching from five to seven, while they carried the tlite to and from the Bois de Boulogne, are more scarce, the crowds waiting at the omnibus stations become smaller, the carriages roll from the boulevard into the side streets ; there are a few pedestrians left, but their step is quicker ; the ladies no more come out in crowds from the shops, the many-colored luxury of their costumes has been replaced by the little working-woman’s black merino dress; the newsmen’s cries slowly die away. Paris has, during the absinthe time, displayed herself to the public in all her glory, but the play is over, the street life takes its dinner. When the absinthe no longer serves as a pretext for enjoying street life, the Mazagran and bock step in, and in the evening the boulevard is once more the great place of entertainment, whose power of attraction is as great as ever. The public is different from that of the afternoon, but not less numerous. When a family of middle class people want to spend a really enjoyable evening they go to the cafe , and if they have company it is almost always necessary to take them along. The home is not large enough nor so arranged that they enjoy being together there ; the vast majority of Parisians do not appreciate home sociability. If they give an exceptionally large party, they go to the great concert halls in the Champs-Elys6es, where people sit in the open air and have the double view of the life in the street and that on the stage. On ordinary occasions, this pleasure is, however, too expensive. The tempting illustrated bills announce Entree libre , and that is true enough ; but when you once are inside, the drink that you are obliged to order there, as well as at all other cafes , costs three francs. Parisians do not like to spend so much for their amusements ; they are accustomed to getting them for nothing. The boulevard cafe is almost as enter- taining and a great deal cheaper. The fifty centimes they pay for their beer gives them the right to keep their seats as long as they please. It is only spendthrifts that order a second glass ; the others sit with their empty glasses and look and look. The boulevard is radiant ; there is bustle and noise everywhere ; new figures and changing pictures pass before the eye in uninter- 78 PARIS OP TO-DAY. rupted lines. Time passes away before it is noticed. The cafe refreshments are not needed ; the life, the noise, and the A POPULAR CAFfi. air, filled with the boulevard’s perfume, go to the head and make people feel dizzy, and when they go home it is as if they CAFJS and street life. 19 had spent a night of revelry. After all they have only spent a few hours on the sidewalk. This is the secret of the Parisian cafe. III. Fora great many Parisians, the cafe not only serves as a place of entertainment, but has an every-day use in being at the same time office, study, and reception room, political or literary club- room and other such things. Many old traditions are in this way attached to it. The waiter in the little historically famous Cafe Procope,* in the Rue de l’Ancienne Com£die, on the left bank, shows still with pride the table at which Voltaire for fifteen years wrote his letters to the King of Prussia ; Rousseau’s, d’Alembert’s, Cr£bil- lon’s and Mirabeau’s portraits look down from the walls and tell that they, too, have had their second home in these old smoke- stained rooms. Everybody knows that Gambetta followed their example. In this way famous names are interwoven with the history of almost every cafe. The Boheme period especially was the golden age of the cafe. Authors of even the greatest talents had literally no other home. When at last they were found dead in some garret on a box filled with books and manuscripts that served as a bed, then people would know where they lived. Up to that very moment nobody had had any idea of it, not even their most intimate friends. This class of people has largely dis- appeared ; only a few of them go about still in this prosaic time of money. Their conception of the cafe was too truly Parisian, and suited too well the specific French national inclination, to disappear with them. Their successors in the world of art, litera- ture, and politics are sedate people, who have system in their lives and system in their money matters. They lack house and home so little that they often own a property. Nevertheless the cafe is still the place where they prefer to settle their business with the world around them. They come there at an appointed time every day, just as they would to an office; they are only at home in order to work where they will not be disturbed. When asked where they can be found they always give the name of their cafe ; their concierge has received orders to send people there, The existence of this ancient cafe came to a close in 1890. — [Amer. Ed. So PARIS OF TO-DA Y. and even their letters are sent to this address. People may have known each other for years, met daily and been on the most cor- dial footing, and yet not know the number of each other’s houses. The cafes are almost everywhere literary and artistic meeting- places, but here they are also political. In stirring times they are the centers of agitation ; opposition is born and issues from them. Gambetta and a great many other men who have come into power in France commenced their careers in the cafes, while cafe discussions and cafe speeches form the basis of their popu- larity. During the last years of the Empire, Cafe Mazarin was the headquarters of the Republicans. The communistic revolution was conceived there, amidst the variegated crowds of foreigners, boulevard demi-monde , and the people who had returned from New Caledonia. The Bonapartists met in the distinguished Cafb de la Paix, that stands on the corner of the Place de l’Op£ra and the Boulevard des Capucines. King Henry’s followers sat in Tor- toni’s solemn rooms and whispered about their secrets, while the white-haired valets served them their 11 petit verre de Madere." Politics do not, however, play as prominent a part in Paris as in the provinces. There the cafes of the different parties are real camps that are in a continual fight. They do not confine themselves to demonstrations, but sometimes even fall to fight- ing, and when one party has won a great victory it often hap- pens that it closes the other party’s cafe. A Mazarin guest would look upon it as a mortal insult if you offered him a glass of beer in the Caf6 de la Paix, and a Tortoni guest could not, without being a prey to eternal remorse, put his feet within one of the ultra-Republican cafes. Most Parisian cafes have a par- ticular public of some kind. When one has been there a few times it is easy to find the characteristic type of each one. The blustering exchange matadore has taken possession of the Cafd Riche, and sits there, self-satisfied, basking in his own glory on the chairs outside, that a few years ago were the most aristo- cratic ones on the boulevard. At the Neapolitain every other guest wears a red cocarde. It is the cafd of the officiers supt- rieurs. The “ Sufede ” gathers the actors ; the “ Americain ” the boulevard journalists ; the “ Grand Cafe ” the old house-owners, and the “ Helder ” the young high-livers. Each nation among CAF& AND STREET LIFE. 8l the foreigners has its own cafe , where they generally, like the Ger- mans in “Caf£ de la Terrasse” near the Gymnase, arrange them- selves so completely after the costumes and habits of their home, that no Parisian dares to encroach on their precincts. From the immortals of the Academy that meet in the “ Rotonde ” of the Palais Royal garden, down to the ragpickers drinking their ab- sinthe with their colleagues in the “Californie” and such places, there is no class, no clique, no party ever so small, united by a com- mon interest, that does not meet at the cafe to talk matters over. To this, then, is added the crowds of passing tourists, who are naturally reduced to street and cafe life, and they do this the more because it can be done with such ease and comfort in Paris. The result is that every tenth house has a cafe on the ground floor, and that, out of the two million inhabitants, at least fifty thousand make their living as barkeepers or waiters. But they are not the only ones for whom the cafe and boulevard public is a source of revenue. The photographer, for instance, transforms the neighborhood around the Caf6 Riche into a fairy garden in full moonlight to inform the public that he takes pictures by electric light. The places of entertainment hang gas-festoons, with their names written in flames, among the trees outside of the cafes, and enterprising tailors present on the walls opposite comical magic-lantern pictures, to fix the public attention upon their address, which forms the frame; while the hippodrome arranges long processions of little boys dressed up and mounted on horseback. Even apart from these smart business men, there are hun- dreds and thousands to whom this Paris, that takes its after- dinner rest on the cafe chairs, is the only means of subsistence. They form a characteristic feature of street life, these human sparrows that are always there, eagerly picking up the crumbs from the tables of the rich. How they are fed and sometimes even thrive, is an unfathomable mystery. One may watch them for hours and see them earn at the utmost a few sous. Yet many of them have at home more than one stocking filled with gold and silver coins. Everybody that has been in Paris for only one day knows the opera-glass man. From morning till night he walks about the cafe tables ; no new face escapes him ; he brings out his opera-glass at once, and even though you PARIS OP TO-DAY. % 2 assure him that you have the house full of them, you are not able to get rid of him. His is something exceptional, “ une vraie occasion ; vons n en trouverez pas deux," he assures you, with a conviction in his voice that amounts almost to passion. But that does not prevent him from having another of just the same kind to offer to somebody else the minute this one is sold. From year to year there is no difference to be seen, either in him or his glasses, nor on the well-polished brass mounting, nor on the strap with which he carries his treasure, while his big shoes wear furrows in the asphalt on which he has walked back and forth millions of times, always with the same gentle steps and the wide-awake, half-lurking eyes. In his steps follow an army of other ambulant tradesmen. It is a moving bazaar that passes by the boulevard cafe, but always the same little articles, the same faces, that one saw half a dozen years ago. A new ware and a new face is a rarity ; nothing is so conservative as the street countenance ; perhaps this contributes to the home feel- ing one has in these streets. Born with and inseparable from them// are the “dumb.” They reason that nobody ought to waste time even sitting on the sidewalk, and consequently they propose the study of their sign-language to the guests as a nice instructive occupation in their spare minutes. As soon as you sit down, the dumb man comes and puts his little folded paper on the table. If you are curious and only touch the paper, it is looked upon as a consent to the proposition, and that you are willing to pay two sous for the key to his language ; but if the mysterious paper is left untouched, and no look or gesture betrays the least interest for it, the man never thinks of asking for a contribution. When his round is done and the tables all provided with papers, he collects his money, and he knows with the greatest exactness those that have been curious, and only they are obliged to pay. As the cafes are always full of stran- gers, he makes, as a rule, a good business. Among other ever- returning tradesmen are the man who offers for sale little terriers and green paroquets ; the confectioner’s boys, with their white aprons and the glacdd apples on a stick, the cane merchant, the plaster figure man, the flower girls with their beautiful long- stalked roses, and very often carrying a young baby, and the genial artist with his long, gray hair, the Tam O’Shanter, the cafA and street life. 83 gymnasium shoes, and a large oil painting under each arm, which, owing to momentary want of money, he wishes to dispose of to a connoisseur at whose home they may be properly set off. The representatives of Parisian industry on a small scale are very numerous; every half-minute you must make gigantic efforts to escape buying imitation watch-chains, sleeve buttons, jumping jacks, little devils with a lead weight in their tails, or shaving serpents that fall out of their paper coverings with a somersault. They are all ridiculously cheap, but the quality is according to the price. Paris is a queer city, for at every step one sees the most refined luxury side by side with the worst sort of trash. The greatest extravagance goes hand in hand with misery. The merry-go- round, where the owner is at the same time horse, crier, and clown, stands in the Champs-Elysdes close to Ledoyen’s restau- rant ; the apple-woman’s booth, without roof or window, is near the jeweler’s shop where there are articles worth half a million. The ragged, bareheaded boy, who to-day sells his matches at the cafe, may in a few years be one of the rich men of the world. In a city like Paris it is only talent and energy that are demanded, and the young dandy, who carelessly throws his half-smoked Havana cigar under the cafe table, may soon be recognized in the lazzarone, with the filthy oilskin bag and the long stick, on the end of which is a sharp, iron point, — the cigar-picker, one of the most peculiar human sparrows of the boulevard. He comes with the earliest guests and only disappears between one and two in the morning, when the last marauders have left the side- walk. There is not the smallest cigar-stump thrown down but he falls upon it at once, picks it up with his hook and puts it in the bag. He has the sharp eye and the boldness of the sparrow, and he is tolerated and almost protected like the sparrows in the Tuileries gardens. He works his way fearlessly through the densest crowds to pick up his crumbs from the tables that stand farthest away, and people make room for him. It is his position in life to pick up cigar-stumps, and in Paris all positions are respected. The great city has its fight for existence, the wilder and more desperate the larger it is, but it offers besides so many more possibilities for support, that nobody who really wants to live 8 4 PARIS OF TO-DAY. is ever left behind. This is the one great blessing. If people have to work their way in the world the cafe sidewalk is there, and more than one millionaire has commenced by selling his small articles here. It is the great meeting-place where the whole city takes its rest, and it is also the fair where it shows best all the peculiarities and types it possesses. It is Paris in essence; Paris displaying the most variegated, most radiating, most singularly attractive side of her character. THE CIGAR-STUMP PICKER. VIII. Cabs and Cabmen. T 'HE Parisian cabs of the day are true model cabs. Once upon a time there were in this city, as well as in all others, those jolting vehicles that were the horror of our fathers. They had to climb up innumerable steps in order to take their seat, which was covered with yellow velvet, and about as comfortable as a full pincushion. The straw in the bottom was always damp and the windows always broken, so that a certain amount of rheumatism was the inevitable result of a drive. The driver — always cross, in a dirty cloak with seven equally dirty capes, a heavy woolen cap on his head, and gener- ally on top of that a hat which had seen better days, his feet encased in immense wooden shoes, who would never think of ascending to his box without first having lit his pipe with due ceremony; and when he started finally, the noise of the heavy carriage on the irregular pavement was enough to deafen almost anybody. The driver’s slowness was so well known that, when in a hurry, people preferred to walk. But this rudimentary period lies as far back as the time before Haussmann. Over the modern boulevard rolls a carriage worthy of it in every respect. There are two types, the little opera cabriolet for the summer months and the closed coupi, both with a single seat made for two persons and provided with a small seat, that can be let down in case you want to make room for a third. The double-seated cabs, that were seen once in a while a few years ago, have not entirely dis- appeared. Still, in Paris the normal number is two, and if you indulge in the luxury of having a family, you must provide 85 86 PARIS OF TO-DAY. yourself with your own conveyance, if you are not satisfied with the cab arranged to carry trunks and generally looked upon as the pariah among cabs. The coupes are there summer and winter. A lady who obeys the laws of etiquette can only ride in a closed carriage when she is not accompanied by a gentle- man. The open cabs are taken in with the first snow-fall and only reappear when the last snow melts, or at the time when it ought to do so. The state of calendar is taken more into con- sideration than the state of the weather, and on an early spring “ IN PARIS THE NORMAL NUMBER IS TWO . day when the sky is blue and the sun shines bright on the bud- ding chestnut-trees, when Paris looks like the Paradise described by the poets, you may seek half a day without finding an open cab, and if you do succeed, have to pay the man a louis d' or to tempt him to drive you. But, after all, the pleasure is really worth the pains and the money, especially if you are “two souls with but one thought.” The cab in itself has the true, light Parisian elegance. So well it looks with its top that can be raised in rain or strong sunlight, and with its velvet or leather 8 7 88 Paris of to-day. cushions, it is difficult to distinguish it from the private caf- riages, unless you are near enough to see the number. It is an exception if it is not well kept ; a poor wretch, not favored by fortune, may be obliged to come with a conveyance and nag in as miserable a state as he is in himself, but for the companies or co-operate societies, it is a point of honor to offer a turn-out comme il faut. The carriage is, every evening when it returns, thoroughly washed and cleaned ; and as to the driver, it is only dur- ing the dog-days that he allows himself the liberty of wearing a straw hat, with a many-colored rib- bon ; at all other times, he is as correct as anybody could wish him to be. And this little agile carriage glides along the street under the chestnut trees, along the macadam- ized, freshly watered avenues, as gracefully as a swan. The drive is often so agreeable that the distance seems too short and the speed unnecessarily quick. The rates are not high. Inside the city limits, the price is always one and a half franc whether you take a drive for two minutes or one of an hour ; all the difference is that you pay a fee of fifty centimes for the long one and twenty-five, the minimum that you can offer, for the short one. For a drive in the Bois de Boulogne, or to any other place outside of the limits, you pay two and a half francs per hour, and in case you leave the cab outside of the city an extra franc for the drive back. These moderate prices cause cabs to be used more in Paris than in any other city. The number rented out each day averages 10,000, and they are used by everybody, rich and poor alike. It is not uncommon to see three or four workmen take one together in the morning to go to the place THE COOK SENDS FOR HER CAB. CABS AND CABMEN. 89 where they are employ- ed, and when it rains, the cook, who is obliged to go to the halles for her marketing, often sends for a cab. The only drawback is that, when anything of any impor- tance takes place, the demand far exceeds the supply, and this of course is a serious drawback. The Parisian cabman is, after all, not especial- ly anxious to sit on his box. There are gener- ally cabs enough at the stopping-places, but the drivers fail to be there ; they are au rendez-vous. Every other saloon is marked “ au rendez-vous des cockers ,” and it fully comes up to its name. These gentlemen are comfortable enough with their bottles and cards, and do not like to be disturbed. There they are just trying .to get a mouthful to eat, they ex- plain, have been so busy that they have not tasted anything for an eternity. If you would be kind enough to use a col- league of theirs they would be much obliged, as they are just on the UNE STATION DE FIACRES. 9 o PARIS OF TO-DAY. point of going to the stables to change their horse. A cabman in Paris is, at whatever time of the day you seek him, always on his way to change his horse. If you want his assistance for only a very short distance he may, if nothing especially interesting is taking place, be induced to drive for you, but if you want him for an hour’s drive, his horse is disabled just at that mo- ment. When at the cab station he ought, according to the rules, to start in spite of everything ; but there is also another law stating that the cab first in the row is always at your disposal. The policemen, who are apt to side with the drivers, understand by this that the customer is obliged to take number one, even if it be closed when he happens to want an open one, or dirty when he is particularly anxious to get a clean one. In this way his majesty the cabman is protected from the inconvenience of being disturbed against his will at the rendez-vous. If his cab is not at the station, he is under no obligation to drive. When some great day comes and everybody wants a carriage, or even only on a beautiful spring day when the whole city feels tempted to go out into the country, all the stations are from the early morning as if deserted. With well-polished harness and shining coat-buttons, and feeling himself of great importance, this cab potentate drives over the asphalt without condescending to look at anybody. The customers stand in crowds on the pavement calling, beckoning and whistling, but he sits immovable in all his glory, and sees and hears nothing. He does not dare to stop, for if once he enters into a discussion he betrays that he is not engaged, and the one who has succeeded in stopping him can CABS AND CABMEN. 91 jump into the carriage and order him to drive, and if he should refuse he may be arrested. However nice looking the customer is, he may intend to drive home first to get his wife and children and then spend the day in the cab at two francs an hour, and finally give a fee of only one franc. The cautious cabman does not dare to run any such risk. If he does not get his money in advance for the whole day, he must at least be sure of whom he has to do with, for his plan is to make enough money that day to allow him to make long and frequent visits at the rendez-vous. His habits are by no means of a Spartan nature. The breakfasts A GOOD CIGAR WHILE WAITING. he takes at his rendez-vous would be good enough for any one to offer his friends, and the pipe that was indispensable to his pre- decessor has been replaced by a good cigar, which is thoroughly appreciated not only in his idle moments but also when he is sit- ting on his box. His salary of five to six francs a day, given him by the company, or even the seven that he may sometimes obtain after a strike, are not sufficient for his luxurious habits, and the rest must be supplied in other less lawful ways. His terms are either to deliver to the company the whole profit of the day with the exception of the fees given him, or to pay a certain amount of money each day, the sum corresponding to 92 PARIS OF TO-DAY. the average profit. In the first case he tries to cheat the com- pany, in the second the public. If he is very clever he may soon succeed in cheating the company out of a hundred franc bill. The policemen try, by taking notes of the leaving and return- ing of the cabs, to establish some means of controlling them, and the company use another stratagem, more feared by the drivers ; they offer the business men, who are obliged to use cabs freely, a considerable discount if they will send in the number of their driver with an account of the time he has given to them. But there will never be a perfect control until some self-acting machine is invented to do the work. It is easier to cheat the company than AN EVENING DRIVE IN THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE. the people, for a Parisian knows the taxes by heart, and the only circumstance under which he is able to forget the time is when they are two in the cab taking an evening drive in the Bois de Boulogne ; but at all other times he is on his guard, and ready to call in the police if he should find himself imposed upon. Formerly, when the driver was convicted of swindling, he was not only suspended from his position for some time, but was obliged to make his humblest excuses to the complainer, at the same time restoring the money and getting a receipt for it, directed to the police-prefecture. The Collignon affair was a sad proof of the danger of this pro- CABS AND CABMEN. 93 ceeding. The principal of a school in Douai engaged Collignon on the Place de la Concorde to drive him and his wife to the Bois de Boulogne. The man, seeing that they were strangers, asked more than his due. The next day the principal sent in his complaint, on receipt of which Collignon was ordered to return the money. On the way he bought a revolver, and when the principal turned to write the receipt Collignon shot him through the head, and he fell dead on the spot. The revengeful driver was sentenced to death, and to call a Parisian driver a Collignon is to this day the deadliest insult. Since then the money is returned through the police, and the driver simply sus- pended from work and sometimes imprisoned. There is at the police prefecture a prison especially for cabmen, and I am sorry to say that it is generally well filled. The Parisian drivers are not exactly models of virtue. The profession is not only taken up by honest peasants and other beings who have an innate capacity for managing horses, but also by individuals who only ascend the box because they have fallen from the height of their former profession. You will find all classes represented: ex- waiters and ex-barbers, photographers, students, and ministers, and sometimes even noblemen who have been ruined in this Babylon on the Seine, and think that under the driver’s coat they may yet, to a certain extent, continue their vie facile. The morals and customs of some of these gentlemen leave much to be desired ; but, on the other hand, both the company and the police take certain measures to restrict them. The applicants must show their papers and pass an examination, proving that they can fulfill the demands of the profession. If he is good for nothing else he generally knows how to drive well, and even when he has taken a little too much at the rendez-vous, he drives with perfect mastership under all the difficulties of the boule- vards. When he is sure of a good customer, who pays him well at the last, the all-important moment, he may be exceedingly obliging and jovial and make the drive as agreeable as possible. T HE omnibuses are one of the most important features of the city. The distances are too great and time is too precious for walking. As soon as people have 500 francs a month to spare, they keep their own carriage ; if they are “ somebody,” they must have it as a proof of their position ; if they have not as yet attained this enviable state, the carriage offers the means by which they reach it. To get to the shopping district one takes a cab, and only walks when forced to. One’s pocket-book and good health suffer by it ; though the doctors may spend half their time advising their patients to walk, for exercise, it is of no use; they are willing enough to take gymnastics and fence as much as the doctor wishes, but walk! oh, dear, no; he cannot possibly mean that ! For want of a coup6 or a victoria they take the first cab, and, in the absence of that, the omnibus. In 1888, the private company that controls all these convey- ances accommodated about one hundred and eighty million pas- sengers. The omnibuses are not very old, however. Pascal, the author of “ Les Provinciales,” seems to have introduced them under Louis XIV. His vehicle, h cinq sous, followed a given 94 r 95 ON THE TOP OF AN OMNIBUS (AFTER A PAINTING OF H. BACON). 9 6 PARIS OF TO-DAY. route, and stopped to take up passengers. They did not meet with success ; the times were not democratic enough. The bourgeoisie used them once in a while, but when one of the nobility condescended to use them it was an event spoken of by all the papers, and, as to the lower classes, they were excluded from the privilege. Pascal’s invention soon died out. With the beginning of this century the scheme was taken up again, and the inventor, Boudry, coined at the same time the good word “ omnibus.” When he first presented his project to the police prefect he was shown away, like all other Colum- buses ; but, after having carried it out in his native city, Nantes, THE MADELEINE- BASTILLE OMNIBUS. and given a proof of what he intended to do, he received also in Paris the authorization he had asked for. A hundred carriages were sent out. They started from a certain station, followed a route appointed by the authorities, and had fourteen seats, the price of each being five sous. They were drawn by three horses, harnessed in tandem, and the driver blew mournful tunes to announce his coming. The new omnibuses came in the fulness of time, and met with great success. Everybody wanted to use them ; they were always full, and requests for new concessions poured in. Public conveyances were for some years the main objects of speculation, and vehicles of all kinds made their ap- PARISIAN OMNIBUSES. 97 pearance, with more or less success, until, in 1855, the different companies formed one and obtained from the municipal authorities the monopoly of public conveyances. This arrangement still remains in force. The company pays a certain per cent, of the profit to the city, and takes upon itself a considerable share of the snow-shoveling, besides paying a number of indirect taxes that accumulate in the course of time. The company is, for instance, obliged to have its provision houses within the walls of the city, and consequently pays an excise on provisions amount- ing to over one-half million francs a year. To make up for this, it does not go to great expense to modernize the stages on the less frequented routes ; those on the principal lines, drawn btf CLOSE QUARTERS INSIDE AN OMNIBUS. three horses abreast, as, for instance, between the Madeleine and the Bastille, where the stages leave every three minutes, are, of course, without blemish, but there are still seen, in other parts, some of quite an antediluvian pattern. One must be a good gymnast to be able to ascend the three iron steps to the imperial without accident, and must be endowed with a natural taste for close quarters to make an omnibus trip, of sometimes over an hour, without being crushed to death. With the praiseworthy aim of benefiting as many as possible the omnibus makes all possible turns and twists on its way, and the noisy jolting movement over the pavement in the narrow 9 8 PARIS OF TO-DAY. streets brings the passengers into a drowsy state that would lessen the tediousness of the trip if it did not bring with it another inconvenience. No place is more haunted by pick- pockets than the stages. There is an especial way of stealing much practised here that, while it requires a quick eye and a skilful hand, has the advantage of not being easily discovered. While the thief gives himself the air of being completely en- grossed in his paper, he holds between his fingers a small lead bullet, fastened to a long thread of thin black silk. When his neighbor takes out his pocket-book to pay the fare, he seizes the opportunity when it is about to be closed to drop in the weight. As soon as he sees his victim sufficiently taken up with his own thoughts he begins to pull softly and cautiously. If the pocketbook does not follow easily, he waits till the stage stops with a jolt, and then makes believe to be thrown over upon his neighbor. He makes his excuses, but a little jerk has put the purse in his possession, and, beckoning the conductor to stop, he steps out with his capture. The control kept of the fares is by no means perfect. For each passenger the conductor pulls THE OMNIBUS DRIVER. a bell-rope connected with a little box, where a number appears to indicate the corresponding number of passengers. The stage being narrow people generally pass the money to the conductor by their neighbors. At each station a monitor appears to take his notes, and makes several marks on a card, which the conductor keeps ; sometimes these two men do not quite agree on the number of the marks, and a discussion ensues, during which the monitor does not show himself as superior in his language as he is in his position. The company seems, on the whole, to be less successful in the choice of its higher employes. The drivers are, on an average, clever, and the conductor fills remarkably well a position that is by no means as easy as it seems, He PARISIAN OMNIBUSES. 99 stands all day long on the little step at the back of the stage, stopping it for the passengers, taking in fares, giving combination tickets, answering all the impossible questions put to him about how to reach this or that place in the easiest way. There seems indeed to be nothing in this world about which the passengers do not ask the conductor. If he should lose his temper it would be no wonder, but he hard- ly ever does. He is politeness itself ; assists old gen- tlemen to mount, warns the imprudent, and helps the ladies. The monitors, on the other hand, seem to think that they are there to make the drive as disagreeable as possible to the passengers, and Conductor 5 they display, in the consciousness of their supe- rior position, a true bureaucratic discourtesy. The expense of keeping them is several hundred thousand francs a year, but to a company whose yearly average income is one hundred and thirteen millions, and the expenses one hundred and eight mil- lions, this point is of so little importance that it spends another AT THE OMNIBUS STATION IN THE RAIN. sum of eighty-three thousand francs for detectives to control the monitors. All this would probably be unnecessary if they adopted the control system of other cities. In spite of some inconveniences that the monopoly system has caused, there have been worked of late many improvements. The public can, for instance, for their six sous ride from one end IOO PARIS OF TO-DAY. of the city to the other, sometimes distances of four miles in one drive. However great the distance may be, good care is taken not to tire the horses. A horse never runs more than sixteen kilometres a day, and spends the remaining time in the stable, where it is well taken care of. The same horses are, if possible, harnessed to the same stage, with their own driver, and stand, when in the stable, beside each other, eating out of the same manger. In this way they grow to know each other and work together, the best of friends. The much admired quickness and in- telligence of the omnibus horses, that know how to find their way through all the obstacles of the crowded street, is simply the result of a steady co-operation. The passenger can go almost any chosen distance for his six sous, by means of the combination tickets, always given on request. He only needs to present them at the station where he changes, and receives in exchange his numtro for the stage he wants to take ; these tickets are not as impracticable as they may seem to be. Every evening, at the time when business stops, the stations are filled with people, and it is still worse when it rains. The ladies especially are never dressed to walk in the wet, and at the first sign of a raindrop they come running from all directions. They receive their numbered ticket and wait under a roof till their number is called out. When the stage is full, it is marked complete and this happens pretty frequently when the crowd is largest and when everybody wants to get home in time for din- ner. If people do not want to take a cab, and are not dressed PARISIAN OMNIBUSES. ioi to sit on the top, trying to forget the rain in a, conversation with the jovial driver, who is always most communicative in the rain, they may be obliged to wait for hours. The company has about three hundred omnibuses and half as many cars at its disposal ; each travels about eighty-seven kilometres a day and uses fifteen horses. If a new line is necessary, or more conveyances required on an old one, the municipal council always reminds the company of the fact that it is there not only to earn money but also to satisfy the demands of the public. Sometimes heavy controversies arise, but generally the council conquers and carries its point. A short time ago, for instance, the council had to try the last remedy and declared the monopoly abolished. The company then gave way and the new lines were founded. All things considered, Paris is, perhaps, in regard to public convey- ances,* better supplied than most large cities. * The author evidently refers to ^^-conveyances only, the railroad accommodation in Paris being null as compared with that of London, for instance. — [Amer. Ed. THE JOVIAL DRIVER. X. The Newsmen. T HE Paris street has constantly new types, that appear as per- sonifications of the character of the period, even if sometimes in an exaggerated form. Our time has produced one which is extremely characteristic of the social condi- tion of the day. This is the golden age of advertisements. The rule, “ My son, if you want to succeed in this world, learn to bow your head,” has been replaced by a new one, “ Blow the trumpet and beat the drum.” Notoriety is the corner-stone upon which every one builds ; without the drums nobody gets on now, least of all in Paris. It is therefore very natural that the drummers should feel their importance, and have become conspicuous and respect- demanding personages. The flower of their troop is the news- men. These have conquered the streets ; and, feeling themselves masters, claim their right as modern pretorians to choose for 102 THE NEWSMEH. I63 Caesar, the hero in whose ranks they serve. Before the com- mencement of this decennary, which brought Paris the privilege of unrestricted freedom of the press, it was not lawful to sell papers in the street without special permission, which was given to a very few, and, during the Empire, almost entirely to discharged soldiers. The day the chambers met, the printers of the Moniteur Officiel gave out five thousand to six thousand copies of the emperor’s opening speech to everybody who wanted to sell them, and as soon as the cannon announced the opening of the session they were allowed to cry the papers as much as they pleased. But this was an exception made for that day ; at all other times good care was taken that nobody should interfere with the privileges of the kiosks to dispose of the products of the press. Now, on the contrary, a simple announcement of the intention to take up this business is sufficient to exercise it. Anybody can write to the police prefect to inform him that he intends selling papers in the streets after such and such a date. He gets in answer a note telling him that his communication has been received, and this formality is equal to a permit. In the archives of the prefecture there are about thirty-five thousand let- ters of this kind. Under ordinary circumstances only a minority of these canvassers follow up the profession. They took their bundle of papers some day when they had no work, but returned to their original trade as soon as possible, the profit of the news- paper trade being but small. The great competition has pro- duced a lowering in the prices ; most of the papers sold in the streets are one sou and of the same size as the three sous ones. There is consequently only a small profit to the sellers, who generally have to pay three or three and one-half francs for every hundred copies. The company is only on special occasions willing to let them have it for two, as for instance to help some political party or as an advertisement to start a new paper. But in this case the copies left over are never taken back, and the canvasser runs the risk, and may, when he has spent the day wearing out his lungs and feet, have so many left on his hands that his profit is lost. Only those that have been in the pro- fession a life-time know how to make it pay. The omnibus station is their real workshop ; every time a stage stops they come running with long sticks, on the end of which the papers 104 PARIS OF TO-DAY. are fastened. They pass them in this way to the passengers on the top, and their masterly composed cries* about the astonish- ing and interesting news, you will find, tempt somebody or other to kill the time by reading them, and a sou is thrown down and skillfully caught. Between the arrivals of the omnibuses they make friends with the monitor in the waiting-room ; they lend him their papers, and are, in reward, treated with a little glass in the saloon at the corner. This is their greatest and only treat. They are modest, and have learned to be con- tented with little. In the mixed crowds of those who seek their fortune in the trade, at times when particular cir- cumstances make it flourish, the very worst types are to be seen; all the most dismal looking candidates for la vie facile are represent- ed ; but the regular staff is composed of poor, resigned crea- tures, who have learned by experi- ence that Paris is a city where it is difficult to fight one’s way, and where one ought to be happy to be able to earn enough for bread and shelter for himself and his family. It is only during the few hours at lunch and dinner-time, when the traffic is unusually great, that he can stay at the omnibus station ; during the rest of the day he goes to more distant quarters of * A recent law forbids newspaper vendors to cry anything but the name of the paper and that of its rtJacteur. — [Amer. Ed. THE NEWSMEN. 