plaisanterie, Monsieur-j'y perds, parole d'honneur, Monsieur, j'y perds."

But if it is good philosophy to bear meekly with the cheateries of the shopkeepers, it is doubly so with the shopgirls. The high-heeled shoes, and high head gear, that turned the good-natured soul of poor Lawrence Sterne, are indeed gone by; but the grisette presides over gloves and silks yet, and whatever she may do with the heart-strings, she makes the purse-strings yield. You will find her in every shop of Paris,-except the exchange brokers (where there are fat middle-aged ladies who would adorn the circles of Wall street)—there she stands, with her hair laid smooth as her cheek, over her forehead, in the prettiest blue and muslin dress imaginable,-a bit of narrow white lace running round the neck, and each little hand set off with a bit of the same, and a very witch at a bargain. With what a gracious smile she detects and receives the poor stranger. There may be two at a time-there may be six--she is nothing abashed. You may laugh, she will laugh back; you may chat, she will chat back; you may scold, she will scold back. She guesses your wants there they are, the prettiest gloves in Paris. She measures your hand Quelle jolie petite main"—and she assists in putting a pair fairly on; and how many pair does Monsieur wish; a dozen-two dozen ?"

"But one! ah!-Monsieur is surely joking. See, what pretty colors, and so nice a fit. Only two-ah, it is indeed too few, and so cheap; only fifteen francs for the six pair-which is so little for Monsieur" and she rolls them in a paper, and there is no refusal. And you slip the three pieces of money upon the counter, and she draws them like magic into her little drawer, and thanks you in a way that makes you think as you go out, that you have been paying for the smiles, and nothing for the gloves.

Meantime how and where are we living at Paris? We remember crowding our way into a tent-booth, on a fair day at Strasburg, and waiting inside until an Amazon in short petticoats had finished a fencing match with a soldier of the garrison, to see a panoramic view of the chief cities of the world-among which were New York and New Haven. And on comparing the canvas with our recollections, we think the burghers of Strasburg may have very like as correct an idea of those American cities as the

stranger may have of Paris, who makes his point of observation the Hôtel Meurice, and employs as exponents of the scene (corresponding to the magnifying glasses of the panorama) the English speaking valets de place.

What, pray, will he know of all the hôtels garni's-which make up the living quarters of all thorough-bred Parisians? Ör what, of the families of concierges living ten souls in a ready furnished room, six feet by nine? or what of the world within a house-each floor a country, each suite a town, and frequently each room a neighborhood, as unknown to the next, as if one were in Yucatan, and the other in Mexico? What knows he of the whole world of restaurants, scattered up and down, in which prince and peasant finds his dinner; and where he may pay two sous, or as many napoleons? and the cafes, from those brilliant with gold and mirrors to the dingy salons of St. Antoine? What knows he of the eccentricities of cabmen, and the dealers in wines and small stores-or of the students' dinners, and the garden of the Luxembourg-of the intricacies of the Palais Royal, or the Bal Montesquieu ? He knows nothing of the omnibus, but its noise of the Boulevards, but its crowds-of the shops, but their prices--of the Chatelet, but its height of the Latin quarter, but its mud-or of Montfaucon, but its smells.

Abjure the valet, and take instead the map, the dictionary, the grammar, or a pocket history. If there be possessed no knowledge of the language, let us prescribe a garret on the sixth floor, looking upon a small court-late hours (at home) and close study. Without a speaking acquaintance with the language, one meets (experto crede) with almost innumerable vexations. A modicum will suffice for negotiation with the garrulous old mistresses of maisons garnies, who toil up, puffing, long flights of stairs, turning round at each step to tell you how easy is the ascent, and to direct your attention to the charming views through the back windows. What visions of dimity curtains, and waxed floors, and winding escaliers, and dark courts, and little conciergeries, and fat women with huge bunches of keys at their girdles, come up to our mind's eye, in recalling a day's search through the maisons garnies of Paris! On the Quay, in the Rue de l'Ancienne Comedie, the Faubourg St. Germain, and the Faubourg Montmartre : here a busy valet de

