REAL
LATIN

QUARTER

F.BERKELEY SMITH

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Gift of
Helen a. Clark

IN THE GARDENS OF THE LUXEMBOURG
WATER COLOR
DRAWING Br
F. HOPKINSON SMITH
PARIS, 1 901

! I " 'L

By F. BERKELEY SMITH

WITH ; L L U .5 T P ..^
F . K O P' E i r^ 3 C' I'

FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
NEW YORK • NINETEEN HUNDRED AND ONE

p^ \

:_ i

5

Copyright, 1901 by
Funk & Wagnalls Company
Registered at
Stationers' Hall
London, England
Printed in the
United States of America
Published in
November, 1901

CONTENTS

Page

Introduction 

7

Chapter

L
In the Rue Vaugirard . .
II
IL
The Boulevard St. Michel .
29
in.
The "Bal Bullier" ....
52
IV.
Bal des Quat'z' Arts . . .
70
V.
"A Dejeuner at Lavenue's"
93
VI.
"At Marcel Legay's" . . .
"3
VII.
"Pochard" 
129
VIII.
The Luxembourg Gardens .
151
IX.
"The Ragged Edge of the
Quarter" 
173
X.
Exiled 
194
INTRODUCTION v«
" Cocher, drive to the rue Falgui^re " —
this in my best restaurant French.
The man with the varnished hat shrugged
his shoulders, and raised his eyebrows in
doubt. He evidently had never heard of
the rue Falgui^re. " Yes, rue Falgui^re,
the old rue des Fourneaux," I continued.
Cabby's face broke out into a smile. "Ah,
oui, oui, le Quartier Latin."
And it was at the end of this crooked
street, through a lane that led into a half
court flanked by a row of studio buildings,
and up one pair of dingy waxed steps, that
I found a door bearing the name of the
author of the following pages — his visiting
card impaled on a tack. He was in his shirt
sleeves — the thermometer stood at 90° out
side — working at his desk, surrounded by
half-finished sketches and manuscript.
The man himself I had met before — I

had known him for years, in fact — but the
surroundings were new to me. So too were
his methods of work.
Nowadays when a man would write of
the Siege of Peking or the relief of some
South African town with the unpronounce
able name, his habit is to rent a room on an
up-town avenue, move in an inkstand and
pad, and a collection of illustrated papers
and encyclopedias. This writer on the rue
Falgui^re chose a different plan. He would
come back year after year, and study his
subject and compile his impressions of the
Quarter in the very atmosphere of the
place itself; within a stone's throw of the
Luxembourg Gardens and the Pantheon ;
near the cafes and the Bullier ; next door,
if you please, to the public laundry where
his washerwoman pays a few sous for the
privilege of pounding his clothes into holes.
It all seemed very real to me, as I sat
beside him and watched him at work. The
method delighted me. I have similar ideas
myself about the value of his kind of study
in out-door sketching, compared with the
labored work of the studio, and I have most

positive opinions regarding the quality
which comes of it.
If then the pages which here follow have
in them any of the true inwardness of the
life they are meant to portray, it is due, I
feel sure, as much to the attitude of the
author toward his subject, as much to his
ability to seize, retain, and express these
instantaneous impressions, these flash pic
tures caught on the spot, as to any other
merit which they may possess.
Nothing can be made really real with
out it. F. HOPKINSON Smith.
Paris, August, 1901.

ill

CHAPTER I

THE RUE VAU
GIRARD

Like a dry brook,
its cobblestone bed zigzagging past quaint
shops and cafes, the rue Vaugirard finds its
way through the heart of the Latin Quarter.
It is only one in a score of other busy
little streets that intersect the Quartier
Latin; but as I live on the rue Vaugirard,
or rather just beside it, up an alley and in
the corner of a picturesque old courtyard
leading to the "Lavoir Gabriel," a somewhat
angelic name for a huge, barn-like struc
ture reeking in suds and steam, and noisy
with gossiping washerwomen who pay a
few sous a day there for the privilege of
doing their washing — and as my studio win-

dows (the big one with the north light, and
the other one a narrow slit reaching from the
floor to the high ceiling for the taking in
of the big canvases one sees at the Salon
— which are never sold) overlook both alley
and court, I can see the life and bustle below.
This is not the Paris of Boulevards,
ablaze with light and thronged with trav
elers of the world, nor of big hotels and chic
restaurants without prices on the menus.
In the latter the maitre d'hotel makes a
mental inventory of you when you arrive ;
and before you have reached your coffee
and cigar, or before madame has buttoned
^"^builili^a^^^i her gloves, this
''¦^I^MbMhB^HB well-shaved,
^i^^MSn^^Kmimmm dignified per-
^^^m^^^^^^mB^ sonage has
^gBwl^8^>WMM passed sentence
j^HBiMli^^ IBH^B °^ you, and you
^Ml^Hf IP^ M^BH ^^^ according
^^ pI^Hh 1 ^^^H ^° whatever he
11^ I JI^^^S '^fllB ^'^^i^'^s you can-
^H^Hv"' ^^^H "^'^ aflbrd. I
^¦^^^^^^JH^^^I knew a fellow
[^B ' fl^^Q^'/' ^H^H once who or-

LAVOIRGABRIEL

dered a peach in winter at one of these
smart taverns, and was obliged to wire
home for money the next day.
In the Quartier Latin the price is always
such an important factor that it is marked
plainly, and often the gar^on will remind
you of the cost of the dish you select in
case you have not read aright, for in this
true Bohemia one's daily fortune is the one
necessity so often lacking that any error
in regard to its expenditure is a serious
matter. In one of the well-known restaurants —
here celebrated as a rendezvous for artists
— a waiter, as he took a certain millionaire's
order for asparagus, said : " Does monsieur
know that asparagus costs five francs ? "
At all times of the day and most of the
night the rue Vaugirard is busy. During
the morning, push-carts loaded with red
gooseberries, green peas, fresh sardines,
and mackerel, their sides shining like sil
ver, line the curb in front of the small
shops. Diminutive donkeys, harnessed to
picturesque two-wheeled carts piled high
with vegetables, twitch their long ears and
13

doze in the shady corners of the street.
The gutters, flushed with clear water, flash
in the sunlight. Baskets full of red roses
and white carnations, at a few sous the
armful, brighten the cool shade of the alleys
leading to courtyards of wild gardens, many
of which are filled with odd collections of
sculpture discarded from the ateliers.
Old women in linen caps and girls in felt
slippers and leather-covered sabots, market
baskets on arm, gossip in groups or hurry
along the narrow sidewalk, stopping at the
butcher's or the baker's to buy the dejeuner.
Should you breakfast in your studio and do
14

your own marketing, you will meet with
enough politeness in the buying of a pate,
an artichoke, and a bottle of vin ordinaire,
to supply a court welcoming a distinguished
guest. Politeness is second nature to the Paris
ian — it is the key to one's daily life here,
the oil that makes this finesse of civilization
run smoothly.
" Bonjour, madame ! " says the well-to-do
proprietor of the tobacco-shop and cafe to
an old woman buying a sou's worth of snuff.
" Bonjour, monsieur," replies the woman
with a nod.
"Merci, madame," continues the fat pat
ron as he drops the sou into his till.
"Merci, monsieur — merci!" and she se
cretes the package in her netted reticule,
and hobbles out into the sunny street, while
the patron attends to the wants of three
draymen who have clambered down from
their heavy carts for a friendly chat and a
little vermouth. A polished zinc bar runs
the length of the low-ceilinged room ; a nar
row, winding stairway in one corner leads
to the living apartments above. Behind the
»5

bar shine three well-polished square mir
rors, and ranged in front of these, each in
its zinc rack, are the favorite beverages of
the Quarter — anisette, absinthe, menthe,
grenadine — each in zinc-stoppered bottles,
like the ones in the barber-shops.
At the end of the little bar a cocher is
having his morning tipple, the black brim of
his yellow glazed hat resting on his coarse
red ears. He is in his shirt-sleeves ; coat
slung over his shoulder, and whip in hand,
he is on the way to get his horse and
voiture for the day. To be even a cocher
in Paris is considered a profession. If he
dines at six-thirty and you hail him to take
you as he rattles past, he will make his
brief apologies to you without slackening
his pace, and go on to his plat du jour and
bottle of wine at his favorite rendezvous,
dedicated to "The Faithful Cocher." An
hour later he emerges, well fed, revives his
knee-sprung horse, lights a fresh cigarette,
cracks his whip like a package of torpedoes,
and goes clattering off in search of a cus
tomer. The shops along the rue Vaugirard are

marvels of neatness. The butcher-shop,
with its red front, is iron-barred like the
lion's cage in the circus. Inside the cage
are some choice specimens of filets, rounds
of beef, death-masks of departed calves,
cutlets, and chops in paper pantalettes.
On each article is placed a brass sign with
the current price thereon.
In Paris nothing is wasted. A placard
outside the butcher's announces an "Oc
casion " consisting of a mule and a don
key, both of guaranteed " premiere
qualite." And the butcher! A thick-set,
powerfully built fellow, with blue-black
hair, curly like a bull's and shining in
pomade, with fierce mustache of the
same dye, waxed to two formidable
points like skewers. Dangling over his
white apron, and suspended by a heavy
chain about his waist, he carries the long
steel spike which sharpens his knives. All
this paraphernalia gives him a very fierce
appearance, like the executioner in the
play ; but you will find him a mild, kindly
man after all, who takes his absinthe
slowly, with a fund of good humor after
i8

his day's work, and his family to Vincennes
on Sundays.
The windows, too, of these little shops
are studies in decoration. If it happens to
be a problem in eggs, cheese, butter, and
milk, all these are arranged artistically with
fresh grape-leaves between the white rows
of milk bottles and under the cheese ; often
the leaves form a nest for the white eggs
(the fresh ones) — the hard-boiled ones are
dyed a bright crimson. There are china
hearts, too, filled with "Double Cream,"
and cream in little brown pots ; Roquefort
cheese and Camembert, Isijny, and Pont
Leveque, and chopped spinach.
Delicatessen shops display galantines of

chicken, the windows banked with shining
cans of sardines and herrings from Dieppe ;
liver pates and creations in jelly ; tiny sau
sages of doubtful stuffing, and occasional
yellow ones like the odd fire-cracker of the
pack.

Grocery shops, their interiors resemb
ling the toy ones of our childhood, are
brightened with cones of snowy sugar in
blue paper jackets. The wooden drawers

filled with spices. Here, too, one can get
an excellent light wine for eight sous the
bottle. As the day begins, the early morning cries
drift up from the street. At six the fish-
women with their push-carts go their
rounds, each singing the beauties of her
wares. " Voila les beaux maquereaux ! "
chants the sturdy vendor, her sabots clack
ing over the cobbles as she pushes the cart
or stops and weighs a few sous' worth of
fish to a passing purchaser.
The goat-boy, piping his oboe-like air,
passes, the goats scrambling ahead alert
to steal a carrot or a bite of cabbage from
the nearest cart. And when these have
passed, the little orgue de Barbaric plays
its repertoire of quadrilles and waltzes
under your window. It is a very sweet-
toned organ, this little orgue de Barbaric,
with a plaintive, apologetic tone, and a flute
obbligato that would do credit to many a
small orchestra. I know this small organ
well — an old friend on dreary mornings,
putting the laziest riser in a good humor
for the day. The tunes are never changed,

but they are all inoffensive and many of
them pretty, and to the shrunken old man
who grinds them out daily they are no
doubt by this time all alike.
It is growing late and time for one's
coffee. The little tobacco-shop and cafe
around the corner I find an excellent place
for cafe au lait. The coffee is delicious and
made when one chooses to arrive, not
stewed like soup, iridescent in color, and
bitter with chicory, as one finds it in many
of the small French hotels. Two crescents,
flaky and hot from the bakery next door,
and three generous pats of unsalted butter,
complete this morning repast, and all for
the modest sum of twelve sous, with three
sous to the gar9on who serves you, with
which he is well pleased. I have forgotten a
companionable cat who
each morning takes her
seat on the long leather
settee beside me and
shares my crescents.
The cats are considered
important members of

nearly every family in the Quarter. Big
yellow and gray Angoras, small, alert tor
toise-shell ones, tiger-like and of plainer
breed and more intelligence, bask in the
doorways or sleep on the marble-topped
tables of the cafes.
"Qu' est-ce que tu veux, ma pauvre
Mimi ? " condoles Celeste, as she ap
proaches the family feline.
" Mimi " stretches her full length, extend
ing and retracting her claws, rolls on her
back, turns her big yellow eyes to Celeste
and mews. The next moment she is picked
up and carried back into the house like a
stray child.
At noon the streets seem deserted, except
for the sound of occasional laughter and the
rattle of dishes coming from the smaller
restaurants as one passes. At this hour
these places are full of workmen in white
and blue blouses, and young girls from the
neighboring factories. They are all laugh
ing and talking together. A big fellow in a
blue gingham blouse attempts to kiss the
little milliner opposite him at table ; she
evades him, and, screaming with laughter,
23

picks up her skirts and darts out of the
restaurant and down the street, the big fel
low close on her dainty heels. A second
later he has overtaken her, and picking her
up bodily in his strong arms carries her
back to her seat, where he places her in
her chair, the little milliner by this time
quite out of breath with laughter and quite
happy. This little episode affords plenty of
amusement to the rest of the crowd; they
wildly applaud the good-humored captor,
who orders another litre of red wine for
those present, and every one is merry.
The Parisian takes his hour for dejeuner,
no matter what awaits him. It is the hour
when lovers meet, too. Edmond, working
in the atelier for the reproduction of Louis
XVI furniture, meets Louise coming from
her work on babies' caps in the rue des
Saints-Peres at precisely twelve-ten on
the corner of the rue Vaugirard and the
Boulevard Montparnasse. Louise comes
without her hat, her hair in an adorable
coiffure, as neatly arranged as a Geisha's,
her skirt held tightly to her hips, disclosing
her small feet in low slippers. There is a
25

golden rule, I believe, in the French cate
chism which says : "It is better, child, that
thy hair be neatly dressed than that thou
shouldst have a whole frock." And so
Louise is content. The two breakfast on
a ragout and a bottle of wine while they
talk of going on Sunday to St. Cloud for
the day — and so they must be economical
this week. Yes, they will surely go to St.
Cloud and spend all day in the woods. It
is the second Sunday in the month, and the
fountains will be playing. They will take
their dejeuner with them. Louise will, of
course, see to this, and Edmond will bring
cigarettes enough for two, and the wine.
26

Then, when the stars are out, they will
take one of the "bateaux mouches" back
to Paris.
Dear Paris — the Paris of youth, of love,
and of romance !
The pulse of the Quarter begins really to
beat at 6 P. M. At this hour the streets
are alive with throngs of workmen — after
their day's work, seeking their favorite
cafes to enjoy their aperitifs with their
comrades — and women hurrying back from
their work, many to their homes and chil
dren, buying the dinner en route.
Henriette, who sews all day at one of the
fashionable dressmakers' in the rue de la
Paix, trips along over the Pont Neuf to her
small room in the Quarter to put on her
best dress and white kid slippers, for it is
Bullier night and she is going to the ball
with two friends of her cousin.
In the twilight, and from my studio win
dow the swallows, like black cinders against
the yellow sky, dart and swoop above the
forest of chimney-pots and tiled and gabled
roofs. 27

It is the hour to dine, and with this
thought uppermost in every one's mind
studio doors are slammed and night-keys
tucked in pockets. And arm in arm the
poet and the artist swing along to that
evening Mecca of good Bohemians— the
Boulevard St. Michel.