105 the city. He does not have much confidence in the boulevards; it is of course the best market for the papers, as well during the absinthe time as immediately after the papers have been given out, and during the hours of a warm evening when everybody walks under the trees to get a little fresh air; but the good places on the boulevard are soon found by the novices of the trade, and so many of them gather round one spot that each gets but a small profit. As soon as the experienced newsman has received the papers, he looks them over quickly to see if there is an accident or a sensation of some sort that would be likely to create demand in a certain part of the city. If there is, he goes there to call out THE EVENING NEWSPAPER ON THE BOULEVARD. the awful details of the case through the quiet streets. He takes good care to be at the factories and shops when the work- men go to or from their work, and sometimes he brings home from such a trip a profit of a whole franc, which is quite a con- siderable amount for him. During the hours when the papers do not sell, he offers for sale “ le nouveau plan de Paris ,” and all other possible and impossible things. When the lottery has been drawn, his golden period dawns. For a fortnight he cries out, “ the official and complete list of the drawn numbers,” and may go home with a five franc piece in his pocket. Ordinarily he cannot count on more than three francs at the utmost, even if he is fortunate enough to be used as a supernumerary in some io6 PARIS OF TO-DAY. theatre, where they play sensational pieces and pay him fifty centimes an evening. But in times of a political crisis, or when some extraordinary event engrosses the public attention, the aspect is entirely changed. People here do not wait for their papers to be brought to them. People have to go themselves for the news they want, and they do it on such occasions with true Parisian eagerness. They dispute each other the privilege of getting the papers still wet from the press. Even the work- man does not count the sous he spends in buying one paper after another. They do not have time to wait till the papers are in the kiosk, but crowd around the large printing offices in order to get the first copies, and, if the anxiety is great, the price paid for a paper is comparatively high ; there have been election days when there was given a franc and more for an ordinary two sous paper; although all companies had been cautious enough to print ten or twenty times as many editions as usual. They can get rid of every one of them ; no man retires on a day like this without having had his pockets full of papers. At such times the newsmen’s business flourishes, — the whole army takes the field ; and the Rue du Croissant, a small street between the Rue Mont- martre and Rue du Sentier, becomes literally the heart that gives out and receives all the warm blood of Parisian life. The greater part of the Parisian papers have their offices and printing houses in the adjoining part of the Rue Montmartre. Every house has, from the basement to the top floor, no other tenants than papers of all colors and shades of opinion ; on every story is at least a couple of them. On one side of the first floor is L' Intransigeant ; on the other, the ultra-reactionary Gazette de France ; on the second floor, the organ of the Oppor- tunists, Paris ; on the third, the Boulanger drum, Cocarde. Day and night the machine, which many of these papers keep to- gether, is in full blast ; when one comes near the place it is like witnessing an earthquake. The printer’s ink changes the gut- ter into a little black river, that at all times of the day inundates the street, while innumerable loads of paper are rolled inces- santly through the gates. From morning till night the news- men stand in the middle of the street, waiting to be used for the free distributions that form so important a part in the adver- tisements. When a paper wants to create a sensation with a THE NEWSMEN. 107 new feuilleton novel, they print the first chapter, which the author has received orders to make especially interesting, and ' FIRST EDITION ! give away several thousand copies of it on the street corners. Business firms that want to advertise a new invention send their xoS PARIS OF TO-DAY. little pamphlets all over town; even of the first part of Boulan- ger’s book about the Prussian war there were given away by the general’s friends, two and a half million copies. All this makes business flourish for the newsman ; if he is clever, he can, in twelve hours, have distributed 2000 copies and have earned a five franc piece. The Rue du Croissant presents, especially at about three and four o’clock, when the evening papers are ready, a true Parisian spectacle. When anything of importance has taken place, these papers go like hot cakes all the afternoon and evening. There may be packed 3000 to 4000 people in the Rue du Croissant, but Paris has ten times as many newsmen ready to meet on great occasions. It is like a sea of human beings ; they try to elbow their way through the crowd, gesticulating, screaming, and fighting. It bears a striking likeness to a rebellion. In the middle of the street the men that sell the papers wholesale have their stands, and it is toward these that all push on, under eager discussions of which papers will be the best informed, and consequently sell best. They are sold at auction; one will bid three, another four, sometimes even four and a half, francs per hundred, for those that are expected to meet with the greatest success. Everything is, of course, paid in cash, and the paper bundle is thrown over the heads of the others to the buyer; and the one that is fortunate enough to be first fights his way through the crowd and runs toward the boulevards, where a few moments later the thunder of his cries reaches from one end to the other. Some of the Boulanger organs think it practicable to keep their own canvassers at a salary of one franc and a half a day, and a percentage of the sale. These form the aristocracy of the trade, and took the part of guards in the first of Boulanger’s trois glorieuses campaigns. They have a uniform, with the name of their paper on a ribbon around the hat, and their suit covered with the tricolor cocarde, in the middle of which is a portrait of the valiant captain for whose glorification they have proved themselves able to use, not only their lungs, but also their fists, if necessary. The experiment with these permanent newsmen seems to have given the best results. During the quiet periods, when the log EVENING PAPERS ON THE BOULEVARD IN TIMES OF POLITICAL EXCITEMENT. no PARIS OF TO-DAY. papers do not need the whole staff in Paris, some are sent into the country, by the party they represent, to work for the coming election. They cry “ Vivat " as well as they cry their papers, and when their voices have prepared the way for the great election day, they are, for some weeks, of untold use to their party in pasting placards up everywhere. This is in itself a good busi- ness now. Election follows upon election. A few weeks before each of them the whole country is in- undated with colored placards. No sooner have t h e “ Cadet- tists ” and “ Oppor- tunists ” put up their proclamations, than the Boulanger army follow in their very track and put theirs right on top ; the art is at such times to understand when to follow. Politics is, on the whole, the news- man’s gold-mine. When the deputies are on vacation their profit falls from four down to two francs. A fire, be it ever so big, is of no effect, billposter; election time. and a murder must be double or threefold to attract attention outside of the quarter where it is committed, while a political scandal at once raises their income to its maxi- mum. There has been no lack of events of this kind of late. If there have been little uneventful pauses between, “ les canards ” have done their best to help the newsmen. The manufacturing of “ canards ” is done by experts, who do it with true mastership. There are a few firms that do the thing wholesale, and often have THE NEWSMEN. ill been on the point of failing, but, after all, they know well the Paris of the day and la blague that has made them millionaires. They send out an endless number of “ extras,” containing made- up sensational news; it is of course forbidden to put false news in the papers, but they know how to evade this interdiction. One day a murder was committed in Rochefort. The next morn- ing all the newsmen cried all over Paris, “ Demandez I'assassinat de Rochefort ,” and everybody bought the paper, fully convinced that it was Henri Rochefort who had been murdered. It is decided by law that the public should make its complaints before the authorities take any steps. The policemen have in this case, as in many others, eyes that do not see, arid ears that do not hear. One day, while Rouvier was still premier, a curious little inci- dent took place. He was always inclined to be much concerned about what happened in the streets. It was in the days of the decoration scandal, and the newsmen were crying out the very worst “ canards ” when he was driving over Place du Theatre Frangais. By the fountain on the square stood a circle of police- men, making believe that they heard nothing whatever. In his indignation he made the driver stop, and leaning out of the win- dow ordered them to arrest the newsmen who dared to call out false news. The policemen approached the carriage with their usual slow dignity: “What do you want, sir?” they asked. “Arrest those men,” screamed the Premier angrily. “ Who are you, and by what right do you give us these orders ? ” they asked, and already prepared to arrest, under pretext of street disturb- ance, the impudent fellow who had interrupted their idleness, when the answer came, “ I am the Premier, and my name is Rouvier! ” Then they grew, of course, as active and interested as anybody could wish ; but the men had already felt the dan- ger and were far away ; and the result is usually the same when- ever anybody, offended by their cries, tries to make the police interfere. In this way the thirty-five thousand men manage to keep in activity ; since the Boulanger star has risen they meet in full number every morning, and they seldom fail to find employment. It is not much else but screaming “ Vive le general /” and giving him a guard from whom he may, in times of need, expect a more serious service than the one of making a its PARIS OF TO-DAY. noise in the Rue du Croissant. Their only grievance, in this golden age that has dawned for them, is that so many intruders are tempted to take up the business. They have in their train not only representatives of many different professions, but also the detectives, who earn forty sous to stand by and listen to their talk. This is, of course, less agreeable, but quite characteristic of their social position. The Parisian newsmen have indeed become an army that will assert itself more and more. XI. Parisian Peddlers. W : 'HEN the Pa- risian street, under the gray, frosty sky, gets to be only a thoroughfare that people want to travel over as quickly as possible, the outward appearance of this city is like that of all others ; nothing but a crowd of houses. And when the blood freezes in these street veins, when the traffic ceases, it means for the human sparrows the same as it does for their feathered colleagues when the white snow covers the field where they pick up their crumbs. They die of starvation if they do not first die of cold. But as long as the boulevard and avenues are true to themselves, the peddler lives there like the sparrows. He neither sows nor reaps, and yet the Paris streets feed him. He can live by whatever it offers him ; if the fare be ever so poor, there is still a spice that seasons it — open air and liberty. This is what attracted him and made him enlist in the ranks. One THE CHESTNUT ROASTER. ”3 PARIS OF TO-DAY. 114 day, when he had no work or did not want to take what he could get, he walked down the street, as one does in Paris, with eyes and ears open, and stopped at a corner, where “ le postigateur ” had spread his cover on the asphalt, and crowds had gathered around his wares to listen to his flow of language, and there he awakened to his calling. He saw through the secrets of the art and felt that he, too, was an artist. The best of all is that no capital is necessary to start with ; the peddler only communicates with some small suburban manufactory that makes the well-known “ articles de Paris ” for the shops. To advertise their last invention they put a dozen pieces at the ped- dler’s disposal; he then goes out in the street and seeks a place where there are plenty of pedestrians who are not very busy, and not too many policemen to be seen. Such places are rather abundant in Paris, and there he makes his preparations. He spreads a piece of oil-cloth or sackcloth on the sidewalk, and a circle of curious people stop to see what this is going to be ; there is no place where people stop as easily and for everything and nothing as they do in Paris. Then he commences some trick or other that is very easily done and has the practical result of bringing him a few sous from the generous passers-by, and at the same time attracts some more people. When a sufficient num- ber has gathered he shows his true face. He has a small article to sell, which has received a prize at all possible exhibitions, and that everywhere else costs twenty-five francs, but to advertise it and attract the attention of the public, he has been commissioned to sell it for a price at which it is really “ given away.” Even if the inventor sold it himself, and lived in a garret on dry bread and water, he would never be able to sell it as cheaply as the peddler. He has only a few left; those who want them must have the money ready, for they know that as soon as the police- man comes he will have to take himself off with the utmost speed. Even this last remark is a finesse ; the peddler seldom commences business without having full permission from the police prefecture, the more so as he receives this permit without great difficulty. He knows that the forbidden fruit is a strong bait ; Parisians are as credulous as they are curious ; they believe everything, buy his watch-chains, his scouring soaps, his powder to plate with, his potato peelers, his walking turtles and dancing PARISIAN PEDDLERS. ”S dolls, all of which the peddler offers for sale at every step you take. Deceived by his volubility, you really believe for the moment that you have made a great bargain, while the things A TRICK OR TWO TO ATTRACT ATTENTION. are perfectly worthless — though he often earns one hundred per cent. The streets are a permanent fair for cheap toys. There is, for instance, the mechanical rabbit, a fabulous little fur creature, 1 1 6 PARIS OF TO-DAY. that, by a carrot in its mouth and a pair of glistening, immovable eyes, with an astonished stare, betrays to which genus of animals it is intended to belong, but which rolls about on four magnifi- cent mahogany wheels, thereby moving an axle, the turns of which make the animal’s paws pound away with feverish haste on two metal bells, producing a noise over which children go into rap- tures of delight. The whole machine is sold for thirteen sous, and yet it pays well, for all the material used consists of refuse. The magnificent mahogany wheels are from the caster manufac- tories, and are the pieces cut out of the places where the vinegar and oil bottles are to fit in ; the axles are pieces of umbrella frames that have been thrown away because they were not perfectly straight ; the fur is made of remnants from the furriers’, and the eyes, old nails covered with red varnish. To be a nail varnisher for the mechanical rabbit manufacturers is one of the small pro- fessions, the existence of which the profane crowds do not dream of. In the course of a year about 80,000 of these rabbits are sold in the streets. The peddler has them for four francs fifty per hundred, and, if he sells only a dozen a day, both he and the manufacturer can live by it. Day by day this great teacher, Necessity, teaches the Parisians to make use of new refuse, and day by day new articles of the same kind as the mechanical rabbit make their appearance. Be- fore the war the old sardine boxes were filled with earth and used to build huts for the ragpickers; now, two hundred workmen are buying them the year round, making tin soldiers and toy locomo- tives of them. This makes it possible for Parisian industry to meet the Niirnberg competition, and the low prices enable a whole army of workmen to live by selling these home-made toys. The peddler knows how to get himself an article even cheaper ; he goes out among the ragpickers and gets from their baskets the pheasant heads taken out from the ash barrels, pays three sous a head, cleans them, dresses them, and sells them for one franc fifty sous apiece to the charcutier, who puts them as an ornament on the bird patties in the show-window. The trade in second- hand clothes is almost exclusively a street business in Paris, and comes under the peddler’s domain. The cries of “ marchayid d’ habits" are heard early in the morning in almost all quarters of the city. He is not a good payer, and it is only after a long PARISIAN PEDDLERS. 117 parley that one succeeds in getting a few sous out of him ; but he is always there just at the moment when the laborer in the suburbs, or the student in the Latin Quarter, awakes with the sad prospect of having nothing to eat that day. The young student then shows him the bundle he has been obliged to make. What is the price ? asks Father Solomon. If fifty francs is asked, he offers five without a blush, and it is of no use for the student to show him that the trousers are almost new, and how many excellent caps he can make out of the coat ; he sticks to his offer and will sooner go away than add a sou, for he is fully aware that before he is half-way down- stairs he will be called back and get the things at his own price. If he makes a disgracefully low offer to the poor wretches who need the money, he has at least the excuse that the wholesale mer- chant to whom he has to sell them, because he himself lacks capital, never squanders away his money. If in a day’s wanderings up and down stairs he spends twenty francs — the average of his trans- actions — he can at the utmost take in thirty. The whole con- cern goes to the Temple, where the laborers come on Sunday to pick out what is yet tolerably good ; the remains are sold at auction to salesmen, who export it to the “ colonies,” by which is meant foreign parts in general, and who sometimes take them to poor provinces in France, or to other peddlers, who walk about at the suburban fairs and near the Barriferes. These last are the Pariahs of the profession, and it cannot be denied that they often sell things at a great bargain. At the least fashionable gates the poor man can buy a waistcoat for one franc, and a coat for, at the utmost, three francs. In this way the poor of Paris live by the crumbs that fall from the tables of the rich. Besides these things, the Parisian peddler carries on an exten- sive business in food for man and beast. The potentate in this branch is the chestnut-man. When the first cold comes in Octo- THE STUDENT AND THE “ MARCHAND d’habits.” PARIS OF TO-DAY. 118 ber he lights his stove outside of the cafe, and all through the six winter months he stands there roasting the brown nuts over the sparkling coal fire. The laborer can, however early he may go to his work, get his breakfast there for two sous, and the latest night-bird may take his supper there for the same price. There are in the city about one thousand chestnut merchants, all of whom do a good business. They buy their chestnuts by the bag from the fruit agents in the Halles, and earn about fifty per cent, by selling them in small quantities. They are, of course, obliged to pay for occupying the place where they are allowed to put their stove, and for the coal and materials, but the profit is neverthe- less sufficient for them. A chestnut seller, who has a good stand in the heart of the city, sells his two-sous bags so quickly that he makes a profit of about ten francs a day. Roasted chestnuts is the national dish of the Parisian, just as maca- roni is that of the Italians. Like the rag and cigar pickers the chestnut man is one of those street types that legend loves to put in a frame of romance. There was once upon a time, it is said, a marquis very rich, very fashionable, and very eccentric. He entertained a violent passion for an exceedingly beautiful lady, Rosa Lyons, who later left herself a name in the annals of Parisian gallantry. When she showed herself deaf to all his entreaties, the idea occurred to him to hire a chestnut-stand at her door, to dress in peddler’s costume, and stand there in order to see her every day. Through a whole week, he stood on guard in this way, and it so touched the young lady’s heart that she ended by showing her- self less cruel. The Marquis then eloped with her and took her to Germany, where they lived in great style and spent their money in the most luxurious way. And three years after the marquis was ruined, and Rosa Lyons had left him. He began to THE “ CAST CLOTHES ” MAN AT THE BARRliRES. PARISIAN PEDDLERS. ng gamble, and was successful at first, but lost little by little his good luck, and was finally reduced to absolute poverty. His hair had grown gray under his misfortunes, when one evening he accidentally passed the door in the Rue de Provence where he had spent the week that had proved so fatal. It once more occurred to him to hire the chestnut-stove for the few sous he had left, and take his stand there. The white-haired old man standing there to-day is said to be the ex-marquis. It has been asserted — and it is quite possible — that this romance has its counterparts ; but, all in all, the chestnut-man leads a less romantic existence than the rest of the street-mer- chants. He generally has a firm footing and has a stand which gives him a certain secure bourgeois feeling. It is only during the six summer months that he is reduced to vagrancy, but many of his fellow-tradesmen go to Auvergne, where they originally came from, and take up their former occupation of charcoal-burning: The great army of Parisian peddlers, always on the move, is formed of those that are called Les marchands des quatre saisons, because they sell the products of the seasons, alternately fruits, vegetables, fish, eggs, etc. They are licensed to carry on this market-trade on the condition that they do not stop on their way except when stopped by passers- by who want to purchase, and that they do not go outside of their daily route, which they have come to an agreement about with the police. They draw attention to themselves and their articles by cries, the loudness of which no- body thinks of interfer- ing with. The nature of these cries makes them A LA BARQUE ! comprehensible to Paris- ians, while to foreigners they sound like the unfathomable voice of the Sphinx. “A la barque ! ” means that they have oysters to sell, “ A la coque ! ” that they are offering you eggs. The fisherwoman 120 PARIS OF TO-DAY. who carries in her basket the small Seine-fish eaten in Paris under the name of 6perlans, announces “ La violette, la violette ! ” and mussels are introduced with the cry, “ Au gros cayeux," which, in the mouth of the less etymologically learned ped- dlers becomes “ Au gros caillou." The aristocratic member of Les marchands des qaatre saisons pushes a little cart, most frequently borrowed at the same place where the peddler borrows the twenty francs that he needs to make his purchase in the halles, on the condi- tion that he pays back twenty-two in the evening when his business is done. There are every day on an average six thousand of them in the streets ; the police keep an exact account of the number. It is, however, impossible to give anything like the exact number of their modest colleagues for whom the wheelbarrow is an unat- tainable luxury, and who consider themselves happy when they can sell what they carry in their baskets or in the primitive wooden sieve on their backs, which is the way the bird-seed and cress merchants carry their wares. The boulevard sidewalk outside of the caftfs is, and always will be, the peddler’s best market. He sells there everything imaginable, from trained birds to faded flower-bunches or sea- soned meerschaum pipes, and the regularity with which he walks the same route, year in year out, with the same things, is the best proof that he always finds customers there for them. The cafe guest with the soft head and the Louis d' or in his pocket is touched at the sight of this poor fellow, who is forced to sell his articles in the streets to make a living; he buys out of pity, and even if he may be taken in to some degree, there is no need of regretting the bargain. The buyer of the tame birds is frequently cheated. It is not of their free will that these poor creatures sit so quietly and PARISIAN' PEDDLERS. 121 patiently on the peddler’s hand. Their wings have first been cut on the inside, but so cleverly that their brilliant green plumage bears no mark of it, and then they are starved so that they can hardly move. If, in spite of this, they should show a tendency to obstinacy, the peddler completes the training by slapping them over the legs with a stick, or when unobserved he makes the poor, tired bird spring incessantly from one finger to the other, without giving it a moment’s rest. Sometimes the cafe guest, who looks at the bird offered him, is most astonished to discover that on one wing there are a number of white feathers grown so that they form the initials of his name or the crown over his coat-of-arms ; and in his simple ignorance of what a sorcerer the peddler is where his business is concerned, he hastens to close -the sale. The phenomenon is brought about in a very natural way by means of a potato, in which the desired design is cut. The potato water until it is very hot, when the mark is pressed on the bird’s wing. The burned feath- ers fall off, and when the new ones come out they are white, or at least of a much lighter shade than the others. Many of the boule- vard peddler’s most seductive articles are of a no more genuine quality than this. When he can sell his incomparably seasoned meer- shaum pipes so cheaply, it is simply because the meerschaum is replaced by a material made of egg-shells, because the amber mouth- piece is made of resin, and the seasoning is obtained, not by tobacco smoke, but by ex- posing the pipe to a dense smoke of burn- ing straw. And when he can put an appar- ently faultless and good watch at the cafe guest’s disposal for ten or twelve francs, it by no means finds its explanation in the touch- ing story he tells about a sick wife and chil- dren that have nothing to eat, about a friend that was to bring money, but has not come, which forces him to take the last step and sell his father’s watch. It is too late to bring it to the pawnbroker’s, he says; he will leave it for almost is kept in boiling THE CHICKWEED MAN. 122 PARIS OF TO-DAY. nothing to the one who will promise him that he may buy it back again at double the price, when he is able to do so. The truth is that he does a good business if he can sell it for ten francs; it is cheap trumpery made expressly for the peddlers and intended to look well only for the time the bargain is being made. All depends upon understanding “ le boniment ,” the trick that produces an effect and procures him a customer. The Parisian peddler understands thoroughly the secret of this, and as long as the pulse of Parisian street life beats normally, he suffers no want. But when the cafe tables are taken in, when the cold is greater than curiosity, and no sauntering idlers are to be seen, then the bad days commence for this poor wretch. Even then he often finds means to brave fate. One goes to the lakes in the Bois de Boulogne, and earns the few sous he needs to keep up life by doing all sorts of little things for the fair skaters. He mends broken straps, pushes the sleighs, and helps the awkward who have fallen to get upon their feet again, etc. Another goes to the work- shops and sells small numbers for the drawing of the great prize. He has privately got hold of some goose or turkey, or in an emergency even shot a rabbit in the banlieue, and he ar- arranges a lottery for this prize ; the number costs ten cen- times ; the laborer is tempted by the prospect of being able to bring such a treasure home with him, and before evening the peddler may have sold one hundred or two hundred num- bers. The lottery is drawn in the workshop, everybody sees that it is fairly done, and is therefore ready to begin over again the next day. The harder the cold and the fight for life, the greater the peddler’s talent for inventing all sorts of means to sustain life. His golden days are when the sun falls in among the leaves of the boulevard trees, when everything takes pleasure PARISIAN PEDDLERS. **3 in living, when people meet there to fill their lungs with this atmosphere, full of life and joy. Then there is under the Paris- ian sky no “human sparrow” that is not able to pick up his crumbs from this large table. XII. The Green Regiment. T HE first Parisian character with whom the foreigner gets ac- quainted on entering the city is the octroi officer. He stands at the de- pots and the city gates in his green coat with the silver buttons, and stretches out his Cerberus arm and does not allow further advance until he is very sure that you do not carry any eatables or drinkables. He stands there as a living symbol of Parisian Conservatism. There is al- ways enough of it at the holy hearth of revolution to make it worthy of such a representative. The “ green men ” are expected to stop every individual whom they suspect of hiding smuggled goods on his per- son, to put their nose into every trunk, basket, or package, and even to demand that one shall descend from his carriage that he may be sub- mitted to a detailed search. In former and less democratic times, private carriages were exempt from this rule, but v/hen the Repub- lic came into power it was found that this gave rise to imposition. Even if the owners were conscientious, the servants would make no scruple of filling the carriage with smuggled goods. To be sure, it was forbidden to search these carriages, but the officers were at the same time told to interfere if they were certain of smuggling intentions. In these cases they generally lay in wait, and when the carriage came they sprang forth, seizing the horses 134 THE GREEN REGIMENT. I2 5 by their bridles and stopping them in spite of the lashing that the coachman never failed to treat them to. It even sometimes happened that they were overthrown and that the carriage rolled AT THE BARRlfiRE. over them. To put an end to such conflicts, it was at last ordered that every conveyance, of whatever kind it might be, should be searched at the barriere. If the “ green man ” is good-natured and there is no especial occasion for suspicion, he confines him- self to stopping the carriage a few seconds, while he takes a quick survey of its contents and then allows it to continue on its way without disturbing the passengers further. If he is at all spiteful he is quite capable of making a great to-do over nothing. Even the smallest quantity of dutiable goods cannot be taken into the city without payment, and when, for instance, you return from a picnic with a bottle of wine or a chicken in the basket, you have to pay your sous before you can bring these remains home. Every young partridge that the successful hunter has slain, every poor rabbit that the country woman carries to market, only enters Paris after having paid for the privilege in ready money. If you do not announce that you carry such things with you, it is looked upon as an attempt to cheat the State. It is easy to understand that such hindrances are anything but agreeable to the public, and if the “ green regiment’s ” busi- ness only consisted in searching people’s baggage, to get a few is6 PARIS OF TO- DA Y. sous out of them for the octroi fund, its days would soon be numbered, however much the Paris administration might feel inclined to adhere to old traditions. But behind this little irri- tating octroi activity, which everybody sees and feels the burden of, there is another and greater, less noticed, but which neverthe- less, to a certain degree, becomes the very “ nervus rerum ” of the city life. Paris is no Croesus, whose treasury teems with accumulated gold heaps. It lives from hand to mouth, and what it needs, to watch over the health and security of its inhabitants, it collects in centimes from each of them. Its revenues are varied, but of all the sources of municipal wealth, none is as lib- eral in its supply as the octroi. It is always the one to procure the means when public charity tries to alleviate the wants of the poor, or when there is money needed for public instruction, or else when some great work of pub- lic utility has to be done. It i£ able to do this, for it not only taxes the Sunday hunter’s partridge and the country woman’s rabbit, but all the daily necessities of life that pass into the immense city. Like the private and the hired car- riages, the provis- ion wagons have to stop before the gates, and where they are concerned the “ green man ” is not satisfied with an inspection of a minute or two. For all the fruit it contains, excise must be paid, and, before the MADAME AND HER RABBIT. THE GREEN REGIMENT. 127 year is over, one hundred to one hundred and fifty millions have gone into the city treasury in this way. Paris has a good appetite, and consumes within a year three hundred thousand oxen, two hundred and twenty thousand calves, two hundred and fifty thousand swine, and one million eight hundred thousand sheep ; altogether, over three hundred and fifty millions pounds of meat. To get this from the butcheries the seller must pay about twenty millions to the octroi, and the taxes on all other provisions correspond to this. Wine and liq- uor, however, remain still the main feature, and are the source of more than fifty millions of the octroi revenue. Before one can get a hogshead of ordinary table wine into his cellar, there has to be paid almost fifty francs to the octroi; and, in order to pass the barriere , a hectoliter of alcohol, which costs at the factory between eighty and eighty-five francs, is taxed to the amount of three hundred and twenty-eight, — four times its value. In cases where the “ green man ” has orders to proceed so severely, it is only human that barkeepers and other brave citizens some- times try to operate a little behind his back, and Parisians show, in the cleverness of these operations, the highest ingenuity. They may not do it in the romantic way of the smugglers from the other side of the Pyrenees, but it is, nevertheless, very well done. In a corner of the Hotel de Ville, into which ordinary guests seldom stray, is a hall where one might find surprising proofs of the inventive powers displayed to fool the octroi. There is here a sort of museum containing all the objects used to pro- mote smuggling. Under a layer of much respected dust lies a collection of oil-cans, firewood, horse collars, carriage bodies, rubber corsets, bustles, and other peculiar objects. The oil-cans are double, the wood hollow, the collars, corsets, and bustles are the discreet receptacles of different liquors. A whole army of poor wretches have no other profession than passing the octroi barriere , wearing these things. They can in this way smuggle three or four liters at a time, and without great difficulty earn about ten francs a day. Sometimes, however, a leakage may occur, and when the smuggler does not light his pipe cautiously he may run the risk of being blown up and roasted alive. The high hat is also much used as a smuggling instrument. Behind 128 PARIS OF TO-DA Y. the shining silk is a tin receptacle filled with alcohol. Some- times the octroi has to stop a carriage with carpeting, and find that the carpet-rolls contain hidden zinc cylinders ; sometimes piles of dishes or rolls of paper are made use of. There is on sea or land nothing that the smugglers do not understand how to make use of in their trade. One of their most original achievements is the following: The octroi officers had for some time noticed an elegant bridal carriage, with two beautiful white steeds, passing now the Porte Maillot, now the Porte Saint Ouen, coming one day from Grenelle, the next from Clichy. Inside sat a gentleman in dress suit, with white necktie, white gloves, carefully dressed, and paying great attention to a young and beautiful lady, in white muslin, with a wreath of orange blos- soms in her hair. The horses had the usual white bridal cocarde over the ears, and on the box sat the stylish coachman holding his whip decorated with ribbons. For some months this bridal drive went on without any hindrances, but Paris does not have more than a certain number of gates, and, after the couple had passed them all, the time came when it had to present itself the second and third time before the octroi officer’s inquisitorial eyes. He began to wonder how it was that the same couple was married so many times. Detectives were put on their track and it was found out that the couple was neither on the way to the maire, nor to the priest, but simply on a smuggling expedition. The beautiful upholstered seats were of rubber, and held a receptacle filled with alcohol. To cheat the octroi has become almost a passion with many Parisians; they want revenge for the trouble of not being able to pass through a gate, with a few gifts for a Christmas tree, without having the “ green regiment ” examine most carefully the mechanical rabbit, to see if it could not, perhaps, be eaten after all. It is very seldom that the fair sex does not consider it a most praiseworthy action to smuggle the greatest amount of eatables through the gates. No day passes where there are not some women arrested who have replaced their bustle with a duck, a small rabbit, or a pair of partridges, and, to discover this kind of smuggling, an acuteness, only acquired by long practice, is necessary. The officers are not allowed to lay hands on anybody or anything till they are very sure of their right to do so. They look at the travelers in the THE GREEN REGIMENT. 129 d6p6ts and the passers-by at the gate, but it is only when there is no longer any doubt left as to the person’s smuggling inten- tions that they dare to stop him and have him examined. A lady who was suspected of smuggling was one day re- EVEN THE CLOCK-WORK. RABBIT FOR b£b£ ! quested by the officer to walk into the room kept for this pur- pose at the French depots. He left her, after having told her to unload the different smuggled goods that she carried. When he came back the table was loaded down with an assortment of Lyon sausages, a pdtd de foie gras, two hams, and a goose. Aside from the “ green regiment ” in uniform, the octroi includes a number of private detectives, a corps d'dlite, which, with equal tact, discretion, and untiring vigilance, follow up the people under suspicion, watch by the catacombs, and keep an eye on all the roads by which goods might possibly be carried in without passing the gates. They are well acquainted with all the moat 130 PARIS OF TO-DAY. secret corners of Paris, know all the haunts of the neighborhood, and are, with their inborn skepticism, never deceived by appear- ances. Even the locomotives are not left unexamined. They have been found to be full of cigars, an article which, next to liquor, is under the highest tax ; twenty-five centimes is paid on each cigar before its smoke is allowed to mix with the boulevard perfume. The octroi is, on the whole, said to be cheated of an average amount of ten million francs a year. Everybody smug- gles ; even the lawyer carries his large portfolio when he goes hunting, so that he may bring his game home unobserved by the octroi. Perhaps people would be a little more conscientious if they took into consideration whom they are really imposing upon. About twenty millions of the octroi profit is used for charitable institutions, ten for public instruction, over thirty for great enterprises which benefit the public, and he who pays his money out to the octroi, forgets that these sous are given him back, with full interest, in many different ways. Everything has, of course, its dark side, but it must not be forgotten that the octroi institution has many bright sides, in adding to the wealth of the city and offering it the means of maintaining its position as the metropolis of the world. XIII. Modern Reporters. F LAUBERT the Great — French realists add the adjective “ great ” to Flaubert’s name, just as historians do to Alexander’s, Peter’s, Napoleon’s, etc.; in each case this adjective is indispensable, — Flaubert the Great would, ac- cording to Zola; fly into a perfect frenzy when a reporter called on him. Several days after his mind would still be occupied by this call, and he would, with broad, indignant gestures, declare that he was perfectly willing to give his works to the public, but that his home, his person, his mode of life and habit of thought were his own and his only, and were something holy and inviolable, that he had a right to pro- tect against indiscreet curiosity. Zola would then try to explain to his friend and master that he — the author of “ Madame Bovary ” — this masterpiece of documental romances — was not quite logical when he took offense at the journalistic course of proceeding, which was the same investigation that he had himself used in literature. When Flaubert was in this boiling heat, he was perfectly unsusceptible to logic, and in spite of all that Zola might say, he continued to rage against the disgraceful report- ers. If he had not died before now, they would surely have been the death of him, for since his time they have made gigantic progress. They are omnipresent and omnipotent. It is no longer only the street that belongs to them, but also all insti- tutions and private houses as well. They are the rulers and the lions of the day, the most characteristic types of their time. Parisian journalists have three canonized saints, to whom they look up with reverential worship, — namely Girardin, mas-* 131 132 PARIS OF TO-DAY. ter of the implacable paradox ; Veuillot, the incomparable con- troversialist, and Villemessant, the originator of Figaro and the Figaro style. The latter’s influence has been the greatest ; he was, in fact, the most genuine journalist, and knew to perfection the art of understanding his readers and satisfying their tastes. It is during his time that the reporter made his first appearance on French ground ; or, at least, the reporter in his true form — that from the other side of the ocean. Before his time the Paris press was light and full of esprit , yet nothing as a source of news ; but in the school founded by him, capacities that might rival those of their American colleagues have gradually been devel- oped. The Figaro , as a typical Parisian paper, has been suc- ceeded by the Matin. This paper does, indeed, constantly print “ Premier Paris” at the head of each copy; but all the room left is filled with reports from other places, written with great con- ciseness. It owes its success mainly to the connections it has with the whole world through telegraphy and correspondence, and it follows, moreover, in all respects the American patterns. The penny paper — and it evidently seems to have a great future — follows more and more the track commenced with such great suc- cess, and the great as well as the small have established them- selves definitely on French ground. There has not as yet risen a Stanley out of the ranks, but Rouvier commenced as a reporter at Agence Havas, which did not prevent him from finally becom- ing minister, and his case is not altogether exceptional. The reporter may become almost anything if he plays his cards well. The beginning, however, is very hard, and there must be done a great deal of work before the spurs are won. The small reporters in Paris are not very different from what they are elsewhere, and subsist by picking up news at the police prefecture about last night’s murder, sensational thefts, and other similarly interesting facts, and then, on the basis of the facts obtained, setting on foot investigations at the expense of the paper. It is in the police prefect’s cabinet, from the chief of detectives, or from the different commissaries, that the reporter generally gets the frame for his sensational articles. The news is instantly telegraphed to the paper, and he hurries out on his voyage of discovery. He first goes to the place where the crime has been committed, makes a drawing to be reproduced in the MODERN REPORTERS. *33 columns of the paper, notes carefully all the subordinate circum- stances he can get information of, in order to found a hypothesis on these facts, questions everybody, even to the victim if he is not completely killed, and does not rest until he can present his readers with a detailed account of how it all happened, and, if there be any mystery connected with the matter, at least give a likely proposition of its solution. It happens almost daily that the police, on reading the papers in the morning, finds new informa- tion about the cases on hand, and it is often through the press that they get the best clues. But in spite of the good services of these reporters, the greater part of them still belong to the proletariat of the Paris press, and their position is but poor. Each paper has an editor for the general news articles, who occupies a prominent and well-paid position ; but under him is an assorted number of privates earning their bread by the sweat of their brow. They are not regularly connected with one special paper ; each of them works for at least four or five at once ; he is paid one hundred francs a month by one, sixty by another, and fifty by a third, and he may, in this way, have an average income of three to four hundred francs a month ; but this does not carry him far in Paris. He would, moreover, not be able to earn that much if the solidarity between the reporters were less abso- lute than it is ; they are on the best terms and divide the eighty police stations of the city between themselves ; and when they have got their information there, they let their colleagues share the har- vest. This exchange of news takes place at a wine merchant’s on the Boulevard du Palais, once a day ; and once during the night the reporters meet there and keep their halles aux faits divers. They exchange the story of a robbery or an assault for an account of a riot ; a murder for a fire ; everybody is in a hurry ; notes are taken down quickly, and they rush away again, hoping to have made the day pay ; but this hope is often illusory, for the editor may reject the poor reporter’s lines — many papers pay by the line — or a less delicate colleague may have hurried in advance of him to the editor’s office, and had his article accepted. The reporter always walks ; he cannot get a cab on account, and even if he could, he would rather save the money. Colds and all other illnesses fall like showers upon him, and, as a rule, his life is only short ; between forty and forty-five he is completely 134 PARIS OF TO-DAY. worn out. His mode of living is against all hygienic rules; he eats when he can find time, at small, miserable restaurants, but beyond all he is obliged to drink — and as a rule the very worst stuff — with the policemen, of whom he knows almost all, and treats the greater part, in the hope that they may commit an indiscretion and pay for the drink with their news. Those who have never looked behind the scenes are apt to picture the life of the reporter as a permanent, paradisaical existence, with a continual round of festivals, banqueting in company with all the actresses who compete for the favor of his High-mightiness. In real life the coloring of the picture is very different. His hunt for news is like that of a dog following a track, and his position is only improved when he rises to the higher spheres of the profession. His first promotion is to be made “ mondain ” re- porter. There is a great difference between “ la mondaine ” of our time and “ la grande dame ” of former days. La grande dame was the pride of the society to which she belonged ; she did not hesitate to interest herself in political and literary matters, and to manage them in her own way ; she watched the king’s minis- ters, his generals, the academists, the financiers, and the philosophers. But womanly modesty was over all that she did ; she staid at home, partaking in the intrigues, but so that the street public did not see it ; she did not overstep her ter- ritory ; gallantry made her a sovereign and she reigned by virtue of love. In spite of the entanglements into which this might lead her she remained always la grande dame ; a being conscious of having blue blood in her veins and recog- nizing the obligations under which this placed her. The faculty and inclination for being “ mondaine ” at the present day depend on entirely different qualities. First of all, it is not at all “ blood,” but money and self- assertion that are required. La grande mondaine never puts her light under a bushel ; on the contrary, she understands well MODERN REPORTERS. 