Chapter III: Part 3

During the summer period workmen invaded the Grillon and a general varnishing took place. The small tables were repolished and the chimney leading from the tiny kitchen cleaned. The piano was tuned and the cozy interior made spick and span for the grand opening in the fall. Then all of the old crowd would return; it was like the reunion of a family: Jeannette and Marcelle and the editor and the Count, from his villa by the sea, and the Spaniard, who never left Paris. Then such a dinner! So much had happened in the meantime, and there was so much to talk about. The Countess had been a month at Trouville.

“_Ah! mes chers enfants_,” she would begin in her gentle voice, “It was not like the old days there any more. Such a common lot about the _petits chevaux_; none of the great toilettes I used to see, nor as many louis won and lost, either,” she added, nodding her head.

“I played my small purse cautiously on the ‘_bande_’ one day. I won a thousand francs, and the next morning I took my little bonne Thérèse south; she is not very strong and she was so happy to see her mother.”

The editor rose and bowed.

“You have a good heart, old friend,” he said, as he bent and kissed the tips of her fingers.

“We stayed there a week on their farm,” continued the Countess, “and I spent all day in the sun watching the pigs and the chickens. You have no idea what an appetite I had and what a rest in my old clothes.”

“Come, come, all of you, my children,” cried Lucille, “my soup is getting cold;” and she buried the silver ladle in the _purée_.

For some moments after the company were served they remained silent. The _purée_ deserved a prayer of thanks, while Marie, Lucille’s bonne, beamed at their satisfaction from the doorway of her kitchen.

“It is good, is it not?” laughed Lucille, delighted as a child over the new soup.

“_Voilà!_ That is a soup,” roared the editor.

“My dear child,” put in the Count, bowing to Lucille, “I have known intimately for years the best _purées_ of the Maison Dorée; those were soups. This is a masterpiece! a dream!! a soup to comfort the soul!!!”

“Ah! you dear old boy,” cried Lucille, patting him on the cheek, “you are always so appreciative;” and she added, in a whisper, to the rest: “Marie is enchanted.”

Over the coffee and liqueur they often discussed in open debate such serious topics as whether or not marriage was a failure; the finer points of fidelity; were women more faithful in their love than men? had luxury become a necessity? what really constitutes happiness in life; were it not better to enjoy the present, since one could not help the past or control the future? etc., etc.

Such discussions as these would last until the hour grew late and the hands of the clock ticking over the bar crawled to another day.

Then the shutters were put up, the company dispersed, and Lucille’s waiting brougham would drive her home.

But it was the Count who saw her safely within her carriage, stowed the sleepy dachshunds in their warm corner under the seat, and raised his hat as Lucille drove away.

Some years have passed since the old days when “The Bar of the Cricket” held such comrades as these.

It was winter when I turned down the narrow street again one afternoon and entered the door.

The room was silent. The cozy interior had remained much the same as it had been in the past; the walls of polished cherry, the tables, the piano, were in their places as of old, but the roses on the bar were artificial, and a self-feeding stove roared in one corner.

The faithful Louis came to greet me. He looked haggard and grayer; the only other occupant of the room, a man with a hard jaw and a diamond ring, lounged in the rocking-chair, muttering to himself over a cocktail.

A glance at Louis told me all.

“And so they have all gone?” I said.

“Yes, monsieur;” he paused, and his eyes filled.

“Ah! it is not no more now like old days, is it?” he continued, forcing a smile, and his hand trembled, clutching his napkin. “Madame de Bréville, you know, she sold the bar? Yes, she has gone avay. I hafn’t seen her once,” and he looked up sadly.

“And Mademoiselle Marcelle, she is no longer in Paris; she vent avay now three years to St. Petersburg,” he continued.

“Once I seen de Countess. She come back to see me. Poor Countess, she is sick—sick like one dead—so pale, so white, yust like dot napkin. And now she lives mit Madame Brébant. Ah! Himmel! How I laf sometimes at dot Madame Brébant, she vas alvays making some fun. And de Spanish gentleman, Monsieur Gonsalez! He got married. Ya, he vas married to a fine lady with plenty money.”

“And the editor?” I asked.

“I don’t see him no more; he vas a goot man;” and he added, softly, lowering his voice, “I tink he vas in love mit Madame de Bréville! Ya, I tink so.”

“Have you heard from the Count?” I asked.

“Ah! you don’t hear about him, no? He was suicided. He vent and shooted hisself. It vas in all de papers. He vas a fine gentleman, too, de Count. And so, monsieur, it is only Louis who stays; may be I be better off if I do, vhat you tink? May be it vill be a goot place again some day?”

In the Bois one sunny morning a little girl in a velvet dress came running to me as fast as her chubby legs could carry her and screaming: “Monsieur, monsieur, my mamma wishes to speak to you; she is just over there in the carriage,” and she pointed with a majestic sweep of her little hand to a landau waiting under the shade of the acacias.

It was Lucille, happily married to one none of us had ever seen.

There are many bars in Paris with barmaids who speak perfect English and a clientèle of _demi-mondaines_ who do not.

