Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

back alone to my lodgings, about a half mile. I stop to inquire the way, and get along without any difficulty.

Tuesday, April 30th.—I wanted to mail a letter lately, and I found that there are offices at different places. Not far from my lodgings is one which I find to be about the size of a post-office in one of our country towns. There are two openings, where we can speak to the officers. After mailing my letter I inquire where I shall go, or to whom apply, to find whether there are any letters for me in the general post-office.

"In order to change your address?" asks the clerk. "No," I reply, and endeavor to explain that some of my friends may write to me without knowing my number.

"Poste restante?" he inquires: but here I find myself in difficulty. I ask who is their postmaster-general, and he begins to speak of the Minister of the Treasury, or some such person. At length I explain to him that if letters are not called for at home they are advertised, and if not applied for then are sent to the dead-letter office. No, I understand him to reply, there is no such thing here; they would stay in the office. It is very convenient, however, to have these small offices, where your letter can be weighed and receive the proper stamps. But if you mail a letter and do not pay enough, the person who receives it will be charged double. I prefer our own plan of charging to the receiver only the amount still due; but then our post-office is not self-supporting.

The reader may observe my difficulty in conversing with the post official. He who has studied a language many years may still find difficulty in going to live among the people. It is not very flattering, when you enter a store and deliver a carefully-prepared sentence in French, for a man to jump with a smile and ask, "What you like, ma

dame?" and continue to speak in his imperfect English, fondly imagining, perhaps, that he speaks our language quite well.

I have received word of a private Parisian family in which I may be able to obtain board. Lodging as I now do, and taking meals at restaurants, is a lonely way of life, and quite the opposite of what I desired in coming here.

Posted up in Lenoir's shop is a handbill containing a copy of the "law tending to repress public drunkenness, and to combat the progress of alcoholism." I would like to read it and take notes, but I refrain on account of the presence of Lenoir.

On his table lies a copy of Le Siècle, a paper now in its forty-fourth year. Price at Paris, thirteen centimes (about two and a half cents); in the departments, twenty centimes.* The leading article in this paper speaks thus: "We have asked of The Defence, What think you of the Society of St. Joseph, which recognizes two classes of trade,—one orthodox and well-minded, the other free-thinking and republican, and which says to its members, You must enrich the former and ruin the latter?" The Defence answers, “Is the buyer no longer free to buy where he pleases? Can he no longer choose who shall supply him? Assuredly the buyer is free to get whatever he wants and wherever he pleases; but does the Society of St. Joseph respect the liberty of its members when it draws up in advance and sends into dwellings the list of persons from whom they ought to buy their clothing, their provisions, their furniture, every object of luxury

*Centimes means "hundredths," one hundred making a franc. Modern France is divided into about eighty departments, which may be said to correspond with our States; but this is a consolidated not a federal republic. The governors of these departments are prefects; apppointed, not elected; and for life or good behavior.

or necessity? No; the Society of St. Joseph exercises upon its members a true inquisition. It is then we who place ourselves upon the soil of liberty in denouncing the Society of St. Joseph as an instrument of hatred and of civil war. Nothing is more odious than to mingle religion with the purchase of a hat or a cutlet."

To-day I see another great barrack, and marching away from it a company of soldiers, with knapsacks and without overcoats, taking their exercise. On the building is conspicuously painted, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." Opposite to the barrack is a green enclosure, a public garden. It is called a square, for they have adopted this English word. There are very few within when I enter. On a long bench sits a woman diligently darning stockings, and at a distance, on the same bench, a man reading a newspaper. The fountain plays; the grass is clipped and very green, and on it are a quantity of little birds; there is a large bed of flowers, whose fragrance is wafted towards me; horse-chestnuts are in bloom; into the blue sky towers the great dome of St. Augustine's Church, surmounted by a light, airy, ornamented construction and the inevitable cross; behind me is the great stone barrack. Beautiful Paris! All this the more beautiful in contrast with the dingy quarters I have left.

I am told that at Paris, Versailles, and the forts near there are, at this time, probably from forty to fifty thousand soldiers. The whole French army, without the reserve, amounts to about four hundred and fifty thousand. All the young men of France, at the age of twenty-one, are obliged

to offer themselves to the conscription to draw lots. The levy is about one hundred thousand yearly, who are obliged to serve five years. Those who are not drawn enter the reserve, to be recalled in case of war or necessity. If the two Chambers demand this year one hundred thousand men, the proper quota is demanded from each canton according to its population. France is differently divided from our own country: we are in States, counties, and townships; France in departments, arrondissements, cantons, and

communes.

Madame Lenoir is not very bland. She was talking to me lately about my wanting things cheap.

"And do you find things cheap in your country of Africa?" she wants to know.

I tell her that my country is America, and that I can get a cup of coffee with milk, and bread and butter, for ten cents; and a glass of ice-water, I proudly add; but icewater does not profoundly move her; even my American friend, long resident here, inclines to consider it unwholesome. As to my landlady's speaking of Africa, I afterwards learn the importance to the French of their colony, Algeria.

I take my evening meal at the restaurant Duval, near the Madeleine church. We are served by a quantity of nice-looking waiter-women in black dresses and white caps. At the same table with me is dining an elderly woman, whom I suppose to be a storekeeper, or in business in the neighborhood. I wish to know what she calls the women who wait upon us: does she call them servants,—serviteurs?

"I call her madame," she says. I afterwards learn that women-servants are generally called bonnes, or good women; the word domestique is also much used.

I have felt uneasy with my surroundings at Lenoir's; but Mrs. L. tells me of respectable people who are in the building with me, honnêtes gens, who are making money. He who lodges below me is a coachman, and his wife is a cook for some lady; and above me a tailor sews; decent people who are enriching themselves; and the great court-yard door upon the street is closed at night, and I need not be afraid. The little servant-girl, too, offers me consolation when I address her: these are good people around me, not fast people; they "do not make the train;" there were two young ladies who made the train, but they are gone. Strange to say, I am not deeply consoled. I had been promised a bucket into which to empty water, and when I speak of it the little servant is sent to show me an opening in the wall of the first flight of stairs, where you draw forward an iron plate and pour water down.

I ask Lenoir whether, when I address a religious woman, a nun, I should say madame or miss. He intimates that this is a nice point, but adds, "We say, 'my sister.'" Is it Protestant obstinacy that induces me still to say Madame in addressing one?

Before leaving Lenoir's I endeavor to describe my surroundings. While the restaurant faces on the street, the building in which I lodge opens only on the court-yard. To describe the buildings around the yard will show how closely people live in Paris. Living thus piled up, the houses are more imposing, but what about bringing up families without a play-yard? The court-yard is paved with square stones, and measures about twenty-five by thirty-six yards. First upon the street, with its back to this court-yard, is a long building, divided below into four shops, including the restaurant of Lenoir. These are kept by four families, most of whom occupy the back room behind the shop,—narrow

« ForrigeFortsæt »