135 how to arrange it, so surrounded with glasses that it may shine with a hundred reflections. Excitement and luxury are her high- est idols ; her greatest fear that of having a child ; that might ruin her beauty and prevent her from continuing the endless ner- vous hunt after pleasure. She flees from her home to show her- self, her costumes and her dia- monds, wherever there is a possi- bility of being conspicuous, or she invites the whole world, people has never laid before, to her home to daz- zle them with the luxury of herentertain- ments. . She m a y throw herself away on the first actor or groom that offers him- self, but she cannot love. When she puts on a languishing look in the salon, it is aimed at the reporter, that he may talk about her velvet and laces. The one thing necessary for her is to have “ a good report ” for all that she does ; for her church-going as well as for her balls ; for her toilets, for the horses she rides in the Bois de Boulogne, and for the dogs that she hunts with at her country-seat. And then the very thing happens that happened THE REPORTER AT THE “GRAND BAL. 136 PARIS OF TO-DAY. to Count de Camoel, in Victor Malot’s “.Mondaine.” Some time before Mme. de Camoel’s great ball, her husband received a call from a gentleman, who drew his attention to the fact that small notices like those previously given in the papers were not suffi- cient for a festival such as the one about to be given. It would be necessary to have a leading article on the first page of four or five of the most prominent boulevard papers, smaller articles on the second pages of other important but more serious papers, and a few short but characteristic lines in the remaining ones. When the astonished count asked if this was meant to be an advertising business that was proposed to him, it transpired that this gentleman was an agent for “ annonces mondaines,” and undertook the whole for a certain amount, making the necessary arrangements with each paper. Nobody, he assured the count, would be able to offer him the same ad- vantages and arrange it all in as good form. However exag- gerated such a scene may seem, it is, nevertheless, a true picture of modern conditions. Agents of this kind are the true “ pillars of society ” in all aspects, and they find as much to do as they can wish for. If sometimes they should be unhappy enough to meet a man who, like Malot’s Count de Camoel, is not only of good old-fashioned nobility but a bit of an artist, or whose whole nature refuses to acknowledge the mighty power of advertise- ments, all they need do is to knock at the next door to be received with open arms. The proposal indignantly refused by the count is, without any haggling, accepted by the wife on her own account and paid for out of the paternal purse. The archi- tect who has built the new ball-room, the painters who have deco- rated it, and the electrician who had charge of the lights, all are, in their way, separate advertisements for the fete. Part of the profit goes to the papers and part to the reporter; every great modern ball has its chief reporter, who is marshal at the ball, the center of its life and master of its fate, offices which, of course, he is paid for. It is not only what passes in real high life, the salon events and the boudoir secrets, that are put in the paper with all possible details. Apart from this society, there is the far greater one of the people who give themselves the appearance of belonging to it, and who would even ruin themselves in order to be put on the pedestal of publicity. MODERN REPORTERS. *37 The main branch of the reporter’s business, however, was in France a natural consequence of the publicity of the parlia- mentary proceedings, of the change in the government, and finally of the removal of the national convention from Paris. Each of the great papers sent every day two of its best reporters to Ver- sailles, one to follow the proceedings and write what was called the “parliamentary letter,” the other to make notes of all the rumors from the chamber that he could pick up, discover the bills before they were yet planned, and anticipate eventual parlia- mentary crises. The journey to and fro, in company with deputies and journalists, was in this respect of untold service to him. Plans and intrigues were unveiled on the way, and the fellow-traveler was made acquainted with much that would have been hidden from the interviewer. There were, moreover, among these deputies several men who were new in the pro- fession, and had no objection to having some prestige attributed to them by the papers, and the parliamentary reporter became gradually in this way a “ gros personnage” Party leaders, candidates for the ministry, and defeated candidates learned to use them to support a scheme or to overthrow it, to explain their conduct and thereby lessen the humiliation of their defeat. Even those in power ended by not despising the reporter’s assistance when they had to work against some conspiracy, when some important item of intelligence was to be circulated in the proper way, or when some necessary rectifica- tion had to be made. The political reporter be- came a social power ; he was sure of being decorated, and, if he had played his cards well, he might generally count on a lucrative situa- tion in the administration, and sometimes even aspire to a diplomatic position. From domes- THE political re- . 1 , r PORTER. tic news the reporters have, with good suc- cess, ventured upon foreign news. They converse with ambas- sadors and sovereigns that pass through the city, or even seek them at their own residences, and they are decidedly superior to their English and-American colleagues in the art of making the PARIS OF TO-DAY. 138 conversation appear interesting on paper, however light and impalpable the subject may be. They make all prominent per- sons, all the stars of the day, authors and artists, their especial prey. When Edison comes they meet him, after the fashion of his countrymen, at some distance from the town, and during the four hours’ drive from Havre to Paris they question him closely. The Parisians who are at all “ en Evidence ” cannot have any domestic quarrel where the reporter does not instantly appear to make a note of madame’s tears, and of how much china the jeal- ous husband has broken. Most characteristic, how- ever, is the change made in the chronique by this new journalism. The chronique was formerly only made up of light discus- sions, the very personifica- tion of the old French cau- ser ies. For the chroniqueurs the subject was of no con- sequence, the form every- thing. His brilliant im- provisations over the small and the great questions of the day were not expected to be absolutely reliable or severely logical ; the princi- pal thing was that his arti- cle was full of imagination, with flashes of intelligence and wit that would dazzle and amuse. It did no harm if, besides this, he were a well-informed man of good morals, but his style was the principal thing, and his first duty in life that of being a stylist. He ought to be able to talk about nothing, so that his very chattering was pleasing. He was the heir of the old French causerie ; through him the salon was able to help its reputation, and the Parisian ladies were grateful to him for the recollections awakened by his articles of amiable, peaceful conversations held “in the corner near the fire- madame’s tale of woes. MODERN REPORTERS. *39 place,” over a cup of good tea. These old marshals of the chro- nique are not yet dead, but their successors do not follow in their footsteps ; even the chronique has become documental. The modern French chroniqueur founds his article on facts; he is really a reporter who has borrowed the costumes of the “ causeur." The reporter is a true child of the age ; it is, as Zola said to Flaubert, simply the naturalistic course of proceedings carried out in journalism. One thing keeps step with the other in the intel- lectual development of a people, and the same tool is used by all workers belonging to the same time. The generation that wants no other novel than the one founded on documents can only read a paper which, from the first article to the last, tells facts and nothing but facts. The press ought naturally to be the proper place for documents. Zola declares, while substantiating the brotherhood of the reporter and the naturalistic novelist, that he, for one, does not object to the documentary articles, the reports, still warm, of reality. That is just what he reads. He confines himself to the exact account of events, the picture given of a meeting or assembly, the true portraits of prominent people of the day, and the reports of interviews relating the actual words, and to plays and incidents described even to the most insignifi- cant details by eye-witnesses, whose principal aim it has been to do it with photographic truth. An argument tires and irritates him, while he never wearies of being made acquainted with events. His adaptation of z'' \ Parisian reports is like the crowning of a develop- f ment which, although of comparatively recent gradually reached a point the crown. date, nevertheless has where it is worthy of XIV. Nurses and Children. T HE Parisian population increases like certain Russian sects — less by propagation than by the recruiting of proselytes. The greater part of the citizens are not placed here by birth, but by their own free choice, and this is perhaps the reason why they are so attached to their beautiful city. When, neverthe- less, it sometimes happens that a child sees the daylight for the first time within these walls, the rule is that it should be sent out of the city as quickly as possible. Papa and mamma are in most cases too busy with other things to meddle with the education of their children. The little one is put cn nourrice in the coun- try, where it is hardened for the battle of life. While its adopted mother is at work in the fields, it hangs “ au clou" at home, and the milk that has to suffice for her own child also, is often replaced by potato peelings, a little sour wine, a little decayed fruit, or whatever may be most handy. After a few 143 144 PARIS OF TO-DAY. months the little Parisian begins to suffer from all sorts of ill- nesses, which generally end by killing the child. If it be of a sufficiently tough constitution to survive this treatment, the parents may feel safe in taking it home ; it will have proved that it was born to be a Parisian. Only the fortunate, who are well off, think of keeping the children during the first months ; it is a luxury that is not thought of till after that of keeping carriage and horses has been attained. For, in these high spheres of society, Madame’s social duties and delicate constitution make it impossible for her to do anything for her children. They must be taken to a nurse sur place , and this is synonymous with the entry of a dragon more all-engulfing than the vessel of the Danaides. It is not difficult to find her. Taking a cab and ordering the driver to take you to the nearest “ bureau,” you will soon find yourself in a com- plete office for nurses and children. Women of all ages and types sit on parade in the yard as you pass by, and whatever may be your demands, the lady of the establishment always assures you that she has a dozen persons on hand of just the desired qualities. The nurse’s own ponpon is always brought forth as a proof of the splendid result obtained under her supe- rior care. It is, of course, a prodigy of a child ; two or three specimens kept in the office reappear at each presentation. The nurses are, each and all, proved to possess the very virtues and character you would like to find in the woman that is to bring up your child. They are willing to do any work that might be wanted of them, and with a conviction that seems full of sincerity, they assure their future mistress that she can engage without any risks, she cannot help but be satisfied with them. In this way the only remaining trouble is the choice. Madame has the three or four that please her most sent to her doctor to let him decide the matter. And then it may sometimes trans- pire that one of these chosen ones has some contagious disease of the most deplorable kind. Even in the case of the one de- clared acceptable, the doctor may have sundry misgivings. But Madame knows that doctors are inclined to be skeptical, and she does not allow this to cool her enthusiasm over the treasure she has found. No nurse takes any position under sixty francs in Paris, and NURSES AND CHILDREN. 145 if the lady who comes to engage her seems especially high-born, she is apt to ask a hundred. Then there is the commission to be paid to the agency, first what the family has to pay, and then HUNG UP ON THE PEG. the four or five per cent, of the yearly salary of the nurse, which her mistress pays in advance; this money can be deducted from her wages, if she does not make it a condition that it should be 146 PARIS OF TO-DAY. paid for her, and she hardly ever forgets to do this. Further, her debts at the agency must be cleared, and the expenses of sending her child home to her family, where it is kept during her absence, must be paid. The whole seldom amounts to less than one and often to more than two hundred francs. Then Nounou makes her entry in the house, seldom with much baggage, at most a bundle containing an old prayer- book and a few photographs of her friends. Every day she has a princely dinner ; the servants can demand almost anything in her name, and for her sake they do not object to go to the extra trouble of making an “entremets!' In return for the good will shown her, Nounou undertakes the care of the little one, but her offer to make herself of use in the house is only a phrase used at the agency. The nurse’s duties in a Parisian house are clearly defined ; she makes her own and the child’s bed, but the clean- ing and sweeping of the room is left for others to do. She never thinks of doing any washing for the baby; it might give her a cold to have her hands continually in. water, and it is still more impossible for her to iron, the smoke from the hot iron is dangerous for the baby. As soon as she touches a needle, the little one begins to cry and has to be taken up ; it only sleeps quietly when its beloved Nounou sits bent over the cradle and watches over its dreams. If there are other children in the house, she considers it her especial duty not to look after them. From the moment she is under the roof of her new masters, they are obliged to keep her clothed. This is quite easily done; one has only to send to one of the large magazins for a complete outfit for a nurse. There are certain rules of how many pieces of underclothing and dresses this includes. It is only in the outer garment that there can be made any display of the money one has, or pretends to have, and this is seldom spared. When people have gone so far as to have a nurse in the house, they will at least have the satisfaction of creating a certain effect with her, and nine out of ten of the nurses one meets in the parks and squares are decked with long richly folded cloaks, headgears adjusted with gold pins, and long silk ribbons falling down their backs. Nounou herself is modest in her taste ; she does not care for all this magnificence ; if her mistress consults her, she answers inevitably that the plainest is good enough for her. She is not NURSES AND CHILDREN. *47 like the other servants, who spend their master’s money simply for the pleasure of doing so. Nounou belongs to the house ; she knows that the more there is, the more will find its way to her bureau. She gets this bureau, if not before, at least when there comes word that her own child has died. This is a thing that always happens, especially when Nounou is young and has sent the child to its grand- mother, who knows how much such a young one is in the way in a mod- est household. The poor mother is bathed in tears, and for fear that her sorrow may MADAME SHOWS OFF HER NURSE. make her ill, and through her the child, the bureau is, at the advice of a fellow-servant, offered as a comfort ; and every time after this, when anything worries Nounou, one piece after another finds its way to her drawer for the same rea- son. Besides this, all the trifles that Nounou is allowed to pick up because they only lie around, and are of no use, go to 148 PARIS OF TO-DAY. the same place, and so do all other things that she takes without thinking it necessary to ask for them. When her mistress leaves breast-pins, or any other things of this kind, on the table or the mantel-piece, Nounou, looking upon them as little knick-knacks, picks them up and amuses herself looking at them until she mislays them in her own drawers. She uses silver forks and spoons as shoe-horns, whereby they after a while find their natural place in her bureau drawer. Then there is no longer room enough in Nou- nou’s bureau ; it is replaced by another one, and still another one, and when finally the child is weaned and Nounou sent home, she has to have at least two wagons to take her things to the depot. These are the direct taxes paid for her services, — but, consistent with French custom, the indirect ones are the highest. It is not only Nounou who belongs to the house, but also all her rela- tives, — the whole province that she comes from. The master and mistress are, from the moment she enters their service, considered a special providence, to whose unlimited mercy she may apply when anything goes wrong in that part of the country to which her heart is attached. If her family is visited by illness, her master takes pleasure in paying the doctor’s and apothecary’s bill; if a hail-storm destroys the crop, they perform the duty of an insur- ance company; and if a cow or calf dies, Nounou only needs to weep on its grave to have it replaced by another the next day. And it is really wonderful how many accidents happen in just that particular part of France where Nounou comes from. It is like- wise remarkable how the inborn self-indulgence of the children seems to be imparted to the nurse. The peasant woman who used to eat her cabbage with the rabbits at home, has hardly had the care of the little Parisian one day, before the best fillet is scarcely good enough for her. She would rather starve than eat a hash. She would like to have fruit, but that has been interdicted by the doctor, and it is therefore necessary to rack one’s brain to think of a dessert for Nounou. Fortunately, the cook is, in this respect, unusually willing to take almost any trouble. Her principal occupation is to walk with bibL This quiet way of spending the day pleases her, and she knows well how to edu- cate the child to share her tastes; they are of one mind and one thought. As soon as Nounou thinks it time to go out, the young one begins to scream so that you can hear it all over the house. NURSES AT THE TUILERIES GARDENS. 149 PARIS OF TO-DAY. IS® Then mamma sends them both to the Parc Monceau, to the Tuileries, or the Luxembourg gardens, whichever they are nearest to, and here Nounou is at her ease ; here also she finds friends in whose company the hours glide by with a comfortable chat, and if she comes at all regu- larly it is not long before the little soldier from her province makes his appearance as often as possible to talk over the news from their vil- lage. Then the idyl is complete; Nounou has all that she in her modesty demands of life to be happy. It is not known that Nounou does not care for the child. She does, perhaps, in her own way, but her love is of a very different character from a mother’s. Not to bring their different educational systems into conflict, she prefers that mamma should look after her own busi- ness and leave the child to her. There are H G4„J mothers who consider it their duty to accom- pany Nounou to the park. But, as a rule, this has only the effect of irritating Nounou, and THE LITTLE SOLDIER. ° . through her the child, so that it screams all the time. Nounou follows closely the saying that the child we love we ought to chasten, and there are even examples of her having carried this injunction farther than the tribu- nals and lawyers thought advisable. As to the child’s rela- tion to soap and water and candy, her views are apt to differ very much from her mistress’s. She is deeply convinced that everything connected with bathing can only check the growth, and it is impossible for her to see that a little candy can have any other effect than of quieting the child when it cries. If this should happen in the night, she even thinks that a few drops of a sleeping draught might do the little one good, and always looks upon it as pure spitefulness when she is told not to let the baby sleep in her bed. It has happened occasionally that a nurse has killed a child by lying on it, but everybody can under- stand how comfortable it must be for the little darling to be kept warm. Nounou's love for bdbt?, however, shows itself in the pret- tiest way when the little thing is dressed in its best clothes. She NURSES AND CHILDREN . IS* knows no greater triumph than, when her mistress gives a dinner, to dress up the child in all the laces and embroideries that have been given to it, and carry it in at the dessert to be looked at. Nounou is then invited to drink the baby’s health in champagne, and the whole company is full of enthusiasm for the lovely child and the splendid nurse it has. At such times Nounou’s position in the house is considerably strengthened ; everybody feels how indispensable she is, even after the child has been weaned, and year after year things go on in the same old way. Nounou con- tinues her walks, and while btbi! makes dirt pies, she continues her conversation with the little soldier from her province. She no longer brings in her charge at the dessert, but w hen Monsieur or Made- moiselle receive a printed invitation to a fancy-dress ball from their little play- mates, she accompa- nies them to the party, and it is the same enthusiasm over again. Nounou not only fills her bu- reau - drawers now, but her bank book. There is one thing, however, that she seldom learns: she has never been familiar with reading or writing, and her child soon leaves her far behind in this re- spect. But in all nounou brings in b£be at dessert-time. Parisian knowledge she is well versed, and when the little misses grow up, they will never find any one who knows the latest fashions as well as their *53 PARIS OF TO-DAY. old Nounou. She was brought into the house to make them comine il fant as children, and if she is kept long enough, she is perfectly capable of making them, when the time comes, comme il faut as ladies. XV. The Parisian Cuisine. P ARIS is not only the city that offers the best cuisine, but also the place where, although one has a greater appetite there than anywhere else, it is easiest to be satisfied. The sagas of the city tell about sad times when people suffered from hun- ger; how at the time of the siege mothers would eat their dead children. In the eighteenth century, there was a famine regularly every other or third year, and even under the Directory, Bapea- ume and his wife, who were both inclined to stoutness, did not dare to go out of the house for fear of being killed. Stones had often been thrown after them, because it was said that they ate as much as four persons. Nowadays it is very different ; every one could eat for a hundred persons if he wanted to, and nobody would think of raising any objections ; and, if the city govern- ment should think of inviting fifteen thousand mayors to dinner, it would only be necessary to notify the cook, and nobody would be troubled about the number of plates. Every country sends its contribution to the metropolis on the Seine. Russia sends sheep and game; Africa, vegetables ; Spain, oranges ; England, salt-water fish; Holland, Switzerland, and Italy, fresh-water fish. There is no spot in the world possessing any rarity in the eating line that does not feel itself under obligation to send it to 153 PARIS OF TO-DAY. *54 the Parisian tables. Paris appreciates them all, and consumes every year over seven hundred million pounds of bread, about three hundred and fifty million pounds of meat, fifty million pounds of fish, fifty million pounds of fowls and game, nearly five hundred million pounds of vegetables and fruits, ten million of which are grapes ; over ten million pounds of mussels, twenty million pounds of oysters ; and to prepare all this, forty million pounds of butter, forty million of eggs, and about fifteen million pounds of cheese. Meat has more and more become le plat de resistance in all this abundance. When, some forty or fifty years ago, the railroad was built between Rouen and Havre, the London society that had charge of it used French and English workmen at the same time. In spite of all their efforts, the French were only able to do half as much work daily, as their colleagues from the other side of the Channel. Encouragements were of no use; the reason was to be found in a physical inferiority that it was necessary to put up with. Some doctors, who were consulted, examined the food eaten by the two sets of laborers ; the Frenchmen's dinner con- sisted of soup, vegetables, cheese, and a great deal of bread, while the Englishmen ate meat. The problem was solved. The French laborers were put on the same fare as the English, and fourteen days later they performed the same amount of work. The Parisians had learned a lesson. Formerly it was an excep- tion to find a laborer who ate meat ; now it is the rule. The three hundred and fifty million pounds of meat yearly served in Paris prove that there is hardly any large city where there is as much consumed as in the French capital, and there are very few that can be compared to it in this respect, even proportion- ally. The three hundred thousand oxen, two hundred and twenty thousand calves, and two hundred and fifty thousand swine yearly put on the Parisian tables, make their daily entry in Paris in an army of about twenty thousand. The first camp is the great cattle-market in La Villette, that can accommodate a little more than four hundred and fifty thousand oxen and twenty-two thousand sheep. When a drover has brought his cattle through the gates in the Rue d’Allemagne, he sends in his notice, and receives a number. Before the sale commences these numbers are drawn to decide the distribution of the places, so THE PARISIAN CUISINE. *55 that every vender has to take his chance ; he sometimes gets a good and sometimes a bad place. There is no possibility of favoritism. Oxen, bulls, and cows are carefully sorted, and every animal bears a double mark, so that it may instantly be seen where it belongs. The sale commences at ten and closes about three o’clock. The owner does not generally sell them himself,— -it would be too troublesome for him to come to Paris ; he has his commis- sioners, great gentlemen, who come to the market in their own carriages, and who take a high percentage, but whose experience and practice are invaluable. When they have examined the ani- mals for sale and taken care to arrange them so that they may show off to advantage, they go to the cafl and leave the butchers all the time they want to make their inspection. On both sides they do their best to give themselves the appearance of not being particularly anxious to close the sale. One, two, or three hours pass before any result is obtained, and only about one half-hour before the closing bell is to sound, this quiet is changed into a breathless and feverish haste. In a few minutes the offers are made and received. They shake hands with each other, the business is done, and it is never known that any of the parties breaks his word. The next step is for the animals to pass the fateful bridge over the Ourq canal. On the other side of the Rue de Flandre lie the slaughter-houses, where they are killed according to the rules. Suspicious of the fate that awaits it, the poor animal is pulled into the glass-roofed yards by two butchers, and there it is to see the daylight for the last time. From these yards, doors lead into the fchaudoirs, where the flaying and the “ dressing” is done. Every wholesale butcher has a place of this kind. Here the meat is hung up to wait for the retail butchers, who keep their shops in the city. They very seldom buy at the cattle-market, or take the trouble of doing their own slaugh- tering. It is in the Jckctudoirs that the ladies pay their morning call, and drink the blood that is to cure the anaemia which they invariably are subject to after the turmoil of social life. Every morning the young lady arrives here after her lesson in gym- nastics, to take the glass of blood prescribed by her doctor. The best oxen are chosen for her, and while the butchers kill PARIS OF TO-DAY. 156 the animal in the next yard, she awaits outside for the first glass of warm blood taken from its throat. At first it costs her a great effort to bring this fat, insipid, steaming drink up to her mouth, but she is gradually hardened to this, as to so many other things, and empties her glass as though it contained milk. Immediately after breakfast the slaughtered animals are hung up ready for sale. First the inspectors of the sanitary police come to examine the meat ; if there is the least indication of a disease the sale is interdicted ; the badly infected meat is dis- infected and destroyed, while that which is merely open to sus- picion is sent to the Jardin des Plantes, to serve as food for the animals. There is confiscated in this way about three hundred thousand pounds of meat yearly in the Parisian slaughter-houses. Early in the afternoon the butchers from the aristocratic quarters make their appearance. They want meat of the very best quality; they are not even afraid of paying more than the price when especially delicate pieces can be put at their dis- posal, for they have plenty of customers who make no objections, even if they have to pay three francs for a pound of fillet. After them come the butchers from the business part of the city, to take the ordinary good meat, and, finally, towards evening, the suburban butchers from the laborers’ districts come to buy what the others have left. Every butcher marks his purchase with his own especial stamp, and hundreds of wagons roll day and night through the streets carrying the meat from the slaughter-houses to the butcher shops. These all look alike, with their front of red wood-work. The foreman stands there, cuts up the meat and lays it on the marble tables with a price attached. When the customers enter the shops this price always proves to be exceptional and only for the piece in the window. The rest, that is not sold at the slaughter-houses, is sent to the halles , where the restaurant and boarding-house keepers get it for prices often considerably more moderate than at the butcher’s. The halles are the paradise of slender purses. The turkey that, dressed and stuffed with truffles, costs thirty-five francs in the fruit and game shops, can sometimes be bought at the halles for eight or nine, not much smaller and poorer in quality. Even if the price of ordinary meat does not differ as much, it is at least an economy that can be felt in a household, when, instead of THE PARISIAN CUISINE. *57 one franc fifty a pound, which the butcher generally asks you, you need only to pay a franc and a few sous. In the new merchants’ exchange, Paris has obtained a center for its large and important bread transactions. It has often been suggested to found a large bakery, car- ried on at the expense of the city, or at least under control of the municipal authorities, from where the bread could be sold directly to the consumers. But they have not even succeeded in carrying out the secondary proposition of a model bakery to supply the charitable institutions J CUT UP AND LABELED ON MARBLE TABLES. of the city, and sell bread of a good quality to the poor at con- siderably lower price than that kept by the bakers. The Parisians are still obliged to depend upon their 1800 bakershops, and are served there with all the exquisite politeness belonging to this city. The bread is brought to your door every morning PARIS OF TO-DAY. IS8 at the time you appoint — regardless of how small a quantity you might order — by the bread-girl. This popular Parisian type has been immortalized in many novels. There is, as a rule, no reason to complain of the quality of the bread; the prices, however, are anything but low; it is never less, but often more, than twenty cen- times a pound, and if the housekeeper does not have her weight ready every day, she will often have reason to com- plain of the quantity. All baker-weights seem to suffer from the common weak- ness of inexactness, when not under par- ticularly sharp control. The great central Italics, or markets, serve as pantry for everything else put on the Parisian table. Even people from the provinces and foreign countries come to this market and then supply them- selves with the things they lack at home. England sends every year for over fifty THE BREAD-GIRL. ° J } J millions of eggs from the Italics, besides great quantities of butter, vegetables, fruits, and sometimes even meat. Russia has several commission merchants who are on the lookout for the first peaches, and pay for them up to eight francs apiece. The first fruits of the season usually pass through the Italics , for whatever part of the world they may be destined. It is like an immense ant-hill, where, day after day, all the year round, thousands of buyers and venders pass in and out. But, in spite of the apparent disorder, everything is man- aged with the most perfect regularity, being under the double control of the Seine prefecture and the police prefecture. The first appoints the places for the venders and collects the taxes ; the other enforces the rules and inspects the goods to see that nothing is sold in a state that might injure people’s health. In 1878 the wholesale business was exclusively in the hands of the so-called facteurs, whose number was not allowed to exceed forty. This institution still remains, and it is to a great extent that which makes the supply and sale at the Italics so trustworthy. The former privilege of the facteurs has been abolished in so far that THE PARISIAN CUISINE. i59 any one can now get the position if he presents certain guaran- tees for his moral qualities, gives a security of ten thousand francs, and is sworn in at the commercial court. The number of facteurs has thereby risen to one hundred and fifty, and there is enough for all of them to do. The wholesale transactions at the halles have been considera- bly improved during the last decennary. The great supplying ONE OF THE PAVILIONS IN THE “HALLES CENTRALES.” firms have their own facteur, who keeps them posted on the state of the market, and to him they send their products in greater or smaller quantities, according to his advice. But a regular con- nection like this is by no means necessary. A French peasant who has some scores of eggs or baskets of fruits to spare can send them by the first train, addressed to “ Les halles a Paris " ; they are sent to a facteur , who sells them, and twenty-four hours after the sender receives the profit of the sale, the percentage on PARIS OF TO-DAY. 160 the commission being deducted. It is hardly ever that the con- fidence placed in the facteur is betrayed. If any complaints are sent in to the police, the matter is immediately investigated, and the person complaining is generally found to be in the wrong. There is, for instance, the case of the Algerian commissioner, who sent a box full of artichokes to the Italics , but being very busy, packed them so badly that they arrived in Paris half decayed. When inspected they were pronounced to be sea-damaged, but not spoiled, and were sold at auction for a mere trifle. The com- missioner sent in his complaint to the general inspector, the fac- teur s books were examined, and, being compared with the regis- ters of the administration, it was proved that the sale had been perfectly legal, and that the wares could not have brought a higher price. The sender was then made acquainted with the facts, and they were obliging enough to tell him why his articles had been damaged, and to explain to him the precautions he had to observe in packing in order to avoid a second accident. If the supply is insufficient, the facteur goes to the provinces, or even abroad, to arrange for an increase. Thanks to these efforts, Paris can have cherries, apricots, and peaches two months before any of the fruit trees bloom in its immediate vicinity. He sends for fish from Scotland and Norway, and it is to him that the hunters send their game from all parts of Europe. He stands in direct connection with all the horticulturists of the neighborhood of Paris. They bring him the famous products that are the pride of the Italics: asparagus from Argenteuil, strawberries from Montlery and the Joyeuse valley, grapes from Fontainebleau, the Montreuil peach, cultivated in Vincennes, Bagnolet, Montreuil, Fontenay and Nogent ; the artichokes from the Saint Denis valley, and cauliflower from the neighborhood of Poissy, where there grow on some fields upwards of forty thousand heads. The products coming from a greater distance reach him through another commissioner. Many orchard own- ers would, if they were obliged to send off the fruit at their own risk, doubtless prefer to let it go to waste. The commissioner, therefore, makes the arrangement with them while the fruit is still on the tree, and has it picked and packed down carefully in his own baskets and expressed to Paris. The asparagus agent of a village receives every day the harvest from all the gardens. ' LE CARREAU DES HALLES. 