Many of these places have grown to be miniature Maximes and quite a few of them keep a _chasseur_ in gilt buttons. They are frequented by the idling _jeunesse_ with more “louis” than brains, who occupy late in the afternoon the high stools and pay accordingly for the flattering _bons mots_ of certain powdered and bediamonded ladies who in years are old enough to be their grandmothers. The fortunes of the callow youths tumble eventually either into the hands of these well-seasoned adventuresses or into the pocket of the card-sharps who patronize many of these bars. Beside these there are many eminently respectable looking old gentlemen who, with unhappy homes and no clubs to go to, prefer passing a restful hour steeped in an atmosphere of mixed drinks, perfume and expensive toilettes. Here Mimi la Duchesse strolls in at five o’clock with her French bulldog, “Mignon,” wearing all the diamonds around his neck that the fair Mimi has not room for on her fingers. Later in the winter, when creditors are pressing and Mimi’s debts have run into several hundred thousands of francs, there will be a very _chic_ catalog issued announcing an absolute auction of her effects, together with her private hotel.

It will contain several full-page photogravures upon hand-made deckle-edged paper of her residence, with a frontispiece showing the interior of the “Great Hall” paneled in Spanish leather, its fireplace taken from a famous château of the time of François I., and hanging over the carved shelf a celebrated Madonna, under whose sad eyes have been played nightly so many heavy games of baccarat. Turning another page you will discover the view looking south through the conservatory filled with rare exotic plants and orchids. Another page shows the _salon_, rich in carved ivory and _cloisonne_ and _art nouveau_, none of which Mimi knew anything about except that they were expensive and that many of them accompanied the bonbons. Then the dainty boudoir is depicted, paneled in teakwood and lapis-lazuli. Finally her superb jewels are illustrated: priceless strings of pearls; rings of weighty emeralds and pigeon-blood rubies; a gold toilet-set studded with sapphires; and something to adorn Mimi’s neck, composed mostly of diamonds, with a miniature automobile in rubies, pendent from a display of jeweled fruits upheld by two caryatids in diamonds and emeralds. Besides all these, are three ruby collars that Mignon as yet had never worn.

Drawing by Perinet

MIMI QUESTIONS THE BARON]

With the publication of this _catalogue de luxe_, rumors reach the ears of the public of the lady’s dire distress, and the pathetic side of this forced sale will be dwelt upon. At the private view her residence is crowded with the curious of the _grand monde_. These women of the most exclusive society cross her threshold and block her stairway and pry into every open corner of her domicile—women who would have been shocked to find themselves in front of her doorstep at any other time. So much for the moral hypocrisy of the virtuous.

And while the stairways at this private view are thronged with the fashionable world, Mimi and her most intimate friends are laughing over champagne and biscuits in the kitchen, the only room that has not been turned over to the public.

But when a few days after the sale you learn that Mimi has stayed the cruel hand of the law by the sale of half her jewels, and sent out invitations to her nearest friends for a housewarming and a costume ball _chez elle_ Sunday night, you begin to see the advertising feature of the scheme, and realize something of the _naïveté_ of Mimi.

The opening of the first small bar in Paris managed by women happened only a score of years ago and met with a furor of popularity, the receipts reaching often three thousand francs a day. Since then the number of bars has grown yearly until now many of them are constantly on a point of failure owing to the increase of competition.

Most of them have become the idling resorts of habitués of the new and old _jeunesse_ with small fortunes, who spend hours therein chatting with the Mimis and Claras who chance to drop in daily.

The best class of our bars would never become popular with the average Parisian, for the reason that there are no Mimis or Claras in them to talk to. The Parisian demands that at least a certain part of his day should be spent in the society of women, and it has been the habit of his life to have them about him as much as possible. The hours he is forced to spend at his _bureau_ or in the Bourse he considers only as a necessary means to the pleasures of his leisure.

In these bars it has become a general custom to serve a table d’hôte dinner at eight to the habitués and to any stranger who may feel himself sufficiently at home to stay.

These small public dinner parties are amusing. As a rule the menu is plain and excellent and the guests agreeable.

Just such a place is the new bar in the rue Duphot, a somewhat pretentious little room smartly appointed and crowded nightly. Another is in a corner opposite the Madeleine, its narrow interior dazzling at night in a profusion of yellow brocade and electricity. Such bars as these are of the newer class, but there are others far more attractive in their simplicity, such as the one in the rue du Helder and in the rue Taitbout and the old London bar in the rue Lysly, and others in the rue St. Honoré and in the rue Louis-le-Grand, yet in none of these has the character remained unchanged, for some of them have had a dozen new proprietors in the last five years.

A most excellent establishment is Henry’s bar in the rue Volnay, the most American in its type existing in Paris. It is patronized by old and young from the incoming steamers. If you wish to shut out Paris from your mind, drop in at Henry’s any afternoon at five; it is precisely as tho you had been magically transported back to the Hoffman House.

You will hear Southern colonels there still harping on the war, and shrewd politicians from up York State telling personal anecdotes of Mr. Platt, you will find well-groomed men dropping in for a friendly cocktail before dinner, and you will learn all about the fall business in ladies’ “plain velours,” the button trust, the latest details of the corner on babies’ caps, and how Max Dindlehoofer held up Poughkeepsie with a new brand of _champagne brut_—but all this is not Parisian and we may dismiss it.

The annual invasion of foreigners supports the big hotels and the shops of the rue de la Paix and the adjacent neighborhood, but the foreigner makes little impression upon the average Parisian, who regards the coming of the “_étranger_” as a small incident in the life of his beloved city. He passes him unconsciously as one passes the corner of his street.

“They come and go and we are not conscious of them,” said a Parisian to me. “Besides,” he added, “there are tens of thousands of Parisians whose daily life is confined to the _quartiers_ in which they live—big sections of the city where the foreigner seldom finds himself.”