chambre, with a white apron, who takes six steps at a jump, and insists upon the bon local there, a prim little daughter of the concierge, who trips a long way before you, and insists upon showing you every vacant room in the house, and laughs at your bad French, in a way that makes you talk infinitely worse, and throws open the window, and pulls back the muslin curtains, descanting all the while in the prettiest possible language upon the prospect: then, again, obstinate old women with spectacles, who put down their knitting-work and drop tremendous curtseys, who would be charmed to have Monsieur for a lodgerwho give the best of linen, and who, say what you will, insist upon understanding you to accept their terms unconditionally; and when you would undeceive them, overwhelm you with explications, that only make matters worse, and you are fain to make all sorts of excuses to be fairly rid of them. What array of broken promises and prices, of subterfuges and solicitations, throng over the memorial of a single day's search for lodgings!

And what a happy rest from all of them in the little, wax-floored, white-curtained chamber, on the deuxième étage of a maison particuliere under the shadow of the Cathedral of San Roch! What a

quiet old lady in the concierge who made the bed, and brought up the water, and kindled the fire! And the corsetmaker next door had all sorts of visitors; and in the mourning shop opposite, every day the shop girls new arranged the laces, and caps, and crossbarred muslins, so that we came half to be a connoisseur of modes. Many a quiet afternoon, too, have we leaned out of the window, watching the goers in at the cathedral-up the same steps where was gathered in the unfortunate days of France, the ruthless rabble, to see poor Marie Antoinette go by to execution. And the loud, full sounding bells, high over the weather-stained front, chiming at midnight over the silent city-what memories in the sound-what sounds in the memory of them!

"fra le più care Gioje del mondo, è 'l suon delle campane." The old Italian had listened to the Florentine bells, and we have dreamed under those of San Giovanni, and of San Roch.

There attach other recollections to other neighborhoods, in which we have

been dwellers. Who can forget the happy Madame C, in the Rue Neuve St. Augustin, who serves her lodgers with coffee up six pair of stairs, sometimes at the hand of the little mischievous Pierre in the blue blouse, and sometimes by the stumpy little girl who called her "Ma tante ?" Then there was the short, stiff-haired concierge of the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre, who skated over the tile floors with wax brushes to his feet, grinning and chatting as he moved; and the good-natured soul his wife, with horn spectacles in the box at the door, and "La Maitresse❞—a prim old body who wore a white cap to cover her gray hairs, and whom the concierge dignified with the title of Mademoiselle. There was beside, the happy-looking shoemaker in the dark court of one of the many hotels of the Rue de Seine, and the little iron gate with the tinkling bell, and the crooked and dim corridor, and the cheerful Abbé G.

even

But such recollections do not enough show how one lives at Paris. Next to beds, which are always good, comes breakfast. He who takes it at home, or his Hotel, sees not one half of what is to be seen in the Parisian world; and who does not prosecute a full acquaintance with the cafés of the French capital, has not half invested himself with French habitude. The Parisian takes there his café au lait and his journal— his demi-tasse and his segar-his mistress and his ice; the provincial takes his dejeuner à la fourchette and his National-his absinthe and his wife the English take their Galignani and their eggs, and the German his beer and his pipe. It is the arena of the public life of Paris: what the Exchange is to London, the cafés are to the French capital. There the politics and amusements of the day meet discussion, but no general discussion: each table has its party, and so silently conducted, that the nearest neighbors are not disturbed. At one, the two in the dress of the National Guard are magnifying M. Thiers, and the old gentleman at the next table, with gold spectacles and a hooked nose, is dealing out anathemas upon his head.

