Chapter I: Part 1

Transcriber's Note

When italics were used in the original book, the corresponding text has been surrounded by _underscores_. The oe ligature has been represented by the letters oe.

Some presumed printer's errors have been corrected. These are described in more detail in a second Transcriber's Note at the end of the book.

_Drawing by_ SUNYER]

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HOW PARIS AMUSES ITSELF

By F. BERKELEY SMITH
_Author of “The Real Latin Quarter”_

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR
AND OTHER ARTISTS

FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
NEW YORK AND LONDON MDCCCCIII

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright, 1903
by
Funk & Wagnalls
Company

——

Registered
at
Stationers’
Hall
London, England

——

Printed in the
United States of America

——

Published in
May, 1903

——

Second Edition
June, 1903

——

Third Edition
August, 1903

TO MY FRIEND
CHARLES W. GOULD

Contents

Page

Introduction 7

Chapter

I. The Shows of The Champs-Élysées 17

II. Paris Dines 40

III. Some “Risqué” Curtains with Serious Linings 78

IV. Bars and Boulevards 109

V. Montmartre 143

VI. In the Cabarets 185

VII. Circuses and Fêtes Foraines 222

VIII. Grease Paint and Powder Puffs 255

IX. In Parisian Waters 285

Envoi 333

Introduction

It is the small boy who crawls under the circus tent who most keenly enjoys the show.

He has watched while the big double-top canvas was being raised and staked taut, transforming the familiar pasture-lot into a magic realm, more alluring and seductive than the best fishing-hole in the town creek.

Following the parade, a cavalcade of golden chariots, caparisoned horses and swaying elephants, the small boy has walked on air, buoyed by the thump and blare of the brass band. Weeks before he had reveled in every detail of the show as revealed in posters on the barn-doors: the lady with the fluffy skirts bounding through the paper hoops from the well-rosined back of her white horse; the merry, painted clown; the immaculate ringmaster in glistening boots; and, last of all, the showman!—generous, genial and big of heart, whose plain black cravat, fitted neatly under his collar as in the lithographs, and whose beaming blue eye seemed an open guaranty of all he promised at the single price of admission.

Should the small boy grow up to be a connoisseur in much that glitters in life besides golden chariots, and yet manage to keep young enough to preserve a kindly feeling toward the lady of perennial youth upon the white horse, should boyish love of the picturesque still abide in him, he will find within the gates of Paris a city after his own heart, a place where gaiety never ceases, where the finesse of amusement has been brought almost to a state of perfection.

To this great pleasure-ground the whole world flocks for amusement. It is upon this exquisitely fashioned spider-web of Europe that many rare butterflies have beaten their pretty wings to tatters, and in it that many an old wasp has entangled itself and died.

Paris! the polished magnet which attracts the spare change of countless thousands in payment for the wares of folly and fashion, of the dressmaker and the cook!

When the sun shines, the city is _en fête_.

Rows of geraniums flame in the well ordered gardens of the Tuileries. Masses of flowers, gay in color as the ribbons streaming from the bonnets of the nurses, lie in brilliant patches along gravel walks or within the cool shadow of massive architecture. Brown-legged children, in white socks and white dresses fresh from the _blanchisseuse_, run screaming after runaway hooples, or watch in silent ecstasy the life and exploits of Mr. Punch at the Théâtre Guignol.

Under a vault of turquoise sky the Alexander Bridge, emblazoned with its golden horses, spans the Seine, crowded with traffic sweeping beneath the great arc. Sturdy steam-tugs with vermilion funnels tow long sausage-like lines of newly varnished canal-boats, whose sunburned captains with their sweethearts or families lounge at _déjeuner_ under improvised awnings stretched from the roofs of cabins shining in fresh paint. Down the great vista of the Seine each successive bridge is choked with thousands of hurrying ant-like humanity. Swift _bateaux-mouches_ dart back and forth to their floating stations. For a few sous these small steamers will take you to St. Cloud or beyond, past feathery green islands, past small rural cafés perched upon grassy banks where all day long old gentlemen wearing white socks and Panama hats wait patiently for a stray nibble.

This bright morning in Paris the boulevards are crowded with a passing throng which is gazed at for hours by those who fill the terraces of the cafés to linger over a morning _apéritif_. At one café a party of _commerçants_ are transacting business.

It is the fat cognac merchant now who is gesticulating to the rest of the group, pausing at intervals to wipe the perspiration from his oily neck. Near them, four Arabs, swathed in spotless burnooses, their bare feet encased in sandals, sip in silence their steaming _petites tasses_ of _café Maure_. Omnibuses lumber by. The air is vibrant with strident cries and the cracking of whips. An automobile passes, sputtering and growling through the _mêlée_ of the broad boulevard, taking advantage of every chance space as it threads its way out to the green country beyond with its begoggled occupants to _déjeuner_ at Poissy or perchance to dash farther on at a devilish pace to the sea and Trouville.

At another table on the terrace is a pretty blonde, her dainty feet resting in high-heeled slippers upon the little wooden footstool which the _garçon_ has so thoughtfully tucked under them, and her eyes shaded by the brim of the reddest of hats. She is engrossed in writing a note, which she finally slips in its envelope. Then this dainty Parisienne calls the _chasseur_, that invaluable messenger attached to every big café, and gives him a few cautionary parting instructions. He springs upon his bicycle and in half an hour returns with another envelope, this one plain and unaddressed and containing a hastily scribbled line in pencil. The corners of the pretty mouth curl upward in a little satisfied smile as the answer is read.

“Madame was in,” explains the _chasseur_ in a low voice. “It was madame’s maid who wrote it for monsieur!”