CHAPTER II

THE BOULEVARD ST. MICHEL
ROM the Place St.
Michel, this ever gay
and crowded boule
vard ascends a long
incline, up which the
tired horses tug at
the traces of the fia
cres, and the big
double-decked steam
trams crawl, until
they reach the Luxembourg Gardens,
— and so on a level road as far as the
Place de I'Observatoire. Within this
length lies the life of the " Boul'
Miche." Nearly every highway has its popu
lar side, and on the " Boul' Miche " it is the
left one, coming up from the Seine. Here
are the cafes, and from 5 p.m. until long
past midnight, the life of the Quartier pours
29

TERRACETAVERNE DUPANTHEON

by them — students, soldiers, families, poets,
artists, sculptors, wives, and sweethearts ;
bicycle girls, the modern grisette, the shop
girl, and the model ; fakirs, beggars, and
vagrants. Yet the word vagrant is a mis
nomer in this city, where economy has
reached a finesse that is marvelous. That
fellow, in filth and rags, shuffling along, his
eyes scrutinizing, like a hungry rat, every
nook and corner under the cafe tables on
the terrace, carries a stick spiked with a
pin. The next instant, he has raked the
butt of your discarded cigarette from be
neath your feet with the dexterity of a

croupier. The butt he adds to the collec
tion in his filthy pocket, and shuffles on to
the next cafe. It will go so far at least
toward paying for his absinthe. He is
hungry, but it is the absinthe for which
he is working. He is a "marchand de
megots " ; it is his profession.
One finds every type of restaurant, tavern,
and cafe along the " Boul' Miche." There
are small restaurants whose plat du jour
might be traced to some faithful steed find
ing a final oblivion in a brown sauce and
onions — an important item in a course din
ner, to be had with wine included for one
franc fifty. There are brasseries too,
gloomy by day and brilliant by night (dis
pensing good Munich beer in two shadesj
and German and French food), whose rich
interiors in carved black oak, imitation
gobelin, and stained glass are never half
illumined until the lights are lit.
All day, when the sun blazes, and the
awnings are down, sheltering those chat
ting on the terrace, the interiors of these
brasseries appear dark and cavernous.
The clientele is somber too, and in keep-
31

A "TYPE'

ing with the place ; silent poets, long haired,
pale, and always writing ; serious-minded
lawyers, lunching alone, and fat merchants
who eat and drink methodically.
Then there are bizarre cafes, like the
d'Harcourt, crowded at night with noisy
women tawdry in ostrich plumes, cheap
feather boas, and much rouge. The d'Har
court at midnight is ablaze with light, but
the crowd is common and you move on up
the boulevard under the trees, past the
shops full of Quartier fashions — velvet
coats, with standing collars buttoning close
under the chin ; flamboyant black silk
scarfs tied in a huge bow ; queer broad-
brimmed, black hats without which no
"types" wardrobe is complete.
On the corner facing the square, and op
posite the Luxembourg gate, is the Tav-
erne du Pantheon. This is the most bril
liant cafe and restaurant of the Quarter,
forming a V with its long terrace, at the
corner of the boulevard and the rue Soufflot,
at the head of which towers the superb
dome of the Pantheon.
It is 6 P.M. and the terrace, four rows
33

deep with little round tables, is rapidly fill
ing. The white-aproned gar^ons are hurry
ing about or squeezing past your table, as
they take the various orders.
" Un demi ! un ! " shouts the gar^on.
"Deux pernod nature, deux!" cries an
other, and presently the "Omnibus" in his
black apron hurries to your table, holding
between his knuckles, by their necks, half a
dozen bottles of different aperitifs, for it is
he who fills your glass.
It is the custom to do most of one's corre
spondence in these cafes. The gargon brings
you a portfolio containing note-paper, a bot
tle of violet ink, an impossible pen that spat
ters, and a sheet of pink blotting-paper that
does not absorb. With these and your

aperatif, the place is yours as long as you
choose to remain. No one will ask you to
"move on" or pay the slightest attention
to you.
Should you happen to be a cannibal chief
from the South Seas, and dine in a green
silk high hat and a necklace of your latest
captive's teeth, you would occasion a pass
ing glance perhaps, but you would not be a
sensation. Celeste would say to Henriette :
" Regarde 5a, Henriette ! est-il drole, ce
sauvage ? "
And Henriette would reply quite assur-
ingly :
" Eh bien quoi ! c'est pas si extraordi
naire, il est peut-etre de Madagascar ; il y
en a beaucoup a Paris maintenant."
There is no phase of character, or eccen
tricity of dress, that Paris has not seen.
Nor will your waiter polish off the marble
top of your table, with the hope that your
ordinary sensibility will suggest another
drink. It would be beneath his professional
dignity as a good gar9on de cafe. The two
sous you have given him as a pourboire, he
36

is well satisfied with, and expresses his con
tentment in a " merci, monsieur, merci,"
the final syllable ending in a little hiss,
prolonged in proportion to his satisfaction.
After this just formality, you will find him
ready to see the point of a joke or discuss
the current topics of the day. He is intelli
gent, independent, very polite, but never
servile. It is difficult now to find a vacant
chair on the long
terrace. A group
of students are
having a " Per
nod," after a long
day's work at the
atelier. They
finish their ab
sinthe and then,
arm in arm, start
off to Madame
Poivret's for din
ner. It is cheap
there; besides,
the little "boite,"
with its dingy

4-

room and sawdust floor, is a favorite haunt
of theirs, and the good old lady, with her
credit slate, a friendly refuge in time of
need. At your left sits a girl in bicycle bloomers,
yellow-tanned shoes, and short black socks
pulled up snug to her sunburned calves.
She has just ridden in from the Bois de
Boulogne, and has scorched half the way
back to meet her "officier" in pale blue.
The two are deep in conversation. Farther
on are four older men, accompanied by a
pale, sweet-faced woman of thirty, her blue-
black hair brought in a bandeau over her
38

dainty ears. She is the model of the gray-
haired man on the left, a man of perhaps
fifty, with kindly intelligent eyes and strong,
nervous, expressive hands — hands that
know how to model a colossal Greek war-
horse, plunging in battle, or create a nymph
scarcely a foot high out of a lump of clay, so
charmingly that the French Government
has not only bought the nymph, but given
him a little red ribbon for his pains.
He is telling the others of a spot he knows
in Normandy, where one can paint — full of
quaint farm-houses, with thatched roofs ;
picturesque roadsides, rich in foliage ; bright
waving fields, and cool green woods, and
39

purling streams ; quaint gardens, choked
with lavender and roses and hollyhocks —
and all this fair land running to the white
sand of the beach, with the blue sea beyond.
He will write to old Pere Jaqueline that
they are all coming — it is just the place in
which to pose a model "en plein air," — and
Suzanne, his model, being a Normande her
self, grows enthusiastic at the thought of
going down again to the sea. Long before
she became a Parisienne, and when her
beautiful hair was a tangled shock of curls,
she used to go out in the big boats, with
the fisherwomen — barefooted, brown, and
happy. She tells them of those good
days, and then they all go into the Tav-
erne to dine, filled with the idea of the
new trip, and dreaming of dinners under
the trees, of "Tripes a la mode de Caen,"
Normandy cider, and a lot of new sketches
besides. Already the tables within are well filled.
The long room, with its newer annex, is as
brilliant as a jewel box — the walls rich in
tiled panels suggesting the life of the Quar
ter, the woodwork in gold and light oak,
40

the big panels of the rich gold ceiling ex
quisitely painted.
At one of the tables two very chic young
women are dining with a young French
man, his hair and dress in close imitation
of the Due d'Orleans. These poses in
dress are not uncommon.
A strikingly pretty woman, in a scarlet-
spangled gown as red as her lips, is dining
with a well-built, soldierly-looking man in
black; they sit side by side as is the cus
tom here.
The woman reminds one of a red lizard^
a salamander — her "svelte" body seemingly
boneless in its gown of clinging scales.
Her hair is purple-black and freshly on-
duled ; her skin as white as ivory. She has
the habit of throwing back her small, well-
posed head, while under their delicately
penciled lids her gray eyes take in the
room at a glance.
She is not of the Quarter, but the Tav-
erne du Pantheon is a refuge for her at
times, when she grows tired of Paillard's
and Maxim's and her quarreling retinue.
"Let them howl on the other bank of the
42

Seine," says this empress of the half-world
to herself, " I dine with Raoul where I
please." And now one glittering, red arm with its
small, heavily-jeweled hand glides toward
Raoul's open cigarette case, and in with
drawing a cigarette she presses for a
moment his big, strong hand as he holds
near her polished nails the flaming
match. Her companion watches her as she
smokes and talks — now and then he leans
closer to her, squaring his broad shoulders
and bending lower his strong, determined
face, as he listens to her, — half-amused,
replying to her questions leisurely, in short,

ALONG THE SEINE

crisp sentences. Suddenly she stamps
one little foot savagely under the table,
and, clenching her jeweled hands, breathes
heavily. She is trembling with rage ;
the man at her side hunches his great
shoulders, flicks the ashes from his cigar
ette, looks at her keenly for a moment,
and then smiles. In a moment she is her
self again, almost penitent ; this little sav
age, half Roumanian, half Russian, has
never known what it was to be ruled ! She
has seen men grow white when she has
stamped her little foot, but this big Raoul,
whom she loves — who once held a garrison
with a handful of men — he does not trem
ble ! she loves him for his devil-me-care
indifference — and he enjoys her temper.
But the salamander remembers there are
some whom she dominated, until they
groveled like slaves at her feet; even the
great Russian nobleman turned pale when
she dictated to him archly and with the
voice of an angel the price of his freedom.
"Poor fool! he shot himself the next
day," mused the salamander.
Yes, and even the adamant old banker in
44

Paris, crabbed, stern, unrelenting to his
debtors — shivered in his boots and ended
in signing away half his fortune to her,
and moved his family into a permanent
chateau in the country, where he keeps
himself busy with his shooting and his
books. As it grows late, the taverne becomes
more and more animated.
Every one is talking and having a good
time. The room is bewildering in gay color,
the hum of conversation is everywhere, and
as there is a corresponding row of tables
across the low, narrow room, friendly greet
ings and often conversations are kept up
from one side to the other. The dinner, as
it progresses, assumes the air of a big
family party of good bohemians. The
French do not bring their misery with
them to the table. To dine is to enjoy
oneself to the utmost ; in fact the French
people cover their disappointment, sad
ness, annoyances, great or petty troubles,
under a masque of "blague," and have
such an innate dislike of sympathy or ridi-
45

cule that they avoid it by turning every
thing into "blague."
This veneer is misleading, for at heart
the French are sad. Not to speak of their
inmost feelings does not, on the other hand,
prevent them at times from being most
confidential. Often, the merest exchange
of courtesies between those sharing the
same compartment in a train, or a seat on
a "bus," seems to be a sufficient introduc
tion for your neighbor to tell you where he
comes from, where he is going, whether he
is married or single, whom his daughter
married, and what regiment his son is in.
These little confidences often end in his
offering you half his bottle of wine and ex
tending to you his cigarettes.
If you have finished dinner, you go out on
the terrace for your coffee. The fakirs are
passing up and down in front, selling their
wares — little rabbits, wonderfully lifelike,
that can jump along your table and sit on
their hind legs, and wag their ears ; toy
snakes ; small leaden pigs for good luck ;
and novelties of every description. Here
one sees women with baskets of ecrivisse
46

boiled scarlet ; an acrobat tumbles on the
pavement, and two men and a girl, as a
marine, a soldier, and a vivandiere, in sil
vered faces and suits, pose in melodramatic
attitudes. The vivandiere is rescued alter
nately from a speedy death by the marine
and the soldier.
Presently a little old woman
approaches, shriveled and
smiling, in her faded fur
belows now in rags.
She sings in a piping
voice and executes be
tween the verses a tot
tering pas seul, her
eyes ever smiling, as " i.
if she still saw over
the glare of the foot-

,ES
BEAUX
MAQUEREAUX

Hghts, in the haze beyond, the vast audience
of by-gone days ; smiling as if she still heard
the big orchestra and saw the leader with
his vibrant baton, watching her every move
ment. She is over seventy now, and was
once a premier danseuse at the opera.
But you have not seen all of the Taverne
du Pantheon yet. There is an "American
Bar " downstairs ; at least, so the sign reads
at the top of a narrow stairway leading to a
small, tavern-like room, with a sawdust
floor, heavy deal tables, and wooden stools.
In front of the bar are high stools that
one climbs up on and has a lukewarm whisky
soda, next to Yvonne and Marcelle, who
are both singing the latest catch of the day
at the top of their lungs, until they are
howled at to keep still or are lifted bodily
off their high stools by the big fellow in the
" type " hat, who has just come in.
Before a long table at one end of the room
is the crowd of American students singing
in a chorus. The table is full now, for many
have come from dinners at other cafes to
join them. At one end, and acting as inter
locutor for this impromptu minstrel show,
48

D <
aaz<
a.w•X.
o

presides one of the best fellows in the world.
He rises solemnly, his genial round face
wreathed in a subtle smile, and announces
that he will sing, by earnest request, that
popular ballad, " 'Twas Summer and the
Little Birds were Singing in the Trees."
There are some especially fine "barber
chords " in this popular ditty, and the words
are so touching that it is repeated over and
over again. Then it is sung softly like the
farmhand quartettes do in the rural melo
drama outside the old homestead in harvest
time. Oh ! I tell you it's a truly rural oc
tette. Listen to that exhibition bass voice
of Jimmy Sands and that wandering tenor
of Tommy Whiteing, and as the last chord
dies away (over the fields presumably) a
shout goes up :
"How's that?"
" Out of sight," comes the general verdict
from the crowd, and bang go a dozen beer
glasses in unison on the heavy table.
"Oh, que c'est beau!" cries Mimi, lead
ing the successful chorus in a new vocal
number with Edmond's walking-stick ; but
this time it is a French song and the whole
5°

room is singing it, including our old friend.
Monsieur Frank, the barkeeper, who is
mixing one of his famous concoctions which
are never twice quite alike, but are better
than if they were.
The harmonic beauties of " 'Twas Sum
mer and the Little Birds were Singing in
the Trees" are still inexhausted, but it
sadly needs a piano accompaniment — with
this it would be perfect ; and so the whole
crowd, including Yvonne, and Celeste, and
Marcelle, and the two Frenchmen, and the
girl in the bicycle clothes, start for Jack
Thompson's studio in the rue des Four
neaux, where there is a piano that, even if
the candles in the little Louis XVI brackets
do burn low and spill down the keys, and
the punch rusts the strings, it will still
retain that beautiful, rich tone that every
French upright, at seven francs a month,
possesses.

SI

CHAPTER III
"^
THE "BAL BULLIER"
There are all types of "bals" in Paris.
Over in Montmartre, on the Place Blanche,
is the well-known " Moulin Rouge," a place
suggestive, to those who have never seen it,
of the quintessence of Parisian devil-me-
care gayety. You expect it to be like those
clever pen-and-ink drawings of Grevin's, of
the old Jardin Mabille in its palmiest days,
brilliant with lights and beautiful women
extravagantly gowned and bejeweled. You
52

expect to see Frenchmen, too, in pot-hats,
crowding in a circle about Fifine, who is
dancing some mad can-can, half hidden in
a swirl of point lace, her small, polished
boots alternately poised above her dainty
head. And when she has finished, you
expect her to be carried off to supper at
the Maison Doree by the big, fierce-look
ing Russian who has been watching her,
and whose victoria, with its spanking team
— black and glossy as satin — champing
their silver bits outside, awaiting her
pleasure. But in all these anticipations you will be
disappointed, for the famous Jardin Ma
bille is no more, and the ground where it
once stood in the Champs Elysees is now
built up with private residences. Fifine is
gone, too — years ago — and most of the old
gentlemen in pot-hats who used to watch
her are buried or about to be. Few French
men ever go to the "Moulin Rouge," but
every American does on his first night in
Paris, and emerges with enough cab fare
to return him to his hotel, where he ar
rives with the positive conviction that the
53

red mill, with its slowly revolving sails,
lurid in crimson lights, was constructed
especially for him. He remembers, too, his
first impressions of Paris that very morning
as his train rolled into the Gare St. La-
zare. His aunt could wait until to-morrow
to see the tomb of Napoleon, but he would
see the " Moulin Rouge " first, and to be in
ample time ordered dinner early in his
expensive, morgue-like hotel.
I remember once, a few hours after my
arrival in Paris, walking up the long hill to
the Place Blanche at 2 p. m., under a bla
zing July sun, to see if they did not give a
matinee at the " Moulin Rouge." The place
was closed, it is needless to say, and the
policeman I found pacing his beat outside,
when I asked him what day they gave a
matinee, put his thumbs in his sword belt,
looked at me quizzically for a moment,
and then roared. The " Moulin Rouge " is
in full blast every night ; in the day-time it
is being aired.
Farther up in Montmartre, up a steep,
cobbly hill, past quaint little shops and
cafes, the hill becoming so steep that your
54

cab horse finally refuses to climb further,
and you get out and walk up to the
" Moulin de la Galette." You find it a far
different type of ball from the "Moulin
Rouge," for it is not made for the stranger,
and its clientMe is composed of the rougher
element of that quarter.
A few years ago the "Galette "was not
the safest of places for a stranger to go to
alone. Since then, however, this ancient
granary and mill, that has served as a ball
room for so many years, has undergone a
radical change in management ; but it is
still a cliquey place, full of a lot of habitues
who regard a stranger as an intruder.
Should you by accident step on Marcelle's
dress or jostle her villainous-looking escort,
you will be apt to get into a row, beginning
with a mode of attack you are possibly
ignorant of, for these "maquereaux" fight
with their feet, having developed this " manly
art " of self-defense to a point of dexterity
more to be evaded than admired. And while
Marcelle's escort, with a swinging kick,
smashes your nose with his heel, his pals will
take the opportunity to kick you in the back.
56