Opposite the Porte St. Martin, whose "foot ran blood" in the three days of July, is the Café de Malte: there are more stylish cafés, but nowhere do they make better coffee between the Madeleine and the Fountain of the Chateau. There G and myself breakfasted

many a morning, strolling down from the Rue de Lancry a kilometre upon the Boulevard-turning in at the corner door upon the Rue St. Martin-touching our hats to the little blue dressed grisette at the dais, who presided over spoons, sugar and sous-and took our seats at one of the marble slabs upon the crimson cushioned seats. We were, in general, but two of the forty frequenters of the Café de Malte. Beside us would be some lieutenant in scarlet breeches, blue coat, and ugly cap, very like the tin pail in which New England housewives boil their Indian puddings with his friend, some whiskerado, who is tickling his vanity by looking at his epaulettes, and listening applausively to his critiques upon the army in Algiers. They are drinking a dose of absinthe to whet their appetites for dinner: a thing only to be accounted for, from the fact that the officer dines at mess, and so cares little how much he eats; and that the whiskerado has an invitation to dine with a friend, and so wishes by double eating to do away the necessity of dining to-morrow. On another side of us, is perhaps an old man of sixty, who wears a wig, and looks very wisely over the columns of the Presse, and occasionally very crossly, at a small dog, which an old lady next him holds by a string, and which seems to be playing sundry amusing and innocent tricks over the old gentleman's boots. The lady, his neighbor, looks fondly at her dog-sipping now and then at her chocolate-throwing bits of crumbs to her canine companion-all the while looking anxiously at every new comer through her glasses-possibly watching for some old admirer; for no circumstancé, nor age, nor place, nor decrepitude, can dissipate a Frenchwoman's vanity. Another way are three talkers, each with his demi-tasse, discussing the National. There are ages from twenty to eighty. There are characters, from the impudent sans culottes to the dignified scowl of the Girondist. Here is a man opposite, with dirty hands, dirty nails, uncombed hair and dirty beard, who has finished his coffee, and is poring over a bit of music-altering notes, humming a tune, and drumming on the table with his fingers. He is doubtless an employée of the orchestra of the Theatre of the Porte St. Martin opposite. We, meantime, over our café au lait rich as nectar a little pyramid of fresh radishes, a neat stamped cake of yellow

butter, and bread such as is comparable with nothing but itself, are employing the intervals in study of the characters about us, or glancing through the windows, upon the roar of carts, and voitures, and omnibuses, and soldiers, and porters, and market-women, and gliding grisettes, all of which suck like a whirlpool round the angles of the Porte St. Martin.

Even now, the reader has not half so definite an idea of a Paris café as we could wish he had-of the mirrors multiplying everything to infinity-of the gilt cornices of the sanded floors-of the iron-legged tables-of the German stove with its load of crockery-of the dais, with its pyramids of sugar-of the garçons in their white aprons, and shouting to the little woman at the desk, • dizneuf-quarante : treize-cinq franc vingt et un-vingt-cinq."

Who knows not the Café de Parisat least its outward show of a summer's evening, when the Boulevard before it is full of loungers, and the salons full within; and the Café Anglais on the corner, and the Vefour and the Rotonde of the Palais Royal? We see before us now-the blue ocean water is tumbling around, and nor land nor sail in viewthe nice-looking, black-haired French girl of twenty, who used to come in with her mamma, every morning at eleven precisely, to the Vefour, and hang her mischievous-looking green sherd bonnet over her head, and arrange the scattered locks, and smooth the plaits upon her forehead with the flat of her delicate hand-giving, all the while, such side looks from under it, as utterly baffled the old lady's observation. Do they take their coffee there yet? or does the middle-aged man with the red moustache bow as graciously as ever to Mademoiselle last, and Madame first? And does he steal the sly looks over the upper columns of the Constitutionnel, as if all the news were centred along the top lines, and as if we were not watching between the rim of our coffee-bowl and eyebrows, for just such explications of Paris life? And does the little cockeyed man at the De Lorme, who breakfasted on two chops and coffee, still keep Galignani till every English reader, and we among them, despaired ?

