WHEN an enlightened public sentiment drove the pirates from the high seas, and compelled them to seek other methods of supplying themselves with means for the enjoyment of luxury, I am convinced that every one of them came to Europe, and went into the hotel business. A few of them might have got hotels in America, but the vast majority came here. I did come across one at the Gorge de Triente, in Switzerland, who might not have been a pirate, or, if he was, he was either a mild one, or, being now very old, is endeavoring to patch up his old body for heaven. I am inclined to the belief that he was a pirate, but not of the sentimental order who shed human gore for the love of it; that when his schooner, the “Mary Jane,” captured a prize, he only killed such of her crew as were necessary, in the action, and after the vessel had surrendered he did not make the survivors walk the plank for the amusement of his men, but mercifully set them adrift in an open boat, without water or provisions. That’s the kind of pirate he was. And since he has been a landlord, he does not take every dollar you have—he leaves you enough to get to the next bank, where your letter of credit is available. I shall always remember this landlord. He is an ornament to his sex. But the first hotel we encountered in Paris had for a landlord one who must have commanded the long, low, black schooner, “The Terror of the Seas,” who never spared a prisoner, or gave quarter to anybody, but who hove overboard for the sharks every human being he captured, without reference to age, sex, or previous condition of servitude. Indeed, I think that after he was driven from the seas, he took a shy at “Ze room will be ten francs, messieurs,” was the remark of the polite villain who showed us our apartments. “We, we,” we cheerfully replied, for the room was worth it. We said “we, we,” that the gentleman might know that we understood French, and that he need not unnecessarily strand himself upon the rocks of the English language. But the next morning! The bill was made out, and as we glanced at it we forgave the English landlords—every one of them. Apartment ten francs, candles, or “bougies,” as the barbarous French call them, two and one-half francs; attendance (we had not seen a servant), two and a half francs each, five francs. Then there were charges for liquors enough for Bloss, the American showman, not a particle of which had been ordered or had been brought to our room, and so on. We expostulated, but when we commenced that, the clerk began to talk in French, and as all the French we had between us was “we, we,” he had rather the advantage. In reply to some question he appeared to be asking, we said, “we, we,” whereupon he dropped back into English promptly, and said that inasmuch as we admitted that the bill was right, why didn’t we pay it? That “we, we” was our ruin. “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing; Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring.” Were we over with it? By no means. As we were ready to file down the stairs there came to our various rooms more porters than we ever supposed lived, each of whom seized a piece of baggage, when one might well have carried it all. We discovered, finally, what that meant. Those who did not carry baggage stood grinning in the passages, with their hands extended, and those who did expected each a franc. As we had passed the concierge, who had certainly been no earthly use to us, his hand was extended, and to crown the whole and have it lack nothing, a chambermaid came running to me with a handkerchief which “Monsieur had left in his room,” and out went her hand. The brazen hussy had abstracted it from my valise, and held it till the last moment, that she might have some excuse for a gratuity. THE USES OF SPECTACLES. Tibbitts and the others shed silver freely, but the Professor did not. Entrenched behind his spectacles he did not catch the eye of one of them, and he stalked majestically through the lot, turning neither to the right nor the left till he was safely ensconced in his fiacre. That pair of spectacles saved him at least their cost that day. I shall wear them hereafter. They are good for this purpose, and then one behind this wall of glass can look another man in the eye steadily when he is enlarging on facts. Spectacles have uses beside aiding the vision. We paid everybody and everything, and departed sadly. No matter how joyously you enter a French hotel, you walk out to the music, mentally, of the Dead March in Saul. But what are you going to do about it? You cannot sleep in the streets, and you must eat, and the pirates have you in an iron grip, and they realize the strength and impregnability of their position. Paris is another octopus, differing from London only in the quality and style of its feelers. London has been built up by main strength, that being its characteristic. Paris has