So, if you go to the " Galette," go with a
a Parisian or some of the students of the
Quarter ; but if you must go alone — keep
your eyes on the band. It is a good band,
too, and its chef d'orchestre, besides being
a clever musical director, is a popular com
poser as well.
Go out from the ball-room into the tiny
garden and up the ladder-like stairs to the
rock above, crowned with the old windmill,
and look over the iron railing. Far below
you, swimming in a faint mist under the
summer stars, all Paris lies glittering at
your feet.
You will find the "Bal Bullier" of the
Latin Quarter far different from the "bals"
of Montmartre. It forms, with its "grand
fete " on Thursday nights, a sort of social
event of the week in this Quarter of Bo
hemians, just as the Friday afternoon prome
nade does in the Luxembourg garden.
If you dine at the Taverne du Pantheon
on a Thursday night you will find that the
taverne is half deserted by lo o'clock, and
that every one is leaving and walking up
57

the "Boul' Miche" toward the "Bullier."
Follow them, and as you reach the place ,
I'Observatoire, and turn a sharp corner to
the left, you will see the fa9ade of this
famous ball, illumined by a sizzling blue
electric light over the entrance.
The facade, with its colored bas-reliefs of
students and grisettes, reminds one of the
proscenium of a toy theater. Back of this
shallow wall bristle the tops of the trees in
the garden adjoining the big ball-room, both
of which are below the level of the street
and are reached by a broad wooden stairway.
The "Bal Bullier" was founded in 1847;
previous to this there existed the " Closerie
des Lilas " on the- Boulevard Montparnasse.
You pass along with the line of waiting
poets and artists, buy a green ticket for
two francs at the little cubby-hole of a box-
office, are divested of your stick by one of
half a dozen white-capped matrons at the
vestiaire, hand your ticket to an elderly
gentleman in a silk hat and funereal clothes,
at the top of the stairway sentineled by a
guard of two soldiers, and the next instant
you see the ball in full swing below you.
58

I I
I [

There is nothing disappointing about the
"Bal Bullier." It is all you expected it to
be, and more, too. Below you is a veritable
whirlpool of girls and students — a vast sea
of heads, and a dazzling display of colors
and lights and animation. Little shrieks
and screams fill your ears, as the orchestra
crashes into the last page of a galop, quick
ening the pace until Yvonne's little feet slip
and her cheeks glow, and her eyes grow
bright, and half her pretty golden hair gets
smashed over her impudent little nose.
Then the galop is brought up with a quick
finish. "Bis! Bis! Bis! Encore!" comes from
every quarter of the big room, and the con
ductor, with his traditional good-nature,
begins again. He knows it is wiser to
humor them, and off they go again, still
faster, until all are out of breath and rush
into the garden for a breath of cool air and
a "citron glage."
And what a pretty garden it is ! — full of
beautiful trees and dotted with round iron
tables, and laid out in white gravel walks,
the garden sloping gently back to a fountain,
60

and a grotto and an artificial
cascade all in one, with a
figure of Venus in the cen
ter, over which the water
splashes and trickles. There
is a green lattice proscenium,
too, surrounding the foun- ''
tain, illuminated with colored
lights and outlined in tiny flames of gas,
and grotto-like alcoves circling the garden,
each with a table and room for two. The
ball-room from the garden presents a bril
liant contrast, as one looks down upon it
from under the trees.
But the orchestra has given its signal — a
short bugle call announcing a quadrille ;
and those in the garden are running down
into the ball-room to hunt up their partners.
The "Bullier" orchestra will interest you ;
they play with a snap and fire and a tempo
that is irresistible. They have played to
gether so long that they have become known
as the best of all the bal orchestras.
The leader, too, is interesting — tall and
gaunt, with wild, deep-sunken eyes resem
bling those of an old eagle. Now and then
6i

i
i

3*^.

^^;;^'i

/ ,•

A TYPE OF THE QUARTER
By Helleu.— Estamjie aioderne

he turns his head slowly as he leads, and
rests these keen, penetrating orbs on the
sea of dancers below him. Then, with baton
raised above his head, he brings his or
chestra into the wild finale of the quadrille
— piccolos and clarinets, cymbals, bass viols,
and violins — all in one mad race to the end,
but so well trained that not a note is lost in
the scramble — and they finish under the
wire to a man, amid cheers from Mimi and
Celeste and "encores" and "bis's" from
every one else who has breath enough left
to shout with.
Often after an annual dinner of one of the
ateliers, the entire body of students will
march into the " Bullier," three hundred
strong, and take a good-natured possession
of the place. There have been some seri
ous demonstrations in the Quarter by the
students, who can form a small army when
combined. But as a rule you will find them
a good-natured lot of fellows, who are out
for all the humor and fun they can create at
the least expense.
But in June, 1893, a serious demonstra
tion by the students occurred, for these stu-
63

dents can fight as well as dance. Senator
Beranger, having read one morning in the
"Courrier Frangais " an account of the
revelry and nudity of several of the best-
known models of the Quarter at the " Quatz
Arts" ball, brought a charge against the
organizers of the ball, and several of the
models, whose beauty unadorned had made
them conspicuous on this most festive oc
casion. At the ensuing trial, several cele
brated beauties and idols of the Latin
Quarter were convicted and sentenced to
a short term of imprisonment, and fined a
hundred francs each. These sentences were,
however, remitted, but the majority of the
students would not have it thus, and wanted
further satisfaction. A mass meeting was
held by them in the Place de la Sorbonne.
The police were in force there to stop any
disturbance, and up to lo o'clock at night
the crowd was held in control.
It was a warm June night, and every stu
dent in the Quarter was keyed to a high
state of excitement. Finally a great crowd
of students formed in front of the Cafe
d'Harcourt, opposite the Sorbonne ; things
64

Jf'

7

were at fever heat ; the police became
rough ; and in the row that ensued, some
body hurled one of the heavy stone match-
safes from a cafe table at one of the police
men, who in his excitement picked it up
and hurled it back into the crowd. It struck
and injured fatally an innocent outsider, who
was taken to the Charity Hospital, in the
rue Jacob, and died there.
On the following Monday another mass
meeting of students was held in the Place de
la Sorbonne, who, after the meeting, formed
in a body and marched to the Chamber of
Deputies, crying : "Conspuez Dupuy," who
was then president of the Chamber. A
number of deputies came out on the portico
and the terrace, and smilingly reviewed the
demonstration, while the students hurled
their anathemas at them, the leaders and
men in the front rank of this howling mob
trying to climb over the high railing in front
of the terrace, and shouting that the police
were responsible for the death of one of
their comrades.
The Government, fearing further trouble
and wishing to avoid any disturbance on
66

the day of the funeral of the victim of the
riot in the Place Sorbonne, deceived the
public as to the hour when it would occur.
This exasperated the students so that they
began one of those demonstrations for
which Paris is famous. By 3 p. m. the next
day the Quartier Latin was in a state of
siege — these poets and painters and sculp
tors and musicians tore up the rue Jacob
and constructed barricades near the hos
pital where their comrade had died. They
tore up the rue Bonaparte, too, at the Place
St. Germain des Prhs, and built barricades,
composed of overturned omnibuses and
tramcars and newspaper booths. They
smashed windows and everything else in
sight, to get even with the Government and
the smiling deputies and the murderous
police  and then the troops came, and the
affair took a different turn. In three days
thirty thousand troops were in Paris —
principally cavalry, many of the regiments
coming from as far away as the center of
France. With these and the police and the Garde
Republicaine against them, the students
67

PJ.
oorBD
W
aitdw
>
cX
>

melted away like a handful of snow in the
sun ; but the demonstrations continued spas
modically for two or three days longer, and
the little crooked streets, like the rue du
Four, were kept clear by the cavalry trot
ting abreast — in and out and dodging
around corners — their black horse-tail
plumes waving and helmets shining. It
is sufficient to say that the vast army of
artists and poets were routed to a man and
driven back into the more peaceful atmos
phere of their studios.
But the "Bullier" is closing and the
crowd is pouring out into the cool air. I
catch a glimpse of Yvonne with six stu
dents all in one fiacre, but Yvonne has been
given the most comfortable place. They
have put her in the hood, and the next
instant they are rattling away to the Pan
theon for supper.
If you walk down with the rest, you will
pass dozens of jolly groups singing and
romping and dancing along down the
"Boul' Miche" to the taverne, for a bock
and some ecrivisse. With youth, good hu
mor, and a " louis," all the world seems gay !
69

CHAPTER IV
^*
BAL DES QUAT'Z' ARTS
^«
Of all the balls in Paris, the annual " Bal
des Quat'z' Arts" stands unique. This
costume ball is given every year, in the
spring, by the students of the different ate
liers, each atelier vying with the others in
creation of the various floats and corteges,
and in the artistic effect and historical cor
rectness of the costumes.
The first "Quat'z' Arts" ball was given
in 1892. It was a primitive affair, compared
with the later ones, but it was a success,
and immediately the "Quat'z' Arts" Ball
was put into the hands of clever organizers,
and became a studied event in all its ar
tistic sense. Months are spent in the cre
ation of spectacles and in the costuming of
students and models. Prizes are given for
the most successful organizations, and a
jury composed of painters and sculptors
passes upon your costume as you enter the

ball, and if
you do not
come up to
their artistic
standard you are un
ceremoniously turned -*
away. Students who
have been successful
in getting into the
"Quat'z' Arts" for years
often fail to pass into this
bewildering display of beauty and
brains, owing to their costume
not possessing enough artistic or
iginality or merit to pass the jury.
It is, of course, a difficult matter for one
who is not an enrolled member of one of the
great ateliers of painting, architecture, or
sculpture to get into the "Quat'z' Arts,"
and even after one's ticket is assured, you
may fail to pass the jury.
Imagine this ball, with its procession of
moving tableaux. A huge float comes
along, depicting the stone age and the
primitive man, every detail carefully stud
ied from the museums. Another repre-
71

sents the last day of Babylon. One sees
a nude captive, her golden hair and white
flesh in contrast with the black velvet litter
on which she is bound, being carried by a
dozen stalwart blackamoors, followed by
camels bearing nude slaves and the spoils
of a captured city.
As the ball continues until daylight, it
resembles a bacchanalian fete in the days
of the Romans. But all through it, one is
impressed by its artistic completeness, its
studied splendor, and permissible license,
so long as a costume (or the lack of it) pro
duces an artistic result. One sees the mise
en sc^ne of a barbaric court produced by
the architects of an atelier, all the various
details constructed
from carefully stud
ied sketches, with
may be a triumphal
throne of some bar
baric king, with his
slaves, the whole
costumed and done
in a studied magnifi-
cence that takes

one's breath away. Again an atelier of
painters may reproduce the frieze of the
Parthenon in color ; another a float or a
decoration, suggesting the works of their
master. The room becomes a thing of splendor,
for it is as gorgeous a spectacle as the
cleverest of the painters, sculptors, and
architects can make it, and is the result of
careful study — and all for the love of it ! —
for the great "Quat'z' Arts" ball is an
event looked forward to for months. Special
instructions are issued to the different
ateliers while the ball is in preparation, and
the following one is a translation in part
from the notice issued before the great ball
of '99. As this is a special and private
notice to the atelier, its contents may be
interesting : Bal des Quat'Z' Arts,
Moulin Rouge, 21 April, 1899.
Doors open at 10 p. m. and closed at mid
night. The card of admission is absolutely per
sonal, to be taken by the committee before
the opening of the ball.
The committee will be masked, and com-
73

Vendredi 1?

, Jfffoiihi.

MoNsiEin  _,. 

Ccltecarte, tiffourensement personneUe i t^
tilalaire, Jo//, poiir ^tre' valatlc. porter le ihirlW,
Comtii el celui de I'atelibr. Tovl porj/nr Sunc la'r),
lion personneUe, .<ierj refuse .ru''ii>ri!r61c par les
d^iigifis des Ateliers. /-^v"'
Le Costamg est de ^gueur. — La No:ise, /j
casquelfe, f/iabit {noir 6h de couhiir), Ic minniiun,
le lourlouroii, l&^^bine, le bicyciUie sont iiUcrJils.
L€ (onlrSif jc r^Strye de refuser les io^lumes insufil.<jn)i.
i-esjpQrtes fermeront A Mint^t.
Li vcsluire est absolumenl fjriiuit.

\

rades without their personal card will be
refused at the door. The cards must carry
the name and quality of the artist, and bear
the stamp of his atelier.
Costumes are absolutely necessary. The
soldier — the dress suit, black or in color —
the monk — the blouse — the domino — kitchen
boy — loafer — bicyclist, and other nauseous
types, are absolutely prohibited.
Should the weather be bad, comrades are
asked to wait in their carriages, as the
committee in control cannot, under any
pretext, neglect guarding the artistic effect
of the ball during any confusion that might
ensue. A great "feed" will take place in the
grand hall ; the buffet will serve as usual
individual suppers and baskets for two
persons. The committee wish especially to bring
the attention of their comrades to the ques
tion of women, whose cards of admission
must be delivered as soon as possible, so
as to enlarge their attendance — always
insufficient. Prizes (champagne) will be distributed to
the ateliers who may distinguish them
selves by the artistic merit and beauty of
their female display.
All the women who compete for these
75

prizes will be assembled on the grand stair
case before the orchestra. The nude, as
always, is prohibited ! ? !
The question of music at the head of the
procession is of the greatest importance,
and those comrades who are musical will
please give their names to the delegates of
the ateliers. Your good-will in this line is
asked for— any great worthless capacity in
this line will do, as they always play the
same tune, " Les Pompiers ! "
The Committee — 1899.
For days before the "Quat'z' Arts" ball,
all is excitement among the students, who
do as little work as possible and rest them
selves for the great event. The favorite
wit of the different ateliers is given the
task of painting the banner of the atelier,
which is carried at the head of the several
corteges. One of these, in Bouguereau's
atelier, depicted their master caricatured
as a cupid.
The boys once constructed an elephant
with oriental trappings — an elephant that
could wag his ears and lift his trunk and
snort — and after the two fellows who
formed respectfully the front and hind legs
77

of this knowing
beast had practised
sufficently to pro
ceed with him safe
ly, at the head of
a cortege of slave
girls, nautch dan
cers, and manacled
captives, the big beast
created a success in
the procession at the
"Quat'z' Arts" ball.
After the ball, in the gray
morning light, they marched it back to the
atelier, where it remained for some weeks,
finally becoming such a nuisance, kicking
around the atelier and getting in every
body's way, that the boys agreed to give it
to the first junk-man that came around.
But as no junk-man came, and as no one
could be found to care for its now sadly
battered hulk, its good riddance became a
problem. What to do with the elephant !
that was the question.
At last the two, who had sweltered in
its dusty frame that eventful night of the
78

"Quat'z' Arts," hit upon an idea. They
marched it one day up the Boulevard St.
Germain to the Cafe des deux Magots, fol
lowed by a crowd of people, who, when it
reached the cafe, assembled around it,
every one asking what it was for — or rather
what it was ? — for the beast had by now
lost much of the resemblance of its former
self When half the street became blocked
with the crowd, the two wise gentlemen
crawled out of its fore and aft, and quickly
mingled, unnoticed, with the bystanders.
Then they disappeared in the crowd, leav
ing the elephant standing in the middle of
the street. Those who had been expecting
something to happen — a circus or the rest
of the parade to come along — stood around
for a while, and then the police, realizing
that they had an elephant on their hands,
carted the thing away, swearing meanwhile
at the atelier and every one connected
with it.
The cafes near the Odeon, just before
the beginning of the ball, are filled with
students in costume ; gladiators hobnob at
the tables with savages in scanty attire —
79

Roman soldiers and students, in the garb of
the ancients, strut about or chat in groups,
while the uninvited grisettes and models,
who have not received invitations from the
committee, implore them for tickets.
Tickets are not transferable, and should
one present himself at the entrance of the
ball with another fellow's ticket, he would
run small chance of entering.
"What atelier?" commands the jury
" Cormon." The student answers, while the jury
glance at his makeup.
"To the left!" cries the jury, and you
pass in to the ball.
But if you are unknown they will say
simply, " Connais-pas ! To the right!"
and you pass down a long covered alley —
confident, if you are a "nouveau," that it
leads into the ball-room — until you sud
denly find yourself in the street, where
your ticket is torn up and all hope of enter
ing is gone.
It is hopeless to attempt to describe the
hours until morning of this annual artistic
orgy. As the morning light comes in through
80

