Paris: With Pen and Pencil. D. W. Bartlett

destroyed. But it was under the Directory that the Museum of the Louvre was opened, and under Napoleon the capital assumed a splendor it had never known before. Under the succeeding kings it continued to increase in wealth and magnificence, until it is unquestionably the finest city in the world.

      I have now in a short space given the reader a preliminary sketch of Paris, and will proceed at once to describe what I saw in it, and the impressions I received, while a resident in that city.

CHAPTER II.

       Table of Contents

RESTAURANTS—A WALK AND GOSSIP.

       Table of Contents

      

BOULEVARD DU TEMPLE.

RESTAURANTS, CAFES, ETC.

       Table of Contents

      The first thing the stranger does in Paris, is of course to find temporary lodging, and the next is to select a good restaurant. Paris without its restaurants, cafés, estaminets, and cercles, would be shorn of half its glory. They are one of its most distinguished and peculiar features. Between the hours of five and eight, in the evening of course, all Paris is in those restaurants. The scene at such times is enlivening in the highest degree. The Boulevards contain the finest in the city, for there nearly all the first-class saloons are kept. There are retired streets in which are kept houses on the same plan, but with prices moderate in the extreme. You can go on the Boulevards and pay for a breakfast, if you choose, fifty or even sixty francs, or you can retire to some quiet spot and pay one franc for your frugal meal. It is of course not common for any one to pay the largest sum named, but there are persons in Paris who do it, young men who with us are vulgarly denominated "swells," and who like to astonish their friends by their extravagance.

      

PARIS & ARCH OF TRIUMPH.

      Out of curiosity I went one day with a friend to one of the most gorgeous of the restaurants on the Boulevards. Notwithstanding the descriptions I had read and listened to from the lips of friends, I was surprised at the splendor and style of the place. We sat down before a fine window which was raised, looking into the street. Indeed, so close sat we to it that the fashionable promenaders could each, if he liked, have peeped into our dishes. But Parisians never trouble strangers with their inquisitiveness. We sat down before a table of exquisite marble, and a waiter dressed as neatly, and indeed gracefully, as a gentleman, handed us a bill of fare. It was long enough in itself to make a man a dinner, if the material were only palatable. Including dessert and wines, there were one hundred specifications! There were ten kinds of meat, and fourteen varieties of poultry. Of course there were many varieties of game, and there were eight kinds of pastry. Of fish there were fourteen kinds, there were ten side dishes, a dozen sweet dishes, and a dozen kinds of wine.

      The elegance of the apartment can scarcely be imagined, and the savory smell which arose from neighboring tables occupied by fashionable men and women, invited us to a repast. We called, however, but for a dish or two, and after we had eaten them, we had coffee, and over our cups gazed out upon the gay scene before us. It was novel, indeed, to the American eye, and we sat long and discussed it. In this restaurant there were private rooms, called Cabinets de Societe, and into them go men and women at all hours, by day and night. It is also a common sight to see the public apartments of the restaurants filled with people of both sexes. Ladies sit down even in the street with gentlemen, to sup chocolate or lemonade. There is not much eaves-dropping in Paris, and you can do as you please, nor fear curious eyes nor scandal-loving tongues. This is very different from London. There, if you do any thing out of the common way, you will be stared at and talked about. There, if you take a lady into a public eating-house, her position, at least, will not be a very pleasant one.

      There are many places in the Palais Royal, the basement floor of which, fronting upon the court of the palace, is given up to shops, where for two or three francs a dinner can be purchased which will consist of soup, two dishes from a large list at choice, a dessert, and bread and wine. There are places, indeed, where for twenty-five sous a dinner sufficient to satisfy one's hunger can be purchased, but I must confess that while in Paris I could never yet make up my mind to patronize a cheap restaurant. I knew too well, by the tales of more experienced Parisians, the shifts to which the cook of one of these cheap establishments is sometimes reduced to produce an attractive dish. The material sometimes would not bear a close examination—much less the cuisine.

      

JARDIN DU PALAIS ROYAL.

      I was astonished to see the quantities of bread devoured by the frequenters of the eating-houses, but I soon equaled my neighbors. Paris bread is the best in the world, or at least, it is the most palatable I ever tasted. It is made in rolls six feet long, and sometimes I have seen it eight feet long. Before now, I have seen a couple dining near the corner of a room, with their roll of bread thrown like a cane against the wall, and as often as they wanted a fresh slice, the roll was very coolly brought over and decapitated. The Frenchman eats little meat, but enormously of the staff of life. The chocolate and coffee which are to be had in the French cafés, are very delicious, and though after a fair and long trial I never could like French cookery as well as the English, yet I would not for a moment pretend that any cooks in the world equal those of Paris in the art of imparting exquisite flavor to a dish. It is quite common for the French to use brandy in their coffee.

      People who take apartments in Paris often prefer to have their meals sent to their private rooms, and by a special bargain this is done by any of the restaurants, but more especially by a class of houses called traiteurs, whose chief business is to furnish cooked dishes to families in their own homes. In going to a hotel in Paris, the stranger never feels in the slightest degree bound to get his meals there. He hires his room and that is all, and goes where he pleases. The cafés are in the best portions of the town, magnificent places, often exceeding in splendor the restaurants. They furnish coffee, chocolate, all manner of ices and fruits, and cigars. At these places one meets well-dressed ladies, and more than once in them I have seen well-dressed women smoking cigarettes. Love intrigues are carried on at these places, for a Paris lady can easily steal from her home to such a place under cover of the night. A majority, however, of the women to be seen at such places, are those who have no position in society, the wandering nymphs of the night, or the poor grisettes. It is not strange that the poor shop-girl is easily attracted to such gorgeous places by men far above her in station.

      Outside of all the cafés little tables are placed on the pavement, with chairs around them. These places are delightful in the summer evenings, and are always crowded. A promenade through some of the best streets of a summer night is a brilliant spectacle, and more like a promenade through a drawing-room than through an American street. The proprietors of those places do not intend to keep restaurants, but quite a variety of food, hot or cold, is always on hand, and wines of all kinds are sold.

      I well remember my first visit to a French café. It was when Louis Napoleon was president, not emperor of France, and when there was more liberty in Paris than there is now. I dropped into one near the Boulevards, which, while it contained everything which could add to one's comfort, still was not one of the first class. Several officers were dining in it, and in some way I came in contact with one of them in such a manner that he discovered I was an American. At once his conduct toward me was of the most cordial kind, and his fellows rose and bade me welcome to France. The simple fact that I was a republican from America aroused the enthusiasm of all. I found, afterward, that the regiment