If you wish to see every type of Parisian go by in an endless stream of swarming humanity, seat yourself upon any of the _terrasses_ of the grand cafés that line the sides of the grand Boulevards stretching from the Madeleine to the Théâtre du Gymnase. It is of all Paris the most frequented—the broad highway of this vast city into which pour the inhabitants of thousands of connecting byways.

Its stones are worn by the tramp and scuffle of countless thousands pausing to gaze at the crowded _terrasses_ or to stop for an _apéritif_. The system with which these popular _terrasses_ are managed by the generals and their lieutenants in charge of an army of hurrying waiters is perfect. These head-waiters in command of the sidewalk portion of these establishments will note your arrival and departure with the quickness with which a telephone operator detects the dropping of one of a thousand numbers on a central switchboard. During the rush you can spend hours over a six sous _bock_, but when you leave, your table will be filled before you have mingled with the passing stream of humanity in front.

The types composing this multitude are as varied as the ever-changing pattern in a kaleidoscope. Every step you take brings you past a dozen individuals each one different from the other. Turn quickly, and count them if you can. The last moment has brought you by a motley score of merchants, a _cocotte_, an Arab sheik, a ragpicker, a lady, a Japanese, a _boulevardier_, a simple soldier, an _officier_, two gamins, and a pretty girl with a bundle. As you turn, a _camelot_, running in a pair of dirty canvas slippers, screams the latest edition of “La Patrie” in your ears, and a man in a top hat begs your pardon for having jostled you in the ribs. There is no time for formalities—he disappears in the stream and you are borne on with the tide to the corner. Taking advantage of a second’s halt of the passing cabs, you dodge over to the opposite curb and into another section of the multitude. The crossing which you have just left behind is noisy with the snapping of whips and swearing _cochers_. In many of these carriages one catches a glimpse of fair women. In a passing cab a _blanchisseuse_ and her sweetheart are enjoying a chance drive, with madame’s tardy wash deposited in a huge basket beside the good-natured _cocher_. Old women pushing small carts cry their wares: “_Les belles pêches, voilà les belles pêches, dix sous la livre!_”

Three long-haired students go whistling by. In the midst of the throng you hear bits of conversation:

“Listen!” says a pretty woman radiant over some news to her companion—but they are gone.

Two more go by furious. “It was he then who lied!” cries one to the other—but the crowd swallows them up.

Sentences from strange languages reach your ears in the throng, scraps of Turkish, the guttural of some passing savage, now the cold drawl of an Englishman, again the soft lisp from a Spanish signorita.

“Say, Bill, you’d orter seen Charley, they didn’t do a thing to him, I told Lil, says I ...” and two fellow-citizens stride on.

At the corner, jostled by the human tide, two _chic demoiselles_ fresh from a rehearsal at a nearby theater pass, laughing over some recent adventure. The next instant they are climbing to the top of an omnibus and are rattling away toward La Villette.

At night this great highway is ablaze with lights and the swarm still passes, augmented by the masses who have poured from the shops. By eight the restaurants and theaters are full to overflowing, but there is no diminution in the stream of passers-by along the boulevards. The only hours when the life there seems slack is when the masses are at work or in bed. There are no people who enjoy their city more than do Parisians, or who use its thoroughfares so much as a place of pleasure.

The cafés along the boulevards are frequented by a vast _clientèle_ of men and women of every clime and occupation. These cafés are favorite places for rendezvous. In one of them a man glances from time to time to his watch over his paper as he awaits his friend. At the next table a blonde with steel-gray eyes awaits someone, she does not know whom. But there is no hurry in either case.

Parisians never rush. They do not say, “Meet me at three thirty-five,” as we do. “Good, it is understood, my friend,” the Parisian will say as he bids you good-bye; “I shall look for you then for the _apéritif_ at Pousset’s.” You must not remind him of his tardiness if he does not arrive until half past six, or be surprised if you see him patiently waiting for you at three. They do things that way in France.

Drawing by F. Berkeley Smith

IN THE BAR DU HELDER]

From Christmas to New Year’s the boulevards become still more picturesque. Hundreds of booths are erected along the entire route. At night gasoline lamps flare from the stands of fakirs and venders of toys and cheap novelties who cry their wares. For ten sous you can buy “The Last Sigh of Madame Humbert.”

There are endless mechanical toys for children, and the latest inventions for the household, the inevitable lamp-burner so economical that it actually puts a dividend in your bank if used long enough.

There are to be had for a few sous marvelous potato-peelers which turn with one twist of the wrist the most modest _cuisinière_ into a _cordon bleu_. And lightning eradicators for bachelors’ grease-spots, altho many of the benedicts who came to buy needed a stronger mixture than was contained in the neat package with instructions, to render themselves immaculate.

“_Allons! allons! mesdames et messieurs_,” shouts a man in a wig and a silk hat. “With my wonderful invention the misery of old age vanishes. It is a veritable fountain of youth! With it the old become young and youth stays off advancing years! I not only sell it but I give you free the receipt, and all for the price of ten sous.” And the fakir runs his fingers through his wig and throws back the lapels of his shining frock-coat stained green by years of inclement weather.