"POCHARD"
Drawing by SANCHA
PARIS, 1901

the windows, it is strange to see the effect
of diffused daylight, electricity, and gas —
the bluish light of early morning reflected on
the flesh tones — upon nearly three thousand
girls and students in costumes one might
expect to see in a bacchanalian feast, just
before the fall of Rome. Now they form a
huge circle, the front row sitting on the floor,
the second row squatting, the third seated
in chairs, the fourth standing, so that all can
see the dancing that begins in the morning
hours — the wild impromptu dancing of the
moment. A famous beauty, her black hair
bound in a golden fillet with a circle wrought
in silver and studded with Oriental tur
quoises clasping her superb torso, throws
her sandals to the crowd and begins an
Oriental dance — a thing of grace and beauty
— fired with the intensity of the innate na
ture of this beautifully modeled daughter of
Bohemia. As the dance ends, there is a cry of de
light from the great circle of barbarians.
"Long live the Quat'z' Arts!" they cry,
amid cheers for the dancer.
The ball closes about seven in the morn-
Si

ing, when the long procession forms to
return to the Latin Quarter, some march
ing, other students and girls in cabs and on
top of them, many of the girls riding the
horses. Down they come from the "Moulin
Rouge," shouting, singing, and yelling.
Heads are thrust out of windows, and a
volley of badinage passes between the fan
tastic procession and those who have heard
them coming.
Finally the great open court of the
Louvre is reached — here a halt is made and
a general romp occurs. A girl and a type
climb one of the tall lamp-posts and pre
pare to do a mid-air balancing act, when
rescued by the others. At last, at the end
of all this horse-play, the march is resumed
over the Pont du Carrousel and so on,
cheered now by those going to work, until
the Odeon is reached. Here the odd pro
cession disbands ; some go to their favorite
cafes where the festivities are continued —
some to sleep in their costumes or what
remains of them, wherever fortune lands
them — others to studios, where the gaiety
is often kept up for days. 83

Ah ! but life is not all " couleur de rose " in
this true Bohemia.
"One day," says Httle Marguerite (she
who lives in the rue Monge), "one eats and
the next day one doesn't. It is always like
that, is it not, monsieur? — and it costs so^
much to live, and so you see, monsieur, life
is always a fight."
And Marguerite's brown eyes swim a
little and her pretty mouth closes firmly.
" But where is Paul ? " I ask.
"I do not know, monsieur," she replies
quietly ; " I have not seen him in ten days —
the atelier is closed — I have been there
every day, expecting to find him — he left
no word with his concierge. I have been
to his cafe too, but no one has seen him —
you see, monsieur, Paul does not love me ! "
I recall an incident that I chanced to see
in passing the little shop where Marguerite
works, that only confirms the truth of her
realization. Paul had taken Marguerite
back to the little shop, after their dejeuner
together, and, as I passed, he stopped at
the door with her, kissed her on both
cheeks, and left her ; but before they had
83

gone a dozen paces, they ran back to em
brace again. This occurred four times,
until Paul and Marguerite finally parted.
And, as he watched her little heels disap
pear up the wooden stairs to her work
room above, Paul blew a kiss to the pretty
milliner at the window next door, and,
taking a long whiff of his cigarette, saun
tered off in the direction of his atelier
whistling. It is ideal, this student Hfe with its stu
dent loves of four years, but is it right
to many an
honest little
comrade,
who seldom
knows an
hour when
she is away
from her ami?
who has suf-
f e r e d and
starved and
slaved with
him through
years of days

A MORNING'S
WORK

of good and bad luck — who has encouraged
him in his work, nursed him when ill, and
made a thousand golden hours in this poet's
or painter's life so completely happy, that
he looks back on them in later life as never-
to-be-forgotten ? He remembers the good
dinners at the little restaurant near his
studio, where they dined among the old
crowd. There were Lavaud the sculptor
and Francine, with the figure of a goddess ;
Moreau, who played the cello at the opera;
little Louise Dumont, who posed at Julian's,
and old Jacquemart, the very soul of good
fellowship, who would set them roaring
with his inimitable humor.
What good dinners they were ! — and how
long they sat over their coffee and cigar
ettes under the trees in front of this little
restaurant — often ten and twelve at a time,
until more tables had to be pushed together
for others of their good friends, who in
passing would be hailed to join them. And
how Marguerite used to sing all through
dinner and how they would all sing, until it
grew so late and so dark that they had to
puff their cigarettes aglow over their plates,
85

and yell to Madame Giraud for a light !
And how the old lady would bustle out
with the little oil lamp, placing it in the
center of the long table amid the forest of
vin ordinaires, with a " Voila, mes enfants ! "
and a cheery word for all these good boys
and girls, whom she regarded quite as her
own children.
It seemed to them then that there would
never be anything else but dinners at
Madame Giraud's for as many years as
they pleased, for no one ever thought of
living out one's days, except in this good
Bohemia of Paris. They could not imagine
that old Jacquemart would ever die, or that
La Belle Louise would grow old, and go
back to Marseilles, to live with her dried-
up old aunt, who sold garlic and bad cheese
in a little box of a shop, up a crooked street !
Or that Francine would marry Martin, the
painter, and that the two would bury them
selves in an adorable little spot in Brittany,
where they now live in a thatched farm
house, full of Martin's pictures, and have a
vegetable garden of their own — and a cow
— and some children ! But they did !
86

A STUDIO DEJEUNER
And those memorable dinners in the old
studio back of the Gare Montparnasse !
when paints and easels were pushed aside,
and the table spread, and the piano rolled
up beside it. There was the buying of the
chicken, and the salad that Francine would
smother in a dressing into which she would
put a dozen different things — herbs and
spices and tiny white onions ! And what
a jolly crowd came to these impromptu
feasts ! How much noise they used to
make ! How they danced and sang until
the gray morning light would creep in
through the big skylight, when all these
good bohemians would tiptoe down the
87

waxed stairs, and slip past the different
ateliers for fear of waking those painters
who might be asleep — a thought that never
occurred to them until broad daylight, and
the door had been opened, after hours of
pandemonium and music and noise !
In a little hotel near the Odeon, there
lived a family of just such bohemians —
six struggling poets, each with an imagi
nation and a love of good wine and good
dinners and good times that left them con
tinually in a state of bankruptcy ! As they
really never had any money — none that ever
lasted for more than two days and two
nights at the utmost, their good landlord
seldom saw a sou in return for his hospita
ble roof, which had sheltered these six
great minds who wrote of the moon, and
of fate, and fortune, and love.
For days they would dream and starve
and write. Then followed an auction sale
of the total collection of verses, hawked
about anywhere and everywhere among
the editeurs, like a crop of patiently grown
fruit. Having sold it, literally by the yard,
they would all saunter up the " Boul' Miche,"

and forget their past misery, in feasting, to
their hearts' content, on the good things of
life. On days like these, you would see
them passing, their black-brimmed hats
adjusted jauntily over their poetic locks —
their eyes beaming with that exquisite
sense of feeling suddenly rich, that those
who live for art's sake know ! The keen
est of pleasures lie in sudden contrasts, and
to these six poetic, impractical Bohemians,
thus suddenly raised from the slough of
despond to a state where they no longer
trod with mortals — their cup of happiness
was full and spilling over. They must not
only have a good time, but so must every
one around them. With their great riches,
they would make the world gay as long as
it lasted, for when it was over they knew
how sad life would be. For a while — then
they would scratch away — and have another
auction !
Unlike another good fellow, a painter
whom I once knew, who periodically found
himself without a sou, and who would
take himself, in despair, to his lodgings,
make his will, leaving most of his immortal

DAYLIGHT

works to his English aunt, go to bed, and
calmly await death ! In a fortunate space
of time his friends, who had been hunting
for him all over the Quarter, would find him
at last and rescue him from his chosen
tomb ; or his good aunt, fearing he was
ill, would send a draft ! Then life would,
to this impractical philosopher, again be
come worth living. He would dispatch a
"petit bleu" to Marcelle; and the two
would meet at the Cafe Cluny, and dine at
La Perruse on filet de sole au vin blanc,
and a bottle of Haut Barsac— the bottle all
cobwebs and cradled in its basket — the
garfon, as he poured its golden contents,
holding his breath meanwhile lest he dis
turb its long slumber.
There are wines that stir the soul, and
this was one of them — clear as a topaz and
warming as the noonday sun — the same
warmth that had given it birth on its hill
side in Bordeaux, as far back as '82. It
warmed the heart of Marcelle, too, and
made her cheeks glow and her eyes sparkle
— and added a rosier color to her lips.
It made her talk — clearly and frankly,
91

with a full and a happy heart, so that she
confessed her love for this "bon gar9on "
of a painter, and her supreme admiration
for his work and the financial success he
had made with his art. All of which this
genial son of Bohemia drank in with a
feeling of pride, and he would swell out
his chest and curl the ends of his long mus
tache upwards, and sigh like a man bur
dened with money, and secure in his ability
and success, and with a peaceful outlook
into the future — and the fact that Marcelle
loved him of all men ! They would linger
long over their coffee and cigarettes, and
then the two would stroll out under the
stars and along the quai, and watch the
little Seine boats crossing and recrossing,
like fireflies, and the lights along the Pont
Neuf reflected deep down like parti-colored
ribbons in the black water.

CHAPTER V
"A DEJEUNER AT LAVENUE'S"
If you should chance to breakfast at
" Lavenue's," or, as it is called, the "Hotel
de France et Bretagne," for years famous
as a rendezvous of men celebrated in art
and letters, you will be impressed first with
the simplicity of the three little rooms form
ing the popular side of this restaurant, and
secondly with the distinguished appearance
of its clientele.
As you enter the front room, you pass
good Mademoiselle Fanny at the desk, a
cheery, white-capped, genial old lady, who
has sat behind that desk for forty years,
and has seen many a " bon gar9on " struggle
up the ladder of fame — from the days when
he was a student at the Beaux-Arts, until
his name became known the world over.
It has long been a favorite restaurant with
men like Rodin, the sculptor — and Colin,
the painter — and the late Falguifere — and
93

MADEMOISELLE FANNY AND HER STAFF

Jean Paul Laurens and Bonnat, and dozens
of others equally celebrated — and with
our own men, like Whistler and Sargent
and Harrison, and St. Gaudens and Mac-
monnies. These three plain little rooms are totally
different from the "other side," as it is
called, of the Maison Lavenue. Here one
finds quite a gorgeous cafe, with a pretty
garden in the rear, and another room —
opening into the garden — done in delicate
green lattice and mirrors. This side is far
more expensive to dine in than the side with
the three plain little rooms, and the gentle
men with little red ribbons in their button
holes ; but as the same good cook dispenses
from the single big kitchen, which serves
for the dear and the cheap side the same
good things to eat at just half the price, the
reason for the popularity of the " cheap
side " among the crowd who come here
daily is evident.
It is a quiet, restful place, this Maison
Lavenue, and the best place I know in
which to dine or breakfast from day to day.
There is an air of intime and cosiness about
95

..SB «^

Lavenue's that makes one always wish to
return. You will see a family of rich bourgeois
enter, just in from the country, for the
Montparnasse station is opposite. The fat,
sunburned mama, and the equally rotund
and genial farmer-papa, and the pretty
daughter, and the newly married son and
his demure wife, and the two younger chil
dren — and all talking and laughing over a
good dinner with champagne, and many
toasts to the young couple— and to mama
and papa, and little Josephine — with ices,
and fruit, and coffee, and liqueur to follow.
All these you will see at Lavenue's on
the "cheap side " — and the beautiful model,
97

too, who poses for Courbel, who is break
fasting with one of the jeunesse of Paris.
The waiters after 2 p. m. dine in the front
room with the rest, and jump up now and
then to wait on madame and monsieur.
It is a very democratic little place, this
popular side of the house of M. Lavenue,
founded in 1854.
And there is a jolly old painter who dines
there, who is also an excellent musician,
with an ear for rhythm so sensitive that he
could never go to sleep unless the clock in
his studio ticked in regular time, and at
last was obliged to give up his favorite
atelier, with its picturesque garden 
" For two reasons, monsieur," he ex
plained to me excitedly; "a little girl on
the floor below me played a polka — the
same polka half the day — always forgetting
to put in the top note ; and the fellow over
me whistled it the rest of the day and put
in the top note false ; and so I moved to the
rue St. Peres, where one only hears, within
the cool court-yard, the distant hum of the
busy city. The roar of Paris, so full of
chords and melody ! Listen to it some-

•'LA FILLE DE LA BLANCHISSEUSE'
Ey Bellanger.— Estampe Moderne

times, monsieur, and you will hear a
symphony !"
And Mademoiselle Fanny will tell you
of the famous men she has known for years,
and how she has found the most celebrated
of them simple in their tastes, and free from
ostentation — "in fact it is always so, is it
not, with les hommes celebres ? C'est tou-
jours comme ga, monsieur, toujours ! " and
mentions one who has grown gray in the
service of art and can count his decorations
from half a dozen governments. Madame
will wax enthusiastic — her face wreathed
in smiles. "Ah! he is a bon gargon ; he
always eats with the rest, for three or four
francs, never more ! He is so amiable, and,
you know, he is very celebrated and very
rich " ; and madame will not only tell you
his entire history, but about his work — the
beauty of his wife and how " aimables " his
children are. Mademoiselle Fanny knows
them all.
But the men who come here to lunch are
not idlers ; they come in, many of them,
fresh from a hard morning's work in the
studio. The tall sculptor opposite you has

been at work, since his morning coffee, on
a group for the government ; another, bare-
armed and in his flannel shirt, has been
building up masses of clay, punching and
modeling, and scraping away, all the morn
ing, until he produces, in the rough, the
body of a giantess, a huge caryatide that
is destined, for the rest of her existence, to
hold upon her broad shoulders part of the
facade of an American building. The
"giantess" in the flesh is lunching with
him — a Juno-like woman of perhaps twenty-
five, with a superb head well poised, her
figure firm and erect. You will find her
exceedingly interesting, quiet, and refined,
and with a knowledge of things in general
that will surprise you, until you discover
she has, in her life as a model, been thrown
daily in conversation with men of genius,
and has acquired a smattering of the knowl
edge of many things — of art and litera
ture — of the theater and its playwrights
— plunging now and then into medicine and
law and poetry — all these things she has
picked up in the studios, in the cafes, in the
course of her Bohemian life. This " vernis,"

as the French call it, one finds constantly
among the women here, for their days are
passed among men of intelligence and
ability, whose lives and energy are sur
rounded and encouraged by an atmosphere
of art.
In an hour, the sculptor and his Juno-like
model will stroll back to the studio, where
work will be resumed as long as the light
lasts. The painter breakfasting at the next
table is hard at work on a decorative panel
for a ceiling. It is already laid out and
squared up, from careful pencil drawings.
Two young architects are working for him,
laying out the architectural balustrade,
through which one, a month later, looks
up at the allegorical figures painted against
the dome of the blue heavens, as a back
ground. And so the painter swallows his
eggs, mayonnaise, and demi of beer, at a
gulp, for he has a model coming at two, and
he must finish this ceiling on time, and ship
it, by a fast liner, to a millionaire, who has
built a vault-like structure on the Hudson,
with iron dogs on the lawn. Here this

A TRUE TYPE

beautiful panel will be unrolled and in
stalled in the dome of the hard-wood bil
liard-room, where its rich, mellow scheme of
color will count as naught ; and the cupids
and the flesh-tones of the chic little model,
who came at two, will appear jaundiced ;
and Aunt Maria and Uncle John, and the
twins from Ithaca, will come in after the
family Sunday dinner of roast beef and po
tatoes and rice pudding and ice-water, and
look up into the dome and agree "it's
grand." But the painter does not care,
for he has locked up his studio, and taken
his twenty thousand francs and the model
— who came at two — with him to Trouville.
At night you will find a typical crowd of
Bohemians at the Closerie des Lilas, where
they sit under a little clump of trees on the
sloping dirt terrace in front. Here you will
see the true type of the Quarter. It is the
farthest up the Boulevard St. Michel of any
of the cafes, and just opposite the "Bal Bul-
her," on the Place de I'Observatoire. The
terrace is crowded with its habitues, for it
is out of the way of the stream of people
along the "Boul' Miche." The terrace is
104

quite dark, its only light coming from the
cafe, back of a green hedge, and it is
cool there, too, in summer, with the fresh
night air coming from the Luxembourg
Gardens. Below it is the cafe and rest
aurant de la Rotonde, a very well-built
looking place, with its rounding facade on
the corner.
At the entrance of every studio court and
apartment, there lives the concierge in a
box of a room generally, containing a huge
feather-bed and furnished with a variety of
things left by departing tenants to this
faithful guardian of the gate. Many of
these small rooms resemble the den of an
antiquary with their odds and ends from the
studios — old swords, plaster casts, sketches
and discarded furniture — until the place is
quite full. Yet it is
kept neat and clean by
madame, who sews all
day and talks to her
cat and to every one
who passes into the
court-yard. Here your
letters are kept, too.