162 PARIS OF TO-DAY. One peasant brings one pound, another five, and a third ten ; he prepares the uniform bunches in which asparagus is always sold in the Paris market, and sends them to the facteur. People cultivating cabbage, lettuce, and other vegetables wait till the season comes, and then generally bring them to Paris in large wagons themselves. The potato merchant carries on his business on a much larger scale. He may sometimes fill hun- dreds of baggage cars with the purchase made in the provinces and abroad. The wholesale business in the halles is carried on mainly by auction. The sale commences at sunrise in all the different galleries at the same time. All the restaurant keepers, fruit and vegetable dealers, fishmongers, grocers, and charcutiers are there, and so are Madame Angot’s colleagues, les dames des halles , who have their stands in the galleries. Les marc hands des quatre saisons , the licensed venders who haunt the streets of Paris at noon with their little carts, are obliged to buy the goods of inferior quality. They outbid each other, not only in money matters, but also in noise and vulgarity. The halles assume their most picturesque aspect earlier in the day. The traffic in this particular part of the city commences when it dies out in all other parts. At the time when the last carriages leave the theatres, the heavy wagons in which the horticulturists of the neighborhood bring their goods to the halles begin to roll heavily along the boulevards. They stop a moment at the small station- houses, where they get a receipt for having paid as many times thirty centimes as the number of square yards covered by their goods, and quickly unpack these on the carreau, the sidewalks and streets around the halles , where during the night the greater part of the vegetable sale takes place. No single night passes when less than three thousand wagons from all the little banlieue villages make their way to le carreau des halles. In the early summer the number is often double, and averages over half a million a year. When they are unloaded, they are driven back to the stations assigned them farther away, and where the owner has to pay fifty centimes to get the police to look after his horses in order that he may use all his time trying to dispose of his goods to the best advantage. The peasants are the first to arrive, bringing turnips, cabbage and lettuce, in immense wagons, which are, later on, used as dust- THE PARISIAN CUISINE. 163 man’s carts ; for these peasants, called “ les boueux ,” have made a contract in which they have taken upon themselves to collect the sweepings of the streets. As soon as they have left, their places are taken by others. The bags full of peas and beans are put in the Rue des Halles, the potatoes in Rue Pierre Lescot, the cresses and artichokes outside of the church of St. Eustache, the other vegetables and fruits in season in the Rue Rambuteau. The crowds grow denser and denser, the heaps of vegetables larger and larger. The coffee-girls arrange their stands, the peddlers their cheap goods, and, chased by the policemen from one place to another, poor hungry wretches try to squeeze through the crowds and pick up a few crumbs of all this abun- dance. In June, when the strawberry season is at its height, the peas- ants must be at their post before nine in the evening if they want to find a good place for their goods. At this time of the year the wagons often stand in endless rows as far as over to the left bank, one mile away, and even unto the other side of the observatory. The strawberry boxes cannot be put on top of each other, but have to be put side by side, and the baskets stand so near together that the whole of the Rue Turbigo and the Rue Montorgueuil look like large red ribbons. On some days people have counted over thirty-five thousand, each hold- ing an average of sixteen pounds, altogether over half a million pounds. On the square the things are generally disposed of by regular sale, not at auction. When a lot is bought the buyer throws down a two sous piece for “ le Fort," and a copper sign bearing his name and the name of his “ gar deuse." Le Fort de la Halle, with his blue blouse, the broad shoulders and the still broader white felt hat, is one of the most glorious Parisian features. His force has become a proverb. He is never received in the profession without first having submitted to a trial which fully guarantees that his bodily strength comes up to all the demands made upon it. LE FORT DE LA HALLE. ” 164 PARIS OF TO-DAY. His honesty is above all suspicion, and entirely regardless of the fact that in return for the privilege of being the only author- ized carrier of the halles , he is responsiole for all the goods he transports. He brings them from the market to the gardeuse, who collects the different purchases. When, in the course of time, he is promoted to the wholesale pavilions, his yearly income may rise to four thousand francs and more, and it is still further raised when he — as is often the case — adds to this position the one of scene- shifter at one of the theaters. Besides ' UNE DAME DE LA HALLE. the square and the ten pavilions where the wholesale and retail business is done, there is still the basement of the halles , which extend under the whole market place. Here the two hundred and seventy-nine million eggs yearly consumed in Paris are examined, the game is dressed after the journey, and here is the residence of the feathered population, which is either sold alive or beheaded before the sale. There has to be a great deal of room, for al- though they do not stay there long, there are eight million pieces of poultry alone that come and go in the course of the year. As a rule, the doves are kept longer than the other fowls. Many of them have made a long and trouble- some journey, sometimes even over the Italian Alps, and as they have not had any food on the way, they arrive in a rather emaciated state. In the basement under the fish pavilion live the finny population, in large basins, before it is put on the tables before the fishwives. The Parisian fish- woman has possibly lost some of her self-sufficiency, and when she comes in collision with her competitors at the next table, the THE LITTLE “ MAR- MITON.” THE PARISIAN CUISINE. 165 quarrel hardly ever reaches the passion pictured by the writers of former days. But she is still an important and great personage, for she sells yearly about seventy million pounds of fish. The inhabitants of the sea grow quite expensive before the best of them reach Paris. The salmon, for instance, costs as much as five francs a pound, so that the fishwoman may easily end as a millionaire if year after year she puts by any sort of percentage of the millions that pass through her hands. The sale is cor- respondingly large in all the other halles pavilions. The repu- tation of Paris for being able to serve the most princely table has been established long ago. When the little Marmiton passes through the street, the mere sight of the basket on his head is enough to make one’s mouth water. But this summer has shown that the quantity can keep in step with the quality. In these six months there have been eaten inside of the city walls six million pounds of meat more than under ordinary circumstances, and they have been accompanied by thirty million extra bottles of wine, while there have been used two million pounds of butter and twelve million bottles of beer above the usual quantity. There is hardly another city that would not have been considerably troubled by this increase, but it was hardly felt in Paris. The guests of the city were en- tertained with a luxury the like of which they had never seen, from whatever parts of the world they came, and, thanks to the central halles , Paris will in this respect always be up to the de- mands made upon it, however Eiffel-tower high they may be. XVI. The Water Supply. ARISIANS claim that first in the line of things that are their pride and glory come the two rivers, the Seine and the Marne. They are as attached to them as the sailor to the sea, and each and all are deeply persuaded that no water in the world is as beautiful as that which flows through their city. Even the stranger, after having spent some time on these banks, is apt to agree with them. Wher- ever one goes, these green river banks, with their pretty little villas, give the landscape an air of luxu- rious comfort. They are a continual source of pleasure to the greater part of the peo- ple, for whom amusements must be cheap to be at all attain- able. The Seine and Marne are always ready to open their arms for the canotiers ; every man who has a few sous to hire a boat can spend the whole Sunday rocking to and fro or boat-racing as much as he pleases, while he enjoys the sun- light and good company, and the easy comfort of shirt-sleeves. When evening comes the flotilla anchors near the village inn and the company club together, and with a goose and a petit 1 66 THE WATER SUPPLY. 167 bleu from Suresnes, enjoy life as one can only enjoy it under a Parisian sky. To the Parisians, who are of a more quiet tem- perament, the rivers offer their fish, or at least the fish supposed to be under their blue waves. There is no place where one can sit more patiently from sunrise to sunset, waiting for the exciting moment of the bite, than on these banks : for here the fish understand the art of keeping one in constant anticipa- tion. All honor be to the two rivers that make Paris so beautiful and joyous a place. Good health, how- ever, would hardly b e among the things they would bring the Paris- ians, if, be- sides the other ser- vices they r e n d e r , they had t o quench their thirst. People have had sad ex- periences in this respect, when not more than a generation ago the Paris- ians drank no other water. The quantity of Seine water with which the machines at Auteuil and Chaillot supplied the higher and less favorably situated quarters of the town was hardly suffi- cient. The lower and newer parts were supplied from the Ourcq canal. As a canal, this may be excellent. At the little town of Montreuil it forms a continuation of the river Ourcq, that comes from the Aisne department, and later joins the Marne. Whatever it may be as a canal, it is not very suitable for an acqueduct. PARISIANS OF A MORE QUIET TEMPERAMENT. i68 PARIS OF TO-DAY. The Villette basin, always filled with boats on which many sailor families have their permanent abode, is remarkable for anything but cleanliness. It was from this basin that the water was sent by underground mains to the Parisian houses— where, on account of the deficient pressure, it only reached to the first story. The water carrier brought it to the public institutions with the miserably sounding cry of “ A l’eau ! a l’eau ! ” that was heard in the streets up to a few years ago. One thousand litres were furnished by the water supply company for one franc and sold again for five by the carriers. It was, after all, a poor busi- ness when one takes into consideration the high, narrow stairs by which they had to carry their pails, and it was a drink that would now be considered a horror of horrors. People seem, nevertheless, to have been quite satisfied with it at the time. First, in 1850, they began to see that it was perhaps not as per- fect as might be desired. The cholera raged in the greater part of France ; and Paris, that had been so cruelly visited in 1832 and 1849, saw with terror the epidemic concentrate in the poorer quarters. It was then insisted upon that something should be done to improve these places. For a long time nothing was accomplished, but with the growing danger the man who was capable of preventing it stepped forth. The great Seine-prefect, Baron Haussmann, and his engineers, marked out the broad boulevards that broke through the filthy, crowded old Paris, and entirely changed the looks of the city. At the same time others had charge of the still more important water question. Haussmann’s proposal met at first with serious opposition. The directors of the public works declaredtheOurcq canal water excellent for cooking, when it was properly filtered, and everybody thought it foolish to force the Parisian landlords to put in water-pipes, even in the upper stories. Haussmann was, fortunately, accustomed to overthrow what others consid- ered impossibilities. He communicated with Belgrand, the ingenious engineer to whom we owe the present Parisian water works, and these two men seemed made to understand each other. Already, in their first conference, Belgrand called Haussmann’s attention to the gypseous earth found everywhere in the Parisian suburbs, and which would spoil the spring water so that it would be necessary to get their supply farther away, THE WATER SUPPLY. 1^9 and at great expense. A few months later the plan was fully prepared, the municipal council granted the necessary money, and the work commenced immediately. One of the most impor- tant parts of Belgrand’s task was the division he made in the supply. The city being situated a considerable distance from any great heights, he saw that it would be very expensive, if not absolutely impossible, to supply it with so much spring water that it would suffice for public uses, such as watering the streets, or for the monumental fountains, etc. He decided, therefore, to discriminate between the cases where the quality of the water was of no especial importance, and those where it had to be absolutely pure ; and it was this division that made his plan suc- ceed. Paris has now two entirely separate aqueducts : one supplies all the water necessary for street cleanliness and for most indus- trial purposes, such as the washing and watering of gardens, stables, yards, carriage houses, etc., the other supplies the pri- vate houses and a few business places, where pure water is needed, as, for instance, cafes , restaurants, factories for ice and different drinks, and elevators where the pressure must be great. Paris has enough for her toilet, or at least more than any other modern city, and for this the Ourcq canal and the Seine are used now, as formerly. But the aqueducts have been considerably extended and improved since 1850. The Marne has also been used to supply the northern quarters through the excellent Saint Maur works, and even if perfection has not yet been attained, the city can, if an unusually tropical summer does not destroy all calculations, at any time be washed and cleaned, have her streets, promenades, drives, and parks watered, and have her fountains flow abundantly, that she may show herself at her best, and it must be added that she is not only able to do it, but really does it. There are distributed all over the city seven thousand faucets, exclusively used for the street cleaning; forty- five thousand more to which the army of workmen whose duty it is to water the boulevards and avenues only need to fasten a hose to send out freshness and coolness, and destroy each little speck of dust about to lift itself from the green promenades, and not less than five hundred fountains are in continual use week-days and Sundays also. 170 PARIS OF TO-DAY. The result is that, with the exception of a few especial cases, Paris is always in a state of matchless freshness and cleanliness. In regard to the drinking water, Belgrand used an entirely new arrangement. At one hundred and seventy-three kilometres’ distance from Paris he took the Vanne to lead it into the city, and at one hundred and thirty kilometres’ distance the Dhuys, — a little afflux of the Surmelin, that later on joins the Marne m p . vs 1 mSsma ffilp WATERING THE CHAMPS-ELYSEES. between Chateau-Thierry and Dormans. Its main source is at a height of fifty metres, and it is this very water that is sent to Paris. The aqueduct passes through twenty kilometres of valley, — ground at some places seventy mbtres deep, — but instead of the large Roman arcades, he preferred to use mainly iron pipes, and the aqueduct is for the greater part underground. The picturesqueness of the landscape may have lost by it, but so much was saved by this arrangement that before the end of the sixties they were able to complete the works over the Dhuys, and the much more difficult ones over the Vanne. The last has THE WATER SUPPLY. 171 its source fourteen kilometres west of Troyes, and joins about sixty kilometres farther away the Yonne, at Sens. Its waters do not, like those of the Dhuys, come from one source, but from many different ones in the departments of the Aube and the Yonne, and at many places it was necessary to use arcades. When it reaches Paris the water is kept in the reservoirs near the Parc Montsouris, on the left bank, while the Dhuys has another on the left bank, as the water cannot be sent to houses as soon as it comes into town, the consumption not being as regular and con- stant as the supply. It is also necessary to have a reserve in case the supply should cease, and the reservoirs have therefore been built very large. Those at Menilmontant cover two hectares, and hold ten thousand cubic metres of water ; that is, over one hun- dred million litres. The dimensions of those at the Parc Mont- souris are twice as great again, more than half of Paris being sup- plied with Vanne water. The sight is imposing. You see around you a forest of columns, — in the Menilmontant reservoir are about a thousand — that carry a vault seventy-five centimetres thick, covered with fifty centimetres of green sward. This system is excellent ; it keeps the water perfectly fresh and uninfluenced by any changes in the atmosphere. This was proved very effect- ually during the siege. The Menilmontant reservoir remained full even after the Prussians had broken off the main just outside of Paris, and it was decided to keep this supply in case of neces- sity. The temperature was very low, and fell on the 29th of December, 1870, and January 5, 1871, eleven centigrades below zero, but the water still held six degrees. It was an excellent idea of Belgrand to put the pipes, that lead the water from the reservoirs through the town, in the great drains. This has made it possible to examine the whole net- work and stop all leaks in good time, not to speak of the great economy that is attained in the preservation and renovation of the materials. Laid end to end, all the mains would form a line two million metres long. When to this is added the Vannes and the Dhuys aqueducts, there would be needed a canal-work of about 300 miles to supply Paris with drinking-water. The quality of the water from the Vanne and the Dhuys could not be better, but the worst is that it does not always suffice for all the inhab- itants. When the summer heat comes it may happen that the PARTS OF TO-DAY. 1 12 reservoirs are emptied, and it is once more the Seine water that flows from the Fontaines Wallace — which an English philanthro- pist has placed in the Parisian streets according to the Oriental custom, — and from all the house-pipes in some quarters of the town. This calamity generally visits all the quarters in turn, so that it is only for some days, at the utmost a couple of weeks, that one of them suffers from it. But however short the time may be, it is always too long, and the hygienic statistics have proved that an interregnum of this kind is al- ways followed by typhus fever or other epi- demic. The Parisian water- supply can, therefore, not be said to b e absolutely exemplary, and A WALLACE FOUNTAIN. WG1 ^ been done on a granderand more perfect scale than in the French capital. Under Nero, Rome had a million inhabitants, and a daily supply of between eight hundred thousand and nine hundred thousand cubic inches of water. Paris has nowon an average two and one- half million inhabitants, and receives only one hundred and thirty thousand cubic mbtres of spring water a day. XVII. Parisian Dinners. M oney has expelled the old French esprit from the salons. The yoke of gold tyranny in Paris is simply an interreg- num, without any firm roots ; an ex- traneous despot- ism that will be shaken off when the new demo- cracy is definitely formed. The exiled will once more make its entry on its old domains. These are too closely connected to be separated for any length of time ; the proscription does not even mean a com- plete disappearance ; although banished from the salon the exiled esprit yet reigns in the dining-room. The Parisians have always understood the art of arranging a dinner-table better than anybody else, and however great the degeneration of social life may be in all other respects, in this art they are still the masters. To dine is, for a Parisian, not merely a physical obligation ; it is not far from being a cult. He never dines till late, when he is done with business, and he does not allow anything or anybody to disturb him, “ Monsieur dine ” means that monsieur has retired to the holiest of holies of private life, and his perfect devotion there cannot be questioned. Whatever may happen on the globe is nothing to him while he is at table ; no interest is so tempting, no possible profit so alluring that it can disturb him during the quiet hour. It is 173 174 PARIS OF TO-DAY. when he has finished his dessert that he belongs to the world once more. He consequently never invites any but his most intimate friends to dinner. If he wants to show some one, that can be of use to him, a favor beyond the soiree invitations, or if he feels under obligation to be especially courteous to some for- eigner, it is always the same, “ Come and take dtjeuner a la four- chette with me.” This is at twelve, and is like the half-past seven o’clock dinner, with the exception of the soup. One might have one’s tailor at this meal, if one wanted to postpone paying a bill ; as it is of no special importance, both host and guest understand fully that their relation still is that of business. But a business dinner is beyond a Parisian’s comprehension. He would look upon it as a desecration of his household gods. When the soup is put on the table, he is among friends. He takes, moreover, great care that all the guests should be as intimate with each other as he is with them. This may, of course, be rather difficult to provide for at the present day, when political parties are as sharply opposed to each other as personal enemies ; but people are in this respect true to the old traditions, and prefer having a small and select circle. The dining-room is small, and when the guests reach the number of the muses, it is considered quite a large party. The rest of the acquaintances come after dinner, and this is a custom that is so deeply rooted that nobody thinks of feeling hurt because he is only invited to the salon. For a small circle such as this, one exerts one’s self to the utmost. Even an ordi- nary Parisian dinner is never without a certain style, and the workmen who take their dinner outside of the little suburban inns follow all the traditions. The quality may be very inferior, but the menu is always correct. If they can afford to dine at all they must have a soup, meat, vegetables, and, beyond all, their dessert and wine. They would look upon it as an offense against their dignity if any of these courses were omitted. It is not hereby to be understood that Parisians set a better table than other nations. On the contrary, it may not be as good, or as wholesome as a simple dinner of pork and beans ; but there is a certain style about it, and that is what they want beyond all else. In the higher classes, where they are able to let the quality go hand in hand with the style of the menu , they reach, at times, PARISIAN DINNERS. 175 with their inborn good taste, a culinary result which only a true Parisian is capable of obtaining. He has a thorough knowledge of the mystery of those trifles that make the table artistic. However long the dinner may be, there is never an overloading of dishes, no brutal mixing of wines, no pretentiousness that makes itself felt and creates stiffness and ceremoniousness among the guests. There is over everything an air of easy elegance, light as perfume, that excites Vesprit. No speeches are made as in the old salons. Once outside of the dining-room, they must meet the inevi- table crowd and the hackneyed omnibus conversation, and the Parisian — that is, the elite Parisian, — loves the causerie. This has from olden times been the greatest of his social talents, and it is not yet forgotten. It has only, like all aristocracy, been obliged to limit its domains. At the dinner-table this art is still cultivated, — for it is indeed an art, and the most truly Parisian of all, — and for this very reason the dinner-table is the Parisian’s strong point. His need of its quiet intimacy and unpretending eloquence, as contrasted with the gold glitter that money has thrown over social life, has gradually given rise to an institution that has become of great importance in Parisian life. This is the so-called diners mensuels , — the meetings of small, exclusive circles, the members of which are united on account of personal sympathy and mutual interest. They meet once a month in a quiet room in some restaurant, where they enjoy this dinner together, and, under the observance of certain ceremonies, culti- vate the old causerie art. These dinners were originally the invention of a few literary and artistic circles, but they met with so great a success that their number of late years has been legion, and they now comprise, if not all classes, at least all Paris that counts for anything. It is just as impossible for a Parisian of any social standing not to belong to a “ diner ,” as it is for a “ Boulevardier ” not to belong to a “ cerclel' Even the most prominent men do not despise this oasis in the social desert. The Diner Bixio brings together at one table Alexandre Dumas, Sardou, Legouv6, Labiche, and Meissonnier, diplomatists like Nigra, the former Italian ambassador to France, and function- aries such as Perrin, the director of the Theatre Frangais. The plan of these meetings originated, it is said, with the Diner Tay- 176 PARIS OF TO-DAY. lor, now the Diner Dentu, and it serves still as an example of how these dinners came into existence. The great Maecenas, Baron Taylor, had several times given a dinner at Bonvallet’s, on the Boulevard du Temple, one of the best restaurants in Paris, for a number of authors, who, in the course of the year, returned these invitations and gave a dinner at the same place to the Baron, and all the guests he usually invited. Every time, Baron Taylor opened the conversa- tion by telling some adventure from his long and eventful life, and his great story-telling talent formed these recollections into artistic little novels, all possessing a point which was discussed at table with the comment to which it gave rise. This was so enjoyable that it was decided to meet regularly once a month on an appointed day. Every one was to pay for his own cover, and the by-laws were laid down, the breaking of which involved cer- tain fines that were used later on for some common purpose that benefited the whole circle. No new member was to be admitted if his membership was not universally approved, and each one was in turn obliged to write down one of the Baron’s narratives, that they, when the collection was complete, might be published under the title “ Les Diners du Baron Taylor ,” by the publisher Dentu, who was a member, from the very first, and later became the president of the circle. The realization of this plan was delayed, first by Taylor’s and later by Dentu’s death, but from time to time some of these stories have appeared in the Revue des deux Mondes, and other magazines. Paul de Musset wrote “ Les Dents d'un Turco"\ Paul Feval, “ Gavotte" ; Elie Berthet, “ Lais et Samson Hector Malet, “Gonzalez.” Enault and Claretie added to the number, and they are still working on com- pleting the collection. The well-known novel collection, “ Les Soirees de Medan ,” came into existence at a dinner of this kind, “ Le Boeuf Nature ,” which, under Zola’s presidency, united the staff of his more or less talented disciples. The dinner cercle “ Les Tctes de Bois,” presided over by Paul Arenes, and including both authors and artists, has through Charpentier, who is also a member, published two editions de luxe of “ Nouvelles a 1' eau forte'' illustrated with charming drawings and engravings. It is not unusual that the dinner, aside from the pleasure that it affords the members, shows itself fruitful in outward results. PARISIAN DINNERS. 177 The dinner “ Les Rigoberts ," — the most prominent members of which were the artists, — Vibert, Detaille, Worms, Berne, Belle- court, Duez and Leloir, — has brought forth the yearly exhibition of French water-colors, which competes with the Salon in the in- terest it awakens. The taste for amateur theatricals, which of late years have become a mania and are quite frequently performed PRIVATE THEATRICALS. — BEHIND THE SCENES. with extraordinary talent, is proved to have originated with the sensational performances of the diner Arche de Noe." This is one of the greatest clubs of the kind, headed by Paul Derou- lede, the composer Saint-Saens, the dramatic writer Paul Ter- rier, the sculptor Leroux, and the Coquelins. It has united a number of artists of all branches, and counts several members of the aristocracy. They commenced by meeting at Janodet's, in the Palais Royal, and called themselves “ trop serrtfs," but in 178 PARIS OF TO-DAY. a few years they found these quarters entirely too small. At the same time the name was changed, and the circle was, on account of the many different elements it comprised, baptized l' Arche de Not. It was decided that this baptism should be celebrated by theatricals, and a committee was appointed, which, in a few days, wrote the great fantastical tragedy, “ Abraham, or the Patriarch who Deceives his Wife,” which was played at the house of one of the rich members and created a decided sensation among the select audience assembled. It was soon followed by others ; the ladies who were acquainted with the members studied their parts under the guidance of the Coquelins, and stars were discov- ered who continued their work alone. Compatriotism on a small scale has become the bond of uni- son of many of these dinners. The people from Provence have “ La Cigale ” ; those from Burgundy “ Les Bourguignons,” with the former Finance Minister, now president of the Bank of France, Magnin, as president ; the people from Normandy, “ La Pomme,” the most famous of all these dinners. Every summer the cigaliers and the pommiers make excursions to their respective provinces, where they are met with a procession of all the govern- ment officers, and where there are arranged in their honor great festivals, to which all the people of the department come in crowds. There is no end of torchlight processions, bull-fights, and farandolas in Provence, and of cider banquets in Normandy. But the most important part of the festival is a romantic tourna- ment in the old Troubadour style, with prizes given to the con- queror by the handsomest lady present. The province has, through these excursions, come to look upon their compatriots’ diner as a sort of protecting representative, to whom they always apply where some great interest is concerned, and it has not un- frequently been seen that the cigaliers and the pommiers have taken the lead in the construction of a canal and the building of a harbor or a railroad. The members at these dinners are neces- sarily quite numerous, and in this respect they differ from the original dinner, which only comprised a limited number. L' Hip- popotame may serve as a good example. It unites those who have formerly received the prix de Rome , and has taken its name from a little hostry near the Colosseum which it is necessary to have visited in order to be received as a member. Another in- PARISIAN DINNERS. i70 stance is the “diner de la Critique ,” to which Sarcey, Vitu, Fou- quier, Weiss, and Daudet belong, and where the number of the members is not allowed to exceed twenty. But whether large or small, Elie Berthet’s words about the Dentu dinner seem to suit them all. There reigns, he says, the most open and sincere cor- diality and exquisite politeness which, however, does not pre- vent wit and merriment from manifesting itself freely. There has, even between the members who have clear and decided opin- ions on most things, never been any bitter discussions and never THE ‘ ‘ RIEUSES ” CLUB. a word been said that might hurt anybody. It is like a bee drawing in its sting and only offering its honey. But there is also good care taken in choosing new members and great weight is laid on the sociable character of the candidate in question, as one single man of a noisy or a quarreling disposition would dis- turb the perfect harmony of these meetings. This institution has had one great drawback, namely, the ex- clusion of ladies ; but there is a possibility that this may be corrected in time. There has already been founded Le diner des Rieuses, a circle of actresses, who, in order that they may once in a while get rid of the tyranny of the manager and be i8o PARIS OF TO-DAY. able to laugh and amuse themselves at liberty, have founded a diner like all the others. They meet once a month at Durand’s, have very severe by-laws, and a managing committee appointed according to all parliamentary rules. Every president, and there is a new one at each dinner, must, when she takes her seat, sing a song written and composed by herself, and every new member must deliver an inaugural speech, which is carefully taken down and kept in the archives. It is forbidden to talk of any man or even mention his name during the dinner, and the one who breaks this law has to pay to the president a fine in cash which is raised for each repetition of the offense. The treasury of the members is, in this way, always in a thriving state, and to celebrate the opening of it with due solemnity, it has been decided to break the bans laid on the other sex once a year, and tolerate their presence at a ball; which is undoubt- edly the one to which admission is most eagerly sought. It is not to be denied that the members do not all belong to high life, but they have already, in so many points, learned to follow the fashion of “the other,” that it would be strange if the glory that shines around the diner des rieuses should not tempt imitation. If first the ladies have their dinners like those of their husbands and brothers, the two will soon be united. This may be the dawn of a complete revolution in Parisian sociability, and a form of intercourse may arise that will be in keeping with the demo- cratic times. When the “ million ” is dethroned, the old esprit will return ; the revolution of the Parisian dinners will bring it back in triumph from its banishment. V XVII. Soirees. T 'HE Parisian soirees of the day fall in two great divisions, the open and the closed. There is that difference between them, that it is almost necessary to have an invitation to the closed ones, where champagne is served, but perfectly superfluous to have anything but a visiting-card for the open ones, where, however, the champagne is omitted. Musset’s re- mark that when one receives, it is the whole of Paris, the city as well as the suburbs, that is welcomed, might now be greatly extended ; to-day one receives people from the provinces and abroad as well. A stranger visiting Paris for the first time, believing in the old tradition of P'rench courtesy and graciousness, would be greatly disappointed ; he will find a city where it is necessary to elbow one’s way at every step. But in one respect he will be agreeably surprised: the reports of the exclusiveness of French social life will not be confirmed ; he may, after a fortnight’s stay, return to his provincial hole, and, if it satisfies his ambition to do so, astonish the natives by telling them that he has been at the soirees of the most prominent men in France. All that is required is a dress suit, a white necktie, an opera hat, and a copy of the Journal Officiel. The reason is obvious. When, after the summer months and the hunting season, tout Paris returns to the city most dutifully, the winter season is ushered in with a number of open soirees by the ministers, both the police and the Seine prtfets, the chairmen of the Chamber and Senate, 181 182 PARIS OF TO-DA V. and other government officials. These open soirees, that are continued till after the grand prix races, are in reality open for everybody, Parisians, provincials, and foreigners alike. A notice in the Journal Officiel states that Mr. So and So receives on such and such an evening, and the invitations are thereby sent out and extend to all who care to accept them. It is only necessary to put on an evening suit, give one’s card to the valet, and mix in the crowd in the salon to be in the company of Gr6vy, Jules Ferry, Freycinet, Brisson, or any other of the prominent men of the country, who at the time are living in the public palais , and to be surrounded by ladies and gentlemen whose names every- body knows. Before the present democratic era, the plan of making the salons officiels a continuation of the street was not carried out as thoroughly as now. Only the journalists enjoyed the privilege of being admitted on the mere presentation of their cards; the rest of the company had to possess a formal invitation ; this was certainly not very difficult to procure during the Empire and the Directory, but after all, it had to be procured. People could not, when they were through dinner and did not care to go to the theatre, in the absence of other means to make the time pass, drive to some minister’s soiree. This is a convenience that is the result of earnest efforts to democratize society, it is said, but the reason may perhaps be found in something else, called dura necessitas. When the pre'fet from some province or other, or the little lawyer without a brief, is suddenly brought into power, he has a palais given him by the state; but it is at the same time demanded of him that he should do the honors of it. The prtfet has previously only associated with the best people of Lander- nau or Carpentras, and the society of the lawyer has been limited to what the political meetings might offer him. Now they are obliged to fill their salons ; the suite of these seems alarmingly long and they must all be filled ; the crowd alone can prove the popularity of the new magnate. In such circumstances one cannot be very particular in the choice of the guests, and when all Paris is invited, the number of the guests will generally only just suffice to prevent a fiasco. There come a number of diplomatists, military men, and higher government officers, who consider it their duty to make their appearance; a number of RECEPTION DAY AT A MINISTER’S. I8 3 PARIS OF TO-DAY. *84 English people who feel themselves bound to look at this curi- osity, as they do at all other curiosities in this world ; several American ladies, who make their debut in French social life their first careful reconnoitering of a territory that will soon be con- quered ; and finally the Parisians who come to meet the deputy because they want help in some matter or other, everything being attainable nowadays through the influence of the deputies. But nobody thinks of going to a minister’s soiree for the enjoy- ment of it ; the pleasure consists in walking from room to room and paying hackneyed compliments. On the other hand the material comfort cannot be the aim, either, for there is none; in the refreshment room, a glass of beer or fruit-wine, bread and butter and cakes may be served, but the champagne has been done away with at the same time as the invitation cards. And if the minister has succeeded in getting artists of rank to sing or take part in his theatricals, he has generally gained so firm a footing that he can afford to return to the old custom of inviting the guests. In this way they get open soirees that gradually become closed, and closed ones with a tendency to become open, and the transition is very gradual. When the stranger, during the few weeks he passes in Paris, is fortunate enough to get acquainted with a Parisian of some social position, it is not only the official soirees, but also the whole social world of Paris that is opened to him. A Parisian who wants to show a foreigner a kindness, has not known him five minutes before he offers to introduce him to some celebrity. It is the easiest way to do a favor. It is necessary once in a while to see these salons ; there is always room enough for two in a cab, and among the hundreds of guests, one more or less makes no difference ; he takes his new friend with him and introduces him to the celebrity, who shakes hands with him, and declares himself delighted to make his acquaintance, lets him walk about in the crowd for about half an hour, is perhaps even obliging enough to drink something with him, and that is the end of it. But, if the stranger in question should want a con- tinuation, he only needs to leave his card the next day with the celebrity’s concierge, to be sure of having invitations sent to his hotel for even a couple of years after he has returned home. His name is on the list, and one’s name may be kept almost as SOIREES. t»5 long on a Parisian society list as on the list in theatres for the premieres. But if it should occur to him to pay his host a pri- vate call, the latter would be extremely surprised, and in nine cases out of ten begin conversation by asking his guest’s name. It is, of course, impossible for a Parisian celebrity to know all the people who come to his salons. The origin of these salons is not very different from that of the minister’s salons. Society under the third republic consists exclusively of new men ; dem- ocracy has not yet been definitely formed, nor produced men of leading prestige. All are self-made men, risen from obscurity by clever speculations, or some other achievement of the kind, which in our time decides a man’s worth. They do then what Walter, in Guy de Maupassant’s “ Bel-Ami,” did when the Morocco campaign had brought him sixty millions, and made him one of the heroes of the financial world. He paid two-thirds of these millions to some prince, who stood in need of money, for a mansion in the Champs-Elys6es, furnished in the taste of past generations. The new man pays one hundred thousand francs for Markovitch’s sensational picture of “ Christ Walking on the Water,” has it hung effectively in his house, and then sends out invitations to everybody to come and look at it, or rather to admire the glory that surrounds it. At the bottom of the card is added “ dancing after twelve.” Some stay out of curiosity, the prospect of a luxurious supper retains others, and still others stay because somebody else does. The foundation of the salon is laid, and when it is carried out with the same dex- terity, he may at the end of the season possess a circle of guests that is as numerous as it is mixed. But the host must not expect that these people come there for the mere pleasure of each other’s society. They have no mutual topics of conversation, their interests are as different as possible, and the salon does not build the bridge of connection between them. They are so conscious of its incapability for doing so, that it is not even necessary any more to introduce people to each other. They are crowded together without the slightest knowledge of who their neighbors are, and people may have seen each other several times, before they accidentally learn their respective names. An introduction is considered superfluous, they are all guests at a soiree as they are in a theatre, and the performance i86 PARIS OF TO-DAY. is the 'thing, not the audience. The one thing necessary is a crowd and a “ belle salle ” filled with prominent people, whose names will look well in the boulevard papers and serve as an advertisement of the host’s social position. But like the theatre manager, he cannot fill his house unless he offers an attractive pro- gramme, and the Markovitch ex- hibition that made the commence- ment has to be repeated under other forms. The inventive power of the Parisian does, fortunately, fully correspond to the demands on it. The time was past long ago when the host considered his duties fulfilled after having offered his guests music and dancing and a little supper, followed by an amusing and entertaining cotillon. Now, more style is demanded. A ball with the usual evening cos- tumes is as common and tiresome as the tiresome every-day exist- ence which it ought to make us forget. Already, some years ago, people began to take up the red coats and fancy costumes, and this had at last the anticipated result. It is demanded of a good romance that it should carry us back to times more harmonious than our own, and this is just what Parisians demand of a soiree comme il faut. Everything, even to the surroundings, must be entirely changed ; when the invitations call to a “ fete villageoise ” the entire house must be transformed into an immense flower-garden, when many colored climbers creep up the espaliers along the walls, where supper is served by peasant-girls in long arbors covered with vines, where the valets are dressed as gendarmes , and the processions are peasant weddings and May-queen parties. At a Japanese festival all the rooms are covered with Japanese silks; every piece of SOIREES. 