An hour later, in quite a different café, in a jewel-box of a Louis XVI. room, a well-groomed monsieur gazes in adoration across the snow-white cloth of a breakfast table at a wealth of golden hair, a pair of blue eyes and what is now the sauciest of little mouths. The scarlet hat has been tenderly laid upon the Louis XVI. clock, its brim discreetly covering the dial. The aged _garçon_ allotted to these indiscreet people has just served the _hors-d’oeuvre_.

There are many other just such _déjeuners particuliers_ in Paris over which no one bothers oneself.

A long line of carriages is ascending the Champs-Élysées. Here and there among them you will see the glitter of smart turnouts. In the cool Bois nearby, the deer from their noon-day hiding-places hear the trot of equestrians passing in the feathery alleys. Upon some grassy corner of the wood a family party have spread themselves and laid out their bread, cheese and wine for a day’s outing. Like a yellow pearl shimmering far up in the azure, a balloon sails briskly toward Vincennes.

All these things happen when the sun shines. When it rains, Paris is in mourning. Cozy corners of café interiors are sought. Here, at least, one can forget for the time the chill, rain-swept city. Somber _fiacres_, drawn by dejected steeds, splash along the glistening wood pavements, with hoods up, their occupants stowed under huge waterproof aprons, the _cocher_ muffled in his coat to the edge of his yellow, glazed hat.

Susanne, she of the madonna-like eyes, and the painter—their small stove, with its pipe traversing the ceiling, having failed dismally to warm even the cat beneath it—have come from their apartment across the Seine to the café, and are snug in a corner over a game of dominoes. The café is a refuge in raw, dreary weather. Only the wretchedly poor must needs pass by its welcome door. Now and then one does pass: an outcast, pale and hopeless, wrapping her soaking skirts about her shrunken hips with something of her old-time grace; or a man with matted hair, hungry and bitterly cold. Last night, after running a mile behind a closed cab with a trunk strapped on top, he had had the good luck to stagger beneath its weight up five flights of stairs, for which service he had received a franc. He had rushed with it down the winding stairs to the street. Ah, he remembered how happy he was!—how drunk and warm he had been for ten hours! And so among the cheerlessness of leaden roofs and deserted streets the smile of the city has gone.

Suddenly there is a break in the dull gray overhead and the downpour ceases.

“_Ah! Sapristi!_ It is going to clear!” predicts the _garçon de café_, as he glances up at the scudding clouds, and nods his assurance to those within. Instantly the café becomes animated with good humor. A tall man and a brunette in new high-heeled shoes are the first to venture out. They laugh over the incident of the rain very much as those who have luckily escaped an accident.

In half an hour the boulevards are steaming in warm sunshine. Again the crowd pours by. All Paris is smiling.

If you are an epicure with a fortune, you will find restaurants whose interiors are marvels of refinement and good taste, whose cellars hold priceless wines, and whose cuisines would grace the table of a king; or, if you are a bohemian, there is good-fellowship and a cheering dish awaiting you at a price within the means of even poets and dreamers. But it is after one dines that Paris throws open the doors of her varied attractions. There are the ever-moving _fêtes foraines_—mushroom growths of tawdry side-shows springing up in the different Quartiers in a night—with their carrousels and menageries, and the smarter circuses, like the Cirque Médrano, the Nouveau Cirque and the Cirque d’Hiver. There are the cheap shows of the small Bouis-Bouis, and the big open-air café concerts of the Champs-Élysées, the Concert des Ambassadeurs and the Alcazar d’Été, and that exquisite music-hall, the Folies Marigny, the Jardin de Paris, the Folies Bergère, the Casino de Paris and the Olympia, and, in contrast to these, the Opéra, the Opéra Comique and the Bouffes Parisiennes. There are serious concerts and little serious concerts like the Concert Rouge. There are the shows and cabarets of Montmartre and those of the _rive gauche_, the Noctambules, and the Grillon. There are the cheap dramas of the bourgeois theaters in remote quarters of the city, and the risqué plays of the Palais Royal; the daring, independent Théâtre Libre, and the Châtelet, famous for its scenic wonders; the lighter plays of the day at the Vaudeville, interpreted by Réjane; the splendid new theater of the divine Sarah; and the historic Français, with its finished acting in perfect French. The list is endless.

Where shall it be? To roar with the rest at the latest song of Polin or listen to a sadder tale at the Odéon, or, perchance, enjoy your second cigar in the front row under the sparkling eyes and pert nose of that most charming _chanteuse_, Odette Dulac, at the Boîte à Fursy!

If you have finished your liqueur and have retained the enthusiasm of the small boy who squirmed his way into the circus tent, raise your finger at a passing _cocher_. He will take you anywhere.

F. B. S.

Paris, 1903.

Chapter One

THE SHOWS OF THE CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉES

If you wish to buy your tickets in advance for the evening performance at the Alcazar d’Été, the open-air café concert of the Champs-Élysées, you go there some afternoon, and are ushered by a waiter through a narrow corridor of the adjoining restaurant, past little rooms, shining in copper pots and pans, and pungent with steaming sauces, through a pair of swinging doors well worn by hurrying waiters, and into a square room piled high with snow-white linen, pyramids of lump sugar, and rows of glittering silver. Half hidden in a corner among this spotless collection you discover a desk presided over by madame, who greets you pleasantly and produces for your inspection from beneath a litter of dinner checks and bills the seating diagram of the Alcazar.

“Does Monsieur wish seats for the evening, and in what location?” madame asks.

You suggest two in the third row.

