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II.
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN
IN
1878-9.
!AMr^ .££#.£< '. tv Tin- utn^T C\V WAP
JWIC I ROUND THE CLOCK,"" A'
TH,' 'GASLIGHT AND DAYLIGHT,' ETC
. Bf THE MIDST OF JSfAR.i?
EY BEKTALL, CHAM, FELCOQ, GREVIN, GILL, MARIE, MOBIN , DEROY, LALAXXE,
BENOIST, LAFOSSE, MARS, ETC.
IX TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
SECOND EDITION.
REMINGTON AND CO.,
.5, AKUNDEL STREET, STRAND, W.C.
SCRIBNEK AND WELFORD, NEW YORK.
1S79.
[All rights rest
LONDON :
iADBCRY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
SRLfl
URL
M&'.Hsijs-fSl*
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
THE GHOST OF THE GRISETTE
CHAPTER III.
UP AND DOWN IN THE EXHIBITION
THROUGH THE PASSAGES
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
1
CHAPTER II.
. . ll
THE SEAMY SIDE OF PARIS LIFE
30
CHAPTER IV.
. • 46
CHAPTER V.
STILL THROUGH THE PASSAGES . G3
CHAPTER VI.
AMERICA'S PLACE AT THE EXHIBITION 77
CHAPTER VII.
EASILY PLEASED 84
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
CHAPTEB VIII.
HKill HOLIDAY IN THE CITI
PA OK
US
CHAPTEE IX.
GRAND PRIZEMEN
107
CHAPTER X.
MEDAJ LISTS
. . 126
CHAPTER XI.
THi: KXHR3ITION LOTTERY
152
CHAPTER XII.
MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS
167
CHAPTER XIII.
IN THE TEMI'LE
196
CHAPTER XIV.
oesg!
218
CHAPTER XV.
238
CHAPTER XVI.
IN Til
251
CONTENTS OF VOL. II. vii
CHAPTER XVII.
PAGE
PARIS REVISITED — PALM SUNDAY ON THE BOULEVARDS .... 2(J1
CHAPTER XVIII.
EASTER EGGS A>"D APRIL FISHES 273
CHAPTER XIX.
THE GREAT HAH FAIR e 285
8
CHAPTER XX.
AT THE 'ASSOMMOIR' 297
CHAPTER XXL
GINGERBREAD FAIR ?. . 30s
CHAPTER XXII.
IN THE RUE DE LA PAIX 322
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE LITTLE RED MAN 334
CHAPTER XXIV.
O
THE AVENUE DE L'OPERA 344
CHAPTER XXV
CHAM 3J5
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
I.
THE GHOST OF THE GMSETTE.
Sept. 23.
Ai.heit I may be the most unphilosopliic of mortals, I have still
so much in common with Samuel Taylor Coleridge as not to be-
lieve in Ghosts,— for the reason that I have seen so many of
them. The number of dead people, for example, that I-meet every
time I visit the Exhibition is amazing. I bow and raise my hat) to
B
VOL. II.
2 PARIS HEBSELF AGAIN.
them ; and am mortified when they do not return my salutation.
I run after them, and am in despair when I lose them in the
crowd ever gathered round the Tiffany gold and silver ware, or
M. Penon's blue velvet-hung bedroom, or the plaster casts in the
Russian department. I meet them face to face; accost them cheer-
fully; and essay even to clasp the hand of the dear old friend
of days gone by, and am bewildered by the icy stare, the con-
temptuous shrug of the shoulders, or the supercilious ' Monsieur,
vous vous trompez ' with which my advances are met. Then, with
a numbness at my heart, I remember that I followed the hearse of
one dear old friend to Kensal Green ten years ago ; that another
went down in the Captain ; that another fell at Inkerman. They
are all very dead indeed ; and yet, by scores, their apparitions are
walking and talking here in the Champ de Mars. Yet is there a
reason bss psychological than physiological for the delusion under
which I have laboured. There is a limit, I apprehend, to the
number of facial types fashioned by the great modeller, Nature.
When the series is exhausted, she begins to strike a new set of
faces from the old dies. Have you never met Titus Oates in an
omnibus, or Oliver Cromwell on board a steamboat ? Have you
never had Frederick the Great — in modern evening dress, not in
cocked hat and pigtail — for your next neighbour in the stalls of a
theatre ? Have you never — on the Boulevard or in the Old Bailey,
in a passing hansom, or a railway booking-office, or on the plat-
form of a station past which an express-train has whirled you —
met with Yourself, and turned away with aversion from the pitiful
spectacle ?
There are many more spectres in Paris besides the spectres
who flit across my path in the Champ de Mars, or glide past me
in the lietrospective Museum at the Troeadero. I rarely take a
walk abroad without seeing a ghost. In the mild little gardiens
<!<> In jxd.r in tunics and kepis, and with 'dumpy' little swords of
the 'snickasnee' order by their sides, who saunter along the kerb-
stone, condnually taking notes — about goodness knows what — in
tlreir pocket-books, I seem to discern the phantoms of the broad-
THE GHOST OF THE GRISETTE. O
shouldered, fierce-moustached, truculent sergents de ville, with
their cocked hats and their long rapiers, who were intensely hated
by the dangerous classes, but were, nevertheless, salutarily feared,
and did their work in a very efficient, if occasionally uncompromis-
ing, manner. Many of these bygone policemen were Corsicans,
stern 'Decembrists' — that is to say, true as steel to the House of
Bonaparte, if to nobody else. The force likewise comprised a large
contingent of Alsatians and Lorrainers, men of great physical
stamina and great probit}-, but somewhat rude in speech and
rough in manner. But they managed to control the vehicular
traffic in the street; they contrived to keep Gavroche and Tortillard,
Gugusse and Polyte, and the great army of voyous and polis'sons,
in wholesome awe. The ranks of the existing police force — the
municipal one, at least — is no longer recruited from Bonapartist
Corsica, and the Alsatio-Lorrainers are wearing pickelhcmoes and
carrying needle-guns in lieu of hqns and 'snickftsnees;' so the
gardiens de lapaix have become a very miscellaneous body indeed,
and to my mind are not improved as regards efficiency and strength.
French acquaintances, indeed, tell me that the entire Prefecture
de Police is in a state of disorganisation and demoralisation, and
demands radical reform.
' But there is another ghost — an apparition for which I have
been seeking as sedulously, but up to the present time as unsuc-
cessfully, as I sought for the Nice Old Gentleman. "What has
become of tht Parisian Grisette ? • Paris, we all know, is a city of
ephemera ; but the grisette should not be considered as an evanes-
cent personage — for La Fontaine, in some of the daintiest stanzas
that French poet ever penned, sang her praises more than two
hundred years ago ; and in my own Parisian adolescence I was
habitually and pleasantly aware of the grisette. The good tempered,
saucy, hard-working, harmless little body ! How fond she was of
flowers ; how she stinted herself in her own scant rations to feed
her much-prized cat ; how she went without sugar to her own coffee
in order that the due lump might be thrust through the bars of
the cage of her pet canary ! Few sorrows had she of her own, that
B 2
4 TARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
little grisette, when work was not slack, and she could get enough
to eat. EUe se contentait depeu. Her coffee and plenty of milk
— O, she must have plenty of milk ! — in the morning ; a hunk of
bread, a hunch of grapes, a morsel of fromage dc Brie— the Stilton
of the poor— for breakfast ; and for dinner the pot au feu — hut
little more than so much hot water, flavoured with a little fat and
some vegetables — and bread, with perhaps an apple or a pear.
She was content with little. A pennyworth of fried potatoes from
that well-remembered stall on the Pont Neuf— there are no stalls
on the Pont Neuf now — or threehalfpenny-worth of ready-boiled
spinach, strained and pressed so smooth that it looked in the
fniirier's window like so much green paint, were quite a feast to
her ; but on high days and holidays she regaled herself with some
tiny kickshaws of charcuterie. Butcher's meat she scarcely ever
tasted.^ If she had a little money left after the stride necessaire
had been provided for, she regaled herself with roasted chestnuts,
or with a slice of that incomparably greasy and toothsome galette
which they used to sell at an open-fronted shop in the Place de
l'Odeon — a galette which, without fear of contradiction, I contend
to have been more succulent than the flimsier and higher-priced
article sold at the ' Renommee de la Galette ' on the other side of
the water.
The grisette was as fond of gaieties as London boys are of the
peculiar form of suet}' pudding with plums in it known as ' Spotted
Corey.' Not ' Spotted Duff,' mind you ; that is quite another
eidos of the pudding species. Amateurs consider it all the more
delicious for a soupqon of pork-gravy, and the most ' lumping '
pennyworth of the dainty is to be obtained at a shop in Long Acre.
The grisette took a tidy modicum of wine, largely diluted with
water, at her breakfast and her dinner — a teetotal Frenchman or
Frenchwoman would be regarded as next door to a lunatic ; but in
those drfys very decent ordinaire, either of Bordeaux or Burgundy,
was to be had, costing ten sous the litre — a quantity slightly under
an imperial quart. At present a litre of the vilest petit bleu cannot
be obtained at the marchands de tins for less than sixteen sous.
THE GHOST OF THE GRISETTE.
Formerly outside the octroi barriers quite drinkable wine was to
be had for four sous the quart; and the halcyon time of cheapness
is commemorated in a song beginning,
' Pour eviter la rage
De la femme clout je snis l'epoux,
Je trouve clans le vin a quat' sons
L'esperance du veuvage.
Venez, venez, sages et fous,
Venez, venez, Loire; avec nous
Le vin a quat' sous.'
♦ ! TAIUS HERSELF AGAIN.
The song is sung no longer, and the guingettes where the wine at
four sous used to be sold have been pulled down ; and the octroi
barriers having been enlarged to give Paris more elbow-room,
huge blocks of houses five stories high have been erected in the
place of the humble but joyous little taverns where, on Sundays
and fete-days, the grisettes and their sweethearts came to enjoy
themselves, and to dance to such strains as those discoursed by
the king of itinerant fiddlers, the Mcnetrier de Mention. Plea-
sant little guingettes. You fancied that the bonny buxom hostess
sitting behind the counter was ' Madame Gregoire ; ' that it was
the ' Petit Homme Gris ' who had just ordp red another chojnne ;
and that it was the ' Gros Eoger Bontemps ' who was playing at
tonneaux in the garden with Lisette.
Aye. it was the Empress- Queen of all grisettes, descended in
right line from her whom La Fontaine limned. It was the unsur-
passable Lisette of Beranger, who was yet extant some five-and-
thirty ye?rs ago in Paris. It was then that Albert Smith, who had
been a medical student in Paris, marked the grisette as pretty and
pleasant, and noticed that her highest ambition in the way of dress
Avas to possess half a dosren pair of white thread stockings of
English manufacture. Some years were to elapse before Mr.
Cobden and the Treaty of Commerce gave facilities to the grisette
for gratifying her ambition in the direction just hinted at; but by
that time there were very few grisettes left to covet stockings
of white thread, Nottingham or Glasgow made ; and the grisettes'
successors on the other side. of the Seine were apter to hanker
after hose of pink or pearly-gray silk. The grisette never wore a
bonnet ; nay, not even on Sundays. She had her own particular,
peculiar, characteristic, picturesque, and becoming cap. Her
manner of walking was matchlessly graceful and agile. The
narrow streets of old Paris were, in those days, infamously paved.
There was no foot pavement. The kennel was often in the centre
of tiie street, and down it rolled a great black torrent of impu-
rities fearsome to sight and smell. There was no gas when I
first saw Lutetia, save in the Place de la Concorde, in the Palais
THE GHOST OF THE GRISETTE. 7
Royal, and on the Boulevard des Italiens. The remainder of the
streets were lit by means of reverberes — oil lamps suspended from
ropes slung from house to house across the street.
The manner in which the grisette would pick her wa}^ over the
jagged stones, and the dexterity with which she would avoid
soiling her neat shoes and stockings when venturing on the very
brink of that crashing plashing kennel, were wondrous and de-
lightful to view. She had an inimitable way, too, of whisking the
end of her skirt over her arm as she trotted along, and she was
similarly nimble in ascending and descending the steep, hideously
dark, dilapidated, and dirty staircases of the old lodging-houses of
the Quartier Latin. Were you ever taken to a certain tall dingy
house in the Rue de l'Ecole de Medecine, to see the room in which
Marat was stabbed to death in his bath ? I went there once ; but
the room was in the occupation of a Polish exile, who had invented
a machine for hatching chickens by electricit} r , and who would not
permit us to enter his domicile. Perhaps it was full of eggs ; and
possibly he cared no more about his apartment having been the
deathplace of Marat than Mr. Toole in the farce cared about his
second-floor back having been the birthplace of Podgers. But as
I came, disappointed, down the dingy staircase, slippery, rickety,
evil-smelling, there passed by me in the gloom an Apparition in
white. It seemed to float upwards, and disappeared. With my
head full of the terrible tragedy in which the modern Judith slew
the Holofernes of the Terror, it was as though the Presentment
of Charlotte Corday had just passed by ; but lo ! from the regions
beneath came the hoarse voice of the concierge crying, ' Mademoi-
selle Amanda, vous avez oublie votre clef;' and speedily there
came tripping down a pretty little lass with blue eyes and brown
hair, in a cocuiettish white cap, and a frock of printed calico.
Who wears ' frocks,' or even 'gowns,' nowadays? The modern
grisette wears, I suppose, a ' robe ' or a ' costume.' Mademoiselle
Amanda was only a little grisette who lived in a garret au
cinquUme in that terrible house of Marat. She was a waistcoat-
maker, the communicative concierge — concierges were portieres in
8
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN'.
those days— told us, and earned no less than one franc seventy-
five centimes a day. ' C'est une brave fille qui se contente de pen,"
quoth the concierge.
^
Was she virtuous ? Well it may be that, in the important
aspect in ' question, she was, as in other matters, content with a
little. Albert Smith, who was on innocently intimate terms with
the grisette, who had danced with her and treated her to marrons
chavds and Here <h Mars, had not a word to say against her
THE GHOST OF THE GRISETTE.
9
morality. In Eugene Sue's Mysteries of Paris, Rigolette, the
grisette, and Germain, the notary's clerk, whom she eventually
marries, are nearly the only virtuous personages among a horde
of male and female villains belonging to all ranks in society. But
Albert Smith was writing for English magazine readers, and the
Mysteries of Paris is a romance. Beranger must ever be held as
the supreme authority touching the ethics of the grisette ; and
the moral character of Lisette, as painted by the illustrious chan-
sonnier, certainly, from time to tune, leaves something to be
desired. Still Beranger is careful to draw a tangible distinction
between his beloved Lisette and Fretillon, ' la bonne fille,' to say
nothing of ' ces demoiselles,' who, in 1815, uttered the famous
complainte,
' Faut (jue Lor Vilainton ait tout pris ;
G'na plus d'argent dans c'gueux de Paris.'
I apprehend that the grisette of thirty years ago was as virtu-
ous as circumstances would allow her to be. In the majority of
cases she was an orphan — or worse than an orphan, a pauvre
enfant delaissee — who had never known father or mother, who had
no kith or kin whatever, who, as a baby, had been flung into one
of the tours of the Foundling Hospital, or had been picked up on
the muddy pavement of the quays, destitute, abandoned, helpless,
to be grudgingly brought up at the public expense in a prison-like
asylum, to be turned out on the great world when she was sixteen
years of a^e, with a few scores of francs and a bare-livelihood-
getting skill in needlework. If she could keep body and soul
together honestly, she did so. She remained a ' brave fille,' a
model of ' conduite sage et reglee ' to her proprietaire and her
concierge. If she went wrong, it was not very far in this direc-
tion : not farther than is glanced at in Henri Murger's Scenes de,
la Vic de Bohime.
She made no part of the systematic and heartless profligacy of
Boulevard Paris. She knew nothing about the Maison Doree,
and was certainly never seen in a pony-phaeton in the Bois de
Boulogne, or on the box-seat of a four-in-hand, or in a barouche
10
TARIS 1IKRSELF AGAIN.
d huit rcssorts, at the Courses de Longchamps. She was neither
a ' Lorette,' a ' Cocotte,' a ' Fille de Marbre,' a ' Fille de Platre,'
a ' Demi-Mondaine,' a ' Ceinture Doree,' a ' Belle Petite,' nor a
' Grosse Dormeuse.' ' Une Qrosse Dormeuse,' the latest variety
of the hetairee species, is an actress at one of the minor theatres,
the value of whose personal property in diamonds exceeds, to an
incalculable extent, the amount of her monthly salaiy. Diamonds !
Lise, or Amanda, or Pigolette had not seen a diamond bracelet
half a dozen times in the course of her life, and then it was in a
jeweller's shop-window in the Rue de la Paix. From the begin -
ning until the end of the chapter she was a Grisette — nothing
more and nothing less — and I want to know what has become of
her. Up to the present, in New and Regenerated Paris, I have
only met with her tawdry, haggard, and fitful ghost in an extra-
vagant toilette, very high-heeled shoes with brass tips, and visage
( much be-pl^astered with white and red paint. Can this be Rigo-
lette ? Can this be Amanda, ' la brave fille,' who earned one
franc seventy-five a day, and was content with little ? Can this
be Lisette ?
I \ BAHOUCIIE a LUIT RESSORTS IT LoNGOHAMP.
II. IO
• '3LIN-M VILLA RD.
II.
THE SEAMY SIDE OF PARIS LIFE.
Sept. 25.
Suppose that in wandering through that wonderful Retrospective
Museum at the Trocadero— a treasury so full of triumphs of an-
cient, of mediaeval, of Renaissance, and of last-century art-work-
manship that the modern craftsman in gold and silver and the
baser metals, in ceramics, in glass, in enamel, in damascening,
and in wood and ivory carving, may well-nigh despair of being
able to approach the antique models — suppose we halt before this
superb piece of Beauvais tapestry. The Gobelins never turned
out a finer example of the arras-worker's art. The scene depicted
is, say, a. fete cliampetre, after Watteau. Observe, if you please,
the symmetrical drawing and harmonious grouping of the slim
youths and dainty dames who are indulging in the pastime of
colin-mattlard on a verdant lawn bordered by parterres of gayest
flowers, and canopied by the interlacing boughs of tall old trees,
through the leafy livery of which the afternoon sun glints in
golden sparkles, now lighting up the crisp folds of a satin sacque
« >r the lozenges of a quilted petticoat, now glittering on the jewelled
necklace which encircles Madame la Marquise's white throat, now
making lustrous the precious shoe-buckles and the embroidered
12 PAEIS HERSELF AGAIN.
clocks on the hose of Monsieur lc Marquis. For depend upon it
these gallant folks, although they may be 'making believe' to be
shepherds and shepherdesses, are all Marquises and Marchionesses
at the very least — ayant droit au tabouret, or ,dignes de monter
dans les carrosses du Roi — the ladies entitled to sit on lowly foot-
stools in the royal presence, the gentlemen deemed worthy to ride
in the royal carriages. The real Arcadia, I am apt to fancy, was
not a very agreeable region. For all their crooks and their oaten
pipes, riiillis may have been but a sulky wench, and Strephon but
a savage lout. The Arcadian wardrobe did not go far beyond a
sheepskin, the woolly side out in summer, and in during winter ;
the food was coarse, the shelter was scanty, the manners were
brutal, and the wolf, metaphorically as well as corporeally, was
alwa} r s at the door.
Not So in this glowing piece of Beauvais. Le Notre must
have laid out that trim garden with the leafy alcove, in the
recesses of which you discern a terminal figure of the god Pan,
leering at the revellers with his wicked eye, and patronising the
proceedings generally with a sardonic grin. Mansard must have
built that grandiose chateau in the distance, with high-pitched
roof and dormer windows. Observe that peacock on the terrace —
how proudly he struts, unfolding the rainbow glories of his tail.
See, there is an ancient servitor in blue and silver, bearing a silver
salver piled high with choice fruit and crisp brioches. To him
succeeds another lackey with a pannier full of flasks of rare wine.
This is how they live in Arcadia, from M. Watteau and the Beau-
vais tapestry-worker's point of view. It is all dancing and feasting
and games of romp. There is no surcease of fiddling. There are
no taxes to pay. Jacques Bonhomme in the field outside the park-
gates — Jacques Bonhomme painfully gathering nettles that Nicole
his wife may boil the weeds for soup, or picking up fir-cones and
1 beech-ma!?t to pound them and mingle them with the rye-flour of
which his bread is made — Jacques Bonhomme pays the taxes. It
is he who is eaten up alive by the Farmers- General, and is sent to
the galleys for smuggling into his hut five sous' worth of salt
THE SEAMY SIDE OF PARIS LIFE. 13
which lias not paid the gabeUe. The Arcadian revellers in the
park do not trouble themselves about such miseres. To Monsieur
Watteau and the tapestry-weaver's thinking, there are no such
things as poverty and starvation, as t} T phus and the smallpox;
while, as for death — well, what did the youthful duke who was
dressing for a court ballet at Versailles say to the messenger who
brought him news of his mother's death ? ' Madame ma mere,'
returned the duke, calmly applying a rouged hare's foot to each
cheek, while the coiffeur gave a last touch with his tongs to the
curls of the ducal periwig, ' will not expire until after the conclu-
sion of the ballet.' It was only given to dukes and marquises of
the Watteau type to postpone grief, and to purchase deferred
annuities of woe.
The visitor to the Retrospective Museum of the Trocadero is
watched most vigilantly by the policemen on duty, who begin to
eye you very suspiciously if 3 r ou linger above a minute and a half
before one of the glass cases ; and not under any circumstances
are you allowed to retrace your footsteps in order to study more
attentively some object the beauty of which may have exceptionally
struck you. You are bound to go in at one door and to come out at
another ; and, in point of fact, the public are driven pretty much
rts though they were a pack of sheep through a gallery in which
the precious contents of at least four South Kensington Museums
seem to have been brought together. But suppose that we are in
the receipt of fern-seed, and invisible. Suppose that our impunity
from observation renders us recklessly indifferent to the rules and
regulations which govern the palaces of Monsieur Krantz, and con-
temptuously oblivious of the presence of surly gardlens and lynx-
eyed police-agents. Suppose we nimbly rip that superb piece of
Beauvais tapestry from its frame, and, turning the fabric round,
survey its seamy side. I find that Prince Bismarck has been
reading Lalla Rookh and become duly impressed with the dra-
matic force of the episode of Mokanna, ' the Veiled Prophet of
Khorassan.' How many English schoolgirls fifty years since used
to sigh and tremble over the awsome couplet ! —
11 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN'.
'He raised his veil; the maid turned slowly round,
Looked at him, shrieked, and sank upon the ground.'
Mokanna had a death's head. But the German Chancellor might
derive, perhaps, as much edification from the inspection of the
seamy side of a piece of Beauvais tapestry. What squalid tags
and loops and knots ; what ugly ribbed darns and patches ! What
a coarse, dingy, sailcloth-looking backing to the grand fete cham-
petre designed by Monsieur Watteau. Sailcloth ! It is just of the
same texture with the blouse that Jacques Bonhomme wears when
he is prowling about the fields and the woods grubbing up the weeds
and the fir-cones and the beech-mast for food. The sale-marks
andnumbers of a dozen auction-rooms are branded or marked on the
seamy side of the tapestry. At a glance you perceive that the work
has been subject to an extensive process of restoration, and that
at least, a third of the lovely picture on the other side is a sham.
Madame la Marquise's satin sacque and white neck fell into utter
rottenness long ago. Her upper half is only one patch. So are
the violet small-clothes and the crimson-silk hose, with embroidered
clocks, of M. le Marquis ; Avhile the rainbow tints of the peacock's
tail present, on the seamy side, a very Primrose Hill of cobbling.
Don't talk to me of the reverse side of a medal. The under
part of a sovereign is as comfortable to look upon as the obverse.
Don't talk to me of the desillusions of ' behind the scenes ' at a
playhouse. There are often to be found more truth, more honesty,
and more naturalness in the coulisses than before the curtain. To
cause the scales to fall from your eyes ; to convince you that ! La
Vie Parisienne' is not merely a valley of Cashmere shawls powdered
with diamond dust; that the foulest tares, as well as roses and
violets, grow beneath the wayfarer's feet ; that all the houses are
not Maisons Dorees ; that motley is not the only wear ; to fill the
mind with solemn thoughts and the heart with a cold ache — go you
and look at the real seamy side of the gay hangings. Inquire and
study and reflect a little over the appalling amount of misery and
destitution" which are coexistent with the luxury and profligacy and
riot of life in Paris during the Exposition Universelle.
THE SEAMY SIDE OF PARIS LIFE.
15
The Seamy Side ! I had a glance of it the other day on the
Boulevard — a glance sudden, momentary, but as completely lucid
and comprehensive as that afforded of a landscape by a flash of
summer lightning on a moonless night. It was two o'clock in the
afternoon, and raining heavily. I was standing on the kerb, just
in front of the Cafe Riche,in that state of dolorous dubiety to which
people are subject who continually carry an umbrella, and who never,
save under the strongest compulsion, open it. An umbrella may be
:t companion, a friend, a staff, a protector, a weapon, an adviser, an
indicator, and when it rains the best use you can put your parapluie
to is to hail the nearest cab or omnibus with it. But there were
no cabs to be had that afternoon ; the Paris omnibuses do not
stay in their wild career to take up stray passengers ; and I had
begun to think that there was no alternative between putting up
my ' Robinson,' as the French, in affectionate memory of Robinson
Crusoe, term an umbrella — when there stopped right in front of me
the smartest of smart broughams. A Peters, possibly, or a Laurie
and Marner, to judge from the lightness of the wheels and easy
Ill PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
balance of the springs. A Binder, perchance, to judge from the
harmonious lines of the body, and the gentle concavity of the
roof. Pair of coal-black steppers, exquisitely matched ; a viscount's
coronet on the panels ; similar heraldic device in platinated bronze
on the harness. Lamps perfect. Coach-
man clean-shaven, curly -brimmed hat, white
cravat, black frock, bottes mollcs with tops
for which oxalic acid could do nothing more.
Footman identical with coachman, only —
mark the art of this — a shade younger and
slimmer. In brief, a perfect equipage.
Two persons inside. M. le Vicomte ;
fawn-coloured ulster, varnished shoes with
dove-coloured gaiters,lemon kid-gloves, spiky
moustaches, a rose in his button-hole, and a cigarette. Second
person a lady, but whethfr she was Madame la Vicomtesse or
Mademoiselle Amenaide Sanspapa of the Bouffes Parisiens, I am
not prepared to say ; suffice it to remark that she was beauteous,
that her hair was of the hue of newly-stacked barley, that she was
radiantly clad, that she was brave in diamonds, and that from the
superb chariot there exhaled an odour of jockey club, frangipane, or
opoponax— I am sure I don't know which, not being learned in any
perfumes save that of the Vuelta cle Abajo, an odour very popular
in the Island of Cuba, where the names of the principal perfumers
are Cabana, Partagas, and Cavargas. Still the occupants of the
smart brougham were evidently two very important personages
indeed. Stay, there was a third : a snow-white little Maltese dog,
with two sparkling black eyes and a crimson-satin bow at his chin,
lie battled with his paws, and barked, as though the brougham
and the coal-black steppers and the servants and the lady in the
diamonds — tout le tr emblement, enfin — belonged to him. Who
knows ? ' Perhaps they did.
Hastily alighting from his carriage, perhaps to keep an appoint-
ment with a friend at the Cafe Pdche, M. le Vicomte let fall from
a number of documents which he held in one lemon-kid-gloved
THE SEAMY SIDE OF PARIS LIFE.
17
hand something that looked like a letter in an envelope. It fell
face downwards, in the smooth black mud of the gutter. Instan-
taneously — I never saw anything quicker — a lean young man, with
a white pock-marked face, a faded ragged blouse reaching scarcely
below his waist, deplorable pantaloons, shoes like miniature coal-
barges past service and rotting in a ship-breakers wharf, and a
cap that looked like one of the late Daniel Lambert's gray woollen
stockings with the top cut off, darted forward, went on his hands
and knees, grovelled in the gutter, grappled with the paper, which
was fast floating towards a sewer- grating, picked up the document,
rose, and with a fawning mien, and a look in which cupidity and
hope shone like a flame, wiped the paper with his ragged elbow,
VOL. II.
18 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
and presented it to the gentleman. ' Ce n'est qu'une enveloppe,
mon ami.' quoth M. le Viscomte airily; and without taking any
more notice of the poor wretch, he tripped blithely into the Cafe
Riche. It was only an envelope, absolutely without value now
that it was soiled, that had fallen in the mud. I have heard a
good deal of bad language in many dialects in my time, but I do
hope that I shall never again hear curses so fearful as those which
were uttered by the lean young man with the white pock-marked
face. He had expected a reward. The envelope might have been
full of thousand-franc notes, and here he was left with his treasure
trove, hungry and with muddy hands. He shook his fist at the
lady in the brougham — shook it so savagely that she pulled up the
window in a hurry, to the great discomposure of the Maltese dog
— and then the lean young man, changing his tone, began to
murmur, ' Malheur, malheur ! pas merne une piece de cinquante
centimes.' And then, it is wretched and shocking to relate, he
began to whimper, and at last to blubber, as though he had been a
child of four years old. A policeman came up and made him
move on, with the usual admonition of ' Plus vite que ca ' — quicker
than that — to hasten his gait ; and then I put up my umbrella,
and, going on my way, saw him no more. Very possibly he was a
loafer, an idle scamp, an incumbrance and a pest to society ; still
to me he represented very suggestively indeed one squalid and
lamentable scrap of the Seamy Side.
The number of professional beggars in Paris is, to outward
seeming, astonishingly small. You might think it somewhat of a
phenomenal thing in London if, in the course of a walk from Hyde
Park Corner to South Kensington in the daytime, or from Charing
Cross to St. Paul's Churchyard in the evening, you were not accosted
by at least half a dozen mendicants, male, female, or infantine ;
but during the eleven weeks that I have spent in Paris I have not
been asked half a dozen times for alms in the great thoroughfares.
So much, then, must be cheerfully admitted in mitigation of the
Seamy Side of Parisian life. It must, nevertheless, be borne in
mind that the French laws against mendicity are very strict, and
THE SEAMY SIDE OF PARIS LIFE. 19
that in Paris they are carried out with unfailing exactitude by the
police. Our own Vagrant Law is, in some instances, even harsher
than the French; for three months' hard labour in an English
gaol is, in reality, tantamount to three months' penal servitude,
with the additional infliction of a low scale of dietary ; whereas
the French vagabond who is committed by the Police Correction-
nelle to Mazas is put to but very light industrial and productive
labour — the treadmill, the crank, and that infernal invention ' shot
drill,' are wholly unknown in French prisons. With a portion of
his earnings while in prison he is allowed to purchase limited
supplies of food and wine of a quality superior to that of the pripon
rations ; under certain circumstances he is permitted to smoke,
nor during the hour of associated exercise is silence inflexibly
enforced.
The practical difference between the French and English sys-
tems for the repression of mendicity appears to me to be this —
that in Paris any beggar venturous enough to ply his calling in a
much-frequented thoroughfare may reckon with tolerable certaint}*
on being arrested before many hours are over and sent to a prison
where he will be treated with mildness ; whereas in England the
gaol is a place scrupulously clean, excellently well ventilated, but
of unremitting jmysical degradation and torment, to which not one
beggar or vagrant in twenty gets committed. Beggars are very
ingenious scoundrels. As a rule, they can tell the metal of their
customers at a glance. The majority of these are ladies, who are
either too timid or too kind-hearted to give the ragged man who
holds out his hand for alms in charge ; or else they are the
Incurable and Incorrigible Infatuates of the male sex who cannot
be induced to pin their faith to the creed of the Charity Organisa-
tion Society, and who claim the right of exercising their private
judgment and powers of discrimination to determine whether the
ragged man or the tattered woman with a callow baby in her arms
be an object worthy of charity or the reverse. Thus the vast
majority of the London beggars do not get 'taken up ; ' and the
knowledge of the virtual impunity which they enjoy makes them
20 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
in many cases insolent and even ruffianly in their importunity.
Moreover, even if every lady and gentleman who was worried in
the streets for alms was a subscribing member of the Charity
Organisation Society, and was prepared to hand over every mendi-
cant to the custody of the police, the carrying out of the stern
intent is hampered by the fact that in London, and in the most
frequented thoroughfares, you meet in the daytime with con-
siderably more beggars than policemen. Our ' beat ' system
assumes that the policeman shall be everywhere ; for practical
purposes he is so continuously in perambulation as to be — I except
Fleet Street, which is admirably patrolled — nowhere. The Chief
Commissioner tells us that we are sure to find a policeman at
every ' fixed point ; ' but the majority of Londoners know no more
about the locality of the fixed points than they do of the Mountains
of the Moon. In Paris there is a continuous cordon of gardiens
de la paix skirting the cabstand side of the way from the Bastille
to the Madeleine ; and the ' beat ' of each of these functionaries
does not seem to exceed a dozen yards. Police-agents are well-
nigh as numerous in the Rue de Pdvoli, in the new Boulevards, and
in the Champs FJysees. Thus the beggar finds his most fertile
field of operations hopelessly preoccupied by his natural enemy
the policeman, and he gives up his trade, so far as the great
thoroughfares are concerned, in sheer despair.
Let not, however, the habitual absence of mendicants from the
principal places of public resort in the French capital induce in
your mind the belief that there are no beggars in Paris. There
are, I have the best authority for believing, ma^ thousands of
such bisonosos in the city of Paris ; and the weightiest evidence
bearing on such a belief lies in the fact that at the season of
the New Year the police tolerate, for the space of three days,
the presence of professional beggars on the Boulevards. From
sunrise on the 31st of December until sunset on the 2d of
January, in swarms, in hordes, in legions, does Lazarus come
forth. The Cour des Miracles or the Carrieres d'Ame'rique empty
themselves into the fashionable streets. The cripple, the paralytic,
THE SEAMY SIDE OF PARIS LIFE.
21
and the cul de jatte, the tattered woman with the baby, the bare-
footed girl-child, the patriarch with the long beard, the beggar
without arms, the beggar without legs — who, mounted on the back
BLIND BEGGAR OF THE ANCIENT TVFE.
of a brother vagabond, hugs him round the neck like Sindbad's
Old Man of the Sea — the counterparts of all the fantastic creatures
that Callot and Hogarth, Goya and Piranesi, have drawn, crawl,
22
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
or limp, or hobble, or drag themselves, or are wheeled about the
asphalte pavement, and grunt or whimper supplications for charity
at the portals of the fashionable shops and the grand hotels. The
BLIND BEGGAR OF THE MODERN TYPE.
Glorious Three Days of the Nouvel An are their carnival, their
saturnalia, during which they must reap a rich harvest of coppers ;
but on the 3d of January all is at an end. ' Adieu paniers ; ven-
THE SEAMY SIDE OF PARIS LIFE.
23
danges son faites.' A few blind men and women, and a stout tall
old lady with two wooden legs — were her lower limbs shot off, or bit
off, or what, I wonder ? — are tolerated by the police on the Boule-
! ■f? •! / A H
*u'B f
vards des Capucines and des Italiens ; but beyond these, all the
beggars who have been holding high holiday are doomed to imme-
diate disappearance. Even the blind men and the old lady with
•21 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
the timber toes are not permitted to beg". They may accept, but
must not ask for alms.
What becomes of the vast bulk of the tribe of beggars during
the remainder of the year is a Mystery of Paris to which I am
very far from being able to offer a complete solution. There is,
properly speaking, no Poor Law in France. The right of existence
is not recognised by legislative enactment as it is with us. In
England, theoretically, no man can starve, as eveiybody has a
settlement, if he can only find out where it is, and is entitled to
indoor or outdoor relief; but, through lack of capacity to interpret
the Act of Parliament, he does very frequently starve and die. In
France the pauper has the Assistance Publique, a semi-voluntary,
semi-municipal fund, to look to. Much of the money gathered b} r
the Assistance is derived from the tax called ' Le droit des pauvres/
which is levied on every performance at any one of the theatres,
balls, concerts, and public entertainments in Paris ; and I believe
that I am not wrong in stating, that one of the three functionaries,
whose presence, solemn, white-cravated, sable-clad, behind a table
so much puzzles the foreigner who passes through the entrance-
wicket of a French theatre, is an employe of the Assistance
Publique, detailed to check the receipts and ' see fair,' with a
view to the poor getting their due and proper rights. Abstractedly
it seems in the highest degree just and equitable that Vice and
Folly and Luxury should pay a tithe of their takings to indigence
and destitution ; but the theatrical managers and cafe-concert
keepers declare that, between the Droit des Pauvres on the one
hand, and the Droits (VAuteur on the other, they are driven to
bankruptcy ; and that, to be strictly equitable, the Rights of the
Poor tax should be likewise levied on the profits of the restaurants
and cabarets, the milliners and dress-makers, the sellers of photo-
graphs and trinkets.
It is not, however, the professional mendicants, but the
industrious poor, who are the principal recipients of the relief
doled out by the Assistance Publique, on whose books, for
example, thousands of families whose bread-winning members
THE SEAMY SIDE OF PARIS LIFE.
25
are at the bagncs, or in New Caledonia for their participation in
the madness of the Commune, are permanently inscribed. The
majority of French ladies, again, of the upper and middle ranks in
society have each and all of them leurs pauvres, their own special
A PARISIAN - TOMBOLA.
and particular poor, to whose necessities they sedulously minister.
The clergy are in these cases frequent intermediaries and almoners,
and during the fashionable season in Paris numerous balls and
concerts are given, and bazaars and tombolas held, for the benefit
26 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
of Us pauvres honteux, as those necessitous persons are termed
who are too shamefaced to own their wants and to make a public
parade of their misery. Thus, under the Government of Louis
Philippe a grand ball, patronised by the noblest and wealthiest
members of the communhVv, used annually to be given in aid of
les anciens pensionnaires de la Listc Civile. Marquises, Counts,
Barons, Baillis, Vidames, and Chevaliers de St. Louis were among
these benificiaires — virtually pauvres honteux. They were noble
gentlemen and ladies, stricken in years, who had been deprived by
emigration or confiscation of their all during the First Revolution.
The dynasty of the Restoration had been unable to restore to their
lawful owners domains which had been irretrievably alienated ; but
certain pensions on the Civil List were conferred upon the poor
old pauper aristocrats. With the Revolution of July 1830 these
pensions ceased ; hence the annual ball.
But to return to the beggars. I apprehend that they may be
divided into three categories. The more athletic become rodeurs
de barrier e — nocturnal scamps in tattered blouses, who haunt the
external boulevards and prowl about the banlieue, furtively stealing
provisions, fruit, and vegetables from the market-carts, which from
midnight until dawn lumber through the octroi gates on their
way to the Halles Centrales, or knocking down and robbing belated
pedestrians who happen to be tipsy — and tipsy pedestrians are
becoming terribly numerous in the streets of Paris. Another less
dishonest and weaker-kneed class simply creep from morn till
night and from night till morn about the bystreets, scrupulously
shunning the boulevards, where they know that they would be at
once pounced upon by the police, but creeping into courtyards,
slinking to the foot of dark staircases, shambling to the entrances
of porters' lodges, and begging in a subdued tone for a bit of bread.
Often when I have been rummaging in an old book store, or among
the rusty treasures of an old curiosity shop on the Quays, I have
become aware of a Deplorable Presence in rags blocking up the
doorway, and of a voice murmuring something about ' unmorceau
de pain.' I have never heard a French dog bark at one of these
THE SEAMY SIDE OF PARIS. 27
rniserables, nor have I known of more than two instances among
very many of the shopkeepers harshly bidding the beggar begone.
As a rule, the tradesman hardest at driving a bargain will open his
till, slip a copper or two into the beggar's hand, and, looking at
you apologetically, with a half smile and a half blush, will say,
' Better so than that he should steal.'
With all their greed of gain, and their unconscionableness in
fleecing foreigners, the French are as charitable to the poor as the
Turks. And that is saying a great deal. A Turkish Pasha of the
highest rank will get out of his carriage or off his horse in the
muddiest street of Stamboul to give a beshlik to a blind man; and
while you are having audience of some grandee at one of the
Departments of State, a beggar will lift the curtain which veils the
door, demand alms in the name of Allah, and have his claim
allowed. ' In the name of Allah,' says the grandee, as he hands
the piastre to the beggar. A French shopkeeper is certainty
only very imperfectly acquainted with the Koran — if he have
any acquaintance with that lying Evangel at all — still the equani-
mous promptness with which he resigns himself almost as a
matter of course to the* beggar reminds me forcibly of the Moslem.
French mothers, moreover, seem habitually to teach their children
to be charitable ; and over and over again have I seen, now a hand-
somely-dressed lady, now a mob-capped woman of the poorest
class, put money into her child's hand and bid it run after a
ragged man and relieve him. You are obliged to run after the
beggars, so swiftly do they flit past through fear of the police.
And it is best, perhaps, to run after them, lest, being starving,
they should run into the river, to find a goal on the cold dalles of
the Morgue and a last bourn in the fosse commune.
A lady whom I have known for many years told me the other
day a story of a man who did not beg. She was out for a walk,
alone, and looking into one of the magnificent shops of the Pas-
sage des Princes. Turning to survey the next door repository of
treasures — a jeweller's — she became aware of a tall lank man of
about fifty years of age, with long gray hair streaming over the
28 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
collar of a patched and ragged coat fastened up to his chin — now
by a button from which the cloth had rotted showing the disc of
bone — now by a pin, now by a bit of thread passed through two
holes. She was certain that he had no shirt : she looked up the
frayed cuffs of his coat, she said, and saw his wrists and his arms,
bare, yellow as old parchment, sharp-boned, and with inky veins.
He was not shoeless ; but the half-disconnected upper leathers of
his boots scraped the pavement. His hat looked as though it had
been boiled in grease. Under one arm he had a tattered leathern
portfolio, from which some papers peeped. This man, shuffling
his feet on the stones, stood looking at the diamonds and rubies in
the jeweller's shop : not with a gaze of fierce and desperate rapa-
city, but with an abstracted expression, as though his eyes only
were there while his thoughts were miles awa} T . Then he would
shift the tattered leathern portfolio from one arm to the other, and
then resume the survey of the diamonds and rubies. The lady of
whom I speak has but a slender stock of colloquial French at her
command ; but from her porte-monnaie she took a five-franc piece,
touched the ragged man on the arm, placed the piece of money in
his hand, and said, ' S'il vous plait, Monsieur.' He looked at her for
only a moment, with a glance in which a kind of wild astonishment
and incapacity even to express gratitude were mingled, and in an in-
stant, and as though by magic, he was — gone. Whither ? Perhaps
he was an impostor. Possibly he had ' made up ' for the part of a
distressed poet, an indigent man of letters, a ruined speculator, a
discharged employe, who for the hundredth time had been cooling
his battered heels in the ministerial ante-chamber, with a volu-
minous statement of his grievances in that tattered case of leather.
Suspecting something of the sort, I carefully patrolled the Passage
des Princes during several successive afternoons, but I never could
catch sight of the ragged man Avith the gray locks and the hat which
seemed to have been boiled in grease. I looked for him subsequently
in the Passages des Panoramas and the Passage Jouffroy, in the
Passage Choiseul and the Passage du Saumon, in the Palais Boyal
and in the Place de la Bourse. But I have never met with him.
THE SEAMY SIDE OF PARIS LIFE. 29
I am beginning to incline now to the belief that he was not an
impostor, but only a man desperately poor and hungry. I am
beginning to adopt the theory that, directly he got the money, he
sped away, holding it in both his hands, so to speak, out of the
Passage des Princes, down the Rue de Richelieu, across the Place
du Palais Royal, and through the great courtyard of the Carrousel,
across a bridge, down a narrow street, into a narrower impasse, up,
five stories high, a dim staircase, and so into a garret with a
shelving roof — a garret with nothing in it but a table with three
legs, a broken chair, a sack full of shavings for a bed, and a gaunt
woman with some pallid children. And then I fancy him crying,
' Une etrangere m'a donne cent sous — and now, my children, we
will have bread, and charcuterie, and wine.' ' Et quatre sous de
tabac, pour ce bon petit papa,' cries the shrillest and weakest voice
among the pallid children, who are clapping their hands and
pulling at their mother's skirts, and bidding her look upon la
belle et bonne piece de cent sous. Yes, I fancy that he brought
the money home before laying out so much as two sous for a loaf.
There was something in exhibiting it there intact, round, shining.
There was more in discussing what food should be bought — in-
eluding, I will be bound, some cough-sirup for la pauvre petite
Aclele, who was weak at the chest. There was more in having
some ' change out ' when the garret had become a hall of feasting,
and the starving creatures had partaken of food, and the pipe had
been lit, and the fumes of the caporal were curling upwards in a
manner soothing to the view, and the monnaie remaining out of
the five francs could be counted with a leisurely and lordly air.
And, upon my word, if the ragged man was indeed an impostor, I
do not grudge him one halfpenny out of his dole. Are you quite
certain that the last twenty thousand pounds which you made out
of the Baratarian Loan or the Tierra del Fuego Railwa}' were
gotten quite honestly ?
AT THE EXHIBITION (BY CHAM).
' I wish to "buy this false hair.'
' Thank you, madam. Oblige me with your card to affix to it.'
' 0, no ! I'll give you the card of one of my friends.'
III.
UP AND DOWN IN THE EXHIBITION.
Oct. 2.
The official announcement that the final closing of the Exposition
Universelle is to be deferred until the 20th of November has filled
the French exhibitors with a well-nigh delirious joy, and is looked
upon with feelings far removed from dissatisfaction by the general
body of foreign contributors to the great bazaar. The ostensible
motive for granting this enthusiastically-welcome delay is that it
is only just and proper that the winners of prizes should be able to
gain some pecuniary advantage from the prestige they have won
as medallists or as possessors of diplomas ; but it is not the
' laureats ' alone who will benefit by the concession of the twenty
days of grace. After the distribution of ]">rizes the indiscriminate
sale by retail of articles exhibited in the Champ de Mars will, it is
UP AND DOWN' IN THE EXHIBITION. 81
understood, be authorised, and purchasers will be permitted to take
away their cmplcttes with them. Thus the culmination of the
great show will resemble a fair more closely than ever. The
glories of la Foire (vux Jambom and In Foire <mx Pains d'Epices
Avill be outdone ; and the practice now only surreptitiously indulged
in of carrying away some memento of the Exhibition — be it worth
only a couple of francs — from the Exhibition itself will be pursued
on the most colossal scale. Looking at the vast numbers of per-
sons whose ambition to acquire a souvenir of the Exposition does
not go beyond a pair of garters or a bottle of scent, a photograph
of ' The Dirty Boy,' or a necktie with a view of the Trocadero
printed upon it. the multitude of Parisian shopkeepers who sell
such articles might reasonably protest against the untradesmanlike
competition of the Champ de Mars ; but as it happens, the prin-
cipal bouiigmers of the boulevards — the Rue de Rivoli and the Rue
de la I'aix — are exhibitors as well ; and it becomes only a, question
of having two sets of glass eases full of articles <!<â– I'ttri*, two sets
of shop-assistants, and two tills, one on the right and the other on
the 1' ft bank of the Seine. The arrangement is likely to be all
the more satisfactory to the tradespeople, as they will probably
charge twenty per cent, more for the garters or the bottles of scent,
which they sell within the walls of the Exhibition Palace than for
tie analogous articles which they vend in their own shops.
How the English exhibitors will regard the official concession
I am scarcely prepared — not being behind the scenes of British
exhibitors' interests — to determine. The manufacturers and
factors of porcelain and pottery will not, perhaps, be sony for an
additional four weeks' opportunity to dispose of their beautiful
productions; but, as a rule, Great Britain is an exhibitor of big
and not of little wares — the article de Londre8, in its artistic
nicknack sense, has yel to be fabricated amongst us — and it is to
wholesale, Dot retail, results that we are generally accustomed
to lool when we try our Strength with the nations in an industrial
competition. We would rather take an order for fifty thousand
yards of Huddersfield serges or Saltaire alpacas, for twenty loco-
32 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
motive or marine engines, or for a hundred and fifty steam ploughs
or threshing machines, than keep up a ' fiddling ' trade in cakes of
soap, bottles of pickles, blotting cases, and travelling bags. As for
the Americans, they have already sold, it is understood, the great
bulk of the articles which they sent to Paris, and they may be
comparatively indifferent as to when the Exhibition comes to an
end ; but the Italians, the Spaniards, and the Eussians can scarcely
regret the fresh facilities afforded them for selling merchandise
which has been prepared especially with a view to its being ex-
hibited in Paris, and of which they might experience consider-
able difficulty in getting rid in their own country. As for the
remoter peoples — the contributors from the far-off ends of the
earth — they will possibly rejoice at any transaction which will
absolve them from the necessity of taking their wares back again ;
and the tourist in Paris in the early days of November who keeps
his eyes open in the Peruvian, the Brazilian, the Mexican, and
the Venezuelan sections of the Champ de Mars, may possibly light
upon some ' alarming sacrifices,' and with but a very moderate
amount of ready-money in his pocket may make some astonishing
bargains.
Meanwhile, those who live in hopes of visiting the normally
cheerful and pleasant city of Paris in the year 1879 will be horri-
fied to hear that M. Emile de Girardin, who may be considered
as the real father of the whole Exhibition project, has gravely
formulated a scheme for closing the buildings in the Champ de
Mars during the winter months, and reopening the entire show,
' lock, stock, and barrel,' on the 1st of next May. The idea is to
me simply an appalling one. "Whether the foreigners and the
provincials would flock in their tens of thousands to Paris for
a second year's bout of sight-seeing, I am quite incompetent to
pronounce ; but I cannot imagine any Parisian not being immedi-
ately connected with retail trade, eating-house or hotel keeping,
looking on the prospect of a second year's Exposition with any
feelings short of disgust and of dread. The existing saturnalia
have entirely disorganised the social condition of Paris, which,
UP AND DOWN IN THE EXHIBITION.
33
populous as it is, is not large enough to bear the continuous pres-
sure of such an incubus as an International Exhibition. We felt
'51 and '62, and Sir Henry Cole's successive Exhibition ' spurts ; '
but London is too vast for the encumbrance to have been felt in
the remotest of our extremities. Paraphrasing that which Byron
wrote about love, it may be said that a Great Exhibition was of
London life only a part ; it is Paris' whole existence. You camiot
eat your dinner or stroll along the pavement in peace. The Champ
de Mars and the Trocadero fling you, so to speak, over a Horse-
shoe Fall of excitement into a Niagara River of noise, and your
nerves, if not your limbs, are torn to pieces among the rapids.
Life is not long enough to be spent in perpetual wranglings with
waiters and altercations with cabdrivers. You may have plenty of
XOT AT A LOSS FOR A REASON (BY CHAM).
'Six. francs ! how do you make it six francs ? '
1 Why, four francs the course and two francs for the oil.'
money, but save on the knifeboard of an omnibus, or in one of the
cold baths by the Pont Neuf, I know no place in Paris where, at
the present moment, you get your money's-worth for the things
vol. n. D
34
TARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
which you purchase. You are fed on stale fish, tough meat, and
bruised fruit at extortionate prices. Cooking has, deteriorated
nearly everywhere. The rent of furnished apartments is simply
monstrous. I am paying for a garret in an unfashionable boule-
vard a price for which I could obtain a whole first floor in Picca-
dilly or St. James's Street at the height of the season, and friends
who are staying in the fashionable Paris hotels make me stand
positively aghast when they tell me of the sums in which they are
mulcted. The existing carnival has been putting vast sums of
money into the pockets of the hotel-
keepers, the restaurant and livery-
stable keepers, the wine merchants,
the theatrical managers, and the pro-
vision dealers of Paris and its en-
virons. The city itself, although it
will be a heavy loser on its outlay
on the Exhibition buildings, has
benefited to the extent of at least
two millions sterling through the
additional octroi duties paid on pro-
visions which have entered Paris ;
but I doubt whether the working
classes have, save in the most indirect manner, gained anything
from the continuance of this tremendous fair. Not only are
exorbitant prices exacted for everything you purchase, but you
have inferior articles foisted on you while being charged for the
best. I will not say that the quality of the cigars has degene-
rated, because cigars are always vile in Paris ; but the vin ordi-
naire at all save a very few very first-rate restaurants — and this is
a co ntry where a duke is not ashamed to drink vin ordinaire at his
breakfast — is simply abominable . The police are numerous enough
to repress disorder, but they seem wholly incompetent to regulate
the traffic in the streets ; and the reckless or ignorant driving of
the cabmen has become well-nigh phenomenally scandalous. You
pass your life in continual turmoil and brawl— it is Donnybrook
UP AND DOffX IN THE EXHIBITION.
35
Fair plus Babel, the Hill on the Derby-day superadded to the
Descentede la Courtille, Tottenham Court Road on Saturday night
aggravated by the Corso at Rome on Shrove Tuesday. All this
is in consequence of the Exhibi-
tion. Are those Parisians who
love peace and quiet — and there
must be such — to have another
year of this Capharnaum ?
I am not quite certain whe-
ther the Exhibition itself is not
— I mean, of course, in the fore-
noon — one of the most tranquil
places in Paris. In parts it is
noisy, but the Park has its se-
questered nooks, its retired cor-
ners into which you can quietly
creep and wander up and down,
far from the madding crowd, far
from the roaring looms of the
machinery department, the hor-
rible jangling of the section de-
voted to the Swiss bells, far
from the over-crowded restau-
rants and the brabbling bras-
series. Such a haven of repose
I find in the great hangars de-
voted to agricultural machinery,
which is not, I rejoice to say, in
motion. I always feel the more
soothed and placid when I wan-
der up and down in this particu-
lar shed, because I know abso-
lutely nothing about agricultural machinery. I am not an agricul-
turist. I am not a mechanic. My mission here does not require
me to be technological, or, indeed, ' ological ' from any point of
D 2
36 TARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
view, else I would have read up ' Agriculture ' and ' Machinery ' in
the Encyclopedia Briixmnica, and 'combined the two,' as the
gentleman did in the celebrated case of Chinese Metaphysics.
I was told to gossip, and that is what I have been trying to do
since the beginning of August. I could gossip to a considerable
extent about the steam -ploughs, the threshing-machines, the hemp
and mangold-wurzel cutters, the patent mowers and dibblers, and
so forth ; only I should be sure to make some fatal mistake about
wheels or cogs or pinions, and should at once expose myself to
the animadversion of those who love to sit in the seat of the
scorner.
Stay, there is the name of a firm of agricultural implement
manufacturers which name occurred to me, oddly enough, in
December 1876. I had come down through Russia to Odessa
attended by a remarkable courier, to whom I have more than once
alluded, and one of whose idiosyncracies was to earn the more con-
scientiously his eight roubles a day by not permitting me to speak
or to let it be thought that I understood a single word of Russ.
That I should do so was to him a slur and discredit as a courier.
I happened to have left the fragments of a small store of Russian
acquired more than twenty years ago during a 'Journey Due
North ' ; but if I ventured at an hotel to ask in the Slavonic ver-
nacular for a cup of coffee or a slice of ham, the remarkable courier
would at once interfere with ' That ain't it. You don't know
nothing about it, sir.' And then he would continue to the waiter,
' The gentleman wants ' so and so, using in his courierish con-
scientiousness about fifty words, where I, with my scant vocabu-
lary, would have used five. So was it when at a railway station I
asked the guard how long the train was to stop. At once the re-
markable courier was at my elbow. ' Not a bit like it. You ain't
got it at all.' And he would launch into a voluble amplification
to the guard of what I could have said myself. We reached
Odessa, and rattling in a sledge through one of the principal
streets, my eye caught an inscription repeated three or four times
on the walls of a long range of buildings. The inscription was in
UP AND DOWN IN THE EXHIBITION. 37
the Slavonic character. ' I think I have heard of that firm before,'
I said. ' Not a bit of it,' cried the Remarkable ; ' you're a babby at
it. I'll tell you what it means.' And he was going on when I
mildly but firmly stopped him. ' It's Ransom, Sims, & Head,'
I said ; and then, leaving the remarkable courier quite confuted
and crestfallen, I began to speculate as to whatever Messrs. Ran-
som, Sims, & Head could be doing in the city of Odessa. A firm
with some such appellation seems to be very strong indeed in the
British Agricultural department; and if my education in agri-
cultural mechanics had not been neglected I would be curiously
critical as to the ingenious farming implements — triumphs, so it
appeared to me, of power and skill — here displayed.