as many feelers as London, and they are perhaps as strong and far-reaching; but they are wrapped in velvet. It is a rather pleasant thing to be devoured by the French octopus. He does not rend you limb from limb, like the English one, but he holds you just as firmly, and sucks your life blood in so delightful a way, that you rather like the operation. Paris is the city of luxury. No matter where you go, nor among what class of people, you see but two things—a vast population catering to sensualism, and another vast population paying the price for it. The difference between London and Paris is shown even in its proprietary medicines. In London the walls groan, or would if they could, under announcements of liver medicines; in Paris the walls of corresponding conspicuousness are covered with advertisements of articles for the hair and complexion. A French woman will get on with almost any kind of a liver, but she must have hair to her heels, and a complexion that is faultless. No matter what kind of underclothing she has on, or no matter if she hasn’t any, the outside must be dressed in elegance and taste. Paris lives largely for the eye. OLD AND NEW PARIS. The city is made up of two distinct parts—the old and new. Old Paris, the Paris of Sue, and Dumas, and Victor Hugo, still exists, and its people are precisely the same as when these authors wrote of them. You leave the most splendid streets in the world, wide, and paved like floors, with enormous rows of palatial structures on either hand, as modern as modern can be, and in fifteen minutes you are in narrow, Possibly he accepts imperialism, now and then, just for the pleasure of overturning it. But the new Paris is quite another thing. All Paris was, not many years ago, like the portions of the Latin Quarter HOW THE NEW PARIS WAS MADE. But be it understood that the Baron and the Emperor did not go about this work carelessly. The Baron, whose ancestors were Israelites, had all the thrift of that remarkable race, and Napoleon was not much behind him. Whenever they decided upon tearing down the whole quarter and a score of crooked streets, and constructing a boulevard wider than the widest street in New York, they had an agent who, before the design was made public, went and purchased the entire property at the market rate. Then came the necessary legal steps for the condemnation of the property, and the payment therefor The Emperor used his share of the plunder in amusing the Parisians, but the Baron’s share is still in his family. There are Tweeds in every country, but these were greater than our great peculator. The Emperor Napoleon and Baron Haussman were just as much greater than Tweed as France is greater than the single city of New York. But then their opportunities were greater. Had Tweed had a chance he might have risen to the front rank. It is perhaps as well for Paris that it had an Emperor, and possibly it would have been better for the United States had she had a King in her earlier days. For a republic will never do toward the beautifying a city or country what an Emperor will. I helped to elect a member of Congress once, who, finding that a single door in the Capitol at Washington cost twenty thousand dollars, exclaimed against the extravagance of the country. “Why,” said he, “a good two inch pine plank door, painted white, with three coats of paint, can be had in Upper Sandusky for eight dollars, and it would do just as well as this infernal bronze thing covered all over with figures.” Had Paris been governed by a Congress, the honorable gentlemen from Normandy, and Savoy, and other out-lying districts, would never have paid for the wonderfully beautiful boulevards that make Paris the most beautiful city in the world. The old alleys were good enough for their fathers, and why not for the present generation? But the will of a single man did it, and the memory of that man is still worshiped in Paris. Dead though he be, he wields power in Paris to-day, and had not his son been so reckless in Africa, the chances are a hundred to one that he would to-day be occupying his father’s throne. New Paris is made up of beautiful wide boulevards, some of them two hundred feet wide, with sidewalks at least thirty feet wide on either side, and lined with shops and cafÉs, the shops devoted almost entirely to the sale of articles of luxury. The cafÉs are very peculiar. Paris lives, as much as possible, To an American it is a most peculiar sight. No matter where you go, in old Paris or new, it is the same, except in the grade of the people. In old Paris you see blue blouses and calico dresses at these tables, and in new Paris broadcloth and silk, but the tables are there on the sidewalk, and the people sitting by them, the same in one as in the other, and very jolly they are. DRINKING IN PARIS. Paris is the most temperate city on the globe. There is as great a quantity of liquids consumed