“_Bon_,” replies madame, approvingly. She dips a pen in violet ink and writes carefully upon a checklike document the numbers of the chosen seats, tears this check from its stub, blots it, and scratches the corresponding numbers from the diagram. “_Voilà, Monsieur_,” and she hands you your ticket. Then she dives into the pocket of her petticoat for the key to a money-drawer from which to make your change. Finally, as you raise your hat to go, she adds, in parting assurance, with a little shrug of her shoulders beneath her worsted shawl: “I am sure Monsieur will find the seats excellent; I should have chosen them myself.”

All this takes time, but I must confess that I like the pantry method better than having my change blown at me through the pigeon-window of a draughty box-office, with the last rear seats in the house slapped out to me, all the desirable ones being in the mercenary hands of a band of sidewalk pirates.

LAMY IN “LA CAROTTE” AT THE PALAIS ROYAL

_Drawing by_ BARRÈRE]

Meanwhile, several newcomers are crowding about the table, among them three well-groomed men in top hats and frock coats, evidently having strolled over from their club, and a faultlessly dressed old baron, with a tea rose in his button-hole, who is now leaning over the desk, poring over the diagram through his black-rimmed monocle.

It is the first night of the new _revue_. This well-fed old baron! His beard is grizzled now and his bald pate shines beneath the rim of his stove-pipe hat. How many _revues_ has he seen in his Parisian life! How many capricious _débutantes_ of café concerts and the theater has he known! How many has he seen flash into brilliant stars and then grow old and fade away! Some of them are staid old _concierges_ now knitting away the short remnant of their lives. Some of them died young as roses will under gas-light. _Les petites femmes!_ Ah! the good old days of the Palais Royal! The Orangerie! or the Tuileries and the Jardin Mabille! The days of brocades, of cashmeres, and pendent jewelry of malachite and old mine diamonds! What famous beauties then! and how they could wear their flounces and furbelows—the little minxes! What a reckless riot of costly gaiety! How much baccarat at the clubs! How many suppers at Bignon’s and the Maison Dorée! How many years of all this! and yet on this sunny afternoon this old baron is as eager as a schoolboy over the new burlesque, and so he strolls out with his ticket up the Champs-Élysées, stopping for a full half hour to watch the Guignol and the children and the nurses. Later you will see him rolling through the Bois in his victoria, a queenly woman in black by his side, the tea-rose stuck jauntily under the turquoise collar of a sleek red spaniel in her lap. The baron is smoking. There is no conversation.

You will hear Polin at the Alcazar. He comes on at the end of a preliminary program of excellent variety before the _revue_. Fat jolly old Polin, whose song creations portray the happy-go-lucky lot of the common soldier. He reels in from the wings, convulsed with laughter over some recent adventure, the result of which has put him in the guard-house for ten days. He is fairly bursting his red-trousered uniform with merriment as he begins his first verse. He tells you every detail of his experience, painfully even, for he is now crying with laughter, his voice rising in little squeaks like the water in a pump and bubbling over as he reaches the point. He is manipulating the while a red cotton handkerchief, which is never still; now it mops his round genial face, now it is twisted nervously into a rope and jammed into his trousers’ pocket, and as speedily taken out to dust his knees. His last verse is smothered in chuckling glee; little jets of cleverly chosen words manage, however, to get over the footlights to his listeners. The song ends amid a thunder of applause and Polin bows awkwardly and retreats with his back to the audience, his cavalry boots combined with his red trousers flopping as he goes.

Photo by Reutlinger, Paris

POLIN]

Parisians delight in caricature. It is as inborn with them as the art of pantomime. The political topic of the day, a new phase of the law or the government, the latest scandal, all come to the net of the writers of these _revues_.

Eve, the daughter of Madame Humbert, that shrewdest of modern swindlers, is presented as a Juno-like creature of lisping innocence. Shrewd, politic and extravagant Madame Humbert, the brains of that colossal robbery of millions of francs, steps on the stage. The brother, Daurignac, who posed as a painter, and the famous empty safe which played such an important role in the Humbert _ménage_, have been the theme for a dozen clever burlesques.

“Les Apaches,” a notorious band of cutthroats, who have lately infested Paris, and their beautiful accomplice, known as Casque d’Or, a term befitting her wealth of golden hair, have also furnished a well-worn topic for the _revue_ writers. So, too, the capture of Miss Stone has inspired a clever _revue_, containing a whole stageful of pretty and shapely brigands. The book is by de Cottens and the music by Henri José, and it is presented in six tableaux at the Marigny with that idol of Paris, Germaine Gallois, in the principal role.

Photo by Stebbing, Paris

LISE FLEURON OF THE ALCAZAR D’ÉTÉ]

The Parisian _revue_ is in structure traditionally ever the same, and the receipt for these musical puddings is never altered. There are two important characters which are never to be departed from—the _commère_ and the _compère_. The first fifteen minutes are occupied with the introduction of a young man of leisure, the _compère_, who has just inherited a colossal fortune from a dying uncle. He brings with him an exaggerated outfit of clothes, all brand new, consisting of a sack suit of dove gray, lined with red satin; a voluminous red satin tie to match the suit, clasped with a heavy turquoise-studded ring; a gold-buttoned embroidered vest; a soft gray felt traveling hat; lemon kid gloves, and a rattan cane. He stalks about the stage, smiling—the stage picture of good health—and squaring his shoulders and curling the ends of his long mustache with that debonair air supposed to be consistent with good luck. His ecstasy over what fortune has bestowed upon him would put in the shade even the enthusiasm of the “found at last!” gentlemen of the Eureka advertisements.

Photo by Reutlinger, Paris

GERMAINE GALLOIS OF THE MARIGNY]

Before he gets half way down the village street of the first act, the _commère_, a statuesque fairy queen in silk tights, with real gems that are the talk of Paris, who has been hunting for him all over the town, suddenly comes upon him in the village square, and, touching him with her wand, makes him her _protégé_.