Here, however, stowed away in a corner, where its merits have
had no very great chance of being recognised as they should be,
is a machine about which I do know something, and which is, to
my thinking, of equal interest to foreigners and to Englishmen.
This is the patent tea and coffee filter of Mr. Robert Etzensber-
ger, the manager of the Midland Grand Hotel, St. Pancras, Lon-
don — an invention which took a medal at the Philadelphia Exhi-
bition of 1876. The principal feature of Mr. Etzensberger's filter
is- that it produces a rapid infusion in large or small quantities,
without bringing the tea or coffee in direct contact with the sources
of heat. The apparatus may be made to contain eighty, fifty-two,
or thirty-three quarts of water in its steam boiler, and twenty-
eight, twenty, or twelve quarts of tea or coffee ; but by an inge-
nious arrangement of the internal mechanism the receptacle con-
taing the tea or coffee, from which the infusion is to be obtained,
can be contracted to very small dimensions. In brief, the filter
will brew for a regiment of soldiers or for a ' party in a parlour,'
at will. It can be heated by means of an oven or by gas, or
charged with steam, and, the caloric being once established, tea or
coffee, a la minute, can be made, while supplies of clear boiling
water can be drawn from the boiler. The whole process of tea- or
coffee-making is performed with perfect cleanliness, as it is impos-
sible that the slightest atom of dust or speck of grease can get
38
PAULS HERSELF AGAIN.
into the machine, the boiler being hermetically closed, while the
portion containing the tea or coffee itself is as scrupulously shut,
in order that the whole of the aroma may be preserved. The
main point, however, is that the pressure of the water upwards,
through the orifices of the box containing the tea or coffee, ex-
presses from the substance a great deal more infused liquid
than could otherwise be got out of it — that is to say, stronger,
clearer, and more aromatic tea and coffee, which is not boiled, but
strained out, into the filter — and the result is not only the pro-
duction of a better article, but a saving of at least forty per cent,
in the ordinary method of tea- and coffee-making. The latest im-
provement in the invention is its adaptation to a double-action
apparatus, by means of which both tea
and coffee can be made and a supply of
hot-water furnished all at the same time.
Mr. Etzensberger's patent tea and coffee
filter is steadily advancing towards gene-
ral recognition in England. The Pen-
insular and Oriental, the Eoyal West
India Mail Steam-Packet Company, the
Star Line of Liverpool, have already in-
troduced it in their ships ; and Mr.
Etzensberger has even been so fortunate
as to induce the First Lord of
STEAM
the Admiralty to give the ma-
jondense chine a trial. Unfortunately,
when the apparatus was sent for
approval to her Majesty's ship
Marlborough at Portsmouth, it was discovered that they had no
steam on board wherewith to work it. As for the French, although
the apparatus has been for many weeks in full and successful
operation in Mr. Cook's boarding-house for English tourists, in
the Rue de la Faisanderie, Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, they look
askance on an invention calculated to supersede their traditional
and costly process of coffee-making. Still, Mr. Etzensberger's
THE DOUBLE ACTION TEA AND COFFEE
FILTER.
.'/ f-'
j i
Is the Park of the Exhibith
II. 39.
UP AND DOWN IN THE EXHIBITION.
39
machine might teach them how to make tea, especially as it is con-
structed on a smaller scale suited to domestic use. Mr.Etzensberger,
whose showrooms are at 13 St. Andrew's Street, Holborn Circus, like-
wise exhibits a patent cafetiere, which acts by the aid of gas or an ordi-
nary spirit-lanrp, and is one of the most scientific, simple, and econo-
mical of coffee-pots. It conserves all the aroma of the coffee, is safe
and cleanly hi its operations, and cannot possibly get out of order.*
In the same hall where this apparatus, which enables tea and
coffee to be made on a large scale in perfection, is exhibited,
another valuable domestic machine is to be seen. This is a small
wheat-mill, the invention of Messrs. Barnard, Bishop, and Bar-
nards, of the famous Norfolk Iron-works at Norwich, and Queen
Victoria Street, London, and which is especially designed for
grinding wheat for family use, without depriving the flour of
those nutritive properties of which baker's flour is ordinarily
destitute from the fatal desire to impart a whiteness to the bread
which it would not otherwise possess. The same firm exhibit
* The annexed engravings of this cafetiere will serve to explain its mode of
action, a is the boiler, which is filled with water through the centre pipe c by
means of the funnel E. b is the receptacle for the made coffee, and D the box
in which the ground coffee is placed ; while aa indicates the line up to which
the box should be filled with coffee. F is the air-pipe which acts as a safety-
valve when the steam-pressure is at its highest.
40
TARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
several other domestic inventions, such as improved coffee-mills,
mincing-machines, &$., as well as a varied collection of horticul-
tural implements and accessories, including noiseless lawn-
mowers, garden-rollers, water-harrows, self-winding hose-reels,
lattices for climbing-plants, trainers for fruit-trees, and galvanised
wire-netting, of every size and pattern. Of this latter article, so
invaluable to the horticulturist, the poultry-breeder, and the game-
keeper, Mr. Charles Barnard senior has the merit of being the
inventor, and the firm has obtained prize medals for it both at
Philadelphia and Paris. Among objects cast in iron exhibited by
the firm are various garden-seats of graceful design, and a hand-
CAST-1R0N GARDEN-SEAT.
some hall-chair produced in a single piece — a feat in casting which
has never before been accomplished.
Gardening appliances and objects of domestic utility form, how-
ever, but an insignificant portion of the exhibits of the great
Norwich firm, who are especially renowned for their artistic
wrought-iron work, fine examples of which arc displayed in various
parts of the British section. Principal among these are the hand-
some entrance-gates to the Prince of Wales's Pavilion, which, being
left precisely as they came from the forge, without the thinnest
UP AND DOWN IN THE EXHIBITION.
41
WBOUGHT-IRON ENTRANCE-GATES TO THE PRINCE OF WALES S
PAVILION, PARIS EXHIBITION.
coating of paint to mar their finish or hide imperfections, should
any chance to exist, show that fine artistic iron-work is still to be ob-
tained from the forger's hammer as in the days of Quentin Matsys.
Each leaf, tendril, sprig, and branch has been relieved, cut, and
bent by the hammer, shears, and nippers— without the aid of die,
stamp, or matrix, or any meretricious filing down— in a fashion
that renders full justice to the graceful details of the design, does
infinite credit to the skill of the workman, and proves the thorough
tenacity of the material employed, which is Lowmoor iron of the
best quality. The smaller gates and palisades, manufactured by
Messrs. Barnard for the little garden courts on either side of the
Pavilion, are of light, elegant, wrought-iron work, in the best
style of the Queen Anne period.
42
r.VUIS HERSELF AGAIN.
FIRE-BASKET AND ANDIRONS IN THE JACOBEAN STYLE.
Ill the entrance hall of the Prince's Pavilion Messrs. Bar-
nard, Bishop, & Barnards exhibit a stove, simple yet tasteful
in design, with a bronzed centre panel, and flanked by a pair of
huge highly-wrought andirons of polished brass in the Jacobean
style. This is simply one of many similar objects exhibited by the
firm whose most important display is to be found in the highly
ornamental wrought and cast iron pavilion which forms so marked
a feature of the British section. This pavilion, intended for erec-
tion on a lawn, or in the ornamental grounds of a mansion, is a
splendid specimen of decorated iron-work ; and the combined re-
dundancy, gracefulness, and delicacy of its details — in which the
influence of the prevailing Japanese style is decidedly apparent —
attest alike the elegant fancy and the artistic taste of Mr. Jeckyll, its
designer. Birds and flowers form the leading features of its ornamen-
tation; and the larks and swallows, jays, cranes, and pheasants,
sporting among the apple-blossoms, the clusters of flowering white-
thorn, and the fir-branches that gracefully decorate the spandrils of
the brackets, are rendered with equal truth and spirit. An im-
Ur AND DOWN IX THE EXHIBITION.
43
wbought-lron gates manufactured fob the argentine republic
(designed by alfred barnard).
portant feature of this pavilion is the railing surrounding it. The
palace of the sovereigns of the fabled El Dorado was encircled by
a palisade of maize-plants, ten feet high, modelled in solid gold ;
u
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
and in like manner Messrs. Barnard have enclosed their pavilion
with a bold tlnd tasteful sunflower railing, a perfect masterpiece
of workmanship, which, although merely of wrought iron, is never-
theless remarkably handsome, and has a singularly striking and
satisfactory effect. So perfect and graceful are the details of Messrs.
Barnards' pavilion that I am not surprised to learn that some of the
most beautiful portions of it have been purchased by the authorities
of the South Kensington Museum, to serve as representative types
of artistic wrought and cast iron work of the nineteenth century.
In this pavilion Messrs. Barnard, Bishop, & Bernards exhibit
a number of their slow-combustion stoves in iron, electro-bronze,
and polished brass, many of them fitted with painted tiles espe-
cially designed to harmonise with the grates, in the same way
as the carved-wood mantelpieces, relieved with plaques or panels of
â– SLOV-C'OMEI'STION STOVE
UP AND DOWN IN THE EXHIBITION. 45
art-tiles or brass repousse work, have been designed with a similar
object. One of these stoves mounted with dark-blue tiles, on
which figures of musicians are depicted on a gold ground, in
conjunction with its mantelpiece of American walnut ornamented
with a picture of Winter, formed the first purchase made by the
Prince of Wales on the occasion of his private view of the ex-
hibits in the British section. The specialty of these slow-combus-
tion stoves consists in their being constructed with solid fire-brick
bottoms, backs, and sides, and in the basket or trough in which
the fire is kindled having its face turned cheerfully towards the
room, instead of in a sulky fashion to the chimney as hitherto has
been the case, and above all in their securing the very desirable
result of a far greater amount of heat with a much smaller con-
sumption of fuel. If these stoves were in general use there would
be an end to that wasteful expenditure of fuel which scientific men
insist is seriously hastening the exhaustion of our coal supply.
Messrs. Barnard, Bishop, & Barnards take, I hear, no less than four
prize medals at the present Exhibition for their very varied display.
AT THE TNTKKN.VITOXAL CONCERTS IN THE TROCADEKO PALACE (llV CHA3t).
' The Russian music is about to begin — some icy air no douht,
so you had better turn up the collar of your overcoat.'
IV.
THROUGH THE PASSAGES.
Oct. 7.
I cannot help suspecting that the chambermaid attached to the
hotel mcuble where I am now residing was, formerly, a heavy dra-
goon. Most Frenchmen have served, at one time or another,
with the colours; and the attendant— he is rising six feet, and
wears a full moustache — who makes the beds and ' fixes up ' the
apartments generally, at my hotel has an unmistakably martial air
about him. He brings up the cafe au lait and the newspapers
every morning with unvarying military punctuality ; and receives
with a salute, worthy in its stiff courtesy of Corporal Trim, his
modest weekly gratuity. I hear him at the end of the corridor in
THROUGH THE PASSAGES.
47
which niy domicile is situated, whistling as he cleans my boots,
and uttering a hissing sound as he brushes my coat : both sounds
being distinctly evident of military habits ; and the manner in
which he occasionally anathematises the always tardy washer-
woman is yet more strongly suggestive of the ' Long sword, saddle,
bridle, 0,' of the Bold Dragoon. He is withal a patient, willing,
good-humoured fellow, who works cheerfully early and late ; toils
unmurmuringly up- and down-stairs beneath a weight of fardels in
the way of luggage which would affright a German liauskneclit and
well-nigh take the wind out of a Turkish hammed ; and leads un-
complainingly that which — but for an occasional flitting round the
corner to a wineshop in the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, and
the puffing of his evening cigarette at the hotel-door when things
are pretty quiet, when the patronne is satiated with scolding and
the guests are weary of ringing the bell — would be a dog's life.
A dog's life, do I say ? This good fellow of a chambermaid
(whose name is Baptiste) some-
times employs his spare half-hours
of leisure sitting in a window-
bay of the staircase, and teaching
tricks to a little old black-and-
tan- dog, who is the pet and tyrant
of the establishment, and who,
when he is not performing, with
whimpering reluctance, on his
hind legs, a few tricks that have
been taught him by Mademoi-
selle, the pretty daughter of the
patronne aforesaid, wheezes up
and down the stairs, barking from
between the banisters at ascending and descending guests to
whom he has not been introduced, and who have not the slightest
wish to be introduced, to him. This overfed and supercilious ani-
mal has a way, too, of creeping along the balcony overlooking the
boulevard, and sneaking in at any casement which he may find
is
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
open, with the view, possibly, of holding up to the light (and the
reverse way) pieces <>t' blotting-paper on which letters have been
recently dried, or of ascertaining whether the guests have made away
with any of the hotel bed-linen. When he finds the room occu-
pied, he shambles away with a shame-faced Paul Pry expression of
hoping that he doesn't intrude; and the next you see of" him is
down-stairs in the bureau, where he is in the habit of jumping from
tin floor on to a stool, thence on to a chair, and thence on to the
desk of the caissier, where he peers cunningly at the open page of
the ledger, to discover, I suppose, whether the customers have
paid their hills. The little beast ! A week of the chambermaid-
dragoon's work, with plenty of cold water and some stick for
Bupper, would do him good, and teach him what a real dog's life
3, I fancy.*
The chambermaid whom I fancy to have been a dragoon has
only one fault, and that may not be all his own, perhaps. I go
out to breakfast at noon, and
between twelve and one p.m.
my habitation should properly
be 'fixed up' b} r Baptiste.
But, alas ! how can Baptiste
fix it up when, from twenty
minutes past twelve to ten
mintues past one, he and his
colleagues Paul and Louis and
Antoine have been unceasingly
occupied in lugging up-stairs
the baggage of travellers who
have just arrived, and carry-
ing down-stairs theimiJcdimen-
ta of other travellers who are going away? These many weeks
the hotel has been turning away from its portals, for lack
of space, at least fifty foreigners a day. From all quarters of
* This impertinently inquisitive animal was the delirium domi, neverthe-
D 1 we were all foolishly fond of him.
THROUGH THE PASSAGES. 49
the globe, and from all countries and cities on the face of it,
<lo they come, these unfortunates. At the railway station they
engage cabs by the hour, and wander about from hotel to hotel
seeking for beds in that Paris which is so fond of boasting of
her ' hospitality ' to strangers, but which, I am afraid, is even a
stonier-hearted stepmother than De Quincey found Oxford Street
to be. But, still, there are travellers who, their desires being
satisfied or their money exhausted — the latter is probably the case
— quit Paris the ' hospitable ' just in time for other travellers, with
desires to satisfy and money to spend — it will not last long, my
friends ! — to spring, like lions on their prey, on the vacated apart-
ments. It is these continuous arrivals and departures that force
Baptiste, my chambermaid-dragoon, to be, by times, unpunctual
in ' fixing up ' my rooms.
What am I to do ? I have a letter to write to-day, and I can-
not write while Baptiste is pottering about with brooms and water-
cans. I cannot spare time to go to the Exhibition. I have just
emerged from the Cafe Veron, where I have breakfasted — a quiet,
respectable, substantial establishment is this Cafe Veron, much
frequented by Italians, and the proprietor of which has had the
good sense and the good taste not to touch, save with timeous
-,oap and water, the superb decorations of the walls and ceilings,
executed here (in the style of Rafaelle's loggie in the Vatican)
more than forty years ago. Faded as are the colours and gilding,
the embellishments of the Cafe Veron are the handsomest (because
they are the quietest and tastefullest) that I have seen in Europe,
next to those of the Caffe Florian, at Venice. But, having just
left this place of entertainment, with what face can I straightway
<nter another cafe, and call for something which assuredly I do not
want? Water, according to Sir John Falstaff, swells a man; and,
although mazagrans, bavaroises, orgeats, and limonades gazeuscs
are all perfectly harmless beverages, from the John B. Gough point
of view, I should present a pretty sight were I to be swelled with
those refreshments. I do not want to play draughts or dominoes ;
and the morning papers have no longer any charms for me. I
VOL. II. K
50
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
must give Baptiste another half hour in -which to make things
straight at home ; hut whither shall I go ? The Boulevard shops
are still replete with delightful interest to me ; hut this is the
noisiest hour of the day, and the noise is simply deafening; while,
to tell the honest truth, I am ashamed of staring any longer into
the shop-window of M. Barbedienne. One or two of his employes
are always standing at the door (on the look-out possibly for the
Nevada millionnaire who wants bronzes cVart, and who is provided
with those necessary cheques which, in my own case, still continue
in the most unaccountable manner not to arrive) ; and I begin un-
easily to fancy that M. Barbedienne's young men entertain sus-
picions that I have unholy designs upon the Mexican torreador, or
the cloisonne enamel vase, or the repousse standish, or the Tri-
umphal Augustus. Eureka ! I will employ the half hour which
involuntarily I have to spare in roaming through the Passages.
I have a choice of two small cities, so to speak, of Passages on
either side of the Boulevard, between the Rue Montmartre and the
Hue Vivienne. On the Bue du Faubourg Montmartre side smiles
on me the Passage Jouffroy. On the other, the Rue Vivienne side,
the Passage des Panoramas with equal amenity invites me. Let
us defer as long as possible the perils of crossing the road and the
chance of being run over, and take first the Passage Jouffro}^
THROUGH THE PASSAGES. 51
At either corner of its boulevard extremity are two cafes, which at
night are the noisiest of their kind, but which by day are dark and
cool and quiet. The Passage itself, although habitually thronged
and unusually crowded just now (always in consequence of the
Exhibition), is fairly well ventilated, and, comparatively speaking,
tranquil. The class of wares sold in the handsome shops, and the
prices charged for the merchandise, are on a parity with those of
our Burlington Arcade. Otherwise there is not the slightest simi-
larity between the Passage Jouffroy and the Piccadilly Bezesteen.
It would be as idle, also, to liken it to such places of public resort
and fancy-article dealing as the Victoria Arcade at Hamburg, the
Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele at Milan, or that formidable and
somewhat forbidding passage — I forget its name— on the Linden
at Berlin, in which, if I remember aright, there is one of the most
comical and one of the ghastliest wax-work shows in Europe.
The Passage Jouffroy has its own original, peculiar, and
inimitable Parisian character. Not only is an assortment of
nearly all the whimwams of Vanity Fair to be found there, but
there are procurable appliances for the refection of the inner man.
Up a dark entry on the western side of the passage, and up a
darker staircase, is the entrance to the Diner Something-or-An-
otlier — say Le Diner Quelquechose — a ' fixed price ' repast. Twice
have I falteringly ascended to the sombre first landing of those
Cimmerian stairs ; and twice have I crept down again into the
light, trembling, ashamed, afraid to encounter the contingencies
of the Diner Quelquechose. Yet nothing could be more inviting
than the carte chalked, like the Diurnal Acts of ancient Rome, on
a blackboard at the door : Potage Gribouillc, requins aux con-
combres, filet de bakine aux vieux parapluies, cotelctte de hup a la
poivrade, tete de gorilla a la Croquemitaine, salade de foln aux
Ecu/ries d'Artois, wine, dessert, coffee — all for four francs. No ; I
cannot venture upon it.
More restaurant? Plague, plague ! At the eastern end of the Pas-
sage, over against a saloon where you may have your boots blacked,
with a general ' brush-up and rub-down,' for fifteen centimes, are a
E 2
5-1
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
pair of wooden gates, which to me possess a more fearsome interest
than the wonderful portals of the Baptistry at Florence, or the glori-
ously rococo grilles in the Place Stanislas at Nancy. They are the
gates of the Restaurant Autrechose — an eating-house even cheaper
than the Diner Qnelquechose. Potage Mamamouchi, phoque a Vhuilc
de moruc, dragon rati, queues de lizard enpapillottes, civet de chats de
Perse, wine,dessert, and coffee — all for three francs. You do not ascend
a staircase to this repast ; 3^011
go down a flight of steps to it ;
and, peeping through between
the wooden bars of the gate-
way, I see the guests in scores
being fed at little tables in
little pens in a huge cellar.
I have grinned through these
bars so frequently, half in
dolorous, half in droll, inde-
cision, that I have begun to
contemplate the possibility of the head waiter rushing up the steps
some day; flinging open the gates, and 'going' for me to the extent
of seizing me by the coat-collar ; dragging me down the steps, and
feeding me bon gre mat gre. I can imagine him saying, 'La
bourse oil la vie — dine or die, too inquisitive Englishman ! '
There is a toyshop in the Passage Jouffroy which is about the
liveliest magasin de joujoux that I know. The harmony from that
toyshop periodically enlivens the entire Passage. The principal
performer is an automaton flute-player life-size, in the likeness of
a youthful negro in ruffled shirt-sleeves, a gay scarlet vest, velvet
knickerbockers, yellow stockings, and high-heeled shoes with pink
bows. Whether this sable swain is intended to represent one of
King M'tesa's pages, or Othello the Moor of Venice, when he was
a young man, I do not know ; but I can vouch, when he is wound
up, for his piping most melodiously. During the hours of break-
fast and dinner he is generally, I am given to understand, silent.
Why should he waste his sweetness on the desf air of a Passage
THROUGH THE PASSAGES.
53
temporarily tenanted, it is to be presumed, by indigent persons
avIio have nobody to breakfast or lunch with save Duke Humphrey?
His Grace of Gloucester invites a vast multitude of persons of
both sexes and all ages to enjoy his stately hospitality every day.
Potage a Veau du ruisseau, boucliecs de Macadam, entre-cotcs de
creux d'cstomac au desespoir, filets de St. Cloud a la Morgue — that
is the Duke's menu, and there is nothing to pay. But when the
people begin to swarm, full fed, out of the restaurants, chewing
their toothpicks, or puffing their cigarettes, and altogether in that
pleasant frame of mind which leads hu-
manity to buy Jouvin gloves, bracelets
and earrings, photographs of Made-
moiselle Sarah Bernhardt in panta-
loons, and painting pictures or carv-
ing statues — if it be imperatively
necessary that a lady artist should
assume the costume of the nobler sex?
what, I wonder, does Mademoiselle
Ilosa Bonheur wear : buckskins and
jackboots ? — and to purchase lace-
collars and cuffs, and dolls and Poli-
chihelles for the little ones ; then the
sable minstrel in the scarlet vest
and the canary hose begins to tooth'
most sweetly. When his piping is at an end two little automaton
bullfinches in a gilt cage — do you remember that sweet little
jewelled bird in our 'G2 Exhibition? — begin to warble a tutta gola.
They being hashed, a mechanical Punch, having a string at the
extremity of his caudal vertebrae pulled, jerks his arms and legs ;
wags both humps at once, to the intense delight of the children ;
and emits a sepulchral ' rooty-tooty-tooing.' After this you may
reckon with tolerable certainty on hearing squeaks of 'Papa!'
' Mamma ! ' uttered by expensive wax dolls. Then clockwork mice
and locomotive ermines begin to move ; and the automaton swimmer
begins to cleave v- h pliant arm the glassy wave in a zinc bowl full
54
TARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
of water. The dancing sailor leaps ; the magic donkeys agitato
their hoofs ; the tight-rope dancer executes surprising gambadoes ;
and the monkey in a powdered wig and the full Court costume of
the time of Louis XV. proceeds to play the ' Menuet de la Cour ' on
a toy harpsichord, accompanied by a squirrel on the violoncello and
a guinea-pig on the harp. Le tour estjoue. The dainty baits have
been swallowed, and the toyshops begin to do a capital business.
Likewise is it both curious and edifying to mark how eagerly
these frivolities are watched by a throng who, to all appearance,
have not the slightest idea of purchasing so much as a fifty-cent
wheelbarrow or a one-franc fifty rag-doll.. Look at that grim
weather-beaten veteran, the specially selected gardien de la paix,
who acts as censor of the morals and manners of the Passage
Jouffroy. He is a Brave, for right across his face he is balafre by
the scar of some bygone sabre-stroke. He has served in bright
fields. The Cross of the Legion, the medal for China and for mili-
tary merit, the medal for the Italian campaign of '59, and our own
Crimean medal, with two clasps, glitter on his valiant old breast.
He may have heard the automaton negro pipe, the little bullfinches
sing, the Punches and the dolls squeak, the monkey play the
* Menuet de la Cour ' a thousand times. Yet evidently the sight
THROUGH THE PASSAGES. 55
and the sounds have not yet palled upon him. He listens
like a three years' child to the tootling— a smile of expectation
mantles on his battered visage while the monkey is being wound
up. He lays his hand on the shoulder of an intimate — a little
weazened old man, almost as weazened as the puppet Punch yonder,
and says, ' Attendez ; vous allez voir comme il va etre drole. II
jouera son grand morceau, " Qui qu'a vu Coco ? " ' And when the
bedizened ape strikes up ' Qui qu'a vu Coco,' the veteran seems
almost beside himself with pleasure ; and softly keeps time with
his staff of office to the fascinating air. Do I blame him for being
pleased with a rattle and tickled with a straw ? What am I doing
here but idling the time away until Baptiste has ' fixed up ' my
room, and I can sit down at peace to work ? As it is, I feel sorely
inclined to ramble up and down the Passage Jouffroy until sun-
down ; for I have been but playing with a shell onthe^andy shore,
and a whole ocean of Passages lies yet undiscovered before me.
You are not to suppose that the Passage Jouffroy comes to an
end with the boot-blacking and brushing-up establishment on one
side, and the fixed-price restaurant, with the wooden-barred gates
through which I grinned, on the other. There is a great deal
more Passage, supplementary to the original arcade. You go
down some steps and thread a corridor, in which there is a large
bookstall, abounding with the peculiarly rubbishing, and in many
respects ribald, publications on which the mind of contemporary
France seems mainly to be fed, mingled with, however, and re-
lieved by the admirable books of M. Jules Verne, the unimpeach-
able stories of MM, Erckmann-Chatrian, and some cheap and good
translations of Livingstone's Last Journals, and Mr. H. M. Stan-
ley's How I found Livingstone. The Explorer and the Discoverer
are both amazingly popular in France; and in the Exhibition
there is always a curious crowd round a charming little terra- cotta
statuette of Stanley in full ' Dark Continent ' costume, to the
accuracy of which, as a likeness, an autograph letter from the
hero of the Lualaba-Congo bears witness. For the rest, the dis-
play made by a Parisian bookstall seems to have been chiefly
I'AKIN HKItSKLF AGAIN.
SOME LOUNGEES IN THE PASSAGES.
brought together by John Bunyan's "Man with the Muck-rake.'*
M. de Goncourt's unutterably repulsive La Fille Elisa in its
thirty-second, and M. Emile Zola's unutterably hideous L'Assom-
moir in its fifty-ninth edition ; these two books, with reprints of
Le Nabab, La Femmc de Feu, and Mademoiselle Giraud ma
Femme, you see everywhere, even at the first-class booksellers' of
the boulevards and the Hue de la Paix. An illustrated edition of
UAssommoir, brought out in fortnightly parts, is enjoying a
tremendous sale ; and the public are absolutely promised, at no
THROUGH THE PASSAGES. 57
distant period, a dramatised version of M. Zola's professedly
moral, but ineffably-disgusting, romance.* In addition to such
novels as these, the bookstalls exhibit a profusion of almanacs,
among which the prophetic ones have decidedly the lias ; for the
Parisians, all free-thinkers as they may be, have not ceased to be
grossly superstitious ; and there is annually a tremendous demand
for the Triple IAegeois, and the vaticinations of M. Mathieu de
la Drome. In England the Stationers' Company have at length
grown ashamed of selling the yearly prognostications of ' Francis
Moore, Physician ; ' and I scarcely know what has become of our old
and harmless familiar friend, ' Zadkiel ; ' but in France not only are
prophetic almanacs eagerly purchased, but professional fortune-
tellers openly advertise their readiness to unfold the mysteries of
the future through the medium of chiromancy or somnambulism.
The police extend a curious kind of toleration to these impostors,
whom they find, it is said, very useful in the discovery of robberies :
professional thieves being in the habit of having their fortunes told
prior to essaying a grand coup. Even among educated French-
men the name of the famous tireuse de cartes, Mademoiselle le
Normant, is still held in veneration.
I remember that Sibyl paying a visit to England many years
ago. She was a squat, fubsy little old woman, with a gnarled and
knotted visage and an imperturbable Eye. She wore her hair cut
short and parted on one side, like a man's. She dressed in an
odd-looking casaquin, embroidered and frogged like unto the
jacket of a hussar, and she snuffed continually. This was the
little old woman whom Napoleon I. regularly consulted before
setting out on a campaign ; who had foretold to Josephine her
divorce ; and who, when Murat, King of Naples, visited her in
disguise, simply looked at him ; shuffled the cards ; dealt him the
knave of clubs ; rose, said, ' La seance est terminee ; e'est dix
louis pour les Iiois ; ' pocketed her fee, and left the room, snuffing
* It is almost unnecessary to remark that since the above was written
dramatised versions of the hideous Assommoir have been produced with
immense success both in London and Park
58 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
terribly. In cartomancy the knave of clubs was called ' Le Grand
Pendu.' Whosoever drew that fateful card was destined to die
by the hands of the executioner.
Besides the unseemly novels and the prophetic almanacs, you
may find that the tastes of the students of classic literature have
been provided for in the shape of cheap editions of Moliere — in
their loyal devotion to whom the French, it must be admitted,
and to their honour, have never swerved — of Voltaire's novelettes,
such as Candide, Zadig, and Microme'gas, and of such 'classic'
chronicles as the Dames Galantcs of Brantome, and the Histoire
Amoureusc des Gaules of Bussj'-Rabutin. Coarsely printed and
rudely illustrated editions of the thousand-and-one romances of
Alexandre Dumas the Elder are still plentiful ; the late exemplary
M. Charles Paul de Kock continues to find favour with the
cuisiniere, the concierge, "and the calicot ; but it is with grief and
amazement that, not only in the Passages, but among the book-
stalls and booksellers' shops of Paris generally, I notice a marked
absence of the works of Beranger. I do hope that a French
friend, an accomplished scholar and man of letters, was wrong
lately, when he told me ' Le peuple ne connait plus Beranger.
II est fini.' Can it be that the king of chansonniers, a true and
incorruptible Republican as we know him to have been, was too
Napoleonic in his sympathies to suit the present mood of the
French popular mind, which is yet writhing under the poignant
memories of Sedan ? It was the fault, so ultra-democracy may
think, of the author of Les Injiniment Petits, and Le Dieu des
Bonnes Gens, that he likewise wrote such purely Bonapartist
lyrics as Le Cinq Mai, Les Souvenirs dm VeujAe, and Le Vieux
Sergent. It is the fashion just now among the Radicals to assail
with the foulest abuse not only the name of the Third Napoleon,
but those of Madame Mere, of the Duke of Reichstadt, of Queen
Hortense, and Pauline and Caroline, and, in fact, of every member
of the wonderful family which once exercised so magical a puissance
over the French heart. Even in out-of-the-way corners, and on
the dead walls against which the five-centime ballads are pinned,
THROUGH THE PASSAGES.
59
I fail to find the stirring songs of Desaugiers and Debreaux, once
so dear to the ouvrier class. I find ' Le pied qui remue,' and
' Qui qu'a vu Coco 1 ' in noisome abundance ; but I rarely meet
with ' La Colonne,' or even with " Dis-moi, soldat, dis-moi ; t'en
souviens-tu ? ' which, in its pathetic patriotism, well-nigh equals
the ' Yo heave ho ! ' of Charles Dibdin. Has the remembrance of
Sedan wholly thrown the prestige of these famous ditties into the
shade ? It would seem so.
Nor in the way of popular art does my bookstall in the Passage
Jouffroy present a very agreeable coup d'ceil to me. Caricature —
in which the French once so highly excelled— still holds its own ;
but, as regards piquancy and finesse, it seems to me to have
Avofully degenerated. I question whether the modern Parisian
would understand or would appreciate the refined satire, the gentle
philosophy of Gavarni, or the quaint and fanciful humour of Grand-
ville. Lithographic scrawls signed ' H. Daumier ' yet appear from
time to time ; but there is little in them to recall the undaunted
political caricaturist who was so terrible a thorn in the side of the
Monarchy of July ; Bertall appears to enjoy perennial youth, and
Cham is as comic as ever ; but repeats himself quite -as frequently
as he lias been in the habit of doing any time these thirty years
past. These, however, are not the caricaturists of the hour, not
the artists after whom the crowd run, and at whose works they
stare with delighted eyes. The satirical draughtsman most in
vogue at present is one M. Andre Gill, whose bold, dashing, tren-
chant productions adorn a series of cheap publications called La
Lime Jlousse and La Petite Lune. Great power and extreme bru-
tality are the leading characteristics of the style of M. Andre Gill,
wbose real name, I learn, is De Guines, and who seems, according
to one; of his recent biographers in a minor newspaper, to have
passed through the most moving vicissitudes of fortune ere he
achieved artistic fame. As a caricaturist he is as clever as our
Mr. Pellegrini ; but he is a great deal more cruel ; and he does
not spare the ladies, to whom Mr. Pellegrini would never dream
of being artistically ungallant.
CO
PARIS HERSELF AGAIX.
The latest production of M. Gill, and one which is selling by
tens of thousands, is an enormous caricature portrait of Made-
moiselle Sarah Bernhardt, the actress, as a baboon in trousers,
with a very long tail, a painter's palette in one hand, and a sculp-
tor's chisel and mallet in the other. Mademoiselle Bernhardt'*
MADEMOISELLE SARAH BERNHARDT, BY ANDRE GILL.
odd penchant for making balloon ascents, and her seeming inability
to paint or sculpt save in boy's clothes, have already been made
the subject of good-natured badinage ; but surely it is scarcely
kind, it is scarcely courteous, to caricature a very clever young
THROUGH THE PASSAGES.
61
lady in the guise of a huge ape. I might almost say that this
lampoon was libellous, did I not remember that, by the law of
France, the publication of a personal caricature is prohibited un-
less the individual so caricatured authorises the production. Thus
an artist in one of the comic periodicals recently put forth a very
funny but not very good-natured counterfeit presentment of M. de
Yillemessant, of the Figaro. M. de Villemessant is somewhat of
a stout gentleman ; * but the artist represented him as a kind of
Sir John Falstaff plus Daniel Lambert, and with at least three
double chins. The outraged director of the Figaro threatened
legal proceedings, and the obnoxious caricature was withdrawn.
Thus it is to be presumed that a proof of Mademoiselle Sarah
Bernhardt' s portrait was shown to her prior to its publication ;
and, if she has no objection to be likened to a monkey, wiry, there
is no more to be said. Did not a charming and witty but scarcely
THE FOURTH OF SEPTEMBER, BY AXDKK GILL.
* M. de Villemessant died last Eastertide.
62
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN'.
well-favoured Austrian Ambassadress in Paris once say of herself
that she was ' Le Singe a la mode ' ?
M. Gill is a furious Republican, and anti-Clerical to boot, and
he is especially fond of representing the French people personified
as a bearded artisan with a blouse, in the act of violently kicking
somebody with an exceptionally heavy shoe. On the 4th of Sep-
tember it was the turn of the late Emperor Napoleon III. — for the
five-hundredth time since the downfall of the Empire — to be kicked.
The bearded artisan was sending the dead potentate literally flying
through the air with his clouted shoe ; and the back view of the
Man of Sedan was really
a triumphant caricature
of draughtsmanship. It
was next the turn of poor
dear Joan of Arc to be
kicked. The Maid of Or-
leans is the heroine, well-
nigh the saint, of the
Clerical party — done il
faut lid donner des coups
depied. Unhorsed, but
in full armour, the hap-
less Pucelle is being vio-
lently driven into a cell
at the Depot of the Pre-
fecture of Police by the
merciless shoe of Anti-
clerical Democracy. I
confess that I do not see the fun of such a caricature as this ; and
I think that the roughest English working man would resent, even
to the extent of punching of heads, any attempt to outrage the
memory, say, of Lady Godiva. Nay, I am not at all certain that
he would tolerate any overt disparagement of Nell Gwynne. But
the French populace have broken up every one of their idols —
Moliere and Voltaire only excepted— into the smallest of fragments.
~p. /
V.
STILL THROUGH THE PASSAGES.
Oct. 11.
If you travel long enough through the continuations of the
Passage Jouffroy, if you cross a narrow street, and plunge into the
recesses of j r et another gallery, you will come out at last in the
bustling and business-like Rue du Faubourg Montmartre ; but I
prefer to retrace my footsteps even as far as the toyshop — ' Aux
Enfants Sages' is its suggestive title — where the black boy tootles
on the flute, and the monkey in the powdered wig and Louis Quinze
costume plays on the harpsichord, accompanied by the squirrel
and the guinea-pig. Then, passing through the two great cafes —
which at night are full of very queer company — I emerge on the
boulevard, boldly cross it, fortuitously escape being crushed by an
omnibus or by one of the huge tajrissiercs and chars-d-bancs going
to the Exhibition, and dive into a labyrinth of Passages just oppo-
site — the renowned Passages des Panoramas, indeed. Where the
Panoramas are or used to be, or what particular scenes or events
454
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
they panorainically represented, I have not the remotest notion.
It is enough for me that they display an ever-moving, ever-interest-
ing picture of human life, even more diversified than that visible
in the Passage Jouffroy. The principal gallery is more aristocra-
tic and more tranquil than its opposite neighbour. On one side
of the Passages des Panoramas near the entrance there is a noted
sweetstuff shop, in which I should say that it would be practicable for
a young gentleman with plenty of ready money, and of a generous
disposition, to ruin himself at New Year and Paschal tides with
the utmost promptitude and despatch. This particular conjiseur's,
which is almost as grand and as handsome as M. Siraudin's noted
establishment in the Pcue de la Paix, must do a tremendous busi-
ness at Christmas and Easter. Then do the jewelled caskets, full
of candied violets and preserved daffydowndillies — for the French
seem to make lollipops from the flowers of the field as well as the
fruits of the garden — then do the models of the Arc de Triomphe,
the Column of the Bastille, and the Venus of Milo — then do the
delicious but indigestible-looking batons of sucre de pomme and
the ingots of nougat de Montclimar, the pralines and the choco-
STILL THROUGH THE PASSAGES.
65
late creams, the sugared almonds and the equivalents for our
hardbakes and toffies — of the French synonyms for which I am
entirely ignorant — find, I suppose, purchasers at whatever prices
the proprietor of this amazing emporium of ' goodies ' chooses to
demand. The shop goes right through into the Rue Vivienne ;
and behind the counters sit a fascinating cohort of beauteous
young ladies with
slim waists. The
only persons
whom I fail to
discern there are
the customers.
Perhaps Ipeep
into the sweet-
stuff- shops at the
wrong hour. Per-
haps this is not
precisely the sea-
son when lovers
of confectionery
are accustomed to purchase candied violets and preserved ' daffy-
dow-ndillies ; ' but, oddly enough, the invisibility to the naked
eye of customers in Parisian shops of the superior class strikes
me very forcibly, while it puzzles me desperately, not only when
T ramble in the Passages, but whensoever I take a turn on the
boulevards. The shops in the side streets in which provisions are
sold — the charcutiers and the rOtisseurs in particular — are always
thronged. The wine-shops and cafes — I counted seventeen of
these drinking-places in the space of five minutes' perambulation
of the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre — the cremeries, the cheap
linendrapers' and haberdashers', the debits de tabac, the toyshops,
and so forth, all abound in clients ; but it is with the extremest
rarity that I ever discern a person having the outward and visible
appearance of a customer in the grandest mayasins of the boule-
vards. On the other hand, while purchasers are conspicuous by
VOL. II. p
6G
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
authority.
their absence, you are generally fa-
voured Avith a full view of what the
Italians call ' La Bella FamigHa.'
Monsieur le Patron may be away
speculating at the Bourse, or quite as
possibly playing dominoes over his ab-
sinthe or his ' bock' at his favourite cafe ;
but Madame la Patronne fait sa caisse
(balances her cashbook) — when did she
take any money ? — at her high desk of
In front of the counter, a venerable dame, apparently
ihepatronne's or her husband's grandmother, sits placidly knitting;
STILL THROUGH THE PASSAGES.
67
A^i
half a dozen demoiselles
tie magasin are gossiping
in corners ; while on the
floor sprawl three or four
children in pinafores and
bibs, superintended by a
careful bonne in a high
white cap. There is sure,
also, to be a dog of the
party ' to see fair ' — gene-
rally a villanous-looking
bulldog made by constant
kindness to be the playfullest of pets ; or a woolly poodle that
impresses you with the idea either that he is in a state of in-
expressible dejection at the
thought that he is to be
shaved to-morrow, or that he
is hilariously joyful at the re-
membrance that he was shaved
this morning and that the oper-
ation will not be repeated until
after the expiry of another fort-
night. Stay; with equal certi-
tude you may reckon on the presence of a huge, handsome, quiet
cat, either on the counter or on one of the shelves in the windows,
purring or thinking among the diamonds and the articles de Paris.
This is all very nice and pretty and patriarchal — but where
are the customers ? All the business cannot be wholesale.
From time to time the millionnaire from Nevada must enter the
shop, saying, ' Show me your biggest riviere in brilliants that
you can let me have for fifty thousand francs.' My theory is
that the apparent paucity of customers is really due to the
unconscionably long hours of business adopted by French trades-
people of the highest class. They open their shops before
nine in the morning, and they do not close them until eleven at
f 2
G8
TARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
night. Thus the average quota of customers, instead of being
quickly despatched in the course of say seven hours, as in our
Piccadilly and Regent Street shops, is spread, in Paris, over a
weary space of thirteen hours, and is attenuated even to invisibility,
by the over-prolongation of business. Early closing is certainly
not among the social reforms which have found favour in Paris.
Not the least among the charms of the Passages des Pano-
ramas is that they are continually offering fresh objects for con-
templation. The objects themselves have veiy
possibly been there during a long series of
years ; but, strange to tell, although you may
be a veteran flaneur, you do not remember
to have seen the pleasant sights before. The
leading show-shops of the main gallery are,
of course, familiar to you. Take the great
display of bookbinding, for example. Every-
thing that can be done in the shape of
embossed, indented, and inlaid morocco, russia,
roan, vellum, and calf — of emblazoned backs
and tooled edges — seems to have been lavished
on the embellishment of rare editions of Mo-
liere, Voltaire, Beaumarchais, La Fontaine,
Racine, and Corneille ; and similar honours, although of not
quite so elaborate a nature, are bestowed on tall copies of
the works illustrated by Gustave Dore, such as the Dante,
the Don Quixote, and the Paradise Lost. As for the sump-
tuously illustrated tomes put forth during the last few yenvs
by the Hachettes, the Firmin-Didots, and the Mames — such as
the Moyen Age and Dix-huitieme Sii'cle of M. Paul Lacroix, the
Jeanne d 'Arc, and the Saint Cecilc — those superb specimens
of typography and engraving labour, to risk a slight paradox,
under the disadvantage of being so handsomely bound in cloth,
and to have been so recently published, that it has not been
deemed necessary to promote them to the dignity of whole binding.
Let me add that the art of reliure has attained a grade of con-
STILL THROUGH THE PASSAGES. 69
summate excellence in France, and that French bookbinders may
be held as the foremost craftsmen of that kind in Europe.
There is a plain reason for the exceptional development among
our neighbours of an art which, in its higher stages, certainly
languishes in England. We bind excellently well in cloth : so well,
indeed, that bookbuyers on a large scale are quite content to allow
their recently acquired copies of the costliest works to remain in
their original 'jackets ' of highly hot-pressed pasteboard and
calico. You may have your old volumes whole or half bound ; but
you think twice before sending your complete Froude, your Buskin
— if you are lucky enough to possess such a rarity — your Cun-
ningham's Ben Jonson, your Percy Fitzgerald's Boswcll's Johnson
to the bookbinder's ; first, because you never know when you will
get your propert}' back again — our best bookbinders seem to think,
to judge from the time they absorb in executing their orders, that
a voyage to the Straits of Malacca and back again will do books no
harm ; and next, because the money which you will have to pay
for binding would enable you to purchase the complete Jeremy
Bentham, the entire Hobbes, or the Howell's State Trials, after
which you have been hankering for months. It may fairly be said
that no real lover of books was ever rich enough to purchase a tithe
of the books which he really desires to possess; thus the book-
worm, unless he have a craze for Grolliers and Roger Paynes — in
which case he is not to be looked upon with much greater respect
than if he were a collector of Stradivariuses or old blue-and-white
Nankin — is apt to regard his disbursements as money diverted
more or less from a useful to a merely ornamental purpose ; and in
a multitude of cases he allows his Macaulay's England or his
< iii itc's drccce to remain in the same neat but inexpensive garb
assumed by the last three-volume novel from Mudie's.
In France the case is altogether different. With the exception
of a few livres dart, such as those to which I have recently drawn
attention, and of the travelling guide-books, which must needs
have a cloth binding in order that the} r may be comfortably stowed
away in the pocket, but which otherwise can scarcely be considered
70 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
as books at all, every French work, from the costliest to the cheap-
est, is published in a paper cover, only. That modest envelope
was donned by M, Thiers's Histoire du Consulat et de I'Empirc,
and by M. Littre's colossal Dictionary. It is donned by M. Taine's
Origines de la France Contemporaine, by the last novel of M. Oc-
tave Feuillet, the last theological or historical study of M. Ernest
Kenan, the last play of M. Alexandre Dumas or M. Victorien
Sardou ; it is equally the garb of U 'Assommoir and Le Nabab, of
the scurrilities of Paul de Kock and the extravagancies of Xavier
de Montepin. The biggest and the smallest of French books is
thus substantial!}' only a pamphlet ; and if you have a huge body
of pamphlets loosely sewn together, and you do not see about
having them bound, the paper-covered mass will speedily fall in
pieoes. As a natural consequence, the services of the bookbinder
in France are in constant requisition to save valuable books from
destruction. As for the works which are not of any value, they
never get bound at all : a circumstance which conduces to the
profit of the bookseller, since the work, albeit rubbishing, ma} r be
in popular request. In its unbound state it has disintegrated, and
has found, perchance, a home in the dust-bin ; but there are still
people who wish to read it, and, the last edition being exhausted,
a new one is called for, to the publisher's great joy. I have always
fancied that one reason why cookery books are, as a rule, such an
excellent property to the publishers thereof is that newly- married
couples are in the habit of presenting a copy of the last edition of
Francatelli or Mary Hooper to their cooks. The volumes are
reasonably well bound, to be sure ; but of all Places of Destruction
I know none more ruinous than a kitchen ; and in a very short
space of time the cookery book comes to grief. Either the cat
steals it — a cat would steal the new chimes of St. Paul's, belfry
and all — or the kitchenmaid lights the fire with it, or it gets into
the cook's drawer — that ' chaos come again ' — and is seen no more.
So additional copies of Francatelli or Mary Hooper are demanded,
and the publishers dance jigs of delight.
Prosperous, nevertheless, as the craft of bookbinding appears
STILL THROUGH THE PASSAGES. 71
to be in France, the prices charged by the binders seem to be very
high. When anything of the nature of ' extra ' work is required,
the payment demanded may be qualified as extravagant. In the
bookshop of the Passages des Panoramas I find a set of Voltaire —
the Kehl edition, in fifty volumes, only half-bound — marked two
thousand francs, or eighty pounds. Now, editions of standard
authors in England, full-bound, do not average more than fifteen
shillings a volume. When, moreover, in Paris to handsome bind-
ing there is superadded the rarity of an edition, or interleaving with
curious engravings, the price asked approaches the monstrous.
There is one work in the Passages des Panoramas, a set of French
classics in thirty volumes, copiously interleaved with exotic plates,
for which the modest sum of twelve thousand francs is demanded.
Why, a first folio of Shakespeare could be procured for something
like that sum. A copy of the Contes de la Fontaine, ' Farmers-
General ' edition, Amsterdam, 1762, and with the plates, after
Charles Eisen, in perfect ' states ' — amateurs will understand what
I mean — could not be obtained in the Passages des Panoramas for
less than fifty pounds sterling. One exceptionally perfect copy
fetched at the late sale of the library of M. Firmin-Didot a hundred
and twenty pounds. It happened that, just before I came to Paris
a friend made me a present of the first volume of this much-prized
work. The second he could not find. Lately I asked the great
bibliopole of the Passages whether he thought he could possibly
procure me a copy of the second volume. ' Has M'siu the real
edition ? ' asked the bibliopole ; ' Amsterdam, 1762, Eisen's plates,
perfect "states," and so forth?' I satisfied him on all these
points. There was an odd twinkle in his eyes. ' It will be a
matter of time, difficulty, and expense,' he concluded ; ' mais
voyons ; combien voulez-vous me vendre ce petit livre-la ? ' He
wanted to buy my first volume of the Contes ; and, had I not been
determined to dine that day with the strictest economy at the
Ristorante del Matto Forestiere, I would — so hard are the times —
have struck a bargain with him at once.
You may object that, in venturing upon this little disquisition
72 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
on books and bookbinding ill France and England, I have tacitly
violated a pledge given long ago — a pledge not to be more technical
than I can possibly help. Still, one must indulge from time to
time in a little technology. Fellows of the books and of the
examples of bookbinding to which I have adverted may be found
displayed with all due ostentation in the vitrines of the great
French publishers at the Exhibition. There you may dwell at
your leisure on the masterpieces of the Hachettes, the Mames, the
Plons, and the Firmin-Didots ; but it was with a deliberate pur-
pose that I decided to cull my text, not from the glass cases in the
Champ de Mars, but from a shop-window in the Passages des
Panoramas. At the Exhibition one is compelled, after a manner,
to be an observer, and to be serious. It is not my present intent
to be serious. I have seen so much misery and wretchedness that
I have come to be of Figaro's opinion, that it is best to laugh while
we can, lest we should be called upon to weep. In the Passages
des Panoramas I am not bound to study anything, or to take any-
thing or anybody an grand serienx. November is coming, when
there will be no more smirking and giggling. Let us enjoy as
best we can what remains to us of October — the finest St. Martin's
summer that I have ever seen in the City of Pleasure.
You will observe that I have always spoken of the Passages
des Panoramas in the plural. In this I am justified by the
inscription above the boulevard entrance ; but I am sure I do not
know how many covered ways there are in this interesting region.
Straying from the main avenue, full as it is of jewellers, confec-
tioners, fancy stationers, toyshops, and dealers in old Dresden and
new Sevres, you stray up ' all manner of streets ' — or passages —
as Leigh Hunt's pig did. One gallery takes you into another,
and so, you know not how, you struggle into the Rue Vivienne.
Another corridor gives me egress into a narrow purblind street,
where my barber resides. He is a little round puncheon of a man,
with a head of bushy black hair, and sparkling black eyes — a
Provencal from Marseilles. Most people, even to the stupidest,
possess some art or craft in the study of which they take intense
STILL THROUGH THE PASSAGES. 73
delight, but the practice of which is, in a commercial sense,
wholly useless to them. It happened many years since that I
acquired a colloquial knowledge of the Provencal dialect — it is no
mere patois I can assure you ;— and every other day my barber and
his family and I talk the langue d'oc together. He is a poet— all
the gens da ntidi are poets — and recites quatrains to me in the
intervals of la barbe and the coup de peigne. He confides his
sorrows to me. His eldest daughter, he tells me, is fast degene-
rating into a Parisienne. This the young lady stoutly denies ;
but I observe that she is somewhat reluctant to call unpaysan ' oun
paean/ to say ' riprouchava ' instead of reprocher, and ' giammai '
in lieu of jamais. ' Paris,' murmurs my barber, ' has no heart.
Paris gives itself airs. Lou manca natura. She is all artificial.
What would Paris think if, when my day's work was over, I sat
before my shop-door playing the guitar and singing a little canzonJ
I am in hopes that these friendly folks will ask me to take la bouil-
labaisse with them some evening. Already the barber (who takes
me, I think, for a commercial traveller, and condoles with me on
the hardness of the times) has invited me to partake of ' oun verre
di cassis,' at an adjoining wine-shop kept by a Provencal — an
honest man from the Golfe St. Juan. I might pick up grander
acquaintances, you may opine, than a barber who shaves, powders,
and combs you, ' fixes ' you with brillantine and vinaigre de toilette,
all for the sum of twopence-halfpenny sterling, and offers to treat
you to drink into the bargain. I consider that my barber and his
brown-skinned, black-haired family are all reminiscent to me of
the Beloved Land — of the lapis-lazuli sky, the ultramarine sea,
the tawny shore, the dazzling white cottages with the roofs of
loose dusky tiles, the trellised vines, the festooned olives, the
gardens bursting forth with oranges and figs and lemons. Ay,
and beyond all this, the pleasant flow of the langue d'oc in the
purblind little street by the Passages des Panoramas wafts me
yet farther away — farther, through the Mesogeian sea — farther,
through the bright Levant — farther, to ' the Palms and Temples,'
not of the South, but of the East. Kcnnstdu das Land ? At all
l-i PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
events, the barber and his family, together with a few beggars
whom I have held brief converse with, are the most natural folks
that I have met with during nry sojourn in Paris.
In one of the Passages I find a restaurant — a fixed-price one.
Breakfast, two francs fifty ; dinners, three francs, I think. Say
the Diner des Calicots. Non ragionam di lor, via guardq c passa.
I may only just hint that I saw an elderly English gentleman
coming down the stairs of the Diner des Calicots, about half-past
six one evening, looking very pale and ill. And yet, unless I am
very much mistaken, I had met that same elderly Englishman at
about half-past five lookiog in at the window of the fancy meer-
schaum pipe-shop. He was then a fresh-coloured gentleman. Per-
haps the hors d'amvrcs had not agreed with him. Another and
more remarkable place of public refection in the Passages is
in a very dark gallery, out of which you are suddenly shot,
without any notice, so to speak, into the Rue Montmartre.
This is the Ris«torante del Matto Forestiere. -It is a genuine
Italian house. This is where I dined, with the strictest economy,
on the day when I had doubts about selling my odd volume
of the Contes dc la Fontaine to the proprietor of the sumptuous
bookshop. At the Ristorante del Matto Forestiere they will give
you all the typical examples of that which was once the very
best, but which, I know not wiry, has within recent years degene-
rated into, with the exception of Spain, the worst cuisine in
Europe. I do not know any city in Italy (Rome and Milan always
excepted) where one can dine with tolerable comfort. The table
d'hote at the Hotel Victoria, Venice, used to be admirable ; but
that too has degenerated. The condition of Florence, from a
culinary point of view, is deplorable ; and I have never met with
anybody who has dined well, culinarily speaking, at Bologna or at
Genoa. And yet, when Cardinal Campeggio came to England,
more than three hundred years ago, on the Catherine of Aragon
divorce business, the Italian Peninsula was renowned above all
other countries for its refined and succulent school of cookery.
His Holiness the Pope took the greatest interest in the national
STILL THROUGH THE PASSAGES.
75
art, and instructed his envoy to draw up a minutely exhaustive
report of the state of cookery in England. Cardinal Campeggio's
report was remarkably succinct, being comprised in two words—
Niente affatto. There was nothing whatever to report about
English cookery.
At the Ristorante del Matto Forestiere you will find Italian
cookery of a better kind than you can hope to meet with in Italy
itself at the present day. The risotto— boiled rice, ' accommo-
dated ' with oil, cheese, and saffron — is as succulent as it is whole-
some. The ravioli and the polpetti, the lasagne and the stuffato,
are all good ; and they have at least a dozen ways of dressing
macaroni. Finally, they are very great at this restaurant m
the art of preparing uccellini — small birds, such as quails, larks,
thrushes — leccafici, and so on, which are roasted with blankets of
fat bacon and vine-leaves over their plump little breasts, and
served in a hollow circle of polenta boiled to a paste. But that it
is wicked to eat little birds, I should say that their uccellini were
delicious : in any case I am afraid that some thousands of grives,
mauviettcs, cailles, and bcccafici are brought every week to the
Halles Centrales, principally from the South of France and from
the shores of the Lakes of Como and Garda. The grives are taken
in the largest numbers in the vineyards. The little creatures peck
at the ripened grapes until they get tipsy, and then the fowler
7(> PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
comes and snares them — a fate that occasionally happens to other
creatures besides grives. Perhaps it is not naughtier to eat these
small birds than to wear them stuffed, and with their wings out-
spread, in a lady's bonnet. Bird hats and feather bonnets are all
the rage in Paris at present : and there must be a terribly con-
tinuous slaughter of feathered folks in Italy, in the West Indies,
and in South America, to satisfy the needs of Vanity Fair.