VOILX la belle ROSE, MADAME!

in one of a row of boxes, with the number
of your atelier marked thereon.
At night, after ten, your concierge opens
the heavy iron gate of your court by pulling
a cord within reach of the family bed. He
or she is waked up at intervals through the
night to let into and out of a court full of
studios those to whom the night is ever
young. Or perhaps your concierge will be
like old Pere Valois, who has three pretty
daughters who do the housework of the
studios, as well as assist in the guardian
ship of the gate. They are very busy, these
three daughters of Pere Valois — all the
morning you will see these little "femmes
de menage" as busy as bees; the artists
and poets must be waked up, and beds
made and studios cleaned. There are
many that are never cleaned at all, but
then there are many, too, who are not so
fortunate as to be taken care of by the
three daughters of Pere Valois.
There is no gossip within the quarter
that your "femme de menage" does not
know, and over your morning coffee, which
she brings you, she will regale you with the
107

latest news about most of your best friends,
including your favorite model, and madame
from whom you buy your wine, always con
cluding with : "That is what I heard, mon
sieur, — I think it is quite true, because the
little Marie, who is the femme de menage
of Monsieur Valentin, got it from Celeste
Dauphine yesterday in the cafe in the rue
du Cherche Midi."
In the morning, this demure maid-of-all-
work will be in her calico dress with her
sleeves rolled up over her strong white
arms, but in the evening you may see her
in a chic little dress, at the "Bal Bullier,"
or dining at the Pantheon, with the fellow
whose studio is opposite yours.
Alice Lemaitre, however, was a far differ
ent type of femme de menage than any of
the gossiping daughters of old Pere Valois,
and her lot was harder, for one night she
left her home in one of the provincial towns,
when barely sixteen, and found herself in
Paris with three francs to her name and
not a friend in this big pleasure-loving city
to turn to. After many days of privation,
she became bonne to a woman known as

Yvette de Marcie, a lady with a bad tem
per and many jewels, to whom little Alice,
with her rosy cheeks and bright eyes and
willing disposition to work in order to live,
became a person upon whom this fashion
able virago of a demi-mondaine vented
the worst that was in her — and there was
much of this — until Alice went out into the
world again. She next found employment
at a baker's, where she was obliged to
get up at four in the morning, winter
and summer, and deliver the long loaves
of bread at the different houses; but the
work was too hard and she left. The
baker paid her a trifle a week for her labor,
while the attractive Yvette de Marcie
turned her into the street without her
wages. It was while delivering bread one
morning to an atelier in the rue des Dames,
that she chanced to meet a young painter
who was looking for a good femme de
menage to relieve his artistic mind from
the worries of housekeeping. Little Alice
fairly cried when the good painter told
her she might come at twenty francs a
month, which was more money than this
no

very grateful and brave little Brittany girl
had ever known before.
" You see, monsieur, one must do one's
best whatever one undertakes," said Alice
to me ; " I have tried every profession, and
now I am a good femme de menage, and I
am 'bien contente.' No," she continued,
" I shall never marry, for one's independence
is worth more than anything else. When
one marries," she said earnestly, her little
brow in a frown, "one's life is lost; I am
young and strong, and I have courage, and
so I can work hard. One should be content
when one is not cold and hungry, and I have
been many times that, monsieur. Once I
worked in a fabrique, where, all day, we
painted the combs of china roosters a bright
red for bon-bon boxes — hundreds and hun
dreds of them until I used to see them in
my dreams ; but the fabrique failed, for the
patron ran away with the wife of a Russian.
He was a very stupid man to have done
that, monsieur, for he had a very nice wife of
his own — a pretty brunette, with a charming
figure ; but you see, monsieur, in Paris it is
always that way. C'est toujours comme 9a."

CHAPTER VI
"AT MARCEL
LEGAY'S" ^•
UST off the Bou
levard St. Michel
and up the nar
row little rue
Cujas, you will
see at night the
name "Marcel
Legay" illumined
in tiny gas-jets.
This is a cabaret of chansonniers known as
"Le Grillon," where a dozen celebrated
singing satirists entertain an appreciative
audience in the stuffy little hall serving as
an auditorium. Here, nightly, as the pi^ce
de resistance — and late on the programme
(there is no printed one) — you will hear the
Bard of Montmartre, Marcel Legay, racon
teur, poet, musician, and singer ; the author
of many of the most popular songs of Mont
martre, and a veteran singer in the cabarets.

"3

MARCEL LEGAY

From these cabarets of the student quar
ters come many of the cleverest and most
beautiful songs. Here men sing their own
creations, and they have absolute license to
sing or say what they please ; there is no
mincing of words, and many times these
rare bohemians do not take the trouble to
hide their clever songs and satires under a
double entente. No celebrated man or
woman, known in art ox letters, or con
nected with the Government — from the sol
dier to the good President of the Republique
Franfaise — is spared. The eccentricity of
each celebrity is caught by them, and used
in song or recitation.
Besides these personal caricatures, the
latest political questions of the day — re
ligion and the haut monde — come in for a
large share of good-natured satire. To be
cleverly caricatured is an honor, and should
evince no ill-feeling, especially from these
clever singing comedians, who are the best
of fellows at heart; whose songs are clever
but never vulgar ; who sing because they
love to sing; and whose versatility enables
them to create the broadest of satires, and,
"5

again, a little song with words so pure, so
human, and so pathetic, that the applause
that follows from the silent room of listeners
comes spontaneously from the heart.
It is not to be wondered at that " The
Grillon " of Marcel Legay's is a popular
haunt of the habitues of the Quarter, who
crowd the dingy little room nightly. You
enter the " Grillon " by way of the bar, and
at the further end of the bar-room is a
small anteroom, its walls hung in clever
posters and original drawings. This ante
room serves as a sort of green-room for
the singers and their friends ; here they
chat at the little tables between their songs
— since there is no stage— and through this
anteroom both audience and singers pass
into the little hall. There is the informal
ity of one of our own " smokers " about the
whole affair.
Furthermore, no women sing in " Le Gril
lon " — a cabaret in this respect is different
from a cafe concert, which resembles very
much our smaller variety shows. A small
upright piano, and in front of it a low plat
form, scarcely its length, complete the nee-

essary stage paraphernalia of the cabaret,
and the admission is generally a franc and
a half, which includes your drink.
In the anteroom, four of the singers are
smoking and chatting at the little tables.
One of them is a tall, serious-looking fellow,
in a black frock coat. He peers out through
his black-rimmed eyeglasses with the so
lemnity of an owl — but you should hear his
songs ! — they treat of the lighter side of
life, I assure you. Another singer has just
finished his turn, and comes out of the
smoky hall, wiping the perspiration from
his short, fat neck. The audience is still
applauding his last song, and he rushes
back through the faded green velvet por
tieres to bow his thanks.
A broad-shouldered, jolly-looking fellow,
in white duck trousers, is talking earnestly
with the owl-like looking bard in eyeglasses.
Suddenly his turn is called, and you follow
him in, where, as soon as he is seen, he is
welcomed by cheers from the students and
girls, and an elaborate fanfare of chords on
the piano. When this popular poet-singer
has finished, there follows a round of ap-
"7

A POET-SINGER

plause and a pounding of canes, and then
the ruddy - faced, gray - haired manager
starts a three-times-three handclapping in
unison to a pounding of chords on the piano.
This is the proper ending to every demand
for an encore in " Le Grillon," and it never
fails to bring one.
It is nearly eleven when the curtain parts
and Marcel Legay rushes hurriedly up the
aisle and greets the audience, slamming his
straw hat upon the lid of the piano. He
passes his hand over his bald pate — gives
an extra polish to his eyeglasses — beams
with an irresistibly funny expression upon
his audience — coughs — whistles — passes a
few remarks, and then, adjusting his glasses
on his stubby red nose, looks serio-comic-
ally over his roll of music. He is dressed in
a long, black frock-coat reaching nearly to
his heels. This coat, with its velvet collar,
discloses a frilled white shirt and a white
flowing bow scarf; these, with a pair of
black-and-white check trousers, complete
this every-day attire.
But the man inside these voluminous
clothes is even still more eccentric. Short,
119

indefinitely past fifty years of age, with a
round face and merry eyes, and a bald head
whose lower portion is framed in a fringe of
long hair, reminding one of the coiffure of
some pre-Raphaelite saint — indeed, so strik
ing is this resemblance that the good bard
is often caricatured with a halo surrounding
this medieval fringe.
In the meantime, while this famous singer
is selecting a song, he is overwhelmed with
demands for his most popular ones. A
dozen students and girls at one end of the
little hall, now swimming in a haze of pipe
and cigarette smoke, are hammering with
sticks and parasols for " Le matador avec
les pieds du vent " ; another crowd is yell
ing for "La Goularde." Marcel Legay
smiles at them all through his eyeglasses,
then roars at them to keep quiet — and
finally the clamor in the room gradually
subsides — here and there a word — a giggle
— and finally silence.
" Now, my children, I will sing to you the
story of Clarette," says the bard ; " it is a
very sad histoire. I have read it," and he
smiles and cocks one eye.

His baritone voice still possesses con
siderable fire, and in his heroic songs he
is dramatic. In " The Miller who grinds
for Love," the feeling and intensity and
dramatic quality he puts into its rendition
are stirring. As he finishes his last encore,
amidst a round of applause, he grasps his
hat from the piano, jams it over his bald
pate with its celestial fringe, and rushes for
the door. Here he stops, and, turning for a
second, cheers back at the crowd, waving
the straw hat above his head. The next
moment he is having a cooling drink among
his confreres in the anteroom.
Such " poet-singers " as Paul Delmet and
Dominique Bonnaud have made the "Gril
lon " a success ; and others like Numa Bles,
Gabriel Montoya, D'Herval, Fargy, Tourtal,
and Edmond Teulet — all of them well-
known over in Montmartre, where they are
welcomed with the same popularity that
they meet with at " Le Grillon."
Genius, alas, is but poorly paid in this
Bohemia ! There are so many who can
draw, so many who can sing, so many
poets and writers and sculptors. To many

of the cleverest, half a loaf is too often
better than no bread.
You will find often in these cabarets and
in the cafes and along the boulevard, a man
who, for a few sous, will render a portrait
or a caricature on the spot. You learn that
this journeyman artist once was a well-
known painter of the Quarter, who had
drawn for years in the academies. The
man at present is a wreck, as he sits in a
cafe with portfolio on his knees, his black
slouch hat drawn over his scraggly gray
hair. But his hand, thin and drawn from
too much stimulant and too little food, has
lost none of its knowledge of form and line ;
the sketch is strong, true, and with a chic
about it and a simplicity of expression that
delight you. You ask why he has not
done better.
"Ah!" he repHes, "it is a long story,
monsieur." So long and so much of it that
he can not remember it all ! Perhaps it was
the woman with the velvety black eyes —
tall and straight — the best dancer in all
Paris. Yes, he remembers some of it —
long, miserable years — years of struggles

THE SATIRIST

and jealousy, and finally lies and fights and
drunkenness ; after it was all over, he was
too gray and old and tired to care !
One sees many such derelicts in Paris
among these people who have worn them
selves out with amusement, for here the
world lives for pleasure, for " la grande
vie ! " To the man, every serious effort he
is obliged to make trends toward one idea
— that of the bon vivant — to gain success
and fame, but to gain it with the idea of
how much personal daily pleasure it will
bring him. Ennui is a word one hears
constantly; if it rains toute le monde est
triste. To have one's gaiety interrupted
is regarded as a calamity, and "tout le
monde " will sympathize with you. To
live a day without the pleasures of life in
proportion to one's purse is considered a
day lost.
If you speak of anything that has pleased
you one will, with a gay rising inflection of
the voice and a smile, say : " Ah ! c'est gai
la-bas — and monsieur was well amused while
in that beautiful country?" "ah! — tiens !
c'est gentil 9a ! " they will exclaim, as you
124

enthusiastically continue to explain. They
never dull your enthusiasm by short phleg
matic or pessimistic replies. And when you
are sad they will condone so genuinely with
you that you forget your disappointments
in the charming pleasantry of their sympa
thy. But all this continual race for pleas
ure is destined in the course of time to end
in ennui !
The Parisian goes into the latest sport
because it affords him a new sensation.
Being blase of all else in life, he plunges
into automobiling, buys a white and red
racer — a ponderous flying juggernaut that
growls and snorts and smells of the lower
regions whenever it stands still, trembling
in its anger and impatience to be off, while
its owner, with some automobiling Marie,
sits chatting on the cafe terrace over a cool
ing drink. The two are covered with dust
and very thirsty ; Marie wears a long dust-
colored ulster, and he a wind-proof coat and
high boots. Meanwhile, the locomotive
like affair at the curbstone is working itself
into a boiling rage, until finally the brave
chauffeur and his chic companion prepare
- 125

to depart. Marie adjusts her white lace
veil, with its goggles, and the chauffeur
puts on his own mask as he climbs in ; a
roar — a snort, a cloud of blue gas, and they
are gone !
There are other enthusiasts — those who
go up in balloons !
"Ah, you should go ballooning!" one
cries enthusiastically, "to be 'en ballon' — so
poetic — so fin de sifecle ! It is a fantaisie
charmante ! "
In a balloon one forgets the world — one
is no longer a part of it — no longer mortal.
What romance there is in going up above
everything with the woman one loves —
comrades in danger — the ropes — the wicker
cage — the ceiling of stars above one and
Paris below no bigger than a gridiron !
Paris ! lost for the time from one's memory.
How chic to shoot straight up among the
drifting clouds and forget the sordid little
world, even the memory of one's intrigues !
" Enfin seuls," they say to each other, as
the big Frenchman and the chic Parisienne
countess peer down over the edge of the
basket, sipping a little chartreuse from the
126

same traveling cup ; she, with the black hair
and white skin, and gowned "en ballon " in
a costume by Paillard ; he in his peajacket
buttoned close under his heavy beard.
They seem to brush through and against
the clouds ! A gentle breath from heaven
makes the basket decline a little and the
ropes creak against the hardwood clinch
blocks. It grows colder, and he wraps her
closer in his own coat.
" Courage, my child," he says ; " see, we
have gone a great distance ; to-morrow
before sundown we shall descend in Bel
gium." "Horrible!" cries the Countess; "I do
not like those Belgians."
"Ah! but you shall see, Therese, one
shall go where one pleases soon ; we are
patient, we aeronauts; we shall bring
credit to La Belle France; we have cour
age and perseverance; we shall give many
dinners and weep over the failures of
our brave comrades, to make the dirigi
ble balloon 'pratique.' We shall succeed!
Then Voila ! our dejeuner in Paris and our
dinner where we will." 127

Th6rese taps her poHshed nails against
the edge of the wicker cage and hums a
little chansonette.
" Je t'aime " — she murmurs.
I did not see this myself, and I do not
know the fair Therese or the gentleman
who buttons his coat under his whiskers ;
but you should have heard one of these
ballooning enthusiasts tell it to me in the
Taverne du Pantheon the other night. His
only regret seemed to be that he, too, could
not have a dirigible balloon and a countess
— on ten francs a week !