The _compère_ may come upon the stage as an old _roué_, weighted with years and careworn. In this case, the good fairy immediately bestows upon him joyous youth and the satin apparel. She is running over with benefactions and, causing to appear suddenly a score of comely young grisettes and hard-working peasant girls who have been loitering around the town pump, arrayed in silk hose of assorted lengths, she urges him to select from these his mate. Just at this moment a plain little seamstress, in passing, runs into this barricade of village beauties, and at once becomes the victim of their badinage. Our youthful Crœsus, seeing her distress, straightway chooses her for his bride, amid the discontented reproaches of the rest of the girls and to the inward satisfaction of the good fairy.

Photo by Cautin & Berger, Paris

A COMMÈRE]

The plain little seamstress turns out to be superlatively beautiful, and as naïve and witty as she is charming, especially if it is Lise Fleuron who plays the part.

It takes only a short time, in the second act, to clothe this stray Cinderella in a Paquin or a Worth creation, while her old gray and white clothes are neatly folded and laid away in the basket with which that very morning she had started early to market to buy a _poulet_ and a _salade_ for her sick grandmama. After this public shopping the happy pair is ready to start upon the honeymoon. Cinderella adds to her wardrobe a blue silk parasol, stuck in a rolled up traveling rug, while her happy companion decorates himself with a field-glass and dons an English shooting hat of impossible plaids.

In the third act they are joined by the good fairy and the _revue_ passes before them. This is a hodgepodge of burlesques upon the topics of the day, ballets representing flowers and perfumes and the history of fashion, and choruses representing the different journals, the arts, inventions and manufactures. The costumes are superb and the massing of color exquisite.

Before the finale, an apotheosis of gorgeous color, with a stageful of kicking, giggling, romping gaiety, I catch a glimpse of the old baron. He has bowed to someone on the stage and is applauding vigorously. So, too, is the young _vicomte_ with a scar across his cheek where a ball ploughed itself one chilly morning on the outskirts of Surennes, all on account of just such a _cocotte_ as the good fairy who is now glancing under her stenciled eyelids at a swarthy little Italian in the front row.

And the Comte de B—— is shouting “Bravo!” from his box. It is he who has paid so highly to see Ninette included nightly in the program. She has been permitted by the amiable management, after the transfer of certain crisp bank-notes from the purse of the count to the pocket of the manager, to announce, in the third act, the approach of the soldiers, “as a personal favor to the Comte and because Madame is so beautiful.” To be in a _revue_ and flattered by the press is as necessary to Ninette as to have a new gown for the _Grand Prix_. For, tho she is fair to look upon and has little bills springing up along the Rue de la Paix as thick as a field of bachelor’s-buttons, Ninette is not an actress. But Ninette enjoys her theatrical career. She takes the stage seriously, enjoying even the rigid discipline, because of its complete novelty. The old playgoers come to her salon, gravely kiss the tips of her fingers, and tell her how charming she has been in the _revue_. Then the journalists! Ah! how amiable they are! For the crisp bank-notes of the Comte which placed the crown of Thespis upon the blond head of Ninette did not all of them go into managerial pockets. But Ninette has begun to sing; listen! Yes, it is the line faintly announcing the soldiers. A final chorus, the curtain falls and the crowd rises and pours slowly out under the trees.

Photo by Reutlinger, Paris

A BEAUTY OF THE REVUE]

It is starlight. Passing and repassing like fire-flies the cabs go trundling by. Here and there in the shadow one is stopped and a fluff of lace and sheen of silk is bundled in. The baron walks home, the end of his cigar glowing cheerily. The _revue_ is a success.

The Concert des Ambassadeurs with its _revue_ and variety adjoins the Alcazar. One can dine leisurely on the balconies of either of the two restaurants adjoining these cafés, and watch the performance during dinner.

Near by is the Jardin de Paris enclosed by lattice and hedge, and ablaze at night with festoons of colored lights and crimson lanterns. Within, the crowd pours round the promenade thronged with _demi-mondaines_, in décolleté gowns flashing in jet, in picture hats flaming in scarlet, their white hands glittering to the knuckles in showy rings. Some of these women are pretty and gowned in chic simplicity, some of them are coarsely bedizened and heavily rouged, with small cruel eyes and strident voices.

The variety performance at the end of the garden has just ended, and a fanfare of hunting horns announces the quadrille. The passing throng crowds about the _estrade_ to watch the dancing. Another fanfare from the horns, and the orchestra commences a lively can-can. The crowd presses close against the low balustrade. “Grille d’Égout” gathers up her skirts, and a second later her black stockings are silhouetted in billows of cheap _lingerie_. The band crashes on. The other dancers execute _pas seuls_ with their traditionally voluminous display, which, from its very boldness, is neither suggestive nor vulgar—it is if anything rather a common exhibition from which all illusion has vanished. They are a type unto themselves, these can-can dancers; half of them might easily pass for middle-aged housemaids, but there are some who unmistakably have been gathered from the riff-raff of such places as the “Ange Gabriel” and the _cabaret_ of the “Rat Mort” in Montmartre.

An old man in a long coat of rusty black and a straight-brimmed top hat now joins the quartet. He is tall, square-jawed and clean-shaven, with twinkling gray eyes. He is seventy years old and has been a professional quadrille dancer all his life. Laying the smoldering stump of his cigarette in a safe corner of the balustrade, he flings himself into the measure. His gaunt Mephistophelian frame seems tireless as if hardened by the dancing of a lifetime. He executes with a certain precision and gravity the steps of a _pas seul_. When he finishes, he recovers the butt of his cigarette, smiles sardonically at the applauding crowd, and sits down to refresh himself over a “bock.” “Grille d’Égout,” passing, good-humoredly tips his hat sideways with the toe of her slipper, and his satanic majesty rises and leads her into a maze of steps, evidently in revenge, since she begs off, exhausted at the end of a quarter of an hour. The crowd cheers.