187 furniture and all the china that is used is Japanese. The revivals of different periods of French history is, however, now the high- est fashion. The troubadour balls are especially favored. But people are not afraid of committing great extravagances for the THE OBLIGATORY SUPPER. sake of offering something novel and odd. The Princesse de Sagan has been known to change her entire mansion into a veritable Noah’s ark, where all the guests were obliged to meet in animal disguise. To make the illusion complete some of the PARIS OF TO-DAY. most graceful inhabitants of the Jar din d' acclimatation vrzre in- vited. Evening after evening the soirees rival each other in their efforts to invent something new that may create a sensation and attract the attention of tout Paris. The times have changed and with them the salons ; V esprit has disappeared and has been re- placed by pomp. The salons are different but as brilliant as ever, even if they do not possess all the qualities of the galoshes of fortune and remove their guests to other times and other worlds, they still find means to come as near the marvelous as possible. It is not difficult when the money is there, and every Parisian who attempts to give a great entertainment knows beforehand that he cannot take into account 20,000 francs more or less. If he can think of nothing else he must get a Patti or a Nilsson to sing, or he must buy of some prominent author the right to the first performance of a “ proverbe ” and get the stars from the Theatre Frangais to play it. He must, in the heart of the winter, give a supper, which, if it creates no other illusion, at least makes you believe it is mid-summer; or he must, if he can invent nothing more extraordinary, do what an American millionaire once did : arrange a cotillon where the bouquets are replaced by silver and gold ornaments. And if, in spite of all this, his soiree should fail to make the desired sensation, there is noth- ing to do but to return to the open soirees and do what Mr. Gail- lard did. Mr. Gaillard’s biography is easily written. It was he who built the mansion on Place Malesherbes, that palace which is a true copy of the historical one at Blois, and the erection of which has cost sixteen millions,— everybody in Paris knows as much, but nobody any more. Mr. Gaillard might have fallen down from the moon, or his millions, at least, might have come in this way, nobody cares much about that. His palace stands there on costly Parisian ground, and he has a firm footing in Parisian society. He is typical of a very modern Parisian figure, the nabob of the ’ 8 o’s, the native and fully acclimatized nabob. Like that of his exotic predecessors, his descent is enveloped in a veil of mystery that nobody tries to lift. He makes his appearance in the Parisian world, all eyes are turned toward him. It is a true louis d'or-g lory, and when people are convinced of that, curi- osity ceases, he is received without a passport in whatever society SOIREES. 189 he chooses, and he is entered in the gay capital’s book of no- bility without having to present his papers. And what is more, his name remains there. The old nabob appeared and dis- appeared like a comet; the new is a fixed star; there lies the great difference between the two. The millions belonging to the old nabob were consumed in the Parisian atmosphere ; those be- longing to the new one accumulate there, and the process of their growth is as mysterious as their origin ; but the banks furnish the proof of the 'results, and the Paris of to-day is practical, and that is all it cares for. Mr. Gaillard wanted to celebrate his daughter’s coming out, but he would do it in a way worthy of the palace in Place Males- herbes. And he conceived the plan of his great Francois premier ball. Tout Paris was invited to the ceremony ; the number of PARIS OF TO-DAY. 190 the invitations sent out was over five thousand ; nobody had as yet gone as far as this, except at the Elys6es. When M. Gr6vy twice a year was obliged to let the Parisians dance at his expense, it was necessary to let the number of his guests be rather large. His heart bled when the cook presented him the budget for the supper, but it could not be helped ; all administrators and am- bassadors sent in their lists, and it was not only for his and their friends, but for the whole republic, and to a certain extent for- eign countries too, that he gave his ball. In this case the five thousand was almost unavoidable. But a man in private life had never done anything like this, before Mr. Gaillard, and it was not dreamed that it could be done. People generally invited every- body they could think of to add to the number, but considered it necessary to have been introduced to their guest, to have been face to face and shaken hands with him at least once. Mr. Gaillard introduced a new fashion. He reasoned as follows: “ II faut quune porte soit ouverte ou fermle ,” and he opened his doors wide for every one that cared to come. He took simply an annual series of the Boulevard papers, and had a list made of > all the names mentioned in their soiree articles. It was not taken into consideration whether he knew the person in question or not ; when their names had been on the society list only once, they received his invitation. / At the same time he paid the journalists well to write about the festival. The papers said that all Paris thought of nothing but preparing for it, and that such and such of the best dress-makers had made the costumes for it, that it was the great event of the season, etc. Excited by all these articles, Paris became gradually highly interested in Gaillard’s ball. Several people sent in applications for invitations, when they had been forgotten, and if they did not receive any after all, they simply bought one of somebody else. The ticket-speculators found on this occasion a new trade district, and their d6but on this field was so lucrative that they may continue the business. Here and there in the Fau- bourg world, there may yet have been those that were old-fash- ioned enough to consider this invitation, coming from a perfect stranger, an insult ; but the Faubourg plays but a small part in the social life of the day. The majority of the 5000 accepted, and there were, among these 5000, notabilities enough to spread SOIREES. 191 the glory over the crowd. The host stood, in a magnificent Francois I. costume, at the head of the stairs to receive his guests. When their right to admission had been rectified by the controllers, the trumpets were blown and the procession passed by him between two rows of halberdiers. It was unequaled as a historical procession. At the supper the 5000 were regaled with the choicest dishes from all parts of the world, and during the entire night fountains flowed with the costliest wines. The Gaillard ball was an unequaled success. The end toward which Parisian soiree life had striven, step for step, was here reached at one bold leap. The evening in the Blois palace was an innova- tion. A fete must be like this one in the future if it is to meet the social demands. Then it will correspond to the high pressure under which we live, the feverish excitement, the great neurosis of our day. XIX. Funerals. T HE Parisians do not fear death ; their revo- lutions and the many revolver dramas that are the order of the day prove how little rever- ence they have for it. The thought of it does not conjure up to them the same mystic, frightful fantasies that it does to the Germanic races. But, in spite of this, they have as much respect for the dead as any nation, and never meet a funeral procession without deferentially uncover- ing their heads. There is, however, more courtesy than grief in this custom. They try to please the dead, and give him that which he appreciated most when he was alive. When, on All Souls’ day, the crowds pass the graves of the most famous and popular men, they turn a corner of their visiting cards and put them in between the bars of the railing, that the object of this atten- tion may know that they have been there in person. But they do not waste many tears over their dead ; there is no time to worry and grieve ; life in this great city demands of them that they should live for the living, not for the dead. The procession on All Souls’ day is, for most families, the only visit to the cemetery that they find time to make in the course of the year. They call upon their dear departed on the first of November, as they do on their living relations and friends on New Year’s day. But all the honor that can be shown without loss of time is carefully given to them ; there is no place where mourning is deeper and is of longer duration than in Paris. The bereaved widow or daughter does not only dress in black, but envelops herself from head to foot in clouds of crepe veiling. The carriages and horses are covered 192 FUNERALS. 193 with crepe, and even a servant, if she is of French blood, does not take off her mourning until after the regulation two years. As to the funeral itself, the French capital reaches, without doubt, the full height of pomp and extrava- gance that can be displayed in carrying a man to his last resting-place. The great undertaker’s firm in the Rue d’Aubevilliers has the exclu- sive privilege of the profession and all that be- longs to it. About 500 pall-bearers come there every morning, 150 hearses of all descriptions stand ready to be drawn out, large storerooms are filled with palls and draperies for churches and portals, while in others are kept thousands of chandeliers, candelabra, and torches. Under the building are basements, almost like real catacombs, filled with a smell of fir-wood, so strong that it almost chokes one. About 20,000 coffins stand in long rows on top of each other, ready for their occupants. In a corner stand about fifty hand-carts, with a peculiar kind of wheels, painted green, covered with black net, and hermetically closed ; they are only used when some horrible epidemic decimates the population. They have, fortunately, not been in use in our generation, but are ready to be turned out at a moment’s notice. In another is still kept — as if it were feared that they might be needed some day — a collection of hand-carts, used during the siege ; the ordinary hearses could not have been used ; people would have seized the horses to eat them. The company has offices and agents in all quarters of the city. As soon as the great reaper has visited a house, the family sends word to one of these offices, which take upon themselves to do everything. In a city as large as Paris death notices in the paper would not suffice ; the business men in the suburbs, who cannot afford to do much, simply close their stores and put up a hand-written notice, telling their customers of the death, and naming the day of the funeral ; but in the city it is only the very poor that do not send out a printed card. In the name of each 194 PARIS OF TO-DAY. and all of the surviving relatives, named one after another, people are informed that so and so has departed and that he will be buried on such and such a day and from such and such a place. The office has the printing and distribution of these cards done so quickly that the friends of the deceased often receive the death notice, in due form, a few hours after the catastrophe. There is no time to lose on such occasions ; it is the law that the body should be out of the house before twenty-four hours have passed, and, only a very few being able to have it kept in another place, it has become a custom to inter it at the same time. When one dies on Sunday, he sleeps, on Tuesday, under the ground, and with however great pomp they may have paid him their last tribute, he is, nevertheless, on Wednesday out of sight out of mind, or at least heard of no more in Paris. Simul- taneously with sending the death notice to the printers, the office sends its representative to the house of mourning. He is always a very distinguished and discreet gentleman, in a correct black coat, carrying under his arm a large morocco-leather portfolio, from which he brings forth a number of printed circulars, while he assures you, with a sympathetic lowering of the voice, that you need not trouble yourself about anything at all ; he under- stands the situation and you may safely leave all to him. The only thing he must necessarily know is which class you would prefer. The company has nominally nine classes of funerals, but practically sixteen, the first seven being divided into numbers I and 2. It is the hearse that makes the great difference in the classes. Formerly, the luxury of silver ornaments and plumage decorations were reserved for kings, princes, and other grands sei- gneurs ; ordinary mortals were carried to their graves in the way still used in the country. The hearse was, for every one, the richest as well as the poorest, a simple black cart, drawn by two black horses ; but it was not long before money made its influ- ence felt, and there is now a ladder of sixteen steps, from the poor hearse, 14 francs, up to the hearse of the first class, No. 1, that costs — the expenses of the cortege included — at least 1636 francs. The cortege consists (aside from the carriages, of which there may be at least three, drawn by four horses) of uniformed pall-bearers, very different from the usual croquemorts, and of the exceedingly elegant master of ceremonies, who carries a I 95 first-class” hearse. 196 PARIS OF TO-DA V. rapier and wears knickerbockers, cocked hat, and shoes with large silver buckles. This functionary’s profession is one that requires a gymnastic education, and, moreover, a pliable back and a voice at the same time solemn and penetrating, so that, at the moment when the funeral is to start, he may say with due effect : “ Quand. cela plaira h la famillel ’ He must have well-formed limbs, and beyond all be very dignified, for he is the one who carries the decorations of the deceased on a crepe-covered velvet cushion. All included, the decoration of the house, the porch, the cata- falco in front of the church, and the decorations inside, a funeral of first class, No. 1, will cost about six thousand francs. And this does not even embrace the fitting up of the coffin, nor the gifts to the poor. If the proper liberality is displayed it is not impossible that the family may have to pay about ten thousand francs for a funeral of the best class. It is not to be ascertained to how much the offerings of sympathetic friends and acquaintances may amount ; the mani- festations of sympathy must correspond to everything else ; a few modest bouquets on the coffin would not suffice to reach one’s aim of sending a noticeable token of respect. It would be neces- sary to buy a wreath so large that it takes ten persons to carry it; this, then, follows immediately after the hearse, and the crowd that have gathered on the sidewalk manifest their appro- bation, by clapping more and more vehemently the larger it is. At the great funerals of some popular hero, when the entire population joins the funeral procession in corporations, hundreds of these wreaths may be carried through the streets. But even if it be done quite simply, it is, nevertheless, an expensive affair to be buried on the banks of the Seine. If one does not want to be taken for a pauper, it is necessary to give the de- parted a funeral of at least fifth class, No. 2. Even as far down the ladder as this, the expenses amount to over five hundred francs. All church affairs come very high in Paris, and this is perhaps not the only reason that civil funerals have become more and more common. On such occasions the procession simply gathers at the portal of the house, which is decorated in black silver- fringed draperies, and goes from there to the cemetery, where the nearest relatives or friends say a few words in praise of the FUNERALS. 197 deceased, and, if they are very democratic and fashionable, close the grave with some profound words like those in which an ultra democratic father, a short time ago, bid his son farewell. “ Fare- well, my child ! ” he said ; “ farewell, citi- zen ; for you were a citizen of the future, who, at least, had the advantage of not being baptized. You return now to the great Nothing, for the soul is only the child of su- perstition, which reality does not acknowledge.” The very cemetery is covered with gold. A perma- nent lot, that is, one where the body is allowed to remain undis- turbed for ninety- nine years, costs seven hundred francs, as long as it does not exceed two metres. For every two metres over, the prices are gradually raised ; first it is one thou- sand, then fifteen hundred francs, and when it is over six metres, two thousand francs for every additional two metres. It is only just that the luxury of the land, even in a cemetery, should be paid for, especially where the ground is as dear as in Paris. The com- mune takes in yearly a million and a half francs for the sale of permanent burial places, and about a million for those bought for a shorter time. They are generally taken for five years at a time, at the end of which the buyer has a right to renew the GIGANTIC WREATH.’ * The above represents one of the monumental wreaths which were carried at the funeral pageant held in honor of Victor Hugo. — [Amer. Ed.] 198 PARIS OF TO-DA V. ' purchase by paying once more his fifty francs, and the terror of the Parisians for la fosse commune is such that even the poorest make use of this privilege. Fifty francs every five years is certainly not a fortune, but when one earns twenty sous a day it may be very hard to procure them. An old woman has just recently been talked about who did not earn any more, and who, although she was in great need, saved sou after sou that she might at last have the money necessary to keep her son’s grave, the only thing she loved in this world. She came, on the day of pay- ment, happy to be able to bring the money, but she re- ceived the same answer as so many others : the renewal was impossible. The cemetery had to be relaid that they might gain ground, and she would be obliged to buy a new grave somewhere else. But the removal of the body was not included in the same price, and as it was absolutely impossible for her to procure the money needed 'to pay for this, too, her son was, after all, put in the great common grave, and her sorrow over this was so keen, that after a short while she was carried there herself. praying for the dead in the With the exception of this tragical CREMATORY CHAPEL. , . , . . , , , -j.i ending her story might be said to be that of many others. Sure of their right to renewal, they come at the end of the five years, and are informed that a removal will be necessary, and this always means new expenses. The Parisians have, therefore, with great interest, witnessed FUNERALS. 199 the erection of the new crematory on P&re Lachaise. The build- ing, looking like a mosque, in which the necessary rooms are being built, is not yet finished at this writing, but the oven is already in use, and to judge from the results obtained at the trials they have made with unrecognized bodies from the hospitals, it seems to perform its functions satisfactorily. When it will be ready for public use there is hardly any doubt that it will be in great demand. Everything is done that is possible to remove all that might seem brutal and hurt people’s feelings before they are yet hardened to this new method. The oven is not lighted till after the body is put in ; wood is used for the heating, which never exceeds 6oo° centigrade ; the cremation lasts one hour and one-half, and not the slightest odor can be perceived. The family and friends of the deceased are shown into a large hall, looking like a chapel, where the ceremonies of the different sects are performed as they are now in the churches, and where people may at any time pray for the dead. When the cremation pro- cess is finished, the ashes are gathered and kept in an urn. Those that want to economize and limit the expenses to the cremation may have their urns placed in the large, municipal, common grave ; those that can afford luxury may have urns of gold and silver, and have monuments erected over them as they have now over their graves. Cremation does not need to make any break in the final disposition of the remains of the dead. The only gain is that the ceremony and the expenses are consid- erably simplified, and this is a change that might seem necessary. SOI XX. Parisian Ticket Speculators. T HERE are still people who seem to think that the theatre is the focus of Parisian glory, the central point of attraction for the pilgrims who seek this modern Mecca ; and because of this belief the impressionable Seine capital suffers regularly every autumn from an attack of the most alarming fear. Tout Paris has not yet returned from the pleasures of the hunt ; the stars are on their summer tournees, the theatres have not been able to finish the rehearsals of the great plays reserved for the winter campaign, and are temporarily obliged to live on the old pieces. It may, consequently, happen that some theatre once in a while will be only half filled ; the news of this calamity spreads with lightning speed through the town, and for each time it is repeated, the mortification grows. The managers prepare for a strike, and let it be understood that they will find themselves under the inevitable necessity of closing if the State does not step in and 203 OPPOSITE THE VAUDEVILLE THEATRE. 204 PARIS OF TO-DAY. assist them. Each and every well-disposed citizen considers him- self in duty bound to rack his brains to find a means to prevent the crisis. But this abnormal state, fortunately, seldom lasts longer than the snow that falls in the Paris streets. In one night the wind may change and transform winter into spring, and one evening’s success alters the situation completely. One great premiere follows another ; everybody wants to go to the theatre, and nobody succeeds in getting there. It is once more a Herculean task to procure a ticket ; it has to be ordered months in advance, or to be paid with hun- dreds of francs. A wave of indignation sweeps over Paris ; the authorities are called upon to interfere ; there is a threat of an in- terpellation in the chambers, and it is feared that serious trouble may arise if there is not soon done something to satisfy the theatre- hungry public. The want of the theatre has been changed into the want of the Parisians to go to the theatre, and that is the normal state. This is, of course, first of all the re- sult of this nation’s exceptional craving for dramatic effect, and the great ability of those who are called upon to satisfy this craving ; but there are a few other reasons which deserve to be mentioned, and one of the most important of them is the ticket speculator. The business of a Parisian ticket speculator is an excellent one. Millions of francs pass yearly through his hands, and the matadors of the profession earn more than many a successful manager. They have their own private mansions, horses, and carriages, etc. It is not only a good business, but quite a respected one, as almost any business is now in Paris, when it is sufficiently remunerative. In free America, work ennobles any profession ; in the Americanized Paris it is the same. The Pariahs of ticket speculators, the lazzaroni that are hired to carry on the business in detail in the streets, may yet once in a while have a conflict with the police, for there are still a few THEATRE-HUNGRY. THEA TRES. 205 antediluvian rules that a pretense is made of enforcing when the public makes serious complaints. But those that really do the business, the speculators en gros, are never molested. The SOCIETY LIONS SELLING PROGRAMS AT $4 APIECE AT CHARITABLE PERFORMANCES. theatre itself holds its protecting hands over them, for they are an indispensable wheel in the machinery, without whose help nothing could succeed. Authors, managers, and actors equally need their services. The authors have, in fact, laid the founda- 206 PARIS OF TO- DA V. tion of their business. Apart from the percentage, which varies from eight to fifteen per cent., the author gets a certain amount of tickets for each performance, never under fifty, often about a hundred. Sometimes it may happen that one who makes his ddbut uses them all to send applauding friends and acquaintances to the theatre, but this is exceptional. Most authors consider these tickets an integration of their receipts, and make their ar- rangements with the ticket speculator before the first perform- ance. These generally buy them u en bloc" for the whole suite of performances, for about half of the ordinary prices asked at the box-office. This is for the author a regular income of some hun- dred francs an evening, and the speculator may become rich on one business affair of this kind, when the piece meets with success. When everything is sold out at the ticket-office he can easily ask a lonis d'or apiece for his fauteuils, for when there is anything that the Parisians are especially anxious to see, something that they consider it incompatible with their social position not to have witnessed, they have gradually grown accustomed to overlook the pecuniary sacrifices that it involves. The leading ladies in high life have of late invented the large charitable performances, to which the ticket unhesitatingly was decreed to cost a hun- dred francs. The most renowned society lions stand at the entrance, selling programs at a louis apiece; all dramatic stars compete for the honor of assisting, and all Paris must consequently be at the festival, cost what it may. The opera, and even other theatres that have had occasion to do so, have, at different gala representations, followed the tempting example of the hundred franc ticket. The Parisian view of what may be paid for an admission, when the seats are in great demand, has thereby gradually been considerably widened, and the speculator’s prices are therefore not considered exorbitant. If he gets twenty francs a seat he may, the percentage to the street vender deducted, have a net profit of up to fifteen francs on each of his “author’s tickets.” If the piece does not draw well, the cry “ moins cher qu au bureau ” sounds in chorus at the entrance, and always entices people to buy. They know very well that they do not run any risks in sparing these few francs. The ticket is valid, and is, being numbered, even better than any bought at the office in the evening. For among the many peculi- THEA TEES. 207 arities of Parisian theatre arrangements, is also the one that no reserved seats are sold at ordinary prices ; one has to buy a ticket of admission to some part of the house, and it is the business of the “ ouvreuses” to assign the seats. The tickets which it is for- bidden to sell, that is, those given to the actors and other persons belonging to the theatre, are not sold in the street, but there is nevertheless a regular traffic carried on with them. Supernumeraries and other inferior functionaries, who are always paid very badly in Paris, try their best to make a little extra money by selling the tickets given them. In the rear of a house in the Rue Montmartre, and in still another place on the left bank, they can be bought for a mere trifle. The old woman in the Rue Montmartre still keeps the very prices she had twenty years ago — four francs for two seats. She only sells to people who are recommended by old customers ; the sale is made behind carefully closed doors ; the buyer must give a solemn promise that he will never, under any circumstances, say anything but that he has had the tickets given to him, and is at the same time earnestly asked not to make any objection to the seats assigned him, however bad they may be. But her mystical secrecy is entirely superfluous ; the origin of these tickets is very well known at the theatre, and if the person who presents them is well dressed, they always give him the best seats they can dispose of. The Parisian of the middle classes, the government official whose small income would otherwise not permit him to go to the theatre, is, by the Rue Montmartre woman’s help, able to allow himself this luxury once in a while. And if he puts on his best clothes, he may almost always count on witnessing the perfor- mance with his wife and daughter from a box that would cost six times as much at the ticket office. It is chiefly for the Theatre Frangais and Odeon, and more especially the latter, that this woman has tickets. The managers themselves may probably in some way put them at her disposal. The Odeon is so large that it can only on rare occasions be filled by regular sale, for, being supported by the State, it does not dare to have anything to do with the ordinary ticket speculators. As far as the private theatres are concerned such a traffic is quite common. The speculator’s arrangement with the author only serves as a basis for the plain, every-day business that may be very 2o8 PARIS OF TO-DA Y. lucrative but never enough so to make him a millionaire. For this he needs the help of the manager, who in Paris seldom is a Croesus. When he has to bring out a new piece that involves many expenses, he may sometimes be in a sad dilemma. People out of his own profession are not very willing to lend him money, for it needs an experienced eye to know if a theatre has a firm footing or not. Then the speculator steps in. He knows exactly how matters stand ; he always has the necessary ready money, and he is very willing to let his friend the manager have it in advance ; that is, of course, if he has confidence in the play that is to be given. It is not a loan, however — simply a sale ; the manager is to give him in return for the money a “ conces- sion” : a certain number of tickets for so many of the first per- formances. They are, of course, not paid for as they would be at the ticket office, but the arrangement is, nevertheless, quite respectable, and nobody could say about the noble business man that he was practising usury, — he is simply speculating like every one else. If the piece is a failure, his money is lost, and there have been seen such total failures in Paris that the play only was given two or three times. But it must be added that the speculators never have been known to buy a “concession ” for any of these. Their preconception of the fate of a piece seems really to be a sixth sense with them, and people have come to look upon a large preconcession on a play as an absolute guaran- tee of its success. Superstitious managers — and managers are always more or less superstitious — hardly ever omit to make an arrangement of this kind, even if they do not need it. And they do wisely ; what they may lose on the first performance is gained by the long run the play will have ; for, the more interest the speculators have in it, the more they consequently do to let everybody understand that it is absolutely necessary to have seen this play if they want to be an jour with what happens in Paris. They are almighty. Their position as chiefs of the “ claque ” may be of less importance, but they have an under- standing of how to advertise a play that almost amounts to art, and they have, through so many different sources, such a hold on the press, that it is sometimes hardly more than their blind follower. All through the winter Paris witnesses great theatre successes that are perfectly incomprehensible. Given in any other country THE A TEES. ] »•» the same play would be the most decided failure, and yet the Parisians are one of the most particular and artistic of all people. One tries in vain to understand what the attraction can have been in this tiresome nonsense. But when one looks into le dessous des cartes , it will soon be found that a great “ concession ” has been made to the speculators. This is the secret of the suc- THE TICKET AGENT IN THE SALOON ROUND THE CORNER. cess much oftener than one would imagine. But apart from this one arrangement with the speculators, the managers make many others with these great men. First of all for the premieres. It is said that the whole house is given away to Parisian notabilities, and it has become a phrase that people believe, as they believe many other things, without questioning. The fact is that at one of these premieres one can scan the whole theatre without seeing more than a very few of these notabilities, the journalists always excepted. It is also a fact that, in spite of the great demand for seats, there can almost always be had tickets in the saloon 210 PARIS OF TO-DAY. on the corner, where the speculator’s agent has a plan of the theatre and carries on his business openly. The available seats are even so numerous that one can have almost any if he will pay the price. However good the speculator’s connections may be, it seems almost impossible that the Parisian notabilities should offer him for sale the tickets given them, and the Theatre Frangais premieres prove that this is by no means the case. He never has but a few seats in the gallery for these. It is one of the rules of this theatre that these tickets shall be sold in the even- ing at the office, and he can only obtain them by waiting there from the early morning. They are all willing enough to do that, for after all it pays ; even if one cannot see much from the gal- lery, there is always some young man ready to give twenty francs that he may put on his dress suit — and be able to tell that he has been present at a premiere in the Theatre Frangais. But even if an American millionaire comes to Paris expressly to see a premiere of one of Dumas’ or Pailleron’s pieces, and offers several thou- sand francs, as they have been known to do, for a fauteuil, it is not possible for him to get any. Parisian notabilities are like all others, not disposed to do any chaffering. It is the manager that does these things, and the tickets given away for the premieres become fewer and fewer. He knows how much he can make in such an evening with the help of the speculator, and he needs this extra money more and more as the expenses increase with the years. All the tickets that he can dispose of are sent to the saloon, and he and the speculator divide the profit. The premilre, that formerly brought in no money at all, now brings more than any of the other performances. A fauteuil to Sardou’s “ Theodora” is in the morning worth three hundred francs, and the sale is so large that toward even- ing five hundred francs is asked for one. At ordinary premieres the ticket bought in the saloon costs as many louis d'or as it generally costs francs, consequently twenty times as much. On such’ occasions people only talk of louis d'or , and do not mind how much money they spend. They like to show themselves in the foyer between the acts, and have the satisfaction of being thought one of the Parisian notabilities by people who are as common, every-day people as they are themselves. If the play is a success, the partnership with the speculator is continued THE A TRES. 2 1 1 through a number of performances. The ticket-office is only opened for the sake of appearances, and people are, however early they may come, met with the astonishing information that everything is sold for the first fifteen or twenty performances. Great efforts have often been made to prevent this, and, during the Exposition of ’78, the manager of the Op6ra, Halanzier, tried to put a stop to the speculators’ enterprises. The tickets for the opera were always sold in advance. It was impossible to get any at the office, while at the same time a number of persons stood outside offering reserved seats for sale to the passers-by. Halanzier forbade the functionaries to sell tickets to speculators or to anybody connected with them. The police offered their assistance, and did all in their power to oppose them, but they continued their traffic in spite of everything. It was then decided that no ticket should be given out if the buyer did not leave name and address, which were to be written on the ticket, a precaution that was later adopted by the other three private thea- tres. People came in equipages with many- colored decorations in their buttonholes ; they proved their right to their titles and left their address, and they received tickets that on the very same evening were sold outside of the theatre. Halanzier then watched over the sale and signed the tickets himself. Boxes were demanded under renowned names on paper with initials and authentic signatures. Equipages, names, paper, signatures, all came from the same place, and were used by an ingenious speculator, who, in spite of all these expenses in the six months of the Exposition, made a fortune of 300,000 francs. His colleagues are not less shrewd, but since then the partnership with the managers has opened new prospects for them, and in spite of all that is done to destroy it, the business will flourish while Paris is still filled with foreign- ers who offer thousands to see and be seen at a premiire. H U MONSIEUR MUST CESSARILY BE JOUR.” NE- ‘ AU XXI. The Theatre Fran^ais “Republic.” I T is not only the plays given in the Theatre Frangais, nor the way in which they are brought on the stage, that makes this institution so unique. It has another still more remarkable point of interest: its form of management. While the Republic passes from one crisis to the other with everything else in Paris, this play-house continues to reign quietly here, as sure of its future as it is proud of its past. It is an uplifting and comfort- ing sight for all brave republicans. When the Phrygian cap has been able to gather the actors, it is to be hoped that it will not be long before it will unite all ordinary people. The Theatre Frangais is a true republic ; its chief does not even have the title of “ directeur,” but is simply called “Administrateur de la Conit- die Franqaise." He is the president, but by no means the ruler; the ruling power is in the hand of the socittaires, the pillars of this stage, who are not only engaged for a certain number of years, but who cannot be discharged before they send in their aia THE THEATRE FRANQAIS “ REPUBLIC .” 213 resignation in old age and live on their pension, and who, besides the ordinary salary, get a considerable percentage of the income of the theatre. This arrangement was originally made after the Revolution ; the main part of the two societies into which les comMiens Fran^ais had been divided decided to continue to play under the control of the government, but, in fact, at their own expense and risk. The joint stock consisted of twenty-five shares, that were to belong to the members," les socittaires." Cer- tain by-laws were made, and according to one of them every actor who became a member received at once a quarter share. In 1803 the State granted them 100,000 francs, and increased the amount little by little, until at last, in 1856, it had reached as far as 240,000, the sum that is still given. In return for this help the government demanded the right to superintend the man- agement, a sort of presidency over the republic. But as well in the famous Moscow decree, given by Napoleon from his headquarters in Russia in 1812, as in the modifications made in 1850 and ’59 by his nephew, the original association was always named as the basis of the organ- ization. Pensionnctires are en- gaged for a certain number of years and on the usual terms, but this position is generally only a transitional one, for, as soon as their talent has been sufficiently proved, they are made socFtaires, first with a quarter of a share, and later, when their light shines in all its glory, with the entire share. There are still twenty-five of these, and one share gives, besides the yearly salary of twelve thousand francs, a percentage of the profit. Half of this sum is deposited, the other half paid out, and this may, in a fortunate year, be so REICHEMBERG. 