And there is still another, the gentleman fakir, robust and faultlessly dressed, who is an expert in drawing a crowd, accenting words of promises that stay the feet of those hurrying in front of his flaring lamps. He shows the glittering contents of the box he offers complete for a franc. Pandora would have thrown her own away in the ash heap had she seen half its tempting contents. “_Mesdames et messieurs_, I would have to lie if I told you that ever before was such an offer made to the public, and, as you may be justly inquisitive as to how it is possible to give all this for the small sum of one franc, let me tell you that it is for an advertisement only that I make this stupendous offer—for the night only, and nowhere else and at no other time will you get such an opportunity. Now, _mesdames et messieurs_, follow me closely; for one franc I give this watch, a superb present by itself; with the watch, this chain and cross, bound to please any young lady; with the chain and cross, this silver bracelet that will fit any arm; with the bracelet, this exquisite pocket-book, also in silver, lined with silk; with the purse, a handsome set of studs for a gentleman. Who would not be proud to own such as these?” And he placed his fat hand over his heart. “And, finally, with all this,” he bellowed on, “a miniature brooch. Now, _mesdames et messieurs_, see for yourselves. Step up, step up!” And the fakir pushed back his silk hat on the back of his head, wiped his perspiring forehead, dived in a little red trunk studded with brass nails, and took out a dozen boxes to satisfy the outstretched hands. He had the crowd going and he knew it.

At a distance of ten feet, under the glare of the light and handled cleverly, the display of gorgeous trinkets might have come from the Rue de la Paix. His audience became enthusiastic. The hypnotist in the shining tile rattled on, and, while his hands were making change and producing from the two small brass coffers the packages of treasures, his eyes searched for those about to weaken. The francs poured in, and I recalled the words of Mr. Barnum: “The public the world over likes to be fooled.”

On fête days and holidays the Boulevard Sébastopol is swarming with an ever-moving mass of humanity. It is one continuous bargain counter from the Place du Châtelet to the Grand Boulevard. Here the bazaars and dry-goods and provision stores do most of their trade on the sidewalk. The fronts of some are festooned with whole cartloads of pheasants, rabbits and hares, and with dozens of deer and wild boar strung up at a bargain. There are other façades ornamented with cheap clothes of the “nobby suits for gents’ order,” and hardware bazaars and cut-rate sales on roasted coffee, boots, shoes and cheap silk petticoats.

The cafés along the boulevard are for the most part dingy and unpretentious, but they suffice as resting-places to many from the passing stream of humanity. Women without hats, with their market baskets; the pretty daughters of _concierges_ out for a day’s bargaining; hundreds of the wretchedly poor; families of country _bourgeois_; the tough with his middle swathed in a red scarf and his black hair reversed in greasy wisps slicked over his ears, his mate a girl in a red jacket, with a bit of ribbon serving as a collar, her black hair twisted on the top of her head and shining in pomade. This pair hurry along together, he with the easy gait of a thief, she with her red hands in her pockets, her feet in low-heeled slippers buttoned with a strap, treads on by his side, her eyes scanning the pavement. He has promised to give her a new pair of slippers with high red heels. To-night she will be a queen at the ball of the “Boule Rouge,” coveted by other thieves. Farther along a crowd is struggling to take advantage of a cut-price in chickens, and a fat _commerçant_ with a red face squeezes his way out holding a pair of bargain broilers. It is a boulevard of the people, a rendezvous for the thrifty and the hard-working, the thoroughfare of the outcast and the unfortunate. It is sordid, but it is intensely human. It is this distinct character of Parisian thoroughfares, each one differing from its neighbor, which makes the highways and byways of the city so interesting to those who delight in walking abroad with their eyes open.

There is not a street one turns down but which is unique in itself. In the shops along the “Rue de la Paix” the art of satisfying the demands of vanity and the whims of the luxurious has been brought to perfection. The Rue de la Paix is looking its prettiest at noon, the hour when all the little _ouvrières_ and _modèles_ from the smart dressmaking and millinery establishments pour out for their luncheon, happy as school-girls during recess.

If it happens to be a sunny noon with the blue sky as a setting to the gilded balconies brilliant in roses, geraniums and trailing ivy, you will see the street below alive with these merry little women, each one vying with the other in the neatness of her coiffure and the _chic_ of her simple black frock and _fourreau_. They promenade chatting, joking and gossiping, without their hats, for no little _ouvrière_ ever thinks of wearing one until her day’s work is over.

With the exception of the working classes, the average Parisienne is not beautiful. It is her chicness, her vivacity, and her innate knowledge of the artificial which makes her attractive, for not all the actresses in Paris are in the theaters.

In stormy weather you may go to the arcades. These covered _passages_, which have existed through so many Parisian epochs, are honeycombed with shops full of novelties. Such are the Passage de l’Opéra, the Passage des Panoramas and the Passage Choiseul. How many hearts of French children have palpitated as they were dragged through the Passage Jouffroy, containing the very workshop of Santa Claus himself! It is a paradise of things that squeak and wind up; rattling railroad trains which swing around tin curves and under painted tunnels with a rapidity sufficient to suffocate the helpless toy passengers within; toys for poor little good children and rich little spoiled ones, dolls whose deportment is faultless and whose vocabulary is limited to “papa” and “maman” and those who can not say a word, but whose clothes, from the tiny hat to their walking-boots, with an accompanying trousseau containing a summer and winter automobile coat, goggles and all, might have been fashioned by a Worth. Not even in the public squares are the soldiers of France more immortalized than in the Passage Jouffroy. There are whole forts full of Germans ready to be blown to smithereens by the gallant advancing force of _Les Français_, and formidable cannons mounted on sanded ramparts with pill boxes containing enough ammunition for the most glorious of victories, to say nothing of the gorgeous _pièce de résistance_, the satin pantalooned _balanceur_ with violet eyes that close like an owl’s, who accomplishes the most difficult gymnastics by little fits and starts to the accompaniment in liquid tones of a music-box tearing through the overture of William Tell in waltz time.