as in London, and perhaps more, but it is a different kind. The Frenchman drinks the light wines of the country, or curious compounds of stuff that are as innocent as milk, so far as intoxication goes. He has syrups something like those the American druggist uses in his alleged soda water, and he either mixes that with pure water and makes his heart glad, Occasionally one rushes to the extreme of dissipation and stupefies himself with German lager beer, but as a rule it is either wine or these syrups. Of course there are French drunkards. The brain-annihilating absinthe obtains here, and a seductive fluid it is. It is the most innocent tasting stuff in the world, and does not affect one immediately. And so the ignorant stranger, on his first introduction to it, takes dose after dose of it, and goes home wondering why people are so mortally in dread of absinthe. In the still watches of the night he becomes convinced that he has been taking something, and the next morning he, or his friends, are entirely sure of it. For in the morning he is drunk, drunk clear through, and he generally manages to stay so for some days. Tibbitts, whose experience I am relating, said it was much cheaper than Oshkosh whisky, for one night’s sitting at absinthe lasted him a week. There is a vast quantity of absinthe consumed in Paris, but it is done quietly and in great moderation. An American or foreigner who likes it drinks it immoderately, and pays the penalty of his folly. The Frenchman knows exactly how much is safe for him, and very rarely exceeds his limit. I have seen but one drunken man in Paris, and he was either an Englishman, or an American who had been long enough in London to get spoiled. He spoke English, and from the style of his clothes I should take him for an Englishman, but there was an especial wobble in his step that proclaimed the American. I have seen the same a great many times in my beloved country. Drunkenness is impossible on these innocent liquids. The wine of the country is consumed everywhere and in large quantities, and its use by all ages and sexes is unrestricted. It is on every table for breakfast and dinner, and is everywhere the substitute for tea and coffee. Containing as it does a very small proportion of alcohol, and as that is diluted fully a half with water, it cannot be a very dangerous beverage. At all events, the French—men, women, and children,—drink WINE AND WHISKY. it in great quantities at all hours, and intoxication does not ensue. Outdoor sitting is made possible by the harmlessness of their accustomed drinks. The climate of New York is well adapted to this sort of thing, but were Broadway lined with There cannot be in city life any sight so bewilderingly gorgeous THOMPSON, OF TERRE HAUTE. You shall see shop windows filled with jewels that might well hang about the neck of royalty—indeed, so costly that only he or she who has an empire to tax can afford them—shops devoted to the sale of pipes, the price of which, some of them, go up into thousands of francs; galleries of pictures, magazines of bronzes, and all kinds and descriptions of statuary, And an enormous trade these caterers to the non-useful carry on. The whole world comes to Paris for these things, and they bring their money with them for this purpose and expect to spend it. Woe to the American, man or woman, who ventures into these shops. The shopman knows the moment he enters that the coming victim who is rushing upon his doom is an American; he knows that he has so much money to leave with him, and no matter how much knowledge he affects, that he is as ignorant of the real value of his wares as a babe unborn. What should the citizen of Terre Haute, Ind., know of the value of bronzes? Nothing, whatever. But he has just made a good speculation in pork, and he has built him a two-story house, with a Mansard roof on it, and has furnished it gorgeously with upholstered chairs, and on his floors he has laid Brussels carpets, and his wife and he are taking their first visit “abroad.” Mrs. Thompson is determined to astonish her female friends and excite their envy with some “statoos” from “Paree,” and she is going to do it. The pair look critically through the assortment. They object to the Venus of Milo, because the arms are lacking, and are surprised that an imperfect sort of second-hand work of art of that kind can’t be had at a reduced price. The price of a picture takes their breath away, and Mr. Thompson suggests that a few pairs of chromos can be had a great deal cheaper, and he thinks they will make a better show than the paintings that are shown them. Perhaps he is right, when the paintings that are shown him are critically considered. But Mrs. T. will have none of the chromo business. She will have some works of art from “Paree,” and Mr. T., fired with ambition, assents, and the “works of art” are bought and paid for at anywhere from