A shooting-gallery pops and cracks away at one end of the promenade, while next to it a much-mirrored bar dispenses so-called English and American drinks, villainous all, with a bottle of warm champagne, on tap and sold by the glass, as a questionable alternative.

Below the level of the garden, almost immediately under the orchestra, is the Crypte, where there are varied attractions.

There are two ways of getting down to this Crypte; one is by the stairs, and the other by a polished board-chute. Both are free, but the chute is the more popular. Here an amused crowd stands about waiting for some Mimi or Cora or Faustine to plant her neat patent leather boots on the board and slide to the subterranean regions beneath. Here there are living pictures, two pink samples of which stand guard at the entrance of this side-show, while within, a gray-haired pianist thumps out the incidental music to the tableaux from an ancient piano with a sleighbell tone.

At intervals the sentinels without change guard with Spring and Summer, while Autumn and Winter pass the hat, and Venus rising from the Sea tarries in the dressing-room to curl her hair and gossip with the leading victims of the Deluge.

Certain tremulous cries emerge from the other side of the Crypte to the accompaniment of a desert tom-tom and the tread and sway of Oriental dancing.

Yes, the Jardin de Paris with all its noise and glare was built especially to attract most of the smoking-room list of the incoming ships. It appeals in some mysterious way to that natural prey of the Parisian landlord, the traveler who allows himself to be held as a hostage in exchange for his pocket-book at one of the large dismal hotels built solely for his capture. Here in a heavily upholstered and silent reading-room he may read the papers and watch other unfortunates of his kind prowl about him, until at seven he is ushered by an overbearing _maître d’hôtel_ into an even more elaborate hall of fame to the table d’hôte, an occasion representing in gaiety a feast of refugees after a flood. If during his stay in Paris he has the good fortune to see anything Parisian he may count himself lucky.

The Théâtre Marigny is to the Jardin de Paris what a cozily lit dinner-table glowing in shaded candles is to a bar-room, aglitter with brass and glass and electric lights. This jewel-box of a theater in the Champs-Élysées was fashioned for all seasons, but in summer it is in full bloom.

Photo by Reutlinger, Paris

ÉLISE DE VÉRE OF THE MARIGNY]

The approach to it among the trees is much the same as to the others, only that the roadway in front is packed at night with private carriages. Here a Parisian _équipage de luxe_ of an eastern prince crowds a new coupé, with a rhinestone clock and hidden cases of doeskin lined with silk, a tiny mirror, a diminutive powder-puff in a box with a golden top, a little of this and a little of that. It is the carriage of Julie la Drôlesse; with this gilt encased arsenal one feels safe to look one’s best in any emergency thinks Julie—that is, if Julie ever really does any thinking. Does the little golden-puff remind her, I wonder, of the days when two sous of _poudre de riz_ applied in a jiffy with a corner of her jupon sufficed to charm the _habitués_ of the Rue Blanche? _Ah! mes enfants!_

Seen through the trees the Théâtre Marigny looms like some gigantic flower of light, the reflection from the edge of its circular promenade illuminating in a hazy light the surrounding foliage. And such a promenade!—aglow with fairy lamps thrust in a setting of shining leaves, and with comfortable rattan chairs encircling the mosaic floor which during the intermission is brilliant with the passing throng.

“Mar-ga-rita” sing gayly the Neapolitans to the strum of guitars. A woman with an olive skin whose lithe body seems to have been poured into a delicate mold of Valenciennes lace, glides by on the arm of a Russian. Her jewels have bankrupted a prince.

Sundry old Frenchmen, in straight-brimmed hats with ribbons in their button-holes, pass; one is a senator, another a famous sculptor. At one’s elbows is a pretty blonde, her white neck encircled by a band of turquoise reaching nearly to her small pink ears, ever listening like tiny shells to the flattering murmur of the human sea about her.

Pop! goes a bottle of champagne in the bar. Crack! rips the spangled train of Thérèse Derval under the clumsy heel of her admirer. “Fifty louis for your awkwardness, idiot!” snaps the quick-tempered Thérèse.

“Mar-ga-rita” strum the guitars. But the bell is ringing for the curtain. The spectacular _revue_ following the excellent variety is quite different from the _revues_ of the other café concerts; at the Marigny they are poems of color—costumes which are the creation of artists. Nowhere is scenic art brought to a higher perfection than at the Marigny.

One sees a ballet in tones of violet and gray that is as delicate as an orchid. Again the stage is blazing in Spanish yellow and red as rich as a pomegranate crushed in the sun. Now the tableau changes to a scenic night bathed in pale moonlight with a ruined _château_ harboring purple shadows and framed in a grove of cypresses.

From this grove may flutter a ballet of bats, or the summer night may vanish in a twinkling and in its place appear a garden of Maréchal Niel roses blooming at a signal into another ballet.

Now enters a procession representing the history of fashion. Here are the exaggerated costumes of the Middle Ages, ermine and miniver, and those impossible head-dresses, the cornettes, hennins, and escoffions of the time of “Louis the Fair.” Then follow the grand apparel of the Medicis, and the transparent sheath-like tunics of the _merveilleuses_ of the Directory, slit at the side and fastened with a cameo brooch, and the toilettes of the balls of the Restoration. Even more ridiculous costumes were worn, you remember, by women of society a hundred years ago openly in this very Champs-Élysées, the days when all Paris went mad over the costumes of the Athenian maidens. What a contrast are the creations of the present age to those seen during the Reign of Terror at Frascati’s! And yet I am sure that if any of the celebrated beauties of the Marigny had entered the court of Louis XVI. in a perfect gown of to-day, she would have been welcomed with wonder and delight.