There are also tens of thousands of people who come to gaze at the shops and the passing throng, to whom it is a treat to pass an evening among the throng and lights, and to whom from childhood the mere fact of a promenade has been accepted as a pleasure. You can see them with their wives and children, for Paris counts an endless number of these _petits ménages_ where money is scant, work ill paid, and where the habit of the most rigid economy is practised from one year’s end to the other. There is next to no allowance in the budget for pleasure, and the glamour of the street, the ever changing interest of the shop windows, and the warmth and comfort of the cafés, are the only recreations within their means.

Christmas eve is celebrated in every café and _brasserie_ by a “_réveillon_,” and for days tables are taken in advance for this gay celebration. Supper is served at midnight and the champagne flows on until broad daylight, and by 2:00 A.M. the cafés are in an uproar of jollity. Their interiors present a brilliant sight, and the informality and good nature of a _bal masqué_ reign supreme until the light of dawn creeps through the windows. So great is the crowd at many of the _réveillons_ that the entrance doors are forced to be closed at midnight. At the Taverne Royale, at Pousset’s, at the Café de Paris and dozens of other places equally celebrated, there is no gayer sight to be seen throughout a Parisian year.

On New Year’s Eve all Paris is merry.

New Year’s is of more importance to the French than Christmas and is made much of. It is the custom to send bonbons and flowers to one’s friends, and to acquaintances cards _ad libitum_.

In the booths the “ready-while-you-wait” printers do a thriving trade, and the stores for bonbons are open until long past midnight. The stroke of twelve announcing the new year is a signal for all of Paris to embrace. In the cafés along the thronged boulevards and in the public balls you will see the general custom carried out with considerable zest.

High up in Montmartre at the ball of the Moulin de la Galette on the last night of the year, at the approach of midnight the roll of a drum announced the hour, and Father Time with his scythe appeared in the orchestra gallery and melodramatically waved good-by to the old year. Twelve! pealed out the bells, and a great cheer rose from the dancers. Father Time became a youth bearing a placard 1903, and a thousand dancing couples stopped to embrace and wish each other “_une bonne année_.” Simultaneously the orchestra crashed into a lively _galop_, glasses were drained, fresh corks popped from fizzing bottles amid cheers and screams. Everyone was happy, and perhaps a few turned over a new leaf.

Chapter Five

MONTMARTRE

“Mesdames et Messieurs,” announced the genial major-domo of the cabaret. “I have the honor to present to you our sympathetic comrade Mademoiselle Marcelle Tournon in her répertoire.” He bowed low to a pretty dark-haired woman advancing through the crowded aisle, and, extending his hand, led her ceremoniously to the platform in front of the piano.

“Come, friends,” cried the director, his ruddy face beaming with enthusiasm, “a _double-ban_ of applause for our distinguish artiste.”

Simultaneously there rose a cheer from the roomful of bohemians followed by a double round of handclapping in appreciative greeting. Then, settling themselves beneath the rifts of pipe and cigarette smoke, they remained quiet to listen to the singer. Marcelle smiled graciously in recognition. The owl-like accompanist ran a light _arpeggio_ over the keys, and the singer, raising her music, poured forth her mellow voice in “Pierrot.” “Poor Pierrot, you could not give a necklace to Columbine,” sang Marcelle, “and so she left you. Columbine, grown vain and selfish, leaves you to shiver and think in your garret. The strings of your lute are broken, the tunes will not come any more, and your poor heart is aching from a cruel little crack clear across it that never, never, can be mended.

“Columbine fluttered like a butterfly out to the glitter of the world. Thorns scratched her in the garden as she hurried on, and beyond the wall of their paradise she found the world, but it was not at all like the world of her dreams. The rain faded her pretty dress, and hunger shriveled her delicate body; meanwhile the multitude rushed by her unheeding.

“Poor Pierrot! How she craved the sound of his voice now, his trustful eyes, the cool touch of his white cheeks! How merry were the tunes he strummed for her!

“She crawled back as best she could to what was once their paradise; she found herself at last at the gate, and, swallowing her pride, pulled the latch and entered the garden.

“The place was silent. The flowers drooped their heads; not even her old friends the roses nodded to her as she flew on up the path to the house. Here she paused to listen again. A bat squeaked in the eaves over her head, and in terror she pushed open the door and climbed the rickety stairs.

“‘Pierrot! Pierrot!’ she cried, and in the garret she found her Pierrot huddled upon a bed of straw, his poor white face turned towards the wall. Columbine called to him, feebly first, then in a frenzy, but he did not speak. A string of the lute snapped in the silence and Columbine sank down in a little heap, and cried, and cried, and cried. And they say that days afterwards the birds found them and covered them with leaves.”

The song was ended and Marcelle, amid a thunderous applause, joined a group of singers awaiting their turn.

As nightly my pipe added to the hazy atmosphere of the cabaret, I came to know Marcelle better. She was a woman of thirty, beautiful when she sang, fascinating when she smiled, but in repose her clean-cut features were saddened with the hardships of a bohemian life which had been not only a wearing struggle for recognition, but even one for existence. She often spoke of her present country home, of her garden, and how busy she was with it all in the hours in which she was free from the cafés-concerts and the cabarets. I thought I could discover upon a closer glance a tinge of sunburn in her complexion, and her hands looked like those of a woman who spent much of her life digging in her garden.