four to ten times their value, and they retire with them grieved and yet satisfied And then Mrs. T. must have a Parisian watch, and some jewelry, and the dealer sells them to her at a very large advance over what a Parisian would pay, and when they are gone, loaded with their absurd purchases, he falls upon his knees and prays for good crops in America, and a more plentiful rush of visitors. They are his wheat fields. The difference between the English and French is admirably illustrated by two incidents somewhat similar in nature. It was our fortune to be in London on the occasion of the celebration of the Queen’s birthday, a time that is always made a general holiday by all classes. Business was suspended, and every one gave himself up to pleasure—the kind of amusement that the Londoner considers pleasure. The bands were out, the military paraded, and all the parks were filled with people in holiday attire. A HOLIDAY IN LONDON. As the afternoon wore on it became apparent that there was some agency at work aside from devotion to royalty. There was a boisterousness that savored of strong beer and still stronger gin. The crowd of men and women who thronged the Strand and Regent street, and Piccadilly, laughed and shouted, not with the merry ring of pure pleasure, but with the maudlin utterances of semi-drunkenness. In the evening there was a grand illumination of the government buildings, the clubs and the prominent business houses. The streets were thronged with people—men, women, and children—all elbowing their way along, eager to see all that was to be seen, and willing to give no one an opportunity they themselves could not enjoy. It was a motley crowd, composed of all classes. The well-dressed shopman was jostled by the ragpicker; and ragged, homeless girls, arm in arm, shoved aside the elderly matron, who had come out with her children to see the illuminations. There were all classes and conditions of people, and they raved and tore about more like escaped lunatics than the staid, sober Britons they pride themselves upon being. A walk down Pall Mall was almost worth one’s life. On this thoroughfare are located the principal clubs of London, and as they were rather brilliantly lighted with gas jets arranged in fanciful designs, the crowd flocked there to see them. The street was actually packed from curb to curb, so that locomotion was difficult. The illuminations were not on a scale grand enough to merit all this outpouring of people, this great hubbub, this drunkenness and gin-incited hilarity. For the most part the designs were simply the English coat of arms, with the letters “V. R.” on each side, the whole being done in plain gas jets. Occasionally some thriving shop-keeper, who had made a little something from the Royal family, would branch out a little more extensively, and use tiny glass shades of different colors, over his gas. But it was dreary beyond measure. The streets were dark and gloomy, the air was close, and the so-called illuminations were so very, very meager that they made the general effect only more dismal. Yet the people surged up and down the streets, hurrahing and shouting for the Queen, for the Prince of Wales, for the As it grew later, the crowds increased both in size and disorder. Notwithstanding the fact that most of the illuminations had been extinguished, the masses had had a taste, and they wanted more. They became momentarily ruder and more boisterous. As the time approached for the closing of the publics, the crowd received fresh installments of the worse class of women, and then drunken women tried to do worse than the drunken men, and they succeeded. A woman thoroughly under the influence of liquor is something simply terrible to see, and here we saw it. On that night the air rang with their ribald jokes and coarse songs, as they jostled each other in their unsteady walk. A HOLIDAY IN PARIS. This, it must be remembered, is not a scene that occurred down in Cheapside, or in the Seven Dials, or the streets down near the river. No, indeed. Pall Mall, one of the most aristocratic streets in London, Regent street, the Broadway of London, Piccadilly, the Haymarket, these were the scenes of this frightful display, and evidently nothing was thought of it. The police made no arrests, and did not seem to know that there was anything occurring that was not perfectly allowable How entirely different was the grand National fÊte of France on the 14th of July. This, too, is made a day for general rejoicing and merry-making, and the French people On the night of the 13th it was apparent that something was about to occur, for the streets, the broad, brilliantly lighted boulevards, were crowded with people, all of them full of life and animation. The great stores, with their glass fronts, were literally ablaze with lights; the gaily decorated cafÉs with their inviting tables on the broad sidewalks, were filled