If one wants coffee at near sunrise, or on to six or seven, he must not look for it in the places we have named; he must find his way to the neighborhood

of the diligence bureaus, or the Chemin de Fer; or he must dash boldly into the dim salons of St. Antoine, or beyond the Pont St. Michel, or round the Halle au Blé, or Marché des Innocens. There he will find men in blouses-mechanics -country people, cab-drivers, and journeymen tailors, discussing the news of yesterday, or perhaps six looking over the Constitutionnel of to-day. Such men count by the thousands, and make up the tone of popular feeling, with influence that is derided in the salon, and felt in the government-an influence which, when inflamed, brought to execution a Queen, who said, when told the people were starving, "Mon Dieu! why do they not buy some of those nice little rolls?" and an influence which saved, amid the iconoclasm of the revolution, the statue in the Pons Neuf of Henri III., because the old king had said Every workman ought to have a chicken in his pot for his Sunday's dinner." But we have nothing to say but of the coffee, which is near as good in one place as another-that is to say, none is bad. One may bargain with the concierge for a morning dish, and take it hot in his chamber; and they will need it, who at first sight of a wet winter's morning, must tramp along the muddy rues of the cité and the quay, where rises the loathsome Morgue, to follow the electric movements of M. Roux and his crowd of students, through the wards of the Hotel Dieu. And how good after it all, the hot, close air of the lecture room, and the combined smells of sick beds and drugs, -a fresh pain, viennois, and a luscious bowl at the Café Voltaire !

After mid-day, the demi-tasse a l'eau de vie gains upon the café au lait, and for three hours after noon, there is a sensible falling off of visitors, and the trim presidente leaves her place to dress for the evening. And how many sorry old single men, and quarreling married men, to say nothing of such idle observers as we, will not a fresh-faced, bright-eyed, neatlydressed fair one, draw to her salon? Whoever has loitered up the Boulevard as far as the terasse by the Porte St. Denis, will remember the knot that used to gather summer forenoons before the windows of the Café Maure, and will remember seeing the two splendidly dressed Moorish damsels in the dais. What swanlike necks, and grace of posture, and splendor of plumes! Who could resist the temptation of drop

ping in for a demi-tasse? The girls were forbidden to look toward the street; unfortunately, the manager could not arrange, their looking two ways at once; had he been able, his custom might have continued as it was, those who entered once, did not enter a second time; and the other day we noticed that the windows were closed, and an à louer posted on the door.

Such are the Parisian breakfast houses, and at Parisian breakfasts, eating is the least that is done. Fat old bourgeois from Lyons, or wool merchants from Chateauroux, or apple sellers of Normandy, are not content with such mimicry of the provincial dejeuner à la fourchette, whose abundance would rival a German dinner. Such-and American breakfast eaters, would come within the same category, until Paris air has supplied Paris habits-must give their orders at home, or eat at a Pension, or step into the Restaurants within the purlieus of the Palais Royal, where dejeuners of two dishes and dessert, and half a bottle of wine, are eaten for a franc and thirty centimes; and down the Rue St. Honore are "real English breakfasts" for the same.

Does F remember the bread that used to stand on end like a walking-stick in one corner of the salon, at the Pension in the Rue Beaurigard, and the sour wine, and the old Madame with her snuffbox at her elbow, and her fingers and nose bebrowned? And what a keen eye hid under her spectacles, and what blue-looking milk, and what sad, sad chops, and what a meek Monsieur for helpmeet? Yet it was passable, for there was Mademoiselle blithe as a cricket all the day; but there are better pensions than that in the Rue Beaurigard. Par exemple, la Rue de Bussy. How neatly little Marie arranges the rooms, and for management who can surpass Madame C. Still, who wishes to see Parisian life in the morning, must frequent the café. It would make a very curious subject of inquiry to trace the pursuits of the Parisian world between café and dinner; the stranger dreams it away at the shrine of some of the glories of the Louvre, or in the rich walls of palaces, or under church roofs, or before shop windows, or in the sunshine of the garden of the Tuilleries. But what on earth becomes of all the straight capped lieutenants, and middleaged women, and lap-dogs, and old men who spend an hour over the Debats, and men who smoke, and read Charivari?