“You must come and see my garden,” she said one night, “it is on the summit of Montmartre, on the very top of the Butte. Ah! you should see the view from there! All Paris lies below. It is not like a city up there at all as you shall see; it is quite like a little country village. Come! I will show you how to find it,” and, taking a scrap of paper from her music roll, she drew me a plan, a zig-zag route up the Butte which, she assured me if I carefully followed it, would lead me in due time to her tiny villa.

“I call it the Villa Polichinelle,” she said. “That is a good name, is it not! It is only a little joke of a house any way. It is the last one as you turn down the lane and go through the orchard. The others are all occupied, so you see I have neighbors. Madame Franelli, a danseuse at the Opéra and her two daughters, live in the first house. Thérèse, the youngest, took a prize at the Conservatoire. She is very beautiful; you may remember her at the Châtelet, a slight blonde, exquisitely made. It is in her blood to dance well; her mother was once a great dancer but is almost an invalid now and rarely goes on.

“In the second lives a poet of Montmartre; the third is occupied by a famous old clown; a painter has the fourth; and Duflos, the comedian, the fifth. You see we are quite a colony of _artists_ together. We call it ‘our village,’ and have elected Duflos as Mayor and Monsieur Dallet, the clown, as chief of police. Dear old Monsieur Dallet, he would not hurt a fly, his heart is so big!

“Come Sunday morning. I will show you my tulips and we can breakfast in the garden.”

And Marcelle rolled up her music and hurried away to sing at another cabaret.

I folded the all important plan with its scraggly route carefully in my portfolio.

Sunday dawned clear and sparkling in sunshine, so to the garden I started. Leaving my cab at the place Blanche, I began my ascent of the Butte by way of the steep rue Lepic, pausing for breath under the ancient windmill of the Moulin de la Galette.

Up! up! up! out of Paris, for the city now lay shimmering in a haze of sunshine below. The spires of Notre-Dame and the massive roof of the Opéra jutted from a sea of streets and buildings. And so I kept on up the Butte, past a cobbler who kept a cow. I was crawling now like a fly over the bald cranium beneath which, as all good _Montmartrois_ will tell you, lie the brains of Paris.

I turned up quaint streets, many of them lined with two-story houses of ancient pattern, which leaned for support upon their sturdier neighbors, who in turn rely upon great beams shored against their crumbling backs. I sat down by the roadside to re-study my plan. “To the left,” it said, and I kept on. A flock of geese waddled indignantly ahead of me and, crossing the road, disappeared under a fence. Nearby some chickens scratched and pecked away in front of a doorway whose threshold was worn and polished by the passing feet of a hundred years. I peeped through high fences behind which lay orchards and wild gardens grown picturesque from neglect, and farther on I passed an ancient burial-ground.

Here the narrow streets were unpaved and at night gloomily lighted by an occasional oil lantern, friendly safeguards to the wayfarer obliged to turn these corners after dark.

I confess I was grateful for the sunlight, as I imagined how this strange quarter would look at night, and recalled to mind that the notorious Cabaret of the Assassins lay upon an isolated ledge of the Butte but a stone’s throw away.

Finally, at the end of a lane I came to a gate, and, entering, found my way through a tangled orchard leading to a small settlement of frame houses fronting on a winding path. I looked about for the inevitable _concierge_, to whom to disclose my identity and ask permission to enter this bohemian community, when, with a growl, an ugly-looking dog rushed to the end of his chain and, with his scrubby neck bristling, stood eyeing me viciously. Over his kennel was printed in blue letters “_Concierge_,” evidently the work of Marcelle’s neighbor, the “clown,” I thought. Measuring the length of the brute’s chain and the circle it would describe, if swung in my direction, I shied by him and kept on my way. At the narrowest part of the path I found another sign: “Room for three automobiles only.” Over the door of the smallest house I read: “Château of the Duke and Duchess of Montmartre.” I passed the poet’s house, a little box of a place, half smothered in a tangled garden. He had decorated his modest façade with the verses of Villon and Verlaine; a satyr in stone rose from a labyrinth of flowers, and nearby a marble nymph, bathing in a miniature pool, peered laughingly from her hiding-place at the immovable satyr. Art was far more cheaply to be had there than three meals a day.

The pathway now ran through a short thicket. Beyond it lay the crest of the lane, an expanse of blue sky, and, nestling in the prettiest of tiny gardens, the “Villa Polichinelle.”

Marcelle, who had been watching me find my way, now called to me from an upper window, and came down to greet me in a sunbonnet and a calico wrapper.

“I am so glad you have come,” she said, cheerily. “And did the plan work well?” she added, with a laugh.

“Perfectly,” I replied. “Only you did not put in the dog.”

“Ah! Cerbère—yes, I know. He growled at you because you were a stranger. He is not a bad old fellow, tho, when you know him; you see he seems to feel responsible for us.”

I could not help shivering at the thought that Marcelle came home long after midnight, often alone, through rain, snow and slush, passing, to get to this mountain retreat, through one of the worst quarters of Paris, inhabited for the most part by gentlemen and their consorts whose records are as black as the ace of spades.

“Now,” said my hostess, “you must see all of my modest kingdom. First my garden, then my family, and then my house.”

“Good,” said I, “the garden shall come first.”