with people sipping wine, or coffee, and discussing with the animation and vivacity that a Frenchman only possesses, the attractions of the morrow. All along the principal boulevards electric lights were suspended high in the air, while in the Place de Concorde, and out the Champs ElysÉes, were thousands of brilliant clusters of gas jets, making the night seem day. The crowds swayed hither and thither with one impulse, to see everything, yet there was no departure from decorum. Everybody was happy. But it was the happiness that comes of a sense of pleasure, from bright and beautiful surroundings, and the knowledge that every one else is happy. There was no sign of drunkenness; there was no rowdyism; there was nothing suggestive even of offensiveness. Everybody was gay and merry. There were songs and hearty peals of laughter, but it was pure and wholesome, something that one could participate in with all his heart. THE NATIONAL FÊTE. The morning of the 14th dawned with a bright, clear sky, and the sun came up with a serenity that augured well for the fÊte. During the night, while all Paris slept, busy workmen put the finishing touches on the decorations, and when all business suspended, Paris turned out to see itself, there was a general murmur of approval at the beautiful sights displayed everywhere. The houses along the streets were almost hidden by flags and banners and streamers; the statues were decorated; high staffs that were not visible the day before, now At all the theaters, including the Grand Opera, free performances were given during the afternoon, and there were all sorts of entertainments provided by the government for the amusement of the populace. In various quarters of the city platforms were erected, and all during that warm afternoon the working classes danced to the music of superb orchestras, which were furnished to them without money and without cost. But when evening came the fÊte was seen to its best advantage. As it grew dark the whole city blazed with light. There were millions of lanterns of every possible color, hanging from every point that could hold a support. Electric lights flashed from every corner, and gas jets blazed everywhere. The Boulevard des Italiens, from the Madelaine to the Bastille, was as light as though a noonday sun were pouring down upon it. And so with the other large thoroughfares, while the The one particular place that eclipsed all others was the two mile stretch from the Tuileries to the Arch of Triumph, and then on to the Bois de Boulogne. The straight promenade through the Tuileries garden was lined on either side with a high trestle work, literally covered with fanciful designs wrought in gas, while high arches of brilliant flame intersected it at regular intervals. The Place de Concorde was a marvel of beauty. All around the immense square were hung festoons of gas jets, while all the statues of the different cities of France that ornament each corner, were thrown into bold relief by brilliant lights on the limpid water of the fountain in the center; different colored lights were thrown during the evening, the effect being wondrously beautiful. JOLLITY AND PATRIOTISM. Standing in the center of the place, and looking towards the arch, the sight was simply marvelous. Nowhere in the world but in Paris could such a thing be seen. The broad avenue, Champs ElysÉes, rising with a gentle slope, was lined its whole distance on both sides with a stream of light, that The Bois de Boulogne, always beautiful, with its charming lakes, long winding drives, its parks, tiny brooks and picturesque cafÉ, was unusually brilliant that night. On the shores of the lake large set pieces of fire works were displayed, while bands of music in odd looking gondolas blazing with colored fires, furnished exquisite music. The paths and carriage-ways were lined with small set pieces, which, together with the constantly burning colored fires, produced an effect that was grandly weird. All Paris was one blaze of light. And all night long the people of Paris and all France were on the streets enjoying the rare sight. After nine o’clock carriages were compelled to keep off the principal boulevards and streets, so densely were they packed with people. The Champs ElysÉes from ten o’clock was one surging mass of people—men, women and children—returning from the Bois. From curb to curb was one solid mass of humanity, and such a jolly good-natured crowd was never seen before. They sang patriotic songs, and laughed and joked, and had a good time generally. Now and then there would come down the street a small procession of students, wearing grotesque caps, each student bearing a Chinese lantern. They sang funny songs, and chaffed those that passed. But there was not a single display of temper. Everybody took everything in good part, and every one was superlatively happy. During all that long day and still longer