214 PARIS OF TO-DAY. great that the highest societaires have had an income of sixty thousand francs. The interest of the money deposited is used for the pensions, and the principal sum is paid out to the socie- taire when he leaves the stage. He has a right to resign after twenty years’ service, and his pension is then five thousand francs a year, to which is added two hundred francs for every year he remains beyond these twenty; when to this is added the principal, he is guarded against material need. It is, however, seldom that he leaves at the end of the twenty years. The air at the Theatre Fran^ais seems to have the qualities of the fountain of youth. Delaunay was past sixty when he still charmed the BROISSAT. public as a romantic lover, and actresses like Reichemberg and Broissat continue to look eighteen years old through long decennaries. If, however, they want to retire while they are still young, nobody can prevent them from having their pen- sion and capital, but they are, of course, obliged not to make their appearance on any other stage in Paris. The laws of the Fran^ais do not only give the societaires a right to its gold, but also to a share in the government of the theatre. L' admhiistrateur general, appointed by the State, super- intends the business matters, while all that relates to the art is decided by the societaires, through a committee consisting of six members and two deputies. It is this committee that, through le semainier , a different member for each week, maintains the 215 THE GREEN-ROOM AT THE THEATRE FRANCA1S. 21 6 PARIS OF TO-DAY. order in Molidre’s house, and guides the rehearsals, and the same that elects the new societaires, so that the administrator’s voice is the deciding one only in case the other voices should be equally divided. The repertoire is never decided upon without the advice of this committee, that also decides whether the pieces sent in should be accepted or not. The committee is, of course, not able to read all the manuscripts sent in by benevolent authors, who leave dozens of them every day with the concierge. They are, therefore, sent to a trustworthy person, who, after a more or less hasty perusal of the work, decides whether it would be good to submit it to a closer trial. This is generally not the case, and after a few weeks the masterpiece is sent back to the author, carefully wrapped up and accompanied by an amiable little letter, stating in the most courteous way that his piece was most excellent, but that for some reason or other it was not ex- actly suited for the house of Molifere. He has this document framed and is happy for the rest of his life. He may sometimes even, by its help, after a long and patient perseverance, suc- ceed in being played at the Ambassadeurs or at /’ Horloge. But, if for some reason or other it is decided that he should be executed with greater solemnity, his manuscript is sent to the societaires' committee. This worthy areopagus meets, and he re- ceives an invitation to present himself and read his piece aloud. The theatre has for this especial purpose a sombre hall, with the portraits of all the departed great masters, where the solemn act takes place. Quietly and patiently these gentlemen listen to the reading, however long it maybe, and immediately afterwards the votes are taken without any previous conference. In nine cases out of ten the vetoes are in absolute majority, and in the tenth the acceptation is generally followed by the condition that it be done, “ a correction .” Sometimes this may be very well meant ; they may have found one of the parts worth playing, may have discovered some good ideas that would show themselves to better advantage if the form were changed ; but as a rule “it cor- rection ” is but a civil phrase, an easy way of saying yes, when they mean no. They may have to do with an author with whom it might be well to be on a good footing, and are consequently afraid of hurting his feelings. He is then — while they appreciate the excellence of his work to the utmost — asked to make a few 217 THE THEATRE FRANQAIS “REPUBLIC." small modifications. They want him to put to the right what he had put to the left, to have a few of the principal characters re- modeled, the plot changed, etc. When these few changes are done the author is asked to read it once more, and his play is again accepted, but unfortunately only — cl correction. The same worthy superiority repeats itself everywhere in Moli&re’s house ; it is over the outward appearance as well as over all the actions of the theatre republic. The building is noble, even a little venerable, without any tendency to being conspicuous ; all the rooms are elegant, comme il faiit , and free from any trace of opera magnificence ; from the vestibule, with the imposing marble statues, to the foyer, with Houdon’s incomparable Voltaire, and the ad- joining gallery, where the heroes of French literature look down from their twisted socles, it is so awe-inspiring that people involuntarily soften their steps on the polished floors. Everybody has a supe- rior air, from the* porter in his green coat, who stands as a Cerberus outside of the ad- ministration entry, to keep all profaners at a distance, and les huissiers in knickerbockers and long silver chains, to the audience who assembles there in the real season. In the sum- mer, during the invasion of foreigners, one may see red Bsedeckers and gray traveling dresses, even in the Theatre Fran- cis, but the Parisian, when he comes there, never allows himself such a profanation. He may sit in his fauteuil and yawn over Racine and Corneille, but he always sits there in a costume worthy of his surroundings. For, although the Theatre Fran- 9ais is a republic, it is an aristocratic republic, with the exquisite manners and Athenian style that belongs to the Seine capital. This may be the reason that success crowns the house of Moli£re, which can teach the great republic how to behave itself if it wants to flourish. XXII. The Diva of the Eighties. lyj^ADAME JUDIC has, without exception, been the favorite diva of the Parisian theatre world dur- ing the past decennary. Sarah Bernhardt’s star had reached its zenith already in the seventies, and when the serious war shadows began to disperse, and the light Parisian liumor once more made its entry into the city, it was perhaps more than a mere whim that sent the great tragedienne on her tournee in the old and new worlds. The taste once more became that of the last days of the Empire, and it was Hortense Schneider’s fol- lower that was lifted on the pedestal of Parisian admiration ; and the new queen proved vvorthy of her throne. Judic’s art is not superior, — superior art does not, on the whole, belong to the eighties, — but it is true Parisian, and will, because of this, extend beyond the decennary that was the witness of her first triumphs. It is about twenty years ago that she prepared for her first battle to conquer the Parisians, and she was only seventeen years old. She commenced full of enthusi- asm, dreaming of the promised land her art should lead her into. It is this faith in success that is the artist’s religion, that helps him through all defeats, and brings him victory at last, and the 218 JUDIC. THE DIVA OF THE EIGHTIES. 219 greater he is, the more fervent this faith. It had been hard to obtain permission to knock at the door of this promised land, but she had been drawn toward it from her earliest years ; she had grown up just outside of it. Her mother, a niece of Montigny, was Billettrice at the Theatre du Gymnase and her eldest sister sat at the desk in the theatre cafe. She was there from morning till night, its adopted daughter and spoiled child. The elite of the guests, — Augier, Sandeau, Gozlau, Bayard, Lambert, Thiboust, ’ Scholl, Bressant, Roqueplan, Geoffroy, Landrol, — adored little Anna Damiens, their wild, dark-curled bambinetta d' 'amove, that ran around and cheered them with her fresh laugh and large black eyes. She could never have become anything but just what she became, and nobody doubted her vocation. Lesueur ordained her. One evening he poured a few drops from his glass over the little head that had hidden in his lap, and said, “I baptize you an actress. Grow up, make your debut, and fight your way. I prophesy that you will draw the whole of Paris to the theatre.” The then ten-year-old child remembered these words, and knew from that moment what she wanted to be. The plans of her parents were, however, different. They sent her to a lingerie on the Boulevard des Italiens, but she was not to be conquered. She first refused to eat, and really starved for two days, so that her mother was obliged to take her out of the sew- ing-school, and when the experiment was repeated she swore that she would commit suicide if she were not allowed to go on the stage. The matter was put before Montigny, who decided that it could not do any harm to try her to see if she had any talent. He sent her to the Conservatory, and made her study under Reg- nier, but this was not what she had dreamt of. The Alexan- drines bored her, and to get rid of them she made a bold stroke of genius, — she married. M. Judic, who has left her a widow, was no genius ; he never took any other part in her artistic life than that of being her husband. But he helped her faithfully over the trials of poverty, and the first disappointments, and made later a splendid business manager. She had a son and a daughter, now almost grown up, and she led a quiet bourgeois life that gave her the great quietude necessary to develop an artistic nature, and ripen the fine, finished art that is Judic’s greatest charm. A mar- ried woman, even if only seventeen, could not, of course, go to 220 PARIS OF TO-DAY. school; she left Regnier, and her Uncle Montigny gave her, as a wedding-present, a promise of her debut and an engagement at twelve hundred francs a year. The great day came ; it was the opening day of the season, September i, 1867, that she made her debut in a vaudeville drama by Cadol and Busnach, as Rachel had made her debut thirty years before on the same stage, in a similar play and a similar part. Although Judic did not meet with an absolute failure, her debut passed as unnoticed as Rachel’s had done. Nobody discovered in her the future diva. They thought, at the utmost, that she might be used, and her uncle assigned her the parts accordingly. She had quite a good many, but one was more serious and tiresome than the other. She had, fortunately, her honeymoon to keep up her spirits, and, apart from that, many good friends. Celine Chaumont’s husband was one of them ; he was something of a musician, and wrote little witty songs which Madame Judic sang, and she did this so well that her friends got an idea ; they were sure she would succeed as a cafd-chantant singer. There was felt no prejudice against this profession. In the Parisian art world every line is respected if only the work done proves itself superior. M. Judic was slightly acquainted with the manager of the Eldorado, who tried his wife and engaged her on terms that were considered splendid. She was to have four hundred francs a month for the first year, five hundred the next, and six hundred the third. But the manager made it a condition that he could give her notice to leave after the first month if not satisfied. He did not do this, however. Madame Judic’s second debut was very different from her first. She sang a little song called “ La pre- miere feuille , ” and created with it the style she now excels in. With an innocent, childlike laughter, she threw the kernels of the forbidden fruit in the very face of the audience. It was subau- dition raised to art, and this suited the taste of the Parisians. They all wanted to hear Judic at the Eldorado, as they had for- merly wanted to hear Ther^se. Everybody would write songs and monologues for her ; in every concert hall they tried to sing in Judic’s way; the star had not only risen, but had also found satellites. It was not difficult to see now that she could be used outside of the tribune, but the Eldorado manager would not let go of his treasure, and it was the war that broke her THE DIVA OF THE EIGHTIES. 221 •ngagement as it had broken so many others. After that, all managers and authors wanted her. Sardou and Offenbach con- quered ; she undertook to create the success of the fairy play “ Roi Carotte,” at the Gait6. The play not being quite finished, she played at the Folies Bergbres, that was just opened, and gave, with a few songs, to the establishment a reputation of Parisianism which it has kept ever since, in spite of the horrible non- sense that has reigned there. The Parisians remember her song “Ne me chatouillez pas ” to this day, as they remember all her later triumphs; they have never seen any greater and more uninterrupted. Wherever she came she was favored by for- tune, and filled the house and the cash-box. The greatest nonsense would create a success when she sang it. In this way she went from the Gait<§ to the Bouffes, and from the Bouffes to theVari£t£s. Whatshehasmade out of “Niniche, ” of “ Rous- sotte,” of “ Femme h Papa,” “ Lili,” “Mile. Nitouche” and “La Cosaque,” all written ex- pressly for her, is really unique in the theatre history of Paris. While she is continually keep- ing up this repertoire, she has 01 . JUDIC AS “MLLE. NITOUCHE. commenced to give a new glory to the old Offenbach op£rettes, and since the Varie- tes manager has undertaken the management of the Eden, she has also had her great triumphs there as “ Madame Angot’s daughter. ” What she excels in is execution ; this has always been the strength of the Parisians. They do not generally have much voice, but although they lack musical education, and hardly have any understanding of music, they know how to hum 222 PARIS OF TO-DAY. their little songs with incomparable soul and charm. And it is this talent that Madame Judic has developed to a point which has never been, and never will be surpassed. She plays well, and her parts, always written for her, and suited to her disposition, give her occasion to show new ability, but the songs are never- theless the center of her performance. Beautiful as she still is, with a finished mimic art, and an irresistible smile and large expressive eyes, that she lifts and casts down in a way of her own, she stands before the footlights and the audience is captivated at the first stanza. Her way of saying the words is so pointed, covering up in a peculiar way all the little allusions inseparable from a Judic song, and yet so explaining, so telling in its merri- ment, that people are doubled up with laughter before the song is through. Even those who do not understand the words are able to follow it. Judic’s song is the cover thrown over what could not very well be said clearly, and in this way her songs can be heard by everybody ; even the boarding-school principals in Passy send their young girls to the Varietes to hear Judic. Having reached the summit of admiration, she has always obtained the highest salaries. Her managers make her pay two thousand francs for every evening that she renounces on going abroad to make millions. She is very rich now, and it is not only in this respect that her life for the last twenty years has been like a fairy tale. When she married they were in very straitened circumstances. Before her debut at the Eldorado it was a great treat if she could make ten francs by singing at an Orph^on concert, and she has more than once, when she returned from the Gymnase with her husband, stopped outside of the charcuterie windows and whispered to him how well a piece of the pastry in there would taste with the dry bread that awaited them at home. When she returns from the theatre now, she rides in her own carriage, with her coachman and man-servant, to her mansion in the Rue Nouvelle, and it is one of the most artistically and luxuriously arranged houses in Paris. The walls are covered with Gobelin tapestries, made expressly for them ; the reception room is as large as a church hall and filled with the many extravagant and very expensive knick-knacks that modern Parisian taste demands in a well-furnished house. The dining- room is-a museum of pitchers and mugs in the renaissance style. JUDIC S DRESSING-ROOM AT THE EDEN THEA 223 224 PARIS OP TO-DAY. She rents a summer residence, a beautiful castle in Chatou, with a park that goes down to the Seine. Even her room in the theatre is an Eldorado of costliness and refined taste. At the Vari£t6s it was, unfortunately, very small, so that she rented a room in the Passage des Panoramas, in the house adjoining the theatre, had it covered with light blue silk, and spent her time between the acts there. But at the Eden the manager has been able to put at her dis- posal one of the former foyers of the first floor, a large room, where the walls disappear under a confusion of Japanese draperies, where there is always a smell of roses and lilacs, and where the light from the little Edison lamps is reflected in a multitude of glasses. Before the table in this salon sits, every evening, a doll dressed in the very costume worn by Judic on the stage ; it is made to look like her and all the effects of the different costumes are tried on it. Next to that is the dressing- room, behind a large screen of black silk, covered with all kinds of exotic figures in many colored embroidery. The main piece of furniture in this room is the large fire-proof safe, where her jewels are kept. It is immense, with heraldic iron mountings and a combination as mystical as if it were invented in the Middle Ages. When Madame Judic opens this safe, it reveals treasures like those of the Arabian Nights, — diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, and rubies, — and she covers herself with these ornaments before she goes on the stage, fastens aigrettes in her hair, rows of diamonds around her neck, and puts on stars and pins. But, for her the theatre is one existence, and life outside is another. She hardly ever wears a single ornament in private life and is still a type of a French bourgeoise. She amuses herself making her own bonnets, as she did when she lived in a garret in the Rue de la Fid£lit6, and it may even happen that she receives her callers with thread and needle in her hand, occupied with mending her children’s clothes. She never wears luxurious costumes, and it was hard for her at last to be obliged to give up her traditional blue waterproof and black merino dress. When she put them away, she said, in excuse, “ What can I do ? Since I have my own carriage, I am obliged to dress. I know my coachman ; he would refuse to drive for me if I were not decently dressed.” XXIII. Rising Stars. D RAMATIC artists are said, of all art- ists, to be the only ones that die alto- gether. Authors and composers, painters, sculptors, and architects all leave works, which for the coming generations stand as living proofs of their genius. But even of the very greatest actors there is nothing left behind but the grave that closed over them for ever. This theory is a little lame. The poor dramatic art- ists are less to be pitied than people would fain make one believe. In certain re- spec t s it may even be said that they are the only ones sure of im- m o r t ality. A 1 1 other greatnesses are continually discussed ; those of the stage, only, are, when once canonized, forever unassailable. Posterity can read the author’s work and shrug its shoulders at the ideas and forms that are no more current, but the laurels are still left on the actor’s brow, perhaps even fresher than when he lived. Criticism cannot 225 SITTING IN JUDGMENT. 226 PARIS OF TO-DAY. reach him ; there is nothing left of his work that it can attack ; one is obliged to take the evidence of his contemporaries, and his fame only increases the older this evidence becomes. It is a fact that true immortality consists in exercising the same influence over the coming generations as over one’s own ; to fill them with one’s ideas and views, and to this immortality the actors cannot, of course, aspire. The ideas have to be brought forth in order to be stamped with a personality, and it is the art of the actor to disguise himself. What he aspires to is to win applause with- out criticism, and of this he is surer after his death than during his life. But it is necessary that there should have been a full under- standing between him and his audience, that he has not left any of its demands unfulfilled, but has met them face to face. There is no room on the stage for misjudged geniuses. All his con- temporaries must have looked upon him as an ideal, superhuman being who personified everybody’s dreams of the noble and beau- tiful. Only the actor after whom all little girls have named their favorite cats and later on their children, only the actress in whose triumphal procession all the young generation has taken part, may hope to shine as a fixed star on the dramatic firma- ment. There are as few stars of this kind in the Parisian heavens now, as there are anywhere else. The shop windows might give one the impression of a multitude of multitudes. But even be- fore photography was invented, the priests and priestesses of the stage have looked upon the frequent immortalization of their feature as one of the duties of their profession, and since the grasshopper swarms of photographers have inundated the coun- try, every young miss that has shown herself only once in the magic light of the stage, thinks that her life is by this event made so universally interesting that she must show herself off in a photo- graph. The pictures of General Boulanger, Jules Ferry, Alphonse Daudet, or Meissonnier disappear so entirely in a multitude of theatre princesses, more or less dtcolletdes, that only these last attract the eye, and picture to the stranger the heights of the glory of the Seine capital. But the greater majority of these are more ddcolletees than they are talented. Many actresses with a dramatic career before them look upon it as an ambitious man does on the journalistic career. They are both a kind of open- ing, one to the minister’s palace, the prefecture, or at least to the RISING STARS. 227 “ affaires ” that pay, the other to having a house of one’s own, an equipage, and somebody to furnish the pin-money. Mel- pomene’s cult, especially, has, during the last years, not lacked prominent priestesses. Since Sarah Bernhardt ventured out on the intricate ways of her travels, the Theatre Frangais has, of course, once in a while brought out a classical French tragedy, with a more or less tal- ented young actress ; but it has, nevertheless, decidedly missed 228 PARIS OF TO-DAY. its great tragic prima donna. Only in Aim£e Tessandier, the latest addition to its staff, it seems to have found one capable of filling the void. It is said that Tessandier, when she had signed the contract that was to bind her to the Theatre Frangais, dropped her pen and burst into tears. This emotion is easier to understand in her case than in many others. The heart is always moved when one is conscious of the realization of all one’s dreams of youth ; but it is still more moved the longer the way has been that led to the aim. And for Tessandier, it was very long. Nobody has commenced a career, much less a dra- matic career, as low down physically and morally, as she did. She is the daughter of a poor laborer in Bordeaux, and her childhood was passed in that city as best it might, with the chil- dren in the street, ragged and barefooted. When she grew to the age when one began to notice her black eyes and fiery bru- nette beauty, she was drawn into the life for which her child- hood had prepared her, and it was not long before she was one of the first in Cythere’s ranks. She was, however, all the time kept up by a burning longing for an artistic career, that was strong enough to make her tired of the life she led, and she was drawn irresistibly to the stage. She commenced studying with Wable, an old, very well known actor, and suddenly the rumor spread that she was to make her debut at the Theatre Frangais of Bordeaux. It awakened a sensation that is still remembered in that city ; the manager knew that it would, and put the debu- tante’s name in large letters on the placards, without considering how well known it was already, and that he thereby supported those who looked upon her debut as an attempt on her part to attract still more attention. The theatre was filled for the premiere. The play was “ La Dame aux Cam^lias.” As soon as the new Marguerite made her appearance she was received with a storm of hisses and cries ; rotten apples and potatoes were thrown on the stage, but Tessandier stood calm, although deathly pale, and waited. When, at the end of ten minutes, the noise ceased a little, she tried to say the first words of her lines. But this was only the signal for a new tumult. She waited once more, and it continued. In this way through all the five acts, every time she attempted to speak the commotion broke out again. From a performance like this nobody could, of course, RISING STARS. 229 form any opinion of her talent, but it was not difficult to see what might be expected from a will-power like hers. It did not last very long either, before she forced people to listen to her, and not only in Bordeaux. She soon came to Paris, and from different stages she finally reached the Od6on, where she was in her right place, when Shakespeare’s plays were brought out. After having seen her as Desdemona the critics said that France had a new tragedienne of high rank, and the performances that followed made the public of the same opinion. One winter she played Lady Macbeth at the Od6on, immediately after Sarah Bernhardt, who had taken the same character at the Porte Saint Martin, and it was indisputably Tes- sandierwho carried off the palm. Her outward ap- pearance gives her a great advantage over many of her predecessors. She has a majestic bearing, her head has the southern classical beauty, and there is over her whole person a grandeur and ardor that is of great assistance to her in her art. The energy with which she commenced her career has developed into an earnest love for her profession; she lives her part as nobody else ; her soul is in it, not only in the scenes where she knows that she can incite enthusiasm in her audience, but even in the slightest speech with which it is impossible to create any great effect, and her tears are of the kind that really roll down the cheeks. Her talent may possibly yet have some rough corners; it has never been trained in the Conserva- tory, but she is by nature formed for tragedy, and it is a talent 230 PARIS OF TO-DAY. like hers that was needed to bring French tragedy back to its old glory. Comedy has, however, always been more favored by Parisians ; they prefer laughing to crying, and on this field star has fol- lowed upon star with unchanging lustre. Jeanne Granier came after Judic and conquered the throne. She is the incarnation of the old French spirit, and it was more than an accident that the part in which her talent broke forth was the little duke in Lecoq’s well-known opdrette. If the Parisians idolize her as they do, it is because she builds a bridge between modern times and those when Paris was a paradise without any shadows, where there was only heard laughter and song, where the women were beautiful and the men full of gallantry, and where everybody thought only of enjoying life to the utmost. However great her triumphs have been in plays like “ La petite Mariee,” “ Madame le Diable,” and “ GirofH-Girofla,” or sometimes even in repeti- tions of the famous Offenbach operettes, she is never as irresisti- ble to her audience as when she wears high red heels, shirt frills and powdered wig, when she is transported to the Paris of Louis XV. People who understand these things assert that she salutes as they saluted in Versailles, dances as they danced in the Louve- ciennes, and rides horseback like Fontenoy cadets. Sport on the stage is her one great passion. She has assured all the au- thors who write plays for her, that she will consider her career a failure if she does not before her death appear in a play where she can shoot, fence, ride horseback, blow a trumpet, play on the harp and climb silken ladders ; in short, perform all the manly exercises that she has perfected herself in. She knows very well that her greatest attraction does not lie in feminine charm, — she has the beauty that the French call “ beautd de dia- ble ," — but there is in this face, with the funny little nose, the brown half-veiled eyes that sparkle with merriment, and the chin with its little dimple, a gay unconcern that drives away all mel- ancholy thoughts and captures the heart. Then Granier sings as only a Parisian woman can sing. Her family was not very much mistaken when it decided as soon as she was old enough that she should make singing her profession. They chose this way, because being born into the theatre world, as she was, it was thought to be more likely to keep her in the path of virtue RISING STARS. 231 than comedy. But the first part of this new path of life was not exactly rose-strewn. She is said to have been the quaintest little being imaginable when, at fourteen years, she presented herself to pass her examina- tion to enter the conservatory. Trembling with fear, she climbed up the stairs, and her white muslin dress being rather long she stepped on it in her excessive flurry, and made her entrance by measuring her length on the floor. She soon gained courage, however. When the competitors were entirely inadmissible it was the custom with a few vigorous strokes on a bell to inform them of the fact and make them retire before they had finished the first number. When Granier did not hear the bell, her spirits rose, and she went ahead at a wild speed, trying at the same time to turn the page for the accompanist, but the sight of one of her eyes was very weak, and she pulled the notes down every time ; then she would laugh till she shook, and crawl in under the grand piano to get them ; and when at last she was through, there was no jury to be seen, they were all completely prostrated with laughter. Auber thanked her for the amusement she had afforded him and his colleagues, but advised her rather to be a clown than a singer. Later on the weak eye grew worse and worse ; during four years she was in constant danger of be- coming blind, and it was not till after the war and the commune that she was able to take up her singing again. She was then sent to an Italian, Arnoldi, who had a most peculiar method. He made his pupils sit down in a large arm-chair, with a very much reclining back, took all the pillows, footstools, and cushions he could find in the room, and piled them one on top of the other on their chests, and then he struck a note on the piano and told them to take it. There proceeded from under the pil- low mountain a long sigh as that of a horse in agony. “ Very well,” said the Italian, rubbing his hands contentedly ; “ it will be splendid, when you don’t have the pillows.” The pupils were then told to put up their arms and scream at the top of their lungs. Granier laid here a good foundation for her gymnastic exercises, but her voice broke down and it took four years to restore it to its former strength. Then came all the debut difficulties ; she went from theatre to theatre and offered, every time a prima donna was sick, to play her part ; but everywhere 23 2 PARIS OF TO-DAY. the managers laughed at her, until Offenbach at last took her. Thao’s illness was on the point of spoiling the success of “ La Jolie Parfumeuse.” She conquered at once. In the first great opdrette that was written, “ Girofl^-Girofla,”- she got the principal part, and from that moment her career has been a succession of triumphs. The harm done by Arnoldi was re- paired, and Granier’s singing and acting were equally artistic. She has not a wonderful voice, but it is well schooled, and she knows how to use it so that it would be all that was needed, even if she should end her career at the Opdra Comique, as it has often been said that she will. But even if Granier should leave this sphere for higher ones, the op£rette would stand in no need MADAME GRISIER-MONTBAZON. 1 , of stars tnat could take her place. Mme. Grisier-Montbazon is in every way able to fill it, when she can get rid of her “ Mascotte ” part. But the success she attained in this has been a chain around her feet, preventing her from reaching higher aims. It was a mere accident that she be- came the exponent of Bettina. The managers had, to oblige her family — all the members of which through three or four gener- ations had, so to say, belonged to the stage — taken her from the provinces and given her a small part in the play. Shortly before the evening set for the performance, the actress who was to play Bettina was taken ill. The doctors said that they might have to wait for her for months, and it was necessary that the new piece should be played, as there was nothing else ready to be put on the stage. Little Montbazon had at home been accustomed to study the parts of her rivals in order to be able to offer herself when they were prevented from playing ; she did the same now and the manager accepted her offer, because he had hardly any other choice. He did not expect that under these circumstances the play would do anything but just make the time pass until RISING STARS. 233 he could have another one rehearsed, but in this case, as in so many others, the result was quite different from the anticipations. A long time has passed since then ; Montbazon has been married to the journalist Grisier, and is mother to a little Bettina, but she still plays in the “ Mascotte.” She has acted the part a thousand times now, and when she sometimes gets too tired of it she goes on a little tournee to the provinces to act something else. People are delighted to see her both in “ Nitouche ” and “ Boc- caccio,” but when the performance is over they send a deputation to ask when the “ Mascotte ” will come. In order not to awaken a revolution in the city she is regularly obliged to telegraph to Paris for the trunks with the “ Mascotte ” costumes. Mme. Simon-Girard has shared a simi- lar fate as Serpolette in “ Les Cloches de Corneville.” This op6rette has, thanks to the fresh- ness and good spirits of her performance, been played over a thousand times, and was, like the “ Mascotte,” without a moment’s hesitation chosen when the ques- tion of having something attract- ive for the exposition season came under consideration. Granier is the star of the salons ; no hostess who wants a flavor of Parisianism at her par- ties fails to give the principal part of the entertainment into the hands of Granier. Montbazon i3 the Boulevard prima donna ; after an enjoyable little dinner at a cabinet particulier one must inevitably go to the Bouffes and laugh with “ Mascotte.” Madame Simon-Girard is the favorite of the bourgeoisie. She does not have Granier’s merriment nor Montbazon’s drdlerie, but she has a sedate and yet coquettish charm that is just what •nc finds in the Parisian women of the middle classes. In her MADAME SIMON-GIRARD. 234 PARIS OF TO-DA Y. private life she differs very much from the usual type of Parisian actresses. At Villa Serpolette, just outside of town, she leads an exemplary family life with her husband, the actor Simon- Max, and her three babies. She was married when sixteen and he twenty odd years old, and since then they have lived like one person. They always say “we” of everything that they do. If he for once should not play in the same piece, he is nevertheless always there to take his wife home, and they always have their supper within their own walls. There is something of this se- dateness over Madame Simon- Girard’s acting, added to the un- changeable good spirits that hap- piness gives. She makes the im- pression of a priestess of happi- ness, consecrated to the beautiful vocation of making everybody around her happy. In their way each of the three stars of the op6- rette has her own peculiar lustre, but they are all brilliant enough to make it unnecessary for Paris to fear that it should be left in darkness on anyone of these fields in the near future. The stars of the comedy have been shining for quite a while. It was not in the eighties that Reichemberg, Samary or Baretta were discovered, and both Bartel and Blanche Pierson have thrown light over other theatres before they came to the Theatre Frangais. The socittaires have of late years only received one new member on their staff that was capable of carrying out the old traditions of the theatre-republic. And the tradition, more than the personality, seems to be the center of attraction of this youngest member. Mile. Muller was already charming and per- fect when she left Delaunay’s conservatory class with a first prize in ’84. She has since then played Musset’s Fantaisies and other ingenue parts of a similar nature so charmingly that she has RISING STARS. 235 taken by storm the audience, the critics, and her own colleagues ; but the little queen from Niirnberg, as she is called at the thea- tre, is nevertheless first of all Delaunay’s pupil. Her characters are as excellent and finished as if they were made of Dresdener china, but they bear the stamp of the school more than that of her personality. Even outside of the Theatre Frangais there have arisen new stars. At the Palais Royal the house is still filled with laughter, thanks to Alice Lavigne and Madame Mathilde, and at the Gymnase Marie Magnier carries her costumes with an elegance that makes tout Paris adopt her fashions, as soon as it has admired her at a premiere. Here and there a few prima donnas appear who may in time assert their power. A twenty-two years old niece of Sarah Bernhardt’s, Rosa Bruch, has, for in- stance, in “Fromont jeune and Risler ain6,” in “ Comtesse Sarah,” and in “ Dora,” seemed to evince that beside the silvery voice and other personal advantages of her aunt, she has inher- ited her dramatic fire. And Gabrielle R£- jane has, in “ D6core,” in “ Germinie Lacer- teux,” and, not least, in Sardou’s “ Mar- quise,” shown that she could create great and original characters. There is a good deal of energy over her performance, and she has a decided flavor of Parisianism that makes the critical vanguard of the younger generation extol her to the skies, and which can only add to her triumph if she should succeed in conquering. But neither she nor any of the young rising stars seem to have reached absolute transformation. There are not a few whom one likes to see, and to applaud, but none who draws the whole city with irresistible power of attraction, and whose success is so absolute that it has secured them an indisputable immortality. 337 , , - XXIV. The Era of Titanic Structures. T HE famous esprit franqais is, after all, simply a natural ability for hitting the nail on the head without ever missing, and it is this talent that has made French culture so all-conquer- ing and the nation so admired. This home of the word grew to be home of action, for, what one can say clearly one must know, and what is known thoroughly can also be done. France became the home of art, both that of the brush and of the pen, for the secret of art is just this very faculty of expressing one’s feelings and thoughts, and producing a picture so true that it appears to be reality. The Exposition, this last proof of French genius, has also had a formula of its own in the Eiffel tower. The bounds of space have been destroyed, machines have realized what were considered impossibilities, genius has made man a Titan, and there is nothing too heavy for him to take on his shoulders, no stone that he is obliged to leave unturned. Everything at the Exposition surpassed expectation. Its greatest works had been 239 240 PARIS OF TO-DAY. called chimeras that no human hand could finish. Before the appointed time they stood there with iron bar joined to iron bar, as it has been shown on the plans that everybody had looked upon as a wild fancy, and when the President of the Republic, on the opening day, made his inauguration speech under the cen- tral dome, and then, accompanied by the dignitaries of the State, commenced his inspection of the Exposition palaces, he found everything in the right place. There might be an un- packed box here and there, but these were only trifles, that could be remedied easily enough. The pessimists that had predicted a financial failure had not counted on the talent of the French to find a way out of every difficulty. There were simply issued a million exposition bonds, that were taken at once, and these paid for the expenses before the opening day. People had feared civil and foreign intricacies, but the truth was that the sound of the bells that announced the Revolution jubilee was more like that of the old bells that used to toll peace over the countries. The Republic during that summer passed through one of the greatest crises it has ever known, but was, in spite of all evil prophecies, only the stronger and better for it, and this was — nobody thinks of denying it — due to the Exposition. From the first moment the very air was filled with this exceptional success. Paris woke up on May 5 with a full summer glory added to its festive toilet. The foregoing night the Parisians had hardly slept ; they had been busy making emblems, transparencies, and illumination decorations. Hundreds of souvenir medals, the Eiffel tower in miniature reproductions, flowers of the national colors and cocardes were offered for sale everywhere, and every horse wore a tri-colored cocarde behind its ears. The cabmen drove through the streets in furia solemnitatis. Even if one offered the drivers a gold coin it might not be accepted ; they imagined that the next person would offer them a hundred franc bill. All offices were closed, the mail was not delivered, every- body was dressed in Sunday clothes at seven in the morning, and made his way for the Exposition. The doors were not to be opened till 1 o’clock P.M., but people stood there, hour after hour in the broiling sun, in order to be sure to get in. From all the railroad stations crowds of strangers poured forth from the trains that came in every minute. And with the traveling dust PRESIDENT CARNOT OPENS THE EXPOSITION. 241 242 PARIS OF TO-DAY. still on them, men and women came rushing to add to the rows that were waiting outside of the doors, without thinking of going to any hotel first. The enthusiasm and excitement grew from hour to hour, after the salute had announced the opening and people had rushed in through all the gates. The avenues around the Champ-de-Mars were filled with people like all the avenues and walks in the Exposition and the surrounding park. The route that was to be followed by the President and his suite was lined with crowds, who paid no heed to the soldiers or policemen who tried to keep them back. Ladies who worked their way through the crowds caught in each other’s dresses with their pins and bracelets, and the trophies found next day on the field made up quite a treasure. One grew dizzier and dizzier in this hubbub, and the impression it made was confused but of over- whelming greatness, and was not diminished when one was able later on to look at everything with soberness. First of all the machine palace was something that nobody had ever seen the like of. It was almost four hundred and fifty metres long, and con- sisted of one great hall covered with a glass roof. The frame of this wonder was formed of a row of cross-bars with a curve of over one hundred and ten metres, proportions which had never yet been reached in architecture. The palace was forty-eight metres high — the Arc de Triomphe might easily have been placed inside. Through the whole length of the room ran four rows of parallel beams to carry the driving-straps, and two hun- dred and fifty horse-power was transmitted through them to an infinity of machines that stood in rank and file — the laurel- crowned army of modern civilization ready for new victories. It was impossible to enter this hall and let one’s eye glide over the lines of the immense arches, without uncovering one’s head, overwhelmed by the imposing greatness and beauty, so new that it was like a revelation. The impression was only intensified by the thought of the work that this wonder represented, and the consciousness that the ingeniousness of the joining of these iron bars was the opening of a new era. Then one understood that this was more than a gigantic curiosity. As in the anthropological collections of the Palais des Arts Lib<§raux it was shown how the old stone age was replaced by the bronze age, so this seemed to show that the marble age was, CROWDS OF STRANGERS BY EVERY TRAIN. 243 244 PARIS OF TO-DAY. through the Eiffel tower and the machine hall, replaced by the new steel age. The engineers have now won a final victory. The mountains have no longer been able to resist their augers ; there are now no abysses, not even seas, that the army of smiths which they send out is not able to conquer. Over the valleys they will build immense viaducts, and over the ocean steel bridges that will brave all storms.