It would not be impossible to trace them out, and some time we may do it; now for dinner. Between dinner and bed, the Parisian talks about Le Theatre and Le Roi; between getting up and café, he talks of L'Argent and Le chemin de fer, and thence till five, his talk is of diner where he shall get it, what he shall get, and how much it shall cost. The rest of the world are no wiser; they arrange them for the year; the Parisian arranges for the day. One whose means know no limit will perhaps dine in his apartments, and give his orders to the Fournisseur du Roi, in the Palais Royal, before whose windows a crowd of little soldiers in crimson breeches, and of men in blouses, are always looking in upon the swimming terrapins, and the salmon, and the fruits of every name and country. We have, however, nothing to do but with that phase of the Paris life which is presented to every stranger's observation. Turn we then to the Trois Freres, where go such misguided peers as would seem rich, and such rich as would seem peers; where go, indeed, all who, by paying high, wish to seem of the elite. No window in the Palais Royal, unless that of Vefour, shows a richer stock of game, or meats, than the Trois Freres. Twenty francs will pay for an exceeding good dinner; besides, one has the honor of looking upon men with red ribbons in their button-holes, and ogling the clean dressed grisettes in the dais. As good dinners may be had elsewhere, but the eclat of extravagance belongs to such as the Café de Paris and Trois Freres. It is surprising how much it aids a man's good opinion of himself to be the envy of the small boys with paper parcels, and hungry looking newspaper read rs, who see him coming in or out of those brilliant restaurants. And the cooking is superb-they will make you five different dishes from a nettle pot, and twice as many from a frog's haunches." There are two or three along the Boulevard which rank little lower, and there is the British Tavern, where mock turtle is always ready, and where English ale may be drank, and English mustard eaten on English steaks-saving only the horseradish. The Parisian is never too aristocratic to economize, and even at the Café de Paris have we seen a dinner for two, ordered for five living souls, mother, father, maid, and children. How the five quotients out of these two dividends, with a hungry man for divisor, satisfy five

stomachs, is a matter which one who knows Paris better than we might be puzzled to answer. The steaks are none of the largest, every man who has walked the Boulevard for an appetite very well knows; indeed we are inclined to think that the higher the dinner ranks in fashion, the less it will rank in the scales. Where do they give more heaping platefuls than at Martin's, under the shadow of the Odeon? And there a man may fill himself for his eighteen sous, and enjoy the society of professional men, at least the neophytes, who cut into the fricandeaus in a way that would do credit to the dissecting-room. True, the wainscoting is not of mirrors, and the cloths do not "smell of lavender," and the wine is neither vieux macon nor madère, and the stews of rabbit are of doubtful origin, but here, as every where else—

"Il saper troppo quasi sempre nuoce." Green-eyed persons say the same of Tavernier's stews, but it can hardly be credited. Madame T. thrives too well to have thriven on cat's flesh; and there is surely nothing of the Grimalkin about the sparkling Mademoiselle who presides over apricots and oysters. It is a splendid saloon, au premier, in the Palais Royal, overlooking the whole court, with its crowds of loungers, and limetrees, and sparkling fountains, that has over its doors the name of Tavernier. We have eaten a great many two franc dinners at its neat little tables-of soup, three dishes, dessert and wine; we wish we had by us a bill of fare to copy some among its hundred dishes. Still more, we wish there were some Cruikshank to drop in an illustration of the brilliant interior of that Palais Royal restaurant, on a December evening at 5. How nicely would come into the foreground those two old Cheeryble brothers, who have dined at the same table, at the same hour, and on nearly the same dishes, for a year! One is as precise as a mademoiselle of sixty; and the other, with a happy, careless look that never became soured under a wife's regards. One tucks his napkin, carefully unfolded, in his vest; the other wipes it with both hands across his mouth, and drops it carelessly in his lap. One eats weak broth, and the other pea-soup. What a group would that long family of English make! There is a boy in jacket, with a collar that covers his shoulders, and a red-faced miss who is by half longer than