night, not a single case of drunkenness did I see, and during that time I was in a great many different places, and would have seen it had there been any. There was fun and frolic on every side. But it was the overflow of exuberant spirits, and not the outgrowth of too much wine and beer and liquor. In no city in England, nor, I am afraid, in America, could there be so gigantic a celebration, so much fun and hilarity, with so little drunkenness and so few disturbances. Verily, the French, insincere and superficial as Foreign travel is of a vast amount of use to a great many people. Coming from Dieppe to Paris there were seated in our compartment two ladies with their husbands, who were in New York, bankers, one regular and the other faro, and both with loads of money. The wife of the faro banker was arrayed in the most gorgeous and fearfully expensive apparel, with a No. 6 foot in a No. 4 shoe. The other lady was a lady, and she really desired to see something of the country she was traveling through. The faro bankeress talked to her from Dieppe to St. Lazarre station, and this was about what she said:— “You never saw anything so perfectly lovely as the children’s ball last year at the Academy of Music. My little girl, Lulu, you saw her at the school—she goes to the same school with your Minnie, only Lulu isn’t studying anything but French and geography now. I want her to get to be perfect in French, because it will be such a comfort to travel with her, and see things, and not be entirely dependent upon your maid—we have a maid with us, but, of course, we have her travel third-class—not for the difference in the expense, for we don’t have to economize—but you know it won’t do to have your servants too close to you; they get to presuming upon their privileges, and you must make them know their place. Oh, how I wish we had a monarchy or something of the kind in America, so that we could be divided up into classes, and not be compelled to mix with the lower orders.” [I may as well remark here that this fine lady was originally a McFadden; that she came to America in the steerage, and was a chambermaid in a boarding-house, where she first met her husband, who was a brisk young bar-tender, who finally got a bar of his own, which gradually blossomed into a faro bank. The maid was a thoroughly educated and refined young lady, who was compelled by poverty to take a position of this kind.] “Well, Monsieur Bigwig, the dancing teacher, you know of him. He was a Russian or a Prussian, or one of them “Oh heavens! do look at that beautiful valley,” exclaimed the unwilling listener. There was a valley spread out before us, so entirely perfect in its soft loveliness that it was worth a voyage across the Atlantic to see it. The faro bankeress glanced out of the window, and with the remark, “It’s altogether too lovely for anything,” went on without a moment’s pause:— “I had a dress made of a white material that represented ice, with little balls of white down to represent snow balls all over it, and furs, the edges trimmed with down, and a little crown upon her head, with points like icicles, and the same things tacked onto the bottom of her outer skirt, and her hair powdered so as to be like snow, and she was the Ice Queen, and had a retinoo of ice men, twelve little boys with ice axes, and she was drawn in on a sled by two boys dressed like reindeers, and in front of the reindeers was two little boys dressed like bears, and it was altogether too sweet for anything. I don’t know how the other little girls were dressed, but everybody looked at Lulu; and then, after they four had made the circuit of the Academy (it was all floored over), they “What a delightful village this is, and how quaint! Do look at it!” This from the actual lady. There was the same quick sweep of the head by the lady of laces, with the regular remark: “Yes; it’s altogether too sweet for anything,” and she resumed:— TRAVEL AND DRY GOODS. “Now when we get to Paris I do so want you to go with me. I can show you where you can get laces and everything for half you pay in New York. And hosiery! Well now. I always buy five dozen pairs of silk stockings in Paris. And gloves! You can get kid gloves in Paris for almost nothing, and all you have to do not to pay duties is to put them on once and swear they have been worn. I always spend my last day in Paris putting on and off gloves. And children’s clothes! Let me see; you have a little boy, and so have I. Is yours in pants yet, or is he in kilts? Mine is in pants, but I At this point the train stopped at a station, and our party got into another compartment. I pitied the lady who had to stay, but self-preservation is the first law of nature. I should not like to be with her on a steamboat, where escape would be impossible. Travel does her a power of good. But heavens! how many like her are strewing their gabble all over the continent! |