The prices at the Ristorante del Matto Forestiere are pheno-
menally cheap. The proprietor has apparently forgotten the exist-
ence of the Exhibition altogether ; or perhaps he has a regular
clientele .' and his customers being mainly Italians and naturally
frugal, informed him in the outset that if he raised his prices they
would go and dine somewhere else. Next, however, to one of the
Duval Bouillon-Bceuf establishments — I intend, as a matter of
bounden duty, to dine there before I depart from Paris, but I have
not yet succeeded in screwing my courage to the sticking-place — I
should say that the Ristorante del Matto Forestiere was about the
cheapest restaurant that a foreigner with cosmopolitan tastes could
dine at in Paris. I do not say that it is the best. I do not con-
tend that the minestra is superlatively good ; that the came di
manzo is incomparable, or the arrosto perfection ; that the wine
is unimpeachable, or the coffee unexceptionable. But the place
is characteristic and genuine ; and that is something to find in
the midst of a wilderness of French eating-houses, where con-
vention ality has come to the complexion of the most wearisome
monotony.
VI.
America's place at the exhibition.
Oct. 15.
Veteran critics of Universal Exhibitions will remember the dis-
appointment felt in England owing to the comparatively meagre
appearance made by the United States of America in Hyde Park
78 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN,
in 1851. A large amount of space had been reserved for the pro-
ductions of the Great Republic. She arrived very late, but not
without some flourishing of trumpets :— a Federal ship of war
having been detailed by the Navy Department for the conveyance
to Europe of the exhibits of Columbia. When the cases were
unpacked, and the Transatlantic contributions were displayed, it
was found that they did not fill a third of the space prospectively
allotted to them; and Americans themselves who were visiting
London were fain, with comic ruefulness, to confess that 'the
Show was a mighty poor one.' To British eyes the American
Department appeared to present a minimum of indiarubber over-
shoes, waterproof sheeting, and bottles full of corn cobs and
1 brandy peaches ' to an intolerable deal of starred-and-striped
banners and pasteboard effigies of eagles with outspread wings.
Cousin Jonathan, as is his wont, made the best of the failure; and,
ever ingeniously ready to maintain the prestige of his country,
pointed out what was virtually irrefutable — first, that America,
was a young nation, and could not be expected to excel yet a while
in art manufacture ; next, that she was deterred by physical cir-
cumstances beyond her control from exhibiting in Sir Joseph
Paxton's House of Glass her real and unsurpassable wonders — her
Niagara and her Genessee Falls, her Mississippi and her Ohio,
her boundless Prairies, her Rocky Mountains, and her Mammoth
Cave of Kentucky. The plea was allowed as good-humouredly as
it was advanced ; and the kindly hope was universal that America
would do better next time. She did better, bravely better, in
Paris in 1855. She did better, gloriously better, in London in
1862 ; in Paris in 1867 ; and at Vienna in 1873. She did better,
triumphantly better, at her own Centennial Exhibition at Phila-
delphia in 1876.
Better and better still is the figure made by the United States
in the Champ de Mars ; but it is my intent to notice her con-
tributions only from one point of departure : that is, Art-Gold
and Silver smith's work. It is a new point, comparatively
speaking, with her, and that is why I wish to dwell upon it. I
America's place at the exhibition. 79
should be travelling bej'ond the record which I have proposed to
myself were I to say anything concerning American pianofortes,
curriers' and saddlers' work, cutlery, pencil, pencil-case, and gold-
pen making, drugs, preserved provisions, and machinery in
general. In all these departments she manifests her usual inge-
nuity and skill, combined with handiwork which shows signs of
constant improvement ; but not one of these industries has any
special connection with art, much less do any of them point to the
formation of a national school of art-workmanship on the American
Continent. Even the exhibits of the American Watch Company
of Waltham, Massachusetts, remarkable as they are for symmetry
of form and skilfulness of workmanship, only point to what can be
done by large and well-organised capital in securing the services of
competent workmen, be they of French, Swiss, German, English,
or American nationality. Waltham, in fact, has only done that
which Coventry did when the city of Godiva found that her ribbon
trade was falling off. There are few trades which are so easily
acclimatised as that of the watchmaker; and it would be a very
good thing for Ramsgate and Margate, and the rest of our seaside
watering-places, if they applied themselves to watchmaking during
those winter months after the season which are spent in con-
strained idleness and often in pinching poverty. It is a very dif-
ferent matter when we come to such industries as art-pottery, art-
furniture, and the craft of the goldsmith and silversmith. Such
manufactures are difficult to establish, and their roots are slow to
strike. A lengthy period must necessarily elapse before they
acquire a prestige sufficient to command commercial success; and
they require the services of an operative population specially trained
and educated for the work to be done. In the department of
ceramics a very bright future may be predicted for America —
whether our own potters will appreciate the brightness of the pros-
pect is quite another question — but hitherto the potters of New
York and New Jersey have mainly confined themselves to the fabri-
cation of white stone ware for domestic use. The first and grand
step is, however, to make pots ; the adoption of painting and glaz-
80 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
ing processes will very soon follow ; and when our cousins do make
their minds up seriously to practise ceramic decoration the}' will
find ready to their hand a well-nigh inexhaustible museum of
models and exemplars of indigenous origin in the antique potteiy
of Central America and Mexico. The rich abundance of beauteous
'fancy' woods in the American forests should likewise eventually
tend to the development of the manufacture of art furniture ; and
in New York, I am given to understand, artistic cabinet-making
of the very highest kind is visibly progressing; but for the
manufacture to become general the American art- workman needs
a, great deal more instruction than he has hitherto had the means
•of acquiring in decorative modelling, carving, inlaying, and brass-
finishing.
Dealing, however, not with what may be, but with what is, I
wish to call attention to the peculiar (and to my mind) the sur-
prising excellence of the display in gold and silver smiths' ware
made by Messrs. Tiffany & Co. of New York. The merits of
these exhibits have been recognised by the International Jury,
who, I am informed, have awarded to the head of the firm the
Grand Prix, a high distinction, which carries with it the Cross of
the Legion of Honour. But it is expedient that Americans as
well as Englishmen should understand that the productions which
have attracted so much'attention, and on which so high an honorary
reward has been bestowed, ma} r be considered as marking the
commencement of a wholly new era in American industry. ' You
have stared at, wondered at, and occasionally laughed at,' the
Americans seem to sa_y, ' our patent cow-milkers and clothes-
wringers, our mangles and boot-cleaners, our ash-hoppers and
kitcheners, our sewing and type-writing machines ; now, please
to come and see what we can do in the way of art.' I need
scarcely say that the house of Tiffany, as first-class silversmiths,
is as well known as the Elkingtons are known in London, or Bir-
mingham, or Paris. Fifteen } T ears since, when I was in New
York, Tiffany's show-rooms for plate and jewelry were among the
sights of the Empire citj-. Still I did not expect, when I visited
America's place at the exhibition. 81
the Transatlantic department of the Paris Exhibition, anything in
the way of gold or silver smith's ware be} T ond the conventionally
rich and the ordinarily tasteful. The goldsmith's art, notwith-
standing all that Christofle and Castellani have clone, has been to
a great extent stationary since the first French Revolution, which
for a season absolutely and completely obliterated the orfevre;
and it was with difficulty that I could persuade myself that the most
conspicuous signs of progress in the craft of Benvenuto Cellini and
Maso Fineguerra had come from the United States. Yet such is
the verdict of the sectional jury of the existing Exhibition, and
such is the plain truth. Purely of American design and execution
is Messrs. Tiffany's tea-service in oxidised silver and variously
coloured gold, adorned with an exquisite pattern in relief, embody-
ing the apologue of ' the Spider and the Fly.' I am shown, also,
a teapot, in its way unique, and in which the silver has been
oxidised to an inimitably delicate purple hue. Then I behold a
service which is a very marvel of simple beauty in design and
of skilfulness in the handiwork, presenting examples of applique
in no less than six different metals, combined with the extremely
difficult and rarely practised process of ' lamination.' The objects
in this service are decorated with a cunning trailing pattern, in
which" the ' Pilgrim's gourd ' is conspicuous. I notice, too, a vase
of Japanese form, in which there are twenty-four varieties of
metallic 'lamination.' Vases of repousse work, of the utmost
elaboration of execution, point to the fact that the opus mallei has
become thoroughly understood, and is being appreciatively prac-
tised in the New York workrooms; and superb examples of silver
chasing are apparent in a great silver swan, designed as a surtout
de table, and in the elephant of the grand silver service manufac-
tured, at a cost of 150,000 dollars, for a Nevada millionnaire. Of
more peculiar interest to the English spectator will be the repro-
duction in gold and gems of the collection of precious objects
discovered in the Curium of the island of Cyprus by General di
Cesnola. These art-treasures surpass anything that Castellani
has rescued from the bed of the Tiber, or from the ruined villas
VOL. I I. ,.
82 PARIS BERSELF AGAIN.
of old Rome. They equal in richness and symmetry the rarest of
Dr. Schliemann's discoveries in the Troad or at Mycenre ; they
rival even the marvels of the famous Kertch Museum, in the
Hermitage at St. Petersburg. The original collection of General
di Cesnola is now in the possession of the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York ; but too much praise cannot be bestowed on
Messrs. Tiffany for the reproduction of these rare and curious
ornaments. They are indeed triumphs of imitative goldsmith's
art ; and General di Cesnola himself has, after a careful exami-
nation, piece by piece, of the series of that which is probably
the most ancient jewelry known, borne adequate testimony to the
exact fidelity of the reproduction. ' Were it not for your name
stamped upon those you have made,' writes the discoverer of the
Curium of C^yprus to Messrs. Tiffany, 'I believe it would be
almost impossible to decide which are the originals and which
the copies.' There can be little doubt that our South Ken-
sington Museum should possess these admirable reprod uctions ;
but whether authority will empower South Kensington to dis-
burse sufficient money to acquire a marvellously faithful replica
of the Cypriote treasure is quite another matter.
I lack the space to enlarge on the merits of the silver candelabra
manufactured for Mr. James Gordon Bennett, to commemorate
sundry yachting victories gained by that gentleman ; and I can
only just mention the presence of the well-known electrotyped
vase, executed in honour of the late William Cullen Bryant.
Both these elaborate performances are exhibited as types of purely
American design, and the first as a specimen of as purely American
decoration ; the construction and enrichments being derived ex-
clusively from studies of the costumes, weapons, implements, and
trinkets of the North American Indians. This is as it should
be ; and to me the pleasantest feature in the truly remarkable
display made by Messrs, Tiffany is the assurance which I receive
that the drawings and models for all these sumptuous works of art,
that the repoussd work, the chasing, and the engraving, are all the
production of American brains and American hands, which seem
America's place at the exhibition. 83
as skilful in resuscitating the damascening and niello of the
Cinque Cento as in imitating the most fanciful tracery of Persian
work and the wonderful inlaying and applique of the old Japanese
craftsmen. As regards design, the influence of Japan is neces-
sarily and, for the time, beneficialby manifest in the Tiffany ex-
hibits. There is scarcely any department of British art in which
we have not learned valuable lessons from the Japanese ; and for
the present it is eminently fitting that the American should
study under the capable and inventive Orientals who have taught
us so much in the way of decorative design, colour, and technical
completeness. I repeat for the present. The art-workman
must leam to walk before he runs. Just now it would seem as
though a junk, laden with cunning examples of Japanese art-
workmanship, wrecked ages ago on the coast of California, had
been suddenly weighed up, and as though the priceless cargo had
made its way to Prince's Street, New York City, to serve as
models to the young students in the School of Design attached to
Messrs. Tiffany's manufactory; but, as the years roll on, the
glories of the plastic art of ancient Greece and medheval and
Cinque Cento Italy must travel across the Atlantic ; and the
Tiffanys of the future will be bound to show us that their de-
signers and modellers, their chasers and repousse workers, know
how to deal with the infinitely varied phases of the human figure,
and with the almost equally infinite phases of drapery and decora-
tion which lend not only body but soul to antique Eenaissance
art. Japan is an excellent starting-point ; but the goal should
be Greece and Rome.
G 2
VII.
EASILY PLEASED.
Oct. 20.
I am ready to admit that a person of nominally cheerful tempera-
ment and of moderate desires may be Easily Pleased in London.
The overgrown metropolis of the British Empire does not enjoy
the repute of being a very gay city ; yet to my mind there is
always something on view, or something going on within the postal
radius, of a nature to interest and amuse those fortunate indi-
viduals who have nothing to do save to stroll about the streets
and amuse themselves. Had I any disposable leisure of my own,
I should be glad, when in England, to serve as a guide and in-
terpreter to blase people of the Sir Charles Coldstream type, and
show them all kinds of places and things where and by which they
might be easily pleased. Do you know the delightful model of the
little gentleman in the tightly-fitting silk-pants and socks, and
the exquisite shirt-front and faultless cuffs, at the hosier's shop
in Regent's Street ? Have you taken note of his superb little
whiskers and moustaches ? And the Imperial Lady in wax, and
in the blue-satin corset, perpetually revolving at the staymaker's
EASILY PLEASED. 85
nearly opposite ? And the young lady in the riding-habit and
the gentleman in full hunting-costume at the merchant-tailor's ?
And Mr. Cremer junior's dolls ? And the permanent wedding-
breakfast at the French confectioner's in Oxford Street? And the
painted indiarubber mutton-cutlets, lizards, turbots, lobsters, and
death's-heads — all so many tobacco-pouches in disguise — at the
German fancy warehouse near the Lyceum Theatre. And the tiny
fountains and jets (Veau at the filter-shop hard by where Temple
Bar formerly stood ? And the hundred-ton guns, and the frigate
tossed on the waves of a clock-work ocean, at the Model Dockyard
in Fleet Street? And Sir John Bennett's bell-banging giants in
Cheapside ? And the newest exhibits of the Stereoscopic Com-
pany, east and west ? And the armoury of miniature pots, pans,
and kettles — I am delighted to find that the business is still car-
ried on — at the corner of Bow Churchyard ? And the peripatetic
picture-dealers who hang about Lothbury and Bartholomew Lane
with gaudily-framed oil-paintings, for which they sometimes ask
twenty pounds from old ladies who have come to the Bank to
draw then dividends, and for which they are generally willing to
take twenty shillings ? And that wonderful museum of dolls
in the Waterloo Road ; and the Bluecoat boys at play, ' like
troutlets in a pool,' behind the grating in Newgate Street ? And
the solemn little Foundlings quietly disporting themselves — bo}"s
on one side, girls on another — on their spacious grass-plots in
Guilford Street ?
"When I have been absent a long time from England I return
to these scenes and creatures as to old familiar friends. I miss a
well-remembered crossing-sweeper now and then ; but still the
supply of sweepers who solicit ' A copper, yer honour ! ' seems to
be kept up. One generation of blind men and then* dogs is suc-
ceeded by another ; and it may be the great-grandson of the choice
monkey with the cocked hat that diverted me in my youth, who
now goes through the manual exercise, sweeps with a long broom
the platform of his tripod, fires off a rifle, and, the performance
being over, nestles, with an expression of resignation half comic,
80 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
half rueful, in his Italian master's bosom. There is no solution
of continuity in these gratuitous spectacles. Punch never seems
to grow older; and Karl and Hans and Ludwig, of the German
1 green-baize band,' look as young as though they had been re-
juvenated by some beneficent Mephistophiles. They and the
shops and the gratuitous street-sights — even to the laying down
of the wood-pavement, and the laying bare of the entrails of the
streets in the shape of gas and water-pipes and electric telegraph-
wires — seem all specially provided for the benefit of those* who
are willing to be Easily Pleased.
This being granted, it must nevertheless be borne in mind that
in London long distances have to be traversed before you can
light on the spots where you can be Easily Pleased ; that our
deplorable climate precludes us — notwithstanding the dictum of
Charles II. — from strolling about the streets at least a hundred
and fifty days in every year ; and that there are scores upon scores
of London streets from which absolutely no kind of entertainment
can be derived. Do you think that yon could be Easily Pleased
in Wimpole Street ? Is there anything diverting in Portland
Place '? What do you think of Bernard Street, Russell Square,
as a theme for philosophic contemplation ? How about Golden
Square ? Have you ever discovered the humours of Stamford
Street, Blackfriars ? Did Burton Crescent ever yield you any
pleasure ? Is the Alpha Road a very lively locality ? On the
other hand, I contend that there is no street, passage, place,
impasse, avenue, quay, cite, or boulevard within Paris where the
cheerful observer who is content with little may not be Easily
Pleased. The Place Ventadour — where, by the way, to the national
shame, the noble Theatre des Italiens is being demolished, to give
place tn the Credit Something or Another — is generally accounted
to be the dullest locality in Paris. A porte-monnaie full of bank-
notes lay there once, they say, for four-and-twenty hours without
being discovered ; but I will undertake at any hour of the day to
be as Easily Pleased in the Place Ventadour as on the Boulevard
des Italiens. There is always something going on in the quietest
EASILY TLEASED. 87
as in the busiest quarters to interest and to amuse the flaneur.
And that is why the Parisian — he need not be a Frenchman ; he
may be a loyal adopted son of Lutetia, like Gavarni's English-
man, who had ' lived in Paris since the capture of Paris by the
English ' — is the most accomplished yZoMeur in the world.
Take the shop-signs in general, for instance, and the charcvr
tiers' signs in particular. We have remarkably fine pork in
England. An English sucking-pig is, in degree, as pretty as an
oil-miniature by Meissonier. An English side of bacon is a noble
spectacle ; but how wretchedly tame and ineffective is the etalage
of an English pork-butcher's ! As for a London tripe-shop, it is
really repulsive to look upon ; and it is only now and again, in a
great ham-and-beef shop, say in the Hampstead Eoad or in Kentish
Town, that a feeble attempt is made to produce an artistic ensemble
by the piling up of pyramids of pork-pies, or the display of huge
blue-and-white basins full of coagulated mock-turtle soup. As for
artistic decoration of the counter or the shop-front, that is wholly
absent, and the wooden semblance of a ham, rudely gilt, generally
does duty as a sign. Now the Parisian charcutier's is, on the
contrary, all sparkling neatness and symmetrical taste. The sign
and the arabesques decorating the door-jambs, painted in oil and
scrupulously defended by plate-glass panels, are frequently really
excellent works of art. I have been told recently of the sad end
of a most capable artist, who for many years had devoted himself
to the decoration of the exteriors of pork- shops. He had under-
gone a thorough academical training in the studio of a distin-
guished French painter, and he had once competed, albeit unsuc-
cessfully, for the Grand Prix de Rome. The subject given out
on the occasion when the unfortunate deceased competed for the
prize was ' Trimalcion's Banquet.' The poor painter made the
necessary sketches, and was then securely locked up in his loge
at the Ecole des Beaux Arts to paint his picture. The commis-
sion, by whom it was subsequently examined, acknowledged that
all the details of still life in the picture were admirably executed.
Nothing could be more microscopically faithful to nature than the
B8
PARIS HERSELF A.GAIN.
I
^^Sn.rj r
- â– -i'y-W .: ,-â–
Ms*- f1 '""
.?-'-'
v
crayfish and the red mullet, the boars' heads and the peacocks,
the oysters and the wild ducks. Ah ovo usque ad malum, all the
eatables were superbly imitated ; only the human personages were
villanously drawn and vilely coloured, so the Examining Com-
mission did not send the unlucky competitor to the Villa Medicis.
The result was that he became a painter of nature morte. He
vegetated long and miserably as a picture-dealer's hack, but
EASILY PLEASED. 89
at length found more remunerative patronage among the pork-
butchers.
As a painter of charcuterie the unsuccessful competitor for the
Grand Prix de Home obtained a kind of renown. His garlands of
sausages, displayed against a sky of pure azure flecked with fleecy
clouds, were enthusiastically spoken of in the Rue du Bac ; he had
a prodigious success on the Boulevard de Strasbourg with a hure
de sanglier — a boar's head austerely posed on a platter of old
Faenza ware ; and the Faubourg St. Denis was in raptures with
the exquisite finish of his terrines de foie gras and his andouilleites
de Troyes. He was the Teniers of pigs' feet d la Sainte Mene-
hould ; the Paul Potter of cowheel d la Biribi, the Rafaelle of
snails with veal-stuffing, the Michael Angelo of jambons de Bay-
onne. He excelled in Gorgonzola cheese. Few could touch him
in Bologna mortadella. His bacon was magisterial, his truffled
turkey truly grand. He earned a handsome livelihood by the exer-
cise of porcine art ; but his friends remarked with sorrowful anx-
iety that a settled gloom had taken possession of him. He grew
more and more morose and desponding. A fortnight since — I tell
the story as it was told to me — the poor fellow was found hanging
from a cross-beam in his studio. He was quite dead. On his
table was found a slip of paper containing these words : ' Let no
man be accused of my death. I am determined to destroy myself,
because these six months past / have failed miserably in savoury
jelly. ,' Poor man ! It was hard enough to have missed the Grand
Prix de Rome ; but to break down in the simulation of galantine
was Fortune's unkindest cut of all.
You may be as Easily Pleased in the humblest little Parisian
bye-street, say off the Rue Dauphine, as when you are standing in
front of the lordliest charcutier's in the Faubourg Montmartre. I
can go farther, and say that, as a spectacle, Potel and Chalot do
not take my breath away, and that even the superb Chevet does
not astound ine over-much. I can see finer whole salmon at
Groves's than the traditional fish which is apiece de resistance at
Chevet's. Indeed a great part of Chevet's show consists in the
90 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
artistic ' make-up.' Take, for example, these festoons of bananas.
Bananas are not reckoned of much account in Covent Garden
Market. Consider that cunning bordering of oranges and cocoa-
nuts to a saddle of not very appetising mutton pre-sale. I
daresay that the oranges are a franc apiece, and that the most
fanciful prices are charged for the cocoa-nuts, the ' coster's' price
of which in London is fourpence each. But in that little bye-
street off the Rue Dauphine I am Easily Pleased by more natural,
and, to me, more picturesque, bits of life, animated and still.
Every little greengrocer's shop, every tiny cremerie is a picture.
What richness of colour, what velvety smoothness of texture, in
that neatly-piled cone of ready-boiled spinach on its snowy cloth,
and with the clean wooden spatula for serving out the wholesome
toothsome vegetable ! Where can I buy cold boiled spinach in
London ? And what a dirty hole is a London fried-fish shop !
They are frying away furiously in the little bye-street off the Rue
Dauphine. Here is a famous friture of gudgeons ; in another
snug corner potatoes leap, crackling, in their scalding bath of oil.
Yonder, a mighty old dame, who might be the grandmother of the
Gracchi, in a clean white bib and apron, is frying eels with the
loftiest of airs. Next door to a cobbler working lustily away in
his stall — few and far between are the cobblers' stalls left in Lon-
don — is a triangular niche, which proudly announces itself, on a
capitally painted sign, to be the ' Petite Renommee de la Galette.'
A pretty girl, in a blue-duffel dress, a Avhite apron, and white-linen
sleeves, is continually dispensing slabs of the greasy delicacy.
Exiguous as is the niche, it has a background, and there I can
dimly discern an oven, and the pretty girl's father baking galette
i emingly for ever and ever. He has been baking it to my know-
ledge these forty years past. To me it is always the same galette,
always hot, always fresh, always young, like the royal countenance
on the coinage and the postage-stamps.
I will buy two sous'-worth of that galette, and devour it, sur
place, even if I expire forthwith of indigestion. Ah, I have eaten
the galette over and over again in the time that is dead and so
EASILY TLEASED. 91
clear to me. Steeped in poverty to the lips, but Easily Pleased
and passably content, what did you want when you were young,
unracked by disease, unwrung by regrets, beyond the few penny-
worths of sustenance that you could procure in the little bye-street ?
You scarcely ever visited the fashionable side of the Seine. Mon-
sieur Dusautoy, the tailor, might go to Hong Kong for you.
Where was the Cafe Anglais ? What kind of people dined at the
Maison Doree ? You scarcely knew. Assuredly you never cared.
Yours the slumbers light, the early wander, the modest breakfast
on what the crcmcrie, the greengrocer's, the fried-fish shop would
yield ; the two sous'-worth of caporal tobacco, or the petit Bor-
deaux cigar, which cost but a sou ; and then the serious business
of the da}- — the business of doing nothing save sweeping with
eager eyes over all the printed treasures of the bookstalls, all the
graphic and ceramic marvels of the curiosity-shops from the Quai
aux Fleurs to the Quai d'Orsay. W r as there any harm in having
a small parcel containing fried potatoes in your coat-pocket while
you were consulting an antique edition of Montaigne '? Was it
high treason to munch a crust-and-butter and a hard-boiled egg
while you scanned a rare Robert Strange, a precious Raphael
Morghen '? Did you derogate from your social position by walking
into the nearest cabaret and ordering a chopine ' I think not. I
think so still, as I munch the pennyworth of galette — not without
a kind of suffocating sensation in the throat. It must be immi-
nent indigestion ; but what is it Sir John Falstaff says about his
old friends who are dead ?
The rotisscurs, all over Paris, seem equally capable of easily
pleasing people. The Paris ' roaster ' is something more and
something less than a London cookshop-keeper. As a rule, he
does not have a restaurant attached to his establishment. He
deals not in made dishes. He does not serve portions. He has
untliing to do with vegetables or sweets. But he continues with-
out intermission to roast poultry, game, and joints. His spits
are never idle. Supposing that you, a modest rentier, or a pro-
fessional man with no very extensive accommodation in your own
02 PAEIS HERSELF AGAIN.
appartement, propose to entertain a few friends at dinner. The
soup is always safe. Every Frenchwoman — and, for the matter of
that, almost every Frenchman — can make soup. You can get as
many oysters as you like at a franc and a half a dozen, at the
tcaillage at the corner. Fish is not necessarily expected. The
bouitti from the soup, garnished, makes an entree de riande de
boucherie. The hors-d'oeuvres you buy at the cjiarcutier' 's ; the
pdtissier sends you the sweets. But you still lack your roast.
"Where are you to obtain your gigot cuit d jioint, your rosbif d
VAnglaise, your dinde mix marrons, your brace of pheasants or
partridges, your fat capon, or your spring chickens ? In your
dilemma the rotisseur stands your friend. You order in the
morning the joint, or the poultry, or game which you require, and
at the appointed time your bonne calls for it, or the rotisseur'' s
boy brings the viand to your abode, piping hot.
I cannot help fancying that the roaster's functions might be
made very easily adaptable to the requirements of civilisation in
London. Innumerable families when the}' wish to give an extra-
ordinary entertainment, have the dinner ' sent in from the pastry-
cook's,' to the disorganisation of the entire household, and the
secret wrath of the cook, who — good woman — could manage a
small dinner very well, but is somewhat overweighted with a large
one. Possibly she has no gas-stove, and her kitchen-range will
not accommodate three roasts at a time. Under such circum-
stances what a benefactor would the rotisseur be ! A sirloin of
beef, a roast goose, a pair of fowls, a haunch of mutton, a brace of
pheasants, a roast hare — the Magician of the Spit would furnish
all these viands with promptitude and despatch, and the hostess
would be rescued from the many embarrassments which environ
the ' pastrycook's dinner ' including the sable-clad waiter with the
large feet and the Berlin gloves, whose solemn presence and con-
tinuous — albeit secretly indulged— thirst always vaguely remind
you of those other sable-clad servitors who are associated with
cake and wine, black gloves, scarves, and hat-bands.
mil f»l , l 1 J; \ ;, \^U^ 1
YIII.
HIGH HOLIDAY IN THE CITY.
Oct. 24.
The journals of Barcelona gave, a few days since, an account
of a very remarkable fiesta which had taken place at Villareal, near
Castellon, on the borders of Valencia ; a region which, from the
amiable temper and affable manners of its inhabitants, has acquired
the name of un paradlso habltado por demonios — a paradise in-
habited by fiends. The Villareal festival was an eminently
characteristic one. A bull was let loose in the streets, which were
Jl 1 PARIS HERSELF A.GAIN.
partially barricaded. Throughout the whole day 'the poor beast
was chased, worried, and tortured by amateur toreros; women
plunged scissors into its hide, the very children prodded it with
forks, and at length, about sunset, the bull was brought into the
plaza, where four streets converge; the wretched creature was tied
down to beams placed across a great pile of dried esparto, and then
the bull, amid the shouts of a sympathetic population, was
slowhi roasted to death. This monstrous act of cWlty was perpe-
trated on the 16th of this present month of October. Thus, there
would have been plenty of time for any notable inhabitant of
Yillareal de Castellon, anxious to ascertain from personal observa-
tion how public festivities are organised in the capital of France,
to have taken the train for Barcelona, and thence, either by the
way of Gerona and Perpignan or by that of Marseilles and Lyons,
to have come to Paris to participate in the ' Grandes Fetes de la
Distribution des Recompenses,' a series of merrymakings which
beoan on Saturday evening and continued without intermission
throughout the whole of Sunday and Monday, and were supple-
mented on Tuesday evening by a stupendous ball and illumination
at Versailles. Failing the advent of the Alecdde or the Cura of
Villareal, there is a multitude of Spaniards just now who are to be
found at most hours of the day and night puffing their papelitos
outside the Cafe de Madrid, and who might vouch for the fact
that they order these things — that is to say fetes — much better
in France.
First let me briefly sum up what has been done in the way of
public rejoicings. The State has, so far as the million is con-
cerned, very wisely done scarcely anything at all, and has left the
million to do everything for themselves. ' Hang out your banners
on your outward walls ; bight up your girandoles and your Chinese
lanterns ; sing whatever songs you please, and joy go with you.'
Such has been practically the counsel given by authority to the
public at large ; and the advice has been universally and enthusi-
astically followed. Only from eighteen to twenty thousand
spectators could be privileged to witness the somewhat tedious
HIGH HOLIDAY IN THE CITY.
95
ceremony of the distribution of prizes in the Palais cle l'lndustrie.
The real pageant was to be seen out of doors, and that pageant
was provided by the population at large. Dr. Johnson said that
he went to Ranelagh Gardens to look at ten thousand people, and
to feel that ten thousand people were looking at him. With an
analogous intent did the gentleman with the horns, hoofs, and tail,
in Southey's ' Devil's Walk,' ' stand in Tottenham Court Eoad,
either by choice or by whim ; And there he saw Brothers the
Prophet, And Brothers the Prophet saw him.' Since Saturday
night a million and a half of Parisians, and some scores of thou-
sands of foreigners, have been nocking up and down the main
thoroughfares of Paris staring at one another, and deriving, ap-
parently, the most intense enjoyment from the spectacle. ' Ou
irons-nous a present ? Nous avons ete un peu partout ' — ' Where
shall we go now ? We have been almost everywhere ' — I heard a
stout French husband say to his stouter wife, on Monday after-
noon. 'Descendons encore le
Boulevard des Italiens,' said the
lady, seemingly not in the least
tired ; and off they went to enjo}*
a fresh lease of staring and be-
ing" stared at. The pleasure of
promenading never palls on the
*J£*
«r^i
essentially out-of-door people.
When they have stared at each
other they stare into the shop-
windows and newspaper kiosques;
then they stare at the cabs and
omnibuses ; and if a shower of rain comes on, they crowd into
the passages or under the arcades of the Rue de Eivoli, and find
new faces and tilings to stare at. Where is the use of paying an
extravagant price to witness, in an over-heated and over-crowded
theatre, a performance in a language with which you may be
imperfectly acquainted, when you may witness one of the live-
liest dramas ever performed on the stage of that great theatre
00 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
the "World, in the cool, open, spacious streets, for nothing
at all ?
Paris broke out in bunting on Saturday afternoon. From care-
ful inquiry I ascertained in the Hue St. Denis that a tricolored
flag of a gay but ' sleezy ' fabric could be purchased, pole, tassels,
gilt spearhead, and all, for 3f. 50c. ; but there were more modest
gonfalons in calico which could be obtained at a much cheaper
rate. Tricolored cockades in silk were freely offered at fifty
centimes apiece ; in cardboard they were quoted at two sous each.
Miniature tricolored adornments for the headstalls of horses were
to be had for a franc a dozen ; and a very nice Chinese lantern
could be bought for ten sous. The humblest houses in the hum-
blest streets displayed one or more of these cheerful and graceful
decorations ; while in the principal thoroughfares the proprietors
of the great shops and cafes had only to bring out their reserve
stock of flags and banners which they had laid in for the National
Fete of the 30th of June last. With one exception the nations
were most impartially and liberally represented from an heraldic
point of view on the boulevards. The Italian tricolor and the
Cross of Savoy, the Austrian Sclmarz-gelt, the Russian flag with
the double-headed eagle on the vast field of yellow, the American
stars and stripes, and our own Union Jack, together with the
Spanish tricolor, ' blood to the fingers' ends,' and a number of
bizarre cognisances belonging to less known nationalities, flaunted
and fluttered from thousands of windows. I even saw, at a per-
fumer's on the Boulevard Montmartre, a very creditable imitation
of the stateliest banner in the world — the Royal Standard of
England. It is true that the designer had thrown in a leopard
or two, and the Prince of "Wales's plumes and the Order of the
Garter, and had thus caused some confusion among the quarter-
ings ; nor, perhaps, was a superimposed escutcheon of Britannia
riding on a lion, and looking like Danneker's Ariadne, who had
suddenly bethought herself of donning a helmet and some light
drapery in order not to be thought ' schkocking,' strictly in accord-
ance Avith the proper laws of blazonry ; still the intent was excel-
''^ -'•/■fey/iNtS
..?v
HIGH HOLIDAY IN THE CITY.
97
lent and the effect superb. Opinions were divided as to whether
the perfumer's ensign was the banner of the Lord Ma3 r or of London
or of his Royal Highness himself; but the majority held that it
was the device of the Prince whose photograph is in every shop-
window, whose effigy decorates ladies' neckties, boxes of gloves,
cakes of soap and chocolate, and corners of pocket-handkerchiefs,
and whose name is on every Parisian lip. We have two ex-Kings
of Spain among us — Don Francisco de Assis, and Amadeo, Duke
of Aosta ; we have a Prince of Denmark and a Prince of Holland ;
but the Prince of Wales carries all before him in the way of
popularity.
Among other privileges conceded to the Parisians on occasions of
high holiday such as the present is to play in the public thorough-
fares on that detestable instrument, the French horn. It is only
during the Carnival, on the evening of the Mi-Careme, and on fete
days that the sound of this mournfullest of wind instruments is
tolerated ; at other seasons — legal torture having been abolished in
1789 — the horn is rigorously prohibited by the police. But since
Saturday the excruciatingly dismal wheezings and croakings of the
98 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
French horn have been audible all over Paris. Chiefly is it notice-
able in the bye-streets ; for in the main thoroughfares the roar of
the passing vehicles is so loud and so incessant that the lugubrious
strains laboriously pumped out from this execrable shawm attract
but little attention. In a bye-street ' le Monsieur qui sonne du
cor ' has things all his own way, and can gratify to the full his
desire, which is obviously to please himself by making as many of
his neighbours wretched as he possibly can. He is not a pro-
fessional musician. O, dear no ! He is only an amateur of
human misery, an unconscious disciple of the gifted but anon}'-
mous English misanthrope who wrote that fascinating book, the
Art oj Ingeniously Tormenting. The ' Monsieur qui sonne du
cor ' appears to me to live usually in an entresol. So soon as the
police taboo on his abhorrent clarion is provisionally suspended,
he throws his window wide open : and, leaning over the sill, pro-
ceeds to discourse his terrific minstrelsy. I wonder whether
Blondel the troubadour was a proficient on the French horn. If
such were indeed the case, the misery of the captivity of the lion-
hearted King must have been wofully aggravated by hearing
' O Richard, 6 mon roi !
Tout l'univers t'abandomie ;
Dans ce monde il n'y a que moi
Qui s'interesse en ta personne,'
to the accompaniment of a French horn. I abide by the theory
that the French horn-player is Timon of Paris. He has seen the
hollowness, the ingratitude, the perfidy of the world ; and after
giving a farewell and dismal banquet to his fair-weather friends in
the salon known as the Grand Seize at the Cafe Anglais, and
flinging the dishes — which contained nothing but hot water — at
their heads, he has retired to an entresol in the Rue Je m'en-fiche-
pas-mal, where, from year's end to year's end, he nourishes his
hatred of mankind, occasionally solacing himself, when the police
regulations permit him, by throwing open his window, and driving
his neighbours frantic by his performances on the French horn.
He is, as a rule, indifferent to the tune which he tortures. I have
HIGH HOLIDAY IN THE CITY. 99
heard him within the last four days trying ' Madame Langlume,'
the ' Sire de Framboisy,' the waltz from La Fille de Madame
Angot, ' Quand j'etais roi ' from Orphee aux Enfers, the ' Chorus
of Old Men' from Faust, the 'Wedding March/ the ' Chant du
De'part,' and the ' Marseillaise ; ' and tlnVafternoon, passing down
the Rue St. Anne, I heard Tinion of Paris, as usual, at the win-
dow of his entresol, excoriating the graceful melody of ' God Bless
the Prince of Wales.' This performance was, no doubt, highly
complimentary to the Prince ; still I am glad that Mr. Brinle} r
Richards was not passing at the moment in question. There
might have been ' a Fite,' as Artemas Ward phrased it, between
Tinion and Apemantus. It is nevertheless amusing to reflect that,
even three j r ears since, one might as soon have expected to hear
the ail" of ' God Bless the Prince of Wales ' as ' Hold the Fort ' or
the ' Old Hundredth ' played at a Parisian window. Every day
seems to add, to all appearance, to the friendly feeling with which
the people of the city of Paris regard the heretofore perfldes Al-
bionnais. Scores of English words are being imported, not into
Academical, but into Boulevard French. Members of ' le high
life ' tell their ' ghrooms ' to put ' le steppeur ' into ' le T-quart.'
I heard a French gentleman recently substitute for the French
verb' atteler, to harness, .the to me extraordinary term 'hicher.'
' Mais c'est de l'anglais,' he said to me, apparently surprised at
my inability to understand what ' hicher ' meant. Suddenly I
remembered that the Americans occasionally ' hitch,' instead of
harnessing, or ' putting the horses to ' a carriage ; and I am not
prepared to say that ' hitch ' is not the tersest and most compre-
hensive term of the three.
Some thousands of horses were ' hitched ' to carriages, open
and closed, for the benefit of sightseers anxious to witness the
illuminations. The omnibuses, moreover, were all crammed in-
side and outside, the ladies scaling the knifeboard in the most
gallant manner imaginable. Equally overladen with humanity
were the enormous tapissiercs and chars-a-bancs, drawn by three
horses abreast, which perform le service de V Exposition. These
ir 2
100 PARIS HEBSELF AGAIX.
prodigious caravans are of very ancient origin. These indeed were
the Uhedce in use in Roman Gaul ; and you may see the vehicles
accurately figured in Mr. Anthony Rich's Dictionary of Greek and
Roman A ntiquities. These ponderous vehicles, owing much of their
velocity to their own momentum, usually go ' pounding ' along at a
terrible rate, pulling up for nobody, and occasionally running down
and smashing the poor crazy little victorias. But on the night of the
illuminations, omnibuses, tapissihres, and cltars-d-bancs were all
bound to move at a snail's pace, if indeed they could move at all.
The block from the Madeleine to the Chateau d'Eau was almost
continuous, and persons who had hired carriages at famine prices
were kept for three-quarters of an hour staring at the gas-devices
architectonically defining the lines of the huge premises of the
Credit Lyonnais, or half blinded by the electric light in the
Avenue de 1' Opera; whereas, had they been on foot, they might have
been borne gently in the midst of the best-tempered crowd in the
world along the whole length of the Boulevards. It is a capital
thing to take a carriage to see the streets of a great city illumi-
nated, if you can only persuade your neighbours to stay at home,
or to refrain from hiring carriages. So, I should imagine, a vast
number of sightseers thought. As far as the pedestrians were
concerned, there were a few ugly crushes and rushes, principally
at such always perilous corners as those of the Bue Lafitte, the
Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin, and especially the Bue du Faubourg
Montmartre ; but, on the whole, all things went very smoothly,
and I was not more than one hour and three-quarters getting
over an amount of pavement space which, under normal conditions,
I could have easily perambulated in twenty minutes. Certain of
the crowd, not content with the tricolor rosettes, which the great
majority wore, transformed themselves into itinerant illumi-
nations, carrying lighted Chinese lanterns in their hands, sus-
pending them to open umbrellas, and even wearing them on their
simple heads. With all this, the behaviour of the crowd was,
as a rule, simply perfect. Bad language, coarse ribaldry, and
brutal horseplay were altogether absent ; and it was only towards
HIGH HOLIDAY IN THE CITY.
101
AT THE PARIS FtTE, FROM THE ' JOURNAL AMUSANT '
midnight, when the crowd was thinning, that a few troops of
gawky lads began to make themselves obnoxious by tramping
along, waving coloured lanterns and yelping the ' Marseillaise.'
They were only the younger brothers of the gawky lads whom I
watched on the Boulevards in July, 1870, trooping along, and
howling, at the top of their voices, ' A Berlin, a Berlin ! ' Poor
gawky lads ! A more serious drawback to enjoyment was the in-
cessant discharge from houses in the back streets, or by Gavroches
on the pavement, of peiards, or squibs and crackers. On the occa-
sion of every popular fete in Paris, horses are terrified and thrown
down, and human life and limb endangered, by the reckless dis-
102 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
charge of these explosives, which rival in their noxious abundance
the squibs and crackers of a 4th of July celebration in New York.
It is quite time that the Paris police put the petards down.
Some o( my readers will no doubt remember the ' aristocratic
fete ' at poor old Cremorne Gardens ? The festival in question,
organised by a noble lord of artistic tastes, must have taken place
(how the time slips by !) nearly twenty years ago. Cremorne was
then in its glory ; the gardens were exquisitely pretty ; the enter-
tainments were varied, sparkling, and attractive ; and it occurred
to the noble lord that it would be a very nice thing to charter
Mr. Simpson's premises for a single evening, form a committee of
ladies patronesses, and, by the maintenance of a rigid system of
vouchers, exclude all but the crime de la crime of society from the
bowers, the buffets, the marionette theatre, and the dancing-
platform for that night only. The festival, harmless and even
ingenious in its inception, duly took place. The Brahminical
classes came, if not in their thousands, at least in their hundreds,
to the Chelsea Casino. There was music ; there was dancing ;
' twenty thousand additional lamps ' shone upon fair women and
brave men ; and all would have gone merry as a marriage bell,
only, unfortunately, it poured cats and dogs throughout the
evening ; and that which should have been an Almack's in the
open air was converted into a Festival of Umbrellas and a Carnival
of Goloshes.
Fierce downfalls of rain, combined with a furious wind, spoiled
a great many things in Paris on the day of the grand reception at
Versailles : the flags and Chinese lanterns still left hanging along
the boulevards, to wit; to say nothing" of the tempers of innumerable
promenaders who were overtaken bj'the showers and could not get
cabs. At Versailles the rain and the wind worked between them
even more mischief ; and the foulest of foul weather did its best to
spoil the magnificent fete given in the palace and gardens of Ver-
sailles by the President of the French Republic and Madame la
Marechale de MacMahon, Duchesse de Magenta, to the foreign
princes and grandees sojourning in Paris and the elite of Parisian
HIGH HOLIDAY IN THE CITY.
103
society. The gardens became one vast morass of mud ; the water
was ankle-deep in the ill-paved Cour de Marbre ; large numbers of
ladies had to walk a hundred yards from their carriages to the
.^uJ^
staircase of entrance ; trains were trodden upon ; lace scarves were
soaked ; silk stockings were splashed ; back hair came down limp
and damp, and gentlemen's white cravats hung pendent with
moisture. In the palace the crush was so great that hours were
104
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
consumed in arriving in the presence of the Marechale. Stout
determined ladies who engaged in the struggle with confidence
at the outset often had to abandon it long before they reached the
goal. To crown the drawbacks of the evening, the means of exit
were so ill-arranged that when the hour of departure arrived every-
body experienced the greatest difficulty in getting awa}\ Ladies
waited for long hours together on the staircases and in the vesti-
bules, unable to reach their carriages ; while gentlemen sought
HIGH HOLIDAY IN THE CITY.
105
despairingly for their greatcoats in the confusion that prevailed in
the vestiaire. The cloak-room arrangements were imperfect ; the
AT THE VERSAILLES FETE, FROM ' LA VIE PARISIENNE '
attendants had 'lost their heads;' Ulsters were handed to people who
ought to have had Inverness capes, and the lawful owners of over-
coats with Astracan collars could not obtain their property at all.
10(J
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
Apropos of this subject, one of the sallies of M. Paul de
Cassagnac, during the debate in the Chamber on the motion for
invalidating his election, was as humorous as it was hard-hitting.
Some disparaging observations on the wasteful expenditure of
money on the fetes given at Compiegne under the Empire having
been made by one of his adversaries, M. Paul de Cassagnac at
once fired up. ' At least,' he retorted, ' when the Emperor gave a
ball, he did not confiscate the greatcoats of his guests, as you did
the other night at Versailles.'
' Halloo ! why, you've got your greatcoat on ! So you didn't go to
the Versailles fete.'
DOUBLE-PRESSURE MACHINE FOR DISTRIBUTING THE AWARDS — THE ONLY
WOUNDED ONES ARE THOSE WHO ARE NOT HIT.
IX.
GRAND PRIZEMEN.
Oct. 26.
I have often wondered when passing that very fashionable florist's
shop close to the Grand Hotel des Capucines, who can be the pur-
chasers of the enormous bouquets — * bowpots,' our grandmothers
used to call them — which display their rainbow hues in the midst
of envelopes of paper large enough, to all seeming, to serve as
tablecloths for a party of four. No lady, I should say, of a stature
shorter than that of the Nova-Scotian Giantess could carry one of
those big bouquets. There are very few fashionable balls just at
present ; as society in the noble faubourg is waiting for the pro-
vincials and the ' Expositionards ' to go away before the real Paris
season begins. Presidential receptions and ministerial dinners do
not take place every night. For what purpose, then, are those
tremendous bouquets at the florist's near the Grand Hotel in-
tended ? I noticed that they grew bigger and bigger as the day
for the Distribution of Prizes drew nearer, and I began to fancy
that the prodigious assemblages of flowers would be presented —
of course, by young ladies in white muslin (four young ladies to
each bouquet) — to Madame la Marechale de MacMahon and her
princely and illustrious guests on their arrival at the Palais de
l'lndustrie. No, the big bouquets remained at the florists on the
Boulevard des Capucines throughout the rejoicings of that da}-.
108 TAIUS HERSELF AGAIN.
On the day following I went to the Exhibition ; and, entering by
the. Porte Etapp, one of the first objects that met my eye was the
biggest of all the big bouquets that the Paris florists could gather
together glowing on the axle of an immense wheel in the French
machinery department. I am not interested in machinery, and
am quite ignorant of the attributes of the particular piece of
mechanism in question. I only know that it is very large, that its
odour is not at all pleasant, and that when in motion it makes a
horrible noise, now reminding you of the lamentations of the late
Air. Van Amburgh's tawny pupils under his corrective crowbar, and
now suggestive of their howls of exultation in the supposititious
case of Mr. Van Amburgh dropping his crowbar, and the lions and
tigers being then in a position to fall upon and dine from off him.
At all events, there was the machine, and there, casting sunshine
in a shady place, was the big bouquet. There was something else.
Beneath the prodigious posy was a broad plaque, on which were
blazoned the magic words ' Grand Prix ! '
Very few and far between, however, are the machines and the
glass cases gay with enormous triumphal bouquets, and flaunting
the gleaming ensigns which notify that a Grand Prize has been
awarded to the fortunate exhibitor. Multitudinous are the cx-
jmsants deprived of the proud privilege of affixing to the forefront
of their stalls the bright tablets, with ' Grand Prix ' or even
* Medaille d'Or' inscribed thereon, and of celebrating their triumph
by a sacrifice to Flora. In general, among the French exhibitors
disappointment has not been met with cheerful or even with rue-
ful resignation. There has been a good deal of clenching of fists,
of bending of brows, and of muttering of maledictions both loud
and deep over the official prize-list; and Cham, the caricaturist,
with his usual humorous exaggeration, has aptly hinted at the
frame of mind of a non-recipient of rewards, who administers a
sounding kick to a peaceable individual who is looking at his
>.vares. ' Puisque je n'ai pas de medaille, je ne veux plus qu'on
regarde (bins ma vitrine !' — ' No medal, no more sightseeing!' cries
the enraged exhibitor. It is embarrassing to enter into converse
GRAND PRIZEMEN.
109
with these disappointed ones. They buttonhole you with terrible
tenacity, and pour fearful tales of wrong into your ears. ' Imagine,
my dear sir,' says Mon-
v j
sieur Philocome, of
the Passage Postiche,
perfumer, ' nothing for
my Pommade Pompa-
dour ; nothing for my
Rose Dub any lips-im-
prover ; nothing for
my Paphian eyebrow-
archer ; nothing for
my Mitylenian hair-
oil : while that animal,
that butor, that impos-
tor Coupechou of the
Passage Grosradis gets
two medals — two, my
dear sir, a gold and
a silver one — for his
miserable Sempiternal Carrot ! It is an infamy ; it is a scandal ;
c'est une pourriture /' The Sempiternal Carrot is, I am given to
understand, a simulation in indiarubber of the vegetable in ques-
tion, strongly impregnated with the juices of carrots, leeks, onions,
and so forth. On the Sempiternal Carrot being steeped in hot
water the flavour of julienne soup is, after a few minutes, im-
parted to the heated fluid ; and the carrot can then be taken out,
carefully dried, and put aside for future use in scecula sceculorum.
A highly ingenious invention.
The British public will rejoice to learn that a goodly number
of recompenses of the highest kind have been awarded to our own
countrymen. We have every reason to be proud of the show
which we have made in the Trocadero and the Champ de Mars.
And once again foreigners have generously admitted that we take
the lead in calicoes and woollen fabrics, metallurgy, machinery,
AT THE EXHIBITION (BY CHAM).
' As I've no medal, I'll not allow any one to
look at my case ! '
110
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
AT THE EXHIBITION AQUARIUM— AN ALARMING CONTINGENCY (BY CHAM).
' I know them well. If they don't get medals, they'll
all drown themselves.'
and machine tools, agricultural implements, ceramics, glass, bis-
cuits, preserved provisions, whisky, and beer. Sir Joseph Whit-
worth & Co. take a more splendid rank at Paris in 1878 than
Iierr Krupp took in 1867. The Whitworth exhibit has gained no
less than three Grand Prizes for machinery and metal working,
with a gold medal in addition for artilleiy. Altogether no less than
five Grand Prizes and twenty -two gold medals have been given to
British exhibitors in the single section of mining and metallurgy,
while in the section of 'fils et tissus de colon'' the Lancashire firm
of Testal, Broadhurst, & Co. secure the Grand Prix, and six other
houses receive gold medals for products in the same class. Further,
a Grand Prix and four gold medals have been given for thread
and linen fabrics, and nine gold medals for woollen cloths. The
manufacturers of agricultural implements too, with Messrs. John
Fowler & Co. at their head, have carried off a Grand Prix, and
fourteen gold medals, besides which a Grand Prix and seven
gold medals have fallen to the lot of exhibitors in the horticul-
tural section.
GRAND PRIZEMEN. Ill
Equally gratifying is the recognition accorded to the manufac-
turers of pottery and of glass. In ceramics Minton of course
takes a Grand Prix. Due justice has thus been done to the superb
works in ceramics exhibited by the renowned firm of Stoke-on-
Trent. Another Grand Prix has been awarded to Messrs. Doulton
for their admirable Lambeth faience ; while gold medals have been
given to the historic houses of Copeland and of Wedgwood, to
Brown, Westhead, & Co., and to the Worcester Porcelain Works
— not because their productions are in any way inferior to those
of Minton or of Doulton, but because there were no more Grand
Prizes in this particular section to give away. There was one,
however, to be bestowed in the section for glass, and this has
been awarded to Messrs. Thomas Webb & Sons, of Stourbridge
and London, for their varied and magnificent display, and notably
for the unique specimens of engraving upon glass which formed
so splendid a feature of their exhibit.
This distinguished firm of artistic glass manufacturers unde-
niably deserve to be placed in the forefront of the ' laureats ' of
the Exhibition, since to them has been allotted the only Grand
Prix in their peculiar department of production. English glass
manufacturers have been, as a rule, regarded with extreme jealousy
by French manufacturers and experts, who are justifiably desirous
to uphold the prestige of their own Cristalleries de Baccarat, which
are virtually a State institution, being conducted by M. Michaud
on behalf of the French Government. Since, however, a Treaty
of Commerce has been concluded between the two great civilising
Powers of Europe, and the public mind in France is slowly but
steadily becoming imbued with a conviction of the advantages of
Free-trade, this jealousy has been gradually disappearing. As
regards ceramics it has well-nigh entirely disappeared. French
potters are beginning to acknowledge that neither Sevres nor any
other private enterprise is endangered by the competition of
Minton, of Wedgwood, or of Doulton ; and the honours conferred
on Messrs. Thomas Webb & Sons go far in the direction of
proving that justice and right feeling will be extended to other
112 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
branches of British manufacture. In many respects the Webb
display must be held superior to that of Baccarat, which, all-
beautiful as it is in artistic design, has a certain ' milkiness ' of
hue and a deficiency of sharpness of cutting which suggest either
want of skill in mixing the ' metal,' or coarseness in the moulds
employed for the rough forms from which such glass, which
cannot be blown, must originally be cast. The effect of Baccarat
glass is, on the whole, too cold and pale. It lacks what diamond
merchants call ' show ; ' and the brilliance of its ' water,' as com-
pared with that of first-rate English glass, is as the brilliance of
gas as compared with that of the electric light.
All styles and periods are illustrated in the ornamental glass
of Messrs. Webb. There are specimens in the Egyptian, the
Assyrian, the Persian, the Indian, the Greek, the Italian, and the
Celtic styles ; there is glass of Byzantine, of Gothic, of Renais-
sance, and of Rococo design and decoration. In particular must
artistic beauty and technical skill be recognised in the cameo-
sculptured vases in the manner of the renowned Portland Vase
which Josiali Wedgwood successfully imitated in ceramics, but
which Messrs. Webb have been the first to produce in the genuine
material of which the Portland Vase is composed — blue and white
opaque and semi-translucent glass. These exquisite vases have,
however, been purposely excluded by the jury from their con-
sideration of this particular display, which has been judged on its
true decorative and technical merits, quite apart from the unique
characteristics of the cameo-sculptured vases. The most con-
spicuous object is the Panathenaic glass vase, superbly engraved in
high relief with a design adapted from the frieze of the Parthenon.
Then there is a superb Benaissance vase, covered with engraved
arabesques with classical subjects in the cartouches. This has been
bought for 5000 francs, as one of the prizes in the Exhibition
Lottery. A Perso-Gothic service, engraved with a quaintly mediaeval
diaper, and a Gothic cup or tankard — what the French term a hanap
— with a fantastically grotesque design engraved upon it, next call
for attention ; and there is likewise a vase of Indian form, so ex-
c
GRAND PRIZEMEN'.
113
quisitely delicate in its engraved tracery,
that, to my mind, it ought to be called the
' Cobweb ' Yase.
ENGRAVED 1 LABET JTJG IN THE
SIC STYLE.
>o»
y^lits*;-
ENGRAVED EWER OE INDIAN FORM.
Of useful objects of a high artistic character, such as claret and
water jugs, the firm make a veiy interesting display, alike in the
Classic, Itenaissance, Gothic, and Rococo styles, one handsome
example of the former being decorated with a delicately-engraved
equestrian procession from the Parthenon frieze. Equally elegant
are the magnum claret jugs designed by Mr. D. Pearce, and either
overspread with a rich tracery of trellised flowers and foliage inter-
VOL. II. I
114
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
ENGRAVED MAGNUM CLARET JUG.