* Although standing side by side with the machine hall, the other Exposition palaces looked very imposing. The main buildings were built in a rectangle around the Exposition park; the Eiffel tower took the place of the fourth side, and on either side of the Seine and the Iena bridge was the horticultural exposition in the Trocadero park, with the palace on top of the hill. Opposite the Eiffel tower, with its front portal facing it, stood the building consisting of seven galleries, for the different branches of industry; at the left was the Palais des Beaux Arts ; at the right the Palais des Arts Lib£raux, and in the two side wings the parts given to the departments of foreign industries. The central dome of the central palace, with its rich-fantastic gildings and the wonderful effects of light that fell through the stained glass, and the Galerie de Trente Metres that was built out from it, and formed the entrance portals for every compart- ment of industry, attracted the attention of the general public. Spectators with a higher developed artistic sense did not cease to admire the side palaces, that were two hundred and fifty by eighty-five metres, and whose beautiful light-blue cupolas were fifty-six mhtres high, and by the effects produced in architecture and coloring possessed all the attractive power of novelty and originality. In this way the greater part of Champ-de-Mars was under roof. In the porches of the palaces stood an end- less number of cafes and restaurants with seats for thousands of fatigued visitors, where waiters and waitresses from all the different countries, dressed in many-colored costumes, served out ale and * Even before the closing of the exhibition it was suspected what would follow in the track of the Eiffel tower and the machine hall. The most prominent French and English engineers, the first headed by Eiffel and Schneider from Creuzot, the latter by John Fondler and Benj. Baher, the constructors of the Forth bridge, united for the common purpose of realizing the plan of a bridge over the canal between France and England. THE ERA OF TITANIC STRUCTURES. 245 gin, Roumanian Tannose grape, and Russian tea, Cura^oa, Slu- vovitza, French wines and German hop drinks, while the band played inside. The remaining part of the park was filled with pavilions of all sizes and de- scriptions, from the kiosks where there were served American iced drinks and where the beau- tiful Hungarian woman with the Byzantine head- gear sold her fruits and bon- bons, to fairy castles belong- ing to the gas- works, where every evening the roof, towers, and windows were covered with gas fes- toons that made it look like a building of flames. Three large theatres had been built on the exposition grounds. Now it would be a large panorama building, where people might go up on the deck of a ship which seemed to roll and be tossed about, and see one sea picture more beautiful than the other pass by them with the dock at Havre as a starting-point, and the land- ing in America as the end of the journey ; or it would be the oil districts of Russia or America, that were pictured in the pano- THE HUNGARIAN BELLE WITH THE BYZANTINE HEAD-GEAR. 246 PARIS OF TO-DAY. rama. There was hardly a country from any of the five con- tinents that, however well represented it might be in the main buildings, had not raised a pavilion of its own. Thus Sweden had her pavilion, where the “ Dalhulla ” sold old northern orna- ments and captivated the hearts of the Parisians. On the Seine bank the architect of the Op£ra, Gamier, had represented the history of human dwellings through thirty odd little buildings, types of what the differ- ent inhabitants of the globe, from even prehis- toric periods, had consid- ered home comfort. He commenced with the archi- tecture of troglodytes and stochkaes, and gave step by step a bird’s-eye view of every period of civiliza- tion in its peculiar envi- ronments, and the home arrangements and the life that belonged to it. The learned sometimes dis- puted the correctness of the style, and Gamier was of course not able to con- jure up the old Egyptians and other departed spirits from their graves to popu- late his houses. In spite of her peplum, the beautiful Helen that personified Greece in a tavern from Pericles’ days was born and bred in Montmartre, but the bock she served was pure enough. The Gamier houses were within the limits of the Parisians’ ethnographical understanding, and were conse- quently very popular. As it had not been possible to find a square foot on the Champ-de-Mars for agriculture and pro- visions, the majority of the machines and products belonging to these branches were placed in the long buildings that covered thirty thousand metres of the Seine quay, and extended to the Esplanade des Invalides, where the actual exhibition, with the THE ERA OF TITANIC STRUCTURES. 247 crowds of palaces and pagodas, disclosed a new picturesque world. The practical little Decauville railroad brought people from one part of the extensive Exposition grounds to the other, but even then it took about half an hour to get from 248 PARIS OF TO-DAY. the machine hall to the negro villages on the Esplanade des Invalides. The Eiffel tower was by no means the only phenomenon of size at the Exposition, everything was in its own way just as gigantic, and the tower was well suited to the surroundings. Even art had kept step and had taken the forms necessary to decorate buildings like these. The front of the Central dome was crowned by an allegorical statue of a woman representing France distributing wreaths, by the sculptor Delaplanche. To make it look well from the height at which it had to be placed, and to make it correspond with the surroundings, it was neces- sary that it should be of proportions that would hardly have been realized if it had been necessary to have it cast in the usual way. It was over twenty-eight feet high, and its weight would have demanded a building of much more solid structure than the central dome, while the casting would have involved an exorbitant outlay. Delaplanche surmounted all difficulties by using not cast, but hammered metal. In this way it cost, all in all, nine thousand francs, and its weight was not so great but that any base could have carried it. When the artist’s clay is reproduced in hammered metal it is generally replaced by a model of wood. This is divided into as many pieces as is considered necessary, and over each of them are put metal sheets that are hammered until they are bent over the model and have taken the shape of it, even to the smallest details. These sheets are then collected and soldered. The figure inside looks like a skeleton of iron bars. The quantity of the metal used is in this way reduced to a minimum, and so are, of course, the expense and the weight, the latter especially being of great importance when the work is to crown a building or to be placed on top of a monument. Dela- planche had his statue executed in zinc ; Bartholdi’s colossal fountain, “ River and springs on their way to the ocean,” proved, however, the excellent result that can be obtained with ham- mered lead, for all over the Exposition grounds there were sev- eral other works of hammered metal. This method was, after all, not new ; hammered metals have been used in artistic repro- ductions long before our time, but the Exposition achieved the final victory of this method, which will for the future be sove- reign wherever great decorative effects have to be obtained, and THE ERA OF TITANIC STRUCTURES. 249 where modern iron architecture would have to renounce all pre- tensions to success if the sculptor of the day had not understood how to keep step with the architects. In still another respect, architecture seemed to win a new victory. Burned clay compensated for marble and granite in the same way and by virtue of the same qualities that made hammered metal take the place of cast. The sculptor Michel had been commissioned to decorate the main portal of the Palais des Arts Liberaux with two female figures, modeled by him and representing Peace and Industry. They were to be between ten and twelve feet high, and could not be reproduced in marble, as the expense would be too great. The artist, therefore, applied to the modern French ceramic factories, which had already in many ways shown that they were true children of the age. There had never as yet been burned any works as large as these in their ovens, but they nevertheless entered upon their task fearlessly, and succeeded beyond all expectations. Instead of twenty thousand francs for each of the figures, hardly a thousand was expended. Instead of losing the effect they seemed, on the contrary, to suit the surroundings better. Also the forty-eight urns, ten feet high, around the cupolas on Palais des Beaux Arts and Palais des Arts Liberaux, were made in the same way. The frieze with the immense rams’ heads, Roty’s large medallions, and not a few of the rest of the most admired decorations, gave evidence of how appropriate burned clay was for architectural ornamentation, and of the future thereby opened to ceramic art. This industry was perhaps the one that obtained the greatest victory on the Champ-de-Mars. Even before the opening of the exhibition it had conquered the hearts of all artists, with Formige’s two cupolas of enameled stones, with their unusual effects of color; and during the whole sum- mer it was these very effects that were most admired by the vis- itors who understood and appreciated art. They made the Champ-de-Mars look like one large painting in water-color, where the soft tones and lights and shadows of the open air pre- dominated and produced a harmony of wonderful softness. And the success grew and grew ; people came in greater and greater crowds to visit the Exposition. Second and third class boarding-houses considered it a great favor when they conde- 250 PARIS OF TO-DAY. scended to take people for a louis d’or a day ; and if the stranger had not before his arrival sent telegram after telegram to Paris, and surrendered himself unconditionally to the hotel keepers, he might very easily be obliged to spend the night driving from place to place in a cab, without finding a roof to cover his head. The railroads carried during the six months of the Exposition twenty million passengers — about five millions more than usual; and even when the exhibition came to an end the attraction of the wonders of the Champ-de-Mars was still at its height. One of the very last Sundays had showed the greatest number of visitors — about four hundred thousand. The Parisians were in public as well as private life fully con- scious of the duties that a success like this involved, and took measures accordingly. The great ball with its five or six thousand guests, that had been the greatest social wonder of the Seine capital, was entirely dwarfed compared to its successor of the Exposition summer. The former Palais de l’lndustrie in the Champs-Elys6es was used for the occasion. In the glass- roofed yard there was laid a polished floor of ten thousand square metres ; under the glass roof was spread an immense awning ; benches were erected along the walls of this gigantic hall, large enough to hold five thousand fauteuils ; the walls were covered with costly Gobelins ; electric chandeliers sent out a flood of light, and forty thousand guests were invited to a ball in this immense and magnificent hall. It was later trans- formed into a gigantic concert hall, with a band of twelve hundred instruments; fifteen thousand niaires were invited to banquet there, and when finally the “ Ode Triomphale ” was performed, it was changed into a theatre of Eiffel- tower proportions, accommodating over twenty thousand spectators, with a staff of twelve thousand on the stage all at the same time. The stage itself was almost one hundred metres deep, and everything else was built in the same proportions. From the first to the last moment of the Exposi- THE ERA OF TITANIC STRUCTURES. 2 5 1 tion, Paris seemed to think that in order to keep up its newly won reputation, it would be necessary to astonish the world every fortnight with something greater than anything ever seen of its kind, and it was therefore very natural that, even after the beautiful summer nights had ended and autumn had come with rain and fog, thousands of travelers should still make their way to the city on the Seine, to see the wonders it contained. XXV. Exotics at the Exposition. 'HE greatest peculiarity of the Exposition was the number of exotics which were gathered within its precincts. To make up for the few Euro- pean states that in their monarchical haughtiness had thought it their duty to stay at home, and whose absence was not even felt, the whole remain- ing globe, the countries of the black as well as those of the white man, every part of even the farthest East had come. The Exposition became in this way more universal than any of its predecessors. To pass the turnstile was almost equal to possessing Anderson’s shoes of fortune ; one could wish to be in any country at almost any chosen period, and the wish was at once fulfilled. It was this that made the success so complete. In the galleries there were objects worth studying, but whereas of a thousand visitors 252 THE CAIRO STREET. 253 254 PARIS OF TO-DAY. only one is a student, the remaining nine hundred and ninety-nine are simply curious. To captivate them all, picturesqueness was necessary. And on this field the Exposition had, apart from its magnificent gardens and exquisite blending of colors, an attraction that was as new as it was irresistible. It had hardly been opened before Parisians and Paris guests had chosen the Cairo street for their favorite. It was a little bit of a street, only about twenty houses all told, but there are hardly anymore in Marseilles’ Cane- biere, and yet Marseillans say very proudly, that if Paris only had a Canabiere it would be a small Marseilles. Under multicolored hangings one passed into the narrow alley, where there were on both sides low, white houses and mosques, true reproductions of the most characteristic of their kind in the Khedive’s city. They were all built on the same principle, the higher stories pro- jecting over the ground floor, with its low entrance, and ap- proaching each other across the street like curious vis-a-vis who would like to have their noses in each other’s pies, shaded by moucharabis, and a terrace with jagged battlements was sharply defined against the sky. Labyrinths of fine lines framed the massive doors, and obscure arcades led to the shops filled with all kinds of rich and rare gimcrackery. The most peculiar feature, however, was the moucharabis, the ingenious wood lattices that protruded from the gable like a bal- cony to admit air and light, and permit the women to see with- out being seen. Every jag in these carvings was genuine. The French consul in Cairo had, with great taste, selected them from houses that were pulled down and sent them to ornament the street, which he wanted to be absolutely authentic in every detail. The minaret was, with the exception of one story, a copy of the masterpiece of the fifteenth century, the Kaid- Bey minaret, so famous for the richness of its details. The inscriptions in faience over the doors had, by profane hands, been pulled down from a cupola, and they were brought here because Oriental indolence had prevented them from being put back in their proper places. The very street life was genuine. In the open booth sat many different workmen turning and carving, with their feet drawn up under them, and holding be- tween their toes the little pieces of ivory as firmly as in a vise. But the work did not progress very quickly ; why should they EXOTICS AT THE EXPOSITION. 255 work harder here than at home ? Allah is great ! he feeds his children with the sous that drop from the hands of the Chris- tians. In the bazaar, genuine Arabian women, dressed in sequins and gold embroideries, offered for sale Oriental jewels, many- colored and cheap, as if they were fairy gifts ; rose preserves and incense; red pipes with amber mouthpieces; soft carpets and light draperies, interwoven with gold threads. On the top of the minaret the Muezzin cried his prayer as often as a few coins had succeeded in persuading him that the hour of sunset was near, and from the Moorish cafes, when the Almehs danced their phenomenal dance, came, in long and monotonous rhythms, the tones from singular brass instruments played by the men who squatted on the ground and looked like immense white balls in their white blouses. But the greatest, or at least the most popu- lar, curiosity were the one hundred white Cairo donkeys and their drovers, in the long blue blouses, that had a greater num- ber of little ventilators than an Arabic house. Their dark brown bare legs had never been disfigured by any kind of boots, and they jumped about and screamed all day long like wild dervishes to get a “bakshish,” and played sometimes even worse tricks. People easily forgave them, however, for the white donkeys carried the guests so conveniently and quietly under the palms and through flower-gardens from the Cairo street to other curious parts of the globe. Side by side all along the Avenue Suffren every one of the foreign countries had its own territory. First came Morocco, with its mottled bazaar behind the graceful round-arched win- dows. On the right, a magnificently carved wooden portal led into the wonders of Japan, and to the left the Empire of the Sun had its especial pavilion. After that came the Indian tower, painted blood-red, with mystical figures in grayish stucco, where brown Hindoos in white garments served tea and palm wine, and through the Shah’s country the way led into the new world that is just beginning to assert itself, the young republics of Central and South America. They had all come to Paris, each having their own pavilion or palace, according to their means. States like Salvador, Nicaragua, or Paraguay had, of course, been obliged to make modest claims on ground and attention, but, on the other hand, there were several that had erected magnificent forty feet high, without any other opening than the dark en- trance that looked like the opening to an abyss. The model was taken from the old Aztec temples. On the walls of the pyramid were geometrical drawings, conscientiously copied from the old monuments; twelve large figures in relief occupied the spaces between these drawings, and represented partly the old emperors, partly the old Mexican gods to whom human offerings were made by the hundreds, after the priests had cut the victim’s chest open with agate knives. Finally, Brazil had an exposition building with towers forty-five feet high, that had cost over one 256 PARIS OF TO-DAY. buildings large enough not to be crushed by the gigantic propor- tions of the Eiffel Tower, at the foot of which they were built. The Argentine Republic had built a palace, the walls of which were broken through everywhere by colored glass globes, so that when illuminated in the evening it looked like a fairy castle. Mexico was represented by a building looking like a pyramid, the front of which was over two hundred feet long and over THE MEXICAN PAVILION. EXOTICS AT THE EXPOSITION. 257 million francs. Connected with this was a large hot-house where the eyes of the Parisians were completely dazzled by a collection of the magnificent flora of that country, and where in basins, the water of which was kept at a temperature of thirty centigrades, Victoria regia bloomed for the first time in Europe in the open air. The leaves were six feet in diameter and were strong enough to bear a child. All these buildings were surrounded by shrubberies and flower-beds, and around the Mexican pavilion stood many specimens of the curious cacti from the country of the Aztecs. Everywhere were small cafes, where women in national cos- tumes served strange drinks, and the visitors sitting at the tables could, through the arch of the Eiffel tower, see the Trocad£ro heights, with its gardens and the festively decorated Palais in the background. The foreign display was, however, at its height on the Esplanade des Invalides, where the colonies had theirspecial exposition in and around five large palaces, and in a number of smallerbuildings were camps and villages that transported people, now to Arabian countries where, until a few years ago, no European foot had trod, now to the farthest East, now to the heart of the country of the blacks, and to the banks of the mys- tical Congo. Here everything was as genuine as in the Cairo street. The Cambodge palace was an exact imitation of part of the famous ruins of the Angkor-Vars. Until about thirty years ago these imposing remains of a flourishing civilization were yet unknown. Travelers from Cochin China found them in a large forest, the trees of which had taken root in the crevices. The entire country around was desolate and deserted. The rich town of Angkor with its twenty thousand houses, that the old Chinese authors told about, had disappeared, and of the entire population only a few bonzes were left, who lived as hermits near the pagoda to watch over it. But this building was enough to give a conception of the former magnificence of the country. It extended over four successive terraces, and was twelve hundred metres long and eight hundred wide ; the central dome must have been almost fifty-five metres high, and these immense walls were, inside as well as outside, covered with sculpture. There had, with almost inconceivable boldness, been cut Buddha-marks of three to four metres in diameter. Some of the stone blocks 258 PARIS OF TO-DAY. carried up to these heights are among the largest ever moved by human hands, and thousands of laborers must have spent a lifetime constructing these buildings. There could, of course, be no hope of reproducing more than a very small part of these on the Esplanade. It was one single gate that stood there, consisting of two cross-galleries ; the roofs, with their seven divisions, rose pyramidically toward the central dome. But with its carved images on the pediments, warriors on horseback, and gods swinging their glaves over paralyzed enemies — with its un- dulating serpents, the holy Naja with the seven heads, and the dome, which was over forty metres high and looked like a tiara of purple and gold, it made an impression alike powerful and strange. Annam’s and Tonkin’s palace was a re- production of the great Quan-Yen frontage; and for Algiers and Tunis, the most characteristic architectural monuments had been chosen. Some of the designs of the Tunese building had been taken from the famous Sidi-Okba mosque in Kairouan. Until about eight years ago no infidel, be he Jew or Christian, was allowed to enter Kairouan ; it was a holy city, and the great mosque, supported by hundreds of pillars, was the object of especial reverence. The faithful that could not make a pilgrim- age to Mecca went at least to Sidi-Okba’s mosque. When the Frenchman Guerin, about eight years ago, obtained permission to visit the city, his escorts, who feared an outbreak of wrath from the fanatic inhabitants, forced him to pass through quickly, without stopping anywhere. But since then the portals of the holy city have been opened for a cavalry corps; people have made their way into the mysterious mosque ; they have counted and measured its pillars, until now an exact copy of its glorious * cupola adorns a public place in Paris. The black and brown heroes, also, whose victories had made it possible for Europeans to subdue these countries, were sent as a delegation to the Exposition on the Champ-de-Mars. The supervision had been given to the ordinary Paris police, but on the Esplanade it was given to native soldiers of the different auxiliary troops from the colonies. Proud Arabs in their white burnooses, Spahis and Senegal skirmishers, Cipahis from India, Sakalaves and Anamese guarded with true military dignity the entrance to the foreign buildings. The Arabs were old acquaintances ; the proud NATIONAL SOLDIERS ON GUARD. (IN THE BACKGROUND THE ANGKOR-VAR TOWER ) 259 260 PARIS OF TO-DAY. Senegal Spahis, in their scarlet uniform, had been seen only oc- casionally, and it was the first time that the Anamese and Tonkinese skirmishers had come to Paris. They are very small, beardless men ; on their head they wear a flat “ Salako ” of straw with copper ornaments ; very wide black trousers flapped around their thin legs, the uniform jacket being of the same color but trimmed with red cords ; they wore sandals on their yellow feet and their long black hair was worn in a twist. In spite of their small size they are said to be splendid soldiers, and have, at Sontay, Bac-Nuick, and several other places, done not only their duty but a great deal more. The Senegalese look like giants compared to them. There are told the most remarkable stories about these soldiers. One of them was wounded in the fight against Samory. He never uttered a word of complaint, but continued to march all night long, as if nothing had happened. In the morning, when he fell dead on the ground, they found three bullets in his body, each of which had split the bones. The Senegalese can stand any climate, even that in which the French troops succumb, and are therefore of untold use. Many of those that had come to the Esplanade wore the cross of the Legion of Honor, and it is asserted that in spite of their black complexion they have turned the head of more than one little Parisian lady. These colored soldiers soon became dangerous rivals of the Cairo street and its inhabitants. When the last touches were given to the arrangement of the Esplanade, new nations constantly arrived from the farthest countries and from all parts of the world, and at last, on a July day, when the sun shone as bright as in their native countries, it was announced that the first illumination was to be given on the colonial territory. This was the climax of the Exposition fetes ; among all the fairy scenes there was none so fantastically beautiful as this illumination on the Esplanade. XXVI The Little Javan- ese Girls. ii. Evening has come ; the yellow balloons shine in the palm shrubberies ; the battlements of the minaret and the pagoda are defined by gas festoons with colored shades. The Angkor- Var temple, the white Tunis palace, Anam’s and Tonkin’s curious buildings, even the log-house from Senegambia and the colored tents of the Arabs, shine with Bengal lights, and far away in the villages of the Javanese and Cochin-Chinese are fast- ened alongthe railings of the grass borders and the ponds little col- ored lawn-sconces like long lines of shining glow-worms. People press in feverish haste through the turnstiles, and the trains on the Decauville railroad deposit every minute hundreds of visit- ors. At nine o’clock the great procession is to begin, and one must hurry to secure a place from where it can be seen. At last 262 PARIS OF TO-DAY. the salute sounds, the tom-toms rattle, the Anamese whistles pipe, and everybody presses forward to come in the first row. The procession is as marvelous as the surroundings. The mag- nificently dressed Arabs come first on their noble horses, their garments and harnesses shining with gold embroideries and many colors. After them come the African soldiers, the Spahis’ company on foot with standards and flags, the Tunese Jani- zaries, the jet-black Senegalese cavaliers ; then the Algerian “Nouba,” the Turkish band with its clarionets and cymbals, and last in the line come the Sahalave skirmishers from Madagascar, and the ten Cipays that have come to Paris from Pondicherry and Chandernagor ; all are genuine samples of native troops of all colors, from light brown to jet-black, and dressed in uni- forms the one more richly colored than the next. Then come four ex-canni- bals from New Caledonia, with war marks, dressed in feathers from head to MADAME IN A “ POUSSE-POUSSE.” foot and writhing their bodies in the most peculiar way. Be- tween double rows of Tonkinese infantry, carrying tri-colored lanterns on their bayonets, the actors from the Anamese theatre, dressed in their costumes and masks, pass by proudly in pousse-pousse , — the little Chinese carriages drawn by light- footed Anamese, and on the Esplanade taking the place of the fauteuils roulants of the Champ-de-Mars. The Algerian and Chinese women, the wives and children of the Khroumirs, the Javanese dancing girls, and the Hebes follow in the same conveyances. Surrounded by a guard of honor comes a Manda- rin in gala costume carried in a golden sedan ; then follow THE LITTLE JAVANESE GIRLS. 263 negroes from Gabon, Senegal, and Congo, with their native music, and last of all the great Chinese dragon procession. Blasts contemporaries assert that the greatest stimulant, that which, after “ Wein, Weib, und Gesang ,” creates real excitement, is traveling ; the gratification of the inborn love of every modern man for the mysterious unknown. Even those whose demands were greatest in this respect would find all that their heart could ask for here, where the Australian Archipelago, the heart of the country of the blacks, and the farthest East take each other by the hand. After the procession the New Caledonians dance Pilou-Pilou on the plain in front of their village, the Anamese actors give a performance, Tonkinese bonzes hold a service in the pagoda, where the fruits of the Celestial Empire are sacrificed in great masses to golden Buddhas, and the Arabian Aissa-ouas in fanatic ecstasy put knives through their own tongues, swallow scorpions, and balance themselves on their stomachs on sword blades sharp as razors. All this was perfectly genuine, and lost none of its peculiarities even by broad daylight. These people all lived in their little villages on the Esplanade as they did in their homes, doing their usual domestic work and amid their usual surroundings. It had not, of course, been found possible to represent flora and fauna entirely. There were no jungles, no Congo tigers, no lotus groves, and no lianas climbing in palm forests as large as those under the tropical sun, but with the exception of this the Esplanade was at any time and in any light like a miniature reproduction of the whole globe. The largest among the villages was the Javanese Kampong, where about sixty yellow-brown Javanese, Malays, and natives from the Sunda Islands lived in groups or families, each having their own house of bamboo covered with foliage or palm leaves. They sat outside these houses, where the sun could shine on their bare shoulders and legs. The Malays, the strongest and most industrious of the race, occupied with making hats and other similar things of rice straw, with the Javanese and the people from Sunda, idling as much as possible. They are of mixed blood, partly Mongols, partly Hindoos, partly Arabs and Chinese. They have a great deal of intelligence, but very little practical sense, are of an artistic temperament, and prefer living from hand to mouth. They are 264 PARIS OF TO-DAY. passionately fond of gambling, and every sou given them by the visitors is instantly put on the cards. But at the same time they cultivate music and dance, and in the heart of their Kampong was the splendid “ Tendeppo,” where there was arranged a theatre, and where the stars of the summer, the little Javanese women, attracted a multitude of admiring, or at least wondering, spectators. There were four of them, all in the prime of youth THE LITTLE JAVANESE DANCERS ON THEIR WAY HOME. and beauty, the oldest, Thamina, sixteen, and the youngest, Oua- kihama, only thirteen years old. Their master, the Sultan Manka Negara, had sent them from his capital, Selo, to Paris as the selected ones of sixty rivals, to represent the Javanese dancing art, which seems to be even more highly developed than the Euro- pean. A yellow dancing girl like these, a “ tandak,” as she is called, is born within the walls of the royal castle and educated there for her art ; she does not leave the Sultan s palace until 265 THE LITTLE JAVANESE GIRLS. the period prescribed by the holy rites, when she marries a man of her tribe. Until then, she lives in absolute retirement and quietude, an object of the court’s deepest respect, and surrounded with a prestige that makes it possible even for royal maidens to enter for a time the ranks of the tandaks. Her dance is entirely different from that of the dancers of any other nation, its object being to represent certain parts of the Hindostani epics. It may even look, to non-Asiatic eyes, as if she were slyly making fun of her audience. The main instruments of the band were the xylophone-like komelongs, large gongs, looking like soup- pots, two-stringed violins, and tom-toms. To this monotonous and melancholy music the girls advanced with slow, dreamy movements, as if afraid of each step they took, but bending their bodies into serpentine curves, accompanied with wonderfully expressive movements of hands and arms. They tell in their pantomimes of the happy days of the past, of the holy legends of the lives and loves of their kings or heroes, and the extinct glory of the Hindostani race. Two of the girls represented warriors, and were marked as such by the daggers in their belts and their peculiar head-dress ; but, except for this, the costumes were the same for all four. They wore helmets of chased gold, and under the costly drapery, wrought with gold, that was twisted around the waist and fell down to the ankles, could be seen little velvet knickerbockers. The shoulders and limbs were bare, but painted saffron color ; and the neck and arms covered with jewels. The brows and eyelashes were painted very black, and when their eyes looked fixedly into space, while the melan- choly rhythms of the kamelong poured forth in endless harmony, the performance was enveloped in an atmosphere of inexpres- sible, drowsy melancholy, with a suggestion of lotus-land and hints of ancient Hindostani myths . ] But when the dancing ended, youth and merriment sometimes got the better of the severe principles on which the dancers had been brought up ; their dignity disappeared, and the little Javanese girls would laugh and amuse themselves like the frolicsome Parisian daughters of Eve. They had often company on their way home from the theatre, and it is said that in their bamboo hut were held festivals quite different from those they were accustomed to in the castle of the Sultan of Solo. When on their return they 266 PARIS OF TO-DAY. have initiated the remaining fifty-four members of Manka Ne- gara’s ballet-corps in the mysteries disclosed on the banks of the Seine, the time may not be far off when the prestige of the tan- daks will be impaired. Nearest to the Javanese Kampong lay the New Caledonian village. The ten Kanaks living there — six men and four women from the different islands in the Australian Archipelago — had renounced human flesh forever, and said, moreover, that they had only a faint remembrance of how it had tasted in their earliest youth. They had also added considerably to their original cos- tume. At home this is, for the men, limited to a handkerchief rolled around the head like a turban and decorated with a tuft of white feathers ; while the women wear a sort of fringed belt made of grass. The Kanaks on the Esplanade, however, wore all sorts of garments ; the women chintz dresses with immense flowers on a red ground, that formed a striking contrast to their black skin. The men wore straw hats and antique havelocks bought at goodness knows what foreign port. Two of them, Tita and Badimouin, marched around proudly decorated with life-saving medals : they had been leaders of the French troops during the last Kanak rebellion, and had displayed bravery as well as discretion. But the New Caledonian village was very primitive ; the huts were low and built of rough planks, with the door as the only opening through which the light could pass, and decorated only with weapons, slings, bows, and the frightful “ taboos,” coarsely carved, distorted, red and green painted faces on long poles and having oblong eyes, immense noses, and thick lips, between which a broad red tongue generally dangled. The only signs of the artistic sense of the Kanaks besides these taboos are certain bamboo sticks, on which their literature is repre- sented. When the spirit moves they cut runes in these, meant to express the overwhelming power of their thoughts and feel- ings. When horses were first introduced in their country, they painted on all their bamboo sticks mystic figures to represent them. When a plague of grasshoppers, their betes-noires, visits their island, these insects figure exclusively in the bamboo pic- tures as the French soldiers did in 1878. But they have never reached farther than to this gross representation of the things that impress them most forcibly. They do not know anything THE KANAK VILLAGE. 267 268 PARIS OF TO-DAY. about music ; their monotonous song, a continual repetition of three or four notes, sounds like the noise of the waves dashing against the shore. But they excel in dancing, and dance on all occasions, sometimes to express joy, sometimes sorrow. It may be they do this simply for exercise, as they are the laziest people on the globe. On their fruitful islands it is not necessary to work in order to exist. They rise about noon, and the few hours in which they do not sleep they spend sitting idly, holding a fishing- rod. When Badimouin was asked what his work had been, he would answer, “ I have worked at sleeping,” and when one inquired what he intended to do, he would add that he would soon “work at eating.” But a life like this insures a wonderful quietness and equanimity of temperament. The Kanaks were always in the best of spirits. How these large, good-natured children can ever have had cannibalistic tendencies is one of the unfathomable mysteries of humanity. Senegalese and Congo negroes bade the white men a hearty welcome to their villages. It was, for many of them, the first time they had come in contact with Europeans; De Brazza had brought them from the interior of the country of the blacks directly to the Esplanade. But, as a race, they seemed open to civilization ; many of them knew already how to make them- selves understood in French. They wore their blue sailor suits with as much dignity as if they had never been in the habit of going about naked ; they showed considerable intelligence and a desire to learn, and easily made themselves at home in their new surroundings. The representatives of northern Africa were both Arabians and Kabyles ; the first came, for the greater part, from the oases in the outskirts of the desert, and were camping out in the little red and black striped tents, with which they move from place to place, free as the wind that blows over their heads, glorious and bright in their motley costumes as the sun that browns their skin. Their noble horses were turned out to grass around the tents. Their masters lay in aristocratic dolce far niente on costly Oriental rugs, and around them one could see, in the dim light of the tent, gold-embroidered saddles, fine Damascus steel weapons, invaluable embroideries, and utensils of various kinds spread all over the floor. The true Arab is too superior a being to bend his back to remove any object from the THE LITTLE JAVANESE GIRLS- 269 place where chance has placed it. When he is not on the war- path or in the saddle, there is only one thing worthy of him : sleep. For sleep breeds dreams, and dreams bring a thousand pictures of the glory and magnificence that he loves. All the low earthly work necessary in this life is done by the women. He only considers them as slaves who do not deserve love, but of whom he is absurdly jealous. He watched over them in Paris with even greater vigilance than at his home. They lived in a separate tent inside the inclosure ; and on a plate fastened on the outside was written “ No admittance for men.” The Kabyle is of a very different type. Even his dress is more modest. He wears a long shirt that reaches below the knee, white burnoose and baggy trousers of white linen ; the red woolen cap is all that gives color to the costume. His bearing lacks the self-consciousness of the Arab’s ; he is not the free nomad, independent of nature and his surroundings, for he always leaves those that do not please him. He who eats his bread in the sweat of his face is the laborer, attached to the ground. His country is rich, cool with running waters, over- shadowed by olive and fig groves, and full of vineyards. He is deeply attached to it, has built his home and lives there with his family ; moreover, he loves his wife and lives in intimate com- panionship with her — something that is generally unknown in the East. He is, therefore, not afraid of letting her be seen ; and when visitors, passing through a rather dismal, low, and dark cor- ridor, had reached the inner court where the Kabyle houses were situated, they were admitted to the lower story, where the work was done, and where the kitchen utensils and the domestic ani- mals were kept, and even to the bedrooms above. The furniture was simple, like the dirty gray building of clay, that lacked all decorations and even windows ; but the children’s laughter and the women’s large black eyes shed sunlight over the home. The countless little ones looked radiant, running about half-naked ; but they do not seem to grow in beauty with the years. The women are coquettish ; they wear a mass of bracelets around their wrists and ankles, ajid are covered with clasps and buckles with long bright-colored belts, and mottled silk kerchiefs around their heads ; but only the youngest of them are beautiful accord- ing to European tastes. “Bakshish! Bakshish,” screamed the 270 PARIS OF TO-DAY. children in chorus, and when the Ivabyle had visited the rest of the Oriental world on the Esplanade, he, too, kept his doors closed, and people had to pay two sous to be admitted. He was not a North African for nothing. The people of Algiers, Tunis, Mo- rocco, and Egypt — these merchants par excellence — had sent their greatest experts in the art to Paris. In the “ Souk ,” a copy of a bazaar from the Tunese capital, as well as in separate booths spread all over their territory, there was a mul- titude of repre- sentatives of all possible Orient- al i n d u s t ries, and those be- longing to all the different races that had intermarried in the course of time. Filigree work in silver was done here, little pieces of furniture were carved in ebony and inlaid with mother of pearl, velvet waist- coats were embroidered in gold and cov- ered with span- gles by work- men dressed in caftans. There were a number of pancake-bakers in green silk jackets, of negroes who sold fans of palm leaves, vials with attar of roses, cream-colored nougat, or AIOUSCHA. THE LITTLE JAVANESE GIRLS. 