128

t5 i***- ¦*>^^ T-:

CHAPTER VII
"POCHARD"
Drunkards are not frequent sights in the
Quarter ; and yet when these people do
get drunk, they become as irresponsible as
maniacs. Excitable to a degree even when
sober, these most wretched among the poor
when drunk often appear in front of a cafe
— gaunt, wild-eyed, haggard, and filthy —
singing in boisterous tones or reciting to
you with tense voices a jumble of meaning
less thoughts.
The man with the matted hair, and toes
out of his boots, will fold his arms melo
dramatically, and regard you for some mo
ments as you sit in front of him on the
terrace. Then he will vent upon you a
torrent of abuse, ending in some jumble of
socialistic ideas of his own concoction.
129

When he has finished, he will fold his
arms again and move on to the next table.
He is crazy with absinthe, and no one pays
any attention to him. On he strides up the
"Boul' Miche,' past the cafes, continuing
his ravings. As long as he is moderately
peaceful and confines his wandering brain
to gesticulations and speech, he is let alone
by the police.
You will see sometimes a man and a
woman — a teamster out of work or with
his wages for the day, and with him a
creature — a blear-eyed, slatternly looking
woman, in a filthy calico gown. The man
clutches her arm, as they sing and stagger
up past the cafes. The woman holds in
her claw-like hand a half-empty bottle of
cheap red wine. Now and then they stop
and share it ; the man staggers on ; the
woman leers and dances and sings ; a crowd
forms about them. Some years ago this
poor girl sat on Friday afternoons in the
Luxembourg Gardens — her white parasol
on her knees, her dainty, white kid-slippered
feet resting on the little stool which the old
lady, who rents the chairs, used to bring
130

her. She was regarded
as a bonne camarade in
those days among the
students — one of the idols
of the Quarter ! But she
became impossible, and
then an outcast ! That
women should become
outcasts through the
hopelessness of their po
sition or the breaking down of their brains
can be understood, but that men of ability
should sink into the dregs and stay there
seems incredible. But it is often so.
Near the rue Monge there is a small cafe
and restaurant, a place celebrated for its
onion soup and its chicken. From the
tables outside, one can see into the small
kitchen, with its polished copper sauce
pans hanging about the grill.
Lachaume, the painter, and I were chat
ting at one of its little tables, he over an
absinthe and I over a coffee and cognac. I
had dined early this fresh October evening,
enjoying to the full the bracing coolness of
the air, pungent with the odor of dry leaves
132

and the faint smell of burning brush. The
world was hurrying by — in twos and threes
— hurrying to warm cafes, to friends, to
lovers. The breeze at twilight set the dry
leaves shivering. The sky was turquoise.
The yellow glow from the shop windows —
the ^blue-white sparkle of electricity like
pendant diamonds — made the Quarter seem
fuller of Hfe than ever. These fall days
make the little ouvri^res trip along from
their work with rosy cheeks, and pUt hap
piness and ambition into one's very soul.
Soon the winter will come, with all the
boys back from their country haunts, and
Celeste and Mimi from Ostende. How gay
it will be — this
Quartier Latin
then! How gay
it always is in
winter — and then
the rainy season.
Ah ! but one can
not have every
thing. Thus it
was that La
chaume and I

A GROUP OF
NEW STUDIOS

A SCULPTOR'S MODEL

sat talking, when suddenly a spectre passed
— a spectre of a man, his face silent, white,
and pinched — drawn like a mummy's.
He stopped and supported his shrunken
frame wearily on his crutches, and leaned
against a neighboring wall. He made no
sound — simply gazed vacantly, with the
timidity of some animal, at the door of the
small kitchen aglow with the light from
the grill. He made no effort to approach
the door ; only leaned against the gray
wall and peered at it patiently.
"A beggar," I said to Lachaume ; "poor
devil!" "Ah! old Pochard — yes, poor devil, and
once one of the handsomest men in Paris."
" What wrecked him ? " I asked.
"What I'm drinking now, mon ami."
"Absinthe?"
"Yes — absinthe ! He looks older than I
do, does he not?" continued Lachaume,
lighting a fresh cigarette, "and yet I'm
twenty years his senior. You see, I sip
mine — he drank his by the goblet,"
and my friend leaned forward and poured
the contents of the carafe in a tiny trickling
135

J

BOY MODEL

stream over the sugar
lying in its perforated
spoon. " Ah ! those were
great days when Po
chard was the life
of the BulHer," he
went on ; "I re
member the night
he won ten thou
sand francs from
the Russian. It
didn't last long; Camille Leroux had her
share of it — nothing ever lasted long with
Camille. He was once courrier to an Aus
trian Baron, I remember. The old fellow
used to frequent the Quarter in summer,
years ago — it was his hobby. Pochard was
a great favorite in those days, and the Baron
liked to go about in the Quarter with him,
and of course Pochard was in his glory. He
would persuade the old nobleman to prolong
his vacation here. Once the Baron stayed
through the winter and fell ill, and a little
couturifere in the rue de Rennes, whom the
old fellow fell in love with, nursed him. He
136

BOUGUEREAU AT WORK

died the summer following, at Vienna, and
left her quite a little property near Amiens.
He was a good old Baron, a charitable
old fellow among the needy, and a good
bohemian besides ; and he did much for
Pochard, but he could not keep him
sober ! "
"After the old man's death," my friend
continued, " Pochard drifted from bad to
worse, and finally out of the Quarter,
somewhere into misery on the other side
of the Seine. No one heard of him for
a few years, until he was again recognized
as being the same Pochard returned again
to the Quarter. He was hobbling about on
crutches just as you see him there. And
now, do you know what he does ? Get up
from where you are sitting," said La
chaume, "and look into the back kitchen.
Is he not standing there by the door —
they are handing him a small bundle ? "
"Yes," said I, "something wrapped in
newspaper." " Do you know what is in it ?— the carcass
of the chicken you have just finished, and
which the gar9on carried away. Pochard
138'

saw you eating it half an hour ago as he
passed. It was for that he was waiting."
"To eat?" I asked.
"No, to sell," Lachaume replied, "to
gether with the other bones he is able to col
lect — for soup in some poorest resort down
by the river, where the boatmen and the
gamins go. The few sous he gets will buy
Pochard a big glass, a lump of sugar, and
a spoon ; into the goblet, in some equally
dirty 'boite,' they will pour him out his
green treasure of absinthe. Then Pochard
will forget the day — perhaps he will dream
of the Austrian Baron — and try and forget
Camille Leroux. Poor devil ! "
Marguerite Girardet, the model, also told
me between poses in the studio the other
day of just such a "pauvre homme " she
once knew. "W^hen he was young," she
said, " he won a second prize at the Con
servatoire, and afterward played first violin
at the Comique. Now he plays in front of
the cafes, like the rest, and sometimes
poses for the head of an old man !
" Many grow old so young," she con
tinued ; " I knew a little model once with
140

a beautiful figure, absolutely comme un
bijou — pretty, too, and had she been a
sensible girl, as I often told her, she could
still have earned her ten francs a day
posing ; but she wanted to dine all the
time with this and that one, and pose too,
and in three months all her fine "svelte"
lines that made her a valuable model among
the sculptors were gone. You see, I have
posed all my life in the studios, and I am
over thirty now, and you know I work hard,
but I have kept my fine lines — because I go
to bed early and eat and drink little. Then
I have much to do at home ; my husband and
I for years have had a comfortable home ;
we take a great deal of pride in it, and it
keeps me very busy to keep everything in
order, for I pose very early some mornings
and then go back and get dejeuner, and
then back to pose again.
"In the summer," she went on, "we
take a little place outside of Paris for a
month, down the Seine, where my husband
brings his work with him ; he is a repairer
of fans and objets d'art. You should come
in and see us some time ; it is quite near
142

l\

A SCULPTOR'S STUDIO
where you painted last summer. Ah yes,"
she exclaimed, as she drew her pink toes
under her, " I love the country ! Last year
I posed nearly two months for Monsieur
Z., the painter — en plein air; my skin was
not as white as it is now, I can tell you — I
was absolutely like an Indian !
"Once" — and Marguerite smiled at the
memory of it—" I went to England to pose
for a painter well known there. It was
an important tableau, and I stayed there
six months. It was a horrible place to
me — I was always cold — the fog was so
thick one could hardly see in winter
mornings going to the studio. Besides, I
could get nothing good to eat ! He was a
celebrated painter, a 'Sir,' and lived with
143

his family in a big stone house with a gar
den. We had tea and cakes at five in the
studio — always tea, tea, tea !— I can tell
you I used to long for a good bottle of
Madame Giraud's vin ordinaire, and a
poulet. So I left and came back to Paris.
Ah! quelle place! that Angleterre! J'etais
toujours, toujours triste la ! In Paris I
make a good living ; ten francs a day — ¦
that's not bad, is it ? and my time is taken
often a year ahead. I like to pose for the
painters — the studios are cleaner than those
of the sculptor's. Some of the sculptors'
studios are so dirty — clay and dust over
everything ! Did you see Fabien's studio
the other day when I posed for him ? You
thought it dirty ? Tiens ! — you should have
seen it last year when he was working on
the big group for the Exposition ! It is
clean now compared with what it was.
You see, I go to my work in the plainest
of clothes — a cheap print dress and every
thing of the simplest I can make, for in
half an hour, left in those studios, they
would be fit only for the blanchisseuse —
the wax and dust are in and over every-
145

thing ! There is no time to change when
one has not the time to go home at mid-day."
And so I learned much of the good sense
and many of the economies in the life of this
most celebrated model. You can see her
superb figure wrought in marble and bronze
by some of the most famous of modern
French sculptors all over Paris.
There is another type of model you will
see, too — one who rang my bell one sunny
morning in response to a note written by
my good friend, the sculptor, for whom this
little Parisienne posed.
She came without her hat — this "vrai
type" — about seventeen years of age —
with exquisite features, her blue eyes shi
ning under a wealth of delicate blonde
hair arranged in the prettiest of fashions —
a little white bow tied jauntily at her throat,
and her exquisitely delicate, strong young
figure clothed in a simple black dress.
She had about her such a frank, child
like air ! Yes, she posed for so and so,
and so and so, but not many ; she liked
it better than being in a shop ; and it was
far more independent, for one could go about
147

V •

^v./

OLD MAN MODEL

and see one's friends — and there were many
of her girl friends living on the same street
where this chic demoiselle lived.
At noon my drawing was finished. As
she sat buttoning her boots, she looked up
at me innocently, slipped her five francs for
the morning's work in her reticule, and said :
" I live with mama, and mama never
gives me any money to spend on my
self This is Sunday and a holiday, so I
shall go with Henriette and her brother to
Vincennes. It is deUcious there under the
trees." It would have been quite impossible for
me to have gone with them — I was not even
invited ; but this very serious and good little
Parisienne, who posed for the figure with
quite the same unconsciousness as she would
have handed you your change over the
counter of some stuffy little shop, went to
Vincennes with Henriette and her brother,
where they had a beautiful day — scrambling
up the paths and listening to the band — all
at the enormous expense of the artist ; and
this was how this good little Parisienne
managed to save five francs in a single day !
149

There are old-men models who knock at
your studio too, and who are celebrated for
their tangled gray locks, which they immedi
ately uncover as you open your door. These
unkempt-looking Father Times and Methu-
selahs prowl about the staircases of the
different ateliers daily. So do httle chil
dren — mostly Italians and all filthily dirty ;
swarthy, black-eyed, gypsy-looking girls
and boys of from twelve to fifteen years of
age, and Italian mothers holding small
children — itinerant madonnas. These are
the poorer class of models — the riff-raff of
the Quarter — who get anywhere from a few
sous to a few francs for a seance.
And there are four-footed models, too,
for I know a kindly old horse who has
served in many a studio and who has car
ried a score of the famous generals of the
world and Jeanne d'Arcs to battle — in many
a modern public square.
Chacun son metier !

ISO

CHAPTER VIII

THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS

'N this busy Quarter,
where so many
people are con
fined throughout
the day in work
shops and studios,
a breathing-space
becomes a neces
sity. The gardens
of the Luxem-
bourg, brilliant in
flowers and laid
out in the Renais
sance, with shady
groves and long
avenues of chest
nut-trees stretching up to the Place de
I'Observatoire, afford the great breathing-
ground for the Latin Quarter.
If one had but an hour to spend in the
151

Quartier Latin, one could not find a more
interesting and representative sight of stu
dent life than between the hours of four and
five on Friday afternoon, when the military
band plays in the Luxembourg Gardens.
This is the afternoon when Bohemia is on
parade. Then every one flocks here to see
one's friends — and a sort of weekly reception
for the Quarter is held. The walks about
the band-stand are thronged with students
and girls, and hundreds of chairs are filled
with an audience of the older people — shop
keepers and their famiUes, old women in
white lace caps, and gray-haired old men,
many in straight-brimmed high hats of a
mode of twenty years past. Here they sit
and listen to the music under the cool
shadow of the trees, whose rich foliage
forms an arbor overhead — a roof of green
leaves, through which the sunbeams stream
and in which the fat, gray pigeons find a
paradise. There is a booth near-by where waffles,
cooked on a small oven in the rear, are
sold. In front are a dozen or more tables
for ices and drinkables. Every table and
152

"tH

Zu p <oa ai O(0 SwX
D J I
a.o
X

zw o?4

chair is taken within hearing distance of
the band. When these musicians of the
army of France arrive, marching in twos
from their barracks to the stand, it is al
ways the signal for that genuine enthusi
asm among the waiting crowd which one
sees between the French and their soldiers.
If you chance to sit among the groups at
the little tables, and watch the passing
throng in front of you, you will see some
queer "types," many of them seldom en
evidence except on these Friday afternoons
in the Luxembourg. Buried, no doubt, in
some garret hermitage or studio, they
emerge thus weekly to greet silently the
passing world.
A tall poet stalks slowly by, reading in
tently, as he walks, a well-worn volume of
verses — his faded straw hat shading the
tip of his long nose. Following him, a boy
of twenty, delicately featured, with that
purity of expression one sees in the faces
of the good — the result of a Hfe, perhaps,
given to his ideal in art. He wears his hair
long and curling over his ears, with a
long stray wisp over one eye, the whole
154

cropped evenly at the back as it reaches
his black velvet collar. He wears, too, a
dove-gray vest of fine corduroy, buttoned
behind like those of the clergy, and a
velvet tam-o'-shanter-like cap, and carries
between his teeth a small pipe with a long
goose-quill stem. You can readily see that
to this young man with high ideals there is
only one corner of the world worth living
in, and that lies between the Place de I'Ob
servatoire and the Seine.
Three students pass, in wide broad
cloth trousers, gathered in tight at the
ankles, and wearing wide -brimmed black
hats. Hanging on the arm of one of the trio is
a short snub-nosed girl, whose Cleo-Merodic
hair, flattened in a bandeau over her ears,
not only completely conceals them, but all
the rest of her face, except her two merry
black eyes and her saucy and neatly rouged
lips. She is in black bicycle bloomers and
a white, short duck jacket — a straw hat
with a wide blue ribbon band, and a fluffy
piece of white tulle tied at the side of her
neck. The throng moves slowly by you. It is
155

impossible, in such a close crowd, to be in
a hurry ; besides, one never is here.
Near-by sit two old ladies, evidently con
cierges from some atelier court. One holds
the printed program of the music, cut care
fully from her weekly newspaper; it is
cheaper than buying one for two sous, and
these old concierges are economical.
In this Friday gathering you will recog
nize dozens of faces which you have seen at
the "Bal Bullier" and the cafes.
The girl in the blue tailor-made dress,
with the little dog, who you remember dined
the night before at the Pantheon, is walking
now arm in arm with a tall man in black, a
mourning band about his hat. The girl is
dressed in black, too — a mark of respect to
her ami by her side. The dog, who is so
small that he slides along the walk every
time his chain is pulled, is now tucked
under her arm.
One of the tables near the waffle stand is
taken by a group of six students and four
girls. All of them have arrived at the table
in the last fifteen minutes — some alone, some
in twos. The girl in the scarlet gown and
156

white kid slippers, who came with the queer-
looking " type " with the pointed beard, is
Yvonne GaUois — a bonne camarade. She
keeps the rest in the best of spirits, for
she is witty, this Yvonne, and a great fa
vorite with the crowd she is with. She is
pretty, too, and has a whole-souled good-
humor about her that makes her ever wel
come. The fellow she came with is Delmet
the architect — a great wag — lazy, but full
of fun — and genius.
The little girl sitting opposite Yvonne is
Claire Dumont. She is explaining a very
sad " histoire " to the "type " next to her,
intense in the recital of her woes. Her
alert, nervous little face is a study ; when
words and expression fail, she shrugs her
delicate shoulders, accenting every sen
tence with her hands, until it seems as
if her small, nervous frame could express
no more — and all about her little dog
"Loisette!" " Yes, the villain of a concierge at Ed
mond's studio swore at him twice, and
Sunday, when Edmond and I were break
fasting late, the old beast saw ' Loisette '
157