ENGRAVED WATER JUG, ITALIAN STYLE.
spersed with birds and insects, or ornamented with classical groups
enclosed in a floral framework of graceful design. In a far bolder
style is a jewel-handled jug deeply engraved with eagles and inter-
lacing oak-branches encompassing a central shield designed to con-
tain a crest. Add to the foregoing a remarkable and substantially
unique specimen of boldly-perforated glass, in the ' water service,'
and some triumphs of under-cutting in dishes, salt-cellars, sugar-
basins, and the like, so lustrous in their sheen that they look like
half a dozen Koh-i-noors welded together; gigantic 'hair-twist' and
Queen Anne chandeliers; towering candelabra of cut glass; and a
perfectly unique vase in what, for want of a better definition, must
be technically qualified as ' iridescent-polychromatic-crackle,' but
which, I believe, from the pattern of its decoration, will be more
GRAND PRIZEMEN.
11;
BOLDLY ENGRAVED CLARET JUG.
tersely christened the ' Scarabseus' Vase ;* and some slight idea
will be formed of the merits of the display made by Messrs. Thomas
Webb & Sons, which in its way must be considered as various,
* This patenteS Scarabaeus glass, which Messrs. Thomas Webb & Sons
are now manufacturing in various forms, is om' of the few novel things
deserving the attention of collectors of taste. The latter, by the way, Avill
be glad to know that the engraved Parthenon vase, and several of the more
i 2
116
r.UUS IIKRSELF AGAIN',
RICHLY ENGRAVED DOUBLE MAGNUM
CLARET JUG.
DEEPLY-CUT SUGAR VASE AND COVER.
as beauteous, and as honourable to English skill and enterprise as
the productions of the Elkingtons in orfecrerie, and of Minton and
others in pottery. The bronzed glass of Messrs. Webb is also
exceedingly fine, and they exhibit likewise a multitude of charming
little to} r s and table ornaments in glass, which an inexperienced
observer might imagine to be articles de Paris, but which are
nevertheless, like the more important and superb examples of
sculptured cameo, intaglio, and engraved glass, exclusively due to
the talent and ingenuity of British workmen and executants. I
beautiful unsold objects belonging to Messrs. Webb's Paris exhibit, are to be
seen at Messrs. Thomas Goode & Son's in South Audley Street, and that
Mr. W. Mortlock of St. James's Street, likewise has an assortment of Messrs,
Webb's artistic "lass.
GRAND PRIZEMEN. 117
hold this to be a most important point, artistically and nationally
considered. I admire and respect the French art-workman in his
own atelier ; but in the studio and the workshop of the British
manufacturer I want to see the British designer and craftsman
reigning supreme, and holding their own against all comers. This
they do at Stourbridge, where a host of native talent numbers among
its more conspicuous representatives such notable artists as Messrs.
Pearce, Northwood, Kny, Woodhall, and O'Fallon, the latter as fami-
liar with the masterpieces of Phidias and Praxiteles as with the Book
of Kells and the remotest examples of Attic ornamentation extant.
The splendid distinction of a Grand Prix, the only one awarded
to exhibitors of furniture in the British section, has also been con-
ferred on Messrs. Jackson & Graham, a firm which for years past have
taken the lead in England in the production of artistic furniture
of the very highest class; such, for instance, as the beautiful objects
manufactured by them for Mr. Alfred Morrison from Owen Jones's
designs. The whole of Messrs. Jackson & Graham's Paris exhibit
is of a nature to sustain the high reputation of the house, which
counts among the honours it has secured at former Industrial
Exhibitions numerous gold medals and grand diplomas, together
with the Cross of the Legion of Honour and the Order of Franz-
Josef conferred upon its leading representatives. The master-
pieces of the firm at the present Exhibition are a couple of cabinets,
both of them in eboiry, skilfully relieved with other woods, and
exquisitely inlaid with ivory. The more ornate of these productions
is the so-called Juno Cabinet, which in the symmetry of its design
— displaying great originality without being in anywise eccentric
— the elaborateness of its ornamentation, and the astonishing deli-
cacy and skilfulness of its technical execution surpasses, as an ex-
ample of artistic cabinet-making, the most brilliant achievements
of the Italian and Flemish Renaissance and Sixteenth-century
rhnu.ites. The principal panel of this admirable specimen of art-
workmanship is occupied by the head of Juno, sedate and queenly-
looking ; and in a shield on the pediment above is the traditional
peacock. Heads of Venus and Minerva decorate the panels on the
118 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX.
right and left; the intermediate spaces being occupied with repre-
sentations of the Earth and the Ocean, flanked by narrow panels
inlaid with semblances of peacocks' feathers ; other emblems,
such as the golden apple, the olive, rose, and myrtle, filling the
lower panels of the cabinet. The whole of these decorations are
daintily inlaid with box and other fancy woods, ivory and mother-
of-pearl, besides which, exquisitely delicate inlays of ivory enter
largely into the ornamentation of all the mouldings.
The second cabinet, designed by Mr. A. Lormier, in the style
of the Italian Renaissance, is a work of equal beauty, marked
by the same elaboration of detail and marvellous finish of execu-
tion. It is of figured ebony, thuya, box, and ivory, with palmwood
panels, the whole being skilfully disposed to produce a harmoni-
ous blending of contrasting colours ; and the delicate inlays and
exquisite engravings relieving, and, as it were, illuminating, the
complete work. Another interesting object in Messrs. Jackson
& Graham's display is an escritoire of sandal and other woods,
varied by inlays and mouldings of ivory, in the light and graceful
style of the French Renaissance, a charming piece of furniture
which Mrs. Brassey has shown her taste by acquiring. The same
lady is also said to be the purchaser of Mr. Lormier's exquisitely
finished inlaid boxwood cabinet, with mantelpiece and chimney
ornaments en suite, comprised in Messrs. Jackson & Graham's
exhibit, which also includes a Chippendale vitrine for displaying
objects of vertu, and a cabinet and bonheur du jour, inlaid with
ivory and various coloured woods, but chief!}' remarkable for their
panels of rare old Japanese niello and lacquer work. Graceful and
elegant as the decorative furniture in the French section un-
questionably is, it excels neither as regards perfection of taste, nor
delicacy and skilfulness of workmanship, the half-dozen notable
objects which form the strength of Messrs. Jackson & Graham's
artistic display.
The unique Grand Prix, given in the French as in the
English furniture department, has not fallen to the lot of M.
Penon, the exhibitor of the sumptuously appointed chambre d
GRAND PRIZEMEN.
119
eoucher d'unc grande dame, upon which I remarked rather fully in
one of my early letters, but to the famous house of Fourdinois,
whose more chaste and more severely artistic exhibition has very
properly secured the exceptional award.
Amongst its principal features are two pairs of elaborately
carved doors, one of them designed for a library, and of various
dark woods, being in the Greek style, with medallions of Apollo
and Minerva in the centre panels, and a graceful reclining figure
personifying Study in the pediment. The other doors are also of
the classic type, but are far richer as regards colour as well as more
monumental in character, being intended indeed for the entrance to
a gallery. They are of polished walnut, with the heavy framework
JEWEL CABINET AND ESCRITOIRE, EXHIBITED BY M. FOURDINOIS.
of the doorway in richly-carved oak, relieved with mouldings of
antique red marble, and are decorated with marqueterie, bronze
120
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
panels containing groups symbolical of the Arts and enamel
medallions on a large scale, superbly executed by M. Hippolyte
Rousselle. M. Fourdinois likewise exhibits a Renaissance table
in pale oak, supported by gracefully designed caryatides ; a gilt
Louis Seize console, with the legs linked together with richly-
carved garlands of flowers ; a fine oak bookcase, inlaid with brass
and steel and decorated with enamels ; a superb Renaissance and
a Louis Seize cabinet; also some magnificent lampadaires and tor-
cheres; and a perfect little gem of artistic furniture in the form of
a jewel cabinet and escritoire in satin-wood, lavishly enriched with
carved and inlaid silver- work and delicate enamel miniatures, and
with detached columns
of bronze and lapis laz-
uli, supporting daintily-
carved ivory statuettes.
On several occasions I
have cursorily alluded to
the excellence of the dis-
play made by Messrs.
Doulton of the Lambeth
Potteries; but hitherto I
have lacked the time to
examine their exhibits in
detail. I find, now, the
most conspicuous objects
among them are, first
the coloured stoneware,
generic-ally known as
' Doulton ware,' in which
warmth of hue and bril-
liance of glaze give life
and harmony to a nor-
mally sombre material. Panels and plaques of terra-cotta, with
borders of ' Doulton ware,' intended for the decoration of walls,
also columns of the same ware, together with balusters for
GRAND PRIZEMEN.
121
staircases and balconies, likewise attract attention. It is worth
while reminding foreign amateurs of pottery that Messrs. Doulton's
house, although established at the beginning of the present century,
confined themselves, until about twenty 3 r ears ago, mainly to the
production of earthenware of a strictly utilitarian character — pipes
and pots for domestic and manufacturing purposes. By degrees
the fabrication of articles in fine clay was added ; and eventu-
ally the energies of the firm were devoted to terra-cotta, and to
the making of the characteristic metallic blue ware. The skilfullest
of modellers and draughtsmen from the neighbouring Lambeth
School of Art — it is only
necessary in this connec-
tion to mention the name
of Mr. Tinworth — were
secured to design and
ornament the new ware ;
and, as time progressed,
man}' original processes,
both in colouring, glaz-
ing, firing, and general
manipulation, enhanced
the "beauty and singu-
larity of the articles.
.Jewelling, ' applique,'
' cloisonne,' 'champ-leve,'
' enamelling,' ' incision,'
were all pressed into the
service of decorating
< arthenwarej thechoicest
classical and mediaeval
forms were chosen, the
richest decorations of
the early and later Renaissance were adopted: the triumphant
result being a ware thoroughly sui generis, combining the very
finest qualities of the old Italian faenza and the Teutonic gres
122
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
Flamand, while preserving a distinctly original British cha-
racter.
The ornamentation of 'Doulton ware' — accomplished substantially
by hand— takes place immediately after the object leaves the potter's
wheel, and is effected by incrusting the surface with a raised decora-
tive pattern ; or else by indenting the required design, or by engrav-
ing the surface with incised lines in the ' sgraffito ' manner ; and
EXAMPLES OF DOULTON WARE AND LAMBETH FAIENCE.
further, by painting the patterns thus produced in various colours.
When the ornamentation is completed, the object is exposed to the
fierce white heat of a furnace for several days ; and salt being thrown
in, the delicate transparent glazing, for which the ware is noted,
results. Ewers and tazze, vases and plateaux of ' Doulton ware ' are
now eagerly prized by French amateurs of ceramics, and are rapidly
superseding the modern reproductions of Palissy ware, of which, a
few years ago, the French were so immoderately fond. Almost
GRAND PRIZEMEN. 123
an equally interesting feature of Messrs. Doulton's exhibit is the
many beautiful examples of their so-called Lambeth faience, a
species of revived majolica, among which are some grand plaques,
painted with birds, flowers, and landscapes — one of these being no
less than five feet in diameter. The recompenses awarded to
Messrs. Doulton comprise the Grand Prix for architectural terra-
cotta and for ' Doulton ware '■— that is, the brown and blue-beaded
or jewelled pottery ; a gold medal for the Lambeth faience and
gres Flamand ware ; another gold medal for simple stone ware
employed in chemical manufactories ; and four additional medals
for plumbago fire-clay ware and domestic stone ware. Two of
these last-named rewards are of silver, one of them going to that
talented artist, Mr. George Tinworth, the gifted art-adviser of the
Lambeth firm.
From ornamental glass, artistic furniture, and ceramic master-
pieces to such ostensibly humble things as biscuits may appear to
be a very undignified descent ; but International Exhibition juries
are very catholic bodies indeed, and, while distributing Grands
Prix and Gold Medals among the Webbs, the Tiffanys, the Elking-
tons, the Doultons, and the Jackson & Grahams, they hold by the
doctrine that those who minister to the comforts as well as those
whose products conduce to the elegance of domestic life are en-
titled to a fair share in the splendid distinctions which it is in
their power to confer. The only Grand Prix in the Alimentary
Department which goes to England has been awarded to Messrs.
Huntley & Palmers, biscuit manufacturers, whose indefatigable
Continental agent, Mr. Joseph Leete, has spared no pains to
make the display of the renowned Reading firm attractive
and complete. Although Huntley & Palmers' manufactory in
its origin, some fifty years ago, was of a very modest character,
to-day it is a town in itself, like Salt aire in Yorkshire, and Le
Creusot in France, and employs about 3000 hands. Every year
the ' great biscuit town' on the Kennet sends forth many thousands
of tons of biscuits of every form and flavour, and cakes of all
descriptions. I lack the space to enumerate even a tithe of the
124 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
astonishingly varied assortment of biscuits exhibited by Huntley
& Palmers in their handsome kiosque in the Champ de Mars,
and shrink from the peril of losing myself in the wilderness of
'Abernethys,' 'Alberts,' 'Argyles,' 'Bijous,' 'Brightons,' 'Button
Nuts,' ' Citrons,' ' Combinations,' ' Cracknels,' ' Diets,' ' Diges-
tives,' ' Dovers,' ' Excursions,' ' Festals,' ' Fijis,' ' Gems,' ' Ice
Creams and Waifers,' ' Joujous,' ' Knobbles,' ' Lemons,' ' Lornes,'
4 Macaroons,' ' Maries,' ' Mediums,' ' Meat Wafers,' ' Orientals,'
'Osbornes,' 'Pearls,' 'Picnics,' 'Princes,' 'Queens,' ' Raspberries, '
'Savoys,' 'Sponge Rusks,' 'Stars,' 'Sodas,' 'Travellers,' 'Unions,'
' Vanillas,' ' Walnuts,' ' Wafers,' and ' Yachts ; ' but specimens of
all these, and a few score more, in tins, square and round, long and
short, thick and thin, or arranged in fanciful patterns, present a
most appetising appearance in the Reading kiosque, around which
a biscuit scramble goes on every afternoon, when, thanks to the
gallantry of the young gentleman in charge of these attractive deli-
cacies, the youngest and the prettiest of the fair sex invariably
emerge victorious. I am not inclined to think that the jury, in
awarding the Grand Prix to this remarkable alimentary display,
were over-influenced by the appearance under a glass case of a
colossal and superb bride-cake. The symmetrical form and the
sumptuous decoration of the gateau de noccs may have made a due
impression on them ; but the more unprejudiced and experienced
among the real experts must have been led to acknowledge the
superlative excellence of Huntley & Palmers' biscuits from con-
siderations based on the simple fact that the French, eminent and
even illustrious as they are as pastrycooks and confectioners,
are incompetent to make biscuits that will keep. French bis-
cuits are sweet, showy, and succulent; but, after a day or two,
e'en est fini avec eux. Thej T lose their gloss, their flavour, and
their crispness, and become limp, sour, dry, and tasteless. The
English biscuit, scrupulously prepared and as scrupulously
packed, will defy time and climate. That is why scarcely a ship
sails from England without a consignment of Reading biscuits in
its hold ; and this is why you will find Huntley & Palmers' biscuits,
GRAND PRIZEMEN.
125
just as you will find Elkington's spoons and forks, and Allsopp's
2)ale ale — the great firm of Burton-on-Trent are not exhibitors, but
their beer is to be found at any buffet in the parks of the Troca-
dero and the Champ de Mars — the whole world over, not only in
the great centres of civilisation, but in the remotest and most
barbarous regions. Biscuits and chocolate are about the most
portable articles of sustenance that a traveller in strange lands can
cany with him ; and many a wanderer in distant climes may have
been able to stave off starvation by means of a tin of Huntley &
Palmers' 'Sponge Busks,' 'Diets,' ' Abernethys,' or 'Yachts.'
The French have come frankly to acknowledge our preeminence
as biscuit manufacturers. It is the machinery, some say, that
enables les Anglais to excel in this particular branch of production.
It is the purity of the flour, the delicacy of the manipulation, the
richness of the sugar. It is le Libre Echange, for no doubt Free-
trade has realty had something to do with the prodigious develop-
ment of our biscuit trade.
'No gold medal, me 1'
' No ; copper-coloured exhibitors only get copper medals.'
X.
GOLD MEDALLISTS.
Oct. 30.
' Ah, je n'ai pas de medaille ! ' yells an exasperated French exhi-
bitor, in Cham's latest cartoon in the Charivari. The exasperated
exhibitor is a pianoforte manufacturer ; and, on the principle of a
man being privileged to do what he likes with his own, he is
executing a concerto of the most violent description on the instru-
ment on which a grudging international jury have declined to
confer a recompense. 'No medal, eh?' screams the exhibitor.
Whack ! go three octaves at one blow of his infuriate fist. ' Pas
de medaille ! ' Bang ! The heel of the exhibitor's boot has de-
stroyed another half-score of fiats and sharps. The pedals have
already come to grief. May not a man do what he likes with his
own ? The famous Bulwerian query, ' What will he do with it ? '
applies, however, to a vast number of articles in the Exhibition in
GOLD MEDALLISTS. 127
addition to objects which have failed to gain a prize. I notice
among the gifts made by spirited exposants to swell the list of
prizes in the Exhibition lottery an enormous glass jar full of
calcined magnesia. "What on earth will the fortunate winner of
that particular prize in the gigantic raffle do with his treasure ?
You may have too much of a good thing — even of calcined mag-
nesia. Then there is the very phenomenal bouquet in the French
section. This wondrous monster posy purports to be composed of
flowers and foliage in an infinite variet} r of form and colour ; but it
is in reality made entirely from feathers. Those who have seen
the astonishingly beautiful feather tapestry of the Mexicans, in
which perfect pictures are made from the plumes of humming-
birds, may not think the French Exhibition bouquet such a phe-
nomenal production after all ; and my own memory recalls two
more bouquets which, to my mind, are far more curious and inter-
esting than the one at which the flaneurs in the Champ de Mars
will be privileged for a few more days to gape. There is, in
Messrs. Elkington's show-rooms in Newhall Street, Birmingham, a
bouquet presented by Miss Elkington to the Princess of Wales, on
the occasion of her Koyal Highness's visit to the Midland metro-
polis — a bouquet of real flowers, the leaves and petals of which
have been indued by means of four distinct processes of electro-
metallurgy with a coating of as many different metals — gold, silver,
copper, and iron. I am not quite sure that there is not a fifth
metal in the shape of aluminium. A smaller but even more inter-
esting bunch of flowers is preserved under a glass case in the
drawing-room of a very great lady indeed in London. It is more
than a quarter of a century old, and is entirely gilt. It is worth
a double and a triple coating of gold, for it was presented to the
great lady by Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington and Prince of
Waterloo.
To return, however, to the medal question, which is disturbing
the mental equilibrium not merely of Cham's typical manufacturer
of musical instruments, but of thousands of his fellow-exhibitors
in all the various classes of the great international congress of art
1'28 PARIS UKt&EIA? AGAIX.
and industry. â– Fortunately, however, my business is not with the
discontented ones who have failed to gain gold medals, hut with
their jubilant successful competitors, the merits of whose dis-
plays have been conspicuously recognised by the awards of the
international jury. In alluding, as I am about to do, to the
more interesting of these exhibits in the British section on
which the distinction of a Gold Medal has been conferred, it
would be unpardonable on my part if I failed to render full
justice to the brilliant and tasteful display made by Messrs.
Osier & Co. of Birmingham and London, who have gained the
Gold Medal for glass, seeing that the name of Osier is inseparably
connected with the history of International Exhibitions. Osier's
great Crystal Fountain stood in the centre of the transept of the
Palace of Glass in Hyde Park in 1851 ; and the house has ever
since maintained its fame as manufacturers, not only of every
variety of table and ornamental glass, but of works of a monu-
mental character — what the French call grosses pieces. There
may be those among my readers who can remember '51 in Hyde
Park. Osier's fountain was a favourite try sting- place then, just
as Gustave Dore's vase is in the Paris Exhibition now. ' Meet me
at the Crystal Fountain at a quarter to four,' you used to say to the
adored one of your heart. She smiled and blushed consent ; and
she was true to her rendezvous, judiciously bringing her youngest
sister, aged nine, with her. It was the adored one of your heart
who broke it by marrying Captain Prosser, late of the Bombay
Fencibles. You met her the other day looking at Barbedienne's
bronzes in the Exhibition. She is the mother of eight, and a
grandmother — ha, ha ! — a grandmother ! She remarked that } r ou
had grown stout. You managed to get that heart which she
broke mended ; but now and again you feel the brass rivets which
keep the cracked organ together pressing against your ribs. Stout^
indeed ! You watched her breakfasting at the Kestaurant Cate-
lain, and she ate ' biftek aux pommes ' enough for two — she who
could with difficult}' be persuaded in '51 to partake of so much
as a Bath bun at Farrance's.
GOLD MEDALLISTS. 129
The Due de St. Simon was wont to ascribe the wars in which
the latter years of the reign of Louis XIV. were passed to the
jealously excited among the sovereigns of Europe by the then
unsurpassed Gallerie des Glaces at Versailles ; but it is to be
hoped that no Power, civilised, semi-civilised, or barbarous, will
be impelled to defy us to mortal combat because Messrs. Osier,
after having challenged all possible rivalry with the Crystal Foun-
tain in 1851, have maintained equal supremacy in every succeeding
Exhibition, and in 1878 come forward with a colossal sideboard, a
splendid crystal throne, and some of the largest and most superb
crystal chandeliers ever produced. The sideboard is of Gothic
design ; and, with the exceptions of the mouldings of the arches,
which are of gold, and the top of the buffet and the base, which
are of ebony, is wholly composed of glass — glass in sheets, glass
in blocks, in panels, in pilasters, in brackets — huge wedges and
quoins and crockets and finials of crystal, thicker than the inex-
perienced observer could imagine to have ever been cast and hewn
and cut and polished from so ostensibly fragile a material, but
which look, nevertheless, as hard as adamant, and which have the
sheen and the prismatic hues of diamonds of the purest water.
The cushion of the throne — fittest, perhaps, to serve as the judg-
ment-seat of some Eastern potentate — is of crimson velvet. The
arms, legs, and back are all of pure and radiant crystal. I defer-
entially venture to express the opinion that if this crystal throne
could be acquired by the Indian Government, and if Lord Lytton
were only to send a photograph of this dazzling piece of furniture
to Shere Ali, with an intimation that it should be his if he would
only promise to be a good Ameer, and have nothing more to do
with those wicked Russians, the morose ruler of Afghanistan would
straightway promise to abandon all his intrigues, to forswear his
Muscovite alliances, and to welcome a British embassy with a
powerful escort three times a week.* Deem not the remedy which
* Since this was written, Shere Ali has joined the majority, and Yakooh
Khan has abdicated ; still we might succeed in attaching the new sovereign of
Afghanistan; whoever he may he, firmly to us by the present of a crystal throne.
vol. ir. K
130 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
I have suggested a ridiculous one. A dinner at Ve'ry's in the Palais
Royal, in July 1815, timeously organised by the Duke of Welling-
ton, was sufficient to dissuade Blucher from blowing up the Bridge
of Jena. ' I must and will blow it up,' grumbled old ' Marshal
Vorwarts' over his bisque soup. But when he got to his parfait au
cafe and his third bottle of Moet and Chandon, and was preparing
to light his meerschaum, he seized the Duke's hand, and cried,
' Never was there such a dinner; I will not blow up the Bridge of
Jena.'
"While the exhibit of Messrs. Osier is distinguished for the vast
size and rare quality of the magisterial lustres, equal excellence is
shown in a varied assortment of smaller chandeliers and girandoles
of artistic metal work in combination with crystal glass. These last-
named articles are especially worth attention. We have already done
some surprisingly good things in brazen and bronze-gilt chandeliers :
the only drawback to which, as articles of decoration, is that they are
somewhat heavy in appearance, and have too much of a strictly
ecclesiastical, or at least mediaeval, look ; but in the new combi-
nation introduced by Messrs. Osier the impressive grandeur of
artistically-worked brass or gilt bronze is combined with the ele-
gance and the lightness of the crystal surroundings. Early English
still holds its place in the public favour at home as a style of
decoration eminently suitable to our wants and wishes; and Messrs.
Osier have produced an article, the design of which must fully
satisfy the aesthetic tastes of the admirers of Pugin, of Gilbert
Scott, and of Street ; while at the same time it ministers equally
to the enjoyment of those who love the elegant richness of the
Italian, and especially of the Venetian, Renaissance. Ample illus-
trations are also given in the Osier display of table-lamps and
candelabra and flower- vases of great variety and elegance of design ;
and it is well for the credit of our glass manufacturers that such
an historic firm as Messrs. Osier's should have shown their
thorough capacity to produce not only the monumental articles —
the grosses pieces, the contemplation of which astonishes and
delights the spectator, but which only Emperors and Kings, or
GOLD MEDALLISTS. 131
Sultans and Rajahs, could purchase — but likewise smaller and more
portable objects in glass, exquisitely pure in material, perfect in
artistic design, graceful alike in form and ornamentation, and
pecuniarily within the means of those who wish to decorate their
houses handsomely, but without ruining themselves.
I am told that when the late Ibrahim Pasha (whom Wright, the
low comedian, always persisted in calling 'Abraham Parker'),
visited Birmingham in 1845, he went over Messrs. Osier's works,
-and expressed a strong desire to purchase a colossal candelabrum.
Xext day a full-sized drawing of the obj ect required, upwards of twelve
feet high, was submitted to his Egyptian Highness. On the follow-
ing day an order was given for a pair of candelabra, each sustaining
a cluster of lights; and Messrs. Osier were left to devise the means
for carrying out an order involving the production of masses of
glass far exceeding in size anything before manufactured. The
great work, however, was finished ; and when it was completed,
they were seen by Prince Albert, by the Duke of Wellington, and
by Sir Robert Peel. The Prince Consort, indeed, was so pleased
that he ordered a pair of candelabra of somewhat smaller size as a
(birthday present for her Majesty the Queen. These are now at
Balmoral. On the arrival of Ibrahim Pasha's candelabra in
Egypt, the magnificence of the pieces created so great an impression
that commissions were sent to Messrs. Osier for a second and a
third pair; one pair being destined for the tomb of the Prophet at
Medina. In the palaces of the Sultan at Constantinople there are
also many superb specimens of Osier's main d'oeuvrc.
When her Majesty Queen Victoria visited Birmingham in 1858
to open Aston Hall, a magnificent specimen of Tudor architecture,
Messrs. Osier produced a service of glass in the Tudor st} r le for
the royal luncheon; and her Majesty was so struck with the artistic
beauty of the service that she then and there expressed a wish to
carry away the glass from which she had been drinking. Her
Majesty subsequently ordered more than one set as presents to the
loyal children on their marriage ; viz. one for the Crown Princess
of Prussia (Princess Royal of England), and another for the
K 2
132
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
lamented Princess Alice of Hesse Darmstadt. There are chande-
liers and lustres of Messrs. Osier's handiwork in the ballroom and
supper-room at Buckingham Palace, in the Waterloo Galleiy at
Windsor Castle, in the Reception-room and the Egyptian Hall at
the Mansion House, and in the Council Chamber and the new
Library at Guildhall; besides services of table-glass for the
Queen's table at Buckingham Palace, and at other royal resi-
dences.
I have ahead}' mentioned that the Royal Worcester Porcelain
Works have received the Gold Medal for their highly-interesting
ceramic display. It could scarcely have been otherwise, since the
mere enamels exhibited merit this distinction independently of the
jewelled porcelain on which the establishment prides itself, the
delicately-ornamented ivory ware, the graceful adaptations from
the Japanese, the attractive table ser-
vices in the old Worcester style, and the
collection of vases, Venetian bottles,
plaques, and plateau in a new highly-
vitrified faience, wherein combina-
tions of blue, white, and gold, are
PERFORATED AND GILT VASE AND
COVER IN IVORY FORCELAIN.
PERFORATED AND GILT VASE IN THK
JAPANESE STYLE.
GOLD MEDALLISTS.
133
introduced with a superb effect. Varied as
the collection altogether is, many of the
more recent productions indicate in a de-
cided manner the art-influence of Japan ;
still it is not so much the spirit of slavish
imitation that is apparent as the judicious
adaptation of the more graceful forms and
higher styles of ornamentation in vogue
among the aesthetic and skilful Orientals,
from whom Europe and America are alike
deriving lessons in decorative art. Mr.
E. W. Binns, the director of the Worcester
Porcelain Works, wisely indifferent to all
crazes and fevers of fashion, has discrimi-
natingly applied the truths which the
Japanese models teach, with a result that
is much to be commended. Among the
examples exhibited there are services as
well as isolated pieces in which flowers and
birds, treated after
the Japanese fashion,
are intermingled
with butterflies
and similar ob-
jects in gold and
bronze relief, se-
curing by this
means a rich and
solid effect very
far superior to
that of ordinary
gilding. Theper-
forated flower-
vases and jardi-
nieres, decorated
RENAISSANCE VASE.
J A RDimERE WITH PERFORATED I'AXELSIN THE JAPANESE STYLE.
134
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
with gold and bronze of different shades, while retaining some of
their Oriental qnnintness, are certainly not devoid of grace; and the
same ma}- be said of the blue pilgrim-shaped vase with its Japanese
figures and gold and bronze ornamentation, and of the flower-vases
of novel form painted in brilliant blue and white. One Worcester
novelty is the imitation of the Namako glazed ware, which lends
itself effectively to decorative purposes from the richness of the
tones of its judiciously -blended colours.
PILGRIM-BOTTLE-SHArED VASE IX
BLUE AND GOLD.
JAPANESE VASE IN BLUE
AND WHITE.
Unquestionably the most important objects displayed by the
famous Worcester establishment are the pair of large vases in the
Renaissance style, ornamented with delicately-modelled bas-reliefs
in richly-framed compartments on their sides. The subjects on
the one vase comprise the mediaeval potter working at his wheel
and the modeller applying the finishing touches to the statuette of
some saint, while represented on the other are the painter engaged
on the decoration of a vase and the furnace-man intent upon his
anxious task. Admirably moulded heads of celebrated artists of
GOLD MEDALLISTS.
135
LARGE RENAISSANCE VASE — SUBJECT, THE POTTER.
the period of the Renaissance, who lent the aid of their great
talents towards the production of the ceramic masterpieces of the
epoch, form the handles of this fine pair of vases, which certainly
sustain the ancient reputation of the Royal Worcester Works.
The marked progress made of recent years by a Staffordshire
firm, whose productions I have already referred to in terms of com-
mendation, has, I am glad to say, been acknowledged by the award
13G
rARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
of a Gold Medal. Messrs. Brown-Westhead, Moore, & Co. of
Cauldon Vhxco, exhibit decorative porcelain and pottery of a high
order in great variety, including elegantly-designed vases painted
with subjects by Landgraff, Legere, and other notable artists, well-
iXi-ii«v
VASES AXD FLOWER-HOLDERS, EXHIBITED BY MESSRS. BROWN-WESTHEAD AND CO.
modelled representations of animals, graceful and grotesque flower-
holders, dragon lamps, colossal candelabra, and brackets of much
originality of form, many of these productions being distinguished,
I may observe, by great boldness and breadth of design. The firm
GOLD MEDALLISTS.
137
CROUP OF BENGAL TTGEKS.
likewise display numerous table- and toilet-services, more or less
remarkable for their S} T mmetiy and chasteness of decoration. Pro-
minent among the animal groups is a pair of Bengal tigers, modelled
after Nature and reproducing with fidelity the form and markings
of the jungle lord. Representations of animal life form indeed quite
"ill' is IN PORCELAIN, EXHIBITED RY MESSRS. BROWN-WESTHEAD AND CO.
138 TAltlS HERSELF AGAIN.
a feature of Messrs. Brown-Westhead & Co.'s productions ; for
independently of their introduction as prominent accessories to
a variety of ornamental objects, several of the dessert services are
decorated with designs from La Fontaine's fables, hunting subjects,
and the like, and many of the vases are painted with figures and
heads of animals.
A proof of how the prosperity of one branch of manufacture
conduces to the advantage of another which is altogether dissimilar
is to be found in the way in which the existing craze for the posses-
sion and display of ceramic rarities has influenced the production
of high-class decorative furniture. People do not pay fabulous sums
for rare Sevres and Dresden, ancient majolica and old Chelsea, blue
Nankin and veritable Palissy ware, or compete for the chefs-cVccuvrc
of our modern potters, in order to hide them away in cupboards
and closets; and they are, I trust, beginning to realise the inartistic
stupidity of suspending against their walls articles never intended
to be displayed in this fashion. Hence the impulse given to that
manufacture of cabinets and buffets expressly intended for the
exposition of these and similar art-treasures. It is requisite that
the shrine should be worthy of the saint, and the cabinet or buffet
is therefore planned to rival in symmetry of form and appropriate-
ness of decoration the ceramic gems which it is designed to display.
On the other hand, the beauties of a masterpiece of this kind can
only be properly appreciated when it is duly bedecked and garnished.
No class indulges more lavishly in objects of this description
than the wealthy manufacturers of the North of England, who
evidently need not go far to gratify any taste they may have
for decorative furniture of the highest class, since the ateliers
of Manchester can supply all that they desire. The buffet and
the cabinet shown by Mr. James Lamb of John Dalton Street,
Manchester, and which have secured for their exhibitor the award
of a Gold Medal, will bear the keenest inspection as to workman-
ship and the sharpest criticism as to design. The plan of the
buffet has evidently been inspired by a reminiscence of the Middle
Ages, when this article consisted mainly of sundry shelves for the
GOLD MEDALLISTS. 139
reception of the household tankards and platters ; when people dis-
played in their dining-halls all the treasures that were not stowed
away under lock and key in huge iron-banded oaken chests with
elaborately shaped hinges ; and when an accurate idea of the status
and wealth of Sir Thomas of Erpingham, or Baron Walter of the
Grange, could be gathered from a glance at his sideboard. Status
as well as wealth, because the number of superposed shelves was
fixed in strict accordance with the rank of their owner, though it
is probable that such regulations shared the general fate of all sump-
tuary laws, which, being continually renewed, always began with a
' whereas,' to the effect that the enactment last passed on the same
subject had been disregarded by his Majesty's lieges. Dame Alicia
Fitzwalter, in the fifteenth century, thought no more, it may be,
of trimming her kirtle with a prohibited fur, or wearing souliers d la
poulaine a span beyond the prescribed length, than did Lady Betty
Featherhead in the eighteenth of decking herself with smuggled
Mechlin cap and pinners, or sipping out of eggshell china tea that
had never paid the State a farthing of duty.
While retaining a decided reminiscence of the old English
style, the buffet is boldly and avowedly intended to be Victorian,
being neither precisely mediaeval nor like any modern version of
medievalism, but claiming to be distinctly individual. Embodying
firmness and solidity without heaviness, its most distinguishing
feature is the luxuriance of its mouldings, carved as these
are with a variety of patterns, imparting an air of great rich-
ness, without impairing the effect of the straight lines and
general square style of treatment. The material is old brown
English oak irom Sherwood Forest, relieved with mouldings
and bands of ebony, and panels of carved walnut. The oak
— which was growing when ' Shawes were sheene and leaves,
were large and longe,' and Robin Hood found ' Itt merrye
walkyng in the fayre forrest To heare the small birde's song "
— has acquired, with time, a very full-striped brown tint — the
' leopard-skin figure ' so highly prized by connoisseurs — the rich
mellow effect of which is enhanced by a background of green
1-40 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
velvet, warm enough in tone to help the colour of the wood. The
lower portion of the buffet is fitted with the usual quota of drawers,
cupboards, collarettes, &c, all duly framed, panelled, moulded,
and carved secundum artcm ; whilst above are shelves, spaces, and
divisions for the reception and display of various decorative objects
— Cellini salvers, mediaeval hanaps, Bohemian beakers, Venetian
goblets, Queen Anne flagons, peg-tankards, gold and silver plate,
Palissy dishes, Dresden statuettes, Oriental vases, Satsuma jars,
china punchbowls, pilgrim-bottles, Gres de Flandres, old Nankin,
Crown Worcester, or whatever else the owner may be the fortunate
possessor of. There are, moreover, some ingeniously contrived
niches with glass doors, for the preservation of objects of special value
-or exceptional fragility, from the onslaughts of the feather-broom
or the perils of the duster ; and in the centre of the buffet is a
mirror, with a gilt frame and inlaid border of ebony and boxwood,
flanked on either side by walnut panels skilfully carved with well-
designed figures of Bacchus and Ceres, the twin patrons of the
so-called good things of this life.
Chasteness of design and perfect finish of execution are the
leading characteristics of the cabinet of ebony, enriched with
margins of Coromandel wood and strings and borderings of
inlaid silver, which forms another exhibit of Mr. James Lamb.
The columns, balustrades, mouldings, and panels of carved ebony
conduce materially to the ornamentation of this stately piece of
furniture, although its most effective decorative feature is unques-
tionably the inlaid silver work, the flowing patterns of which are
exceedingly refined and graceful. The cabinet having been ex-
pressly planned for the reception and displa}' of orfcvrerie, gems,
enamels, and the like costly rarities, its unusually minute mouldings
and delicate ornamentation are in perfect keeping with this design.
In the upper part is a large central mirror in a frame of ebony,
relieved with ornaments of oxidised silver ; the panels, of pale-
blue satin-damask on either side, containing small convex mirrors,
framed in repousse silver, and serving as sconces. Carved bas-
reliefs of Beauty and Knowledge, typified by female figures, adorn
Carved Cedab-wood Boi doir in the Qceen Anni: Style
.; Sf.lis.
11. ..,'
GOLD MEDALLISTS. 141
the two end compartments of the lower portion of the cabinet, which
has a landscape at its summit, flanked by female figures repre-
senting Morning and Evening. Both buffet and cabinet are
accompanied by chairs of corresponding woods, which, while par-
taking of the principal external characteristics of the more import-
ant articles of furniture, have been designed with a view to comfort
as well as to effect.
Ere I leave the section of artistic furniture and its decorative
surroundings, I have a few words to say respecting the very
interesting exhibition of the old established firm of Messrs.
Trollope & Sons — founded exactly a century ago — who deservedly
have been awarded the Gold Medal. Their exhibition com-
prises, first of all, a charming carved cedar-wood boudoir ; next
a handsomely decorated vestibule, with part of a staircase ; and
thirdly, a fine, though small, collection of artistic furniture. The
boudoir which belongs to ' the teacup times of hoop and hood, when
paint and patch were worn,' — an epoch which, so far as our domes-
tic surroundings are concerned, we seem exceedingly anxious to
recall, — is undeniably the most attractive feature of the display.
Pope's matchlessly graceful poem of The Rape of the Lock has
avowedly inspired the leading embellishments of the apartment,
the details of which have been adapted with admirable taste from
existing ornamental examples of the period. The larger panels
are occupied by paintings representing scenes from the poem, prin-
cipally the toilet of the fair Belinda and the party at ombre, with
the incident of the ravished lock, when
' The forfex' meeting-points the sacred hair dissever
From the fair head for ever, and for ever.'
The apotheosis of the lock and its sidereal transformations are
appropriately enough reserved for the adornment of the arched
ceiling, which is constructed of portable plaster. An important
feature of this perfect little apartment is its ornamental chimney-
piece of rosso-antico marble, harmonising admirably with the warm
tone of the wood-work, with its sculptured caryatides and delicately
carved wreaths of fruit and flowers forming the framework of a
142
TARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
niche which contains a bust of Pope, copied from his monument in
Westminster Abbey.
The vestibule exhibited by Messrs. Trollope & Sons is princi-
pally remarkable for its examples of the twin processes of Xylo-
iechnigraphy and 'Sgraffito, which of late years have been largely
CARVED MIRROR-FRAME IN THE RENAISSANCE STYLE.
employed by the firm. In the former the lighter hinds of wood
are indelibly stained with ornamental designs either in black or
colours, and in imitation of inlaid work or the reverse, several of
the panels to which this process has been applied being treated
very effectively with arabesques and festoons of flowers and fruit.
The second process — taking its name from the Italian 'sgraffito,
GOLD MEDALLISTS. 143
' scratched ' — is applied exclusively to plaster-work, which is here
shown etched over with various patterns, after the fashion prevalent
in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with admir-
able decorative effect. Among the furniture displayed by Messrs.
Trollope are a handsome mirror-frame carved in lime-tree wood in
the Renaissance style, a beautiful little polished satin-wood cabinet
of a fashion prevalent in England towards the end of the last
century, with an armchair in painted satin-wood of rather later date ;
and two bold and well-executed tripods in iron, plated with nickel,
supporting amphora in the showy onyx of Mexico or Algeria.
The single jeweller in the British section whose display of
precious wares has been rewarded with a Gold Medal is Mr.
John Brogden of Henrietta Street, Covent Garden ; and not only
has he received the Gold Medal, but the Cross of the Legion of
Honour has likewise been conferred upon him. The leading
articles in Mr. Brogden's exhibit are a Pompeian bracelet,
decorated with delicately-tinted birds and flowers on a black
ground ; a massive gold armlet of Greek design, with an antique
gem set in the middle ; a bracelet of Etruscan design, incrusted
with antique gems ; and an onyx cameo, surrounded by precious
stones, and in that Celtic style in which Mr. O 'Fallon has designed
so many beautiful articles for the engraved glass in Messrs.
Webb's exhibit, and which is rapidly growing in public favour.
The monument to be erected b} r her Majesty the Queen to the
memory of the late Sir Thomas Biddulph is to take the form of a
Celtic cross ; and it is high time that Celtic ornamentation, boldly
yet delicately fanciful as it is, should be studied by our jewellers
and our decorative artists in general. There is, at the same time,
great catholicity in the stjdes of which Mr. John Brogden exhibits
specimens. Thus I find an exquisitely tasteful cross of sapphires
and pearls, taken from Quintin Matsys' ' Salvator Mundi,' in the
National Gallery. This beautiful object has been purchased by
H.R.H. Prince Leopold. I find also a Venetian cross from
the house of Marco Polo ; a Pompeian lamp, to be used as a
vinaigrette ; a bracelet of Assyrian design from a cylinder in the
144
PARIS HERSELF AGAIX.
British Museum ; an Etruscan bracelet ; an Etruscan scarabffius,
to be worn as a ring ; and a number of pins, earrings, pendants,
and lockets in the Greek, the Byzantine, and the old Russian
styles. A pendent ornament for a watcb.ch.ain, in the form of the
cylinder, with handles, used by the Assyrian kings to sign state
documents, is peculiarly quaint and characteristic ; and there is
superb goldsmith's work in the rose-water flagon ornamented with
the subject of the ' Council of Juno,' in gold rilievo : the attributes
of Jupiter and Juno forming a Pompeian scroll-work border to
the subject, while in the centre of the handle is encrusted a mag-
nificent engraved carbuncle. There is likewise a superb ebony
casket, ornamented with lapis-lazuli, carbuncles, garnets, and
j)laques of dark-blue enamel and grisaille, depicting incidents in
the history of the Marquises of Worcester and the ducal house of
Beaufort generally. The Great Marquis, who shares with the
Frenchman Denis Papin — but not by any means with the crazy
hydraulic engineer Salomon de Caux — the honour of the invention
of the steam-engine, is obviously and conspicuously represented in
this casket, the handles of which are enriched with richly-chased
statuettes in silver-gilt, and which is surmounted by a trophy of
the arms of the present Marquis of Worcester, to whom this splen-
did testimonial was presented by the magistrates of the county of
Monmouth. I cannot quit Mr. John Brogden's sumptuous display
of jewelry and orfevrerie without glancing at a wedding brooch
of antique Roman design, which, could Chaucer's Prioress revisit
this mortal scene, would surely have fascinated the delicate lady,
who spoke French after the school of Stratfard-atte-Bowe, seeing
that French of Paris was to her unknown. The lady in the Canter-
bury Tales wore a brooch bearing the inscription 'Amor,' or'Roma,'
read it which way you like ; and such brooches may be seen at this
day in the jewellers' shops in the Via Condotti at Rome ; but Mr.
Brogden's Roman brooch is more elaborately and more significantly
inscribed. It bears the legend :
UBI TU CAIU3
IBI EGO CAIA.
GOLD MEDALLISTS. 145
There would have been no harm in the Prioress wearing a brooch
with such a legend. She might have had a brother or an uncle
whose name was Caius. On the other hand, the pretty trinket is
just such a one as HeloYse might have presented to Abelard.
In the immediate vicinity of Mr. John Brogden's rich and rare
display is the admirably artistic exhibit of Messrs. Leuchars & Son,
of Piccadilly and the Rue de la Paix, who have gained the only
Gold Medal in the British department given to their specialty,
which comprises dressing-cases, jewel-cases, despatch-boxes,
writing-desks, and all kinds of useful and ornamental maro-
quinerie. Their leading exhibit is a gentleman's dressing-case in
shagreen, mitred with gold — a most superb article; a lady's dress-
ing-case of Coroinandel wood, inlaid with delicate brass scroll
work, the toilet appliances being in highly-chased silver; a number
of dressing-bags with silver-gilt fittings, the tops of the bottles
being of solid gold, set with turquoises ; an assortment of articles
decorated in the Japanese style ; and some exquisite etuis, or
' ladies' companions,' in gold likewise, in the prevalent Japanese
style. One of Messrs. Leuchars' exhibits, a magnificent luncheon
basket, with fittings of solid silver, has been purchased by the
Lottery Commissioners, for a prize in the great Exhibition raffle ;
while another article, yet more conspicuous and elegant, is a
claret jug, of silver-gilt, in the form of a crouching dragon, the
beak serving as the spout and the curved tail as a handle. Several
tablets of fancy notepaper, with illuminated monograms in every
variety of style, and which Messrs. Leuchars were the first to
introduce, also ornament the glass case of the firm, who are
equally well-known in Piccadilly and the Ptue de la Paix.
Certain of my readers will of course remember, and will even
have been wearers of, the old beaver hat, remarkable alike for its
weight, its warmth, its costliness, and its flufhness of texture.
Specimens of it linger, I believe, in a quasi-fossil condition in
remote agricultural districts, where they have been handed down
as heirlooms, and in theatrical wardrobes, whence they are trans-
ferred from time to time to the head of the actor who plays the
146
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
part oi' Paul Pry and similar characters. Moreover, certain noble-
men ami gentlemen of sporting proclivities, who adhere pertina-
ciously to the fashions of their youth, may still be seen wearing
this antiquated headgear in the paddock at Doncaster and on the
lawn at Goodwood. As a rule, however, the beaver hat is little
else than a tradition with the existing generation, whose obliga-
tions are mainly due to the well-known Piccadilly firm of Lincoln,
Bennett, & Co., for having relieved their heads from this weighty
GOLD MEDALLISTS. 147
load. To the firm in question, established as far hack as the year
of the Treat}- of Tilsit, we owe the introduction of the perfected
silk hat, which is so much lighter and cheaper than its flocculent
predecessor. One of the earliest hats of velvet-piled silk, the pre-
cursor of the velvet-napped silk now in general use, was made for
the late Lord Lyndhurst, who is said to have been the first English
nobleman to adopt the silk hat. Originally the material on which
the silk was fixed was of stuff or felt ; but after a time these were
supplanted by the perforated willow body, giving rise to the well-
known ' gossamer hat.' The famous Piccadilly firm, however, were
the first to have recourse to muslin and cambric — securing thereby
the much-desired lightness — as well as to a chemical composition
technically known as ' coodle ' for proofing in lieu of the customary
size, glue, resin, pitch, oil, and naphtha, the presence of which
was apt to become unpleasantl}' obvious when the warmth of the
head made itself felt. The display of gloss} r hats, with every
variety of tasteful lining, in Messrs. Lincoln, Bennett, & Co.'s
elegantly arranged case is supplemented by military helmets and
felt hats of superb finish, constructed on what is known as the
firm's ' pull over ' system, whereby fine quality is combined with
great durability, a circumstance which those bent upon lengthened
journeyings will do well to bear in mind. Properly enough,
Messrs. Lincoln, Bennett, & Co. have had the Gold Medal awarded
to them for the excellent quality and splendid finish of the silk
and felt hats which they exhibit.
Attractive beyond measure to the scientific fraternity of star-
gazers are the exhibits of Mr. John Henry Dallmeyer of Blooms-
bury Street. Galileo would have submitted to the binning of his
Dialogues on condition of being allowed a peep through the eight-
fdoi astronomical telescope, mounted on a new form of equatorial
stand, the special features of which are stability, suitability for
service in any latitude, and convenience for use with or without
the spectroscope. E pwr si muove — the motions and clamping in
right ascensions and declination, as well as the reading of the
declination circle, being effected by the observer at the eye-end of
148 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
the telescope. Smaller astronomical telescopes, transit instruments
and spectroscopes, together with terrestrial telescopes, naval, mili-
tary, tourist, and reconnoitring glasses — though what, alas, is the
use of the latter when generals persistently refuse to reconnoitre ?
â €” are also shown. Here, too, are microscopes for scientific eyes,
fitted with object-glasses of the highest powers, and hoth dry and
immersion lenses for revealing all the hidden beauties of what to
the naked eye look like tiny specks of dried stick or fibre, or weed
or jelly, but which become transformed into glowing peacock's
plumes, miniature sections of Aladdin's palace, cunningly put
together puzzles in ivory, ebony, and mother-of-pearl, sheets of
woven sunbeams, variegated velvet carpets, and strips of the
richest and most fanciful point-lace. Photographic apparatus is
represented by cameras and special appliances for portraits,
landscapes, and copying purposes, and there is a new double-
combination objective for the magic lantern, ' specially con-
structed for the exhibition of diagrams for science, lectures,
&c.' Formerly the magic lantern was content to amuse, but
now it very property aspires to instruct. In place of scenes from
the Holy Land and missionary life in the Fiji Islands, John
Gilpin's ride and Mother Hubbard, the comic Irishman and his
recalcitrant pig, and that triumph of mechanical skill, the water-
mill, with the revolving wheel, we have all kinds of complicated
and scientific effects, which, even from a juvenile point of view,
can scarcely be regarded as dull. For my own part I am ready to
rejoice over the fact that Mr. Dallmej-er's valuable and interesting
exhibits have obtained full recognition in the shape of a Gold
Medal in two separate classes, and that he has received the further
distinction of the Cross of the Legion of Honour.
Being, even in the broad daylight, a dreamer of dreams and a
seer of visions, when I halted the other day in the Rue des
Nations, in front of the Queen Anne house erected by Mr. W. H.
Lascelles of Bunhill Row, from the designs of Mr. R. Norman
Shaw, R.A., I half expected to see the dignified shade of the
Right Honourable Joseph Addison step out on the balcony, to gaze
««''"!'"!!! if ''.'IK "'"!!' " _ ^ss^Sr^^^ — — —
HUH ' » — ^= ^ - -^^~ ~
The Queen Anne House in the Rue dbs Nation. 1 :. II. 149.
Exhibited by Mr. IT. i:. Lascelli .
GOLD MEDALLISTS. 149
with majestic disapproval at an equally shadowy figure with a
staggering gait, a cocked hat considerably on one side, and a
Steinkirk cravat very much awry, who ought to have arrived an
hour ago, hut who prefers drinking in Fleet Street taverns to con-
sulting with his grave collaborateur as to the best subject for the
next essa} r in the Spectator. In like manner, when peeping through
the bay-window, I thought to behold the elegant phantom of Mr.
Secretary St. John, listening, with an amused air, to a visionary
clergyman with a strongly marked saturnine face — who is lecturing
him, with a slight Irish accent, on the enormity of indulging too
freely in champagne and burgundy, and who, it is rumoured, is to
be made a bishop for his scathing political satires. Failing this, I
at least hoped to catch a glimpse of the diminutive shade of Mr.
Alexander Pope, gliding through the portal on a visit to the some-
what shaky spectre of Mr. William Wycherley. But no such
visions as these were vouchsafed me. It was Belinda, who gazed
with tearful eyes from the balcon}- at the retreating figure of Sir
Plume, twirling his clouded cane as he sallied forth in quest of
the ravished lock. It was Lord Ogleby and Sir Harry Wildair,
who paused in front of the bay-window to watch Beatrice Esmond
handed into her chair b} T her cousin Henry, and to discuss the
approaching union of Colonel Fainwell and Saccharissa between
two pinches of impalpable snuff. It was Sir Roger de Coverley
and Mr. Isaac Bickerstaff, who had called to inquire after the
health of Captain Tobias Shandy, lately returned from Flanders,
and who were met at the door of the house by the captain's ser-
vant Trim.
For the house itself is only a ghost — albeit a very well-con-
structed and substantial one — of a bygbhe age, and the only phan-
toms that can haunt it are the immortal creations of fiction. It is
the ghost of an old English town house of the first years of the
eighteenth century, with its red brickwork — showing the alternate
courses of ' headers ' and ' stretchers ' of the ' English bond ' — its
white stone balcony, fluted pilasters, elaborately moulded panel-
lings, and ornate cornices ; but instead of being built of the old-
150 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
fashioned bricks, it is entirely constructed of cubes of Mr. Lascelles'
patented red cement, which are truer, harder, and quite impervious
to wet, and to which he has succeeded in imparting the cheerful
red tone characteristic of the epoch. This interesting house, which
lias ohtained for Mr. Lascelles the Gold Medal, in conjunction with
the more highly-prized distinction of the Cross of the Legion of
Honour, has been presented by him to the French Government,
and is to be reerected at the close of the Exhibition in the con-
templated Industrial Museum in the Tuileries Gardens. At present
it is placed at the disposal of the British Commissioners, and
serves as a haven of rest to jurymen exhausted by their arduous
Labours.
Mr. Lascelles has also erected some workmen's cottages in an
open area of the Park, near the Quai d'Orsay, the floors, roofs, and
walls of which are built of patent concrete slabs, screwed on to a
wooden framework, without a brick, tile, lath, or floor-board being
employed in their construction, so that they can readily be taken
down and sent any distance for reerection. The prospect of being
able to fold, up his eligible double-fronted family residence like an
Arab tent, and silently steal away to his favourite watering-place,
there to rebuild it in defiance of lodging-house harpies, must be a
tempting one to Paterfamilias, though ground landlords might
object to the generalisation of such a custom, These concrete
slabs and tiles have also been used in the stable built for the
Prince of Wales from the designs of Mr. Gilbert Pw Redgrave.
Another example of constructive ingenuity is presented in Mr.
Lascelles' bent-wood conservatory, built upon a principle which
prevents its moving and cracking the glass, and illustrating a suc-
jful attempt to obtain a maximum of strength with a minimum
of material; the doorways being constructed to act as buttresses,
and the whole structure being bound together by bent bars and
lattice girders. A new method of glazing is likewise shown by
the adoption of which glass structures can be erected without
skilled labour, paint, or putty in a very short time. Each sheet
of glass is turned up at one edge, turned down at the other, and
GOLD MEDALLISTS.
151
hooked at the top something like a common roof tile, and can be
put up and taken down with facility. Mr. Lascelles' conservatory
has been purchased, I hear, by Sir Richard Wallace, who intends
reelecting it upon his Norfolk estate.
BEHT-WOOD CONSERVATORY, EXHIBITED J;Y MR. W. U. LASCELLES.
XI.
THE EXHIBITION LOTTERY.
Nov. 2.
The Great Lottery of the Exhibition bids fair to become a very
considerable nuisance in- Paris. You cannot enter a debit cle
tabac to buy a cigar or a postage-stamp -without being pestered to
purchase lottery-tickets. Fortunately, I am not a direct taxpayer
in France ; or, in addition to my other woes, I should be impor-
tuned by the local rate-collector to invest in this omnipresent
lottery. The Minister of Finance has issued circulars to all the
jn rcepteurs, or tax-gatherers, ordering them to exercise their influ-
ence over their contribwibles to induce them to take tickets in the
audacious raffle which the Exhibition Commissioners have so ill-
THE EXHIBITION LOTTERY. 153
advisedly sanctioned to the discredit of a noble, magnificent, and
successful enterprise.
I am glad to notice that the French press are almost unanimous
in blaming a scheme which is fast attaining the proportions of a
scandal. A raffle for a gold watch or a silver teapot (the Catholic-
lotteries in Ireland sometimes offer a horse and gig as a prize),
or a Derby » sweep ' at a club or on the course, may do no very
great harm, now and again ; but as to the folly and immorality of
a National Lotteiy there can be, I apprehend, no manner of doubt.