271 perfumed red and blue candy sticks ; Tunese women in wide, yellow satin pantaloons rolled cigarettes, and merchants sold pineapples and stuffed ibis. Everywhere were cafes , where the Alm6es performed theirpeculiar dance and the dervishes whirled around and around so that it made one dizzy to look at them. In Algiers and Tunis these performances are not allowed, but on the Esplanade the Almee temples were right through the summer, full of visitors. There were none of the stars of la grande foire that met with as much suc- cess as Aiouscha in the Egyptian cafd of the Cairo street. All Paris visited her booth when the time of the perform- ance drew near. She wore a very short Span- ish jacket of lilac silk ; the waist a little below the hips was lightly covered with a thin yellow gauze veil, and a mottled silk skirt fell from the belt that was fastened below the hips. The performance was followed with breathless attention and in silence, although it is probably one of the most ungrace- ful dances one could possibly imagine. With the first sounds of castanets a thrill seems to pass through her body, and soon develops into a rhythmical movement of the abdominal regions ; it gradually reaches the chest, which moves as if shaken by internal quiverings, while shoulders and arms are kept perfectly quiet. The eyes have a fixed stare ; the face is calm as marble ; 272 PARIS OF TO-DAY. but when the movements grow in strength the head wriggles with little quick starts from right to left. The sound of the cas- tanets grows wilder and wilder, the movements stronger and stronger, until at last the dancer falls down exhausted on her cushions and resumes her smoking. The Parisian ladies and the Gommeux declared Aiouscha’s dance a success from the first. Almdes were imported from the north African coast, and everywhere on the Esplanade and Champ-de-Mars new Oriental cafes appeared. Few of these new stars, however, reached the perfection of Aiouscha in this peculiar art. The beautiful blonde Baya, the Almee of the Morocco caft, gave a perform- ance of the dance in usum delphini, and the boarding-school mistresses preferred to take their young girls to see her when they visited the Esplanade. The success of the Alm£e dance grew with that of the Exposition ; all through the summer, this was the most fashionable salon sport. It is by no means one of the beautiful features of the Exposition, but it is one that created a sensation and never will be forgotten. Beside the Australian and African villages on the Esplanade were the Tonkinese and Cochin Chinese, the Anamese soldiers’ camp, Creole restaurants, Anamese theatres, and Oriental cafts with colored waitresses from all the different islands. Parisians knew until now very little about geography, and they became gradually conscious of this deficiency in their education. Too comfortable to go to the mountain, they made the mountain come to them in this Exposition summer. It was the globe in miniature, represented with all its peculiarities and customs on the Esplanade, and when all the nations united in procession it was a sight that had never been seen before and perhaps never will be seen again. XXVII. Chips Here and There. i. T HE Exposition had, like Paris, one part for the masses and an- other for the select few. It had la grande foire with all its noise and crowds, shining spangles and confusion of colors, but it had, besides this, the quiet studies. One might enjoy one’s self or work, out there, according to taste, and both things went hand in hand, for the Exposition stood there to give evidence that work was not only a burden that could not be thrown off the shoulders of mankind, and a necessary duty, but that in it was the happiness and greatness of life. To saunter along in these parks and halls was in itself interesting, and the knowledge acquired here came to you in the form of pleasure, as it has ever been the secret of France to make it do. Everybody came to the Champ-de-Mars, all nations and all classes, people with the most different interests and aims. From the very first the Ex- 273 *74 PARIS OF TO-DAY. position was pronounced chic. All Paris gave up for this summer the fashion of going into the country immediately after the great races. Instead of the plank walk on the Trouville sands, the Iena bridge, with its continuation of alleys covered with a striped awning, became the fashionable promenade. Every Parisian that wanted to keep up with the times considered it his duty to visit the Exposition at least so often that he could make the acquaintance of all the different cuisines of the globe. He engaged his table a week beforehand at the Roumanian cafe, to be sure of getting it, and when he had enjoyed his sour soup and Tamaiose wine, listen- ing to the music of the Lautharsi players, he would eat sherlets from the Danube in the Hungarian Czarda, and munch bananas in the Creole booth. He went to table d'hote in the Japanese Kam- pong, ate curry and powdered saffron, young bamboo shoots preserved in vinegar, and apple-dumplings with red pepper instead of sugar ; after that he would consume half a dozen American iced- drinks, and have his little bricket filled over and over again with cream by the misses in the English dairy ; drink orange wine, served by girls from Madagascar, and Australian champagne among New Caledonian cannibals, — all under pretext of de- stroying the effects of the red pepper. Wherever he came, there were musicians, tooting, scraping, or leathering away on their respective instruments; but when the wine, the noise, and the spices went to his head and made him dizzy, he only need call the men with their rolling fauteuils in order to be moved in com- fort to new fairy scenes, as quickly and imperceptibly as Aladdin was moved by the Spirit of the Ring. A few minutes later he was on the slopes of the Trocadero, among climbing roses, in unseen and unthought-of shades; among marguerites, whose crowns were arched like the dome of a church ; among forests of clematis with flowers like colored goblets ; begonia beds, where every single plant was a wonder of hot-house culture, — all the hundred species of alocasia, whose leaves are of the most won- derful and magnificent designs. Here it was like an idyl. The noise and crowd and dust hardly ever crossed the Iena bridge ; even on the great fete days one could find here, on the Trocadero slopes, nooks where solitude and peace reigned. And yet this slope was one of the pearls of the Exposition ; agriculture had here reached the same development as did the industries, CHIPS HERE AND THERE. 275 arts, porcelain, and ceramic fabrication on the other side of the bridge. The fashionable flower of our time is the orchid. It made its entry into the hot-house shortly after the brothers Goncourt had introduced the Japanese mania in the salons; twenty or thirty years ago there were hardly more than about a dozen great orchid collections in Europe, but the odd, multicolored, tropical plant suited the modern taste for the bizarre too well not to be put in the seat of honor. It has, at the same time, a tendency to individualization that is quite unknown in the vegetable world ; the gardeners do not need to take the trouble of crossing it in order to satisfy their customers’ mania for curiosities; it takes upon itself the task of being obliging to the utmost in this respect. Every few minutes it appears in a form that is by no means an accidental costume, but which to the botanist proves that it belongs to an absolutely new species, sometimes only to 2j6 PARIS OF TO-DAY. be distinguished from the others by specialties that escape the profane eye, but which, nevertheless, are modifications of the most important organs of the plant. And the peculiarity is that this new species is sometimes limited to a very few specimens. There arise, in this way, rarities that the collecting mania has not been able to resist. The unique orchids are known among lovers of flowers as the famous pictures are among art amateurs. There are catalogues of them with detailed descriptions, a story of their lives and the prices they have obtained at different auc- tions. The orchid collectors are very numerous, especially in France. In Paris they talk about auctions where rare species of cypripedium, dendrobium, epidendrum, or odontoglossum have been bought for three, four, five, even up to ten and twenty thousand francs for one single specimen. The Trocadero garden offered a good opportunity to study all this magnificence. The collectors had lent their orchid treasures to the hot-houses, — just as the art collectors had sent their famous pictures to the retro- spective collections in the Palais des Beaux Arts, — while the gardeners had put all the curiosities they possessed on parade. But to be able to appreciate these rarities it was necessary to have a companion who understood them thoroughly. But what everybody could thoroughly appreciate was the rich coloring of these tropical plants, and what everybody might be astonished to see was the peculiar way in which these orchids were fed. The greater part of them are carnivorous plants ; drosera mucipola and different cypripedium open and swallow greedily every insect that comes near enough, and then close until they have entirely digested it. Certain species of nepenthes are fed with meat. But, besides these, the Trocadero gardens contain a number of unknown specimens of the vegetation of all the different con- tinents, and even the Japanese Kampong had a pendent in the agricultural exhibition. Among the inclosures used for fruits and vegetables, one dis- tinguished itself from all the others. “ Kasawara, Tokio,” was written over the entrance. It was entirely hidden by a fence of bamboo sticks of all sizes. A single hinge, on which the entrance door hung, seemed to be all the iron that Mr. Kasawara had found it necessary to use. Steps made of split tree-trunks led up to his garden, which was laid out on the terraced heights, and he in- CHIPS HERE AND THERE. 277 vited his guests to rest on porcelain seats instead of benches. Everything was genuine, and calculated to make people feel as if they had suddenly been transported to a villa outside of the Japa- nese capital. Not least characteristic was Mr. Kasawara, who sat behind his house studying a Japanese paper as voluminous as the London Times , and covered from beginning to end with colored figures. The most peculiar of all, however, were the speci- mens of Japanese dwarf trees. One has often seen these trees on bronze or china, rugged, contorted, and old-looking, as if they carried the burden of many hundred years, and yet hardly larger than the pot in which they stand. Many people may have thought them a proof of the childish standpoint of Japanese art, but they were mistaken, for the trees do really look so. Kasa- wara’s garden was full of them. Even at ten steps’ distance, one had no idea of what they really were. There was a porcelain pot and growing out of it a green plant, hardly half a m£tre high, that at first sight looked quite commonplace. But on coming nearer, one discovered that it was a real tree, the crown of which lifted itself up, as if it were by magic, and spread out enough to give room to a whole caravan in its shade. The trunk stood there, gray and bent by age, but almost majestic in its venerableness ; and reminded one of the primeval forests. This illusion is not as unreasonable as it may sound. These trees are all one hundred, several even two hundred years old. But all through their existence they have been cultivated in these pots, and have had no more earth, water, or light than they needed in order to live, and their growth became in this way a diminished picture of what they would have been if they had been allowed to develop freely. The aim was all the time that the foliage should give the great impression of the forest-depth, while the tree was kept as small as possible. The better this end is accomplished the more perfect the art, and the costlier the result of the gar- dener’s patience. Kasawara had thuyas over one hundred and fifty years old, for which he, in spite of the modest price charged by the Japanese, asked six hundred francs. Besides different specimens of evergreens, it is generally the maple and bamboo that are cultivated, and especially the Japanese tree, podocaspus, that seems to thrive best in this way. Kasawara had specimens of these that were over two hundred years old. 278 PARIS OF TO-DAY. The Japanese do not seem to have the same taste in flowers as we. There were in Kasawara’s garden and in his albums of Japanese flora only large ornamental flowers ; lilies, irises, tulips, and chrysanthemums, and even then very few specimens of each. When people want to show one an especial attention in Japan, they do not present their friend with a bouquet of flowers, but with a landscape of plants. One of the old trees is put in a box as centerpiece for a wild rocky landscape, with old ferns and creepers, or on the border of a smiling forest lake, full of sailing boats, with fauna and people, all of china, and the Trocadero garden- er had quite a large assortment of this Japanese luxury to show his guests. Such treasures as these were hidden be- hind the foliage of the Trocadero gar- den. There were peaceful places here, where the firs and the pines seemed to stand as near together as in the depths of the forest, and, on the paths that ran among them, sometimes not a human being was to be seen. The blue African cedar, the only specimen that has as yet grown on European ground, brought dreams of its distant home ; while a grove with the pyramidal crowns of the araucaria carried one’s thoughts to the giants among the Andes Mountains. When tired of the crowds, noise, and thousand voices, one only needed to cross the Iena bridge. On passing Garnier’s human dwellings, it would be well to pay a visit to the Asmanic pavilion. The Turkish JAPANESE THUYA I50 YEARS OLD. CHIPS HERE AND THERE. 279 woman here was less genuine than anything else of the Exposition, for, in spite of the turban and the gold-embroidered satin coat, it was easy to see that her cradle had been standing near Batig- A TURKISH WOMAN BRED AND BORN IN . . . BATIGNOLLES. nolles. But she, as well as her colleagues in these houses, — which in spite of their deficient archit^ture were among the greatest successes of the Exposition, — was chosen from among the handsomest girls in Paris, and her goods were absolutely genuine. In the blue smoke of the tobacco she sold, all the houris of paradise seemed to take each other by the hand. When the odor of its smoke for an hour or so had mingled with the perfume of the Trocadero flower gardens, when one had rested for a while on the benches in the pine grove, where the noise and hubbub sounded like the rolling of far-off waves, brain and senses were once more rested and one could commence PARIS OF TO-DAY. 280 another stroll on the Champ-de-Mars, and enjoy new pleasures and new impressions. II. If one came to the Exposition less for pleasure than for in- struction, it was principally the Palais des Arts Libdraux that became the great study. The French conception of arts libtraux is wide enough at all times, but was still further enlarged on this occasion. There was a little of everything in this wing. The galleries that ran around the large hall, which reached to the very roof of the building, contained on the first story, besides the re- sults obtained in photography and other artistic reproductions, an extensive and interesting collection of school exhibitions. The entire system of French instruction might be studied here, from the elementary schools of the provinces to L’Ecole des Beaux Arts. There were models of the school buildings, with their dormitories and dining-room, and, as far as possible, the result of the instruction was given. There was in France no institute for the blind, or the deaf and dumb, or any similar institution that had not taken care to show as much as possible how it worked, and what success it obtained. In the same way the rooms in the lower story gave a detailed representation of the state of the French prisons. The French, who understand how to write scientific books for the laity, understand likewise how to arrange an exhibition like this to suit the masses. A large element of curiosity introduced in the right place takes away all dryness. Among the models of buildings and the statistic tables there were samples of the works of patience done by the prisoners. Madonna altars, carved out inside a bottle; steam engines made of sardine boxes, or full-rigged men of war composed of bread crumbs; and in another place a retrospective bird’s-eye view of the prisons and modes of punishment of past times, with all kinds of implements of torture to show how great a progress in humaneness our time has made. Other side galleries were given to exhibitions from different scientific societies ; accounts of missions to distant countries, the collections brought home by them and pictures of the types of the respective places ; to cartographical representations of French soil, of the density of the population in France ; of its mineralogy, its climate, and several other things intra and extra, the boundaries of the re- CHIPS HERE AND THERE. 281 public, concerning our globe and the entire universe; a suite of exhibitions with the most interesting concentration of study material for specialists. But the pride of the Palais des Beaux Arts were the six large square halls in the center of the hall on either side of the dome. The standard of the whole e x h i b i tion was to be found here. The story of the civiliza- tion that had produced the Eiffel tower and the ma- chinery hall, the industry galleries and the master- pieces of the art rooms, was written here. It was done with bold strokes, but with French esprit and French talent for popularization. It commenced with the very beginning. Natural History, Anthropology, and Eth- nography of humanity was written over the entrance to the first hall. The gigantic golden Buddha from Nara, which Prince Cernuseti had brought to Europe, kept watch outside, and in the rotunda inside there was made a still stronger appeal to attract the attention of the public. The different stages of the prehistoric man were pictured through groups of figures in life size, modeled after the instructions given by scientific people. First came the “ Mammoth Age.” The first industrial workers, the flint-stone cutters, were seated under an immense old oak ; this was before there were any dwellings. The form of the cranium, the color of the skin, and the whole appearance shows a non-Arian type, nearest related to the present Mongolian. There were cave dwellers, making axes with which THE FIRST DOLMEN-BUILDERS. 282 PARIS OF TO-DAY. to fight the bears, and who had for their only garment a piece of leather around the loins and rings of shell around the neck and ankles. Passing by the Aztecs one reached the Neolithic Stone Age, represented by the first building of the dolmen, and another group of ambulant iron-founders from the Bronze Age, which had a more complete although simple costume. Here the suite ended in order to draw a comparison with some negroes of our day from Soudan at work forging. In the middle of the rotunda was a Samoyede camp, a model after nature, with reindeer to draw the sleigh, and stuffed seals. The whole arrangement was, perhaps, a little too suggestive of a wax hall, but experience shows that children never learn the letters as easily as through their toy blocks, and the masses have to be treated like children. The anthropological part of the Palais des Beaux Arts met with immense success, and has been instructive to many who formerly had no knowledge what- THE SAMOYEDE CAMP. ever of the things they saw here. In the gallery around the rotunda were the scenes of more advanced stages of civilization. First came a Chinese work-shop, with a crowd of the children of the Celestial Empire busily fabricating wares. After them came old Fouk-hi-chi, a Chinese a hundred years old, with wavy gray CHIPS HERE AND THERE. 283 hair, the inventor of the first written letters ; and many other great discoveries, made by this peculiar Eastern people before our civilization began, were pictured in the same way. There were suggestions of a compass and magnetic charts used by the Chinese even before Abraham’s time, and it was shown how they had understood to print with movable types more than four hun- dred years before Guttenberg. Then came the old Egyptians, EGYPTIAN WEAVERS. who were spinning and weaving in the way shown in the pictures on the pyramids, and next in the line an Athenian pottery and a Gallo-Roman faience shop of the year 100 after Christ. The owner was standing behind the counter showing his wares to the noble Roman lady who had shown him the honor of letting her se- dan be carried in under his roof. Last in the row came the Danish department. There were models of a warrior and a 284 PARIS OF TO-DAY. typical northern woman, from the Bronze Age. The heads of the figures were made over craniums found in the old northern mounds, the ornaments and weapons were genu- ine; and even the cloak of the warrior and the woman’s long, richly folded draperies were a true imitation of materials of AN ATHENIAN POTTERY. which fragments, found in different peat-bogs, were exhibited in glass cases. The old Northern Museum of Copenhagen had filled all the show-cases, and to a certain degree the whole anthropological exhibition was concentrated in the little Danish department. Here were the craniums and the kjokkenmoddings of the Mammoth Age, the flint axes of the Reindeer Age, an incomparable selection of weapons and ornaments from the; CHIPS HERE AND THERE. 285 Bronze Age, and, to complete it, the most important works on, and pictures of, ancient northern remains. The stone monument of Gorm, the old one from Jellinge, which was placed in the center, formed, with its abundant rune inscriptions, part of the story of writing; the representation of this latter art covered the balustrade and entrance to the different anthropological groups; here were samples of all the signs with which people have expressed their thoughts and told of the events of the day, from the very earliest civilization down to nations of the present day, that are still in a primitive state. There had been done every- thing to procure reproductions of what not only French, but all other museums possessed of eminent historical monuments of this art, and the exhibition was almost complete. At each step one met with new and interesting pictures. In one room were the different works in wood, stone, and iron ; then came agriculture ; after that hunting and fishing, and finally mining and metallurgy. In another room were musical instruments, decorations, and cos- tumes ; in still another, architecture and glyptics ; everything was complete. Where, for instance, the story of the light-house system was given, commencing with the very first train-oil lamps, the light of which was reflected in a pane of plate-glass, and all the different forms were represented, down to the last perfected one, with its endless combination of glass prisms. And even the smallest specialties had a little territory where their history was explained. The visitor would find departments like the one given to the history of conveyances. First came the antique carts and carriages, then models of all the carriages from Trianon and the mail coaches of the idyllic times, when people still made trips around the world in a sort of postchaise, swinging on leather straps, instead of being balanced on springs, and finally the stages of the revolutionary times and the vehicles that had brought the great Louis’s courtiers to the battle-field from which his glory shone all over the earth. Miniature reproductions of boats belonging to all periods and nations were being tossed to and fro on glass waves. The camel of the desert was there, and the Indian elephant with houses on its back. Then came the first models of steamers and railroads, and one gradually reached the period of modern engineers, with its gigantic viaducts and bridges, the immediate forerunners of the Eiffel tower. Under 286 PARIS OF TO-DAY. the dome was the inflated “ Montgolfi£re,” surmounted by a gal- lery, where the history of the balloon might be studied through models, or at least through the pictures, of which there were many hundred. The hall given to theatrical decorations and costumes was likewise of interest to many besides the dramatic artists. In a rotunda in the middle of the hall were placed dioramically decora- tion-maquettes of the principal works given at the Opera during the last century, and also of many pieces played at the Theatre Frangais. Around the diorama hung the pictures of the most prominent authors and composers. There were not only pictures of the prominent actors and actresses in costume, but also models that not only wore the costumes of their part, but to which it had been attempted to impart their expression and gestures as well as possible. Even the exhibition of the musical instru- ments was so arranged that it captivated the attention of the masses. People who came out of idle curiosity would linger in many places ; if there was nothing else to attract attention in the ethnological collection, there were at least the craniums of the guillotined, of Gambetta, and other notorious men. If people did not see anything else passing through the ex- hibition belonging to the scientific missions, they must at least have noticed the curious specimens of plants and animals brought up from the depths of the sea. Until about twenty years ago it was supposed that there was no animal life below a certain depth. It was thought that the pressure of the water and the lack of air rendered life impossible, when of a sudden the cable between Sardinia and Algiers broke, and the remains drawn up from a depth of over two thousand metres were covered with polypi and mollusks. Later several French expeditions were sent out to search these depths, and they brought home collections of the most fantastic aquatic animals, that do not seem at all related to any other living thing. Everywhere in the Palais des Arts Lib£raux were to be found many of these curiosities for the pro- fane crowds, but the palace was principally for those who came there with a true craving for knowledge and with the qualifica- tions for receiving it. They would all find sufficient instruction in their especial field in this museum of museums, this temple erected for the greatest modern power, the progress of human labor and civilization. III. It was the peremptory duty of all visitors to ascend the Eiffel tower. The greatness of this new wonder of the world reached its climax in the popularity it obtained. Even before the opening of the exhibition representations of it were sent out by millions to all parts of the world, and every day the number of the forms of the reproductions increased. The portrait of the giant inundated the world in pen, pencil, and brush, in photo and lithography, in oil and pastel, on paper, canvas, on wood and ivory, on china, steel, and zinc. It was printed on handkerchiefs and caps; it was eaten in chocolate and marchpane; formed into cigar cases and hand bells, inkstands and candlesticks ; it dangled from the gentlemen’s watchchains and was fastened in the ladies’ ears ; it stood in hundreds of forms in the shop-windows, and made all idle hands busy in the workshops. A Parisian business 287 288 PARIS OF TO-DAY. man who understands the times, had, before the opening day, made a contract with the architect of the tower by which he received the monopoly to reproduce it ; but the peddlers^to whom this would cut off a new source of wealth, came near making a riot. The tribunals had to decide the question and did so with the verdict that the tower, since it had received subvention from the state, had become a national monument, on the reproduction of which there could be given no monopoly. After this the Eiffel tower mania knew no bounds. Everything was a la tour Eiffel , from toilet tables and clocks to snuff-boxes, umbrella handles, scarf pins, and sleeve buttons. They were made to suit all prices and all tastes ; they were sold on the street corners under magni- fying glass for two sous, and they were built in the provinces fifteen metres high, and containing little private dining-rooms just as it stood at the foot of the Iena bridge, and everywhere on the globe the portrait of the giant was to be seen. . . . d Montmartre, en Su'ide, En Macddoine, en Kamschatka ; Sous la. hutte du Samoyede, Dans les sables du Sahara. How near or how far these portraits were from the ideal of beauty of the time, they nevertheless all seemed to draw people with irresistible sway to the Champ-de-Mars, to stand face to face with the original. Hours before the trains reached the Paris depot, the news that the tower was in sight went from compart- ment to compartment. When evening came, the light from its top could be seen at fifty-six miles’ distance. It was visible from almost every point in the Seine capital, striking the eye with its sharp outlines, so that even the babies learned to know it, and stammered “ Tour Eiffelf almost before “ papa ” and “ mamma.” If one wanted to be dans le mouvement, he would make the Eiffel tower his boulevard ; climb up the winding stairs as often as he needed exercise ; write exposition news for the Figaro edition, which was printed in the second story of the tower, and consider it the height of comfort to take his dinner up there in Brebant’s restaurant, at a table with a view over the Champ-de-Mars, with its luminous fountains. If one was afraid of vertigo or wanted to keep the five francs that it cost to go up in the tower, he might go with the elevator to the first landing CHIPS HERE AND THERE. 289 place, and get a glass of beer from the beautiful tricolor-decor- ated Hebe in the Alsatian brasserie , but it was necessary to have been in the Eiffel tower if one did not want to be looked upon as a phenomenon. Twenty thousand people on an average visited it daily during the summer. They had to wait several hours patiently in a row until they could be taken up in the lifts, and on Sunday it did not seldom happen that the administra- tion was obliged to stop the admission until some of the 10,000 that the tower could hold at a time had made room for their successors. Be- fore the exposition was closed, there was made so much in this this way that the money paid in ad- vance by the share- holders could be paid them back to the last farthing. The en- thusiasm of the visit- ors seemed to corre- spond to the height of the tower. There was, on the second story, in Figaro's pa- vilion, a visitors’ book in which peo- ple might write the account of their visit. Thousands strove here daily to express their thoughts and unburden their hearts, THE TRICOLOR-DRESSED HEBE AT THE ALSATIAN “ BRASSERIE.” 290 PARIS OF TO-DAY. and not the mountains on the Rhine, not Rigi, Kulm, nor any other place where men have rested on their wanderings to the heights, have, since the beginning of time, seen such an overflow of panegyrics as that which during the six summer months was poured out in the Eiffel tower protocol. It was not even large enough to contain them all ; they could be found on every railing and iron bar up to the very top. Those that were not accustomed to concentrate and express their feel- ings simply scratched their names and that of their beloved one in a heart pierced by an arrow, but those that had greater literary pretensions sang many varied hymns of glory to the praise of this new wonder and to the glorification of the city that had erected it. For people who had traveled in the mountains this climbing of the Eiffel tower created no especial excitement, and the view even from the third landing did not quite come up to the pictures of one’s imagination or those described by the chroniqueurs. It was a bird’s-eye view of Paris, with smaller houses and a wider horizon than one had obtained from the different other towers in Paris. In overpowering greatness the view could not at all be com- pared to the one the tourist has from the upper Rigi terrace in the morning, when the fog lifts, and one landscape, one church tower, and lake appears after the other ; and as to Paris, it looks much more beautiful from the heights at St. Cloud. Even the ascension was not very exciting. In the first days of the tower, when one had to climb up to the first, second, and third story by the winding stairs that grew narrower and narrower, when the ramp was not yet covered, and one could see the whole scaffold of the tower and at every turn seemed to be stepping out into the empty space, then even the man who was least prone to diz- ziness could hardly reach the top without feeling dread creep all over him. But since the lifts have come, these closed compart- ments that can accommodate fifty travelers at a time, not only all danger has disappeared, but every illusion of danger is destroyed. On the third terrace there is not only an iron parapet, so high that one can only just look over it, but the whole terrace is closed like a glass veranda. Everywhere in the Eiffel tower where visitors are admitted, they are on as firm a ground as on the Ghamp-de-Mars itself, and it is impossible for any one to get rid ON THE FIRST STORY OF THE EIFFEL TOWER, 291 PARIS OF TO-DAY. 299 of this feeling of absolute security. The ascension is, in this way, almost as commonplace as that of any other tower, and it has not happened to a single person out of the six million visitors to faint from vertigo or from any other overpowering impression. The life in the tower had, after all, many peculiarities. Beside the overfilled restaurants and cafes there were entire streets made up of all kinds of little booths. Women selling cigarettes, men renting opera-glasses and selling souvenirs, and curiosity dealers had installed themselves in dense crowds among the iron bars and stairs near the lifts that were forever moving up and down, and whose chains moved with a dull and regular sound like the noise of a machine. It was like a city hanging in the rigging of an immense steamer. The wind gusts came fresh and sharp like the sea breeze ; one might take the sky, seen through the iron bars, for the perspective of the endless ocean. There were always crowds waiting outside the first and second story lifts that went higher up, and the cosmopolitan nature of the Exposition was nowhere as striking as here ; people of all colors and costumes, producing with their different languages a confusion greater than Babel, pressed by each other on the narrow stairs ; it was as if the whole world had come and stood there, with beating heart, anxious to ascend toward the sky. But the deepest impression of a visit in the tower was the secure feeling when once more one stood at its foot under the large arches. Its solidity was more imposing than its height had been. One had, at the first sight of the giant, been surprised that three hundred metres were not more, but was now surprised that it stood there, so immovably firm in spite of its airy lightness, that made it look like a toy. But whether one was conscious of the fact that iron has ten times as great a power of resistance as wood of an equal surface, and twenty times greater than stone, there was not a moment’s doubt but that it would resist all storms, and one willingly trusted it with the dearest he possessed. This security opened wider horizons than those obtained from the top of the tower. People understood what consequences this would have, and that it was a monument in the history of human development which was standing there, and that this was the true greatness of it, and that which made the attraction of the Eiffel tower so irresistible for all. IV. Whatever it was that at- tracted people, the concourse increased continually during the six months. The railroads ex- perienced, early in November, more trouble in accommodating the endless crowds of visitors than they had even during the summer vacation. From an average of one hundred thou- sand people a day, the normal number, in October, became two hundred thou- sand, and during the last week of the Ex- position this number was surpassed, even when it rained cats and dogs. The final result was that when everybody had real- ized the extent of the success, there came even more than the twenty- five million guests that Paris had counted on ; and, including the free tickets and cards of ad- mission sent, the Exposition had, during its six months’ existence/thirty million visit- ors. The middle classes of Paris formed a very essential part of these masses. The Exposition soon became as popular as 293 294 PARIS OF TO-DAY. it was chic ; the country trips, that all through the summer are so great a part of a Parisian’s life, were changed. The exposition took the place of the little dinners on the Seine bank at Asni&res; of the dusty inns of the banlieue ; and first of all, of the merry-go-round trips on Sunday, without which a Parisian generally thinks his life wasted. All the spare money was used for trips to the Champ-de-Mars, and the poor man would pawn even his bedclothes, that he might visit the fairy land out there at least once. These immigrations to the Exposition were, on great fete days, a very unique sight. To prevent overcrowding, there was asked ten or at least five francs admission to these fetes. But as the prices were only raised during the evening, and the people who had come in during the day could not very well be turned out, those that did not have much gold to dispose of only needed to come before five in order to be present at the fete for one ticket. Immediately after lunch, about two o’clock, one might seethe entire city, dressed up for the occasion, walking to- ward the avenues that led to the Exposition. The fear of having to enjoy all this magnificence on an empty stomach was no cloud on the heavens of their expectations. The Parisians soon realized that they might get rid of a great deal more money than was strictly advisable in the restaurants on the Champ-de-Mars, and that on great occasions even he who had his pocket full of gold might be obliged to go hungry. They arranged matters accordingly, and brought with them, as they would to any other picnic, what they needed to sustain life. They chose a shaded place in the beautiful park, where they could dine ; sat down on the grass, used the newspapers for nap- kins and the leaves of the trees for plates, and banqueted in high spirits in the dust and the crowds, as they would have done in the depths of the woods. Parisians have an especial talent for contenting themselves anywhere and taking life as it is. When the contents of the basket had been consumed, they made their way toward evening to the “ font nines lumineusesf in the middle of the park. In spite of the written interdiction they sat down on the lawn, and when seen from a distance this center part of the park looked like a sea of human heads. They sat so near together on the grass borders along the alleys that there was not a single grass blade to be seen, and even to the corners of the park, where CHIPS HERE AND THERE. 3 95 there was no possibility of getting the least glimpse of the foun- tains, this dense grasshopper swarm of human beings was spread- ing. They sat on the pedestals in the sculpture hall ; every step THE “ FONTAINES LUMINEUSES.” that led from the Galerie de Trente Mitres up to the first floor of the machine hall was transformed into a bench, and, tired of having tramped around all day long, people sat down on the floor in the 296 PARIS OF TO-DAY. center hall, in long rows, looking out at the lamps that were being lighted all over the place. The Eiffel tower stood in the center, sharply defined against the dark evening sky. All along its archi- tectural outlines were drawn millions of little gaslights under white shades, and from the top shone, like a new Sirius in the heavens, only brighter than the old one, an electric sun, changing some- times with the reflectors that sent out its light to a distance of fifty-six miles. Seen in this costume, with its dark lines dimly visible among the gas flames, it looked, for the first time, the gigantic structure it really was. But suddenly a reddish mist arises and lingers for some seconds, and then the Bengal lights shine on all terraces, even on the pavilion three hundred metres high, and a sight more beautiful than any ever witnessed by human eyes is revealed. The tower stands in the darkness, enveloped in red flames to the very top. On the Trocadero heights the palace has been lit, all its towers are covered with rows of golden lamps, and chandeliers with thousands of lights hanging in the arches. The park is transformed into an Aladdin’s garden, where many thousand-colored balloons hang like fruits from the branches of the trees, and where the shrubberies are filled with large magnolia blossoms, with filaments of electric light. The statues of the domes carry electric torches, the walls of the foreign buildings shine as if covered with rubies, emeralds, and topazes, and this fairy land lies there in the surrounding darkness of the night, like a vision framed by the arch under the first gallery of the tower. Down on the Seine there is a Venetian fete , under the bridges that are outlined with gas-festoons ; along the banks, overhung with illumination balloons, glide flotilla after flotilla of boats, one more magnificent than the other, while the musicians seated in them play the “ Marseillaise,” and the people chime in. In the center of the Champ-de-Mars over the fountain that throws its water-columns toward the central dome, whose cupola resembles pure gold in the light, fire-crackers and rockets are sent up that shoot through the air and seem to pour down over this fairy-land. A burst of enthusiasm from the crowds an- nounces that the crowning performance of the evening has com- menced ; the luminous fountains are sending out multicolored light. It is for this that they have not spared any sacrifice or CHIPS HERE AND THERE. 297 trouble ; for this that they have paid their ten tickets, if neces- sary. To the attraction that the “great waters ” always have had for Parisians, has been added a new and piquant fea- ture, and the luminous fountains exercised all summer long a power of attraction that was hardly less than that of the Eiffel tower. The fountain was beautiful in itself. It consisted of three main parts: the upper basin with a group of allegorical figures, naiad and dolphins ; a stream forty metres long, bordered by metal reeds, and finally the lower basin in front of the three domes. The water fell from the horn of plenty held by the naiads, and from the mouth of the dolphins, in foaming cascades into the upper basin, and flowed down the terraces. Fourteen water-columns sprang from the reeds, and from the lower basin the main shoot was sent up surrounded by ten water-rockets. The effect was fine even when forty-eight shoots were sent up at once, but it was over- powering when the order was given to send the light into these water-columns through glass prisms, and the result of this inven- tion was an unequaled water-fireworks. Even when there was no illumination fete , the luminous fountains were there every evening to charm the public. They commenced spouting at nine o’clock and continued through a whole hour, with a few intervals, with an unending kaleidoscopic change of effect. First came the main shoot from the lower basin, and lifted itself, look- ing like transparent sulphur; the dust that fell from it irisated in a glory of red and green, and at the same time the jets were sent out from the reeds, playing in all the different colors. From the horns of plenty and the mouths of the dolphins seemed to flow a stream of precious stones, and the water in the basin had a thousand colored reflections. Sometimes scarlet was the pre- vailing color ; then softer shades began to appear ; violet would conquer for a minute and change suddenly, when the jet in the octagonal basin shot out grass-green or azure, while the smaller jets shone in mother of pearl and silver shades. No colorist of the greatest painting schools has had more colors on his palette than those which the inventor of these fountains displayed, and few have understood how to blend them into as dazzling a whole. People were every evening intoxicated with this magnifi- cence, and when the rest of the illumination was added, it was 2q8 PARIS OF TO-DAY. indeed a sight that might move even the most blasts to enthu- siasm. This fairy vision was as wonderful in its way as every- thing else that belonged to the Exposition, and it was quite natural that this should be the last thing that people took leave of, when the summer finally, on the evening of its closing fete, reached a climax worthy of this never-to-be-forgotten time. THE END. mMm