AT THE HEAD OF THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS

on the stairs and threw water over her ;
she is a sale bete, that grosse femme ! She
shall see what it will cost her, the old miser ;
and you know I have always been most
amiable with her. She is jealous of me —
that is it— oh ! I am certain of it. Because
I am young and happy. Jealous of me !
that's funny, is it not ? The old pig! Poor
' Loisette ' — she shivered all night with fright
and from being wet. Edmond and I are
going to find another place. Yes, she shall
see what it wiU be there without us — with
no one to depend upon for her snuff and her
wine. If she were concierge at Edmond's
old atelier she would be treated like that
horrid old Madame Fouquet."
The boys in the atelier over her window
hated this old Madame Fouquet, I remem
ber. She was always prying about and
complaining, so they fished up her pet
gold-fish out of the aquarium on her
window-sill, and fried them on the ateber
stove, and put them back in the window
on a little plate all garnished with carrots.
She swore vengeance and called in the
police, but to no avail. One day they
159

fished up the parrot in its cage, and the
green bird that screamed and squawked
continually met a speedy and painless death
and went off to the taxidermist. Then the
cage was lowered in its place with the door
left ajar, and the old woman felt sure that
her pet had escaped and would some day
find his way back to her — a thing this gar
rulous bird would never have thought of
doing had he had any say in the matter.
So the old lady left the door of the cage
open for days in the event of his return, and
strange to tell, one morning Madame Fou
quet got up to quarrel with her next-door
neighbor, and, to her amazement, there was
her green pet on his perch in his cage. She
called to him, but he did not answer ; he
simply stood on his wired legs and fixed his
glassy eyes on her, and said not a word —
while the gang of Indians in the windows
above yelled themselves hoarse.
It was just such a crowd as this that in
itiated a "nouveau" once in one of the
ateliers. They stripped the new-comer,
and, as is often the custom on similar fes
tive occasions, painted him all over with
i6o

CARICATURE OF THE AUTHOR
Drawing by SANCHA
PARIS, 1901

sketches, done in the powdered water-colors
that come in glass jars. They are cheap
and cover a lot of surface, so that the gen
tleman in question looked like a human pic
ture-gallery. After the ceremony, he was
put in a hamper and deposited, in the morn
ing, in the middle of the Pont des Artz,
where he was subsequently found by the
police, who carted him off in a cab.
But you must see more of this vast gar
den of tl'.e Luxembourg to appreciate truly
its beauty and its charm. Filled with beau
tiful sculpture in bronze and marble, with
its musee of famous modern pictures bought
by the Government, with flower-beds bril
liant in geraniums and fragrant in roses,
with the big basin spouting a jet of water
in its center, where the children sail their
boats, and with that superb "Fontaine de
Medicis" at the end of a long, rectangular
basin of water — dark as some pool in a forest
brook, the green vines trailing about its
sides, shaded by the rich foliage of the trees
overhead. On the other side of the Luxembourg
you will find a garden of roses, with a
i6i

mr, ruiNiAiiNC- ur^ ivicuivio

rich bronze group of Greek runners in the
center, and near it, back of the long marble
balustrade, a croquet ground — a favorite
spot for several veteran enthusiasts who
play here regularly, surrounded for hours
by an interested crowd who applaud and
cheer the participants in this passe sport.
This is another way of spending an after
noon at the sole cost of one's leisure. It
takes but little to amuse these people !
Often at the Punch and Judy show near
by, you will see two old gentlemen, — who
may have watched this same Punch and
Judy show when they were youngsters, —
and who have been sitting for half an hour,
waiting for the curtain of the miniature
theater to rise. It is popular — this small
"Thedtre Guignol," and the benches in
front are filled with the children of rich and
poor, who scream with delight and kick
their little, fat bare legs at the first shrill
squeak of Mr. Punch. The three who com
pose the staff of this tiny attraction have
been long in its service — the old harpist,
and the good wife of the showman who
knows every child in the neighborhood, and
163

her husband who is Mr. Punch, the hang
man, and the gendarme, and half a dozen
other equally historical personages. A
thin, sad-looking man, this husband, gray-
haired, with a careworn look in his deep-
sunken eyes, who works harder hourly,
daily, yearly, to amuse the heart of a child
than almost any one I know.
The little box of a theater is stifling hot
in summer, and yet he must laugh and
scream and sing within it, while his good
wife collects the sous, talking all the while
to this and to that child whom she has
known since its babyhood ; chatting with
the nurses decked out in their gay-colored,
Alsatian bows, the ribbons reaching nearly
to the ground.
A French nurse is a gorgeous spectacle
of neatness and cleanliness, and many of
the younger ones, fresh from country homes
in Normandy and Brittany, with their rosy
cheeks, are pictures of health. Wherever
you see a nurse, you will see a "piou-piou"
not far away, which is a very belittling word
for the red-trousered infantryman of the
Republique Fran9aise. 164

Surrounding the Palais du Luxembourg,
these "piou-pious," less fortunate for the
hour, stand guard in the small striped
sentry-boxes, musket at side, or pace stol
idly up and down the flagged walk. Marie,
at the moment, is no doubt with the chil
dren of the rich Count, in a shady spot
near the music. How cruel is the fate of
many a gallant " piou-piou " !
Farther down the gravel-walk strolls a
young Frenchman and his fiancee — the
mother of his betrothed inevitably at her
side ! It is under this system of rigid cha-
peronage that the young girl of France is
given in marriage. It is not to be wondered
at that many of them marry to be free, and
that many of the happier marriages have
begun with an elopement !
The music is over, and the band is filing
out, followed by the crowd. A few linger
about the walks around the band-stand to
chat. The old lady who rents the chairs
is stacking them up about the tree-trunks,
and long shadows across the walks tell of
the approaching twilight. Overhead, among
the leaves, the pigeons coo. For a few mo-
165

Xm>r
>ow
oHKWrc Xw»o
c

ments the sun bathes the great garden in a
pinkish glow, then drops slowly, a blood-
red disk, behind the trees. The air grows
chilly ; it is again the hour to dine — the hour
when Paris wakes.
In the smaller restaurants of the Quar
ter one often sees some strange contrasts
among these true bohemians, for the Latin
Quarter draws its habitues from every part
of the globe. They are not all French —
these happy-go-lucky fellows, who live for
the day and let the morrow slide. You will
see many Japanese — some of them painters
— many of them taking courses in political
economy, or in law ; many of them titled
men of high rank in their own country,
studying in the schools, and learning, too,
with that thoroughness and rapidity which
are ever characteristic of their race. You
will find, too, Brazilians ; gentlemen from
Haiti of darker hue ; Russians, Poles, and
Spaniards — men and women from every
clime and every station in life. They adapt
themselves to the Quarter and become a
part of this big family of Bohemia easily
and naturally. 167

In this daily atmosphere only the girl-
student from our own shores seems out of
place. She will hunt for some small res
taurant, sacred in its exclusiveness and
known only to a dozen bon camarades of
the Quarter. Perhaps this girl-student, it
may be, from the West and her cousin from
the East will discover some such cosy little
boite on their way back from their atelier.
To two other equally adventurous female
minds they will impart this newest find ;
after that you will see the four dining there
nightly together, as safe, I assure you,
within these walls of Bohemia as they
would be at home rocking on their Aunt
Mary's porch.
There is, of course, considerable awk
wardness between these bon camarades, to
whom the place really belongs, and these
very innocent new-comers, who seek a table
by themselves in a corner under the few
trees in front of the small restaurant. And
yet every one is exceedingly polite to them.
Madame the patronne hustles about to
see that the dinner is warm and nicely
served ; and Henriette, who is waiting on
1 68

them, none the less attentive, although she
is late for her own dinner, which she will sit
down to presently with madame the pa
tronne, the good cook, and the other girls
who serve the small tables.
This later feast will be augmented per
haps by half the good boys and girls who
have been dining at the long table. Per
haps they will all come in and help shell
the peas for to-morrow's dinner. And yet
this is a public place, where the painters
come, and where one pays only for what
one orders. It is all very interesting to the
four American girls, who are dining at the
small table. " It is so thoroughly bohe
mian ! " they exclaim.
But what must Mimi think of these silent
and exclusive strangers, and what, too,
must the tall girl in the bicycle bloomers
think, and the little girl who has been ill
and who at the moment is dining with
Renould, the artist, and whom every one —
even to the cook, is so glad to welcome
back after her long illness? There is an
unsurmountable barrier between the Amer
icans at the Httle table in the corner and
169

WHAT IS GOING ON AT THE THEATERS

that jolly crowd of good and kindly people
at the long one, for Mimi and Henriette
and the little girl who has been so iH,
and the French painters and sculptors
with them, cannot understand either the
language of these strangers or their views
of life.
"Florence!" exclaims one of the stran
gers in a whisper, "do look at that queer
Httle ' type ' at the long table— the taH girl
in black actually kissed him ! "
"You don't mean it!"
" Yes, I do— just now. Why, my dear, I
saw it plainly ! "
Poor culprits ! There is no law against
kissing in the open air in Paris, and be
sides, the tall girl in black has known the
little "type" for a Parisienne age — thirty
days or less.
The four innocents, who have coughed
through their soup and whispered through
the rest of the dinner, have now finished
and are leaving, but if those at the long
table notice their departure, they do not
show it. In the Quarter it is considered
the height of rudeness to stare. You will
171

find these Suzannes and Marcelles exceed
ingly well-bred in the little refinements of
life, and you will note a certain innate dig
nity and kindliness in their bearing toward
others, which often makes one wish to
uncover his head in their presence.

17^

CHAPTER IX
"THE RAGGED
EDGE OF THE
QUARTER" ^-
HERE are many streets
of the Quarter as quiet
as those of a country
village. Some of them,
like the rue Vaugirard,
lead out past gloomy
slaughter-houses and stables, through
desolate sections of vacant lots, littered
with the ruins of factory and foundry whose
tall, smoke-begrimed chimneys in the dark
stand like giant sentries, as if pointing a
warning finger to the approaching pedes
trian, for these ragged edges of the Quar
ter often afford at night a lurking-ground
for footpads.
In just such desolation there lived a
dozen students, in a small nest of studios
that I need not say were rented to them at
173

a price within their ever-scanty means. It
was marveled at among the boys in the
Quarter that any of these exiles lived to
see the light of another day, after wander
ing back at all hours of the night to their
stronghold. Possibly their sole possessions consisted
of the clothes they had on, a few bad pic
tures, and their several immortal geniuses.
That the gentlemen with the sand-bags
knew of this I am convinced, for the stu
dents were never molested. Verily, Provi
dence lends a strong and ready arm to the
drunken man and the fool !
The farther out one goes on the rue Vau
girard, the more desolate and forbidding
becomes this long highway, until it termi
nates at the fortifications, near which is a
huge, open field, kept clear of such perma
nent buildings as might shelter an enemy
in time of war. Scattered over this space
are the hovels of squatters and gipsies —
fortune -telling, horse -trading vagabonds,
whose living-vans at certain times of the
year form part of the smaller fairs within
the Quarter. 174

And very small and unattractive little fairs
they are, consisting of Haifa dozen or more
wagons, serving as a yearly abode for these
shiftless people ; illumined at night by the
glare of smoking oil torches. There is,
moreover, a dingy tent with a half-drawn
red curtain that hides the fortune-telling
beauty ; and a traveling shooting-gallery,
so short that the muzzle of one's rifle nearly
rests upon the painted lady with the sheet-
iron breastbone, centered by a pinhead of
a bull's-eye which never rings. There is
often a small carousel, too, which is not
only patronized by the children, but often
by a crowd of students — boys and girls,
who literally turn the merry-go-round into
a circus, and who for the time are cheered
to feats of bareback riding by the enthusi
astic bystanders.
These little Quarter fetes are far different
from the great fete de Neuilly across the
Seine, which begins at the Porte Maillot,
and continues in a long, glittering avenue
of side-shows, with mammoth carousels,
bizarre in looking-glass panels and golden
figures. Within the circle of all this throne-
J75

r

IIIIIIIB l>

smm4r. ^/i'

like gorgeousness, a horse -power organ
shakes the very ground with its clarion
blasts, while pink and white wooden pigs,
their tails tied up in bows of colored rib
bons, heave and swoop round and round,
their backs loaded with screaming girls and
shouting men.
It was near this very same Port Maillot,
in a colossal theater, built originally for the
representation of one of the Kiralfy ballets,
that a fellow student and myself went over
from the Quarter one night to "supe" in a
spectacular and melodramatic pantomime,
entitled " Afrique i. Paris." We were in
vited by the sole proprietor and manager of
the show — an old circus-man, and one of the
shrewdest, most companionable, and intel
ligent of men, who had traveled the world
over. He spoke no language but his own
unadulterated American. This, with his
dominant personality, served him wherever
fortune carried him !
So, accepting his invitation to play al
ternately the dying soldier and the pursu
ing cannibal under the scorching rays of a
tropical limelight, and with an old pair of
177

trousers and a flannel shirt wrapped in a
newspaper, we presented ourselves at the
appointed hour, at the edge of the hostile
country. Here we found ourselves surrounded by a
horde of savages who needed no grease
paint to stain their ebony bodies, and many
of whose grinning countenances I had often
recognized along our own Tenderloin. Be
sides, there were cowboys and "greasers"
and diving elks, and a company of French
Zouaves ; the latter, in fact, seemed to be
the only thing foreign about the show. Our
friend, the manager, informed us that he
had thrown the entire spectacle together
178

in about ten days, and that he had gath
ered with ease, in two, a hundred of those
dusky warriors, who had left their coat-
room and barber-shop jobs in New York
to find themselves stranded in Paris.
He was a hustler, this circus-man, and
preceding the spectacle of the African war,
he had entertained the audience with a
short variety-show, to brace the spectacle.
He insisted on bringing us around in front
and giving us a box, so we could see for
ourselves how good it really was.
During this forepart, and after some
clever high trapeze work, the sensation
of the evening was announced — a Signore,
with an unpronounceable name, would train
a den of ten forest-bred lions !
When the orchestra had finished playing
"The Awakening of the Lion," the curtain
rose, disclosing the nerveless Signore in
purple tights and high-topped boots. A
long, portable cage had been put together
on the stage during the intermission, and
within it the ten pacing beasts. There is
something terrifying about the roar of a
Hon as it begins with its high-keyed moan,
179

and descends in scale to a hoarse roar that
seems to penetrate one's whole nervous
system. But the Signore did not seem to mind it ;
he placed one foot on the sill of the safety-
door, tucked his short riding-whip under
his arm, pulled the latch with one hand,
forced one knee in the slightly opened door,
and sprang into the cage. Click ! went the
iron door as it found its lock. Bang ! went
the Signore's revolver, as he drove the snarl
ing, roaring lot into the corner of the cage.
The smoke from his revolver drifted out
through the bars ; the house was silent.
The trainer walked slowly up to the fiercest
lion, who reared against the bars as he ap
proached him, striking at the trainer with
his heavy paws, while the others slunk into
the opposite corner. The man's head was
but half a foot now from the lion's ; he
menaced the beast with the little riding-
whip ; he almost, but did not quite strike him
on the tip of his black nose that worked con
vulsively in rage. Then the lion dropped
awkwardly, with a short growl, to his fore
legs, and slunk, with the rest, into the
1 80

corner. The Signore turned and bowed. It
was the little riding-whip they feared, for
they had never gauged its sting. Not the
heavy iron bar within reach of his hand,
whose force they knew. The vast audience
breathed easier.
"An ugly lot," I said, turning to our friend
the manager, who had taken his seat be
side me.
"Yes," he mused, peering at the stage
with his keen gray eyes ; "green stock, but
a swell act, eh ? Wait for the grand finale.
I've got a girl here who comes on and does
art poses among the lions ; she's a dream
— French, too !"
A girl of perhaps twenty, enveloped in
a bath gown, now appeared at the wings.
The next instant the huge theater became
dark, and she stood in full fleshings, in the
center of the cage, brilliant in the rays of a
powerful limelight, while the lions circled
about her at the command of the trainer.
"Ain't she a peach ?" said the manager,
enthusiastically. "Yes," said I, "she is. Has she been in
the cages long?" I asked. i8i

"No, she never worked with the cats be
fore," he said; "she's new to the show
business ; she said her folks live in Nantes.
She worked here in a chocolate factory
until she saw my 'ad' last week and joined
my show. We gave her a rehearsal Mon
day and we put her on the bill next night.
She's a good looker with plenty of grit, and
is a winner with the bunch in front."
" How did you get her to take the job ? "
I said. "Well," he replied, "she balked at the
act at first, but I showed her two violet
notes from a couple of swell fairies who
wanted the job, and after that she signed
for six weeks."
"Who wrote the notes?" I said, query-
ingly. "I wrote 'em!" he exclaimed dryly, and
he bit the corner of his stubby mustache
and smiled. "This is the last act in the
olio, so you will have to excuse me. So
long! " and he disappeared in the gloom.
There are streets and boulevards in the
Quarter, sections of which are alive with
183

the passing throng and the traffic of carts
and omnibuses. Then one will come to a
long stretch of massive buildings, public
institutions, silent as convents — their inter
minable walls flanking garden or court.
The Boulevard St. Germain is just such a
highway until it crosses the Boulevard St.
Michel — the liveliest roadway of the Quar
ter. Then it seems to become suddenly
inoculated with its bustle and life, and from
there on is crowded with bourgeoise and
animated with the commerce of market
and shop.
An Englishman once was so fired with a
desire to see the gay life of the Latin Quar
ter that he rented a suite of rooms on this
same Boulevard St. Germain at about the
middle of this long, quiet stretch. Here he
stayed a fortnight, expecting daily to see
from his "chambers" the gaiety of a Bo
hemia of which he had so often heard. At
the end of his disappointing sojourn, he
returned to London, firmly convinced that
the gay life of the Latin Quarter was a
myth. It was to him.
But the man from Denver, the "Steel
1S4