“Ah! I am glad you love flowers,” cried Marcelle, growing enthusiastic as I complimented her upon the beauty of her roses. She threw aside her sunbonnet and led me triumphantly to a bed of red and yellow tulips, which was edged by a row of box skirting the neatly-raked gravel path, so characteristic of French gardens.

“I planted them all myself,” said Marcelle, “except this last row, which the poet helped me to do. You see they are jumbled—as I told him, like some of his verses. He is a symbolist, you know. Nothing the poet writes can one ever understand. But he says we all will do so some day—that the cheap realism of the present will soon sink into oblivion and be forgotten.”

There were beds of _giroflees_, masses of pinks, odd corners of velvety pansies, and bower-like arbors covered with Jacqueminot roses. We descended some stepping-stones to a smaller lower garden and entered a thatched kiosk lined with turkey red, upon which were hung bas-reliefs and pen-and-ink drawings, souvenirs from those who loved the good-fellowship of this Arcadian nook.

And now Juliette, Marcelle’s bonne, her sleeves rolled over the elbows of her plump arms, came to the kiosk with vermouth and cigarettes. Following her, a green parrot pigeontoed his way down the gravel walk, muttering to himself a jumble of phrases.

“Come, my good Jacquot!” called Marcelle to the parrot. “Jacquot is one of my family; you shall see the others: my cat, my big Frou-Frou, and her pretty kittens, and the pigeons, and all the rest of the ménagerie after _déjeuner_.”

Jacquot climbed to the table and bent his beak to his breast. While Marcelle rubbed the pinfeathers of his green neck, he clucked and sang to himself in delight. Then he shook himself, dilated the pupils of his yellow eyes as he took a careful look at me, and, having satisfied himself as to my character, pigeontoed his way slowly to my shoulder. He sang quite clearly a song that Marcelle had taught him:

“_J’ai du bon tabac dans ma tabatière,
J’ai du bon tabac, tu n’en auras pas._”

Half an hour later Juliette laid the table in the kiosk for breakfast, with two extra places set for the clown and the poet, who both came late, with endless apologies to Marcelle for their tardiness.

“There had been an extra rehearsal at the Nouveau Cirque,” explained the merry old fun-maker, and he mopped his brow, perspiring from his quick walk up the Butte. Marcelle straightway forgave him, and further cheered him with an affectionate pat on the top of his shining bald pate as he slid into his chair. As he unfolded his napkin there tumbled into his lap a _boutonnière_ of mignonette, which our hostess had thoughtfully hidden for her old comrade. He had been her counselor and friend, often sharing with her the little he had during her days of penury, for Marcelle’s life, as I have said, had been from babyhood a struggle for existence. She was a flower that had fought its way to the sunshine from between the stones of Paris.

Photo by F. Berkeley Smith

CHRISTIANE MENDELYES AS ROSALIE]

“And you, my big rabbit!” cried Marcelle, addressing the poet with the air of a judge; “what have you to say for yourself in apology for being late?” The poet sighed, ran his fingers through his long hair, hung his black hat upon a convenient peg, and, drawing up his chair, replied, wearily: “Would that I might join Sylvia and her nymphs and drink and be merry by the moon and not by the hour!”

“_Flûte!_” replied Marcelle. “Don’t you suppose they had the best of regular appetites in those days and quarreled if the soup was late? _Allons, mangez, mes enfants_, and be grateful that the sun shines and we have enough for to-day.”

After _déjeuner_ the clown and the poet played shuttlecock and quoits in the garden. The poet met ignominious defeat, for the aged gentleman, whose life had been spent on the sawdust, was a dead shot with a quoit and as agile as a weasel. Later we all went into the villa for a song, the clown playing Marcelle’s accompaniments upon a melodeon. Some of its keys emitted cries of distress, and this furnished the clown with an impromptu pantomime that sent Marcelle into screams of laughter. So the afternoon passed with songs, Madeira and cigarettes.

If the garden was interesting, the interior of the little villa was none the less so, for it was a miniature museum of souvenirs.

The walls of the small salon were covered with pastels. There were original drawings and bas-reliefs by celebrated men. Pen-and-ink sketches, caricatures, charcoals and oils, each one bearing a little message of regard and friendship to Marcelle, lined the walls of the narrow stairs leading to the dainty boudoir.

Even the kitchen, shining in its well-polished battery of copper saucepans, held its art treasures.

It was nearly dusk when the poet and I took our leave of our charming hostess and the “Villa Polichinelle.”

The clown had been obliged to hurry away earlier to attend some affairs preliminary to the night’s performance.

As the poet and I descended the Butte together, all Paris lay spread out in the evening glow below us.

It lay like a vast gray sea sparkling and phosphorescent with tens of thousands of lights. Far below, away in the twilight, jutted the spires of Notre-Dame; to the right rose the Opéra, square and massive like a tomb.

I thought of Marcelle’s paradise perched in the pure air above the reek and filth that hung like a miasma about the base of the Butte, and what it meant to her as a refuge from the smoke and stifling air of cabarets and cafés-concert.

We kept on through the alleys of streets, zig-zagging our way down the Butte, and turned the corner of the Cabaret des Assassins. A kerosene lamp burned in the greasy kitchen, from the door of which a hag of a woman appeared and screeched at us as we passed:

“_Bonsoir!_”

It was in midwinter one misty morning in January when I revisited the primitive village upon the summit of Montmartre. This time I chose for my trail a back street which led me up to the ancient Cabaret of the Assassins, now known under the name of the Lapin Agil. The cabaret, a squat, sordid two-story structure, stands upon a solitary corner of the Butte, forming an angle with the rue Saint Vincent and the rue des Saules. Overlooking Paris below, a back window glared in the light of the chill morning from beneath an overhanging eave, like the eye of a murderer in hiding. The place as I entered was silent and deserted except for the individuals who kept it.