The Banco dl Lotto has kept Italy poor these many } T ears past ;
and the same may be said of Spain ; while the Royal Havana
Lotteiy — which is drawn once a month, and the first prize in
which is 100,000 dollars, or 20,000t. — not only keeps the Island
of Cuba in a constant state of ferment, but extends its maleficent
influence to the United States.
Perhaps I should speak of the Havana Lottery in the past
tense. Changes of all kinds may have taken place in the island
during the insurrection ; but I remember very well fifteen years
ago how all the cafes and public promenades of the Pearl of the
Antilles used to be infested by ragged men and boys hawking
halves, quarters, eights, and even sixteenths of lottery tickets.
I need scarcely say that it is one thing to preach against the im-
morality of lotteries, and another to practise abstention from that
very fascinating form of gaming : thus I do not hesitate to avow
that in 18G3 I went shares with a friend in the purchase of an
' entcro,' a whole ticket. It cost us an ' onza,' or doubloon, other-
wise three pounds ten shillings sterling. My friend was going to
England ; I was returning to the States; and he left me the cus-
todian of the precious chance. How many sleepless nights did I
pass before the day of drawing arrived ! At length the list of
prizes was published in the New York Herald. It was the num-
ber 1G,303 that won the 20,000/. prize. Our ticket was 1G,305 !
Only two removes from felicity !
Ten millions of tickets at a franc apiece for this prodigious
Paris raffle have already been issued; and the emission of two
i;,i
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN,
fli'LLETS
p o U . n -
NOT 10 BE CAUGHT A SJXOND TIME (BY CHAJl).
' What, don't you take any tickets in the Lottery ? '
' Never a second time. Marriage is a lottery, and
I have gained a mother-in-law !'
move millions is talked of, which would bring the sum 'sub-
scribed' by the public for the Encouragement of Industry and the
Fine Arts up to nearly half a million pounds sterling. There are
to be no money prizes ; but I hear of one thousand two hundred
and seventy-seven gros lots, headed by a service of plate worth
I housand pounds sterling, and a parure of diamonds of almost
equal value, and ending with five hundred kilogrammes of car-
bonate of soda, estimated at being worth a thousand francs, or
forty pounds. What is the favourite of Fortune to do with a ton
of carbonate of soda? He might sell it; but prices might rule
Low in the market for chemicals when he brought his intoler-
able mass of soda into it, and the forty pounds' estimate might sink
to a contumelious offer of a ten-pound note ' for the lot.' But,
fortunately, there is a saving clause for the benefit of certain poten-
tial prize-winners; and If the 'miserable' to whom the mass of
carbonate falls should happen to belong to this category he can
have the full money value in place of his prize, otherwise untold
THE EXHIBITION LOTTERY. 155
woes ma}' light on the head of the unfortunate mortal who wins
the ton of carbonate. French innkeepers have an unpleasant habit
of making grievous charges for warehousing goods left in their
custody. A traveller leaves a trunk at an hotel by mistake, and,
on returning, say, in a year's time, to the same caravanserai, a
demand for so many francs for taking care of the property is made
upon him. Suppose the Lottery Commissioners should take a
leaf out of the book of the hotelkeepers. Suppose the deplorable
winner of the carbonate of soda to have gone to Australia just
after purchasing his ticket, and to have forgotten all about it
until, passing through Paris five years afterwards, he was suddenly
confronted by an employe of the Commissioners, who peremptorily
bade him take away his ton of carbonate of soda, and pay the
sum of fifteen hundred and ninety-eight francs five centimes for
storing the stuff in the cellars of the Palais de l'lndustrie !
Still, carbonate of soda is not by any means the most embar-
rassing among the heterogeneous articles which the ' lucky ' spe-
culators in the Universal Exhibition Lottery may secure. The
list of lots is incongruous enough to recall the miscellaneous
articles of property which the bill-discounters of the past, described
in the novels of Charles Lever and Theodore Hook, used to offer
to their clients as part value for the amount of a promissory note.
' Half cash, and the rest in logwood-loaded port or fiery sherry,
in pictures "after" Titian, flint muskets from the Tower, ivory
frigates, camels' bridles and bits, and keyboards for pianofortes.'
Who has not heard of the ' discount dennet,' a kind of gig which
a Dublin usurer was continually forcing his victims to accept as a
substitute for cash, buying the vehicle back for a trifling sum
through a third party, and then palming it off on a fresh dupe'?
This ingenious Trapbois was likewise the proprietor of a real log
of Spanish mahogany, which had been the temporary property of
innumerable subalterns of improvident habits. Thus, in the Paris
Lottery, prizes of plate, jewelry, painting, statuary, ceramics,
bronzes, crystals, organs, pianofortes, and carved cabinets are
mingled with carbonate of soda, cranes, lighthouse reflectors, soap,
L56 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
chocolate, corsets, citrate of magnesia, pickles, dolls, Indian corn,
sardines, wire rope, tarpaulin, microscopes, and blacking. What
do you think, moreover, of -a voucher for a dinner for twenty persons
at a well-known Palais Royal restaurant, a barrel of coal-tar, a
model of the Place Venddme Column in chocolate, a series of
photographs representing fossil human skulls discovered in the
department of the Sarthe, an electrical hairbrush, and a collection
of pamphlets published by the Society for Discountenancing the
Abuse oi' Tobacco ?
The society in question, by the way, has just presented a me-
morial to M. Albert Gigot, Prefect of Police, pointing out that the
Paris cab-drivers persist in smoking while on duty, in defiance of
the disciplinary regulations forbidding the practice in question.
The fumes emitted from the pipes and cigars of the cabbies are,
it seems, particularly offensive to ladies. This reminds me of an
anecdote related of the late excellent Queen of Holland. Her
Majesty was taking a solitary stroll in the Wood at Loo one sum-
mer's evening, when she became aware of a sentinel who was
indulging in a few forbidden whiffs inside his box. The poor
fellow, with no end of courts-martial before his eyes, threw awa} r
his pipe, and, in broken accents, piteously begged the Queen not
to denounce him to the authorities. ' Don't be afraid,' answered
the kindly sovereign ; ' and here is a ducat for you to buy some
good tobacco. I wonder you can smoke such nasty- smelling
stuff.' If the Parisian Jehus would only smoke a tolerably-decent
pn paration of the Indian weed, the ladies might be more tolerant
of their infringement of the cab-laws,
One anecdote may be reckoned upon, as a rule, to suggest
another. The stoiy about the Queen of Holland reminds me of
ild< if Frederick the Great, who, wandering in disguise through
the camp one bitterly cold winter's night, tried to tempt a sentry
into the commission of the illicit act of smoking. ' It's forbidden,'
replied the soldier doggedly. 'But I'll give you permission,'
persisted Frederick. ' You give me permission ! ' cried the grena-
dier disdainfully ; ' who are you, I should like to know ? ' ' I am
THE EXHIBITION LOTTERY. 157
the king.' ' The king he hanged ! ' exclaimed the incorruptible
sentinel; 'what would my captain say?' The great Fritz was
immensely pleased to learn how strictly discipline was preserved
among his troops ; and I fancy that it was not long before that
incorruptible sentinel was promoted to be a sergeant. Perhaps
he was wise in his generation, and had known very well to whom
he was speaking. There is a way of flattering the great, even
while appearing to be rude to them. Did not Mr. Pye get his
poet-laureateship through anathematising the wig of George III.
to his Majesty's face ?
It is decided that the jewellers and goldsmiths from whom the
grand prizes in diamonds and plate have been purchased for the
Exhibition Lottery will give the winners cash for their gros lots,
less, bien entendu, a reasonable discount. In St. Petersburg, when
the artistes of the Italian Opera sing at a concert at the Winter
Palace they receive no remuneration for then* services, but his
Imperial Majesty the Czar sends them a honorarium in jewelry.
The prima donna assoluta may get a riviere in brilliants ; the
primo tenore may be favoured with the gift of a diamond snuff-box.
It is not, however, necessary that the artistes should reverently
preserve the necklaces and snuff-boxes as souvenirs of the Imperial
appreciation of their talents. They are at liberty to take the
glittering trinkets to the Treasury at the Hermitage, where they
will receive rouble-notes to the estimated value of their presents,
with ' five-and-twenty per cent, off.' A similar system, equally
graceful and business-like as it is, will be pursued in the forth-
coming Exhibition Lottery. Those who, failing to win diamond
necklaces, rub}' and emerald bracelets, or pearl aigrettes, are yet
fortunate enough to be the holders of tickets entitling them to
Barbedicnne or Susse bronzes, Christofle enamels, Sevres vases,
or Gobelins tapestry, will at once be able to get the worth, or
nearly the worth, of their prizes in money ; and in particular the
winners of oil paintings, water-colour drawings, and terra-cottas
will have little difficulty, I should say, in disposing of the gifts
which Fortune may send them ; but very different will be the case, I
1 58
PARIS BERSELF AGAIN.
with those who win some of the extraordinarily heterogeneous
is which have either been purchased by the Commissioners
for the Lottery, or have been presented thereto by manufacturers
ami tradesmen anxious to manifest their munificence and to adver-
tise their wares at one and the same time.
A LUCKY PRIZE-WINKER (BY CHAJl).
• Sir, you have gained a prize entitling you to have twelve
teeth drawn without any charge'
There will he a surprising number of white elephants won in
this raffle, each suggesting the momentous question, ' What will
they do with it ? ' For example, from Mr. Wills' s conservatory the
C< »mmissi( >ners have purchased, in addition to a number of tropical
plant-, four palm-trees. If Mr. Jamrach or Mr. Frank Buckland
won an elephant in a Littery, either of these gentlemen would at
once know what to do with the quadruped; and only fancy [Mr.
Buckland's delight if he won a live gorilla, or a crocodile from
line, wan-anted to have eaten four deported Communards ; but
who, ' barring ' Sir William Hooker, would know what to do with
a quartette of palm-trees ? They are not even date-bearing palms,
the winner might purchase a cask of sugar, preserve the stony
THE EXHIBITION LOTTERY. 159
fruit, and set up in business as a grocer. If lie were indeed ad-
dicted to horticultural pursuits, and wished to keep his palms, he
would have to build a hothouse for their reception. Among the
remaining prizes which are to be exhibited shortly at the Palais
de l'lndustrie there is a multitude of pianos, organs, harmoniums,
furniture, carpets, scent-fountains, sewing-machines, shawls,
robes, mantles, bonnets, lace, gloves, cradles, baby-linen, wine,
spirits and liqueurs, books, clocks, watches, toys, engravings, per-
fumery, and underclothing for ladies and gentlemen. What is a
prize-winning bachelor to do with a baby-jumper, a child's cot, or
complete layette / What would a demure spinster say when she
learnedthatshehadwon a cavalry sabre, a cocked hat richlytrimmed
with gold lace — both of these articles are in the prize-list — or a
complete hunting costume, scarlet coat, top boots, buckskins, and
all '? What will be the sensation of a gentleman residing in a
garret an cinqulcme, who hates music, and who discovers to his
horror that he has won an organ ? True the vast majority of the
things bought to be raffled for are French pictures, bronzes, and
pottery, and articles de Paris ; in purchases of rich materials for
ladies' dresses, the Commissioners have been forestalled by Peter
Pobinson of Oxford-street. The authorities, in their selection of
lottery prizes, have not paid much attention to that essential corol-
lary of Free-trade, Pieciprocity. The English exhibitors have been
in particular left out in the cold by them, and even the English
winners of Grand Prizes have been neglected. From the magnifi-
cent exhibit of glass of Messrs. Thomas Webb and Sons of Stour-
bridge a variety of secondary objects have certainly been selected,
but only a single one of their incomparable engraved vases has
been bought.
Once more, then, the world is to be favoured with a performance
of the admired comedy called Blind Chance, preceded by a brief
' lever de rideau,' mathematically demonstrating that, come what
may, so many millions of ticket-holders must lose, and followed
by Disappointment, a farce. Wealthy and adventurous speculators.
who have bought tickets by the thousand at a time, may find them-
L60
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
A STOUT OLD LADY GALNS A BICYCLE.
selves left out in the cold, while the 125,000 francs' worth of plate
may fall to the lot of a schoolboy or a concierge. Chance is blind.
A gamester once at Hombourg placed a pile of gold on every num-
A LI. TNI) MAX GAIN'S AN
"I BRA-GLASS.
A BALD MAN G UttTS A TOE
TOISE-SUKI.L COMB.
YvtS *£***£ '
' Madame, you have been so fortunate as tc
;ain a pair of fisherman's Louts.'
THE EXHIBITION LOTTERY.
1G1
AX OLD SOLDIER WITH WOODEN LEGS
GAINS A PAIR OF CAVALRY BOOTS.
A SUBJECT OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
GAIN'S A DEFERRED ANNUITY IN
TURKISH STOCK.
A NEGRO GAINS A SPECIFIC FOR
PRESERVING THE WHITENESS
OF THE COMPLEXION.
A LOVED OF THE BOTTLE
CAINS A CASE OF SODA-
WATER.
VOL. II.
' Why, my dear, I never knew you had a baby !'
f What, didn't you hear tliut I gained one sU thi
Lottery 1 '
162
PAB1S HERSELF AGAIN,
,
1 i ~C^
' Lnw may be a lottery ; but with an advocate like
you, the honest man hasn't the shadow of a chance.'
ber save one of the thirty-six numbers on the roulette-board. Nor
did lie fail to insure in ' zero.' The wheel turned ; the ball re-
volved, and the winning number was the very one which the player
had left uncovered. He repeated the same operation three times,
with the same result ; then he covered the fortunate number, leav-
ing ' zero ' uncovered. ' Zero ' turned up ; and the gamester, by
this time totally ruined, went out into the highly picturesque park
of the Kursaal and hanged himself. Chance is blind. On the
• veiling of the 15th of August 1815, Napoleon I., on his way on
board the Northumberland to St. Helena, sate down to play ' vingt-
et-un ' with his suite. In the course of three hours he won stakes
equivalent to 250,000/. sterling. Of course lie did not claim his
winnings ; and he might as well have played ' for love.' It hap-
pened to be his birthday, and everybody congratulated the ex-
Emperor on his luck. His luck ! Poor broken, bankrupt, ban-
ished man ! Fortune the Fickle has, no doubt, surprises quite as
startling as any of the wildest of her pranks that are on record for
those of her votaries who have speculated in the Universal Paris
Iv.ibition Lottery, which has about as much to do with the
THE EXHIBITION LOTTERY. 163
Exhibition as the old Frankfort Lottery — in which the ' gros lot '
sometimes consisted of a castle and a vineyard on the Rhine, with
a title of Count — had to do with the Germanic Confederation.
The Act of Parliament by which lotteries were very wisely
abolished in England was framed by statesmen old enough to
remember the widespread misery and demoralisation caused by
lotteries in the concluding years of the last century and the first
years of the present one. Lotteries were the means of sowing the
seeds of fraud and corruption among all classes of the population.
Hanging on to the periodical Governmental gambling schemes
were a crew of knavish scoundrels called lottery insurers, who for
a certain sum proposed to secure every ticket-holder against loss.
These sham insurance offices were multiplied to a wonderful
extent as the time for drawing the prizes approached. The in-
surers had handsome offices in the heart of the City of London,
Avhere clerks sat at the receipt of custom all day long ; while a
regular house to house visitation was made in districts inhabited
by the middle and working classes by touts or agents of the
insurers, whose mission it was to cajole foolish people to become
adventurers. From the scarlet-covered memorandum-books in
which they entered the particulars of their swindling transactions,
these touts were known as 'morocco men,' a term which has
escaped the attention of the compiler of the most recent Slang-
Dictionary, and which, without explanation, might sorely puzzle
a modern reader who came across a ' morocco man ' in a newspaper
of the Georgian era. Rendered intrepid by success, the insurers
started lottery- wheels on their own account; and these, which
constructively were about as free from suspicion as the roulette-
wheels and ' E. 0.' tables on the racecourses, were nicknamed
' Little Goes,' a term which still survives in the innocent form of
a college examination. Thus a gambling fever was kept up in
some measure all the year round among all ranks ol the com-
munity, working incalculable mischief. Insurance was applied to
every kind of bets. Wagers were laid and 'insured ' to the extenl
of 130,000*. on the sex of the Chevalier d'Eon ; card and -lice
KM PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
gambling at the clubs ruined hundreds of noblemen and gentle-
men in the course of every year; and ladies of the highest rank
did not hesitate to hold faro hanks at their own houses, until Lord
Chief Justice Kenyon, in indignant despair at these enormities,
declared in court that if any of the Duchesses and Countesses who
kepi faro hanks were brought before him he would consign them
to the tender mercies of the pillory and the cart's-tail. The age,
it must be admitted, was a gambling one; but mankind are in-
vcteiatelv addicted to gaming, in some form or another; and the
•enormities' which so shocked Lord Kenyon might be repeated
to-morrow, were the sanction of the State given to public and
systematic play.
In the year 1800 it was calculated that, of one hundred thou-
sand families resident in the metropolis, there were on an average
two servants kept in each house, and that one servant with another
insured annually to the extent of twenty-five shillings in the Eng-
lish, and the same sum in the Irish, lottery ; the aggregate amount
thus lost by the wage-earning class alone being half a million
-iii ling. The amount of the 'insurances' effected by the masters
and mistresses of households was not estimated. In 1795 it was
calculated that there were in London one thousand lottery agents
and clerks, and seven thousand five hundred ' morocco men,' to say
nothing of ' bludgeon men,' who were hired by the Association of
lottery-office-keepers meeting regularly in committee at a tavern
mar Oxford Market twice or thrice a week during the drawing of
the lottery. The business of the bludgeon men was to hustle and
maltreat people who came to see the lottery drawn, and to rob
them of their tickets if they had any; and it was found that, not-
\\ ithstanding repeated warnings, the owners of chances — the men
generally, the women almost invariably — brought their tickets
with them. To such a fearful extent had the lottery mania spread
that it was proposed to insert in a Bill relative to friendly societies
thru before Parliament a clause to expel from any such society or
benefit-club any member who could be proved to have effected an
insurance in the lottery.
THE EXHIBITION LOTTERY. 165
It may be useful to refresh the public memory on these mat-
ters, obsolete as they are, since it is only a quarter of a century
ago that London and the chief provincial towns positively swarmed
with betting-offices connected with horseracing and conducted
with unblushing publicity. Through the efforts of Sir Alexander
Cockburn these public pests and nuisances were put down, but
not before much mischief had been wrought to the morals of the
people. It would be perfectly idle to contend that gambling on
horseracing exhibits an} r symptoms of decline, or that gambling
in the stock-market, at some of the clubs, and in billiard-rooms is
not scandalously prevalent. It is in the nature of things, and of
an advanced stage of civilisation, that it should be so. The spirit
of gambling is a disease, assuming a multiplicity of aspects.
Abrogate it in one form, and it starts up in another. We cannot
hope to extirpate it utterly, any more than we can hope wholly to
extirpate disease from the human frame ; but we can limit the
area of its ravages. Gambling on horseraces and in stocks and
shares are maladies mainly confined to the ruder sex ; but a lottery
mania affects everybody — man, woman, and child — alike. It is the
1 'lague ; but it is possible, by the quarantine and the sanitary cordons
of repressive legislation, to stamp out the lottery pestilence.*
* In the drawing of the Paris Exhibitio 1 Lottery, Fortune favoured the
eleventh series, allotting to it no fewer than 131 gros lots; while next in order
came the first scries, which carried off 128 prizes. The most unlucky was the
ninth, with 7!) prizes only ; the seventh, with 83, being almost as had. The
series nearest to the average, the only one to hear out mathematical calcula-
tions, was the fifth series, with 107 prizes. In the daily drawings the two
extremes were 44 prizes, which fell to the first series on the fourth day, and
If to the eighth series on the second day. Holders of the ninth series thought
something was wrong with the wheel — that it was not equally weighted, which
is not unlikely, as all the lucky series were together ; and it was the same with
the unlucky ones, as if one part of the wheel had a tendency to he lowermost.
Persons in choosing their tickets avoided those containing two numerals of the
.-.ime value, whereas the list of the winning numbers showed how mistaken
was the idea; for eight out of ten contained identical numerals, and in four
eases out of ten the numerals were together, whilst one winning number in
twenty contained the three same numerals side ly side. In one case live
Hit;
PARIS HERSELF A.GAIN.
■iphers came out— no 1090 ; anil in anotheT tour, with two ones — 100010. Per-
haps the strangest freak of Fortune happened with prizes 189 and 190, both
of them landaus, both of the value of 160Z., and whirl, fell successively to
517,805 and 597,805 of the same series, a difference of one numeral only.
All kinds of fables were current for a time respecting Aubiiol, the working
currier, who won the gros lot. Of course he was passionately besought by
all his relatives, near or distant, and by the majority of Ins friends and ac-
quaintances, to give or to lend them money. The journeyman currier was
moreover affectionately requested to adopt nephews and nieces by the score,
and importuned by legions of inventive geniuses of the 'promoter' class to
embark a portion oi his capital in enterprises warranted to make him and
themselves wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. The lucky currier, how-
ever, showed himself to be a very sensible fellow, if there be any truth in the
statement that he had a circular printed in the following terms : ' Sir, — Were
I to accede to all the demands made upon my purse, I should have to go back
to work on Monday. I salute you — ArumoL.'
A long time after the drawing was over, the number of prizes that remained
unclaimed amounted to many thousands. Some of the ' white elephants ' did not
turn out so unprofitable as was anticipated. The winner of the condemned ton
of carbonate of soda, for instance, sold it for 40/., and the gentleman from Ken-
tucky who won the agricultural steam-engine promptly obtained 80/. for it.
■<-.■■'■', :*' ■■•::' r- -
i -â– , â–
' \ "•: '
' Monsieur, I have gained the Grand Prize in the Lottery.'
k Indeed I Then 1 suppose we must part !'
4 Just so, unless you like to enter my service.'
A PROSPECTIVE HAPPY DESPATCH — EMBARRASSMENT OF A JUROR (BY CHAM.)
' The Japanese wants to know if lie has got a medal !
Quick ! Say " Yes," before it is too late ! '
XII.
MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS.
Nov. 4.
I have read a story of a mysterious traveller, a Frenchman, who
was continually circumnavigating the globe in all kinds of craft, from
ocean steamers to Arab dhows, from Australian clippers to Chinese
junks, and who was always able to produce from his own private
stores the materials for a first-rate dinner, sufficient in quantity
not only for himself, but for the rest of the cabin-passengers, or, in
default of such companions, for the officers of the ship. Nothing-
delighted this strange circumnavigator so much as a long voyage
in stormy weather, when the ship had been driven out of her
course, and when the stock of fresh provisions was thoroughly
exhausted. Proportionate to the grumbling of the passengers at a
daily menu of salt pork and mouldy biscuit was his elation ; and
when the last fowl had been killed, and the last egg had been
168 TAR1S HERSELF AGAIN.
beaten up, in lieu of milk in the tea, lie would rub his hands, and
retire to the galley to confer with the cook. That same day at
dinner the cabin table would groan with ' all the delicacies of the
9< ason '—fish, fowl, butchers' meat, and game, soups and curries,
the greenest of vegetables, the sweetest of fruit-pies, and the most
savoury of soups. The mysterious circumnavigator, who con-
sistently declined to receive any remuneration for the dainties
which he so bountifully dispensed, ultimately undertook a voyage
to the North Pole. The ship in which he sailed was not heard of
for many years. At length an exploring expedition discovered the
mining vessel embedded between two icebergs. All hands had
perished long since from the cold. The corse of the luckless
French circumnavigator was found in his cabin, a sheet of paper
on the table before him, and a pen full of frozen ink in one stiffened
baud. The paper contained the touching statement that the writer
bade a calm and cheerful farewell to the world ; that he died happ} r ,
since he had been enabled, from fifteen } T ears' continuous personal
experience, to prove that the Preserved Provisions of Messrs.
Aubergine, Potaufeu, Entrecote & Co., of the Rue du Faubourg
St. Denis, Paris — of which firm he had the honour to be the trusted
representative in foreign parts — could be warranted to withstand
the rigour of any climate and the lapse of any reasonable amount
of time.
The enthusiastic circumnavigator in question might with
propriety have been selected by such a firm as Messrs. Crosse
& Blackwell, of Soho Square, London, to proclaim to the re-
motest nations the excellence of their own products ; only it
happens that the house — thanks to the exertions of the ubi-
quitous Mr. Joseph Leete, of whom I have already spoken —
is by this time thoroughly well known the whole world over.
It is, nevertheless, extremely satisfactory to find that Crosse &
BlackwelTs merits have been duly recognised by the jury in the
Alimentary Department of the Exposition Universelle, who have
awarded to them no less than three distinctions : a Gold Medal for
preserved meats, soups, and fish ; another Gold Medal for their
MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS. 169
vinegar, sauces, pickles, condiments, jellies, and marmalades;
and, finally, a bronze medal for preserved fruits. The last conces-
sion, even, is a remarkable one, as the French confiseurs, or ' cara-
melistes,' as they used to term themselves, have been accustomed
from time immemorial to declare that no nation but the French
could preserve ' fruits au jus ' at all. Tours and Nancy in the
Fast and "West, and Avignon and Montelimar in the South, are the
head-quarters of fruit-preserving in France ; but it is something to
find even a bronze medal conferred on the English confections.
The French are again justifiably proud of their preserved provi-
sions, or Conserves Alimentaires. In preserved asparagus, toma-
toes, and beans, the}' are perhaps unsurpassed ; and in farinaceous
and leguminous materials for soups, such as crecy, tapioca, semo-
lina, and julienne, the house of Groult Jeune has earned a world-
wide reputation. Such houses as Crosse & Blackwell, however
beat the French altogether in the preparation of concrete and sub-
stantial soups — soups which in a few minutes after the} r are taken
from the tin are ready for consumption, and which constitute in
many cases a dinner in themselves. After a long day's ride in a
savage countiy a basin of crecy or tapioca soup will not go far
towards recruiting exhausted nature; but the case is very different
when you are able to comfort the inner man with real or mock
turtle, gravy, mulligatawny, giblet, mutton broth, hare, ox-tail,
game, oyster, venison, ox-cheek, hotchpot, beef tea, or chicken
broth.
Yorkshire pies, Oxford brawn, spiced tongues, curried rab-
bit, curried fowl — let not the excellent East Indian sptcialite of
Mr. Halford, erst chef to a Viceroy of India, be passed without
mention — and a whole army of varieties of preserved fish and veget-
ables form only one section of the Crosse & Blackwell exhibit to
which has been accorded that which is collectively the highest
recompense which airy exhibitor whatsoever could obtain. The
sauces — a thoroughly English product, at which foreign cooks were
formerly accustomed to sneer, but of which they are now beginning
largely to avail themselves — form another important department in
170 PARIS HEESELP AGAIN.
this remarkable alimentary exhibit. The jury must have been
astounded when they found themselves confronted by Lea &
Perrins' Worcestershire and Charles Cocks' Heading Sauce ; by the
Royal Table, the John Bull, the Beefsteak, the Piquante, the
Tomato, the Regent, the Maintenon, the Wellington, the City of
London, the Osborne, the Coratch, the Gloucester, the Harvey, the
India Soy, the Chutnee,the Union, the Windsor, and the Universal
( 'amp. What, after this surprising display, becomes of Voltaire's
sarcasm against England, ' Fifty religions, and only one sauce ? '
It happens that the one only sauce mentioned by Voltaire, melted
butter to wit, is not exhibited by Messrs. Crosse & Blackwell, save
perhaps as an accompaniment to some preparation of boiled chicken.
I am perfectly well aware that our fecundity in made sauces is
sometimes quoted by Frenchmen as a proof of our incapacity to
make sauces for ourselves in our own private kitchens ; but I would
wish to point out that uo less than four distinct sauces in Messrs.
Crosse & Blackwell's handsome pavilion are prepared from the
recipes left by an eminent French cook, who was for many years
domiciled in England, and who rendered inestimable alimentary
service in 1855-6 to our soldiers in the Crimea. I find in the
Exposition the 'Belish,' the ' Sultana,' the ' Sauce ' proper, and
the ' Moutarde Aromatique ' of the late lamented Alexis Soyer.
While recognising to the full the merits of Messrs. Crosse &
Blackwell's many sauces, let me say a word in favour of the beau-
tifully artistic vases in which certain of these sauces are contained,
and which are either tasteful examples of Oriental porcelain or
genuine blue-and-white Wedgwood ware from Etruria itself.
The equity and right feeling of the international jury are
visible in the award of a Gold Medal to Messrs. J. S. Fry &
Sons of Bristol and London for their chocolate and cocoas, the
jury basing their award on the perfection of manufacture shown in
the products, the skilful selection of the raw material, and the use
of highly-improved machinery. That such a recompense should
be given to an English firm in France, the country par excellence
of chocolate manufacturers, is pleasantly significant. The house
MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS. 171
of Fry & Sons took medals at the Paris Exhibitions of 1855 and
1867; and the fresh and splendid distinction of a Gold Medal now
given proves that the French have had at once the generosity
and the common sense to acknowledge the good qualities of the
British manufacture, alike of ' Chocolat de sante,' ' Chocolat a
la vanille,' and ' Caracas cocoa.' ' Homoeopathic cocoa,' ' Cocoa
extract,' and ' Milk cocoa ' are forms of the preparation of the
cocoa with which our neighbours have only very recently become
familiarised ; but the wares of Messrs. Fry & Sons will certainly
gain increased acceptance among a 2>eople who are not only pro-
digious chocolate-eaters, but are also very partial to chocolate
as a beverage. Coffee, lamentably adulterated during these
latter days with chicory, is the staple beverage at every French
cafe, and in the majority of French families. The Spaniards,
on the other hand, are inveterate swallowers of chocolate in the
liquid, but rarely consume it in the concrete form. I wish that
Messrs. Fry's excellent ' Cocoa extract,' which possesses the full
flavour and pure aroma of the choicest cocoa with merely the
superfluous oil extracted, could find its way in more extensive
quantities to the Iberian peninsula. Spanish chocolate is very
delicious, when you can get nothing else for breakfast ; but it is
decidedly bilious, and the glass of water swallowed after it tends
rather to aggravate than to diminish the bilious symptoms. Yet
the consumption of the article throughout the dominions of Don
Alphonso is simply enormous. I have seen in the great pottery
works of the Marquis de Pickman — an Englishman long domiciled
in Spain, and ennobled by the ex-King Amadeo — at the Cartuja,
near Seville, rooms stacked to a height of thirty feet with little
white pots for holding the chocolate so dear to the popular palate.
These pots are made at the Catuja literally by the million ; but,
notwithstanding the universal consumption of chocolate, the
article is not good in quality. It is unskilfully manufactured,
the sugar combined with it is ill-refined, and the incorporation of
the sugar with the chocolate is imperfect. A course of Fry's
'Cocoa extract,' 'Homoeopathic cocoa,' or ' Chocolat de sante'
172 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
would, I am convinced, do the Spaniards a great deal of good, Dot
only from a sanitary, but from apolitical, point of view. Their too
oleaginous chocolate is decidedly unwholesome, and biliousness
encourages, not only liver-complaints, but pronunciamientos.
There is n popular farinaceous substance exhibited in the
American section of the Exposition Universelle — where it has
gained the only Gold Medal given in its class — which has been
slowly and steadily extending its reputation be3 T ond the boundaries
of the United States, until a demand for it has sprung up through-
out (Ireat Britain and all over the continent of Europe. I allude
to the Duryeas Maizena, manufactured by the Glen Cove Company
of Xew York, U.S.A., which produces upwards of 60,0001b. weight
of this food, prepared from American maize, every working day.
Y^ears ago the Messrs. Duryeas noted that Glen Cove possessed
certain natural advantages, of which the chief was a lake that
could be made a source of water-power, and the} 7 determined on
establishing their Maizena factory on this spot. The undertaking
throve, and the works gradually developed until they covered a
space of eight acres, and became equal to the daily task imposed
upon them of turning out the enormous quantity of Maizena of
which I have just spoken. Simultaneously quite a town was
formed around the factory by the dwellings of the workmen in
the employ of the firm. But during the Civil War the drain of
men for military duty was such — one of the partners at Glen Cove
raised a regiment of Zouaves known by his name — that the factory
became short-handed';' whereupon the owners set their wits to
wmk, and contrived with true Yankee ingenuity — the ingenuity
which, when driven to search for a substitute, never rests till it
has devised something better than the original — to supersede hand-
labour by machinery ; and they succeeded so effectually that one
workman now executes the task for which ten were formerly
n quired.
To the merits of Maizena the highest culinary oracles have
borne testimony. In France, the Baron Brisse, the apostle of the
haute cuisine bourgeoise, strongly commended it ; and at a banquet
MOKE GOLD MEDALLISTS.
173
served at the Exhibition of 1867 by Gousset, chef cle louche to
the Princess Mathilde, a special chef attended to produce and
distribute a maizena-pudding, which was extolled as possessing a
lightness and a flavour that had been hitherto unattainable. The
agreeable and the nutritive appear to be happily combined in this
product of the Zea Mays, the grain of which is known to contain
a larger amount of fatty matter
than that of any other cereal; and
Maizena is in a fair way of being
regarded as one of those sub-
stances which no well-ordered
kitchen should be without. We
have a wonderful variety of farina-
ceous foods, more or less nourish-
ing, of British preparation ; and
Maizena enjoys its fair share of
public patronage among us ; but
on the continent of Europe the
American product finds universal
acceptance, and is used, I am told, in nearly every hospital in
France, Germany, Switzerland, and Russia.
The French, in their commercial dealings with us, are daily
showing their increasing appreciation of the main spring of Free-
trade, Reciprocity. If they bought nothing from us in return for
all the silks, wine, sugar, butter, and eggs that we take from them,
we should have a right to grumble ; but this is very far from being
the case. Putting aside such well-known articles of merchandise
as cutlery, calico, and hosiery, which the French are in the
habit of importing largely, and confining myself to alimentary
substances alone, I find that our neighbours are considerable
consumers of British products. We all know that they are
rapidly becoming a nation of beer-drinkers, and that they should
become so, in a strictly moderate sense, is, to my mind, a con-
summation very much to be wished. I do not desire to see them
consuming our heavy stouts and porters, as the climate of France
171
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
is too light and elastic for such ponderous beverages; but pale ale
in moderation can do them no kind of harm. Bavarian beer, for
political reasons, they resolutely refuse to drink; and similar
causes render them averse from partaking of the once beloved
beverage of Strasbourg. Their own beer, from Nancy and other
parts ^ the Mast of France, is very bad ; and I hold that Burton-
on- Trent has a very bright future be-
fore it, and, so far as supplying the
French market is concerned, might
eventually beat Vienna — great as has
been the name of Dreher — out of the
field. ' Cerevisia de Palyaly,' as the
Spaniards call Bass's pale ale, is
making great way in all the towns of
Andalusia, and all the first-rate cafes
in Paris sell Allsopp, either bottled
or on draught ; while the Gold
Medal conferred at the present Ex-
hibition on Messrs. Bindley & Co., of Burton-on-Trent, for the
purity, delicacy of flavour, aroma, and brilliancy of their India
ales, pale, mild, and strong, shows that the French — Avho never
will and never can become brewers on a large scale — are pre-
pared still further to welcome the friendly competition of Burton
beer. This is another point, I take it, in favour of the Treaty
of Commerce and Free-trade. The first bottle of Allsopp that I
ever saw in Paris was in 1855, at the Buffet Americain, a short-
lived refreshment bar, opened — under the auspices of the versatile
M. de Yillemessant, I believe — at the corner of the Passage Jouf-
froy ; but I remember that fifteen years before, and in the days of
Protection, at Cuvillier's, in the Rue de la Paix, a quart bottle of
Hodgson's East India pale ale cost five francs. Even so to-day,
at a St. Petersburg restaurant, a pint bottle of Guinness's Dublin
stout cannot be had under a rouble, or three shillings sterling.
I see that the firm of Ervan, Lucas Bols, the great Batavian
tg liquor-makers, who exhibit a pile of drinkables formidable
MOKE GOLD MEDALLISTS. 175
enough to set the whole United Kingdom Alliance shuddering, and
to bring melancholy to the mind of Mr. John B. Gough, have
actually had a couple of Gold Medals awarded to them, one for
liqueurs and one for s})iritcux. The firm have a branch establish-
ment in the French capital, where it is understood that they do a
considerable trade. A tremendous quantity of liqueurs, to say
nothing of absinthe and vermouth, is, to all appearance, consumed
by the eminently temperate French people. They must take them,
I should say, medicinally, as cordials for that complaint which
Albert Smith's old-lacl} r patient used to call ' spiders at the heart,'
and for which Albert's invariable and gratefully received pre-
scription was gin coloured pink, with cardamons.
If the merits of the Batavian strong drinks have been amply
recognised, 'justice to Ireland' has certainly been meted out by
those members of the international jury who were charged with
adjudicating upon British spirits, for no less than three Gold
Medals have been awarded to exhibitors of Irish whisky, including
Dunville & Co. of Belfast, Kinahan & Co. of Dublin, and the
C< >rk Distilleries Company. Ireland may be proud of this recogni-
tion of one of its staple products ; for foreigners are commonly so
prejudiced in favour of the spirits the}' produce themselves, as to
be utterly oblivious to the merits of rival alcohols. The experts, I
hear, were unanimous, however, in their commendations of the purity
of the Irish whiskies, and the triple award was the result. Among
the Parisians the historic ' L.L.' or Lord-Lieutenant whisky of
the famous house of Kinahan & Co. lias, of recent years, been
gradually coming into favour. Hot whisky- and- water has to a
great extent superseded rum-and-water, which the frequenters of
the Parisian cafes, so soon as ever the chilliness of October had
set in, began to drink with serious assiduity, from eleven in the
morning until midnight, without apparently doing themselves the
slightest harm. It is true that they put about a teaspoonful and
a half <if spirits to half a dozen lumps of sugar, a large slice of
lemon, and half a pint of hot water; still, I do wish that, when
they imbibe Kinahan's ' L.L.' hot, they would not call the mixture
176
a ' Grog Americain.' Surely it should be a ' Grog Irlandais/
Our Celtic compatriots evidently have a grievance here.
Apropos of the alcoholic question, I am told that when the
international jury came to taste the spirits distilled from rice, and
wholly unrectified, in the Chinese section of the Exhibition, the
flavour of the Celestial ' schnick ' was found by the experts to be
so atrocious that, after making various wry faces and under-
going fearful qualms, they were about to pass Chinese spirits by
altogether, when the 'happy thought' occurred to some congener
< >f Mr. Burnand among the jurors to arrive at an idea of the relative
MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS.
177
qualities of the Chinese exhibits by corporal experiments on the
Chinese employes in the section. The pig-tailed connoisseurs in
samshu delivered their opinion by pantomimic gestures, and the
international experts framed their verdict accordingly. Thus, when
a sample of spirits was submitted to a Celestial, and he made,
while imbibing it, a hideous grimace, the sample was classed as
'zero.' If, on the other hand, the Chinaman's countenance
assumed a dubious expression, the spirit was allowed the benefit of
the doubt, and was voted worthy of ' Honourable Mention,' which,
I may parenthetically remark, a disappointed French exhibitor
lately denned to me as a distinction just a little worse than having
-
â– I â–
:! with you ; don't stand in front of my shop.'
' Tali ! go and hide your head in a bag, old bronze medal.*
your ears boxed, and just a little better than being kicked down-
stairs. When, however, the eyes of the heathen Chinee glistened,
and he licked his lips, the samshu was at once set down for a
Bronze Medal ; and finally, if he broke out in exclamations of
delight, and passed his hand approvingly over the region of the
stomach, a Silver Medal was accorded to the fortunate liqueur.
VOL. II.
178 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
There was no need to experiment in similar fashion with the
Irish whiskies on exhibit, for Royalty itself did not disdain to
'taste' one of these. In the early days of the Exhibition, when
the Prince and Princess of Wales, in company with the Crown
Prince of Denmark, were on their way to the carriage annexe,
something detained them temporarily in front of Messrs. Dun-
ville's stall. The day being raw and cold, the representative of
the great Belfast firm profited by this circumstance to respect-
fully ask the Prince if he would be pleased to taste the old V.R.
His Royal Highness was nothing loth ; and after he had taken a
' nip,' the Danish Crown Prince was induced to follow his example.
And then the most graceful, the most charming, and the most
womanly of princesses ever united to an heir apparent to the
British Crown smilingly asked her husband and her brother how
they liked what they had been tasting, and both agreed in pro-
nouncing it to be excellent. Messrs. Dunville, who have a stock
of whisky sufficient to float an ocean steamer, claim, I believe, to
be the largest holders of this spirit in the world.
Prominent among the inlze-winners in the alimentary depart-
ment of the British section, the importance of which it would be
mischievous to undervalue, are the firm of Messrs. J. & J. Colman, to
whom two Gold Medals have been awarded, one for mustard and
another for starch. In the course of my tours through the
restaurants of Paris I have more than once had occasion to com-
plain of the shortcomings of the French-made mustard, nor are
the French themselves backward in confessing that the native
condiment leaves much to be desired. They strive to conceal its
deficiencies by adding to it aromatic substances, or the flavour of
olives, anchovies, and shalot, and in some cases the mustard-seed
is preliminarily steeped in the lees of wine. The chief fault of
French mustard is that it is deficient in pungenc}-, falling very
far short of Column's excellent preparation in this respect ; and as
the French are growing day by day to be more and more a nation
of beef-eaters, lack of strength in their mustard is a drawback
winch they cannot continue to overlook. I read the other day an
MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS. 179
amusing advertisement of a new mustard, with some fantastic
name, which was guaranteed ' d'attaquer les narines les plus
recalcitrantes' — to titillate the most obstinate nostrils ; hut I have
sniffed energetically at that mustard, and it has not made me
sneeze. The utility of a really pure and powerful mustard, again,
is not wholly culinary. The condiment has very powerful medi-
cinal virtues ; and if you are afflicted with rheumatism, with a cold
at the chest, or with bronchitis, and stand in need of a mustard-
plaster, you certainly do not want the mustard to be flavoured with
anchovy or tarragon vinegar.
Ever since the exhibition opened the fabrication of Column's
mustard, which is in full operation in the Machinery Department,
has been a source of unflagging interest to the French visitors,
who have watched with breathless curiosity the accomplishment of
the various processes, from the screening and pounding of the
seed to the final packing of the mustard in tins ready to form a
condiment for those 'biftecks bien saignants' — those half-crude
lumps of flesh — to which the French think that we are incurably
addicted, but of which they themselves are inordinately fond. I
confess that I watched myself the pounding process with some-
thing like childish interest. The seed for Colman's mustard is
crushed by means of a series of heavy cylinders — of what their
technical name may be I have not the remotest idea — which in
slow alternation came up and down like unto the legs of some
enormous animal performing an eternal goose-step. ' Melancholy -
mad elephants,' Charles Dickens, hi Hard Times, called some
engine of the kind which he saw in Lancashire. But where had I
seen the melancholy-mad elephants before ? Not at Preston nor
Blackburn. Not at Huddersfield nor Leeds. Far away did my
memory take me, sixteen years back. Far away from Colman's
mustard factory, through the Southern Atlantic, round the storm-
tormented Hatteras, along the sandy coast of Florida, and thus,
threading the shiny Antilles, across the blue Gulf to Vera Cruz,
and so through the Tierra Caliente and the deserts of sand and
cactus, up the gloomy Cambus, and through the fearsome cartons
k 2
180
TARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
to the great city of Tenostitlan. And then, miles away from the
shadow of Popocatapetl and Istclasiwatl, ' the vii'gin in white
reclining,' far away through savage mountain-gorges to the silver
mines of Real del Monte in Mexico ; and there, at the mouth of
each shaft, from Pachuca to the Falls of Regla, used I, day by day
and night by night, to watch the melancholy-mad elephants —
colossal cylinders of timber shod with iron, which might have
crushed Colman and all his mustard into the Impalpabilities in
five minutes — plodding up and down, up and down, pounding the
silver ore under their tremendous toes. It was a rebellious ore ;
but the huge pedals crushed out the precious stuff at last — got it
out by slow and unwearying persistence, as the pith is picked
out of a reed, or as misery crushes the heart out of a man. But
my mind came very swiftly back from Mexico to contemplate a
surging crowd of vivacious Gauls who were struggling for some
packets of mustard which were being gratuitously distributed in
front of Messrs.
J. & J. Colman' s
show-case. They
are quite as eager
when there is a
biscuit scramble
at Huntley and
Palmers'kiosque;
and they nearly
suffocate while
thronging round
the obliging gen-
tleman at the per-
fumery fountain
in the French
section, who, it
is said, scents 20,000 pocket handkerchiefs a day for nothing.
One person, abusing this generosity, tendered four moiichoirs for
gratuitous odoriferous treatment. 'Mais il est done un "pick-
MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS. 181
pocket," ce maraudeur-la,' murmured the obliging gentleman, out
of all patience.
While mentioning the fact of a Gold Medal having been
awarded to the firm of Orlando Jones & Co., starch manufacturers,
at Battersea, I wish to point out that Mr. Orlando Jones is himself
the inventor of the i:>rocess of making the Patent Pace Starch, or
' Amidon de Eiz,' which bears his name. The invention in question
dates from the year 1840, since which period the firm have
received no less than nine medals of honour at various Inter-
national Exhibitions, the reasons given by the juries for these
awards being the invention of the process, the excellence of
manufacture, and the extended use of the product. Some of my
readers will, no doubt, remember the time — which, thanks to
Free-trade and Inter-oceanic Navigation, we are scarcely likely to
see again — when bread was at famine prices, and mob orators
made a grand point by hotly denouncing the waste of good
wheaten flour used for starching the cravats of the aristocracy and
powdering the heads of their flunkeys. By employing rice for the
manufacture of starch, Mr. Orlando Jones not only wiped out this
reproach, but succeeded in producing a material which loses none
of "its stiffness in clamp weather, a thing impossible with starch
made from wheat. How grateful Queen Elizabeth's maids of
honour and tire-women would have been for such a boon when
that irascible Sovereign's voluminous ruffs drooped under the
influence of our tearful climate ; and how proud Brummell's valet
would have felt could he but have adjusted the Beau's indispen-
sable white cravat without a daily heap of failures !
All discoveries in relation to starch have not proved equally
happy ones. Does not worthy Master Stubbes, in his Anatomic
of Abuses, denounce it as a direct invention of the Evil One, and
relate a terrible tale of a pretty young Dutchwoman who could not
pleat her imperfectly stiffened ruff to her satisfaction, and whose
appeal for aid to the Infernal Powers was answered in person by a
very dark but comely gallant ? He pleated the ruff to perfection,
but he fitted it so tightly round the poor woman's neck that she
182 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
then and there died. And did not Mrs. Mary Turner, procuress
and poisoner, who helped to murder that self-seeking intriguer,
Sir Thomas Overbury, at the instigation of his bosom-friend Lord
Somerset, make her last public appearance at Tyburn or Tower
Hill, I forget which, in one of those famous yellow starched ruffs,
the getting up of which was one of her more reputable sources of
income ? Thenceforward and for ever, yellow starch became an
abomination ; whereas a continuously increasing popularity seems
to attend the pure white material which Mr. Orlando Jones obtains
from the Oryza sativa.
While M. Jablochkoff and Mr. Edison, and I know not how
many more inventors and patentees of the electric light, are con-
verting night into day, and causing the eyes of the weaksighted to
blink, even like unto those of the melancholy and moping owl
while sitting in an ivy-bush, and while you hear on all sides that
gas will speedily become a thing of the past — it will last our time,
and longer, I fancy — I may just direct one glance at the very
handsome and interesting display of Price's Patent Candle Com-
pany, enshrined beneath its crystal dome appropriately supported
by inter-arching palm-tree columns. I am tolerably well acquainted
with the history of candles ; and, so far as France is concerned, I
can remember when there were only two kinds of candles to be had
in Paris — I am speaking of from thirty to forty years ago — ' la
bougie,' the wax candle, which was superlatively good, but very
dear ; and ' la chandelle,' commonly so called, which was only an
exaggerated rushlight with very feeble powers of illumination.
The French continue to make excellent bougies, and within recent
years they have been manufacturing a variety of candles made
from other substances than wax ; but I claim for my own country-
men that they have taught the French to make successively not
only the old ' mould ' candles, but the more modern ' composites,'
— which were first introduced in 1840, on the occasion of her
Majesty's marriage, by Messrs. Edward Price & Co., the founders
of the present firm, — and the still more modern 'paraffin.' But
the French have not improved on our candles, and our maim-
MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS. 133
facturers indisputably continue to keep the lead. Price's patent
candles have taken Gold Medals this quarter of a century past at
Exhibitions in London, Paris, Moscow, Philadelphia, Dublin,
Brussels, Lyons, Amsterdam, and Vienna — at the last-named two
of the highest medals that could be awarded — and the Company is
once more in the forefront at the Paris Exhibition.
The award of the Gold Medal is especially merited by the
exhibits of the ' Palmitine ' ornamental candles — pahnitine is a
mixture of paraffin and stearine, the combination producing all
the brilliancy without the drawbacks of unmingled paraffin,
which has a tendency to give off smoke in burning and to bend
in a warm atmosphere, besides being equally transparent with the
finest sperm candles. The raw material, whence the stearine is
obtained, is that strange-looking orange-coloured butter known as
palm-oil, some 7000 tons of which are annually consumed by the
firm. ' Quashee ma boo, the slave trade is no more ! ' exclaim
Messrs. Smith in Rejected Addresses ; and this result is stated
by competent authorities to be due quite as much to the impetus
given to the stearine manufacture as to the efforts of British
cruisers on the Benin coast. King Boriabungalaboo finds it more
profitable to employ his sable subjects in planting palm-trees than
to sell them right off to Captain Ammadab P. Dowsetter, of the
Saucy Sarah schooner, through the intermediary of Don Pacheco
Sanchez. It is to the stearine that the Palmitine candles owe
then hardness, their slowness of combustion and brilliancy of
illuminating power being due to the paraffin ; the net result, in
commercial phraseology, being a light as soft as, and more lasting
than, that of a wax candle, at a price but little over that paid,
some years back, for the common tallow mould.
Among the thirty-two qualities of candles, moulded into twice
as many different shapes and sizes, which Price's Patent Candle
Company produce, the most notable are the 'Primrose' and
' National ' wax, the ' Belmontines,' the ' Composites,' the ' Sher-
wood' and 'Belmont' sperms, the ' snuffles s dips/ and the carriage
lamp candles of Ceylon wax. Then there are the patent ' night-
184
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
lights/ which under the name of either 'Price's,' 'Albert's,' or
• Child's, ' have been known these many years past all the world
over. To these have now to be added a new variety which the
Company are producing from stearine obtained from the coker-
nut-tree — one of the palm family — a material remarkable for its
whiteness of flame and utter freedom from smoke, for which reason
it was selected as fuel for the sledging parties in the last Arctic
expedition. Of the Company's household and toilette soaps, in-
cluding the famous glycerine which they introduced some twenty
years back, it is unnecessary to speak.
"When George IV. landed at the hamlet on the Irish coast subse-
quently dignified with the name of Kingstown, it is related that
one enthusiastically loyal Paddy thrust himself forward, and un-
ceremoniously grasped the hand of the First Gentleman in Europe.
Then, gazing respectfully at the grimy paw that had thus been
honoured by ac-
tual contact with
Ptoyalty, the de-
lighted tatterde-
malion exclaim-
ed ' Soap nor
water shall niver
touch this hand
tillmedjdn'day.'
The Bashaw of
Brighton, whose
devotion to the
duties of the
toilette has been
recorded by Mr.
Greville, some-
time Clerk of
the Closet, shud-
dered at the idea
of this prospective penance ; but those around him, better acquainted
A PIECE OF ADVICE (BY CHAM).
' Don't look at the exhibits of soap as though you
saw the article for the first time.'
MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS. 185
with the idiosyncrasies of his Majesty's Irish subjects in those days,
merely smiled at the notion of the slightest inconvenience bein« en-
tailed thereby. For at that epoch 'the Great Unwashed' was by no
means apopular misnomer when applied to the bulk of the inhabitants
on either side of St. George's Channel. If that soap-renouncing
Irishman could only be present in the flesh — it would be useless in
the spirit — in the Palace of the Champ de Mars, he would be sorely
tempted to recant his hasty abjuration in the presence of the
saponaceous display of Messrs. Hodgson & Simpson of the
Calder Soap-works, Wakefield, comprising countless cubes of soap
in piles, including the familiar 'yellow,' the 'white curd,' and the
' brown,' all with then* distinct ' grain' — a sign, say the initiated
in such matters, of perfect saponification. Surmounting these
pillars are pyramids of what is styled ' Queen's Mottled Soap,'
while around the edge of the case are tablets of toilette soaps such
as honey, glycerine, and old brown Windsor, which used originally
to be curd soap darkened with age, but, in these express days, has
its umbrian hue imparted by the aid of caramel.
For the benefit of those who follow the sage Napoleonic axiom,
and confine the lavation of their befouled linen to the domestic
circle, Messrs. Hodgson & Simpson exhibit an array of large
crystals of soda of unusual size and form. The Wakefield firm,
in fact, combine all departments, from the production of fancy
soaps to the making of black ash or ball soda. Soda manufacture
has undergone a great change since kelp and barilla were the sole
sources of its supply, and Orkney lairds were wont to pay an
annual visit to Edinburgh, and ruffle it with the best society of
the Modem Athens, on the proceeds of the product of the strip of
foreshore bordering their hereditary patches of rock and moor-
land. When Nicolas Leblanc of Issoudun responded to the
appeal of the French Government, on the cutting off of all the
accustomed sources of supply whence soda was derived during the
revolutionary epoch, and showed that it could be made from
common salt, he laid the foundation of an industry which has since
flourished in England to an enormous extent, and of which the
186 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
Cakler "Works are amongst the largest exemplars. Soap and soda
are here successfully combined — not mechanically, but chemically —
in what is styled the ' Queen's Condensed Soap,' a powder done up
in packets, and replacing soda crystals in the laundry with the ad-
vantage of being less destructive to garments. A gold medal has
been awarded to Messrs. Hodgson & Simpson, whose works near
"Wakefield cover some eight acres of ground. Cheap soap being a
specialty of their business, cheap carriage is also an essential
requisite ; and their factory borders a canal affording water-carriage
to Liverpool on the west, and to Goole, Hull, and London on the
east ; so that cargoes of tallow and resin, the essential materials of
fine soap — of which the firm is one of the largest consumers in the
United Kingdom — can be brought direct to the boiling coppers from
Eussia, Australia, and America, with only a single transhipment.
A couple of Silver Medals — one for mustard, and the other
for that excellent domestic preparation which most of us have, at
one time or another, materially benefited by, namely, ' Robinson's
Patent Groats,' have been awarded to Messrs. Keen, Robinson,
& Co. The house is of great antiquity, the Keens having started
in business as ' blue and mustard makers' at Garlick Hill, their
present head-quarters, as far back as 1742, the year of the downfall
of Sir Robert "Walpole's administration, after its one-and-twenty
years' tenure of office. In 1764, at the time Lord Byron's grand-
father, Foul- Weather Jack as he was called, was circumnavigating
the globe, the Robinsons were seeking to acclimatise in England
the use of that grain which Dr. Johnson had contemptuously pro-
nounced to be fitted only for Scotchmen and horses. The union
of these two old-established firms took place in 1862, having
been pictorially foreshadowed seven years previously in a Punch
cartoon entitled 'The Prevailing Epidemic,' and representing
the Fleet Street sage, with his head muffled in flannel, taking a
mustard foot-bath and a basin of hot gruel, and exclaiming ' Ah,
you may laugh, my boy; but it is no joke being funny with the
influenza.'
In Shakespeare's day families had no Keens to crush mustard-
MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS. 187
seed for them, but accomplished this operation themselves by
the aid of a pestle and mortar ; and the mustard that Gruinio
proffered to Katherine, and which Petruchio opined was too hot
for that choleric lady, was prepared in this fashion. Messrs.