King," and the two thinner gentlemen with
the louis-lined waistcoats who accompanied
him and whom Fortune had awakened in
the far West one morning and had led them
to "The Great Red Star copper mine" — a
find which had ever since been a source of
endless amusement to them — discovered
the Quarter before they had been in Paris
a day, and found it, too, "the best ever,"
as they expressed it.
They did not remain long in Paris, this
rare crowd of seasoned genials, for it was
their first trip abroad and they had to see
Switzerland and Vienna, and the Rhine ;
but while they stayed they had a good time
Every Minute.
The man from Denver and the Steel King
sat at one of the small tables, leaning over
the railing at the "Bal Bullier," gazing at
the sea of dancers.
"Billy," said the man from Denver to the
Steel King, "if they had this in Chicago
they'd tear out the posts inside of fifteen
minutes" — he wiped the perspiration from
his broad forehead and pushed his twenty-
doHar Panama on the back of his head.
1 86

"Ain't it a sight!" he mused, clinching
the butt of his perfecto between his teeth.
"Say! — say! it beats all I ever see," and
he chuckled to himself, his round, genial
face, with its double chin, wreathed in
smiles. "Say, George!" he called to one of the
'copper twins,' "did you get on to that
little one in black that just went by — well !
weH!!weH!!! In a minute!!"
Already the pile of saucers on their table
reached a foot high — a record of refresh
ments for every Yvonne and Marcelle that
had stopped in passing. Two girls ap
proach. "Certainly, sit right down," cried the
Steel King. "Here, Jack,"— this to the
aged gar9on, "smoke up ! and ask the ladies
what they'll have" — all of which was unin-
telHgible to the two little Parisiennes and
the gar9on, but quite clear in meaning to
all three.
"Dis done, gar9on ! " interrupted the taller
of the two girls, "un cafe glace pour moi."
" Et moi," answered her companion gayly,
"Je prends une limonade !"
187

"Here! Hold on!" thundered good-hu-
moredly the man from Denver; "git 'em a
good drink. Rye, garsong ! yes, that's it —
whiskey — I see you're on, and two. Deux ! "
he explains, holding up two fat fingers, "all
straight, friend — two whiskeys with seltzer
on the side — see ? Now go roll your hoop
and git back with 'em."
"Oh, non, monsieur!" cried the two Pa
risiennes in one breath; "whiskey! jamais!
9a pique et c'est trop fort."
At this juncture the flower woman arrived
with a basketful of red roses.
"Voulez-vous des fleurs, messieurs et
mesdames?" she asked politely.
"Certainly," cried the Steel King; "here,
Maud and Mamie, take the lot," and he
handed the two girls the entire contents
of the basket. The taller buried her face
for a moment in the red Jaqueminots and
drank in their fragrance. When she looked
up, two big tears trickled down to the cor
ners of her pretty mouth. In a moment
more she was smiling ! The smaller girl
gave a Httle cry of delight and shook her
roses above her head as three other girls

passed. Ten minutes later the two pos
sessed but a single rose apiece — they had
generously given all the rest away.
The "copper twins" had been oblivious
of all this. They had been hanging over
the low balustrade, engaged in a heart-to-
heart talk with two pretty Quartier bru
nettes. It seemed to be really a case of
love at first sight, carried on somewhat
under difficulties, for the "copper twins"
could not speak a word of French, and
the English of the two chic brunettes was
Hmited to "Oh, yes!" "Vary weh!" "Good
morning," "Good evening," and "I love
you." The four held hands over the low
railing, until the "copper twins" fairly
steamed in talk ; warmed by the sun of
gaiety and wet by several rounds of High
land dew, they grew sad and earnest, and
got up and stepped all
over the Steel King and
the man from Denver,
and the two Parisiennes'
daintily slippered feet, in
squeezing out past the
group of round tables

back of the balustrade, and down on to the
polished floor — where they are speedily lost
to view in the maze of dancers, gliding into
the whirl with the two brunettes. When the
waltz is over they stroll out with them into
the garden, and order wine, and talk of
changing their steamer date.
The good American, with his spotless
collar and his well -cut clothes, with his
frankness and whole-souled generosity, is
a study to the modern grisette. He seems
strangely attractive to her, in contrast
with a certain type of Frenchman, that is
selfish, unfaithful, and mean — that jealousy
makes uncompanionable and sometimes
cruel. She will teH you that these pale,
black -eyed, and black -bearded boulevar-
diers are all alike — lazy and selfish ; so un
like many of the sterling, good feHows of
the Quarter — Frenchmen of a different
stamp, and there are many of these — rare,
good Bohemians, with hearts and natures
as big as aH out-doors — "bons gar9ons,"
which is only another way of saying "gen
tlemen."

190

As you tramp along back to your quarters
some rainy night you find many of the streets
leading from the boulevards silent and badly
lighted, except for some flickering lantern
on the corner of a long block which sends
the shadows scurrying across your path.
You pass a student perhaps and a girl,
hurrying home — a fiacre for a short distance
is a luxury in the Quarter. Now you hear
the click-clock of an approaching cab, the
cocher half asleep on his box. The hood
of the fiacre is up, sheltering the two inside
from the rain. As the voiture rumbles by
near a street-light, you catch a glimpse of
a pink silk petticoat within and a pair of
dainty, white kid shoes — and the glint of an
officer's sword.
Farther on, you pass a sUent gendarme
muffled in his night cloak ; a few doors far
ther on in a small cafe, a bourgeois couple,
who have arrived on a late train no doubt
to spend a month with relatives in Paris,
are having a warming tipple before pro
ceeding farther in the drizzling rain. They
have, of course, invited the cocher to drink
with them. They have brought aH their
191

pets and nearly all their household goods —
two dogs, three bird-cages, their tiny oc
cupants protected from the damp air by
several folds of newspaper; a cat in a stout
paper box with air holes, and two trunks,
well tied with rope.

"Ah, yes, it has been a long journey!"
sighs the wife. Her husband corroborates
her, as they explain to the patronne of the
cafe and to the cocher that they left their
village at midday. Anything over two hours
on the chemin-de-fer is considered a journey
by these good French people !
192

As you continue on to your studio, you
catch a glimpse of the Hghts of the Boule
vard Montparnasse. Next a cab with a
green light rattles by ; then a ponderous
two-wheeled cart lumbers along, piled high
with red carrots as neatly arranged as
cigars in a box — the driver asleep on his
seat near his swinging lantern — and the
big Normandy horses taking the way. It
is late, for these carts are on their route to
the early morning market — one of the great
Halles. The tired waiters are putting up
the shutters of the smaller cafes and stack
ing up the chairs. Now a cock crows lustily
in some neighboring yard ; the majority at
least of the Latin Quarter has turned in for
the night. A moment later you reach your
gate, feel instinctively for your matches. In
the darkness of the court a friendly cat
rubs her head contentedly against your leg.
It is the yellow one that sleeps in the fur
niture factory, and you pick her up and
carry her to your studio, where, a moment
later, she is crunching gratefully the rem
nant of the beau maquereau left from your
dejeuner — for charity begins at home.
193

CHAPTER X
EXILED ¦^^
Scores of men, celebrated in art and in
literature, have, for a longer or shorter per
iod of their lives, been bohemians of the
Latin Quarter. And yet these years spent
in cafes and in studios have not turned them
out into the world a devil-me-care lot of
dreamers. They have all marched and
sung along the "Boul' Miche"; danced at
the " Bullier" ; starved, struggled, and lived
in the romance of its Hfe. It has all been a
part of their education, and a very impor
tant part too, in the development of their
several geniuses, a development which in
later life has placed them at the head of
their professions. These years of cama
raderie — of a life free from all convention-
aHties, 'm daily touch with everything about
them, and untrammeled by public censure
or the petty views of prudish or narrow
194

minds, have left them free to cut a straight
swath merrily toward the goal of their
ideals, surrounded all the while by an
atmosphere of art and good-fellowship that
permeates the very air they breathe.
If a man can work at aH, he can work
here, for between the working-hours he
finds a life so charming, that once having
lived it he returns to it again and again, as
to an old love.
How many are the romances of this stu
dent Quarter ! How many hearts have
been broken or made glad ! How many
brave spirits have suffered and worked on
and suffered again, and at last won fame 1
How many have failed ! We who come
with a fresh eye know nothing of all that
has passed within these quaint streets —
only those who have lived in and through
it know its full story.
Pochard has seen it ; so has the little old
woman who once danced at the opera ;
so have old Bibi La Puree, and Alphonse,
the gray-haired gar9on, and M^re Gaillard,
the flower-woman. They have seen the
gay boulevards and the cafes and genera-
195

tions of grisettes, from the true grisette of
years gone by, in her dainty white cap and
simple dress turned low at the throat, to
the tailor-made grisette of to-day.
Yet the eyes of the little old woman still
dance ; they have not grown tired of this
ever-changing kaleidoscope of human na
ture, this paradise of the free, where many
would rather struggle on half starved than
live a life of luxury elsewhere.
And the students are equally quixotic. I
knew one once who lived in an air-castle of
his own building — a tall, serious fellow, a
sculptor, who always went tramping about
in a robe resembling a monk's cowl, with
his bare feet incased in coarse sandals ; only
his art redeemed these eccentricities, for he
produced in steel and ivory the most exqui
site statuettes. One at the Salon was the
sensation of the day — a knight in full armor,
scarcely half a foot in height, holding in his
arms a nymph in flesh-tinted ivory, whose
gentle face, upturned, gazed sweetly into
the stern features behind the uplifted vizor ;
and all so exquisitely carved, so alive, so
human, that one could almost feel the ten-
197

der heart of this fair lady beating against
the cold steel breastplate.
Another "bon gar9on" — a painter whose
enthusiasm for his art knew no bounds-
craved to produce a masterpiece. This
dreamer could be seen daily ferreting
around the Quarter for a studio always
bigger than the one he had. At last he
found one that exactly fitted the require
ments of his vivid imagination — a studio
with a ceiling thirty feet high, with win
dows like the scenic ones next to the stage
entrances of the theaters. Here at last he
could give full play to his brush — no subject
seemed too big for him to tackle ; he would
move in a canvas as big as a back flat to
a third act, and commence on a "Fall of
Babylon" or a "Carnage of Rome " with
a nerve that was sublime ! The choking
dust of the arena — the insatiable fury of the
tigers — the cowering of hundreds of unfor
tunate captives — and the cruel multitude
above, seated in the vast circle of the
hippodrome — all these did not daunt his
zeal. Once he persuaded a venerable old abbe
198

to pose for his portrait. The old gentleman
came patiently to his studio and posed for
ten days, at the end of which time the abbe
gazed at the result and said things which I
dare not repeat — for our enthusiast had so
far only painted his clothes ; the face was
still in its primary drawing.
"The face I shall do in time," the en
thusiast assured the reverend man exci
tedly ; " it is the effect of the rich color of
your robe I wished to get. And may I ask
your holiness to be patient a day longer
while I put in your boots ?"
"No, sir!" thundered the irate abbe.
"Does monsieur think I am not a very
busy man ?"
Then softening a little, he said, with a
smile :
"I won't come any more, my friend. I'll
send my boots around to-morrow by my
boy." But the longest red-letter day has its
ending, and time and tide beckon one with
the brutality of an impatient jaHer.
On my studio table is a well-stuffed en
velope containing the documents relative to
199

my impending exile— a stamped card of my
identification, bearing the number of my
cell, a plan of the slave-ship, and six red
tags for my baggage.
The three pretty daughters of old Pfere
Valois know of my approaching departure,
and say cheering things to me as I pass the
concierge's window.
P^re Valois stands at the gate and stops
me with: "Is it true, monsieur, you are
going Saturday?"
"Yes," I answer; "unfortunately, it is
quite true."
The old man sighs and replies: "I once
had to leave Paris myself"; looking at me
as if he were speaking to an old resident.
"My regiment was ordered to the colonies.
It was hard, monsieur, but I did my duty."
The morning of my sailing has arrived.
The patron of the tobacco-shop, and ma
dame his good wife, and the wine merchant,
and the baker along the little street with
its cobblestone-bed, have all wished me
"bon voyage," accompanied with many
handshakings. It is getting late and P^re
Valois has gone to hunt for a cab — a "gal-

erie," as it is called, with a place for trunks
on top. Twenty minutes go by, but no
"galerie " is in sight. The three daughters
of P^re Valois run in different directions to
find one, while I throw the remaining odds
and ends in the studio into my valise. At
last there is a sound of grating wheels be
low on the gravel court. The "galerie"
has arrived — with the smallest of the three
daughters inside, all out of breath from her
run and terribly excited. There are the
trunks and the valises and the bicycle in
its crate to get down. Two soldiers, who
have been calling on two of the daughters,
come up to the studio and kindly offer their
assistance. There is no time to lose, and
in single file the procession starts down the
atelier stairs, headed by P^re Valois, who
has just returned from his fruitless search
considerably winded, and the three girls,
the two red-trousered soldiers and myself
tugging away at the rest of the baggage.
It is not often one departs with the as
sistance of three pretty femmes de menage,
a jolly old concierge, and a portion of the
army of the French Republic. With many

suggestions from my good friends and an
assuring wave of the hand from the aged
cocher, my luggage is roped and chained to
the top of the rickety, little old cab, which
sways and squeaks with the sudden weight,
while the poor, small horse, upon whom has
been devolved the task of making the 11.35
train, Gare St. Lazare, changes his posi
tion wearily from one leg to the other. He
is evidently thinking out the distance, and
has decided upon his gait.
"Bon voyage!" cry the three girls and
P^re Valois and the two soldiers, as the
last trunk is chained on.
The dingy vehicle groans its way slowly
out of the court. Just as it reaches the last
gate it stops.
"What's the matter?" I ask, poking my
head out of the window.
"Monsieur," says the aged cocher, "it is
an impossibHity ! I regret very much to
say that your bicycle will not pass through
the gate."
A dozen heads in the windows above offer
suggestions. I climb out and take a look ;
there are at least four inches to spare on

either side in passing through the iron
posts. "Ah!" cries my cocher enthusiastically,
"monsieur is right, happily for us!"
He cracks his whip, the Httle horse
gathers itself together — a moment of care
ful driving and we are through and into the
street and rumbling away, amid cheers from
the windows above. As I glance over my
traps, I see a small bunch of roses tucked
in the corner of my roll of rugs with an en
graved card attached. "From Mademoi
selle Ernestine Valois," it reads, and on
the other side is written, in a small, fine
hand, " Bon voyage."
I look back to bow my acknowledgment,
but it is too late ; we have turned the corner
and the rue Vaugirard is but a memory !
*******
But why go on telling you of what the
little shops contain — how narrow and pic
turesque are the small streets — how gay
the boulevards — what they do at the "Bul
lier "—or where they dine ? It is Love that
moves Paris — it is the motive power of this
big, beautiful, polished city — the love of
203

adventure, the love of intrigue, the love of
being a bohemian if you will — but it is Love
all the same !
"I work for love," hums the little cou-
turiere. "I work for love," cries the mUler of
Marcel Legay.
"I live for love," sings the poet.
"For the love of art I am a painter,"
sighs Edmond, in his atelier — "and for
her!" "For the love of it I mold and model and
create," chants the sculptor — "and for her!"
It is the Woman who dominates Paris —
" Les petites femmes ! " who have inspired
its art through the skill of these artisans.
"Monsieur! monsieur! Please buy this
fisherman doll!" cries a poor old woman
outside of your train compartment, as you
are leaving Havre for Paris.
" Monsieur ! " screams a girl, running near
the open window with a little fishergirl doll
upHfted. "What, you don't want it? You have
bought one ? Ah ! I see," cries the pretty
vendor ; " but it is a boy doll — he will be sad
204

if he goes to Paris without a companion !"
Take all the little fishergirls away from
Paris — from the Quartier Latin — and you
would find chaos and a morgue !
L'amour ! that is it — L'amour ! — L'amour !
— L'amour!

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