Photo by F. Berkeley Smith

A MISTY MORNING IN THE RUE DES SAULES]

A girl of fifteen addressed me in a timid voice as I entered the low-ceiled _buvette_ adjoining the cabaret. She wore a massive marriage ring. She seemed somewhat frightened and suspicious, as tho I were a government detective armed with a warrant.

We spoke of the weather.

She directed me to a bench in the deserted cabaret, stale with the odor of the night before, and brought me a short glass with a thick bottom. Into this she poured a draft of syrupy vermouth and apologized for the absence of her mother, the _patronne_, who had not yet returned from market.

Not many came by there in the morning, she ventured, but at night it was gay, the cabaret was then crowded she informed me, and leaving me with my _apéritif_ she disappeared through the door leading to the _buvette_.

Upon the walls of the cabaret hung cartoons and crude sketches left in later years by bohemian habitués who made the place their rendezvous.

In a corner stood a piano, its keys yellow with age like the teeth of a horse.

Photo by F. Berkeley Smith

THE CABARET OF THE ASSASSINS]

Madame the _patronne_, a slatternly looking woman in a calico wrapper, returns from marketing with two mackerel which she had bargained for from a push-cart in the street below. She led me through a box of a kitchen and showed me a small yard in the rear littered with debris. This she informed me was used as a summer garden in season. She seemed to pride herself upon its attractiveness. I passed an open door of a back room and caught a glimpse of a man leaning over a table, drunk, and unshaven for days. He looked up at me maliciously as I past; then I heard him muttering and swearing in his _argot_ at the girl with the rolled-gold ring.

From the _patronne_ I learned that the cabaret had gone through many changes. It was evident, however, that the general atmosphere had remained the same. It looked all that its title of the Assassins implied. The muddy streets leading to it were unpaved and lighted still by an oil lantern at the corner of the rue St. Vincent, a sinister looking lane flanked by ancient buttressed walls, which kept from sliding into the crooked roadbed old tangled gardens and scattered derelicts of houses.

Photo by F. Berkeley Smith

INTERIOR OF THE CABARET OF THE ASSASSINS]

The rue Tholozé, snaking its way up from the rue Lepic to the ball of the Moulin de la Galette, is purely a hill street. Its gutters are flushed with clear water which flows in miniature torrents. Horses never climb the rue Tholozé, and pedestrians going up to the ball pause at the landing stages for breath. Those living along this mountain highway must needs step out of their residences with their sea legs on, for the declivity which slopes past their doorways resembles somewhat the angle of a promenade deck in a gale. The hill begins to ascend in earnest after you pass the dingy little bohemian restaurant of the Vache Enragée on the rue Lepic, an _intime_ rendezvous of bohemians of the Butte.

With the renovation and reorganization of the “Moulin de la Galette” the famous ball held for so many generations in the granary under the ancient windmill took a change for the better.

Prior to this the ball bore an unsavory reputation. It was the scene of continual fights and the rendezvous for every villainous _rapin_ of Montmartre and their equally vicious female companions, the _gigolettes_ and _mômes_ of the Butte.

Photo by F. Berkeley Smith

EARLY MORNING—THE MOULIN DE LA GALETTE]

To-day the spacious ballroom is remodeled and redecorated with green lattice and crystal chandeliers in the style of the ballroom of the old _fête champêtre_. The orchestra is the best of its kind in Paris. The floor is kept in perfect condition and all Montmartre goes to the “Galette” to dance and be merry. Models, _grisettes_, _cocottes_, shop-girls, students and clerks, painters and musicians, sculptors and poets, meet and mingle. While its clientèle is drawn from all Paris, the majority of it is _Montmartrois_.

Adjoining the ballroom is a quaint summer garden.

A flight of wooden steps leads from the garden to the table-like rock above, crowned by the ancient windmill bearing the date 1256.

I entered the Galette one crisp morning by way of the lane in the rear and through the door of the _buvette_. Sleepy waiters were scrubbing and polishing after the ball of the night. The tiled floor of the _buvette_ was as spotless as soap and water could make it. Some coffee steamed cheerily on the stove, and the pots and pans hanging above it shone invitingly. In the ballroom a garçon was rewaxing the floor; through the skylight streamed the morning sun, shining prismatically through the crystals of the chandeliers. I went out into the garden and climbed the stairs leading to the old mill.

It stood gaunt and black against the sky, outstretching its skeleton arms. Its body was warped and weather-beaten. It seemed to have died in its shell like some mammoth scorpion.

From a Poster

THE MOULIN ROUGE]

What a “_vie de Bohème_” it has seen in its lifetime!

It has been danced around by _grisettes_ and students in the moonlights and daylights of ages past, and has served faithfully as a refuge and fortress during the horrors of the siege of ’71. Beside it still glow the lights of this famous old ball up to which climb nightly a merry pilgrimage of the great-grandchildren of Bohemia.

Some months ago what is probably the most noted of bohemian resorts, the Moulin Rouge, closed its doors—the famous Red Mill had come to an end, and Paris mourned its death in caricature. For months its façade was barricaded with scaffolds, and rumor was current that the old hall was to be transformed into a music-hall.