The curtain falls on the _revue_, smart equipages outside are being shouted for by the _chasseur_. Julie la Drôlesse has just stepped in her boudoir-like coupé. It has begun to drizzle. I call my own conveyance, a dingy _fiacre_ with a green light and a jingly bell, the _cocher_ swathed about his middle with a yellow horse-blanket. He wheels his raw-boned steed to the door.

“_Chez Maxime, cocher!_”

“_Bien, Monsieur!_”

Chapter Two

PARIS DINES

The famous chef, Vatel, before a dinner given to Louis XIV., killed himself because the fish was late.

Nowadays he might simply have shrugged his shoulders in apology, a mode of reply most popular in France, and against which all argument is as useless as so much steam in the air.

Boil with rage if you will; plead with the ingenuity of a defending lawyer, or berate him in language which would inspire renewed effort in a government mule, the Frenchman’s shrug will disarm you as neatly as an expert duelist sends your foil spinning out of your grip, and you will be conscious of how useless your tirade has been only when you perceive the delinquent monsieur with the elevated shoulders bowing himself politely out through the door.

A year ago the veteran chef of a celebrated Parisian restaurant resigned his position. Prices had been affixed to the menu. With this deplorable change the famous _maison_ had sunk below the dignity of this august personage. To attach to so noble a creation as a “_filet d’ours à la François-Joseph_” a fixed price as one would to a pound of butter, made his further connection with the house an impossibility. “_Parbleu!_” he cried, “Had Paris become a _gargotte_ for the _grand monde_ that he should have lived to see this?”

There still remain a few smart restaurants where there are no prices on the menu, but even in these there is a second edition of the bill of fare with the prices thereon which the _maître d’hôtel_ will apologetically hand you when he discovers you are neither a millionaire nor a fool, even tho your French may be not so good as his own. If you have the leisure, the best plan is to order your dinner for a _partie carrée_ in advance and for a certain fixed sum, as most Parisians do.

In no city in the world are there so many and so varied places to dine as in Paris. One can hardly look right or left from any corner of any street and not find restaurants, from little _boîtes_, where a _plat du jour_ and a bottle of wine are to be had for a few sous, to those whose cuisine and rare vintages are adapted only to the well-filled purse of an epicure. There are numberless resorts frequented by the vast army of bohemians, some the rendezvous for students and _grisettes_, others for the poets, the pensive, long-haired devotees of the symbolistic school, and kindred souls in the realm of art. There are those patronized by jolly, devil-may-care young doctors, sleepless night-owls, who discuss till graying dawn their latest operations with a complacent sense of superiority over the other half of the human world, who, they are convinced, without their medical aid would be left as helpless as a mass of struggling white bait in a net. And there, too, buried away in the dingy alley of Montmartre and fringing the ill-reputed neighborhoods of La Butte and the great Halles, are the feeding places of thieves, reeking from the odor of decaying vegetables and bad cheeses, yet, they say, supplied with some of the rarest wines.

It was a famous French sociologist who declared, from extended personal investigations of the private life of the Parisian mendicants, that the best _champagne brut_ he had yet encountered he had found on the dinner tables of professional beggars.

Along the lighted streets and boulevards are the great _brasseries_ for Munich beer and German dishes, and the richly decorated taverns, some of them in black oak shining in pewter and ornate with medieval decoration and stained glass. These are swarming with eddies from the passing world until long after midnight. Many of these are the habitual rendezvous of journalists, like the Café Navarin. Others, like the Café des Variétés and the Taverne de la Capitale, are the favorite places for actors, and still others for painters and musicians. There is hardly a resort in Paris which has not its distinct clientèle, from the _buvettes_ of the _cochers_ to Maxime’s.

And of soberer kind are the innumerable, perfectly kept establishments created by Duval and imitated by Boulant. They are big places for small purses; everything is of excellent quality, well cooked, and served by respectable women in spotless white caps and aprons.

There are hundreds of other restaurants besides, with _dîners_ and _déjeuners_ at a _prix fixe_, in which a secondary quality of food is turned into a clever imitation of the best, and where the wine is plain and harmless and included with a course dinner _au choix_ for two francs fifty and less. On _fête_ days and Sundays these well patronized _petits dîners de Paris_ are crowded with bourgeois folk: clerks with their sweethearts, _commerçants_ and their families, economical bachelors, and others, frugal-minded, from out of Paris who have come into the metropolis to spend a long-anticipated holiday.

And in contrast to all these dining places are the smart restaurants, filled with the correct _grand monde_ and the chic _demi-monde_—the Café de Madrid, the Maison Anglaise, Paillard, Arménonville, La Rue, Joseph, Ledoyen, Voisin and the Café de Paris. There are serious old places, such as the Tour d’Argent, plain and unadorned, where all the wealth is in the _casserolles_ and the cobwebbed bottles. Then, too, there is the ancient Restaurant Foyot, with its clientèle of senators, academicians and military officers, and the Restaurant La Pérouse on the quay of the Seine, where resort savants and magistrates and others less grave—an old-fashioned place with a narrow stairway leading to quaint, low-ceiled _cabinets particuliers_ and excellent things simmering over the kitchen fires below stairs and certain rare old Burgundy lining the walls of the cellar.