Keen's firm were the first to manufacture mustard on a large
scale and to employ machinery for the purpose ; and long before
Adulteration Acts were dreamt of they counselled the use of
pure mustard, without an)- addition of farina — mustard that was
'hot i' th' mouth,' as genuine mustard should be; although ex-
perience has proved that when there is not a quick sale or a quick
consumption after mixing, compound mustards of the best quality
are preferable, the addition of farina improving the mustard, like
gold for coining is improved b} r the alloy, by retaining the volatile
oil, and by checking the natural tendency which mustard has, in
common with all vegetable products, to decay. With Messrs. Keen
only the best and hottest seed finds favour ; and it is for this
reason that their mustard is in such general request, not merely
in all our colonies, but also in the United States, and is being-
preferred even by our French neighbours, whose mustard, as I
have already remarked, is utterly lacking in this much-desired
pungency. Robinson's patent groats are known in every English
household; and that distinguished authority on gruel, Miss Mary
Hooper, will, I am sure, be pleased to hear that their merits have
been properly recognised at the Paris Exhibition.
There is a glass case belonging to a Gold Medallist which it
would be decidedly unjust to pass without mention ere the Exposi-
tion Universelle comes to the end of its wondrous career. I allude
to one containing the sporting guns and rifles manufactured by
Messrs. James Purdey & Sons of Oxford Street, London. Most of
the fowling-pieces and rifles, complete in workmanship and exquisite
in finish, exhibited by Messrs. Purdey, who are gun-makers to the
Queen and the Prince of Wales, have been purchased by Royal and
noble personages, including the Prince de Croy, who has secured
no less than five of these fine weapons, the Prince Imperial of
Austria, Prince Mavrocordato, Prince Boris-Czetwertynski, the
188 TARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
Duke de Castries, Baron Albert do Rothschild, M. Patrice de
MacMahon, and last, though not least, Prince Arthur of Saxe
Coburg Gotha. One side of the Purdey glass case is decorated
with photographs of sporting trophies of the game shot on various
excursions in Europe by the Prince of Wales, the Emperor of
Russia, and the late King of Itary. There is also the reproduc-
tion of a trophy of African antelopes, shot bj' two adventurous
English sportsmen, J. L. Garden, Esq., and Captain Garden.
The well-known and indeed leading specialty of the Purdey guns
is extreme lightness, obtained without any sacrifice of strength.
Another is the new sj'stem introduced by Messrs. Purdey of boring
for ' small charges,' so that longer range and better results may
be attained than can be procured by the old system of heavy guns
with large charges. The light guns are altogether free from ' kick'
or recoil.
The extra Purdey exhibit consists of four guns, elaborately
chased in the champ-leve style, two of which have been embellished
by the talented artist Aristido Barri, who was arrested at Vienna
as a Communist, but was subsequently released, and is now occu-
pied in executing a champ-leve for the Emperor of Austria. There
is likewise a pan of very handsome guns, with stocks of orna-
mental maple, having the appearance of tortoiseshell, and the steel
portions of which are exquisitely inlaid with gold. A pair of
beautiful guns for ladies' use must also claim a word. The stocks
of these guns are ebonised, and the weapons themselves are of
extreme lightness; still I am told that a distinguished pigeon-
shot at a recent Monaco competition succeeded in killing with
one of them fifteen out of eighteen birds at twenty-eight yards'
rise. The crack shots of Hurlingham and Shepherd's Bush
are in the habit of favouring with their presence the competitions
organised by the brothers Dennetier, in the diminished strip of
territory belonging to Prince Charles of Monaco, to the sore dis-
comfiture of their Continental rivals. On these occasions the
death-dealing barrels of Mr. Dudley Ward, Sir R. Musgrave,
Earl de Grey, and Captain Vansittart give plenty of employ-
MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS.
189
ment to Nelly, the famous bitch upon whom devolves the onerous
task of retrieving the slaughtered pigeons, which frequently average
six hundred per diem. Especially interesting in the Purdey exhibit
is an extremely ingenious mechanical gun, which, by means of an
arrangement of screws, can be twisted and turned into any shape,
V V
4y aj
A CRACK SHOT.
100
TARIR HERSELF AGAIN.
and fixed there for measurements to be taken from it, so that the
gun to be manufactured
can be suited to ' the
mount' of any particular
sportsman who is in the
habit of shooting from
the right or left eye, or
from the right or the left
shoulder, respectively. I
am informed that no less
than 7000L in money-
prizes alone, exclusive of
cups, have been won by noblemen and gentlemen using Purdey
guns at Hurlingham and the Gun Club last year.
Having dwelt upon the exhibit of Messrs. Purdey & Sons, and
chronicled the fact of those famous gunsmiths having secured a
Gold Medal, fairness induces me to refer to a neighbouring glass
case, in which are displayed a variety of sporting guns and rifles,
manufactured by Mr. Stephen Grant of St. James's Street, to
whom a Gold Medal has likewise been awarded, on the score of
the mingled strength, excellence, and beauty of workmanship
shown in his fowling-pieces. Among the collections of firearms
displayed at the Exhibition are many admirable examples of
Continental and American skill ; still, judges possessed of the
requisite technical knowledge, who have gone carefully through
the whole of the exhibits, do not hesitate to place the weapons
of our English gunsmiths in the foremost rank, both as regards
their strength and their finish. Even the best French and
Belgian guns fail, they say, to impress the sportsman with the
same idea of strength and perfect beauty of action as a thoroughly
well-made English fowling-piece. The former are altogether
more toy-like ; and it is a noticeable fact that the great majority
of French, German, and Belgian sportsmen, and more parti-
cularly those who are adepts at pigeon-shooting, invariably use
guns of English origin, manufactured by such experienced gun-
MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS. 191
smiths as Mr. Stephen Grant and the more notable of his con-
freres. I am told, indeed, that the vast majority of the prizes which
have recently fallen to competitors at shooting-matches, both in
England and on the Continent, have been gained by gentlemen
who have used either Grant or Purdey guns. Captain Aubrey
Patton, who on two consecutive occasions carried off the Grand
Prix, worth 1000£., at the Monaco ' tournament of doves,' shot with
a Grant breechloader ; and Mr. David Hope- Johnstone, who a few
years since secured the magnificent piece of plate presented by Mr.
James Gordon Bennett to be shot for at the ground of the Cercle
des Patineurs in the Bois de Boulogne, is likewise a client of Mr.
Stephen Grant's, who coimts, moreover, the Prince of "Wales and
the Duke of Edinburgh among his aristocratic patrons.
Some five years since, making a tour among the manufactures
of the Midlands and the North of England, I came to Birmingham,
and studied, as narrowly as within my powers of observation lay,
the remarkable processes — I think there are nineteen in all —
employed in the fabrication of steel pens. It was the works of
Messrs. Joseph Gillott that, as a total stranger, I visited, first
because Gillott steel pens are admitted to be the best that are
made, and next because the name and trade-mark of ' Joseph
Gillott ' are known the whole world over. I am glad to see that
the celebrated Birmingham firm have had justice done to them
in the Champ de Mars, and have received a Gold, Medal. The
Gillott show-case displays, in its central compartments, a pen-
holder and a ' magnum-bonum ' pen of such gigantic dimensions
that the implement might be best suited to the use of the Private
Secretary to the Sovereign of Brobdingnag. The lateral com-
partments display trophies with mouldings and central bosses
formed of steel pens and holders of various forms and sizes, and
of every shade of metallic tint ; while beneath are glass vases filled
with thousands of loose ' nibs ' and ' barrel ' pens. I notice, also,
that a portion of the case practically illustrates the various pro-
cesses of pen-making, beginning with the first plain strip of metal,
and showing it in successive stages of punching, cutting, stamp-
192 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
ing, piercing, pointing, nibbing, hardening, annealing, polishing,
Lettering, and so forth, until it is turned out a pure and perfect
pen, ready to join its comrades in a cardboard box inscribed with
the well-known signature of ' Joseph Gillott,' and to make the
â– Tour du Monde.' What, I wonder, will become of all these
thousands of ' magnum bonums,' hard and soft nibs, 'commercial'
and fine-pointed pens, and lithographic ' crowquills ' ? They will
be dispersed, I suppose ; they will be scattered far and wide ;
they will find their way to all sorts of out-of-the-way regions.
Tens of thousands of love-letters, begging-letters, and lawyers'
letters, bills and invoices, poems and novels, five-act tragedies and
milk-scores, leading articles. and schoolboys' exercises, will be
written with these pens. And yet, vast as is the part which steel
pens have played in the civilisation of the world, they are, com-
paratively speaking, things only of the day before yesterday.
When I first went to school in Paris, forty years ago, it was one
of the highest crimes and misdemeanours that a boy could commit
to be found in possession of a ' plume de fer.' The steel pen was*
inflexibly banished as an abominable thing from our scholastic
precincts ; and four years afterwards, when I went to school in
England, I found that steel pens were only sullenly tolerated by
my preceptor, and that the nearest road to his favour was to ask
him for a quill pen. If, in addition to writing with a quill, you
could mend one, you became at once a Model Boy. Nous avons
change tout cela ; yet the quill continues to a certain extent to
hold its own in England. At the great clubs a dozen quill pens
are certainly used for every steel nib asked for. Quills have not been
entirely banished either from Governmentoffices, courts of justice, or
from mercantile counting-houses; so that as long as the use of a Gil-
lott is not made compulsory, and as long as it is not made a penal
offence to sleep on a feather-bed, the geese will continue, at other
seasons besides Michaelmas and Christmas, to have a bad time of
it. The number of quill-pen users is, however, restricted. It is
a population which is diminishing, and which will die out ; while
the numbers of steel-pen consumers must increase to a proportion-
MORE GOLD MEDALLISTS.
193
ate extent with the consumers of letter-paper, envelopes, and
postage stamps — that is to say, to the Illimitable.
Wandering recently, at hazard, through the instructive and inge-
nious, but, to the non-bucolic mind, slightly wearisome agricultural
machinery annexe of the British section, I came upon the black
red, and gold arcade, inwrought with the rose, shamrock, and
thistle in the spandrels of its arches, of Messrs. J. J. Thomas &
Co., of the Paddington Wire-works, Edgware Road, who have been
awarded a Gold Medal
for the excellence of
their productions. A
vast number of articles
within this structure
show that wire is not
only capable of being
made to assume a pro-
tean variety of shapes,
but is susceptible of the
most artistic handling.
The floriculturist can-
not fail to be struck
by the rosaries and
rose-temples, rivals to
Celia's arbour, and in
eveiy way worthy of
the Queen of Flowers;
garden arches, display-
ing a regular series of
architectural studies ;
wire porches and win-
dow-shades ; arcades
and verandahs; elabo-
rate wire and iron gar-
den seats, chairs, and
tables (fixed and fold- jardiniere, exhibited by j. j. thomas and co.
V"[.. II.
104
I'AKIS HERSELF AGAIN.
ing) ; multi-patterned wire-borderings for flower-beds — all artisti-
cally designed and beautifully finished ; espalier-fencing, for train-
ing fruit-trees ; together with wall-trellises, wire-fencing, netting
for enclosures, gates, hurdles, seed-guards, and many other articles
ot' a similar character. For those who do their gardening indoors
there are flower-stands, tastefully enamelled, in all colours, with
hanging baskets, flower epergnes, and jardinieres of alike hand-
some appearance, elaborate in construction and chastely tinted and
gilt, and fit to figure in the best-appointed boudoir or drawing-
room.
Pheasantries, aviaries, and birdcages form a special feature in
Messrs. Thomas's display. Here are aviaries of gilt and brass wire
that are perfect ornithological palaces, comprising central cages
in conjunction with four
supplementary ones, that
may be used in combination,
separated from one another
at pleasure, or according as
the inhabitants of this mini-
ature Cloud Cuckoo Town
are communistic-ally inclined
or the reverse. Stained-
glass corners, with gilt eagles
at the angles, and gilt orna-
ments at the summit, en-
hance the appearance of these
compact and perfect aviaries,
which are especially adapted for the drawing-room, owing to their
being fitted with figured-glass plates on their richly-enamelled base,
to prevent the seeds and husks from being scattered about by the
feathered occupants. Here, too, are birdcages of daintily-inlaid wood
and gilt wire— which even Sterne's starling would hardly have wanted
to escape from— square, round, octagonal, and pagoda shaped; with
cages for larks and for linnets, breeding-cages, squirrel and white-
mice cages, folding and portable cages that pack as flat as a Gibus
IUOEE GOLD MEDALLISTS.
195
hat, as v,-ell as cages green "with paint and cages gray from galvan-
ism ; in short, cages enough to hold all the birds in Great St.
Andrew Street, and man}' more besides.
The objects already enumerated form but a tithe of the dis-
play. Life is said to hang on a thread; and Messrs. Thomas
seem to have imposed upon themselves the task of showing
how much our every-day existence is dependent upon wire by exhi-
biting window-blinds both for ornament and for protection, fire-
guards and fenders, bottle-bins and racks, sieves, children's cots,
dish-covers, toasting-forks, cinder-sifters, egg-whisks, salad-strain-
ers, tree-guards, baskets, bird, rat, mouse, eel, and lobster traps, and
innumerable other things — all composed of this ductile material.
\£F'JMErVIE
' I find all your preparations dreadfully dear.'
' But remember, madam, we gained the only medal.
u 2
THE SQUARE DU TEMPLE.
XIII.
IX THE TEMPLE.
X( iv.
There was in the annual Exhibition proper of Paintings known
as Le Salon, held at the Palais de l'lndustrie during the summer
months, a picture which to me was full of the deepest interest,
but which failed to attract a tithe of the attention it deserved.
The truth is, that the wondrous Galeries des Beaux Arts in the
Champ de Mars had, like Aaron's rod, swallowed up all other
contemporary displays of paintings and statuary; and in the
tremendous panorama of the Exposition Univers'elle the modest
gallery in the Champs Elysees was, comparatively speaking, for-
gotten. At the close of the Salon the work of art of which I speak
was removed to a picture-dealer's shop on the Boulevard Bonne
Nouvelle ; and day after day I used to go and cogitate over it by
the half hour together. It was a canvas of considerable dimen-
sions, containing many figures, and it was full of good composition,
drawing, and colour. It was offered for sale at a very moderate
price — a hundred and twenty pounds, if I remember aright. I did
not purchase the work, because there was then, as there is still,
IN THE TEMPLE. 197
an unaccountable delay in the arrival, at my domicile in Paris, of
the necessary cheques available for investment in works of art ;
but I frankly confess that had I bought it I should not have been
influenced by any considerations of an artistic nature. I valued
the picture only as an eloquently realistic illustration of one of the
most dramatic, the most moving, and most mysterious episodes in
the history of modern France.
This picture told the story of the arrest of Georges Cadoudal,
the famous Chouan conspirator against the life of the First
Napoleon. Georges was accustomed stoutly to disclaim the
imputation of being a common assassin ; still he did not conceal
his intention to fall upon the First Consul the first time he met
him in public ; disarm his escort with the assistance of a band of
brother Chouans, and slay him. Bonaparte, he reasoned, had
been condemned to death by the verdict of all respectable people ;
and somebody must be bold enough to become the executioner of
the tyrant. "With this idee fixe in his mind, the resolute Chouan
came over from England, where he had long lived in exile, and
where, to all seeming, he was very well known and very much liked,
even in aristocratic English society, and hid himself in Paris,
where he soon became the centre of a gang of some sixt}^ or seventy
desperate plotters against the government. Both M. Lanfrey and
M, Michelet plainly declare that the Consular Government were
perfectly well aware of the presence of Georges and his confederates
in the capital, and that the police allowed the plot to ripen un-
disturbed, in the hope of getting hold of conspirators of more
exalted rank than the Vendean farmer, Georges Cadoudal, and his
more or less obscure followers. They thought that Monseigneur
the Comte d'Artois might be eventually decoyed to Paris, and
captured to his destruction. • Their benevolent expectations in
this respect being frustrated, the Minister of Police deemed it time
to cast his drag-nets and make a haul of the Bourbonist agents,
who were known by his scouts and his spies to be in Paris.
The Chouans were laid hold of by the score ; but Georges, during
many weeks, successfully eluded the pursuit of the gendarmes and
108 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
the mouchards. He was nevertheless so persistently followed, so
closely tracked from hiding-place to hiding-place, that he could
hear, as it were, the barking of the police-pack at his heels, and
almost feel their hot breath stirring his hair. He had no refuge
at last but a hackney cabriolet — a two-wheeled vehicle with a huge
leathern hood ; and in this cab, driven by a trusty friend, he
positively lived for the best part of a week, driving about the
streets all day, and hiding at night in some timber-yard or quay-
side shed, where food and forage had been brought by friends, so
as to give horse and man a little refreshment and rest.
But one afternoon, in a frequented thoroughfare, the friendly
cabdriver was imprudent enough to alight, and enter a cabaret to
obtain a drink of wine. This simple act was in itself a breach of
the existing cab regulations. Two passing police-agents took
notice of it ; and one of them, looking into the carriage, in which
the driver had resumed his seat, to warn him that he would be
summoned, recognised with astonishment and delight in the second
occupant of the cabriolet the countenance of the man of whom he
had been so long in quest — Georges Cadoudal. ' A moi !' he cried
to his companion, seizing Georges by the collar, and striving to
drag him to the pavement. Georges was not a man of half
measures. He at once drew a pistol, fired, and blew the
mouchard's brains out ; then, seizing the reins and lashing the
horse, he made a desperate effort to drive away ; but the second
mouchard had seized the horse's head ; a crowd collected ; the
patrol arrived from the nearest guardhouse ; the Chouan leader
Was overcome and handcuffed ; twenty minutes afterwards he was
in a cachot at the Depot of the Prefecture ; and ere sunset he was
safe and sound in the Temple, only to leave that gloom}' donjon
for the prisoner's dock at the Palais de Justice, only to leave it
eventually for the Place de Greve, where, with eleven other real or
fancied conspirators against the life of the First Consul, he was
guillotined. He left a poor old father to bewail him; and at the
Piestoration the elder Cadoudal was ennobled in memory of his
son's devotion to the. cause of Royalty. It so happened that the
IN THE TEMPLE. I99
poor mouchard, who had his brains blown out by Georges, left, not
only a father, but a wife and children also, to be sorry for him.
The moment chosen for illustration by the painter is when
Georges, leaping up in the cabriolet, discharges his pistol point-
blank at the police-agent's head. The street-life of the time, the
uncouth costumes of the early years of the century— men with
' curly-brimmed ' hats, buckskin or stocking-net pantaloons, drab
coats, voluminous neckcloths, variegated garters of the ' Sixteen-
String Jack ' pattern, striped stockings, and top-boots ; women
with poke-bonnets, gauze scarves, and closely-fitting gowns, with
waists close under the armpits— are depicted with strictly historic
accuracy. But the interest centres in that struggle in the cab
the herculean frame, the desperate features, of Georges with his
death-dealing pistol, the death-shriek of the mouchard. Ever
as I gazed upon this powerful work did I see in my mind's eye, in
the background, the very donjon of the Temple— the dreary fast-
ness in which Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette endured the lone
agony which ended in their murder— the Temple where the bestial
cobbler, Simon, was permitted by the Commune de Paris to torture
to death's door the poor little captive, Louis XVII. The Princess,
who was afterwards Duchess of Angouleme, was the last Royal
prisoner immured in the Temple ; and in 1811 Napoleon had the
donjon razed to the ground. The King of Rome had just been
born; and the proud and exultant father somewhat too senti-
mentally observed that in demolishing the Temple he wished to
throw into oblivion all memory of a place in which a Eoyal child
had suffered so much dire anguish. He might have added that
it was convenient to obliterate the reminiscences of a State prison
associated not only with the martyrdom of the Eoyal Family of
France, not only with the captivity of Georges and his fellow
Chouans, but also with the possible torture and murder of
Pichegru, and the still unexplained death of the gallant Captain
Wright. 'I will go and see the site of the abominable prison-
house,' I said to myself yesterday. 'Paris is Herself Again;
and in all Lutetia there is no spot more Parisian than the Temple.'
200 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
So I sped on wheels, to the corner of the Rue des Filles-du-
Calvaire; and, alighting, found myself at the top of the Boulevard
du Temple, once popularly known as the Boulevard du Crime,
from the abundance throughout its length of fifth-rate theatres
whore melodramas of a peculiarly sanguinary nature were per-
formed. One of the favourite diversions of juvenile Bohemia
thirty years ago was to patronise the pit of some theatre on the
Boulevard du Crime, and pelt the unscrupulous assassin or the
bloodthirsty tyrant of the melodrama in vogue with roasted chest-
nuts. All that has been changed. In the neighbourhood of the
Boulevard du Crime there are at present half a dozen new and
handsome theatres ; the tremendous barracks, capable of housing
eight thousand men, on the Place du Chateau d'Eau, are in them-
selves a significant reminder that these are days when order must
be preserved, and when marrons chauds may not any longer be
flung with impunity at unscrupulous bravi or bloodthirsty tyrants
behind the footlights ; while the tottering blackened old tene-
ments of the boulevard itself have been replaced by stately man-
sions in the Haussmannesque style of architecture — mansions full
of pretensions, but totally devoid of picturesque character. It
must be admitted, in candour, that the old picturesque tenements
were narrow and dirty, whereas the Haussmannesque edifices are
spacious and clean. This consideration consoled me for the dis-
appearance of the five-storied hovel numbered 42 on the Boulevard
du Temple, from the window of the topmost garret of which
hovel, on the 12th July 1835, the Corsican Fieschi discharged
his infernal machine at King Louis Philippe — missing the king,
but succeeding in killing and wounding a vast number of persons.
Among the slain was the brave Marshal Mortier, who had passed
unscathed through twenty campaigns, to be murdered at last bj r
this miscreant. The engineer was, to a certain extent, hoist bj r
his own diabolical petard ; since some of the old musket-barrels
forming the machine burst from overcharging, and Fieschi was
horribly wounded about the head and face. I remember as a
child, in that same year '35, to have gazed with much awe and
IN THE TEMPLE. 201
wonderment at a little wax model of the bloodthirsty Corsican's
face, with his villanous jaw bandaged, exhibited in the window of
Messrs. Lechertier-Barbe, the artists' colourmen, in the Regent's
Quadrant. The spectacle was such an attractive one that an
emulative perfumer over the way forthwith exposed to public view
a model in wax, under a glass case, of Madame Vestris's foot.
Fieschi and his accomplices, More} r and Pepin, were duly guillo-
tined, not on the Place de Greve, but at the top of the Paie
d'Enfer — recently renamed Denfert — the immediate predecessor
as a Golgotha of the Place de la Ptoquette. As for Number 42
Boulevard du Temple, it is at present as spruce and coquettish a
house as you could wish to look upon.
As spruce and comely, as new and shining, is the second-hand
clothes and furniture mart, known as the ' Marche du Temple.'
Napoleon I. contemptuously abandoned the dismantled site of the
State prison to the old-clothes men ; and for upwards of half
a century a space containing some fourteen thousand square feet
was occupied by a labyrinth of wooden baraques or huts, in which
the dirtiest, the noisiest, and the most extortionate of Hag Fairs
went on from early morning till sunset. When I told a French
friend last evening that I had been to the Temple, he replied
deprecatingly, 'A quoi bon? It is finished. It is no longer
worth seeing. C'est propre ; et on n'y fait plus des farces.' Yes,
I will own that the existing Market of the Temple is as clean as a
new pin, and that not the slightest attempt to coerce you into
buying anything is made by the merchants doing business there ;
still, to me, the bustling scene was extremely animated, curious,
and amusing. Napoleon III. and M. Haussmann were fain to
deprive the Temple of its picturesque attributes, dirt, disorder,
and dishonesty included, just as they were fain to metamorphose
the dark and brawling old Marche des Innocents into the present
magnificent Halles Centrales. To form an idea of the existing
Temple you have only to imagine that you are in the new Smith-
field Meat Market, but that the butchers' stalls have been replaced
by a multitude of cosy little cabins, some glazed on all sides, dis-
502
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
playjngthe wares which the dealers have to sell ; while others are
open stalls, heaped high or hung all round with garments which
A MARCHANDE BE CHIFFONS.
can he turned over and bargained for at will. This multitude of
cabins is roofed in under one lofty dome of iron and glass. The
main avenue, stretching at a right angle from the Rue du Temple,
IN THE TEMPLE. 203
is grandly spacious, and there are several cross corridors of con-
venient breadth ; but between many of the blocks of cabins there
is only just room for two persons to pass at a time, and you have
to run the drollest of gauntlets between the shopkeepers, nine-
tenths of whom seem to be women.
Only once before in my life have I heard such a shrill chatter-
ing of feminine tongues, and that was on the morning of Sunday,
the 4th of September 1870, when, under suspicion of being a
Prussian spy, I was the occupant of a dungeon at the Depot of
the Prefecture of Police. I was ' a la disposition de M. le Prefet,'
who had just time, at the kind instance of his Excellency Lord
Lyons, to release me when the Revolution broke out, and M.
le Prefet had to fly for his life. These are facts which lead me to
the inference that there are strange ups and downs in this world,
and that man occasionally takes stranger liberties with his fellow-
creatures. My cell had a window too high up in the wall for me
to peep through the bars ; but a good-natured turnkey told me
that the window overlooked an immense stone hall, which was
the female side of the prison. More than a hundred of ' pauvres
creatures,' as the good-natured turnkey told me, were in this hall,
and all of them, so far as the experience of my ears went, were
chattering at the top of their voices. It was as though one lived
next door to a colossal aviary full of parrots, macaws, and mag-
pies, with a few crows and ravens thrown in to represent the elder
branch of the sisterhood. A closely analogous tintamarre was that
audible yesterday, in the Marche du Temple. ' Madame desire-
t-elle mi vetement ? ' ' Monsieur cherche-t-il un pardessus ? ' Did
I want a pair of boots, better than new ; pantaloons, of the highest
novelty ; a corset, six corsets, six dozen corsets, of fashionable
elaboration? Would I look at this pink-satin robe, trimmed with
black lace ? It was worn only a fortnight ago — this was said con-
fidentially, and almost in a whisper — by the Duchesse de Poule-
mouille, at the Versailles fete. Regard this exquisite toilette de
visite of mauve silk, trimmed with gold beads and embroidery. It
formed part — again a shortly confidential communication and a
20-1 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
semi-whisper — it formed a part of the defroque of Mademoiselle
Fichesoncamp of the Bouffes Parisiens.
It chanced that I wanted nothing at all just then ; but I was
content to run the gauntlet of the stallkeepers for full three-
quarters of an hour, recalling the humours of Cranbourne Alley in
the old days, when irrepressible shopkeepers entreated you to give
a look, only one look, at that ' sweet little duck of a blue bonnet,'
or ' the beautifullest thing in real Leghorn as ever was seen.'
Bonnets, I am glad to record, not secondhand but new, were
plentiful in the Temple yesterday, and were quoted at extremely
moderate prices. A bonnet brave in ribbons was offered to me
for five francs fifty ; another, with a whole bandbox full of arti-
ficial flowers upon it, I could have secured for eight twenty-five ;
and another chapeau, decorated with a bird, apparently a tomtit,
with outstretched wings, could be had for the ridiculously small
sum of eleven francs. And all new bonnets, in the most fashion-
able style, mind you. Eleven francs for a bonnet ; and Mesdames
Pauline Millefleurs and Zulma Chapeauchic, of the Boulevard des
Capucines and the Rue de la Paix, won't look at me — in the way
of a bonnet — under sixty francs. ' They would have sold you
that eight-franc bonnet in the Temple for five,' said my cynical
French friend in the evening. It was only a ' decrochez-moi-ca.'
Now a ' decrochez-moi-ca ' is a very cheap and ' loud ' bonnet,
hung on a peg in the interior of a cabin in the Temple, for the
special purpose of dazzling the eyes of some feminine customer of
the servant-girl or the ' Jenny l'Ouvriere' class. When the young
lady in question sees and is fascinated by this bonnet, she points
with her forefinger to it, and the marchandc at once construes this
movement into a direction to 'decrocher' or remove the desiderated
headdress from its peg. Thus a ' decrochez-moi-ca ' has become
quite a proverbial locution for a Temple bonnet. To translate it
as ' Take it off the peg, please,' would be very feeble and colour-
less ; and I am of opinion that the closest colloquial English equi-
valent for ' decrochez-moi-ca ' would be ' Let's have a squint at it.'*
* At the time when this particular passage respecting the ' decrochez-moi-
IN THE TEMPLE. 205
Altogether the Marche du Temple, as reconstructed and re-
organised under the Second Empire, differs very widely indeed
from the dingy Babel so forcibly described b} r Eugene Sue in the
Mysteries of Paris — a romance which, notwithstanding all its
ethical faidts and its melodramatic monstrosities, presents a won-
derfully observant and accurate picture of the condition of the
working classes in Paris thirty years ago. Eugene Sue, as a
student of manners and as a word-painter, could be as pene-
tratingly powerful as the extant M. Emile Zola ; but he did not
choose to be chronically and deliberately revolting, as it seems
the set purpose and the delight of the author of L'Assommoir to
be. It was to the Temple, you will remember, that, in the Mys-
teries, Eodolphe, Grand Duke of Gerolstein, disguised as a simple
workman in a blouse, went, accompanied b}* Eigolette the grisette,
to purchase a few chattels wherewith to furnish the attic which he
had just hired from Madame Pipelet, that never-to-be-forgotten
concierge of the house in the Rue du Temple wherein so many
fearful mysteries were enacted, and the landlord of which was the
virtuous M. Bras-Rouge. At the period referred to by the
novelist, the secondhand furniture department of the Temple bore
a close resemblance to the London Road and the streets in the
immediate neighbourhood of the Elephant and Castle. In the old
days of imprisonment for debt, the secondhand furniture brokers
of this district used to boast of their ability to ' furnish out and
out' a detenu, to whom a room in the Queen's Bench Prison had
r;i' appealed in the Daily Telegraph, I received a querulous, ami by no means
complimentary, letter — of course, it wa3 an anonymous one; abusive people
nerally cowards — telling me that ' everybody knew ' that such articles
as were called in the Temple ' decrochez-moi^as' were known in the second-
hand-clothes world of London as e reach-me-downs.' A paragraph to tin- same
effect, hut not abusive, subsequently appeared in the World. 1 decline to
tamper with the integrity of my text, for the reasons, that I lived in Holywell-
t, seven-and-twenty years ago, at the sign of the 'Old Dog,' a famous
tavern long since demolished ; that I was on terms of close intimacy with all
the old-clothes men of the locality; that 1 have a tolerably good memorj ; and
that I never heard of a 'reach-me-down.'
206 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
jusi been assigned, with all the necessary articles of furniture, bed
and bed-linen, crockery, knives, forks, and spoons, and batterie de
cuisine : — all in the brief space of five-and-twenty minutes, and at
the moderate rental of ten shillings a week. I have little doubt
that, for an additional five shillings, the captive's comforts might
have been enhanced and his intellectual wants ministered to by
:\ compact picture-gallery and a select library of instructive and
entertaining books.
Were the Marche du Temple to find its resources taxed under
circumstances akin to the foregoing, it would show itself, I am
well assured, fully equal to the occasion. The dealers would put
' une jeune personne dans ses meubles' in less than half an hour.
As it is, a complete layette may be procured in the Temple in ten
minutes. Do you want furs ? The skins of 50,000 cats and
rabbits at once leap from their pegs— as the swords of French
chivalry should have leaped from their scabbards to defend Marie
Antoinette — crying (the furs, not the swords), ' We are real sable;
we are all beaver, chinchilla, minx, silver fox, whatever you like to
believe.' Do you need jackets, mantles, 'visites,' waterproofs,
they are all to be had here by the thousand. There are dozens of
alleys full of hats and caps. There are scores more in which only
boots and shoes are vended ; and let it be understood that a very
laro-e proportion of the merchandise sold in the renovated Marche
du Temple is quite new. It is only an enormous slop-shop — the
Minories, Shoreditch, Tottenham Court Koad, and High Holboni
all rolled into one, and gathered under one huge vault of glass and
iron.
The most interesting portion of this immense bazaar was, I
need scarcely say, the old-clothes department. There there was
much that might have interested the philosophic mind of the
immortal cogitator of the University of AVeissnichtwo ; there lay
loose, or hung listlessly, a world of fripperies, suggestive of one of
the keenest of Beranger's lyrics, 'Vieux habits, vieux galons !'
Room for the Gallican Church ! I come upon a stall heaped high
with ecclesiastical old clothes — ' palls and mitres, gold and gew-
IN THE TEMPLE. 207
gaws, fetched from Aaron's wardrobe, or the flamens' vestry ' — as
Milton disdainfully qualifies the clerical vestments which Laud
was striving to introduce into the Church. There is a once
sumptuous cope, stiff with gold embroidery, of which I saw the
twin brother only yesterday in one of the great ecclesiological
warehouses in the Rue St. Sulpice. But that cope was brand
new, and its sheen was dazzling to look upon. The gold in the
vestment in the Marche du Temple is tarnished to griminess. Its
edges are wofully frayed. The white-silk lining is as dingy as the
lining of a pall in the stock of a cheap undertaker. Yet, rubbed
up and patched and cobbled a little, it may serve the purpose of
some impecunious cure de campagne, whose marguilliers are not
wealthy enough to do much for the fabric of the church which the
good priest serves. His reverence may look as fine as fivepence
in that chape next Easter-day. Albs and rochets, tunicles and
berettas, stoles and dalmatics, soutanes and rabats, shovel-hats
and skull-caps — all are mingled here in picturesque confusion.
Stay, here is at once the grandest and the most dilapidated suit in
the whole array of sacerdotal old clothes. A swallow-tailed-coat,
once scarlet in hue, the shoulders adorned with two bouncing-
epaulettes, and a plenitude of gold embroidery about the cuffs and
collars and pockets ; an equally gorgeous waistcoat ; a positively
astounding bandouliere of crimson velvet and golden brocade, silk
stockings, and small-clothes of the finest kerseymere ; and, finally,
a cocked hat of which a Marshal of France or the late Mr. Toole
of the India House might have been proud. Stay, there must to
these be added a dainty rapier with a gilt hilt and a big gold
tassel. Now what can epaulettes and bandoliers, a small-sword
and a cocked hat, have to do with ecclesiastical vestments ? I
have heard of the Church Militant ; but I knew not that its
members arrayed themselves in such a pugnacious-looking panoply
as this. But, pondering a moment, I see it all.
Here we have evidently the cast-off carapace of a Suisse — the
beadle of some fashionable church. How grand he looked on the
occasion of an aristocratic marriage ! How imposingly solemn
208
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
was his mien when an aristocratic funeral took place ! The
huissier of the Administration desPompes Fun&bres looked, for. all
his sable garb, the silver buckles on his shoes, and the steel chain
of office round his neck, the merest of plebeians by the side of the
sumptuous Suisse. The Marche de la
Madeleine had surrendered its choicest
flowers to compose the bouquet which
garnished his button-hole. His white-
kid gloves — he was a large man, and
' took' nines — fitted him like a second
skin. How sonorous was the rever-
beration of his golden-tipped staff on
the marble pavement as he preceded
the bridal cortege or the funeral train,
from the great west door to the chan-
cel ! His whiskers alone, in their
blackness and their bushiness, were a
sight to see. A few more inches, a
little more hirsuteness, and he might
have been a drum-major. He was
content to remain a beadle. But, ah,
the vanity of things mundane ! Gold-
laced coats and cocked hats will not
last for ever ; and a Suisse out of
elbows is clearly a most unseemly
personage. So the fabriciens have
bought him, it is to be hoped, a new
suit; and his abandoned finery has
come — whither ? Into ' the portion of weeds and outworn faces, 'into
the Slough of Shabby Despond of a secondhand clothes booth in the
Temple. Why have I never seen a British beadle's cocked hat in
Dudley-street, Seven Dials ? Parish beadles, it is true, are almost
an extinct race ; still the Bank of England and many of the City
Companies are yet justifiably proud of the beadles they main-
tain.
IN THE TEMPLE. 209
Close to the church, as sumptuarily represented in the Marche
du Temple, the stage raises somewhat saucily its head. Priests
and players are not yet Mends in France. The clergy have not
yet forgotten or forgiven Le Tartuffe. The players have neither
forgotten nor forgiven the clergy for their refusal, during the First
Restoration, to give Christian burial to the remains of a once
popular actress.* Happily in the secondhand clothes galleries of
the Temple the motley costumes of the greenroom elbow, amicably
enough, the bygone wardrobes of the sacristie. Did you ever
drive down the Toledo at Naples at Carnival time ? All the fan-
tastic gear that Callot ever imagined seems to have been brought
to light in the masquerade warehouses of the Toledo. The com-
plete accoutrements of scarlet fiends, horns, hoofs, tails, and all ;
harlequins' dresses, pierrots' dresses, are hung out, like banners
•on the outward walls, while hideous masks grin and leer at you
* Mademoiselle Raucour or de Raucour, who had long retired from the
•stage, died in January, 1815, without receiving the absolution necessary to
remove the excommunication normally lying on players. Her remains were
•conveyed, for the celebration of the usual rites preceding interment, to the
Church of St. Roch in the Rue St. Honore. The funeral procession comprised
n large number of carriages, and was followed by an immense concourse of
persons. On the arrival of the cortege at St. Roch the gates were found to be
Hocked, and the bearers of the bier were peremptorily refused admittance. A
igreat tumult arose, and ultimately the doors were forced open ; but no priest
"made his appearance. The crowd and the riot increasing, a messenger was
â– ^ent to the Tuileries to implore the king, Louis XVIII ., to interfere by ordering
the recalcitrant clergy to perform the required rites ; but his Majesty declined
to interfere in a matter which, in the Royal opinion, pertained exclusively to
the spiritual jurisdiction. With commendable promptitude the actors and
actresses of the principal theatres of Paris, headed by the company of the
Com&lie Franchise, addressed a communication to the Archbishop of Paris,
stating that if the corpse of Mademoiselle Raucour did not at once receive
Christian interment they would forthwith renounce the Roman ( latholic religion
and become Protestants. This ultimatum frightened the priests. Under the
advice of Royalty they gave way ; a funeral Mass was sung over the coffin ;
and poor Mademoiselle Raucour was buried in consecrated ground in the
presence of some thirty thousand people, who shouted, ' A ba.s lea calottes ! i.
bas les calottes ! '
VOL. II. P
210 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
in the windows and from the door-jambs. Abating the masks — I
believe that it is a matter of sheer impossibility to turn a second-
hand pantomime mask to any profitable use, save on Guy Fawkes'-
da}', when it finds its final cause in the bonfire concluding the
festivities — the theatrical booths in the Temple remind one closely
of the Neapolitan Toledo. There is the ' make-up ' of Dr. Dul-
camara — portentous jabot, top-boots, scarlet coat, voluminous wig,
and all. But, woe is me, how dishevelled and unpowdered is the
peruke ! Behold the embroidered doublet and lumts-de-chausscs;
of Monsieur Jourdain, the ' Bourgeois Gentilhomme.' Admire
the dressing-gown and nightcap of the Malade Imaginaire ; and
yonder straight-cut justaucorps and cloak, black once raven, but
now rusty in hue — they must have belonged to Thomas Diafoirus.
But in vain do you search for the patched coat, the battered white
hat, the prodigious cravat, the bludgeon, and the snuff-box of
Robert Macaire. The performance of L'Aubcrge des Adrets is
still, I believe, prohibited in France ; and rightly so, for the simple
reason that the execrable villain, once so admirably impersonated
by the late Frederic Lemaitre, is so replete with humour, and has
withal so many heroic qualities, that in the end the audience are
brought to the point of admiring him. Precisely the same reason
places the play of Jack Sheppard virtually in the Index Expur-
gatorius.
On the other hand, Mephistophiles is rife in the Temple. Go-
where you will among the theatrical booths, you may reckon with
tolerable certainty on meeting with the red doublet and hose, the
short cloak, and the cap with the cock's feather in it, of the
' Esprit qui nie toujours.' Faust, as an opera or as a drama, is
very popular in the provinces in France, and there is a constant
demand for Mephistophiles costumes. As for the pierrot and
harlequin dresses in the Temple, their name is simply legion ; and
the same may be said of the coloured satin ' trunks ' — generally
pink or sky-blue — and the silk fleshings which, as personal adorn-
ments of ladies who frequent masquerades and who do not wear
dominos, have superseded the pretty and scarcely indecorous
A 'PAETIE CAEEEE' AT -\ BOULEVAED RESTAURANT,
IX THE TEMPLE.
211
DEBABDEURS AT THE BAL DE L'OPERA (BY CHAM).
costume of the debardeur, a costume which may be said to have
expired with its tasteful illustrator, the incomparable Gavarni.
These audacious garments tell their own story, but I may hint
that when a maillot suit of fleshings is padded, it is technically
known as a ' confortable.' The Carnival is coming; the masked
balls at the Opera and other Parisian theatres will speedily set in;
and ere many weeks are over a vast number of young persons
who ought to know better will be capering about in the pink and
sky-blue satin ' trunks ' and tights long after the hour when they
should be in bed. The restaurateurs of the Boulevards will be
doing a roaring trade ; and the jeuncsse doree of the period will
squander, in rather dull and monotonous dissipation, large sums
of their own, or of other people's money. At present the mas-
querading trumpery on the secondhand clothes stalls of the Temple
looks grim. Pierrot's white sleeves are smirched with claret stains',
or dinted with holes burnt by smouldering cigars fallen from
unsteady fingers. The rubbish wants brightening up. It needs
the flaring gas to make it look passably attractive. In the day-
light it looks simply horrible. Flni de rire, Scaramouch. But the
p 2
212
TARIS HERSELF AGAIX.
Carnival is coming; and Scaramouch, like Paris, will soon be him-
self again.
Who buy all these play-acting paraphernalia, I wonder? Very
small and indigent country managers. The wares are evidently
intended for further dramatic use ; for the costumes are generally
perfect, and you can trace the complete ' make-up ' of the ' pere
noble,' the ' amoureux,' the 'ingenue,' and the 'premier' and
' second comique.' A youth who wished at once to begin his career
as a ' heavy ' or a ' light ' tragedian, a ' walking gentleman ' or a
' low comedian ' — a lady anxious to launch into the ' singing cham-
bermaid ' or the ' breeches parts ' line of business — could at once
procure all that he or she required in the Temple. It is the
Vinegar Yard, the Marquis Court of Paris ; but meanwhile Made-
moiselle Mimi Pinson of the Bouffes, or Madame Ehodope Casse-
majoue of the ' Theatre du High Life,' is paying from fifteen
hundred to two thousand francs — to say nothing of her diamonds
— for each of the dresses which she orders from her costumiere.
Those radiant robes may have been designed by Marcelin or
Grevin, by ' Stop ' or Pelcoq — the Alfred Thompsons of the French
theatres — the robes are beautiful, they are ravishing ; they and
IN THE TEMPLE.
213
their much-dizened wearers will be photographed by Nadar or by
Reutlinger ; the gommeux and the petits creves in the stalls will
A ' PETIT CREVE.
applaud ; the femmcs honnHcs in the boxes will be envious of the
dazzling dresses — and their wearers ; but the Laws of the Ephe-
214
TARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
meral are inexorable. ' Froufrou ' and ' Niniche,' ' Dora ' and
' Cora,' to this complexion you must come at last — to the com-
plexion of the old-clothes pegs ; to the booth of a revendeusc a la
toilette in the Marche du Temple.
Ere I bid farewell to this remarkable Exhibition of Old Clothes,
I may remark that the assortment of comic trousers is quite sur-
prising in its abundance and its variety. Never before did I set
eyes on such an assemblage of facetious pantaloons. Of course,
you know the type of the comic trouser. The garment should be,
in colour and pattern, what the French paradoxically term ' impos-
sible ' — that is to say, preposterously and fantastically outre and
extravagant. Inconceivably absurd plaids, never-before-heard-of
stripes or spots, should preferably form the pattern ; pea-green,
rose-pink, glaring yellow, deep orange, sky-blue, are the colours
most adapted to the comic trouser, which should always be too
high in the waist and too short in the leg. It may be rendered
additionally and indeed irresistibly comic by the introduction of a
patch — a large patch of a darker or a lighter colour than that of
the original fabric. The patch, moreover, should not be worn in
IN THE TEMPLE. 215
front. Such a comic trouser is good for three rounds of applause on
the first appearance of the comedian on the stage. Experto crede.
I have seen the comic trousers of Vernet and Bouffe, of Grassot and
Ravel, of Harley and Keeley, of Wright and Oxberry and Wrench.
Very indifferent vaudevilles have ere now been ' pulled through,'
and have at last bloomed into triumphant successes, mainly through
the artistic drollery of the comedian's breeches. Those which I
mark in the Temple are generally brand new. A renowned comic
actor does not like to part with his trousers. It is not with them
as with official uniforms and clerical vestments, which when they
grow shabby degrade the wearers. The comic trouser, like vintage
wines, acquire character with age. They may be patched and re-
patched, and the raggeder they grow the more risible they may
"become. As for the nether garments in the Temple, which are
new, they seem to me to be ' reproductions ' — copies from some
models of comic trousers which had gained celebrity at the Varietes
or the Palais Royal. Their purchasers, perchance, are the gentle-
men who sing comic songs at the cafes chantants and the Alcazars
of Paris and the provinces.
Thus while I linger in this Bezesteen of wearing-apparel there
•comes up before me a vision of the past. I may be standing on
the very place of the Chapter House of the Templars of old, who
held here their grandest state, till, like their brethren in England,
' they decayed through pride.' Beneath my very feet the blood of
Pichegru may have been shed. Where rises that iron staircase
leading to the galleries which surround the old-clothes mart may
have risen the donj on' s winding- stair down which Louis, Antoinette,
Elizabeth of France, stepped to then- death. The phantoms of
•Georges Cadoudal and Mehee de la Touche, of Simon the bestial
cobbler and the poor little captive king, of Captain Wright and Sir-
Sydney Smith (that gallant sailor lay long a prisoner in the Temple,
and escaped from it in a wonderfully clever and audacious manner),
are all around me ; but it is not these historic dead that my fancy
conjures up. My vision is only of a pair of trousers bought in the
Temple five-and-twenty years ago. It was in the early days of the
210
TARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
Second Empire. We were a band of young English and American
brothers domiciled in Paris ; — very fond of talking about the pic-
tures which Ave intended to paint, and the novels and plays which
we intended to write, and much fonder of amusing ourselves — with
material enjoj'inents when we had any money, with strolling and
idling and gossiping when we had none. It so fell out that one
of our number was favoured, some time during the winter season of
1854, with an invitation to a grand ball to be given b} r the Prefect
of the Seine at the Hotel de Ville. Evening dress was de rigueur.
A ' claw-hammer coat ' and dress waistcoat our friend possessed, but
the requisite black pantaloons of fashionable society were lacking.
"What was to be done ? We had all of us the lightest of hearts ;
but there was not the thinnest pair of sable trousers available
among us. So we made a friendly little subscription among our-
selves, and our brother was enabled to trudge (fraternally escorted
by two judicious brethren, lest he should stray into billiard-play-
ing cafes or spend his peculiwm on rare and ragged editions of
the classics on the way) to the Marche du Temple, where, for the
sum of twelve francs, he purchased a pair of the blackest and!
shiniest black trousers that I ever beheld. He went to the ball at
the Hotel de Ville. He danced, he supped, a little too copiously
IN THE TEMPLE.
217
perchance ; at all events, a friend who accompanied him on one of
his visits to the buffet gently reminded him that he had suffered
some warm punch to trickle over one of the knees of his black dress
pantaloons. Promptly our friend produced his handkerchief to
remove the unseemly spot of punch. He rubbed and rubbed, but
the spot did not disappear. It grew larger, and became at last
a brilliant red. In the midst of an ocean of shiny black there was
disclosed to his alarmed eyes an island of the pattern and hue of
the Eoyal Stuart tartan. He was wearing a pair of plaid trousers
that had been dyed black. Ah, faithless Temple ! These trousers
were un plat de ton metier. But the vision fades away. It leaves
me between a smile and a tear, for in the dim distance I seem to
see the white headstones of a graveyard.
^ * Location phases ?ou« iaintES _■:,
â– Hi il^r*7WrN
THE LAST DAYS OF THE EXHIBITION.
XIV.
GOING ! GOING !
Nov. 10.
' Going ! Going ! ' Far more eloquently and impressively than
•ever the late Mr. George Bobins was accustomed to expatiate, ivory
hammer in hand, on the superlative merits of some property which
he was instructed to sell, is the auctioneer's formula, although the
words themselves may not he uttered, in every corridor of the vast
Bazaar of the Champ de Mars. ' Going! Going! ' seem to me to
be written on all the objects which during many weeks have been
landmarks to me in the World's Fair. The Crown diamonds of
France are already gone ; and the stately pavilion, round which
crowds used to gather to feast their eyes upon the glittering
glories of the ' Regent,' the ' ceuf de pigeon,' and the ' escargot,'
r==s
•>•-; ;i
IB 1
:|rr»- v >:?£^lR5<,
"&
Wi
GOING ! GOING !
219
DIAMOND AND PEARL BROOCH AND ENAMELLED BRACELETS, EXHIEITED BY
M. FROMENT-MEURICE.
is completely dis-
mantled. The jew-
elry, indeed, from
the entire French
department is ra-
pidly disappear-
ing ; but the dia-
monds and rubies,
the pearls and em-
eralds, will speedi-
ly reappear in the
shop-windows of
the Boulevards,
the Hue de la
Paix, the Palais
Ptoyal, and in par-
ticular in that as-
tonishing bijou-
tier's close to the Hotel Scribe, whose glittering display it is diffi-
cult to pass at night without an uneasy impression flitting across
THE FRENCH CROWN DIAMONDS (BY CHAM).
1 My daughter, I forbid your looking at the Regent.
He was a most immoral man.'
220
PARIS HERSELF AGAIX.
your mind that in a previous state of existence — ages ago per-
chance — your profession was burglary. In your present happily
law-abiding and Commandment-keeping condition you would never,
of course, think of breaking into a jeweller's shop and filling your
pockets with precious things which do not belong to you ; but in
the previous state of existence — ages ago — you were possibly not
unacquainted with the use of the 'jemmy' and the picklock as
utensils employed in forming a cheap collection of gems. In
the Exhibition itself I hear that on the whole but few robberies
have been committed. A very large staff of sergents de ville and
police-agents in plain clothes have constantly patrolled the build-
ing, while the British department has been efficiently watched
over by Inspector Giles. "We have had, to be sure, no Koh-i-noor,
as we had in Hyde Park in 1851, to tempt the feloniously-minded ;
and indeed of gems and precious stones generally we make scarcely
any show in the Champ de Mars ; still there is an amazing
amount of potential ' loot ' in the way of gold and silver in the
GOING ! GOING ! 221
pavilion of the Elkingtons ; while an equally attractive display of
precious wares is made by Mr. John Brogden of Henrietta-street,
Co vent Garden.
I recently asked the question, ' What will they do with it ? *
May I be suffered to-day to put a further query, ' What will be
done with them ? ' By ' them ' I mean the pavilions and the
kiosques and the myriad of glass cases in which are enshrined the
treasures of the Exposition Universelle. I am much more inter-
ested in the study of the destination than in that of the origin of
things ; and I am incurably inquisitive as to what becomes of the
old scenes, dresses, decorations, and properties when the play is
over, and, with its highly animated puppets, has passed away from
the world's stage. I can proudly say that I know what became
of the basket-work elephants constructed at old Covent Garden
Theatre for the spectacle of the Cataract of the Gaiu/es ; that I
have been enabled to trace the vicissitudes of the coronation robes
of George IV., from their sale by auction, in July 1830, to their
present resting-place at Madame Tussaud's ; and that I followed
with mournful affection the migrations of the stalactite grotto,
erected by Alexis Soyer in the grounds of his Symposium in 1851,
from Gore House to Vauxhall — where the grotto became the
Hermit's Cave — and from Vauxhall to Cremorne. In one notable
instance, nevertheless, I have been utterly baffled and desoricnte'.
For many years did I follow the fluctuating fortunes of the in-
genious automaton known as Vaucanson's duck. In lands north,
south, east, and west have I met with that duck, exhibited now for
a rouble, now for a dollar, now for a franc, and now for sixpence a
head. The mechanical bird came out in great force at the Paris
Exhibition of 1867. Vaucanson's duck was then nearly a hundred
years old, but rumour ran that it had been furnished with a fresh
beak and web feet, and an entirely new gizzard, in honour of the
Exposition. It was not shown precisely in the Palace of the
Champ de Mars, but was to be seen for the remarkably small
charge of twenty-five centimes at a modest little baraquc in the
Avenue Suffren. It turned up again, in conjunction with a wax-
222
PARIS HERSELF AC ATX.
work show and a spotted girl, at Nancy, in Lorraine, in July
1870 ; and after that period I am sorry to say that I lost all trace
of Vaucanson's duck. The bird fell, I fear, on evil days. Was it
fated, I wonder, to be ' looted' by Hans Picklehaube of the Pome-
ranian Landwehr; and did that warrior, after an ineffectual attempt
to wring its neck and roast it, discover that it was, after all, a kind
of clock in feathers, and so, with his national fondness for hor-
logeric, pop it into his knapsack, and take it home to Pommern,
where, perchance, it is yet quacking ?
So this is my apology for speculating as to what will eventually be-
come of the glass cases, the kiosques, the chalets, and the pavilions,
which line the corridors and vestibules, or are scattered over the park
of the Exposition, and above all, what will become of that agglomera-
tion of bizarre edifices known as the Eue des Nations. The cloud-
v\3>
IN THE RUE DES NATIONS (BY CHAM).
As all the nations of the world occupy the same street, a great reduction
in the postal rate may be looked for.
capped towers of the Palace of the Trocadero, its towering cupola
and curvilinear arcades, are not, it would seem, destined to dis-
solve, and, like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a wrack
Tiie Oriental BAZi» w; is the Tbocad^ro.
GOING ! GOING ! 223-
behind. The Trocaclero building is to remain. I am sorry for it,
although its Retrospective Museum — the contents of which must
be speedily packed up and returned to their owners — is one of the
most wonderful collections of antiquities and works of bygone art
that I have ever seen. Although the grounds surrounding it are
laid out with exquisite taste, although the fountains on the terrace
are superb in then* cascades, and their jets cVeau, and although
astonishing ingenuity has been shown in utilising the Bridge of
Jena as an approach, I can but regard the structure of the palace
as extremely ugly, and its style of architecture — if any style it
have — as both paltry and meretricious. Napoleon I. intended to
build a palace as magnificent as the Tuileries on the selfsame
site, as a habitation for the King of Rome ; but the Alliambra-
like edifice — I mean the Alhambra in Leicester Square, not the one
at Granada — which is to cover en permanence the crest of the
eminence miscalled the Trocaclero — which in reality is a narrow
channel between the island of San Luis and the Bay of Cadiz —
will make but a very undignified vis-d-vis to the noble pile of the
Ecole Militaire in the Champ de Mars. That very perfect little
architectural and decorative ' installation,' the house erected by
Messrs. Gillow for the Prince of Wales, can, it seems, be easily
taken to pieces ; the Old English house of Messrs. Collinson &
Lock, and the adjoining Queen Anne house erected by Mr. W. H.
Lascelles, can be removed without much difficulty ; while the
Russian isba, which is very picturesque to look at, but is composed
of that certainly not expensive material, pitch pine, will serve very
well after its demolition for firewood, if for no other purpose.
All these ornate and characteristic erections will speedily have
1 to clear out ; ' and it will be the same with the Turkish Mosque,
the Algerian Palace, the Persian Pavilion, the Chinese Pagoda, the
Japanese Farm, with its fountain, so much resorted to by thirsty
fair ones ; and also with the bustling Oriental Bazaar, where pro-
vincials perpetually chaffer with Turcs des Batignolles for gimmick
souvenirs of the departing Exhibition. In the British section there
are many outward and visible signs of things being not only going,
22 l
PARIS IIKRSELF AGAIN.
THE JAPANESE FOUNTAIN.
Tjut gone. Empty glass cases are numerous; and packing-cases and
sawdust, canvas and straw, and the sound of hammers, are every-
where. It will be no child's play to remove all the heavy machinery,
the Armstrong guns, the ponderous bells, the huge Hungarian tun,
the gigantic Creusot hammer, or the colossal head of the bronze
statue of Liberty, which is to be set up as a lighthouse at the
entrance of New York Harbour, and the internal organism of which
the curious are incessantly inspecting. Workmen have already
commenced dismantling the Mouchot apparatus, which collected
the rays of the sun in a huge inverted funnel, and heated a boiler
with them, reminding one of certain proceedings of the Laputan
philosopher whom Gulliver found engaged in extracting sunbeams
from cucumbers, and prudently bottling them up for future use.