Just such a place of seclusion and good cooking is the “Père La Thuille” in Montmartre. It is often a pleasure to dine in a room devoid of gilt and tinsel. The Père La Thuille is restful in this respect. The cuisine is perfect and the wine very old.

At one of the tables in the rectangular dining-room a celebrated diva whose bodice glitters in gems is dining with monsieur, the aged director of a gas company. Several empty tables away another elderly gentleman is filling Mademoiselle Fifi’s glass of champagne. Half hidden in another corner of the long leather settee a lady with delicate features and frank, intelligent eyes pours forth her soul and the remainder of a bottle to a well-groomed man at her side. The light from the shaded candles shows more clearly his strong fine hands. Now the little finger of his companion touches his seal ring quite unconsciously, as one would give an accent by a gesture to a confession. For a moment he covers her tiny hand with his own. Poor devil! he must return to his regiment to-morrow and, what is still sadder, the lady is married.

The New York Dairy Lunch, with its mirrored and marbled bathroom decoration, its elevating Bible texts, and depressing “sinkers,” and its dyspeptic griddle-cakes cooked in the window, would never make a success with Parisians. One of the most doleful sights I have seen in Paris was a sad-looking gentleman in black sitting at a cold marble-topped table of an expensive _patisserie_ lunching on a weak cup of tea and a plate of cream-puffs—_Chacun son goût!_

There exist here, however, “Express Bars” along the boulevards, where by dropping two sous in a slot you are permitted to rob the nickel-plated chicken house installed beneath of any of a dozen different articles, from a _baba au rhum_ to a glass of beer. But Parisians stop at these places very much as they would to hear a phonograph, or as French children stop for their _goûter_ at four o’clock in the cake shops, or as men and women of all classes drop in for the celebrated fruits in spirits dispensed at the famous solid silver bar of La Mère Moreau.

The French never hurry over dinner. The pleasure of dining must not be spoiled by haste. It is an hour which nothing postpones. If anything serious is to be decided upon, Parisians dine first and then think the matter over. Perhaps after all they are right, for are we not at our best in heart and spirit when we have dined wisely? Anger, hatred, even the green monster jealousy, fade away with the progress of a good dinner.

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LE PLONGEUR]

Into the Restaurant Weber comes an old _bon-vivant_ growling. He stands for a brief moment surveying the tables, chooses one of the few unoccupied ones and plants himself savagely in front of the snow-white cloth. “The devil!” he mutters to himself. “She’ll get my letter to-morrow. _Bon Dieu!_ to think I have been imbecile enough to trust her!”

“Has monsieur le comte ordered?” interrupted quietly the _maître d’hôtel_ Léon.

The count glowers over the menu.

“Some _filets de hareng saurs_.”

“_Parfaitement, monsieur_,” replies Léon, and he repeats the order to a waiter.

There follows a pause, during which the count’s irate eye (the one not occupied with his monocle) wanders absently over the list.

“Perhaps monsieur would like an excellent purée of peas to follow?” Léon naïvely suggests.

“_Bon!_” gruffly accepts the comte. “And a _homard_, and a roast partridge with a good salad, and a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, ’93,” adds the count.

“_Bien, monsieur_, I will season the salad myself.” And Léon, with an authoritative gesture, claps his hands twice, stirring into increased activity the already alert waiters, gives a final touch to the appointments of the count’s table, and hurries off to attend to another dinner, a jolly party of four who need no further cheering up.

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LE MAÎTRE D’HÔTEL]

“She has the innocent eyes of a child when she lies!” mutters the count, returning to his thoughts.

But the tiny _filets de hareng_, with their tang of the sea, sharpen his appetite, and the wine quiets his nerves and refreshes his brain, and the purée warms him and the lobster steaming in its thick, spicy sauce cheers him. The hatred within him is growing less. That lump of jealousy buried so deep half an hour ago has so diminished that, when the fat little partridge arrives, garnished and sunk in its nest of fresh watercress, this gives the fatal _coup_ to ill humor. Again the champagne is rattled out of its cooler. Léon, whose watchful eye is everywhere and whose intuition tells him when a patron wishes to talk, now comes to the count’s table.

The count has by this time become the soul of good humor. He compliments Léon on the dinner and Léon compliments him on his taste in selection of viands, and so they talk on until Léon goes himself for a special liqueur.

The count gazes peacefully on those about him and admires, with the critical eye of a connoisseur of beauty, the pretty woman at the corner table. Silent waiters lay the fresh cloth and bring him an extensive choice of Havanas. All these final accessories have little by little taken away the remnants of his ill feeling. He puffs reminiscently at his cigar. His very spirit of revenge seems to have been steamed, sautéed and grilled out of him. Now he takes from his waistcoat pocket a thin gold watch—the one he bought at a round sum in Geneva years ago and which has been faithfully ticking away the seconds of his turbulent life so long that he has come to regard it somewhat with awe, as one would the change from his last dollar.

The delicate hands have crept to nine o’clock and two tiny bells within strike the hour. The count writes upon his visiting card a short line, seals it in its envelope, calls the _chasseur_ and, giving him the note, directs: “Stop on your way at Véton’s for the red roses.”

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Ah, mesdames et messieurs, how many of your little troubles have been settled by the doctor with the _cordon bleu_ and the shining saucepans!

The Taverne Pousset is famous for its beer, its _écrevisses_ (crawfish boiled scarlet and served steaming), and its _soupe à l’ognon_, a bouillon redolent with onions and smothered beneath a coverlet of brown cheese.

Parisians flock to Pousset after the theater. At night its richly decorated interior is ablaze with light and crowded with those who have stopped for supper after the play.

There are dozens of just such _tavernes_ and _brasseries_. These German institutions have oddly enough become most popular with the French, who have grown in recent years critically fond of good beer. I might add, however, that it is the only thing German that has become popular. That little affair of Sedan is still in the gorge.

The Coq d’Or, on the rue Montmartre, is one of the oldest taverns in Paris. Its clientèle during dinner is composed of _commerçants_ and a mixture of _bourgeoisie_ and Bohemia, but after midnight, as happens in scores of other such places, the Coq d’Or is filled by a veritable avalanche of _demi-mondaines_ of the surrounding quarter.

If you dine at Marguery’s, order a _sole au vin blanc_ and let Étienne bring it to you.

If it is summer you will find a table in the covered portico brilliant with hanging flowers, or you may choose a snug corner behind the cool green hedge that skirts the entrance of this famous rendezvous of rich _bourgeois_ and _commerçants_.

The restaurant Marguery is unique. It is a magnificent establishment, perfect in its cooking, its wines, and its service. I know of no restaurant where for this perfect ensemble one pays so moderate and just a price; the proof of this is that here you will see the true Parisian; neither is there any supplementary charge for any of the _cabinets particuliers_ or the private dining-rooms. It is the only _maison de premier ordre_ I know of which does not tax one more or less heavily for the right of seclusion.

You will have hardly finished your sole before a distinguished old gentleman with a decoration in his lapel and a crumpled napkin in one hand, will pass your table, bowing graciously to you if you are a stranger and stopping to say a few pleasant words if you are a friend. He is slightly bent with age, massive of frame, with silvery locks combed back from a broad forehead, and his face is illumined with kindliness and intelligence.

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Such a personage is Monsieur Marguery, whom the French government has decorated in recognition of his skill as a _restaurateur_, a man who still directs personally every detail of this superb establishment where one can dine for a few francs with an excellent bottle of wine, or give a dinner fit for an emperor, including, I have not the slightest doubt, the famous peacock tongues should you wish them, and with a choice of wines from a cellar whose contents are valued at three millions of francs.

In a corner a fat merchant, flushed with a heavy dinner, is ready for his chat with the _sommelier_. He tells him with some fervor that he is proud to say that when he was eighteen he dined on a sou’s worth of bread on the stones of the Place de la Bastille. “Men of that time were ready to begin at the foot of the ladder,” he continues, puffing at his cigar, “but nowadays our sons, who see us in comfort, want to obtain money and luxuries without going through the mill.”

“_Par ici! monsieur_,” says Étienne, and he leads the way up a carved stairway to the floor above, past little _cabinets particuliers_ whose cozy interiors are marvels of good taste. Here is one with walls of rich brocade of the time of Louis XVI. Another is in early French, with its adaptation of Chinese ornaments. Another is paneled in ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl; still another in pale lilac brocade and teakwood. Each of these private rooms has its serving pantry across a narrow hallway where the linen and glass and silver are kept spotless, in readiness at a moment’s notice. A superb private stairway in white marble and stained glass connects this portion of the restaurant with a dignified courtyard leading out to a gray little side street. But these are the little rooms.

There is, besides, a great banquet hall in medieval Gothic that might have been carried bodily out of some feudal castle in Touraine with a carved minstrel gallery, a superb ceiling and rare stained glass. Here wedding breakfasts and dinners are given with cotillions to follow. And there are two other salons paneled in rare carving and inlaid woods. At the bottom of another stairway Étienne directs me across the mosaic floor of a spacious hall and into a grotto-like cave. Here is another dining-room. It is resplendent in stalactites with green ferns growing from walls of moss-grown rocks and a cascade talking to itself and purling into a green pool.

Music? no, indeed. People who come here have too good a time to need to be waltzed through the soup or polkaed through the entrée.

It is four o’clock and they are laying the round table in the center of the grotto with twenty covers. It might be for a state dinner in the presence of a king, so perfectly is the table appointed and in such rare taste. A bed of violet orchids forms the center of the table.

I look up and catch sight of the venerable Monsieur Marguery on the stairway, peering interestedly into the room to watch the laying of the service. He has suddenly entered through some hidden door—a panel in the wall which Étienne afterwards shows me. “He is everywhere, as you see,” said Étienne, quietly.

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“Ah! it is you, monsieur,” says Monsieur Marguery, cheeringly, as he approaches. “And have you found this grotto room charming with the pale orchids and the cool water? You know in summer,” he continues, “it is quite as cool here as in the Bois”—and he might have added, quite as beautiful, for this fairy corner needed only the setting of wit and beauty to make it a paradise.

“And you see, my friend,” he continues, “you have seen only the upstairs of my restaurant. Come between seven and eight some evening and I will put you in a corner of my kitchen when it is busiest,” and he adds, with smiling good humor, “I won’t warn them you are coming.”

I was the guest of the chef in the Marguery kitchen at eight o’clock one Saturday evening. There were a dozen wedding banquets going on upstairs, and scores of hidden _dîners particuliers_, while the restaurant, screened from the kitchen by a swinging door, was filled to overflowing.

I passed through this door and met my host with the _cordon bleu_, who looked more like the director of a railroad than a cook. He placed me in a safe corner connecting the meat room and the kitchen, from which I could observe and still be out of the way of the rush, for the famous cuisine was as busy as a stage during a spectacle.

A long counter ran the length of the room, serving as a barrier against hurrying waiters. Back of this counter lay the culinary plant. Five great ranges were in full blast.

At one a cloud of steam rose from some entrée, on the second range a great copper saucepan was suddenly lifted and the fire beneath it sent up a lurid flare which went slipping up the hooded chimney.

The room was in a state of bedlam with the cries of meat cooks, vegetable cooks, soup cooks and waiters hurrying for their orders. The system beneath all this was perfect.

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