GOING ! GOING !
225
THE COLOSSAL HEAD OF LIBERTY.
Now that November has arrived, and there is no longer any sun
to speak of, the apparatus finds its occupation gone, and is pre-
paring to pack up. From this same lack of sunshine the Kabyle
shoemakers are eager to strike their tent in the Trocadero, and
emigrate to warmer climes. A similar feeling possesses all the rest
of the Orientals ; and the mild Hindoos will, I am sure, willingly
abandon shawl-weaving in the Galerie du Travail of the Palace, and
forego all the blessings of our boasted civilisation, to return to their
much-vaunted valley of Cashmere.
Returning, however, to the kiosques and the glass cases, the
VOL. II. Q
22G
rARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
INTEKIOR OF THE COLOSSAL HEAD OF LIBERTY.
pavilions and the chalets, and the myriads of bizarre trophies
scattered over the palace and the park, one would like to know what
is to become of the marvellous stalactite grotto built up of seemingly
hundreds of thousands of wine-bottles in the Spanish section. What
too is to become of the huge trophies of spirit-casks and liqueur-
bottles in the Dutch department, and which I incidentally alluded
to as monumentally reminding one of the late Mynheer van Dunk ?
I strongly suspect, from what I hear, that all these strong drinks
will remain and be consumed in the French capital, and that
not a single cask of spirit or a single bottle of liqueur will
find its way back to Amsterdam. I can quite understand the
1;m Ca hmere Shawl Weavers in the Galeeie du Travail. II. 225.
GOING ! GOING ! 227
patronage bestowed by the French on such liqueurs as their own
chartreuse and on the Batavian preparations of anisette, mara-
schino, curacoa, eau de vie de Dantzig. But then what Frenchman
drinks ' Puries ' or ' Maag Bitter,' and, in particular, who drinks
schiedam in France ? In England a few physicians allow their
patients to drink a little diluted hollands ; but the public at large
<lo not like it, because it is neither so sweet nor so fiery as the
native gin. In Paris I am, on the other hand, told that a large
quantity of schiedam is consumed, and that the consumption is
annually increasing. Not only have such Amsterdam distillers as
Erven, Lucas Bols, branch houses in the French capital ; but
schiedam, or ' genievre de Hollande,' is to be met with in the shop
of almost every epici&r. I asked a tradesman of that persuasion
whether the Parisians drank schiedam in the form of grog.
' Jamais de la vie,' he replied ; ' ca se boit largement comme
schnick.' What on earth was ' schnick' ? I found out afterwards
that it was the slang term for a dram.
Of the French exhibits in the way of lace and of materials for
ladies' dresses many of the most beautiful will come to England,
and will constitute in themselves a winter exhibition in Begent
Street and Oxford Street. Whether any of our milliners will be
enterprising enough to secure the two famous white-lace bonnets,
I do not know. One of these extraordinaiy chape aux is trimmed
with foliated lace formed of perforated mother-of-pearl, and is
valued at 2500 francs. Another, priced at only 2000 francs, is
adorned with open-work lace, made of gold thread. I may add,
for the information of the ladies, that dresses trimmed with
feathers, with yellow lace and with red lace, are frequently to be met
with in the vitrines of the ' Section du Vetement.' The leading
London drapers and silk-mercers have been prompt in securing the
â– cream of fabrics for costumes in these glass cases, which, with the
'•talages of jeweliy, have divided the attention of all the feminine
visitors. Charles Gask & Co. of Oxford Street have acquired the
* black-velvet robe trimmed with feathers of the lolophor.' Did
you ever see a lolophor ? Is it anything like a cassowary ? The
V 2
228
TARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
same firm have also purchased the Marie de' Medicis dress, em-
broidered with pearls, and valued at 10,000 francs ; the satin bcge
dress exhibited by Costardeau, which is embroidered with peacocks'
feathers, and is worth 2500 francs. Messrs. Charles Gask & Co.
of Oxford Street are likewise the fortunate acquirers of a multitude
of satin robes trimmed with pearls and chenille embroidery, bro-
caded and ' ivory ' silks, brocades, brocatelles, and damask, toge-
GOING ! GOING ! 229
ther with a large quantity of silks, satins, and velvets from the
looms of Lyons, Zurich, Genoa, and Milan. Lace and gloves,
and entire cases of sealskins and other furs, have also been pur-
chased by the enterprising Oxford Street house ; and when Messrs.
Charles Gask & Co. display their treasures from the Paris Exhi-
bition in their windows the excitement produced in feminine
minds by the fascinating sight may be as intense as the disturb-
ance caused by the same means in paternal and marital pockets.
' "What is that very large building ? ' asked of an omnibus con-
ductor an American traveller in London, pointing to a linen-
draper's premises close to the Elephant and Castle. ' Tarn's the
name,' quoth the omnibus conductor; 'but ice calls it the " 'Us-
band's grief." : I see no reason why the ladies should not go
â– crazy over these radiant toilette vanities. To patronise them is to
do direct good to trade; and trade is, in all conscience, dull enough
just now. Besides, a fondness for splendid and tasteful attire
does not necessarily imply a frivolity of mind. At the death of
Queen Elizabeth more than two thousand dresses were found in
her virgin Majesty^! wardrobe — what a scramble there must have
been among the maids of honour and the tiring women ! — yet
Queen Bess, with all her fondness for dress, was assuredly a woman
of business, and that of the most practical kind.
Equally important with the purchases already noted are those
made by Peter Robinson of Oxford Street, who has bought the
entire exhibits of no less than sixty-eight manufacturers of silks,
velvets, satins, and brocades, in the French, Italian, and Austrian
sections. He will cany off to England the textile masterpieces of
such grand prizemen as Bonnet & Co., Jaubert Audras & Co.,
Lamy & Giraud, and Schulz & Co., all of them of Lyons ; and
altogether, what with handsome costumes decorated with feathers,
pearls, gold, jet, and lace, and unmade-up fabrics of the richest
texture, interwoven or embroidered with flowers and tropical plants,
besides elegant lace-robes and fichus and other articles of fe minine
attire in the like delicate material, Peter Robinson of Oxford Street
stands to have spent more than 300,000 francs at the Paris
230 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
Exhibition. It would be a very grave error in political economy
to assume that any harm is done to English track- in the aggregate
by purchases on so extensive a scale being made by English silk-
mercers from foreign manufacturers. Peter Eobinson's peacock
and pearl, flower, lace and gold, and jet-trimmed costumes will
perchance sooner serve the purposes of a show than they will
find purchasers ; but it is different with the great bulk of the
objects they have acquired, and the exhibition of these, in conjunc-
tion with the more ornate rarities, in the shop-windows of Oxford
Street during the coming winter will not fail to stimulate trade
and give employment to vast numbers of English working hands.
The fabric of a dress may come from this country or from that ;
but it cannot be made up without the consumption in trimmings
and linings of a great deal of English material and a great deal
more English labour.
While I am now writing the auctioneer's hammer, long poised
in air, is preparing to descend ; and by sunset the final blow on
the rostrum will reverberate through the fast-emptying corridors,,
and, as a spectacle, the Greatest of Great Exhibitions will be Gone.
But that Frenchmen regard Sunday as of all days the most appro-
priate one for the occurrence of a great popular manifestation, be
it a political election, a horserace, or the beginning or ending of a
show, the Exhibition might most gracefully have made its exit
yesterday. On Saturday, abating an icy wind, the weather was
simply lovery. The sky was as blue, the sunshine as golden, as
in that great globe of lapis-lazuli in the Church of the Gesu at
Home. Not a cloud was to be seen ; the atmosphere was not only
clear, but Attically ethereal and elastic ; and indeed so azure was-
the vault of heaven, so bright the rays of Phoebus, so white the
buildings, so sharply defined the ultramarine shadows which they
threw, that it needed no very great stretch of the imagination to
transform the Pue Poyale into either the Odos Hermou or the Street
of the Winds at Athens, and the Church of La Madeleine into
either the Parthenon or the Temple of Theseus, just as your fancy
GOING ! GOIXG !
231
led you to make the choice. In the last case you would have had,
on the principle adopted by the Marchioness in the Old Curiosity
Shop, to ' make believe ' that there was an Acropolis somewhere
in Paris — the Buttes Montmartre, surmounted by the unfinished
Church of the Sacre Cceur, might have served at a pinch ; still
the scene was unmistakably suggestive of Athens in Hellas —
Athens, of course, seen through a strongly magnifying lorgnon,
and Athens especially in the month of January.
The illusion was still further helped b}' the circumstance that,
cold weather having suddenly declared itself in the French metro"
polis, toothache and chilblains have set in with annoying severit}'.
In the capital of Greece, as is well known, during the few weeks
of winter — bright, clear, sunshiny, but piercingly cold as it is —
one half of the population are generally afflicted with the toothache,
while the other moiety suffer from earache or from swelled face ; and
it is by no means a dignified spectacle to look upon a group of
half a dozen stalwart Palikars, each brave in velvet and embroidery,
and snowy miso-
phoustcmon, swag-
gering up to the
Boule to demand
that the Ministry
shall instantly de-
clare Avar againstthe
World in general
and the Ottoman
Empire in particu-
lar ; and each de-
scendant of The-
mistocles with his
jaw tied up ! The
Parisians are, next
to the modern Athe-
nians, the chilliest
mortals that I have
THE FASHIONABLE 1'ARIS ULSTEK.
232 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX.
over met with ; and since the middle of last week, when the cold
weather began, cache-nez, mufflers, comforters, and respirators
have been all the wear. The smallest of small Frenchmen are
lurching and tacking about the boulevards in the vastiest and
shaggiest of Ulsters ; while another winter garment, very fashion-
able among the gommeux or jcunesse doree of the period, bears
the to me somewhat mysterious name of a ' Macfarlane.' In cut
it somewhat resembles our bygone Inverness cape, combined with
the ' Upper Benjamin ' or ' Wrap Rascal ' of the old hackney coach-
men. As for the ladies, they have suddenly been metamorphosed
into so many ambulatory bales of silk, velvet, and merino, not
merely trimmed, but lined throughout with more or less expensive
furs. Sable, ventre de rjris, and beaver are extensively used as
trimmings ; but in the interior of the not very elegant schoubas in
which the ladies are beginning to inwrap themselves I notice a
good deal of peltry, that reminds me forcibly of the fur of the
playful hare, the timid rabbit, and even of the harmless necessary
cat.
I lingered long in the Rue Royale and the Place de la Made-
leine yesterday, first because, albeit duty impelled me to pay a
penultimate visit to the Exhibition, I wished to postpone as long
as I might the painful spectacle of dissolution and disintegration ;
and next, for the reason that, in the broad expanse between the
Madeleine and the Palais Bourbon, the warmth-giving heart-
*daddenin£ sun had full elbow-room ; whereas — it was one o'clock
— on the great Boulevards of the Capucines and the Italiens the
sun did not shine at all. The houses on each side are of such
enormous height that both sides of the thoroughfares are cast into
one icy shadow, cut only here and there by a bright streak of sun-
shine where a cross street intervenes. It is dangerous to stand
long warming yourself in a streak of sunshine, because the Parisian
omnibus drivers and cabmen are, as a rule, disgracefully bad
drivers, and the risk of being run over is consequently con-
stant in its imminence. When the Exhibition Carnival was at
its apogee a fearful number of accidents, both to pedestrians and,
GOING ! GOING ! 233
through collisions, between carriages, took place every day ; but
the perils of the streets are now considerably lessened, diminution
being simply due to the fact that nine-tenths of the foreign and
provincial visitors — who, since I came here in August last, have
made Paris incomparably gay and utterly intolerable to quiet folks
— are gone. I have been some fifty times within an ace of being
smashed ; and I confess that I have never alighted from one of
the craz}'- shandrydans with which the thoroughfares of Paris are
afflicted without feeling in nry inmost heart a profound sensation
of gratitude. For example, the driver of the victoria which con-
veyed me to the Champ de Mars 3'esterda} r was as wortl^ a fellow
as one would wish to meet with on a fine November afternoon.
We Avere on the best of terms. I called him ' Mon Brave,' and
lie addressed me as ' Mon Bourgeois.' He intimated his willing-
ness to w r ait any number of hours for me at the Porte Bapp ; and
after telling me a rac} r anecdote of a lady and gentleman who, on
the i)revious day, had kept him waiting from noon till closing
time, and had never made their reappearance to pay him his due,
he smilingly declined to take the five francs on account of his
fare which I offered him. ' Nous sommes des gens de cceur,' he
remarked loftily. Yet this Brave was a wretchedly careless driver.
He bumped against or locked the wheels of innumerable vehicles ;
one of the shafts of the victoria was badly splintered in the middle
and bound up with rope, and his horse was a miserable jibber — a
gutter-jibber, with a propensity to lurch into every kennel that he
came near, and to grind the near wheels of the victoria against
every kerbstone.
There was a prodigious multitude — over a hundred thousand
2>ersons, I should say — in the Champ de Mars and the Troca-
dero yesterday ; and in many of the cross avenues of the Exhibition
building itself, such as the galleries devoted to glass, furniture,
jewelry, bronzes, ceramics, feminine apparel, and the rich materials
pertaining thereto, circulation, owing to the density of the crowd,
was almost impossible. There were a fair share of well-dressed
people, including cohorts of young ladies escorted by vigilant
234
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
mammas ; but the bulk of the visitors seemed to me to be provin-
cials — small country tradesmen, farmers, and downright peasants
in blouses, clouted shoes, and broadbrimmed or ' coach- wheel*
hats, the majority of them being accompanied by their female
belongings. There were likewise many working men from remote
districts, whose travelling expenses had been paid out of the pro-
ceeds of that ' National ' Lottery which is now in the twelfth million
GOING ! GOING ! 235
of its emission of shares. I noticed, also, a considerable sprinkling
of village cures and primary schoolmasters — you can always tell
the primary schoolmaster by the fidelity with which he follows at
the skirts of the soutane of his parish priest, and the obsequious
manner in which he smiles and rubs his hands whenever Monsieur
le Cure addresses him. In particular may you be certain that his
profession is the educational one if there happen to be any children
in the party who have come up from a neighbouring-village to see the
Exhibition. The moutards and the moutardes keep as sedulously
aloof from the dreaded maitre d'ecole as the dogs in any room
which Edwin Landseer entered used to come instinctively to the
great painter, lay their muzzles in his hand, and look at him with
kind eyes, as though they would have said, ' How do you do, Sir
Edwin ? You know all about us ; and we have nothing to fear
from you.'
Immense as was the gathering, the entire effect of the spectacle
of Saturday was certainly dispiriting. The cold may have had
something to do with this ; and the tables at the outdoor cafes,
were almost entirely deserted. There were but comparatively few
breakfasters at the Restaurant Catelain, where, in August and
September, I have so often sought in vain for a seat; the Restau-
rante Beige was doing very badly indeed ; and some of the smaller
buffets had shut up shop altogether. The mass of the spectators
yesterday clearly did not belong to the class who are content to
pay four francs for a lump of half-raw flesh denominated beef, but
which might just as well be called buffalo or zebra, and from three
to ten francs a bottle for wine, in which progressive augmentation
in price did not by any means cause enhancement in quality to be
perceptible. The provincials who came to the Champ de Mars
yesterday either breakfasted ' on the cheap' at Duval's, or brought
their own lunch with them in parcels and baskets, and consumed
it in the grounds, some seating themselves in the commodious
basket chairs, others clustering round the pedestal of some statue
or under the lee of some kiosque, and no policemen making them
afraid. Numbers of poor folk were eating and drinking, quite un-
23G
TARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
interrupted, in the Vestibule d'Honneur. The French authorities
are singularly tender and humane to les petites gens, to poor peace-
able people whom our own Dogberries are so fond of harrying to
and fro, and of compelling to ' move on.' It is only when you have
a broadcloth coat on your back, and some five-franc pieces in your
pocket, that the French police seem to take a positive delight in
teasing and worrying you.
' Going ! Going ! ' The melancholy monition pursues me every-
where. Taken for all in all, the World's Fair, astonishingly and
triumphantly successful as it has been from an artistic, an indus-
trial, and an educational point of view, has been, from its very
vastness and the bewildering multiplicity and variety of its con-
tents, wearisome, and to me intensely so. Some of my readers
anay opine that I must be a dullard to have become wearied and
bored by this astounding display of art and industry. Ah ! you
who have made but a holiday trip to Paris, you who have ' done '
the Exhibition, and the sights of the Gay City to boot, in the
GOING ! GOING !
237
course of a four or five days' scamper, may have found the Expo-
sition Universelle charming, delightful — perfection, in short. Woe
is me ! I have had fourteen weeks of it. From the rising of the
sun to the setting thereof, and from the advent of the moon till
far into the night, the Exhibition, active or passive, audible or
inarticulate, visible or invisible, has pursued, haunted, and afflicted
me. My mind has become a kind of chaos, in which catalogues,
descriptions of processess, photographs of exhibits, restaurateurs'
bills, lottery tickets, lists of Grand Prizemen and Gold Medallists,
cabmen's numbers, and shopkeepers' cards, all more or less con-
nected with the Exhibition, are mingled in inextricable confusion ;
yet now that it is Going — irrevocably Going, Going — I feel heartily
sorry, as for the departure of an old familiar friend — he bored you
terribly sometimes, but still you loved him — whom you will never
set eyes on again on this side the grave.
CAB HORSES EMBRACING OX THE EXHIBITION BEING CLOSED (BY CHAM).
XV.
GONE !
Nov. 11.
A traveller is no more eiititledto boast of his immunity from
seasickness than a horse has a right to be proud of having been
born of a piebald hue. Nature furnishes a certain quota of piebald
horses and of people who are not seasick ; and I am lucky enough
to belong to the last-named category. I need say no more on this
head, beyond hinting that I can enjoy eggs and bacon for breakfast
in mid- Atlantic in November, and that I have gone as far in a stiff
gale as the American delicacy of pork and beans. I remember
once, on board the Cunard steamship Arabia, to have asked an
assistant steward for some of the last-named luxury. ' It's done,
sir,' replied the steward, who was of Milesian descent. Yes, I told
him gently, I should like the pork and beans to be well done.
*â– Shure it's through,' urged the steward. I was not proficient in
Transatlantic parlance, and bade him bring the dish through the
gone ! 239
saloon. ' I mane that it's played out,' persisted the steward, in a
oivil rage with my stupidity, ' that it's finished, that it's clane
•Gone! ' He should have said at first that the pork and heans were
gone, and then my Anglo-Saxon mind would have mastered his
meaning.
Done. Through. Finished. Gone. So much must be mourn-
fully recorded of the famous Exposition Universelle of 1878. The
sky on Sunday afternoon, the Last Day of the World's Fair, was
leaden in its gloominess. By a quarter-past four in the interior of
the building it was nearly dark. Fitful gusts of wind swept
through the open portals of the main avenues, stirring into momen-
tary activity the drooping banners of the different nationalities.
The great body of the crowd was congregated in the avenues ; in
the transverse corridors only a few stragglers were to be seen,
taking a last lingering look at some especially popular exhibit.
Incurable gobemouelies enjoyed a final stare at the Dore Vase, the
model of the Chateau de Pierrefonds, the statue of the Equilibrist,
and that extraordinary upholsterer's trophy in the French depart-
ment which comprises Corinthian columns composed of carpeting,
with hassocks for capitals, and hearthrug pedestals, a pediment of
doormats, a cornice of stair-carpets, and an architrave of oilskin.
In -the long vista of the French textile fabrics a solitary chaise
roulante was dimly visible. Who was the occupant of the last
Bath chair of the Exhibition of 1878 ? The phantom of Marius,
prepared to meditate over the ruins of an industrial Carthage ?
Xot at all. It was a very old lady in black velvet and lace, an
ancient dame bent double, and — as you saw, as the chairman slowly
dragged the vehicle forward — with a face the myriad wrinkles in
which might have excited the imitative envy of a Balthazar Denner.
Had this old lady been a spectator of the Exhibition of the year
1809, opened by his Imperial Majesty Napoleon I. ? Why not?
At the Cafe Veron you may see on most mornings, complacently
taking her coffee and cognac, and reading either the Unicers or the
Gazette de France — she is a Legitimist of the Legitimists and a
Clerical of the Clericals — a cheery old lady, who is eighty-four
240 PARIS HERSELF AGAIX.
years of age. She is a dame as charitable as she is noble, and gives
away, they tell me, a thousand pounds a year to the poor. She
rarely goes into the country; she patronises no watering-place
during the summer-heats. Her delight is in Paris; and she roams
about, all day long, shopping. She has sons and grandsons in the
army ; and when she meets any non-commissioned officers or sol-
diers belonjnne to the regiments in which her descendants serve,
those Braves are swiftly bidden to enter the nearest cafe, there to
regale themselves at her expense. I have said that she is an in-
veterate shopper ; but I should also have mentioned that, ere she
makes a purchase, she always asks the shopkeeper if he be a
Eepublican. Woe be, financially speaking, to the commergant who
has the courage of his opinions, and avows his democratic procli-
vities to the Legitimist Lady Bountiful ! She will buy of him five
sous' worth of pins, or half a franc's worth of notepaper, and pass
on. But fortunate is the tradesman who owns the soft impeach-
ment of Bonapartism, of Orleanism, or especially of an attachment
for Henry Cinq. At once he secures a most profitable customer.
At a quarter to five, in the Exhibition building, the police on
duty began to shout ' Sortez, sortez, s'il vous plait.' The police
voice is a hoarse, lugubrious, raven-like croak, the dissonant notes
of which might be advantageously studied by Sir George Bowyer,
since they bear out the worthy baronet's theory as to the influence
of climate on the human voice. The Parisian police under the
llepublic are nearly all Northerners. Circumstances — the chilling-
wind among them — lent additional cacophony to the strident invi-
tation to depart on Sunday. Do you remember to have heard in
the Cemetery of Pere la Chaise the unsympathetic and nerve-
jarring voice of the gardicn with the owl-like visage, who, in the
same ton nasillard, drew your attention to the monument erected
to Abelard and Heloise, to the ' Tombeau de Marchangy, l'Avocat-
General qui a fait condamner les Quatre Sergents de la Eochelle/
and to the grave of 'Le Depute Baudin, tue sur une barricade a la
suite des emeutes du Coup d'Etat ' ? He would have recited —
could he have spoken English — Tom Ingoldsby's ' Vulgar Little
GONE ! 241
Boy/ and Tom Hood's 'Bridge of Sighs,' in precisely the same
key, and with precisely the same intonation.
' Sortez, s'il vous plait.' There was at least a tinge of polite-
ness in the admonition ; whereas, when Artemus Ward gave his
first entertainment, his programme was found to conclude with the
postscript, ' If the audience do not go at the conclusion of the per-
formance, they will be turned out.' But hush ! hark ! A deep
sound strikes like a rising knell. Far away — I do believe it is in
the Chinese section — a body of French workmen have struck up
the ' Marseillaise.' According to Cham, the caricaturist in the
Charivari, the Mandarin-looking gentleman in the Chinese sec-
tion had his pigtail curled into half a dozen concentric circles in
honour of the closing day. What could that dignified personage in
the mauve-silk petticoat and fawn-coloured clogs, and Avith the cqfc-
au-lait-coloured countenance, have thought of Bouget de ITsle's
war-chant. But there is yet more music in the November air in
the Palace of the Champ de Mars. The strains of an anthem
gloriously familiar to English ears echo from the British section,
where a brass band, specially smuggled in for the occasion, are
playing ' God save the Queen.' Our American cousins did not
follow suit with ' Hail Columbia ' or ' Yankee Doodle.' They cele-
brated the termination of their own share in the Exhibition a week
ago, by sounding ' at full blast ' all the steam whistles in their
machinery section. The French auditors of this appalling noise
fled in affright, stopping their ears ; but the Americans were in
ecstasies with the piercing shrillness of each successive whistle.
' That's the kind of shriek, sir,' remarked a gentleman from Hart-
ford, Connecticut, to his neighbour and fellow-countryman, ' that
the Lawyer gives when the Devil gets hold of him.' The gentleman
from Hartford's compatriot observed that a few hotel gongs might
have materially aided the demonstration.
Our National Anthem, nevertheless, ' fetched ' the French por-
tion of the multitude to an enthusiastic extent. An impression
became current that ' les Anglais ' were celebrating the close of the
Exhibition in some characteristically national manner ; haply by
VOL. II. K
242
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN'.
eating ' rosbif ' and drinking ' porter-beer,' possibly by dancing
' ornpipes ' and ' gigues.' At all events, the many-heaSed struggled
manfully to reach the section whence the sounds of ' God save the
Queen ' proceeded ; but they were kept back with gentle firmness
by the police, one stout brigadier confidentially informing M.
Joseph Prudhomme, who was excitedly anxious to know what ' les
Anglais ' were doing, that the Prince of Wales had, just before his
Royal Highness quitted Paris, concluded a special treaty with the
French Government, authorising the English exhibitors to keep
their department open until six o'clock in the afternoon of Novem-
ber the Tenth, and that they were not to be interfered with in
their revels. ' Car, vo} r ez-vous,' added the confidential brigadier,
' le Prince de Galles c'est l'ami de la France ; et nous lui devons
quelque chose.' M. Joseph Prudhomme went away perfectly satis-
fied ; and, for my part, I think that it should be equally satisfac-
gone ! 243
tory to all and sundry to know that ninety-nine Frenchmen out of
a hundred are of the same opinion with the worth}' brigadier on
Sunday, and that the last embers of enmity between us and a
gallant and intelligent people, whom we fought tooth and nail,
off and on, for eight hundred years, but who are now our fast
friends, have been stamped out. Eighty thousand countrymen of
M. Joseph Prudhomme, and perhaps twenty thousand foreigners,
slowly drifted out of the Champ de Mars and the Trocadero, to
engage in a final struggle for cab, omnibus, or tapissiere ; and by
a few minutes after five Universal Darkness .had covered all.
What next ? Le Roi est mort '. Vive le Roi ! The Monarch
who, since May last, has reigned in the World's Fair has expired ;
but another sovereign was instantaneously enthroned. Paris is
Herself again ; and I, for one, rejoice greatly at the advent of the
new dynasty. I love Paris very dearly, and have so cherished
it during many years ; but the Paris which I have known, and in
which I have groaned and grumbled during fourteen feverish weeks,
has not been by any means my Lutetia Parisiorum. I am there-
fore pleased to find that although it was only yesterday that the
Exhibition closed, the streets to-day present a multiplicity of symp-
toms of Paris being Herself again. The boulevards are already
assuming their wonted aspect ; and many well-known characters
who have been identified for years with these animated thorough-
fares, are returning to their customary haunts. The Franks, the
Huns, the Visigoths, and the Vandals have reigned long enough ;
and it is quite time that the Gauls should resume their sway.
The Parisian is a Gaulois pur sang ; but during the Exhibi-
tion his national characteristics have been hidden well-nigh to
the point of obliteration by the more or less barbarous peoples who
have flocked to the metropolis of France to satiate their eyes and
to squander their money. The mad costly carnival is over, and
there is beginning the customary and continuous festival of La
Vie Parisienne — a life of pleasure and shows, all of which are
cheap and many of which are gratuitous.
The cabmen, for a wonder, are absolutely asking to be hired.
k 2
244
PARIS HERSELF AGAIX.
A ' MABCHAND DE CHIEKS ' OF THE BOULEVARDS.
Hold up your hand or your umbrella opposite a cab-rank, and a
dozen whips will be at once held up in response to your signal.
The sudden politeness too of the Paris Jehus is positively embar-
rassing. I am glad to note that the shandrydan victorias, into
which I have seen as many as five persons crammed — the vehicles
in question are constructed to hold two passengers — exclusive of a
GONE !
245
baby and a poodle, are rapidly disappearing, and are being replaced
by the smart comfortable little coupes — vastly superior to the ma-
jority of English
hired broughams
— which were in-
troduced in Paris
in 1851, and have
since been copied
and improved upon
in Madrid and in
Milan. Now these
little coupes will
hold two people
and no more, and
their inexpansive-
ness rendered
them all but use-
less during the
summer months,
A COURTEOUS CABMAN (liY CIIAJl).
' Monsieur, you appear to have a cold. Allow me
when the object of to get you something for it at the chemist's.'
246
PARIS HERSELF AGAIX.
the Paris cabman, like that of a Margate fly-driver, was to
get as many people into his carriage with, as many separate
augmentations of fare as lie possibly could. The reign of the
enormous tapissieres and chars-d-bancs is likewise at an end ;
and few — now that it is no longer a matter of convenience to
reach the Exhibition for the moderate fare of seventy-five centimes
— will regret the disappearance of the unwieldy caravans in ques-
tion. I was actually enabled at noon this morning to cross the
boulevard from the Grand Cafe to the Rue Neuve St. Augustin
without feeling in mortal dread of being crushed by a tayissiere,
run into by a cab, run over by the T-cart or the phaeton of a
member of the Jockey Club, brayed beneath the wheels of an
advertising van — we had to put the last-named nuisances down by
GONE !
247
Act of Parliament more than twenty years ago — smashed by one
of the fomrgons of the Grands Magasins du Louvre, or utterly
annihilated beneath the wheels of one of the monstrous vehicles of
the Compagnie Generate des Omnibus.
Yes, Paris is Herself again. Even last night I found out that
gratifying fact when I dined at the restaurant I had fixed upon in
perfect comfort. During the last three months the nightly and
dolorous question which I have addressed to myself has been less
•Where shall I
dine? 'than 'Shall
I be able to dine
anywhere at all?' c_
I have sat down,
metaphorically
speaking, before
the restaurant of
the MaisonDoree,
even as a military
commander in the
old days of war-
fare used to ' sit
down ' before a
besieged city. I
nave progressive- AT A restaurant after the exhibition (by cham).
ly advanced my
parallels, and
have captured
ravelin and counterscarp, fosse and bastion, so to speak, to the
extent of extracting a promise from the head-waiter to look after
my interests ; but over and over again have I failed to storm the
citadel of the Maison Doree in the way of obtaining a table whereat
to despatch my frugal meal. As for the Cafe Anglais, if you
asked in August or September ' s'il y avait de la place,' you were
met with a deprecatory shrug and an apologetic outstretching of
the hands on the waiter's part. At the Cafe Riche, your inquiries
' Waiter, what have I to pay ? '
' Just whatever you please, sir.'
248
PARIS 1IEUSELF AGAIN.
as to whether there were room extracted 'only a derisive grin on
the part of the maitre d'hotel. You must be toque, 'daft,' stark
staring mad, to think for a moment that there could he airy room
at the Cafe Riche. In despair, after being turned away impransus
from the doors of half a dozen restaurants, I drove one evening
over the water to Magny's clean, comfortable, and well-served res-
taurant in the Rue Mazet, off the Rue Dauphine. ' Je vous ferai
diner,' quoth M. Magny, rubbing his hands. I dined very well
indeed ; and the next evening, with a light heart — 0, vanity of
age untoward ! — I drove over again to the Rue Mazet. Alas I
M. Magny's restaurant was full from the rez de chaussee to the
garrets, which had been converted, for the nonce, into so many
cabinets ixirti cullers.
I used to dine very often at another excellent restaurant, in
the Place de la Fontaine Gaillon ; and I eulogistically mentioned
M. Grossetete, the proprietor thereof, as a single-minded res-
taurateur, who had announced to his numerous clientele that it
was his intention not to raise his prices during the Exhibition.
Infatuated I ! I am afraid that the publicity which, all innocently,
I gave to M. Grossetete's intentions must have attracted crowds of
English visitors to the Restaurant Gaillon. In any case, the
GONE !
249
place grows more crowded and more British every night. II n'y
avait plus moyen. At length, after waiting forty minutes for a
barbue aux fines licrbes, I sorrowfully told M. Grossetete that I
must seek a dinner somewhere else . ' You abandon us ! You
desert us ! ' cried M. Grossetete, affected almost to tears ; ' Mais,
Monsieur, e'est navrant : e'est ecceurant.' I told him that I did
not intend to abandon him ; but that I would come and see him
again — when the Exhibition was over. I will go, now that the
Exhibition is over, and that Paris is Herself again.
I have recently come across several types of the flaneur, that
thoroughly characteristic Parisian, who has seemingly been com-
pelled during these fearful months of excitement to hide himself in
remote holes and corners, say in the Rue St. Louis au Marais, or in
the Rue St. Andre des Arts, and I am positively in hopes of meet-
ing ere long the Nice Old Gentleman. The petit rentier no longer
finds his place at Duval's usurped by a hungry family from Brives-
la-Gaillarde or Arcis-sur-Aube ; and the mysterious tribe of people
who frequent the cafes, apparently for the sole purpose of going to
sleep over their bavaroise au chocolat, have reappeared, and have
THE DESOLATE CAFE AND THE DEJECTED WAITER (BY CHAM).
•250
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
now an ample opportunity to indulge their somnolent propensities.
A week ago, not the Fat Boy in Pickwick, not even the Seven
Sleepers, could have snatched forty winks at any time of the da} r or
night in any Parisian cafe. The traffic has been lightened, the
crowds lessened, the tumult quelled, the madness calmed down ;
and even in matters theatrical Paris is becoming Herself again.
It is possible to obtain afauteuil (Vorchestre at a first-class theatre
without having to make one of the queue in front of the bureau de
location, to find, after two or three hours' waiting, that all the
seats in the house are booked for a fortnight to come, or being
compelled to purchase a ticket at an agence des theatres, at an
advance of five hundred per cent, on the normal price. If this
halcyon state of things continues, I shall, before I leave Paris,
positively go to the play.
THE MARTYRS OF THE EXHIBITION.
XVI.
IN THE BOIS.
Nov. 14.
Full nine weeks did I pass in Paris, while the World's Fair was
at its wildest, without even thinking of taking a carriage-drive
in the Bois de Boulogne. There were plenty of amply- sufficing
reasons for my not indulging in a to me once-familiar pleasure.
In the first place, my circle of acquaintances, during the period of
which I speak, did not comprise any of those fortunate beings col-
loquially known as ' carriage-people.' I had, indeed, no acquaint-
ances at all worth speaking of, beyond the barber, the hotel-clerk,
the chambermaid who had been a dragoon, Eugene, a waiter at the
Grand Cafe, and the washerwoman. And she was my bitterest
enemy. I might have found plenty of friends. Nobody cut me ;
but I cut everybody whom I could possibly avoid, in order that I
might the better attend to some business I had then in hand. To
stud}' the street-life of a great city and to move in polite society
are not compatible pursuits, and, for the nonce, I gave polite
society the go-by. In the next place, had I wished to take a quiet
drive now and again in the Bois, I should have been disappointed ;
for between mid- August and mid-October there were no voitures
de grande remise to be hired at any of the livery stables. I shrank
from making an appearance at the Cascade or the Avenue de l'lm-
252 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
peratrice in a one-horse shandrydan from the boulevard cab-ranks ;
and the non-arrival of the necessary cheques precluded me from
going to Binder's, and saying to that eminent coachmaker, ' Let
me have something of your newest and most elegant in the way of
a phaeton or a victoria — quelque chose de joli dans les trois mille
fntius comptant.' As it chanced, there came to Paris, during the
last days of the Fair, a friend who was fortunate enough to secure,
by the week, at Meurice's, a very comely barouche and pair. It
was the only available turn-out, they said, left in Paris, except one
which had been hired by the Minister from Madagascar to convey
his Excellency to the fete at Versailles. Nor barouche nor Minis-
ter ever came back ; and the hapless diplomatist and his Secretary
of Legation are, it is supposed, still wandering up and clown in
search of their greatcoats, while the coachman from Meurice's is
waiting for his fare in the midst of the Plain of Satory.
So I had my drive in the Bois after all. A very fine afternoon
in the first week of November. It was the close of that exceptional
surcease from climatic asperity known as St. Martin's Summer.
The Americans have their ' Indian Summer,' a respite from winter
almost as sunshiny and as mellow as TEte de St. Martin,' who,
by the way, fulfils in France the functions attributed to St. Michael,
in being the patron saint of geese. In the old livres d'images of
Epinal, St. Martin is always represented with a nimbus of geese
round his head; and on his fete roast goose makes its appearance
at the tables of the French hounjeoisie as regularly as it does with
us at Michaelmas. Another knock-down blow to the tradition that
Queen Elizabeth was dining on hot roast goose when the news of
the destruction of the Spanish Armada was brought to her. L'Ete
de St. Martin made the Bois look very lovely indeed. Ascending
the Champs Elysees, and crossing the Place de l'Etoile, I found
the coquettish little houses built a VAnglaise in the Avenue de
l'lmperatrice wearing their most smiling aspect ; and the eight
thousand trees and shrubs which the massifs of the Avenue are
said to contain showed in the afternoon sunshine but very few
signs of the sere, the yellow leaf. Far off in the blue distance
IX THE BOIS.
253
THE CHAMPS ELY^EES.
loomed the fortress of Mont Valerien and the hills of St. Cloud,
of Bellevue, and of Meudon. Entering the Bois by the Porte
Dauphine, we followed the Route du Lac to the Lower Lake, with
its pine-clad hanks and its two pretty little eyots ; and then we
drove to the upper lake, with its splendid cascade. Then the
Eond de la Source, the Butte Mortemart, and the Mare d'Auteuil,
were all visited in due course. The Pre Catelan looked as hand-
some as ever ; and at length we reached the Hippodrome of Long-
champ, with its racecourse, its windmill, and its gray old tour a
pignon, the last-remaining vestige of the once-famous Abbey of
Longchamp, founded in the middle of the thirteenth century by
Isabella of France, sister of St. Louis, and which endured until
the great revolutionary cataclysm of 1789.
Xever was there a more aristocratic, or, if the chronique scan-
daleuse is to be believed, a naughtier nunnery than that of Long-
champ. It was Rabelais' Abbey of Thelema, with additions and
emendations, and ' Pay ce que vouldras ' might have been written
over the conventual gates. The excellent St. Vincent de Paul was
in a terrible way about the ' goings-on ' among these exceptionally
'25i
l'AUIS 1IKKSKLF AGAIN.
vivacious nuns, and in a letter to Cardinal Mazarin indignantly
denounced the irregularities which had become habitual in the
establishment. The Archbishop of Paris remonstrated with the
naughty nuns; but they snapped their fingers metaphorically in
the archiepiscopal lace, and continued their fandangos. But they
were eventually punished for their peccadillos. The pious world
ceased in disgust to make pilgrimages to the tomb of Ste. Isabelle
de Longchamp, and to deposit rich offerings on her shrine. At
the beginning of the eighteenth century the convent had grown
comparatively poor, when, in 1727, a renowned opera- singer, Made-
moiselle le Maure, having taken the veil at Longchamp, the
happy thought occurred to the abbess of giving concerts of sacred
music on the three last days of Lent. These concerts were a pro-
digious success. The Parisian world, fashionable and frivolous
as well as devout, flocked, as fast as their coaches-and-six could
carry them, to hear the Longchamp oratorios ; and these concerts
remained in vogue for nearly fifty years. It came at last to the
ears of another Archbishop of Paris, Monsigneur Christophe de
Beaumont — a prelate celebrated for his enmity to theatrical enter-
tainments, and his quarrel with Jean Jacques Rousseau — that the
attractions of the choir at the Abbey of Longchamp were enhanced
by the voices of a number of artistes from the opera who had not
taken the veil. So the church was closed to the public. There
was an end of the cause, but the effect remained.
Out of the fashionable pilgrimages grew the world-famous
Promenade de Longchamp, which began in the Champs Elysees,
and wound its course right athwart the Bois de Boulogne to the
gates of the Abbey itself. It was found that the setting-in of the
spring fashions might be fitly made to coincide with the eve of
Easter ; and every year during three days in Passion- week there
was an incessant cavalcade of princes, nobles, bankers, fermiers-
gdniraux, strangers of distinction, and the ladies then known as
ruincuses, to Longchamp. It became not a Ladies' Mile, but a
Ladies' League. The equipages of the grandest dames of the
Court of Versailles locked wheels with the chariots of La Duthe
IN THE BOIS. 255
and La Guimard ; and the legends whisper that the ruincascs
made, as a rule, a much more splendid appearance than the grandes
dames did. The Duchess of Valentinois was not, however, to be
put down by ' ces creatures.' In the spring of 1780 her Grace
appeared at the promenade de Longchamp in a carriage of which
the panels were composed of superbly-painted Sevres porcelain.
This china coach was drawn by six mottle-gray horses, with harness
of crimson silk embroidered with silver. A famous ruineuse, La
Morphise, an actress ' protected ' b} r Louis XV., and whose son,
by her Royal protector, Beaufranchet, Comte d'Oyat, was after-
wards present as chief of the staff of the Army of Paris at the
execution of Louis XVI., and positively gave the command for the
drums to beat when his unhappy grand-nephew by blood attempted
to address the spectators — La Morphise, I say, endeavoured to
outshine the Duchess of the porcelain coach. She was unable to
procure any china panels from the Royal manufactory at Sevres,
but she had the sides and back of her carriage made of the finest
marqueterie in brass work and tortoiseshell. Her horses were
black, with harness of crimson velvet and gold. The equipage
would have been a success, had not the coachman of the Swedish
Minister run the pole of his chariot through one of the panels of
the tortoiseshell coach. The fiasco was complete ; the crowd began
to jeer, and the discomfited Morphise drove home lamenting.
I had plenty of time to recall this, as well as many other remi-
niscences of the Bois de Boulogne, since we had made the slight
mistake of going thither at two o'clock in the afternoon, at least an
hour and a half too early. The time for the fashionable promenade
was, at the beginning of the month, from half-past three to five
p.m. There was scarcely anybody on wheels or on horseback in
the Bois when we arrived : thus the aspect of the place, for all
the mild beauty of St. Martin's summer, was decidedly the reverse
of hilarious. A slight halt for refreshment being suggested, I
proposed that we should partake of a picturesque and innocent
beverage — new milk, to wit, at the well-known farm close
to the Pre Catelan. We duly entered the somewhat tame
250
PARIS HERSELF AGAIX.
and frigid imitation
of a farmhouse,
which has a most
melancholy little
cafe attached to it,
and in the yard of
which a dejected
horse walks round
and round in a seem-
ingly ceaseless cir-
cuit. You have, at
first, not the slight-
est idea as to why he should be so very peripatetic ; but soon you are
taken into an outhouse, and there you perceive that the quadruped
in the farmyard is working a wheel which works a machine for
grinding horse-chestnuts or chopping mangold-wurzel and carrots.
After that we were taken to see the cows. Here the conventional
etiquette is to quote at least one verse from Pierre Dupont's lyric
of ' Les Bceufs : '
' J'ai deux grands bceufs dans mon etable,
Deux grands bceufs blancs taches de roux ;
Le timon est en bois d'erable, ,
L'aiguillon en tranche de houx.'
There were a few big oxen in the enormous cowshed of the
Ferme du Pre Catelan — a cowshed on which that eminent agri-
cultural reformer, Hercules, might have advantageously bestowed
a "lance after making the stables of King Augeas neat and tidy ;
but there were, in addition, about a hundred poverty-stricken little
Alderneys. Some of these were being milked by bearded men in
blouses and with bare feet. This did not look by any means
picturesque, and failed to conjure up memories of the charming
old English lyric about the lass ' that carried the milking-pail.'
A paved aisle ran between the vaccine ranks, and at intervals
in this gangway were little tables, at which sate, on three-legged
stools, M. Joseph Prudhomme, rentier, of the Marais ; M. Casson-
nade, of Noisy-le-Sec, e'picier; and M. Choufieury, Mayor of Chateau-
IN THE BOIS. 257
Pignouf, Department of the Ganache Superieure ; with any number
of feminine and juvenile Pructhommes, Choufleurys, and Casson-
nades, all drinking new milk with a sorrowful but determined
expression of countenance. I always endeavour in my wanderings
to ' see the Elephant,' and at Rome to do as the Romans do ; so,
regardless of consequences, I ordered new milk for four ; but the
lady of our party beginning at this conjuncture to ' feel bad ' — the
odour of the Catelan cowhouse may have had something to do with
it — we prudently withdrew to the cafe. The milk was peculiar in
flavour, but scarcely nice. That was not the name for it. In the
cafe we found some coffee, which tasted worse than the milk, and
some cognac, which tasted worse than either. The microscopic
nature of the change out of a five-franc piece, tendered in payment
for these delicacies, excited, however, our admiration ; and it was
something, after all, to be reminded, in the very outskirts of Paris,
of that dear old Dutch deception, the ' clean ' village of Broek.
So farewell, Arcadia, which I have generally found to be a very
expensive country.
When we got back to the Bois we found it, not certainly in all
its glory, but fairly well patronised by the equipages of the fash-
ionable world. The French aristocracy seemed rather to shine by
its absence than otherwise. The Duchesses and Marchionesses
had perhaps not yet returned from Biarritz or Vichy, or from their
chateaux ; but there was a very considerable sprinkling indeed in
handsome equipages of la haute finance, of foreign diplomacy, and
especially of the haut commerce. The wealthy tradesman — the
enriched chocolate, cognac, pickles, sago, cooking-stove, corset,
pills, perfumery, confectionery manufacturer, or wiiat not — seems
to be coming very rapidly to the front just now, and to be making
as conspicuous an appearance in society under the Republic as his
congeners did under the Monarchy of Louis Philippe. The Second
Empire was the time of triumph in the Bois, as everywhere else,
of splendid adventurers of both sexes, and of every possible descrip-
tion ; and I am bound to confess that, ten years ago, the aspect of
the Bois de Boulogne was far more stylish than it is at present.
258
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
There was a tremen-
dous amount of extra-
vagance ; still luxury
did not often reach the
' Benoiton ' point of
ostentatious vulgarity.
The cattle seen in the
Bois in 18G7-8 were, as
a rule, superb. Very
rarely now do you see
in it a horse worth so
much as a hundred-
pound note. There
have been no good
horses in Paris, they
tell you, since the siege. The driving, too, seems to have wofully
deteriorated ; a fact which, I consider, is not at all to be wondered
at. Poor Napoleon III. , whatever may have been his shortcomings,
certainly knew the ' points ' of a horse, as Mr. Samuel Sidney or as
' Stonehenge ' knows them. Caesar defunct was an eminently
' horsey ' sovereign, and his stud-grooms were Englishmen. The
if «\\ 111 1 ,' 1 A k h • !©(lj : '■>
FROM ' LA VIE PARISIENXK.'
IN THE BOIS.
259
wealthiest and ' liorsiest ' of foreign grandees nocked to the bril-
liant Court of the Tuileries, and the niineuscs of ten years since —
they were called cocottes then — vied in the splendour of their
^W> \
equipages with the great ladies of the Empire and the foreign
Ambassadresses, just as, a century ago, La Morphise vied with
the Duchesse of Yalentinois. All that is ' played out.' The
Duthes and Guimards and Morphises of the Second Empire seem
all but entirely to have disappeared. They may be keeping
bureaux de tabae, or opening box-doors at the playhouse, or wait-
ing in white aprons at the Bouillon-Duval, for aught I know ; and
in the Bois de Boulogne I failed to count more than a dozen
caVeches or victorias, occupied by unmistakably yellow-haired en-
chantresses. There was one on horseback in the Avenue de
Suresnes ; but she was stout, and forty. O, ' stylishness ' of the
Bois, what has become of thee ? On the other hand, there was
.in abundance of exquisitely-neat little private broughams and
coupes, with quiet-looking ladies and gentlemen inside ; a number
of very badly appointed and worse driven dog-carts and T-carts, two
or three mail-phaetons, a solitary tandem, and any number of right-
8 2
2G0
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
down fiacres and shandrydans, full
of honest folk from the provinces,
enjoying themselves to all appear-
ance mightily. It were better —
much better so. True the quality of
the cattle in the Bois de Boulogne
improved ; but a little stylishness
may be perhaps dispensed with when
the owners of the most stylish equi-
pages are reckless adventurers,
mushroom millionnaires, or the
young ladies with tresses of con-
vertible hues who were wont to be
called ruineuses, and who in successive generations, from the time
of Lais and Phryne downwards, have ruined a surprising number
of silly people.
And now farewell, Bois ; and farewell, Paris, too, for a time ; for
my boat is on the shore and my bark is on the sea ; that is to say, I
have got a through ticket to London, and I have an appointment
to-morrow at noon at Charing Cross.
XVII.
TARIS REVISITED — PALM SUNDAY ON THE BOULEVARDS.
April 7, 1879.
' Voila, patron ! ' In these words of cheerful deference was I
addressed, soon after my arrival in Paris yesterday morning, by
the red-waistcoated and oilskin-covered-hatted driver of hackney-
carriage No. Five Thousand and odd, stationed on the Boulevard
des Italiens. Cocker Five Thousand and odd absolutely wanted a
fare, and condescended to make courteous proclamation of the cir-
cumstance. Bear in mind that he hailed me as ' patron ' ! Under
normal circumstances the Parisian cabby declines to apply to his
fore a more dignified designation than that of ' mon bourgeois,'
and too frequently during the Exhibition orgy of extortion ' mon
bourgeois ' became ' Ohe ! la-bas ! ' I have been called likewise
' chnmeau,' ' animal,' ' and ' requin ; ' and one Jehu, with whom I
had a slight difficulty arising from his demanding four francs fifty
centimes for driving me from the Porte Iiapp to the Luxembourg,
was good enough to express his opinion that I was ' un exposant
de peaux d'hippopotame ' — an exhibitor of hippopotamus hides.
202 rARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
There was some mother-wit in the abuse, and I forgave it. But
no cabman vilifies the wandering tourist now. The hackney
carriages are many, and the fares are few. The times have
changed, and Paris is herself again. Aha ! The proud Auto-
medon of the asphalte defers to me as his ' patron,' does he ! I
mean to be as haughty as he was between mid-July and mid-
October last year. I shall tolerate no overcharges, and wink at no
sin of omission in the delivery of a ticket on his part. In fact,
like Mr. Pepys, when he put on his suit with the gold buttons, I
intend in the future to ' go like myself,' to patronise only coupes
with unbroken windows and untattered cushions, and to ride only
behind cattle that are not spavined, windgalled, and shoulder-
shotten. It is slightly difficult to find such irreproachable animals
on the Parisian cab-ranks ; still, I have a fortnight before me, and
the stud to select from is large.
Yesterday was Palm Sunday — ' le Dimanche des Rameaux ' —
and I had no sooner emerged from the Northern Terminus into
the interminable Rue de Lafayette, the Upper Wigmore Street of
Lutetia, ere I became aware that the first da}' of Holy AVeek had
begun. The streets were all agreen with branches of box-tree —
the "Western substitute for palms. By this time millions of ' fais-
ceaux ' of the ' buis benit,' blessed yesterday in the churches, have
been hung up over the chimneypieces or thrust behind the frames
of pictures and looking-glasses, not to be disturbed until the eve
of another Palm Sunday. A pretty custom. We are too much in
a hurry, perhaps, in England, when Christmas week is over, to
sweep the holly and mistletoe into the dustbin ; but if paterfami-
lias pleads for a little extension of time for the crisp green leaves
and sparkling berries, the careful housewife sternly pronounces the
ominous word ' dust ' ! We are the slaves, in smoky London, of
the dust and ' the blacks.' Here there is little dust worth speak-
ing of; and there are no ' blacks ' at all. Thus the Parisians will
be enabled to indulge to the fullest in their passion for perpetuat-
ing the verdant memories of Palm Sunday.
Prodigious quantities of leafy box arrived at the Halles Cen-
PALM SUNDAY ON THE BOULEVARDS. 263
trales by dawn on Sunday, and by seven in the morning had been
dispersed through every quarter of Paris. The grisette trotted by,
with her long slim loaf — her provision of bread for the day — held,
not ungracefully, sceptre-wise in one hand ; her little can of milk
pendent from one finger ; in the other hand her morsel of frontage
de Brie, wrapped up in paper ; and, secure under her arm, her
bunch of ' rameaux.' She would not much mind going without
her breakfast, poor thing ; but those fasces of green stuff she must
have. So do you see crowds of working-men's wives and children
trooping onwards, all laden with branches of bids. Birnam Wood
seems coming to Dunsinane. Impromptu marchandes de rameaux
establish themselves at all the street-corners, while the regular
greengroceries seem to be doing almost as good a business in
' buis ' as in cauliflowers and cabbages. They tell me that the
French workman is, in the majority of cases, a confirmed sceptic,
and this statement would appear to be to some extent confirmed
by the vast number of freethinking half-penny and penny news-
papers and periodicals which are Voltairian, and something more
than Voltairian, in their views ; but, all sceptic as he may be, the
x Parisian proletarian does not, to all appearance, entertain the
slightest objection to his wife and children purchasing box-branches
on Palm Sunda}', and decorating the family m a nsarde therewith.
One reason for this may be that in matters social the proletarian
in question is a very staunch Conservative. He abhors innovation,
and likes to do as his fathers did before him. He may sneer at
the observances of the Dimanche des Rameaux as ' un tas de
betises ; ' yet, I fane}-, he would rate Marie Jeanne his wife, and
Nanette and Louison his daughters, if the traditional branches of
buis, duly blessed by the cure, whom he professes to hate so much,
were not to make their accustomed appearance over the chimney
or behind the portrait of M. Gambetta on Monday in Passion-
week. The portrait of M. Leon Gambetta, lithographed, photo-
graphed, graved on steel, or cut on wood, is everywhere in Paris
just now. He is enjoying, pictorially, an Admiral Keppul, a Mar-
quis of Granby-like apotheosis. Republican France is continually
204 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN*
drinking toasts to Libert}', Equality, and Fraternity at the sign of
the Gambetta's Head. What was it that the Tory old lady was
heard to mutter one day as she passed a tavern, the sign of which
displayed a flaring effigy of Jack Wilkes crowned with the Cap of
Liberty ? ' He swings,' remarked the Tory old lady, ' everywhere
but where he should.'
There may be in Eepublican France not a few politicians who
hold the same opinion with regard to the omnipresent portrait of
the President of the Chamber of Deputies as was held by the
elderly gentlewoman of Church and State proclivities touching
the head of Jack Wilkes. What the newest of the brand-new
journals, which are well-nigh incessantly sprouting up, thinks
about the First Statesman in France — the statesman whom M.
Thiers dubbed ' un fou furieux ' — is problematical. The new
journal of which I speak is called Gallia. It is not a penny
paper — O dear, no ! It is sold at the patrician sum of fifty
centimes, and comprises only four pages of very widely- displayed
type, mainly devoted to a puff of a new ' Album de l'Expo-
sition.' But on the front page is gummed a cloudy little photo-
graph representing the exterior of a humble grocer's shop in a
provincial town. The door-jambs are embellished with counter-
feit presentments of sugarloaves. In the windows appear pickles,
haricots, lentils, cakes of chocolate, vermicelli, olives, and other
' denrees coloniales.' Over the shop-front appears a capacious
placard inscribed ' Bazar Genois : Gambetta Jeune et Cie. ; ' and
beneath the spectator reads, ' Sucre du Havre, Nantes, et Bor-
deaux, 1 fir. le k.,' meaning one franc the kilogramme. This
curious picture the accompanying letterpress informs the reader
represents ' La Maison de Gambetta a Cahors ; ' and the unpre-
tending grocery is otherwise pompously styled ' Le Nid de l'Aigle '
— The Eagle's Nest. Is all this good-natured banter, or honest
admiration for a man who from such small beginnings has risen
so high ; or is it so much black and bitter envy, malice, and
uncharitableness ? That would be difficult to determine. I never
knew political satire of the pictorial kind to be so savagely sjriteful
PALM SUNDAY ON THE BOULEVARDS.
265
— ~~~~ ~~ ~
LE XID DE L'AIGLE AT CAHOES.
as it is in France just now ; and the Cahors grocery photograph
may be deemed a master-stroke by politicians who hate M. Gam-
betta. It does not matter much, perhaps, after all. Garibaldi
used to make candles, once upon a time', at Staten Island, New
York ; and Hofer, the Tell of the Tyrol, kept a public-house.
When a millionnaire chocolate manufacturer was taunted in full
Chamber by a Bonapartist Deputy with having formerly been a
country grocer, on the very smallest of scales, he replied that such
was certainly the fact; and that the father of the honourable
gentleman had been a customer of his, and had forgotten to settle
his small account for Reunion coffee and Jamaica rum.
Meanwhile, the pleasure-loving Parisians have been spending
Palm Sunday in their own characteristic fashion. I fancy that
the churches of London were all most decorously well attended
yesterday, and that the last week in Lent left nothing to be desired
in the way of devout observance. Otherwise, if you in England
were afflicted with such remarkably disagreeable weather as we
2G6
I>ARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
suffered yesterday, I fancy, again, that your Palm Sunday must
have heen socially an intensely dull and dreary one. It was other-
wise here. The barometer, meteorologically, went down ; but the
spirits of this most mercurial population went up. They made a
day of it, miserable as it was.
The devout spent the season in their own
way. There were matin and vesper sermons
by friars of great oratorical eminence at Notre
Dame. The fires of Lacordaire and Hya-
cinthe yet live, it is asserted, in the ashes of
the French pulpit ; and in the religious
journals you read of nascent Massillons and
coming Bourdaloues, of Flechiers hitherto
unknown to fame, and even of anew Bossuet
hourly expected from orthodox Provence, and
who between this and Easter maybe expected
to recall the thunders of the Eagle of Meaux.
Religious concerts at the Sainte Chapelle are
greatly in vogue ; and the Lenten congrega-
tions at St. Germain l'Auxerrois, St. Etienne du Mont, and especi-
ally at Notre Dame des Yictoires are crowded. The ' offices ' at the
PALM SUNDAY ON THE BOULEVARDS.
267
Madeleine are frequent and superb, and of some of these ere Easter
Eve arrives I shall endeavour to take note. In fact, devotional,
orthodox, ' practising '
Paris presents just at
present a most edify-
ing spectacle. Society
fait la morte. No balls,
no assemblies, no grand
dinners. Half mourn-
ing is the only wear,
and ' maigre ' osten-
sibly the only cheer.
Foreigners, being
barbarians, may of
course eat what they
like ; but it will not
be at all m aura is ton,
should you happen to
^ be dining at Bignon's or Durand's on Maundy Thursday or Good
Friday, to abstain from ordering any plat cle viande. You can, to
be sure, get on tolerably well, gastronomically speaking, without
partaking of either butcher's meat or poultry. Here is, for
example, a Good Friday menu, highly recommended in the most
reclusive circles of the Faubourg St. Germain, and composed with-
out the aid either of milk, butter, or eggs, all being things pro-
hibited in his Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop's Lenten Pas-
toral. Potage bouillabaisse ; flounders sauce a I'huile, salmi of wild
duck, lobster a V Americaine, roast teal, buisson of crawfish, croute
of mushrooms, par/ait glace au cafe. Yes, I think that it might
be found possible to support existence on such a Good Friday diet
as the one just formulated. But how about the sarcellcs and the
canards sauvages ! you may ask. Are salmi of wild duck, are
roast teal, 'meagre' fare? Surely they are. They are aquatic birds,
they feed on fish, they have a slight fishy flavour, and in the
Lenten menu they are not accounted flesh. This remarkable dis-
268 TARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
covery was made by a celebrated gastronome of the seventeenth
century, Monsieur de Tartuft'e.
And the Paris which is not devout? Well, that Paris was
singing on Palm Sunday — was singing its accustomed refrain,
1 Let us eat, drink, and he merry, for to-morrow may come Cata-
clysm.' ' It must he admitted, Monsieur,' quoth to me, yesterday,
the sententious and courteous maitre dliotel at the Grand Cafe — I
can't help thinking that he must have been an Auditeurde la Colli-
des Comptcs under the Second Empire—' that our coffers are no
longer gorged, as was the case during the Exposition, with the
gold of the stranger, and that foreigners no longer dispute with
fierceness for the possession of the treasures of art and industry in
our commercial establishments. But, Monsieur, il y a toujours le
Paris qui suffit a faire marcher Paris— the Paris which is the
adequate patron of its own productions, and which continues to
enjoy with never-failing zest the permanent phenomena of its daily
life. Paris, at the present moment, is even more inimitably metro-
politan than was the case during the fever of the Exposition ; for
during those months of clamours (bruyantc) prosperity the true
Parisian, terrified (effarouehc) by abnormal prices and the scarcity
of fish, emigrated, or hid his head in silence and obscurity, until
more tranquil times should come. Monsieur, they have arrived.
The carte dti jour, Monsieur, comprises—' and then he slid off
into the recital of his catalogue of eatables. It was not he, but
the equally courteous Eugene, the head-waiter, who, when I was
bidding him farewell last November, opined that I was going to
get some money out of my ' mines de houille la-bas,' and that I
should speedily return to Paris to spend it. It is a firm article of
belief among the Parisian shop and restaurant keeping class that
no foreigner ever thinks of leaving Paris until he is brought down
to his last hundred-franc note. But who on earth could have told
Eugene, or how came that obliging servitor to think, that I was a
coal-owner la-has ? Ld-bas may mean Durham or Dalmatia, Pon-
typridd or Pennsylvania. It is the ' There ' of the O'Mulligan.
It is the Frenchman's Ewigkeit.
PALM SUNDAY ON THE BOULEVARDS.
269
There were races yesterday in the Bois de Boulogne. I glanced
at the prophesied list of winners — the ' Gagnants de Bobert Mil-
ton' — in the Figaro, but M. Bobert Milton's straight tips failed to
;. ,///,/. liMlMl ' , ,i(I-
interest me. A horse-race in France is, as a rule, a depressing-
spectacle. I have never returned from one save in a most dejected
state ; and even Chantilly— on a wet Sunday— has moved me well-
nigh to tears. There was a bitter wind blowing yesterday ; the
270 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
rain came down from half-hour to half-hour in brief but uncomfort-
able ' splurges ; ' and altogether I did not see my way towards be-
coming, even for a portion of the afternoon, a patron of the turf.
So it occurred to me that I would visit the Louvre. I averted my
eyes — with a definite intent and purpose in so doing — as, driving
down the Rue de Rivoli, the blackened ruined screen of the
Tuileries loomed in view. A rivederla ! But in the great court
of the Carrousel, and in the Square du Louvre, with its gilt rail-
ings and almost preternaturally verdant turf, all looked spick-and-
span new, bright, handsome, and coquettish. A melodious voice
seemed to be making some such proclamation as this : ' Ladies
and gentlemen, in other portions of Paris disturbances have occa-
sionally broken out ; but these smiling facades, these stately gal-
leries, are sacred to the Muses, and no Revolutions can, under any
possible circumstances, be permitted here.' Really ! Why, the
vast pile is built on abed of concrete covering revolt and massacre
unutterable. I fell into the ranks of a dense, but most orderly
throng, who were scaling the grand staircase of the Museum. I
found the due contingent of civil and attentive guardians, in their
traditional cocked hats ; but I was pleased to see that under a
Republican regime the sovereign people were no longer deprived of
their sticks and umbrellas at the door. What Frenchman in his
senses would ever dream of -poking at a picture with his parctpluie,
or of digging holes in a terra-cotta with the ferrule of his walking-
cane ? To sack the Tuileries now and again, to burn down the
library of the Louvre bodily, to f aire jiamher Finances — Eli! that
is quite another matter. But the volcano is not in eruption just
now, the lava and the scoria, under the concrete are for the moment
quiescent ; and on Palm Sunday afternoon the incomparably
magnificent art-galleries of the Louvre were thronged hy a vast
multitude of Frenchmen who knew how to behave themselves,
and did so most scrupulously.
It was a ' People's Day,' but the attendance was by no means
exclusively democratic. I counted in the courtyard no less than
twenty-seven handsome private equipages, and a much larger num-
TALM SUNDAY ON THE BOULEVARDS.
271
ber of hackney-carriages retained by the hour by pleasure-seekers.
Many of these were possibly foreign tourists ; still I noticed a fail-
sprinkling of grave elderly gentlemen, wearing the ribbon of the
Legion of Honour, of cadets of St. Cyr, and of students of the
Ecole Polytechnique. There were scarcely any fashionably-dressed
ladies. They probably were at church ; while the mondaines were
at the races, or driving in the Bois. Not a gandm, not a petit creve,
not a gommeux, was to be seen. On the other hand, the affluence
was tremendous of petites bourgeoises, of good folk of the shop-
keeping class, of clerk and assistant-like young men, and of down-
right working men and women — the former in shiny blue blouses,
the latter in decent white caps. I say that the blouses were shiny,
because Palm Sunday is a traditional day among the working
classes for the assumption of a new blouse, which is normally of
blue or white calico, highly glazed, and to my mind is a very
becoming garment. When he is at work the artisan wears a
white blouse ; and hundreds of blouses blanches, were going up
and down ladders, mixing mortar, laying bricks, or plying their
plasterers' brushes in Paris yesterday. My neighbour, M. Barbe-
dienne, of art-bronzes fame, never opens his establishment on the
Sabbath, but he had a whole army of blouses blanches employed on
Palm Sunday in ' doing up ' his extensive frontage.
272 TAKIS HERSELF AGAIN.
A much larger number, indeed, of the shops on the Boulevards,
in the Rue de la Paix, and in the Avenue de V Opera were closed
yesterday than is ordinarily the case ; but I scarcely think that the
crowds of young men and women thus temporarily liberated from
then- toils at the counter and the desk contributed in any material
degree to swell the congregations at St. Germain l'Auxerrois or
St. Etienne du Mont. I shrewdly suspect that vast numbers of
them went to the Louvre, and so, subsequently, to dinner at an
' Etablissement de Bouillon Duval,' and afterwards to a brasserie,
and ultimately to a cafe concert or to the play. It is no doubt a
very dreadful thing, this ' Continental Sunday,' about which we
hear in England such doleful jeremiads, but there is no getting
over one fact — that the crowd in the galleries of the Louvre was a
quiet crowd, a well-behaved crowd, and a crowd that seemed
thoroughly to enjoy itself. "When in the Salon Carre I saw a
whole working-class household, nursegirl — carrying the baby —
and all, pass with rapt and eager looks from the ' Nozze di Cana '
of Paolo Veronese to the Soult Murillo, and thence to the ' Belle
Jardiniere ' of Rafaelle, before which they stood as it were fasci-
nated by a vision of grace and loveliness, I could not help thinking
that there were features in the ' Continental Sunday ' which might,
on consideration, be condoned.
% ;0 '&m
XVIII.
EASTER EGGS AND APRIL FISHES.
April 9.
It might surprise you to hear that this instant Wednesday is, so
far as Paris is concerned, the Eve of the Deluge. The forecast
in which I am emboldened to indulge should be taken, not in a
meteorological, but in a metaphorical, sense. It has done so many
things in the way of weather since Sunda}' morning last, and fog
has succeeded brief snatches of sunshine, while piercing east winds
have followed drenching downpours of rain — all in the course of
each recurring twenty-four hours — that it would be perilous to
predict what kind of fresh atmospheric phenomenon to-morrow
may bring forth. To-da} r may be the eve of a snowstorm or of a
flood, of a sirocco or of an earthquake. The month is April ; and
we should be prepared for all things. But the Deluge on the
occurrence of which to-morrow I am able, with tolerable con-
fidence, to reckon, has no kind of reference to the voyage of the
good ship Noah's Ark. Paris is simply expectant of a Deluge of
juvenile humanity, and the Parisian shopkeepers are rubbing
274
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
their hands at the thought of their establishments being inun-
dated b} r streams of little boys and girls, almost frantically eager
for toys and sweetmeats to be bestowed upon them. The Easter
holidays, scholastically speaking, are very brief in Paris. The
great colleges only grant three days' vacation to their students ;
private schools for bo} r s give four days' surcease from lessons ;
the pensionnats de demoiselles are a little more lenient to their
pupils ; but the authorities of the
conventual schools refuse to re-
gard Holy Thursday and Good
Friday as holidays — they are, on
the contrary, clays of mortification
and seclusion from secular recre-
ation. Holy Saturday is a day
of preparation for the coming fes-
tival, and the real holiday is
Easter-day, next Sunday. Then,
and not until then — to the think-
ing of the orthodox, should one
commence de faire ses Pdqucs,
to eat, drink, and be merry ; and, under a strictly orthodox
regime, festivity would be carried right through Easter-week.
The existing generation is, however, heterodox, and in a chronic
state of hurry. With a vast mass of the population of Paris the
Easter Holidays have already begun, and by Easter Tuesday those
holidays will have ended. The majority of the schools will throw
open their portals to-morrow afternoon, and the Deluge of small
Parisians of both sexes will be tremendous.
The 'movement,' as the commercial journals put it, in the
toy and sweetstuff trade has thus been prodigious; but con-
current with the need of providing for the reopiirements of the
children who are coming home from school is the large amount
of business done in the two characteristic specialties of the
season — April Fishes and Easter Eggs. The Polsson d'Avril
in the form of a pretty trifle sent' as a half-complimentary half-
EASTER EGGS AND APRIL FISHES.
275
bantering present, is all but wholly unknown in England out of
the domains of mediaeval folk-lore. Idiotic or malicious practical
jokes are yet perpetrated among the uneducated classes on the
1st of April; and ' 0, you April Fool! ' is an expression which
is not yet entirely divested of purport or significance ; but in
good society to ' make an April Fool ' of airy one would be con-
sidered an anachronism as gross as it would be to attempt the
revival of the Berners Street Hoax. The ' Poisson d'Avril ' has
long since lost its coarseness in Paris, in the direction of 'fooling'
or 'hoaxing' people ; but it has assumed a tangible form as a half
' Baptiste, "why do you not answer the bell ? '
' Because to-day is the first of April, and I thought
madam wanted to make a fool of me.'
valentine, half ftrcnne. It may be sent anonymously ; whereas
the Easter Egg and the New Year's gift are personal gifts. The
' Poisson d'Avril ' may be in bonbons, in chocolate, in porcelain,
in lace, in tcrre cuite, in diamonds, or in cardboard; but it is
imperatively necessary either that its outward shape should be
T 2
276
rAKIS HERSELF AGAIN.
that of a fish, or that it should be plentifully adorned with piscine
emblems. These dolls, in the manufacture of which the Parisians
are so surprisingly proficient, lend themselves at once to the pur-
poses of adaptation for the April Fish whim. A miniature 'mulier
formosa ' is so contrived as to terminate with a fish's tail stuffed
with comfits, without exciting the ridicule of the recipient ; and
troubadours playing on guitars, and with cods' head and shoulders,
have been especial favourites in the April Fish market this season.
The ' Fille de Madame Angot,' carrying a basket full of sprats,
has also been much in vogue ;
while confiseurs of more clas-
sical leanings have brought
out radiant presentments of
Arion on his dolphin, and
Pomitian's turbot, splen-
didly got up in chocolate,
mother - o' - pearl, blanched
almonds, tmdmarrons glaces.
I note also a youth, unrobed,
with wings, sitting in the
bright vermilion jaws of a
kind of sea-dragon, equally
resembling a diminutive
sbark and a colossal flying-
fish. The youth is playing
on a barp, and to all ap-
pearance is very happy. Can
this group have any reference
to the story of Jonah and
the whale ?
Take him for all in all, the ' Poisson d'Avril ' may be accepted
as the light and mercurial precursor of the more serious and sub-
stantial '(Euf de Paques,'in the dazzling splendours of which the
modest fish soon becomes blended, and is ultimately absorbed.
An Easter Egg of the very highest class is not, I would have you
EASTER EGGS AND APRIL FISHES. 277
to understand, by any means a joke. When the Second Empire
was at the heyday of its luxurious folly and its sumptuous corrup-
tion there were Easter Eggs that cost 50,000, or 25,000, or 10,000
francs apiece. I remember to have heard of one presented by a
Viscount and Chamberlain of the Imperial Court to an actress,
say at the theatre of ' les Depravations Parisiennes,' which ex-
teriorly was only a coffer of ovoid form, covered with blue velvet
powdered with hearts transfixed by arrows in gold embroideiy,
but which, opening, disclosed a charming victoria of Binder's
building, a pair of perfectly matched piebald ponies, and a Bengal
tiger — a groom I mean — in faultless tunic, tops, and buckskins.
The ponies and the groom were alive, the victoria was fit for im-
mediate use, and Mademoiselle Pasgrandchose drove her piebald
pair that very afternoon at the Promenade de Longchamp. The
brilliance of her appearance was heightened by the contents of
another egg, the yolk of which was composed of pearls and
diamonds, the gift of Baron Boguet de la Poguerie, banker and
Mexican loanmonger — he fell with Mires on the field of honour —
while further attractiveness was lent to Mademoiselle Pasgrand-
chose's intelligent countenance by an expression of inward con-
tentment due to her having received yet a third egg — a modest
egg — an egg no bigger than the normal product of the hen, but
which on being cracked was found to enshrine five notes of the
Bank of France for a thousand francs each, prettily folded, cocked-
hat fashion, and tied up with pink ribbon. Ah, halcyon time !
And what a carnival the rogues and the roguesses had ' sub Julio ;
nel tempo dei falsi e bugiardi ! '
Keener eyes than mine espied gem-adorned Easter Eggs in the
great jewellers' shops of fashionable Paris this morning; but my
quest was for the picturesque eggs, the toy eggs, the artistic eggs,
and in particular the downright and outrageously comical eggs.
In every one of these departments my researches were amply re-
warded by results. I may just hint once for all that not in any
single instance, in the scores of toy and confectionery shops into
the windows of which I peered, did I find the slightest emblematic
PAKIS HERSELF AGAIN.
association of the Easter Egg with the memories of the Paschal
Season. The Parisians borrowed these quaint things from the
Russians, who attach to them a deeply religious significance ; but
the lively Gaul, in naturalising his ' (Eufs de Paques ' on the
boulevards, at once eliminated from them the slightest elements of
superstition. They were to him only so many bagatelles, on the
confection of which much taste and skill might be lavished, and
which might be vended at a highly remunerative price.
We need not be too shocked with the liveliness of the Gaul in
EASTER EGGS AND APRIL FISHES. 279
dissociating Easter Eggs from Eastertide thoughts. It needs the
erudition of all our Folk-Lore Societies, all our contributors to
Notes and Queries, all our Thorns and Baring- Goulds, to keep our
OAvn English memories green touching the meaning of many of
our own emblems and observances. Hot cross-buns explain
themselves to the meanest comprehension. But how about the
bean in the Twelfth-cake ? How about goose at Michaelmas
(which has no more to do with Queen Elizabeth and the defeat of
the Spanish Armada than with Queen Anne and the battle of
Blenheim) ? How about Santa Clans, who comes down the
chimney on New Year's-eve, and fills the shoes of the good
children with toys and goodies, and the shoes of the naughty ones
with birch-broom ? How about HalloAve'en '? Does one Scot in
ten thousand know the real meaning of Hallowe'en ? Does any-
body know it, save perhaps the lineal descendant of the last Druid,
if such a man there be ? The world is growing very old; and the
Sphinx, by times, is puzzled to find a solution for her own riddles.
It was such a very long time ago that she propounded them. We
must take the Easter Eggs for what they are worth, from two
francs fifty upwards. Some archaeologists maintain that the gift-
egg has nothing whatever to do with Easter, and that it is only a
survival of the Homan sport ula, or little basket full of eggs, poultry,
and other provisions, which the Roman patricians used to give
away to their clients. In process of time the present in kind was
commuted for a small money payment, whence the veiy ancient
French proverb — I find it quoted by a Norman judge in one of the
Year Books of Edward I. — ' Vous voulez et l'ceuf et la maille ' —
You want the egg and the halfpenny too. Julian the apostate,
distributing sportulce full of eggs at the Palais des Thermes, would
make an interesting and attractive historical picture.
The Maison Boissier on the Boulevard des Italiens, the Maison
Brie, the Maison Giroux on the Boulevard des Capucines, and
the Maison Siraudin in the Rue de la Paix, to say nothing of the
great toy-shop of ' Les Enfants Sages' in the Passage Jouffroj'-, do
not trouble themselves, I warrant you, about the conflict between
280
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
M, ~4oU<*r/nc —
REMAINS OF THE PALAIS DES THEEMES.
Pagan and Christian symbolism, about the Folk-Lore Society, or
about Julian the Apostate. ' Etes-vous drole ? ' asked the proprietor
of a cafe concert in the Champs Elysees of a youthful lady candi-
date for an engagement. The fair aspirant replied that she was
young and good-looking ; that she had a tolerable voice, plenty of
EASTER EGGS AND APRIL FISHES.
281
long-tailed dresses, and a sufficiency of sham jewelry. ' That has
nothing whatever to do with it,' persisted the practical proprietor.
'Etes-vous drole?' The young lady ventured to express the
opinion that she had been found very droll indeed. ' Voila mon
affaire,' cried the delighted proprietor, and he engaged the droll
chanteuse at once. Excruciating
drollery is conspicuous this year
among the Easter Eggs. All
the humours of the poultry-yard
have been requisitioned. The
proudly strutting and normally
exasperated turkey-cock, the
pugnacious bantam, the preter-
naturally wise-looking owl, all the
pigeon-tribe — ruffs, pouters, and
almond tumblers — the grave and
inoffensive goose, yea, even those
storks and adjutant birds which
Mr. Stacy Marks knows so well
how to paint, have been pressed
into the egg service. The Rev. J. G. Wood has seemingly been
specially commissioned to teach the French shopkeepers the art
2S2
TALIS IIEUSELF AGAIN.
of making birds'-nests. Now who can refrain from laughter at the
spectacle of an owl playing on the flageolet, of a Dorking and a
Cochin China in his plumed pantaloons and with spectacles on
nose laboriously executing a duet for piano and violoncello, or of
the lordly turkey-cock propelling a perambulator full of chickens
just emerging from their shells ?
The Maison Boissier, on its side, is great in peacocks ; but
these are less ' droll '
than artistically grace-
ful, and, to my think-
ing, somewhat weird
and mysterious. The
egg is represented by
the body of Juno's bird,
with plumage of the
most dazzling blue, and
stuffed inside with
sweetmeats. The tail
— a real tail, mind —
is gloriously displayed ;
but the head is that
of a young lady of the
highest style of w T ax-
doll beauty, crowned
with a coiffure of the
loveliest auburn tresses, arranged with an art that Truefitt might
envy and that Isidore could not surpass. But why a head as fair
as Phryne's on the body of a peacock ? Mystery. Why has the
Old Serpent in Rafaelle's picture of the Temptation of Eve got the
head of a beautiful woman in an Oriental turban ? Mystery again.
These peacocks, which should be peahens, at the Maison Boissier
began at last to frighten me. I came to look upon them as the
sisters of the Stymphalides — birds gay of plumage, but ravenous
of appetite and false of heart — birds that would fasten their talons
in your quivering flesh and drive their sharp beaks right through
EASTER EGGS AND APRIL FISHES. 283
your porte-monnaie and your cheque-book into your heart, and eat
you up, body and bones, as the cassowary on the plains of Tim-
buctoo ate up the missionary, hymn-book and all. The}' only
wanted sixty francs for one of these beauteous but ominous Easter-
egg birds ; but their Siren-like heads and iridescent tails filled
me with a vague mistrust, and I would have none of them.
The terra-cotta eggs, on the other hand, were really most
delightfully artistic productions, skilfully modelled, and decorated
with charming bas-reliefs. There were eggs in faience, or orna-
mental pottery, too, painted with all manner of quaint devices ;
and Easter Eggs of this kind may be said to be not only orna-
mental but useful. A piece of tastefully-painted pottery is a thing
of beauty and a joy for ever. Precisely the same remark will
apply to the Easter Eggs in brilliantly-coloured and cunningly-
worked ciystal, shown at ]*)r. Salviati's depot of ornamental Vene-
tian glass, in the Paie de la Paix. Dr. Salviati — who certainly
should have been commissioned to make Cinderella's glass slipper,
had that chaussure been of ' verre ' instead of ' vair,' as Perrault
really meant it to be — has ingeniously availed himself of the occa-
sion of Eastertide to show the Parisians that glass eggs may be
made of the most symmetrical form, and decorated with the very
finest taste. I did not see any eggs in Byzantine mosaic in the
Doctor's collection ; but what he has done in moulded and cut
glass he could surely accomplish in vitreous tesserce.
Passing from the genuinely artistic Easter Eggs, we enter a
very large and important domain, in which the egg, although it
forms the mainspring of the scheme, is substantially subordinate
to another most conspicuous article de Paris, the Doll. Thousands
of poupe'es have suddenly been converted into variations of Mr.
Millais' fascinating picture of 'New-laid Eggs.' Numbers of other
well-known pictures have likewise been prettily parodied from the
egg point of view. Mignon regrets the land of the citron and the
myrtle no more. She holds a basket full of eggs, and is as happy
as the bees in May. Greuze's disconsolate damsel has thrown
away her 'cruche cassee,' and, drying her tears, is full of smiles
284 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
over a large egg. Gretchen sings the Spinning- Wheel song, or
nulls her Passion-flower to pieces, snugly ensconced in the centre
of an egg. Dolls dressed as the 'Hanlon-Lee's' — those wondrous
c< mtortionists — perform astounding feats of acrobatic agilit}' on the
surface of an egg. They reminded me of the late Baron Nathan
executing his inimitable pas seul among the eggs and the cups and
saucers at RosherviUe. Dear Rosherville ! Charming abode of
shrimps, chalk, and roses. The egg-eluding Baron has long since
joined the Immortals ; and I shall spend no more happy days at
Rosherville. It is, nevertheless, tolerably pleasant here, among
the eggs and the dolls. They are more edifying than the Parlia-
mentary Debates. They are more amusing than Societ}\ They
do not expect to be amused. They amuse you.
Wheaten and oaten straw, artificial flowers and particoloured
ribbons, play a very prominent part in the adornment of the eggs,
which themselves are sometimes dyed in various colours or gilt.
Going down to the great toy-shops of the Paie Vivienne, the Pure St.
Honore, and especially the 'Enfants Sages' in the Passage Jouffroy,
I found the Easter Egg losing its luxurious, losing its decorative,
but retaining a recreative, and asserting a practical, character.
What do you think of an egg containing a complete batterie de
cuisine, pots and pans, foum&an e'eonomique, and all? An egg
holdinga complete rnobilier for a doll, chairs, tables, sofas, cabinets,
looking-glasses, bed and bedding, likewise attracted much attention
in ' Aux Enfants Sages,' as did also an egg which served as a
receptacle for a complete parlour photographic apparatus ; an egg
full of gymnastic appliances; and an egg which, on being opened,
disclosed a baby doll in her cradle. I did not see any eggs that
were full of books, or slates, or maps, or pretty little tiny educa-
tional kickshaws of that sort ; indeed, I scarcely think that Easter
Eggs of that nature would be highly popular among the joyous
components of the Deluge of Boys and Girls, who will speedily
overrun the Boulevards and the passages of Paris, and, till Easter-
tide be over, carry all before them.
AT THE FOIEE AUX JAMBONS (BY CHAM).
* You see, old timber-toes, you're not the only one who has lost his shanks.'
XIX.
THE GREAT HAM FAIE.
Good Friday.
I have seen the great Eastertide Ham Fair on the Boulevard
Richard Lenoir, hard by the Bastille Column; still, like Mr.
Toole in the burlesque, 'I am not happy.' There was a plenitude
of brawn, hams, ' tub ' pork, sausages, and continental substitutes
for Bath chaps, on the Boulevard Richard Lenoir; but what
is a fan without the Bearded Lady, Mr. Chopps the Dwarf, and
the Spotted Girl ? and on Thursday where were they ? Chopps,
indeed, I had set eyes on in the flesh so recently as last Monday
afternoon. It was on the Boulevard du Temple, and in the rez-
de-chaussee of an unfinished house there had been installed, until
such time as the plaster should dry, a penny show, of which a
dwarf was the leading attraction. The canvas partition, screen-
ing off the arcana of the show from the street, was but an exiguous
k 28G TARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
one, and from the victoria in which I was riding I could descry
quite plainly Chopps's eligible two-storied residence, and the right
hand and arm of Chopps himself, vehemently ringing his hell for
that hot water for shaving which apparently is never brought him.
At least, to my personal knowledge, he has been ringing that bell
at fairs all over Europe for the last forty years, without any
hot water making its appearance. "When I saw the little, lean,
withered hand and arm protruding from the topmost casement of
the eligible residence, and thought of the poor little stunted man-
ikin crouched inside his box, with his chin between his knees, I
said to myself exultingly, ' He is moving up. He is accomplish-
ing the journey from the Madeleine to the Bastille by easy stages.
He will reach the Chateau d'Eau to-morrow, and on Thursday he
will be at the Foire aux Jambons.' Not in the least. Thursday
came and went, but there was no Mr. Chopps the Dwarf. The
absence of the Bearded Lady I could better account for. Her pro-
prietor may be the self-same exemplary gentleman who owns the
Alsatian Giantess. Now this gentleman happens to be a ' bien
pensant,' a ' pratiquant,' a clericalist, and he has resolutely refused
to allow his colossal pensionnaire to appear in public during Pas-
sion-week. ' Apres Paques, a la bonne heure ; pendant la Semaine
Sainte, jamais de la vie ! ' Such has been the decision of this
right-thinking impresario, to whom it is rumoured the Univers
and the Gazette de France are not indisposed to favour the get-
ting-up of a testimonial. Maybe he owns La Femme a Barbe as
well as the Geante Alsacienne, and that both prodigies are sitting
secluded at home, eating salt fish and reading good books until
' Paques ' comes.
But where was the Spotted Girl ? In September 1870, when
panic was reigning in the south of France, and the irruption of
the Germans into the smiling plains of the Midi was hourly
expected, the terrified nomads, who are permanently on the tramp
in France in the showman interests, were driven by stress of
politics to form a kind of camp on the outskirts of Lyons, through
which city I was passing on my road to Pome. The encamp-
THE GREAT HAM FAIR. 287
ment of nomads was about the oddest spectacle that I had ever
gazed upon out of the etched 'Habits and Beggars' of Jacques
Callot. All the giants and giantesses, the femmes a barbe, the
hommes-poissons, the dwarfs, the wild men of the woods who
devour live fowls coram popuh; the learned pigs, the dancing
bears, the educated wolves, the choregraphic dogs and monkeys —
all the acrobats and mountebanks, the saltimbanques and pail-
lasses in the country, seemed gathered together under canvas, or in
their vans, in a great field close to La Croix Eousse. It was the
strangest of fairs, for there was no concourse of sight-seers to
patronise the prodigies. The big drum was silent, no cymbals
clanged, and no cries of 'Walk up ! ' were audible. Lyons, in truth,
was in no mood for merrymaking. The Republic, Democratic
and Social, had got, for the moment, the upper hand. The Red
Flag was waving over the city ; the tocsin was ringing lustily ; and
platforms, covered with scarlet baize, were erected in the principal
streets for the enrolment of volunteers. Drunken francs-tireurs
were swaggering about, armed to the teeth, and inclined to arrest
everybody who had a decent coat on his back as a Prussian spy ;
and Respectability sat apart, looking very nervous as it read that
Rentes were down to 41, and with the ends of its white cravat
pendant and extremely limp. I passed most of my time in the
fair where there were no fairings; I strolled from prodigy to pro-
digy, the sole patron of the shows; and I became the unique
interlocutor of no less than three Spotted Girls. "Where are those
maculated damsels now ? At the Foire aux Jambons not one was
to be seen.
I had seen it announced in the Voltaire, the Revolution
Frangaise, the Rappel, and other popular journals, that the Great
Ham Fair would begin ' irrevocablement ' on Monday. Hundreds
of baroques or sheds had, according to these veracious prints, been
already erected ; the arrivals of porcine delicacies were enormous ;
the ' installation ' was superb, and the ' affluence ' of spectators
immense. So on Morula}', after breakfast, I hired a victoria by
the hour, and bade the cocker drive me to the fair. He was a
288
PABIS HERSELF AGAIN.
stout wide man, with a permanent, albeit somewhat lethargic,
smile on his pale fat countenance. I was very particular in telling
him that it was the ' Foire aux Jambons ' which I wished to visit.
'L-a F-o-i-r-e a-u-x J-a-m-b-o-n-s,' he repeated after me with me-
chanical precision. ' Allons, Coco ! ' — Coco was seemingly the name
of his horse,— and away we rumbled. The great line of boulevards
was unusually quiet ; and after we had passed the ever-bustling
Boulevard Montmartre, the tranquillity of the main artery of Paris
life was to me almost depressing. We did not pass anybody who
THE GREAT HAM FAIR.
289
looked as though he was going to the fair ; but, on the other hand,
we met no less than four funerals coining westward.
There does not seem to exist in France any kind of public
feeling against what we stigmatise in England as ' undertaking
extravagance,' or in favour of ' economy in Funerals.' The Paris-
ians appear to be perfectly well satisfied with their existing mor-
tuary arrangements. The 'police of death' is, in particular,
admirably managed. ' Les vingt-quatre heures ' is the limit inex-
orably fixed for delay in consigning our dear brother departed to
the tomb ; and within those twenty-four hours the mortal coil of
our brother, be he a Senator or a chijfbnnier, must be put under
ground. The administration of the Pompes Funebres, or National
Undertaking Establishment, gives, to all appearance, equal satis-
faction to the public at large. That which is known in English
undertaking parlance as the ' party ' may be interred as cheaply
or as expensively as his relatives desire. There are funerals as
low as 12f. 50c, including a corner in the Fosse Commune. But
the executors may spend 10,000f. on an
enterrement cle premiere classe if they like ;
but, the transaction being strictly a cash
one, it is rarely that any very exceptional
outlay in funeral pomps and vanities is
indulged in. In England a fashionable
undertaker never thinks of sending in his
bill until the expiration of a twelvemonth,
while we are prone, sometimes very un-
justly, to grumble at the charges of the
ready - money undertakers. Grumbling
among our neighbours in this respect would
be gratuitous, since the Pompes Funebres have a tariff of charges for
accessories as exhaustive as the price-lists of the Cooperative Stores.
On the whole, a French funeral, however gloomily grand it may be,
scarcely merits the sneering qualification given to English burials
by Charles Dickens — that of ' a masquerade dipped in ink.' There
is not much hypocrisy about the French ceremonial. If the family
VOL. II. u
290
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
COACHMAN OF THE POMPES FUXEBRES.
^f the deceased be a secularly-minded one, the body is not taken
to church at all, but goes ' right away ' to the cemetery. Moreover
the friends of the departed not specially invited to attend as
jaourners make it a point of honour to follow the hearse on foot to
the cemetery.
For example, I passed on Monday one very grand cortege.
The bier, drawn by four horses, was heaped high with wreaths of
THE GREAT HAM FAIR. 291
camellias, white geraniums, and the exquisite pale violets of the
season. The surname of the departed began, apparently, with a
'P,' since scrolls and badges of black velvet, worked in silver with
the initial ' P,' appeared on the bier, on the horsecloths, and on
the hammercloths of the mourning-coaches, fifteen in number.
At least a score of private carriages followed. The attendance on
foot was small. The next funeral was that, seemingly, of a French
Protestant, as an ecclesiastic, in the simple, austere, but dignified
habit of a Calvinist pastor, walked, open Bible in hand, immedi-
ately after the hearse. A single mourning-coach, full of the tear-
ful wistful faces of children, preceded the hearse — concluisait le
deull, to use the technical term. Friends followed in hired coupes,
in victorias, and, in the case of one party, in an omnibus. A third
funeral was that apparently of some well-to-do and highly esteemed
member of the working classes. ' Foreman in a pianoforte manu-
factory,' the stout cocher remarked over his shoulder. How did
he know ? But there is a strange freemasonry among the driving
fraternity. A wink or the movement of the finger from the driver
of the passing hearse may have sufficed thoroughly to enlighten
my cocher as to the social status of the deceased. One mourning-
•coach led the procession; one private carriage, possibly that of the
•dead man's ' patron ; ' but behind the corbillard walked six abreast,
and in good military order, at least five hundred men, women, and
â– children, all decently dressed, all wearing some sign of mourning,
but otherwise with a cheerful every-day, and not by any means
hypocritical, guise. Some of the women had little baskets on
their arms, containing, probably, flowers for the grave ; possibly
lunch. Perhaps both. Why not? It was, to my mind, a very
sensible and comfortable way of doing things. The men walked
shoulder to shoulder ; tile women, deftly holding up their skirts,
trudged steadily over the muddy stones. They were going to see
the last of ' le camarade,' 'le brave homme.' Some comrade with
the gift of speech would make a neat oration over the open tomb ;
and then there would be a general adjournment to the neighbour-
ing cabarets, and the ' litre a seize ' — the quart of wine at eight-
U 2
202
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
pence — together with the 'petit Bordeaux,' or one-sou cigar, would
be in general demand. The French workman is in his way as
great a stickler for etiquette as the loftiest dowager of the Faubourg
St. Germain. At marriages and funerals the pipe is tabooed, and
cigars must be smoked.
But I did not find any Foire aux Jambons on reaching the
Boulevard Richard Lenoir. * C'est pour jeudi,' the pale fat
coachman tranquilly observed. Evidently he had been well aware
of that fact all along, but had not thought fit to lose the chance of
a few hours' hiring ; but that the grin on his countenance was evi-
dently a chronic one, like that of Victor Hugo's ' Homme qui rit/
I should have deemed that he was mocking me. As it was, I
sulkily bade him drive me back to habitable Paris again. The
Voltaire and the other popular prints had evidently misled me, or
had been themselves misled, and there would be no Great Ham
Fair until Thursday. So acutely, indeed, did I feel the deception
of which I had been the victim that yesterday, when I again
undertook a pilgrimage to the Boulevard Richard Lenoir —
Richard was, by the way, a distinguished cotton-spinner under the
First Empire, and did a great deal for Napoleon after the return
from Elba — I was reluctant to believe; until I was actually in the
middle of the fair, that any Foire aux Jambons would be held at
all. It began, it must be confessed, but poorly. Rag Fair was
but a squalid prelude to an exhibition of pig-meat ; yet there com-
menced, at the Chateau d'Eau, and continued for at least five
hundred j^ards, one of the most astonishing heterogeneous open-
air markets that I have ever beheld. There were a few stalls,
and perhaps half a dozen booths ; but in the great majority of
cases the objects on sale were laid out on the bare earth of the
Boulevard esplanade. Locks, keys, bolts, bars, fireirons, kitchen
utensils, chains, dog-collars, nails, screws, hooks, workmen's tools
of every conceivable form and in every imaginable stage of rust
and dilapidation, shop-counters and fittings, apothecaries' jars and
nests of ' dummy ' drawers for drugs, ragged carpets, lace curtains
and rolls of matting, pottery and glass, umbrellas and sticks,
THE GREAT HAM FAHl.
293
cheap prints and photographs, candlesticks and chimney orna-
ments, oil-paintings — yes, paintings in oil ; hut such pictures
and such frames ! — all these were displayed in groups and heaps,
in single or in serried rows, on either side the esplanade, which
was crowded by a multitude of working people, bonnes, children >
grisettes, female cooks and housekeepers to petits rentiers, and
294 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
peasants from the outlying villages, in true villageois sabots, striped
nightcaps, and bonnets blancs. There were a few seminarists, and
a considerable number of private soldiers. Everything on sale
seemed to have been cracked, battered, and broken, re-mended
and re-smashed half a dozen times ; and the merchants who sat,
or rather squatted, at the receipt of custom, seemed to have been
in early life either the rank and file of Falstaff 's ragged regiment,
or the vivandieres and female camp-followers attached to that
historical corps. I never saw such a Bezesteen of rusty and
mouldy rattletraps.
The squalor of the scene was only relieved by a sprinkling of
stalls devoted to the sale of bright-coloured lollipops and of ginger-
bread — solid wedges of pain d'epice, thickly studded with almonds.
No gilt gingerbread kings and queens, however, no cock-a-doodle-
doos in pantaloons. No Bearded Lady, no Mr. Chopps the
Dwarf, no Spotted Girl. At length, when I was beginning to fear
that the line of rags and rusty rubbish would stretch to the crack
of doom, the real Foire aux Jambons began. There were really
hundreds of baraques or huts — rude constructions of timber
covered with tarpaulin — lining each side of the esplanade ; but the
spectacle was at first sight depressing. The French are doubtless
very excellent curers of ham and bacon, but they do not cure their
swine's meat a good colour. I missed the golden crimson and
white of English "Wiltshire, and the rich contrasts of Devonshire
' streaky.' The pickled or ' tub ' pork may have been wholesome and
palatable, but in texture it was coarse, and in hue an ashen gray.
The sausages, too, were very disappointing to an eye accustomed to
our plump Cambridges, to our ruddy polonies, and especially to our
comely and shining ' chicken-and-hams.' The only stout French
sausage is the ' petite saucisse a Tail.' The rest of the species
are, as a rule, wizened attenuated things, dull in colour, looking
very hard and dry, and rendered additionally inelegant by the dis-
coloured salty rime which has oozed through their skins. The
hams were much more agreeable to look upon. 'Jambons d'Yorck *
were freely offered by dealers coming — so the etiquette above their
/7TS^^ wtC tSC
An Alsatian Baraque at the Great Ham Fair.
II. 2 05 .
THE GREAT HAM FAIR. 295
stalls proclaimed, from the Departments of the Meuse and the
Ain, which are certainly not in Yorkshire ; hut in one instance
some really fine-looking hams were announced as a ' provenance
clirecte du Yorkshire — produits de MM. Hope et Cie. et Bingley
et Cie.' This unimpeachahly English exhibit was proudly sur-
mounted by an ensign emblazoned with the Royal Amis of Eng-
land. There was one imposing baroque at the entrance of the
fair exclusively devoted to the sale of hams, ' sides,' ' chaps,' and
sausages, made from the flesh of horses, mules, and asses. I was
repeatedly invited to 'taste and try' by generous dealers who were
continually shaving off slices from their wares to tempt the palates
of potential customers ; but I could not screw my courage to the
sticking-place of tasting donkey-sausage or horse-ham. And yet
Bologna sausage is avowedly made from ass's flesh, and is undeni-
ably good eating. It is quite possible that I have eaten, in my
time, in the course of many journeys, and under many disguises,
a whole squadron of troop horses, saddles, bridles, shoes, and all ;
yet I could not yesterday persuade myself to accept the invitation
of ' goutez done' I will try to accept it next time. That is
always the plea of the prejudiced.
The Alsatians and the Lorrainers were, it is almost needless
to say, in great force. Many of the marchandes wore the pictur-
esque costumes of their districts ; and what with the inscription
of ' Die aller Beste ' above the baraques, and the guttural hum of
Teutonic talk, I should not have been surprised to have met
' l'Ami Fritz ' with ' Madame Therese ' on his arm, or to have
found myself en plein comite of all the characters so graphically
incarnated by MM. Erckmann-Chatrian. There was a large con-
tingent of salt pork from Cincinnati, Chicago, and Philadelphia,
and the booths set apart for Transatlantic produce were gaily deco-
rated with the American flag. There were no sausages — that I
could see, at least — under the protection of the Stars and Stripes.
The Pyrenean section of the Fair was certainly the most pictur-
esque portion of the display. Numbers of the dealers wore the
costumes of the factors of the Basque Provinces ; and if he who
296
TARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
drives fat oxen should himself be fat, it was, assuredly, appropriate
that pig-jobbers and pork-factors from Bayonne and San Juan de
liuz, from La Hendaye, and even from Pamplona, should wear,
as they did yesterday, hats of the ' porkpie ' fashion. The small
Bayonne hams were in prime condition, and as richly brown in
hue as the back of a Stradivarius fiddle. A slice of Bayonne
ham with some garbanzos, or, better still, the Mexican frijoles or
black-skinned beans, or even, at a pinch, with some chick-peas, is
a dish for an Alcalde Mayor. There were some Venta de Car-
denas hams quoted at the Foire aux Jambons yesterday. I looked
around in vain for Sancho Panca and his wallet, but the faithful
squire was no more present than were the Bearded Lady, Mr.
Chopps the Dwarf, and the Spotted Girl. Perhaps there will be
some other fairs in or near Paris ere Eastertide is over, where the
real shows and the real prodigies will make their appearance.
' Your hams are not so good as last year's.'
1 Excuse me, they all come from the same pig.'
XX.
AT THE 'ASSOMMOIR.'
Easier Sunday.
That Deluge of Schoolboys and School-
girls of which I recently ventured to anti-
cipate the advent has come ; but the
inundation has not been by any means of
an overwhelming nature. It is a windy
Deluge, a half-frozen Deluge. The
'small infantry' are marching about with
blue noses and chattering teeth ; and
their papas and mammas, for all their
woollen cache-nez and their fur-lined
mantles, are shivering. A treacherously
bright sun is shining, but in the shade
it is as cold as an old-fashioned Christ-
mas. The Bulletin de VObservatoire is
good enough to inform us that the barome-
trical pressure in the Mediterranean re-
mains very feeble, and that a fresh fall
298 TARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
of eight minutes is telegraphed from Sicily. Northern winds
continue to predominate in Western Europe ; and in Denmark
a ' centre ' is in course of depression, whence we ma} r expect a
series of north-west gales in the Channel. Frosts have been fre-
quent in the North and the centre of France. Snow has fallen on
three successive days in Paris. So has hail. On this actual
Easter-day a kind of frozen dust seems to he blowing about
the boulevards. It sparkles beautifully in the sunshine, but it
peppers your face painfully, as though it were dust-shot. The
cafes are tolerably full outside, but the customers are drink-
ing ' grogs americains,' ' ponches au ouiski,' and ' vins chauds/
The waiters are offering to place hot-water cans, instead of petits
bancs, under the feet of the ladies ; and the ancient dame at the
corner of the Passage Yerdeau, who, so long ago as last Sunday,
seemed to have resolutely adopted the sale of violets, has aban-
doned her spring novelties, and once more makes a wintry appear-
ance as a vendor of roasted chestnuts.
It is too cold to roam about the boulevards, to court tooth-
ache, faceache, and earache. It is too cold to go to the races. It
is far too cold to undertake a pilgrimage to the great Gingerbread
Fair, at the Barriere du Trone — although I am informed that the
Bearded Lady, Mr. Chopps the Dwarf, and the Spotted Girl have
been seen in the flesh in the Avenue de Yincennes, and I shall
be thus bound in honour to visit the Foire aux Pain d'Epices
before it closes. Meanwhile I cannot do better, perhaps, than
kindle a fresh log on the hearth, wrap myself up in an extra rail-
way rug or two, and sit down to narrate some curious dramatic
experiences which I underwent last night at the Theatre de l'Am-
bigu Comique. At the theatre in question they have been playing
these three months and more a dramatical version of M. Emile
Zola's strictly moral and inexpressibly revolting novel of L'Assom-
moir, now in its fifty-fourth or fifty-sixth edition — I forget which.
The hundredth representation of L'Assommoir took place on Good
Friday, when — the better the day the better the deed — the
management of the Ambigu generously threw open its doors, and
AT THE ' ASSOMMOIK.' 299
gave a gratuitous performance to the public. The entertainment
was, I hear, numerously and brilliantly attended.
I own that when I arrived in Paris I had not the remotest
wish or intention of going to see MM. Gastineau and Busnach's
version of M. £mile Zola's sickening story. I read the Assom-
moir twice over, and every word of it, two years ago, at Nice ; and
consigning it, with La Fllle Elisa and other productions of a
similar type, to a certain pigeon-hole in my memory, I troubled
nry head no more about it. Life is not long enough to discuss
M. Zola's crudities from the point of view of Art. But it happened
that on Thursday, the day of my visit to the Great Ham Fair, the
existence of the Assommoir was recalled in a quite accidental and
sufficiently singular manner to my mind. During the early por-
tion of the afternoon we had, on the Boulevard Richard Lenoir,
a spell of that treacherous sunshine of which I spoke just now.
The dingy sausages, the pallid bacon, the cloudy hams, were all
glorified in the flood of golden light. So, in the Riviera di
Levante, on a winter's morning, does all nature wear a gloriously
bright appearance. The sky is cobalt, the distant hills are ultra-
marine ; the feathery palms wave proudly, or glint in sparkling
sheen like the great peacock-fans that were borne processionally
before the Pope on St. Peter's-day ; the olive and orange groves
are so many centres of glowing splendour. But anon a per-
verse twist in the elements brings the mistral upon you. In an
instant the sea turns to a muddy indigo, and the sky to a dirty
drab. The feathery palms become so many ragged worn-out
mops. Can those inky cliffs be the Maritime Alps ? Can those
ashen gra} r dusty patches be groves of olives and oranges ? Anon
rain raindrops, as big as franc-pieces, come pattering down ; and
then the driving rain-storm descends in one great, crashing,
blinding, vertical sheet, sparing nothing, and strewing the Riviera
with ruthlessly wrenched-off tree-branches and the bodies of dead
birds.
We had a thoroughly Levantine rain-storm at the Great Ham
Fair on Thursday. The torrent struck the ground with such
300 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
violence as once more to verify the old geometrical axiom of the
angle of reflection being equal to the angle of incidence ; and the
rain, after soaking through us downwards, splashed up again into
our eyes. The sausage and bacon folks made haste to cover up
their commodities with tarpaulins, ensconced themselves in pen-
dent fragments thereof, and became invisible. The whole fair, as
if by magic, disappeared. It was a Pompeii ingulfed by water
instead of lava and scoriae. As for the crowd of spectators, they
did as the Pompeians of old did — they ran for it. Waterproofs
were not of much avail, and umbrellas were in vain. I struck out
at hazard for the nearest buildings. I was repulsed from several
•portes-cocliercs, already overcrowded with dripping fugitives ; but
at length, when I was beginning to contemplate seriously the con-
tingency of being carried away bodily by the flood into the Canal
St. Martin, I brought up safely in the anchorage of an enormous
brasserie. What its sign or title may have been I have not the
slightest idea. Suppose I call it the Brasserie Free and Easy. It
was certainly as spacious as a second-rate London music-hall ; but,
with the exception of a few big mirrors, it was almost entirely
destitute of decoration, the walls and fittings being stained of a
monotonous oak colour. There were scores of plain japanned iron
tables, with wooden stools, rush-bottomed, scattered about. The
bar, or comptoir, was of inordinate length, and covered with ill-
polished pewter. This and the wall behind were garnished with
bottles of all sorts and sizes, containing, I suppose, a variety of
liquors ; since, although the establishment called itself a brasserie,
and ' bocks ' of a tawny-coloured and dully creaming beer were
being plentifully consumed, the place was manifestly a dramshop
— pctits verves of brandy, rum, cassis, and other preparations of
the ' schnick ' kind being in continuous demand. Nothing to eat
that I could see was supplied ; and no wine was being drunk.
Behind the counter sat a stout square old lady, with no per-
ceptible neck. She was in dingy black ; but she wore massive
gold bracelets ; and on her pudgy, and not very clean, hands glit-
tered a number of rings. I think that she must have been
AT THE ' ASSOMMOIR.' 301
asthmatic. I imagine that she was plethoric. At all events, she
toiled not, neither did she spin. She did nothing but sit there,
gasping and wheezing, and surveying with two lack-lustre eyes,
intimately resembling a brace of bullets, the scene before her.
She was flanked on either side bj^ a dame de comptoir — one long,
lean, middle-aged, and sour-looking ; the other youthful, fleshy,
and saucy. The first seemed to have reached the acetous, the
other had attained only the vinous, stage of fermentation. It was
the acetous lady who kept the books and scolded the waiters ; the
vinous damsel only dispensed the sugar and joked with the cus-
tomers. The waiters were of both sexes, and about the strangest
types of either that I have beheld for a long time. Rarely, as
regards the first, have I gazed upon such an assemblage of raw-
boned young men, with red heads and lantern jaws. Each gwrgon
carried in front of his dirty apron a well-worn leathern pouch for
receiving money and giving change. Cash on delivery was appa-
rently the rule strictly observed at the Brasserie Free and Easy ;
and for the first time in my life, at a French house of public enter-
tainment, I was asked to pay for my consommation before I had
consumed it. I daresay that the waiter did not like my looks.
I feel certain that the majority of the general company present
did not relish them any more than those of the half score strangers
who, like myself, had been driven by stress of weather to take
refuge in the Brasserie Free and Easy.
To a much greater extent did our advent appear to be distaste-
ful to the female attendants. It is from the mien and behaviour
of these young ladies that I have deduced the title which I have
ventured to attach to the brasserie. I have called the ladies
young. That is a j xicon cle parlcr, and there is no harm in paying
a compliment even to Mother Shipton, were you to meet her
hobbling about Kentish Town way ; but, in strict reality, please
to imagine at this curious tavern half a score of strapping tawny-
haired women, clad in flaring travesties of the costumes of the
peasantry in Alsace-Lorraine. They, too, carried money-bags at
their waists. They had nothing to do with the dispensation of
302 PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
' bocks.' Serving beer they left disdainfully to the garcons, and
attended themselves only to the dram-drinking department. When,
for example, a gentleman called for a petit verve — the swallowing
of raw spirits was the rule — a strapping woman, bearing a bottle
and two glasses, strode to the customer's table, gave him his dram,
and then comfortably drew a rush-bottomed stool to the table,
filled herself a glass from the bottle, and entered into friendly con-
versation with the habitue. I suppose that she drank at his
expense. In the course of half an hour which I passed under the
hospitable roof of the Brasserie Free and Easy I watched one
tawny-haired lady toss off no less than four petits verves. Of how
many, I wondered, could she partake in the course of the eighteen
hours during which the Brasserie remains open ? I have nothing
to say derogatoiy to the lady's manners or morals. ' Liquoring
up ' with a pratique may be the custom in Alsace-Lorraine, if the
lady came from either. I only note the occurrence as an odd one.
But as I mused and mused on the scene presented to my eyes,
•even an odder series of impressions took possession of my mind.
I had never seen all these people before, but where had I read
about them ? I have forgotten to mention that behind the bar-
counter, in addition to the fat old lady who wheezed and her two
assistants, there was a pale dissipated young fellow, in a justau-
corps of black velveteen, and a flaring silk kerchief carelessly
knotted round his neck. He was munching, with a stale and
accustomed air, a toothpick ; yet he seemed to be in some kind
of authority in the place. He was the fils de la maison, the
landlady's son, perchance ; yet he might have been a billiard-
marker out of emplo} T , or a petit calicot trade-fallen. Most as-
suredly, so far as appearances went, he might have been a
journeyman hatter by the name of Lantier. After this things
began to assume the semblance of a dream. That brawny yellow-
bearded fellow, in his tucked-up shirt-sleeves and his long black
leather apron : who could he have been but the virtuous black-
smith Goujet, otherwise ' Gueule d'Or ' ? The little white-headed
purple-faced man, in rusty black, with the enormous red and
AT THE ' ASSOMMOIR.'
303
white-spotted pocket-handkerchief? "Without a doubt that must
have been the bibulous M. Bazouges, ' Consolateur des Dames,'
and employe of the Pompes Funebres. Monsieur and Madame
Lorilleux were sitting at a remote table apart, glowering over a
' bock,' and whispering calumny of their neighbours. ' Bee-Sale '
and ' Mes Bottes ' were already three parts intoxicated ; and as for
the wretched Coupeau and the more wretched Gervaise, not one
GERVAISE AXD COUPEAU AT THE ASSO3IM01R.
304
PARIS HERSELF AGAIN.
but fifty types of those victims of alcohol seemed to me to be
present. Steady, soddened, almost silent tippling was in the
ascendant here. All the old gaiety of the French character seemed
flown. ' Bibi la Grillade ' sang no songs ; the Pere Colombe had
no jokes to crack ; ' la Grande Virginie,' looking with wrathful
eyes at her old enemy Gervaise, forgot to be coquettish ; and even
the jovial Madame Boche, albeit stout and thirsty as ever, had lost
her gaiety. I looked round in vain for the appearance of the Great
Still with its worm that never dies, but which has been the means
of the death of so many hundreds of thousands of people. Other-
wise, and upon my word, I should have taken the Brasserie Free
and Easy for the veritable and original ' Assommoir' itself.
I was glad to get out of the place, which smelt sickly, and,
besides, gave one the horrors. I had not recognised the type of
M. Poisson, the sergent de ville, at any of the tables ; but I
found him, in full municipal uniform, on the boulevard, with his
impassible ' stone-wall ' face, attentively watching all who went in
and all who came out. Very possibly Monsieur Poisson and other
of his brother municipals are frequently called upon to pay pro-
fessional visits to the Brasserie Free and Easy. It was scarcely
